Chiya Flower

"I am destined to bring fame and fortune to the Flower name." ―Chiya Flower, Part 1/3, Lap 24
Chiya Flower is the protagonist of F-Zero: Seppuku and poster child for the Siontix Realm literature group since 2013.
Chiya was born on the oppressive planet of Mysteria but fled to Earth at a young age in search of freedom and opportunity. Despite her ambition, she became a homeless dreamer living in Mute City's infamous Lower City District. After being rescued by the mysterious Lieutenant Seppuku one night, Chiya was quickly absorbed into a three-person vigilante group unofficially known as Team Seppuku, led by Lieutenant Seppuku and his engineer, Earl Bendek. Under Seppuku's wing, Chiya would finally be given a home while fighting the dominant Lower City gangs, and later be apprenticed into the world of F-Zero, which would go on to become her more renowned profession throughout Part 2/3 and Part 3/3 of the series.
== Appearance ==
Chiya is a pale Anglo-Mysterian (born on Mysteria with English ancestry) who stands at a height of 5'5". Her natural hair color is blonde and grown beyond the shoulders; bangs overlap her eyes, intentionally kept in place by her hat. Chiya bears the 'Mysterian Blue' eye color unique to most Mysterians, most noticeable for its tendency to darken in color when in a bright setting. Her everyday outfit is comprised of a pale green beanie, a gray short sleeve turtleneck, a white belt, purple mini skirt, and Mysterian Army jackboots. Chiya will frequently incorporate a green holster onto her person while going out into dangerous territory.
As Chiya progresses her eventual career as an F-Zero racer, she takes on an outfit comprised of a blue beanie, a small red scarf, blue tipless gloves, blue boots, and a black/blue racer suit bearing feline imagery. This outfit would become exclusively attached to Chiya's F-Zero career, only wearing it for races, interviews, and other relevant events.
Her formal attire consists of a blue metallic dress with a shoulderless and revealing design, complimented by similarly blue heels. This dress only comes out for Chiya's love life, intentionally meaning to provide a rare sensual view of her.
== Personality ==
Chiya is an overly friendly and cheerful woman in large part owed to her constantly evolving ambitions and gratitude for all the positives in her life. However friendly and charitable Chiya may be credited as, there is also a recurring side of her that whines (especially when she feels that circumstances are unfair), covets, scheme, and act out in disproportional ways. She can thus be described as a woman who by the age of 23 has a childish nature that continues to be facilitated, partly resulting from cruel circumstances that had her fleeing her planet prior to adulthood, and not allowing for a smooth transition to adulthood.
Overall, Chiya takes on a mostly aromantic character, first and foremost concerned with her professional ambitions in life. Despite this, Earl Bendek wins Chiya's heart following a very long era of close friendship, and as a result births a very affectionate side to Chiya that sees her constantly desiring his attention. In addition to this, she grew up with a bias toward her father, Robert Flower, and beyond his death finds herself filling this hole in her life by viewing Lieutenant Seppuku as a new father figure to her. A major side of Chiya's personality revolves around her love for cats, so much so that she would eventually name her first F-Zero machine the Purring Kitten and feature cat imagery on her racing outfit. Chiya's love for cats will often bring out a childlike nature even in the most inappropriate of times.
While Chiya is known to forgive even the worst of offenses, she is just as well one to hold grudges over even the most minor of incidents, even when the person in question is a loved one. These grudges tend to form when something is especially harmful to her feelings or worse, and she will often feel obliged to escalate her grudge until an apology or concession is made.
Outside of the F-Zero: Seppuku canon, Chiya is portrayed as a friendly egotist, frequently referencing her successes (or the successes of F-Zero: Seppuku) and taking a domineering stance over her 'Siontix Sisters,' Suri Yaktosh and Tomako Angel in a number of ways.
