#in video veritas

[pazzoincasamatta]

video kill the radio star

[cheriafreya]

Dr Ratio and Aventurine in Rota Fortunae, by Megane98, Unnämed/Lucien

[syadoodles]

what is wrong with them!!!!

[hijirai]

[chain-peoplebreaker]

*hits you with a follow up* ah shit sorry *hits you with a follow up* oh oops *hits you with a follow up* sorry accident *hits you with a follow up* ah i didnt mean to do that *hits you with a follow up* gomen oomf chan *hits you with a follow up*

[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.

[artemisjpotter]

Just looking at some of Ratio’s voice lines and this one. What do you mean “our man?” Idk, sounds kinda gay to me

[slowd1ving]

✦ V. HE IS THE MOST PITIFUL OF MEN

'The stagnancy was broken once more. Lips pursed in displeasure, and the face shrouded by the shadows of the night disappeared back into the darkness. He who remained asleep was none the wiser—caught in the throes of surgeless rest.  In the morning, the sculptor would stumble into the chilly studio—waking up with strangely light shoulders and an unclouded mind—only to find his magnum opus gone. Within the chalky base remained the imprints of footsteps, as though the statue had merely walked away. The cold glass skin of juice shattered against the flagstones: seeping a bleeding red into a pristine pathway. Just like in his restless dreams, that figure left him far behind once again.' • . * cursed prince ratio + alchemist m reader rough design for minoan fashion ratio here warnings: video game violence, death? kind of? tyranny (are we surprised), male-coded reader (or at least the in-game avatar is) wc: 11.4k

LAMENT OF OUROBOROS MASTERLIST

HONKAI STAR RAIL MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST ・゜・NAVIGATION

Night fell over the Borderlands: still and cold and silent. It crept in with the blank grace of an assassin, slated only with the condensed breath of the sculptor who quietly shut his book and swilled the last dregs of tepid tea into his mouth. Tapping against the worn, leather cover was the blunt—almost sleepy—thump of the pen, while a lazy hand mindlessly traced formulae into the soft material of the couch. 

The final line of a sonnet seeped into his mind. 

The spectre of lavender ghosted his mouth. 

In the end, the evening consumed him once more. It was a night like any other—the bound poems collapsed against the tranquil rise and fall of his chest, and his eyes fluttered closed. The clatter of a pen against floorboards broke the hush, but slumber already cradled him. Like hands dragging souls to the underworld, the descent into unconsciousness was as easy as it was natural: something he was unaccustomed to. 

Something had shifted. 

There was no herald leading him to the cliff sides in the pitch of night. The dreams no longer featured his muse wandering the lonely fields under an equally lonely moon: a crescent smile lighting the deep jet curtain of the sky. Scenes that used to be coherent had fragmented: the smooth coils of a scaled behemoth flashed past in his mind; the scent of a laboratory and teaching a certain apprentice the fundamental tenets of chemistry; and finally, the few good memories of a life left long behind. Cigarettes on a misty afternoon. Rich coffee, and a stack of books. Relaxed conversations with people he’d never see again. 

Something had changed. 

Those hands, once so eager to sculpt and sketch, to rid himself of the incessant being who plagued his thoughts, had become placid and unmoving. The chain of cognition that shackled him to the pursuit of creation had shattered; Atlas passed on the burden of the sky to somebody else. No longer did his fingers stretch after the flashes of damson locks, and neither did he picture the frigid stare of a man who barely ever glanced behind himself. 

Who altered the tapestry of his mind?

It was a question he could not answer; at least, not while he slept peacefully. Only his steady breathing stirred the otherwise silent space, and even the clumsy pad of footsteps failed to break the serenity of the scene. 

A hand reached out, tentatively. In the waning moonlight, it was illuminated like the palest of jades—just as cold too, for when a thumb brushed past the sculptor’s cheek, the sleeping man shivered minutely but ultimately did not wake. The hand retreated, startled—as skittish as a foal, as if it hadn’t quite adjusted to this world. 

“Mmh, Aventurine, always make sure to take at least three trials.” The stagnancy was broken once more. Lips pursed in displeasure, and the face shrouded by the shadows of the night disappeared back into the darkness. He who remained asleep was none the wiser—caught in the throes of surgeless rest. 

In the morning, the sculptor would stumble into the chilly studio—waking up with strangely light shoulders and an unclouded mind—only to find his magnum opus gone. Within the chalky base remained the imprints of footsteps, as though the statue had merely walked away. The cold glass skin of juice shattered against the flagstones: seeping a bleeding red into a pristine pathway.

Just like in his restless dreams, that figure left him far behind once again. 

. 　⁺ ✦

Senator Anastasia loves playing with guns—shot his wife and two kids dead he did,

Senator Anastasia loves his guns. 

Senator Demetrios secretly funded drug trafficking—against all pursuit of amoral alchemy he is,

Senator Demetrios loves his drugs.

Senator Leander has rather sticky fingers—-rigged the vote he did,

Senator Leander loves his dirty tricks. 

—Excerpt from a street ditty sung in the 1435 Second Amber Age, modern New Metis, a month before the elections

(Origins uncertain. Appears to have been spread, either intentionally or unintentionally, following the mass exposé released by anonymous whistleblower writing piece after piece on high profile politicians who run the nation.)

. 　⁺ ✦

‘New Metis is on the verge of irreversible decay: the last vestiges of an empire that should’ve been reforged a whole Amber Age ago.  

The apt metaphor often used to describe the Metis of old is the fable of the rotten seed—that which is spoiled shall too bloom spoiled. Old Metis was addled with corruption, bribery, and a gross misuse of power which was supposed to be carefully checked and balanced by its governmental system. Poor considerations of its citizens led to a desperate fight for rights that had gone wholly ignored—the famed, retold and dramatised Scholar’s March of 786 of the Attican Calendar that forged a new path for Metis to travel on, free from the despair of the past. 

Or so the plan was written as. 

New Metis has attempted fruitlessly to distance itself from its brutal past. 

It forgets that its reins never changed hands. 

Who makes the legislation? Who debates on the fate of our scholars sent to study in the capital of learning? Who dictates the politics, thus the future, of this city-state? 

It is not the people who marched who forge our path. It is the people who lingered in the shadow of a scapegoat to seize power once more.

Never forget this truth, Metis, for the drums are starting to beat once more.’

— Inana, P. (1435 2AA). Rotten Seeds of Metis: Witnesses of the Fall. Realpolitik Magazine, Issue 307.  

. 　⁺ ✦

“Must feel liberating,” the matron commented. For once, the gleaming measuring rod rested on HER lap as SHE rested a chin on HER marked palm. “He no longer feels the burden of two fates.”

“He lost art he poured his soul into,” the maiden snipped. For once, HER face lacked its youthful cheer, but rather contained a twisted sense of rue. It was out of character, but neither older nor the oldest commented on it, for THEY too felt the same strange regretfulness. “I don’t think he’s feeling any of that lightness right now.”

“It’s better than the prince’s fate,” the matron muttered, though HER voice wavered slightly. “Now he has taken on the path of setting right the sins of his forefathers.”

“Lack of closure is damning too,” the hag interjected. “Look where it led him.”

“They aren’t the same,” SHE argued back. “The sculptor can finally focus on himself.”

“Both had their lives forever rerouted,” the youth snapped. “Don’t attempt to assuage your guilt over it. It was fair, but the chance they’ve been allotted is tough—no sophistry will change that.”

The space was silent: a lull in the tapestry. 

“There are new winds in the learnéd city,” the crone finally spoke up. “At long last the change the prince hoped for will be catalysed by none other than himself. That’s all we could ask for—he’s no longer stuck in limbo, and Metis can have its age of heroes.”

THEY were silent again; for when had the three started caring about how humans felt? 

“That foolish boy,” SHE murmured. “It’s finally been set right, but he won’t be happy for a long time.”

. 　⁺ ✦

Time moved on. The sand in the hourglass marked the bittersweet end of summer: a tumultuous thing, filled with both the elation of creating art and the tragedy of losing it. You were incredulous at first, filled with a denial of reality as you sank to the floor of your studio. Only the base of the sculpture remained; oh so lonely without its muse upon it. Kakavasha couldn’t have touched it, no matter how much he glared and gritted his teeth. It was unyielding to all but you, after all.  

