Hey there, hope you're doing well! I just wanted to say that Vanessa is absolutely a character that has stuck with me even this long after reading her route. I still remember how excited I was when it was announced she was getting a route since I had been strongly hoping for it, absolutely adoring reading it as soon as the updates dropped, taking copious amounts of screenshots and sharing them with my friends that would listen as I rambled on about what my favorite dork of a huntress was up to. Vanessa continues to be my favorite character/route from Lovestruck (tied with Emeril, I love them both). To this day I still regularly think about her and love talking with friends about silly and self-indulgent ideas, how she might interact with characters from other shows/games, sometimes basing my custom character in a video game off of her. Her route even recently inspired me to get more into magical girl media I missed out on growing up like the original Sailor Moon anime. There will always be at least one person regularly thinking about Vanessa, I can promise that!
As for questions, I'm curious about any thoughts or details you had for her that weren't able to make it/be reflected in her route. Little quirks, habits, or preferences, honestly I'd be happy hearing just about any thoughts about her! Thank you again to both you and the team as a whole for bringing this very special character to life!
thank you so much for this message!!!! it’s VERY kind, and I can’t emphasize enough how much I appreciate it. I often struggle with looking back at my own work and finding it lackluster, which makes it hard for me to believe anyone else enjoys/enjoyed it, especially so many years later. ESPECIALLY with Vanessa because she was so personal to me and she got so much hate online back in the day. It makes me SO happy to know that you connected with her route and still think about her!
as for thoughts/details I wasn’t able to include—I always headcanoned from the jump that while she never attended school properly (and desperately wanted to), she did get trained alongside a group of recruits around her age but she never fit in or really understood the social cues. she tried to make up for that with Levana—she wanted friends SO badly and Levana seemed like the only real option she had—so Levana deciding they were in a Rivalry and she actually HATED Vanessa (for being weak, for having everything handed to her, for getting everything Levana wanted but never being happy) she was DEVASTATED. Levana’s rejection of her initial gestures of friendship crushed her so hard she never really tried again.
also, I can’t remember if this ever came up, but the magen david that she wears was a bat mitzvah gift from her parents—along with her whip
also, I do remember people commenting on “why does Vanessa have so many Japanese + Asian weapons” and the answer for her specifically is actually literally just that she’s a weeb and a teacher’s pet who would go buy weapons she’d seen in anime (starting at like 10 years old) and then run to her fighting instructors like “if I master the techniques you’re teaching us for those other weapons, can you teach me how to use this afterward???” and they obviously agreed bc it meant they could incentivize her to work….using more work
I also don't remember how much I actually got to put in about her family (it's been a LONG time since I wrote Vanessa and I haven't really reread the route since, so take this all with a grain of salt) and how much of it got nixed by the producers, but iirc she had a really complicated relationship with her parents. (I do believe we had them make an appearance in the wedding season but I don't remember how much I actually got to go into all of this) because her dad was SO much like her, right. He was SO the poster child for the Helsings, he was going to be the next head of the family, he was their rising star, and he took the responsibility VERY seriously--which Vanessa witnessed + admired + emulated, at his strict encouragement. He (and her mom) were also very absent well into her teens. And then when she was an older teenager a mission went very wrong and he had to retire and he chilled out a LOT and he suddenly was behaving very differently with Vanessa (read: attempting to express concern for her well-being) which she read as a lack of confidence in her abilities, especially when she'd just been thrust into this position of enormous weight and responsibility which she was honored by and taking VERY seriously, and her dad's concern felt more like he was saying she couldn't handle it than "hey I just nearly died and now you want my teenage daughter to take over for me. hey maybe she should take a few more years before doing that. perhaps. hey I don't want my daughter to die." so they had this big falling out and Vanessa didn't like. speak to her parents at all for years.
