Methods of travel between the Infinite Realms and the Living Realm
Note: it is tempting to think of the division, or Veil, as a membrane between the realms. In reality, it is not a skin or wall made of any substance. Rather, it is simply the place where an ectoplasmic reality-space and a mundane-matter reality-space rest against one another. It is less like a film of oil floating on a body of water, and more like the glassy surface of the body of water itself. The water holds itself together with surface tension and you can see the divide, but there is nothing actually separating the water and the air. We will colloquially refer to the Veil as "self-healing", but it's really more like it is settling. Simply the increasingly-entropic nature of the mundane reality and the decreasingly-entropic nature of the ectoplasmic reality finding a steady point they're both happy with.
1. Slicing a hole in the division.
Some ghosts specialize in this. It's fairly easy if you have a good sense of fourth-dimensional space and a sharp edge. The cut will self-heal, though, especially if it's messy, so it can be difficult to open a wider gap or leave it open for more than a moment. The mechanics of the slicing are fairly simple; like a shark fin about to surface, a blade that's almost touching the division causes currents that disrupt the fields enough to allow for the tip to easily pass through (see Method 3 below for further explanation), and then the wider part of the blade increases the size of the cut. The trick is in not touching the tip to the Veil before it's been destabilized. Perfektigas Tranĉadon is a good practical guide.
2. Punching a hole in the division.
With enough force (the true amount necessary is not exactly known, but it is known to be colossal), the division can be pushed and broken. This results in a hole which takes a long time to close on its own and produces a number of "shards" or "bubbles" of the division, which can knock their surroundings askew in the fourth dimension. These shards introduce incontinuities in spacetime, which will quickly equalibriate but momentarily pose a threat to laws maintained by continuous spacetime. The punching process also results in a jet of reality-material from the entrance side to the exit side. For further information, consider reading Continuous Space: Geometry and the Infinite Realms. This is the method perfected by the Ring of Rage, and it can also be achieved by any object with enough momentum (that is, velocity times the sum of ectoplasmic mass and mundane mass) being flung at the right fourth-dimensional angle.
3. Exciting the division until it is permeable.
If the spaces in realities on either side of one area are sufficiently energized, the Veil in that area can loosen up into a chaotic mixture of mundane and ectoplasmic space, which is not practically impossible to pass through like a smooth division is. This creates an illusion of a smooth gradient between mundane and ectoplasmic reality— in actuality, a space cannot be simultaneously ectoplasmic and mundane. This would be an impossibility, and, if it impossibly came to be, result in totality-altering paradoxes¹. It's more like tiny pockets of reality too interspersed to be noticeable, like an emulsion of milkfat in water (milk) or an aerosol of water in air (fog). The biggest issues with this method are (1) exciting the ectoplasmic field and quantum field simultaneously and (2) containing the excitement such that it doesn't dissipate in the Living Realm and/or coalesce in the Infinite Realms. Thus far, this is the only portaling method managed by mundane technology, and it is also the one usually used by summonings which do not rely on the summoned ghost for transportation (or fail to peovide transportation at all). Use of Ectoenergetic Excitement Alongside Gauge Field Dynamics in Ectoplasmic Portalling, being written by living scientists, is not a perfect explanation of the "how" or "why", but it explains the "what" pretty nicely.
4. Teleporting.
Ghosts with an ability to rewrite their position in spacetime, via whatever method, generally have no more issue moving interdimensionally than moving intradimensionally. The division only acts as a barrier when moving continuously. If your "teleportation" has issues with interdimensional movement being stopped at the division, it is possible you are actually moving continuously and simply too quickly or abstractly to notice.
5. Simply shifting your balance.
An item or entity which is positioned perfectly on the division can "tip over" onto one side or the other without facing any resistance. This is largely not an actionable method, as it is practically-impossible to obtain the perfect positioning and would require using one of the other methods to obtain it in the first place. Additionally, the smallest destabilization in fourth-dimensional space will tip the object, and the "fall" is not reversible. While a balance on the division is technically at equilibrium, it is a weak equalibrium in this sense and is not stable. An object which is stable in a state of being wholly ectoplasmic and mundane simultaneously (an entity fitting this description is known as a "true halfa", "Limenarch", "owuw-uwow", or y'know just their name that they go by for once) is, however, always positioned perfectly along that balance, and can shift one way or the other without being disrupted. There is no other writing published on this topic that I can find, so you'll just have to take my word on it.
