#Shellfire

[ppaleoartistgallery]

HTTYD Flocking

today on Paleostream we drew HTTYD dragons!!!!

closeups and design explanations/descriptions below:

terrible terror and monstrous nightmare: you'll notice all the dragons arent hexapods, deliberate choice on my end, not much has changed about the terrible terror tbh, it just only has four limbs now, less spikes, longer feet, and a more crown-like horn arrangement.

but ooh the monstrous nightmare lmao, i decided to shrink it down and remove a lot of its spikes, i wanted to make it a sorta chihuahua of dragons, small and feels like it can pick on everything. but relies on its projectile venom to save it. instead of lighting on fire, it lights its enemies eyes on fire by spraying venom from venom glands along its neck, back, and tail at the enemy

for the hideous zippleback, i decided to give them beaks (cause i felt like it) and make it so the double head is an illusion caused by the smaller sessile male who's constantly attached to the female, the female has a smaller crest and horns which makes the male's smaller head but larger features balance out the silhouettes. the male rides on the female's back everywhere being held in place by his claws and her wingtips, i also made the female cursorial because i felt like it again

the rumblehorn, i went for beetle-like wings and elytra-like display feathers, and for the funny i gave it a rhinoceras beetle head, and two toes on each foot

the razorwhip is a really cool design, but i was thinking that it would be a sleek and efficient killer, so i gave it smooth and dark scales that are incredibly reflective, and a parankylosaur macuahuitl. i also gave it bottom tooth-like projections on its bottom jaw

for the whispering death, i made it a derived ray-finned fish because dragons are anything you want them to be (also inspired by Wyatt Andrews' Rodan design). i replaced its eyes with two white bioluminescent display features, and put its eyes where its nostrils usually are and gave it a gulper eel mouth with a loooot of gill rakers to replace the rows of teeth

the red death, i decided to keep its size large, i took a lot of sauropod inspiration from this one. airsacs replaced the posterior two eyes, and i gave it a tail club and tooth-like keratin projections on the lower jaw

we ended with the shellfire, even as a kid i hated the design, at this point i was on four hours of sleep and had been awake for about 12 hours, so i just made an over-sized placoderm with spurs on the side of its head, cause dragons are anything you want them to be

[fenicearts420]

TRACKING THE BEAST - RTV MARIE SCRIPT

Slight trigger warning for thalassophobia

RTV AU belongs to - @4thwallbreakerdraws2

(Not sure if this is how it would actually start out for Marie in the AU, but I really liked the concept so I wrote up a lil script and made a lil gif to go with it ^^. I'm so normal about this AU guys, I promise 😅)

[askrykergrimborn]

odd question but how do ye get mice out of yer dragons nostrils?

(i didn't even know shellfires could get mice in their nostrils, it isn't a bloody bakery in there?? the damn thing dives hundreds of metres below the ocean surface, how do mice survive in there??)

[floydmtalbert]

“Frolic at the Front”

It’s a festive occasion at the Italian front as the guys and gals drag out a portable phonograph and cut a figurative rug on foreign soil. At left, dancing with Lois Berney of Fallon, Nevada, is PFC Clyde Burgess of Toccoa, Georgia. Dancing at right are Mary Ross Moen of Onawa, Iowa, and Pvt. William Maderra of Rayland, Ohio. The girls are Red Cross workers whose job is to boost the morale of Fifth Army men.

Photo by Bert Brandt, war correspondent for ACME Newspictures, c. 28 November 1943 — © Allison Collection, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History

[d1s4strous]

my dealer: got some straight gas🔥🔥🔥 this strain is called "project shellfire" 😳 you'll be zonked out of your gourd 💯

me: yeah whatever. i don't feel shit.

5 minutes later: dude i swear i just saw a huge dragon-ship underwater

my buddy hiccup, pacing: the grimborn brothers are lying to us

[saltywombatllama]

Since this fandom is basically DEAD, I decided to post random things (I belive that happened or that should have happened) about in memoriam by Alice winn(because let's be real, that book is toooooo underrated where as a lot of books that aren't all that get sooooo much attention) (BTW i feel like if maud, devi, Hayes and pitchard would all meet, they would bond over thr trauma they had with the situationship that could only be separated by [only] the forces of nature and a war, and they would be besties)

----------

Ellwood: I hate you.

