Trope: Found Family

[writtenwordsaloud]

Found Family

Whether you think they are like brothers and sister, two dads and their adult daughter, a niece, her uncle and her uncle's boyfriend, or found family who doesn't need labels for any of it to describe themselves, we at least know that the Hazbin Hotel creators approve of fans calling the Vees a found family.

I often see people insulting others for interpreting Vox and Velvette as very "old man with his adult daughter"-coded, and they call it infantalizing Velvette as if adult women can't have fathers. It's very strange. It's okay not to vibe with the interpretation, but it's definitely not infantalizing a woman for her to feel like an unrelated man is a father-like figure. Plenty of adults of any genders/sexes do that.

The best thing about found family Vees for me is that I don't need them to be labelled. Do I enjoy it like that? Sure. Because Vox and Velvette definitely strike me as the sort who need to label such close relationships to have some control over it. Val comes off as the sort who uses heterosexual family labels for things, because he came from a time when no one thought twice about doing that with gay couples, despite how he likely knows he is more fluid than that.

But ignoring the label aspect and just writing them as friends who have chosen each other as their family? That's really my only need for any Vees fic. Maybe it's not about that, but I always need the implication of that closeness in any fic which discusses Vox, Valentino, or Velvette's relationship with the other two.

If a single one of them were to disappear, the other two would fall apart. No matter which one it was. I haven't been able to pick up a single fic where Vox and Val are having to live on after Velvette passes. I can't bring myself to witness a permanent separation of the three in anything yet.

Comments

[voxandvice]

I love them as a found family! I also like that it's on the opposite spectrum of the Hotel Found Family. I personally HC that Velvette definitely views Vox as some kind of father figure or at least a mentor to an extent, but I understand how there can be different perspectives on that.

I am actually reading an AMAZING fic by PinkSyngonium, "No sign of land", and Velvette dies in it, and I love how the author has written it! I think it encompasses exactly what I feel would happen if Velvette was to die, which is Vox and Val falling apart. I do think that the Vees balance each other out, which is what I love about them. I am a sucker for tragedy though, so while I love reading the Vees as found family I also like reading fics with Val, Vox or Velvette dying, and leaving the other two behind.

[writtenwordsaloud]

Exactly! Unfortunately, we haven't seen much of the Hotel being a found family? I had gotten the impression initially it would be more like that, but I don't get that feeling yet. And that's not necessarily a bad thing so far. At the end of S1, they were at the point of actually believing in Charlie's dream rather than just being there because. If they really become a found family, it's more of a slow process. Which is also a good one!

Meanwhile, the Vees are already established. They went through whatever it took for them to become what they are now before any of this. So they are both in different places in their journey: the Vees are currently dealing with a trauma which Vel and Val weren't even aware Vox had, while the core Hotel group is still building up who they are going to be outside of believing in parts of Charlie's message.

Ah, yes! I know about Charliedzilla/PinkSyngonium's story! In the server I'm in, everyone loves it, and Charlied is great, but I still can't open it. If it has a bittersweet ending, I might be able to at some point, but in the meantime? Depressing longfics are unfortunately ones I can't deal with my current mental state. Maybe one day!