#''yeah it's interesting''

[bixels]

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[bonefall]

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.

[psalmsofpsychosis]

*curls up real tiny in the corner of my bed under 5 blankies* i miss feeling delighted about something with someone

[tactfullyinappropriate]

It's like we all collectively forgot as a society that friendship and just connection in general takes effort. Even if you meet someone you immediately click with, it takes hanging out about 20 times (!) to become friends. And guess what, some of those 20 meetings might be awkward or unimpressive.

We all want to reap the benefits (having a friend circle, having a partner, getting married) without doing the work (going to events, interacting with people, learning to handle conflict maturely, dating). Myself included. If I could, I'd never leave the house or go on another mediocre date again... except, that's part of the process.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, the cure to the loneliness epidemic is touching some grass and building tolerance for tedious in-person interactions.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

best thing about batman is that he's a superficially grimdark character, gothic & brooding & angst ridden etc..........but then it turns out he has a million hobbies, regularly goes on adventures with his besties, and has a dozen adopted kids he's raising with his devoted foster dad. good for him

[aphel1on]

AuDHD is so funny sometimes like what do you mean my hyperfixations/special interests will last for years on end or possibly forever but they will cycle out every month or two with absolutely no transitional period or warning. like i will think about the same topic every day obsessively for 46 days in a row and on the 47th day with no visible cause adhd brain goes "ok! bored of that now" and autism brain goes "dw i got something queued up for ya" and i blast into full blown obsession on some other topic whose mental file folders haven't opened in 9 months. brain's out here treating hyperfixations like a crop rotation. once the dopamine runs out it cycles in another one but once something's in the rotation it never ever leaves. last summer we brought in one from when i was 11. it's so funny to me but frustrating too bc like. i cannot stress enough my inability to predict or control this. or how completely abrupt and random it can be

[swampybogg]

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Into the pit? More like into the daddy issues

[imlostinmy20s]

🐾✨🌻

An art piece I started almost a year ago!

been working on rendering for the last three days

[datcravat]

It seems there's a new lawyer in town!!!

[a3rosp4ce]

obsessed with the idea that katsuki just never thinks about romance at all bc he doesn't deem it important so when he first comes across feelings of wanting to be by izuku's side "for the rest of our lives" he just assumes it to be a twisted form of high-commitment long-term rivalry or something lmao

___

mitsuki: what you said to izuku in the hospital.. was basically a proposal, wasn't it? its rare to see you so sappy.

katsuki: ? proposal for what

mitsuki: ..marriage?

katsuki:

katsuki, only just remembering that the concept of romance and marriage exists:

katsuki, slowly coming to the realization that his feelings towards izuku are not only of rivalry: oh

———

[fictionadventurer]

Fantasy is philosophy’s more gorgeously painted cousin. You can’t just tell a child a blunt fact about the human heart and expect them to believe you. That’s not how it works. You can’t scribble on a Post-it note for a 12-year-old: your strangeness is worth keeping, or your love will matter. You need to show it. And fantasy, with its limitless scope, gives us a way of offering longhand proof for otherwise inarticulable ideas: endurance and hatred and regret, and power and passion and death.

-Katherine Rundell, "Why children's books?"

[fumifooms]

Omg guys he just genuinely likes bugs and mollusks and critters 😭💘💔 Forced to noble when he just wanna crouch and watch things skitter in the dirt…

[sneakydraws]

Only real dungeon masters understand

[mearchy]

I’ve always personally headcanoned that if Mandalorians DID have certain stereotypical family/relationship roles it wouldn’t be anywhere close to gendered, like one person is the man and one person is the woman. It would be like, one person is the shield and one person is the sword. One is the guard and one is the hunter. The bigger and stronger of the two — traditionally, though obviously every marriage would be different and most wouldn’t conform exactly, especially with polyamory — might be the one to stay home and guard the kids and the clan. While the faster, more maneuverable and perhaps deadlier of the two went out and hunted, provided, initiated raids. A Mandalorian couple fighting together would be so dangerous for so many reasons but principally because if they’re both there it probably means you’re on their territory and both the guard and the hunter are after you, and now you’re seriously fucked.

[welcometogrouchland]

I have a LOTT of sketches I could post rn but these 2 are recent and I'm fond of them <3 Steph costume ideas and Tim/Damian cringe bickering inspired by Batman: Brave and the Bold #18!