Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

So here we are. After 51255 words (according to AO3) I poured out for this story, I will try explain to what this story is for me personally and what I tried to achieve overall along with single chapters commentaries.

Funny that everything started just on a whim, because I was bored. I had no clue what to do with this story, nor was I sure if it would be more than a one-shot. Though, I started the second chapter soon after I finished the first xD

Anyway, the first thing I want to point out is, that above all else, I see this fanfic as a story about an introvert.

I didn’t intended it to be that from the beginning, but after I saw how easy it was for me to write down Max’s thoughts, I wanted to maintain that and even go a few steps further with it.

I read many fanfics before I started my own and I never saw one which really delve into the depth of that aspect of the game. And I personally think that the game does a wonderful job of portraying the characteristics of an introvert personality. That’s why I wanted to give credit to this with my own spin on things.

Another reason I went down this route is, that I wanted to show people different aspects of the inner world of an introvert, in general and in different kind of situations. Of course this is all based on my own experiences and probably doesn’t apply exactly to everyone else :P

How did I came up with the plot of the fic?
Well, I got the basic idea for it somewhere between chapter 2 and 3, I think. Stevo made comment that “ Omg. I am so sorry. Are you hurt? I just couldn’t hold back, you looked so cute with your freckles and blue eyes. Say do you like girls?“ which Rachel says, was the best sentence. I thought to myself, “So, why not end it like this? Maybe with a kiss?”

Thinking about it some more, I liked the idea. And I also knew I had to build up to that moment to make it believable (a word I overuse in A/N and I will overuse here xD)

So what did I have to do for making this one kiss as believable as possible?
My idea was something like “I need to let Max and Rachel bond with each other in some way. It probably needs some sort of conflict before they actually bond. But how do I set the conflict up? Maybe I can use some thingy with Chloe, where Rachel isn’t with them.”

Something like that crossed my mind. I know I planned that Chloe to lash out on Max at the beginning too, but I forgot how exactly I came to that idea. Sorry :D

Okay, that was the rough outline I had for the story and everything in between I either improvised or came up with it later on.

I will go deeper into that when I go through each chapter separately.

But before I do that, I want to talk a bit about the characters themselves. That means how are my thoughts about them, and how I tried to approach them in the story.

In general I have to say, that I tried to be as close to the game as possible with all the characters.

Max:

First of all is of course Max. In my opinion, her character is the easiest to hit for yourself but the hardest for others. The reason is, every one has their own view on her personality and given the nature of the game, you can decide on how some details about her character will be. More or less.

Speaking for me, I probably made her a bit too dorky. Maybe not so much with her thoughts, but probably when she interacts with other people. I let her zone out at the beginning of the fic quite often and I always intended to let that vanish later on, which thankfully happened naturally.

Not gonna lie here, the behavior and thoughts of Max is a lot like my own. That’s why it was fairly easy to write them all down, most of the time. But I also had to consider a lot of things we know about her from the game and how it would apply in specific situations and interactions with the other characters.

It was a lot of fun playing with Max inner monologues as a narrator, but also let her mind drive away in some situations or let her talk to herself for motivation or just because she has a silly thought, things like that. I hope I was still close to her personality in the game.

Rachel:

As fo r Rachel, I a lways imagined her personality as being cheerful, positive and strong willed girl, who knows exactly how she comes off around others. And that mixture was what people draws towards her. They just like being around her.

As an extrovert, she mostly does things before she thinks about it. With that, plus her being generally very playful about stuff, it was easy to come up with the many funny scenarios between her and Max.

I have to say, the source of the interactions between Max and Rachel are a result from conversations I often have with myself in my own head, as dumb as that sounds xD

So you can say, they both mirror a good part of my own personality.

Chloe:

To Chloe I can say, that I had a hard time writing her. Of course I also tried to be close to the game with her, but I don’t know if I did that good of a job. I think with Rachel alive, she also would have a rebellious side, but she wouldn’t be as angry or snappy or things like that in general.

In the end, she had far more screen time during the course of the fic as I imagined she would have in the end. I rather saw her as a character that just appears, but never will be one of the main characters of the story.

I still hope I did well enough and gave her the credit she deserves.

Victoria:

I kno w I portray her pretty bitchy and she doesn’t have that much time in the fic, but that’s what I like about it.

I liked the idea of her being in a side story, which is told very vague and alongside the main plot of the fic. I tried put in subtle hints on a few occasions, which should show that there’s a bit more story to her than I was showing. Maybe it was a bit too subtle to notice, but I still like the way it is.

