However, I don’t have a fixed personality. My personality is whatever the manga/show I’m obsessed with at that moment.
I named this blog Kamenridemepls since I am a hardcore kamen rider fan, but I am also a DekBaku/MHA fan, as well as other series such as One Piece, a lot and a lot more cuz I’m a degenerate weeb.
Okay, so since this is my main account, I will shit about the other shows too, not just kamen rider, kay?
My DKBK stan acc: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dkbkgivesmelove
Business is Business, Love is Love: an analysis of Love Potion, StaticMoth's contrasting business practices & the Vees' views on intimacy
Love Potion is a mystery that, so far, only unfolds in the background. Is it just Valentino juice industrialised, or is it really 'Love In A Bottle'? What exactly is Velvette toiling over? Why is her name on it alone? Why the joint venture between Valentino and Velvette without Vox?
Despite all the advertisements, given that Husk tries to save Angel from having his drink spiked, we never see anybody drink it or the effects it has with our own eyes.
However, one character is depicted drinking it, and giving insight into its effects. And of all people, it's Vox.
In the social media interface that Velvette flashes up during 'Respectless', we see public comments and photos from her fellow Vees (more on this here).
On Vox's side, Velvette is mostly obstructing the first half of a comment ending in "it's good". With the 'T' showing over her pigtail, and the length of the comment, it almost certainly says "tastes so bad, it's good".
From Val's 'No Consent' ad, we know that Love Potion is strawberry-flavoured. Vox is shown to be drinking a strawberry and blueberry-topped smoothie in the diner with Alastor, so it's presumably not a matter of flavour. By this I mean, hating strawberry-flavoured things is not a significant enough detail about his character (if at all) for the team would have it stickied and use this moment as an easter egg.
For season 2, another round of VoxTek posters get added to the show. This time, Vox's poster is of him drinking canned Love Potion, looking uncomfortable and questioning if it even works. In-universe, this is piss poor marketing, verging on sabotage. But taking it as a visual meant for the audience alone, the message being sent to us is that Vox does not like Love Potion.
And we have no reason to think it is related to the hormonal aspect, since he enjoys his intimate relationship with the source of the pheromone ingredient, Valentino.
Valentino's pheromones, and the only ingredient in Love Potion we're privy to, are another mystery. The real question is: how effective are they? And what exactly is the effect?
Alastor has a couple of moments with the smoke. He's not melted into a lusty puddle; he just looks agitated. In the fight with Val, this could be explained by the smoke not being pheromones, but instead Val's overlord powers, since he's using it as a smoke screen. Or, if it is pheromone-based, Alastor's agitation could still be a reasonable reaction to getting jumped, and unrelated to a spike in sex hormones. If there's any effect, it's negligible.
The other occasion is when Vox blows Val's cigarette smoke in Alastor's face, also exhaling the red smoke through his gills/vents. The ineffectiveness here could, again, either be because it's not straight from the source, and therefore there's no pheromone action. But again, even if the pheromones are working, Alastor's reaction is extremely mild, and could be chalked up to the irritation of having smoke blown in his face (especially after being forced to watch StaticMoth have sex).
On top of this, and the times we've seen or seen implied that StaticMoth kiss/were just kissing, Vox seems unimpaired. And when Valentino licks Charlie up the arm, she too is unfazed.
Angel has a shot in 'Poison' where Val blows the smoke in his face and it seems to make his vision blurry. Then, he gets blindfolded.
There's actually no suggestion that he's made horny by this. In fact, this is the start of the sequence where Angel becomes visibly uncomfortable and is unable to even pretend that he's a willing participant.
He has Val's toxin dripping from his mouth in his dressing room as both the song and visuals depict the devastating comedown in the outro, and Val also has drool coming out of his mouth as he shakes hands with Vox. Still, nothing sexy about any of this.
So to be clear, we're never actually shown the sexual aspect of this pheromone thing working.
Perhaps Val's red drool and smoke is a red herring (heh), and though he has that visual effect, the pheromones are something he has control over and we are just yet to see him utilise it.
I don't find this compelling, but I also think it has continually been suggested to us that Valentino's spit really does have power. The symbolism of 'Poison', for example, and the emphasis on the visuals of his smoke and drool seem to be the creators doing as much as they can to conjure that idea in our mind. But they keep falling short on actually showing this. Maybe they fear the implications are too risqué and dubious.