Gaunt: Likewise.

Ellwood: You’re insufferable.

Gaunt: You’re unbearable.

Ellwod: Why are you in my bed?

Gaunt: …I missed you.

Narrator voice(Devi coming from under the bed): They were already married in the eyes of God and everyone who had ever read Wilfred Owen.

------------

Ellwood at school: I’m not gay, I just think Henry is the most beautiful boy to ever exist and I’d die if he stopped talking to me.

Ellwood in France: Okay maybe I’m a little gay.

Ellwood after Henry gets injured: Okay I’m gay.

-----------

Someone at Eton(probably): I knew they were in love when Ellwood let Gaunt win at chess and Gaunt apologized for it like it was a crime against nature.

------------

Gaunt: You’re insufferable.

Ellwood: You’re bleeding again.

Gaunt: And you’re still here.

Ellwood: I enjoy watching you suffer.

Maud: If one of you doesn’t kiss the other, I swear I’ll enlist myself.

-----------

Devi: You can’t use chlorine gas to “send a message.”

Pritchard: It wasn’t about the gas. It was about the vibe.

Hayes: The vibe made me pass out.

---------

Maud’s weekly update to her aunt:

“Ellwood looked at Gaunt like he was reading a very tragic novel and recognized himself.

Gaunt responded by nearly dying in a mud hole.

Devi is staging a one-man Marxist revolution in the officer’s tent.

Hayes cried over a rabbit.

Pritchard smiled, which should have been a red flag.

Please send more socks.”

-----------

Ellwood: Gaunt fainted during poetry again.

Maud: He fainted or he was emotionally undone by sonnets?

Gaunt: You’re all being very unfair.

--------

Gaunt(shot in the arm,bleeding) :Don’t tell Ellwood.

Five minutes later

Ellwood (storming into the trench): WHO HURT HIM I JUST WANT TO TALK

----------

Devi: I didn’t come here to make friends.

Hayes: But you did knit me mittens.

Devi: That was political.

---------

(Writing war poetry together)

Devi: slams notebook This is about anti-colonial rage and the dehumanization of soldiers.

Gaunt: Mine is… vaguely about… mortality.

Ellwood: …

Maud: Ellwood’s is literally titled To Him, Whose Throat I Dare Not Kiss.

Ellwood: It’s a metaphor.

Devi: It's a confession

----------

Gaunt: Hypothetically—if I were wounded and dying in a puddle of blood—

Ellwood: I’d throw myself on top of you like a Victorian widow.

Gaunt: I was going to say “would you still love me,” but…

Ellwood: The answer is yes, obviously.

-------

Devi, writing a 'list of things to do before I die'

• Topple the monarchy ✅

• Confiscate Pritchard’s lighter ❌

• Free Ireland ✅

• Emotional vulnerability: still pending ❌

• Stare at Ellwood and Gaunt until one of them admits they’re in love ✅

----------

Gaunt & Ellwood: (having an argument)

Maud: I’ve read heterosexual romance novels less dramatic than this.

Devi: They literally argue in iambic pentameter.

Pritchard: I ship it.

Hayes: What’s shipping?

Pritchard: It’s when you see two people being disasters and you root for the kiss.

------------

Maud: Does anyone here know how to process a single emotion

Gaunt: No.

Ellwood: No.

Devi: I can, but I won’t.

Hayes: I baked banana bread

Pritchard: I once cried because a knife was too dull. Does that count?

---------

Maud: I love my brother.

Also Maud: He has the emotional range of a haunted teaspoon.

Also Maud: He deserves love. Preferably from Ellwood.

Also Maud: I will slap him if he doesn’t say something soon.

------------

Maud: Have you tried saying how you feel?

Gaunt: I wrote a poem.

Maud: Did you give it to him?

Gaunt: I buried it in the garden.

