#but like back to the text of the post...what i mean is like

[mapis-putellas]

𝑯𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒅

Pairing: Alexia Putellas x reader

Words: 1325

Warnings: none

Summary: You hack Alexia’s instagram.

It was almost too easy to get Alexia's Instagram password. It started off as a casual "help me, please" when she couldn't get her account to update one day. You'd offered to take a look, and within minutes, she'd trusted you enough to give you her password. Now, you sat on the sofa, staring at the list of questionable, slightly embarrassing photos you'd taken of her over the past few months, knowing exactly what you were about to do.

Alexia, the captain of her team, usually kept her public image squeaky clean. Polished, strong, professional. The world knew her as a serious, disciplined player who could take on any challenge. But you? You knew a different side of her. One that stumbled in at 3 AM after a night out with teammates, cheeks red from laughter and wine, or who sent you the most ridiculous selfies when she'd just woken up. She was adorable, and for the past few months, you'd kept these little memories tucked safely in your camera roll. Until now.

You bit back a grin as you selected the first photo. Alexia was sitting at the dining table, mouth stuffed full, eyes slightly glazed from the wine you'd been sharing. It was a terrible, hilarious photo, and it was about to become her new post.

Caption: "Sometimes is very... muy hard... to eat without make mess. But is ok! Me es captain, after all."

You held back a snicker as the post went live, imagining the horrified look she'd have if she saw it.

It didn't stop there. You scrolled to the next photo in your phone—a selfie she'd taken in a mirror after the shower, wrapped in just a towel with a smirk on her face. She probably took it as a joke for you, but that smirk practically begged to be captioned. You could almost feel her cringe from afar as you typed it out.

Caption: "Today I am very... sexy time. But not for you to see! Only for one very... special person ;)"

"Oh, she's going to kill me for this one," you muttered under your breath, posting it and then closing her profile quickly, pretending like nothing happened. You chuckled to yourself and set your phone down, feeling like an evil genius.

Hours later, you'd managed to stay out of her account just long enough to keep her from getting suspicious. But your "prank" felt like it was only getting started. You'd posted a few more times, each one worse than the last.

There was a picture of her at a team dinner, mid-sentence, with an expression that was a cross between a sneeze and a frown.

Caption: "Sometimes the food make me very... emotional. Is the passion, you know?"

Then another one of her curled up on the couch, half-asleep, wearing a mismatched pair of socks with her hair sticking out in all directions.

Caption: "Me, the powerful captain. Even in my dreams. Especially with... socks of power."

At this point, the comments on her posts had started blowing up. Fans were bewildered. Some thought her account had been hacked. Others were tagging her teammates, asking if she was alright. You, however, couldn't stop laughing.

It wasn't until later in the evening that you got the call. You were mid-laugh at another comment under her most recent post when her name popped up on your screen. Alexia had finished training, and judging by the number of missed texts and calls, she'd discovered her Instagram feed. You braced yourself as you picked up.

"Cariño," her voice came through, breathless and tense. "What... what happened to... my Instagram?"

You could picture her standing there, wide-eyed and mortified. "What do you mean?" you replied innocently, biting back laughter.

"The photos! And the... the... 'sexy time' caption!" she hissed, her Spanish accent thick and heavy with frustration. "I did not write these things!"

"Oh?" you feigned confusion. "But they sound like you. Very... passionate, no?"

There was a pause, then an exasperated sigh. "No, no, no," she said quickly. "This is... how do you say... loco! They think I am... silly!"

You could barely keep it together. "I mean, you are a bit silly. Remember that dinner photo? You look very emotional about that food."

"I am not emotional about food!" she snapped, sounding utterly betrayed. "This is bad, amor. Very bad. My teammates... they send messages. They say, 'Alexia, are you drunk?'"

You couldn't hold back anymore and burst into laughter. "Oh no, did they really?"

"Yes! They are very... how you say... worried! And my mother! My mother called, asking if I was okay!"

"Oh, that's brilliant," you wheezed, doubling over. "You should've seen this coming when you gave me your password."

There was a long, heavy silence. Then she groaned. "This is why I do not give my password to anyone."

"Guess you learned your lesson," you teased. "And you might want to check your latest post..."

Another beat of silence as she presumably opened her app and saw the final post you'd queued up: a picture of her in the mirror, flexing her arms with a ridiculously intense look on her face.

Caption: "Strong like bull, but soft like baby."

"NO! No, no, no," she cried, her voice barely a whisper. "This is... humiliation! My fans, they will... they will think I am crazy!"

"Or they'll think you're adorable," you countered, still laughing. "Which you are, by the way."

"You are so... how do you say... evil," she muttered, clearly flustered. "When I see you, I am going to... to..."

"To what?" you asked, grinning. "Hug me?"

"No, not hug," she huffed. "I am going to... to..."

You could tell she was struggling to find the right words, her English flailing under the pressure. "Going to what?"

She finally managed, "To... squish you like... like... tomato!"

That only made you laugh harder. "Oh, scary! The big, bad captain is going to squish me like a tomato!"

She grumbled in Spanish, clearly flustered beyond belief. "When I come home, you will see. No more password. Never."

"Whatever you say, 'strong like bull, soft like baby,'" you teased, unable to resist.

"Stop! No more of this!" she whined, but there was a slight hint of laughter in her voice.

"Alright, alright. I'll log out of your account," you promised, finally starting to relent.

A few moments later, a message popped up on your phone, the last straw for her, apparently.

Alexia: I am changing my password NOW!

With a smile, you sent back a quick response. "Can't blame you. But I think your fans quite enjoyed this little show."

Alexia: I do not care. Fans are important, but... no more with you. Never again!

You: "Oh, come on. You're the one who trusted me with your password."

Alexia: Big mistake!

By the time she finally made it home, you were still grinning ear to ear, waiting for her to walk through the door. When she did, the look of feigned anger mixed with absolute embarrassment on her face made it all worth it.

"There you are, my strong, soft baby," you greeted her, barely able to get the words out without cracking up again.

Alexia narrowed her eyes at you, arms crossed as she tried to appear stern. "This is not funny."

You grinned, taking a step towards her. "Oh, it's a little funny. And admit it—you looked cute."

She scoffed, but you could see her cheeks turning slightly pink. "I... I do not like this joke."

You stepped closer, pulling her into a hug despite her resistance. "Come on, admit it. You love me even though I'm an evil genius."

She sighed, reluctantly wrapping her arms around you. "Maybe. A little."

"That's all I needed to hear," you teased, kissing her cheek.

"Just remember," she murmured, her voice soft but with a mischievous glint in her eye, "I know where you sleep."

**

Tags:

@girlgenius1111 @codiemarin @ceesimz @marysfics @goldenempyrean @silentwolfsstuff @xxnaiaxx @liloandstitchstan

[strawberrynull]

──☆ ˙🌡 ̟ colds

엔하이픈 | Enhypen | Nishimura Riki

──Pairing: riki x afab!reader

──Genre: fluff

──Synopsis: Your boyfriend Riki gets sick, leaving you to care for him for the day

──Warnings: teeth rotting fluff, Riki without the nonchalant mysterious act

──A/N: SORRY I HAVENT BEEN ACTIVE. I have a few filler posts and then I’ll get back to writing Hallway Crush since I know some of you have been waiting for it

masterlist

You could immediately tell your boyfriend, Riki, was sick the second he stumbled out of him room in the morning. He was pale in the face and looked like he was about to collapse. Way different from when he was exhausted from practicing. After being with him for so long, you noticed more little details in his behavior. This time, he was definitely sick. He made his way to one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter and sat down as if he had been on his feet for hours.

