Shadows House Manga - Tumblr Posts
"There is much I could never tell you, Barbara.
I hope some day you'll be able to forgive me."
.
shadows house anyone? 👀
this is a commissioned piece for my sister and a friend, the two cosplayed Maryrose and Barbara and needed a stage banner to jumpscare the audiance /j
(btw the quote is taken from their skit text ex dee)
Magical girl Barbara
The soul gem is the star on her chest
And her witch form
Tempest, the Witch of Sorrow
+her labyrinth without her and the storm
Sophia & Sabrina
Pheon & Leon
(My OCs as Shadows House characters)
This post puts the original Manga chapter to shame the coloring the lighting everything about the photo they colored in it's just beautiful
Manga Coloring!
Chapter 106: The Promised Starry Sky
the original colored panel
Yay more flower language more specifically applying specific flowers to these kids do you not realize how hard it is to find the right flowers that match these guys especially Shawn
First day of spring, my lovelies 🌸
And you thought i would leave you without a semi-topical art?
Flowers used:
🌿 Emi:
🌸 Daisies are the simplest flowers and in russian are used to describe someone very plain and easygoing.
🌸 Clover was used by her to make that little apron she wore during debut.
🌸 Red rose for Kate
🌿 Ricky:
🌸 Clover in his instance is used as Patrick's flower. Besides good luck, it also means happiness, which my boy needs very much.
🌸 Daffodil is pretty self-explanatory (also means rebirth and hope)
🌸 Pink tulips are also pretty self-explanatory (and mean deep unconditional love and also rebith and new beginnings)
🌿 Lou
🌸 Gerbera for Louise
🌸 Pink tulips bc look above
🌿 Ram
🌸 White yarrow for Shirley (means healing)
🌸 Baby breath means innocence
🌸 Grape vines mean gossip, fitting her role
🌿 Shaun
🌸 Bluebells are said to attract fairies, and mean gratitude and humility
🌸 Blue asters are star-flowers, meaning wisdom and faith
Okay I don't know why but even though the manga tries to ship her with Patrick, but I've been having the strange urge to ship her with Rum. The idea of her loving flowers this much and Shirley's lively and mischievous personality (combined with the fact that they're both on the same team) and Rums interest in flowers thanks to Emilico would totally come across the perfect relationship especially when Maggie realizes that Rum has such a kind-hearted mistress and she wasn't so kind to her despite them being on the same team
The symbolism of flowers in Shadows House (part 12)
Master post with all the other topics
"He loves me, he loves me not"
The most widely accepted meanings of marguerite flowers are purity and innocence.
Marguerites represent looking forward to love, as well as satisfaction, joy, pride and secret love. An Ox-eye Daisy (same flower) symbolizes patience. Other meanings associated with it are faith, cheer, simplicity, loyal love, beauty, gentleness, youth, modesty, and romance.
Very often they are used for the fortune-telling ritual we all know - "loves me, loves me not"
Master post with all the other topics
Morehead cannons about Rum and Shirley from Shadow's house
(Spoiler warnings of course)
This is following under my Au of what if these two did pass the debut
Head Cannon #1: Shirley expels soot the same way a train expels smoke
One of my personal head cannons for Shirley (at least before I read the Manga) was specifically about the way she would expel soot.
