#but it's simply not possible

[moonsyrups]

ready for a new chapter in sulani... 

[rovermcfly]

proud to say that I have never once in my life figured out the whodunit in any crime story I've read or watched. I just let the facts and clues wash over me, absorbing absolutely none of it. I am the audience they think of when they throw in red herrings, in case you've ever wondered "who would fall for this obvious false lead". it's me. I am the idiot viewer/reader. not once has an obviously framed clue revealed anything to me. my head is completely empty when I consume these stories.

[platoapproved]

louis + cruelty

[ironinkpen]

there's something so poetic about kipperlilly copperkettle—who hated one of her classmates for daring to be better than her and having a dead dad, who refused to improve herself and instead chose to be bitter and entitled, who was so obsessed with being Special and Important like she felt she deserved that she willingly worked with a rage god, betrayed her party, and killed her friend—getting killed by fucking. Hold Person. her fancy optimal build IMMEDIATELY folding in the face of riz's cleverness and experience and applied knowledge. she spends years fixated solely on racking up EXP and getting the Best Abilities, and then when she dies, she's killed not in glorious combat but by a clever, practical application of a 2nd level spell that she NEVER would have ever thought of using because she has no creativity or adventurers' spirit, cast by the same classmate she always hated with a watch his dead dad gave him.

[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

[alltheglowingeyess]

seen people on twt saying british thalia is confirmed by rick and just saying i can't wait for percy to cut thalia off mid-argument like "tea and crumpets innit" and then get blasted into the fucking stratosphere

[krazieka2]

Fe3h did not have a beauty pageant sequence, but if it did I'm 99% sure this is how it would go

[pondslime]

POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN (1983) dir. Cecilia Condit

happy pride to these lesbians in particular

[aardvaark]

the leverage team would have had a games night… once. everyone cheated so much and in such increasingly extreme ways that all mentions of monopoly are banned in their headquarters (this makes talking about marks who monopolize the market very confusing)

[offkilterkeys]

The world isn’t ready for my alpha kid readings.

[zuzuzuko]

Felt like drawing Damian but I don’t think I have the energy to finish this so I’m just gonna go ahead and post it 🤷‍♀️ maybe one day I’ll clean it up and finish it

[inkskinned]

oh you know it's all latestage capitalism but the thing is. how are you supposed to be a person inside of this. a person trying to be a better version of yourself.

oh, you started working young, which was kind of hard, but it's just the way stuff works sometimes. and it was 2008 and your family couldn't afford heat. but it's fine, you grow a spine and get used to the professional world and besides it was the suburbs we're talking about here, like, your life could have been actually hard, so what if your father lost his job and you can't afford to move or turn the lights back on. and once you start making money, it's good. you keep doing that. because now they're relying on you. so you have to do that.

oh you were in thousands of dollars of debt at 17 years old so that you could go to school, because you have to go to school if you want to get a "real" job. you even did it "right", you worked parttime and attended community college before you transferred to a public school. you were under so many merit scholarships.

which is fine. you pick yourself up and you say like, okay. i graduated college. i'm holding down a job. i'm doing the Adult Thing, which looks and acts like this, according to all the books i've read. you start with the shitty job and then you climb that corporate ladder.

but the shitty job doesn't cover rent and you stretch yourself too-thin so you get sick. good luck with that. the shitty job no longer pays for your meals. everyone asks why you don't just move, but there's nowhere to move to. and with what money are you going to be moving? and then the loans come back, because they were never going to forgive them, because you were 17 and trying to do the right thing, which was stupid. people are now saying you shouldn't have even gone to school.

which is fine. but because you have no other option, so you do the shitty job, and you apply every day for like 5 new ones, and despite the fact everyone says "there's no one who wants to work!" it's actually just that nobody is fucking hiring so you can either work for 13 dollars an hour in the shitty place you know (where at least you have a passingly friendly relationship with the manager) or you can start from scratch again with a different 13 dollars an hour without knowing how much abuse from the new job you'll be taking.

and if you quit you lose your insurance. if you quit you lose your housing. if you quit, you'll be another burnout kid. the lazy ones. these assholes, look at them!

