#(Two points if you can guess the character)

[avelera]

Analysis: Why Jayce broke up with Mel in Arcane 2.08

Since the finale episodes of Arcane dropped this morning, I've been going back and re-watching some of my favorite scenes, and I was struck by Jayce breaking up with Mel.

First of all, yeah, he clearly does break up with her, though I missed how formally he does so on my first watch-through. He does it in the Council chamber, just before Viktor attacks. But since they get interrupted, he finishes breaking up with her (after checking in with her) on the balcony later.

But what really struck me about the breakup wasn't in those scenes, but actually back in 2.07, when Jayce is alone in cavern in the darkest timeline. I definitely didn't catch on the first viewing that this is where he chose to break up with her.

In the background, you can hear Jayce in the depths of his despair and solitude starts going over in his mind all the steps that led him to where he is.

Here are some of the quotes he hears:

"I never asked for this!" - Himself to Viktor, trying to justify his actions up to that point just before Viktor leaves him.

"This research is everything, my whole life," a quote from one of his first conversations with Viktor but, more importantly, it establishes Jayce's entire raison d'etre up to that point. Hextech research was his life.

"He was my mentor, Mel, and I betrayed him," obviously is Jayce discussing the coup d'etat against Heimerdinger he orchestrated to save Viktor, but it was with Mel's assistance and urging.

"You must destroy it. It corrupts. Consumes." A quote from Heimerdinger, warning against Hextech. Which must feel especially prescient now that Jayce is stuff in the evil bombed-out future where Hextech destroyed the world.

"I was trying to create magic." Jayce to the Council to defend his Hextech research and save himself from banishment, but, he only mentioned magic at Mel's goading, which I would guess he's beginning to recognize now for what it was in retrospect.

"It's your time now, Jayce." Mel, part of her goading of Jayce into advancing Hextech research and his political career.

"Perhaps it's time for the era of magic." Mel's words on the night she saw Hextech for the first time, after helping Jayce and Viktor break into Heimerdinger's lab.

"You must destroy it." Heimerdinger about the Hexcore, again, probably feeling pretty prescient right now with Jayce literally in the pit of despair in a the evil Hextech future.

Finally, while looking out over the fire while clearly going nearly insane from the isolation, Jayce begins to hallucinate seeing Mel. But then, her image in the fire gives way to Viktor's.

The decision has been made there. It's not just Jayce reflecting on his two closest loved ones (as I thought the first time), rather, it is the moment Jayce makes his decision: he is picking Viktor over Mel. He has decided that the reason he is here in this terrible place is because of Mel, not Viktor. He is choosing his partner, going back to what they had before she became involved in their life. His new course is set.

Now, I want to preface the next part by saying I love Mel, she's a fascinating character, and though I ship Jayvik I also ship/shipped MelJayVik, so this isn't coming from a place of bias. I'm just analyzing the material when I say these flashbacks were Jayce rearranging the narrative in his head and realizing Mel's been manipulating and goading him in his pursuit of Hextech.

Given where he is when this is happening: starving, freezing, in pain, alone for weeks if not months in a stone box, slowly going insane, surrounded by the burnt corpses of people destroyed by Hextech, I'd say... yeah. His need for someone to blame is pretty understandable. He even starts whispering, "No!" in a panic at the memories in response to what she says in his mind.

So when we get to the Council chamber in the main timeline in 2.08, I'd argue that Jayce is spoiling for a fight. He's had months of agony to decide things are over with Mel and that he's angry at her. He wants to blame her for what happened to Viktor, for what happened to him, and he's in pain and he wants to lash out. The relationship is definitely over.

But then Mel is in pain too. And Viktor shows up, with his own autonomy, showing that they all had their shitty parts to play in this drama.

The attack by Viktor adds another element, Jayce was probably also mourning that he had to shoot Viktor at that point, another thing that was painful and made him want to lash out and blame others for this horrible place he's in emotionally and the horrific place he's been in physically until recently.

It's only after Viktor's attack though that Jayce realizes that this situation is complex, it's not all Mel's fault. It would be easier to just pin all the blame on Mel and make Jayce and Viktor her victims, but Viktor shows to him that he has his own agency and Jayce needs to be clear-eyed going forward about who he is saving, because it's not "Mel's victim". Viktor is his own person.

Jayce also remembers some of the care he once had for Mel when he catches her before she falls (in a tender moment I mistook for a full reconciliation between them the first time but no, it's just him remembering he cares for her wellbeing). Jayce can't trust her anymore, after realizing just how adept she was at manipulating him without his realizing, but he does still care for her as a person. And he's cooled off enough to address the pain she is clearly carrying.

(I admit, I do love this moment of him calling himself an ass, because I adore Jayce but it's a lovely beat of self awareness and really shows his growth as a person that he can say this to someone that just hours before he was squaring up to fight against and blame for all his misfortunes.)

But anyway, the moments you really see that it's over between Mel and Jayce:

When he doesn't explain to her what happened to him. That's not for her to know anymore. He's decided that they're not together or intimate anymore. And he's probably still hurting from realizing how she's used what he told her in the past to encourage/manipulate him to her own ends and therefore wary of sharing. This is also a reason for the breakup: he can't share the immense pain he's been in because he can't trust her anymore, and he knows it. It's over.

In the scene on the balcony when he turns away from her instead of towards her before offering his advice. Jayce is very touchy-feely, he always offers physical comfort to his loved ones. But there, he deliberately turns away instead of taking her in his arms and comforting her. Again: it's over between them. But he still respects her. So he reminds her of how indomitable she is, along with offering the slight backhanded compliment born of his distrust for her: she's never the passenger, she is always the one in control. He knows, because he's realized she used to control him.

I've mentioned in other meta that this season deals in a lot of comeuppance for events in S1, and this is arguably Mel's. She'll be ok, she's got magical sun powers and she's the head of a powerful house now. But she doesn't get to keep Jayce in her life as her lover anymore after what she did, because she did manipulate him, even if she had good intentions mixed with the self-interested ones.

The trust is simply gone now. But he cares for her and wishes her well, so, I'd argue they parted on as good of terms as could be done.

[eerna]

jesus. yeah thank god for preaching the truth about arcane season two. i mean it had its moments - really, REALLY good moments, and by hell it looked AMAZING - but holy FUCK. what a terrible time to be a fan of ekko. or mel. or jinx. or vi. or viktor. or ambessa. or sevika. and probably more i'm missing (ISHA!!!).

i completely agree with everything about the zaun vs. piltover situation ... just not happening this season? first with shimmer - listen i am not the biggest fan of the chembarons lol they look nice but their characters are. Fine. but if you're going to hype them up in the second episode make them WORTH something, right? and then if you're going to hype up the new jinxers, make THAT worth something too!! would it have been so hard to have a bunch of zaunites fly into piltover following jinx? i mean, that's what everyone THOUGHT that scene would be? you had sevika LEAVE the council meeting. why don't you have jinx convincing her to help. and ekko's with jinx. why wasn't he reunited with the firelights? you're telling the fucking firelights would leave zaun? no but it's just them i guess. and sevika and other zaunites enter the fray at essentially the same time so you would have to change nothing but whaaaatever who gives a fuck.

SPEAKING. OF. EKKO. WHAT THE HELL? his FINAL scene in this show is him mourning jinx and being completely alone. we can have that scene, OBVIOUSLY (given that jinx dies - or fake-dies - which i have my own problems with) but... can bro get a seat on the council? please? can we have like a scene with him and sevika walking in and he nods at sevika or something. i know people were complaining about it being mostly pilties and just sevika at the council meeting but i LOVE that. genuinely. shows us that progress is going to be slow (wow crazy. arcane having realistic class issues in their show about class issues), but can it not be just sevika? and can ekko get some fucking credit for SAVING PILTOVER? sure sure sure it was jayce and viktor but WHO THREW. THE GODDAMN ZDRIVE. AT VIKTOR'S HEAD? EKKO. jesus sorry i'm just crazy upset about that.

i wish they also didn't just have the council in piltover? if we're being given an independent zaun (ARE WE BEING GIVEN AN INDEPENDENT ZAUN??????????????) can we maybe have meetings in zaun too? one of those cute little transitions behind sevika's head where they're meeting in piltover's council room and then we go to the meeting room in zaun? like fucking what? or maybe zaun isn't fucking independent what were we watching this show for. if you're going to keep zaun as part of piltover and leave that part open can you maybe elaborate more than sevika like... sitting down. im a bitch for subtext but at some point it's not subtext it's being lazy??

and meljay. not sure what else to say here tbh like i don't even love them and i thought they were handled so poorly. at least they had chemistry in season one? the fuck was their reunion in act 3? negative chemistry. jayce is imagining viktor. why does he have more chemistry with viktor. big jayvik fan btw im a big fucking jayvik fan but can it NOT come at the expense of an established ship? porque no los dos? like hello? does meljayvik mean nothing to the writers? if you're going to have shippers putting the JayVik Agenda (which admittedly i think is very real of them) into the show can you COMPROMISE ABOUT IT. like considering mel's lonely ass ending and ekko's lonely ass ending there might be a goddamn pattern here.

wow. speaking of lonely ass endings. JINX. MY GIRL???????? breaking down her "death": we have jinx, safe, on a ledge. and we have vi and warwick about to fucking die. vi is faced with two options: try and save warwick (bring back vander) or go to jinx. vi isn't AWARE that trying to save warwick is going to come at the expense at jinx, but WE do, and the WRITERS do. the option of saving warwick or going to jinx is the SAME FUCKING OPTION as the jinx vs. powder question at the end of season one. does vi try and bring back a dead man (one who is GONE, who represents jinx and vi's past coming back to haunt them) or does vi try and accept her trauma and forge a new future with jinx?

...she chooses vander. like ok. yes. that makes sense given the amount of time vi has had to process that vander is alive. and a wolf. and then dead. and then back. and still a wolf. and then fighting them. and then not fighting them. im not expecting her in that situation to take jinx's hand and move on. but if that's the case can the arcane writers then.. give her time to process? because this isn't GOOD. this isn't good for vi. this isn't good for jinx. also do you know what also isn't good for vi OH MY GOD CAITLIN. CAITLIN ISN'T WHY DID THEY HAVE SEX AFTER JINX WAS LIKE "SORRY SIS GOING TO KILL MYSELF" LIKE HELLO VI YOU HAVE OTHER PRIORITIES THIS IS JUST LIKE WHEN YOU LEFT EKKO ON THE BRIDGE WHAT. HELLO. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.

"im the dirt under your nails" no vi caitlin is the blood under yours.

sorry ok this isn't all my problems with arcane season two but i just realized i've been ranting in your inbox for what's probably over 100 words so maybe i should stop now. sorry bro i may or may not make my own post now mb

NO PROB it's big feelings and opinions time here on eerna dot tumblr~ It's just a terrible time to be a fan of the show methinks. I don't think a single character emerged on the other side of this season by having been done right.

I hated the way the Zaunites refusing to help Piltover was treated like some kind of a dramatic "Well, I guess THEY aren't joining US" scene. Usually we get to see both sides so you don't feel like either side is the main character, but that was such a horrible "You, the viewer, are a Piltie now, and the way Zaunites act will from now on be used as plot twists only" POV. Sevika showed up that way, Jinx and Ekko showed up that way - not as main characters, but as supports to Vi and Cait and Mel and Jayce, the Good Pilties.

"im the dirt under your nails" no vi caitlin is the blood under yours. is such a badass quote, bro!!! I have nothing to add, you've said it all, thanks for sharing~

[riddles-n-games]

Hey guys, I've been seeing another rift going on in the fandom regarding TGG and TIG characters, so I've decided to make a statement that can hopefully make things more cohesive.

I understand that not everyone likes the new spin-off and honestly, I'm considering just stopping after GU. Personally, I don't have anything against the characters of TGG but my problem is that they sound too much like our old mains. However, that's not their fault. It's the author's. There's nothing wrong with JLB wanting to expand the TIG universe but it is problematic when you are repeating the same character arcs of the old characters that are also present and interacting with these new mains. The problem that we face is the fact while even in The Naturals there are similar characters, they are divided by different series. However, that is not going on here with TIG and TGG. TGG is a continuation of TIG and our TIG characters are still present. Heck, one of our old mains is a player and a love interest here to one of the new mains. And therein lies the issue. When you have a connected series, it's important to have distinguished characters with different voices, not carbon copies.

What I expected for TGG characters was that she would move from the character tropes we've seen already in the series and come up with new ones. I mean, come on, she's a psychology major, we bring that up so often but what's the point when she keeps going in circles and never brings up anything new? I pointed a lot of this out pre-read because I already correctly guessed where this was going within just a few pages of reveal. Don't get me wrong, if she wanted to, she could do it but it doesn't feel like she has new plans or plots. Be honest with yourselves and don't just praise because she's your favorite author. You can be a reader, a fan, and a respectful critic all at the same time. Don't lower your expectations just because they can't deliver every time.

The trouble is that when you go back to TFG, in the acknowledgments, she herself wrote she wasn't sure there was going to be a third book. And now look, suddenly two books were announced a month or two after she released the last book of the trilogy which introduced our mains and not the most fashionably. I do believe she had ideas but I don't think they were the best fleshed out. You have to realize that just reading TGG, how many of you recognized the obvious plots, the romantic subplots, the character arcs, and even the semi-hidden plots just getting to the halfway point? And how many of you said, hey, wait a minute, we've had this plotline before? You did, didn't you? I want to give Jennifer the benefit of the doubt but I truly think she is in over her head because I don't believe she quite thought that this is how long the series would go.

In fact, I think that she is making more trouble for herself in trying multi POV for this new series when really I think it should have just been Gray taking over. It would have allowed us to see how he's grown especially after the heartache and mental health issues he's had to go through to get here. It felt like the obvious next step, even the summary for TGG made it sound like that. However, the only thing that seems new to me is the hypersexual atmosphere which also makes no sense to me because teens may go through attraction but that doesn't mean they're horny all the time and anyone who's gone through puberty can attest to that. So I ask again, like one reviewer on Goodreads put, were the romantic moments in the room with us? 12 hours is not love or romance, it's lust, that's it. Couldn't summarize it clearer. If she wanted to make it better, it could have been that she made the book stretch over a series of weeks which is why I wonder what the heck will happen to any character development if this book series is done in like 3 days?

As I said, a lot of things feel very repetitive, the plot, word choice, thought processes, quotes and sayings, etc. We are in a loop. She's in a loop. I think that the best thing JLB could have done is leave TIG alone for a few years after TFG, make a new series or whatever works outside this series she wanted to, give herself time to truly see if she has new stories to tell for TIG by writing a spin-off and then come back to give us that content. Because it's really telling how forced things have been in the last two books, even here with GU and I really think this empire is toppling. As they say, quality over quantity and thoughtful than full of thoughts that are just a variation of one another. That's what makes me think more and more she should have left it at TFG.

