Phantoms are heavily based on cells and their behavior in this AU

That being said, proto phantoms go through a life-cycle that looks like.... goo -> 1 big proto -> proto splits into multiple parts -> sub-adult phantom

Which means the phantoms in OITT have sibling groups of 2-5 individuals! these groups are insanely important in OITT and they're half the reason phantoms won. because they worked together

sibling groups can be of different types but they usually all have the same under-or-around eye mark :] these marks tend to be brighter than the rest of a phantoms body

the kings are of course, their own sibling group, and they certainly act like it! Plasm is INSANELY annoying to literally all other kings. near-youngest child syndrome

OITT liza :)

She's probably the alpha doing the best in this au. pretty harsh and direct with the animals that have stayed with her; given she has to be to keep them alive. she's so tired

Cosmo - sorta the alpha w/the most story significance by a longshot. he's the only alpha with any magic left given it was natural to him to begin with. sorta also a villian; since most plants have died off & been replaced by the more-or-less sentient phantom plants, he's attempted to tap into magic with those fellas. he's not too aware that the phantom plants in this au are connected to one of the phantom kings, but even when he learns he just isn't willing to give up his attempts w/phantom plant magic

Graham - captured by golgi, and currently kept in the fortress. the alpha with the second-most importance. he's insanely conflicted with everything at the moment since he's always been enamored with phantom tech- and golgi is like. The Nerd king. they have a tentative almost… friendship. of sorts. Golgi loves rambling to graham abt their latest inventions.

Gilbert - an absolute coward. Half of the reason so many animals died. despite being the "militaristic" leader; he'd never send himself into battle. he believes Greely sided with the phantoms willingly and if these two ever see each other again it's On Sight (has a whole issue w/not being able to ever be wrong himself, also. like he just totally ignores the fact he sends animals to die basically bc of his own cowardice)

Greely - an unfortunate, ratty bastard whose been forced onto the phantoms side due to a parasite. he's sorta used as a spy almost?? insanely paranoid about everything and everyone, even if he has no actual real reason to be

Liza - severely underdeveloped, unfortunately! all i have is that she helps keep a few animal outposts/groups safe. and she genuinely actually flat out wants milo dead (milos a panda adventurer who leads the phantoms back to jamaa. traitor)

Peck - also very underdeveloped :(

uhmm a short story regarding the queen in OITT and plasm... little drabble :]

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Given the other options, the Queen had thought she had made a great decision; bringing another king around- a mimic, no less! A king that could finally squash those pesky animals' trust in one another, a master manipulator who could tear the Alphas apart from the inside out!

What she hadn't considered, though, was just how bothersome this young king would be.

Sure, she thought. They've all started a bit... uncertain. Weird, even. Chloro, with her ever-growing disdain towards other phantoms. Golgi, with their awkward, geeky demeanor. But those two had- mostly- grown away from those traits as they aged.

And so she expected that to play out the same way with this new king, Plasm. She waited for them to find their place within the hive.

And waited.

And waited.

And yet, here she stood. Carefully observing each and every phantom in her most hardened, battle-ready battalion. Her gaze fixed carefully on each troop for at least a few fretful minutes, before shifting over to the next tense phantom in line. 

Plasm hadn't been seen around the hive for a few days. That never happens- it couldn't! 

They always had to show themselves at least once a day, be it by scaring the soul out of some poor ground soldier by taking the form of an armed animal, or awkwardly informing the queen that they- in their foolish, reckless stupor- had broken yet another vital cog in the fortress.

They had to be up to something. And the Queen wasn't stupid! Busy? Yes. Frustrated and about to snap? Absolutely. But not stupid. She knows her kings, like the back of her tentacle!

Wait.

She blinks back over to the heavy soldier she'd just examined. A deep orange heavy, whose name is Sludge, if she recalls correctly- a loyal soldier, with scars to show it!

...But this heavy had no scars. The color was right, the size, the behavior. But it seemed to lack Sludge's battle-worn demeanor.

With a quick, sudden movement that gained shouts of terror from her soldiers surrounding her target, she scooped the heavy up before it even noticed her suspicious once-over. 

