#he even asked where i live

[gravitysoda]

refusing an impossible wish and settling for one last game of chess.

[corviiids]

(more persona 5 / persona 5 royal spoilers again)

(this one has art by dotdotdotukno on twitter please view)

compilation of specifically my obsession with ryuji and goro being terrible... friends??

[dykealloy]

ripple effect legacy // my tears are becoming a sea, M83

[pinkd3mon]

Kirby deals with existential crisis and Bandana is a good friend

[shakingparadigm]

what is the theory that ivan manipulated the event where till and mizi met the wagyein?

It's not a theory, actually! It's confirmed that Ivan orchestrated the whole event. The true reason as to why however is still unknown. The information provides more context to this scene, though:

During the earlier times of ALNST the most rational explanation for this scene was that Till ran after a flower crown (presumably Mizi's) and Ivan followed him in out of curiosity. Now we know that Ivan was conveniently just standing there because he was waiting.

Side note, I find it heartbreaking (and maybe a little funny, sorry) that Till most likely didn't notice Ivan in this scene. That's just like him, isn't it. Always too busy running after Mizi while Ivan trails behind, an ever-present shadow.

I'm not sure how Ivan manipulated the circumstances for both of them to end up there, but it is confirmed that everything was intentional. What strikes me most is how they describe this particular scene:

I can't copy down what they said word-for-word (Patreon info), but they described Ivan watching "creepily" as Till and Mizi are faced with danger. We know that Ivan was familiar with the Cerberus wagyein beforehand, enough to touch its teeth and even to rest himself inside its maw. To Ivan, the wagyein is not dangerous, but to Till and Mizi, it could be. Ivan prepared the wagyein, led them there, and watched "creepily" from afar as Till fell on his knees, seemingly injured.

The closest I can get to making sense of Ivan's "scheme" is that he wanted to see how other children would react in a dangerous situation. Ivan's always been an observer, after all, and he's learned to survive by copying the more "normal" behaviors of his peers. This situation occured when Ivan was still young and had not yet developed his more charming mask, so perhaps he staged this encounter to study a situational response, to learn and mimic the emotion of fear. And what better subjects for the experiment than two of the most expressive and reactive humans of their batch? It helps that he was already fixated on Till beforehand, too. I think Ivan became irreversibly obssessed after this incident, especially since it's framed as a turning point in Ivan's life, comparing Till to the stars.

This is just my attempt at an interpretation, though. It could very well be for another reason. He most likely chose Till and Mizi specifically for personal reasons, not just for reaction. I'm still not sure on the purpose behind the whole thing.

The team wanted to capture Ivan's "dark emotions" through the shot of his stalking, which could relate to his more sinister intentions. His gaze can be read in a few different ways, though. Curiosity, interest, fear, etc. Maybe that's why they decided to redraw the shot in ROUND 6.

I think this better sells the feeling they were trying to convey.

[fishsinsareacknowledged]

pls more stalker Nikto 🙏🙏 I live for it

Tw: this is a lazy post but also, delusional ish nikto, im so fucking lazy and this is so very lazy, apologies, but also, nikto being somewhat normal somewhat batshit insane, also imprisonment at the end.

Stalker Nikto who gives you sharp knives instead of flowers. Delusional in his thought that you would use them against him with lust in your eyes like he would. Nikto who stalks you and doesn't give enough of a shit to hide. Following behind you in the middle of the night but stopping right before your neighborhood, giving you a false sense of security even though he already knows your every move.

Stalker Nikto who fucking laughs when he realizes you haven't called the cops. Changing plans into something more...ah how would you call it? Normal.

Stalker Nikto who acts as the perfect date. Sure he's masked and intimidating just from his size, but he's nice and sweet to you isnt he? Somehow knowing everything you need the exact moment you need it.

Sharing a coffee with you, paying for your drinks, cooking your favorite food the way you like it, just the way you like it. Sure all those months hes stalked you were mainly for entertainment but he was taking notes of course, paying attention to your likes and dislikes.