== Key Relationships ==
=== Allies ===
==== Lieutenant Seppuku ====
"Seppuku isn't as easy to please as Earl." ―Chiya Flower, Part 2/3, Lap 59
The relationship between Chiya and Seppuku is that of an apprentice and master for much of the story, followed closely by a father-daughter bond that is frequently riddled with discourse. In Part 1/3, Lap 1, Seppuku liberates Chiya from a life or death situation largely on the bid that she would take this second chance and use it well. One of the most fruitful aspects of Chiya's relationship with Seppuku is her accomplishment in not only making good on Seppuku's investment, but also going so far as to directly join him in going after the Lower City gangs and later Dark Million. Despite Chiya earning Seppuku's respect in this way, she is the cause for numerous moments of frustration simply due to the radical indifferences the two share philosophically, morally, and behaviorally. Where Seppuku has a darker view of the world and close to no mercy for even the most petty of crimes, Chiya is a bright spirit who believes in the hidden light side of even the worst of the universe, and will often battle Seppuku on his lack of spirit. What's more is that while Seppuku insists on a very isolated and priority centric lifestyle, Chiya insists on living one's best life and frustrates Seppuku by trying to drag him into the more innocent pleasures of life.
Professionally, the most defining part of Chiya and Seppuku's relationship is the unlikely F-Zero alliance they continuously maintain, naturally originating from her apprenticeship under Seppuku. Chiya and Seppuku go into each race as a team, however, their priorities are not always aligned. Chiya most often makes placing well in a race her top priority, even if at the expense of Seppuku's interests; Seppuku, meanwhile, prioritizes the targeting of rivals on the track, treating races more as a three lap opportunity to try and kill off personal enemies. While Chiya very often will agree to go into a race with intentions of fighting their mutual foes, the third lap usually sees her retracting this lend lease and focusing on victory instead. Outside of the races, even while being part of the same team, Seppuku becomes greatly agitated over the favoritism Earl shows towards performing maintenance and upgrades on the Purring Kitten before the Red Dove considering he is both the team leader, as well as one of Earl's oldest friends.
Despite the radical differences that divide Chiya and Seppuku, there are instances of the two making rare concessions to the other in what ultimately leads to improved relations. For Chiya, her willingness to adopt an interest in handguns and actively practice in Seppuku's shooting range is an import from Seppuku's interests that leaves the man glued to her side whenever she is open to shooting. For Seppuku, Chiya succeeds in exporting her interests in cats to Seppuku when she introduces him to her cat, Mauser. Although highly opposed to having a cat in his organization, Chiya's persistence eventually defeats Seppuku and leads to him actively pursuing closer bonds with Chiya's cat.
The tension between Chiya and Seppuku is very much real and can reach incredible points of hostility, however, there is also a complex nuance to this, with Chiya and Seppuku sometimes exchanging seemingly hostile blows without actually meaning real harm to the other. This would more often than anything come in the form of back and forth roasting or pranks. For Seppuku, this is done more than anything to maintain an image of dominance over Chiya; for Chiya, it is to counter his dominance campaign. Both find some satisfaction out of humiliating the other, and on rare occasion may even respect the game that the other is playing.
==== Earl Bendek ====
"We die together, remember?" ―Chiya Flower, Part 2/3, Lap 28
Chiya and Earl are portrayed as an inseparable pair united by their relationship with Lieutenant Seppuku, F-Zero, and their respective past traumas, In Part 1/3, Lap 2, the two meet at the Lower City bar, Rough Odds, as Earl seeks to go on a date with her to an F-Zero race in Mute City. Chiya is nearly won over to date him not because of Earl, but because of his tempting offer of an F-Zero race, but she sticks to her street smarts and rejects. Later on the two meet again after Chiya rescues Seppuku from a feigned gunshot wound, in which it is revealed that Earl works for the latter as part of a secret Lower CIty vigilante group. Chiya joins what would eventually become known as 'Team Seppuku' and subsequently apprentices under Seppuku as an aspirant F-Zero pilot. While Earl and Chiya proceed to ignore the previous invitation of a romantic date, the two nevertheless grow a close bond with one another as Earl gradually helps piece together an F-Zero machine for her while also frequently teaming up with her against their cruel boss.
Come Part 2/3, Earl unexpectedly assumes the role of Chiya's F-Zero strategist, effectively abandoning Seppuku to race on his own. He proceeds to do the near impossible job of being a mechanic for both the Red Dove and Purring Kitten simultaneously, but to Seppuku's ire, not so subtly shows a preference for serving Chiya's F-Zero needs. The climax of Chiya and Earl's friendship comes when Chiya is kidnapped and tortured by Dark Million, only for Earl to risk his life to enter unknown space and retrieve her, an event that would officially lead to Chiya developing feelings for him. On Earl's part, Chiya following him to Manchuria to apologize for his past war crimes and supporting him would lead to Earl, too, developing feelings for Chiya. Not long after the latter event, Chiya and Earl would officially become lovers.