It simply… walked away. Trod a path far from the tranquil garden it was situated in, on the road of absurdity in this stupid game. You found it hard to suppress the anger; nay, it was more like stewing irritation. Calloused fingers spent months—night and day, morning and evening—hungering for something other than food, absorbed wholly to your craft. All that time, gone. For naught. You sat in the empty studio, surrounded only by fluttering pages upon pages of sketches: charcoal lines that seemed to mock you, to remind you this was in fact reality and not some twisted dream. 

You bargained. Pleaded with the lines on your body to cooperate, wishing for you to figure out what exactly happened to your hard work. Nothing—not a whisper, nor any hint, emerged from the crime scene, still flaked with the residual stone. There was no thread tying the two of you, nor a map that could possibly show you the sculpture’s location. Only a single conclusion emerged from a murky cesspit of confusion: something was blocking you, something even more powerful than yourself.

It was easy to fall into despair. You couldn’t bring yourself to rid the space of the stone, but piece by piece you swept the shards into a box—then finally worked up the courage to muster a spell to move the plinth to the attic. It hurt slightly less when you could no longer see it: carefully filing away the leagues of sketches into a cabinet, 

Acceptance betrayed you when you woke up one morning and realised the itch in your hands to carve was gone. Vanished, like it never existed. As if you were a marionette with its strings cut, you’d never quite felt so light before—and it made you wonder: why did I make this in the first place? Were you finally in possession of your senses? Were you free from the fog in your mind?

True to his character, Aventurine didn’t question you (you wouldn’t exactly know how to explain it even if he did ask). He eyed you as you spent an hour sewing on the couch, he shot you a glance when you came back after re-renovating the studio, and he only coughed once or twice in surprise as you hauled in boxes of fragile equipment. He seemed more relieved than not, at how short-lived his sculpting apprenticeship had been: staring down at the spot where your art had been with a strange, vindictive sort of look on his face. Though, his brows wore a look of confused, yet pleasant surprise—for him, it seemed to be an unexpected, though not unwelcome, boon. 

You ignored it, just like he ignored the dust settling on your chisels as you picked up your goggles once more. 

It seemed you couldn’t quite deny your roots. 

The lab coat fit like a second skin, stitched by hands made deft from a decade or so of odd work. It was pristine; thick white synthetic material developed by the scholars in Metis, embroidered with your name: bright against the blank coat, and a reminder of the life you left behind. Your hands stopped smelling of clay and began trailing behind caustic acid while you worked, mixed with arenes and the artificial scent of organic molecules. 

Within the forest, you took apart plants—systematically disassembling them and breaking them down on a molecular level as you tried to unravel this world. Shipments after shipments of textbooks came and went, and you pored over each one with a fervour unseen since you sculpted: jotting information, culminating in writing paper after paper on materials, molecules, quantum phenomena and everything in between. 

Kakavasha seemed to appreciate the change—dutifully assisting you in your analyses as a shadow would—and soon he too began leaving a trail of chemicals behind. 

A late night turned into two, two turned into weeks of restless evenings as you worked in the laboratory to collate the work into a journal on concepts you’d already mastered on Earth, but hadn’t been explored in Ouroboros. If Aventurine saw the dark circles marring your face, then he sure as hell didn’t say anything. 

A burden had been swapped for another, but this one felt lighter than air. 

Over in the mainland, things too were changing—at an unprecedented rate. 

. 　⁺ ✦

In the shadows of an alleyway—pristine despite the darkness lurking in the city—a figure leaned against a wall, tracing graceful fingers across his bracers as he examined the people milling about. His eyes grazed the way they dressed, the way they carried themselves—some furtive, some bright and cheerful, but all with the intrinsic quality of wanting to move on from the broadly lit street. 

It was the same as it had been a millennium ago.

Strike one.

He gazed at the law enforcer coldly as the man forced him into the sweltering sun—only harsh utterances escaped his mouth. Shady characters like you deserve arrest, he heard; words tangling in his ears like cobwebs, just as fragile as whatever the officer was compensating for. The silence seemed to only irritate the man more, who sharply marched—paraded—him straight to an office where a stern supervisor lectured him on laws he had seen his own brother write. 

Strike two. 

And still, the officer—though trigger happy as he was—had that odd look in his eyes. He wanted to punish the long-deposed prince, he wanted to keep him in the Metis city gaol for the night for loitering, but couldn’t— that would be drawing attention to the officer’s existence. 

Strike three. 

The newspapers and books had all been carefully monitored. Entry to the library was free, and he chose an alcove near a slightly dilapidated section, pressing the crystal-powered tablet on the table—after curiously examining the mechanisms with a cursory enchantment that was far more ancient than the very building he sat in. 

Scholar’s March, uprising against the corrupt royal family, power to the government and noble archontes. He scrolled through the device with apprehension—the database containing all available texts in this place—and concluded there was no information here worth his time.

It took him approximately three hours, combing meticulously through each shelf while steadily building almost imperceptible tendrils of enchantments to aid him in his search. Not a student spared an eye, while the machines built to combat magic that surrounded the place didn’t so much as jolt. He almost sneered. 

A revolution had been encoded in his simulations of the future. It had been inevitable. Yet, nothing had changed. The quality of magic had degraded, education was still not allowed to develop and flourish naturally, and in the end, nothing had really changed. 

Strike four. 

He left in a pensive sort of silence. The wiretap he’d set around the city told him all he needed to say. 

Changing how Metis worked was long overdue. 

. 　⁺ ✦

“I think you’ll finally be able to present your papers in person,” Aventurine waved a thick sheaf of papers in front of you while you carefully decanted an aldehyde into a boiling tube; you could only stare at him through the warped glass as he spoke whatever information he’d gleaned. “Metis has officially begun the repeal of its heresy laws and censorship policy—this is the first issue of a brand new Metisian newspaper, over here is another one, there’s a few administrative letters from the index of banned books and texts, one of which was your own.”

The studies and articles you’d written, on material sciences, quantitative chemistry, and everything in between, had been receiving attention everywhere but Metis—for the sole reason of their references to alchemy in chemistry. It had been a year since you switched focus to your specialty once more, a year since your magnum opus had disappeared, and a year since you vowed to contribute to the world you were put in. 

The scientist based in the treacherous Borderlands. A mind far undervalued by Metis. The brain behind the legendary element discoveries of mirthium and erdium. What new theories will he propose now?

It wasn’t front page news, though, certainly, on the scientific papers it had been. You glanced at the wads of soggy newsprint, then at the neat folders containing medical proposals behind him, then gave a faint smile. “You think they’ll accept me as a Sophos?”

“Yes.” His words left no room for argument—a firm, resolute tone that belied none of his honeyed tongue. “They’ve been fools far too long, masquerading as geniuses.”

“I suppose,” you conceded, adjusting the temperature dial on the heater. “Though the limitations on their study have produced some incredibly advanced specialisation in science, I’m glad the scholars are free from the shackles that bound them.”

“So who’s going to teach them what they previously couldn’t learn?” His neon gaze was firmly locked onto yours. There was a deeper question hidden within his relentless stare: are you going to step foot in the place you’ve avoided? Will you leave the memories of this place behind?

“Those who have relevant expertise,” you answered neutrally. Diplomatically. You’d considered the idea, toyed around with it in your brain. Tasted it, even —rolling it in your mouth this way and that as you contemplated exactly what to say if you were ever asked this. In the end, your words came out grey and foggy—totally impersonal. You frowned, and Aventurine caught the slight furrow between your brows. “I won’t live there, ever. If I get invited as a lecturer or student, I’ll remain here. It’s high time they upgraded their transport between there and the Borderlands regardless.”

And if worse comes to worse, I could finally finish working on those high-grade teleportation rings, you added silently, though Kakavasha had known you long enough by now to recognise the wanderlust in your eyes that indicated a new project was brewing in your mind. There were several formulae decorating your legs that indicated flight, or at least travel, and you simply hadn’t the opportunity to decrypt the letters. 

“Right. You’ve already received degrees of knowing from several other universities, and then some awards,” he murmured. “If anyone’s qualified to speak on these groundbreaking concepts…”

The revolution had been bloodless and quick. It suited the scholastic city, based on the fast dissemination of information and logs that had forced those in charge to abruptly resign. In fact, it had been so rapid that the ripples barely had time to reach you—the ink on your manuscripts had only just dried—when news of the fall of the government and the implementation of an almost mechanical, algorithmic government had been brought to you by Aventurine. New officials were elected almost instantaneously, driven by masses of students that had crammed into booths that had long fallen to disuse, over disillusionment with politics. The youth and elders alike had voted for each member of a temporary Council that seemed to be watched over by the benevolent whistleblower who’d first triggered the first falls of grace. 