In the end, I hope I somewhat showed that she also has another side that we don’t see, when Rachel mentioned on the roof, that they both were friends once, but Rachel fucked up somehow.

Kate and Dana:

My ideas for Kate and Max interactions together were mostly defined by the hospital scene in the game. I can’t help but to think, whenever they are together, there’s just this sweetness overload which resulted in the slightly flirty behavior that Max show’s mostly towards her in my fiction.

For Dana on the other hand, I only thought about her as this friendly cheerleader, which just is nice towards Max. That’s all there is to it :D

Now with that out of the way, let’s get into each chapter itself and the intentions I had in mind while I wrote them. I have to point out that my memories of the earliest chapters are somewhat blurry and I may have forgotten a few things during the time. But I will try my best :D

Chapter 1: Welcome to the dork side

There’s not much I can think of on this one. As I stated before, I completely started this fic on a whim and came up with everything on the fly in this chapter. One thing I want to mention is, that Max probably appears as more open and outgoing in this first chapter as in the later ones. I'm mixed about this to be honest. On the one side I think it fits somehow but on the other side it seems a bit off. Well, it's not a biggie imo :D

Chapter 2: Timeout

I started this chapter before the first one was even released.

I had the idea of introducing Kate and Victoria for some reasons, which I don’t know anymore. I probably just got the idea and went through it.

I remember that I had a hard time to find a way to find a start for the conversation with Kate, but it eventually turned out quite alright in my opinion :D

I wrote Max not as being super shy towards Kate, because I think that Max in general isn’t reluctant per se when someone approaches her and does better on one on one situations. It also helps that Kate is friendly and doesn’t try to be a burden at all. You get the idea :D

With Victoria I had no plans at that time in regard to how she would affect the story later on. As I explained in the A/N for that chapter, I wasn’t sure how mean I would make her to be. In retrospect, I’m glad that I went the route that I did in that chapter, because it was a good use for future chapters.

Here I also showed that Max has this very shy and “defenseless” side of her, which we know from the game.

I’m not quite sure if the ‘Rachel texting Max’ thing was a spontaneous idea or not, but the way how Rachel got the number was always intended to be like this. It was probably a bit too much of a stretch for it being realistic, but eh, I like it nonetheless :P

Chapter 3: Adventure time

I originally planned this and the next chapter to be a single one. Turned out that this part got long enough to be a chapter on its own, so I decided to polish it and get it out into the world :D

Not much to say here despite having a lot of Max's thoughts in it and an introduction of Max’s Mom, who maybe worries a bit too much, haha :D

Pretty much everything was improvised and I only had to come up with a way for Max to find Rachel’s room. I don’t really know when I had the idea to use the dorm map for this issue. *shrugs*

Chapter 4: Food date

Okay, the beginning of the chapter xD

I was hit by a flash of inspiration and I just wrote that Rachel super tease, because I found it hilarious and dumb :D

By the way, that is how I mostly go about those moments. If I think it’s a pretty dumb idea, I know I got it right xD

For the content itself, I again just wrote on the fly without much plan to it. I only knew I wanted to throw Dana in and came up with that fashion magazine thingy, because I think Rachel and her would talk about stuff like that.

I made Rachel typing something into her phone at the end, and I didn’t have a plan what that possibly could be at that time. As it turned out later on, that was the moment when Rachel made up her plan to let Chloe and Max meet, so she wrote a text to Chloe.

I have to anticipate a bit now, because it fits in here better than later on. In chapter 13, when Max and Rachel are at the rooftop, Rachel told Max that she tested her. I found that a very vague statement and never explained that properly.

What I thought about was that Rachel’s teasing in this chapter and in the previous ones were just the testing that she mentions. Means that Max showing her vulnerable side by telling Rachel about what Victoria did, Rachel realizes that Max isn’t much of a threat to Chloe and is in general a shy person and all that things. And that’s why Rachel decides to arrange that meet up with Chloe.

I hope that makes sense somewhat, because I haven’t planned that when I wrote the chapter. I just thought it would fit and would be a nice touch to add. :D

Chapter 5: The universe

Again, I planned this and the following chapter to be a single one. I didn’t have much time to write at this time of the story, so I decided to add a few more things with Dana and released it as a separate chapter.

