Yeah, “immune” probably wasn’t the best wording, at least in the literal sense. Not like there was any engineered disease immunity, more that the chimeric DNA was too “confusing” for many pathogens. Like they’re not enough or a horse to get horse diseases, not enough of a pig to get pig diseases, etc.
Obviously not an issue for something like rabies that jumps species easily. I think fluffies getting rabies would be an interesting idea, actually. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it in drawings, but I can’t remember any longer-form comics or stories addressing it.
That (and the other comments about shots, etc.) makes a lot of “realistic” sense. It would probably leave kind of a “plot hole” (not really the right term when it comes to stories from countless authors with loosely related head canons, but the best I can think of) when it comes to extensive propagation of ferals though, since disease would probably wipe out the bulk of their babies. I’m sure some authors (maybe even you? I don’t recall ferals coming into play much in your stories that I’ve read, but I haven’t read all of them) might have come up with explanations for that, though.
With regard to the half fluffy crawling away, adrenaline is a hell of a drug. There was a short on Youtube where a live rat was fed to a snapping turtle underwater.
The turtle stomps down on the rat’s rear, then bites it in half - the video cuts off with the rat’s front half swimming like mad for the surface.
I’ve also heard stories from paramedics of people fatally injured in fights or shootings, running up several flights of stairs before succumbing to their injuries.
It’s less that the fluffy is not incapacitated after such trauma, but more that they can survive such trauma.
With regard to mammalian rabies specifically (ie Rabies lyssavirus) and its ability to jump species, it’s due to mechanism of action targeting a G Protein (specifically the p75 neurotrophin receptor), which is highly conserved amongst mammals only (ie many mammalian species have it).
Other vetebrates, like birds, reptiles, fish and insects , can’t contract R.lyssavirus as while they have G proteins as well, they’re not the same as the mammalian one that R.lyssavirus uses (they have their own version of rabies, but all these different rabies viruses can’t cross this big a species gap outside of shenanigans in a lab).
This is all a very roundabout way of coming back to my original suggestion of having different cellular markers on fluffy cells to prevent infection by most common diseases. You could even tie it in with the ‘huggies causes body temperature increases’ idea and have fluffies literally too hot for rabies to get established after initial infection.
Of course, this does mean that lone fluffies with nothing for company are far more likely to die horrible deaths from disease and infection, but some people will see that as a good thing.
Wanted to touch on this a bit, more so because I like talking about the medical stuff with folks; generally it can be seen as a good idea, but from a medical stand point, long term of those heat can cause its own issues. More so with those fluff piles and multiple huggies a day. Yes, they can be useful to fend off illness, but can back fire to self-harm because its own cells not being used to the heat on the daily.
Even if you hand-wave it to be that fluffies are somewhat that temp, most folks don’t want to handle a ball of heat during summer time or in a/near/room above a kitchen/boiler/furnace.
And to touch on the lickies part I’ve seen earlier, I’d go with idea of that stuff being only triggered under set events, mainly because kids. Kids can be dumb.
Hate to be nitpicky but insects fall into the phylum Arthropoda, they’re invertebrates, but the rest in your example birds, reptiles, and fish are spot on in phylum Chordata and subphylum Vertebrata. Otherwise you’re pretty much spot on.
Though I was under the impression that a lower body temperature was actually more beneficial to avoid contracting rabies after exposure. A lower average body temp compared to other mammals is what’s credited for opossums and their relative immunity to rabies. Granted nobodies entirely sure why opossums are so resistant to the virus but the lower body temperature seems to be the prevailing theory.
Normally I’d agree, but there’s a couple of mitigating factors:
The heat is just enough to inactivate the vast majority of pathogens, or otherwise inhibit them long enough for the rest of the immune system to catch up (no more than say 40C/104F)
The heat is cyclic not constant - fluffies aren’t hugging or sleeping in fluff piles all day and night.
Depending on headcanon, fluffies’ body fluff is mostly ornamental and isn’t as effective as actual fur or hair for retaining heat, thus they have poor thermoregulation. Since most critters with all over body hair lose heat via panting, this could be seen as an intentional design flaw to encourage the hugging behaviour to stay warm
I definitely agree with you with there being very set triggers for this pyrexial reaction, but 40C/104F isn’t that hot - chemical-based handwarmers range from 40-52C (104 - 127F).
@bMori Re: insects not being vertebrates, D’oh, fixed. That’s what I get for cut/pasting and not re-reading properly.
With the higher body temperature, I meant more for pathogens at large, rather than mammalian rabies, which you’re right in that lower body temperatures seem to be more beneficial for that disease specifically.
There’s other mammalian critters (squirrels, chipmunks, rats, mice, guinea pigs, gerbils and hamsters) that seem to be immune to rabies, but like opossums, it’s not sure whether it’s because of their unique biology or because they’re unlikely to survive being bitten by a rabid carrier to become infected.
Sorry if I didn’t reply to this before, didn’t want to leave ya out of the topic. For a reason for myself and probably some folks who don’t do the ‘immune’ thing is mainly because, biologically, if something is immune to an illness, said illness will learn to get around that because that how some things stay around for so long even with modern tech and medical know-how. More to the point, there are ‘super-bugs’, or drug-resistant strains. Mainly where it was exposed to a given drug that’s known to fight it get used to it and fight against it. Kind of why doctors ain’t willy-nilly about giving out pills for any cough and the like.
Along with the above, like the covid 19, that immunty wouldn’t stop need strains or whole new breeds just popping up.
