#penwell

[dimespin]

does PenWell have any dental problems, having had his last set of teeth for so long?

He ground his molars down to almost nothing by around age 150 - he has dental implants and crowns on most of his teeth now. His tusks are the original ones though. Since they aren't actually useful for anything they haven't suffered as much wear and tear.

In the period of time between when he stopped being able to chew properly and when people around him badgered him to finally see a dentist he did his best with foods known to be easier to chew. He still eats those frequently because he's worried about wearing out the crowns because he really wants to avoid any more dental work if possible

He still has issues with having a hair trigger with his venom glands in certain situations to this day, and while many his age have more limited venom capacity he's in fighting form on that front whether he likes it or not.

He's good at maintaining a calm facade but that only helps so much when someone needs to actually put their hand in his mouth, where the venom is. They've got ways of handling it but yeah it's a whole thing.

[dimespin]

What the heck even was that illness that took out Pens whole family? To take out so many adults and wreck havoc on the survivors it must have been something terrible

I was thinking something akin to hantavirus, but new to the species at the time. Something with low to no transmission rates Saratoan to Saratoan so those who had it were infected by exposure to the host animal the disease came from (thus why it completely skipped everyone too young to work, the infection vector was on the farms they worked on) with initial flu like symptoms that would be easy to write off at first

Part of why it was as bad as it was for them was bad luck and outside factors.

For one, small group so it didn't take as high a ratio to leave few survivors - his family was smaller than others because his mother and grandmother had both had few children but his grandmother had several siblings, so more than half the adults in the house were elderly which didn't help their survival chances either. The ratio was a little less catastrophic among young and middle age adults overall, his house just didn't have a ton of those.

The majority of the household's internal culture being over 100 meant the tendency for them to remember earlier medical eras and the choice to try and handle things with natural remedies went unchallenged, leading to seeking outside help only when things were already extremely bad and it was already too late for a lot of them.

One other adult living in the house who was close to his age survived and recovered completely like he did but it was his sister's partner, so not an actual relative. She made her recovery in her birth family's home and just never came back so she wasn't there for the aftermath so he generally kinda forgets to mention her. He doesn't blame her or anything, just considers it an extraneous detail, like how he doesn't mention his brother either when telling the story.

But that does mean the disease's kill rate was a little less intense than advertised. Still pretty intense though.

[dimespin]

why DID fate pick on pen so much? just his docile attitude? i thought saratoans tended to be more caring towards those younger than them

That's kind of just how she is, she's an abrasive, sharp tongued person and when she was younger she had a short fuse. She viewed her behavior as tough love, so not incompatible with the expectation to guide those junior to her. All her children and grandchildren have experienced this about her too Pen wasn't special.

Also the Atau are an ethnic minority and PenWell's family was poor and worked physical labor jobs others looked down on them for. She didn't consciously harass him for these reasons but it was certainly an unconscious factor of why she found him to be an acceptable target and didn't give him as much benefit of the doubt any time she had a problem with him.

Despite that she did behave in genuinely caring ways toward him especially after the losses he suffered, so he tends to view her in a more positive light despite the fact she took every opportunity to snap at him.

He personally is not nearly as vexed by his experiences with her as people who had to live with her 24/7

[dimespin]

was reed's death particularly tragic/unexpected? or was it more just age-related? not that losing him at all wasn't a tragedy.

ReedWalk survived that illness that swept through the house but was sick from then on and died a few years later from complications related to that and the poverty they had all been living in before and especially after.

PenWell was sometimes angry with Reed for being another he had to care for on top of being the only one working, and seeing his previously very brash partner gently and quietly reassuring him when he came home just made him angrier at life in general because it was so out of character (Reed was kind to him don't get me wrong but he was a hug-wrestle "want me to kill him for you?" kind of person - after the illness he stopped having the energy to have his personality on at full volume and the difference was stark)

Pen is still deeply bothered by how uncharitable he was in his thoughts at the time, even though he didn't lash out in any particularly awful way. He views the way he was unable to fully conceal how upset he was (how he couldn't control his venom production) as a form of lashing out that he's embarrassed by - he often views the venom he was making at the time as an expression of anger but most who saw him around that time would have described him more accurately. He was terrified. Constantly.

Trying to talk about Reed brings up all these feelings of regret and survivor's guilt and inadequacy much much more strongly than anyone else he's lost - and worse, the thing he feels he "learned" from all that was the importance of not letting his emotions hurt those around him. So he just doesn't talk about Reed.

[dimespin]

did fatelock lose a tusk to age? or something else?

Partly age related dental problems, partly luck of the draw with genetics making her more prone to cavities, combined with age related fear of dentists and doctors, leading to avoidance until the root of the tusk was damaged beyond saving.

She was alive for the tail end of the "heroic era" of medicine, when seeing a doctor mostly meant blood letting and being given poison to make you puke and dentists only pulled teeth and nothing else so you can't blame her too much for being scared.

(this is also why she was so much heavier in her youth and not so much now - it's harder and more uncomfortable for her to eat now)

She's a bit of a nuclear cockroach of a person, dental and medical neglect isn't enough to keep her from seeing her 201st birthday.

Since I know this will make some curious about Pen: he deals with similar problems with aging and medical fear, plus his own unique issues with his teeth being older (despite being younger than her) and being an ethnic minority, but he has a more open mind toward younger people so he's allowed himself to be persuaded to receive care more than Fate.

[dimespin]

What was PenWell's life partner like?

You get an answer from FateLock because I wanted to draw an answer but Pen wouldn't talk about Reed.

PenWell has always been a very gentle person, to the degree that he was a bit of a doormat in his youth, but going through a lot has given him a bit of a hidden edge that he doesn't like showing people and talking about the loss of his partner is one of the few things that can make it difficult for him to be gracious so he just doesn't go there around most people. One of the ways the elder role can be a little toxic in their culture sometimes.

FateLock never liked Reed since she picked on Pen a lot and Reed was always in her face about it, joey or no joey (Pen always hated that - he insisted no fighting should happen in front of the baby haha)

[dimespin]

Younger pen kind of fine tho....

*adds Pen to the list of men I accidentally made attractive apparently*

[dimespin]

PENWELL WHAT HAPPENED

This happened when Pen was about 110. His brother Clay had moved out decades before and didn't find out what happened for a long time since he had lost contact with his family at the time (the saratoan bachelor lifestyle is not always super stable)

And unfortunately in the intervening 70 years he outlived those joeys, but not all at once as what triggered his tusk development.