Once again, I wrote things just as they flew by. If I remember right, the thing with Dana giving Max the blue eyeshadow which we see in the game, was also a spontaneous idea. A little thing which I like about this chapter :D

Chapter 6: Blackwell kingdom

Finally, here is something I planned, whether you believe it or not :P

Well, or at least had a basic idea of before I started the chapter. Rachel is showing Max the school was a spontaneous idea I got while writing the end of the previous chapter. Thankfully I had enough time to think about it this time xD

It’s the only time that Warren appears in-person in my fic. I wanted to get that in and show that Max likes that nerdy guy and even find him funny in that small amount of interaction. (Take that fandom! Well, I have a lot of tiny slaps against the fandom in my fic, so totally intended)

I loved the idea of Rachel grabbing Max and just walks off with her from Warren. Just another situation where I had a dumb idea and went through it :D

What I had a hard time with, was how I would approach a tour through the whole school. Thank god I got the idea with Kate and used the fact that Max was late anyway.

The main idea of this chapter was to show Max and the readers that Rachel is a popular girl. Of course it draws attention when the most popular girl walks around with a newbie at school, so I let Max notice that the people around them were looking at them both and mumblinge something. A thing I threw in here and then later on too.

Another small thing I want to mention is, when Rachel and Max approach Victoria, Courtney, Taylor and Kate, I let Taylor and Courtney share an unsure look.

With that I wanted to hint that they both are a bit unsure about the situation now, because as I mention way later in chapter 13, Victoria and Rachel were friends once.

Chapter 7: Surprise

Wuhu, finally the chapter where the whole plot of the fic starts! Only took me almost half of the entire story xD

As I said in the A/N for the chapter, the scene with Kate was only there because Stevo (as always) mentioned he wanted more Kate, so I wrote more Kate on the fly. Turned out pretty funny I think.

On a side note, I mention that Kate wants to hear Max playing her guitar and Max agrees to it. I never forgotten this, but I also never intended it to be in my story. Given that this fic takes place during five days and with all the events, which awaits from now on, Max wouldn’t have time to practice and it wouldn’t make any sense to fit that in. At least in my opinion. So sorry for that :D

Anyway, I pondered about if I let Rachel be with some of her fanclub groupies at the parking lot and let Max make a comment about it. Turns out I decided against it for some reasons I forgot.

Initially, I wanted to reveal some more informations about Rachel during the car ride and let Max know her a bit better. Somehow, it didn’t go that way when I wrote the conversation and I didn’t wanted to force it.

And now we are coming to the junkyard.

A short detail before we come to Chloe. Here is the only time where I hint how Rachel truly feels inside, when she says to Max: “You are already way cooler than most other peeps I know.” And I also let Max point out that she sounds more serious than usual.

And with that, we arrived at the first appearance of Chloe in the story.

Of course I knew how that scene would go and because of that I needed very very good reasons for Chloe to act the way she did. In fact, the reasons always crossed my mind while writing previous chapters and even some occurred out of nowhere when I reached to this point of the story.

I also was aware of the fact that the readers would know that the girl who appeared is Chloe, but I liked the idea for naming her the first time in the story to be the last word of the chapter.

As for Max, I never put that much thoughts in how she would react to Chloe’s raging and how it would affect her. I went with what felt right at the moment and I honestly thought I maybe overdid it a little bit with her having a breakdown.

Now I can say, that I’m very happy with that outcome, because its results are the next two chapters, which are my personal favorites.

Chapter 8: Remorse

The reason why they are my favorites is simply, because there is so much of myself in them.

The game doesn’t show us much of how Max would be in that situation so I had to use my own experience for that. This wasn’t a big deal because I also wanted to show you all what maybe is going on inside a person, when something like that happens and the person turns all silent.

Before I go deeper into this, I want to shed some light on Rachel’s side.

She is pretty good at reading people and just knows that it wouldn’t do anything if she pressures Max to talk about the situation. At the same time she feels responsible for what happened which is another reason why she escorts Max to her dorm room.

Going back to Max, I wrote her like she doesn’t pay much attention to her surroundings, both on the way to the dorm and even when they are inside the room. I simply did because nothing matters for her at the moment. She’s feeling guilty for the past 5 years and all the feelings she had suppressed during the time finally came to the surface. Because until that event with Chloe, she still had hope that everything will be alright again somehow.

But now, Max thinks that everything is over and that it is all too late and that she screwed up everything by herself. It doesn’t matter if it’s the truth or not, she thinks everything is her fault and that she isn’t a good person at all.

She also knows that it isn’t Rachel’s fault at all and that’s why she remains calm towards her. However, she feels bad about asking her to leave, because she knows Rachel doesn’t deserve it, but Max wants and needs to be alone.

