#cainverse

[shadowknightapologist]

it's all temporary

we're all meant to die

so, lover, say the things you mean

lover, come kiss me softly

(ref + nonsense under the cut)

zoeymau sketch with an awful bg bc i'm bad at them 😔 but you have to be bad before you can be good

anyway reference

[icelogged]

@ ethel cain fans / “ethel cain core” posters catholics and southern baptists are not the same

[shadowknightapologist]

oooh yeah

it's all coming together

[shadowknightapologist]

miscellaneous shadow knight headcanons because i love love love them and one day i will have a proper post dedicated to them.

WARNINGS FOR: cannibalism, murder, minced meat mention?, angst.

in a sick, sad way, shad sees most of the shadow knights as his children.

shadow knights don't necessarily have to kill someone for immortality, but they do have to consume the flesh of someone living.

it doesn't ACTUALLY matter who they target; shad (and gene) just frame it as having to kill your lord or an individual you hold in high regards because 1) getting rid of lords helps in the long run, and 2) shadow knights with attachments to anything other than shad are harder to control. so convincing baby knights to get rid of those obstacles early on saves shad a lot of trouble.

as for how our shadow knight cast handled the munchies...

gene ate his lord as well as the upper-ranks sent with him (which is part of why he ranked up so quickly).

zenix ate his lord in the midst of the fire staged to kill him and his family.

vincent ate his lord/brother but he's still in denial over it (he acknowledges that he's immortal and that this immortality comes from his brother, but in his head, his brother was sick and begging for mercy; in reality, vincent flew into rage after finding out how far his brother had fallen and brutally murdered him).

amethyst attacked her father. he survived and amethyst experienced her first false death; this sparks an influx of rumors and stories about shadow knights (previously, shadow knights were extremely low-key, and only existed as folktales).

vylad attacked zianna. she survived.

sasha attacked castor's brother; castor managed to scare her off, but his brother passed away from the injuries. this is what leads to castor going "mad" and essentially being outcasted :( he was grieving and in denial and couldn't bear to tell laurance, who was grieving both sasha and joh at the time.

glenda was NOT immortal, she was planning to sacrifice cadenza + eat from her while she was still alive but aphmau kicked her ass and then laurance killed her.

and laurance, of course, hasn't attacked anyone, but he does struggle with severe intrusive thoughts and it is very, VERY hard for him not to bite while in his knight form.

shadow knight armor is attached to the skin like a shell. yes, they get parasites. yes, it hurts to have it removed or tugged on the wrong way. yes, it grows out of their skin and yes, that also hurts (only for the baby knights tho).

baby knights (and sometimes even immortal shadow knights) are known known to curl up into the fetal position and shift into their shadow knight form when they're scared. it's a defense tactic that protects their heart, especially since shadow knight armor is so hot/sharp (even to other knights). people unofficially refer to this as "armadillo-ing".

SHADOW KNIGHTS ARE NOT IMMUNE TO LAVA. that shit WILL disintegrate them. HOWEVER, since shadow knights getting perma-deathed by lava in the nether would be really bad design, this just rebirths the knight. the only exception to this is sasha and potentially one other character. some knights have come to see it as a religious thing, like a baptism.

shadow knight hair often turns into flames when they're upset, and if they're really angry, their entire body gets lit. very destructive.

shadow knights can be temporarily paralyzed by brain trauma (usually stabbing something through their head; they'll be mobile again once the object is removed or the injury closes up) and weakened by being doused in water or left in the cold.

baby knights can be killed via holy magic, decapitation, mincing the body, water, the cold, or old age (they actually age much faster in the overworld, but slower in the nether). they can go months without food, water, or sleep before it starts to take a toll on them.

immortal shadow knights cannot truly be killed unless their heart is devoured (more on this on the next point). mostly, their bodies are permanently destroyed and they become a shadow soul. immortal shadow knights do not need food, water, or sleep but will sometimes indulge if they're feeling... nostalgic. or particularly empty.

shadow knights can only absorb power from each other by eating the heart. this is 1) difficult because you have to LITERALLY tear the shadow knight apart to get to their heart, and 2) terrifying even to shadow knights. it's called "the final death". this is why zenix becomes so infamous.

