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There is a species of butterfly that lives in the mountains.

When it hatches as a caterpillar, it lowers itself to the ground on a strand of silk, and then produces a chemical that smells like the larvae of ants. An ant eventually discovers it, lured by the scent, and brings it back to the anthill, where it is cared for by the colony until it pupates. After a few weeks, the adult butterfly crawls back up through the anthill, through the dirt and the winding tunnels, and out into the sunlight before it can finally open its wings.

Some say that the caterpillar “tricks” the ants into doing this. I don’t know if I agree – I think it’s too small a thing to accuse of guile, don’t you?

With this in mind: Once upon a time, there were seven dwarves.

They lived and worked in the mountains, mining for gold and jewels and precious things. And one night, after a long day’s labour, they heard a knocking at the great stone doors of their mountain.

Outside, shivering and small, they found a human child.

I’m sure you can guess most of what she told them. Stepmothers were involved – it’s not important. What’s important was that each of the dwarves felt a dire and pressing need to care for the child, and they took her into their home, fed her, clothed her, and gave her a warm bed to sleep in. And many seasons passed around that mountain, with the dwarves raising the child as one of their own, until one autumn’s day.

The girl laid, slender and still, in a coffin of spun glass. And some weeks later, one of the dwarves had the idea to call for a prince. This was of course the sensible thing to do, and the prince of a nearby kingdom who listened to the story thought an ensorcelled girl would be a grand thing to rescue.

Poor devils. It feels cruel to judge them. But there were so many questions they could’ve asked – what was this stepmother’s name? Was she real? Did she exist? Who had made the glass coffin? Surely one of them must’ve thought of the question. And why did it grow more opaque with every passing day?

Were they wrong to trust?

I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The moment the prince stepped into the subterranean chamber with the glass coffin, it shivered with a twinkling, plinking noise. Threads of glass exploded into glittering, razor-edged confetti.

A claw split the great glass cocoon.

The thing that spilled out of it, hulking and huge, knew in the fog of its mind, in a base animal sense that screamed, that it was in a room too small for it to fit. It wanted up. It wanted out.

In front of it was some twiggy little thing holding a sword.

It took its first breath.

The flames were the colour of cornflowers.

The dwarves fled. The thing followed close behind, up, up, up through the stone and the winding tunnels, not to chase, not to hunt, but to get up, to get out, out, out–

It struck the great stone doors at a run. They crumbled like gingerbread. And then there was sunlight, and the open sky…

And it could finally open its wings.

Convergent evolution is a hell of a thing.

The dragon, of course, lived happily ever after with its loot of gold and jewels from a hastily abandoned dwarf mine. Being much bigger than a caterpillar, we could accuse it of tricking the dwarves who were kind to it, had taken it in, had fed and clothed and warmed it.

It probably wouldn't mind.

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when people use “you messed with the wrong fandom” as a threat

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SMACK FELINE AND ENTER, for better parallelism with the West Gate of Moria.

Cat and kitten door knocker, Clun, England

This unusual door knocker from Clun, England, features a mother cat carrying her kitten — sculpted in cold, weathered bronze, yet full of tenderness.

Equal parts whimsical, eerie, and adorable, it feels like something out of a forgotten fairytale.

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if you don’t know the difference between a hare and a rabbit you’ve never gazed into the cold wild eyes of a hare and known that if it could speak it would speak backwards

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From Facebook, group Sign Appreciation Society, John K. Wahl.

"The infamous Vomiting Victor on Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon. The sign is a warning to unprepared hikers."

@ominous-signs ? I tried to add the alt tag afterwards, but it may not have taken. A sign labeled Grand Canyon National Park, National Park Service. It's a sign by a trail. Shows a blond man on all fours vomiting on the trail. His shirt is off and his back is terribly sunburned.

Warning: Hiking to the Colorado River and back in one day is not recommended due to long distance, extreme heat, and a nearly 5,000-foot (1,500 m) elevation change. If you think you have the fitness and expertise to attempt this extremely strenuous hike, please seek advice from a park ranger at the Backcountry Information Center.

With translations into French, German, and Japanese.

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10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

AAAND WE HAVE LIFTOFF!

HAPPY MOON LANDING DAY!!!

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One of my favorite thing I’ve learned about animals studies is that you should avoid using colorful leg bands when you’re banding birds because you can accidentally completely skew the data because female birds prefer males with colorful bands

Apparently if you put a red band on a male red wing blackbird his harem size can double

So like you can completely frick up the natural reproduction of a group of birds by giving a guy a bracelet so stylish that females CANNOT resist him

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mom said it's my turn to hand out the ominous and vague warnings

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Pigeon attempts to court falcon

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Since it's in Spain, I'd say "Took a wrong turn at Alburquerque", two R's.

That's the town in Spain, the origin of the dukes of that name. The tenth duke was viceroy of New Spain, and the town was named for him. The first "r" was somehow lost at some point in the Americas.

Why is Mr Dante Alighieri in Barcelona?

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This also shows, by the way, how false is the whole "sealed off from the outside world" idea. The Netherlands, England (until they gave it up), Korea, & China could trade, with more or less limitation.

another funny thing about trade during the Edo period outside of Nagasaki is that in addition to the Matsumae clan in modern southern Hokkaido being permitted to trade with Ainu the other ‘gates’ to Japan were the Satsuma clan being permitted to trade with the Ryukyus which the Satsuma had conquered and made vassals and the island of Tsushima being permitted to trade with Korea. The establishment of the Tsushima-Korea trade happened in the early Edo period and after an initial exchange of envoys and Japanese envoys reassuring the Joseon that the Tokugawa were different from the Toyotomi who had invaded Korea and were responsible for overthrowing them and the Korean king was like “Ok, but we’ll still need an apology for all that shit if you want trade to happen”. Ieyasu Tokugawa was fine with Tsushima trading with Korea but the lord who ruled Tsushima knew that there would be no way Ieyasu would send something as humbling as an apology to a foreign ruler especially if he felt his hands were clean of the whole Korean invasion. So what the happened is the lord of Tsushima forged an apology letter from Ieyasu including faking his seal and sent it to the Joseon court. The Joseon court found it acceptable and sent a letter addressed to Ieyasu saying trade will be permitted to resume. Because the Joseon letter was based on the assumption that Ieyasu apologized and also because the style of it clearly looked like it was in response to a letter Ieyasu never actually sent the lord of Tsushima put away the real letter and forged yet another letter this time an edited version of the letter from the Joseon removing any mention of an apology and making it sound like it was part of a brand new correspondence rather than a response to an earlier letter. The Tokugawa fell for this ruse as well and Tsushima was able to engage in trade with Korea after the ruling courts were tricked into thinking they had come to a mutual agreement because the lord of Tsushima had essentially been faking the back and forth exchange with forged letters

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@kitsunestudios mentioned going into combat wearing a tent, & mentioned that it seems unlikely ... but what if you were wearing a GAZEBO??

I enjoy Sellsword’s videos, but I have to stand up for my pointy stick launchers!

I have more stuff on Patreon

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if you c*nsor anything in a post you are l*gally required to put all of the omitted v*wels at the end as a footn*te

*eeoo

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Often called "living fossils", their body plan has remained basically unchanged since the Roombidae first arose in the late Chamberian.

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It’s Fourth of July Eve so make sure to leave some milk and cookies out for Captain America