cr33pygrrl

[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.

—

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.

[delta-piscium]

asking whoever came up with quotes in academic papers for their hand in marriage, i love filling up my word count with quotes that explain my point so i don’t have to and they make me look so well read too, we shall have a spring wedding my love

[cassatine]

terribly criminal of one of my fave podcasts to remind me that curtis moldbug is a tolkien guy and consequently of that time he wrote about hobbits and elves' respective roles in the culture war, something i had successfully and happily wiped off my memory

[littlemaple]

i still get so much fuckin embarrassment when i remember warner music taiwan liked my stupid ig story of käärijä's cha cha cha with chinese subtitles, saying how nice it was to be able to understand the lyrics...... it was late and i was tired and my finnish studies weren't going well so i 🫥🫥🫥🫥

[hella1975]

my sister is currently doing her nightly *douse myself in water for 5 mins despite it leaving PUDDLES EVERYWHERE BTW and then spend 20 mins applying imported skincare i spent all my money on* in SILENCE sans any form of music meanwhile she walked in on me having a party of one (1) at myself in the bathroom mirror to set it off of all things. it's a bit funny that we are related by blood

[hawnks]

life is so hard and i am literally two inches big……

[floripire]

also: 3x14 introduces andi the wellness witch who was held by triad industries in the detention facility. flori knows of her and knows what she went through as her cell was a few doors down from flori's own. i'll make a proper hc about that - and flori's time at the detention center - later if i can't find what i already wrote about it again.

[seumyo]

KENJI SATO ✰ 10:43

“Working overtime really doesn’t suit you, Sato.” The teasing sentence made Kenji grunt in disapproval, slumping against his couch.

“Wow, I didn’t notice. Thank you for that valuable input, [Name],” he says, rolling his eyes at you. 

He can’t help the sarcastic reply. Kenji’s schedule was all over the place. His life has been all over the place ever since his return to his home country, Japan. And now he not only has to take care of himself—which, in his defense, was fairly simple when he just had to worry about himself—he has to worry about an infant Kaiju!

What a wonderful (not) icing on the cake.

“Ken is really appreciative that you made time to fulfill his request, or, shall I say, cry for help, [Name].” Mina’s familiar voice flurried from a distance, closing in to your right in a breeze. 

“Hey! It was not a cry for help—it’s more like a... Asking a friend for a favor,” Kenji says, trying to ease his brain with what’s coming out of his mouth (like it was on autopilot, scrambling to defend himself and the pride he had left).

“Uh huh. And the favor is? I don’t really think there’s anything I could do to her containment unit or any repairs that’re needed in this place.”

“I just need someone to watch over her.”

(“I just need someone to talk to” is a much fitting phrase.)

“Doesn’t Mina already do that?”

“There’s only so much a supercomputer like me can do to entertain a living being, [Name].”

On cue, Emi croons at the video of you singing on stage. A part time career of yours, because when you’re not developing new tech that boosts the economy, you might as well indulge in your hobbies. 

Kenji wouldn’t admit it, but he has a vinyl or two—or even a whole collection of them—that he considers as priceless as his one-of-a-kind sports car displayed in the basement.

“Would you look at that? She likes your singing.” 

He watches as you take a step closer to Emi, observing how she delightedly squealed at the soft melody being played on the holograms. This 20-foot-tall baby Kaiju reminded you of the time you took care of children at the daycare center.

“I just...” he sighs. You didn’t even notice that Kenji was already beside you, offering you a canned drink. 

“How do you do it? Juggle everything?” He murmurs. “You’re the busiest person I know. Working on your thesis, performing at various concerts, taking on charity work, and whatnot. Hell, if you could run for president, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you in the elections, too.”

A quiet laugh was returned. “It’s not easy, that’s for sure. But within time, you’ll learn just what you need and what you can handle.”

“Mm. Don’t you ever just want to run away from all the responsibilities people place on your shoulders? I can barely take care of this young lady,” he chuckles, though it doesn’t hold even the slightest ounce of humor to it.

“I wish, but then I’ll remember the kids who're so happy to see me whenever I drop by,” you say. “They may be a handful at times, but you’ll be surprised to know just how smart and caring they are. How they take in their surroundings and attempt to figure out who they are. We’re all what they have. The least we could do is give them our time and love all the same.”

Kenji lets your words sink in. Simple and touching. The kind that gets the gears in his head to start twisting.

“You really are a charm with your words; did you know that?”  

“Thanks; I try my best.”

The night continues with Kenji and Emi playing baseball on a simulated field with you by the shed, cheering on from a safe distance. Kenji doesn’t remember the last time he’s been this genuinely happy after his return to Japan. It’s a refreshing feeling that he wants to get used to again. To see the baby Kaiju successfully hit the ball with a swift swing after watching after him is a sight that tugs at one’s heartstrings.

Just like a proud father.

“Come on, girl! We gotta run the bases!”

And as the two celebrate their moment of triumph, the baby Kaiju stomps toward you and giggles happily as she hoists you in the air without much warning. You took it all in you not to shriek and absolutely lose all composure, but when you’re up in the air and are being held to a bear hug like some sort of teddy bear by a Kaiju that could probably crush your bones if not careful, it’s hard to not just scream for your life.

“Oh, ok—ok. Baby, put me down gently, please,” you chuckle nervously. 

“It appears that the little one sees you as her other mother,” Mina adds.

Kenji laughs at the sight, pulling out his phone to take a picture. This is definitely a memory he’d want to remember.

“This is not funny, Kenji. Tell her to put me down.”

“Aw, is Baby not listening to her Mommy?”

“Again, not funny. This is like an out-of-the-blue co-parenting a child with you. With you being my annoying ex-husband.”

“Specific, eh?”

“Shut!”

When you’re just about to leave for the night, Kenji suggests that you sleep over. There’s a lot of spare bedrooms in their manor, he reasons. He also doesn’t understand what came over him to offer, but he doesn’t take it back.

But it could be because he’s missed you. And he’s somewhat afraid that this may be the last time you see each other in a while due to your clashing schedules.

“You’re such a girl dad, Kenji,” you tease.

“Haha, good one,” he says, rolling his eyes at you. He took a couple of blankets from the closet and placed them on the bed.

“Just saying.”

“Whatever you say, Mommy.”

“Oh hush, Daddy.”

That ringed out a laugh from him. “Bleh, that sounds so embarrassing coming from you.”

You shrugged. “Hm? Don’t you think you’re embarrassing too?”

“I’m not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are too. I will not be going back and forth like this with you anymore, Kenji Sato. Good night!”

Kenji can’t hide the smile that appears on his face. Yeah, he definitely missed this. 

Definitely missed you.