6. Bringing one space to another.
On rare occasions, usually the work of powerful beings with domains in space or reality, such as certain Ancients or the Ghost King, an area of one reality is moved to an area previously occupied by another. In this circumstance, the shift generally causes enough chaos and mixing that the division is permeable. If it happens quickly or instantaneously, though, and the reality that was previously occupying the space is not moved out of the way, the impact with the division can be sudden and dangerous.
7. Entering a black hole.
I'm not entirely sure why this happens. The mundane matter that enters a black hole in the Living Realm measurably becomes a part of the black hole itself, so why does it also appear in the Infinite Realms? Does this disrupt the conservation of matter/energy, or are the two dimensions already on opposite sides of that coin? It seems impossible to tell, as the Infinite Realms have an infinite hypervolume. This is a puzzle that hasn't been solved yet, to my knowledge. Grab something made out of mundane matter and try it sometime, if you can survive immeasurable gravitational pull. It's pretty mind-boggling.
8. Using a natural portal.
Most of the phenomena described above can happen without intentional cause, thus forming a short-lived natural portal. When influenced by certain currents in ectoplasmic flow, these passages can be at odd temporal angles as well as spacial. Thus a natural portal is more likely to cross time than an intentional portal, only a few methods and users of which have been noted to be capable of transtemporal travel. There are not currently any known instances of mundane matter or energy causing a portal which crosses time. Most community centers in the Infinite Realms will have resources available for tracking natural portals.
"man what if there was something incorporating both the Ghost King and Ghost Hunger aus" i say, not prepared to spend weeks writing up an entire ecosystem structure for the ghost zone,
thanks @attackradish and @ectolemonades for help figuring out the science and writing!
summary: The ghostly Staff who've taken up residence in Phantom's Keep notice Danny doesn't eat any ectoplasmic food. That can't be good for him.
warnings: detailed description of ghost hunger, which is vaguely like cannibalism
words: 2830
AO3 link
===
“King Phantom, when do you feed?”
“Huh?” Danny looked up at the Keep’s Librarian, Vellum. It felt like an odd question, seeing as he was currently actively eating a sandwich he had packed up with him into the Zone. He was spending a few hours in the Keep that day since it was nice and quiet for getting work — from both realms — done, and he had brought some earth food over. Ghost plants just didn’t taste very good.
Vellum looked a little shocked, like she hadn’t realized she’d asked her question aloud. “I mean, clearly you eat human food quite a bit,” she gestured to his sandwich, “but I’ve never seen you take in any sort of ectoplasmic substance.”
Danny wasn’t an expert on the (strangely psychological) ecology of the Infinite Realms, but he was familiar with the fact that all ghosts had to take in some sort of ectoplasm if they wanted to be anything more than an inert impression of emotion. Since he had never gotten any enjoyment or significant energy from eating ghost plants or breathing in the stuff ambient in the air, he pretty much just stuck with eating human food and converting the chemical energy between his forms. He was lucky that he could do that, being part human. He knew he automatically gained some energy from the human emotions around him (including his own, another benefit of being liminal) but it was negligible. He got drained pretty easily, and he knew there were things he wasn’t trying, but… he was tired, not desperate. He’d be tired anyway, with his lack of sleep.
“That’s because I don’t. I can still use the chemical energy I get from human food in my ghost form, so…” he shrugged. “This is pretty much it.”
Vellum’s brows furrowed in concern. “Are you not a—” She pursed her lips. “Are you not tired?”
“What do you mean? I definitely eat more than a regular human, and as far as I’m aware I don’t lose any of my energy in conversion. I’m getting by.”
“I think we should talk to Dr. Marchs. I don’t know if it’s… ok, that you’re not feeding ectoplasmically.”
With some exasperation, Danny let himself be brought back to the Throne room, the preferred place for anything that could constitute a “meeting”. Apparently, talking to the Keep’s Doctor, Chef, and some other Staff members about his diet counted.
The various adult ghosts looked at Danny with shared expressions of confusion and concern from where they stood around him. He was sitting on the arm of the Throne, not the most comfortable but it still felt wrong to be properly seated in it unless necessary.
Dr. Marchs finally spoke their piece. “Forgive me for asking, Your Majesty, but… are you not a hunting-ghost?”
Danny was already out of his league culturally. He had a lot to learn. “As in… like, a predator?”
“Exactly! Your core best processes ectoplasm directly from other ghosts, correct?”
Danny paled. “I don’t… know? I tend to avoid going around, just… eating other sentient creatures.” He tried to say it in a humorous way. It didn’t work.
