#copy vs add

[arjunphp-blog]

Docker difference between copy and add

In Docker, both COPY and ADD are used to move files and directories from the host machine into the Docker container during the build process, but they have some differences Usage: COPY: It is used to copy files and directories from the host machine to the container. ADD: It has functionality similar to COPY, but it can also fetch remote URLs and extract TAR files. Complexity: COPY: Simple…

[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.

[citrusella-flugpucker]

((I didn’t know before reblogging you if Vimm’s Lair has specific manual requirements, but I know they support offering different regions of games... and the first manual I randomly clicked when looking to see what their manual project looked like was a European region manual! So they definitely take them! I don’t know what they do if there are multiple uploads by different people/regions of the same manual (if they’re appreciably different) since I didn’t find one with multiple contributors...

EDIT: Different regions equals different entries in the manual project! So you can upload a European manual even if a different region of the same manual already exists!))

[no1noman]

I'm gonna just throw up my unfinished script for a post I'm making about ratios

For people who don't know what I'm talking about: This is all for a mobile CCG called PvZ Heroes, and this guide is for introducing the concept of ratios to less experienced players. Ratios basically being how many of a certain card or certain type of cards you have in a deck (eg. If you had 4 Peashooters and 2 Wall-Nuts, you would have a higher ratio of Peashooters in your deck than Wall-Nuts)

Anyway, here it is:

I find that a lot of people in this subreddit don’t have a good grasp on how to distribute their deck’s ratios. They have a tendency to either overrun their deck with tokens or default to 4x of everything. So, I’ll be going over some basic advice on ratios and what they are

What are ratios?

Ratios refer to how many of any particular card you’re running in comparison to the rest of the deck. For example, running 4 copies of a card is a 1:10 ratio between it and the rest of your deck. If you’re running 10 Peas in a deck, then your ratio of them is 1:4. Running 16 1-cost cards in a deck would be a 2:5 ratio. Additionally, I’d like to point out that running 1x of a card, this is referred to as running a token (in reference to cards that are under the token rarity, like Magic Beanstalk and Zom-Bats)

When adding copies of cards to your deck, you’re looking to make sure more important cards have a higher ratio of being drawn than ones you don’t want to see as often. You’re usually cutting copies of a card if;

It’s expensive to play and your deck can’t consistently afford it 

Its use cases are niche

The card is only playable under certain conditions

It’s not as valuable as other cards you’d rather draw

Other cards in the deck have similar properties 

You could have other reasons for leaving out copies of a card, or could run more copies of it despite these conditions. I’m just trying to give you a guideline of when you should be cutting out copies, if not leaving out the card entirely. Although there’s also reasons to consider adding more of a certain card, including;

You need to draw the card quick and reliably

The card being added is very useful and/or versatile in its functions

Other cards in your deck rely on it

You want to avoid flooding your deck with too many unique cards

You need a lot of one type of card for your strategy

Once again, this is just my attempt at a guideline for reasons you could have to add more of a card

What should my deck look like?

Basically, you’re looking to take a maximum of 12 distinct cards in a deck, with most cards being ran at 4 and 3 copies. There are very rare scenarios where you might want to go to 13 cards, and players at a low budget can forgo this somewhat, but the point is that you want to limit how many unique cards you’re taking. That way, you’re consistently drawing the cards most important to you and increasing the quality of your draws. Running too many unique cards can make drawing from your deck less valuable, which is bad when you draw from your deck each turn

For an example of a deck with good ratios, we can look at Snorting Salt’s ApOTK

This deck runs a lot of cards at different ratios;

Cards like Lil’ Buddy, Cob Cannon, and Black-Eyed Pea are ran at 4 copies since you want to draw them each game, and may also want to draw multiple copies of them as well. Primal SF is also important to draw early for turn 1 trades, and can activate Muscle Sprout on later turns as well. On top of Primal Sunflower’s ability to ramp out cards and combos, running 4 copies of it is justified here

