♔ Upbringing ♔Born and raised in an aristocratic family in New York City's Upper East Side, Valerie Huntington had everything she ever wanted from the day she was born. Both her parents coming from highly aristocratic families whose wealth reached far back in America as well as Old World countries, Valerie was born with unparalleled luxuries. With her family’s title came a strict refinement of Valerie’s social etiquette. From the moment she could talk she was taught how to behave with dignified grace within an elite society of the world’s foremost political and business figures; however even without formal mentoring Valerie always held an undeniable charisma that had everyone she met completely enchanted by her. Combined with her lack of shying away from the privileges her family’s wealth granted her, Valerie’s adolescence was filled with designer clothing, G5s, and invites to all of the world's grandest social events.
Around the age of puberty Valerie's mutations began showing their first signs. With no history of mutants in her ancestry, the manifestation of her telepathic abilities came as a surprise to her entire family. At first she would hear the thoughts of her classmates and friends without warning or control, but she soon began training her abilities to read and control the minds around her. But even from the earliest signs of her mental powers, Valerie knew her telepathic abilities were a step above the normal. From the earliest stages of her telepathy she was able to project her thoughts over vast distances and control several minds at once, skills unprecedented for a telepath of her age and lack of experience. It became quite clear to Valerie and the mutant experts hired by her parents that she was not only endowed with telepathy, but telepathy ranked at omega level, the highest tier a mutation can reach. This inborn raw power set the stage for Valerie to refine herself into an apex telepath later in life.
Being the child of wildly affluent parents in the Upper East Side provoked an adolescent lifestyle unlike any other. Valerie’s “it girl” reputation, due to irresistible physical and personal allure, quickly placed her as the most desirable teen on the Upper East Side, as well as the undisputed queen bee of her school. With her high level of social influence Valerie’s top priority in high school rapidly became partying on the wild side. Cocaine fetishes and endlessly martini glasses accompanied Valerie on a day-to-day basis; until the Halloween Ball of her senior year. A night full of drinking and fun with her Upper East Side peers led to an after party of white lines, as was usual for the French socialite. However when her hindered judgment allowed her telepathic abilities to cause the death of an innocent man, Valerie’s entire lifestyle did a 180.
Quitting her wild antics and turning her full attention to business, politics, and the refinement of her telepathic abilities, Valerie graduated high school with all the poise and dignity her parents could have dreamed of. Quickly turning her attention to business, Valerie eagerly used her family's reputation to establish herself among the most successful corporations worldwide; most effectively the Hellfire Club. Specializing in making investments with the world’s foremost criminal organizations, her actions granted Valerie a sinister reputation among the international superhuman community as well as an unimaginable fortune. Valerie’s business and celebrity status (due to a socialite persona among the general public) became the foundation of her early adulthood.
♔ Portrait of a Siren ♔It had always been hopeless to try to deal with Valerie. She had been spoiled--in a rather complete and unusual way. And ever since she was twelve she'd had boys around her, boys so thick she could hardly move. Before she had even turned sixteen she began going out to parties at her preparatory school, and then came the clubs and bars; and everywhere she went, boys, boys, boys. At first, until she was maybe eighteen, there had been so many that it never seemed one was any different to her than all the others, but then she began to single them out. She'd had a string of brief affairs spread out over her early adulthood. Sometimes the men were undergraduates, some just out of college, and some, enough to raise a decent amount of scandal, were distinguished professionals several years her senior. They lasted on average several months each, with short attractions in between. Once or twice they had endured longer and her mother had hoped she would be engaged, but always a new one came.
She had made the men miserable. They never seemed to know when she was tired of them, and Valerie was seldom unkind. They would continue calling her, writing letters to her, trying to see her, making long trips after her around the country. Some of them had even confided in her mother, told her with tears in their eyes, that they would never get over Valerie. But Valerie, it seemed, struck to kill--and to this day Adam Hudson sent her flowers which she no longer bothered to refuse.
Valerie, between tears and laughter, sorry, glad, out of love and in love, miserable, nervous, cool, amid a great returning of presents, substitution of pictures in immemorial frames, and talking with Mercy and taking of hot baths began again--with the next.
That state of things continued, assumed an air of permanency. Nothing harmed Valerie or changed her or moved her. And then out of a clear sky one day she informed Mercy that aristocrats wearied her. This had begun the change--not so much in her actual habits, for she partied, and had as many "dates" as ever--but they were dates in a different spirit. Previously it had been a sort of pride, a matter of her own vain glory. She had been, probably, the most celebrated and sought-after young beauty in the country, if not the world. Valerie Huntington-Whiteley of the Upper East Side! She had fed on it ruthlessly--enjoying the crowds around her, the manner in which the most desirable men singled her out; enjoying the fierce jealously of other girls; enjoying the fabulous, not to say scandalous, unfounded rumors about her--like that she had gone in the Four Seasons' swimming pool one night in an Ellie Saab couture evening gown.
