HTTYDaversary 10 year fic recs!
I love reccing fics and @athingofvikings suggested the perfect thing! I’ve been in this fandom since November 2011, and it’s hard to explain just how important HTTYD and our community has been to me. It’s impossible for me to imagine the last ten years without this positivity, this love, this education. It’s impossible for me to imagine who I would be. HTTYD isn’t “just” - anything. It’s everything.
And while you can watch the movie again and again, the magic for me really came in the transformative work, not that I knew what it was at the time; I’d barely stepped into fandom at all and never realized the important meta we were creating on Sticks and Stones and Berk’s Grapevine and DeviantArt. (Remember when you’d post a piece of art and then there’d be discussion?!) I didn’t notice how important the stitches I logged into various Night Fury tapestry crochet projects and painted shirts, I didn’t think the music I was arranging on the flute-which-I-hadn’t-liked-until-then was important. And I definitely didn’t realize I was picking parts of the canon and transforming them in an effort to connect - to the story, to the characters, to all of you. But I am at my heart a reader, and when I have engaged with HTTYD it has been through reading, and reading, and reading.
ONESHOTS!
Trust - Wordwielder - Hiccup hates to leave Toothless. Toothless hates to see him go.
Some emotions and defiance about Hiccup leaving Toothless on the isle of dragons in early RoB.
Green Eyed - Wordwielder - Toothless is jealous.
ADORABLE shortfic about Toothless being jealous when Hiccup tries riding a horse!
Pneumonia - Wordwielder - Two times Hiccup's had pneumonia. Once was miserable. The second time, he had Toothless.
Classic old-school HTTYD fic reflecting on before-Toothless and after. Heartwarming. HEARTWARMING.
Shot of Fire - Wordwielder - Oneshot companion to 'Wingspan.' Uses for Toothless' fire.
Four times Toothless uses fire in unconventional yet adorable ways.
Wingspan - Wordwielder - Toothless' wings have other uses besides flying.
Four times Toothless’s wings come in handy!
How to NOT Watch Your Sheep - Punzie the Platypus - Do NOT prod them with a staff (it doesn't work); do NOT let your pet dragon eat the sheep (bad idea); and do NOT lose the sheep you are watching, especially when it is owned by your boss.
Hiccup and Toothless babysit Phil the sheep. Self-explanatory.
Swimming - Shimy - When Astrid had come looking for him earlier that day, Hiccup definitely had no idea he was going to end up on the beach...
Just good-old-fashioned HTTYD1 fluff and teen fun.
All of Him - Calico - She was thinking that she quite possibly hated Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, he of the goofy smile, the perpetual accident waiting to happen. ** Astrid's thoughts throughout the movie, especially concerning one less than ideal Viking.**
An eloquent and succinct window into Astrid’s world! Not a retelling, more of her emotional journey.
The Second Worst Viking - almne - Fishlegs was always secretly relieved that Hiccup was considered the worst Viking.
One of the first Fishlegs-centric fics! There’s only six teens on Berk; here’s a short journey from Fishlegs and Hiccup being friends to Fishlegs being with the in crowd to...well, you know.
Finally Something to Talk About - Backroads - Even after everything, the relationship wasn’t perfect.
My favorite Backroads, tbh. Hiccup and Stoick taking some necessary steps post-HTTYD to get better at being a family - even if they are baby steps.
Protective Instincts - Dendraica - After the events of 'Animal House', the people and dragons of Berk take shelter in the Great Hall to wait out another devastating winter storm. Hiccup discovers a surprising secret about the Thorston twins.
Serious and tender one-shot about Bucket, traumatic brain injury/mental illness, and Ruff and Tuff. This one has my heart, still.
Go - musiclover99 - No one expected this. HICCUP, the boy they all mocked and ridiculed, was going to be the hero? But somehow, Astrid is completely fine with this . . . Set during the fight with the Red Death, when Astrid says, "Go."
One of musiclover99′s old and still beautiful experimental poems.
His New Fans - ichthyosaurus - "The village is throwing a party to celebrate!" Astrid watches Berk toast Hiccup's sudden and mysterious expertise. Set during the movie, before the final match with the Gronckle.
I always love suspicious, uber-serious, and angry Astrid, and this is her at her best under ichthyosaurus’s talented hand.
The Haddock House - @elfpen - "Walking into the Haddock household was essentially like pulling up that lobster trap that'd been forgotten for a few years in that one deep tide pool that even the cool kids wouldn't brave in the summer. You never really knew what to expect." Hiccup is Hiccup, Toothless is not helping, Stoick is longsuffering, And Astrid shows up to help the two with impeccable timing.
Adorable, fluffy Haddock family story for those of us who enjoy inventor!Hiccup.
