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anominous-user · 4 months

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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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benevolenterrancy · 16 days

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Swords pining for each other's cultivator is my new favorite type of pining. Love your NieYao content! <3

I don't suppose we could get Baxia or Hensheng throwing a tantrum while Jin Guangyao / Nie Mingjue are away, leaving their owners to deal with the embarrassing aftermath?

Also, do you have any recs you'd recommend with these two?

this is the exact moment Nie Huaisang realised he was going to have to start meddling in his big brother's love life (con't: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Hensheng, on the other hand, doesn't throw tantrums but WILL sulk...

#guys if we keep this up this silly little idea is going to develop an actual plot #mdzs #nieyao #jin guangyao #jgy #nie mingjue #nmj #nie huaisang #nhs #nie bros #hensheng #baxia #and thank you very much i'm glad you're enjoying it!#honestly nieyao is just SUCH an intriguing dynamic but i feel like i have a hard time filtering it in the tags...#👀 so i'm grateful for anyone who delivers it right to my doorstep. obsessed w whatever the fuck they have going on #as for recs! tbh after i started going through my bookmarks i realised the fics you recced me tend to be G and most of my favourite bookmar #...are not that ^^;;; so these may not be to you taste idk #but my favourite nieyao fic is definitely Dawn Disrupts Us by Sciosa- the whole series really but i reread that one and its sequel regularl #Three Notes (or like i love you) by Wanxin was really good for 3zun...#All Men Are The Same by mostlikelytofangirl has fantastic dramatic irony big fan and also fuck jgs #those are 3 off the top of my head but if hmu if you wanna talk fics 👍#though i feel like i'm usually the one needing to beg for nieyao recs i feel like i'm always craving more ahahaha #especially ones that fit the dynamic i prefer since there's always a range #my art #edit: to add links to the other posts since this is honestly a big of a series at this point

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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 months

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truly 2 trans 2 furious is also extremely like [billionsposting as people never meant to be here yet having the symposium while not necessarily having a good time but we can also analyze &/or simply play around with it in other ways with an easy ability to deconstruct things enough for that & perhaps have a good time, perhaps have something way more complicated than that but which could also be called having a good time] like including in its having the "there's a nonbinary f&f character" entry in there at all through kompensoing & monitoring billions since & drawing funny little guys about it (winston, e.g., and taylor) and then also that like, Any & Every Entry in 2 trans 2 furious is of that genre of crucial tour de force visionary symposium understander posts that get 2 notes. and then compiling that is like yes of course this wins an award, a surprise but also not really at all.

#besides fast & furious crossroads besides what i've learned from 2t2f that's my one other thing to say abt f&f. segue into fury road talk #but like for real this is a project of people's Very Specific Posts w/Three Notes that are transcendent & crucial & thee ultimate etc #cam stone entry pretty straightforward like Did You Know This?? (Telling You About It in one page more would be too much)#in an apt & compelling kind of Contrast ofc if it was like ''send a Perspective on winston / billions :)'' dunno i could like whew #but i Can do a one page half illustration 101 Intro To Cam Stone's Existence Yayy #and we can thank [it's years back it's some nyc theatre it's akd cast as lucifer] like now it's billions time now it's f&f crossroads time #wait'll will gets cast in sm shit....stemming from also casting around those times? black suits may have been relevant #looking at you [evan hansen] i sleep [chris thurser] oh shit fr?#& anyways then speaking of roads crossing. taylor & winston despite it all. well what if some connoisseurs tripped & fell over this #and that brings us to this f&f project with a wynnstannery tayficionado power combo move contribution #and the ability to be like yay in whatever fraction we got a lambda award for that Let's go. vroom quarter mile babey &c #truly feels like a fitting contribution amid fitting & completely different contributions yet in an overall project that's like Yeah. yea.#and going lord smh billions and stuff throughout iykyk easier to avoid than f&f but hey i know only enough to go Fury Road Time #probably an alternate timeline where i went zanier like hm a tangent explaining how we even know about this role; personally lol?#but it's like One Page is ambitious enough (for sure a last minute crunch where i had to add in edits around those last minute technical #difficulties lol but it was always gonna happen like that) & being ''matter of fact''ish Explanation / Intro & fond illustrations is like #yeah that's entirely idiosyncratic & Classic in its own way

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paimonial-rage · 5 months

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I was thinking about this while helping my friend beta something yesterday like… I vaguely remember that at one time, I felt (punctuation) periods were too harsh. They had a sense of finality about them. They were too loud and vibrant. Commas were more comforting to use. They felt softer and not as exact. And then I look at my writing now and there's nothing I love more than a period. I love how sharp it is. I love its finality.

Like I can't understate enough how much a period makes a statement. Like that's what it's supposed to do, yes, but it's more than that. It tells the audience that what precedes is true. It's a fact. And when you yield a period properly, it emphasizes and highlights what is stated. It stands out. It's final. It has weight. It's such a powerful thing that it's addicting to use.

#thoughts #personal #writing #i should be putting this in the main post but the main post has a vibe that i don't want to interrupt #the way to properly wield a period is by varying the lengths of your sentences #a good key to remember is that long sentences are meant for providing information #*long sentences are not meant to stand out*#when you want to highlight something that is key you use a short sentence #making it short makes it clear to the audience that the statement is meant to hold weight #however it is important to keep variety in the lengths of your sentences #a short sentence after a short sentence does not stand out as much as a short sentence after a long sentence #think of it like this #if you have two short people standing next to each other they look normal #if you put a short person next to someone really tall it makes the short person look shorter than they actually are #their shortness really stands out #this is called juxtaposition #i can make a whole essay based off of the importance of juxtaposition too HAHA #periods can be loud but i highly recommend trying to learn how to use them #one of you said you like hearing my thought process when i write so i hope you find this one interesting!!#now i'm gonna speak more off the top of my head but i feel that ppl that dislike periods are very sensitive to the flow in their stories #there is a flow to a sentence when you use commas and periods tend to disrupt that flow #a period/short sentence is too abrupt and jarring #at least that's what i assume they feel #however imho i feel ppl that feel this way are overly sensitive to the flow they perceive exists in their sentences/paragraphs #i have to tell myself this constantly that things that flow seamlessly aren't always a good thing #imagine your writing like an orchestral piece. are they always flowy and legato? or are there moments where the music jumps or changes?#and what do those sudden jumps do? they wake the audience. they catch the audience's attention. they add variety and interest #imagine an orchestral piece that the tempo never changes. the volume never shifts. every note bleeds into the next #you get put to sleep!#so a period may seem abrupt in the scheme of the sentence but look at it from the view of the whole paragraph. it may be better than u thin

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bluedoggy · 2 years

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Visiting the faeries, they offered for him to borrow some clothes

Loosely refrences this

#my art #jays art #oc #serpent #faerie clothing usually consists of one or two large pieces of fabric wrapped around the body loosely #though for more formal events they may use three or more fabrics #and then some faerie women like to wear the hanging sheer fabrics from their arms #i didn’t feel like drawing his scales lol #usually the midriff is not exposed as the fabric is wrapped to imitate a flower #well that’s the most popular way to do it anywyas #some fae will go simpler and wrap theirs like a toga #it’s on an individual basis #note fae have wings and some have tails so this style of dress is very practical for them #they keep the clothing from falling off by wrapping the ends around their arms tighter than the rest of their body #and usually using pins or clips #which can be hidden or can be fancy ones to add to the design #fae don’t usually wear shoes and they don’t decorate their wings (makes it hard to fly)#but they like jewelry and accessories #faeries love colorful and shiny things with lots of patterns #i imagine he’s wearing a purple and lavender silk with a floral pattern #and his sheer fabrics are opalescent #similar to the refrence piece

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gamequeenanya · 15 days

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The Week Before!! Readthrough, thoughts, etc.

Chapter 1 notes. (Spoiler warning!!)

He canonically has memory problems.

He canonically got bullied. (By his peers and his dad. :()

He's a neat freak; just like me fr fr.

"You look terrible." No. He is always beautiful, no matter how tired he looks. Friends joked about us getting a mold ending. (But seriously, Ralph?? Year old Poptarts???)

Where is Coppelia's mother? … Is he repressing memories of her? :(

Wholesome dad though. I'm going to cry. Whoever assigned him to the night shift is now my most hated character.

This book proves that maybe Phone Guy does have an angry side. Maybe the portrayal of him going off at Mike were more accurate than I thought! xD Also!! He is such a snitch!! Though, he probably saved the life of those nightguards who were sleeping on the job.

...

Chapter 2 notes:

Ralph is the last person who should be taking the night shift. He's traumatized. He needs therapy. :( Though his own parenting skills are pretty good. I can tell he and Coppelia have a special bond. Unrelated, I am going to hire someone to beat up Phone Guy's dad.

How many old expressions does he know?

He's such a star. Belongs in showbiz, not in a crummy restaurant!

