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.