#about.claudio

b a s i c s

Full name: Claudio V Invictus (born Claudio Valderrama) Gender: male Pronouns: he/him/his

o t h e r

Family: born to Jacinda Lopez-Valderrama by way of an extramarital affair with a real strange man only known as “Irish”. had three older brothers -- Idris, Frankie, and Dario, collectively known as “the Valderrama Brothers” in the underground -- before they all died in gang warfare. Jane Valderrama of Channel 6 News fame is Claudio’s aunt, but they generally pretend they don’t know each other. Birthplace: Stilwater, Michigan Job(s): high schooler --> baby Saint --> Boss of the Saints --> CEO of Saints/Ultor Media Group (better known as “Saintscorp”) --> Co-Founder of the Cabal (an international network of gangs bent on sociopolitical reform and also sweet pranks on politicians) Fears: ego loss, dementia, Shaundi’s cooking Hobbies: video games, comic books, coding, shopping, seducin folks for fun and profit

t h i s / t h a t

introvert / extrovert organized / disorganized close-minded / open-minded calm / anxious / restless disagreeable / agreeable / in-between patient / impatient outspoken / reserved leader / follower / flexible empathetic / unempathetic optimistic / pessimistic / realistic traditional / modern / in-between hard-working / lazy

r e l a t i o n s h i p s

(also he and his mother have never been close, so it’s not like he felt obligated to keep her name)

Johnny folds himself into the passenger seat with a scowl mean enough to spook a Rottweiler and spends about five minutes pointedly adjusting the seat. Claudio pretends to be scrolling his Twitter feed and doesn’t even dignify the display with a look. He only glances over when he hears the exaggerated sound of the seatbelt clicking into place. Johnny shifts around, tugging at the belt, trying to get comfortable.

“If you’re so damn uncomfortable, leave the seatbelt off,” Claudio suggests in what he considers a perfectly reasonable tone, pushing the button to stow away the glass roof and pressing the other button to start the Roadster.

“Safety first,” Johnny replies haughtily, patting his gelled hair and hoping it won’t all go to shit when the wind hit it.

“Safety– What are you, five?” Claudio snorts laughter, peeling away from the curb, but without the customary squeal of tires that one would expect. Tesla didn’t roll like that. “Safety first. You forget you literally participate in gang warfare for fun?”

“Because that is fun, idiot. Flying headfirst through your stupid car’s windshield at a cool 80 em-pee-aitch ain’t.”

“Also maybe if you didn’t literally eat, shit, and sleep at the gym you’d be able to fit into my fly ass, sleek ass, not-at-all-stupid car.” Claudio pulls up Safeword on the built-in GPS, and no sooner had he mapped the route than he heard reggaeton blasting from a vehicle approaching the upcoming intersection.

“Knew it,” Claudio mutters, “just fucking knew it. Goddamn Luchadores can’t ever take a night off.”

The jeep spots them as they zoom through the intersection, and immediately veers in their direction. Claudio counts five jacked-up Luchadores in his rearview, and he’s more than pretty sure they’d have company soon enough… but not yet.

Claudio sighs, seeing the bridge approaching.“Johnny. You got a rubber band?”

“What?”

“Answer the fuckin question.”

“Yeah, I got a fuckin rubber band. Why?”

“Tie my hair back.”

The Luchadores open fire. Claudio veers around a corner and their shots go wide. Johnny, who could sometimes ask stupid questions but usually didn’t make a habit out of it, takes off his seatbelt, reaches over, and briskly pulls Claudio’s hair back. While he’s securing it with the rubber band, Claudio seamlessly shifts the Roadster to auto-drive mode, and when Johnny’s finished he reaches behind the seat and pulls out his sleek new rocket launcher – deep red, to match the car. Everything’s gotta match.

“Unbelievable,” Johnny mutters as Claudio hops up in his seat and turns around, his back against the edge of the windshield, his butt almost touching the steering wheel but not quite. He plants himself in his seat as the Luchadores start shooting again, and humps the rocket launcher up onto his shoulder.