Last night, you had fallen asleep at his apartment while watching a movie. He invited you over for the day since he had been busy recently. By the end of the night, you two ended up watching multiple movies on the couch. When you had fallen asleep, he didn't bother waking you. It was already late at night and he didn't want you going home in the dark. Though, a few hours after you fell asleep, he started feeling unwell and went to sleep in his bedroom. Riki didn't want you to get sick too.

"Are you feeling okay?" You asked gently, handing him his plated breakfast. He reached out with a trembling hand to take the plate.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He said in a groggy and scratchy voice. You shot him a look with raised eyebrows. "I just need to eat before practice." He lied straight to your face. He wasn't a very convincing liar. You already had your answer no matter what excuse he gave to convince you he was okay and healthy.

"You're sick, Riki. Don't lie to me." You stated, reaching into the medicine cabinet for the thermometer. "I'm taking your temperature."

"No. I told you, I'm not-" he coughed mid sentence. "I- I mean I'm-" and he coughed again. After he had recovered from him coughing fit, he slammed his hand on the counter and insisted "I'm not sick!"

You sighed, ignoring his excuses. "Open your mouth." You demanded, holding out the thermometer in front of his face. He looked up at you and furrowed his eyebrows. "Now, Riki." You said sternly. He reluctantly opened his mouth, letting you take his temperature as he crossed his arms angrily. After a few seconds you took the thermometer from him and held it up to reveal the little screen that read 38.3°. You raised your eyebrows and gave him a told-you-so look.

"I feel fine, Y/n." He stated, turning to eat his breakfast. You stood behind him and brushed his hair with your fingers as he ate. When he was done, he picked up his plate and began to stand up but was interrupted by you taking his plate to put in the sink yourself. "I was going to do that. I'm not incapable just because I have a high temperature." He sulked.

"Well now you can preserve energy. Go lay down." you insisted.

"But I have practice-"

"You're sick. Go lay down." you said seriously. Riki stuck out his bottom lip making his mouth form a small pout, your weakness. He knew you would always give in when he acted this way. You couldn't resist how cute he was. But today was different. He was sick and you were very serious about him staying in good health. You scrunched your eyebrows to prove that you were serious. And to show that his antics weren't working on you today.

"But then I'll have to call the boys and cancel practice. It's so much of a hassle and-" He began to complain before being interrupted again.

"I'll text them. Go lay down. Now." You pointed in the direction of his room. He huffed and turned to leave reluctantly. You followed close behind to make sure he actually laid down. Riki's cough only seemed to worsen as you walked him to his room. You assumed his throat was probably sore too. You made a mental note to make him soup and tea.

As Riki pulled the blanket over himself, you sat down beside him at the edge of the bed. You ran your fingers through his hair and looked at him sympathetically.

"How do you feel? And be honest with me this time." You asked with a slight pout. You felt bad for him whenever he wasn't feeling well. He would have to skip practice and stay at his apartment doing nothing. Riki was always very active. He never liked to stay in one place for too long.

"Um... my throat hurts and obviously I have a terrible cough." He explained. "My whole body feels sore too. I feel pretty weak and shaky."

You looked at him like he was a hurt animal. It was awful how he could become this sick in such a short time. Feeling sorry for him wasn’t going to make him better though.

"I'm sorry, my love. Would you like me to get you cough medicine?" You asked him, rubbing his cheek gently. He nodded before coughing again. You frowned and stood up to get medicine for him. You left a quick kiss on his forehead but before you could leave, Riki grabbed your hand.

"Y/nnnnn" He whined, pulling your arms back toward him.

"Yes, Ki?" You asked and placed your free hand over his.

"Can we cuddle?" He asked, trying to subtly pull your arm so you would sit back on the bed with him.

"No, silly. You're sick." You cooed, trying to free yourself from his hold on your arm. Still, he refused to let you go.

"Pleeeeeeeeeease? I'll hold my breath the entire time so you don't get sick." You laughed as he tried to convince you.

"Riki, you're ridiculous."

Of course, he refused to give up, though. "What if I die today?" and his over dramatic antics started. "What if this is your last chance to cuddle with your super hot boyfriend? You're really going to pass up this chance?"

"Yes because I need to be healthy in order to care for your needy ass."

"Come onnnnnn. When was the last time you cuddled with poor old me?"

"Yesterday." You deadpanned.

"Fuck." You start to walk away to get his medicine. "Wow, you really don't love me, do you?"

"If I don't love you, I guess you don't need medicine or soup or tea, huh?" You stop in your tracks and turn back around, crossing your arms over your chest.

"Nooo!" He whined, draping his arm over his face dramatically.

"You're impossible to deal with.” You reply dismissively, shaking your head. “You act like I’m leaving forever. I’m only going to the kitchen. You’ll be fine.”

“But what if your cuddles are the only remedy to my fatal illness!?” He yelled as you walked out of the room, ignoring him with an amused grin.

After a few minutes, you came back into the room holding a tray with soup, tea, and some medicine. You placed it on the nightstand next to him, which was now littered with tissues. Riki happily ate the food you made for him. When he was done eating, his antics picked up again.

“So, since I’ve been cured with your superior cooking, that means we can cuddle now, right?” He asked with a huge smile plastered across his smug face.

“Absolutely not.” You sighed heavily.

“Awww come onnnn” he whined like a child throwing a temper tantrum. He even crossed his arms, which made you laugh. Upon seeing his pouting face once more, your mind had been changed.

“Alright, fine. You win.” You were quick to tackle your boyfriend in a big hug. He let out a quiet “ouch” as you laid on top of him. His grin was quick to return to his face though.

“Does this mean I get a kiss too?” Riki smirked playfully.

“You’re so hard to say no to.” You rolled your eyes before leaning in to connect your lips. The kiss lingered for a longer time than intended. You were always so careful with him. You took care of him no matter what. Riki had a hard time expressing his gratitude through words, so instead he used actions. A meaningful kiss. His gratitude to you.

© strawberrynull, 2024. Do not copy my work. Please DM for permission before translating or reuploading. Thank You

[featherandferns]

I got inspired by this post and deeped it probably a bit too much lol

"I can't read cursive".

It was the sort of thing his friends laughed at, giving scoffing remarks and rolling their eyes at JJ's quirkiness. He'd laugh too, shrug it off like he was in on the joke. But underneath was an insecurity; a panic as to why. He'd look down and the letters were merely scrawl. They were swooping and swooning characters that made no sense, illegible and intelligible. If he tried to focus then they'd start to dance around the page. He experienced that too, though to a lesser extent, with print text. It was as if the words were mocking him. Taunting him.

