#my interpretation of Agent Phoenix

[stellar-collective]

If you're in the mood for angst, I got one for you. (Please take your time if you're busy.)

Agent Phoenix's eyes were either closing or have closed already. They're losing consciousness, and fast. They're clearly injured and about to succumb to their wounds.

Reginald is there, cradling them and wiping the tears that he doesn't know if they are his or theirs. His agent is dying. Maybe he knows about their ability. Maybe he does not. But it doesn't matter.

His agent is either dying or dead and any medical attention seems too far to reach them. He did all he could but it wasn't enough. They're getting closer and closer to death's door as each second passes.

And what hurt him the most? They were giving him a smile and comforting him like everything will be okay.

I hope you have fun with this. /gen

ohohHOHOHO alright

//blood

this was super fun to do!! thank you for the excellent prompt and i hope that you suffer :]

referenced from the painting Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan by Ilya Repin!

[dawnphoenixrises]

So I saw @ / LonelyWriter268 post about The Ski Lodge mission and it caused me to think more about Dr.Prism and that mission. It’s a bit long and it’s late so sorry about that.

Roxana left the agency because they didn’t believe in her robots. Zor used that to get the kinesum but Roxana was building her robots. What she thought of as her greatest creation.

Then Phoenix arrives at the lodge. They easily (more or less) destroy the 3 Robots that are trying to take them out. Then they get to the factory. And they see all of the Robots. And 1 agent up against hundreds of robots. If that fight happened there was no way Phoenix would come out alive. Roxana was talking about how Zor believed in her and that her robots would prove to be the superior agent. Then they all die due to project KBOOM. And Phoenix is horrified (at least I was) as this is how quick human agents could be taken out as well as seeing all the robots go down. And Dr.Prisim loses all of her robots and her helicopter starts to crash to the ground.

When Phoenix makes it down they see Roxana and the dying robot. Which is honestly a super sad scene. Then Dr.Prisim talks to the agent. Roxana wants to take Zor down. And then comes the line where she is like I don’t care if you stole this or are working for Zor. That she is going to take Zor down. And she never wants to see the agent again.

This confused me for the longest time. We are trying to take down Zor. why wouldn’t we work together? But their post may realize that Roxanne just lost everything. She has no one. She trusts no agency or has no company to fall back on. and most importantly, she just lost what she cared about creating most. she created these robots to be better agents because we know by the name of this game and through it, agents die a lot. So why wouldn’t you make an agent that couldn’t die? That, even if they did die, it wouldn’t matter cause you just had to back them up in a factory. So many lives would be saved. But since the agency rejected this idea, Roxana wouldn’t go to the agency because she doesn’t trust them. They didn’t want the robots, so why would they help her get revenge on Zor. And if Phoenix is working for Zor well they just blew up her greatest creation.e. But just their affiliation doesn’t seem like enough to never want to see Phoenix again. This is personal.

Phoenix does what no other agent can . They survive the unsurvivable. The death engine and the peace summit. And after what happened with the robots and project KBOOM why were the agency ever replace Phoenix with robots? It wouldn’t make sense. After all of Roxana’s robots are dead, never coming back, Phoenix lives. The one agent that the robots desperately needed to beat to prove that robots were superior was still alive. Also In this case it seems like because Phoenix was there all of the Robots came out to fight, making the perfect opportunity for KBOOM. If Phoenix wasn’t there the robots probably would have been fine for a bit longer.

So with all of these there was no way we were teaming up because Roxana doesn’t trust the agency, blames (or is just a bit upset) the agent for all of the robots deaths, and the agent continues to survive and prove her life work wrong. So she leaves to avenge her creation as what they were made to prevent happened to them and what they were made to replace outlived and outperformed them.

This realization kinda shook me. I mean you have no one, nothing, and your life work is proved wrong. Why would you ever work with someone who made that happen even not intentionally.

