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metadede week day 3: gifts (a.k.a. two idiots sharing some rocks)
#metadede#my art#long post#sorry for the poor formatting of this comic I don't know formats#posting this one SUPER early cause the next prompt is gonna take me a while#so I wanna get this one out of the way#and the prompt after that
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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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Not Alive, Nor Dead
[NEXT PART]
Okay I'm trying to be brave and post this before I chicken out, first time writing a fic, and I'm not sure if this is any good.
So, since I don't have time to draw out all of the revenant au story, but I still want to share it, I'm writing it instead.
Will continue this if people are interested!
[this isn't requiered but reading the comic might help you understand this better]
[also there's a Soap pov version of this by Badolmen, it doesn't line up 100% because we didn't work together but it's very very good and you should read it regardless]
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking, Ghost.”
He shifted in his place. Can never get used to Price’s voice in his head.
“You know I work best alone. All he’s gonna do is get in the way.”
Price’s mustache twitched, as if he’s fighting a smile. Bastard is about to drop something to win the entire argument, Ghost already knows.
“He’s a revenant. Strong one too.”
Fucking figures. Still, he could argue he doesn’t need any support-
“Intel is rigged with explosives. And the Sergeant just so happens to be explosion-proof.”
…Fuck.
Ghost sighs heavily like he was presented with an unreasonable amount of shit to deal with. He watches as Price sits there, shit eating grin spitting at him. He looks back to the folder, at the details of this already annoying mission, “you said there are 2 buildings?”
Price snaps from his self boasting to confirm “one suspected barracks and the other an abandoned warehouse. Warehouse contains the majority of explosives.”
Finally finding something to work with, Ghost straightens his back to his usual self-assured posture, “the Sergeant can deal with the warehouse, I’ll clear the barracks. No need to work together.”
Price seems less happy about that. Serves him right. He sighs and drags a hand over his face, and Ghost almost feels bad for ruining his plan to get him to play with a team. Almost.
“Will it kill you to try and work with the lad?” Price asks offhandedly, while organising the folder back to the never-ending pile of documents on his desk.
“You mean again?” Ghost would wear his own shit eating grin if his face wasn’t permanently covered.
Price still seems equally pissed. Probably saw it in his literal mind’s eye. “Get out of my office Lieutenant, wheels up at 0500.” He gets up and walks around his desk to face Ghost, “don’t scare the kid off alright? I have a feeling you two could mash well together.”
Ghost tilts his head and projects the most doubt he could muster at Price. “Yes sir.”
This is going to be a bloody long day.
It’s not that Ghost hates people per se, it’s just that most of them seem hell-bent on being annoying, disruptive, or boring. Useless on the field for someone of his caliber, and even more useless off-field.
He knows he’s not exactly easy to relate to, but he couldn’t care less about trying to be. He’s here for one purpose. And it’s not “making friends” or whatever Price and Gaz has been trying to push him towards.
He wonders which category the Sergeant currently standing in front of him will fall into. By his fidgeting nature and easy smile, Ghost would put his money on “annoying”.
The Sergeant, “Soap” apparently (Ghost wonders if that callsign was given to him before or after he died a probably painful death), now directs that smile at him, seemingly undeterred by the giant man wearing a skull like a stereotypical grim reaper. He has to give it to the lad, at least he hides his discomfort well.
“You must be Ghost, eh? Let’s get ourselves a win LT” The Sergeant says with an obvious Scottish accent, fist-bumps his shoulder and walks off towards transport.
Oh, annoying is definitely winning.
Despite that, Ghost can’t feel like Soap really fits it. He’s unlike the other muppets in the category, He’s not poking him like the rookies do, trying to make him reveal his powers.
No, the Sergeant is annoying like an overly friendly dog is to someone that doesn’t want to be licked. He’s acting like they’re just two normal soldiers on their way to a normal mission, not the unnatural, unexplainable phenomena they actually are.
Ghost will have to keep watching. Certainly on field he will be able to find out his true colors.
On the helo, Ghost picks his usual spot near the ramp, where the lights don’t reach as much and most prefer not to sit, and observes Soap. His fidgety nature stayed the same, but the carefree expression he wore on ground morphed into a determined one, face stern and serious. He seemed lost in thought, eyebrows twitching here and there. He sees how his fingertips flicker, watching flames dance between them before the rapid movements put them out.
