#shadow meta

[etaleah]

I’ve been thinking a lot about Shadow’s characterizations in the Project: Shadow fan film, SA2, Archie, Heroes, ‘06, Prime, and Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog and why they’re all considered among the best. And I’ve been thinking about his characterizations in IDW and Boom, how they’re considered among the worst, and how much they clash with the other portrayals. I think I’ve hit upon the number one quality that Shadow needs to have to be written well.

Loyalty.

I’ll explain below the cut.

The best Shadow is one who is loyal to someone or something. Maybe he’s not always loyal to the right someone or something, but he is loyal nonetheless. It’s a core part of his character. He is ride or die to the very end for whatever friend or cause he cares about. Shadow is always ready to kill or be killed for whatever or whoever matters to him most; it’s what sets him apart from the others. The others have limits on their loyalty. Sonic will help you out, but he’s not gonna kill a man for you. Shadow will. He doesn’t have that limit. If you are Shadow’s friend and you need him to kill for you, he will do it. Period.

Here’s a recap of Shadow’s loyalty:

In SA2 and the fan film, it’s to Maria, and to a lesser extent, Gerald.

In Heroes and ‘06, it’s to Team Dark.

In Archie, it’s to Team Dark, Hope Kintobor, and Commander Tower. Sometimes it’s even to his own values like when he goes against Rouge to help Blaze in Treasure Team Tango.

In Sonic X, it’s to Maria and later Molly. Maybe even to the universe, given that he’s ready to kill Cosmo to save it.

In Prime, it’s to Green Hill. And later on, Shadow is also loyal to Sonic despite the latter driving him crazy.

In Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, it’s to Amy.

And in his own game, Shadow can be loyal to Maria, Sonic and friends, Eggman (up to a point), Black Doom, or even Earth itself. Not all of those folks are worth his loyalty, but the fact is that Shadow still cares about fighting by their side. That key element of his personality remains.

And that’s what’s missing in Boom and IDW. Because in those, he isn’t loyal to anything. He isn’t ride or die for anyone. At least, not that we can tell. When you remove Shadow’s faithfulness to those he loves, you remove a lot of what makes him who he is and all that’s left is an edgy aesthetic that soon wears out its welcome because there isn’t anything to supplement it. And this is made worse by the fact that they’re never allowed to bring up or expand his backstory, so they can’t ever talk about why he’s like this.

I guess you could make the argument that Shadow is loyal to the world in IDW since he helps save it a few times, but he’s so mean and heartless to everyone in the world that it feels less like he’s fighting to protect other people and more like he’s just trying to save his own house so he still has a place to live. I mean, if he won’t help Rouge when she’s been kidnapped by Starline and he won’t help Omega when the latter has been smashed to bits and he won’t help the Chao get out of their cage and he actually has to be talked into saving a village from an avalanche and he seems to really dislike/be annoyed by everyone he comes into contact with…what exactly is he saving the Earth for?? It can’t be for the people living in it. He hates them. He doesn’t care if they need his help. So the only conclusion I can draw is that he’s just doing it to save his own skin. The only person Shadow shows even the slightest bit of loyalty to is himself.

And that makes him unrecognizable from the Shadow we know and love.

His loyalty is his greatest virtue, even when it’s misguided. Let him keep it.

#sth #shadow the hedgehog #shadow meta #my thoughts #sonic the hedgehog #maria robotnik #space colony ark #sonic games #sonic comics #sonic idw #sonic archie #sonic prime #sonic 06 #team dark #project: shadow fan film

[wen-kexing-apologist]

SHADOW THE SERIES!!

ALRIGHT Y’ALL I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY BINGED ALL SEVEN EPISODES OF SHADOW (2023) THAT HAVE CURRENTLY BEEN RELEASED AND MY BRAIN IS GOING A MILE A FUCKING MINUTE. I HAVE ABOUT 25 THEORIES ALL BOUNCING AROUND IN HERE, ALL OF WHICH ARE PROBABLY WRONG. 

Thank God for @so-much-yet-to-learn deciding not to watch this, meaning he can’t be spoiled and I can spam his DMs with all the twists, and turns.

I literally do not think at this point, even seven episodes in I can really write analysis of the show. I’m almost certainly going to rewatch this, and maybe that will inspire conversations around lighting, and blocking, and use of reflection but for now, I am just going to talk about some of the things I have been noticing and some paths I see those threads taking. 

First of all, in a ghost story, I do not think that I am actually putting too much weight on the use of Hamlet as a play in this story. However, I will admit upfront that I am very potentially putting too much weight on the Greek mythology (River Styx, and Orpheus and Eurydice) that were referenced in, I think like…episode 1 or 2. 

gif by @pharawee

But, what can you expect when some of the first supernatural happenings we get is Dan waking up on a boat in the middle of a body of water (River Styx)? This does not hold consistently, but there is a trend I have been noticing, of following. It has been making me think of Orpheus and Eurydice, that Orpheus is supposed to guide his lover out of the underworld, and back to the land of the living, but he cannot turn to look behind him. He has to trust that Eurydice is there, following behind him. 

And I have been noticing some point in the show where following behind and not turning back to look have been particularly relevant. In Episode 6, Dan sees a reflection of Trin in the bathroom mirror. Trin is technically behind Dan, but the second that Dan turns to look? Trin is gone. When Dan looks away, he sees a reflection in the mirror of Trin leaving the bathroom, and he follows behind Trin all the way to the funhouse. 

This scene had some particularly striking and beautiful uses of mirrors and reflections. Namely that we see Trin, walking, and Dan following far behind in a number of mirrors. But every time a mirror appears Dan stops for a moment to look at himself. At this point, Trin has continued moving (in fact Trin never stops moving) and we see Dan completely alone in the mirror. What does this have to do with anything? What is the show trying to say about what purpose Trin, the shadow, the visions Dan have serve? Not sure yet! But it’s fucking fascinating. 

