Characters / K/DA

Character tropes specific to the members of K/DA.

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Ahri

After rising to fame as a teenage pop star, Ahri tossed aside her girly and young look to reveal her new self: a high fashion, elegant, and stunning celebrity. Ahri’s sleek new look attracts top fashion designers. During fashion week, Ahri graces runways around the world in finale gowns. She is the face of FOXY cosmetics and launched her own fragrance, Charmed last year. When she isn’t with K/DA or training, Ahri is shopping, drinking tea with designers, and testing out new beauty products.

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• Executive Meddlinginvoked: It's revealed that Ahri used to be in this problem with her previous "Popstar" image. Her manager was very controlling about her appearance, diet, the songs she had to sing, etc. She left her contract to create K/DA, and is very adamant on avoiding this trope again.
• The Face: Zig-Zagged; she's considered the leader of K/DA, but when it comes down to actual material for the group, she doesn't have that big of a role as one would expect the leader to. For example;
  • She officially shares the role of lead vocalist with Evelynn.
  • When it comes to music videos for the group, she gets no more focus than anyone else. In fact, in POP/STARS she only had a slightly bigger role than Kai'sa as the groups main dancer.
  • In "The Baddest", she was only given a pre-chorus verse, while Evelynn handled the songs chorus, and Kai'sa and Akali dominated the rest of the song.
  • She has a somewhat bigger role in the music video for "MORE", though the video attempts to shift the focus equally across all the members of the group, as well as leaving in some time to show the guest singer Seraphine.
• The Fashionista: Part of Ahri's post-reinvention image is being a fashion icon, with her sleek design attracting fashion designers all across the world. She's also in the face of FOXY cosmetics and launched her own fragrance, Charmed.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In K/DA Ahri's skin bio, it stated she took a five-year break following her success as Popstar Ahri before re-emerging with K/DA, referencing how the original Popstar skin was released 5 years prior.
• Multiple-Tailed Beast: Ahri, natch, whose tails in this line look both holographic and crystal-like, and even briefly change colors depending on what ability she's using. Funnily enough, K/DA's fans only suspect that they're real. Official art implied that at ONE of the tails is real, as a younger, pre-Popstar Ahri photo of her shows her with a black tail.

Akali

Akali makes appearances next to other street performers in cities she is visiting. Combining mixed martial arts and the beat of her own rap lyrics, she delights audiences with her bold lyrical rap and punk ninja style. She started practicing on the streets before rising to fame and returns to her roots whenever she can. Her unruly hair and untamed style made Akali an instant K/DA fan favorite.

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• Battle Rapping: Akali was originally a street-level battle rapper who gained notoriety from a viral battle rap from when she was 15 (it apparently involved a few flips), and after she was picked up by Ahri, she now lends her hard-hitting lyrics and flow to K/DA. For bonus points, she's also a literal mixed martial-artist who knows how to wield kama, earning her title of "Hip Hop Ninja".
• Breakout Character: While K/DA as a whole was a smash hit, Akali ended up becoming the group's most popular character, so much so that she (and by extension, Soyeon of (G)I-DLE fame) was brought back as part of True Damage. In 2020, of all the characters in the line up, Evelynn seems to have made the biggest impact, especially with her Image Song "VILLAIN".
• Expressive Mask: During Akali's portions in the black-lit subway train of the "POP/STARS" video, the stylized mouth patterns on her face mask animates to her rapping.

Kai'Sa

@KDAKaiSa

K/DA_GLOBALFANS @KDAFans
@KDAKaiSa why do you dance?

KAISAOFFICIAL @KDAKaiSa
replying to @KDAFans
When the music begins, a symphony of movement stirs in my being. It begins as a rumble, like a calling from the void, hungry and demanding release. My body reacts to the call, jumping to weave a story. A story to leave the void behind, and fall into the steps of life.

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• Dancing Is Serious Business: Kai'Sa, being the group's lead dancer and choreographer, comes with this attitude. Harmonies reveals that she made dance her life since youth as a way to cope with her constant moving around the world, observing it as "a universal language" with various dialects across the world that she could continuously add to her repertoire and share with others.
• Foreign Fanservice: Kai'Sa's international origins are played up in her profiles and interview, with her taste of international styles contributing a layer of exoticism to K/DA as a whole.
• Team Chef: Kai'Sa is said to be found in the K/DA house cooking large meals. Her favorite food is Sichuan dry hot pot.

Evelynn

Eve’s reputation paints her as a demanding diva. She told Pop Shine, “I’m an artist, not a socialite. I won’t apologize for high standards.” Eve once walked off the stage of a live performance when her vocals were backed by an audio track she didn’t approve. Though her presence in the industry is turbulent, she has a diehard fan base who call themselves “Deeva.” Prior to K/DA, Evelynn released two hit singles, Agony’s Embrace and Ecstasy.

