This Is Too Cute Even For Me

This is too cute even for me

Part 3 of ? - Runaways AU

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The first members of the family have arrived.  A/N Yeaaaaaah, this things has sort of grown a life of its own by this point. So it’s probably going to deviate slightly from the original AU post from here, but I hope you guys like where it goes regardless! 

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

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Shadow house theory

So I have an interesting theory that I don't think many people have actually taken into consideration, this one centers around our deer Blue

Shadow house theory

So I have an interesting theory that I don't think many people have actually taken into consideration, this one centers around our deer Blue Rose Mistress Barbara and her living doll Barbie.

Specifically Barbara herself and the amount of soot that she produces. Is it possible that what we're seeing in those moments or she's producing so much soot that it gives her a lot of pain is her having an emotional / mental breakdown

First things first what is an (emotional) mental breakdown (I'm sticking with mental but this can also apply to emotional breakdowns as well)

A period of severe emotional distress during which a person may feel paralyzed and entirely incapable of coping with challenges

Some of the symptoms of this may include (but are limited to):

Mental changes-

Depression

Emotional numbness

Loss of interest

Mood swings

Panic attacks

Sleep disruptions

Anxiety

Social withdrawal

No motivation

Paranoia

Personality changes-

Avoiding social events

Paranoia

Feeling hopeless and or helpless

Loss of interest

Physical changes-

Change in appetite

Exhaustion

Fatigue

Chest pain

Now let's go back and look at Barbara as a whole specifically how her character is presented to us and her relationships with some of the other characters

What do we know about Barbara explicitly well she-

Tends to get annoyed by things very quickly even for no reason sometimes

Has trust issues

Constantly comparing yourself to the previous starburst and everyone around her

Is constantly putting on a brave face when in reality she's nervous and terrified about everything she does

Says anything she does or tries to do will inevitably end up in failure and that it was all for nothing

Because of the way Barbie tends to look all the time she's seen as very hostile and someone you don't want to get too close to or piss off

Made it to where the star bearers didn't have to help in cleaning

Holds in a lot of her emotions

Has seizures which causes her immense pain as she releases her soot

Has no control over her soot expulsion

Is highly emotional like Kate

Used to be a lot like emilico

Her flower represents unacquainted love

Always puts her in the star bearers first even if it means hurting others in the children wing she supposed to be taking care of

Is easily manipulated

Doesn't realize that the cream she was given that was supposed to help Barbies scar heel is actually a poison

Is being used by Thomas as a living battery until she dies meaning she was never going to become an adult

And this is just the surface level stuff about this poor girl her relationships with others show what kind of person she used to be and is now

One of the first pieces of evidence to support the fact that she might be having mental breakdowns every time she releases her soot it's because of this manga panels from chapter 50

This panel reveals that because Barbara holds in all of her feelings about how she feels inadequate as a star-bearer, her fear and so many other things it, and how much it affects her soot at the same time.

We've seen time and time again that the shadows can only produce soot when they're feeling negative emotions, however one easy to overlook detail is the fact that depending on what influence they gain from their living doll it will determine their Emotional State

For example Matilda and Louise there both happy-go-lucky girls with very kind-hearted living dolls, therefore their soot quantity is much lower, than someone like John who because of the influence he received from his living doll which was Shaun's impulsiveness, he has a much higher quantity as he uses his emotions to make decisions. He's more intuition than he is brain.

Characters who have extremely low soot quantities usually have higher amounts of positive emotions we see that in both Shirley and Matilda they both have low soot quantities but they have some of the best personalities, they're kind-hearted, sweet, lively and mischievous

And considering the show and manga have made it clear that at one point Barbie and Barbara were a lot like Emilico and Kate it suddenly makes it clear why Barbara has so much soot coming out of her the only thing she was lacking was Kate's confidence.

(And remember before ever meeting Christopher and MaryRose she was always super emotional, but she had much better control over her emotions, something we see when MaryRose offers a hand to her and she thinks she's teasing her causing her anger to expel a lot of soot around her body, but not nearly to the point we see now in the story!)

