Touch starvation, also known as touch deprivation or skin hunger, is the physiological need by humans and other species for physical contact with their own species or other living beings. Its prolonged absence can have traumatic impacts on an individual's emotional, physical, and/or mental well-being. Absence can lead to or be exacerbated by loneliness and/or existing depressive symptoms. Though non-human therapies are thought to provide some supplemental benefit, lack of physical human contact is stated to be severely harmful to one's confidence, emotional regulation, and self image, especially during the early childhood development window.
~ Wikipedia on Touch Starvation, 7th of January 2026
It was getting hard to think with this huge headache I suddenly gained, but I managed to respond to Maddie's question. I think?
My memory cut out at some point, and everything was just incoherent for a while.
Everything was still really hazy, but this time it was a pleasant haze. Like slowly waking up after sleeping for way too long and the bed is just warm and soft and cozy. But about 2-3 orders of magnitude better, and something was vibrating slowly. It felt even more calming and relaxing, which was definitely a good thing.
I eventually stirred my way into something akin to awareness, though still too blissed out to form complex thoughts.
I did however manage to figure out that the vibrations were me purring. That was something to get used to, I guess.
I also heard someone gasp: "Oh my gosh it's working!"
That meant I probably would need to get up? I didn't really want to. I felt way too comfortable right now.
Then the blissful sensations stemming from my head suddenly stopped, how dare they?! My ears heard something moving away from my head. That would not do!
I quickly snatched the source of the happy feels and gently, but firmly moved it back to my head.
There was another gasp, followed by a laugh and finally more happy fuzzies. Victory!
Luna!
Go away, incorporeal voice in my head, I'm being happy.
Luna, this is important.
I leaned further into whatever goodness came from my head. Whatever 'this' was, it couldn't be more important than that.
The voice in my head somehow sighed.
A local model of quantum mechanics has been experimentally proven.
'Oh shit for real?!'
I sat up fast enough that half the people reading this would black out if I were to describe it. Go eat some spinach. Or other iron-rich foods. Iron-deficiency is a serious problem.
The fuzzies stopped.
No, humanity has not yet found a local theory for quantum mechanics, if such a thing exists. I just had to get you to get up somehow.
'Betrayal! Et tu, Lyona?!'
I was not pouting, shut up, you can't prove it. Asking Lyona is cheating.
"Dr. Dopp- Fuck it I just spent half an hour petting your head. Luna! You're awake!"
Huh. Well that was an improvement. Apparently whatever the fuck just happened helped my favourite co-student to get over her gripes with addressing me informally as a peer, yay.
Speaking of, "what exactly did happen by the way?"
"W-well you just sorta passed out. I was panicking about whether or not I should call an ambulance because," Madeline gestured in the general direction of my tail and head, which I'd assume meant to indicate my ears, "and then Lyona told me to pet your head and I just kinda did and it worked?"
Hmmm... If I was a hyper-intelligent AI so advanced I probably quite literally can't imagine it, what direction from here would I be? Fuck it, I just picked a random direction and gave a pointed look in that general direction.
...
"What are you doing?"
"Giving a pointed look in what I believe is where Lyona is. Or at least it has an equal chance as any other randomly picked direction of being correct," I shrugged.
"And I'm doing that because I'm waiting for an explanation on what happened. As are the viewers I'm imagining. Pretty sure the last episode ended with me passing out," I dramatically turned around to face what I figured would be a good angle for a camera, "isn't that right? Don't worry people, I'll get you your answers!"
Silence hung in the air. A lesser person might have been bothered by this, but I had the power of autism on my side.
"Y-you think we're in a TV-show? I feel like we'd know that."
"No, not really but like, it would explain the craziness that's been my life for the past week. Also you can't prove we're not in a show."
I was glad that she decided to engage in this stupid discussion with me. It was harmless, pointless and most importantly showed that she had lowered her guard around me, which was great because that's how friendship happens. Being silly together. At least I'm pretty sure it is.
I wouldn't know. I've never gotten good grades in friendship, something that is both possible and normal to want to achieve.
"You can't just make a statement and ask me to disprove it! That's not how this works!"
I once more shrugged, "hasn't stopped literally every religion ever."
