#this feels like an old format. oh well.

[anominous-user]

Double Indemnity, Veritas Ratio and Aventurine

This was originally a part of my compilation post as a short analysis on the Double Indemnity references, linking to this great thread by Manya on Twitter. However, I've recently watched the movie and found that the parallels run much deeper than just the mission name and the light cone itself, plus as the short synopsis I've read online. Since there isn't really an in-depth attempt at an analysis on the film in relation to the way Aventurine and Ratio present themselves throughout Penacony, I thought I'd take a stab at doing just that. I will also be bringing up things from Manya's thread as well as another thread that has some extra points.

Disclaimer that I... don't do analyses very often. Or write, in general — I'm someone who likes to illustrate their thoughts (in the artistic sense) more than write. There's just something about these two that makes me want to rip into them so badly, so here we are. If there's anything you'd like to add or correct me on, feel free to let me know in the replies or reblogs, or asks. This ended up being a rather extensive deep dive into the movie and its influences on the pairing, so please keep that in mind when pressing Read More.

There are two distinct layers on display in Ratio and Aventurine's relationship throughout Penacony, which are references to the two most important relationships in the movie — where they act like they hate/don’t know each other, and where they trust each other.

SPOILER WARNING for the entire movie, by the way. You can watch the film for free here on archive.org, as well as follow along with the screenplay here. I will also be taking dialogue and such from the screenplay, and cite quotes from the original novel in its own dedicated section. SPOILER WARNING for the Cat Among Pigeons Trailblaze mission, as well.

CONTENT WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF SUICIDE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

To start, Double Indemnity (1944) is a film noir by Billy Wilder (and co-written by Raymond Chandler) based on the novel of the same name by James M. Cain (1927). There are stark differences between the movie adaptation and the original novel which I will get into later on in this post, albeit in a smaller section, as this analysis is mainly focused on the movie adaptation. I will talk about the basics (summaries for the movie and the game, specifically the Penacony mission in tandem with Ratio and Aventurine) before diving into the character and scene parallels, among other things.

—

[THE NAME]

The term "double indemnity" is a clause in which if there’s a case of accidental death of a statistically rare variety, the insurance company has to pay out multiple of the original amount. This excludes deaths by murder, suicide, gross negligence, and natural causes.

The part of the mission in Cat Among Pigeons where Ratio and Aventurine meet with Sunday is named after the movie. And before we get further into things, let's get this part out of the way: The Chinese name used in the mission is the CN title of the movie, so there's no liberties taken with the localization — this makes it clear that it’s a nod to the movie and not localization doing its own thing like with the mission name for Heaven Is A Place On Earth (EN) / This Side of Paradise (人间天堂) (CN).

—

[SUMMARY OF THE 1944 MOVIE]

Here I summarised the important parts that will eventually be relevant in the analysis related to the game.

Insurance salesman Walter Neff, wounded from a gunshot, enters his office and confesses his crime on a dictaphone to his boss Barton Keyes, the claims manager. Much earlier, he had met Phyllis Dietrichson, the wife of Mr. Dietrichson and former nurse. Neff had initially wanted to meet Mr. Dietrichson because of car insurance. Phyllis claims her husband is mean to her and that his life insurance goes to his daughter Lola. With Neff seduced by Phyllis, they eventually brew up a scheme to murder Mr. Dietrichson in such a way that they activate the "double indemnity" clause, and the plan goes off almost perfectly. Initially, the death is labeled a suicide by the president of the company, Norton. 

Keyes finds the whole situation suspicious, and starts to suspect Phyllis may have had an accomplice. The label on the death goes from accidental, to suicide, to then murder. When it’s ruled that the husband had no idea of the accidental policy, the company refuses to pay. Neff befriends Phyllis’ stepdaughter Lola, and after finding out Phyllis may have played a part in the death of her father’s previous wife, Neff begins to fear for Lola and himself, as the life insurance would go all towards her, not Phyllis.

After the plan begins to unravel as a witness is found, it comes out that Lola’s boyfriend Nino Zachette has been visiting Phyllis every night after the murder. Neff goes to confront Phyllis, intending to kill her. Phyllis has her own plans, and ends up shooting him, but is unable to fire any more shots once she realises she did love him. Neff kills her in two shots. Soon after telling Zachette not to go inside the house, Neff drives to his office to record the confession. When Keyes arrives, Neff tells him he will go to Mexico, but he collapses before he could get out of the building.

—

[THE PENACONY MISSION TIMELINE]

I won’t be summarising the entirety of Aventurine and Ratio’s endeavours from the beginning of their relationship to their final conversation in Heaven Is A Place On Earth the same way as I summarised the plot of the movie, so I will instead present a timeline. Bolded parts means they are important and have clear parallels, and texts that are in [brackets] and italics stand for the names of either the light cone, or the mission names.

[Final Victor] Their first meeting. Ratio’s ideals are turned on its head as he finally meets his match.

Several missions happen in-between their first encounter and the Penacony project. They come to grow so close and trusting with each other that they can guess, understand each other’s thoughts, way of thinking and minds even in high stakes missions. Enough to pull off the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Aventurine’s E1) and Stag Hunt Game (Aventurine’s E6) and come out on top.

Aventurine turns towards Ratio for assisting him in the Penacony project. Ratio's involvement in the project is implied to be done without the knowledge of Jade, Topaz, and the IPC in general, as he was only sent to Penacony to represent the Intelligentsia Guild, and the two other Stonehearts never mention Ratio.

Aventurine and Ratio cook up the plan to deceive Sunday before ever setting foot on Penacony. Aventurine does not tell Ratio the entirety of his plan.

Aventurine convinces Topaz and Jade to trust him with their Cornerstones. Aventurine also breaks his own Cornerstone and hides it along with the jade within a bag of gift money.

[The Youth Who Chase Dreams] They enter Penacony in the Reverie Hotel. Aventurine is taken to the side by Sunday and has all his valuables taken, which includes the gift money that contains the broken aventurine stone, the jade, and the case containing the topaz.

Aventurine and Ratio speak in a “private” room about how Aventurine messed up the plan. After faking an argument to the all-seeing eyes of Sunday, Ratio leaves in a huff.

Ratio, wearing his alabaster head, is seen around Golden Hour in the (Dusk) Auction House by March 7th.

[Double Indemnity] Ratio meets up with Sunday and “exposes” Aventurine to him. Sunday buys his “betrayal”, and is now in possession of the topaz and jade. Note that this is in truth Ratio betraying Sunday all along.

Ratio meets up with Aventurine again at the bar. Ratio tells Aventurine Sunday wants to see him again.

They go to Dewlight Pavilion and solve a bunch of puzzles to prove their worth to Sunday.

They meet up with Sunday. Sunday forces Aventurine to tell the truth using his Harmony powers. Ratio cannot watch on. It ends with Aventurine taking the gift money with his Cornerstone.

[Heaven Is A Place On Earth] They are in Golden Hour. Ratio tries to pry Aventurine about his plan, but Aventurine reins him in to stop breaking character. Ratio gives him the Mundanite’s Insight before leaving. This is their final conversation before Aventurine’s grandest death.

Now how exactly does the word “double indemnity” relate to their mission in-game? What is their payout? For the IPC, this would be Penacony itself — Aventurine, as the IPC ambassador, handing in the Jade Cornerstone as well as orchestrating a huge show for everybody to witness his death, means the IPC have a reason to reclaim the former prison frontier. As for Ratio, his payout would be information on Penacony’s Stellaron, although whether or not this was actually something he sought out is debatable. And Aventurine? It’s highly implied that he seeks an audience with Diamond, and breaking the Aventurine Cornerstone is a one way trip to getting into hot water with Diamond. With Aventurine’s self-destructive behaviour, however, it would also make sense to say that death would be his potential payout, had he taken that path in the realm of IX.

Compared to the movie, the timeline happens in reverse and opposite in some aspects. I will get into it later. As for the intended parallels, these are pretty clear and cut:

Veritas Ratio - Walter Neff

Aventurine - Phyllis Dietrichson

Sunday - Mr. Dietrichson

There is one other character who I feel also is represented in Ratio, but I won’t bring them up until later down the line.

For the sake of this analysis, I won’t be exploring Sunday’s parallel to Mr. Dietrichson, as there isn’t much on Dietrichson’s character in the first place in both the movie and the novel. He just kind of exists to be a bastard that is killed off at the halfway point. Plus, the analysis is specifically hyper focused on the other two.

—

[SO, WHAT’S THE PLAN?]

To make things less confusing in the long run whenever I mention the words “scheme” and “plan”, I will be going through the details of Phyllis and Neff’s scheme, and Aventurine and Ratio’s plan respectively. Anything that happens after either pair separate from another isn’t going to be included. Written in a way for the plans to have gone perfectly with no outside problems.

Phyllis and Neff —> Mr. Dietrichson

Goal: Activate the double indemnity clause by killing Mr. Dietrichson and making it look like a freak train accident

Payout: Twice or more of the face value of the life insurance ($100,000)

Main Actor: Walter Neff    |    Accomplice: Phyllis Dietrichson

During the entire time until the payout, Phyllis and Neff have to make sure to any outsiders that they look like complete strangers instead of lovers in an affair.

Step-by-step:

Neff convinces Mr. Dietrichson to sign the policy with the clause without him suspecting foul play, preferably with a third party to act as an alibi. This is done discreetly, making Mr. Dietrichson not read the policy closely and being told to just sign.

Neff and Phyllis talk to each other about small details through the phone (specified to be never at Phyllis’ own house and never when Neff was in his office) and in the marketplace only, to make their meetings look accidental. They shouldn’t be seen nor tracked together, after all.

Phyllis asks Mr. Dietrichson to take the train. She will be the one driving him to the train station.

On the night of the murder, after making sure his alibi is airtight, Neff sneaks into their residence and hides in their car in the second row seating, behind the front row passenger seat. He wears the same colour of clothes as Mr. Dietrichson.

Phyllis and Mr. Dietrichson get inside the car — Phyllis in the driver’s seat and Mr. Dietrichson in the passenger seat. Phyllis drives. On the way to the train station, she makes a detour into an alley. She honks the horn three times.

After the third honk, Neff breaks Mr. Dietrichson’s neck. The body is then hidden in the second row seating under a rug.

They drive to the train station. Phyllis helps Neff, now posing as Mr. Dietrichson, onto the train. The train leaves the station.

Neff makes it to the observation platform of the parlour car and drops onto the train tracks when nobody else is there.

Phyllis is at the dump beside the tracks. She makes the car blink twice as a signal.

The two drag Mr. Dietrichson’s corpse onto the tracks.

They leave.

When Phyllis eventually gets questioned by the insurance company, she pretends she has no idea what they are talking about and eventually storms off.

Phyllis and Neff continue to lay low until the insurance company pays out.

Profit!

Actual Result: The actual murder plan goes almost smoothly, with a bonus of Mr. Dietrichson having broken a leg. But with him not filing a claim for the broken leg, a witness at the observation platform, and Zachette visiting Phyllis every night after the murder, Keyes works out the murder scheme on his own, but pins the blame on Phyllis and Zachette, not Neff.

Now for Aventurine and Ratio. You can skip this section if you understand how deep their act goes, but to those who need a refresher, here’s a thorough explanation:

Aventurine and Ratio —> Sunday

Goal: Collect the aventurine stone without Sunday knowing, ruin the dream (and create the grandest death)

Payout: Penacony for the IPC, information on the Stellaron for Ratio, a meeting with Diamond / death for Aventurine

Main Actor: Aventurine    |    Accomplice: Veritas Ratio

From the moment they step onto Penacony, they are under Sunday’s ever present and watchful eyes. “Privacy” is a foreign word to The Family. They have to act like they don’t like each other’s company the entire time and feed Sunday information through indirect means so that the eventual “betrayal” by Ratio seems truthful to Sunday. Despite what it looks like, they are closer than one would ever think, and Ratio would never sell out a person purely for information.

Step-by-step:

After Sunday takes away the bag of gift money and box, Aventurine and Ratio talk in a room in the Reverie Hotel.

Aventurine establishes the Cornerstones’ importance, and how he lost the gift money and the case containing the Cornerstones to Sunday. Ratio turns to leave, saying “some idiot ruined everything”, meaning the Cornerstones were vital to their plan. (Note that Ratio is not wearing his alabaster head while saying it to said “idiot”.)

Aventurine then proceeds to downplay the importance of the Cornerstones, stating they are “nothing more than a few rocks” and “who cares if they are gone”. This lets Sunday know that something suspicious may be going on for him to act like it’s nothing, and the mention of multiple stones, and leaves him to look up what a Cornerstone is to the Ten Stonehearts of the IPC.

Ratio points out his absurd choice of outfit, mentioning the Attini Peacock and their song.

Ratio implies that without the aventurine stone, he is useless to the IPC. He also establishes that Aventurine is from Sigonia(-IV), and points out the mark on his neck. To Sunday, this means that Aventurine is shackled to the IPC, and how Aventurine may possibly go through extreme lengths to get the stone back, because a death sentence always looms above him.

Aventurine claims Ratio had done his homework on his background, which can be taken that this is their very first time working together. (It isn’t, and it only takes one look to know that Aventurine is an Avgin because of his unique eyes, so this comment does not make sense even in a “sincere” way, a running theme for the interaction.)

Ratio mentions how the true goal is to reclaim Penacony for the IPC, establishing their ulterior motive for attending the banquet.

Ratio asks if Aventurine went to pre-school in Sigonia after saying trust was reliant on cooperation. Aventurine mentions how he didn’t go to school and how he doesn’t have any parents. He even brings up how friends are weapons of the Avgins. This tells Sunday that the Avgins supposedly are good at manipulation and potentially sees Ratio possibly betraying Aventurine due to his carelessness with his “friends”. Sunday would also then research about the Avgins in general (and research about Sigonia-IV comes straight from the Intelligentsia Guild.)

Ratio goes to Dewlight Pavilion in Sunday’s Mansion and exposes a part of Aventurine’s “plan”. When being handed the suitcase, Ratio opens it up due to his apparent high status in the IPC. He tells Sunday that the Cornerstone in the suitcase is a topaz, not an aventurine, and that the real aventurine stone is in the bag of gift money. This is a double betrayal — on Aventurine (who knows) and Sunday (who doesn’t). Note that while Ratio is not officially an IPC member in name — the Intelligentsia Guild (which is run by the IPC head of the Technology Department Yabuli) frequently collaborates with the IPC. Either Aventurine had given him access to the box, or Ratio’s status in general is ambiguous enough for Sunday not to question him further. He then explains parts of Aventurine’s gamble to Sunday in order to sell the betrayal. Note that Ratio does not ever mention Aventurine’s race to Sunday.

Ratio brings Aventurine to Sunday. Aventurine offers help in the investigation of Robin's death, requesting the gift money and the box in return.

Sunday objects to the trade offer. Aventurine then asks for just the bag. A classic car insurance sales tactic. Sunday then interrogates Aventurine, and uses everything Ratio and Aventurine brought up in the Reverie Hotel conversation and their interactions in the Mansion, as well as aspects that Ratio had brought up to Sunday himself.

Aventurine feigns defeat and ignorance enough so that Sunday willingly lets him go with the gift bag. After all is said and done, Aventurine leaves with the gift money, where the Aventurine Cornerstone is stored all along.

Ratio and Aventurine continue to pretend they dislike each other until they go their separate ways for their respective goals and plans. Aventurine would go on to orchestrate his own demise at the hands of Acheron, and Ratio… lurks in the shadows like the owl he is.

Profit!

Actual Result: The plan goes perfectly, even with minor hiccups like Ratio coming close to breaking character several times and Aventurine being sentenced to execution by Sunday.

This is how Sunday uses the information he gathered against Aventurine:

• Sunday going on a tirade about the way Aventurine dresses and how he’s not one to take risks — Ratio’s comment about Aventurine’s outfit being peacock-esque and how he’s “short of a feather or two”. • “Do you own a Cornerstone?” — Ratio talked about the aventurine stone. • “Did you hand over the Cornerstone to The Family when you entered Penacony?” — Aventurine mentioned the box containing the Cornerstones. • “Does the Cornerstone you handed over to The Family belong to you?” — Aventurine specifically pluralized the word Cornerstone and “a bunch of rocks” when talking to Ratio. • “Is your Cornerstone in this room right now?” — The box in the room supposedly contained Aventurine’s own cornerstone, when Aventurine mentioned multiple stones. • “Are you an Avgin from Sigonia?” —Aventurine mentioned that he’s an Avgin, and Ratio brought up Sigonia. • “Do the Avgins have any ability to read, control, and manipulate one’s own or another’s minds?” — Aventurine’s comment on how friends are weapons, as well as Sunday’s own research on the Avgins, leading him to find out about the negative stereotypes associated with them. • “Do you love your family more than yourself?” — His lost parents. “All the Avgins were killed in a massacre. Am I right?” — Based on Sunday’s research into his background. • “Are you your clan’s sole survivor?” — Same as the last point. “Do you hate and wish to destroy this world with your own hands?” — Ratio mentioned the IPC’s goal to regain Penacony, and Aventurine’s whole shtick is “all or nothing”. • “Can you swear that at this very moment, the aventurine stone is safe and sound in this box?” — Repeat.

As seen here, both duos have convoluted plans that involve the deception of one or more parties while also pretending that the relationship between each other isn’t as close as in reality. Unless you knew both of them personally and their histories, there was no way you could tell that they have something else going on. 

On to the next point: Comparing Aventurine and Ratio with Phyllis and Neff.

—

[NEFF & PHYLLIS — RATIO & AVENTURINE]

With the short summaries of the movie and the mission out of the way, let’s look at Phyllis and Neff as characters and how Aventurine and Ratio are similar or opposite to them.

Starting off with Aventurine and Phyllis. Here is where they are the most similar:

Phyllis is blonde and described as a provocative woman. Aventurine is also a blond and eyes Ratio provocatively in the Final Victor light cone.

Phyllis was put under surveillance after Keyes starts figuring out that the so-called accidental death/suicide may have been a murder after all. Similarly, Aventurine was watched by Sunday the entire time in Penacony.

Phyllis never tells Neff how she's seeing another man on the side to possibly kill him too (as well as how she was responsible for the death of her husband‘s previous wife). Aventurine also didn't tell Ratio the entirety of his plan of his own death.

Phyllis puts on a somewhat helpless act at first but is incredibly capable of making things go her way, having everything seemingly wrapped around her finger. Aventurine — even when putting on a facade that masks his true motives — always comes out at the top.

Now the differences between Aventurine and Phyllis:

Phyllis does not care about her family and has no issue with killing her husband, his previous wife, and possibly her daughter Lola. Opposite of that, Aventurine is a family man… with no family left, as well as feeling an insane level of survivor’s guilt.

Really, Phyllis just… does not care at all about anyone but herself and the money. Aventurine, while he uses every trick in the book to get out on top, does care about the way Jade and Topaz had entrusted him with their Cornerstones, in spite of the stones being worth their lives. 

Phyllis also uses other people to her advantage to get what she wants, often behind other people's backs, with the way she treats Neff and Zachette. Aventurine does as well (what with him making deals with the Trailblazer while also making a deal with Black Swan that involves the Trailblazer). The difference here is Phyllis uses her allure deliberately to seduce men while Aventurine simply uses others as pawns while also allowing others to do the same to himself.

Phyllis makes no attempt at compromising the policy when questioned by Norton. Aventurine ends up compromising by only taking the gift money (which is exactly what he needs).

The wig that Barbara Stanwyck (the actress of Phyllis) wore was chosen to make her look as “sleazy” as possible, make her look insincere and a fraud, a manipulator. A sort of cheapness. Aventurine’s flashy peacock-esque outfit can be sort of seen as something similar, except the outfit isn’t cheap.

Moving on to Ratio’s similarities to Neff… There isn’t much to extrapolate here as Ratio is more of a side character in the grand scheme of Penacony, however this is what I’ve figured out.

Neff has dark hair. Ratio has dark purple hair.

Neff almost never refers to Phyllis by her name when speaking with her, only as “baby”. The few times he refers to her as Phyllis or Mrs. Dietrichson is during their first conversations and when he has to act like he doesn’t know her. Ratio never calls Aventurine by his name when he’s around him — only as “gambler”, sometimes “damned” or “dear” (EN-only) gambler. Only in the Aventurine's Keeping Up With Star Rail episode does Ratio repeatedly say his name, and yet he still calls him by monikers like “gambler” or, bafflingly, a “system of chaos devoid of logic”.

Both Neff and Ratio committed two betrayals: Neff on Mr. Dietrichson and Keyes, and Ratio on Sunday and Aventurine. With the former cases it was to reach the end of the trolley line, and with the latter it was on a man who had put his trust in him.

As for the differences…

Neff is described as someone who’s not smart by his peers. Ratio is someone who is repeatedly idolised and put on a pedestal by other people.

