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I'm not really sure since this is only my first year and I'm not really sure what my destiny IS let alone if I actually want it to be my destiny or not. I think I side with the Rebels morally, though? |
—Venetia, upon being asked whether she's a Royal or a Rebel | |
Meet Venetia Soulsong (she/her, introduced 2015), destined to retell the myth of Cupid and Psyche as Psyche. She's just beginning her second year at Ever After High following the Royal/Rebel conflict and Way Too Wonderland, so while on Principle she's been supporting the Rebels, since there's no longer a Storybook to sign she's functionally a Neutral.
Character[]
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Love is Blind, and that makes it all the more remarkable that it still finds us. |
—Venetia's Signature Quote | |
Theme Songs[]
Personality[]
Venetia is, at her core, a social butterfly. She's outgoing, energetic, and generally fun to be around because she powers up everyone around her with her energy. She's sweet and considerate, especially when it comes to her potential matches because she wants them to feel at ease and tell her about themselves so she can match them with someone they might click with. She can be naïve in some ways due to being homeschooled most of her life, but in general she has a good grasp of social cues and knows full well how love works in all it's forms. Her ability to focus is sporadic at best, however; she alternates between never being able to focus and hyperfocusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else, with her studies on butterflies usually being the focus. She also has a fairly analytical mind in general, viewing new experiences and ideas more as experiments than events (she may even view love this way in the form of her matchmaking, since while helping people fall in love is what she lives for, the whole endeavor is actually an experiment to figure out how her power works). She is a proud pupil of both the arts and the sciences, as she also loves writing and utilizing her creativity in any form she can find. She can be heavily impulsive, and believes in following her heart no matter what, even if it can get her into trouble at times. She is driven by her core values, namely the desire to unite everyone and to show everyone that love should be experienced by all in some form, which can lead to fights with those who don't share these values (mostly those that don't believe in love). In general, Venetia is a social butterfly who energizes those around her and balances being analytical with following her heart as best she can while also striving for her goals.
Appearance[]
Venetia is a young woman with southern Mediterranean features, namely tanned skin with a gold undertone, a slightly hooked nose (the kind that seemed "distinguished" by ancient Greek and Roman standards), upturned eyes the color of a dark brown wood, and full rosy lips that are often described as "pouty". Her hair is long and wavy, usually held back from the face by braids or half ponytails but otherwise left to roll freely down her back, and is a dark purple-brown close to black. She has more of a pear body-shape, with a small bust and wide hips. Her clothing choices are a mix of Boho, ancient Greek and Roman styles, primarily in white, red, and Royal purple. She wears bronze jewelry, often with Greek patterns. Her jewelry varies but usually includes upper arm bands, and always includes a bronze circlet across her forehead with a purple jewel in the center. Her motifs include candles, butterflies, and hearts, and can include gauzy materials meant to reflect the invisible spirits of her story.
Interests[]
Lepidopterology: Venetia has loved butterflies since she was young, when she developed an obsession with them and learned everything she could about them. Since then it's grown to a lifelong passion for studying them. If she didn't have a destiny, she'd be a butterfly conservationist! As is, she's cultivated a small butterfly farm in her dorm, and has been assisted in the upkeep by her roommate Circe (in exchange for helping with her own potion-making) and Rose, who's been growing the flower bushes for her.
Writing: She loves to write short stories and new tales, particularly twisted or mashed up versions of historic fairy tales. She's currently working on a mashup of Cinderella and the Little Mermaid based on Arion and Anteros's relationship, which has gained... mixed reactions, shall we say, from the inspiring parties.
Shopping: Of the main five in her group of friends, Venetia is the one that most enjoys shopping. She loves the experience of trying on clothes and creating new styles for herself. Rose and Circe are her most frequent shopping buddies.
Myth – Cupid and Psyche[]
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The girl is magic, nothing but magic, yeah! I got invited to her world of magic... |
—Magic, Alexander Rybak | |
How the Story Goes[]
Wikipedia Page on Cupid and Psyche
How does Venetia come into it?[]
Venetia was chosen at birth to fulfill the role of Psyche in the story, but for unknown reasons this was kept from her and C.A. Cupid, who would also be retelling the story. Venetia didn't realize she'd even be going to Ever After High until she was sent an invitation to it the June before her 15th birthday, the same year Cupid was to start there. It wasn't until halfway through the year when she befriended Cupid that they realized they were supposed to be destined for this story, though shortly thereafter Way Too Wonderland happened and it no longer mattered.
Relationships[]
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Love in all its forms is a blessing, and it's something I want all fairytales to experience in whatever way they prefer, whether that's eros, agape, philia, or storge. |
Family[]
Durante and Korë Soulsong adopted her as an infant, but her biological parents are Melpomene (the muse of Tragedies) and a human man. She has never met either of her birth parents; she also has no siblings, so it's just her and her adoptive parents.
