Valerie Bathurst

## **Profile**

**Valerie Bathurst**, is a student of Beacon Academy, and a member of Team HEVY. She acts as the team's reconnaissance specialist, and is the bassist for Grimm Eklipse. Valerie first appeared, albeit briefly and vaguely, in ORGN: Volume 1, Chapter 1: Oren Koga, and officially debuted in ORGN: Volume 1, Chapter 3: Ezekiel Ibanez.

## **Appearance**

Valerie is a fair-skinned young woman that has long, black hair with violet highlights, wearing her front bangs in a combover to the side, and has twin pigtails. She has violet eyes, and a pair of large bat wings on her back, indicating that she is a bat Faunus. Valerie also typically wears black lipstick, black nail paint, violet eyeshadow, a dark gold headband with a bat shaped ornament that was given to her as a gift from her late father, and black under-rim style glasses.

During Year 1, Valerie wore a rather simple outfit, which consisted of a black tank top that exposes her midriff, a tight miniskirt, black and violet striped fingerless gloves, a fishnet bodystocking, a black choker, a wallet chain matching her headband, and black leather heeled boots. During this time, she was not wearing her glasses, but contact lenses instead, due to perceiving herself wearing glasses as unattractive at the time.

In Year 2, Valerie wore a strapless black and violet gothic lolita style dress that exposes her shoulders, black thigh high socks, and black boots. At this point, she began to wear her glasses again, as she had slowly started to accept herself more.

Valerie's Year 3 design incorporates elements from the previous two, wearing a violet tank top that exposes her midriff, and a black miniskirt, alongside black fingerless gloves and matching thigh high socks attached to a garterbelt, and black leather heeled boots.

Year 4 further combines elements of Valerie's previous designs, wearing a midriff exposing bustier with a black and violet overcoat attached to it, a black and violet layered miniskirt, black and violet striped fingerless gloves with a matching pair of thigh high socks attached to a garterbelt, a spiked collar choker, and black platform heeled boots that are at below the knee height.

During class time, Valerie wears her blazer tied around her waist, and has her shirt unbuttoned at the top, likely for the purpose of accommodating her bust more comfortably, and also flirt more easily. Her shirt also seems to have had the sleeves cut short as well. Alongside her uniform, she wears her headband, a spiked collar choker, black and violet striped fingerless gloves, pantyhose, and black heeled boots. For pajamas, Valerie typically wears a short, semi-opaque violet nightgown that has black lace.

## **Personality**

Valerie has somewhat strange personality, partially due to social ineptitude, depressive tendencies, and being slightly insecure with herself. She copes with this by taking on a flirty and slightly seductive persona, speaking in a somewhat sultry tone of voice, and often inserting innuendos and double entendres into her sentences and vocabulary. Despite this facade, Valerie is actually quite the hopeless romantic, and is surprisingly innocent, even if she may not show it often. She is also quite intellectual, being able to read and comprehend a science textbook at a young age, and is capable of speaking in an advanced vocabulary. Her closet nerdiness is a part of Valerie that she is quite insecure about, and will go to great lengths to hide, whether it is by putting up her flirty facade, or even downright lying about her high grades, saying that she had gotten "average marks" instead.

Valerie is also a very passionate and obsessive individual, especially towards Zeke, whom is at the center of her fixation. This obsession causes her to be rather possessive and loyal to a fault towards him, being overprotective to the point of stalking, or acting as a "guardian angel" as she will often call it. This behavior isn't just motivated by her romantic interest towards Zeke, however, as it goes much deeper than that. Valerie also believes that she is "indebted" to Zeke, wanting to protect him much like he had done so for her in the past, although it is often to the extent of overdoing it more than he ever would've. It is also because they were friends since childhood, and they had ended up being separated for a period of time, due to Zeke and his father moving after a broken marriage with his mother. This, combined with the death of Valerie's father after he had become gravely ill, had caused her to develop separation anxiety towards Zeke, since he was the only and best friend that she had during childhood, and had felt extremely lonely during the time Zeke was absent.

Despite being slightly overbearing towards Zeke, she is still capable of respecting his need for space and privacy, and is willing to give him such when asked. Her possessive attitude towards him also isn't drastic enough that she won't allow others near him, on the contrary, she actually prefers having a crowd alongside Zeke to feel less lonely. However, that doesn't mean that she still won't be jealous and wary of others, especially towards other women that she isn't familiar with, showing a rather cold and hostile demeanor. Despite this, she is still capable of being rational, and won't resort to violently driving someone off unless they try to hurt Zeke or make him feel too uncomfortable. Though she had a hard time accepting Zeke's relationship with Blaze at first, Valerie eventually warmed up and became best friends with her, and even went so far as extending her protectiveness towards Blaze when she returned to Huo Village to face Crane, realizing that she valued her friendship with Zeke more than her own selfish desires, and would only lose him as a friend in the end if she did not support his relationship that he was happy in. After this, Valerie began to become somewhat enamoured towards Blaze, and started to be more protective towards everyone else that she was close with as well.