Neff is excellent at pretending to not know nor care for Phyllis whenever he speaks about her with Keyes or when he and she are in a place that could land them in hot water (the office, the mansion when there are witnesses). His acting is on the same level as Phyllis. With Ratio it’s… complicated. While he does pull off the hater act well, he straight up isn’t great at pretending not to care about Aventurine’s wellbeing.

Instead of getting his gunshot wound treated in the hospital like a normal person, Neff makes the absolutely brilliant decision of driving to his office and talking to a dictaphone for hours. Needless to say, this is something a medical doctor like Ratio would never do.

Now here's the thing. Though it's very easy to just look at Phyllis and Neff in the movie and go "okay, Aventurine is Phyllis and Ratio is Neff — end of story" and leave it at that, I find that they both take from the two leads in different ways. Let me explain. Beginning with Aventurine and Neff…

Neff is the one who hatches the plan and encourages Phyllis to go through and claim the double indemnity clause in the first place. He is also the key player of his own risky plan, having to fake being the husband to enter the train as well as fake the death. Aventurine puts himself at great risk just by being in Sunday’s presence, and hoping that Sunday wouldn’t figure out that the green stone he had uncovered wasn’t the aventurine stone.

Adding onto the last point, Neff had fantasised about pulling off the perfect murder for a long time — the catalyst was simply him meeting Phyllis. Aventurine presumably sought out Ratio alone for his plan against Sunday.

Neff makes a roulette wheel analogy and talks about a pile of blue and yellow poker chips (the latter in the script only). I don‘t even have to explain why this is relevant here. (Aventurine’s Ultimate features a roulette wheel and the motif is on his belt, thigh strap, and back, too. And of course, Aventurine is all about his chips.)

Neff has certain ways to hide when he’s nervous, which include hiding his hands in his pockets when they were shaking, putting on glasses so people couldn’t see his eyes. Aventurine hides his left hand behind his back when he’s nervous: Future Aventurine says that "they don't know the other hand is below the table, clutching [his] chips for dear life", and in multiple occasions such as the Final Victor LC, his character trailer, and even in his boss form in the overworld you can see that Aventurine hides his left hand behind his back. And he is also seen with his glasses on sometimes.

Neff says a bunch of stuff to make sure that Phyllis acts her part and does not act out of character (i.e. during their interactions at the market), like how Aventurine repeatedly tries to get Ratio back on track from his subpar acting.

Neff is always one step ahead of the game, and the only reason the plan blows up in his face is due to outside forces that he could not have foreseen (a witness, Keyes figuring out the plan, the broken leg). Aventurine meanwhile plays 5D chess and even with the odds against him, he uses everything he can to come out on the top (i. e. getting Acheron to kill him in the dream).

Even after coming home on the night of the murder, Neff still felt that everything could have gone wrong. Aventurine, with his blessed luck, occasionally wavers and fears everything could go wrong whenever he takes a gamble.

Neff was not put under surveillance by Keyes due to him being extensive with his alibi. After witnessing Robin’s death with eyewitnesses at the scene, the Family had accepted Aventurine’s alibi, though he would be under watch from the Bloodhounds according to Ratio.

Neff talks about the entire murder scheme to the dictaphone. Aventurine during Cat Among Pigeons also retells his plan, albeit in a more convoluted manner, what with his future self and all.

Continuing with Ratio and Phyllis, even with their personalities and motivations being quite different, they do have a few commonalities.

Phyllis was a nurse. Ratio is a medical doctor.

Her name is Greek of origin. Veritas Ratio, though his name is Latin, has Greco-Roman influences throughout his entire character.

The very first scene Phyllis appears in has her wearing a bath towel around her torso. Ratio loves to take baths to clear his mind.

Phyllis was instructed by Neff to be at the market every morning at eleven buying things. Ratio is seen in an auction house with his alabaster head on so no one could recognize him.

Phyllis mostly acts as an accomplice to the scheme, being the one to convince her husband to take the train instead. She is also generally seen only when Neff is involved. Ratio plays the same role as well, only really appearing in the story in relation to Aventurine as well as being the accomplice in Aventurine’s own death. Even him standing in the auction house randomly can be explained by the theory that he and Aventurine had attempted to destabilise Penacony’s economy through a pump and dump scheme.

With these pointers out of the way, let’s take a closer look at select scenes from the film and their relation to the mission and the pair. 

—

[THE PHONE CALL — THE REVERIE HOTEL]

Before the murder, there is a scene with a phone call between Phyllis and Neff discussing the plan while Keyes is in the same room as Neff. Neff has to make sure that Keyes doesn’t think of anything of the phone call, so he acts like he’s calling a “Margie”, and says a bunch of stuff that sounds innocent out of context (“Can’t I call you back, ‘Margie’?” “What color did you pick out?” “Navy blue. I like that fine”), but are actually hinting at the real plan all along (the suit that Mr. Dietrichson wears.)

In a roundabout way, the conversation between Ratio and Aventurine in the Reverie Hotel can be seen as the opposite of that scene — with the two talking about their supposed plan out loud on Penacony ground, a place where the Family (and in turn, Sunday) has eyes everywhere. Despite being in a “private” room, they still act like they hate each other while airing out details that really do not make sense to air out if they really did meet the first time in Penacony (which they didn’t — they’ve been on several missions beforehand). It’s almost like they want a secret third person to know what they were doing, instead of trying to be hushed up about it. The TVs in the room that Sunday can look through based on Inherently Unjust Destiny — A Moment Among The Stars, the Bloodhound statue that disappears upon being inspected, the owl clock on the left which side eyes Ratio and Aventurine, all point to that Sunday is watching their every move, listening to every word.

Rewinding back to before the phone call, in one of the encounters at the marketplace where they “accidentally” run into each other, Phyllis talks about how the trip was off. How her husband wouldn’t get on the train, which was vital for their plan, because of a broken leg. All this, while pretending to be strangers by the passersby. You could say that the part where Ratio almost leaves because Aventurine had “ruined the plan” is the opposite of this, as the husband breaking his leg was something they couldn’t account for, while Aventurine “being short of a few feathers” was entirely part of the plan.

—

[QUESTIONING PHYLLIS — THE INTERROGATION]

This section is going to be a little longer as I will cover two scenes in the movie in a more detailed manner — Mr. Dietrichson signing the policy, and Phyllis being questioned — and how they are represented in the Sunday-Aventurine interrogation and the prior conversation between Ratio and Sunday in multitudes of ways.

Going about their plan, Neff has to make sure that Mr. Dietrichson signs the policy with the double indemnity clause without him knowing the details, all the while having Phyllis (and Lola) in the same room. He and Phyllis have to pretend that they don’t know each other, and that this is just the standard accidental insurance process, instead of signing what would be his downfall. To sell it, he gets Mr. Dietrichson to sign two “copies” of the form, except with Mr. Dietrichson’s second signature, he’s duped into signing the accident insurance policy with the respective clause.

You can tie this to how Ratio goes to Sunday in order to “expose” the lie that the suitcase didn’t actually contain the Aventurine Cornerstone, as well as there being more than one Cornerstone involved in the scheme. Ratio must make sure that Sunday truly believes that he dislikes Aventurine’s company, while also making sure that Sunday doesn’t figure out the actual aventurine stone is broken and hidden in the gift bag. The scheme turns out to be successful, as Sunday retrieves the two Cornerstones, but not the aventurine stone, and truly does think that the green stone he has in his possession is the aventurine.

This whole scene with Sunday is also reminiscent of the interrogation scene in the middle of the movie, where Phyllis was questioned by the boss (Norton) who was deducing that Mr. Dietrichson's death was a suicide, not accidental death. Neff, Phyllis, Keyes and Norton were all in the same room, and Neff and Phyllis had to act like they never knew the other. Phyllis acts like she knows nothing about what Norton insinuates about her husband and eventually, Phyllis explodes in anger and storms out the room, even slamming the door. Her act is very believable to any outsider.

Now back to the Ratio and Sunday conversation. One glaring difference between the movie and here is that his acting isn’t great compared to either Phyllis nor Neff. It never was throughout the Penacony mission. He even comes very close to breaking character several times, and is even defending Aventurine in a somewhat aggressive manner during his one-on-one conversation with Sunday, as in he literally tells Sunday to see a shrink. It’s very different from the way he was acting in Herta Space Station — like Ratio cares about Aventurine too much to keep his hands off.

It's also worth pointing out that Neff doesn't speak a word when Phyllis was being interrogated. Similarly, Ratio is silent throughout the entire scene with Sunday and Aventurine, with his only “line” being a “hm”. When Aventurine calls him a wretch to his face, all he does is look to the side. In fact, he can only look at Aventurine when the other isn’t staring back. Almost like him uttering a single word would give them away. Or his acting is terrible when it has to do with Aventurine, as he has no issue doing the same thing in Crown of the Mundane and Divine (Mundane Troubles).

So, Sunday finds out about the Cornerstones and reveals them to Aventurine, and reasons that he cannot give them back to him because Aventurine had lied. Note that in that same scene, Aventurine attempted to use the two murders that had occurred beforehand against Sunday to retrieve his own cornerstone. Similarly, when it was revealed that Mr. Dietrichson did not know about the accident policy and that the so-called “accidental death” was not, in fact, accidental, the insurance company refused to pay out the money.

Unlike the movie, this was all planned, however. The double-crossing by Ratio, the gift money being the only thing required for Aventurine’s real plan. All of it was an act of betrayal against Sunday, in the same manner as the meticulous planning as Mr. Dietrichson’s murder — To sign the policy, get him to take the train, kill him on the way, and to have Neff pose as the husband on the train until the time is right to get off and lay the body on the tracks. A key difference is that they could not have expected their scheme to be busted wide open due to forces outside of their control, while Ratio and Aventurine went straight down the line for the both of them no matter what.

From here on out, we can conclude that the way Ratio and Aventurine present themselves in Penacony to onlookers is in line with Neff and Phyllis.

—

[“GOODBYE, BABY” — FINAL VICTOR]

And now for the (in)famous light cone, Final Victor. The thing that truly kickstarted the Ratio and Aventurine ship in the fanbase, and the partnership between the two in general. It’s a direct reference to the final confrontation between Neff and Phyllis in the movie.

I’ll fire through all the similarities between the two scenes.

During the respective scenes, Aventurine and Phyllis both outsmart their partner one way or the other: Aventurine with his one-sided game of Russian Roulette, and Phyllis hiding her gun underneath the cushions until Neff turned away.

The guns are owned by Phyllis and Aventurine, not Neff and Ratio.

Phyllis couldn’t bring herself to fire any more shots after she realised she truly did love Neff. Ratio could do nothing but watch as Aventurine did what he did — he couldn’t even pull away if the LC animation is anything to go by him struggling as Aventurine firmly keeps the gun to his chest.

Neff says he doesn’t buy (believe) that Phyllis loved him. She then goes “I’m not asking you to buy […]”. The LC description has Aventurine ask Ratio “You don’t believe me?”, while in the LC animation Ratio straight up says “You expect me to believe you?” and Aventurine answering “Why not, doctor/professor?”

The visual composition of the LC and the scene are nearly identical, from the lighting to the posing to the way Aventurine looks at Ratio — Aventurine and Ratio are even wearing different outfits to fit the scene better. The background in the LC is also like the blinders in the movie, just horizontal.

In the shot where Phyllis’ face is more visible, the way she looks at Neff is strikingly like the way provocatively looks at Ratio. Even their eyes have a visible shine — Phyllis’ eyes brightly shining the moment she realised she really fell in love with Neff, and Aventurine having just a little light return to his eyes in that specific moment.

And now the differences!

Neff holds the gun in his right hand. Aventurine makes Ratio hold his gun in his left.

Neff is the one who takes the gun from Phyllis‘ hand. Aventurine is the one who places the gun in Ratio’s hand and fires it.

Three gunshots are fired. In the movie, Phyllis shoots the first shot and Neff the second and third. Aventurine unloads the gun and leaves only one bullet for this game of Russian Roulette. He pulls the trigger three times, but they all turn out to be blanks.

Phyllis does not break her façade of not smiling until the very last moment where she gets shot. Aventurine is smiling the entire time according to the light cone description, whilst in the animation, it’s only when he guides the gun to his chest that he puts it on.

So, you know how Neff meets Phyllis and it all goes off the rails from there. The way Neff goes from a decent guy to willingly involve himself in a murder scheme, having his morals corrupted by Phyllis. His world having been turned upside down the moment he lays eyes on Phyllis in that first meeting. Doesn’t that sound like something that happened with the Final Victor LC? Ratio, a man all about logic and rationality — a scholar with eight PhDs to his name — all of that is flipped on its head the moment Aventurine pulls out his gun in their first meeting and forces Ratio to play a game of Russian roulette with him. Aventurine casually gambles using his own life like it’s nothing and seemingly without fear (barring his hidden left hand). All or nothing — and yet Aventurine comes out alive after three blanks. Poetic, considering there’s a consumable in the game called “All or Nothing” which features a broken chess piece and a poker chip bound together by a tie. The poker chip obviously represents the gambler, but the chess piece specifically stands for Ratio because he plays chess in his character trailer, his Keeping Up With Star Rail episode and his introduction is centred around him playing chess with himself. Plus, the design of the chess piece has golden accents, similar to his own chess set. In the end, Aventurine will always be the final victor.

Furthermore, Neff had deduced that Phyllis wanted to kill her husband and initially wanted no part in it, but in a subsequent visit it was his own idea that they trigger the double indemnity clause for more money. As the movie progresses though, he starts to have his doubts (thanks in part to him befriending Lola) and makes the move to kill Phyllis when everything starts to come to light. It’s strikingly similar to how Ratio initially wanted no part in whatever Aventurine had in mind when they first met, but in the subsequent missions where they were paired up, he willingly goes along with Aventurine's risky plans, and they come to trust each other. Enough so that Aventurine and Ratio can go to Penacony all on their own and put on an act, knowing that nobody in the IPC other than them can enter the Dreamscape. The mutual respect grew over time, instead of burning passionately before quickly fizzling out like in the movie.

Basically, in one scene, three shots (blanks) start a relationship, and in the other, it ends a relationship. In the anan magazine interview with Aventurine, he says himself that “form[ing] an alliance with just one bullet” with Ratio was one of his personal achievements. The moment itself was so impactful for both parties that it was immortalised and turned into a light cone.

—

[THE ENDING — GOLDEN HOUR]

The ending of Double Indemnity that made it into the final cut has Neff continue his confession on the dictaphone until he realised that he wasn’t alone in the room. Keyes had come inside at some point, but none had said a thing, only listening to a dead man speak of his crime. When Neff sees Keyes, they talk for a moment, Neff says he plans on fleeing to Mexico. Keyes does not think he will make it. He tries to leave, only to collapse at the front of the elevator, Keyes following just behind him. Neff attempts to light a cigar but is too weak to do so, so Keyes does it for him.

Parts of the ending can still be attributed to the interrogation scene between Sunday and Aventurine, so I’ll make this quick before moving on to the conversation in Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Ratio and Aventurine’s final conversation together. Once Sunday mentions how quickly Aventurine gave up the suitcase, he inflicts the Harmony’s consecration on him, which forces Aventurine to confess everything that Sunday asks of. In a way, it’s the opposite of what happens in the movie — where Neff willingly tells the truth about the murder to his coworker. Aventurine does not like Sunday, and Neff is close to Keyes. Ratio also does not speak, similarly to how Keyes didn’t speak and stood silently off to the side.

Post-interrogation in Golden Hour, Ratio worriedly prods at Aventurine and asks him about his plan. He then gives him the Mundanite’s Insight with the Doctor’s Advice inside when Aventurine tells him to leave. Throughout Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Aventurine gets weaker and his head starts to buzz, until he falls to the ground before he can hand in the final gems. Similarly, Neff progressively grows weaker as he records his confession. Keyes says he’s going to call a doctor and Neff says he’s planning to go to Mexico. And when Neff collapses near the elevator, they talk one final time and Keyes lights Neff’s cigar as the other was too weak to do so himself.

—

[OPPOSITE TIMELINES AND DEVELOPMENTS]

Remember how I said the way certain events happen in the movie and the game are mostly opposite and reverse of one another? 

The Final Victor LC is the first meeting of Ratio and Aventurine, and Neff killing Phyllis is their final meeting.

Between that first and last meeting between Phyllis and Neff’s whirlwind romance, their relationship becomes strained which ultimately leads to Neff not trusting whatever Phyllis has to say at the end point of the movie. As for Ratio and Aventurine, the exact opposite had happened, to the point where Ratio trusts Aventurine enough to go along with his plans even if they went against his own ideals. The basis of the mission involved Veritas Ratio, whose full name includes the Latin word for “truth”, lying the entire time on Penacony.

Aventurine is sentenced to the gallows by Sunday after his unwilling interrogation. The movie starts and ends with Neff willingly confessing everything to Keyes.

It bears repeating, but I have to make it so clear that the trust between Ratio and Aventurine runs incredibly deep. Being able to predict what your partner says and thinks and plans in a mission as critical as the Penacony project is not something first-time co-workers can pull off flawlessly. All the while having to put on masks that prevent you from speaking sincerely towards one another lest you rat yourselves out. You have no way of contacting outside reinforcements from within Penacony, as the rest of the IPC are barred from entering. To be able to play everybody for fools while said fools believe you yourselves have handed your case on a silver platter requires a lot — trust, knowledge of the other, past experience, and so on. With Phyllis and Neff, the trust they had had been snuffed out when Neff grew closer to Lola and found out what kind of person Phyllis truly was on the inside. Phyllis did not trust nor love Neff enough and was going behind his back to meet with Zachette to possibly take Neff and Lola out. And the whole reason Neff wanted to perpetrate the murder was due to him being initially taken by Phyllis' appearance, which single handedly got the ball rolling on the crime.

Now then, how come trust is one of the defining aspects of Aventurine and Ratio’s relationship, when Phyllis and Neff’s trust eventually lead to both their deaths at the hands of the other? Sure, this can be explained away with the opposite theory, but there’s one other relationship involving Neff which I haven’t brought up in excruciating detail yet. The other side of Ratio and Aventurine’s relationship.

—

[NEFF & KEYES — AVENTURINE & RATIO]

Here is where it gets more interesting — while Phyllis and Neff are at the centre point of the movie, there is another character to whom Neff has a close relationship with — Keyes. It’s also the only relationship with no pretences, at least, until the whole murder thing happened and Neff had to hide his involvement from Keyes. Watching the movie, I couldn't help but feel there was something more to the two than meets the eye. I knew that queer readings of the film existed, but I didn't think too much of them until now. And though Aventurine and Ratio parallel Phyllis and Neff respectively, the fact that they also have traits of their opposite means that it wouldn’t be completely out of the question if parts of their relationship were also influenced by Keyes and Neff on a deeper and personal level. Let me explain.

Keyes and Neff were intimate friends for eleven years and have shown mutual respect and trust towards one another. They understood each other on a level not seen with Phyllis and Neff. Even after hearing Neff confess his crimes through the dictaphone (and eventually standing in the same room while Neff confessed), he still cared for the other man, and stayed with him when Neff collapsed at the front door. The only reason Keyes hadn’t deduced that it was Neff who was behind the murder was because he had his absolute trust in him. Keyes is also Neff’s boss, and they are always seen exchanging playful banter when they are on screen together. Neff even says the words “I love you, too” twice in the movie — first at the beginning and second at the end, as the final line. There’s also the persistent theme of Neff lighting Keyes’ cigarettes (which happens in every scene where they are face-to-face), except in the end where it’s Keyes who lights Neff’s.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Mutual respect, caring too much about the other person, the immense amount of trust… Ratio says he’s even the manager of the Penacony project (which may or may not be a lie), and despite their banter being laced with them acting as “enemies”, you can tell that in Dewlight Pavilion pre-Sunday confrontation that Aventurine genuinely likes Ratio’s company and believes him to be a reliable person. From the way he acts carefree in his words to the thoughts in his head, as seen in the mission descriptions for Double Indemnity. Their interactions in that specific mission are possibly the closest thing to their normal way of speaking that we get to see on Penacony.

Not to mention, this is the way Neff describes Keyes. He even says (not in the script) “you never fooled me with your song and dance, not for a second.” Apart from the line about the cigar ashes, doesn’t this ring a bell to a certain doctor? “Jerk” with a heart of gold?

After solving the puzzle with the statues, Ratio jokingly offers Aventurine to join the Genius Society. Aventurine then goes "Really? I thought you’ve given up on that already", and then Ratio says it was, in fact, a joke. Solving the puzzle through brute force has Ratio telling Aventurine that the Council of Mundanites (which Ratio himself is a part of) should consider him a member. In the movie, where the scene with the phone call with Neff and Phyllis reiterating details of their plan happens, Keyes actually offered Neff a better job (specifically a desk job, as Keyes’ assistant). The two pairs saw the other as smart, equals, and were invested in each other’s careers one way or another.