[warriorend-2]

ok ok since i can't be stupid and gay all the time (<- college student)

putting this shit under a cut bc while it's mostly just me rambling it's. spoiler heavy. & also wound up being 1600 words. sorry

1: possibly the most glaring thing, which makes me doubt the Phantom being a lot of otherwise-possible candidates, is that they would have to be very good at infiltration

-I presume Roxana didn't put the medal in her computer herself, which means whoever did put it there had to get in after she left, get into the computer without waking up Robutler, modify it to put it there, & put everything back (mostly) the way it was & leave a combination. granted maybe they just gave the medal to Roxana to put in there, but like. why

-getting it into that spot in the mines wouldn't have been too hard i don't think, just. knowing where the mine is and then sneaking in during off-duty hours (...assuming those happen)

-tbh the one in blind spot is probably the easiest to place given that it's just behind a license plate, & cars do have to stop sometimes even if it's not often

-i'm. not sure how they got the medal into hot water though. i'm guessing they snuck it in among the materials? (the other option here is that Zor had a hand in getting it there, which opens up a whole other can of worms so i'm not gonna. think about that one too hard)

-the one in cold shoulder is also not too hard to see it getting there. i would laugh if they had to make a mold of that little compartment & then make a block of ice for it though.

-the one in kboom is where i'm like. OK this facility is presumably not super new but it's also not super old given its current purpose. it may have been repurposed but still. how did they get the medal where it is and then also tag the bucket. the volcano doesn't look like it's horribly far away from shore (in the ending credits) but (also i'm aware the medal shouldn't even be able to be where it is but. yknow.)

and odds are that it doesn't matter that much, i'm just. they had a little safe set up in the control point already, they had access to the pneumatic tubes, etc. if the locations have any bearing and aren't just "here's somewhere to stick this puzzle that would be hard to figure out", then that implies some Shit about the phantom (& possibly also their allies. if they have any. if they do I highly doubt they're Agency-related.). given where the phantom gets to i am somewhat leaning towards the idea it may be V. Vitti (also the. insignia), given that we've seen the sort of places Agent Phoenix gets into (...seat of power) & so

2: Zor's goals feel a lot more on a personal bent this game, not just irt destroying the Agency but also. destroying the kinesium & anything that uses it. so whatever their reason, it seems to be a lot more personal (+ they actively Address the player more often, which could be Phoenix's infamy but also in the other games they were barely present, both in terms of voicelines & actual like. Story Push. they were a very passive supervillain in the other games, is what i'm saying)

which leads me up to like. we all know characters can lie, & in this series it's kinda expected, but. idk. i keep circling back to the shield generator. & the lava generators being accessible from Phoenix's cabin, but not the one Roxana was in. & Phoenix's cabin seemingly having all this shit that the others didn't have, & it could have been a tactical choice on Phoenix's part, but.

i mean. Zor does definitely say they want you dead, but they don't say it directly a whole lot (iirc they say "kill you and Prism" but otherwise they don't directly address the player in death threats, it's usually just. agents, plural. or "whatever end you meet" which is also a threat but is vague)

which just. why is Agent Phoenix still alive? Game design aside, of course. It wouldn't be much of a game if the villain kills you in the first level, after all.

But it feels, to me, like the weaknesses are far too glaring to be just missed over, especially in 3, because. if they want you dead that badly, why. why leave things so safe?

Hot Water is one i wind up on a lot, because you could chalk things up to being deathtraps, but Ollie knew about the gas and the grenade trap, & seemed completely unfazed by them (& kinda implied that's just How It Is for new folks), so they're not necessarily targeted, it's just standard practice. Putting aside the fact that even if they were intended to be deathtraps, they're so. Mild. to put it bluntly. Zor knows Phoenix by this point, knows the shit they've pulled & survived, a gas trap & a grenade in a vending machine feel very. yknow. that's like throwing a rock at the back of someone's head, comparatively

and then the KBOOM demo & the shield generator, both explicitly left for you to see. & it's a pretty 1-to-1 comparison for how the actual KBOOM mission goes, except for the telekinesis save at the end. the squid gets involved, but for the most part, considering it's a lab Zor loosely implies they were at, the security is very. lax. & everything is accessible to the "new hire", popsicle-ID necessity aside. (also apparently Ollie has been down there a while, given he doesn't seem to. know about the whole "world domination" thing. which is Eerie because if that's the case then how long exactly has the whole Kinesium thing been a plan?)

to me. & it has felt like this since the end of the second game. When Zor says they want you dead, there's a whole host of unstated conditions to that, which they would be good at given the whole CEO thing.

