#phasmology

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

Before I start, I want to make a point of saying that I’m only talking about Ghost Ectoplasm™ specifically and not ectoplasm as a whole (i.e., atmospheric/ambient ectoplasm), and while I might mention it in a section or two in terms of how it interacts with Ghost Ectoplasm™, I won’t go into too many details on the stuff itself (Might do a smaller thing for that though too, if I ever get in the mood for ectochemistry I guess!!!)!! (I also mentioned mediums in my taxonomy post, but we’re ignoring them for now because this stuff doesn’t really apply to them!!! This is exclusively ghost and halfa stuff!!!)

But, now that that’s out of the way, here we go!!!!

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Section 1: Ectoplasm’s Prokaryoticism

I’ll start with one of the things that came up in my taxonomy post- specifically to do with why ghosts that were alive at some point are classified as post-eukarya, which definitely raises questions to what they’re like now. Let’s talk about that!!

Post-eukaryotic kind of implies they’re now prokaryotic, meaning they lack a nucleus/membrane bound organelles. In the Domain category of taxonomy (the normal not-ghost one lmao!!), there are two other sections other than eukarya, which are bacteria and archaea. I bring these up because they kind of serve as a base to understand ectoplasm with!!! Post-eukarya ghosts’ ectoplasmic structure more closely resembles organisms labelled bacteria, whereas natural ghosts’ more closely resembles archaea. I wanted to make this distinction because it makes sense given their different niches:

(From the three-domain system wikipedia page)

‘Bacteria tend to be the most prolific reproducers, at least in moderate environments. Archaeans tend to adapt quickly to extreme environments, such as high temperatures, high acids, high sulfur, etc. This includes adapting to use a wide variety of food sources. Eukaryotes are the most flexible with regard to forming cooperative colonies, such as in multi-cellular organisms, including humans.’

An archaean-like structure makes a lot of sense for natural ghosts because of its ability to thrive in extreme conditions, since the Ghost Zone definitely counts as an extreme environment (for non-ectoplasmic entities at least). Bacteria-like qualities, on the other hand, make more sense for post-eukarya ghosts due to them being more likely go into the human world, and thus needing to be much more prolific cell-reproducers and restorers, having to be more ‘self-sufficient’ in that sense as a result of there being a lesser supply of ectoplasm to draw from. 

So I feel like I should mention now that I’m not thinking of ghosts as single-celled organisms here, even though that’s how prokaryotic organisms usually are because!!! They’re not always!!! It’s been a least a little bit evidenced that certain bacterial species can aggregate together, which is what multicellular organisms do, and even though there’s a big debate about whether or not we can really call them multicellular, I’ve made the elective decision that we can for ectoplasm!!!! Because they have at least some adhesion even if they’re pretty easily and harmlessly separated (which we can see in most ghost fights), and because the cells can clearly communicate seeing as they all move as part of a body!!!!

Anyway, back to more structure stuff, I’m gonna focus on post-eukarya ghosts just because (though a lot of this could be applied vaguely to natural ghosts too) we’re gonna look into a more specific part of it now to do with the subsistence category- which if you didn’t read the taxonomy post, is basically how ghosts ‘get’ their energy- either by naturally absorbing the ambient ectoplasm in the atmosphere or by having to actively consume energy through any one of various methods. 

I mentioned before that post-eukaryotic ghosts are more ‘bacteria-like’. But there’s also a further distinction in the ectoplasmic structure of ambient and active ghosts!!!! There’s a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) which can perform photosynthesis thanks to them containing internal membranes unlike heterotrophic prokaryotes (that can’t produce their own ‘food’), as well as photosynthetic pigments. Ambient ghosts function in a similar way to this, able to absorb the energy from atmospheric ectoplasm rather than having to actively consume anything- also why most post-eukaryotic ghosts are ambient!!! It’s advantageous when taking into consideration the lesser ectoplasm supply in the human world; if they’re constantly, automatically ‘recharging’, then it’s easier to quickly recover from damage (though we’ll get onto the specifics of that later)!!!

However!!! Active post-eukaryotic ghosts also exist (like Spectra!!), so their structure is a little different!!! Their structure can vary more wildly than an ambient’s can, but the more common structural resemblance is to the bacteria Actinomycetota, which can have a kind of symbiotic relationship with their surroundings. 

I think it’d be good to have an example for this, so Spectra’s ability is probably an easier way to look at it!!! Some kinds of Actinomycetota help out in ecosystems by converting nitrogen in the air into ammonia for plants, and in ‘return’ gain access to some of those plants’ saccharides. Spectra’s ability works in a similar way, even though the symbiotic nature isn’t mutually beneficial. She induces mood alteration (of the negative kind), and uses that to kind of ‘gain access’ to a target’s energy!!!! But not all active ghosts function this way- some can be beneficial like the kind of Actinomycetota mentioned before, and some are less symbiotic and just stay in the zone to ‘feed’ off its natural supply!!!!