You hadn’t quite seen anything like it—waiting with baited breath for either the tempering or the brutal collapse of the rejuvenated city. And surprisingly, it held. There was no external influence, no devastation as Metis erupted in civil war. This was not Earth, you reminded yourself, and it truly wasn’t. 

A heavy envelope came only a week later into your locker that you reserved at the small post office in Metis. It was cream-coloured, and faintly fragranced of vermouth and atrament. You sliced it open with the bone-sword that hung by the mantle, ignoring Kakavasha’s wide-eyed stare as you did so. The contents inside were typed in neat print, and all but one line stood out to you.

We invite you freely to earn your distinction as Sophos in an abbreviated period, and cordially wish you stay on to teach integrated enchantment through alchemico-chemistry. 

You smiled, but it was a strange, hollow thing. 

“You… got it? You got the job?” he murmured, a selcouth blend of apprehension and a little, manic grin. 

“It’s likely, though…” you trailed off as a second letter caught your eye, tucked in between the thick stack of a contract and a printed copy of one of your works—which you swore hadn’t been there before. On the mauve paper, there was no return address, though on the front there was ‘doctor’ printed. You frowned, and it faded from view—so fast you might’ve imagined it. Doctor had no equivalent in this world, after all. There was Sophos, there was Tibel, there was Speaker, but there were no doctors. 

The contract forgotten, you set the remainders down on the workbench and quickly slid the purple envelope open. This one didn't smell like the faint traces of alcohol, but rather something abandoned. Slightly dusty. Like a lost terrace, or even an old, hidden path. Mildly entranced, you slipped the small card out from the inside and read the elegant script. 

Your theses were captivating to read through. 

Nothing more. You turned the card, yet the blank side taunted you. Quickly, your eyes darted back to the bound pages of your work, and upon opening it, it seemed the sender had left you something else to mull over. 

Each page had bloomed with flowering, delicate script.

 . 　⁺ ✦

No mauve letters came again. 

You didn’t anticipate them, nor did you feel any particular pang of regret that you didn’t see that elegant curl of font again. In fact, you forgot about it: laying in a drawer, slowly gathering dust. It was only a month or so later—after publishing a riveting piece on capturing sunlight from the two suns to mass convert to energy, rather than relying on finite crystals, and then perhaps a paper or two on reusing consumed crystals for crystallography using various waveforms—that you finally remembered the letter, as well as the invitation from Metis. 

Acclaim was good, but there was something about seeing Sp. in front of a name: a weight that was comforting, like the solid thud of a footstep rather than the burden of a sky on your shoulders. 

One particularly foggy evening, when the moon and stars were hidden from view and the only thing that remained was a grey, motionless sky, you stared at the letter for a long while. The drawer had only been opened to shove another newspaper—A Look Into The Mind of the Crystal Scientist—inside. Situated alongside the edges was a pamphlet: Real Estate in the Borderlands, as though it was some inspiring location. Frowning, you tossed both rags aside, picking up the card once more. 

As the faint flavour of stone still emanated from it, you thoughtfully gazed out of the window West-ward towards Metis. The great city loomed, invisible through the distance and fog and in your scattered mind. 

You thought about your garden. A small little haven, where you enjoyed tea only with one other soul in your company. Even the monsters here had long learnt to tread carefully after you’d left the carcass of the giant snake deep by the river—other than the steady chirp of birds, the fauna didn’t bother you. 

It was tranquil, but the sudden emphasis of your base in the Borderlands irked you. The more you mulled over it, the faster your pace quickened upstairs: where bound volumes of your works now sprawled over most of your bookshelves, where you wove a bag into existence complete with space-warping. 

“Aventurine,” you announced, and the man startled from where he was busy polishing a conical flask. “I’m going to Metis.”

“Excuse me?”

 . 　⁺ ✦

Excuse me?

Despite his incredulity, Aventurine dutifully put the flask away and packed himself a bag too, rather than offering to stay behind. Despite him glaring in the direction of the city-state, as though it was stealing you away from him, he only wore a cheerful smile whenever you glanced in his direction. And despite the occasional, colourful imprecations he muttered under his breath as he boarded the train (first class, courtesy of the heavy gold hidden within the jade pendant), he only had good things to say about your search for distinction. In all honesty, you found his disguised pettiness extremely amusing.

His eyes searched you, like he was making sure you were truly on board with the sudden change. You didn’t comment, electing to watch the countryside flash past—interspersed only with surreptitious glances at your winding tattoos. 

He noticed. Of course he did.

“Are you worried?”

He’d muttered the words as though he was afraid the great planet and two suns would hear him. You shook your head, though you still wondered silently if this would go like the last time you visited Metis. Getting stared at as the tattoos branded you as something other: an easily identifiable trademark you weren’t quite ready to sport. At least, not until you reviewed the situation in the city. 

“I can hide them for you, for a bit,” he offered, and it was then that you finally met his eyes. He was squinting them, almost—lids low against the spheres, while a smile crested upside down in the fold beneath them.

“How?” Curiosity piqued your expression when you felt an almost-familiar wisp of something curl in the air. Almost-familiar, because the faintest idea of it seemed to be something you’d witnessed only once. With a start, you realised you could see the smoky substance as it coiled and interacted with the medium that surrounded it. In fact, the intangible matter that accompanied the strange power this world had given you, too, was batting and toying with the plumes, entranced. 

Kakavasha flinched, though only slightly. “You can see it?”

“Slightly,” you murmured, and the alchemy that bound you in this plane accepted the gift he brought, dulling the vibrance of the lines on your skin until they melded into flesh and dermis. The patterns thrummed, invisible and inconceivable to all but you—a merge between his glamour arts and your unique ability. “It’s pretty.”

A smattering of pink cast his face into a rosy hue as he watched you watch your own hand—clearly fascinated by the change. “It’s a glamour.”

He whispered the words in the tongue of honey: dissipating into the light rays like dust motes, and cascading into your mind as you wondered at the implications behind each syllable. 

A secret, the root of the word conveyed.  Deceit. 

. 　⁺ ✦

The tiles paving the roads seemed off. Different. People walking by had a cheer in their step they didn’t have previously. You said hello to nobody, yet three vendors shoved mountains of fruits, spices, and sheer, silky cloth into your hands that felt far too exquisite to touch this casually. Dumbfounded, you glanced around, only to see others going through the same predicament too—wares being passed freely—as if the fall of the corrupt government was something to be celebrated weekly. Understandable. 

It almost distracted you from the very thing you first noticed when you stepped foot on land. Stone. Not any sort of stone, but one that still lingered in your memory—waking or otherwise—and one you could almost taste, gritty and chalky and everything tangible. You swallowed, suddenly, storing the gifts in your bead (though not before heaping money into the protesting vendors’ hands). 

“What?” Kakavasha, who’d previously been snickering at your troubled expression, sobered as your eyes meandered the roads. Your focus settled on the distance, and you could feel something shift. Along the city skyline, you thought your alchemy finally gave you the answer to your long-asked question—where did my statue go?—though it was vague and incoherent. 

You returned to reality after a long pause, glancing back at the golden-haired man beside you. In that split second, you decided to keep your peace and wait for night to fall. 

“Nothing.” 

He didn’t reply, staring long and hard at you instead. 

. 　⁺ ✦

Metis doesn’t sleep. Anyone who came to the fabled scholars’ city knew this: returning to their homelands with tales of the whirring urban centre, like a massive brain that simply didn’t rest. The artificer’s lamps quietly burning in each home and study centre had long since replaced the stars in the sky: lit up with the aspirations and dreams of students who desperately longed to etch their names on the lengthy annals of history. 

It was—and would always be—the perfect time to sneak out. Under the cover of darkness, scrutiny was lax as ever; nobody spared the scholar meandering through the streets a second glance, especially as the rules had been completely abolished and rewritten by the new Council and Adviser. Your steps carried urgency despite your outward languor, and you half-wondered if Kakavasha had noticed you’d slipped out of the hotel room. 

The source of the signal was weak. It pulsed feebly, like a dying heart feverishly (and foolishly) clinging to a life that was sliding quickly out of reach. 

