|:P O T E N T I A LxI N T E R E S T:|
Well, this is awkward. And so is Valencia, really. The thing about her is, she’s paralyzingly shy most of the time, at least around anyone who isn’t Aria. And even with her best friend, she’s quiet and not very talkative. She can give off the impression of being unusually cold or distant from other people, but it’s really just because she doesn’t know how to socialize very well, or can’t bring herself to do it. Needless to say, her few experiences with the opposite sex to date have been… embarrassing, for one reason or another. Also, she has lingering body issues, because she was mocked a lot in her earlier teen years for developing unfortunately fast. (Get called a “slut” often enough and you start to avoid talking to people period, just to avoid the accusations.) That said, she is still a young woman, and though she isn’t really the sort to rush into anything or seek it out, even, she does hope to eventually find someone. She’s technically heterosexual, but open-minded.

|:S K I L L S:|
--» Logical Reasoning || Valencia isn’t really the sort of person who usually lets her emotions run her life. Rather, she prefers to retreat into the comfort of logical, rational thinking, because it’s much easier to make sense of facts than feelings. She is and always has been quite intelligent, perhaps even in possession of a genius-level IQ, and because of this, she has learned to reason calmly and rationally whenever she needs to make a decision or decide what to say or how to advise someone else. It’s a natural compliment to Aria’s demeanor, too, which means that together, they cover most of the bases.

--» Gymnastics || In girlhood, her extracurricular activity was gymnastics, which she liked because it was a solo sport for the most part, and she didn’t have to interact with anyone but her coaches if she didn’t want to. She was quite good at it, and still maintains her flexibility and general sense of grace and balance, but unfortunately, her body type is no longer suited to competitive versions of the sport—she is both too tall and too voluptuous to do especially well at the uneven bars, for example.

--» Speed-Reading || Valencia has learned to read and retain a lot of information in relatively little time. There is a technique to this, one she started to learn about a year ago. She’s still not as fast or good at the recall as some people, but she’s practicing, and already considerably ahead of the average person’s reading speed and retention rate for information. This helps when she needs to do research or look through a lot of documents to find something in particular.

--» Singing || She’s been in a few choirs over her time at school and the like, mostly for fun. She doesn’t consider herself a professional-level talent, but she’s relatively untutored. In truth, her soprano has a sweet, clear sound to it, and while she doesn’t have the vocal style for something like opera, she can do quite well with popular or choir music, for instance. It’s not something she’s comfortable doing in front of other people anymore, and she quit choir at the age of thirteen.

--» Domestic Chores || Her parents are busy people, of course, and so oftentimes, Valencia has been left to look after herself for part of the day, or even a weekend. To make this easier, her parents taught her how to cook, clean, do laundry, and these sorts of things. She’s pretty good at all of them, and has also done research on accomplishing all of them while camping, information she thinks would be good to know before she and Aria set out on their journey.

|: Q U I R K S :|
--» Vocabulary || Valencia is a very well-read young lady, and to some extent, her choice of vocabulary reflects this. She’s one of those people who tends to think extensively before she ever speaks, and so her sentences are usually elegantly-structured and precise, assuming she isn’t too nervous, at which point she’ll stumble awkwardly over her words and make a mess of things.

--» Celebrity Knowledge || It’s really pretty stupid, and she knows it is, but Valencia is secretly a fan of celebrities and idol singers and the like. She doesn’t like to gossip about them or anything, but she’ll read all the interviews with the people she likes for fun, to learn more about the people that create her favorite television shows, art, books, and other things. Because of her skill at remembering things, she is a veritable encyclopedia of random pop culture knowledge, and just happens to know things like who is dating who, what town someone is from, information about childhood hobbies, and so on and so forth. She’s afraid that this will be interpreted as weird or creepy, so she usually doesn’t let on that she knows anything about the subject.

--» Blank Face || Unless flustered somehow, Valencia is not a particularly expressive person, and big smiles, full laughter, scowls, and the like don’t come to her naturally. Her face is usually unreadable, and if she does show her feelings, it is in small, understated types of ways. This matches her body language, which is generally neat, carefully-contained, and demure rather than expansive or excitable. It can be hard to tell what she’s thinking because of this, and some people aren’t sure she even has feelings, though of course she does. She can feel very deeply, in fact—it just won’t always be easy to tell by looking at her.

|:P E R S O N A L I T Y:|

Truly, Valencia doesn’t seem like much at first. The mousy girl in the corner, with the low self-esteem to match it. She feels perpetually overshadowed by her much brighter and more vibrant best friend, but she isn’t jealous of Aria for this. Rather, she is simply glad to be her friend, and have the privilege of her company. Always rather bookish and intellectual, she has the secret ambition to build the world’s first completely comprehensive pokédex. Thoughtful, considerate, and kind, she often finds herself blind to her own virtues, but not to the extent of extreme self-deprecation.

|:F A M I L Y:|
Harvey Destler; Father; Alive; Engineer
Fiona Destler; Mother; Alive; Engineer

|:H I S T O R Y:|
There is no especially riveting or tragic story to tell about Valencia’s life up to the present moment. It has certainly not all been roses and sunshine, but her problems, such as they have been, have been the sort of commonplace, if unfortunate, troubles that some people are forced to face when confronting adolescence.

She was born sixteen summers ago, to Harvey and Fiona Destler. She is and always has been their only child, though she was not doted upon as some only children tend to be. Rather, her parents were often busy with their work—both are engineers in the employ of Silph Company, on the cutting edge of technological research. Silph has a small lab in New Bark Town now, but still they frequently travel to larger cities, for meetings, conferences, and access to more sophisticated equipment. In a sense, therefore, Valencia raised herself. Or she would have, had Aria not been part of her life.

The two have been friends since they were old enough for playdates, and when Val’s parents were away, she often stayed at the Bell residence, letting herself be dragged along on whatever adventure Aria had planned for the day. Brilliant even as a child, she often knew the plans would get them into trouble, but always went along with them anyway, because Aria found it all quite fun, and she liked seeing her friend happy.

Her parents, distant as they were, always pushed her for intellectual success, and if she was ever not at the top of her class for anything, she was sure to receive a lecture. She worked ridiculously hard to be the best at everything she tried, hoping that eventually she would gain both their approval and their attention. She has since accepted that she likely never will—nothing is good enough for them, and she has to deal with that.

Adolescence has thus far been a trying time for Valencia. She physically developed early and prominently, and was subject to a lot of teasing from her peers because of this and her shy, loner’s demeanor. Her self-esteem, already pretty bad, tanked shortly after she turned thirteen, and she’s never really recovered. While others bloomed in that period, growing into themselves and learning who they wanted to be, Valencia remained tightly-closed off, a bud yet withdrawn from the world.

Her hobbies, aside from those she engaged in with Aria, were generally solitary, and in this time, she developed a love for all things pokémon, and, strangely enough, all things celebrity. These were her escapes from the real world where she wasn’t enough, and allowed her to forget the pain of that for a while. Naturally, when Aria decided she wanted to go on a journey, Valencia agreed to go with her. Not to become a master—she wouldn’t want to compete with her friend, and would probably lose if she did—but to fill a pokédex, to do something that had never quite been managed before.

It won’t be enough to impress her parents, but maybe it will be enough for her own confidence to recover.