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New piercing day! (My nostril)
I love it đĽş
#piercing#me#new piercing#new piercing day#nostril piercing#alt girls#<- do i count enough for that tag?#selfie
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you know the excellent quadruple life fan comic has me thinking about double life again. and MAN. thinking about the soul bonds mechanically. like, before I get into my meta-analysis itâs worth noting that non-diagetically the soulbond mechanic being based on how many hearts someone has is basically the only way I can think to do it in minecraft thatâs sensible, but diageticallyâŚ
so do you ever think about how the marker of what made people soulmates in double life was pain?
like, soulmates share injuries/pain! thatâs the whole premise! like, to the point that day one people were making up elaborate ways to hurt themselves so they could test for their soulmates! you met your (very romantic-coded) partner and confirmed they were the person you were looking for by hitting each other, generally!
being a soulmate in the double life universe isnât about being compatible, itâs about literally sharing pain, and itâs just⌠I think about how for some pairs, they share the burden between each other, and it brings them closer. for some pairs, though, the only way they know how to communicate is by hurting one another. and the thing is, this isnât just a literal thing. like, mechanically, the thing soulmates do is share pain and communicate with pain, but metaphorically, can you say desert duo doesnât have trouble communicating because half of how they know how to exist is either sharing in pain or causing it for each other? can you say that ranchersâ strength wasnât a pair of people who understood each otherâs pain and desperation to be better than theyâve been before? can you say that divorce quartet isnât, wellâ
so pearl wins after scott hurts them one last time donât you ever think about that,
#trafficblr#double life smp#abuse tw#SO. NOT⌠REALLY.#although a solid argument can be made about this so Iâm including the tag since this is a post all about physically hurting your partner#itâs just that in-universe this isnât normally framed as abuse.#(which I think counts for a lot here because it is in fact In A Video Game punching is normal mc body language)#but. so I KNOW shared injuries is already a stock soulmate trope and normally a whump one#but the thing is that none of those fics are normally as weird about it as whatever divorce quartet was doing#or impulse and Bdubs for that matter I didnât put them in this post as to keep it short but#something something. Donât you think THEIR problem was IGNORING pain until the very end#I am NOT ENOUGH OF A BOAT BOYS PERSON TO ECTEND IT TO THAT#anyway and bigb and ren were willing to surface-level share pain but werenât either really willing to do it on a deeper level#anyway. it is nearly midnight idk if I am making sense but#sometimes I Think about things
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all I wanted was to save them... (ID in alt)
#nicholas d wolfwood#trigun#trigun maximum#tw blood#let me know if there's any other tags i need to use!!! not sure if it counts as gore#ruporas art#*vash voice* YOU ARE NOT WRONG/LOST WOLFWOOD!!!!!!#i think very often about ch 49 where wolfwood thought it was fr over for him for that brief moment. he was already bearing with so much#fatigue that it wasn't going to be enough for him to fight back properly.. and ough... augh..... for the first time after bearing that cros#someone saved him. someone saved himmmm AUGHHHH <-- guy who can't be normal about it even though its been 7 months since i read it#but he's suffered alone for so long and continued to do so because it's all he ever knew in those short years#and its devastating. his one and only desire was simple and it was still difficult for him to reach T_T#anyway... i love him... holds him tenderly in my palms
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i see D&D AU. now i am curious about D&D swap au... :0
AU-ception, interesting.
#at first i thought id swap their classes but subclasses is enough#this is so detached from canon skdfbhbfhsbfhs do i main tag this#eh whatever#faith the unholy trinity#faith game#gary miller#john ward#zoup art#john loves you au#<- counts i think#ftut dnd au
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spider tommy scuttling around in a bowl (underground racer au :3)
he thinks everythingâs a goddamn game >:( too too silly
#featuring his âbright pink screwdriver he definitely does not hotwire cars with :D#yall know me and my aus⌠i can never have enough đ#does this count as ctommy btw? ik its usually for canon tommy but what do i tag for character tommy?#shroombell art#dsmp au#tommyinnit#tommyinnit fanart#ctommy#shroombell aus
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âSo, babysitting?â
Alberu follows after the delinquent. From the record the vice-principal gave him access to, Cale frequently drinks alcohol, he often gets himself into a lot of fights, and he barely passed his classes at the end of the grading period. The teachers never call on him in class, girls and boys avoid him alike, and he is- supposedly- completely intolerable.
Which is why Alberu Crossman, whoâs only a little older yet infinitely more mature has been assigned by the principal (his father) to get the troublemaker under thumb. Cale's father is quite wealthy, actually, and since there isn't much known about the successor to the Henituse family... it'd be bad if he had to be expelled.
Cale scowled. âYes, babysitting, your highness. Please, leave if you must,â He jeers at Alberu, but internally he thinks, 'No, really. Please leave.' Otherwise, he might get caught in the act.
Of not actually being Cale.
Roksu aims a sour expression at Alberu, who returns it with a more flowery one. Acting as his twin for the day had been easy enough, mainly because being trash is great!- until Alberu Crossman strolled into his lunch period and introduced himself.
He is even following him out of the school to his job. Well, this job is Roksuâs and not Caleâs, but because he canât ditch work nor can he get glib-tongued Alberu off his tail-
Well shit.
Thankfully, the kids call him hyung. Except Raon, who calls him human. Hopefully Alberu doesnât look into it too much. If everything goes right, Alberu Crossman will be Cale's problem to deal with tomorrow. As it should have been.
âI didnât know you liked kids, Cale,â Alberu smiles charmingly, walking side by side with Roksu. âCan you introduce me?â Roksu struggles to not put on his own disarming smile out of spite, instead plastering on a classic Cale Sneerâ˘. It fits on his face perfectly, like heâs playing a character in a play.
They enter the building and âCaleâ guides Alberu to a colorful playroom, decked out in toys and a fountain of running water as the centerpiece (A gift from his father, who is still upset that Roksu doesn't visit more often). Thereâs a tray of fruits and oatmeal on the small table in the corner of the room, except not a soul to be seen. Picking up a bowl of oatmeal and finding the ceramic to still be hot, Roksu almost smiles.
Alberu frowns. Where are the kids he's supposed to babysit?
Roksu tells the empty air, "Come on out."
Three children appear out of nowhere in front of them.
âHyung!â
âHuman! Youâre back!â
âHyung, nya.â On examines Alberu some more.
All of the kids had been revealed the moment that Roksu spoke, as Raon unveiled the invisibility on them.
Raon runs up and grabs Roksuâs hand, who places it on his head, rubbing the black hair comfortingly. âMm.â Raon beams at the affection.
âRaon, On, Hong,â they each look up at him at the call of their names. âThis is Alberu Crossman, he is doing a report on my trashy behavior. Donât be rude."
All three children become hostile immediately. âHe isn't trash!â
On observes Alberu with an intense glare. Raon shifts under Roksuâs hand, his deep blue eyes glinting with magic. Roksu positions him away from the older teenâs view. Raon grips onto Roksuâs pant leg with a vengeance. Hong stares openly, offensive.
Alberu smiles at them.
"I'm visiting with Cale Hyung for today, nice to meet you."
Hong gasps suddenly.
âHe-!â On gives her brother a look, and he clamps his hands over his mouth. Alberu feels a deep curiosity, as if something isnât quite as it seems.
Roksu sighs. Itâs going to be a long hour.
At the midway point, Alberu has easily disarmed the children. They look fascinated at the magic he shows them, while Roksu can only rub a palm over Raonâs shoulder as a warning to keep his dragon magic under control. He's still just a child that wants to brag. Everything is going well.
Bang!
âHey Roksu! How was-â Cale bursts through the door, bright red hair equipped with a shit-eating grin, wearing clothes far less fancy than his usual. He tenses up, frozen in place when he spots Alberu on the floor, politely sitting "crisscross applesauce" with the children. Roksu narrows a withering glare at his twin.
â⌠Roksu?â
Alberu looks at âCale,â sitting next to him, the one he's spent the entire day with, who is trying to send what must be the real Cale into the sun with his eyes.
âHa⌠ha?â Cale winces. Roksu wipes his expression from his face.
âCale-hyung, run! Thatâs the humanâs bad look!â Alberuâs eyes widen as he watches the confirmed real Cale bolt back into the hallway and out of the front door. Alberu whips his head back toward the stranger behind him, who is a perfect replica of the Cale who ran like Hell. Cale has an identical twin?? Since when? Why doesn't he go to school?
Roksu levels an emotionless gaze at Alberu. âHello, your highness. Donât mind me.â
Alberu can only watch in astonishment as this stranger walks out of the playroom, with a smooth and deadly gait as he hunts down his twin like a predator would to prey. He recalls the look 'Roksu' gave him and it sends a shiver down the principalâs sonâs spine. That gaze held secrets.
Something about this stranger is even more interesting than the sudden appearance of a twin.
On walks up to him, sitting down in his lap and looking into his eyes. âRoksu-hyung will be back soon, nya!â Hong bounds over and sits next to his sister, grinning widely. Raon huffs and looks at the door. He wants his human to come back.
#Roksu is Cale's lost twin who reunited with the Henituse family at 16. he went to a charter school and speedran his education#which is why he doesn't go to high school with Cale#Roksu didn't want attention from the public so his existence is kept secret from most everyone outside of the family and tight-lipped staff#Cale wanted to skip school that day (he heard Albert would be coming to monitor) and tricked Roksu into dealing with it for him#not that Roksu didn't receive something in return for pretending to be Cale... but now he's going to 'negotiate' a better deal with his twi#anyway that's all I remember about this#hong was going to say 'He thinks Roksu hyung is Cale hyung!' but stopped himself from revealing it in time#kim rok soo#kim roksu#cale henituse#og cale henituse#lcf#lotcf#lout of the counts family#tcf#totcf#trash of the counts family#fic#ughhh I'm not as diligent with my tags as I used to be#tcf raon miru#lcf ohn#tcf hong#yayay#posting old writing so it doesn't rot in my notes app any longer#if I was smarter I would post it on ao3 but I don't really write enough words to bother doing that#not a reblog#alberu crossman#alver crossman#alcale#I put the ship tag but not because it's a ship thing. I just think the shippers would appreciate this
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Disney, releasing Wish: "so it's all about legacy--the new generation surpassing the old, overcoming the evils perpetuated by them, relinquishing singular power... and there's an old man in a tower, uh... animal sidekick, i guess..., ah... magic...?
