#other's species

[brothermanwill]

@thelateandboggythagsimmons's sirens done in MS Paint

[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

[bedupolker]

Just wanted to say, I love your Mouse mom and Rat dad. The artwork gives me Ghibli vibes and love how you draw eyes and expressions.

But I do have a few questions. Does Mariela have/had parents? I recall that her cousin is a grasshopper mouse, so is Mariela adopted? If her parents are still around, how would they react to her being a mother?

Mariella's own mother was sickly and passed away when she was a baby, she doesn't have brothers or sisters which is very unusual for a mouse. Her grandparents raised her and she had aunties and uncles of course but she quietly longs for the mother and siblings she didn't get to have

[starrysharks]

friendship is magic

closeups:

[barghest-land]

fieldbook (mostly this year): expedition sketches. different places and seasons

[cracklewink]

hear me out: moose in mlp

[plesiosaurys]

getting emotional over footage of an amateur scuba diver interacting with a coelacanth. they are hunted by large deepwater predators, and here comes a large creature bearing the brightest lights it's ever seen, making strange noises, but it does not shy away. it hovers, calmly, as the diver reaches out and trails a hand down its back. im strongly against the anthropomorphizing of real life animals but the stupid emotional part of me loudly insists this is because it recognizes us, the alternating movements of its four paired limbs matching the diver's four paired limbs, & it is thinking, "hello, cousins, we missed you these 66 million years, it's so good to see you again. welcome back, welcome home."

[dinoserious]

ponder ferret variant (feriant)

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[improper-use-of-germx]

Okay so hear me out. Alien who is very close with their human crewmate, and is used to you smelling like the various products humans use for personal hygiene. This is perfectly fine, maybe they even grow an attachment to your preferred brands of deodorant and lotion, but it leaves them completely unprepared the first time they smell your unmasked body odor and realize oh yeah, humans are very sexual creatures and produce pheromones accordingly. It's the alien equivalent of seeing someone you already like half-naked and having an "Oh no they're hot" moment, except you don't even realize the effect you're having on them because you just got done training or woke up from a very sweaty nap and just want to shower.

[brothermanwill]

Some of @t34-mt's wonderful Maanul and a Kyhuine getting their eepy on. Please go follow them! They do amazing work

[ribbononline]

Hoenn crossing, or something

[rejoiceinsilverlight]

thinking about super cousins post-season 2 and potential effects of being exposed to kryptonite so many times

[sethdomain]

someone should write a species swap fic

[waytoocrispybread]

they are doing sturgery i think.....