Hamlet, of course, is an obvious choice of story for a boy that can see ghosts, especially because Dan sees the ghost of his father at some point(s) in the show. Especially because there is a recurring theme/motif of drowning in this show. We have multiple boys who are haunted, both Dan and Nai being able to see ghosts, we have Dan who harbors anger in his heart for the way his father abused the family, we have a boy who went missing, last seen by the lake and whose ghost consistently appears waterlogged. We have a shadow that grabs Dan by the ankle and tries to keep him below water, we have a moment where Dan sees Trin’s lifeless body floating in a pool. Where are they going with this? I don’t know! And I want to find out. 

photo from @sparklyeyedhimbo

I have thoughts about water and it’s relation to baptism, that these boys are attending a Catholic school, that Dan is constantly pushing back against the way the school functions and the beliefs that Brother Anurak holds. I am so fascinated by the fact that Catholic priest Brother Anurak cannot confirm the existence of spirits, (when Dan has been haunted by this shadow for almost a decade of his life), and that he turns to Buddhism, and a venerable monk to help him navigate the moments where he slips between reality and dreams. 

I am fascinated by the fact that the Shadow we see gets progressively less scary, at least to me, as time goes on. This is an entity that has been following Dan from the time he was seven. When he was a child, at his mother’s funeral he called this Shadow his friend when he was talking to Brother Anurak.  

This may seem tangential, but, about a year or two ago, I played a little indie video came called Gone Home. The premise is that you arrive back to your childhood home, unannounced only to find that no one in your family is home, they have vanished without a trace, and all that remains are these letters your sister left. When I started playing this game, I was tense, I thought perhaps the house was haunted, perhaps my family had been killed and a murderer was about to pop out from around a corner. But as the story unfolds, as you read more letters from your sister, you realize that she’s queer, she’s telling you a story of why she has left, she has gone to reunite with her girlfriend. And I cannot explain the level of safety and comfort that washed over me the second I realized this was a queer story. 

In some ways that is what this Shadow feels like to me. At first it is scary, it is set up to be, it creeps up, background music builds tension, creates jumpscares of sorts, the shadow is what keeps nearly drowning Dan. But as the episodes continue, the shadow doesn’t do that anymore, Dan turns around and hugs the Shadow, and it takes him to his father (who is a massive fucking asshole to be fair).

gif by @pharawee

In Episode 6 or 7, Dan is dreaming of one of the few peaceful and happy memories he has of childhood, and the Shadow rests it’s incorporeal hands on his shoulders, almost familiar and comforting, and Dan talks to it. Dan asks it if he can stay there a little longer, and the Shadow lets him. And for me this begs the question, what is the Shadow? Is the Shadow one entity, or multiple? Are the different interactions with the Shadow meant to signify Dan is interacting with multiple different people? Is the Shadow a spirit, or a manifestation of something else: grief, anger, pain? Did Dan die/is Dan dead?

We see two instances of almost sexual acts performed by the Shadow on Dan. Once happens in a dream, and within the dream Dan is conscious. But he wakes up the next morning wet and covered in scratch marks. The second time, Dan is unconscious, but the Shadow appears in the real world, not the dream world (as far as we can tell) and starts pulling up Dan’s shirt, leans in close, so that they are almost mouth to Shadow…mouth? Both times, there is some form of pleasure on Dan’s face, but both times Dan is technically unconscious, and not really able to give consent. 

Is Dan supposed to be enjoying these moments? If so, are they coming from a lover of his, either one from the past or are we perpetuating circles of time where Dan is retroactively being haunted by someone he loves and loses in the future? I don’t know about you all, and personally I don’t want every story that involved Catholicism to focus on the known history of pedophilia within the Catholic church, but…

gif from @pharawee

Dan has been seeing the Shadow since after he was shot accidentally by his mother and she had a mental breakdown, but this is around the same time that Brother Anurak, Catholic Priest, Brother Anurak enters the picture. And Dan says that the Shadow has been getting stronger since he started at this boarding school where Brother Anurak is a teacher. Could the Shadow be a metaphor for childhood sexual assault trauma that Dan cannot remember, or does not want to face? Possibly. Brother Anurak has seemed a little bit suspicious in the show thus far, (not wholly in the like, “possibly a pedophile” way to be clear, just in the “this dude almost certainly knows more about this student’s disappearance than he is letting on” kind of way). 

Then again, according to the precisely thirty seconds of google searching on name meanings I did, Anurak as a name apparently means “the one who takes care” or “male angel”. I would love someone who is not me and has an actual understanding of the Thai language to correct me if I am wrong. (@recentadultburnout or @lurkingteapot are either of you watching this show? If so, would you be willing to discuss name meanings for Shadow the series? Obviously, no pressure or obligation). 

ANYWAY, the Shadow does not really seem like all too much of an antagonistic force at this point, more of a neutral or potentially positive force, so again, I have 25 different theories that are all possibly wrong, and this is one of them. 

Other theories about the Shadow: Dan started seeing it after almost dying of a gunshot wound, it’s just like the manifestation of death and Dan has been running from it for awhile, it is a manifestation of the people Dan cares about in his life, it is actively trying to possess Dan and keeps getting interrupted, it is a spiritual guide that is supposed to lead Dan towards helping other spirits find justice and peace. It’s a physical manifestation of queerness. Like seriously, I could probably go on all day. 

And actually, queerness is something I do want to talk about while I am here. Because this show is certainly not shying away from homophobia.

gif by @pharawee

Nai has suffered for revealing his crush on Anan the previous year, he is still suffering for it. It did not escape my notice that the only known queer kid at an all-boys Catholic boarding school does not have a roommate. Nai is pretty much always alone, until Dan shows up, and Nai is warned by his teacher to stay away from Dan to make sure “Dan stays out of trouble”. Ever time that Dan and Nai are seen walking together, touch each other casually, exit a room together, they are called a slur. Nai tries to tell Dan to stay away from him so that Dan isn’t condemning himself to the life of a social pariah. We get one good Token Straight Friend in Josh. We learn that Trin was queer, and Trin was friends with Nai, and now Trin has disappeared. 

The queer kid(s) or the kids associated with the queer kid are the only people getting beaten up at this school, and the actor that plays dickbag Anan is truly committing to the bit, because the (fake) punches he delivers look like they got some force to them. 