Miyazaki, just out of frame, sledgehammer raised:
#the boy and the heron#not tagging wish 'cause i'm being a little acidic#this isn't to be negative in the slightest--I really respect both films--but it's interesting to see how visceral boy+H gets with its story#what evils have to be rejected and what they represent--and how characters and the world suffer from those evils--as well as how the whole#'rejecting' part goes. in terms of animation powerhouses discussing their legacies - disney and miyazaki both - I find it interesting that#one makes a pretty safe and nostalgic movie about imagination and dreams; the other is a long trudge through the land of the dead.#b+h is a hard watch - and a look at the legacy of a man questioning his whole purpose in the world - after his cultural touchstones#have long passed by. Mahito needs to understand his grief to keep living--but if he drowns in it he'll just continue the cannibalistic and#violent world of his granduncle. how the hell do you make art when the trauma of your entire life has colored it forever? How can anyone?#maybe after a while... it's time to detonate that damn tower and keep living.#this is to say#if you have enough money to make whatever you want#Make It Fucking Count
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Double Indemnity, Veritas Ratio and Aventurine
This was originally a part of my compilation post as a short analysis on the Double Indemnity references, linking to this great thread by Manya on Twitter. However, I've recently watched the movie and found that the parallels run much deeper than just the mission name and the light cone itself, plus as the short synopsis I've read online. Since there isn't really an in-depth attempt at an analysis on the film in relation to the way Aventurine and Ratio present themselves throughout Penacony, I thought I'd take a stab at doing just that. I will also be bringing up things from Manya's thread as well as another thread that has some extra points.
Disclaimer that I... don't do analyses very often. Or write, in general â I'm someone who likes to illustrate their thoughts (in the artistic sense) more than write. There's just something about these two that makes me want to rip into them so badly, so here we are. If there's anything you'd like to add or correct me on, feel free to let me know in the replies or reblogs, or asks. This ended up being a rather extensive deep dive into the movie and its influences on the pairing, so please keep that in mind when pressing Read More.
There are two distinct layers on display in Ratio and Aventurine's relationship throughout Penacony, which are references to the two most important relationships in the movie â where they act like they hate/donât know each other, and where they trust each other.
SPOILER WARNING for the entire movie, by the way. You can watch the film for free here on archive.org, as well as follow along with the screenplay here. I will also be taking dialogue and such from the screenplay, and cite quotes from the original novel in its own dedicated section. SPOILER WARNING for the Cat Among Pigeons Trailblaze mission, as well.
CONTENT WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF SUICIDE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
To start, Double Indemnity (1944) is a film noir by Billy Wilder (and co-written by Raymond Chandler) based on the novel of the same name by James M. Cain (1927). There are stark differences between the movie adaptation and the original novel which I will get into later on in this post, albeit in a smaller section, as this analysis is mainly focused on the movie adaptation. I will talk about the basics (summaries for the movie and the game, specifically the Penacony mission in tandem with Ratio and Aventurine) before diving into the character and scene parallels, among other things.
â
[THE NAME]
The term "double indemnity" is a clause in which if thereâs a case of accidental death of a statistically rare variety, the insurance company has to pay out multiple of the original amount. This excludes deaths by murder, suicide, gross negligence, and natural causes.
The part of the mission in Cat Among Pigeons where Ratio and Aventurine meet with Sunday is named after the movie. And before we get further into things, let's get this part out of the way: The Chinese name used in the mission is the CN title of the movie, so there's no liberties taken with the localization â this makes it clear that itâs a nod to the movie and not localization doing its own thing like with the mission name for Heaven Is A Place On Earth (EN) / This Side of Paradise (äşşé´ĺ¤Šĺ ) (CN).
â
[SUMMARY OF THE 1944 MOVIE]
Here I summarised the important parts that will eventually be relevant in the analysis related to the game.
Insurance salesman Walter Neff, wounded from a gunshot, enters his office and confesses his crime on a dictaphone to his boss Barton Keyes, the claims manager. Much earlier, he had met Phyllis Dietrichson, the wife of Mr. Dietrichson and former nurse. Neff had initially wanted to meet Mr. Dietrichson because of car insurance. Phyllis claims her husband is mean to her and that his life insurance goes to his daughter Lola. With Neff seduced by Phyllis, they eventually brew up a scheme to murder Mr. Dietrichson in such a way that they activate the "double indemnity" clause, and the plan goes off almost perfectly. Initially, the death is labeled a suicide by the president of the company, Norton.Â
Keyes finds the whole situation suspicious, and starts to suspect Phyllis may have had an accomplice. The label on the death goes from accidental, to suicide, to then murder. When itâs ruled that the husband had no idea of the accidental policy, the company refuses to pay. Neff befriends Phyllisâ stepdaughter Lola, and after finding out Phyllis may have played a part in the death of her fatherâs previous wife, Neff begins to fear for Lola and himself, as the life insurance would go all towards her, not Phyllis.
After the plan begins to unravel as a witness is found, it comes out that Lolaâs boyfriend Nino Zachette has been visiting Phyllis every night after the murder. Neff goes to confront Phyllis, intending to kill her. Phyllis has her own plans, and ends up shooting him, but is unable to fire any more shots once she realises she did love him. Neff kills her in two shots. Soon after telling Zachette not to go inside the house, Neff drives to his office to record the confession. When Keyes arrives, Neff tells him he will go to Mexico, but he collapses before he could get out of the building.
â
[THE PENACONY MISSION TIMELINE]
I wonât be summarising the entirety of Aventurine and Ratioâs endeavours from the beginning of their relationship to their final conversation in Heaven Is A Place On Earth the same way as I summarised the plot of the movie, so I will instead present a timeline. Bolded parts means they are important and have clear parallels, and texts that are in [brackets] and italics stand for the names of either the light cone, or the mission names.
[Final Victor] Their first meeting. Ratioâs ideals are turned on its head as he finally meets his match.
Several missions happen in-between their first encounter and the Penacony project. They come to grow so close and trusting with each other that they can guess, understand each otherâs thoughts, way of thinking and minds even in high stakes missions. Enough to pull off the Prisonerâs Dilemma (Aventurineâs E1) and Stag Hunt Game (Aventurineâs E6) and come out on top.
Aventurine turns towards Ratio for assisting him in the Penacony project. Ratio's involvement in the project is implied to be done without the knowledge of Jade, Topaz, and the IPC in general, as he was only sent to Penacony to represent the Intelligentsia Guild, and the two other Stonehearts never mention Ratio.
Aventurine and Ratio cook up the plan to deceive Sunday before ever setting foot on Penacony. Aventurine does not tell Ratio the entirety of his plan.
Aventurine convinces Topaz and Jade to trust him with their Cornerstones. Aventurine also breaks his own Cornerstone and hides it along with the jade within a bag of gift money.
[The Youth Who Chase Dreams] They enter Penacony in the Reverie Hotel. Aventurine is taken to the side by Sunday and has all his valuables taken, which includes the gift money that contains the broken aventurine stone, the jade, and the case containing the topaz.
Aventurine and Ratio speak in a âprivateâ room about how Aventurine messed up the plan. After faking an argument to the all-seeing eyes of Sunday, Ratio leaves in a huff.
Ratio, wearing his alabaster head, is seen around Golden Hour in the (Dusk) Auction House by March 7th.
[Double Indemnity] Ratio meets up with Sunday and âexposesâ Aventurine to him. Sunday buys his âbetrayalâ, and is now in possession of the topaz and jade. Note that this is in truth Ratio betraying Sunday all along.
Ratio meets up with Aventurine again at the bar. Ratio tells Aventurine Sunday wants to see him again.
They go to Dewlight Pavilion and solve a bunch of puzzles to prove their worth to Sunday.
They meet up with Sunday. Sunday forces Aventurine to tell the truth using his Harmony powers. Ratio cannot watch on. It ends with Aventurine taking the gift money with his Cornerstone.
[Heaven Is A Place On Earth] They are in Golden Hour. Ratio tries to pry Aventurine about his plan, but Aventurine reins him in to stop breaking character. Ratio gives him the Mundaniteâs Insight before leaving. This is their final conversation before Aventurineâs grandest death.
Now how exactly does the word âdouble indemnityâ relate to their mission in-game? What is their payout? For the IPC, this would be Penacony itself â Aventurine, as the IPC ambassador, handing in the Jade Cornerstone as well as orchestrating a huge show for everybody to witness his death, means the IPC have a reason to reclaim the former prison frontier. As for Ratio, his payout would be information on Penaconyâs Stellaron, although whether or not this was actually something he sought out is debatable. And Aventurine? Itâs highly implied that he seeks an audience with Diamond, and breaking the Aventurine Cornerstone is a one way trip to getting into hot water with Diamond. With Aventurineâs self-destructive behaviour, however, it would also make sense to say that death would be his potential payout, had he taken that path in the realm of IX.
Compared to the movie, the timeline happens in reverse and opposite in some aspects. I will get into it later. As for the intended parallels, these are pretty clear and cut:
Veritas Ratio - Walter Neff
Aventurine - Phyllis Dietrichson
Sunday - Mr. Dietrichson
There is one other character who I feel also is represented in Ratio, but I wonât bring them up until later down the line.
For the sake of this analysis, I wonât be exploring Sundayâs parallel to Mr. Dietrichson, as there isnât much on Dietrichsonâs character in the first place in both the movie and the novel. He just kind of exists to be a bastard that is killed off at the halfway point. Plus, the analysis is specifically hyper focused on the other two.
â
[SO, WHATâS THE PLAN?]
To make things less confusing in the long run whenever I mention the words âschemeâ and âplanâ, I will be going through the details of Phyllis and Neffâs scheme, and Aventurine and Ratioâs plan respectively. Anything that happens after either pair separate from another isnât going to be included. Written in a way for the plans to have gone perfectly with no outside problems.
Phyllis and Neff â> Mr. Dietrichson
Goal: Activate the double indemnity clause by killing Mr. Dietrichson and making it look like a freak train accident
Payout: Twice or more of the face value of the life insurance ($100,000)
Main Actor: Walter Neff  |  Accomplice: Phyllis Dietrichson
During the entire time until the payout, Phyllis and Neff have to make sure to any outsiders that they look like complete strangers instead of lovers in an affair.
Step-by-step:
Neff convinces Mr. Dietrichson to sign the policy with the clause without him suspecting foul play, preferably with a third party to act as an alibi. This is done discreetly, making Mr. Dietrichson not read the policy closely and being told to just sign.