Because both he and Fnaf Movie Kim worked on video tapes for training employees, I'm going to headcanon Kim as Coppelia's mother. What happened to her? They don't talk about it.

...

Chapter 3 notes:

Aw, Mr. Cupcake is cute. Still not giving that thing to my daughter, though!

My dreams of jumping out the window to escape class have been shattered. (It's not that simple. :()

#anya talks #twb spoilers #notes as I read through the book #may add more when / if I feel like it #going through ch 1-3

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iniziare · 3 months

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Tag drop: Kafka

#kafka. [ we believe that existence has meaning; but that meaning is bestowed by ourselves. not by choices. ]#kafka: ic. [ like a spider in the center of her web. it has a thousand radiations; and she knows well every quiver of each of them. ]#kafka: inquiries. [ apologies for interrupting your little get-together. but I’m sure once you’ve heard my request; you’ll forgive me. ]#kafka: countenance. [ destiny has thousands of faces. why does it choose to wear this one? ]#kafka: introspection. [ it started with sincerity and anticipation followed by a passionate catharsis; with one climax after another. ]#kafka: meta. [ she must have sought something extraordinary. everything she does comes at a great cost. ]#kafka: wishes. [ if you wanna look for some fun. i won't stop you. i mean after all; elio didn't put it in the script; why would it matter?#kafka: etc. [ seems i came at a bad time. / no no; i think you couldn't have timed it better. 23:47:15. very punctual; kafka. ]#kafka: stellaron hunters. [ we all have our own individual goals. we may work together; but we work together for our own reasons. ]#kafka: astral express. [ in pursuit of the most dangerous objects in the universe? in that sense; you and i are cut from the same cloth. ]#kafka: conflict. [ looks like we're the ones getting ambushed. / but they're the ones getting besieged. ]#kafka: nessun dorma. [ da capo. fortississimo. capriccio. recitativo. doloroso. leggiero. ]#kafka: beauty. [ beautiful things have one thing in common: fragility. the more fragile; the rarer. maybe that's what makes it precious. ]#kafka: destiny. [ that's the nature of destiny; it creates a miracle but convinces you of an accident. ]#kafka: pteruges-v. [ it was one of many planets changed by a stellaron. it's a shame i never got to witness how far it fell at the time. ]#kafka: bladie. [ … her voice was very gentle. and even the monster inside his body stayed silent to listen to her. ]#kafka: bladie. [ i long for you; i who usually long without longing; really and utterly long for every bit of you. ] daybreakrising.#kafka: veritas ratio. [ i believe you have fallen victim to a misconception; doctor. who says it is elio who harbors an interest in you? ]#kafka: veritas ratio. [ does it smell of me; veritas? ] avaere.#kafka: caelus. [ i called out to you and you came. you had many choices; but everything led you here. to right here and right now. ]#kafka: caelus. [ everything that you love: you will eventually lose. but in the end; love will return in a different form. ] astrxlfinale.#kafka: elio. [ there's an empty space in my mind; my heart. changing that part of myself isn't something i can do alone. he can help me. ]#kafka: silver wolf. [ ignoring the rules is something she and i have in common. ]#kafka: sam. [ you should really stop playing with your food; kafka. / i know. next time. this time… it's already too late. ]#kafka: v. new babylon. [ i was a devil hunter. when people don't feel fear; they are dominated by desire; pleasure. they become “devils”. ]#kafka: v. present. [ we can only add one gold thread each time but eventually: we will pave the way for the future that is written. ]#kafka: v. future. [ the future is like a labyrinth: every divergence is merely an inducement. there is only one real path. ]#kafka: wishes. [ if you wanna look for some fun. i won't stop you. i mean elio didn't put it in the script; so why would it matter? ]#kafka: little notes. [ the mara's tether is in her grasp. she will not pull it before the designated time. nor shall she relinquish it. ]

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prismit · 9 months

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FINALLY FINISHED THE COLLECTOR MODEL. CROSS PLATFORM AND ALL. MISSION SUCCESS, I NOW OFFICIALLY KNOW WHAT I'M DOING

tomorrow i'll start getting beheaded set up for cross platform as well (and also put my new knowledge on adding extra stuff to use lol, so it probably won't be DONE tomorrow but i'll now be actively working on him!) then i'll post them both!!

also it turns out updating a model is literally just as easy as pressing the upload button again, so that's good to know! i feel much better knowing that if i mess anything up i can just reupload the thing and it'll be fine

#ghost town... 2!#side note: i feel like there may be. Some. weirdness with collector #i think on quest all models just have all the default animations in the action menu regardless of if they were actually added to the avatar #so the pc version doesn't have the data for those default animations (except for dying which i kept as a test lol but you can't activate it #but the oculus version does... so idk how that works exactly but worst case scenario i'll just add all the default animations to the pc too #but i wanna be done with this guy for now lmao so that'll be later!#side note 2: now that i am WELL AWARE of the work that needs to be put in to make things work cross platform #now whenever i make a model i'll be sure to keep that in mind and not take shortcuts that only work for pc lmao #mostly just like. previously if i knew something was gonna use a different material i just didn't bother uv mapping + texturing it properly #but since quest performance suffers A LOT with more than 1 material i'll have to actually fully do that to make things easier later

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burntoutdaydreamer · 11 months

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Things That May Be Causing Your Writer's Block- and How to Beat Them

I don't like the term 'Writer's Block' - not because it isn't real, but because the term is so vague that it's useless. Hundreds of issues all get lumped together under this one umbrella, making writer's block seem like this all-powerful boogeyman that's impossible to beat. Worse yet, it leaves people giving and receiving advice that is completely ineffective because people often don't realize they're talking about entirely different issues.

In my experience, the key to beating writer's block is figuring out what the block even is, so I put together a list of Actual Reasons why you may be struggling to write:

(note that any case of writer's block is usually a mix of two or more)

Perfectionism (most common)

What it looks like:

You write one sentence and spend the next hour googling "synonyms for ___"

Write. Erase. Write. Rewrite. Erase.

Should I even start writing this scene when I haven't figured out this one specific detail yet?

I hate everything I write

Cringing while writing

My first draft must be perfect, or else I'm a terrible writer

Things that can help:

Give yourself permission to suck

Keep in mind that nothing you write is going to be perfect, especially your first draft

Think of writing your first/early drafts not as writing, but sketching out a loose foundation to build upon later

People write multiple drafts for a reason: write now, edit later

Stop googling synonyms and save that for editing

Write with a pen to reduce temptation to erase

Embrace leaving blank spaces in your writing when you can't think of the right word, name, or detail

It's okay if your writing sucks. We all suck at some point. Embrace the growth mindset, and focus on getting words on a page

Lack of inspiration (easiest to fix)

What it looks like:

Head empty, no ideas

What do I even write about???

I don't have a plot, I just have an image

Want to write but no story to write

Things that can help:

Google writing prompts

If writing prompts aren't your thing, instead try thinking about what kind of tropes/genres/story elements you would like to try out

Instead of thinking about the story you would like to write, think about the story you would like to read, and write that

It's okay if you don't have a fully fleshed out story idea. Even if it's just an image or a line of dialogue, it's okay to write that. A story may or may not come out of it, but at least you got the creative juices flowing

Stop writing. Step away from your desk and let yourself naturally get inspired. Go for a walk, read a book, travel, play video games, research history, etc. Don't force ideas, but do open up your mind to them

If you're like me, world-building may come more naturally than plotting. Design the world first and let the story come later

Boredom/Understimulation (lost the flow)

What it looks like:

I know I should be writing but uugggghhhh I just can'tttttt

Writing words feels like pulling teeth

I started writing, but then I got bored/distracted

I enjoy the idea of writing, but the actual process makes me want to throw my laptop out the window

Things that can help:

Introduce stimulation: snacks, beverages, gum, music such as lo-fi, blankets, decorate your writing space, get a clickity-clackity keyboard, etc.

Add variety: write in a new location, try a new idea/different story for a day or so, switch up how you write (pen and paper vs. computer) or try voice recording or speech-to-text

Gamify writing: create an arbitrary challenge, such as trying to see how many words you can write in a set time and try to beat your high score

Find a writing buddy or join a writer's group

Give yourself a reward for every writing milestone, even if it's just writing a paragraph

Ask yourself whether this project you're working on is something you really want to be doing, and be honest with your answer

Intimidation/Procrastination (often related to perfectionism, but not always)

What it looks like:

I was feeling really motivated to write, but then I opened my laptop

I don't even know where to start

I love writing, but I can never seem to get started

I'll write tomorrow. I mean next week. Next month? Next month, I swear (doesn't write next month)

Can't find the time or energy

Unreasonable expectations (I should be able to write 10,000 words a day, right????)

