That was my exact thought :)

That’s da rudest thing I’ve seen in years

If that’s the same person, they had shit ton of dental work done, because the angles are different

Well, obviously it depends on which myth/legend/author is in play.

That being said, vampire myths were not prone to syringe teeth. The bite opens an artery, or just tears a patch out, and the blood comes out either under its own pressure, or assisted by sucking (I vant to suck your blood).

Typically, and I haven’t read every vampire fiction piece so ymmv, when syringe teeth are used, it’s for injection rather than extraction. Typically some kind of anaesthetic and/or blood thinner, with consumption still being via the mouth rather than the teeth.

Werewolf (or other therianthropes) shedding is less clear cut. In myths, I never saw any mention of it at all. At most, shedding skin entirely, or otherwise leaving behind parts of one shape when transforming was involved, but that was in creatures far away from what could be called werewolf. So, shedding hair like a dog or cat does isn’t part of traditional lore.

Unlike vampires, however, it does appear in modern fiction. Most often as a joke or aside, but it is present. The apparent reasoning being linked to how long the individual stays in their wolf/animal form.

In other words, it seems most writers have an assumption that the “wolf” won’t shed unless it spends enough time in that shape to have hair reach the end of its growth cycle. However, I don’t recall any examples of that applying in reverse. When in human form, it’s rarely covered, but the default is that weres who only shift monthly do have normal human processes, including shedding hair as it cycles.

But there are references to both here and there (please don’t ask me to remember which books, I have read way too many urban fantasy series to keep track of exactly which author uses what system). Wolves shedding when in wolf form even when only in it overnight does happen. As does humans not shedding hair, or regrowing hair they cut or otherwise lost, after returning to human form.

When it comes to this kind of stuff, there can be difficulty sorting out older myths from those that get passed around now due to stuff like dracula, the old universal movies, etc. Most of the scholarly, historical information is hard to find nowadays. It’s buried on the internet, and local libraries are more likely to have secondary works interpreting old lore than direct translations of the small amount of written records of such legends. But it is out there, if you have reason and motivation to slog through shitty ai search results.

Here follows geek/writer stuff, be warned.

Now, personally, I’ve used both shapeshifters and vampires in both written fiction and rpg play. My choices tended towards a time based factor for shedding. Since hair takes time to be shed in humans or other animals, my default is that any hair or fur is “new” upon the shape change. Thus, shedding would only be a factor after extended time in a shape. Indeed, one version of were-being I use has reduced aging because of that. Each form ages slightly slower than normal by virtue of the thing that causes the power (in my main worlds, it’s a magically linked quasi-virus symbiote), and each change hits pause on the other form, leading to life expectancy into the two hundreds or more. However, they would also shed less because the symbiote prefers a stasis when possible. It’s linked to fast healing.

Vampires in my main fiction and trrpg worlds are also symbiote virus based. Part of that is being able to inject a bolus of the virus through the fangs at will (and sometimes involuntarily), so fangs are essentially syringes in that setting. I have played around with the fangs being able to suck up blood, but it isn’t really viable on a “realism” level (yeah, it’s fantasy, but I try not to hand wave bullshit when it isn’t essential). The mechanisms for sucking parts in real world animals/creatures just don’t match what could work in human sized fangs, much less alongside injection.

That being said, my main universe has a vampire planet. And there are things there that can both suck and inject via the same body part. Larger predators there, which originated before the symbiote got there, developed fangs capable of doing the job. Humans that arrived there were not dominant as a species for quite some time. The large arachnid-ish predators there were particularly fond of human juices. Even after alterations by the symbiote, it took time before the new vampires had the power to be on equal footing, and much longer before they got powerful enough to dominate the planet.

Anyways, that’s the geek gush over lol

Sterility isn’t necessary for safe water. You only need it to be pathogen free, and lack dangerous contaminants.

So, beyond that, it kinda depends on what you think “clean” means.

I took a quick gander at how Ireland’s drinking/tap water is regulated.

Assuming whatever location is actually following regulations and standards, y’all got some damn nice water out of the tap. The EU regulations are great. There shouldn’t be anything pathogenic at any concentration to worry about. Since water there is treated, I doubt you’d have much of anything reaching your tap at all. You’d have more particulates than anything else, some trace minerals (which is a good thing), maybe some organics here and there (think bits of algae swept along).

Think about it like aquariums. You don’t want sterility; you want a healthy, flourishing biome because all those bacteria eat bad things.

