NG+ is wild if only because things are way easier to piece together

Until they're not.

Last time, I fought Alicia and then fought Clea. This time I'm doing it in reverse

There's a contradiction here and it's so damned subtle I would have missed it if I wasn't staring so intently lol

Either it's a contradiction or Maelle is lying

I don't think.... she's lying..................

But she does blatantly lie to Renoir so who knows.

Anyway, the contradiction

After you fight Alicia and Maelle allows time to resume she tells Alicia she wants to give her a new beginning and reaches for her face

Alicia instead tells her No, thanks. I'd prefer death and so Maelle gommages her instead

But I am ASSUMING Maelle intended to repaint Alicia's face to match her own

Why else would she say that and reach for her face?

So here's why I am getting huffy about it

When they face Clea, Verso asks Maelle to repaint Clea to help her

And Maelle says she can't because she's not "strong" enough and only Clea can repaint people

And yet she offers Alicia a new beginning, probably to repaint her face and scars away.

Unless it's a different kind of repaint?

So is she lying to Verso about helping Clea or is the repainting needed for Clea out of her range but the repainting for Alicia is easier to do?

It's 3:30am and I should not be allowed to thinky thoughts. It's dangerous here

it's possible it's about willingness and the subject

could Maelle repaint Alicia? possibly, yeah, because they are reflections of each other

could she repaint Clea, who is clearly the strongest painter besides Aline, especially when real!Clea has gone through so much effort to utterly fuck her painted!Clea self up?

no, probs not

Yeah, I think that makes sense

I was thinking that maybe it's also just the scale of repainting needed?

But also just. It's Clea. She might not even want to try

y e a h

it's like "hey you wanna repaint your older sister's thing?"

no the fuck I do not

and scale, def. painted!Alicia and Maelle at least recognized each other and got along, and understood each other

it's another thing entirely to try to paint someone you don't understand

Yeah, very true. I think Clea might be seriously out of Maelle's depth of understanding as far as "essence" goes

But also, repainting over a repaint... maybe that's a whole other challenge? Like if you think of it as a layer of added paint that Clea put on

Then getting rid of that layer might be really dangerous

that's true

bc Clea has repainted and fucked her other self quite a bit....and she didn't even make her first

that's like 3 layers of shenanigans

Yesss...

I had another thinky thought about chroma colors

But I probably need a third playthrough to actually piece more of it together

I just don't understand why Gustave's chroma is white in Verso's ending

It should be red like everyone else, unless it's because he died from Renoir on the continent??

THE MYSTERIES harrumph