Thank you for reading and I hope this gives a new perspective that can help you see some things more clearly.

[coltermorning]

Of Love and Loss Ch. 21 (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)

Summary: In the small town of Ogallala, you and Arthur nurture feelings for each other that become increasingly hard to deny with each passing day and each word spoken.

Author’s Notes: Sorry this one took me so long. I couldn’t get it quite right for weeks, and part of me hates to part with it anyway because I’m getting so close to the end 🥲 Sexual content in this chapter. Chapter twenty-one of this one.

Tags: Arthur Morgan x reader, high honor Arthur Morgan, minor character death, loss of parents, blood and injury, grief/mourning, survivor guilt, strangers to lovers, slow burn, smut, graphic depictions of violence

AO3 Link

~

Of Love and Loss

Twenty-One: Love

Word count: 3726

This room was unlike the others. That airy barn had the memory of your childhood home and Beth on it, the last hotel room the sharpness of fear. You’d thought that that room would be the one to stay with you, but you tried to forget it now. Now, there was only this room, the safety in it, and Arthur. Maybe the latter two went hand in hand.

Your eyes found said safety in the growing darkness, watching him reverently in the low light. He’d lit a lamp earlier, and its golden glow reflected in his shining hair, his exposed skin, his gemstone eyes. You would never tire of that gaze. Normally, you found a smirk beneath it, but now his mouth matched his heavy stare—thoughtful and filled with something very close to desperation. It wasn’t difficult to guess why. Love did that to a person.

You had thought there would never be a feeling stronger than grief, stronger than the helpless agony that came with it. But love was the one thing to outweigh it. Rather, requited love was. Feeling wanted again was all your heart needed to stitch itself back together. To be loved was to be needed. And that triumphed grief every time.

You weren’t only thinking of yourself as you studied the man beside you. You thought of him and of how unlikely a match he was for you. But it was beginning to make sense. He, like you, was all wild animal, untamed, worth more than mankind could give. He wasn’t defined by the constructs of a normal personhood just as you weren’t. Neither of you were made for fleeting little relationships, if any at all. And perhaps that’s why it worked so well to be together, the feeling as natural as breathing. Because there were no expectations. He made sure of that, and you were too inexperienced and fond of him to form them. Being with a man emotionally or physically scared you before because it had always seemed confining. But you knew without a doubt that if you chose to go alone to the next town and never look back at this trip and all it brought between you, Arthur would let you. He wouldn’t hesitate. And because of that, he was freeing in a way no one had ever been to you. Not even your parents.

You were so caught up in his gaze and your thoughts that you were startled by the sudden sound of bootsteps opposite the door, flinching in his grasp as deputy badges and blood flashed across your vision.

“Easy,” he said lowly, pulling you in closer on the bed as the sound faded.

“Just…jumpy over the last time that happened.”

“Ain’t no law here to worry about,” Arthur said, stroking your hair.

He was right. And you were again reminded that this hotel room was very different from the last.

“I know,” you replied, though you couldn’t quite convince yourself after having lived through the hell that was the last town. That ringing gunshot that would never leave you be sounded again.

“Hey.” He lifted your chin so you would meet his eyes. “Don’t worry. As long as I’m here, no one can hurt you.”

Those words hit you like a physical blow. His protectiveness made you feel loved, but it was the truth of it that drove his point home. Because you had no doubt he would tear apart the world to keep you safe. Just as you had. You’d broken every moral you had just to keep him from harm. But you would do it all again. And, knowing Arthur, you bet he felt the same thing tenfold.

You smiled against his hand. “I know.” This time, you meant it.

After a moment and a smile so sure you wanted to keep it there forever, Arthur shifted. “Sit up.”

You did as he asked, watching as he reached for his journal. Thinking he meant to draw you again, you blushed. Especially as there was no coat this time, just bare skin between you only partially covered by a blanket at your hips. But to your surprise, he reached for your hair and tugged on that horsehair braid he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off of, flattening it so that he could see the contrasting colors better.

“What is it with you and this braid?”

He shifted again so that he was far enough away to get the general picture of you sitting there, though that wasn’t saying much in the tiny bed. He was still close, and you watched his eyes focus in on your braid as he flipped to a blank page and readied his pencil, ignoring your question completely.

Wanting to know what it meant to him, you pushed. “Hard of hearing?”

“I heard you,” he said, still focusing hard on your hair. A few seconds passed as he began drawing. You didn’t think he would answer you until he shook his head, continuing to look down at his journal as he spoke. “I draw things so I don’t forget ‘em. There are a few moments I’ll never forget when it comes to you, but that braid, I want to remember even after it’s gone.”

You were warmed by the sincerity in this, but your curiosity got the better of you. “What moments will you never forget?”

Again, he took a beat to answer. “Looking at your side all bruised and bloody and my shitty attempt at stitches holding it all together. When you said ‘how could you’.”

You’d forgotten that. It had been months, and somehow his words had you remembering how the wagon you’d woken up in after he had stitched you up made your skin crawl. He went on, dispelling any further thought about it.

“The first time you let me touch you. The way you said ‘don’t stop’.”

This one made your heart race. He still pushed on.

“When I killed those wolves and came back in the tent to find you with that look on your face, like you were ready to die. The way you pulled me to you.” He stopped drawing and looked up at you. “That was the first time I felt like you really cared whether I was there or not. The first time you wanted my comfort.”

It was true. It was the first time you’d relied on him in your brokenness, the first time clinging to him felt like healing.

You smiled at him.

He went back to penciling in his journal. “And,” he said, drawing the word out in that drawl of his. “You asked me for that horsehair like it was the last gift you could give that horse. I knew it right then, the kind of woman you was. Thoughtful and tough as hell.”

You’d thought nothing of the act at the time, at least not in the way it would be viewed by Arthur. It was natural. Maybe that was why he admired you for it.

He went on. “I didn’t realize I enjoyed getting to know the woman you was before all this mess until then. Until I thought you would slip away again. But then you came out of that tent with this braid in your hair…”

He stopped and admired it, a smile turning his lips. “And you was still with me. And I was…relieved. Happy, even. That braid shows that strength of yours.”

For the first time since arriving in this town, you felt like crying. But not over any sadness. He had a way with words that surprised you. Your eyes fell to the page, to the way he had drawn part of your braid with such tenderness. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind he meant every word.

Unable to voice your thoughts, or perhaps wanting to hold what he’d said in your heart a little longer, you teased him instead. “So, when you drew me in that barn, what were you trying to remember then?”

His smile turned into a smirk, one you were all too familiar with. “How good you looked in my coat.”

His gaze was hot on your skin, growing wanting as he watched you. And in seconds, his journal was pushed aside and forgotten, traded for his want of you, his need to touch you, his desire. To be that desire meant so much to you that your heart pounded a heavy beat in your chest, like it wanted to be loved by him too, craving that closeness.

Falling into him, you granted your heart exactly what it asked for.

~

The days bled together, and Arthur had no intention of moving on to the next town. As long as you wanted to stay here, he would stay with you. The only bit of business he attended to in the meantime was sending a letter back to the gang, thinking it was likely they’d made it to Denver a while back and would stay until they heard from him. The thought made Arthur smile—that wild bunch on the edges of town, restless and ready to bound out of there at a moment’s notice. They weren’t meant for staying in a big town like that just as he weren’t.

The only trouble with the letter had been what to put in it. Arthur hadn’t known what to say to the group he considered family. He was torn between staying with you and going back to them, knowing either would serve him well. But he was leaning toward staying, starting a life he had only ever dreamed of. Every time he considered it though, it felt too good to be true. It always was when he was younger, and who was he to deserve it now? Had he really changed at all? The truth to that was no, he hadn’t. Maybe he could be decent, but he still had a past on him that he didn’t want catching up to you. But so did you now, killing that deputy. All things considered, he was left feeling even more confused every time he pondered it. So, his letter had been short and nondescript, stating where he was and to write back when and where the gang inevitably moved. He posted the letter and left all thought of it behind him, knowing going in circles about it all wouldn’t do him any good. Instead, he returned to you and vowed to keep his mind on you, on this time you shared together and how right it felt. No matter that, like always, the town and its memories would soon be behind you both.

It wasn’t difficult to keep you in the front of Arthur’s mind. You were a gift, something he didn’t deserve. And all this time spent with you kept him sated like he never had been, his restless heart daring to settle for the first time since he was a boy.

The day had reached its end with the two of you still in bed. Arthur had done exactly what you’d asked of him those days ago, teaching you all the ways he knew how to pleasure a woman. But this was perhaps different, as there never was any meaning behind it until he met you.

Even worse was your blunt curiosity and the things you asked that got him so hard he could hardly see straight. He figured the worst of it was when you’d asked him to teach you how to pleasure him. He was wrong. It was moments ago, when you’d turned to him with a blush on your face and asked if you could ride him. Well, those hadn’t been your exact words, but that was all Arthur could come up with now as you made to do the very thing.

His hands found your hips in seconds upon you climbing on top of him. It took everything in him to be gentle.

“Tell me if I do something wrong,” you said in a voice close to a whisper.

He found a lazy grin sneaking its way across his face, for the way your shyness showed, for the way you climbed on top of him anyway. Sure as ever.

“What?” you said upon seeing his smile.

“I like you on top of me,” he said honestly. Because he did. Nothing turned him on more. But he couldn’t go on without teasing you at least a little. “I like you wantin’ to ride me.” He squeezed your hips with his fingers, tugging you closer. Your face went bright red at those words.

“What’s the matter?” he teased.

You kept looking from his eyes to his mouth like you couldn’t decide if you wanted to slap him or kiss him. The smile on your face was timid, but it was blatant as the day was long that he’d called you out and you wouldn’t well deny it.

You wouldn’t meet his eye as you said, “I like it too.”

Arthur’s grin went wide, and he bucked his hips underneath you for good measure. Pure pleasure met him as he did, the movement against your slick like heaven.

You let out a little moan, bracing your hands on his chest as you made to line yourself up with him. He would never tire of the distracted look you got on your face, like his body and what he was doing to yours was all you could think about. It made a pride he could hardly contain take hold.

You reached your hand down and fisted him so gently he couldn’t stand it. That is, until the head of his cock slid into you, and you met his eye and sat completely, making him suck in a sharp breath. He still held your hips with gripping fingers, but it was all he could do not to focus solely on how deep he was buried in you, on moving fast and hard. Instead, he let you set your own pace as you watched him with a heavy gaze, your lips parting when you began to move up and down on him.

It was downright sinful, the feeling it brought him. He pulled you in tighter, moving his hands with your hips. Ignoring all else. He didn’t give a shit what he looked or sounded like, so long as you didn’t stop.

“Arthur?”

He met your eye, only able to do so since your tone had the hint of a question in it. You kept riding him, grating and slow, as you spoke. “I want to- oh…”

You drug the word out, your head falling back in your pleasured state. It was so goddamn arousing Arthur couldn’t take it anymore. He held you down against him and bucked upward, hard, making you moan for him as your breasts started bouncing with how fast he moved. Fuck, that did it.

“Want to what?” he gritted out.

You looked downright erotic, your heavy eyes falling over him like sex given form as you answered, “Want to feel your release inside of me.”

Arthur slowed his pace, your words hitting him so hard he knew he would spill inside you anyway if he weren’t careful.

“Ain’t too smart, darlin’.”

“I don’t care.”

In this moment, he didn’t either. He didn’t care about the consequences, even though it would normally bother him after Isaac. If anything, he was in a place to be with you, to raise a child with you if it came to that. So to hell with all his usual fear and regret.

“You sure?” he grimaced, still pumping his cock into you as deep as he could.

“Yes. If you are.”

Surprising himself, he was.

Arthur lifted you up and off of him, needing to do what he’d been wanting to for some time now. Of all the pleasure the two of you had wrought from each other, there was one remaining untried thing Arthur felt was a bit selfish but knew you would get just as much enjoyment out of as he would. And he did that now, turning you so that you remained facing the bed as he crawled behind you.

“This okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” you breathed. “Please…”

“Please what?” Arthur pushed your shoulders down to the bed gently, the head of his cock meeting your slick again. He nearly shook in anticipation.

“Please take me. Hard.”

If that weren’t encouragement enough, Arthur slid into you so deep you tightened around him. “Christ,” he grimaced. Then he moved. And he had to close his eyes and focus hard to keep his release at bay.

Arthur rocked his hips fast, knowing the second he watched how perfectly your bodies met, this would be over. So he focused on you first, on the sounds you made and what you seemed to like best. You moaned the loudest when he gripped your hips again and fucked you harder, so he kept on, letting you feel just how much you affected him as he drove deep.

“Arthur,” you whined, his name so needy on your tongue he almost lost it.

“That’s it,” he said lowly, taking one hand away and moving it around you, his finger coming down on those nerves that made you buck against him.

That really made you cry out. And Arthur felt a pride like none other, a protectiveness and a possessiveness that made him want to spend inside you, make you his. His grip on you tightened as his finger swirled against you.

In seconds, your pleasure rocked through you, making those inner muscles of yours flutter and work against Arthur’s cock. His eyes rolled back in his head as pleasure took over. Then it was all feeling, all you at his mercy, pleading his name like he was actually worthy of this.

For once in his life, Arthur let go of all the control, all the responsibility and sense he held so close. He released it like a breath and took you like a man should take a woman, for the sheer purpose of desire and need and maybe even love. He shuddered then slid home one last time with your name on his lips, spilling inside of you as you continued to come down around him. It was comforting and fitting and so incredibly right that his chest caught at the feeling.

“Yes,” you breathed. “God, yes.”

He wanted to repeat it back to you. But he stayed there silent, finally daring to look down at where you were met. And Christ, was it a sight, almost like he was meant to be there. He rolled his hips, unable to resist wanting to keep his spend deep inside you. It was primal and perhaps idiotic of him, but he couldn’t help it. He already wanted to do it all over again.

You both breathed heavy and refused to separate, caught there in this moment that, if you were lucky, would never have to reach its end.

But end it did, only because your body was giving out. He hadn’t realized how hard he took you until then, until your muscles protested enough to make you begin to fall to the bed. He slid out of you and caught you, letting you down slowly. He rolled you onto your back, meeting your satisfied gaze. “You okay? I didn’t mean to-”

“That’s all I ever wanted. And all I’ll ever want again.”

A smile turned his lips, catching him off guard. He never expected to smile after doing something so reckless, hope filling him where regret normally would.

“Good,” he replied. And you smiled back, the sight a tired thing. He leaned down and kissed you. When he broke away, the look you gave him hit him just as hard as all his arousal had. It was a look of complete trust. Like you’d found a home in him. He never thought he’d see the day a woman looked at him like that.

“Don’t know about you,” you said laboredly, “but I’m spent.”

He chuckled at just how spent he was, not bothering to reply as he wrapped you up in his arms to sleep. Nothing more than a man and the woman he loved, as normal a life as he could have ever imagined.

