tbh i think the funniest phenomena that's been happening in the last couple years is "youtuber, having gone too deep into the research hole, has been made an investigative journalist against their will"
this guy started out poking fun at australian politicians and ended up investigating the firebombing of his own home, during which he uncovered connections between the same politician he was making fun of + major organized crime
To cope with everything, here’s a list with some fun facts, weird parallels, glass onions and speculations.
1. Gustave’s mechanical arm has three numbered rings. They show 3456 - 0123 - 6789 - it’s not a coded message, just an interrupted sequence.
Could be symbolic foreshadowing for Maelle’s predicament:
3456 - life in the outside world, what we see in the “Epilogue” with Clea, before act 3;
0123 - stepping into the Canvas, getting painted over, being reborn and starting anew;
6789 - remembering everything, continuing where she left off.
2. Manor doors' locations are always relevant:
❂ Clea’s room - Frozen Hearts
❂ Verso’s room - Visages, Mask of Anger
❂ Alicia’s reading room - Fallen Leaves, near the Lady of Sap
❂ Renoir & Aline’s room - Old Lumiere (The Fracture ground zero)
But, there are a few suspicious door placements:
❂ Guest room - Stone Wave Cliffs // There are Sophie’s clothes in the closet, and an Obscur peeking through the window.
❂ Library - on an island not far from the Forgotten Battlefield // There is a hidden reading room where you can find Verso’s clothes; the door’s location near the FB is notable either for the Painters-Writers war parallel, or for the fact that it’s Gustave and Julie’s resting place (more on that in a bit)
❂ Glasshouse - near Gustave’s grave (complete with Verso’s mask of sadness on the tombstone) inside the Monolith // seems like it’s implied that the fire started there, as the glasshouse is still under repairs and blocked off, when we get to roam around the real manor
3. Verso leads Gustave to the manor to find Maelle by the typewriter specifically.
When Verso has to leave Gustave behind, he takes the Lumina converter, his hand (don’t forget the metaphor rings) and his journal.
Gustave writing and Maelle taking that up after him is a significant thing that happens. Verso also writes.
4. There are a couple of books in the Manor, the titles of which you can actually make out:
❂ The Illustrated Family Gymnasium - perfectly understandable for a family of artists to have a workout manual, if they don’t want to crumble into fine dust
❂ The Poetical Works and Remains of Henry Kirke White - a tome with some nice graveyard poetry, among other things (a poem about music he composed at 14, for one)
This one’s definitely Verso’s.
5. Verso is named with the word used to describe the back of a painting. Some have unfinished sketches and inscriptions on the back, giving insight into the artist’s creative process and history of the painting.
Renoir is named after Pierre-Auguste Renoir, impressionist painter famous for his approach to lighting and color, and the sort-of “fusing” of the objects in his artworks. The real painter's wife was also named Aline.
Clea’s name is probably a reference to Clio (Kleio) - a muse of history and lyre-playing, daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory). While Clio was often invoked by the writers, she’s more about the idea that history is preserved not just through writing, but through remembrance.
Alicia is a play on Alice, paralleling Verso’s Canvas to Wonderland.
Gustave’s name is likely a nod to Gustave Eiffel - our guy is both a genius engineer and a metaphorical heart of Lumiere. His theme will play at the base of Eiffel at the end of the game; ost called "Eiffel" is another rendition of his theme and "Lumiere" (which is also his).
His sister has the same name as Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary - Emma. One of Flaubert’s biggest inspirations was Stendhal, who one of Maelle’s skills is named after. Standhal is a french writer and art critic, who had a psychosomatic reaction named after him - people experience “Standhal Syndrome” (basically a mild panic attack) when overwhelmed by art. And guess what, Stendhal also studied engineering, but chose to pursue writing.