It’s the same for the phone call with her mom. With the phone call I touch a topic, which I go deeper in the next chapter.

Basically, Max 'fakes' that she is alright in order to avoid questions from her mom, because she doesn’t want to deal with it right now. Of course Vanessa feels that something is wrong, but doesn’t press any further because the author simply decided that way :P

Oh and Vanessa knows her daughter, so see it as you like xD

Another thing I needed that scene for is to get rid of Max’s god damn phone :D

I thought a lot about how I get Max to not have it after this point in the story because it was crucial for the later happenings of the fic. I’m glad I came up with that idea because I think it makes sense in the context and makes everything more believable.

Going back to the scene with Taylor. I only put that in to show that there is some backstory to Rachel and Victoria. I also pondered it to be Courtney who is sitting there, but decided for Taylor because bigb3ar_2 ^nd has a liking on her :D

Chapter 9: Fake

As I explain later in the fic, Rachel is on her way to Chloe at that time of the story and asked Dana to keep an eye on Max. Because Max’s phone is turned off, the alarm doesn’t ring and Max is still asleep due to her crying half the night.

I think it’s also safe to assume that Max doesn’t think about her phone at all with everything that happened the day before. Means it was easy to just let her forget that she threw it away :D

What I tried to convey in this chapter was that Max has no choice but to go to classes and with that to interact with other people. And as I explained above, to avoid any questions, attention or things like that, she tries to act like everything is alright.

The bad person I am, I let her bump into Stella in the shower room, who confronts her a bit with gossip blabla, which goes around.

My intentions with that was to give Max and the readers a little insight about the gossip around the campus. Also, I like Stella :P

I’m not quite sure how well I got that “fake” thing across in that chapter. I just hope it was good enough to understand.

As for Rachel not checking on Max during the lunch break or whenever. Well, I don’t have a good explanation for that, so I will just go with: She was occupied with peeps because she is popular. That has to be enough for all of you. My story, my rules :P

Chapter 10: Falling back

I think I already said that in the A/N for this chapter. I watched a video about Max and Chloe moments in the game to refresh my memory for the dynamic between both of them.

My idea in general for this chapter was that it would be awkward at first, because of what happened and neither of them know how to start. But all it needed was one small nudge to let them both fall back (hehe) in their old behavior.

It maybe looks like Max’s belly grumbling at the best possible time just so I can end the scene. (which would be true)

On the other side, when Max and Chloe start to joke with each other, most of the pressure and worries of Max go away. That means she eases up and isn’t as tense anymore and her body can work normally again. If you get what I mean :D

I mostly improvised the conversation between them, except the explanation part at the end. I myself was pretty surprised how much reasons Chloe had, which lead her to burst out on Max and Rachel back in the junkyard.

I hope the reasons were believable and made sense considering her personality :D

Chapter 11: Good times

Oh boy, this chapter...

I personally think that this chapter turned out to be the worst of all. I really don’t like it that much.

To be honest, I wrote a lot without much of a break (for my circumstances) and I wanted to finish this chapter before I had to go into a long holiday. I knew I wouldn’t write anything during that time and I also didn’t want to let you all wait for too long until the next chapter release.

It also didn’t help that I haven’t planned this chapter at all. Or better said, I wasn’t sure if this chapter would be needed or not.

In my original plans, the next thing would have been that Chloe drives Max back to Blackwell and Rachel lashes out on Max, which is basically the next chapter. I felt like that this would have been too much bad stuff in a row, so I decided to give everyone a little break to let things cool down.

On a positive note, that decision helped me to let the story take place during the course of five days, which is a thing I always planned.

Another lucky thing was when Max typed something into Chloe’s phone. I didn’t know how to use it at the time when I wrote it. As it turned out, the idea let me set up the setting of the last chapter later on :D

In the end, the idea of the chapter was to let Max and Chloe just be themselves and doing their usual banter we all love about their relationship :D

On a side note, in the entire fic I reduced the amount of Max’s thoughts whenever she is with Chloe. With that, I wanted to show how comfortable Max is around Chloe. She doesn’t care much about what Chloe thinks of her, because she knows she wouldn’t be judged or anything.

I wonder how many of you noticed that small detail :D

Chapter 12: Missed

Okay, for this chapter I reread all of my previous chapters to refresh my memories about all the stuff that happened.

It was a much needed thing to do. Not only to refresh my memories about the stuff that happened so far, but also to consider many things for the next chapters. Especially this one.

A few examples I can think of would be:

-Max doesn’t know about her schedule.

