How do injuries conflict with shapeshifting?

[Umbryft Flight 2]

I'm trying to make a fic about a pony who goes to the human world and has to shapeshifter into a human to fit in. But then one day he gets a deep cut in he side of his thigh. What happens when he shapeshiftes back into a pony, does the injury show up? What about when he gets sliced while a pony? I've been thinking about this for a long and I don't know what to do. Anypony have ideas?

[redshell 195]

I'm trying to make a fic about a pony who goes to the human world and has to shapeshifter into a human to fit in. But then one day he gets a deep cut in he side of his thigh. What happens when he shapeshiftes back into a pony, does the injury show up? What about when he gets sliced while a pony? I've been thinking about this for a long and I don't know what to do. Anypony have ideas?

yes it does appear on the other form

[Unikitty 1,212]

It entirely depends on how you want to define 'shapeshifting'. Personally, I wouldn't have wounds carry over because I would consider the act of shapeshifting to go hand-in-hand with having general control over your molecular structure(because that's really how it would work - a rearrangement of atoms). Some damage may still carry over in that, if you lose a sizable amount of your body, you'd obviously have less atoms to work with. But even this can be moot if you consider the idea that you could replace a lost limb using atoms all across the body, just using them sparingly so that the holes left behind are few and far between. They'd be regenerated by the standard manner in which the body replaces lost cells.

 

In the end, however, it's entirely up to you how you do it. There's no set rules with shapeshifting. If you wanted, you could instead opt for the more visual, magical, and perhaps overall less powerful 'smart shapeshifting', where for some reason wounds do carry over to their respective parts and a loss of limb in one form means a loss of similar limb in any other.

[PoisonClaw 8,166]

It tends to vary from writer to writer. Usually injuries carry over for the sake of drama, like a character suffering a mortal would before getting transformed yet retaining that wound. Other times, and the way I agree with, is that shapeshifting involves fundamentally reconstructing the individual on a physical and genetic level, altering and changing cells in such a way that any injuries are healed in the process as the cells change around. Whether there are limitations to this (like whether getting a limb torn off and shapeshifting to regrow it is possible or not) also tends to vary.

 

My point is there really are no set rules in this case. You want a character to retain injuries or physical disabilities even after shapeshifting into a complete different form, you go right ahead.

Edited April 14, 2016 by PoisonClaw

[Melted Dog 161]

I agree with the keeping your wounds while shapeshifting thing, but I have a question myself. Say that a pony gets one of his wings badly burnt, and then shapeshifts into a human. Where would the damage be done?

[silvadel 1,393]

It is more of an issue with shapeshifting with the injury at all.  Being sufficiently injured makes it harder // more taxing // very painful to shapeshift. 

 

Figure a shapeshifter who is significantly wounded would end up weakened/unconscious when assuming the new form.

 

Figure a shapeshifter who is severely wounded might fail entirely when trying to shapeshift, and/or have unpredictable results in addition to the above, or might not survive the process, as he bleeds out//loses crucial elements trying to manipulate the damaged areas.

[Untitled Goose Q 5,137]

It really is entirely up to you.

 

Some variants (like Animorphs) allows for injuries to be healed, but other version (Harry Potter) has injuries carried over.

 

Use what works best for the story, you can always change it if you feel the need