Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

I'd buy a monstrous Kai'Sa skin

iiGazeii·12/7/2019, 3:29:45 AM·26 votes·13,654 views

I know, Kai'Sa gets a lot of skins. But all of them have been some variant of "hot girl". No nods to the horror of her backstory. No emphasis on her dual nature, the partnership between humanity and The Void that has created something greater than the sum of its parts. She's just a woman with an Australian accent in skin-tight clothing.

Kai'Sa is a monster, in the classical sense of the word. She doesn't fit neatly into any category. She has given up a portion of her humanity in order to survive something unsurvivable, and uses her sacrifice to save others, but she would be reviled as a Void creature in nearly any human settlement. The creatures of The Void want her just as dead as any other human. She's something in between, and her tragic nature is the source of any and all depth of her character, which is lost on all of her skins. They do away with the monster, and so Kai'Sa is just another piece of eye candy.

I love Kai'Sa, and I would buy the crap out of any skin that actually features her more monstrous, horrific, tragic side, a mixture of two warring factions.

Like Dark Cosmic Jhin, Dark Cosmic Kai'Sa could be a corrupted Cosmic entity, thriving in the middle ground between Cosmic and Dark Star. Project/Program, Pulsefire/Praetorian, Battlecast/Resistance, something that touches on her character's themes would be much appreciated. Even just a Voidborn skin that is Kai'Sa fully corrupted by the Void would be better than a skin in a similar vein as all of her others.

We're probably going to get something lame like Odyssey Kai'Sa, but a man can dream.

29 Comments

Everyday Legends12/7/2019, 4:31:08 AM14 votes

Something I've posted before, but still relevant (especially the last part):

One thing I've felt with the amount of skins Kai'Sa has gotten: she seems to have lost her identity as a person with a Void symbiote grafted onto her body.

You may be thinking, "Skins are supposed to explore different fantasies," and certainly so. But consider Elise, or Zyra, or Shyvana, or Cassiopeia--all ladies with some "monstrous" qualities in their design. I'd say overall their skins do a decent job of exploring their respective fantasies, and do so without forgetting the Champions' origins. They are very much beautiful monsters.

But with Kai'Sa, I feel like right from the beginning they've been trying to distance her from the "monster" portion of her design. It feels like they gave her the title of "Void marksman" to check it off a list, and have since made every effort to separate her from the Void and from her symbiote.

ModWulf Helhammer12/7/2019, 4:55:52 AM10 votes

Here's the thing: Kai'Sa is not supposed to be monstrous.

Hold on, let me explain what that means.

I know a decent amount of people here on the boards seem to have wanted "Kha'Maw, the beast thing from the void", but Kai'Sa's story was never about that. She is, at her core, still human. That's why she fights against the void, why she fights to protect humanity and the world of Runeterra. That's why they made the removable faceplate, why she appears human to us players, because that's what she is supposed to be.

Now, is that to say that she doesn't appear other-worldly? That she wouldn't be terrifying to a typical Shuriman nomad seeing her fly in out of nowhere from a purple hellscape of monsters, skin appearing like the things around, giant shoulder cannons, firing blasts of something out of her own hands? No, of course not. She seems like the very same kind of thing that is trying to eat them at that very moment. Sure, if she got the chance to maybe get them to calm down, to remove her mask and show that she is human, they'd come around. But she doesn't. The person either runs away in panic....or dies after running away in panic.

And that's the thing with Kai'Sa. She's not just a survivor, she's a thriver. She's a veteran Lara Croft, not the fresh one starting out her adventures. A lithe panther, not a roaring kaiju. She took the most terrifying place both in and outside reality itself, and you know what she did? She made those creatures of hunger and destruction her personal hunting practice. She took the Void, the literal embodiment of nothingness, and she made it her bitch. She becomes the thing the voidbeasts check under their bed for, the thing that goes bump in the night, but it comes to protect humanity, not to hunt it.

