Anybody who has seen shadows house knows about the outfits that Emilio and her Shadow Master's friends where but many people are still confused as to how they got these outfits or more specifically the inspiration behind these outfits
Well the manga itself actually has a cover page showcasing the shadow Masters outfits in great detail so instead of a character breakdown I'm going to do an outfit breakdown and how each shadow master's outfit is connected to their living dolls previous outfits.
This post will be a breakdown of each of those outfits as best as I can
The Shadowmasters outfits
Kate
Kate's outfit is mostly based off of a rose in both color and hair accessories, the elements of her outfit maintain
Her under shirt
Her top coat
Her dress
Her Petty skirt
White socks and red shoes
And most importantly her red rose hair clips
John
Despite the limited space we actually get a good idea of what John actually wears it's just as wild as him
His undershirt
A blue coat
His blue pants
And his white socks and blue shoes
Shirley
A more simpler outfit but still packed with a lot of importance mostly based off of the flowers of yarrow coliseum and lavender
Her undershirt
Her Petty skirt like pants
Her lavender dress
Her yarrow hair clip
Her lavender bow (fun fact about this I'll get to later)
And her white socks and purple shoes
Patrick
His outfit ironically enough reminds me of a lucky clover and his love for flowers definitely makes this outlet all the more ironic
His green top
His shoulder pads that have a white bow
His brown pants
His white socks and black shoes
(surprisingly one of the only ones to not have an undershirt)
Louise
And finally we have Louise a bit more simple but still extravagant at the same time must be pretty hard to do exercise and that kind of dress
The striped under dress
Her main dress
Her black shoes
Her signature flower is a yellow gerbera daisy which is all over her outfit, her neckline waist and shoes
Most importantly her gerbera hair clip
Each of these outfits look very extravagant and very fancy despite it needing quite a bit of assembly but where did the inspiration for the outfits come from where the shadows house get such amazing ideas well why not from the children they stole these ideas from
The living dolls selection outfits (spoiler warning)
Anybody who's seen shadows houses manga knows that before entering the house these were just regular kids and for the selection these were the outfits that they are wearing a special breakdown is an order
(for this section I'll be referring to them by their living doll and normal names they're living doll names will be highlighted in their respective color. I'm also going on based off what I'm seeing in this photo so apologies if I get a few things wrong or miss something)
Louise / Lou
As you can clearly see before entering the house Lou had a much different outfit and completely different personality
There seems to be a layer under her dress
Then there's the yellow main dress
Yellow shoes
A bow like headband
The middle of the bow seems to have something puffy in it
Patrick/ Ricky
Despite the clothes looking pretty simple Ricky makes it clear that these clothes that he was wearing were of high class (must have cost a lot of money)
An undershirt
His green vest like coat
Brown shorts
Darker brown shoes
John / Shaun
Still a bit confused on how they managed to get master John's outfit from this but here we are Shaun's outfit is the exact opposite of John
A simple white shirt
Blue overalls
Blue pants
Brown shoes
No glasses (important for later)
Shirley / Rum
Definitely a cute outfit you can see more similarities with this Rum's than the others
Lavender top dress
A gray like underskirt
Light purple shoes
Two light purple berets
A gray bow close to the left pocket
A lavender bow (important for later)
Kate / Emilico
By far this is one of the more fancier outfits if not the biggest difference in both color and design
Long pink dress
Short pink top coat
Pink cap in her hands
Two pink hair ties
Pink shoes
This is where the shadow house got the ideas for the future shadows outfits from these outfits the kids wore during the selection look at all the similarities between the color choices and the position of hair accessories for example the girls flower choices heck even the design of the outfit themselves could have been influenced by this
For example both Rum and Shirley wear short lavender based dresses while Louise and Lou both wear long yellow dresses with cute yellow hair accessories, compare that to Patrick who looks like he's wearing a green flock like coat to Ricky's outfit where he looks like he's wearing a sweater vest and seriously John and Shaun how do we go from overalls to a fancy coat
The most obvious differences being Kate and Emilco but I'm not going to explain that spoiler just yet, besides the colors being obviously different the length of the dresses are different too and Kate doesn't have a cap like a Emilico did
Fun facts
The lavender bow on Mistress Shirley's finger actually belonged to Rum before she entered the house, when she entered instead of it being replaced like Lou's bow like headband it was just transferred over to Mistress Shirley and she received a darker colored version of rummy's bow
The reason why Shaun isn't seen wearing his glasses throughout the show and manga is because during the selection he chose not to wear them in order to have a higher chance of being picked which is why Master John doesn't need glasses
Ricky's hair wasn't always swooped back it actually used to cover one of his eyes as bangs that were more skewed to one side of his face but in order to look more professional he slicked it back thanks to his sister
It confused me why they replaced Lou's accessory until I looked closer, it's not a simple bow like Rum's it's actually a bow connected to a headband and while headbands do exist in the shadows house evident by Maggie and Margaret once like hers probably don't exist so they compromised by making it a bit more simple
Isn't it a bit interesting that despite the colors in Shadow's house being all over the rainbow they purposely gave Emilico a pink dress while they gave Kate a red dress (potential for a future post)
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)
