#like httyd2 ? i went WILD

[valsnonsense]

Prince Blaise Diamond

"WO-HO-HOAH!!! DIDJA SEE THAT SHIT?! Nearly broke our record on that run!!"

Parents: King Darnell and Guy Diamond

Siblings: Tiny Diamond (Elder Brother)

Age: 19

Pronouns: He/Him

Sexuality: Gay

Genre: Funk/Hip-Hop/Pop

Voice Claim: Jason Desrouleaox (Jason Derulo)

First son of King D and Guy Diamond, and heir to the throne of Funk. Wild and loud and a bit of an adrenaline junkie, Blaise may be a bit much compared to the relaxed Funk people, but he's beloved nonetheless.

On top of training to be the next King of Funk, Blaise is a excellent Moth Racer (think dragon racing from HTTYD2). Ever since he saw a racing match as a kid while his family was visiting Trollstopia, he wanted to learn how to rear and race with a moth. So for his tenth birthday, D and Guy got him a moth grub to raise as his own. He named her Stellaluna, and she grew to be one of the FASTEST moths on record. He's very proud.

When he's not practicing for races, Blaise loves to party. He's usually seen out and about the city partying on the streets, at gigs in clubs, or in big stadiums. Man cant sit still for two seconds or he will literally explode.

Speaking of music, Blaise is mainly a funk troll, but does inheret a love of hip-hop and pop from his fathers'. He loves how they can all flow together to make new types of music entirely their own. He's constantly pushing the boundaries of Funk. He also likes to try and incorporate jazz in there, to try and impress a certain pop prince~

Blaise currently resides in Vibe City alongside his family

Fun Facts!

- Blaise will shed his arm and leg fur in the spring and summer. And by shed, I mean it all falls off in one fell swoop, living him nekid like a glitter troll. Scared the SHIT outta his dads when it happened for the first time when he was baby.

- When Stellaluna began to pupate, Blaise thought she was dying. The young boy ran to Guy BAWLING his eyes out, crying that his caterpillar was gonna die. Guy spent about an hour soothing him and having to explain that she was not dying but turning to moth xD

- Since he loves moths, he and Strawberry get along super well. Whenever he and the family visit Trollstopia, he and Strawberry will ramble about bugs for hours

The child of my most questionable crack ship is here! I have issues okay

Blaise went through only one design change, and that was just a profession change really. At first, he was just an athlete, but I after seeing some art about Trolls rearing moths, I had the idea of them riding moths, like dragons from HTTYD. I mean they're certaintly small enough. So boom!

Why is he voiced by Jason Derulo? So that he and Apple can sing Spicy Margarita. No that's it that's literally the only reason

Edit: OH! Blaise's moth is based off the Indian Lily Moth! I'll be drawing him with her soon. Image below the cut xP (TW for bug)

Voice Example: Kiss The Sky (Jason Derulo)

[oflgtfol]

ok honestly i think i could get behind the light fury thing but like.

i dont want. a romance . at ALL. i dont fuckin WANT it. no matter if i wind up liking her or not like i dont WANT IT

i come here for COOL DRAGONS AND COOL POWERS not for ROMANCE the only romance i can tolerate is hiccup and astrid

[dzamie]

What is your opinion on the third movie htyd?

It was visually fantastic. The plot was bad, and the characters were less than stellar. Still a strong movie, but definitely the weakest of the three. Here’s a read-more because I T ‘ S   R A N T   T I M E   B A Y B E E

The light fury was fantastic. She looked beautiful, was sufficiently wild and catlike again (my main complaint against the 2nd and 3rd movies is that Toothless acts way more like a dog in them), and I love her cloaking ability. Shoving Hiccup off of Toothless only for Toothless to dive towards him, was mirrored beautifully with shoving Toothless to safety, then diving towards Hiccup to save him, too.

