Idk If You've Spoken About It Before, But What Is Mevolent And Valkyrie's Relationship In Your SoW Au

Idk if you've spoken about it before, but what is Mevolent and Valkyrie's relationship in your SoW au like?

Nobody has ever sent asks about my SoW au before so that’s completely uncharted territory for you to explore

After Valkyrie is captured and is spending her days hanging around in the castle, she and Mevolent act a lot like friends (bickering, sharing ideas, chatting, etc), with Mevolent occasionally giving her assignments. Mev also often teases her about her wanting to leave (I imagine he vaguely objectifies all three of his generals, so that’s more of a him thing) and will, in the same cheery voice, threaten to send her to the dungeon again if she’s misbehaving.

Valkyrie definitely doesn’t like Mevolent but she has literally no choice but to interact with him and choosing to interact with him in a way that simulates a normal friendship for her is a way that she copes with her situation (I imagine she does something similar with Vengeous as well).

Mevolent doesn’t necessarily care for Valkyrie, but he does like her because she’s smart, witty, and very expressive. Vile hates talking and is kind of an edgelord and Vengeous is ultra-serious round the clock, but Valkyrie makes for an actually interesting conversation and he finds her attempts to escape him amusing.

When she does misbehave in a way that will get her punished, Mevolent usually acts a lot scarier for a moment before ordering that she be taken to the dungeons. The two of them also never mention the torturing, ever. Vile definitely has a preference for Valkyrie but he refuses to help her when this happens, so Valkyrie becomes pretty well-behaved pretty quickly because she doesn’t want her support network taken away from her.

HOLY SHIT two of my favourite blogs? On one post? You’re both so right and you should say it

I don't understand how USAmericans don't appreciate possums more, what do you MEAN "vermin" what do you MEAN you run them over on purpose. What the fuck is wrong with you

Oh hey I did well

I got the Top 4.47% on this English Vocabulary test

I've been meaning to ask this, idk who else to talk about it with lol

What do you think of Valkyrie and the Corrival Kids in phase 2? I liked them when they were around (Omen and Val mostly because they're funny to me) but I know a lot of people didn't like them.

I enjoyed Valkyrie’s arc in phase 2, and while I understand that some people didn’t like it because she seemed different, I honestly just think that’s because she got some more maturity as an adult? Like, she had the time to reflect on her years with Skulduggery while she was in Colorado and she also got older, so of course she’s going to be kind of different from when she was a teenager.

Side note, when I was reading book 2 of this series I was thinking to myself “oh, this girl is gonna get a drug addiction on her twenties” and guess what happened

For the Corrival kids, I also liked them. I do wish that some of them had gotten more of a character arc but for a bunch of side characters, I did enjoy when they were around, especially when they were working as a team. Jenan really struck me as a depiction of a kid who was groomed, traumatized, and is now trying to figure out what to do with himself. I also think that Never was a good depiction of a fab queer (as opposed to a queer that tries to blend in). I didn’t really find them super funny though, but I honestly really liked Crepuscular and Omen’s dynamic. I should think more about Crepuscular and Omen because I reckon there’s a lot to unpack with them.

Overall, I liked it, I’m not a phase 2 hater. I really hope Omen comes back to do something in phase 3.

For everyone who’s giving their thoughts in the comments/reblogs, just know that everytime I see one of you add your thoughts on I’m going “HEHEHEH YESS. You understand me. You’re so clever for saying that” I love y’all and you have great opinions 👏

I would adore a post about how Skulduggery treated Valkyrie in phase 1, your stuff is so fun to read

HEHEHEHEH IVE BEEN ENABLED

There is so much stuff to unpack in phase 1 it’s kind of ridiculous, but I’m going to talk about literally whatever comes to mind because this would be SO fun to talk about.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of their super early dynamic is that Skulduggery really neglects Valkyrie’s physical needs as a living human. In book 2, Valkyrie mentions how she hardly ever gets the opportunity to eat or sleep because she spends so much time doing things, but brushes it off as just another sacrifice it takes to be with him. This was one of the first things I noticed while also reading this book. Skulduggery doesn’t need to eat or sleep, and Valkyrie doesn’t want him to leave her behind and so just…doesn’t tell him that she actually needs something, and he’s too caught up doing his own thing and viewing her as a fully responsible adult to note that she’s not getting the basic necessities for a teenager. He does eventually get better in this way of course, doing things like adjusting parts of his house so Valkyrie can eat and sleep without the back and forth of going home.