“So you’ve never tried! I had thought… Well, I think you must be a hunting-ghost. You put out a radiant power that is only associated with that core type.”
“None of us have seen you feeding,” added Vellum, “so we weren’t sure you didn’t just defy that association. I don’t think anyone really understands all the complications of half-human physiology.”
Dr. Marchs jumped back in easily. “It’s still just speculation. You have said that you don’t enjoy eating plants from this realm, yes?” Danny nodded. “And you don’t seem to get significant relief from human emotion. Well, we’re just going to have to have you try feeding on some ghosts.”
Danny jumped to his feet. “What?! I don’t… need that, I get by fine on human food!”
“But aren’t you tired?” pointed out the Chef. Her eyes widened. “That’s why you get so drained after using big attacks! Your energy reserves aren’t being nearly refilled.”
“I believe she’s right, Your Majesty. There’s only so much energy you can take from human food, which isn’t even alive… I think you’re always tired because your core is designed to have a level of energy that you can’t provide it without processing Vital ectoplasm.”
Danny didn’t want to admit that he was consistently pretty damn tired. Instead he tried to change the subject. Ghosts were passionate beings, and as much as he hated to take advantage of that, having one of the Keep Staff gush about one of their passions to him was much better than talking about his relationship with what was essentially cannibalism. “Vital?”
Dr. Marchs’ eyes sparkled a little. “Vital as in living, not as in essential. Ectoplasm comes in three major forms. Ambient plasm makes up most of the Realms, in environments and atmospheres and auras. All ghosts are made up of Vital plasm, and those with cores have their Obsession or Purpose imprinted into the crystal structure of their own ectoplasm, which can be turned into Charged ectoplasm. The Charged form can take up an elemental type according to the ability of its source, and it has the most capacity to hold or be converted into ectoenergy. The Charged form is used to transmit intention onto a target, so it’s generally created by Cored ghosts, who are creatures of intention, in attacks or construction. Regardless of type or state, ectoplasm processing depends on its form — Uncored ghosts can process strong human emotions or Ambient ectoplasm into the Vital type. Among Cored ghosts, hunter-ghosts can best process Vital ectoplasm, gatherer-ghosts the high-activity type of Ambient plasm found in ghost plants, and scavenger-ghosts human emotion. Additionally, Charged plasm no longer linked to the source of its intention will eventually disperse into Ambient, as its most inert form.”
Danny, sitting down, had already known part of that, but the Doctor was properly smiling at this point. Dr. Marchs blushed as they realized they had just been talking, but none of the other ghosts in the room appeared to mind.
“…Regardless, King Phantom, we should really find some blobs for you to try eating. I cannot in good conscience leave you persisting off such low energy.”
He wanted to argue, he really did, but all the Keep Staff present were looking at Danny with this pleading expression. They looked genuinely concerned, and he remembered a comment he’d heard before about some of the Staff latching onto the King with their Obsessions. Some unfortunate result of the connection they’d formed with the Keep, Danny certainly didn’t deserve it, but he did know how it felt to Obsess over taking care of someone and have them turn down that care. With the same concerned look directed back their way, he got up and was led to the Garden out back.
Danny was having second thoughts again once he found himself surrounded by blobs that had been enjoying the intricate plants and high Ambient ecto levels of the Keep Garden. They were squishy but soft, like mochi coated in a good layer of starch, each a bit smaller than his head, and they all looked at him with these big vibrant eyes. Their postures were energetic, like they expected to play a game.
Once he sat down with the rest of the small group — why did he have to have an audience? — the blobs swarmed around him, resting on the sky blue grass and on his shoulders and in the others’ laps. They looked almost as expectant as the Staff in front of him.
“I…“ he bit his lip. “I can’t justify eating a living creature when I can choose not to. I know lots of ghosts have to eat others to persist, but I have the privilege that I can eat human food instead. Since I have that option, I can’t just… end another creature so I can feel a bit better.” Hey, Sam would be proud of him.
The present Staff donned looks of confusion. An Advisor who used the Keep as a home spoke up, eyes wide with realization. “Ah! Living creatures all share a survival instinct — that’s a natural result of evolution, yes? Things that do their best to live have their genes passed on? That’s not necessary for Uncored ghosts, since they do not reproduce and therefore don’t evolve. The only instincts experienced by the Uncored are instincts to better the Realms. Unless they’ve developed a strong individual personality, the Uncored are much more interested in contributing than in persisting.”
