I wonder if any religion would throw fluffies into volcanos as an abomination against anything else with a soul. 
1 Like
I can only speak for Judaism, but the relevance between sentient, sapient nonhumans and their potential relationship with Judaism has been discussed. I’m pretty sure fluffies would only fall under pets; their intelligence isn’t high enough to understand the more complex elements of Judaism. (I also don’t want to see one take the mikvah–full immersion in water, genuinely a transformative experience.) Basically, fluffies would fall under Halachah (religious law) in the sense of not causing unnecessary pain, feeding them before feeding oneself, general care, etc.
As for volcanoes, you’d want to check with indigenous religions in and around the Ring of Fire. Maybe parts of Italy and Iceland. I’m sure someone would gladly do it.
Now I’m trying to work out how a devout Jew could be an abuser while still working within the law.
3 Likes
I wonder about CSI/Dianetics… they’d probably consider this site ‘suppressive’?
I guess like oven timers?
1 Like
Lol, you mean like ovens with Shabbat mode? They don’t automatically turn off after so long, so you can put dishes in on Friday afternoon, and have them ready for Saturday lunch. I’ve got a killer brisket recipe for that kind of slow cooking.
I was thinking of psychological harm. Technically, it’s sort of allowed, as is confinement. I’ll have to do some research, but something has to be possible. Alas, fluffies aren’t kosher, so that wipes out the shochet (butcher) route.
1 Like
Duh, hire a gentile.
Note: A joke. The Rabbis aren’t stupid and already banned that, mostly?
2 Likes
There’s actually some interesting history there. A Shabbat goy is a non-Jew who handles things like tending fires, cooking, writing, etc, on Shabbat. They have to volunteer, though. They can’t be paid in any way. It’s an old-fashioned concept, though it’s evolved in the modern world. For instance, at Boskone, a major science fiction convention held in Boston, a significant number of attendees are Orthodox Jews. (You see some absolutely fantastic kippot. One guy’s had a spacescape embroidered across it when I went.)
Anyhow, the Orthodox peeps can’t press elevator buttons. Hence, if you get on the elevator with someone frum(devout), between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday, it’s good form to “accidentally” hit all the buttons. I’m Reformadox (very liberally Jewish, but weirdly adherent in some ways), so I gladly hit buttons.
We can’t ask what floor they’re on. If they told us, it would violate Shabbat.
Anyway, it’s a kindness, and sometimes it gets you first shot at Sunday morning bagels.
ETA: if you like mysteries, find Some Danger Involved, by Will Thomas. He’s got a really cool Victorian mystery series, and the first book involves a crime in the heavily Jewish East End. Awesome stuff, and a pretty neat guy. (He works at, or maybe retired from, a library near me. I’ve met him a few times. We chatted about setting fiction in the Victorian era.)
2 Likes
Imagine that there’s no rules at all requiring you not to harm a fluffy pony, but that owning or renting one (or possession in general, so no capturing) is proscribed. Oddly, hunting them with a ranged weapon would probably be allowed on days of work? Leaving the meat would be a crime, so you’d have to get someone who makes a living with the furs or something to clean it up?
We’re probably overthinking this exercise into lulz. Although the image of people going to the trouble of shipping them to a volcano is somewhat funny.
1 Like
Now I’m trying to work out how a devout Jew could be an abuser while still working within the law.
It’s called Kapparot. The politically-correct stuff you’ll find with a cursory search is pretty tame and mundane, but the original practice is a ritual of scapegoating followed by holding the chicken by the legs and bashing it against something hard until it’s dead. Some Orthodox Jews in New York have been filmed performing this act by passers by and it’s one of the practices that resulted in secular Jews calling for the expulsion of Orthodox Religious ones from Israel.
Never forget that the world is a weirder and far more evil place than you currently realize. That truth doesn’t go away no matter how much you learn, it always gets weirder and more evil the more you come to know.
2 Likes
Oof, that practise makes me uncomfortable, though it can be done gently. (I’m not terribly Orthodox, mind.) I’d be much happier if kapparot (even old-school) was done with fluffies, but the animal in question is supposed to be eaten. There’s no way anyone will convince me fluffies are kosher.
2 Likes
Iirc it’s like…cloven hooves and chewing cud. Full size horses aren’t kosher so unless the fluffy was more cow than horse it almost certainly wouldn’t be-
There was some half-joking discussion about if furbies were kosher and like I think it was declared that as furbies are not alive and thus cannot die they cannot be permissible as food at all-
2 Likes
Yup, cloven hooves, chews a cud, raised to be food, treated incredibly well, and killed in a certain way by a certified shochet. Kashrut is pretty complex.
I can only imagine the rabbinical arguments over the kosher status of fluffalo.
ETA: fun fact, giraffes are potentially kosher. They would just need to be raised as livestock.
1 Like
Yeah that was a lot, lol. I wonder if Immanuel is a Later-Day Saints Fluffy?
1 Like
who’s knows.
2 Likes
I based him off of the weird pre-revolutionary Puritans of the US. They banned celebrations like Christmas and were violent with the witch trials.
There was a “Daycare application” for Immanuel in the booru that also brought out that he was circumcised
3 Likes
Hahaha get it regina
1 Like
I’ve known people who follow those rules. They all smiled, and all look like they wanted to die.
1 Like
#JusticeForImmanuel
I always found the way GWN characterized fluffies really really intriguing.
A lot of other authors/artists heavily lean into the pre-programmed biotoy angle. But GWN’s fluffies always seemed to be significantly imprinted on by their owner in a lot of his artwork. Which is an angle that makes a lot of sense and you don’t see often.
I know a lot of the time it’s for comedic effect, but genuinely it makes sense that a fluffy would enjoy, say, the idea of feeling systemically oppressed. Which allows the fluffy to be mean to others and still play the victim. Or adopt the sociopolitical talking points of their owner even if they don’t fully understand them.
The story he has where his fluffy is adopted by a gangster is a good example. With the fluffy becoming hardened and callous, beginning to talk and act like its owner even after the gangster gets shot.
3 Likes
Children are impressionable, the same with fluffies. I just have them lean heavily into the “worst traits”
2 Likes