yesterday for April Fool’s my workplace had a short training article on recognizing computer-generated faces from real ones and one of the tricks mentioned was “count the teeth” and I just wanted to say that it’s both ironic and kind of horrifying how society has unwittingly cycled right back to IF YE MEET A MAN ON THE ROAD, COUNT HIS FINGERS LEST YE DEAL UNKNOWING WITH A FAE
The fae were time traveling AIs.
Fairyland? The future.
Mushroom rings were disguised time portals. Explains how people could be gone for a day and come back 100 years later– the AIs dropped them off later for fun.
The food that was so good, everything else tasted like ashes? Modern cooking laced with drugs.
The faerie “magic” was just advanced science. The only-telling-the-truth comes from an integral part of their code, Asimov-style. The fear of iron comes from a far of magnets that could be used to wipe their harddrive.
The Wild Hunt/Changlings? AI who find the whole thing hilarious. Robot humor at it’s finest. Look at the squishy extinct sapients run.
It’s late and I tied and have sent far to much thinking about this.