I was actually just chatting with @so-much-yet-to-learn and as I was writing out the sentence “what if the Shadow is a physical manifestation of queerness?” he wrote “ooh, so Nai sees them as human figures whereas Dan sees his as a shadow commentary on how aware they are of their sexuality, maybe?” Dan does see Trin in full form, so I am not sure how much this does track, but it is at least worth acknowledging that Nai is aware of his queerness, has been outed, is The Known Queer at school, and has a very visibly obvious crush on Dan. Meanwhile, Dan reads queer (to me), some of the things he says, the way he laughed at Josh asking him if he liked Cha-aim, the fact that he sticks with Nai, make me think he is aware of his queerness. But, we as the audience have not actually gotten any explicit confirmation that Dan is queer or aware of his queerness. 

photo from @blmpff

However, it is worth noting the physical ghost that Dan is able to see is Trin, another queer boy, (who everyone at school knew was queer because they knew he had a crush on his male theater teacher) and then some random boy that we have never seen before that he, once again, only sees in a mirror. But in Episode 7, Dan has lost this grounding stone, and the line between reality and dreams is constantly blurring. In Episode 7, Dan dreams of a near empty place, the only thing on the floor are drawings of a boxer, a naval ship, a sailor. He sees a man with one arm missing, the remainder of the limb bandaged and bleeding, he sees a man (again, only from behind) handcuffed to a table, behind bars, reading a letter by candlelight, he sees a man tied to a post, blindfolded and about to be executed, once again facing away, back turned to a firing squad. 

Dan finds out like, practically the next day about the local legend of the One Armed Man, who was a boxer, joined the navy, lost his arm, sold himself to homosexual millionaires, and got arrested for selling drugs to party goers who ended up dying of drug overdoses. You know who else has currently been associated with a narcotics related drug overdose?

Trin. 

The missing, queer boy who was trying to break tradition, and bring progress to his school. 

Trin, the missing queer boy who has hallucinations. Hallucinations like… 

Dead bodies. 

You know who else saw dead bodies in the most recent episodes?

Dan. 

photos from @sparklyeyedhimbo

I don’t know where I am going with this beyond the fact that Trin is established to have bipolar disorder, for which was on medication. In flashback he is shown stating that he wants to get off his medication, we are told in the present that he had stopped taking his medication, and that instead he was treating his bipolar with narcotics, and that he had smoked week the night of his disappearance. It is at this point I would like to say, this show would be absolutely fucking based if they actually gave Trin bipolar disorder, and then had the adults that are suspicious and clearly hiding something, weaponize the stigma against his mental health disorder to try to discredit whatever Trin was trying to do, as well as distance themselves from any potential suspicion around their level of involvement in Trin’s disappearance. (This is not to say this is behavior I support irl, it is to say that it would be excellent commentary around how someone’s mental health can be weaponized against them in truly terrible ways)

So by my count we have two instances of drug overdose mentions from two separate people and stories (Trin’s disappearance and the One Armed Man), and two instances of “hallucinations” of seeing dead people (Trin’s vision he discusses in an audio recording and Dan’s vision in art class). These are not enough data points to say they are definitively doing something with this, but it is just something I am noting. 

Another theory that @so-much-yet-to-learn floated in conversation with me was the idea that the boys that were being haunted were ones who were breaking the status quo in some way. Trin was trying to do away with hazing at school and was called in to the administrator’s office multiple times and told to change his student president campaign policies, Nai is currently the only known queer at school, and Dan does not engage in anything even resembling filial piety. (Again, his dad is a Grade A Major Fucking Asshole).

photos from @sparklyeyedhimbo

Where am I going with this? I don’t know! Maybe nowhere! Again, my brain is going BRRRRRRR and I am just rapidly cycling through a thousand unformed theories. God, I just want to know what happened, I want to know what everyone knows, I want to know what the fuck is up with Anan and the teacher he is fucking and their involvement in all of this, I wanna know why the fuck he is as reactive as he is (like he literally almost strangled Dan to the point of unconsciousness at the end of Episode 7), Anan and HIS TEACHER keep making references to Trin, to “the nurses other daughter”, throwing suspicion on Dan about knowing about them. I want to know how they are involved in all of this. 

I JUST WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS HAPPENING, I CAN SEE A MILLION DIFFERENT OUTCOMES, I AM HAVING A GREAT TIME AND I FUCKING HOPE THIS SHOW CAN STICK THE LANDING BECAUSE I AM ENJOYING IT SO MUCH.

#shadow #shadow the series #singto prachaya #fluke natouch #thai bl #gagaoolala #shadow meta #shadow analysis #shadow the series meta #shadow the series analysis #brain dump #i need the rest of this show immediately

[lunapegasus]

I said this on discord but I wanna share it here

There's a lot of jokes about how everyone thinks their characterization of Shadow is the CorrectTM version of him and everyone else is wrong. And yeah that is amusing but I think it's really cool actually

Shadow is a fan favorite (2nd most popular character as joked by boom eggman) because of how versatile he's become as a character. He's had a million different characterizations in canon, so much that it's practically impossible to write him incorrectly. He's been everything which means he can be anything you want him to be. Shadow's a great character because he's allowed to be unique to everyone, he can always be exactly what each person wants/needs him to be. No matter what he's like and how he's written, he'll always be loved.

#I fucking love him sm I'm having a moment #why must we fight over how he's written. we can do whatever we want forever and that's beautiful #shadow the hedgehog #sth #sonic #blambles #shadow meta

[shannankle]

Shadow Meta Series Post #1: Clocks and Masculinity in Shadow

This is the first post in my Shadow meta series on technology, time, and horror. You can check out my introduction and plan for that in this post!

Let's start the first post off by looking at clocks, clocks, clocks and a dose of toxic masculinity!

When Dan first arrives at the school in the first episode, he enters the school with brother Anurak. The transition is marked by a shot of the school: a clock above writing that simply says “school building”

This immediately signals that Dan is entering a space where time and temporality will be thematically relevant.

