We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
-Final speech from The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplin
By request of @chonaku-things and @joycew-blog: some thoughts on writing Vox with regards to sex and sex scenes, based on observations from canon.
Since interpretations of characters vary, I'm just going to treat this as a comparison between canon and fanon, and let people take what they will from it. But since it apparently needs to be said: personality does not dictate sexual preferences. Writing in-character smut is about how they approach sex as a concept, not about what they're into.
Obviously we have some information about how Vox approaches sex. But I am actually not going to start with that because other areas of his life give us more useful information to work with.
Case in point: I've seen a fair number of fics where he makes a big deal of how good he is in bed, and basically puffs himself up like a peacock. I think he's supposed to be read as genuinely confident about it? But I'm honestly not sure, because it comes off as insecure to me. Especially if he's making a show of how dominant he is at the same time (granted, I am not impressed by performative dominance, so that could just be me).
The thing is, bragging and continually bringing up his accomplishments is what he does when he's trying to prove himself to Alastor. When he is fishing for external validation. Or, heck, just look at all of Stayed Gone. He gets really loud when he's trying to insist that he's not worried about something. When he's genuinely confident, most people will not notice it. And I can say that as a fact because the things he is canonically most confident about are things fandom has decided are major insecurities.
His gender: he never complains about or expresses discomfort with "feminine" things, and his aversion to emotional intimacy isn't related to fragile masculinity.
His gender presentation: he makes no effort to hide or justify his feminine traits, nor to emphasize his masculine ones.
His sexuality: he's not advertising that he's in a relationship with a man, but he's casual enough about it to hold Valentino's hand where people can see.
It might seem counterintuitive given how talkative and excitable Vox is, but when he's truly comfortable with himself, he's quiet. He doesn't draw attention to those things because he isn't looking for validation or trying to deny that they exist. So it stands to reason that if he's actually confident in his sexual prowess, he won't feel a need to talk himself up.
Speaking of talking, he is often written as being very direct about what he does or doesn't want, especially when it comes to being the one in charge (there's that performative dominance again). And like. Fair. He is generally pretty clear about what he expects from others, and he does verbally flaunt his control during Don't You Forget (Reprise) (which is a song, and thus requires lyrics, so I don't count it as performative. Plus, he pairs his words with actions. And I don't care if anyone else thinks he's trying too hard, his voice on "Now I'm the master" does it for me).
Anyway.
It's definitely in character for Vox to be verbally blunt, and I can see why people write him that way. Especially when most of his sexual remarks are pretty explicit. Just two things: one, he's only that explicit when he's excited, and his overall behavior when it happens is inappropriate. And two, it just so happens that there is a glaring exception to his bluntness: he is not direct when he's trying to seduce Valentino. When sex is literally the topic.
Here are a couple more things about his behavior when sex comes up: he is extremely flustered when Velvette interrupts the above seduction attempt, visibly uncomfortable when Valentino is publicly draped over him while talking about them having sex, and embarrassed when Val says he and Alastor should fuck. Nor does he appear to find anything funny about sex. Which I have brought up several times, but since we're really getting into it, I want to illustrate just how much he Does Not Appreciate sexual humor and random sexual comments.
When the Vees are talking about sending a spy into the hotel:
Valentino: "Put something inside them. That's how I get the bitches to behave."
Vox, very quiet and curt: "...Yeah."
When Lucifer misspeaks and tells Adam he's going to fuck him:
The other Vees: highly amused.
Vox: highly perturbed.
When Vox is scolding the other two over their recent behavior:
Velvette: "Well maybe people should start sucking less."
Valentino: "Or more."
(Both grin)
Vox: "Moving on!"
Like. Canonically, this man is not going to casually tell someone how much he wants to fuck them. He is probably not going to verbally express a desire to fuck them at all, at least using those words. There is a good chance that he's not going to engage in explicit dirty talk, and might even find it a turn off if his partners do.
It is not for nothing that some people headcanon him as ace. Frankly, he comes off as almost sex-repulsed sometimes.