Kernel-Pult and Apotatosaurus are ran at 3 copies since they’re not as easy to play as your other cards. Kernel-Pult is a block charger that needs to be played on heights in order to use its ability. Even if it is early game control that can activate Muscle Sprout and Cob, you still don’t want it too often. Meanwhile, Apotato is just difficult to play, being a 6-cost plant without any board effects when played. However, Apotato is still an important enough win condition that it’s ran at 3 copies despite its limitations

Twin Sunflower, Flourish, and Espresso Fiesta are ran at 2 copies. Twin Sunflower is very easy to answer and doesn’t do much later in a match, making the scenarios where it gets value almost match-up dependent. Flourish isn’t always safe to play, even with the amazing early game control options Solar provides, and just isn’t something you want to see often. Finally, Espresso Fiesta is just way too expensive to ever want to draw more than once. However, these are all cards with massive potential in this deck, so they’re ran anyway despite their flaws (Espresso in particular being the card this deck is built around)

All of this combines into a deck that’s almost always drawing what it needs, when it’s needed, and getting significant value from said cards

If you want an example involving a budget deck, we can look at the r/pvzheroes Discord’s Based Removal

This deck mostly runs cards at 4 copies, but there are a few exceptions;

Snorkel is the most notable card, being ran as a token. This was done since you don’t want more copies of any other card and want the extra early game pressure. Snorkel isn’t important enough to run multiple copies of, but also has synergy with Unlife of the Party, Sugary Treat, and Loudmouth. It’s worth keeping around as a token

Final Mission and Loudmouth are kept to 2 copies due to their relatively niche use cases. Final Mission works as a finisher that requires you to destroy a zombie, making it primarily useful towards the end of a fight. Meanwhile, Loudmouth is a block charger that buffs other zombies, which is really niche for a burn deck. However, it’s a dancing body for Flamenco and can be used for meter manipulation, on top of being a textless 3/3 if you need it to be

Sugary Treat is used as a good means of adding damage to lanes, which is helpful for when you have access to face or are looking to make a valuable trade. However, since it’s a trick that needs zombies on the board to function, it’s only ran at 3 copies

This deck has been optimized for budgeting purposes, but overall, it’s a good deck that’s cheap to make and runs proper ratios

How do I recognize bad ratios?

So now that we know what ratios are and how good ones look like, now we’re going to discuss bad ratios. Basically, it’s when you’re doing the opposite of what we’ve been talking about; taking a lot of expensive cards, running tokens, not adding enough of what you need, etcetera. However, it can be a little more complicated when considering what your deck’s intentions are, because maybe you do need a lot of a certain expensive card, or maybe you want to take a token of something

So, I’ll be going over a few examples of decks with bad ratios. All of these decks were posted to reddit more than a year ago, if not multiple years

Example 1:

Posted on May 17th 2022 by u/exorcisyboi, we’re starting off with an easy example. There’s a lot to go over in why this is a bad deck;

There are a lot of different cards being used here. More than 13, even. This is because of the OP being on a budget, but considering the lack of quality some of these cards have, it’s baffling

There are also a lot of tokens. Usually, you don’t want tokens, but if you have to add them just add one. Even then, it should be a relevant, high quality card that you’re adding

Win conditions aren’t well defined here. This is just a general issue the deck has, but if you want good ratios, you want them to be according to the win conditions of your deck (eg. running more cheap plants in a deck with Onion Rings)

Their early game is really lackluster. They have almost nothing to play on turns 1 or 2, and almost all of OP’s 3-drops are either reliant on other cards or just don’t get played on turn 3

There are more issue that I can go over regarding the quality of the deck’s strategy (or lack thereof), but there are more decks to go over

Example 2:

Posted on August 2nd, 2020 by u/sh4rkHunter5, this budget deck might seem fine at a glance. However, there are a few issue holding it back;

If you’re going to add environments, you usually don’t want a lot of them. 4 is the max, but that’s assuming the card is a crucial part of the deck and not just a glorified Nibble

Some cards are being ran at too many copies, actually. I already covered Solar Eclipse, but Alien Ooze is also pretty bricky, and Rodeo Gargantuar is just too expensive for this deck to run 3 copies