Stalker Nikto who knows how to fight but doesn't really enjoy it after the first decade of non-stop violence, deciding to avoid conflict and go the long way. Actually being a fucking human being. And it works, wow, who would have guessed.

Stalker Nikto who starts getting greedy and marrying you. Keeping you all to himself in the property he inherented in the middle of the woods. His old home. Sharing something with you instead of you sharing something with him.

Stalker Nikto who confesses years later, nearing his late 40s that he was and is your stalker. Even if y'know. Said man. Literally has already married you. Keeping you imprisoned in the basement due to fear if someday somehow finding you gone. It would be too much for him to handle, won't you understand?

[zarnzarn]

(check the tags for more and also the tag for other fics in the story!)

athena, scowling as she gets bullied into marrying the people she pined over for the last 1000 years, suddenly realising something: wait a minute

odysseus: what?

athena, frozen: wait a damn minute you know what this gives me rights to do

penelope, also realising: oh fuck yes

odysseus: I don't like the sound of whatever's happening here what are you two fucking talking about?

athena, grabbing the marriage wine and tossing it back, then kissing her new wife and husband and handing penelope a spear as she picks up a mace: we'll be back shortly, you can start celebrations without us.

penelope: do u have anything that can start a fire

athena, pulling out an old contract and scanning it before throwing it over her shoulder: yes. are you scared of heights or can we fly.

penelope: fucking bring it I've waited years for this moment

zeus: where are they going

hermes, picking up the contract: they're going to... Ogygia? Oh fucking shit they're going to fucking kill Calypso- hey, hello, WAIT-

[descendantofthesparrow]

Remember when the Audrey villain leaks came out and then we saw the offical c4 and s3 outfit reveals and saw the c4 on the isle and the s3 in an auradon forest and we all thought there had been some sort of time spell where Audrey twisted time and instead of the c4 coming to Auradon it was the s3 so Audrey stayed with Ben and there was a whole adventue to fix the timeline? no? just me? okay

[crazysnakey]

Something something about the Third Doctor and the fate of Tantalus. You're trapped in one place. Everything you want, that you once took for granted is right there in front of you, you can see it you can reach for it but you can never have it. You will never attain it on your own. Your fate is dependent on the mercy or cruelty of others and you hate it and you rage against it but you can’t do anything, your defiance is treated like nothing but a childish tantrum but you refuse to beg, you won’t get that desperate no matter how long you’re trapped here, no matter how low you’re brought down. You stand among humans and you look human but you’re not, you’re an animal in a cage with them and you’re the only one who can see the bars. Gnawing and hacking at them to no avail. And yet all you can do is wait and hope and try and fail in an endless loop until an outside force interferes to free you from your prison. The carrot and the stick. How does it feel to be on the receiving end?

[vongulli]

HELLO ONE PIECE WATCHER are u obsessed yet

YAYA ITS SO AWESOME GAHH IM SO INVESTED 😭!!!! i actually just caught up in the manga to where i am in the anime!! (on ep 81, and on chapter 134!!!) i've shed lots of tears, laughed, and had my heart touched many times since starting it- i'm totally in love!!! I even cried at the same places i did while watching it when reading manga, ahaha!!!

the characters, the world, the designs, the dreams and ambitions everyone has is SOOOSOSO fun and like, inspiring.. just so good-feeling, i'll even wake up and be like "man, can't wait to watch/read one piece today"

the friendships/bonds created between everyone feels like, so strong- its really beautiful! I love how much fun the fights are, and i really adore the small moments between everyone (like when sanji brings out foods/drinks and everyone kinda just, chills and eats?? the food component of things feels so important too, I love seeing what they eat, idk why haha!!!)

i feel like other shows i love don't have enough time to just see everyone hanging out... it makes me so happy, im really thankful for those moments

also i would take a bullet for any of the strawhats in miliseconds!!! an instant!!!! anything for them!!