Well, at the very least Soap doesn’t fall into “boring”.
Clearing the barracks is a laughably easy job, even without using his powers. Although, it would’ve been so much faster with them… too bad he doesn’t hate the Sergeant enough to send him to Limbo.
They practically run through both buildings, untouchable storms. Ghost has to admit, Soap is clearly competent, disarming bombs and taking down hostiles at an impressive rate.
God, he hates when Price is right.
“Ground floor clear, heading to the basement” Soap relays on comms.
“Copy, clearing third floor, keep an eye out for Intel.”
“I have to say LT, you’re not quite like I expected.”
Feeling’s mutual, Ghost thinks to himself. “That so?”
“Aye, you’re not a major cunt for starters.”
That startled a small huff out of him. What the hell do the rumors say about him? He would have to ask Gaz about that, “Could still change that Sergeant.” he mock-lectures him.
A small laugh is what he gets in return, “I doubt that. I’ve worked with some bastards before, you barely make top 50.”
“Only 50? I hoped for at least 20”
“Got work cut out for you then, sir”
“That I do.”
Ghost continues clearing the floor methodically before faltering for a moment. Why was he entertaining the Sergeant like that? Since when does he joke with people?
Though, he would’ve done it more if he had someone so ready to joke back…
Useless thoughts.
Cursing Price, Soap, and all other stupid distracting things swirling in his head, Ghost takes down another hostile.
The mission is going without a hitch. Which is usually when something “hitches”.
A couple of minutes after Soap’s last words, Ghost sees a bright light flash from the warehouse, before a soundwave shakes the windows of the now barren barracks.
One of the explosives went off… “Soap, what the hell happened there?”
No answer.
Ghost knows he’s fine. Price wouldn’t brag about how “explosion-proof” he is otherwise. But he’s not answering…
“Sergeant, give me sitrep, now.”
Ghost stands still for another minute, listening to static. He checked the last room right before the explosion went off, so he just has to go to exfil and wait for the Sergeant at this point. His part of the work is done.
He should just go to exfil.
Ghost climbs down the stairs and heads for the warehouse, a foreboding plume of dark smoke billowing from its roof.
If asked why he didn’t ignore his gut feeling and use his brain like always, he wouldn’t have an answer.
Maybe he just wanted to exchange one more joke with the Sergeant before they finish the mission and never see each other again.
Arriving at the doors, he sees how the ground floor caved in, creating a ramp down to the basement. He starts making his way down, when he sees bodies littering the debris. Was Soap ambushed?
“Soap? Where the fuck are you Sergeant!” Ghost shouts. He has half a mind to be quiet, not wanting to attract enemies to their location, before realizing no one would’ve survived this. No one but-
“LT…?”
“Soap, why weren’t you answering comms- what…”
He stumbles upon Soap. Soap, who's laying on the grey concrete floor, wheezing and shaking, a metal rebar in his hands. Ghost walks closer and realizes the rebar is going through his stomach and pinning him to the floor.
The Sergeant’s eyes blearily look at the metal “I need, I n-need to get this out…”
He lifts himself half an inch and Ghost sees how the blood rushes out of the wound, how Soap pales.
Ghost rushes to his side. “Stop fucking moving”, he slides his hands under his torso, feels his gloves getting soaked in blood, “let me help you”.
Soap’s breathing becomes less harsh, and he looks up at him, “you… you don’t have to-”
He slowly lifts Soap before he can say another useless remark. The muscles under his fingertips clench and the Sergeant chokes out a scream.
“Fuck” Soap mutters between pants.
“We’re halfway there, you’re doing good.” Ghost lets him rest before continuing to lift his body up. The blood keeps rushing out of the wound, enough that he doesn’t understand how Soap is still conscious. The sergeant let go of the rebar, and is now gripping Ghost’s forearms like he’s about to fall to his death.
After a few seconds, which Ghost is sure felt like hours for Soap, he eases him off the metal and onto the ground. Soap immediately collapses, shuddering and holding his hands around the wound.
Ghost then realizes he’s not sure how the Sergeant’s powers work. Is this supposed to even happen? Is he actually dying?