and you come home to a family dinner and you hear from your father the same old thing. how he worked hard at his job and yes it sucked for a while but he was able to provide for the family and then the house and the dog and the rest of barbie's dream vacation. how the insurance did cover some of it. how you just really need to start speaking up more in manager conversations so they know you're a go-getter. you want to tell him - did you know we're actually doing more now hourly than any previous generation? - but you can't remember where you heard that statistic, and you're far too tired for the fucking argument. and then he starts in on his usual bit. where's the house? where's your kids? where's your ambition.

the same job the same money the same hours doesn't do it anymore. the same nose-to-the-grindstone now just shreds your face off. there's no such thing as upwards mobility, not really. and as far as you're aware, the money certainly is not trickling. you do the soulless stupid shit you signed up for because you fucking have to or else you literally risk your life (food, the apartment, the insurance), but it's not getting you anything. you download the stupid "save more" app and you budget and you do every right thing and then the price of eggs is 7 dollars and you say - oh great! another thing i have to fucking worry about now!

and you go to your stupid job and everyone in your father's generation just tells you to be better about being an adult. they have their homes and their savings account and their bailout and they say. well have you tried not drinking starbucks. well your generation just spends too much on clothing. well you might just be too addicted to travelling. and you - because you need the job - you bite your tongue and don't say i am being held prisoner and you're suggesting i stop pacing my cell if i don't like the scenery and you don't say what the fuck do you think i've been doing with my money and you don't say i haven't spent a cent on something nice in literally forever much less coffee you arrogant asshole. you open and close your bank app and check your loans and check your credit score and check fucking zillow and ziprecruiter and apartments.com just one time more. and still they give you that demeaning little grin and say - see, what you need is -

what you need is for your meds to stop being so fucking expensive. what you need is for the housing bubble to explode into dust. what you need is for billionaires to choke on their wealth. what you need is actual help. what you will get is more economic advice from people who are older-and-wiser.

and above you, almost in a glimmer, you can see the wedged smile of your debt getting toothier, wider.

[livwritesstuff]

Robin’s favorite part of Steve becoming a dad (and there really are so many to choose from) is getting to hear about all the ways his kids are learning how to push his buttons (as they absolutely should – Steve wouldn’t truly be a dad if he wasn’t being driven half-insane by their ridiculous antics).

“What are your children up to today, Steve-o?” she asked during a routine phone call.

And Steve replied, “Well, Moe spent half the night in time-out for fucking walloping Robbie with a hardcover picture book.”

“Why?” Robin snorts.

“Never figured it out, but later when we made Moe apologize, she said Sorry for hitting you with a book – which, you know, fine, she could have stopped there, but then she said If you just do what I say, I’ll never have to hit you with a book again.”

“Jesus, she’s like a fuckin’ mobster.”

“Tell me about it.”

Another time, Steve told her, “I think I lost the battle with Hazel’s hair.”

Robin made a sympathetic noise, because she was very aware of Steve’s ongoing crusade to manage Hazel’s unmanageable curls (they're actually pretty manageable, from what Robin has heard, the problem is just that Hazel won't let him).

“This morning I told her we needed to brush it before school and I think her exact response was Don’t people want to see the real me?”

Robin laughs, “Oh man, she’s so cute.”

“Don’t worry – she knows.”

One of Robin’s favorite updates is when Steve tells her, “We had to figure out how to address Robbie breaking into Moe’s fucking Webkinz account and spending all her fake money on gifts for herself,” and Robin can’t help a gasp, because she’s heard all about this Webkinz craze and just how big a deal it is to elementary-schoolers like Steve and Eddie’s oldest daughters.

“Holy shit, she’s diabolical.”

“Yeah. I mean, Moe probably could have picked a better password than password. Kinda thought she was smarter than that, actually, but…lesson learned, I guess.”

[bruqh]

conspiracy brain prediction for new d20 season:

i think aabria is gonna climb up on the table at some point

[usergrantaire]

a group which barely missed becoming historic (ft. marius)

[aevris]

doodle of a bat/myotis sonar operator for a setting i'm rotating in my brain