[jgracie]

in my head toa never happens jason never dies instead he gets enrolled into ur average american high school and adopts the nickname jj and joins the football team and rises up the ranks to eventually become the captain and then he meets this really cute smart girl and

[protagonist-art]

"Uh- I'm Arnold. Bennett. It's profoundly difficult to get your lifes works and studies accepted if your name isn't... yes, oh! Are you a fan of moths, sir?"

NEW RDR2 OC!! a reclusive, clumsy entomologist and bug collector; cooped up in his study of uniformed clutter

[silverwhittlingknife]

How do you feel about Jack Drake?? What are your thoughts on him and Tim’s relationship?

Anon, I hope you were interested in a novel, because look, I am fascinated by Jack Drake.  He’s key to a whole lot of what I find compelling about Tim as a character, and if I were in charge of DC, I’d bring him back to life.  This would make Tim unhappy but would IMO make for good plotlines.

Jack and Tim’s relationship is Complicated (TM)...

Jack and Tim hug in Nightwing 20 / Jack impulsively yanks a TV out of the wall in Robin 45 / Tim grieves in Identity Crisis

“I could tell the truth.  But I don’t.” - Robin 66

...and it involves a whole lot of Tim lying, and feeling guilty about lying, and thinking about telling the truth, and choosing again and again to keep lying.

And I think that’s great.

Below the cut:

Shorter version - key points about Jack

Really long version - my gentler take (vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports) vs. my harsher take (Jack has some major flaws)

Final thoughts

Shorter version - key points about Jack:

He’s a bad parent.  He’s self-centered, he consistently prioritizes his own comfort and interests over his son’s, and when upset, he does things like order Tim off to boarding school.

But he’s never a bad parent in an actionable way.  He’s not like David Cain or Arthur Brown, who are abusive monsters.  Jack’s not a monster!  He just...kinda sucks.

He genuinely loves Tim. If Jack’s aware that Tim’s disappeared or is in trouble, he’s always worried and upset.  He periodically resolves to be a better dad, and IMO he’s always sincere.

And Tim loves him, a lot.  Tim’s protective of him and worries about him when he’s kidnapped or in danger, and when they’re reunited, Tim’s really relieved and usually hugs him (and Jack hugs back!). 

...But they have very little in common, and that’s a problem. Jack doesn’t value the things that Tim values, or respect the people that Tim admires, or care about the things that Tim’s interested in.  Tim lies to him a lot, but that’s partly because he correctly guesses Jack wouldn’t respond well if he knew the truth of what Tim’s up to.

The Batfamily is a surrogate family that Tim’s drawn to because of the ways his real family doesn’t meet his emotional needs…but also he feels guilty about that and disloyal. (And to the extent that his dad recognizes what’s going on, he's jealous and resentful!)

Very long version:

(LISTEN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS)

Okay!  So first: Jack’s a character who IMO is pretty up for interpretation.  You can interpret him very charitably, and make excuses for the bad behavior, and fill in the blanks sympathetically when situations are ambiguous; or you can interpret him uncharitably, and emphasize the bad behavior. I don’t think either approach is invalid - it depends on what kind of story you’re interested in!  I have enjoyed Bad Dad stories and also stories that redeem Jack.

My personal take on canon is that Jack and Tim’s relationship is in a gray area.  Jack's definitely neglectful, and he does prioritize other things over Tim, but he’s never so bad that Tim can easily reject him, and he's never so bad that Bruce could justify taking Tim away.  He's just...not great.  Tim loves him, and feels loyal to him, but it’s a very mixed-up complicated love.

I have a gentler take and a harsher one which I switch between as the spirit moves me. xD

My Gentler Take (tl;dr: vigilantism is choir and Jack loves sports)

Here’s the core conflict: Jack and Tim are very different people with different values.  Tim idolizes Bruce and Dick and vigilantism, and secretly gets involved, knowing his dad will hate it. He gets increasingly wrapped up in his secret world and lies to his dad...because if his dad finds out, he’ll make Tim quit.