SEUMYO © 2024. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, PLAGIARIZE, MODIFY OR TRANSLATE.

[chaos-coming]

Costs fucking 160€ to renew my visa like wtf i have to pay nearly 2 grand in fees each year just for being non european, not to mention the ridiculous sum of funds im expected to keep showing. Hate this country i seriously gotta move. And get papers.

[prael]

WYR-0573: Dirty Little Student Wang Yiren And Her Sexy Secret Camgirl Life Tempts Horny Teacher Into Rough Fuck and Creampie!

Everglow Yiren x male reader smut

Thankyou @co-reborn for allowing me to spiritually succeed this fic (Everyone read it if you haven't already.)

Masterlist word count: 4,221 Kofi(donations/commissions)

It seems like everything these days is a fucking ethics issue. It's not like you're trying to do anything that's going to hurt somebody. You're not ripping off old people, you're not laundering money, you're not putting lives at risk.

Shit, it's just a bit of fun, but if anyone finds out you've had your cock inside Wang Yiren, then the ethics committee is going to eat you alive. It doesn't matter if she wants your cock in there just as badly as you do.

You have to get creative to make it work. First thing is first: get her out of your office. Sure, it's not unusual for a student to take some office time with her thesis advisor, but walking out in the state she does? Her cheeks flushed, and her blouse dishevelled, with a slight, satisfied smile on her face and her panties stuffed into the front pocket of her backpack.

People are going to notice, and that can't happen.

There's a part of you that wishes you could make it stop outright, but you can't. Every time she uploads another one of those videos, your eyes are locked to your computer screen and your cock's locked in your hand.

Maybe it's the novelty of knowing that the girl on the camera's not just any other girl on the internet; it's perhaps the fact that she's the girl that you've had inside your office. Maybe it's that her body's incredible; her tits are small and pert, her ass tight, and that little slit of a pussy is just begging to be fucked.

Or maybe, it's how openly she will sit across from you at your desk and ask you so casually what you thought of her latest video with the same sort of inflection that a student would use to ask you about the latest reading. "I wasn't really sure if the whole clamping my nipples thing worked. I mean, it was kinda hot, I guess. And I got off pretty hard, so there's that. What'd you think?"

What do you think?

You're a good guy—a good professor—so you give her honest feedback, "I thought it was hot, Yiren, but it took a while for you to get into it. Was that your first time? Playing with your nipples that way?"

"Mhm." You can see the little smirk curl up on her face, "I was hoping it wasn't obvious that I was nervous. It's tough getting started with some new kinks, you know?"

It's a strange little world the two of you inhabit. On the surface, it's the relationship of a graduate student to her thesis advisor: a mutually respectful relationship based on academic mentorship and intellectual discourse. Under the surface, it's the sort of thing that gets both of you expelled: the sort of relationship that's built on her need for you to see her get off in front of her webcam and your need for her to keep uploading videos.

But as you look at her now, you think about what she's doing. She's a twenty-something grad student who gets her rocks off by playing with herself on camera for thousands of strangers on the internet. It makes her hot. It makes her cum. And you're only too happy to be there for her. It makes you hot, it makes you cum, and there's a bit of you that feels a sense of pride knowing that even though the whole world gets to see what her face looks like when she climaxes, only you have managed to fuck her to one.

"Don't get me wrong, Yiren. It was hot. I'm sure everyone got off to it."

There's a slight cockiness to her smirk—she already knew it to be true. "And you?"

"Do you really need to ask every time?" you reply.

"Mm. Yes," she leans back on the chair in front of your desk and raises one leg over the armrest. "I like to know that you liked what I put out."

You don't miss a beat, and the words come out as casually as if you were critiquing an assignment: "I jerked myself raw, Yiren."

"I'm glad," her fingers are tracing little lines down the inside of her thighs. You lean in closer, elbows against the desk. "What part did it for you?"

"Yiren, I know what you're doing."

She starts to pull up the hem of her skirt while flashing you faux innocence with her blinking eyes. "What's that, Sir?"

"Seriously. We can't. Not here."

"I'm just showing you, Sir," her skirt is around her waist now. She's not even trying to hide her desire. Her pussy's wet. Glistening. "Looking for a little feedback. Was it my pussy? My fingers? How wet I was?"

You want to grab her, throw her onto the desk, and fuck her until the entire floor hears her scream. You want to feel your cock sink inside of her pussy, feel your skin slap against hers, feel the wetness of her desire as you thrust into her. But that would be the end of everything. "You're killing me here, Yiren."

"You know, people keep asking for more stuff with a guy. I could put it on pay-per-view, make a killing." She runs her fingers along her slit and you hear that soft little moan that's driven so many guys to bust on their keyboards. "What'd you think about that, Sir?"

You're starting to breathe hard. It doesn't matter that you've fucked this girl before. All you know is that you can't have her now. And she knows that drives you nuts.

Her finger's on her clit now and she's rubbing in circles. Her head tilts back slightly, her mouth parts, and you know she's going to cum right here if you let her go on. "Yiren," your voice is almost hoarse.

Her finger is a blur, and her voice is a half-moan, "Mm, Sir?"

"You're going to get us in trouble."

"I think I'm worth the trouble." Her chest's heaving. She's going to go off any second. "Sir," her eyes look straight at yours and there's something about that direct stare that sends a shiver through you, "Are you hard?"

You nod. There's not much else to do.

She takes her hands away from herself, leaving her pussy on the edge. You know that it's aching, throbbing. She bites her lip and stares at the growing bulge in your pants. "Maybe you can show me how you jerked yourself off the other day."

"Yiren. Fuck. Not here."

"Then where?" She snaps, clasping her legs closed and pushing her skirt back over them, "You won't do anything in your office. You won't take me home. Where, then, huh? Maybe I should just go to the headmaster and tell her what you—"

She doesn't finish that sentence. Your hand is gripping her arm tightly as you yank her up off her seat, "Come with me."

You lead her down the hallway. She's struggling, but she's grinning too. She knows she's getting her way.

Your eyes dart from left to right. It's late and the chances of running into anyone is pretty low, but still, there's always the chance.

"Sir, what's the deal?" she's laughing now. "What's your plan?"

"I don't have one."

It doesn't matter. You've been in the same spot before with her. She's been begging for it, you can't do it in your office, and you need someplace quiet, someplace private, someplace where the two of you can be alone for a while.

You lead her to the parking lot and she realizes your plan. Her voice is almost mocking. "Sir, that's not exactly original, you know. A parking lot? Your car?"

"It'll do, Yiren." Your voice is firm, almost angry, and she's eating it up—you know what gets her going. "And maybe it's a bit clichéd, but we won't have any of these pesky problems of you being too loud and giving us away." You stop her at the passenger door to your sedan, lean her against the car and press yourself against her. "And trust me, you will be too loud, Yiren."

