[My entry for December Subspecies Competition (WITH PRIZES!!)
Feel free to ask questions about these weird little abominations, I love them.]
A Hasbio product created to capitalize on the market for slime and sticky gel toys, the Gel Pony is an interesting creature. Like the original Fluffy Pony, it is a genetic chimera, but this one has more jellyfish and slime mold genes, giving it crucial physical and behavioral differences.
Essential Physical Differences:
Gel: The pony is composed entirely of a resilient biogel, which is smooth, cool, bouncy, and very, very slightly sticky to the touch. The pony can be stretched, bent, and twisted to extreme degrees without losing structural integrity or experiencing pain, and will always quickly return to form, with a rubbery âsnap-backâ response. Its nervous system is mostly decentralized, with the closest thing to a discrete brain being an elastic ring of thicker and more robust neuronal fibers deep within the abdomen.
Eyes: Rather than eyeballs, it has eyeplates, which rest just below and align with the surface of the gel. Currently the only available color is black, while the biogel comes in all colors, in both transparent jelly and frosted glass and iridescent effects.
Mouth: Gel ponies only possess mouths to allow them to speak. They do not eat like a vertebrate, which makes sense because they are not vertebrates. They can swallow small objects, but no digestion occurs, it just sits there. Sometimes they will do this to âpway soon-mummahâ. Do not be alarmed, firm pressure on the ponyâs belly will cause the object to pop out of one end or the other without harm to the pony.
Appendages: Since the gel pony has no hair of any kind, its mane and tail are simply crests of biogel, as are wings and horns. Anything cut from the pony, including the head, can be regrown, but slicing the pony in half is lethal. A very sharp blade is required to get through the tough biogel, and unlike stretching, bending, or twisting, this does cause the pony âworstest hurties.â
Reproductive Behavior:
Gel ponies breed much like other fluffies, and can in fact breed with other fluffies, though there is a mutual mild aversion, neither type finding the other to be âpretty.â The correct pheromones are all present, however, so cross-breeding is possible. No actual chimeras or hybrid phenotypes have been compatible with life, but 85% of cross-type offspring breed true, generally following the mother.
Gel pony dams appear to be too stupid to have âbestest babiesâ, barely able to tell their litters apart, but fluffy mothers almost universally regard the admittedly very strange gel chirpies as âmonster babies.â The gel ponies seem to recognize normal chirpies, but on the other hand, they will accept almost any object of the right approximate size and shape placed into their litter, so itâs hard to say.
When foaling, the chirpies have a tendency to rush out, due to their semiliquid nature, and so it is not unusual for some of them to hit the floor despite the most diligent efforts to catch them. They may temporarily deform, but a normal amount of impact should not do any lasting harm.
While the dam is very likely to step or roll on them out of sheer obliviousness, she is very unlikely to actually hurt or kill them by doing so, so it mostly works out. Chirpies develop much like any others, save for being born without back legs, which finish growing in by the time the ears and eyes have opened.
Newborn:
(The chirpy in the above image has impacted the floor, as mentioned earlier, with resulting temporary deformation. The foalâs head is at the top, with folded ears and recessed eyeplates, which will rise to the surface in about the same amount of time it takes a normal fluffyâs eyes to open. Note the buds on the goals hindquarters, where hind legs have yet to form, leaving it the characteristic âegg with armsâ shape.)
Older Chirpy:
(Ears open, eyeplates still recessed, hind legs formed.)
Talkie Babbeh:
(Fully formed, onto nutrient gel.)
Basic Care And Feeding:
Rather than chewing and swallowing kibble, gel ponies must directly absorb nutrient gel, usually by stepping into a shallow dish of it. (Infants nurse by clinging to their mothersâ teats and transducing milk directly into their bodies.) Naturally, they still most prefer sketti-flavored gel, they are still technically fluffy ponies, despite their lack of fluff. Generally, the water content of the gel is sufficient for their needs, but if starved or the environment is too dry, a gel pony can desiccate, going into a state of dormancy.
