The King of Fighters

Where I found a fandom, fun, and friends

The King of Fighters, or KOF for short... a long lasting fighting game series that's had a history high highs, low lows, and a loyal fanbase that I've found to be one of the most welcoming spaces to inhabit on the Internet. The KOF fandom has been the first one that I've been very active in, as well as my favorite. The games I've played - XIII and XV - feel amazing to play, and with the friends I've made along the way there's no shortage of opponents to fight and have fun with. Though skill-wise I'm not the best...at all... ha ha...

Either way, KOF has become a huge part of my life and has helped me in so many little ways. From the community, to the characters, to the creative drive it kickstarted, I feel endlessly in debted to this series.

So why don't we look at what a love about this game!

How I Got Into KOF and The Fandom

Four words: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

For the longest time I wasn't interested in FGs in the slightest, with the closest FG thing to one I had interest in was Smash Bros. Back then I didn't have alot of friends, and those friends weren't interested in FGs, or playing them with me so I didn't have much interest to get invested into the genre. I had pretty much zero want to know about FGs...

...until the reveal trailer for Terry dropped.

I'll be honest with you, I have no solid clue why Terry Bogard, out of all of the 1st DLC characters, interested me so much.

Joker comes from a RPG series with a ton of style and flair to it and I love RPGs, same with Drgon Quest and Hero, and Banjo-Kazooie were a highly anticipated character with a huge backing and game behind them. Even if we're talking about later DLC characters, Byleth and Fire Emblem are (strategy)RPGs and I like FE:Echoes (I got that game before Byleth's DLC drop), Min-Min has alot of appeal to her, Minecraft is Minecraft, Sephiroth comes from another RPG series, I love Xenoblade and Aegis was from the sequel that I wasn't familiar with, Kazuya is also an FG character, and Sora and Kingdom Hearts is... quirky.

But no. I liked the guy no one had ever heard of before. The regular guy with a look and name that pretty much anyone have. The guy everyone was saying was a waste of a slot because he wasn't Waluigi or Crash. That's the character that changed the tragectory of your life, a complete nobody?

Well... yeah. For some reason, he has a...charm to him. For how normal he appeared on the surface, he was also so mysterious to me. Why him of all characters in the world of gaming? Where was he from, what was it about, and so many more questions flooded my mind after that first reveal.

The overview for Terry released a while later, and some of those questions were answered, I learned about his story, the Fatal Fury games, and about KOF. He became so much more interesting to me, and my interest in the games were increased by a mile. So a while later, I decided to look up what game I could get and play as him and settled on KOF XIII. The first fighting game I ever played.

And boy, I 100% sucked at it. I didn't know what a motion input was, a super move, or even a combo. But I wanted to play as Terry, get to know him and what world he was a part of, so I learned the absolute basics of FGs. I mained Terry, of course, as well as Ash since his charge inputs were easy to execute. I didn't have any main stay 3rd character but that was fine. I played the game all by myself, replaying the Arcade and Story Mode over and over again, learning as much as I could about the KOF universe, the characters, and everything I could get from the game.

I was confident that with how unknown Terry was to the greater population, so I didn't expect to find anything for him or the games, but oh I found the absolute opposite.

Out there, was an entire sector of the digital world where KOF was celebrated, people who loved the characters that I thought were nobodies. It wasn't just surprising, it was revolutionary to me.

I lurked around in the fandom as a little nobody myself, observing from a far, and I stayed that way for while. That is, until the announcement of KOF XV.

The KOF fandom exploded at that moment, and I learned of so many more people that loved and knew KOF much more than me. So with the prospect of finally experiencing the newest game along with everyone else, I decided to become active in the fandom and FGC. Creating art, meeting new people, and learning more about a series that I loved.

My Favorite Characters

Terry Bogard

Since he's the first character I had ever seen from KOF, I might as well go into into him first.

So remember when I talked bout him being charming? Well that's what younger me gravitated to. Later on I'd finally nail down what I liked about him: His charisma, his kindness, and his vibe of being so... friendly and comforting. An eternal ray of sunshine, someone who I'd want to hug me in my darkest times and lift me up from my worst emotions, everything that I adore in a person...

