#val things

Thanks so much for the ask @nc-legend! I haven't posted a lot about Nomad!Val so this will be fun.

From @/gonksinlove's great list of questions:

4 - How often does your V/OC switch up their hair color/style? Do their chooms worry if they show up with a drastic new look, or is changing things up just something they do on the regular?

Ahaha if you look back over the past year or so, you'll find that SK!Val's hair and color have changed quite a bit — I was making a mod of all the short hair that is available for the female body type, and also streetkid was releasing a bunch of different hair color packs so I was playing with all the different shades of red. Before that, SK!Val's hair was pretty much always the fauxhawk, with occasional forays into vanilla hair until Julia released the curly hair mod. For C!Val, it's pretty much whatever long hair I'm feeling for the outfit, though she rarely sports bangs. 😅

For other parts of Val's appearance, I think she stays pretty consistent between colors and style. It would be noticed if she changed her hair color from some hue of red or orange, or her piercings/cyberware from gold.

Wardrobe changes would depend on lifepath.

SK - if she started dressing like a corpo, people would be concerned; people wouldn't notice nomad attire so much, because it would likely look similar, just more leather and straps, or they would think it's a phase

Corpo - her old colleagues would be surprised if she started dressing like a nomad or streetkid, even though she does incorporate some streetkid flair into her corpo wardrobe. When she "leaves" Arasaka, she can't shake the 'former corpo' vibe, nor does she try to but she does relax into more 'corpo casual' with, again, some streetkid flair

Nomad - she already incorporates some streetkid attire in her wardrobe because of her background, so if she went full SK most people would think it's a phase, but corpo would be concerning

7 - Who is your V/OC's best choom and how did they meet?

Misty is pretty much best choom in every universe, except Nomad probably. I like to think C!Val met her before the game starts due to her longer relationship with Jack, and Misty is one of the only people to call her on her bullshit, especially important later when things spiral out of control with Mitch.

For Nomad!Val, that's a great question! It's gotta be Hilary. They became fast friends in Val's canon story, and she's part of the reason N!Val became a Nomad to begin with. In fact, why don't we talk more on that below. 😄

10 - What's your V/OC's origin story? We all know in-game V can choose one of three lifepaths and The Heist is where everything changes for them, but why'd they end up in the lifepath you selected for them?

Pop already asked me about Corpo!Val, so check it out here.

As I said in the linked post, all three of her lifepaths start the same: she's orphaned at seven (I'm sure it's seven!) then put into custody of her indifferent cousin Mark, until the age of 13 when things split. In the nomad path, she takes a gig to decrypt a shard on an anonymous BBS, a site where she regularly booked small jobs that didn't require her to reveal her extreme youth. She met the group of nomads, the youngest of whom was Hilary, a talented netrunner who was only a few years older than V herself.

Hilary had been unable to crack the final layer of ICE on the shard, even though she'd promised she could break into anything, and was about to proceed with accessing the data when V caught that it was wired to self-destruct if accessed directly, so she manages to crack the shard and save the data, too.

Hilary lobbies the other nomads to offer the orphan a spot in their small family that's been trying to bolster their dwindling numbers. They agree. V doesn't go back to Mark's tiny apartment since she has everything of importance on her — her mom's necklace, her multitool, and her cyberdeck (external until she's much older) — and she doesn't even text Mark to say where she's going. He texts the next morning and she tells him she joined these nomads, Bakkers, and he text back a thumbs up. That's the last she hears of him until she finds out later that he died because she's listed as his next of kin. Turns out he never reported that she left, and NC Social Services doesn't have the resources to check up on all kids, especially the ones that 'behave'.

The We're Here, the Dawn Treader, the RMS Titanic, and the USS Constituton are all contenders.

So's the Inheritance, come to think of it.

In the gif of Val and Vox we were given an animation error but instead I offer-

Val is more of a chainsmoker then expected 2 at once

Or a secret third option...he got some real fucked up double jointed hands

And this is the red Peach Pie for her corpo AU when she's in her early 20s and just got a big promotion at Arasaka and impulsively got that wolfcut

And this is the red Strawbebby for when she moves back to NC from Atlanta in her canon

And this is the red Violet for the start of her Nomad (Fuckboy) AU

And this is the red Ginger Strawb during Act II of her Nomad (Fuckboy) AU

And this is the red Blood Diamond for her Rogue cosplay

And this is the red Sunset from when she's just a lil bb streetkid