#but Trin is no shadow

[respectthepetty]

Is Dan's shadow a succubus? Or more appropriately an incubus?

Homie, how would I know?! I'm watching the same show as you. If I knew what that shadow was, I wouldn't need to suffer through the last seven episodes. I was too busy being scared for my life the first seven episodes to truly think about what that shadow was, and now I have to sit through seven more just like alls the rest of ya to figure this puzzle out!

But why are we gendering the shadow? Is the shadow male? To me, the shadow is just energy, possibly a physical manifestation of Dan's trauma; therefore, is it an extension of him. Like Peter Pan's shadow!

@kenjiyabuki went full big-brain and noticed the painting in the background of Brother Anurak's office is Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare.

Ain't no detective like a Tumblr detective.

And because of this, I immediately went to my favorite art historian (I go to departments often asking BL-related questions which is one perk of working in higher ed), and she immediately said, "It's about sex."

More specifically, repression of desire.

Not everyone subscribes to this interpretation, but . . .

There is a mirror and a vial of water in the left bottom corner on the table in the painting. Mirrors mean truth and serve as a bridge between the two worlds (truth/lie, life/death, conscious/subconscious), while water (describe as a mirror-like substance) also serves as a bridge between two worlds. We don't see the mirror fully, so we don't see the truth of the situation, but two worlds are colliding within the painting.

We've seen a good amount of mirrors in the show.

And water.

The show doesn't have a crazy-looking horse in the background unless we are considering the makruk pieces, which are called "horses" and not "knights" like in chess, the horse in this scenario.

That's a stretch even for me, but we still have the bare basics - a person with the weight of desire resting on him.

A desire to be comforted when nobody holds him.

A desire to be protected when he feels abandoned.

A desire to feel normal.

And Trin had the same desires.

There is definitely some funky business happening at the school because Trin and Dan are linked through their desires and experiences, but the shadow was there long before Dan stepped onto the campus.

Detour - In the third episode, the monk told Dan in order to change his karma, he needed to forgive when the time came after Dan saw his dad briefly playing makruk in his dream. At the end of that episode, Dan saw his father's ghost while he was acting the ghost scene from Hamlet, which is a play about revenge and forgiveness.

The shadow led Dan through a tour of his family's happiest moments in episode four right before he encountered his father again.

And his father asked for his forgiveness.

To which Dan said "hell to the no"

And this is why I think the shadow IS Dan. The monk told him to forgive to change his karma. The shadow led Dan to do just that, but Dan didn't; therefore, he didn't beat his karma and ghost-dad told Dan he was becoming everything he hated. Was this conversation all in Dan's head? Was he, through the shadow, guiding himself to be better than his father? And did he override his subconscious to seek revenge instead because that's what he truly desires?

More interestingly is what shows up every time someone chooses revenge over forgiveness - Trin! Rather than the shadow lurking in the water after Dan's dad died, Trin was waiting for him.

Trin was waiting for him in the bathroom to lead Dan into the funhouse when Nai decided to teach Anan a lesson.

And Trin showed up right before Anan attacked Dan.

Each time, the mirrors and water are present, so wouldn't that make Trin The Nightmare?

Of course, I, a color demon must mention how I find the use of red fascinating mostly when thinking about it in correlation to the painting since red is behind the nightmare figure.

And it spreads underneath the sleeping person in white as if that innocent person is being surrounded by this desire.

All of this is to basically sum up that Trin has a face. The shadow doesn't. Trin is a person. The shadow isn't. Just like those headless figurines the locals use as stand-ins for them to appease the wild ghosts and protect them from harm, Dan's faceless shadow could be his way of protecting himself and hiding his desires from outside forces.

And Trin could be a way to expose all that's hidden, including those desires.

[adrift-in-thyme]

Evidence no. 587 that Warriors is not in fact alright and will prolly lose it soon

Credit to @linkeduniverse

[pharawee]

S H A D O W ♠ Episode 7: One Armed Man

[wen-kexing-apologist]

What Happened to Trin? aka Paying Attention to My Favorite Straight Boy

Friends. Romans. Country men. 

I have a confession. 