It’s the same in water pipes; you get a good biofilm growing, and pathogens aren’t going to be able to set up shop, even if they do get past whatever treatment is going on at the source. I’ve even seen arguments against chlorination in water treatment because it’s indiscriminate. It can kill off the friendly stuff and make the system as a whole less resilient to unexpected blooms of something pathogenic.

If you ever set up ponds, you actively encourage bacterial growth as part of the process. There’s aquaculture guides where between the right plants, fish, and bacteria, you can end up with water so clean you’d want to drink it, and can, even starting from sewage contaminated water.

If you then slap a filter on to catch particulates, you’re left with something that’s more pure than if you sterilized the source water by chemical or other means.

Anyway, the EU standards for drinking water are top tier. Go look them up, it’s a really comprehensive and science driven set of standards. If your locale is even half-assing things, you’ve got great water indeed

That’s what she said

Like the comment protist copied from Wikipedia, it’s generally considered to be a mix of coming out with the truth, and having skeletons in the closet. Back in the eighties, that was the explanation I heard most often when hanging out with gay folks.

Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s absolutely factual, I’m not aware of anyone that’s really dug into it with serious historical rigor. But it is at least the accepted explanation. And it makes sense, so I’ve never gone digging beyond talking to people alive and active during the early gay rights era of the seventies.

I mean, life…

Well, the key word is usually

Late term vanishing twin syndrome is a thing. It comes with its own set of issues as well. Since its also extremely rare, you’d have to be some kind of nerd to know it exists unless you’re an obgyn or at least a maternity nurse. I am neither an obgyn or a maternity nurse.

When it happens late term, and 7 months is very late term for it, you get an increased rush of complications, some of which can negatively impact the development of the remaining fetus. Hell, from what I remember, late term absorption tends to happen because there’s something going wrong already. Iirc (and don’t try to cite me on a test or anything), just being a little too cramped can trigger it, though it would be a very rare trigger for an already absurdly rare thing.

So, my best guess as a non doctor with zero access to the records of the pregnancy in question is that something happened to put the pregnancy at risk, and either your mom’s body or yours set off the cascade leading to the failure of the other fetus. It isn’t something that happens that late without some triggering event that’s outside of a normal pregnancy. When it happens early on, it’s a different story, it can happen for no detectable reason at all. But late term? Something went wrong that made it happen.

I’d have to go digging, and I’m currently brain fried, but one of the more common triggers worldwide is/was malnutrition. When the mother isn’t getting resources to grow both critters, either her body shifts to support one exclusively, or one of the two essentially cannibalizes the other. That one (again, I’m old and tired, so the iirc factor is iffy here) is most likely to happen when the twins share a placenta, or something like that (see, old man brain missing details).

Since you’ve said in comments that you were placed in an unusual orientation and/or location, that would point to some kind of issue with the uterus not having enough room for both fetuses (fetii? I think I like that better despite it not being duet correct lol). I seem to recall a case in India where a woman prone to twins had a pregnancy where this happened because her uterus had lost the ability to stretch the way they normally do. Something about scar tissue maybe? Been ages since I read about this stuff.

Anyway, late term vanishing twin syndrome is the terminology I know of. If there’s another, more formal terminology, iam not aware of it.

It’s a reference to a movie of the same name.

The gist is that at one point, Sophie is forced to choose which of her children die.

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/23942074

They said it better than I can

But I also get where you’re coming from; the prompt itself is weak and leaves several assumptions out that would make better answers possible from an llm.

Which wave?

Or are you just talking in the general sense?

I ask because I’ve heard the term applied specifically to the Chinese workers on the railroads in the late 1800s, here in the US, plus another that came between the end of the first World war and some time after the end of the second.

In the specific senses, it’s too far in the past for me to think of it much at all. The more modern wave has essentially integrated and their descendants are just plain old americans for the most part; meaning they hang onto the parts of their ancestral culture to the degree they want, and otherwise may not have any connection in that regard. So it’s more a point of historical interest than something influential on current events. That seems to be the prevailing take I’ve run into with others as well.

More recent immigrants, I don’t have enough experience to have formed an overall take. My area doesn’t run high to Chinese immigrants. We get more folks from the Americas and African nations. But I haven’t had any standout bad encounters, nor have I seen any patterns that would make it seem like a bad thing.