And he's smoking hot because of it.

So I had found my first fictional crush, Terry Bogard. And given how many other people I've seen and found that are attracted to Terry, his charm is incredibly obvious. And it's one I adore to this day since I obviously still find him attractive. Since then I've had crushes on other fictional characters, but Terry will remain as the best of the best in that category.

With him being my introduction to the games and being such a wonderful character, he gets a well deserved spot in this shrine.

Meitenkun

When KOF XV was beginning to reveal it's characters, I was eager to get the game myself but I wasn't sure if I was going to find someone that I'd want to main. The first character they officially showed, Shun'ei, was interesting but he didn't click with me. So when I saw there was another character trailer, I decided to watch it.

And that was when I discovered Meitenkun, the sleepy fighter of Hyakkyokuminminken - the Eight Extremities Slumber Fist -, Shun'ei's best friend (they feel more like brothers), and student of Master Tung Fue Rue, the same Master that taught Terry.

Lemme tell you, I was hooked. Often I gravitate towards cute or silly characters, and Meiten' is both of those. I immediately knew that I'd main him and once the game came out I loved how he played. A charge-rushdown and zoner wrapped into a hardhitting character is a delight to play as. I feel super in control of what I want to do, and do it as fast or as slow as I want. He's an absolute blast to play as, never not going to main him.

Now there's another reason why I like Meiten' so much, it's because he's my son.

No he's not ACTUALLY my son, but he envokes feelings of "This is my child, I want to keep them safe, give the world to them, and annihilate anything that hurts them.". The Mama/Papa Bear instinct, basically.

Or to put it another way:

He's my favorite character in the series, and honestly I got lucky that my favorite happened to be essentially stapled to one of the main characters of the cast. Because he was one of the newcomers in XIV and I guarentee he would've been left in that game like a majority of the newcomers from there like Xanadu, Mian, and all of Team Brazil.

Speaking of main characters...

Isla, Rock Howard, and Shun'ei

Since I like these three but don't have alot to say on each indivdually like the last two, I decided to group them all together. So let's go:

Isla - If you looked up scrunkly in the dictionary, you'd see her as the example picture. Isla's a spunky kid that takes no BS from anyone and plays by her own rules. She's like if you took "It Doesn't Matter" from Sonic Adventure 2 and turned it into a teenage girl with ghost hands, she's so cool. She kinda has Terry vibes, as in how they're both confident, streetwise and competitive people - she even wears a baseball cap and ponytail like him! Before the game came out I thought she'd have a connection to Terry, and while that wasn't the case I feel like they'd get along in a father-daughter dynamic.

As for her gameplay-wise, she's SUPER fun to play as, her command bounce moves being so fun to move around with (I call them the Boings), with special shout out to her Jump C as that move is a lifesaver and so good it's not even funny.

Rock - Terry's ACTUAL kid (adopted kid but still), Rock is a character that I didn't get into much until I decided to play as him. At one point I was trying to craft a team with Meiten' and Isla, and needed a third character to round out the team. So I tried him out in a couple rounds in some matches and he quickly became a main of mine. He had alot of the best moves of Terry, but they felt faster and his side switching move is an amazing tool to use and mess with people's mind in the heat of the moment.

Once I started maining him, I got to know him as a character as well and it turns out he's pretty alright. While Isla's cool in an excited way, Rock is cool in a calm way. He's alot more mellow than alot of characters in the series, and it does lean a little bit into teen angst - and he does get a bit edgey when his "Evil Blood" acts up - but considering that literally is a teenager at 17 years old it's understandable.

Shun'ei - Last up, Meitenkun's best friend (or brother) Shun'ei. The main character of the Verse Saga, the current saga of the series and wields interdimensional illusion powers to defeat the literal Goddess of Truth, just like his rival Isla.

