[Super]Hero the Hard Way is finally finished! Woot woot! I want to thank all readers for the amazing comments, reviews, private messages, likes, follows, enthusiasm, and support you gave me through this adventure. I never thought I would receive so much attention for this story, and it touches me that each and every one of you checked the story out. Your continued readership means so much to me – especially since I went through periods of slow, sporadic updates (yay graduating from an MA, starting a PhD program, dropping that PhD program, moving apartments four times across the country, and going through like six different jobs during the time period I wrote this?). Thank you for understanding that the chaotic Real World can make a writer too busy to update, and that these things need to take priority. I hope you enjoyed the story, and I look forward to future fanfiction adventures beyond this one! May the world smile more kindly upon me for consistent writing schedules...

I usually don't write a large page of comments after finishing a story, but I thought it'd be a good addition for [Super]Hero the Hard Way. After all, because I admittedly ad-libbed MOST of it over a long stretch of time with only a vague outline in my head, the story ended *very* differently than how it was planned at the start. I feel like I should at least MENTION what my hoards of un-shown ideas were for this AU!

So! Here are some of the discarded, altered, or unexpressed ideas that I had for this story:

1. Lots of people asked in the reviews if I based this off of Sky High. Those were fun and interesting comments to me! The truth is, I've never seen Sky High. All parallels to that movie were completely unintentional! Because I saw the comparison hop up a lot, I decided I couldn't watch Sky High because I didn't want to accidentally get "influenced" by that material (thus altering my original goal for SHTHW). That said, I've always wanted to see the movie, down to when there were previews for it in the theatres. Now that SHTHW is done, I can finally watch it…

For SHTHW, I was thinking more about Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and how you could find any conceivable superpower with the mutants in the X-Men world… a concept that I loved. Standard superpowers are fun, of course! But going off the deep end is all sorts of entertaining to me.

2. [Super]Hero the Hard Way was initially conceived as "Riders of Berk meets Young Justice". I wanted to write a story of a small clique of superhero sidekick teens going on multiple missions fighting against the Outcasts (and other enemies). I decided I would write an "origins" for Hiccup first, though, and that turned [Super]Hero the Hard Way into a retelling of the first HTTYD movie… with modifications, of course!

3. Because I planned for [Super]Hero the Hard Way to include Riders of Berk material, I had a huge planned plot arc for Heather. She would come into the school as a "transfer student." Later, they would realize that she was, in fact, Phantasm, an (unwilling) Outcast whose power was shapeshifting.

Once I realized SHTHW was going the first movie HTTYD route, I considered making short episodic sequels… but I realize I probably don't have the time to do that on top of all the other fanfiction ideas I'm working on! So that's why I'm dishing out Heather secrets here.

4. Oh and speaking of Young Justice, the growth hormone from SHTHW is heavily based on Kobra-Venom.

5. I noticed many questions about what superheroes I was modeling Hiccup off of. I intentionally never answered those questions (sorry for the silence, friends! I loved the comments and feedback!) because I wanted to keep my intentions secret. I wasn't going to give out my story plans before they came into the story!

At the start of my plans for Hiccup, I thought about Iron Man, Batman, and the rest of the Bat family for inspiration. I think Iron Man ended up winning for "largest influence."

I even planned from the start for "Toothless" to be like MCU's Jarvis – an AI voice in Hiccup's ear constantly arguing with him. It would slowly grow into a full AI in Hiccup's suit that would be obviously sentient by either Romantic Flight or the end of the story. To give some good HTTYD book references, that AI would have an audio glitch that made it sound like it was stuttering.

In the end, I took out most of the Toothless stuff. At least I slipped it in the final chapter!

6. Astrid's powers were based off of Storm from X-Men (I was influenced a lot by X-Men throughout this really…) and Snotlout is basically a firebender from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

7. Another common question I got was if Hiccup would have a superpower. I started the story thinking "none," but pretty early on I got the idea he'd find out he had some "useless" superpower at the end of the story. So I again kept my mouth shut for questions about it to keep this reveal secret. Because Toothless has violet plasma blasts out of his mouth, I thought it'd be a funny parallel for Hiccup to sneeze the color purple.