~

You and Arthur very much overstayed your welcome in the small town of Ogallala. Both of you mentioned leaving a time or two but could never quite convince yourselves to saddle up and do it. So you stayed, carving out a little life for yourselves filled with the ease of routine.

Eventually though, you could tell money was getting tight when Arthur began choosing dried meat over his preferred canned goods from the general store. It made you guilty enough to know it was time to move on. Maybe your end destination would be as kind to you as this town had been, and you wouldn’t have to worry about ending this precious time together. You hadn’t talked about it, but you were beginning to believe that Arthur would stay with you. So, holding onto that hope, you finally gave in to leaving.

“What, tired of my company?” he’d teased when you brought it up, both of you already at the stables visiting your mounts.

You shot him a look that warned of a swat to the arm but said, “Not even a little.”

That earned you one of those genuine smiles he rarely gave, like your words were healing him stitch by stitch. But he agreed, and the pair of you gathered up and mounted.

You watched the town slowly fall away into the distance as you left it, turning to look at it so many times Arthur laughed at you. “It ain’t going nowhere, you know.”

“Very funny.”

“It’s true.”

“That’s what you’re always saying.”

He shot you a smirk that could tear down the world and every forlorn woman in it. How lucky you were that he was yours. You thought of telling him so, of telling him how much you cared for him, but your heart began racing, and the words died on your lips. Instead, you opted to tease him right back—his and your form of endearment. And his resulting happiness made you know that it was just as special to him as saying those three precious words.

_________

tag list: @nayomi247 @ultraporcelainpig @photo1030 @spiritcatcherxo @calcarius445 @meet-me-backstage @marygillisapologist @formula1mount @oziozzioslo @lunawolfclaw @c1gs-coffee @appalachiancowboy99

[litnerdwrites]

@high-speed-r Exactly!

I think this is because Acotar is meant to be character driven, in comparison to tog that is plot driven, series, and it just fails at that. Like, the IC barely go through any character development at all. Cassian goes through zero in acosf, and Rhys gets the tiniest smidge, if you squint, in acowar. It's not too much to ask for the main characters, at least, to develop to some degree, even if it's not their book, because that's the point and driving force of the story. Yet only the Archeron sisters, Lucien, maybe Tamlin, and I guess Az (based on a bonus chapter) have even had, at the very least, the slightest hint of a character arc, and we're like five books in.

You care very little about the IC because they don't have personal stakes, or even much of personalities beyond stereotypes. It doesn't feel like they started their character arcs, so there's nothing for readers to root for. As things stand, they could be replaced by other characters who fit similar stereotypes, and you'd barely notice.

Meanwhile, Lucien has changed and developed over the course of the books. He's become an actual character beyond a stereotype, and the audience can relate. We know he's loyal, witty, and a very talented emissary, with friends almost everywhere. Despite this, he's lost his home many times, and seems to be looking for one, along with kinship. He's been nothing but respectful to Elain, but still seems to hope, maybe because he thinks he'd find that kinship with her. This is some of the basics of what I've learned about his character since book one, and book two onwards, he's barely there.

That's what I think makes him different from the IC, and why it seems way easier to be attached to him as a character.

tbfh what did Mor think was going to happen once they found out that she slept with Cassian to ruin her engagement. She's honestly lucky CASSIAN wasn't killed. Eris did exactly what Mor wanted. If he took her into his court, she'd become their property. He left her there to give her a chance at freedom but she's still mad at Eris for doing exactly what she wanted like this girl is just so 😩

[incorrectfatui]

okay, more HCs. This one is only Scara, so things might get a lil dark- I'm not normal about him. anywho: Scaramouche: -autistic. I am going to say this about every Harbinger, bc it's the truth. -most traumatized mfer in all of Teyvat. Seriously. someone give this guy a licensed therapist. -as Kabukimono, he's tried to eat several non edible items. This one is inspired by that one researcher who made up a story about him eating a humans arm. The image of little Scara munching on various dangerous items is so cute -related to the above: he still does it sometimes, to fuck with people. Dottore thinks its great. Pierro had to stop him from getting Kuni to eat a delusion. -Eyes (& markings) always glow at least slightly, even if he's not using his powers. Its not really noticeable in the day, but at night you can see it pretty well -hates Pantalone. Not bc he's jealous of him hanging out with Dottore or something (if anything, Pantalone gets jealous), but just because he is an ass. -Went to the Abyss again for a long time, just after Arlecchino became a Harbinger, and kind of forgot that Crucy was replaced. Came back and was like "who the FUCK- oh right". Why? because I think its funny -In general, has a better relationship with most of the female Harbingers than the male ones. -a little self indulgent, but I like to think that he was able to float a lil with electro as well. We see Raiden and Ei do it, and I think it'd be cute if he was able to as well, if to a lesser degree. -has used almost every element at some point, testing delusions with Dotty. Mostly bc I can't really imagine all those researchers just throwing 4 extra elements at shouki no kami and being like "figure it out" -speaking of delusions: I think he didn't use one. His electro is inert and I dont think he used another element. I see people headcanoning his delusion as Anemo, and I get it, but I don't like it all that much -SPEAKING of his electro being inert to his body- I refuse to believe he lost electro completely. The whole "oh he used up his divinity" is lazy. He can still connect to Irminsul, which he only learned while ascending, but he cant use electro anymore, something that he's had since birth? Bullshit. I understand him not using it, but I think it'd be more impactful if that was a voluntary choice. I'd really like to see him recover it over the course of the story -I think Youkai like him. Obviously this excludes Yae Miko, but I think as Kabukimono it wouldn't be strange to see him being followed by some Tanuki or the lesser Kitsune. I would really like to see him interact with the Youkai Children from that one Inazuma event, I think it'd be really cute. -I like seeing people write about him and Kujou Sara, both romantic, platonic and as enemies. The two of them are very similar in some aspects, and then radically different in others. I think it'd be really interesting to see Kujou Sara confronted with her own trauma being reflected onto Ei. I guess this is mostly because I just really like Sara and I want my favs to interact xD -more of a theory, but I think Pierro and Dottore, (will) remember him. He has a lot of foreshadowing in his voiceline about Pierro & Dotty, and other things. He's very clearly endgame/lore relevant, with his story not even being finished. -not a HC, but I wanted to mention it: I'm still stuck in Inversion of Genesis on my main account. I never played past it. I did the Fontaine and Natlan quests for friends/watched them online, but I'm still in IoG on my main, because I never fully decided on a name -last one bc character limit: I really like to imagine him interacting with Neuvilette. I think there could be a lot of interesting discussions had here- Neuvi would absolutely dissaprove of his attempt to overthrow Nahida, but at the same time I think he would, to some degree, understand his obsession with the gnosis. No, the gnosis/authority doesn't belong to Scara (or Ei, for that matter), but I think if you told Neuvi that Scara was quite literally created to hold it, he'd understand, to a degree.

[hanjisungslag]

hiiii!! so sorryyy idk if you take requests BUTT could you do headcannons of being in an argument with the aot characters?

🗣️ aot characters & arguments

characters involved: eren, armin, mikasa, connie, jean, sasha, reiner, annie, bertolt, erwin, levi & hange

notes: i do take requests indeed!! :3 i luv angst, i hope this is gd♡

✧ eren jaeger - 

okay, when you guys argue it’s honestly more cute than anything because you’re both so protective of one another. neither of you wanted each other to join the scouts because it was so dangerous but, you both joined anyways obviously. oh my god, you guys non-stop bicker when there’s a mission! and don’t even get me started if you get put into different teams😭 you start TWEAKINGG. after he finds out he’s the attack titan, oh it gets 10x worse. his absolute biggest fear is losing control and hurting you - he’s already so conflicted, confused & felt like an outcast. he definitely lashes out more and becomes snappier than usual but, it does come from a place of sincerity.

when this happens, you just leave it be. as soon as it’s not just bickering anymore, when a voice is raised or an insult is made, you just leave it. you understand he’s going through a lot and just needs a minute but, TRUST ME! when you walk off, you make sure it is known that your feelings are hurt.

“i said no! you are not being on my team! im going with the levi squad, thats final.”

✧ armin arlert -

you both love each other very much but, goddamn you’re both so up your own arses! you are the ‘smart couple’ you are both strategic and witty and have your own way you go about things. so, when it comes to deciding whose plan is better, you always think yours is better and admin thinks his is better. this has (and probably always will be) the main root of your arguments, tbh. nobody likes to get involved either because if someone picks a side then even more havoc will break lose. the only people who’ve ever come between you two is: mikasa, levi & erwin.

it’s just like a debate, you know the ones on jubilee where it’s just people speaking over each other with different facts and sources? literally you two. you both would keep going until the end of time if you didn’t need to sleep, eat and drink water. it’s never that serious at the end of the day, you both love each other and i GUESS you can appreciate each others plans albeit you both think yours is better.

“if you actually listen to me when i say, my layout is better! look at how easy it is to manoeuvre from the castle to the forest!”

✧ mikasa ackerman -

wash the damn scarf. that is all you ask of her. she has literally never washed it and you love but jesus christ, stink LINGERS. not only do you think it’s weird she doesn’t wash it but, it’s also from eren… now, you know mikasa’s lore, of course. however, it’s really hard to get over your girlfriend having this deep love for this smelly scarf that her ex-crush gave to her after he literally saved her from being kidnapped. at first, you try to ignore it but it gets to a point where you sit down and talk to her but, she is not having it. she clearly cares very, very deeply for this scarf and will defend it. it’s really awkward conversation that slowly turns into raised voices and some opinionated things being raised.

“why are you getting jealous over a scarf? that’s so stupid! i just have fond memories with it!”

✧ connie springer -

again, not so much major arguments but just bickers. it usually starts as a joke but slowly but surely divulges into an argument about something stupid. one time, someone ate the last of jean’s meal that his mum made for him and he saved until today, obviously he was super upset and jokingly you blamed connie. at first, all was well, laughs were being heard and he even poked fun at you but, somewhere along the way it became more serious for you two, you genuinely suspected connie of eating jean’s meal and connie was getting visibly more upset.

“that was so not me! why are you telling them that?! i didn’t eat it, y/n!”

jean regretted asking who ate his food.

✧ jean kirstein -

jean is unfortunately a jealous guy. not for any malicious reasons, he’s just a bit insecure gang! he’s more scared that you’ll leave him for someone ‘better’ more than anything but, these feelings of insecurity manifest as jealously. he’d get jealous over you spending time with people like eren, mikasa or armin. in so many aspects, they’re better than him (in his eyes) and this will just make him reallyyy pissy. being in an argument with jean is painstakingly ambiguous like he never straight up says it, it’s always sly remarks or dry responses from him for a while. eventually, you know something is up and question him but he will avoid answering like the plague and it’s just so, so frustrating! eventually, when you break your calm demeanour, he will also break his ‘nonchalant-ness’ and just shout about how he feels.

he crossed his arms, “i just don’t understand why you need to be around him so much, you have me?”

✧ sasha braus -

absolutely nothing. i’m sorry but, she is too sweet and loving. IM SORRY, i’m sorry… i tried so hard to think of something but this queen is too perfect. at most, she would snap at you in high stress situations but she would never turn it into an argument. for example, if you told her to slow down her eating because you’re going on a mission but, she hasn’t eaten much that day she may snap and tell you to “let her do what she wants” but, she’s sooo quick to recover and apologise. literally not even giving you a second to even think about arguing with her!!

“ah, i’m sorry. you’re right, i don’t wanna be sick while flying through the air, huh?” she pouts.

✧ reiner braun -

you’re both from marley, you know damn well what you’re doing here but it seems reiner is straying off path. you’re there to try and remind him why you’re there and this leads to so many arguments. his split personality also plays a role in the arguments because it’s so.. scary and confusing for you because one moment he’s defending eldians than the next, he’s shouting at you about how he ‘knows the plan’.

when talking about stuff like this, since it’s extra sensitive for reiner he definitely flips out. i’m talking shouting, angry grunting, clenching his fists into balls and holding them against his forehead so he doesn’t fully crash tf out. he’s just as confused and scared as you are about his split personality but, he doesn’t want to seem weak or to seem like he’s losing sight of what is ‘right’ - it gets him really worked up. obviously, you stand your ground against him, he doesn’t scare you when you’re arguing. you’ve known him for so long.. you feel like he just needs to be guided.

“when did i ever say i liked them? yes, they’re okay people to be around for now but— no, i never said that! i know what they are, you don’t remind to tell me, y/n!”

✧ annie leonhart -

just the fact she’s cold and distant, it makes it really hard to actually have a relationship with her. at first, she was closed off COMPLETELY but cracks began to show and eventually, you thought you were at a good point with each other but, you kind of realised you didn’t know that much about annie. you try to ask questions to get her to open up but, she is one tough egg to crack so eventually, you just ask! hoping to help her more than anything but, this leads to an argument…

after this first argument, it became pretty regular like once every few weeks this would happen. you get super frustrated because she acts like she doesn’t even care! so, you’re shouting and getting really passionate while she sits there, looking pissed off and bored, rolling her eyes and scoffing. she doesn’t see the need to open up to you, she’s done what she thinks is ‘enough’ in her books.

“what do you want me to say? i’m not an open book, that’s just how i am. we’re all gonna end up dead, anyways.”

✧ bertolt hoover -

sigh… oh bert. every time you feel yourself developing further into your relationship with bert, his friends seem to pull him back. you’re still not quite sure why and they always seem to be giving side eyes or glances when he talks about his life - its starting to piss you off, rightfully so. you feel like he’s got two other side hoes watching yours and his every move! you being this up in subtle ways as to not seem like a crazy, jealous partner but eventually you burst and tell him how you really feel.

arguing with sweet bert isn’t fun because you can tell he tries so hard to please everyone in the situation, whether it’s you, him or now in this case, his friends too. he will raise his voice but, not in a bad way just in a general sense, things are getting heated, his voice will raise and he will fling his arms and hands. he’s a very expressive man when arguing because he is so passionate about it.

“y/n, they’re my friends! they’re just trying to protect me, why are you jealous?”

✧ erwin smith -

there’s so such things as arguments in your relationship, erwin likes to call them ‘mutual disagreements’ as your both in the scouts, he knows your time is limited. it’s a morbid and pessimistic way to think but, you have to be realistic when you live such a deadly lifestyle. he doesn’t want to take your time together for granted - plus, he’s a MAN like, he is calm and collected and will always hear you out.

you both start off calm, having a mature conversation about whatever it is that is bothering you but, when you start getting rowdier that’s when erwin quells the flames quickly. he takes a deep breath, hears you out and calmly walks you through it all. he’s so compassionate about it, i cant omg. he’ll gently place a hand over your own hand or on your shoulder if you’re standing, letting you know he’s present, he’ll sweetly talk you down, eventually calming you down and usually you’ll both say apologises or just general sweet statements and move on!

“i’m sorry, y/n. no, i’m glad you talked to me about this.”

