Application: Kankri Vantas
[x]
How old are you IRL? 25
What character are you applying for? Kankri Vantas
Why are you interested in this character?
My favorite characters to write are generally the wordy ones. That covers Striders, and Bro is the character Iām currently writing for the RP, but Striders are a flippant, irreverent kind of wordy. Kankri is more of the intellectual, academic kind of wordy, which for me is a really nice contrast from the kind of character Bro is to write. Iām also hoping that Kankri will run in a different social circle within the RP from the space Bro occupies, which will give me the opportunity to interact with different RPers and characters.
Besides that, I want to take the opportunity that this sort of humanstuck setting provides to showcase exactly how awful Kankriās hypocritical and self-centered personality can become in a real world setting. Against the backdrop of the fictional cultures of Alternia and Beforus, the way he champions causes just to make himself look good and feel important can be kind of humorous, but his is a kind of abrasiveness almost everyone is unhappily familiar with in our daily lives. I want to play with the ways Kankriās personality would be absolutely maddening if he chose the wrong real world cause to get behind.
What is your personal interpretation of this character? How would you describe their personality?
In canon, Kankri purports to be this selfless individual, identifying all of the problematic parts of his culture and wanting to address them for the good of all trollkind. In reality, he appears to be an extremely immature, self-centered person who appropriates issues mainly to have a topic on which to hear himself talk. Heās a grandstanding hypocrite who only does lip service to other peopleās needs; in reality, he seems only to care about his own image and about ensuring he gets to be the center of attention as much as possible.
I believe Beforan culture also gave him a bit of a persecution complex, where he was singled out for the mutation that made him different and even though being singled out resulted in āgoodā treatment, it left him with a need to accomplish things for himself, proving that the people out to get him and out to get other āmarginalized groupsā were the ones always in the wrong. He doesnāt properly have empathy for other people, and while he professes to speak for the good of all, he fundamentally cannot understand any viewpoint besides his own.
For this AU, Kankri happens to be the biological son of Signless, but after being given up for adoption just after his birth, he ends up being raised by a much more well-to-do family in a mirror to the way he was coddled in canon for being a mutant-blood. His adoptive father is a wealthy republican politician, his adoptive mother more or less a trophy wife married for the sake of image. From this background, Kankri ends up being given virtually every advantage (or in other words, privilege) in life, though the trade-off is that he was left wanting for a very personal touch from his parents, and wasnāt really shown normalized affection as a child.
Kankriās parents never made a secret of the fact that he was adopted. It was simply common knowledge, treated as a fact too mundane to ever be talked about, thereby avoiding discussing who Kankriās biological parents were. Kankri is more or less his fatherās heir, held to impossibly high standards and expected to carry on his fatherās legacy. At the same time, his father is so unwilling to face failure in the form of Kankriās shortcomings that heās willing to fix any problems Kankri causes for himself, whether it necessitate him throwing money at it, or him pulling on his social connections. While Kankri is naturally intelligent and driven to perform well academically, he doesnāt really know how to fend for himself, always depending on dad for a safety net.
Thanks to his fatherās emotional distance coupled with a personal superiority complex that he projects onto Kankri, he has his immaturity and lack of empathy from canon, as well as his narcissism and tendency toward self-centered behavior. But thanks to his fatherās status as a politician, he also has a strong belief in helping people who cannot help themselves ā specifically by making decisions for them. Pampered and praised for his verbosity, he loves hearing himself speak and believes his ideas are always among the best.
Like any true politician, the likes of which would make his adoptive politician father proud, Kankri can pay impressive lip service to other peopleās needs and comforts. Itās all a front, a good face for the hypothetical media. Itās not the only trick heās picked up from his father. Kankriās adoptive dad is a misogynist of impressive proportions, his wife little more than a prop to further his career and his opinions on women generally worse than negative. As Kankri reached teenage years, his dad spent more time complaining about the professional struggles he faced as a man in their changing political climate. Kankri was predisposed to sympathize, so as to impress the man who had raised him if for no other reason, and in looking into the hardships his father described, Kankri discovered menās rights activism. He has since become a strong proponent.
