Fun fact about me

I had HORRIBLE handwriting my entire childhood. Consistently got failing grades on homework and tests because no one could read my writing.

And then I hit middle school. I saw the "popular girls" getting praised for their stupid cutesy heart over the I writing. I saw people I could run mental circles around without breaking a sweat getting good grades, because the teacher could read their writing easier.

So I started copying it.

And wouldn't you know, my grades improved!

But of course, if you know me, you already know....there's no WAY I was gonna stop there. Oh no.

As a ADHD/Autistic, I did what any self respecting nerd introvert would do- I hit the library. And I researched. The evolution of the written language, the evolution of alphabets and writing styles from Ancient Greece all the way through the Spencerian movement.

And I fell into calligraphy. I hyperfocused.

And over the course of a year, developed my own cursive hand (going from never writing in cursive) that was a loose blend of Palmer, Spencerian, Chaucurian and 16th century Italian italics, with a lot of acender and defender flourishes.

I handed in homework in 15th century German High Gothic blackletter.

I did reports in 17th century italics.

And my teachers went from hating me for my horrible, illegible handwriting, to loving the sudden shift to legible bubble letters, to hating me again because they couldn't read my writing again, but for a different reason.

Only now, they didn't really have a good reason to be mad, because if they admitted to not being able to read Chaucerian font, they'd be admitting that they couldn't comprehend someone performing at a level of education and familiarity with the written language far above their own skill set (yes I had one teacher actually admit that to me in 8th grade. I genuinely respected her for it and picked a font that was easier to read than blackletter for her class).

And so began my descent into the rabbit hole of medieval illumination and calligraphy.

And so now, 25 years later, I do stuff like this:

(The bottom image has my celtic art business logo for Art of the Ancients; im on Instagram, but haven't updated in a long while because I've been busy with other projects and there wasn't a heck of a lot of interest. I still do commissions though)

Bob Ross once said, "A talent is just a skill you're willing to practice." I heard that, ran with it, and never looked back.

That’s so fucking dope

ok!

IM SO SICK OF YOU ALL

No nuance allowed. please share for a bigger sample 💕💕💕💕💕

*by eat i mean how do you prefer your cereal.

interesting fact i have titanium in my spine

Fun Fact!

Titanium not only is crazy durable, but it noo magnet! Thas wy Dock chok jjiun spi; surgyr ad pater noster, qui es in cœlis; sanctificetur nomen tuum: Adveniat regnum tuum; fiat voluntas tua, sicut in cœlo, et in terra. Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie: Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris: et ne nos inducas in tentationem: sed libera nos a malo.

dude got hit with the ol’ Lorum Ipsem beam😞

Fun fact! Titanium is often used for medical implants because it's *dodges lorem ipsum beam* because it's strong, nontoxic, won't corrode inside the body, and best of all, *dodges* bone will directly grow onto it! This is called "osseointegration" and it means that your titanium artificial hip, dental implant, or whatever will have greater *dodges* greater mechanical stability and will ARRRGGH! aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit!

Every time I see this I lose my marbles I love it so much. "For some reason I yelled who is in here as I was falling" is the point where my soul leaves my body. God I love.

every autistic person watching this episode of dungeon meshi:

"Calculate your carbon footprint and use your yard to undo the damage you do ^_^" the term carbon footprint was invented by fossil fuel companies to shift the blame of climate change and environmental destruction from them onto people just trying to survive, stop falling for their propaganda

Plant native plants, learn how to turn your yard into a safe haven for animals facing the loss of their habitats, work with other people and organizations to revitalize local ecosystems. All of that is useful, all of it is good. Small steps are still important to someone and to something; the milkweed you plant in your garden isn't going to save your world, but it will save the worlds of the monarchs who pass by and have a safe place to lay their eggs.

But always remember that anything that shifts the blame of climate change onto you, as an individual living your life the best you can, is propaganda spread by companies tearing our planet apart for their own profit. "Carbon footprint" as a term was made by BP, the same company infamous for its devastating oil spills, to distract from their own crimes. Your "footprint" is a literal speck compared to what these companies do every single day.

flat chested girlies are not nearly as represented as they should be in character design, but i think a very underrated body type to use in character design is girl whose chest is flatter than her tummy

big fan of how both transfems and transmascs are relating to this

this body type is. fjgbdbtrbfb. djfjgnh h*fntbfbdsha 🤤

Han skirt, 1800-99, China.

Bacon jalapeno cheeseburger (via Instagram)

My mom made a snuilt (snail quilt) for my partner

Erté (French-Russian,1892-1990)

Troisemmè Dame, 1919

Gouache on paper

im noticing that for a lot of americans “free palestine” has been an ideological motto and symbol rather than them actually believing in their heart that freedom is attainable and necessary

palestinians deserve the right to be able to travel freely in our homeland. to even visit our homeland. for us to have citizenship and rights to our own country. to grow our plants. practice our religions. live without fear that our children can be kidnapped by israeli forces on their violent whims. to not have our life savings poured into building a home for our families that are torn down without real warning by israeli bulldozers. to no longer be refugees. like this is real life. this is real.

we don’t want to be reduced to a never ending slogan. we want to put down our need for resistance. to rest & to live.

A bee-keeper of Valeni village transports his bees in his bee wagon. Romania.

Shrimp hell real

🦐: “THIS is the Bad Place!”

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

As a donkey and mule apologist, I can add to this post.

The biggest problem with mules is also their biggest blessing. They are smart, thinking animals that don't often panic like horses. That means you can't force them to do something through violence. If you try this, you're going to find yourself mauled to death by a mule. Many people hate mules because you can't really beat a mule into submission or otherwise subjugate them like a horse; you have to work with them.

Because they don't panic like horses, donkeys make excellent herd guardians. To humans, donkeys are very sweet guys who usually love to cuddle. But a donkey will see a coyote in their pasture and treat it as a threat that must be eliminated. They'll run it down while all the horses run away.

Lastly, many people know about mules surefootedness. This makes them excellent trail mounts, but they also happen to be incredibly talented jumpers. There's even a mule only sport called coon jumping where mules have to clear jumps of several feet from a standstill.