#phiposting

[meowsticmarvels]

ive probably made a billion posts about this fragment mostly but i don't think I'll ever be able to get over Fire as a fragment in ztd. it's one of my favorites for a reason. the insane cruelty of it all is immense - even worse taking into consideration D-Team + Delta's relations to eachother. it's immensely cruel and every route offers something fascinating to me + the dynamics between the team members is also Really really good here. Phi as someone who barely acknowledges the fact that she'll die - advocating for that option, even, only being happy in the route where she does. Sigma as someone who desperately wants to do anything to save Phi after everything even if that means his life is risked. Diana as someone forced to participate in an insanely cruel trolley problem - what choice is she supposed to make? Is she doomed to let Phi die, or to take a chance and risk Sigma's life? Can she bear the burden of guilt either way?

and then on the branches themselves. Shoot: Blank is the lightest of the three but it intrigues me on phi's disregard of her own life + care for sigma's life being risked, distrust of others (specifically carlos), and her insecurity over her appearance (...not to shoehorn my headcanoning of phi as trans but its true to me here). Don't Shoot is insanely tragic in how phi resigns herself to death and sigma and diana's pain over her death of course, but what makes it especially impactful for me is the flashback with phi and diana at dcom. phi's vulnerability in that moment for someone so closed off and diana's affection for someone she barely knows is sonso heartbreaking to me it destroys me to watch. and then probably the most devastating in my opinion is the dreaded Shoot: Live. it's a genuinely horrific nightmare of a situation; sigma dies to the gun's blast. phi's absolute breakdown (especially when shes known to be someone much more emotionally closed off) in grief just crying and then screaming at the end after diana's suicide out of guilt is insanely heartbreaking ill never recover from it.

not entirely sure what to make of this post but i just wanted to gush about Fire as a fragment because. it's so so good and deeply tragic and fascinating to me. also can you tell i like phi

[geckobrains]

the dreaming snoozer seems to go to sleep at night

[free-use-phyrexian]

they feed us poison (toxic 1)

so we buy their cures (fortnite reprint of triumph of the hordes)

while they suppress our medicine (atraxa infect at polycule commander night)

god i fucking love your icon

phyrexian gender is a mood

eeeee tytytytytytytytyty <33333

im just a fuckin metal girlboy tomgirl genderthing with infect!

[meowsticmarvels]

hello tumblr. i bring you more textposts i have yet to post here . d-team edition

[meowsticmarvels]

thinking about this image I found in my gallery

[meowsticmarvels]

havent been here in a bit but im just coming here to quickly say HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHI ZERO ESCAPE she would be 16 today !!!! :)

[meowsticmarvels]

posted this on twt but god. i have talked a lot about how insane phi's character is to me but it's just. i will never get over how for most of both vlr and ztd she's relatively cold and unemotional but ztd has moments where she just. breaks. i.e. the shoot:live option of fire where she literally breaks down crying and can barely get a sentence out even BEFORE diana kills herself. or in the final decision when she fucking YELLS at delta and kicks him in the face not even out of reasons like with dio but out of sheer anger for everything he's put her though. like IDK. i fold easily for the "unemotional character is pushed to their breaking point and shows MUCH more emotion than usual" trope but its so fucking interesting. phi i love you we will get you therapy

[meowsticmarvels]

probably talked about this before but it is still crazy to me of phi's status as patient zero for radical-6. she is the host the virus first claims. her twin brother created the virus. she knows what it will do, knows what apocalypse will happen, but can't do anything about it. she begs diana to kill her, it's an act of mercy for both herself and the world, but diana cant do it. against her wishes she has to live she's the only character to get it at two separate instances - and she has the capacity to remember both of them. the virus's main symptom is suicidal ideation. a lot of this only happened because she had the idea to use the bomb to escape - delta forcing her to have blood on her hands as a result. there's definitely some degree of guilt involved. or what of the 3 months between ztd and april? the months she spends recovering, only to become a vessel for the next 45 years? this is the phi that ends up back at the end of vlr. the phi who unintentionally caused the very thing she swore to stop

[meowsticmarvels]

something really tragic to me about phi (2008 phi, to be precise) that ive been thinking abt a lot lately is her status as an experiment. that is the primary reason she exists. she was not transported to have a chance at life like 1904 phi was, she was created out of mere curiosity from scientists. that is what she is, and delta found her experiment records. how does it feel? to have everything you know upended? about your family - both your foster parents and biological - those you so desperately wanted to know about and how they felt about you. everything you know about that is wrong. how does it feel to know that? to have your entire existence down to curiosity and just seeing what would happen? everything about that is just upended in the span of a conversation i'd be furious too idk

[meowsticmarvels]

one of the things i WILL give zero time dilemma credit for is how most of the past participants from 999 and vlr just. get Worse mentally.

junpei the hero-type character in 999 who's a bit awkward but tries to save everyone to struggling with the trauma from it all and his detective work in ztd. now falling down the path of cynicism. he says he used to drink himself to sleep most nights and slept in the shower just to get the blood off. by the time of ztd he's learned not to trust people and knows people have to die - he just wants akane to be safe at LEAST. even if it means sacrifice.

