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gamer

(source: squidpastry on iNaturalist)

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people are getting high as fuck on new stupid drug called "night drawing" its making them stay iup all the goddamn night drawing. and brother let me tell you. the drawings. not even good

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actually always thinking of darth vader through a transgender lense bc i’m insane but also bc it is SO EASY to do a trans reading of his whole deal like to me, personally, in the star wars in my brain that is better than yours and doesn’t gaf about authorial intent, darth vader is in part a manifestation/personification of the horrifying feelings of loss of control that come with long-term repression/closeting or forced detransition. and this works on a purely superficial level because darth vader is hypermasculine in a way that starkly contrasts a lot of anakin’s softer/more androgynous traits but if we are to actually think beyond the superficial the themes of loss of autonomy and rejection of personal identity in favor of one given to you are veryyyy resonant from a trans perspective. constant insistent rejection of your true self. “that name no longer has any meaning to me.” even his voice is not his own. etc etc. vader is a reinvention of anakin but that reinvention is into an empty husk whose entire existence is to be another person’s pawn. vader is not so much a new identity as he is a lack of one. and i don’t want to dismiss that on a literal textual level disability is a part of the Body aspect but all this is far less about his injuries and part more about how they’re treated, specifically how his body is altered in ways that are entirely about creating a more imposing image and basically turning him into a weapon (there is no reason for him to be 6’7), and that again ties into the idea of Erosion Of Self. and i think these aspects come together in a way that is so easy to read as trans, or at least that resonates with me as a trans person, because so much of repressing as a trans person is inventing an empty version of yourself and accepting your physical state as something you are fundamentally not in control of and self-denial for others. and vader encompasses a lot of those feelings taken to body horror space opera extremes

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hey i hope this isn't a bad time but one billion points lava damage

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Folks, backup your Tumblrs, for real this time

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Is there beef with the Holstein cows and you or what was that joke lol

It's kind of wild It's just never come up on this blog before, but I HATE holsteins. Bottom 10 cow breeds for me. I hate how they're so common they account for the majority of milk produced. I hate that they're the "default" cow to the point where some don't even know cattle HAVE other colors. I hate their tiny horns (IF THEY EVEN HAVE THAT. LOSER ASS HORNLESS COW) and their painfully massive udders.

Legit I'm trying so hard to not launch into a No Mouth Must Scream style AM speech-- shoot my hand slipped.

(AM speech about why i dont like holsteins below the cut)

For starters, I have to give a brief lesson on what these terms mean; the "Holstein" is the American strain of the "Frisian" breed. Frisians are an ancient breed from Frisia, in the north of what we now consider the Netherlands. Crosses between the breeds are "Holstein-Frisians."

(There’s even more to this but im keeping it as simple as possible. Also one of my friends is Frisian and she is probably going to kill me for describing it like that.)

Historically, livestock was adapted to the environment they lived in. Frisians were bred by the Frisii people for hundreds of years in extremely grass-rich, lush, flat environments. The "polders" of the northern parts of the Netherlands. They're huge and eat a LOT of food.

Traditional Frisians were developed to produce as much meat and milk from a single individual as possible, without compromising the health of the cattle with constant inbreeding to get quick gains. We are talking about a breed that is over 2000 years old. They had the perfect environment to make The Ultimate Food Cow and by god they did it. I can respect that.

So, take that, drag it across an ocean to a place that does NOT have polders, and add the rapid enshittification of capitalism to it. BAM you've got a fucking holstein.

There is ONE goal for "improving" the holstein. Make More Milk. As long as the black and white milkbag leaks enough, nothing else matters. Health? Fertility? Feed ratio? Ability to not die of infection? WHO CARES. MILK LINE GO UP.

Over 90% of holsteins are inbred to start with, because Milk Line Go Up. To the tune of having an average COI of 8%-- where extreme negative effects (think Hapsburgs) start to crop up around 10%

Holstein bulls are aggressive bastards (many dairy bulls are), so no one wants to keep intact males in their herds, meaning most cows are artificially inseminated

Not being limited by the natural lifespan of a living bull means that the same stud can keep having direct offspring for decades after his death

Toystory the bull had 500,000 calves before he died, and hit over 1 million offspring in 2015. That's ONE animal and to put this in perspective, there are 9 million holsteins in the US.

DON'T WORRY IT GETS WORSE

Not only can 99% of holsteins be traced back to just two bulls-- 99% of male holsteins share one of two exact Y chromosomes with those two bulls.

The gene pool is so small that it's equivalent to about 60 individuals. Warrior Cat allegiances are larger than that. That's barely bigger than modern ThunderClan.