-Max still wears the same clothes. Would Victoria make a comment about that?

-Would Kate send a text to Max because she is worried?

-Would there be texts from Max’s mom because they haven’t talked the day after the phone call?

-The thing that Max typed into Chloe’s phone and sent it to her own phone.

-And other things like that which I can’t remember anymore.

However, let’s start at the beginning.

The scenes with Chloe and Kate were just there to have a nice, smooth start into the chapter and not going too fast to the tense stuff later on. I mostly improvised again, though I had to consider some things as I said above.

Before we are talking about the time after class and the stuff with Rachel, I want to talk about one thing.

I am aware that Max maybe could have seen Rachel somewhere during school time. My explanation for this is that Rachel simply avoids her and achieves not to be seen by her.

What plays into that, is the fact that I had the idea with Kate helping Max with her homework during the lunch break. I’m glad I had that idea, because it helped me to make this a bit more believable :D

Okay, now we are coming to the time after class with Rachel and Max at the door in the dorm.

It turned out pretty much exactly how I always imagined it. I wanted it to be a surprise for readers, because up until now I always showed Rachel as that happy girl. I also wanted to raise the question 'what the fuck is going on right now?' :P

The idea behind Rachel’s reaction was to show that she is pissed and stubborn and doesn’t really listen to Max on one side. But on the other side, she doesn’t reject Max immediately, even if she doesn’t let her speak at all. You can say she is very conflicted on the inside.

The conflict with Victoria after that scene maybe wasn’t really necessary, however I think it will be more clear when I talk about chapter 14 why I put that in..

When Max is back in her room, I had to think about how things will go from now on in a logical way.

I had to consider how Max would react with the current situation, what she would do now, how many messages would be on her phone and how she would answer the texts and all that stuff.

In the end, it turned out to be longer than I thought to be honest. The only thing I had planned for this scene was: “Rachel texts Max to come up to the roof.” So I had little bit of work there, but it was pretty fun to be honest :D

I never planned Chloe to make an appearance here. Thinking about it, it makes sense to include her. It also leads up to that extra Coke thing which happens in the last chapter. Another thing I haven’t planned at all xD

Chapter 13: Tired

Finally, finally I got to write this chapter! I had it in my mind for soooo long and thought a lot about it while writing the previous chapters. I think it was something around between chapter 2 and 3 when I knew this scene would happen as the main bonding point of Max and Rachel. I can say, I am very happy that it turned out very close to how I always imagined it :D

I wanted the chapter to be sweet with Rachel and Max holding hands for such a long time.

I wanted the chapter to be a bit sad with showing a rather defeated and defenseless Rachel.

And, I wanted the chapter to be calm, with them both just being themselves under the stars.

There’s one thing that didn’t turn out like the way I imagined. In my mind there was always a full moon present, but when I looked up the day on the internet, it turned out there wasn’t a moon at all on that day.

Well, a fact that I used for a little thingy in the next chapter.

So, starting with the explanation why Rachel raged out on Max. I thought about that a long time while writing the previous chapters. I had ideas like, she got a lot of pressure from her parents or other stress in general. I even had an idea to be something with drugs or Frank or similar things.

In the end, it was a very easy and clear decision how I would go about it.

The first point Rachel makes that she is popular and feels like she wears a mask and all the feelings that go along with it is something I experienced myself during the time I wrote that fiction. Because of that, this chapter was also a very personal one for me to write.

Even if it was something I had first hand experience with, I had a very hard time to get across how being popular and the urge to please everyone draws out the energy of yourself and how the personality slowly became a mask where you are somewhat imprisoned in it.

Sincerely, I hope I could make that understandable and believable as much as possible to all of you. On a further note, I only scratched the surface of that whole thing in the chapter, there are so much more feelings and other stuff involved, which would have taken too long to explain in full depth.

In addition to that first point above, she got silence from Chloe and Max on the previous day.

That results in Rachel fearing that she had lost Chloe to Max, because she knew how much they mean to each other. On top of that is the fact that it would be kind of her own fault too, because she was the one who brought them together in the first place.

Considering all that stuff and the fact that Rachel also has an impulsive side, I think it’s understandable that she would explode on Max.

What I explain later in the last chapter is that Chloe wrote Rachel after she stopped to block her on the phone. (I hope it makes sense that Chloe would do such a thing considering she was pissed at the time Rachel gave her a beating)

Now that Chloe contacted her and Max also tried to talk to her and even apologized with messages, Rachel knew it was just a dumb coincidence and that everything is alright.