Danny’s head tilted in curiosity. Dr. Marchs took the reins on the rest of the explanation.
“The Realms are built socially where the living realm is built physically. Our homes and well-being are made from emotion, belief, and community. So for Uncored ghosts, spawned of the dimension itself, they want their ectoplasm and energy to be where it supports those communities the most, and that means ensuring the health of the ghosts in charge. Generally speaking, the more powerful a ghost is, the more likely they are to have some importance to the Realms. The Uncored — and many Cored — can sense a ghost’s power due to how much excess ectoplasm they let off. In fact, that excess is almost immediately put off as Ambient ectoplasm, meaning that there is simply more Ambient plasm around a powerful ghost, and the Uncored are often attracted since that provides sustenance for them . It’s a mutualistic relationship where one entity feeds off another, and in the end the resources of the weaker ghosts are given to the stronger, supporting the Realms. In fact, there are some cultures who believe that converting ectoplasm into a form the Cored can process is the entire reason for the existence of the Uncored.”
Vellum smiled slightly as she added on, “It’s not an entirely accurate strategy, as the most powerful ghost around is not always going to be a hunter type. They usually are, seeing as that’s the most efficient form of feeding, but it’s not impossible to be otherwise. The result in these cases is Uncored ghosts following around said Cored ghost, and as the same aspect of community comes into play, that ghost soon ends up hanging around a hunter type, who feeds on the prey that was collected.”
Danny cringed a little at the use of the word “prey”.
He looked around at the blobs nuzzled up against him. Those who didn’t look to be something resembling unconscious were peering up at him. They certainly looked expectant, as much as something without even a permanent mouth can.
After he was silent for a few moments, another Staff member spoke up, likely wanting to lighten his mood. “They really do like you! I’m not surprised, even aside from your natural power, the role you play as High King causes ectoplasm to be magnetized to you. I’m sure they’re having a little feast themselves!”
It did not lighten his mood. Danny felt genuinely guilty. Even if he wasn’t doing it on purpose, wasn’t he effectively manipulating these creatures into offering themselves up to be eaten? It wasn’t right, to make them feel as if they want to be ended, just because he had some sort of aura.
But the gathered Staff were still concerned, and anticipatory, and, somehow, hopeful . He couldn’t turn them down at this point. He’d just have to bite into one of the little ghosts surrounding him, just once. He’d throw up, disgusted with himself, and the Staff would realize it wasn’t better for him, and the remaining blobs would remember that they don’t want to die, and they’d flee, and everybody would just leave the subject alone . He only had to try.
(The human dread he was emitting at this point must have been feeding everyone else.)
“…Okay,” he said simply, and gently picked up a blob that had been sitting on his leg.
Before he could rethink himself again, he brought it to his lips. He opened his jaw slightly wider than a human’s would likely go and, fangs instinctually extended, bit down.
Danny was familiar with the scent of ectoplasm. Copper and citrus and battery acid and salt. But when he broke the surface of the small ghost and the viscous fluid burst into his mouth, the salty and bitter aspects were lost on his tongue, replaced by a thick sweetness and the cold tingle of energy. Where his fangs pierced an inch down into the substance of the ghost, he tasted this fulfillment in its emotional ectoplasm. He’s not sure he would have been able to taste it if he weren’t part human. Still, the feeling was something distinctly ghostly, a similar satisfaction to fulfilling an Obsession or a Purpose. It was hard to feel bad, sympathizing automatically with that simple rightness. The way the emotion pressed at his brain, the way the semisolid edges of the ghost slicked against his tongue, his own self-revulsion melted to the back of his mind. The ectoplasmic flesh met his teeth with a thick resistance, but it was nothing to break past it and open up to the deeper substance. It was vibrant, a pure cool energy that pulsed against his fangs. (His core sucked it up greedily.) His mouth met the energy with a pulsing of its own, a harmonizing signal sent from his core throughout his body like a heartbeat. It came out as a low purr that vibrated deep through the charged air around him. He couldn’t help but rush to swallow, though his body absorbed it just as easily without.
The blob ghost had been the size of his foot, and now it was part of the energy making up his own form. Compared to the power his core was passively putting out, to the amount it longed to have refilled, it wasn’t all that much. Unconsciously, his core put out an ectoenergetic signal that he was ready to feed. The blobs around him nuzzled closer yet, making themselves available. Danny could feel a few other Uncored ghosts who were drifting nearby come into the garden and join them.