But being the way he was with school, nobody paid it much mind. Not even JJ. He didn't care for reading. He'd rather smoke or surf. Books were dull and drab, what with growing up in an education system that force fed Shakespeare down an eleven year old's throat. JJ started to skip class the older he got. He'd sneak off to the bathroom to light one up or just ditch the day entirely. Maths was a bore and science utterly useless in his planned profession of handy-man side gigs, and so the concern with his reading got swept under the rug.

He had tried once, though. It was when he was nine and they had been reading collectively as a class, playing 'popcorn'. Someone had innocently passed over to him and JJ spent a good ten minutes stuttering over his syllables and stammering over the vowels and constantans. He was so glad when he reached the end of the page and could pass the burden off to someone else. Afterwards, he lingered behind and spoke to the teacher. The sting of embarrassment lingered like a prick from a bee. But the teacher shrugged him off. You're still learning, they'd said. For some it takes longer. He'd been too humiliated to bring it up again. Future popcorns were spent with JJ being the class clown, making lewd jokes that had the other kids laughing until the teacher banned him from popcorn altogether. That was that.

"You can't read cursive?"

"It just...It's harder for me to follow, s'all," JJ halfway lies. He looks up from the card that you gave him to meet your gaze. Your brows are tugged together in concern and JJ immediately wants to crawl under the covers like a child, embarrassed beyond belief. But instead of poking fun like the others (as well-natured as they mean by it), you take the card back and clear your throat.

"JJ, I hope you have a wonderful birthday and get everything you ever want. You deserve it. With love," you read aloud. There's a warmth to your face and a meekness to your tone as you tell him your message. It was the sort of sweet thing someone recites in their head like scripture, keeping it safe on the page and not out in the world. Smiling shyly at him, you offer the card back out to him.

"Sorry," he mumbles. "Thanks, though. That's, uh...that's sweet."

You chuckle. "Well, I mean it."

JJ takes the card back with a smile and you lean forward, pressing a kiss against his cheeks. His face feels hot like sunburn. You sit back on your haunches, perched pretty on your bed, and then your smile dwindles into something of worry.

"Do you often struggle," you wonder, nodding down to the card, "with reading and things like that? I mean, is it just cursive?"

"I can read," JJ replies, a little defensive. You thankfully laugh.

"No, I know you can read JJ," you chuckle, shaking your head. "I just mean is it easy to read? D'you think you need glasses or somethin'?"

"I don't know," JJ murmurs, shrugging. He looks down at the card and closes it. His thumb swipes across the front. A small ruby red love heart bobbing on rolling waves as if it's a boat, alongside a phrase that JJ focuses desperately hard on to read. With you, I feel like I'm floating. It's something so unexplainably you to pick out. Clearing his throat, he looks back up at you. "Never really thought about it before."

Humming, you get up and walk to the bookshelf by your closet. You ponder for a moment before retrieving a thin paperback and taking your previous spot on your bed. A random page is picked out and you hold it out to him.

"Read this to me."

It's popcorn all over again. That same dreaded panic bubbles in his throat.

"Feels like I'm in school," JJ chuckles, hoping to play off his nerves. "You're like my sexy teacher or somethin'."

"Har har, you wish," you say with a roll of your. "Read, though. Please."

Sighing, JJ relents and takes the book. He squints down at the pages and tries and tries and tries. The letters won't cooperate. They jive and jig on the lines. Shaking his head, sighing again, growing frustrated, JJ blinks and focuses. The anxiety builds in his chest like a hammering train on tracks. As his lips go to form the first word, your hand on his has him taking pause. You smile kindly at him.

"S'alright. You don't gotta read," you tell him. You take the book back and close the pages and JJ feels like he can take a breath. Ditching the flimsy paperback, you clear the small gap between the two of you and cup JJ's face in your hands. The kiss the two of you share is tender, lingering like a mist. "I love you, y'know that?"

"Even if I ain't a reader?" He means for it to sound like a joke but there's a sincerity in JJ's voice. His insecurity that has been there since childhood, that fights to come out whenever he hangs with Pope, that growls with jealousy when you lounge back on the boat with a book. His insecurity that he isn't all that smart and maybe you - someone who lives and breathes education like a bong hit - would figure that out sooner rather than later, and find someone who is.

"Even then," you hum, kissing him again. "Just gives me another excuse to spend more time with you, huh?"

And when you put it that way, maybe it ain't all bad.

[feralcringeman]

Insanely happy with how far this post is going but I need everyone and I mean EVERYONE WHO SEES THIS POST TO PLEASE

DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS

We can’t just let this man get away with this and go completely free we NEED to fight back against this.

Here’s what you can do

1.Follow the instructions in the picture (alt text is included)

2.SPREAD THIS,SPREAD THIS LIKE CRAZYREBLOG,REPOST ON OTHER PLATFORMS, MAKE VIDEOS ON IT,TIKTOKS ON IT IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER JUST SPREAD THIS AS MUCH AS YOU CAN

3.CONTACT ANY ONE YOU MIGHT KNOW CAN HELP

Your government officials,people who run news websites FUCKING ANYONE

I know shit may seem hopeless right now but that is no reason to atleast TRY to make a difference

PROOF IN CASE YOU NEED IT

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

This is not as coherent as my usual posts and I'm sorry about that in advance. This is tangentially related to our last post about women in Mahabharat. I saw this post by @nushkiespeaks. I have a lot of thoughts about it but what matters the most in the context of our previous post is that I do not like the use of the phrase "her dharma saves her" in this scenario. I will explain.

TW: violence against women, sexual assault. Please proceed with caution.

(I want to clarify that this is not meant as a call out post or anything. These are just my thoughts about what some feminist analysis of the epic lack sometimes. You can feel free to agree or disagree with me but please be kind and respectful about it and not call people names or harass anyone.)

I love Draupadi as a character so I say the following with all the love in my heart for her:

People usually either praise Draupadi for being a perfect victim. Or denigrate her for not being one. To them, she's either the pure hearted goddess who believed in her personal god and fulfilled her dharma of being a perfect wife. Or she's the cunning woman who didn't perform her dharma properly and deserved what she got.

What gets left behind is that the fact no one should have to go through any of that regardless of whether you believe they performed their dharma correctly. What also gets left behind are: all the other women mentioned in the scene, if only in passing. The slaves.

If you're strictly talking about the BORI CE version of the story(as the post clearly is), while reading it, it's almost impossible to miss the repeated mentions of the normalised and legally sanctioned sexual abuse/harrassment and rape of slaves. (Side note: Yes, slavery was a thing back then. It's horrible. People just don't like to acknowledge the instances in the Mahabharat where slavery is mentioned because it's just not a good look for sacred books to be chill with and actively encouraging buying and selling of actual people like objects. Trust me, if you have a favourite character in the epic, they were probably involved in the practice of slavery somehow, even Krishna, I'm very sorry to tell you this.)

To me, it's odious to mention dharma whenever we talk about Draupadi's vastraharan because it leads the obvious conclusion that those other women mentioned in text suffer at the hands of their "masters", in part because maybe they weren't performing their dharma correctly.

Maybe that's not what people mean when they praise Draupadi for her dharmic perfection. But every time those people, I cannot help but think of those women. The ones that are forgotten.

The ones who were not allowed to save themselves.

I guess, I'm ultimately just trying to say that this post is just my humble request to people to not talk about topics such as sexual assault in terms of the moral character of the victim. The people may mean well, but it does unfortunately perpetuate the idea of a perfect victim.

