#Importance of Animal Feed Market

[animal-care]

Exploring Innovations in the Animal Feed Market Forecast 2028

Market Size and Growth

The Animal Feed Market is witnessing robust growth globally, fueled by the increasing demand for high-quality animal protein, growing livestock populations, and rising consumer awareness about animal nutrition and welfare. According to recent market research reports, the global animal feed market was valued at over USD 460 billion in 2021 and is projected to exceed USD 650 billion by 2028, registering a compound annual growth rate CAGR of 4% during the forecast period.

Key Drivers of Market Growth

Rising Meat Consumption:

The growing global population, rising disposable incomes, and changing dietary preferences are driving an increase in meat consumption worldwide.

As a result, there is a corresponding rise in demand for animal feed to support the production of livestock, poultry, and aquaculture species.

Expansion of Livestock Production:

Developing economies, particularly in Asia-Pacific and Latin America, are witnessing rapid urbanization and industrialization, leading to the expansion of intensive livestock farming operations.

This trend is driving the need for efficient and nutritious animal feed formulations to support the health, growth, and productivity of livestock and poultry.

Technological Advancements:

Innovations in feed processing technologies, such as extrusion, pelleting, and micronization, are improving the digestibility, palatability, and nutritional value of animal feeds.

Advanced feed additives and supplements, including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and growth promoters, are enhancing animal performance and health outcomes, driving market growth.

Regional Market Insights

Asia-Pacific:

Asia-Pacific dominates the global animal feed market, accounting for the largest share of both production and consumption.

Rapid urbanization, rising disposable incomes, and increasing meat consumption in countries like China, India, and Vietnam are driving market growth in the region.

North America:

North America is a mature market for animal feed, characterized by high levels of automation, stringent quality standards, and advanced feed formulation practices.

The region benefits from a well-developed livestock industry, strong regulatory frameworks, and a focus on sustainability and animal welfare.

Europe:

Europe is witnessing a shift towards sustainable and organic animal farming practices, driving demand for organic and natural feed ingredients.

Regulatory initiatives promoting antibiotic-free production, animal welfare standards, and environmental sustainability are shaping the European animal feed market landscape.

Conclusion

The Animal Feed Market is poised for significant growth in the coming years, driven by factors such as rising meat consumption, expanding livestock production, and technological advancements in feed formulation and processing. As the industry continues to evolve, stakeholders must stay abreast of emerging trends, regulatory developments, and consumer preferences to capitalize on growth opportunities and address challenges effectively. By embracing innovation, sustainability, and collaboration, the animal feed industry can play a crucial role in ensuring food security, nutrition, and environmental sustainability for future generations.

[farmerstrend]

Dutch Firm De Heus Animal Nutrition: Aiming for 3.5% Market Share in Kenya's Animal Feed Industry

Discover how De Heus Kenya is expanding its market share in the animal feed industry, with a focus on poultry farming and sustainable agricultural practices. Learn about De Heus Animal Nutrition Kenya’s Sh3 billion factory and its plan to boost local sourcing of raw materials for quality animal feed production. Explore De Heus Kenya’s innovative ‘On the Farm’ approach, helping poultry, swine, and…

[samwisethewitch]

How I Get the Most Out of Meat When Cooking

As someone who 1.) was 100% vegetarian for ethical/religious reasons until very recently, and 2.) recently had to reintroduce meat for vitamin deficiency reasons, limiting waste as much as possible when I cook with meat is really important to me. For one thing, I feel like I owe it to the animal that died to get as much use as possible out of its body as a way of honoring its death. For another, meat is expensive (ethically raised meat even more so) and I want to get my money's worth.

I recently bought a bunch of lamb for my family's holiday dinner, so I wanted to share my attempt to practice the Honorable Harvest in my meat consumption. This is new to me, but I wanted to document the attempt because it's been a fun learning process for me! If you want to actually learn about honorable consumption I encourage you to read the works of Robin Wall Kimmerer and other indigenous ecologists, since the Honorable Harvest is based on indigenous North American practices. (Though there are other cultural practices all over the world.)

Step One: Sourcing the Meat

I am very fortunate to have enough disposable income to buy ethically raised meat, which tends to be more expensive. This is a privilege. Other people are not able to spend this extra money on their meat, and that doesn't make me better than them. Feeding yourself is morally neutral, and a tight budget is not a moral failing. Most meat alternative products (Beyond Beef, Impossible, etc.) are also pretty expensive. If the factory-farmed meat at the supermarket is the only thing in your budget, use that.

If you DO have some extra funds, local farms are a great place to source meat. The reason we had lamb for the holidays is because a local farm recently culled their herd and had lamb on sale. In the past we've gotten beef from a relative who raises cattle. I encourage you to learn about farms in your area and what they have to offer. CSAs and farmers' markets are great places to start. You can also ask around at local restaurants about where they source their ingredients.

When I say "ethically raised meat," what I'm really talking about is pasture-raised animals. Cage-free animals may not live in cages, but they can still be kept in cramped, dirty, inhumane conditions and be sold as "cage free." Pasture-raised animals are able to graze and forage and generally wander around within a paddock. For some animals like chickens you can also look for "free range," which means the animals are unfenced and are able to wander freely. Since I don't cook meat often, I try to get free range or pasture-raised meat when I do buy it.

In some areas, you may also be able to find certified ethically slaughtered meat, which means the slaughtering process has been designed to cause as little suffering to the animal as possible. That kind of certification isn't really available where I live, but it might be for you!

And of course, hunting or fishing yourself is also an option. If you kill the animal yourself, you know exactly how it died and can take steps to limit suffering as much as possible. Hunting isn't a skillset I have, but if you do more power to you!

Step Two: Cooking the Meat

This is the easy part. Depending on the cut of meat you got and the dish you are cooking, you may need to remove bones or trim fat, but aside from that it's just following a recipe.

For our holiday lamb stew, I used this recipe. I have Celiac disease, so I subbed gluten-free flour and replaced the beer with red wine. I also added rosemary and garlic for a more Mediterranean flavor to compliment the wine.

Step Three: Organs and Bones

This is where the breakdown is for a lot of Americans. We don't cook with bones or organs very often, and we tend to throw away whatever parts of the animal we don't want. That is not honorable consumption. Part of the Honorable Harvest is using every part of the being that died to feed you.

Most organs make great stew meat. My favorite Nicaraguan beef stew is made with tongue, and my indigenous Hawaiian relatives make stew with pig feet. And while I don't like them, lots of my Southern family members love chitlins (pickled pig intestines). Lots of cultures eat organs, and you'll find plenty of delicious recipes if you look!

Bones are typically used to make stock, which can be used as a base for future soups and stews. There are lots of recipes for DIY stocks and broths, but I usually fry some onions and/or garlic, deglaze with wine, and then add the meat/bones and the water, plus salt, pepper, and herbs for flavor. Most animal bones can produce two batches of stock before they lose flavor. (For really flavorful stock, leave some meat on the bones.)

Once the stock is done, you'll still have bones to deal with. Contrary to popular belief, cooked bones are not safe for dogs to chew on. (But raw bones usually are!) Instead, I strip any remaining meat and gristle from the stock bones, give those scraps to my pups as a treat, and then use the stripped bones for something else. With a little extra processing, the bones can be used as a fertilizer in a garden, a calcium supplement for chickens, or a safe treat for dogs and/or cats.

This was my first time processing bones, but after boiling them for, like, 12 hours in water with salt and vinegar, they were soft enough to break apart with my hands. I'm going to grind them to make bone meal.

[haggishlyhagging]

“By 1900 child mortality was already declining—not because of anything the medical profession had accomplished, but because of general improvements in sanitation and nutrition. Meanwhile the birthrate had dropped to an average of about three and a half; women expected each baby to live and were already taking measures to prevent more than the desired number of pregnancies. From a strictly biological standpoint then, children were beginning to come into their own.

