Kiki Kelsa Character Concept

Another first attempt at drawing a new Demordicai Diamonds character for me today. Unlike some of the other character concepts I've done in the past, I have two for Kiki instead of the usual one (which will be done sometime in the next day or two). I don't really have a lot of back story for Kiki at the moment as she still is very new and I have only just recently implemented her into the story (and as of finishing this concept, only once at that so I haven't really worked with her much yet).

So here's a little bit about Kiki:


Out of all 12 of Queen Laurabelle's Feathers (royal advisers), Kiki is considered by some to be the most useless and unnecessary out of all of them and not worthy of having the status and wealth the Queen has bestowed upon her. She serves only two main purposes, one being to advise the Queen on all matters related to festivals, parades, and any other festive occasion, large or small, public or private, along with actually planning and preparing such events. That is pretty much the only time Kiki is given any sort of a leadership position and that's probably for the best.

The other role Kiki fulfills is that of a court jester. What makes this unusual is that she outranks in power and status, many of those who she entertains. Despite this, Kiki loves her job and derives great joy from being a fool, as long as she is laughed at that is. There are many others of nobility in Romadia that find someone of such basal employment being gifted with such status and wealth by the Queen on the borderline of an outrage but some view it as one large joke and don't view her as much of a threat. It's not like Kiki really uses her position for much of anything besides fun after all.

Kiki is a bit strange, even childish, with her emotions, she tends to be extremely forthcoming with them, feeling and expresses them to a very large degree. If she feels happy, she'll skip and sing down the hall ways. If she feels even a tinge of sadness, she'll bawl her eyes out. If she doesn't get her way in a matter, she may even throw a temper tantrum. Not to say she has no restraint with her emotions as she does have some semblance of control, it's just that's she's far less inclined to restrain herself and her actions. It also can vary largely based on her relationship to other individuals, her being far more likely to respect boundaries and keep herself in line if it not doing so would make a close friend of hers feel uncomfortable or angry.

It should be noted that besides her being considered near useless for anything else besides entertainment among the Feathers, Kiki is one of the most loyal Feathers. Her loyalty to Queen Laurabelle is so strong it is almost blind devotion (one could almost consider it a little creepy) and she would do almost anything if it would make the Queen happy. Kiki's feelings of loyalty and devotion to others that she deems as her friends is also strong, making friendship with her a very special and important bond, well, at least from Kiki's point of view.

Besides her powerful emotions, Kiki also tends to be very physically energetic and sometimes has a hard time focusing on tasks at hand. Her behavior is often akin to that of a child undergoing a sugar rush. This is only further amplified by Kiki's love for candy and all things sweet and sugary. In fact, Kiki loves candy so much that she has will proudly declare, and often too, that candy is her favorite color. Yes, color. Not candy pink, or candy yellow. Just "candy", the kind you eat, is her favorite color.

On the other side of Kiki's tastes, Kiki absolutely abhors anything that tastes bad. Number one on that list is medicine. Due to her "unique" mental state along with her excessively energetic physical nature, she is on a regimen of special medicines that are thought to help calm her down and make her easier to deal with. One of the other Feathers, Sathia, is typically the one who makes the medicine as well as administer it. Sathia learned the hard way that Kiki doesn't take to kindly to medication and Sathia still has the scars to remember that encounter by. Since then, slipping the medicine into pieces of candy has proved to be a much easier and far less dangerous technique and Kiki hardly notices the difference.

Oddly enough, even though Kiki can have trouble focusing, she possesses an excellent memory when it comes to things relevant to herself or her festive work. She also is much more organized than what most would expect but it isn't always with useful things. She can recite with perfect precision her favorite colors, which each month has a different favorite color, the exact numerical date when she will wear certain outfits unless she makes an exception and then could further list what qualifies as an exception and so on and so forth. Kiki's personal schedule is very complex and well thought-out and may give headaches of confusion for anyone trying to comprehend it, let alone understand her as she may tell it too fast for the average listener to comprehend in one go.

Beneath Kiki's happy-go-lucky and childish demeanor, rumors pop up from time to time amongst both nobility and servants alike that Kiki's job as a jester is merely cover for her real profession, something much darker. Several stories peg her as a crazed, fiercely loyal, royal assassin that doesn't merely kill but butchers anyone the Queen commands her to, doing so with a demented grin on her face and taking twisted joy in the gruesome act. Other stories go more the route that she works closely with Rispa Hadley (who already does serve as a sort of handler to her on occasion) and tortures prisoners and anyone else in the castle dungeons in ways that are as creative and darkly humorous as they are horrifying. One tale mentions a technique called "butter fingers" that involved the coating of a victim's fingers with butter and having them severed, after which they are forcibly fed to the victim as a "fun snack".

Such dark and twisted stories about Kiki probably found their start soon after the uproar of Queen Laurabelle giving her title and wealth and were born out of the envy of many other lesser nobles who found themselves upstaged and outranked by a mere jester in the blink of an eye and the flash of a royal decree. These stories don't bother Kiki all that much but then again, she probably hasn't really took the time to listen to any of them or even given the matter much thought. She's usually too busy having fun either entertaining herself or entertaining others to care.