Why is Gísli so afraid of getting hurt? Has he been significantly hurt before by getting close to someone? You also mention that he is a children's psychologist out of guilt-- what kind of guilt?
Anyone from Catband is fine.
Ohh, this is a good one. Asking me about my characters' names (nicknames, legal names, what they prefer to be called, why their TH name isn't what they prefer to be called...) is always a great question, because every one of them has a story or several. I really like hiding little bits of meaning wherever I can, and most of my characters are very old, so there's a lot of history there.
Alright, so Luke, Ira and Theo: that's a two-part question. I already wrote something about why I picked their graffiti names on Curiouscat, so I'll copy that here:
I only gave Ira, Luke, and Theo their graffiti names fairly recently: SAINT, ESCAPE and CHIEF. It was hard to get the latter two right, but Ira was always, always going to be SAINT. It just felt right. SAINT is for his saints' icons style of art; ESCAPE is because Theo is into painting on subway exits and that kind of thing, and I wanted something to fit his restless, reckless desires to climb things and get out. And CHIEF serves a dual purpose for his fire helmet and because he's kind of a leader, but I couldn't imagine him letting people call him any more formal title than the casual "chief." I trawled through graffiti name websites making sure those weren't notably in use and suited that kind of name, something easy to spray, something that stands out, something that's not quite a regular nickname. And SAINT/ESCAPE had to sound and look good together, so they could be said like one word or stylized as ST./ESC for them to spray.
I'm less decided on their in-story reasons for now, but I definitely know that Luke got sardonically called "chief" by either by the other graffiti artists or the other squatters (in the sense that he told them to do something and they said sure, chief), it became a thing, and eventually he embraced it, using it as his tag (he used a different alias when he was younger) and using the fire helmet. Honestly, it was probably Theo. It's definitely also Theo's fault Ira is SAINT, and I think Ira picked ESCAPE; both of those back in high school.
Now, nicknames that aren't based on characters' real names: I've been called out, lmao. There is definitely a reason, but I can't go into it here, so the gist is that for many characters, their nicknames came first, and their legal names after. Besides the other reason, I also just really like nicknames? I'm the kind of friend who nicknames everyone, so some of my characters are like that too. There's a lot more meaning and life in a nickname you earned than something your parents gave you before they even knew you-- and that goes for characters too. Who cares that Bane's given name is Devlin when Bane is the name he earned? Both mean he's a screwup (Devlin means "unlucky"), but the latter is the one he was given as a teenager, based on his in-story behavior and not just me farting around with a list of baby names. And he lets people call him that because he feels that's what he's become: a disaster to everyone around him. It's irrelevant that Roadie's real name is Dmitri when everyone in his life sees him as "the roadie"-- that's the identity he's accumulated, and he's accepted or embraced it; he'd rather be seen as a transient than an individual. A cog, not a star. No strings attached.
Starting to realize names might be a bit of a theme for my comic, haha. They're so powerful: how you want to present yourself to the world, how you feel about the people in your life, how you can (re)claim an identity...