Economic changes too pushed the child into sudden prominence at the turn of the century. Those fabled, pre-industrial children who were "seen, but not heard," were, most of the time, hard at work—weeding, sewing, fetching water and kindling, feeding the animals, watching the baby. Today, a four-year-old who can tie his or her own shoes is impressive. In colonial times, four-year-old girls knitted stockings and mittens and could produce intricate embroidery; at age six they spun wool. A good, industrious little girl was called "Mrs." instead of "Miss" in appreciation of her contribution to the family economy: she was not, strictly speaking, a child.

But when production left the houschold, sweeping away the dozens of chores which had filled the child's day, childhood began to stand out as a distinct and fascinating phase of life. It was as if the late Victorian imagination, still unsettled by Darwin's apes, suddenly looked down and discovered, right at knee-level, the evolutionary missing link. Here was the pristine innocence which adult men romanticized, and of course, here, in miniature, was the future which today's adult men could not hope to enter in person. In the child lay the key to the control of human evolution. Its habits, its pastimes, its companions were no longer trivial matters, but issues of gravest importance to the entire species.

This sudden fascination with the child came at a time in American history when child abuse—in the most literal and physical sense—was becoming an institutional feature of the expanding industrial economy. Near the turn of the century, an estimated 2,250,000 American children under fifteen were full-time laborers—in coal mines, glass factories, textile mills, canning factories, in the cigar industry, and in the homes of the wealthy—in short, wherever cheap and docile labor could be used. There can be no comparison between the conditions of work for a farm child (who was also in most cases a beloved family member) and the conditions of work for industrial child laborers. Four-year-olds worked sixteen-hour days sorting beads or rolling cigars in New York City tenements; five-year-old girls worked the night shift in southern cotton mills.

So long as enough girls can be kept working, and only a few of them faint, the mills are kept going; but when faintings are so many and so frequent that it does not pay to keep going, the mills are closed.

These children grew up hunched and rickety, sometimes blinded by fine work or the intense heat of furnaces, lungs ruined by coal dust or cotton dust—when they grew up at all. Not for them the "century of the child," or childhood in any form:

The golf links lie so near the mill

That almost every day

The laboring children can look out

And see the men at play.

Child labor had its ideological defenders: educational philosophers who extolled the lessons of factory discipline, the Catholic hierarchy which argued that it was a father's patriarchal right to dispose of his children's labor, and of course the mill owners themselves. But for the reform-oriented, middle-class citizen the spectacle of machines tearing at baby flesh, of factories sucking in files of hunched-over children each morning, inspired not only public indignation, but a kind of personal horror. Here was the ultimate "rationalization" contained in the logic of the Market: all members of the family reduced alike to wage slavery, all human relations, including the most ancient and intimate, dissolved in the cash nexus. Who could refute the logic of it? There was no rationale (within the terms of the Market) for supporting idle, dependent children. There were no ties of economic self-interest to preserve the family. Child labor represented a long step toward that ultimate "anti-utopia" which always seemed to be germinating in capitalist development: a world engorged by the Market, a world without love.”

-Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women

[aayakashii]

my pictures of you

Warnings: Yandere!Sagara Haru x reader; SFW; unhealthy obsession

Haru was, once again, in debt. Precisely, ¥625000 in debt, due to his latest and most important acquisition so far: A Canon EOS R5, with 45 megapixels and 8K resolution at 30p – the best professional camera in the market that would allow him to take the prettiest, clearest and most detailed pictures ever.

Now he could finally post only the best photos on instagram, advertising the Jabberwock safari, and even enter photo contests that could get him back all the money he spent over his months as Captain, in the off chance he actually won them.

But most importantly, now he could finally take proper pictures of you.

The GPS he had snuck into your phone case beeps, alerting him of your location and Haru smiles gleefully. Perfect timing – he had just finished feeding all the animals and now all that was left was cleaning the dorm, but that could wait a little bit. Now he needs his daily dose of you, even if only for a few moments.

Haru cannot properly pinpoint when this little habit of his started. One day he saw you playing with Peekaboo and sneakily snapped a photo on his phone. He couldn't help it, it all just looked so pretty, so lovely! Seeing you with his baby just warmed his heart and he needed a way to make that moment last forever.

Everything went downhill from then on.

Haru knows this isn't exactly the most normal of activities – he's pretty sure Ren would tell him time and time again that that's harassment. But, another part of him keeps on being louder and louder, so he asks himself: how can that be? He just wants to be able to capture all of your moments and have them with him forever.

Haru craves your every smile, every tear, every brow furrowed. He needs to have them all, to collect them like precious little stones.

He's not truly doing anything wrong, he's not hurting you – he would never hurt you! He just loves to see all your moments and wants to keep them all safe and locked beside his bedside table.

With a skip on his step, Haru enters his room and opens the table's drawer to get his newest trusted partner.

Carefully picking up the camera, he eyes the thick envelope in which he keeps all of his most beloved treasures and smiles again, satisfied to see that it is untouched.

His collection of photos of you fills the envelope to the brim, and it is actually surprising how it hasn't torn apart yet.

Every photo, a different moment he secretly captured, each one with some new little detail about you he's all too ready to treasure.

He has pictures of you smiling bright and wide, a blinding light in the middle of the grim campus in which you all reside. But despite how lovely you look, these are the pictures he avoids looking at the most. Because someone else will always be in the frame of the photos, someone else will always be the target for your smiles. Haru feels his stomach churn as jealousy washes over his body.

Oh, what would he do in order to be the only one who sees you smile like that every single day… if he wasn't so busy, if he hadn't so many responsibilities, would you choose him?

No one else but him truly sees you, no one deserves your pretty smiles as much as he does, so, in a perfect world, would you smile like that for him and him alone?

In some pictures, however, you look like the weight of the world is on your shoulder and Haru knows; it might as well be. Through the lens of the camera, he sees the dark circles under your eyes, your tiredness, your concerns. He has seen you in person on the campus during these moments, and it always pains him to see you like this.

If he could, he would rid you of all your burdens in the blink of an eye. There is nothing Haru wants more than to protect you – from your curse and from all the dangers of the world (and from other ghouls). He has to keep you safe, right there, in his arms, where nothing and no one could ever hurt you. He wants to kiss every tear away until your brows unfurrow and you finally rest against his chest.

Sometimes, he snaps photos of the way you longingly look at the Galaxy Express, undoubtedly thinking of the world outside.

He hates these pictures. He hates when you think of leaving Darkwick, of leaving HIM behind. How can you think that? Wouldn't you miss everyone you met - no, scratch that, wouldn't you miss HIM?

How can you think of a life in which he's so obviously not included? Even though his own life is now all but revolving around you? He works faster to be able to see you, barely sleeps to be able to see you, eats almost nothing to be able to see you… How dare you think of leaving him?

In these moments of unrestrained anger, Haru entertains the idea of simply stealing you away. Locking you behind a door to keep you safe, so he can always know where you are, no GPS needed.

The only thing that keeps his hands from doing it, is thinking about you fearing and hating him – this would hurt just as much as you leaving him behind. He needs you to love him otherwise his dedication would all be for nothing.

His favorite photos, however, are the ones he takes late at night, when you are sleeping.

Oh, you look so cute! Snoring quietly, fully relaxed and defenseless, he wishes he could just scoop you into his arms and have you sleep away in the safety of his embrace.

Sometimes, when he goes to your window, he sees some weird floating doll flying away from your quarters, but he chalks it up to just some harmless anomaly that likes to watch you sleep.

At the end of the day, he understands; he loves to observe you as you dream away during the night. You look so peaceful, so comfortable… Haru hopes to have the courage to ask to relax with you just like that someday.

But he's so busy, so so busy.

So for now, he is content with taking endless photos of you sleeping. He promises he keeps them safe in his bedroom, sleeping with them on his pillow for the few hours he manages to close his eyes, hoping you'll invade his restless dreams every night.

“Haru, hi!” You smile brightly at him once you see him come closer to where you are – an open clearing with nowhere to hide. Nowhere for him to take photos secretly.

“What a coinkydink, honor student! What brings you here in this place?” Haru happily skips his way towards you, camera still in hand.

