#if you're gonna do a dynamic like this this is how

[monamipencil]

another long reblog cuz im crazy abt this story

omg, i LOVED this chap? and i loved all their dynamics?? the chapter was so intriguing. it's so good?? plot is plotting. mia you're so fucking talented to pull this off. my god, i love your writing so much. it's the perfect blend of angst, humor and fluff (and ofc smut). and the fact that you're writing this out of your comfort zone?? respect. srsly tho, i loved this chap!! im so ready for the next chapters hehe.

and ofc, fave parts below!!

it was privacy that was the real myth. 

asdghjkl, well being in a camp with 13 men is .... interesting

when Soonyoung and Seungkwan sat right next to you, loudly comparing their dick sizes.

and not the underwear boxing lmaoo. guys...*sigh*

1.Hell no you didn't want him or anyone in this camp to realise just how (as Jihoon called it) thirsty you were.

"thirsty you were" 😭😭😭

You couldn't just walk up to such a man and tell him, “hey, you're hella hot and I'm hella attracted to you, I wish you would ravage me.”???? 

honestly, i would. (only for cheol tho 😌)

you liked to take Natalie on a walk to visit the man she had a big fat crush on. 

AHHHHHHH, JUN LMAO. AND NATALIE ?!?! i miss natalie

Soonyoung was…….. A teenager stuck in a man’s body.

more true words have never been spoken

he was handsome, goofy, really good with his hands, really really good with his brain but the same didn’t extend to his mouth. 

"the same didn't extend to his mouth" im hollering

For now, you were to focus on building your core strength and basic self defense, in case the camp is ever attacked…. Yes, cause that is less scary, way to make one feel better. 

minghao needs social skills training cuz wtf man?

Hansol was well aware of your presence and chose to actively avoid you every time - if you remembered right, there were even instances when he had practically run away from you.

this is sofucking funny, lmao. they have never been in the vicinity of a woman

And consequently, you too naturally babied him and Chan too enjoyed it - the two of you were perfectly content with your dynamic. 

i would do it too, for lee chan.

Maybe if it was someone else you'd be offended but seeing his childlike face and full cheeks, you were only mildly amused. 

LMFAO i love how we're dragging soonyoung any chance given.

“I'm more of the ‘don't join the crowd, let it follow you’ kinds.”

i see, where you're going with this miss yn

“Okay Mr. Seung-I-am-the-son-of-Hera-and-marriage-is-the-way-of-life-Kwan” Soonyoung rolled his eyes. “Not every traditional relationship is healthy, and not everything unconventional is toxic.”

"marriage is the way of life kwan"😭😭 but soonyoung spitting facts here.

“Yes, except yours is both unconventional and toxic.” Seungkwan scoffed

lmaoo

Mingyu patted his shoulder, shooting you a wink. “Y/n has other plans with me today anyways.” 

another fool with no communication skills. im calling my mom if someone says this to me

Looking up, you saw Jihoon staring at you with a small smirk, his expression all knowing.

lmao, i love smug and teasing jihoon

And you wanted to do Cheol. 

so do all of us.

watching the shirtless man, doing sit ups in the middle of the living room

in the living room? he's just asking to be fucked atp

And there was you who was always desperately wishing for the smallest interaction with him.. What an idiot. 

... tch, hits home. and choi seungcheol, wth.

You tried not to hyperfixate on the inappropriate labeling of Horang in the off chance that an annoyed Soonyoung threw you back out.

she's way too patient. im just gonna hit his head at this point. poor "horang," being misperceived all the time. #justicefor"horang"

“and you could moan my name, say how good I'm making you feel.” 

this guy, *sigh*

“Fuck yes Soonyoung, that feels so good-” “Yeah, yeah I remember…..Oh no that was just…. our cow?…..Yes Daisy, she's just having a rough night…..”

LMAO, my stomach hurts

“Let me clarify. Yes I have used a dildo before-”  “Oh god.”  “- Although my girlfriend isn’t the biggest fan of it-”  “This wasn’t my question.”  “-I do occasionally enjoy it myself.”  “I don’t think I should be a part of this conversation.”  “But this dildo in particular, has never been used by either of us before.”  “That!” You pointed out. “That’s all I needed to know.” 

im so done with these idiots lmaooo. (and im genuinely intrigued)

“I haven’t even gotten to the story behind this.” He giggled. “This is my father’s.”  “Aaaand I’m done here.” 

😭😭😭 back to zero communication skills lmao

“This isn’t an ordinary dildo Y/n, no. This baby can take on the shape, size, dimensions and every single tiny detail” He gave a dramatic pause. “Of the person you are imagining while going at it.”

i need the amazon link (asking for a friend ofc)

Lord was Choi Seungcheol thick.

asdfghjkl ????

“No, no I don’t but why do I make you nervous?”  Seungcheol smiled softly. “Do you really not know?”  You suppressed the grin forming on your own face. Fucking finally.  “No.” You shook your head feigning innocence. “Tell me.”  “Can I show you?” 

AHHHHHHHHHHH, OMG. IT'S HAPPENING, FIN-

“Y/n I’m sorry, I forgot that it’s late and we have training at 4 tomorrow.” He muttered, drawing his hands away. “You should sleep. I can’t excuse your lateness everyday.” 

nevermind.

Camp Seventeen: Chapter 1

Pairing - Afab!reader x ot13 (Reader x Seungcheol, Reader x Soonyoung for this Ch)

Word count - 13K

Genre - Greek Demigod AU! We’ve got crack, smut (tags for the chapter are under the cut), fluff , angst, hurt, comfort, all of it in this series, buckle up!

Chapter summary - It's been a week since you stepped foot in Camp Seventeen - as you navigated the days trying to wrap your head around the 13 boys, one's touch and another's voice start to become a bit too bothersome....

A/n - And the series has finally kickstarted! Please read the prologue before this! Big thanks to @okiedokrie and @c-oupsie for helping beta read this, y'all are the sweetest <3

I do have a taglist so comment/DM/send an ask to be added! And if you enjoyed reading, please don't forget to leave feedback in the comments or tags - we've got lots of chapters to go and hearing thoughts really helps <3

Smut warnings - mutual masturbation, fingering, use of a very questionable dildo, is this considered cheating? Idk it's all blur here, jerking off, cum feeding, cum eating and I hope that's all?

“Fucking hell.” 

You mumbled, waking up the same way you had been for the last one week - startled and nearly jumping off your bed. 

While most people began their days to the ringing of alarm clocks (or roosters if they preferred the countryside), you regularly woke up to the sound of Seungcheol’s eagle screeching in your ear. 

Turning your head, you glanced at Zephyr perched on the window before it gave you a short nod of acknowledgement and flew off into the darkness. Yes darkness, because unlike most people, your day also began at 4 fucking am in the morning. 

Groaning and stretching, you sat up, holding back the large yawn that was threatening to pull you back to sleep. If Zephyr was here to wake you up, that meant you were late yet again and you hated that - you had done too many walks of shame to the training field and were in no mood to be conspicuously stared at by 13 boys as you stumbled over, carrying all your gear. 

Knowing you didn’t have enough time to drop by the washroom, you popped a mint and sprayed some deodorant before quickly grabbing your things and running out into the darkness. 

The sun was just starting to peek from between the mountains as the House Of Zeus became smaller and smaller behind you. Although you had a long list of concerns living with Seungcheol, an unbeatable advantage was how close his residence was to the training grounds. Still, you could somehow never manage to be punctual. By the time you reached, you were 15 minutes late and Seokmin had already begun the morning drills. 

“Two laps around the field newbie.” He muttered as you walked past him, habituated to receiving the same punishment everyday. 

While you begrudgingly jogged around the perimeter of the grounds, your mind wandered to everything and nothing that happened over the past few days. 

Life at camp so far had been…. strange. 

You would be lying if you said you were already accustomed to life here. You most certainly were not. And forget a week, not even a year could prepare you for what living in the wild was like. 

To begin with, there was no electricity here. That’s right, no lights, no air conditioning, no Internet, nothing. 

Member’s began their days at sunrise and ended it as sunset - after all nothing much could be done in the dim illuminance of the fire torches scattered all around the base. So of course for you, who functioned best from 1 to 3am, this archaic way of life was highly inconvenient. 

The only place that had even a trace of something technologically advanced was the Great Hall - some of the more brainy boys had managed to set up a small circuit for kitchen appliances, laundry machines, a small charging station and that was about it. Rumor was that Wonwoo's residence had its own circuit too, but no one could really confirm that intel - it was as though none of them had ever ventured into the House of Hades. 

And as though the lack of scientific inventions was not enough, showers…..were communal. Apparently it made more sense that water lines were directed to one common bath house rather than to each individual house. For them it was definitely more convenient to have the baths, jacuzzi and sauna all in one place, but for you that meant waiting everyday after training for the whole lot of them to be done washing up before you could do the same, with some privacy. 

Oh and speaking of privacy, in the last week you spent here, you had come to realize that in this all-boys-greek-mythology world, it was privacy that was the real myth. Obviously after years of living together the boys were close but sometimes, they were perhaps a tad bit too close - like the time you had walked in on Mingyu and Seokmin boxing in just their underwear or when Soonyoung and Seungkwan sat right next to you, loudly comparing their dick sizes. You usually drew the line at phallic discussions.

The one place on camp that perhaps gave you some alone time and space away from the mess that the boys were, was the library. Considering you had shifted the last year of your University to an online study, you had a shit ton of assignments to complete and that was the only place you were able to get anything done at all. It was like the boys didn’t even know the study building existed - no one cared enough to go there so yeah, maybe occasionally, you also allowed yourself to let down your hair, sing in your horribly off pitch voice and dance to beats from your walkman. Outside those four walls it was impossible for you to feel even a little peace and quiet. 

Surprisingly, not even the temple, which one would think would be a place of sanctity, was spared from the deviant actions of the boys. The altar was less a place of worship and more a place for bargains and exchange deals - it was the only way to connect to the gods, aka, the parents in Olympus. 

You had come to learn that just like the human world, not all God parents loved their kids the same - some members were regularly showered with gifts and goods, others would not receive so much as a response. You found yourself falling in the second half. Your father never cared for you in the human world and apparently, neither did your mother. 