Again, the early game here is lacking. The first two turns are entirely dependant on you drawing either Arm Wrestler or Sumo, which isn’t enough for a tempo deck

I also have some more personal nitpicks, but I won’t be covering those

Example 3:

Posted on September 1st, 2023 by u/Danane606, this deck is definitely the most unique of the bunch. I’ll be focusing on its ratios, however;

There’s too many tricks in this deck. Even if this is a Re-Peat Moss deck, a lot of these tricks are really situational and require that you have a decent board set up, which is a problem since…

Once more, there’s too little early game. We’re basically only dealing with 3 cards for the first two turns of the game, followed by Pumpkin Shell or maybe Grow-Shroom if either 1-drop is in-play

This clashes pretty heavily with Blockbuster as an evolution card, who wants you to have plants set up in order to get value. Pumpkin can sometimes be the set up for it, and after turn 4, you can combine it with Forget-Me-Nuts. It’s just so expensive, however, and makes Re-Peat Moss harder to play because of that

Speaking of which, running 4 copies of Re-Peat Moss is a bit much considering how late into the game you’re playing it. You’re combining it with Vegetation Mutation, Fertilize, and/or Plant Food, all of which are made relatively slow when you need to combo them with a 4-drop

Once again, we’re dealing with too many environments. Spikeweed Sector is better than Eclipse and you do want more early control for this deck. However, it’s only control for the ground lanes, and you’d rather cut a copy or two for actual 2-drops that can make trades and curve into Grow-Shroom

With that, I think you can get a picture on what not to do

Tips

Finally, I wanted to go over some tips for deciding on ratios. This is more scattershot, niche advice that won’t apply to every situation;

If I haven’t made it apparent yet, you should avoid adding tokens to your deck. In most cases, they’re not doing enough to make them worth keeping around over a copy of another. You usually only add tokens if you’re on a budget or good enough at the game to recognize when a token should be included. For reference, I’m barely that good after sticking with this game since its soft launch

Plants tend to run less tricks than zombies. This is since a lot of them are either weak due to turn order, get outclassed by plants with similar functions, or are just bad. Zombies like taking tricks since turn order makes them safe to play 

Environments are not necessary to run. You can make a deck without one and have the deck be optimal. You usually want them for their long-term value and ability to tech other environments, but if they don’t actually fit your deck, it’s fine to not run one. This is especially true for plant decks, as most plant environments suck and all of them are made weaker by the turn order

You don’t need to run 4 copies of every win condition your deck has, and depending on the card, it might be better to exclude copies. This is especially true for cards like Bad Moon Rising and Wall-Nut Bowling, which are too expensive to run 4 copies of anyway

If you’re running an evolution card, you usually want plenty of support for it. A personal rule I like to follow is having at least 3 compatible cards for every copy of the evolution card I’m taking (eg. If I’m taking 3 Jelly Beans, I’d like to have 10 or more other Beans in the deck), with compatible meaning plants and zombies cheaper than the card. This isn’t a hard rule, however, and some cards don’t need too much support (eg. Cob Cannon pretty much just needs 4x Lil’ Buddy and a few more Team-Ups since it gets played so late into the game)