Yesterday I reblogged a Shadow gifset of Josh cuddling Nai in the middle of the night after returning from his evening of smoking in the woods with Dan. In that reblog, I wrote the tag “Josh is my favorite straight boy in the show”. I showered praise upon him for being secure enough in his own sexuality to cuddle with the Known Queer. But I am concerned I may have been mistaken. 

I was chatting with @khathastrophe about some Shadow theories and she sent me a screen shot of a conversation she had had with @brazilian-whalien52 about her theories around Josh. 

Now, I personally do not think that Trin had a crush on Josh, unless they are intentionally obfuscating the context around the two conversations that Trin had with Joe where he did pretty much everything but explicitly state his feelings for Joe. And I hadn’t been thinking about Josh in relation to drugs, because yeah, he smoked weed, but if you couldn’t tell already, I have been hyperfocused on trying to unravel the One Armed Man thread and he is the only one I could remember having explicit ties to narcotics. 

BUT! I had already been working my way through a re-watch of Episodes 1-7 to see if there was any new information I could glean from the show now that I had better knowledge of all the characters and their relationships to one another. And tonight, I was already planning on watching Episodes 5-7, so I said “you know what? I have been 0% suspicious of Josh the entire way through, but this show is steeped in mystery and it would be irresponsible of me no to pay attention to the character that I write off…after all, in a mystery it’s always the inconspicuous ones,” 

And thus began my Josh!focused Rewatch of Episodes 5-7 (shout out to @so-much-yet-to-learn for bullying me about this, thank you for keeping me humble friend <3). 

Some things I noticed in Episode 5:

Anan was running against Trin for student body president 

When Trin is speaking in to the megaphone about wanting to change the bathrooms, Josh is in the crowd of students listening, but he does not participate in the chants everyone else is saying. And the second the Head Master appears, he is running off before he can really be registered as in attendance of this gathering. 

Josh was out of the room when Joe saw Trin’s ghost, he returns after Trin’s ghost disappears, and Josh has left the auditorium when Trin’s ghost reappears and Nai sees him following after Joe. 

Trin’s medical records state that he has bipolar disorder which can cause him to have hallucinations, he was off his medication, and he was using narcotics to treat his symptoms 

It is later revealed that Trin got a medical check up after his arm injury, where it was discovered that he had consumed marijuana. 

All in all there isn’t much to go off of here, expect that Josh seems rather non-committal to Trin’s policy changes, and he does not want to be seen in the company of unruly students. 

Episode 6, however, is where it starts getting interesting for me, because Episode 6 is where Josh invites Dan out for a little smoke sesh.  

Now, I will admit, at the time of my initial watch, most of the conversation between Dan and Josh whizzed right on past me, obviously the only reason he had called Dan out there was to ask if he liked Cha-aim and to showboat a little bit. But on this watch through, thinking about Trin and Josh and drugs, the conversation hit much different, and it warranted a theory. 

The Build Up

Dan asks Josh where he got the weed from, and Josh tells him he got it from a man named Bancha, an alumnus of the school who is a witch doctor. (now that I think about it, that is probably who this person is from the promos for Ep 8-14 (to your question @slayerkitty): 

ANYWAY, Josh tells Dan that Bancha is a hermit who lives near the woods, and is a witch doctor that can treat mental illnesses. He asks Dan if he’s been having trouble sleeping and upon hearing Dan confirm his sleeping issues, tells Dan that Bancha could totally help him get rid of his sleeping problems. 

So why did this start ringing alarm bells for me this time through? Because a) I was watching Josh with more scrutiny these episodes, b) I’ve been paying a probably unhealthy amount of attention to arms in Shadow over the last few weeks and c) I remembered more details about Trin. 

The Puzzle Pieces 

When Trin’s parents come storming in to Brother Anurak’s office pissed the fuck off because their sons medical records got leaked to the press, Brother Anurak mentions to them that Trin about a year ago (which is around the time Trin disappeared), Trin was treated in a hospital for an injury to his arm. 

We open Episode 1 of Shadow with Trin running through the forest, with his left arm bandaged up. 

Brother Anurak also tells Trin’s parents that he had weed in his system when he got that treatment. (When I heard this at first I brushed it off because it felt like between the mention of bipolar, hallucinations, and narcotics use, adding the weed on top was just a few too many things to try to discredit any potential intel Trin might have had and to distance the school more from his disappearance). 