Brushing off the thoughts of the woman you had thought was dead for the last 25 years, you wrapped up your punishment and joined the boys for morning exercises, ready to start yet another tiring day. 

“All done!” 

Joshua gave you a sweet smile as he stepped out of the bath house, rubbing the towel into his wet hair. Thanking him softly, you walked into the showers, stripped out of your clothes and turned on the hot water. The mud that Minghao had you rolling in today as part of combat training washed off as the heat worked to soothe your aching muscles. Lathering shampoo onto your scalp, you finally felt yourself relaxing, letting your favorite citrus smell take over your senses. Outside the bath house, you could hear Seungcheol raising his voice, instructing all the members to head for breakfast, loud footsteps following his words. 

Choi Seungcheol….. Living with him so far had been frustrating. 

When you first stepped into his residence, you told him that you’ve always lived alone so it might take you a while to adjust to living with someone and Seungcheol seemed to inwardly decide that giving you space was his life's purpose. After that, whenever you appeared before him, he politely greeted you and walked away. Whenever you stood as much as two feet near him he took a step back, like he didn't want to intrude on your personal space. Whenever you sat in his vicinity, he excused himself stating he'll give you some ‘me-time’. 

You wish he knew how much you were in fact craving for the exact opposite - You wanted Choi Seungcheol. God you so badly wanted him. 

It wasn't like you could just make a move on him because 

1.Hell no you didn't want him or anyone in this camp to realise just how (as Jihoon called it) thirsty you were and 

2. Seungcheol wasn’t just anybody, he was the leader. Members bowed to him when he walked by, even the companions, specially Patricia who listened to no one, obeyed him - anything and everything on this camp premises held him at the highest regard. You couldn't just walk up to such a man and tell him, “hey, you're hella hot and I'm hella attracted to you, I wish you would ravage me.”???? 

All you could hope was that Seungcheol somehow approached you on his own but that seemed questionable given the clear line he had drawn between the two of you. 

The one person you wished would actually draw a line was the first one to always cross it - Yoon Jeonghan. You knew he and Seungcheol were the same age and that they were close but you didn't understand just how close they had to be for Athena's son to barge into the leaders residence whenever he wanted? Even at times you were changing your clothes or lying casually on the bed in your night dresses that barely covered anything. 

The most infuriating part was Jeonghan did not ever apologize - he'd just laugh and walk away and you wanted to do nothing more than throw a shoe at him. For some reason he enjoyed getting on your nerves, he enjoyed making you angry and it wasn’t just you - in the last one week, it was evident that Jeonghan was a pain in everyone's ass but somehow they all adored him? You didn't get why they all seemed to love a man who always liked to pull their leg, never leaving any chance to fool them with his wit - you assumed they just preferred to be on his good side so all his harmless fun remained harmless. 

Even Joshua, who was one of the sweetest people you knew, seemed to have a soft spot for Jeonghan. 

When you asked him why he said before Jeonghan joined camp, Seungcheol was very uptight and ran the camp like a military barrack - it was the former’s pranks and carefree attitude that allowed members to be at ease. Though he was talking about Jeonghan, you knew what Joshua’s words truly reflected were his own good nature. He just seemed like the kind of guy who could do no wrong - like a pure, sweet soul. The days after you first arrived at camp it was Joshua who showed you around, guided you with everything and tried to make you feel at home. No one else really tried to get to know you as a person - they were all more interested about how and why you landed in their camp. 

It also helped that Joshua was extremely pleasant on the eyes - at times when you didn’t want to feel overburdened by thoughts, you loved to sit next to him and watch him work on his little craft for the day or write that new novel of his. Yes he was good looking and yes when he smiled, you felt dazzled, but it was his sweet disposition that made you choose his company over the other members.

On the days he would go off to the city for some work, the next best place you found yourself was on Jun’s farm. Not that he was particularly nice to you or anything, Jun was…. quiet. He seemed to always do his thing, not bothering anyone, only speaking when required. When the evenings rolled around, you liked to take Natalie on a walk to visit the man she had a big fat crush on. Honestly though, who wouldn’t have a crush on someone like Jun - though he was the one working in the fields, it was you who was sweating, just watching him. 

Although you did want to talk to him, try to get to know him a little bit, you chose not to - as someone who enjoyed the peace and quiet, you decided to let at least some member offer you that because guys like Soonyoung sure as hell could not. 

Soonyoung was…….. A teenager stuck in a man’s body. Oh yeah he was hot as hell - just the nice build with muscles popping in all the right places. He knew how to dress better than most people on camp too - if you had seen him somewhere else, you would have thought he was one of those cool kids you always saw on campus. 

But that image of him was destroyed the moment he sat on a Leopard and insisted it was a tiger. Over the last week, that was the predominant discussion between the two of you. That and his incessant flirting. Or rather, attempt to flirt. All he came across was cheesy, kinda humorous and loud. Extremely loud. 

Wonwoo on the other hand was as silent as the night. 

Most of the time you didn’t even know if and when he was around, it was like he was non-existent. The members too didn’t seem to bother much with what he did - you noticed he didn’t wash up with the others, often hitting the showers after you were done. He never came for any meals on time, he always stayed back, even after all the members dispersed for the day - he just seemed to function however he liked and no one questioned him. He never questioned you either - Not once did Wonwoo ever attempt to make conversation with you or even meet your eye. It was like he couldn’t care less and that wasn't very pleasant for you. 

Someone who seemed to care a lot though, was Jihoon. Oh Jihoo was quiet too, but somehow he had his eyes on everything. Everything you did, everything you saw, even everything you felt seemed to find its way into Jihoon’s radar - he just knew. It terrified you that he was able to see right through you but the good thing about Jihoon was that he generally kept his mouth shut and wasn’t too keen on discussing his observations. Regardless, his presence made you feel extremely conscious and a part of you often tried to not be alone with him, lest he could read your mind or something. 

As the last of the soap rinsed off you, you turned off the water and grabbed your towel, patting yourself down. Your body was sore and aching all over - Minghao said that was because you were not used to such combat routines and in a few months time you would get used to it but you weren’t really sure if you had it in you to tolerate all this for that long. 

You also still had no idea what exactly these skills were needed for but from the conversations you overheard, it sounded like some sort of competition? That was both unlikely and terrifying cause who really competed with swords and spears anymore but if it was true, then what the actual hell??? Minghao said he didn’t want to scare you with the details just yet and would explain everything when the time came. For now, you were to focus on building your core strength and basic self defense, in case the camp is ever attacked…. Yes, cause that is less scary, way to make one feel better. 

But that was the thing about Minghao - he did not have the habit of sugar coating things. He was honest with his feedback no matter how rude it sounded and though sometimes it did make you feel like shit, he also made sure to push you to do better. You knew if there was anyone you could approach for a real, unbiased opinion, it was him. 

The same could not be said for Mingyu though - everything that came out of his mouth was saccharine sweet to the point it actually annoyed you. There was no doubt he was a nice guy - he was handsome, goofy, really good with his hands, really really good with his brain but the same didn’t extend to his mouth. His style of getting your attention was to ceaselessly seek validation and unfortunately for him, you weren’t really someone who was great with words of affirmation. When he was not trying so hard to please though, Mingyu was truly the biggest sweetheart with the fattest, most caring heart you had ever come across - the kind one wanted to wrap in bubble wrap and tuck away safely. 

Seokmin too fell in the same category - the type who was so precious, it was hard to believe people like him even existed. The only reason you were able to survive these few weeks of training despite coming late was because Seokmin had your back every time Seungcheol wasn’t watching - allowing you to take breathers, overlooking the fact that you were doing less sets than you were supposed to, things of that sort. He was always sweet and calm, giving you soft smiles and sweet eye crinkles. 

With his members though, Seokmin was a whole different person - he was unnaturally loud, extremely energetic and all over the place. The problem was, you didn’t know which of the two was the real him. You weren’t really sure why but something told you Seokmin wasn’t the man he seemed like and a strange curiosity coursed through you every time you interacted with him. 

Seungkwan on the other hand was the exact opposite, he was exactly what he seemed like - always annoyed, unabashedly honest and unnecessarily snarky. In a way, you understood him - Seungkwan had the habit of taking on many things at once and keeping him unbelievably busy. In university, you too were like this - you took extra modules, signed up for multiple clubs, worked an internship alongside a couple of part time jobs and more. You liked to be occupied, to not allow yourself the room to think about what your life could have been otherwise. Maybe that’s why you saw yourself in Mr. Busy Boo - always roaming around with that bluetooth in his ear, attending some meeting or the other, frequently heading to the city to get work done - ‘rest’ was just not a word in his dictionary.

But even amidst all this business and even though his automated response was to snap back at people, he still managed to bond really well with the members despite having joined the camp only a few months before you had. It was like they all needed him to be their constant reality check. 

The one who you thought required his presence more than anyone was Hansol. A man like him whose entire personality was avoidant needed someone like Seungkwan who would drag him into everything forcibly. Hansol wasn’t like Wonwoo, who was unbothered, couldn’t care less and pretended like you didn’t exist. Hansol was well aware of your presence and chose to actively avoid you every time - if you remembered right, there were even instances when he had practically run away from you. Something was just weird about that guy. 

Perhaps the most normal of them all was Chan - actually he was just as loud and consistently blabbering much like some of the others but something about him made you feel very fond of him. Sure he was the same age as you but he felt like a child, always babied by his members, always grinning like a cheshire cat. And consequently, you too naturally babied him and Chan too enjoyed it - the two of you were perfectly content with your dynamic. 

If only you got that same feeling with everyone else……

As you grabbed your things and stepped out of the bath house fully dressed, Wonwoo was standing outside with a towel slung on his shoulder, scrolling through his phone. Without so much as looking at you, he walked past you, into the shower room, loudly shutting the door behind him. 

“Can you ever be on time?” Jeonghan sighed, handing you a plate of pancakes as you looked around realizing everyone was nearly done with breakfast. “It’s not my job to wait your table every morning.” 

“Until you lot arrange for me to have my own shower,”  You grabbed an apple, taking a bite into it as you sat at the extra long dining table. “I’m afraid this is exactly how late I will be everyday.” 