And I think he is a BIG OL'

Shun'ei just has the strongest loser energy I have ever felt towards a fighting character. And I'm not the only one who's sensed this from him, because Shun'ei is the fandom's least favorite main character by a LANDSLIDE. Whenever I see people talk about him it's pretty much always in a negative light, with people calling him edgy and overdesigned and leaving it there. And for a long time I saw him that way too, but over time, I began to look more and more into who he is. And what I learned was that Shun'ei is just a teen being... a teen. A self-sheltered kid that put up an angsty barrier to protect others and on the inside he's a kind-hearted child that's woefully inexperienced with the world.

And on one hand it envokes alot of sympathy from me, that I got him all wrong for a long time and he was just a confused kid.

But on the other hand, he is such a HUGE NERD. So I compromised with maining him along side the others, and sending him into the thick of combat to see if he really is the nerd that everyone thinks he is. It makes sense to me.

Now out of everyone I've mentioned in this shrine, Shun'ei's the one where I have a pretty big headcanon about: He is a trans egg into a transfem.

Here's my justification I that wrote to the "couldtransitionsaveher" Tumblr blog:

"...I think that Shun'ei's feelings of worry and doubt over his capabilities to handle his powers - to me - feel akin to the worries of not conforming to societal gender structures and/or performance, with how this doubt causes him to shy away from others and bottle up his true self much like how many trans people do before/during/after they transition. I feel like that Shun'ei's character arc will be to finally open himself to others and thus fully control his powers, and that arc would change him both positively and radically, and for me the best way for this arc to conclude would be to transition to a girl. Plus, I feel like Shun'ei would be happier as a girl, with how his closest peers in his life are Meitenkun - childhood best friend/adopted brother who's incredibly supportive of him, aswell as very kind and sleepy - and Isla - she was antagonistic at first but she becomes friendlier at the end; she herself is very rebellious of the status quote and has similar Amplified Specter powers as him - would help him find his true self and even transition into a girl."

So yeah that's my little headcanon for Shun'ei. I feel like it makes sense, but I'd like to know if anyone else agrees with me.

The KOF Community

You thought I'd just stick to the games? Wrong! The KOF community has been one of the most impactful part of my life, so I'd be doing everyone a diservice to not mention so of the stand out members of the fanbase. With that said, here's short little blurbs about some of these fellows (in no particular order)

(Also if any of you see this and don't wanna be on my page, please let me know and I'll remove your entry)

helsic

Probably the most well-known figure in the fandom, helsic's super ingrained into the community at this point with both her art and her fanfiction surrounding Kyo and Iori. She hosts the Discord server "The King of Casuals" which has become a mini-hub for the fandom to gather into. I don't know her that well, but her mark isn't hard to find.

PKLucky

PKLucky is a multitalented creator, with them being a game dev, a PNGtuber, streamer, artist, fan writer and a shark (takes skill to be a shark ya' know). They have a Neocites site themselves, as well as their own KOF shrines (KOF for girls and their OC X Canon ships). So if you want more from them, check out their website.

Rome_Himself

Rome himself (ha ha) is a streamer often playing KOF games from old to new, and his streams themselves are just chill to hang out in. On YouTube he makes FGC centered content, including "Fifteen Minutes of Flame" a video series where he interviews prominent members of the community. He's helped give alot of people in this fandom a voice with this series, and overall a great person to have be a part of the community.

Snake

Behold, the one person who loves Terry Bogard than me! Joking aside (but that is true tbh), Snake's a pretty interesting guy, with his art nature photography and art being so stunning and beautiful where they embody the hauntingly powerful loneliness they hold. Additionally he's a skilled web coder, with him using web builders when he was 10 years old and having a WAY better website than I'll ever have. He's a neat guy, plain and simple.

illyrilex

illyrilex or Lexthehex or Lex is a member of the community that doesn't have alot of fame to her and honestly that's a shame. Lex has written a fanfiction series centered on King - also named Cecile Levasseur in the series alongside other headcanons that make the many fics a delight to both stand out and read! (Except the headcanon where she relocated Southtown from Florida to California. I hate Florida, but idk why she did that.) They are high recommendations and if I could I'd print these out and bind them into a book. She did make art, but she's since decided to stop which is a shame, but still her work is wonderful.