Stendhal was influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s works, especially “Julie, or the New Heloise”. Coincidentally enough, Stendhal’s most famous novel “The Red and the Black” features a main character named Julien. Both novels focus on social constraints and love’s place in it all - Julien is a funhouse mirror reflection of Julie, using love as a weapon, while she abandons it for duty; he is sentenced to execution and remorseless, she finds redemption in death. It cannot be definitively said that Stendhal’s Julien was really named after Rousseau’s Julie, and then twisted, but it is plausible.
So, we come up to the matter of E33’s Julie, who, without fail, comes up in places and scenes significant for Gustave. They are laid to rest under the same tree; when Verso is sad about Gustave, he’s upset about Julie (and vice versa) - Esquie mentions them in the same breath for him several times; flashbacks about OG Verso’s fate are the only scenes Julie ever shows up in, and those are always immediately followed by a conversation with Gustave; Gustave himself shows up in one of the nightmare sequences - with two intact hands, I repeat, WITH TWO INTACT HANDS; and we can find Julie’s sword at Stone Wave Cliffs of all places.
(Fun fact, this sword's name (Delaram) could be derived from latin "delere"/"deleo" - to erase/to destroy.)
Notably, in this particular scene Verso and Gustave are set up like Clair and Obscur, wearing light and dark clothing. Interestingly enough, while Gustave receives most of the outfits we unlock for Verso in acts 2 and 3, he never gets the Clair outfit, and can only wear Obscur from deluxe.
Getting back to Rousseau-Stendhal books, Julie (E33) is more like Julien (The Red and the Black) - she uses Verso’s feelings against him, betrays him, while Gustave is more like Julie (New Heloise) - he lets go of Sophie to respect her decision about children, focuses on his Expedition duties, selflessly dies protecting Maelle.
This could always be a big ball of nothing, but I tend to see such frequent coincidences as patterns. Gustave and Julie are definitely bound by Verso’s guilt, but was it really necessary to restate it so frequently? Is that really the only thing they have in common?
Can Gustave please stand up and explain why he has Verso’s “From Fire” skill, while surrounded by so much writer-related embellishment?
6. The Lumina Converter is basically an artificial, limited version of a Painter’s power to manipulate chroma. Absolutely insane act of creation with this one. If you need a refresher on how powerful that thing is - remember Dualliste. So many people died trying to best that thing, yet E33 defeated it with a team of 4, all because they had the Converter.
7. There is a possibility that Francois wasn’t based on a real turtle, but on Verso himself. There are reasons to believe that he was a cagey kid, with Clea as his best friend, who then sort-of left him for her duties, like she left Francois.
‘Francois’ meaning ‘a free man’ is incredibly ironic in the context of Verso. Verso learning his gradient skills through Esquie is notable too.
Take a look at this now:
(side note, we'll get to that in a bit, but Verso was scared of the dark as a kid - so probably hated napping alone too)
This conversation about Francois being alone happens immediately after Gustave dies. Makes me squint, when we add the Francois-Verso thing to the comparisons Gustave gets to Esquire, with their rock enthusiasm, shared views and a mission to protect and comfort.
This is making me want to punch a wall:
Again, Gustave dies just after Esquie leaves the cave and Francois ends up alone.
Esquie’s name could be a play on ‘esquisse’ - french for ‘sketch’, or ‘esquire’ - someone who serves under a knight, training to become one himself; or sometimes just someone in service of a nobleman.
8. Clea created the Lampmaster to both poke at and ward off Verso’s fear of darkness. We meet such creatures 3 times: at OG Clea’s workshop, at painted Clea’s workshop in the Flying Manor, and at the Stone Wave Cliffs.
Lampmasters in the workshops are bound on display, but the one at SWC is there deliberately, of its own volition. Might be because it’s there to perform its duty, to ward off darkness for Verso (incredibly unsuccessful, try again)
The Lampmaster at the Flying Manor is in the area you have to descend to, that’s swimming in colors, where nevrons from Stone Wave cliffs and Frozen Hearts roam. Interestingly enough, all other locations here (aside from where painted Clea is) are washed out, bleak, almost monochromatic - it seems like it’s here where all the colors went, and there’s SO MUCH blue. Could be a metaphor for Clea getting rid of her feelings to keep going, hiding them deep, deep down to not drown in grief over Verso like everyone else.