Soap looks up at that moment, giving him a small smile that looks more like a grimace, “I just… give me a minute to heal, I’ll be ready to go soon.” he uncurls and drags himself to sit against a piece of wall.
Ghost frowns and slowly steps towards Soap and slides to sit next to him, “take however long you need.”
He doesn’t look, but from his peripheral, he sees Soap’s head whipping around and staring at Ghost like he told him he’s giving him a million pounds.
He seemed to find something in his expression (however much he could even see of it), and looked down at his bloodied hands, “thank ye…”
Ghost blinks down, “I hope this doesn’t lower my cunt rank.”
Soap lets out a small laugh that turns into a fit of coughs. More blood rushes out of his wounds, and Ghost internally winces.
“Ha… I think it takes ye off the list, mate.”
Ghost heaves an over-the-top sigh, “shame”.
Soap smiles at him, and Ghost notices it’s different from the one he gave him before the helo. This one is… warmer. Or at least it makes him feel so.
Soap lifts his shirt to inspect the wound, and Ghost can’t help by take a look. The wound stopped bleeding, and when Soap wipes some of it away, he can see how it’s already closing.
So he does get hurt… it just heals. Ghost still wonders how it all works, but he knows their powers work with bizarre rules, weird exceptions and what not. He can almost hear his Reaper laughing. Or whatever you would call that chilling noise it lets out when it finds something funny.
It doesn’t matter either way. Not like he’ll get to work with Soap again.
The Sergeant exhales and lets his shirt drop, “a’right, let’s fuckin’ finish this.” he slowly starts lifting himself up before Ghost wordlessly grabs his arms and helps him.
Soap mumbles a thanks, “did you find any intel?”
Ghost looks ahead. The climb out of the basement won’t be easy on his wound… “Negative. We’ll keep looking.”
Eventually they reach a door labelled “storage”, that is blocked by several tonnes of concrete and metal. Ghost internally curses.
Soap, who’s been trailing behind Ghost, reaches the door and looks around. Ghost is about to ask him if he’s got a few C4’s hidden somewhere when the Sergeant asks him, “permission to use my powers, sir?”
Ghost raises an eyebrow, “what are you planning?”
“Gonna blow it up sir” Soap says like it was obvious.
“...go ahead.” Ghost replies, half baffled Price forgot to mention the Sergeant, besides being unkillable by explosions, can also create them.
Was probably in the folder he didn’t bother reading.
He takes a step back to let Soap Have a go. The Sergeant rests his palms on the debris, inhales, and…
A loud boom makes Ghost’s ears ring. He’s momentarily blinded by the bright explosion before he regains his vision, and sees Soap stepping around the remains of the door into the small room.
Ghost shakes away his slight shock and joins him. Soap’s powers intrigue him… he wonders what else he could do.
Somehow, the intel survived the explosions. Ghost could barely care. At least they won’t have Price on their case later on.
As they walk towards the exfil point, a heavy feeling sinks within Ghost. He’s not sure what to call it, but if he had to it would be “regret”.
Regretting what, he’s not sure. Maybe he should’ve prolonged their walk.
And from a glance at his face, Soap might understand this feeling as well.
“You did well Sergeant.” He has the sudden urge to say. Maybe it will make him regret less.
Soap casts a smile at him. It doesn’t warm him in the slightest.
The chopper blades slashing through air never made him feel worse.
“I guess this is it then.” Soap says when they land.
Ghost turned to face him. That heavy feeling in him just kept getting heavier throughout the flight. Why?
“So it seems.”
Soap stares for a moment longer before sighing. Ghost wants to do something about the annoyingly heavy air of despair around them.
“Soap” the Sergeant hums, “Why did the Scotsman’s prank fail?”.
Confusion takes over his features, “what?”
Ghost inhales, “because no one let him get away scot-free.”
Soap stares at him like he brought shame to his entire bloodline. Ghost grins like he did.
“Steamin’ Jesus LT, that was horrendous.”
“Ah Sergeant, just admit my jokes are better, no need to be a sore loser.”
“My gran got better jokes than this, fuckin’ hell” Soap laughs.
“I’d like to meet her.”
“So you two could battle? I rather not see you die of embarrassment sir.”
Soap’s transport decides to arrive at this moment, chasing away the small joy they both found.
Soap looks back at it and turns to Ghost.
