#details: Phosa

[justashadetalkative]

.

I look into the waters and see a face I don’t recognize:

Who’s this?

(Who’re you?)

.

[justashadetalkative]

“I… maybe?” Phosa took the supplies with an uncertain air. She didn’t often draw. Still…

It took her a few tries to settle on colors, starting out with a plain black pencil and straight strokes before eventually switching to warmer hues and jagged, wandering lines. Once she’d found something that felt right, she flipped to a fresh page and drew a final version.

Phosa stared at it. It felt… the center was wrong. Gently tearing out the page, she pressed her thumb to the drawing and let her light burn closer to its full spectrum until the paper charred through.

That looked right. But the act itself had been unexpectedly satisfying, and Phosa found that she didn’t want to stop. She pinched out several thin lines, the paper vaporizing into smoke and ash, before making herself set the drawing down. It didn’t quite look right anymore, and what she really wanted to do was to keep going until there was nothing left… which didn’t feel like what Megan had asked for.

(For the first time, she thought she might understand why Linast had such a hard time keeping himself from scratching things.)

Once again, Phosa stared down at the drawing; gestured towards it, a little helplessly, and shook her head. She still couldn’t pull any words to mind.

"I... I can't explain. I don't have the words." (Phosa to Maude or Megan?)

mothtown starters

“Could you draw it, maybe?” Megan hesitated only a moment before she flipped her big sketchbook to a blank page and pushed it across the grass toward the other, followed by a box of colored pencils. “Here. You can use more than one page if you want.”

[quiet-psychic]

@justashadetalkative​ asked: “I’m glad you’re here. Truly.” (Phosa to Lys after a bad day?)

Lys hums quietly at that. They had known Phosa had had a rough day of some sorts. Even if she hadn’t told them the details of it. After spending enough time with her, they had noticed they had been getting a bit better at reading her. Or at least, what was there to read.

“I’m glad that I can help. Even if it’s just by being here with you.” All soft and reassuring. They did care about her after all, she was their friend. Lys wanted to be able to help her. Even if it was just little things like this too. Every little thing mattered after all. “Y’know I’m here for you Phosa, alright?”

[grumpyoldsnake]

[Image description: An illustration of Phosa and Linast reimagined into the Hollow Knight universe as sharing the body of a modified kingsmould construct. Detailed description below the cut. End ID.]

Hollow Knight AU for Linast and Phosa, mostly because I can and inspired by some interactions with @ausp-ice​ . I had fun with the design. :D

The vague undeveloped concept is that they’re a kingsmould that the Soul Master had gotten ahold of and used to experiment with storing large amounts of soul. Eventually the soul coalesced/broke free into a being of its own shaped by the kingsmould‘s original form, and there was enough life energy involved all around for sentience. Phosa is the soul-based being and Linast is the void-based being.

[Detailed ID: Two beings share a body that is shaped like the four-armed Collector from Hollow Knight; their head has the pronged crown shape of a kingsmould. The illustration is a turnaround showing them both with and without clothing; the clothes are a simple robe with a golden clasp. On the left, Linast is dominant and their from is black; Linast holds a blue lifeblood butterfly and cracks of white light cover their form. In the middle, Phosa has partially split from Linast, hovering above him as a white wraith connected to him by tendrils of soul and floating motes of void. On the right, Phosa is dominant, standing in a fierce pose with nail drawn and black legs fading into a white upper body that is covered in tendrils of void. End ID.]

[morrislotto]

Bapedi King Victor Thulare III has died

Bapedi King Victor Thulare III has died

The King of the Bapedi kingdom Victor Thulare the third has died. His death was confirmed on Wednesday by his lawyer Mathews Phosa. His death comes just months after he was recognized by President Cyril Ramaphosa as the rightful king of the Bapedi nation. Details surrounding the recently recognized king’s death are still unclear but it’s understood he died at a private hospital in…

[justashadetalkative]

Aaaaa this is wonderful! :D Thank you so much. It’s lovely to see that scene in the Archive illustrated, and it’s always neat to get a more direct idea of Wiki and Elk’s opinions. (And ahahaha, the entire exchange at the end regarding Phosa is amazing. xD)

@justashadetalkative Elk and Wiki see Linast and Phosa as very reliable in different ways, I suppose!