“You know what they say sweetie,” Soonyoung whisked the apple from your hand, taking a bite of his own. “If you can’t beat the crowd, join the crowd.”

You looked at him exasperatedly, knowing that he was just talking out of his ass. Maybe if it was someone else you'd be offended but seeing his childlike face and full cheeks, you were only mildly amused. 

“I'm more of the ‘don't join the crowd, let it follow you’ kinds.”

“Oh I'd follow you anywhere Y/n.” He sighed dreamily as you laughed, taking a bite out of your pancakes that were still too hot. 

“How about you start following your own girlfriend instead Kwon?” Minghao walked around the kitchen island shooting Soonyoung an unimpressed look. “Rumour is that she was seen outside the Dreamboys Disco and we all know exactly what one goes there for.”

��She's not my girlfriend anymore.” Soonyoung muttered. “We broke up.”

“Weren't you just planning an anniversary trip two days ago?” Seokmin looked at him quizzically. 

“Yeah then we argued over a location and she said it was better we broke up for a while.” 

“This is what, your third breakup this month?”

“Fifth.” He whispered sadly in a way that made you want to pat his back. “Sixth actually, if you count the one that lasted for 3 hours.” 

“I'll never understand these on again off again kind of relationships.” Seungkwan clicked his tongue, hurriedly grabbing a banana, balancing all the files in his hand. “The only thing it screams to me is disrespect.” 

“Okay Mr. Seung-I-am-the-son-of-Hera-and-marriage-is-the-way-of-life-Kwan” Soonyoung rolled his eyes. “Not every traditional relationship is healthy, and not everything unconventional is toxic.”

“Yes, except yours is both unconventional and toxic.” Seungkwan scoffed, raising his hand before Soonyoung retaliated. “I can’t care enough right now, tiger boy, I’m already late. We can reschedule your relationship counseling session sometime later.” 

“How about never?” Soonyoung grumbled as Seungkwan rushed off, attending a call on his bluetooth. “Who’s idea was it for him to join the camp again?” 

“Mine.” Seungcheol slid onto the seat across you, raising an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?” 

“Nope.” Soonyoung shook his head fast. “Absolutely not.”

Smirking just a little, Seungcheol turned to you, sliding a couple pieces of chicken breast off his plate onto yours. “You need to eat more Y/n, that little won’t last you through the day.” 

“Same goes for you..” Jeonghan mumbled, placing a bottle of protein shake near Seungcheol who gave him a grateful smile. From the corner of your eye, you saw Jun increase the portion of chicken to buy on the huge shopping list scribbled on the white board.

If there was anything you absolutely loved about this camp, it was the brotherhood. No matter what each member was like individually, as a team, they loved and cared about each other immensely. You weren’t really sure if and when they could extend the same for you but having lived alone nearly all your life, a part of you craved to be one of them, to be cared for like that. 

“I won’t be able to make it for the meeting tonight.” Wonwoo, as usual, strolled in much later than you and no one, as usual, had any complaints with that. In fact rather uncharacteristically nicely, Jeonghan handed him breakfast, shooting him a worried look.

“Why, what’s wrong?” 

“I need to drop by the headquarters today.” He sighed, sitting a couple of seats away from you. “There’s an important official coming and apparently my presence is needed.” 

“Will you be back by nightfall?” Seungcheol asked, looking concerned. You knew why he was worried - if Wonwoo wasn’t there on camp grounds at night that meant all the members had to take their places on the perimeter to guard overnight. Sleep was not an option that night. 

“Yeah,” Wonwoo replied, not looking up. “I will just have to miss out on the meeting for the lawsuit.” 

Right that meeting. The one you, Jeonghan and Wonwoo, had been trying to have for days now to sort out the biggest mess of your life. 

“Shouldn’t be a problem, Nonu.” Mingyu patted his shoulder, shooting you a wink. “Y/n has other plans with me today anyways.” 

You frowned confused as Mingyu clarified. “You were going to finalise your house plan so I could start construction, remember?” 

Oh yeah, you had that too. 

“Awesome, then I can go to the city today.” Jeonghan clapped cheerily, taking his apron off. 

“You don’t work today though…..” Jun muttered, looking at the shortage in the lunch boxes he had packed. 

“Don’t worry about food, I got some friends to meet over lunch.” The older man shot him a two-fingered salute before jogging out of the dining hall, earning Seungcheol’s tired sigh. 

“I can never keep up with him-” 

“Cab leaves in five!” Chan shouted, poking his head through the window. 

The members around immediately stuffed the last of their breakfast, grabbing their things hurriedly, rushing out to get the front seat in Chan’s car. Afterall, the ones behind had to squeeze to fit themselves in and the one hour bumpy ride to the city was not fun. From their collective groans though you could tell Jeonghan had called shotgun - the asshole was lucky as usual. 

Seungcheol downed the last of his breakfast with a fond laugh before turning to you. 

“Have a nice day Y/n, I’ll see you later.” 

You tried not to smile back at him too widely as your eyes followed him leaving the premises. When you turned back to your meal, you could feel a set of eyes keenly looking at you. Looking up, you saw Jihoon staring at you with a small smirk, his expression all knowing. Gulping, you excused yourself from there. 

You stared at the blueprint before you, humming skeptically. 

“Are you still not happy with the design?” Mingyu sighed, crossing his arms. 

“I don’t know.” You drawled. “Something about it feels….off.” 

“Something about your own design that you made for your own house feels off?” 

“Gyu.” Joshua chastised, standing up from the couch and walking over to you. “Artists second guess their work all the time, have some patience.” 

“I am patient.” The bigger man pointed. “But she’s unbelievably indecisive.” 

“I know, I’m sorry.” You looked up at Mingyu guiltily. “It’s just, I’m wondering if having a bathroom in my residence is a good idea or if I should just have another small one built by the bath house? I mean think about it - my residence is so far from the training grounds and the dining hall, if I had to walk all this distance everyday, I’m only going to be more late-” 

“I get it.” Mingyu patted your back. “I get your concerns but the sooner we finalize this, the sooner I can get to building it and the sooner you can get out of Seungcheol’s house and into your own space.” 

Ahhh. 

Right. 

A part of you was thankful that Jihoon wasn’t a part of this discussion otherwise he would’ve seen right through your subtle attempts to delay this process. You didn’t want to be an inconvenience on purpose but….. You were just a girl and you wanted to get to know Cheol a little better. It didn’t help that he was barely ever at home, leaving at the crack of dawn for training and only returning very late at night, after he finished attending night school doing that stupid astronomy degree of his. The only time you ever got with him was on Sunday because members did not train on Sundays - everyone was free to do whatever they wanted. And you wanted to do Cheol. 

So far you only had the chance to spend one weekend alone with him and maybe just maybe if you pushed your house construction a little you’d have the chance for another weekend or two. Then perhaps, you’d be able to take this unresolved, unnecessary tension with him somewhere. 

“How about you take a few days and work on your plan again Y/n?” Joshua rolled up the large paper carefully, handing it to you. “Whenever you’re ready let me and Mingyu know - we’ll try and figure out the materials, budget, feasibility and all that.” 

“It’s times like this I miss Jeonghan’s brain.” Mingyu clicked his tongue, disappointed. “Where did he say he was off to again?” 

“When does he ever tell us?” Joshua mumbled. “He should be back by nightfall though. Jun said he needed help with the fertilizer composition and Han told him he would help.” 

“Wow, he’s capable of being useful.” You rolled your eyes, stashing the blueprint into your bag. Mingyu and Joshua laughed, amused.

“Jeonghan is always useful..” 

“We still haven’t managed to figure out a thing about my lawsuit and my hearing is in a few weeks-” 

“Han and Wonwoo will sort it out Y/n, don’t worry.” Joshua rubbed your arm comfortingly. “They’re the best one can ask for.” 

“Yeah except I can’t seem to ask Jeonghan for anything cause he’s a little bitch or ask Wonwoo anything because for that he would need to realise that I exist and I don’t think he does.” 

“Wonwoo hyung is….” Mingyu trailed off. “He’s a little hard to understand. Just give him some time. Once you figure him out, you’ll know why he’s like this.”

Exasperated, you shook your head and walked away. Time was the one thing you never seemed to have. 

Like always, as the sun began setting you glanced out of the window of the library catching sight of the varied hues in the sky. On the camp ground you could see Mingyu riding his big mechanical bull, lighting up the fire torches around for the night. Pulling out the lighter from your bag, you stared at the candles stacked in the middle of the table. 

Sighing you cast the lighter aside and snapped your fingers, watching the flames come to life in your hand, dancing across your palm. Stretching your fingers, and moving your hand around, you watched the orange yellow light just glide across your skin like it was a pretty accessory and not literal fire that should have obliterated your hand by now. 

Fire never did burn you - how could it when a mere thought could make it come alive in your hands. You first discovered this when you were 16 and accidentally dunking your hand in a pot full of boiling water did not leave so much as a scar. Even though you were unscathed you roamed around for a few days with a fully bandaged hand - the world would have thought you were some sort of freak otherwise. Over the years you tried to play with fire in many ways, just to test your limits, just to see how far you could go and each time, much to your own dismay, the limit didn’t exist. Each time proved just how much you didn’t fit in the world, just how much you deserved to be alone because you really were a freak. 

But that was until a few weeks ago. 

Until you discovered it wasn’t the inability to burn that was the true madness - it was your ability to create fire itself. 

From there things spiraled. You learnt you weren’t the anomaly but a part of a rather large group of such circus acts - a world completely hidden from your own. In a cascade of events you were thrown into camp seventeen out of no will of your own and now, this was your life, this was your world. 

Holding your flaming hand over your redrawn sketches you glanced at them. Thanks to the two boys yet again canceling the meeting with you, you found yourself working in the library earlier than usual, exhausted by the time the sun set. As you debated between working a little more or heading back, the door opening with a slow creak made the decision for you - if it was windy outside, it was most likely going to rain and you didn’t want to stay long enough to get drenched. Quickly dousing the flame and blowing out the candles, you grabbed all your things and saw your way out. 

