The Downsides to Lycanthropy

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Kveldulf
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Re: The Downsides to Lycanthropy

Post by Kveldulf »

Enhanced senses are frequently no fun at all. Imagine trying to walk down a city street, and some jackass starts whistling right near your ear, which feels roughly like having an ice pick driven into it. Then you either scare the guy out of his wits by reflexively snarling, or go home with a headache (I won't even talk about the horrors of "dog whistles"). Enhanced smell, just hope to get the non-disgust response that canids have to a lot of smells that humans find appalling!

I can see the logic behind the cancer theory, but I would think that the programming for a total bodily reset with every Change would pretty much obviate incipient cancers (in the same way as I think it would stop prion disease in its tracks - no worries about eating cattle in the UK, unless the owner of the cattle catches you).

I mentioned parasites in another post...*not* sure at all that the Change would kill off, say, tapeworm eggs or the like. That could be really nasty.

I'd also have to wonder if werewolves, with their very powerful immune systems, aren't occasionally prone to severe auto-immune diseases. Although maybe keeping a low parasite load going at least diminishes the likelihood of major allergies (helminth therapy - yes, it is a real thing, although I suspect it will remain a difficult sell to the general public). But I could see a werewolf community in which, occasionally, pack members do go down with things like massive rheumatoid arthritis (I'll spare the "lupus" jokes, since it really is not even slightly a funny disease). In fact, if one's world includes a huge physical risk to the Change beyond the initial injury, one obvious mechanism would be a total immune reaction or cytokine storm as a response to the change in various antibodies from human to lupine...could lose any proportion of potential changers one cared to, possibly with dramatic and documentable symptoms such as those of the 1918 flu.
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Re: The Downsides to Lycanthropy

Post by Chance »

If we accept that werewolves have magical healing abilities and silver kills them, then we can certainly play with or shift some theories as is already happening in this thread. So why not just take it one step further.
Let's say silver is the only thing that can kill a werewolf but they don't have magical healing abilities, the two are not connected. It's something to do with the silver interacting with the blood that causes death, but they heal like regular humans do.
That would most certainly be a downside. Any serious injury would take some time to heal. Let's say your off werewolfing about and get caught in one of those snap traps, you shift back and get yourself out (if you can, given all the blood you've lost). Let's also say for some reason you can't go to the doctor because some how they'll find out your an unknown species. You'll bascially have to set the bone yourself and tend to your injuries till they heal. Probably all by yourself.
You wouldn't be able to work, unless you work from home and for the sake of argument let's say you don't. So you would lose your job cause you can't get a note from the doctor. There's no reasonable excuse why you would need to miss the next three months of work.So you're basically hold up in your house waiting for yourself to heal, no money coming in and no one to help. Huge downside.
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Re: The Downsides to Lycanthropy

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Well, I sort of like what Scott had to say on this, namely that simply by dint of being a werewolf, you are saddled with some insurmountable scheduling issues. Not being able to be around anyone else (at least who don't know your little secret) for one to three specific days a month would get problematic pretty quickly. If said lycanthrope worked in the just-in-time economy and had to be available on short notice pretty much all the time, that could lead to an endless round of job searches.
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Re: The Downsides to Lycanthropy

Post by Chance »

With everything mentioned in this thread I'm failing to see anything that couldn't be considered a downside. Being a werewolf in itself is basically a downside from the get go.

Monthly, possible extreme changes in behavior, scheduling, living a normal life, emotional challenges, an alterd scent, not knowing if you're gonna be a good wolf or bad wolf and eat the neighborhood kid, complications with healing, and enhanced senses. Yeah all downers in my book .lol
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Re: The Downsides to Lycanthropy

Post by Chance »

What if....you knew the day but not the hour you would change. Do just sit around all day in your birthday suit. Or do you chance having to replace your outfit and shoes. Not knowing if through all the pain of a shift you'd be able to get them off in time. Do you think your paws would rip right through your shoes? Or they'd get all bunched up in them. Either way I can say I wouldn't wanna have to replace my bright green gazelles. :P
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