On the paved white tiles, your feet left behind firm, resolute footsteps as you headed to the ring of buildings directly behind the sprawling university. Upon observation during the day, it had been where the faculty allegedly worked. Where you’d work in a few months, if your extensive research qualified you for an early Sophos distinction. Mixed feelings shot through you at the thought: bittersweetness at the sudden change, anticipation at having greater resources, and finally fear that you’d be found out as an alchemist. 

The sector hummed with activity, though it was subdued by the setting of the two suns. You could still vaguely feel the traces of the statue through the extra noise, and the purpose in each step dissuaded anyone who didn’t recognise your face from asking you what exactly you were doing there. Remnants of the glamour still hid your tattoos, but silently, you reshaped the veil to be extra unnoticeable—and those looks thrown your way suddenly disappeared, as though you were never there in the first place. 

You observed. In the second building, where the modest exterior belied not the opulent marble in the interior, you watched the researchers and professors tap crystals to pass through the locked gates and beyond, where the real work began. With a jolt, you realised this was part of the product of your research—using crystals to detect specific magic waveforms through crystallography—and your shoulders relaxed. A magic footprint resembled a fingerprint, but this sensor could be bypassed with the right formula—something something activation energy something something. A beam of neutrality, and the master key that only the creator could devise. 

Waiting for the foyer to empty to only one or two people milling around by the chairs in the front, you quickly murmured the string of thought under your breath, feeling your palm heat with some wasted energy (though what you had sufficed). The moment your fingers grazed the sensor, the gate swung open with extra gusto—and you could only blink, feeling that this was perhaps too easy. 

The job was supposed to be simple, after all. Go in, make a preliminary observation as to what could possibly be triggering the gut feeling of familiarity you had, and get out. That was it. The independent variable was your location changing, the dependent was measuring the intensity of your gut feeling, and your control variable was remaining in this half-impermeable state in which you essentially became a wallflower, and hoped by some miracle that your statue wasn’t being transported. 

Just your typical experiment. 

It did, in fact, start off simply. Past two in the morning, even the mighty brain that the city was began to quietly shut down to its most basic functions—nary a ghost, let alone a person, passed you by as you walked purposefully through the winding corridors. The presence did nothing as you slipped into the first office, glancing briefly in the storage room behind it. You scanned the messy piles of documents on a polished desk, resisting the urge to methodically sort them out into neater sections. 

No results, and it appeared it hadn’t registered your presence on the waveform detection crystal at all. Perfect. 

The next room, too, as well as the next, bore little fruit. You didn’t expect significant results. You’d been hunting a spectre, after all: a piece of stone that, inexplicably and improbably, had vanished into thin air. It was ghostbusting at its finest, without the special effects. 

You frowned. 

It became a wild goose chase, peeking into empty halls and lecture theatres and everything in between—yet your yield only came with a stronger gut feeling that elsewhere you’d find something. Anything, if not to make this night worth sneaking out for. Sighing, you trod on the carpet to find the very last door tucked away in the shadows of a flickering artificer’s lamp. A golden hue was cast on the handle; it gleamed bright as you reached for it, only to find…

Nothing. Not in the literal sense, for the floors to ceilings were packed with bookshelves, and a desk in the middle of the room heaved with weighty papers, journals, and all sorts of tools. Scrutinising the parchments and texts, you picked out a couple of titles: Alchemy and the Suppression of Magic, How to find an Alchemist, The Discoverie of the Witch-Alchemist, Myths Debunked: Alchemists and Wizards, How to Know if an Alchemist has Bewitched You. Your eyes flew to the journal on the desk of some Sophos Hopkins, mouth suddenly dry. The placard, too, was embedded with the same name. That name had been printed on an article from a trashy magazine you’d seen just a few weeks ago, where he was interviewed as a citizen who still supported the old regime staunchly. 

Another paper caught your eye, and now with a mouth that felt like sandpaper, you read your alias at the top. It had been circled with bright red ink, and scrawled as a label was the words ‘possible subversive, affiliated with alchemists or potentially one himself—investigate’. You laughed, but it was dry and humourless. Had this been the true motive of the university for inviting you, or was he just a deep supporter of the past?

You wanted nothing more than to leave this accursed room behind. You wanted it, by all the fates and gods you wanted it, but there was something that seemed to be anchoring you to the luxurious carpet. Taking a deep breath, you waited for the feeling to subside—but it wouldn’t. Trying to be inconspicuous, you carefully riffled through your paper as if it could possibly provide you with an answer instead: it had been highlighted copiously—not with the scrupulous commentary that the sender of the purple letter used, but with a harsh treatise underlining exactly where you were a danger to the scholars of Metis. Your eyes flung from one adjective to another, each more critical than the last. 

Gingerly, you placed the paper exactly where you’d found it and opened the journal instead—locked with a waveform-registering crystal that you easily cast aside (how dare he use your research to benefit himself, after all). You smiled, but it emanated the behaviour of a scowl. Reading the lines, you were easily hooked in with disgust as you thumbed through each page—detailing his hatred for the new government, the ‘woke’ scholars who were slowly ‘taking over’ the ‘pure’ brain of the academia. It was… laughable, in every sense of the word. It made things clear: he was a minority amongst the scholars who’d yearned for change these past millenia. 

You scoffed, turning to the last page. It was left blank, and with a frown, you held it up to the artificer’s lamp to check if it had been hidden from view.

“Ah—got it!” Lines had been heat activated, and were slowly spreading when—

Something sharp pricked your throat. You froze, unable to breathe. 

You’d already died once. Was this how you’d die again—at the hands of a man who so clearly hated you?

A silver knife gleamed at your throat. The hand holding it was steady, and you could feel the calm breathing of the one behind it. In, out, in, out, as if the heartbeat accompanying it was tranquil: unlike yours, which seemed to beat not only in the gaping cavity of your chest, but your mouth, your stomach, and your clenched hand. 

“Who are you?” A voice reverberated, brushing past your ears along with the fluttering material of a veil that seemed to be covering the face of whoever threatened you. “Why are you here?”

Silently, you thought of a formula you knew by heart—one you’d recited countless times as you hauled bags of stone and heavy ornaments, one you’d relied on when hunting the game that roamed the forest, and one you’d whispered when killing that basilisk. A prayer of strength. Kinetic energy, coupled with a heightened Young’s Modulus for your human muscles to manage the expulsion of force. The air, used to your ways, began thrumming: ozonic in its smell, tainting the faint soap and sandalwood scent that exuded from the stranger behind you. 

But before you could finish, your body was whirled through the air and slammed into the plush carpet. It was red, just like blood that would inevitably spill from you as you gasped for oxygen—but you couldn’t focus on that as he finally saw your face, and you saw his. The first thing you noticed was the thin veil covering his nose and mouth, though not his eyes: a striking pair of amber ones that seemed familiar, but were now widened in disbelief as they searched your face. 

He was straddling you with his razor-sharp weapon still pressed to your throat; not a single drop of sanguine had been drawn yet, belying his impeccable control of the weapon. You breathed rapidly, feeling the heavy warmth of his body press against yours—wondering if you’d still feel the same cold you did the last time you died. 

Purple locks were pulled back sharply in a long braid that swung past his shoulders, and your own brows furrowed as you felt an indescribable familiarity well up in your chest. That’s nonsense, you scoffed. Can’t be. Instead of thinking the impossible, your eyes scanned his clothes: dark robes that belied low-level scholars, yet they were immaculately cut, stitched and embroidered. 

He was still gazing at you with intensity, but then those same eyes hardened, almost imperceptibly. “So it’s not him…” It was a murmur under his breath. The clay smell he had been so used to was long gone, replaced by the faint astringency of chemicals, smoke, and the wispy scent of oranges right beneath it. The tattoos, too, he had memorised in their shifting patterns, weren’t there—dermis unmarked by the variegated, chromatic lines. “You’re not Hopkins. Who the hell are you?”

“I could ask you the same question,” you scowled, mentally drawing up the same formulae again, though adjusted this time. You’re not Hopkins. As though he himself wasn’t either. 

So who was he?

You stared, as his concentration shifted to the journal, which had been cracked open with no alarm to betray entry of anyone but its owner. Incredulously, he plucked it up; it was… open. With all of Sophos Hopkin’s transgressions written plain as day, for him to see. Between you and the journal, his gaze darted—roving across you while his knife remained firmly about to stab into your carotid artery. 

“Are you secretly Hopkins?” he questioned, though it seemed more of a musing thought to himself rather than an inquiry towards you. You coughed, violently, shaking with suppressed rage. That’s it. You weren’t about to die to this deranged pretty-boy.