“It’s been great working with you sir.” if Ghost was feeling bold, he would say Soap almost looks sad, “I hope we’ll get to go another round later.”
Ghost hates the hopeful tone in his voice. Hope is uncertain, leaves everything up to chance.
Useless.
“Likewise, Sergeant.”
He stays standing there for a few minutes, staring at the truck vanishing towards the horizon. As if it will lighten the boulder in his chest.
“So, Simon, what’s your verdict?” Price finishes after debrief.
Ghost thinks about the entire endeavour. Not annoying, not disruptive, or boring.
Soap is…
“He’s something else…”
Critiques are welcome! Nobody beta'd this so I'm sure there are mistakes lol (that and this isn't my first language...)
#call of duty modern warfare 2#cod mw2#cod ghost#cod soap#revenant au#simon ghost riley#john soap mactavish#ghostsoap#ghoap#the ghoap is in progress we will get there it will just take a while#cod fic#call of duty fic#call of duty fanfic#mw2#mwii#honestly writing takes way less time then comic making#like its still a lot dont get me wrong#this is only 2k and i see fics 100k long like fucking hell new respect for fic writers#but if this was in a comic format it would take 5 weeks minimum#didnt feel this scared to post since my first comic lmao#but hey that went great so im sure this will be fine
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back from the dead
#god x godslayer au#trafalgar law#monkey d. luffy#lawlu#i have decided to reillistrate this format of godslayer to improve the art quality and keep it closer to the written version#i’m about half way finished writing this fanfic and thought i should commit to illustrating it fully#these panels are like… barely scratching the surface so it’ll probably take me a while#but i do intend on fully illustrating this fic to the best of my ability#i’m planing on posting illustrated chapters that are one-to-one with the chapters of the written version#but knowing me I’ll get impatient and drop random panels as i complete them lol
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Hello! I saw you mention that Pyrrha remembers pre-resurrection, and I totally missed that!! Do you have any theories as to why?
I have a few thoughts!
Just for context - because I didn't catch that on my first read either until I started going back through! - there are a few instances that seem to suggest Pyrrha remembers at least some of her life pre-Resurrection. Off the top of my head, I know there's one point where she refers to G1deon as G--, just like John does. Nona also says that Pyrrha calls her "Hairy Maclary", which is referring to a series of children's books by a New Zealand author. Here's a link to a picture and some info about Hairy Maclary... I can definitely understand why Pyrrha would call Nona that lol. This one's super interesting to me in that it's such a fantastic example of the way Tamsyn uses memes and references so skillfully! In the previous books, most of the references are fairly organic in that they're things that could conceivably be, you know, just things the characters say; the readers catch it (if they also know the reference! otherwise they're fairly unobtrusive) but the characters themselves aren't intentionally making a reference. This would be the things like "You can't just ask someone why they want to be a Lyctor" and "a hunger that only thumbs could satisfy," etc. The exception, though, is John. The "none Houses with left grief" particularly is SO fun from an exposition perspective (but if I start on that one I'll never stop), and then of course we have Commander Wake Me Up Inside. The implication here being that John remembers these specific things and is intentionally making those references within the context of the story. Pulling that same expository trick with Pyrrha sets them up as both remembering... at least to some degree. The hints that we get from Pyrrha are such that it's pretty unclear to what extent she remembers, leaving a lot of room for juicy speculation :)
I initially touched on it over on this post where I rambled about names, memory, and the Eightfold Word, but I'm copying over the Pyrrha-specific paragraph so that you don't have to dig for it:
When assisting with Harrow’s lobotomy, Ianthe tells her, “If you push your brain too hard, any surgery could simply heal over.” And in NtN, Pyrrha tells Palamedes, “You should be draining and replacing her fucking brain fluid... When Gideon and I designed that trial, I used to crack his skull and sieve it myself, just as a control variable... The only other people I put through that damn trial were Mercy and Cris, because only Cris didn’t mind being trepanned on the regular.” I don’t know exactly where the threshold is for pushing one’s brain too hard, but I suspect frequently draining and replacing one’s brain fluid is in that ballpark. Which is to say, it’s very possible that Mercy and Pyrrha (and potentially others) could have healed over from anything John had done to their brains.