9. If Lune connects with Sirene and Sciel with Visages, Gustave should connect with the Reacher through the method of elimination. And all the tinkering happening there. And having what the Reacher lacks - willingness to let go, maybe?
10. When Gustave plays the piano, it starts sounding off-tune, wobbly and shrill. He's the only character it happens with.
It could be a subtle hint at him not being Maelle's real brother perhaps, not an adequate replacement. Or there's something else that's wrong with him, cause again, what's with the writer stuff, with the fire? All them weird coincidences combined with the fact that the piano hates him does not look good.
11. Gustave is the odd one out again with the starting weapons - his is not named after him:
❂ Scieleson - Sciel
❂ Lunerim - Lune
❂ Monocaro - Monoco
❂ Maellum - Maelle
❂ Verleso - Verso
❂ Noahram - Gustave
Noah from the Bible comes to mind with this, as Gustave is tasked with the preservation of life too. But why single him out like this?
He didn't succeed (yet) with the task of preservation, is the name ironic? A different angle of Noah's story maybe, how he's something good surrounded by evil and decay, but there's so much good in the Canvas apart from Gustave, other wonderful people. What's with that?
Sandfall mentioned that they considered the name "Noah" for Gustave initially, but decided against it. Why leave the weapon unchanged though? As a reference to their creative process, a reminder of where they started?
(Maybe he will get his own real starting weapon in the future when E33 Royal drops and he becomes a full fledged party memb- *gets shot*)
Another interesting thing is that all character-specific weapon names have the same ending (names of Maelle's rapiers always end with 'um' and Sciel's scythes with 'son', for example). Verso and Gustave are a tricky case, as even after Gustave is gone Verso gets swords with his own ending (so) and Gustave's (am). "He can't use those, but I will" type energy? Restating the lack of Gustave once again?
12. On that note, the party group shots are often uneven, leaving free space for someone to fit in. So mean.
13. Why do both Gustave’s lover and sister look so much like Clea?
To a point all 3 have moles in the same places (weird as hell on Gustave’s part, but let’s not focus on that)
Several potential reasons:
❂ Aline’s grief and prolonged stay in the Canvas is bleeding all over. She’s losing herself, painting familiar things over and over, mixing and matching. Details get jumbled, confused, overlapped.
Gustave, Emma and Maelle are a perfect reference to Verso, Clea and Alicia, but Sophie is no reference to Clea - she’s the one that dies tragically, a portrait of the wrong sibling. Gustave is both a Verso and a Renoir figure to Maelle. It’s a mess.
It’s all an allegory for the cycle of grief, everyone going in circles, doing the same things again and again, playing the same roles.
❂ Gustave is Clea’s creation, put as a warden for Alicia. Would explain an incredible feat with the Lumina Converter, how he’s able to invent something that will manipulate chroma almost like a Painter does.
Esquie’s likeness is fitting in - Verso made him to protect and bring joy, with Clea overseeing and then going on adventures together with them - would make sense to create something similar if she wanted Alicia looked after.
If Gustave is Clea’s creation, then it’s reasonable for him to be so close with two lookalikes of her. And if Julie really was a creation of Clea’s, like painted Renoir thought, then she is falling into place as well, with her own weird connections to Gustave. Same thing with the matter of Simon’s missing hand and relations with Clea.
Gustave somehow survived that first encounter with a nevron on the beach - perhaps it recognised them to have the same creator?
This conversation with Verso could also be supporting it (if he's not adressing Maelle here):
The only thing that’s not here nor there is the Writer stuff, but it's somewhat explainable. If Gustave was stationed as a father/brother figure to Maelle, then the circumstances of her real brother’s death and the variables surrounding it would inevitably have influence on him.