-Mod S

[lisaiese]

lyrics in EPIC: the musical that changed my life trajectory

I don't know if it is the fact that I spent five years of high school studying Latin and Greek classics that makes me do this, but here I am writing a long ass tumblr post about some lyrics from the songs of a musical based on The Odyssey, the Homeric epic poem.

Enough chit chat, let's start from the lyrics in the first very song of the musical, 'The Horse and The Infant' from The Troy Saga:

The blood on your hands is something you won't lose All you can choose is whose

UGH so good already! Here we have Zeus speaking at the end of the song, basically telling Odysseus that killing in war is his duty as a man and a hero. This obviously kind of sounds like bullshit for us, but we have to understand the ancient culture behind it: in ancient Greece going to war was a symbol of honor. Think of the scene where Hector and Andromache met again, Hector really embodied the "I know that I probably won't come back to you and to our son (opsie), but I have to go"

Andromache said: “Dearest, your own great strength will be your death, and you have no pity on your little son, nor on me, ill-starred, who soon must be your widow…Please take pity upon me then, stay here on the rampart, that you may not leave your child an orphan, your wife a widow.” Hector responded: “All these things are in my mind also, lady; yet I would feel deep shame before the Trojans, and the Trojan women with trailing garments, if like a coward I were to shrink aside from the fighting.”

A key word is shame: many times my professor told us students about the 'shame culture' in ancient Greece, which Hector clearly refers to here. Therefore, it's either honor or shame: for the Greek dying in war was better than living like a coward. Through these lyrics - and also the next song of the album ('Just a Man') - we can notice how the characterization of Odysseus is different from that of heroes like Hector and Achilles: he seems more human. After all, it is no coincidence that he is characterized not only by physical strength but above all by intelligence: he is a 'Warrior of the Mind' (quoting one of the most iconic songs of the musical). In the first verse of The Odyssey, Homer calls Odysseus πολύτροπος, a term that literally means "of many turns" and can be translated as multifaceted, versatile, cunning.

Next lyrics are from 'Remember Them' from The Cyclops Saga:

What good would killing do? When mercy is a skill More of this world could learn to use

I chose these lyrics for two reason:

they are so well connected with the first ones and show how Odysseus still has his morality here (you have a long way my friend)

it is such a good phrase honestly, let's appreciate it

Actually, something to reflect on could be the theme of mercy, but I don't really remember a lot of information about it and I don't want to write about things I'm not so sure about. In fact, what I rememeber pretty well is mercy related to the Roman/Latin culture, in particular to the figure of Ceasar: Cicero attributes to Caesar the virtue of clementia, which is the term used in Latin to represent mercy. Apparently he is the only one who, among all the military leaders, stood out for his goodness of soul, so noble that it is not enough to simply compare him to great men, but he must be judged similar to a god («haec qui faciat, non ego eum cum summis viris comparo, sed simillimum deo iudico»). That's basically everything I can give you about the topic. I would dive into it more by talking about the musical itself, analysing how this is connected to Odysseus' relationship with his morality, but then I would really be writing an essay here and now, which would ruin the order and logic of this very long text.

Let's move on to the next lyrics from 'Ruthlessness', from The Ocean Saga, which made me gasp so hard the first I heard them:

You are the worst kind of good 'cause you're not even great A Greek who reeks of false righteousness, that's what I have 'Cause you fight to save lives, but won't kill and don't get the job done

Speechless. Mind-blowing. The earth shook. You are the worst kind of good 'cause you're not even great Hello??? Sorry Ulysses, but Poseidon ate. 'Cause you fight to save lives, but won't kill and don't get the job done Like, where do I even start to talk about this. Poseidon is actually throwing the naked truth in Odysseus' face! Everything so far has a logic:

Zeus tells Odysseus that he has to kill Hector's son Astynax (which he does in the end, for the sake of going home)

Odysseus spares Polyphemus (maybe because of guilt? He is just a man, afterall...)

That mercy results in a literal god (Poseidon) wanting to have vengeance: if Odysseus had been ruthless, he would have put mercy upon himself (yeah that's a direct reference to the lyrics Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves)

Now we finally arrive at my favorite saga (aaaaa): The Circe saga. Starting from some very simple lyrics, but so impactful, from the 'Puppeteer':

But this was a hell of a twist, cause we are weak to a power like this What was it? A woman

Hell yeah, a woman! Clearly, you are just a man (another reference, got you!). Ok, return to serious talk. I think most of us know that women were often portrayed as bewitchers, source of evil and misfortune, in ancient times, especially in the Greek culture. Let's think about the story of Pandora's box: it is a myth narrated by Hesiod in the poem Works and Days. According to it, the first woman on earth, named Pandora, was gifted a jar by the gods. However, led by curiosity, she opened it and, by doing so, she released sickness, death and many other unspecified evils. She then closed the jar and only one thing was left behind: Hope. This story (one of many and one of the most famous) perfeclty exemplifies how women were considered dangerous and, at the same time, powerful, as bringers of evil.

Next, from the same saga, let me present to you the best lyrics from the song 'There Are Other Ways':

There are many ways of persuasion There are many modes of control Maybe showing one act of kindness Leads to kinder sould down the road

AAAAAAA. Circe you are such *incomprehensible adjectives of praise* woman. Here Circe basically gives Odysseus' morality hope, let me explain: until now we saw how Odysseus' kind soul and his mercy led him to antagonize a god, on the other hand (in theory) killing a child opened the doors for him to return home. From these observations the only "lesson" that can be deduced is that behaving like a "monster" is better than just "being a man" (yeah I love referencing). BUT Circe kind of destroys this reasoning, proving that a good soul can take him so far... aaaand of course it's a woman who does this

Moving on: The Underworld Saga, lyrics sung by our favorite prophet Tiresias:

I see you wife with a man who is haunting A man with a trail of bodies (who?)

This song? Chills. Literal Chills. The song in itself is a forshadowing, an oracle. I chose these lyrics specifically because they forshadow Odysseus' darkest moments in the journey, by specifically pointing out what he becomes: [...] a man who is haunting A man with a trail of bodies Who? Odysseus you ask. It's you. It's you in the future, and you know why it's "no longer you" (yeah, another quoting)? Because you will have lost your morality by then. Honestly? We kind of all expected that, sorry not sorry Odysseus.

And directly connected to that we have the lyrics from 'Scylla', from The Tunder Saga (it's orange because there is no yellow):

We are the same, you and I, I

Just this one final verse, so powerful. Odysseus encountered mermaids and was merciless with them, after that he went to the lair of Scylla. They are actually the same: monsters. Or at least, Odysseus has become like her.

And now, in The Wisdom Saga, we welcome back the badass of the arena: Athena! Let's hear what she wisely says in 'Little Wolf':

One young wolf has a larger heart than all these men combined

It's always the women guys. Athena's appearance to help Telemachus fighting the suitors is so crucial: her words and herself gift us that ray of hope and goodness that was lacking ever since The Underworld Saga. Here she refers to Telemachus, Odysseus' son, who is called a young wolf. While at the beginning of the song the suitors were using the term "little wolf" to basically mock him, Athena changes the connotation: he is not a little wolf, he is a just a young wolf, with a good soul and heart. Even a wolf (an animal) is more good-hearted than a man, but here who actually is the animal and who is the man? Athena, a godess, knows best.