Whatever the case, the impact of pheromones is definitely not Vox's gripe with Love Potion.
After looking into his dynamic with Angel Dust (here), I'm under the impression that Vox's personal aversion to Love Potion is due to his views on the commodification of intimacy. And when I started to look at it through this lens, StaticMoth's establishing interaction really clicked.
Here's the dialogue with the exposition removed, to get to the core of their exchange beyond the 'Hazbin Hotel' story, the kind they could have if this were their show and not Charlie's:
"Which whore are we talking about this time?"
"Fucking Angel Dust, who the hell else would I be talking about?"
[...]
"Angel quit :D?"
"No, he didn't fucking quit. It's worse: he moved! He thinks he can just walk in here, work, and then go home somewhere else? Can you fucking believe that?"
[...]
"What are you doing, Val? You're not going over there. [...] Think about it: our brand is perfection. What do you think chasing whores around town will do for our image? [...] Do you want people thinking you can't control your employees? [...] You still have him under contract; he isn't going anywhere."
[...]
"I really wanted to shoot someone."
I definitely missed it when watching, and even rewatch after rewatch, what they're actually saying went right over my head. But what's really happening in this scene (and remember, this is their FIRST scene together) is that they have a fundamental disagreement on how business is run in regards to what their relationships with their employees are/should be.
What are we as the audience supposed to think? Ignoring breadcrumbs, Vox's first scene establishes him as 'big brother', a tech CEO and master hand of TV, Velvette's establishes her as a fashion designer.
And Valentino's? His talk of whores and 'making' people, in addition to his character design, establishes him as a pimp.
Later in the scene, Valentino is still jealous and possessive, seeing Angel flirting with one of Alastor's goons. While his behaviour is OTT, it's exactly what we'd expect from a pimp. His relationship with his employees is extremely personal, founded on codependence and trauma-bonding. Those are the fundamentals of a pimp-hoe dynamic. A pimp often has sexual relationships with their 'employees', and it's typical to the point that 'pimp' can be used out of context to simply mean a player – not for profit, just the love of the game.
And I don't think Vox's problem here is that Valentino has an emotive obsession with someone.
He himself has proudly paraded his hate-boner for Alastor for decades, to the point that he MUST break into song and yell from the rooftops about it the moment he hears that the radio demon is back in action. In season 2, he literally wheels Alastor around with him everywhere, and LITERALLY parades his obsession.
The problem isn't Valentino chasing someone around town; it's that Vox does not believe this should be his dynamic with his workers... who are sex workers, "whores".
The blue vs red of Vox's and Valentino's work environments serve as a very visual manifestation of their contrasting business approaches:
Vox runs business from a cold, sterile distance. He offers up his low earners for Val's human shooting range, because he is a classic CEO with no emotional ties to his employees.
This is completely opposite to Valentino, whose red-hot passion for his workers is the very first thing we learn about him. Not even Vox knows it's specifically Angel Dust that has him so upset, suggesting this is how Val always acts with his employees. Even if it is negative and abusive, Valentino certainly cares about his employees.
And in season 2, their first interaction is Vox throwing one of Val's girls into the shark tank. While Valentino objectifies her to the maximum ("Hey, I was using that!), we see that this is not just some random one-night stand in the visuals for Vox's camera roll in 'When I Think About the Future'. Valentino had a fun night at 'Club Consent' with this one.
This scene is basically acting as the sequel to the Vees' introduction in season 1. This is the 'welcome back' and reminder of how we're meant to be viewing their dynamic.
And what we see Vox sending one of Val's workers from the warmth of his lap into a shark tank. And a 'shark tank' is a common corporate metaphor for a gruelling, cutthroat, eat-or-be-eaten work environment.
So again, Vox's disapproval of Valentino's blurring of profit and intimacy is presented to us as a core component of their dynamic.
Vox goes on to chide Valentino for hitting Angel in public. He doesn't explicitly state a reason Val needs to stop doing this, but his critique of Velvette was that she was impacting the business. This meeting is about business. And professional business, in Vox's mind, is done alone, i.e. sterile, without emotional connection. Which is why Vox felt the need to tell Val to "come alone".