And just generally like them a lot heh

[justashadetalkative]

⚔️ CROSSED SWORDS — do you have any skills that you are absolutely grateful you have and that mean a lot to you? how do you usually use these skills? would they come in handy if someone you cared about was in trouble? ( Phosa + Linast )

The constructs glance at one another, flickering briefly in silent conversation.

“There’s a lot of stuff that means a lot to us that… other people would take for granted? Or wouldn’t think of as skills?” Linast offers after a moment. “Body language. Moving things. Making s-sounds.” He makes a face. “Talking, even. I’m ffinally getting to where that feels like my own skill, now, instead of something that’s only there because it was shoved in my head.”

“The skill of not crisping people with radiation unless I want to,” Phosa adds. “Pretty grateful I can do that. Took a lot of work.”

“…that,” Linast agrees. “But! Again… Lots of people, they take those things for granted. It isn’t exactly… fun to bring up.”

“So my skill is that I’m good at planning, and at committing to doing the work of… mm. How to put it. Following through on my decisions?” Phosa says. “Kind of the reverse thing, I guess… I’d probably take it for granted if I didn’t see other people have so much trouble with it. But it means a lot to me that I can be proactive. And it’s good when there’s trouble — whether that’s real danger, or just a friend having trouble cleaning their room.”

“And mine is my art. Which… I guess is part of body language — our bodies, those are kind of art we make, right? They’re our designs — but I more mean the, ah… the physical stuff I make. Sculptures, and paintings. I use it for… journalling, I guess; helping my own thoughts make sense to me, or at least getting them down somewhere. And for making gifts! I really like that I can make things that other people find beautiful, or that help them understand ssomething. I dunno if it’s good for other people in trouble, though… I guess it might cheer them up? But that’s about it.”

[justashadetalkative]

Writing Phosa

Writing Phosa is hard for a few synergistic reasons.

Part of it is… in-character, in a way?

Phosa barely knows who she is when not acting in relation to Linast, so of course it’s hard to write her on her own.

Right?

Except that’s not how writing is supposed to work.

Phosa might not have a strong self-conception, but I’m supposed to know her. She might not know how to act when on her own, but I should know how she acts when she doesn’t know how to act. And so on.

The problem is that I don’t, yet. Don’t know her that well, don’t know the answers to those blank spots. Don’t know how she makes friends that aren’t also Linast’s friends, ^_^;

Which is frustrating! I have much newer characters that I’ve written less than her, but I feel like I understand what I’m doing with them better than I do with Phosa. And I don’t know why.

[justashadetalkative]

Details: Clemcy & Phosa

Clemcy's avoidance of Phosa, especially in comparison to his behavior towards Linast, is twofold.

He didn't intend Phosa to exist. He was specifically exploring the shadow magic that was used to create Linast. Of course, he would have been extra fascinated by her spontaneous creation and its implications about the nature of said shadow magic; if anything he should be putting more focus into her than Linast. But...

...because of the mythology surrounding shadow magic in his home realm, he has a sneaking superstition that she might be a splintered, captured fragment of a god. He is Absolutely Not going to mess with that too much.

Simply put: she makes him nervous.

[justashadetalkative]

👻 GHOST — is there someone or something that you feel is missing from your life? do you know if there's any way to find it/them? (For Phosa and Linast!)

.

Phosa:

“I don’t… mm. It’s. I guess? Maybe? I don’t even know how to put it into words, though, and I don’t know if missing is the right…”

Phosa trails off. It isn’t entirely that she doesn’t know how to describe it, it’s that she doesn’t want to; doesn’t want to admit to the endless sneaking feeling that she’s doing something incorrectly somehow, that she’s never once interacted with someone without misleading them. She wants, somehow, to find some way to talk to someone—or some person who acts differently towards her in some way she can’t define, perhaps—where that feeling isn’t there. Even just once.

“…anyway. Doesn’t matter. If there’s a way to find, or, or fix it, I don’t know it.”

.

