#«✫» We Forget that Fairytales Were Never Truly Happy ∣ PHOS: META.

[hclianthi]

I feel like it’s important to note just how sheltered the keykids are and how that affects the way their Keyblade War escalated. And it mainly comes down to one particular fact.

The keykids.....don’t really understand ‘death’. 

It’s easy to assume that all their talk of ‘disappearing’ and ‘going missing’ is just Disney Language™, but no. Throughout the disney worlds themselves, death and dying are constantly used and referenced everywhere except the one place you’d think the idea would be normalized - the one place where dying in the line of duty is almost expected. But it isn’t. To the keykids, to fall in battle isn’t dying. You only disappear. It’s like someone just...moves away. You just stop seeing them anymore, but it’s not a big deal.

There’s a concerning level of desensitization in Daybreak Town regarding the lives lost as a keyblade wielder. This extends even to the post-Foretellers world where, in the Summer Break special story missions, the fact that something in the realm of darkness was swallowing up keykids left and right wasn’t even given a thought until the sheer numbers they were losing was impossible to ignore. 

And I think this is intentional. It’s become increasingly obvious that the chi/khux war was set up in deeper ways than we initially expected. Despite being within the assumed 12-16 general age range, a lot of these kids act a lot younger than they are. There’s an immaturity that you usually see in blatantly sheltered kids, and a tendency towards lashing out when provoked (even in regards to the Player themselves), and that’s why the fights start breaking out so quickly over seemingly nothing. Daybreak Town has no solid emotional support or education system to teach them the levels of control they need in these situations. 

And with no solid emotional or logical grounding, especially with their only adult/parental figures all outright encouraging this with their own agendas and resignment to a fate they refuse to avoid, the children who depend on them for guidance can only follow their lead in the name of their Unions. 

And this I think is exactly the intent behind this portion of MoM’s plan. The truly exceptional are recruited by Ava and kept away from the fighting for ‘what comes after’, while the others go to war - potentially as a summoning method for Kingdom Hearts, which appears after all the kids have already fallen.

After all, if there’s no concept of death, why would they be afraid to go to war for their Unions? Why should they even give a second thought to making those other kids in other Unions ‘disappear’, especially if those kids are the real bad guys anyway? 

#«✫» We Forget that Fairytales Were Never Truly Happy ∣ PHOS: META. #«✫» A Spellbinding Tale Built of Hope and Bravery ∣ PHOS: WORLD BUILDING. #long post for ts

[hclianthi]

Ooooooh, thank you, this is such a good set of questions!

    So..... the important thing to understand is that is that Phos’s initial medal set up was not the best. Far from it. She initially hadn’t put too much thought or understanding into the attribute system that makes up Starlight’s battle ability and slot perks for each form and in turn, this strongly affected the way she approached battle for the rest of her life. So her combat ability actually doesn’t rely so heavily on medals or their individual power so much as her ability to duck and weave and deflect and battles to allow her more well timed strikes. 

    This was Phos’s set up for way too long, and Chirithy nearly had a conniption when he finally realized this was why she was struggling. Lady Luck is a Starlight keychain that is focused entirely on speed attributes, and while alternating attributes for specific movesets and effects are likely commonplace even without counting on attribute boosts, there’s no real strategy in place here. Her build was just all over the place and Phos ended up brute-forcing things at the start of her journey. 

    This meant that, unless Phos was up against Heartless at her level or lower, the magic of the medals alone weren’t having the effect they should have, and she just ended up expending unnecessary time and energy when they were her only source of attack.

    Obviously she improves, this being a more educated build - not perfect, but clearly much more understanding gained. And with greater understanding came with a much greater threat to her enemies. But what’s important is that the necessity from her initial struggle bred a far more valuable advantage. 

    It was because of this initial fumble in exploring the extents of her weapon that Phos very quickly learned to be exceptional in another: battle tactics. The disadvantage she carried with lacking the oomph of medal magic that other wielders had off the bat gave her a keen and necessary sense of strategy, requiring her to be quick on her feet and just as quick witted to achieve victory. Unorthodox? Very, but the lack of powerful medals and effective boosts to use them required Phos to use the medals she did have in the most optimal ways she could with her available skill sets; rather than attacking directly, she used the power of her medals to push and dash herself around or deflect, creating her own opportunities in battle. Coupled with her natural affinity for Speed and Power attributes, she can be a sharp hitter.

    This also opens her up to being very fluid and flexible as a team member, coupled with her skill in reading a battlefield allows for a unique flexibility with different styles and sets the pieces to steadily build up in both her trio and her bigger, future Party.

tl;dr Phos is a p a i n to fight because she’s so frustratingly hard to hit, the speedy movesets, parries and  that build her fighting style making her a nuisance for any battle partner. 

