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[tattooedsappho]

tw: animal death (?) Emma, are you still there? WEBTOON - INSTAGRAM

[tattooedsappho]

[tattooedsappho]

[tattooedsappho]

If you can't wash it off, paint over it, replace the item, or buff it out, turn a message of hate into one of love! I would never condone someone to do this discreetly and in mere seconds with a quickly concealed permanent marker, for example on a public bench or bus stop. Certainly not anything like whipping out a tat machine and adding to an unconscious white supremacist's existing tattoo. That would be illegal! :) And, dear followers, I would never encourage you to do something that's illegal. So, please only use this when someone has defaced your personal property to avoid breaking the law! Because that would be illegal, and following in the law is always in everyone's best interest. :) .... :) reblogs and even reposts definitely welcome

[tattooedsappho]

Dude I went to Wendy's to get a chocolate Frosty and some fries and they didn't have a chocolate Frosty in the dude asked if the vanilla was okay and I was like yeah sure that's chill and he was like okay and then I get to the front and he only charged me for the French fries that was like so cool dude I hope you have an amazing evening

[tattooedsappho]

The other day, I went down the rabbit hole of "cute donkeys" and came up with my head full of things I didn't know about mules (the hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey), and why they were once so coveted as work animals.

Brace for info dump, while enjoying this lovely photo of a trio of draft mules.

The explanation is hybrid vigour, when hybrid offspring have enhanced traits compared to its parents:

Mules are stronger, hardier, healthier, have better enduranve, harder hooves, sturdier skin and can handle extreme weather better than horses or donkeys. They are also more patient, more intelligent, and easier to handle than either of their parent species. Horses may be faster, but that's about the single thing they're better at than a mule of the same size.

So mules, being all around nicer to work with and getting you more work for the same amount of feed, and with less hassle, were preferred for just about every job purpose.

Habby du Magnou, a Poitevin Mulassier mare, and her daughter Lady du Magnou, a rare Poitevin mule

But since horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62, mules end up with 63 chromosomes, which means they are almost invariably sterile. That's because biology gets very confused when trying to split an uneven number of chromosomes neatly in half to create germ cells. There are a few documented exceptions of fertile mule mares (never stallions), but they are very, very rare. So you have to keep crossbreeding the two parent species to produce them, usually by breeding a donkey sire (jack) to a horse dam (mare). This is because it's easier for a 32 chromosome egg to incorporate a 31 chromosome sperm into a viable zygote (fertilised egg) than vice versa.

Because of this, there was (and still is) in France a breed of absolutely massive draft horses, the Poitevin Mulassier, and a breed of big-ass donkeys (pun intended, but honestly, it's arguably the largest donkey in the world, and it's shaggy like Highland cattle), the Baudet du Pitou, two breeds whose main purpose was to breed the enormous and super-strong Poitevin mule.

The Poitevin mule

This absolute unit was the must-have work-animal for all kinds of farm and industrial work for centuries, and a significant French export, until mechanisation made these magnificent creatures obsolete.

With no demand for the Poitevin mule , its parent breeds dwindled, almost to the brink of extinction. Determined conservation efforts during the last few decades are slowly bringing their numbers back up, but they're very far from their heyday, when some 20,000 Poitevin mules were born annually.

The Poitevin Mulassier

Both the parent breeds are still endangered, which means most of the current effort is directed into bringing up the numbers of Poitevin horses and Pitou donkeys. This means breeding horses to horses and donkeys to donkeys, with very few breeding opportunities allowed to produce the Poitevin mule. Only about 20 of those are born each year.

The Baudet du Pitou

[tattooedsappho]

A theory about Merv

I have a theory about Mervyn Pumpkinhead.  I’d say it’s a headcanon but it’s more a theory. 