Also, I don't know why this didn't occur to me as I was writing up that other post, but when Pyrrha's telling Palamedes about how dangerous their uhhhhh living arrangements are, and how they're risking brain damage... Pyrrha and G1deon were operating under somewhat similar circumstances for thousands of years. Cumulatively, it's possible that G1deon's brain was racking up damage that eventually eroded away whatever John had done. Another thought is that maybe the fact that G1deon died and Pyrrha didn't is at play here.
It could very well be less dramatic than that, though. We don't know much about how Lyctorhood impacts the brain, although to be completely fair, we also can't say for certain how a typical human brain would function after ten thousand years of runtime either. Our brains are constantly wiring new neural pathways and rewiring and revising old ones. After thousands of years, might we be reaching a Ship of Theseus situation with regard to the neural circuitry impacting pre-Res memories? Which is a fancy way of saying, "Maybe it wore off."
It could be all of the above, too. Assuming that Lyctor brains retain plasticity like we see in typical human brains (and I'm not letting myself think too hard on implications either way, because in sci-fi/fantasy make-believe land, neuroscience can be whatever you want it to be), we'd probably see that effect happening with the other Lyctors at roughly the same rate, but at least as far as we can tell (and that wording is intentional because I'm not taking anything off the table with this series), the others don't seem to remember. So that might be contributing, but not sufficient on its own. BUT perhaps ten thousand years of rewiring PLUS ten thousand years of cohabitation PLUS however long of being "trepanned on the regular" PLUS G1deon dying might override John's meddling.
We've still got so many open questions here regardless of what the specific mechanisms are. Like, I'd love to know when Pyrrha started to remember exactly. And did G1deon remember anything, then? It seems like he was Straight Up Not Having a Good Time so if he did remember, he might not have been relying on those memories much. Whatever's going on, I'm sure it's just as bonkers as the rest of the series!
#'in sci-fi/fantasy make-believe land neuroscience can be whatever you want it to be' i whisper repeatedly to myself#after spending like two hours this afternoon formatting datasets from the neuroscience lab i work in#nah but for real i have zero issue with that kinda stuff being. you know. fictional. i just need to not go down that rabbit hole lol#also sorry about sneaking a little bonus ramble about meme usage in there#believe it or not i had more about that but took it out because it wasn't directly relevant lol#also to the other anon that's sitting in my inbox: I PROMISE I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN#it's just... you opened a hefty can of worms and it's gonna take me a while lmao#ask#anonymous#tlt meta#pyrrha dve#nona the ninth spoilers#tlt#long post
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whatever og text i had in mind for this post about ko shibasaki looking like sayama in this movie is completely cancelled on account of utsumi (this character)'s first name being kaoru and i only found this out cause i was looking up her name just to be sure when making this post
like jesus christ i legally have to make this post now
#snap chats#they literally never say her first name in the movie. i think lol LIKE WHEN I FOUND OUT I WAS JUST 'NO FUCKING WAY'#i do have to be tbh and say her face /is/ a little more round than sayama's#and its absolutely predominantly because of how her bangs and wardrobe are so close to sayama's that i think she look like her#BUT I CAAAANT THE WHOLE MOVIE I WAS JUST THINKIN ABOUT SAYAMA... i miss her...#OH RIGHT THE MOVIE THOUGH noooo fuck you this movie was so good it actually made me want to write a summary for it LMAOOO#LIKE I LIKE WRITING SUMMARIES BUT IVE JUST BEEN SO LAZY ABOUT IT WITH THE PAST FEW THINGS IVE SEEN BUT GOD.#ignore the fact i finished this movie two hours ago i was too busy fiddling with a card holder kit but. ill make a post about that next--#THIS MOVIE THOUGH NOOOOO IT WAS SO GOOD //SCREAMS AND YELLS AND DESTROYS A SNOWGLOBE//#god the part where ishigami and yukawa are walking by the homeless and it just lingers on an empty spot.. LIKE I THOUGHT I WAS WACK#CAUSE I WAS LIKE 'hang on wasnt there a guy there last scene' and obviously there was since the shot lingered right#BUUUUTT WHEN IT WAS REVEALED DOWN THE LINE SHUT UPPP I LITERALLY YELLED IM SO GLAD. my roommates arent home..#on god i thought the movie was gonna end with utsumi and fukawa's convo from the beginning#and i was gonna make a gaf about how fukawa was acting irrationally because he was too in love LMAOOO#BUT THEN IT KEPT GOING AND. im so glad it did. ishigami valid tbh#id also cover up and take blame for AND ACTUALLY commit murder for a girl if she said hi to me and made me lunch while i was trying to kms#while fukawa and ishigami were talkin that first night tho i just thought of after the rain.. lol... maybe the mangaka was inspo'd by that.