✧ levi ackerman -

oh lord, being in an argument with levi ackerman is nawwtt fun. i’m sorry but, i’d kms if i argued with levi 😭. this man has such an awful resting bitch face as it is but, imagine his face when he’s arguing with you? IF LOOKS COULD KILL. he cant hide his emotions, so when you’re arguing even if he’s trying to be somewhat nice, his face says it all. usually he’ll roll his eyes and scoff if it’s something minor, he’ll hear you out, maybe give a half arsed apology or some sort of nice gesture to make sure you’re not upset however, if it’s a big issue oh brother…

silent treatment, i fear. he is so bad at communicating his feels correctly and often feels confused because this mf ain’t been in love before?! it gets too a point where he’s so mad, he just cant even begin to think of anything to say to you. you’ll be there raising your voice, becoming so passionate and when you ask what he thinks, he’ll say “i have nothing to say.” then boom, silent treatment. however, he’s bad with his words… but good with his actions. he still wants you to know he cares, you two could be in the most rancid moods but, you’ll go to your room and find your clothes ironed and folded🥲.

✧ hange zoë -

oh my sweet hange, my probably neurological challenged sweet hange… an argument with them would definitely stem from them spending more time with titans than you. when sawney and bean were around, you weren’t getting ANY time of day with them, trust. at first, you didn’t want to say anything because of course, you understand! the lifetime you guys are living in, things like hange’s research is soo important but, you can’t help but feel neglected sometimes.

when you finally bring it up, an argument ensues. neither of you really shout or anything, it’s just that kind of weird sort of raised, high pitched voice people get when you’re really frustrated. you both stay relatively calm for the situation you’re in but, you can totally tell you’re both so frustrated because hange just doesn’t see the problem. when you guys argue like this, it usually just goes in circles and after a while you both decide to mutually give up and leave it for another day.

“it’s all for science and the greater good of humanity though, i don’t understand?”

[redstringraven]

Fika

characters: don, klunk, leo, mikey and raph rating: g content warnings: n/a word count: 4288 relevant tags: sick fic, sick leo, post-episode: good genes

(n.) a moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life a leo sick-fic, requested by @sakuradiva for @tmnt4p !

[ read on ao3 ]

You may as well have called the first sneeze an alarm bell. The instant it echoed through the reservoir station, each and every one of them in range perked up, heads swiveling like a bunch of prairie dogs.

Raph seeks out Don first. He scans the open first-level of the reservoir station until he catches Don’s eye--a second after Mikey does. Don glances between them, his expression at first wide. Then his lips curl downward, and he huffs. “—that wasn’t me.”

There's no attempt to hide the irritation in his tone (and Raph couldn’t blame him); a week or two of one helicopter sibling is annoying enough. Don had three. Plus Master Splinter. Plus April and Casey. Plus Leatherhead. Seven people in a semi-constant state of worry, hovering, asking questions, growing tense with anything that could be a small sign of 'relapse'. It had to get smothering at some point. And even Don had a limit to his so-called infinite patience.

“—Oh!” Mikey says. He pauses, his eyes darting from Don, to Raph, and back again--clearly scrambling to deflect from what Don had drawn attention to. “—Well. It wasn’t ME. My sneezes are a lot more… uuuuh…”

“Needy?” Raph offers.

“Yeah!” A beat. Mikey's eyes widen, then he shoots a squint at Raph. “—Hey, wait.”

“Sorry.” Leo moves out of the kitchen, mug in hand, having lowered the heel of his palm from his beak. “I, uh. I think I might’ve stirred up some dust while I was looking for the chamomile.”

Mikey relaxes, likely happy to accept this answer and move on, but Raph’s brow arcs. “Thought you’n Mikey gave the cabinets a good wipe-down earlier this week.”

“We did,” Leo says. He shrugs. “Guess… some of it must still be in the air. I dunno.”

...lying, Raph thinks, though he’s careful to keep the suspicion from reaching his eyes. He shifts his attention to Mikey just in time to catch the tell-tale signs of worry: a sudden stillness, like a deer in headlights, and the slightest strain around the eyes. It’s gone as soon as it arrives, and Mikey replaces any sign of it with an impish grin.

“Looks like someone was slacking on cleaning duty,” he jabs, knuckles propped on his hips. He tilts his weight forward and tuts his tongue. “For shame, Bronardo.”

Leo sends Mikey a passive smirk. He huffs and starts up the steps toward his room. His free hand finds the stair-rail and stays there. Raph locks onto it. He can't help but notice Leo's not resting his palm on the metal; he's holding it.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes with an idea of what we need to knock out today,” Leo says. There's a slight wilt in his posture—and now that Raph thinks about it, he realizes Leo's feet drag just enough to make his usual silent steps borderline audible. Raph shifts his weight and fixes his jaw, forcing himself to hold his tongue. Leo looks back over his shoulder after reaching the threshold of his room and continues, “Donnie, I’d appreciate it if you sat it out another day.”

Don sighs, but he waves a hand lazily over his head. “Heard loud and clear, boss.”

Leo’s door shuts, and silence settles back over the station. Raph remains by the weapons rack, and Don keeps his attention on the blueprints he has spread across the table he'd claimed as his temporary workbench. Only Mikey moves, plucking at one of his wrist bands, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the subtle rise in tension.

“...--you think I can squeeze in just enough Resident Evil 4 that I can get far away from a save point, and he’ll have to wait until I reach the next one to turn off the game?” Mikey asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer; instead, he flashes Raph a wide grin and bolts for the couch with a cackle. The televisions flash and hum to life, and Raph lets out a blend of a sigh and a growl. His eyes shift to Don.

Don’s already looking at him. Even with the faint purple stains under his eyes, the mild sag of his skin, there’s a sharpness in his stare. Raph recognizes it. He knows they harbor the same concern.

“Donnie?”

“Yeah, Mikey?”

Mikey huffs as he enters Don’s room, scratching at his cheek.

“Have you seen Klunk? He was snoozing on me like usual this morning, but… I kinda didn’t want to get up and give him his breakfast just yet." A terrible betrayal, if he were being honest. But he'd really just wanted five more minutes (which turned to ten, to fifteen, to twenty), and Klunk grew bored of swatting his face. Totally lost track of time after that. Mikey frowns, sending another short glance over his shoulder to eye the station. "He must’ve gotten cranky and left, but he wasn’t in the kitchen.”

“No,” Don says. He rotates a bit more in his chair to face Mikey and sets his pen aside. His jaw tightens, shivers as he points toward the door (an attempt to redirect attention as he stifles a yawn). “But--uh. I know he’s really fond of that one spot by the water?”

Mikey shakes his head. “Checked. Nada.”

“Oh…” Don’s brow furrows. “Well… --have you asked Leo? He might’ve seen where Klunk ran off to; he's been up a while.”

“Good idea. Thanks, Donnie!”

Don grunts a sound in place of a “you’re welcome”, and Mikey jogs back into the heart of their new lair.

There is, of course, a risk he ran entering Leo’s room: he’d narrowly managed to wiggle his way out of work yesterday, and he doubted he’d get similar results today. Leo may not be… grumpy anymore, but he was still Leo. A bit of a stickler—a: wet blanket, one might venture. You could only keep up a single ruse with him for so long.

Leo's door is open when he reaches it (a welcome sight, considering how often it’d been closed in the months before), and Mikey allows himself to cross inside. The space is rather bare--with little left to salvage from the second lair and a mutant outbreak to clean up, they found themselves back at square one in terms of decor. But Leo still found a way to make the few things he had feel clean and in order. Mikey could feel almost a rhythm in the way he'd stacked books on the floor, where he placed candles, and where Leo chose to sit when he meditated. He’s also quick to spot the ball of orange fur settled into Leo’s lap.

“Hey, Leo!” Mikey chirps, careful to keep his voice just low enough so as not to startle either of them. He waits a second for one of Leo’s eyes to open before continuing, “mind if I steal Klunk off ya?”

Leo smiles. But it’s… a tired? smile? Mikey can’t remember the last time Leo looked tired in the morning (y’know; like a normal person).

“I’m surprised you didn’t come get him sooner,” Leo mutters. He closes his eye again. “Sure.”

“Thanks!”

Mikey takes a wide step into the room and crouches. He digs around in his belt, locating one of Klunk's favorite snack-tubes.

“Oh Kah-looooonkkkk,” he says, putting on his best sing-song-I-totally-got-treats-for-you-love-me-please voice, “you want some tube~?”

Klunk lifts and tilts his head. Rather than get to his feet and trot to Mikey’s side, he shifts his weight, tucking his legs securely under his body. Mikey blinks.

That's weird. Klunk never turns down an offer for tube.

Even Klunk seems to acknowledge this; his tail twitches irritably, and his ears flatten out. It's like he wants to get up but…

“...hey, Leo?” Mikey props his elbows on his knees, frowning. “Has Klunk been with ya like this all morning?”

Leo’s shoulders lift in a half-shrug. “Guess so.”

“Huh.” Mikey pouts. Klunk hated a late breakfast. There hadn’t been scraps in his bowl, so no one had fed him yet. Why isn't he screaming for food? ...he's definitely still sending me dirty looks.

Mikey drums his hands on his inner knees. He opens his mouth—another question forming on his tongue—but snaps it closed when Leo suddenly sniffs. It's a wet, strained sound, and his posture rolls forward a little. Almost like he’d just gotten dizzy, or the breath had taken more effort than it should've. Come to think of it, it... did look like Leo was breathing through his mouth more than his nose. His lips were parted slightly. Mikey squints—glances from Klunk to Leo—and straightens up. “...your, uh... nose still bugging ya, bro?”

“A little.”

“...iiiis that all that’s bugging ya?”

Leo frowns, but he keeps his eyes closed. His brow wrinkles. “What do you mean?”

“I dunno,” Mikey says, “iiiit’s just… y’look kind of tired? And… Klunk super doesn’t wanna leave your lap. Which is weird! Because he hasn't had breakfast! And I offered him a tube! He ALWAYS wants tube.”

Leo opens his eyes and frowns as he looks at Mikey. Mikey shifts his weight and wrings his wrists in his lap. Leo didn’t have that needling look in his eyes like he had a few months ago, but… guess he’d started expecting a half-hearted glare and a growl.

Leo must have realized this, too. He winces, and his features weaken.

“Mikey, I’m okay,” he says. Mikey's lips twitch into a weak smile, but it must not have looked convincing. Leo sighs, "really, I’m just… Maybe I've just got a cold.”

“—a cold?” Mikey echoes, all at once alert. His throat tightens. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knows it's irrational, but he doesn't care. He searches Leo’s limbs—any visible section of skin. But nothing looks open, or irritated or… mutated. They'd gotten separated in Bishop's lab for a while after Don got loose. Leo hadn't said anything about encountering other feral mutants, but...

Mikey rolls his lips together, eyes snapping up to meet Leo’s. “You… didn’t get, y’know. Stung. Or anything and didn’t tell us, did you?”

Leo’s expression drops. “What? --no, Mikey. Why would you—”

“—I should get Donnie,” Mikey interrupts, springing to his feet. “Just in case!”

“Mikey, I didn’t—”

“—I’ll be right back!" He jabs a finger at Leo and shakes his head. "Don’t even think about going anywhere! Klunk's loafing on you for your own protection!! DON'T DISRESPECT HIM!”

And he bolts before Leo has the chance to respond.

Don hadn't been the only one tailing Mikey back to Leo's room. Raph followed close at their heels, but he took to leaning on the corner wall rather than hover at Leo's side. Something Leo, admittedly, found himself grateful for.

Quick to busy himself as always, Don took to checking Leo for scratches, bites, stings--any possibility Mikey listed off, thought about or began to fuss over. Klunk, his duty now fulfilled, had grown tired of Don's close proximity, and he swiftly sprang from Leo's lap, trotting to headbutt and rub against Mikey's heels instead. He still circles them now, a soft, steady purr vibrating in his chest. Leo wonders if all cats are like this: aware and attentive of who needs their comfort, and so eager to provide. Or if it's something unique to Klunk... like the little animal knew Mikey had given him a better life, here, and he was in their debt. 

He almost snorts at himself. Probably silly to think cats thought in transactional ways... and something he still needs to work on, himself.

“You’re SURE he's not sick?” Mikey asks suddenly. He fidgets with his mask-tails, unable to stop himself from glancing in Don’s direction. “Like..." he winces, but hints anyway, "sick-sick?”

Don huffs, keeps his eyes down.

Leo frowns, and he shakes his head. “I didn't get stung or bit by anything, Mikey. I promise."

Unless we’re counting that mutant the dragons had set loose. There's a brief second where the thought sends a wave of alarm through his chest, but it's quick to settle. That happened months before the mutagen outbreak in the city. Surely, if it was a similar kind of illness, it would have made itself known by now. He'd been bitten long before Don had been stung, and Don's symptoms began surfacing in the following weeks. His brothers must be thinking something similar; Mikey continues to send looks in Don's direction, and Raph remains oddly quiet. The silence starts to feel heavy, and Leo winces. “Sorry, Donnie.”

“—don’t,” Don hastens, frowning at him. “Really.”

"So," Mikey starts, "he's not sick-sick? He's just... siiiiick-sick?"

Don sends him a dull stare. "You can just say 'infected', Mikey."

"Sorry."

"It's fine. But, no. I don't think he is." Don glances at Leo and shrugs. "There aren't any 'entry points', like he said. And I doubt he ate anything at Bishop's."

Leo grunts and wrinkles his nose. Mikey shifts his weight, unsatisfied. "What... --what about that thing we stole from Karai? --he's the one who touched it first. Do you think it cursed him?"

"Mikey--"

"--don't act like it's not possible, Don!" Mikey interrupts, clenching his fists at his sides. "We've time traveled! Space traveled! There's a whole city under our feet right now! --And--what about that... that big, red alien-monster thing that almost got Angel's bro?! --That old guy--he was totally cursed and stuff!! What if--"

“--it ain’t that deep,” Raph grumbles, his voice low but sharp enough to cut Mikey off. He pushes off the wall, propping his hands on his hips. “I bet it’s ‘cuz this bozo got back from Japan and hit the ground runnin’. Ain't stopped since.”

Leo squints, and Raph holds up a hand, 'counting' off his fingers as he continues, “I doubt ya slept on the boat trip over. Y’came lookin’ for each of us—got us all back in one place. Fought Karai. Got us back on our feet, the station up 'n runnin'. The first few mutants start showin’ their ugly heads. We get sent back to the jurassic period—”

“—cretaceous,” Don mutters, and Raph scoffs.

“Whatever! --Look, my POINT is, y’ain’t stopped movin’ once. You probably went and wore yourself out! Even more than usual!”

“You were kinda training like crazy for a while,” Mikey adds, rubbing his neck. “Like. A lot a lot. All the time. I guess maybe you chilled while you were in Japan, but... also not really.”

