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valerieayoade · 1 year

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NAME: VALERIE AYOADE

AGE: 27

OCCUPATION: FULL-TIME STREAMER

NEIGHBORHOOD: SOUTH COAST

GENDER & PRONOUNS: CISFEMALE, SHE/HER

about -

Valerie was born in Houston, Texas to a Russian mother and a Nigerian father, both immigrants. Being the family's first generation American was very important to Valerie, and despite her family never outright put any pressure on her, it was always obvious their hopes and expectations for their daughter were high. She speaks English, Russian, and French; and is learning Hausa, her father's language.

Valerie never thought of herself as smart, but she had always been good at picking things up quickly, which got her good grades in school, but no subject ever really stuck with her. But because she was good at many things, her highly hopeful parents enrolled her in private International school, where she took part in the orchestra and in the girls' volleyball team. And while she was always busy, in her spare time she found herself playing videogames with her little brother. Perhaps the only time she had genuine fun doing something.

Being the eldest daughter, having a college education felt very important to her, even if it didn't mean that much to her family. She was the one pressuring herself to be better and do better, and with this mentality she landed herself a spot in CompSci at USC.

College was a completely different experience, though. Picking things up was a bit more challenging, and in the process she ended up needing tutoring in a couple of her classes. The shame! But in the process she met the guy who would later become her boyfriend, whom she'd remain dating to this day.

During her junior year in college, a new venture opened up to Valerie: an e-sports club for a popular first person shooter game. She went in blind, and ended up being the only girl in the entire club. But they kept her around, because Val was GOOD. It wasn't too long before the team got picked up for professional competitions, which then led to Valerie getting signed by a reputable organization and going pro. In her career in the female category, Valerie's team won two championships back-to-back.

After she graduated with her Bachelor's Degree, Val continued to play professionally for a couple organizations, before she decided it was time to move on from the game she started out with and into the newest, more popular first person shooter, with a bigger audience and higher stakes. It wasn't hard for her to find a team at all, and before she knew it, she was playing a silly videogame in front of thousands of people, in person and online, cheering for her and her team.

In the meantime, Val began to grow her own audience. She herself was surprised when she saw over fifteen thousand people watching her off-season streams, cheering for her and giving her money out of their own accord.

Her success in this e-sport wasn't as apparent as the last one, as this game was newer and way more competitive, but her team still won two out of the three championships they went to, before Val decided to "retire" a year ago, to pursue a full-time career in streaming.

After retiring, she and her boyfriend decided they'd had enough of LA, and decided to move to his hometown. Val was more than excited at the prospect, ready to start her life with her love, away from the craziness of the e-sports industry, and working her own hours.

Now that they've settled in and she's found a new successful routine, Val has decided she's going back to school for her Master's, a while after her boyfriend got his own. It felt like a good idea to further her career and finally put her degree to use, on something that she genuinely loved: gaming.

traits -

positive: hard-working, passionate, honest

negative: easily bored, anxious, bossy

headcanons -

in college, val started playing the then-popular fps game cs:go, and ended up going pro and playing for a legit org for a few seasons, before switching games to valorant, the newer fps with a way bigger budget for e-sports.

her screen name has always been "valeriya," and has been sitting in the top 500 players in valorant since retiring. she has an alternate account to play with her low-level boyfriend sam, and the name of that account is simply "i miss him"

serial hobby hopper, but the two hobbies that have stuck are crocheting and baking. she's dipping her toes into knitting, and been getting a lot into fashion for no real reason.

#hmbintro #this is so wonkyyyyyy #tumblr whyyyyyyy

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