^And blackrose is going to respond to this in 3..2...1......
HERE I AM!!!!!
Haha, you guys know me so well. XD
Okay, since this is happy-in depth discussion-hour I'm gonna lay all my over thinking cards on the freaking table.
Step back peoples! X3
Alrighty….I’m gonna first off say I agree with Crownflame about Astrid’s perception on what’s going on with Hiccup right now.
Astrid’s obviously got this whole need to be in control thing going on or else she just doesn’t feel comfortable. It’s already established in the move well before she started feeling anything romantically for Hiccup that she just didn’t understand him (I mean, she stares at him ALL THE TIME in the movie, but it’s not…a “I have a secret crush on him” staring it’s a “what’s his deal, I don’t understand him” kind of staring.) And of course when she had her first flight on Toothless and they went to the dragon’s nest there’s no way anyone can say she wasn’t uncomfortable because she wasn’t in control…Hiccup was, and all she could do was cower behind him and cling. (I found that plot point for her extremely amusing, cause she kind of deserved an attitude check).
Anyways, I’m gonna skip GotNF, cause I’m not convinced it was canon…but if it’s anything to go off of, chronologically it hasn’t even happened as of where the show is anyways.
Okay so onto the show itself. Episodes one and two probably took place I’m guessing 2-3 weeks after Hiccup woke up so he’s probably spent most of that time flying around on Toothless, adjusting to his new leg, patching this up with his father, and yes…hanging out with Astrid. I have no doubts that they haven’t spoken a word of the kiss since it happened…it was a “heat of the moment thing and neither of them know what to do or say about it. “Are we a couple now?” “Can we kiss again?” “I can’t tell, so I’ll just leave it alone.”
Classic young teenage avoidance strategy.
Astrid still takes a little more intuitive, though. I mean, she did come up to Hiccup’s room all on her own in episode 1….but just pay attention to her choice of conversation starter….”how was your day?” even though she pretty much saw how crappy his day was, she didn’t really know what else to start off with. Plus she found herself, in his room…alone…of her own will. (she probably just ended up walking to Hiccup’s house and didn’t even realize it until she got there). Although they weren’t jittery awkward, they were still skirt for conversation at this point in their relationship. They made plenty of efforts to talk to each other, and succeeded, but it was obvious they were still testing their conversational skills with each other, since both of them were pretty anti-social as far as the movie portrayed them.
But what’s one thing that Astrid never fails to do is punch XD and pretty much how crownflame described it is how I pretty much feel. That’s Astrid’s way of keeping things in her upper hand, and Hiccup’s grown so used to it/sees right through it that he knows it’s a little bit more of a positive gesture then Astrid lets on. He smiles at the end of episode one when she does it as well in episode 3.
Episode 2, one significant moment I liked was Astrid asking Hiccup what he was doing at the end and he held up a hand to shut her up…and she actually shut up! Hiccup should’ve patted himself on the back cause I don’t think any of the other teens could’ve gotten her to do that. Plus it proves that Hiccup’s not as much of a pushover as some people still claim, nor is he really a fumbling mess around her anymore either (that actually started in the movie. Passed the romantic flight scene can anyone recall Hiccup tripping over his words when speaking to Astrid? Cause I can’t).
Also, it’s constantly jammed into our brains that Astrid is extremely protective of him and—besides Toothless—is the first one of her peers to notice/acknowledge if he’s in danger.
Episode three, as I mentioned before I kind of like that they’re not a couple because it gives everyone a chance to calm down and see their relationship actually get to where we all know it’s eventually going. I don’t think they’ve spoken about the kiss post-movie and probably don’t spend too much time doing anything suggestively romantic. They just hang out together and talk, and by episode three it’s obvious that between the end of the movie and that episode they’re really, really close. It was already established in the movie that under dire circumstances they both cling to each other in a more romantic way as whenever there’s something big going on the comforting shiny eyes and touchy feely gestures are all out. Still, this is all mostly initiated by Astrid so it’s rare that we see her being nervous about it, and Hiccup’s too shocked to really be nervous.
But when they were trapped in the snow and suddenly Astrid was a little vulnerable (freezing) I like how they immediately had Hiccup “man up” and take charge. The un-hesitated “come here” and the fact that when they finally lit up the screen, Astrid was leaned against him.
Her knees and body are leaning into him while Hiccup is sitting up perfectly straight, so it’s more correct that he’s “holding her” than opposed them even holding each other. But still, this was under the severe circumstances that Hiccup had this girl here that he really cared about and they were at the risk of freezing to death. And that didn’t wear off until they were certain they were getting out and they turned to look at each other only to realize “gahs our faces are two centimeters apart!”
And if you watch the entire episode in a frame by frame function like I like to, when they turn to face each other, Hiccup’s actually the one who pulls Astrid closer to him, and he makes eyes contact with her face before she even starts to look at him (before her eyes are hidden behind her hair), she gets uncomfortable, he knits his eyebrows together and they pull away. This can easily be looked over in regular motion, but it’s cool to see whose hand move first when watching frame-by-frame….and it was Astrid who made the move to leave first…not Hiccup. And now his “so we’re good now” comment makes a lot more sense…also while Astrid does the classic nervous gestures of avoiding eye contact, smiling to herself, and clearing her throat a lot, Hiccup’s movements are pretty interesting. He gives off a lot of looks in which he’s almost questioning his previous movements in the first place, like he can’t believe he took so much intuitive, and he doesn’t seem to have a problem giving her eye contact at all…yet he can see that she’s pretty nervous. After the “so we’re good now?” comment he makes this almost defeated look on his face, like he’s wondering if he went too far, but he’s given back a little confidence—ironically—when Astrid punches him…a zone he’s familiar with. So he smiles.
And—still as I mentioned before—they only seem to be awkward when 1) they take things a little too far in terms of being intimate or 2) what they’re doing is called to attention. So we got reason 1 in the snow scene, and Fishlegs bringing up them holding each other for warmth not only is awkward because it involves hugging (ohmergosh hugging DX) but also because…they actually did exactly that.
Yet, while Astrid seems to always smile to herself in these situations—probably because she likes the thought more then she would like to admit—Hiccup seems once again nervous because he probably still feels slightly guilty for making Astrid uncomfortable and just all around nervous because he finally asserted his manliness in the relationship again, and immediately blurts out in denial, and Astrid simply follows suit.
Once again, watching frame-by-frame Hiccup is the one who quickly makes the move to scoot away and Astrid follows behind him—when in the previous scene it was the other way around.
And yes, Crownflame, the way they made his shirt fold near that “specific area” was pretty…unfortunate.
Plus, I think Astrid noticed that her pull away in the snow made him pull away as well…anyone catch how she got up and followed him when he walked off to go see why Stoick was angry?
Basically, I can see that since they’ve taken so long to talk about the kiss—which is expected due to their inexperience—they’ve landed into a situation where every little pull away, gesture, look, and movement is judged as taken for a “is he/she interested or not?” by both of them. As seen in episode 3, Hiccup stepped up > Astrid got nervous > Hiccup backed off > Astrid got worried > Astrid then tried to make it better with being a big comfort/help to him for the rest of the episode
So…yeah. I’m done now.
for now You all brought this on yourselves XD