Now, what exactly does this mean for skins? Well, for starters, it needs to emphasize her humanity, as that is the crux of Kai'Sa's character. Second, it can't be (what is the traditional definition) monstrous. A skin for her needs to embody the skilled and efficient huntress, not the scrambling beast that rushes through the undergrowth.

A good example to illustrate this: Kai'Sa is not Venom. Never has, never should be. She's Black Suit Spider-Man. You can tell there's something not quite right about it, that it could hurt you, but she doesn't appear with a gaping maw and teeth as big as her forearm. That's not the story Riot was trying to tell, and that isn't Kai'Sa

BBKong12/7/2019, 9:06:25 PM5 votes

"Definitely Not Kai'Sa" and it's just RekSai standing up on two legs

FlameHalbrdOkido12/8/2019, 7:54:26 AM3 votes

"She's just a woman with an Australian accent in skin-tight clothing

Kai'Sa is a monster"

no u had it right the first time, she very much lacks pretty much any aspect of what it would take to really be a monster, thats why they put so much emphasis on her being human...u kno with the cleavage, removable mask, perfect hair and the make-up(idk HOW she got it of why she'd waste time/energy putting it on with her story/theme). Its also why they DE-EMPHASIZED the void-being that makes up her suit, it doesn't do anything, or have any autonomy in-game, theres really no threat of it overcoming or eating her, it doesn't move/morph on its own to form different weapons like long range rifles, or react to anything, it doesn't make any noises, doesn't eat anything. Theres NOTHING to point towards it being symbiotic, or parasitic. She really is JUST a girl in a suit, otherwise the suit would do more, and be a bigger part of her character/abilities.

In fact Galaxy Slayer Zed does a better job at the whole alien skin theme than her, it moves around him as needed, he honestly seems like a proper 1/2 alien being and 1/2 human.

Yes she is displaced and has no proper place to stay, but she isn't a monster, shes just a pretty girl in a very disturbing costume that she can't take off, but she's not a monster. She didn't give up or sacrifice her humanity, it wasn't her choice, she's just extremely lucky the void-being didn't acidify her once it locked on her arm. She is still human, though i will grant that she's somewhere between human and human+void.

And i WILL grant that her skins do the void-being even LESS justice than base Kai'sa. And focus sadly more on her beauty than her abilities or storied. But we must also take into account that they are skins for alt universes.

And i will absolutely agree with u on the fact that if she got a skin that "features her more monstrous, horrific, tragic side", yeah that would be great.

U had me for a moment, almost made me not hate her for a sec, but theres still a lot of glaring issues that need to be fixed

PlsRitoRepairS1012/8/2019, 1:28:38 PM2 votes

You know what? Arcade Kai'Sa would be so much better if she would be something between Arcade and Final boss, intead of Yasuo or Qiyana(or both). This one single swap could be so much better for her "personality" and "theme".

ChaosReyn12/8/2019, 2:36:21 PM1 votes

I'd buy some skins on champions that dont get 56 skins per year...

TheBentOn312/7/2019, 3:40:01 PM1 votes

I'd love a Kai'Sa skin that takes heavy inspiration from venom, maybe even have the symbiote whispering to her creepy pleas to consume everything. It'd be great. It should have been her base but hey, better late than never.

underscores22212/8/2019, 3:37:49 AM1 votes

Aside from a full legendary skin exploring the darker side of the symbiote relationship, I have been hoping for an Eternum skin for her. I think it would be a good fit and a different enough look/color scheme to be interesting.

AFilthyCaitMain12/8/2019, 3:53:35 AM1 votes

Yessssssss bring back the Deep Space idea. Deep Space Illaoi, Kaisa, etc!

Linna Excel12/8/2019, 4:00:18 AM1 votes

I'm kind of surprised they haven't done a dragonlady kaisa skin. Those things on her back could easily be subbed for dragon wings. Her Q and her W are basically fireballs as it is.