Note: this post contains character spoilers for Royal Affairs. For a less in-depth introduction to Estell Trevelyan, check out their introduction post.

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At the beginning of the outline process, I knew I wanted a rebellious, firebrand sort of character who could serve as a foil to the PC. I was keen to distinguish this character from Max from Crème de la Crème, who is rebellious but not an activist in the same way, so I gave them a cause that they’re passionate about. Initially, that cause was purely anti-monarchy. They are mostly estranged from their mother, who lives abroad, but she is very pro-monarchy, and it was she who named them Estell. I suspect Trevelyan will change their first name in the future.

But as I continued planning, I realised I wanted the PC to be able to materially help Trevelyan with their cause if they wanted. They wouldn’t really be able to do that if it was solely anti-monarchy other than stepping down, and that wouldn’t make a difference to the system. I also wanted the PC to be able to stamp out Trevelyan’s goals if they wanted: as monarchy is so entrenched, it wouldn’t be very satisfying as it would be so easy.

So I thought about parliaments, as I’d established that there was a Prime Minister in Crème de la Crème, and how Westerlind aristocracy holds all the power and all the strings, and I thought about how early democratic societies worked, and how a lot of them work now to uphold an unjust status quo… So I settled on suffrage as an issue for Trevelyan to be passionate about.

(I greatly enjoyed that I had feedback that some players felt the game pushed them too hard to be anti-suffrage and there was no reason to speak in favour of the vote; others felt the game pushed them too hard to be pro-suffrage and there was no reason to speak against it.)

From there, some of the political plotlines fell into place, and I was able to maneuver the Zaledoan politics in to muddy the waters as well. Although the Queen is conflicted about whether she wants the PC to be directly involved with political matters or to remain sheltered, ultimately the PC will end up hearing about these current events. Some of that comes from adults like Clemence or Fabien; some of it comes through Trevelyan.

Trevelyan was always someone whom I wanted to take action that might go against the PC’s wishes, or inspire others to do so. A PC may staunchly support them, be wary, or outright despise them, and Trevelyan – and the plot – will respond to that. For me Trevelyan is someone with their own agenda and demands – perhaps the most of any of the major befriendable and romanceable characters.

At the same time, they’re very young and under a lot of pressure, both self-imposed and from the media. They’ve ended up becoming a public figure very quickly and although that’s very exciting, and they see that as a boon for their cause, it’s a lot to put on someone still in school. I like to think under some circumstances, Trevelyan will come to understand the PC as a fellow person living as a symbol, and they’ll have a shared perspective. But unlike other characters, Trevelyan is more inclined to entirely reject the PC and everything they stand for.

Note: this post contains character spoilers for Royal Affairs. For a less in-depth introduction to Javi del Quiros, check out their introduction post.

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Javi was someone who I absolutely wanted in the game from the start. I knew I wanted a royal for the Royal Affairs MC to bounce off, and I also wanted a more long-running friendship/romance with a rival type of character than Blaise in Creme de la Creme. It wasn’t until the outline stage, though, that I decided that they’d be Rosario’s sibling, which was what sparked off the concept of the tension and politics between Westerlin and Zaledo. It very much was a situation where I built the plot in response to figuring things out about the characters; I don’t always work that way, but it helped me keep the wider political plots relevant to Javi and other characters.

I knew Javi would be connected to one of the leadership classes, and I’d figured out the three classes; it was a question of matching the class to the character. I put Dominique into the Student Council (mostly because Beaumont seemed like the obvious choice), and I fancied making Javi a theatre kid rather than a sports jock. That helped form their glamorous, extroverted demeanour in my mind. Early on that I knew I wanted them to be asexual, also; initially, I’ll be honest, I was curious about writing a rivalry-romance-dynamic that didn’t rely on sexual tension – then, as I got further into writing them, I really enjoyed creating conversations about Javi’s asexuality, especially if the MC is also asexual. I feel very honoured indeed to have heard from asexual players who have said that Javi made them felt seen.

