{"body":{"post":{"id":"5u2r29190e10312r116b","title":"Valentin_Char Dev","content":"---\ndescription: character development\nlink: https://obsius.site/5u2r29190e10312r116b\n---\n### Lunar Colonies\nUS Military/NASA built the Artemis Base on the Moon in 1989, and in 40 years it's developed into a strip mall of resorts/vacation homes for the wealthy and the corporations who have a vested interest in space exploration (I believe the colonies were described as being Las Vegas adjacent, everything is hyper-commercialized). Once commercial space travel became a thing (2010s?), incentives for businesses to bring people to the moon to build infrastructure followed which \"created\" new jobs. Temporary housing was built that became permanent low income housing for the working class, things like schools were created by respective corporations as a tax incentive if they could make it look like they are providing a \"social service\" and \"investing in the future of their workers.\" There's a stark disparity between the working class and the wealthy tourists. Many wealthy business owners retreated to the Lunar colonies during the 2nd Civil war (2050-2060) as a means of protecting themselves and their investments.\n\n### Devaux Family Background\nMixed latino/cajun, but the latino heritage is more prevalent. Parents relocated to the Lunar Colonies due to economic pressures at the time (artificial job scarcity on earth + job incentives for the colonies) and mislead by the promise of the American dream that \"every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life (material wealth, upward social mobility)\" - and if they don't succeed, it is a failing of the individual not the system. Valentin and Mercedes were born in the colonies and grew up watching their parents get worked to death. Socioeconomic strains put on the family (all working class families) made home life relatively hostile. I think both parents relocated as young adults who were recently married and starting their family.\n- **Father** - works in the factory/warehouse; classic toxic masculinity, substance abuse, physically abusive particularly to Valentin.  Aggressively believes in the concept of the nuclear family above all else, that the man of the house provides, likely because its the only aspect of his life he has control over (through fear and abuse). Puts unrealistic traditional gender roles on both his children, expectations are never met with Valentin while exceptions may be made for Mercedes who is a woman and therefore needs male protection. Dies in a workplace accident.\n- **Mother** - works janitorial in the resorts; she comes off as meek and goes along with whatever dad does/says; her husband more or less forced her to go to the moon with him, cutting her off from her family and extended communities. There are \"womanly\" lessons she tries to impart on her daughter mainly in the vein of \"keep your head down, submit to men\" or otherwise making excuses for dad's behavior. Was kind(er) to her children compared to their father, but still very much perpetuates the cycle of abuse by upholding dad's standards and otherwise using forms of comfort to smooth over/justify the suffering. Dies of cancer in the colonies.\n- **Mercedes** - older sister by 4 years. Has attachment/sympathy towards her brother giving their circumstances, but ultimately does what is best for herself and feels justified making the \"tough\" decisions she's had to make in her life. Was willing to stand up for her brother and/or diffuse conflicts involving her brother when it comes to other people, but never at home where the backlash was worse. \n- **Extended Family** - Aunts, uncles, and cousins (on mom side) who are back on Earth, survived the 2nd Civil war (2050-2060) and migrated to NYC afterwards. Provides a point of contact when Valentin moves to NYC. He has some names and addresses he can look into when he gets there. Extended family is primarily working class with some loose involvement in the criminal underworld (\"I know a guy who knows a guy\").\n\n### Mercedes Devaux\nI think she's smart in terms of playing the long game and playing people to ultimately get what she wants. Finished highschool, she would have liked to go to college but could not afford it/its unavailable to her (no higher education on the moon), also working to survive (working in the resorts/casinos/malls). Sees the abuse her brother suffers, but not willing to get caught between her parents and Val (she's afraid of dad, mom treats Mercedes differently/has different albeit still shitty expectations \"woman to woman\"). Mercedes is still sympathetic towards Val and they have a loose understanding/goal they're working towards to get out of this situation and go to Earth, as in they talk about it with each other enough to have loosely agreed to leave together and pool their resources (post Val's accident). Mercedes is able to work her way into high profile sex worker/companion jobs, which gives her access to wealthy people she can manipulate for money/opportunities, which is how she ultimately finds a way to get herself off the moon. \n\nAs Val slips further into a life of crime and violence and their mother falls ill/is no longer able to work, Mercedes comes to terms with the fact that her survival means abandoning her brother and mother to their fate - something she feels bad about, but commits to the decision regardless. I think the situation is, she's becoming some wealthy corpo's mistress who wants to take her back to earth with him, all expenses paid.  TBD if she tells Val/their mother or simply leaves with no warning. Either way, Valentin feels betrayed (we can say there was a loose plan/agreement that Mercedes was going to get passage for the three of them and that simply did not happen).