#ghost taxonomy

Formation: Basically just how much of a ghost they are?? It’s barely used as a category because obviously the majority are full ghosts, but with the existence of halfas, and mediums (who carry just enough ectoplasmic content to survive in the GZ’s atmosphere/be recognised as an ectoplasmic entity), it has to be taken into account. The sections in this category are, as mentioned before: full ghost, halfa, and medium!!

Origin: How they came to be!! There are only two sections to this category, being natural, and post-Eukarya. Natural just means that they were never a living thing, and were created purely from the GZ’s energy (or another ghost’s if we’re getting into Ghost Procreation™). Eukarya refers to a part of the Domain section of the normal classification system (which we’re calling ‘Sapien-Defined Taxonomy’ just to make it easier to differentiate), and short-hand it just means that the organism- multi celled or single- contains a nucleus. Post-Eukarya then means that they used to be made up of cells that had nuclei, but because ectoplasmic cells lack a nucleus (a thought I have about ectoplasm’s properties that I’ll maybe talk about at some point!!!), they don’t anymore!!! So, yeah, there’s natural and post-eukarya. 

Composure: Composure is their sentience, and this comes in three sections!!! Sentient, non-sentient, and simplified!!! The definition of sentient is “Having a faculty, or faculties, of sensation and perception/Experiencing sensation or feeling”, and then obviously ones in the non-sentient composure lack that!! Simplified is basically a weird spot between, in that they might kind of have a capacity for feeling (or, more specifically, they’re made of a feeling), but they don’t really have sense perception at all- like, certain kinds of ‘blob ghost’ can be comprised of a certain emotion, but they’re not really things that think??? Just an emotion that has a form and sometimes a face, if that makes sense. 

State: Fairly standard- just what state of matter they are!!! You’ve got solid, gaseous, and subliming!!! Solid and gaseous are pretty self-explanatory- just ghosts who exist exclusively in that state of matter- but subliming ghosts can go between either state!!! (Ghosts/ectoplasm don’t have a liquid state, because the solid state already really weird but still a solid?? The closest it gets to being an actual liquid is just. Weird clumps. If I figure out how to word this better I’ll talk about it but rn please please just go with me on this lmao!!!)

Subsistence: Subsistence refers to how they regain energy!!! The two categories here are ambient and active!! Ambient just means that their body absorbs the ectoplasm in the air automatically without any effort on their part, and active just means that they have to consume/ingest ectoplasm and/or other forms of energy in some way in order to get it into their system!!

Denomination: This is where we get into the more nuanced categories of phasma-defined taxonomy!!! Denomination just refers to what kind of ghost they are, with examples like shades, wraiths, banshees, and poltergeists all being different denominations!! There are a lot more than this though!!!!

Temperament: This is probably the broadest category out of all of them, which is why it’s at the bottom, but it’s also easy to understand, since it literally just refers to cores!!! Not going to list every option, but examples include: ice, fire, and electricity!!! There are a ton of different types of core, and the way they’re externalised can vary wildly between even same core-types, so it can be hard to properly pin down temperament, but it’s also an important one, so there’s a reason it’s here!!

Their classification is based on their denomination+temperament- like how they’re based off genus+species for the Sapien-defined taxonomy!!! 

Right!!! We’ve got the explanations, so now for some examples!!! We’ll start with Vlad just because he’s fun!!!! Here’s what his classification looks like!!!

(Image Transcript: Downward triangle split into seven sections, labelled (in descending order): halfa, post-eukarya, sentient, solid, ambient, revenant, fire. Vlad is labelled a ‘fire revenant’.)

And just for the sake of it, here’s two more examples!!! Spectra!!

(Image Transcript: Downward triangle split into seven sections, labelled (in descending order): full ghost, post-eukarya, sentient, subliming, active, obake, plasma. Spectra is labelled a ‘plasma obake’.)

And a Danny just for fun (and also so I can mention how much I love him being a banshee)

(Image Transcript: Downward triangle split into seven sections, labelled (in descending order): halfa, post-eukarya, sentient, solid, ambient, banshee, ice. Danny is labelled an ‘ice banshee’.)

As for whether or not some ghosts make use of Sapien-defined taxonomy??? They do!!! It’s particularly useful for  post-eukaryotic ‘animal ghosts’ like Cujo, because sometimes their denomination can be kind of hard to pin down, so it’s just easier to refer to them through their living classification!!! Like, you couldsay that Cujo’s a Grim, but you don’t really know on first glance and not every dog ghost is a Grim, so if you can just say ‘he’s a dog’ then you circumvent the issue (it’s still good to know though)!!!!

And there we have it!!!! That’s pretty much all I have to say about it, but if you have any questions or just want to talk about it more, please do!!! I absolutely love this sort of stuff even if I’m not like. An expert on it lmao!!! I’m kinda working on the stuff about ectoplasm as a substance atm, so hopefully I’ll actually post that at some pint because I have Thoughts™ lmao!! Either way, have a good day!! :D