He looked up from his ectoplasm-stained hands at the Keep Staff. They were looking at him, relieved, pleased (even though they just watched him tear into a living thing and then absorb it into his being like it didn’t even matter, said a part in the back of his consciousness. It was hard to focus on, though. It was coming from his brain, not his hungry core, after all). With his core this active, he could feel the presences of all the other ghosts around. The blobs flocking around him had auras that were weaker than the Cored Staff, but sturdy. There was a balance to them that signaled the ectoplasmic types they were taking in and storing. He sensed the Uncored pulling in the Ambient ectoplasm that sloughed off of him, barely connected to him anymore if not for the weight of the space surrounding him. And he could feel all of their stores of energy-dense Vital plasm.
He could also feel, just as an aspect of his being, his own energy stores. The metaphysical space in his center that his form and all his strength drew from. He could remember, abstractly, the moment he died and that reservoir came to be and was instantly flooded with energy. The way the portal had searched the air until it found his body and his little human soul and used him as a conduit, and all that electricity punched a hole between planes right where his ghost was trying to form, and something tore outward from that starting place just on top of his being, and the vacuum that formed on earth and in the Zone and everything in between pulled until the Infinite Realms rushed his body and in one instantaneous moment his forming core was flooded with enough ectoplasmic energy to become entirely corporeal (if it hadn’t, his ghost wouldn’t have manifested nearly quickly enough to keep him alive), and his being was stretched beyond its limits containing everything. For one moment, he had been filled with more energy than he had thought possible, and his ghost had formed itself to accommodate. Since then he’d felt so… empty. His body took what it could from human food and environmental energy, but it was made for more than that. He had blocked out the awareness of his reserves and gotten used to trying to power all his defenses on so little. He was always so tired.
He still felt low, running on just enough to operate something humanish. But his core had latched on to the ectoplasm provided by the blob, the kind it was designed to process, and finally felt a little relieved. Most ghosts that stayed within the Realms were almost always full. Danny wasn’t nearly there yet.
no universal reveal? nasa higher-ups and those who work closely with him get the reveal pretty early on so danny can Properly keep bad things from happening. not early enough for them to ignore him however
but? it works better post universal reveal ;) at one point danny shares that he's always wanted to be an astronaut and nasa is like 👀
OR!! and here's one of my favorites. it happens after knowledge of ghosts expands out of Amity, say the giw is disbanded. and phantom starts hanging out in nasa facilities. once they notice him they encourage him to be visible and in the wake of that he ends up gushing about his passion in space. eventually someone decides to tell their boss about his interest, and someone decides to give him a shot at undergoing the usual training and stuff, hes so thankful and he passes all the tests with flying colors (get it.) and nasa actually employs phantom. for the sake of safety, he discloses his human half. it's a protected secret, and fenton has a cover position supposedly doing calculative work for them.
there are ghosts in space sometimes!!! it's a pretty common little interruption to help them get home. (ideally he can summon portals for this lmao)
what if... your body temperature were reliant entirely on internal temperature... meaning unless it permeates you through specifically ectological means, external temperatures don't affect you... and the matter your body was made up of doesn't interact logically with normal physics... and you didn't need air to persist or even to speak... rendering your body ideal for existing in the vacuum of space... AND WE WERE BOTH ASTRONAUTS 😳😳😳
wow. what was that about the extradimensional properties of ectoplasm not working in accord with newtonian physics or euclidian space? dyou think ectoplasmic components would progress space travel due to higher speeds and energy efficiency? 👉👈 do you?
its fucking SCI FI!
never seen a space shuttle with an onboard blob ghost population have you? :3 they won't leave him alone. i mean they've got active human emotional sources on the craft and little ambient-ectoplasmic-energy-well danny, not to mention the exotic radiations. the little swarm Do Not Care that they are in space.
(well, they care when they see danny's expression light right up looking at the stars)
alright id say its best if it's an unaging!danny where he's just some fucking teenager leading a space expedition but i think that might be my astro boy hyperfixation talking
(I liked it when atom was an 8 year old captian of a trip to mars ok)
you'd be surprised how easy it is to not realize you're using telekinesis when you're in 0g
... why does danny need to sleep less when he's in space? that's weird. (its not weird actually, it's the emotional connection with his childhood dream causing him to gain energy more quickly in space)
ok I'm currently still mostly in the absorbing information phase, im consuming others' headcanons and sorting through what works best for me >:3 thats all to say that this is liable to change at any point, but here's what Im liking right now!
