a real life gay

sol killed the emperor's wife with the emperor acting as her alibi, then married him n became empress of the byzantine empire. she also continued building her legacy and strengthening her adopted daughter's claim to her theme.

a random 20-year-old man suddenly declared himself sol's rival and began undermining her claim to her theme, so she began plotting to murder him. as one does.

then suddenly he confessed his undying love to her (unprompted. i cannot emphasize enough that we Did Not Hack The Game For This) and claimed he'd always been in love with her and could no longer hide it. again, this kid was like 20 and had an 18-year-old wife while sol was 40-something.

instead of rejecting him, sol took him as an affair partner, forced him to apologize, and set him to work promoting her house.

then he immediately died in a war.

SHE WAS NOT EVEN INVOLVEDDDD. SHE HAD MORE USE FOR THAT SHITHEAD!!

and THEN. the most startling development yet.

at 43 years old, sol suddenly gave birth to the emperor's son.

which. is how rafi and i discovered the birth control mod had been accidentally switched off.

so.

now she has a baby.

however she Did immediately send the kid to his father's court to be reared by Literally Anyone Else. bc she is sol.

believe it or not, nova is NOT a kim kardashian style Gray Monotone Modern Decorator. nova's walls tend to be Saturated with bright, glossy colors. which are constantly shifting and rippling and strobing with illusion magic. the kind of thing that would induce migraines and occasional seizures even in people WITHOUT earth magic.

HELL YEAH.

devin POV like "she is horrible to me and also not doing enough" (true) and rowan POV like "she's the best of all of us :)" (TRAGICALLY true)

something i've been thinking about a lot lately is how motivated people are by social rewards. like all of us, not just random villains. most of us either incrementally adjust our behavior to become socially accepted or we experience the pain and confusion of social ostracism.

so like. nova has chosen the One Thing for which she is willing to weather that social ostracism. which is devin. specifically easing devin's pain and giving devin what she wants.

but even that has limits! because everything nova does for devin is met by such a strong wave of social disapproval. which in turn causes a ton of (often-justified) fear and (very unjustified) resentment.

nova won't ADMIT that her behavior is almost all centered around what will be socially rewarded, bc most people won't admit that, regardless of moral/political framework. instead she has a thousand excuses for why she can't do more and why devin/sol/ruby are crazy to think she Could do more and why things aren't really as bad as they seem!! really!! for real!! and why don't you appreciate how hard it is for me to eschew some social rewards to make you happy?? i AM making sacrifices here!

and the whole time, rowan and nova's mom and others in power have kept secrets Specifically From Nova, bc they're worried about how she'll react. and they've worked SO hard to get her to passively accept the culture of classism and slavery and institutional violence that she's been raised in.