#HTTYD BOOKS

[jayfection]

finished that damn wip sorry for removing toothless hes too hard to draw 💔

[korben600]

Okay not to try and rewrite the baseline of this AU, but consider: Hiccup was Gobber’s apprentice, yeah? Lad was helping him maintain all of the dragon enclosures and whatnot.

Well, Berk doesn’t exactly have a robust childcare system. So older kiddos had to babysit the younger ones.

And Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the 3rd (Elder), was too lazy to like…convince his dad to find a real babysitter.

So what does he do?

He rigs up a cute little baby carrier, and plops that sucker next to the captive dragon cages.

Little guy gets lots of exposure to dragons, and he’s constantly within Hiccup’s sight!

What Elder, Gobber (and all of the Vikings who saw this crime against childcare and went “yeah that seems reasonable) don’t realize is that the various warbles, clicks, and screeches the dragons use aren’t…random.

Sure they *sound* random, to adult humans, who are used to speaking to other adult humans.

But to a baby? That’s just another very loud, very weird language to pick up.

So Elder, completely unintentionally, conditions his baby brother to understand Dragonese.

Younger loses it for a time, since at a certain point Stoick does realize what Elder and Gobber are doing when they’re “babysitting” his youngest boy.

But the damage is already done.

The boy is now a little too perceptive when it comes to dragons and how they communicate.

And when he learns how to read and write, he finally begins to put to pen the strangely accurate feelings he gets every time a dragon communicates.

Fortunately for him, this around the exact same time Elder blows up the red death, loses his leg, and gets a night fury as his pet. So nobody really asks too many questions about the whole “speaking to dragons thing”, and they all just go “yeah that would be really handy in dealing with dragons if we know what they’re saying”.

Fucking asshole older brothers always stealing the spotlight.

How did he learn dragonese from a species that would normally kill him on sight?? Your guess is as good as mine.

I imagine in this au he'd be a lot like Valka!

Bonus:

[ashesoriley]

[silverspotted]

my third eye opened and i sobbed my heart out

wanna give toothless a fat smooch on the nose

[spxrw]

snotlouts snotlouts oi oi oi!!

i think I'm getting more comfortable drawing different faces and stuff ☺️☺️

[starryarchitect]

I drew this faster than I've ever drawn anything in my life because I HAD to get her hair out of my system

[calloff57]

[mangotime1234]

I'm sorry but imagine being in the book accurate httyd universe. You and everyone else are experiencing terrible awful horrors and are on the verge of collapse and an entire war and. Everyone just has a stupid name. Armpit never came back from trying to catch a baby dragon and probably got violently torn apart and eaten alive. Dogsballs is shaking after he just witnessed two of his friends get driven off of the cliff they were forced to camp on after their tribe got burnt to the ground to escape slavery. Your friend Crying Bitchless the Gay had to watch his entire family get enslaved and his dragon companion, knowing if he tried to stop it he'll surely die or worse, go with them. Anklebiter Ass-smeller just had to rip twenty people and dragons to shreds with his bare hands to survive at the age of fifteen. You could be named Doodoo Bitch the Brainless and the guy who literally caused the violent deaths of everyone you loved and took away all that made up you could be named like. The Butthole Bruiser

[ttexcwl]

Bad sketches of book toothless!

I tried to make him look like he’s in the style of dreamwork’s dragons despite me not being the biggest fan of the httyd of dreamwork their designs ideas are amazing

[weaponizedducks]

one thing i love about the httyd books is that hiccup wasn't born with the ability to speak dragonese. it wasn't some 'chosen one' thing that caused hiccup to feel empathy for the dragons- it was hiccups genuine love and fascination towards them. he learned dragonese because he wanted to- because he wanted to be able to understand them. also the fact that dragonese is a learnable language for humans solidifies the fact that the dragons are not senseless animals or pets as they kind of are in the movies. they are of equal intelligence and sentience as humans- which calls into question the ethics of using them as hunting animals and modes of transport and basically glorified slaves. which was basically what the dragon rebellion was started over.

