On the phrase "Wan Die" (From: SqueakyFriend)

In my headcanon there’s a tell (loud wailing and/or crying) that a fluffy is about to hit the loop. Calm them down in time and it can be avoided but if you can’t then the loop is almost always a sign that they give up on life.

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Sounds like me when I burn my tendies

wan die - something really really bad happened, like losing all of your family. If fluffy gets a lot of comforting, love and entertainment, it gets better
wan die loop - when no one takes care of that ‘wan die’ saying fluffy, it starts repeating. Not reacting to anything - you could skin it and it wouldn’t peep - however some (cruel) and skilled people can pull it back and make it wan-die again multiple times

Yeah, I go with the old way of thinking, that it’s a programmed in response leftover to let the handlers know the fluffy’s mind is broken beyond repair and should be disposed of. I also go a bit further and when a fluffy says wan die or goes into the wan die loop they aren’t even consciously saying it, it’s purely an autonotic response.

I think fluffies can desire suicide without the wan die loop to an extent. They can get to a point where they want “giv fwuffy fowebbah sweeties!”

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I my head cannon, “wana die” is a ‘debug’ phrase. A fluffy should normally never say ‘die’ as a ‘bad word’, but Hasbio put in that phrase as a clear clue that a fluffy was ‘mentally damaged’.

Whether it was meant to be in the ‘finished product’ or not, it was present in the fluffies that got released to the wild.

As with many traits, the longer fluffies have been in the wild the more unreliable this phrase would become.

In a well breed stock line, it’s almost only going to come out due to enough trauma to ‘mind break’ the fluffy.

In more general feral stock it may come up more freely from much lower stress factors.

In short it has a specific situation that should trigger it, but fluffies are buggy as hell so work in unexpected ways.

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To give a different spin/context on a similar response, I attribute it to the fact that value is not really attached to fluffies by the writer/artist. This may manifest itself in making fluffies too deficient that they would be suicidal over the slightest thing, or the writer may be too quick to have said fluffy die. Even if they slowly move out of writing a “quick death” for said fluffy, they may not still not really attach a value to the fluffy, which presents its own different set of problems.

I think it really boils down to the idea of fluffies being programmed and more importantly how. I think thats a big question - how are fluffies programmed? The easiest answer is “genetic engineering mumbo jumbo”, but that too easy a copout. While I can see the advantage of exploring a story where fluffies are programmed (which I attempted to in Muthu), I feel that the kind of engineering/programming needed to have fluffies feel really robotic alludes to a kind of technology that would be beyond the overly contemporary setting used in most fluffy stories. Mind you though, this is just an opinion.

On that note.

I’m going to pinpoint something else, thats far earlier.

https://hyperindex.mlpg.co/ohgodwhy-(n1328050803906).jpg - Apparently, the first time pway/wan die was mentioned on 31st January 2012.

These were some of the earliest greentexts that featured a fluffy pony being reset. Much research is still needed, but I am of the belief that the wan die loop is related to “early” fluffy canon that had them have a chip in their hea,d which meant that they could be “resetted”. Over time, and with fluffies being able to reproduce naturally, the “chip in the head” and “reset” canon became less common, but “wan die” and “wan die loop” sort of stayed around.

This needs more research though, and I also would like to get some feedback from @BKCatharsis and @meganonymous , who have done their own research into earlest fluffy pony ideas/canon.

To be honest I’m of the belief that is a good approach. To allow creativity and to encourage people to form their own headcanon/hivecanon, as different people have different stories and ideas they want to tell.

I think it means a fluffy has suffered so much (And it takes a LOT of suffering) that it has become suicidal. It could be the fluffy is in extreme physical pain, believes it deserves to die due to mental health issues or it has suffered in some way its whole life and just wants the pain to stop.

It’s possible to bring a fluffy out of that state, but it takes a lot of patience, understanding and love. Just like with real suicidal people.

“Wan’ die” means “I am hurting so much that death seems like the only option to stop the pain. Life does not seem worthwhile, therefore I do not want to live”.

Ah schweet, man-made horrors beyond my comprehension!

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Neat. The brain chips, and the resetting, all seem familiar. I don’t tend to explicitly state that fluffies have brain implants, but I’ve always been a fan of conditioned behavior and preset responses to certain stimuli.

Getting a fluffy in the wan die loop is easy.

Getting the fluffy in the “kiww fwuffy!!!” Loop takes mastery of the abuse arts

Like everything about fluffies it has been bastardized till it is meaningless babble thanks to “muh head cannon “

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Wan Die is the result of a feedback loop between the Programming Bulb meddling in neuroreceptors and hormone regulation to promote certain behaviors and the mind reacting to the situation using cognition.

The first tier of Bulb control occurs when an otherwise clueless animal mind is delivered instructions including speech, muscle memory, and an expectation of result. As dumber Fluffies, certain breeds, and the early prototypes do not need further instruction and often default to being flesh robots following constant behaviors they almost never enter Wan Die. Any pleas to die are not Wan Die Syndrome but rather some degree of cognition running beyond programmed behaviors, such as a Fluffy incapable of ignoring a hugging pose or dancing to the original Fluffy commercial tune to the point of starvation demandinh a merciful end.

A Fluffy must be capable of ignoring or being numb to Bulb impulses but still have a powerful Bulb, retain longterm and short term memory, possess capacity for abstract thought, and be already relatively healthy or recently suffered loss of health. As positive reinforcement via serotonin and similar hormones fails the Bulb instead uses negative reinforcement with amplified anxiety, fear, and grief. As the Bulb supersaturates the brain in negative emotions the Fluffy becomes quickly overstimulated and regresses mentally within itself. In this stage a Fluffy will display extreme signs of maladaptive daydreaming. In advanced breeds the Bulb will recognize the issue and attempt to cut and regulate hormone levels, resulting in an inability to feel all but passive negative emotions. In less advanced breeds the Bulb will trigger an error mode designed to designate the Fluffy needing a careful culling and subsequent autopsy among design staff. In either case the result is the same, the Bulb providing the Fluffy with a command phrase and a vague understanding of the implications. Self-uttering the phrase or hearing an emotionally bonded Fluffy do so triggers an immediate end of hormonal effects, leaving the victim listless.

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I’ve always considered it the ultimate mental breakdown of a fluffy. They’re not even supposed to say “die”, so when a fluffy says “wan die” it means it’s mind is in a darker place than its sweet little mind was ever designed for. If fluffies were robots robot, “wan die” would be the equivalent of it shooting sparks and catching fire.

To me, it just means they are basically ‘broken.’ I don’t think they would literally die from it, but they are definitely going to be catatonic for a while.

I think one of best relatively recent (to me) inventions in the fandom is the phrase “heart hurties.” I think it conveys a lot of the same feelings that many older works used “wan die” for, as in “worstest heart hurties.” This, I think, is a better representation of the fluffy’s actual feelings most of the time: they are so incredibly sad, that they feel like their heart is actually broken. Through the magic of hormones, they might even feel this as physical pain.

Isn’t nature wonderful?