In the darkness, the camp was quiet as usual. You figured most of the members must’ve retired to their residences for the night and when you reached the House of Zeus, surprisingly, so had Seungcheol. 

“Y-you’re home.” You stuttered, watching the shirtless man, doing sit ups in the middle of the living room in the dim golden light of the paraffin lamps. 

Evidently Seungcheol hadn’t expected your presence so soon either because at the sound of your voice, he got up with a jerk, pulling a muscle in his abdomen. 

“Cheol oh my god-” 

“You’re early.” He got up wincing, holding the side of his trunk. “I’m sorry I should have been doing this in my room-” 

“I mean, the whole house is yours-” 

“There’s a heavy rain forecast today, not really much astronomy I can do-” 

“Yeah I came back because of the rain too-” 

“Yeah me too….” Seungcheol trailed off realising how silly he sounded. 

Grabbing his shirt from the floor, he attempted to put it on, groaning miserably at the pain shooting up his abdomen. Watching him struggle, you quickly dropped your things and tried to reach for him to help out, but just as your finger barely grazed over his skin, he stumbled back like he was electrocuted, pushing your hand away. 

“Don’t touch me.” 

“Cheol…. “ You frowned, confused. “I was just trying to help-” 

 “Seungcheol.” He corrected. “And I don’t need your help Y/n. Please just…. stay away from me.” 

You blinked at a complete loss of words at his unwarranted behaviour. Unsure about how you felt, you grabbed your bag from the floor, turned on your heel and walked out silently, the same way you came in. 

As usual, bad luck had followed you on your way out. 

Not only was your life miserable, the weather too decided to be a pain in your ass and it started drizzling the moment you stepped out of Seungcheol’s house. 

Even though the water was cold and you were shivering, you took off in the rain. You needed to get as far away from here as you could. 

You were such a fool. You should have known that Seungcheol wasn’t being nice or giving you your space, on the contrary he was keeping his distance, putting you at an arm’s length. It was evident today - not only was he uninterested, but somehow it seemed like your very presence was disturbing him in some way. 

And there was you who was always desperately wishing for the smallest interaction with him.. What an idiot. 

Hugging yourself, you walked further down the cobbled path. Tomorrow you were going to finalise your house plan with Mingyu and get out of Cheol’s house as soon as possible. But as much as you wanted to avoid him and pull yourself away, a part of you was still aching at the loss of something that you believed had a lot of potential. Why did it have to be him of all people? Why couldn’t it have been someone like Mingyu - he was hot as hell and unlike his leader, he actively showed interest in you all the time. 

As you raised your head, Mingyu’s house loomed before you and your feet, as if they had a brain of their own, took you towards his mini mansion of a residence. That was until you saw Jihoon stepping out of the same place and instinctively took a swift u-turn. 

The last person who could see you right now was Jihoon - that man would read you like an open book and know exactly how fucking embarrased you were. Hoping to god he didn’t spot you, you quickly ran, entering the nearest gate for temporary refuge, till you got out of his sight. 

But in hindsight, perhaps falling in Jihoon’s line of vision was better than the situation you had landed yourself in….. You weren’t really sure who’s house you had trespassed until the low growling expressed just how much his companion disliked it. 

Horang. 

Realising you had quite literally thrown yourself into the den of a wild cat, you froze, praying that it didn’t notice you and you could slip out as easily as you slipped in. But before you could do anything, a hand grabbed you quickly, leading you into the neighbouring cottage, shutting the door behind you. 

“Are you insane?” Soonyoung looked at you confused, shaking the water off his hair. “Why would you enter Horang’s enclosure unless you wanted to be ripped apart.” 

“I didn’t know….” You rubbed your arms, generating heat. “I was just….trying to escape the rain.” 

“You should have knocked on my door then..” He muttered, disappearing for a split second, returning with a towel in his hand. “Horang isn’t used to you yet so please don’t venture near my tiger in my absence - he only listens to me.” 

You tried not to hyperfixate on the inappropriate labeling of Horang in the off chance that an annoyed Soonyoung threw you back out. Instead, you accepted his towel, patting yourself dry, still shivering a little. With his hands on your shoulder, Soonyoung led you to the fireplace, guiding you to sit on the couch across. As you did, you glanced around his residence.

This was the first time you were in Soonyoung’s place and in all honesty, it looked much like that designated room in college dorms where all the parties happened - he had party lights everywhere, streamers hanging from the ceiling and techno music softly playing over the speakers. 

When you turned back to him, Soonyoung held out a christmas mug, with a grin. “Mulled wine.”

“I can’t.” You shook your head although in the headspace you were in, you could really use some alcohol. “I won’t be able to wake up on time tomorrow.” 

“It’s not like you’ll be on time even if you were sober.” He chuckled, immediately regretting his words as you narrowed your eyes at him. “You’re in the House of Dionysus. This is literally the only hot drink I have to offer.” 

Sighing you took it from him, desperate to have something warm coursing through your body after all that coldness you experienced earlier. 

“So, why are you out and about in the rain?” Soonyoung sank into the couch beside you, sipping a drink of his own. 

“I….just needed to be away from that house for a while.” You mumbled, taking a sip. 

“Why? Has Seungcheol gotten overbearing already?” 

“It’s not him….” 

“It’s always him.” Soonyoung sighed. “But it’s not his fault. He just has a lot of pressure on him to be perfect as a leader, you know? That sort of thing gets to you.” 

“I know. It’s just….. “ You sighed, not knowing how to explain things to him. “Forget it, I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“No, tell me.” He whined making you turn to him, finally noticing he was fully dressed from head to toe like he was about to march right into a party. 

“Are you going somewhere?” 

“Work?” Soonyoung stated like it was obvious. “Don’t tell me you forgot what I do.” 

You looked at him sheepishly. “I’ve been here for just a week Kwon and there’s thirteen of you so I’m sorry if it’s taking me some time.” 

“Forgiven.” He nodded amused. “I own the Midnight club in the city centre.” 

“Right, that big Demigod rave place.” 

“No, the Midnight club is for humans. There’s another club hidden behind it, After Hours - That’s for Demigods exclusively.” 

You let out an oh of realization as Soonyoung continued. 

“Business usually runs fine on its own but I try to drop by from time to time to just remind everyone who the boss is.” 

“I heard there’s a life size portrait of you behind the DJ booth to do the same.” 

“Obituaries are portraits too.” He rolled his eyes. “I need to let them know I am alive, kicking and always in charge.” 

You shook your head laughing. “Well then aren’t you getting late? You should probably leave by now-” 

“I don’t think I’m going.” He mumbled, downing his drink in one shot, red slowly creeping on his face. “Not in the mood.” 

Glancing at him silently, you just blinked at him. You knew guys like Soonyoung could not keep a thing in them - he would share whatever was bothering him without you even asking in three, two, on-

“The intel is that my ex is going to be there tonight.” 

“Ahh.” You crossed your feet on his couch, settling in. “And you don’t want to see her?” 

“I don’t want to see her with other men.” He gripped his mug tight. “With the news out that she’s single, guys will be falling all over her and I know she’s going to play along just to make me jealous.” 

“Well two can play that game right? You can do the same?” 

“What makes you think there are girls fawning all over me?” 

“Do you just want to hear me say you’re hot and that you could pull if you wanted to?” You cocked your head at him. “Cause I can. I have a little wine in me so I can use it as an excuse.” 

Soonyoung laughed, throwing his head back. “No I know I’m hot, but do you know who she is?” 

You shook your head, drinking up more. 

“Aphrodite’s daughter, the femme fatales of the demigod world - boys want her and girls don’t want to mess with her. No one is going to so much as look at her ex, forget trying to hit on me.” 

“Huh.” You pondered, the cogwheels in your brain turning. “Well technically, no one in the human world knows her so I’m sure one of them will-” 

“There’s no point of that. She knows I won’t go for a human.” 

“Why is that?” 

Soonyoung stared back at you a little hard before a small smirk formed on his face. “Y/n, are you a virgin?” 

You blinked, breaking out into a laugh. “I sure am drunk cause I seem to have missed why this intrusive question is relevant now?” 

Taking your empty mug from you, Soonyoung filled it up again from the pot. “What I mean is, demigods don’t sleep with humans sweetie.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because we’re half gods, do you think humans can really satisfy us?” Soonyoung raised his eyebrows. “Mortals can’t keep up with our sex drive.” 

As you looked confused, the smirk returned back to Soonyoung’ face. “Which is why I asked. If you haven’t realised that a mortal man can’t pleasure you, then either you’ve never had sex……. or you’ve never had an orgasm.” 

“I don’t have to answer that.” 

“Come on, humor me.” 

“Maybe I’m starting to get why your girlfriend dumped your annoying ass.” 

Soonyoung pouted, feigning hurt as you rolled your eyes. 

“So now if you want to get her back, you won’t be hit on by another demigod and you can’t be hit on by a human which means your only chance of making her jealous is with……” You looked at him intently. “Kwon Soonyoung, why are your eyes glimmering with mischief?” 

“You.” He took the cup from your hands and set it on the table, much to your dismay. “You’re the only one who she doesn’t know about and the only one who doesn’t know her…..” 

“So?” 

“Oh you’d be the perfect bait.” Soonyoung clapped his hands. “One look at you next to me and she’s going to be quaking in her boots.” 

“If you think I’m about to stroll into a nightclub and pretend to hit on you to make your ex girlfriend jealous you’re sorely mistaken.” 

“Why?” He whined. “Why can’t you do me a small favour. I saved you from Horong-” 

“Number one. If you didn’t pull me into your house, I would have ran out of the gate and been safe anyways-” 

“Sure.” 

“Number two, I don’t know what the hell is in this wine. Normally it takes a whole bottle to knock me down but two glasses in and I’m already buzzed-” 

“It’s a special blend.” 

“And number three, unfortunately for you, women are really observative creatures. One look at me next to you and she’s going to know there’s absolutely nothing going on between us.” 

Soonyoung opened and closed his mouth like he was thinking about what to say. “It won’t work out Kwon.” 