“I just found this place when I was trying to run away from Romeo” you scratch your head, sheepishly “He's being annoying and trying to make me run some errands for him, so I ended up hiding here. What are you up to? I didn't know you were a photographer!”

Snapping out of his thoughts of how he could keep Romeo far, far, far away from you, he looks down at his hands as if he just noticed it was there.

“Oh! Yes! Haha! I like taking some pictures here and there. Good for advertising the safari, you know?” He gives you a thumbs up.

“That seems cool!" you say, a surprised expression adorning your features "Can I see what you took so far?” You ask, shyly holding out your hand.

“Hmmm, actually I have a better idea” Haru quickly says, clearing his throat, before the panic of having you find out about his ‘hobby’ settles in “How about we go to Jabberwock and we take some pictures of you in the safari? I do need someone to model for my advertisement.” Haru says it as if it was the most revolutionary idea in the world and not something he thinks of on the daily at all.

“Are you sure? I've never modeled for anyone…”

“Of course!! Don't worry, let's go, let's go!!” He grabs your hands and pulls you towards the fields of Jabberwock “As long as you have fun, you'll be the perfect model!”

You let yourself be dragged by him for a moment, until you nod your head in acceptance.

“Okay! If you put it this way, I guess I can do it. I always have fun when I'm with you in Jabberwock!” you smile brightly at him and Haru swears you would be able to see hearts floating around his head at any given moment.

He's so happy you accepted to be his model! He will never ever post any of these pictures on Instagram, though. They'll look just fine beside all his photos of you sleeping.

[headspace-hotel]

I think a critical flaw in the vegan’s user’s argument was that they clearly buckled down on how capitalist exploitation and overproduction factors into milk and meat markets… and then seemed to assume that vegan diets avoid capitalist pitfalls completely.

But you’ve already posted on your blog before about how crop production under capitalism has created huge environmental issues in terms of biodiversity, depletion of topsoil, and sustainability. Meaning even a non-animal diet can (especially on the scale necessary for every human being currently in existence) still create large-scale issues if that diet demands having specific foods in abundance to avoid eating meat.

Like, I’m sympathetic to what vegans want to do, it just feels like they’re ignoring a MASSIVE number of pressing logistical and environmental issues to push that agenda. There’s several intersecting problems here, and claiming humanity as a whole is poised to chuck eating animals completely seems to be jumping the gun.

This is basically exactly what I hope to convey to people. I feel like extremely pressing issues such as topsoil loss, pesticide and herbicide use, and pollution caused by nitrogen fertilizers, not to mention the severe biodiversity impacts of monoculture, are being disregarded in favor of a very simplistic "Meat is killing the Earth" argument.

And I think the "veganism to save the earth" idea is just...distracting, as a movement. I'm glad people are motivated to do it. I don't think it's bad. But we need people to take action beyond just Buy Product. Anyone telling you that the most important action you can take is Buy Different Product does not have your best interest, or the planet's best interest, in mind.

If you're eating a plant based diet, but your only relationship with your food is Buy Product, you are still alienated from the source of your food. You still don't know, and can't respect or care for, the ecosystem or the labor that gives it to you.

My agenda is far more along the lines of "society needs to be organized so more people are directly involved in growing food that feeds their community" than anything to do with animals, but it's clear to everyone who has studied it for 2 seconds that farming needs to change hugely and it's so, so much more complicated than "farming animals is bad, farming plants is good."

Also the fact is that veganism cuts you off from sources of nutrients that have been part of virtually every human society ever, a LOT of people have disabilities, allergies or nutrient absorption issues that mean going vegan isn't possible for them, and people who try to argue with me about this simply Stop knowing how to read when this is brought up. "Some people need animal protein to live" is a reality of the world but people who don't like this straight up refuse to consider it.

I have no food allergies or sensitivities, and I still struggle to eat enough food to live. I lost thirty fucking pounds in college because of stress, the dining hall being shit, and my roommate trying to control my eating habits (long story). Thats like...well over 1/5 of my body weight. Sometimes people Cannot restrict their diet safely.

Like, sure, I 85% agree with the vegans who like to comment on my posts, but the remaining 15% of things they say is completely insane.

And some of them are so out of touch with reality that they will swear up and down that it's impossible for humans to drink milk without someone having to murder a baby animal. They seem to think farming is exclusively some kind of horror show that happens in a warehouse somewhere, and don't understand the concept that "some people live in rural areas" or "it's not uncommon in some places to just keep a few dairy goats that provide milk for your family."

And if they admit this exists, it's like "well, that's not where your dairy comes from, because the INDUSTRY—" thats. that's my point, you can get milk from a farmer who keeps a small herd that is well treated, we should start doing this actually, you can even keep your OWN goat

my ideal world involves "backyard chickens and goats are legal in suburban areas where there's space" because there's literally nothing innately unethical about keeping a couple dairy goats or healthy heritage breed chickens and you can quote me on that and you can even fight me.

That one person (the one who kept bringing up eating poop) (Lord what a sentence to have to write) eventually turned to "Well those sources are wrong because governmental organizations want you to keep eating animal products" which is already well into "conspiracy theory" territory. No thanks.

[acti-veg]

Animal farming ranks alongside fossil fuel production as one of the two most destructive industries on Earth. It’s not just the vast greenhouse gas emissions and the water and air pollution it causes. Even more important is the amount of land it requires. Land use is a crucial environmental metric, because every hectare we occupy is a hectare that cannot support wild ecosystems.

Wild ecosystems are crucial for the survival of most species on Earth, and of Earth systems themselves: for example, the rainforest and cerrado of South America help to regulate weather systems. The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed above all by cattle ranching, whose expansion is driven in part by the foodie fad for “grass-fed” beef. The cerrado is being trashed primarily by soy farming to produce feed for pigs and chickens.

Feeding ourselves with animal products is a fantastically profligate and inefficient way of using land, swallowing at least four times as much as all the other food we grow while providing just 17% of our calories. More than any other factor, it drives the destruction of forests, wetlands, savannas, rivers and other habitats. Weaning ourselves off these products is as important as weaning ourselves off oil, gas and coal.

Governments seeking to ban alternatives to animal products have scarcely sought to disguise their motivation: protectionism. Several politicians and officials have openly admitted that they’re trying to defend established industries – meat and dairy – against competition. In every other sector they claim to favour “free markets”, and protectionism attracts major penalties. In this sector, it is enforced by legislation.

[mxtantrights]

Ok- I have a weird request- (feel free to only do what your comfortable with- the last thing I want to do is make you feel uncomfy-)

What about Jason Todd- with a SO from the south, who LOVES animals?

you KNOW Jason is eating that shit up! Jason has liked talking to people ever since he was young. Obviously he couldn't keep that up living in Gotham so overtime he's learned to keep people at a distance.

But one day he meets you. maybe at a farmers market. Damian drags him to one because the animals need fresh food and certain things aren't growable in the Manor grounds.

You're explaining to Damian the importance of Beets and Onions and Jason is just standing there in a trance. It's like a comfortable wave washes over him.

Southern people talk to you with such nice words, but sometimes they have different meanings. Like someone from the south could be calling you darling but they don't mean it as a term of endearment. But you call Damian sweetheart and he knows you mean it in a nice way.

Damian and you finish talking and the little boy is walking away to another stand. But Jason is still there. Still looking at you. It would weird you out, but you're used to going with the flow and just asking out right what's the matter.

So you ask him. And Jason fumbles out some sort of response. Something about not understanding which grown vegetables animals like cows can eat.

You offer to tell him all about it at the next farmers market. But he does you one better. He tells you that he knows a cow, and if you would be free you could come over and demonstrate it for him. And Damian, of course. It's purely for the little demon and bat-cow.

The two of you exchange information and promise to stay in touch.

Some time in the next week, you are over at the manor. Damian is bushing out the mane of a horse somewhere, no where near you. And you're helping to feed his cow. (Damian and Jason don't tell you the name, they come up with a fake name to call bat-cow for the sake of this visit)

Jason Todd probably has your souther charm beat. Like the man talked you into showing up at his childhood home to feed a cow. There's rizz and then there's whatever the hell Jason has.