Josh is the only person we have seen with weed (so far).  

Trin was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and did not like the medication he was on. He wanted to feel “normal” and to get off his medication, which we are told through a flashback conversation between Trin and Master Joe in the theater. We also learn that Trin is going somewhere, he wants to give Master Joe a pen of his to hold on to while he is away and tells Joe, “when I come back and I’m rid of this disease, I will give you your answer” [side note: Joe does not take Trin’s pen, yet he has it in his desk in 1999, so he had to get it back from Trin somehow]

In short, Trin wants to be cured of his bipolar disorder and this Banchan guy that Josh mentioned is a witch doctor that can treat mental illness. 

The Theory 

So with these things in mind, that Josh was in a lot of the flashback scenes with Trin, that Trin had smoked weed at some point before his disappearance, wanted to be rid of his mental illness, had an injured arm, and was running through the woods when we first are introduced to him, I came up with a theory. 

Josh played an active role in Trin’s disappearance. 

gif from @pharawee

With the crumbs they have presented to us so far, my theory is that at the beginning of Episode 1 we are seeing Trin escaping the witch doctor that Josh has convinced Trin to go see. Trin had an injured arm at the beginning of Episode 1, and Brother Anurak mentions an arm injury, so I’d have to imagine they are the same injury. Which means that Trin had probably smoked weed with Josh like Dan had smoked weed with Josh. I can imagine that Trin asked the same question about where Josh got his drugs from, and that Josh gave the same answer. I can imagine Josh potentially knowing about Trin’s medical diagnoses, or at least observing in part Trin’s own experience with hallucinations and relying on that to help convince Trin to go see the witch doctor. 

I can see Josh getting closer to Trin, close enough to get Trin comfortable with him, close enough to get Trin to trust him. I can see Josh and Trin sneaking out to the edge of the woods to smoke, and how that might make it easier to get Trin alone, away from prying eyes, and more comfortable with being in the forest at night. I can see Josh either walking Trin straight to the witch doctor’s door, or telling Trin how to get there. I can imagine the witch doctor trying to do something to “cure” Trin, whether that be an exorcism, a poisoning, an attempted murder, or something else entirely, and Trin managing to escape. Which would explain why we see him running through the woods, because as Josh said, Bancha lives right near the woods. 

I see some things repeating themselves in the promo for the second half of the season, namely Dan having his left arm bandaged the same way that Trin’s was at the beginning of the show and running through the woods looking behind him scared the same was Trin was at the beginning of the show.

Do I think Josh is alone in all of this? No. If he is involved in this at all, I literally have no gauge or understanding of how complicit and aware of what he is doing Josh is. If Josh did play a role in Trin’s disappearance, is he sticking so close to Nai because he feels guilty? Or if my theory does hold true and Josh is pulling Dan aside for conversations and smoke sessions, is he intentionally setting something up?

Josh seems really comfortable and at ease with being physically affectionate and flirty with Nai, despite the potential to be subjected to homophobia, yet he also thinks theater is gay and tells Dan not to join because people will think he is a fag (which, I believe is the closest translation of “toot” to English, fruitcake is certainly not it). 

When Trin was getting beaten up by Anan, Josh just puts his Walkman radio on and ignores the entire fight. Anan and Josh both say Trin is dead (and to be fair, if it were me and a student at my high school went missing a full year before, I would probably also assume they had died). 

Oh! And another thing, one of the drawings in Dan's vision of the One Armed Man was a camera, you know who is associated with cameras?

Josh, our resident Photographer and General Assistant

I think @brazilian-whalien52 made a great point in the conversation I had with her: “Shadow seems like the type of drama everybody had a little hand in. Not an individual blame, but a look through society and the roles we play that affect others,” 

All of which is to say, I unfortunately, will be withholding granting Josh “favorite straight boy” status in Shadow until the narrative proves my theory wrong.

[skyward-floored]

Whumptober Day 23: Shadows, “it’s gonna get me by the end of the night”

This one is kinda creepy again but. Well. That comes with the territory of dead hands...

