With Valorant introducing a healing male agent rumored to be a controller, I just wanna get Eros' powerset out there in the world. Back when I first created Hibiscus, mere months later, Fade came out with a util kit that was very similar to hers. I decided to change my girl up, and I honestly think it was for the better and I like this so much more, but I won't be changing Eros regardless of what Riot does bc I've already had him for years (although he's been largely dormant tbh).
So, what's up with him?
Eros' design came to me in a dream, but his util was intentionally made to fill a hole in my heart. I wasn't a fan of the only healers in the game being women, and I always thought it would be cool if there was a character with a throwable stim like Brim's, but made for healing.
With this in mind, I kept tweaking his kit to keep in a hearts theme (which I quickly settled on his name coming from an ancient god, Eros, who is sometimes seen as the son of Aphrodite. I thought of him being a kind of chill, somewhat flirty guy who's probably somewhere in the aroace spectrum).
Anyway. Without further ado, here's the kit I settled on after a few years of inconsistent tweaking:
Crazy in Love (C): if anyone is hit with this, it tints their screen to a a pink smaller field of vision and makes them mishear steps and gunfire for 4.5 seconds
Love Note (Q): a healing stim (lasting 10 seconds) that will heal teammates if they step in range of it. Max heal of 50 hp
Love Bomb (E): two smokes that he throws or tosses, similar to a viper smoke. He can pick them up to place them elsewhere. They will temporarily heal an ally for 5 seconds, while simultaneously harming enemies for 5 seconds (if either step through it).
Heart Attack (X): Once activated, if he gets a kill within 8 seconds, his team will get a permanent 100 hp heal if visible (hp refreshes for last kill within the 8 second frame).
Is it kind of insane that nearly all of his util are healing? Yes. Do I care? Not entirely. Although I made him to cover a base Valorant had left open for the past 5 years, I don't necessarily make my ocs to be perfectly balanced. I only need them to be somewhat balanced (which I tried to achieve with shorter timeframes and a lower heal max).
I might alter one of his abilities to be a crossbow (then titled Cupid's Arrow) since he's themed after love imagery. I almost don't wanna step on Sova's toes, but at least with the crossbow it won't be the exact same weapon. And, honestly, when hasn't Riot repurposed another agent's ability? Such as Waylay being Jett^2 with her dashes.
With abilities out of the way, I also wanna talk a little about his background and why. I decided to make yet another American for the val protocol, this time hailing from New Jersey. Joseph would've been a nursing student or recent graduate either volunteering or running an underground medical business to help those in need. He would've been recruited around the same time as Iso, and as per the art I made of him and Hibiscus, I think I'd make them pretty good friends. I sometimes wonder to myself if they were actually friends before protocol, like online buddies.
I initially wanted his vibes to be reminiscent of early 2000s NJ culture, so he had an outfit with the general baggy but warm kind of fit I would see. I also based his hair on some of the stars of the era, like Omarion and RayRay (Mindless Behavior).
Although the outfit and how he looks is pretty much exactly how I imagined it, he also felt a little bland because his outfit just seemed so clean. Although some agents do just straight up wear clothes without much flair or militarization added (Chamber, Clove, Phoenix), I felt it was a little cheap to have him follow in their footsteps.
Currently in the process of trying to see what outfit would fit in line with his character theme, his personality, and the Valorant universe. I want a good mix of subtle and overt nods to hearts and cupid, as well as still keeping a dash of 2000s streetwear and a bit of a flirty vibe. Hopefully, I can accomplish this. Took me a few years to get Hibiscus just right, but with the amount of character design vids I watch, I think his could take less time.
That's about all I've got for now. I hope to post more about my ocs in general tbh cause I've got a few, and some stories I'm working on as well cause I'd love to publish 🥹 thanks for reading :)
In 1803 Joseph Johnson (1738-1809) published the fifth edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, in twenty-one volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators to which are added notes. Originally written by Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) and George Steevens (1736-1800), this fifth edition was edited by Isaac Reed (1742-1807) and became known as the first variorum edition of Shakespeare.
Reed’s collation of previous variations of Shakespeare proved to be a massive undertaking (twenty-one volumes!) that would be reprinted in 1813 and inspire future variorums like that of James Boswell the Younger in 1821 and the New Variorum Shakespeare Project that began in the 1870s and continues to this day as an official project of the Modern Language Association of America (which, btw, was headquartered here at the UWM libraries for 20 years, and the reason we have such a strong Shakespeare collection). The edition opens with a frontispiece engraving of Shakespeare by British engraver James Neagle (d. 1822) followed by an advertisement by Reed. Reed takes this opportunity to sing Steevens praises, including a eulogy written by William Hayley that reads in part “This tomb may perish, but not so his name who shed new lustre upon Shakespeare’s fame!”
Volume One continues with various prefaces and essays by the usual Shakespearean scholars and critics of the time, Malone, Pope, Warburton and of course Nicholas Rowe’s Life of Shakespeare. Printed by John Plymsell out of London, our edition features marble endpapers in a Stormont pattern.
Enjoy it while you can; I suspect The Powers That Be (NBC) will be playing whack-a-mole with this imminently.
Manta and Johnson, “Sweet Dreams”, 2019 US Nationals (EDIT: supplied by US Figure Skating, so without commentary, but an authoritative version, so it shouldn’t get whacked.)
Link to video, if Tumblr is doing that “refuse to connect” thing it sometimes does.
An earlier, very distant fan-shot version from the 2018/2019 Skate America competition is also on Youtube.
Backgrounders:
- Can figure skating's first LGBTQ team change ice dance's reliance on romance? (espn.com - also, there should probably be an “out” before “LGBTQ”)
- First openly LGBTQ ice dancing team to skate at U.S. Figure Skating Championships (outsports.com)
Not really probable, I suppose, but I hope USFSA decides, or is able, to send them to Four Continents. It would be good to see them get more international experience at this stage and see how well they do later in the season.