Durante Soulsong (Father): Venetia is a daddy's girl through and through, she and her father are very close. He helped her budding interest in Lepidopterology by getting as much information on butterflies for her as he could, and has shared in this passion ever since, even gifting her with a highly sought after plush butterfly one Christmas when she was a little girl. His career as a lawyer often pulls him away for work, but he always tries his hardest to make time for both the women in his life, even when work runs late.
Korë Soulsong (Mother): Venetia isn't as close to her mother, though they share common interests like shopping and writing. Korë is a CEO of a major company, which can take up more time from her life than even Dante's lawyer duties; this was often the case when Venetia was young, and so the relationship between mother and daughter has suffered some. Korë supports her daughter as much as she can, however, and encourages her love of matchmaking in particular. They've spent many a shopping trip gossiping together about the love lives of the people they interact with daily, or making up stories about the people they see when they're out and about.
Aquaintances[]
Roselina "Lina" Love: The next King of Love is more Cupid's friend than Venetia's, and they've only really interacted when Vini and Cupid visit the Hearts and Roses Cafe for "friend dates" (which of course just turn into dates outright). Venetia rather likes the girl though, and enjoys talking about matchmaking adventures with Lina (both successful... And not so much; Lina was in stitches when she heard about Vini's disastrous forays into Arion Neptune's love life). All in all they get along like, well, hearts and roses!
Friends[]
Rose de Beauté: Rose and Venetia are good friends, having bonded over a shared interest in biology. They've come together to create a small scientific garden where Rose grows plants and tests out her powers on rose bushes, while Venetia tags and categorizes the butterflies that visit the flowers Rose has grown. Rose also enjoys coming up with matchmaking schemes alongside Venetia, as the girl is a romantic at heart; they've had many friendly meetings at Hearts and Roses to come up with plans to get various friends together, with varying degrees of success. (Quite frankly, their most successful gambit was simply introducing the Cafe as a preferred date location, because now all their friends go there--even Arion visits with Anteros, albeit under duress. He still maintains that he liked the now-defunct Flying Canoe better though.)
Arion Neptune: As with most friends of Arion, he and Venetia had rough patches when they first met, namely because they met while Arion was still in his "shun all love and affection in a misguided attempt to protect everyone" phase and had a particularly deep-rooted hatred of romantic love in particular, none of which meshed with Venetia's "all love is a blessing and no one should shun it in all it's forms" motto. She backed off from arguing when he explained why he hated éros so much, but she still fought him about the no love ever thing, and was a key player alongside Rose in getting him to actually open himself up to affection in some forms. (Objectively, while she is a romantic, Venetia would never force someone to take part in a form of love that they really don't want to; as long as you engage in some form of healthy love she'll usually leave you be. Arion however abstained from ALL forms of love, thus they came to heads over it.) After they got past that and Arion started opening up more, though, they became good friends with a bond over the humanities (Venetia loves the music Arion creates, and Arion enjoys reading the stories Venetia writes, even if he's a little conflicted over having a version of his love story turned into short story form). Their only other hiccup was the (memorable) time Venetia set her matchmaking sights on Arion and proceeded to pair him up with every emo, punk, goth, or otherwise alternate guy at school who could conceivably be attracted to him. Arion didn't appreciate it, namely because a) none of these boys fit him at ALL, and b) at this point he was already harboring a major crush on Anteros and didn't really want to date anyone else anyways. Eventually though he convinced her to stop by telling her about his crush, which thankfully led to her ceasing her matchmaking attempts on him... Because she was now focused on getting him and Anteros together. 🤦
Circe Cecaelia: Venetia adores her roommate, and considers her one of her best friends. Circe gets her love of science like none other (not even Rose; while the princess enjoys the outdoors and the butterflies, she doesn't really get the science behind Venetia's work with them), and Venetia is an able lab partner when Circe is working on potions. Among roommate pairs, they're one of the best as far as compatibility goes. (Not everyone appreciates a full lab or an entire greenhouse in their dorms you know.)
Anteros Princely: Anteros was one of Venetia's first close friends at Ever After High after Circe; they met while shopping in bookend and immediately bonded over a love of the activity. Venetia is always ready to lend a hand when Anteros starts getting in over his head in tasks, while Anteros is always happy to help take notes while Venetia's studying her butterflies (and also find lost items in the lab because Venetia is many things, and forgetful is definitely one of them).
Pet[]
Venetia has 2 pets: a snow-white dove, named Eros, and a white butterfly, named Amare. She loves both of them dearly.