Maud: For the love of God—

--------

Devi: We all cope differently. I organize political insurrections.

Pritchard: I build bombs.

Hayes: I crochet.

Ellwood: I pine.

Gaunt: I bleed aesthetically.

Maud: I pretend I don’t know any of you.

Tell me if you want a part 2

[sadlittlepotatobean]

for some reason 'Hellfire' from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame' reminds me of Octavian from Percy Jackson

[idontliketomatoesleavemealone]

actually researching this makes me ill

[puppetmaster13u]

Randomly started thinkin' about httyd & dc crossover

Where the batfam are like a cross between Valka was and night fury

Y'know, all mysterious cryptid 'children of lightning and death' etc Maybe a bit feral and living with dragons while freeing them from trappers & becoming myths in themselves lol

Clark probably still raised by farmers/traders (maybe found the baby on the remnants of a small fishing boat wrapped in silk and dragon scales/his cape)

Diana/wonder woman is probably something similar to that one island from race to the edge (I think called the Valkyries but I don't remember lol) that consists of warrior women who look like they have wings but it's small (or young I also don't remember lol) dragons that cling to their backs

Aquaman, I mean, underwater caves and hidden islands and sea dragons and all that (We've seen water dragons that carry people on their backs via ships or in their mouths before)

Pretty much justice league but they are or become dragon riders lol

[minatoiskyuubismate]

About Dragons the nine realms.

I am just watching the new season that started on german free TV. There was one episode who played underwater-just like dire straits-with a modern touch. D´Angelo, Jun and Tom had "borrrowed" a diving bell to free a water dragon caught by Buzzaw. But it seemed the creators had nothing thought about water pressure, diving sickness (dont know if its called so). When they were on the ground, Tom simply dived out of the bell to free the bound dragon. Then a shellfire appeared - it was much smaller as Viggos "Thunderball" (heh, yes, I named him so in a fanfiction I wrote about it had a different continuation. And when the Shellfire fought the other dragon-he only rammed it with his snout against the rocks-was this shellfire not able to use his fire bombs? Can it only fire them outside the water? Has he lost the ability to do it in all these centuries? Or was it too young yet to use this ability? We will never knew it.

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

All the dragons from the HTTYD stream. Detailed images below.

The designs from the original movie are basically perfect, which is why I didn't really dare to touch them... until a certain trailer dropped recently.

I'm a spiteful creature.

Anyway. Some ground rules. I tried to make these creatures overall a little bit more realistic and grounded without robbing them of the inherent whimsy that the originals had. All of them are tetrapods, so only 4 limbs max.

Nightfury

These guys have no more functional limbs to move on the ground. They are living stealth bombers. Silent fast fliers.

On the ground they flop around similar to seals, forming small colonies on top of tall cliffs.

Red Death

At a certain size it becomes unfeasible to fly for even a dragon. The Red Death stays on the ground using it's heavy armor and enormous size when raiding other dragon nesting colonies. it'as wings are more like spurs, to injure rivals in combat.

Gronkle

The original had a hummingbird style in flying , something that doesn't work for an animal of this size. My compromise is to make the wings rather stout and being able to be folded a lot.

Nadder

Easiest design, take a unfeathered theropod and combine it with a bearded dragon.

Shellfire

This was the last one I made on stream, it is one of the (in my eyes) worst designs from the shows, so a nice challenge to make it work a little better.

This guy is now a filter feeder, using its large horns to funnel water into its mouth.

Zippleback

Multi-headed dragons are really tricky. In my design I made one of the heads a parasitic male, similar to angler fish, that hitches a ride on the back of the larger female.

Monstrous Nightmare

One of the most classic dragons from the original movie. Lots of crocodilian influence here. The osteoderms on its back have pores from which it produces flammable secretions.

Razorwhip

A fast an agile dragon, but the original doesn't really show that in the head shape and all these spines don't help. I put some tapejarid influence into it.

Rumblehorn

The massive neck of this dragon doesn't work well in terms of aerodynamics, unless it's an inflatable display structure ;)

Whispering Death

The giant maw of this dragon is an even greater challenge, but when you give it the gular pouch of a pelican eel and turn these eyes into eye-spots, it works quite well.

