totally normal about expedition 33

lumière s'éteint (light dies)

[prints]

"Dans chaque éclat, son doux rire

Dans chaque couleur, son sourire"

Une vie à t'aimer.

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.

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Read on AO3

Words: 3.8k

Rating: T

Spoilers: Full game, Epilogue: A Life to Love

Ultimate cake eater of the universe.

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

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)