Love this!

333 hearts. Gotsta love hiccup angst! Kudos

This is great!
I' love to see another chapter with Hiccup at the celebration. I'd love to see his reaction to everything.

“Snotlout can’t even stand up to his own father, but Hiccup faced a dragon the size of a mountain without flinching once.” Ouch. Painful, but true. Snotlout may have physical strength on his side, but there’s more to being strong than just brute force.

“He didn’t even have one day—one day—of being Thawfest champion before it became all about Hiccup…They barely notice Snotlout at all.” This entire passage was brilliant. It really highlights just how difficult it was/is for Snotlout to accept how profoundly different “the rules” of being a great Viking have become—and how he centers all that animosity and fear on Hiccup, the one he sees as responsible for kickstarting these changes and stealing his thunder.

“’This ends when one of us can’t fly anymore. I’ll fight you in your stupid challenge when you figure out how to fly my dragon,’ he says furiously, but then leans down to scratch Hookfang’s jaw again with a smile. ‘Hey, Hookfang. Ready to win an Heir Challenge?’” This is such an incredibly Hiccup way to win. Unorthodox, clever, and aligned with his own sense of right and wrong. With a pinch of snark thrown in for good measure.

“But…but didn’t he only make this challenge because everyone told him it was what he was supposed to do? Now he thinks about it…no wonder he hasn’t felt in control since before Thawfest. Except when he chose weapons. He made that challenge. He made the situation he’s in now. That was definitely some control…This was his challenge. His day. He decided this was going to happen…If he goes to the celebration, it’s to be the graceful winner he planned to be. The hero on the sidelines. Exactly like he wanted. The world may be changing, but Snotlout at least has that measure of control.” It can be a scary feeling, knowing the world is changing in ways you never could have imagined. You handled Snotlout’s fear and anger with regard to the changes in Berk so well throughout this entire work, but I have to say that I’m glad to see this end on the somewhat hopeful note that Snotlout has begun to feel some level of security and acceptance toward the future. This was a really great character study piece. Thanks for the fantastic read!

“None of them think for a second he might actually grow up to be a good heir…” Poor Hiccup had a rough time of it as a kid. He and the other kids were five when they learned about heir challenges. FIVE. And already the other kids have decided that they are going to be the next heir despite knowing what would happen to Hiccup if that were to ever happen. OUCH.

It was cool to see what Hiccup and Astrid were talking about before Snotlout came around to challenge Hiccup. I especially liked this exchange: “He’ll kill you,” she whispers, and he looks at her directly. / “He’s our friend” because it highlights how different their ways of thinking are. Astrid is pragmatic, fully focused on the threat (“He’ll kill you”) and how to most efficiently take out the threat (challenge/kill Snotlout). Hiccup is more concerned with the morality of the situation (“He’s our friend”) and not wanting to have to kill somebody in order to stay alive himself.

I loved Stoick and Hiccup’s awkward non-conversation. We never really got to see how those two transitioned from the rocky relationship they had in HTTYD1 to the supportive and loving relationship they seem to have in Riders/Defenders of Berk. This scene perfectly highlighted how awkward it must have been to make that transition—both of them wanting to address the issue yet continuing to skirt around it because they just haven’t established that level of comfort with one another to jump into having a father-son heart-to-heart.

“Sometimes Hiccup wonders why he wants to be friends with these people, and calls for his only useful companion. ‘Toothless!’” Ha, this line made me laugh. Exasperated!Hiccup is so much fun to read.

“…as Snotlout, Spitelout, and half the freaking village appear to make the official challenge, Hiccup is sprawled in the dirt, half-covered in slobber, and pinned at the hips by a very excited dragon. / In contrast, Snotlout is in new bracers and trousers, his hair styled under his shining helmet, and stands triumphantly with his fists on his hips and a cocky smirk on his lips.” Interesting choice to end the chapter on that note. Last chapter focused on Snotlout’s struggle with realizing that the times are changing; he may not be The Best Viking on Berk anymore and Hiccup is a more capable leader. This chapter was all about Hiccup’s feelings that the more things have changed, the more they’ve stayed the same. And this last bit here seems to cement that belief: Hiccup is dirty and on the ground, showing none of the traits that would make him a great leader while Snotlout is standing tall and appears to be the very image of a perfect heir.

I have to say, I have had a soft spot for Snotlout ever since the episode Thawfest. He is often played as the comic relief or vitriolic companion…but there is so much more depth to his character than that and you do a marvelous job of highlighting that here. Snotlout spent fifteen years being “The Best Viking” of his generation…and after HTTYD, all of the things he excelled at suddenly took a backseat to dragon training—something he often struggles with. And yet you make it clear here that Spitelout still has very high expectations for his son and he’s not about to let the village forget who “The Best Viking” is. And poor Snotlout is stuck between coming to terms with no longer being Berk’s golden boy while still wanting to live up to his father’s expectations—and that’s on top of also having to come to grips with what challenging Hiccup and winning would actually mean for Berk, for Hiccup, and for himself. Snotlout’s struggle trying to deal with all that is painful to read and I absolutely mean that as a compliment.