Toothless was... back and forth. I suspect I would’ve liked the mating dance scene had I not seen it in the trailers so many times already - as it was, it was hard to watch. I liked him pining for his ability to fly when Light took off and expected him to follow, and his exchange with her when she shoved Hiccup off was hilarious. I’m never a big fan of “infatuated at first sight” plotlines, though, so he definitely had the weaker part of the romantic subplot. And the lightning thingy was really cool, but I wish they’d used it between him discovering it an using it against the controlled dragons - not only would it follow the “rule of 3,” but it also would’ve made it seem less like “it’s not a deus ex machina if we show it once before” and more like something he could’ve practiced or played with, especially when flirting. Also, not really digging how Toothless is suddenly ruler over all the Hidden World. He took down one Bewilderbeast. ONE!! And it’s not like Light is clearly, undisputably Queen Of Hidden World by being a light fury, because there are other light fury families in the background! It seemed like a decision made to give him a reason to stay in THW instead of just... having a nest with Light somewhere away from Berk (for her comfort) but within a reasonable flight (for his).

Hiccup was dumb. I can only imagine that this took place about five years after HTTYD2 or even more, because that is an awful lot of trust to put on the line for some whackadoodle plan that has no guarantee of fruition. In the first movie, some Vikings were a little on the edge about finding the Nest, despite knowing that it must exist, and that finding it would be objectively better than not doing so. In 3, Hiccup somehow gets them to all agree on something that is incredibly unlikely to exist, they have no idea where it is, and it’s unknowable if their lives would improve or worsen from finding it. Also? After that big, climactic battle where Berk only wins because both Vikings AND dragons were working together? “Oh well I guess we don’t need each other, and we’re probably better off separate.” NO YOU DUMBFUCK GO GRAB YOUR BIG SCALY DOG AND SET UP A TIMESHARE

The other riders were actually really good. I loved Tuff’s “come, cry into my long, manly beard” stuff, and Ruff annoying the hell out of Villain Guy. Valka, too; she continued to move far more in sync with Cloudjumper than the other riders did with their dragons, which is great because they’ve presumably been flying together, isolated from Vikings, for over two decades. Actually, just typing that makes me even madder about the “uwu we can’t live together anymore” ending. Those two spent TWENTY YEARS happily together, there is NO WAY either of them would just be “oh okay, bye then.” Nope, even if everything else happened like that, Valka would either become That One Dragon Lady or Cloudjumper would just... “Valka. I hope you’re ready for a couple more decades among only dragons.” Like... “oh, Chief Hiccup said dragons are going away” “aye well the last chief said dragons were evil killers and to slaughter them on sight and look what Hiccup did. Looks like disobeying stupid orders runs in the family.”

Villain Guy. Whatever his name is. I’m calling him VG because I don’t respect him. He looks smart not because he IS smart, but because he’s never in the same room as people who can walk and think at the same time, except for when he’s threatening Hiccup. His motivation is roughly the same as Drago’s, but instead of combat ability and a goddamn Bewilderbeast, he has an endless potion of Plot Contrivance. Ah, yes, we know that Berk will go west because Sherlock Holmes But Unlikable has declared that furies don’t like the cold, despite Toothless loving to play in the snow and having the time of his life - it can’t possibly be that the map has your army one way, islands on a straight shot west, and literally nowhere else to go. How devious of you, to have put off killing Ruff and that other dragon for long enough to get the basic idea of following an unwitting pawn to your destination (a destination that YOU KNOW THE LOCATION OF ALREADY). Like yeah dude I get it you think you’re the Joker or Moriarity or something and you’re in it for The Thrill Of The Hunt, but, like, you don’t arm your men with anti-dragon weaponry at all when it comes to finally swing that trap shut. What happens if, somehow, your masterfully masterminded master plan of mastery fails to capture the Alpha, because who knows maybe alpha furies are magically immune to Plot Venom? Well, I guess you just lose. Helluva linchpin if you ask me.

Seriously, I suspect the guy only retains control of that huge fleet because the three numbskulls whose men they actually are are so ridiculously incompetent that he simply went “hey let’s toss a coin, heads I get your army tails you give me your army” and they responded “yeah that seems right.”

