InsaneJournal

in character;
God/Myth
Name: Chronos. Not to be confused with Cronus.
General overview of powers, if applicable: None.
Please give a basic rundown of the version(s) of your mythic character you are choosing to use: Chronos was the personification of time, self-formed at the beginning of creation. He was an incorporeal god with three heads (that of a man, a bull, and a lion) and the body of a snake. He and Ananke circled the world when it was in its primal egg state, then split it apart to form the sky, earth, and sea -- the universe. They kept on circling the cosmos after they hatched the earth in order to drive the circling of heaven and keep time moving eternally. He's often depicted as an old, wise man spinning the Zodiac wheel, and he's known as one of Father Time's many forms.

Character
Name: Valerie Michelle Ryan.
Age/Birthdate: 24, April 16, 1985.
Sexuality: Heterosexual.
Occupation: Customer service representative for Kinder Software -- think something like Tableau Sofware but... not.

Appearance:
PB: Jessica Lowndes.

Powers:
• Time control: She can literally stop time. All it takes is a moment of concentration and everything around her is suspended in time. When she first discovered this ability the pause lasted for about five seconds, but training has allowed her to seriously extend how long she can stop time. Five minutes is nothing to her, but anything more than an hour will leave her feeling seriously drained. Also, there's that whole 'potentially messing with time's flow' thing, so she's trying not to push it too much and accidentally and get stuck in time or something equally unfavorable. She can also slow down time without completely stopping it. Quite useful for dodging bullets and other pesky things like that. Because she can only stop time within a certain radius (as opposed to all time ever) the time in that area has to speed up momentarily to catch up with the rest of time. She may or may not discover that she can actually speed up time without having to slow it first. Also, she's been working on expanding how much space her powers cover.

• Hand-to-hand: Valerie has always been naturally athletic, but before she met Diego almost all of her combat knowledge was learned in a self-defense class. Since meeting him, however, she's spent a good chunk of her free time doing grueling physical (and mental) training -- one does not become a superhero by sitting around, okay? Her fighting style is more brawl than anything, but she does borrow more than a couple martial art moves.
Attributes: She's acutely aware of time; she keeps a precise schedule every day, and unless her arrival is out of her hands, she's always exactly on time. She's also got a good head on her shoulders. She's no wise old man, but she's smart, mature, and judicious where it counts.

Personality:
• Valerie is, among many things, a mother (kinda), a superhero, and a working girl -- she works hard for her money, so you better treat her right. All pop culture references aside, Valerie is one of the most responsible people you'll ever know. And, really, you probably won't even realize that. Her slightly bad attitude (mostly a facade) and ability to turn most things into jokes leads a lot of people to believe... well, that she has a bad attitude and the inability to take things seriously. But she really is very responsible and mature. She has to be; if she acted on her selfish urges or didn't know when to take things seriously, she'd probably be out of a job. Even worse, her sister would probably still be in foster care.

• She has a bit of a mothering streak, but it's more of the "PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER" variety than it is a baking cookies and cooing over babies thing. She's also a bit of a bleeding heart, especially when it comes to abused children and animals. Her own abusive childhood pushed her to become a strong person, both physically and mentally. She no longer flinches when people raise their hands or make sudden motions. She is often suspicious of peoples' motives, but not hardened. There are people like her parents, sure, but there's also some good out there, you know? The social worker that helped her get custody of Ruby, for example. The owner of the grocery store that gave her free bread when she couldn't afford any.

• On a completely different note, she has a really hard time taking people who are in ~love~ seriously. And that Twilight stuff? Fuck that. She's also very picky in who she chooses to date. She may end up married to them, and she doesn't want to get hitched to some guy that's going to try and hit her. Because then she'd have to kill him.

• She's seriously independent, and has a hard time letting people in. She's friendly (kind of), she has friends -- but she can be kind of closed off, especially when people try to dig in.

• She's very patient. Dealing with a bratty teenager means that she has to be, just like she has to be responsible. Speaking of Ruby, though -- she loves her sister to death, even if she occasionally gets fed up with her. And though her little sister drives her crazy, she will punch you in the throat if you try to hurt her. No questions asked.

History:
• Valerie Ryan's earliest memory is of being yelled at by her mother for accidentally breaking a glass, then being sent to bed without supper. Her childhood is filled with memories like this, which would be normal enough if it weren't for the fact that most of them also included missing breakfast and lunch the next day, or even being slapped across the face for her mistakes; Valerie is one of the many unfortunate children that grew up in an abusive household.