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• Animal Motif: Evelynn's All Out costume has her two long trails covered in purple scales, invoking the image of coiling snakes. Her "VILLAIN" music video also heavily features snakes, playing her up as alluring and deadly.
• Cool Car: She is frequently seen resting on or driving an impressive lavender Lamborghini, apparently one of several fast cars in her collection. In "VILLAIN", she shown piloting a Dodge Charger with what appears to be living snakeskin.
• Cool Shades: Evelynn is almost never seen without some fancy pair of shades on her. Harmonies establishes through a fangirl trying to imitate her look that they're integral to her style, and when she meets Eve face to face and clumsily drops her own pair on the ground, Eve surreptitiously trades with her by dropping her own and "mistakenly" taking the girl's pair.
• Creative Differences: Invoked by Evelynn as being the reason she left her previously-involved groups, though she insists that otherwise, she nothing but good things to say about them.
• The Diva: Much of the roster is inspired by this, though Evelynn has the reputation of "No. 1 Diva". In her own words, she's "an artist, not a socialite" with incredibly high standards, having once walked out on a live performance for a backing track she felt was too subpar for her vocals. Despite her turbulent presence, she has a massive diehard fanbase calling themselves "Deeva", and prior to joining K/DA, she had two solo hits in "Agony's Embrace" and "Ecstasy" and had known Ahri for years. It's telling that she's recognized as being "the foundation of the group's sound." Harmonies shows that she's also really nice to her fans, even to one she knows was spying on her in a dumpster.
• "I Am" Song: Evelynn gets one in the form of "VILLAIN", released for K/DA's 2020 comeback EP. Also doubles as a Villain Song, as it details her misdeeds as a sociopathic dominatrix that treats her partners terribly.
• Really Gets Around: Eve is implied to be this, listed as having been romantically involved with several (now-missing) male celebrities, though she's never confirmed a relationship.
• The Vamp: Continuing the trend for her original champ, Evelynn is this. Her Image Song "VILLAIN" has her unabashedly boasting about her using and abusing her partners and only caring about money.

Seraphine

After her whirlwind rise to stardom, Seraphine is on top of the world, and the charts, with her feature on K/DA's new EP. Her music and her message are resonating with her fans, and she's excited to show them what's to come on her journey of self-discovery through music.

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• Apologetic Attacker: No matter which variant she uses, Seraphine loves the members of K/DA, so either as a fan or as a peer, she sounds pretty distraught from "killing" them in-game.
  (as a Superstar) "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Are we still on for practice tomorrow?"
• Ascended Fangirl: Around two whole months after she started her Character Blog, Seraphine established that she was a fan of K/DA by uploading a Cover Version of "POP/STARS". This caught Ahri's attention, who decided to lend an invitation for the project. Her K/DA ALL OUT skin is an in-game translation of this entire process.
  (encountering a K/DA member as a Rising Star) "I love, love your latest track! Do you think we should sing together one day?"
• Audience Surrogate: Seraphine is this in the comic tie-in. All the readers know about her backstory via her Twitter account is that she was a barista who aspired to be a singer-producer and releases covers of songs on Soundcloud. She's otherwise an average girl thats a fan of K/DA, as many who follow the lore are, who becomes an Ascended Fanboy when she's offered the opportunity to collab on a song with them after being invited by Ahri. She's just unremarkable enough in the comics for the players to imagine themselves in her shoes as a newcomer that gets to work with their favorite girl-group.
• But Now I Must Go: Following the release of the K/DA EP in November 2020, Seraphine announced her hiatus from her character blog to focus on her life and her new career as part of K/DA.
• Character Blog: Seraphine was very quietly established through her K/DA persona through a Twitter, Instagram and Soundcloud around June 2020, sharing tons of music, artwork, and other personal interests long before she was even confirmed to be tied with K/DA (or League of Legends at all, for that matter).
• Character Development: Seraphine's ultimate-tier K/DA skins and voice lines reflect her evolution from a small indie singer to a superstar.
• The Cutie: Seraphine is a young girl with ambitions of becoming a popstar, and her equally personable, shy, and excitable personality makes her quite endearing to follow along with as her dreams become more of a reality.
• Elemental Motifs: She's associated with the ocean. Her social media username is seradotwav, she has a wave emoji in her Twitter username, her sections in the "MORE" music video have an underwater look to them, her lyrics in the song include the line "Feeling like an ocean on the wave now", she has blue hair around that era, and one of her journals describes her lifelong fascination with the sea. She also has some association with stars, wearing star decals on her cheeks and using a star emoji in her Twitter username.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In the real world, Seraphine is a junior member of K/DA who got her big break when she was called up by her idols to do a collaboration. In the world of League Of Legends, she's a local pop idol who idolises K/DA and, as K/DA ALL OUT Seraphine, is the fifth member of their team.
• Mukokuseki: Seraphine is supposed to be Chinese as represented by the language she texts her father in, her monolid and one of her voice lines. However, given that she has blue eyes and her unnatural pink hair, it's easy to mistake her for being non-Asian compared to Ahri and Akali, who both are drawn more consistently with distinctly Asian features.
• No Fourth Wall: Seraphine's entire Twitter account runs on this, as it consists of her posting selfies of herself with real people in them (and she's clearly painted over whoever was originally doing the pose in the picture), interacting with fans that comment on her posts, and overall behaving like a normal person with a Twitter account. Her followers tend to play along, following the storyline and giving her advice as if she were real.
  • Notably, all songs Seraphine has appeared in credit her As Herself, with there being no credit given for her album covers to date.
• Oblivious to Love: At least in the comics. It's obvious that her coworker has a crush on her from the readers perspective, but she is shown to be none the wiser.
• Same Character, But Different: Seraphine is this, though without the Put on a Bus aspect. While the K/DA ALL OUT Seraphine skin and Character blog Seraphine are supposed to represent the same character, they are very different in terms of personality, with ALL OUT Seraphine being more sassy and playful, practically a siren, and character blog Seraphine more of a shy, anxious Nice Girl.
• Special Guest: Seraphine is treated as this when she's brought on the collab with K/DA. She's even credited by her name on "MORE" despite the other characters being credited as the real life singers that are voicing them.
• Waxing Lyrical: Seraphine nods to plenty of K/DA lyrics in her various skins, as well as lyrics of other groups she encounters like Pentakill or True Damage. Of particular note are the taunts in her Superstar variant towards her now-bandmates, which are based on lines from the song "MORE" that each of them respectively sing.