heheheheslime

[heheheheslime]

The bromance is strong here

Have you seen how weak you are now? I'd beat you blindfolded.

[heheheheslime]

Other Places: Rapture, from Bioshock.

[heheheheslime]

Gustave & Verso sketches to help me get back to drawing. Finished the game two weeks ago and i miss those characters very much...

I'll try to paint the rest of the crew soon, that'll help !

[heheheheslime]

J'EMMERDE LA MISSION

Gustave one (1) second after setting his foot on land outside Lumiere with his hopes and dreams

[heheheheslime]

ONE CHANCE JUST ONE-

GUSTAVE Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025) dev. Sandfall Interactive

[heheheheslime]

[heheheheslime]

touch-up

clea is such a mood. the quest for perfection in art is so real, and so very frustrating.

reference from adorka stock 🩷

[heheheheslime]

The cutscene after the Dualiste just slaps so so good

That one boss with that one cutscene... yeah that was hot..

[heheheheslime]

VERSO Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025) dev. Sandfall Interactive

[heheheheslime]

LIGHT-HOLDER.

[heheheheslime]

I'm crying 😭

Different between Verso and Gustave

[heheheheslime]

I just think he's neat :)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | GUSTAVE

[heheheheslime]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

everything is happy and wonderful and nothing bad happens ever :)

[heheheheslime]

HUGE endgame spoilers for Expedition 33 below. Do not read if you haven’t completed the game.

The most heart wrenching thing about Clair Obscur’s ending is that no matter what you pick, the whole scenario is set up so that someone gets screwed over. Maelle and Verso’s respective traumas have shaped them in such a way that their ideals are completely at an impasse. To side with one is to rob the other of agency, even if it may well be doing what is best for them.

If you pick Verso, he is finally freed from the shackles of his immortality. Remember not only was this entire Canvas made specifically for him, he isn’t even truly Verso. And he’s been trapped in that existential nightmare for too long. Bound to memories that he knows aren’t his. And we finally let him claim agency over his mortality and let him go out on his own terms. But at what cost?

The Dessendres, as an outlet for their grief, made an entire world of living, thinking people, and consigned them to a ticking clock apocalypse because they got caught up in their creators’ family drama. And you’ve spent dozens of hours in this world connecting with it, coming to love these characters and fighting to give them a future. And just when it seems they finally have one, Verso takes it away. To take Verso’s side is to agree with Renoir, that this painted world isn’t real and doesn’t matter.

I love that the game makes you linger on every member of your party as they Gommage. Monoco and Esquie have known Verso longest and they saw this coming. They simply hug him and fade away without complaint. Sciel, despite how hard she fought to save this world has had enough experience with death to understand why Verso did what he did, and wordlessly empathises with him. But Lune? She just sits there. Coldly. She doesn’t offer sympathy. She doesn't offer forgiveness. Because Verso lied to her. Again. Despite getting attached, he stabbed everyone he’s come to bond with in the back (and those were relationships you developed and fostered as a gameplay mechanic).

And what about Maelle? Yes, rationally, this is the correct choice. Leaving the canvas gives her a shot at healing. And at Verso’s funeral we can see glimpses that maybe the fractured family has a chance to reconcile. But we have to rob Maelle of all agency. To force her back into a world of pain, consign her to a life altering disability. Maelle treasures her family as both Alicia and Maelle equally. But she is ultimately giving up a family either way. Her birth family or her painted one. But she didn’t even get the luxury of choice, after we just fought so hard to give her the agency her father denied her. So we basically sacrificed the very world we fought to save, just for the slim chance that Maelle might get therapy.

So does that make the Maelle ending better? Unfortunately no, because Christ this is a horror story (and the one I got on my playthrough). On the one hand, it seems like the one where everyone got what they wanted. Gustave, Sophie and all those who Gommaged are restored. All these people whose chances at life were stolen from them by the machinations of the Dessendres get a chance at life. And Maelle has clearly given Verso the ability to age, so he will one day die as he wishes, but can live a full life until that happens.