You added a third and forth formula to the long chain in your brain, reciting and enunciating each silently in the tongue of thought. 

“What do you think?” you retorted, biding time for the formulae to come to fruition. Velocity, strengthening the body, heat, summon. You could feel your heart beat slightly more sluggishly, which, ironically, made you far more lucid. The voice speaking to the man was rough and cold, nothing like the eclectic murmurings his sculptor had left behind for him. Yes, the intruder beneath him couldn’t possibly be his maker. 

The two beings who’d once been entwined for the span of a year no longer recognised who the other had become. 

He glared at you, and the frigid set of his eyes sent another death-chill through your body. “I’m the one asking the questions here. Don’t forget who’s holding the knife.” 

“How could I possibly…” you murmured, and there was something in that soft croon that caused him to stiffen and the grasp on the dagger to slip. “…forget that’s all that matters.”

“What do you—” 

His lips parted beneath the veil, and the material fluttered gently as you completed each formula. Bizarrely, the weapon he was just holding—that thin, engraved blade—inexplicably began to melt. He floundered, clearly caught off guard, but you were ready for that variable. The melted weapon dripped onto flesh and burned, burned so badly, but you had already died once. You could take it. 

With inhuman speed and strength, you slammed the man into the floor below you and plunged your arm into the subspace next to you to draw the basilisk-bone sword you’d etched all those months ago. Stabbing the sword into the blood-red carpet you admired just minutes ago, it was now his turn to have his neck right next to a razor-edge, while your weight easily enveloped his own. 

It was gracefully that you leaned your head towards his, and his eyes flicked desperately between your irritated gaze and the deep burns on your shoulders that still weren’t closing. Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?

Despite him extending all his senses, he couldn’t feel a shred of anything being used—magic, alchemy, anything. Had the gods sent you here to taunt him? Ratio’s fingers flexed against the ground, and for the first time in a year, he swallowed nervously. It couldn’t end like this, with an unidentified person killing him. That sword didn’t help with your identification, and he wondered if you were as powerful as his sculptor. No, impossible. He gritted his teeth. 

Who are you?

The words died on his lips as you drew close, and beneath his veil his lips stammered. After all these years, this millennium, and this is all he amounted to? Being bested by a greenhorn, someone who was far beneath his maker? Ludicrous.

“My turn to ask the questions,” you said softly. Quietly. “Are you Hopkins?” 

“No,” he spat out, angry at himself, you, and the stupid Sophos who had landed him in this situation in the first place. “You didn’t realise?”

After a millennium, your temper has not yet been quenched, the voice of Nous rang out in his mind. He dug his nails into the crimson, where the loathsome Hopkins had doubtlessly stood, and grinded his teeth. 

“Do you wish to take Hopkins down?” your voice rang out even softer, betraying no signs of pain even as the metal began cooling into the silver it was originally, leaving behind the charred smell of flesh behind. He fought the bile rising in his throat. 

“I can work alone on that,” he muttered, already agitated by the influx of variables he hadn’t predicted—taking Hopkins out was supposed to be his easiest target amongst the faculty. You, similarly, were experiencing a strange turmoil as your gut feeling simmered alongside the deep anger you felt. He was a variable you hadn’t accounted for either—one that looked vaguely like the figure in your dreams, but the cognitive dissonance upon trying to see them as the same person was startling, so you couldn’t even begin to attempt that rationalisation. This was what your gut feeling had been banking upon? “Don’t involve yourself.”

You sneered, looking down at the man whose eyes still contained that arrogant gaze. You hadn’t planned on anything at all on this reconnaissance mission, but this guy was severely testing your patience. No matter how much he looked like the person in your dreams, they clearly were two different people. 

“Magus, taking him out hastily will only result in the escape of his accomplices,” the man muttered, cowed by the sword still held at his neck and in the face of overwhelming power. Magus. A title reserved for the highest of magicians, which he was on the cusp of achieving. He could be deferential—Nous was wrong, he had to be. He met your gaze, and regained the cool impassiveness in the hardened amber. This man, who’d interfered with your gut feeling and who’d burned you to the bone, had made a good point. 

“I wasn’t planning to,” you laughed, but it was a mirthless thing. “My business is elsewhere, little assassin—”

The sound of firm footsteps down the corridor froze the two of you, and swiftly, you pulled the basilisk bone back into the subspace: poised with a long-crafted incantation already on your lips. It was a modification of the gravitational attraction one, anchored to a specific location you’d be immediately drawn towards—undulating into particles of matter then coiling back into a human body. This time, it was to a certain golden-haired man who declared himself your apprentice. You took a deep breath, and began reciting it mentally even as the man’s features turned ashen beneath you. 

He stared at the closed door, mentally working out three different escape roots he could use, as well as a hiding place in which he could easily eavesdrop. But you, on the other hand, looked nonplussed as you stared at the door with a certain look in your eye.

“You need to get out before you ruin both our chances,” he hissed, hastily gazing back at the door, then towards you again. 

But there was no use in that.

You’d already disappeared, leaving behind an opened journal and the faint scent of chemicals behind. 

For the first time in a millennium, Veritas swore: a colourful word he’d heard his sculptor use enough to gauge the meaning behind; with a reeling mind, he sat up. 

“Shit.”

. 　⁺ ✦

Gasping, you tumbled into the hotel bathroom—desperately trying to keep your guts from hurling. Fuck, what a disgusting mode of transport. Being disassembled so meticulously and put back together again had been a revolting experience, though at least, from what you gathered with your shoulder regaining its feeling again, it had assembled you imperfectly—into the state you were in before you burned your shoulder to shit. Or at least, partially. Glancing nervously at the flesh, it wasn’t the same charred mess it had been moments prior: only a furiously shiny thing, free from metal and seeping blood sporadically. You couldn’t always be a winner, it seemed. 

Hurts like a bitch, you thought grimly. Peeling off your shirt, you compartmentalised what you knew about the man who interfered with your objective. Not on Hopkins’ side, planning to get rid of him. Hopkins isn’t alone in wanting to rid alchemists. Disguised himself as a low-level scholar. Skilled in magic. 

Now that the adrenaline had worn off, your hands seemed to remember something else as you pressed a palm against his sternum to steady yourself. Something, though you didn’t know what. 

With a scowl, you flung the shirt to the waste bin in the corner and buried your face in a hand. The other rummaged in the hotel cabinet for a first aid kit—and you dug your nails into your face to reprimand your fumbling fingers while you struggled taking out the ointment neatly labelled as ‘for burns’. 

Behind you, the larger light suddenly flooded the bathroom, and you froze. 

“Kakavasha,” you murmured quietly, locking eyes with him in the mirror. He looked… furious, glaring hard at you from where he stood. His fingers were tightly curled into shaking fists, and his mouth was a compressed line, as though he didn’t even know when to begin with his beratement. He was silent as he strode up to you, silent when he snatched the ointment from your hand, and silent as you lowered your hand from your face to gaze at his own properly in the reflection. 

His eyes flicked to meet yours for a mere second, before he harshly uncapped the bottle and poured the sticky ointment onto his hand. It was only when he looked back at your shoulder that his face began developing a strange sort of conflict, and he finally spoke, or rather, snapped. “Stop staring.” 

Sheepishly, you turned your head the other way: missing how his face grew slightly more red as he slathered the liquid where the metal had dripped onto your shoulder and chest. Wherever his hand spread it, the cooling began almost immediately—leaving behind nothing but a tingle. You heard a firm clink as he set the bottle down, then a rustle as he picked up a cloth and dampened it. 

“Your neck, as well?” he laughed bitterly. The cold water seeping into your skin forced your face downwards to turn to his, and you held your breath at his sudden proximity. 

He took his time, running the bloodstained cloth against the cut against your neck (that bastard really had nicked you, after all!) and standing on his toes to reach the side. You couldn’t bring yourself to comment, even when he turned away to pick two bandages out to wrap the wounds in. 

“Was it worth it?” 

You let out a sudden exhale as he forced you to sit on the edge of the bathtub: watching his furrowed brows, his hands as he carefully rolled the bandages onto your flesh, and the trembling of his mouth. You didn’t miss the irony of how almost two years ago, it had been him you were patching up.

“Kakavasha, I’m sorry,” you tried, gazing up at him with eyes filled with sincerity. How could you even begin to explain it? 