This is a great setup for an ongoing comic.  It’s practical, because it provides endless potential for plotlines, and it’s nicely thematic, because it maps closely onto relatable real-life situations with extracurricular activities:

Tim the drama nerd whose dad thinks he’s playing football and not in the school play; 

Tim the closeted-queer kid secretly getting involved in his school’s politically-active Gay-Straight Alliance; 

Tim the choir kid whose dad only values making money and wants him to go into the family business (and Tim keeps promising himself he'll give up choir soon, definitely soon, but maybe he'll stay in just a liiiittle longer, because they need him, you see, the last tenor left town, so...); 

Tim the computer geek with the sports-obsessed dad (this one’s just canon);

etc. etc.  

The extracurricular metaphor works pretty well for Tim’s relationship to vigilantism.  Tim's involved in his "extracurricular" because he genuinely thinks it's important and fulfilling, and he values it and wants to be good at it. He idolizes Bruce and Dick because they're good at it. He's been collecting information about it since he was a little kid, and hiding it from his parents because he knows they wouldn't approve. And mayyyybe there's also an element of low-key rebellion against his dad, and maybe that's secretly part of the appeal. And yet also as Tim gets more and more invested, he starts to daydream: maybe I could tell my dad and he'd be proud of me and supportive. But he doesn't, because actually he knows his dad would be upset and angry and make him quit.

And - again, just like with lonely kids and extracurricular hobbies - one of the things that happens is that Tim starts getting his unfilled emotional needs met ... by people he knows through this secret hobby. And people like Bruce and Dick start turning into a surrogate family. Which Tim feels guilty about. And also as Tim gets more and more wrapped up in their world, he has to lie to his dad even more, which means the distance between Tim and his dad gets bigger and bigger and more and more unfixable.

I love this dilemma. It's simple, it's recognizable, it provides endless sources for conflict, and there's no obvious solution! Tim can't tell Jack: he'll make Tim quit! And Tim doesn't want to quit, because he loves choir / art / theater / whatever.  Yeah, it’s difficult, and there are challenges, and sometimes he has doubts...but at the end of the day, he cares about it a lot.  And everything he values is there, and all the people he admires and cares about are there, and all he wants in the world is to feel like he's one of them and belongs there. So he has to lie, even though he doesn't want to lie, and he feels guilty about it...

...but also he ends up lying more and more.

(Sidenote: I think it's important that Tim chooses to keep lying - Tim's narration often glosses this as "I have to lie to my dad," and that's certainly how it feels to Tim, but this... isn't quite true. He has to lie to his dad, because if he doesn't, his dad will get mad at him and try to stop him, not because he literally has no choice about it.)

Other Reasons Why I Like The "Secret Extracurricular" Interpretation

(tl;dr it complicates not just Tim's relationship with his dad, but also all his other relationships)

Tim's problems have some obvious parallels to Steph and Cass, who both become vigilantes while rejecting their evil supervillain dads. But Jack isn't evil. And that means the Tim-and-Jack relationship is ambiguous and complicated in ways that I like. Steph and Cass can just leave their Bad Dads in prison, and say good riddance, and feel very righteous and triumphant about it! Tim’s more complicated. Tim gets into vigilantism ostensibly out of duty and altruism, but secretly, he's also involved for straight-up selfish self-fulfillment reasons. He's lonely, and bored, and his life feels pointless, but he thinks that Bruce and Dick are cool and amazing and he wants to be a part of the things that they do.  When his dad gets jealous of Tim’s relationship to Bruce, and feels like Tim’s looking for a surrogate family, he’s... not wrong.