And of course the Terrible Terror!

As you can see it's in my case a close relative of the nadder.

[spineless-lobster]

Hey bro no homo but the way the shellfire lights up your sleeping face at night makes you look so pretty lol I guess even in the horrors of war life’s beauties can still persist lmao no homo tho

[ripstefano]

The German Army in World War I

During World War I, the German Army—formally known as the Deutsches Heer—entered the conflict as one of the most modern and disciplined forces in Europe. Germany’s military strategy at the war’s outset was built around the Schlieffen Plan, crafted by General Alfred von Schlieffen in 1905. The plan aimed to prevent a two-front war by quickly defeating France in the west through a massive flanking movement that would sweep through neutral Belgium and encircle Paris, before turning to face Russia in the east, whose mobilization was expected to be slower. However, the execution of the plan was flawed. Belgium's resistance, British involvement after the violation of Belgian neutrality, and unexpectedly rapid Russian mobilization forced Germany to divert troops eastward, contributing to the failure of the plan and the start of prolonged trench warfare on both fronts.

German soldiers, referred to as Landser, began the war wearing traditional uniforms that reflected 19th-century styles. Their standard issue included the feldgrau (field-grey) wool tunic and trousers, which were initially intended to offer some degree of camouflage. A distinctive feature of the early war uniform was the Pickelhaube, a leather spiked helmet with brass fittings, designed more for parade than protection. As the war dragged on and conditions in the trenches grew more brutal, the impractical Pickelhaube was gradually replaced by the Stahlhelm—a steel helmet introduced in 1916 that provided much better protection against shrapnel and bullets. Uniforms also evolved, with simplified designs, sturdier fabrics, and better-suited gear for mud, cold, and constant shellfire. Soldiers carried basic equipment including a rifle (often the Mauser Gewehr 98), ammunition pouches, an entrenching tool, and a gas mask as chemical warfare became more common. The German Army's early confidence gave way to a grinding war of attrition, where adaptability, endurance, and industrial support became just as crucial as initial planning.

From "The German Army in World War I"

[tatarstani]

Kiev accused of genocide as Donetsk civilians' water supply cut off

28 April 2020

thousands are without water in the Donetsk region of Ukraine as the Kiev government’s armed forces continue to breach a 2016 ceasefire agreement despite the global Covid-19 pandemic.

The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) warned of an unfolding humanitarian crisis with the water supply for at least 1,500 people in Elenkova and Molodyezhoyne cut off after Ukrainian shellfire damaged pipes.

It said that such actions were war crimes and an attempted genocide being waged by the Ukrainian armed forces.

Kiev is accused of ignoring DPR requests for clearance to fix the water pipes for the past two months.

“Ukrainian forces keep shelling the DPR territory despite public calls for peace in connection with the Covid-19 situation.

“They keep impeding the repairs and functioning of important civilian infrastructure.

“We consider such actions to be crimes against humanity and an attempted genocide of the civilian population by creating conditions for the spread of dangerous infections,” a DPR statement said.

The DPR Health Ministry reported 11 news cases of coronavirus yesterday, bringing the total infected to 89. Of those, 79 are in hospital while nine have fully recovered, with two people dying after contracting Covid-19.

But the region remains volatile as Ukrainian forces continue to violate the terms of the 2016 ceasefire agreement negotiated in a bid to find a political solution to the Donbass conflict.

“Over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian armed formations violated the ceasefire 11 times, expending 89 rounds of ammunition,” the DPR’s Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination reported yesterday.

The DPR declared independence from Ukraine in 2014 alongside the Lugansk People’s Republic and the Republic of Crimea, the latter being established as a federal subject of Russia following military annexation and a referendum.

source

[blueberry-ovaries]

I’ll Crawl Home to Her (Work Song)

In which Eugene Roe would crawl to her if he had to.

Boy’s working on empty,

Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat?