A desiccated gel pony can be revived by immersion in water. Drowning is not a risk until at least an hour after it has fully rehydrated. In very dry environments, desiccation can be prevented by adding water to the nutrient gel.
As such, gel ponies do not fear water, and can even sort of swim. They not very graceful or swift, but they can stay afloat for a while. However, if they do not drown but are not removed from the water, they will eventually absorb too much water and dissolve like a gummi candy.
Small debris will stick to the ponyâs biogel. Rather than brushing your fluffy, simply wipe it down with an approved fluffy wipe. Generally anything safe for babies will work, but the pony will absorb whatever chemicals are on the wipe, so care must be taken when not using a specific gel pony wipe.
They use a litterbox like any other fluffy, but ideally with a grate over it, so their feet will not pick up litter. Gel ponies excrete a single, loosely gelatinous form of waste (always referred to as âpoopiesâ, and always a lighter version of the ponyâs gel color except in case of illness) that will slip right through all the but the finest mesh.
Discipline:
Sorry Stick: Sorry sticks in general will simply bounce off of gel ponies. A very firm strike will hurt, but not nearly to the same extent as it would a regular fluffy.
Sorry Box: The isolation and boredom of a sorry box still has its usual effect, though it does take longer to set in, due to the use of simple and solitary creatures as gene sources, but gel ponies are not at all afraid of the dark, and even enjoy it, much like their additional gene-sources of slime molds, planeria, and jellyfish.
Suggested alternatives for incorrigible gel ponies are âsorry boiliesâ and âsorry wobbles.â Exposure to sufficient heat (between 170 and 220 degrees Fahrenheit) will cause a gel pony to become fully amorphous until it is allowed to cool, which they find very confusing, frightening, and uncomfortable, and sending vibrations through their gel, such as by placing them onto the top of a running clothes dryer, is very irritating and will become painful if continued for long enough.
Behavioral Differences:
Pro:
Solitary: A gel pony is better able to tolerate being left alone than the average fluffy, and is less driven by reproduction. For everyone who has ever wanted a fluffy that will just sit there and roll a ball around and be entertained, this is the fluffy for you. They are also less prone to Smarty Syndrome.
Quiet: Gel ponies are much less verbal than other fluffies, and not as prone to singing, or to repeating themselves.
Durable: Gel ponies, while not impossible to kill, are much more difficult to injure, making them excellent companions for children. Junior can accidentally sit on his guinea-pig-sized pet, and it will merely deform out to a quarter inch thick and the diameter of a large dinner plate with a cheerful cry of âskooshy!â before bouncing back, no harm done.
Con:
Solitary: If you have other fluffies, thereâs a good chance theyâll have no idea what to make of a gel pony, at least at first. The subspecies can get along well with other fluffies, but their flat black eyes and odd tactile and optical properties can be off-putting. Eventually, most fluffies put gel ponies down as âbouncy friendsâ and get on with their lives, but foals especially may be frightened of them, and will certainly find their willingness to sit quietly by themselves, or to just drift around the saferoom, to be very dull.
They also can be seen as not bonding as strongly with humans. Gel ponies know that they are for huggies and love, but lacking some of the desperate need for socialization that normal fluffies possess, they tend to be much more casual about it. They have been compared to a cat rather than a dog, more, âoh, hi,â than, âohmigod youâre back!â Data suggests that they are simply less demonstrative, however. Their IQs are low and their memories short, but they never seem to forget a human companion, and experience great distress with long-term separation.
Even Dumber Than Usual: Where it is an unusually stupid fluffy that can be âtrappedâ by facing it into a corner, a gel pony that cannot be is a genius of its kind. It will not be as distressed as a normal fluffy to be trapped, but it will be absolutely astounded to be turned around again. This can come back around to the Pro category, when containing gel ponies using optical illusions. (Note: visual cliffs do not work, gel ponies are too stupid and too durable to fear falling.)
