#erinptah

[runawaymarbles]

handbinding project: He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian, part 1 of @bicatperson's WTNV/HDM crossover.

This is a remake of one I did three years ago (lent it to a friend, he moved, making an entirely new book seemed like less work than coordinating with the friend of a friend he left it with.) The original typeset was a 6x9 so I had to readjust it to fit 5.5x8.5, and I also changed out the symbols so they'd print more easily. The new ones are a font made by the wonderful rosed from the Renegade Bindery discord.

Fun fact: the arrangement of the hands on the cover also correlates to specific alethiometer symbols because I got that in the weeds about it all.

This cover was a motherfucker and a half because heat transfer vinyl is out to ruin my life: on the original version, I applied the spine art it to the fabric before putting it on the cover, so that I could make sure it was centered. I then tried to use the same HTV to put the symbol on the cover, which did not work no matter how many times and how much heat I tried. (I realized later I'd forgotten to heat the cover first.) So then I tried to peel it up, and it didn't come all the way, so I took that cover off (hooray for wheat paste) and tried putting the vinyl on the fabric before I made the case. despite measuring multiple times, the circle ended up waaay off center. Possibly because I was trying to do this at 11pm. Eventually I just went to Joann's and bought adhesive vinyl, and only adhesive vinyl, even though there was a sale and all vinyl was 40% off. I ended up having to replace the beehive with the night vale eye, because the beehive symbol was a bunch of little lines the adhesive did nOT like, but I think the Night Vale eye looks better anyway.

[audible-smiles]

erinptah replied to your post: erinptah replied to your post: ...

Any search for “feline coronavirus” for the general background, and I can’t find anything from Belgium that says “a cat tested positive for SARS-CoV-2,” just “a cat tested positive for a coronavirus.”

the AVMA seems to be taking it entirely seriously, although they don’t provide references for their information:

[leifandthorn]

Leif & Thorn Q&A #100

[sailormoonsub]

So I feel like you should know that last night I dreamed an entire finale to Clear Card. (It involved Sakura & Shaoran teleporting to the sun, and Sakura inventing a card that does insta-translation for a group of multilingual magic prisoners.) I did watch the original CCS anime and movies, but literally my only exposure to Clear Card is from your blog.

1. I’m honored to have infiltrated your dreams 2. Your finale premonition has set a very high bar for my expectations, and I will be disappointed if it is not to case. A universal translator card is a great idea, especially since there are some language barriers between Japanese/English/Chinese present in the show, and because everyone APPARENTLY HAS COMMUNICATION ISSUES. And teleporting to the sun would always be dope, no matter how contrived it is to get there. 

[runawaymarbles]

FIC PRINTING #6: He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian by @bicatperson​

Featuring: Different alethiometer symbols for each chapter.

6x9, 455 pages, which was about $13 on Lulu Xpress. The interior and cover files are available at in this google folder.

Feel free to DM me if you have any questions!

[runawaymarbles]

Fic Covers | He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian | ErinPtah @bicatperson

Ever since Carlos was little, he and his daemon have been fans of Dr. Lyra Belacqua. Both as the most groundbreaking experimental theologian of the 20th century, and as the heroine of dozens of fantasy-adventure children's stories (based very loosely on her own mysterious childhood). But Lyra's true legacy is still bigger than Carlos ever imagined...until he took a team of scholars to study Rusakov particles in the most theologically interesting community in Hispania Nova. Now his own day-to-day life is full of things like angels, witches, hooded spectres, portals between worlds, vague yet menacing branches of the Magisterium, and a man who walks around without his daemon and can read an alethiometer as easily as a stop sign.

[audible-smiles]

erinptah replied to your post: like at what point in trying to distinguish ...

My bet is that it’s more like 40 separate disease processes, but there aren’t enough visible symptoms for us to distinguish all 40 categories, so we’re stuck fumbling around trying to at least sort them into “subgroups that are distinct-enough to raise our odds of hitting the right treatment sooner”

extremely plausible, yeah, thank you for putting that into words! I look forward to the development of more sophisticated tools to guide understanding and treatment, because working off of symptoms alone is so frustrating. 

[audible-smiles]

erinptah replied to your post “I’m off work tomorrow with no plans, so if anyone has basic veterinary...”

Sure, I'll bite. Any reasons a cat might suddenly start turning up his nose at wet food? (Still eating dry food + treats, so it's not a general loss of appetite.)

Oh, like a thousand- for whatever reason, cats genuinely are much more likely to develop strong food preferences and food aversions than dogs. Preferences are usually established early in life (e.g. my cat will only eat the Friskies ‘shredded’ canned food she got as a kitten, not their pâté) and aversions develop later (e.g. my cat will no longer eat canned pumpkin because its a constipation remedy and she associates it with spending a lot of time in the litterbox). This tendency is well known enough that vets will sometimes advise against feeding a cat’s regular food while they’re hospitalized, because food aversions can develop very fast when an animal is nauseous/ill. Pet food companies have also been known to formulate food with a unique kibble shape as an attempt to ‘imprint’ kittens onto their brand (which does often work).

So: if it’s a different type of wet food (or the company has quietly changed their formula, which happens all the time) maybe it’s just not his preference and he’s perturbed about the change. If it’s the same thing he’s always eaten, maybe he got a can that was ‘off’ somehow and that made him suspicious of it in general, or maybe he associated the food with some negative stimulus (could be literally anything unpleasant that happened while he was eating, or right afterwards, or just while the food was out and he was looking at it, because cats don’t have a great sense of cause and effect). Not much you can do about it either way.

We literally had a client with this exact question yesterday, and the doctor said, and I quote, “don’t worry about it”, which means that I talk too much. But to summarize her advice; basically, while wet food is great for cats (higher in protein and moisture, so a lot more like their natural diet than dry food) it’s certainly not the end of the world if they decide they’ll only eat kibble. Try a few other brands/flavors/textures of wet food, and if he still says “no thank you” consider a water fountain, (which can be helpful in encouraging water intake if he likes running water) and a dry food that’s 30-40% protein rather than the minimum of 26% (which is very easy to find these days, I use Hill’s Science Diet Adult and it’s like 35% protein).

If a cat doesn’t eat anything for over 24 hours they are at risk for developing hepatic lipidosis, which is where the body sends a bunch of fat to the liver all at once to be converted into energy (which cats are simply not designed for) and the liver essentially gets ‘clogged’ with fat and it can make them very ill, so its honestly safer and easier to just cater to their every whim rather than try to win a battle of wills with a cat over what foods they will or will not eat. And call your vet if you ever notice a significant reduction in their overall appetite, obviously.