#hey val

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 81

Danny blinked at the small children Ellie was holding the hand of, looking quite proud of herself. The small children- between ten and twelve so somewhere similar to Ellie’s age- who both practically stank of magic and Gods. 

He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose even as Dan cackled while opening the door more to let them inside. “Alright, what’s your name, kids?”

“B-billy…um, Billy Batson...” “‘m Percy! Percy Jackson.” 

“Nice to meet you two- any idea where in your family you have a god or two, because one of you definitely smells like Zeus and I’m pretty sure Poseidon and I am not dealing with either of my half-brothers.” 

[nero-neptune]

brink! (1998) dir. greg beeman

“Yeah, I wanna win, but no matter what, win or lose, at the end of the day, I’m not you. So it’s still a good day.”

[miamahli]

Vox and Velvette don't earn enough for this 🤣

[stanheightsgordon]

"hello mark hoffman from saw"

"hello jerma from youtube"

[five nights at freddy's metal sound effect]

[l8tof1]

[3584-tropical-fish]

Day 5 of @podcastgirlsweek !!

God forbid women do anything. Celebrate a female villain. Defend your #problematic fave.

Two versions because a) didn’t know what vibes I wanted and b) I’m not necessarily sold on this design but I think it’s a working first draft. Anyways yeah she’s killed like thousands of people but consider that her <3

[val-of-the-north]

Potential Ensha info from the DLC

Me and @katyspersonal were hoping for more potential lore on Ensha, surprisingly enough... and we might have actually got our wish somehow. Let's take a look at the description of Ensha's bones for a second, as well as their properties...

While they don't look it at first glance, the description specifies the bones are "golden", and they can replenish HP when it's reduced. Gold and healing go hand-in-hand in Elden Ring's setting, so this propriety makes sense by considering the golden nature of the remains.

This description alone doesn't tell us much however. It describes the remains as belonging to an ancient lord named Ensha who is currently known as a soulless king. However, Shadow of the Erdtree might give us more hints about who he was prior to becoming an elaborate set of armor.

In the Lands of Shadow we can come across a very rare crafting material, mostly found around Scadu Altus and in the Shadow Keep and Fort of Reprimand. It is also held by the various Black Knights found around the world. This material is the Blessed Bone Shard.

These blessed bones shine gold with the blessing of the Scadutree, and can be used to craft many interesting items, including Festive Grease, Golden Vows (the tool, not the incantation), and Sunwarmth Stones. Two out of three of these items are directly aligned with the Golden Order (though the Festive Grease is likely part of the Shaman tradition which Marika made sure to somehow preserve), and one of them is directly tied to HP regeneration, the same passive power as Ensha's bones.

Since the other ingredients needed to craft it are a Spiritgrave Stone and a Black Pyrefly, neither connected to healing, I assume that part of the power comes from the blessed bones.

If this is the case, could it mean that the ancient lord Ensha participated in the Crusade as a warrior on the side of the Erdtree prior to his death? And that his bones were blessed because of his great service, as it was "the greatest honor that can be granted to the dead" after all. Him being some sort of lord or king might have also allowed his remains to be brought back to the Lands Between for a proper burial, or maybe even to craft this armor as a means to immortalize him. If so, his death must have been prior to the Lands of Shadow being hidden away by Marika.

Now, one could still question why Ensha's bones aren't as shiny as these shards are, but perhaps his blessing has faded with time. After all, the potency of the blessed bones we pick up is much greater than that of his armor, offering continuous healing to everyone nearby as opposed to just when our health gets low.

I think Ensha himself might have rested peacefully for years until after the Night of the Black Knives or the Shattering, which led to the rise of Those Who Live in Death through Deathroot. There is a possibility he himself is part of them, especially with the way he is described.

He is soulless, which has a deep connection to both Godwyn and other perished Demigods of the Night of the Black Knives. There seems to be a connection between death, undeath and the lack of a soul, strengthening the connection between Ensha and the undead.

He is further described as the king of the "lost and desperate", which seems to harken back to how Fia describes Those Who Live in Death as "the meek, and the many".

The connection seems slightly more obvious, as in Japanese she refers to them as "the weak" (弱き者) and she describes herself as their "guardian/protector" (庇護者). Meanwhile, Ensha is the King of those who "cling to/depend on" him (縋り付く) which seems to hold similar connotations of a weaker group of people needing a stronger figure for protection. In that case, Ensha might have been a surrogate king of sorts, but clearly not good enough to truly become their lord, a title fully reserved for the godly flesh of Godwyn. Or maybe, just like Fia, he was simply a self-appointed protector for them and had no higher aims.