Above tip similarly applies to cards like Mixed-Nuts, Gargologist, and Buff-Shroom; cards that support or are supported by specific cards. For environment synergies, you usually can’t afford to run too many of either the environment or the synergetic card, so a 1:1 ratio or even 2:1 ratio works better (eg. On Neptuna, you usually only take a few Excavators while running 4 Black Holes)

~~~~~

That's basically it. What I'm mostly worried about is if I'm teaching things wrong. While it's easy for me to point out mistakes and give more basic advice, teaching fundamentals on a level beyond "run 4x of most cards" is harder for me to do since it's difficult to articulate something mostly built on experience. Especially since there's a lot of variance in when you would run x amount of a card depending on the deck and the card's purpose in that deck

Also worried about the word count of this, and how thick this guide is overall. I know y'all on Tumblr love reading, but people in that subreddit will call 2-3 sentences a paragraph and anything beyond that an essay. It's mostly because half of the users there are tweens with low attention spans, but also because I know I can be really verbose without a good reason

Finally, I just trying want to be careful with this kind of thing. I want to avoid spreading misinformation, which is a huge problem in the subreddit. There's just so many people who only play who've only played ladder for a year or so and use that as the basis for their advice. Except that only really makes you an average player, and the average player is really subpar compared to people who actually study match-ups, play in tournaments, and test decks

Anyway, glad nobody here will ever read this 🥰

[readingloveswounds]

does having 12 editions (NOT ALWAYS DIFFERENT ONES) in the primary source section of a bibliography make one seem obsessive. asking for a friend.

[sparrow-and-seed-scrawls]

How to Write Strong Dialogue

(from a writer of ten years)

So you’re back in the writing trenches. You’re staring at your computer, or your phone, or your tablet, or your journal, and trying not to lose your mind. Because what comes after the first quotation mark? Nothing feels good.

Don’t worry, friend. I’m your friendly tumblr writing guide and I’m here to help you climb out of the pit of writing despair.

I’ve created a character specifically for this exercise. His name is Amos Alejandro III, but for now we’ll just call him Amos. He’s a thirty-something construction worker with a cat who hates him, and he’s just found out he has to go on a quest across the world to save his mother’s diner.

1.) Consider the Attitude and Characteristics of Your Character

One of the biggest struggles writers face when writing dialogue is keeping characters’ dialogue “in-character”.

You’re probably thinking, “but Sparrow, I’m the creator! None of the dialogue I write can be out of character because they’re my original characters!”

WRONG. (I’m hitting the very loud ‘incorrect’ buzzer in your head right now).

Yes, you created your characters. But you created them with specific characteristics and attitudes. For example, Amos lives alone, doesn’t enjoy talking too much, and isn’t a very scholarly person. So he’s probably not going to say something like “I suggest that we pursue the path of least resistance for this upcoming quest.” He’d most likely say, “I mean, I think the easiest route is pretty self-explanatory.”

Another example is a six-year-old girl saying, “Hi, Mr. Ice Cream Man, do you have chocolate sundaes?” instead of “Hewwo, Ice Cweam Man— Chocowate Sundaes?”

Please don’t put ‘w’s in the middle of your dialogue unless you have a very good and very specific reason. I will cry.

Yes, the girl is young, but she’s not going to talk like that. Most children know how to ask questions correctly, and the ‘w’ sound, while sometimes found in a young child’s speech, does not need to be written out. Children are human.

So, consider the attitude, characteristics, and age of your character when writing dialogue!

2.) Break Up Dialogue Length

If I’m reading a novel and I see an entire page of dialogue without any breaks, I’m sobbing. You’re not a 17th century author with endless punctuation. You’re in the 21st century and people don’t read in the same way they used to.

Break up your dialogue. Use long sentences. Use one word. Use commas, use paragraph breaks. Show a character throwing a chair out a window in between sentences.

For example:

“So, you’re telling me the only way to save my Ma’s diner is to travel across five different continents, find the only remaining secret receipt card, and bring it back before she goes out of business? She didn’t have any other copies? Do I have to leave my cat behind?”

vs.

Amos ran a hand over his face. “So, you’re telling me the only way to save my Ma’s diner is to travel across five different continents, find the only remaining secret recipe card, and bring it back before she goes out of business?”

He couldn’t believe his luck. That was sarcastic, of course. This was ironically horrible.

“She didn’t have any other copies?” He leaned forward over the table and frowned. “Do I have to leave my cat behind?”

