#of course her whole mommy didnt love me backstory could be another lie and i could be making a classic fool of myself

[valtsv]

we don't know what VAL was like before she became VAL, and therein lies the tragedy of her, but something that eats at me is that what we do know of her life doesn't suggest that she was much better off before. i don't doubt that part of her motivation for joining the war effort was probably rooted in that hateful, ignorant patriotism that hurts everyone and everything it touches; misguided faith in the propaganda she was sold, and perhaps even a capacity for cruelty that already lay festering within long before her transformation. but she volunteered. she wasn't a soldier returning to the active duty she'd trained for. and even if she didn't know that she'd have her personhood flayed from her to make room for a god of lies, she knew she was signing up for war. and happy people, those who are genuinely content with their lot on life, aren't generally in a hurry to throw that all away to serve on the front lines. we hear in the podcast about how even the truly desperate are more afraid of conscription than of going hungry. which begs the question of how utterly miserable the woman who became VAL must have been, how desperately alone, to see signing up as her only way out.