last oc i post before bed,,, slempy (character backstory and magical boy design below!) 🌼
Victor is simultaneously grounded and extremely anxious. He's the most level-headed member of the alchemist magical girl/boy team, remaining calm in the face of danger; but his greatest weakness is his empathy, so when his friends are suffering (and since they're the main characters, they're usually always suffering) he experiences panic attacks that exacerbate his asthma.
Because of his asthma (and various other illnesses) he's unable to fight monsters in person with Sherry and Eddie- but to purify the monsters back to normal, you need four alchemists aligned with the four elements, and Victor's element is Earth (which the group lacks without him) So, the group worked out a plan where Victor can use his powers from a distance, so he's still a member of the team!
-To power attacks, alchemists have to sacrifice energy from their souls. But if you have poor health, you require as much energy as possible just to survive. Since Victor is in poor health, yet desperately needed on the team, he found a workaround; by using his magical protective goggles he can protect his energy from being automatically absorbed out of him when he partakes in an attack. Since all the team needs is four alchemists (each representing one of the elements) to activate a magical glyph within a certain distance of each other, Victor can sit safely in his house without having to endanger himself directly fighting the monster-of-the-week, nor sacrificing any of his precious energy.
-Before finding this solution however, he was turned into a Hyde due to his depression, self-hatred and suicidal ideation, as he felt like such a failure (both because he couldn't be an alchemist, something he dreamed about all his life, and also because he was too weak to protect his friends)
uhhhh happier facts??
-he's rarely seen without a mug of coffee
-that groggy demeanor isn't caused by hangovers but from pulling all-nighters coding people's websites (even though it's all freelanced he makes a killing off of it)
-that scarf is ALWAYS on him (sometimes he sleeps in it) the texture feels nice to him, and rubbing it between his fingers makes him feel better when he's anxious
-he's incredible at playing the piano (Zelda gifted him his scarf after he played his first piano recital as a kid) to the point where people keep telling him to take it up as a career, but he thinks that sounds really boring (playing the piano always makes him sleepy)
-his counterpart is Lanyon!
About Victor's Hyde, codename "The Mourning Glory":
-though it hates itself more than anybody, it continues to shock people to near-fatality with its exposed cables, only to loathe itself even more deeply
-it's constantly humming like an overworked PC, burning to the touch
-the screen that acts as its face often glitches and flashes, causing people around it to become temporarily blinded and disoriented
-this EOT variant was made with lead
