Chapter Text
In this Au the entirety of Gardenview has been broken apart and taken over by ichor. The ichor comes in many forms such as tentacles, inky black liquids, and the most prominent, A giant ocean of ichor deep within the bowels of the center. Due to this new exposure to such a high concentration of ichor, the toons have either began to grow and adapt with the excess of ichor or they have begun to wither and sicken from the over concentration and their bodies couldn't take it. multiple toons had been sick for months, a few even DYING (sorry to everyone who likes the christmas toons (except ginger shes here), eggson, teagan, and cocoa but they're dead now im sorry (not rlly, and some may come back in another form (hint hint winkwink))
But anyhow, in this AU evolution will be possible for mains and select toons such as (actually im not gonna spoil any more ^^), to evolve one has to be put under immense unintentional stress (evolutions cannot be forced) their bodies will start to use the new flood of ichor to slowly improve their bodies to their situation. When this transformation is complete their old layer of skin will begin to feel tight, begin to itch, and sometimes even causes pain if new limbs are sprouted with it (such as Astros moth wings ^^) after the process is completed the toon will be left in a state of weariness for a few days to up to a week. As evolution is literally building a new body under their current skin and then breaking out of said skin, which can be really hard to go through, especially with the stress one has to have gone through to even begin to evolve.
The reason that some toons are able to evolve and some others aren't mostly is tied to their tolerance for ichor or their ability to persevere through stress. As even though they need stress to evolve, too much can be detrimental and instead of evolving they could end up with ichor poisoning (which is like food poisoning but worse because its actually just destroying ones internal organs as it passes through) its nearly 75% fatal if someone were to get it (the dead characters found this out the hard way)
EVOLUTION IS PAINFUL, VERY MUCH SO, SO DO NOT THINK FOR A MOMENT THAT EVOLVING IS SOMETHING EVERYONE WANTS TO DO IMMEDIATELY, not only is it possibly fatal because of the stress and sudden ichor increase in ones body, its also, very agonizing and can take hours for an evolution to finish, even days if a toon gets stuck in the skin (which is fully possible and highly fatal (bobette did not die actually i decided to not have her die instead but she is not evolved)