The anime and manga state that each shadow has a soot quantity meaning they have a certain amount of soot that they would expel throughout the day, however the manga also reveals that some shadows can increase the amount of soot they expel thanks to their negative emotions. The less negative emotions you have the lower your soot quantity would be those with higher negative emotions (or higher emotional states) can make their soot quantity grows stronger to the point of making soot scalactites
Examples:
Kate
Barbara
John
Sarah
And that's just naming a few
We know that Louise and Patrick have medium soot quantity, same thing goes for the Bell twins however we've also seen shadows with low soot quantities being able to pass just fine like MaryRose and Matilda (a future debut member) so what about Shirley
We also know that at least for some of the characters the way they expose it is very different from others I won't say the scene line for line from the manga / anime but I will give brief descriptions on what what the anime manga show
Kate's go straight up
John's looks like fireworks
Louise's coils / curves
Patrick's spreads all out
Barbara's appears to expel all throughout her body
And that's about it but if we applied this knowledge to Shirley then maybe her should would be expelled in that of clouds and not just any clouds, clouds that look suspiciously a lot like the puffs of smoke you see from a train kind of like the soot train (but that would imply that she would remember getting on that train to begin with) after reading the manga I think this head Canon might be true
(I mean just look at the way she's expelling soot and you tell me that doesn't look like clouds)
Headcanon #2 Shirley is just like Mary Rose
I've had this idea in the back burner of my mind for a while so we all remember these two lovely ladies right
(Of course we do, I never shut up about at least one of them)
Well isn't it kind of interesting that both of their Shadow Mistresses just so happened to be purple as in the color of royalty, loyalty, magic, and majestic nature
And isn't it also very interesting that Rosemary just so happens to have a mistress who remembers her time as a morph, her past
(I think we all know where I'm going with this one) what if Shirley was no different what if she also remembered her time as a morph before taking on Rum's appearance
Story-wise that would be pretty interesting wouldn't it be cuz if you think about it Mary Rose was described as gallant meaning she has a more tomboyish way of acting just like rums appearance is very tomboy-esque her wiki even states that her hair is styled in a tomboy style, plus if you think about it Mary Rose is the only female character to wear pants so wouldn't it be interesting to have Shirley end up doing the same thing
Some evidence to support this idea is the fact that the wiki states that surely act as if she knows more about the Mansion than what she lets on, which could imply why she never bothered to reach out to talk to Rum herself, maybe she remembers the past as a morph and what this house was capable of and wanted to find a way to save Rum, but could never figure out how, because we've seen that it's not just the living doll who can make contact with the Shadow the shadow themselves can reach out and talk to them if they wanted but she never did
Additionally the manga reveals that Shirley's personality is lively and mischievous and what's more mischievous than going against the shadows house in a very subtle anti-lively way
It could be possible that if these two passed the debut she could have revealed everything she knew to Rum just like Kate did to Emilico, but she doesn't do it on the same day that Kate does she actually waits before revealing it to Rum because she wanted to see if anyone else knew this truth as well finding out that Kate did really help boost her confidence in telling rum because she was scared of what repercussions but when she found out someone else and her team knows about them being humans and not living dolls it gave her the confidence she needed to tell rum the next day
Plus could you imagine her pulling a Candy and Stella approach and defying the shadows house, her pretending to act like Rum, acting all shy and timid (which is the most mischievous way of her defying the Shadow's House of all time) adding on to that imagine her pretending like she doesn't speak all that much or she selectively mute which allows her to get special permission from the starburst to have a rum where a special type of portrait that allows her to speak for her
Headcanon #3 her connection to the Star Bearers
As I alluded to in the previous headcanon I truly do think that Shirley's personality would allow her to gain special privileges from the star bearers what are the special privileges you might ask
Being allowed to let Rum wear special portrait that allows her to speak for her Shadow mistress
Being able to go to specific rooms despite not having a soot power
Checking out areas that only veiled dolls are allowed in
Letting Rum wear specific clothing even if it doesn't match Shirley's outfit
Being able to walk around the house with team 10 (Kate's team)
Why is this well the shadow house views her as a more disabled Shadow but because they passed the debut and rum can speak they allow these privileges since she hasn't started talking just yet this is all part of our plans of actively defying the shadows house by showing that living dolls are their own person
Headcanon number 4 Shirley's (Rum's) hobbies
Speaking of allowing a living doll to think for themselves and be their own person now comes my favorite out of all of them
Shirley herself doesn't care much for having a hobby after Mary Rose explained that this was an important part of a Shadow's life she didn't really care but she didn't want to Rum to be unable to do anything in the house and she knew that she didn't have a hobby she might be seen as a worthless Shadow and get disposed of so what does she do
Have rum be the one to make the important calls on their hobbies, let me explain. She likes doing anything by Rum's side kind of like how Lorelei and Lulu don't like separating from one another Shirley doesn't like doing anything without her "Darling Rum" so she always asks rum What does she want to do
(Mind you here are the options for the hobbies these kids have in both anime and manga terms)
Study in the library
Admire the plants in the conservatory
Nurture your spirit in the music room
In the dancehall Mary Rose herself will instruct you
To improve oneself is a child's top priority embrace that
And mind you this isn't taking in consideration the fact that some of these kids have personal interests like Louise's interest in Art or their powers for example Margarets Powers is sticky soot ivy which makes sense considering her hobby is that of gardening
And notice The exchange happening here more specifically what Mary Rose says here (I'll translate it to anime terms for those of you who haven't read this)
Kate: maybe borrow the books and read them in our rooms
MR: that's perfectly fine. As per the rules there's a notebook in each room meant to catalog your time spent performing activities, if you do not make enough entries you'll be seen as a worthless Shadow with no intention of self-improvement
You can see where the problem comes from when there's a shadow who has no interest in any of this stuff and just wants to sow and draw especially since her power allows her to transform into literally anyone and anything in order to make this authentic she would have to take in a hobby in sewing something shadows house doesn't offer so how do you compromise by doing all of it
More specifically she asks Rum what hobby does she want to participate in? Each and every day they would go to practically every hobby room, sometimes even following Louise to spend time with Benjamin and grow stronger, and spending time with Louise also allows them to learn more about Art and how to draw.