Neff and Phyllis talk to each other about small details through the phone (specified to be never at Phyllisâ own house and never when Neff was in his office) and in the marketplace only, to make their meetings look accidental. They shouldnât be seen nor tracked together, after all.
Phyllis asks Mr. Dietrichson to take the train. She will be the one driving him to the train station.
On the night of the murder, after making sure his alibi is airtight, Neff sneaks into their residence and hides in their car in the second row seating, behind the front row passenger seat. He wears the same colour of clothes as Mr. Dietrichson.
Phyllis and Mr. Dietrichson get inside the car â Phyllis in the driverâs seat and Mr. Dietrichson in the passenger seat. Phyllis drives. On the way to the train station, she makes a detour into an alley. She honks the horn three times.
After the third honk, Neff breaks Mr. Dietrichsonâs neck. The body is then hidden in the second row seating under a rug.
They drive to the train station. Phyllis helps Neff, now posing as Mr. Dietrichson, onto the train. The train leaves the station.
Neff makes it to the observation platform of the parlour car and drops onto the train tracks when nobody else is there.
Phyllis is at the dump beside the tracks. She makes the car blink twice as a signal.
The two drag Mr. Dietrichsonâs corpse onto the tracks.
They leave.
When Phyllis eventually gets questioned by the insurance company, she pretends she has no idea what they are talking about and eventually storms off.
Phyllis and Neff continue to lay low until the insurance company pays out.
Profit!
Actual Result: The actual murder plan goes almost smoothly, with a bonus of Mr. Dietrichson having broken a leg. But with him not filing a claim for the broken leg, a witness at the observation platform, and Zachette visiting Phyllis every night after the murder, Keyes works out the murder scheme on his own, but pins the blame on Phyllis and Zachette, not Neff.
Now for Aventurine and Ratio. You can skip this section if you understand how deep their act goes, but to those who need a refresher, hereâs a thorough explanation:
Aventurine and Ratio â> Sunday
Goal: Collect the aventurine stone without Sunday knowing, ruin the dream (and create the grandest death)
Payout: Penacony for the IPC, information on the Stellaron for Ratio, a meeting with Diamond / death for Aventurine
Main Actor: Aventurine  |  Accomplice: Veritas Ratio
From the moment they step onto Penacony, they are under Sundayâs ever present and watchful eyes. âPrivacyâ is a foreign word to The Family. They have to act like they donât like each otherâs company the entire time and feed Sunday information through indirect means so that the eventual âbetrayalâ by Ratio seems truthful to Sunday. Despite what it looks like, they are closer than one would ever think, and Ratio would never sell out a person purely for information.
Step-by-step:
After Sunday takes away the bag of gift money and box, Aventurine and Ratio talk in a room in the Reverie Hotel.
Aventurine establishes the Cornerstonesâ importance, and how he lost the gift money and the case containing the Cornerstones to Sunday. Ratio turns to leave, saying âsome idiot ruined everythingâ, meaning the Cornerstones were vital to their plan. (Note that Ratio is not wearing his alabaster head while saying it to said âidiotâ.)
Aventurine then proceeds to downplay the importance of the Cornerstones, stating they are ânothing more than a few rocksâ and âwho cares if they are goneâ. This lets Sunday know that something suspicious may be going on for him to act like itâs nothing, and the mention of multiple stones, and leaves him to look up what a Cornerstone is to the Ten Stonehearts of the IPC.
Ratio points out his absurd choice of outfit, mentioning the Attini Peacock and their song.
Ratio implies that without the aventurine stone, he is useless to the IPC. He also establishes that Aventurine is from Sigonia(-IV), and points out the mark on his neck. To Sunday, this means that Aventurine is shackled to the IPC, and how Aventurine may possibly go through extreme lengths to get the stone back, because a death sentence always looms above him.
Aventurine claims Ratio had done his homework on his background, which can be taken that this is their very first time working together. (It isnât, and it only takes one look to know that Aventurine is an Avgin because of his unique eyes, so this comment does not make sense even in a âsincereâ way, a running theme for the interaction.)
Ratio mentions how the true goal is to reclaim Penacony for the IPC, establishing their ulterior motive for attending the banquet.
Ratio asks if Aventurine went to pre-school in Sigonia after saying trust was reliant on cooperation. Aventurine mentions how he didnât go to school and how he doesnât have any parents. He even brings up how friends are weapons of the Avgins. This tells Sunday that the Avgins supposedly are good at manipulation and potentially sees Ratio possibly betraying Aventurine due to his carelessness with his âfriendsâ. Sunday would also then research about the Avgins in general (and research about Sigonia-IV comes straight from the Intelligentsia Guild.)
Ratio goes to Dewlight Pavilion in Sundayâs Mansion and exposes a part of Aventurineâs âplanâ. When being handed the suitcase, Ratio opens it up due to his apparent high status in the IPC. He tells Sunday that the Cornerstone in the suitcase is a topaz, not an aventurine, and that the real aventurine stone is in the bag of gift money. This is a double betrayal â on Aventurine (who knows) and Sunday (who doesnât). Note that while Ratio is not officially an IPC member in name â the Intelligentsia Guild (which is run by the IPC head of the Technology Department Yabuli) frequently collaborates with the IPC. Either Aventurine had given him access to the box, or Ratioâs status in general is ambiguous enough for Sunday not to question him further. He then explains parts of Aventurineâs gamble to Sunday in order to sell the betrayal. Note that Ratio does not ever mention Aventurineâs race to Sunday.
Ratio brings Aventurine to Sunday. Aventurine offers help in the investigation of Robin's death, requesting the gift money and the box in return.
Sunday objects to the trade offer. Aventurine then asks for just the bag. A classic car insurance sales tactic. Sunday then interrogates Aventurine, and uses everything Ratio and Aventurine brought up in the Reverie Hotel conversation and their interactions in the Mansion, as well as aspects that Ratio had brought up to Sunday himself.
Aventurine feigns defeat and ignorance enough so that Sunday willingly lets him go with the gift bag. After all is said and done, Aventurine leaves with the gift money, where the Aventurine Cornerstone is stored all along.
Ratio and Aventurine continue to pretend they dislike each other until they go their separate ways for their respective goals and plans. Aventurine would go on to orchestrate his own demise at the hands of Acheron, and Ratio⌠lurks in the shadows like the owl he is.
Profit!
Actual Result: The plan goes perfectly, even with minor hiccups like Ratio coming close to breaking character several times and Aventurine being sentenced to execution by Sunday.
This is how Sunday uses the information he gathered against Aventurine:
⢠Sunday going on a tirade about the way Aventurine dresses and how heâs not one to take risks â Ratioâs comment about Aventurineâs outfit being peacock-esque and how heâs âshort of a feather or twoâ. ⢠âDo you own a Cornerstone?â â Ratio talked about the aventurine stone. ⢠âDid you hand over the Cornerstone to The Family when you entered Penacony?â â Aventurine mentioned the box containing the Cornerstones. ⢠âDoes the Cornerstone you handed over to The Family belong to you?â â Aventurine specifically pluralized the word Cornerstone and âa bunch of rocksâ when talking to Ratio. ⢠âIs your Cornerstone in this room right now?â â The box in the room supposedly contained Aventurineâs own cornerstone, when Aventurine mentioned multiple stones. ⢠âAre you an Avgin from Sigonia?â âAventurine mentioned that heâs an Avgin, and Ratio brought up Sigonia. ⢠âDo the Avgins have any ability to read, control, and manipulate oneâs own or anotherâs minds?â â Aventurineâs comment on how friends are weapons, as well as Sundayâs own research on the Avgins, leading him to find out about the negative stereotypes associated with them. ⢠âDo you love your family more than yourself?â â His lost parents. âAll the Avgins were killed in a massacre. Am I right?â â Based on Sundayâs research into his background. ⢠âAre you your clanâs sole survivor?â â Same as the last point. âDo you hate and wish to destroy this world with your own hands?â â Ratio mentioned the IPCâs goal to regain Penacony, and Aventurineâs whole shtick is âall or nothingâ. ⢠âCan you swear that at this very moment, the aventurine stone is safe and sound in this box?â â Repeat.
As seen here, both duos have convoluted plans that involve the deception of one or more parties while also pretending that the relationship between each other isnât as close as in reality. Unless you knew both of them personally and their histories, there was no way you could tell that they have something else going on.Â
On to the next point: Comparing Aventurine and Ratio with Phyllis and Neff.
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[NEFF & PHYLLIS â RATIO & AVENTURINE]
With the short summaries of the movie and the mission out of the way, letâs look at Phyllis and Neff as characters and how Aventurine and Ratio are similar or opposite to them.
Starting off with Aventurine and Phyllis. Here is where they are the most similar:
Phyllis is blonde and described as a provocative woman. Aventurine is also a blond and eyes Ratio provocatively in the Final Victor light cone.
Phyllis was put under surveillance after Keyes starts figuring out that the so-called accidental death/suicide may have been a murder after all. Similarly, Aventurine was watched by Sunday the entire time in Penacony.
Phyllis never tells Neff how she's seeing another man on the side to possibly kill him too (as well as how she was responsible for the death of her husbandâs previous wife). Aventurine also didn't tell Ratio the entirety of his plan of his own death.
Phyllis puts on a somewhat helpless act at first but is incredibly capable of making things go her way, having everything seemingly wrapped around her finger. Aventurine â even when putting on a facade that masks his true motives â always comes out at the top.
Now the differences between Aventurine and Phyllis:
Phyllis does not care about her family and has no issue with killing her husband, his previous wife, and possibly her daughter Lola. Opposite of that, Aventurine is a family man⌠with no family left, as well as feeling an insane level of survivorâs guilt.
Really, Phyllis just⌠does not care at all about anyone but herself and the money. Aventurine, while he uses every trick in the book to get out on top, does care about the way Jade and Topaz had entrusted him with their Cornerstones, in spite of the stones being worth their lives.Â
Phyllis also uses other people to her advantage to get what she wants, often behind other people's backs, with the way she treats Neff and Zachette. Aventurine does as well (what with him making deals with the Trailblazer while also making a deal with Black Swan that involves the Trailblazer). The difference here is Phyllis uses her allure deliberately to seduce men while Aventurine simply uses others as pawns while also allowing others to do the same to himself.
Phyllis makes no attempt at compromising the policy when questioned by Norton. Aventurine ends up compromising by only taking the gift money (which is exactly what he needs).