She grins up at you. She likes the sound of that. "What're we doing here, Sir? I thought you didn't want to fuck me anymore. Not after last time."

"I never said that." Your fingers run down her side and you feel the familiar thrill of touching her again, feeling her body under your fingers. "I said no more fucking in my office, Yiren," you slide your hand over her ass. "So we're here." You lean down and kiss her, and she moans as her body leans into you.

She pulls away from the kiss, panting, "But, Sir, you know what else I want." You feel her fingers reach down and run across the bulge in your pants, and her breath catches. "Mm. I want this. I want to film you, Sir. I want to film this."

It's a bad idea, you know. The riskiest of ideas. You can see her in your mind's eye: the way her face looks when she's cumming, when she's biting her lip to hold in the scream, the way her body shudders, and her eyes shut tight, the way that she gasps for air afterwards. You want her to be able to share that with the world, to get her off by getting the world off. "Fine."

"Seriously?" She looks at you in disbelief, but you've already opened the door and nudged her inside. She climbs in and crawls to the other end, tossing her purse in the front seat after she pulls out her phone. "It's not ideal but it'll have to work." You're on her in an instant, pulling her skirt up around her waist, pushing her down against the seats, kissing her, and sliding your fingers into her.

She squeals, then gasps, and then giggles as you thrust your fingers in and out of her pussy. "Mm, Sir," her moans are punctuated by each thrust of your fingers, "Fuck. Wait. I haven't even got my phone set up yet. Fuck. Wait."

You slow, just a little, just enough, then you concede and pull out. You know she wants it, needs it. You watch her hands shake as she rushes to set the phone up, she's got it in selfie mode and it's the best she can do.

"The lighting's all wrong, but who cares, right? They're here to watch you fuck me. They don't care about lighting." She's talking to herself as much as to you, but you know how she is. You know that she wants you to play along.

"Let's show them how pretty you are, Yiren." You pull out your fingers, then press your palms against her legs, pushing them apart and sliding in closer between them. You watch as she tries to hold the camera steady. Her breaths are shallow. "Show them what your pussy looks like." She turns the camera down and focuses it on her pussy. She spreads herself for the camera, showing her audience her soft pink pussy. She's so wet, you can't wait to feel her on your cock, feel that heat, that wetness, and that tightness.

"God," you groan. You've watched her videos so many times, but seeing it up close and in the flesh is always different. You run your fingers down the inside of her thigh until they brush her pussy lips, and you spread her wide. Her hips buck slightly and you watch the juices of her desire drip down the crack of her ass. You push your fingers into her, and you feel the warmth of her insides. She cries out, "Mmf! Oh god."

You take it slow. She's filming it all. You want this video to be hot. You pull out your fingers, then push them in, watching the wetness cling to them as you thrust them in and out of her pussy. "Fuck, Sir. Oh god." You curl your fingers up and press your fingertip against the spot you've learned to find. You feel the rough skin against your finger and you press into it. Her head tilts back, her eyes shut tight, and you watch as her body shudders. You push your finger harder against it, rub it, and her moans get louder.

You pull your fingers out, then push them in, slowly, rhythmically. She whines, but you don't give in. "Tell the audience how it feels, Yiren." You're teasing her now. She doesn't want you to go slow. You know she's aching for more.

"Feels so fucking good." She pants, holding the camera steady. "God, Sir. Don't stop."

"Why?"

"Mm." She whines, and you can hear that she's on the edge, "Feels so good, Sir. Your fingers feel so good in my pussy." You pull your fingers out of her, then press the palm of your hands against her thighs and spread her wider.

You take your time. Your fingers brush down the length of her pussy, from her clit down to the juices on her asshole, and you press against that tight little pucker. She gasps and you hear her moan. You press your fingers against her hole, feeling it tense and tighten against your fingers.

She lets out a sharp, shocked whine as you tease her asshole and you can't take it any longer. She knows just what you want. You lean down and press your lips against her clit, and you hear her squeal as you lick her clit. You suck her clit, tasting the juices that flow from her, and you feel her body tense up. She's so close. You pull yourself away from her and grin up at her.

She's panting hard, staring up at you. "God. I need you to fuck me." Her voice is a whine, a needy whine. You can hear her desperation.

"I know you do, Yiren," you reply, unbuckling your pants. You pull your cock free and stroke yourself a few times as she stares down at you. "I know how much you want this."

She nods, her mouth open and panting. "So much. God, please fuck me with that." You press your cockhead against her pussy, rubbing it between her lips. "Fuck, Sir, please. I love a big hard cock in my tight pussy."

You grin and whisper, "Tell them what you need, Yiren."

She looks right into the camera, "Please fuck me, Sir. I need you to fuck my pussy. I need to feel you stretch me wide. Fuck, Sir. Fuck me." She's begging and her breath is a desperate pant. "Please, I'm so wet. I want to cum with your cock inside of me. I need to."

You press yourself against her entrance, just enough to push her open, then you pull away and watch her cunt quiver at your touch. You can tell she wants to be taken, needs to be fucked hard and fast, and she knows you can give it to her.

You push your hips forward and thrust your cock into her, and you watch her pussy open and spread for you. "Fuck," she cries, her hands trembling, but you don't slow down. You thrust hard, pulling her hips into you, and you slam your cock deep into her.

"God, your pussy feels so good." Your fingers grip tight on her thighs, spreading her wide as you pound into her, and her cries fill the car.

She tries to keep the phone steady, filming you thrust into her. She can barely keep herself together. You can see the camera shaking, "In his fucking car. You hear that? He couldn't even wait to get me home. He needed to fuck me. He spends all day watching me in class, thinking all these dirty little thoughts about me, and then he just can't take it anymore and he fucks me right in the parking lot. And you know what? I'm gonna fucking cum because of him."

You're going hard and fast and she's so fucking tight. You can hear her moaning and groaning with every thrust, and her pussy is clenching around you. You can tell she's on the edge, her pussy is trembling around you, and she's screaming for more. You know that the video is probably a mess, a shaky, poorly framed mess of her tits shaking, her face pulling the dirtiest of expressions and her pussy getting fucked.

Her words are getting more erratic. She can barely keep it together, so you snatch it from her hand, record the way you thrust into her, how your balls slap against her cunt. She moans louder when you do and you realize she likes that you're the one recording her.

The camera pans up to her face. You want to see her cum. You want to film it. "Cum, Yiren." Your voice is loud and commanding. "Cum on my cock. Let them see you cum on your teacher's cock."

