Deadlock's best girl is (judging by the fanart) a scrunkly gargoyle with a flat cap and severe back issues, who just so happens to be an absolute sweetheart

I will never cease to be amazed, impressed, and terrified by the kinds of unexpected hotties that come out of the gaming community—earlier this year it was Bakool Ja Ja in Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, and now Deadlock's got its own fan favourite, the gargoyle Ivy.

Ivy is, under no reasonable metrics, designed to be worshipped in the way she's being idolised—she's a direct midpoint between one of those hunchbacks of Notre Dame gargoyles and Audrey Rocio Ramirez from Atlantis. Visually speaking, she is a scrambly little goblin monster with the proportions of Gollum.

You are reading this article because that hasn't stopped people.

Go onto the Deadlock subreddit or the Discord's fanart channel and you'll see dozens of (genuinely very talented) artists rendering her in either cutesy or (lore-accurate) scary ways. Here's a couple of examples which are, and I cannot stress this enough, genuinely great bits of character art (courtesy of concept artist Russel Jones and Kujalla on Twitter).

Ivy fanart sketch, Deadlock is really fun pic.twitter.com/Ckv1sqr40fSeptember 3, 2024

That Ivy from Deadlock pic.twitter.com/c7U8TyZPIRJune 7, 2024

There is also the, ahem, astute observation that Ivy appears to be a popular character to draw smut of by a vast margin. This isn't just some arms-length aesthetic appreciation—there is a significant portion of the public who want to get stoned, if you catch my drift.

This might be the part where you expect me to point and laugh, but I'm not a coward. I am going to proceed to make a genuine effort to understand why Ivy Deadlock is the current sweetheart of the game's community by such a wide margin, in the same way I made arguments for Bakool Ja Ja back when that was happening. I will look into the Medusa's eyes without fear or remorse, for I am beyond judgement. So—why is Ivy a sweetie? Let's take a look at her backstory, real quick:

Ivy is an actual gargoyle who sprang to life to protect two members of The Arroyo's, a family in Spanish