Okay I’m gonna be honest my eyes are blurring looking at all this stuff about prokaryoticism so we’re gonna move on to a new section now for the sake of my brain staying not-melted!!!!!

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Section 2: Anaerobic Classifications

Just to make sure I’ve got a definition down before we get into it, aerobic and anaerobic respiration basically refers to whether or not an organism respires with oxygen/uses oxygen for growth or not- aerobic is when it uses oxygen, anaerobic is when it doesn’t!!!

Ghosts are anaerobic!!!! The GZ doesn’t naturally contain breathable/sufficient levels of oxygen (although it can be found in higher contents in areas with a higher population of post-eukaryotic ghosts and portals!!), so it makes sense that they don’t actually have a need for it, however!! There are actually different classifications of anaerobe, and a ghost can fall into almost any one of those categories!!!! There is a little bit of debate about the accuracy of these categories as classifications, but rn we’re just going to ignore that because they work well enough for ghosts!!! 

Anyway- there are three categories of anaerobes!!! They’re pretty easy to understand, so I’m just gonna put down what the Wikipedia page says!!! :

Obligate anaerobes, which are harmed by the presence of oxygen. Two examples of obligate anaerobes are Clostridium botulinum and the bacteria which live near hydrothermal vents on the deep-sea ocean floor.

Aerotolerant organisms, which cannot use oxygen for growth, but tolerate its presence.

Facultative anaerobes, which can grow without oxygen but use oxygen if it is present.

So, which ghosts fit what definition?? Well, no ghosts are actually facultative except halfas in their human form!!! Or, well, on the whole they’re kind of a weird mix of a microaerophile (which is fully aerobic but higher concentrations of oxygen are poisonous) but also maybe slightly facultative, which I know sounds weird but halfas are just super weird either way [and we’ll get into some of that weirdness more in the fourth section lmao]!! Mediums are full microaerophiles but I haven’t talked about them properly yet so we’ll leave them for another day!!!!

Moving on, the majority of natural ghosts are actually fully obligate with a couple of noteworthy exceptions like Clockwork, Undergrowth, Nocturn, and some others!!!! I know you might be thinking if you read the taxonomy post- ‘why is this not a section in the taxonomic classification system??’ And my answer to this is!!! Because if a ghost isn’t fully obligate, it can get pretty complicated. I say fully obligate because, in reality, all ghosts are obligate in a weird way, but some- namely, post-eukaryotic ghosts- have adaptations to help with this!!!!

I’m going to say the adaptation is kind of like. A protective layer of sorts??? They have a kind of ‘outermost layer’ of aerotolerant ectoplasm to protect everything underneath from coming into contact with oxygen, and it also works as a filter system for ambient ghosts so that the ectoplasm absorbed from the atmosphere is pure and any oxygen it might have reacted with is separated and left behind!!! It’s pretty quick to cover over again when a ghost is hit unless the damage is serious- I guess you could compare it to potassium metal!!! If you’ve ever seen a video of someone messing around with potassium metal, it’s got this kind of dirty-looking layer over it, and if you cut it the inside’ll go bright at first but it tarnishes super quickly, and it’ll soon look the same as the other uncut parts of the outer layer!!! 

Speaking of which, this is a pretty good way to bring in how ecto-weapons work and why they hurt ghosts beyond just the force of the shot!!! Like I mentioned before (and Might get into more sometime in another post), atmospheric ectoplasm will react with oxygen!!!! This is important because that’s the stuff that ecto-weapons use; it’s not pure ectoplasm because you can’t find that naturally outside the GZ!!!

So, if the stuff is shot at a ghost through something like an ecto-gun, because it’s obviously forceful and makes contact at a high-speed, it can damage and even break through that aerotolerant layer and get oxygen into their system, which really isn’t good!!!! If the damage is just surface-layer/superficial, it can be recovered from pretty quickly (thinking back to the potassium analogy!!), but if the damage is more serious and that oxygen- even reacted with ectoplasm- manages to really get into a ghost’s anatomy, preventative measures need to be taken in order to ensure that it doesn’t reach the ghost’s core/the rest of their body, and this is where the next section comes into play!!!!

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(TW: There's some pretty bad injury/medical talk in these next sections (Section 4 especially), so please be mindful!!!!)

