#I recognize I kind of glossed over some of the politics in favor of invidia's personal development

[velvet-games]

hi I designed an arcane oc at 3am one day so here are my delirious sketches

initial brainstorming stuff~

I had a veeeeery rough idea of what I wanted to do at this point. I set some goals since I’d designed an arcane oc before, but that design got too caught up with what made sense and it ended up being really boring and restrictive (hence, the “fun to draw” goal for this new one) 

random outfit stuff~

this was just me playing around with what looked nice for the most part. I tried to keep the eyes motif constant though, as well as the idea that she’d be going from a closed dress to a more open and floofy one (it’s meant to look like a flower opening up but I don’t think I succeeded at that lol). there’s also some really mild snake imagery since she’s supposed to represent envy. 

when I actually start doing design lol~

this is when I started fleshing backstory stuff out a lot more, as well as making changes to the design(s) after actually knowing what her character was about. the bottom left was supposed to be the final concept piece, but I made the upper right to adapt her character to new lore stuff I came up with. 

digital render~ (no I don’t know how to shade gold I’m sorry ;__;)

okay so what’s invidia’s actual bio?

the main idea of her character is that she starts as someone whose motivations are almost completely derived from envy. she’s born to a high house, always told she’s better than everyone else and deserves more than other people. she hasn’t had to lift a finger to get anything she started with; not her home, not her money, not her clothes, and definitely not her council seat. when she sees someone better than her, she only feels resentment, immediately going into an “if I can’t have it, no one can” mindset. she couldn’t even look at a sunset without envying its beauty. 

while cunning, she usually spends her intelligence only on elaborate ways to sabotage people even slightly better than her, insisting she’s doing it for the sake of equality. she has a fierce sense of justice, but it’s focused on punishment and revenge more than actual deterrence. it’s no noble cause, but she’s inherited her father’s charisma, and the other councilors don’t bat an eye when she wraps up her ideas in a pretty rhetorical bow. 

(quick design note~) she wears opulent and intricate gold jewelry as often as possible to show off her wealth and superiority. the barred corset and dark greens in her usual dress is meant to remind the viewer of a snake, both as a symbol of her house and to associate her with envy (the eye motif does this as well). her clothes are tight-fitting and stiff, sleek in a dignified way but also suffocating. there’s barely a peek of a frill at the bottom of her skirt though; a clue that maybe there’s more to her than her uptight disposition. 

(co. ~) the reason she has multiple designs is that I wanted her to change the way she dresses as her arc progresses. as she grows, she manages to loosen up a little, both literally and figuratively. 

eventually, invidia meets mel medarda. invidia thinks mel is similar to her at first: a cunning woman partial to gold and glory, but finds something else when she looks deeper. one day, during a progress day celebration, invidia begrudgingly speaks to mel after reaching what must’ve been the apex of a human’s capacity to experience boredom. despite her charisma, invidia envies mel, never quite able to automatically get the other councilors on her side the way mel could with ease, but she’s also the only other intelligent person in the room, so to hell with it. 

the conversation actually manages to be engaging despite how distant mel acts. in a rare moment of vulnerability however, mel manages to admit that she’s actually envious of invidia’s natural charm. caught by surprise, invidia tries to ask mel to elaborate, but the moment is gone. mel’s returned to the spotless, indestructible picture of dignity she’s always been. 

invidia’s envy manages to melt just enough for her to actually want to get to know mel more, and the pair begin to talk even when they’re not forced in the same space. mel, recognizing the effect she’s having on her fellow councilor, weaponizes more moments of her own vulnerability to keep invidia invested. it might mean a few future favors, after all. invidia recognizes the manipulation, but carefully indulges in it anyway, not having anyone else to be infatuated with. it’s the first time she’s been able to genuinely feel something close to happiness from interacting with another human being instead of being envious of everything they had that she didn’t. it was addicting. 

something changes after a while though. mel starts being vulnerable just because she wants to share herself with invidia, and invidia starts to see the world in a way she’s never considered before. mel seems to actually want to protect people, not to gain the favor of her constituents, not to keep up a facade of kindness, but out of real, genuine empathy. 

time passes. invidia sells the fancy gold jewelry that she was never really fond of in the first place, pushes the hair from her eyes, and feels love for the first time. starting to see more clearly, she realizes she’s never even bothered to use an ounce of her privilege to help anyone; she hardly even knows half the city. 

one day, cloak around her shoulders and mask over her mouth, invidia steps foot in the undercity for the first time. what she sees is horrifying; who she thought were freeloaders and low-borns were victims, ravaged by shimmer, sick from pollution, dying with no hope to hold on to. she trades what little she brought with her to feed a starving child.

invidia starts visiting zaun more and more, each time more desperate than the last. by the time the next zaunite comes to trial, she can’t bring herself to say “guilty.” it was her own decision a year before to make the crime worthy of a life sentence. 

it’s slow, but invidia’s envy starts to morph into love. the visits to zaun were difficult, but never completely devoid of joy. a child’s eyes lighting up at a toy, a young girl’s neon portrait of invidia, a new invention from a sharp young mind. the love is so sudden and sure that sometimes she feels like she’s drowning in it. invidia looks at her superiors and realizes at times that they might be people too. people who’ve mourned, who’ve cried, who’ve laughed. people that she loved. 

before she knows it, invidia’s become a completely different person. jayce talis, golden boy that he is, shows up, and she doesn’t even want to beat him to death with one of his family’s hammers. in fact, she might even feel happy for him. her lengthy speeches on justice and “equality” soon stumble and falter. she sheds the intricate stitching so emblematic of her past self, and with the help of mel and the citizens of the undercity, starts to make change. the undercity brought sadness and joy to invidia, but it also brought anger. a white-hot fury both at herself and piltover’s complacency. she couldn’t stand to send a thief to prison knowing their family would’ve died without the stolen food. she was disgusted that it’d ever crossed her mind. with a burning passion, talk of punishment and revenge turned into actual solutions. rehabilitation, social spending, even the proposal of independence for zaun. she brought the undercity’s citizens to the council, brought the council to the undercity, forced them to see what inaction had done. while she couldn’t fix everything herself, as her community of supporters and allies grew, she didn’t need to. they were improving things together.

so invidia sits now, years of hatred and envy peeled away and fallen at her feet, listening to a story from a white-haired firelight. she smiles fondly, eyes closing as night settles in, head finding rest in mel’s shoulder. 

she’s glad the sunset’s beautiful. 

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okay anyway sorry that got way longer than I wanted lol

tl;dr: envious council lady learns how to love through the power of sapphic yearning

okay thanks for reading <3 if you got this far you’re a real one lol