As for a signature move? 

    Her lucky draw: Foxtrot. A rarer, older medal that draws on the power of Foreteller Ava, allowing the formation of 7 clones made of light for a multi-hit attack. This allowed Phos to manipulate and utelize a multi-person attack herself for the short window she was able to draw upon the medal’s power. 

    Even when she loses her connection to Starlight and the ability to use medals in favor of forging a keyblade of her own heart, a remnant of this ability lingers with her. Though the number is far more limited, she regains it in sustainable time, and learning it (and magic in general) took intense training far outside the realm of her comfort zone -- the restrained world of the keykids in general -- to allow her to grow into her new role. 

light-clone-no-jutsu bih

#🌻┊Visitors to the Garden Reading ∣ ASKS. #🌻┊Probably Choked on Sunflower Seeds ∣ OOC. #«✫» We Forget that Fairytales Were Never Truly Happy ∣ PHOS: META. #«✫» Stories With Childlike Epiphany & Fiery Self Belief ∣ PHOS: HEAD CANON.

[hclianthi]

 Phos: The Unnecessary Summary, Because Sunny is Slow

aka I’ve started writing Phos without much of a formal introduction or much information to go off, so while I’m getting her official about page up, here’s a handy list with some basic info about Phos to run with.

i. Phosphera, going by Phos, is a Keyblade Wielder from Daybreak Town in the fabled Age of Fairy Tales (khux era), a protector of the Light aligned with the Vulpes Union. Though a little lonely and surely more heart than head, Phos is a cheerful, artsy and somewhat odd girl who enjoys her ‘travels’ to other lands while loyally serving her Union in collecting Lux and fighting valiantly against the Darkness without question.... At least at first. 

ii. Much like other wielders, Phos doesn’t have much information about her age or things beyond her duty as a Wielder. At the start of her journey she appears around 14-15.

iii. Though she was offered the chance to join the Dandelions by Master Ava, after much deliberation, Phos instead chose to participate in the Keyblade War alongside her Union. Though not for anything of honor or victory for her faction, but to disarm and hopefully save as many wielders as possible. Unfortunately it didn’t prove very successful, consequentially resulting in losing a close friend in the process and nearly her own death had it not been for Skuld and Ephemer’s sweeping of the battlefield.

iv. Eventually allowed to regain her memories of the fall of Daybreak Town, Phos aids the new Union Leaders by keeping a protective vigil over the wielders still in their dream-like virtual stasis till they’re allowed to reawaken in this new worldline and re-establish the foundation of Keyblade Wielders in a world (hopefully) united together this time.

#🌻┊Probably Choked on Sunflower Seeds ∣ OOC. #«✫» We Forget that Fairytales Were Never Truly Happy ∣ PHOS: META. #that last point may be subject to change as the plot updates #more hcs and me actually finishing her page will provide errybody with more info #hhhhhhh boi this is gonna be s a d

[hclianthi]

Alright so mostly these are some notes I wanna organize, so I’m just putting it out here to get my thoughts together on Phos’s story and how I want her timeline to go. 

Beginnings. New to the gleaming world of Daybreak Town, Phos learns to navigate her way through a world of battle and darkness as a young wielder of the union Vulpes, carving a way through the rankings with her newfound friends and fighting for the forces of Light and loyalty to her Union. But as tensions and rumors of war begin to fracture their way of life, she finds herself caught between the warring Unions and the secretive Dandelions for the future of their world.

Post-War: Starting over. With all knowledge and evidence of the Keyblade War erased from everyone’s collective conscience, life continues on as though the war had been nothing but a rumor on the wind. Now with a Party of her own, Phos moves on with her Union missions, followed only by a melancholy chirithy, a newly granted magical pig, and the shadows of strange battles that appears in her dreams.

Regaining her memories. At some point, Phos is either granted or reclaims the memories that had been repressed of the war and the loss of her close friend. And without knowing a healthy means to cope with the grief, she falls into a deep depressive state, throwing herself into Lux harvests as a means to run from the crushing feelings and memories she doesn’t know or understand how to process.

Recovery. Eventually, she reaches a point of acceptance. Now dedicated to carving her path in spite of the pain in her heart, she works more closely that would be behind the scenes of mainline missions as threats to their digital sanctuary begin to arise, a secret guardian for the new Union leaders that hopes to make things smoother for those yet to recall the loss. She also loses the ability to wield Starlight, so there’s that. 

#obvs this is subject to change as the story updates but for now this is what we workin with #🌻┊Probably Choked on Sunflower Seeds ∣ OOC. #«✫» We Forget that Fairytales Were Never Truly Happy ∣ PHOS: META.