Haha that’s something a grunty can do but I’m not sure if your average feral would know how to use a bottle effectively.
1 Like
Fluffies can make nests just shitty ones, old hivecanon said they could burrow even. As for fluffies they aren’t actually that stupid when compared to most mammals they just have no useful instincts all their sub cortical pathways are used for language and playing. Besides, tastes yicky, no smell pretty a fluffy will not recognize poison, nor will it recognize predators until they start acting overtly scary. In short all fluffy knowledge is socially transmitted based on past experiences. This is because fluffies are excellent at pavlovian learning, it’s how they can have huge noun vocabularies but always have terrible grammar. Furthermore this info depends on a fluffies ability to form new terms from existing ones (Like how chimps come up with cry hurt food for radish) or make new sounds. If they can’t do the following they can’t really progress much, with the exception of more timid and skittish tempermants predominating.
Now let’s go into oral transmission, fluffies have pretty big long term memories when it comes to repetition and trauma, and a repetitiveness for stories that teach morals (what is flufftv). Assuming that they can manage the previous step of noun and verb creation and can live long enough to make and remember stories they can pass on then they will most likely begin to slowly advance at least in terms of survival skills and knowledge of potential threats. Similarly fluffies would have a high mutation rate as entire phenotypes (and behaviors assuming pegasus don’t assume they fly due to Lacan’s mirror stage mixed with observation) are seemingly decided by a small number of genes. Something which would only be exacerbated by their incredibly strong healing factor present in threadcanon. The problem with this is exactly what counts as runt or defective, if any mutation beyond the norm is labeled a “bad babbeh” or a “munstah” they’re fucked. If it’s just stunted growth and a weak constitution then this might actually help. Of course “bad babbeh” could also be a protocol meant to prevent biohacking your fluffies offspring so you have to buy the next Hasbio product if you wanted any improvement. The thing is that any smart enough biohacker would probably be fine with this seeing as the entire fluffy genome is most likely really well documented and people have seemingly raised normal runts themselves. I imagine that taking out the “Bad babbeh” response ( I take it to be an immune response where foul smelling antibodies surround the foal in the womb) would be easy enough, or even made more extreme towards base state offspring if you want to speed up mutation. Someone could very well make a slightly improved fluffy and just sort of make genetic immune response to something fitting the exact normal fluffy criteria and due to it’s specificity it’ll be much stronger.
The final problem is sexual selection, hivecanon says they’re more attracted to bright colors than strength, size, brains or skill. This is a massive fucking problem as bright colors will win out over many much more useful mutations leading to a situation like the Irish Elk in which so much went into sexual stimulus that the species went extinct due to their massive phallic antlers being too large for their heads. There is of course the idea this is ingrained and that herd thinning by predators and nature might work, except for the bestest babbeh phenomena. In nature it’s first come, first serve or the strongest kid. Meanwhile the average headcanon mummah will bend over backwards to save her favored foal, giving it a leg up regardless of environmental fitness. Meaning that even it’s non poopie siblings no matter how resourceful just won’t have that backing. Similarly I could see male fluffies simping hard for “pwetty” female fluffies. This is especially bad because predators now associate bright colors on non reptiles with human food. So this intraspecies boon is an interspecies bane. Basically if you get past these three very large problems and they find a tool to manipulate things with they could theoretically develop human level intelligence.
4 Likes
Or “No they’re toys and fail at everything.” Either or.
2 Likes
Needs a ‘none of the above’ in case people believe all of them are true.
3 Likes
Can’t edit it now.
1 Like
Ehh maybe fluffies have rudimentary medical practice. Such as licking wounds clean and not walking on broken limbs (because of the owwies)
3 Likes
Good question, do fluffies groom their fluff?
3 Likes
I like to think so.
1 Like
The momma usually licks the babies clean but I’ve never heard of a full grown fluffy cleaning themselves
2 Likes
Speaking as a hugboxer, a weirdboxer and a fan of speculative fiction, I actually like fluffies that can do ALL of those. That being said, I do admit medical practices would be the hardest one for me. part of the charm of Squeakyfriend’s Crazystein is that he heals patients by applying bandaids. Thats literally it.
3 Likes
All of these seem entirely plausible to me.
Being a good parent: Well duh!
Knowing not to eat poison: Could see them realizing that fluffies that eat it always get the worstest tummy hurties.
Looking both ways before crossing the street: Not only possible for careful ferals, but something that could reasonably be taught at FluffTV.
Building a nest: With cardboard boxes a no-brainer. One creative comic had fluffies nesting inside an old sofa, with was incredibly cute and creative.
Building a nest (without a box or other convenient hole: This is a tricky one, but I could imagine a smart fluffy pulling a plastic bag over a branch or a root to make a tent. Or an exceptionally intelligent one adding moss and other insulation to make a warmer nest.
Knowing the difference between clean and dirty water: My headcanon is that it doesn’t matter as much as it does to humans, but they no doubt dislike bad tasting water.
Having a culture: I can totally see a herd doing things “because this is how we’ve always done” with no fluffy remembering the origins of their specific traditions.
Farming: Another tricky one, but I could imagine fluffies putting “plants grow grow in pooping place” and “make bigger pooping place to grow more plants” together.
Medical practices: I could see fluffies discovering that milk helps with tummy aches even for adults, or that dirty wounds heal worse than clean ones. More likely they would develop supersitions like attributing their natural healing on huggies and songs that had nothing to do with their recovery.
3 Likes
Jurassic park says otherwise
2 Likes
I agree, I kinda want my fluffies to end up as a sorta feudal society in some places. Lots of superstition and such, that’s why I have so many monsters to a fluffy everything is monstrous.
4 Likes
Exactly. What is a herd if not a culture? We have an entire Fluffy-folklore tag!
2 Likes
Medical practices, farming (Crude farming I feel they could do. Such as planting a single seed and bringing it wawa everyday), knowing not to eat poison, and looking both ways before crossing the street (not an innate skill, it must be taught. But most fluffies don’t know this skill at all. Only “smart” fluffies do. Smart, as in intelligent, not Smarties)
2 Likes
I think it’s often overlooked that fluffys are parcialy human. so they at least in my canon can develop
somthing like a Stoneage society. But a Human would need to teach them somthing more complicated then Stone age Medical care.
But they can pretty mutch do all of the above. especially having a Culture.