He isn't, though. His word choice when he's trying to seduce Valentino is evasive, but his tone and behavior make his meaning clear. And Val reacts the instant his tone changes, so that's definitely a normal thing. Vox himself appears completely comfortable whenever they're flirting, he isn't bothered by Val drawing him tied up, and the way he looks at Val, both in the seduction scene and others, is clear attraction/desire. He isn't (canonically) ace. But he may be uncomfortable with, or at least disinterested in, certain elements of the sexual experience. Like dirty talk. Which is incredibly ironic.
As an aside, Valentino tends not to be verbal when he's flirting with Vox. Which is unusual for him, to put it mildly. He does tell him he "cleans up nice for a TV" after being asked for his opinion, but otherwise, most interest is expressed through physical affection and visual cues (apart from the "draping himself over him while talking about sex" thing. And he's annoyed with him when he does that, so he's probably trying to make him uncomfortable).
So! Pulling it all together, Vox's canon approach to sex seems to be... Hands on, shall we say. It's hard to judge how confident he is about his abilities when discomfort is prominent in how he engages with the topic, but it's safe to say that he's not going to be bragging about them. He does appear to be entirely comfortable with possessive/dominating language, so I'm sure he can navigate the verbal components of sex just fine, but it's probably not going to be sexually explicit talk. And it's possible that, left to his own devices, he just wouldn't say much at all. It's also possible that he would prefer his partner not, either, though it might bother him less in an actually sexual context (and all of this might be mitigated if he's in a really good mood that day. At minimum, he'd be more explicit. For better or worse).
He absolutely likes to touch and be touched, so regardless of anything else, he's more likely to express what he wants physically than verbally (moving his partner's hands where he wants them, guiding them into positions, pushing them down or pulling them onto him, etc). Though if he's as unfazed by the idea of being tied up as he appears to be when he sees Valentino drawing him, it probably wouldn't bother him to be the one being manhandled instead.
This also makes it pretty easy to keep him in character, no matter what role one prefers to write him in: he likes physical contact, so whether he's giving or receiving, he's going to have a good time. If bondage is fine with him, then touching need not be reciprocal to be enjoyable. And if one isn't comfortable writing dirty talk, good news, there is an excuse not to. If one is needed.
He is also canonically a sadist, but no one ever does anything with that. Hm.
There's something to be said about Vox offering a genuine deal and Alastor overthinking it and freaking out, and Alastor offering an underhanded deal and Vox not thinking about it at all before accepting.
There's something to be said about Vox offering a genuine deal and Alastor overthinking it and freaking out, and Alastor offering an underhanded deal and Vox not thinking about it at all before accepting.
There's something to be said about Vox offering a genuine deal and Alastor overthinking it and freaking out, and Alastor offering an underhanded deal and Vox not thinking about it at all before accepting.
"Alastor never tried to kill vox" this, "if alastor wanted vox dead he'd put him in the broadcast" that. I think in their very first days when vox was just some sinner full of himself, alastor tried to jail him in his torture broadcast but vox powers make him turn into electricity which is a type of frequency. What about: alastor tries to trap vox with his staff, it fails miserably and his only way to save face is to try and "befriend" the guy immune to his magic so people (lastly vox) dont find out he's got weaknesses. Sure at some point al develops a real type of attachment but mr the world is against me surely must have tried at some point
“If you deny any affinity with another person or kind of person, if you declare it to be wholly different from yourself—as men have done to women, and class has done to class, and nation has done to nation—you may hate it, or deify it, but in either case you have denied its spiritual equality, and its human reality. You have made it into a thing, to which the only possible relationship is a power relationship. And thus you have fatally impoverished your own reality.”
Ursula K. Le Guin "American SF and The Other" in Science-Fiction Studies 7, 1975.
I passed a flower shop next to a tattoo shop and at first I laughed because I thought it was ironic and then i freaked because IMAGINE YOUR OTP IN A FLORIST/TATTOO ARTIST AU