“Furies mate for life” boy wouldn’t it SUCK if Light already had a partner before you caught her? Wouldn’t it be JUST MISERABLE for you if Light decided that actually, fuck Toothless, he’s too human? Wouldn’t it just RAIN ON YOUR PARADE if it turned out that mating for life is a behavior only exhibited in cruel, forced captivity and thus is not present in Light, a wild fury, or Toothless, a fury who, the very moment he expressed desire, got Hiccup to build him a working tail? Wouldn’t it be just MAGNIFICENT if Toothless was already mated to Hiccup and Astrid? anyway my point is that this guy’s presented as a mastermind and he’s about as much a mastermind as Monster Musume’s generic protagonist.

HTTYD3 was a beautiful move and I don’t regret a single second nor cent I spent on it. But boy, could it have been so much better.

[listentoyourdragon]

HTTYD3 - Processing What Isn’t There

The following is all spoiler talk about processing the ending of HTTYD3. 

I’m still processing all my reactions to the early US screening of HTTYD 3 but I realized something specific that had been gnawing at me since Saturday. The past few nights I’ve slept poorly, waking up around 2 or 3 am and being wide awake with my mind spinning and ruminating on the ending of the film. 

This usually happens when there is unprocessed grief in a story I’ve watched or read. After Wonder Woman, when the mustard gas is dropped on an entire town, I went to bed that night thinking I’d processed the movie just fine, and woke up for four hours mourning the people in that town. The grief and loss wasn’t part of the film (which is fine, it wasn’t the point) but it was part of my comprehension of the story. I and my brain struggle when people die as collateral damage to a storyline, and this is a thing I deal with regularly when I don’t curate what entertainment I consume. 

With HTTYD3, I’ve been waking up and thinking about after Hiccup turns away after the dragons fly away. When he went back to his tent, or his makeshift workshop, to the physical remains of his life with Toothless to see signs of a dragon everywhere but no dragon. That the entire village went back to a life with a part of their families torn out and missing. That everyone in Berk had to process their grief and their loss individually in different ways. Toothless had to learn to be a dragon, a wild independent animal without a companion helping him fly, while also leading all the dragons in the Hidden World. And Hiccup had to learn to be chief again, without Toothless beside him, without wings, without his leg, even, while leading an entire village through their collective grief and his own. 

After HTTYD2, the part that wasn’t in the movie was the foundation and development of the romance between Hiccup and Astrid. They went from awkward but interested interactions at the end of HTTYD1 to being a fully developed, comfortable, and intimate couple at the start of  HTTYD2. I LOVED this so much. Oh, boy, did I love this part. The romance wasn’t there, the courtship specifically, so I got to write it in however I wanted (and I did). Fanfiction is often about what isn’t in the text, whether that’s the courtship and foundation of a relationship between two people or the relationships that aren’t sufficiently represented. A good portion of fanfic thrives on filling in what isn’t present or is hinted at. So when the maturation of Hiccup and Astrid’s romantic relationship wasn’t fully depicted, I and so many other writers got to imagine it, or write it, or draw it. And it is easily one of my favorite things in the fandom for HTTYD: we know where they end up. We don’t know how they got there. Their courtship wasn’t fully depicted, so I could process it and imagine it all I wanted (and I did..for FIVE YEARS). (I’m still doing so.)

With HTTYD3, the part that isn’t there: the grieving. The loss. The remnants of a life, a family member, a community that abruptly doesn’t exist, and the progression from anguish and loss to healing. That’s not in the film. So it’s in my brain. I cry a lot. I’m processing the grief of the loss and the end of the friendship and the absence and the pain. I am, to put it mildly, fucking miserable. “Together from Afar” makes me sob. 