“Raph… has a point, Leo,” Don says. He looks to Leo and shrugs. “April’s talked about this sort of thing before. Like, when she was in college? She said during the holiday breaks, she’d come home and not have anything to worry about, and it was like her whole body released a ton of tension all at once. She’d have a horrible stomach ache for that first day home. Maybe… this is your version of that.”

“This is the quietest it’s been since…” Raph pauses, growls, and shakes his head. “It’s the quietest it’s been in a good, long while.”

Leo frowns. He can't think of any kind of argument. Or, at least, all the arguments that were coming to mind wouldn’t help with anything. Either Raph would get irritable, or Mikey would get antsy and more nervous than he already was. And Don... while Leatherhead had been confident there wouldn't be a chance of relapse, they'd decided not to risk anything. Guess it'd be pretty hypocritical of him to go on insisting he was fine, when they'd all decided he wasn't.

What was it the Ancient One said about surrender? Leo almost couldn’t help but smirk and chuckle to himself. “Alright. I guess I could take a few days to do nothing. Join Don in being a couch potato.”

“Sounds ideal to me,” Mikey says.

Leo’s smirk widens. “I bet it does.”

“If anyone deserves a ‘nothin’ day ‘round here, it’s you two workaholics,” Raph says, pointing a finger interchangeably between Don and Leo.

“And Klunk will make sure you both stay sitting down!” Mikey scoops Klunk off the floor. The cat mews in protest, wiggling for a moment before tucking against Mikey's chest. “He’ll be making the best biscuits this side of Brooklyn. Aren't you lucky?”

 Raph snorts, and he thumps a fist against Mikey's shoulder. “Mikey and I will finish what needs t’be done around the lair for the day. Take a load off. Enjoy free biscuits from the stupid cat, and be ready for movies and a hot meal t'night.”

Leo could hear Mikey and Raph in the kitchen, but he couldn’t tell if they were bickering or just talking. Guess those were one and the same when it came to those two.

He and Don had taken to the couch, as promised. Don tinkers with his shell-cell while Klunk watches from his lap, and Leo, settled under a thick blanket, adjusts the book in his hand.

It'd been surprisingly difficult to pick which of his few books he'd wanted to start, and there was something bittersweet in the reminder that he'd have to rebuild his library a second time. He'd selected one of the fiction novels--an old fantasy, filled with mists, magic, and a winding world. He'd already read it a time or three, but the familiar pages were comforting and easy to get lost in. A small voice in the back of his mind still grumbled and tutted that there was work to do, things to check, responsibilities and tasks he'd been setting aside for higher priority items. But he ignores it (for now).

Klunk stands and arches his back. His mouth splits into a large yawn, and he gives his tail a lazy little flick before carefully padding out of Don's lap. Leo smiles and chuckles as the cat moves onto his legs instead, already purring loud enough to drown out whatever conversation fills the kitchen.

Don smirks. “Looks like it’s your turn to get cat-sat, Leo.”

“Yeah.” Leo opens a hand so Klunk can headbutt it, and he ruffles his head with the heel of his palm. “Guess it is.”

Don chuckles. He sits back against the couch again and sighs, letting his hands and the shell-cell drop into his lap. Leo slants his eyes toward him. His smile sinks a little as he watches Don tug one of the throw blankets higher over his chest. “...feeling alright, Donnie?”

“Yeah,” Don huffs, “my energy just gets totally sapped after a certain hour. It’s really annoying.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Mn. ...what about you?”

Leo’s brow furrows. “I… think so? I mostly just feel… heavy.”

“Yeah.”

“But not… --not the same kind of heavy I felt before, just…”

“I know,” Don murmurs. There’s something… different in his tone, now. Leo can’t quite put a word to it. Don continues, “I think Raph hit it right on the money. You get back from Japan and… we get you back… but you haven’t really let yourself have much time to breathe, have you?”

“I could say the same to you,” Leo says, “you’ve been working to get the reservoir station up, functional and livable since we got here. Even while you were getting 'sick'.”

“Maybe. But… I hadn’t just come back from a huge trip with a completely different timezone—a-and, I hadn’t been…" He pauses, cautious. "...I dunno. ...struggling...? At least not like you."

Leo frowns. “Donnie. Whether you’re drowning in an ocean or drowning in a puddle… it’s still drowning.”

Don blinks, glancing at him. There's a moment where Leo can't quite read his eyes, but he remains quiet. Then, Don smirks, and he lets out a weak chuckle.

“I guess you’d know about that better than anyone,” he says, “considering you’re the one who dove in after me when my toy car almost got me waxed.”

“It’d be a pretty embarrassing way to go out," Leo says. "Especially for a turtle.”

“You’d also know a thing or two about that, wouldn’t you? Embarrassing ways to go out.” Don’s eyes glint, and his smirk sharpens. “Big Foot?”

Leo lets out a laugh, ducking and shaking his head in attempt to mask any show of sheepishness. “—Jeez! A guy steps on a landmine one time.”

“It wasn’t just a landmine. It was a landmine in clear water.”

“Please don’t remind me.”

Don laughs. There’s a small pause as his smile softens, and his shoulders sink into a more relaxed position. “...it’s good to have you back, Leo.”

“Hey.” Leo shifts his weight enough to gently jab his elbow into Don’s upper arm. “Right back at you, bro.”

“Alright, sickos.” Raph rounds the couch, his arms held out flat on either side of him. Two large plates balance on either inner-elbow, and in each hand he has a second plate and bowl of steaming soup. Its warm, soothing smell somehow seeps through all the congestion in Leo's nose and throat, and he sighs, letting it fill his ribs. He sits forward and extends his hands, offering to take one of the sets from Raph's person. Raph shoots him a knowing smirk, and he leans just enough to let Leo lift a plate from his arm. “Grilled cheese and tomato soup: comin’ in hot.”

“Oh, sweet,” Don says.

“Think you mean savory, dude!” Mikey chirps as he vaults the couch (and their heads). Leo passes Don the first bowl and plate, and he looks Mikey’s way as his brother drops to his knees to slide the remaining distance to the television set. He spots a DVD case in one of Mikey’s hands and realizes he recognizes it.

“—wait,” he starts, sitting up, “is that what I think it is?”

Mikey turns, flashing him a toothy grin. “Iiiiiiif you mean Kiki’s Delivery Service?”

“Where’d you get that?!” Leo asks, unable to hide the excitement in his voice.

“April,” Raph answers. He chuckles and hands Leo the other plate and bowl, “figured it was time t’start usin’ her access to things to our advantage.”

Don arches a brow. “Like we weren’t doing that already?”

“I mean, sure,” Raph says, “but Kiki’s a classic! Gotta look a bit harder t’get your hands on one’a those; ‘specially a copy that ain’t totally trashed.”

“And because she’s totally awesome, she SPLURGED!!” Mikey says, jamming a finger against the DVD player's eject button. “This one’s got behind the scenes—interviews--storyboards even!!!”

“He’s real excited about the storyboards,” Raph mutters, though he fails to mask the fondness coloring his tone. He ambles back toward the kitchen, likely to retrieve food for himself and Mikey.

Leo settles the plate and bowl into the blankets on his lap. Klunk rises from where he'd curled between Don and Leo, and he pads onto one of Leo's knees in attempt to sniff the tomato soup. Leo gently nudges him away. “No, Klunk.”

“Let’s put you on the ground until food’s eaten, little guy,” Don says. He scoops a hand under Klunk’s stomach and lifts him off the couch. Klunk protests with a soft, but long, meow. He allows himself to be placed on the floor, but the look he sends Don—paired with a flick of his tail—is more than enough warning that he’ll be back before food’s finished.

Raph returns with a second round of plates and bowls, and Mikey finishes setting up the DVD. He sprints to the light switch as Raph eases their meals onto the coffee table. The lights shut off, and they’re left in the cool wash of the screen’s glow.

What comes next is a feeling Leo can’t quite put into words. Mikey slides into the open seat on his right, and Raph settles into the nook at Don’s left. The room fills with a familiar score—A Town with an Ocean View, if he remembers the track name correctly--and Don thanks Raph for dinner as the two pass down napkins. Mikey shifts his weight, taking care to move and tuck the blanket so it's evenly distributed between himself and Leo. Then, he curls up, bowl in lap, and lets himself lean into Leo's side. He takes a napkin when Leo offers it to him, and Don and Raph begin banter over who gets the remote for the movie's run time.

Leo has trouble putting a name to this feeling... and even more trouble recalling the last time it fell over him, warm and soft, like an old blanket fresh from the drier.

A sense of peace. Familiarity. Safety and home. He wants to wrap himself in it and stay. Let everything else sink away.

"Remember the first time we watched this?" Don asks. He fixes the plate on his lap and settles a napkin over one of the grilled cheese pieces.

"Feels like years ago," Mikey says.

Raph lets out a soft snort. "'Cause it was years ago."

"Think we were eight," Leo mutters. "It was the first and only time Mikey ever wanted to be near a broom."

"You're just mad 'cuz I won the race," Mikey sniggers. He wiggles enough to poke his elbow into Leo's bridge. "Totally left you and Raphie in the dust. Which you had to sweep up."

"Oh, brother," Don sighs, and Raph rolls his eyes, letting out a low growl.

"Leo? Smack him. I don't wanna spill my soup."

Leo smirks. He shifts his weight, gently jabbing one elbow into Mikey's arm. Mikey whine-groans at him, but the end of it is colored with a chuckle.

Raph (apparently having won whatever game he and Don were engaged in) lifts the remote and hits the center button. The town's melody quiets, and the room goes dark as the title menu fades to black.

[purplesaline]

If you think that knowing the punchline of one joke in one episode ruins the entire podcast you're definitely missing the point of the podcast.

The joked like above? They're fun, sure, but they're secondary to the point of the podcast which is the byplay between the two characters/hosts and it's the little lessons about how they're surviving their World Gone Wrong that we can use in our own world gone wrong and make it a little bit better, even if it's just for a couple of people.

But let's be real, I don't think that actually matters to you because I don't think you even care about the fact the little joke for this one episode of this podcast was spoiled. You just wanted something to spark about. See, I've read your reblogs and tags on those posts you've interacted with on my dash and I've noticed this seems to be a pattern with you. You like to shit on things. You like to sit on a high horse and look down on others when they do things differently than the way you think they should be done. You have a very rigid view of how things should be and anyone outside of that seems to be a target of your derision.

And you do you, I guess, but in my experience that makes for a rather lonely sort of life, even when you have plenty of friends. That sort of antagonistic approach to the world certainly left me with a hollow, cold space inside at least. Thankfully it went away when I started being less rigid and judgemental and the world became an even more wonderful place to be.

Take a lesson from that if you want, or not, it doesn't matter to me either way.

What does matter to me, though, is playing any part in someone dimming the light of another person sharing their joy. What you do and the way you act is up to you, but for me that's a boundary I'm very careful about enforcing. Be as snarky as you want on other sorts of posts, but if I see you being an ass on a post I've reblogged where someone is sharing something they enjoy I'm going to soft block you. I won't enable that sort of thing when we need every lumen of joy we can find to survive the years ahead.

For anyone who actually is interested in listening to the podcast, definitely check it out. Knowing this little joke won't spoil the episode, let alone the entire podcast, I promise. It's a bright spot of that joy so many of us are desperate for.

World Gone Wrong is a hilarious and great podcast and i've been meaning on making a proper rec post as for why people should listen. but honestly it's near midnight and i'm just giggling to myself about the gag how one episode is just about how the world has been covered by mysterious restaurants serving mysterious food items that no one seems capable of fully naming, with these food items slowly being found to have infiltrated the menus and freezers of restaurants, institutions, and homes all across the world

and gradually

as it gets explained piece by piece

you realise

it's pizza

leaving you with the realisation that either: a) the entire world forgot about the existence of pizza and was made incapable of perceiving the word "pizza" and is now thinks it's an eldritch foodstuff from beyond mortal ken

b) this world legit didn't have pizza but the universe manifested it, presumably as an apology for all the lycanthropy and fae and alien bodysnatchers and shit

[yannisdesk]

Issues With Act 3: A Tier List

I couldn't find the gif of teen Vi making her angry face, but this will suffice. Anyways I have some bones to pick with act 3.

Tier 1: "Oh, the misery!" - Major Problems

I'll be fuming about these decisions for the foreseeable future.

Jinx death/the implications of her being dead (I personally believe a lot of evidence points to her being alive, but for the sake of this post and intentions - we'll talk strictly about what's on screen). Stop killing off mentally ill characters like this, please. To say it's deserved because she's committed acts of violence is stupid. Every character, with the exception of Ekko, has committed acts of violence that had brutal, unfair, or unwanted outcomes - and Jinx is among the ones where her violence is more understandable.

Caitlyn never apologizing for what she did in act 1. Vi calls her out on it and I thought we'd get somewhere, but no. Everyone else just kind of glosses over that she gassed people in act 1 which definitely led to some deaths. No apology to Vi either for gun-butting her. You can argue that it happened off screen, but seeing that ON screen, especially when Vi & Jinx having to verbally voice theirs, is just shitty. What's the point of having her scene in the opening credits be so stressful and guilt-ridden if she's not allowed to express that guilt beyond a word and expression or two? It also cheapens the theme of forgiveness this season because they first step to receiving forgiveness is apologizing. Act 2 understood this better than Act 3, given that in Vander's letter to Silco, the first thing he does is apologize.

Do we need to go over the implications/optics of the wealthy, privileged girl who gets to act out not really facing any consequences for her actions and getting to redeem herself in defending her city, but Jinx, disenfranchised and poor, needs to be fatally punished? Here's a hint IT'S BAD.

The whole Zaun and Piltover plot being dropped in general. We see Sevika join the council in the end, but that's it? Was independence off the table now? WHAT CONVERSATIONS HAPPENED OFF SCREEN THAT LED TO THIS BEING THE SOLUTION? Is anything worth a damn actually going to come from this arrangement? Also Piltover getting all of them councilors while Zaun gets one representative? *deep sigh*

Corruption with the enforcers being dropped like a hot potato. I guess that just stopped being something people cared about despite it being thoroughly critiqued by the narrative from the beginning of season 1 until now.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FIRELIGHTS TREE???? No one talks about it anymore. Did it die while Ekko and Heimerdinger were in the alt-timeline, did it hold out, was it healed once the hexcore was destroyed????????????? WE NEED ANSWERS.

Tier 2: "Spare the sympathy" - Middle-of-the-Road

These problems aren't necessarily deal-breakers, but irked me none the less.

No one can no longer call Viktor "Zaunite Jesus" because that was clearly 15 year-old Vi lol. What do you mean in an alternate universe she dies during the heist in S1E1 and then all of a sudden there's peace between Zaun and Piltover??????? All I can think of, is that after seeing how this poor kid was killed while trying to provide that set off some sort of chain reaction where Piltover and Zaun agreed to make peace to stop this sort of thing. I could actually buy that, however, just, why????? Vi already blames herself for everything so why validate that?! Also, I'm not saying it's impossible for alt-timeline Jinx to turn out healthy and well-adjusted, but, she had to cradle her older sister's corpse in her hands...there's a fair chance she'd still become Jinx.

