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This, um, bed in the first Epilogue makes me so sad. Like... did Aline sleep here before she buried herself inside the Canvas completely? When it was just "for a few moments a day" as per her journal, did she want to never be away from her son's soul? There's a book and a lamp — did she read bedtime stories to him as if he was still little and still alive?

Or, and it feels more likely and more sad, is it Renoir's? It is his atelier, after all. Did he sleep here, waiting for his wife to come back from Verso's Canvas? When he still had hope she'll return, did he want to be at her side? Did he want to be there for her when she comes back, to show her that he can be there when it matters? Was he watching, night after night, as her health deteriorated and the paint covered her face more and more and more — until he could no longer watch?

Does he sleep here still, in Maelle's ending, keeping the light on, waiting for his little star to return — even though he knows she never will?

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that's a very good way to lie though. telling a specific story gives others something to latch onto, poke holes in and dissect. lying by omission creates less of a surface of attack.

even worse, it forces anyone who would question him from the object level ("maybe X is untrue? maybe Verso is wrong about x?") to the personal level ("what is Verso hiding?"). facts are easier to question than the character of someone you like, because you can still tell yourself that maybe they were just mistaken. jumping directly to accusing someone of deception is a much harder leap to make.

so, I'm sorry, but I have to disagree, Verso is a world class gaslighting champion.

It’s extremely funny Verso isn’t even that good at lying. Like he is absolutely a lying liar who lies, but almost every lie is just “I dunno why that thing is happening. 🤷” Iconic.

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I know in my heart that Clea doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body. She particularly dislikes babies, which began when she was three years old and her father carried her into the room where her mother was holding a newborn Verso. Renoir was no doubt expecting a heartwarming family moment of his first born meeting his new son, but Clea took one look at this weird, smelly, noisy thing and went, ‘hm, I don’t like him. Send him back.’ And then smacked Verso when he started fussing, which didn’t actually hurt him because she had tiny little toddler hands, but it did make Verso scream, and her parents shout at her, which Clea felt was very unfair.

Renoir tries to sit her down later and explain that babies are very fragile and have to be treated gently. You used to be a baby too, Clea!

And now Clea knows Papa is just messing with her because she has never been a baby for a day in her life. That is ridiculous. Don’t even joke about something like that.

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I was looking at some screenshots of Verso, and he really has a very interesting face. Handsome, of course, but there's enough going on that it's interesting, too. His nose is a very classical Greek shape, but he has that cleft as a 'flaw' (scare quotes because it's not really a flaw, of course, just something that deviates from the perfection of the classical ideal).

But it's the lower half of his face that's really interesting to me. His jaw is actually fairly narrow, but his beard makes the lower half of his face look much heavier and highlights the wideness of his mouth. Particularly when he's talking or smirking, it really masks the proportions of his face.

He also makes such lopsided expressions! I don't have any good screenshots, but if you look at his early scenes with Maelle (such as when she gives him the armband) or when they're planning how to fight the axons, you can see it. He usually smirks with the left side of his mouth, unless he's grinning (you can see this when he's playing the piano with Maelle). He also squints his right eye when he's talking. It's such a great bit of characterization!

At one point I created clay renders of all the heads to look at them a bit more closely, and I was struck by how much he looks like Aline. They have the same narrow face, large eyes, and round cheekbones. His jaw and brow are more defined, but he's also male and young. Renoir's face is overall much more square, with a stronger jaw and broader forehead. It's actually Clea and Alicia who share that same face shape, although both girls also take after Aline a lot.

It's great characterization and art. Physically attractive characters can end up very bland -- nice to look at but not very deep. But his sculpt is so well done and the acting behind the animations is so top notch that his character comes through. And of course, Guillaume has talked about how he emphasizes gaze and the eyes, and that really comes through.

I really love that he looks so much like Aline. It's hard to see under his beard but the resemblance is really striking. I think the two of them were a lot alike in many ways.

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Art imitates life.

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paint to remember

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Coe33 - comic

fast doodle idea

I hope you enjoyed

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Unfortunately it gets a bit more complicated.

Let's consider Clea. When she intervenes to empower Simon, her presence is associated with black petals.

But both her fading appearance and her painted self are associated with golden petals.

This complicates things. But it also helpfully introduces the idea that painters can share petal colors. Why would this be significant? Well, consider this:

The echoe of Verso's soul is also associated with red petals.

And his beloved Gestral village is very red.

So we might conclude that Verso's signature petals would also be red. Does this add anything? let's take a look at the scene of Maelle's birth:

Red. Odd, no? Isnt Lumiere Aline's work?

Even stranger, at the funeral, we see Verso fade away into white petals, while Gustave, Lune and Sciel fade into red, just like Monoco and Esquie, who are Verso's creations.