Because of all this, the character parallels for this side of the relationship are as follows:

Aventurine - Walter Neff

Veritas Ratio - Barton Keyes

With the way I’ve talked about how Aventurine and Ratio take from both leads in terms, it does fit to say that Aventurine is Neff, and Ratio is Keyes in this layer of their relationship. Since we’re on the topic of Keyes, let me also go through some similarities with him and Ratio specifically.

Keyes says the words “dimwitted amateurs” in his first on-screen conversation with Neff. You can’t have Dr. Ratio without him talking about idiocy in some way.

Keyes almost only appears in the movie in relation to Neff, and barring a single interaction in Neff’s house, is also only seen in the office. Same with Phyllis, Ratio also only ever appears regarding Aventurine.

Keyes genuinely wanted the best for Neff, even offering to celebrate with him when he thought the case truly had been busted wide open by forces when Zachette entered the picture. You could say the same for Ratio, as he hoped that Aventurine wouldn’t dwell on the past according to his response on Aventurine’s Interview, as well as telling him to “stay alive/live on (CN)” and wishing him the best of luck in his Doctor’s Advice note.

Whether or not you believe that there was more going on with Neff and Keyes is up to you, but what matters is that the two were very close. Just like Ratio and Aventurine.

—

[THE ORIGINAL FILM ENDING]

Something that I hadn’t seen brought up is the original ending of Double Indemnity, where Neff is executed in a gas chamber while Keyes watches on, shocked, and afterwards leaves somberly. The ending was taken out because they were worried about the Hays Code, but I felt it was important to bring it up, because in a way, you can kind of see the Sunday interrogation scene as Sunday sending Aventurine to his death in seventeen system hours. And Ratio doesn’t speak at all in that scene, and Keyes doesn’t either according to the script.

Another thing that’s noteworthy is that Wilder himself said “the story was about the two guys” in Conversations with Wilder. The two guys in question are Keyes and Neff.

—

[THE NOVEL]

With the original film ending covered, now it is time to bring up the novel by James M. Cain. I bought the book just to read about the differences between the adaptation and the original source material, and to list a few more similarities and opposites I could gather. For this section alone, due to the changes in the (last) names of certain characters, I will be referring to Walter Huff (Neff in the movie) as Walter, and Mr. Dietrichson as Nirdlinger. The plot is pretty much the same as the movie’s apart from a couple of changes so there isn’t a need to recount everything.

From my two read-throughs of the novel, these are the following passages that stood out to me the most. Starting with Aventurine:

Walter, as a top businessman of the company, knows how to sway a deal and to get what he truly wants with what the other gives him. Aventurine is the same, reliant on his intuition, experience and whatever information he has on the table to claim the win. Him luring out Sparkle in Heaven Is A Place On Earth and his conversation with Acheron in the Nihility is indicative of that.

• "But you sell as many people as I do, you don't go by what they say. You feel it, how the deal is going. And after a while I knew this woman didn't care anything about the Automobile Club. Maybe the husband did, but she didn't. There was something else, and this was nothing but a stall. I figured it would be some kind of a proposition to split the commission, maybe so she could get a ten-spot out of it without the husband knowing. There's plenty of that going on. And I was just wondering what I would say to her." 

Phyllis, like in the movie, had been hiding her true intentions of talking to Walter in their first conversations, always saying things that she didn’t actually mean. In a similar vein, Aventurine consistently says stuff but almost never truly means any of it, which is all part of his façade.

• "And I could feel it again, that she wasn't saying what she meant. It was the same as it was the first afternoon I met her, that there was something else, besides what she was telling me. And I couldn't shake it off, that I had to call it on her."

When discussing the murder plan with Phyllis, Walter makes this comment, kind of like how Aventurine seems to operate in a way where he has a plan, but is ready to improvise and think fast when needed.

• "And then it's one of those things where you've got to watch for your chance, and you can't plan it in advance, and know where you're going to come out to the last decimal point."

Remember the roulette wheel line from the movie? In the novel, the gambling metaphor that Walter makes about the insurance business goes on for two paragraphs, mentioning a gambling wheel, stack of chips, a place with a big casino and the little ivory ball, even about a bet on the table. Walter also talks about how he thinks of tricks at night after being in the business for so long, and how he could game the system. Needless to say, insanely reminiscent of Aventurine.

• "You think I’m nuts? All right, maybe I am. But you spend fifteen years in the business I’m in, and maybe a little better than that, it’s the friend of the widow, the orphan, and the needy in time of trouble? It’s not. It’s the biggest gambling wheel in the world. It don’t look like it, but it is, from the way they figure the percentage on the oo to the look on their face when they cash your chips. You bet that your house will burn down, they bet it won’t, that’s all. What fools you is that you didn’t want your house to burn down when you made the bet, and so you forget it’s a bet. To them, a bet is a bet, and a hedge bet don’t look any different than any other bet. But there comes a time, maybe, when you do want your house to burn down, when the money is worth more than the house. And right there is where the trouble starts." • "Alright, I’m an agent. I’m a croupier in that game. I know all their tricks, I lie awake thinking up tricks, so I’ll be ready for them when they come at me. And then one night I think up a trick, and get to thinking I could crook the wheel myself if I could only put a plant out there to put down my bet." • "I had seen so many houses burned down, so many cars wrecked, so many corpses with blue holes in their temples, so many awful things that people had pulled to crook the wheel, that that stuff didn’t seem real to me anymore. If you don’t understand that, go to Monte Carlo or some other place where there’s a big casino, sit at a table, and watch the face of the man that spins the little ivory ball. After you’ve watched it a while, ask yourself how much he would care if you went out and plugged yourself in the head. His eyes might drop when he heard the shot, but it wouldn’t be from the worry whether you lived or died. It would be to make sure you didn’t leave a bet on the table, that he would have to cash for your estate. No, he wouldn’t care."

Returning home from the murder, Walter attempted to pray, but was unable to do it. Some time passed and after speaking to Phyllis, he prayed. Aventurine presumably hadn’t done the prayer ever since the day of the massacre, and the first time he does it again, he does it with his child self.

• "I went to the dining room and took a drink. I took another drink. I started mumbling to myself, trying to get so I could talk. I had to have something to mumble. I thought of the Lord's Prayer. I mumbled that, a couple of times. I tried to mumble it another time, and couldn't remember how it went." • "That night I did something I hadn’t done in years. I prayed."

Phyllis in the book is much more inclined towards death than her movie version, even thinking of herself as a personification of death. She’s killed ten other people (including infants) prior to the events of the novel. Something to keep in mind as Aventurine had mentioned several times that he attempted to kill himself in the dream, plus his leadup to his “grandest death”. Just like Phyllis, he’s even killed at least a few people before, though the circumstances of that were less on his own volition and more so for the sake of his survival (i.e. the death game in the maze involving the 34 other slaves where he was the winner and another time where he murdered his own master). Instead of Phyllis playing the active role of Death towards everybody else, Aventurine himself dances with Death with every gamble, every time his luck comes into play. Danse Macabre.

• "But there’s something in me, I don’t know what. Maybe I’m crazy. But there’s something in me that loves Death. I think of myself as Death, sometimes." • "Walter, The time has come. For me to meet my bridegroom [Death]. The only one I ever loved."

Moving on to Ratio:

Walter says several times that it’s hard to get along with Keyes, and how he says nice things after getting you all worked up. A hard-headed man to get along with, but damn good at his job. Sound like someone familiar?

• "That would be like Keyes, that even when he wanted to say something nice to you, he had to make you sore first."  • "It makes your head ache to be around him, but he’s the best claim man on the Coast, and he was the one I was afraid of."

Keyes sees Walter as smarter than half the fools in the company. Ratio can only stand the company of Aventurine in regards to the IPC.

• "Walter, I'm not beefing with you. I know you said he ought to be investigated. I've got your memo right here on my desk. That's what I wanted to tell you. If other departments of this company would show half the sense that you show—" • "Oh, he confessed. He's taking a plea tomorrow morning, and that ends it. But my point is, that if you, just by looking at that man, could have your suspicions, why couldn't they—! Oh well, what's the use? I just wanted you to know it."

After going on a rant about the H.S. Nirdlinger case (Phyllis’ husband) and how Norton is doing a horrible job, he ends it by saying that it’s sheer stupidity. “Supreme idiocy”, anybody?

• "You can’t take many body blows like this and last. Holy smoke. Fifty thousand bucks, and all from dumbness. Just sheer, willful, stupidity!"

Phyllis’ former occupation as a nurse is more elaborated on, including her specialization — pulmonary diseases. One of Ratio’s crowning achievements is curing lithogenesis, the “King of Diseases”.

• "She’s one of the best nurses in the city of Los Angeles. […] She’s a nurse, and she specialized in pulmonary diseases. She would know the time of crisis, almost to a minute, as well as any doctor would."

As for the murder scheme, they talk about it a lot more explicitly in the novel. Specifically, Walter mentions how a single person cannot get away with it and that it requires more people to be involved. How everything is known to the party committing the crime, but not the victim. And most importantly: Audacity.

"Say, this is a beauty, if I do say it myself. I didn't spend all this time in the business for nothing, did I? Listen, he knows all about this policy, and yet he don't know a thing about it. He applies for it, in writing, and yet he don't apply for it. He pays me for it with his own check, and yet he don't pay me. He has an accident happen to him and yet he don't have an accident happen to him. He gets on the train, and yet he don't get on it."

"The first is, help. One person can't get away with it, that is unless they're going to admit it and plead the unwritten law or something. It takes more than one. The second is, the time, the place, the way, all known in advance—to us, but not him. The third is, audacity. That's the one that all amateur murderers forget. They know the first two, sometimes, but that third, only a professional knows. There comes a time in any murder when the only thing that can see you through is audacity, and I can't tell you why."

"And if we want to get away with it, we've got to do it the way they do it, […]" "Be bold?" "Be bold. It's the only way."

"I still don't know—what we're going to do." "You'll know. You'll know in plenty of time."

"We were right up with it, the moment of audacity that has to be be part of any successful murder."

It fits the situation that Aventurine and Ratio find themselves in extremely well: For the first point— Aventurine would not be able to get away with simply airing out details by himself, as that would immediately cast suspicion on him. Having another person accompany him who not only isn’t really a part of the IPC in name (as the IPC and The Family have a strenuous relationship) but would probably be able to get closer to Sunday because of that means they can simply bounce off each other without risking as much suspicion with a one-man army. Which is exactly what Ratio and Aventurine do in the conversations they have on Penacony. Secondly — they knew how Sunday operates: as a control freak, he leaves no stone unturned, which is how he became Head of the Oak Family, so their acting required them to give off the impression that a. they hated each other, b. Ratio would go against Aventurine’s wishes and expose him in return for knowledge, c. there were only the two Cornerstones that were hidden. This would give Sunday the illusion of control, and lead to Sunday to lower his guard long enough for Aventurine to take the gift money in the end. The pair knew this in advance, but not Sunday. And thirdly — the plan hinged on a high-level of risk. From breaking the Aventurine Cornerstone, to hoping that Sunday wouldn’t find it in the gift bag, to not telling Ratio what the true plan is (meaning Ratio had to figure it out on his own later on), to Sunday even buying Ratio’s story, it was practically the only way they could go about it. “Charming audacity”, indeed.

An interesting aspect about the novel is that the ending of the novel is divergent from the movie’s final cut and the original ending: Phyllis and Walter commit suicide during a ferry ride to Mexico. The main reason this was changed for the movie was because of the Hays Code, and they wouldn’t allow a double suicide to be screened without reprecussions for criminals. There’s also a bunch of other aspects that differentiate the novel from the movie (no narration-confession as the confession happens in a hospital, less characterization for Keyes and instead a bigger focus on Lola and her boyfriend, the focus on the murderous aspect of Walter and Phyllis’ relationship instead of actual romance, Walter falling in love with Lola (with an unfortunately large age gap attached), etc.)

As for the ending, this wouldn’t even be the first romance media reference related to Aventurine and Ratio where both the leads die, with the other being The Happy Prince and San Junipero (in relation to the EN-only Heaven Is A Place On Earth reference), which I normally would chalk up as a coincidence, though with the opposite line-of-thought I have going on here (and the fact that it’s three out of four media references where the couple die at the end…), I think it’s reasonable to say that Ratio and Aventurine will get that happy ending. Subverting expectations, hopefully.

—

[THE HAYS CODE — LGBT CENSORSHIP IN CHINA]

I’ve brought up the Hays code twice now in the previous two sections, but I haven’t actually explained what exactly it entails.

The Hays Code (also known as the Motion Picture Production Code) is a set of rules and guidelines imposed on all American films from around 1934 to 1968, intended to make films less scandalous, morally acceptable and more “safe” for the general audiences. Some of the “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls” include but are not limited to…

(Don’t) Pointed profanity

(Don’t) Inference of sex perversion (which includes homosexuality)

(Don’t) Nudity

(Be Careful) Sympathy for criminals

(Be Careful) Use of firearms

(Be Careful) Man and woman in bed together

What does this have to do with a Chinese gacha game released in 2023? If you know a little bit about miHoYo’s past, you would know that pre-censorship laws being upheld to a much stronger and stricter degree, they had no problem showcasing their gay couples in Guns Girl Z (Honkai Gakuen 2/GGZ) and Honkai Impact 3rd, with the main three being Bronya/Seele, Kiana/Mei (admittedly the latter one is a more recent example, from 2023), and Sakura/Kallen. Ever since the Bronya and Seele kiss, censorship in regards to LGBT content ramped up, causing the kiss to be removed on the CN side, and they had to lay low with the way they present two same-sex characters who are meant to be together. They can’t explicitly say that two female or male characters are romantically involved, but they can lace their dynamics with references for those “in the know” — Subtext. Just enough to imply something more but not too much that they get censored to hell and back.

So what I’m getting at is this: The trouble that Double Indemnity had to go through in order to be made while also keeping the dialogue of Phyllis and Neff as flirtatious as they could under the Hays Code among other things is quite similar to the way Ratio and Aventurine are presented as of now. We never see them interact outside of Penacony (at least up until 2.2, when this post was drafted), so we can only infer those interactions specifically until they actually talk without the fear of being found out by Sunday. But, there’s still some small moments scattered here and there, such as when Aventurine goes near Ratio in the Dewlight Pavilion Sandpit, he exclaims that “the view here is breathtaking” (he can only see Ratio’s chest from that distance) and that Ratio could “easily squash [him] with just a pinch”. Ratio then goes “If that is your wish, I will do so without a moment’s hesitation.” Not to mention the (in)famous “Doctor, you’re huge!” quote.

It’s not a coincidence that Ratio and Aventurine have three explicit references to romance media (Double Indemnity, Spellbound, Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince), possibly even four if you take the EN-only Heaven Is A Place On Earth as a reference to Black Mirror’s San Junipero. It’s not a coincidence that the storylines or characters of said references parallel the pairing, from surface-level to deep cuts. It’s not a coincidence that the CN voice actors were asked to “tone it down” by the voice director when it came to their chemistry. It’s not a coincidence that Aventurine has only flirted with (three) men throughout Penacony, even referring to a Bloodhound NPC as a “hunk of a man” inside his thoughts, all the while ignoring Himeko and Robin when it came to their looks — women who are known across the cosmos with a myriad of adoring fans. There are so many other so-called “coincidences” related to the two that you could make an iceberg just based on versions 2.0-2.2 as well as content miHoYo themselves have put out on social media. They absolutely knew what they were doing, and were trying to get their point across through subtle means — the extent they went to with the Double Indemnity reference while also keeping it under wraps from a “surface” level point of view is proof of this — the implications are there if you take the time to look for them, and are simply hard to ignore or deny once you do find them.

—

[CONCLUSION]

This was supposed to be short considering the other analyses I’ve seen were also pretty short in comparison, but I couldn’t get the movie out of my head and ended up getting carried away in the brainrot. I hope you could follow along with my line of thinking, even with the absurd length of this post, and the thirty-image limit. I tried to supplement context with some links to videos and wiki pages among other sources wherever I can to get around it.

I will end it with this though — the love in the movie turned out to be fake and a farce, going off track from what was a passionate romance in the beginning because of the murder scheme. Meanwhile, the whole reason why Ratio and Aventurine can pull off whatever they want is because of their immense trust in one another. What was initially shown to be distrust in the Final Victor LC grew into something more, for Ratio, someone who would have never put faith into mere chance and probability before this, put his trust in Aventurine, of all people.

TL;DR — (I get it, it’s over ten thousand words.)

Not only is the relationship between Neff and Phyllis represented in the deception and acting side of Ratio and Aventurine, but the real and trusting side is shown in Neff and Keyes. They have a fascinating, multi-layered dynamic that is extremely fun to pick apart once you realise what’s going on underneath the bickering and “hatred” they display.

Many thanks to Manya again for making the original thread on the movie. I wouldn’t be here comparing the game and movie myself if it weren’t for that.

By the way, I really do believe that Shaoji totally watched this movie at least once and really wanted that Double Indemnity AU for his OCs. I know exactly how it feels.

—

Other points I'd like to mention that didn't fit anywhere else in the main analysis and/or don’t hold much significance, have nothing to do with the Penacony mission, or may even be considered reaching (...if some of the other points weren’t). Just some potentially interesting side bits.

Phyllis honks three times to signal Neff to go for the kill. That, and the three gunshots in the confrontation. Aventurine is all about the number three.

The height difference Aventurine and Ratio have going on is close to Phyllis and Neff’s.

Phyllis had killed her husband’s previous wife and went on to marry Mr. Dietrichson, pretty much taking the wife’s place. Aventurine killed his previous master, and had taken certain attributes from him like his wristwatch and the rings on his hand and the “all or nothing” mantra.

When calling Ratio a wretch (bastard), Aventurine smiles for a moment. This is exclusive to the EN, KR and JP voiceovers, as in CN, he does not smile at all. (Most definitely a quirk from the AI they use for lip syncing, but the smile is something that’s been pointed out quite a few times so I thought I’d mention it here.)

Sunday specifically says in the CN version that he knew of Aventurine's plans the moment Aventurine left the mansion, meaning that he realized he had been played the fool the moment Ratio and Aventurine talked in Golden Hour

In the description for the "All or Nothing" consumable, teenage Aventurine says this specific line: "Temptation is a virtue for mortals, whereas hesitation proves to be a fatal flaw for gamblers." According to Ratio, this is Aventurine's motto - he says as such in Aventurine's Keeping Up With Star Rail episode. Note that in the anan interview he explicitly says he does not have a motto, and yet Ratio in the video says otherwise. They definitely have to know each other for a while for Ratio to even know this.

A big reason why Neff even pulled off the murder scheme in the first place was because he wanted to see if his good friend Keyes could figure it out, the Mundane Troubles Trailblaze Continuance showcases Ratio attempting to teach the Herta Space Station researches a lesson to not trust the Genius society as much as they did.

In Keyes’ first scene he’s exposing a worker for writing a policy on his truck that he claimed had burnt down on its own, when he was the one who burnt it down. Ratio gets into an Ace Attorney-style argument with the Trailblazer in Mundane Troubles.

Neff talks repeatedly about how it won’t be sloppy. Nothing weak. And how it’ll be perfect to Phyllis, and how she’s going to do it and he’s going to help her. Doing it right — “straight down the line”. Beautifully ironic, considering what happens in the movie, and even more ironic as Ratio and Aventurine’s scheme went exactly the way they wanted to in the end. Straight down the line.

[duskerot]

new outfits dropped!!

[haorev]

So, recognizing that it has some very questionable aspects (tho I do think some of them are there specifically to give PCs tangible things to fight against), Dark Sun is one of the most compelling dnd settings in my opinion. Like, it is a world that is essentially post-apocalyptic and has been through a Fuck Ton of Shit, is cut off from the rest of the multiverse, and rife with social strife (namely intense classism, slavery, and totalitarian/autocratic city-states) as well as strife from the environment of the planet itself caused by arcane magic (which like…a lot of classes are arcane, so it definitely causes interesting character selections).

But

You tell heroic stories there. You tell the stories of people surviving, and possibly changing things for the better (depending on how you play, like many sourcebooks say “surviving is often the adventure itself”). Dnd PCs are meant to be the good guys, unless you’re going for an explicitly evil campaign, but I don’t think most are, and being a good guy in Athas is a Feat and just telling the story of doing good in that environment. So fucking compelling to me.