“This always happens.” He sighed. “She breaks it off with me for any small thing, goes on to have her fun, pushes me till I have to beg for her forgiveness and then she accepts it whenever she feels like. Everything is always whenever she feels like it. We haven’t even had sex in like two years-” 

“Okay.” You cut him off before he went into details you didn’t need to know. “If you’re so aware of what she’s doing, why do you always give in to her? Do you really like her or… is she just a habit?” 

“I don’t know.” Soonyoung stared at the floor, lost in thought. “I just know that we’ve been together since we were 18. And I can’t throw that away.” 

“I never knew you were such a romantic Kwon.” 

He laughed, sinking further into the couch. 

“You really want her back huh?” 

“I do.” 

“And this time do you want her to make the effort?” 

“A man can hope.” 

“Well then.” You turned to him. “Point number three was relevant only if she saw me…do you have your phone?” 

Soonyoung nodded, patting his many pockets and finally finding it, holding it out. 

“You're going to call and tell her you're hitting on me?”

“No…. If you give her a missed call will she call back?”

“Not immediately.” He sighed. “She'll take her time to pretend like she didn't see and then get back to me-” 

“Do it.” He continued to look at you confused. “Call her and cut the call.” 

He followed through but the frown didn't leave him the whole time. “Y/n what exactly are you doing?” 

“This may be a bit diabolical but it should do the trick.” You took a deep breath glancing at Soonyoung. “When she calls you back, she's going to hear us having sex.”

“W-what?” 

“Before you get any ideas, I'm not going to have sex with you Soonyoung, we're just going to make her think that we are.”

“How exactly will we do that?”

“We'll fake it.” You shrugged. “Make a couple of wet skin smacking sounds-” 

“and you could moan my name, say how good I'm making you feel.” 

“Didn’t you get onboard this real fast.” You narrowed your eyes at him. “I'm going to make it really clear once again that this is for her not-” 

Ring! 

At the sound of the ringtone both of you glanced at his phone and in a split second, Soonyoung picked up the call, holding it against his ear. Thankful that you got the opportunity to execute your idea so soon and determined to put up the show you promised, you immediately got to it, clearing your throat.

“Fuck yes Soonyoung, that feels so good-” 

With widened eyes and a swift movement, Soonyoung shut your mouth with his hand, shaking his head. 

“Yeah, yeah I remember…..Oh no that was just…. our cow?…..Yes Daisy, she's just having a rough night….. Anyways thanks for the reminder Hyungwon.”

You stared at him mortified, all the wine threatening to exit your system. 

“Yeah sure, see you tomorrow bro.”

Soonyoung brought down both the phone and his hand at the same time. 

“Oh god I’m so sorry, I thought it was-” 

“That’s your idea of having sex??” He looked at you shocked. “Thank god it wasn’t Mina because there was no way in hell she would have believed that?” 

“Hey, I had no preparation time, you try faking it off the bat.” You mumbled. “Besides, it wasn’t so bad.” 

“Wasn’t so bad?” Soonyoung looked scandalised. “Do you even know what you sounded like? Fuck yes Soonyoung, that feels good-” 

You leaned back inching away from him. 

“What the…..what was that?” 

“That's what you said.” 

“I know but” You frowned unsure if you heard right or if you were starting to get too drunk. “You sounded exactly like me. Like your voice, it….it was mine.” 

“Oh.” Soonyoung scratched the back of his head. “Yeah well um being the son of the God of Theater comes with its own skill set. Imitation helps confuse opponents during war - it has actually saved us in quests many times.”

“You can imitate anyone?”

Soonyoung nodded.

“Any sound they make?”

He nodded again as you let out a low whistle. 

“Well that's brilliant, then you don't even need me. You can make your girlfriend jealous by simply impersonating me.” 

“The keyword is imitate. I can only repeat sounds I hear, I can't just make them up.” He shifted in his seat. “So if I should impersonate you, I need to hear what you actually sound like during sex.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Don't push your luck Kwon.”

“I'm kidding.” He laughed leaning back into the couch, his eyes fluttering shut. “But you really have to work on the faking.” 

“Yeah I've been told.” You muttered as Soonyoung sat up again.

“Aha, so you have never had an orgasm!” 

“Because of a man, no I've not.” You confessed. “But bold of you to assume that I'm not perfectly capable of my own.”

Soonyoung looked confused. 

“Ever heard of masturbation, genius?” 

Soonyoung's mouth formed an O of realisation. “Well I've been in a relationship for almost 10 years so I've never had to take care of myself.”

“Don't rub it on my face Kwon.” You scoffed but regretted immediately knowing some dirty joke was going to come out of the man. So shutting his mouth with your hand, you held a finger to your lips. “Not a word. You're going to shut up till your girlfriend calls back.”

“That could be a very very long time.” He mumbled against your hand making you press it harder against his mouth with a shush. 

5 minutes later you were on your fourth mug of wine and Mina still hadn't called. 

10 minutes later, you were nearly falling asleep and Soonyoung was already snoring away beside you. 

15 minutes later the sound of the rain began to get softer outside. 

And 20 minutes later was when you finally lost your patience, shaking Soonyoung awake. 

“It’s getting late, I should go….” 

Soonyoung looked up at you sleepily as you got off the couch, standing up. 

“You should.….. I’m sorry, I shouldn't have roped you into this” He glanced at the blank screen on his phone. “Clearly Mina is either too busy having fun on her own or she doesn’t care.” 

You smiled at him sadly, as he pulled his feet up, snuggling into the couch. 

“I'm so sorry.” You whispered. “Goodnight Kwon.” 

“Goodnight sweetie.”

Setting the mug down, you grabbed your bag and opened his front door, relieved that the rain seemed to have stopped. But something was also stopping you from stepping out. 

Giving it a thought and sighing, you turned around, looking at the half asleep man again. 

“You said you could imitate me right?” 

Soonyoung's eyes slowly fluttered open.  

“So if you listen to how I actually sound, if and when she calls back, you can execute the plan on your own right?”

Soonyoung looked at you in a mix of confusion, drunkenness and sleepiness.

“Are you saying that…”

“No, I'm not going to sleep with you Kwon Soonyoung.”

“But you're horrible at faking.” 

“Yet again I'm going to remind you about masturbation.” 

You sighed, looking at his eternally lost expression. Grabbing his hand, you pulled him off the couch, leading him to his room. 

Soonyoung's room was just how you expected it to be - a mess. There were things scattered everywhere, all kinds of band posters up on the wall, snack wrappers all over the floor. 

He quickly kicked the trash under his bed and looked at you pleadingly. “You cannot tell Mingyu how messy my room is. And you most definitely cannot tell Seungcheol I'm snacking - he does not understand post break up slump.”

You gritted your teeth annoyed to be reminded of him again. Of course he didn't understand anything remotely related to feelings.

“Don't worry, no one's gonna know anything because you too are going to keep your mouth shut about whatever happens tonight.” 

“I still don't know what's happening tonight.” He mumbled as you walked around his room, glancing at everything. 

“I'm going to get myself off and you're going to listen and take notes.” Soonyoung's eyes finally widened in realisation.“Do you have a towel?” 

He nodded, quickly going through the stack of clothes piled on the chair across his bed and pulled out a long white one. Taking it from him you laid it down on his bed, the two of you staring at it mindlessly. 

“Could you also close the curtains?” You fidgeted with your fingers, putting your bag down at the foot of his bed as Soonyoung nodded. “Also dim the lights please.”

Following through your requests he tried not to look at you as you stripped out of your jacket and threw it on the bed. But when you unclasped your bra and pulled it out from under your shirt, Soonyoung was quite literally gawking. 

“I’m hot.” You mumbled as he walked back, standing much closer to you than he was before. 

“Yeah you are…. I mean,” He cleared his throat when you raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah it's a little hot in here.” 

Both of you tried to ignore the sound of cold raining softly falling against the window. 

“On second thoughts,” You took a step back. “I don’t know if I can do this.” 

“W-why not?” 

“If you haven’t noticed I am buzzed as hell and I’m not sure I can do…. a great job on myself right now.” 

Lips slowly curling into a smile, Soonyoung cocked his head. “I can help.” 

“Yes and I can finally use all that combat training and kick your ass. Soonyoung I am not sleeping with-” 

“What? No, no I mean….. just wait here.” 

Your eyes followed him as he jogged out of his room, leaving you alone with your thoughts. You must be crazy to suggest this. Sure there was alcohol in your system and sure you were trying to get your mind off Seungcheol, avoiding going back to his house but this…..

“Here you go.” 

Soonyoung strolled back in with what you could only describe as a wooden looking, very phallic instrument. 

“That’s…” 

He nodded. “A dildo.” 

“I have so many questions.” 

“Let me clarify. Yes I have used a dildo before-” 

“Oh god.” 

“- Although my girlfriend isn’t the biggest fan of it-” 

“This wasn’t my question.” 

“-I do occasionally enjoy it myself.” 

“I don’t think I should be a part of this conversation.” 

“But this dildo in particular, has never been used by either of us before.” 

“That!” You pointed out. “That’s all I needed to know.” 

Soonyoung held it out to you, looking at you expectantly. You gulped. 

“You know, I don’t think I can do this. I’m actually more of a vibrator girl myself.” 

“Now who’s indulging in the TMI?” 

You rolled your eyes. “My point is, I don’t need this, I can just do it myself-” 

“I haven’t even gotten to the story behind this.” He giggled. “This is my father’s.” 

“Aaaand I’m done here.” 

“No what I mean is-” He shuffled closer to you like he was revealing a big secret. “My father may be the god of wine and ecstasy and madness and theatre and so many things but he is also…. the creator of the dildo.” You stared at him vacantly. What?? “I don’t think you wanna know the story behind it, it’s disturbing as fuck-” 

“More disturbing than everything so far?” 

“-but basically, a few years back, my father was temporarily exiled from Olympus and while he was in the human world, he had, what he calls, a magnificent business idea….sex toys. Dildo’s in particular. That’s when he made this.” He held it up and you wished he did it a little less proudly. “This isn’t an ordinary dildo Y/n, no. This baby can take on the shape, size, dimensions and every single tiny detail” He gave a dramatic pause. “Of the person you are imagining while going at it.”

“W-what?” You blinked at him stumped. “You mean to say it…. morphs into a replica of someone’s actual dick?” 