Eugene Roe had been working to the bone. His fingers smeared with a mixture of blood and dirt. He wasn’t sure where his own blood had mingled with the other men’s.

He hadn’t slept in 16 hours. Or perhaps it was closer to 20. He wasn’t sure. The sun had started to peak over the treetops. The snow a gray sludge littered with shrapnel and splintered wood. He couldn’t stop, darting between foxholes, checking on the men. He couldn’t rest, not yet.

I just think about my baby

When the bombs started dropping at around 3am, and Gene scrambled to his foxhole all he could do was pray. He pleaded with God and Saint Francis. Lord, grant that I shall never seek as much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, or to be loved as to love with all my heart. With all my heart.

Her picture lay in his breast pocket, Tucked between a carton of cigarettes and his scissors. The edges torn and frail. As the bombs splinter the trees and chunks of mud splatter over his body, her eyes burn into his mind like precious jewels. As he curled into the foxhole, he could so vividly see her hair glistening in the Louisiana sun. He’d take her there, after the war. She would meet his maman, and he’d take her out on the bayou.

I’m so full of love I could barley eat

It was her birthday today, Eugene thought as he sat with his cooling cup of beans. He wasn’t hungry. Just thinking about her, was enough to keep him going. The thought of her soft hands, unstained, her clothes not covered in blood. That was enough for him.

His heart quickened when he thought of her. When the world is free from war, i’ll follow you wherever you go, cherie he had promised her the last time he saw her. He meant it. Every word. He’d follow her to the ends of the earth, the thought alone was enough to keep him moving.

I’d never want once from the Cherry tree

When they moved from the Bois Jacques and into Germany all Gene could think about was how he wanted to whisk her away to a chateau in the mountains. He couldn’t imagine how a man like Hitler could live in such a place when his cherie wasn’t.

He didn’t indulge himself like the rest of the men. The wine was too sweet. Something she would have loved. no. He didn’t need any of it, the war would soon be over and that was enough for him.

‘Cause my baby’s sweet as can be,

She gives me toothaches just from kissing me

Before he left, Gene would routinely walk to the house she was staying in. Knocking on the front door and greeting the kind elderly couple she stayed with, and every time her sweet summer dresses would knock the wind out of his chest. The smile she gave him was kind, it was good. She was always the sweetest, a hand holding his as they walked through the streets, tucked under his arm as she softly rattled on about her garden.

When my time comes around, Lay me gently in the cold dark earth

The bombing of the Bois Jacques forest kept Eugene busy. He was always running between breaks of shellfire, making sure the men weren’t hit, and fixing them up when they were. He couldn’t stop, not when they needed him. His fingers were numb, pink and stiff from where they held the back of his head. He had no time to think about anything but surviving and making sure the men survived.

When the shelling would stop, and the men were accounted for, he looked through the splintered branches of the tress, dirt for a bed. Exhausted wasn’t a strong enough word for what he felt. He ached in his bones, so tired he thought he may not even get out of the foxhole come first light. If he didn’t, the last thing he’d think about was her

No grave can hold my body down, I’ll crawl home to her

When the war ended and Eugene dressed in his best formal greens. He was a shell of the man he was before the war. The English winter did little to aid the persistent ache in his bones. He stood out the front of her house, the door still painted blue. He made a promise, and dammit he was going to fulfil it.

When the door swung open and her arms hugged him tighter than he felt he deserved, all he could do was sigh at the smell of her shampoo, and cling to her tighter.

Battered and bruised both mentally and physically, nothing would have stopped him from coming back to her, to his home.

——

A/N: wanted to try something a little different, never written a single fic before!

TAGS:

@malarkgirlypop @mads-weasley @footprintsinthesxnd @bucky32557038ww2 @grumpy-liebgott @executethyself35 @fxxiva @sandaltoesocks

[uss-edsall]

On 9 November, 1942, flying off the coast of Casablanca, French Morrocco in support of the Operation TORCH landings, the Piper Cub (under the name L-4 Grasshopper) made her official combat debut in the Second World War. This once-civilian plane had been bought by the U.S. Army to function as "air observation posts," flown by pilots in the U.S. Army Field Artillery, attached directly to battalions. Her concept, proven in training maneuvers, was as aerial reconnaissance; aerial photography; single-person transport; air ambulance; and in particular, reconnaissance and artillery observation. She would prove to be perfect for all of these roles. She would go on to have an incredible record during the Second World War, one of the best planes built for her particular role, with over six thousand of them bought by the U.S. Army. She was small, she could handle landing tiny fields, she was stealthy, she was dead simple to repair and reliable in the air.