As an adult, Kankri has a bit of a love-hate relationship with the man who raised him. He canāt help idolizing him for the things he has accomplished and everything he has done for Kankri, but he also resents him thanks to an increasing awareness of just how much of his success his father has bought for him. One of Kankriās strongest desires is to prove himself, as both a leader and a champion for his pet causes, wholly on his own merit and with no one elseās help.
Kankri has dedicated himself whole-heartedly to his causes and his future, and therefore doesnāt have time for relationships. Heās sworn a vow of chastity until he can measurably prove heās made some kind of difference in the world, though the reality is more that women (and men) find him abrasive and dogmatic, and would prefer not to be caught dead on a date with him. (He is certain that women wonāt date him because heās such a nice guy with so much to offer them, and secretly believes that by making himself less available through throwing himself into work, heāll make himself more desirable if and when he relinquishes his vow.)
What would be your characterās major or occupation? Itās fine to be undecided, and you can change it later if you like!
Kankriās major is political science. Itās very likely that he finished a bachelorās degree at a prestigious university somewhere other than Portland, and has moved there to complete a masterās degree after discovering that his biological father and biological brother live in the area. Heās trying to cut ties with his adoptive father, at least to a point, so he can prove his capabilities as a leader without the manās influence. Despite that, heās not really wanting for a reliable source of income because he hasnāt quite cut ties with that old money privilege his adoptive family conferred to him. He hopes to go into politics, though heās interested in local government because he holds a certain scorn for āBig Governmentā and wants to make a change on a more personal level.
Give a physical description of your character:
Even as an adult Kankri is weedy and a bit malnourished-looking, having very little bulk to him and standing at only about 5ā 7ā in height. His complexion is a sort of caramel-tan, the sort of coloration that might have looked rich and warm if not for a subtle underlying pallor, likely brought on by the amount of stress he heaps on himself. He perpetually has faint bags underneath light brown eyes, his mouth constantly held tight to the point of having little stress lines forming around it already. His dark brown hair is continually kept just on the long side of anything he could easily keep tidy, generally appearing mussed and with strands out of place because he constantly forgets his appearance in favor of more pressing concerns. His hair is never as short as heād like because he never manages to schedule the time for a hair appointment in between his other responsibilities.
His father has even reprimanded him, on numerous occasions from his young teenage years onward, for his neglect of his personal appearance. His response was to begin wearing nothing but a vast assortment of sweaters, many of them with ornate cabling or other fussy knitting stitches. If asked about it (as his father was wont to do) he cites how every politician does better with a trademark, especially a visually recognizable one, and states that he is simply getting a head start on branding for when heās running for office and making a difference in the political sphere.
Give an example post of your character in this AU:
Walking past the latest gaggle of protesters gathered near the campus, Kankri couldnāt help sniffing at their improvised plastic-bag ponchos and their drippy signs with markered words smeared through. He had been wise enough to tune into the weather forecast ahead of time, his smart little umbrella propped above his head. He couldnāt even read any of the signs he was passing. After stopping to get into a brief spat of logical discourse with one of the dissenters, he still didnāt have the faintest idea what cause they were championing.
Honestly, he found the lack of proper organization or true fidelity to their message to be a little bit offensive. If nothing else, they could have laminated their signs to protect them from the rain, and ensure that onlookers could deduce the nature of their complaints.
Kankri continued onto campus, having to stop and consult the map in his pocket to better get his bearings. He hadnāt yet familiarized himself with the entire area, new as he was to the universityās particular workings. It was such a bother even having to come to the school, when he wasnāt currently there for classes. Didnāt the administration have any appreciation for the personal schedules of its student body? What if he had a job outside of his education to concern himself with? If that had been the case, surely this meeting would have been all but impossible.
He didnāt, though, and he supposed anyone else applying for an advantageous internship such as this wouldnāt do so while already having such an important obligation to juggle. Finding the building he needed, Kankri headed into the administrative office to conduct the final interview for a student placement at city hall. He believed heād even receive a stipend, if he was chosen (which he would be). It seemed the school was doing one thing right.
