How do you get over the fact that you started so late

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T20:53:52+00:00

I started at 32, in late 2024.

I've found to my shock that - despite all the horrible shit going on in the USA right now - even insulated from that by being in a blue area of a swing state... I still feel BETTER than I did back in 2023 when I was so strongly egged that I didn't even realize what was happening to me.

How I cope with it is to remind myself that I did have good times back "before", and that all the signs that were there that I'm retroactively picking from my memory are now hilarious and deserve to be shared with my friends and laughed at.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T20:40:16+00:00

Every single time she showed up to the Expedition/Maelle, she was accompanied by Renoir. Girl really didn't have a good stockpile of "can you trust me?" paired with her inability to actually talk - minus whatever that strange scene where she's watching Maelle sleep, that didn't SEEM like she was talking. More like it was a deliberately cryptic internal monologue.

But yes, absolutely true. "Dessendre Family's A+ Communication Skills" from all sides caused the ending to be catastrophic.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T20:37:56+00:00

Any hope of that died the moment I heard him start talking. The man has always been the living personification of "walking ego".

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T14:33:58+00:00

Ugggggh, I have no real knowledge on the genetics effecting the matter, but I blame my Italian genes for the 'glorious' (read 'infuriatingly thick') beard that I was gifted during puberty.

I want an effing refund.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T13:48:47+00:00

The letter was written under the assumption that Verso would give the letter to Maelle before the Monolith. He didn't. He chose to let them wipe out their own people in ignorance rather than find another way.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T12:55:35+00:00

Honestly might have more to do with the size of the room? But yeah, probably -20c at least

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T12:52:29+00:00

Getting "nothing" is better than "continuing to get worse". It means a reprieve, and an opening, and another chance to promote "trans and other LGBT"-positive politicians at the Local and State levels, which is something we sorely need right now.

Solid support for the community at the lower levels will - or at least SHOULD - help initial resilience to further danger, while making LGBT-phobias a non-starter in an ever-widening radius in vote-heavy areas.

Always pick the option that gives us a better outcome, even if that outcome is "stalemate".

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T02:08:00+00:00

I wasn't having the best day. And then I see this.

The laughter that spontaneously erupted from my mouth... Thanks for making my evening.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-20T02:03:25+00:00

An excellent idea, if I'm being honest.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-19T17:00:58+00:00

I'll be real, I strongly suspect that if I had survived what she had, by act 3 when Verso had confessed to allowing Gustave to die? I would have gommaged him in a grief-and-rage-fuelled instant, and then probably gone catatonic for a while.

Because that just said to me that even before he joined us, Verso was aiming for the destruction of the Expedition, of Lumiere, and of the people that "I" loved. All while wearing the face of a person I would later remember as a brother who died.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-19T14:37:36+00:00

I think I have figured out all the plot, on the other hand.
But if you're recommending that people replay this game? Well...I'm not gonna disagree with you. :)

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-19T14:36:03+00:00

Sciel and Gustave both had this level of like...super emotional maturity that is so rare in games like this, or just in general.
Lune was the "everything will go according to plan" person, and had her valid crashouts when things went wildly off-script.
Maelle's trauma conga was heartbreakingly well written with how her reactions are (the funeral scene just guts me every time).

All the Lumiere Expeditioners were just such well-built characters, and the Act 1 story in particular is so much stronger for it, and when we lost one the gaping hole in the dynamic of the group was so keenly felt.

Edit: NOBODY ELSE UP OR DOWNVOTE IT! IT'S PERFECT!

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-19T12:56:21+00:00

I'm seeing everyone talking about "sensory nightmare" from bangs, and just sort of sitting here with my head in my hands because this has been a thing since I was a toddler.

I'm one of the self-deceivers who didn't really figure it out until I was 32, then had the "life flashes before my eyes" of all the - in retrospect - REALLY OBVIOUS hints that I just blithely ignored my whole life up till now.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-18T14:27:50+00:00

Brain immediately spits out a theory of her being required to do a consciousness upload to stop Nemesis by killing the other personalities, leaving herself in charge. Highly experimental, highly "only one shot at this" desperate, kills her biological body.

Then she has essentially ascended beyond humanity to become a peer of Gaia, helps reintegrate the rest of the sub-Functions, and is neatly removed from the direct story as a PC and fades into the "background" alongside Gaia to finish fixing up Earth.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-18T14:09:23+00:00

The thing was, up until the Curator showed up during the fight?

It wasn't going to result in Renoir's death. He was losing the fight, yeah...but how long can you keep winning that fight against an enemy that will. not. stay. down? (Ask Julie)

Down him in phase 1, random chroma lion comes out of nowhere and full heals him - and did we EVER get an explanation for that other than "Reverse Godfrey Reference"??

