#i'm just. angry and frustrated and feeling helpless beyond any limit

[theophagie]

Lots of awful things have made the news in succession lately and it's astounding how the average person still refuses to acknowledge that sexual assault, feminicide and the overall misogyny that goes on in this country aren't things the randomly happen but the result of cultural and institutional backwardness. Honor killing and matrimoni riparatori were outlawed in 1981, up until 1996 sexual violence wasn't an offence against someone, but against "public morality", stalking became a crime only in 2009, in courts it's not the accused that has to prove that the violence didn't happen, it's the victim that has to prove that it did (with everything that comes with it). And so on. The people who grew up before then or during that time are the parents, the uncles and aunts, the grandparents, the teachers of everyone who's alive now, they're the ones educating them. And it's so painfully easy to see and feel. But whenever a woman is murdered by her violent partner or an ex that she had already reported, or is raped out in the streets without anyone intervening, it's literally impossible to raise the bar and move the broad discussion from bullshit like "he had a violent raptus" to "the problem is that the average man in this country doesn't see women as human beings, and many women have internalised this as well"

If your molester touches you for less than ten seconds he won't be charged because that's too little time to count. Sure we can acknowledge that these two men raped you, but they didn't realise that they were raping you, so they won't be charged either. Seven men forced you to get drunk and then dragged you away to rape you, but we can't dare say anything about the environment they grew up in. This was just on them, at max on their parents as well, but not society. Never society nor culture, no no. But we can have a high-ranking military man publish a book where (among other awful things!) he goes on about how awful and useless feminists are, and we can make it into a bestseller too! Wohoo! In the meantime, let's just pat ourselves in the back by saying that rapists and abusers and stalkers are just beasts or monsters or just mentally ill people and are thus inherently different from us. How dare you say that they're the direct result of something much bigger, how dare you say that even us Normal Men™ should do some self reflection and think about the "average" ways in which we in turn treat women like dirt, how dare you say that the two things are correlated 🤡

There's been so much talk about the chemical castration for rapists, so many calls to bring back the death penalty, but what would that do. What the fuck would that do lol. Good job, you've obtained your revenge and that one single man won't rape anyone else again (maybe) 👍 And then what? Are you doing anything else to change the world around you, to prevent it from happening again? Are you educating your sons any better? Holding Normal Men™ accountable for their casual misogyny any more? Demanding that judges be more responsible? Reinforcing networks to help victims? Ah, no? You just think that the prospect of more severe punishments will be enough of a deterrent. That if rapists are brought to prison other inmates will "take care" of them too, even. Right. Cool.

And now this is just a tangent but as I've been writing this some discourse that often pops up on this website but also in Progressive Spaces™ in general as a whole came to my mind and just. The patriarchy, rape culture, misogyny (whether it be against trans or cis women or against afab people who are just wrongly perceived as women even if they aren't), and so on are things that factually exist and that we have to grapple with. And for the love of all that is good on this Earth we cannot allow terfs and radfems to monopolise the discussion regarding them, we can't stop or hesitate to talk about feminist issues out of fear of being mistaken for one of them. We can't, for everyone's sake we really, really can't

[avannak]

Hey AvannaK! I'm genuinely curious what you would've liked to see in a canon-consistent bridge series between HTTYD/GOTNF and HTTYD2? Do you have specific "should haves" and "would have been nice if..."? Sorry if you've answered this before. 😕 I'm not around as much. Take care!

Heya!!!

This is a really fun ask and it led me on a journey through a lot (a lot) of old posts. Some I’ve quoted, some I’ve linked to, but hopefully I’m managed to peace together a readable summation of things/events I like to imagine happened in between HTTYD/GotNF –> HTTYD2. Thank you!

Hiccup’s awakened to a whole new world; in the span of a month or so his entire life has been flipped and he’s got no choice but to hit the ground and run with it because, as of now, he’s at the forefront of Peace. The village is not only paying him positive attention (for being him) but also looking to him for direction. He’s lost a leg. He seems to have gained everything else.

