#maybe i will writeo one at not-2-AM

[twotriickhoofbea2t]

Character Origin (Valerie Lachance):

Oh boy, this one’s a doozy, get ready for a long and incoherent read cuz it’s time for a CHARACTER ORIGIN, for a character who has... an odd origin, and, pardon if it becomes slightly coherent this time, i promise you it IS 2:00 AM here, but i find the progress to Val interesting enough i might actually talk(?) about it.

first, let’s forget val exists though this one goes waaay back.

this story begins with a girl named Annabel (or might’ve been abigail, i am unsure) she was, to be honest, my first OC i can recount, (i commonly list Brenda as my first, but An/bie outdates her, and also sucks, here’s why:

Remember back in the Angie Origin when i said my favorite story to write back then was “not like other girls” kinda stories? just your average teen with ONE teeny tiny freak trait? yeah, Annie was like that, her trait was.. being half dragon. or, part dragon, she had wings n teeth and a tail and laid an egg(?) once, it was... awkward.

But that was the thing, Annie’s trait was that, being dragon-y and worrying about that and how people react to it, she had no flaws (except being part dragon) no talent (except those granted by being part dragon, and basically was as plain jane (more on janes in a bit) as you could get, a T-shirt-clad brunette with long, straight hair, hazel eyes, pale skin, jeans/jeanskirts... It wasn’t much of a surprise when i basically forgot her for talking plants and fish-people. So Annie basically faded out of existence (the story of how she ties into Relia Novus next time, on character origin: Relia Novus!)

So, with Annie kidna.. murdered by mundanity, who rose in her place? who’s badass enough to be cooler than a WYVERN-GIRL?

If your answer was a DEMON GIRL then you are woefully correct, for i was a preteen, and preteens are awful things, enter JANE SLAYER:

“Hey!” you may now interject, “That’s the same girl!”, and this is when i answer “no, THIS brunette caucasian teenager with red wings has a COAT!”

Yes, that’s right, Jane Edgelord is Annie, but with a more bitter tone, she’s from a family of demon-Slayers, and her thing is, get this, she’s part demon, so she’s like, fighting demons while questioning how much of her is ALSO demonic, it’s like, deep y’know??

(listen, i grew up in a time w/ “American dragon” and “danny phantom” being part X and fighting either X or Y was like, a thing)

Predictably though i have literally nothing to say about Jane, she was so boring i literally didn’t give her a family or friends or anything, she existed in an angsty vacuum of demon-slaughter and would honestly be lucky if i decided to revive her for some dumb kink pun one of these days, NEXT!

But who can possibly compare? we’ve got “my life sucks cuz i am the only one who can fly and breathe fire!” and “I fight real demons but pretend they’re my inner demons because I can’t afford therapy but i can afford a kickass sword!”

Who could rise up to fill this void? well, nobody. I designed Jane in like, 2007, and didn’t gain a new demon-slayer until 2014, and didn’t IMPLEMENT her until late 2015, who am i talking about? why, Valerie of course.

2014 was a good year for me, lots of art improvements, story management and character refreshing, I sort of fell into the “groove” i got going, and a LOT of weird dreams, I have made it no secret i get some characters from dreams, and alongside the spunky angel “Faith”, I was also gifted via subconscious this little gem it would take a while to realize the potential of.

Introduced in the dream, Valerie was just an unnamed “Devil Hunter” who drove a kickass souped up SEQUIN-PINK Automobile, with the roof rolled down, and a matching short pink coat.

She stuck so well in my head i can guarantee the Val you all see is the val i saw in that dream, things got.. weird from there on.but the important part (to me) was Val and her blue companion (Maddie is very important to how Val as a character is built)

And honestly, i want to say Val’s just better cuz she’s new, she’s shiny, i have matured since Annie and Jane but.. I still use Brenda, and she’s kinda old, and kinda boring? so what is it about Annie and Jane that makes them so much worse and Val so much better?

Well, aside from having a monumentally better character design (again, the dream can be thanked here,) Valerie lacks a gimmick, she doesn’t rely on being part dragon/demon, or having all sorts of weird angst, Valerie instead gets actual character traits. She’s extremely energetic and a great friend, but also kinda needy and can come across as uncaring, she has a great interest in old-time autos and even fixes them up with her spare time/money, she likes pineapple on her pizza and stays up late on weekends.

The whole “slays abyssal horrors” is something she does, and is the machine that drive’s val’s internal growth, but it’s not as blatant as Jane’s “who’s the real demon” schtick, there’s deeper processes at work, and even removed from the abyssal setting, i find myself still able to slip on those big pink boots and think how Val would react in any given scenario, which i feel, is the sign of a true mainstay character...