And the ways in which Jack is not Actionably Bad complicate things from Bruce's POV.  If Jack was a straight-up villain, it’d be an easy call to keep in touch when Jack finds out and makes Tim quit...but he’s not a villain, not really.  So what do you do?  Do you try to surreptitiously stay in touch with Tim even though you’re ignoring his dad’s express wishes and thus forcing Tim to sneak around?  Do you respect his dad’s wishes and stay away from Tim even though you have a years-long relationship at this point?  

Again: a bit similar to the extracurricular analogy.  Say you’re the choir director and you’ve built this whole relationship with a kid in the choir, and you’re an important mentor to him and you care about him etc. etc. etc.... and then right before a big performance, his dad finds out he’s been secretly involved, and yanks him out.  How would you react?  Well, maybe kind of in some of the ways Bruce reacts.  You replace him. You’re annoyed with him. You miss him. You want him to come back. You’re also worried about him.  You’re upset with his dad.  But also... what should you do, exactly?

Bruce and Alfred and Dick care about Tim as if he were part of their family, but he’s not part of their family, and there’s a lot of interesting tension there.

My Harsher Take

Jack never hits his son.  But his temper is a big deal.

In his worst moments, he takes out his anger on Tim’s stuff - wrecking his room, or ripping his TV out of the wall and confiscating it.  When he’s worried about Tim, he usually expresses that fear by yelling at him / punishing him / sending him away - threatening to send him to boarding school in Metropolis in Robin III, or threatening to send him to military school abroad in Robin 92, or actually forcing him to go to an all-boys' boarding school post-NML.  

This is bad behavior!  It is Not Good!  

And you can easily connect the dots to a bunch of Tim’s terrible coping mechanisms, like the constant lying and or the fact that Tim’s go-to methods for dealing with interpersonal conflict are 1) repress it and pretend it never happened (most of his fights with Bruce), 2) withdraw from the relationship until he can pretend the conflict doesn’t exist (when his friends get mad at him in YJ, he quits the team for a while), or 3) literally run away from home.

Also, Jack is a Manly Man with firm opinions about how men behave vs. how women behave, and he thinks boys shouldn’t be scared and thinks Tim should date hot girls and pushes Tim to work out and wants him to play football and expresses period-typical sexism, etc. etc. etc. ... and though obviously this wasn’t what the writers had in mind at the time, all of that is certainly interesting to read backwards in the light of Tim as a queer character.

More Disorganized Thoughts on Jack Drake

Tim’s our hero, so we’re naturally more sympathetic to him, but it’s also true that relationships are a two-way street, and Tim doesn’t value any of the things his dad values, either.  Jack at various points is shown to care about grades, business, money, boarding schools, archeology, football, a kind of macho bragging-about-dating-hot-women ethos, and a very public and performative kind of caring. Tim tends to respond with discomfort or disinterest or even disgust.  When Jack gets on TV to try to rally the government to save his son from No Man’s Land, Tim isn’t touched—he’s mortified.  When Jack makes some bad investments and loses money, Jack’s deeply upset and his self-image is majorly impacted, and far from being sympathetic, Tim’s annoyed and kind of contemptuous of the idea that this is a problem.  Jack thinks fishing in the early morning and going to tennis matches is a fun father-son activity; Tim finds it exhausting and tedious.  And so on.

This means that Tim often longs to be closer to his dad in theory, but this longing is more tied to fantasy than to reality. He rarely seems to enjoy spending time with His-Dad-The-Actual-Person.  So for example, when Tim’s deadly ill with the Clench, he has an extremely poignant fever dream about telling his dad the truth and getting hugged…even as he insists in real-life to Alfred and Dick that he does not want them to tell his dad what’s going on.

The same is true of Jack, who IMO genuinely wants to be closer to his son and is continually declaring that he’s going to turn over a new leaf and get closer to his son…and just as continually backs out of activities or loses his temper when faced with spending time with his actual son.

