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Chimera Den

@crystalchimera / crystalchimera.tumblr.com

C R Y S T A L LV. 20↑ ✦ ♀ ✦ ARTIST ✦ MULTI FANDOM + OCs ✦ ❌REPOST/EDIT/KINTAG/ETC❌ Commissions OPEN; DM for info! Art tag: Chimera Scribble
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prokopetz

You wouldn’t think that flamingoes are extremophiles just from looking at them. It’s like somebody tried to build the vertebrate equivalent of that fungus that lives inside nuclear reactors, and ended up with a gangly pink dinosaur with a spoon for a face.

For everyone in the comments asking how flamingos are extremophiles:

Flamingos can survive in low oxygen, high altitude, high temperatures, low temperatures, high alkaline, they can and will drink boiling water and they can be completely frozen at night and still get up the next morning

Don’t fuck with flamingos

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revretch

….. Didn’t know most of that

Huh… so that’s why zoos don’t put them somewhere warm during winter.

Oh yeah, this leaves out what I *did* know about them–they can also survive hypersalinity. That is, water so salty it kills practically everything else–water so salty it burns your skin.

American flamingos just drink that shit

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bogleech

(animal death) this is a real undoctored photograph (*though the body was stood up for the shot) of a dead flamingo on the surface of lake natron, a lake so salty and so alkaline that it’s naturally carbonated like soda and would eat through your stomach lining if you drank from it.

When this photo went viral years ago, most people assumed this poor flamingo must have been killed by the lake.

It is actually the lake where 75% of its global population are hatched. This is a photo from the same lake:

Some species of flamingo actually subsist almost entirely on a diet of bacteria! In other words, there is a species of dinosaur that eats only bacteria and lives in lakes so toxic they would kill almost anything else—and it is best known to the average person as a kitschy lawn decoration.

requested by anonymous:

RATING: RELIABLE

Flamingos can survive in high altitudes, hypersaline conditions, and caustic lakes.

Source: ‘All flamingo species have evolved to live in some of the planet’s most extreme wetlands, like caustic “soda lakes”, hypersaline lagoons or high-altitude salt flats.’

They can survive water so alkaline it burns human skin.

Source: ‘More than a million lesser flamingos breed in Tanzania’s Lake Natron, for instance, a lake fed by hot springs with water so alkaline that it can strip away human skin (one pioneering flamingo researcher named Leslie Brown spent months in Nairobi General Hospital after burning his legs wading out to observe where the birds nested).’

They can drink water at near-boiling temperatures.

Source: ‘They can drink water at near boiling point to collect freshwater from springs and geysers at lake edges. If no freshwater is available, flamingos can use glands in their head that remove salt, draining it out from their nasal cavity.’

The lakes they inhabit can freeze overnight, and the flamingos can survive once it thaws in the morning.

Source: ‘The birds may seem to epitomize the tropics, but they also live in the Andes, 15,000 feet above sea level, where they rest on lakes that freeze around them overnight.

“You’ll see them sitting there like snowballs, frozen on ice,” Dr. Arengo said. “And as the temperature warms up, they thaw out, fluff themselves up and go about their business.”’

The photo is indeed from Lake Natron, taken by photographer Nick Brandt. The content of the lake chemically preserves animal corpses that die there. You can see more photos of this here.

It is also true that 75% of Lesser Flamingos are hatches on Lake Natron.

Source: ‘The lake’s landscape is surreal and deadly—and made even more bizarre by the fact that it’s the place where nearly 75 percent of the world’s lesser flamingos are born.’

Some species of Flamingo eat cyanobacteria or algae.

Source: ‘Flamingos have very specialised diets. And their food is responsible for their famous pink colouration. The two species in Planet Earth II eat a lot of floating microscopic algae, which contains carotenoid pigments, the same types of chemical that make carrots orange. These pigments turn their feathers pink, orange and red – without them, flamingos would be white.’

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adaginy
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todaysbird

yeah they’re just like that

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juney-blues

information that is also important

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Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

Heads up that this is a very extensive questionnaire and might be daunting to a lot of writers (myself included). That being said, it is also an amazing questionnaire and I will definitely be using it (or at the very least, some of it).

Bookmarking this…

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reblogged
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bitegore

i made a character sheet. free to use as you wish, feel free to change whatever you want XD open source ass thing. spent all of ~maybe an hour on it.

Credit: the text in the insert-image box comes from this video, and the text for the top three lines (intense, complex, fruity) comes from this post. The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.

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pangolen

[ID: A character sheet with the heading, "OMG its BLORBO BLEEBUS". A space for the name is labeled "This scrungly motherfucker is", and a space for an image that is already occupied by text reading "blorbo bleebus brings GOOD luck / NOT bad luck / see, him face... / and I am not dead today! / good luck!".