\n\nArriving in NYC there's a sense of obligation or a desire to reconnect with extended family members, but she feels ashamed to tell them she left her mother and brother behind (alternatively, she can lie to them about how she left things or make contact at a later time). TBD how much the extended family knows about their mother's life after she left for the moon (surely there's communications at least for a time). \n\nMercedes has two boys, the father is likely either a) the guy who took her off the moon or b) some other guy she eventually associates with. She may have used having kids as a means to cement her place with the persons she's involved with, and later came to realize she cares for them - those kids are fully a part of the upper echelon of society and Mercedes feels a way about them being raised like that (I guess it would be the opposite extreme of what she experienced as a kid). She wants to do right by those kids, but might not be able to achieve that without sacrificing all she's worked towards.\n\nMercedes assumes Valentin and their mother died in the colonies. Valentin has no idea where Mercedes went until he gets to NYC and hears otherwise from extended family. Mercedes and Valentin reconnecting as adults is messy. On the one hand, there's some relief and joy in finding out the other is alive, but there's an undertone of hurt and guilt to it. They each see each other for what they've become which puts a strain on their relationship - Mercedes still fears the angry man she remembered him to be when she left and that he might ruin what she's built in the last 10-15 years, and Valentin see's her as a sellout who only uses her influence/power in service to herself. There's also a sense of obligation to try and improve each other's lives like they had promised each other as children. Their circumstances have swapped, where Valentin feels a sense of community (i.e. working with a group of people, is social, interacts with a lot of different types of people, etc) and Mercedes is isolated from community.\n\n### Family Dynamics\nNuclear family riddled with emotional neglect, toxic masculinity (physically abusive father, substance abuse, women should be submissive), mother supports/doesn't prevent abuse from father (will say their marriage was more about survival than mutual love), sister is also suffering abuse albeit a different flavor (traditional female gender roles/expectations put upon from mother AND father) who for a time is on Val's side against their parents but eventually \"betrays\" him to get herself into a better situation in order to survive. Father is particularly abusive towards Val and Val has had a go at his dad a number of times as well (likely not physically strong in his youth in order to do any real damage).\n\nVal working with his father at the warehouse, is/was the easiest way to get him any job (likely has not had any luck getting or holding a job on his own, dealing with that at home as well). May be dealing with a) the whiplash of his father behaving shitty at home, and then very differently at work to keep up appearances where Val is expected to go along with it and pretend everything is normal when its not or b) all the men at the warehouse are exactly like his father (i.e. generational thing). \n\nVal gets involved in smuggling through coworkers at the warehouse once he learns that he can make a good amount of cash from doing it - a lot of what is smuggled to the moon is drugs/weapons/contraband that the working class can't get any other way, but these gangs are also skimming imported supplies/items from the warehouse as well and reselling them. Probably around this period of time Val is feeling confident he can get himself (girlfriend at the time, and sister) out of this situation if he can make enough cash. Dad is not happy when he finds out what Val's been up to, likely catches him in the act at work. Legitimately angry with Val because its illegal and if he had gotten caught by the law it would have ruined the family. Val feels justified in doing these crimes because dad pisses all his money away on alcohol/drugs anyways. \n\n### There's a girlfriend\nits highschool romance type of love, two kids who think that as long as they have each other they can do anything. This is likely the only romantic partner Val's had that meant something to him (besides eventually Phori). I think she's a \"good girl\" in terms of not starting trouble, maybe a little more well off than Val's family (at least in the toxic family dynamics way), and the dating pool is small to begin with. During this time in his life, he wants to present as a better person than his parents and feels safe with her, to the point where he was lashing out less. Their relationship falls apart sometime after Val's accident (she was very supportive of him during the recovery period) when he commits to a life of crime and becomes increasingly violent. She sees him suffering and struggling and doesn't know how to fix it beyond begging him to play it straight and he now knows that if he wants anything in this life, he has to take it by force. They never reconnect again in the future. Valentin's relationship with Phori reminds him of this person and time in his life.\n\n### Communities as a whole in the Lunar Colonies\nVal and his family are deeply integrated into the lower working class communities due to economic disparities, his parent's generation has a traditional mindset of \"the man provides for the family\" and \"hard work pays off\" which make's Val feel stuck while also feeling that there's something deeply wrong about the situation he's in. Outside of being at work, Val spends time with his girlfriend and friend groups, likely that its other people his age that get him into smuggling/crimes as a way to rebel against the status quo - there's an understanding amongst the teens that working in the factory until you die like your parents is not the way, and generally the working class youths fantasize about leaving the Colonies/going to earth.\n\nPost accident, likely that Val connect with other people at his job that have taken the same deal that was forced upon him, learns that this seems to happen a lot and that no one outlives the contracts and he gets resources from these people for blackmarket augments/mods that he could seek out in an attempt to void Synaptech's monitoring software.