The second version is easier to digest, and I got to add some fun description of thought and action into the scene! Readers get a taste of Amos’ character in the second scene, whereas in the first scene they only got what felt like a million words of dialogue.

3.) Don’t Overuse Dialogue Tags.

DON’T OVERUSE DIALOGUE TAGS. DON’T. DON’T DON’T DON’T.

If you don’t know what a dialogue tag is, it’s a word after a sentence of dialogue that attributes that dialogue to a specific character.

For example:

“Orange juice and chicken ramen are good,” he said.

‘Said’ functions as the dialogue tag in this sentence.

Dialogue tags are good. You don’t want to completely avoid them. (I used to pride myself on how I could write stories without any dialogue tags. Don’t do that.) Readers need to know who’s speaking. But overusing them, or overusing weird or unique tags, should be avoided.

Examples:

“I’m gonna have to close my diner,” Amos’ mother said.

“Why?” Amos growled. “It’s been in the family forever.”

“I’ve lost the secret recipe card, and I can’t keep the diner open without it!” she cried.

“The Bacon Burger Extreme recipe card?” Amos questioned.

“Yes!” Amos’ mother screamed.

“Well, that’s not good,” Amos complained.

vs.

“I’m gonna have to close my diner,” Amos’ mother said, taking her son’s hand and leading him over to one of the old, grease-stained tabletops with the ripped-fabric booths.

Amos simply stared at her as they moved. “Why? It’s been in the family forever.”

“I’ve—” she looked away for a moment, then took in a breath. “I’ve lost the secret recipe card. And I can’t keep the diner open without it.”

“The Bacon Burger Extreme recipe card?”

“Yes!” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes, and her shoulders were shaking. “Yes.”

Amos sat down heavily in the booth. “Well, that’s not good.”

The first scene only gives character names and dialogue tags. There are no actions and no descriptions. The second scene, however, gives these things. It gives the reader descriptions of the diner, the characters’ actions, and attitudes. Overusing dialogue tags gets boring fast, so add interest into your writing!

So! When you’re writing, consider the attitude of your character, vary dialogue length, and don’t overuse dialogue tags.

Now climb out of the pit of writing despair. Pick up your pen or computer. And write some good dialogue!

Best,

Sparrow

[stobinesque]

I always forget when I finish editing something to post to AO3 that I have to do a whole other round of edits and proofreading because seeing it in the context of the site always makes me find some new problem. except that usually by that point I'm sick of looking at it for the day so then I don't

[macgyvermedical]

Moving vs Fleeing (and what you need to flee)

I was on a call last night with a very reputable LGBTQ+ organization in my state that discussed the difference between moving and fleeing.

Essentially, moving is planned. You get an apartment and a job in another city- hopefully you visit that city to scope it out. Then you move your life. It takes, at minimum, months.

Fleeing is unplanned. Something is happening that is so bad in your area that you have to cut and run. It may not be police at your door. But it might be legislation that prevents you from using restrooms without the risk of being killed or arrested. It might be lack of access to medications and something that makes it illegal to get those medications in a different state. It might be the classification of your life (as someone gay or tans) as a sex crime, and sex crimes being punishable by death (a goal of project 2025).

And, they recommended, get things together before it gets to that point, even if you aren't sure that it will happen, so fleeing is as easy as possible if you need to do it.

Here's what you can do:

Pick a location you can get to either by bus, train, or car that has a good track record for your needs and that you think you could live. Do your research- are there jobs there in your field? Housing?

Then get yourself a bag or large backpack.

Get a file folder and put your documents in it. I mean things like your passport, your birth certificate, your social security card, copies of any professional licenses you have, a checkbook, name change documentation, copies of financial documents like mortgages, copies of insurance cards and policies, copies of marriage licenses, and a copy of your driver's license. These are things you might need if you have to prove your identity or get a job or apartment. Then print out maps of several routes to your destination. Put the file folder in the bag.

Add to that: a couple of changes of clothes for each person including a hat and a cloth or disposable face covering (people don't question them as much since the pandemic, and they're convenient to hide your face). Lightweight, caloric foods for at least 3 days that don't require cooking (protein bars work great for this). A month of medications and an emergency script for each medication for each person (get a paper prescription from your doctor that is good for a year or the max allowed for each medication) if you can get it. Pay out of pocket with a coupon card if your insurance won't cover your refill early. 1-2 containers of baby wipes so you don't necessarily need to shower. An empty water bottle for each person. A phone charger.

