Queen of Hearts App [WIP]
Character Information
Name: Ky Kiske
Source Canon: Guilty Gear
Age: 23
Role In Canon: Main Character
Justification:
Ky is a product very much of what he's been taught, in his canon. As an orphan raised by a church-focused military group, his ideas of society and concepts of chivalry were highly influenced by the Catholic church and the history of his organization as an order of knights. However, women were allowed, even if they were rarer, and I'm highly interested in keeping the idealism and dedication he shows and seeing how they develop when Ky interacts with the world from a female perspective.
I really like poking at what makes characters' personalities what they are and how the personality can stay recognizable without the events of their lives exactly coinciding. I think it's particularly interesting in Ky's case simply because it gives the personality traits he's already demonstrated to have more of a Joan of Arc feel in some ways.
Ky is also portrayed very much as the hope of his world, the young man who leads the whole of humanity out of a hundred years of war. I really like the idea of having a female character being the one to do that, and to think about how that affects her view of herself.
In addition, Ky is a very sexually repressed character, in a way that other characters in her universe are not. Although a female Ky would be more used to rejecting unwanted advances, I think she would have an equivalent amount of sexual experience (which is to say little to none). I'm interested in seeing how that aspect in particular would develop in the setting of Queen of Hearts.
History:
In 2010, magic was discovered. Along with this discovery came the melding of magic and technology. As with many new inventions, thoughts turned very quickly to military applications. Genetic engineering and magical technology were blended in 2074 to create a type of bio-weapon, creatures called Gears. Meanwhile, a man known only as That Man had already created a command-type Gear, Justice. Her superior intelligence and programming enabled her to take control of all the other Gears. She was also the only one who had free will. She was given the option of following orders and killing humans in the service of A Country or being dismantled. With those as her options, she chose to declare war on all of humanity, starting the Crusades. Out of this war arose the human organization of The Sacred Order of Holy Knights to fight the Gears. By 2140 The Sacred Order was headed by Commander Kliff Undersn.
Ky Kiske was born in France in the middle of the Crusades in 2158. Her parents were killed in a Gear attack when Ky was eight. Ky survived on her own for two years before she made her way to the Sacred Order and asked Commander Undersn for permission to enlist. Kliff Undersn told Ky to train for five years on her own and see about enlisting then, which was precisely what she did.
When she joined the Sacred Order, therefore, Ky was fifteen. Her training continued within the organization, as Kliff Undersn took a particular interest in her potential. In addition to proving herself an adept fighter and capable of yielding lightning magic, Ky showed herself to be a natural leader and entirely devoted to her work. Although she had a difficult time at first proving herself to the other knights, because of a combination of her youth, naivité and femaleness, she was able to earn respect for her single-minded dedication to the Sacred Order.
Kliff Undersn retired in 2174, naming sixteen-year-old Ky as his successor as Commander of the Sacred Order and gifting her with a magical artifact -- her sword, Fuuraiken (Thunderseal).
In the Battle of Rome, in 2175, Kliff Undersn battled Justice, but he was weaker than he had been when he fought her in the past. Instead of being able to fight to mutual defeat, Justice beat Kliff. Ky stepped in to take over the battle, preventing Justice from killing Kliff. Ky was not able to defeat her either, but a former member of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights and current bounty hunter, Sol Badguy, was able to step in to weaken Justice. With that done, Ky and some of the Holy Knights were able to trap Justice in an inter-dimensional seal. Without her control, the other Gears went dormant and ceased to be an active threat to humanity. The war, which had lasted a little over a hundred years and taken many human lives (including the entire nation of Japan) was finally over.
After the conclusion of the war, Ky disbanded The Sacred Order of Holy Knights and she joined the International Police Force, working for the United Nations. Her service record and focus led her to quickly rise the ranks to Captain. As a result of rumors of the possible freeing of Justice in 2180, a number of people entered The Second Sacred Order Tournament, ostensibly hosted by the UN to defeat the threat of Justice. Once the tournament was underway, it was revealed that it had been orchestrated by one still-functioning Gear, Testament, as a way to bring Justice back and have her destroy mankind. At the end of the tournament, however, Sol Badguy was able to defeat Testament and then kill Justice. The other Gears (excluding Testament) once again lost their ability to act.
