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learning to draw my new chew toy

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YOU don’t have to be perfect to be loved. but I do

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Verso, made using Procreate on the iPad 🎨

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Painted Verso didn't make the canvas yet the canvas loves him. It was made for him. The Gestrals love him and Esquie loves him. Verso may not have a super power to stop time or summon a lion, but he can backpack around the continent for decades and make allies wherever he goes. Maybe the continent is just a little bit gentler to him. His encanto, in a way. Underneath all the Nevrons and gommage petals and Painter massacres is a world singing We love you, we love you, you can be Verso with us.

His family lives closed away in a manor or up on the Reacher, but he lives in a hut with the magical creatures. Humans children Expeditioners come to his Never Never Land and steal his breath and then melt away like snowflakes, but he stays the same. He's Peter Pan but not. Grown yet never aging.

Or he's Christopher Robin--forever wandering the Seven Acre Woods, talking to the same animal friends for a century and nothing changes but everything gets worse.

What do you do when the world was made for someone almost exactly like you, but not you? The world wraps its arms around you, accepting you anyway, but you're not a child. You're a grownup and this world is too small somehow but also too painful. It's dying when you are not. But you can't think about that because you're worried about adult things like family and duty and sacrifice and secrets.

I find it beautiful that Verso was created to fill an emotional gulf for Aline, but he was such a true mirror to "Verso" that he ends up filling that emotional gulf for the painting.

Verso may not realize it (or even care) but he falls backwards into being a true representation of the art and artist. In the end he is so real that Verso Dessendre's only piece of soul art holds out its hand to him.

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"I'm sorry." Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (2025)

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I love the difference between how Gustave and Verso talk about Nevrons.

Gustave is so cautious, never trusting even the docile ones. Immediately wants to put them down and move on, not letting his natural inquisitiveness get in the way of ensuring his team’s safety.

Then you switch to Verso and he’s like “That’s Chad, he’s a bit of a bitch. Nasty right hook, resells Labubus on Mercari. One time he ate me and when I respawned I challenged him to a trial by combat and he ate me again. We should probably go the back way.”

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L'amour d'un frère.

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tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow... (may all of the dark lost inside you find light again)

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Little piece of Verso from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

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~

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Verso my beloved

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What is tragic with Verso (not the painted one) is that. he's haunting the story through and through. His ghost is present everywhere. He is everywhere. The story revolves around him and what he left behind. The lingering fragments of his soul his family refuses to let die and join him to the grave, so much that they end up bastardizing it. Painted Verso isn't Verso but how Aline perceives her son in her mind. He Who Guards Truth With Lies/the Mask Keeper isn't Verso but how Renoir perceives his son in his mind. The Young Boy isn't quite Verso either. He's what is left of him, but mostly what he was as a kid when the painting was first painted. The Verso who died wasn't a child, he had lived more, he had changed. Sure, he still loved his dogs and his plushy and his trains but he was far more than that, and he was also someone who escaped being understood and known, who could be genuine and sincere but who still put on a lot of masks and appearances. I don't think he was unknown but he sure is for the players. You can only get to know Verso through others or through the little that remains of him from - mainly - when he was a child. The only clear scene and knowledge we have of him is from just before he was taken by the fire - he's trying to comfort his little sister as fire surrounds them, most likely ('you're okay' sounds clearly like a lie in this situation too) - the only knowledge we have of him is that he's dead (he died and his likely last words were a lie - a comforting lie, but one nonetheless.). He died protecting his sister. It's his only line. The Young Boy is both Verso when he was young and that version that has to deal with the consequences that his own(ish) death brought. A fragment whose memory is fading and that has to suffer his family's grief. He wants to have fun and laugh and be with his sister. He doesn't remember her name. He falls silent each time. His cinematic has him only paint, unable to talk. What's left of Verso wants to be at peace, to be at rest finally. The only thing we know of Verso is that he's dead and unknowable. He was a musician. I'm going to scream.

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it's so hard to talk about verso to people who haven't played clair obscur. like, yes, he's my special little guy. yes, he's one of the most interesting and nuanced characters I've come across in many many many many years. yes, i'm fully obsessed with him. yes, he makes me feel the shrimp emotions. no, i don't want him to live a long healthy happy life. in fact, i want him dead <3

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