"I want you dead if you aren't good enough at your job to survive" sort of deal. which also lines in nicely with how they seem to be as an Actual Boss. of course, they never say the second part out loud, but. short of them just being Really Smart in a lot of cases (failsafe in Juniper's mask, leading Roxana along long enough to get her research & then trying to kill her, etc) but Really Dumb in others (leaving the shield generator, making the squid the only real danger to Phoenix down there, not having any failsafes to make sure the missiles launch at the end of 2 even if the briefcase is compromised (or just not using them), etc), it's like. the ways their plans get foiled at the end of 2 & 3 feels intentional.

plus you could make the argument that Roxana was also being used to lead Phoenix along until they were where Zor wanted them, at which point both of what they were using her for (Kinesium research, kite Phoenix around until they're in position, even if that second one wasn't in the deal) was done & they could get rid of her without feeling bad.

would stopping KBOOM have been possible without Roxana's help? Dunno. Not the way it's presented in-game, because in-game she was also instrumental to stopping it.

i'm also going to briefly play semantics for a second. i'm not sure i consider "even the great Agent Phoenix will eventually burn out" to be a threat because. that's what phoenixes do. They burn, and then they come back. Sometimes it takes a while, but. if i'm not just thinking about semantics Way Too Hard, the wording of "burn out" suggests something far different than "die". combining that with Zor talking about the Agency like That, & the Phantom (at least vaguely) implying prior experience with the Agency, & realizing that their involvement would cost them their life, makes me think. maybe "burn out" isn't a threat of death, but a threat of something about Phoenix changing soon. Maybe as a result of almost dying. "burn out" is also used for like. becoming exhausted, stopping trying, & maybe that too. who knows. i don't, i'm not on the dev team, i'm just some 21 year old chewing on semantics.

at the end of the day, my current standing on Theories is. hard to sum up but i will do my best. o7

-The phantom is probably one of a very small handful of candidates, & I'm leaning towards it being V. Vitti or maybe possibly Zor in a funny hat.

-Zor is trying to kill Phoenix, but not inescapably. maybe they're testing Phoenix, maybe they're just trying to almost-kill Phoenix enough times they get tired of the Agency and fuck off so Zor can do the whole "world domination" thing (which i am not. wholly convinced they actually are after.)

-summing those two up made me think of something else. perhaps the Phantom was also testing Phoenix in a roundabout way, by seeing if they could survive everything else, because they only show up in the third game. Their note opening with "it seems you're as good as they say" indicates they are at least familiar with Phoenix & their reputation, albeit maybe not directly (if it is Vitti, i doubt she would have access to Agency knowledge, but post-Rising Phoenix, once the rumors started getting out...)

-this is a silly theory i like to throw around in my head, but i'm very fond of it, so: the "death room" you go to after dying in a mission may not necessarily always indicate Actual Death. in some cases, yes, but in other cases. idk. i've always gotten more the vibe of having been captured as opposed to outright killed (although being able to respawn does throw a wrench in there, but oh well. game has to be a game & all)

[saintsenara]

Thoughts on remadora?

thank you very much for the asks, anons!

while they are by no means my otp, i really enjoy remadora as pairing - and i think they’re fully up there among the canon couples in terms of being an amazing vehicle through which to explore all sorts of questions about life and love - which i am aware is a sufficiently controversial statement that it involves an immediate engagement with some discourse…

because remadora girlies [gender neutral] get an enormous amount of shit within the fandom, particularly from fans who consider wolfstar to be a more plausible pairing for lupin than tonks. i have seen remadora shippers called homophobes for simply enjoying the couple, justified with the bizarre idea that it disrespects remus' relationship with sirius [so... the non-canon one?] to put them together. i have seen tonks turned into a pathetic shrew who is trying to keep remus from the real love of his life by trapping him with an unwanted baby. i have seen remadora shippers get a lot of the usual stuff that people who prefer the canon-endgame couples do [that to ship a canon pair is boring, that it is indicative of a lack of talent, that it indicates an uncritical support for jkr] magnified to eleven because tonks has the temerity to be a barrier to remus’ relationship with the fandom’s favourite hot and brooding man.