While Chiya and Earl are known to have small-time bicker sessions with each other, their respect and eventual affection for each other ultimately makes them a powerful duo and a driving force behind Chiya's phenomenal racing.
==Concept Art + Inspiration==
====Concept Art====
Chiya's design concept was made Nov. 6th, 2012, however, her original description had her with a black beanie, emerald hair, and a pink shirt.
Notable differences with the original design to the current is that her beanie used to lack a fold, her sleeves were slightly longer, and she had neither a belt nor gun holster. In terms of the Purring Kitten, the center black stripe is almost non-existent and the '50' used to exist.
====Inspiration====
*Bulma (Dragon Ball) - Although knowing close to nothing of Bulma nor the Dragon Ball series, Chiya's original eyes, skin color, and emerald hair were directly taken from Bulma. While the hair color would eventually change, the influence Bulma had on Chiya's eyes and skin color persist to present day.
*Seras Victoria (Hellsing Ultimate) - Shortly after F-Zero: Seppuku began, the discovery of Seras Victoria led to a last minute alteration to Chiya's color choices, instead looking to fit her in more ordinary colors, and give her blonde hair instead. A year later, following Revival Day (June 10th, 2013), Seras of Hellsing Ultimate would inspire much of Chiya's personality, especially come comedic moments.
*Seras Victoria (Hellsing) - Different from Hellsing Ultimate, Seras Victoria from Hellsing would play a major development role on Chiya throughout 2013 and 2014, inspired by the independent and generally brave character of Seras in the original Hellsing animation. This version of Seras saw her much more often handling handguns and taking matters into her own hand, something that would heavily influence Part 1/3.
*Siontix (Reality) - A few aspects of Chiya's character came from the author, namely her proficiency at things she is good at, but lack of skills in a more general sense. Furthermore, Chiya's extreme adoration of cats is based off of the author and his mother's behaviorism toward cats. Lastly, Chiya's love of drawing and her Dyscalculia were inspired by the author.
==Trivia==
*England retcon - In the very first draft of the story, Chiya was an Englishwoman (while Seppuku was Welsh and Earl an American.) This was changed only due to a shifted interest in the story taking place in Japan, rather than England.
**Japanese retcon - Naturally, as part of the shift, Chiya was made to be a Japanese woman instead, simply hailing from a planet of Japanese colonists. For all of Part 1/3 and some of Part 2/3's development, this remained the canon nationality for Chiya until Mysterian lore was explored more fully. With the revelation that Mysteria was an English-German colony, Chiya was by extension given more English language, and an editing phase for Part 1/3 would change her speech to reflect this. Sometime within Part 2/3, any reference to Chiya being Japanese would be removed in place of a new Anglo-Mysterian identity.
*Promotion to Protagonist - In the original vision for F-Zero: Seppuku, Lieutenant Seppuku (then Captain Seppuku) was set to be the protagonist, while Chiya was intended to be his sidekick. The idea that Chiya could hold the story as its protagonist came only while discovering Hellsing Ultimate, as seeing Seras Victoria hold the plot various times on her own influenced the vision of F-Zero: Seppuku in a way where Chiya would, similarly, command chapters of her own. Instead of occasionally having her lead chapters, a radical new direction was taken to have Chiya command the whole story, effectively swapping roles with Lieutenant Seppuku.
*Siontix Realm Mascot - From the early 2000s up to 2013, the mascot of the Siontix Realm was BP (Butpoop) of Chao Wars, which was at the time the most successful Siontix Realm work. With F-Zero: Seppuku finally achieving milestones and a following that Chao Wars never could, BP imagery would fade fast in favor of Chiya's face.
*Chiyrls United - From 2013-2015, a group of readers formed nicknamed the 'Chiyrls' due to their early support for Chiya and Earl as a romantic pairing. Led by Royaleness and Prucetail, the Chiyrls United would eventually disband as an independent fan club and assimilate into the Siontix Realm, making up the bulk of its early members.
*Chiya's Sexuality -One of the most heated debates of the mid-2010s and even into the 2020s was whether Chiya was bisexual, largely owed to moments in the story involving women many interpreted as sensual. The flashpoint of this debate was largely the fault of Siontix's oldest Siontix Realm rule never to confirm nor deny matters of sexuality and romance unless its is outright confirmed in the story. As it has never been outright stated that Chiya is or isn't bisexual, it remains an unanswered matter.