[verso-dans-la-nuit-deactivated2]

do you think verso was born to "understand" and not to be "understood" and that's one of the most loneliest emotion someone can ever feel...

[4mica]

“I like Verso a healthy amount”

(Feels physically sick whenever he comes on screen)

[abelas-inan]

"Start Here"

...and here I am, again thinking about this poem by great @alonesomes, but now with another character in mind. Verso.

Start by pulling him out of the fire and hoping that he will forget the smell. He was supposed to be an angel but they took him from that light and turned him into something hungry, something that forgets what his hands are for when they aren’t shaking. He will lose so much, and you will watch it all happen because you had him first, and you would let the world break its own neck if it means keeping him. Start by wiping the blood off of his chin and pretending to understand. Repeat to yourself “I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you” until you fall asleep and dream of the place where nothing is red. When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it. Oh, when you used to sing it to sleep. Here are your upturned hands. Give them to him and watch how he prays like he is learning his first words. Start by pulling him out of another fire, and putting him back together with the pieces you find on the floor. There is so much to forgive, but you do not know how to forget. When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you are the reason it has become so mangled. Here is your humble offering, obliterated and broken in the mouth of this abandoned church. He has come back to stop the world from turning itself inside out, and you love him, you do, so you won’t let him. Tell him that you will never know any better. Pretend to understand why that isn’t good enough.

https://wordsfortheyear.com/2014/07/25/start-here-by-caitlyn-siehl/

[4mica]

Why have I just assigned Rät (by Penelope Scott) to Clea?

I've just convinced myself that she's someone whose anger explodes out of them in one sitting and then the next moment she's back to "no, I'm indifferent about all of this. Always have been. Oh I absolutely meant what I said earlier, I hate you right now, but we're got more pressing matters? You know, the ones I'm dealing with? Alone?–" *passive aggressive levels intensified*

[j-likes-to-draw]

Commission for my beloved @apawtheosis . Verso using his Burden skill to take away the pain of chronic illness their OC suffers from🥹

(Girlies, do yall realize it also can be applied to period cramps? DO YOU?🙃)

[4mica]

I want a cut-scene of Verso living above a bakery. I want happy Verso, just for a second, and this game never gave it to us and I'm so sad please give me happy Verso–

Closest we got was when he played the piano with Maelle humming for him and Esquie dancing, or when he was messing around with Monoco, and don't get me wrong I love that as much as the next person, but please give me casual citizen "I buy a ✨croissant✨ every morning" Verso.

[4mica]

I've decided to be really cruel for a minute.

(Spoilers for end of act 3 Clair Obscur.)

Do you ever wonder if painted Verso was actually remarkably similar to original Verso in personality?

Sure, the characters in-game say how he's different — how he's not really Verso — but what do we know of the original Verso at the start of it all? He was painted by his mother, they were a close family to begin with, there's a shard of his soul already she has for reference.

We know vaguely how the real Verso was; he was kind, he joked with family, he was soft and comforting and self-sacrificing. He "hid truth with lies".

Sure, he (most likely) wasn't proficient at swordsmanship. He didn't want to die.

... That's probably exactly how he was 67 years ago. Before fighting and hurting and dying became commonplace. Before he was betrayed and tortured by friends, before he had to kill those that had trusted him, before Julie. (In his journal I dare say it seems he had hope; and no small amount–)

Ever think about how he was before the canvas forced him to be only sharp edges and dangerous charm, elusive and manipulative, pragmatic and calculating?

Ever think about that? (My bad–)

[4mica]

My parents didn't cry at Sophie's gommage scene and I don't know how to tell them that they're monsters and I've disowned them.

[4mica]

Clair Obscur. Ow. Ouch. Oo. Okay. That's fine. I watched both endings again. My mental state calls that kind of behaviour "not a good plan in the long run". You want to know some things I noticed this time around?

In Verso's ending, Verso catches Maelle. The very moment he sees her stumble, even once, he's right by her side; curling around her, shifting her to make her even slightly more comfortable, drawing himself around her. He repeats “you're okay” with almost as much desperation as he does “unpaint me” in Maelle's ending, and beyond that? Beyond even that?