Finally, The Vengeance Saga, from which the best song (almost cried listening to it) is, of course, 'Six Hundred Strike':

After everything you've done... ...how will you sleep at night? Next to my wife...

OMG. Literally OMG. Here, at the final showdown between Odysseus and Poseidon, our hero prevails. Poseidon asks: "After everyhting you've done... how will you sleep at night?". I don't know if my interpretation is right, but this is what I think Poseidon meant with his words:

after everything you've done (and been through) to get here... how will you sleep at night? -> will the trauma spare you?

after everything you've done as you became a monster... how will you sleep at night? -> will the guilt spare you?

And Odysseus just answers with a "Next to my wife", because that's what he wanted from the very beginning, to come home, and he will achieve his goal. His story is the story of a journey: obviously, a journey back home, but most importantly, a journey of someone who is 'Just a Man' (got you again with the reference). Odysseus is just a man, a human being who has encountered countless obstacles, who has had his ups and downs, who has thrown his morality into the sea to return home. And what is this, if not life?

[fqlling4it]

we can’t be friends (wait for your love) part 2 | max verstappen x best friend! reader

yourusername

liked by lilymhe, francisca.cgomez, and others

yourusername much needed rest and relaxation over the break (with some extra special family time)

view all 2,832 comments

user732 posting for the first time in months after dropping THAT song is diabolical

↳ user82 her saying she’ll wait for his love is actually kinda insane because i’d be groveling on my knees if she showed the slightest bit of interest in me

lilymhe oh my beautiful, beautiful girl

↳ yourusername love you lily <3

user81 i know that second single’s gonna hit like crack

↳ user4 praying everyday for her to release again

georgerussell63 pops finally made the gram?

↳ yourusername took lots and lots of convincing for me to be able to post this georgie

francolapinto muuyyyy linda 😘

↳ yourusername i’m a little too old for you sweetheart

christianhorner make sure to tell that boy of yours thank you for winning you the bear

↳ yourusername papa, this is not how instagram works…. everyone can see this

user63 christian outing his daughter about having a boyfriend was not on my 2024 bingo card 😭

↳ user33 diabolical move on his part, but now i’m nosy and wanna know who

francisca.cgomes i’ve missed you, come by soon ☹️💔

↳ yourusername will be over as soon as possible

yourusername added to their story!

[caption 1: night out with my girl! francisca.cgomes]

[caption 2: always third wheeling these two pierregasly francisca.cgomes]

view story replies

francisca.cgomes you could’ve brought him with you bubs

↳ it’s still new, didn’t want to force him into something he might not be comfortable with… he only met pops because of work

user72 y/n’s so me, always third wheeling my friend and her boyfriend </3

user44 two pretty girls omg

carlossainz55 could’ve invited me hermosa, would’ve been a nice double date

↳ next time then, just wasn’t sure if you were ready to officially officially meet my friends <3

alexandrasaintmleux no boyfriend appearance?

↳ keeping it low key… wasn’t sure if he was ready to meet everyone as my boyfriend yet

francisca.cgomes added to their story!

[caption 1: picked up alex and forced pierre to be our photographer]

[caption 2: when she gets a text back so she has to set her phone down and scream]

carlossainz55 glad i have that effect on her, tell her to answer me though </3

↳ still screaming, will text you back when she’s done

user44 literally me when i get a text from my man 🧍‍♀️

user81 three baddies in one picture 🧎‍♀️‍➡️

maxverstappen who was she texting???

↳ it’s none of your business max, stop meddling

incoming messages from max!

carlossainz55

liked by charles_leclerc, yourusername and others

carlossainz55 what a great way to end a three week break, love spending time with mi sol. ¡vamos vegas!

view all 4,822 comments

user72 y/n in the likes, my yncarlos truthers RISE!

↳ user63 so delusional oh my god

yourusername viva las vegas!

↳ carlossainz55 viva las vegas!

charles_leclerc sad to be out last triple header as teammates brother, i’ll be keeping you around

↳ carlossainz55 gonna miss you hermano, we’ll race hard for ferrari

user65 can’t believe it’s carlos’ last few races in a ferrari 💔

↳ user55 and if i say perez is out so the redbull seat is open and carlos goes to redbull and franco stays at williams 😁

↳ user65 delusion at its finest

maxverstappen ready to go in vegas 🙌

↳ carlossainz55 see you there

user23 you know who else went golfing with lily during the break? y/n!

↳ user61 that doesn’t mean y/n was there when carlos was with lily and alex, you sound delusional

yourusername added to their story!

[caption 1: the only professional ever took me golfing lilymhe]

[caption 2: he got jealous, so my man took me golfing too (:]

view story replies

user732 man???? i thought maybe your dad was joking… oh my god

user61 hmmm… interesting…. is that perhaps carlos sainz? who wore that same outfit in the pictures he posted on his insta… suspicious 🤨

carlossainz55 i was not jealous hermosa.. just wanted you to remember how good i am at golf

↳ oh of course amor, you just wanted to show off your golfing skills… so what if i post a picture of us when i announce my new song? are you okay with that?

carlossainz55 sounds amazing hermosa, i’ll post you too.. wanna show off my girl

lilymhe oh you two are so cute

↳ you missed it!!!! when we went to go find my ball he told me he loves me… i melted on the spot lils, he’s so sweet 🥲🥰

christianhorner oh baby, i hope you’re having a wonderful break. tell carlos to stop by hospitality on media day, we’ve got some things to discuss

↳ thank you papa! i’ll make sure to remind him

user81 oh that’s so cute

user94 lily and y/n >>>>>

user01 the fit though

maxverstappen is that who i think it is?? you’re with carlos??

↳ please max, it’s none of your business… can’t you just be happy for me?

maxverstappen i am happy for you schatje, i hope he treats you well

↳ so well! i love him max… so so much

user344 imagine being max and fumbling the baddest bitch and almost losing your championship to someone with three race wins

yourusername

liked by carlossainz55, maxverstappen and others

yourusername dinner dates with my man <3 (new song eternal sunshine out friday!)

view all 3,328 comments

user61 I KNEW IT I KNEW IT AND I GOT CALLED DELUSIONAL FOR SAYING IT

carlossainz55 bonitaaa

carlossainz55 hermosa 😍😍😍

carlossainz55 te amo mi sol

↳ yourusername te amo guapo

lilymhe and the cutest couple award goes to… carlos and y/n

↳ yourusername ahhhh i love you lily <3

alexandrasaintmleux oh you two are just the cutest

↳ yourusername thank you alex, love you <3

maxverstappen so happy for the two of you, congratulations!

↳ yourusername thank you max, it truly means a lot

user743 ok but they’re so cute together

user392 newest ferrari wag but only for three race weekends ☹️

↳ user16 you act like she’s dying, they’re just moving teams

christianhorner so happy for you baby! i love you princess ❤️

↳ yourusername thank you papa, i love you too. make sure to tell geri we’ll visit soon <3

carlossainz55 added to their story!