And I’m a little annoyed about that, though I knew going in that this would be the ending. I am wounded, as if my emotional connection to the story, and the emotions of the community weren’t fully cared for, both in the number of unanswered questions left by the story, and by the insufficient portrayal of loss in the film. The progression of the story jumps from dragon departure to six (?) months later to a wedding - which annoys me because it somewhat casts Astrid as a secondary choice to Toothless, which isn’t the way I see their relationship at all. Then to the epilogue, which is about 5 or 6 years later. I know Hiccup and Astrid are okay, that they’re together and Berk must still be a community, but I don’t see any of that, or how they get there.

Much like HTTD2 didn’t show the courtship, HYYTD3 doesn’t show how Berk learns to exist without dragons again after 6+ years with them, how the village and the individual families and the riders and Valka and Astrid and Hiccup learn to adjust to every last moment of their days being completely, painfully different. So I’m left grieving and imagining how bad it was, which is awful. 

This is not to say I didn’t like it. I did. I really, really did. But it hurts. 

[bezzuba]

so! dragon nests / flocks! they’re probably super important for dragons because of all the mutual benefits they provide for all the individuals involved — ensured food, shelter, claimed + protected territory, reproductive partner, etc. — but if what valka said in httyd2 ( “every nest has [a] queen” ) and the implications of that statement are true, i think a dragon nest only forms / continues to exist in the presence of a leader.

i.e. dragons only come together as a flock if + when there’s someone willing to lead them.

i.e. berk’s newly-moved dragon nest post-httyd absolutely gets a new “queen” after its old one dies.

the dragons are probably too busy settling down and trying to peacefully interact with humans to really think about getting a new one pre-hiccup waking up from his coma but like. when everything is sort of resolved and they’re sort of settled in this very old environment with very new contexts, there comes that startling realisation of “oh fuck our old queen died what do we do now”. because even though their queen was the Absolute Worst and definitely had her fate coming, it was only under her ( forced ) rulership that they were able to nest together and now that she’s gone, they don’t??? need to do that anymore??

they don’t…need to share any territory or provide food for someone other than themself or offer care and protection to someone who isn’t their -mate or -ling. and it’s great because it’s so liberating to finally NOT have an obligation to do so but it’s also really. confusing?? nobody…wants to leave this island where food and shelter and many Nice™ accommodations are freely given to them, but they can’t all stay there together if they aren’t a nest / flock.

they could try being a really big troop together because that wouldn’t require the existence of any “official” leader ( queen / alpha ), but not all of them know or like each other enough for that and several distinct troops have already been established anyway.

so like. they’re at this weird impasse. they want to stay together as a nest but they can’t if nobody’s going to step up and bear the responsibility of leading it. and yeah — the position of queen is empty and totally up for grabs by any willing dragon, but nobody actually wants to take it because they know that after everything that went down with their old one, there is no way their flock-members will accept a queen who is anything less than perfect. i.e. the new queen will Die™ the moment they mess up and they will mess up because while everyone knows how to be a not bad queen ( just don’t be like their old one ), nobody actually knows how to be a good queen.

( the position of alpha / king is also empty but nobody even considers filling it because none of them have the strength or capacity to protect them all as they are right now and they know it. )

naturally, they all turn to the dragon who actually killed their old queen for guidance first. and toothless…toothless is a good person. he helps them in so many ways on so many levels but he. doesn’t love them. he likes them but he won’t give himself to an entire nest. the thought honestly kind of terrifies him. so yeah nah, toothless isn’t the one who answers their call.

it’s hiccup who does.

hiccup, who said I WANT TO HELP YOU where others said I WANT TO HURT YOU. hiccup, who continues defending them where others continue blaming them. hiccup, who works on making berk dragon-friendly posthaste. hiccup, who creates things and takes apart others so that they can live a little ( a lot ) easier. hiccup, who believes in them so much he helped end a war for them.