Function:
the purpose of a ghost core is to process common ectoplasm into ectoplasm coded for them
a ghost's ectosignature is a projection of their sort of individual code which is kind of like DNA (in fact it's compatible with human DNA, which is part of how hybrids work but thats a discussion for another day)
and a core absorbs ambient ectoplasm and imprints the ghost's energy pattern into it, thus making it their specific coded ectoplasm
this coding allows the ectoplasm to be shifted into the ghost's elemental state (if they have one) with a small change to its code, which is an instinctual energy change for a ghost
The core is powered by the emotional energy which comprises the "essence" of the ghost, the emotional influence from their life that allowed them to persist in the first place
let's use an example with Danny: ambient ectoplasm, both common or shed from other ghosts, is absorbed by his core. inside of it, his core lets off minute pulses of emotional energy. this leaves the processed ectoplasm. its energetic "code" is complex but let's say that its like 1011010. being his bonded ectoplasm, danny can now manipulate it in many ways, such as converting it into a pure energy form and concentrating it in his hands, readying it as an ectoblast. he can, once he's actively conscious of it, exert a tiny emotional signal which changes it from 1011010 (his signature base energy state) into 1011011. the last byte (god i really did just decide to do binary huh) representing whether it's ice-elemental. by making the change, it's now the ice version of his energy and can be used as an ice blast. the nature of his ectosignature code allows the "ice byte" to be changed freely, while a ghost with a different elemental state would not have that access to that "byte". example over :)
for hybrids, as they're still alive, their emotional impact and "soul" changes as they learn and grow. this means their ectosignatures change subtly over time, unlike full ghosts. this also means that their cores change slightly
the elemental shifting ability of coded ectoplasm means that a ghost's elemental type can be determined from their ectosignature
a ghost is made up of their coded ectoplasm, which automatically forms the right entity. this means they don't strictly need their core to survive, as long as they have enough of their own stable ectoplasm to hold form. however, they won't last long without it, since they will quickly shed off their own ectoplasm and it won't be replenished. it's kind of like a heart in that sense except every entity shares blood
Anatomy:
the core is a small sphere made of a spongy mesh of "solidified" emotional energy
it usually exists in a semi-tangible state which allows it to be contacted by phaseproof material or anything matching its tangibility state. i suppose this is just the same as normally intangible substances but even in this state it's a lot more "tangible" than emotional energy usually is
the specific emotional makeup of the ghost is reflected in the webbing patterns inside the core, though the pattern is repeated many times, so the ghost's personality and essence is based on the pattern that occurs most often. this prevents minor core damage from damaging the ghost's sense of self
however this does mean that major damage, from strained core useage, foreign energy influx, impact from something that can contact it, or something else to that effect can change the ghost's personality and powers, or more likely destabilize them
the core naturally resides in the center of the chest (or a given ghost's equivalent) but can be deliberately moved
Elements / formation:
the Dead and ghosts formed from human awareness of concepts (you know like vortex etc) have cores since they are made up of living emotions
ghosts born of other ghosts can have small cores made of parts of their parents' cores. this does mean that their parents have to lose a small part of their cores, since full ghosts can't create more living emotion to reform parts of core. anyway, young ghosts of this variety can take in living emotions they encounter to build up their own cores. this means it's good for them to spend time in the mortal realm but it also means their personality is heavily influenced by the emotions and personalities of the humans they grew up around. a ghost born of other ghosts will not mature until it has collected enough living emotion to form a full core
ghosts like blobs or whisps, which are conglomerations of ambient ectoplasm, have no core, signature energy, or hard-coded personality. they can express dead emotions and, depending on the type, feed on living emotions, and if they persist long enough form personalities.
a ghost's elemental type is determined mostly by their personality (including emotional attachments during life if theyre Dead or associations if theyre conceptual) rather than cause of death
since it's based off emotional attachments and personality values, it frequently matches up with the ghost's Obsession, which is based off emotions and thoughts during death (or the root of human belief in their concept if theyre conceptual). this however is correlation rather than causation, and odd causes of death or emotional connections can leave the elemental state and obsession having nothing to do with one another
there are other influences for elemental type such as random chance and probably other things i just dont feel like thinking up rn ive been writing this for an hour kjfhkrjfhjd
it's possible ot have a "neutral" elemental type, which just means the ghost cannot change their ectoplasm into an elementally typed form, it will just stay "base" type
thank you for asking by the way!!!! i love Talk :)
OK SO theyre unified more by ideals than physical similarities, which means theyre pretty diverse in lots of aspect, which shows up in their architecture. at its core, its just "ghost architecture":
floating shit (if you try to make areas in the nonsensical infinite realms apply to physics, the realms will fight back)
shared spaces (if you want to be alone youll live outside of a gathering or live in your lair. non-lair spaces are almost never private)
(as an extension of that last one i want to point out that many ghosts who live in cities will spend like half of their time OUTSIDE of it and just kinda wandering about bc like. its the infinite afterlife. they dont need to sleep. they do whatever they want. this is Certainly true among the youthful and creative and curious :3 people)
few doors - this is kinda mortifiedverse lore, but doors are pretty much restricted to lair entrances - and solid walls - theres very little weather. windows are empty, columns are frequent, etc.