Mana_Sputachu

Mana Sputachu - or Mana Chan for short - is a fanfiction author of Iori x Chizuru x Kyo ship fics, as well as a very talented artist in the fandom that I think is pretty underrated. Their color palette of red, grey, white and black stands out, and they draw figures super cleanly it's fantasic. It's also important to note that she and Lex are pretty tight friends and have collabed frequently, with Mana making alot of art for Lex's fanfics. I consider the two partners-in-crime in a way (I could be wrong though, I don't wanna assume anything) so I feel like it'd be a disservice if I mentioned one and not the other.

LoveMacabre

Now, truth being told I don't have any personal history with LoveMacabre good or bad. The reason why they're here is because of their long (and I mean LONG)running Benimaru x Freeman ship comic "Love Replica" both for being an amazing feat in of itself with the amount of dedication and passion poured into it, but also inspiring in a way. I'll get into it later, but I planned to make my own KOF fan comic but I had to scrap it. So seeing someone do what I wanted to do is uplifting to me. Maybe one day I'll be able to do something like this, but for now check out LoveMacabre's's comic it's great.

Rubysan

Rubysan - Rubs for short - is one of the friends that I've made along the way in the fandom, and he's a delight to be around. From his Swedish tidbits to providing me with so many invaluable links and resources, I'm so grateful that I've befriended them. Plus their art is so good and has a swishy and sharp style to it, especially of Yamazaki who he has a love/hate relationship with him.

Please note he will not be the only one with a Yamazaki based love/hate relationship.

Marell

Shermie's number one fan, Marell is a delight to be around and a terror to fight in XV, her Shermie play is no joke. She runs the account "1 Shermie a Day" (currently on hiatus) and has made Shermie art semi-daily since (I believe) 2021. I love the dedication and determination she's shown over the years and I wish her the best!

Nyatto

Nyatto's one of the best artists and people I've met in the fandom and I'm so lucky that I became a friend of her's. Her art is so professional and clean while having a devilish hint to it that makes it a delight to look at. This is especially aparrent in her Yamazaki art which she has made a ton of (some of it is a bit risque, keep that in mind) but it can be found in almost all of her work. I'm so happy that we're friends and I think that many of the tips and advice she's given to my work has helped me become a better artist. She's just cool.

THE CANCELLED KOF AU COMIC

Sometime in either 2022 or 2023, I was greatly inspired by the KOF community's utter passion and dedication to both itself and the games and decided that I'd set out to create a fan comic.

The premise is simple to be honest: After the events of XV, Terry decides to adopt Isla, Shun'ei and Meitenkun as his children, with the three then becoming Rock's siblings. Events ensue.

I had decided that my first step in this project was to create a Prologue/Pilot comic as a test to see if I could handle such a project. And after a ton of work, I had finished and posted it on Tumblr. I'd post the comic images here, but honestly I don't want to because I find the art style growth and awful panel structuring that it hurts my soul. But still, with that first comic completed, I was confident that I'd be able to move on to bigger and better fan comics.

So with such a simple premise, how did I mess it up to the point where I had to cancel it? The answer is IRL stuff being IRL stuff.

Without going into too much detail, the environment I was/am in has a family member is - in the kindest way I can describe it - Aggressively Corporate. Whenever I show them anything I create - art, food, writing, anything really - the first thing that they do is try to come up with ways to monetize it quickly and will constantly hound me when I don't do so because it's pretty much impossible to meet their demands ("Sell your incomplete fanfiction as is on Amazon Kindle, people make bank on there all the time" - actual advice they gave me). So I've gotten into the habit of staying up extremely late at night to avoid them and having my fan work be ruined by capitalistic intention. But staying up extremely late caused my health - physical and mental - to decline and I wasn't in the right mindset for anything good. So for the sake of myself I had to cancel the comic series.

Over the past year or so I've been trying to explain the plot and events I had planned for the comic, but in almost every attempt I either write too much to be a summary or I lose steam in writing mid-way through. Hopefully this time I've summarized everything concisely in a way where the major plot points are explained clearly.

