#dev challenge

from the quote/unquote wrong side of the tracks and doesn’t really give a fuck who knows it - and although she doesn’t permanently live in little fortune these days, it’ll always be val’s home. 

val was born and raised in magnolia, but her family hails from jacksonville, florida. the story about how the navarros found themselves here is long winded and not exactly something val enjoys talking about. the short version? back in 1967, val’s father was on a roadtrip with her grandparents and uncles. they were on their way home from a short outer banks vacation when something strange happened after crossing into magnolia’s township line. they call it “the encounter”, but val just calls it bullshit. the stories her grandmother used to tell about the incident sent shivers down her spine as a child, but now that she’s older, val’s become a bit cynical toward the entire topic of conversation. in the eighties, her father relocated to the scene of the incident with nothing but the clothes on his back in a desperate attempt to get some closure about what happened to him. besides his mother, who passed away five years ago, he’s the only one in that vehicle who retained any memory of the night of march 5th, 1967. or, at least, he’s the only one talking about it.

val and her siblings came into the world shortly after the move, their home life usually chaotic and stressful. their father was suffering mentally and although he had his good days - even his good months, sometimes, the other shoe would always drop eventually. he had trouble keeping a job and their mother needed to stay home to take care of the kids so they moved around a lot from one rental to the next. it wasn’t ideal, but the navarro family made the best out of their situation. as he aged, val’s father got better at coping with his inner demons - or, at least he got better at hiding it. 

unfortunately, the navarros haven’t garnered the best reputation and val doesn’t really help things by being absolute chaos on high heels. she does what she wants and doesn’t really care about stepping on people’s toes in the process. a mid-thirties wild child that never really grew up all the way - in some people’s words. arguably, her personality is far too big for magnolia but she’s never quite tried hard enough to get the hell out. for now, tending bar (and sometimes dancing on top of it) and her downtown apartment is enough for her. besides, despite the stressful situation involving her family, they are the most important thing to her - and unfortunately, they need her here.

plot hooks;

some navarro siblings: i definitely like the idea of val having at least two other sibs, all of which are open gendered! i like the idea of her being the middle child, or the oldest would be fine too! family is super important to her so having her siblings on the site as well would be actual heaven!

an absolutely chaotic friend group: like legit from the sandbox, found family sort of shit

co-workers at bar: val is a bartender that’s likely worked there a good long while tbh. i’d love it if we got a good group of workers going that just have a blast every night...so what if a bar fight almost always breaks out? if anyone has a dive bar type of business, i’d love to throw val in.

some messy past/current flings: as you know, if you’ve read this whole thing (wow congrats) val is quite chaotic in all aspects of her life - probably most of all in her love life. she’s been in tons of different kinds of relationships - flings, fwbs, one night stands, possibly even a semi-longterm thing or two. she’s just not great at settling down and is pretty shitty at commitment. she’s likely been a cheater once or twice, probably has been the other woman. im literally open to all things.