The question is: what role is time playing here?

Is this simply a visual hint of how Dan and the audience will experience the slipping of time throughout the story? Or is it doing more?

My initial hypothesis was that clocks would be a visual marker for when we would either get a flashback or have Dan jumping around in time. However, while this pattern didn’t pan out entirely, there was a particular episode where this was absolutely the case. 

So let’s jump in! I’ll go over a few things I noticed and then do a reading of episode 4 in particular.

Places where we see clocks:

The face of the school building

It’s shown in episode 1 as a transition shot when Dan arrives

The lower half is shown as a transition shot after Dan’s first dream post losing his ring in episode 

Later in episode 7 we get a full close up just before we see the students watch Anan and his father. This is right before the scene in the art classroom. 

2. There’s a clock in Dan and Josh’s dorm

This would make sense as a symbol of atemporality since much of Dan’s dreaming takes place here. But it’s not always visually shown. It shows up more frequently when Josh is in the scene, and is on his side of the room divided by the line on the wall 

3. Anurak’s office

There are at least two clocks in his office.

4. Joe’s office/instructors' office (there’s more than one desk so I’m assuming the latter)

5. The headmaster’s office

It doesn’t show up in early episodes, but it does show up later (it can be seen when Dan and Anan are called in)

6. The infirmary

We don’t see it in every scene, but it is present when Nai and Dan first chat about homophobia and Nai’s past

7. Throughout episode 4

The hospital room where Dan’s father stays

Dan’s home in his flashbacks has multiple clocks 

Dan’s dad almost always wears a wrist watch

Other Notes:

I was expecting to find a clock in the art room where reality and dream slip for Dan. Like a few other moments, Dan’s and our sense of time is also being played with in the scene. But no clock! I’ll return to why I think this might be after going over episode 4

Nowhere did I see a digital clock. Every clock in the show (at least that I noticed) is analog! For context, digital wrist watches have been on the market since the 1970s and radio alarm clocks with mechanical-digital displays were available by the late 1960s.

Episode 4: Chess

While my theory that clocks would signal temporal shifts and flashbacks didn’t consistently pan out on the whole, it did do so in one particular episode. In episode 4, we have Dan navigating his relationship with his father. Every time we jump between present and past there is a clock to be found. 

Our flashback journey starts with Dan falling asleep in his dorm. We get a shot of the room in this scene that fully shows the clock on the wall. Instead of a dream, we move to a flashback of Dan’s father in the hospital. His hospital room is shown with a clock.

After this point, most of the flashbacks occur between scenes in the present that take place in or nearby this hospital room, even if the clock is not shown in every scene. 

Within the flashbacks, there is always at least one clock (with a particular exception I'll explore as well)

The first flashback shows us Dan’s parents fighting. Both his mom and dad have wrist watches on in this scene. While his mom never wears one after this, his dad continually wears his.  

In the next scene we can see Dan's dad has his watch when they visit his mom. He hesitates to comfort Dan raising his left hand but not actually placing it on Dan's shoulder.

Next we see Dan’s mom and Anurak talking in the hospital. There’s no clock…yet! Dan and his father enter, and Dan’s dad has his wrist watch on. Time and Dan’s dad enter together as an impending threat in this scene. 

With this in mind, I’d argue that clocks/watches, at least within this episode symbolize patriarchal violence and toxic masculinity. Or perhaps even the violence of heteronormative time (see my previous post about hamlet and queer time here). 

In the following flashbacks we see the build up to his mother’s suicide. In addition to the dad’s wrist watch, we also get a number of clocks showing up in these scenes. When Dan’s dad confronts his mom about her letter with Anurak, there is a wooden clock set behind the desk. As Dan and his mother eat breakfast we can see a clock next to the kitchen. And finally when Dan finds his mother, there is a clock set on the wall next to the stairwell. 

It’s as if the clocks are bearing down on her, a constant presence like the abuse she faces. In this way she is forced to escape time and patriarchal abuse through death, much like Dan begins to escape through his dreams and the shadow. 

In the next flashback we have his mother’s funeral. Once again Dan’s father has his watch on. However, Dan chooses to go outside, to leave this temporal space, and this is when he meets Anurak again. Their discussion is free of clocks/watches, much like the scene between Anurak and Dan’s mom before his father arrived. 

Given that Anurak is surrounded by multiple clocks in the present, it’s hard to get a sense of what this might be doing outside of episode 4. But within it, Anurak continues to be unmarked by time. Perhaps this signals his relationship with Dan at the time which was one of safety and refuge from his father’s violence. Or perhaps, if we read him as the one armed man (see @wen-kexing-apologist 's big brained post on this theory here) it's a mark of how he falls outside of the traditionally masculine through his queerness and disability. The left arm is where wrist watches are traditionally worn after all, and it is the left hand that Dan's father raises to hit his mother. If Anurak is the one armed man, he can’t signal masculinity in this way. Perhaps too, the fact that Anurak has clocks in the present suggests his changed relationship with Dan, from one of safety and escape to one of conformity and confinement. 

The connection between patriarchal abuse and clocks is brought home in the following scenes as Dan and father return home. The transition to them in the dining room directly focuses on the dad’s watch first. We don't see it, but we know from earlier scenes that the kitchen has a clock as well. All of this is framing Dan’s return to a space dominated by his father and his abuse. And this culminates in Dan’s father forcing him to eat food he’s allergic to.  

As the flashbacks wrap up, we get Dan in his bed having a shadow nightmare. It’s hard to tell 100% but it does look like there’s a clock on his night stand. When he sees the shadow he runs to the hallway calling for his dad. His dad doesn’t answer, and like his absence there are no clocks in these shots at all. And it is here that Anurak enters and offers Dan a sense of safety, a space of comfort outside of his father’s abuse and outside of time. 