Writing Javi’s development was quite a journey. When I first started writing, the concept was more of a character with a long-running sabotage strategy against the MC in which the MC and Javi would battle it out over the course of the game. In the end, I shifted away from that – I think part of it was wanting to avoid repetition, and part of it was that when it got to a certain point of rival intensity, it didn’t feel like I could justify the dynamic ending with friendship or romance. There was enough going on elsewhere in the game that it felt like there wasn’t enough breathing room; it also didn’t quite feel right to have such an intense rivalry-to-lovers dynamic for the school setting.

Either way, I shifted things to general antagonism with the potential for growing close, rather than major enmity. It felt right that way. (Darcy from Professor of Magical Studies is one of the best rivalries I’ve encountered in a Choice of Games title; I recommend it if you want a truly intense rivalry dynamic.)

All that said, I did very much enjoy writing some of Javi’s lines, and the opportunities for the MC to annoy them. Even when Javi has a better relationship with the MC, they’re still rather acerbic in personality, and are still very reluctant to look or feel foolish. Similarly to Hyacinthe, it did take a little time for me to get to know Javi. They’re not a character who everyone will like – none of the characters are intended to be – but figuring out where some of their attitudes and rough edges come from helped me see things from their perspective as well as how the MC sees them.

Note: this post contains character spoilers for Royal Affairs. For a less in-depth introduction to Hyacinthe van Clare, check out their introduction post.

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Like Asher and Trevelyan, Hyacinthe is one of the disapproved-of major characters, though they’re not as much of a firebrand as Trevelyan. When planning, I knew I wanted to show a Gallatin student from the Archambault perspective, and to show someone who represents several of the virtues that Gallatin espouses in Creme de la Creme. There were no particularly artistic or performing-related characters in Creme de la Creme, so it felt natural to include someone with that interest in Royal Affairs.

When I wrote Hyacinthe, it was always important to me to think about the gap between what they express and what’s going on in their head. Not only are they a little intimidated by the Royal Affairs MC and the gulf of power difference between them, they’ve also very much been educated into artifice. As a result, it’s hard for them to relax in general, and especially around the MC.

In Royal Affairs, Gallatin is sometimes different in tone to the way it is in Creme de la Creme, but trappings of the culture remain. So much of Gallatin’s education – certainly under some Headteachers – is about constructing a charming, gentle, unassuming persona that bends around others’ wishes. Obviously not every character buys into that, but with Hyacinthe I wanted to show someone who has made a great deal of effort to do this in a habitual way, and how it feels from the other side for the MC. A lot of their relationship with the MC is about Hyacinthe learning to treat them more like a peer, and although it doesn’t come naturally to them – they have a fairly shy, considered personality even without the education – their facade does slip from time to time, and they may slowly become more comfortable with informality.

Where for other characters I slipped into their storyline and tone with more ease, it took a little longer to feel out Hyacinthe. Because of the walls they put up in the ways they interact with others, it was almost as though they had a wall between themselves and me, in a strange way. (As a side note, this experience led me to put a lot more front-loaded work into future characters who have such a gap between how they behave and their internal life – I wanted to make sure I was really into characters’ heads before even starting to write.) It wasn’t until a scene in Chapter 9 that I felt I had a truly strong handle on them, and I ended up going back and retro-engineering a bunch of scenes in the light of that.

Related to that, writing Hyacinthe was an interesting experience; they’re one of the characters whom I added the most to after the first draft. Several testers mentioned that they didn’t feel they’d gotten to know Hyacinthe on an emotional level, and so I needed to take some careful, critical looks at how the Hyacinthe friendship and romance came across. I incorporated more emotional conversations, delved further into Hyacinthe’s personal ambitions, and allowed them – and pushed them to allow themselves – to be direct and honest in ways they hadn’t before. In doing that, I got to know the character much better, and enabled the MC to do the same.