#anyway. this movie was great. it reminded me of sherlock but if it was directed well and actually let you solve the mystery too#CAUSE WHILE I WAS WATCHING THERE WERE POINTS WHERE I TOO WAS JUST 'hang on' AND I JUST POCKETED THE INFO FOR LATER#i kicked and screamed when ishigami was talking abut how he formats his tests LIKE I SAID 'oh you fucking slipped'#when ishigami called and told her he had a white envelope in there bitch i knew it was gonna be the stalker letter i YELLED#LIKE I LIKE HOW THE MOVIE SETS THINGS UP SO ABUNDANTLY. IT'S FUN SEEING IT FIT IN THE MOVIE LATER ON#the twist of there being two bodies was so fun tho cause at the start of the movie i was sure two murders happened the same night#so when it was played off as just one i was like Oh. Ok. im still stumped on how he snuck a body out of the apartment#but yk what one detail is like. whatever in comparison to the rest of the movie being fun to watch#god im running out of tags POINT IS. PLEAAASE watch this movie if you got two hours#ive left some minor warnings on my Watchlist doc but there's nothing. TOO extreme ??#i mean there's an aforementioned suicide attempt but aside from that it's nothing too grotesque. for an rgg fan ig#ok bye i have to ramble about the card holder i got <3
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Do you have a bluesky?
i do not, no.
#ask#anon#i don't really plan on making one anytime soon i don't think#it's structured too similarly to twitter for my liking. in terms of the image limit. text limit. no real ''tagging system''#in comparison to tumblr i mean.#like that's not to say anything about bluesky or folks who use bluesky primarily. it's just not what im looking for.#i talk a lot sometimes (in the tags primarily) and id prefer not to translate that over to the character limit format of twitter or bluesky#i like talking in the tags because it's mostly just me thinking out loud or talking more indepth#without extending the majority of the screen with text (since with tags. you can opt to read more or not)#so it's in the same vein as like. whispering i guess.#and like.... there's not a whole lot of stuff id want to do on bluesky? like in terms of stuff I post?#my social media focus is already here. i don't want to spend more of my time reblogging stuff.#the formatting of tumblrs stuff works better for the things i do. like my old audio postings and my humor#also like... neither twitter nor bluesky have an ask system? and i genuinely like replying to asks. i like talking about things.#even if it takes me a while to respond to most. since i tend to struggle with how to respond to most asks#so personally it's not for me. and that's fine. im still here on tumblr.#but anyway thank you for the ask anon! if that sentiment does change someday maybe ill make a post about it#but atm im not really interested in doing so
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Hello! As you guys have seen, I’ve been figuring out the dip pens recently for a project, and I’d love to draw a guy of your choice as practice!
Head Over Here (Or Input The Link In The Picture Above) To Get A Slot
Three slots will be available every time I open for this! Please read and follow the instruction for sending references upon purchase; if references are not sent after 24 hours since the purchase is made, I’ll assume you’ve cancelled the commission and refund. If you need an extension on that, please leave me a word in Tumblr message or email!
UPDATE 20/06/2023: 3/3 slots filled. Thank you so much for your support, and please stay tuned for the next round!
#bakuspeech#commission info#b4kuch1n#big thank you to rudeboimonster for pointing me towards the ko-fi commission function!! and for helping me test the format!#what I make of this will probably go towards ink and more nibs and necessities while I work on the comic#(it will take a bit! so having a sum to spare while doing it would be nice)#obvious disclaimers here is: I am also doing this to practice the dip pens (which I am not yet super familiar with)#so if you expect like. mike mignola level of ink. youre not getting it lol#best to go off of the examples I posted! thats where Im at rn#and I will be experimenting a bit with anything I draw rn. in my fuck around era!#please keep that in mind as well as the instruction stuff. spend money wisely! thank u for ur support no matter what!#and now. I take a got dang shower#it is SO damp here. I am made of like 70% mushroom at this point. I need to Submerge#have a good nite! take care! deep breath!#edit: I fucking forgot its international day of clown. this is fully serious btw lol#I do not celebrate it I am ambivalent to it. its business as usual here. this is real#GREAT timing baku. good job!
