video

[glitterateur]

[There’s a lot of noise in the background of this video post. Like, way more noise than usual when Mabel’s face shows up on the network. One could say almost… exactly double the noise?]

Hi! Hey. Important question. I know everybody’s busy with stuff but this is a matter of life and death probably? Through forces beyond our control we have an animal that-- well look!

[The camera pans. Two twelve year old boys (who look suspiciously like tiny versions of the Stans) are riding a magnificent creature around a living room. Dipper watches anxiously, but seems resigned to the situation. He has the look of someone who has walked through the flames of hell and can now withstand anything. The camera stays on the chaos long enough for one of the Stan kids to fall off the… thing. The lower part of the thing. The part you can conceivably ride on.]

It’s a centaurtaur! And we’re not sure how it breathes? Or eats. We have some, um, theories but we can’t test it because we can't reach. So if anyone’s ever had any experience with an animal like this or you’re pretty tall and willing to help us do some research please let us know! Thanks.

Comments

[glitterateur]

Do you know a vet that could do it?

[puppydoctor]

[There is some major hand-to-forehead action going on over here.]

It's a massive amount of work to build a mouth. You'd have to literally build muscle and bone for it to be functional at all. Now what would be easier is an esophagostomy, a direct feeding tube to each of their esophaguses. And a vet could probably manage that.

[glitterateur]

I think they share an esophagus? So they'd only need to give him one big tube. [Still, this is good news. Science has an answer!!] If the solar power or food absorbing don't work we'll ask around about doing that.

[puppydoctor]

Wait - solar power?

[glitterateur]

Yeah, you know. Like the sun?

[What kind of education did you get. How did med school fail you so much, George.]

[puppydoctor]

[IDK HOW'S SEVENTH GRADE GOING]

I know what it is. How's it supposed to help the horse... thing?

[glitterateur]

[Jokes on you she hasn't been to school in over a year.]

It might get all its energy from the sun! Like photosynthesis.

[Heck yeah she used a real science word suck it]

[puppydoctor]

That would depend on its cells. Horse cells are different from plant cells - they don't have chloroplasts, which are sort of like buckets that catch the sunlight. Horses don't have anything to collect the beams in.

[glitterateur]

[Well dang. She has been out-scienced.]

Yeah but he's not a horse! He's a magical centaurtaur from mystic far-away lands. He probably has chloroplasts.

[puppydoctor]

I don't know, they don't teach magical zoology in my residency. [He doesn't want to argue centaurtaur anatomy with a tween right now. Or anytime, really.] But just in case they don't, surgery might be the best bet.

[glitterateur]

If her doesn't seem to be happy and healthy out in the wild we'll grab him and take him in to a professional magical zoologist.

[Which, now that she thinks about it, sounds like the coolest career? Mental note: see if that's a real thing.]

[puppydoctor]

[He's already way ahead of her on wondering about that.]

Um. Is that a thing they have here? I'm not sure I've seen it in the yellow pages.

[glitterateur]

There has to be at least one person who knows something about it. Probably not somebody who has something listed somewhere, but one of the other imPorts!

[puppydoctor]

Yeah, probably. An unlisted imPort trained in magical veterinary medicine. Easy-peasy.