While the slap compilation is funny to him, Vox's animation and vocal delivery suggest that he is dead serious; this is a reiteration of their introductory disagreement in S1E2.
But Vox has clearly mixed business and pleasure here, hasn't he? He's in a business meeting with his "boy-toy".
Well... while it's true that Vox is a beautiful hypocrite, this tension is actually the source of the friction between him and Valentino throughout season 2: Vox disrespects, or flat out fails to see the value in Valentino's contributions to the business.
As I talk about in this analysis of the arrangement of Love Potion posters during their fight in 'Scream Rain' (here), it gets flagged up directly when Valentino appears displeased with Vox calling him his "partner" during this fight, and Vox modifies it to "partners in business."
What's happening there, as well as in the scene where he tells Valentino to stay backstage at Alastor's heckling and snickers at the idea of Val having "vision", is that Vox views Valentino more as a lover than a business associate. Because, as established in their first scenes, deep down, he is not able to merge these two things, and doesn't even think they should be.
And Valentino has been described by the creators as getting written like a 'trophy wife' (link here if you want to hear it yourself). He certainly has that vibe in season 2, but this is definitely not the character we know from 'Masquerade' or the vignette of Angel's night out in the Heaven court episode.
It's also just objectively untrue to say he's a 'trophy'; he is the film overlord and handles his side of the business.
The difference between his scenes in seasons 1 and 2, of course, is that the 'trophy wife' Valentino is the one who appears when the audience is getting Vox's perspective, which is the only one we have from the Vees so far, whereas season 1 is more about the Hotel cast's view on him. And this frankly terrifying version of Valentino comes back in full force, even pulling out the most devious villainous laugh, during the fight between him, Husk and Cherri.
Vox reduces Valentino to his partner. But to Valentino, and most of the other characters, he's a kingpin hustler and a force of dread.
Something I felt I wasn't clear enough about in that breakdown of 'Scream Rain' is that Valentino definitely does love Vox: he is repeatedly depicted to have Vox as an artistic muse, casually flirts with him, and compromises for him. Valentino loves Vox. Full-stop.
And he loves him in a special, singular way, despite their non-monogamy.
Vox has the hubris to truly perceive Val as harmless to him (which we are explicitly shown to be untrue, and the glass to the face was Val's warning shot about it). This forgiving view of Valentino means that Vox emphasises his lovable traits.
To others, Val is a monster that they keep emotionally distant from, or if they're brave enough to be vulnerable with him, those charitable feelings inevitably get overtaken when he inevitably hurts them via exploitation. He's nothing more than a pimp.
But Vox's ego/delusions of grandeur mean that he never sees Val that way. He gets treated like a fellow person, rather than a beast, no matter how violent he gets. Val loves that...
HOWEVER, Valentino is sharp about the fact that feelings are not the same thing as the practicalities of a relationship.
In season 2, we get this literal truth-NUKE via the tragedy of Vox and Alastor; they clearly care about each other, but are not on the same page and are never able to make their relationship work, platonically or otherwise. Things got sour. World-endingly so.
We also know for a fact that Valentino is comfortable with compartmentalising from his shrugging off Angel's claimed inability to learn a long script, stating that nobody is watching porn for the writing – a major component of its artistic potential. But Valentino is a virtuosic artist, and cannot help but be creative in his free time (and even non-free time hahaha).
Likewise, Valentino loves Vox, but is unhappy with being discredited and disrespected. It's one thing to pigeonhole his passions for profit, but business is business – love is love.
And Valentino was never full, sterile business: his genuine passions (sex, the arts) always came first, and turning it into a hustle was layered on top. He'll compromise for a check, but Vox's casual minimisation damages him status and business-wise.
And in their 'Scream Rain' brush-up, we get another flag that this is a core friction between them, with Vox accusing Valentino of being jealous of him and Angel, implying romantic jealousy.
He is very clearly not listening here. Valentino states explicitly that Vox is making things difficult for him by preventing Angel from working, which impacts Val's business.
Valentino then goes on to say that he does not want to be reduced to a background element, like in the Populi rally.
Here, we're getting some follow-up on Valentino's attempts to make himself big, and Angel small, through abuse, beginning in his introductory scene with the "ungrateful whore / I made him" spiel, to "addict trash like you never changes", to publicly beating him to remind people that he's the 'daddy' in charge.
