#and possible effects...

[loverdude]

My stomach hurts and I thiiiink it miiiight be from my cheek chewing/swallowing 😡

[zytes]

this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

[egophiliac]

tsum events continue to be just the best

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Hot take

Night furies are actually perfectly evolved for hunting and killing other dragons and the only reason they aren't a dragon-hunting species like the death song or deathgrippers are is because DreamWorks couldn't have their adorable main character dragon be a "cannibal"

(below I'm gonna try to summarize what we've figured out in a convo with friends on discord)

(also tw animal death via predator)

First of all yes I'm aware that pretty much every decision made about their design was with consideration of the effect it would make on human audiences but hear me out

Night furies are most iconically known as dive-bombers. They are built for speed, high maneuverability, night-time camouflage and for striking targets from above. If we remove human settlements out of the equation (which would not have existed long enough to actually influence night fury evolution, come on), what does that leave us with?

They aren't built for catching fish for sure, they aren't very hydrodynamic and their head is round, wide, and their teeth are dull. Honestly, the monstrous nightmare is much better suited for catching fish, with its long neck, almost pelican-like jaw and rhamphorhynchus teeth

Compare to

Yeah the jaws look kinda like a porpoise of some sort but for that the whole body would have to be a lot more aquatic imo. The light fury looks a lot closer to an aquatic diver, it has a sleeker body, rounded fins instead of spikes, and a long neck.

I don't really see them hunting land animals either, they just don't look like they're adapted for that minus the resemblance with large felines and even then, they're too large to effectively hunt in forests.

The one thing I can kinda imagine them hunting is large mainland megafauna, but we're working with a setting that takes place pretty much exclusively on islands. And overall, dragons are the only abundant species there with the exception of fish and human-bred sheep and chickens.

In general, night furies have duller teeth, smaller claws and are smaller than most dragons. Disregarding the movies making Toothless weirdly OP, a night fury would be disadvantaged against most dragons in a 1v1 fight and besides, it has four huge weak spots that would highly discourage it from a direct physical fight - the primary and secondary tail fins. One unlucky rip in the membrane and the night fury is fucked.

The night fury however noticeably resembles falcons, given their dive-bombing ability and high maneuverability.

Falcons too have smaller beaks and weaker claws compared to most birds of prey, and for that they compensate by simply picking up speed, balling up their talons and Punching. Really. Hard.

And they use that ability to kill other birds, even much larger ones, by knocking them right from the sky.

Here, the night fury's plasma blast works the same way as a falcon's punch. Dragons are fire-resistant, so what the plasma blast does is really just a densely packed bolt of energy that has the effect of either stunning or outright killing prey by damaging its spine. And what the plasma bolt doesn't do, rapid contact with the ground would finish. And if even that doesn't do it, the night fury's wide jaws and dull teeth are just fine for simply clamping around the unlucky dragon's neck and strangling it, like a lion or a pitbull.

The night-time camouflage allows the night fury to soar for extended periods of time perfectly unnoticed in the night sky, and by the time it strikes, the dragon wouldn't even know what's coming.

Unless

Say the hunting night fury is aware of other dragons sleeping under the trees, as most dragons probably would at night (village raids aside, most dragons seem to be diurnal), so how does the night fury get them in position where it can use its signature attack? Well, there's That Iconic Screech Of Death. Since in the movies it tends to appear not just during dive-bombings but also when charging up a blast, I imagine it's something the night fury is able to control to some degree. So by simply fake-diving in close proximity to sleeping dragons, it can effectively terrify them into leaving their hideout and fly out into the open where it can easily take them out.

I dunno, the possibility of night furies as predators to other dragons just makes so much sense to me, I really don't know what other reasons there would be for them to evolve these particular adaptations.

And one more little headcanon to add to this whole rant - since night furies are significantly smaller and less equipped for dragon vs dragon fights and are primarily speed-based predators, I imagine there is this very likely scenario:

There is one dragon who resembles a hyena, a lil bit

Ok, rant over

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Transcript:

LET'S SETTLE THI- Oh hang on. Hang on, Machine, um.

It's 8 PM I need to take my testosterone.

Sorry I'll just be a second. Uh wait here, alright?

Audio Source

[ghostryders]

your honor that man is an american

[fictionalmenaremytype]

Percy and Annabeth are perfect for each other bc Annabeth's plans are so smart yet so stupid, and Percys plans are so stupid yet so smart.

[mankindsbadhabitz]

WHY ISNT ANYONE TLAKIGJ ABOUT THIS IM GOING INSANE?

LOOK. LOOK AT IT.

I’m seeing like NOBODY talk about it and I’ve literally been FREAKING the FREAK out about it for HOURS. I’M SO EXCITED FOR THE RELEASE OF PART ONE!

[sunderwight]

SV AU where transmigrator Shen Yuan and reincarnated PIDW Shen Jiu are the twin sons of one of Luo Binghe's prominent vassals. Specifically, a demon king of near-equivalence to Mobei Jun in terms of personal power, who has suffered the past couple of centuries due to a lack of influence on Luo Binghe's political decisions (no daughters to marry off to him, no personal relationship or ability to form one, so no clout at court).

But after PIDW Luo Binghe returns following the Bingge vs Bingmei extra, rumors begin to spread that his lordship might like to add a man or two to his harem. SJ & SY's dad smells an opportunity, and brings his sons to court. Demon Dad is sure to emphasize his sons' great scholarly pursuits, ethereal beauty, and impressive qi reserves.

Now of course, both Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan have different ideas of what is going on. Both of them think they're the only one with memories of a past life, and that their brother's oddities are a result of being an actual demon child (whereas they are, of course, weird for completely different reasons). Shen Yuan completely misses the subtext of what their father is trying to do (of course Luo Binghe wouldn't be interested in men, he's the stallion protagonist!), and is just excited for the chance to catch a glimpse of the legendary xin mo sword or see the hero in action, while also hoping to stay out of range of the death curse that befalls any guy who gets too close to the protagonist's aura. He also needs to keep his brother safe from that same effect, and ensure neither of them are accused of snooping around Luo Binghe's wives!

Shen Jiu, on the other hand, knows exactly what their father is trying to do and smells an opportunity to take revenge on the beast who killed Yue Qingyuan. He's spent years figuring out the demon emperor's weaknesses, both the physical kind and the kind uncovered via things like discontent wives and conquered enemies. Now he just needs to get close enough to his target actually use that information. Preferably before anything happens to his witless brother, who clearly has no idea that their father has just offered them both up to a terrifying monster like prime cuts of beef!

End result: Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu keep unintentionally getting in one another's way, while Luo Binghe himself has an existential crisis about these two guys who seem to embody both what he would expect from the reborn Shen Qingqiu he's been searching for, and that strange Nice Shizun that he actually experienced in the other world he stumbled across. But why are there two of him???

[roodles03]

I'm just... dropping this here. With absolutely no context.

BONUS:

[ecto-stone]

"We're everything that you dream of but were robbed of"

lineart belong to ThePokeOne

[glassrunner]

ELDEN RING

The Cursed Children of Marika and Radagon

[canisalbus]

i've returned for 2 seconds to tell you that they're not leaving my head. (sort of unrelated but i've been thinking as well. what if vasco died before machete ? what would go down)

.

[egophiliac]

oh no, I love them

(super quick doodles done between other stuff, there will be better things later I promise :')

[oddberryshortcake]

Where's the cursed gang team up

[eccentricmya]

The Valar's mistake did not lie in seeing a possibility of good in Melkor. Rather, their mistake lay in not seeing the equal possibility of him remaining evil.