And it would also explain why it's so painful for her it's a form of a seizure, because of her anxiety & social withdrawness, it ends up causing her to have a panic attack which is in the form of these seizures. Since her soot makes up around 60% of the power Shadow house produces in a day, it's incredibly painful for her to keep that all in. Which is another way of saying how it's incredibly painful for someone to keep all of their negative emotions in and have them explode at random points, which would also explain her mood swings, exhaustion, and her trying to avoid any sort of social activity with people she doesn't trust (which is a form of paranoia). All of this is because she's constantly bottling up her feelings and having them explode which many people can say (myself included) bottling up your negative feelings is exhausting

And the fact that she doesn't want anyone to see her in this state in her mind she doesn't want people to see how weak she is, (which is honestly heartbreaking) because it's basically her being the most vulnerable. That's why she lets Barbie insult her so much, it's so she can get rid of more of the soot, but it's also her way of basically acknowledging how she feels about herself. She truly believes every horrible thing Barbie says to her is true, she thinks that way and Barbie reciprocates those feelings to her face when she's in this state, which only makes it worse, (but both of them don't even realize this because their kids who haven't been taught anything about their own mental health). Plus this also explains the way Barbie behaves. The story at one point made it clear that she used to be a lot like Emilico standing up for people who were weaker than her making friends with people who were like Rum, but after Christopher left the adult wing and they were betrayed by Rosemary and MaryRose she completely changed how she behaved in order to match what she believed a strong face should look like and act like.

We even see the consequences of her explosive anger and unpredictable mood swings (and to be honest evidence of herself hatred)

Once she realizes that she can't do what she wants to do for the children's wing on her own after feeling betrayed by MaryRose and Christopher supposedly going to the adult wing she felt helpless which caused her to lose control of her emotions causing an extreme soot explosion injuring the one person who stood by her side trying to calm her down

This perfectly highlights how in a mental breakdown you end up accidentally hurting people close to you, and I honestly believe that this was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to herself hatred. It was already bad enough that everything else around her happened, but that was stuff she just couldn't control, but right here is where we see her lose control over her emotions and her soot, causing her to hurt the person dearest to her. You know for a fact she blames herself for this even if Barbie herself never told her how much this hurt her, tried to tell her it wasn't her fault, or even tried to dismiss the situation as a whole, Barbara probably blames herself because it was indeed her fault

(an interesting fact I just realized is that if Barbie really did try to tell Barbara that she doesn't mind that she hurt her because she knows it was an accident, "she didn't mean to hurt me" then that mentality is a lot like pink pearl (volleyball) in the sense that she's making excuses for why Barbara did what she, did but she's not acknowledging her own pain, she's not acknowledging the fact that she was badly hurt)

This panel from chapter 107 absolutely confirms the fact that not only does she bottle up her motions to a dangerous degree, but has feelings for someone she doesn't even know that he could be dead. She knew about unification before this, but she doesn't know that unifying with Barbie would mean she would lose her, and that's important because it shows just how desperate she is to see Christopher again. She's willing to put her own living doll's life on the line if it means seeing someone she doesn't even know is dead

She bottled her own feelings, pushing down her feelings of love she felt for Christopher and because she never once acted on those feelings they were told him before he went to the adult wing she had to carry on those feelings of love, betrayal, paranoia, fear and anxiety with her this whole time.

All she wanted was for comrade to be by her side someone she can look up to and admire someone who would be there for her but she kept on getting hurt because she opened up herself to somebody else.

But ironically enough the manga is giving us someone else that she doesn't even realize she's opening up to in the form of Patrick someone who could be the next person who could help her

(after all her Arc is all about finding someone that she can trust and love with her feelings without being hurt again, and his Arc is about finding a way to deal with his feelings of love while trying to protect people who are weaker than him. Both of their ark's work because she needs somebody to save herself from these dark feelings that she has, and he failed once to save somebody who was in love with him. Now with Barbara in a compromising position that she's in she could be the next person that comes his way, but this time unlike Margaret he could actually end up saving her, bringing both of their stories together. After all why would they make so many parallels between Emilico and what Barbie used to be if they weren't planning something big with this story)

So what do you guys think am I over analyzing this or do you think I might have a little bit of a point this is just me looking into this kind of stuff it broke my heart seeing Barbara and such a scary state in the more I thought about it the more it really did look like it was trying to call out the mental state of these kids

This is so beautiful and so sad it's almost as if each Rose in this story has some sort of tragic connection

The symbolism of flowers in Shadows House (part 10)

Master post with all the other topics

Barbara - the Blue Rose

Blue rose has been a fragmentation of the wishful, imaginative and free pieces of mind.

Blue roses are often used to symbolize mystery or attaining the impossible.

There are many meanings and symbols attached to roses. Each color signifies a meaning of emotion or love. The blue rose signifies True love, associated with the unattainable. A blue rose can mean unreachable or unrequited love. And there are some cultures who associate the blue rose with royal blood; regal majesty and splendor.

Given the fact that the blue rose is a result of fabrication, and not a true product of nature, it may also signify the power of being manipulative, though the true meaning is usually linked to something impossible to reach.

"The meaning of the blue rose could also be in sync with the quote which goes, “some doors should never be opened.”

I shit you not, i almost fell out of my chair when i read this

Master post with all the other topics

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

Now this is the Au I much prefer Gregory just being a normal kid with normal friends can we not have one nice thing for this child give me a break

The mutual friends.. Both have to put up with greg