And yet, we come back to that point. The Dessendres are basically gods to the Canvas. That fact can never be put back in the box. Maelle’s relationship with her loved ones will never be the same. However much she loves them, however benevolent her intentions, they’re always going to puppets playing out their existence to make her happy. Letting Verso age might be a kindness in the same way sending Maelle back to her family was, but in the same way, it strips him of any agency. He’s literally performing for her on a stage. Symbolic of how that power dynamic of Painter and Painted will forever linger over them. She will never truly have her brother back.

Furthermore, that (absolutely terrifying) smash cut to Maelle with painted eyes like the Paintress shows the true horror of this. If choosing Verso meant validating Renoir, then choosing Maelle calls Aline to mind. Maelle, like Aline, is left drowning herself in a dream, chasing catharsis in a world she controls. It’s a gentle rule, but a rule nonetheless. She will always be a god, and her found family will always be her creations, and that may well drive her to lose herself as it did her mother.

Verso’s ending was a cruel vivisection, one where the treatment was arguably more extreme than the result. Cutting everything away chasing an uncertain future. Maelle’s ending preserves life, but offers only stagnation. Even after defeating both Aline, and Renoir, both Maelle and Verso were ultimately shaped by their parents, and repeat their perspectives. Even at this final choice one that is theoretically theirs without their parents’ influences, they can’t shake off their legacy of grief and pain. As such, there is no golden ending for these two traumatised souls. It’s too late for that. There is only cruel necessity or gentle delusion.

Both endings come with their share of disturbing implications, and both can make sense to a player at the time. A player might agree with one of the two in the moment but be horrified at the consequences. Like Verso said ‘we’re all hypocrites’ none of these choices are pleasant. The Dessendres’ grief, and the lives they toyed with as a result, will have consequences one way or another.

Ultimately, I would pick Verso’s ending as the lesser evil, if only because it offers some kind of hope that SOMETHING good may come with this. Maybe the family really can move on. Maybe tomorrow will finally come, as the game’s been constantly saying. But you as the player, are still gonna have to carry the weight of Lune’s cold, judgemental stare. Remember how much you threw for even the slimmest chance at another outcome. Is that arguably better than leaving Maelle to a prison of her own making, to nothing but stagnation? Maybe, but that doesn’t make the alternative any less pleasant…

Verso’s ending left me at least hoping that something good may come from it, while wondering if it was worth the cost. Maelle’s ending left me hollow, realising that nothing good could come from this.

Clair Obscur’s ending is definitely hitting notes I’ve seen in other stories and even other RPGs. The need to accept suffering as an inevitable part of life and not hide away from it in fantasy. The fact that the first step to moving on from grief is acceptance. The way parents shape their children and how crucial it is to let them make their own decisions. How easy it is to cling to control after grappling with loss. But the way it leverages the player’s attachment to the world and people of the canvas makes for one of the most thoughtful examples of that narrative. Even if the people of the canvas aren’t ‘real’ they’re still people with hopes and dreams and rich inner lives. And the fact that their only options are oblivion or to forcibly play house with their well meaning but misguided teenage god is a horrible prospect.

Clair Obscur is about grief. It’s about its cyclical nature. About how if we don’t learn to move on from it, it will ripple onwards to our children. But it’s also about how grief causes us to affect the world around us. The horrific cruelty of the canvas’ fate (Verso included) reminds us how we can end up treating others when we’re blinded by our own inner demons.

It’s a brilliantly done conflict to wrap up a brilliantly made game. And one that will likely go down as one of my favourites.

[heheheheslime]

Argh..... Women....

CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33 • [ 7/? ]

[heheheheslime]

The look... The pinky....Sciel's smirk..... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I kinda hoped... Time to use the power of IMAGINATION

the sun and moon ✨

[heheheheslime]

I have hands. They serve to love pet Gustave, hug Gustave, love Gustave and forfeit all mortal possessions to Gustave. NEED I SAY MORE??

Also your art is sooo pretty! He looks so cool in this style!

Because I'm an artist and I love the Hades artstyle