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i just lost 5 hours of work bc ao3 crashed, i‘m so emotionally stable rn
#i know it’s my fault don’t come at me#idk why i keep doing the twitter fic formatting directly on ao3#it’s just so much easier bc i can immediately check if it looks right#anyways#i was DONE with the chapter#like#two clicks from posting done#and BOOM everything’s gone#new chapter‘s gonna take a while bc i‘m NOT doing that shit again this week#nuh uh#tweet people w kindness#twitter fic#ao3#ao3 struggles#avengers fic#amy talks#winterhawk#stony#my fics
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hello!!!! i just stumbled upon your carat resource carrd and want to thank you for putting in the effort and time for such a well made and informative library of seventeen content!! i noticed that there are a few songs missing: seungkwan's cover of 'text me merry christmas' w/ AKMU suhyun, and the HHU songs from the diamond edge tour (joker - wonwoo solo, what's the problem, and madness maxed out)
also i think the miss you by sicboy ft. vernon MV is missing from the carrd :)
ahh thank you! i try my best to get everything but sometimes little things slip through the cracks so i appreciate you letting me know! i can't believe i missed some of these lol. these should all be added now!
Music -> Covers -> Text Me Merry Christmas
Music -> Unofficial & Unreleased Songs -> Joker / What's the Problem / Madness Maxed Out
Music -> Collaborations -> Miss You
#melia.ask#anon#i think i missed text me merry christmas before bc i was limiting to covers on svt's channel+spotify and its posted on sehyuns channel#but that was mainly bc finding all the covers svt have done on various variety and performance shows is a lot#and then there's some grey areas like if dance covers count or if they sing like a minute of a song and post it on twt if that counts#and like one day i may expand the covers tab to include that stuff but it's a lot bigger undertaking that will take a lot more research#but i don't mind including text me merry christmas now bc it's still a similar format to the other covers ive linked just a diff channel#also what's funny is iirc hurricane and with me were also from diamond edge and i included those so idk how i missed the hhu stuff lol#don't know how i missed the miss you mv either i think it was in my watch later for a while as a reminder to add the link#and then after a while i probably just assumed i already did it LMAO
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#Hope its okay that i stole this format lol. Just wanted to keep it out of the way but still get it off my chest#I’m about to have surgery so wish me luck#I know it’s gonna be alright. I’ve had it before. but i’m still nervous#Gonna look at mike pics to comfort myself#Lotta good posts i’ll have to catch myself up with. Might spam reblog later haha#Also i have a surgery inspired art piece i want to do. So get excited for that. Or not. Might take a while…
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Finally drawn all of my fankids with Rex! 🥺💖💖 It took me a while to get them just right, but I think I've got them looking how I want and WHO I want them to look like!!
From left to right we have the oldest, Kaiza! Quinn, and his twin sister Kiara in the bottom left and finally Mirri the Rodian me and Rex somehow found ourselves adopting x3 I love them all very much and I have SO much lore thought out for them and even arcs going through the Rebels series!! Mainly for Kaiza and Quinn, the others are unfortunately not as developed yet but they will be soon, for now I'm just glad I can show them off hehe!
#artfarts#self insert#self ship#fankids#self ship fankids#💙 oh captain my captain 💙#PLEASE ASK ME ABOUT THEM IM DYING#i tried to post them a while ago actually and the formatting got all fucked and i couldn't fix it#and i lost a LOT of text and got discouraged adfghjk#so im posting again with less text. adds to the mystery anyway 🥲🥲🥲#god i really wanna draw AND write about them more tho!!#IM TELLING YOU I HAVE MULTITUDES THOUGHT UP ABOUT THEM#YOU MUST KNOW AND LOVE THEM#im currently picking away at a sweet little fic#kinda a glimpse into the domestic bliss rex and i shared for a while raising these buggers#hopefully i finish it soon!! and im able to draw smth to go with it#so yeah HERE TAKE THESE KIDS#ive been meaning to show u guys for ages#like a mama cat leading u to her kitten den
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I think my biggest problem when it comes to creating a story of my own with original characters is that... I don't know "What" the story is about so they're all just stuck in limbo.
