uhh im not good at making big long meta-y posts that flow but for clarification’s sake vlr sigma will be referred to as sigma and ztd sigma will be referred to as klim
character in gen
for me, one of the selling points about sigma’s character is how selfless he is. there are multiple timelines in vlr where he pulls some self sacrificial shit for someone else-- going back into the rhizome in the luna ending, choosing to inject phi with the neostigmine instead of himself in the kyle ending, risking his own life and crushing his arm to save quark in the quark ending all come to mind immediately.
and yet, in d-team end 2, klim mentions how he always does things expecting some kind of reward?? this especially doesnt sit right with me because in vlr, it was still a text based game, and we got sigma’s internal thoughts as well, and not once does it ever say he’s trying to do something expecting payback? this couldn’t have changed in 45 years, klim was on the moon alone for a good chunk of them, and wouldn’t have gotten enough human interaction to get this state of mind. hell, klim’s whole 45 years on the moon? that was to create a path where he could go back and prevent 6 billion people from dying. i dont know, that seems pretty selfless to me.
hell, even in ztd, klim takes several selfless actions, begging diana to shoot him so phi can live, trying to stop the bomb from blowing up diana phi and Q team...and while we can’t see into his thoughts, he’s still prepared to die for them...and how are you supposed to get a reward if you’re dead?
in regards to his relationship w/ kyle
on to kyle. klim neglected kyle for 18 goddamn years and then, all of a sudden when he’s sent back to the past and has babies, he starts blabbing about how he’d never known unconditional love and how he would do anything for delta and phi and that’s just. such. bullshit? how dare he talk about unconditional love when he couldn’t even bother to raise kyle. sure, there’s the question of “do clones really count as humans”? but it’s evident that kyle has his own autonomy and feelings, and regarding his father, he very clearly shows how troubled he was over klim’s neglect.
klim only mentions kyle once!! akane mentions how kyle is “irreplaceable” in vlr’s secret ending, but evidently not! klim even mentions luna more often than kyle, talks about how he saw luna as a daughter, but never ever talks about kyle himself-- only mentions him along with luna and lagomorph to regret that they won’t exist. kyle gets the extremely short end of the stick.
in regards to his relationship w/ diana
im disappointed in the writing that came out between klim and diana’s relationship. the only scene between them that really felt significant to me was the scene between them in the healing room after they’re trapped in the shelter. i thought it was interesting how klim handled the situation different from diana, who was slowly unraveling because of his previous experiences on the moon, but it all felt like it went to shit as soon as the scene in the transporter room happened. suddenly, everything was going to be okay bc of one kiss! the relationship didn’t really feel real, it was more of a desperation for change in a confined space. i probably would’ve been fine if that was the only start to a romantic relationship between them, and maybe having that explored more over some time, but soon after the kiss, it’s implied that they had sex. like, 10 minutes or so after a semi-drunk diana asks klim to sleep with her? it feels rushed because in the end, the only reason they have a relationship is so they can pop out the babies in time to transport them.
in regards to his relationship w/ phi
mo (vigintiiunus) already touched upon this a little within her thoughts on ztd as a whole, and we share similar opinions after ranting to one another. sigma and phi’s realtionship was very important to me, as best friends, as partners. they bickered, cared, and trusted each other over the events of vlr, and it formed a healthy yet complex relationship that was so interesting to see develop. and yet, that all gets thrown under the bus as soon as sigma’s revealed to be her father. the biggest thing about sigma and phi’s relationship in vlr was that it was built upon them as equals, and there’s an inherent imbalance between familial relationships. think of it as all squares being rectangles but not all rectangles being squares-- all (healthy) familial relationships are platonic, but not all platonic relationships are familial.
see, even in ztd, until the ~reveal~, klim and phi had a similar relationship to that in vlr, and yet as soon as he realizes that she’s his daughter, it completely changes and they just straight up accept that! there’s no exploration of their familial relationship at all-- hell, team d is the only team that doesnt get an update on what happens to them post payoff 2, so it just leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. this relationship that was built so well, swept aside for a similar but fundamentally different one for the sake of the plot.
and now, looking back at vlr, i get this weird incesty feeling because there’s innuendos between them littered within the game, and while it’s always as a joke, it still feels wrong and leaves me with a nasty feeling now knowing that they’re related.
tldr; imo the writing with klim in ztd was bad, one ending just completely screws over his character, and most of it made him out to be a plot device to cover up holes in phi’s backstory and having a convenient connection to give delta one motive (existence)
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