Read on ao3

Warnings: blood, injury, uhhh lots of creepiness, being attacked by a monster in a kind of disturbing way

————————————————————

There was something in here with them.

Wild swallowed, looking around. He couldn’t say how he knew they weren’t alone, but the prickling on the back of his neck seemed to indicate a presence, one that wasn’t him or Wind. The problem was, the area itself was full of long shadows with barely a torch to fend them off with, and Wild looked nervously back at the stairs they’d recently descended.

He already wasn’t exactly the most fond of being underground, and he had a bad feeling.

“Aw man, a creepy basement,” Wind said with a groan. “Why do these places always have creepy basements?!”

“Beats me,” Wild said with an amused smile. It seemed like the complaint was mostly to hide what seemed to be Wind’s nervousness, as he was standing rather close to Wild’s side, and giving the darkness an anxious look.

“Maybe it’s a style thing,” Wild said thoughtfully. “Like, they build these or whatever, and one guy goes ‘hey you know what would be great right here? A creepy basement. Would really tie the whole dungeon together.’”

Wind laughed, and looked much less nervous as he looked out at the shadows again. Wild glanced at them as well, and squinted as his eye caught on something. Had something moved over there?

He really hoped not.

“Well, there are such things as non-creepy basements. I mean, Twilight’s basement isn’t creepy,” Wind said with a little grin, and Wild checked back into what he was saying. “Though it is full of junk. My grandma would say that’s scarier.”

Wild snorted as he and Wind began to walk into the room, feeling their way around walls, pausing to look around when they reached a torch. Wild pulled out an old branch he had and lit it, and after that, finding their way around the room was much easier.

It turned out to be what Wind said was a puzzle room, the two finding a suspicious platform, and a switch tucked in a dark corner. Pushing a block over to push it down didn’t make anything happen, but as they glanced around the area, Wild noticed some etching on the wall.

“There must be more switches we have to push,” Wind said thoughtfully. “Or else something would’ve happened.”

“There’s marks along the edge here,” Wild pointed out, pointing to four squares etched on the wall. One was filled in, and he and Wind both sighed as they realized there were three more switches to find.

“Guess we better get going.”

They continued through the shadowy maze, though as time went on and nothing jumped out at them, Wild’s uneasy feeling began to lighten. It seemed like the only thing to impede their progress was the confusing room and lack of light, and Wild was used to that. He’d done three labyrinths, after all.

No monsters appeared from the shadows to bother them as he and Wind located and pressed down two more switches, though Wild’s makeshift torch was nearly all the way burnt up by the time they found them both.

“Only one more!” Wind said cheerfully, and Wild smiled as they reached another hallway. “And that’s the only direction we haven’t gone yet, so it’s gotta be this way!”

“Good, then we can get out of here,” Wild said with another glance at the ceiling. He still didn’t like being underneath so many levels of dungeon and earth. It made him nervous.

Wind nodded, then his face took on a mischievous look.

“Race you there Wild!” he said with a grin, then before Wild could say a thing, he bolted off down the hallway and into the darkness.

“Hey— Sailor! Wait up!” Wild shouted, but Wind had already disappeared into the shadows.

Wild huffed, and bolted after him, though he did slow and peer nervously around walls and pillars. The air seemed colder this direction, a chill tricking down his spine, and Wild swallowed. The sense that they weren’t alone had gotten more intense again, and he suddenly had a very bad feeling about all of this.

“Wind? Sailor, I think we should stick together!” he called, but received no reply except for his own echo.

...Had Wind really gotten out of earshot already?

Wild sped up a little, trying to watch his steps, but also catch up to Wind. He had to be around here somewhere, this area wasn’t that big.

Or at least, not the parts they’d been to already.

Wild turned a corner and found what seemed like a wide-open space, lit by nothing but a single torch next to where he stood. Right as he took a step forward, his stick finally burnt up, and Wild gulped.

He braced himself, and moved forward into the darkness, trying to calm his thudding heart.

There hasn’t been anything in here yet. There’s probably nothing here, and it’s only my imagination because being underground sucks—

Something let out a muffled shriek.

Wild jumped and whirled towards the noise, near instantly drawing a guardian sword he had in his inventory. The sword let out just enough of a glow for him to see a little ahead, and Wild cautiously moved forward, sword held high.

