Stray Kids Playing Cards

I chose the King of Hearts for Chan for a couple reasons.

The first is the cheesy reason: Chan is the King of our Hearts. Obviously.

The second is that the King of Hearts is called the Suicide King. It’s kind of a long story, but over hundreds of years of card designs, the sword the King holds ended up looking like it’s stabbing through the King’s head. Chan is definitely the self sacrificing type, so I thought that fit well.

The sword itself is called a Chilseong Geom, the Seven Star Sword. It’s a highly symbolic sword, used in ceremonies and temples. It’s named for the Big Dipper and is associated with protection and cosmic alignment. It often has the Big Dipper engraved on it. I based this sword off the one above from Mandarin Mansion Antiques. It doesn’t have the Big Dipper specifically, but it does have bone inlays probably meant to represent stars. I’ve added seven “stars” in the hilt.

And something that has absolutely nothing to do with myth or lore around the Big Dipper, I like to think of the other seven members as Chan’s seven stars. Is that oo cheesy? Oh well.

In the heart, we have a wolf, in honor of WolfChan.

I pulled a lot of this from Felix’s look and part in their Gayo performance.

• The one colored contact.
• His fantastic hairstyle
• Some elements from his hanbok
• And his intro conjuring the other members with magic

I chose the Queen of Hearts for a few reasons. The first two are cheesy.

One, he’s the Queen of our Hearts.

Two, pairing him and Chan – our Aussie boys – in the same suit, specifically hearts, seemed fitting.

And three, the Queen of Hearts is often associated with Judith, a figure from the Bible. She was a Jewish widow who used her beauty and charm to kill an Assyrian general. Now, do I think Felix would literally kill someone? No. He’s too precious for that. But does he metaphorically kill us with his beauty and charm? On daily basis…

Just like with Chan, I went with a Felix’s animal in the heart, a chick. I went back and forth with doing a chicken or a chick to fit the aesthetic better. But Felix is a chick! Not a rooster! Not a chicken! A chick! So…had to be a chick.

The King of Spades is sometimes associated with King David, a very prominent figure in the Old Testament – the David from David and Goliath and credited as the author of many of Psalms.

The sword he’s holding is called a Yong hwandudaedo, inspired by this sword from Seven Swords. A hwandudaedo is a ring pommeled sword, taking its name from the circular fitting on the handle. It’s an early Korean sword, believed to be used primarily by the royal family before having more widespread use. The one he’s holding is a yong hwandudaedo, which has a decorative dragon head in the pommel. I thought this was fitting since Seungmin was born in the year of the dragon, along with our other 00’s line members.

And, of course, a puppy in the spade for our puppy.

I chose the Queen of Spades for a few reasons.

One, I mean, we have this fancall clip where he says it himself.

Two, pairing him and Seungmin together when we have this iconic couple seemed fitting.

Three, the Queen of Spades is sometimes associated with Athena, goddess of wisdom and warfare.

And four, the Queen of Spades is called the Black Lady, and there are several card games where the Queen of Spades is the unlucky card or has a unique role. And I can’t quite describe why, but that fits Lee Know so well.

Now, normally, the Queen of Spades holds a sceptre. I swapped that out for an eunjangdo, a small ornamental knife worn by men and women during the Joseon dynasty. They were often worn as norigae, a traditional accessory hanging from a hanbok, so I paired it with a traditional knot and tassel.

And in a detail so small that it’s almost not visible and therefore really only for me, I added cosmos, Lee Know’s birth month flower, to the knife.

And we have a rabbit in the spade in honor of LeeBit.

I put a really cringey joke in this one that I am both embarrassed by and proud of. The King of Diamonds is usually depicted holding an axe. And what do we call an ax? Guitars, particularly electric guitars. And who better to hold a guitar than Han, our rockstar? But when I decided to go more traditional and base them off of their Gayo performance – with hanboks and historical swords, etc. – an electric guitar didn’t really make sense anymore.

Soooooo…I swapped it out for a wolgeum, a traditional lute, instead. Would anyone refer to this as an ax? Um, probably not. And the joke doesn’t really make sense anymore. But that is the backstory.

And Han holding any musical instrument is fitting.

And we have a quokka in the diamond.

I chose the Queen of Diamonds for a couple of reasons.

One, Changbin is a queen. He’s known for nailing girl group choreo. And he and Chan have nailed Queen Card, specifically on multiple occasions.

And two, I thought pairing Changbin and Han together in a suit seemed fitting. I mean, who wasn’t wrecked mentally and emotionally by 2RACHA’s outro in Run It?

The Queen of Diamonds often holds a flower, but I really wanted to incorporate a fan into one of these cards. There are so many fans in the Divine music video, and the giant fans are amazing. And while Changbin doesn’t use his fan to blow people away, he does use his voice, which I love.

And I did add flowers to the fan, and they are his birth flower, poppies.

And a rabbit in the diamond, but with a pig nose.

I chose the King of Clubs for a couple of reasons.

One, the King of Clubs is sometimes associated with Alexander the Great, who succeeded his father as the King of Macedon when he was only 20 years old and went on to be a very successful king and military general.

Two, we have this well-loved and oft quoted clip. So…yeah. Maknae on top and all that.

The sword he’s holding is a Byeolun Geom, the Star-Cloud or Cloud Splitting Sword, a mostly ceremonial or symbolic sword from the Joseon period.

Of course, we have a fox in the clubs symbol.

I chose the Queen of Clubs for a couple of reasons.

One, Hyunjin is known for his androgynous looks and fashion.

And two, the Queen of Clubs is known as the flower queen. She’s often depicted holding a flower or bouquet of flowers, and the Italian name for clubs is fiori, which means flowers. And if flower queen doesn’t fit Hyunjin…I don’t know what does. So, he’s holding a rose, which seemed fitting for our LoveSTAY boy.

And, of course, we have a ferret in the clubs symbol.

When I was planning out all of the face cards, I spent a lot of time deciding who was going to be which face card. And as I’m sure you know, there are twelve face cards – four kings, four queens, and four jacks. But of course…we only have eight members. And that only leaves 4 other face cards for their SKZOOs or something similar.

So, I’ve used the Jacks and the Aces. Normally, the Ace of Spades is only Ace to be decorative, but I made all of them decorative to round out all eight SKZOOs.

And I ended up using their actual SKZOOs for the Jokers, evil LeeBit and evil PuppyM, our resident menaces.