Can’t lie, racism against asian folks in general is present here. It isn’t as prevalent as that against Latinos, Africans or African-Americans, but it’s there. Afaik, nobody thinks of it as an overarching “thing” at all. Folks here tend to look at immigration on a smaller scale than a diaspora. If there isn’t a significant inrush of a given group, nobody really notices.

Man, whatever translation service you used needs to be spanked

I dunno, but the majority of interactions I’ve had with visiting, or immigrated, latin Americans has been great. I know that doesn’t necessarily indicate anything other than me maybe having good luck, but it has left me with a default stance of friendliness and welcome for folks from the rest of the continent/s.

In terms of exposure, yeah, most of my interactions have been with Mexicans. We have a really big Mexican population in the area.

But we also have sizable contingents of Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Guatemalans, and a smattering of Brazilians, with a few from most of the other south American countries. Never met a Peruvian though. One of my best friends is a second generation Nicaraguan immigrant, and you’ll never meet a better guy.

Now, in terms of deep exposure to the cultures of central and south Americas, it’s mainly Nicaraguan for me, plus Mexican for the North American contingent. I really love the experiences I’ve had with my friend’s family, so definitely a fan of Nicaraguan food and at least their iteration of the traditions.

I also really appreciate how community driven the Mexicans in my neighborhood are. There’s almost always a gathering of some kind in a given week, and they’re all really open to neighbors dropping in and chilling. Great food, great music, and they don’t make fun of badly mangled Spanish. My neighbors next door were having a small get together today, so there was music going while I was in the yard working, and it was really nice. A mix of tejano, norteño, and mariachi. I dunno what they were cooking, but it smelled amazing at least.

Are there some friction points? Yeah, of course. A lot of the machismo stuff can get old fast. There’s also a fairly conservative religious skew that can be difficult to navigate, what with me being a pretty damn staunch lgbtq+ rights proponent. But even there, I’ve not run into hatred often, more the kind of cultural prejudice that’s also present in us culture to begin with.

But I can say this much for sure. If the cultures and people that still live south of the us match what I’ve experienced here, then I consider those folks good neighbors too.

Fap-fap-fap-fap-fap

I mean, isn’t it obvious?

Pickling in heavy water with a hint of dill

Those are the biggest stones on the planet (next to the ones dangling between my legs).

Or that’s a tiny knife. Like the one hanging between my legs.

Instructions unclear: dick is shredding my undies because the tip is now a chisel

Alas, that c/ is low traffic.

It’s way easier than people make it out to be, unless you’re chasing very specific things. Like, if you want to literally split a hair in two, expect to spend time refining your techniques.

Otherwise? You’re rubbing metal on a rock. You can sharpen a knife on a brick and get a damn sharp edge on it in five to ten minutes, no bullshit, no hyperbole.

There’s two things that matter: burrs and removing burrs.

What’s a burr?

When you rub a knife against a rock long enough, the very tippy edge is going to roll over a tiny bit. That’s a burr.

Once you get one all along the edge, flip that sucker and do it on the other side until a new burr forms. Boom! First thing done.

Now you have to remove that burr and finish up the edge. Use real gentle pressure and alternate sides on the same stone you just used. Lift the back of the knife a teeny bit higher than when you were grinding it before.

Do this maybe five times each side, then check the edge. Most types of steel, you should be able to make a clean slice in a piece of paper. If it can’t, give it a few more passes and try again.

If you raised a burr in the first place, you’ll get rid of it fairly quick, so if you’ve hit maybe twenty passes trying to remove it, chances are you didn’t raise a burr, you just thought you did. No biggie, they can be hard to see or feel sometimes. Particularly with really hard steels. Might have to go back and try again.

However, there’s a nice little trick to help. Get a sharpie and mark that edge. When you’re grinding, if you’ve got an angle close to what’s already there, you’ll remove the ink and know youre on track. If there’s a band of ink left at the edge, you’re too shallow. Ink left towards the back, too deep.

Truth is, for a useable edge, it doesn’t matter what the angle actually is, only that it’s fairly consistent along any straight sections. Yeah, the more acute the angle, the better it’s going to work for some tasks, but a morr obtuse one has benefits too. So don’t worry about nailing some arbitrary angle. That’s for later, once it becomes a hobby as much as a tool maintenance task.

Legit, while you can get fiddly with sharpening and fine tune a given knife to be better at specific tasks, that’s optional. You can take a crappy knife, run it over a crappy stone and cut things. That’s what matters; that it works. And the learning curve to get to where it works isn’t huge.

Hearts just broke

!like that knife!<