The floor had turned from stone to dirt at some point, and Wild’s footsteps were near soundless as he padded across it. Something crunched under his foot, and Wild looked down, an even bigger sense of foreboding rising in his throat as he stared at the bones he’d stepped on.

“Wind?” he called softly, afraid to speak too loud.

Something grabbed his ankle.

Wild shouted in surprise as whatever it was dug in, and before he could slash at it, another grabbed his other leg and knocked him to the ground.

He got an arm up and slashed at what he could see were pale hands on horribly long arms, bloodstained nails scrabbling at his boots. Wild managed to cut away the hands, but right as he scrambled to his feet, he heard something moving, right next to him.

He turned around, and almost dropped his sword.

A pale, bulbous creature stared at him, eyes dark holes, mouth opened impossibly wide as it grinned at him with bloodstained teeth. Wild couldn’t help but let out a horrified cry as it began to slither forward, and he felt a sudden urge to be sick.

What god decided such a horrible creature should even exist?

Wild backtracked so quickly he nearly tripped over his cape, but strangely enough the creature didn’t turn to him. It veered to the side, and as Wild regained his senses enough to go after it, he saw two eyes catch the light from his sword.

He turned, and met Wind’s frantic gaze.

The sailor was being held up by multiple of the same arms that had grabbed him, a hand covering his mouth. His eyes were wide with horror, and he was scrabbling frantically at the hand over his mouth, but more arms were holding him tightly in place, and all he could do was let out a muffled cry as he saw Wild.

Wild felt a burst of anger and jumped forward, slicing at the hands, but as soon as he chopped one, another two took their place. He’d lost sight of the main body in the shadows somewhere, but he was focused solely on Wind, slicing even more frantically when he saw the blood on his shoulder.

Had that thing bitten him?

He managed to slice away most of the hands holding Wind’s body in place, and the sailor fell to the ground with a cry. But before Wild could go to him, a hand tangled itself in his cape, and Wild cried out as he fell to the dirt as well, more hands near instantly grabbing him.

They pinned him down, grasping at his face and clothes, and Wild clung desperately to his weapon. He knew if he dropped it he’d have almost no chance of getting it back.

But the hands had figured him out, and they squeezed his wrist, clawing at his hand, and Wild physically couldn’t hold onto the blade any longer. The guardian sword fell to the dirt, and Wild felt more hands come up and grab him, no matter how he struggled.

A burrowing noise sounded out, and Wild looked over in terror as the fleshy body crawled out of the dirt, that horrifyingly long neck turning in his direction.

He was it’s target now.

“Wi—!” he screamed, but then a hand covered his mouth, and all he could do was thrash in silence as the monster slithered nearer and nearer.

A hand turned his face towards it, and Wild breathed quickly through his nose, nearly gagging at the smell of decay and blood that came from the hands on his face. They tilted him up as the head of the main body drew near, lit an eerie blue by his dropped sword. Wild couldn’t help his whimper as the face leaned down, its jaws opening impossibly wide.

And then it bit down on the side of his face.

Wild screamed, the sound muffled by the hands still covering his mouth as fiery pain made his vision spotty, the feel of the monster biting down on him nothing short of horrific. The seconds seemed to stretch on endlessly as it continued to gnaw, sucking up his blood, and Wild was nearly sick as it made a particularly satisfied noise.

Somehow the fact that the monster was actively feeding on him, biting him, attacking him only to satiate some kind of awful hunger, made it twice as worse.

All he was was prey to it.

Wild let out a muffled sob as he thrashed again, but the hands only held him more firmly, a hand holding his cheek in a way that would almost have been loving from anything else. Pain and revulsion were making his head spin, and Wild squeezed his eyes shut, tears gathering in the corners.

And then he heard an angry yell.

Suddenly the pressure on his face was gone, and Wild heard another shout, catching sight of Wind throwing himself forward, his face pale but expression furious.

“Stop chewing on my brother!” The sailor screamed, then twisted himself around into a huge spin attack that Wild could barely watch. The wind it kicked up buffeted Wild’s face like a hurricane, and the hands still grasping him let go, dropping Wild to the ground with a groan.

