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anominous-user · 9 months ago

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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.

#honkai star rail #double indemnity #veritas ratio #aventurine #golden ratio #ratiorine #an attempt at analysis by one a-u #relationship analysis #you know what‚ i guess i can tag the other names of this ship #aventio #raturine #you could make a fucking tierlist of these names #um‚ dynamics (yk what i mean) dont really matter here in the analysis just fyi if youre wondering its general enough #also if you're wondering about the compilation thread - its not done. it'll take a while (a long while.)#this post was so long it was initially just a tumblr draft that i then put into google docs. and it ended up being over 2k+ words long #is this a research paper‚ thesis‚ or essay? who knows! this just started as just a short analysis after watching the movie on may 5 #final word count according to docs (excluding alt text): 13013 - 43 pages with formatting #i wish i could have added more images to this‚ 10k words vs 30 images really is not doing me any favours…#plus‚ i hit the character limit for alt text for one of the images.#if you see me mixing up british and american spelling‚ you probably have!#oh yeah. if any of the links happen to break at some point. do tell. i have everything backed up #there also may be multiple links strung together‚ just so you know.#I link videos using the EN and CN voiceovers. Just keep that in mind if the jump between two languages seems sudden.#I had to copy and paste this thing from the original tumblr draft onto a new post because tumblr wouldn't let me edit the old one anymore.#Feels just like when I was finalising my song comic…#(Note: I had to do this three times.)#I started this at May 5 as a way to pass the time before 2.2. You can probably tell how that turned out.#Did you know there is a limit to the amount of links you can add to a single tumblr post? It's 100. I hit that limit as well.#So if you want context for some of these parts... just ask.#I'm gonna stop here before I hit the tag limit (30) as well LMAOO (never mind I just did.)

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luminarai · 1 year ago

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you’re on your own kid / yeah you can face this

I started this Parse comic almost a year ago (!) but I’ve only just managed to put it together now. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Kent and how he mostly exists in bits and pieces as seen through the eyes of other characters.

There’s just something about being haunted and defined by your past (mistakes) but also finding strength on your own. (And how there can still a hopeful ending despite it all.)

#my art #omgcp #omgcheckplease #omg check please #kent parson #kp #kvp #pimms #(ish)#jack zimmermann #check please #this is the real version finally!! so sorry about the accidental posting of one of the drafts earlier 🥲#I can’t believe this took so long… a YEAR #I’ve had most of it finished for a YEAR #but here it is #I had to cut a few lyrics and images to make it flow better #a couple of the cut pics I really wish I could have managed to fit in there but alas #besides it was mostly like. parse being ghosted after jack’s overdose. the pics were too static of that makes sense #the song is you’re on your own kid by Taylor swift #yes I firmly believe that kent parson is the check please character most likely to be a swiftie #and I stand by that #honestly in universe parse has probably been to at least one of her parties #as a fellow celeb cat parent #a lot of this song is very kvp and some of it is a bit more handwavy ~it fits the vibes~

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somegrumpynerd · 16 days ago

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-Okay but some of the fears that Color has are in fact the same fears that Nightmare has when it comes to Killer.

Like, Color is worried that Killer's so blindly loyal to Nightmare for whatever reason that he wouldn't even think of complaining if he hated it. And at the start that was something Nightmare probably expected. His henchmen should be loyal and obedient and not ask questions nor complain. But now, after years of learning and bonding and softening up significantly he wonders sometimes if that's still the case.

Nightmare knows Killer well, perhaps better than most, but he's not exactly an open book. Especially when it comes to his own wants or needs. More often than not when he makes a request it's intentionally silly or unreasonable for laughs, like asking if they can take Dust to the nearest pet store and try to trade him in. Very rarely does he want something strong enough to make it known, both to himself and others, like asking to keep the first cat he found.

So.

If he hated this. If he truly struggled and fought and agonised with himself about the position he's in and the work he's doing and the life he leads.

Would he say it? Would he realise that was how he felt? Would he even consider saying no was an option?

If Nightmare asked him to do something he really genuinely did not want to, would he just do it anyway because he doesn't believe he has a choice in the matter?

The only way of finding out (besides making a blatantly difficult request of him, which Nightmare is not willing to do) is to simply wait and trust that Killer will tell him if something is wrong. Which... is not exactly foolproof or easy.

But it's part of why Nightmare hates to be around Color too much, because deep down he's more than a little worried that Color could be right and he doesn't know how to fix it.

#UTDR #UTMV #Dadmare #This was a thought I had and drafted like months and months ago and forgot about #Little ideas about how to fit Color into a dadmare scenario I guess #Cool people who make Color posts don't look I'm probably doing a terrible job with your boy lol #He's not worried about the others in regards to this because Dust has never had a problem disobeying him #And Horror and Cross set out ground rules for themselves right from the start about what they would not do (murder)#He's never sure about Killer though. how do you begin to tell someone they don't have to listen to you if they don't want to #How do you tell if it worked?#Realistically Killer has and does disobey Nightmare he just hides it well #''I got caught out and ganged up on during that fight'' when really he peeled off to go talk to Color out of sight #''they must have heard we were coming. there was nothing we could do'' when one of them got distracted and they fucked up a job #''we've always had that cat. they're just shy so you don't see them very much'' when he brought home another stray in his jacket #<-That one happens a lot and Nightmare is beginning to suspect on it #But he never sees more than like 4 or 5 of them at a time so he can't prove anything #Whether it's sheer luck or Killer has trained his cats to do a Parent Trap bit on him nobody knows for sure #Anyway this has cooked for long enough time to release it into the wild #Go my post

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umeji-writes · 1 year ago

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Okay, but let's talk about Balam's hair for a hot second

(Yes, it may have become one of my fixations) You know, the guy not only cut it radically - and we know it's because of Iruma - he also let it grow back, and now he grooms it much better than before. Why? While my wishful thinking headcanon is that Kalego offered to brush it after they declared their feelings for each other (they are definitely introduced as best friends, but c'mon, look at them here)

...I also recognize this is not canon, so it can't be the actual reason. So I was wondering: why this difference? IMO it signifies personal growth, but what caused it, if Iruma led to the haircut? And then it hit me. Meeting Iruma, again - but in a deeper way than I thought at first. According to Balam's own words, he decided to cut his hair to appear more approachable. But why not brush it and style it as he's doing now? Everything we know about Balam's past points to him being treated like a weirdo and marginalized, not only because he likes picture books, he was also hyperfixated with the existence of humans.