No one finding out that they were all within centimeters of each other during the day of the heist. Arcane loves to do full-circle moments and endings, but somehow in the midst of stuffing the season with everything they could, they somehow couldn't do this which was on a damn platter sitting for them.

Tier 3: "I'll never be a saint" - Minor Problems

Had only these problems existed in act 3, I would've considered it perfect.

Not seeing the conversation that led to Ekko convincing Jinx to join the battle. Kind of minor because we see him convincing her out of ending her life, and we can gather that conversation from episode 7, but still, I feel like, given how down we see Jinx, that's something that should've been shown.

Having Caitvi bone in a prison cell. I'm split 50/50 on this, because on one hand - that's a place rife with Vi's trauma. On the other, it's symbolic for other things (no, I'm not talking about the fact that it's where they first met) that I kind of give it a pass.

[askthefamous8]

Even if I haven't been very active lately, 9 years is still pretty significant- happy birthday to the blog!

So like Percy up there I'm gonna do so dome reflecting. This blog's where I've often done that for some reason, but here's the tl'dr for blog related stuff.

• I would like to keep drawing stuff but feeling generally unsure in myself, and I'm wondering if all the years of fandom harrassment have caught up with me • I have one big project in mind, I've been dipping my toe into what I'd need to do it. No spoilers but it was one of the first things I played around with this series, so do with that what you will • If I can keep myself drawing, I want to use more of the original source material since I'm struggling with original ideas. So stuff like redraws, hOpEfULlY even animatics, just like what originally got me so into trains yknow? Because that's fun and sparks joy. And that always goes down a treat with you guys so bonus • As always I appreciate you guys not coming after me for being so inconsistent

The rest of this is me doing what Percy's doing in the drawing and reflecting, as there is indeed much 2 think about. It's also a little sad and venty so, there's your warning there.

.

Ok so obviously a busy year, we moved into our new house that we actually own, I spent most of the year planning our wedding, and then got married. Big stuff. Also! I came off antidepressants in the summer. I've been on them for...basically as long as this blog, 6 months after I started it I think. Which also means I'd been on antidepressants my entire adult life. Feels like a big deal and I guess I'm still adjusting.

Another big thing, but sad, is that my dog died about two weeks ago. If you follow me on twitter you'll have seen her but she did make an appearance here a few Halloweens ago

I got her when she was 13 and had her 8 years after that. So that's been difficult. Unrelated to that (probably), but I just feel...really mediocre. And before you point out the obvious, this has been present even before I came off antidepressants. But yeah just... mediocrity. In myself as a person, how I look, what I draw, my whole life really (barring my marriage thankfully). What have I achieved? I'm 26, I'm not working, I don't feel well, my art isn't good (I don't think so anyway- like yeah it's technically fine I guess but it's not, and has never been, very stand-out or impressive). And lately art doesn't bring me the same joy it once did, and I'm wondering if all the years of harrassment from this fandom (mostly the twitter side, tumblr's been pretty good to me) has finally caught up with me and put me off the whole thing. Or worse, that I just don't have as much of an interest in it anymore. I don't think I'll ever be like "ok yep I'm officially done with this blog" because I'm so stubborn but idk. I want to make things and be creative, I want to make more train art, but it doesn't feel the same. I don't know what's wrong. What do you listen to? What you want vs what you feel? I still enjoy train stuff, I love going to Awdry Ex every year. It's been like this for awhile. It's not even like I have a strong feeling of what I'd rather be doing as far as careers go. And even if I did, oh yeah I'm sure my two degrees in animation will be very relevant in another field (sarcasm). I feel adrift. My sails are open but there is just no wind. Planning my wedding gave me something to do and work on and just, feel useful but now that that's over I feel lost again. Losing my dog, who had become the center of my life because of how vulnerable she had become, hasn't helped.

On the more creative side of things, I also don't really know what to do with this blog's story either. The show's ended as far as most people are concerned, and I kiiinda wrote myself into a corner because once Thomas turns 18 he's going to leave for university, and that sets off this whole arc with James but basically the problem is it involves characters leaving and for some reason that feels like a no-no here. Don't get me started on the timeline lol. But Thomas works on a railway on Sodor, that's how it has to be...right? I guess I'm sort of at a crossroads of, ok do I want this to be close to the source material, and thus easily digestible to newcombers? Or do I want to make it more and more my thing and distanced from the source material? I doubt there's many new people coming since the series ended. And even then, there's a lot more humanization artists around now than when I started, so it's not like I'm filling a niche anymore. Just to be clear it's fine and also good that there's more humanization artists, variety is good, I just don't feel as "needed" anymore (which is 100% in my head and not an actual role that belongs to me or something). I started this blog when I was 17, so my interests and what I relate to have changed obviously. The character designs certainly have. It's never followed a super rigid story plan, but the core of it has always been the central cast doing things on Sodor. I however have always had a scene/project/animatic/whatEver in mind for when this 'series' would '''officially''' ''''end''''. But then what comes after that? I've always tried to run this blog like they are Real People that You interact with. But in real life there is no ending to the story, there's always more stuff to come. You get married, and it's wonderful, and then life goes on. The credits never roll. So maybe that's what I'm having trouble coping with...the progression of time. Ah, my old nemesis. I've always had trouble with letting go of things. There's nothing to say that I couldn't still draw stuff after the series "ends". I guess any story after Thomas leaves could be like... a sequel series or a spin off or something. Spin-off of a spin-off. Famous 8 All Grown Up. Famous 8 Qurter Life Crisis. Who knows. I certainly don't.

I've also been really into an original project unrelated to this but those don't get as much attention and while I'd like to do something with it one day, I don't feel very confident in being able to make that happen right now. But you know... as far my as art not being super spectacular goes... I think my individual talent has always been is my ideas, like the writing side of things. And then brought to life with my art, which normally isn't anything to write home about but is good enough to convey the idea and be not-awful to look at, lifts both of them beyond what they were individually. Maybe that's what I should focus on. Maybe that's wishful thinking.

So....idk. Idk what I'm doing but I'm trying to be gentle on myself and just let myself continue to drift, to heal from this heavy loss, and then in the New Year I'll try and pick myself up. Then there will be no more big once-in-a-lifetime events coming up, no more just-moved-into-a-house-and-oh-no-there's-a-bunch-of-things-that-need-attention-NOW scenarios, and no more big holidays for awhile. I guess we'll see.

If you read all of this I am so sorry but also thank you for reading my ramblings. And thank you for being around, whether that's been for a few months or for several years, but especially if it's been several years

[qwardivior]

DEMON BUSTERS!! — About Nezuko

Next Part>>

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And so, the long awaited Nezuko post has arrived!!! Sorry for the long wait everyone, I had to work out some lore stuff and this kept getting delayed, so let’s just get right into it! In case you don’t know or need a refresher, in this modern kny au the Demon Slayer Corps has updated and rebranded into the Demon Busters! People have been dying to demon attacks at alarming rates so to make their jobs easier they’ve been running ad campaigns! However this installment is a little different as this is NOT an ad campaign! To protect Nezuko they did not run an ad campaign on her. Instead, this is known as an ‘about’. Several other characters will be getting an about section but let’s start with our favorite girl Nezuko!

— Lore Dump Incoming!!—

In this au, Nezuko got turned on her birthday. It was supposed to be a fun celebration, she would spend the night at her friends’ house and then go home the next morning to help her family prepare for New Years. Of course when the day actually came, there were complications as Tanjirou would not let her go for whatever reason, stating that he had a “bad feeling” about it. But nothing ever happens in their small town! In fact, the biggest event in a long while was their father’s death a couple months prior. Eventually, after some back and forth they just chalked it up to him being paranoid and she was able to go.

It wasn’t just paranoia. Nobody knew that anything was wrong until the next morning. Tanjirou had gone to pick Nezuko up since nobody had heard anything from her, and was met with a gruesome sight. Just like in canon, Nezuko was the only survivor, but she seemed to be a little off… Firstly, she had tried to attack Tanjirou before quickly coming to her senses after a man called Giyuu Tomioka appeared, stating that he was a “Demon Buster” and she was a “demon” and that he had to slay her. And secondly she no longer had a taste for human food and just slept all the time! Luckily, nobody was slayed, and the siblings were instructed to find a man named Sakonji Urokodaki, Tomioka’s teacher. But they couldn’t just leave! Not after everything. So they came to an agreement: because Nezuko was able to quell her hunger and more or less function like a normal human, the two would go home for now, and then Tomioka would come to pick them up at a later date. As it turned out, in order for Nezuko to get her humanity back, she’d have to become a “Demon Buster”. A perfect way to bring in the new year..

In this au Nezuko keeps her humanity and is more of her own person. This makes it easier for her to get around and get info from other demons easier. She also conquers the sun slightly earlier, but we’ll get to that later. She wasn’t able to really show herself to her family that often until she was able to learn how to disguise herself from none other than Yushiro. Her having a sense of self and a personality separate to Tanjirou also allows for them to go their separate ways a bit more. Of course they stick together but it’s not like Nezuko is bound to the box. They have missions that sometimes requires Tanjirou to go completely solo, thus Nezuko is left to her own devices.

Overall, I really want to explore Nezuko’s character more and there’s so much more to her than what can be explained in a single post. I guess you’ll just have to tag along to find out more huh? This will also allow me to expand more on her relationship in regards to Zenitsu. In canon, it seemed a little one-sided since we weren’t able to get Nezuko’s point of view, but in this au I want to show more mutual interest so it doesn’t come off as weird as it did in canon. This also allows her to make her own friends (read: Muichirou, Senjurou, Genya, and more). Nezuko is a very fun character to explore in this au and I can’t wait to show you guys more!

Also did I mention that a lower moon is seeking to kill her? No? Oh, my bad.

———

Hey! Thanks for sticking around. Sorry this one took a while! After this we will most likely be getting Tamayo and Yushiro!! Inosuke and Kanao will have to wait a little bit longer because I still have to figure out things lore/design wise. As for Hashira, the next one will either be Giyuu or Shinobu! That’s all for now and thanks for all the support on this au!! Feel free to ask me about anything lore-related! I’ll see you in the next one!

[thegothicchangeling]

I made a compilation of Ambessa being a horrible parent on tiktok and someone left several comments defending her from that label and now I'm really upset so please indulge my rant.

First of all, I know Ambessa is a complex character. I know she's gone through a lot of trauma to make her how she is. She didn't deserve what happened to her, but Mel didn't deserve her trauma either.

Ambessa definitely loved her daughter, but she also resented her. Those things can be true at the same time. I think she resents Mel for being merciful, for being an affair baby, for being a mage. All things that are not her fault. Now that I've gotten those statements out of the way, let me walk you through every way Ambessa failed her daughter.

We all know how fucked up it is that she murdered a child in front of Mel, but I've never seen anyone talk about how she turned away first, letting her think she wouldn't go through with it. She was just trying to be cruel.

I've also never heard anyone discuss that when she says "perhaps she could be my daughter", its in response to Mel saying that the new ruler would need to be molded. The narrative literally tells you that Ambessa is a manipulative mother.

When she arrives in Piltover, the first thing she does is gaslight Mel about her banishment. Then when she's called out on it, she tries to smooth it over with a compliment and by throwing her arm around Mel, who of course knows exactly what she's doing.

Then when she's confronted on the fact that she banished her own child, she says it was because Mel weakened her. I will admit her care is more evident here, but even then she used Mel's pain as leverage to get her to vote for war by offering to let her come home.

In season 2 act 3, it's more of the same. But it's also worse.

Ambessa is obviously glad that Mel's alive, but she doesn't even hug her. I understand she has trouble showing affection, but still

And then she hits Mel. I don't care what you say, it's never okay to hit your kid. And honestly, I stand by Mel for what she said to her mom about letting Kino die.

Mel is the only one in the whole show who ever refers to her brother by name, and that seems intentional. Her flashback indicates that she looked up to him, and her time in the occulorum with Leblanc's illusion shows that the two had an emotionally open relationship and showed each other physical affection. Ambessa may have constantly kept Mel guessing how she felt about her, but she always knew Kino loved her. And now he's gone, and he's not coming back.

And then Ambessa says he was all the sweetness in her heart, basically admitting that Mel was none of it! She says she let him die to protect her! Why would she do that when it seems Kino was the favorite? Why would she do that when he, the oldest, would have been the de facto heir? Because Mel is a weapon. That's why she has to be protected. Because she's valuable to Ambessa's ambition.

And yet, she never told Mel she was a mage. She only sent her away. Away from her home, away from Kino's love, away from everything she knew.

Also, Ambessa talks shit about mages even though Mel IS one. That shit made me fume.

Mel begs her not to go through with her plans. She offers to go back to Noxus with her and help avenge Kino, but Ambessa won't listen. She won't even listen when Mel stops the execution and points out that her ambition has cost her Rictus and Kino. Instead, she has her soldiers turn their weapons on her own daughter. I doubt they would have killed her, but it's still a massive betrayal.

And her last words, though they are of pride, are devastating: "You are the wolf."

The very thing Mel fought not to become. The very thing she had to become to defeat her mother.

[loveless-in-nowheresville]

-JJBA x reader jealousy headcanons-

Really randomly felt like doing this so-

here!

But yeah jealousy headcanons, self-explanatory I think. Got carried away (as I do) (Bruno oml I had. Much to say. Basically wrote an outline for a fic for him lol)

Characters: Joseph Joestar, Rohan Kishibe, Bruno Bucciarati (randomly much longer than the other ones whoops), Guido Mista, Leone Abbacchio

Warnings: jealous behaviors obviously, mild violence implied, slightly unhealthy relationship with Abbacchio and his low self-esteem, mildly suggestive I guess

-Joseph Joestar: A man who has no right getting jealous, but will anyways. Never a super intense jealousy, I think it would take quite a bit of boldness from another person flirting with you before he gets jealous enough to step in. Though when he does get jealous he’ll play it off really passive-aggressively, with that usual arrogant charm of his. “Oh I’m sorry (he’s not sorry), my date and I (he puts a hand on your hip) were just LEAVING (he gives you a pointed look that asks you to play along), let’s go, DEARIE ( a nickname he uses for you when he’s a bit miffed)” and before you know it you’re being dragged away by a massive British man. It’s a bit embarrassing really…because he Does start fights over you, and he always acts so proud of himself too-

It is kinda funny to see him acting all smug over winning a fight (easily, since he’s huge and muscular and a really good fighter) and then immediately getting dragged off and scolded by you. His sudden shift from that confident and arrogant guy to a nervous and apologetic mess is entertaining to see.