Soonyoung nodded fast. “This piece is a prototype that Dionysus made but when he brought the idea to Zeus it was shut down immediately because Gods aren’t supposed to interfere with human business and all that hoo ha, so he left it with me before he returned home.” With a small smile dancing on his lips, he held it out to you. “So if you want, it's all yours.” 

You stared at it. 

A magic dildo that could take the shape of any dick you wanted? 

You would have to be insane to say no to that. 

Pretending to hesitate just so you didn’t come across completely deranged, you slowly took the toy off Soonyoung’s hand, feeling the weight of it in your own. As you tried to picture how exactly this night might go, Soonyoung took a few steps back, grabbed a fistful of the material behind his neck and pulled his shirt over his head. 

“What?” He smirked as your eyes ran down his chiseled body, mouth moving but no words leaving it. “Didn’t you say it was hot?” 

As Soonyoung moved all the clothes stacked on the chair to the floor and sat down, you watched as the minor oversights in your plan came into play. If he had to take notes,  then Kwon Soonyoung was going to watch you. 

Tongue in the cheek, you glanced around the room, thanking all the gods in Olympus when you spotted a lacy blindfold hanging on the headboard. Without questioning its existence in his room, you quickly grabbed it and threw it at him.

“The deal was for audio Kwon, no visuals.” 

In complete contrast to his hot as fuck appearance he pouted like a child as you shook your head and looked at the blindfold pointedly. Sighing, he reached for it and put it over his eyes, tying it behind his hand. Not trusting him entirely, you walked up to him, slotting yourself between his legs and pulled the knot. Soonyoung’s hands gripped your thighs in both surprise and pain. 

“Sorry.” He mumbled, fingers softly grazing your legs as he pulled his hands away. “I promise, I can’t see a thing.” 

You nodded, then realised he said he couldn’t see and cleared your throat. “Yeah, okay.” 

“Okay.” He breathed, leaning back, waiting expectantly. 

Taking a few seconds, you let out a deep determined breath, preparing yourself for what was coming. As you unbuttoned your jeans, shimmying both your shorts and underwear down your legs, your eyes finally took a good look at the man of the hour, Kwon Soonyoung. Yeah he was one of the members who often trained shirtless which meant you had seen this display many times before but this was perhaps the first time you were actually paying attention to it. Before this, you hadn’t quite realised just how beautifully tanned and toned he was or how much that undercut suited him or how hot he looked biting his lower lip. 

Kicking your garments away, you pried your eyes, reminding yourself that this man was taken. Or at least would be taken again pretty soon. You shouldn’t do this. You shouldn’t be looking at him, you shouldn’t be thinking about him and he sure as fuck cannot be the inspiration for your new magic sex toy. 

That unfortunately meant that there was only one other person in your mind who could be the muse - Choi Seungcheol. Despite his dismissal earlier and despite being someone who held herself as a very high level of self respect, it was evident that your body shamelessly still craved him - he was the only one running in your mind. Trying to block him out, you arranged the pillows on Soonyoung’s bed against the headboard, adjusted the towel and slowly climbed on. In all the time that you took leaning against it, spreading your legs and settling in, Soonyoung remained incredibly quiet. Patient. 

Although he couldn’t see you, watching him felt weird, given the man and the dick on your mind were not him. Sighing, you glanced at the object you were gripping - it had already taken shape of what you desired and the sight of it made you gulp. 

Lord was Choi Seungcheol thick.

Given his beefy exterior and broad build you had always assumed he was packed between his legs but this was nowhere near what you were imagining, not even close. Earlier, you were worried how you would get yourself off when you weren’t even wet enough but now you were practically dripping with the thought of that inside you. Still, you didn’t think it could fit, not without any prep. 

Slipping two fingers in your mouth you wet them messily before guiding them to your folds, smearing the spit with your very evident arousal. When you let out a soft sigh, Soonyoung shifted in his seat like he was alert and when your fingers teased your hole, slowly slipping in, an unintentional moan left you too, making him practically grip the armrests of his couch tight. 

“I'm going to need more than that Y/n.” He whispered. “What are you doing right now?” 

“I’m prepping myself, it’s…” You gulped. “It’s too big.” 

“Do you need lube?” He frowned. “Although I don’t know where it is….or if I even have any-” 

“That’s okay.” You shook your head. “I think I’m wet enough. Almost.” 

“Do you need any help?” 

You glanced at his tense body. “How can you help?” 

“Are you the kind that listens to instructions?”

“Occasionally.” 

“Then push your fingers further.” He exhaled. “Curl them up.” 

Although that was what was on your mind anyways, you obeyed. As your fingers brushed that spot, a soft fuck escaped your lips. 

“Feel good?” 

“Yeah.” You nodded. “Yeah that’s good.”

“Then move.” He cocked his head. “Slowly at first, then pick up speed.” 

Even before he finished his sentence you had followed through, fingers pumping faster, head falling back as the grip around the dildo in your hand tightened. 

“Add another finger.” 

“This feels good enough.” 

“This will feel better.” He urged. “Stretch yourself a little and add another finger.” 

Scissoring yourself open, you held back the moan that was threatening to tumble out, terrified Soonyoung would hear you. Belatedly you realised - Soonyoung was supposed to hear you. 

“Fuck that does feel better.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Are you ready for more?” 

“.......I think so.” 

“Then wet the dildo.” He shifted. “Put it in your mouth.” 

Hesitating just a bit you brought it up to your eye level, still taken aback by its sheer girth. In the dim light of the lamp on the nightstand you can see a stark vein running along his length, the sight of it nearly making your mouth water. Oh you wanted him to fill your mouth, you wanted him to fill you just about anywhere so bad but it was clear from earlier that Seungcheol didn’t want the same. So you were just going to take this chance and fuck him out of your brain. After tonight you were not going to think of Choi Seungcheol anymore. 

Determined, you wrapped your mouth around the tip, humming against the weight on your tongue before pulling it out with a wet pop. As Soonyoung’s breath hitched, you sunk your mouth down on it again, taking it further in, not far enough to let it hit the back of your throat, but enough to just slightly choke around it, drool running down the corner of your mouth. 

“Y/n,” Soonyoung’s voice sounded almost choked too. “Please….” 

You’ve never had a man beg for you like this before and it wasn’t enough to touch him but to touch yourself? Something in you swelled in pride, but something was also terrified about what things would be like once this was over - could you and Soonyoung really be the same again? And if things were going to change, how would they be? 

“Sweetie, you have to do something….” 

Knowing you needed something in you more than he did, you drove the thoughts away before aligning the tip at your dripping hole and slowly pushing Seungcheol’s girth in. 

“Holy shit..” You sighed as you thrusted his length further, the stretch serving a sting that slowly ebbed from pain to pleasure. 

“Is it all the way in?” Soonyoung groaned as you shook your head gulping.

“It’s not…” You panted, glancing down to see barely any length disappearing in you yet you were so full. “I can’t.”

“You can.” He licked his drying lips. “You can Y/n, come on - fuck yourself like you want to be fucked.” 

Yes you knew Soonyoung had a horrible habit of pointless flirting but you did not think his mouth was capable of spewing such filth too. 

“Tell me how you like it.” 

“Deep.” You whimpered, answering him as you shoved it in more, feeling it hit all the right places. “I like it deep.” 

“And fast?” 

“And fast.” 

“Then move.” 

And you did, pulling it out, pistoning it into you, sharp intakes of breath and curse words leaving you as you did. You felt your eyes roll back, threatening to shut but when they landed on Soonyoung they widened - he had slid down his chair, manspread now a lot wider and stark against his pants was the imprint of his uncomfortably trapped boner.

“Soonyoung….” You accidentally moaned, simply trying to get his attention. “Are you… hard?” 

“Unbearably.” He confessed immediately. “I’m s-sorry, it’s been a while-” 

“Do you want to touch yourself?”

You don’t know why exactly you asked him that but you wanted him to feel good too. Just as good as faux Seungcheol was making you feel. 

“I think I can cum without that.” He half laughed, half groaned. “But god yes I want to.”

“Do it.” You directed him, halting your own movements, watching him. “Touch yourself.” 

Without wasting a second, Soonyoung instantly unbuttoned his pants and stuck his hand down, wrapping it around his erection. As he shifted uncomfortably, you could tell he would’ve felt a lot better if he could completely free himself.

“Careful. Otherwise I’ll see you…I mean it…” 

“Do you mind?” He raised his eyebrows at you. “Would it bother you if I….” 

If you were being honest, since the moment you laid eyes on the outline of his dick you were curious…

“No.” You shook your head. “I don’t.” 

“Then I don’t give a flying fuck.” 

He raised his hips a little, just enough to pull down his pants as his erection sprung free, resting against his abs, pink and flushed. 

Oh he was long. 

Seungcheol might be thick but Soonyoung was long, like he could reach places no one else could. As he spat in his hand and smeared the pre cum along his length pumping it in his fist, you gulped, forgetting that you too were in the middle of doing the same thing, just staring. 

“Y/n,” He moaned your name, throwing his head back, setting off a strange fire in your groin. “Match my pace.” 

You nodded, thankful to not have to put your own brain to this which was threatening to shut off any moment now. Watching him half lidded, you let him set the pace for your movements, matching him almost perfectly. 

“Fuck this feels so good.” Soonyoung whimpered. 

“It does.” You agreed, with struggling breaths. “Soonyoung please…. Faster.” 

“Faster?” He smirked, but listened. “You really are one of us huh.” 

“I need more.” You whined, feeling yourself at an edge you were just not able to cross. “Soonyoung….” 

“I wish I could help, baby.” He sighed, “I really do wish…” 

“What would you have done?” 

“I’d have my mouth everywhere…marked your neck…. marked those pretty breasts….fuck Y/n, you’d have to beg me to stop.” 

“Don’t.” You moaned, pushing your shirt up with your free hand, grabbing a tit, squeezing it painfully hard. “Tell me more…” 

“I’d hold the toy for you, watch you fuck yourself on it….” He stroked himself faster, almost erratically. “Maybe give it to you from the back so I can see how your ass-” 

Groaning annoyed at the sound of music coming loudly from his pocket, your movements faltered, eyes widening. It was different from the ringtone earlier which probably meant-

“Is that Mina?” 

