Iridiclervaux Aurelius

"You really are a chameleon, aren't you? Fitting in wherever you go."

- Suzanne Palmieri

Iridiclervaux Aurelius [he/him or they/them], commonly referred to as Clerval, is a 2019-introduced original character, current record holder of the 100 meter sprint, and general ray of sunshine. He is destined to be the next King Chameleon from the folktale King Chameleon and the Animals, and is currently attending his Fourth Year at Ever After High.

Personality
Clerval, to many, is defined by his relationship to other people, rather than himself. It's always so-and-so's classmate or her tutor or his roommate. This is partly because Clerval is incredibly outgoing, and always looking to make new friends. He carries himself with a pleasant air, and intentionally tries to always look approachable and trustworthy.

If someone needs helps, he's the first to lend a hand. If someone makes a comment, he's always eager to please. Clerval's complaisance comes from wanting to see other people happy, and perhaps secretly, other people happy because of him.

There's often a smile on his face. He's seemingly always in a good mood, always humming a song or skipping as he he walks. Clerval is not one you see express negative emotions. Well, at least not to a large degree. Sure, he's a bit stressed with all these commitments but he'll assure you it's no problem at all, how have you been?

Similarly, Clerval is the textbook definition of a model citizen. He'd be distressed if someone mentioned cheating, instantly scold the speaker, then offer to tutor. Getting bullied? Clerval will stand up for you and try to diffuse the situation. If there's some sort of community project, you can bet Clerval's family has donated money, and Clerval himself has helped volunteer.

And in turn, many think he's a little fake. He's in the news for his volunteer work too many times for some people not to be sick of him. And his constant efforts at playing nice just seem too unlikely to well, not be an act. His well-intentioned actions come off as patronizing, especially when he's believed to be a hypocrite, considering his destiny involves him cheating. His manners may also be reminiscent of a parent's, and most students don't really appreciate that.

They might have been right a few years ago, but the current Clerval is determined to be as genuine as he can. A younger Clerval got caught up in the whole "I need to prove that I'm a good person in spite of my destiny" spiel but he's taken a step back and reorganized his priorities. In any case, Clerval gets hurt at the idea that his kindness is a pretense.

There's also a second reason why people tend to delegate Clerval to an associate of someone else. He himself is extremely forgettable. No matter how outlandish he dresses or how many times he bent over backwards for you, you'd be inclined to forget him because he's cursed to be so.

A younger Clerval (what a mess, this guy) tried to combat this by aggressive friend making. In fact, he used to be suffocating with his friend advances. After an incident in 2nd year, he retracted completely. Still friendly, but make the slightest hint that you want to be alone and he'll disappear. Being more distant, combined with being older and thus the curse having a stronger influence on him, led to his presence during 4th year to be a lot more subdued.

While earnest and wishing well for everyone, Clerval has his own issues that he often shoves to the side in favor of helping someone else. He worries a lot about how he appears to others, so he's self conscious and often underestimating himself. He can get upset easily, but he usually hides his negative emotions well. And because of that, it's hard to connect with him beyond surface pleasantries, just because he refuses to be emotionally vulnerable.

Appearance
As royalty, Clerval has been taught to always make an effort with his appearance. Unfortunately for all the eyes in his vicinity, Clerval has magic that allows him to change his appearance however he wishes, an overwhelming desire to stand out from the crowd, and awful, awful color coordination.

For the most part, Clerval only ever changes how his hair and eyes look. His powers don't allow him to change how he looks, fundamentally. That means he can't change his height, skin color, face shape, things like that. But eye color? Sure. Hair color? Go crazy. Hair length? Give Holly a run for her money!

You'll usually find Clerval with long pastel green, almost mint-colored, dreadlocks. Or rather, he has most of his hair in dreadlocks, pulled to his left side in a low ponytail, but his bangs are straightened. These bangs are long and are parted on his left side, framing his face. They unnaturally end in big swirls, like a chameleon's tail. His dreadlocks follow this same pattern of ending in swirls.They fall to somewhere near his elbow in length, but if you pulled on a swirl and straightened it out the true length would probably end near his wrist.

He's tall, but definitely not the tallest guy you'll ever see. His good posture makes it look like he's taller than he actually is, which is 5'10". His skin is dark brown and sometimes dry (reptile things and all) so he usually carries some sort of moisturizing lotion with him. He's pretty average in terms of weight, and kind of muscular.