This went on all his life, from bullies at school to his own students. He was likely wounded, full of self doubt and possibly shame, so he withdrew into himself, and his hair was messy because why bother if people avoid you anyway. So imagine finally having tangible proof that you were right all along. That's life changing, not only because of the discovery itself - it can make you reevaluate your whole story, and yourself. A radical cut was a logical thing to do, to break with the past. But why letting the hair grow back then? I speculate that Balam is most comfortable with long hair after all, and he feels more like himself this way (I mean, he had medium-to-long hair in all flashbacks). I like to think that his personal grooming is a metaphor for his newly found self confidence and self love: he can be himself to the fullest, he likes the demon he is, and he's not afraid of showing it to everyone else now, by making his hair prettier. He was right all along, and everybody else can shut it.

Such a small detail in the grand scheme of things, yet enormous for the single character. I love this manga so much ♡

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tangents-within-tangents · 5 months ago

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Thinking about the song "Ship in Port" by Radical Face and clones

Thinking about the line "Farewell to the chains we were born into" and what that can mean for the clones

Thinking about how "But I have always stayed in place/Under that old illusion that it's safe" could equally describe Hunter, Echo, and (s1+2) Crosshair's complete opposite approaches to the Empire and post-war life.

The way Crosshair clings to his identity as a soldier of the Empire

And Echo as a soldier of the Republic

But Hunter puts his identity as a soldier behind him

Crosshair fights for the Empire to gain purpose

Echo fights against the Empire to save his brothers

And Hunter decides the Empire is too strong to even try to oppose

"A ship in port is a safer one"

"but it's not the reason it was made"

"So forgive me if I wander off"

"And forgive me more if I just stay"

Thinking about what The Bad Batch could have been if it had more fully explored the differences between those ideologies

(Thinking about what The Bad Batch could have been if it had dedicated more screen time to the 'reg' clones within the Empire and the underground network's fight to free them , instead of just sidelining Echo and Rex for a hypothetical clone rebellion show we might never get)

#i have lots of thoughts and many draft posts in which i've been struggling to figure out how to word those thoughts #tbb had SO much potential #it was so close!#it really could have been on par with Andor if it has just tried #i feel like i'm projecting these themes that aren't really there #the pieces are there the show just didn't focus on them #i considered saying hunter 'hides from the empire to protect his family' but that never included crosshair just omega #so that felt like giving him too much credit #ignore the music video i just really love the acoustic version bc MMM that viol!#the rest of the lyrics totally fit for clones of this era too btw #like SO WELL ugh #if i had the time resources and attention span I'd make a music video #maybe someday...#(lol i have waay too many projects stuck in my brain and also the new semester started and i'm already so behind rip)#while we're on the subject of radical face and clones #“always gold” is THE perfect heartbreaking Kix song!#tbb #tbb analysis #sw tcw #tbb echo #tbb hunter #tbb crosshair #arc trooper echo #the clones #radical face #bardic musings #sorry i didn't credit the gifs #this has been in my drafts since long before i knew people care about that and i can't find where i found them from #just know the shitty ones are the ones i made lol

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missluthorwillseeyounow · 1 year ago

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What do you do when someone you love is a psychopath and a serial killer? How do you pick up your life and move on from it?

If you're Lionel Luthor, you don't. Your son betrays you and the legacy you built for him, and so your heart betrays you too. You sit at your desk with those damn pills your quack of a doctor prescribed and one too many drinks. You feel a warning twinge on your arm before excruciating pain, red and angry, blooms in your chest, and you never see the morning.

The only good thing about this is that you never see your son go to trial for killing 47 people over a span of 6 years. People whisper that you are one of Lex Luthor’s victims.

If you’re Lillian Luthor, you don’t either. You clean the damned mess these Luthor men left you. You take over the company that your husband had the gall to leave you, just as he left you with your only daughter. You clean up the tatters of your family’s reputation and legacy that your son left behind.

In the eyes of the world, you move on. You rise, finally able to flex the muscles so long held back by your husband and the rest of the world's expectations. And you bring Luthor Corp with you.

The millstone of the trials and scandal hang heavy on your neck, but all your life you have taught yourself to walk gracefully among lesser beings with your back straight and your head held high, just as you did as a young girl with textbooks on your head. This is no different.

But once a month, you make a pilgrimage to Stryker’s Island. To Lex. To the son you loved the best way you knew how, the only way you knew how - with a firm grip and the relentless, uncompromising push to achieve excellence, the intractable determination to make him grow into his fullest potential. That this potential was realized in murder, malice and manipulation was not your intent, but the world is far too quick and vindictive in their judgement because he is a Luthor. The mightiest always fall the farthest, and those beneath them wait hungrily for the chance to pull them down.

Your daughter leaves you too. The daughter who emerged, not from your body, but from your husband's infidelity. The same one who once looked up at you with eyes full of innocent trust that you vowed you would reciprocate in the best way you knew how. And so you did your best to prepare her, to mold her in your own image - into what a Luthor woman should be in this cruel, savage world that both worships and hates Luthors.

You’ve seen what the world does to Luthors who do or say the smallest wrong thing and you never want her to suffer those whispers and so you tell her yourself. Better she hears it from family than the mouths and forked tongues of strangers.

But she is too hard-headed and too soft-hearted to comply. She rejects your bequest, the ungrateful girl, and tries to escape the Lena Luthor you tried so hard to cultivate all these years.

As if you don't know. As if you could forget that it was her who brought this down upon all of you. Her, and that detestable Clark Kent.

And if you are Lena Luthor, you cannot move on. You cannot escape it. No matter how far you stray from your family. No matter how many reparations you make, no matter how hard you strive to separate yourself from the curse it brings -- it always finds you.

It finds you in the dark hours when you’re by yourself without the touch of another woman or the burn of alcohol to distract you - and suddenly you’re a scared little girl again, walking into an ominous house made of grim oak, unforgiving marble and dark shadows. And the only warmth you receive is not from a largely absent and formidable father nor from a condescending and controlling mother, but from a charismatic and mercurial brother who taught you how to play chess and promised you the world.

But it turns out his shadow was the darkest of all, and you didn't see until it was too late.

How could you not see it?

You were just a girl at that time, Agent J'onzz once tried to comfort you with that fact. Back when Lex was arrested.

Just a schoolgirl home for the holidays -- shoes polished as bright as the naivete in your eyes, uniform pressed to Lillian's exact standards, picture perfect but always with just one tiny detail you forgot that was enough to attract notice and invite criticism. This time it was the glasses sitting slightly crooked on your face.

You were more concerned with weathering the scorching disapproval just long enough until you got back to boarding school that you failed to notice Lex's distance. You failed to recognize the signs. You failed to decode his lies.

