Frances

Frances Valdez, labeled The Journalist, was a contestant on Total Drama Lakeside who was placed on the Artisanal Cheeses.
==Biography==
Frances is the editor-in-chief of her college newspaper. Her biggest passions are reading, writing, editing, and finding out juicy details about people. She's cynical about most aspects of life but believes that pursuing a journalistic career is her one true calling, so she puts in lots and lots of effort. Being relatively introverted, she usually doesn't hang out with massive groups of people, and can be frequently seen at her college's local coffee joint, sitting in the corner with her laptop and notepad and observing her surroundings. Whenever she's interested in someone, whether platonically or romantically, she often tries her best to figure out their entire life story to see if they're "good enough," which involves discreetly following them around campus for multiple days. When meeting new people, Frances tones down her personality to come off as quiet and unassuming, so she can blend in and "take notes" about her surroundings, but her true passionate self often slips out. This intrusive and chatty nature occasionally turns people off, but she doesn't have malicious intent... usually. She always tells herself to find the good in people, despite usually jumping to conclusions and blowing tiny things up to newsworthy stories.
Frances joined Total Drama because she felt like it'd be an interesting experience to report on, and she also wants to meet her fellow "weirdos" that'd willingly go onto the show.
==Total Drama Lakeside==
==Appearances==
==Trivia==
*Frances was first created for the earliest version of this story, Mt. Total Drama. I changed aspects of her design such as outfit, hair color, and ethnicity when finalizing the Lakeside cast, as her old design heavily resembled Kelsey. 
**This original version of Frances was also similar to Kelsey personality-wise, being more extroverted and bubbly. She was also one of the romantic leads—an early plot involved her hooking up with a character based on Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords, soon regretting it, and eventually joining back up with him. 
**She was also the planned winner even back then, something which I actually leaked on a blog post detailing what would've happened in Mt. Total Drama. For a minute, while writing Lakeside, I was worried that'd be a spoiler and almost changed her placing, but realized nobody would have remembered or cared about that old blog.
*Frances wasn't based on anyone specific, but her character was created after I spent two years writing and editing for my high school newspaper.
*Frances and Suvir’s relationship was partially inspired by Sprinklemist’s old characters Hedda and Ivan, among other "dynamic duo" characters in stories. 
**I briefly thought of pairing them together romantically, but I wanted a platonic male-female friendship to contrast Graham and Kelsey's romance. I also figured Suvir wouldn't necessarily be interested in dating.
*She and Kelsey were intended to be foils, illustrated by their similar outfits and positions in the final two. Kelsey is extroverted and bubbly on the outside but anxious on the inside, while Frances is quiet and observant on the outside but overzealous on the inside. 
*In the end, I went with Frances as the winner because I thought she'd be the most unique choice. Kelsey's story wouldn't have been as effective if it ended with a win instead of 2nd place, Christian would've been too nonsensical, and all my previous female winners were over-the-top negative and/or absurd. Frances's quieter, friendlier (yet still devious) personality made her stick out among the bunch. I also thought it'd be good to have a more subdued character win, since Layla and Wolfgang were such massive personalities.
*Frances was never my absolute favorite character of the story, but I consistently enjoyed writing for her and was satisfied with her winning. Besides, Lakeside wasn't meant to be a typical "Total Drama season," so the winner naturally had to be atypical as well.
*"Frances" is one of my favorite names, so I loved writing for her because of that alone. I also liked having a character with so many built-in nicknames, like Fran and Franny, which reminded me of past winner Wolfgang (aka "Wolfie").
*Frances's sleepwear references the Cocteau Twins and their album Heaven or Las Vegas.
==Gallery==
FranSwim.png|Frances in her swimwear.
FranSleep.png|Frances in her sleepwear.
Frances24.png|Frances' appearance in 2024.
Category:Total Drama Lakeside
Category:Winners