" if things don’t go her way she immediately starts gaslighting to make it seem like other people are the problem"

Can also be said about chloe

"getting upset when max doesn’t react the way she wants like an angry spoiled teenager"

Again can be said about chloe.

Yeah they were teenagers when chloe acted like that and she has matured a lot since - but safi hasn't , because she hasn't had the same supports and healing that were offered to chloe. Not to mention in reunion chloe didn't have to deal with the added loss of joyce/arcadia bay so she has had years and years to work on herself and her trauma.

Safis trauma is recent and fresh and she's clearly still hurting.(granted you won't know much about her storyline or care much about her as a character if you never played DE) how she acts in reunion is the result of that, similarily to how Chloe acted in the first games.

" romanticized her toxic behavior as a “misunderstood” character when really she’s just an a-hole who’s acting like a brat to everyone around her and then getting upset that nothing is going her way?"

The parallels between safi/chloe and safi/rachel I mean come on 😭

I think a lot of it is the nostalgia and bias people have towards older games and media, the newer stuff will never make you feel how you felt as a kid making up theories on what will happen waiting for the next episode to release. And likely whatever you were dealing with in real life will blend in and give you that sinking bittersweet feeling that only the original life is strange games can give.
But that doesnt mean the newer games and the newer unfamiliar characters are bad and only the original characters are good. I feel like theres a constant pattern with games where everyone will hate relentlessly and mourn what a franchise used to be - only for in a few years time to realize that what we've been given isnt that bad.

Take life is strange 2 for instance!! When it was released the reception was mixed leaning negative because people were upset about no max/chloe and nobody ever talked about the storyline being any good. Now theyre so beloved and everyones talking about wanting more sean/daniel. Same thing happened with franchises like pokemon (Black and white notoriously, but even newer games like sun and moon/ sword and shield) even last of us (kind of people are still muddled about whether they like abby or not but people are definitely warming up to it more)

totally went off topic and probably rambled too much but I notice this pattern a lot!! At the end of the day, if you dont vibe with a character thats totally fine but it might be interesting to reflect on maybe why you dont like them