  According to the tale of Stingy Jack (the origin of the jack-o-Lantern) we carve Jack-o-lanterns to drive away old Jack and other wandering ghosts.  The Jack-o-lantern is a protection ward against supernatural threats from entering your home. One superstition has it that if you blow out the Jack-o-lantern before midnight on Halloween you invite evil spirits to enter your home for the entire year.  It’s only safe to blow it out after midnight. Another superstition is if you let the Jack-o-lantern burn out naturally you invite good luck for the entire year and have warded your home against evil for the full year.  It is especially good luck if it manages to burn until after sunrise. In The House with a clock in its walls Pumpkin Jack-o-lanterns are used as protection wards all year long. Jack-o-lanterns, at their heart, are symbols of protection.  Now, because we see Mervyn as a Mervyn Turniphead in The Sandman story The Tempest, it’s very clear that his Jack-o-lantern head isn’t just for the aesthetic. In his Turnip form, that is an old school Irish Jack-o-lantern.  That is a pre-Halloween decoration (use for any time of year) Protection symbol against supernatural threats.

So even in present day when Mervyn has a modern Pumpkin Jack-o-lantern head, Mervyn is a walking, talking, protection ward against supernatural threats.  He’s not just the groundskeeper or janitor.  He’s a line of defense.   This does explain why Mervyn stands up to The Furies (The Kindly Ones) the way he does.

And this is also one of the many reasons I, myself, love Jack-o-lanterns.  They aren’t just symbols of Halloween. They are kind of comforting in their protective light. 

[tattooedsappho]

Some union basics:

1. Striking is the LAST RESORT. If a union is at the place where a strike is being proposed it is because they have been bargaining for a long time and exhausted all their other options.

2. Before a strike happens, all the members vote. Everyone is very aware of the status of negotiations long before they’re made public. But if a strike is occurring it’s because an overwhelming majority voted to strike—you want almost everyone in the union to agree before you take such a huge step.

3. Strikes are difficult but necessary demonstrations of workers’ collective power. The hope is that your labor is so essential that the bosses lost profits will make them come back to the bargaining table. The bosses are hoping that the workers will starve to death.

4. Working during a strike is called scabbing. Coming in from an outside industry to do work during a strike is sometimes called crossing the picket line. Both send you straight to hell.

[tattooedsappho]

Just so we're all on the same page with the writer's strike.

If during the strike, it's announced about AI generated shows. We are not watching them. Not even out of curiosity. Let them fail every AI generated show they try make.

The human voice can not be replaced by AI. Don't let them try.

[tattooedsappho]

AI threat to Ao3 and Fanworks

Betsy Rosenblatt, the legal chair for Ao3′s umbrella Organization for Transformative Works, is advocating for allowing AI developers to use fanfic. :

This is a betrayal of Ao3′s mission, a betrayal of the worldwide community of fanfic-writers/readers, and a betrayal of Betsy Rosenblatt’s job to legally protect fanfiction. Please keep an eye on this situation and speak up where you are able to- there is at least one petition out already.

[tattooedsappho]

OUR. MURAL. IS. DONE.

Holy shit this project has been both SO INTENSE and absolutely THE BEST.

@seanmartorana did an absolutely amazing job of designing and painting this mural. It's honestly ridiculous. We also had a squad of 20 students from the Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts paint it with us!

My buddy Tom Donkin helped us take pictures of our finished mural. We're so damn lucky to have him!

Every one of these animals live in our neighborhood in Philly. Some of them, like the bufflehead duck, are super common, whereas others, like the sturgeon, are more rare. The goal here is to educate our neighbors about the cool animals we live among, in the hopes that they care more about the river that we live on the bank of!

The side of our mural has QR codes so that people can learn more about the ecosystem and how they can help the river!

This project was funded by a grant, which fricken RULES, but unfortunately the staff time it took us to do was WAY more than the grant could support. But what was I gonna do, NOT make this project happen? Uhhh No. If you have an extra $5/month, our org could really use your support. Patreon.com/SkypeAScientist

[tattooedsappho]

happy 4/20 everyone, enjoy this message from @reallyndacarter

[tattooedsappho]

alright for the millionth time I'm seeing yet another author I admire talk about how they literally can barely afford to live & yet there are people openly admitting to pirating their books so, like

i guess it needs to be said again

pirating books is not the same as pirating your favourite Disney movie or whatever. book piracy kills author's incomes and can genuinely ruin someone's career

[tattooedsappho]

Nothing about us without us.  Image description: [pale purple and yellow background with dark text] This April, don’t support an organization that harms autistic people. [crossed out logo for Autism Speaks] Support one built by autistic people, for autistic people. [logos for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and the Autism Women’s Network]

[tattooedsappho]

[tattooedsappho]

7:21am kitchen eats