more teeth fuckery

biology

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i had idly assumed that Aen Seidhe, being ageless, must have the same mechanic as Witchers for not dying of starvation because of lack of teeth– polyphyodonty, or just– like, teeth that grow back, right?

well i idly mentioned this in one of my Discord servers and. well. the particular mix of people there could not let this stand. because we do have canonical book information about the dentition of Aen Seidhe, and that information is bonkers. (I think all our information about Witcher teeth is fanon, but as we know only humans or adequately-human-DNA-containing mixes of nonhumans can get Witchered, we have some information about their base dentition before mutation.) I get it– Sapkowski wanted his elves to be nonhuman in some easily-defined way, that for plot reasons would have a distinctive trait that would persist beyond defleshing, so one could look at a living individual or at a skull and see at a glance whether they were elf or human. Sure.

So he gave his elves really small teeth, and no canines.

This is fucked-up and weird of him, but it is what it is. (even more fucked-up: elves apparently just eat human food though. it’s not like they’re vegan or something, like they’re supposed to be herbivores or something– and if they were they’d need different guts too right?? and we’re getting into there being no way for them to possibly be able to interbreed with humans, which they can obviously, canonically, for plot reasons, do. so they have wildly different dentition, but somehow still just eat like humans do. NO ONE EVER THINKS THIS SHIT THROUGH IN THEIR WORLDBUILDING.)

But like. It would be terrible of us to not run with such a golden opportunity for weird shit.

grison_in_space immediately was like well what placental mammals exist that do not have a deciduous “baby” teeth phase? And how do they ensure that an individual does not outlive their teeth, which is a problem for all sorts of animals and not just long-lived ones?

Rodents. Many rodents do not have deciduous teeth. But they have a great solution to make sure their teeth last as long as the rest of them.

So the answer for this is clearly to give Aen Seidhe rodent-like dentition: thus, their teeth never stop growing.

In every elf’s personal hygeine kit is a toothbrush, but also a small tooth rasp for them to fix uneven wear, and they have the adorable ratlike habit of bruxing when contented. This is practically canon you guys, given the givens.

Meanwhile kk_maker​ had looked up information about how humans handle their baby teeth in various areas of the world, and had some fascinating tale about how in Sri Lanka, a child will place their shed teeth on a roof https://harpdental.com/blog/baby-teeth-folklore-traditions-around-the-world/ and sing a song to a squirrel, asking the squirrel to take the tooth away and bring them a nice new one to replace it.

Well I can’t not use that.

imagine, if you will, a certain Scoia’tael, who is of a species whose young do not shed deciduous teeth. Imagine, if you will, a small human child, who has heard the adults in her life refer to the Scoia’tael as a Squirrel. Imagine this child has shed a tooth and has previously been told to offer it to a squirrel when this happens.

I’m just saying. (Your picture was not posted)

transferring home movies

the author

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a lil camera store dayjob moment

this order is all super8 reels from like the 60s

most of them are christmas mornings

this one features a like, nine-month-old enthusiastically gumming things, very cute. wall-to-wall carpet. tree with multicolored lights. assorted relatives, chaos.

into the frame comes his brother, maybe 4 or 5

the brother is wearing footsie pajamas

and he is carrying his new toy, of which he is clearly very proud. it is a life-size, fairly realistic Winchester carbine, lever-action.

an adult woman (likely his mother) reaches over and takes it from him.

with a hand that is also holding a clear glass of amber liquid, likely a beer, she nonchalantly operates the lever for him, then hands it back, he resumes carrying it around the room, pointing it at several people and, somehow, himself, despite it being as large as he is.

the rest of the three-minute silent movie periodically features this child and this gun meandering through the crowd. no one gives him a second look. (Your picture was not posted)

I am loving your casserole series! It’s got me thi

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ah i am so bad at asks. i read them and i’m like oh that’s lovely!! and then i don’t. ever. do anything with them.

anyway. here is a casserole pick-me-up. <3 hope everyone’s enjoying this descent into Darkest Winter. (Your picture was not posted)