I understand wotc not wanting to play with it too much bc it’s very dark as far as dnd setting goes, but it is kind of sad imo that the only mentions of it I’ve seen in 5e have been in the DMG (where it talks about various dnd worlds and mentions some that i don’t think have been supported since 2e) and Princes of the Apocalypse (there’s an appendix that gives suggestions for running the adventure in settings other than the Forgotten Realms and the first one it mentions is Dark Sun). I’ve seriously considered trying to convert 3.5 Psionic classes into 5e (I’m…not good at it) so i can run a dark sun one shot/mini adventure without having to limit my players too much bc there’s so no purely psionic classes in 5e only subclasses (Psi Warrior, Soulknife, and Aberrant Mind my beloveds). I already made species traits for Muls for 5e (those being the only one that isn’t currently in 5e).

Just, reading through the Dark Sun sourcebooks is fascinating to me, and I wanna dig my fingers in so much deeper.

Wotc give us more psionic classes please

(Side Note: Athas a metaphor for climate change and fascism. I think it would be too heavy handed for an actual metaphor tho)

[quinn-pop]

my 2022 art review! i took some much needed breaks and it shows, but it’s worth it to know that when i create, i am creating something i want and love. i tried taking a step back this year and i’m glad. it’s a little lonely, but it’s nice to give myself space to just be. still, i spent a lot of time on other crafts, which was fun too!

thank you for your support, i’ll see you all in 2023 :’)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

skinamarble hornets, i was like i hope my favorite skinamascene has been uplomarinked on youtube....reminds me of that season one marble hornets entry that's the First House Visit and how i saw it described somewhere as like "absolutely nothing happens, & it's terrifying" & it reminds me of the torment of watching as the series was released & Every Time something came out, no matter what happened in like setting, atmosphere, plot, scares, there'd be someone going "ugh another Nothing entry" over the most crucial &/or enjoyable shit so long as it didn't feature [& he's cookin hot dogs on the stove???] & didn't feature it like every other minute for good measure. as though a format that is predictable, like the promise of the same kind of scene in the same intervals of timing, would actually be scary or at all interesting. shoutout to these the entries, or even intervals of time within entries, where "absolutely nothing happens" and it's called suspense in knowing it Could, tension in an unsafe, uneasy, unsettling situation in the meantime, & then also potential followup recontextualization that only creates more tension for later similar material. ("absolutely nothing" happens (of course, actually, things happen, but) in the skinamarink scene save for the literal last few seconds when the "jumpscare" is a very brief change in audio & visuals which is neither actually that loud nor like showing anything scary(tm) (technically a la marble hornets i think people say you can like see an arm extend for a nanosecond but i never catch it if so lol) but rather hits at all because of 8 minutes of suspense & tension & Nothing Happening But It Could) (also bravely standing up like "it's fine that skinamarink has some jumpscares, including the obvious few even jumpier than this" like who cares if it's "easy" necessarily & also that Knowing such startlement can happen ramps up the tension even when it didn't, but it could've. like so)

[sh1-n0bu]

♡︎ 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 ♡︎

characters: AFAB!sub!jing yuan, dan heng, blade x gn!dom!reader

warnings: AFAB characters, overstimulation, headcannon+small drabble format, praise, degrading, cock/strap traditions, dacryphilia, usage of bullet vibrator, slight brat taming, nipple stimulation, fingering, oral, cervix fucking, begging, squirting, clit pinching, cock/strap warming, size kink, belly bulge, breeding, creampie, mating press, full nelson, just a personal headcannon of how i think they would act when overstimulated

notes: someone wrote “nobody writes ahegao quite like nobu does” in one of their repost tags and im fucking shitting tears😭😭

the giggler

jing yuan loves to be overstimulated. he loves the feeling of it, the adrenaline rush, the high, the feeling of finally cumming all over your fingers, tongue, strap whatever it may be and the feeling of you continuing to move, drawing out his orgasm while also driving him into an overstimulated mess

has the cutest giggles and laughs when he gets too much pleasure. he doesn’t even try to hide or won’t even try to hide it. why would he when you were making him feel so good over and over again? hell, he even wants other people to hear it, to remind them that you were his lover and only his. and how only he gets to feel the overwhelming amount of pleasure only you can bring to him and no one else

but, it comes with a catch. he needs a lot of foreplay and/or teasing and/or orgasm denial for him to finally cave in and shake his head before starting to blabber incoherent shit about how good your cock feels inside his gushing pussy, how he could feel your tip fucking his cervix, how he wanted you to fuck a baby inside him etc etc

and i mean a LOT of it

as a centuries old war hardened general, it’s safe to say that he had gotten used to some feelings and emotions. pleasure being one of them

so if you want to get him to break and to become absolutely dumb and drunk on lust and pleasure, you have to tease him a lots before getting into it. if not, he will somehow find a way to outsmart you and take the reigns. he’s a bit of a brat and a spoiled prince wrapped up into one after all

will tell you what to do and how to do it if you have failed in getting him needy in your foreplay. he will fist your hair and thrust his hips into your mouth, making you unable to breath for a moment or two with his clit right at your nose. will push you down and flip your positions so he could ride your face, all the while chuckling at your cute attempt to push him back down. a goddamn brat and he will show it to the fullest when you fail at your foreplay

did i mention he was a brat? well now i have. a fucking brat to the max and he isn’t ashamed of it. will definitely question your power in the bedroom, try to overpower you and he will. he literally swings a 7000kg glaive in one hand like its nothing and he will show it by throwing you around. gently and consensually of course, he wouldn’t want to hurt his beloved

but fully expect him to be cocky and devious. “can you say no to my pretty pussy?”, “so sleepy. oh sorry, i didn’t know your cock was inside me hehe”, “was that all?” you get the gist. will shamelessly yawn in the middle of fucking not because he is sleepy or tired, but simply because he is a brat. a goddamn brat

so, how can you get him to be needy and won’t make him go into his bratty side? simple. shove a long distance controlled vibrator inside his cunt and leave it there for the whole day for him to suffer at work. but if you’re going to do that, be sure to mute the ringtone for your phone for the day since he will call you, send you messages, pictures, videos every damn hour. the closer his hour for shift ending comes, the more frequent the buzzing of your phone will become because he will grow much more needier

when finally he’s back home and frantically pawing at your pants when barely through the doors, that’s when you know he had absolutely no intention of being a brat. how can he when his whole pants were slowly getting stained from his multiple orgasms?

when he’s gladly bending himself over, arching his back for you as he wiggles his hips, he will ask you to come inside. jing yuan is great with kids and such a huge family man, he will ask you over and over repeatedly to breed him. cum inside him, fill up his cute dripping cunt, put him in whatever position you want and make sure to breed his pretty cunt, you can finally raise your own family together!

remember the long distance controlled vibrator i mentioned? make sure to keep it on and buzzing inside his cunt at all times when he’s away at work, or else it won’t work. during meetings or report hearings, jing yuan had to leave to the bathroom a lot of times and it genuinely got his subordinates concerned for his health. the red face, the heavy breathing and sometimes, the jolts of his body or the bleeding bruised lips of his made the cloud knights worry and some even suggested for him to leave the seat of divine foresight early to look after his health. if only they knew just how their dearest general was pathetically biting on his hand to muffle his screams in the bathroom as he squirted all over himself

“[naaammeee], ‘m mmgh♡︎! aaaaangh haah mngck♡︎♡︎ i-i’m home!” jing yuan’s voice called out, weak mewls of pleasure slipping through as he collapsed onto the floor the moment the doors of your shared home was closed. desperately humping the floor, trying to push the vibrator deeper into his gushing pussy, your lover didn’t realize that you were leaning against the wall of the kitchen, watching him with a knowing smile. there was a wet patch growing in his usual red pants, growing more and more the further he humped the air in desperation. see? your tough brat was so easy to tame.

“you feeling okay, darling?” you call out, taking out the controlled from your pants pocket and messing with the switch. flipping it up, down, up to the highest level, before going to the lowest level. it was cute to see the ever so tough brat turn into a delirious mess from just a single small toy. all because he was being so stubborn about how you weren’t the boss of him. walking over to where he was kneeling on the floor, you reach your free hand out. tilting his head up, a thumb swiping away at the drool that was beginning to pool on his lower lip, you tilt your head to the side, asking the question again with a firm hold onto his chin.

“n-no…! no no no, not at aamgh♡︎♡︎ h-hhaaaggm not at all♡︎!” he shakes his head viciously, dragging out his words and tripping over them with moans and mewls falling in between. pathetically, he tugs on the hem of your pants, trying to get to his favorite treat, the one thing he’s been missing this whole day.

“n-need you… need you right now, need your—♡︎♡︎! need yo-our..! c-cock right now...♡︎!” jing yuan mutters between whimpers, finally, his shaky hands manage to pull down your pants and undergarments just enough to have your strap out. a needy whine falling as he places slobbering wet kisses on the tip, giving it a few licks as he flutters his lashes at you in an effort to manipulate you to give him what he was non-verbally asking.

knowing full well that he wouldn’t take no for an answer and that yanqing might come home soon, you drag him up to his feet — an action that was heavily protested against as jing yuan cries out after his favorite treat being taken away. once inside the comfort of your shared bedroom, by the time you have locked the door behind you, he was already naked. clothes messily strewn on the floor and on the bed, the many orgasm’s slick dripping down his puffy cunt to his ass and to the bedsheets eventually. you could see the light trembling of his pussy lips, an action caused by the vibrator fucking away inside him still.

turning the vibrator off, you take the toy out of his puffy cunt. jing yuan let out a drawn out mewl at the feeling, clenching around nothing as he tries to replace the empty feeling for something, anything. but seeing you starting to strip, he knew what he wanted. and he knew how he wanted it.

spreading his legs open further, his hand comes down, flicking at his enlarged clit with a jolt before spreading open his labia for you to take in how he was already so needily wet and dripping for you. a drunk giggle escaping him when the tip of your cock is right against his folds, wiggling his hips enticingly.

“[nnaameeee]~ you gotta fuck a baby in me this time, owhkayyy?♡︎♡︎ hehehe♥︎”

the crybaby

the cutest out of all three of them, in my personal opinion

he just gets overstimmed so easily and quickly, it’s adorable in the way that he brokenly begs for a moment of respite. legs shaking, smaller body jolting violently at the smallest of touches like your hand ghosting over his hardened nipples. don’t even get me started on the way he cutely squeals out loud when you pinch his clit augh

maybe it’s due to his nature as a vidyadhara and not a full human but every little touch is received with so much sensitivity and sensuality, it gets so easy to turn him into a blabbering mess in record time. push his smaller body against the wall and finger his gushing pussy while rolling your thumb over his clit. in no time, his legs are shaking as he bites your hand, his orgasm washing over him quickly and violently. but don’t just stop there, keep flicking at his clit, pinch it, tug on it, push a hand on the small bulge on his belly and he’ll be left sobbing by the second or third round

he’s noticeably smaller than the other two and it carries out into his size kink so well. he just wants to be pushed around and put into impossible, near painful positions and man-handled until he’s left a blabbering idiot

make him cockwarm you while asking him to read you a story or a book under the guise that you had a nightmare and can’t fall asleep without his soothing voice and soft cunny wrapped around your cock. at first he’ll huff and puff, saying that you’re a liar and just wants to fuck him. four or five pages in and his voice is already strained, whines coming out as hiccups and sniffles follow soon after

but just because he’s a crybaby doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. he knows how much you love his pretty steel grey eyes unfocused and hazy, brimming with tears and he will use that to his advantage. will make sure to play with his nipples or push down on the bulge in his tummy when cockwarming you so he could get teary eyed quicker. the moment he sniffles and grinds himself down on you, he knows you’re a goner and would give him what he wants

he may be a crybaby, but he’s also a goddamn minx so beware of that

tugs on your sleeve so cutely, looking at you with a flushed face and stuttered words to ask you if you wanna spend time with him in his room. today’s trailblazing expedition was too long and tiring after all, “surely you would enjoy some cuddles…?” or “i just wanted to help you patch up your wounds. i was just worried”

yeah sure, dan heng. just say that you wanna get fucked until you’re squealing out like a slut with fat tears running down your cute red cheeks. thank the aeons the express’ walls are thick and soundproof. if not, who knows the amount of noise complaint you would have gotten from everyone

has slight oral fixation. slightly. but that’s only because he wants to see you crumble and give into his non-verbal demands and just ruin him. he’s a bit too shy to ask directly after all

long serpentine tongue wrapping around your strap, pulling it into his mouth. will gag and choke so loudly with the tip of the fat dildo pushed right down his throat, hitting his uvula and choking his throat. he can complain about sore throats and pained jaws all he wants but you both know that he loves to suckle on your strap with tears filling his eyes

the most messiest cock sucker and that’s saying something bc blade is the one who has the biggest oral fixation out of the three of them. he’ll place wet kisses to the weeping tip of your cock, running the slitted snake like tongue over the weeping slit of your cock teasingly before wrapping it around your dick. loves the scent and the taste of your pre, basically addicted to it as he opens his mouth wider, slipping your cock inside the warm cavern of his mouth inch by inch

but be aware that he will also try to take advantage of this position. he will try to bat his lashes at you so he can continue suckling on your strap like he would be sucking on a lolipop, all under the guise to ‘make you happy’. when in reality, he would try to make you cum over and over to try and get you overstimulated. when in such position, just fist his hair and fuck his throat. gets him crying in no time like the crybaby he is

“… bamboo whispers in the w-wind, a secret pa-aaangh! aah aaah hmgk♡︎ a s-secret pa-act... ♡︎!“ the soothing voice of your lover drawls out into a weak sniffle, hands gripping the book filled with love poetry from his home planet tightly. so tight, you feared that he might just tear the book apart with his claws. you had crawled into his bed yet again to torment him today, the dildo hitting all the sensitive spots in his gushing cunt, dan heng couldn’t help but weakly whine when your hands around his waist tightens to not let him move.

“go on. i’m listening” you coo out, forcing him to stay still on your lap while his voice continue to drawl out. sniffles and broken pleads replacing his ever so stoic mask, a voice that is usually so cold and distant, always scolding other turning into one of mindless blabber about how badly he wanted your strap to fuck his pussy. you couldn’t help but laugh.

“is that what it says on the pages? i may be still learning the strokes but the next line seems to be the stroke for two” you point at the kanji on the book he was holding in his shaking hands, the strokes of the language seeming familiar to you. it was an easy kanji to read after all. yet not to your boyfriend it seems.

“please! p-please please move! i beg you, [n-naamee]♡︎ you gotta fuck meeh♡︎ you gotta fuck me you gotta fuck me— you have to fuck meeegck—♡︎♡︎!!” dan heng squeals, shaking thighs bucking down onto your dick, trying to gain some friction. it was enough, he had read you hundreds of love poetries from his home planet. he had been taking your pronged torture for long enough, please just fuck his cunt already!

“so impatient” you huff, putting the book away with a book marker tucked between the pages before hooking your hands under his knees. pulling him up and over until dan heng was left wailing at the sudden change in position. hooking your arms under his knees, his legs are left dangling in the air with nothing to support himself but for his hands to cling to your biceps. even then, he couldn’t hold for long as he jolts about in your arms like a hopping bunny, painting your dildo in his cum when the tip kissed his cervix.

“guuchk♥︎!! d-deep! aah ah naahmg haah t-too deep♡︎♡︎ [n-name] you’re f-fucckk fuck fuck—♡︎♥︎ fucking my cerviinxx my ceerrvv—♡︎♡︎ mngh unngya♥︎!” punched out sobs comes from his pretty lips, drawling out into whiny cries when you move him up and down. you could see the bulge in his tummy appear and disappear every little moment. every jolt, every gasp, every little whiny cry making the bulge in his tummy to get more detailed. he was so adorably small.

“‘m sorry, darling. i’m sorry, didn’t mean it. didn’t mean to fuck you this deep” you coo out apologies, lifting him just a bit so your strap won’t sink so deep to the point it would kiss his cervix. as much as you loved your crybaby gasping and writhing, you didn’t want the reason for such reaction to be pain.

claws scratching at every inch of skin he could touch, jaw slack open in a silent scream, you could barely make out his shrill yell of what appears to be your name when dan heng squirts over your cock after just a few thrusts. you could see the overflowing amount of cum just dripping down your cock, trailing down to your legs and staining the mattress. with a click of your tongue, you pinched his clit, making the shorter man sniffle with a squeal.

“‘m soowryyy… sorry sorry—♡︎ d-didn’t mean to be bad... s-soowwh uunhg hyaagk ungc gugcck—♥︎♥︎!!”

the hissy bitch

alright, so i know i’m going into territory that has been charted way too many times before by blade lovers standard but he def has piercings. on his nipples, tongue and on his clit. probably got the first three by losing a drunk bet or something or maybe he just wanted it but the last one, the clit one, is definitely his latest piercing. one that he got after his relationship with you began and he had made the sudden rash decision to get one so he could see your reaction and to feel you just messing with it while fucking him

there is a REASON why he always keeps his chest bandaged up. there is a goddamn reason and that reason is his nipple piercings and the fact that his chest is generally very sensitive im being delusional

so what does that bring and why have i specified it? simple. titty fucking. nipple stimulation. seeing his pretty big, round chest jiggle every time your cock sinks back into his dripping cunt. pinch it, roll it, tug on them, suckle on them, do anything to him with his nipple piercing and he’s scratching at your back, mauling it like an animal

the reason i see him as a hissy bitch is because he likes to throw small temper tantrums when he gets too overstimulated. he’s crying, begging, hitting your shoulders, back, scratching at them and leaving deep red scratch marks, perhaps even breaking the skin sometimes. how come blade get overstimulated quickly? because he is very touch deprived. he’s been alone and immortal for too damn long and his ass is fucking touch starved. i just know it in my bones

genuinely, he is indeed very touch starved. since his rebirth as an immortal, he had felt nothing but pain, anguish and suffering and therefore, has basically gotten immune to touches. especially the violent and bloody ones. but gentle, tender, affectionate ones? find him jumping away from your soft hands like a frightened cat, it’s goddamn heartbreaking. so when he finally gets his cunt fucked, blade would be overstimmed too fast due to receiving a sudden abundance of affection and touches

will shake his head ‘no’ when asked if you would wanna stop due to his tears. you were just concerned but blade didn’t wanted this onslaught of pleasure to stop. desperately rides your fingers, mouth, strap — anything. loves the feeling of being on top of you, gives him the slight feeling of being in control. until it all gets thrown out the window when you force him to stop bouncing, hands gripping his hips tightly as a warning. will whine and try to grind down, trying to chase that high again but will only end up with a pout and hissy tears falling down his cheeks

another one who loves the feeling of being stuffed full and overstimulated. it’s almost like he gets high from the feeling. loves having his pussy fucked in any way you please until he can’t stay on his hands or feet without shaking. it’s just so cute to see him shaking like a fawn when fucking him doggy style

prepare to have yourself used as a chew toy as well as a scratcher. blade’s almost like a cat, hissy and whiny but also so greedy and preferring certain things in certain manner. will bite at your shoulders, hands, fingers to muffle himself but also to try and get his shit together. will scratch at your back, thighs, wherever he could reach. such a spoiled brat

when eating him out, be sure to give an extra care and love to his clit piercing. constantly flicking it with your tongue would usually work though, gets his legs all shaky and jolty soon enough. maybe pair it with flicking his pierced nubs and bladie will be squirting into your mouth with an embarrassing high pitched shriek. make sure to clean up all of his mess before diving right back into his gushing cunny. he may not say it but he will expect you to go back to eating him out like he’s your last meal

has the BIGGEST oral fixation out of the three of them. like, down bad, delicious, scrumptious, sloppy oral fixation. and he is happy to give it 90% of the times due to his tongue piercing. knows how good it makes you feel and how you like to see his pretty face between your legs, sucking on the large dildo like his life depends on it. not a single thought or a single moment of choking from him, it’s almost like he doesn’t have a gag reflex

you just came back from mission, from being away from him even for a single day? unacceptable. let him bend over for you, you can get your stress out by fucking his already dripping wet pussy. too tired? that’s fine. take of your pants and get comfortable cuz’ he can stay between your legs for days

not a single minute of respite has greeted you ever since you came back from your latest mission, stepping foot into your shared home with your stoic lover. perhaps the single gentle kiss to your cheek before he started to leave slobbering wet kisses on your lips was the only warning and moment of rest you have gotten. not even shoes off yet and blade was already unbuckling your belt, giving you the puppy eyes and grumbling about how you’ve been away for too damn long. whining about how much he missed you and needed your strap to fuck him dumb. how his pretty pussy had missed you so much.

“n-nnghyaa♡︎♡︎ m-missed you... missed you s’ much, [name]! f-fuck me fuck me fuck me, fuck your favorite cunt gyyuck—♥︎♥︎ a-aaanh! haah ah ah mmngk—♡︎♥︎!!” unusually docile red eyes roll to the back of his skull, jaw going slack wide open as you push his legs up, feeling your strap hit him deeper than he thought was possible. he could feel your weight push him down, keeping it still on the bed and to stop him from wiggling his hips entirely. this new position caused his cat like pupils to widen, turning into heart shapes as you chuckle at the dazed look in his eyes.

