Sometimes your interests get away with you

Especially when you're an artist like me, who loves to take others ideas and expand upon them and make them your own. The phenomenon of online fan community, or fandom, makes that all too possible.

The fandom I'm most apart of follows and discusses and celebrates the Dreamworks movie How to Train Your Dragon. As one of my biggest inspirations, it's really great being in a community of people who feel the same. And, of course, the internet is practically the opposite of a vacuum. You can't swing a cat without finding someone with another opinion, or another fandom, entering your space. One common fan idea is drawing a connection between Dragons and Tangled. Now, mostly it's really base. Hiccup (the protag of Dragon) having a relationship with Rapunzel (the protag of Tangled). Nothing else is really explored. When I first heard about it, I found it incredibly boring, not to mention something of a cop out.

But then it didn't go away. This Hiccup and Rapunzel stuff just kept popping up and I started getting really frustrated with how terrible it was. And since it kept showing up, I found myself thinking about it. Thinking about how this could possibly work. And then I got more frustrated because I realized that so many people weren't taking an opportunity to tell a really interesting story.

So, at the risk of looking like a total nerd, I'd like to share some of the sketches and thoughts that came to me in response to my fellow fans and our shared love.

I call this little plot experiment "How to Tangle Your Dragon" and it all relies around Hiccup leaving Berk like he'd planned to mid-act 2, growing up around Corona, and adopting the persona of Flynn Rider.

Before I go on a huge rant, explaining the screwy pocket universe where Httyd and Tangled actually intertwine in the worst ways possible, I thought I should throw together some visual aid.

I know that junk always helps me.

So basically, Hiccup is Flynn Rider. He leaves Berk when Astrid finds out everything, comes across the Tales of Flynnigan Rider and builds up his world view around the premise that money = control. He starts thieving so that, one day, he can own his own island where he doesn’t have to hide Toothless and they can just be best buddies forever and humans can just do whatever the heck they want, he doesn’t care.

He’s a competent thief because once Hiccup sets his mind to something, once he figures out how to understand it or at least make it work for him, he’s sorta kinda awesome. He understands lay-outs and guard shifts and the adrenaline junkie in him loves the chases and escapes. He still doesn’t get people, so even though he’s adopted a front meant to be full of charisma, no one really likes him. He talks too much (and with an accent because I like to think he had to learn a whole new language and takes a lot of pride in eventually conquering that) and eventually gets a taste for the power in double-crossing others. He keeps Toothless hidden during jobs, but that’s still who he’s closest to. Humans? Humans just aren’t worth it.

He meets Rapunzel the same way, gets her into the same heap of trouble. He’s changed enough and is old enough (late twenties) to where I can make sense of their romance.

BUT BACK TO HIS LOOKS? Yeah, he’s a skinny Flynn Rider cosplayer, more or less. Too ginger and too nasally. I threw in Punzel so you can get an idea for the height difference. He tops out at about 5’8”, which is about two inches taller than I usually see him reaching, BUT. He’s also got both feet.

“Hiccup! Watch out!”
“Wha—no, you don’t need to—no pans! Put down the pan, you’re scaring him!”

So technically, Toothless ends up replacing Maximus as Rapunzel and “Flynn’s” companion. Mostly because when Maximus comes to crash their morning, Toothless immediately butts in to run the horse off.

And then this happens.

 Because adding a dragon into the mix can bust your fairy-tale ending, Rapunzel does not, in fact, become a princess after her eighteenth birthday. Instead, she and Toothless save Hiccup from Corona's jail and together they enter a life of crime.

Hiccup braids her hair into a handy rope and Rapunzel steals herself some new clothes.

But where does that put Gothel?

 To be honest, she and her background needed some tweaking.

Long ago, before Gothel found the flower, she sated her lust for control with witch craft. It was a dark and dirty business, all work and little play, but it kept her alive past her expiration date and garnered her fear and power.

And then fit kinda hit the shan, and she had to find an alternative.

The magic flower was a godsend, and once she had enchanted it with one of her songs, she had access to immense power without all of the icky, yucky stuff involved in evil magicks.

But then some punk King stole her flower and gave it to his punk wife because she was dying or something and then she bore a punk daughter who was basically Gothel’s flower incarnate, so of course she came and took what was rightfully hers and then that PUNK DAUGHTER went and jumped on a goshdarned dragon and now Gothel can’t freaking find her!

And this is not acceptable.

So back to the craft she goes, mind-slaving a pair hooligan brothers, to keep as her body-guards, and a Too-Stubborn palace horse to use as transportation. She spreads stories of Rapunzel and plants spies around the land in hopes of tracking her down.

A Viking hears these stories and, in a last-ditch effort to save her people, starts looking for the girl with the magic hair and the man who’s trained a dragon.

“With her power, it won’t matter how much they steal from us. It won’t matter how many buildings they burn down. We won’t die. And we will outlast them and we will find them and—”
“No! Look, this is—this is sick. You can’t use her like this, you can—”
“We’ve run out of options.”

Once I'd figured out how to shoehorn Astrid into this idea, it really just spun out of control.

Of course, the negotiations for Rapunzel would break down, so Hiccup and Astrid wind up going toe to toe. Frying pan vs. axe. Since ‘Punzel’s frying pan is magically lethal, Hiccup actually manages to land a hit.

Then Astrid tackles him and busts his lip up in kind.

 “And Hiccup says, ‘Let’s just assume everybody here doesn’t like me!”