"Massive lack of genetic diversity" does not begin to capture the existential dread of this situation. Mark my words, WATCH, when the Bird Flu finally mutates a strain that rips through a mammalian population, it's gonna be in the USA and it's going to be through our dairy cattle.

This is not prophecy or me laying a curse on the land, this is the natural consequence of basing the stability of US milk production on the equivalent of 9 million clones of two classrooms worth of individuals, and then packing them in close quarters

And we don't have to wait for doomsday for the impacts to be apparent on the cattle themelves

Holstein fertility has also dropped by half since the 1960s when the intensive inbreeding really kicked into high gear

Because their whole body is dedicating all of their resources to milk production, they have a notoriously "bony" frame.

Show judges, however, like this because they think that's a very "feminine" look for a 1600 pound ruminant. Very normal thing to think.

Like. I don't know if i can communicate this to people who don't look at cows a lot (it's not quite as obviously dramatic as a pug skull) but here is a comparison of an "ideal" show holstein and an "unselected" holstein from a herd that's been established as a sort of "control group" for what they looked like back in the 1960s;

The way that the artery on the "modern" cow's belly runs to the udder like a big pink worm freaks me out the most ngl

The udder also bulges out from between the back legs

The show cow is so thin

And then compare these both to a Holstein-Frisian cross who leans more on the Frisian side;

Proper weight, developed legs. Its biggest "problem" is actually just the udder shape-- deep udders, which "hang" low like that, aren't optimal for milk-focused breeds because the higher away from the ground the less chance there is of infection. In that department, the "unselected" holstein clearly outclasses the holstein-frisian.

But it probably won't be surprising to hear that the "show holstein," with its massive, swollen udder, is SUPER prone to infections such as mastitis.

But it is also just more prone to getting sick generally

And, to keep up with these insane demands, holsteins need a TON of food. You aren't going to just turn these things out into a pasture and be done with it. Even its ancestor the Frisian needed premium Dutch polder grass to be such a good cow-- crank that up to 11 with these Monuments to Humanity's Hubrice

The Texas Longhorn developed in semi-feral conditions and can eat a bush to become the best thing in a 10 mile radius. The Scottish Highland was iron-forged in upland moors with a steady diet of turf and rain.

Meanwhile if a Holstein has less than 5 homemade meals a day without poland spring bottled water it will die to death.

And the WORST part? You have to use these if you want to make money in dairy farming. It's WAAY too expensive to just run a suboptimal farm. Their milk isn't great, but they sure do make a lot of it.

...so Holsteins and Holstein-Frisians (and other "super efficient" breeds) have absolutely decimated heritage cattle. The American Milking Devon is a deep reddish brown with gorgeous horns and low maintenance; rare. Randall Linebacks are painted with lines of white speckles down the back and can be used for any purpose; critically endangered. The Niata was a pug-faced cow who could fight jaguars; extinct.

And THAT'S what makes me hate them most of all. I LOVE cows, but whenever I see a reference to one, it's a holstein. It's always boring black and white splotches with big pink udders. They're practically synonymous with "cow" when their homogeniety is actually hiding much cooler breeds from you.

Did you know cows can be tiger-striped?

And that England has its own type of longhorn?

Or that cow horns can twist upwards like an antelope?

And that they can have REALLY LONG ears?

And that they can be blue?

And that's not even getting into some of the cows that have gotten a small crumb of attention lately, such as Highlands, Ankole-Watusi, and Texas Longhorns. There's so many cool cows out there! And they're all really different from holsteins! MOST of them are also a lot healthier and produce tastier milk and meat!

TL;DR yeah i don't like holsteins and I like sniping at them. For reasons both legit and petty.

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Winter has arrived on Poob.

Start your 7 day free trial of Poob today, and watch smash hit Martin Scorcese's Goncharov.

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Me when I'm throwing cheese slices at the local cybertuck

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Anyway I finished Lockdown and!!!!! He’s fun to draw :) will be doing more.

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Happy International Asexuality Day!!! 🖤🩶🤍💜

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hey don't cry. 7,401 species of frog in the world, ok?

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Y2kunt darth maul going to the club with the gals (gn). He was 22 in sw1, he should've been at the club

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Process below (and a quick recap of all the other people in the room (+ rambling because it's my favorite thing to do gkgkflflk)) vvv

Do I think Maul would have a friend group ? No. But it's time to open our hearts and and free ourselves from the shackles of common sense.

Anyway starting from the left, the togruta woman was a design I created nearly... 3 years ago ?? In my first fanart for the fic serie "how to..." (I think I named her Narla).