[caption 1: paddock days with my girl]

[caption 2: a win in vegas with the best company]

f1

liked by carlossainz55, yourusername and others

f1 carlos sainz to join oracle redbull racing for the 2025 season after sergio perez retires! franco colapinto will take sainz’s seat at williams for the 2025 season

view all 10,382 comments

carlossainz55 so so grateful for this opportunity!

user55 i literally predicted this ????

↳ yourusername please predict carlos winning wdc 2025, thanks girlie 🥰🙏

user23 so so happy for him!

user82 oh this is amazing news!

maxverstappen can’t wait to be teammates mate!

↳ carlossainz55 so excited to be teammates again hermano

charles_leclerc happy for you brother!

↳ carlossainz55 thank you charles, double date with the girls soon!

user44 oh wow

christianhorner excited for next year! wcc is ours! work hard boys!

yourusername added to their story!

[caption 1: eternal sunshine out now 🌞]

[caption 2: my eternal sunshine ☀️ carlossainz55]

[soshirohoshinasimp]

"Everyone's falling in love and I'm falling behind"

It always starts the same way: I watch it happen, and with each passing moment, the ache in my chest grows sharper, like a constant pressure I can't shake.

Another group chat. Another flood of photos, captions, and text updates from my friends. Another one of them sharing that they’ve met someone special, or that they've been on a date, or that they’re "officially in a relationship." The words blur together, the images become a haze of happy faces, intertwined hands, and promises of forever, while I sit here staring at my screen, feeling like everyone is moving forward, and I’m the only one standing still.

I’m happy for them, of course. I tell them I am. I send my congratulations, my emojis, do my best to sound genuinely thrilled for their happiness. But inside, there’s a quiet, gnawing feeling—that something is slowly being chipped away, like I’m stuck in the same place while the rest of the world keeps running.

It’s not that I don’t try. I fall in love easily—maybe too easily. It’s one of those things I can’t control. A smile, a laugh, the way someone’s eyes linger just a little longer than necessary, and I’m hooked. I imagine all the little things before I even know their last name—walks in the park, late-night conversations, whispered secrets in the dark. I let myself dream about everything that could be, even though I’m the only one dreaming.

The problem isn’t that I fall too quickly. The problem is that no one ever falls in love with me.

I try not to think about it. I try to tell myself it doesn’t matter. But every time another picture of a happy couple pops up, or the group chat explodes with excited updates about how “everything just feels right,” I can’t help but wonder: Why not me?

It’s as if I’m watching from the outside, peering through a foggy window at a life I’ll never belong to. Everyone else has found their someone, their partner, their “person,” while I stand alone at the edge of the crowd, half-smiling, pretending I’m fine, even when it feels like I’m not.

The worst part is that no one means to hurt me. They don’t know how their joy, their shared moments of connection, make me feel like I’m missing something I’ll never find. It’s like they’re all part of a club I can’t seem to get into, no matter how hard I try.

There are times when I catch myself getting too attached—when I start to like someone, a friend, a coworker, maybe just someone who’s kind to me. For a moment, I let myself believe that maybe this time, it’ll be different. This time, maybe they’ll see me the way I see them. But every time, I make the mistake of getting too close, of caring too much, I’m reminded that the love I’m offering isn’t what they want. It’s never what they want.

It’s a strange kind of loneliness, this quiet ache. It’s not loud or dramatic. It’s not a storm—it’s more like a slow drip, a constant reminder that I’m not enough. Not enough to be loved. Not enough to be chosen. Just... not enough.

And still, I hope. Still, I fall again.

I can’t stop myself from falling in love with the idea of love. Even when I know it’s unlikely. Even when I see the signs, when I recognize the patterns. Even when I know I’ll probably get hurt again.

I tell myself it’s okay. I tell myself that I don’t need anyone to complete me. That one day, it’ll happen, that one day, I’ll find someone who looks at me the way I look at them. But with every relationship that starts without me, with every “I’m so in love” post I scroll past, that hope starts to feel more like a dying ember, flickering weaker and weaker until it barely gives off any warmth at all.

Everyone’s falling in love, and I’m falling behind.

I tell myself I’m fine. That I’m strong. That I don’t need anyone else to feel whole. And in the rare moments when the ache doesn’t feel so sharp, I almost believe it. But then another couple announces their engagement, or another friend talks about how perfect their date was, and the ache comes back. A little sharper. A little louder.

I’m happy for them, of course. I’ll always be happy for them. But as I sit there, scrolling through their pictures, their stories, their dreams, I can’t help but wonder: When will it be my turn?

Is it too much to ask for, for a person to give me the love I give out tenfold? Or am i just stuck in my own delusions as usual.

But for now, I’m just waiting. And everyone else is falling in love.

And I’m falling behind.

[nerdinabook]

Something to get my through the struggle of the results of the US 2024 presidential election, I thought I would write a little piece of what I think the marauders election night plans would be. If they were American and invested in muggle elections that is.

When Lily was working the polls, it felt busier than any other election season. The nervous energy in the air was prominent in the faces and voices of everyone she helped. At the end of her very long and tiring day she felt a bit of hope in her heart but right now all she wants to do is snuggle on the couch next to her husband and their friends as they watch the news update and eat junk food.

She hears the laughter from outside her front door as she puts the key into the lock.

"never gonna be president now, never gonna be president now, that's one less thing to worry about, one less thing to worry about!" Lily smiles as she sees her husband and his best friend Sirius sing together as the dance on top of the couch.

" polls just closed, we won't have an answer for hours if even that." Lily said as she put down her stuff and slipped her shoes off.

"Lily flower!" James yells as he jumps off the couch to greet his wife.

" we just thought we would manifest the energy we wish into the world" He said after greeting her with a kiss.

"mmhmm, had a couple drinks already?" she mussed as she smelt the alcohol on his breath.

" I'm afraid that would be my fault Lily." Sirius' boyfriend Remus said as he came in from the kitchen with a pot of tea. " They were getting restless and I couldn't take their nearly bouncing off the walls any longer"

"can't blame you for that" Lily brushed the hair out of James face and after a couple tries gives up hope it will be in any other position then the one it is currently stuck at.

Later that night as the news played on and after the boys had a couple cups of tea and sobered up a little nerves ran through the bodies of each person in the little house Lily reminded them of the red mirage and how they likely wouldn't even have results tonight, but still the nerves lingered.

Sometime after midnight James and Sirius fell asleep, Sirius tucked into Remus' side and James with his legs over Lily's lap. It wasn't looking good, but they still had hope for the blue shift.

No shift came, and as the news called the winner Remus and Lily were both filled with panic and dread. Lily felt betrayed and fearful for herself as the man with so little care for people of her gender now holds the most powerful position in America. Remus looked at his sleeping boyfriend who laid blissfully unaware of the news and wondered what it would mean for them, they weren't married yet but now it soon might not even be an option for them, nor could it be safe to publicly love each other.

Their fear-stricken faces meet as the blue light from the TV illuminated each other. Lily already had tears welling up in her eyes but as she meet Remus' face it all broke loose and her body rocked with sobs as she struggled to keep herself quite as to not wake the sleeping boys.