❂ The Writer stuff is there for Gustave because he exists in the real world and IS a Writer. The Esquie-Francois parallel is there because Verso and Gustave were friends, he’s the reason Verso likes trains and has a hidden reading room, he’s the source of Alicia’s interest in writing. This is the reason for Gustave's ties with Julie, as they are both traitors, why he has both hands intact in the nightmare sequence about Verso’s death, why he has “From Fire” skill, why there is a guest room with Sophie’s clothes - those point at him, and a connection with Sophie is pointing at a connection with either Clea, or Verso…
Pure crack, but if that’s true, the other options are not necessarily false - Aline’s losing her mind at this point, so it’s not far fetched that she’d paint a portrait of an enemy; Clea could do it as a harsh lesson or a cruel joke, but that is less likely.
If there is a Gustave in the real world, then the rings on his mechanical arm would be relevant to him just as much as to Maelle, point at how his story is also fragmented:
(He's constantly looking at those numbered rings on his hand like it's a watch too, which is. Interesting.)
It's an insane twist for a sequel, which is like catnip to these writers.
14. There is a missing third ending.
We have two - 'A life to love' and 'A life to paint'. Those correspond to the boss themes of the real and painted Renoir. But there’s a third theme with the same naming convention - Alicia’s 'A life to dream'.
She gives Verso a letter with that title on an envelope. She writes about her wish for a better outcome, where everyone can get what they want. If he just given that letter to Maelle, things could have turned out different, but he didn’t - he’s too set in his ways, Gustave is dead because of it, Alicia is soon to follow. It’s an impossible ending, a conclusion that could have never happened, 'A life to dream' indeed.
In addition to that, both 'A life to love' and 'A life to paint' connect to Verso and Maelle, act 2 and act 3 title-namesakes. Who's missing here? Gustave's missing here, he's the one act 1 is named after. And he's exactly the one who would be able to put both Maelle and Verso straight, mediate, find a better solution. He's caring, he's a visionary, he'd think of something, he's a perfect candidate to carry 'A life to dream', but he can't, he's not there.
And I don't buy Verso's reasoning for letting Gustave die. He watched over them for years, he has to almost-know the guy at that point. If anyone was able to punch through Verso's thick skull, it would be someone like Gustave, and he saw it, I know he saw it. He cared, to a point he seemed scared shitless of Gustave's ghost. Verso can deny being 'Verso' all he wants, but he still Alicia's, Maelle's brother, it's in his very nature to love what she loves.
What's also incredibly bizzare is that act 1 spends so much time pointing out that Gustave will choose Maelle over the collective, greater good, whatever else - his intrests and Verso's clearly allign. Why discard a potential ally? "Couldn't take any chances" are you sure about that?
With Gustave still alive, maybe there was a chance for a different outcome, but instead there's just void, where him and 'A life to dream' are supposed to be. So we have what we have.
UNLESS THEY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MAYBE ALL THOSE LIVES IN THE CANVAS MATTER, ALL THOSE SACRIFICES MADE BY THE EXPEDITIONERS MATTER, IT’S NOT A PRISON OR A LIE. DROP A DLC!!!!
Isn't it odd to put such an emphasis on number 3, only to leave us with 2 endings, anyway?
So there's a popular headcanon that Aline was pushing Verso to be a painter instead of a musician, and some people talk about it in a way as if it was a huge divider in their relationship.
I have to say that... I think this approach is a little sexist (see below: he mentions pressure from both his parents but people only ever blame Aline), and it shows a lack of deeper reflection on the content of the game itself. The dynamics around that relationships appear a lot more nuanced when you look at all the different times his mother and music are shown together in the game.
Of all the members of the family, Aline is the primary one associated with his love of music.
In the monolith, we see her memories of teaching him to play as a boy.