You do think it’s kinda sweet that he cares enough for you to actually get jealous, but you also know it’s kinda just a pride thing for him. He’s always been a man who takes things pretty far, always been a bit wild and untamable…and you liked that about him…but you always knew it would get him in trouble, and usually you were the one picking up after him when he lets his jealousy get the best of him and he ends up causing a scene.

-Rohan Kishibe: Man who fervently denies being jealous but gets jealous easily and all the time. He gives off weird vibes so sometimes people just ask: “is this guy bothering you?” if they don’t recognize him or can’t tell your in a relationship with him and wow does it make him mad. He goes into one of his little rants about how he is your partner and it is completely rude to assume he was bothering you just because he doesn’t coddle you like some other men would their partner. But honestly can anyone be blamed for thinking he was a little sketch? He typically doesn’t talk to you very nicely, and he looks like an odd individual just following you around.

Beyond people, he also gets strangely jealous when you show animals more attention than him. You stopping to pet cats or dogs on your little strolls with him, and he’s just glowering a short distance away. A full on SCOWL. He gets so annoyed when you coo and pet and hug an animal for too long in his presence. Probably because he thinks you prefer the type of love and affection animals can give you over the type he gives you. He knows he’s grouchy and irritable and sometimes struggles to say nice things, so in a way it makes him feel self-conscious. But he thinks that’s stupid, so he doesn’t use his words and instead acts jealous, making petty comments about how ridiculous it is that he must share your affection with animals and he’ll even shoo animals away from the two of you sometimes. You think it’s silly. And you can easily tell what’s going on, no matter how hard he tries to deny it.

-Bruno Bucciarati: (Bruno is so hot when he gets protective oml-) He’s a mature man, and doesn’t often give in completely to his unpleasant feelings and emotions, and jealousy is no exception. You will Not catch this man embarrassing himself by causing a fuss over something small. Someone flirting with you at the bar and even buying you a drink? Not a big deal. He trusts you, and he knows your heart belongs with him and he would never want to be one of those jealous lovers constantly smothering their partner.

When it does get to the point where he steps in, it’s when someone starts getting too handsy and cozy with you.

You still remember the first time Bruno intervened out of jealousy.

It hadn’t been a big deal at first, some inexperienced guy somehow let his friends convince him to try and talk to you at a restaurant. Bruno had stepped outside for a minute to take a work call, and either this guy hadn’t realized Bruno was your husband, or saw Bruno leaving as the perfect opportunity to swoop in and make his move.

You sip your wine, minding your own business and waiting patiently for your busy man to return, when your peace is rudely interrupted by some guy who thinks he can just come up and talk to you. You can’t help but find it a bit funny…surely this guy just didn’t know who you were? You let him make a fool of himself for a bit.

First there was his pathetic attempts at complimenting you, telling you your eyes were mesmerizing and you were like the sun and-well you didn’t pay much attention for very long, just nodding along with what he said.

You hadn’t noticed Bruno had walked back into the room. He was waiting, watching for a moment, knowing you were eventually going to send that guy away, but at first he thought it was a bit amusing too. Yes, that guy definitely didn’t know you were mafia, and that Bruno was your husband.

When you notice Bruno’s presence, you relax a bit, and this guy who couldn’t take a hint for some reason thought it was because of him and tried to shoot yet another shot.

He dares to invite you to dance with him.

You say you have two left feet.

He insists.

You say no.

This time he laughs and says that you were just being shy, and he reaches down and grasps your wrist and you realize this brat is gonna try and drag you into a dance.

Your attention had been so focused on the stranger, that you hadn’t noticed Bruno getting increasingly irritated at the audacity of your fanboy.

Before you make a move to break free from him, the sound of Bruno’s open palm slamming onto your table immediately focuses your mind on the man you’d much rather be dancing with.

Bruno wasn’t a PDA type of man, with the most he’d usually give you being just some handholding, or your arm wrapped around his, but now-

He had angled himself in such a way that your face was practically pressed into the exposed parts of his chest while he was turned just enough to shoot daggers at the man who had the nerve to try to drag you out of your seat.

You could feel the eyes of the patrons in the restaurant, the ones who knew Bruno watched carefully. They knew it took a lot to get Bruno to cause a scene in a restaurant, and some were morbidly curious to see where it might go, now that he’s finally been pushed there.

It was a moment’s lapse in his usually controlled demeanor, but his eyes remained sharp against the man, who backed up instinctively at Bruno’s interference.

“Mind if I cut in?”

You know Bruno better than anyone, and right now you can hear the irritation in his tone, and you realize this is the first time anyone’s been quite so bold trying to get your attention in front of him.

“Well, I, uh…we were gonna dance…” the guy stammers out. Despite not knowing who Bruno was, he could tell he should feel intimidated right now.

Bruno is already holding his own hand out to you, and when you take it, he helps you to your feet gently, keeping a much closer proximity to you than he usually would.

“You’d better get in line then,” he replies, not hiding the displeasure in his voice, but you can already tell he’s calming down a bit now that he’s got your hand in his.

This guy doesn’t even know what to say, just kinda stands there stammering like a fool while Bruno slides his hand down to your lower back, eliciting a small shiver and gasp from you, very effectively displaying the intimacy of your relationship.

He lifts your left hand up with his right, almost like the two of you were going to dance right there, but you recognized he was very purposefully just emphasizing his wedding ring on your finger.

“Bruno,” you hiss when the man awkwardly scurries off. He really was making a scene and it was embarrassing, despite how much you loved this side of him you rarely got to see.

You can practically see Bruno snap out of it, and he clears his throat and finally untangles himself from you and calls for the check, but he doesn’t apologize for causing a bit of chaos, because he doesn’t regret it.

-Guido Mista: He’s quick to jealousy, and his disposition means his jealousy is gonna be the problem of everyone in his vicinity.

At first it’ll start with intense glares at whoever he’s concerned about, and even you, kinda trying to goad you into telling whoever’s getting too cozy to piss off.

You’ll notice Guido lays on the physical affection very thick to try and leave a message. His hands are on you, practically pulling you into his lap, very intentionally placing his hands in positions to suggest the romantic nature of your relationship.

He whispers in your ear and rubs your shoulders and back and doesn’t even hesitate to badmouth whoever’s bothering him.

He might even start fights, usually never hurting someone too seriously, but not shying away from giving them a scare at least. (The proper way to handle someone making moves on your sweetheart is to inform the offender that you have a firearm.)

You find it embarrassing, but you’re flattered he feels so strongly about you. And you know it comes from a genuine protectiveness, but also a bit of possessiveness, given his unfamiliarity with serious relationships and his anxiety that he might lose you.

A guy who can learn to mellow out a bit as you become more comfortable in your relationship, but he’ll always be a bit fiery, and quick to act, especially when you’re involved.

-Leone Abbacchio: Probably at first bottles up any jealousy he feels. Just add it to the insecurity pile. He already has such low self-esteem.

He feels like he’s not good enough for you…you deserve a man who can actually give you that emotional intelligence and kindness you deserve…honestly you’d be much better off with a guy like Bucciarati than him, and he cannot help but feel that every time he hurts your feelings or makes you frustrated, or even when he swears you seem more relaxed and comfortable around Bruno instead of him. You’re probably just settling for him.

For some reason you’re pursuing a relationship with him, probably for some superficial reason he can’t see yet. Maybe you just liked his body, or you enjoyed how pathetic he was. No matter how much the two of you fought, he would Always come crawling back to you, a desperate man who couldn’t give up the only person who let him into their bed and showed him some genuine compassion, even though he couldn’t fathom why. Jealousy from him translates into irritability, a lot of it internally, mentally tearing himself to shreds for being so pathetic. But also externally, more likely to say something like: “THEN JUST LEAVE,” or “find someone else,” when the two of you have an inevitable argument. And sometimes it’ll result in an unfounded accusation, something like: “I know you’d rather have literally anyone else, but for some reason you think you’re stuck with me.”

It says a LOT more about him than you, but it still hurts your feelings that he might actually believe that.

Of course you want to be with him. He matters so much to you, he just doesn’t let himself see that. But deep down, he knows if you really didn’t want to be with him, there was nothing stopping you from moving on.

You need patience with him, but also firm and honest. He’s Really bad at opening up himself, but if you do it, he’ll try to do the same. Only because it’s fair.

It’ll eventually get through to him how you feel about him, and someday he’ll come to terms with how much he genuinely cares about you, and how he wishes for a future with you.

[starrysharks]

STARRYSHARKS FAQ: 2!

this FAQ will go over some of the questions about my process that i get in my askbox. some disclaimers:

ANYONE who asks any questions that have been answered in either FAQ will be ignored.

PLEASE don't take this FAQ as gospel or assume that it's viable art advice. it is not. i am not a professional, i am a teenager who draws in her free time and therefore many of these answers will involve things that break common "laws" of art, logic, and anatomy. this is just how i personally go about my illustrations. please also don't take me or any individual artist as your sole inspiration, you will not get anywhere believe me. art is like a balanced diet. if you eat sweets all the time, you'll get sick - but if you only eat veggies and healthy food, you'll get bored. try to take inspiration from a vast range of artists, even those you don't think you'd really enjoy. and most importantly, LEARN THE FUNDEMENTALS OF ART!!!! even just a little bit of knowledge can go a long way, regardless of how simple or realistic you want your artstyle to be. refusing to learn fundamentals had my art looking janky for years.

ok enough waffle let's get started!

Q: HOW DO YOU DRAW FACES?

A: it depends.

there's lots of things you can do to a face to make it unique. the starting point is the facial features themselves - eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth... if they're the same for every character with the only uniqueness being in eyecolor or something like that, you get same face syndrome.

so, take your characters and apply some diverse facial features. certain facial features have certain character connotations too. like downturned eyes implying a laid-back or tired character, or a 3-shaped mouth implying a catty character, something like that.

but, for me, facial diversity isn't enough. it's not like you go out and everyone has the same head shape. so, i tend to try and get creative with face shape, and depending on how thin or wide the shape is, you can move around the facial features too.

these examples are a little shitty but that's because i put them together in 10 minutes. you can see the effect in my actual characters, who have more effort put into them, and how no character looks alike.

other than that, i tend to try and give every character a different eye shape and pupil "type" - so while krankenstein and romèo might have simple black dot eyes, octavia and vivica have large multicolor anime esque eyes, onion has cartoony circle eyes, and so on. if you just switch things around enough, even characters with similar face shapes will look unique. and even if they don't, doppelgangers do exist in real life.

Q: HOW DO YOU DRAW HANDS?

A: once again it depends. some characters have regular shaped hands while some have really tiny hands that only have 3-4 fingers instead of 5. usually my larger characters will have smaller hands but that isn't always the case.

but for the standard hand, i tend to have a line between the palm/base and the fingers. and then i um...add the fingers i guess😭 there's usually a lot of abstraction when it comes to hands for me, because i'm not the best at drawing them. usually either the last three fingers or the middle two will be connected as well depending on the pose.

Q: HOW DO YOU DRAW FURRIES?

A: i don't really know myself. i still don't know how to draw most furry species especially canines, god i hate canines!!! well not really, i can just never draw their snouts. really i draw furries like i would human, just with larger thighs and further back lower legs. and fur too. i like to exaggerate the nails too. and of course add fur, usually at the joints.

Q: HOW DO YOU DO LINEART?

A: i draw over the sketch. i do the sketch in thin, low opacity lineart, and go over it in varying thickness based on the perspective/desired look to get that comic book varied thickness look. the eraser will be your best friend more than the pen here, cuz there's a lot of cleaning up with both the sketch and the final lineart to have everything looking sharp.

Q: CAN YOU GIVE A STEP BY STEP GUIDE OF HOW TO DO YOUR STYLE?

A: no and i will never be able to. there is no formula to my style, i break every rule i make for myself. i barely follow any of the answers i write in these QNAs. they are not rules or steps but rather just me explaining my habits in art. i never have a checklist when i draw, i just do these things intuitively based on years of drawing. this might sound like some stuck up "it comes naturally" thing but trust me IT DOES NOT COME NATURALLY!!! these habits are born from over a decade of drawing. and besides, like i said before, with how varied i try to make my character designs any step by step would never be universal to my style. i'm really sorry but that's the truth. either way i hope this QNA helps.

[anominous-user]

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 — 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 — where they act like they hate/don’t 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.

—

[THE NAME]

The term "double indemnity" is a clause in which if there’s 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 — this makes it clear that it’s 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 (人间天堂) (CN).

—

[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. 

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 it’s ruled that the husband had no idea of the accidental policy, the company refuses to pay. Neff befriends Phyllis’ stepdaughter Lola, and after finding out Phyllis may have played a part in the death of her father’s 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 Lola’s 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.

—

[THE PENACONY MISSION TIMELINE]

I won’t be summarising the entirety of Aventurine and Ratio’s 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. Ratio’s 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 other’s thoughts, way of thinking and minds even in high stakes missions. Enough to pull off the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Aventurine’s E1) and Stag Hunt Game (Aventurine’s 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 “private” 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 “exposes” Aventurine to him. Sunday buys his “betrayal”, 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 Mundanite’s Insight before leaving. This is their final conversation before Aventurine’s grandest death.

Now how exactly does the word “double indemnity” relate to their mission in-game? What is their payout? For the IPC, this would be Penacony itself — 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 Penacony’s Stellaron, although whether or not this was actually something he sought out is debatable. And Aventurine? It’s 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 Aventurine’s 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 won’t bring them up until later down the line.

For the sake of this analysis, I won’t be exploring Sunday’s parallel to Mr. Dietrichson, as there isn’t much on Dietrichson’s 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.

—

[SO, WHAT’S THE PLAN?]

To make things less confusing in the long run whenever I mention the words “scheme” and “plan”, I will be going through the details of Phyllis and Neff’s scheme, and Aventurine and Ratio’s plan respectively. Anything that happens after either pair separate from another isn’t going to be included. Written in a way for the plans to have gone perfectly with no outside problems.

Phyllis and Neff —> 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 Phyllis’ own house and never when Neff was in his office) and in the marketplace only, to make their meetings look accidental. They shouldn’t 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 — Phyllis in the driver’s 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. Dietrichson’s 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. Dietrichson’s 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, here’s a thorough explanation:

Aventurine and Ratio —> 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 Sunday’s ever present and watchful eyes. “Privacy” is a foreign word to The Family. They have to act like they don’t like each other’s company the entire time and feed Sunday information through indirect means so that the eventual “betrayal” 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 Cornerstones’ importance, and how he lost the gift money and the case containing the Cornerstones to Sunday. Ratio turns to leave, saying “some idiot ruined everything”, meaning the Cornerstones were vital to their plan. (Note that Ratio is not wearing his alabaster head while saying it to said “idiot”.)

