Dear nerds, I must ask a question of you.

meadow@lgbtqia.space

Do shapeshifters age? If so, can they defy aging by simply copying a younger human, or does their default physiology still age on its own?

I feel like a shapeshifter has such control of herself down to a cellular level that she should be effectively ageless. What do you think?

Boosts welcome. I have got to hear nerd opinions on this one. Please bring the logic, the passion, or both!

mrfunkedude@beige.party

@meadow @mayintoronto How does control over cells stop their decay?

passenger@kolektiva.social

@meadow

I need more information I think.

Within the diegesis, do shapeshifters have perfect control of their own shapeshifting? What happens when they shapeshift while high, or drunk, or in a rage? Do they sometimes sleep-shapeshift?

Can shapeshifters suffer from body dysmorphia (that is, from having a mental image of their body which is different from the actual existing state of their body)?

Are there instinctual safeguards built into shapeshifting, kinda like humans will automatically pull our hands away from hot surfaces so as not to injure ourselves?

enbypirate@lgbtqia.space

@meadow I think there are several possible answers to that question:
1) a shapeshifter does age in their original form but is capable of shapeshifting into a younger being, granting them eternal life, cause they keep being young
2) like 1) but they do not gain eternal youth and die of a heart attack while looking like a perfectly shaped young adult and then transforming into a 183 year old shapeshifter
3) a shapeshifter loses control over the forms they can take with time, just similar to mortals who lose mobility, dexterity etc. when they grow older, so they can only shapeshift into older shapes
4) a shapeshifter who shapeshifts into a mighty dwarf will live and die as a dwarf, cause dwarves are the pinnacle of evolution and no one would ever consider not being a dwarf

renaigh@beige.party

@meadow depends on what their original form is, if they even have one. Odo from DS9 for example is bucket of goo when he isn't taking the shape of humanoid or inanimate object.

mysterycoconut@mastodon.gamedev.place

@meadow For shapeshifters, aging should happen not in years, but in “how many more times can I go through this grueling change?” Plus, plasticine doesn’t look that great after being played with for a while

pockets@lgbtqia.space

@meadow
I think it really depends on the species and the mechanism of shapeshifting.

Species-ist
If the shapeshifter's original form is human, I think they almost certainly do age, though perhaps on a slower pace/longer lifespan than a vanilla human.

If they're not human-by-default, that's a different matter. Like the Sidhe are effectively immortal (but not invincible).

Mechanism
If they're transforming due to magic, I think it's pretty well established that creatures who can do magic have longer lifespans than the same species of creatures without access to magic. Ergo, longer lifespan, but not immortal.

If they're transforming due to a prop, like those belt-thingies, then the magic is inherent to the prop not the user, and the user doesn't have an extended lifespan.

If they're transforming due to an infection or a curse, it depends on that. I think vampires are generally considered immortal (albeit not invincible); werewolves I've seen both immortal and not.

#PocketsBrain

meadow@lgbtqia.space

@passenger
I can't answer all of these great questions, but I do think sleep shapeshifting would be well within the realm of possibility.

bipolaron@scholar.social

@meadow I think they age, but like how vampires age. They get more powerful with experience but their bodies are mutable.

If their bodies age I dislike the implications for making them reproduce. If they can create new ones sure, let them age and die.

But then they should not be rare or they'd be extinct. I prefer them rare, it is more fun as a cryptid.

If their minds don't age, they suck.

If their minds age but bodies don't, they just get more experience and power and accumulated trauma...

xenophyte@c.im

@enbypirate @meadow Cool question with Ig Nobel Prize vibes, "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." I like (3) best. A shapeshifter loses control over the forms they can take with time, just similar to mortals who lose mobility, dexterity etc. when they grow older, so they can only shapeshift into older shapes.

Maybe the energy required to shift into forms increases with differences of actual and intended forms. It costs increasingly more to shift into a younger form as the shifter ages.

pockets@lgbtqia.space

@Mrfunkedude
I think (way out of my depth here) it's the telomere thing.

My understanding of them (which might be completely off base) is that as non-magical creatures age, their cells gradually create less-perfect copies of themselves, telomeres get shorter, and critical DNA/RNA sequences get lost.

So the argument could be made that any creature with perfect control over their cells might be capable of either halting or reversing telomere degradation.

That would be my reasoning for it at least.

@meadow

orionkidder@mas.to

@meadow This is entirely the wrong *kind* of nerd opinion, but you asked. (For context, I'm an English profs who works with SFF.)

Okay, do shapeshifters (have to) age?

Answer: Sure, if the author needs them to.

orionkidder@mas.to

@meadow And whether they age or not, whether they can consciously fight off aging or not, that's all inevitably--regardless of intention--going to colour the nature of the shapeshifter and therefore the ultimate meaning of the text.

orionkidder@mas.to

@meadow Now, if you're the writer, there's a delicate balance between working out the rules of your fantasy elements and then making them consistent enough that they don't make readers lose faith in the coherence of the storyworld. But...

orionkidder@mas.to

@meadow Also balancing that with the simple fact that you can design those rules to fit whatever it is your *story* actually needs. The nature of the story shouldn't be dictated by those kinds of mechanics UNLESS it makes the story better, ofc.

orionkidder@mas.to

@meadow But even that leads us right back to the question of what's "better" from the author's point of view (but only because that's the stage of the process we're talking about: creation).

orionkidder@mas.to

@meadow So it's not actually "whatever," as in it could be anything, shrug, who cares?

But it is *whatever*, as in there are no limits other than making a story that has enough of a conceptual framework holding it up that it's comprehensible to an audience.

unlikelylass@mspsocial.net

@meadow My personal headcannon is that it depends greatly on the mechanism of changing shape.

Can the shapechanger heal damage by changing into an unwounded shape? That's basically regeneration. That *could* include healing cellular aging, but not necessarily.

On the other hand, what if you shapechange by working not at the cellular level, but the molecular. You modify your body's wave function at the quantum scale, for example. Then you absolutely can undo aging, IMHO.