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xerith-42 · 1 year ago

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18 or so Shadow Knight Headcanons

If you saw the earlier version of this post where I fucked up the tags no you didn't

Ever since falling back down the Minecraft Diaries rabbit hole like two seconds after I showed up on this site, I have come up with a lot of headcanons about this series, especially pertaining to Shadow Knights and Shadow Knight characters. And a lot of mine and others best ideas have been written in comments, reblogs, or in discord servers, or I just never wrote them down anywhere. So I want to make this post compiling all of them. Most of these headcanons are mine, but a few I would call collaborative processes and I will credit these people when they come up. I love this community. It feels really nice to say that.

General SK Headcanons

All Shadow Knights fluctuate between having cold or warm blood depending on if/how they've answered the calling. If they've yet to answer the calling, their blood is cold until the calling pulls on them and makes their blood warm in an attempt to draw them back to the Nether. If a Shadow Knight answers the call, they gain full regulation over their blood temperature because they're immortal. That doesn't really matter anymore. (original idea came from a convo with @laurencezvahlslefteyebrow )

Shadow Knights have less of a need for sleeping or eating, and if they're fully immortal they often forgo the concepts entirely. This leads to incomplete ones often forgetting to sleep for days on end, or neglecting their need to eat if they aren't reminded to.

Time moves slower in the Nether than it does in the Overworld, so a lot of Shadow Knights often struggle with their perception of time. Especially Laurance because he was already struggling with the time dilation AND THEN got flung fifteen years into the future. Man does not know what day it is or what year it is, and sometimes Vylad will tell you the date and it's like weeks off.

Garroth just has an innate ability to fuck with the heads of Shadow Knights. It's just what he does. At first it's largely through Laurance by showing him a patience and understanding, all while being able to assure his own safety. And when he starts caring for Vylad, it completely upends how they're used to looking at something they thought they had come to terms with.

The Doll Headcanons!! (original image from @adepressedgaydragon)

Vylad is used to dealing with any symptoms of being a Shadow Knight on his own. He's been on the run/in hiding for like 17 years or something, and was clearly neglected and used to being on his own from a young age. So they've become very used to handling the moments where his body just stops working. Where all they can do is lay limp against the wall, occasionally jerking and having random muscle spasms. Vylad learned to control them a little, make it so he can just get it all over with in a few hours instead of randomly.

He forgets to hide as well once he's around others. Vylad enters one of these episodes and when he gains control of his body again, Garroth is sitting at his side. When he hastily tries to apologize, Garroth says very carefully "It's okay. I know it isn't your fault."

One time, one single time before his betrayal, Garroth notices Zenix in a state of standing completely still, but his shoulders are limp, and he isn't moving at all, lifeless like a puppet with its strings cut. When Garroth questions him on it, Zenix insists nothing's wrong and tells him to mind his own business. It's only after Garroth sees Laurance like this for the first time and Laurance explains that it's a Shadow Knight thing that Garroth realizes. He realizes he could have noticed what was wrong with Zenix before he had a chance to hurt anyone.

Gene and Zenix get in a fight and when Zenix slams Gene's head against the wall, instead of the sound of bone and blood, there's the sound of porcelain breaking. Both men sort of freeze. Zenix lets go and Gene stumbles back, and when he does, there's another cracking sound. There's a permanent scar of a crack going down his face originating from the left side of his forehead. It bleeds, but not in the way it should. The whole thing is so unnerving neither one talk about it and their fight is essentially over...

Sasha is a lot more like a wooden doll. Normally she's pretty reserved, but still has a lot of personality in her expression and the way she carries herself. But sometimes her movements are just a bit too stiff. There's a creak as she bends one of her joints, and her face gets stuck in an expression. This is especially annoying when it happens to her fingers while she's holding something and she just has to pray she doesn't drop her favorite mug directly into a pit of lava she happens to be walking past in the Nether.

I've already gone into my stuff with Laurance in my Garrance musings, but I have so fucking many more. Sometimes it isn't his full body that stops working. Sometimes Laurance's limbs or just his neck goes limp. He'll be in the middle of trying to rizz up someone and his arm just goes completely lifeless on their shoulder. He'll randomly stumble because he just loses feelings in his legs. One time someone thought he was asleep during a very important meeting because his head suddenly fell forward, and he just gave them a thumbs up like "No this happens, just pretend it's normal." Vylad SK Headcanons

Vylad hates to admit it, so he never does, but he almost gave into the calling the first time he was in the Overworld. He showed up very close to home, and had intimate knowledge of the security measures present at his families estate. They actually mapped out how easy it would be, and had a high success rate. It was only hearing that his brother had died that made Vylad break free from the calling.

Vylad knew Zenix was a Shadow Knight and deliberately helped to hide it from Garroth. He wanted to see if Garroth could handle Zenix because he still feared being around his brother. He feared that Garroth wouldn't be strong enough to stand against him if he somehow lost control.

After the fifteen years spent on his own completely aimless, Vylad sometimes forgets that he's a Shadow Knight. Like, it's just so... Normal. Someone with the ability to sense that shit gives him and odd look and they are just very confused because they can't use magicks?? Why are they-- Oh right, you're undead.

