What is ichor?
Ichor is basically Lavenderstar’s blood. Their body isnt made up of ichor, they are just covered in it. So if you wanted to pet Lavenderstar, you could. But your hand would end up wet and gross with blood. The ichor seeps out of the wounds Lavenderstar received in the fire. Usually these would be healed by dying and going to the Astral Planes (Starclan) but the bitterness Lavenderstar has from their clan basically being extinguished has corrupted their spirit. Technically I should be drawing Lavenderstar dripping with goopy ichor all the time, but I don’t because I’m lazy.
How does ichor work?
For Lavenderstar to infect and control other spirits with ichor, they need to be close to them. If Lavenderstar leaves, so to will the ichor from the infected’s body. I didn’t make it very obvious, but in the most recent ask Weedtail’s infection was slowly going away. You can see this in that their purple pupils are fading. I should have made it more obvious, but I didn’t for drama.
Lavenderstar can control how quickly the ichor infects someone. All Lavenderstar has to do is be near them. Their own ichor can leave seep off their body and onto their victim. This difference in timing can be seen in Moon 6 and Into the Pool. In Moon 6 Lavenderstar infects Rimebat quickly, not giving him enough time to properly warn Ashsight. This is takes 4 panels, so pretty standard for Lavenderstar’s speed.
Meanwhile, in Into the Pool, Lavenderstar’s infection of Weedtail is much slower so that she has a chance to speak. It takes 7 panels to get a little under halfway to complete control. This is very slow for Lavenderstar.
However, shortly after this the ichor starts going away. Ichor is controled by Lavenderstar, but that doesn’t mean their emotions don’t get in the way of it. Weedtail’s words were throwing them off, so their control weakens significantly.
If enraged enough, infection can only take a second. This is demonstrated in the last part of Into the Pool where Weedtail is instantly infected by an enraged Lavenderstar.
The grasp Lavenderstar has on their victims wavers depending on their emotions. If they’re feeling a strong emotion, it weakens the ichor’s effects. The exception is rage, which gives Lavenderstar strength. The entire reason their spirit is like that is because of the rage and bitterness they feel at their clan’s death, to the point they let it consume them whole.
On the topic of Into the Pool, the red scribbles present are also ichor, just a thinner, foamier type. This ichor - which I will now dub scribble ichor - is a lot hotter than normal ichor hench why it is bubbly. This heat is generated by Lavenderstar being enraged as well as their spirit’s form morphing which also gives off heat.
How does being infected by ichor affect the victim?
Any sort of freewill and emotions the victims have are taken away by Lavenderstar. Their spirit becomes apart of theirs, and therefore is controlled by them. This means Lavenderstar can make them do as they like, for example making Cougarshade pin down Ashsight in Moon 6. This also means Lavenderstar can see from their eyes, though this makes their spirit vulnerable to attack. Even though a part of the victim’s consciousness is taken by Lavenderstar, they can still think and feel whatever is happening to their spirit. This includes pain.
Lavenderstar has made Weedtail an exception to this (until recently) because they trusted her the most out of their clanmates. This is why one of her eyes were normal and she could show emotion in Moon 6 whilst the other victims couldn’t.
That’s all you really need to know about ichor right now! I hope this clears some stuff up because it’d be really hard to try and “tell” this in the story.
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