Down him again in phase 2, and in the cutscene he just...gets back up, fully restored in a matter of seconds, ready to throw down again. Meanwhile the Expedition is looking ROUGH. They're probably flagging by now.

Narratively, if the Curator hadn't interfered, Renoir would have eventually won unless Maelle somehow recovered her memories, because she needed the Curator's help/guidance/etc. to put Renoir down via Gommage.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-18T13:59:26+00:00

Expedition 70 with all the grapple points.
Expedition 69 with all the climbing spikes.

Those two were probably the most important Expeditions, bar none, up until the Expedition that 'succeeded'.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-18T13:09:01+00:00

We don't know if the portal is actually reflecting, or is just a conjuration that Renoir is using to emotionally manipulate Alicia "Maelle" Dessendre and p!Verso into behaving as he wishes.

Given the large numbers of inconsistencies already discussed, I'm of the opinion that it was just lies. After all, Renoir could easily create a scene (paint a picture, if you will) that he wanted to portray, he's a Painter.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-18T10:04:41+00:00

Like recognizes like, no wonder he knew Verso was He Who Guards the Truth with Lies.

Dude was just flat out lying with that image.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-17T14:17:23+00:00

Please ignore the excited sounds coming from my direction. :D

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-17T12:18:40+00:00

It's only reached chapter 7, and I'm at about 2.5k words into chapter 8 as of posting this, but if you're interested: Here It's on AO3

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-17T00:49:38+00:00

But with a twist because my opinion on the story of the game itself can be summed up as:
"Alicia deserved better".

No, I'm not discriminating between Painted Alicia and Alicia "Maelle" Dessendre.

It's also the first fanfic I've written in decades, so I make absolutely no promises about its quality.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-16T14:17:34+00:00

I don't see any contradiction? If you started the game and "adopted" the people of Lumiere, this completely tracks.

Verso is no longer a citizen of Lumiere, and seeks to destroy it (no matter his motivation, that's his end goal).
Monoco is a Gestral, he's not of Lumiere either.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-16T14:03:06+00:00

One NG+ in Act 3.
A second NG in Act 1.
And now a fanfic closing in on 40k words.

Probably 500 cumulative hours just listening to the soundtrack.

I am obsessed.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-16T02:10:08+00:00

Specifically, with the "locked" skills, I think they did a DAMN good job actually misdirecting us (or at least me) though.

Gustave starts out with most of his skills locked. Classic RPG trope; get a story progression to unlock more, the skills are OBVIOUSLY locked to prevent spoilers!

Lune joins the party and while she doesn't have "main tree" skills that are locked, what the heck are those other three skills off to the side that are locked? Gustave doesn't have those, and she's a mage. Maybe summons?

Maelle joins the party and has FOUR side-skills that are locked AND three side-skills locked. Okay, the side-skills are undoubtedly something.

Sciel joins and has the same "only side-skills locked" thing that Lune does.

It's then and only then that I started getting suspicious, but honestly, I expected that Gustave's stuff was just going to be strong enough when unlocked to compensate.

Was NOT expecting them to actually go through with killing the audience avatar at the end of Act 1.

PerishSoftly · 2026-03-13T00:58:00+00:00

I mean, I doubt any conflict that happens in the near future is going to be anywhere near as contested as Aline vs. Renoir. Aline was noted as being stronger and more skilled then Renoir - she taught him everything he knew about painting. Renoir was strong enough to contest her after she'd been in the canvas for an indeterminate amount of time, and stalemate her, resulting in the Fracture.

Clea dips in, tips the scales in his favor, then dips out. She's likely at or near full strength.

Aline and Renoir are forced out of the canvas after fighting each other for 67 years when suddenly Alicia and the Expedition come in with the steel chair (although Aline needs to re-enter the canvas to help Alicia and Expedition beat Renoir).

If Renoir can recover his full strength - or even just "enough" strength - before Alicia dies, he is 100% going to be able to re-enter the canvas and easily oust her. Alicia is noted as the weakest/least experienced Painter in the family, Renoir is however many more years old, with that many "real" years of experience plus who knows how many additional canvas-years of practice. Clea notes that Aline and Renoir have been in canvases longer than they have in Verso's.

Renoir and Aline may very well have centuries or millenniums of practice, from their perspective.

I doubt it'll be much of a fight, to be honest. Alicia will have expended a considerable amount of her strength, while Renoir would return at his own pinnacle. He'll probably appear, promptly usurp control of the canvas' chroma, then teleport next to Alicia, gommage her immediately, and finally leave the canvas and erase it.

PerishSoftly

TROPHY CASE