Kliff Undersn died, and Testament, who had been his adoptive son prior to being turned into a Gear in 2140, and was now finally free of Justice's influence, swore on his father's grave that he would fight for those who needed protecting in Kliff's vision. He then met a three-year-old (although she has the physical and mental maturity of a twenty-year-old) half-Gear who has similar Command abilities to Justice: Dizzy. Dizzy was Justice's daughter, although she lacked her mother's hatred of humanity.
Still, the idea of a new Gear capable of controlling the army of dormant Gears scared people, and a new tournament in 2181 was hosted with a reward for whoever killed Dizzy. Both Sol and Ky fought and defeated Dizzy, but both spared her life when they found her not to be a threat to humanity. Dizzy was then placed with Johnny and the Jellyfish Pirates, a group who acted out of the law but from a strong sense of morality. She was reported to the organizers of the tournament as dead, and another bounty hunter took the reward.
Changes:
Ky's main personality traits are that she is religious (Catholic), idealistic, charismatic, and headstrong.
Her religiousness is in large part a result of the fact that her childhood revolved around the Sacred Order of Holy Knights, which was filled with religious rhetoric and symbolism which she took to heart. Her religiousness was a major contributing factor to her original perception of morality as black and white, although she has recently learned to recognize that there are shades of gray.
Her religiousness has also resulted in her devotion of her life to the ideal of justice. She has made a conscious decision that she makes a better fighter than a mother. She doesn't think creating any kind of family is in her future. As part of this, she is fairly sexually repressed. She doesn't spend much time thinking about sex, and while she's bisexual, she doesn't spend any time contemplating her attraction to people and therefore does not recognize that.
Ky's idealism is still firmly intact, despite having been challenged numerous times by situations she has been in. Although she now recognizes that the path to achieve justice is not always clear, she still believes that there is a correct path that can be found. From the age of fifteen, she's devoted his life to the pursuit of justice, first within the Sacred Order of Holy Knights (which led to Kliff Undersn appointing her as their new commander) and then inside the International Police Force. She has never held her tongue from speaking up about what is right even to those who have power over her. She also takes the leadership roles she's been given very seriously, considering herself nearly always 'on duty'.
In general, the first impression people have of Ky is formed by her strong natural charisma. She likes making people happy, and it shows in her interactions with them. As a soldier she quickly became the face of The Sacred Order, in part because she was young and in part because she can speak with other people easily and she's very honest. A side effect of her charisma is her ability to deflect situations that she's not comfortable with. She has come up with some answers to questions that she's used to answering, like how she responds simply 'I don't date' to anyone expressing interest in her.
Ky's other main characteristic is her stubbornness. This has both helped and hindered her throughout his life. Ky doesn't give up even when the task in front of her is very difficult, and this is shown by two achievements. The first is her mastery of lightning magic. Lightning is generally considered the most difficult to wield, and Ky has been able to concentrate on her skills to the level where she can control her sword, Thunderseal. The second achievement is her rise to become Commander of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights. Although Kliff's backing helped a lot, it was Ky who earned the respect of the majority of the other knights.
Ky's stubbornness has also, however, brought her into personal conflicts when she refuses to let go of a perceived wrong. The most notable example of this is Ky's rivalry with Sol Badguy, a former Holy Knight who left the Order and took one of the Order's anti-Gear weapons with him when he did so. This, in addition to the fact that Ky perceives Sol as deliberately going easy on her when they fight or simply letting Ky win without putting any real effort into the fight, has given Ky a lot of stress and given Sol the position in Ky's mind as Ky's single greatest annoyance. Ky is certain that at least part of this is because of the fact that she's female, and she is determined to prove to Sol that she's an opponent he should take seriously.
