HOME | DD
AvannaK β Soul Sistas
Published: 2011-07-30 00:22:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 2415; Favourites: 28; Downloads: 46
Redirect to original
Description
"People follow the big girls." [link]Valhallarama and Glume*. Aka, Hiccup and Astrid's mommies. I like to think they were best friends in that village; they just totally clicked. Ass kicking and taking names. As you can tell with their hair, this is before they were married (Val's is in two braid's down her back).
Yes, that is the same headband that Astrid wears on Val's head. Head!canon time: Val always wanted a daughter, hoped to give Hiccup a little sister, and planned on giving that headband to her someday. When she died, she made arrangements for it to be given to Glume, who, in turn, gave it to her daughter. Fulfilling the wish Val never got to see through in some round about way.
In one of *ch4rms 's livestreams the subject of Valhallarama and her designs came up. I always figured she would have a bigger stature simply going on the fact that she was Berkian. They have to survive hard winters, they need the fat on their bodies, and they are bulky with muscle beneath that fat from constant training and battling. It's what makes them attractive. *Cafcow made a great point on Valhallarama being of a bigger stature, and that's why Hiccup being so scrawny is annoying and shocking to the village. People had a good enough understanding of genetics to know that if Val was slender, it'd be possible for her to have slender children.
So, when I was in my cabin on some downtime, tapping my pencil against my sketchpad listening to some badass music, I thought, "I want to draw something badass."
Which turned into, "I want to draw some badass ladies."
Which turned into, "VAL!...and company!"
And thus, we have this.
*Made up name, not legit
Valhallarama (c) Cressida Cowell
Glume (c) Me
"Chicks before Dicks" (c) the Norse
Related content
Comments: 26
this is sooo cool!! 
π: 0 β©: 1
π: 0 β©: 1
π: 0 β©: 0
First off, that video was nice - I actually expected it to be funny and somewhat satirical (I expected Queen Latifah to show up somewhere XD), but it was actually well-intentioned and very positive 
That's what more and more women in general are looking like anyway, so I feel these self-image issues will soon seem silly for "bigger" folk...unless of course, tastes change completely, and thinner people (Hiccup XD) now star feeling bad XD.
Anyway, the artwork -- how crazy considering the kids' relationship how the mother were: it makes perfect sense that Glume and Val would be fast friends. Val doesn't look as 'flowerly' as that picture in that one-shot with pervy Gobber (I guess she dressed formally for the occasion)....here, she seems to be in usual Viking get-up, having another day with her friend. I do particularly love the faces, and how reminiscent they are of their children's -- Glume in particular looks basically like a fortysomething Astrid 
Glume though...see, I can get why they, and all Viking women, are stocky, and we know all about Val already -- but how did Astrid end up so thin if her mother looked like that? The surprise with Hiccup's small frame should also work both way if Astrid is so small; and nobody certainly makes a big fuss over her. I suppose her skills in battle could easily shut people up about that
Interesting idea concerning the headband -- shoot, some of Astrid's hostility toward Hiccup could easily be because he never lived up to being the kind of warrior his mother was; maybe Astrid hoped that she would find a new combat buddy with Val's kid the same way their parents did....and she ended up with Hiccup XD.
Anyway, It's actually nice that Glume was made considering the kind of attention she received in Hitchups -- losing her was one of Astrid's worst trials, and she is by no means a minor character. Good to finally see her, and in better times
π: 0 β©: 1
Yeah, that video isn't about fat-women to me; it's about women-women
Haha, you think Glume looks like a forty-something Astrid? I suppose for modern times forty-year-olds could look like that, but back then people tended to age faster (I think) due to the conditions and overall shorter life expectancy. These girls are late teens, before they're married and before kids.
As for Astrid and the rest of the kids - there is something that happens within puberty that makes them bulk up and get their accents. It has to be considering the vast difference between the adults and kids. Even Snotlout, who was wide, was considerably smaller than the adults. I am a firm support of big!girl Astrid.
π: 0 β©: 1
Hmm, I didn't think as deeply as you when I saw it -- but I guess everything fits with their appearance and the time-period. It could be that they came off as so motherly to me, that I couldn't imagine them so young, though it figures with what you said.
I don't necessarily think it has to do with the time-period (necessarily) that they aged faster, but the stresses of their culture; yes, terrible health-care and other factors make for a short life expectency, but for the people themselves....they are Vikings after all; the hard responsibilities and danger of a war-culture would easily make everyone age faster -- such a thing happens all the time even now depending on what you do (political figures today for example all tend to age quickly; make-up covers everything though).
Yeah, SOMETHING along the lines of what you said has to happen, to explain the difference between the generations. In the end, these are all teenagers after all, so it figures they still have alot of growing up to do, in more ways then one.
π: 0 β©: 0
I thought that Val wasn't from Berk originally though...?
π: 0 β©: 1
Not in Hitchups. But in Hitchups her family did settle down there eventually. She and Glume are probably around eighteen here. Just before Stoick snatches her
π: 0 β©: 1
So I'm guessing that Hiccup would have some slender gene to him. I wonder what Val was like when she was a teen? that would be interesting to see what she was like and how Stoick and Gobber both fell for her.