The wig that Barbara Stanwyck (the actress of Phyllis) wore was chosen to make her look as âsleazyâ as possible, make her look insincere and a fraud, a manipulator. A sort of cheapness. Aventurineâs flashy peacock-esque outfit can be sort of seen as something similar, except the outfit isnât cheap.
Moving on to Ratioâs similarities to Neff⌠There isnât much to extrapolate here as Ratio is more of a side character in the grand scheme of Penacony, however this is what Iâve figured out.
Neff has dark hair. Ratio has dark purple hair.
Neff almost never refers to Phyllis by her name when speaking with her, only as âbabyâ. The few times he refers to her as Phyllis or Mrs. Dietrichson is during their first conversations and when he has to act like he doesnât know her. Ratio never calls Aventurine by his name when heâs around him â only as âgamblerâ, sometimes âdamnedâ or âdearâ (EN-only) gambler. Only in the Aventurine's Keeping Up With Star Rail episode does Ratio repeatedly say his name, and yet he still calls him by monikers like âgamblerâ or, bafflingly, a âsystem of chaos devoid of logicâ.
Both Neff and Ratio committed two betrayals: Neff on Mr. Dietrichson and Keyes, and Ratio on Sunday and Aventurine. With the former cases it was to reach the end of the trolley line, and with the latter it was on a man who had put his trust in him.
As for the differencesâŚ
Neff is described as someone whoâs not smart by his peers. Ratio is someone who is repeatedly idolised and put on a pedestal by other people.
Neff is excellent at pretending to not know nor care for Phyllis whenever he speaks about her with Keyes or when he and she are in a place that could land them in hot water (the office, the mansion when there are witnesses). His acting is on the same level as Phyllis. With Ratio itâs⌠complicated. While he does pull off the hater act well, he straight up isnât great at pretending not to care about Aventurineâs wellbeing.
Instead of getting his gunshot wound treated in the hospital like a normal person, Neff makes the absolutely brilliant decision of driving to his office and talking to a dictaphone for hours. Needless to say, this is something a medical doctor like Ratio would never do.
Now here's the thing. Though it's very easy to just look at Phyllis and Neff in the movie and go "okay, Aventurine is Phyllis and Ratio is Neff â end of story" and leave it at that, I find that they both take from the two leads in different ways. Let me explain. Beginning with Aventurine and NeffâŚ
Neff is the one who hatches the plan and encourages Phyllis to go through and claim the double indemnity clause in the first place. He is also the key player of his own risky plan, having to fake being the husband to enter the train as well as fake the death. Aventurine puts himself at great risk just by being in Sundayâs presence, and hoping that Sunday wouldnât figure out that the green stone he had uncovered wasnât the aventurine stone.
Adding onto the last point, Neff had fantasised about pulling off the perfect murder for a long time â the catalyst was simply him meeting Phyllis. Aventurine presumably sought out Ratio alone for his plan against Sunday.
Neff makes a roulette wheel analogy and talks about a pile of blue and yellow poker chips (the latter in the script only). I donât even have to explain why this is relevant here. (Aventurineâs Ultimate features a roulette wheel and the motif is on his belt, thigh strap, and back, too. And of course, Aventurine is all about his chips.)
Neff has certain ways to hide when heâs nervous, which include hiding his hands in his pockets when they were shaking, putting on glasses so people couldnât see his eyes. Aventurine hides his left hand behind his back when heâs nervous: Future Aventurine says that "they don't know the other hand is below the table, clutching [his] chips for dear life", and in multiple occasions such as the Final Victor LC, his character trailer, and even in his boss form in the overworld you can see that Aventurine hides his left hand behind his back. And he is also seen with his glasses on sometimes.
Neff says a bunch of stuff to make sure that Phyllis acts her part and does not act out of character (i.e. during their interactions at the market), like how Aventurine repeatedly tries to get Ratio back on track from his subpar acting.
Neff is always one step ahead of the game, and the only reason the plan blows up in his face is due to outside forces that he could not have foreseen (a witness, Keyes figuring out the plan, the broken leg). Aventurine meanwhile plays 5D chess and even with the odds against him, he uses everything he can to come out on the top (i. e. getting Acheron to kill him in the dream).
Even after coming home on the night of the murder, Neff still felt that everything could have gone wrong. Aventurine, with his blessed luck, occasionally wavers and fears everything could go wrong whenever he takes a gamble.
Neff was not put under surveillance by Keyes due to him being extensive with his alibi. After witnessing Robinâs death with eyewitnesses at the scene, the Family had accepted Aventurineâs alibi, though he would be under watch from the Bloodhounds according to Ratio.
Neff talks about the entire murder scheme to the dictaphone. Aventurine during Cat Among Pigeons also retells his plan, albeit in a more convoluted manner, what with his future self and all.
Continuing with Ratio and Phyllis, even with their personalities and motivations being quite different, they do have a few commonalities.
Phyllis was a nurse. Ratio is a medical doctor.
Her name is Greek of origin. Veritas Ratio, though his name is Latin, has Greco-Roman influences throughout his entire character.
The very first scene Phyllis appears in has her wearing a bath towel around her torso. Ratio loves to take baths to clear his mind.
Phyllis was instructed by Neff to be at the market every morning at eleven buying things. Ratio is seen in an auction house with his alabaster head on so no one could recognize him.
Phyllis mostly acts as an accomplice to the scheme, being the one to convince her husband to take the train instead. She is also generally seen only when Neff is involved. Ratio plays the same role as well, only really appearing in the story in relation to Aventurine as well as being the accomplice in Aventurineâs own death. Even him standing in the auction house randomly can be explained by the theory that he and Aventurine had attempted to destabilise Penaconyâs economy through a pump and dump scheme.
With these pointers out of the way, letâs take a closer look at select scenes from the film and their relation to the mission and the pair.Â
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[THE PHONE CALL â THE REVERIE HOTEL]
Before the murder, there is a scene with a phone call between Phyllis and Neff discussing the plan while Keyes is in the same room as Neff. Neff has to make sure that Keyes doesnât think of anything of the phone call, so he acts like heâs calling a âMargieâ, and says a bunch of stuff that sounds innocent out of context (âCanât I call you back, âMargieâ?â âWhat color did you pick out?â âNavy blue. I like that fineâ), but are actually hinting at the real plan all along (the suit that Mr. Dietrichson wears.)
In a roundabout way, the conversation between Ratio and Aventurine in the Reverie Hotel can be seen as the opposite of that scene â with the two talking about their supposed plan out loud on Penacony ground, a place where the Family (and in turn, Sunday) has eyes everywhere. Despite being in a âprivateâ room, they still act like they hate each other while airing out details that really do not make sense to air out if they really did meet the first time in Penacony (which they didnât â theyâve been on several missions beforehand). Itâs almost like they want a secret third person to know what they were doing, instead of trying to be hushed up about it. The TVs in the room that Sunday can look through based on Inherently Unjust Destiny â A Moment Among The Stars, the Bloodhound statue that disappears upon being inspected, the owl clock on the left which side eyes Ratio and Aventurine, all point to that Sunday is watching their every move, listening to every word.
Rewinding back to before the phone call, in one of the encounters at the marketplace where they âaccidentallyâ run into each other, Phyllis talks about how the trip was off. How her husband wouldnât get on the train, which was vital for their plan, because of a broken leg. All this, while pretending to be strangers by the passersby. You could say that the part where Ratio almost leaves because Aventurine had âruined the planâ is the opposite of this, as the husband breaking his leg was something they couldnât account for, while Aventurine âbeing short of a few feathersâ was entirely part of the plan.
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[QUESTIONING PHYLLIS â THE INTERROGATION]
This section is going to be a little longer as I will cover two scenes in the movie in a more detailed manner â Mr. Dietrichson signing the policy, and Phyllis being questioned â and how they are represented in the Sunday-Aventurine interrogation and the prior conversation between Ratio and Sunday in multitudes of ways.
Going about their plan, Neff has to make sure that Mr. Dietrichson signs the policy with the double indemnity clause without him knowing the details, all the while having Phyllis (and Lola) in the same room. He and Phyllis have to pretend that they donât know each other, and that this is just the standard accidental insurance process, instead of signing what would be his downfall. To sell it, he gets Mr. Dietrichson to sign two âcopiesâ of the form, except with Mr. Dietrichsonâs second signature, heâs duped into signing the accident insurance policy with the respective clause.
You can tie this to how Ratio goes to Sunday in order to âexposeâ the lie that the suitcase didnât actually contain the Aventurine Cornerstone, as well as there being more than one Cornerstone involved in the scheme. Ratio must make sure that Sunday truly believes that he dislikes Aventurineâs company, while also making sure that Sunday doesnât figure out the actual aventurine stone is broken and hidden in the gift bag. The scheme turns out to be successful, as Sunday retrieves the two Cornerstones, but not the aventurine stone, and truly does think that the green stone he has in his possession is the aventurine.
This whole scene with Sunday is also reminiscent of the interrogation scene in the middle of the movie, where Phyllis was questioned by the boss (Norton) who was deducing that Mr. Dietrichson's death was a suicide, not accidental death. Neff, Phyllis, Keyes and Norton were all in the same room, and Neff and Phyllis had to act like they never knew the other. Phyllis acts like she knows nothing about what Norton insinuates about her husband and eventually, Phyllis explodes in anger and storms out the room, even slamming the door. Her act is very believable to any outsider.
Now back to the Ratio and Sunday conversation. One glaring difference between the movie and here is that his acting isnât great compared to either Phyllis nor Neff. It never was throughout the Penacony mission. He even comes very close to breaking character several times, and is even defending Aventurine in a somewhat aggressive manner during his one-on-one conversation with Sunday, as in he literally tells Sunday to see a shrink. Itâs very different from the way he was acting in Herta Space Station â like Ratio cares about Aventurine too much to keep his hands off.
It's also worth pointing out that Neff doesn't speak a word when Phyllis was being interrogated. Similarly, Ratio is silent throughout the entire scene with Sunday and Aventurine, with his only âlineâ being a âhmâ. When Aventurine calls him a wretch to his face, all he does is look to the side. In fact, he can only look at Aventurine when the other isnât staring back. Almost like him uttering a single word would give them away. Or his acting is terrible when it has to do with Aventurine, as he has no issue doing the same thing in Crown of the Mundane and Divine (Mundane Troubles).