• For the majority of her childhood, she blamed herself for her parents' resentment: maybe if she had been born a little later, her parents -- Marshall and Linda Ryan -- wouldn't be so angry; she was born in the spring of 1985, only 13 months after her older brother Henry's. They were both accidental babies, and for a couple with an already tempestuous relationship, dealing with two unexpected (and largely unwanted) children born so close together added even more strain. Maybe, she reasoned, if they had time to adjust to Henry they wouldn't be so mad about having two kids they didn't seem to want. Or maybe if she could do everything right, daddy would stop doing drugs and mommy wouldn't hit her anymore.

• But nothing -- not even being the best behaved child she could be -- Valerie did seemed to make things better. For the first ten years of her life, she dealt with abuse that just grew worse and worse as time wore on. She wasn't getting the brunt of it, though; her brother was brave to the point of being reckless, and tried to fight back when his parents would attack him either physically or verbally. His defiance just made their parents angrier. It got to the point that Marshall almost sent the then eleven year old Henry to the hospital when he administered a particularly bad beating using a telephone receiver.

• Then, for a time, it just -- stopped. Marshall had been arrested and forced into rehab around the same time Linda discovered she was pregnant for a third time. For some reason, when Marshall was back home and clean they decided to get their lives together and try to be good parents.

• ...Unfortunately, this lasted all of two years. By the time the new baby, Ruby, was two years old things started to fall apart again. Marshall was back on drugs, Linda was using, and they were both selling. They started beating their two older children again, though they largely left Ruby alone, much to Valerie's relief.

• Henry filed for and was granted emancipation in 2000. Valerie and Ruby were briefly put into foster care at this time, though their parents got custody back very quickly when they (just barely) proved to be fit parents.

• When Valerie finally graduated high school in 2003 she moved out as quickly as she could. Fearing for Ruby's safety now that she was no longer there, Valerie planned on trying to get custody of her little sister. The case against her parents looked bleak at first: the state had been (again, just barely) unable to prove that they were unfit parents, and there was no way they would just give up custody of their youngest child.

• However! In 2004, the Ryans were both picked up in a drug bust. Marshall was sentenced to seven years and Linda to six. Ruby was put into foster care, and Valerie, with the help of a social worker, finally got custody of her little sister before the year was up.

• It was really hard for the both of them; Ruby had never really known how terrible her parents were, and the then ten year old didn't want to be without her parents. She resented Valerie, and was pretty vocal about it. Her sister's behavior occasionally wore down on her, but she had to be strong. Still, sometimes things were so had -- raising a child, working, finally applying for colleges. It got to be a little bit too much at some times, and all she wanted was... time.

• Then one day, her wish for time was granted. Ruby had locked herself in the bathroom and They were both going to be late for school -- Valerie was accepted to UW in fall of 2005 -- and Valerie was just getting so frustrated. She tried a trick a friend had taught her; she closed her eyes, took a deep breath in, then opened her eyes as she released it. She immediately glanced at the clock and it had stopped moving. Annoyed by the seemingly broken contraption, she turned back to the bathroom door, took a bobby pin from her hair, and jimmied the lock.

• Ruby was standing at the mirror, a tear about to drip from her chin. Only... it wasn't moving. Ruby wasn't moving. The water coming out from the faucet was stopped midstream. Everything was suspended in time. When Valerie realized that, everything seemed to snap back into motion and speed up momentarily. The tear rolled off Ruby's face, the water started running, and Ruby yelled at Valerie about privacy. Completely freaked out by what had happened, she simply told Ruby to get her butt to the bus station.

• Valerie stayed home from school that day, experimenting with... well, with time. If she closed her eyes and focused hard enough she could literally stop time. After deciding she was not crazy, she realized that she could use this gift for good.

• That included using it for her own good. Whenever Ruby got out of hand or she needed a little more time to study she would simply freeze time - she eventually got to the point where she could hold time in place for up to an hour.

• Now, what Valerie didn't know was that she couldn't stop all of time -- the area around her was frozen in time, but the next city (the next classroom, even) was completely unaffected. She learned this the hard way. When she was in one of her classes, taught by none other than professor Oliveras, she desperately needed more time to finish a test. When he was out of the room, she used her powers. Unfortunately for her, he walked back in while time was still frozen in the classroom. His reaction? "Somebody's cheating." She would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for the fact that she was absolutely flabbergasted at learning that her messing with time hadn't affected him; a shout of "what the ACTUAL fuck" gave way that it was her.

• That was in 2008, her senior year. After being punished for cheating, professor Patches started training her to be a superhero because he was one too. Yes.

• Since then she has graduated. She also has a full time job. Between being a single mom (?), a working girl, and a superhero? Yeah, she has no free time.

Trivia:
• She and her sister live in a house that was left to Ruby when one of their relatives died.
• Dates very rarely.
• Hasn't seen her brother since 2000.
• Despite being kind of mothery, she doesn't want children. Especially not now.

First person sample: Found here!

Third person sample: Here! I AM CHELSEA. Obviously.