In the following months, years even, his father does a lot of directing within the village, as Hiccup learns to lay out a plan. It’s not long after Hiccup awakens that Stoick sits his son down and says “Tell me everything”. Stoick wants to know Hiccup’s history with Toothless, his desires, his personal thoughts on where Berk is and move on from here and, to Hiccup, its a moment he’s been waiting for his entire life. His father has always loved him, but its felt like years since he’s openly valued his opinion. Stoick wants to be a team with Hiccup, because Hiccup is Berk’s first and only step into this new territory, but Stoick has the pull.

Stoick is openly impressed with his son after hearing the full tale; he says as much. About how brave Hiccup was, to make himself vulnerable like that, purposefully, and to come out victorious. The sort of bravery few vikings show anymore. The sort of bravery his mother had.

Hiccup and Stoick’s relationship had started to take a dive as Hiccup grew out of childhood and into a disappointing vision for a viking. It’s being restored, heftily, as they walk an entirely new path together (though, not at all without disagreement; both will continue to claim the other “doesn’t listen” until the very day they part ways).

Right from the get-go, Hiccup struggles with his leg or lack there of. There’s heavy frustration with limb loss and the adjustments Hiccup has to make around it leads to flares of temper – moments where he snaps at his father in misplaced anger, or Toothless, before he’s struck by reality and apologizes. Sometimes he pushes himself too far, insistent on maintaining independence, and Astrid, or Toothless, need to help him back, and he’s left sweaty, and angry, and embarrassed. Hiccup would have periods where he felt so helpless and it killed him because losing his independence for a time makes him feel like he’s Hiccup the Useless all over again. Phantom pains and feverish nightmares plague him often at first; times when he grows testy and stressed as this burning sensation runs up his leg like its still on fire, and Gobber has to sit him down and help him work through it. These episodes manage to crop up again and again in the following years no matter how comfortable he’s become on his feet.

In fact, late winter of that year, not long before Hiccup’s 16th birthday, when he’s just begun to feel physically normal, a common sickness is taken to an extreme for him. He can’t shake it, he loses weight, his leg pains him constantly. It has his father besides himself and Toothless acting out and Astrid furious with the gods.

And then there’s the growth spurts. He’s just sixteen when he gets a new leg fitted by Gobber. And then sixteen and a half when he adjusts that same wooden leg. Twice more before his seventeenth birthday he makes even more adjustments and it’s when he’s 17 and four months, after a fortnight of an aching back and pinched calf that Hiccup fashions himself a full new prosthetic of his own design. He happily braces it to his stump, sighs in contentment, and stands to look directly over his girlfriend’s head… who had merely come to accompany him to the Mead Hall and not be ridiculed for height disparities.

Gobber’s relationship almost immediately starts to transition from Uncle-figure/Blacksmith-master to confidant and therapy guide. Every other viking on Berk seems to have lost a limb, but Hiccup feels safest around Gobber to be open and vulnerable and actively seek help. Gobber teaches him the tricks to fastening a prosthetic, the mental and physical exercises to better deal with limbloss, holding his hand through the hardest of times and listening to his rants patiently. Limbloss is a way of viking life, but that doesn’t make it any easier watching a familial child go through it. At the same time Hiccup’s being pulled out of the forge more and more, and Gobber, like a distant, proud father, will both needle him about it and be supportive all the same. Gobber takes on another apprentices from time to time — capable young’ns, a few old hands with good experience — but he’ll miss the back and forth banter, and the exasperating ingenuity, of his honorary nephew.

Toothless takes it upon himself to get Hiccup into shape on his leg. He pushes the boy to exercise, to be physically stronger, just as Hiccup pushes him to tolerate silly human manners (like to not nest on Stoick’s bed or help himself to any fish netting in sight). Hiccup and Toothless have, by far, the best human-dragon relationship yet to be seen on Berk, often and unwittingly acting as ambassadors to their respective species with the goal of making cohabitation as seamless as possible. They also are still learning about each other, and the differences in their behaviors as humans and dragons; where they’ll compromise and where they simply won’t. The subject of Toothless’s tail come up between them. Hiccup has it confirmed that Toothless knows… he knows it was him. Just as Toothless understands, as well as any dragon could, that Hiccup’s learned and accepted that he too took his foot. It’s not instant forgiveness. Not when Toothless still bears the scars of the bola canon, and not when Hiccup is still freshly relearning how to walk, dealing with a new upheaval of emotion and pain, but both find the results well, well worth their suffering, and finding each other even more so. They forgive each other. They communicate through touch and two different, one-way, verbal speech habits until they’re able to make “we got even” jokes about it five years later to some rando, feral dragon lady.