Feeling discouraged and wondering why I'm even trying

Things that can help:

Follow the 2 min rule (or the 1 paragraph rule, which works better for me): whenever you sit down to write, tell yourself that you are only going to write for 2 minutes. If you feel like continuing once the 2 mins are up, go for it! Otherwise, stop. Force yourself to start but DO NOT force yourself to continue unless you feel like it. The more often you do this, the easier it will be to get started

Make getting started as easy as possible (i.e. minimize barriers: if getting up to get a notebook is stopping you from getting started, then write in the notes app of your phone)

Commit to a routine that will work for you. Baby steps are important here. Go with something that feels reasonable: every day, every other day, once a week, twice a week, and use cues to help you remember to start. If you chose a set time to write, just make sure that it's a time that feels natural to you- i.e. don't force yourself to writing at 9am every morning if you're not a morning person

Find a friend or a writing buddy you can trust and talk it out or share a piece of work you're proud of. Sometimes we just get a bit bogged down by criticism- either internal or external- and need a few words of encouragement

The Problem's Not You, It's Your Story (or Outline (or Process))

What it looks like:

I have no problems writing other scenes, it's just this scene

I started writing, but now I have no idea where I'm going

I don't think I'm doing this right

What's an outline?

Drowning in documents

This. Doesn't. Make. Sense. How do I get from this plot point to this one?!?!?! (this ColeyDoesThings quote lives in my head rent free cause BOY have I been there)

Things That Can Help:

Go back to the drawing board. Really try to get at the root of why a scene or story isn't working

A part of growing as a writer is learning when to kill your darlings. Sometimes you're trying to force an idea or scene that just doesn't work and you need to let it go

If you don't have an outline, write one

If you have an outline and it isn't working, rewrite it, or look up different ways to structure it

You may be trying to write as a pantser when you're really a plotter or vice versa. Experiment with different writing processes and see what feels most natural

Study story structures, starting with the three act structure. Even if you don't use them, you should know them

Check out Ellen Brock on YouTube. She's a professional novel editor who has a lot of advice on writing strategies for different types of writers

Also check out Savage Books on YouTube (another professional story editor) for advice on story structure and dialogue. Seriously, I cannot recommend this guy enough

Executive Dysfunction, Usually From ADHD/Autism

What it looks like:

Everything in boredom/understimulation

Everything in intimidation/procrastination

You have been diagnosed with and/or have symptoms of ADHD/Autism

Things that can help:

If you haven't already, seek a diagnosis or professional treatment

Hire an ADHD coach or other specialist that can help you work with your brain (I use Shimmer; feel free to DM me for a referral)

Seek out neurodiverse communities for advice and support

Try body doubling! There's lot's of free online body doubling websites out there for you to try. If social anxiety is a barrier, start out with writing streams such as katecavanaughwrites on Twitch

Be aware of any sensory barriers that may be getting in the way of you writing (such as an uncomfortable desk chair, harsh lighting, bad sounds)

And Lastly, Burnout, Depression, or Other Mental Illness

What it looks like:

You have symptoms of burnout or depression

Struggling with all things, not just writing

It's more than a lack of inspiration- the spark is just dead

Things that can help:

Forget writing for now. Focus on healing first.

Seek professional help

If you feel like it, use writing as a way to explore your feelings. It can take the form of journaling, poetry, an abstract reflection of your thoughts, narrative essays, or exploring what you're feeling through your fictional characters. The last two helped me rediscover my love of writing after I thought years of depression had killed it for good. Just don't force yourself to do so, and stop if it takes you to a darker place instead of feeling cathartic

#writing #creative writing #writer problems #writing advice #writing community #writing a book #writing problems #novel writing #on writing #writing tips #writing help #writers on tumblr #writers block #female writers #writers of tumblr #writers blog #adhd writer

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butchlinkle · 15 days

Text

How I Animate

The Technique:

I draw the frames and then I use the liquify tool to push the lines into the next frame and redraw them where I need to. This allows me to keep the lines consistent, but gives me the control of frame by frame animation bc I am still making each frame manually! I also use 3d models as reference to help me with the angles! Super important to use reference while you animate (and with art in general), if youre no good handling 3d models then act it out and record yourself!

The Theory:

i think most people are at least loosely familiar with the 12 principles of animation (if youre not, heres a 2.5 minute video showcasing them!), but may not necessarily know how to employ them. the main 3 i tend to focus on when I animate is rhythm, telegraphing, and inertia so ill cover those there 👍

1. Timing & Rhythm

Timing is how you space out your frames both in how long an individual frame is held for, and also when you drawn an inbetween of two frames you can favour one frame slightly more than the other instead of drawing the exact average of the cels, giving the favoured cel more timing weight.

Left line has the cels evenly spaced out on the timeline, right holds the first cel for longer and the second cel slightly favours the last frame. It creates a more interesting rhythm to the animation! Rhythm is how I think of animation timing. Theres a beat like a song to every animation I make, and creating an interesting beat is what makes an animation fun to watch (for me, anyway):

2. Anticipation / Telegraphing

Before I animate a big change in movement, I like to telegraph that its coming. Usually this is doing a little counter movement in the opposite direction, but thats not the only way to telegraph a motion, e.g. eye movement can telegraph a head turn!

3. Follow-through / Overshoot / Inertia

Unless the movement is mechanical, it wont come to a hard stop and will have some level of bounce or easing out to it. How much "bounce" you add will have a big impact on how the animation feels, but a very subtle bounce will add a natural feeling to the end of a motion.

Secondary animations will use a lot of this, note that the head and the hand have a small amount of continuous motion (primary animation), and then the hair has a lot of bounce and inertia (secondary animation which reacts to the primary animation). Note the different amounts applied to the braid vs the sideburn vs the bangs

anyway! I hope this was insightful ❤️ if you like my art you can commission me by the by :)

#harrs tips #edited to include the timelapse and progress gif i posted separately to make one comprehensive post

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alvojake · 6 months

Note

idol sunghoon getting pissed because of his idol gf got into a dating scandal with his co-member, and his gf liked the way he got pissed, so he decided to show her who she really belongs to (??)

「notes」 : anony c'mere lemme just *😚🧠* you gave me an inch, and I swear I took it like ten miles... so lemme just say that I contemplated this and I may or may not have gone a little stir crazy (that and I'm pretty sure I'm ovulating...), so I sincerely apologize for the nastiness you're about to set your eyes upon 🫣🫣

↳ you can find the add-on part here!

Mark Me Yours | P.SH

「pairing」 : idol!bf!sunghoon x idol!fem!reader 「word count」 : 5k

「synopsis」 : the first time you were caught out with jake by the press it was an accident, but after seeing your boyfriend's jealous reaction you couldn't help but want to see more. so you went out with jake time and time again, even going as far as being a little too friendly with jake just to see how much sunghoon could take before he snapped. though your outcome probably wasn't exactly what you had in mind.

「genre」 : smut

「warning」 : cursing, biting/marking, rough makeout session, fingering, oral (m. & f. receiving), usage of toys, begging, degradation, choking, hair pulling, bondage, pussy slapping, clit play, face fucking, cum eating, dacryphilia, squirting, spitting, kinda toxic possessiveness, mean!dom!sunghoon x sub!reader, unprotected sex (please don't), orgasm denial, edging, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, rough sex, photography, breeding kink, creampie, manhandling, slight breath play, sunghoon is a bit sadistic, mentions of a safeword (but it's not used), petnames (princess, baby, slut, whore…), mentions of blood, implications of multiple rounds, lmk if I missed anything!

You lay out lazily on your boyfriend's bed, waiting for him to finish his shower after he had a long day at work. Scrolling through Twitter, laughing to yourself as you come across yet another article, 'Timeless y/n and Enhypen Jake Spotted Together Once Again, Coincidence or Not?' This had to be the third or fourth article within the last two weeks.

When the first article dropped after you were spotted with Jake at a local coffee shop, you were beyond worried about how your boyfriend would take it. However, seeing his face twist in annoyance and jealousy flipped a switch in you. The way his jaw would clench when he’d spot people on Instagram or Twitter talking about you and Jake, or when ship edits started to get posted of the two of you, or even when you were sitting in the room alone with just Jake. It was insanely attractive and left you dripping in your panties.

Sunghoon knew it wasn’t your fault for what the press did or didn’t post, but he also couldn’t help the way that it pissed him off beyond belief every time he saw the photos.

You then made it your goal to see just how much your boyfriend could take before he finally snapped. So you continued to go out in public with Jake, knowing you could be spotted just so you could get a rise out of your boyfriend. After the first week or so, you stepped it up a little bit. Getting a little too friendly with Jake, laughing at his jokes a little too hard, your hands wondering his body a little too much, your voice a little too surly when you talked to him, being just a little too close. Jake, of course, was oblivious to all of your little antics, thinking you were just being friendly and sweet like you usually were. It started to drive Sunghoon up a wall, so much so that he had to avoid being in the same room as Jake so he wouldn’t lash out at the poor boy. Eventually, he caught on to what you were trying to do, and he could feel his blood boil. He could handle you being a brat, but this? He was damn near his wits end, a hair away from snapping.

