I will no longer be updating this account. I have found that I've moved on from this site as a platform for my writing, so I apologise if there was anything you were hoping to see me either continue or write in the future. I will be continuing to write – as of right now, most of my writing goes up on my deviantART account (I crossposted both Reborn from Ashes and One Step at a Time from there), so if you want to keep up with my current writing endeavours that is where you'll find it.

This does mean that Astrid's Riders of Berk and subsequent instalments of the HTTYD Role Reversal series have been discontinued. I really did not want to ever leave a story unfinished, but I just do not feel invested enough in the series to write more episodes for it. Maybe, once HTTYD 3 comes out, I'll do a Role Reversal instalment for that film, but for now I am saying goodbye to that particular series.

To all of the readers and reviewers that have read my stories and left comments over the years, thank you. You have all been a great help in my journey to improve my writing. Each review, follow and favourite has been a huge boost to my confidence, so thank you for everything.

Keep reading and writing, everyone! I shall see you guys around.

Notes:

- I got a question about this in a guest review about the pronunciation of Kyra's name: if it was Val-KEER-a or Val-KY-ra. Just think of the name as 'Keira' but with a 'Val' stuck in front of it - hope that clears up any confusion.

- Someone asked what I mean when I describe Astrid as 'Nordic Blonde'. This is actually a phrase sometimes used to describe type of blonde hair that is commonly associated with people of Scandinavian origin. It is generally quite a bright blonde and to me, Astrid fits the description fairly well.

Trivia:

So, this section is basically going to contain tibits of information about the development of some of my stories, whether this is inspiration behind them or how they developed into what I've published on this site. I might also add in information about anything I've got elsewhere such as deviantART, etc. that links to my stories. If there is anything you want to find out, send me a PM and if the trivia is not here, I'll add it. More will be added as I post more of my stories.

'Dust II: Reborn from Ashes':

- This is my first published story based on a video game and that has nothing whatsoever to do with the How to Train Your Dragon series

- The idea of creating a young version of Dust stemmed from me wanting to do a slightly different take on the popular idea of Dust returning somehow following the events of Dust: An Elysian Tail. Many stories have him return with a similar appearance to his one in the game, so I decided instead to have Dust completely and literally reborn for this story to make his return different. Also, I was doing some character design sketches and began imagining what Dust would look like as a kid then things kind of spiralled from there

- There were two endings to this story. I shall reveal more once Reborn from Ashes is complete

- I actually created an information booklet for a game version of the story. It includes button actions; area information; enemies and boss information and strategies; character abilities; and story notes

- Aside from How to Twist a Dragon's Tail, this story has the largest cast of OCs in my fanfictions as of right now. Some are background characters, but many form a part of the new main cast of the story alongside Dust, Fidget and Ahrah

- A character from Dean Dodrill's original film concept of An Elysian Tail (yes, Dean was planning an animated film before he began work on the video game) makes an appearance. Taka appears as a grownup, the story of Reborn from Ashes taking place a good many years after the events of both the game and (potentially) the movie. Because there is very little concrete information about the film and the characters, I wanted to create my own interpretation of Taka and tie in the movie and the game (seeing as, as far as I can tell, they have been confirmed to take place in the same universe)

- I have drawn pictures based on the story, many in a similar style to the Steam Trading cards released with the original game. These can be found over on my deviantART profile

One Step at a Time':

- This story started off, interestingly enough, as a Hairspray!AU for the Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons fandom, although at the time it was a HTTYD and ROTG focused story. I'm fairly sure I've got the lyrics for it somewhere...

- After changing from a crossover of HTTYD and ROTG to a RotBTD focused AU, I began drawing the four main characters based on headcanons I had of what kind of dance I thought each one would be into. These drawings can be found on my deviantART account and feature Merida with break dance, Jack as a tap dancer, Hiccup doing ballet and Rapunzel practising ribbon dancing. Explanations for each choice can be found with the individual drawings.

- I started writing One Step at a Time in 2013, shortly after drawing the characters. However, due to academic commitments at the time, I lost focus and temporarily abandoned the story. If it hadn't been for someone asking if there was a story behind my Dance!AU drawings (given the backstory I'd given), then it is likely that OSaaT may never have been finished at all.

- I put together a TV Tropes and Idioms page for the story (not an actual webpage, I'm afraid). I can't post it here on fanfiction due to site guidelines but I may post it elsewhere at some point.