" Young King! " She chided, her singular eye narrowed in a specific kind of certainty many residents of the Hive knew all too well. The previous terror covering the faces of the surrounding soldiers melted into amusement.

" Do you think this is appropriate? " 

A pause from the faux-heavy, then a plea;

" Your Highness- I, uh, don't- " 

The Queen cut them off, quickly, and firmly,

" Plasm. I know it's you. Don't try to act coy with me. "

The heavy stiffened a bit. Shit. They had been caught.

With a childish, frustrated groan. The form of the large phantom simply seemed to dissolve. First into goo, and then slowly but surely, into a much- much larger form. Their previous burgundy color changing to a much more vibrant, ombre violet.

"Mom! I was having fun- it was harmless- Sludge allo- " They were cut off, yet again.

" No excuses! I don't have time to hear it, you know the hives have been especially busy these past few weeks with the planned invasion! Right now is not the time for your shenanigans! " The Queen snapped, hoisting the king up with one tentacle.

Sometimes, just sometimes, she wonders if she made the right decision with hand-raising each and every unique king. This one was certainly testing her patience. A constant thorn in her side that never seemed to-

She blinked.

" ...What did you say, dear? "

" I said Sludge allowed it! He's off with his buddies somewhere in the fortress! " Plasm blurted, defensively. Their defiant leer never faltering.  

Her one eye narrowed further, somehow. Into genuine, unfiltered rage.

Plasm could wait. She thinks maybe, just maybe.

Hart

The last living, naturally-magic animal in my animal jam AU: Out in the twilight! (Barring cosmo but he has a whole other thing going on so. you know)

They're (apparently?) insanely old, and wear pieces of the shattered dire wolf & saber-tooth heartstones as earrings. Very very grumpy, they have insanely negative views on the long-deceased leaders of the previous two animal groups (Fang & Star). Also seems to just know a ton abt the ancient city and the proto-phantoms as a whole.

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everything below isn't directly related to Hart, just a ramble abt the ancient city & jamaas past and all that

Before the current, canon alphas. Alphas didn't... really exist? There were leaders though, such as Fang & Star (mammoths and other old animals had leaders, too, but these two are the most important narrative-wise)

Phantoms existed back then, too, which meant having semi-unorganized leaders made everything all the most hazardous. Though these phantoms are NOT the same as the ones around currently in the au, these fellas are ancient

The ancient city was built by sabers & dires, and the two species & their leader locked themselves in the city in attempts to flee the progressively more hostile phantom invasions. This leads to them being regarded as cowards & their names literally become insults in this AU

Turns out locking your whole species in an underground city is a bad idea! The ancient city fell first when the phantoms attacked as a full group for the first time (mostly because the animals couldn't unify), permanently shattering the heartstones of both animals. They, of course, then went after the surface-dwelling animals & their leaders

Several other species went extinct due to this, but eventually the ancient phantoms were MOSTLY locked away in the ancient city, literally buried in the remains of it

This lead to quite a long era of peace, and the au is mostly canon-compliant up until "Return of the Phantoms"; in which the few phantom groups that weren't caught in the city, by this point, had diversified and became a huge, hive-like, organized entity. They attacked the animals once again and turned up victorious, especially since the alphas had yet to re-unify before the attack and tension among animal species is still insanely high

Tldr animals lose the first time due to in-fighting, but manage to recover! but then they make that same mistake decades later and there's probably no returning from this 1

(Ancient phantoms still exist, also! They haven't bee rediscovered yet, but they're still trapped in the city. they're. unsettling)

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/ art by @bootleggreely​ !

Myelo (She/He/It/They)

An uncertain, hostile panda leader whose been watching over a group of animals ever since things went south.

/ art by @bootleggreely​

The Queen (She/It)

The leader of the Phantoms, and the mastermind behind it all.

Prior to the near-total takeover of Jamaa, this fella looked a lot like how we see her ingame! Just a large, round phantom; but after gaining power, she’s changed ,much like her own subjects have, and diversified into something... more.

She now resides almost entirely within the Hive, making up a large portion of the perceived “walls”, her tentacles winding through most of the Hive caves like roots. Though she absolutely can move if she wants too- she rarely ever does!