cried fifteen times at sonic frontiers

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About Val Velocity's character design

I need to start this off with a brief rundown of the narrative of Danger Days. Danger Days is centered around themes of self expression, anti-conformism and anti-corporation. The killjoys are rebels who are fighting BL/ind, an evil company that seeks to control every aspect of an individuals' life. The Killjoys fight with their appearance just as much as they do with guns. They use their flamboyant, eccentric and colorful clothing as a way to challenge the sanitized, conformist society that BL/ind is promoting. The mask, which in other media is typically used to indicate hiding one's true self, in the context of Danger Days takes the opposite meaning: the Killjoys' customized masks are the ultimate tool of self-expression. Each member of the Fabulous Four, the original gang of Killjoys, has a color distinctive to them, which matches the color of their gun.

In the context of Danger Days, whites and greys are used to symbolize lack of identity and conformism. This is evident if we compare the original Killjoys to BL/ind agents.

Now we get to Val Velocity as a character. His story takes place several years after the Fabulous Four, have been killed. Val is the leader of a group called the Ultra Vs, and he's trying to continue the legacy of the Fabulous Four. We learn that he particularly looks up to their leader, Party Poison. This is reinforced by the fact that his own gun is yellow just like theirs. However, Val is fundamentally different than the former Killjoys. He's arrogant, and he fights because he craves violence and glory, rather than to actually stand up for what is right.

His design and attitude conveys this quite well in my opinion:

His palette is almost completely monochromatic. Hell, if he was placed amongst the BL/ind henchmen instead of the Killjoys in the pic below I wouldn't even bat an eye.

Val does not understand what the Fabulous Four standed for. He's not fighting BL/ind to protect people, or for the sake of freedom of self expression, or to fight conformism. In fact, Val's own sense of identity is shaky, as he's trying to follow the footsteps of someone else. Most of his identity revolves around trying to emulate Poison: even his own gun, which is almost as important as the mask to a Killjoy, is the same color as theirs. And the gun, something he has assimilated from someone else's identity, is one of the few things differentiating him from the BL/ind agents as far as color schemes go.

Val is not fighting for ideals, he's fighting because he craves violence. We see him hurting others with no remorse, often deliberately harming those who are weaker than him for the sake of it. In which way is his violence any better than BL/ind's?

The necklace with vampire fangs, arguably his most iconic design element, also plays into this. The Killjoys are fighting the Dracs, BL/ind agents who wear a mask with vampire fangs. In the context of Danger Days, his necklace is an open threat to the Dracs. His most prominent design element is a symbol of violence.

His palette being mostly white, in an universe where color is a synonym of resistence and self expression, is very telling. One would naturally assume that if he were to add color to his appearance during the story, it would be a sign of character growth. But the ttlotfk comics subvert that expectation, because when that moment comes it has exactly the opposite meaning:

Val, after spiraling into paranoia and mania, dyes his hair "Poison red" in an attempt to appropriate Poison's legacy. This is the ultimate act of lack of self identity. The first time Val has tried to add color to his appearance, what should have been an act of self-expression, is him attempting to "take" someone else's color. But he cannot be Poison, or overshadow his legacy. Val is only a caricature of who Poison was: aside from the gun, and the bright red hair, he has nothing in common with them. He doesn't have the morals, nor he fights for the same ideals.

realizing there's no logical reason for the characters to be doing the thing you want them to be doing