- Multiple characters from other Disney and Dreamworks franchises make cameos or are mentioned at various points during the story, most notably during scenes set at Moonstone Arts Academy. These include: Elsa and Anna (Frozen), Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Mei-Mei (Kung Fu Panda 3), Miguel and Tulio (Road to El Dorado) and the Pines Twins (Gravity Falls). See if you can spot the other cameos and mentions.

- The names of the Season Spirits have influences from mainly Scandinavian languages, although Fleur Rampion is more tied to French ('fleur' meaning flower and 'rampion' being the name of the plant from the original tale of Rapunzel). Hosten comes from the Norwegian 'høst' for 'autumn' (Redleaf was the best autumnal surname I could come up with); while Sol Himmel combines the Norwegian 'sol' for sun and the German 'himmel' for sky.

- There are tie-ins with the original Guardians of Childhood series within OSaaT

- When deciding which element and season to allocate to each of the Big Four, I went through the usual ideas among the fandom but while I could understand some of the reasonings for them, I decided to go with my own:

'How a Hofferson Trains her Dragon' Series

- The first instalment of the series began with the main addition to the story being Astrid's engagement to Hiccup. There was originally no other reason apart from to have a respectable reason for her living under the Haddock's roof without being adopted into the family as Hiccup's sister. When I watched the Defenders of Berk episode, Fright of Passage, I cannot say how happy I was with that episode as it gave me a decent reason for the engagement - the shame brought upon the Hofferson clan because of what happened to Fearless Finn.

- I realise that I've listed the characters at around age 14 in the first instalment. The main reason is because this was before we knew the canon ages of Hiccup and the gang (this was only specified when the second film came out). I am aware that the teens are aged around 15 in the first film (although Fishlegs and the twins are canonically younger than Astrid, Hiccup and Snotlout and may be closer to 14) but the first instalment of the role-reversal series was written before I knew for certain.

- If you read into the text closely within the series, you will notice some lines that have repeated themselves a few times. Try spotting them. Also, these do not include the usual 'This is Berk' from the opening narrations. That's a given for HTTYD in general when it comes to the movie franchise.

- How a Hofferson Trains Her Dragon 2 was a work in process almost as soon as the trailers for HTTYD 2 were released. I began writing down the trailers in the hopes I would be able to use the segments for when I wrote the actual story. Needless to say, this didn't quite happen and I had to go through a fair amount of edits due to cut lines, different scenarios to what I imagined, etc.

- There are two versions of HAHTHD 2 after Stoick recounts his first meeting with Drago which I considered. One is the version I published. The other followed the role-reversal structure a little more closely. In this version, Hiccup was still 'kidnapped' by Astrid, just as he is at the end of Chapter 7, but instead of being caught by a dragon when they are taken to the Ice Cave, he instead lands on the frozen ice and can only watch as Toothless and Astrid are taken away. he is later picked up by Gobber and Stoick and he explains that Astrid and Toothless have been kidnapped (don't ask me how he would have survived who-knows-how-long on the ice – I'm using 'plot' as an excuse). Later on, Hiccup is the one who initially walks out and sees Valka before Stoick joins him. The reunion is far more bittersweet as Valka is as overjoyed to see her son again as she was in the movie but Hiccup is too stunned to find out that his mother is alive to feel happy - he feels almost resentful that she stayed away for such a long time because of their close relationship when he was small. I went for the other idea as it gave Hiccup more "screen" time, I was able to write about his rekindled mother-son relationship with Valka as well as the mother-daughter interactions between Valka and Astrid, and some of the situations from the film wouldn't have worked as well in the role-reversal if it had just been Astrid, in my opinion.

- Originally, Astrid's dilemma throughout the second instalment was going to be regarding her engagement to Hiccup and whether it was what she really wanted. I ended up scrapping this once I started writing the main story as I'd already established that the pair were more than fine with the arrangement and it didn't really fit in with the plot anyway.

- Portrait of Hiccup as a Buff Young Man for the role-reversal TV series was when I had the idea of Astrid having the secret middle name, 'Hiccup', given that she is technically in Hiccup's position for a lot of the series. I had established that she was as small, if not smaller than, Hiccup as a baby so I wouldn't be surprised if, in this AU, the name 'Hiccup' would have been considered.

'Ablaze':

- This project started with me making a habit of changing song lyrics to fit in with characters from other franchises. Needless to say, after I don't know how many hours listening to the soundtrack, the lyrics you read in the story came to be.

