📍naboo-616

Her sculptures.

hi! i made another clea, this time concept art clea, because @sinisterbells had this really cool idea for a reference and i just had to draw it!!!

i tried out new ibispaint watercolor brushes and i think it turned out pretty cute!

original references under the cut ↓

what do u mean they only had two cutscenes together :(

Aline Dessendre: I painted Paris and humans as a facsimile of real life

Clea:

New pics after the Painted Synphonie in Strasbourg

Photographer: Midnight.photografie (on Instagram)

We were a whole group of cosplayer at the strasbourg concert of exp33. On the next day we went to Colmar and found this beautiful spot and I need to show you how pretty these turned out!!!

I've seen a lot of discussions about Painted Alicia's letter and the idea of a third ending connected to 'A Life to Dream', which is supposedly the real 'good' ending. Verso, mostly, is blamed for not choosing to give the letter to Maelle, and thus robbing us the players of having a third choice. But while Verso is certainly to blame for a lot of things, putting all the blame on his shoulders ironically takes away the agency of Painted Alicia herself.

Alica, in all her incarnations, struggles with (learned) helplessness. Alicia outside the Canvas is shown to be timid and nervous, a character trait she had even before the fire. Alicia doesn't go into the Canvas until Clea tells her to. But we also see it in Maelle, especially before Gustave's death. She decides to go on the Expedition, yes, but she never really aspires to a specific goal, whether in service of others, or for herself. And Renoir's version of her, the Reacher, is his attempt to tell her to aim for the sky instead of staying forever on the ground.

Similarly, Painted Alicia also never actually makes a choice for herself, and doesn't really pick a side. When we see her at the manor, she seems to stop Verso from entering, which suggest that she doesn't agree with what he is doing. But when she visits later at the camp and gives him the letter, she does very little to actually persuade him one way or the other. In fact, in her letter she says that is she ready and has made peace with what is to come, resigning herself to her fate.

In that moment her flaw is the most prominent. Because if she truly wanted her family to live, she could and should have acted. She could have stood by p!Renoir's side at the base of the Monolith. She could have stood by Aline's side on top of the Monolith.

Most importantly, she could have given the letter directly to Maelle. But instead, she gives the letter to Verso, putting the burden of choice on his shoulders. She hides away at the Reacher, next to the Axon that will always be aiming for the sky, but never actually doing so herself.

It could be said that this is flaw of the writing - while Painted Alicia is certainly one of the most visually striking characters, she is among the least fleshed out in terms of personality and impact on the story. Her role is to be mysterious, to both characters and players, be a mirror to Maelle, and then die if you do a sidequest. I wonder if she was supposed to play a bigger role, like Clea was, but it was cut due to time and production restraints.

But if we just consider what is present in the narrative, and how each character reacts to grief and loss, Painted Alicia represents the choice of no choice. Where p!Renoir fights desperately to protect Aline and Verso fights to stop her, Painted Alicia is just there. Hovering at the edge of the story but never fully claiming her place. She dreams of a third ending, and tells Maelle "Perhaps you’ll find another way." She dreams of a third ending, and tells Verso "Whether you give it to her is up to you."

But in order to reach your dreams, you have to actively make choices, and not rely on others to do it for you. Painted Alicia's inability to act, her inability to take a side, contributes as much to the final decision as Verso's and Maelle's choices do. That is the tragedy.

WHITSANTOS ROOMATES SAVEEE MEEEEEE

Was i going to have a photo of either parent on each side of Verso? Yes. Did I get get lazy? Yes.

Anyway. It just amuses me that they got two clones and one mix. Like you can SEE aspects of both parents in all the kids (Alicia has Renoir's broader jawline; Clea has her mother's smirk). But Clea is mostly Fem!Renoir, and Alicia is just Aline 2.0.

Verso has a lot of Renoir's coloring, but his features are much more angular and...pretty. Not quite the correct word, but you catch my drift. His nose, cheeks, and especially his jawline are mostly his maman.

Narratively, you have a major character death followed directly by the introduction of a new character that joins the party. Everyone's already devastated enough by the loss of the first character and the circumstances of that loss that they either instinctively don't trust Verso or are flat out too torn apart to give a true shit about him beyond what he can help them accomplish in the short term.

Game-wise, you have a player who has already invested hours in one character, who is presented more or less as the main/player character for the first act of the story. Not only does the cutscene whallop you in the usual ways (the music, the acting, all 10/10), it also compounds the emotionality by immediately replacing that character with another, similar-but-not-quite-right character that a lot of players also instinctively don't like or trust.

"You're telling me you're killing my loveable character and immediately swapping him out for another one that inherits a very similar play style, role in the party, who uses the same weapons? One who even looks a bit like the old one? You expect me to be okay with the bait and switch and continue on as normal?

No way! Fuck this guy! This imposter!"

Imposter. That's the word that keeps coming up over and over when I see clips of people playing the transition between finishing act I and starting act II. "You're not Gustave. You could never be him. How dare you stand where he stood. Fuck you."

I said these words aloud! To myself! Through my tears and my grief, just like so many other players did. And you know what I realized after the reveal at the end of act II?

The writers made the player feel how painted Verso feels about himself. That he's an imposter. A fraud. Not fit to take the place of the one that died: not Gustave, not the real Verso. Only worth as much as his utility: to the party, who wants revenge and the end of the gommage; to the player, who wants to beat the game; to Aline, who wants to stem the bleeding wound of her grief by any means necessary.