Romance[]
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My Heart has been captured by your Funny Little Smile, and finally I'm Happy, if only for A While... |
—Funny Little World, Alexander Rybak | |
C. A. Cupid: Venetia met the Daughter of Love the first day she stepped foot at Ever After High, when they showed up for Mythology at the same time. They bonded over their shared experiences of living in the Mythos realm and Greco-Roman heritages, as well as their similar feelings on love (i.e. that love should be experienced by everyone in some form). They grew close over the ensuing months, with Venetia supporting Cupid through the girl's crush on Dexter and subsequent rejection, as well as her realization that she likes girls as well as guys via a crush on Darling (ooc: all the girls at EAH have crushes on Darling it's just A Fact™). Venetia actually started falling for Cupid during this period in time, though she was certain her affections weren't returned so she kept them hidden and supported Cupid through several crushes ranging from soft to disastrous. Unbeknownst to her, however, Cupid was crushing on almost every person she could to distract herself from the truth: she was falling for one of her closest friends, i.e. Venetia. This eventually came to a head when Venetia offhandedly remarked one day, about a month before Way Too Wonderland (though they didn't realize that at the time), that she could see Fatelines. (She'd been researching and researching up to that point and finally found out what they are after a library trip with some friends.) Cupid was shook because she'd only ever heard of this power in a handful of people: her father Eros, her grandmother Aphrodite... And her mother, Psyche, as well as the previous Psyches who've retold the story of how her parents met. Cupid realized in that moment that her Destiny at Ever After High was not to simply spread love, but to follow in her father's footsteps as Eros in Eros and Psyche. She explained this to Venetia, who was understandably also shocked. In her shock she blurted out something along the lines of "no wonder I'm in love with you" which threw both girls into a tizzy until the figured out that they were both in love with each other and shared a kiss. Then they spent a month agonizing over how they could be Rebels if they were following their destiny by loving each other, up until WtW which solved the dilemma for them. (Ooc: they would have eventually come to the agreement that they were rebelling against the story by not following it exactly, even if they were in love, they just never needed to reach that point cause WtW.) They've been dating in public ever since.
Enemies[]
Venetia does not have any enemies at this time. She should probably get some, come to think of it.
(Pending further discussion with Airy, these are just preliminary thoughts on how interactions might go): One possible enemy she could have is her destined Venus, Virginia de Milo. Venetia very intentionally tries to steer clear of Venus's champion, even when she didn't know they shared a story, as every time they've run across each other it's ended in an argument. Venetia believes very strongly that love conquers all and that it should be respected as the amazing and powerful emotion that it is, so she doesn't appreciate Virginia's manipulation of other people's feelings and her swearing off of love altogether for herself. Venetia has tried multiple times to talk to the other girl, but she always ended up feeling exposed and somewhat used while never making headway in changing Virginia's mind, so eventually she just stopped. And when Cupid realized that they shared a story, both girls vowed to keep the truth a secret from Virginia for as long as possible, since the Venus reincarnate has never made it secret how much she'd love to start her torment of Psyche early. Only a few select people know that Venetia figured out her role; the rest of the student body still thinks she's a generic destiny and attributes her butterfly motifs and greco-roman style to her interests and culture, not a specific role.
Outfits []
Trivia[]
- Vini does not actually know her destiny, or the reason why she can see fate lines.
- Partway through her story, Venetia will try searching the Ever After High library for information about fate lines and such, and will finally discover her destiny.
- Vini cannot see her own fateline or that of her soulmate's. C. A. Cupid is her soulmate, therefore she cannot see Cupid's fateline.
- Vini is colorblind. Specifically she has blue-yellow colorblindness. It affects her ability to distinguish between yellow colors and reds/pinks.
- Vini's official orientation is Pansexual Panromantic.
- Venetia's story at Ever After High starts the school year after Way Too Wonderland's events happened, so she will have a Legacy Day outfit designed but never actually worn.
- Venetia's Diary entry will be all about how she tried setting Arion up on multiple disastrous blind dates. The results are both cringe-worthy and hilarious.
- Her Angeline Patchwork-given nickname is "Dalmatian," probably because of her leggings.
- She has a tattoo of a butterfly with a dotted heart-shaped trail on her left hip that's only visible when she wears cropped tops.
- Vini went through what has been dubbed her "butterfly" phase as a child; suddenly and for no apparent reason she started wanting butterflies on everything she owned and soon became an expert (or as much of an expert as you can be between 7-10 years old) on everything to do with butterflies and moths. She even received a moderately sized stuffed butterfly toy named Clover that she's kept on her bed ever since she got it.
- Shout-out to Hidden who, back when they had a tumblr blog, made a post that directly inspired me to make Venetia! (And thank you to Zena for helping me find the post and reminding me because I have the memory of a squirrel ^^;)
- Shout-out to Zena for helping me with Venetia's clothing redesigns, without them I never would've thought to combine Greek, Roman, AND Egyptian clothing styles (the Egyptian is more obvious in alternate outfits but nevertheless it's there). Also shout-out to whoever helped me rethink her magic touch to be intermittent, rather than her seeing fate lines all the time; I don't remember who helped with that (if it was you, tell me!), but that addition was invaluable in helping her seem less over powered.
Gallery[]
