hi!! im here to ask about your ocs!!
first of all i would like to say PLEASE read the shadows house manga if you werent planning on it already...! youll get so much more that wasnt offered in the anime since it cuts off at season 2 , its just so good.. SO GOOD ok. ok
i know you said you dont have all the details worked out so its ok if you dont have an answer to any of this atm!
could you talk a bit more about their dynamic/relationship, if you have anything else you wanna say?
what are their goals in the house? are they pursuing roles within relief team, starbearers, etc? are they wanting to get invited?
how good is astral at controlling his soot power? do you think its likely any of his experimenting on anjem could go wrong + how would he react, would he be able to fix it?
WAAA HELLO?? i never original post ever so i was really surprised and excited when you reblogged it saying you'd read it later - AND NOW IN MY INBOX TOO? WAAAA.... >O<
But waa ok ok so! Funny enough, @tsukiomoon was over at my house and convinced me to read Shadow House (having watched the anime) while we were at a bookstore. I'd already glanced at it a few times over the years so I was. Very easy to convince tbh djdhfjf So I actually began with reading the first two volumes!! Then after that, I was thoroughly hooked so we proceeded to binge the entirety of it together in two days. That said, I'd love to read the manga. I'm debating on it because the official translation -> scanlation currency exchange is not in my favour ToT but I think I like it enough to bear through it, the anime missed a few scenes from even just the first two volumes after all.
Dynamic/relationship: This is a fun one. I've mentioned they both very much love each other already, I think at first they're both very superficial about it and build up versions of each other in their head (Astral even moreso having known longer). It gets deeper as time goes on but Astral isn't obssessed with Anjem just as a person, but also for his quality of being human. Anjem is similar likewise but there's a mighty power imbalance there.
Astral is actually also a special shade! He remembers before morphing. He's probably the worst one to do so though because he doesn't really care about the Shadow House - not when it gives him license to not only have Anjem to himself, but also such close access to humans. To him, the memories just give him a clearer understanding if the Faces' limits. He gets very annoyed with seeing others treat their living dolls badly and will pick fights about it or ask Anjem to give them recompensary gifts to them.
Anjem I'm less clear on... He's bad at cleaning but Astral doesn't mind particularly (and also doesnt produce enough soot for it to be a problem). The rigid structure of his life gives him comfort in its reliability but he does often long for some of the luxuries Shades get. Like nice clothes and better food. He doesn't like coffee though haha. I don't think either of them ever realise the brainwashing thing bc Anjem's too picky and never fully swallows the coffee anyway, sometimes vomiting it out. He still gets the effects partially though
Goals: I think Astral does want to escape the House eventually - he doesn't care too much for getting everyone else out, he just wants to find more and more humans and learn everything he can about them. Anjem I haven't decided too much yet. He knows Astral's goal and wants to be there with him to see it too, to travel the world, but I think he'd be scared of taking that step.
I think he wants to see his siblings again, one last time
Roles: Oop... Astral's power is very good for healing wounds so technically the relief team would be good for him but I personally wouldn't put him in a room with so many humans in it XD He keeps his power very downlow but regardless, I think he'd have made his way into the relief team. He's their bigger advocate on training to treat dolls better.
Anjem wanted to be in the research team instead but, as a Face, he has to tag along and look pretty
Power: At first Astral was pretty bad at controlling his power. He doesn't have blood himself after all, it was very unknown territory. In fact, the only way he Did grow better at it was When his experiments on Anjem failed. They could be very dangerous failures too, in case his soot clogged a vein or he clotted uo the wrong part or forced it to produce too much blood. In his panic to fix it, he tended to reflexively reverse whatever he'd done and so far, though there have been catastrophes, Anjem hasn't died. There was a time when Astral stopped his heart but that's whatever, he's immensely better at controlling them now. He doesn't frequent the training room (especially since his powers require blood), but instead has perfected his powers through practice in his room. He does also keep a few vials of blood he requests from the relief team that uses to practice with at times.
He prefers it best when it's with Anjem though :)
There was once, when the brainwashing had worn off more, where Astral fucked up. In attempting to heal a wound on Anjem's wrist, he accidentally sped up the production of the blood and it poured everywhere, spilling out faster than healthy. Anjem, wide eyed and afraid that this time, he was going to die, scrambled away from him screaming. He tried to run away but the pain was blinding him so much he could barely concentrate. Nothing Astral said could convinve him to calm down, and the last thing he saw before passing out was Astral roughly grabbing at his arm.
Astral was able to stop the blood, working with this as an experiment to control his area of effect, and sealed the wound. He bandaged it up and treated it with care, pressing a careful kiss of regret on the bandage and on Anjem's hand, the black mark staining his skin.
Anjem woke later in his box. He was afraid and angry and upset. He didn't talk to Astral for a full week, only interacting with him as a Face. Astral was heartbroken by this and apologised many times. They made up finally, after Astral stopped him from cleaning and held his hands, about to apologise again, when suddenly Anjem lifted the shade's hands and pressed a kiss to each.
"I'm tired of this. I miss speaking with you. I forgive you, so stop apologising every time I enter a room."
That mended things but going forward, Astral started getting external vials until he was better at his control.
Astral likes his name but also wants to be separate from it. In private, he asks Anjem to call him "Aster" as a similar compromise. Anjem means "star" in arabic - he named his Face to match the name he preferred :)
Anjem is mostly good at reading Astral's emotions but they have a system of handsignals and body language to indicate the faces they want to make.
I've been thinking on them and their age awhile. I hadn't noticed when I made them that adults get finer clothes than the chikdren but I refuse ti change my design, I'm attached </3 I think they're similar to Barbara and Maryrose - old but still in the children's wing by virtue of not being given an invitation
This is partly due to Anjem's scar but mostly due to Astral's refusal to be useful outside of the bare minimum (this is not a noble thing, he's lowkey just lazy)
Oh my god I wrote a lot sdjbhf
Yeah!! That's them! That's my boys. I'm thinking of making a couple more too - I want to explore the idea of someone using their Face to hide disguise their real emotions
Thank you so much for asking 😭 it means the world to me and got me to think about them more
As an extra, have a doodle of Anjem's second sight of Astral:
