'guys we're out of supplies/ we need to stop/ we're attracting too much attention with the flying bison we should walk' etc.

Like in the ´The Storm' when they're completely out of money and supplies the one to get a job in hopes of making money (he never actually gets paid, the world hates him) is Sokka.

In 'The Waterbending Scroll,' it's Sokka who's concerned about their lack of supplies when Aang sends them in a wave down the river, and is making sure they're careful with their spendibg when in town shopping.

He's also seen to catch fish and gather nuts (I know more often than not he fails to catch things on screen but it's implied he's the one that does most of the hunting and gathering)

some grown-up kataang because i finished the annual A:TLA re-watch with my partner and now i'm in my feelings about them

also imagine trying to explain to the Berserkers the Night Fury - a dragon you've never seen and never killed that doesn't take food but only occasionally shows up to one shot your village.

@queenofthearchipelago true, it’s possible that Stoick was just better at holding onto food reserves, or Berk is unusually rich in resources! but I was more so thinking that Berk is just the closest to Helheim’s gate & therefore is the literal frontline against the attacks from Dragon Island

I know the canon map doesn’t include berserker island or the shivering shores, for reasons no one knows… but Berk seems to be the only one launching invasions into dragon island and seems to bear the brunt of the worst dragon attacks. Which combined with the canonical placement of outcast island (presumably the crappy stone island on the eastern most side) led me to believe that it was the closest to dragon island & the first pit stop for the dragons.

In my mind this is why the berserkers, outcasts and shivering shores are not involved in the invasions into dragon territory - they don’t care, Berk is their shield & takes the brunt of the attacks, leaving the, with only the scavengers & wild dragons not from dragon island. They’re not risking their people or resources on something that doesn’t directly affect them. Not when Berk is still standing.

Which to me is also part of why Hiccup has such a dismal opinion on Berk. It’s the ass end of nowhere and constantly in turmoil over the dragons compared to places like berserker island or the shivering shores, who don’t have to worry about starving because their flock was carried away by dragons, or freezing because their homes were burnt down.

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

Write it badly or it'll never be written

The problem wasn’t what I had access to. It was that I didn’t have access to a safe adult I could actually talk to; someone I could trust to help me without immediately cutting me off from everything and everyone. I remember getting messages from strangers on Skype. I didn’t even respond. But when my parents found out, they banned me from using it entirely. That meant losing most of my contact with friends outside of school. So what did I do? I went behind their backs. And once I was hiding, I couldn’t tell them when something actually dangerous was happening, like when I started being groomed. By the time things escalated, I was already alone with it.

I think about an episode of Scared Straight where a girl was dragged through a prison because she’d been talking to adult men online. She wasn’t doing that because she was reckless or malicious; she was lonely. Her parents weren’t present, she was being bullied at school, and these men gave her attention, told her she was pretty, told her she mattered. She was already being harmed. And the adults in her life responded by terrorizing her. Humiliating her. Calling her a slut. Telling her she deserved it. Breaking her to pieces.

What lesson does that actually teach? Not “this is dangerous, come to us.” It teaches: If you get hurt, we will hurt you more. Do you really think that makes her stop, or does it just make the predators look safer by comparison? They might as well have driven her straight into the jaws of those predators with torches and pitchforks. Because when every path back to safety is lined with punishment, kids don’t run away from danger. They run deeper into it.

If you want kids to be safe, stop treating them like problems to control and start treating them like people worth protecting. Stop ripping away their autonomy the second they make a mistake or encounter something risky. Stop teaching them that honesty will cost them everything.