“In conclusion, fuck safety,” he cackles as he lets loose.

“Elon Musk is a very lonely and occasionally impressionable man,” Claudio answers slyly, fluffing his voluminous hair.

“can you not be a hoe for five minutes, damn,” Pierce pipes up, and Claudio gives him an excuse the hell out of me? look.

See, the idea of the Saints becoming media moguls is important to me because of how central the media is to modern culture. I need the Saints to use that, not to perpetuate the same tired stereotypes that Ultor et al would want them to perpetuate in order to keep the capitalist mill turning, but to create new images, or at least to debunk the harmful ones.

I think of Claudio in antihero terms, honestly-- the small-time stock villain seeing the error of his ways and using his “badness” in the service of his community instead. Shango and his Loa Dust open Claud’s eyes, make him realise his own power, and the power of the people who would follow him. The first time he brokers an alliance with a gang instead of just raining bullets on them until they capitulate (or die), it feels empowering. The Saints grow stronger. More skills are added to the mix. Sure, personalities might clash and sometimes shit gets heated, but ultimately people learn how to work together on a common goal -- the take-back of their community.

“The community” started with Stilwater (taking it back from the corrupt government that kept the poor nonwhite demographics oppressed), but then when Claudio and the Lieutenants took Ultor, the dream got bigger. Claudio realised that part of the problem was media corporations like Ultor disseminating oppressive thoughts and images about poor nonwhites, which led to violent backlash, which led to “see? look how violent and uncultured they are!” which led to more oppression, which led to more backlash... and now it seems the only option for people like Claudio was to “sell out” and become a race traitor or... to join a gang.

So Saintscorp did use capitalism to their advantage for a while -- they sold shitty energy drinks and purple-branded everything, made movies about elaborate gang robberies and shooting people for fun, whatever. And they banked that money. They invested it. Behind the scenes, Claudio kept working his charm on gangs across the country, gaining attention in other countries thanks to the magic of the Internet. Gang leaders of a similar mind began to do the same-- investing what they robbed, using the same cunning intelligence that powered their organised crime to learn business skills, computer skills, how to navigate their local economies and governments. And on it went.

Eventually, Saintscorp stopped peddling junk to teenagers and started investing in arts funding; started buying up whole blocks of real estate to thwart developers and converting it to good low-income housing; started diverting the flow of money so dramatically that whole governments had to start paying attention. Sure, consumers are mad as hell for a while... but they can’t deny how much their communities have improved. Soon, the only people left mad are the capitalists who can’t seem to bribe, threaten, or suppress Saintscorp, no matter what they do. Because Saintscorp is smarter, and the people are rallying behind them.

“Wait... weren’t you that gang from Stilwater?” some mayor asks, sitting across the boardroom table from Claudio. He’s thinking, so why am I so afraid of you? It blows their fucking minds. But they can’t stop it.

About my OC.

GENERAL:

Name: Claudio Valderrama Alias(es): Invictus, Boss V, Juicy Juice, MC Fat Baby, Sex Bomb, Jäger Bomb, Big Booty Judy... Gender: Male Age: 18 when he joins the Saints; 38 by the time Zin invades Place of Birth: Stilwater, MI Spoken Languages: English, a passable amount of Spanish, a beginner’s amount of Russian Sexual Orientation: Yes. Occupation: Boss of the Saints/Saint of Saints, CEO of Saintscorp, POTUS

(He was born in Ireland, to a native Irishwoman and an African immigrant. His father’s genes were fighters, apparently.)

Claudio picked up Irish’s accent pretty quickly, and then Irish allegedly* got busted (and deported, since he was actually illegal), and everyone tried to get him to “talk like an American” -- his mother tried because she didn’t like being reminded of Irish, and his older brothers tried because they thought it was embarrassing and also they ain’t never liked Irish in the first place. Still, Claudio never did quite talk American.