Shayde

Is laughing at someone doing something stupid and reaping the consequences a very human thing?

"They're fine, so it's funny"

Even the idiot that tried to go sledding on a bin lid is laughing (leg in plaster optional)

"Look how far I flew when I came off!" -- Gallifreya

"What the living heck is this?" demanded Rael.

On her screen, two 'knights' in cardboard armour sat in shopping trolleys and held broomsticks like lances. They faced off at opposite sides of a road that dipped in the middle.

"Earth's most convincin' arguments that humans are insane," she grinned. "Formerly known as America's Funniest Home Videos. Popcorn?"

On the screen, the trolleys wobbled down the hill and the cardboard knights attempted to tilt at each other. They met with a loud collision and a sickening crack. Rael winced. "One of them was injured."

"They're drunk, bored, and teenagers," she snorted a parody of a laugh, "There's a bunch'a similes for ye. Anywa'. They're learnin' important lessons. Or they were."

Rael picked up his share of the popcorn. Ah, empty calories. His favourite. "What possible lesson could they learn here? Don't do ill-thought-out activities?"

"Close. Idiot decisions have painful consequences." She watched one of the knights get tossed from a trolley and roll to a stop. And giggled. "They're no' learnin' it very fast, ye ken."

Only humans would laugh at the misfortunes of others. Possibly from the sheer relief that it wasn't them having the misfortune.

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EUREKA!

Which is greek for "This bath is %*£&ing cold!" -- Gallifreya

"I thought it meant, 'hand me a towel'."

"I heard it was, 'there's a cockroach in the bath'."

"No, no, no. It really means, 'is my time up already'."

Shayde, gloomily watching her joke plummet like a leaden balloon that was currently on fire, tapped the countertop for another fudge sundae. "What goes around comes around," she sighed. "And this one went around so often it's no' a joke

This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvJZVq5_cGs I've never seen something like that executed so well in real life. -- Gallifreya

[AN: for those of you who don't want to watch, the prank involves sets of twins doing a Scooby-Doo farcical door chase scene]

Seeing it done with editing was one thing. Seeing it done live was another. Watching what seemed to be the same person enter one door and immediately exit another, on stage... it boggled the mind.

Fiat lux!

Which is Latin for "my small Italian car is on fire!" (I can't remember what this quote is from) -- Gallifreya

[AN: For those who are not at all familiar with Latin, it actually means "Let there be light"]

Rael couldn't loom from underneath someone like Lyr could. But he could sneak up on Shayde as she added to a graffiti wall and conspire to look annoyed.

She had written, in relatively large, friendly letters, Fiat lux! And underneath, in

Advantage number one of having crammed our development of spacecraft into only ten years: "Holy shit we know how to mass produce so many liquid explosives that we can get to be stable for just long enough, you have no idea." -- RecklessPrudence

It's said that anything interesting enough to propel a spacecraft for long distances in a relatively short time is also interesting enough to be a weapon. And it's usually said by humans, who tended to develop the weapons first

Anything they were willing to try using as fuel during the space race is volatile enough to qualify as an emergency explosive, including the stuff they actually used for launches. -- RecklessPrudence

"They didn't try less volatile launch methods? Like low-orbit flight and gas boosting?"

"Or maglev railgun shots?" suggested another member of Shayde's audience.

"They were thought of, awright. But they were too expensive and too slow. It was a race, ye ken. Braggin' rights tae th' first one on the