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hazbinned · 2 months

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Kinda random, but ... I came up with a Trolley Problem scenario for Valentino, and since you're my favourite Val writer (especially when you're interacting with angie-long-legs), I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Basically, a runaway train is barrelling towards Vox, who's tied to the tracks. The front of the train is covered in angelic steel spikes, so if the train hits Vox, it will kill him.

Val is next to a lever. He can save Vox by pulling the lever, which will direct the train onto another track.

However, if he does that, the train will hit and kill Angel Dust, who's tied to the other track.

What do you think Val would do? Would he pull the lever and kill Angel, or would he not pull the lever and let Vox die?

Val was offended, and the look on his face as he peered over his shoulder could not have made that more glaring.

"How is that even a question? I would save Vox."

FIRST— THANK YOU VERY MUCH! There are so many excellent Vals in this community, so the fact that I am someone's favorite totally makes my day! I always feel flattered when you like our posts.

Second— this is actually kind of funny, because @angie-long-legs and I were joking that (my) Charlie would make a funny video like this about the Trolley Problem to show to the sinners in one of her redemption lessons, where she would be all the actors and all the sinners would find it so stupid hahaha.

THIRD— A giant meta on my Val and Vox, and Val's attitude toward Angel. Content warning for talk of toxic relationships and explaining things from Val's point of view (not justifying anything from an OOC perspective, but getting into Val's head and sharing how he sees things, and his intentions behind his actions.)

Valentino's relationship with Vox is an interesting one. The two of them have been in each others' lives for at least forty years, and have been living together for at least thirty, having a complicated on/off relationship all the while. Valentino is a terrible person by every stretch of the imagination, but has his soft spots when it comes to certain people (like Vox, Velvette, and, sometimes, Angel). He is cunning but incredibly emotionally immature, as he has never faced lasting consequences to his actions, resulting in this deeply-ingrained worldview of "my point of view is the only correct one, if anyone does anything I dislike, they are wrong, I am in the right. I deserve to do whatever I want because by not doing what I want them to, THEY are hurting ME." He struggles to see others' perspectives unless he can project HIMSELF into the situation, and often refuses to do that— the reason I'm saying this is because, while Valentino has chosen Angel over Vox before, and has hurt both Angel and Vox in various ways, Valentino does NOT love Angel, but he DOES love Vox.

This is the problem. There's that saying, "we always hurt the ones we love": Valentino is so used to Vox that he thinks he can get away with anything. On the surface, he is bored of Vox; Vox is older (fifties), and is not as good in bed as Angel. Vox is more closed-off, he has more boundaries (which Val actually respects, because he cares about him), and he doesn't always want to be going out and partying. Physically, too, Val is more attracted to Angel than he is to Vox. This 'boredom' comes out in Val's attempts to 'make Vox jealous' by bringing Angel (and other sinners) home with him (aka cheating-- Vox is fine with him sleeping around *outside* of the Penthouse, but not at home), by being dismissive of Vox, by not taking into consideration how upset this makes Vox (aside from being amused by it and thinking it's working)— this is all extremely toxic, inexcusable behavior on Val's part, but from his perspective, he is not doing it to hurt Vox. He doesn't know how much of a big deal it is to Vox; what is to Valentino just Vox expressing a funny/cute expression of jealousy is, on Vox's end, the extremely frustrating and distressing feeling of being cast aside once again. Val knows what Vox means to him, and that he'd never replace Vox, so it isn't a big deal for him. He knows from their history that Vox wouldn't permanently leave, so he isn't scared of losing him. Vox doesn't know that Val feels that way about him, so he's constantly battling the insecurity of wondering if he is just another game to Valentino.

When Valentino attacks Angel, he is intentionally trying to instill fear in him and break him down. Often, it's premeditated. He enjoys seeing Angel get hurt; he gets a power trip out of it. On the rare occasion that Valentino gets physical with Vox, it is an unplanned, spur-of-the-moment emotional outburst, usually when the two of them are having a disagreement. He becomes consumed by his emotions and allows them to get the better of him. This is not an excuse, it is just a reason-- Valentino does not enjoy hurting Vox and does not go out of his way to do so. Once he gets off his high horse and realizes what he's done (usually after a few days of Vox ignoring him) he comes back around with gifts and acts of kindness and occasionally a poorly-executed (and still often self-victimizing) "sorry." The difference here compared to when he love-bombs Angel is that with Angel, it's a manipulation tactic to win him back over. With Vox, he's feeling genuine guilt and has trouble addressing it in a mature manner, so he just goes with the gifts and hopes for the best.