She goes up to the roof to do some thinking and texts Max later on.

That’s how I think of the happenings and thought process behind Rachel’s actions :D

For me, that whole rooftop scene is the moment when Rachel realizes that she has feelings for Max. I like to think the main reason is because Max tries to understand her and is actually just listening to her.

One can argue that it would be the same with Chloe, but I think Chloe maybe would listen, but that’s about it. Given her personality and having her own shit to deal with, I think she rather would try to distract Rachel with some shit or something like that. But that’s just my take on it :P

The thing Rachel says about Victoria was an idea I also had for a long time. As I said at the beginning, I tried to redeem. I showed her mostly bitchy in the story, but as we know from the game, there is more to it than just that one side.

I like the idea that Rachel and Victoria were friends once and that Rachel screwed it up somehow. I pondered a long time about what the reason possibly could be, but I couldn’t come up with anything at all. That’s the reason why I left it open.

Everyone is welcome to think of their own thing what possibly could have happened between them :P

The reasoning Rachel gives for why Victoria is bitchy towards Max and Kate is just an assumption from Rachel. If it’s true or not, I don’t know. It’s just a possibility :D

A little note at the end. I think I only used the word “ya”, which Rachel uses most of the time, once in this chapter. I did this on purpose to show that Rachel actually is serious and not in her usual playful self.

I’m curious how many of you noticed that :D

Chapter 14: Getting started

Heh, I love this title for the second to last chapter xD

This chapter is basically a mix of filling some holes and setting things up for the end.

Starting at with the first scene, I had that idea of Rachel sneaking in Max’s room back in chapter 12, I think.

It was a fun way to get back to Max and Rachel’s usual dynamic. What I had to consider was the character development of them both during the story.

That counts more for Max than for Rachel.

Max knows Rachel by now and is pretty comfortable around her. That means she is more inclined to go along with the fun Rachel pulls most of the time. In fact, I hope I showed that they both are very comfortable with each other with that silly scene :D

If you remember, Rachel asks Max if she is okay with her coming along at Two Whales. With that I wanted to hint that Max’s opinion is important to her and that Rachel has developed feelings for Max. I know, it’s just a tiny little thing, but I think it’s an important detail :D

I will skip Kate for now and come back to her later, where it fits better.

The message that Rachel wrote on Max's plate. Well that was the tiny idea I got with the missing moon in the previous chapter. Just a sweet little thing which Rachel did as she saw Victoria’s message :D

The scene with Max changing clothes, well I think I said in the A/N already that I came up with it on the fly. In the end, it may made the chapter a tiny bit too long, but I don’t care. I just love that dumb scene xD

Coming to Dana.

Well the only thing I wanted with this scene is to explain that Rachel asked her to keep an eye on Max and to make sense why Dana knocked on Max’s door that day. I think normally Dana wouldn’t notice who had left the dorm by now and who not. I wanted to keep it rather short and I hope it didn’t feel like I used Dana only for that, even if I did exactly that :D

One little thing I want to point out is, after Max closed the door to Dana’s room she suddenly starts to sprint and ended it with a little jump at the end of the stairs. Well it’s because with what Dana told her about Rachel and the message on the plate, along with their bantering in the morning and the previous night on the rooftop, Max has already feelings for Rachel, but hasn’t realize it yet. At least that’s my take on it.

That only leaves the scene of Victoria and Kate in the yard.

I also had this fight with Victoria in mind for almost since the beginning of the story. Originally, I imagined it to take place in the classroom, with some crowd already there and maybe even Rachel watching. Something like that.

The thing is, if I would have placed that scene in the school building, I probably had to write another chapter and come up with some filler stuff, only for that one thing to happen. While starting to write that chapter, I got that idea of Max going to classes together with Kate and letting her bump into Victoria while Max talks to Dana. I liked that approach as it felt smooth and fitting in my opinion.

The only downside is, that the chapter ended up with too much happenings and maybe feels like there’s a lot of stuff pressed into it. Nonetheless I still like this solution very much :P

I also don’t focus on Kate that much in this chapter, except for the short talk in her room. The reason for that is, because she had a lot of screen time in my the story already, plus I didn’t want to make that chapter any longer than necessary.

With that out of the way, we can talk about the argument with Victoria.

My basic idea behind this was, to show Max's character development during the fic.

If you think about Chapter 2, I portray her being shy and defenseless when Victoria mocks her.