The way in which he operates is still quite a mystery though. The man who wears the armor is also named Ensha, just like this ancient lord, so unless he is simply cosplaying him, there might be something deeper going on...

The DLC also introduced an interesting NPC enemy: Rakshasa. Named after a demon, the description of her armor makes a peculiar comment about following a certain path to "become" Rakshasa itself, hinting that the woman we just beat was just one embodiment of it.

Now, Ensha would be a bit different, but what if he also worked in a similar manner? As in, those who wear his remains become him by extension. But in that case, why would this king follow Gideon Ofnir? Is it because of his desire to reach the Haligtree? Perhaps he wants to confront Miquella since in his kindness he seems to have forsaken Those Who Live in Death, and if the Golden Epitaph is to be believed, agrees and maybe even endorses their destruction.

The vow of peace of the Roundtable Hold might be why someone like D doesn't strike him down on the spot. Or maybe hiding as a simple suit of armor proves to be quite effective in avoiding detection from the hunters of his kind.

[mogoce-nocoj]

Incredibly smooth mic exchange

[silenthill2ps2]

[theotherhappyplace]

My favorite part of the book "stranger in a strange land" was when the main guy, Valentine Michael Smith, basically FOLDS A GUY put of existence. Just sorta origamis a man into NOTHING. And when someone says "what the hell did you do to that guy?" He just gets uncomfortable.

"Hey what the hell is he dead??"

Valentine *crying* "I don't want to explain"

No one ever brings it up again LOL

Valentine my dude put him back the man probably had a family 😭

Valentine really said "fuck you buddy! Get skinamarinked!"

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

There are 2 wolves inside you: one is the biggest poly vees shipper to ever exist who loves the dynamic between all 3 of them and doesn't want them separated, the other physically cannot ignore the fact that, based off of ONLY what we've seen in canon and ignoring theories that MIGHT NOT BE TRUE, Val is a LOT worse to Vox and Velvette then either of them are to him, and finds that deeply troubling.

Anyways VOTE POLY VEES IN THE BEST POLY SHIP BRACKET WE GOT THIS Y'ALL!!!!!!!!!

[snonkerdoodlefizzy221b]

thinking about that one black and white picture of val kilmer at juilliard where he was like in a wide straddle position and had his arms out and had long hair for a boy and looked like a ballet dancer and I really honestly thought he was about to bend over one of his legs in order to stretch that side and then do the same to the other side and he was wearing sweats and a T-shirt I think and he looked so soft and pretty and honestly if he went to my high school I would be very sad to see him go and it feels like they don't make ppl like that anymore and--

[themostdearofspaghettis]

Yelling.

Anyway rip Vaughan you would’ve loved the wound tree

[armadillobussupremacy]

What if Pop Trolls have a freakishly high alcohol tolerance, because of how often they have parties? I'm just saying, with how large-scale the parties tend to be, there's no way they wouldn't have the troll equivalent of alcohol. Probably coated in glitter/sweetness to an unholy degree, but still.

[tomscryingcorner]

LATE MCTOM FRIDAY BECAUSE I FORGOT YESTERDAY *WAS* FRIDAY

[sammydem0n64]

Hey guys. Time to partake in fandom discussion. I’ve seen a lot of discussion (and honestly, mainly bashing) around Vallamir and how The Hex fans interpret him and I have some thoughts about it.

I am more than willing to accept that Vallamir was written to be misogynistic (dare I say even a bit creepy) if we can also accept this aspect of him was poorly written in canon.

Let’s look under the cut to see what I mean.

The narrative I see is that Vallamir is constantly being a misogynistic prick, and even preying on Chandrelle, on purpose. That he’s deliberately being Gross instead of just gross. That he is meant to represent how women are objectified in fandom spaces with him being the person who only sees female characters as sexy lamps to lust after.