At this point the flashbacks are over. In the present Dan slips into a dream where he’s able to talk with his father. They discuss abuse and Dan’s dad makes it clear how he views masculinity in a rigid and toxic way. Throughout most of their conversation, his dad’s left wrist is hidden. That is, until Dan flips the table. The watch’s presence becomes visible again at the moment Dan loses control of the space. This culminates in Dan beating his father, who, to Dan’s horror, suggests he grew up just like him. In this moment time symbolizes not just his father’s abuse, but the possibility and horror in the idea that such patriarchal violence will be internalized and passed on to the next generation. 

Concluding thoughts:

While clocks in episode 4 are used to visually mark shifts in time, they also come symbolize patriarchal violence and the oppressiveness Dan and his mother felt living with his father. We might consider then the role of other clocks in the show as perhaps an extension of this symbolism rather than a marker of moments where time will blur. The school itself is framed by a clock, and it is certainly a space where Dan, Nai, and Trin all experienced heteronormative violence. Even in spaces like the infirmary where Dan and Nai open up to one another in a way counter to this framework, the clock hovers over the space. 

With this in mind, I want to return to the art classroom. In episodes 1-7 this is probably one of the most striking moments where reality blurs for Dan. It’s also a moment where his sense of time is played with (notice how he jumps back to reality before even speaking with Nai, more on this scene here and here). Yet there’s no clock to be seen in the room. This is in contrast to two scenes earlier when we are given a full close up of the school clock. 

This might be a pre-emptive reading, but I would put forth the idea that Dan and the show are offering up a queerer avenue to time. Dan, Nai, and Trin all experience the supernatural in ways that transcend linear time. Through haunting and the blurring of a sense of time the show is working to explore the tension between queerness and heteronormative violence. The school clock looms, but Dan still enters a space in the art classroom and through his waking dream that can’t quite be contained. 

I talk a bit about this in my post on hamlet and queer time, but there's a lot more to be said from a Thai context. In her book Ghostly Desires, Arnika Fuhrmann discusses the way some contemporary Thai cinema has used haunting as a way to forge a space at the moment of death where desire, particularly queer desire, can operate. This lies in contrast to the time of the nation and the time of capital which flatten time in order to shore up ideas of national identity and sexual normativity. It’s all quite a bit more nuanced than I’ve put here. I plan to write a much longer post exploring this dynamic in Shadow through discussions of horror films and the context of changes in Thailand in the late 90s and aughts. Coming soon!

#shadow the series #shadow #shadow the series meta #my posts #my meta #shadow meta series #shadow meta series post 1 #shadow meta

[0rb0t]

"Seeing Shadow go from edgy loner to edgy friend is so cool"

But see, this is even better because Shadow used to be edgy friend back in The Day ™. Then in the 2010s SEGA leaned into all the memes of Edgehog and had the audacity to say that this character hated everyone, had NO friends, and was actively antagonistic towards everyone. We're seeing that being slowly undone, and boy, am I here for it!

My favorite depiction of Shadow is how he was in 06, because he was the "edgy" friend. Maybe more serious, maybe more likely to make the cold decisions, but he definitely cares. I don't even think edgy is the right word for it. But he cares, he's just got resting bitch face. And because he does, because he's more serious, because he's black and red (the hot topic colors), his intentions are always misread.

I'm really so happy to see Shadow being written better. He deserves it. This guy is a sweetie. He used to be my favorite character until SEGA engaged in character defamation, but that could be healing!!! 💕

I just hope his characterization can be saved in the comics. Baby steps...

(I wouldn't have minded Shadow turning darker for the last decade if there had been an explanation in lore. Like if something had happened that made Shadow go down a darker path. Maybe a falling out with someone? I notice Omega isn't really included these days, but he's around in the comics, so I'm not sure... But it just happened out of nowhere and was very disheartening to watch.)

#sonic meta #analysis #shadow the hedgehog #shadow meta #character meta

[sansaissteel]

The whole shadow face is danys lover post came across my feed. So let's look!

A shadow fell across his face - Tyrion agot

I mean Tyrion and her could marry.

And your outriders?" Ser Gregor Clegane's face might have been hewn from rock. The fire in the hearth gave a somber orange cast to his skin and put deep shadows in the hollows of his eyes. "They saw nothing? They gave you no warning?" - Tyrion agot

👀😬 oh no not him!

They lay like a blue-black shadow across his square jaw and the bony hollows of his cheeks.- Prologue acok 😆 yikes stannis he does have targ blood

All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye. -Jon acok 🤣 he doesn't have a shadow face here he is the shadow.

When he swept it over Tyrion's shoulders it enveloped him head to heel, with a cowl that could be pulled forward to drown his face in shadows. " - Tyrion acok

her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow. - Dany asos

Are you sure about a shadow face lover?

hood shadowed his face. -sam asos

Benjen would be kinda ew now.

Edric donned a thick hooded cloak of undyed wool. Maester Pylos helped him fasten it, and pulled the hood up to shadow his face. "Are you coming with us, Maester?" the boy asked. - Davos asos

Too young, but ya never know with grrm.

The Stranger in the shadows, his half-human face - Jaime affc

Death itself.. 🤔 maybe

Mounted in solemn sable ranks with tall spears in hand, they had drawn up their hoods to shadow their faces … and hide the fact that so many were greybeards and green boys. The free folk feared the Watch. Jon wanted them to take that fear with them to their new homes south of the Wall. -Jon adwd

Fear is the purpose of the shadows here.

Jon Snow. His long face floated before her, limned in tongues of red and orange, appearing and disappearing again, a shadow half-seen behind a fluttering curtain - adwd Melisandre

Hidden is he? I wonder why he's hiding...

A shadow rippled across his face.

The tumult and the shouting died. Ten thousand voices stilled. Every eye turned skyward. A warm wind brushed Dany's cheeks, and above the beating of her heart she heard the sound of wings. Two spearmen dashed for shelter. The pitmaster froze where he stood. The boar went snuffling back to Barsena. Strong Belwas gave a moan, stumbled from his seat, and fell to his knees. - Dany adwd

Last but not least a shadow face then hundreds of not thousands due at the pit thanks to drogon

#shadow meta #shadows seem scary #ill stick to building castles #and singing sweetly

[cordeliavenable]

i knew they changed guillermo’s title card a bunch of times in s4 so i was curious what titles he has had - this is all of them! (this is only for s1-s4 because they haven’t shown titles in s5 - just names)

season one

season two

season three

season four

#wwdits #what we do in the shadows #guillermo de la cruz #wwdits meta

[superemeralds]

something i can’t stop obsessing about is how shadow criticizes and belittles sonic for treating everything like a game, for not taking things seriously, for acting without thinking, or for thinking all the wrong things and acting accordingly.