When the two of you decide to stop beating around the bush and start dating, you introduce him to the pleasures of the south. Iced tea, barbecue, and country music.

Jason denies that he likes country music to his family because they will give him shit for it. Especially Damian. But Jason loves some Dolly, Rascal Flatts, and is blasting Cowboy Carter.

[canmom]

Yes, what 'AI art' promises to do is something that has happened many times before in capitalism. Even in the 'art industry', we've seen technology all but do away with entire lines of work, such as the illustration styles that withered after photography proved to better serve the needs of advertisers and clients who wanted a realistic likeness.

And it sucked for those illustrators. Maybe not the well established ones, but the ones who had hoped to enter that industry. Just as it sucked for the textile industry workers when the mechanical loom appeared.

Trying to suppress AI art through legal means may be a strategy with little chance of success and high potential for collateral damage. The Luddites found that machine-breaking proved an ineffective strategy (edit: because the government killed them), the miners of Wales were not able to stop Thatcher closing the pits and importing materials (edit: because the government beat the shit out of them). But to treat workers - in one of the few lines of work to still offer any sort of intrinsic fulfilment, at least in theory - who may be responding in a knee-jerk way to an impending threat to their ability to continue that practice and possibly survive at all, with scorn and derision? To justify that with Marx? Come off it.

Certainly, sure, the real enemy was capitalism all along. If AI were never invented, art would still be a precarious industry where you have to work stupidly hard on a speculative basis to even get a chance to get a foot in the door. An industry valuing predictability would still prefer to elevate bland, repetitive artwork; it would still push the chosen few artists who make it and get jobs to work themselves into an early death; we would still be faced with the implications of turning creation into 'content' in a social media feed. In a less precarious world, one where artists were free to pursue our practices with ample support and no fear of not making rent if there's a bad month, AI image generators would not even be a concern.

But we don't live in that world and I have no idea how to bring it closer. There isn't a 'start the revolution' button I can just press if I don't like my lot under capitalism.

What AI promises to do, what its proponents claim, really is to make everything worse in this industry. AI has many limitations compared to a human artist, but that doesn't matter for doing damage. For the employed artist, the threat of AI is going to become a similar labour discipline tool as the threat of outsourcing to a country where labour is cheaper, or the threat of installing robot tills in retail. "Don't make too much of a fuss, we can replace you." It doesn't matter if it isn't entirely true, it's another cudgel against labour organising.

In the already often miserably exploitative world of small scale illustration commissions which many artists use to support themselves while learning? Now you don't just have to compete against Fiverr's race to the bottom. The good chaps at Silicon Valley have helpfully built an obedient data centre than can do a 'good enough' job for many clients even faster and cheaper, that never gets tired. You'd better hope you have a loyal audience already, or else the independent income and exec function to work on art as a hobby on top of everything else you need to do to get by. Illustration commissions is already a pretty saturated market, turning something that ought to be a dream job into a grind. So... let's add more pressure, eh?

Worse, a lack of realistic routes to learn will likely ripple on up, similar to how the miserable conditions and high attrition of inbetweeners in anime led to a situation where there aren't enough key animators, so the industry increasingly draws from self-taught hobbyists and relies on a limited pool of overworked sakkans to paper over the gaps caused by their lack of training.

None of these problems are unique to AI. But they're all going to be made worse by it. And obviously people are going to be afraid of that coming, before we know how it will all shake out for sure. That's not a stupid reaction.

The argument over what is Real Art(TM) may be corny, but it reflects the fact that for most of us trying to make art, it is not nearly so fulfilling to type prompts into a computer and pick your favourite result as it is to draw on your own visual library and experiences and understanding of light and form and symbols and shape and etc., to go through the meditative process of solving the problems of the drawing yourself, to get the satisfaction of 'omg I made that' at the end. I'm sure creating the AI system in the first place had that sort of fulfilment for its programmers, but using it is to be a curator more than a creator, or at least to shift the creativity into coming up with combinations of keywords rather than directly making pictures, and that just doesn't grab me in the same way at all. If people enjoy it that's genuinely great for them, but I don't think very many people who set out to be an artist would get the same satisfaction out of typing prompts. It's not something we wanted automated. (Perhaps we could compare it to creating an aimbot for an FPS game.)

But that's a fairly tricky thing to articulate, so it is not surprising that it gets mixed up in ideology like 'artiness is proportional to hours spent'. Unfortunate, but that doesn't make the intuitive alarm signal misplaced. If AI art can find a niche as just another tool for expression, great, I'll shut up - but if it becomes a widespread sentiment of 'why are you wasting your time painting, just let the AI do it', we've lost something valuable. 'We want to replace artists' is the explicit sentiment of many of the AI's creators and proponents, so it's not like this is a baseless fear.

Trying to develop an art practice under capitalism is always a pretty awkward bargain at best. AI won't destroy the drives that lead us to make art, and won't do much to liberate us either. My hope is that it will become an easily ignored sideshow to the kinds of art I like; my fear is that this is only the beginning of its impact and a lot that's valuable will be lost in the chaos.

Did photography 'liberate' illustration? It's true that after the demise of the realist painting of Loomis's generation, new forms of illustration arose: scifi and fantasy illustration, many kinds of stylised illustration. But idk, that argument feels weird - if you cut down a tree to build a house where it used to stand, and a new tree grows nearby, is that liberating trees? It's hard to put any valence on that. In any case, AI proponents are trying for a fully general replacement to all types of illustration, including potential new ones. (Perhaps that's nothing more than tech cult hype; at the moment its stylistic repertoire is more limited.)

And perhaps we might expect, as capitalism continues to throw off labour without much hope of new industries arising to absorb it, that there will come a point where the balance tips and for better or worse, a vast social transformation unfolds suddenly and unexpectedly.

Would be nice if I can live long enough to see it.

Living off commissions is already proving not viable for me, regardless of AI - so I'm training to go into a different creative industry (game dev) where there's more demand in the present era, and I'll have to develop visual art more slowly, with whatever energy and executive function I can spare. I hope I will enjoy working in game dev, and I'm lucky to have skills that even make it an option, but I don't love that I have to make that decision based on what can keep a roof overhead and not on what I most want to spend my time learning to make. And I can only imagine the feeling of someone who found a seemingly stable niche doing something they truly enjoy, and now face getting thrown back into this corner.

The AI problem may just be a symptom of capitalism, but that just makes it less tractable. It may be 'just a tool', but that tool is embedded in a whole mess of social relations. Who runs the AI, who stands to benefit? Better to articulate a critique of AI-in-capitalism that navigates around the blind alleys than to cast scorn on people reaching for the first way out they can see to a genuinely bleak situation.

[cozyjae]

traveling with nct 127 🏝

dream version

going to madrid with taeil...let’s you take the lead on where to go, will vibe anywhere, loves learning bits of spanish, lets you wear his leather jacket, carries around any of your shopping bags for you, keeps track of your passport and all of your tickets and important documents, somehow always knows where he’s going, holds your hand while he navigates through crowds, planned dates where he plays off the amount of effort he put into them, candle lit dinners, takes a lot of sunset pictures, always very cheesy but you love it.

going to athens with johnny... his camera is always around his neck, pausing you too many times to take a picture (and the occasionally sneaky candid), both of you wearing matching ‘i love greece’ tourist shirts that he insisted on buying at the airport gift shop and then begged you to wear, taking outfit of the day pictures, renting bikes to ride around town, afternoon picnicking, his arm around your shoulder as you walk the illuminated streets at night, asking an older tourist couple to take a photo of you at the parthenon, both of you smile widely as they take one and johnny asks for one more, quickly pressing his lips softly against your cheek.