Hiccup’s relationship with his peers is another thing that takes an immediate 180. Much like the village in its entirety, Hiccup finds himself saddled with their positive attention and respect. It carries a past of longing, heartache, and anger. Hiccup can’t find it in him to hold onto his resentment; not when they’re so willing to learn, so sets aside his unease and pushes them. He pushes them to fly, and to bond, and to listen to their dragons. He’s barely aware of a protective element building between the teens and himself; a rapport born from fighting a battle unlike any other. He doesn’t stop to question if its out of guilt for their recent past, or if they’re that singularly minded. Whenever he stops to think about it he starts to get overwhelmed by the reality that this is all happening, he’s “one of them” (or they’re one of him?), so he tries not to. …Even though they sit with Hiccup in the Mead Hall, and hang out with him beyond dragon training, and pull him into battle spars when just months earlier they would have shoved him down a knoll first. The twins show up at the forge from time to time, seemingly just to mess with him. Fishlegs will spend hours with him pouring over text discussing dragons, gushing about possible revisions to the Book of Dragons. For once, Snotlout gets to laugh along with Hiccup’s biting, witty retorts as they’re finally directed towards others: stubborn, withered old vikings set in their ways and still battling dragon integration.

Ruffnut quickly figures that her attention to Hiccup is hitting a stone wall, and her interest that came so fast and hard is easy to shrug off almost as quickly (though losing to Astrid, even in a one-sided, unacknowledged battle, still smarts). Instead she keeps up with the uncomfortable attention a while longer simply for her own amusement. Snotlout too learns to let go of Astrid. She so easily rolled into this new life (not that he’s fighting it), and, perhaps, she was never the ideal woman for him in particular. Still admittedly hot, though.

And then there’s nights in the Mead Hall. They grow older, stay out later, test the limits of Mead and foreign ales. Engage in drinking games they’ve only seen older warriors participate in. There’s a streaking incident. Brawls. Hiccup finds himself pushing to ban drinking and flying (because if vikings want to be idiots, then fine, but don’t endanger the dragons). Stoick enforces it (someone needs to look out for his idiot vikings). A more sober variation comes of it over time: Dragon Racing.

Debates within the tribe about spreading peace break out almost immediately. For the first year of peace, well into late summer, the tribe was nearly unanimous about focusing on integrating dragons: learning to fly, acclimating to the benefits (and drawbacks) of sharing space with dragons, and loose plans on altering the village to fit their new needs. As they grew comfortable Hiccup, and a few others, started to push towards communicating with their distant neighbors about bringing on this way of life. Frienemy tribes (the Meatheads, the Bogs, etc) were opening communications once more, and all Hiccup sees is an opportunity. Hiccup’s on a high over many platforms; he wants to expand peace, knowledge, and understanding between dragons and humans. People are listening to him and he’s good, really good, at what’s passing for impressive these days. He’s ready for more. But this is one area where the older generations has more experience, more assurance. It is almost unanimously agreed to keep the pro-dragon lifestyle secret, and it’s not to punish Hiccup, or dragons around the world that still battle humans, but to protect their own, very new way of life. Especially as it develops, and they’re left vulnerable, off-footed, all the while very much aware of how tribes once were long before violent dragons had forced humans to keep a united front.

It’s confirmed in HTTYD2 that Berk keeps their dragon lifestyle a secret from other tribes. Berk manages to shirk hosting an annual Thing year after year, claiming repairs for being the most devastated by the dragon war, that they’ve had to travel for timber and food given the ruin dragons laid upon them before the war mysteriously ended. Instead they travel, by boat, to meet old allies, testing the waters of old friendships, waiting for a time when an opening will come forth to bring dragons into their lives as well…

Hiccup must go to these Things, and does so without his dragon, often wary at familiar faces, nervously making up stories about his leg, wishing he had Toothless with him. Snotlout goes as well, meeting up with old playmates, but shocking them with a more protective attitude towards Hiccup. Astrid starts to accompany him when he’s seventeen; both having decided their relationship is concrete enough to make known outside Hooligan territory.