Sorry BrotherOni will need to get back to you later, got a few things to do. I’m enjoying this chat with you and others.
I’ve always thought that Fluffies are healthy just by design. Their fluff is too thick to support most parasites like a chinchilla, their DNA is such a mess they can’t support viruses, and bacteria and internal parasites are otherwise handed by robust immune systems. Fast clotting means they don’t exsanguinate easily, and they stay alert through horrific experiences because so much of their blood is kept in their heads to keep their cognition going. If you had super soldiers designed like that, they’d be an unstoppable force, but they crammed all that into a soft and sort of stupid pet instead.
Also, nanobots, but no one else uses that sort of head canon but me.
Actually prion disease crossed my mind with a story idea, not specifically related to this one, but a while back. I saw a YouTube video about some prion disease showing up more in deer and people fearing it could spread to humans (through deer meet like mad cow disease, or other methods in a really bad scenario).
Oof, yeah, I’ve seen a lot about wasting disease lately. It’s just a matter of time before it makes the jump. I suspect it’ll involve either an inexperienced hunter, or someone who hits a deer with their car and decides to keep the meat.
More talking in general, like most folks seem to agree with the whole fluffies needing repeated contact and re-ensuring on the daily. Thinking along the lines of a given fluffy needing like 40 fucking hugs a day, lasting like three minutes at a time.
That and, with the whole fluff piles I’ve seen artists/writers do, this would be rather heated for the sake of a given fluffy. I personally don’t pay much mind how the human body handles this kind of thing in general, but the general idea I know it’d need to be higher temps then normal and stay at that temp for a good while. I generally know it isn’t for like for five or ten minutes, so assuming the fluffy would need to fend off for such, I’d say they would have to stay at that temp for like an hour at the least for them to fend it off right.
But I did do some do some homework and did found out there are “Thermophilic bacteria”, going off the idea that there are bacteria and the like can withstand a good number of things because, single-cell beings.
This is more me going on about stuff, so you can ignore it if ya want.
I get some folks like the idea of a given fluffy can withstand a lot of things, but it seems to be often missed that those are man made, not naturally made. And the human kind have a bad habit of fucking shit up with errors/mistakes. Like with the blood clotting thing, that can easily lead to the body of a fluffy overreacting and making more blood cells and what have you to something very minor.
Or someone saying a fluffy withstanding something major, but they’d be rather panic and make things far, far worse. Like, something habit in a house, like say a fire. Sure, they can withstand the heat or get away from it, but they’d be a panic and won’t think straight and could easily run head long into a burning room because of the animal side of them.
I know not everyone think deep about this kind of thing, but, for me, I do like the idea of those errors coming up, all those ‘miracles’ that a fluffy can do would backfire on them. Like self healing could lead to the body making too much blood cells, leading to polycythemia vera (yeah, learn about it from the boogie drama).
Since we’re talking about a biological system that’s hormonally controlled, heat ramp up and down takes time, so I’d argue that each hug-triggered pyrexia instance would keep them warm for a little while. Your 3 minute hugging period also ties in nicely with our earlier discussion of these events requiring a trigger, so every three minute hug triggers a self heating event that lasts for x period of time (say 15-30 minutes).
While there are thermophilic bacteria, only a limited set are pathogenic; of these special thermophilic pathogenic bacteria, the only paper I can find on them dates back to 1985 - suffice to say, I don’t think they’ll be causing any mass epidemics.
If I had to hazard a guess, it’s because at normal body temperature ranges (40C and below), they’re simply out-competed by ‘normal’ bacteria. You can have the toughest, most resistant bacteria possible, but if there isn’t an external factor in play (heat, antibiotics, etc), then they’re going to starve to death because all their food is taken by faster reproducing bacteria that don’t have these resistances.
Like self healing could lead to the body making too much blood cells, leading to polycythemia vera
Clotting is controlled by platelets and too many of those causes thrombocythemia, rather than too many RBCs in polycythemia vera.
Hyperclotting would be great for surviving initial trauma and any blood loss from that, at the cost of accidental thrombosis, but improved self healing also requires rapid cellular division, which is just a step away from cancerous tumour formation.
If anything, I’d settle for standard human level regeneration - it’s often overlooked, but humans are remarkably tough and quick healing by the standards of the animal kingom; you don’t have to euthanise a human if they’ve lost a leg unlike a horse for example.
Similarly our scarring potential helps us become functional again more quickly after injury, at the cost of aesthetics.
On the second part of that, yeah, I think that’s the best part of it all, that kind of Jurassic Park scientific hubris angle. So many of the things that make life miserable for fluffies or make fluffies troublesome for humans aren’t even from being “incomplete,” they’re “improvements” there by design where the humans didn’t think through the real world implications. Things that make amateur amputations routine, make them able to withstand unholy amounts of torture without dying from blood loss, shock, or other trauma, or like you said with being set on fire and running around in a panic burning down houses or starting forest fires.
That original idea with the surgery and infection came from thinking of something where a fluffy is half ripped apart but manages to not sustain fatal injuries to the vital organs. A human with limited resources “fixes” it without much more than a rusty needle and thread, and pondering what might become of it after. Thinking about whether it would be “it’s a little worse for wear, but pretty much okay,” or if it would turn into a living blob of painful infection begging for death (and being a fluffy, probably not just quickly die of infection or other complications).
As I was typing that, it made me think of that situation in a recent story, I can’t remember the title or author offhand, where a fluffy is burned so badly that all it wants is to die, but it’s owner thinks it looks cute and makes it a social media star.
