(old art) they're reading monster y'all

I don't understand the idea that Victor has no backstory. Like- yeah, his backstory isn't as horrifically tragic and detailed as Eli's is, but we do know a good bit about him from what he's said so far.

His parents are pretty successful, so we can assume he grew up rich. Victor states that they write all of these books about family but have never taken time out of their day for him, even saying something along the lines of the last time they put aside time for him was his birth (not exact quotes, I don't have the energy to look back through the books rn), so we can assume that they were incredibly neglectful, most likely leaving him at home for days, weeks, maybe months at a time and probably not paying much attention to him even in times when they were home. Whether they paid someone to take care of him in that time or he had to learn to be self-sufficient is debatable.

I personally don't think they were physically abusive, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence at present that supports that idea. Verbal abuse is more likely, but I still don't think it was the case. It doesn't seem like they were around him long enough to do either. I don't think those things really need to be a part of his backstory to make it interesting or compelling. His parents were neglectful, and it shaped pretty much everything about who he is.

The biggest and most obvious one is Victor's obsession with attention. There are multiple references throughout the books of Victor craving attention from those around him, namely Angie and Eli. More than anything, Victor wants to be seen. He wants to be a part of something. He wants to be remembered and acknowledged and thought about. He craves the attention his parents never gave him. He doesn't want to be left behind or forgotten.

Being left behind is another big fear for him (I'm mostly speaking about Lockland here, as he becomes a bit less dependent after he becomes an EO, though there can still be an argument made about him latching onto Mitch and Sydney and Dol and Dominic in a kind of makeshift family he never had). He hates seeing Eli succeed because it feels like he's being left behind. He wants to be so intertwined with another person that they can't possibly forget him. He wants to form a connection so deep that it's impossible to sever. To Victor, there's a connection between 'success' and being left behind. He doesn't want to just be an expendable sidekick or an accessory. He wants to be an integral part of someone. Victor's life revolving around Eli is a symptom of his upbringing.

His social skills and general demeanor are also something that can be analyzed. From the beginning, he's set up as the antithesis to Eli, from social class to backstory to appearance to demeanor. They're the same at their core, but opposites in nearly everything else. Compared to Eli, Victor is a total recluse. He hates being around people, he avoids parties, and we barely see him interact with or pay attention to anyone except the people he genuinely cares about unless he absolutely needs to. His demeanor is off-putting, and he doesn't really make an effort to hide that, although he does just enough to make sure he isn't a complete social outcast. Victor grew up in one home with no siblings and parents who were hardly around. Compared to Eli, who was carted from home to home, meeting new people and learning how to blend in all the time, Victor likely doesn't have much in the way of social experience. He didn't have to hide who he was nearly as much as Eli did because there was no one there to see it anyway.

This being said, he is described as being a good liar and able to fool those around him, although notably worse at it than Eli. This one is more of a longshot, but I don't think it's improbable. Victor's parents were successful published authors who garnered their success based on the books they wrote about family. It's possible that Victor had to make press appearances at some point when he was younger, and learned how to lie for the cameras, or he just spent so long out of the company of others that he started seeing other people as more objects to use and less real living people, making it easier to learn the motions of manipulating them. Either way, Victor learns how to do or say the right thing to get someone to believe him, but he states that Eli is much better at actually faking emotions than he is. This is because while Eli spent his life following his father's death surrounded by people and thus learned how to change his entire self to appear more presentable to the general public, Victor only learned how to manipulate people through speech or actions. He can tell you exactly what you want to hear, but he can't put on a fake persona the way Eli can because he never needed to.

In conclusion, Victor does have a backstory, and it informs every aspect of his character, including his relationship to Eli.

The problem with Eli and Victor's relationship is that they are best friends, ex-best friends, rivals, nemesis , mirrors, narrarive foils, a weird college situationship that neither of them can get over. They haven't seen each other for years and they still think about each other's minds. They can't live with it. They fall into madness when the other is dead. They can't live with the thought of the other being dead as if a part of them was ripped away and burned alive. They are obsessed with the idea they have of the other. They were the only people who completely understood each other in this world and it scared them. They haunt each other even though they are alive in the same room. They could never separate themselves from the idea of ​​what could have been. They are already dead in the same fucking grave.

No one gets nemesis and hate-based relationships like V. E. Schwab. Nobody.

It's about the intimacy. It's about the knowing one another even if you don't like one another. It's about how respect doesn't necessarily soften into affection or friendliness. Or conversely, how the deeper the friendship, the more twisted the hate once it's corrupted. It's about your reflection being the most like you but also your polar opposite. It's about having someone who fits the negative space in your life like you fit theirs.

🚨 SHE’S WORKING ON VICTORIOUS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨

Victor Vale is really important to me as asexual rep.

The only person he ever had a crush on was the girl that fit his specific definitions of perfect. Smart, likeable, nice to him. In order to stay within that “top of the class” role he’d been thrown into, she was a naturally obvious choice.

But she was taken by someone better.

Taken by Eli. Unwaveringly full of a million defensive layers yet still Victor finds common ground, a kindred spirit. In his friendship and eventual obsession with Eli lies something far deeper than simply desire- it’s the corrupting need to understand.

There’s no big reveal about Victors sexuality, it isn’t really discussed. Yet as an ace person, something resonates. Indifference to physical action doesn’t mean a complete lack of feeling. A meaningless action can be rendered priceless for the moments in between. Glances, whispered words, the sensation of touch.

It all comes back to that soul crushing yearning for mutual understanding. To find someone just like him, that’s what Victor wants. Someone to know his faults and his desires, to share in them.

This is an extremely nuanced reading but as someone that struggles to find media representation of my emotional processing, it’s a comfort to see a kindred want expressed. I yearn for more ace rep with individual depth. To love deeply is not always so straightforward.

He's a 10 but he wanted to die just so he could test a science theory which btw, wasn't even for his own project.

“sydney healing era” this and “sydney deserves a happy ending” that

i need sydney clarke to go batshit crazy. i need her to rage. i need her to let herself grieve and be angry and destroy everything in her path - until she ultimately finds peace.

wanted murderer + strange little girl

when they're both doctor frankestein and the monster – they've created each other, they're each other's freaks of nature – and their very essences are so tangled together, so deeply woven, they can't shake themselves off. they become a haunting and an obsession, prey and predator, all at once, both at the same time.

I still find it funny that victor killed two of out of three of Eli's gfs kjj

Eli would listen to Take Me To Church by Hozier and fully think it was a religious song. Victor has to break the news to him and then he deletes it from all his playlists

V.E Schwab in 2013 had the courage and nerve to ask the infamous and dangerous question "what would happen if the two worst people in the world were college roommates?"

"He doesn't know how patient you are," he said. "Doesn't know you like I do." Eli cleaned the blood from his hand. "No," he said softly. "No one ever has."

Vengeful, V. E. Schwab