Her hands are above her head, grasping at the leather seats. Her back arches beneath you and her head is thrown back, pressing into the very same upholstery that her fingers do. Her hips shudder and you feel her insides squeeze around your shaft as she cries out, "Fuck!" The sound of your flesh slapping into her flesh fills the car, and she's a writhing, whimpering, cumming mess as you pound her through her orgasm.

You keep filming as you reach down, and with one hand, rip open the buttons of her shirt. Three of them come flying off, pinging around the car and leaving a lopsided mess of fabric and bra that exposes the flesh of one of her pert tits. It doesn't take long before your hand is gripping her breast, pinching at her nipple, tugging at her flesh as you keep pounding into her.

Yiren gets the message, pulling the rest open on her own and pulling down her bra, exposing both tits. Her fingers are on her own nipple, tugging at it and pinching. You watch the way she teases herself, the way her body reacts, and the way she's still shivering from her orgasm. She's a mess and you love seeing her that way.

If there's something painfully obvious from her videos, it's that one is never enough. So Yiren doesn't even need to ask, you're already guiding her onto her knees and then pushing her forward so her face is against the glass. "Show them your ass, Yiren."

You hold the camera in your hand and record the image of her reaching back and pulling her skirt over her hips, exposing her bare ass and pussy to you. You record as she reaches back and spreads her cheeks for the camera, letting her fingers pull apart her wet pussy and letting your audience see that tight, puckered asshole.

"Sir," you watch her face pressed against the window. Her breath leaves an opaque cloud against the cold glass, "How does my ass look?" You can't help it, your free hand comes crashing down against her skin and you watch it ripple under your palm. "Oh!"

You grin at her reaction, "You look like a naughty little girl who needs a good spanking."

"Oh, Sir," she moans, "What did I do?"

You slap her ass again, and again, watching it redden under your hand. "Such a naughty little girl. Making a mess in my office." You're slapping her again, watching her ass jiggle and turn pink.

Yiren whimpers, "I did. I was so naughty."

"What did you do, Yiren?"

"I was so fucking wet. I couldn't stop touching myself."

"Why were you wet?" You spank her again and you watch as her hips press back into you, "Tell your viewers what made you so wet that you needed to touch yourself."

"I needed you." Yiren's panting hard, her voice a needy moan, "God, I need you to fuck me. I was thinking about your cock. How good it felt when you fucked my pussy. I wanted you to fuck my pussy again."

You push her forward, letting her hands come down against the foggy glass. Her ass is up in the air and you're pressing your cock against her pussy. She's still wet from her cum and it takes no effort at all to thrust deep into her.

You're so deep in her wet folds. Her soft embrace is warm, tight, and you feel yourself slide deep inside of her, and you watch as her face twists and contorts in pleasure, in desire.

"Show them what they're doing to you, Yiren. Show them how they make you feel." You pull the phone up to her face, filming her moans, her cries, the faces she makes as you fuck her. "You like it when they watch, don't you? You like it when I fuck you like this and they have to watch."

She's panting, moaning, and nodding. Her hips press back into you as you pound into her and you watch her ass ripple and bounce with each thrust.

You reach around and grab her tie. She always wears it loose, but it's still enough to pull it up tight against her throat, pull her back into you. You wrap it twice around your hand and it yanks her up straight, her body against your chest. She's panting hard as her hands come up and try to claw at the tie around her throat.

She can't stop moaning, crying, and she can barely breathe, and you watch as she struggles to hold on, her head tilting back and resting on your shoulder. You film her as she struggles to hold it together. She can barely keep her eyes open and her voice comes out as a desperate, choked moan.

You let go of the tie, and it unravels in your hand. You watch her slump forward and her hands come down to the seat. Her face presses into the leather and she's whimpering. "You're such a good girl, Yiren." You press yourself deep inside her and grind your hips against hers, "Such a good girl for taking my cock."

She groans, "Thank you." She's still pushing back against you and her eyes are shut tight. "Thank you, Sir."

"Good girls get a treat, don't they?" You grin and you run your fingers against her asshole. "I bet you like a nice treat for being such a good girl."

Her breath hitches, and her eyes flutter, "Please, Sir."

You press your finger against her hole, and she pushes her ass back, and you feel her ass relax and open for your finger. Her tight asshole squeezes your finger tight and you hear her moan, and her pussy clenches your cock. "Fuck."

"Oh god, Sir," she moans. She's a needy, whining little mess, "Please cum in me."

Her words are like music to your ears. Her body is trembling under you, and she's moaning for you to cum. Her words are so desperate. She's begging, and you can't resist. Your hand is gripping her ass, with a finger slipped inside, and you pound into her, feeling her tight, wet cunt squeeze around you.

"Fuck, Sir, please," she begs. "Breed your favourite little student. Fill her up with your cum." She's crying out, her voice echoing inside the car.

Your hips shudder as you thrust deep into her and feel your balls clench, you can't take any more, and your cock is pulsing, throbbing, and your cum is filling her, flooding her insides, and her ass is trembling around your finger. Your chest is heaving, and your heart is pounding, and you can barely breathe. She's still pushing her ass back against your hand and her body is shivering with every pulse of cum that your cock pumps into her. You keep thrusting, feeling her pussy tighten and milk your cock.

When it's all over, you watch as she slowly pulls away from you, and you see the thick white seed drip from her hole and onto her thighs. She sits back on her knees and looks right into the camera. Her chest is flushed and heaving. Her hair's a mess, and her shirt's hanging open. Her makeup's running and there are tears on her cheek. But there's a satisfied look on her face.

She's grinning from ear to ear and you can't help but grin along with her. "That," she pants, still trying to catch her breath, "is how I get a good grade in class." Her words are followed with a giggle and then she leans forward and shuts off the camera. Her hand finds the back of your neck and she pulls you into a kiss. Her lips are hungry and her tongue presses into your mouth. Your hand wraps around her head, and your fingers get tangled in her hair as you pull her closer and deeper into you.

She pulls away, a smile on her face, and a twinkle in her eye, "You're a natural, you know. You really know what they want. Makes sense, you are one of them."

"Thanks." You laugh. You can't help but notice that her hand's between her legs, rubbing and stroking. She's unsatiable.

"Sir? Since I'm such a good student, does it mean you'll take me home and fuck me in your bed?"

[starcolle-archive]

tabula rasa; keep moving forward

I’ve made some friends on tinder so far; some want to play board games and some want to get in my pants. But I’m talking to this kid [21; obviously not a literal kid, but it feels like there’s over a decade between us] about his depression in how the public unconsciousness is poisoned. (Speaking of which, I need to get back to writing the smut I was drafting while drinking. The guy’s getting pegged while he talks about parasocial relationships being deliberate creations of class based society; used to alleviate the rising temper of the inevitable clashing mentalities prevalent among the public unconsciousness. Obviously I’m not gonna do it justice in any way in a tumblr post, so I’ll keep it top myself for now.)