So, Sunday finds out about the Cornerstones and reveals them to Aventurine, and reasons that he cannot give them back to him because Aventurine had lied. Note that in that same scene, Aventurine attempted to use the two murders that had occurred beforehand against Sunday to retrieve his own cornerstone. Similarly, when it was revealed that Mr. Dietrichson did not know about the accident policy and that the so-called âaccidental deathâ was not, in fact, accidental, the insurance company refused to pay out the money.
Unlike the movie, this was all planned, however. The double-crossing by Ratio, the gift money being the only thing required for Aventurineâs real plan. All of it was an act of betrayal against Sunday, in the same manner as the meticulous planning as Mr. Dietrichsonâs murder â To sign the policy, get him to take the train, kill him on the way, and to have Neff pose as the husband on the train until the time is right to get off and lay the body on the tracks. A key difference is that they could not have expected their scheme to be busted wide open due to forces outside of their control, while Ratio and Aventurine went straight down the line for the both of them no matter what.
From here on out, we can conclude that the way Ratio and Aventurine present themselves in Penacony to onlookers is in line with Neff and Phyllis.
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[âGOODBYE, BABYâ â FINAL VICTOR]
And now for the (in)famous light cone, Final Victor. The thing that truly kickstarted the Ratio and Aventurine ship in the fanbase, and the partnership between the two in general. Itâs a direct reference to the final confrontation between Neff and Phyllis in the movie.
Iâll fire through all the similarities between the two scenes.
During the respective scenes, Aventurine and Phyllis both outsmart their partner one way or the other: Aventurine with his one-sided game of Russian Roulette, and Phyllis hiding her gun underneath the cushions until Neff turned away.
The guns are owned by Phyllis and Aventurine, not Neff and Ratio.
Phyllis couldnât bring herself to fire any more shots after she realised she truly did love Neff. Ratio could do nothing but watch as Aventurine did what he did â he couldnât even pull away if the LC animation is anything to go by him struggling as Aventurine firmly keeps the gun to his chest.
Neff says he doesnât buy (believe) that Phyllis loved him. She then goes âIâm not asking you to buy [âŚ]â. The LC description has Aventurine ask Ratio âYou donât believe me?â, while in the LC animation Ratio straight up says âYou expect me to believe you?â and Aventurine answering âWhy not, doctor/professor?â
The visual composition of the LC and the scene are nearly identical, from the lighting to the posing to the way Aventurine looks at Ratio â Aventurine and Ratio are even wearing different outfits to fit the scene better. The background in the LC is also like the blinders in the movie, just horizontal.
In the shot where Phyllisâ face is more visible, the way she looks at Neff is strikingly like the way provocatively looks at Ratio. Even their eyes have a visible shine â Phyllisâ eyes brightly shining the moment she realised she really fell in love with Neff, and Aventurine having just a little light return to his eyes in that specific moment.
And now the differences!
Neff holds the gun in his right hand. Aventurine makes Ratio hold his gun in his left.
Neff is the one who takes the gun from Phyllisâ hand. Aventurine is the one who places the gun in Ratioâs hand and fires it.
Three gunshots are fired. In the movie, Phyllis shoots the first shot and Neff the second and third. Aventurine unloads the gun and leaves only one bullet for this game of Russian Roulette. He pulls the trigger three times, but they all turn out to be blanks.
Phyllis does not break her façade of not smiling until the very last moment where she gets shot. Aventurine is smiling the entire time according to the light cone description, whilst in the animation, itâs only when he guides the gun to his chest that he puts it on.
So, you know how Neff meets Phyllis and it all goes off the rails from there. The way Neff goes from a decent guy to willingly involve himself in a murder scheme, having his morals corrupted by Phyllis. His world having been turned upside down the moment he lays eyes on Phyllis in that first meeting. Doesnât that sound like something that happened with the Final Victor LC? Ratio, a man all about logic and rationality â a scholar with eight PhDs to his name â all of that is flipped on its head the moment Aventurine pulls out his gun in their first meeting and forces Ratio to play a game of Russian roulette with him. Aventurine casually gambles using his own life like itâs nothing and seemingly without fear (barring his hidden left hand). All or nothing â and yet Aventurine comes out alive after three blanks. Poetic, considering thereâs a consumable in the game called âAll or Nothingâ which features a broken chess piece and a poker chip bound together by a tie. The poker chip obviously represents the gambler, but the chess piece specifically stands for Ratio because he plays chess in his character trailer, his Keeping Up With Star Rail episode and his introduction is centred around him playing chess with himself. Plus, the design of the chess piece has golden accents, similar to his own chess set. In the end, Aventurine will always be the final victor.
Furthermore, Neff had deduced that Phyllis wanted to kill her husband and initially wanted no part in it, but in a subsequent visit it was his own idea that they trigger the double indemnity clause for more money. As the movie progresses though, he starts to have his doubts (thanks in part to him befriending Lola) and makes the move to kill Phyllis when everything starts to come to light. Itâs strikingly similar to how Ratio initially wanted no part in whatever Aventurine had in mind when they first met, but in the subsequent missions where they were paired up, he willingly goes along with Aventurine's risky plans, and they come to trust each other. Enough so that Aventurine and Ratio can go to Penacony all on their own and put on an act, knowing that nobody in the IPC other than them can enter the Dreamscape. The mutual respect grew over time, instead of burning passionately before quickly fizzling out like in the movie.
Basically, in one scene, three shots (blanks) start a relationship, and in the other, it ends a relationship. In the anan magazine interview with Aventurine, he says himself that âform[ing] an alliance with just one bulletâ with Ratio was one of his personal achievements. The moment itself was so impactful for both parties that it was immortalised and turned into a light cone.
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[THE ENDING â GOLDEN HOUR]
The ending of Double Indemnity that made it into the final cut has Neff continue his confession on the dictaphone until he realised that he wasnât alone in the room. Keyes had come inside at some point, but none had said a thing, only listening to a dead man speak of his crime. When Neff sees Keyes, they talk for a moment, Neff says he plans on fleeing to Mexico. Keyes does not think he will make it. He tries to leave, only to collapse at the front of the elevator, Keyes following just behind him. Neff attempts to light a cigar but is too weak to do so, so Keyes does it for him.
Parts of the ending can still be attributed to the interrogation scene between Sunday and Aventurine, so Iâll make this quick before moving on to the conversation in Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Ratio and Aventurineâs final conversation together. Once Sunday mentions how quickly Aventurine gave up the suitcase, he inflicts the Harmonyâs consecration on him, which forces Aventurine to confess everything that Sunday asks of. In a way, itâs the opposite of what happens in the movie â where Neff willingly tells the truth about the murder to his coworker. Aventurine does not like Sunday, and Neff is close to Keyes. Ratio also does not speak, similarly to how Keyes didnât speak and stood silently off to the side.
Post-interrogation in Golden Hour, Ratio worriedly prods at Aventurine and asks him about his plan. He then gives him the Mundaniteâs Insight with the Doctorâs Advice inside when Aventurine tells him to leave. Throughout Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Aventurine gets weaker and his head starts to buzz, until he falls to the ground before he can hand in the final gems. Similarly, Neff progressively grows weaker as he records his confession. Keyes says heâs going to call a doctor and Neff says heâs planning to go to Mexico. And when Neff collapses near the elevator, they talk one final time and Keyes lights Neffâs cigar as the other was too weak to do so himself.
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[OPPOSITE TIMELINES AND DEVELOPMENTS]
Remember how I said the way certain events happen in the movie and the game are mostly opposite and reverse of one another?Â
The Final Victor LC is the first meeting of Ratio and Aventurine, and Neff killing Phyllis is their final meeting.
Between that first and last meeting between Phyllis and Neffâs whirlwind romance, their relationship becomes strained which ultimately leads to Neff not trusting whatever Phyllis has to say at the end point of the movie. As for Ratio and Aventurine, the exact opposite had happened, to the point where Ratio trusts Aventurine enough to go along with his plans even if they went against his own ideals. The basis of the mission involved Veritas Ratio, whose full name includes the Latin word for âtruthâ, lying the entire time on Penacony.
Aventurine is sentenced to the gallows by Sunday after his unwilling interrogation. The movie starts and ends with Neff willingly confessing everything to Keyes.
It bears repeating, but I have to make it so clear that the trust between Ratio and Aventurine runs incredibly deep. Being able to predict what your partner says and thinks and plans in a mission as critical as the Penacony project is not something first-time co-workers can pull off flawlessly. All the while having to put on masks that prevent you from speaking sincerely towards one another lest you rat yourselves out. You have no way of contacting outside reinforcements from within Penacony, as the rest of the IPC are barred from entering. To be able to play everybody for fools while said fools believe you yourselves have handed your case on a silver platter requires a lot â trust, knowledge of the other, past experience, and so on. With Phyllis and Neff, the trust they had had been snuffed out when Neff grew closer to Lola and found out what kind of person Phyllis truly was on the inside. Phyllis did not trust nor love Neff enough and was going behind his back to meet with Zachette to possibly take Neff and Lola out. And the whole reason Neff wanted to perpetrate the murder was due to him being initially taken by Phyllis' appearance, which single handedly got the ball rolling on the crime.
Now then, how come trust is one of the defining aspects of Aventurine and Ratioâs relationship, when Phyllis and Neffâs trust eventually lead to both their deaths at the hands of the other? Sure, this can be explained away with the opposite theory, but thereâs one other relationship involving Neff which I havenât brought up in excruciating detail yet. The other side of Ratio and Aventurineâs relationship.
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[NEFF & KEYES â AVENTURINE & RATIO]
Here is where it gets more interesting â while Phyllis and Neff are at the centre point of the movie, there is another character to whom Neff has a close relationship with â Keyes. Itâs also the only relationship with no pretences, at least, until the whole murder thing happened and Neff had to hide his involvement from Keyes. Watching the movie, I couldn't help but feel there was something more to the two than meets the eye. I knew that queer readings of the film existed, but I didn't think too much of them until now. And though Aventurine and Ratio parallel Phyllis and Neff respectively, the fact that they also have traits of their opposite means that it wouldnât be completely out of the question if parts of their relationship were also influenced by Keyes and Neff on a deeper and personal level. Let me explain.
Keyes and Neff were intimate friends for eleven years and have shown mutual respect and trust towards one another. They understood each other on a level not seen with Phyllis and Neff. Even after hearing Neff confess his crimes through the dictaphone (and eventually standing in the same room while Neff confessed), he still cared for the other man, and stayed with him when Neff collapsed at the front door. The only reason Keyes hadnât deduced that it was Neff who was behind the murder was because he had his absolute trust in him. Keyes is also Neffâs boss, and they are always seen exchanging playful banter when they are on screen together. Neff even says the words âI love you, tooâ twice in the movie â first at the beginning and second at the end, as the final line. Thereâs also the persistent theme of Neff lighting Keyesâ cigarettes (which happens in every scene where they are face-to-face), except in the end where itâs Keyes who lights Neffâs.