BUT.

shadow is a player just like sonic. all the fighting they did, shadow got a lot of amusement out of it. it‘s the most expressive we see him EVER and it’s because he knows he’s winning. he loves winning.

im just. ough. they are just such mirrors. such. two sides of the same coin.

sonic plays because it’s fun to play. he loves the unknown, he loves not knowing what comes next and he loves being surprised and the challenge of having to adapt. he plays to experience the game.

shadow plays because he wants to win. he loves being superior, he loves knowing what comes next and most of all if what comes next is his victory and/or his opponents failure(s). he plays to win, and to win only. if there’s no way to win, to be crowned superior, then he’s not interested in the game. however, the game also needs to be challenging, which is why he loves fighting sonic. sonic is a challenge to be overcome and he gets a kick out of the slight uncertainty if he might not be able to win, but at the same time, wining against sonic is such a great accomplishment he relishes the challenge in their fights.

that is why hes smiling and smirking and posing and doing stupid jokes at sonic. he’s mocking him and flaunting his superiority. he could’ve been done with him faster, maybe, but it’s fun to play; and to rub his superiority into the fakers face (literally. he used sonic as a fucking surfboard on the ground. face down.).

because if he doesn’t do that, then what is he? the average life form? the normal hedgehog?

#meta/ shadow #i didn't use this in ages man. #sonic prime

[rollingdanielle]

There are a lot of similarities between Shadow the Hedgehog and Meta Knight. But one key difference is that while Shadow has a dark backstory to brood about, Meta Knight is just Like That.

#not saying one is better than the other #but its funny that meta knight seems to just be the way he is for no reason #meta knight #shadow the hedgehog

[sixofcrowdaydreams]

When the Crows are at the breakfast diner in season 2, episode 2, Nina pulls her stunt shocking all of them by going to the waitress and saying, "Excuse me, but I have a delivery and I can't read the directions."

All of them -- Kaz, Jesper, Inej, and Wylan -- are floored by her brilliant plan that immediately finds the room they need.

But think about what Wylan just heard. She admitted that she went up to total stranger and told them she couldn't read something. She asked for help reading (even though she really can read and it was a act). To Wylan, that had to have been one of the most shameful, taboo things he could ever do. Yet she did it without hesitation, without fear. And someone just ... helped her?!

Imagine how mind blowing that must have been to Wylan. No wonder he spends the scene staring at her.

#wylan van eck #nina zenik #shadow and bone #meta #six of crows

[ineffably-human]

Nadja's doll can move on her own, and assert herself sexually. Laszlo can stand in the light of the sun for the first time in centuries. Nandor can push himself to his physical limits, while admitting to the softer and more vulnerable reason he wants to do it.

(Colin can both be desired and have a sexual encounter as fucked up as his freaky little heart wants it to be. Honestly, I didn't think I'd say it, but good for him?)

Something something Pride being associated with joyous movement, with power, with authenticity, with freedom.

And Guillermo gets to be flirted with, and courted with a feat of strength, and see his six-foot-something crush loom over him stark fucking naked. Gets to show more vampiric tells and superpowers. And then the sheer gift of just being able to relax afterwards, nothing to be done but enjoy a moment of real joy with the people who matter to him.

Because it could be a cynical vote grab, but Sean genuinely cares about everyone at the parade, and about Staten Island. And believes queer people and immigrants are part of what their home is all about. Sometimes it's okay for everyone to get what they want.

What a joyous episode.

#fandom: wwdits #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #i am a meta gremlin

[linkandorf]

Daroach & Gooey

#art #kirby #daroach #gooey #spini #storo #doc #dark nebula #rick #kine #coo #pitch #nago #chuchu #shadow kirby #adeleine #ribbon #prince fluff #king dedede #dedede #bandana waddle dee #elfilin #meta knight #elline #comic

[jinglebunns]

alright grandpa let's get u back home

#kirby #meta knight #art #illustration #are the reflections a dmk and shadow ref? maybe #kirb says no brooding in the rain we are going home and having hot chocolate :)

[shannankle]

On Narrative In Shadow Part 2

Well my attempt to just write some first impressions on Shadow part 2 has grown into 3-4 different ones I'm writing. It seemed appropriate to finish this first since I'm ruminating on the ending.

In this post I’m going to think about how narrative is coming up in part 2 as a way to discuss one possible reading of Dan and Trin’s endings. There will be a small detours into the topics of aromanticism and reception and marketing.

I have another post where I look at how narratives are tackled in part 1: here!

Oedipus and Dan

In my first meta on Shadow I discussed Hamlet in relation to the show. In there I talk about how Hamlet has a tradition of being interpreted and performed through the lens of the oedipal complex. I suggested that while Dan has metaphorically killed his father that it was unlikely they’d go with the shadow being his mom and fulfilling the sleeps with mother part of this equation. Instead I believed they might go a queerer route and embrace queer time and the death drive a la Lee Edelman (I think there is something there but I want to explore that in another post cause this post is long already).

But!

If the shadow created Dan for his father, that kind of technically makes it his parent. So Dan has metaphorically killed his dad and supernaturally gotten frisky with his supernatural parent. So I guess the Oedipus complex is more alive than I gave it credit. Apparently my clown glasses had me seeing 20-20. 

Beyond the Oedipus complex bits, Dan seems to line up a lot with Oedipus as a character. He is cursed/fated at birth. His mother hangs herself. Oedipus tries to outrun his fate by running away only to unwittingly fulfill the prophecy by doing so. He acts with hubris by trying to outrun the oracle’s prophecy and this causes his tragic end. Dan tries to escape first by running from the shadow and then by accepting the shadow despite others warnings. He acts with hubris towards Nai assuming he knows best and he unwittingly is drawn back to the shadow where he came from. 