“such a needy brat” you coo out in a condescending manner, pushing his legs up in the air with your hands hooked under his knees to keep him in place. pulling out until halfway out, you sink back into blade’s dripping cunt. a squeal tearing from his throat alongside the filthy wet squelch of his cunt tightening around your dildo. it was so easy to get him dumb.

“t-too nngh much! too muchtoomuchtoomuch♡︎! fucking m-my womb—♡︎ [n-name], y-youuwrr crush— crushing my wombgg aangh ah ah! gyyuck eengh aaangh nyaagh♥︎♥︎!!” the familiar feeling of his nails scratching at your arms takes place, tearing at the skin, clawing at any part of your body he can come in contact with. a desperate attempt to ground his already long gone mind, too deep into the throes of pleasure that he didn’t even realize his shaking hands were weakly pulling your hips to fuck deeper into his warm walls.

“don’t be so dramatic, bladie. i won’t be able to crush your womb in this position” you coo out mockingly, wiping away the fat globs of tears that continue to pour of his eyes. red and yellow eyes rolled to the back of his skull, wide open mouth letting out the most salacious squeals and shrieks of your name and how you were fucking his womb falling out. legs weakly dangling in the air, jolting and bristling at every deep thrust you fuck into his velvety walls. the lewd wet squelching noises were alongside your grunts and blade’s whiny sobs were the only noise in the room. you would probably get noise complaints the next morning due to blade’s loudmouthed blabbering self.

letting go of one of his legs, you shove your fingers into his mouth. almost as if it was an instinct, blade’s tongue wet your fingers. suckling on the two digits as it his life depended on it with the most cutest heart shaped pupils staring at you. once you deemed them wet enough, you take your fingers out of his mouth. an action that blade showed his hatred towards as his pierced tongue comes past his lips, trying to chase after your fingers.

“gghcck—♡︎♥︎♥︎♥︎!!” a sharp wail taking place as blade arches his back, his whole body shaking, soft big tits jiggling when you pinched at his pierced clit. rolling, tugging, flicking at the hardened nub as blade sobs about cumming before drenching your cock with his squirting. you had thought of him to be satisfied with it, but turns out you have underestimated your lover’s neediness when his strong scarred thighs comes to wrap around your waist, legs locked behind your back when you tried to pull out.

sigh… it’s times like this that makes you glad for your amount of stamina.

[vampiricgf]

— v. lycaon | perfect coincidences

·₊̣̇. ⊱ warnings: fem reader, baby fever, breeding kink, he just wants to knock you the fuck up, explicit talk of pregnancy, knotting, creampie, praise, established relationship, biting, pet names (sweetheart, little mate), mating press, crying, cervix fucking, he's also so in love with you it's sickening

wc: 2.5k+

tumblrs being stupid so im sorry if this posts n the formatting is off >.< im once again saying he would have the most diabolical breeding kink okie bye~‹𝟹

It had been a running commentary all day as you two ran errands together, from one person after the next.

At the flower shop, being stopped by a kindly older woman who asked for help selecting flowers for a granddaughter. Of course Lycaon knew the best ones and the old woman was clearly absolutely taken with him, ever the gentleman, as you'd watched with a bemused smile on your face. Only when she had finished and paid for the colorful bouquet did she turn to you, grinning in that sort of conspiratorial way grandmothers tend to do.

"Your husband is wonderful, do you two have any children by chance?" With a light hand on your forearm she posed the question.

It left you floundering briefly. Husband? Children? You two weren't even married, had only been dating for a little over a year.

"Oh no we're not-"

"Well, you should definitely change that dearie," she grinned and gave you a wink, which only made you run hot all over and stutter before she walked out of the shop humming to herself.

As Lycaon returned to your side, a small bouquet of your favorite flowers tucked in the crook of his elbow he gave you a curious once over. "Is everything alright?"

You shook your head, flashing him a small smile and grasping his hand tightly in yours. "I'm fine, do you want to grab coffee before we go home?"

Then again inside the Coff Cafe, as he handed you the bouquet to hold so he could pay and grab your drinks a young woman standing next to you gave you a wistful look, eyes flicking from the bouquet to Lycaons back.

"You're so lucky to have somebody who gets you flowers."

That made you shyly glance down at the fragrant blooms before answering. "Mhm, he is really wonderful."

"I bet you two have the cutest little kids, all fuzzy ears and fluffy tails." She sighed longingly and you could only feel bewildered. Was there something about you screaming talk to me about my hypothetical kids today?

You laughed nervously, feeling grateful for Lycaons return and gladly accepting the warm to-go cup from his hand before answering as you turned to leave. "Well, I hope you find someone to bring you flowers."

You felt him looking at you quizzically as the door jingled shut behind you and the mild chill of the outside world returned as you walk towards the metro station.

"Isn't it strange, all these people asking if we're married or have kids today?" You said, looking up at him and not quite sure what you're hoping his answer will be.

His face was unreadable, in the way he gets with his clients, like he's purposely maintaining a safe distance as he responds. "I suppose it's only natural to wonder."

His noncommittal answer only left you more puzzled but as you two boarded the train you took the opportunity to silently ponder the questions from strangers, fingers tangled loosely in his as you sat side by side.

Would we have cute kids?

~

It was late when his eyes cracked open, late enough that the bedroom was still pitch black and you were sound asleep against him, curled on your side with your back pressed to his chest. He could hear your soft, even little puffs of air in the dark as his nose pressed to the back of your neck.

You murmured something in your sleep, something that sounded an awful lot like his name and it brought a little thrill to his heart. He tried to mostly keep it contained but the reality was that you were just so sweet, so adorable and as it turns out you were the exact same way when you were unconscious and it made his arms flex, squeezing around you a little tighter.

He'd heard the term once from Ellen at work, cuteness aggression. It fit how he felt about you in moments like this, as if he could just squeeze and squeeze until you two were mashed into one entity because you were just too cute, it couldn't be helped.

My adorable little mate.

The sudden thought made him freeze. You two weren't actually mated, and it was at his own insistence. He never wanted to hurt you and constantly worried anytime you brought it up because the simple fact was that he was stronger than you and could easily lose control of himself during the act. It was already hard enough to not pummel his knot inside you like you were just a toy when you two had sex, no matter how much you begged for it.

But then again, it was an urge, a longing, he consistently felt the need to fulfill. To dig his teeth into the side of your neck, hold you still while his knot locked you two together and he drowned your fluttering pussy in cum. More than enough to get you pregnant.

Unconsciously his hand slipped beneath your shirt, massaging slow circles into your side, then your tummy. You'd look so beautiful like that, belly all round with his child and breasts swelling with milk. Your scent would change first with the undercurrent of that sweet, milky smell all young children carry with them for a short while.

You'd looked at him so expectantly earlier as you'd asked what he thought about all those people commenting on if you had children at home. You'd tried to sound flippant, but he could tell you expected a certain answer from him. Had seen the look on your face on the train, silently pouring over the question and it didn't take much to know you were imagining those hypothetical babies.

But even after more than a year of dating he'd never once cum inside you, always pulling out to press your thighs together and fuck them before spilling against your stomach and chest.

He'd take such good care of you though, you'd never lift a finger or even leave the bed if you didn't desire to throughout the entire long nine months. You'd be a princess inside this spacious home, wanting for nothing and he'd lavish you every second of the day if you let him. No part of you would go underappreciated.

As his hips started moving of their own accord, pressing his growing erection against the swell of your ass, and he breathed you in even deeper it suddenly clicked, a bizarre flash of perfect clarity.

He needed to get you pregnant, needed to knot you as many times as possible to make sure it took, needed to make you cry out and do that thing he secretly enjoys: twining the fur at the back of his neck between your fingers to tug on it then smoothing it back down as if you're apologizing for the act. Wanted to feel exactly how tight you could get when he squeezed his knot inside and felt you clamping down on him to milk him for all he had.

Oh and he'd give it to you, give you everything you could ever ask for.

"Lycaon?" Your voice was low, thick with sleep as you stirred at the feeling of him grinding against you.

He gave a little mhm before burying his face against your neck again, nipping and sucking lightly on the delicate flesh, his hand sliding higher to grope at your breasts beneath his shirt you wore. Never before has been so thankful for your habit of wearing only his shirts and a pair of panties to bed.

Your own hips moved lazily with his, little groans muffled as you turned your head to the pillow that only spurred him on to pull the flimsy fabric between your legs to the side, dipping a finger into your wetness before sliding up to play with your clit. As soon as the pad of his finger pressed against you your breathing changed, becoming a little more rough the more he circled and teased at your needy little bud.

Before long he was lapping at your neck, practically whining as he ground his now painfully hard cock against you and plunging two fingers inside your soaking wet heat. The way your body eagerly welcomed the intrusion only fueled the haze of lust gripping his mind, reinforced the thought that this was what you wanted too.

But tonight he was too impatient to do his usual routine of playing with your pussy until you were so wet it would stick to your thighs and drip down to the sheets. Tonight he had a more direct goal driving him forward.

So gently he encouraged you to turn onto your back, letting him slide those silky underwear off and spread your legs wide, drawing sticky hearts against your clit with one hand while the other hiked up the t shirt you wore to expose your chest. Greedily he took one of your nipples into his mouth, canines grazing the thin skin of it dangerously as he sucked and flicked his tongue against the hardened bud.

In a hurry he pulled back, hands fumbling with the pajama bottoms he wore in order to let his throbbing cock spring free, smacking against his lower abdomen and as he glanced up you moaned at the sight. If only you knew what an ego boost it was when he saw your eyes go wide every time, as if it were the first time all over again. The way you looked like you were practically salivating at the size of him. When your eyes flicked up through sleep heavy lashes it sent a shiver down his spine.

Sometimes he swore you were more beastial than he was.

Quickly he leaned back down to capture your lips, a searing needy kiss that was a tangle of sloppy teeth and tongues. It didn't matter, all that mattered was that you knew how badly he wanted you, needed you.

In between panting breaths you spoke and it was like an adrenaline shot to the heart.

"I love you."

"God I love you," he sighed, lining himself up with your entrance and as the head of his cock pushed in, sitting heavy inside you, his head hung down with a moan of your name.

Strong arms grabbed at your legs, pushing them up to his shoulders before he bent back down and fully slid inside you, groaning against the feeling of your walls sucking him in deeper and his knot coming to rest right up at your slick hole.

"You always take it so well," he couldn't help the words of praise, watching your breasts move as your breathing became strained against the feeling of him prodding at your cervix. He kissed the spot between your brows, smoothing the look of pained adjustment and waiting until you give a little nod of your head for him to continue.

"So good for me," he wasn't sure what had gotten into him but tonight he just felt overcome with the urge to make sure you knew just how much he loved you, loved this.

His pace was slow initially, pulling out to just the tip only to rock back into you and hit that perfect spot that made your toes curl in midair. It was heaven, feeling you cling onto him, mewling and whining while the soft squelch of your pussy filled the room. The perfect symphony to match the lust drunk feeling buzzing in his veins.

All those little sounds encouraged his hips to set a more demanding pace, making your body jostle so violently it was all you could do to just hang onto his shoulders and lock your ankles together against his lower back, just above the base of his tail.

He pushed himself up onto his forearms, seeing how glossy your eyes were and the way your lips were parted in a wail as he pounded into you with an uncharacteristic abandon. As your voice reached a fever pitch you brokenly said it again, I love you. Over and over again like it was the only tether you had in the world and suddenly all of his earlier fantasies came spilling out in between frantic presses of his lips against your jaw and throat.

"I wanna get you pregnant," he gasped and you moaned a particularly loud curse, "please sweetheart, please I wanna cum inside you" the last syllable was an unintelligible kneen from low in his throat as your heels dug into his back.

Against the cacophony of skin smacking and the wheezing of your breath as he pushed your legs harder against your chest he heard it.

"Gonna have your baby- ah!"

And that was all he needed, hips snapping against you mercilessly, teeth bared against the side of your throat. The way you squeezed around him in a stranglehold told him you were close and he could feel his balls tightening in response, preparation for release and his knot was swollen, throbbing, aching with every press against your entrance and teased with the promise of popping in snuggly against your spongy walls.

And within seconds he could feel it, one last punishing thrust before it bullied its way into your pussy, expanding and slotting itself perfectly in place while he flooded you with thick, gooey cum. Desperately he kept rocking against you, like he could fuck it deeper inside you and his fingers came back to rub loving circles over your clit, watching as your eyes rolled back and your mouth dropped open in a silent moan.

The way you felt around him in that second was the most explosively pleasurable feeling he's ever had in his life. Greedy walls massaging against his cock, squeezing his knot hard enough that it nearly knocked the breath from his lungs.

It was perfect, you were perfect. Your body so willing and waiting, taking his painfully thick knot so well it was like you'd done it a thousand times, rather than tonight being the first. And you were entirely his, his to pump load after load inside, his to pin down and fuck until your belly was nice and round.

Even as you remained locked together and coming down from your own orgasm his hips never stopped moving, and he licked at the saltwater tracking down your cheeks, apologizing for making you so oversensitive but surely you can tell he can't stop here. He held you and continued to mindlessly rut against you, holding you so impossibly close.

"We have to make sure it takes," he finally, brokenly, spoke as he could feel the swelling come down yet he didn't soften inside you, if anything he felt even harder as he fell back into the slow, yet firm rhythm he started with.

You cried out so high, so obscenely, clutching and pulling at his fur he couldn't help but give you a cautionary bite to the shoulder, a warning to stop twitching your hips and take what he was giving you and like a good little mate you listened.

As he moved to nip at your bottom lip it was with a million silent promises, to care for you all throughout what would come from this.

And you have to know he means it, know he'll tell you all over again in the light of day when you're so sore he'll have to carry you to the bath, when you both admire the smattering of light bruises on your thighs and hips. Because you're his mate, his love for the rest of his life.

[plutolovesyou]

how soon is now? | part two

READ THIS FIRST 🇵🇸

previous chapter. series masterlist.

♡: hallway crush!ellie x uni student!reader

☆: the long-awaited second part of this godforsaken fic (lawd she’s given me trouble). appreciate y'all's patience as always, i'm a chronic procrastinator and perfectionist but what can i do. after this, i'm gonna take a break from this series. not saying i'll never write more, but wanna work on some other stuff for a while. thank you for reading! pretty please don’t hate me or show up at my house waving torches and pitchforks for this ending ok luv u gays in my phone. + a big thank you to @total-dxmure for helping me w/ some ideas for the last little bit!

♧:5.7k word count (lawd)

◇: sfw! miscommunication (sawry). fluffy moments, angst lowkey…both of yall cry at one point or another, reader has anxiety in the last chunk. modern au but joel isn’t alive in this, and they discuss it. maybe some rushed points here and there, i’m not really the proudest of this but needed to finish it anyway. potentially horrendous pacing but ok i think that’s all? idfk i may give y’all a little epilogue eventually, but don't dwell on it for the time being!

4 months later 

Your friendship with Ellie was evolving wonderfully. You two were studying together frequently, and both your grades in the ghastly astrophysics class increased exponentially. Although that wasn't the only thing that was increasing at a rate too fast to fathom. Your crush on her. It was ripping you apart like wildfire, Ellie was proving herself to be such a wonderful person inside and out, and you were slowly but surely nearing your limit of how much it could build before you burst. A movie spin off of the Savage Starlight series had come to streaming, and Ellie had invited you to her place for a movie night so you two could watch it and discuss if it was a faithful entry in your beloved series or not. 

Dressed in some comfortable pjs and armed with snacks of all kinds, your favorites as well as hers, the time had come and you were at her door. You straighten your posture and put your hair back in place, must look presentable, then knock, knock, knock.

You could hear some faint shuffling behind the door, then a few thudding steps until she opened it for you. She was dressed in an old, worn Nirvana tee, and red checkered pajama pants, damn she looked good, even when she was dressed with less effort than usual. 

Ellie looked so pleased to see you, leaning on the doorframe. Why did she have to look so good all the time? “Hi! I’m so glad you came, ooh this is gonna be so fun.” She invited you in and took the snacks from your arms and placed them inside her room. “Oh yeah, I also put up some decor too so we can get into the Savage Starlight spirit.” Her eyes were wide and twinkling and when she stepped aside to let you see, she really had made her room so welcoming and comfortable.  

The lights were all off save for LEDs around the room’s perimeter set to a dreamy violet hue, sparkly fairy lights draped around the frame of her bed which was set up so cozily. Her laptop propped up on a pillow, the sheets arranged in a nest-like formation with two spaces for each of you. She even had a few dinosaur stuffed animals placed in a row so they could watch too.

You were so flattered she'd do that and make the atmosphere so nice for the two of you, you could just tackle her in a hug and never let go.

The thing is you were scared she'd perceive that as weird and you didn't feel like dying of embarrassment, not today at the very least. Save that for another day, maybe. Oh, how you wanted to squeeze her so bad. Your imagination had to do for now. 

She was standing there so proud of how she arranged her room into a mini theater, and you beamed at her, silently thanking her for making it so dim so she couldn't see your flustered expression in full.

“Ellie this is amazing!!” “You like it?!? These stupid lights kept on falling off but since this is an important occasion for us both I didn't give up. All for our love, Daniela.” She manipulated her voice and waved in the air with two fists, closed her eyes and put her hand over her heart, just being as dorky as ever.

Oh gosh, hopefully it wasn't going to be awkward. Sure, the two of you had grown to be great friends, but were you that close to be just, relaxing in her bed together? As long as your imagination didn't run too wild and you didn't overthink anything, it was going to be a fun time. Just two pals watching their favorite series, nothing more, nothing less.

She threw herself in the mess of comforters with a grunt, and saw you were hesitating. She patted the empty space next to her so you'd join her and the movie night could begin. “C’mere, don't be shy.” Well, no shit you were going to be shy. Suck it up. 

You crawled in next to her, unable to look her in the eyes, while she got everything ready and rubbed her hands together excitedly. “Man, if they do our girl dirty, we’re gonna have to give someone a knuckle sandwich, you with me?” Her jokes and easy going vibes always made her so fun to be around, but unfortunately for you, you fell harder for her every time. “Yeah, Ellie. A knuckle sandwich for all of them.” You retorted with a chuckle. Once both of you were settled, she pressed play and so it began.

As the movie played, the two of you laughed and debated every plot twist, cursing the directors for not portraying your queen Daniela how she deserves, and snacked on candy until your stomachs hurt. It was going so well, the friendly hang out both of you needed after so many responsibilities in life. An escape. Occasionally sneaking peeks Ellie’s way, she was just so marvelously pretty. The shadows dancing on her features, illuminating her side profile perfectly, her long eyelashes and button nose, who wouldn't get lost in admiring her?

Of course you could never fully relax around her, or forget the crush no matter how hard you tried to push it down and just be friends. Every time she shifted next to you in the bed you felt your heart seize and the butterflies in your stomach turn into hornets. At this rate, they were going to turn into whole birds for fuck’s sake.

Nearing the end of the movie, the two of you were so invested, so captivated in the events, totally spellbound.

But then the film took a more emotional turn that wasn't in the comics. Daniela and her father had an absolutely vicious argument which left the two of you speechless watching it, which luckily got quickly resolved right after the two characters had a near-death experience together.

You weren't one to get emotional over silly, trivial things like fiction, but the way they showed this entire sequence was nothing short of heart-wrenching. You snatched up one of Ellie's patterned pillows and hugged it tightly to your chest, because cuddling her would have been much too bold for the likes of you. But what you’d give to do that instead.

Seems you were not the only one touched by the scene, as you began to hear some light sniffling from next to you. Looking over at Ellie made your heart break further into a million pieces. She looked lost in thought with thin lines of tears streaming down her plump, freckled cheeks. 

You froze for a moment, not knowing the limits of your relationship with her and how you could comfort her best. So you cleared your throat and mumbled, “That was so sad…” You watched as she avoided your gaze and wiped at her face with the collar of her t-shirt, “Yeah, this kind of stuff hits me, feels a little personal y’know.” She has never opened up to you about her struggles before, in the short time you’ve known and gotten close with Ellie, it always seemed like she was there to help you out, not the other way around. This could be your chance to show her that you are there for her as well, and that she can always count on you.

Being curious but at the same time not wishing to pry too much into her private affairs, you quietly asked with the most gentle tone of voice you could muster,” You don’t have to, but I’m here if you ever wanna talk about it, Ellie.” You watched her out of the corner of your eye, anticipating however she reacts.

She stayed quiet for a beat before sighing deeply, and whispered, “We were having a fun time, I really don't wanna be a burden.” Her voice quivered, heavy with emotion, what could possibly be troubling her this much? You wanted to take all her pain and bear it yourself, she didn't deserve any sort of misfortune ever.