Coming back to the present, you were snapped out of your thoughts when a knock at the door was heard. Muttering a quick ‘come in,’ you weren’t too surprised to see Jake standing there, hands stuffed in his hoodie pocket.

“Hey, Jakey.” You smiled sweetly at the boy who returned your gesture before looking around the room, presumably looking for your dark-haired boyfriend.

And just as you thought, the question fell from his lips, “Where’s Sunghoon?”

“He’s in the shower,” you told him, and Jake nodded before walking over, flopping down onto the bed, his upper body draped over your lap.

“Did you see the new article?” He pouted as he started to pick at the end of your skirt, causing you to smile, but you nodded your head before tilting your phone screen down to show him that you had been reading it. Jake sighed dramatically, his face falling into the side of your thigh, “I hope they stop soon. I’m pretty sure Hoon is gonna strangle me the next time one comes out.” He shivered at the thought, causing you to start laughing.

You knew he was right. Sunghoon has been avoiding Jake like the plague for the past few days. Anger and annoyance are the main expressions he wears anymore. His jaw is always locked tight, afraid he might say the wrong thing. But you were enjoying it, maybe a little too much.

Just then, the bathroom door swung open, ceasing your laughter as Sunghoon walked into the room, towel in hand, drying his damp hair. However, as soon as his eyes landed on you and Jake in his bed, you could have sworn you saw a fuse blow in his head. His eyes darkened into a glare, demanding that Jake leave, not a single bit of room left open for discussion.

Jake nearly levitates off of the bed before rushing out of the room as quickly as he possibly could, not wanting to be at the end of your boyfriend's wrath. You watched with an amused smirk as Sunghoon's eyes trailed from the doorway back to you.

“Is this really that amusing to you?” His voice was cold as he walked towards the open door; it sent a shiver down your spine and your thighs clenching together. You, however, just hummed with a shrug before looking back down at your phone. You peeked over the top of it, excitement bubbling in your chest as you watched Sunghoon slam the door shut before turning the lock. The moment you had been waiting for was finally about to happen; you finally got him to snap. You mentally cheered, completely missing the borderline psychotic gleam in your boyfriend’s eyes.

Sunghoon walked back to the end of the bed, a snarl pulling on his upper lip, revealing his pointy canine. The very canines you wished would mark your body up, leaving behind puncture wounds and bruises even though you would get a lot of shit from your manager and makeup artist. He never did, though, because he knew the stakes; however, now? Now, all of those thoughts. All of the sane thoughts, really. Completely vanished from his mind.

He leaned over the bed, grabbing your outstretched ankle before yanking your body down to him. A small gasp fell from your lips at the sudden action but was quickly quieted when you bit your tongue as Sunghoon hovered over you, slotting his body against yours.

The dark, lustful look in his eyes had your body wiggling in anticipation, a shock rushing through your veins when you felt his erection against your thinly covered core. Thinking back to all of the stuff you did to get here made you giggle because you thought you had finally won. Or so you thought. Sunghoon, on the other hand, found it far, so far, from amusing.

“Well, see how much you’ll be laughing, princess,” He chuckled darkly before his slender fingers wrapped tightly around your throat, causing your breath to hitch, but all the air was soon taken out of your lungs when he kissed you hard.

A cry tore from your lungs when he bit down on your bottom lip before sucking on it. You were sure that it had drawn blood, but your mind was quickly bought elsewhere when his other hand cupped your boob, squeezing harshly.

“You just like the attention, huh?” He growled, nipping at your jaw, “You’re just a little attention whore, is that it?”

You whined as his grip on your throat got tighter, not enough to completely cut off your air supply, but definitely enough to make you feel a little lightheaded. Sunghoon was typically always rough when it came to sex, but this? This was new, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t turn you on even more.

“Don’t think I don’t know what your little game was.” His voice was deep, sending shock waves throughout your body, “How you purposely left with Jake knowing the press was watching,” He moved his hand, allowing you to breathe, but not long before he sunk his teeth into the soft flesh of your neck causing you to cry out his name, “or how you threw yourself all over Jake…” Tears pricked at the corner of your eyes as he continued to bite and suck on your neck, leaving deep purple and red marks. “All for what, huh? My attention? Well, guess what, princess, now you have it.”

You knew you probably pushed him way over the edge the moment he started to mark up your skin. While his hands were tight enough on your body, you were sure they’d leave bruises behind. Then that dark lust that clouded his eyes was the final ringer that let you know, ‘oh I really fucked up’.

“Hoon-” “What’s the safe word?” Oh, you definitely fucked up; you knew he never mentioned the safe word unless he was going to be rough. The two of you only came up with it just as percussion, mainly when you tried something new. But for him to ask now when you could clearly see the anger in his eyes? Yeah, you were screwed.

When he didn’t get an answer quickly enough, he grabbed your face, squishing your cheeks together, and moved his face merely inches away from yours.

“What’s. The. Word. Y/n.” Sunghoon snarled, enunciating every word with a glare. Your eyes were wide, not quite out of fear but something else you weren’t sure what to call.

“Purple.” You responded to the best of your ability with his hand on your face, eyes staring into his.

Then he let go of your face before pushing off of your body, standing flat on his feet. You pushed yourself up, eyes on him, ready to ask what he was doing. However, his voice was quick to beat you to it.

“Strip and on your knees.”

The tone of his voice was already enough to leave you dripping in your underwear, but the way his eyes bore into you made your whole body shiver. This new side of Sunghoon was something you never thought you would need, but it is now. You wanted so badly to disobey him, but you knew that if you continued to push his buttons, he wouldn’t hesitate to leave you without cumming.

So, with shaky legs, you pulled yourself to your feet before slowly undoing the button on your skirt and letting it fall to the floor. You could feel Sunghoon’s fiery gaze on you as you pulled your shirt over your head and threw it somewhere in the room. Once you were left standing there completely bare before him, Sunghoon walked over and put his hand on your shoulder, pushing you down onto your knees.

“Now be a good girl and put that pretty mouth of yours to use,” He spoke lowly, his finger combing through your hair until he got to the crown of your head. A whimper fell from your lips as you placed your hands on his thighs to stabilize yourself when he tugged your head back harshly. “And I swear to god you try to tease, I will leave you here tied to the bed with a vibrator attached to your cunt.” The way his upper lip pulled back to show his pointed tooth, you knew he wasn’t lying.

"O-Okay," You choked out as he cranked your neck back a little more, eliciting a cry from your lips. He then let go, standing straight again, allowing you to slightly relax your neck. You wasted no time pulling his sweatpants' string loose before hooking your fingers around the waistband to pull them down. Once his pants were pooled at his feet, you lifted yourself up a bit, mouth watering at the sight of your boyfriend's dick.

Sunghoon then held something out to you, and your eyes went wide at the sight of the little pink egg, “Put this in that needy little hole of yours, and don’t you dare cum without my permission.” Your gaze shifted from the little toy to your boyfriend’s hooded gaze before taking it into your hand.

You kept your eyes locked with his as you brought the toy down to your pulsating heat, rubbing it up and down to collect your slick to use as lube. The slight stretch it offered left a whine falling from your lips, but it wasn’t nearly enough. That’s what you thought, at least, until a sudden vibration caused your whole body to jolt and a moan to slip past your lips. Then it was gone. Sunghoon watched from above as your body relaxed a bit, your eyes shifting to meet his once more.

He then grabbed himself at the base before tapping the head against your lips, prompting you to open your mouth. You parted your lips, sticking your tongue out, letting him drag his tip across your wet muscle, hissing at the contact. Shuffling a bit closer, you encased your lips around his tip, causing him to groan. Sunghoon gathered your hair into a makeshift ponytail before thrusting his hips forward, sheathing his entire length in your mouth. Thankfully, your gag reflex was almost nonexistent; otherwise, you were sure you would be a choking mess.

His pace started out steady; his hold on your hair kept your head in place. Until he found his rhythm, and his hips snapped forward, hitting the back of your throat, causing tears to prick at the corner of your eyes. Then the little toy inside of you buzzed to life, causing a moan to tear through your throat, muffled by his dick. The vibrations caused Sunghoon’s head to fall back with a groan.

Your head started to go fuzzy with pleasure as Sunghoon continued to piston his hips until your nose brushed his pelvis bone. The vibrations then kicked up, causing your body to jolt, nails to dig into his thighs, and you to moan around his cock. All of the sensations were overwhelming, and you weren’t sure if you would last much longer, but then Sunghoon’s words echoed in your brain. Knowing that he would punish you even more if you came without his permission, you tried your best to hold it in.

The drag of his cock along your tongue was enough to have your eyes roll back as you pressed the wet appendage against him.

“Fuck, this is supposed to be a punishment, yet you look like you enjoy sucking my dick.” He chuckled darkly before a throaty groan broke from his lips, his hips stuttering as he got closer to his high. You hummed around him, trying to keep yourself grounded, but you nearly choked as he turned the vibrations up to the highest setting. Tears were spilling from your eyes as you screwed them shut, pleasure overriding your senses.