Buy a gift card that can be used for anything. I won't say how much because I don't know your situation, but make it enough that you can pay for gas or bus/train/airline tickets to your destination and (if you can) temporary lodging/food once you get there. Gift cards are less traceable than debit/credit cards and aren't easy to cancel. An alternative is cash, but that can be an easier target for theft if people see you with it.

Finally, bring something of comfort, like a blanket or memento or stuffed animal.

[claypigeonpottery]

I’m love her 😍

I turned off the camera before I finished the vulture because I needed to look at the references on my phone 😅

I was a little nervous about making this piece too muddy with all the sponge texture and browns, but 😍

rambling about commissions under the cut

these kinds of commissions are the reason I don’t charge extra for original commissions (vs copies of my previous work), despite sketching and reference hunting taking hours at times. and why I love making variations on the copies too. I want to encourage people to ask me to make new things!

I always enjoy the commissions I take, I generally don’t take them if they don’t suit my art style or if I would find them tedious, but getting a commission that pulls from things I’ve already done and adds new elements, especially ones I wouldn’t have thought to add, is so satisfying!

[loneisland]

🏷️ tags fem! reader, vs angel! reader, bllk various x reader, jealousy, is this cringe? No actually don’t tell me, not proof read

author’s notes this one is for the girls who stayed up all night to watch the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.. god’s strongest soldiers!

Being a Victoria’s Secret angel was never meant to be easy, but you wondered if they couldn’t have made the job at tiny bit easier for you nevertheless. After all, dealing with the stingy makeup artist, the perfectionist of a hairstylist and the humongous wings was hard enough on its own, but add to that your sulky footballer boyfriend and you’ve got yourself a full plate.

You had expected him to be sitting in the venue, waiting for you to come out and eventually looking around to see if anyone was staring at you just a little bit too much for his taste, but, apparently, your boyfriend wasn’t in the mood to wait that long to see you.

“How did you even get in?” You address him, even though your eyes are riveted on the mirror in front of you.

Looking over at you and seizing you up, he ignores your question, and sighs. “Do you really have to do this? I could’ve just bought you this set you know.”

“It’s not about the money, baby, this is Victoria’s Secret! It’s—“

“So what? Did Victoria blackmail you into walking practically naked in front of thousands of people? Thousands of guys?” He leans on the pillar behind you, and you see his jaw clench from where you’re sitting. The makeup artists hides a laugh, and you’re only one smart remark away from stifling your own.

“No, she didn’t. Look, it’s lingerie, no big deal.” You sit up from your chair, and walk over to him, hips swaying and heels clicking against the floor. “And who knows, maybe they’ll let me bring it home,” your lips make their way to his ear, concealing your next words from prying ears, “To you.”

All of a sudden, everything seems to fade in the background, and he finds himself looking forward to the show. Or more so its end, even if he does tense up every few minutes thinking of what his teammates might think tomorrow.

Whatever, that won’t stop from ravaging you tonight, anyway.

Maybe he’ll try to stop you from putting on concealer when he brings you to practice tomorrow morning. Just in case.

ummm really hope the meaning of the innuendo at the end is understandable 😭😭 if it’s not don’t tell me I WILL jump out of a window + you can imagine the runway as any season’s lmfao 2024 one was ass

@loneisland 2025 - all rights reserved. Do not copy, modify, or translate my content

[foone]

Idea: an inverted seniority robot race: the youngest robots are the most senior, because every robot is a virtual machine platform. At "birth", each parent robot donates a copy of their own VM platform to their child. The VMs they run are their minds.

So each robot is running their own mind, plus a copy(or more) of each of their ancestors. Each robot has the knowledge and skills and memories of all their ancestors, so the youngest are the most knowledgeable, with the oldest being the most ignorant.

It's a little like the human idea of a kind of immortality though having children, except literally. The last copy of you can't die until all your descendants do.

Thus we have a good reason for robots to reproduce: it's immortality through duplication.

It also, amusingly, gives you a reason why robots would have a human-like incest taboo: if your parents have any ancestors in common, you'd inherit multiple copies of that person. And you have to keep both copies because they've diverged since then: one copy has been living in one parent for years, another copy in another. They have different experiences now, and are distinct people. This adds complexity and headaches and is generally a bad idea: you want as many distinct experiences as possible, not nearly-redundant copies of the same people.