In the act 2 epilogue, Alicia comments on their mother's piano as the place where Verso wrote songs for her.
In the DLC, this is how he commemorates Aline:
There she is, smiling at her son on his piano. Repeatedly the game has shown us that this was an important part of how they bonded in his childhood. She instilled in Verso a love of music, and they played the same instrument.
Here is the conversation (Lune, level 5) where Painted Verso mentions parental expectations:
Verso: My parents were both artists. Widely respected, very prominent artists. So. There was a great deal of pressure to follow in their path.
Lune: You’re an artist then?
Verso: Not the kind they wanted me to be.
Lune: Meaning?
Verso: Music is my passion.
I'm going to take it at face value that both Versos had the same memories of their parent relationships growing up. Now what do we get from this conversation?
Both parents were artists and there was "a great deal of pressure" on him. He doesn't actually say if the pressure comes from the family, from himself, from other members in society, or who. I think if there is going to be a parent who pressured Verso more, it was likely Renoir. Canonically the "controlling" parent and husband, for starters. The real version started this whole war, and the painted version seems to be regularly telling painted Alicia what she should or shouldn't be doing, despite her being like 90 years old. BUT, in the sake of fairness and good spirit we could say that maybe Renoir and Aline were both giving equal pressure. Or maybe the council painters was giving pressure for all we know.
So you have Verso as an adult remembering feeling like he was pressured to follow in his parents' path. Aline in her memories, has visions of teaching him the piano and associates that as an activity they did together. Child Verso also loved her for that, and painted it in his cabin.
So the narrative here might be that Aline taught Verso to play piano, but when he became a teenager and was more serious about it, both parents pushed back and pressured him to be a painter instead. Yet Verso, as far as we know, successfully became a musician. He lived away from the Manor (reasonable for an adult), in the city center close to the Opera House where he performed. There doesn't appear to be any active negativity around that aspect of his life, and he talked about the presssure in past tense. Aline seems to have repainted him diligently with both his love of music and the memories of his parents pushing against it, for him to find independence and happiness with his artistic passion.
My read on this whole thing is that Verso probably told them as a teenager that he didn't want to paint anymore and wanted devote himself to music. They probably pressured him and tried to talk him out of it, but he was insistent. So, like a lot of parents, as he became an adult and pursued this track they accepted it and moved on.
We don't get any indication in the game that this was an active conflict in Verso's adult life. He is posing with them in a fairly recent portrait. That and the fact that he was at the manor when the Writers attacked Alicia tells me that he was at least in communication with his family and does not seem to have been estranged from them.
There's one more interesting thing from the DLC that I want to point out. Osquio says something like "You'll never be good enough as a musician, you'll have to paint forever."
To me, this speaks so strongly to young Verso's insecurities. He put all of that into an imaginary opponent that he could fight and defeat with his best friends. The fact that it's present in his drafts introduces more nuance about what the sources of pressure were on him growing up.
How much of this was really pressure from his parents, and how much was pressure that he put on himself? When I was a teenager there was a lot of things that I assumed about my own parents, and convinced myself that they believed something of me, and then when I actually talk to them over time I realized that some of these ideas I put in my own head. I would later find out that they didn't necessarily judge me in the ways that I thought they were.
That's only my personal experience, but knowing that and then looking at what the game gives us: (Aline + piano = happy memory, Verso having insecurities about choosing music, Verso verbally recounting that he was pressured) all of it makes a pretty soft gray area for me.
I look at all that and I think yeah, some of it was probably pressure from them initially, a lot of it was probably pressure from himself, and at the end of the day everyone moved on. He became a musician and the family still dearly loved him. If you didn't get it from the game itself then it should be obvious from the DLC that for all the Dessendres flaws as a family, they did fiercely love each other. So much of the story conflict is motivated by love.
