❂ The only child born to college dropouts Diana and Kevin Valentine, a pair who married way too early and made hasty decisions without slowing down enough to listen to family. Largely this was a problem not just because of their youth and inexperience, but because Diana was a rebellious weretiger who refused to listen to reason on her family’s end. There was much noise about it being some sort of mistake letting Diana be so involved in education but it has CAT right in the middle; she was obviously going to be drawn to it, because of course she of all people would find a little mouse to play with and drag him down with her. Things seemed to settle down once Jack was born - mainly because her family were so stunned that she was even capable of having kids in the first place. In the end, Jack turned out to be lightning in a bottle - Diana was never able to have any other children and not for lack of trying. ❂ While Kevin decided he preferred to take on the childcare duties himself and work on the house, getting super into carpentry and DIY and all that noise, Diana went back to school and became an accountant. Though Jack’s childhood was pretty rough, with his parents often giving up their meals so their growing (and extremely hungry) boy could eat and slowly realising that some of the money saving things they did were not a universal experience that every kid had, by the time he was in high school they were living pretty comfortably. Jack got a job as a paperboy so he could have money for himself instead of receiving pocket money, though when they were able his parents would buy him treats instead. ❂ Of course, another thing that made his childhood unusual in comparison with the norm was the fact that as a weretiger, Jack had to learn to cope with shifting, which sometimes meant Diana would take him away near or during the full moon to somewhere safe and distant and talk him through his shifts, teaching him her counting method to make the change easier to handle. It was probably extremely lucky for the Valentine family that Jack was such an easygoing kid - there were very few, if any, shifts caused by extreme emotions or conflict. Not that there were no surprise shifts. Of course there were, but they were handled easily by Diana more often than not. No one ever got mauled by a rambunctious tiger cub, though there were a couple close calls at home with Kevin, resolved by dropping a shifting child into the bathtub and calling his wife or begrudgingly available in-laws for assistance. ❂ College was never pushed or impressed on him when he was growing up. Really, Mom looked super stressed all the time when she was doing her schoolwork and school itself was kind of a drag, except for music, so he didn’t really get why other people would want to go, but he was happy for them when they got there! If stressing so hard it makes your stomach hurt is what makes you happy, you go for it, buddy! Even his actual interests were treated kind of neutrally by his parents, since they were afraid to push him too hard on anything in case he started doing it out of obligation and hated it. They did buy him his first drum kit, which was A Mistake for sure, even if they put it out in the shed. Neighbours complained. A lot. ❂ Tried to go through a moody Goth Phase like his favourite tiger cousins but he was too bubbly. Still, he found himself kind of called on to be the drummer for various high school bands, which was really exciting to be in such high demand! But with poor planning skills, a couple of times he overbooked himself and he was starting to see his grades slipping, not that they were perfect in the first place. He wasn’t even taking music classes! Plus it was making him more prone to letting himself give in to the shifting urges when it got closer to the full moon - why be stressed when you can be an awkward lanky teenage tiger? So at some point his parents really had to put their collective foot down and tell him to do better. They didn’t actually… help with that, though. Just told him to knock it off. ❂ In spite of that, he graduated high school and got his first job in a supermarket warehouse. Got that forklift certification, baby! But that was like a year into the job. It was kind of perfect because he was still living at home and in his spare time he could dick around with friends and play music in shitty bands and he didn’t have to pay rent, so he had actual money! Not like some of his old school friends who were still stressing out over college assignments and barely able to manage working two jobs at the same time! That looked fucking rough! Not that he was smug about it or anything; he definitely felt for them. His parents were looking into moving into a smaller house, though, which meant gently telling their beloved son to fuck off, please. He took it pretty well since he was growing into a phase of life in which he preferred to be wandering anyway, and he ended up couch surfing for a while. Helped that he was sharing himself between bands and could just crash at any given bandmate’s place for a bit before moving onto the next. ❂ One by one though each band got their own permanent drummer and work become much more demanding of his time, having him do his boring job for wayyyy more hours a week than he had the patience for. It was getting harder to couch surf reliably!! He was tired all the time!! Went to his parents’ really nice new house and stayed on the couch there with the dog until he found a super cheap rental place that came with roommates! ❂ Only his roommates didn’t take kindly to the music practice, and if anyone knows anything about drummers it’s that they gotta be tapping on something every minute of every day. Which is actually not a sex joke, even if it looks like one in retrospect. ❂ Wanderlust set in pretty quick. Boredom doesn’t do a lot for a tiger and really there’s something deep in Jack’s DNA that demands he find territory of his own. He’s not really sure what that means for him as a person. Maybe property he can put his name to or a town with no other Valentines in it? It’s not like he checks the census whenever he moves somewhere new but he hasn’t really run into any other Valentines on his travels, and yet the urge to roam is still there. ❂ At one point, Jack moved closer to a band he was hoping to play drums for and also in with an afflicted weretiger, hearing about him from a friend of a friend of a cousin (because Friend of Cousin was probably the cat who turned him). It was not a set up of good compatibility. While Jack remained fairly easygoing and friendly, the afflicted weretiger was something of a domineering bully, someone who seemed to think becoming a weretiger was the sign to be even more of a douchebag than he’d already been in human life. When it became more than apparent that the guy was a sleazebag who wanted to build himself a tiger harem that somehow included Jack, the drummer dipped and scolded Friend of Cousin to look after their progeny better. ❂ Deciding he needed to wander and just keep going until he found something worth sticking around for, he moved from place to place, never staying anywhere too long. Eventually he found his way to Easthaven where he met a band still trying to find their style, but whose energy just seemed to need a pinch of easygoing orange cat, and he’s been dicking around here ever since. Maybe this is where his territory lies, who even knows? Kinda still too early to tell.