The World of the Moo Point

Where a cow's opinion does not matter. It's Moo.

[saiya-tina]

He Who Guards Truth With Lies

Y'all I just had shower thoughts and they got me thinking and prepare for a theme study unlike any other because this game still has me in a chokehold!

So Verso's Axon? We all know the infamous "He Who Guards Truth With Lies" and Renoir's fondness for parables. I've seen all sorts of interpretations, from it meaning the real Verso never really got the chance to be himself, to Verso being a master manipulator, wanting to be a musician but forced to be a painter (which I def don't think was the case) etc etc

Now my view of that, is that it actually means that Verso had a tendency, at least at the start, to hide painful truths by serving up more palatable lies (would LOVE to know why OG!Verso had to learn that, but he also reassures his sister while he's literally burning to death so). Not gonna go too much into the whys for these, but they're usually a combination of trying to spare others from an existential crisis or serve his ultimate goal of getting the Dessendres out of the Canvas.

Not telling anyone the truth that they're painted figures in a Canvas, not telling anyone that they're doomed to be gommaged one way or another, not telling Maelle of her true nature earlier, etc. I'm not gonna say he's right for these or even that he's being altruistic, but I definitely do think that HE thinks he's being merciful by not burdening them with it. "I envy those who know not that they are not."

Painted!Alicia tries to encourage him to tell the Expeditioners the truth, to stop protecting himself and them from it, but he's not ready at that stage. He's committed and he's not about to falter now.

But when does this shift? Act fucking 3.

Act 3 Verso is a whole different beast. He no longer has any reason to lie. There's no painful truth for him to guard anymore. From that point on? He's honest: brutally honest and the only one who consistently sees things exactly as they are. The person who takes on the liar mantle? Maelle.

Alicia-Maelle thinks she's still Maelle, but honestly she's not. Act 3 Maelle is completely different from Act 1 and 2. Verso points that out and she immediately rebuffs him.

2) Maelle thinks Renoir will restore Lumiere (AFTER HE JUST GOMMAGED THE WHOLE THING) and the person who points out how ABSURD that is? Verso. He even asks her why she thinks he'll help and she just responds with "Oh I'm his favorite :)" GIRL THAT WAS 67 CANVAS YEARS AGO. (I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about this, but that's for another post)

3) Maelle doesn't think highly of her Axon, but Verso points out it's true meaning: that the Axon was actually meant to represent the confidence her father had that she could achieve great heights but she does not see herself as capable (another consistent trait with Alicia and Painted!Alicia: she's literally her own Orphelin).

4) He does not think about bringing the dead/Gommaged back. He fantasizes about it, sure, but does not seriously consider it. Even Sciel, who has probably the healthiest relationship with life and death till then, falls into the trap of wanting to get her husband back (to the point of breaking up with Verso should you romance her). Considering how he describes Painting people, I doubt Maelle would be able to bring Pierre back exactly the way he was and even then Verso, of all people, knows exactly how painful it is to be made a copy of someone else. Even Sciel acknowledges this, but trusts Maelle to know what she's doing (which that's a 16 year old, y'all have a LOT of faith in her).

5) He's cautiously optimistic throughout Act 3, interacting with people like he's starting to accept there will be a future, but he's not as hopeful about it as the others.

6) And the big finale: Maelle insists that she's not going down Aline's path when she LITERALLY is. Talking about bringing back people who have passed, insisting she won't lose herself in the Canvas, showing a preference for living in the Canvas rather than returning to the real world, etc. She lies to Renoir and Verso finally confronts her about it, leading to their showdown. He's guarding truth again, but he's now doing it differently.

Now, he's not guarding the truth by hiding or concealing it.

Now, he's guarding the truth by making sure it's front and center and no one can ignore it.

And that's fascinating to me.

[saiya-tina]

Fic: Une vie à oublier

So after a loooooong time, I wrote a fic because this game has a chokehold on my psyche, especially due to the way it challenges the notion of a 'happy ending'. Here's my version of a Maelle-flavor happy ending.

Une vie à oublier

Chapters: 3/3

Pairing: Gustave/Painted Verso Dessendre

Summary: Lumiere has thrived after the Paintress was defeated, thanks to the efforts of the Heroes of Lumiere. The Gommage was no more, the Nevrons had been slain, Maelle had come into her own abilities as a Painter, his career as a musician was taking off and his life with Gustave could not be any better.

So why did everything feel... wrong?

CW: Mind the tags y'all this is very much a "road to hell paved with good intentions" type scenario.

[saiya-tina]

As much as I adore Gustave, it genuinely baffles me that there are people who think Verso deserves to suffer in Maelle’s ending for letting him die (not even killing him, just allowing it to happen).

While completely ignoring that the Expedition directly kills almost his entire family (Renoir and Alicia. Technically Clea and Aline). The first two of which Maelle kills directly. A matter that, aside from the conversation with Maelle post-Alicia, no one in the team really seems to acknowledge (exception of Sciel, kind of)

We really are all hypocrites in the end.

[saiya-tina]

I don’t know how to explain this but after watching Schitts Creek again, I’ve realized that David and Patrick’s vibes is what I imagine Original Verso and Gustave’s dynamic to be.

By which I mean rich theatre kid with social anxiety and the world’s most dramatic family gets constantly roasted and taken care of by town’s nicest man and disaster gay but they’re also stupidly in love.

Also the image of Original Verso just constantly going “What the fuck?” is hilarious to me.

[saiya-tina]

My prediction for the Boys based on having been on this hellsite for the peak Destiel and J2M frenzy.

1) Misha’s character is killed within the first ten minutes of him appearing on screen. Maybe gets sent to superhell again.

