Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25097457-20140701225048/@comment-64.231.139.165-20140810235847

64.231.139.165 wrote: Ruaraidh.tamkin wrote: "Oh hey, I may not bully you but I nonetheless ignore you and consider you a liability, oh you're one upping me, you can't do that you're a wierdo/failiure/idiot, oh you tamed a dragon and took me on a non consensual ride on it, I am instantly in love with you now"

Please don't misconstrue this as me saying Astrid herself is a bad character or that this somehow makes Mericcup a better ship I'm just trying to point out in a very sardonic way that Hiccstrid in the first movie was rushed and forced.

Heck in the second movie their relationship feels natural and mutually loving and if I hadn't seen the bizaarre illogical way they'd been pushed together I might buy it but the facts remain, there was no emotional reason for her to fall in love with him in the first movie, her kissing him just because she rode on a dragon, the thing she's been trained to kill! (you'd think she'd be more conflicted) makes her seem superficial and belies her intrinsic baddassery.

I ship Mericcup in case you couldn't tell. Somehow the relationship didn't feel rushed to me, but maybe it was because this was how I thought of it:

Astrid never really bothered in paying attention to those around her because she is dead serious in achieving her goals so she could finally prove herself to everyone, something Hiccup was sort of like when he tried to shoot down Toothless. She could have had an interest in Hiccup but didn't consider romance to be a priority at the time and therefore, never paid much attention to those feelings. Those feelings were then shadowed by her jealously and competitiveness. Then she realized what those feelings were even though she initially got annoyed with him like everyone else. So I like to describe her romantic feelings for him like a mosquito bite that she doesn't even realize she has until it starts to itch. Huh, describing Hiccstrid as a mosquito bite. That surprisingly works.

I'm a Hiccstrid shipper. Before, it was because it was canon and because I have a great respect for the movies (without the canon how can this fandom exist?) and then I watched the movie and realized how much Hiccup and Astrid complete each other. You see them save each other over and over as the movie goes on. Hiccup changes Astrid's view on dragons and tradition, and that helped her realize that just because it's tradition, doesn't mean it's right. Astrid also gave him confidence and reminded him of who he is time and time again, so in a way, she was sort of like his map to himself.

The change was pretty quick, but we don't know whether she had feelings for him before or not and even so, love works in many different ways. She also didn't kiss him because they rode on a dragon. Did you notice when she kissed him? It was after he showed a side of him she probably never saw. He was showing his loyalty to his friend and his determination to protect his dragon. That basically confirmed her feelings for him. So she kissed him because she liked him, and awkwardly did so, so I guess she was just clueless about romance and did whatever felt right to her. She also didn't feel conflicted because that was the point of the entire flight. Hiccup was trying to show her how amazing dragons can be.