“Yeah.” 

“P-pick it up Soonyoung.” 

“Ignore it.” 

“Soon-” 

“Ignore it.” He emphasized. “Go on Y/n, I don’t know how long the effects of that toy are going to last.” 

And that’s what made you stop wondering why Soonyoung wouldn’t pick up the call when this was in fact the most ideal situation the two of you were meant to be caught in. You didn’t want to lose what you were pumping inside you, you didn’t want to lose the feeling of Seungcheol stretching you out. As you resumed the pace, Soonyoung’s voice left him like a croak. 

“Do you like the thought of this? Someone listening to you get off?” 

You didn’t want to answer that. Wasn’t the kind of things you liked evident by the fact that you were fucking yourself to one man while watching and listening to another? 

“Because I love that you’re watching.” He whispered. “It’s driving me insane.” 

“I wanna see you cum.” You pulled the toy out of you, tossing it onto the towel before your fingers found your clit rubbing circles hard.

“Fuck I'm close.” He pumped himself faster, losing rhythm, broken moans and whimpers leaving him. “So close.”

Words left your mouth too as incoherent babbles as you felt your back arch and insides tighten pleasurably. Eyes crossing and shut tight, you finally came, chest heaving, trying to catch a breath. As you slowly came around and ran your fingers down your folds realising just how much you came, Soonyoung continued to push himself over the edge, like he just needed a little more nudge to finally find his release. Gulping you swung your legs off the bed and silently walked up to him, standing between his manspread, leaning till your lips were right by his ear. 

“Cum for me Soonyoung.” 

Almost immediately, with a guttural moan, his head fell back, baring his neck as spurts of cum shot onto his hand and torso, painting them white. Once the sheer amount left him he finally slumped back into his chair, breathing again, like he had been holding it in for too long. The sight of his cum all over his abs against the sheen of sweat on it made you clench unwillingly and you ran two fingers over it, collecting it. You knew his lips parted to catch his breath but you took the chance to slip your digits into his mouth, letting him taste himself. Surprised but not unpleasantly, Soonyoung ran his tongue along them, licking it clean, pulling away with a pop.

“You taste as good as you sound.” 

It's only then that you realise your own arousal was coating your fingers too. 

Scoffing awkwardly, you shuffled back, picking up your shorts and panties from the floor, putting them on slowly.  

“I'm not dressed yet!” You shrieked, futilely trying to cover yourself as Soonyoung attempted to remove his blindfold. Holding his hand up, he allowed you to get dressed in the silence that followed. Silence that was too much to bear, silence that if he hadn’t broken, you would have. 

“I wasn't sure if I heard right but I thought…” He let out a deep breath as he tucked his flaccid self back in his pants. “I thought you took someone's name as you came.” 

You froze. 

You hadn't realised but now that you thought about it…. maybe, just maybe, you had taken Seungcheol’s name as your orgasm hit you. Yes you were incredibly turned on by Soonyoung and the sight of him and the sounds that left him but there was only one thing running at the back of your mind - cheol, cheol, cheol. 

“I'm not sure what you heard.” You brushed away his concerns, trying to sound casual. “I don't even know what I was saying, I was in some other zone entirely.” 

Soonyoung hummed in response and didn't push you for any further details. Grateful, you wiped your hands on the towel laid out before grabbing it, the bedsheet as well as the dildo and stuffed them all in your bag, throwing it over your shoulder - this was your mess to deal with.

“You done?” 

“Yeah just….put fresh sheets please.” 

“Oh don't worry about all that.” He got up, attempting to take his blindfold yet again. “I got it. If you want you could-” 

“Goodbye Soonyoung.” You stepped back, knowing he was offering for you to stay the night. Instead you headed for the door, hoping to leave before your eyes met his again. “I hope I was of help.” 

And as you left, you heard him sigh, revealing something he probably didn't mean for you to hear. 

“I don't think so Y/n.”

—

When you left Soonyoung’s house the rain had stopped but as you stood in the dining hall before the laundry machines the storm had returned yet again, much heavier this time. You glanced outside the windows at the obscurity sighing. It was like things just hated being in your favour. 

When the ding of the washer went off, you shifted the sheets into the dryer and decided to leave it there for the night considering you couldn't carry them back in the rain - you’d deal with them in the morning anyways, you weren’t ready to see Soonyoung just yet.

When you grabbed your bag from the floor, the weight had not reduced much - the dildo was still in it except it was back in its original popsicle-like shape, any trace of its resemblance to Seungcheol lost. You'd simply washed it and put it back in the bag, unsure what else to do with it. A part of you was annoyed that it had taken after Seungcheol of all people but the other was terrified that if you were to ever use it again, it would probably still model after him yet again. 

Disappointed with yourself you took a deep breath and shook your head. No. No more Choi Seungcheol. This ends here. 

Glancing at the machines one last time, you held onto your bag and ran out into the rain, hoping that Seungcheol had retired to his room by the time you reached. Instead, just as you approached the House of Zeus, you heard his voice. 

“Y/n!” 

He was drenched from head to toe, his blonde hair sticking to his face much like his shirt plastered against his pecs, like he had been soaked in the rain for hours. Letting out a struggled breath, you walked straight into his house, ignoring him. Seungcheol jogged over as fast as he could, putting himself in between you and the doors. 

“Y/n please listen to me-” 

“I don’t want to.” You attempted to go around him, only to be blocked by him again. 

“I just want to explain what happened earlier-” 

“I don’t care enough for an explanation.”

“I do!” 

You rolled your eyes as you pushed him away, a lot less gently than you intended to and Seungcheol immediately caught your hand, pulling you towards him.

“Seungcheol-” 

“You…. you can touch me.” He looked at his fingers wrapped around your wrist in awe, then at your palm flat against his chest.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t want me to-” 

“You shouldn’t be able to.” He muttered like he was amazed, unable to tear his eyes away. “How can you….” 

“Seungcheol, you're not making any sense.” 

He let out a deep breath. “Do you remember when you first came to camp we told you that every demigod has a certain set of offensive and defensive powers depending on their parentage?” 

You nodded, frowning.

“As the son of Zeus, my defensive power is….an electric field.” Oh. “At times like war, or in adrenaline driven situations, I become highly charged, rendering anyone who so much as comes two feet near me electrocuted. It's supposed to be a way to weaken enemies.” He sighed, “That’s why I was afraid of you touching me. I didn’t want you to get hurt.” 

“But…..Seungcheol I’m not an enemy and this isn’t a war-” 

“I get nervous around you.” He avoided your eye. “I don’t know, I just….. I can feel my skin prickling around you but……” He glanced at where your hands met his again. “You don’t feel anything?” 

“No, no I don’t but why do I make you nervous?” 

Seungcheol smiled softly. “Do you really not know?” 

You suppressed the grin forming on your own face. Fucking finally. 

“No.” You shook your head feigning innocence. “Tell me.” 

“Can I show you?” 

Maybe you nodded a bit too eagerly, because Seungcheol chuckled, pushing himself up against the door, pulling you along with him. As your body pressed against his, his hands found your waist, gaze darkening. He leaned in, lips hovering over yours, whispering your name softly, like he loved the sound of it. As your breaths mingled, lightning went off behind you, the silver light illuminating his gorgeous face and all its sharp angles. Just as you moved closer, eyes fluttering shut, Seungcheol cleared his throat. 

“Y/n I’m sorry, I forgot that it’s late and we have training at 4 tomorrow.” He muttered, drawing his hands away. “You should sleep. I can’t excuse your lateness everyday.” 

And yet again Choi Seungcheol left you completely baffled as he opened the door behind him and walked in, away from you. 

Next Chapter

a/n - please send me your thoughts - this kind of writing is waaaay out of my comfort zone, I need to know I'm not completely messing shit up and if I missed you in the taglist, please lmk!

[quitealotofsodapop]

Diet peach soup would probably have the celestials and Marshalls get involved a lot sooner. Overpowered babies are not a good idea to leave unsupervised. As for Macaque, the lady bone demon is most likely going to just shove him onto the thrall, as his problem. Either to be raised as her soldier, or as a potential backup vessel.

Prev.

Yeeeaah the Stalwarts have to get involved sooner than later since their king is now in his terrible twos (again). They present themselves to Pigsy and Tang as village elders who want to help them in raising the boys, and introducing them to their culture. Pigsy was eh on the idea, but Tang was uber excited! Monkey demon culture lessons!

Peaches and MK honestly thought that the Stalwarts were their grandparents for a long time, especially since they didn't know Papa Tang's side of family and assumed he was a just patchy-furred monkey. XD

Nezha, checking in on Wukong: "Why do I sense two baby stone monkeys- WHAT THE SCALLOP!?"

Peaches still gets his school bestie in the form of "Nez", albeit from an earlier age. Nezha can risk a mini-god running around without a voice of reason. Moksa tags in on his younger bro's behalf + as a kindness to Guanyin, as a "cool older kid" watching out for the little monkeys. The -Zha brothers want to keep Sun Wukong's condition as much as a secret as possible from the rest of the Celestial Realm.

Erlang takes one third-eye-look at the situation and goes "Ah crap, I'm gonna have to be their mentor." Cue an Athena and Telemachus dynamic developing between Erlang and the boys once they lift the Staff. But for now, he's Babysitter Jian - the only kid Pigsy and Tang have ever seen feed, wash, and entertain the little monkeys without so much as a grumble. (Jian, shrugs: "I have little cousins.")

Even the Peach Maidens who attended the Orchard with Wukong long ago ensure that he and his little brother are well-watched - glamouring themselves as a gaggle of old ladies in their favourite park. Always ready to pinch cheeks, give fresh fruit treats, and tell the boys how big they're getting!

The Thrall is currently reforming his body after Wukong slapped him across the country for stealing the Stone Egg (aka unhatched MK) + forcing him to drink some nasty potion (Meng Po's soup), so he's not much help in raising de-aged macaques rn.

Macaque accidentally dodges LBD by being a slippery little guy! Falls and crawls through so many shadows that its hard to keep track of him from the Underworld. Lives rough on the street for some time before ending up in the hands of someone who would truly care about him.