License to Love - foxy’sgirl/ @tysonrunningfox - Hiccup and Astrid's first date doesn't go exactly as planned. Modern AU. Warning: Approaches Critical Sass.
I literally made my first boyfriend take me minigolfing in respect to this fic. He started calling me milady of his own accord. I reread this fic to squee every so often because it is. SO PERFECT. If you need a pick-me-up, HAVE IT.
The Haddock-Hofferson Film - foxy’sgirl - Hiccup has known sasquatches are real since he found one in a bear trap when he was fourteen and let it go. No one else in his hometown of Berk agrees, but when a promising piece of footage shows up, he's ready to prove them all wrong. Bigfooter AU.
Did we need an AU where Hiccup believed in bigfoot, no one else does, and Toothless is the cryptid in question? ABSOLUTELY.
Tale of the Dragon’s Wrath - The Antic Repartee / @avannak (on Ao3) A HTTYD Halloween one-shot. Dragons have a particular system of balance. Hiccup may be the local expert in Dragon Behavior but there are some lessons even he has yet to learn. Post-movie.
This one-shot is almost entirely responsible for me posting any of my own fic, because it inspired me to un-write this very fic! Ava horrified me so much, and this story made me so angry, that i wrote story after story to prove her wrong - not realizing, of course, that in fandom we are all right in our own transformations. TLDR: Toothless takes Hiccup’s leg on purpose.
Tradition - The Antic Repartee / @avannak (on Ao3) After the events of Gift of the Night Fury, Hiccup decides to help Astrid tweak one of her tradition ideas. Fluff and Fun! Happy Snoggletog!
A Sticks and Stones holiday winner. Fluffy Snoggletog fun!
A Dragon is still a Dragon - Forgotten Toaster - Hiccup has gotten himself stuck in a situation he had hoped to avoid. Of course. HPGoFxHTTYD, oneshot.
Irreverent HTTYD/HP crossover - Hiccup crushes the First Task. The hilarious and heartwarming oneshot that lead to my own long HTTYD/HP crossover - although this one is much, much better than mine!
MULTICHAPS!
Challenge - LeDiz - Hiccup and Toothless changed the world, but Thawfest still proved Snotlout as the best viking of their age, right? And that makes him the best choice as Stoick's heir, right? So he should challenge Hiccup for the position... right?
This is a fabulous and very serious inversion of the Thawfest episode and tradition, focusing on the Snotlout-Hiccup relationship and Viking politics.
Little things I never said - thepapergirl - I curled my knees to my chest in an attempt to stop the clammy iron hand that gripped my chest with fear. 'Strong you are, Camicazi. STRONG is what you will have to be,'
Beautiful Camicazi-cenric fic about Camicazi’s pov in some of the early books with a timeskip to where Camicazi and Hiccup meet as adults post-HTTYD1! A beautiful melding of book and movie canon!
Minding the Fort - ichthyosaurus - While Stoick is off visiting another tribe, Hiccup is charged with keeping Berk in one piece.
Hilarious and heartfelt story about leadership, the awkwardness of fitting dragons into Viking society, and Hiccup’s strengths in love. TRAGICALLY, incomplete.
Fifteen Kennings for a Woman: A Sequence - nebroadwe - “Being a girl on Berk means many things, as Astrid discovers by living through them.
Beautiful, skillfully written, and historically based shorts tracing Astrid’s life. SO lyrical and amazing imagery!
Most of Him - @elfpen - The battle is over, the day has been won. The Green Death is dead, the three-hundred year long war has finally ended. But even the greatest of victories always come with cleanup, and sometimes it can be rather gruesome. Follows directly after the battle sequence in the movie.
My favorite story concerning how all the Vikings got back to Berk when all their ships are burned...but they’ve got an awful lot of new dragon friends and a dying hero to watch out for.
The Stormfly - foxy’sgirl - No one has ever talked to Stormfly up close, even since she started cleaning up Berk City's gang violence problem with a vengeance. Hiccup is going to be the first to track her down. Superhero AU.
I did not realize this was a Superman story for so long but I have loved it always. (More since becoming superhero obsessed). Super!Astrid! Helicopter pilot Hiccup! Very adorable!
Back to Berk - foxy’sgirl - A psychiatric ward. A boy and his imaginary dragon. A girl with battle scars. Warning: Depression and Suicide.
Astrid is suicidal, Hiccup is psychotic, their romance begins in a mental institution as they form a tiny care web of two. Beautiful and haunting with no magic fix-its but a very happy ending.
Cast Iron - foxy’sgirl - She's a would be celebrity chef with a failing cooking show. He's a small batch cheese maker who won't play along. Hiccstrid. Cooking show AU. The AU so crazy it just might work.