Linast:

“There’s stuff I’d like to change, or… dynamics? That could be different? But no, I don’t think there’s someone or something that’s missing, or anything. Maybe… ssomeday I’ll want more of a — a purpose, I guess. Something I can do that feels important in… a lasting way, instead of, uh, a preventing-disaster way.”

He shrugs. “But right now, it’s enough work just keeping up with life, and… ah, well, trying to make things suck less, hah.”

.

[justashadetalkative]

IC musings: Phosa

“I’ve been thinking about switching to a helmet design for my manifestation. I think I’d like it more if people weren’t… weren’t picturing a face when they’re thinking of me.

“But I also really like being able to use expressions — how they work, like in a conversation, I mean. So. I dunno.”

[justashadetalkative]

hc + 🌍 for a travel-themed headcanon — For Phosa and Linast? :3c

Phosa and Linast really enjoy people-watching, and they find the realm of the Spire itself claustrophobic, so they spend a lot of time off-Spire.

Their travel time is a roughly even split between visiting existing off-Spire friends and exploring new realms. They have the most practice with interpreting and mimicking humanoid body shapes, so humanoid-populated spaces are their most common destinations, but they’ve been to plenty of other realms as well.

They can spend a consecutive month or two off-Spire safely, but they don’t tend to push it that far. The Spire is their home, no matter how many mixed feelings they have about it, and they often get restless staying in any one place for too long—no matter where that place is.

[justashadetalkative]

hc + 🤥 for a lie-themed headcanon (phosa and/or linast)

Both of them prefer to lie with the truth when they can — not necessarily for any particular moral reasoning, they just find it much easier to do, hah. It also means that they’re less likely to accidentally contradict each other. They both lie fairly frequently when outside the Spire, mostly to misdirect people about their origins or activities.

For a long time, Linast found it very difficult to lie. This was mostly due to his difficulties with communication in general. It was hard enough for him to convey ideas in general, so lying with any more complexity than a “yes” when the truth is “no” or vice versa tended to leave him tongue-tied and confused; he’d quickly revert to the truth out of frustration.

Phosa didn’t have nearly as many difficulties on that front, and she has even fewer moral reservations about lying than Linast does. She also has more reason to lie… including to herself. Phosa tries very hard to seem like she’s always on top of things, even when she isn’t.

That said, all of it pretty much boils down to trying to protect themselves (physically or emotionally) or the Spire’s secrets. They don’t tend to lie for their own advantage, or even for social politeness’s sake. (Especially not Phosa. 😂)

[justashadetalkative]

Details: Phosa & Linast

Mundane video technology hits something not unlike an uncanny valley for Phosa & Linast on two fronts:

1) Their spacial awareness is intense and encompasses the electromagnetic field around them, so trying to process 2D images as representations of 3D objects & space was a learning curve for them. Even after they learned the trick of it, it’s still more like viewing an autostereogram than anything natural or automatic. (They have to trick themselves into perceiving it as looking at something that is very far away and outside of themselves, even as it's (usually) radiating from inside their range of perception.) 2) They don't have a brain that smooths a rapid sequence of images into a perception of smooth motion for them, and while their conscious processing speed isn't precise or rapid enough for them to truly discern the actual movement of light through space (unless working with large enough distances), they can still sense it to some degree. Between those two factors, it's like touching a vibrating surface; they sure as heck couldn't count the individual jerks, but they can feel that something about the motion isn’t smooth.

Some of these factors were mitigated during that human incident, and it went a long way towards helping them figure out how to interpret 2D images the way most sighted humans do.

[justashadetalkative]

🎖 Linast and Phosa?

Inspiration asks | Accepting!

Send 🎖 (or “bingo!”) + a character name for receiver to list off any random thing that inspires their writing of that character!

.

— Light/dark imagery obvs. Space, stars, eclipses, steel wool spinning…

— Geometric or swirling patterns, fractals, mathematics & geometry, harmonics, smoke… I had a tag for that sort of thing back when I first started the blog, actually! (Warning for lots of animated gifs at the link.)

— The psychology and linguistics of twins, undersocialized and neglected children, and sign-language-deprived deaf children. Also some biology and medical stuff.