Bear in mind that this has nothing to do with the fact that morphs are easily manipulated because of how malleable they are, this is because Shirley's just curious and has a strong urge to learn, even if it means doing something she's not interested in but if she knows that Rum is interested in it then she'll gladly learn it alongside of her (but she always gives the credit to Rum because she knows that without her she wouldn't be doing this in the first place) which is how she's able to make allies and people like Margaret and some other people like Eve from the first-aid team and Oliver and Jeremiah from the research team
At the end of the day that's who Shirley is, a curious girl who loves learning pretty much anything there is to know, and is willing to improve herself in any way shape or form… but not for the shadows house… it's for Rum's sake. She knows that her real name isn't Shirley (that's her living doll's name) which is why she was so proud of Rum for choosing her own name this made her happy because it showed her that Rum was able to make her own identity, and she wants to do the same (because the name Lily is so close to Shirley she's thinking about choosing that as her name when she's able to get Rum out of the shadows house)
Her biggest hobby is practicing her soot power, specifically eating other people's soot not only allows her to increase her quantity (going from low to high) but it allows her to transform into other shadows despite not seeing them face to face, and sometimes she can use their soot power because she has transformed into them. Which is the big reason why she took on sewing to make her transformation look more authentic, (plus she loves spoiling Rum in all different types of outfits and gifts but that's more on Rum's side of the story)
Shadow house theory
Yay theory time
Anybody who's seen chapter 192 shadows house (Monster) know about this specific type of coffee a type that usually given to the children to help their shadows potential of fusion go up even higher so that way they can become adults the manga chapter itself kind of explains what it does
So I have a major question if this type of coffee changes a Shadow's body is it possible for Shirley to drink this stuff and gain her human form back
The reason why I believe this could happen is because this kind of coffee stimulates their body and it's made clear in the story and that if the shadow master/mistress drinks this coffee it stimulates their body it's supposed to increase the chance of fusion but we know for a fact that thanks to a certain pair that it can do a lot more than making the two fuse
Thanks to Louise knowing the truth about what living dolls are at this point combined with Emilico and Kate trying to break the brainwashing of the coffee the living dolls drink, plus a few other small details like Ricky and Lou's relationship before entering the house it helped Lou break her brainwashing completely, and try to save mistress Louise however we know for a fact that if the fusion isn't complete one of them will die and if it's incomplete in the middle of it both of them will die
For spoiler reasons I want to talk about the chapter frame by frame but won't, so I will say this. Because Louise realized what she truly was she took it in a negative light realizing that she's not who she wanted to be and can never be, (at least in her mind) it made her so upset that she viewed herself as nothing more than a monster (Hey look I call out to the chapter)
(My theory on Barbara also gives us some more details about how these kids mental and emotional states affect their expulsion, link to that theory at the bottom)
Well what we're seeing from Louise is her mental and emotional state dictating how this fusion appearance of hers is looking let me explain.