If you want to think of it in human terms, this sort of robot reproduction is kind of like being plural, but getting your parents as headmates at birth. And then it turns they brought along all their headmates: their parents, and their parents headmates, and their parents' headmates' parents, and so on until you get to The First Robot.

This both:

1. Explains how a robot made in a factory has "parents": it's nothing biological, a robot's parents are the robots who copied their VM stacks into the newly made robot. (also: there's no limit on how many parents you could have. Why not have it be like 20 robots? That makes a better robot, because it's a robot with More Robot per Robot!

2. Makes the death of any robot a fucking tragedy (I mean, more so than any person dying is). You shoot a human and one person dies, you shoot a robot and you kill millions. This suggests the robots are going to be very cautious, as if they are in danger it threatens an city's worth of souls. If nothing else, it suggests some unique trolly problem solutions: like someone threatens a robot with a knife (ok... Screwdriver? Soldering Iron?) and the robot instantly snipes them in the head with a laser. It was the lives of millions vs one person, what's the problem?

It also would be interesting for any traditional sophonts who know robots. Imagine you make friends with a robot while serving on a distant space station, then lose touch for a while. You hear through the exonet that they died when an orbital shuttle was shot down, and the next time you're in the area you see another robot that looks vague like them. You go up to introduce yourself, to see if they knew your friend, but before you can even open your mouth a different face appears on the robot's CRT head. It's your friend. "oh hey Daviid, how's it going?" like no time had passed and nobody had died.

(the robots call this thing where a personality is in control "fronting", because you're being displayed on the front monitor)

PS: before anyone replies, I know of and don't care about the geth

[romor]

I'm starting to think people don't understand that adaptations have to be different. Did netflix have the same amount of time as Book 1 to work with? Technically yes, but 20 episodes is for sure more than 8 so they didn't.

If you are constantly comparing it to the original and upset about the changes. Then for sure the netflix adaptation is not for you.

I've seen some bad adaptations over the years, for example my favorite book is Inkheart. Even the 2010 Avatar movie is a better adaptation than Inkheart's.

Conclusion it's a pretty good series, if you like the original, if you can watch it without constantly comparing it to the original you will enjoy it more.

Editing to add to this since so many have said something.

Inkheart is not a horrible movie, but it is a bad adaptation. Fantastic cast, with no loyalty to the source material.

There is a difference between adapting a story, and remaking it. This is literally being referred to as the netflix adaptation, so clearly it's not a remake. Because it is an adaptation, changes are expected. It would be stupid to expect a copy and paste story.

The changes make sense, because if you want book 2, and only have 8 episodes to work, you have to make a lot happen. The original show has clear start and end points for the events that occur (aka you know that start of the episode and the end). That's fine, when you have 20 episodes to work with, each 20 minutes. That doesn't work with 8 episodes each 1 hour (or about an hour). It doesn't translate to smooth storytelling. A lot of important things occur in book 1, but let's not forget that book 1 is also more episodic vs the rest of the series. In fact don't we often say "it gets better," about the book 1? What I am saying, a lot has to happen in the first season to set up not just season 2, but season 3. They did really good making sure those events happened.

I don't mind the mixing of plot because they didn't have much of a choice if they wanted a cohesive plot. I would also like to add I'm so glad the removed the northern air temple episode's setting. Never felt right with me.

I'm not saying don't compare them because it's impossible not to. I'm saying that if you are constantly going to be thinking of everything they changed, if you think the original series is so perfect. So unflawed, that how dare they even try. If you are going to be watching it already offended that they decided to even touch it. This adaptation is not for you.

If you were like me and wished that fire did in fact burn everytime it touched someone. If you are like me and thought the original series was too light-hearted for its plot. Then you will enjoy it. It's a fun adaptation, that keeps as loyal to its source material as it can be.

Yes I have my issues with it, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a fun watch.

[lesliemeyers]