obviously, this is bullshit - primarily because its unreasonable and cruel to invest so much time and energy being mean to people because of their harry potter shipping preferences [fandom should never be that deep].

but it’s also a disappointment to me personally because it means that it can be very hard to find the sort of remadora i like without looking like i’m coming to contribute to the pile-on. because where many remadora fans and i don’t see eye-to-eye is that i have absolutely no interest in thinking about them as a relationship which is actually functional. and, all too often, i find myself sifting through fics which do prefer to interpret them like this - as romantic and passionate and stable - largely, i think it’s fair to say, as a defensive move against the tide of “urgh, imagine shipping that” nonsense - even though all the evidence of canon is that they are… very much not.

i am aware of the pottermore article which smoothes the edges of lupin’s canonical reaction to tonks’ feelings for him in half-blood prince - but, while i read this as something of a retcon to make the relationship more palatable, i also don’t think that assuming that both tonks and lupin’s attraction to each other was sincere precludes them being as dysfunctional as they canonically are. i don’t go in for the common anti-remadora argument that tonks “forces” him into a relationship with her - it’s clear in half-blood prince that it’s not only her who has discussed her feelings with molly and arthur weasley, lupin is definitely flirting with her when they pick harry up in order of the phoenix, lupin is an adult man [no matter other power imbalances between him and tonks - such as the fact that she is an agent of the state which oppresses him] who possesses the capacity to refuse her advances, and - since teddy’s conception is not immaculate - he has no issue with enjoying a sexual relationship with her even if he then wants to run away from the product of that.

instead, what i like with remadora is that they reveal something which goes against the grain of the rest of the series: that love is not always enough. throughout the seven-book canon, we see time and time again the idea that love - and, crucially, love-as-noble-suffering and love-as-sacrifice - is enough to overcome any problem. entire civil service collaborating with a terrorist regime? don’t trouble yourself, love has won. your mother dying in childbirth leaving you to be neglected in a state institution? your own fault you’re not interested in love.

i understand the genre reasons for this, but i also love the way in which lupin especially exists on the margins of these genre conventions [just as he exists on the margins of wizarding society!]. i’m always struck in deathly hallows that he’s the only person who’s actually realistic about the demands of war - particularly when he tells harry that it is breathtakingly naive for him to think he can get through the fighting without having to shoot to kill - and that part of him having to be shuffled out of the way when harry tells him to return to the pregnant tonks is because, were the story focused on realism, the idea of a wanted man who is considered an unhuman by the state fleeing in order to guarantee the safety of his wife and unborn child becomes eminently reasonable and harry's defense of the nuclear family embarrassingly unradical.

and so i like the idea of lupin seeing tonks - and tonks seeing lupin - initially as just a bit of fun, as the two of them being just two chill single people who think the other is hot and interesting and want to bang because of it.

[which is something fandoms in general really struggle with as a concept. we like epic love stories - and you won't find me objecting to that! - but we're less good at thinking about casual sexual attraction or transient friendships, and how these can be transformative and meaningful without having to end up going any sort of distance.]

and i then like the idea of the relationship being forced into a profundity it doesn’t really have the juice to sustain by the sheer avalanche of grief which besets the two of them - sirius, dumbledore, mad-eye, ted - and by the pressure of the war and the fact that the order is scrambling and the hangover of remus' self-destruction in half-blood prince which makes each cling to the other as a life-raft. i like remadora as something codependent and messy and strange and sad, and i don’t think this prevents it being sincere and fun and based in mutual attraction, but instead that these positive qualities can exist in conjunction with the fact that, without the war, it would have been a summer of fucking and that was probably it.