Which leads me to my theory: The inhabitants of Lumiere are not purely Aline's, they are Verso's creations as well. Specifically, the offspring of the first generation painted by Aline are also, in part, Verso's, because it is his soul that imbues the entire Canvas with life, giving them the power to reproduce.

pondering the color of chroma

does each painter have their own color of chroma petals? if so, can this help us come up with any wild theories?

We'll start with Aline:

Aline's petals are white. Painting over Alicia.

Healing painted Renoir or posing menacingly.

This also applies to her finest work, painted Verso. Who "bleeds" white petals.

Then we have Renoir and his red petals.

When Renoir arrives in Lumiere, the formerly white and red tree in the town square turns red.

Alicia has golden petals:

So far, so good!

[cleapleasestop]

pondering the color of chroma

does each painter have their own color of chroma petals? if so, can this help us come up with any wild theories?

We'll start with Aline:

Aline's petals are white. Painting over Alicia.

Healing painted Renoir or posing menacingly.

This also applies to her finest work, painted Verso. Who "bleeds" white petals.

Then we have Renoir and his red petals.

When Renoir arrives in Lumiere, the formerly white and red tree in the town square turns red.

Alicia has golden petals:

So far, so good!

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she's withdrawing from her family. she tells Alicia she's leaving. even when we see her for the last time in one ending, they make a point of showing her walking away...

but what will be the consequences of that?

god i'm thinkiing about clea 24/7. load-bearing absence

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I love Verso's dogshit hut so much. It's so bad. It's so good. How does the roof even work?? He has a chair out front, as if he has a porch to sit on or neighbors to yell at. There's a ridiculously massive pile of firewood parked next to the hut. How many days do you think he spent chopping wood for lack of anything better to do? He only has like, 17 books. How many times can you read the same 17 books? He has an entire windmill, and for what? He cooks with a pot over a fire and some bellows. He has an odd number of boots.

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The Mask Keeper is Renoir's Counterpart for Visage *Spoilers ahead!*

To start, each Axon that Renoir has painted of his family members has, seemingly, had a metaphorical counterpart to himself and how he views himself in relation to that family member: with the Reacher he's the green orphelin, always trying to construct ways for Alicia to fly, with Sirene, he's the Tisseur, a being entranced and always in service to her, spinning her dress so that she can continue to dance and mesmerize. We don't know if he had a counterpart with the Hauler as likely Simon killed him dead just as hard as Clea's Axon. But with Visages, it's a little less clear, as the Expedition comes to the conclusion that the real axon is the Mask Keeper following the defeat of Visages, but I raise you this instead:

-The Mask Keeper isn't the Axon of Verso, he's Renoir's counterpart-

To begin, I'd like to talk about what an Axon seems to represent, because the decision to call them 'Axons' in the first place is very interesting. An Axon mainly refers to the structure found in Neurons, nerve cells, which connects the main cell body to the terminal synapses which interact with other neurons, it looks like this:

But, what does this structure have to do with the Axons found in the game? It could be because, like the axon of a nerve cell, it connects Renoir's view of his family members into the canvas. Clea quite brutally severs that connection into the canvas by directly killing her own Axon via Simon, and it's implied that she doesn't directly ever return to the canvas afterwards, that connection between the painted and real world has been cut, for her. Another interesting factoid- the origin of Axon comes from the Greek word axōn meaning axis, in reference to the midline of the body upon which it turns, the line upon which one would flip an image to mirror it.

"But we get the chroma needed for the barrier breaker by defeating the Mask Keeper, not Visages" you might ask, but I think that Visage isn't as powerful because, similar to Clea's Axon, the connection is one-sided, Real Verso is dead so this mirror has no subject and thus no substance. There are a couple reasons why I think the Mask Keeper isn't the "real" representation of Verso, but I think narratively it is the 'axon'. I'll start with this reason:

Mask Keeper's Demeanor and Dialogue

This is the first thing that gave me pause, because something he says during the fight is something I wouldn't associate with a representation of Verso, this line in particular->

The fact that he calls the expedition "Child" seemed very strange to me, something that I wouldn't associate with anything representing Verso, no matter who painted it, because it's so... paternal, but also old? Then I looked through some more dialogue he says during the fight and this jumped out ->

Because this is almost word-for-word what the second unknown Journal entry says, which is implied to be Renoir speaking to Verso

Mask Keeper also only comes out after Visages is defeated, almost as vengeance for him. Which, we know that Clea wants to free Renoir from the canvas in order to wage war together against the writers, in recompense for Verso's death, implying that, were he not preoccupied in the canvas he would be seeking revenge along with Clea. Aline did also paint him as very protective after all, how much of that was true to life?