With all that said, I will now explain every single plot point I intended to write into the comic, in the most concise and shortest way possible:

- Majority of stories would be slice-of-life stories between the 4 kids centered around character building and such. Some minor shenanigans would be in there but nothing super wild. These happen in between the majority of the arcs and events of the comic's plots.

- There'd be an arc where Terry hooks up with Krohnen. Kroh's there because of mutant human flesh monsters made by NESTS that separated him and Angel from each other.

- Angel gets freed from NESTS by Ikari and is kept as a POW. Leona has a crush on Angel and they interact and secretly date each other. This eventually leads to a conflict with Heidern causing Leona to lose an eye like Heidern did, and for her and Angel to run away from the Ikari. They try to live normal lives from here.

- They cross paths with Terry and Krohnen. After a fight, Krohnen decides to go with Leona and Angel in case Ikari goes after him, leading to endangering the family. Terry and Krohnen only communicate over a secret phone, and Terry grieves for a while (plus has to fabricate a story that Krohnen died to explain the disappearance).

- Side-story/spin-off thing with Kukri, Dolores, and Najd being transported to an alternate universe by the SNK Heroines version of Terry (she managed to get interdimensional powers, don't ask how) where everyone is an anthro animal (Reason: I am a furry/Kukri finds furries immensely gross so this is a method of torture) The three must re-experience the XV tournament in this universe with hindsight on their side. This story exists in part to establish future connections/rivalries (Yamazaki having a one sided rivalry against Meitenkun due to the fight physically disabling Yama's pocket arm, where Leona's crush on Angel comes from, how Terry comes to adopting the 3 kids, etc.).

- Shun'ei realizes that they're transfem and doing so helps her master her Amplified Spector powers like Isla. Events ensue where she struggles to come out due to her anxiety and fears, but eventually she does and is accepted (I'd give her a new name at that point, but I don't know if Shun'ei is a masculine or gender neutral Chinese name or any female Chinese names and I don't trust Google to be reliable on that front).

- Krohnen, Angel, and Leona live their lives on the run and keep encountering the Ikari and the remnants of a NESTS plot (A Kyo cloning-esque plot being reworked by a rouge OC mad scientist to create ever-reproducing mutant human-flesh monsters that were to be used as soldiers, and appears to be revived around the time after Verse appeared).

- A side-story with Jeff (Terry and Andy's dead dad) and Gaidel (Leona's dead dad) where they've been revived via Verse. Existential crisises and shenanigans ensue.

- Andy and Mai finally have their wedding, so Terry and the kids travel over to attend it (France > China > Japan). The wedding gets crashed by Geese wanting to stop the Bogards starting a bloodline of their own and rivalling him in the future. Geese and his giant gangster-army-force that I just invented right now get defeated by a MLP:FiM Canterlot Wedding Part 2 - esque explosion of love. But with fire.

- Family returns to South Town, more slice of life from the kids, Terry, and the 3 runaways as a rest from the big events.

- Mini side story around a stray cat experimented on by the revived OC mad scientist with a mutant serum that's mixed with Otoma=Raga crystals. The cat escapes and slowly succumbs to the effects of the serum as it transforms into a crystalline monster. Yamazaki destroys the beast himself, gets inspired by it, and seeks out the mad scientist himself. This story is intended for foreshadowing.

- Terry goes missing and through the kids' investigations they discover it's because of a kidnapping by Geese (Actually it was Yamazaki and he did it to lure Meiten' out to fight him again, and to convince the scientist to give him the same crystal powers from the cat story as a sort of trade deal) and if they want Terry back they must meet Geese at his tower. Before they head to the tower, one of them (Rock or Isla) find the secret phone and get in touch with Krohnen, informing him of everything, to which he declares that he'll be rushing over to help the kids with Geese. The kids go on ahead and battle through Geese's tower. Midway through Yama acts kind and allows them to go further up without any trouble, only to separate Meiten' from the group without their knowledge and just whales on him with his new crystal enhancement, all the while violently explaining how Meiten' ruined his arm and life.

Shun'ei and Isla backtrack, rescue Meiten', and are chased by an ever mutating Yamazaki up the tower floors.