Sunghoon wanted to burn this image into his memory, the tears running down your flushed cheeks. How the mixture of his pre-cum and your saliva dripped from your chin. The dark purple and red bite marks that covered the skin of your neck. The way your hips rocked against nothing but the air as you struggled to keep from tipping over the edge. God, it was a picture-perfect sight; if he could, he would share it with the world. A clear sign that you were his.

The thought of all of your guys' fans seeing it drove him over the edge, his dick twitching in your mouth as he painted your throat white. An animalist growl tore through his mouth as he rocked his hip, riding out his high before shutting the vibrator off. He then pulled out of your mouth, watching as you closed your lips, swallowing his seed without a word. You then opened your mouth once more, tongue lolling out to show him.

He then tugged on your hair, causing you to whine as you stood on wobbly legs. Not giving you a moment to breathe before his lips found yours in a heated kiss. He groaned at the taste of himself on your tongue before maneuvering you back until your knees hit the bed. A gasp fell from your lips as Sunghoon picked you up and crawled onto the bed before laying you flat on your back.

Sunghoon pulled away from your lips, pressing hot, wet kisses along your jugular down to your breast before encasing one of your nipples in his mouth. A breathy moan escaped your parted lips as your fingers ran through his hair, tugging slightly.

A loud cry escaped from your lips, and tears fell from your eyes when the vibrator kicked back to life. Your hips bucking against Sunghoon’s body, and your hands tugging on his hair. The male smirked as your body tensed underneath his, listening to every little noise that left your pretty lips.

“Hoon- fuck!” You cried out when you felt his slim fingers prodding at your entrance, thumb pressed against your clit. There was no way you were going to be able to last long at this rate, but when you met his dark gaze, you knew you had no other choice.

Your back arched off of the bed when he pushed two of his fingers into your pussy, pushing the little egg further in. A lewd, pornographic moan tore from your lungs when it pressed against your sweet spot.

“Found it,” Sunghoon chuckled, pulling his mouth away from your tits to watch as your body convulsed under him. His fingers started to pump in and out of your slick walls while turning the vibrator up.

Your ears were ringing, and your brain was starting to go blank as your body became overwhelmed with pleasure. Moans and cries of Sunghoon’s name fell from your lips like a mantra, and you could feel that little knot tighten to the point of almost snapping.

“‘M close! Hoon, please!” You cried out, back arching off of the bed as your eyes nearly rolled to the back of your head. Then, just like that, your orgasm was ripped away from you when Sunghoon pulled not only his fingers out but the vibrator as well. Pleas and whines slipped past your swollen lips as your vision focused, but your words were cut short when Sunghoon wrapped his fingers around your throat once more.

“Oh no, baby, you seem to have forgotten.” He left a chaste kiss on the corner of your lips before moving to your ear, “this is a punishment, you’ll cum when I say you can.”

Tears spilled down your cheeks as you locked eyes with your boyfriend, your mind reeling. This wasn’t how you expected things to go; sure, you knew he was going to punish you, but this? Your whole body was on fire, and the touch of Sunghoon’s finger felt like it was searing your skin, leaving behind traces of his touch.

Your jaw fell slack as Sunghoon slipped his fingers back into your dripping cunt, moving at a harsh pace. His thumb presses down in tight circles on your clit. Cries left your lips as you tried to push your boyfriend's hand away from your sore hole, but he was quick to grab your wrists with a growl, pinning them above your head.

“Don’t be a brat, be a good little slut and take my fingers.” His words stung in all the right ways, and your cunt squeezed around his fingers. Sunghoon smirked before catching your lips in a bruising kiss, muffling all the moans escaping your throat.

Your head fell back as you tried to wiggle your hips away from Sunghoon’s hand, the sensation becoming too much, almost mind-numbing. Sunghoon pulled his fingers out before landing a firm smack on your clit, causing a loud cry to fall from your lips, tears flowing down your cheeks.

“What did I say?” His tone was a low growl, sliding his finger back in.

“Please, Hoon, it’s- fuck! ‘S too much.” Your cries only spurred your boyfriend on, speeding his fingers up.

Broken sobs fell from your mouth as you felt that same knot in your gut reappear, but you knew that he would just rip that away. Your nails dug into the palm of your hand as you tried to ground yourself, but his fingers just kept rubbing your velvet walls in all the right ways, making stars cloud your vision. And then it was gone once again.

Sunghoon’s dick twitched at the sight of your tear-streaked face, loving how your makeup smeared under your eyes, how tears stuck to your eyelashes as you looked up at him with the fuck-out expression he loves so much. His eyes then traveled down the length of your body, your hands pinned so perfectly under his, the love bites that littered your neck and chest, the sheen of sweat that coated your body, then, finally, your dripping cunt. Your slick leaked out onto his sheets, leaving a wet patch. The sight made him rock hard once more, to the point that it almost hurt.

His silence was worrying to you because you couldn’t tell what he was thinking, let alone what he was going to do next. Just then, he released your wrist before leaning over to his bedside table. Your eyes widened as he pulled out the bundle of black rope, shaking your head frantically.

“No, no, I’ll be good, I promise! Sunghoon, please.” You begged, tears streaming from your eyes. However, those pleas were cut short when he glared down at you, holding his hand out for yours. “Sung-”

“Hands. Now.” His tone left no room for negotiation, and with a whine, you placed your hands in his. Watching as he bound your wrists together before pulling them above your head to attach them to the headboard. Once you were locked in place, he leaned down, face mere centimeters away from yours. “Should have thought about that before, huh?” His voice was harsh, his eyes gleaming, almost sadistic. “Maybe I should mark up this perfect body of yours; then maybe you’ll get the idea that you’re mine.”

You bite your lip as he moves down your body, hooking his hands under your thighs, lifting your lower half until your ass rests on his chest, legs hanging over his shoulders. The position was extremely uncomfortable, but that soon slipped away from your mind when his lips latched to the inside of your thigh. Your breathing was ragged, breathy moans and whines falling from your lips as he left bites and marks all along your inner thighs.

Once he was satisfied with all of the marks, he moved down, blowing on your drenched pussy, watching as you clenched around nothing. Sunghoon gathered a ball of saliva in his mouth before letting it drop onto your clit, watching as it trailed down to join the abundance of slick. Your eyes watched his movements, lips tucked between your teeth. He then dived right into your pussy, licking a long stripe from your slit to your clit before harshly sucking on the bundle of nerves, eliciting a strangled moan from your lungs.

“Holy shit!” You cried out as your head flew back into his pillows, hips bucking into his face. Sparks flew across your vision as he held onto your hips, tight enough to halt any of your movements.

Sunghoon then trailed back down to your slit, sticking his tongue in, tasting your sweetness as it gushed out onto his tongue. He hummed at the taste, sending vibrations through your core and making you cry out his name, hands clenched into fists above your head. He continued to eat you out like a starved man while you were a whining mess under him, tugging on the restraints, hoping they would budge, but they didn’t.

“Hoon- fuck, please don’t stop.” You cried out, head falling back as he latched his lips to your clit once more, drawing patterns on the little button. The pillow under your head had your tears stains on it as the salty liquid continued to flow from your eyes at the instrumental amount of pleasure you were feeling.

You begged him not to stop as you felt that knot reappear once more, hoping that he would finally let you have that release. Sunghoon smirked against your core, listening to your choked pleas and moans. His movements didn’t let up as your body started to twitch, a tell-tale sign that you were close.

“Cum for me slut.” He growled against your skin; the mixture of the vibrations and his teeth slightly scraping against your clit had you toppling over the edge. Your body convulsed in his hold, toes curling behind his head and his name leaving your mouth in a borderline scream. It all just spurred your boyfriend on as he continued to devour you, easily throwing your body into overstimulation.

All of your body muscles tensed, and your shoulders grew sore from the angle at which they were placed. You were sure that your legs wouldn’t be usable the next day, nor would your voice, but that was a problem for future you to worry about. Right now, your brain is far too cloudy to think straight, pleasure drowning all of your senses.

A silent scream tore through your lips as Sunghoon placed the little vibrating egg against your clit. Your legs moved to snap close, but Sunghoon was quicker than that, grabbing hold of one of your thighs and keeping it in place. The mixture of the vibrations and his tongue buried in your cunt had your legs shaking by his head, another orgasm already on the horizon.

Inchohent moans and noises fell from your lips as he brought you over the edge once more, eyes squeezed shut. Sunghoon slurped up all of your juices, not leaving a single drop before pulling the vibrator away from your twitching clit. He then kissed the bundle of nerves, causing a small squeak to leave your lips. Your eyes then opened slowly, meeting Sunghoon’s eyes as he looked down at you with a smug look.

As he laid your body down, you could feel your muscles relaxing, and you closed your eyes, trying to catch your breath. However, your eyes snapped open when you felt the tip of his cock prodding at your entrance.