“You can tell me, don’t worry about anything, okay? I just want you to be all good.” You were comforting her so smoothly, putting her needs and well-being first as if it was always second nature, as if you two have known each other many lifetimes over, two souls meant to float together through the journey of life. Well okay, that was probably a bit much.

There were a few more seconds of silence as you let the question ring in the air, not wanting to press and jeopardize your cherished friendship with her. 

You continue observing her, almost seeing the gears turning in her mind, the scales of reason tipping to one side then another, as she contemplates whether it’s worth spilling. Eventually, she does.

She roughly rubs her face then pauses the film playing on her laptop, sighs and huffs, before beginning to speak her story, all while looking away from you.

“Okay I don’t like to talk about this kind of stuff, but I trust you. A whole lot.” Your heart fluttered and face heated up at her comment, but you ignored it because there was something much more important on the table now. She continues, speaking quietly but quickly to get it over with. 

“So, when I was a kid, I was an orphan and to be honest I don’t really remember my early childhood much at all, but when I was 14 my adoptive dad, Joel, took me in. And it’s been just us since then.” She stops to take a breath, then resumes reluctantly. “And well, we’ve had a pretty rocky relationship for a good chunk of these years, I never knew how to express my gratitude to him, y’know, for basically saving my life, numerous times at that. He was always my rock, and I appreciate him every day. He taught me so many things, and I don’t know what I would’ve done if he hadn’t come around. I was pretty hard to deal with back then.” She reminisces with an exhale of air, and you see her eyes refill with tears. “But I’m really bad at expressing that, and will kinda, lash out I guess when I’m met with kindness or tricky situations.” 

You nod, listening patiently, and place your hand on her shoulder ever so gently, as a result making her raise her head to give you a small smile. 

Ellie chuckled deeply, it almost sounded forced, then started to slowly wrap up her story. “And it seems that scene kinda hit me, because the wounds are still raw, or whatever.” 

She sniffles again but doesn't respond, so you delicately inquire, “What do you mean?”

“He died last year.” Oof.

“Oh my, Ellie, I’m so sorry, are you-” She interrupts your condolences. “No need for that, I’m fine. Well, taking it day by day y’know. In the beginning it was really tough, I was angry at everything but most at myself for being such a jerk, and now I can't turn back time and tell him all I wanted to.” While you take a moment to think about what to say, she hums to herself and remarks, “That actually felt good to get off my chest, I haven't told anyone about it.” She lowers her voice so it’s barely a whisper. “Didn't have who to tell.”

“Sure you're okay? I'm always here for you.” You find your voice back to soothe her some more, to which she smiles at you again, only this time it actually seems genuine. There's definitely a lot of pain behind it, but the relief that she doesn't have to deal with the burden alone was evident on her face. 

“Yeah, thanks. I guess I hadn’t processed anything, and that part of the movie made it all come out, damn I hate emotions sometimes. But I appreciate you being here for me. You're really easy to talk to, and I feel better now.” 

And you would've never in a trillion years anticipated what her next move was going to be, you were so caught off guard, the realization lagged and it didn't immediately register. 

She moved to sit on her knees in front of you, then threw her arms around your torso in a tight embrace. She hugged you. Clutched you so firmly against her own body, her strong hands landing in the middle of your back, where she rubbed in a circle. She smelled so nice, and was as warm as one of her heated stuffed animals. 

Due to the surprising nature of the motion you let out a dumbfounded gasp, then returned the hug allowing yourself to rest your head on her shoulder. You wanted to stay like this forever, until the end of time, it felt nicer than you could've ever imagined.

The thought crossed your mind that she could feel the buzz pulsating through your body, you swore your heart was slamming against your ribcage so hard it was going to grow wings and simply fly right out of your chest, and join hands with hers.

While you were occupied with the way she felt against you, so close like this, chest against chest, and how your cheeks blazed with an inferno hotter than a thousand suns, you heard her grumble against your ear. “Not gonna make that same mistake again, and from now on, I'm gonna tell the people I appreciate just how much they matter to me.”

You were much too stunned to speak, but she wasn't. “So thank you again.” She finishes her little speech and pulls away first, but not before giving you one last big squeeze and letting out a noise of contentment as she does so, then shuffles over to her previous spot in the bed. 

Not taking notice of the way you were at a loss for words, or about to set the room on fire with how flustered her actions made you. Her obliviousness was a common theme, it seemed. She clears her throat and claps, grabbing some more candy for herself, then says happily, “We still got the rest of the movie left, then we can do whatever after. I really wanna know how this ends.”

Naturally, your head is spinning, but you were too caught up in your thoughts to continue paying attention to the movie as much as you were before.

You felt awful for her, yet somehow, felt as if your crush on her had quadrupled in size yet again. You saw through the guard she put up, she broke down those walls and opened up to you. You were honored she trusted you so much, and only hoped that would never change. That, coupled with how remarkably good hugs she gave, has led you to the realization that you were properly in love now, things had gotten real. This was trouble. You vowed to always be there for her for whatever she could ever need, you'd drop everything to teleport by her side if you could. 

Goodness, what were you possibly going to do now, instead of giving you the ick, or helping you with the task of getting rid of that stupid infatuation you were so plagued by, every experience felt like a deliberate ploy to just make you fall even further for her. You couldn't help but wonder just how much love a person can feel for someone, because it only continued to grow. 

A couple days later.

Sitting in the cozy campus cafe, you were revising all your coursework. It was giving you a massive headache, but the warm and hazy lighting aided it a touch. The walls had cute plastic vines crawling up and down, and even though there was chatter all around you from the other patrons, it wasn't a distraction and in fact acted as some sort of white noise, everyone was talking in a nicely muted tone, it all blended to create the perfect ambience. 

You waved down the waitress to get yet another cup of coffee, your third one of the night, that’s healthy, before trying to resume with your aggravating studies. 

To your dismay, you've used up all your brain power for the evening, and could not force yourself to continue no matter how hard you tried. Maybe a few moments of peaceful people-watching would get you back on track?

You sip on the hot drink, then lean back against the comfortable booth seat to begin scanning around.

In one corner directly on the opposite side of where you were sitting, there was an elderly couple. They looked so in love, dressed in matching outfits, feeding each other as they shared a dessert, holding hands and conversing with a hushed tone, nodding and looking into each other's twinkling eyes. So cute, you hoped that was going to be you in the future. 

Moving your line of sight to watch beside the couple, there was another student, their books and computer were scattered across the wooden table, piles of pens and pencil cases near falling over. They seemed to have fallen asleep, unmoving with their head laid tiredly across their crossed arms. The sight made you chuckle out of familiarity, you really felt for them, studies were hard. 

But then a sound caught your attention. A bright, husky giggle fought its way over the ambience, reminiscent of a certain someone. 

Your heart jumped, your ears perked up and you immediately became insistent on scouting her out among the patrons, this was a necessary mission. 

Feeling highly nervous and antsy, you try to drown out the noise and focus on where she could be, and quickly enough, you find her.

Ellie in her natural habitat, she was so mesmerizing. Sitting far away from you where you could get a good view and hear snippets of conversation if you focused hard enough, but not close enough where she would notice your shameless gawking. She was sitting with a group of a handful of her friends, who all appeared to be gossiping and laughing with each other, you couldn't tear your eyes away.

Her smile was gorgeous, and you knew that, but there was something about just being a spectator which fascinated you, you could stare at her all day. Her energy lit up the entire room, and made your heart race.

Snapping out of your trance and trying to not be so obvious with your staring, you tried to look occupied, tried reorganizing your notes while still keeping an ear out to listen. Occasionally glancing over as  well. Yes, it's true that eavesdropping is wrong, but you couldn't help yourself. Anyone would do the same, right?

The group's passionate discussion was making you extremely curious however, and you strained to hear what they were talking about. Among the muffled chatter, you heard a woman’s voice say the word crush, then an outburst of laughter, the loudest guffaw from Ellie herself. 

You felt the budding panic start to form in your chest momentarily, but swallowed the lump forming in your throat and took a sharp intake of breath to calm yourself at once. They could be talking about anything, there's no need to jump to conclusions just yet. Fumbling around your bag for your headphones to listen to some of the song recommendations Ellie had given you, you’re led to discover that they are, in fact, dead. Of course. 

Despite any and all wishes to stop eavesdropping on them and mind your own business and abide by what they say, ignorance is bliss, you simply couldn't. She was too damn captivating. Like a painting in a museum, like a statue at a town’s center, one that people stopped in their tracks to admire. 

The way her eyes sparkled and gleamed under the warm lighting, her cheeks tinted a faint rosy hue from the exertion of laughing so hard, her sweet smile. She was too perfect. God, you hated crushes, being infatuated with someone to this degree couldn't be healthy. But what could you do? Just look at this angel.

Fidgeting nervously while still being entranced by the group of friends, you heard a man’s voice say the words “there’s no way”, followed by Ellie howling even harder than she had the whole time you've been watching them, and punch him forcefully on the shoulder. 

The curiosity was going to swallow you whole, it was like a car crash you couldn't look away from. You felt your palms begin to tremble and sweat with worry, and anxious assumptions of all kinds running through your mind, were they talking about you? No, they couldn't be, you're just overthinking it. Relax, relax, relax.

You tried your hardest to control your breathing and soothe your spinning mind so you wouldn't spiral, until you heard something that absolutely shook you to your core.

The same woman from before, not Ellie, in a highly teasing tone of voice said your name.

You felt frozen, this couldn't be happening. All your worst fears were coming true at this very moment. You had to get out of there right away, this was too much to bear. Curiosity really did kill the cat didn't it, you wished you didn't comply with the morbid desire to know everything. 

Panic-stricken like a deer in headlights, near hyperventilating at this point, the final straw was all three of them erupting into laughter simultaneously, with Ellie through gasps, going "oh come onnnn”.

Yeah that was it. Hot tears started pricking your eyes and you vigorously blinked them away before they started streaming down your face, as if you needed to be humiliated even more. You felt sadded, torn apart, betrayed. Sick to your stomach too. This time, for once, you really thought you had something going for you. From your perspective, albeit through rose-colored glasses, you were convinced she was being genuine with you all this time. How could you not be? 

The late night study sessions, the air thick with tension, the conversations draped in a sleep-deprived haze, the walks to class together, the first fated interaction, the looks you two shared from across the huge lecture hall; the looks where you two just knew when to share a glance, was all of that fake? Was she leading you on purposefully because her friends thought it was funny, that you were a joke?

The tears threatened to spill and your stomach twisted painfully with the world-shattering realizations you were just served with, and you angrily shoved your belongings in your bag.

You were too caught up in your panicked frenzy to notice how disruptive you were actually being, your textbooks thumping and keychains jingling, but frankly didn't care enough to meet the numerous pairs of eyes observing your misfortune. Who could blame you, your whole world and everything you've known just crumbled before you. 

You slung your bag over your shoulder noisily as a choked sob made its way up your throat, then speed-walked out of that cafe. You were never going to be able to go in there again unfortunately, shame, their pastries were so good.

Right as you tried to step through the door it got stuck, because the universe was being really nice to you today, and as you tugged on it to get it to open, you heard the friends lower their voices, but you could still make out a jumble of hushed words sounding something like, “oh no, is that…” Great, great, fucking great. The only solution to this was to change your name and ride up to Seattle for goodness’ sake, maybe throw yourself into a volcano as well just because. 

Finally the door swung open after what felt like eons, and you stumbled outside into the chilly autumn air, feeling goosebumps spring up all over. Where you were going, you didn't really know. This cafe was new, so it would take some time to figure out navigation so you stood dumbly in the middle of the front lawn as you tried to orient yourself.

Once you think you've got it, you start your agonizing trek back to your little room, screaming inside of your head, until you're harshly yanked back mid-footstep by a vice grip on your arm. What the fuck was it now. 

Ellie. The sight of her only made your tears increase in quantity and the emotion in your chest tighten. She looked a little disheveled, her eyes round like saucers, and she was gripping onto your arm so hard as if you were going to run away. You wanted to, but she still had a magnetic hold on you, even after all that turmoil. 

Talking was painful with how much you were trying to keep a hold of yourself, but you managed out a choked, “Ellie, what?” 

She looked befuddled, shaking her head ever so slightly and scrunching up her eyebrows, her gaze boring right into yours and following whenever you tried to break it and look elsewhere. Her hold on your arm softens, and moves to rest on your shoulder. “What do you mean what? You ran outta there like you were chased by a lunatic or something, what the fuck happened?”

Her tone startled you a little, why did she care so much? Noticing you jolt, she sighs and mellows her speech. “Sorry, what I mean to say is, I'm worried. Are you okay?” 

You worried her? Heat rushed to your cheeks as you fought to break the increasingly uncomfortable eye contact, and all you could do was shrug. Your lip started quivering and you were losing the fight of keeping your composure, how wonderful. Despite everything she was being so sweet, way too sweet. You felt helpless at this point. 

The words started pouring out of your mouth like a waterfall, you were properly sobbing now, falling apart and hiccuping as months and months of emotion spilled over. 

You were blabbering about how you loved the friendship you formed with her, but how hurt you felt that she’d laugh about you, every possible insecurity just tumbled out of your lips, as you wiped at your teary face and runny nose and glanced at Ellie ever so often. 

She let you talk for a bit until she saw you get even more upset, that's when she got a step closer to you, squeezed both your shoulders gently and kept a stern tone of voice to get your attention.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, slow down, I don't know what you're saying.” But you couldn't stop crying. Bottling up emotions was definitely a bad idea, because they were bound to burst sooner or later and unfortunately, you reached the breaking point. Sucking in some unsteady breaths as an attempt to regulate yourself, she was watching you patiently yet still cautiously. 

Your voice was weak and shaky, but you were slowly feeling a little better. For the first time during this interaction, you meet her eyes. Why was she always so pretty? She was sculpted just to spite you, you were convinced. Tears welled up in your eyes once more, but you blinked them away. “Um…Ellie…” She nodded expectantly, wanting to know what was wrong. But you could not complete your sentence as yet another bout of ache washed over you.

To snap you out of it once and for all, Ellie grabbed your face. The sheer disbelief of her action was enough to stop your tears luckily, and she held your gaze while she used her thumb to swipe at the stray teardrops adorning your cheekbones. You wanted to die, what was going on?

Once your panic was replaced with fluster and stupefaction, she let you go, but was still standing really close to you. You felt jittery from it all, nervous, embarrassed and in love and everything under the sun all at the same time. You stared at her, then looked away, then looked at her plump pink lips which were set in a questioning pout, then back up to her sympathetic greener-than-grass eyes, fuck, fuck, fuck. The intensity of the situation had caused any sense of judgment or critical thinking to long, long gone, and so your body moved on its own and before you had a chance to form a solid thought or process what you were doing.

Smooch.

You kissed her. 

Mouths colliding like magnets as you held onto the sides of her face, fireworks igniting in every single part of your body. Cradling her jaw as you closed the space between you two, the hurricane of emotion coursing through your veins as your lips caressed hers, and time felt like it had stopped. The months and months of excruciating pining had all led up to this very moment. 

She instinctively kissed you back, you felt her breaths fanning your face. You were about to ascend to another dimension. Lingering against her for a little longer, you forced yourself to regretfully pull away, and laughed loudly at her state now. 

Her lips were parted and she was gawking at you, you had broken her completely. Your own heart was working overtime, you were panting from the adrenaline of the situation, and could only hear the blood rushing in your ears. 

She seemed to be in a coma, doing nothing but staring and breathing. You punched her arm playfully, your voice breaking.

“I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.” 

An frustrated confession tore itself from your throat, even the world's strongest iron bars couldn't contain it. You wiped at your face with your sleeves, a sad attempt to clear it of the residual salty tears that never once stopped their journey out of your eyes.

The sadness had left you, and you felt lighter now, truthfully. Had no idea how you would ever face her again after all this, but at least the cat was out of the bag and you had gotten that off of your chest. You both stood there in silence, now what was wrong with her? What a dork. Sucking on your teeth and kicking a pebble on the ground you admitted finally, “So, yeah. That's what's been troubling me, I guess.” 

Her pupils were dilated and huge, as she scanned all over your features, her mouth opening and closing as if she was having an internal battle of what to say. She stood there almost appearing miles more shocked than you somehow, she looked as if she was going to have a heart attack and die on you, you found it funny, but concerning at the same time. 

You watched her for a moment more, before accepting your disappointing fate and bidding her a goodbye. You cleared your throat. “Okay then. Cya in class. Bye.” You turned on your heel and began the walk back to your room, but this time for real, and didn't look back at her. Even if you wanted to, you couldn't, you wanted to leave this whole fiasco in the past. That chapter was closed, it seemed. 

The only thing left to do now was call your bestie, Abby. She has been your cheerleader through this whole thing, through all this time, gave you advice and brought you back to Earth, and you needed her support now more than ever. 

Right after you reached your dorm she was there in no time at all, after receiving your distress call she scrambled into action, with chocolates and boxed wine in hand. Maybe you should just date her instead at this point. Who else was left for you?

You talked and talked and talked to her about everything for so long, talking the night away just like old times, and she sat and listened to your every word, patted your back reassuringly as you weeped into her shoulder, then tucked you into bed at the end of it all. She left only when she was sure you'd relaxed fully.

You didn't fall asleep quite yet, and stayed awake thinking, pondering life and staring up at your ceiling. It turns out angrily confessing to the girl you've been infatuated with forever by impulsively kissing her and letting the whole campus know it was a tiring thing after all. You really did cause a bit of a scene, when you thought about it in hindsight.

But what was this all like from Ellie's perspective? You wished you could know what she thought, or at least gotten some sort of formal response. Her friend storms out of a cafe, kisses her and screams she's in love with her? It's certainly understandable she'd feel a little lost, or under great pressure to give you an answer. Her reaction did make sense though, after being met with such a shocking revelation. Wow, now that you were really thinking about it, she still did not know why you ran out of the cafe like that. You wished you could turn back time and redo this day, shame that wasn't possible. Were you two ever going to have a discussion about this, or had you just lost a friend for life. Oh no, you pushed that thought away as quickly as it appeared, you didn't have an ounce of energy left over to dwell on it.

You'd work out what you were going to face her next later, a very well-deserved visit to dreamland was way overdue. You felt your eyelids grow heavy and your breathing slow, so you turned on your side and snuggled into your bed, eventually falling into a deep, deep sleep.

Meanwhile on your bedside table:

Bzz, bzz, bzz. 

lovely taggies: @lasting-lover @radioheadfan699 @sophie-thefrog8 @machetegirl109 @ellieschair @aouiaa @wavesgocrash @tangerinngi @elliesbitchvenus @amiorca @dinaissoprettyoml @rxreaqia @camicocom1a @elliesexual @smelliewilliams @boobdrug @writing-on-a-bathroom-stall @bready101 @yourelliewillms @ap3arll @bunnyrose01 @elliesactualgirlfriend @paranoiero @sakiigami @4ftergloww @ellstronaut @vqxen @desireesfics @lez-zuha @dyk3ang3l @iluvellie0089 @tphmnv @seraphicsentences @seaseasalts @biblically-accurate-ellie @deliriousrn @pxterpfx + a very special tag to @fleshunger hehe :)

if i wasn't able to tag you, investigate the issue somewhere in your settings!

[mystellenia]

ellie with a clumsy gf ୨ৎ

summary: how ellie cares for her clumsy girlfriend

content: nothing thats nsfw!! just ellie being a cutie concerned gf

notes: answer to this req!! SHES SO PUPU BABYGIRL IN THAT PIC I WANNA BITE HER JFWIBFJWKRJR. she's actually so beautiful i can't. entirely unrelated: idk how i feel about this... but i’m trying not to be like EW I HATE THIS FUCK THIS ITS SO BAD. like i dont even feel like that but we already know how i feel about this formatting. its growing on me tho

(wc 0.39k) so short i know guys i gotta dip my feet

constantly laughing but also concerned at how you manage to trip and bump and bruise yourself up on literal air

in apocalypse au, she's always been very aware of her surroundings bc of patrol and combat and stuff so she tries to keep you out of the way of things that she knows you'll bump into

always has an ice pack chilled and ready to go in the freezer in case you bump yourself real hard and it's sore because ice helps bumps not bruise right when you get them (looking at you guys clumsy ladies write that one down)

always warns you about things right as they're happening since you get into things SO FAST

like just as you're bumping into something or dropping an item she's blurting out, "wait! there's- a shirt on the floor"/"remember- that the washing machine door is open"/"baby, you're gonna drop that- just... like you did just now. you okay?"

always asks what you did to get a new bruise. she'll notice a new one and joke, "oh, what did you do this time?" and you'll respond, "i may have walked into the dishwasher while the door was down... but this one doesn't hurt that bad 😁" it's become like a little game

she's become sooo desensitized to any bump or bang sound in the house bc she knows its just you. not to say she doesn't care about you getting hurt--she immediately throws out a "you good?!" or "you need me?"--she just knows you know what to do: ice pack or heat compress. it's routine now.

read that low vitamin c levels make you bruise easily, so always has vitamin c rich snacks stocked up. oranges and strawberries and other fruits, always ready!

she's so stupid in love that she'll cut the fruits up into hearts or try nd make the most simple little animals with them from some mother of 3's tutorial on instagram reels and genuinely gets upset when she can't recreate them.