Doesnât that sound familiar? Mutual respect, caring too much about the other person, the immense amount of trust⌠Ratio says heâs even the manager of the Penacony project (which may or may not be a lie), and despite their banter being laced with them acting as âenemiesâ, you can tell that in Dewlight Pavilion pre-Sunday confrontation that Aventurine genuinely likes Ratioâs company and believes him to be a reliable person. From the way he acts carefree in his words to the thoughts in his head, as seen in the mission descriptions for Double Indemnity. Their interactions in that specific mission are possibly the closest thing to their normal way of speaking that we get to see on Penacony.
Not to mention, this is the way Neff describes Keyes. He even says (not in the script) âyou never fooled me with your song and dance, not for a second.â Apart from the line about the cigar ashes, doesnât this ring a bell to a certain doctor? âJerkâ with a heart of gold?
After solving the puzzle with the statues, Ratio jokingly offers Aventurine to join the Genius Society. Aventurine then goes "Really? I thought youâve given up on that already", and then Ratio says it was, in fact, a joke. Solving the puzzle through brute force has Ratio telling Aventurine that the Council of Mundanites (which Ratio himself is a part of) should consider him a member. In the movie, where the scene with the phone call with Neff and Phyllis reiterating details of their plan happens, Keyes actually offered Neff a better job (specifically a desk job, as Keyesâ assistant). The two pairs saw the other as smart, equals, and were invested in each otherâs careers one way or another.
Because of all this, the character parallels for this side of the relationship are as follows:
Aventurine - Walter Neff
Veritas Ratio - Barton Keyes
With the way Iâve talked about how Aventurine and Ratio take from both leads in terms, it does fit to say that Aventurine is Neff, and Ratio is Keyes in this layer of their relationship. Since weâre on the topic of Keyes, let me also go through some similarities with him and Ratio specifically.
Keyes says the words âdimwitted amateursâ in his first on-screen conversation with Neff. You canât have Dr. Ratio without him talking about idiocy in some way.
Keyes almost only appears in the movie in relation to Neff, and barring a single interaction in Neffâs house, is also only seen in the office. Same with Phyllis, Ratio also only ever appears regarding Aventurine.
Keyes genuinely wanted the best for Neff, even offering to celebrate with him when he thought the case truly had been busted wide open by forces when Zachette entered the picture. You could say the same for Ratio, as he hoped that Aventurine wouldnât dwell on the past according to his response on Aventurineâs Interview, as well as telling him to âstay alive/live on (CN)â and wishing him the best of luck in his Doctorâs Advice note.
Whether or not you believe that there was more going on with Neff and Keyes is up to you, but what matters is that the two were very close. Just like Ratio and Aventurine.
â
[THE ORIGINAL FILM ENDING]
Something that I hadnât seen brought up is the original ending of Double Indemnity, where Neff is executed in a gas chamber while Keyes watches on, shocked, and afterwards leaves somberly. The ending was taken out because they were worried about the Hays Code, but I felt it was important to bring it up, because in a way, you can kind of see the Sunday interrogation scene as Sunday sending Aventurine to his death in seventeen system hours. And Ratio doesnât speak at all in that scene, and Keyes doesnât either according to the script.
Another thing thatâs noteworthy is that Wilder himself said âthe story was about the two guysâ in Conversations with Wilder. The two guys in question are Keyes and Neff.
â
[THE NOVEL]
With the original film ending covered, now it is time to bring up the novel by James M. Cain. I bought the book just to read about the differences between the adaptation and the original source material, and to list a few more similarities and opposites I could gather. For this section alone, due to the changes in the (last) names of certain characters, I will be referring to Walter Huff (Neff in the movie) as Walter, and Mr. Dietrichson as Nirdlinger. The plot is pretty much the same as the movieâs apart from a couple of changes so there isnât a need to recount everything.
From my two read-throughs of the novel, these are the following passages that stood out to me the most. Starting with Aventurine:
Walter, as a top businessman of the company, knows how to sway a deal and to get what he truly wants with what the other gives him. Aventurine is the same, reliant on his intuition, experience and whatever information he has on the table to claim the win. Him luring out Sparkle in Heaven Is A Place On Earth and his conversation with Acheron in the Nihility is indicative of that.
⢠"But you sell as many people as I do, you don't go by what they say. You feel it, how the deal is going. And after a while I knew this woman didn't care anything about the Automobile Club. Maybe the husband did, but she didn't. There was something else, and this was nothing but a stall. I figured it would be some kind of a proposition to split the commission, maybe so she could get a ten-spot out of it without the husband knowing. There's plenty of that going on. And I was just wondering what I would say to her."Â
Phyllis, like in the movie, had been hiding her true intentions of talking to Walter in their first conversations, always saying things that she didnât actually mean. In a similar vein, Aventurine consistently says stuff but almost never truly means any of it, which is all part of his façade.
⢠"And I could feel it again, that she wasn't saying what she meant. It was the same as it was the first afternoon I met her, that there was something else, besides what she was telling me. And I couldn't shake it off, that I had to call it on her."
When discussing the murder plan with Phyllis, Walter makes this comment, kind of like how Aventurine seems to operate in a way where he has a plan, but is ready to improvise and think fast when needed.
⢠"And then it's one of those things where you've got to watch for your chance, and you can't plan it in advance, and know where you're going to come out to the last decimal point."
Remember the roulette wheel line from the movie? In the novel, the gambling metaphor that Walter makes about the insurance business goes on for two paragraphs, mentioning a gambling wheel, stack of chips, a place with a big casino and the little ivory ball, even about a bet on the table. Walter also talks about how he thinks of tricks at night after being in the business for so long, and how he could game the system. Needless to say, insanely reminiscent of Aventurine.
⢠"You think Iâm nuts? All right, maybe I am. But you spend fifteen years in the business Iâm in, and maybe a little better than that, itâs the friend of the widow, the orphan, and the needy in time of trouble? Itâs not. Itâs the biggest gambling wheel in the world. It donât look like it, but it is, from the way they figure the percentage on the oo to the look on their face when they cash your chips. You bet that your house will burn down, they bet it wonât, thatâs all. What fools you is that you didnât want your house to burn down when you made the bet, and so you forget itâs a bet. To them, a bet is a bet, and a hedge bet donât look any different than any other bet. But there comes a time, maybe, when you do want your house to burn down, when the money is worth more than the house. And right there is where the trouble starts." ⢠"Alright, Iâm an agent. Iâm a croupier in that game. I know all their tricks, I lie awake thinking up tricks, so Iâll be ready for them when they come at me. And then one night I think up a trick, and get to thinking I could crook the wheel myself if I could only put a plant out there to put down my bet." ⢠"I had seen so many houses burned down, so many cars wrecked, so many corpses with blue holes in their temples, so many awful things that people had pulled to crook the wheel, that that stuff didnât seem real to me anymore. If you donât understand that, go to Monte Carlo or some other place where thereâs a big casino, sit at a table, and watch the face of the man that spins the little ivory ball. After youâve watched it a while, ask yourself how much he would care if you went out and plugged yourself in the head. His eyes might drop when he heard the shot, but it wouldnât be from the worry whether you lived or died. It would be to make sure you didnât leave a bet on the table, that he would have to cash for your estate. No, he wouldnât care."
Returning home from the murder, Walter attempted to pray, but was unable to do it. Some time passed and after speaking to Phyllis, he prayed. Aventurine presumably hadnât done the prayer ever since the day of the massacre, and the first time he does it again, he does it with his child self.
⢠"I went to the dining room and took a drink. I took another drink. I started mumbling to myself, trying to get so I could talk. I had to have something to mumble. I thought of the Lord's Prayer. I mumbled that, a couple of times. I tried to mumble it another time, and couldn't remember how it went." ⢠"That night I did something I hadnât done in years. I prayed."
Phyllis in the book is much more inclined towards death than her movie version, even thinking of herself as a personification of death. Sheâs killed ten other people (including infants) prior to the events of the novel. Something to keep in mind as Aventurine had mentioned several times that he attempted to kill himself in the dream, plus his leadup to his âgrandest deathâ. Just like Phyllis, heâs even killed at least a few people before, though the circumstances of that were less on his own volition and more so for the sake of his survival (i.e. the death game in the maze involving the 34 other slaves where he was the winner and another time where he murdered his own master). Instead of Phyllis playing the active role of Death towards everybody else, Aventurine himself dances with Death with every gamble, every time his luck comes into play. Danse Macabre.
⢠"But thereâs something in me, I donât know what. Maybe Iâm crazy. But thereâs something in me that loves Death. I think of myself as Death, sometimes." ⢠"Walter, The time has come. For me to meet my bridegroom [Death]. The only one I ever loved."
Moving on to Ratio:
Walter says several times that itâs hard to get along with Keyes, and how he says nice things after getting you all worked up. A hard-headed man to get along with, but damn good at his job. Sound like someone familiar?
⢠"That would be like Keyes, that even when he wanted to say something nice to you, he had to make you sore first." ⢠"It makes your head ache to be around him, but heâs the best claim man on the Coast, and he was the one I was afraid of."
Keyes sees Walter as smarter than half the fools in the company. Ratio can only stand the company of Aventurine in regards to the IPC.
⢠"Walter, I'm not beefing with you. I know you said he ought to be investigated. I've got your memo right here on my desk. That's what I wanted to tell you. If other departments of this company would show half the sense that you showâ" ⢠"Oh, he confessed. He's taking a plea tomorrow morning, and that ends it. But my point is, that if you, just by looking at that man, could have your suspicions, why couldn't theyâ! Oh well, what's the use? I just wanted you to know it."
After going on a rant about the H.S. Nirdlinger case (Phyllisâ husband) and how Norton is doing a horrible job, he ends it by saying that itâs sheer stupidity. âSupreme idiocyâ, anybody?
⢠"You canât take many body blows like this and last. Holy smoke. Fifty thousand bucks, and all from dumbness. Just sheer, willful, stupidity!"
Phyllisâ former occupation as a nurse is more elaborated on, including her specialization â pulmonary diseases. One of Ratioâs crowning achievements is curing lithogenesis, the âKing of Diseasesâ.