“You didn’t think we were done already, did you princess?” He chuckled, watching the shock on your face morph into pleasure as he slid in with little resistance. Your nails dug into the palm of your hand as a choked sob tore from your lungs.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” The word fell from your lips in a rushed chant as Sunghoon’s hips started to slam against yours. “‘S too much, Hoon!” You cried out as your back arched off the bed.

“No, it’s not; just shut up and take it,” Sunghoon growled, hands holding onto your hips with a vice-like grip. A high-pitched squeal broke through your parted lips when his hand came up and wrapped around your throat once more, “who’s pussy is this? Who’s making you feel this good? Who do you belong to?”

“You.” The words choked through your lips, but that didn’t fully satisfy the male; no, he wanted to make sure everyone knew.

Leaning down, he ghosted his lips over yours, “Then say it.”

He then leaned back up and pounded into your sensitive cunt making your head spin, “Fuck! Yours, Sunghoon!” You screamed as your head fell back, missing the sadistic smirk on your boyfriend’s lips.

Sunghoon continued to thrust hard and deep into you, his pace never slowing, and you could already feel another orgasm creeping up. The words came out jumbled as you tried to warn him, his fingers squeezing the flesh on your neck.

You were clenching around his dick like crazy, causing him to groan, “fuck keep doing that, and I’m bound to breed this cunt of yours.” The words only made you clench around him again, making him chuckle, “You want that, don’t you? You want my seed filling your womb until you’re sure to get pregnant, huh?” You mewled at his words, fucked out eyes looking up to beg.

Seeing the expression on your face almost drove Sunghoon over the edge, your tear-stained cheeks and glossy eyes that were begging him to cum inside, then your swollen lips that were parted as you moaned out his name. Fuck he wasn’t going to last much longer. Taking his hand off of your neck, he moved down to press his thumb against your clit, circling it in tight circles. Your hips bucked at his touch as your nerves were set aflame once more. The knot in your stomach tightened to an unimaginable level, but this one felt different. Like your body was about to burst, but before you could even get the chance to warn Sunghoon, your orgasm hit. Your release gushes out in waves, coating your and his thighs. A loud pornographic moan fell from your lips, and Sunghoon cursed under his breath at the sight.

“You fucking squirted, you filthy whore.” He chastises you, his hips stuttering as he feels his high creeping up. A whine fell from your lips as he continued to fuck into you at a harsh pace until he finally tipped over the edge with a groan, painting your gummy wall white.

Sunghoon continued to rock his hips into yours, riding out his high before coming to a complete stop. His eyes squeezed shut, feeling you wrapped around his still semi-hard dick, milking him for all he was worth. Opening his eyes, he let the flutter down to where the two of you were still connected, groaning at the sight of the white ring around the base of his cock. He wanted to capture this moment. So he did.

Leaning over, he grabbed your phone, which had been haphazardly thrown to the side, before opening the camera, ignoring the article you had pulled up. You didn’t even realize what he was doing as you tried to catch your breath until you heard the shutter click. Your eyes opened at the noise, surprised to see your boyfriend aiming the camera down at where his dick was still sheathed inside of your cunt.

Sunghoon could feel himself grow hard again at the sight, wanting nothing more than to make a big mess of the two of you. Swiping on the screen, he switched to the video recorder and hit the little red button before rocking his hips against yours. A whimper fell from your lips as he continued to toy with your puffy cunt.

"Oh, I'm not done with you yet, baby…" he chuckled darkly, his eyes meeting yours. "Far from it."

@alvojake | Do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or repost any of my work

𝖉𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖗 : ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ɴᴏ ᴡᴀʏ ᴀ ᴛʀᴜᴇ ʀᴇᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴʏ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴘᴜʀᴇʟʏ ꜰɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴛᴀᴋᴇɴ ꜱᴇʀɪᴏᴜꜱʟʏ.

𝖙𝖆𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙: @heesitation @riftanswhore @yeonzzzn @yzzyhee

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youvebeenlivingfictional · 5 months

Text

reunion

Pairing: Art Donaldson x Reader

Rating: Explicit - 18+ only. minors, please get off my lawn.

Notes: Not beta-read because when is it ever.

Length: 4.5K

Warnings: Slow burn; unrequited love; angst; yearning; divorced Art Donaldson; oral sex (female receiving); vaginal sex; safe sex

Summary: It wasn't that Art Donaldson was the one that got away. It was more like Art Donaldson was the one that never really knew you existed.

"Did you hear Art Donaldson is supposed to be here?"

The question is whispered behind you and makes your hand freeze in its signing. You're half-bent over the table at reception, fingers tight around a pen as your mind is jogged.

No way was he turning up, that's what Anne had said.

Tashi will be there, she's the head of the goddamn reunion committee, the ink is still wet on their divorce—that's what Anne had said. Hell, she'd sworn it.

So what the hell is he doing here?

The sound of your name jogs your attention and you manage to finish signing in. You straighten, taking up your name tag and haphazardly slapping the adhesive onto your top. You need a drink, and quickly. You're halfway to the bar before you feel someone wind their arm through yours.

"Okay, I know you didn't wanna come—"

"Anne."

"And I so appreciate you being here so that I didn't have to come alone—"

"Anne—"

"But I got some news and it's going to be a little shocking so I think you should hear it from me—"

"I know he's here."

"What?" Anne freezes, her arm dropping from yours. You turn to see her looking stricken, her cheeks pinking with panic and embarrassment. You sigh softly, glancing around your fellow alumni. Less than half of them look familiar; your eyes catch on the odd face before you realize that you're inadvertently looking for him.

"Look, there are, like...Five hundred people here, alright?" You add. "I probably won't even see him."

"We can go."

"Look, we made the trip, we're here, we may as well stay. It's fine, okay? We're all adults here! It doesn't matter!" Your insistence is chased by a slightly hysterical laugh. "It was, like, a hundred years ago."

"...You're sure?"

"I am positive."

Positive that you need a drink, and positive that you're going to regret agreeing to stay.

It wasn't that Art Donaldson was the one that got away. It was more like Art Donaldson was the one that never really knew you existed.

You were friends, sure. You palled around, had a few classes together, hung out at a few parties—but he was so in love with Tashi Duncan that you'd never made his romantic radar. You'd forced yourself to believe that that was for the best, that you didn't need his love or romantic validation to be happy. But you couldn't pretend that wanting him didn't sting.

He'd had a couple of girlfriends while you were at Stanford, but you could always feel, always see that they were never really his priority. It was Tashi, then tennis, then them.

The two of you had kept touch a little after college, but you'd pushed yourself to move on. Conversation had begun to fade, and when he hadn't tried to keep it up, you had resolved to let him go.

You'd avoided his name in the news as much as you can, but it had been hard. He was on billboards, packaging, tv—it was like you couldn't escape him.

Want melted to sadness; sadness shifted to annoyance; annoyance hardened into disdain. You couldn't see his likeness or hear his name without rolling your eyes. It wasn't his fault, of course, but the prospect of running into Art fuckin' Donaldson made you queasy.

Still, you put on a brave face for Anne, forcing your focus into conversation.

It's a struggle to keep your gaze from seeking him out. You take each sip with a little white lie, convincing yourself that you're looking to make sure you can avoid contact. You spot Tashi a couple of times, but you don't go out of your way to say hello. She's surrounded by a cloud of people—taking pictures, signing programs and name tags and old Duncanator shirts.

When Anne insists on going to say hello, you force a small smile.

"You, um—you go ahead," You nod, taking a couple of steps back. "I'm gonna get some air."

Anne's dark eyes flit over you questioningly before she blessedly lets it go, nodding and going on her way. You turn, swiping a fresh drink off of a passing waiter's tray as you leave.

It takes a few moments for the buzz of conversation to clear from your head. You take a gulp of the prosecco, wrinkling your nose. It's a little sweeter than you usually like, and doesn't mingle well with the three other drinks that you've downed. Tashi's not going to find your lack of presence or greeting conspicuous; you'd been cordial and on speaking terms in college, but the two of you had never been close.

Damn, but it's chillier outside than you thought it would be. The reception had been so warm, so crammed with people. Paired your head being near-permanently on a swivel, you hadn't realize how hot and tense you'd been.

You frown at the waft of cigarette smoke that catches your nose. Who the hell is still smoking in this day and age—

"Are you hiding, too?"

Maybe you can feign that you didn't hear him—that the sound of his voice didn't jog a hundred memories and trigger a flurry of butterflies. But before you can stop yourself, you turn, the words, "I thought you quit smoking," tumbling out of your mouth.

Art's smile widens as he draw the cigarette back from his lips, a stream of smoke pushed out of the side of his mouth.

"I did. Quit quitting, though." He takes one more puff before he flicks it away, drifting closer. "Hi."

Hi, like it's not the first time you've seen him in the better part of a decade. Hi, like neither of you are oceans from where you where when you last saw one another.

