| 🌹 Introduction

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On first impression, Victor is quiet, sweet, and awfully timid. Victor’s overly anxious and worrisome nature is often the first thing people note about him. Always keeping to himself and seemingly spilling out apologies at the end of all his sentences, Victor has always had trouble asserting himself. However, underneath these fearful behaviors Victor displays a gentility unlike anything else. He contrasts his upbringing by striving to make a world which he had always been primed to fear a little kinder through simple actions.

However, Victor’s saddled with a fatal flaw. A severe lack of a spine. Though it’s not his fault, he has been conditioned to always bend over backwards for the whims of other people, Victor’s self esteem is so frail he will practically find himself at fault for anything. You could pour a bowl of hot soup into his lap and he’d be the one apologizing to you instead. This often leads to Victor struggling to stand up for himself and his beliefs when put to the test. Since he deeply fears punishment, it leads to him making what he feels are “cowardly” choices. However, to those who know the full picture, it’s obvious that this method of “freezing” in the face of fear is a result of a dysfunctional nervous system trained only on the worst of what the world has to offer.

Additionally, Victor is a sensitive soul. He expresses this with a warmth very few can replicate. Since he knows very intimately the experience of being wounded, he is able to connect with the other warriors (and especially Phoenix) in a way that truly helps them feel seen and understood. With the right amount of courage, he could be just as strong of a leaderly figure as Lia is. This sensitivity can also be a keen tool for offense as well. The last person you want to anger is someone who can understand you on a deep emotional level. That is how you end up having each of your most open wounds shown for all the world to see. If Victor inherited anything from his mother, it was her ability to read people and use that to her advantage. However, Victor struggles deeply with allowing himself to be open and vulnerable with his teammates, especially at first. You can’t blame him too hard for that though, when you’ve been taught your whole life you will be inevitably punished just for the notion of existing wrong, it makes it hard to tell people of the hurt you have endured.

One of Victor’s points of shame throughout the story is his relation to his family and especially his mother. Considering Dollvania’s connections to Omne, it isn’t really a surprise that Victor wouldn’t want the Warriors to assume the worst of him. While he doesn’t outright lie about his origins, he definitely doesn’t clue the warriors in on the specifics of his family or his upbringing until he opens up to Phoenix and Kai later on. He desperately wants to run away from his past and be loved normally. Unfortunately, for him to truly grow, he’s going to have to acknowledge his roots somehow. To be vulnerable is a deeply scary thing, but it is also one of the most freeing things you can do. After all, without the rot, nothing would grow.

Most of Victor’s key points of learning throughout the story is, as alluded to before, gaining the courage to stand up for himself and what he believes in. Phoenix serves as an essential point of inspiration for Victor’s development, as through her fiery, confident voice, he begins to find his own. Through Phoenix’s kindness to him even as a stranger, he was able to believe in a world that wasn’t as terrible as he was promised it’d be. Additionally, his other teammates like Kai help bring out the more playful parts of him. All of these connections with others contribute to him being able to find his own footing and recognize his worth as an individual. Only then can he make those next steps to properly tell off the people who’ve done him wrong and become more than just an “empty doll”.

| 🌹 ACT 1

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Victor starts out Act 1 expectedly quite reserved and quiet. Often keeping to himself, the only person he initially interacts with a lot is Phoenix, mostly due to her being the one to find him initially on Quescillia. Excluding Nate, he is the only member of the Warriors who has some degree of medical knowledge. This leads to him becoming essentially the designated “healer/medic” type of the team.

Victor initially treats being a member of the WOP as just another demand he must do. Really, the first thing he asked when he was told he had to “save the universe” was not what he’d get out of it or even to question the legitimacy of the offer, but to instead ask if he could do it without anyone back home knowing of his whereabouts. To him, this adventure is an escape. While he isn’t quite ready to embrace it fully yet, anything is better than being trapped in that forsaken house a second longer. That doesn’t stop Victor from harboring some amount of guilt, shame, and fear however.

Victor’s main learning point in Act 1 is addressing his issues with being able to stand up for others. Victor fears he will turn on or “backstab” those he cares about in fear of being hurt again. This idea of being a traitor, or even worse, a coward would make a fool out of people like Phoenix in Victor’s mind, who would’ve wasted all of that time believing in him. While this isn’t true of course, it doesn’t stop Victor from fearing he won’t be able to do what is right. Victor challenges this by allowing morality to overtake any sense of punishment he may face. Using Phoenix as an inspiration, he is able to learn that yeah, doing what’s right will hurt like hell sometimes, but that sure doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. If he has to put himself up in order to protect his friends, then so be it. He isn’t going to let himself run away from these problems anymore, and finally face it head on.

Maybe sometime soon he can do the same for himself too.