Cupida Hartnell

**Cupida Hartnell**, (PROSE: *Genesis of the Cupids*) once referenced in a prophetic vision as **the Great Bird**, (PROSE: *Conspiracy-1263 Publicly Accuses the Gang of the Green Gorillas*) and known to her creations as **the Creator**, was the human scientist who invented the Clockwork Cherubs in 1960 in the Prime Universe, and subsequently put together the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids. (PROSE: *The Grand Multiverse Hotel*)

## Biography

The Creator originally lived in a city in the United States of America, to which her creations would later refer as simply “the Home City”. Despite its homely, ordinary appearance, oddities such as mad scientists and witches were commonplace in the city, such that “a woman filling her backyard with clockwork automata would hardly have stood out”. (PROSE: *The Interlude of Jenny Everywhere*)

Cupid Fact File #828 highlighted the curious fact that the Crew's name followed the same pattern as the many Strangely-Colored Secret Societies created by former members of the First Horde. (PROSE: *The Strangely-Colored Secret Societies*) Indeed, she was once a scientist in the Horde, working primarily as an engineer; as such, she was responsible for the creation of the Horde's brainwashing devices. She also built a copper robot assistant for her colleague Professor Scarper, in exchange for him giving her his formula for a rudimentary brainwashing chemical, which he had abandoned because her own brainwashing machines had made it moot. (PROSE: *The Salamandyrs and the Automata*)

In the early 1960s, (PROSE: *Pessimist and the Dromedaries*) a now-independent Creator invented a biochemical Love Potion (PROSE: *The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids*) adapted from Scarper's more general concoction (PROSE: *The Salamandyrs and the Automata*) in an effort to bring peace to the world, and to worlds beyond. She began building mechanical minions to carry out the world of romanticising all of reality on her behalf, the Clockwork Cherubs. (PROSE: *Lord Thymon and the Department of Problem-Solving*) In accordance with the love theme, she fashioned in the broad likeness of the winged Greek deity Cupid. She soon discovered that Cupid's wingspan would not allow a non-supernatural being to fly, forcing her to develop anti-gravity circuits for her “Cupids” to replicate this feat. (PROSE: *The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids*) She also gave the Cupids the ability to interface with any electrical appliance that existed at the time. (PROSE: *Pessimist and the Dromedaries*)

The Mark I Cupids were originally housed in the Creator's garage on the Prime Earth, but after it grew too cramped, she created a pocket dimension, the Cupid Homeworld, in which her creations could relocate. (PROSE: *Lord Thymon and the Department of Problem-Solving*, *The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids*)

Eventually, the Creator withdrew from public life in the Homeworld, moving to the Forbidden Manor. She left them schematics for dematerialisation circuits and conceptual engines, allowing them to develop the Fog Ships, as well as the formula for the Love Potion, which were soon lost by the Prefect of the Department of Chemistry, (PROSE: *The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids*) Mandragora-257. (COMIC: *Jenny Everywhere Meets The Crew Of The Copper-Colored Cupids*) She also entrusted the Emergency Transport Button to the Cupid Prime. (PROSE: *The Ghosts and the Machine*) The Crew became directly affiliated with Aphrodite herself, who provided them with a substitute Potion with identical effects. (PROSE: *The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids*) The instructions she left on how to operate the Clockwork Sun and the Clockwork Moon were “exceedingly unclear” and the latter was soon misplaced altogether, meaning the Cupid Homeworld wound up without a real day-night cycle, contrary to her original plans. (PROSE: *Family Business*)

In her absence, the automated Great Foundries took over the creation of new Clockwork Cherubs, an art which was forbidden to Cupids themselves. (PROSE: *The Labors of Juliet*, *The Cupid Suggestion Box*) A portrait of her was left in a crumbling room of the Cupid Archives; (VIDEO: *The Wellsians*) indeed, having portraits of her seemed to be acceptable to the Cupids, with the Department of Problem-Solving being disturbed that there *wasn't* any such portrait in the Morningstar 1 Base even though portraits of Governor-105 were in large supply. (PROSE: *The Resurrection of the Wellsians*)

Issue #1034 of *The Cupid Courier* printed one of “backwards prophet” Nostradamus-066's visions, which discussed “the Great Bird” creating “life anew from the metal of Cyprus” in the image of “the Old God”. The Department of Interpretation soon realised that this was a “prophecy” of the creation of the Cupids themselves, much to Nostradamus's embarrassment. (PROSE: *Conspiracy-1263 Publicly Accuses the Gang of the Green Gorillas*)

She did not evacuate from the Homeworld during the three-day span of the Hat rendering the Homeworld uninhabitable. For this reason, the other Cupids shot down Pythagoras-858's proposal of simply declaring the Homeworld a lost cause and trying to make another one. (PROSE: *Magic Trick*)