There is also, of course, the repeated endangerment. Phase 1 Valkyrie never holds it against him of course (even phase 2 Val barely mentions it), but he definitely has no problem bringing her into situations where she’s likely to be killed, including situations that are kind of unnecessary (like him telling her to drive a truck when she’s thirteen on account of the fact that it would be funny). I think a big moment of reflection for him was in The Faceless Ones where Valkyrie’s tooth gets broken and it’s a really traumatic experience for her, but she holds a brave face for Skulduggery and only breaks down crying when Kenspeckle expresses worry over her. The book kind of brushed over his reaction to it, but I really think he realized in that moment that he was actually hurting Valkyrie with the standards he was enforcing on her. This point is honestly pretty straightforward, but it’s also pretty relevant to their phase 1 dynamic and so I wanted to mention it. Pretty much all the trauma Valkyrie has can be arguably traced back to Skulduggery.

Because while Skulduggery definitely loves her and has his protective moments over her, he really does have an insistence on treating her as an adult, even at the points when she was barely a teenager. It gives Valkyrie a life where she has no safety bars on anything she does and is free to make her own mistakes and possibly get herself killed. And while he is willing to step in and help if she requests it, Valkyrie is also ridiculously independent (a trait that Skulduggery also encouraged) and clearly tried to avoid going to him with personal problems as best she could. While there are definitely issues to this approach to raising Valkyrie, I think Skulduggery was hoping to avoid becoming overly controlling of her and instead overcompensated by giving her full control of her own life, for better or for worse. Alternatively, it could be that Valkyrie’s extended freedom originally came from a branch of Skulduggery’s neglect of her, and later on in phase 1 just became a thing of habit.

Now, Valkyrie is a pretty independent person in phase 1. BUT. Since she has so much control over her own life, she refuses to socialize with other kids her age, which does lead to an emotional dependency on Skulduggery that is really apparent in the earlier half of phase 1. He’s effectively the god of her world, and even if she isn’t forced to do what he wants, she will do it with no hesitation or regard for her own well-being. Even when she’s an older teenager (16-18 range), it’s still pretty apparent that Skulduggery and whatever he wants or says is the first priority in her life, with everything else coming second. I also think this is a big reason as to why she dated Fletcher for a bit, because he was literally the only person she was hanging out with at the time who wasn’t literally hundred of years older than her.

Another thing I wanna point out that I always found really amusing is how physically comfortable they are with each other. Like, they’re detective partners who get into fights together, of course they’re gonna be pretty comfortable with each other, but it’s just so fucking funny. There is an entire scene in Death Bringer where Valkyrie is going about her morning routine (taking a shower, getting dressed, etc) and the whole time Skulduggery is following her around and chatting with her, and neither of them are weird about it or mention it at all. This is literally just normal for them (and also they’re conversation is kind of unhinged, I need to reread DB because there was SO much weird stuff in there). Valkyrie literally sleeps at his house on the regular, sometimes even more so than her own house. When Valkyrie finds out that the man is casually standing in her backyard, her reaction is to let him into her room through the window, which is so weird that even SOLOMON FUCKING WREATH commented on it. And while I do love having characters not being weird about other characters having bodies, having that dynamic between a teenager and an adult that her parents don’t know she hangs out with is absolutely wild.

And speaking of absolutely wild, having a “I’d fight loyally by your side until the end” scene with a fifteen-year-old is crazy, but so in-character for this series. I’m not complaining about it though, because the continual use of that phrase throughout this series sucker-punched my emotions every time and that’s exactly what I’m going for.

Something I also really liked throughout the series is them learning to place more trust in each other. In book 2, Valkyrie actually has a moment where she’s worried he’s going to kill her. In book 4, she’s worried his emotional breakdown will push him to physically harm her. In the first part of book 5, she’s subconsciously worried that he’ll kill her for being Darquesse. In the last part of book 5, she puts up no resistance and instead lies in his arms when he puts a gun to her head and threatens to shoot her. In book six, Skulduggery is brave enough to actually have a discussion with her about being Lord Vile. There are so many more examples of this, but I really adored their slowly growing relationship and how it was depicted throughout phase 1.

Don’t get me wrong though, the whole fiasco with Lord Vile in Death Bringer was really toxic. Specifically the fact that Skulduggery sort of emotionally blackmailed Valkyrie into forgiving him for being Lord Vile? I know that he didn’t mean for her to find out, but taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable teenager who’s going through an especially rough part of her life right now is not a great thing to do.

I do understand why he did it though, because Skulduggery is really not normal whenever Valkyrie leaves, and he might have gone through another bout of mental instability if she actually left him because of Lord Vile. I think this part of him is best seen in the second half of LSoDM and the first half of DotL. He’s angry, lashes out, emotionally cold, and he threatens tries to shoot an eighteen-year-old for the crime of being Valkyrie’s reflection. He’s also so aggressive when they have to revive Valkyrie with the Sunstone, because he’s scared that he messed up and that he’s now going to lose her forever, which causes him to act really scary towards everyone around him. It’s definitely not a side of him that he likes and that’s why he’s so determined to stay with Valkyrie no matter what. Not phase 1 related, but I will always find Skulduggery’s explanation for what he was doing while Valkyrie was in Colorado hilarious because what do you mean you decided that a lapse in morals would be fine until Valkyrie gets back.