You failed.

By the time you got back to boarding school, he would have killed 2 more people.

By the time you caught on, he'd already killed 31. Those lives are all on you, because you were so absorbed by yourself, you didn't see what was happening under your nose. And those 3 agents Lex killed because he refused to come quietly? The judge and jury he poisoned at the trial? That's on you too.

Forty-seven lives taken. Forty seven more than there should have been if you hadn't been so blind.

If only you hadn't been comforted by the gentle hand holding yours under the table throughout Lillian's litanies of your shortcomings everytime you were home from school. If only you hadn't fallen for the "adventures" he had tricked you into that always ended with you in disgrace or punished, like that time you stole Lionel's prized pen from the King of Jordan, just for him.

If only you hadn't believed the fairy-tale dream of the two of you escaping to the snow-covered mountain peak, of finally being free of the Luthors’ oppressive presence.

And now he's serving 20 consecutive life sentences, and you've devoted your life to studying and stopping people like him.

Now you have 10 years of experience as a profiler and an undercover operative for both the Interpol and the FBI. Your work has taken you from Toran, to Kaznia, to Corto Maltese, to Metropolis, and now to National City.

You have seen the worst humanity has to offer, from terrorists to human traffickers to serial killers. But you keep looking into the abyss.

Because you looked into it once, you stared it in the face, and you didn't recognize it for what it was.

_________

Or, a Supercorp Criminal Minds AU

There's actually 3 major plots in this, and they all intersect in varying ways

The first is Lex as a serial killer

The second is about Sam and Reign

The third is the most vague one, which includes Lena’s birth mother and Leviathan

It starts (as the intro says) with Lex being a serial killer who killed 47 people. In one version of this story, Clark is a reporter who, like Lena, made the connection between Lex and the murders. One night after dinner with the Luthors, Clark sneaks into Lex’s study to find evidence he can use for his story.

He’s rummaging in a desk when he hears a voice from the doorway.

“You won’t find anything there.” Clark whips around to find Lena standing there, silhouetted against the light coming from the hall. He tenses, thinking she’s about to tell her brother what Clark was doing.

“If Lex really is behind these murders, and I know you think he is, you won’t find anything there. He’s not foolish enough to hide evidence here."

Clark doesn’t say anything, he just stares at her. Lena pauses, looking away. "I… I didn’t want to believe it. Not Lex… He wouldn’t…” Steel injects itself into her green gaze. “But the more time I spend with him, the more clearly I see the truth. You see it too, don’t you?"

Clark straightens up and nods gravely. “Yes.”

The FBI eventually becomes involved in the investigation, and the team includes a certain agent on the fast track to becoming the unit chief, J’onn J’onzz.

J’onn meets Lena only briefly, but he’s struck by the young girl’s keen intelligence and remarkable calm. (Eventually, he becomes the one who suggests that Lena consider a career in profiling and criminal psychology).

Fast forward a couple of decades later, Lena is working with the BAU. The other members of the team here are J'onn, Alex, James, Brainy and Winn. Lena is a transfer from Interpol, and she's had years of experience in profiling, suspect and victim identification, as well as infiltration, under her belt (I also hc that she worked briefly with the CIA and the MI6, mostly in intel, profiling and undercover work).

For the sake of her anonymity (and also because it was necessary for her undercover work), she's erased all connections to Lex and the Luthors (including old photographs and newspaper articles until the name Lena Luthor is but a footnote in the Luthor history with nothing to tie her to who she is now). She's also changed her last name. (I'm torn because I just don't know if I can use the name Walsh for Lena, it doesn't sound.. right? Idk So for now, she's Agent Kieran).

Lena is very professional, almost intimidating. She’s revered by the younger agents in the Bureau, well-respected by her colleagues and highly praised by her superiors. But she's very guarded and keeps everyone at arm's length, doesn't go out for after-work drinks with the others, practically sleeps with one eye open — years of working undercover and living with a serial killer will do that to you.

Until a certain promising young recruit comes along.

Kara is new in town — the adopted sister of Alex Danvers, the cousin of one of J'onn's old friends (I don't think teaming family members up is actually allowed in the FBI, so some suspension of disbelief is required here). Lena is assigned to oversee her training and transition into the team herself.

Kara's sunny demeanor couldn't clash more with Lena's icy, professional facade. Lena approaches the task with thinly-veiled impatience and something remarkably close to disdain.

However, Kara quickly proves to be more than a perky attitude and a pretty smile. She squirms at blood, which Lena is quick to exploit at first (What FBI profiler can't stand the sight of a corpse? "We profile serial killers here, not celebrities in high-waisted jeans.").

But Kara displays true empathy to the victims and their families, she's sensitive to other people's emotions and knows just what to say to get a reluctant victim or witness talking. She's extremely dedicated to catching the unsubs, and relentless in her investigation. Not to mention, she's extremely handy to have around in a crisis.

Lena finds this last part out when they're on a case, trying to find a missing girl.

The team is headed to the unsub's apartment, but on a hunch, Lena heads to an abandoned warehouse near the apartment, with only Kara as backup. They enter the warehouse, and just as they're clearing the rooms and checking for the missing girl, the unsub attacks Lena and manages to pin her to the ground, choking her. Kara gets there just in time to shoot the unsub in the leg, saving Lena's life.

Later that evening, Kara and the rest of the team go to the bar to celebrate. Lena is absent, as usual.

Just as Kara is getting another round of drinks at the bar, a low, smoky voice interrupts her. "Didn't profile you as a drinker, Danvers.”

Kara squeaks, nearly dropping the drinks, and turns to see Lena smirking behind her. “I wonder what other surprises you're hiding behind those glasses and cardigans."

"Agent Kieran! I didn’t expect to see you here— No, these aren't all for me, I— " Lena's face softens at Kara's babbling, and she takes a few of the shot glasses from Kara's hands.

"You know, I have a rule..." A wry smile lifts one corner of her lipsticked mouth. "Anyone who saves my life gets to call me Lena."

Kara blushes profusely at the other woman’s arched eyebrow. "Well then, if I'm calling you Lena..."

Lena smirks. "Kara it is, then."

For the first time — much to the gaping surprise of the rest of the team she's worked with for years — Lena joins them for a post-case drink.

To everyone's — and no one's — surprise, the pair quickly become the best of friends.

Two days into their friendship, Lena starts jokingly calling Kara Supergirl. Three weeks later, they start grabbing lunch together. Three months in, Kara sends Lena a video of herself petting a St. Bernard on the street only to be bowled over in a mass of furry paws and puppy licks — and the cadets Lena is training are even more bowled over to hear the "Ice Queen" laugh. Of course, they're later treated with a scorching glare and a sharp reprimand, but it's a revelation just to discover that she's actually physically capable of laughing.