going to paris with taeyong... his newfound determination to speak french, practicing french phrases on his phone in the morning in a low raspy voice, munching on expensive macaroons, visiting all the typical touristy places like the louvre & versailles, having 1,000 new photos on your camera roll, taeyong deleting pictures to take more of you, hotel balconies, warm baths together in the fancy hotel bathroom, fancy new perfumes, giggles in fancy restaurants, giggles everywhere, walking together to see the effile tower at night.

going to tokyo with yuta.. hiking until you complain but the reward for reaching the top of the mountain is kisses, feeding and petting wild deer, spending a lot of time outdoors, happiness while speaking japanese, watching old anime reruns at the hotel and staying up too late, going to a cat cafe and staying too long there playing with the kitties, buying too many souvenirs considering it’s his home country, going to local markets, buying street vendor onigiri and dango, visiting niche earring shops, he’s just always laughing.

going to london with doyoung... him making you take aesthetic photos of him, being really prepared, always checks the weather before he leaves the hotel, cheeks flush and he gets very red from one beer, leaning against your shoulder and cuddling you in the taxi home, wants to buy every single person he knows a souvenir, watching the buskers at night, likes keeping your hand in his always, gets stressed easily and then you relax him with kisses, will sing in the shower, will sing you to sleep if you ask nicely, quietly will request to be the little spoon. 

going to sicily with jaehyun... wine tasting, sun dresses, golden rings, making pasta at a small local restaruant together, he of course makes it a competition of who’s pasta is better, taking a ferry tour and making you do the titanic pose in front of other tourists, buys way too much gelato, touring museums and always taking cliche tourist photos, blazers, firm grips around your waist, you trying to pay attention to the tour guides but you’re too distracted by his gaze that’s only focused on you.

going to hawaii with jungwoo.. confident english, wearing lais, hiking waterfall trails to exercise but then going directly back to the resort and drinking a lot of smoothies, being obsessed with room service, a lot of playing around in the ocean, drinking from coconuts, he’s amazed at the smallest things, especially all the wildlife, peaceful and relaxing, gets shy when you look at him for too long, his face is slightly burnt, follows you around happily, buys a lot of hawaiian shirts, wants you to wear one, you probably will  do just to make him giggle.

going to vancouver with mark... giving you the personal mark lee childhood tour (your favorite) of vancouver, loud laughs along the streets at night, making him laugh too hard as he folds his body into yours, wide eyes paying attention to you always, thumb rubbing over your hand asking where you want to go, freaking out when it hits him he’s actually at his childhood home with you, taking you to all the places he used to eat at, letting you decide what you want to do, is always down for anything, he breaks out into laughter randomly, his excuse is just that he’s so happy, you roll your eyes but you secretly love it, will keep a hand on your thigh when sitting anywhere, his hands are always warm and always find their way to you, buys too much maple syrup to bring back for your friends. 

going to nyc with donghyuck... going to times square and making you take pictures with the pikachu and hello kitty mascots in the streets, wanting to try on the funniest and weirdest outfits you pick for each other in vintage stores, embarrassing you in public and him not caring that you’re embarrassed and will absolutely continue, makes weird faces at you from across a store, buys too much street vender food and candy, museum dates, gets very excited over fossils, you have a full blown photoshoot on a roof top bar with your fancy mixed drinks, is always excited, swings your interlocked hands back and forth and hums, he never gets tired and just wants to spend time with you always. 

[animal-care]

Exploring the Animal Feed Market Share, Challenges, and Major Players

Introduction

The Animal Feed Industry plays a crucial role in supporting global livestock production by providing essential nutrition to animals. This article delves into the dynamics of the animal feed market, including market research reports, additives, market share, market size, global market size, growth, and challenges.

Animal Feed Market Research Reports

Market research reports provide valuable insights into the animal feed industry, offering comprehensive analyses of market trends, growth projections, and competitive landscapes. According to recent reports, the global animal feed market was valued at USD 460 billion in 2020, with a projected CAGR of 4.5% from 2021 to 2028.

Animal Feed Additives Market

The animal feed additives market is an integral component of the overall animal feed industry, encompassing a wide range of nutritional supplements, preservatives, and performance enhancers. With the increasing demand for specialized feed formulations to meet the nutritional requirements of livestock, the market for feed additives is witnessing steady growth.

Animal Feed Market Share

Several companies dominate the animal feed market, holding significant market shares across different regions and segments. Key players include Cargill, Incorporated, Archer Daniels Midland Company, Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited, Land O'Lakes, Inc., and Nutreco N.V. These companies offer a diverse range of feed products catering to various species and production systems.

Animal Feed Market Size

The animal feed market is sizable, reflecting the immense demand for feed products to sustain livestock production worldwide. In 2020, the global market size exceeded 1 billion metric tons, with compound feed accounting for the largest share. The market size is expected to surpass 1.2 billion metric tons by 2025, driven by population growth, rising incomes, and increasing meat consumption.

Global Animal Feed Market

The global animal feed market encompasses a wide range of products and segments, including poultry feed, swine feed, cattle feed, aquafeed, and pet food. Asia-Pacific is the largest market for animal feed, accounting for over 40% of global consumption, followed by North America and Europe.

Global Animal Feed Market Size

The global animal feed market is vast, with diverse regional markets contributing to its overall size and growth. In 2020, the market size exceeded USD 400 billion, with Asia-Pacific and North America emerging as the largest regional markets. The market size is projected to reach USD 530 billion by 2025, driven by increasing demand for high-quality protein sources and nutritional supplements.

Animal Feed Market Growth

The Animal Feed Market is experiencing steady growth, propelled by factors such as population expansion, urbanization, and changing dietary preferences. In developing countries, rising disposable incomes and a growing middle class are driving increased consumption of animal protein, boosting demand for animal feed.

Animal Feed Market Challenges

Despite its growth prospects, the animal feed industry faces several challenges, including:

Raw Material Availability: Fluctuations in the availability and prices of key feed ingredients such as grains, oilseeds, and protein meals pose challenges for feed manufacturers, impacting production costs and profitability.

Regulatory Compliance: Compliance with stringent regulatory standards and quality control measures is essential for ensuring the safety and efficacy of feed products. Adherence to labeling requirements, ingredient specifications, and feed safety protocols adds complexity to the manufacturing process.

Environmental Concerns: The environmental footprint of animal feed production, including land use, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions, is a growing concern. Sustainable feed sourcing, waste management, and resource-efficient production practices are increasingly important for mitigating environmental impacts.

Animal Feed Companies

Prominent companies in the animal feed sector include:

Cargill

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM)

Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF)

Land O'Lakes

New Hope Group

Nutreco

DSM

Purina Animal Nutrition

Wilmar International

Conclusion

The animal feed market presents significant opportunities for growth and innovation, driven by increasing demand for protein-rich diets and livestock products. With the adoption of advanced technologies, sustainable practices, and strategic partnerships, stakeholders can address challenges, capitalize on emerging trends, and contribute to the sustainable development of the global livestock industry.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Vargas is among farmers in Mexico who’ve been holding on to heirloom strains for generations, against a flood of industrially produced white corn. They’re finding a niche but increasing market among consumers seeking organic produce from small-scale growers and chefs worldwide who want to elevate or simply provide an authentic take on tortillas, tostadas and other corn-based pillars of Mexican food. Corn is the most fundamental ingredient of Mexican cuisine, and it’s never far from the national conversation. Amid President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s move to ban the importation of genetically modified corn and his imposition of a 50% tariff on imported white corn, some scientists, chefs and others are advocating for the value of the old varieties in an increasingly drought-stricken world. Heirloom varieties make up far less than 1% of total domestic corn production in Mexico. But for the first time in years, Vargas and others are hopeful about the crop. Some in the academic and public sectors hope to increase its production.

[...]

Across Mexico, about 60,000 tons of heirloom corn is produced annually. It’s a tiny fraction of the 23 million tons of white corn grown on an industrial scale to meet domestic demand for human consumption and the 16.5 million tons of yellow corn that Mexico imported last year — mostly from the U.S. — for industrial and animal feed use.