To wrap this up, I'll say that the game gives us subtle nuances about how being a musician affected Verso's relationship with his family. It's a mixture of positive and negative (mostly positive) and Aline is intrinsically part of Verso's story of becoming a musician.
So I understand if you're writing a fanfic and you need one of the parents to be the bad guy so Verso has someone to rebel against, but if you find yourself dabbling in those headcanons then I will say only this: Renoir is right there. Let my girl Aline off the hook for this one.
DELETED DIALOGUE IN THE FILES OF CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33
I was going to make a video about this, but I'm too scattered right now, so I'm posting it here in the meantime.
So I extracted all the text in Clair Obscur, and I'm surprised that there seems to be only about 73,000 words of dialogue in the whole game. This does make sense because the writing philosophy definitely erred on the side of subtlety and communicating through physical acting rather than through words, but it was still a little shocking to see the number of words. For comparison, the number of words of dialogue in Dragon Age: Inquisition is ~708,500 words. For additional reference, the average full-length novel is 80-100k words.
I am also surprised to find quite a few deleted scenes and deleted snippets of dialogue that didn't make it into the game.
(((This dialogue and these files can be very easily viewed and verified by anyone who has a PC version of Clair Obscur by using a piece of freeware software called "FModel" which is an Unreal Engine Archive Explorer. Installation for FModel specifically for Clair Obscur can be extremely easily done by following the first part of this tutorial video.
The entire text dialogue for Clair Obscur is located within Sandfall > content > localization > game. It's completely human-readable and not obfuscated in any way. The same is true for all the localization languages like French, etc. It's very nice.)))
spoilers for some of the deleted stuff I've found -
Julie deleted audio
strange Simon lines about the White Sands???
quite a few deleted lines that Renoir was meant to say in battle
an incredibly poignant and convincing conversation between Maelle and Renoir during their final fight
deleted dialogue from the Faceless Boy at the Opera in Lumiere about how exhausted he felt about Painting
an intriguing deleted area called "Rocktrailing" that seemed to depict the relationship and argument between Renoir and Aline, etc...
Julie: TRAITOR
Julie: So. Everything you told me was a lie.
Julie: I– We trusted you.
Julie: You did this– Everyone–?
Julie: And now me.
Julie: Fucking coward. Can’t even look at me.
Julie: [roar of attack]
(only the two lines were actually in audio in the files)
Apparently, there were deleted lines spoken by the Faceless Boy at the Opera House
FacelessBoy_Opera: Is this… Is this it…
FacelessBoy_Opera: Is it… finally it…
FacelessBoy_Opera: Will you… put an end to everything?
FacelessBoy_Opera: I'm glad… Thank you…
FacelessBoy_Opera: Oh I… I understand…
I think that it probably gave you a yes/no option, and the yes corresponds with "I'm glad" and the no corresponds to "I... I understand"
(I'm glad that this was deleted because just the pure mood in that room with no dialogue is so peak. But this also gives more ambiguity to how even Faceless Verso feels about the Canvas. He is TIRED.)
Deleted conversation between Maelle and Renoir in the final battle. ;o; ;o; ;o; ;o; ;o; ;o; (no audio)
Real Renoir: "Verso would have chosen you over his Canvas, every single time."
Real Renoir: "He would have wanted you to hold onto family."
Real Renoir: "Honor his death by living, not by chasing his death with yours."
Maelle: "But that's exactly what I'm trying to do!"
Maelle: "Hold on to family."
Real Renoir: [exasperated sigh]
An area called "RockTrailing" ?? Where the Faceless Boy talks about Renoir and Aline.
FacelessBoy : A new visitor.
FacelessBoy: Hello.
FacelessBoy: I've seen you before…
FacelessBoy: This place is… strange.
FacelessBoy: Here?
FacelessBoy: Here is nowhere, for me.
FacelessBoy: Everything here is theirs.
FacelessBoy: The result of their love, and the result of their hatred.