We meet Mask Keeper almost immediately after the first flag on Visage island. He invites us in to meet Visages in his "chambers", on behalf of Visages, almost like a loyal retainer or butler. This behavior is similar to the other depictions of Renoir with the other axons, that he is in service to his family, that he lives to help and "serve" them, in particular maybe this depiction is how he felt in Verso's life, leading opportunity to him, inviting offers and fielding discussions, trying to lead him to maybe take up a more active role in painting, rather than music. Speaking of, my next point for why the Mask Keeper is Renoir's counterpart is that Visages is unequivocally representative of Verso, like there is no doubt about that, which only gives the option that, according to the pattern, Renoir's counterpart is Mask Keeper because he's the only other named boss enemy.

Visages Design and Behavior

Visages design is very interesting because, mainly, I think Renoir managed to depict him (Verso) quite accurately. One mechanic of the fight that I didn't get to see, because I killed him too fast I guess, is that if Visages attacks with all his available masks, he just straight up dies, you don't even have to get his health bar all the way down, he just falls over. It's very funny, and also like, very poignant, like geez.

Like he just gives up. But this is also interesting because it gives us a good look at his model, and it's weird. Mainly because, despite being the "stronger" axon according to Verso, Visages looks worn and damaged while Sirene the "weaker" axon looks pristine. Parts of Visages seem to be crumbling and breaking apart, especially around the end of his body there. His middle mask is crumbling and has holes and cracks everywhere ->

Considering how pristine all the other axons and Renoir's counterparts are, I don't think this is deliberate on his part. I think Visages is crumbling because it's a mirror without a subject, with Verso dead, there isn't any real subject for it to be about except for Renoir's own memories and of Verso, which might be fading or untrue. Its subject is an unreliable source and unlike the other axons, it doesn't have the opinions of its real counterpart to solidify it, no matter if that representation is accurate or not having that animosity makes an artwork more real. It's this inaccuracy, with its crumbling facade, that makes the Mask Keeper the more accurate depiction, and thus the actual "axon", with the concentration of Chroma to prove it.

Another point as to Visages being Verso's representation is that Visages is summoned in Renoir's final boss fight, not the Mask Keeper. Renoir paints all his family members as larger than life, because that's how highly he thinks of them, it's quite sweet, and it's why they are all so dang tall. Visages fits with the rest of the axons a lot more than the Mask Keeper does from a design perspective for sure.

Well that's all I got. I heard that initial dialogue from Mask Keeper and just thought, "Wait a minute..." and everything spiraled from there. Hope this makes sense to you guys? I'd love to hear some more thoughts if anyone has any, because the axons are really interesting to me!

[cleapleasestop]

I have various scattered thoughts about Painted Renoir and Painted Alicia's relationship shown in their scenes so am going to attempt to consolidate and dump them here along with screen shots I enjoy.

I do think they have a great relationship but it isn't perfect. Case in point the first time they show up together makes me laugh because of how off the mark Painted Renior seems when going to talk for her.

She's urgently pointing at her double and he's like "Yes I know Alicia, you are saying it's all her fault. I understand and am interpreting perfectly for you." turns to Maelle "We both hate you and think you make everything worse. You and your friends, fuck off and get out of here!" (and he growls while talking to her XD)

And Painted Alicia is just facepalming in the background. While I do find it funny, I can also see how this might hurt Painted Alicia's feelings because she see's herself in Maelle and her papa saying that 'it's all her fault' probably sucked. But I don't think Painted Renior would've meant it towards her since he has such a different view of his mirror self. (still not good to not notice/think of it, but not malicious on his part) He seems to see an extremely clear split between his painted family and the real family. Heck Painted Renior in the face of certain death at Real Renior's hands stands proud and taunts that Aline loves him not Real Renior anymore. Like, Painted Renior would high five and agree with anyone who wanted to shit on Real Renior and would not take it personally. He seems to consider himself 'Renior 2.0 the one Aline likes more' not a close mirror image of Real Renior. I think he does latter redeem himself because despite spending the first black and white sequence talking about how Alicia shouldn't be there, two nights latter, he's quietly escorting her to go where she wants to because he will cave for his daughter immediately.

And then Painted Alicia face plants into her papa for hugs since she made herself sad with existential dread and he is quick to comfort her.

I'm also really glad in the scene where Verso, Alicia, and Renior hang out at the cliff he does not react in any negative way seeing her mask off! He's chill with his daughter looking however makes her comfortable.

(She is the perfect height for her brother and father to make dramatic eye contact over her head) He just wants good things for her.

And I legit teared up when I saw that when her letter is getting read she is sitting down where Painted Renior was killed. They assumed Real Renior was just going to Nuke the painting when he got out and she chose to sit where here papa died to wait for death. (... until she didn't die with the giant gomage, got bored, and went to go paint by the Reacher. but still!)

Side tangent I really hope Painted Alicia got some fun gadgets from Renior's Orphelin over the years! She would be his best and favorite customer.

And then of course their last lines!

Both talking about their family in general but to feel that strongly about it when they were likely the two that spent the most time together is sweet. I really hope they had some happy days playing house with face caved in Aline during their 67 years.