[DE] all the weird stuff that's got me thinking
So I just finished chapter 2. I was taking notes as I was playing because I had a lot of thoughts. I'm going to do my best to organize them, but this is mostly just going to be a list of things worth mentioning rather than any kind of theorizing. I would love to hear any thoughts/theories that you guys have
1.. So... What's the deal with the poloroids Max keeps finding around? Max makes it clear at multiple points that it doesn't seem like the pictures are from either the blue or orange realities. When she picks up the one by the picnic table near where she her and Reggie talked about the puzzle box earlier in the game, she says "I don't think these [Polaroids] are from the other timeline...they must be from some OTHER one" And then towards the end of chapter 2 in her house, she finds the picture of her, Moses and Safi having a sleepover, and comments that they seem closer together than they are in either of the other realities. I feel like this has to be deliberate.
Vinh seems to be confusing Max for Safi. First he sends her a text that says "Safi? Safi I think we should talk". Then, the next multiple times Max walks up to him, he looks like he's seen a ghost before he realizes it's Max. Something fucky is going on there
I'm suspicious af of Dr. Fayyad. In Max's journal she mentions how when she met Dr. Fayyad, she acted like she "really wanted to be Max's friend". In Max's acceptance letter it says that "we have been following your work and your trajectory for quite some time". She also gave her her personal cell phone number, and encouraged her to "reach out day or night". So either Max is being incredibly humble about her celebrity status, or Yasmin seems to be really interested in Max, and has been for some time.
There's a lot of weird shit going down on campus, which gets talked about by the students on crosstalk. Four different break-ins on the night Safi was murdered, someone got robbed outside of the Turtle, and someone else got their dorm room broken into and all they stole was "two blank composition books"
Reggie seems to....really look up to Max. In her notes she mentions that he frequently attends Max's seminars. When she tells him that he has potential, the look on his face is like he's been blessed by God. This could be him innocently just really respecting and admiring Max, but in this game series? Idk. It jumps out as weird to me.
So many oddities around Safi. Why was she herself secretive, but so pushy to find out Max's secrets? On the rooftop she mentions that the camera she has is new - is there a reason she bought it? She was sleeping with Vinh, so was she in on some Abraxis shit? And why is there so much speculation around her commiting suicide? Max seemed upset in the photo where she had the gun...had Safi asked her to do it? And piggybacking off of this - when Max was walking up to the crime scene and she saw that phone ringing, and the other line was Safi saying what she said when she answered the phone on the night she died. I don't have any theories for this, just things I noticed.
So there's supposedly a doppelganger on campus. In an email between Gwen and Safi, Gwen tells her that while her poetry is good, she essentially sounds like she's "not using her own voice". Interesting.
Bonus point: a cool bit of foreshadowing that I noticed- when Max touches Safi's shoulder up on the overlook, there's a loud sound followed by a flashbang-like ringing. Sounds a lot like what you would hear after shooting a gun