In the bg is my sw barbie ! In hommage to someone who said on my last maul drawing "I think Maul deserves barbie as a friend" (something along those lines-) and I think they are right so here she is !

And the last person is... The death stick guy from the second film gkgkfkoffk I could not resist not including him idkw. He seems to enjoy going to the club ? That's enough for me ! (Don't think of the timeline, for the love of god nobody think of the timeline-)

When I was doing sketches for this, I thought about one crutial detail I could not comprehensively include in the final image, so here it is : Maul and my togruta lady chose each other's outfits. He picked something he thought looked cool, she picked pink.

PS : the longer I was working on this piece the more Darth Maul was looking like a mean lesbian lhlgkgofok anyway if you want to interpret this image as trans mean lesbian Maul I won't stop you <3 (join me and my evil advisor in this delightful vision)

PSS : my only exposure to maul was though sw1, and half of the book 'maul lockdown' (that I remember nothing about-). I barely know this man, he is just the weird guy from sw I like to draw. (I obviously know other things about him, but only through fandom(tumblr))

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hi! i was wondering if you could make a short list of a few of your favorite star wars books that are not obikin related (jedi quest, rots, rogue planet, etc)?

OOOH YES super happy about this ask.

Maul Lockdown: super fun and super underrated, it’s probably my favorite SW book that isn’t about a main character. I don’t know why this book isn’t talked about more, it took me a long time to find out it even existed. Maul is sent to a prison planet to help get a nuclear device for Palpatine before the start of TPM, and basically has to fight his way out and do all sorts of murdery shit while looking for the guy who sells it.

Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover. Arguably the best Legends novel IMO. Basically a Vietnam War movie but in space. Mace Windu is sent to a jungle planet to investigate the disappearance of Depa and basically just goes through jungle hell. Stover really is a good writer even when he isn’t doing the crazy formatting stuff he does in RotS novelization and it really shines here

MedStar: M*A*S*H but in the Clone Wars. Bariss Offee’s better characterization (to me), where her Force healing ability basically makes her a crazy asset to field surgeons, so she’s sent to go help. Has a really great cast who are super grounded and refreshing.

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous (aka) the Dooku Daddy Issues Book. This is literally like the last piece of Dooku stuff you’ll ever want to read. He’s the most pathetic Count Chocula vampire you’ve ever seen in your life. The only reason he wanted to go to the Dark Side was because he feels like Green Dad didn’t love him enough. He sits in a castle all day and is sad. He almost returns to the light but gets jealous that Anakin exists. He’s so messed up I love him. Also has some really lovely side characters

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okay I know I JUST posted but I wanna say something that's kinda crazy so like bear with me

this is by no means a confirmed theory, it's just me connecting pictures with red string like a maniac.

however, for this I'm taking the book Maul Lockdown, and the 2003 clone wars as credible sources and canon even though it's legends sooooo yeah (please just let me pretend)

so, in the book Maul: Lockdown, Count Dooku is revealed to have had another Padawan called Komari Vosa, who was taken and tortured until she lost her mind and turned to the dark side as a means to finally break free.

so like, imagine Dooku kept her lightsabers, okay? it is a totally valid thing to assume.

In the 2003 clone wars series, Dooku gave Asajj Ventress two lightsabers he already had in his possession, two twin curved lightsabers right? that combination was exactly the type of lightsabers that Komari Vosa uses. So maybe Dooku kept his old Padawans lightsabers and bleed the crystals and ended up giving them to Asajj Ventress (they also don't show how Asajj Ventress got her lightsabers in the 2008 series so this could still be true)

there's more

so when Anakin gave ahsoka her lightsabers back, they were blue like his right? so I think that he meditated with her crystals to turn them blue (there's more theories but I prefer this one).

now both of these incidents make me wonder if maybe this is a Jedi tradition that a master keeps his lost Padawans' lightsaber(s) and changes the colour to fit their own as a way of grieving

I really really like that thought so I'm gonna keep it, that's all! thanks for reading!

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Disco maul be upon yee

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Hey remember when legends though it was a good idea to have vader in white (hate that on every concievable level btw) ? Maul would have pulled it off

Mean lesbian maul is now my comfort character to draw kgkfkfkfjf you will probably see her again not sorry xoxo <3

Surprise alt version :3c (cw blood) and process below vvv

White is a bold color to wear for carnage <3

This (hopefully) has some maul lockdown vibes :) but please bear in mind I only read half of it 5 years ago and remember nothing- this is a shot in the dark hope it landed somewhere

PS : why this top ? J'aurai bien fait la guerre pour ces étoiles moi lgigjglgl deso je suis beauf