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A fresh list of prompts for How to Train Your Dragon |
One of the gang goes into an entertainment field—and learns his body is not his own. Being glued into garments, dehydrated to play roles, etc. Hiccup tries to be on fire patrol, but it goes wrong. "No one can live on a diet of piss and vinegar. Not even you." As a young man working under Kelp, Coalie gains permission to plant iron in the ground surrounding the smithy. It wards off supernatural entities like the dark elves and the Fae. Coalie also is permitted to do this in other locations, like the Chief’s property, the Gothi’s hut, the Healing hut, and others. In The Hidden World, Hiccup is shown walking in the forest with Stoick. This is the origin of Hiccup escaping to the forest and spending time there. Even though Toothless is inadequate as a crutch for some things, Hiccup is uncomfortable with letting Stoick guide him or help him up. He believes Stoick helps him more out of duty than love, and the tribe is still more important to Stoick than he is. Stoick is trying to be a dad, but Hiccup is expecting his Chief. After all, time Stoick the Vast spends with Hiccup is wasted time. "That's Mildew thinking, that is." When Hiccup was a child, he often had to compete for Stoick’s attention. Sitting with his dad was hard. People like Phlegma and Hoark frequently sat in his seat. They also told him to go away, play somewhere else, he can wait, don’t be so selfish about having your father. Stoick would realize what was occurring, and fix it, but the problem reoccurred. By the time Hiccup is eleven, Stoick no longer attempts to save Hiccup’s seat at the table. Stoick went on a nest hunt and returned injured. He managed to hide them from Hiccup before, but now his son knows. Stoick insists Hiccup go home, lying about his injury, saying it never happened. They both know it’s a lie, and Hiccup waits up for him to come home. When he wakes up, Stoick has been and gone. Stoick refuses to talk about the nest hunts or the injuries. This is the first real instance of Stoick pushing Hiccup away and ignoring his questions and efforts to discuss it. It is the elephant in the room. Stoick takes more meals at Mead Hall, and the separation that began with Stoick’s lie continues. He makes no more effort to let Hiccup have his proper chair, and doesn’t speak to Hiccup during meals. Hiccup is pushed more and more to the side, and winds up eating alone at a different table, his only other option to sit at the head table where everyone there can see him be ignored by his father. A few years later, Stoick realizes the damage he’s done, and works to right it. They eat at home more frequently. Hiccup’s chair is restored to him, and additional chairs are taken away to make room for Toothless. Stoick limits the number of people who sit there. Sometimes Hiccup brings a friend to join them. Time passes, and Hiccup begins eating with his friends more often. One night, Stoick eats alone in the hall. It comes to him that the absence he’s experiencing is what Hiccup coped with for years. After a few instances of this, Hiccup sees Stoick sitting alone. He looks forlorn, and Hiccup joins him for nattmal. They learn to eat together in the hall, as they had not done for years. It’s a reconciliation of sorts. They are constantly changing the dynamic in their relationship, and this is another piece of that. One major reason Stoick wants to brag about Hiccup is to make up for all the years of neglect and disdainm. Stoick is an all-or-nothing type of guy. Astrid works in customer service. Hiccup works in a call center, answering questions about dragon related problems. Hiccup works for the DMV, but what does the acronym stand for? Hiccup comes up with the ideaa for a fire suppression system because of Astrid's exploding eggs in GotNF. “I have trouble believing you and Toothless can talk, Hiccup. He’s intelligent, but you can’t have a conversation with him.” “No, Dad, I can talk to him and he answers me back. I promise you, it’s true.” “Son, you’re turning a few words into something much bigger. There’s nothing to fuss over; we know you can understand Toothless, but he’s a dragon. He can’t speak.” “Are you going to listen to me? I’m not lying or imagining this, it’s real. I spent days in the cove and we talked. I could talk and Toothless would not only answer me, he’d listen.” Hiccup raised his head and said, “He’s the only one I had to talk to. For years, he was the only one who listened or cared. So don’t tell me my best friend—my only friend—can’t hold a conversation with me, because I talked more with Toothless than within anyone else on Berk for years.” Hiccup dropped his hand to his dragon’s head. “And he cared about what I had to say. You never did, Dad, no one did except Gobber, and even then, he’d stick up for you. So trust me when I tell you something. Like you can’t win this one. I’m down a leg because of you, so can you just listen to me?” Hiccup has so many things he wants to say to Stoick, about the way he was ignored and abandoned and derided. He won’t do it, he and Stoick are closer than ever, and Hiccup won’t tear that up, he’ll manage, he’ll cope, he’s done it before, but oh, how Hiccup wishes he could say something to his dad, strike out and hurt him, just one time, because it will make him feel better. It will ease the anguish, it will stop Hiccup from dwelling on the past, if he can just one time, hurt Stoick with his words. There’s no way he can express what he holds inside and keep life going well, so he compromises. He sets the scene: Stoick and Hiccup are at home. Hiccup tells his father “I talked to Toothless and he was telling me…” Hiccup-as-Stoick cuts him off. “‘Now, son, Toothless is very intelligent, but can’t talk. It’s fine if you can understand him, but speech is beyond his ability.’” Hiccup deepens his voice as best he can, putting words in his father’s mouth. “I’m not lying, Dad, he can speak. So, Toothless said that sheepswool is okay for under the saddle.” “‘Dragons don’t have the capability to use words, Hiccup,’” Hiccup says, drawing down his brows and frowning. “‘Now tell me about this saddle you’re working on.’” “What, you don’t believe me?” Hiccup is indignant, then plays his father as the villain of the story. Stoick is always wrong in these playlets, because how can Hiccup be right unless Stoick is wrong. Stoick’s never been wrong a day in his life, except he has, too many times, and Hiccup has been the foolish one, the thoughtless one, because his father decreed it and Stoick the Vast is never wrong. Hiccup doesn’t take this to the cove, he can’t, not when the cove is full of good memories. Berk has caves, and Hiccup goes there to rant and say the things he cannot tell his father. Because even though things are better than before, forgiving Stoick is hard. They share a house, eat Meals together, sleep beneath the same roof. Gobber hurt Hiccup the least of any of them, and while it was awkward after Hiccup emerged from his coma, the first thing Gobber did was ask about his prosthetic, and the second thing is to hand Hiccup the saddle. Welcome home,he said to Hiccup. The other villagers attacked him, their tongues sharper than the blades Hiccup honed in the smithy. His peers were no better. The twins and Snotlout attacked him because they could. Astrid, so angry at him during dragon training, so jealous because for once he was succeeding. Fishlegs. They had been friends in their earlier years, studied languages under his mother’s tutelage, and practiced on one another. But the older generation, the Ingerman Matriarch, looked down on Hiccup. The Ingerman were the intelligent clan, and for Hiccup to be as intelligent while a Haddock was intolerable. She failed in her attempt to deny Hiccup an education, but she could and did separate him from her grandson during lessons. Fishlegs was a little too compliant, and kept away from Hiccup outside of lessons. It becomes easier for Fishlegs to comply, to earn the praise of his grandparents than to maintain a friendship with someone on his intellectual level. No, Fishlegs is not Hiccup’s friend. “Yes, I was betrayed by a lot of people, but you don’t get to pretend that you weren’t free to choose. Your grandmother hates me, because only members of her clan can be intelligent. She kept you from studying languages with me, Fishlegs. You decided to ignore me the rest of the time.” Hiccup looked into his eyes. “You made your choice; you can’t sweep it under the rug now I’m popular.” |