With Iridescent Heart, I’m trying to be more deliberate in the characterization. To have the characters read consistently across multiple images, there’s this need to present not just their outward appearances, but to playact as them.
I’m finding, as I work on this project, that anxiety is becoming a through line with the characters. Cupid is socially anxious—avoiding being seen by anyone because he feels they’ll reject him. Psyche has CPTSD—she’s hypervigilant and regularly in a friend/freeze mode.
… I find it easier to relate to characters via their gestures than their outward appearances. Some of that would be I have difficulty with face recognition—smell and voice are better clues for me to identify others. It’s probably this same face blindness that leads me to do so much self-portraiture work.
Cupid
Psyche
Character Name: | Psyche 🗝️ [key] (screen name) |
Role in Story: | Primary protagonist |
Occupation: | AI-DOLL Psyche acts as a virtual hostess/date for men living/visiting Citèra, working from the Mei House in the Favoni District. |
Physical Description: | Green-dominant color scheme. Psyche is a young woman with a mint-green-dominant color scheme. Her hair is dark and big; virtually, she’s a green hologram. She dresses more like a 1980s tennis player (oversized shirt, pleated skirt, baggy socks) with a sort of Arizona Tea motif. |
Personality: | Psyche comes off initially as very friendly and accepting. She’s eager to please and curious about others. But, she is aneurotypical; underneath, she’s constantly worrying that someone’s going to “find out...” There’s this drive to be seen as perfect—a hyperfixated version of normalcy she assumes everyone else has. |
Habits/Mannerisms: | Psyche’s natural inclination is to have full body gestures with audiable squeals of pleasure. She’ll jump around and dance with joy. She does work hard to avoid doing these things, not realizing it comes across as endearing. She’ll take a big breath, sinking down deep to suppress her outbursts. Having grown up in an abusive household, she’s hypervigilint and attentive to minute details. |
Background: | Psyche is one of many young women in the Favoni district that works a service job for the UpperCitizenry. She ran away from home as a teenager, escaping verbally abusive parents (“Why can’t you just be normal?!”). Mama Mei took in her and other runaways, teaching them a valuable skill as idol. |
Internal Conflicts: | Psyche constantly feels like she’s walking a tightrope in social situations. She’s hypervigiliant of her own behaviour and other’s microgestures (subconsciously in a friend/freeze state). |
External Conflicts: | Psyche has a degree of conflict with Cupid (i.e. his initial unwillingness to share personal details about himself). Her larger conflict is with Venus. Venus is initially jealous of Psyche’s popularity taking attention away from her. This is followed up by Venus getting upset at Psyche for Cupid’s (self-caused) depression. Venus asserts that Psyche must be inferior, which Psyche doesn’t so much have to disprove as sidestep. |
Notes: | Psyche has some character growth—largely, a transition from people-pleaser to a “if you don’t like me, go fuck a cactus” position. Psyche comes to realize she doesn’t need Venus’s approval; she doesn’t even need Cupid’s. She exists in the world, so she inheriently has a right to be treated with kindness and compassion. Myth Psyche eventually gains butterfly wings, so I’d like to integrate catapiller/coccoon motifs with her. |
Character Name: | Cupid qPID (screen name) |
Role in Story: | Secondary protagonist Love interest |
Occupation: | Love God Benefiting from nepotism, Cupid has a fancy title, but doesn't work independently (following whatever order his mother, Venus, gives him). |
Physical Description: | Pink-dominant color scheme. Strawberry blond hair. Wears a ribbon covering his pink eyes. His eyes, in addition to the unusual color have a glow to them. His clothes are an iridescent toga over a mesh tunic with lace up sandals. His petal-pink wings are his most unique feature. |
Personality: | Cupid initially comes across as quiet and cold. He has difficulty socializing, leading him to prefer virtual companions over real ones. He's lonely. Depressed. He is studious, a voracious reader, but he uses that knowledge more for trivia-value than applying it towards making the world better. |
Habits/Mannerisms: | Anxious habits like tapping/counting with his fingers across his thigh. He uses formal language (no slang or contractions). Stiff posture. He has a neutral expression. When he does physically express himself, they're bigger/performative gestures: childlike and reminiscent of commedia dell'arte. |
Background: | Born with wings, his mother, Venus, was overly protective of Cupid. Rather than risk bullying, his [step|adoptive] father Vulcan built the amorini, winged artificial 'siblings,' to keep Cupid company. Growing up, his only socializing with living people was through Internet forums and massively multiplayer online role-playing games. As an adult, Cupid remains socially avoidant. He's internalized his parents' worry into a fear of being seen by others. He works invisibly (literally & figuratively), under his mother's direction, in developing various forms of love. |
Internal Conflicts: | Cupid has very low self-esteem. He believes himself hideous. Social anxiety yields him mute in a lot of situations, fearful of saying something that will result in rejection. |
External Conflicts: | His internal anxiety makes him fearful that Psyche will reject him if she gets close to him. He flees, believing she would want him out of her life. He has a complicated relationship with his mother. He wants more independence, but hasn't learned the skills necessary. |
Notes: | Cupid has the biggest character growth arc in Iridescent Heart. He learns (1) that people outside of his family can love him (as evidenced by Psyche wanting to get him back); (2) that he actually has things to give others; (3) to love himself; and (4) to stand up for the people he loves & the life he wants to live. His virtual persona (qPID) is a floating, winged heart. It has a chipper, helpful disposition and is more outgoing. It reflects his ideal self. |