[sol-consort]

I am once again throwing my mass effect thoughts at you

Feeding people is one of humans many love languages. The first thing we often share from our cultures with each other is our food because we all need to eat, we all love things that taste good, and food can say a lot about a culture. So when humans made it to the Citadel and started mingling with galactic society they’d basically be handing out our snacks and bringing containers of our dishes to work and gatherings to share with anyone and everyone. After a while they’d realize the turians aren’t taking any, when offered it’s rejected, and at first maybe the humans think it’s because turians are still bitter from First Contact but humans still offer anyways. Takes them a bit to figure out it’s because turians can’t eat levo food. Queue humans spending days/weeks painstakingly researching how to adapt their food with dextro substitutes and how to prepare them (and how to keep everything sanitized for the quarians). Next time the human brings a treat to share with their alien co-workers they’ve got two tins of chocolate chip cookies and one of them is dextro. We like feeding our community and peers, making them happy by giving them something sweet, and when the human is present EVERYBODY is getting something to eat.

I still think about that one salarian during the Garrus loyality mission in ME2 who said he loves human food, despite being at an anti-human turian political street speech.

Because if humans are considered diverse, can you imagine how much our culinary dishes are even more diverse? There are different from culture to culture and use so many different ingredients.

We have things for every taste, the complex dishes that mixes so many flavours together, the simple seeming ones that actually require professional level chefs to get it right.

We even cook and make dishes we can't eat, just for our pets because we love them so much. Pet food is a huge market with a lot of science and testing involved in it just to find out which flavours the animals end up liking more. The whole concept of treats was invented because we wanted to share our snacks and chocolate treats with our pets but couldn't since it harms them.

There isn't a field or a craft that a human somewhere isn't passionate about, no matter how nichie or unique. I bet you there are already culinary schools for humans that began having special branches and classes for dextro food and non-hydrating food.

Hanar who are usually reclusive and take centuries to warm up to a species, immediately falling in love with human sea food dishes and the many hydrating fruits we have. Ironically enough, I see them liking any desserts that use gelatine like creme caramel or pudding.

In the Andromeda culture exchange room, at the end of the human introduction VI, they mention to ask a human about ice cream if you ever meet them.

Meaning that aliens don't have ice cream! It's a pure human invention oh my god. A turian in the bar also mentions how the cocktails and drinks were boring and limited before the humans made contact and shared their menus.

How were the aliens even living?? Boring food with boring drinks and no dessert? Fuck yeah we will share our food with them, cooking has always been one of the fundamental traits we associate with our species.

Not only that, it's even a whole love language in humans.

A human can love you so much that they start making you food for lunch and dinner just to make sure you're eating well! Because it makes us happy seeing someone eat something we made, we poured our heart into. Love being the most important ingredient in cooking is the one rule that unites all humans no matter what culture or dish they're making. You can taste the love in food even if it was cooked in a hurry or by someone with no experience, we still eat our loved ones burnt food because we see the effort. Be it the burn marks on their fingers or the dirty dishes piling in the sink, we see clearly how much they tried just to make us something and we smile through the bittertaste and tell them it's good.

Because everyone started at this point, when our food taste horrible and a loved one was subjected to eating it. Or maybe we had to swallow it down. And if we didn't see the love, the potential, we wouldn't have continued on or improved.

Cooking is many things, it's cathartic in nature. It represents family and safety sometimes, luxury and fun other times, resilient and survival and even new beginnings or love confessions.

So many of our holidays centre around food. It goes hand in hand with celebrations.

When it's our birthday, we share a sweet cake with everyone else. When it's an achievement we invite people for a dinner. When it's an average night with friends we go out for drinks.

We bring people snacks when we go out on errands, we keep treats for stray cats or dogs in our pockets, we gift homemade dishes to our new neighbours.

Of course a human is going to accommodate for a turian or a quarian diet. We already accommodate for our friends and their diet limits, be it medical, religious believes or simple taste preference.

I see it happening a lot in C-Sec where turians and humans are common coworkers. Eventually the humans bringing food from home to eat on their lunch break will offer some to their favourite turian coworker. Maybe it's a nervous new guy at work, or maybe it's their grumpy boss with a heart of gold.

Then they realise oh, they can't eat it. So they go back home and the subject gets brought up during dinner with their family when asked about their day at work.

The next day, to their surprise, their spouce packed up a smaller container next to their normal lunch one, labeled "Dextro"

Imagine how surprised the turian is by it when their friendly human co-worker brings it to them saying how their spouce thought of them. The day after it, the humans kid tells their parent they found a snack that's safe for turians and they wanted to share a piece with the turian coworker their parent mentioned before.

The human family inviting the turian to dinner, asking them to bring their family too if they want and sharing a meal together. Making sure the foods are well separated and won't contaminate each other.

Or imagine bringing your turian friend home one day, and your grandma is visiting and she makes a comment on how your friend is as thin as bones and they need to eat more before they leave.

You try to explain how this is how turians normally look but she is having none of it as she searched for a dextro recipe online and tries to whip something up real quick for your friend before they leave.

On another note, think of how funny it is if they could eat earth bird food. Like you're feeding pigeons at the park and a turian comes up and is like "hey I'm feeling a bit squimish...mind if I grab a bit?"

Or you have a pet bird home and go shopping for bird food and your turian friend asks why you're buying so many turian junk food, and that those are overpriced awful tasting brands.

Salarians who never paid cooking or food much mind. Their species dishes are basically those high nutrition cubes and pills we see in future dystopian cartoons. Their lifespan is too short, so they mostly focused on science and technological development.

So the humans with their many different cultures are a literal godsent angels to them. I see them developing a codependent relationship with human culture.

In which salarians relay on human inventions for their luxury and entertainment. Be it our music, movies, food, snacks and videogames. Human dishes become widely popular and a lot of salarian ships start employing human chefs and cooks.

> be a salarian

> culture only focused on technology development

> food tastes like drywall paint

> can't party must study

> speedrun spacetravel

> top of the species in terms of intellectualism but most depressed

> brain had to literally hardwire fast emotion processing to not become too depressed

> must grind for a qt3.14 asari gf

> what are those apes the turians are picking a fight with?

> convince turians to let the apes live

> apes share their cultures

> wtf their food is actually so good

> wtf their music sounds amazing

> wtf now I have a waifu anime gf

> mfw life is suddenly good

[verdemoun]

timewarp au go to a rodeo side quest

yes incredible thank u. important context they are only going to ethically run rodeos where animals are treated like gods and athletes purpose bred for events not abused into performing.

they are going to watch. only watching. spectating. guests. for the love of god hosea's heart cannot take it aaaand it's too late

arthur watches exactly 3 minutes of any event and is genuinely annoyed because he can do it better and nothing will stop him from proving that point. no he refuses to acknowledge he's nearly 40 and will without fail or doubt be injured in saddled bronco events.

also post john marston timewarping the absolute bickering because john was a rancher he actually knows what he's talking about and arthur will never admit he knows more about him than anything. walking around livestock on exhibition that cow looks great pfft yeah sure if you want to be spending thousands on hard feed to support a herd of toed out cattle

lenny has to be the one to play the shoot the bottle win a prize games because sean has already spent all his money and missed every single time. sean both hates and is awestruck by how effortlessly lenny does it and wins some generic giant novelty stuffed toy (sean's gonna carry around but they both know they are legally obliged to give it to kieran). they are eating too much having a few drinks and then wondering why they are violently ill after the carnival rides

speaking of, kieran simultaneously detected lesbians and horses and has somehow stealthed his way behind the scenes. he is recognized and adored as actually helpful unsolicited advice guy who will see a horse in one of those unexplained moods and with permission will dig the tiniest pebble out of a horse's hoof with his fingers. offers to do the most intricate braids. the girlies know him as a fellow horse girl. ask him if he'll help brush their horses for halter events and he ascends

bessie insisting she gets hosea a cowboy hat like her life depends on it. hosea matthews rocking the horseshoe overlook fit in modern au. for the most part they like walking around market stalls trying supposedly old fashioned jams and chutneys. sampling flavored whiskeys and being so annoyed it turns into delight over how good it is. also bessie and hosea going on the ferris wheel holding hands kissing as they take in the sights and views high enough up to be able to see past the city and just open plains feeling like they're in 1880 again they're just so in love

[siphersaysstuff]

THE GHOST OF PICS: MECHS PAST

And with THAT tortured pun, December's Patreon-backed @tfwiki picture batch is all stuff we've kinda needed forever, all stuff from the prior century, and all stuff from outside the US market!