“You've got this incredible power to paint. You'll never have to suffer a life you don't want.”

(When I tell you this broke me, I mean it crushed my very bones with a mortar and pestle. I am dead inside.)

Maelle's ending, Verso stumbles twice. He falls to his hands and knees, but gets back up, only to fall again. Maelle doesn't lift his head, only holds his hand, presses against his shoulder. When Verso whispers “help me”, the tired little boy looks back at him. And Maelle, sweet Maelle, doesn't understand just what it is that pains him; she's trying so hard to understand, but she can't, because never once has she not wanted to live with such desperation — the closest she's come is her life outside the canvas, before the canvas; her entire reason for wanting to keep the canvas is because life outside is not living to her, she is empty and lonely and broken. So she tries to understand, in the way it helped her; crafting a different world for him to live in, with different people under different circumstances. A “happy” lie to his painful truth.

“If you could grow old... would you learn how to smile again...?”

[4mica]

Clair Obscur ending Spoilers

I hate this game. This game is cruel and unfair and hates happiness.

You're telling me that, not only have you made it increasingly clear that I'm marching Verso to his death, but he actively wants it?

No no, you're telling me, that not only do I have yet another suicidal sweet wet puppy on my team, but he's technically already dead? (Okay, when am I meant to mourn? Because I'm doing it now, and I did it back then, just to be sure.)

You're telling me, that not only have I spent the past two acts of this game preemptively in mourning, but you're making me choose between the lives of everyone in the canvas and the one single request Verso has ever made? The one single choice he's had power over in his life?

Why have you done this? Who hurt you?

[4mica]

Renoir: “Art can be interpretive; perfection is a lie or an elusive summit I happily predict neither of us will reach; it is about control, order, and contentment. That is better than perfection.”

Clea: “... This is about the feet, isn't it?”

Renoir: “I never said–”

Clea: “I knew it; I knew it! Here, let me just– *erases the entire canvas*– Happy? No, of course not–

There, enjoy, you're welcome dad–”

[4mica]

Ima just clear a little something up about Julie in Clair Obscur, because why not, I am forever confused about this game and like sharing my little learning progress.

(Edit.)

She was not part of expedition zero. She was sent with the rest of her team as the “Search and Rescue” to find other survivors, along with Verso and Renoir, after their encounter with Clea. Hence why Verso was warned by Renoir that she was “Clea's creation” (though she wasn't).

“I think they're lying about what happened to expedition zero”. She doesn't know. All she knows is Verso and Renoir survived without a scratch.

(Simon was from expedition zero, though.)

[fishmoochi]

bad end I made so many wips when i first saw the ending(s) of the game I have a lot of wips I want to finish but idk if i'll ever go back and work on them

[4mica]

Well. Now we know.

(I love this game so much.)

[4mica]

I'm just gonna...

... leave this here. After finishing this game. You're welcome.

[4mica]

Let's be honest, Clea designed certain Nevrons just to flex how well she could draw hands.

[4mica]

Let's talk about act 1 of Clair Obscur. Namely, the very beginning of it.

(Spoilers until around halfway through act 1.)

Who survived the first encounter with Renoir? Gustave, Lune, Maelle, and Sciel. Now, there were probably a few others, namely Leo, who made it to the tree but got distracted at a very inconvenient time (Gustave, I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying-).

We know why these guys survived. Lune has her magic, Sciel is literally the best fighter in the expedition, Verso was protecting Maelle.

(Quick appreciation for this moment.)

But how did Gustave survive? He's not a particularly good fighter, he froze up in the moment more than once; he couldn't even run.

There's something so painfully cruel about Gustave's character, because he was not meant for this world. He is friendly and kind and funny and charmingly awkward. Everyone in expedition 33 was friends with Gustave.

Everyone was looking out for him. To the point that people literally threw themselves in the way to block attacks directed at him, to the point where every single time a new danger presented itself, they thought of Gustave. It didn't matter how much of a liability he was in that moment, he was their friend, and he was worth it.

Gustave wasn't just blaming himself for Lucian's death out of self-pity; he wasn't wrong.