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Section 3: Programmed Cell Death

Okay when I said I was done talking about prokaryoticism I actually meant I was done talking about cyanobacteria and actinomycetota similarities. Prokaryotic organisms like bacteria don’t really have ‘immune systems’ in the same way most eukaryotic organisms do, so they sometimes can’t fight off things like infection if the infection isn’t manageable from the get-go. Instead, they initiate a form of ‘programmed cell death’ in order to prevent the pathogen from reproducing!!! And now here’s how that’s relevant to ghost injury!!!!

So!!! Long story short, if a ghost gets oxygen into their ‘inner system’ thanks to something like an ecto-gun, the area the injury originates at literally just dies off, and separates from the body before it can spread to other parts. For example, if a ghost was hit in the arm badly, that arm can literally just fall off and grow back like a lizard tail!!! This can be done with pretty much any part of a ghost’s body- the only aspect of a ghost that’s actually genuinely problematic to injure is the core, because most ghosts- provided they’re not already low-energy- can just regrow everything else, though they may need to head back to the GZ for the higher ectoplasm quantity if the loss is severe enough!!!!

Really short section, I know, however!!! There is a complication to this stuff, and this is where we get into the difficult bit!!!!

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Section 4: Halfas

The problem with halfas is that they’re not totally ghosts or totally humans no matter which form they’re in, and this can cause a lot of complications when it comes to stuff like injuries- but first, we’re going to go into integration. 

Ghosts are prokaryotic. Humans are eukaryotic. Halfas are…???????? Kind of both kind of neither????? There’s this one thing called a Parakaryon that we can’t classify as either eukaryotic or prokaryotic because it’s so weird, and it’s kind of like that, in that their cells have aspects unique to both types. This is probably a result of all their ghost stuff and all their human stuff trying to combine/integrate into one thing, and ending up as something almost entirely different in the process. This also means that their structures in both ghost and human form are weird, because halfas at least somewhat need organs, which ghosts don’t (other than a core if you count that as an organ), and they also need ectoplasm, which humans don’t. 

Because of all this weirdness, there can be a lot of potential issues with a halfa getting injured, because humans can’t and don’t defend against harm in the same way ghosts do, and vice versa. While ghosts can just get rid of something and grow it back, that’s not a natural option at all for humans, and while humans can fight against infection in an injury thanks to their white blood cells, ghosts don’t have that in the same way. So what does that mean for a halfa?????

What I’m thinking is that, for most non-lethal but slightly beyond superficial injuries (slashes, broken bones, burns, etc.), they’re able to defend against them in a human way, since they still have a human-immune system. So, for injuries like that, especially if it’s caused by an ecto-weapon, it’s weirdly enough best to deal with those in human form, since they can be pretty easily recovered from and it’d really suck for your finger to just. Fall off because you hurt it pretty bad and stayed in ghost-form for too long so your ghost-recovery-system kicked in before your human one did. I’m almost completely sure it’d grow back, but that’d still cause a lot of problems, since you wouldn’t have a finger. 

However, major injuries are a bit more… difficult. Because at this point your ghost-recovery-system would be kicking in regardless of what form you’re in. It’d want to activate programmed cell death and separate from the body, but human bodies just don’t do it the way ghosts do, and it’d be fighting to keep all your everything attached because separating could make it a lot worse. So major injuries aren’t just problematic because they’re major, but also because they present a whole new issue: necrosis. 

Basically, the ghost stuff wants the whole injured section totally separate from the body, so when the human stuff doesn’t let that happen, it does what it thinks the next best thing is: having the cells sort of ‘spew their guts’ as like, a really weird and warped form of ‘separation’. The cell membrane ruptures and releases the contents of the cell, but because it’s such an uncontrolled release into a space outside the cells, it causes an inflammatory response in the surrounding tissue. This then gets the attention of the human white blood cells to get rid of the dead cells, which is all well and good, except that some kinds of white blood cells (leukocytes) release a microbial-damaging substance that ends up causing more damage in that inflamed surrounding tissue. That all ends up inhibiting the healing process, so the decomposing surrounding tissue and the dead cells can just build up around and cause even more issues (Like, gangrene in particularly nasty cases, which. Ah. Eugh.). 

If it doesn’t heal on its own and does just build up, the only real way of getting anything better is to surgically remove the necrotic tissue. Thankfully, despite all the horrific stuff I’ve just said about halfas’ injury-response systems, they do actually have an accelerated healing factor thanks to the extra energy source (ectoplasm), so it doesn’t tend to get to this point in the first place. This is just what happens if that rapid-response system decides that the only way to solve the problem is to try and totally get rid of the problem, which I guess is just one of the downfalls of being someone made up of a combination of things that shouldn’t really exist together. A double-edged sword of sorts!!!

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