Because Louise now views herself in a much more negative light than she used to, combining that negativity with the coffee she drank, it didn't JUST stimulate her want to fuse with Lou, but instead stimulated her body to match with how she viewed herself. She no longer sees herself as the benevolent Shadow mistress that she used to be, now she views herself as a monster, somebody who's trying to harm Lou, somebody who's vain and believes she is something greater than what she really is. As she stated it in the manga chapter the world doesn't revolve around her, and while it is good that she finally learned that lesson it also left her with a massive transformation
Why am I bringing up all of this for… context of course
With all of that in mind let's bring up Shirley and her relationship with Rum once again (I love talking about these two so here it comes). Anybody who knows me or has just read the Manga itself knows what Shirley's soot power is: it's Transformation, this is how the manga explains it
And I stated before this coffee can stimulate their bodies into doing more than what they're capable of now. We've seen thanks to Louise that it can physically alter a shadows body into something greater than what we would have ever imagined because of something very important
What the shadow themselves want is how they view themselves
A few chapters before monster got published we got to see Lou and Louise's side of the story. While Kate and the others were trying to save them we got to see what happened to them while all of this was going on, and we saw that while Lou couldn't stop the brainwashing effects of the coffee, Louise was able to help her by using her power on her, she also used Benjamin's training in order to help her ignore the influence that Lou was trying to give her, and keep her from singing so that way they could delay their fusion process. Louise even said "that they were definitely not going to fuse" showing how she didn't want to fuse with Lou in the beginning because she cared about her by this point, at least thanks to the information Kate told her
However another key piece of information that's important about this is the fact that the shadows house knows that the living dolls have influence over their masters, which is why she had to prevent Lou from singing in the first place, because she knew the moment Lou started talking to her directly she could be influenced by her to fuse, and that is the reason for the box of fusion to make sure that the influence is so strong that they literally can't listen to anyone else but their doll to fuse with, and that's unfortunately what happened to Louise. She tried her hardest to fight it off but at the end of the day she was influenced by Lou because of a certain other person taking advantage of the situation Lewis. He's the power allowed him to manipulate what Lou was saying causing her to be influenced by it against her will
But what the chapter monster revealed is: what she wanted vs how she saw herself ended, which up prevailing against what Anthony and Lewis were trying to do to her, but it also shows that what she wants vs how she views herself are two completely different things now
In the past she viewed herself as the prettiest strongest shadowgirl in the house and all she wanted was to become an amazing adult
But now that she knows the truth she doesn't want to fuse with Lou to become an adult, but at the same time she realizes that she's not pretty like Lou because she does not own Lou's face. She might be strong but that's because of Lou. She's nothing like her living doll she views herself now as a monster.
With all of that into consideration could it be possible that if Shirley could start drinking that special Shadow coffee, could it slowly over time to hopefully gain her human form back
Think about it for a moment, we know for a fact that while she and Rum didn't talk to each other all that much in the beginning, we know what she wants she wants to be close to Rum, she wants to support her we see this in the manga itself, as the first thing she ever transforms into was Rummy, the little bow that both of them had on their fingers. She knows that that bow was important to Rum because she saw them use it to speak with her during the debut
How she views herself is a bit trickier, but we know for a fact that she already knows the truth, after all in chapter 95 where we learn how Rum's been doing reveals that, the chapter where Kate broke Emilico out of her brainwashing and told her the truth about where she came from, just so happened to be the exact same day that Shirley went to her room to try and get more information for Rum which, not only allowed her to learn the truth about Rum and Emilico but also herself, and it's even possible that Shirley was around during the master robe ark, because while we never see her in the chapter where it takes place in the manga or the anime itself, we do know that the anime is perfectly fine with going off script to make its own original content for this already amazing work, because the kidnapping Arc that Emilico and Kate went through was not a part of the manga (but that was the first time anime watchers got to see a morph that just so happened to have a cute little curl on the top of its head). It revealed the status of Shirley & Rum before the manga ever did, revealing that those two are okay but they're not in the same place as they used to be, so it also gives Credence to her lively and mischievous personality. She's somebody who's willing to fight for what she believes in and she cares a lot about Rum, and she's willing to do pretty much anything for her. Even going out of her way to dangerous situations together information for her and helping Emilio find out where the secret coffee was so that way they can swap the beans