Various lines of dialogue are cited as being his creepy factor on display; let’s take a look at all of the examples I’ve seen used against him and a fourth bonus one to try and fully understand the picture

-“XOXO, Vallamir”: The throwaway blurb on the Tome of Vallamir. People interpret this as flirting to Chandrelle’s dismay, but I’ve seen plenty of people use this in non-romantic contexts, much less forced ones. It’s a common signature. I’m sure Vallamir just thought the funniest juxtaposition was writing an entire evil spell book and then signing it off with “hugs snd kisses”

-“You can’t say you didn’t enjoy my company”, this one has the most weight as a creepy line. Creeps use this rhetoric all the time, always on about “hey! Nuh uh! You actually DID like me!”. Vallamir could be using this in that deliberate context. He could also be saying that it’s a slap to the face to have their business relationship go to Hell. He could be saying it to try and get the last laugh in a shitty situation. Him being a dick rather than a prick. Perhaps even his vain attitude shining as he’s once again trapped without escape, this time doomed to be alone since it’s a tube and not someone else’s head. He shouldn’t have said that regardless, but the line is more grey than black and white

-“Looks like we’re going to be roommates”: Mid-tier joke. It’s a mid joke. Any nonchalant character who is about to be trapped with someone else in any context of entrapment is going to make a corny “oo we’re roommates!” line.

-The bonus is his excitement over Chandrelle using the tome. I can give grace and say that “heh, you actually used it” can be read in some “fuckboy” “heh, you actually called me back 😏” allegory. However, it can also just be seen as poorly worded excitement over Chandrelle making their alliance official.

Vallamir- in these discussions- is deliberately being a sexist pig. And yet all of these lines- merely three and an item description out of all of his dialogue- aren’t completely black and white. What seems to happen is that Vallamir talks out of his ass. He’s a prick who doesn’t think about the double meaning to his words, and ends up saying things that can be taken the wrong way, and he’s not one to care enough about being socially acceptable.

Chandrelle dislikes him from the start NOT because of any objectification he’s doing, but because he constantly cuts EVERYONE off, farts all over the place, and is overall a gross jerk. He’s not a Gross jerk. And if the intention WAS to make him a Gross jerk, more should’ve been done to make this clear.

You can imagine him saying all of these lines to a male protagonist. If Lazarus was in Chandrelle’s position, nothing except Val’s signature greeting would be changed (“hey girl” to “hey boy”). He’d still say they’re going to be roommates. He’d still say “Oh so you actually used it!”. He’d still make a comment about Laz missing his company. He’d still even put the XOXO! If his hollow lines can apply entirely to a male character (and, dare I say, be taken as “Oh he’s flirting with Laz! 😳😏” to straight up “toxic Yaoi” between the two and lead to shipping. People already do this to them in these circles where I see discussions about this happen.) then there’s nothing uniquely sexist about it, it just has more unfortunately wording when paired up with a female character. Vallamir needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, but he’s not deliberately being Gross.

I’m not saying he needs to look into the camera and say “I don’t see women as equals, and also I want Chandrelle carnally”, but there are ways to make this subtext more pronounced, add more dialogue that is deliberately, unabashedly sexist. Have Chandrelle express specific annoyance towards the XOXO comment. Have him make a pass at Chandrelle during their one-on-one talking sessions instead of leaving it at “Hey girl”. Have him make a comment about “finally having some alone time” either during the first one-on-one talk or when he’s about to be put in her head. You can still imply this factor of him without saying the quiet part out loud and without having, honestly, nothingburger lines to showcase it

Just to make a further comment about the subtext; the notion that Vallamir was flirting with Chandrelle (and that they were even romantically involved if you interpret it that far) was completely overlooked and ignored for years in favor of headcanoning Val as gay and hooking up with Irving behind the scenes, based entirely on the “Say hi to Vallamir for me” line. Which, in context, has no queer undertones. It’s Irving playing mind games with Chandrelle and further threatening her since he couldn’t beat sense into her. This also ignores the blatant fact that Irving also harshly punishes Val for the SOL incident by putting him in Chandrelle’s head, a fate that isn’t good for either party. But hey. Who am I to judge Yaoi.

TL;DR: Fandom extremism towards this topic (insisting that Vallamir is a creep and that if you don’t read the text this way, you’re illiterate and foul) needs to have extremism in the text to match, and nothing in the Hex is up to snuff with this Intentional Creep!Vallamir image. If the fandom is still debating this, then clearly it isn’t black and white, and I think that how poorly this possible subtext was implemented into the story needs to be acknowledged by the side who bashes others for their writing and reading. Basically everyone-both sides! Though mainly the bashers- ends up rewriting this possible creep factor anyways, so I honestly don’t understand why it’s such a point of contention.

TL;DR 2: All Vallamir did was fart, say one- maybe even two- things that are harder to see as not creepy in some fashion whether he as a character intended it or not, have a consistent theme of being trapped, and was chill asf (a jerk) snd y’all hated him. He did all that shit but he wasn’t being a misogynist on purpose. DONT free my man!