(A/N) Hey everybody, I hope this finds you well.

As you all have probably noticed, I haven't updated in a while and for that I am sorry. I've had half of a chapter written since September but I have not gotten around to finishing it and I feel bad for leaving this story this way.

There is a reason for me leaving you guys hanging, but in order for you to understand, I would like to tell you all about the rollercoaster that has been the last few years of me writing this.

When I first thought about writing my own fanfiction, I had vastly different reasons for writing it than I do now. What I wanted was to do something no one else had done before and see where I could take it. I had the idea to write a "what if Hiccup was the villain" fanfiction and went from there. I figured, maybe it would be like 20 chapters long and be just something that I could have fun with and see how good at writing I was. So, I began writing, I enjoyed it, you guys enjoyed and we all had fun and it was a great time… until a certain guest reviewer that has become a little infamous among my fellow writers for ruining people's enjoyment of writing came along and started hassling me. He began asking me questions along the lines of, "Why do people make the heroes into the villains? We have enough villains already" or "What is the purpose of turning a beloved character into the villain?".

These questions should have never really made me care much, but here's the thing, I had just started my first year of Bible College at the time and those questions coupled with what I was learning at collage really made me start questioning some things about why I wrote. I almost stopped writing this all together because I couldn't really justify writing this anymore… until I completely revamped my thinking. I figured, if I can't just write this because I want to, why not write this for God. I could still have fun writing this and thinking up new scenarios to place the HTTYD characters into, but in the AN's or replying to guest reviews or even just little hints in the story, I could write this for the glory of God. My focus went from "lets just have fun with this" to "Lets make this all about the readers". Looking back, I may not have had the best success, but it made writing this that much more meaningful and fun to write.

As time went on, something happened. More and more people began to read, follow and favourite. I noticed there were over 17k stories that had been written for the HTTYD section of , and when you sort all of them from the greatest number of favourites to least, mine was nearing the top 300 stories. When I realized that, something changed. I started slowly at first, but I started becoming more and more prideful about my work. I went from writing this for God and for the readers, to writing this for one more follow and one more favourite. This fanfic began consuming my life because I needed more and more recognition. And for that I must apologize profusely. The bible says, "When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom" (Proverbs 11:2), and that is exactly what happened. When I realized what was happening, I was filled with shame. Before, I had lots of fun writing this and new scenes and arcs came to me just like that, but when my pride took over, I lost my joy and writing became a chore. It all of a sudden became harder for me to come up with new ideas implement them into the story.

I guess more than anything, I would like to give a warning to anybody who is a writer already, or is planning to be one. Remember the real value of your readers. They are not just another follow or favourite, or a means to fulfill your own goals. They are real people, with hopes, dreams, struggles and strengths. Your readers are fellow human beings, loved by God and created in his own image. They are valuable enough that God sent his one and only son into this world to live a perfect life that we never could, die and be raised on the third day so that our sins could be forgiven and we might be made fellow heirs with Christ.

In any case, I am trying to get back into writing now with a new mindset. One of the ways in which I am doing this is by starting a new story called 'Normal'. Normal is not a replacement story for this one, I am not abandoning DR, just putting it on the backburner for a bit until I can get the writing juices flowing again. There are certain thins about this story that I feel I haven't done well that I am hoping to do better with in Normal. As well, it gets a little tiring writing something that can be so dark at times and I am hoping Normal can bring a bit of some light.

Also, I'm curious about how you guys want DR to end, so I've posted a poll that you guys should go and check out. It may help me to update this faster so I encourage you to go an vote. As far as I can tell, it should be on my profile, but it may only work on Desktop Mode and not on mobile.

Until next time, may the blessings of God be with you,

-CdnChrgr