Shadows House - Tumblr Posts
ᰍ 🎀 EMILICO (SHADOWS HOUSE) 𓂃 L4Y0UTS !
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I love this (they're my favorite)
Rum is the Yarrow
Shirley is the Conium
The symbolism of flowers in Shadows House (part 4)
Master post with all the other topics
Shirley and Ram - the White Yarrow
I found it based on the flowers around the trap that Shirley was put in (more on that later). They look roughly the same as her hairpin.
Yarrow is a beautiful flower that shares twin meanings of healing and love. In the language of flowers, Yarrow's symbolic meaning is traditionally associated with healing which originates from Ancient Greek mythology. The Yarrow plant is also used for divination in Chinese culture.
In some contexts, yarrows are regarded as a cure for a broken heart.
Yarrow represents bravery, especially during war. It’s also thought that wearing the bloom will provide protection and courage.
A Representation of Psychic Powers – Yarrows are said to have mystic powers, so they are also regarded as a symbol of magic. Apart from exorcism, they’re also associated with spells, incantations and animal communications. The bloom is also called snake’s grass, devil’s nettle, death flower, and bad man’s plaything.
Doesn't this sound a lot like both Ram and Shirley? Especially with what we know now about them and their relationship.
But what about the trap?
Yarrow can be confused with the poisonous Conium maculatum.
Master post with all the other topics
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
Mermaids baby
(are they fused with their shadows or is this them without their shadows I'll let you decide)
Our own little aquarium
Gave them their og colors back bc they look pretty snazzy with them
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
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
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)
Considering she's also from Mirrorside and she's incredibly sweet to Rum after she helped them create that map could you really put it past me for shipping Mistress Matilda or Maddie over here with our darling veil doll I mean come on
She actively wants to be friends with Rum even though she doesn't know her name look at this panel and tell me if I'm wrong about shipping these two it would just be the cutest thing ever she's a lot like Emilico so that just makes things even better
this, this is why i love her
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
If you also consider the fact that they're both veiled dolls in the story, and he's talked to her but doesn't realize that her Shadow mistress is still alive just like how no one realized his shadow master was still alive the parallels are even more convincing.
(if the story does a 180 and say that these two were somehow siblings and she just forgot about him at one point, or that they knew each other before he went to the manor back when they were in the village I'm going to flip my lid mainly because of the reason below)
every time these two are in the same vicinity as each other I'm terrified he might hurt her, considering it is confirmed he's killed a child (Maggie) before so anytime I see him with her all I can think is
"stay away from her you monster"
not sure what the point of this post is BUT christopher and anthony's hair really reminds me of shirley and rum
the parallels
FINALLY SOMEBODY GETS ME
It's emiram!!!
Pride month is over, but who cares, it's always a good time for them <3
(I'm always late,,,we're not gonna talk abt how much time I've spent on this,, or the body proportions,,,,and ESPECIALLY not talking about that corny ass bg,,, I'm so tired)
white background version:
happy month (belated)
also, shout-out to me for giving emilico two left hands and only noticing it hours after I've finished painting 👍
I find it funny that edward asks aileen to calm down, that they should think realistically, but in the end, from their company, i think he is the one who sometimes does some rash things (filler in the anime, how ed told barbara about chris' death)
i remember while reading chapter 152 i joked that when aileen or gerald aren't around, edward starts doing random, stupid shit, but, actually, i really like that idea? I mean, edward is the type of character who's able to make some sorts of decisions without thinking, he's not absolutely hotheaded ofc, but aileen and gerald are calmer for sure (gerald yes, aileen, judging by her offer to kill thomas, relatively huh)
i just like to headcanon, that if these two see that edward is about to throw something crazy without thinking twice, they will immediately stop him, like, "chill out bro😶🫵"