they don’t know what to make him at first because he fills the role of a queen pretty much perfectly but he’s also a human male so?? and they can’t make him their alpha until he proves he won’t immediately be crushed in the face of an actual one so??? like the decision is made and they’re all happy to pledge to hiccup as flock-subjects ( he probably just. leaves the house one day only for literally All the dragons to swarm him and pay obeisance to him and mark him with “this is our very good not-queen-nest-thing” scent-marks. when they can’t all reach him at the same time, they form many lines and he has to sit through an entire day of rubbing snouts and being nuzzled and “hey just wanna know if you guys are gonna let me go now? no, not now? no, we can’t no matter how much you want us to? okay okay okay, just checking” ) but what do they call him if not queen or alpha???

toothless jokingly licks a “this is my nest-not-troop-leader” mark onto hiccup at the end of the day and the term coined from that, “nest-leader”, sticks. the dragons now have an “official” nest-leader ( a really good one, too! ) and they can all stay together as a flock and it’s GREAT.

( non-berkian — “wild” — dragons won’t acknowledge the term because it’s not “official” like queen or alpha, which is why they act like hiccup is any other normal human when they encounter him. )

none of the vikings know about this, ofc. that becomes problematic whenever hiccup, who is a good nest-leader by accident, needs to be a good nest-leader on purpose; i.e. complete and fulfil his duties and responsibilities as nest-leader, which is kind of hard to do when he doesn’t actually know he’s the hecking nest-leader lmao.

this is where toothless comes in! as the acknowledged and respected half of hiccup, toothless is his consort(-brother) when it comes to leading the nest and acts as hiccup’s “representative”, so to say. he’s the one who deals with the small issues and brings any ones he can’t handle by himself to hiccup’s attention. there’s a lot more depth to both of their statuses than just that but i’m so tired rn and this post is getting too long so tl;dr:

hiccup is unwittingly made the new ruler of berk’s dragon nest post-httyd ( at least until toothless takes over post-httyd2 )

toothless helps hiccup with leadership duties and shit but he’s not the one the dragons ultimately defer to and love Very Much

[avannak]

Hi every time. I watch httyd 2 And watch the bonding with mum scenes I just feel very unsatisfied because if that was my mum I don't think I would be so easily at comfort with her. Don't get me wrong I actually really like valka but I feel like the moment valka would try to give him some advice he would be like " you don't know me you've been gone for 20 years" or something along that line.

I get that. To be honest, when it was all speculation for HTTYD2 I was really looking forward to some strife there. In the very early stages of learning that Valka would be a part of HTTYD2, I went wild with conflict scenarios, which you can see in the beginning of my #valka tag.

Hell, even before HTTYD2 and I only knew of Valhallarama from the books, my movie turnover version of her involved a woman who Hiccup had vague childhood memories of – most noticeably her absence. A woman who chose to stay away because of a passion and a personal purpose, which Hiccup would find as reason enough to hold some resentment for her (bear in mind, I still love Valhal’s representation of mothers). Hilariously, though I had plenty of drama posts about it, this also helped develop Arrested Hooligans, giving Hiccup and his returned mother a Micheal/Lucille vibe.

But that wasn’t the case here. Valka absence was explained by something Hiccup could relate to so well it was almost painful. And that’s on top of the fact that he was really starting to struggle with who he was, and who he should become, once more. He had to take the next terrifying step into an unknown future but he still had a hundred uncertainties, particularly about himself, holding him back. Meeting his mother, having so many of those questions answered, was a much needed salve.

And here’s the thing - Hiccup’s not really a bitter person. Or, rather, if he can somehow personally relate, he’ll find forgiveness. And Hiccup, better than anyone, would understand why Val made the choices she made, and the pain and isolation she experienced, and the bitterness towards Berk, and the hopelessness and the cage of it all and the depression… Hell, he was going to do the same thing. The “it was better for everyone” – not just himself, but for everyone, loved ones and dragons alike – if he had taken his unnaturalness, his unvikingness, and left. It took Astrid, the olive branch, and a fast-paced unveiling of the war, to get him to stay.