death themes. there's more of it among the Glom Psu than the others but i think its so fucking funny how in canon everybody has skulls and bones and bats and shit all over everything so im keeping it
stuff that super does not go together. depending on how devoted a certain ghost is to a theme it could be from a typical suburban tudor house with a single pool of lava to an absolutely nonsensical collage of various home-and-non-home architecture
each :3 cultural group has trends that are common among them and of course they mix into the blend of the area but ill separate them here for the sake of background
uwu:
glassy windows. i know it contradicts what i swaid earlier but they have both empty and glassy windows. think about it. thats free sunlight. for laying in. this city DOES have sunlight btw even though they dont have a sun
tall structures with platforms on the inside and outside. like yknow those cat athletic structures. the planks on the walls that kind of thing. catwalks! those. i would kill for that.
treeeeees. with bark.
lairs often have their doors hidden away in hard-to-access crooks
complex tunnel-like system closer to the ground
big public hearths with short, wide brick walls around them. also for laying on.
shallow pools
glom psu:
bright colors!!! the ghost zone in general is known for bright colors but these guys have RAINBOWS. and BLACK AND PINK. and PATTERNS. outside every fucking building
a lot of like...... big victorian houses except with walls that are more open
a few ppl have "intradimensional" lairs that manifest as like normal houses with normal, barely non-euclidean doors.
wings are very common, on buildings and stuff
skate parks :) they have roads designed for skating in addition to floating, with soft curves and rails and shit
suburban-looking parks with brightly-colored, spiky playgrounds and elaborate gazebos
actually yeah just keep putting spikes on things. they dont particularly hurt though its fine. theyre like. gummy.
cafes! these guys love eating but mostly sweets.
i guess cafes isnt architecture huh. well. its mostly just floating, column-heavy, more open victorian houses. just in general these guys love that
eebydeeby:
the architecture itself is pretty varied , with neighborhoods mostly sticking to general aesthetics. look up any -core tag on tumblr and theres a place with architecture like that. you know every 2013 "what if everybody on tumblr lived/worked/went to school together" fandom/aesthetic separation? yeah. thats real when you die
more closed off areas (both lairs and non-lairs). tumblrinas value their privacy. that being said it frequently results in big houses shared between 5-6 individuals. these shared-house groups have a term for themselves loaned from Uwu: öwôw ówuv
curving, vertically-varied walking paths. tumblrinas dont float all that much
There Is A Tumblr University.
every block or so youll find a message board with paper and pens and pins and stuff available where people """""post""""" messages and respond to others and such. tumblrinas have a potent historical tradition of recorded, written, public gradual conversation
extremely varied building purposes. there are libraries. there are restaurants. there are movie theaters. there are karaoke houses. there are sex dungeons. (ghosts have sex if they want to.) there are buildings purely for thinking. theres a building where someone puts a single doodle of a cat in the center of the floor once a day. theres everything.
the lack of consistency in architecture shows how varied and active the eebydeeby are. they thrive on differing perspectives
send an emoji and I'll provide a headcanon based off it
it took a while to think what to do with this emoji 😭 but...
ectoplasm isn't inherently volatile. it's an antibiotic and it'll slowly kill organic material (unless sufficiently acclimated), but it won't cause an explosion or anything... in its Ambient and Vital forms. Charged ectoplasm is incredibly hard to come by, since it has to be charged by Intention, so it is almost always seen used in powers by Cored ghosts. As soon as Intention is lost, it reverts to Ambient ectoplasm and disperses its high-energy state. If you manage to keep it Charged, though, by constantly imbuing it with a source of Intention, it is massively explosive in contact with non-ectoplasmic material. This isn't normally an issue though, since whatever is providing the Intention usually subconsciously Intends it not to react with matter, but an unconscious source can be made to explode.
here i spent an hour writing this in my notes app. i DESPERATELY hope it makes sense
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hc that for halfas since they are always living-growing, obsessions can build on themselves. the root of an obsession in the first place is essentially what a person would lose if they died. the thing that they're missing out on by dying, that they become ghosts in an attempt to try not to miss out on. so i imagine it's formed by an incredibly high emotional burst of being in the middle of dying and your thoughts going "NO! I can't die yet, i have to ___" and so whatever causes that emotional burst is ingrained into the human emotional crystal structure (which I've talked about before) of the core.