By six months, the whole department is in a secret "will they or won't they" betting pool. A year in, and every other department has stakes in the pool (Alex publicly condemns the pool, but secretly bets a hundred bucks that "they will" by winter).

One time while they're eating lunch together, Kara tells Lena why she became a profiler when her career was in journalism.

"It just felt... too late. I'd be covering these stories about these terrible things, people who were already victims, and I thought... it's too late... Don't get me wrong, I loved being a reporter. Journalism was a way to bring truth out there, to give voices to these victims, but.... I wanted - needed - to do something more. I wanted to stop these things from happening. To keep these people from becoming victims."

But despite their growing closeness, Lena has yet to tell Kara about Lex, or about her life before the BAU.

She doesn't tell Kara about the woman she'd loved once, who hates her now because of the lies Lena told her. She doesn't tell her about Reign. She doesn’t tell Kara about the sweet young girl living far, far away, who plays soccer and loves to sing and read. The little girl Lena loves from afar, but knows only through secret updates from James, because it's for her own good.

Because that sweet little girl that Lena hasn't seen since she was a baby deserves to live a life that's whole and good — away from those who love her, but could hurt her. Whether she's thinking about Sam or herself, Lena doesn't know.

There are too many secrets, Lena decides, as she shoves them all one by one into their little boxes, clamping the lid securely shut. Kara is too good to be tainted by any of them.

Kara, who gets squeamish at the sight of blood, but resolutely hunts each killer like an avenging angel. Kara, who somehow, somehow still believes in the good in people.

And when she realizes that there is very little of that to be found in Lena Kieran or Lena Luthor, Kara will hate her as much as Lena hates herself.

But then the day comes when Lena receives a package in the mail.

She reaches in and pulls out two things: one, a chess piece — the white knight — and the other, a surveillance photo of Kara and Lena having lunch together.

On the back of the photograph are three cryptic little words that fill her with dread: “See you soon, sis.”

Panic overrides logic and years of training, and Lena stashes the package and its cursed contents into her safe. Heart racing, she calls the warden at Strykers. It takes several favors, but she manages to procure video footage confirming that her brother is still incarcerated. Despite the visual confirmation, she doesn’t sleep a wink that night, nor the night after.

Everything is quiet after that, so quiet that Lena is almost lulled, if not into a sense of complacency, then at least a state of less vigilance. Everyone needs a breather, a reprieve from paranoia at some point, and that is exactly what Lex is counting on.

A string of seemingly-unrelated murders heralds Lex's return, luring the BAU — and Lena — closer and closer. Lena knows she should leave, and leave soon. The closer the team gets to figuring out it's Lex, the more danger they're in — not just Kara, but the rest of the team that Lena has now come to care for.

But Kara, being Kara, holds onto Lena and keeps her from leaving.

Kara knows her too well now. She knows that something is wrong. She pushes without pushing, in that earnest yet respectful way, relentless in her concern for the people she cares about, yet still mindful and considerate in her efforts. It's one of the things Lena loves about her.

And then, after coming home from a case one night — Kara is shot by an intruder in her apartment.

The whole team is thrown into chaos trying to find Kara’s assailant. They all agree that the attack cannot be random, but there’s a frustrating lack of evidence anywhere.

But Lena knows.

The lack of clues is a glaring clue in and of itself. She knows this is Lex’s handiwork. Her brother’s way of getting back at her for “telling on him”, just like he used to when they were children. Except the stakes are infinitely higher this time, and he has gone too far.

And Lena — who should've known — didn't prevent it. She was too selfish, too greedy, wanting more time — more time with Kara, more time with her team, her family — and now this is the result.

Lena knows that Lex will go after everything and everyone she loves, because he wants to hurt her. Luthors are not raised on half-measures. Win the game, or burn the board. He will not stop, Lena knows this. Not until either of them is dead.

While half the team is waiting at Kara’s bedside, and the other half is delving into Kara’s case — two people are noticeably missing.

Alex can’t bear to see her sister looking so weak and vulnerable in that hospital bed.

Instead, she goes to Kara's apartment to clean her sister’s blood off the wall before Kara gets home from the hospital.

She's just getting a bucket full of soapy water when she hears movement at the door. Alert, Alex already has her gun out and trained at the door.

When the door opens, all Alex sees is a flash of black hair and wide green eyes before she gets a gun aimed at her too.

"Lena?? What the fuck?! What are you doing here??"

Alex puts her gun down slowly, her heart still hammering. Lena cautiously does the same, her hands held out to her sides.

Alex gestures at the door "How did you—?"

"Kara gave me the key three months ago." Lena's eyes haven't lost their wary edge, but she has the decency to look a bit abashed. "She said I could come over anytime."

"Yeah, but Kara's still in the hospital. What are you doing here?"

"I know that," Lena slants her a light glare as she looks around Kara's apartment. "I just — I wanted to make sure the place is secure, and... well... I didn't want Kara to come home to that."

She gestures at the blood-spattered wall, but looks away quickly. As if she, like Alex, can't bear to stand the sight of Kara's blood.

It's funny. They're both seasoned agents, they deal with horrific things on an almost daily basis. The sight of blood rarely fazes either of them anymore. Except this is Kara's blood.

It seems impossible that Lena could get any paler, but here she is, as white as a ghost and looking just as sick as Alex feels. And yet, she's still here. Out of everyone in Kara's circle of friends and family, only Alex and Lena are here, performing a task that somehow seems more terrible than anything either of them have encountered.

It's in this moment that it begins to dawn on Alex just how special Lena is. How special she may still become.

Alex bends down and drags the bucket of soapy water to the wall. She doesn't look at Lena, and instead focuses on the wall and swallows down bile at the sight of her sister's blood. Over her shoulder, she mutters "Grab a sponge."

"That's not gonna be enough. We, um—" Lena clears her throat and chokes out. "— need bleach."

Alex nods curtly. "Under the kitchen sink."

Lena gets the bleach, and the two of them silently begin scrubbing Kara's blood off her walls, and that's that. Once they're done, Alex gets a couple of beers that Kara keeps especially for Alex in her fridge and offers one to Lena.

Then Alex gives her a mild version of a shovel talk lol

And then, two days before Kara is released from the hospital, the news breaks. Lex Luthor, convicted serial killer, has escaped from prison.

All eyes are focused on the BAU screen, except J’onn’s. He turns to his left. Lena Kieran watches the television without batting an eye.