This is hilarious and I was so heartbroken for the years I couldn’t find it and always sounded insane trying to explain it to people - “Astrid’s a celebrity chef! In Maine! And Hiccup is a small batch cheese maker with a blind horse! It’s very romantic!”
LONGFICS!
A Downed Dragon is a Dead Dragon - almne - Hiccup and Toothless are invincible in the air. But if they lost their prosthetics, how strong would they be?
HTTYD + Hicctooth + battle!Astrid + politics? Oh yeah. It’s a serious reflection on the lengths other tribes are willing to go to gain Berk’s power, and it does not go well for them.
Umbreytingu - @elfpen - Toothless has somehow managed to get himself turned into a human. Hiccup is, understandably, having a strange day.
Bromance for the ages. Serious and silly. The definitive human!Toothless fic. Also the definitive reason why I sometimes call Toothless “Todleas” in my head. Higher fantasy than usual for HTTYD!
(How to Train Your) Dungeons and Dragons - nneurosis - In which Astrid is a valedictorian prom queen and star athlete, and Hiccup is just really, really good at Dungeons & Dragons. Modern college AU.
NYU! Hilarious and surprisingly emotionally fulfilling?! Very geeky! Something I read at the beginning of every semester and I’ve been trying to get other people to read FOREVER. Tragically, incomplete.
Stormfly - Song of a Free Heart - SUPERHERO AU - She was trying to commission a custom leather jacket. The last thing she expected was to get dragged into a world of superheroes and villains. But somehow, when she falls in with the Big 4, that's exactly what Astrid gets.
Possibly the start of my superhero obsession. Superhero!Astrid! Astrid joins the team! Hiccstrid! Modern AU! I reread this one too often to admit. ALSO TRAGICALLY INCOMPLETE.
To Be God Touched - Celestra - Hoping to better understand dragons, Hiccup is accompanied by Toothless on a quest seeking the wisdom of the gods. His venture may be ill-timed, however, with tension growing in Berk and whispers of something horrifying growing on Fire Nest Island...
Norse mysticism, breathtaking writing, amazing OCs, and an entire contingent of dragon-fearing Berkians? This fic is SO GOOD and continues to inspire me.
Hitchups - The Antic Repartee or @avannak (on Ao3) - Hiccup didn't see the point in stopping Astrid as she ran off towards his village—towards his father—with his most desperately protected secret. He was leaving anyway. A coming-of-age tale. Deviates from movie. Borderline bromantic-comedy.
The definitive “Hiccup leaves” story. Fantastic, hilarious, and Hiccup-Toothless friendship focused. Lots of history and irresponsible exploring the world on dragonback. There was a time when this fic was the litmus test for being “IN” fandom or not.
Persephone - sunflowerb - She was meant to be the price for peace; her life in exchange for the mysterious Dragon Master's mercy. Her captor wasn't supposed to be a ghost from her past, and she wasn't supposed to become his ally...or his lover. And when news spreads of a blonde-haired girl at the Dragon Master's side, there will be repercussions for dragons and Vikings alike.
Full disclosure: I haven’t finished this one yet, but I’ve been rereading for years. Astrid is a human sacrifice to the Dragon Master, and ends up his willing partner and wife. Big sister!Astrid. Astrid-centric, amazing Astrid characterization. Can’t wait to finish it!
Ripped - @tysonrunningfox - Seven fifty a month. Average rent for a one-bedroom in downtown Berk runs about eleven hundred a month if you don’t want to live above a club or a subway station or dog kennel, which Astrid doesn’t, so she’s willing to deal with a lot for this seven fifty a month. But a lot, even as a vague concept, still has boundaries. Boundaries that loom ever closer with every kitchen cabinet she opens to find bare and empty space instead of bed bugs or black mold or a secretly cemented in shrine to Tom Brady or Cthulhu.The closet isn’t a walk-in, but it’s clean, and the landlord will let her set her own rent schedule. Hell, it’s quiet because neighbors both up and downstairs are renting on airbnb from out of state, so she basically has this whole side of the building to herself. Most of her few boxes are almost fully unpacked when she finally starts to come around to the idea that sometimes when things seem too good to be true, it might just be because they are that good.And that’s when the bright red laser dot appears on the light fixture on the kitchen ceiling.
I literally had to pause reading this one because THE EMOTIONS were too much. I can’t wait to get back to it. I screencap it regularly and send the pics to Wordwielder, cackling. Hiccup and Astrid are basically trying to solve Jack the Ripper, and it’s a little complicated by the fact that more murders are happening along the way. HILARIOUS. Possibly my favorite newly-written HTTYD content in a very long time.
This isn’t it, of course. There are other stories that have been lost on the internet along with their writers, stories that I’ve printed and never been able to find again, people who have vanished. I’m thinking of all of you, and thanking you for every day you’ve made better by putting your work out to share with all the rest of us.