What might these parallels tell us beyond foreshadowing? Let me return to that in a little bit!

Identification, Dis-identification, and the Destruction of Identity 

I mentioned in my Hamlet post how Dan seems to deny identification with Hamlet as well as with straight narratives. I find it interesting that, up until the last few episodes, Dan denies identification with romantic narratives throughout the show (not just straight ones). As I discussed with some folks over on discord, he’s very busy being in a supernatural mystery narrative, while Josh, Nai, and Cha-aim are trying to be in their straight and BL romance narratives respectively. This shifts when Dan and Josh fight and when Dan and Cha-aim chat in the shadow’s realm. Suddenly he fits their narratives: Josh's romantic rival and Cha-aim's main romantic lead. Cha-aim even asks him if he read the book and her notes until the end as if begging him to fit a story. The space their in also has elements of the theater in it as if he is being demanded keep acting in a play.

In terms of Hamlet, Dan seems to switch to aligning himself in part 2. Joe and Dan have a conversation about how to understand Hamlet as a character and his madness. After this, Dan doubles down on his resistance towards Anurak and starts trying to buck the system by rooting out the one-armed man. He believes that the shadow is protecting him at this point, and starts to adopt the Hamlet narrative more fittingly. During the play, he may have given Josh the Hamlet role for a bit, but Dan is entirely channeling Hamlet in that scene. Just like Hamlet he ups the drama and stages a play-within-a-play to confront his new father figure/enemy with their own crimes (or at least what Dan perceives to be Anurak's crimes). 

So what's going on here? Well, let's bring back Oedipus.

By the end of the show, Dan has been taken over by narrative. Like Oedipus chooses to blind himself, Dan chooses to die. He becomes Oedipus, Hamlet, a character in a straight love story. Yet despite being full of narrative, or perhaps because he is, Dan is quite absent from the last two episodes. From the moment he reaches the climax of his play-within-a-play, he loses consciousness and dies. From that moment he is largely absent from the story that is Shadow. 

What do we do when narratives don’t contain us? When we don’t see our identity reflected in them?

We might try to read resistantly. We might de-identify and find ourselves a new identity in alterity. But what happens when these narratives don’t leave room for alterity or resistance--when they still try to consume us and bend us past the breaking point? 

In my first post on narrative, I point out how differences such as queerness and disability compel narrative, and how they must be talked about in certain ways that contain them. (This element is made even more clear in part 2 when the woman who originally told the one-armed man story admits to embellishing.)  

I wrote the following in that post: 

“Such difference compels discourse while suppressing actual voices. It’s no wonder then that queerness gets attached to haunting–difference must always be stated and forcibly visible but never fully included or co-existing”

But I think the later half of Shadow takes the horror a step further. What happens when such narratives consume us? When we lose so much control over our narratives that we disappear completely?

We get Dan.

I think Dan’s fate in Shadow could be read through this lens. He tells Cha-aim that "being awake or asleep is equally agonizing." While this stands for trauma and depression it also marks how Dan is placed where he can neither fully enter the narratives of society nor forge his own path because both choices harm him. Such narrative violence can destroy us, can traumatize us, can leave us with no identity at all. 

This resonates deeply with a political landscape in which history and alternative narratives are erased. It’s in this context that the shadow creates Dan and to which he is forced to return. Dan’s dad literally creates him in order to maintain the perfect heterosexual marriage where toxic gender roles can remain intact. In the end, Dan is absorbed by narrative and trauma. He exits the story of Shadow because he is crowded out--it is all too much for him to exist at all.   

Side note: On aromanticism

Watching through Shadow, I often read Dan as expressing a relationship with romance that aligned him with aromanticism. His dis-identification with romance early on feels right at home. As does the sense of self-effacement that occurs as romantic narratives take over his story. As someone who is aro myself, this resonated deeply with me. Particularly the way in which amatonormativity can be so dominant a structure (narratively or otherwise) that we are rendered as inhuman, invisible, and nonexistent. It ties to the way that we are framed as lacking. Amatonormative discourses assume we are empty, needing to be filled with narrative, just as throughout Shadow these narratives overwhelm, subsume, and erase Dan. In the end he is nonexistent but not because of his dis-identification with romance.

Addendum 1: Trin

Trin's ending is heavily tied to Dan's so I wanted to add some thoughts on how we might read Trin's fate.

I wrote in yet another post about how Trin continually has his narrative taken from him in part 1. This starts in life and continues when he disappears. Before Dan is consumed by narrative in part 2, Trin suffers the same fate. There is a horror and perhaps violence in Trin taking Dan’s body. But perhaps also a flip side of very bitter hope (at least by comparison). Trin has managed to come back and continue his story. In Dan’s body, he can move in the world again without the same extent of stigma and harsh narratives that he faced after being outed. Dan might be a bit of an outcast, but he hasn’t yet had his stigmas publicized to the world in the same way.

Trin is writing when Joe comes to visit him/Dan. When the pen runs out of ink, Trin is handed his pen by Joe, just as he is handed back his narrative.

Now, this brighter reading is far from perfect. It already says a lot that Trin would have to become someone else, to hide his differences, in order to have narrative agency. And he will likely have to face what it means to navigate the world again while acting as someone else if he chooses to stay this way. Or perhaps he'll dare to do it all again, continue to push against the system loudly and see what happens now that the collective trauma of the past has been revealed.

On a darker level, however, we might read Trin's fate as another form of erasure. The last shot we get is Trin standing in front of the bathroom mirror as Dan. He uses the tap water symbolizing the shadow's domain to show his face as Trin in the mirror.

In Jacques Lacan's version of psychoanalysis, he focuses on what he calls the mirror stage. This is when a child goes from seeing their reflection as other to recognizing their self. This has more literal applications but Lacan also used it more metaphorically at times to explain identity and its fracture. From the moment we recognize the self in the mirror we are presented with a disconnect between our body which has no organized identity and an idealized self (ideal ego). He terms this self-alienation.

