#ankarambling

[vylanka]

i feel like even though most of the characters in mcd don't really reach their potential, i still think that you can still sort of understand the point of their character and their role in the story, and even if you can't it's easy to come up with something satisfactory from the few parts that they have in the series...

except for zenix. he is an enigma to me. he feels so important to the story since he's connected to garroth and becomes abnormally strong in season 2, but at the same time we barely know anything about him. his backstory? nope. how he died? nope. his motivations? nope. his relationship with the other shadow knights and garroth? nooope.

there's barely any pieces of him in mcd to go off of and therefore he has become such a mystery to me. he's like one of those boxes in gameshows where you have to stick your hand into them without looking into it, and touch what's inside and then guess. except you only get to brush the thing inside lightly once and then they never reveal what was inside.

i honestly find him both confusing and intriguing. it feels like his character has infinite possibilities since he never went down a specific path in the story. he's like the schroedingers cat of diaries.

[vylanka]

i will be gushing and rambling about this under the cut because this post is absolutely awesome ->

ok, first of all, i absolutely love this and the little drawings of the characters are so pretty

secondly, i just have to gush about these characterisations because i love this analysis of them!! you just really hit the nail on the head on a lot of the thoughts i had about them that i just couldn't put into coherent sentences. it's immensely satisfying to read and think "yes! yes!! this is it!! this is exactly it!!"

also, the graphs are really cool and really highlight the differences between each of the characters. the thing that i find the most interesting (and that i'd love to hear more about from you if you don't mind talking more about it) are the differences between garroth and laurance. specifically on the do it for themselves/others scale they're almost on complete opposite sides, and i've never heard anyone interpret them that way before.

i'd also love to hear your thoughts about other mcd characters if you're ever planning on talking about them as well. i'd personally love to hear about dante, lucinda and vylad, and how they'd fall on the different scales. for example, i really think dante ties nicely into the point you made about laurance and garroth's reliance on an ideal version of aphmau. in my opinion since dante spends the least amount of time with aphmau and is desperate to be loyal he ends up looking up to her as something above himself almost? like, i don't think it's a coincidence that when dante and aphmau reunite in season 2 after the 15 year timeskip it happens in front of the irene statue on the hill!

sorry for all of this rambling, i just found your thoughts very thoughtprovoking and interesting. i'd love to hear more about them or any other character. thank you for sharing this!!

made graphics for the way I think of MCD!Aph and the primary guard squad in my headcanon/rewrite world

transcript for the first one is under the cut because it's a lot of text but thank you for letting me cook :3

Aphmau

full of good intentions, despite facing danger she earnestly believes in the good in others, builds a community out of trust and kindness

starts to doubt her decisions more and more, impostor syndrome is made worse after finding out she’s Irene’s reincarnation. learning about Irene’s messy past gives her a sense of hopelessness, struggles with whether or not to compromise her values to be a true savior

Garroth’s betrayal had a large part in shaking her faith in people, though she would never admit it

Garroth

fixates on ideals of chivalry and virtue as a contrast to the greed of his father and O’Khasis high society

does not know what he wants in life. runs away from expectations at home only to fall headfirst into his own paranoia. has the capability to lead but defaults to others

self-sacrificial because of sense of duty

Laurance

most emotionally self-aware and always had confidence in his sense of identity, which made becoming a Shadow Knight a special kind of torture for him. acutely aware of his identity falling apart around him

has always been stubborn but now clings even harder to his principles to keep his old self alive

self-sacrificial because he truly believes he is disposable

Katelyn

life built out of regrets: not telling Jeffory her feelings, joining the Jury of Nine, following Zane’s orders and hurting innocents etc.

trying to repent and dedicate her life to good but is terrified of making the wrong choice again, reacts defensively when her character is insulted because she knows part of it holds truth

overarching (and connections)

struggles with identity, rejecting a “past self” or (supposed) “true self”

the weight of decisions in an unforgiving world

Katelyn and Garroth: two sides of the same guilt-ridden coin (subconsciously aware of how similar they are and it drives them crazy)

Garroth and Laurance: unstable sense of self manifests as reliance on an ideal representation of good as an anchor (Aphmau)

[vylanka]

This is going off of my vague memory of the lore, but in Diaries it’s said that a relic resonates with a person that is either directly related to or has a similar personality to the relic’s Divine Warrior. For example, we know that Shad’s relic chose Ivy because she was a destroyer and Enki’s relic can be wielded by Travis since he is his descendant.

So… I can’t be the only one that finds the personality aspect infinitely more interesting than the bloodline part, right? Whenever I see people theorising about which character would wield which relic and the topic goes to who’s a descendant of who I just grow a bit bored. Of course I like lore and world building as much as the next person, but I feel like the implications of the personality aspect are just a gold mine. It’s a great opportunity for character growth and nuance.

Firstly, I imagine that a major part of the plot in Diaries was supposed to be about the Divine Warriors and their respective relic wielders, since in season 3 we see Aphmau and the gang going relic hunting and also see a lot more flashbacks to the era of the Divine Warriors. However, I believe that a more effective way of achieving this than a macguffin hunt mixed in with some flashbacks and infodumps would be to connect the new wielders with the warriors through their relics, and I believe that doing so through the personality aspect would be the perfect way!