“For what?” He didn’t waver as he hooked his finger under the cloth to tuck the end in, lingering unnecessarily long against your too-warm skin. He turned around, and you stood up, staring at his frame as he binned the bloodied cloths and wrappers. “Leaving me without a single word? Getting hurt? Smelling like someone else while I was worrying the hell away here?” 

The last part was muttered under his breath, and you couldn’t properly make it out from where you stood. “I was gathering information to check just how safe the university would be, and for clues related to a gut feeling I had. I’m sorry, Aventurine.”

“A gut feeling? You beat a basilisk single-handedly, and didn’t care to defend yourself from another person? How expendable do you think you are?” he uttered coldly, but you could see the slow cracks starting to show in his expression. 

You froze. Expendable? Had you thought yourself expendable? The more you thought about it, the more you realised just how much you’d let your death stagnate in your head when that knife was at your throat. “I…”

He strode out past you, but just a few steps away from the door, you saw him pause in the mirror and square his shoulders. Turning, he finally met your conflicted stare, but before you could even begin to guess what he’d say, he rushed up to you, wrapping his arms around your waist and despairingly burying his face in the planes of your back. You lurched forward in surprise, grasping the sides of the sink, but he didn’t budge. 

He’s warm, you thought, unlike the death that had enveloped you in its cool embrace. Something blurred in your vision. 

“Please, stay alive,” he whispered, and his lips were directly on your exposed spine as he spoke. Each syllable travelled along the nerves and went directly to your brain, in an earnest plea. With each syllable, the veil of his glamour strengthened, until only he could see the vibrant patterns that seemed to integrate with your very soul. “You can’t die.”

You swallowed. 

I already have. 

. 　⁺ ✦

That night, the warm coastal winds blew over the city of Metis, enveloping a chemist and his student in a cradle far gentler than the harsh winds of the Borderlands. Though the injured man succumbed to sleep easily, the same could not be said for his apprentice, who sat quietly under the lonely light of the moon: watching the restless rise and fall of the slumbering man’s chest. 

Kakavasha knitted his hands together with a lump in his throat, burning the sight into his bright eyes as though the man before him would slip away at any moment. Please, he murmured. Don’t leave me behind in this world. It was perhaps this urgent prayer that determined the flavour of the scientist’s dream. 

For the first time in many moons you dreamt of the pitch-dark canvas of the sky. Like curtains over the vast stage, they stretched over a familiar scene: grass that was washed in grey, a lone pathway which your feet mechanically trod on, and finally, the lonesome moon hung bright in the distance. 

But there was nobody in the distance.

Nobody for you to reach, nor to run after. No one. 

It seemed the phantasm haunting you had disappeared into the sepulchral depths of the night. 

In that dream you were trapped in, you walked many miles. The landscape didn’t change, remaining the same endless loop of change, as though you were in some video game or simulation. The exact same rock formation you must’ve passed at least eleven times, while you’d stopped counting the small shrubs with the same startled bird sitting within them. 

You supposed this was a video game, after all, but even with that acknowledgement there were still no signs of the man you’d so painstakingly brought to life. 

Though, after an inconceivable length of time, something began to change. The path’s winding trajectory began to differ, and you finally saw the cliff’s edge for the first time ever. There was a calm wind that blew across from the sea, and you felt yourself at ease—a selcouth experience in any sort of dream of yours, let alone this one. 

It was then that you felt the familiar sensation of coldness at your neck that you whirled around—and those piercing amber eyes flashed at you.

“You—” The man with damson locks held the same engraved dagger to your vulnerable throat, sneering at your stupidity. “Stop behaving the same way as that fool!”

“Fool?” He spoke for the first time, and his rich voice was piqued with amusement. The familiarity chilled you to your very bones. 

“But we’re the same person, are we not?”

. 　⁺ ✦

What the hell? You awoke with a gasp: chest heaving rapidly while your clothes stuck to your skin with sweat. There was the pungent taste of bile in your dry mouth, but the cup offered to you smelled only of the most fragrant of orange blossoms—wafting into the air as if dispelling your nightmare. Kakavasha’s hand outstretched with the ceramic; you recognised the vibrant patterns from a mug he’d painstakingly shaped and glazed himself. The etchings on the face seemed familiar, and with a start you realised he’d transcribed blurry remnants of your formulae onto it. You took the drink and blew on it, watching him watch your face for any further discomfort. 

“Must’ve been some dream,” he murmured, eyes flickering with concern and quiet contemplation. “You’ve got your appointment with the Adviser later today—do you still feel up for it?”

Pointedly, his fingers trailed over the bandages over your neck and shoulder, and you swallowed—citrus and florals seeping down your throat. You might’ve coughed up a petal in surprise, in some parallel universe. 

“I’ll be fine,” you replied, albeit somewhat awkwardly. “This is just a meeting for them to discuss re-release of my papers into Metis, and the distinction process. Are you coming as my assistant?”

“They don’t quite know my face yet,” he stood up and stretched, pulling several garments out of the armoire speculatively. “I’ll continue where you left off with your… recon.”

The jab was poignant. You almost laughed. 

“Noted,” you stood up too, shucking off the thin shirt you wore and selecting a high-necked, long sleeved robe you could drape more cloth around. Carefully, slowly, you washed up and dressed, making sure not to aggravate your burns any further. It was disorienting to keep your tattoos hidden away, but you didn’t want to become a bigger target than you already were. Nobody knew the scientist’s face, after all, and you weren’t about to make yourself even more identifiable. 

The facade you put on was convincing, if you said so yourself. Subconsciously, you’d picked out similar clothes to the ones you wore when you first came here—jewel-tones richly embroidered, yet arranged to form a modest silhouette. It was a loose style, perfect for the scorching heat that blazed in Metis year-round. 

“How is it?” 

He took you in, scrutinising every fold, every chain of jewelry, and every layer of your scent. There was a brief pause, then he took out a half-veil from the large cabinet by his bed, and gently attached it with a chain that coldly passed behind your ears and jingled on the way down. 

“This is in style nowadays—” his hands lingered, sweeping another layer of the glamour on you for good measure. “—so don’t captivate them too much.”

His words left you at a loss. 

“See you,” he added, and the door closed firmly with a click. 

You touched your face. 

“Huh?”

. 　⁺ ✦

The sitting room you were led to felt far too opulent for this sort of ruckus that followed. Rubbing your temples, you glanced briefly at the various trinkets and statues that decorated the packed shelves of books and manuscripts (noting with faint amusement that some of those said statues were the early prototypes you’d sold in the market all those months ago). Various paintings and gadgets, too, decorated this space; but despite how grand it was, you could still tell this space was lived in. 

You’d taken a seat on the soft couch, eyeing the refreshments set on the low table yet not touching them, and waited for the minutes to tick by towards your appointed meeting time. None of the newspapers had ever shown the Adviser, and you were surprised they even deigned to meet personally with wronged authors and scientists. 

It was strange, but you did suppose Metis was taking the steps to right its wrongs. 

Your musings were interrupted with the indignant voice of a student who wore an owl insignia on their robes. “Show respect to the most esteemed Sophos Ratio—”

Ratio? Your gaze swivelled to the door, but only the student remained—a herald, of sorts, to lay the petals for the Adviser to walk on. You almost scoffed. Behind them, you heard the firm, purposeful steps of someone you assumed was this Sophos Ratio, a name that had not been circulated quite yet in the papers, but a name whose works you’d read before. 

“He is the assistant to the Adviser, please show respect!” they repeated, and this time their brows drew together imperiously. You remained sitting. So he won't show himself after all.

“At ease, Aten,” Ratio spoke, muffled by an elegant mask that covered his face—all but his eyes, which seemed to widen imperceptibly upon seeing you still lounging on that couch of his. “I have asked him here as part of acknowledging the transgressions this city has done against scholars, and to offer a proposal. We are equals in this.”

“But, Arkho-Sophos, sir—” Aten, unable to accept this, opened their mouth and was interrupted yet again.

“Please leave us, Aten,” he repeated, and the student practically wilted like an aged cabbage at the rebuke. You remained sitting. 

Shutting the door behind him, he slowly stepped into the light. Behind the mask, the rays caught his irises and lit them into a fiery amber, and something stirred within you. His hair, too, transfigured from that rich black in the shadows to the damson shade that struck you in its familiarity.

What are the odds?