Vylad tends to keep his blood cold. Just easier to deal with. The first time he actively feels it get warm outside of the calling is after he's already defeated his temptation and can exist around his mother. When she reaches forward and places a hand on Vylad's cheek, his entire body becomes warm. Life returns to him all in a rush and it's a feeling he's sorely missed. Zenix SK Headcanons

If he hadn't gained a new lord shortly before becoming a Shadow Knight, Zenix's calling would have latched onto Garroth, the man he considered to be his mentor and the closest friend he has. Zenix scoffs at this idea now.

Zenix starts killing Shadow Knights instead of hunting his lord because the Shadow King realized that Zenix killing his lord meant Zenix killing Irene, and he wants to do that himself. So he deliberately persuaded Zenix to gain power by fighting other Shadow Knights instead. It backfired.

Zenix knows every single weakness a Shadow Knight can have both before and after answering the calling. He knows the most common symptoms, what happens to the weakest of them, how to manage the ups and downs. He could be a great life coach or therapist with this information, but the voices and bloodlust are a bit too loud to ignore so he just starts killing.

It's on sight between Zenix and Gene. Like he sees a guy who sort of looks like Gene and just instantly goes for the kill. Sasha once joked that his calling latched onto Gene and Zenix couldn't really disagree with her. It's certainly a similar feeling. Gene SK Headcanons

This is basically canon, but oh my Irene Gene has some awful takes on relationships, and this further ruined him as a Shadow Knight. Most Shadow Knights throw away their humanity when they answer the calling and never regain it. Gene is almost frighteningly human, always poking and prodding at people and being very reactive. He's always trying to push what is and isn't okay literally all the time and it usually isn't okay but he's literally immortal so what are they going to do? (god complex what?)

In spite of this, Gene does feel bad for what he did to Dante. He can never look his brother in the eyes, but if he could, he would have done things differently. Making everyone forget about him did more damage to Dante than he ever anticipated.

It was actually talks with Sasha that made Gene realize this. A lot of his time after gaining his immortality was spend serving the Shadow King largely because it always made things interesting. He was always pushing the world and those around him in new unknown directions that were fascinating to watch. Gene is endlessly enamored by humans but in the way a mad scientist is enamored with it's subjects.

It's why in spite of everything, he'll always have a soft spot for Sasha. Long talks with her are some of his fondest memories. He can't really decide if he's in love with her since his sense of love was skewed before the voice of the lord of darkness started making it actively worse, but he feels good things when he thinks about her. Sasha SK Headcanons

Sasha answered the calling, and doesn't often hold onto the idea of her humanity. She's not quite dead, not quite alive, and she knows she'll be this way forever. Unlike most Shadow Knights, especially the ones susceptible to the Shadow King's control, she's simply accepted her fate. He isn't able to promise her with something greater, and despite what some may think, she's actually the wild card the Shadow King is most afraid of because even he can't get a read on her.

Oddly enough, she starts to feel more human when she's captured in season 2. She gets a lot of chances to talk to different members of the group who are guarding her, and even if most of them don't trust her, she still feels something whenever they show her any sign of an emotion that isn't disgust. It makes her remember what's so fun about being human.

Similar to Vylad, Sasha feels a rush of warmth anytime she's in proximity to Kenmur, close to being alive without the influence of shadow magic. It's a feeling she doesn't want to get used to.

Sasha can never quite decide what she feels about Laurance. It's something akin to morbid curiosity. She can get into his head so easy, and she likes using him as a test of what can make a Shadow Knight tick. Though, sometimes it's a Laurance exclusive feature. Laurance SK Headcanons

A small part of Laurance really likes the extra power his Shadow Knight form gives in a twisted way. He doesn't like the emotions, but the physical effect is honestly great. It's an even stronger form than he would be capable of as a regular human that he can use to protect his demigod not girlfriend who keeps getting targeted by more insane magical bull shit.

During one of his times where he ran away because of the calling Laurance was alone in a cave and started cursing out his lord. Every vile word he could use to describe her came from his mouth, and while he regrets some of it, he will never admit the truth that he meant some of it too.

A lot of Laurance's resentment really just comes from the fact that he is severely not okay thanks to the calling and his experiences in the Nether. He never really had time to fully recover from that mentally, and everything keeps moving so damn fast, and he shamefully misses those slower days in the Nether when Sasha would sit outside his bars and talk to him, or when he and Vylad had conversations through prison walls. Laurance just desperately needs people to check up on him.

(Garrance Specific Headcanon) Once during a particularly sleep deprived conversation with Vylad while Vylad was calming him down from a calling induced panic attack, Laurance confessed to Vylad he was in love with Garroth and scared of getting him out of the Irene Dimension because he didn't want to risk the calling latching onto him. Even after Vylad very awkwardly assured him that's not how the calling works, Laurance is still paranoid.

The Calling is a contradiction. It's designed to be one because contradictions drive men to madness. Laurance's entire life from start to finish has been a series of contradictions, karmic imbalance and re-balance, and the fates seemingly toying with him for their own sick amusement. When he gets control of his body after running away and finds himself in the Nether, he has straight up had enough. The contradiction of wanting to be by his lords side and also needing to be as far away from her as possible basically broke Laurance back into being human?? Because he was never a proper Shadow Knight in the first place.

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