Because, while Valentino may be an overlord and famous director, as Vox says – Angel Dust is the star, the "fan favourite". This is why this scene in 'Scream Rain' even occurs; Vox wants to kidnap Angel and use his stardom as a mouthpiece at the Heaven-crashing event. Angel Dust is valuable business-wise.
...Meanwhile, Vox doesn't see Val's value. And THIS is why Valentino cannot deny that he's jealous. He definitely is, but not in the way Vox thinks.
Why would he be romantically jealous? Valentino begins the season intending to have sex with someone else in front of Vox (and Velvette lmao), and is implied to be constantly getting it on with whoever he wishes, especially at the club, and Angel Dust is included. Valentino, along with the audience, should know that Vox is not even interested in Angel Dust in a scandalous way: he despises him. So there's nothing to be jealous about there.
And though Val knows that Vox has a deeply emotional interest in Alastor, he encourages them to have sex. He WANTS to watch it and even take a video for... 'memories' 💀.
There is no misguided romantic jealousy on Valentino's side regarding Vox's enterprising interest in Angel, even though that's what Vox thinks is happening.
Business is business, love is love, and the two view this tension through different lenses.
Vox views this as a lovers' quarrel and believes sexual intimacy will patch it up by providing a sense of security. There's nothing more to it in his eyes. That worried look on his face is from a tender place; he's sad to see that business is making Valentino question his romantic feelings for him. It's not him panicking about the plan because, as Valentino states, he'll just do what he wants to regardless. The only reason Vox is asking is for the sake of their romantic relationship.
Valentino, as we know, is A-okay with crossing the business and pleasure wires, and is happy to make sex transactional for their business partnership to run smoothly. This is why he exclaims that he doesn't know why Vox bothered to ask, because he's viewing it as having his toes stepped on, business-wise, not as a bump in the romance.
And I'm not trying to say that Valentino views all sex as transactional. Definitely not. As I say, he begins the season indulging his sexual desires with a willing participant for no outcome other than pleasure. He has a violent passion for Angel Dust, revs up to go on a killing spree in his name for nothing but emotional catharsis, and is shown to have mutually-enjoyed, kissy missionary sex with him in 'Poison'. He frequently parties at 'Club Consent', which is a hilariously on-the-nose innuendo for consensual sex. He flirts with Vox in private, even when there's no time for a bang, but just because he feels so inclined.
What I'm saying is that Valentino is a man of duality. Business is business, love is love, and he can do both. Where Vox views it as a binary, Valentino never does.
And this difference between them is also pretty evident in their character design when it comes to the gender performance aspect. I have a suspicion it factored into the decision to make Vox identify as bisexual, where Valentino is pansexual (despite those having interchangeable narrative potential); a binary vs fluid perspective is a running theme in their relationship.
So in Valentino's head, this situation is nuanced and has been brought primarily into the business court. Vox is the top dog at their company, and is already messing around with Angel, so he really doesn't need to ask for permission.
This loops back around to 'Love Potion' through the 'No Consent, No Problem' poster. In commodifying intimacy, emotions and boundaries become immaterial – money is king. Valentino is cool with this.
But as we see suggested through his comments on it, Vox is not. And we further see this through his approach to slut-shaming Angel.
When Valentino is slut-shaming Angel Dust, he slides deeper into business mode. Angel is "property", one of his "things", and Val is very possessive. But that possessiveness is still deeply personal, even if it is unadulterated objectification; his 'object' is something he cares about, like a child and their toys. Despite the dehumanisation, there is an egoistic, yet VISCERAL care.
Vox, on the other hand, dehumanises employees specifically through total disregard. Again, he offers up his low earners as a shooting range, he throws an employee to be eaten by his shark, and is the one to boot the secretary bird girl in 'Trust Us' after purposefully ruining her life.
So when Vox is slut-shaming Angel Dust, it's not to have emotional control over him. Angel knows what his job is, takes pride in being a skilled sex worker and talented porn actor. The slut-shaming only has an impact from Valentino because he is a pimp, and therefore, his status as a "whore" is equivalent to Angel's victimhood in their oppressive dynamic.