Skulduggery also seems to have a really hard time admitting with words that he loves someone (and given his history, I really do not blame him) but Valkyrie casually saying that she loves him in KotW and teasing him about it while Skulduggery will express that he loves her in literally any way other than actually saying the goddamn words (it takes him seven fucking years to actually say “I love you” yahoo) and it made for some really sweet but also heart-wrenching moments in the last three books of phase 1. Because Valkyrie doesn’t really need him to say that he loves her, because she knows it already. But still having him refuse to say it does kind of sting, and it’s fun to watch the two of them dance around their emotions like funny little acrobats.

What makes Skulduggery and Valkyrie’s dynamic in phase 1 so wild to me is the way that it kind of casually glazes over the raging abuse going on, but I actually really like that because it highlights just how much this series is written from Valkyrie’s perspective. She loves him so damn much, and you really can’t blame her for it. He gave her a life where she could express herself and do what she wanted and be with people that made her happy instead of being stuck in a school she hated, with people she hated, in a life she hated. She was traumatized and scarred by him but he gave her the opportunity to actually live, and no way in hell was she ever going to risk giving that life up and going to back to what she had before. Toxic as their phase 1 relationship was, he represented her freedom and autonomy and Valkyrie viewed any hardships she went through as a simple sacrifice necessary to keep what she had. It’s not healthy, but you kind of get it.

I love their phase 1 relationship so much, but there is so much to unpack between them and I definitely missed a lot, so everyone else feel free to add on your rambling.

I could do some analysis on Valkyrie and Mevolent’s dynamic Or what about Valkyrie and Nefarian’s friendship? I can think of stuff to talk about there

I would laugh manically about either of these things. Your SP posting is amazing, I really enjoy it even as a casual reader of the series!

Valkyrie’s dynamics with random people who’ve tried to kill her are all absolutely gold lmao

Starting out with Valkyrie and Nefarian, their friendship is the most unlikely thing ever. They met when Val was seventeen, didn’t see each other again until Val was twenty-five, and then had to spend a number of months on a team together. And during that time, they came to a sort of understanding of each other through Nefarian trying to piss her off in the most platonically flirtatious way possible and Valkyrie not taking ANY of his bullshit.

And then when Valkyrie goes missing, Skulduggery becomes a lot more unhinged and ends up cutting up Nef’s hand. And when Valkyrie makes it back, she manages to not only kill Lord Vile but also successfully regenerate Nefarian’s hand, which pulls him closer to her since she’s capable of shielding him from people like Skulduggery. And her surprising amount of patience for him that she shows in SoW and UtE probably doesn’t help either.

I really want his arc to be learning to care about other people/learning to be a semi-functional human being, because I think it would be sweet to watch. I also think Landy should give him a boyfriend for the funnies, because he already hates the idea of caring about people in a platonic sense so much that him realizing “oh shit I like this person romantically” he’d break down then and there. Also you cannot convince me that Valkyrie wouldn’t offer to wingman him.

As for Mevolent and Valkyrie, their dynamic is a bit odd but it’s so interesting to see them together. Mevolent is a weirdly polite, eight-feet-tall fascist while Valkyrie is a much more emotionally straightforward freedom fighter. But there’s a constant sense in SoW that they hate each other, yes, but also have a profound respect for each other that makes their interactions so fun. They aren’t degrading each other, they’re kind of just…talking. While trying to kill each other.

And Mevolent actually trying to comfort Valkyrie right before he was going to kill her was honestly great?? That whole interaction was gold from start to finish, but “it’s ok to lose” was such a fascinating line, especially coming from an older sorcerer who managed to conquer the world to a younger sorcerer who earned his respect and who has the potential to one day be as great as him. And Valkyrie’s “I think we could have been friends in another life” seemed actually legitimate. Yes, she was trying to stab him with a god-killer, but there still is a general vibe that she meant it, and that Mevolent actually agrees with her. And then he helps her get to her feet to he can kill her with dignity, and she just accepts her fate without showing any real resentment towards him.

I am FULLY convinced that Mevolent sees a younger version of himself in a lot, because I honestly don’t think he was always evil. I think that came around simply as a result of him living so long and being so successful, especially in defeating The Unnamed. And Valkyrie is really similar to that, and I think that’s a big part of why he respects her so much (and why he registers her as such a threat). I REALLY hope that Mevolent and Valkyrie get to have an actual conversation in phase 3, because Landy has the opportunity to pull some emotional gut-punchers with them, and also we don’t get to see them interact a lot and that is a travesty.