a/n Please Read First: an explanation of why I began these episode rewrites

Dragons: Riders of Berk, for as much good as it's had, has a few things that have bugged me throughout its first season. I wouldn't have minded except when I found myself doing arguments on certain characters being taken irritatedly out-of-character. But my gab wouldn't mean very much unless I knew what the movie's characters would actually do in the situations RoB put them into.

So this fanfiction is mostly an exploration. This is partly for fun, and partly for me to see how Hiccup and the gang would do if they were not restricted to precise plots, limited animation, and forced comedy that stretched believability. I want to make clear that I do not hate RoB, but I'm sometimes a bit of a "glass is half empty" sort of person, so I end up focusing on the faults sometimes, especially if it concerns my favorite characters whom I respect so highly. A couple pointers about this series of stories:

-I have a lot of respect for the arcs they do have in RoB, and for the work it takes to put a cohesive, entertaining plot in 22 minutes, which touches on all of the characters and has a good theme and great jokes. In this rewrite, I don't pretend to match RoB's mood or its completeness in that sense.

-This is not a word-for-word/band-aid rewriting, nor is it a script. It's heavily narrative, uses all the capabilities of narrative format, including thoughts, which I realize cannot be used in a TV show. Here the line blurs between my desires for the TV episode and my plain old exploration of what-if.

-This is not just a critique on RoB, it's an exploration for me on our character's thoughts and motives, and already I've learned quite a bit, not only about the characters, but how RoB does and can make sense, given the right arcs and explanations (and headcanons LOL). Writing this actually helped me believe RoB more.

-Not all changes are because I didn't like something or thought it was OOC. In fact some scenes which I think are just fine aren't included, because I'm focusing on the story angle and especially Hiccup's growth, and his friendship with Toothless. Plus writing word-for-word is pretty boring in itself, and I won't subject you or me to a copied transcript. I'm also not trying to make this Grade A perfect writing, so there's going to be some cuts just to make things easier for me and to keep narrative flow.

-Last of all I'm not saying that making RoB the way I wrote it here would make if necessarily a better episode. RoB does a great job of giving screen time to a lot of minor characters that I have not. It also does comedy much better. My focus here is character growth and relationships, hence the changes.

But most of all, just have fun with this, as I had fun with it! Any huge changes are probably because I was irked by something, and hopefully by my adjustments you can see the reasons why. Maybe it would help you see RoB in terms of the HTTYD timeline better, maybe it can smooth the road between the movie and the series, as it is doing for me.

Cheers and happy reading!