FacelessBoy: A long path, with barely any trail to follow.
FacelessBoy: Everything yet to be discovered.
FacelessBoy: Don't get lost… Like they did…
RockTrailing_Canvas_01: A painting of the Gommage in Lumière.
RockTrailing_Canvas_02: It stirs up unhappy memories.
RockTrailing_Canvas_03: Was it painted by Aline…
RockTrailing_Canvas: Or Renoir…
Additional lines that Mirror Renoir says during the Manor fight where he accuses Verso of lying... which they must have deleted because it gave the game away too much (no audio)
Mirror Renoir: "You're lying to them."
Mirror Renoir: "They deserve the truth."
Mirror Renoir: "If they knew the truth, they would never trust you again."
additional barks that both Real Renoir and Mirror Renoir say during battle (no audio for these ones, strangely, the only audio in that folder is the "she will always protect me" line, which I uploaded HERE)
Real Renoir: "Can you see it? The layer between?"
Real Renoir: "Remember... The Axons..."
Real Renoir: "Disappear from this canvas."
Real Renoir: "I understand the struggle of your existence."
Mirror Renoir: "Your attacks don't matter."
Mirror Renoir: "She will always protect me."
Mirror Renoir: "Don't you see it's futile?"
Mirror Renoir: "You won't survive this."
Strange Simon stuff that I don't recognize in "RenoirDrafts" -
SimonUnleashed_01": Something happened at the White Sands.
SimonUnleashed_02": Gaze into the chroma.
SimonUnleashed_03": A lonely life.
SimonUnleashed_04": A family life.
SimonUnleashed_05": Who will fight?
SimonUnleashed_06": Painting: 1
SimonUnleashed_07": Painting: 2
SimonUnleashed_08": Painting: 3
SimonUnleashed_09": Painting: 4
SimonUnleashed_10": Painting: 5
SimonUnleashed_11": The chroma vibrates.
SOMETHING HAPPENED AT THE WHITE SANDS?
There was, as far as I could tell, no deleted lines for either Aline or Clea, but there may have been something I missed. I read through the whole thing like a book, but people who are obsessed with other characters besides Renoir like me might be able to find deleted lines said by other characters that I didn't catch.
Your big sister doesn't recognize you. Your mother's eldest daughter Painted her over. She attacks you if you go near her. You miss her. She doesn't know to miss you.
Your little sister can't speak and hides her face and you love her. She is beautiful behind the mask your mother forces her to wear. She hides her face in your father's chest.
Your little sister is hell-bent on killing your father because he killed her brother, but he didn't kill you. She doesn't know you. She knew you before you were created. You know her. You have never met her. You would die for her. You have died for her. She would die for you. You have to stop her from dying for you.
You’re her big brother but your little sister is dead. She’s your little sister but her big brother is dead. She killed your little sister. She is your little sister and she killed herself but she also killed a stranger. She didn’t let you say goodbye. You get to yell at her for not letting you say goodbye to her. This is a privilege. She apologizes. It doesn't change anything. She killed herself and you wish you could kill yourself. You’re jealous your little sister got to die. You’re jealous your little sister gets to live. She killed herself and she won't kill you.
You're her big brother and she dies in your arms even though she's not your little sister and you died before her anyway. Her death is slower than your little sister's, so you get to speak to her. You get to tell her everything will be okay. You never got to tell your little sister everthing will be okay before she died. You weren't able to hold your little sister when she died. You held and rocked your little sister when she died.
Your parents had two daughters and one son. Two daughters and one son died in that canvas but their eldest daughter didn't. She wasn't there when you or your sisters died. You're her little brother. She doesn't grieve for you. She grieves for her little brother. Both your little sisters are dead, but your big sister doesn't grieve for them. She has her little sister within arm's reach.
There are seven Dessendre siblings. Three of them are you. One is dead. Two are alive. There are three Dessendre siblings. There were only ever three Dessendre siblings.