— Reading Beanjamish’s OCT entry “The Cure” in middle school rewrote my brain a bit, hah. It was in that wonderful sweet spot of being genuinely compelling (to my tastes at the time) while also seeming like a Distantly Achievable Thing to me at that age, and it massively inspired me to write and draw. While I’d already (just barely) started using Linast as my first/main RP character at the time, it definitely threw fuel on the fire!

— OK by Holly Conlan is Wrong because it’s, well, relationship-oriented? But disregarding the chorus… the verses ABSOLUTELY helped me solidify Phosa’s attitude when I was first starting to actually write her. :)

— The electromagnetic field. Genuinely, just the thing itself, and all the strange ways it interacts with matter, it’s so fucking neat. The way reality itself is constructed is Wild and I love it. (…I have book recs. I am also seeking book recs.)

— Speaking of books! I’ve recently been rereading some books I originally read when I was a kid, and if they didn’t inspire me at the time I am certainly spotting parallels now and they are giving me ideas. xD

— Oreg from the book Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs (scary-powerful & teleporty & optionally intangible/invisible; jumpy af but also almost arrogant at times because that power does count for something; fucked over by someone who should have been a caretaker; furiously bitter; trapped into servitude and suicidal about it)

— Temeraire from the Temeraire series by Naomi Novic (scary-powerful; inhuman maturation pattern; quick learner; possessive; violent; kind-hearted; working so hard to understand the world and wanting that world to make sense, wanting people to actually live by the ideals they claim to uphold, reluctant to accept Rules without real justification)

[justashadetalkative]

Chronology: Phosa & Linast

A rough draft of some estimated ages in relation to significant events and threads. :)

(…Assuming I ever feel confident enough about this timeline for it to be worth the effort, maybe someday I’ll make an actual timeline that’s easier to read >_>)

--

Phosa gains consciousness — Linast age 2

Encountered and began observing civilization — Linast age 3.5, Phosa age 1.5

Phosa & Linast begin to experiment with sound production during this period, learning from sonic booms, thunder, drums, loudspeakers, etc.

They also begin mimicking the basic shapes & movements of animals and people

Captured by the reagent hunter — Linast 4.5, Phosa 2.5

Brought to the Spire ~3 weeks later

Socially safe to interact with ~6 months later

(By this I mean that they had calmed down & understood the basic social contract of not killing or hurting people)

Phosa gains enough control over her radiation spectrum to be able to safely manifest around unprotected humans — ~3.5 years old

Trusted to interact with people off-Spire: Linast 6, Phosa 4

By this point, Phosa & Linast had actively conditioned each other to mimic humanoid expressions and body language without much conscious thought

This is the time frame of most interactions with these two when they’re young, e.g. meeting Masha (@blind--magic) & Minor Mishaps with @ausp-ice

That Human Incident begins — Linast 8, Phosa 6

Phosa is returned to her true form by Clemcy ~6 months later

Linast destroys his humanoid body and his soul returns to the core, forcefully ending That Human Incident — Linast ~9.5, Phosa ~7.5

Linast regains consciousness ~2 months later, and regains lucidity another 2 weeks after that

Linast begins spending as much time away from the Spire as he can, Phosa follows but gives him space — Linast 10, Phosa 8

This is the time frame when Phosa & Linast are most likely to meet someone on their own! Linast is still very unstable but is trying to ignore it and act ‘normally’ via sheer force of will, and Phosa is lonely enough to be willing to socialize with other people without him around as a buffer.

Linast meets Steph ( @magicmonstersandmischief ) and Phosa meets Lys ( @quiet-psychic ) during this period.

Diamond asks Steph to enter the Spire and Linast tries to murder him for it — Linast 11, Phosa 9

Linast & Phosa find some vague semblance of equilibrium, return to volunteering within the Spire, and begin actively trying to socialize with non-Spire folk — Linast 13, Phosa 11 (e.g. Chiaroscuro with @elk-and-thearchivist )

Phosa & Linast begin experimenting with a prototype disguise generator — Linast 15, Phosa 13 (e.g. threads with @oflostinfound )

--

As for what’s to come… time will tell!