Clerval's eyes are framed with long black lashes (pastel green if he remembers to consciously change it) and usually some sort of cool grey-brown. If he didn't have such good control over them, they (and his hair) would change with his emotions. He has a barely noticeable scar on his chin from his childhood and a sprinkle of freckles on his cheeks. His cheekbones are sharp and his teeth are straight, though they weren't before.

He used to have braces back in Freedom Year and Legacy Year, during which he put multicolored rubber bands into them. He very recently, over the summer before his last year at Ever After High, got diagnosed for hearing problems. Clerval currently wears skin-colored hearing aids in both ears.

In his earlier school years, Clerval attempted to stand out by constantly changing his hair and eyes, not to mention his clothes. He got used to doing it, and he's just as colorful these days. Though, now he thinks it's really fun, and he looks fondly upon all his crazy outfits over the years.

Running
With it playing a part of his destiny, Clerval got rather invested in running as a kid. He would constantly try to race other kids, and one of his favorite topics to talk about was all the records and who won this race and that race. He ended up joining the track and shield team in secondary school, and this continued until this Yearbook Year at Ever After High, where he decided to quit the team. He still really enjoys running, and makes a point to jog every morning.

(Lack of) Fashion
Honey, you've got a big storm coming. Clerval really likes novelty, one of a kind items, and he really likes them together. His outfits are oftentimes combinations of clothings from various subcultures. And they're always colorful. Thrift shops are a heaven for him, because here's where. He's tried his hand at sewing something from scratch or customizing an existing piece. Although he likes what he's made so far, he agrees that it would be better for him and his fingers to stay away from sewing.

Abilities
He's physically very capable. Though he's about as strong as the next person in line, his strength comes from his track experiences. Clerval's pretty speedy, and doesn't get winded too easily. He also has great reflexes, which balances out his occasional clumsy moments.

His appearance changing magic can be both intentional and unintentional. Chameleons change color based on their emotions rather than to blend in with their environment, as is commonly thought. The same goes for Clerval, and his emotions can change his colors. Though, he's gotten really good at manipulation his magic, and can do it on purpose now. This also helps him mask his emotions, as he can simply will himself not to change color.

Clerval has scarily good vision, to the point where it feels like he can see things going on behind him. Though, he still enjoys wearing glasses without lenses for fashion (or the lack of). As mentioned before, he's hard of hearing, and wears hearing aids to combat that. Both of these traits are derived from chameleons.

How The Story Goes
[//www.surlalunefairytales.com/books/africa/barker/kingchameleon.html http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/books/africa/barker/kingchameleon.html]

How Does Clerval Fit Into it?
Clerval's dad was the last King Chameleon and he had married Nilam [maiden name] before destiny. Clerval was already born by the time his father inherited the throne. Though in the story the chameleon ends up alone with none of his subjects wanting to be ruled by him, Clerval is still heir to a (small) kingdom in northern Nigeria. Their kingdom specializes in pigments, especially for makeup and paints. Recently their economy boomed, due to a popular beauty brand utilizing their pigments.

Clerval learnt of his destiny when he was rather young, which probably shaped his personality to who he is today. He would spend a lot of his childhood traveling, eventually moving to Switzerland in his early teenage years with his grandparents.

When he was still young, he also learned of the curse in his family's bloodline. The next chameleon kings are easily forgotten by other people. They can be hard to see in crowds. They may just slip from people's minds easily. The curse would grow as he aged, and come fully into effect during destiny. In this example, Clerval and his mother can barely recall his father or grandmother, who had filled those roles. Clerval's mother would often lament how quickly destiny happened, she was barely married to her husband before she forgot him.

They become harder to see, harder to hear as the years go by. Ask anybody in the kingdom who the ruler was, and they'd answer, "Why Queen Nilam, and the young prince... hm."

What Clerval learned is that if he didn't do the most he could, he was going to live his life out completely alone. And for a social caterpillar, this was enough to give him nightmares. He still has them, though they're a lot more infrequent.

Parallels

 * The race the animals partake in is a sprint; whoever gets there first is the winner, and it's a short enough distance that stamina isn't a question. Clerval specializes in sprints, and holds the record for the 100 meter sprint among high schools.
 * The African Chameleon is found mostly in this specific region of Africa called the Sahel, and the tale is also West African. Which country fits both of those criteria? boom.
 * TBC

Viewpoint on Destiny
Clerval's been completely devastated with his destiny ever since he learnt what it meant. From that point on, he would go out of his way to emanate wholesomeness and kindness. Being unable to stomach the idea of being abandoned by everyone, Clerval would in his childhood go about making friends almost aggressively.