## **Powers and Abilities**

Valerie's Semblance is Seduction, which gives her the ability make her target(s) completely infatuated with her, making them unable to fight, or really anything else for that matter, as they are rendered completely mindless when affected. It also has a passive effect, giving her an aura that lowers aggression towards her, and depending on the strength of the will of an individual, may even cause them to become infatuated as well, albeit slightly weaker than if Valerie were to target and focus her Semblance directly towards them, and will also lack its immobilizing effect. This Semblance does have its limits however, as it will have no effect on a target that already has feelings for another person, if they are attracted to males, or are not even capable of feeling attraction towards anyone at all. On the other hand, Seduction has the potential to affect women that are attracted to other women, but due to the unpredictability of using it on women, Valerie will more often than not target men with her Semblance instead.

Valerie possesses a surprising amount of physical strength, capable of lifting a person twice her size with ease, and can even carry a single person while flying. She also has sharp fangs capable of drawing and siphoning blood, but she doesn't seem to ever use them for that purpose. Valerie also has the ability to hang upside down from any surface for long periods of time. How she is able to do this exactly, is not known. She is also capable of being nocturnal, and can stay up for an entire night without experiencing any fatigue. In doing so however, Valerie will not be at her full strength, and will have an increased appetite that becomes more insatiable the longer she stays up. At 24 hours, she would have to eat twice her body weight in food to maintain her strength, and at 48 hours, she would have to resort to consuming blood as well. Due to being a bat Faunus, Valerie's Semblance, abilities, senses, and overall strength are bolstered during night time, making her a much more formidable opponent when fought at night. She is also able to move and fly very silently, making her exceptional at stealth and reconnaissance, skills that she had no doubt honed while stalking Zeke.

Valerie's weapon of choice is a bass guitar that has axeblades on each side, named Marceline, that she can wield one-handed with surprisingly relative ease, despite it being quite hefty. She will often take advantage of her ability to fly in combat, using it to boost the momentum of her strikes, maneuver around her foes to confound and catch them off guard, and incorporate punches and mostly kicks alongside swinging her weapon. She will also grapple and throw her opponents around, and even pick them up to drop them or dive and slam them into the ground. Valerie is generally quite cunning, nimble, and vicious in a fight, as well as slightly ruthless, especially when she is fighting to protect someone.

## **Etymology**

Valerie is the English and German form of Valeria, which is the feminine form of Valerius, a Roman family name that was derived from "valere" which means "to be strong" in Latin, and was the name of several early saints.

Bathurst was likely derived from the city of Bathurst, which is located in the province of New Brunswick in Canada, and was named after Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst. It may have also been derived from a surname of Anglo-Saxon origin, which is a locational surname, referring to those from Bathurst manor, near Battle Abbey, Sussex. It was also likely chosen as Valerie's surname because it could potentially be seen as a play on words, with Bathurst being interpreted as "bat thirst", as a nod to her Faunus species.

## **Trivia**

* Valerie's overall design and aesthetic is likely intended to evoke that of both a succubus and a vampire, creatures that are well known for being seductive and having sexual appeal.
	+ Valerie is also confirmed to be canonically bisexual by ORGN's writers, further alluding to her succubus and vampire motifs, as both were also known to engage in sapphism as well.
* Valerie's overall appearance, and tendency to stalk, may have been loosely based on Tharja from Fire Emblem: Awakening.
	+ Her flirty facade, and succubus motifs on the other hand, may have been inspired by Morrigan Aensland from Darkstalkers.
* Valerie's weapon, Marceline, is a direct reference to the Adventure Time character of the same name, and even has a similar appearance to Ax Bass, the signature weapon of Marceline (the character).
* Silverwing, the name of her ship with Zeke, is a reference to both the novel of the same name by Kenneth Oppel, and a song by Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy, which is also titled "Silverwing", and is based on the novel it was named after.
	+ Valerie's catchphrase, "fly with me", references the song's chorus. The phrase "fly with me" also occurs in the first verse of the song as well.
* Seduction, the name of Valerie's Semblance, is likely a reference to the song "Seduction" by post-hardcore band Alesana.
* Many of Valerie's traits and abilities appear to be derived from various species of bats.
	+ Wearing glasses, due to being nearsighted, is similar to that of bats also being nearsighted.
	+ Her habit of hanging upside down from places, is similar to how bats hang upside down while roosting.
	+ Her ability to move and fly silently, habit of stalking, and being able to consume blood, is similar to vampire bats.
	+ Her favourite food being pineapples, and her high physical strength, comes from fruit bats.
	+ Her protective, possessive, and mildly clingy nature, the value she places on her friends, as well as preferring crowds, is similar to the social behaviors of some species of bats.
	+ Her overall fighting style is similar to the flight patterns and methods bats use when hunting their prey.
* Valerie's birthdate is May 21st, which coincides with the release date of Arch Enemy's *Burning Bridges* album, and is also the album that has "Silverwing" on it.