SO. the role of an obsession is to bind the core into a stable form. SO!! for liminals the obsession organizes their ghost form and *leads / paints the thoughts had through their core*. id like to say that at least by default, all thoughts had by half-ghosts go through both the brain and the core separately and them 1 input produces 2 outputs but that doesn't make any goddamn sense within canon. I would say that each output is then used as an input in the other, recursively until they reach the same output as a compromise, but that's ridiculously inefficient. SO INSTEAD id say all thoughts are created in the primary consciousness center and then run as input through whichever is secondary and then that output is felt but not in control. so like, if you were in human form and not actively focusing on your core, and your obsession was with... eating strawberries. If you saw a strawberry, the experience would go to your brain which says "there's a strawberry" and sort of gives you the choice to ignore it, or eat it, or wait and see whose it is, or anything else. then it sends that result to your core, which you can then feel going "oh my purpose! i REALLY want to eat the strawberry!!" and you feel that ghost-emotion perception of "you should eat it" and maybe take that into account but it's not part of your brain process within itself. meanwhile, if your core was in front, you would get the signal of "i see / sense a strawberry" and then the thought process would be "there are several things i can do here but i REALLY would prefer eating the strawberry to any other option" and you'd still get to choose but you would be automatically tending toward eating it unless you could talk yourself out of it. so for halfas using primarily their core to think, or for full ghosts, an obsession is like an addiction, it shifts your decision-making by changing how you subconsciously weigh your options. but while primarily using a brain (and you still have a core), an obsession is like a hyperfixation, it changes how much reward / emotional feedback you'll get which encourages your decisions but doesn't alter the actual process. so obsessions are a little easier to ignore with a brain.
IN ADDITION. since as i said earlier the obsession is the emotional influx that defines the form of a core, a half-human could repair major damage to the core (enough to confuse the ectoplasm-building instructions that it couldn't just tell the ghosts plasm how to repair itself) in a way a full ghost couldn't because they can produce their own human emotional energy to rebuild it. but it could only build itself off of core-building emotions, the ones that are like "no i have to ___". so WHATEVER that thought is is what the core repairs itself with. parts of the core built off a different thought than the original obsession will have a form based off the new thought. so for major core damage, the kind only liminals could heal, this means all the repaired area is of the new obsession. for damage the core can fix on its own, a liminal will repair it at double speed because both the core is replacing material in the original form AND the emotional energy is creating material with the new form (but only if there's a "I have to stick around so i can ___" thought, otherwise it heals at normal speed (or doesn't heal if the core can't repair itself)). so in this state the repaired area is half-original, half new. all this is to say that a half-ghost's core could be restructured enough to slightly alter or entirely redefine the obsession.
(note: ghosts can't repair their own cores using others' human emotional energy because the energy needs to come from someone with the same "soul" or "signature" as that ghost or their living self. this makes major core damage unfixable)
HOWEVER this would be very uncommon bc of the presence of the original obsession. this makes it so that the fries of the human brain are more likely to tend to the obsession since our receiving that encouragement toward it. so if you're dying your core would be all active like "NO I HAVE TO ACCOMPLISH X GOAL" and then your brain (which bear in mind was already naturally thinking that when you died) is like "oh shit you're right!! i DO have to accomplish x goal :(" which provides emotional energy in the same form your core was already built on. but if another influence is strong enough (or something is very very wrong with the core), then the brain has a different goal and restructures some of your core. like if you're dying and your core is like "PLEASE accomplish x goal" but your brain is like "you have a point but i REALLY NEED to accomplish y goal!" then your core will be repaired with y obsession. the fact that the core has more influence if it's healthy means that an obsession is actually more likely to be entirely changed, since the mostly-broken core won't shift your thoughts to original obsession, than slightly shifted.
CONCLUSION: a halfas obsession can be influenced if they suffer some core damage and are filled with the need to fulfill something other than their original obsession. a halfas obsession can be entirely changed if a majority of their core is damaged and they are filled with the different need.