"false deaths" are only experienced by baby knights. baby knights don't ACTUALLY die to most mortal deaths, but because they're not immortal, their body still thinks it needs to take care of itself like usual and tricks the brain into thinking they're dying when they're not (it's similar if they're stabbed or something; the body goes "YOU ARE BLEEDING OUT" and assumes the result is death). when this happens, they go dormant from anywhere between a few minutes to a few days. when they wake, they'll be perfectly fine. no scars, no nothing.

inspired by @/chvsire and some other users i can't find (thanks tumblr)—shadow knights occasionally have traits resembling real-world predators or nether mobs. whether this has a rank/role purpose or just happens, i've not decided lmao.

shadow knights may also be based off biomes. bc pretty.

some ideas for predators that i have are: bird of prey (shad), feline (gene), dog or wasp (laurance), shark or alligator (zenix), snake (sasha)... and then i got nothing LMAO.

immortal shadow knights don't really... reincarnate? they have to be magically assisted in order to cross over the purgatory, where their memories will be locked away and they'll be sent to live again. it's kinda like what death does for sam winchester in supernatural—if they were to push too hard, the memories and power would be fully accessible. this is different for other souls, who face judgement and then are either permitted or forbidden from reincarnating. if they ARE reincarnated, their memories are completely removed. or something. i'll figure it out.

om i think that's gonna be it for now :3

[shadowknightapologist]

i made memes <3

[shadowknightapologist]

i'm gonna be kinda freaking dead for the next week (if i actually lock in) sooo hc before i go to war /silly

i looove the ro'maeve brother symbolism with the head coverings so consider:

see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

WARNINGS FOR: religion (briefly mentioned), child abuse, injury, murder.

in addition to this, i think all three of them actually have a disability/injury related to the above concept.

vylad was strangled/had his neck snapped, so talking is usually painful for him. as a result, he's selectively mute and prefers to communicate through sign language, if at all.

zane was half-blinded in an accident, as we know (though i'll mention again that in my rewrite, garroth isn't the one to blind him). i'm thinking that, potentially, zianna sought out a magik healer to heal zane's injury and instead it healed wack and looks creepy asf. once he leans back into eirene and solusism, he starts calling it the "eye of eirene" and even shows it off during trials and executions.

garroth was hit in the head too many times/too hard and suffered either a large perforation or a traumatic brain injury, either of which went unhealed and became permanent. if i go with a TBI, garroth's symptoms lie largely within cognitive (difficulty learning and remembering), sensory (changes in hearing and vision), communication (difficulty speaking, reading, and explaining thoughts/feelings), and emotional (depression, mood swings, irritability, generally more emotional).

[shadowknightapologist]

SWEET JESUS. no art after midnight should be a rule (i will never stick to it)

bust concepts... i greatly dislike vylad's, i think i made him too round?? which isn't necessarily bad but it's just BLEGH rn

i'm also not a huge fan of dante's s2 look but i think that's bc i made his skin too shiny so he looks weird/younger than his s1 version. also i'm bad at facial hair. also his eye shape might be too dramatic, they're just supposed to be more hooded bc he's tired/older. also yes, gene got a bigger redesign in this concept because i really wanted him to look way more like his dad (versus dante looking like maria) but idk if i'm 100% happy with it which is part of why these are concepts </3

any the way. notes.

nana's hair wraps are made from pieces of dante's cape.

(aphmau) eurydice's flower crown is compromised of orange blossoms, orange king zinnias, and trumpet vines, which, among other things, symbolize "purity", "friendship", "daily remembrance", and "fresh starts".

travis' earrings were a gift from his mother and help him contain/hide his demon form.

sasha and gene help each other with their hair.

amethyst is my freaking wife /silly. also i'm thinking she has albinism.

katelyn's hairstyle is technically part of her uniform, all the other lady jurors have the same style. she starts growing her hair out after being demoted/leaving. surviving jurors (ivy, teony, etc.) start growing theirs out when o'khasis starts falling apart but it's not really purposeful so much as writer symbolism.

these aren't true for every sketch bc i made it up as i went but: shadow knights, when passing for human, are distinguishable by desaturated skin tones and and red pupils. their skin and hair don't shine like normal people's do, which probably isn't realistic, but yk.

anyway. it's 5am. i'm tired. oops.

[shadowknightapologist]

my dumbass really thought "hey i'll just do a bunch of quick sketchy busts to get some design ideas down since i'm struggling" at 1am and then only got 3 done and it's now 4am on a school day

anyway

and lines so you can see the armor... i shoulda filled them in w a base color because they might be hard to see depending on your tumblr theme but uhhh my hand hurts

i'm not sure abt their hairstyles and i've like never in my life drawn armor?? so 💀

one of the reasons dante didn't get absolutely boxed by gene when he was first revived is bc dante looks so much like maria and if nothing else, gene is a mama's boy

that'll be all for now (passes the fuck out)