Sandy: "Aww. You're an odd little kitten aren't ya?" De-Aged!Macaque: (*spitting and hissing at the giant with all his might, violently protecting the cat food he found. Is barely the size of a football*) Sandy, gently picks up cub: "Hey hey... I used to be an angry little guy too. I learned that when a lot of people are upset, they're really just scared about something that hard to explain." De-Aged!Macaque: (*angry grumbles as he's picked up! Presses ears against fish man's chest to drown out the sound of the city*) Sandy: "Are your ears at you, little buddy? I can see why. One, two three... six ears! Thats a lot of earmuffs." De-Aged!Macaque: (*grumbling gets quieter. Absent-mindedly sucks on his fingers.*) Sandy, conflicted: "I... I really should just bring you to a police station or something. But something tells me that you'll need someone in your corner who understands how messy life can be. If I can manage it, would you be ok staying here with me?" De-Aged!Macaque: (*uninterested squeak*) Sandy, smile forming: "I'll take that as an Okey-dokey. Now... how about a name? Your white fur is super shiny in the moonlight... how about Moon?" "Moon": (*tares up at his new guardian with big violet eyes, one is milky and possibly blind. Makes a curious chirrup at the name.*) Sandy, heart-warming smile: "I think thats a winner."

Little Moon is a curious little guy. Not only because of his ears (the fish man jokes that it's his son's axolotl-like gills), but from an early age Moon has had control over shadows.

It began as simple fascination with stage magic. Moon watched stage magicians preform their tricks of misdirection and illusion, and wanted to see if he could replicate it.

Sandy: (*makes a bunny shape in the shadow of a lamp*) Moon: (*excited cheep!*) Moon: (*manipulates shadows to make many bunnies!*) Sandy, surprised: "Oh!"

Sandy was worried that this power wasn't something that could be trained easily, and an incident where Mo disappeared into one of Moon's shadows for an afternoon (reappeared unharmed once the treat bag was shaken) prompted the fish man to try and find an outlet for his kid.

Thats how he met The Nine Tailed Vixen. The elderly huli jing was hosting a children's acting class at her theatre, and Sandy wondered if it would aid his son's creative drive. It turned out to be a blessing since the heavenly fox was quick to identify, and help Moon tame his wild magic.

(Jiuweihuli is so relieved to have her protégé safe and sound again. Sandy is a good man, and she's glad that her little shadow has found a kind papa.)

Sensing a hunch, the old fox contacted Nezha on whether there wer other de-aged little monkeys...

Peaches and Moon meet during one of the acting camps. At first they cannot believe their eyes.

On sight they feel as though they've known the other their entire lives and beyond.

At the end of the day's acting camp, a group of old friends reunite.

Pigsy, with MK in a sling: "Sandy!?" Sandy: "Pigsy!" Peaches & Moon, running to their respective parent: "Baba!" Pigsy & Sandy, both surprised: "Baba!? You?!" "Yeah!" "Since when?" "Since I found him on the street!" "Whoa. weird."

Peaches and Moon are hard to separate after that meeting. Even if acting camp didn't turn out well for the ginger monkey (stage fright activated), they rarely go more than a week without an excited play date or visit to the theatre.

DBK's gut reaction to the young monkey demon holding his sworn brother's staff is; "Did Sun Wukong have a child- wait. What in Yama's name happened to you!?" Peaches doesn't answer the question as he nearly passes out screaming. Moon is half-way across town wondering what's scared his bestie so bad.

[lurkingshan]

Every You, Every Me

Story 2

Workplace romance??

A three piece suit and parted bangs, this is indeed an office bl and the set up is very BossBabe

LMAO grandma, not single and ready to mingle

Another tiny nod to aro people, someone working on this show is def in the fam

GONG YOO MENTION

They've done a good job making Mick look older in this ep

Grandma watches BL and the caretaker is a fujoshi, amazing

But like all bosses in a workplace romance, he is married to his job

LOL does this brand presentation really just say "branding" in a little circle, how lazy are you lady

I really approve of this teal/cream/brown color palette they have them in for this ep

Not as into this relationship dynamic though, I liked it when Top was more confident and flirty and here he's just being bossed around

Hahahaha spoke too soon kill him with competence

Hey I recognize this background music what is it from

Oh Top's name is First in this one. I admit I'm not paying much attention to the names bc I know they're gonna keep changing. Which is INTERESTING from a lore perspective.

Iced americano with no ice, why are you like this

The BossBabe energy grows including inappropriate flirting in the office smh

Why do you have so many buttons unbuttoned at the office sir

This boy trained in eating ramen cutely, he must have watched a bunch of kdrama

LOL if you're this much of a lightweight why are you drinking at work, First

He's really reminding me a lot of Book in BossBabe, not quite as chaotic though

Those clothes are so big on him lol

Defending the boss to your colleagues is not a good way to make friends in the workplace, First

Oh now they're delivering snacks to the staff, just like in BossBabe

How are they always in color coordinated outfits, is this a soulmate thing?? Is the universe guiding them to the matching garments every morning

Grandma really had to decode that for him, huh

You see what happens when you're mean to your grandma who is just trying to help you!

This episode is feeling draggy, it's definitely too long and there's a lot of back and forth that feels unnecessary

Oooh pretty pool scene

I like that First recognized that he can't pursue him if he stays his subordinate and grandma's spy

More familiar background music, they must be pulling from a generic library

CUTE confession scene

Ehhhhh not a fan of the blushing maiden schtick

"He got promoted"?? Just like BossBabe, this show does not understand work/life boundaries LMAO

I didn't like the concept of this one as much as the first. It hewed very closely to some bad tropes that I don't love in workplace romance. I hear the next one is a two-parter with a pretty different vibe, though.

[rayandgay]

Possessive of my owner too, in case you didn't know. ep. 3 -> 4 -> 9

[mattodore]

birthday boy 🎂

[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.

[skrunksthatwunk]

something he can't put into words.

[eikichi-supremacy]

hey so do you think wtv keiko had to deal with growing up with yusuke could be considered a type of parentification

[angelsdean]

Jack: Yeah, he-he wasn't all bad, my dad. Uh, that's what makes our parents loom so large in our heads, I think. They're… a million things to us all at once.

And even after they're long gone, we're stuck with them. Can't help it. They're inside of us. You know, my whole life, I promised myself I'd be nothing like him, but…I ended up just like him.

Kevin: No, Dad. You're way better than him.

Jack: Thank you, my son. And you're gonna be way better than me.

— 5x07, This Is Us

[turtlespancake]

me when i write a character who is prone to dooming themself and then they run off and doom themself. core traits are stubbornness and a willingness to disregard their own humanity gET BACK HERE IM NOT DONE WITH YOU

[vulpinesaint]

i don't talk about alucard castlevania very often because the last season of castlevania was so bad to me that i just don't engage with the show anymore like that but make no mistake. i have many thoughts and opinions on that man.

[darkfires]

you guys just don't know how to write angst anymore. putting people who say they like "toxic yaoi" in my dni cause they have no idea how to actually write toxicity

[deviousdiesel]

.

[fettery-fetterie]

GIRL HELP WDYM I REACHED 30 TAGS??????? OMG???? I WASN'T EVEN DONE YET

ANYWAYS 31st: and that compared to a relationship where the communication lines are basically none or very fucking weak then yeah it is an upgrade I think. Idfk I was never in a relationship I'm just picking from the ones I've seen in my life

[psalmsofpsychosis]

Some Batman: Telltale thoughts

[this is a Batman Telltale critical post, ye be warned.]

So. There are perhaps no words in the english language to describe with how stupid i feel right now.

I started Telltale Batman because i thought that it's one of the more distinct unconventional Batman narratives that would let you have a more interesting, complex and nuanced relationship between Bruce and Joker— the game even lets you bring all of Bruce's sincere hypocrisy and sentimental selfishness to the surface and have him admit that yes, he can fight the rogues gallery because it takes a madman to know a madman; to love a madman. For a moment i geniunely thought that i can escape the everpresent shadow of DC hays code in the freakshow funhouse that is Batman comics, i thought Telltale had done something different.

But telltale's approach to The Enemy Within is so flaky and flimsy and timid at best— such noncommittal twist on themes of pain and grief. They take on a hefty plotline, "what does it take to actually fight through evil and be surrounded by it? How long does it take before your resolve and your selfhood cracks? When you lose the mask, which one did you truly lose— The ideal persona, the superhero, the crusader, or the person underneath, the casket that holds all your humanity and your heart and your hopes? How long can you stare onto the abyss before it stares onto you?" It's indeed a very Nietzsche approach to Batman— except that a good Nietzsche narrative takes a lot of intentional plot points and honesty of thought and of heart. And Telltale doesn't commit, not to Bruce's characterization, and not to any other character, and definitely not to Joker's journey in any variation of it. The existence of the Vigilante route is useless on every front; Joker is going to turn into a villain anyway, just with a different hello kitty eyeshadow palette and an extra bland consolation lollipop. No good choice Bruce makes on Joker's behalf affects anything whatsoever, and i particularly love the "community and friendship and sympathy do not help the mentally ill and all that ever works is punishment and shock therapy and confinement and loneliness" message the vigillante route puts on the table, charming charming status quo commandments from DC as always.

Telltale Batman could only be revolutionary if it had dared to break comic convention and let the vigillante route play out like Selina and Bruce's relationship always does; very grey morality, irrational, full of tension and trust, unstable, intriguing, inexcusable, irreversible, unavoidable and heartfelt, human. But we can't have nice things in batmanverse, so both Joker routes run on stuck gears and topple and fall into a predictable narrative hole that neither Bruce nor Joker can claim out of.

And on the predictable front? this story is too lukewarm to be a good time for me personally. When you get 84 Batman comics per minute every other Tuesday, all ending the same way no matter whatever the fickity happens inbetween, you have to pull no punches. This is my 53368532th Batman-with-tragic-batjokes-implications read of the week, say something new or forever hold your blue-balling silence, i dont care.

[moe-broey]

GOD. HELP. PLEASE FORNTHE LOVE OF GOD. HELP ME <- is slightly self-conscious and extremely worried about doing something Incorrectly