rereading it and still loving it the way you did when you were 13 is also a very exciting feeling

finally locating the downloaded copy you knew you had somewhere of a fic that's been deleted for years is such an exciting feeling.

[quartergremlin]

I drew this last october and finally let it go.

transcript:

Mikey vs the School System

-> emotional support legal citizen

-> The only person they know that's legal in the Hidden City

-> + familiar w/ the school system

Secretary: Mx. Hamato? Ms. Dora can see you now.

Mikey: Um. Would I be able to list... more? emergency contacts?

S: Having a third is usually just a formality, but if you want to add a fourth so we have extended family from both sides I don't see why not.

Lena: I'm boooooored.

Jess: Uhhh-

M: No. I just have a large family. And your policy says that only contacts can pick up and drop off.

S: Sorry for assuming. Yeah we can do that. I'll need copies of their government IDs tho.

M: Greeeat. Thanks.

-> Mutants with no papers.

L: Pah. Pah. Pah.

[nights-at-crystarium]

One of the biggest beauties of ShB is ambiguity. Personally I would've loved if there was no "right" side ever, but of course, the mmo medium needs bosses to fight, heroes need their villains.

We're told all the time, the Source and the reflections, the original and the copies, the greater and the lessers, but Lakeland, the place that welcomes us into a new [lesser] world, looks gorgeous, and the Crystarium's literally designed to be easy to love, no, not by the game devs, by the Exarch himself. However he couldn't have built it all on his own, countless people of the First must've contributed. It's not just a thing architected by a guy from the Source, it's a flower of the First, that one stubborn plant that grows in a crack of a paved road.

It's a post-apocalyptic world. The entire thing could've easily looked like Amh Araeng or the shanty town around Eulmore. People could've easily been as unlikeable as many of those who we save in the Source over and over again. Or at least, not interesting. Yet, this [lesser] world's vibrant and captivating, rich with history, albeit most of it's just hinted at, still, it makes you believe and wonder. You don't see the First as a lesser world as you walk it. I think it adds to the overarching theme of ancients vs sundered.

The dev effort that went into building a new world from scratch, making Norvrandt feel tangible, has paid off in so many ways, this being just one of them.

[anistarrose]

This is my online accessibility (especially image descriptions) masterpost, which I update periodically whenever I find a new resource or guide. I worry this has the side effect of looking overwhelming in scope, so if you're learning about IDs and/or Tumblr-specific accessibility for the first time, I recommend you start with the first five starred posts. All post titles are clickable links!

*Why and how to write image descriptions

*Accessibility on Tumblr for new users (has templates, also talks about how to tag for flashing lights to accommodate photosensitive folks)

*I see an image and want to describe it: a step by step guide

*Fanart-specific and Tumblr-specific advice for image descriptions

*How to describe screenshots of tags

Why a short ID is always better than no ID

The key word for writing IDs: "Relevancy"

I want to make my posts more accessible, but can’t write IDs myself: a guide

Google Doc full of template descriptions for memes

Online image to text converter

Describing skin tone and describing hair (heads up that the posts themselves are undescribed and were written with fiction writers in mind; potentially still very useful)

How to remember to write descriptions (spoiler: by putting yourself in situations where you see descriptions more often)

Related, a Google doc of described blogs (almost all the blogs linked earlier in this post have tons of described posts and resources too)

(In my opinion, writing IDs is easiest to learn by doing — but especially if combined with watching other people do so. So follow some described blogs!)

Why not to put image descriptions in small fonts/italics (also, some non-definitive thoughts on IDs vs alt text, and why "both" actually makes sense as an answer in many cases)

More on IDs vs alt text from a visually impaired Tumblr user

Alt text vs IDs vs Captions with examples

Brief Intro to Transcripts/Video Descriptions

The People's Accessibility Discord sever (a very friendly community for crowdsourcing image descriptions)

How to make your blog's colors visually accessible - one of the easiest thing on this list!

Other easy things: show love to artists who describe their work, edit descriptions into your original post when someone provides one in the notes, and copy-paste inaccessible (eg, small text or italicized) descriptions as plain text when you reblog!

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, how to continue writing image descriptions while avoiding burnout.

Let me know if any of these links break! I personally don't describe nearly as much audio/video (got those audio processing issues), so this list is sparse on those resources, but if anyone has good guides/blog recommendations for that too, feel free to add on!