2) His character and Soldier Boy just constantly have “currently doing that” energy even if they’re meant to be enemies and hate each other. It’s going to be hilarious either way because if they do, it’s because it’s Jensen and Misha just being Like That. If it’s not, Dean did indeed want to fuck Cas and Destiel wins again.

3) Jared and Misha’s characters are a couple. Soldier Boy is disgusted but it somehow comes off as intrigued.

4) Jared and Misha’s characters are a couple and one or both of them die right before they’re about to have an on screen lip lock and Tumblr goes down in a ball of flame.

5) Jared and Misha’s characters are brothers who are weirdly close and Soldier Boy thinks there’s something incestuous going on. Trailer’s already proved that his mind isn’t afraid to Go There.

Feel free to add your own.

[saiya-tina]

Musings

Okay so I just finished Expedition 33 and gotten a little into the fandom and it genuinely baffles me how many people seem to think that Verso's primary motivation is just to selfishly stop existing and that he doesn't care about any of the people who get killed/erased in the process.

This doesn't make sense to me for several reasons:

The man cares so much about people besides himself that it's literally to his detriment. He cut himself in half to cheer up people he'd just met. Even after the truth of the Gommage is revealed and trust is broken, he offers to teach Sciel to swim to help her overcome her fear. He helps Lune find out what happened to her parents and encourages her to listen to herself and not ghosts. He fights Golgra with Monoco to bring back Noco even though he thinks its a bad idea. He helps Esquie create a rock for Francois even though he could very much just fight and take it. He buried past Expeditioners when he could in the nicest spot he could find. Literally every Gestral or Grandis that knows about him likes him and he is so, so tender when he talks to them.

He literally had no personal stake in the entire story of the game if he didn't care about people. The Gommage didn't affect him and he was immortal. If he didn't care about Aline, he could have just waited. Renoir would've won, either by overpowering Aline or her own health declining. It was inevitable and then everyone would get Gommaged anyway. If he didn't care about Maelle, he could've just let her stay in the canvas. She'd die and then the canvas would be erased anyway. He could've just stayed with Monoco and Noco, had his adventures with Esquie and let the Expeditioners die, Aline die, Maelle die and wait for the inevitable blast wave, but he didn't. He couldn't let his mother and sister die.

In Act 3, I genuinely don't believe he was planning to erase the Canvas until the fight with Renoir. He might have still asked to be erased, but I think he makes the decision to erase it after seeing Aline jump back into the Cavnas despite being close to death and Maelle's own determination to stay as she doesn't believe life outside is worth it. That, to me, is the point he realizes that there is, in fact, no other choice. As long as the canvas (and himself) are present, neither of them will be able to stop themselves from losing themselves in it. I personally started feeling wigged out by Maelle a lot in Act 3 after she remembered she was Alicia. There were a LOT of hints that she was at risk of leaning too much into the Painter aspect of herself (erasing Alicia without a second thought in front of Verso - the painted version of the person who literally died in a fire to save his little sister's life). In her defense she's a very emotional 16 year old who's been through an insane amount of trauma: but all the more reason she shouldn't really be the God of a painted world.

Lumiere, unfortunately, is doomed from the start. Once the people are gommaged, they're gone. The only ones Maelle could bring back properly are the ones she knew best, but everyone else? Her own creations. (Intentionally or not, I found it interesting that in her ending, the models used to show the crowds entering the opera house are just 4-5 varieties and copied to make numbers). And it's temporary. She will die, or Renoir/Clea will come back to force her out, possibly leading to another fracture. She might make it long enough for her friends at least to live out their lives, but whether she'd even last that long is debatable (Aline was far stronger and 67 years was close to killing her).

Verso made a lot of mistakes himself (letting Gustave die was a big one and I do believe he regretted it), but reducing him to an antagonist or stating that he "wants to destroy the world because he wants to kill himself" is insanely reductive when discussing a man who has to choose between trying to preserve a doomed world or his own family. Every decision he makes can be viewed from a completely different perspective if you shift the lens from "man wishes to not exist" to "man loves his family even more than his own existence".

Anyway that's the end of my TED talk, I just really love this game.

[snakesneaksnack]

"Hey! No filming! IT’S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!"

[pandadrake]

Reached Beginning of Act 3 in my current playthrough.

Things I didn't expect drawing COE33 fan art to make me do: Install Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.

“Maman painted an unflattering portrait of him” was the most unknowingly-the-favorite-child Alicia has ever been.

[vimeddiee]

I like to think that Hanzo’s sultry eyes are McCree’s ultimate undoing.

(btw, I listened to this song on a loop because APPROPRIATE.)

[vimeddiart]

Going to the supermarket together and being MANLY AF.

Also:

[vimeddiee]

Someone hired a mariachi band to play at 3am today for a birthday party and woke up the whole gotdamn block so i thought of this as they got through their set.

EDIT:

Case closed.

[vimeddiart]

This was my contribution to the Hanzo Therapy Zine! 

I loved working on this. You can continue to support the project @ hnzotherapyzine on twitter!

[overdrugs-mayhem]

Ninja Wingman Bro, ready to tell everybody the really important things that life has to offer ( ﾟヮﾟ) 

[overdrugs-mayhem]

We’d be lying if we say that Genji didn’t do it on purpose…  Gli ha tagliato tutte le vie di fuga prima ancora che Jesse potesse anche solo pensare alla sua SacraTetta

[vimeddiee]

YeeHan Knights AU for January's patreon art!

[vimeddiee]

Pls don’t take my man.

//Sponsored by patrons!//

Part 1 | Part 2 |  Part 3 

P.S. McCree refuses to take any chances:

[vimeddiee]

He left Hanzo alone for FIVE MINUTES.

//Sponsored by patrons//

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3