The same can't be said for Vox. To Angel, Vox... is just some guy. An outrageously rich and powerful guy, sure, but there's nothing personal there. So why is Vox so energised in his slut-shaming?
It's because he has an active problem with sex work itself: business is business, love is love.
Of course, he's happy to rake in the earnings from Valentino's industry, but on the most personal level, Vox is spun by the blurred lines of commodified intimacy.
He does not understand why Valentino is so emotionally invested in a business asset outside of the bottom line. This goes back to the 'Trust Us' verse, where he and Valentino pressure their victim into gratuitous nudity.
The multiple layers of why Valentino would want her to expose herself are obvious: he's a porn director and wants to exploit her for profit, as well as just generally being a horndog. He even strips down himself, both for fun and as moral support/encouragement. And of course, his abusively possessive tendencies make literally owning someone's holes a very attractive prospect to him. He's the one holding the paper.
Vox, on the other hand, is a suit, literally wearing his suit while the other two bare it all, and is one-tracked on making a quick buck at her expense.
He is completely uninterested once the money's made. He certainly is not chasing any employees/"whores" around town.
(This scene cracks me up so bad, they're so fucking evil jfc 💀)
And this is in spite of the fact that, seemingly, Vox hand-picked this woman, likely on account of her attractiveness. We see a similar thing in his dynamic with Katie Killjoy: she's his "top reporter", conventionally attractive – a tall, white, leggy, slim-thick blonde, and likely was favoured by Vox for these attributes... But he is flat-out disgusted at the idea of having sex with her.
Valentino also chooses his workers based on attractiveness. In essence, Katie is the Angel Dust to Vox's Valentino. And Vox's adverse reaction to having sex with her says it all in how differently he and Val run things.
In Vox's mind, being under contract is as intimate and loyal as a worker needs to be. And as someone catching strays from Valentino's vim for Angel (most of all out of all the workers), they may not really know each other, but the frustration is personal for Vox.
"I'm sure glad I found a use for you," he says, because Val's emotional investment has Vox viewing his films as passion-projects – mere folly that aren't profitable enough to justify too many resources, nor too much heart going in.
But the priceless thing that an A-list film career does produce is star power, and that's something Vox is looking to exploit. Unemotionally. Finally, Angel can just be a normal worker, an asset that doesn't backtalk, a gadget he can turn on and off, even if it takes jumping and brainwashing him to get there.
And in 'Speedrun to Redemption', "give a hobo a dime" is the thing to stir Vox into heckling that Angel is too bad a person to be redeemed. This 'step' is arguably the easiest thing to do, and I believe the implication here is that Vox views Angel as greedy.
Which is extremely rich, coming from the VoxTek CEO, but I think it could be another nod to his slut-shaming/anti-sex-work stance and broader gripes with the commodification of intimacy.
Within Vox's personal code, commodifying intimacy is the line Angel flouts. This is not to say Vox against profiting from it as a businessman, but it is to say that he views it as the epitome of money-grubbing. And this would tie into his limited involvement with Love Potion looking like sabotage at best, meanwhile Valentino is the foundation for its creation, and Velvette is the one toiling over it, as well as being the main poster girl.
But in Vox's view, business should be business, love should be love. Now that he's persona non grata at VoxTek, the business, while still wound up in the domestic side of V Tower, the home, where the 'love' ought to be, I think it's likely we'll see more of Love Potion and the Vees' philosophies on intimacy in season 3.
And since her name's on it, but she seems to be uninvolved in both the romantic dynamic and the sexual aspects of business, it'll be very interesting to finally get Velvette's perspective.
What we know so far is that she's the poster girl for commodified love – 'Love In A Bottle' (‼️). And we also know her side of business is anti-straight-up-sex/nudity, given she is the one to berate the Vees' victim in 'Trust Us' for showing "too much". Her perspective on the matter is clearly unique from the other Vees.
No real telling yet, but my prediction is that she and Husk (who are paired up in the RadioTrio vs Vees fight!) will have parallel views on this.
While he is all for alcohol as 'Love In A Bottle', and stands by while Angel gets drunk with the gang of sharks, the drink being spiked with Love Potion is a line crossed for him.
But you could easily imagine someone singing his solo song with the exact same lyrics (aside from the direct references to alcohol) about Love Potion.