The sheet contains the following fields:

  • Three fields with 10 fill boxes each, labeled "Intense", "Complex", and "Fruity". Text to the side of these reads, "If you or a loved one is attached to a character who fills all these boxes, you may be entitled to financial compensation."
  • A field for "sub-classes" with a "select all that apply" note, containing 12 longer boxes labeled "Angst-lord", "Enemy of the State", "Flavor Container", "Himbo", "Soft and Sweet", "Braincell Haver", "This Is A Kink", "Just Like You FR", "Chew Toy", "Friend-Shaped", "Aspirational Character", and "Little Meow Meow"
  • 10 checkboxes labeled, "Tragic backstory?", "Orphan?", "Frequently violent?", "Divorced?", "Has enemies?", "No friends?", "Sidekick owner?", "Pets stray animals?", "Chronic insomniac?", and "Murderer?"
  • 10 sliders labeled "just some guy/the protagonist of life", "head empty/too many thoughts", "awful company/ray of sunshine", "hated by all/beloved by all", "trauma x1000/untouched by history", "sadistic for fun/helps others for fun", "stupid as shit/scary-smart", "1,000 weapons/1,000 tools", "enemy of god/at peace with life", "break the rules/change the rules"
  • 10 more checkboxes with the heading "Evokes" and a note to select all that apply, labeled, "spontaneous gushing", "powerful violent urges", "raw, unbridled affection", "The Horny", "late-night thoughts", "meta-posting on main", "creative drive", "defensive feelings", "distraction", "delight", "symptoms of projection", "absent-minded doodles on tabletops", and "the most godawful hot takes known to mankind"
  • 20 more checkboxes with the heading "You want them to have" and a note to select all that apply, labeled, "a better time", "a worse time", "more trauma", "less trauma", "more romance", "less romance", "different romance", "more friends", "painful isolation", "a family", "catharsis", "revenge", "sympathy", "a better situation", "a worse situation", "more healing", "less healing", "more sex", "less sex", "different sex", "different friends", "freedom", "justification", "The Realization™", "consequences", and "a satisfying ending"

End Id.]

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jaubaius

Creative & DIY

SO THAT’S HOW THEY FUCKING DO IT

Reblogging this because my entire life, all of my bows have looked like my shoelaces. Wrapping presents is going to be so much more aesthetically pleasing now

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marithlizard

There is zero chance I will remember how to tie these, and even less chance that any of them would stay tied if attached to the vortex of entropy that is my person. But they’re so cool!

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I kind of suck at tagging, so I made this infographic to help make it easier.

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alex51324

Hey, thanks for making this!  I’ve never struggled with what to put in tags on my fic, but I’ve never been systematic about it, either–I just kind of put whatever.

The categories seem like a really useful way to think about it–not every fic will necessarily have something for each category, but it’s a good framework for either thinking of things to put, or making sure you don’t skip things that would be good to put.  

Image description: Tags are Tricky…a quick and dirty guide

1 Canon How does it relate to canon? Alternative Universe Canon Compliant Canon Divergence Crossover Fix-it-Fic Future Fic Missing Scenes & Codas Pre-canon/Backstory

2 Format Is it something other than a story? 5+1 Things Art Dialogue-Only Epistolary Online & Social Media Podfic Poetry Songfic Texting

3 Tone How does it make you feel? Angst Crack Fluff Humor Hurt/Comfort Smut and PWP Whump

4 Relationship Describe the relationship Platonic Coming Out, Families, Friendship, Siblings Getting Together Amnesia, Body Swap, Childhood Friends, Different First Meeting, Drunken Confessions, Enemies to Lovers, Fake Dating, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Huddling for Warmth, Meet-Cute, Miscommunication, Road Trips, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Trapped in Elevator PG-13 Cuddling, First Kiss, Kissing and Making out Sexy Times ABO, Dirty Talk, First Time, Kink, Roleplay, Sex Pollen, Sexting and Phone Sex, Voyeurism Commitment Arranged Marriage, Established Relationship, Honeymoons, Infidelity, Jealousy, Kid Fic, Long Distance Relationship, Pregnancy, Weddings & Proposals

5 Theme What is the theme? Activities and Interests Baking and Cooking, Camping, Celebrations, Crafts and Hobbies, Drinking or Getting High, Fashion, Holidays, Pets, Piercings and Tattoos, Religion, Sports, Theater and Dance, Yoga Adaptions Fairy Tales, Historical, Reality Show, TV/Movie/Book/Adaption Character Driven Anxiety and Mental Health, Introspection, Queer Themes Jobs Artist, Celebrities, Crimes and Suspense, Firefighters, Lifeguards, Media and Journalism, Medical, Military, Musiscians, Pilots, Retails, Royality, Teachers Other worldly Apocalypse, Faries, Ghosts, Magic and Fantasy, Parallel Universe, Sci-fi, Shapeshifters, Superheros, Supernatural, Tentacles, Time Travle, Vampires, Witches, Zombies Places Bookstores & Libaries, Coffee Shops & Restaurants, College, Flower Shops, High School, Summer Camp, Wineries

Note: These are examples, not a definitive list, but I hope the categories are useful" end Image description

Tag your fics! It’s how we find most of them…

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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