#stim city babeyyy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jsilverhvnd · 2 years

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okay after so many playthroughs i generally speaking have all of valentine's choices mapped out except... these boots are made for walking? this one i cannot figure out. the car is so important to valentine but his reasoning for finally letting it go is equally compelling and i cannot for the life of me decide--

under a cut for everyone who doesn't care about my maddened character ramblings at 9 in the a.m.

backstory: the galena (rattler) was his mom's car, and his dad's before that. his dad died in a mechanical accident when valentine was four. (some kind of farming equipment accident? he grew up in an agripack [not the bakkers imo]--note to self research farming equipment dangers) his mom wasn't born a nomad but had a fling with one that led to valentine and ended up joining the clan because of it, because she thought that would be best for him.

the car is. everything good about valentine's childhood. all of his best memories are tied to that car. he grew up in the front seat, listening to his mom's ancient 80s rock casette tapes and singing along to them with her. that's why music is so important to him, aside from it being a combination of stimming+coping with overstimulation.

and even after she died the car stayed with him. took care of him, in a way. they've come a long way together.

BUT coming to night city was valentine leaving behind the nomad life for good. he doesn't want to go back. he doesn't want to be a nomad anymore, even if he still values some of the core parts of his upbringing. he had a shit time in a somewhat insular community where going against the grain made you an outcast, even in the family that claimed to care about him. they just didn't Get It.

(seeing how the aldecaldos treat panam in her early quests settled that one for me. no, he'd never go back, even if he likes the aldecaldos and would help panam with anything she asked.)

he has a hard time letting go of things like this. (it's the autism, babeyyy) he KNOWS he doesn't need the car. he KNOWS it would've ended up in a scrap heap someday anyway. but that doesn't change the fact that the thought of getting rid of the car feels like getting rid of a part of himself and it's a scary rush of emotion that he just can't deal with in the moment

but he left being a nomad behind. he likes the anonymity of the city, the constant ebb and flow of the streets. it's a different kind of stimulation vs. the empty highways and neverending corn fields of his youth. he won't forget where he came from, but he never wants to go there again.

and here's a lady who just wants to get the hell out of dodge, and he gets that. he loves night city in a way but it's a love-hate, this city is constantly chewing people up and spitting them back out and it's a fucking terrible place. he gets wanting to leave, he gets it so fucking much

valentine's journey is about building the family he deserves. because everyone deserves to be loved unconditionally and he ends up succeeding in that however fleeting it is

but the car is... all he has left of his mom, who also loved him unconditionally, was the only person who did for most of his life and instilled so much of his self worth in him. he doesn't always love himself but he's never doubted that she loved him and that's (almost) enough

is he a little bit codependent on the car? yes

this is after the heist, after losing jackie, after being told he's going to die in weeks because some fucking rockerboy jackass is going to overwrite everything he ever was and that's the scariest part for valentine. losing who he is. he has a tentative little family he's found for himself but his anxieties are still there--what if it's not as real as he thinks it is? will they remember him when he's gone, or will he just be an afterthought?

on one hand losing the car after losing jackie feels like too much for him to take. like it'd make him cling to it even tighter because night city has taken everything else from him, but god damn if he'll let it take this too--

but he's going to die, yes he's trying his damned hardest to survive because he wants to live but he's pragmatic to a fault and he knows there's always a chance he'll die. if the relic doesn't kill him first it'll be a stray bullet, a gig gone bad. he carries death with him always.

and if he dies the car's just going to get sent to a scrap heap or sold off anyway and nobody will ever know that his mom sang happy birthday to him when he was 9 while driving down i-80 on a crisp winter morning, or that he sat in her lap and steered while she pushed the pedals when he was 7 and almost flipped the car. nobody's going to know and nobody's going to care.

but if he lets go of it... gives it to someone who needs it, who needs a way out, who might remember the guy who gave it to her with some advice on how to keep the camshaft from sticking, then maybe he'll live on for a little while.

BUT THE JOHNNY BANTER IF YOU KEEP IT.........

i just urhdjeudhfjejdhjdjf he loves the car. he loves it. it's so important to him, it's a part of him, his past, his everything. leaving it in that dump when it broke down broke his heart and jackie had to console him for weeks. but he's above all a compassionate person and doing this stranger a kindness like letting her keep the car that took care of him because it sounds she needs it to take care of her, too, is exactly on brand for valentine

#yes my game was paused on alanah pearce's face while i contemplated this for an hour #no i don't have an answer #but WOW that got long--#valentine voronin

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