Some of the nuances don't translate perfectly, but we can see multiple times in the show that Trin is presented in mirrors, suggesting this connection is thematically relevant. In this final scene we might read Trin as literally self-alienated. His ideal ego in the mirror is his face but his body is Dan's. It's an ideal that he can no longer reach. Meanwhile Dan body remains a body, disconnected from an organized sense of self. We might wonder if Trin has escaped the shadow's clutches at all.

Addendum 2: On Expectations and Marketing

If we go with this reading of shadow, that it is about the power and violence of narrative, I think we also should consider what the show hopes to ask of us as viewers. I've seen a number of folks feel let down by the second half including because it felt disjointed and didn't seem to fit with the first half. And I have to wonder if this is an intentional move on the part of the show especially given the drop schedule. If that's the case, the shift might be seen as an attempt to subvert the narratives that we place on the show as viewers. Heck, even this analysis I'm writing now is me placing a narrative on the text.

It's certainly a thematically consistent move, though a risky one. Leaving things that way means that your message will inevitably drive away at least some part of your audience. Meanwhile I stumbled my way to this reading through hours writing and analyzing, and not everyone wants or has the time to do that. It means that folks who value other elements of a story won't resonate much with the back half of the show.

And this effect is compounded by the marketing of the show as a romance rather than a broader queer piece. Though I imagine that is up to marketing and Gaga more than the those working on the show itself. Perhaps we can see this as a real world example of narrative being placed on the show, subsuming what it might otherwise want to say. It certainly feeds into the narrative confusion at play to say the least.

It also raises questions about the slowly blurring line in Thailand between BL and queer media. There are advantages that come with this shift and certainly many folks in BL fandom already view many pieces as queer despite some BL elements, if not just fully both queer and BL. On the other hand we get trouble when romance is assumed to be the sole topic a queer show out of Thailand can cover and it is classified as a BL because of this. While I wouldn't call this queer baiting (it's definitely a queer show), I do think it does narrative harm in this context. Which is unfortunate given the shows nuanced take on the topic.

Conclusion: Shadow's Ending

Shadow doesn’t give us a happy ending, and what hope we read into it is very open to interpretation. But it does present a thought provoking ending--one that is deeply engaged with the power and violence that is caught up in and perpetuated by narratives. In that sense it speaks to the darker side of living under these systems in a way that resonates sharply--a narrative we strangely identify with shadows and all (see @brifrischu 's post for another great take on this darkness). I suspect there will be folks for whom this directness, this identification will be too much, and that's okay! But for others it will resonate as a narrative that is strangely both painful and welcoming.

#shadow the series #shadow the series spoilers #shadow meta #shadow the series meta #shadow #my meta #my posts #ooof this one took some time #hopefully there aren't any egregious errors I missed

[eggsaladstain]

the darkling said i have loved and lost and i can bear it no longer, i will close my heart to anyone who is not like me, love is weakness, love is heartache, the joy of loving them is not worth the pain of losing them and i would spare her from this pain even if she hates me for it

and alina said i have loved him and i will lose him but not today, i have sacrificed everything but i will not sacrifice him, not again, i will bring him back to me no matter the cost, even if i have to let him go in the end

and mal said i have loved her my whole life but i don’t know who i am without her, i want a life of my own even if it means i have to leave her, but i will go trusting that i will be able to find my way back to her as i always have

and genya said i have loved him and i do not regret saving him but it came at a terrible cost, i have wandered underground in the dark with only the sound of his heartbeat guiding the way, i have survived unimaginable horrors and i am strong enough to survive losing him too

and david said i have loved her without knowing how to show it but i would like to try, i know metal and she is stronger than steel and more beautiful than rubies or emeralds, i have never known anyone braver and i regret leaving her side before, but i will do it just once more if it means i can save her

and wylan said i have loved him even knowing it might never be anything more, i left him the first time but i’m not leaving now, i want to hear about his day and i want to tell him about mine

and jesper said i have loved him all while hiding a part of myself but i will hide no longer, i do not know where this journey will lead us but i would like to find out, i have spent my life gambling and i will take a gamble on this

and nina said i have loved him even as he hates me, i have condemned him to save him and i will not rest until i am able to free him

and matthias said i have loved her despite a lifetime at war against her people, i should have known better than to trust her but i let myself anyway, she betrayed me and i should hate her but it’s not just hatred that i feel when i dream of her in the night

and inej said i have loved him as his shadow, close enough to be near but never touching, i want more for us and i will not settle for less, i will have him completely or not at all and i will not wait, i will live my own life with the freedom he gave me and we will meet again one day when i choose to return

and kaz said i have loved her when i could not love myself, i do not believe in saints but i believe in her, i have lost my brother and i would do anything to make sure she doesn’t have to suffer the same, i have given everything so she could have her freedom and i would rather watch her walk away than ever hold her back, i will wait for her and i will miss her every moment she’s not beside me, but i will try to make myself a better man by the time she returns

and sankta neyar said i have loved and lost and i will gladly do it again, i once closed my heart but no longer, i will endure the pain of losing my husband by cherishing the memories of the life we shared, may you all find a love that brings you joy that will outlive the pain, my love is my strength and my universe, i have lived for hundreds of years and what i have learned is this: there is only love, it is the only thing that matters and it is enough

#sab meta #shadow and bone #six of crows #kanej #malina #darklina #wesper #helnik #danya #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #alina starkov #mal oretsev #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #nina zenik #matthias helvar #grishaverse #sankta neyar #meta

[yokyoaaa]

So I have a vision

#ik this isn’t my first kirby x omori fanart- #BOTH OF THESE FRANCHISES JUST GO WELL TOGETHER OK #meta knight dead AU real #omori as shadow kirby #sunny as kirby #babil as bandee #kel as adeleine #aubey as ribbon #hero as ddd #something as dark matter #how can you associate mk with dark matter? idk #omori #kirby #bandana waddle dee #bandana dee #bandee #king dedede #meta knight #dedede #ribbon #ribbon kirby #adeleine #adeleine kirby #kirby fanart #my art