Though he hates what his destiny entails, Clerval identifies as Royal. He believes that his story holds an important moral, and that if carrying out his story will warn others against selfishness, he's alright with being isolated. Clerval considers it his civic duty to follow his destiny. He also believes he won't be that miserable, seeing as the thought of all the people he's helped by following his story will be enough for him.

Name
Iridiclervaux is a made up name, a portmanteau of the words "iridescent" and "Clervaux". The "iri" part of his name brings to mind Iris, the goddess of rainbows. Chameleons are often associated with rainbows, due to their color-changing nature. The "ridic" part resembles the word "ridicule", which is what the chameleon DESERVED for being such as asshole. "Clervaux" is a town in Luxembourg, however this was not intentional.

The reason for the "clervaux" part is because I wanted him to go by Clerval. At one point he had a concept but no name and I just started calling him Clerval, which has stuck there ever since. Clerval is taken from Henry Clerval, a character in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

I suppose you could make some connections there. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein goes a bit mad with power and creates life through his monster. He then refuses to take responsibility for it, and that ends up creating a whole baguette of misery. That can be compared to the chameleon in the story; a desire for power ultimately makes him miserable. Frankenstein also partly takes place in Switzerland. Also, regarding Henry's fate in Frankenstein, the identity associated with "Clerval" will also die, when he fulfills his destiny and descends into isolation.

Aurelius also has some non-intentional meaning. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor. The chameleon becomes a king. The name I based it off of was Orelius, which according to sources is a surname in Nigeria? A rare one, but nevertheless. It means "gold", bringing to mind the wealth of royalty, and also the color. I changed the "o" to "au" because gold's symbol on the periodic table is Au and I wanted to make that more apparent.

Freedom Year
TBA

Legacy Year
TBA

Yearbook Year
TBA

Fourth Year
TBA

Track and Shield
Clerval used to do Track and Shield in his earlier school years. He's a generally athletic person, and enjoys exercise. It's fun, and good for you! That's a win-win situation! He did well enough to break a record, and currently holds the record for the 100 meter sprint in his age group.

However, due to the nature of his destiny and how races tie into it, cheating jokes were often made at his expense. Most of his teammates saw it as harmless teasing, and Clerval never stopped them, or other students, from making jokes about it. In his third year, Clerval was unfairly disqualified at a competition. He became extremely upset and was unable to control himself like usual, so this was the first time a lot of people saw him express a different emotion.

Over the next few weeks, he would suddenly "take a break" at his home in Switzerland, before altogether flying home to Nigeria for a week. When he returned, he quit the team, with the excuse that he had health problems that barred him from running competitively. Most people who heard this obviously knew it was an excuse, and a select very awful few thought he was cheating, and only wanted to cover up his embarrassment at being caught. Clerval tries to be friendly with his former teammates, and they're some of the few that remember him well.

Animal Shelter
One of his favorite volunteering activities is to help out at the Animal Shelter in Book End.

Tutoring
Clerval is part of the school-run tutoring program, where he's assigned students to help with in a certain class. He enjoys teaching, and takes his sessions as an opportunity to meet new people.

Here's an account of one unfortunately unforgettable session:

Yearbook Year, finals are approaching, Clerval sits in the library, waiting for his assigned student and dreaming about winning gold at the track meet next month. His student arrives, they open their books, and Clerval's about to start with the first problem when-

"Alright, drop the act. I've always wondered, what's your method for not getting caught cheating on Rumpelstilskin's tests?"

He's stunned, and a little horrified, and he tries to explain himself but his voice isn't coming out right and the words and accusations just keep coming at him and everyone's looking at them.

Clerval runs out in tears.

Trivia

 * Clerval was a concept since at least 2016, so this page has been a long time coming.
 * His favorite food being danishes is a reference to his origins as a character from a Danish fairytale.
 * The chameleon part and him being gay part were not intentionally done because of each other. I think. Clerval was a bunch of concepts put together. Respectable senior guy with crush on Damien + shapeshifting mess with no fashion sense + outgoing and helpful. In any case, nice coincidence.
 * Clerval thinks Iridiclervaux is awfully long and prefers to go by Clerval, to the point where most people think that's his actual name.
 * He makes an effort to be especially nice (if that's possible) to rabbit/hare students.

Quotes
"The problem with chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to the point where nothing is real."

- John Green

"When we are driven by shame, we don't just fear losing a relationship, we live in terror that if we let anyone really get to know us, we would never be desired, pursued, or loved. When we live in denial or present a false self out of fear, we will do anything to be accepted by people. When our own vision is not distorted by our shame we can discern what was our responsibility and what wasn't."

- Wendy Mahill