\n\n### The Accident\nWorking in an OSHA violations warehouse, he is an OSHA violation waiting to happen, and is already confrontational because home life is not good - a lot of things coming to a head. Don't know what the accident looks like beyond, Val and dad are fighting on a shift, it comes to blows in which Val is literally fighting for his life/thinks dad is going to kill him OR is trying to stop dad from rating him out to the boss/the law. Both Val and dad get shoved into/under/around some heavy machinery (or anything related to atmospheric control) they get caught in and are physically maimed. Val looses his limbs, dad looses his life, there are witnesses, its a huge mess.\n\nMother is distraught/inconsolable over the death of dad and not thinking clearly, mostly blames Val for the death of his father based on eye witness accounts and Val's involvement with smuggling rings (\"would not have happened if you weren't doing that shit\" kind of mentality instead of considering the whole picture). Mercedes, while feeling some relief that dad is gone, can see the writing on the wall - loosing their father's income, no life insurance/funeral expenses, Val's hospital bills and disability care without good health insurance is all going to be a massive financial blow to the family. \n\nVal might be in and out of conciousness and/or drugged up (for pain or just because) and not lucid enough to consent to medical procedures/make decisions for himself (situation of they are looking to the family to make a time sensitive decision, however I think the hospital/employer keeping him drugged up and pressuring the family to decide on his behalf regardless seems like the more likely thing). As far as what Val is aware of, he remembers the accident happening, the pain, and he remember's his legs were mangled before passing out. \n\nSynaptech steps in (since this happened on company time) and tells the family: they'll cover the cost (fully or partially) of the cybernetics procedure (functionally keeping him abled bodied enough to work) and dock Val's pay to cover the cost of the cybernetics (or payment plan, functionally indebating him to the company forever and otherwise using repossession as a threat), TBD if they say they'll overlook the fact that Val was using company resources to steal/smuggle things and/or they're not going to press charges and have him arrested (maybe they found contraband on him when he was admitted). Reconstructive surgery could have been partially possible for Val, but it's ultimately cheaper/more efficient to replace the limbs with cybernetic prosthetics (it being a cyberpunk world and all) - mission statement could be something like \"we are helping disabled people be not disabled.\" I think Mercedes is the one who ultimately pushes to make the call and/or gets mom to agree to this procedure as \"the best possible outcome for everyone.\"\n\nVal does not have the emotional maturity to process anything that is happening to him right now, he's overwhelmed, disassociating from his body/prosthetics, relieved his father is dead but still has to listen to people mourn his dad and blame Val for his father's death or otherwise tell Val he's a fuckup that \"got what he deserved.\" The only person he would consider telling about what actually happened and his involvement with smuggling is Mercedes and the girlfriend. Val finding out that his family basically sold his body to Synaptech in exchange for paying for the procedures is a betrayal that puts more strain on his relationship with his sister and mother going forward, despite Mercedes do her best to be supportive of his circumstances (perhaps out of guilt, but she's putting the blame solely on mom for the procedure).\n\n### Amputations & Cybernetic Prosthetics\nLikely already has some cyberware by the time he's 20, low grade simple stuff. Has had augmentations for 15-20 years of his life so some of it visually older and not as cleanly integrated as newer stuff.\n\nHe is bent out of shape about the loss of three limbs and the circumstances surrounding it. He ends up burying it real deep during his 20s, but the pain of having his bodily agency taken away upsets him when he thinks back on the situation. TBD on the specifics of the injuries, his limbs are mangled/crushed/damaged from heavy machinery, enough that they're unsalvageable. He tells himself that the cybernetics are \"cool\" and \"better\" and he's making do with augments that he would have likely gotten anyways, but there's some lingering resentment from not having a choice to begin with.\n\nI think both his legs are injured by the same thing and they are just gone, knee disarticulation (right) and crushed (left) that there's no possibility of recovery without disability. There's an executive decision made to amputate his crushed left leg (trans tibial) to make integration with the cybernetics cleaner. Left leg eventually shortened to make leg upgrades more balanced and easier to install (rather than having one custom leg). His right forearm/wrist is broken/crushed, hand severely damaged (broken bones, missing fingers), could have been partially reconstructed but would inhibit his ability to do work (right handed) plus aforementioned long recovery/disability \"problem.\" More was taken to make room for the prosthetics than was needed because of the make/model of the prosthetic arm (augmentations run the length of the forearm, has an artificial implant that runs the length of the forearm and an artificial elbow joint).\n\nFor a time he experiences some phantom limb pain and also disassociates from the neural feedback of his prosthetics, the adjustment is hard for him in the beginning. Finds out that the make/model of his cyberware has fatal flaws so as soon as he is able, Val get's Synaptech's kit removed/replaced with blackmarket hardware, and eventually upgrades to the current make/model of cyberware he has now."}}}