So, perhaps I should elaborate on what I mean by the personality aspect. I mean that a relic can resonate with a person that shares the same values, personality, desires, etc with the Divine Warrior. Basically, an important part of each of their identities match. So, through this aspect the personalities of the old wielders could be explored by using their new counterpart. As an example of what I mean, let’s use Garroth. Esmund is described as a protector and so is Garroth, and by learning about Garroth’s history and stance on being a guard (and his growth into a true protector) it would open up more about what Esmund was like.

I personally really love contrasting characters, so I believe that this would be an interesting way to spark discussions about the divine warriors. Like imagine how this would apply to other examples, like how Travis could connect to Enki. Was Enki also ostracised? Did he not want his relic at first? Did he have complicated issues with his parents?

Secondly, moving onto my next point, this wouldn’t just go one way. I personally think that each of the new relic wielder’s arc’s should lead up to them being able to fully wield their relic. The way that they achieve this is through extensive character growth and realisations about themselves. This probably sounds a bit vague, but I mean that for example the Garroth at the beginning of season 1 should not resonate even nearly as strongly with Edmund’s relic as he should at the end of the story. Garroth needs to grow into a protector through hardships and making a deep revelation about what it means to him, which then strengthens his resonance to the relic.

I’m gonna use the popular theory that Katelyn is the future wielder of Menphia the fury’s relic to illustrate how this could work in the story. Let us set the stage by imagining that Aphmau and co are in a heap of trouble. Katelyn is angsting about feeling weak or about how unfair the world is, and then as they’re about to lose she has some kind of realisation which leads to her developing her fury, similarly to Menphia herself. She resonates with Menphia’s relic and they’re able to win. This is just something basic I came up with on the spot, but what I’m trying to communicate is how the character growth works together with the relic plot.

So yeah, these are just some thoughts I’ve been having about the relics and why I believe that the whole bloodline stuff is a lot less interesting to me. Of course I don’t have anything against all the interesting theories and extensive family trees that people make (because holy shit those are cool) and I actually really like some instances of descendants being wielders (like Garroth and Travis). I’m simply putting forward my ideas and opinions.

I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on the matter since MCD is an untapped well of potenital, especially since I didn't even touch on how this might relate to Laurance, Alina, Zane, etc.

[vylanka]

happy 8th anniversary to the series that was integral to my childhood, helped me learn english, made me want to slam my head into a wall repeatedly, got me into the fantasy genre, made me smile and laugh and cry, inspired me to write my own stories, introduced me to shipping, and so much more.

even now that i’m 8 years older and can see the story through a more critical lense i still love minecraft diaries to death, and it’s very special to me. it will probably never be concluded, but atleast it has given me many wonderful memories.

[vylanka]

i was about 10 or 11 when i was watching mcd, and at the time i was basically fluent in english but i still had more to learn to get a bit better. anyway, i was on the second season and i had just gotten to the part with the thieves guild in nahakra village , and that's when i got introduced to the character amber. one of the more remarkable parts of her design are her purple eyes so little me took note of it.

later, i first heard the word "amber" be used in association with colors and gemstones. for some reason i made the assumption that the character amber must have been named after the color/gem and i immediately thought of her eyes. so from then on i thought that the color/gem amber was a shade of purple.

it took me years before i saw someone describe it and i realised what it was. to this day when i hear amber i sometimes think of that specific shade of purple. like, come on... amber sounds like it fits in with amethyst and violet!

so that is the story of how mcd tricked me into thinking that amber was something entirely different than it actually was.

[vylanka]

The king of Tu'la.

In season 2 there is so much buildup and tension as the kingdom of Tu'la is occupying Ru'aun, and we also hear a lot about the king. His search for the relics mirrors Zane's, and it raises a lot of interesting questions about him. His invasion shakes all of Ru'aun and yet he is barely mentioned past season 2! Even though it feels like the nations are at the brink of war there's a sudden 3 year timeskip and their presence is almost completely gone.

I honestly thought that season 3 was going to introduce him and make Tu'la an even bigger part of the story, and perhaps the other regions too. Garte is taken away, Hyria gives Aphmau and the others an opportunity to transform back into meif'wa, and at the end of the last episode in s2 we hear that Michi and Sasha are traveling back to Tu'la, which made me think that Aphmau was going to travel there too and learn more about the king and the other Divine Warriors.

Perhaps that was supposed to happen later in s3, but since it got cancelled it never made it in. But I'm still surprised that it seems to be so peaceful in the region after the 3 year timeskip considering the circumstances and it's a bit sad that we never got to see the king, since he seemed like he could've been an interesting and terrifying antagonist!

which minor minecraft diaries character do you think has to most wasted potential? maybe even main character

[vylanka]

oh, really? i hadn’t heard of that one before to be honest, and i always thought all of aphmau’s later roleplays used HD skins so it didn’t cross my mind! thank you for informing me.

but actually, i’m pretty sure the reason why Alejandro Saab tweeted about gene was because he’d recently gotten a role in the show Lego Monkie Kid and LMK fans on twitter realised that he used to voice in aphmau’s videos. so he probably made that tweet since people were talking about how he used to voice in her videos, but he wanted to acknowledge that he still does…

… anyway now i’m gonna sink into a puddle of sludge since i’ve lost all my hope for jess to ever continue mcd/rebirth

okay, so...

not long ago there was some activity on the aphmau stories channel, including uploading a clip of zane saying that he's back...

and then alejandro saab posts a photo of gene that isn't in any of aphmau's series...

and tomorrow just happens to be march 11th, the 8th anniversary of mcd...

i think i might be going crazy but.. what if..