Something which combines with her stubbornness is her temper. It isn't particularly difficult to provoke, and once it has it tends to control her rather than her controlling it. It can be provoked by people she has history with much more easily than by strangers. This is seen most in canon with Sol, because Ky and Sol have a lot of history and she's convinced that if she just fights Sol often enough then at some point he'll agree to fight her with his full effort.
Ky also prefers to lose against an opponent who was trying than to win simply because her opponent didn't feel like putting all their effort into the fight.
As can be seen from the above, Ky is a very serious, dedicated individual. She believes in a mission, the pursuit of justice, which is far greater than her own life, and she has had no hesitation in devoting her life to that mission. In part, her dedication has been simple for her to do, because it's never really been challenged by events in her life. For all her charisma, she hasn't gotten very close to anyone yet.
Abilities:
[Video 1]
[Ky sits on the ground, looking earnestly at the Vine. She's at least externally calm (internally confused and annoyed) because no matter what this place is, she isn't going to stay here for long. She refuses.]
Excuse me?
[She presumes she's talking to some sort of video network, anyway. She hopes so, although trusting the cats on what information they delivered does seem a little suspect. Nothing to be done for it now besides continue, because it's not like she's found a different way to get the answers she wants.]
Is there anyone with information on how to leave this place? I know I've only just arrived, and I'm sure it's lovely, but I have things I need to do where I come from.
[She crosses her arms.]
And don't say that there isn't a way back. If I got here then it has to be reversible.
Then I realized that the first sample didn't show much beyond the fact that she wanted to go home, so I did a second.
[Video 2]
[Ky isn't normally someone who paces a lot, but she has a fair amount of pent-up energy without any way to constructively use it. She's fairly certain that picking fights with Sol doesn't count as constructive. So she's pacing now, although she stops as soon as she can tell that the Vine feed has started. She looks directly into the feed, radiating earnestness.]
Look. If I can't get back to my actual duties, is there anything I can do around here that would be productive?
Besides petting the cats.
Or a book to read or something?
[Ky doesn't have a great need for company, generally, but generally she also has a mission that consumes most of her time and energy. And there's no way to get that here, not when she isn't making progress on getting back to her world.]
Barring that, does anyone feel like talking about the world they came from?
[At least that might result in her learning something useful. Even if not, everyone else seems as trapped as Ky and she doesn't want them to all be complete strangers to her.]
Dear Mun post
Notes: Parts of the application (particularly the history) were adapted from the write-up I did for the app for placemyfaith, a male version of this character which I play.
Name: Ky Kiske
Source Canon: Guilty Gear
Age: 23
Role In Canon: Main Character
Justification:
Ky is a product very much of what he's been taught, in his canon. As an orphan raised by a church-focused military group, his ideas of society and concepts of chivalry were highly influenced by the Catholic church and the history of his organization as an order of knights. However, women were allowed, even if they were rarer, and I'm highly interested in keeping the idealism and dedication he shows and seeing how they develop when Ky interacts with the world from a female perspective.
I really like poking at what makes characters' personalities what they are and how the personality can stay recognizable without the events of their lives exactly coinciding. I think it's particularly interesting in Ky's case simply because it gives the personality traits he's already demonstrated to have more of a Joan of Arc feel in some ways.
Ky is also portrayed very much as the hope of his world, the young man who leads the whole of humanity out of a hundred years of war. I really like the idea of having a female character being the one to do that, and to think about how that affects her view of herself.
In addition, Ky is a very sexually repressed character, in a way that other characters in her universe are not. Although a female Ky would be more used to rejecting unwanted advances, I think she would have an equivalent amount of sexual experience (which is to say little to none). I'm interested in seeing how that aspect in particular would develop in the setting of Queen of Hearts.