Lena waits only until after Kara has come back home, to make sure that she's safe, that Alex is staying with her for now.

Looking at the blonde tucked into blankets on the couch, soft and vulnerable, Lena can't bring herself to say goodbye, so instead, she just leans over to kiss Kara on the forehead and says good night.

Then without a word, without even packing a bag, Lena Luthor leaves National City to lure her brother out of the shadows.

Lena makes her exit just as the team is on the cusp of finding out that Lena Kieran is Lena Luthor.

She leaves her apartment intact, knowing that Kara and the rest of the team will eventually search it. She sticks the surveillance photo of her and Kara on the bedroom mirror and writes on the glass in red lipstick: "I'm sorry. I promise I'll make this right."

J'onn is the only one who knows the truth of who Lena really is, and in the end, he's the one who tells them.

With Lena gone, it's clear to J'onn that she's about to do something monumentally stupid, like sacrifice herself for the team. He gathers everyone, and tells them the truth.

The group is gathered around the conference table, staring at pictures of young Lena on the screen.

Tiny Lena, not even 5 years old, just after she was adopted by the Luthors, her wide green eyes sad and confused, her little hands clutching a worn, well-loved teddy bear.

Six year old Lena and a teenaged Lex Luthor standing together in front of Lena's new school. The little girl in her neat uniform, holding onto the older boy's hand, looking at her big brother with an adoring smile.

Fifteen year old Lena on summer vacation, and a now-adult Lex, the young girl perched on the hood of a restored vintage car with Lex's hand on her shoulder. Lena is thinner, more gaunt, and her smile less bright, but Lex is different. He's grinning at the camera, looking every inch the charismatic billionaire playboy. You would never know from Lex Luthor's easy smile that he had already been killing for 5 years at this point.

Finally, the last Luthor family portrait, taken the year Lex was arrested. They're a beautiful family, there's no denying that. Each person in the photograph is regal and proud — but in each set face, there's a private war being waged. Lena looks far older than her sixteen years. Her face shows no emotion in each cut line, but her eyes betray all: a somber intensity that's impossible to look away from. Lex is the exact opposite. His smile is charming and draws the viewer's gaze, but his eyes are cold and dead. Within 8 months, Lex would be in prison, Lionel would be dead, Lillian would be running the company, and Lena would no longer be a Luthor.

Kara feels... she doesn't know how she feels.

There's anger, shock, confusion and... hurt. A lot of hurt, a heavy ball of it resting on the base of her spine, mixed with the ache of a longing she doesn't understand, something broken that only confuses her more. So she decides to settle on the anger.

Yes, anger is good. It gives her a sense of purpose and clarity, and it doesn't threaten to make her curl up into a tiny ball. She's angry that her best friend — one of the most important people in her life, second only to Alex — has been hiding all of this from her for years. She's angry that Lena, who has taught her so many things — not just about being a profiler, but about life and love and friendship — didn't trust her enough to tell her about any of this.

Anger is good, because it keeps the tears stinging the back of her eyes from falling, because... because Kara's always thought she knows Lena better than anyone. Had believed that out of everyone, Lena had trusted her, Kara Danvers, enough to get to know her. But now, it seems she doesn't really know Lena at all.

The screen flickers.

Everyone blinks up at the screen in confusion as it begins to glitch. Suddenly, the photos of Lena disappear from the monitors. It’s replaced by what looks like a grainy video feed. Kara turns to J’onn, who shakes his head, frowning. This was not his doing.

“What the hell?” Alex frowns up at the monitor and nudges Winn, who immediately squints into his computer screen. “Who’s doing that?”

“I have no idea...” Winn mutters. “Gimme a second...”

It looks like feed from a surveillance video, except it’s showing what looks like a cabin. Even from the pixelated image, it looks well-decorated, expensive, like something from a country home magazine. Outside the far window, Kara can see a view of snow-capped mountains. Outlined in the middle is a dark shadow of a man.

“They live soft, luxurious lives, don’t they? Your so-called friends. Oblivious, unencumbered by knowledge, and so pathetically... mortal. Fragile.” A smooth baritone voice cuts through the static, and Kara’s blood chills. That voice is familiar. “You and I, we have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Haven’t we, sister mine?”

Another figure steps out of the shadows and into view, and Kara gasps. Even in the grainy image, Lena’s smile is sharp and icy. “Comparing yourself to Alexander the Great now, are you? But then again, you always were trying too hard, Lex.”

I don't know exactly how happens, I haven't figured it out yet, but Lena confronts Lex with the intention of killing him, except she's the one who's "killed".

And Lex, being the sadistic ass that he is, had the whole thing captured on a hidden camera and it's being broadcast on every BAU monitor, for Lena's family to see.

The whole team watches Lena "die".

But Lena had a failsafe. She told someone of her location, maybe Andrea or Jack or Jess idk, and had them standby to help her in case something happened.

The whole time Lex streams their confrontation, Kara is frantic. The table suffers under her fury, splintering with the force of her desperate grip.

Every time they get nowhere trying to track Lena and Lex, Kara punches the walls, and Alex has to hold her sister back, afraid of how Kara is losing control.

When the feed broadcasts Lena's death, it seems almost unremarkable. One second, Lena is standing, the next she's on the floor, lifeless and unmoving.

A deadly silence grips the BAU conference room. No one is moving, not even breathing. It's as if when Lena dropped dead on the feed, so did they. They wait. And wait.. and wait.

Lena doesn't move.

On the screen, Lex checks his sister's vitals and satisfied, steps over his sister's body and out of sight. The camera blacks out.

They all stare dumbly at the screen for a long moment, afraid to move, as if moving from their frozen spots would make it true.

It's Alex who stirs first. She jumps into action, frantic, ordering Winn to get the feed back, but it's impossible. The room erupts in a blaze of action, but Kara... Kara's the only one left staring at the screen, frozen in shock and disbelief, as if she can't believe it's real.

It’s not. It’s not.

In the interim between Lena's death and the reveal that she’s alive, Kara spends every waking moment hunting down Lex or secretly looking into Leviathan (which she also uncovers when she digs deeper into Lena’s life before the Luthors and learns more about Lena’s mother).

Kara goes down so deep into the rabbit hole, that Alex is genuinely afraid for her sister. She almost prays that they don't find Lex Luthor. Not because she doesn't want that man brought to justice, but because she's afraid of what Kara can and will do once she sees him.

Kara hasn't mentioned Lena's name in months. But then again, most of their team hasn't.

In the months since Lena’s death, two new members have been brought int the BAU team, William Dey and Nia Nal.