with akane its not as obvious but she's no longer got the control she had in the nonary game. she's alive, junpei saved her, but she's not zero anymore. she can't prevent people from dying like she did in her nonary game. losing junpei makes her lose it a few times - to the point of violence towards carlos and its so insane. or her willingness to sacrifice d-team and other versions of c-team so they can SHIFT elsewhere. it's crazy. she also knows, vaguely, about the radical-6 apocalypse future and it's vlear from how she acts in c-end that she's willing to go to any measures to stop it

sigma's come back from the future having spent 45 long years preparing for the 2074 nonary game, almost completely alone on the moon. he watched diana die, built luna in his grief, and now sees her here. he KNOWS what he's done to kyle. and now he's trapped in the opposite situation as himself in vlr - the mind of a 67-year old man stuck in a 22-year old's body. and it's clear from how he acts and some of the things he talks about that the decades he spent on the moon like that clearly do not leave a person normal at the end of it

and then there's phi. her change isn't as noticeable unless you really pay close attention to her dialogue but its worth bringing up that for her, mentally since she spent the 45 years sigma experienced in cold sleep VLR only happened a few days prior to the decision game. she has a few days at dcom but her, sigma and akane spend most of those worrying about radical-6. and as a flashback with her and diana shows she's just... tired, after everything. where she could be scared about her death a few times in vlr gives way to her now being completely apathetic to her death in ztd. she's the only player who doesn't react at all to being executed, and in the "fire" fragment no matter what option she doesn't feel her life matters enough to be worth sacrifice. she's also notably more emotional than she is in vlr - see how she's driven to break down in tears when sigma dies in that same fragment, or lashing out at delta out of pure frustration and anger! which she would've never done in vlr! (though she does stop dio the same way, that's more out of necessity to stop him, with delta it's more just pure frustration)

its just. idk it's something i think about a lot. i looove when characters are allowed to get worse and visibly shown to struggle with the things theyve been through before in a previous entry and is something i do actually find insane about ztd

[meowsticmarvels]

repost this cat instantly

[meowsticmarvels]

[meowsticmarvels]

another phipost that's just a repost from twt bc i kidna cooked so that will explain if the structure of this is kinda weird but um. anyways.

it makes me a little crazy how much emotional significance phi's brooch holds for her and by the end of everything it ends up meaning next to nothing. not entirely, it's not like it doesn't mean ANYTHING but a lot of the meaning she interpreted it as potentially having is completely just. Not there. she says she recites the phrase on it to herself, sometimes, like a prayer, a reminder of consequences; actions she makes she cannot take back. but she has the ability to undo them. it's a bit more hopeful in VLR's context but she does also say it feels a bit silly now. she and sigma can fix the mistakes of the past. again in that context it's ultimately a GOOD thing because they can stop the bombs and save akane - there is a future where things go right, a sliver of hope, but also this future came about with so much sacrifice. and in that what does that phrase mean Now

there's also the actual emotional weight of it. a memento of sorts of her late mother is what she is told it is. the only thing left behind. in canon phi talks a lot about how much she wonders what her mother really meant giving that to her - what message was she trying to convey. what did SHE mean to her mother. and then that's all pointless because none of that is true! her bio mother never died (at least before the decison game anyway lol). in reality it's diana, actually, and her existence is due to a fucked up series of paradoxes and and cloning . the brooch doesn't mean anything that big, its existence is paradoxical, like her. she only has it because sigma and diana left it with her in the transporter. taken off her corpse, or what's left of her anyway. kinda hard to call it one... her name is also the same. she is named after her dead self.

[meowsticmarvels]

anyone else soooooo fucking normal and sane

[meowsticmarvels]

im literally like. only an hour and a half into vlr so far but like. phi so transfem and also autistic. can anyone hear me

[meowsticmarvels]

sorry okay i've ranted about this on twt before but phi's role in ztd is just... odd to me. the reveal with her being related to delta (and also sigma and diana) is placed as one of the biggest ones like literally one of the reveals that delta says during final decision is phi's status as a double clone. and i do like her having a fucked up existence being a living paradox and being not meant to exist and all that. its fukcing interesting and i love it and talk about it a lot. but it's also just. for someone who's positioned as one of the most important characters to the plot as to WHY a lot of things happen she's also.... barely in the game? she's basically just in the game to be dead or To Be Born which is like. okay. something could be said about her lack of agency in everything but it ISNT said so like? and plus her not being there for that much of it takes away a bit of the weight of the reveal imo. like it's not as powerful if she had a bit more development/screentime to justify it and have a good payoff in my opinion i think. clearly im abnormal about phi so it was crazy for ME but it's just. i don't know. even for me it doesnt feel strong without that. from a writing perspective it makes a bit more sense to put the weight of a reveal as great as that on a character who already got substantial development or buildup to justify it. the most i CAN say is the existence of the fire fragment because that part is genuinely one of my favorite parts of the game (and also the flashback with phi and diana @ dcom) but it jsut. i don't know!

i've always thought and interpreted from her dialogue in both games that she's got a really weird sense of identity (calls herself "not a normal human being" in ztd, compares herself to a variable or an x-factor in vlr, also seems to believe diana and sigma's lives are worth more than hers) which could be interesting!!! and how her existing situation with her parents is when combined with the NEW information - did they keep the fact that she was an experiment as an infant from her for her entire life? like it couldve been INTERESTING. and still kinda is imo but it's just a weird writing decision to write her out of so much of the plot while ALSO wanitng her to be important at the same time. id ont know if this makes any sense to anyone but its just like. Okay? Sure?