History:
In 2010, magic was discovered. Along with this discovery came the melding of magic and technology. As with many new inventions, thoughts turned very quickly to military applications. Genetic engineering and magical technology were blended in 2074 to create a type of bio-weapon, creatures called Gears. Meanwhile, a man known only as That Man had already created a command-type Gear, Justice. Her superior intelligence and programming enabled her to take control of all the other Gears. She was also the only one who had free will. She was given the option of following orders and killing humans in the service of A Country or being dismantled. With those as her options, she chose to declare war on all of humanity, starting the Crusades. Out of this war arose the human organization of The Sacred Order of Holy Knights to fight the Gears. By 2140 The Sacred Order was headed by Commander Kliff Undersn.
Ky Kiske was born in France in the middle of the Crusades in 2158. Her parents were killed in a Gear attack when Ky was eight. Ky survived on her own for two years before she made her way to the Sacred Order and asked Commander Undersn for permission to enlist. Kliff Undersn told Ky to train for five years on her own and see about enlisting then, which was precisely what she did.
When she joined the Sacred Order, therefore, Ky was fifteen. Her training continued within the organization, as Kliff Undersn took a particular interest in her potential. In addition to proving herself an adept fighter and capable of yielding lightning magic, Ky showed herself to be a natural leader and entirely devoted to her work. Although she had a difficult time at first proving herself to the other knights, because of a combination of her youth, naivité and femaleness, she was able to earn respect for her single-minded dedication to the Sacred Order.
Kliff Undersn retired in 2174, naming sixteen-year-old Ky as his successor as Commander of the Sacred Order and gifting her with a magical artifact -- her sword, Fuuraiken (Thunderseal).
In the Battle of Rome, in 2175, Kliff Undersn battled Justice, but he was weaker than he had been when he fought her in the past. Instead of being able to fight to mutual defeat, Justice beat Kliff. Ky stepped in to take over the battle, preventing Justice from killing Kliff. Ky was not able to defeat her either, but a former member of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights and current bounty hunter, Sol Badguy, was able to step in to weaken Justice. With that done, Ky and some of the Holy Knights were able to trap Justice in an inter-dimensional seal. Without her control, the other Gears went dormant and ceased to be an active threat to humanity. The war, which had lasted a little over a hundred years and taken many human lives (including the entire nation of Japan) was finally over.
After the conclusion of the war, Ky disbanded The Sacred Order of Holy Knights and she joined the International Police Force, working for the United Nations. Her service record and focus led her to quickly rise the ranks to Captain. As a result of rumors of the possible freeing of Justice in 2180, a number of people entered The Second Sacred Order Tournament, ostensibly hosted by the UN to defeat the threat of Justice. Once the tournament was underway, it was revealed that it had been orchestrated by one still-functioning Gear, Testament, as a way to bring Justice back and have her destroy mankind. At the end of the tournament, however, Sol Badguy was able to defeat Testament and then kill Justice. The other Gears (excluding Testament) once again lost their ability to act.
Kliff Undersn died, and Testament, who had been his adoptive son prior to being turned into a Gear in 2140, and was now finally free of Justice's influence, swore on his father's grave that he would fight for those who needed protecting in Kliff's vision. He then met a three-year-old (although she has the physical and mental maturity of a twenty-year-old) half-Gear who has similar Command abilities to Justice: Dizzy. Dizzy was Justice's daughter, although she lacked her mother's hatred of humanity.
Still, the idea of a new Gear capable of controlling the army of dormant Gears scared people, and a new tournament in 2181 was hosted with a reward for whoever killed Dizzy. Both Sol and Ky fought and defeated Dizzy, but both spared her life when they found her not to be a threat to humanity. Dizzy was then placed with Johnny and the Jellyfish Pirates, a group who acted out of the law but from a strong sense of morality. She was reported to the organizers of the tournament as dead, and another bounty hunter took the reward.
Changes:
- She had to work much harder to be accepted by the other knights. While women are allowed into The Sacred Order of Holy Knights, there are far fewer of them than men and fighting as a Knight is considered a primarily male duty.