π: 0 β©: 1
Probably from an ancestor. I don't think Val was very much on the skinny side. And this picture is before she had kids...so I think she only got bigger
π: 0 β©: 1
Well I wouldn't say skinny, I just thought she'd be more on the slimmer side and would be one of those women who get their figures back, for the most part, after kids.
You know... I'm sort of happy I'm planning on not having kids if they're going to do THAT to my body.
π: 0 β©: 1
I'm all for a big, rounded Valhallarama. A beautiful Viking specimen
I think I should have kids, if only to spread my genes.
π: 0 β©: 1
you spread your genes and I'll keep them to myself for the sake of national security
π: 0 β©: 0
Sooo people in the Voluptuous Valhal Movement are:
You
Me
Calico
Cafcow
Fjord
and some other people...
π: 0 β©: 0
Caf cow and I had the same discussion the other night on Livestream. And she said the exact thing calico did! And I agree, I think of va-voom valhal.
Honestly I was super excited at first glance cause I thought it was B cube and Valhal sistering it up but I wasn't too dissapointed when it was just Astrid's mommeh. I like the head-cannon. It's heartfelt. Great!
π: 0 β©: 1
Who is B-Cube?! Who!?
And I totes meant Cafcow, not Calico. Sorry Calico for putting false words in your mouth!
Eeep.
But yay on linking it!
π: 0 β©: 1
Oh, I have to add this! After viewing the video, I have to applaud the message. But it also struck me that the girls he was calling big were, by my standards, mostly not overweight. They rather seemed to me to be fit and healthy but happened to be curvy. ItΒ΄s a shame people call them Big Girls. To me, they are healthy, feminine and active girls. They just happen not to look like super models, so they are somehow deviant
Anyway, cheers to you for supporting that women (and men) can be healthy, take care of themselves and be in shape and not have to look like the contours of Hollywood standards.
π: 0 β©: 0
Very, very nice! I agree with you on how you drew Glume and Valhallarama! I always envisioned Val would be tall and heavily built since people were making such a deal about how small and scrawny Hiccup was.
I know there is the emphasis that women warriors should be thin and waiflike, as Hollywood likes to show them. (How was Guenivere able to pull that bow in "King Arthur?" with her super model physique- but that is what movie viewers want to see- a woman warrior who is a super model. In truth, a warrior in a cold climate used to using heavy weapons would be tall and sturdy and well fed- but under that necessary layer of fat, there is solid muscle, and those ladies are fit. Besides, in Viking Berk, by the time spring comes around, the leanest season, they are probably very lean from not having much food between the end of the winter stores and the first of the summer harvest. They, honestly, need that layer of fat.
I wondered how Val wore her hair, too. In your short story she wore it loose for the one time in her life she could, and it impressed Gobber mightily. I picture her like HallgerΓ°r in NjΓ‘l's Saga. That lady was strong minded but not a warrior, but she could manage a house hold and defend it well. She had incredibly long hair that seemed to have covered her body completely when she was naked. (I guess it means it fell about to her knees or ankles). When her husband slapped her on the face at a dinner gathering for contradicting him, she remembered it. Later, when invaders came to their home after he had done some vengeful action and his bow string broke, her husband asked her if she could cut off some of her hair to bind into a bow string. She just smiled and told him, "Let me remind you about how your hand struck my cheek." She refused to help him, and he had to run out and fight without his bow, dying in the struggle.
Anyway, I like to think of the small and scrawny Hiccup as being a sort of throwback to the original Berk settlers. Some ancester of Val or Stoick's (most likely a Celt) was smaller and thinner. (Certainly Icelandic Sagas point out heroes who are slender and not tall, so not all Vikings were tall and brawny) But, over the years of fighting dragons, Berk vikings evolved to be tall and heavily built. Hiccup represents the physique of the first settlers: some of whom were slender and smart- valuable assets to a Viking community, but Berk was not a typical Viking community. They came to only have most survivors be tall and brawny. Hiccup only lived because he was the chieftain's son. Other small and scrawny kids died before they reached adult hood.
Still, I'd like to think it was Val who did pass on the inventiveness to Hiccup.
π: 0 β©: 1
Yee-ah! They are beautiful as they are. Something that sort of annoyed me about the film was the very obvious difference between girls and women...there must be some point in their lives that Astrid and Ruffnut suddenly flesh-out.
I too think Hiccup must have had a smaller ancestor that gave him his scrawniness. That dormant gene from kinder times. It's either that or he is sick. Or insane.
I love that video, and that song. I loved the song before the video, but then I saw the video and felt envy for how awesomely those girls could fill out their dresses. And they were of every shape and size! Pear-shaped, hour-glass shaped, apple-shaped. It's just awesome!
π: 0 β©: 1
Yup, I agree on the film view. What bothered me inside is a latent view that the teenagers looked different from the adult Vikings because they were the new generation who could see the new need to befriend dragons. So all new Viking generations would come to resemble the teens. So it was not about teens eventually fleshing out to heavier women Vikings but that Ruffunt and Astrid represented the way the new dragon rider Viking that Berk needs to be, so the future female Vikings of Berk will now be super model thin and trim and boyish in shape.
π: 0 β©: 1
We will fix that...by fattening them up!
π: 0 β©: 0