#aria rants#i was looking at the how to think bout making a story post i bookmarked and i immediately get stuck at the first question#like-- i have the cast and internal conflicts and other stuff but i dont have the What. alec and rays story fits better with#a slice of life genre cuz they live in a modern world that doesnt have much going on in it (other than... That but yea--)#my closest one to having a story is halcyon and felicity but even then they arent that close too cuz... theres a lot going on there--#location wise. if i make hal the protag. he'll be going to a LOT of different dimensions and worlds and itd just get confusing#i figured that his ultimate goal would be to either get rid of the Curse in wilfrith or alter its system smth to be able to live#peacefully with feli but yea-- the problem is the location for this one cuz its part of hal job to just go to a lot of different places#altho the ACTUAL closest i have to making a story is cascades one. aka the story that was for a game format for seph#it has all the proper starting elements for me to build with! problem is that... its a horror genre... im not good at writing horror...#i havent even written A SINGLE horror story so i have no idea how to go about that one. ig if i try to build leianos story#i miiiiight have smth then??? but thatd take like-- a looong while so i aint counting on that (considering its fairly new too ough...)
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do you ever write out a post and then remember the reading comprehension on this site is abysmal and you can practically feel the potential shitty comments and think "actually no this isn't worth it"
#personal#thoughts#🍬 post#vent post#there are these posts about accessibility and tone tags and the way people use trigger warnings on discord and stuff like that#and one of them is like ''the way people spoiler triggers on discord is wrong and doesn't actually help and you shouldn't do it like that''#and it's been like. the exact form of warning that worked for us when the ''correct'' way wouldn't have actually helped at all#I haven't seen the posts in a while but I've seen some of them multiple times before and they always piss me off#and I just fucking want people to realise that people have different access needs#yes that format of warning or tone tag or whatever might not work for you but your experiences aren't universal#and it'd be shitty for me to say that formatting it in a way that works for you is wrong just because it doesn't work for me#but that fucking goes both ways#but I just know if I actually posted the very carefully worded post I typed up about it someone would take it in the worst possible faith#''don't spoiler the word in the warning and don't only spoiler that word and none of the rest of the text''#what if the word itself is the fucking trigger. what if I need you to leave the rest of the text unspoilered so I can figure out what it is#without actually having to see the word because I can back out and avoid a panic attack as long as I don't see the word itself#this isn't even a hypothetical this is something we had to deal with last year#and discord servers with that specific format were the only places we could guarantee we'd be able to avoid being triggered by it
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Don't mind me, just reposting all my FFXIV art from Twitter to here...
#ffxiv#final fantasy xiv#final fantasy 14#ff14#miqo'te#elezen#caproka's art tag#the weird new post formatting will take a while for me to get used to#i can still talk all i want in the tags after the fifth one because theyre useless right? i think?
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*opens insta for the first time in maybe... A year? And finds that my dash is 90% reels that make the app freeze and crash. When I manage to reopen it I find out those reels aren't even from my followed accounts for the most part because I now have to click a drop down menu in order to see the content I subscribed to see. I do that, and the people I followed are into new fandoms I know nothing about. I see 6 unread dms and they're all fanart links from that irl friend who is a sweetheart but just doesn't understand I don't interact with reposter accounts who don't ask permission to reupload stuff. I scroll my actual dash some more and the app starts lagging so much I expect another crash. I close it and remember why I never use insta*
Wow, and I thought tumblr was bad... Insta is borderline unusable now
#I could probably fix some of these issues by updating the app as I'm sure a lot of these were bugs#And as I said I haven't used my account in A While#But do I really want to sacrifice storage space on my phone for an app that I hardly ever used even when it was functional?#Lmao I hate it here#Also this spreading format of the short looping videos is a disease#I do not like it and I do not want it#Let's bring back stuff that you can take a minute to appreciate in silent and awed contemplation#Instead of having to loop something 5 times to properly see the details#I can't be the only one who finds this annoying#The occasional video every once in a while doesn't bother me for the record#It's the fact that every other post is now a reel that is a pain#Thyandra.txt#How to tell I'm old: I don't like the tiktok format
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