You stood then, extending your hand to his, and his gaze flickered between your own, neutral expression, and the outstretched palm you offered. Though your mind wasn’t from here, your body remembered the motions as he hesitantly placed his hand in yours, and you pressed your lips through the veil to the back of it as a respectful greeting. He watched you with sharp eyes, trying to discern just where he saw you, when you finally looked up with that stare of yours and he almost flinched. Almost. 

You still hadn’t spoken, and the practised boredom in each gesture suggested you didn’t quite recognise him. Ratio breathed a sigh of relief, then wondered at the absurdity of it all. The scientist whose papers he’d pored over was you? It was inconceivable. He could not say anything about it either, lest his own cover be blown.

He'd worn long white robes today, the symbol of a high-ranking scholar—the very opposite of yesterday. 

You sat down, still silent. 

“Arkho-Sophos, the chief,” you translated. Your fingers traced the rim of your shallow cup, not yet filled with the steeped tea waiting on the table. It would grow cold soon. “The assistant to the Adviser is rather qualified, are you not?”

Frigid as ever. 

The implications behind your words were many. He took a seat, replying neutrally as he poured from the teapot an azure tea into his cup and yours. “The position requires such.” 

“I’ve read your works. Biology, natural medicine, natural theology, philosophy, engineering, physics…” You took a sip of the flavoured tea, tasting the astringent layers of fruit you did not recognise. It might’ve perhaps been a kiwi, back on earth, blended alongside slightly unripe strawberries. “...Mathematics. In less than a year, you’ve enthralled academia with how blended your disciplines are with passion. Your understanding of how knowledge should be distributed to everyone, too, fits in with the new model of wisdom the city hopes to integrate after millennia of repression.”

“Spare the platitudes,” he replied mildly. The less you scrutinise me, the better. There was no sycophantic look in your eyes as you recited an empty analysis of him, but one that held a silent intensity. “I could say the same about your articles. Discussions about our work can wait for a time outside this meeting.”

He hoped you wouldn’t actually take him up on that. This meeting was simply a formality for you to either accept or reject the contract, and he sincerely prayed it would remain as such. 

“Oh? This is yours, then?” The mauve letter you slid across the table sent an unpleasant flicker of recognition across him, but his mask didn’t betray his expression. 

Your theses were captivating. 

Unfortunately. 

“Ah, yes,” he murmured, clearing his throat. “They were good papers. Could we move on to the objective of this meeting?”

“I’ve accepted. One year of research continuing crystallography and medical applications, and further alchemico-chemistry integration into chemical reactions,” you replied matter-of-factly. “I’ve already notarised the contract and forwarded a copy to the university’s current dean. That’ll earn me the Sophos distinction, correct?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’ve taken the offer from the university.” (He wasn’t.) “If there are no more questions…”

“I do have a question,” you interjected with practised ease. “Several, actually.”

“Oh?” Ratio leaned back, appearing perfectly intrigued. “Pray tell.”

“You’re fond of mystery, aren’t you?” It was a roundabout question.

“I’m not quite sure what you mean, sir.” You received a roundabout answer. “Keep the questions relevant. I don’t have all day for this.”

His voice was even, you’d give his acting that. “Sophos Ratio, don’t play stupid. Your work values honesty, therefore I’d prefer you to be honest as well. Did we not see each other yesterday?”

He was silent, carefully weighing his options before him. You, too, debated whether to pull your sword out against him. 

“I have a personal stake in this.” You took another sip of the fragrant tea, mulling over your next words. In fact, you pulled your sleeve aside briefly to show him the clear dressing you applied, where his dagger had melted into flesh. “Sure, you may argue that there’s no empirical evidence to suggest you crossed my path yesterday, but I think we both know how it’ll go if I pull out my sword again.”

Honesty is always the best policy. 

He looked at you for a long while, trying to deduce what you were machinating. There was a sudden release of tension in his shoulders—he was caught now, after all, but you weren’t drawing your sword out again like yesterday. Yet. “What exactly do you want?” 

“Like I said, you’ve just learned I have a personal stake in this—” you plucked a dried fig off the table and placed it on your plate, drizzling honey onto it. His gaze became particularly intense as you did so, and you couldn’t help but wonder why. “—and as of yesterday that’s given me incentive for involvement.”

“I disagree,” he interjected, picking up his own honeyed fig (and you wondered if he’d take off his mask). “In fact, it just means you don’t truly know what you’re dealing with. It is not simply an ill intentioned individual, but a complex political web far too easy to upset. I understand you learned you were a target yesterday, but there’s a reason others who have been targeted haven’t been told yet.”

“Some knowledge is better off being left unknown for the time being,” he added, and his words were faintly laced with regret. 

It was a good point. However…

“You’re working alone.” You bit into the fruit, letting the caramel taste wash over your tongue. The mellifluous notes contrasted with the blunt words drawn out of your mouth. 

“You don’t know that,” Ratio leaned back in his seat, but his faintly widened eyes betrayed his surprise. 

“I can’t prove it, but anyone in my shoes could deduce it.” You licked your fingers clean, etiquette be damned. All those presentations in front of your superiors had moulded your social anxiety-ridden self into being able to think on the spot when in a panic. “You’re currently acting in at least three roles, suggesting you’re the one doing all the work. The assistant to the Adviser…” You lifted your index finger in the air—one. “...a second-rate assassin…” You lifted your middle finger to join the first, and you sensed the scowl behind the mask—two. “…and the Adviser.” You lifted your ring finger, but quickly added your pinky—three, four. “Actually, scholar, too.”

“So, you can play detective, too,” he muttered with a particular boreal chill. He didn’t seem particularly defeated; rather, he gazed through you as though determining your worth to him. “How did you conclude the third?”

“A whistleblower who has reshaped the government,” you replied, resting your chin on your hand. “And a vigilante slowly weeding out the university faculty, the second power in Metis. You’ve already proved you prefer your own agency by shifting into a—ah—side character, and you just implicitly confirmed it now.”

“Impressive,” he commented, and nothing else to confirm or deny what you said. It was clear he was still assessing you, therefore you ventured further. 

“You’re good at magic, but contingency plans like however you escaped from Hopkins yesterday—” here, a poignant glare was shot at you. “—make your life more difficult.”

“Yes, it’s a complex political situation, and there’s always a risk in trusting someone else, but I’m probably the most serendipitous partner you have ever met,” you added. You could feel the disgust at your chosen adjective emanating from his mask. “Besides, I’m working on a subject which correlates to one of your fields. We might have to work somewhat closely regardless.”

He stared at you with mild incredulity. You were so obnoxious, so why the hell was he being swayed by your callous words? He didn’t think he’d ever been this irked by someone before, but you were holding your hand out and he was leaning towards it for some reason unbeknownst to him.

No one can shoulder the whole world, Sophos Nous had once told him.

“Don’t mess this up,” he said, finally. Against his own, your palm felt painfully familiar, and he froze. Couldn’t be him. 

“I’m glad you made this easy,” you shrugged. “I don’t think you could’ve realistically stopped me.” 

His face soured. Definitely not him. 

As you left the room with a ditty being hummed under your breath (one he recognised, ironically, as the one he’d started all those months back), he finally slipped the mask off his face and downed his tea and the fig that had grown unfortunately cloying on his plate. Chewing with an incensed expression, he finally spoke with a clear voice:

“What an egregious man.”

. 　⁺ ✦

[delzinrowe]

DR. RATIO Honkai: Star Rail | 2024

[lazy-sand-wich]

Sometimes I want to draw something hot 🔥

And, yes, a small part of the game gives me this pretty idea. I don't regret anything.

[10yrratiolover]

I find the Scholars' Strife to be extremely interesting, I didn't initially pay attention to the actual story when playing but re-reading up on it I think it depicts my thoughts on Ratio's issues with both the Intelligentsia Guild and the Genius Society.

It's stated on the wiki that: "It was decided that whoever possessed the most valuable research and could solve greater problems would own the Scepters." which, essentially, is another way of saying 'Whoever is decided to be the smartest gets both recognition for being selected and additional resources.' The existence of the Scepters sparked various 'attacks' from one school to another in order to prove that they deserve to be considered for owning more.

This, to me, sounds similar to people trying to join the Genius Society. Although I don't believe it's meant to be a direct representation (nor does this event mention Ratio anyway) but it seems to me that they fit. The data bank on the Genius Society states: "There are also those who rejoice, thinking they have already reached greatness and had created priceless asset of civilization with their diligence and wisdom. They were sure that their life's achievements deserve Nous's approval." Which fits directly into the Scholars' Strife of 'thinking they deserve what they don't, but could, have.'