Another issue is that there is some cognitive dissonance in how Val views Vox— Vox's head is a TV and can be repaired quickly and effectively, leaving no evidence that he was ever injured to begin with. There is a part of Val that doesn't realize the severity of hitting Vox. He thinks, "oh, it's just his screen! It's not a big deal. He can fix it!", even though it is a big deal. It still hurts. The only difference between Vox's screen getting broken and someone else getting a black eye is that the repairs act as a magic 'undo' button of sorts.

Val usually storms off right after this happens and then assumes things are back to normal and will be annoyed if Vox has not gotten over it because it "come on, Vox, it happened thirty minutes ago!" — he does not understand what a big deal it actually is to Vox, as Vox has this obsession with seeming strong and unbothered and always makes sure to remove himself from where he can be seen (and if he cries, he cries in private.) He's always telling Val "I'm fine, it's not a big deal" and has even lied about not being able to feel in his screen. Vox is deeply and obsessively in love with Val, and these incidents don't happen often enough for him to feel constantly on edge or threatened (in fact, they are so rare that he gets rattled when they DO happen), which is why he stays. If this was the norm, he would have left a long time ago. Vox would not put up with frequent abuse. My Vox also had a wife, Margaret, back in the fifties, where the roles were pretty much reversed, minus any actual love between them. Vox just kind of thinks 'this is how couples are' and puts up with it. It is not Vox's fault that any of this is happening, but Valentino IS ignorant to the extent of the pain he is causing. If he saw Vox crying or was otherwise faced with the knowledge of the true effect of his actions on Vox, he would feel horrible. His reaction would probably still be self-victimizing ("I'm sorry! Why didn't you let me know?!") because that is Val's natural response to having his defenses up, but, this aside, he does love Vox and wants to see him thrive.

When it comes to Angel, Valentino only loves Angel for his body and what he can 'use' Angel for. He loves OWNING Angel, whereas he loves Vox as a person, views him as an equal, and likes him for non-superficial reasons. There is definite toxicity within his relationship with Vox, and most of it is caused by Val (although Vox is no saint and has absolutely been the one to start things too), but Valentino would put in genuine effort to make the relationship healthy if his actions were brought to light. He WANTS his relationship with Vox to be healthy, and currently thinks it is. (Val, like Angel, has no idea what a healthy relationship looks like, but that is a whole OTHER thing.) 'Ignorance is bliss,' and he's ignorant right now. When he stops being ignorant, he's going to make a mad scramble to fix all that he's done and make it up to Vox, even if he still stumbles sometimes. There is no fixing what he has with Angel, but he's one wake-up call away from fixing what he has with Vox.

That gets into Val's relationship with Angel: Val does not love him, as stated earlier, but he is attached. He and Angel have this sickly attachment to each other, Angel literally being addicted, but also having been manipulated into thinking Val loved him at one point, while Val bounces between hating Angel, being neutral about him, and somewhat seeing him as a friend and being affectionate toward him. If he pushes the line too far, he has rare moments where he projects his younger self onto Angel and feels bad-- not necessarily because he's hurting Angel, but because he remembers how he felt when that was him. And as soon as the feeling wears off, he goes back to his old ways.

Val and Vox are primarily healthy with a track record of occasional relationship-ruining incidents sprinkled throughout, while Val and Angel are primarily unhealthy with some occasional good moments thrown in here and there. Val is not ignorant to how he makes Angel feel, and would (unless under extreme duress) not work to improve it, even though he thinks Angel is more 'fun' than Vox when it comes to certain things.

This being said, if there was some kind of loophole to the trolley problem, he would find it and save them both. Most likely, he would just derail the trolley, because he doesn't care about anyone in there and if they died it wouldn't be permanent, since the angelic steel is only on the outside. Even if it WOULD be permanent, he wouldn't care unless Velvette was in there. But in a case of pure black and white, save one or the other? He'd save Vox, without hesitation.

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#chrysalis-the-butterfly #♠️ : big v / valentino.#♠️ : old pal / vox.#♠️ : charming demon belle / charlie.#♠️ : headcanons.#abuse tw #toxic relationships tw #val and angel tw

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