The How to Train Your Dragon novels are about how someone different, not perceived as "strong" by society, could become the greatest hero of them all. For that reason, I didn't want to ever give Hiccup a useful superpower. The HTTYD first movie has a similar idea about the outcast being the ultimate hero.I feel it's important to keep Hiccup as someone whose hard work, mind, and actions lead him to success… not superhuman abilities.

8. All the equations and equipment Hiccup mentions in the story are based on research. I found physics papers talking about the materials, equations, dimensions, etc. that would be needed to construct rocket boots. So that's real math! I'm no physicist, but I did try to make everything based on some fact!

Oh, and if you really care to know, the conversation at the start of the story about Shakespeare… I took from an undergraduate college essay I wrote from a Shakespeare class. Yup.

9. There are hoards of tiny "Easter Eggs" or meta remarks slipped into the story. Likely, any time you read a street name or a number, it's an obscure reference to the How to Train Your Dragon franchise. I mean, if I'm giving names to things, I might as well have fun, right? So to list off a few of these references…

- In Chapter 1: Raid, newscasters mention there is an "unexpected aerial attack on the corner of Hope Avenue and Twelfth Street." This is a reference to Hiccup's opening description of Berk in HTTYD: "It's twelve days north of Hopeless."

- In Chapter 2: Initiation, Hiccup lives on the seventh story of the apartment. In the movie, Hiccup mentions Berk's had seven generations.

- Same chapter: The passcode to Hiccup's apartment is 0229, which is February 29, his birthday in the book series.

- In Chapter 3: Sidekicked, there's an armed bank robbery on Cowell and Twenty-Fifth Streets. Cowell – as in, Cressida Cowell, author of the How to Train Your Dragon books!

- In Chapter 8: Mission, I reference a few more How to Train Your Dragon creators, as well as a character from the books. Marlet Street references one of the artists from the HTTYD franchise, Nico Marlet. Arnold Avenue references movie producer Bonnie Arnold.

- In Chapter 17: Infiltration, I mention Tomorrow Lane turning into an unmarked alley called King Lane. In the books, Hiccup must reach the Island of Tomorrow to become King of the Wilderwest.

- In Chapter 20: Hero, the newscasters are named Bonnie (again referencing Bonnie Arnold) and Otto (referencing Simon Otto).

- Also in Chapter 20, the newscasters mention the last time Berk set a record for peaceful days was April 15, 1966. That's the day Cressida Cowell was born.

10. Before I started a word of this story, I wrote up a list of characters, their superhero name, and their superpower. Here's what I wrote:

ALVIN THE TREACHEROUS (CYBORG) Cyborg shenanigans

BUCKET (BLUDGEON)

CAMICAZI (BURGLAR) Scaling walls, alleged visibility

DAGUR (DAGGER) Mind control – think Charles Xavier

GOBBER THE BELCH (GRUMP) Mechanic sidekick

HICCUP (NIGHT FURY) None – Iron Man / Night Wing

STOICK (SKULLCRUSHER) Super strength – Hulk

VALKA (CLOUDJUMPER) Weredragon rumored

HEATHER (MISILLUSIONIST: GOOD, PHANTASM: BAD) Shape shifting – Mystique

ASTRID (STORM FLY) Weather and flight – Storm

HUMONGOUSLY HOTSHOT (HOTSHOT)

TANTRUM O'UGERLY HOTSHOT (TANTRUM)

FISHLEGS (MINDLOCK) Computer-like mind abilities

ADELAIDE (FIREWYRM)

SNOTLOUT (NIGHTMARE) Fire bending

GUSTAV (FANGHOOK)

MILDEW (MILDEW)

SAVAGE (SAVAGE)

SPEEDIFIST (VELOCITY)

RUFFNUT (PULL) South pole – half of a magnet

TUFFNUT (TUG) North pole

And even though Hiccup didn't fight every villain, I still made sure to reference Alvin, Viggo, Ryker, Dagur, Excellinor, Norbert, Savage, Mogadon, Drago, even Gumboil (Madguts the Murderou's assistant in the HTTYD books). All their superpowers were meant to reflect their character… down to Viggo (who at the time I wrote the chapter had only just made his first on screen appearance) having "unknown" powers.

Anyway! These are some of the things I was thinking about as I wrote this story.

Stay awesome, fellow dragon nerds, and take care.