- Ky lets societal expectations of gender roles shape her behavior somewhat when out of uniform (although she is very rarely out of uniform), but she believes her duty to be greater than her as an individual and as such is stubborn and obstinate when it comes to any kind of conflict with people who think she's incapable of doing what she has to.
- Although Ky is shown to be fairly socially isolated in canon, that is even more the case here, particularly as she has found herself becoming comfortable with fellow soldiers a couple of times only for them to then state their attraction to her. That combined with the fact that she felt more pressure to prove she was strong than was necessary in canon.
- While in Guilty Gear canon it is more that Ky simply is devoted to his duty more than the idea of a personal life, the female version of Ky has thought about this more, and made a conscious decision not to involve herself in any romantic or sexual relationships.
- This is partly because her experiences in canon so far have been such that she has to be single-minded in her pursuit of her duty. She doesn't believe that she can both be someone's romantic partner and a knight, and she'll put being a knight first, unless she meets and connects with someone against her intentions to do so.
- In canon, Ky is very chivalrous. As a genderswapped version, Ky tends to brush off that sort of reaction from men and ignore it when she can, as she ignores it whenever people subtly treat her different because of her gender. When people are overtly sexist, she tends to get angry, start yelling, and possibly challenge them to a fight. She's done a lot of her proving of herself by showing her physical strength to be superior to most men's.
- Ky's relationship with Sol, her somewhat-rival is a bit more complicated. Sol is staying male in this version, and Ky is even more frustrated with his disrespect. Ky views Sol's refusal to treat her as a serious opponent as a symptom of sexism, but Ky's frustration with Sol is a large part of what motivates her to keep moving forward. Sol was also in the order prior to Ky doing anything like command, and so her attempts to crack down on him and the fact that she continually throws herself against him in practice fights helps her to earn the men's respect, by demonstrating her devotion to becoming a better fighter no matter what it takes.
- In fact, all characters in her back story other than Ky remain the gender they were in the original canon.
- Ky's interactions with other women are a little different but with a similar effect as the male version in canon. Instead of being more careful when she fights women because they are women and she doesn't want them to be hurt, Ky here is used to pushing herself as hard as she can when she fights men, and she isn't in the habit of doing that with other women.
Ky's main personality traits are that she is religious (Catholic), idealistic, charismatic, and headstrong.
Her religiousness is in large part a result of the fact that her childhood revolved around the Sacred Order of Holy Knights, which was filled with religious rhetoric and symbolism which she took to heart. Her religiousness was a major contributing factor to her original perception of morality as black and white, although she has recently learned to recognize that there are shades of gray.
Her religiousness has also resulted in her devotion of her life to the ideal of justice. She has made a conscious decision that she makes a better fighter than a mother. She doesn't think creating any kind of family is in her future. As part of this, she is fairly sexually repressed. She doesn't spend much time thinking about sex, and while she's bisexual, she doesn't spend any time contemplating her attraction to people and therefore does not recognize that.
Ky's idealism is still firmly intact, despite having been challenged numerous times by situations she has been in. Although she now recognizes that the path to achieve justice is not always clear, she still believes that there is a correct path that can be found. From the age of fifteen, she's devoted his life to the pursuit of justice, first within the Sacred Order of Holy Knights (which led to Kliff Undersn appointing her as their new commander) and then inside the International Police Force. She has never held her tongue from speaking up about what is right even to those who have power over her. She also takes the leadership roles she's been given very seriously, considering herself nearly always 'on duty'.
In general, the first impression people have of Ky is formed by her strong natural charisma. She likes making people happy, and it shows in her interactions with them. As a soldier she quickly became the face of The Sacred Order, in part because she was young and in part because she can speak with other people easily and she's very honest. A side effect of her charisma is her ability to deflect situations that she's not comfortable with. She has come up with some answers to questions that she's used to answering, like how she responds simply 'I don't date' to anyone expressing interest in her.