But on that day? For that mission? There were only three Grasshoppers, and it was an absolute disaster.

The three planes were attached to the 3rd Infantry Division. Their pilots were hurriedly brought to USS Ranger (CV-4), aboard which were three L-4 Grasshoppers in bad condition. All their efforts were getting the planes ready for flight. What the pilots did not know was that their commanders, from colonels to generals alike, did not prepare properly for their debut.

On 8 November American troops stormed ashore at Safi, Casablanca and Point Lyautey. The next day, Ranger turned into the wind, the pilots got aboard the planes. In the 35-knot wind the instant the ship's crew let go of their tails, the planes hopped off the deck and were in the air, sixty miles from shore.

Three miles from the beach, the allied invasion force appeared. Transports, destroyers, the light cruiser USS Brooklyn. Aboard the Brooklyn alert officers and anti-air gun crews spotted the L-4 Grasshoppers.

There was nothing in the allied aviation recognition books that resembled the L-4 Grasshopper. None of the artillery pilots' superiors had properly distributed warnings that the Army had procured the civilian planes, and were using them for the first time.

The Brooklyn's anti-air weaponry opened up. 5" shells, 40mm bofors, 20mm Oerlikons reached out to lick at the Grasshoppers. In the first flak burst the quartet of little planes scattered, diving for the deck. Captain Ford Allcorn leveled off at twenty feet and started juking like mad, gamely going for the beach leading his flight. Every other ship, seeing the Brooklyn open up on the unfamiliar planes, joined in.

The artillery pilots had not the fuel to return to the ship, even if they'd been trained in carrier landings, which they weren't. Land was their only option for salvation. Shellfire blew out Allcorn's windshield, shot off one of the doors. As the Grasshoppers juked and weaved, bullets splashed into the water all around them. A hundred feet from shore, they levelled off and gunned their throttles to the maximum - 80 mph - for the safety of the shoreline.

At which point the pintle mount machineguns on tanks ashore opened fire on them. For nobody had told the Army troops of the 2nd Armored Division either about the Piper Cubs, and seeing the Navy so enthusiastically shooting at them, they joined in. .50-calibre bullets ripped into the Grasshoppers, betrayed by their own.

Captain Allcorn's engine cut out after several tanks' machineguns stitched bullets across the frame, and five bullets tore into his leg.

The wounded planes got to the shoreline. They flew over the armor, guns straining to shoot at them, desperately trying to get to the safety of the Fedala Racetrack, where they were supposed to go. Allcorn spotted a relatively flat area and pancaked in, crawling out of the mortally wounded flaming bird before the fuel exploded.

And then the Vichy French opened up.

Lieutenants Butler, Shell, and Captain Devol (one L-4 having carried two of them) were taken prisoner after crash landing behind Vichy French lines, but were released when the French in Casablanca surrendered two days later on 11 November.

Amazingly, despite all this, nobody had been killed.

Captain Allcorn was the first Army aviator in the ETO to fly off a carrier, the first in combat, and the dubious distinction of the first to be shot down and the first to be wounded. Captain Allcorn, from his hospital bed back in the States, wrote a report about it all that even reached the Chief of Staff General Marshall's desk. He argued that this disastrous beginning was not the death knell of the Grasshopper. He concluded, perhaps rather dryly, that there was seemingly a failure to communicate between the Army and the Navy. His report helped the Piper Cub / L-4 Grasshopper survive the event, to go on to become one of the most produced aircraft of the war, and most widely used.

Even today, almost four thousand of the nearly twenty thousand Piper Cubs built are still in the FAA registry.