#lockland

...“As for the mental state, Eli, how could you possibly calculate the psychological factors? What constitutes a strong will? It’s a philosophical can of worms. And then there’s the entire element of chance.”

“I’m not discounting any of those,” said Eli, deflating a little as he guided the car into their parking lot. “This is an additive theory, not a deductive one. Can’t we celebrate the fact that I’ve potentially made a key discovery?”

Victor’s love for Angie aside, I understand why he’d look away whenever they kiss, or are together, why he wanted Eli’s attention, why he tries to covet them seperately— he wanted Eli or Angie but not together. Because if they are together, they don’t spare even a second of attention at him. When they are together it is the most alone that he ever felt.

It’s not so much that he is jealous of their love. He’s jealous of their easy relationship / interaction.

Friendship-jealousy. Fear of being the third wheel. A fear of being forgotten. A fear of being left adrift.

Everyone wants a place in the world, and as much as Victor narrated to us in the books of how he doesn’t care— he cares so so much, but he hides his heart. It isn’t him to be vulnerable. He hates being vulnerable.

His parent’s might have something to do with it. He’s left alone when they go on tours, and Victor doesn’t get any attention from his parents other than the fact that they just want to fix him (and I will argue an entire essay how Victor’s personality is a result of nurture rather than nature, and it his parent’s neglect that played a big factor in creating who Victor is now — and if his dam parents have anyone to blame, it is themselves for failing to practice what they preach).

Victor found two people who understands him. He had Angie. He had Eli. But then, when they both got together, he now has no one. And that is frustrating. It hurts, it hurts so much. It’s not love, it’s nothing as simple as that, but it’s this severance of connection. Being shoved outside of somewhere you thought is finally comfortable, safe, where you can leave all of your facades at the door.

Victor is; as everyone is, desperate for attention. He is desperate to be understood, even if he doesn’t act like it. He wanted his friends, okay. He wanted them to focus on him. He wanted to be seen. Why is it that love ruins everything? Why is it that when you are in love with someone, you forget everyone else?

People who are in love don’t realise how much pain it causes to others when you neglect them. And I felt it from Victor, I felt that pain from him. The feeling of being discarded or tossed aside. Being deemed less important, less of a priority, that he needs to freakin’ fight for some scrap of attention, and damn it, I felt his frustration, his anger and his internalised hurt.

“Victor Vale is not a fucking sidekick.”

You think that it’s the ego talking, and you are half-right. That is his internalised hurt and rage of being shoved to the side. That is him not wanting to ever be neglected again.

That is him trying to give reason to why he is hurting so much, and I hope everyone would understand that it isn’t so simple to sexualise Victor’s feelings as that he wanted to have sex with Eli or Angie. Even without that huge ASEXUAL label on him, I find the fandom’s response to the university arc to be highly dimissive of Victor’s (nonsexualised) feelings.

This is Victor trying to cope (and failing) as many do when their best friend gets together with their other best friend. Once again, it damn hurts.

Strategically located on four locks of the Miami-Erie Canal, the village of Lockland was planned in 1828 by Nicholas Longworth and Lewis Howell. The Miami-Erie Canal was a major transportation route from Cincinnati to Lake Erie which attracted a major industry boom in the village of Lockland. Jobs were abundant with the operation of several water powered mills and the Stearns and Foster Company. People were drawn to this more rural area outside of the city of Cincinnati to lay down their roots and call Lockland home.