"Hi," You manage. He doesn't hesitate to draw you into his arms; he seems to almost do it without thinking. You only allow yourself a moment of resistance before you raise and curl your arms around him. The clean scent of his pressed jacket and woodsy cologne are muddled with smoke. The fingers of one if your hands curls covetously in the fabric of his jacket as his palms smooth gently over your back. You hear him draw in a deep breath, feel him hold it, and then release it with a soft hum.

"How the hell are you?"

Probably better than you are these days.

You shrug a little, mumbling, "Fine."

He draws away, eyes skating across your face.

"You don't sound so sure about that."

"I'm sure."

"Yeah?"

"Mhm."

You can feel him winding up for another pass at it, but you hold your glass out before he can. His fingers brush against yours as he drains it.

"Why are you hiding?" You ask. He shrugs, nods toward the door.

"It's a lot in there. I forgot what these events are like."

"People wanna congratulate you. They're proud."

"Are you?"

"I am, but I'll hold off. Don't wanna crowd you."

Your attention is drawn from Art's smile as you hear someone clearing their throat over the speaker system inside:

"If we could have the reunion chairpersons to the stage, please!"

You glance toward Art and find him fidgeting, his thumb smoothing across his bare ring finger.

"…Do you wanna go back in?" You offer. He considers before he says, "Wait here."

You watch curiously as he darts inside, and are stunned when he reappears a moment later. You just barely catch a glimpse of the bottle of champagne clenched in his fist before he rests his other hand on your lower back, steering you away with an urgent murmur of, "C'mon."

"I'm surprised you came," You tell him. Art doesn't look at you for a moment, and you take the chance to lean back against the hard plastic seat. He's as beautiful as he was the last time the two of you were together, the night before graduation—practically in the same seats. You don't know if he was thinking about that when he'd led the way into the stands, chosen where to sit. Maybe it was pure muscle-memory.

Either way, you don't know how long the two of you have been sitting out there, knees bumping, passing the bottle back and forth. You take in his profile—the slope of his nose and cut of his jaw; the bob of his adam's apple as he swallows.

"My therapist said it would be good," He finally admits. "Told me I needed to get out more, start getting back into events, work at the foundation...What about you, huh?" He turns, brows raising. "You always told me that you hated this stuff."

You're surprised he remembers.

"I do hate this stuff, but," You shrug. "Anne didn't want to come alone."

"You're a good friend. I never forgot that." He sits up and passes the bottle back to you. "What happened to us, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why did we stop talking?"

I couldn't keep begging for scraps of attention.

"I don't know," You deflect. "Guess we just lost touch. It happens."

"I shouldn't have let it happen to us."

You look down at the bottle, sweeping your finger across a slipping drop of condensation.

"You were busy."

"You weren't?"

"Not in the same way," You laugh self-consciously.

"What were you busy with then, huh?" He shifts, thigh pressing against yours. "You used to always say you'd uh—burn out by twenty-six."

"Yeah."

"Did you?"

"Oh, it didn't take nearly that long."

"What!" He laughs. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't know what to tell you, man. A girl can only take a soul-sucking marketing job for so long."

"So what do you do now?"

"Still in marketing, but I'm a manager, so. Still soul-sucking, but making a little more money."

"You like it?"

"God no, but I don't know what else I would do." You pass the bottle back.

"Could find something for you at the foundation."

You wrinkle your nose, shaking your head as Art sputters a laugh, asks, "What?"

"Don't do that, Art."

"Don't do what?"

"I don't need, you know—"

"We could use you—"

"You don't even know what I do at work."

"I bet it's great—"

"You don't even know if I'm a good worker—"

"Sure I do, I know you."

"No, you don't!"

You know it's a mistake the second it leaves your mouth. Art's smile wavers as he leans away again.

"I just mean—" You try.

"I know what you mean. It's been a long time."

"...Yeah, it has." You take the bottle back, drawing deeply from it before passing it back. "I should get going. I'm sure Anne's looking for me."

"Sure."

You don't say goodbye or tell him that it was nice to see him. You just make as hasty a retreat as you can without tripping over your feet.

@ a_donaldsonofficial requested to follow you. 3h

You're not sure what surprises you more—the follow request or the message in your DMs: Dinner?

His groan is sinful and low, and makes you rethink ever losing contact with the guy. Under the warm glow of the diner's lights, his eyes slip shut, fingers tightening around the bun.

"...When's the last time you had a burger?" You finally manage to ask.

"I can't remember." He admits it through the mouthful, and you don't begrudge him the couple of flecks of food that land on the table. You smile, plucking up a couple of fries.

"Art?"

"Mm."

"Why'd you ask me to dinner?"

Art sets the burger down as he swallows, taking off his napkin to clean off his hands.

"I was thinking...About what you said at the reunion."

"Mhm."

"About me not knowing you. You're right. But you know what?" He presses on before you can process your surprise. "I don't think you know me, either."

You think for a moment, brows furrowing. He's right. You know the image of Art Donaldson that's been projected to you over the years—on tv screens, in magazines, in online clips.

"...I don't think I do," You agree.

"Figured we should fix that. Catch up, fill each other in on what we've missed."

"Okay."

"So, after college..." He trails off, waving his hand. "Fill me in."

"Moved to New York."

"Uh-huh."

"Working in marketing."

"Burned out before 26—"

"Yeah, hit my capitalistic peak at 23."

"That fast?"

"I mean, that's the last time I remember giving a shit about work, so. Yeah."

"Relationships?"

"...A couple," You admit.

"Serious?"

"Yeah. One."

"Married?"

"No. Engaged." His eyes drop to your bare left hand, and you hurriedly tuck it into your lap. "Formerly engaged."

"What happened?"

"It just didn't feel right. I don't think either of us were ready."

"...Was it anyone I knew? I don't remember you dating much at school."

"Guess I didn't."

"You weren't shy."

"Well no, but—"

"So what was it?"

"I had the worst crush on you, dude!" It's another mistake, but where the last one seemed to make Art retreat, this one leaves his gobsmacked. His eyes widen, mouth opening in a wide smile.

"You what?"

"Oh, kay, you know what—"

"I had no idea!"

"I was very subtle."

Art leans back in the diner booth, watching you openly. You can see the gears turning in his head, and you wonder what he may be remembering, holding up and twisting about in this new light.

"...Huh," He mutters.

"You can feel free to forget that at any time."

"I don't think I will...I wish I'd known."

You consider for a moment before you shrug. "I don't know. I'm kinda glad that you didn't."

"Really?" His brows knit with confusion. "Why?"

"I don't like coming second, Art."

Art nods slowly, and you see something tight pass across his face before it's smoothed away again.

"You know what?" He smiles bitterly. "Neither do I."

You nod toward his plate.

"Your burger's getting cold."

"So, uh..." Art clears his throat as the two of you take slow, drifting steps to your car. "I'm gonna say two things, and I don't want you to think that they've got anything to do with what you said earlier."

You know exactly what he means, but you just grumble, "I said a lot of things earlier."

"I think we both know which one I'm talking about."

"Uh-huh. So what's up?"

"...I wanna see you again."

"Okay."

"But things are a little...Messy right now. Tashi and I are working on getting Lily into a regular rhythm and it's harder than we thought it would be."

You lean back against your car, tucking your hands into your pockets.

"Mhm...I hesitate to ask."

"Yeah."

"How does this have to do with what I said earlier?"

"I just don't want you to think that this is—"

"A consolation prize?"

"Something like that."

"Whatever you need to do to get in a good place with Lily is fine, Art, you don't need to justify that to me."

"Even if it means you come second?"

You tip your head to the side, pursing your lips. "It's different when it's your kid. I meant that I didn't want to be second to—You know."

"...Yeah," He mutters, looking at his feet as he takes another foot forward. "And for the record, I was thinking of asking you out again by the time we sat down."

"You could've changed your mind."

"I didn't. And I don't want to."

You smile, nodding. "Well I don't want you to, either." You straighten up as you fish into your bag for your keys. "Call me the next time you're in New York."

"Sure."

You reach out, cupping his cheek and leaning in, pecking his cheek. You pull away, smiling at the flush creeping across his face.

"Goodnight, Art."

"Night."

It isn't easy at first. Messages are far and few, mostly how are yous and how was your days. You think that as nice as the little swell of contact has been, that's all it'll be—but the two of you both start to really try. The odd text becomes the weekly phone call. Weekly phone calls become daily FaceTimes. On the nights when he has Lily, they're late, usually when you're getting ready for bed. On the nights when he's on his own, the two of you eat dinner together and chat over your calls. It isn't always perfect, but it's more than you could've anticipated from that dinner a couple of months ago.

"She down?"

"Yeah."

"Are you in a hotel again?"

"...Yeah." Art seems to admit it grudgingly, and you smile a little as you take up your toner and a cotton pad.

"There's nothing wrong with leaning into it if it's working," You argue. "And not to be that bitch, but you're not exactly broke."

"Might be if she keeps ordering room service and movies on-demand."