Remus couldn't bear to see one of his best friends cry he pulled himself free from Sirius and wrapped his arms around her as she cried in his chest. Eventually the sounds and shifting from their partners woke the boys from their slumber and with the reaction of their loved ones they knew it was not good news but as their faces move to look up at the TV and see the orange headed face stare back a pit forms in their stomachs.

They all take turns crying and screaming that night. Worse case scenarios are brought up and planned for, conspiracy theories are divulged, painful posts of others across the country are read, text and phone calls to other loved ones are given, but ultimately they grieved, they cried, and they were hurt, they let themselves feel the hurt and determined that tomorrow they would take action but tonight they would mourn.

[incorrectfatui]

ok only one person asked for this, but I'm really bored, so: memes about our government collapsing, here you go. feel free to ignore it otherwise, next post will be about more harbingers xD But politics talk beyond this point- dw, I get it if you dont wanna see that

Context will be below the pictures- please keep in mind that german humor is...well, german. Also, I can't figure out how to post multiple pictures at once, so uh...this is gonna be a long one. ALSO look at the ALT text I tried my best to translate & give more context

thaaats most of the ones I could fit. Which brings me to: the context. oh my god where do i begin. Okay, so, the german parliament is made out of multiple parties, right? When we have elections, the chancellor is from the party with the most votes, but they don't rule alone, because they need a majority (<50%), and we have so many parties that they don't get there. So, they have to form coalitions with the other parties. When they do that, the leaders of the other parties get to be in high positions as well. Every party that isn't in the coalition is the opposition. More often than not, we have what is called a Grand Coalition- the two biggest parties, CDU and SPD. However, in our last elections (which was also the first time in 16 years that our chancellor changed), this did not happen. We instead got the so called traffic light coalition, made up of the SPD (winner, got the Chancellor), FDP (our other main protagonist in this story) and the Greens. So, they've ruled for about 3 years now, and it's been an utter shitshow- because of multiple factors, of course, but one of the major ones was the FDP. See, the Greens and the SPD are (or, well, were, but thats for another story) more left leaning, ESPECIALLY on stuff like climate change, while the FDP are mostly focused on the economy. So, there's been lots of conflicts, and all the parties in the coalition, but especially the FDP, have lost immense support. The FDP to a point where they might not get ANY seats in parliament for the next election. Now, some of our current biggest issues are inflation, climate change, and the war in Ukraine. I'm simplifying this to hell and back, but essentially, we have a so called debt-brake in our constitution, which means that the country cannot go over a certain amount of money. Sounds good, right? Well, not entirely. Right now, we are trying to go over this limit. See, the debt-brake has an intentional loophole, which says that in emergencies, you CAN go over it, like natural catastrophes (e.g. COVID). Germany, right now, wants to fund our infrastrcuture, our military, Ukraine, and social subsidies. For this purpose, the SPD and Greens agreed to go over the limit. Except they can't, without the approval of their coalition partner, the FDP, and their finance minister, Lindner, who RUNS the FDP. They've been fighting about this for A WHILE, and yesterday, Scholz (the chancellor), gave Lindner an ultimatum: allow them to go over the limit, or get fired. Lindner asked for snap-elections instead, did not accept the proposal (which was already heavily in his favour) and got fired. Which wouldn't be a problem is he was any common minister- but he's a coalition partner, so the coalition broke apart- and without the FDP, the SPD and the Greens alone do not hold a majority in parliament. What this boils down to, is that we will likely have a minority-government (who will have BIG difficulties passing any laws) until January, and at the start of January, the Chancellor will call for a vote of confidence (yes, like in star wars), which he will lose. Meaning: Snap Elections in March (at the latest), less time for the parties to prepare their candidates, and MASSIVE profts for the right wing parties, which are currently leading in the polls.

So of course, everyone immediately started memeing about Lindner. Why? Because most of the country fucking hates the guy. I don't think I specified enough how awful he is. The current government is incredibly inneficient, and he's a major reason why. He's an ultra-capitalist, in love with a free market economy, frequently has temper tantrums in parliament, and is INCREDIBLY anti social. He wants higher pension ages, less subsidies for unemployed people, the works. What people are also making fun off is Scholz, our chancellor, who was practically nonexistent for the last 3 years, only to deliver a VICIOUS speech about how awful Lindner is. So yeah! Government collapse is fun if you have the right memes. Hope at least some of those were funny to you guys as well

[munyequitos]

INTRODUCING MUNYEQUITOS SAMSTRONOMY ONE PIECE MIDDLE SCHOOL AU :3 (or msopms for short!!)

i put way too much effort into these refs but msopms has been being cooked up since like july i think LOL. anyway check out @samstronomy for the other half of the strawhats msopms references (which can be found here)!!! i'll tag all posts about them with #msopms and link back to this post as reference to what the FUCK im talking about! more information + tidbits about msopms under the cut cause this post is already long enough as is :3

all of them are transgender its like the glue that holds them together

all their guardians are the same as in canon

yes this means garp is still luffy's grandpa

garp's the principal of grand line middle school (the school they all go to)

garp wanted luffy and ace to join the navy so bad he made ace sign up for those stupid military text alerts and ace just trolled them the entire time

ace is luffy's older brother who is in high school and all the younger strawhats think he's cool exclusively cause he's older than them

luffy is so incredibly cracked at PE that he often laps nami and usopp during their mile runs

nami is an absolute menace and loaded at all times. she buys the strawhats snacks from the cafeteria

luffy has a flip phone (against his will garp makes him use one so he can call him during class to be like "WHY AREN'T YOU IN CLASS!!!!!"), nami has a regular smartphone, usopp has a dying ipad he uses to draw and text, robin has a flip phone (but it's one of those cool android ones. and also not against her will), and chopper has a non-dying ipad he uses to text and also take homework notes

crocodile hates all the strawhats by association with vivi (he has one sided dinkleberg-esque beef with cobra)

luffy met nami after he beat up some of her bullies for her, he's known usopp since like 1st grade, he met robin in detention which crocodile put her in for talking back to him (she 100% did not do that), and met chopper when taking nami to the school nurses office when she was gravely ill with the common cold

there's an enies lobby (kinda) plot where robin has to become a hall monitor in order to pay back her book debt to the school board (CP9) and the strawhats all have this emotional dramatic ass moment in the school hallway

OKAY I THINK THAT'S IT. if you've made it this far thank you for reading, please enjoy msopms!

[roguemonsterfucker]

my browser crashed while i was typing this up and i lost everything so now i'm angry but anyways

on to the smaller complaints

Our main characters meet on a plane and being the possessive werewolf he is, the guy wants to sit next to his mate. He hands his ticket to the man seated beside her and says "take my seat." But... that's not how airplanes work, as far as I know. And even if we accept that it is in this universe, the man didn't give the werewolf his ticket in return.

Still on the plane, our werewolf learns that before he got there, his mate's previous seat-neighbor had stared down her shirt and made some lewd comments (maybe touched her? don't remember). So big possessive angry werewolf man stalks through the plane and drags the man back to in front of her and nearly kills him. On a plane. In front of human passengers who don't know werewolves are real.

We are later told that he was banned from the airline for this, but otherwise he suffers no repercussions and even within the story it feels like the ban is more of an excuse for him to get a private plane later.