Aventurine then proceeds to downplay the importance of the Cornerstones, stating they are “nothing more than a few rocks” and “who cares if they are gone”. This lets Sunday know that something suspicious may be going on for him to act like it’s 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 isn’t, 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 “sincere” 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 didn’t go to school and how he doesn’t 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 “friends”. 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 Sunday’s Mansion and exposes a part of Aventurine’s “plan”. 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 — on Aventurine (who knows) and Sunday (who doesn’t). Note that while Ratio is not officially an IPC member in name — 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 Ratio’s status in general is ambiguous enough for Sunday not to question him further. He then explains parts of Aventurine’s gamble to Sunday in order to sell the betrayal. Note that Ratio does not ever mention Aventurine’s 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 he’s not one to take risks — Ratio’s comment about Aventurine’s outfit being peacock-esque and how he���s “short of a feather or two”. • “Do you own a Cornerstone?” — Ratio talked about the aventurine stone. • “Did you hand over the Cornerstone to The Family when you entered Penacony?” — Aventurine mentioned the box containing the Cornerstones. • “Does the Cornerstone you handed over to The Family belong to you?” — Aventurine specifically pluralized the word Cornerstone and “a bunch of rocks” when talking to Ratio. • “Is your Cornerstone in this room right now?” — The box in the room supposedly contained Aventurine’s own cornerstone, when Aventurine mentioned multiple stones. • “Are you an Avgin from Sigonia?” —Aventurine mentioned that he’s an Avgin, and Ratio brought up Sigonia. • “Do the Avgins have any ability to read, control, and manipulate one’s own or another’s minds?” — Aventurine’s comment on how friends are weapons, as well as Sunday’s own research on the Avgins, leading him to find out about the negative stereotypes associated with them. • “Do you love your family more than yourself?” — His lost parents. “All the Avgins were killed in a massacre. Am I right?” — Based on Sunday’s research into his background. • “Are you your clan’s sole survivor?” — Same as the last point. “Do you hate and wish to destroy this world with your own hands?” — Ratio mentioned the IPC’s goal to regain Penacony, and Aventurine’s whole shtick is “all or nothing”. • “Can you swear that at this very moment, the aventurine stone is safe and sound in this box?” — 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 isn’t 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. 

On to the next point: Comparing Aventurine and Ratio with Phyllis and Neff.

—

[NEFF & PHYLLIS — RATIO & AVENTURINE]

With the short summaries of the movie and the mission out of the way, let’s 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 husband‘s 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 — even when putting on a facade that masks his true motives — 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 survivor’s 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. 

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 “sleazy” as possible, make her look insincere and a fraud, a manipulator. A sort of cheapness. Aventurine’s flashy peacock-esque outfit can be sort of seen as something similar, except the outfit isn’t cheap.

Moving on to Ratio’s similarities to Neff… There isn’t much to extrapolate here as Ratio is more of a side character in the grand scheme of Penacony, however this is what I’ve 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 “baby”. 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 doesn’t know her. Ratio never calls Aventurine by his name when he’s around him — only as “gambler”, sometimes “damned” or “dear” (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 “gambler” or, bafflingly, a “system of chaos devoid of logic”.

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 differences…

Neff is described as someone who’s 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 it’s… complicated. While he does pull off the hater act well, he straight up isn’t great at pretending not to care about Aventurine’s 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 — 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 Neff…

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 Sunday’s presence, and hoping that Sunday wouldn’t figure out that the green stone he had uncovered wasn’t the aventurine stone.

Adding onto the last point, Neff had fantasised about pulling off the perfect murder for a long time — 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 don‘t even have to explain why this is relevant here. (Aventurine’s 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 he’s nervous, which include hiding his hands in his pockets when they were shaking, putting on glasses so people couldn’t see his eyes. Aventurine hides his left hand behind his back when he’s 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 Robin’s death with eyewitnesses at the scene, the Family had accepted Aventurine’s 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 Aventurine’s own death. Even him standing in the auction house randomly can be explained by the theory that he and Aventurine had attempted to destabilise Penacony’s economy through a pump and dump scheme.

With these pointers out of the way, let’s take a closer look at select scenes from the film and their relation to the mission and the pair. 

—

[THE PHONE CALL — 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 doesn’t think of anything of the phone call, so he acts like he’s calling a “Margie”, and says a bunch of stuff that sounds innocent out of context (“Can’t I call you back, ‘Margie’?” “What color did you pick out?” “Navy blue. I like that fine”), 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 — 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 “private” 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 didn’t — they’ve been on several missions beforehand). It’s 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 — 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 “accidentally” run into each other, Phyllis talks about how the trip was off. How her husband wouldn’t 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 “ruined the plan” is the opposite of this, as the husband breaking his leg was something they couldn’t account for, while Aventurine “being short of a few feathers” was entirely part of the plan.

—

[QUESTIONING PHYLLIS — 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 — Mr. Dietrichson signing the policy, and Phyllis being questioned — 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 don’t 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 “copies” of the form, except with Mr. Dietrichson’s second signature, he’s duped into signing the accident insurance policy with the respective clause.

You can tie this to how Ratio goes to Sunday in order to “expose” the lie that the suitcase didn’t 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 Aventurine’s company, while also making sure that Sunday doesn’t 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 isn’t 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. It’s very different from the way he was acting in Herta Space Station — 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 “line” being a “hm”. 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 isn’t 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 “accidental death” 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 Aventurine’s real plan. All of it was an act of betrayal against Sunday, in the same manner as the meticulous planning as Mr. Dietrichson’s murder — 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.

—

[“GOODBYE, BABY” — 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. It’s a direct reference to the final confrontation between Neff and Phyllis in the movie.

I’ll 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 couldn’t 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 — he couldn’t 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 doesn’t buy (believe) that Phyllis loved him. She then goes “I’m not asking you to buy […]”. The LC description has Aventurine ask Ratio “You don’t believe me?”, while in the LC animation Ratio straight up says “You expect me to believe you?” and Aventurine answering “Why not, doctor/professor?”

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 — 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 Phyllis’ 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 — Phyllis’ 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 Phyllis‘ hand. Aventurine is the one who places the gun in Ratio’s 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, it’s 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. Doesn’t that sound like something that happened with the Final Victor LC? Ratio, a man all about logic and rationality — a scholar with eight PhDs to his name — 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 it’s nothing and seemingly without fear (barring his hidden left hand). All or nothing — and yet Aventurine comes out alive after three blanks. Poetic, considering there’s a consumable in the game called “All or Nothing” 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. It’s 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 “form[ing] an alliance with just one bullet” 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.

—

[THE ENDING — 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 wasn’t 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 I’ll make this quick before moving on to the conversation in Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Ratio and Aventurine’s final conversation together. Once Sunday mentions how quickly Aventurine gave up the suitcase, he inflicts the Harmony’s consecration on him, which forces Aventurine to confess everything that Sunday asks of. In a way, it’s the opposite of what happens in the movie — 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 didn’t 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 Mundanite’s Insight with the Doctor’s 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 he’s going to call a doctor and Neff says he’s planning to go to Mexico. And when Neff collapses near the elevator, they talk one final time and Keyes lights Neff’s cigar as the other was too weak to do so himself.

—

[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? 

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 Neff’s 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 “truth”, 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 — 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 Ratio’s relationship, when Phyllis and Neff’s trust eventually lead to both their deaths at the hands of the other? Sure, this can be explained away with the opposite theory, but there’s one other relationship involving Neff which I haven’t brought up in excruciating detail yet. The other side of Ratio and Aventurine’s relationship.

—

[NEFF & KEYES — AVENTURINE & RATIO]

Here is where it gets more interesting — while Phyllis and Neff are at the centre point of the movie, there is another character to whom Neff has a close relationship with — Keyes. It’s 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 wouldn’t 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 hadn’t deduced that it was Neff who was behind the murder was because he had his absolute trust in him. Keyes is also Neff’s boss, and they are always seen exchanging playful banter when they are on screen together. Neff even says the words “I love you, too” twice in the movie — first at the beginning and second at the end, as the final line. There’s also the persistent theme of Neff lighting Keyes’ cigarettes (which happens in every scene where they are face-to-face), except in the end where it’s Keyes who lights Neff’s.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Mutual respect, caring too much about the other person, the immense amount of trust… Ratio says he’s 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 “enemies”, you can tell that in Dewlight Pavilion pre-Sunday confrontation that Aventurine genuinely likes Ratio’s 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) “you never fooled me with your song and dance, not for a second.” Apart from the line about the cigar ashes, doesn’t this ring a bell to a certain doctor? “Jerk” 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 you’ve 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 Keyes’ assistant). The two pairs saw the other as smart, equals, and were invested in each other’s 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 I’ve 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 we’re on the topic of Keyes, let me also go through some similarities with him and Ratio specifically.

Keyes says the words “dimwitted amateurs” in his first on-screen conversation with Neff. You can’t 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 Neff’s 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 wouldn’t dwell on the past according to his response on Aventurine’s Interview, as well as telling him to “stay alive/live on (CN)” and wishing him the best of luck in his Doctor’s 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.

—

[THE ORIGINAL FILM ENDING]

Something that I hadn’t 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 doesn’t speak at all in that scene, and Keyes doesn’t either according to the script.

Another thing that’s noteworthy is that Wilder himself said “the story was about the two guys” in Conversations with Wilder. The two guys in question are Keyes and Neff.

—

[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 movie’s apart from a couple of changes so there isn’t 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." 

Phyllis, like in the movie, had been hiding her true intentions of talking to Walter in their first conversations, always saying things that she didn’t 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 I’m nuts? All right, maybe I am. But you spend fifteen years in the business I’m in, and maybe a little better than that, it’s the friend of the widow, the orphan, and the needy in time of trouble? It’s not. It’s the biggest gambling wheel in the world. It don’t 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 won’t, that’s all. What fools you is that you didn’t want your house to burn down when you made the bet, and so you forget it’s a bet. To them, a bet is a bet, and a hedge bet don’t 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, I’m an agent. I’m a croupier in that game. I know all their tricks, I lie awake thinking up tricks, so I’ll 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 didn’t seem real to me anymore. If you don’t understand that, go to Monte Carlo or some other place where there’s a big casino, sit at a table, and watch the face of the man that spins the little ivory ball. After you’ve 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 wouldn’t be from the worry whether you lived or died. It would be to make sure you didn’t leave a bet on the table, that he would have to cash for your estate. No, he wouldn’t 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 hadn’t 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 hadn’t 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. She’s 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 “grandest death”. Just like Phyllis, he’s 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 there’s something in me, I don’t know what. Maybe I’m crazy. But there’s 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 it’s 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 he’s 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 show—" • "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 they—! Oh well, what's the use? I just wanted you to know it."

After going on a rant about the H.S. Nirdlinger case (Phyllis’ husband) and how Norton is doing a horrible job, he ends it by saying that it’s sheer stupidity. “Supreme idiocy”, anybody?

• "You can’t take many body blows like this and last. Holy smoke. Fifty thousand bucks, and all from dumbness. Just sheer, willful, stupidity!"

Phyllis’ former occupation as a nurse is more elaborated on, including her specialization — pulmonary diseases. One of Ratio’s crowning achievements is curing lithogenesis, the “King of Diseases”.

• "She’s one of the best nurses in the city of Los Angeles. […] She’s 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 advance—to 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, […]" "Be bold?" "Be bold. It's the only way."

"I still don't know—what 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 point— 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 isn’t 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 — 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 Aventurine’s 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 — the plan hinged on a high-level of risk. From breaking the Aventurine Cornerstone, to hoping that Sunday wouldn’t 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 Ratio’s story, it was practically the only way they could go about it. “Charming audacity”, indeed.

An interesting aspect about the novel is that the ending of the novel is divergent from the movie’s 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 wouldn’t allow a double suicide to be screened without reprecussions for criminals. There’s 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 Phyllis’ relationship instead of actual romance, Walter falling in love with Lola (with an unfortunately large age gap attached), etc.)

As for the ending, this wouldn’t 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 it’s three out of four media references where the couple die at the end…), I think it’s reasonable to say that Ratio and Aventurine will get that happy ending. Subverting expectations, hopefully.

—

[THE HAYS CODE — LGBT CENSORSHIP IN CHINA]

I’ve brought up the Hays code twice now in the previous two sections, but I haven’t 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 “safe” for the general audiences. Some of the “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls” include but are not limited to…

(Don’t) Pointed profanity

(Don’t) Inference of sex perversion (which includes homosexuality)

(Don’t) 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 miHoYo’s 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 can’t explicitly say that two female or male characters are romantically involved, but they can lace their dynamics with references for those “in the know” — Subtext. Just enough to imply something more but not too much that they get censored to hell and back.

So what I’m 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, there’s still some small moments scattered here and there, such as when Aventurine goes near Ratio in the Dewlight Pavilion Sandpit, he exclaims that “the view here is breathtaking” (he can only see Ratio’s chest from that distance) and that Ratio could “easily squash [him] with just a pinch”. Ratio then goes “If that is your wish, I will do so without a moment’s hesitation.” Not to mention the (in)famous “Doctor, you’re huge!” quote.

It’s not a coincidence that Ratio and Aventurine have three explicit references to romance media (Double Indemnity, Spellbound, Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince), possibly even four if you take the EN-only Heaven Is A Place On Earth as a reference to Black Mirror’s San Junipero. It’s not a coincidence that the storylines or characters of said references parallel the pairing, from surface-level to deep cuts. It’s not a coincidence that the CN voice actors were asked to “tone it down” by the voice director when it came to their chemistry. It’s not a coincidence that Aventurine has only flirted with (three) men throughout Penacony, even referring to a Bloodhound NPC as a “hunk of a man” inside his thoughts, all the while ignoring Himeko and Robin when it came to their looks — women who are known across the cosmos with a myriad of adoring fans. There are so many other so-called “coincidences” 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 — the extent they went to with the Double Indemnity reference while also keeping it under wraps from a “surface” level point of view is proof of this — 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.

—

[CONCLUSION]

This was supposed to be short considering the other analyses I’ve seen were also pretty short in comparison, but I couldn’t 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 — 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 — (I get it, it’s 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 what’s going on underneath the bickering and “hatred” they display.

Many thanks to Manya again for making the original thread on the movie. I wouldn’t be here comparing the game and movie myself if it weren’t 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.

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Other points I'd like to mention that didn't fit anywhere else in the main analysis and/or don’t hold much significance, have nothing to do with the Penacony mission, or may even be considered reaching (...if some of the other points weren’t). 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 Neff’s.

Phyllis had killed her husband’s previous wife and went on to marry Mr. Dietrichson, pretty much taking the wife’s place. Aventurine killed his previous master, and had taken certain attributes from him like his wristwatch and the rings on his hand and the “all or nothing” 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 that’s been pointed out quite a few times so I thought I’d 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 Keyes’ first scene he’s 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 won’t be sloppy. Nothing weak. And how it’ll be perfect to Phyllis, and how she’s going to do it and he’s going to help her. Doing it right — “straight down the line”. Beautifully ironic, considering what happens in the movie, and even more ironic as Ratio and Aventurine’s scheme went exactly the way they wanted to in the end. Straight down the line.