You laugh softly, turning your attention to your reflection as you swipe the toner across your face.

"How's your day been?" Art asks.

"Fine, standard. I had to fill out an assessment ahead of my annual review."

"When's that?"

"End of the week."

"How do you feel about it?"

"Mm," You shrug reaching for a serum. "Fine, I guess. I'm doing okay, my team's hitting their targets."

"You're doing better than okay."

"Art."

"You are."

"Well. Thank you for that." You glance over as he goes quiet, catching a glimpse of him as you smooth the serum into your skin. You raise your brows at the sight of his gentle, warm smile. "What is it?"

"You're beautiful."

Your face goes warm at the compliment, and you bite the inside of your cheek to tamp down your wide, idiotic smile.

"You are tired, huh," You deflect.

"I mean it."

"...I know," You murmur, reaching for your moisturizer. "Tell me what you got up to today."

"I had a meeting at the foundation. We're starting planning for the gala."

"Oh yeah? Have you done them before?"

"We've had three before, but I was usually playing or training, so I haven't been as involved in the planning."

"How's it been?"

"We're still in the preliminary stages, but it's been interesting, you know, seeing how the pieces come together before I usually see them."

You nod, picking the phone up from the mirror holder and heading into your bedroom.

"Where are you gonna have it?"

"We're still scouting locations...As a matter of fact," Art adds, "We're considering a few in New York."

"Oh?"

"I'll be down there for at least a few days, and I wanna see you."

You grin bashfully as you climb into bed, settling against your pillows.

"I wanna see you, too. Are you gonna, um—I mean, is Lily gonna be with you?"

"No, it'll be Tashi's weekend."

"Okay, cool. Just wanna make sure I don't mess up your time."

"I appreciate that." Art's tongue swipes across his lower lip, eyes sweeping across your face. "I gotta say..."

"Mmm?"

"I'm looking forward to seeing your apartment."

"Oh, really?" You chuckle. "Why's that?"

"It'll be interesting, that's all. I mean, you already take me to bed every night."

You laugh, covering your eyes as you groan, "Oh, god, shut up!" as Art chuckles.

"Let me know when you're free," You add. "Your schedule's gonna be weirder than mine."

"Yeah, I will, as soon as I know what it is." You watch as Art lays down, propping his phone up on the nightstand. "...Can you stay on?"

"Yeah," You soothe, setting your phone on the nightstand in suit. "Until we fall asleep."

"Okay," He murmurs. The two of you settle in on your sides, watching one another on the phone.

"Night, Art."

"Sweet dreams."

The restaurant is picked. Your nails are done, your hair is done; you get a new dress, new shoes, a new bag. You're going to have an amazing night—a good dinner, a great conversation, and, if you have any luck, an amazing good night kiss.

You know the minute you see him that you're not making it to the restaurant. Art's eyes sweep over you in covetous wonder when you open the door. He closes the gap between the two of you, drawing you into his arms, and this time you go without a second thought. He presses his face into your neck, letting out a gentle hum at the scent of your perfume. The tip of his nose trails up over your jaw, his lips brushing the corner of your lips as his forehead rests against yours. He sighs as you draw in a nervous breath, and he sways in, lips pressing to yours.

You raise your hand to cup his neck, shivering as his hands smooth over your hips. He guides you deeper inside, blindly reaching back and shoving the door shut behind you as you fling your purse toward the bench in your entryway. His kisses grow hungrier as he steers you down the hall. You slip your tongue along his, smoothing your hand up to grasp his hair. Your fingers fumble with the buttons on his shirt, exposing more of his pale, muscled chest to you. He slides down the zipper on the back of your dress and leans away just long enough to draw the dress up over your head. His eyes sweep across you, taking in your lingerie.

You hook your thumbs under the band of your underwear, giving them a teasing wiggle as you back further away from him. You expect him to follow, but he steers you back against the wall, dropping his head to suck hot kisses along your neck and down to your chest. He yanks one of the cups of your bra down, taking your nipple into his mouth. You bite your lip, tipping your head back against the wall and whining as he slots his knee between your thighs. You roll your hips down against the hard muscle as he laves and teases your nipple, reaching up to thumb and tweak the other.

"Art—Mm, god that feels so good."

He groans against your skin, trailing his kisses further down as he lowers himself to his knees. You look down as he curls his fingers around your panties—and waits. You smile softly, nodding, murmuring, "Please?"

Art grins, pressing a kiss to your hip before he gently eases the fabric down, waiting for you to lift your feet so he can fling them away. He leans in, swiping his tongue across your aching clit. Your knees would knock if he wasn't wedged between them. You draw in a shallow breath, letting your head tip back as he draws your leg over his shoulder. You shiver at the feeling of the chilly air against your heated, slick flesh. He nuzzles and laps against your cunt, taking each tip of your hips in stride. His hand smooths up your trembling inner thigh, giving your ass a gentle squeeze before he teases a finger into you. You whimper at the touch, unable to help the way your pussy clenches around it.

Art groans at the feeling, turning his head to smear his lips slips against your hip.

"Goddamn," He breaths against you.

"More."

You feel more than hear his gentle chuckle as he eases another finger in.

"Need it bad, huh?"

"You have no idea."

"I'm getting a pretty good idea." He turns his head, leveling a sucking kiss to your clit that makes you cry out. You tighten your grip on his hair as he pumps his fingers harder, curling and scissoring them as he pushes you closer to the edge.

"Art—Mm, god, fuck, yes—Yes—" Your toes curl in your shoes as your hips rabbit down against his face and fingers, chasing the swell of your orgasm. You look back down as he draws back and find his lips and chin shining with your juices.

"Bed," He urges.

"You can fuck me right here."

Art laughs, standing and smoothing his hand over your thigh.

"We're doing this right."

"We could be doing this right...." You slid your hand down his chest to palm his cock through his pants. "Here."

You grin as Art's eyelids flutter, his dick twitching against you.

"Bed," He insists again.

It isn't far to go, and the two of you are entirely bare by the time you get there. You scooch back onto the bed, spreading your legs as he rolls on a condom. He's over you a moment later, and you watch the bulge of his biceps as he braces his hands on either side of your head. You bite your lip as you feel the brush of his cock against your entrance. You reach down, grasping his cock and guiding him closer.

You tip your head up, tongue teasing the seam of his lips as he eases into you. You melt into the mattress as he crushes against you, filling you completely. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, sliding your legs over his, as if you'll manage to fuse the two of you together. Art's tongue swirls around yours before he captures your lips in a kiss, rolling his hips slowly.

"More," You plead, but Art keeps his pace achingly steady, even when you try to pick up the pace.

"You feel so fucking good," He breathes, "Even better than you taste."

"Harder, Art, please, god damn, please," You whimper. He tips his head to the side nipping at the hinge of your jaw as he reaches down, hiking your hip up even higher. Your mouth fell open with a stunned moan as he presses deeper, the slap of his hips filthily filling the stifling air around you. You arch up against him, nails raking down his back as you feel the swell of another orgasm.

"Art."

"Yeah?"

"Mhm—Fuck, almost—"

"That's it." He sucks his fingers between his lips before he slips them between your bodies, swiping across your tender clit. You begin to close your eyes, but he tuts softly.

"Don't—Don't close your eyes—Look at me," He orders between breaths. You force yourself to focus on Art, taking in the flush on his cheeks, his almost dazed eyes.

"You, too—" You urge.

"Yeah—"

"Oh—yeah," You gasp, unable to keep your gaze on his you cum. You feel Art's hips slap roughly against yours before he slows, groaning low in his chest. You draw in a deep breath as your heart pounds in your chest, sinking back against your pillows as he settles down over you. You smooth your hand over his nape, smiling as he nuzzles against your shoulder, dropping tender kisses to your skin.

"...Art?"

"Yeah?"

"I think we're going to be late for dinner."

"You know, I've been thinking."

"You've been doing a lot more than thinking, mister," You mutter, and grin as Art laughs. You cuddle closer against his side, nuzzling into his chest as he tightens his arm around your shoulders.

"I'm glad I didn't know you liked me in college."

"Really?" You tip your head up, brow furrowing. "Why's that?"

"...I wasn't ready for you back then." He smooths his fingers along your jaw, eyes wandering your face contemplatively. "It's like you said, you know. You would've come second."

You nod, turning your head to press a kiss to his palm.

"I don't think I was ready for you, either," You admit. Art smiles.

"And you are now?"

"More than."

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@ew-erin ; @youngkenobilove ; @carbonated-beverage ; @moonlightburned ; @milf-trinity

@millllenniawrites ; @chattychell ; @thembosapphicclown ; @brandyllyn ; @wildmoonflower ;

@buckybarneshairpullingkink ; @mad-girl-without-a-box ; @winchestershiresauce ; @lorecraft ; @kmc1989

#Art Donaldson x Reader #Art Donaldson x You #Art Donaldson/Reader #Art Donaldson/You #Art Donaldson fic #Art Donaldson imagine #reunion

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