⢠"Sheâs one of the best nurses in the city of Los Angeles. [âŚ] Sheâs a nurse, and she specialized in pulmonary diseases. She would know the time of crisis, almost to a minute, as well as any doctor would."
As for the murder scheme, they talk about it a lot more explicitly in the novel. Specifically, Walter mentions how a single person cannot get away with it and that it requires more people to be involved. How everything is known to the party committing the crime, but not the victim. And most importantly: Audacity.
"Say, this is a beauty, if I do say it myself. I didn't spend all this time in the business for nothing, did I? Listen, he knows all about this policy, and yet he don't know a thing about it. He applies for it, in writing, and yet he don't apply for it. He pays me for it with his own check, and yet he don't pay me. He has an accident happen to him and yet he don't have an accident happen to him. He gets on the train, and yet he don't get on it."
"The first is, help. One person can't get away with it, that is unless they're going to admit it and plead the unwritten law or something. It takes more than one. The second is, the time, the place, the way, all known in advanceâto us, but not him. The third is, audacity. That's the one that all amateur murderers forget. They know the first two, sometimes, but that third, only a professional knows. There comes a time in any murder when the only thing that can see you through is audacity, and I can't tell you why."
"And if we want to get away with it, we've got to do it the way they do it, [âŚ]" "Be bold?" "Be bold. It's the only way."
"I still don't knowâwhat we're going to do." "You'll know. You'll know in plenty of time."
"We were right up with it, the moment of audacity that has to be be part of any successful murder."
It fits the situation that Aventurine and Ratio find themselves in extremely well: For the first pointâ Aventurine would not be able to get away with simply airing out details by himself, as that would immediately cast suspicion on him. Having another person accompany him who not only isnât really a part of the IPC in name (as the IPC and The Family have a strenuous relationship) but would probably be able to get closer to Sunday because of that means they can simply bounce off each other without risking as much suspicion with a one-man army. Which is exactly what Ratio and Aventurine do in the conversations they have on Penacony. Secondly â they knew how Sunday operates: as a control freak, he leaves no stone unturned, which is how he became Head of the Oak Family, so their acting required them to give off the impression that a. they hated each other, b. Ratio would go against Aventurineâs wishes and expose him in return for knowledge, c. there were only the two Cornerstones that were hidden. This would give Sunday the illusion of control, and lead to Sunday to lower his guard long enough for Aventurine to take the gift money in the end. The pair knew this in advance, but not Sunday. And thirdly â the plan hinged on a high-level of risk. From breaking the Aventurine Cornerstone, to hoping that Sunday wouldnât find it in the gift bag, to not telling Ratio what the true plan is (meaning Ratio had to figure it out on his own later on), to Sunday even buying Ratioâs story, it was practically the only way they could go about it. âCharming audacityâ, indeed.
An interesting aspect about the novel is that the ending of the novel is divergent from the movieâs final cut and the original ending: Phyllis and Walter commit suicide during a ferry ride to Mexico. The main reason this was changed for the movie was because of the Hays Code, and they wouldnât allow a double suicide to be screened without reprecussions for criminals. Thereâs also a bunch of other aspects that differentiate the novel from the movie (no narration-confession as the confession happens in a hospital, less characterization for Keyes and instead a bigger focus on Lola and her boyfriend, the focus on the murderous aspect of Walter and Phyllisâ relationship instead of actual romance, Walter falling in love with Lola (with an unfortunately large age gap attached), etc.)
As for the ending, this wouldnât even be the first romance media reference related to Aventurine and Ratio where both the leads die, with the other being The Happy Prince and San Junipero (in relation to the EN-only Heaven Is A Place On Earth reference), which I normally would chalk up as a coincidence, though with the opposite line-of-thought I have going on here (and the fact that itâs three out of four media references where the couple die at the endâŚ), I think itâs reasonable to say that Ratio and Aventurine will get that happy ending. Subverting expectations, hopefully.
â
[THE HAYS CODE â LGBT CENSORSHIP IN CHINA]
Iâve brought up the Hays code twice now in the previous two sections, but I havenât actually explained what exactly it entails.
The Hays Code (also known as the Motion Picture Production Code) is a set of rules and guidelines imposed on all American films from around 1934 to 1968, intended to make films less scandalous, morally acceptable and more âsafeâ for the general audiences. Some of the âDonâtsâ and âBe Carefulsâ include but are not limited toâŚ
(Donât) Pointed profanity
(Donât) Inference of sex perversion (which includes homosexuality)
(Donât) Nudity
(Be Careful) Sympathy for criminals
(Be Careful) Use of firearms
(Be Careful) Man and woman in bed together
What does this have to do with a Chinese gacha game released in 2023? If you know a little bit about miHoYoâs past, you would know that pre-censorship laws being upheld to a much stronger and stricter degree, they had no problem showcasing their gay couples in Guns Girl Z (Honkai Gakuen 2/GGZ) and Honkai Impact 3rd, with the main three being Bronya/Seele, Kiana/Mei (admittedly the latter one is a more recent example, from 2023), and Sakura/Kallen. Ever since the Bronya and Seele kiss, censorship in regards to LGBT content ramped up, causing the kiss to be removed on the CN side, and they had to lay low with the way they present two same-sex characters who are meant to be together. They canât explicitly say that two female or male characters are romantically involved, but they can lace their dynamics with references for those âin the knowâ â Subtext. Just enough to imply something more but not too much that they get censored to hell and back.
So what Iâm getting at is this: The trouble that Double Indemnity had to go through in order to be made while also keeping the dialogue of Phyllis and Neff as flirtatious as they could under the Hays Code among other things is quite similar to the way Ratio and Aventurine are presented as of now. We never see them interact outside of Penacony (at least up until 2.2, when this post was drafted), so we can only infer those interactions specifically until they actually talk without the fear of being found out by Sunday. But, thereâs still some small moments scattered here and there, such as when Aventurine goes near Ratio in the Dewlight Pavilion Sandpit, he exclaims that âthe view here is breathtakingâ (he can only see Ratioâs chest from that distance) and that Ratio could âeasily squash [him] with just a pinchâ. Ratio then goes âIf that is your wish, I will do so without a momentâs hesitation.â Not to mention the (in)famous âDoctor, youâre huge!â quote.
Itâs not a coincidence that Ratio and Aventurine have three explicit references to romance media (Double Indemnity, Spellbound, Oscar Wildeâs The Happy Prince), possibly even four if you take the EN-only Heaven Is A Place On Earth as a reference to Black Mirrorâs San Junipero. Itâs not a coincidence that the storylines or characters of said references parallel the pairing, from surface-level to deep cuts. Itâs not a coincidence that the CN voice actors were asked to âtone it downâ by the voice director when it came to their chemistry. Itâs not a coincidence that Aventurine has only flirted with (three) men throughout Penacony, even referring to a Bloodhound NPC as a âhunk of a manâ inside his thoughts, all the while ignoring Himeko and Robin when it came to their looks â women who are known across the cosmos with a myriad of adoring fans. There are so many other so-called âcoincidencesâ related to the two that you could make an iceberg just based on versions 2.0-2.2 as well as content miHoYo themselves have put out on social media. They absolutely knew what they were doing, and were trying to get their point across through subtle means â the extent they went to with the Double Indemnity reference while also keeping it under wraps from a âsurfaceâ level point of view is proof of this â the implications are there if you take the time to look for them, and are simply hard to ignore or deny once you do find them.
â
[CONCLUSION]
This was supposed to be short considering the other analyses Iâve seen were also pretty short in comparison, but I couldnât get the movie out of my head and ended up getting carried away in the brainrot. I hope you could follow along with my line of thinking, even with the absurd length of this post, and the thirty-image limit. I tried to supplement context with some links to videos and wiki pages among other sources wherever I can to get around it.
I will end it with this though â the love in the movie turned out to be fake and a farce, going off track from what was a passionate romance in the beginning because of the murder scheme. Meanwhile, the whole reason why Ratio and Aventurine can pull off whatever they want is because of their immense trust in one another. What was initially shown to be distrust in the Final Victor LC grew into something more, for Ratio, someone who would have never put faith into mere chance and probability before this, put his trust in Aventurine, of all people.
TL;DR â (I get it, itâs over ten thousand words.)
Not only is the relationship between Neff and Phyllis represented in the deception and acting side of Ratio and Aventurine, but the real and trusting side is shown in Neff and Keyes. They have a fascinating, multi-layered dynamic that is extremely fun to pick apart once you realise whatâs going on underneath the bickering and âhatredâ they display.
Many thanks to Manya again for making the original thread on the movie. I wouldnât be here comparing the game and movie myself if it werenât for that.
By the way, I really do believe that Shaoji totally watched this movie at least once and really wanted that Double Indemnity AU for his OCs. I know exactly how it feels.
â
Other points I'd like to mention that didn't fit anywhere else in the main analysis and/or donât hold much significance, have nothing to do with the Penacony mission, or may even be considered reaching (...if some of the other points werenât). Just some potentially interesting side bits.
Phyllis honks three times to signal Neff to go for the kill. That, and the three gunshots in the confrontation. Aventurine is all about the number three.
The height difference Aventurine and Ratio have going on is close to Phyllis and Neffâs.
Phyllis had killed her husbandâs previous wife and went on to marry Mr. Dietrichson, pretty much taking the wifeâs place. Aventurine killed his previous master, and had taken certain attributes from him like his wristwatch and the rings on his hand and the âall or nothingâ mantra.
When calling Ratio a wretch (bastard), Aventurine smiles for a moment. This is exclusive to the EN, KR and JP voiceovers, as in CN, he does not smile at all. (Most definitely a quirk from the AI they use for lip syncing, but the smile is something thatâs been pointed out quite a few times so I thought Iâd mention it here.)
Sunday specifically says in the CN version that he knew of Aventurine's plans the moment Aventurine left the mansion, meaning that he realized he had been played the fool the moment Ratio and Aventurine talked in Golden Hour
In the description for the "All or Nothing" consumable, teenage Aventurine says this specific line: "Temptation is a virtue for mortals, whereas hesitation proves to be a fatal flaw for gamblers." According to Ratio, this is Aventurine's motto - he says as such in Aventurine's Keeping Up With Star Rail episode. Note that in the anan interview he explicitly says he does not have a motto, and yet Ratio in the video says otherwise. They definitely have to know each other for a while for Ratio to even know this.
