#i got busy with irl stuff and missed Valen so i lore dumped ghfjdhs apologies for the very long response

[katsigian]

hiiii, for the character building questions: 1,2,3,8 & 46 for Valen? 🖤

Hiii thank you so much for the ask! ♡ from this list here

1. What’s the lie your character says most often?

I think that would be "I'm not bothered by it." It's something Valen tells himself until he believes it when faced with something that does indeed bother him. It's an ability he picked up pretty early on in life and it's because of his dad, Callen. When Valen was a young kid and something would upset him, he would cry easily. Callen would kneel down in front of Valen, grab his shoulders, and tell him "What kinda VP are you going to be if you cry at the drop of a hat? You can't let everything bother you. Toughen up. Or at least pretend you're tough. Convince yourself that it doesn't bother you." So Valen did. He hardly ever cries now and part of his aloof attitude is simply because he convinces himself that he's not bothered by anything.

2. How loosely or strictly do they use the word ‘friend’?

Valen is pretty strict with his usage of 'friend'. It takes quite a bit for him to become attached to someone and he'll really only gravitate towards certain kinds of people. So until he's sure that he can trust someone and they really are who they say they are, then he'll hold off on calling someone friend. A friend to him is someone he's let into his very small inner circle and he doesn't do that very often.

3. How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing?

It depends on who he is around. Valen's emotional reactions to most things out in public are reserved. He's not completely stone-faced, though; Valen will show fairly surface level emotions around people he doesn't know in public, but keeps a lot of the bigger, deeper feelings to himself. For example, Valen goes out in the evening to pick up dinner and the person getting his food around cracks a joke about something. Valen'll chuckle along with them and if he's in the mood for it, he might continue the joke.

But, when he's safe with someone who he knows cares about him, Valen will be a little more upfront with his emotions. It took him a long time to feel comfortable showing his emotions to his loved ones, and he still sometimes has a bad habit of minimizing or simplifying them. He grew up with a father (Callen) who really only fostered certain emotions in his son; anger, disgust, devotion, disdain, contempt, rage, superiority, and love in a very twisted sense. Sadness, worry, fear, gentleness, and affection were not encouraged and sometimes were even punished if Callen caught Valen expressing them.

So, Valen had to re-learn how to show those emotions once he was free of his dad and he still struggles to this day with some of them, though he has put great effort into becoming self-aware and controlling his emotions. By that I mean he's learnt how to feel his emotions without letting them control him and he knows how to use them to his advantage. Sometimes he slips up and his emotions will get the better of him. Valen is at his most volatile when his control breaks and his actions become fueled by emotion.

8. How loose is their use of the phrase ‘I love you’?

About as loose as a bolt that's been rust-welded onto a 50 year old nut. Valen does not use the term loosely, though that's not to say that he doesn't love anyone. Valen loves very deeply and there's many people that he does love more than himself. His husband is at the top of that list. It also holds Vesper, Vega, Reid, Nikita, Noel, Ilya, and so on. Valen loves them enough that he'd be willing to kill and die for them. He just struggles to say that out loud. It eventually becomes easier for him, but Valen is much better at expressing that love through actions. He's a guard dog, he's happiest when he's acting in service to someone he loves. Valen submits to the people he loves in the same way that guardian dogs submit to the sheep they protect. That's how you'll know he loves someone.

46. Are they a listener or a talker? If they’re a listener, what makes them talk? If they’re a talker, what makes them listen?

Valen is very much a listener most of the time. He much prefers to attach himself to people who can do enough talking for the both of them. But that's not because Valen is shy or socially inept, far from it. He's fully capable of chatting with strangers and doesn't get anxious in public. He's just introverted and has spent most of his life observing and listening as means to stay one step ahead of other people. Valen works in fields where being reserved and vigilant is more important than being chatty.

Even when he's not working or actively involved in gang work, Valen still lets his talkative counterparts take the lead. He's more than happy to let his chatty husband or chatty brother do all the talking to strangers while they're out and about.

That being said, Valen will get more talkative when he's around people he loves and focusing just on them. For example, when he and his husband are at a restaurant and they've sat down, then he's happy to chat because it's just him and his husband. Or, if he's in a group of people he's comfortable with he'll become more chatty. He just needs to feel comfortable around the people he's with for him to turn to talking and joking rather than observing.