With that argument, I wanted to show that with Rachel’s influence and with all the drama being solved, Max is more comfortable and at peace with herself and actually doesn’t scare away from confrontation. In other words, she is more brave than she was before.

Another thing that adds to it is the fact that Max stays up for a friend without even thinking about it. We also can see this in Episode 1, where we can choose to do the exact same thing when David picks on Kate. That’s where my inspiration came from with this scene :D

What also was important to me was that Max isn’t realizing how she changed. She doesn’t even give it second thought to jump in between Victoria and Kate. Furthermore, Max doesn’t point out that she was brave enough to jump in. My reason here was again that Max doesn’t realize it herself and I didn’t want to throw that fact right into the readers face. You can say I wanted to let the scene speak for itself :D

Fun fact. In the first draft I wrote of the fight, Max was aggressive as fuck and was on the edge of punching Vicky in the face. Only when Kate calls out to her, Max snapped out of her rage xD

That wasn’t very Max-like if you think about Max’s and Victoria’s conversation in Episode 4 at the party and in Episode 5 after the time jump back to the classroom. Meant I had to soften the scene a bit :D

Another little fun fact at the end, Victoria calls Max actually “Max” and not “Maxine” despite her knowing that Max hates to be called like that. I think I mentioned this in one of my earlier chapters. With this detail, I wanted to show that Victoria actually respects Max in a way and that there is indeed a good side to her, like Rachel implied the chapter before.

For me, this last interaction between Max and Victoria concludes their story in this fanfic. If they will be friends or not in the future is up to everyone’s own imagination :D

Chapter 15: I think

When I started Chapter 13, I already knew how many chapters will be left to write. I always planned a scene with all three girls at the diner taking place pretty close to the end of the story.

Then, I thought it would be a nice touch to let it actually be the last chapter. I liked the idea that it would give the readers a nice impression of their dynamic together and my take on it :D

Except one thing I had written a looong time ago (Where Rachel says that Max can do whatever she want with her) I didn’t have much of a plan what will happen at the diner. Thought I knew I somehow had to “get rid” of Chloe in order to let the story end like the way I always intended to.

It maybe wasn’t the best or the most smooth way for Chloe to disappear like that. I had a lot of time to think about something better, but I couldn’t come up with any better solution.

The only other idea I had was to let Chloe have a job and let her be at work at the same time Rachel and Max are at the lighthouse. An idea I didn’t like that much to be honest.

The fact I knew this would be the last chapter, I wanted to have Max and Chloe a little time alone together. That’s the reason why I started it outside the diner with Rachel already inside, ordering things for them all. Which also solved the problem I had with them actually ordering food.

Let them order things while they are together inside and by the time the food arrives, would have taken too long in my opinion, or it wouldn’t have felt very believable when it arrived too fast. That’s how I came up with the idea that Rachel already ordered, which lead to a fun moment, hopefully :D

On a side note, in the game you only can see the breakfast menu. So I looked up which food you can order at the Blue Moon Diner, which Two Whales is based on :D

What I tried with the diner scene was to show that all three of them are very relaxed around each other and they can just be themselves without worrying about anything. I also tried to give everyone of them the same attention and not focus on one person more than another. I’m not really sure if I have achieved that balance.

The short appearance from Joyce was a little touch I wanted to add. I didn’t wanted it to be like all huggy and smootches, but rather more like a “Heya, good to see you, how are you doing?” kind of thing.

One reason for that is that Joyce already knew that Max is in town, either from Chloe or because Max parents called Joyce (if you remember, when Max and Chloe had that sleepover, Max called her parents and said she is at Chloe’s home). Also, in the game it’s more like a normal greeting than a big reunion.

I think I mentioned in the previous chapter that Max wondered that her mom didn’t text her or anything. I actually have two possible reasons for that.

Either Max’s dad has convinced Vanessa to give Max a little space with the reasoning that she is almost a grown up now, or Vanessa called Joyce and asked her to keep an eye on Max, which would calm her down somewhat. It’s up to you whatever you would like better :D

With eeeverything else out of the way, I finally can talk about the very last scene of the entire story. \o/

I can’t say how often I thought about that scene throughout the entire process of writing this fanfiction. Ever since I had the outline and the idea how to end it, I knew exactly how these last moments would look like. Even with going that scene through my mind again and again, I still love the way how it all plays out in the end.

Yes, I am very aware that everything ends very suddenly. To be honest, It is somewhat intended and a fact I always knew.

For me, this fic is not a story with a defined beginning and not with a defined ending. For me, it is more like we get an insight of that part of Max's life within the period of the five days the story takes place.