on tonks herself, i don’t think i can say it better than @evesaintyves in this meta on her character. i’ve been really uncomfortable with quite a lot of stuff i’ve seen recently which has taken against the idea that tonks can be meaningfully read as queer on the basis of what we find in the text, above all because it so often comes with the implication that one cannot imagine her in her canon endgame pairing and presume that she’s something other than straight or cisgender. eve sets out an excellent case for tonks as bolshy and liberated and in tune with herself and fun and confused and in flux and still figuring stuff out about who she is and where she’s going - and this translates, may i say, to an astonishingly beautiful way of writing her, lupin, and the dysfunction inherent between them which i highly recommend you read.

[lavalampstealer]

Jk I’m doing one anyways but glad to know that there’s an audience for my ramblings <33 I will try to make it readable, I promise

Would you guys be interested on an info dump about my Phoenix and Handler yes or no

It would have stuff from little tidbits to lore/backstory :)

[thedevils7thstring]

Enjoy a drawing I did of my interpretation of Agent Phoenix

Also here’s some Phoenix headcanons

-uses a cane and leg braces after Rising Phoenix, they obviously survived but like… her legs got fucked up

-started incorporating bandages into their fashion because they were wearing them due to injuries and she thought they looked cool

-Probably has PICA (a disease that causes you to have the urge to eat non-food items)

-has streaks of white hair due to shock and stress

OK BYYYYEEEEE

[brewing-radianite]

lore thoughts after the previous cinematic...

(These may be incorrect and are open to interpretation; It's just my own understanding and thoughts on things! Please do not take this as law or definite word.)

-It's established that Omen, who previously worked for the same company as Iso, was sent to kill Viper to stunt and/or prevent the studying and mass-release of Radianite. At this time, Viper had been working under Kingdom.

-My guess is: this happened before the First Light. Radianite has been discovered by scientists but is still a very new development and not yet ready for the world at large to have access to. As such, people do not know about it yet, Radiants created by the First Light have not become a commonplace occurrence yet.

-I think at one point it was said the First Light occurred roughly a decade before the creation of the VALORANT protocol (it was retconned iirc? but then not replaced by any other time estimate or amount). Under this train of thought, Omen's "death" is at least a full decade (or at least more than a full decade) before the creation of the protocol and hiring of its members.

-The VALORANT Protocol exists for more than just stopping Earth 2 from taking Radianite; we've seen in other cinematics how the Protocol is already formed by the time Earth 2 becomes a consistent problem. Omen, Sova, Iso, and Cypher's mission here also did not have direct ties or mentions to Earth 2; it was a mostly personal loose end to tie up. To that end: The VALORANT Protocol exists to tackle many of the issues surrounding Radianite, Radiants, and how The First Light may have permanently affected their world and many people looking to take advantage of Radianite or Radiants. With the rise of Earth 2, that has just become another prioritized situation to look into.

-The original cast prior to the addition of any new members is the original lineup of VALORANT Protocol Members; Led by Brimstone, Sage, and Viper, leading Omen, Breach, Cypher, Sova, Jett, Phoenix, Raze, and Reyna being their first new agent. Brimstone, Viper, Omen, and Sage are hinted to have history (especially regarding Omen) prior to VALORANT which likely led to founding it. Exactly how they came to hire the rest is unknown/up to the fandom at this time.

[the-lesbian-of-too-many-fandoms]

HYPER-FIXATING ON THIS TRILOGY OF GAMES

here’s my interpretation of agent Phoenix! Non binary, mute, super agent.

[dandorime]

Given that kinesium seems to power the robots (I'm not sure if it's directly stated.), I think it's fair to assume that it has electrical properties.

I believe, at the end of the third game, our vision is a bit hazy with simplified colors. Do you think (assuming Agent Phoenix had ocular implants by the time KBOOM takes place), kinesium (especially the destabilized kind) can mess with electronics like the ocular implants?

... I have a few ideas if this is so. >:3

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ WHEEEE KINESIUM THEORY TIME!