^ like you notice her absolutely maiming some apples and ask, "ummm why are you slicing and dicing that poor apple?" and she'll mumble, "it's supposed to be a stupid crab."

and for my ladies with darker skin where bruises aren't as visible or even just pale skin that just doesn't bruise easily, she's still just as concerned. and since there is no visible warning of a sore spot, she's hurriedly apologizing after pressing on a sore spot or laying on a tender patch.

@abbysbug @picklesarenice69

hello to my clitter critters. soooooooo erm sorry about going like basically inactive for like 2 weeks i got into the fight of a lifetime with my mother 😊 we still beefing 😊 dw tho when she's old and wrinkly i’ll have power of attorney and trust the cord WILL be plugged.

like i’m joking but as of now that bitch is an opp fr

but anywhoooo i’m back. and my dinosaur of a laptop had a health scare and i thought i was gonna have to plan a funeral for her but she went to the doctor (apple store) and she's all better. idk how it still works so well now bc my mom got this when obama was still president 😆 don't y'all worry tho this motherboard does nothing but purr we chillin (the fan turns on whenever there are too many graphics moving)

[jamminvroomvroom]

stress.

ln x fem!reader

finally finally finally uploading this! returning from my fic hiatus with some good old fashioned lando smut. feedback is always much appreciated! love you guys, thanks for being here <3 (pls tell me if the format is weird)

in which lando is stressed and so are you.

warnings: 18+!! smut, language, lando being an annoying little bitch, sliiiightly inappropriate workplace relationship, tiny bit of angst

1.7k words

he’d barely spoken since he’d jumped out of the car, helmet shoved at the first person he saw. his fingers worked through his sweat dampened curls, sheer frustration coursing clearly through his veins. they’d failed him, yet again.

your eyebrows were furrowed, the tension in your face conveying your deepest sympathy to him. it only angered him further. you gulped.

lando didn’t look at you again.

-

you trailed behind him awkwardly, every step he took seemed to shake with rage. he’d strutted from interview to interview, hardly biting his tongue. your warning eyes did nothing to soothe the sting of his words, he wasn’t even checking himself, just spitting sarcasm, his own personal venom.

you were quietly seething yourself by the time you made it into the hotel lobby, huffing as he continued to ignore you. the way your heart ached for him did little to ease your growing anger. you caught him as he ducked into the elevator while you were speaking to the woman at the front desk, trying to lose you. you snapped. you apologetically excused yourself, darting across the floor and into the metal box, the closing doors jolting back open.

“where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“don’t want to talk to you.”

“oh, for fuck sake, lando. are you five years old? we let you leave the track but we still need to debrief. you have duties.”

“yeah well, the team has a duty towards me, too.” he sneered.

“don’t you dare take it out on me. i didn’t build that tractor.” you bit back, pointing your finger at him.

he looked down at you, smirking, perhaps at your offhand comment. he looked evil, you couldn’t think of a better word. you felt hot, face red. working with him was, more often than not, headache inducing, especially lately.

“maybe i want to take it out on you.” his voice had dropped an octave, sultry, nostalgic.

your mouth was dry, lips parted. you felt like gasping for air, thighs clenching at his suggestion.

you swore this wouldn’t happen again. oh well.

you closed the gap, sighing in defeat, lips against his. he smiled, victorious in something, finally. you hated the hold he had on you. he was warm, familiar, hands at home on your waist. he pulled away to nip at your neck, bruising you deliciously. you swatted his arm in annoyance.

“knew you wouldn’t be able to resist after last time.” he taunted. if your eyes weren’t squeezed tightly shut, you would have rolled them.

the elevator dinged, and you were stumbling out, poorly composed. the lighting was dim, dim enough that he thought he could sneak a hand on your waist. you slapped him, hard this time. he laughed.

-

lando seemed to have cheered up the second you’d dropped to your knees at the end of his bed. one of his hands was wound in your hair, tugging harder every time your tongue ran over the vein that made his eyes roll back. he was panting, his neck flexing every time he threw his head back. you could feel yourself getting wetter and wetter each time he did, his tanned skin dampened with sweat, torso on display, muscles rippling.

just when you thought he was nearing the edge, he yanked you off of him, your balance momentarily lost as he pulled you off your knees on the carpet. lando steadied you in the narrow gap between his legs, glazed over eyes staring up at you, lustful and wanting. he kept his stoney eyes on yours, pupils blown as he ripped each garment of clothing off your body until you were bare, your flushed skin pressed to his. you seemed to prefer each other this way, naked, no talking.

you swallowed hard as you caught sight of your mclaren polo, crumpled on the floor, your mind suddenly riddled with the image of you being fired. as quickly as the anxiety inducing mirage arrived, it was gone, replaced by bright white nothing as you felt his lips hit the soft skin of your stomach. his curls tickled the underside of your breasts, one of your hands threading through the messy strands. you pulled his head back, leaning down to kiss him urgently, his hands finding the backs of your thighs. you were on top of him before you could even process it, your back against the mattress even quicker.

you remembered the last time, the frantic tearing at each other’s clothes, the blurriness, the way his giant hands seemed at home in all the places he touched you. the way your eyes rolled back and your toes curled and the way your name tore from the back of his throat. it had been carnal and desperate and a long time coming. so good, that you’d almost decided it was worth the risk to do it again.

your attention turned back to him as his hands grabbed at your hips, grinding you into him while he pressed open mouthed kisses over your neck, his teeth grazing your sweet spot. you let out a breathy moan, your body moving with his.

“you don’t know how much i’ve missed this. think about that night all the time.” he whispered. “this body, your pretty little noises, god. so perfect for me.” his breath fanned over your neck, your back arching.

“lando, please.” you whimpered, uncaringly desperate for him. he laughed, low.

“i know, pretty girl, i know.”

you were a mess beneath him as soon as his fingers found your core. you could feel him smile against your skin, taking a break from the bruises he was leaving against your neck. presumably he’d felt how much you needed him, your pussy slick. lando ran his fingers through your folds, finding your clit, teasing it between his fingers. you whined, writhing, thighs snapping shut to trap his hand.

lando pulled away, forcing your legs apart once more, snaking down your body until he rested between your thighs. his grip was iron-clad, unrelenting. your eyes rolled back the second he leant in, his tongue meeting your clit just as his fingers glided inside of you. he moved quickly, hard, the sound of your wetness doing nothing to shame you, and everything to get you both even needier.

“you like it like this, don’t you?” he taunted, as his fingers hit that spot your legs kicking out from the pleasure. you couldn’t respond, hearing him snicker quietly. it made you flushed, almost embarrassed to be so vulnerable underneath him, but it felt too good to care.

“please.” you cried out once more, no shame in your desperation.

he pulled away, crawling up your body painfully slowly, the kisses peppered across your abdomen making you shake.

“do you think about that night too? bet you’ve been waiting for this just as much as i have.” he whispered, hovering over you. “god, every time i see you at the track or in the factory, bossing me around like you run the place, i just want to bend you over and remind you who you think of at night.”

you blushed, hard, you lip caught beneath your teeth as he inched inside of you, teasing you further.

“come on, lando.” you groaned, wrapping your legs around him, pulling him deep.

you both moaned, ecstasy, stress relief.

“oh, so that’s how you wanna play it?” he asked, grinning down at you. the smirk painted on your face was wiped away instantly by his immediately unrelenting pace.

he was harsh, filthy, taking it all out on you. one of his hands dug into your thigh, keeping you in place, reminding you who was making you feel so good. the other hung loosely around your neck like a piece of expensive jewellery, making sure you kept your eyes open. the look on his face, that lazy, devious smirk, was enough incentive to keep you transfixed on his face, his eyes gleaming, the dark rings around them framing his intense stare.

just as you were nearing your end, he pulled out, flipping you onto your stomach like you were nothing. he forced you onto your elbows, back arched, ass up, your face lost to the pillows. a haze washed over you, bright white nothingness clouding your vision as he went even deeper. your mouth fell open, your silent scream burrowing into the comforter as you lost yourself, your orgasm beginning to wash over you.

lando felt you let go, pulling you up until you were on your knees in front of him, your back to his chest, the angle change making you whimper into the warm air of the hotel room. he held you still, his hand snaking around you until he found your clit, prolonging your orgasm, your body shaking against his.

you both collapsed into a heap, his sweaty body covering yours. you could feel his curls tickling your shoulder, his heavy breath fanning sending shivers down your spine. an open mouthed kiss to your shoulder blade had your eyes shooting open, your stomach twisting. it was soft, intimate, the opposite of how you usually spent your time together.

this was not like last time.

you needed to leave, urgently, escape before things got worse, weirder, even more unprofessional. it was stress relief, a way of releasing all of the pent up tension your jobs created between the pair of you.

you assumed he’d be happy to see the back of you, now that you were done with what you came here to do. you were proven wrong when he rolled off of you, pulling the duvet over your knackered body.

a complete silence fell between you as he switched off the bedside lamp, rolling over onto his side, facing you. he seemed pensive, like he was trying to decide what to say. and then, finally, he spoke.

“i appreciate you, you know?” he said softly, quietly into the pitch black space between you.

you smiled, thankful for the darkness surrounding you. you knew you’d gone red at his admission. your heart may have skipped a beat; you were probably just tired, you told yourself.

“see? i knew you weren’t a total asshole.” you murmured, back to teasing him. it was the safe option. you kicked yourself immediately. you’d just had sex with him, what good was playing it safe?

“you love it.” you could practically hear the smirk on his face.

“go to sleep, norris.”

-

thank you for reading! <3

-

taglist

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[islandofsages]

Hey ! Can I ask for the Diasomnia boys reacting to a male!Ignihyde!reader who join the gargoyle club (idk if it's name) ?

Like, the reader is really just interest in the gargoyles, and isn't scare of Malleus (or anyone, really. Man is too tired for being scare.)

Ignore it if you don't want to write it.

Have a good day/night ! And happy new year too.

characters: diasomnia boys x male ignihyde reader

tags: platonic, canon compliant, fluff, imagines + scenario format; mentions of malleus in literally everything, lilia being a dad

warnings: none

author's notes: reader is so idgaf energy i love it. also i just remembered the small font feature exists LMAO do tell me if it's too small, i'll change it back to the original size!! if not, i'll change my previous posts to the smaller font. also you have a good day/night too anon ! and happy new year :D

Malleus Draconia

Oh? You want to join the Gargoyle Studies Club? You’re being serious? Oh!

Words cannot describe how happy he is about a fellow gargoyle appreciator though his expression doesn’t really show that

And to think you see him as just another dude… such honor was bestowed upon him…!

He’ll excitedly bring you to every gargoyle he’s found on campus and infodump about them - and you’d write them down somewhere if you’re in the mood

Sometimes you’d find new gargoyles and bring him to them and you start to do likewise

Even outside of club activities you two geek out about gargoyles at times which has earned you two the title of nerds

“Have I told you about the time I’ve met talking gargoyles? I never thought I would see such a day…”

Gargoyles aside, he has times where he confides his personal daily life in you and in turn, he’ll ask you what’s it like being in Ignihyde, etc

After being around each other so much, it feels weird when you guys aren’t together - some people would ask where Malleus is whenever you’re on your own, and vice versa

People found it weird how close an Ignihyde student is to someone from a different dorm too and you’re not sure if you should be flattered or not

But in a sense, Malleus really is your other nerdy half.

Sebek Zigvolt

You?????? Join the club where Malleus is president and is the only member of?????????

“WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’RE WORTHY OF JOINING SUCH A CLUB?”

Well, for one, the fact that you’re unfazed by his constant yelling and therefore probably too tired to be fazed by anything, consequently making you the perfect companion to Malleus because you wouldn’t react inappropriately to Malleus’ conduct

And that you actually are interested in gargoyles. That too. You tell all this to him

He clutches his head with one hand, debating your logic. You don’t know how and why but he accepts your argument

That doesn’t stop him from monitoring you two’s activities from afar but, again, you couldn’t care less. A sixteen year old’s fanatics is just part of the growing process

Outside of club activities, he interrogates you on what you’ve discussed with Malleus and you just tell him the truth: gargoyles

At some point, he gets so engrossed in your infodump about gargoyles his eyes shine with a new light

Of course, he mentions something about Malleus obviously liking something so interesting and befitting of his status - but he also thanks you for enlightening him on the topic and that he’ll go to you for more information if need be

You’ve converted him. You sometimes see him clutching a book about gargoyles around the school. It’s filled with notes sticking out of the pages. And a portion of that sometimes he’ll run to you to confirm about a fact or two

Maybe it’s safe to say you two are kind of friends now.

Silver

He doesn’t think too much of it other than being glad that Malleus finally has a fellow gargoyle fan he can geek out with

He’d see you and Malleus chatting it up around campus and he can’t stop the tender smile on his face from making an appearance

Sometimes he himself will try to strike up a conversation with you and gargoyle geek aside, he finds that you’re just a pleasant person to talk to and be around

He admits he’s not too close with any of the folks from Ignihyde aside for the Shroud brothers but you brush him off by saying that nobody is really

He also admires how you don’t really let anything get to you. Again, you shrug it off by half-joking that you’re too tired to be scared by anything at this point

He somewhat empathizes with you on that point, grieving over his narcoleptic tendencies with a heavy sigh

You try your best to cheer him up or if you have experience with such things, you give him advice on how to manage it

You then jest that he can tag along with you and Malleus’ club activities whenever he’s free if he wants. The more, the merrier, right?

He ponders it for a minute and nods. You didn’t think he’d actually accept the offer

“I don’t see a reason to refuse. Sebek and I have accompanied Malleus on his trips before. I’m sure this time around will be more fun with you here.”

And so you all do. You all have a royal time together - and the joy on Silver’s face is especially princely.

Lilia Vanrouge

He sheds (crocodile) tears at the thought of Malleus finally having an additional member in his one-man club more friends

Since you’re chill about it, he is too! As long as you get along with Malleus, everything will be fine and dandy

If anything, he’s a bit impressed by how it takes more than the average amount to gain a reaction out of you 

…and a bit concerned. Are you sure you’re getting enough nutrients? His paternal instincts kick in when you tell him you’re too tired to have a reaction to anything

He knows that Ignihyde students are mostly shut-ins but he still advises you and makes sure you get a balanced diet

It’s like he’s adopted yet another son

“Oh, (Y/N), you really ought to take care of yourself more.”

You grow a bit annoyed at him sometimes but you know his intentions are good so you don’t protest

You do feel very loved though. You didn’t expect this much from just joining a club for a topic you’re genuinely interested in

But you have to admit it is kind of hard to come by people who aren’t intimidated by the Malleus Draconia, even if you don’t see it as anything special

What’s special, though, is the affection Lilia holds for you.

[synthetickitsune]

can i ask for dokyeom + Being held after a long day + rainy days? please make it super fluff for the sunshine boy who radiates warmth and comfort🥺

thanks!

DK (SVT) | Rainy day & being held after a long day

fluff | 0.7k | gn!reader

A/N: if the formatting is wonky it’s bcs im posting from my phone lol

“Your feet are cold,” you whine, curling into a fetal position. He laughs, whispering soft apologies and molding his body against yours. It’s not that bad if you’re honest. You just like his voice when he speaks softly to you. You open your body to him, like a flower blooming you let him closer.

The summer storm has caught you unprepared. One minute you were rocking your body to the beat of the music, Seokmin’s heated body moving in sync with yours under the blue summer sky, and then the next minute darkness took over. The temperature took a nosedive too - again, you were not prepared for that. You got home barely an hour ago, resembling a couple of shivering soaked rats.

A gentleman, Seokmin let you take a shower first while he prepared snacks and hot drinks. Although now you think it might’ve been an excuse to have you warm up the bed, so he could comfortably snuggle into it.

“It was fun. Shame we had to leave,” he sighs, face snuggled into your chest.

“I put so much effort into my fit too,” you complain aloud. His arms tighten around you and he kisses every patch of skin he can reach.

“I know, and you looked so gorgeous,” he mumbles in a note that doesn’t sound very happy, “Do you know how many guys were staring at you? I was right there.”

You giggle, intertwining your fingers with his over your stomach before changing your mind and turning around to hold him in your arms as well. He smiles again when you kiss him. And again. And again. You pull away enough to look into his eyes.

“I don’t actually know because I was too busy looking at you,” you reassure him, “It’s hard to look anywhere else when my boyfriend is so hot.”

He makes a soft oh and bites his lip. “You’re hot too.”

“Thank you,” you accept his compliment with a smirk that soon turns into a yawn, “I’m glad we’re home though.”

The soft drumming of rain outside spreads through the room, filling the comfortable silence. The cold air blows in through the window, but you’re perfectly protected by the blanket and your shared body heat. Maybe this is better than the booming noise of the festival.

“It’s nice,” Seokmin agrees, “I was getting tired anyway, I just didn’t want to ruin your fun.”

“You can’t be for real,” you groan, closing your eyes before rubbing them, “Do you know how much I wished you’d say you want to go home?”

“So much that you made it rain,” he jokes, making you laugh too, “And you could’ve said something too.”

“But you looked like you’re having a great time.”

“You too,” he makes sure to make the situation a stalemate. You feel a little silly starring at him with a pout on your lips when he’s pouting too, the same stubborn look mirrored in his eyes. It only takes a few seconds for both of you to break.

You pull him closer and he readjusts your position so you could nestle in the crook of his neck, his arm tightly coiled around your waist. His other hand massages your neck gently, making you close your eye in bliss.

The rain sounds so far away, wind keeping it from hitting your window and disturbing your peace. If you listen closely, it feels like you can still hear the music from the festival. You let Seokmin easy the tension from your neck and shoulders. You don’t feel too tired or you know you’d be falling asleep already.

“I feel sore all over, you?” you mumble, too tired to open your mouth properly.

“We’re getting old - some jumping around and look at us,” he sighs dramatically. You join him. “It’s too bad.”

“It’s bad getting old with me?” you tease, more a playful hum. You can hear the smile in his voice. You feel his arms settle around your body and squeeze you tighter. You hold him closer too.

“Never,” he whispers, “I’ll love you even when you’re a wrinkly raisin.”

“I’ll love you too, my wrinkly wet thumb,” you laugh at his immediate protest of raisins are cute! and shut him up with a kiss.

That always works.

[dokries]

Hello! Lovesick soonyoung anon here again!🤗 I would absolutely take you up on your offer to write more for him! I don’t have any ideas myself sadly as I feel like you’ve covered all the bases with “home,” so all I can ask is: go nuts!!! Hit me with all the wholesome rays you can!💕🫶

10:10pm

pairing: kwon soonyoung (hoshi) x gender neutral reader

genre: fluff, married au, a lil comfort if you squint

word count: 448

warnings: mentions of cooking/food, a knife (cause. cooking.), soonyoung gets in trouble, petname (babe), latte gets blamed for something she didn’t do

author note: hi anon!! you’re so sweet omg 🥹 yeah, i did cover a lot with home but…not cooking! well, it was supposed to be just a cute lil cooking fic but…anyway, i hope it lives up to your expectations 😭 lots of love <3 also i couldn’t think of a title so timestamp it is :D (well kinda, i like to keep my formatting lol)

masterlist

“am i allowed to—”

your husband barely starts before you cut him off, and the tunic of the onion in your hands. “no.”

he pouts, and mutters about how you’re being unfair under his breath until you sigh, looking up from the cutting board in front of you. “kwon soonyoung, we both know you’re not to be trusted around fire.”

you put your knife down to look over at the pot of ramyeon that’s slowly coming to a boil, and nod, satisfied with its progress. it’s your turn to make dinner, as usual, because you can’t trust soonyoung around the kitchen–one way or another, he’ll end up burning the place down, and you really don’t want that to happen.

meanwhile, your husband tries to defend himself, protesting, “hey, i only preheated the kettle one time!”

“if it happened once, it can happen again,” you casually say with a shrug, and he sighs, giving up.

soonyoung moves to grab a drink of water behind you, and looks at you from the side of his eye. “would you at least let me wash the dishes? i feel bad for making you do all the work, so i wanna help in any way i can.”

you coo, turning and reaching over to pinch his cheek. “oh, my soonie’s all grown up now!”

“yup, i am!” he giggles and smiles proudly before biting his lip. “babe, i promise i won’t flood the kitchen again.”