also from the stories and flashbacks about hiccup the first and hiccup the second we get the sense that dragonese was a common language for humans to know as well. havent read the books in a bit so correct me if im wrong but both hiccups and grimbeard knew dragonese, and dragons lived alongside humans as equals at that point in time (at least up until grimbeards reign.) the dragons started being mass enslaved by grimbeard because of a peaceful protest against the dragon enslavement that turned violent (btw it only got violent because grimbeard killed his fucking son. so.) so yeah the fact that the dragons were turned into glorified (forcefully enslaved!!) pets is actually horrific and they had every right to break free.

whats also horrific is that this abuse only ended with hiccup. hiccup was the first one to question this. he was the first person to see dragons as equal. the first to take the time to learn their language. he was the first to properly empathise with them. if he hadnt then the dragons would have continued to be enslaved until they either died out or eventually broke free (and even then their rebellion was triggered by the dragon furious, who hiccup freed)

also this shows how harmful learned abuse and weaponised incompetence can be. this tradition of dragon training and seeing them as less than was passed on and expected of young children who didnt know any better. and the hooligans (and most of the vikings tbh) whole thing was being proudly uneducated and not taking the time or having the capacity to see the harm they were causing. this kept going and going until hiccup. (also its very telling that the wanderers did not have this tradition of enslaving dragons. and were enslaved themselves)

so yeah the events of the series only happened because hiccup took the time to actually understand and communicate with the dragons instead of mindlessly yelling at them

rant partially inspired by @pine-dragon's wonderful post about httyd dragons

[zariahthechocolatecookie]

[Image ID: A black-and-white sketch of Hiccup from the How To Train Your Dragon book series. Several scars and his slave mark are visible on his face, with his slave mark partially hidden behind his messy hair. He wears a crown, the Black Star, and a fur vest. He is looking to the right with a determined expression in his eyes. Toothless peeks out from behind his shoulder, looking in the same direction. A sword is partially visible in the lower-right corner of the image. Next to the sketch of Hiccup are the words, "A Hero is Forever".]

messy af wip for older book!hiccup what do we think

[just-kiro]

Only one book left, one book left and I'll be able to roam in the httyd books tag freely without fearing spoilers. Is this what freedom feels like?

[inkalight]

Seems a bit familiar?

[pine-dragon]

Man, Norbert takes one trip out into the open ocean and not only does he run into a seadragon so big they're 'not supposed to even bother with humans', It bloody follows him home and places him on house arrest for 15 years. Then, when he's finally free of it and tries to sail the journey he's been dreaming of for so long. He winds up persued by another dragon so inexplicable even the dragon expert he kidnapped thinks its supposed to be extinct. Nobody even knows why that one wants to eat his boat. The open ocean hates him so much it can't even throw normal problems at him. Gotta skip straight to the bewilderingly vindictive leviathans.

[spxrw]

Hiccup's far-too-big helmet with the far-too-big plume fitted Snotlout far better than it had ever fitted Hiccup.

Snotlout pulled down the front of the helmet.

Suddenly he looked like a stranger.

Very noble.

A Hero of old.

Snotlout urged Windwalker up with his knees, shouting at the top of his voice, "Heroes live forever!"

I 100% subscribe to the idea that Snotlout knew his fate. The stuff he said was so final but in his hasty, not affectionate way, plus he also sang the Last Ode of Grimbeard or whatever that song was called... I was rereading it and he was talking about how he was going to "come back" and make his dad and Gobber proud and "no one would turn their backs on him again", and if he truly knew that he wasn't gonna make it...ough.....

the tragedy of snotlout is that he will never be able to make up for his mistakes. but he has redeemed himself because he is an arrogant and narcissistic character, yet did the most selfless thing anyone could by sacrificing himself just so Hiccup might have the chance to live.

the more I think about it the worse I feel :[