William and Nia know very little about Lena from the team itself, because her name is hardly mentioned. Nia only knows Lena through her reputation, and through what Alex and the other agents outside of their team have told her.

Alex is the only one in the team who says Lena's name because she hates that everyone tiptoes around it.

Lena was their friend. Her friend, and it's not right that everyone flinches at her name, that they can't look at the plaque of her on the memorial wall. She knows how hard it is to look at Lena's picture there, just as hard as it was to look at Kara's blood on the walls.

But Alex is not gonna be the one to look away. Lena didn't look away when they cleaned Kara's blood off the walls, and Alex will not look away from her either. She's gonna hunt Lex Luthor down like the animal that he is and make him pay for taking Lena from their family.

But Alex is getting worried about Kara.

Her sister doesn’t sleep anymore. Barely eats. Kara doesn't stop — she pores over old files of Lex's murders, goes over the old profile, possible places he might be. Alex is worried about her fixation with Lex. It's not healthy. Kara's grief — or her refusal to grieve — is gonna drive her to the ground.

So she confronts Kara about it.

They're in the BAU conference room when Alex finally speaks up, but Kara meets her gaze head on. With one hand, she points to the empty seat Lena used to favor, right across Kara's. "Lena's chair, Alex. What do you see when you look at it?... Nothing, right? We've left it empty all this time. No one can bear to sit it in. Tell me, what do you see, right now?"

Alex glances over at the chair, then back at her sister "Kara..."

"Tell me what you see, Alex."

Alex sighs. "Nothing."

"Exactly. Nothing." Kara nods, her eyes hard. "Do you wanna know what I see? I see her, Alex. I see Lena sitting across from me, just as clearly as I can see you now.”

Alex swallows at the intensity burning in her sister’s eyes.

“I see her everywhere, Alex. All the time. I see her smile, her eyes, and I—" Kara's voice cuts off with a sob. The agony in her eyes is almost too much for Alex to take. It takes a long moment before Kara can speak again.

"I can't stop, Alex. Whenever I stop and I look at her, I — I know she's - she's gone, but she looks so alive, and I— I know the only way I can get any kind of peace about it is knowing that Lex Luthor has been wiped off the face of the earth."

A frisson of fear shivers down Alex's spine. "Killing Lex won't bring Lena back, Kara."

"I know that, Alex." Kara's eyes are dark as flint. "Believe me. I know."

Sometime after Lena’s “death”, the BAU receives an unannounced visitor.

Lillian Luthor strides into the BAU bullpen, tall and imperial in her furs, her icy glare making everyone it lands on feel small and insignificant.

She strides past the bullpen, past Kara, and comes face to face with J’onn. Her cold blue eyes render everyone in the room silent. She scoffs her hatred into his face.

"Taking my son away from me wasn't enough for you people, was it? You had to take my daughter away from me too. I warned her. I warned her this would be her undoing, and I was right. And now she's dead."

They end up having to work with Lillian to find Lex, because as Lillian says "It takes a Luthor to find a Luthor." [And there's gonna be an interrogation lol. I just have this vague idea of Lillian talking about Lex and Lena.]

"The truth is, I lost Lena long before now.” Kara suspects that this is the closest anyone has come to hearing regret in Lillian Luthor’s voice.

“I was.... harsh on her, in a way I never was with Lex. Lex always had a sharp edge to him, but Lena — Lena was too soft, too vulnerable. A Luthor cannot be soft. Not when the world is watching, waiting for you to make the smallest mistake."

It’s not enough. It’s nowhere near enough. Kara slams her hands on the table, unable to believe the nerve of this woman. J'onn grips her arm in warning, but Kara ignores him, snarling at Lillian, her anger plain on her face. "You abused her! You made her feel unworthy of love, unable to trust anyone—"

Lillian lifts her chin. "I made sure my daughter could face a world that's hungry for Luthor blood. I made her a Luthor."

"She was just a little girl when she came to you!" Kara shouts, her fury growing by the second. "A little girl whose mother just died, who was looking for love, and instead she found you. She trusted you—"

Lillian's voice rises, a flash of heat scorching the cool, detached dignified tones. "I made her strong!"

"She didn't need to be strong!" Kara yells, surging up to her feet, her face inches away from Lillian. J'onn grabs her shoulder, restraining, but Kara presses forward. "She needed someone to love her! And you answered that with nothing but condescension and neglect! The only one in your family who made her feel loved was a psychopath who betrayed her!"

Lillian is struck silent, her eyes wide and her face strained as she stares at Kara. Kara meets the older woman's eyes, staring her down without the fear that a younger Lena must have shown Lillian all those years ago.

Kara wishes she could've been there to hold that young Lena in her arms, wishes she could've taken her away from the family that broke her.

"The Luthor name didn't deserve Lena. You never deserved her."

#supercorp #lena luthor #kara danvers #supergirl #katie mcgrath #melissa benoist #me trying to write #I guess it could also fit with any crime drama not just CM #tbh I haven’t watched the show in I don’t even know how long. I was just watching a crime drama show and I had these in my drafts so #enjoy I guess? or not there’s a truck full of angst in this thing #p.s. this is like my FAVORITE characterization of Lillian. i tried my best 👉👈 please be kind #this is version 2.0 of my Criminal Minds AU cos i had to rework that one. and honestly i think this one is better #more fully realized i guess? idk it's 2am #sorry for the long post 😅

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hadesknockedupintheunderworld · 1 month ago

Text

Thinking of the end of Zelda Twilight Princess and TP Link again

Since the start of your journey, all you've tried to do is keep your home and your loved ones safe. You hardly understood your own destiny at first, the major role you were to play in this world. Though you could never have refused the future that lay before you, it remains that it's this wish to protect your home, your loved ones, and to bring everything back to normalcy that drove you in the beginning. And it, too, remains that even though you found others to care for and had accepted your destiny (that there became a point where you embraced your role in fixing everything), that original goal still remained. After all, you, the people you care about, none of you can go home or live in safety until the threat is defeated.

What if you'd started out as a boy from a small, rural town, one who'd hardly dreamed large, but couldn't shake his curiosity in the world outside. You never wanted to leave your village for long, but you were interested in getting a chance to see Hyrule's capital, meet those people your older friend had told stories of. And then, when the monkey's paw curled and the goddesses gave you a grand adventure, all you wanted was to pave the way for everyone to be able to go home, including yourself. Once it was all over, you and everyone else could finally relax, right? Things would finally go back to normal, wouldn't they? And the children could forget the horrors they'd seen, like none of it ever happened.