Tim and his dad sadly get along best—by far—in Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder situations.  When Jack gets kidnapped or is in danger, Tim worries for him (and Tim grieves him deeply when he dies).  When Tim disappears or runs away, Jack’s genuinely worried about him.  So e.g. they have a really moving emotional reunion and hug when the earthquake hits Gotham, and Tim panics about his dad’s safety and comes running home (and meanwhile Jack’s been panicked about Tim’s safety!).  It’s the day-to-day, regular life stuff where they don’t connect.

Jack's written quite differently by different writers. Mostly, Tim's parents are at their least likable in his early appearances and early miniseries (this is where you get, for example, Jack and Janet being nasty at each other while a pained employee looks on, and Tim disappointed to once again get news of where his parents are via postcard - "I guess that sums them up! Never know where they’re going to be–or when–or even how long!” - and Tim alone on school break, and Bruce and Alfred thinking there's something weird going on with Tim's parents, etc. etc.). Jack's more sympathetic but still often unlikable in most of Tim's Robin solo, and he's almost invisible (but positively treated if he does show up) in Tim's team books.

For obvious reasons, Jack's remembered way more sympathetically after his death. Tim's completely devastated by Jack's murder, which he arrives moments too late to prevent, and he basically never gets over it. We see him grieving Jack again and again in Robin, and also in Teen Titans, and also in Resurrection, and again in the Halloween Special, and again in Batman: Blackest Night, and all the way up to the end of Red Robin. Tim also grieves for an extended time over Janet - he hallucinates a happy reunion with her when he's feverish in Contagion, and hallucinates her in the final issue of Robin, and the reveal-your-buried-emotions song in Robin 102 brings up his grief for her too (meanwhile, other characters dance or laugh or otherwise get giddy).  Tim’s grief over his parents’ deaths is intense and long-lasting.

I'm not going to clip comic panels because this is long enough, but if you're curious, here's a nice and fairly lengthy compilation of comic panels with Tim and Jack.

If you're interested in a Jack-centric story with a softer-but-still-recognizably-canon take on Jack, I really like the way Jack’s narration is written in the one-shots Heart Humble (set shortly before Jack dies) and Never a Hero (Ra's resurrects him during Brucequest, and Jack's archeology skills turn out to be unexpectedly useful).

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

.

[sillyguy-supreme]

I see your point. A lot of people are currently experiencing the effects of climate change. But we are not at the extreme. It can get a lot worse, and it will if we don't prevent it from progressing further.

i see where you’re going with this anon! but simply because it can get worse does not mean it isn’t an extreme, and i think that schools through south and southeast asia having to close because of the heat is very much an extreme. when will it be considered an extreme? will it be considered an extreme when it’s americans dying of heatstroke and not just africans and asians and middle easterners and pacific islanders and latin americans? i agree with you that climate change needs to be stopped, but we need to stop framing it as “climate change needs to be stopped before it becomes a disaster” because it is already a disaster!! it is already killing people!!

[1000dactyls]

I wanna know if you have any thoughts on Valka and Sroicks parenting and how that affects hiccup? Because I'm loving so much of your content rn, especially your drawings!! But when I see stuff like Tgirl Hiccup while I think they would be supportive, I don't think they would be ... the best because their not really the best. Like ofc they tried even Val when she came back, but it doesn't and won't ever make up for everything else it's so complicated, and nuisanced would love to hear your thoughts!!

Im going to break this post into addressing stoick and valka separately because valka is such a non-entity in hiccup and stoick’s familial life. valka’s section will be underneath the ‘read more’

But I definitely agree! Unfortunately for Hiccup (and also not to project ijbol), it’s so hard because stoick’s best isn’t enough. Oh, stoick tries! He tries so hard — between the movies and the shows, he so clearly cares for his son. But he can never be just Hiccup’s dad; Stoick is the Chief of Berk before he’s Hiccup’s father, and both he and Hiccup know that. Hiccup grows up self sufficient and is used to a lonely home. The kind of free reign that he gets (and the resulting knee-jerk reaction he has to any kind of responsibility after 15 years of said free reign) doesn’t make for great conditions to cultivate a healthy, loving, traditional parental relationship