Cool thing about powering things IRL (and please forgive me if you know this already), humans have now figured out how to convert every form of energy we know of into every other form. We had a hell of a breakthrough when we figured out how to turn heat into motion (steam engines), and again when we got motion to transform into electricity (generators), but there are a ton of other ways we can do it, too. We've had piezoelectricity (elastic deformation of crystal creating electrical charge directly, no wires or magnets for a generator necessary) since the late 1800s. So heck yeah it's reasonable to assume Kinesium is being used to produce electrical charge, and sure, that can definitely mess up any electronically-driven implants. ദ്ദി '꒳' )

...but there's other ways it could have an impact, too...

Personally, I don't count the ocular implants from Home Sweet Home as canon because that kind of technology would have been a real stretch in the time period of the games, but that's just me.

Biological vision, as I'm sure you know, is not just created in the retina of the eye. There's a large part of the human brain dedicated to interpreting the chemo-electrical signals coming down the optic nerves to give us the experience of shapes, motion and colors. This is why we can't be sure that any two people perceive color the same way, actually. Is your red the same as my red? Your "red" is just your brain's interpretation of ~700nm electromagnetic waves, completely made up inside your skull. Do any two brains display it the same way to their respective consciousnesses? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We don't know exactly where the TK implant is situated in the brain, but if the crystal powering the implant resonates with the frequency of the blast wave, we can assume Phoenix quite literally "got their bell rung" when the (weakened) wave hit: the Kinesium in their brain would have been vibrating like a bell hit with a hammer. That could have all kinds of deleterious effects on their consciousness, vision, and other senses... it just depends on where the vibrations occurred and what processes they interrupted. Could it even result in brain damage? Sure. >:3c

[lunacornfan2k24]

I have seen some very strong opinions on The Handler/Reginald Crane being a father-esque figure to Agent Phoenix so just want to remind everyone what a father figure actually is.

Miriam-Webster dictionary defines a father figure as:

a person often of particular power or influence who serves as an emotional substitute for a father

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/father%20figure

This doesn’t mean that Agent Phoenix sees the Handler as their literal dad (although they still can; I’ve seen it when Phoenix is interpreted as young or an orphan and those interpretations are just as valid).

If you interpret the games as taking place all in one month where the only time the handler and an adult Agent Phoenix spend time together is when they’re working, then yeah, him becoming a father figure doesn’t make sense

However, if your interpretation of the games has months or years between each batch of missions where Phoenix is presumed dead. Then it would make sense for Agent Phoenix to emotionally gravitate to the Handler over the years, for them to sometimes hang out with each other outside of work, for the Handler to be the only person who knows exactly what Phoenix has been through, where he is the only person who Phoenix doesn’t have to hide who they really are and can talk openly about their trauma…

Yeah it would make sense for the Handler to serve as an emotional substitute as Phoenix’s boss, mentor, and maybe even protector.

It’s not uncommon for adults to have father figures especially in fiction (White Collar, anyone?) and it’s not infantilizing Agent Phoenix if one chooses to write the relationship between the Handler and the Agent like that.

Like most things in the fandom, at the end of the day it’s completely up to how you interpret the characters and their relationship. It’s cool if it’s not your thing but don’t bash it because your mindset to fanon is “my way or the highway”

Hell if a fic writer wanted to spend time on it, the Handler could become a father figure to Juniper, Roxana, Ollie, Anna…anyone really. If anything we shouldn’t limit his father figure-ness to just Phoenix! Go wild with it!!!

[ieytdconfessions]

my theory on why people often write prism as a mother figure is because phoenix is a de facto self insert and a lot of fans admire or are attached to prism in a way that they, either explicitly or subconsciously, perceive her as a maternal figure to themselves. and phoenix, the do-what-you-will-with protagonist, just becomes a mouthpiece for that.

it’s the same reason people write reginald as a father figure - in game, he guides the player and expresses concern for their wellbeing (especially in later games), and a lot of people perceive that as a paternal role, possibly especially if you’ve played the game first hand. so, he becomes like a father to phoenix in some fanfics/comics/quotes/whatever, since phoenix and the player are essentially one and the same.

even shipping juniper and phoenix is an example of the same thing. juniper is conventionally attractive, and if the player wants to get with him, and the player and agent phoenix are one and the same… the math solves itself.