- As I mentioned in Author's Notes in the first chapter, I couldn't find a way to re-write two of the songs to fit with what I had in mind for the story: these were Frozen Heart and In Summer. These were replaced with the unused songs from Frozen, More than Just the Spare and We Know Better and were both featured in the prologue of Ablaze.

- After reading a review in which someone said they thought Valka would have been a good 'Kristoff' character, I half considered writing a new version of the story. In this one, Astrid would have been the one with powers and Hiccup would take the place of 'Anna', although he would still be crowned chief - he would have met Valka on his travels and the following lines of dialogue would have been included:

Hiccup: Hold on a second! You're my mother?

Valka: (ignoring him) We leave at dawn.

Hiccup: You don't just say something like that then change the subject!

Valka: (still ignoring him) And you forgot the salmon for Cloudjumper... (Hiccup throws it roughly at her face)

I decided against writing the new version as nothing else would have really changed and I would literally have carbon copies of the same story on my profile.

- There are designs for Hiccup and Astrid's outfits throughout the story on my deviantART account, as well as a comic strip for Do You Want to Fly the Dragons? which, while the lyrics are same, has a slightly different premise to Ablaze.

'The Adventures of Valkyra Horrendous Haddock II' Trilogy:

- 'How to Speak Dragonese' was the first fanfiction I ever published on this site, featuring my Original Character, Valkyra 'Kyra' Rhinestone/Horrendous Haddock II.

- Both 'How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse' and 'How to Twist a Dragon's Tail', the second and third stories in the trilogy, both went through at least one re-write before I began posting it.

- The first version of HTCADC followed the same plot as the version published on this site, but in terms of writing style, plot development and all the rest of it, I considered it incredibly poor. However, I still liked the premise and decided to give it another go - I never looked back.

- Originally, HTTADT was supposed to be more focused on Kyra and her betrothal into the Meathead Tribe. The story initially began as Kyra entering a reluctant engagement with Chief Mugdug's other son (called Stuffnut) before she meets the true heir of the Meatheads, Artair (outcast from the tribe because...clichéd plot was clichéd) and stuff is fixed with the help of the rest of the gang. The children (Flint, Ember, etc.) weren't even a part of the story - Astrid was heavily pregnant but nothing more. Looking back on this story, I really didn't like it so scrapped both it and the whole concept seeing as I had worked Kyra's engagement into HTCADC.

- The second version of HTTADT was closer to the one that I ended up publishing. In this one, I introduced the new generation of Dragon Riders: Ember, Flint, Spitface, Sticks Stone, Scalene, and Iona. The initial plot was very similar to the final version in that Ember was separated from her family as a baby and taken into the Haddock family. This time, however, Kyra had been kidnapped and used as a gladiator type fighter either on the Mainland or by the Romans. There would have been a scene where Ember would have been forced into the ring but Kyra would have refused to fight her.

- In the same version of HTTADT, the Outcasts were still on the opposing side to the Dragon Riders, working alongside the Berserkers, and Alvin had made himself 'Supreme Chief of the Outcasts' with a newcomer called Eldric as plain 'Chief'. This initially carried over into the final version but I scrapped Eldric because I already had a pretty big cast of new characters and I felt I wouldn't be able to develop him enough for him to be interesting. I also scrapped the Outcasts and Berserkers working together to fit in a little bit more with the canon of the main HTTYD series.

- Flint and Ember were originally both Hiccup and Astrid's children and were indeed twins. They would have featured in a fourth instalment of the series but I decided to round off this set of stories as a trilogy.

- Flint originally had a Deadly Nadder as his dragon, similar to Astrid. I changed this to having Flint's dragon as Starlight, Toothless and Windwalker's first-born from A Family's Gift. The Deadly Nadder, who was called Sunset, became Iona's dragon.

- There is a one-shot which I wrote on deviantART featuring Kyra and the Dragon God of Spirit, Ivor, which links in with a Rise of the Guardians fan-comic called 'SHIFT', which features a creature called a Shifter. The story followed Kyra being sent to the world ROTG is set in by Ivor and her subsequent interactions with the Shifter, who she connects with due to their similar abilities. The story takes place in the time gap in HTCADC when preparations are being made for Hiccup and Astrid's wedding and is called Two Shifters.

- Two Shifters is also the only other story in the Valkyra Horrendous Haddock II series to feature inter-dimensional travel, the other being HTSD. It is also explained that Ivor is the one responsible for sending Kyra across time and space.

- Side note, I highly recommend checking out SHIFT on deviantART, especially if you're a fan of Rise of the Guardians.