And from loving it with a vanity that was almost masculine--it had been in the nature of a triumphant and dazzling career--she became suddenly anesthetic to it. She retired. She who had dominated countless parties, who had blown fragrantly through many clubs to the tender tribute of many eyes, seemed to no longer care. Men who fell in love with her were now dismissed utterly, almost angrily. She dated listlessly the most indifferent men. She continually broke engagements, not as she had in the past with a cool assurance that she was irreproachable, that the men she insulted would return like a domestic animal--but indifferently, without contempt or pride. She rarely stormed at men any more--she yawned at them. She seemed--and it was so strange--she seemed to her mother to be growing cold.
With the construction of a Hellfire Club chapter in Valerie's ancestral homeland Paris, France, it was apparently clear she was destined to rule the infamous organization. However, she entered the society to find another had snatched her crown before she could. A doctor by the name of Alexandra Steele had titled herself the Hellfire Club's White Queen, which Valerie did not settle for. She quickly entered a romantic relationship with Andres Knightfall, whose family's money funded to construction of the HFC's Paris establishment. With Andres at her side Dr. Steele's power over Valerie diminished, moving her closer to her destined title of White Queen. However Dr. Steele was persistent, continuously refusing to relinquish her self-appointed title. With tension growing from within the HFC Valerie stepped back, allowing the members to go at war with themselves without having to dirty her own hands. She watched as Dr. Steele and Andres went at war with each other, the aftermatch leaving the Paris Hellfire Club desolate and Dr. Steele on hiatus. This allowed Valerie to make her next move, which would prove to be the dawn of a new era for the Hellfire Club.
Putting together the elements of opulence and indulgence that the illustrious Hellfire Club was built off of in the 18th century, Valerie used the funding from her family's own corporation (Huntington International) to open a new installment of the elitist club in her home city, New York's Upper East Side. Drawing attention from celebrities and aristocrats worldwide the club flourished like it hadn't for centuries, building its reputation once more as the home for luxury and pleasure. And with the entire club under her control, Valerie could claim without question her destined title of White Queen. With this power she brought a new element to the Hellfire Club, something that hadn't been seen for decades.
Underneath the club's appearance of being nothing but a center of sin for the world's socially elite was a society of even more powerful individuals. Inviting only the most influential of businessmen, aristocrats, and politicians alike to join her, Valerie built her Inner Circle within the ranks of the HFC. Acting as an upper-class crime syndicate, the Inner Circle use their combined resources to influence and control business and political affairs all over the world, manipulating these global aspects to help further their own international power and monumental wealth. With the implementing of the Mutant Registration Act, the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle (composed primarily of mutants) turned their focus to fighting the Homo sapien threat. Valerie leads these affairs as the Hellfire Club's cold and cunning White Queen, acting as a monarch among aristocrats.
Amid the breathtaking flora and fauna-painted hills of the French countryside rests the illustrious Delacour Academy. Born amid a world plagued with fear and hatred toward that which it does not understand, the Delacour Academy resides as a safe haven for those facing the full extent of social discrimination. Originally established to house those bred from aristocratic lineage or possessing talents beyond human capability, the preparatory school has steadily grown into an internationally acclaimed source of unrivaled academic and social mastery for the world’s future generation.
Funded exclusively by the Hellfire Club’s White Queen Valerie Huntington, the school’s business dealings have proved entirely legal and clean, raising eyebrows among the international community who have grown accustomed to the First Lady of Fashion’s morally ambiguous behavior. In several interviews the glamorous socialite has spoken on her innate desire to create a home for those facing social excommunication during the world’s modern Civil Rights Movement. Her involvement in the Hellfire Club being reduced to that of managing the business aspect of the establishment, the White Queen has refocused her attention on pouring her vast wealth and extensive social connections into cementing the Delacour Academy as a place for mutants and other meta humans alike to discover and refine their gifts while simultaneously acquiring a premier education on scholastic topics as well as social etiquette.
Following the Strigidae’s abdication of the Venezuelan throne, the mutant nation developed its own electoral system in hopes of forming a democratic state. This optimistic dream led to internal political war not unlike many modern countries. The mutant abilities of those sparring for power wreaked havoc over the nation’s population, calling yet again for a change in its political style. This led to the rise of the Huntington Monarchy.
History tells of the genetic dominance of the Huntington Family throughout Old World as well as modern history. Their unmatched x-gene potential has cemented them as gods among humans and mutants alike. This paired with their present-day activism for mutant affairs made them a unanimous choice for Venezuela’s first royal family.
The monarchy is governed by the head of the Huntington patriarch, Alaric Huntington, his wife (Emma), and their four children (Valerie, Jordan K., Adriana, Liam), who act as the ruling political family for the nation. They are aided in affairs regarding the nation’s interests by similarly well-regarded mutant elites, many of which are extended Huntington family members.
Alaric is rarely seen or heard from as head of the monarchy, allowing for his eldest child, Valerie, to serve as the acting ruler of the nation and face of the mutant people.
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