TL;DR phoenix is like a self insert handed to us on a plate and a lot of “bizarre” interpretations of their dynamics with other characters, are merely manifestations of the author’s own affinities for said other characters.

that said this is of course not ALWAYS true, just could be a way to explain why certain dynamics are common. there will also be fans who view phoenix as a seperate entity than themselves and have been drawn to those dynamics for completely unrelated reasons to what i’ve said here - like you said, “you might be the best thing i ever made” could definitely support a sense of maternal pride from prism, even sans the author’s desire to be adopted by their fav.

.

[stellar-collective]

Brain is a Toaster here, as I still have no idea how to send an ask on my alt for brainworms.

Speaking of brainworms, you gave me them. I now have mental images of Zoraxis trying to use Agent Phoenix's love of his friends (and /r for Ollie) against him only for Ollie and Reginald to start kicking Zoraxis butt because screw that no one hurts Phoenix

(Me: they're not even your interpretation they shouldn't live in your head

Also Me: hehe Phoenix deserves to be shown he's loved. As a treat.)

glad that i could share my brain worms with you hehe >:] it can be easy to forget that handlers have to go through combat training too, but these two random lackies remembered pretty quick

[solobodor]

is your agent phoenix supposed to look so bnuny or is that just their hair

Both ! monster people don't have visible ears ! (see hivemind and solaris lack of ears too) if these were ears, that would mean phoenix was an anthro, they exist in my interpretation too !

ACTUALLY hang on, here's a better visual explanation, their forms are more like a spectrum !

note that some mention character dont have a design yet ..

but as you can see phoenix is in the monster categories but border on the anthro's ..

Conclusion, Phoenix looks like a bunny but is not one, their "ears" are hair but they ACT like bunny hears, and will move like actual ears !

also ask me about the form categories I will ramble for hours and most of it are gonna be about teeths..

[thirdreverie]

I HAVE TWO AGENT PHOENIX INTERPRETATIONS IN MY HEAD AND ONE OF THEM IS A CHINESE IMMIGRANT WHOM I'D LIKE TO TALK ABOUT SOON IF ONLY BECAUSE OF THE FACT THEIR NAME IS A REALLY SHITTY PUN I'M UNREASONABLY PROUD OF.

[kenzie-the-drawer]

“It seems that this pesky Phoenix has risen from the ashes” - John Jupiter ✨

Hello people on Tumblr! Here’s a something I’ve been drawing recently ever since I realized the third part of the I Expect You To Die Series came out a while back 😅

Now, I’m kinda back into my IEYTD phase and was inspired to created my interpretation of Agent Phoenix >:3 Hope you like him!

Here’s even some thumbnails I want to show off lol:

[lavalampstealer]

🤝 How would you describe the nature of Phoenix and their Handler’s working relationship? (Bonus: at what point/s do you think this dynamic shifts?)

WOOHOO!!

Phoenix and Handler’s dynamic has been one that’s been a bit.. I don’t know, almost confusing. To me, at least. I see all these different interpretations of the duo and it’s hard to not have them influence my own at times. I’m gonna have to go game-by-game with this one because their working relationship definitely did change over the course of the series. And keep in mind, this is going to have a lot of headcanons/interpretations squeezed in here- I am going to go as close to game accurate as I can, which means it’s WAY too many words to not go under a cut. Also spoilers, of course.

Game 1: Phoenix (or rather, the Agent at this point), is a fresh faced newbie who Handler doesn’t seem to have long-term high hopes for. The beginning of the turning point for him starts as early as the end of Deep Dive, I’d say. He really didn’t expect them to make it out of that one, and he’s pleasantly surprised to see them alive. He’s a little more personable with them during their next mission, Winter Break, and even more so in First Class. He sets up riddles and puzzles in their cabin for them, clearly having fun with it.