I honestly don’t know what could happen after that kiss. I never thought any further than this :D

Okay, enough blabla around. Lets get to that last scene.

Up to that point, I didn’t have an idea how that scene exactly would look like. I only knew I wanted Max to text Kristen (because I mentioned this waaay back at Chapter 7 and needed to put that in) and how the last moments, starting with the kiss would play out.

Well, that isn’t entirely true. I rolled the scene at the lighthouse a lot in my head while writing the fic and I already had a rough idea how everything will connect smoothly.

So my idea basically was that Max and Rachel enjoying each other’s company at the lighthouse with that cliché sunset atmosphere. Then, Max tells Kristen about her week and about Rachel, and after Kristen points out that Rachel sounds like an amazing person, it clicks in Max’s brain and she realizes at that very moment how she feels about Rachel.

Given her character development I tried to achieve during the fic, I wanted her to act spontaneous and not think about what she is about to do. Another reason for that approach was, to surprise all of you, too. That it isn’t Rachel but Max who makes the move :D

For the kiss itself, I wanted it to be short, sweet and maybe a bit cheesy.

I’m very bad at describing stuff and did poorly with it throughout the entire fic in my opinion. So. you can imagine how often I rewrote that kissing scene while trying to find the right words and that right feeling I tried to get across.

It didn’t help that I didn’t want to actually use the word “kiss”. Talking about how to make things even more difficult xD

Another thing I wanted to avoid is to not describe the kiss from the perspective of either Max or Rachel. I rather wanted it to be from neutral perspective.

And now we are coming to my absolute favorite thing of this chapter and maybe the entire story itself.

The way I end it.

Nope, I’m not talking about the kiss again :P

I’m talking about those exact last thoughts Max has, the exact last line she says and the order which both appears.

I hope I can break that up in ways that makes sense to all of you :D

One thing I love about her last thought is basically the same thing I love about the chapter title (which both is the exact same, I know xD). With ‘I think’ being the last thought she has, I want to refer to the entire story and how we always got to see what Max's thoughts were and how she perceived things.

With that in mind and the fact that this time something Max says and not something Max thinks is the last line of the chapter, I wanted to show once more, how Max herself has grown and is now more outgoing and not that shy girl we knew from the beginning of the story.

The other thing I wanted to do with the exact last line is, of course, referring all the way back to the first chapter and bringing this story to a full circle :D

As my final words to the story, I want to point out one thing to you girls and guys. Everything that happens in this story only happens to make that one last kiss as believable and realistic as possible! :D

(Yes, you can call me insane xP)

Okay, so now you know most of my thoughts and goals of the fic. I probably forgot to mention some things and details, but eh, I can’t think of everything and it’s pretty long by now anyway :P

The last thing I want to talk about is the writing style I chose.

Basically it just happened to be the way it is, with Max thinking stuff most of the time and the fact, that I don’t like telling things in just a boring textbox.

I find that you lose so much character and personality if you tell the reader how a person feels or what the person thinks, instead of actually showing what the exact action or thought are.

The downside of it was, that I had (and wanted) to show body language and describing the way people say something, in order to get across the possible meaning of actions or sentences the characters say.

Well, I like that approach because I don’t want to force the reader a specific view on something. I like to let them fill in their own take on things.

With me being an inexperienced writer, I think it lead to be sounding repetitive and maybe a bit odd at times.

With that said, I am very well aware if you want to tell a story which has a faster pace or even makes large time jumps over weeks, month or years, textboxes are not something you can avoid to do.

Choosing them to leave out for my story was not much of a big deal. I needed to build the foundation for what comes later first and had to establish the character of Max and Rachel before I could go further with everything.

Alrighty, I think that covers everything I wanted to talk about in this author commentary :D

A big thanks to everyone who were crazy enough and took their time to read all that blabla about my thoughts behind my story :D

If there are still questions you have, leave them in the comments and I will try to answer as good as I can :D

At last, a huge thanks to Stevo (you know his name by now :P).

To be completely honest, without him and his fanfiction “The Twin Moons” my story never would have happened. His story is the reason why I started to love Rachel as a character and without his encouraging words every now and then, I probably would have given up somewhere in the middle of the story. He also rose the quality of the fic when he started to proofread my stuff halfway through the story. So again, thank you very a lot, Stevo :D

And of course and most importantly, I want to thank everyone who took the time and read through my story and didn’t give up on the first few chapters, despite the bad grammar :D

Take care folks x3

I’m out :D