And as all the thoughts raise through my head, agreeing with him on how neoliberialism’s schadenfreude is morally decrepit, I’m reminded about our discussion(s) about tabula rasa and what it means to be one’s authentic self. Yeah, sure, ALL the kinky shit we talked about was fun, but it was always the intellectual discussions that I’ve missed most. Sure I may have been the moody sarcastic asshole at time, but I was always sincere with my interest in discussions & our intertwined betterment; no matter the topic.

So I guess that’s another reason why I’m reminding myself to keep moving forward like I used to tell you. I’m finally replying to my new therapist. it shouldn’t have taken me this long, but I’m so exhausted that I’m just now getting around to it.

Why am I even writing this? You don’t read it, and it’s already inside my head. I guess it is good to get it out, even if it makes me feel psychotic (I should probably get my psychiatrist to up my anti-psychotic, shouldn’t I? ...I jest; moistly, er, I mean mostly.)

[This is where I’d insert the sound of an hour long groan that you can’t tell if it’s the byproduct of a bad pun or from something else I might say; I’m hyper-aware except for when I need it most after all.]

[tgcg]

ill break your shit adam

warning for adult lang

fuck you adam sandler

youre lucky karkat likes you

stupid fuck sees an amnesiac girl

and asks her can i marry you

that lady got issues mentally

you still down to do shit anally

deplorable zit on the ass of romanza

karkat told me to put that shit in this stanza

do raps even count as having stanzas

slam poetry tyke at preschool im no manza

youd probably jack it to a log with holes if they were wet ones

sitting on that stupid dock with her papa cracking cold ones

piece of shit id push you off that dock and watch you bubbling

kick your ass like her shitty bro failed when you were troubling

penguins dont quack like fucking ducks you dumbass

thats not part of the rap i just think that youre a dumbass

back to the rap sandler i bet you couldnt drop a single bar

too busy picking up stupid women at the stupid women bar

who even let you into hawaii

also did i say karkat liked you i was kidding he wants to kick your heinie

seriously watching that shit again made him start slamming his head into the cushions and screaming i had to pry them out his hands and he almost bit me

sorry i forgot i was rapping again

piece of shit forgot that you can like women while dating other men

still not over that chuck and larry shit adam

if you just said to the gov you were bi you coulda had em

firefighter of the year? well try putting out this heat

karkats gonna beat your ass like you do every night to your meat

gotta ask is this shit wish fulfilment for you

gotta say larry deserved better than you

i could treat him way better than you not in a gay way though

i just mean youre a massive sleaze basically the worlds shittiest bro

back to 50 first dates man sandler your shit is a bore

the stupid bits with schneider got my ass addicted to snore

if i was that stupid walrus id tear your ass to shreds

if i was that penguin i would also tear your ass to shreds

itd be harder but id still do it

bro fuck adam sandler im through it

===

TT: Wow. Bravo, Dave. You've outdone yourself.

TG: i wrote this one exceptionally fucking terrible to represent my inner darkness

TG: i can never unwatch those cinematic fossilized turds theyre like time capsules devoted to everything wrong with america

TG: you dont even understand how egregious that was

TT: I can sense the utter malaise and contempt in every word. It's beautiful.

TT: One particularly interesting point I'd like to make is the fact that you managed to refer to butts in a song about a male target, 10 times in the span of 37 lines. It's not an exorbitant amount, but it appears to be a running theme in your works. Very interesting, if you ask me --

TG: nooooo

TG: nope no

TG: not this shit again

TG: listen one of them is karkats fault

===

CG: ROSE, YOU JUST DON'T FUCKING UNDERSTAND WHAT HE'S DOING HERE AT ALL.

TT: No? Please, enlighten me Karkat.

CG: GLADLY.

CG: HE STARTS OUT WITH THE FRIGGIN WORD "ANAL" PRECEDING ALL OF THE OTHER MENTIONS, OF COURSE IT'S ON PURPOSE. IT INSTILLS THAT IMAGERY IN YOUR NUGBONE THROUGHOUT THE TRACK.

CG: AND YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED A RECURRING USE OF THE WORD "SHIT", IN TANDEM. BOG-STANDARD FOR DAVE, RIGHT? NO! IT'S PART OF THE EFFECT!

CG: MY THESIS: ADAM SANDLER MOVIES ARE PIECES OF ABSOLUTE SHIT AND THE REFERENCES TO WORDS LIKE "LOG" AND "SHIT" AND "ASS" ARE TO INVOKE THE SENSE OF TAKING A MASSIVE DUMP THROUGHOUT THE SPAN OF THE RAP, WHICH BY ALL MEANS WOULD BE AN EQUAL OR GREATER USE OF YOUR TIME THAN WATCHING THOSE MOVIES.

CG: RIGHT, DAVE?

TG: … yeah

TT: Okay, I'm willing to concede to that. On this subject matter, as an avid terrible movie enjoyer, you admittedly know better than myself.

CG: SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

TT: And you love them anyways.

CG: YEAH.

TG: hes right

TG: you hear that shit hes right

TG: fuck death of the author im verifying that interpretation

[to-be-a-dreamer]

I can’t stand that TikTok trend that’s like “just saw Hadestown and my boyfriend is walking the entire way back to the hotel without looking back at me to prove Orpheus was a chump” because not only do they not get the whole point of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth they also Were Not Paying Attention to the musical they just saw.

Hate people who see WSS as “just a Romeo and Juliet retelling”. Hate people who see Hadestown as “Just an Orpheus and Eurydice retelling”.

Hate people who watch a musical that takes a classic story everyone knows and uses it to explore/critique our modern society and only see it as a funky retelling.

Not Getting The Point of WSS is one thing because it’s more subtle and it can be really easy to just see it as a modern R&J, especially if you don’t really know R&J.

How the fuck do you watch Hadestown and see it as just an O&E retelling? It is one of the most heavy-handed political musicals out there how are so many people missing the point?

Orpheus has to fail. Not because that’s how the Greek myth ends but because that’s the whole point of the message of Hadestown.

Social reform is hard. Changing the world is one of the most challenging things you can try to do. So often we see people try to make a difference in society, to change some kind of injustice in the world. And so often we see those people fail. It can feel so impossible to actually do some good in this fucked up world because we see these people who are smarter and stronger and more qualified than us fail over and over again.

Why do we even keep trying?

Because we have to.

Because one day, someone will try and they’ll succeed.

One day Orpheus won’t turn around.

One day the people of Hadestown will get to see someone escape and they’ll know they can escape too. Only then does the world get to change.

So we have to try. We have to keep singing the sad song, no matter how many times Orpheus turns around, because one day he won’t.