Rapunzel does in fact go to Berk with Astrid, they just happen to do so on the back of Hiccup’s dragon. And everyone’s kept safely on the Night Fury by Punzel’s hair. And Hiccup’s cranky because he doesn’t want to go back to Berk, dangit, but he can’t very well leave Rapunzel alone with Vikings. They’re smelly and violent and will try to get her drunk. So, by Odin’s Beard, he’s going back to Berk. And the whole flight back, Rapunzel is bonding with Astrid, who barely understands her (what with the language barrier), not that it matters because she can tell when Rapunzel is imitating Hiccup and that’s entertaining enough.

And Hiccup gets roped into playing translator when required, anyways. Especially when Astrid wants to tell her own stories.

Which sucks because both of them know him well enough to tell when he’s lying or lying by omission, so he has to be mostly truthful during a conversation that, by and large, consists primarily of terribly embarrassing stories about him.

(Sidebar: I realized at some point that I had no idea what to do with Pascal--Rapunzel's little friend--and after much discussion, photoshop was implemented and this happened;

whoops)

BUT ANYWAYS

The first two weeks Rapunzel is in Berk, it rains. Just this constant wet and it makes it a little miserable to give her the tour, but rain tends to put Viking at ease. Not a happy ease—most Vikings do kinda like to fight—but in probably the best mood to get her introduced and settled. Of course she makes fast friends with literally every person she meets.

But the rain stops and everyone hunkers down for a raid. And it comes hard and fast because the dragons have been kept down by the weather and they’re just not in on taking prisoners. Of course, this makes any of Hiccup’s attempts to tame them absolutely disastrous. Rapunzel spends the whole raid in the great hall, waiting it out alone.

When it’s over, she’s gotta do what she was brought here to do. Sing and heal and bring back any Vikings hurt and/or killed.

It’s terrifying and disgusting and nerve wracking and she’s never seen so much gore or even that burns could look like that and they have to reassemble one of the women before they lay her hair on her and just

It’s through full force of will she makes it through the afternoon and then just. Spends a good long cry with Hiccup until dinner. And dinner is spent in his lap and in his arms while Astrid helps expand her Viking vocabulary.

And, at least every twenty minutes, someone wanders over and offers her something sweet to eat or a piece of Viking jewelry (which is very stunning in their opinion) or simply a hearty ‘thank you’.
The night ends on a decent note, but she’s still left with a reoccurring nightmare that stays with her for a while.

“You know, you make this look a lot easier than it actually is.”
“Years of practice. This time, keep your hands further apart. This isn’t a frying pan. You want to use the sharp sides.”

Rapunzel befriends more or less every living Viking on Berk—because she’s Rapunzel, c’mon—but she spends the most of her time with Astrid and Hiccup. She catches on to Norse faster than Astrid catches on to...whatever people in Corona speak, so eventually the language barrier falls away.

At some point, Astrid finally takes notice to how Punzel keeps oggling her axe and just drags her to the forest to train her some. And Rapunzel is SO EXCITED because Astrid’s kinda awesome IS IT TRUE ASTRID CAN SHE REALLY BE AS COOL AS YOU THAT’S TOTALLY A THING?

And she realizes that wow, uhm. This is kinda a heavy chunk of metal, huh? And Rapunzel’s suddenly not all that graceful, but it’s okay. Astrid’s there to step in and give her tips and Rapunzel applies them all to the best of her ability.

And that night her arms are SO sore but she can’t stop grinning and telling Hiccup ALL about it and Astrid is just looking so proud of her. Even when she reminds her to eat her food. And while Rapunzel sheepishly starts into her fish, Astrid mentions to Hiccup that Punzel is the most determined student she’s had in probably ever and Rapunzel makes a little noise around the mouthful of trout and we’re back to not being able to stop grinning.

Also; Rapunzel uses her hair as an impromptu scarf because, in case you missed/forgot Hiccup's opening monologue, Berk is cold.

This other hairstyle becomes a favorite on Berk pretty quickly, too. It makes it look like Rapunzel has a tail, and everyone agrees that’s pretty gods darned cute.

The nickname ‘Gold Tail’ gets thrown around after the first day she wears it like such, and it’s still early enough for Rapunzel to think for a while it’s the Viking version of her name. It sticks and sometimes even Hiccup calls her ‘Ms. Gold Tail’

“You could say Flynn Rider’s more my…stage name.”
“And what’s a stage name?”
“Uh…”

Being home definitely changes Hiccup some.

Hiccup picked up the name Flynn Rider at fifteen, as a throw-away fake name to get into a pub. For a while it took a place as one of many fake names he would adopt in new locations to create some credibility, but he tended to favor it, and then he just started flat-out sticking to it. The persona of Flynn grew over time, adapting and evolving as he learned more and more about the underbelly of the criminal world. A large chunk of it was, of course, modeled strictly from its fictional namesake, but he added a few touches of his own. Gathered and fluffed up stories about himself. Planted rumors when under old names. He never really fancied himself Flynn—not really—it was just a costume he learned—learned—to find comfortable. He was Flynn a lot and he liked Flynn a lot, but he was always, somewhere deep down, Hiccup. Hiccup, playing Flynn.

It helped that Toothless hated Flynn and glared when Hiccup tried using the Rider Swagger on him. So he had a habit of reverting around his buddy. Hiccup never really lost himself. It was just a lot, a lot of hiding.

For years after their trials with Gothel and the Dragons and even themselves, Rapunzel would say Berk made a honest man out of Hiccup. It was only half true. She did a lot of helping, pushing Hiccup back to the surface. It just so happened, the home he’d fled from was also the place he was meant to be himself.

Aaaand this last bit is just for giggles