An awful moaning sound rent the air, and Wild watched through the blood dripping down his face as Wind hit the main body of the monster once, twice, three— so many times he couldn’t keep track of the number.

But Wind finally stopped, holding a hand to his head as he stumbled, and the body of the monster fell to the ground.

Wind was suddenly at his side, grabbing his shoulder, and they watched in silence as the monster twitched slightly, then disappeared into dark smoke along with all of the arms.

For a moment, the only sound in the room was of Wind and Wild’s heavy breathing.

“I-I think... I think it’s gone,” Wind said finally, his voice shaking, and Wild gripped his arm, unsure if he or Wind was the one trembling.

“Yeah,” Wild choked out, and Wind turned to him, immediately leaning in to look at his face.

“Oh no, ohh— Wild I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you faster,” Wind gasped, and Wild shook his head, closing his one eye as blood threatened to drip into it.

“Y-you couldn’t have...” Wild got out, and Wind turned to rifle through his bag, his movements frantic. “...Sailor?”

Wind had made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle, and Wild reached over to squeeze his hand, Wind shakily gripping it back.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Wind leaned up against Wild’s shoulder, Wind leaning back as they finished catching their breath.

“...That was worse then redeads,” Wind said finally, looking away, and Wild felt his eyes sting a little at the memory of the monster’s endless hands, it’s horrible main body and how it bitten down on them both...

It truly had been awful.

“I’ve never seen a redead, but based on th-the name... I don’t ever w-want to. Are they l-like... dead twice over..?” Wild asked, and Wind looked at him, eyes shiny in the light of Wild’s sword, blood still trickling down his shoulder.

Then he let out a wet laugh, and pulled out a bottle with some kind of potion in it, swiping a hand over his eyes.

“Something like that,” Wind said thickly, and Wild pressed the side of his head that wasn’t a mess against Wind’s. He breathed out, and focused on Wind’s warm skin against his, not cold, not undead, not trying to devour him.

“Thanks sailor,” he said in a wavering voice, and Wind made another noise that Wild pointedly ignored, squeezing Wind’s hand.

“Thank you too,” Wind whispered back.

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

TRiN AI

[heretherebedork]

Look, I know SOTUS isn't the perfect BL but saying it shouldn't have happened at all is a bit rough..

(I love the actual message in the show but my tiny easily amused brain said this and it's better than the pain of watching Trin try so hard and knowing that his loss will make such a difference and such a loss of bravery and strength.)

[queersouthasian]

Forbidden Love - Clairel Estevez

[akkpipitphattana]

wait WHAT THATS IT???

[blmpff]

Anyone had the reason for Trin running through the forest and throwing up being "escaping from a failed ritual that was supposed to allow him to help an ancient lake spirit, and also being shoved against a pedestal with dead kids in it till he bled by the director of his school" when we first saw in episode 1 on their bingo card?

[respectthepetty]

I'm going to finish episode four of Shadow.

I am going to finish episode four of Shadow.

I AM going to finish episode four of Shadow.

. . . tomorrow

I don't eff with los espookys and Father Carlos, my favorite priest when I was a kid, told me I should never fear los espookys when human exists. Then, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, who was raised Catholic, said something similar about how his work is driven by the dark horrors done by humans not the monsters since humans are the real monsters, and y'all, Shadow is leaning all the way into this. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get to episode six as mirrors enter the story.

This child is having an allergy/panic attack on this floor and clawing at his own skin. If he manifested this shadow to comfort himself and protect himself from people . . .

Oh, God.

[adrift-in-thyme]

LOVE the visual similarities between these two panels

Credit to @linkeduniverse

[pharawee]

S H A D O W ✝ Episode 6: Funhouse

[poetry-protest-pornography]

DAN + GOING THROUGH IT

*when that girl looked up I screamed and almost threw my phone

[badpanini]

commission for my friend peachy on ig again!!! i had a blast drawing this dude he’s so cute .. forever sad that dreamworks had to cancel this movie =(

[sparklyeyedhimbo]

"Kali how did you like the first episodes of shadow?"

When the fecking to be continued dropped, I had to stare angry at nothing for 30 min

So it's a 10/10 can't wait for part 2