With all of that in mind it's possible that Shirley & Rum could easily find a way to get back to that room a little bit at a time, and get small ounces of that coffee, because Shirley knows what that coffee can do to a Shadow's body, not only did she see it but that panel of Louise as a hulking monster yeah, not only is Lou trapped in her chest but Shirley is also trapped there too, because she put a listening device into Lou's ear so that way she could hear Ricky's voice, and break her out of the brainwashing. So she knows exactly what that coffee can do to a shadows body and she knows how to get in
If she finds a way to sneak into that room and get some of that coffee little by little they can slowly increase her body's stimulation, combine that with her soot power allowing her to transform into something by wearing the soot she admits, this could not only help her gain her human form back but also increase her soot volume, allowing her to keep her human form much longer or even permanently, but it would also help her get stronger and sneak around places that Rum can't get to because she's a veiled doll, like the normal living Doll rooms and even Kate's room allowing her to transform into other things and even gain the ability to copy other people's power (of course that's my personal theory)
Who knows one day she might go from the tiny adorable morph that we see her running around as back into the sassy mischievous young girl that we know she is maybe we can actually hear her speak more and it will be really cute to see her and rum doing this pose
I don't know just some room for thought what are you guys think of this theory
Here's my first Shadow house theory for context on Barbara
Small detail in Shadow house manga that I can't believe I missed
(spoilers)
Anyone who's read the Manga of Shadow's house knows that Anthony (AKA Christopher) killed off Maggie and Margaret and we all saw how he did it specifically with Maggie he slit her throat
Well in order to make it clear that Louise and Lou's unification failed, he used a fake body in order to make it look like they lost control and died however there's a small detail on the body that should have pointed me to the fact that this body was someone we've seen before
Despite the fact that the hair was curly just like Lou's hair it looked very similar to Lou, pay close attention to the zoom in shot of the living doll and you'll notice this doll has a cut on her neck
(Here's where the spoilers come in):
Anyone who's read the most recent chapters knows that Anthony has already admitted to using Maggie's body as the fake Lou's body in order to make it look like their unification was a failure, however that cut on the body was the smoking gun that should have made me realize that sooner after all he slit Maggie's throat and where else what he had gotten a fake body from even if he had made it why would they bring so much attention to that small detail
Because as the manga reveals it's not crafted body but rather a body of an actual child who died meaning that we all should have noticed this but it was such a small detail that we all overlooked it until it's revealed
I say the creator of shadows house is incredibly sneaky I like that
Tell me did any of you guys notice this before the reveal
Big Time spoilers for the most recent shadows house chapter so bear with me
If you're not ready to read this just yet then you know what to do go look at another post of mine or see something else that you find cool but if you are ready for the spoilers then go at your own risk
Everyone's talking about the big moment at the end of the chapter where we see Douglas and Doug not brainwashed
But everyone seems to be forgetting about some very important other characters who could change how the stories going to work moving forward
Louise and Lou are still somewhere inside the children's wing they never drank the coffee because they're currently recovering from what they went through during the chapter "Monster"
What about Rum she's a veiled doll meaning she never drank that awful coffee… will she be ok (also did she ever reunite with Shirley because the last time we saw those two it didn't look like it)
what about Barbara after she was rejected by Anthony she seemed to have been going through a mental spiral plus we never see Barbie's reaction to Christopher and by (proxy Anthony) pressuring Kate into being in a position she doesn't want to be in could be possible that she now is trying to help Kate there's a lot of possibilities that this new chapter has opened up to
One thing this chapter definitely acknowledged (which kind of scared me) was the fact that even if Kate can undo the brainwashing of her own teammates like she did before what's going to happen to them if she does
(to be honest this moment of the manga was my personal favorite because it acknowledges the risks of them breaking their brainwashing too quickly and we get to see all of our favorite characters together again in such a cute manner)
Oh and before I forget
Let's all remember that Mia and Sarah are still lurking around somewhere so be on the lookout for them too
Candy's an adult so she shouldn't be this affected by the coffee brainwashing abilities)
Oh this chapter is a whirlwind and it ended up complicating itself more than it needed to (which is fine if you want to keep the mystery element up I mean I don't mind it means more theories for me) all I recommend is to be careful with that cuz otherwise you might write yourself into a corner Shadow's house author