The data bank also states in regards to the Scholars' Strife that: "The Guild's knowledge and ideals were no longer pure, leaving only ugly conflicts behind." Which, to me, perfectly encapsulates what I believe to be Ratios issue with both the Guild and the Society. Every party is entirely focused on themselves and what they can gain that they simply don't care for actually spending knowledge and truth.

[clowningclownn]

still comic is under the cut, but this one's with music :3

[cheriafreya]

Dendro x Imaginary

[saunterdownwards]

“I need a version where his ultimate hits but it's just falling_metal_pipe.mp4”

@king-alpha-wolfz-blog say no more

[smile-files]

kris - headcanons, theories, and analysis (a jumbled mess from yours truly)

kris has selective mutism and is semi-verbal: they have the capability of speech, but the extent to which they are willing and eager to speak at any given moment is highly dependent on their current mental state as well as the people around them. generally speaking, kris is not very talkative and infrequently starts or participates in conversation, even when in the presence of people they are comfortable with and when feeling fine; it is noted, though, that kris only ever actively wants to speak and is eager to do so in such situations -- when uncomfortable, kris will not speak unless direly necessary (and even then, their ability to speak is not guaranteed). also worthy of note is how unexpressive kris's face tends to be; they rarely wear anything other than a blank expression. exceptions only occur under extreme, catastrophic distress, or when around friends and family -- kris has been known to laugh, especially since they would like making mischief.

in kris's youth, they had close, warm relationships with their adoptive mother, toriel, their adoptive father, asgore, their adoptive brother, asriel, their next-door neighbor and friend, noelle, and, to a slightly lesser extent, noelle's sister, dess, and father, rudy. while still quiet most of the time, kris would actively want to speak to them on some occasions, and would often be happy to point out things to them (kris is a very observant person, noticing small details in their environment) and play games that had some minor speaking component (such as playing a video game in which comments are often exchanged between players). given their emotional proximity to kris, these individuals knew kris well enough to have a general sense of how they were feeling, even in moments when kris wasn't in the mindspace to speak; asriel and noelle could tell what kris was feeling better than anyone else, asriel especially understanding why kris felt what they did (noelle always knew what kris felt, but often didn't understand why they were feeling it and required an explanation kris wasn't able to provide), and so kris was very attached to them. however, this attachment was wrought with insecurity: asriel was growing up, soon to leave for college, and a well-beloved golden boy; noelle was always leagues better than kris in school, and a darling, endearing girl; kris couldn't help but fixate on asriel and noelle leaving them someday.

unfortunately, a cascade of events eventually pulled the majority of kris's loved ones away from them, including azzy and noelle. dess disappeared, splintering the relationship between kris's family, the dreemurrs, and noelle's family, the holidays; kris and noelle began to grow apart as their families lost touch; asgore was fired from his position as police chief, and toriel divorced him; finally, asriel went off to college. the only close connection kris maintained from their childhood was toriel -- and even if toriel never understood them quite as thoroughly as azzy or noelle, kris was still strongly attached to her and her ability to understand them at all, to the point that, in the absence of anyone else to connect with, kris became very clingy to her. kris has been massively lonely and depressed, fixated on the great time asriel must be having in college and how happy and beloved noelle seemed to be -- while they've been alone, with nobody to truly know how they feel when they're uncomfortable. oh, and how often kris is uncomfortable! basically friendless, constantly sleep-deprived, and harboring a hidden self-loathing stewing in their soul since their childhood… since asriel moved away, kris has been quieter than ever, unable to express the pain festering within. they were never that expressive, but that seemed to have come to a head, with kris becoming almost completely unresponsive to any emotional stimuli. kris seemed completely unfazed by susie's cruel bullying when she joined the class… however, her words seemed to strike a chord deep, deep within them, and they couldn't help but laugh.

since the player has taken control over kris's soul near the beginning of the game, however, kris's verbal "self"-expression has increased. the player can compel kris to speak -- not only in moments where kris would choose to speak themselves, in which the player just directs what it is they are to say (possibly contradicting what kris wants to say), but also in moments where kris would be uncomfortable and wouldn't even be willing to speak at all. the player seems to not have control over kris's facial expression, however -- so, despite having suppressed most show of emotion in recent months, kris now has the chance to take advantage of their ability to communicate their true feelings through their face, and might well seize it… though, why would kris not take the player's manipulation as another sign from above that they will never be understood? why even try? regardless what they think, though, a certain primal desire to be understood overrides any logic or loss of hope: like always, if disturbed enough, kris's face will show it; likewise, if something strikes their funny bone -- or if it strikes a chord deep, deep within them -- kris will laugh.

kris, no matter what, does not like being suppressed, and even if the player isn't hurting them (which can certainly, certainly happen), kris will have some negative opinion of them. they want to be loved and understood for who they truly are, more than anything else in the world, and the player, even if unintentionally, is actively undermining that. if we imagine some alternate timeline, where kris made friends with ralsei and susie all on their own, that friendship having formed at all would imply that kris believes that ralsei and susie either do or will love and understand kris for who they truly are; why would kris become friends with them otherwise? in this hypothetical, kris would learn that they aren't truly alone, and that there are always people to connect and relate to, if they believe they're capable of being understood -- that they don't have to wait forever for people like asriel. however, as the "friendship" kris has with ralsei and susie is entirely manufactured by the player and the game, it is little more than a distant dream. as we control kris's body and words, it's as if kris's self is watching what "they" do from within themselves, looking at the friendships "they" have and wishing they were truly theirs: it is dissociation, a feeling that these relationships aren't real.

at the same time, though, kris desires these relationships as they currently are, even in their apparently empty state, or wants to desire them; kris desires a world in which they aren't constantly craving understanding, in which closeness was taken for granted, in which they were open and talkative, in which, perhaps, they were a different person who isn't such a weird, quiet loser. this is what the player provides; this is what the dark world provides; this is what the game provides. the dark world is a game that kris is playing: it is doubtful that kris summoned the player to control them, but the player's control is what gives kris these relationships, and so, in some strange way, kris might desire the player as much as they hate the player. kris has never been good with people, but now they can be piloted by someone who, via the game (which, notably, is a path ralsei sets for us: the prophecy), follows a relatively stable path in which they must be good with people. chapter 1 always ends with kris being "friends" with ralsei and susie, with kris doing the "right thing", with kris being "happy". perhaps kris can come out of chapter 1, half-satisfied with having lived vicariously through themselves. chapter 2 is largely the same for basically every player, and would perhaps result in noelle genuinely, earnestly reconnecting with kris (kris themselves) through their adventure in the dark world; however, if the player tries hard enough to defy the game's path, they can force kris to do terrible things to people: to emotionally abuse noelle right as she was about to rekindle something with kris, manipulating her into killing someone. this, obviously, would f*ck kris up, the main reason for which need not even be spoken. but there is something more subtly tragic about it all: that the one genuine, non-vicarious, non-player relationship kris might foster through the game -- their faded friendship with noelle -- was forcibly dashed on the rocks with kris's own, puppeted hands. is that not horrible?

no matter what path the player makes kris take in either chapter, kris removes their soul each night (twice during chapter 2) and, shambling like a silent zombie, performs some impulsive, violent act with their knife -- cutting a pie, slashing toriel's car tires, or opening a dark fountain. worthy of note is that the soul the player controls is still kris's soul, and yet they are willing to literally remove their soul, the culmination of their being, to be free of us from a little while. in two of three cases, kris clearly returns the soul to their body; in the third at the end of chapter 2, they hold it up as their handmade dark fountain billows smoke, and it is ambiguous what they do with it. are they gazing at it in awe, or glaring at it in disgust? how much do they need the soul, and how much can they act without it? will they return it to their body? the player, the dark world, and the game are what allow kris to reconnect with noelle -- or break her. in the former case, kris might be opening a dark fountain in the hopes that perhaps more good will come out of this strange system of control at which they are centered; in the latter, they might be opening it to spite the player's attempts at closing dark fountains, in accordance to ralsei and the game's will. true, the path that leads kris to manipulate noelle is one that defies the game's central intent -- but the game still allowed it to happen, tantalizing the observant player with a secret route. or, in both cases, kris just might want to create a dark world where their mother is present, given that the dark world has either brought people closer to them, or left them completely alone…

[aestheticallypleasinganimeboys]

Paimon - H-Game: Battle Goddess VERITA