Do not mistake Hiccup embracing the idea of having his mother back in his life, and listening to her, and being willing to learn from her, as Hiccup forgiving her absence, no strings attached. He understands and empathizes why she stayed away – better than anyone else in the world, perhaps – but he also understands the consequences. For example, how his father suffered. 

In fact, now that I’m here talking about it, I started to wonder how it was possible that Hiccup didn’t really know anything about his mother. Then I realized that Stoick spent most of Hiccup’s life worried. Worried that Hiccup was just like his mother. Worried that his odd ways and ideas wouldn’t prepare him to face a dragon in battle, as had happened to Valka. He didn’t want to encourage Hiccup to be strange, he didn’t want what Hiccup knew of his mother to be tarnished by the village’s opinion of her, so he probably avoided speaking of her altogether.

But then everything changed. With dragon nature revealed and vikings working in tandem with the peaceful beasts, Stoick may have started to slip little sentences like “you’re so like your mother, she would have loved this…” which started to put Hiccup’s heritage back to the forefront of his mind, questions he stopped asking in childhood returned, and suddenly he’s on top of Itchy Armpit mentioning not knowing his mother to his fiancé.

Bah, either way, even if Antag!Valka was a thing, Hiccup still would have been willing to listen and learn from her. That she wasn’t, and that she was so relatable to him (on an extreme spectrum opposite of what he shares with his father), he was more than willing. He’s not going to deny himself a family, or a mother, particularly one with a wealth of information he’s desperate for (not to mention seeing how happy his father was). Despite that, I still like to imagine that caution remains, and that Hiccup can still see her flaws clearly, and that there will be moments, or situations, when all is said in done, that he pulls away.

[despiteherself]

astrid redesign concepts.

(for the astrid & ruffnut redesign contest by @antixhiccstrid, that i completely missed but i did all this work for it so i’ve EVENTUALLY put it up haha) (forgive my lack of drawing skills and i just scanned this in bc i’m lazy so sorry abt the bad quality photos lmao)

other art that super inspired me: some of this concept art // sherisquibbles’ art // this fanart. reference pics: this braid // this pose // knife holster also this screencap was helpful.

from her original httyd design, i wanted to keep the dark eyebrows (bushier the better!!!), her big ears!! the gap tooth dealio, that’s Good. i included, for her appearance, sun burn with freckling from the burn and wind burn, plus a tighter braid/very knotty loose hair. these are all from being out in the sun and the wind a lot. i’ve made her actually buff, from all the manual labour and axe wielding she does. i wanted to emulate the shit brickhouse build of farmers honestly,,, so not rlly body builder, like, actually strong. more dirt !! more grime !! more sweat !!

for her outfit,,, loose the skirt. #unnecessary & painful to sit in. that edgy spike shit is whatever, and not ?? anything but aesthetic. i dont rlly get it bc being practical was always astrid’s Thing, but her outfit is so. wild. that looks heavy and not useful. headcanon that all astrid’s focus for beauty goes into stormfly,, that’s what i’m all about. so clothing design is super hard wtf… i borrowed good ideas and all the linked fanart i love. i went for leather trousers, they’re tough & good for riding, maybe a soft inside to keep warm in the atmosphere when on stormfly. i picked a cloak for non riding, visually similar to those clunky, weighty metal shoulder pads, but of fabric!! for riding, just a long sleeved tunic. i don’t rlly get the arm warmers from httyd2.

obv this was WAY too late for the comp so like, i don’t have heaps of a bio for what’s she’s doing pre-httyd2 but like?????????? honestly. berk guard. there’s no relationship w/ hiccup bc a lot of my design was like…. make her practical and a lot of her unpractical-ness was associated w/ her being a prize to be won so... none of that. she’s a part of the berk guard, maybe high up? she trains people, and works on strategy and formations as defence!! she’s clearly passionate about it in rtte, and i want her to actually get to do it lmao.

also if u can’t read anything on those photos lmao (sorry also my hand writing can get shit i have had problems with tendons in my wrists and my writing gets sloppy to reduce pain) let me know, there’s a lot of little notes and thoughts etc.