Meanwhile Rock is at the top of the tower, and he finally fights Geese in a serious 1-on-1 duel. Rock wins, and Geese relinquishes the control of South Town to Rock, and Geese throws himself off of the tower onto and to his death (for real this time). Rock contemplates a bit before the other 3 burst in as well as the highly mutated Yama, who has grown into a Perfect Chaos-esque crystal snake monster and is progressively destroying the tower from the inside out. The kids desperately defend themselves, but eventually have to jump off the tower into the sea. Monster Yama attempts to follow, but just in time Krohnen, Angel, and Leona arrive via boat with a rocket launcher and fire at Monster Yama, killing him instantly. The three rescue the kids, and decide to turn themselves into Ikari to get the kids the critical medical treatment they need.

- The Ikari treat the kids and interrogate the runaways. The Ikari catch up on all of the information they had discovered about the OC mad scientist's flesh-mutant projects, and together they decide to work together to find the scientist and stop them once and for all. This takes a while so in the meantime there are little character stories during this period (Isla reflecting on how she's changed since the XV tournament, Leona making it up to the Ikari + Heidern but refusing to join them again and wanting to have a normal life with Angel, Rock having depression because if he wasn't Geese's son his siblings and Terry wouldn't be in danger, Shun'ei debates then takes advantage of the Ikari's healthcare to medically transition into a girl, Meiten' being on the brink of death and coming back to life, Angel and Krohnen assuring each other on their new paths in life).

- The Ikari finally locate the OC mad scientist's base - a whale sized human flesh monster-Titanic hybrid that he's using as a laboratory. The Ikari, Leona, Angel, and Krohnen set out to raid the base, with Rock sneaking in with them (plus with Isla and Shun'ei's Amps helping him out power-level-wise) to help his remaining father Krohnen.

The lab-boat's insides are akin to those Silent Hill Hell-levels but with less metal and more intestinal hallway caverns and bloody flesh monsters roaming the halls. Eventually, Krohnen finds and confronts the scientist in a gigantic room with a high ceiling covered in fertilized eggs (like fish eggs but with human fetuses in them and hanging down like cobwebs) , ready to kill him out right but just then the scientist summons a mind controlled Terry (like those head lice that DIO used but more widespread and grosser) and the two have to duke it out, with Krohnen being careful to not hurt Terry. Leona and Angel arrive soon after and try to help out, to which the scientist injects himself with the crystal serum and overpowers the two. The scientist is about to kill all three of them, when Rock comes in and with the power of the Amps and his own skills one-shots him instantly, freeing Terry from the mind control in the process. The laboratory then starts to sink itself and everyone retreats, with Leona grabbing one of the ceiling eggs on the way out. Everyone escapes scot-free and the boat sinks, ending the scientist's terror and influence once and for all.

- In an epilogue ten years later, Terry and Krohnen (both much older and gayer) host a family get together and everyone comes and reconnects. Rock is a freelance cook and dissolved the Howard Connection, Shun'ei's a minor pop star/celebrity and is happy in her career, Meitenkun became the new master of Hakkyokuseiken, Isla became an underground graffiti artist in a Banksy way as well as helping adoption centers be free of cruelty/corruption, Andy and Mai had 2 - 3 children and are the masters of the Shiranui-ryuu Ninjutsu technique, and Leona and Angel managed to incubate and raise the egg from the laboratory into a child. Everyone has a good time and reflect on how things changed so much since the XV tournament. The whole family is united in happy times, and finally the story ends.

And that's everything I planned for my KOF AU Fan Comic. I imagine that the reaction to all of this is just horrified bafflement. That's alright, this probably sounds completely bonkers.

If you want to draw anything from any of this that I wrote, I'd be flattered and open to it. I can't stop you from doing it anyway, so go on if you want.

And with all of that, the Shrine's come to it's end. I'm so happy that this community has been both a safe haven for me and has inspired me to do and create so much. My adoration is immense and it's honestly hard to fully explain in words, so I'll end it here.

Thank you for checking out my Shrine, and remember... play KOF!

- And Now the Mausks -

Anywho, have fun if you can : D