Finally leaving the plane, the woman has fallen asleep and so our werewolf man carries her unconscious body off the plane. A man who was just seen assaulting someone carries an unconscious woman off of an international flight.

It's fuzzy to me now but I remember being irritated about the back and forth between the woman and the werewolf. He's kidnapped her and has explained that he's a werewolf and she's his mate and she seems receptive to that. The text doesn't really give us any good reasons she should be unhappy with this, much less reasons why she would attempt to sneak away and escape from him. Which she does. I mean, I have no problem with that action. It's conflict, which is something I want in something called "Kidnapped by my Mate." But the text doesn't justify it very well. Half the time the woman is happily cuddling with him, having no mental struggles with the idea of being with him, and then the other half she's plotting to escape. Make up your mind, ma'am. Please.

Like, again. I have no problem with the character being like "oh I really think I like him but he's holding me captive so I have mixed feelings!" but that isn't the vibe I got. The vibe I got was "oh i love him he's so hot" and then "i need to figure out how to escape him." No in between.

Okay so then they go back to the werewolf's "house" in the US. Previously, they were in a fancy hotel in Paris.

I've posted about this before, but I'll just reiterate. We're seeing this frm the woman's point of view. As the building comes into her view, her mental narration calls it a "house" and then seperately comments that "it looks more like a hotel." Which is like... why? Why not just be like "it looks like a hotel" first? Why would anyone call something they're seeing for the first time a house when it looks like a hotel?

Then they continue to refer to it as a house when... it's not.

I'd have no issue with them calling it "the pack house" since a lot of pack members live there, but just calling it a house feels wrong.

Then of course there is the issue of 500+ pack members living in this "house." Which isn't the entire pack. There are other houses around that have more werewolves living in them, but this particular "house" is the largest, we're told.

The description of this house is such a mishmash of aesthetics and you know it's bad if I notice that. It has marble and wood and is described as having a cabin like aesthetic which... what cabins have marble, babe? Hmm? And pillars? Like... it's wild.

And 500+ pack members living there... Wow. My knee jerk reaction is that it feels excessive. And it bugs me that anyone would call a building that five hundred people live in a "house."

But all that is made worse when our main character wanders the house and says it looks like it is "more than six stories." Which... I would fucking hope so. You need way more than six levels to house that many people. She also notes that it has "more rooms than I can count." And like... I don't know, but those descriptions don't feel right for a place with five hundred people.

Then we get to the room her mate, the Alpha of the pack, lives in. And she compares it to the fucking Paris hotel room. Our Alpha lives in something comparable to a fucking hotel room. You can't aim a bit higher?

Oh and of course since it is basically a hotel, and not like... an apartment building... There's no kitchen. Which becomes an issue.

Later we find out that despite there being 500+ people here and no kitchens in the room, there's no organized meals of any sort. Werewolves just rush into the kitchen and take what they want, basically fighting each other for their food. This is used as a plot point because our poor little human gets growled at for even trying to get a single banana and ends up not eating for two days.

It's clear the author just wanted to use the food as a ployt point and didn't give any thought to two things I personally would consider:

First. In such a large group of people, you need to organize meals somehow. You have to make sure everyone can eat. Especially if you're gonna have werewolves fighting over food.

And secondly, why the fuck are these werewolves growling at their Alpha's mate? It's established that they're supposed to treat her with so much respect that they're not even allowed to say her name, just her title of Luna. And yet they are ready to fight her for food. That doesn't fucking track. Later someone says "don't take it personally, werewolves are possessive" but like... that still doesn't justify growling at the Alpha's mate. You can't have it both ways. Either they respect her or not.

Then later we get two chapters that are basically identical, which drives me nuts since I had to wait six hours between chapters only for two to have the same scene play out, just ending a tad different.

Without getting into the nitty gritty, our main character and werewolf dude are having relationship issues and the woman nearly leaves but then werewolf dude's wolf comes out and is basically begging her to stay despite the human part of him being an ass. The woman decides she had to stay because clearly something weird was up and since the wolf still wanted her, she would try to make things work. Then later, the exact same fight starts again except the wolf doesn't come out and she does leave. But like... then why didn't she just leave the first time? The whole wolf thing isn't brought up again. It was framed as if she would realize something weird was happening and stay because of the wolf but none of that comes up again and she just leaves anyways.

Really it felt like the author was just trying to stretch things out or maybe even just... forgot what they had in mind.

I think that covers my small grievances. Taken individually, I wouldn't give a fuck. It's a fantasy werewolf romance. I don't mind bending reality a bit to tell the story you wanna tell. But everything? No. I can't handle that much in a book that wants me to pay $17 to $60 to read.

And once again, if this were a free work on wattpad or AO3, I wouldn't care. I would maybe laugh to myself a bit but ultimately commend the author for writing the story they wanted to write. It isn't bad if you're looking at it through the lens of someone writing for fun and then letting folks read it for free.

But it's not free. It's on an app trying to force every penny from you.

Someone remind me to rant about the ‘book’ I read where I had to watch six hours to unlock each chapter and 500 werewolves lived together in a ‘house’ and the plot did a 180 halfway through where the entire premise changed.

I finished the book. I have thoughts. But I’m tired so yeah. Remind me.

[lord-squiggletits]

Actually the funniest example of Megatron apologism (neutral) I've seen is when people call it biased and rigged for Optimus to be the judge for Megatron's trial, but have nothing to say about the fact that Optimus let Megatron on the Lost Light AS CO-CAPTAIN which is ALSO incredibly rigged and biased and no one wanted it and Optimus barely had the authority to even do that.

It just seems like a case where people will always take the angle/interpretation that favors Megatron as a victim of Autobot eeeevillll, so they harp on how unfair it was for Megatron to be put on trial, but completely skirt over exactly how and why Megatron even got to serve parole/not rot in prison in the first place. I guess because it would disrupt the ever-present fan wank about how actually Megatron is being victimized for being put on trial and those Autobots are "just as bad" (lmao).

[bread-wizards]

I actually think Dorian and Orym should fight more.

Remember when their slowly building tension over and entire episode (full of passive aggressive remarks and blame throwing) led to threats? And how after, Orym thanked Dorian for handing over the crown sadly because he knew Dorian would be mad at him? And Dorian couldn't even look at him because he was legitimately hurt, thinking Orym was disappointed in him for doing what he thought was right? That was peak.

The fact they went from that to their current closeness and trust is the best part of their entire dynamic. Their relationship was hard fought and still will be. They will fight for it because they respect and care for one another deeply, and their disagreements don't change that, only improve it.

[writer-room]

Its so funny that Arin and Sora have shown to have significantly better emotional intelligence than any of the ninja from all of the old seasons combined. "You should be taking care of your mental health" and "yeah saving the world is upsetting! no wonder you're having stress dreams" oh my precious children. You are surrounded by a teen dad with massive self-worth issues, the only one of two people who remembers the genie incident and also turned into the sea once, guy who's died like 3+ times and committed genocide under mind control, and a child soldier who's been living the hard knock life since age 2.

I hope to god you two are prepared to witness the most mentally unwell behavior you've seen in your entire teenage lives. You think you've already seen how bad it can get now? Fools. Just wait until you get a mission involving the Departed Realm

[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.