In the Greek myth, Orpheus fails because he loves Eurydice.

In Hadestown, Orpheus fails because we fail.

We try and we fail to make a difference. We try and we fail to change the world for the better. We try to see the world for what it could be and it keeps letting us down.

But we don’t give up. We don’t stop singing.

Hadestown is genuinely one of the best musicals ever. Full stop. This musical is one of the reasons i wish I was smarter because I would love to be able to do an entire thesis on this show and all the themes and messages in it. Some of them are subtle. Some of them aren’t.

It is not just an Orpheus and Eurydice retelling. I am begging people to hear the real message.

Never stop trying to change the world.

One day we’ll make it out of Hadestown.

We just have to keep singing the song.

[vicocaaisha]

All Mine

Baek Harin x Reader Fic.

Sypnosis: Having friends is not your top priority; therefore, you kept rejecting Harin's advances. Not until she got jealous when you found yourself a new friend.

Warnings: SMUT, mature scenes, choking, virgin!reader, possesive!Harin, bottom!reader, top!harin, stalking, read at your own risk!

Requested by: @imurcherie1

“Y/N-ah, do you want to hang out later after school?”

“Harin wants us to eat later together at lunch, can you sit with us?”

“Can you join our group for the school project? We can do it after school!”

“Hey, Y/N, can you teach me how to play chess? Help me beat Harin!”

Typical Wooyi, always asking you for help. You think it’s just an excuse to make you hang out or spend time together with Harin, which for you is a waste of time because you have other things you want to do than doing friendly stuff that you’re not interested in.

“Sorry, unnie. I have other things to do! Maybe next time.” is the response you always answer to Wooyi.

You sometimes wish that you are in the lower grade, like in grade C so that no one won’t bother you and leave you alone. Being family friends with Harin means you’re also powerful inside your classroom, that’s why your classmates are always clinging to your side because they think that you’ll favour them or something.

But you didn’t care. All you care about is your studies, not the recognitions but the information you learn. Such a nerd thing to say but deep inside you really love studying, learning so many topics fascinates you.

You are smarter than Doah, but you don’t even participate in school competitions. You’re just focused on gaining skills.

“You look pretty having your hair up in a bun, Y/N” Harin greeted you.

“Yes, you do! Can you teach me how to do that later at lunch, please, Y/N.” Wooyi practically begged.

Here we go again, Harin’s group always bothers you to join them during lunch. You don’t have an interest in being friends with them even though your families are good friends. You’re just not that fond of being friends with someone, you like being alone more. Plus, Wooyi enjoys to torture your classmate, which is like a redflag to you because how can you enjoy on tormenting someone?

“I’m sorry, guys. I actually have a thesis report that I’m finishing. You know, I make money doing these things for other students.” You replied.

Harin only scoffed and started to walk away from you. She knows that you’ll just reject their invitation to hang out with them. Harin can’t do anything about it. She can’t blackmail you into being friends with her because there’s nothing hideous about you or even a secret.

Harin could only stare at you from afar. She likes you– no–, she wants you to be hers.

She’s so glad that you being preoccupied with your hobbies means you’re less aware of what's happening in your surroundings. Harin could easily stalk you and you won’t even notice that some of your things from your room are missing.

“I read somewhere that the new season of Jujutsu Kaisen is airing next week.” Jaeun said as she sat beside you.

How did she find you? You’re sitting under a tree that’s far away from your classroom’s building.

“How do you even know I watch that?” You scoffed as you read your book. Does she need something? She’s usually on her own or with Suji. What does she want now?

“Oh, you don’t? I was actually giving this Geto plushie for free.” Jaeun waved the plushie doll on your face.

“Oh my! He’s my favourite!” You were shocked, you can’t find any Jujutsu Kaisen merchandise here in South Korea, and Geto is your favourite, “Can I have it, please? Where’d you get this?” you asked as you grabbed the plushie.

“Oh, umm…” Jauen was stammering. She didn't know how to handle this kind of situation. She’s scared that she might fuck it up after having your attention.

“He’s so cute! What do you want in return, can I please have him?” You begged her. This is the first time that your classmate sees that you’re capable of showing feelings, too.

“O-of course, uhh… I just want to be friends with you, can you join me during lunch?” You were too happy from the plushie you received that you accepted her offer without thinking about it.

And that’s how you ended up being with Jaeun. She always follows you around and you were too happy that one of your classmates watches your favourite anime. When you’re with her, you are too talkative about your favourite anime, Jauen doesn’t care though; she’s satisfied that she finally is on your good side.

Harin noticed that you finally are friends with someone, and that someone is the person who she despised the most. She was angry, she wanted to harm Jaeun but it’s impossible because of Suji always rescues Jaeun whenever she corners the tall girl.

Jaeun introduced you to Suji and Se-eun. You were awkward when you met them, you don’t really like social gatherings; you can only handle one person at a time.

So here you are, on the rooftop with them. Suji introduced you to their plan once they figured that you’re trusty enough. You rejected their proposal though.

“Sorry, Suji. I don’t have an interest in being a hero here. I know, call me selfish or whatever. Do you know who you’re provoking?” You asked them genuinely.

Suji still tried to convince you. You just rejected it again and excused yourself. Do they know what they’re doing? Are they high? Harin is so dangerous. Even if you want to end this game yourself, deep inside you still value Harin.

You’ve known Harin ever since the both of you were younger. You secretly had a crush on her, when you saw her performing a dance. You were in a trance, you befriended her. You thought at first you wanted to be just like her but as your friendship progresses, your feelings also progresses. You tried to ignore it but can’t help it.

Although, as the both of you were growing older, she started to change. Sometimes you think that she turned into a monster but still, you cared for her so much even if you don’t show it.

You wanted to be away from her because you realized being in love with a girl is rather unusual. You’re scared that she might notice that you’re in love with her and betray you. Harin is unpredictable, you’ve seen it yourself.

“Y/N!” Wooyi runs into you as she sees you walking down the corridor.

“Wooyi, I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood right now. My head aches so badly.” You tried to make an excuse before she could ask another invitation to hang out with them.

You tried to walk faster, “The chairman wants to talk to you right now, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Wooyi said as she tried to catch up with your fast pace.

“What? She could have texted me beforehand. She has my number, ugh. I don’t even look presentable right now.” You mumbled to yourself, Wooyi seemed to hear that.

“Oh, don’t humble yourself. You’re always pretty! You should spray some perfume, bet she’ll go crazy over you!” Wooyi said, which she regretted saying afterwards because it confused you. The chairman going crazy over your perfume?

“Oh, I’ll head to the classroom now. Gotta find them bootlickers!” Wooyi suddenly parted ways, you didn’t even get the chance to ask what she was talking about.