But after all that... Even after shedding the hero's tunic, returning the sword of evil's bane to its resting place, and finally returning home with everyone...home is not the same anymore. You were supposed to feel safe again, comforted by the sounds of the nearby wood, the smell of the goats, and the rough texture of the pumpkins that grow in the village, but even lying in your own bed makes you restless and feel on edge. Sometimes, the children still run around the village like they used to, playing pranks on each other and playing hero, but each one of them has an air of...maturity that wasn't there before.

Colin is more confident. He doesn't follow you around or spend as much of his time watching the other kids play. He spends time telling his baby sister stories and training with his father (like you once had) to learn the way of the sword. The other kids don't pick on him as much anymore either.

And Talo. Talo thinks the village is much too defenseless now, especially after everything he's been through. He never really left the rooftops of Kakariko Village, the village lookout who was trying to protect everyone the only way he could. He's even confided in you before that he's trying to learn a weapon too, and trying to convince Colin to join forces with him as village protectors. According to Talo, Colin says there's no need to worry with you and his dad around. No better protection than a hero, right? But Talo says he knows you and Rusl won't always be around. And...maybe that's true. One day, you too will grow old with time, but something about the way Talo says it makes you feel...uneasy. As if he was seeing right through you. Was he seeing something you were ignoring, or was he really truly talking about the day in which you are no longer able to protect anyone?

Beth is still a bit boy crazy, still fancies herself more mature than the others as she had before, but there's some respect there now when she interacts with them. She refuses to tell you what she's been up to, but you've seen her working in her mother's shop, talking to Uli as she feeds her baby, reading with her father, and helping Ilia wash Epona in the spirit's spring. Ilia seems to know more than she lets on when telling you that it's a casual hangout, but you have an inkling of what it's about. Given the others, it's no surprise if Beth, too, is trying to find her place here, trying to help in some way.

Malo is perhaps the one who'd changed most obviously. While everyone had been happy to go home after the defeat of Ganondorf, Malo couldn’t simply stay the same quiet kid who'd followed his brother around. He'd built a growing business back in Kakariko, dedicated to making goods affordable to the common person and raising funds to fix up local infrastructure. He couldn’t continue to run it from Ordon (though Sera's told you that he'd made an offer on her shop). You've even been able to hear him muttering under his breath about the state of Malo Mart management, and plotting to skip town (after all, young as he is, and after everything that's happened, there's no way his parents would just let him go back on his own). As before, Malo doesn't speak to you often, but he had...said something that shook you not long ago. He'd not so subtly "hinted" that you could make an excuse to leave, and that it wouldn't be hard for him to stow away as you went on your trip. You didn't know quite what to say, but when you began to mention his parents he'd cut you off. "So you're too scared to leave."

(Are you too scared? No, of course you could leave if you wanted to. And you don't want to, do you? You're home again, which is the only place you've wanted to be since the world went to shit. It'll just take...time for you to feel okay again. No better place than home to heal, right?)

But it's...not just the kids who've changed. Fado was happy to have you back, of course (he's always said no one wrangles the goats quite like you), but he’d... Well, even though he was the one who extended the offer, he seems to fear this is beneath you, that he's tying you down, keeping you from a grander life. No matter how much you assure him this is exactly where you want to be, that you just want things to return to normal, he doesn't seem convinced.

Not to mention the rumors in the village of your feats, all the talking behind your back. You'd been celebrated as a hero when you and Rusl returned back with the missing children, and now, since you've been trying to return to normalcy, others continue to be weird around you. You're a hero (were at least), yes, but are you not the same Link the villagers have known as long as you've lived here? Do you not occasionally assist with their troubles. Do you not try to make occasional small talk as before? So why do they seem to have trouble talking to you? Why do they have so much to say, and yet none of it said to your face?

Home has changed. And even that which has stayed the same doesn't feel...correct. That which is still familiar feels like nostalgia slipping through your fingers, not the reality before you.

But then again, when you spend weeks following your old routine, trying to act as you did before, and nothing seems to get better. When you lay in a bed (your bed) that's the same as it was when you first left it, you wake up sweaty and fearful from nightmares, and you feel exposed when you should feel safe, is it home that's the problem? What about when you look at the sunset and dream of places faraway, of the people you met and the things you've seen, and it feels like something's missing (something, perhaps, not wholly unrelated to the person people you'll probably never see again)?

Ilia was the one who first assured you that this path was the right one. When she finally had a chance to relax, deal with her amnesia head on, it was reminders of home and her past which comforted her, allowed her to get better. Of course, you know she'd never just forget everything she'd been through before, and she wouldn't expect you to either, but she'd agreed that being home would allow you to heal too. That's...that's what you've been hoping.

On many occasions you think about confiding it all in her, telling her what you've been going through, but you can't go through with it. Not when she seems...happy again.

So, after weeks of letting bits and pieces slip, you finally confide in Rusl. It's a day similar to all those months ago. The sun is setting as you and he sit at the spirit's spring after a long day, and he tells you about his week. You tell him that even as things get better, they don't really get better. When you don't have nightmares of tragedy and never ending battles and failure, you're dreaming of the people and places you met during your journey. No matter how much time you spend there, or how much furniture you move around to your liking, or decorations you add to the walls, the idea of your home being home feels like you and the feeling are separated by an impenetrable wall of glass. You can see that feeling of comfort, of home, of familiarity, but you just can't quite touch it. Your house is yours, and yet you can't seem to fit in it anymore. You've gone back to normal, and yet everyone is treating you differently. You try to relax, and you just can't quite sit still, feeling like...

You finally admit that feeling you've been stuffing down to him as you ramble (something rare for you to begin with). It's not just that you can't feel safe at home, that healing is a tough process, but that you feel like there's something yet you need to do. It doesn't feel right trying to be the person you were before. The routine which should be great for its simplicity and famliliarity feels wrong, almost stifling.

Did you really think you could just go home after all you'd seen and been through, go back to that small world and cut off the rest of it, just so things could be like they were before?

Maybe it's you who's wrong. Maybe you're broken and your edges dulled and chipped so the old pieces don't fit back together anymore–

But Rusl, ever a comforting presence in your life, just hugs you. He says he cannot even begin to comprehend the things you've been through. He acknowledges how hard it is to heal. Both things you already knew.

Then...he tells you his story, that he knows how hard it is to return to all of this after such an ordeal. You are not the only person who must deal with it now. You're not alone.

And then, as you consider telling him that if everyone is dealing with this, then surely they're handling it better than you, he tells you something that causes you to freeze.

"If you need to leave, you can."

"Of course," Rusl continues, "if you want to stay, we'll support you. You don't have to pretend everything is normal. And even if you go, it's not like you'll be banished. You can always come back here, even if you can't stay."