Compound all of the above with the fact that your Snotlout has already begun to look to Hiccup as a leader. Lines like “Hiccup will go along with it. Hiccup will tell him what to d-no, uh, agree with what he has to do” and “When everything goes bad, and everyone’s all crazy and violent and not thinking straight, and Stoick can’t do anything because he’s got to think of the tribe, not the consequences, and Hiccup’s not there… who is Snotlout supposed to look to for answers?” make that abundantly clear. Snotlout already relies on Hiccup to make the tough choices a leader has to make.

And it all culminates in Snotlout choosing a "weapon" that actually gives Hiccup a fair chance of winning. As Gobber notes, Snotlout was free to choose ANY weapon—and yet he chose DRAGONS, something that is Hiccup’s greatest strength and his own greatest weakness. Snotlout would probably tell anyone who asked that he chose dragons because he wanted to prove to everybody (and to himself) once and for all that he’s BETTER than Hiccup on EVERY LEVEL INCLUDING DRAGONS…but deep down, I don’t think Snotlout actually wants to win this challenge.

I really am in fucking awe of how mature and the sheer complexity of the thought processes and Snotlout your Snotlout and "okay, bud, just like we practiced" and "we're not in our world, we're in theirs" and I truly... You just outclassed pretty much everyone in this fandom with this and I hope you know that. Do you know that?

Okay. This is seriously incredible. The amount of detail you put into the thoughts and possible scenarios of who would do what if which challenge, Gobber, Astrid - "Snotlout can see his mind racing, thinking it through, thinking everything through, as only Hiccup can do." Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I fucking died. There is a very, very hard edge to your writing throughout - the fact that it's driven by Snotlout and in his POV is so powerfully manifest in the way it's written and I just... UNGH I can't, I seriously can't. And your Snotlout just emerging from the darkness at the end nad... PLEASE tell me this is on the AO3 because I want to quote it. I want to quote it SO MUCH.

This is AMAZING. One of the most pervasive problems in HTTYD fandom is the shoddy characterization of Snotlout (well, everybody to some measure, but Snotlout gets it especially bad), but you've created a very accurate and relatable portrayal here. He's really quite layered, but not in the “nobody understands me” way, because even Snotlout himself doesn’t know who he truly is or what he really wants. He believes in the veracity of his outward behavior as much as anyone else, because that’s what he’s been told to believe his whole life. And until recently, he’s never had much reason to not WANT to believe it. He doesn’t quite understand why the idea of killing Hiccup and/or taking actual responsibility makes him uncomfortable, because that’s what he’s supposed to do, right? That’s what society, and especially his father, has always told him, anyway, but his own moral compass says otherwise. Unfortunately, Snotlout sees his own worth as being tied to others’ opinions of him, so following his conscience isn’t as easy as he wants it to be.

Contrast this to Hiccup, who is used to being humiliated and thought poorly of and thinks he’ll be okay with all the shame attached to losing, as long as he can still do what he loves and work with dragons. The implications for the village are on his mind much more than his own reputation. However, he’s not actually much more aware of his own desires than Snotlout is of his, and when push comes to shove, isn’t willing to tuck tail and accept his ‘fate’. The stubbornness that kept him at his seemingly futile inventions for so many years comes to grips with the newfound confidence in his ability to lead dragons and humans, and the combination kicks his self-deprecation to the curb. And he pulls a completely HICCUP thing to do.

I love that in the end, the two boys still couldn’t quite reconcile. They are too different and too similar in all the wrong ways, and neither can comprehend the other’s point of view. Nor are they very willing to try to understand or explain themselves better. Each firmly convinced in the correctness of their own position, the seeming inability of the other to ‘make sense’ simply frustrates them.

And Astrid holds a glorious dichotomous position where she understands both and neither at the same time. She’s come to see Hiccup as the future of their tribe and accordingly given him her loyalty, but still strongly disagrees with many of his decisions and is incredulous about his blindness to his own potential. At the same time, her view on life/death morality actually IS what Snotlout thinks his own to be. They are both so VIKING that Hiccup frustrates them in the same way, but Astrid has knowingly and openly accepted his value as a leader where Snotlout has only done so subconsciously.

Agh, I can’t say everything I want to, but just know that this rant means I really, really liked the story, it made me think a lot, and I thought it was spot-on in terms of character. Also, the dragon race/battle/kidnapping in the third chapter was super cool, and I really want to see it animated.

And I really loved this line, too: ‘“Like, really not kidnapping?” asks Tuffnut. “Or is this like how you didn’t kidnap Meatlug at Snoggletog?”’

Is it wrong to want to see what life would be like for the village if what Gobber said came true and Astrid was chief and Hiccup was literally stuck with her, I wonder what flying would be like or daily life in general? Can you make a sequel, I know it's been a few years, but this is great.

I really liked this story. I think that you got Snoutlout's personality perfect.

Wow, Snotlout's heart is buried way way way deep under a lot of ego. Glad Hiccup was smart enough to win, and of course everyone was routing for Hiccup

Wow, like the insight into Hiccup's plans, the Astrid one wasn't bad if Hiccup wasn't actually going to be an amazing heir. The Fishlegs part was very funny

Wow, this was incredible! Love the progression of Snotlout's thoughts and the background of how Hiccup has viewed the event (so sad but accurate) and Gobber's wisdom with how the events would play out...just incredible!

Great story, really good characterization