You sighed. Usually if the chairman, Harin’s mother, wants to meet you, she’ll schedule a meeting or she’ll text you and your parents about it. Also, you never had a meeting inside the school because she said once that it feels unprofessional meeting inside the school. What could be the problem now?

You are now in front of the chairman’s office, spraying perfume over your uniform. You took a big breath before opening the door, you were nervous that you might be in trouble, especially after hearing Suji’s crazy plan.

“Hello, Mrs. Baek. I’m sorry if I took too long, I was at the–” you stopped what you were trying to say when Harin revealed herself by turning around her chair.

“Uhm… Where’s your mother, Harin? She asked for me, didn’t she?” You tried to ask to make the awkward atmosphere out of the room.

“That would be for another time, Y/N-ah.” Harin said and stood up from her chair; walking towards you.

“You’re smoking again, I told you that’s not good for you.” You tried to lecture Harin. You are now currently in the middle of the room.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.” Harin said as she took another puff of her cig and she continued walking after passing you. Where is she going?

“Okay then, I better get going now if your mother is not here.” You rolled your eyes.

You heard a click. Harin locked the door behind you, trapping you inside the chairman’s office.

You began to feel nervous, you haven’t been in a room alone with Harin for the longest time. You tried to avoid this kind of encounter because you can’t contain your feelings. When talking with Harin alone, you will start to stutter.

“I wanted you here.” Harin dropped her cigarette and stepped on it. She’s aware that you dislike the smell of cigarette.

“Ohh, can we make it faster, please?” You were trying your best not to stutter because she’ll sense that you’re nervous.

“Enjoying being friends with Jaeun?” Harin started to walk towards you, which made you walk backwards as well. You were like a prey in her eyes, anytime she might devour you.

Oh shit. You thought to yourself. You forgot that Jaeun and Harin had a history before, she talked to you about this before! How could you forget it! It’s because of that damn plushie, you got too excited over that.

“H-harin, I’m so sorry. I forgot, I’m really sorry. It’s because she gave me the plushie, I got too distracted over that. I don’t mean to offend you, I swear–” You stopped your rumbling when your back hit the table. She got you very cornered this time.

You didn’t have the space anymore to move back and she still is walking forward slowly as if she’s stalking a prey. You’re very scared now, hell, you even are sweating too much for your liking. Note that this room is air conditioned.

Harin giggled to herself, “Y/N, why are you trembling so hard?”

She is now in front of you.

She tugged on your school necktie, which made you lean towards her. Since she is taller, you are looking up at her.

“Tell me, Y/N. Whom do you like to kiss?” She’s taunting you and all you could do is look at her doe eyes.

“Do you like Jaeun?” She asked you with a mischievous smile.

“I don’t like her, I don’t even have an i-interest to date a-anyone.” You stuttered, fuck you really are nervous.

“You’re lying, Y/N/N.” That nickname she used to call you when the both of you were younger.

“You’re stuttering, Y/N, it means you’re lying. Which one is it, hmm?” Her face is inches away from yours. Even if you haven't talked to her for years, she still knows your mannerisms.

Before you could even reply, she suddenly kissed you.

It felt passionate for a short time, not until she bit your lip that caused you to whimper and she immediately inserted her tongue. Did she practice with other girls before? How come is she so good with kissing? You felt jealous...

Your thoughts got cut off short when she stopped kissing you and started to undo your blouse.

“Harin, we s-shouldn’t be doing this.” She got tired of your mindless comments, so Harin pulled your necktie tighter that made you choke.

“Did I tell you to talk?” Harin only smiled when she saw you struggling. You were just gripping her clothes and whimpering because of the restriction of the air in your lungs.

Once she was satisfied, she stopped pulling your necktie and continued removing the articles of your clothes.

You were now left in your school blouse that is open, and your skirt; no bra nor panty. You suddenly felt insecure about your body when Harin was staring at your body up and down. Your first instinct was to cover up your body, but Harin beat you to it and held your wrists before you could even move them.

“H-harin” You can’t understand what’s happening between the two of you. Is she toying you?

“Stop talking, Y/N! God, you made me wait for so long, and then Jaeun easily caught your attention?!” Harin felt insatiable over you.

She then started kissing your neck, leaving marks all over your neck. You can’t even move and too scared to protest but deep inside you’re really liking this.

“You’re mine, Y/N/N.” Harin whispered, hunger laced on her voice.

“Hnng–, H-harin!” You yelped when you felt Harin’s long, slim fingers toy your clit.

Yes, you’ve touched yourself before but Harin massaging your clit felt so amazing. You can’t contain your moans anymore. You tried to shush yourself by putting your free arm on your mouth. Harin noticed this and…

She inserted two fingers, you aren’t ready for it, and it’s definitely your first time. It hurts like hell. You were struggling below her, and all you could do was to let out a shameless moan.

“A-hh, it hurts. It hurts, Ha-rin! Hnng!” She only removed your arms that were blocking your mouth and continued fingering you even if you're hurting.

Pain soon starts to feel pleasure soon enough. Harin is still putting hickeys on your chest area. She then started to look at your face, your fucked up face. Looking at you with adoration, you look so good even if you’re being fucked, Harin thought to herself.

“Baby, you look so good.” Harin whispered seductively, she couldn’t even explain how turned on she is right now. The stoic and nerdy, L/N Y/N, is being fucked out like this.

“You’re mine, Y/N. I don’t want you seeing anybody but me, you get that?” Harin starts to get rougher on you, hitting that one spot makes you struggle to respond to her. Because of that, she slapped you, thinking to herself that it might knock you to your senses.

“Mhhmm– sorry! Ahh– Fuck!” was all you could blur out during that time.

Harin only chuckled as she pressed down her thumb to your clit. Fingering you and massaging your clit at the same time feels like you’re going to climax soon.

“I f–eel, ahh! Like I’m gonna p–EE!” You gripped onto her shirt more.

“Say you’re mine, Y/N, then you can let go.” Harin teased you. She then started to suck on your breasts, which added to your stimulation more.

“I’m y–yours! Harin–nng. I lov–e you for so long, Fuck!” You didn’t even realize that you accidentally confessed your love towards her because of the pleasure you are feeling. Harin felt over the moon when she heard your confession, which drove her even more very crazy and continued to get rougher on you.

As you trembled against her holds, you couldn't contain yourself anymore; you tried to let go of the pressure you were feeling, and instead, you squirted.

Harin continued to finger you until you rode out your high. You didn’t even realize the mess you created on her uniform because you were still trying to calm down. So many thoughts were running to your mind that time and one of those is that you just fucked your long time crush.

“Baby, are you okay?” Harin asked you with softness evident in her voice. She brushed your baby hairs out of your face with her dry hand. You look so exhausted, and your face is very flushed. You just nodded weakly, too tired to say anything.