We start with Takara's original DEATHSAURUS, Decepticon leader in 1989's Victory, who just had his Legacy Haslab toy start showing up on doorsteps. And of course, new separate pics for his Breast Animal partners EAGLEBREAST and TIGERBREAST (yes, get them giggles out, go ahead).

Let's jump back a year to 1988's Super-God Masterforce, and the Godmaster RANGER. This mold is the only one of the three Powermaster Autobot cars to get recolored for its Takara release. Sadly, the MIB copy I bought back in 1996 was missing its gun, thus my general reluctance to add a pic to the wiki. But lord, that tiny, crunchy book scan we were using suuuucked. Made Ranger look white when he's a very light stony blue. Still using the scan though, just now in an inset panel to show off the gun I don't have.

And now we bounce ahead to 1990's Zone, and the Micro Transformer base SKY HYPER, piloted by Deadwheeler. I took these pics forever ago at some BotCon, and have long lost the notes as to who owned this piece a few hard drives back. This sample was also missing the three ramps, thus both the length of time it took for me to get comfy going ahead and adding these to the wiki, and the new book-scan inset to show the missing ramps.

Let's shift over to the European market, with 1992's THUNDER CLASH, the leader of the Autobot Turbmasters. His gravity-feed missile launcher was, like all the Turbomaster and Predator launchers, very much not US choke-gate compliant.

Fun fact: Thunder actually did get a Japanese release! He and Skyquake were straight imported to Japanese stores in Hasbro packaging, with just some necessary legal info changed to Japanese on the boxes. This was the Operation: Combination year, where Takara released the small Turbomasters and Predators in 2-packs.

And now we're going much further back, and much further south. No, that's not Brawn, that's OUTBACK, the 1987 Mexican version by IGA. Apparently, IGA was unwilling or unable to pay for the new '86 Mini Vehicle molds, thus they made their own versions by simply recoloring the '84 originals and slapping them on new cards for the '86 characters. Sometimes with alternate decos to boot!

Sadly, I don't own this toy, and like Sky Hyper, this was a BotCon pic taken with original owner info lost to time. (I always try and credit the toy owner when they let me take pics.)

Now here's the ones I'm super-happy about. These are two of the three Eletrix, ESPORTE and PORSCHE, exclusive to Estrela's 1985 Brazilian Transformers line! These toys transform and walk/roll forward via remote control, attached by a wire over 4 feet long. I'm keeping an eye out for the third one, Jipe.

None of the '85 Brazilian toys have any faction markings, but the Autobot-style packaging leads one to assume "all good guys". As do the bios of many of the toys in the line... but the Eletrix lack bios, sadly. Which is weird, as Estrela made up new bios for some toys in the line, and just straight-translated others from their Hasbro bios.

These molds were released in the US, but as the "Pow-R-Bots" in Village Toys' TF-wannabe line Convert-A-Bots. Like Estrela, Village licensed them from Japan's Yonezawa Toys, where they were the Remote Change Robo Series. All of these releases use the same plastic colors, but give them new stickers for branding and language.

I bought these two MISB (cellophane still there!) earlier this year, but was a little gunshy about opening them, worried the electronics might have somehow rotted. Schrodinger's Electronics. But no, since they didn't come with batteries, no corrosion, and they work as well as a 1984-mold cheap electric gear-powered toy can (that is to say, loudly).

And of course, since I got the boxes, I took the opportunity to take 600dpi scans of the box art unique to Estrela's packaging!

Man, I love going through these older, not-US corners of TFdom, and hope you learned something new about the vast TF universe. And if you'd like to help make that just a little bit easier and get more pics out a month, consider joining my Patreon! "gregstfwikipics" there, every little bit helps, plus at higher pledge levels you can pick a theme for the month!

[nightmaretist]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Mansión Mexicana & surroundings PARTIES: Anita @gossipsnake and Inge @nightmaretist SUMMARY: Debbie is nowhere to be found. CONTENT: Mentions of child death (past).

The pair of mothers stepped over the threshold of Anita’s home, their hands carrying shopping bags of all supplies needed for their infant daughter. In this case, this didn’t include nappies and formula, but rather some separated body parts and an organ or two, freshly and locally acquired. Inge wasted little time moving deeper into the house, towards where Debbie was resting — she had gotten so big over the past few months and she was thrilled to see her again and show her what they’d gotten her.

But when she and her co parent reached the room assigned to their darling child, they found nothing. There was no hungry clicking sound. No wide eyes observing them, no wriggling body covered in quills. Inge dropped her bags and let out a sound of dismay, “Where is she?” She looked at Anita, wondering if she had moved her. A trail of bristles and goo lay in the room however, leading towards the window the pair had left open. She rushed towards it, letting out a screech into Seven Peaks.

_ 

Anita had grown used to having Inge and Deborah around over the past few months. More than just used to it, in fact, she had grown to truly cherish them as the two most important women in her life. So many of the things Anita used to do on her own she now had a partner for, including killing strange humans for food. She wasn’t sure there was any sight more beautiful than watching Inge clean up organs to feed to their sweet child. It was the closest thing to domestic bliss that felt attainable to the lamia. 

But she should have known better than to think that bliss could last. Chills started at her spine and spread throughout Anita’s entire body when she heard the noise Inge made, followed by the question about where Debbie was. She saw Inge go to the window but refused to let her mind consider that reality. Instead, Anita began to tear the room apart. Throwing the pillows, blankets, toys, baskets of clothes about, “She’s in here. She’s in here.” 

Her efforts were useless. The trail of goo was obvious - the goo went up over the window, down the pane on the other end. “Deborah just went out for some fresh air, no? Just like her mami, can’t get enough of nature.” There was a panic in Antia’s eyes as she looked towards Inge, though, her face revealing what she knew to be true but could not stand to say aloud. 

_ 

The increase of murder and the handling of body parts did not bother her. Whatever thoughts about Rhett and his toes, feet and leg might rise to the surface to ruin it for her were suppressed by the blissful baby haze Debbie had put her in and Inge enjoyed supplying her baby her food. Besides, it was not much different than plucking a chicken or preparing a turkey, now was it?  

It was a labor of love, one she intended to do for many years. Eighteen, at least, if not more … perhaps Debbie would always need their help with food, the way a dog did. Not that she was a dog and to compare her as one would be immeasurably cruel as dogs were the worst type of animal. Regardless, this was something she was committed to. She and Anita, co parenting for years, dedicating their precious time to their darling child. 

But she was gone. The window was open, there was a trail leading towards it and Anita was panicking the way she was. She pulled herself back from the window, looking at the lamia. Inge noted that there were tears in her eyes. “Were we too late? Too late to feed her? She must — of course she likes nature. We have to go.” She picked up one of the bags and walked promptly out of the room, back out of the house and into the surrounding woods. The tears were on her cheeks now. 

She distantly remembered losing Vera in crowds. At town festivals or at the local market. Worse, in Amsterdam. There was no panic quite like it. It was back, now. She walked into the woods, certain that Anita was with her, and screamed: “Debbie!” 

_ 

Where Anita felt hesitation, Inge seemed to spring into action - rushing out towards the back door to follow the trail of breadcrumbs that Deborah had left leading away from the house. Trusting that Inge had more experience, that she knew what she was doing, Anita followed not too far behind. There was a terror in the other woman’s eyes that Anita knew, even without being able to see her own, wasn’t reflected in hers. 

