totally normal about expedition 33

[doubtmask]

Cover art for Entre-Deux by Irisen. Please go read <3

Vigilantes and Verstave and enemies-to-lovers and secret identities and stalking oh my.

[fil3t]

lumière s'éteint (light dies)

[prints]

Inspired by the second line of this verse from "Lumière s’éteint" (spoilers):

Si le temps se perd à contre-courant, If time loses itself to the tide, Les miroirs sans tain dévoilent leur nature One-way mirrors reveal their nature Si nos pulsations jouent à contre-cœur, If our hearts beat against their will, Notre amour veillera sur la mesure Our love will guard the rhythm Lumière s’éteint Light dies

Who can see whom through a one-way mirror depends on which side is brighter. As light (lumière) fades, a mirror becomes a window, and an illusion breaks.

[shivawalkerart]

"Dans chaque éclat, son doux rire

Dans chaque couleur, son sourire"

Une vie à t'aimer.

This game has become something very special and very important in my life. I'm glad to find time for my art ideas.

[zookie-art]

Finally finished my E33 tribute piece ❤️

[thewritersdidit]

A millennia passed, and Verso—the man—died.

A millennia begins, and Verso—the boy, kneeling—paints.

He paints when Maman throws herself into the canvas like a keening ghost. He’s with her when she sits in the red grasses and stares dully out to the landscape of her son. When the days of her comings and goings are too many to count, Verso is with her as she paints the first boulevard of Lumière.

It’s her brush that makes the people, but her brush is his brush. Her humans are Verso’s humans; her family are Verso’s family. For that he loves them—

(all the chroma that ever was and ever will be)

—he loves them.

*

*

Read on AO3

Words: 3.8k

Rating: T

Spoilers: Full game, Epilogue: A Life to Love

Here is my Clair Obscur Secret Santa gift for @doubtmask! ❤️ You wanted a story about Painted Verso and his relationship to the original. Well... this is about neither of those. And about both of them. But mostly this about the other, forgotten version of Verso Dessendre.

[doubtmask]

I got one of my best friends for the 2025 Secret Santa exchange. Her prompt was really complex and cool. I hope I did it justice. @thewritersdidit @clairobscursecretsanta

[comickergirl]

DEC'PEDITION 33 - 27. Trace

[doubtmask]

maelle had the wrong strategy

[doubtmask]

Thinking about Verso and water

and how he seems to have loved otters.

and how his Gestrals helped him train to join the swim team, but it wasn't until he made it and got the confidence boost that he became fast enough in the Canvas to beat them.

and how he's clearly the one who taught all the Gestrals and Esquies to do hold-your-breath contests for fun, even though they can't breathe.

and how somehow his love of swimming is so great that he associates water with magic, and makes it a magic river that restores his Gestrals to life in both his Canvas and his Drafts.

...Flying Waters was all him, wasn't it?

[vrakhiri]

Ultimate cake eater of the universe.

CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPÉDITION 33 (2025) dev. Sandfall Interactive

[pandadrake]

Family vacation

[doubtmask]

After all the talk of Verso starting hold-your-breath-underwater contests with his Gestrals (which don't breathe btw, great plan Verso), one of my main takeaways from the DLC is that there's absolutely zero chance this comic isn't canon. Verso was 1000% That Brother.

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Verso was painted by Aline who probably didn't know his last words and so he probably didn't know Original Verso's last words either but in his ending he tells them again to Maelle as he let her go that's because ☝️he may not be Verso but he also is ☝️ which is also why his wish for erasure aligns with the remains of Original Verso's soul ☝️ I'm going to bash my head against a wall.

[thestarfishface]

Hi it's me, "Guy who finished Expedition 33 in less than a week and has a whole lotta feelings about it"

Sobs and cries I'm normal about Verso I swear I am

[mistress-light]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 • (dev. Sandfall Interactive)

[shrimpigman]

This is making me ill the way his eyes go to the hand and then up all wide and blue like a little boy, like he just does not know what to do here. I don’t care how much the animators for the facial movements are paid, it isn’t enough. I’m so used to console games doing that faux-realistic style that feels so stiff, where every character’s face looks plastic and you can’t relate to them even if the writing is perfect during an emotional scene. This game just has so much life in every movement, it looks like a painting come to life— not just another formulaic marketing scheme, but real art with real emotion. “Family is complicated.” Oh Verso my boy. My baby.

[verenakauer]

The way Canvases work is so intriguing to me. Painters spending literal decades inside? Yeah, their bodies are obviously in some kind of stasis — but it must be so fucked up, like, mentally? Especially for the kids — did they functionally have childhoods that were two (three, four, five..?) times as long as they should have been? Or did they, from an outsider perspective, "grow up too fast" — like, was there a point where we had a ten-year-old Verso with the psyche of a twenty-year-old man? It doesn't seem so, right?..

And Renoir and Aline — they spent 67 years under/on top of the Monolith. Do they even remember how to function in the society at this point? Also, not to be the "time heals all wounds" person — but 67 years seem to be a sufficient time to somewhat process your grief, no? Of course, I can't imagine how painful it is to lose a child — but it feels like it shouldn't be this, um, acute at this point?

Anyway, my headcanon is that going into the Canvas puts not only your body, but your psyche in stasis too. That's why Aline is stuck in her grief so much, that's why she buried herself in the Canvas — because every time she returned into the real world, this unprocessed grief caught up with her, and she couldn't deal with it, and she went back into the Canvas, and it again prevented her from processing it, and the cycle went on and on — not just because of the fantasy she lived in, but because of the properties of the Canvas itself. And that's why I don't really believe in the "Maellicia in her ending will process her grief at her own pace and eventually return home" theory — it obviously didn't work out for her mom, did it?

(i mean, if you're in a Canvas and your body is in stasis, the connections in your brain doesn't form the way they do when you experience things in reality, right? so it might not even be the Canvas Magic (tm), just literally biology? i have no idea tbh)

(or it might be just something like "everything experienced in a Canvas feels like a vague dream when you return back" — but this option doesn't sound as interesting to me, so nah)

[redp0nda]

listen