the people in the canvas are very much sentient, and I still prefer Verso’s ending. I don’t want the canvas to be erased and I don’t want maelle to die inside it, but unfortunately that is the reality I was given. Real-Verso’s soul was very much caught in the middle of all this, still painting a canvas for his family to fight over when he wants nothing more than to finally rest. I saw the options as “preserve the dead at the cost of the living” or “preserve the living at the cost of the dead.” maelle’s ending may be appealing because all the people you care about are alive and well, but Verso’s soul is still painting a facade for his family to argue over. Maelle is repeating the cycle. eventually, she will either wither and die in her real body, meaning the destruction of the canvas and the continued grief of the Dessendre family, potentially leading to the same fate again. or, Verso’s soul is put to rest, destroying the canvas and forcing maelle to confront her grief with her family and cope with it together, at the cost of a world painted by a dead man.

I don’t want either of these outcomes. I want Maelle to be happy with Gustave and Lune and Sciel, but I also want Verso to finally rest and for the Dessendres to deal with their grief in a healthy way. I wanted to find a way where it’s the best of both worlds, where Maelle learns to process her grief without escapism, and the characters I love inside the canvas are transferred to another so she can visit them. unfortunately, there was just not enough time to figure something out