Still — i think stoick is more supportive than we give him credit for, at least going off the RoB/DoB characterizations. (Again, I haven’t finished watching RTTE, so Im not gonna speak for anything there.) When Hiccup makes moves for more freedom and responsibility, even as early as s01e01 “How to Start a Dragon Academy”, Stoick works with Hiccup to grant him that freedom. He makes attempts to connect to his son, albeit misguided and inevitably circling back to his own interests/role as the chief of Berk and not just Hiccup’s dad. For example, s01e07 “How to Pick your Dragon” shows Stoick ending up listening to Hiccup about getting a dragon, even though he mostly gets a dragon because it further suits his interests as a chief, which he realizes on the flight Toothless and Hiccup take him on. Which also leads to the core conflict of the episode! Because Stoick’s attempts to understand Hiccup are ultimately rooted in his own narrow perception of the world, that there is a Right way and Wrong way to do things, and Hiccup’s way is most definitely not the right way.

But Stoick listens. Over time, he picks up the signs when his child is frustrated and genuinely asks how he can help (s02e15 “A Tale of Two Dragons” 3 options talk). And after the events of the first movie, Stoick makes more attempts to involve Hiccup in his going-ons, such as the portrait of the chief’s family or contacting Johann to find a beloved childhood plushie. So i think stoick tries, and his best isn’t enough, so thank god hiccup isn’t dependent on only stoick and the both of them know this. And just because the both of them know this doesn’t mean that stoick doesn’t try to improve their relationship at all. In the end, he’s just really set in his own ways and his own traditions.

So in a world where Hiccup is trans, I do think Stoick is supportive no matter what direction Hiccup ends up going. Is he confused? Yes, always, because there isn’t a very established tradition even if Berk does have a history of trans folk. I think stoick has to try really really hard, and he messes up a lot in the beginning. Like, you know when your parents are trans affirming in a really weird and even insulting way? That happens a lot for Hiccup and Stoick. But they work together and Stoick works to try and get on Hiccup’s level, whether that means sending terror-mail to Johann to inquire about trans literature or gender-affirming clothes or dialing Gothi to move Hiccup’s t/e prescription to the front of the line.

……..argh, Valka.

Of course Valka tried when she came back, but the conscious decision to stay away for twenty years and miss some of the most important milestones in your child’s life says a lot, and I think Hiccup also knows that. Especially because of how similar they are, even though Valka would immediately accept and adore and absolutely love Hiccup and all his Hiccup-ness right off the bat… I think he’s aware of how different and better his life could’ve been with Valka’s understanding presence. In the end, one parent stayed and tried their best. And one didn’t really try at all, not until they reconnected again.

And like! I dont think Valka and Hiccup would ever be as close as Stoick and Hiccup were. Like it is one thing to idolize your parent in absentia and build up this idealistic wholesome perfect image of who they are, getting your characterization from their partner who never got over them even after 20 years. And it is another thing to meet that parent and realize… wow! They also don’t measure up to what I needed them to be as a child.

And so for all of Valka’s understanding, for all of the easiness it is for Valka to understand Hiccup, especially in a world where Hiccup is trans — it’s not Valka who had to deal with the bureaucracy of Hiccup’s gender change, nor aided in the social transition for people Hiccup has spent his entire life with. It’s not Valka who asked uncertain, blunt and somewhat invasive questions about Hiccup’s new identity, or found weird and strange ways to support it. It’s not Valka who would’ve gotten an entirely new wardrobe commissioned or talked to Gothi about medical transition.

Like, I think Valka tries, and it’s easy for her to understand the idea and support Hiccup. But i dont think she’d ever be Hiccup’s first choice when it comes to questions about who s/he is, not when there are people who stayed and tried much harder than her, and know far more about Hiccup than she ever did and maybe will.