Ky's other main characteristic is her stubbornness. This has both helped and hindered her throughout his life. Ky doesn't give up even when the task in front of her is very difficult, and this is shown by two achievements. The first is her mastery of lightning magic. Lightning is generally considered the most difficult to wield, and Ky has been able to concentrate on her skills to the level where she can control her sword, Thunderseal. The second achievement is her rise to become Commander of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights. Although Kliff's backing helped a lot, it was Ky who earned the respect of the majority of the other knights.
Ky's stubbornness has also, however, brought her into personal conflicts when she refuses to let go of a perceived wrong. The most notable example of this is Ky's rivalry with Sol Badguy, a former Holy Knight who left the Order and took one of the Order's anti-Gear weapons with him when he did so. This, in addition to the fact that Ky perceives Sol as deliberately going easy on her when they fight or simply letting Ky win without putting any real effort into the fight, has given Ky a lot of stress and given Sol the position in Ky's mind as Ky's single greatest annoyance. Ky is certain that at least part of this is because of the fact that she's female, and she is determined to prove to Sol that she's an opponent he should take seriously.
Something which combines with her stubbornness is her temper. It isn't particularly difficult to provoke, and once it has it tends to control her rather than her controlling it. It can be provoked by people she has history with much more easily than by strangers. This is seen most in canon with Sol, because Ky and Sol have a lot of history and she's convinced that if she just fights Sol often enough then at some point he'll agree to fight her with his full effort.
Ky also prefers to lose against an opponent who was trying than to win simply because her opponent didn't feel like putting all their effort into the fight.
As can be seen from the above, Ky is a very serious, dedicated individual. She believes in a mission, the pursuit of justice, which is far greater than her own life, and she has had no hesitation in devoting her life to that mission. In part, her dedication has been simple for her to do, because it's never really been challenged by events in her life. For all her charisma, she hasn't gotten very close to anyone yet.
Abilities:
- She wields lightning magic, aided by her sword, Fuuraiken (a magical artifact which can function as both a sword and a conduit for her magic). She has a number of lightning attacks which can be used in close or long range. Her magic is offensive, for the most part.
- Beyond her magic, she's physically capable. She can both fight with a sword and in unarmed combat. She's has a fairly high level of endurance, and this combines with her persistence.
- She's highly charismatic and when not particularly aggravated is great at explaining things and being someone to rally people behind.
- She's quite intelligent and very organized, as seen in her prior command of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights.
[Video 1]
[Ky sits on the ground, looking earnestly at the Vine. She's at least externally calm (internally confused and annoyed) because no matter what this place is, she isn't going to stay here for long. She refuses.]
Excuse me?
[She presumes she's talking to some sort of video network, anyway. She hopes so, although trusting the cats on what information they delivered does seem a little suspect. Nothing to be done for it now besides continue, because it's not like she's found a different way to get the answers she wants.]
Is there anyone with information on how to leave this place? I know I've only just arrived, and I'm sure it's lovely, but I have things I need to do where I come from.
[She crosses her arms.]
And don't say that there isn't a way back. If I got here then it has to be reversible.
Then I realized that the first sample didn't show much beyond the fact that she wanted to go home, so I did a second.
[Video 2]
[Ky isn't normally someone who paces a lot, but she has a fair amount of pent-up energy without any way to constructively use it. She's fairly certain that picking fights with Sol doesn't count as constructive. So she's pacing now, although she stops as soon as she can tell that the Vine feed has started. She looks directly into the feed, radiating earnestness.]
Look. If I can't get back to my actual duties, is there anything I can do around here that would be productive?
Besides petting the cats.
Or a book to read or something?
[Ky doesn't have a great need for company, generally, but generally she also has a mission that consumes most of her time and energy. And there's no way to get that here, not when she isn't making progress on getting back to her world.]
Barring that, does anyone feel like talking about the world they came from?
[At least that might result in her learning something useful. Even if not, everyone else seems as trapped as Ky and she doesn't want them to all be complete strangers to her.]
Dear Mun post
Notes: Parts of the application (particularly the history) were adapted from the write-up I did for the app for placemyfaith, a male version of this character which I play.