Iguanoyes

Birgalicious

The Flag Chase

Shown here is a late summer ritual carried out by the Ruruumi bachelor group: garbed in little more than a decorative collar, a young gifter climbs onto the back of a wild Ahoũitre, the Resplendent Flagdeer, to remove its brilliantly colored display feathers as a trophy to present during the nuptial gifting ceremonies in the fall. Using an obsidian knife, the cut must be clean enough to shed no more than a few drops of blood, without damaging the feathers, and performed without being hurled to the ground by the bucking animal. It is a sport requiring an impressive display of courage, agility, and control over one’s own trunkhorse, and for many kakroum bachelors, this and related high risk sports are a rite of status in their tightly knit brotherhoods. Many bachelor groups will specialize in ‘capturing’ a specific animal, though flagdeer are exceptionally prized for their feathers, which adorn the regalia of many clan residents. It is a feat that frequently ends in serious injury or death, but something that only a frivolous gifter can afford to perform, free from the responsibility of maintaining a village. In the process, he proves in himself the sort of strength and cleverness that any would-be mother would wish to see in her own daughters.

As for the flagdeer, it will be released after having been separated from its feathers. Though its wounds are relatively minor, it will have no hope of impressing its own kind in the coming mating season. Flag removal is a strategy employed by sparring male flagdeer as well, which will attempt to mangle or nip off the other’s display feathers to oust the competition. If the damage is minor, the flags will regrow the following year, but the cut made a birg’s knife frequently takes the entire “hand” of the appendage, preventing a complete regeneration.

Milder imitations of this sport are practiced by both children and adults. One common variant involves two teams, each defending am urwuzhu (mid-sized livestock) with a ribbon or flag tied to some part of its body. The opposing teams attempt to remove the flag from each other’s animal and carry it back to their section of the village. Such games can become immensely rowdy and still result in a lot of bruises, scrapes, and animal bites. Twowi children play a similar game, but wanting for a farm animal will chase after a fellow birg’s tail tassels instead.

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Tumblr is going to sell us out to AI companies. They have been forced to add an opt out button. Make sure your privacy settings are correct.

HELP PALESTINIAN ARCHITECT EVACUATE HER FAMILY FROM GAZA

This is a verified fundraiser for a family of four to evacuate to Cairo. The fund's creator, Amal Abu Shammala, reached out to me personally to share this since she's failed to get her fund on Operation Olive Branch and Let's Talk Palestine's fundraising linktree.

As of right now, she has raised €2,397/ €42,000. You can see the breakdown of what the money will be used for in the fund description.

Please give generously!

非公認ながら立川市のご当地キャラ「ウドラ」です！こんにちは！この異変したうどは「東京都は1つの都市だけではない！」と言ってるんです。

This is "Udolla," a local character of Tachikawa City, though unauthorized! Hello! This mutated Udora says "Tokyo prefecture is not just one city!"

Always enjoyed yuru-chara design.

@mondomascots was an inspiration

What is this about the tumblr staff wanting to sell art data to midjourney?

An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:

I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.

Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.

A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)

So I don't have any extra info yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.

A bigass sign on a tophat that states their chosen gender.

Hats- makes everything better

Weirds me out when people will be perfectly fine with a fictional animal-human hybrid having human bones and musculature, but not human breasts. It's already incredibly specific anatomy that could never in a million years evolve just that way in a non-primate lineage (not that this is a question with magical hybrids anyway), but you can suspend disbelief there?!

And it especially bothers me when the argument is that it makes no sense on an animal that lays eggs...but then they're fine with wide hips, even though those are only needed for live birth.

飯綱町は私には大切な場所です。子供の時の祖父母のリンゴ園が懐かしくて、それも民芸が大好きなのです。そのために、このミツドンの絵画を上げます。どうぞお受け取りください。

日本各地は旅人が興味はないっていう問題が私には関心事です。いろいろの地域のキャラを描いたら、もしかして、人々は「あ、稠密な場所だけじゃなくて、もっと遠く旅に行くべき」という感じになります。そんな望みがあります。

Mitsudon from Iizuna

Although not the most common species of Hornblower, Horacio's Hornblowers are arguably the most well know representatives of this group. Large yet agile with a shoulder height of 2.12m, these ungulates can be easily identified by their independently mobile split trunks, another unique feature among hornblowers. Another unique feature of the species are their hooves, which have shifted from a cloven form to a single weight supporting toe, with the outer toe now sporting a heavily mineralized slashing blade capable of deeply lacerating the skin of most wildtype predators; and cutting a path through their native chokegrass thickets.

Moving on to the pipes for which their clade is named, these marvels of biological engineering are heavily reinforced with enamel and proteins, allowing all hornblowers nigh endless stamina as air constantly circulates through the surface area of their exceptionally complicated multi-chambered lungs, with Horacio's Hornblowers being exceptionally well suited to filtering air through their pipes- their native range in the Deeplands is exceptionally rich in noxious airborne substances, with sulfur dioxide in particular reaching concentrations that even the hardiest travelers may begin to struggle with- hence most explorers opting for integrated respiratory symbiotes when seeking out this elusive creature, prized as both genestock, and it's extremely acid resistant hide.

A small warning for those attempting to capture or study the Horacio's Hornblower- this animal possesses a unique lung microbiome rich in ricin producing bacteria. If startled, they WILL violently aerosolize ricin saturated mucus from all respiratory pipes. Take appropriate precautions. Not applicable to readers with a biological immunity to ricin, or exterior symbiosuits with said immunity.

your silence is noticed.

Gunhounds are a rather diverse paraphyletic clade of caniform biological constructs derived predominately from Canis familiaris. Given the highly derived biology of gunhounds, IE extensive modification of the head and upper digestive tract into a biological firearm with included tracking system, it is hard to believe such creatures could reproduce.

Which is absolutely correct, gunhounds are not a self perpetuating germline construct, but are the result of modifications to base species! Some older models can still be found, which require intravenous nutrient injection in conjunction with manual loading of ammunition. However, the modern gunhound usually has a decoupled esophagus capable of extending out from the body to eat normally. Heavy metals, ubiquitous in the environments of most of the known world, are bioaccumulated and formed into bullets in a series of gun glands within the torso of a gunhound, and then moved via peristaltic action to the hound's ammo gizzard. This projectile is then regurgitated upward into the loading sinus to be fired.

Gun hounds are very easy to train inexpensive to procure or make, and take orders well, though prone to scope irritation in dry environments by default- consequently adding a crystalline lense to their main eye is a standard part of the modern gunhound package, and recommended retrofitting for older breeds.