Following the events of HTTYD, Astrid (and the others’) focus is on learning to fly dragons ahead of the curve so that they can continue to master and teach. Beyond number one priority, and beyond keeping up with traditional physical tasks (as she’s still Very Viking, thank you very much), and a bit beyond helping out her village adapt to dragons, is Astrid’s interest in Hiccup. Yes, a lot of it has to do with him being the best and first dragon rider. He’s actually impressive. He’s impressed her. He has a future as a chief, and not just any chief, but the chief. The one that changed everything. And, it turns out, he’s pretty funny (and frustrating) and incredibly ingenious (but impractical at times) and he genuinely cares about her (but he’s probably being as impressed and disillusioned by her as she is him). She’s learning a lot about Berk’s heir, and she intends to continue to do so.

Astrid starts out by planting a kiss on Hiccup’s cheek from time to time. Sometimes in front of others as she tries to subtly secure a claim she’d thrown down in a moment of rapture. Sometimes in private, where she actually feels embarrassed, and vulnerable, because its more intimate than some public decision.

They get into arguments. Their priorities don’t always align. Astrid challenges Hiccup on his dragon knowledge (but it’s not just knowledge like Fishlegs has, where it can be categorized from books, but a silent empathy that can’t be taught. It takes her years to truly figure that out). Hiccup gets irritated when Astrid chooses Vikings over Dragons (as he often views it, but it’s not so black and white). There’s miscommunication. And Guilt.

Astrid goes through her own self reflection, and acknowledges that the man Hiccup’s becoming is worth her respect, just as she reaffirms that the boy Hiccup was, or who she knew him as, was not. She can forgive herself. Same as Hiccup gets to really know Astrid, beyond the shallow crush he had on her (which had been all but driven from him in the throes of discovering a life’s purpose).

They’re juggling a relationship (that didn’t have the most wholesome start) in the background of readjusting their worlds and taking on tasks and roles most adults wouldn’t be asked to. But they’re giving it a try, and it’s harsh at times, and sweet at others, and they “take breaks”, sometimes unhappily, and they meet other people (not court, or ‘date’, but there are other heirs who look at Hiccup as potential alliance material, and other Vikings, many other vikings, who are impressed by Astrid).

But through it all, as they learn about each other as people (and not crushes, or heir figures) they discover that they are a team. They were a team the moment they were forced to work together, and they remain a team throughout the rest of their lives.

Hiccup’s at the cusp of 16 and Astrid well already when Hiccup initiates a kiss with her. Kissing becomes more casual, but still soft, and sweet, from there on out. He fumblingly asks her on a “date” of sorts shortly after (having to insist that, no, this doesn’t involve the rest of the gang. Just her. She has an ‘oh!’ moment).

Hiccup’s 16 and a half, it’s the anniversary of the Death’s demise, when he allows Astrid to see his stump for the first time. She’d helped him through leg pain in the past–supporting his limps, staying by his bedside through fever–but this time he willingly removes his prosthetic and bares a scarred and ugly part of himself to someone who’s opinion matters. Astrid reacts to the breathtaking moment of trust and exposure with tender hands and speechless assurances, and Hiccup relaxes in her presence. I imagine it wasn’t sexual or humorous, but a terrifyingly intimate and vulnerable experience that launched them into a deeper level of their relationship. He allows her to touch the hard tissue, and to ask questions he hadn’t felt comfortable answering before. 

A couple months later Astrid learns of the scars on his back, the ones she’s never considered before, from when he fell backwards into the explosion.

Not long after that Hiccup’s allowed to see her hair down, and to touch it. They grow more interested in each other as budding adults, and make more time for each other. Kissing intensifies. Groping and exploring follows. Sometimes they take things a little too far and it ends in giggles or, on occasion, an older viking yelling at them.

Astrid takes to grooming Hiccup. She braids his hair. Comments on his scruff. Gets involved with his wardrobe.

The flight suit is in development and Astrid finds it ridiculous; both a point of hilarity and something that scares her (though she’d never admit it outright) and Hiccup learns to hide it in one of the few white lies they’ve picked up in regards to one another.

They’re 18 the first time they exchange “I love yous” and the intimacy of their relationship continues to rise from there.

At just shy of twenty, and after much needling from his father and not-so subtle hints from Astrid’s family, Hiccup proposes.

The entire village is on a high in the following weeks. Heartened, Stoicks makes a weighty decision.