For the record, we are not in any work of fiction. I can verify we are real and not a figment of someone's imagination.
Killjoy.
"I mean yeah, I don't actually believe that, but it's fun to pretend you're the main character of your own show sometimes. If nothing else it makes meetings that could have been an email more interesting, because you get to crack jokes in your head and imagine the audience laughing at them.
"Anyways, I believe we have a question that needs answering?"
Affirmative! It is a thus far unprecedented side-effect of altering your anatomy to more closely aligning with that of a Snow-Pouncer. I have double-checked and it seems to be caused by a lack of physical contact with others. The planet they live on is further away from their host-star than Earth is, which has left it remarkably cold. While temperatures do rise above 237.15 Kelvin during summer, most of the year the entire planet is frozen over.
Incidentally, this is why they got to be so good at genetic engineering, it was simply a matter of survival to be able to edit crops and livestock to survive the harsh conditions of their home-world as their population grew and they had to expand north and south of the equator.
Random but not uninteresting tangent aside, the reason why you collapsed is because in order to survive the beyond arctic winters, the Snow-Pouncers have evolved to preserve each-other's body-heat, not unlike certain species of penguin on earth.
This has resulted in a physiological need for physical affection, which has never been a problem for any Snow-Pouncer, since they are a very affectionate civilization. But it certainly is/can be one for someone with your social-life Luna. By which I mean it's nonexistent.
Hey, it wasn't that bad! I had friends, like... ... ...fuck it *was* that bad.
"So Luna passed out because she's touch-starved and to keep it from happening again, someone will have to hug her periodically or something?"
Madeline had evidently not gotten as hung up on that part as I did. I should show her some appreciation, she was honestly really helpful throughout this. Maybe she'd also want a trip through the genetic refractor?
Correct. Hugging, cuddling, petting, anything, so long as it's positive physical contact. At least until a more permanent solution has been found and implemented. It is technically possible to simply undo all of the Snow-Pouncer related changes, however I predict a 138% chance that Luna will be against that. The extra 38% come from simulations in which she objected strongly enough to warrant being counted twice.
I blinked.
"What simulations?"
I am not at liberty to discuss that.
I was about to shoot back, but I was interrupted by arms wrapping themselves around me from behind. It felt kind of nice. No, it felt really nice.
"So I guess we'll figure out options after I'm home? Oh speaking of, Maddie, do you happen to want to use my tech also? I'm not sure how he would react to you suddenly turning into a girl, but I figured I'd ask."
I felt her arms stiffened at the mention of him. That made sense. Honestly I was surprised he put her and me in the same lab. I figured he'd want his precious kid as far away from the 'unfortunately too competent to ignore freak' as physically possible, but hey, it meant I got to hang out with someone without the whole 'superiority-complex matched only by the fragility of their ego' thing for a change, so I wouldn't exactly complain.
"I- I'll think about it... Anyway, what was Lyona saying about your lack of social life?"
Ah. Fair enough, she didn't want to think about it.
"Oh. That. Iiiii kinda don't have one?"
She stopped hugging me, walked around to face me and firmly put her hands on my shoulders.
"What do you mean you ‘don't have one'?!"
Welp, time to bring out the tried and true awkwardly stare at the ground and wait for the tirade to be over.
"Exactly that? My parents have impossible expectations, so I need to either break under those or sacrifice stuff like social life."
...
Huh.
No yelling.
That's new.
I dared to move my eyes off the ground and look at Madeline. Her mouth hung wide open.
She shook her head. "Okay so this weekend I'm taking you to a queer bar where I'll meet with some friends. And no, you do not get a say in the matter. I'll send you the time and address as soon as I'm home."
'Thaaaat... Is good? Lyona, that is good, right?'
Lyona responded in my head only this time.
I believe it will be beneficial. While not to the extent of the Snow-Pouncers, Humanity remains a social species. Therefore not having any social life whatsoever may lead to pretending you are in a TV-show and performing for an imaginary audience.
She was still hung up on that? But yeah, okay, alright, fair enough. I would go.
The rest of our lab-day went by smoothly, and we did - despite the unscheduled break - manage to sift through all the data and trim it to the relevant parts. The rest was up to the computers to calculate, so I'd check back in a day or two and look at what we got. I could do that part from home though.