A big reason why Neff even pulled off the murder scheme in the first place was because he wanted to see if his good friend Keyes could figure it out, the Mundane Troubles Trailblaze Continuance showcases Ratio attempting to teach the Herta Space Station researches a lesson to not trust the Genius society as much as they did.
In Keyesâ first scene heâs exposing a worker for writing a policy on his truck that he claimed had burnt down on its own, when he was the one who burnt it down. Ratio gets into an Ace Attorney-style argument with the Trailblazer in Mundane Troubles.
Neff talks repeatedly about how it wonât be sloppy. Nothing weak. And how itâll be perfect to Phyllis, and how sheâs going to do it and heâs going to help her. Doing it right â âstraight down the lineâ. Beautifully ironic, considering what happens in the movie, and even more ironic as Ratio and Aventurineâs scheme went exactly the way they wanted to in the end. Straight down the line.
#honkai star rail#double indemnity#veritas ratio#aventurine#golden ratio#ratiorine#an attempt at analysis by one a-u#relationship analysis#you know whatâ i guess i can tag the other names of this ship#aventio#raturine#you could make a fucking tierlist of these names#umâ dynamics (yk what i mean) dont really matter here in the analysis just fyi if youre wondering its general enough#also if you're wondering about the compilation thread - its not done. it'll take a while (a long while.)#this post was so long it was initially just a tumblr draft that i then put into google docs. and it ended up being over 2k+ words long#is this a research paperâ thesisâ or essay? who knows! this just started as just a short analysis after watching the movie on may 5#final word count according to docs (excluding alt text): 13013 - 43 pages with formatting#i wish i could have added more images to thisâ 10k words vs 30 images really is not doing me any favoursâŚ#plusâ i hit the character limit for alt text for one of the images.#if you see me mixing up british and american spellingâ you probably have!#oh yeah. if any of the links happen to break at some point. do tell. i have everything backed up#there also may be multiple links strung togetherâ just so you know.#I link videos using the EN and CN voiceovers. Just keep that in mind if the jump between two languages seems sudden.#I had to copy and paste this thing from the original tumblr draft onto a new post because tumblr wouldn't let me edit the old one anymore.#Feels just like when I was finalising my song comicâŚ#(Note: I had to do this three times.)#I started this at May 5 as a way to pass the time before 2.2. You can probably tell how that turned out.#Did you know there is a limit to the amount of links you can add to a single tumblr post? It's 100. I hit that limit as well.#So if you want context for some of these parts... just ask.#I'm gonna stop here before I hit the tag limit (30) as well LMAOO (never mind I just did.)
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Iâve said this in reblog tags but I wanna say it again lol
you cannot watch the cemetery scene from last episode and tell me that those were not wedding vows?? like hello?? You cannot look me in the eyes and say that buck looking over at tommy when he says âour people are what make life worth livingâ doesnât mean something đ like cmon now thatâs something you would hear during a wedding donât even play with me
#Itâs giving endgame đĽ°#Okay but even if they do break up no one can take that scene away from us#Like we basically got a wedding (they were in suits it counts đž)#wait this maybe isnât the target audience for this tag but imagine buck saying this to eddie đ THE PARALLELS WE COULD HAVE đ#I donât even care who is endgame at this point but buck and tommy are so cute#tommy is so gone for that man it is insane (he is very much real for that)#if buddie happens I better see them fight about who gets to have tommy as their best man lol#ANYWAYS#enough about buddie this is supposed to be a bucktommy post lol#9 1 1#911 abc#9 1 1 on abc#911 show#evan buckley#tommy kinard#bucktommy#if ur a bob go away I donât like u
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I see aplatonics talking about how people assume not having friends means you're an unlikable person and how harmful that can be and it just reminds me of how people will point to assholes and say they don't have friends as an insult but like...I know a lot of assholes with friends. Their friends also tend to be assholes. someone not having friends is not a moral failing. Assholes have people who like them and will hang out with them while the nicest person you know may have no friends at all. so y'know, I'm with the aplatonics and platorepulsed ppl on this one.
#text#aplatonic#aspec#idk how to tag this im sorry haha#technically i would count as aplatonic but i dont use the label because i dont feel strongly enough abt it#as in abt my lack of platonic feelings and lack of attraction in general haha#whats the saying 'i believe in their beliefs'?#anyways i think the aplatonics are onto something and i'm 100% here for it#society really do be moralizing every relationship all the time huh
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âIf you want an apologyââ âQuite the opposite, actually.â Shrue blinks at her in genuine bemusement. â... I don't follow.â âI thought perhaps we could fight about it.â Val says it as casually as if she's suggesting they take an impromptu late-night stroll. Or: In another reality, Shrue lives, and makes it to the camp of the Children of the Woundtree, where they try with the other survivors to rebuild their lives. Val is there too. They come to blows about it. Or: (Sort of) Repairing your broken relationship with a little percussive maintenance.
finally wrote a fic about these wretched creatures i'm so fond of. you can read it if you want.
#đ#the silt verses#VALshrue#<- well. sort of. this isnt ship fic unless you count eventual friendship as 'shipping' but its close enough for me to want it in my tag.#and to be fair they are incredibly divorced without ever having being married in this#fuck i need a writing tag. um.#wall scrawlings#this is a fic about communication! and doing fight club on each other in an empty field
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just came off my shift as an election judge and I honestly think we should make people do this. I support abolishing the draft, and I even think that jury duty can get complicated, but everyone in the country should be forced to learn about election procedure, then have to sit around for 14 hours and practice being customer service for democracy. I think that would fix us.
#is it fascinating scintillating work that will set you on fire for political discourse? no.#in my experience it is mostly making amiable conversation with elderly citizens#and occasionally complimenting people's penmanship#are some people....strange? absolutely yes.#and I heard even WEIRDER stories from my colleagues who were pollworkers before.#not even about the voters; about other pollworkers!#but I spent 14 hours (and some change) in a too-hot room half falling apart; I set up voting booths and counted colored tags#and was polite to everyone even the people who didn't talk or needed detailed explanations of every step.#I feel like it's victory enough.#anyway. enough on this subject! onto other things.#............................................at least until november when I'll do it again.#man's unending search for freedom
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Have you watched the musical "Spiderman: Turn of the dark"?, what is your opinion? (I love musicals, but haven't watched this one, first I want to know if it is good).
Also I would have expected that the one who would get a theatrical musical, would be DP. I bet that if the musical exist in the universe of the boys, Wade would be a little jealous. đ¤đ¤
i actually haven't seen this one - i've listened to the entire soundtrack and read synopsises, and know all the lore behind it and it's a point of obsession for me but - all the cams of it are so poor quality that it's completely unwatchable for me. i get too frustrated that i have to just stop watching.
i always ask people the question, you know, if you could time travel to any moment in time, what would it be - and when they turn that question back at me, my answer, at the ready, is that i'd go see spider-man: turn off the dark, on broadway. i'd give anything to see it, honestly. i want one of the spider-man stunt-men to fall on me, so, so bad.
i have read the script, for - you know, some version of it. there was more than one version. i read one of them. and i have to say, i really like it. i think peter's actually really, really hilarious, in his socially inept sort of way. it's very fun. also bonus points for having it canon that flash would fuck a spider, even before spider-man was a thing.
hilarious. also! pretty obvious from the soundtrack but gg is immensely queer coded and honestly it reads as though he just wants to share a condo and adopt a dog with spider-man. you're a queer in tights? IM a queer in tights. lets be queers in tights together. it's so funny how he goes about trying to be peter's bff. most hilarious interaction between a villain and hero ever 10/10
uh-huh. uh-huh. (writes a note in my little gay notepad)
how to make friends 101
#sci speaks#obsessed.#i do make it a point that i need to eat every little bit of spider-man media lore that exists#and the spider-man musical.. god. i want it to come back SO BAD.#i know everyone hated it. but they're wrong. or even if they're right i don't care. bring it back for me exclusively.#does something have to be good? is it not simply enough to have. spider-man in it.#that's where all the recent sony spider-man spinoff movies are going wrong. they are bad. and they ALSO don't have spider-man in them.#if they had spider-man in them i would maybe forgive them for being bad.#except homecoming. not you homecoming.#the mcu movies don't count because they don't have spider-man in them until the third one. nwh. which i forgive.#because two spider-men show up in the last act to make up for all the spider-man-less-ness#sorry i always ramble in the tags. it's a curse.
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@giftober 2024 | Day 19: "purple"
#giftober2024#kip sabian#aew#all elite wrestling#aewedit#wrestlingedit#wrestling#night gifs#i wanted to do something else for this prompt but im so out of spoons so. you just get hair appreciation#im also not even sure if thats purple enough lmao. but it will count now cause im not remaking anything#my beloved#kip in a box#(rp blogs dont reblog; saving and other personal use with tag credits is fine)
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more dragon!iterator sketches in varying levels of quality
#my art#rain world#dragons#five pebbles#looks to the moon#no significant harassment#seven red suns#big dragons and their little kitties <3#still figuring out how i want everyone to look but im enjoying the process!#a part of me wants to robot-ify them more. the other parts of me cry at the thought#it is soo impressive to me when artists can draw mechanical bits. could never be me#hold on. looks at my follower count. wjat#um. uh. ah. hi everyone#IM VERY FLATTERED BUT please do not perceive me#i have a hard enough time knowing that my mutuals see my abnormal tags#i havent even done anythjing
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people seemed to like the last design so here's another drawing. this time featuring a surprise guest. haha wow whos that guy...
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#clemart#ttcc#toontown corporate clash#<- i removed the tooniness from their designs sorry guys#hardly counts again but i'll include the tags for the sake of documentation#prethinker#brian ttcc#mac opsys#ill get back to my normal toontown art soon enough#i just have to get a bit indulgent. just let me have this moment#ive kind of taken a liking to this . its fun. i might do more with this design later idk#his height is inconsistent in the 2 times i've drawn him full body#technically speaking i think if he stood on all of his legs (secondary arms included) he'd be shorter than his normal/cog design#but in terms of length i want to say hed be very tall like maybe half vp height just for fun. <- not a solid confirmation#or at least taller than the tallest manager.#^he also wouldnt be able to actually reach this height because if too many of his legs are off the floor he just falls over#however i think to adequately display that ive have to make him much longer. which as you can see here is NOT what i did#to make up for this imagine he can just remove and add some at will. ok. its not inconsistent its...on purpose. yes. on purpose.#we'll go with that#YAP SESSION.#BOOO BOOOO GGET THIS GUY OFF THE STAGE
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