And funnily enough, it's spillage from his 'love' in a bottle breaking that kicks off the fight between the witch and the black cat...
As always, I could be way off here, but this is what I'm seeing!!!
OKAY so the only thing I want to say about yesterday's spoilers (Ness backstory) is that borderliner* Ness is canon now lol
✅ explosive anger
✅ feeling neglected, alone, misunderstood most of the time
✅ low self-esteem and the resulting self-hatred
✅ strong, overwhelming emotions
(feelings that can't be explained == too high (for average person) bursts of them. Inability to handle them)
✅ black and white thinking
(Isagi's either good (tosses to Kaiser) or bad (doesn't toss to Kaiser) lol)
✅ fear of abandonment + self-harm
✅ very intense, frequent, extreme emotional swings
(difference of one second)
(difference of one second pt.2)
✅ maladaptive daydreaming
✅ determining one's value through relationships with others
✅ unstable relationships
I'm really disappointed that chapter haven't shown Ness' attempts to gain his parents and siblings love but, eh, okay. I can work with that
*
A little background on who people with borderline personality disorder are and where do they come from.
(Of course, each case is unique. I'm talking about the average manifestation of the disorder here.)
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a type of personality disorder in which a person is unstable, hypersensitive, highly anxious, and has no sense of self (no feeling of identity). One in ten patients end up committing suicide.
In fact, borderliners are people with no emotional skin. What for a stable person is a small domestic nuisance - for a borderliner is boundless terror, fear, a complete sense of helplessness and overwhelming self-loathing. Are you sick? It's your fault, you're worthless. You forgot your pass and had to buy an underground ticket? You're disgusting, step under a train right now. You forgot the food in the fridge and it spoilt? Don't you dare eat for another three days, punish yourself, cut yourself because you're nothing. That's not an exaggeration, it's true. And then you see an advert with a doggy and you laugh until you cry and all is fine.
It's like that dozens of times in one day.
Why do borderliners work this way? Heredity plays a role (which in Ness's case can be seen, for example, by the fact that he reacted acutely to some things even as a child), but to a greater extent, of course, the family, because when BPD is treated in the early stages, it is more easily reduced to remission (but does not disappear completely - it is like the core of the personality). Speaking of family types, typically borderliners come out of families with a narcissistic parent or the same borderline. Why exactly is that the case?
Because life with a narcissist/borderliner parent is an endless battlefield in which the child is forced to survive. Any emotion you have, if it doesn't fall under the parent's incomprehensible ideas, is repulsive. Any request you make and attempt to speak your mind is a violation of all laws and the worst offence. Today you're the golden child, tomorrow you're trash. Today your mom says she loves you, and tomorrow she blames you for divorcing your dad. Today dad likes the tea you made him, tomorrow he'll throw it in your face. It's a constant violation of personal space, an inability to have privacy, an impossibility to defend your interests - and yet a staggering neglect, a removal of the child from your life. Parents in such families usually divide their children into "golden" and "outcast" children, emphasising in every possible way how terrible the lousy sheep of the family (the outcast child) is, and encouraging bullying by their siblings.
Sounds similar to Ness's story, doesn't it?
In such families, the child by the age of 6 or 7 already knows that he is disgusting, horrible, and must do anything to avoid being abandoned - because the parents emphasise in every possible way that he is horrible, but they (for now) keep him out of mercy. A child learns by the slightest movement of the eyebrows and corner of the mouth to know when mom loves you and when she hates you, when dad is good and when he's bad.
The childhood of such children is a battlefield, and they come out of it emotionally disabled. For example, a very common consequence of living in such a family, in addition to BPD, is PTSD. Yeah, like war veterans.
(and by the way, borderliners VERY often end up paired with… Narcissists. Because it's a familiar love-hate game. And on top of that, also a beautiful (non-existent) personality to take a bite out of for your non-existent self))
-------
(if it seems like I'm somehow writing about borderline disorder a bit too unkindly - I love Ness and sympathise with him. It's me whom I don't love lol)
Thjnking about The Mystery (That Revice spin-off) first episode....
They claimed that "The bridge is down" and "We are stucked here" like a broken bridge could stop Kamen riders from going....man Ikki can literally fly bruh wtf
Idk why but thinking about this makes me laugh so much and this proves how far they are willing to go just to create a detective novel cliché