And so you speak the words you've thought every time someone suggests leaving here, or suggests that you won't stay. "Do I have to go? Is...does everyone just want me gone?"

Rusl shakes his head. "Of course not. We all love and care about you like we always have, hero or not."

Then...why do I feel like...this around everyone? you think.

"The question is...it's not whether anyone wants to you go or thinks you should go." Then, Rusl places a hand on your shoulder, face deeply serious as his eyes lock onto yours.

"The question is: Do you want to go? Do you need to go?"

For a moment...you're speechless. You know what you want, you think. You've wanted to return home all along, haven't you? That's...all You've been trying to do since you defeated Ganondorf, lost bid Midna farewell, shed the garb of the hero and returned the master sword to its grove. But...what do you need?

"I don't...I don't know what I need," is all you say.

"...Well," Rusl says, after a moment of contemplation. "I can't tell you what you want any more than I can accurately guess what you need. And I can't make your decision for you."

"...Right." So that's it then. Either you go, admit that there's no fixing you, no point trying to fit a misshapen puzzle piece in an old hole, or you stay, keep trying to move on and get things as close to normal as you can as you have been for weeks.

"Hey," Rusl says after a moment. "Hey, listen to me for a second."

You raise your head, shift your eyes from where you'd cast them at your sandals.

"You'll be okay, Link. You've been through a lot, and it's changed you—like it's changed all of us. But, you have your whole life ahead of you, and I suspect you have more choices than you even believe."

"...Yeah."

"I may not be able to tell you what you need, but I can tell you to follow your heart. If you listen to it, it'll lead you where you need to go."

"My heart?" You sound a bit skeptical.

"I mean...isn't it your heart that got you here? You didn't undertake the journey and save your loved ones by being weak of heart did you?"

And that...that's true. With everything that was at stake (especially that which you cared about most), it was your heart that wouldn't allow you to back down, wasn't it?

In the end, you nod.

Rusl smiles. "Then why ignore it now?"

"Why ignore it now?"

The rest of what Rusl has to say goes unsaid, but...you think you get it anyways.

"Why ignore it now? Has it ever lead you astray?"

"...Thanks, Rusl," you say, finally. You don't tell him that you feel a bit better now, but his smile grows regardless.

"It's no problem, Link. Anytime you need."

And so the sunset passes into night passes into morning, and there's a weight on you when you wake up. You know, somehow, in this moment, that a decision has to be made, a potential path chosen. There's no ignoring it.

And you find her—Ilia—in the spring.

"You're...leaving, aren't you."

"I..." You haven't even put on any gear, nor unearthed that special tunic tucked in your basement, nor have you saddled Epona up yet. When you woke up, you still didn't know what it is you need.

"...I am," you say finally.

There's a moment of silence.

"I...some part of me knew you would." Then, she adds, "One day."

"...Why?"

She shakes her head. "I can't explain it. You just...you haven't seemed...quite right lately."

I haven't?

You thought you must've seemed at least fairly normal, must have with all the effort you put in.

"You're... You weren’t..." Ilia hesitates for a moment, as if afraid to say the words at the edge of her tongue. But then, she sighs.

"You don't seem happy here."

"I-I've...I've tried to–"

"I know," she says, cutting you off. "I know. I have..."

You wait for her to finish her thought, but she never does.

"Hey, Link, before...before you go... Come back to this spring. I'll wash Epona for you."

There's a bit of strain in the smile Ilia gives you, but you nod, smiling back.

It's...it's not easy to leave. It never is, and it never gets easier, no matter how many times you have to do it. And so, as you gather some final supplies, thank Rusl for his advice, and put on your gear (finally unearth the tunic you'd hidden away), you remind yourself that this isn't truly goodbye. You're just...going on a little trip, chasing your heart. You'll visit sometimes, right? It's just a little trip.

And eventually, geared up, you make your way to the spring. As expected, Ilia is there, grooming Epona when you arrive.

Out of everyone, you feel Ilia has been both the easiest and the hardest to read. Ever since everyone returned to Ordon, it made sense the way she stuck right back to the comforts of home and her old routine. She's...not all okay, but it's seemed to make her happy. And yet...there's something else about her. There's a bit of weirdness there you can't parse out, and there's something in the way she speaks that always feels like there's something going unsaid. You feel it more than ever as she turns to face you in the spring, seems hesitant about giving Epona over, even as she says that Epona is washed and ready.

Although, then again, there's something nostalgic about this moment. As you mount up Epona and Ilia asks you to take care of her, and not to take on more than you can handle.

You know the moment is here. You can feel it. It's time to go.

And yet, there's one last thing holding you back. You look down at Ilia as she begins to speak again.

"...Link, I–"

"Hm?"

Silence.

"I...never mind." Ilia waves you off, mustering up a smile. "You should... You should go. Don't let me hold you back."

You nod in response. Her expression is a bit bittersweet, although perhaps the smile you return her is just the same.

And so you take off with Epona, galloping across the bridge between Ordon and Faron. You leave her standing outside the spring, and you make a beeline for Hyrule Field, craving to feel the wind in your hair and the sun on your face.

Your wants, your desires...those deep down ones may be impossible. But it's something. Traveling, following where your heart leads, it feels familiar. It feels...right.

And once your journey begins, you think it's almost laughable that you thought that you could just go back home after all that you'd seen and experienced and...lost. At least now, though your future is uncertain, though you still can't quite feel safe, though you still can't banish the nightmares, at least you no longer feel...stifled.

At least you can be free now.

#legend of zelda twilight princess #twilight princess #loz twilight princess #loz tp #link #tp link #link tp #long post #i just be ramblin #there's some ililink/lilia and midlink in there if you squint #sorry I wrote most of this weeks ago and left it in my drafts cause I couldn't seem to finish #and then a few days ago I beat TP again...so I finished this with the ending fairly fresh on my mind #Though most of this is self indulgent‚ originally I had wanted Ilia to go with him somehow‚#(that's originally where I got stuck writing this) but it was not to be #And in the original game's ending‚ when Link leaves‚ he leaves on a completely normal day without fanfare. and he leaves Ilia standing there #outside the spring #So I knew I had to depict that instead. that bittersweet feeling of pursuing the life you need right now while leaving those important to #you behind. And of feelings unsaid #something fitting about the idea that neither Midna nor Ilia could bear to confess what was in their heart in the end.#So idk it's both self indulgent and canon compliant and built to hurt me in a good way #I love this game so so so freaking much #And if you can't tell I'm also really emotional about the idea of Link never truly being able to go home again after such a large journey

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