You were laid against the table, and Harin decided to take you on the couch so that you could rest comfortably. You’re too tired to even care about your appearance at that time. You just let Harin help you wear your panty and your bra.

Maybe you could rest for a bit, so you decided to close your eyes.

“I love you.” Harin whispered as she was doing after care to you. She must have thought you were asleep.

“You do?”

“Yes, so much. I was trying so hard to reconnect our friendship again.” Harin kissed you passionately and with love this time.

“You’re wet?” You asked sheepishly as you felt her clothes.

“Oh, you squirted.” Harin smiled at you.

“What? No, I did not!” Harin laughed at your response. You’re still stubborn as you were before when both of you were younger. Harin only stared at you blankly. You can’t seem to read what her thoughts are, so you decided to break the awkward silence.

“So, is Mrs. Baek really asking for me?” You asked.

“No, it’s my last resort,” she confessed, “I can’t seem to get you all alone for myself, why are you avoiding me?” Harin asked you as she caressed your face.

You avoided her gaze, “It’s because… I’m scared that I have feelings for you, more than friends.”

There was silence again, when you looked up at her, she looked as if she were in a daze; lost in your beautiness. She was still caressing your face that time. You leaned up and kissed her with all the strength you had. The both of you kissed that you felt like it lasted for hours.

You stopped kissing her because it might lead the both of you to another round, and you still have classes to attend to.

You are fixing yourself, trying to look presentable after Harin fucked you out. Hickeys all over your neck, your hair is tangled mess, your clothes crumpled. Suddenly, Harin hugged you from your back, and you felt the wet spot on her clothes.

“Harin, go change your clothes. It’s disgusting!” You tried to wiggle out of her embrace and then laugh when she kissed your neck.

“It’s your fault, you peed on me!” Harin protested.

Let’s just say she never lived that day down when you squirted and always teased you that you peed on her.

I've read your requests. Sorry if I didn't get to reply, but I'll be working on those soon!

I'll also go back to school tomorrow, so it might take me a while to post again. Sorry!

If you have any requests, dont hesitate to send them^^

[lost-on-an-ocean-of-books]

Calling all fanfiction Readers it's time to have your say.

Hi Fanfiction Readers

My name is Tamsin and I am a PhD student, fellow lurker and fanfiction reader. I am conducting a study into the role that fanfiction plays in the lives of those fans who read fanfiction as part of their everyday lives. Does your search history include the tags related to found family, irondad or batbad for example, then I am interested in talking to you. If you would like to take part in discussions around these tags with a fellow reader and lurkers of these tags within A03 please message me. 

Taking part in this research is a chance for you to share your own experience of fanfiction and what it means to you, while also highlighting that lurkers do still have a voice and an important part to play within fandom research. 

Below the cut is more information about this study and what it involves. Please read this if you would like more information before getting in touch. If you are unable to take part please can you reblog this post or share it to anyone you feel might wish to take part. 

Why have I been chosen?

I have deliberately chosen lurkers within fanfiction communities as the messages they take from and their reasons for reading fanfiction are under researched. Although you may not be a lurker in all fandoms you are involved in, the fact that you are a lurker within any fanfiction spaces make you the ideal candidate from this exploration into lurkers and their relationships with fanfiction, fanfictions online spaces and fandom communities. 

I would also like to emphasise that I require all participants to be over the age of 18 to take part in this study. If you are under 18 please let me know now. 

What does taking part mean?

By agreeing to take part in this study you are agreeing to record a diary of your fanfiction use and reasons for this usage within a discord chat. There is no limit for entries and I ask that the minimum response is once every two weeks. However, this project is aiming to work around your life and commitments and if you do miss a couple of weeks do not panic. Just start sending entries or replying to prompts again when you are able to. If I have not heard from you in a month I will send a message which will read:

Hi. I hope you are doing well. I am just sending a message to check in and to double check if you wish to continue taking part in the study. If you are happy to still take part please send any form of response to this message. 

It is important to note that this response can be as limited as simply sending an emoji. If I do not receive a response after two weeks I will stop attempting to contact you. However this is not seen as a full withdrawal from the study and you are able to return at any time. I will also still use the discussions we have already had as part of my thesis. If you would like to withdraw fully from the study please let me or my supervisors know, with the process of how to do this explained below. 

These entries can take the form of voice notes, written responses and memes or tiktoks. Every two weeks I shall send a prompt to the chat that hosts the diary entries, these are intended to get you thinking about certain topics and do not have to be answered directly or even at all if the questions make you uncomfortable or touch on something you are unwilling to share. At the end of every month I will arrange a touch base interview (over google meet) which will last about an hour. This will be a chance to discuss anything that you find easier to discuss face to face, to review some of your diary entries and for me to answer any question you may have. While I will aim to have these interviews a month apart I do understand that life may get in the way. I am more than happy to be flexible and move interviews around or push them back/bring them forward depending on your schedules. 

[akindplace]

Everyone in this world deserves good things. They don’t have to earn it. And most of us would agree with that but maybe some of us wouldn’t include ourselves, as if we were so awful that we become an exception to the rule. But you do deserve it. There will always be people who find you lovely, who will wish for you to be happy. And they’re not wrong. But your self-worth is suffering because of your anxiety, because of your desire to be perfect.

Don’t set yourself up for failure with your perfectionism. I’m sorry someone made you feel like you needed to earn love, comfort, contentment. Most people are not like that and they do not wish to watch as you self-sabotage, they will not judge you so harshly. I hope you can stay away from those who feel like things must always be earned and that if you make a mistake, you’ll be a complete failure. You’re just a person. Making mistakes is a part of life.You don’t have to perfect.

You won’t become prettier after you lose weight because you always were. You won’t be greater when you write the perfect thesis and graduate. You don’t need to prove to anyone that you deserve space in this world. You were born in this place so now all you have to do is live. You don’t need to achieve a certain goal that makes you sabotage your social or professional life in order to get where you want to be. Life itself is imperfect, chaotic, unpredictable. Do what needs to be done in ways that allow time for yourself, for resting, for hobbies, because those good things are rightfully yours.

And maybe if you’re thinking “others deserve it more” or that “good things don’t last in my life”, then please don’t compare yourself to others, it isn’t fair. And what if those things stick with you and they make you happy? What if they don’t go anywhere? Then you will need to admit that change is a scary thing (even when it’s a change for the best) and that you’re not a terrible person who doesn’t deserve anything. You deserve happiness. You deserve a life of your own, not when you finally become perfect, but because despite your shortcomings, you’ll always be worthy of happiness. It’s time to stop punishing yourself and to start believing you’re enough as you are right at this moment.