By the time of Seat of Power and Death Engine, he’s definitely warmed up to the Agent and isn’t just putting on the show of being enthusiastic- it’s genuine. He’s at least gotten a little attached by now.

So, game 1 summary: from “oh goodie, new agent! I don’t expect them to last long” to “Hey, they’re not bad! I think they might actually stick around a while. We can trust them with a larger assignment.” (That assignment being the Juniper case- had we gone through Stage Fright in game 1, I doubt that the Agent would have been allowed stayed on. Not enough experience + hasn’t proved themselves, it would have been reassigned to someone who had that.)

Game 2: In the beginning, the Agent might just be one of if not his favorite active agents. He shows genuine concern and worry for them after they get reconnected in Jet Set, and he shares/expresses his disappointment with Juniper with them. I mean, just think about it- the last time he was disconnected from them like that was during Death Engine which, assumedly, would have resulted in any other agent at their skill level being killed. Moving on, he’s panicked for them when the guard comes in Eaves Drop (there’s more to talk about with ED but I’ll get to it somewhere else). “When you get back, you should get that eye looked at.” By now, he has confidence in the Agent and knows that they’ll make it back after this mission- seems easy enough, just sneak into John Juniper’s booby-trapped chateau and make it out alive with the briefcase. Piece of cake. Here’s my favorite part- Safe and Sound. Now there’s shift in their dynamic, nothing new there, but this time we feel it on the Agent/player’s end. They hear Handler acting.. off, to say the least, and they only lose trust in him as they become more and more uneasy up until the Juniper reveal. When they do get back in touch with the real Handler, there is a trust that’s been lost. Maybe not in Handler himself, as he scrambles to prove that he is who he says he is, but in whoever happens to be on the other side of their comms. But wait, there’s more! We learn from Handler that he’s apparently been searching for them himself for hours- do I even need to say anything for this? And here comes Rising Phoenix. His plea for the Agent to not do it as he recognizes that they’re going to sacrifice themselves, his cry for them when they fall, his shellshocked debriefing as he has to accept that the Agent Phoenix isn’t coming back this time, that there wasn’t even a body to recover. GODDDD HE CARES. HE CARES SO MUCH, IT HURTS TO LISTEN TO THAT DEBRIEFING.

To add to all of this, he had been (mostly) nearby/in very close proximity to Phoenix this time around, which means that they most definitely saw each other in person at least once. Stage Fright? I mean, it’s possible that they arrived separately and didn’t see each other. Jet Set is a no. Eaves Drop? They absolutely saw each other, Handler was up on the roof when they went down and came back up! Party Crasher? Handler was the getaway driver (“Come back to the van” versus “Get back to the van”). Safe and Sound? More of the same, they were probably driven by him to whatever their next mode of transportation was to get to the island with the Peace Summit. He wasn’t there for Rising Phoenix, but I bet that he would’ve been if he could have. Maybe he could have changed things..

Game 3: Good LORDDDDD his reaction in the tutorial (SOBBING SHAKING CRYING he’s so relieved and dare I say GIDDY upon finding out that Phoenix is alive and relatively safe). Yeah he’s so attached by now, it’s insane. HE WAS READY AND WILLING TO DIVE INTO THE OCEAN TO SAVE PHOENIX. !!! I’d probably have to go back and replay ieytd3 in order to spot more instances like this but tragically, I have not found a good chance to since this was asked + I don’t want to keep this sitting in my drafts for any longer than I already have (sorry asker😓). I was more focused on Roxana’s development than Handler’s when I did go through it, to be honest. He is very open and chatty by the end of this, though, he even tells us a story about his personal life! Even if we didn’t really get to hear about his thing with chickens.. sorry Handler.

I’m running out of steam writing this, but I like to say that this development applies to Cyan and Yellow as well, as even if I want to put my own spin on things with my Phoenix interpretation and such, I also like to have them be relatively on-brand. I don’t think it’d be fit for me to describe their dynamic in any other way than Agent and Handler, whether that be applied to how they were in Squeaky Clean or in Hot Water. It just Is, you know?

Hope you enjoyed the word wall!