Maybe it was the animalistic side of her. Deborah was their child, undoubtedly, but like the two of them she was not human. Unlike Anita, unlike Debbie - Inge had been, once upon a time. “I’ve taken her out in the woods plenty of times. She knows the area out here.” In attempting to calm her partner down, Anita also opted to let her eyes shift so she could scan the area for the heat signature of their daughter. “I can’t see her.” She paused, trying to keep everything calm, “Yet. I can’t see her yet.” 

They pushed forward in through where Anita’s yard ended and the tree cover began, the path left by Deborah beginning to get more unpredictable. If Anita hadn’t known better she might have thought that the winding tracks were an intentional attempt to throw them off her scent. But she knew better. Debbie wasn’t just some creature she studied - this was her family. “She’s quite fast. Have you noticed? We should find some activities to sign her up for once we get back home - keep her active. Find a way to channel this into something she can excel at.” 

—

Anita was trying to be rational and Inge could not really grasp it. She’d raised Vera in a small town where kids stayed out until late and usually nothing happened, but Debbie was still an infant, wasn’t she? Besides, sometimes things did happen. Sometimes there were bad men out there, or cruel children. In these woods, there were hunters, who would probably want to strike down Debbie for her strong appetite.

“But she has never gone out alone!” There was something really desperate to her voice, a want to believe Anita’s optimism but a mother’s biggest fear was overtaking her. It wasn’t often that she was this easily put in distress, but it was different when it came to Debbie. Her head was spinning. 

It was hard to keep track indeed and she looked into the woods, longing for nighttime so she could be more mobile and faster at this search. Such was what she called it now, a search. “She is very fast. Why would she — she should not be fast leaving her bedroom, though. We should have closed the window. She’s —” She shook her head and opened her mouth wider, “Debbie!!!”

_ 

It was clear that the words she had been offering in the form of comfort were not doing their job, so Anita elected to be quiet for the time being, focused on listening for subtle coos or the delicate gnawing on limbs that might point them in the direction of Debbie. The forest was large, undoubtedly, but they had not been gone for that long and she was still rather small - it didn’t make sense why Anita couldn’t sense her yet. 

They were following the seemingly unintentional trail of bristles and goo left in Deb’s wake, the two of them calling out her name at varying octaves and decibels, but there was no response. There was no sign of her other than the trail they were blindly following. As the pair traveled deeper into the woods, desperate thoughts that had never crossed Anita’s mind before began to consume her. The pit in her stomach made her think of her own mother; did she ever feel this way, not knowing where her daughter was or if she was safe? 

“What if we’ve gone the wrong way? What if this path isn’t even her path?” Saying those words aloud led to another horrid thought, one that rushed out of her brain to her lips with urgency. “Do you think that her real -” Anita stopped herself, both from finishing her sentence and in her tracks, as she turned towards Inge, her eyes desperate despite their dryness. 

_ 

The further they walked into the woods, the more desperate Inge was starting to feel. How could Debbie have gotten out and gotten this far? She had not been very mobile before, which was explainable due to her small size. Besides, she always expected her mothers to come and bring her food — if they didn’t, she tended to get literally snippy. And yet there was no trace of her. 

Tears had burst into her eyes and then started streaming, making her throat constrict as she kept shouting that name. She had lost a child before, she could not go through it again — it was against all laws of nature (even if she herself was against the laws of nature too, according to some). “I … I don’t know, the woods are so large and she … what if she’s back at the house, Anita?” 

At the suggestion that the creature who had laid the egg that had held their darling Debbie had found her, she looked at Anita with a blazing gaze. “No. She has two real mothers, right here. Don’t –” Inge shook her head, trudging on further into the woods. “She would not leave us for whatever put her on this earth. We took care of her when no one else did. We took her in. She would not — How could she just leave?”

_ 

Inge was right and Anita was already mad at herself for thinking the thought. Had she not learned by now that real family had nothing to do with biology? “Fuck. Yeah. I didn’t mean …” she sighed as her sentence trailed off, unsure of what exactly she did mean. “Maybe she left to try and find us? Maybe we were taking too long. She knows we go out into the woods together, so she just - she went searching for us.” The longer it took to find her, the longer Anita tried to rationalize everything, the more helpless she began to feel. 

But then, as if it were a literal glimmer of hope on the horizon, she spotted a familiar heat signature in a familiar size. “Deborah!” She yelled out, and began sprinting towards what she could only imagine had to be their daughter. She had studied that heat signature diligently, never imagining she would need to identify it across a field in this context. But instead of turning and heading towards Anita as she called out her name, it seemed that Deborah picked up her pace in the opposite direction. 

Anita didn’t let that deter her as she kept running as fast as her stupid human legs would allow. “I think I can see her! She’s not too far over that hill!” She called out behind her, sure that Inge would be following - sure that their little family would be reunited in mere moments. 

–

That beautiful silhouette was finally in her line of sight again and Inge felt something inside her release, like a balloon being burst. She wanted to fall down and weep, but instead there was still some distance to cross between herself and Deborah, so along with Anita she picked up her pace, running as fast as she could. (This was admittedly not very fast.) 

Her voice was starting to feel hoarse from the shouting but that didn’t stop her from shouting again and again, Deborah’s name and all its nicknames seemingly the only words she knew. It made no sense, that she was not heading towards them — she had to be starving by now, right? Inge and Anita ran up to the hill, looking down the slope at Debbie’s grown body, worming away from them.

“Where is she going? Debbie!” The caterpillar-esque creature looked at them over her … well, she didn’t exactly have shoulders, but she turned her head and looked ahead. “Come back!” She stomped her foot, crossing her arms. “Young lady, we will count to three and if you’re not here by then — one, two —” Usually this worked, usually it was between the dead space between two and three that a child would come skittering back. But Debbie kept on moving. Inge did not dare say three.

_ 

As she reached the peak of the hill, the closest Anita had been to Deborah since she had left, she was met with the harsh reality that she had feared. Their daughter hadn’t been lost. She did not come running back to them once they all came into view. As Inge began to count with the seasoned tone of a mother who had done this countless times before, Anita simply dropped down and let her knees hit the grass below her. 

“She’s too much like me,” Anita muttered to herself, now overcome with thoughts wondering if that meant that she was too much like her own mother. Maybe that is the true cycle of life: girls rebel against their mothers only to turn into women that are just like their mothers. The ache in the pit of her stomach began to radiate out through the rest of her body until it became unbearable. But the good thing about snakes is that their stomachs are much larger than human stomachs are, so their stomachs can contain much more ache within them. 

And with that thought Anita knew she needed to transform - she could not handle these weak emotions in this weak shell of a body. Before she ran away from what she was feeling, she stood back up and turned to Inge. Before she transformed into who she really was she needed to prove to herself who she wasn’t - she wasn’t her mother. Placing a hand on Inge’s shoulder before deciding to pull her co-parent, her partner, into an embrace, she said softly, “One day she will want to come home… and the door will always be open for her.” 

_ 

Debbie was proving to be a stubborn and disobedient child. She was like Vera, in that way, who had moved out the second she turned eighteen and wanted independence from her parents more than anything. But Debbie hadn't been that way before today, she'd been a little forceful and definitely demanding, but always glad to see her mothers (as long as they delivered fresh meat). Inge never said three, because she knew that Debbie would not come even if she did. 

It seemed they were both busy comparing, Anita seeing herself in their daughter — which Inge understood more than she'd like to admit. Though she had not yet seen a mirror image of herself in Debbie, she had felt that way about Vera. Whether her mother had felt that way about her she'd never known, but maybe it was an inevitability of being a mother or a daughter. She did not know what to say in response to Anita's assessment and so she was glad for the embrace rooting her into place in stead. 

Debbie kept hobbling on and Inge felt her eyes burn, tears slipping from them when she squeezed them shut. Anita's hair tickled her face. She thought of the hospital, the funeral, the goodbye between herself and her first daughter. Was this her curse, then? To be a mother who lost her children? “I hope she does,” she said, but what even was home to a nomad like her? To a woman who refused to be rooted in place? Vera had hated how flighty she was and yet for her she had not changed, so whether she would for Debbie was hard to know. Eventually, in a small voice, she added as a final note, “But for now, we have to let her go.”