“what?” you pause, and your husband freezes, knowing you’re about to unleash hell on him…right, he didn’t tell you he did it, and instead blamed it on his dog, who’s over at his sister’s for the weekend.

your eye twitches as you try to speak calmly–keyword being try (soonyoung can hear the thinly veiled amusement behind your voice though, so he knows you’re not too mad). “kwon soonyoung, are you kidding me? was this the reason i found weird stains on our old carpet? i thought you said latte did that by accident!”

soonyoung rubs the back of his neck sheepishly before pouting. “wait, so latte gets a pass but i don’t?”

you nod, looking at him as if it should be obvious. “well, duh. that’s my baby.”

“she’s our baby, not just yours!” soonyoung gasps, putting a hand to his mouth.

you raise an eyebrow before sighing, reaching out to grab your husband’s hand. “tell me next time, okay? i will be a little mad but at least we can solve whatever problem there is together, right?”

“i’m here for you. always.” you whisper, placing a kiss on his forehead, and he smiles softly before repeating your words back to you.

“i’m always here for you too.”

[nkplanet]

WHICH TROPE ARE YOU?

PAIRING: enhypen x gn!reader SUMMARY: what trope do you and the enhypen members share? WARNINGS: a smidge of angst in jungwon + heeseung’s, all set in high school apart from jay + heeseung’s, implied toxic parents in jungwon’s, written on my phone so the formatting might be weird

NOTE: thank u sm for all the love on my last post and 155 followers!! i rlly appreciate you guys 🫶🫶 also i’m definitely gonna rewrite some of these as actual fics bc i love them (looking at u jungwon and niki)

— HEESEUNG 희승 — second chance romance personally i’m not a big fan of this trope but it just fits heeseung so well like ??? hello yes i would give u a second chance. there’s no doubt in my mind that cheating would not be involved, instead it was something that happened when you two were young and immature, but when you meet again you’ve grown and can continue to do so together

it had ended awfully the first time. neither of you were particularly mature, and a heated argument had caused your entire relationship had come crashing down. sixteen year old you would always regret the way you gave heeseung the cold shoulder for a reason you couldn’t even remember, and the way you had both yelled and screamed at each other. you hadn’t spoken for years when, all of a sudden, you bumped into him in a cafe. then at work. in the park. after six years of no contact, he was everywhere. it was like the universe was telling you to give him another chance. eventually, your walls crumbled, and heeseung made his way back into your heart. the two of you had never been happier.

others under the cut!

— JAY 제이 — fake dating jay is perfect for this trope imo, especially when it comes to fake dating at a wedding. put me in a psych ward bc whenever i think abt him in a suit i go insane. also your whole family would love him because he’s such a gentleman. he’s so perfect

it was your aunts wedding, and all of your siblings were bringing their significant others as plus ones. your brother had joked about how you’d be the only single one in the wedding party and, rather than face the humiliation, you lied and told him you did in fact have a boyfriend. it was a lie you forgot about until two weeks before the wedding, when your aunt mentioned being excited to meet the mysterious man. you panicked, running to tell jay about your issue. while you were contemplating telling your family that the mysterious man had broken up with you, jay said “why don’t i pretend to be your boyfriend? just for the day?” except, his fake boyfriend touches didn’t feel very fake. your aunt remarked that the two of you reminded her of herself and your new uncle when they were young. by the end of the night, you and jay were sharing kisses outside the reception. yeah, fake boyfriend my ass.

— JAKE 제이크 — you fell first, he fell harder jake seems like such a loser (affectionately) that he’d be the one to fall first, but just imagine that he doesn’t realise his feelings are romantic. he just thinks everyone sees their best friends that way and when he finds out otherwise? oh he’s head over heels in love with you. such a loser. i love him

the way you and jake interact is far from platonic. you had developed a crush on him when you were just fifteen, and since then you'd been trying to drop hints. when he started reciprocating your admittedly flirtatious gestures, you thought you had a chance, but he never made a move. in fact, jake never realised that he shared those feelings until one of his friends pointed out that the two of you were incredibly flirty with each other. he thought everyone saw their best friends as gorgeous, as an angel sent from above, as someone who they'd willingly spend the rest of their life with. after that it was hard for him to see you in any light other than romantic. when you asked him out he practically screamed yes. he is absolutely head over heels in love

— SUNGHOON 성훈 — opposites attract i was gonna pick grumpy x sunshine for him but he’s not exactly grumpy so opposites attract it is!! he’s reserved and only really lets loose around those he considers close, whereas you’re loud and bubbly with lots of friends. one of my fav tropes for a reason

sunghoon’s attention was brought to you via your laughter. it was loud and bright, and he’d never heard anything like it. since then, he’d yearned for the sound. though he lacked the confidence to actually ask you out, he began seeking your company. he’d study with you in the library, would offer to walk you home. things that friends do. you, on the other hand, were absolutely smitten. sunghoon was quiet and a little mysterious. you could never read him, and yet you were absolutely entranced by him. you thought he was absolutely gorgeous, perhaps one of the most handsome men you’d ever seen. one day, while sunghoon was walking you home in the rain, you’d stopped and turned to face him. “what are we?” you’d asked. sunghoon remembers blanking immediately, not knowing how to reply. instead of words, he answered you with a kiss.

— SUNOO 선우 — best friend’s brother okay but imagine: you go over to ur best friends house and end up gossiping with their brother and all of a sudden,, he’s soooo attractive? and then he starts developing this crush but he can’t date you because you’re his siblings best friend. there’s probably be some secret dating involved (which i’m also a sucker for tbh)

you'd been harbouring a crush on sunoo for a while now, never acting on it because he was your best friend's brother. you looked forward to the weekly gossip sessions that the two of you shared when your friend left you together arguably more than you looked forward to seeing your friend (but don't tell her that). little did you know, sunoo felt the same. fleeting glances and not-so-platonic touches began growing between you two. eventually, sunoo asked you out. you wanted to say yes so badly but couldn't betray your friend like that. instead, you began dating in secret. it was only two months of sneaking around, 'jokingly' flirting, and kissing in places where she wouldn't see before she finally exploded, yelling that you two were gross but had her blessing. going public only increased the pda by tenfold, and people quickly grew sick of your sappy conversations. not that either of you cared, of course.

— JUNGWON 정원 — academic rivals turned lovers [full fic!] ACADEMIC RIVALS TURNED LOVERS!!!!! i love this trope sm and i think it fits won so well. i was gonna originally give this to niki but he wasn’t rlly in school. so. jungwon it is!! i can see you two as the top two in your year and always competing when one day it all comes crashing down for you. jungwon is suddenly? nice? and we go from there 🤭🤭

yang jungwon had never been the nicest person to you. sure, he was never really mean per-se, but the two of you were so competitive that nothing said was particularly nice. you and jungwon seemed to constantly be on par with each other academically, consistently being the top two students in your year. in english and sciences, you usually pulled ahead, while jungwon excelled in maths and other subjects. the rivalry between you was so tense that even the teachers tried to calm it down but to no avail. the reason behind your competitiveness was your parents. the pressure they put on you was immense, and one day you just broke. you’d had a fight with them, and the next day flunked a biology test. your grades began slipping from then on, and jungwon began to take notice. he stopped making quips, instead resorting to leaving some snacks or study tips on your desk when he thought you weren’t looking. he began giving you sympathetic looks until you eventually confronted him, telling him you didn’t want his pity. it wasn’t pity, though, it was worry. your relationship changed after that, no longer rivals but a little more than friends.

— NI-KI 니키 — childhood friends to lovers/first love OKAY HEAR ME OUT. u were childhood friends. niki realises his feelings and he’s all like oh no i can’t feel this way abt my bff :( and tried to pull away from u but ur like ??? yes tf and that’s how u become lovers

niki had been your closest friend for longer than you could remember. in both of your houses there sat baby pictures of the two of you together. you’d grown up together, going to all the same schools and most of the same clubs. in highschool, you were known as inseparable - if someone wanted one of you, they got both. but one day, niki started pulling away. it was fine, you told yourself, he was just growing up. you both were. but when he stopped answering your calls and texts and started actively avoiding you, you were hurt. you’d been by each others sides for so long that you didn’t really know how to live without him. the truth was, he’d discovered feelings that he’d never felt about anyone before. he knew he shouldn’t feel like this about his best friend, but he couldn’t help it. he was miserable without you, so much so that his friends were telling him to just ask you out. they told him that you definitely felt the same, so he took the leap. and thank god he did. you’re his first love, his everything.

[twisted-king]

Hello! Since you also write genshin, I've thought about reader or F!S/O being from Teyvat. But that isnt really the main point. How 'bout their F!S/O is from Sumeru and is strictly bestfriends with Cyno and Alhaitham. How would Trey, Azul, Jade, Floyd, and Jamil feel about their F!S/O having boy bestfriends back at her world? Maybe if they're jealous, reader tries to comfort them by saying that Alhaitham is engaged(to Kaveh)XD Lol

You dont have to do this if its to much♡

Oddly specific but I like the cut of your jib!

Also can be read as genter neutral, I don't reall mention gender on this one?

Trey, Azul, Jade, Floyd, and Jamil X F!SO from Teyvat

who is also besties with Cyno and Alhaitham

Trey Clover

Well youre from a whole different world! Magic seems to exist in some capacity at least.

He doesn't know what a Zatyun peach or a Sunsettia is.

But he tries v hard to make you things that remind you of home sometimes!

He actually does a pretty good job at it too!

And thats where the issue arives.

Whenever he asks about your homeland he knows he is going to hear about your best friends

He's trying SO hard to be normal about this

Trey loves you so much but, he gets a little jealous!

You've done so much with these two!!!

"And Cyno's jokes are the absolute WORST! I swear some of the things he says are worse than Ace's!" "Oh that's... nice!"

but they're your best friends! He really shouldn't be jealous.

"I still don't understand why Alhaitham is so jacked, like all he does is read books all day!"

He really shouldn't be jealous

"And I'm kind of glad its never too hot around here! Like I know he works primarily in the desert but like put a shirt on sometimes! You know?"

But damm its hard.

He tries to be subtle (not really)

"So have you ever like... done anything with one of these guys?" "What do you mean?" "Like have you dated one of them..?"

oh.... OH!

You laugh at that, he's embrassed "Oh gosh NEVER! They both have boyfriends anyhow! Alhaitham is engaged!" "Oh."

You nod and give him a little kith

Wow he's relieved!

Azul Ashengrotto

He loves learning about you and your home world! Truly!!!

Azul thinks your mind is briliant, you're so smart and quick on your feet due to years of travel!

With travel comes a lot of experiences

a lot.

without him.

He's playing it cool though! suuuper cool

"Oh I remember Alhaitham would never answer anything that wasnt formatted or completed properly! maybe you could do the same? it would certainly free up some time, no?" "Of course it woudl free up some time, dear... But" "buut?" "Well it wouldn't be fitting of my benevolent nature now would it, my love?"

Azul keeps trying to prove he's a better boyfriend than your old friends

He needs you to know he's the best option for you <3

"And could this 'Cyno' make you a delightful seafood pasta like this?" "No, not really, he was more into rice." "I see..."

Oh hey he made you curry and rice

You know, by the way. He is NOT sneaky

After another bout of showing off, you finally say something.

"They have boyfriends, you know?" "huh?" "Cyno and Alhaitham? they have partners. You don't have to be jealous." "Why would I be jealous, dearest?"

DENIER

Denies his jealous to this day but he gets happier after you reassure him.

Jade Leech

Yeah he's super cool about this!

for the most part...

He's extremely interested in learning about the flora in your world!

and he thinks those vishap creatures you compare him to sound rather interesting.

Jade being rather curious in nature comes in handy! since he doesnt seem to get jealous.

His questions are... odd, though. they kind of make sense?

"Cyno once took out like-- 10 guys in like a MINUTE! it was so cool! "Is he that fast in the depths of the sea?" "No-" "I see..."

Sometimes he's a little less slick though

"OH my gosh Alhaitham is so weird about soup! He hates the stuff because it could get on his books of all things!" "Does he consume beverages as he reads? tea perhaps?" "Yeah, sometimes." *Pleased eel noises*

He's just being careful :)

Jade often prefers to dicuss your best friends while in the kitchen. he likes spending this time with you!

And he has his knives and mushrooms at his disposal.

*chop chop chop* "And so Haitham and I used to skip out on akademiya meetings together-" *chopchopchop-* "But Cyno would ALWAYS 'catch' us just before the meeting would actually ends-" *ChopChopChopChop-* "So then he'd bring us to Kaveh, Alhaitham's fiance to-" "He has a fiance?" "yeah,why?" "no reason." *chop~ chop~ chop~*

He's still keeping the information from his... questioning in mind.

Can't be too careful, after all.

Floyd Leech

He loves his shrimpy's stories!!!

He hates his shrimpy's stories :((

Floyd is reaaal conflicted. He thinks you're so interesting! your world seems like fun!! he wants to go there with you.

But not with those men you keep talking about

"So sometimes there are these HUGE mushrooms that kind of act like a launchpad! they're super springy." "Eh? Jade might like soemthing like that... OOOH! do ya think if I throw someone (Ace) on one of those they'd still bounce?" "Yeah they would! one time while going after a criminal, Cyno had to-" "Eeeeh I'm bored. You coming to my next game?"

Subtlety? not THIS eel

He audibly groans when you bring them up sometimes.

But he still loves hearing you talk! so it really confusing sometimesz

"So genius invocation uses 8 elements, 7 from the nations, one is omni. Usually the cards are based off of vision users like Diluc of mondstadt, Arataki Itto, from Inazuma... OH! there is one of my best friend, Alhaitham, he's dendro and Cyno's is electro, its actually" Oh he's no longer looking at you.

You get an idea... "There is one of Haitham's fiance, Kaveh" "Oh really?"

GOT HIS ASS

You're his girlfriend, you know him best.

He's a little less weird about listening to your stories now, he's way more enaged.

He still tugs you closer to him when you mention other men, but thats kind of normal for him now.

Jamil Viper

A confident king? He's not really jealous. He knows he can be better than them.

Plus they're just friends to you.

But in all honestly he like... doesn't care too much about Teyvat.

You're here now, with him. not them.

Don't get him wrong, Jamil likes hearing about what your world!

There's only oneee little thing he doesnt love hearing.

"Sometimes I miss the food from Teyvat... Cyno always made the best Tahchin." "The best you say?" "Yeah! he shaped it like a pyramid every time he made it!" "Have you ever tried mine?" "You make tahchin!?"

He's smug, you'll love his cooking more than that Cyno's.

He serves you a plate of tahchin, golden brown, perfectly seasoned, barberries topping the rounded rice dish "So, what do you think?" "This is so good! I kind of miss the padisarah petals though.."

The hell is THAT?

"Is it... not up to your expectations, my flower?" "No its delicious! I think I just miss the way my friend would make it.."

He's a little grumpy about it!!

Jamil gets kind of huffy with you next time you're together.

He's not ignoring you but just don't bring up food for a while.

Snake man will just respond with "Why don't you ask Cyno." when it comes to cooking for the next day or two...

[pillow-princess-diaries]

𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝙺𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛 𝙳𝚊𝚣𝚊𝚒! 𝚇 𝙰𝙵𝙰𝙱!𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛...

Scenario: your lovely and charming boyfriend has a dark secret; but you’re chill with it~

Pairing: Serial Killer! Dazai X AFAB! Reader

Genre: Smut

Type: scenario in hc format

W/C: 1.07k (i think😭)

T/W: murder (kinda obvious 🥲),slight yandere-like behavior mentioned,kinda public sex (they fuck in a warehouse),gunplay,blowjob,cum eating,cockwarming,dirty talk, a little bit of degradation (slut,degenerate) a little bit of bein in a mating press,aftercare☺️ (please lmk if i missed anything!🙏)

A/N: hey yall!! Inspiration finally hit me and voila! Hope yall like it and see ya in the next one!

MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DON'T FOLLOW, YOU'LL BE BLOCKED!

Serial Killer Dazai! Who comes off so lovely sweet and nice! Your parents,friends,EVERYONE LOVE HIM!

Serial Killer Dazai! Who gets borderline yandere like for you.he loves you and he needss to keep you safe,especially from people like him.but most importantly he needs you to not leave because he needs at least one good thing in his life dammit!

Serial Killer Dazai! Who suddenly gets awkward around you…he’s hiding something and you know he’s good at that…the fact that he’s letting you notice is a sign he wants you to ask him what it is

Serial Killer Dazai! who tells you what he is and what he does,he has (crocodile)tears in his eyes as he tells you, hes so scared you’ll leave him! (No he’s not~he knows you cant leave not while he’s in charge)

Serial Killer Dazai! who’s genuinely surprised when you kiss his tears away,telling him it’s okay and you dont mind. Hes so stunned! And definitely loves that you’re just as fucked up as he is.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who asks you if you wanna come out ‘hunting’ with him.even lets you pick the victim sometimes!!!

Serial Killer Dazai! Who sets up a seat and makeshift stage for you to watch your show.it’s in an old warehouse so no one will even disturb you~

Serial Killer Dazai! who absolutely dements his victims,the look of fascination and curiosity on your face fueling his sadistic behavior.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who notices you shift uncomfortably in your seat,your thighs clamping together and rubbing oh so subtly.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who gets hard at the sight and quickly finishes the kill to get back to you~

Serial Killer Dazai! Who gets his bloody gun,and cleaning it before he stores it for future use;who unbuckles his pants as he makes his way to you.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who hovers above your seated form, his clothed erection at your eye level.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who kneels before you and carasses your cheek saying, “shh bella…relax…ill take care of you~” before kissing you passionately. His skilled tongue exploring the expanse of your mouth.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who pulls aways for air,a single thread of saliva connecting the two of you.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who puts his thumb in your mouth for to suck. you do and his fingers taste vaguely metallic from holding the gun.

Serial Killer Dazai! who cant help but snap a quick picture of you before pulling out his finger and licking it before ordering you to get up,taking your seat and pulling out his pistol. He undoes his pants and underwear ,his cock springing free,precum already leaking from its tip.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who cocks the gun and smirks when you instantly get to your knees and pump his erection before blowing him.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who relishes in the feeling of your mouth around his length ,he holds the loaded gun to your head,the gasp of fear sending a pleasant vibration along his cock, “do me well bella,maybe ill let you cum tonight~”

Serial Killer Dazai! who ,feeling his first release coming on, hold your head down and thrusts up lightly, making you gag, before cumming down your throat.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who makes you swallow every last drop,the idea if his release filling you up in more ways than one driving him insane. “You’re such a fuxking slut for me arent you?you fuxking degenerate” he moans as he sees you swallow.

Serial Killer Dazai! who instructs you to sit on his dick and ride him.who puts the gun in your mouth,ordering you to suck it as you cockwarm. His occasional thrusts causing you to gag on the metallic weapon.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who isnt satisfied and picks you up by the ass (his cock still buried in your cunt) and pins you against a wall.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who brings your legs up around his waist and begins to relentlessly pound into you. In and out so fast its making you go cross-eyed! (He loves the sight~)

Serial Killer Dazai! who begins to work your neglected clit with the tip of his gun. The cold metal sending shivers from your pussy all through your body.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who locks you in a mating press,you jolt against the wall and your pretty moans resonate all through the empty warehouse.

Serial Killer Dazai! who brings your attention to the body right behind you both. He leans in close saying, “did ya enjoy that one bella? Did you see the fear in his eyes? Did it make you wet?” (All rhetorical questions of course)

Serial Killer Dazai! Who’s voice lowers, becoming gentler,raspier as he says,“did i do good? Did you…like it? Did i make you proud?” This wasnt the man who’d been killing a random accountant from the bar moments ago…no. It was him in his most vulnerable form,a child seeking to do good.to be the best

Serial Killer Dazai! Whose eyes darken the moment you nod, and just like that he was back to his usual self,he thrust back into you, “Good.now cum for me you little slut🖤” he says,kissing you passionately, an oddly love filled gesture in a rather lustful scenario.

Serial Killer Dazai! who moans your name as you cum around his cock,he reaches his climax not long after and the feeling gets him moaning even louder.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who lets you down and pulls your panties back up,your cum-stuffed hole still leaking from both of your releases.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who casually makes you rest back on the chair as he drenches the body in gasoline before promptly dropping a lit match into it.he steps back, and admires his handiwork before turning back to you and askin if you’re okay.

Serial Killer Dazai! Who carries you back to his car and drives u both home.who gives you a lovely bath to wash off the blood,cum and dirt (you come out of it with a few more hickeys than you went in with, but its fineeee)

And finally, Serial Killer Dazai! Who gets into his paw patrol pjs before cuddling up to you and holding you close. He’s forever greatful for you and will never stop thanking the stars for blessing him with an absolute angel.

Tag list(open):- @diagonal-queen @sapphic-serenade

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