#this people. are actually completely different people and arent reincarnations of themselves from the past timeline

[officialtokyosan]

shang tsung's shit eating grin is the funniest thing ive ever fucking seen

nmk1's plot is actually really juicy its brand new but still has the elements of mk. the "liu king evil real?" plot, and shang tsung's scheming, shao's blood thirsty. the origin and fluences of these characters being the way they are really different but theyre still being selves that theyve always been

[magical-gull]

Your posts on shadows? Do you think the other senshi could manifest their own shadows?

At any rate I don’t think it would be particularly hard, but the explanation is a little wordy and has some worldcraft in it.

It probably makes more sense if I was from a culture where the physical and mental were less separate, the definitions of whats demonic and an actual demon is kind of vague, and how it occurs, so Ill make up my own ruleset.

The things youma are are basically… not spirits exactly. More like the manifestation of some ID. If a person or some ‘bit’ of them is possessed, its directly from them. If it’s just a monster out of the blue, I think thats a ‘spirit’ harvested from Somewhere (for reference, absolutely think Dark Kingdom and Dead Moon monsters are literally from dead former subjects). It’s not neccessarily a soul. It’d be like if you knew a sporty person, and they could.. manifest that energy into a talking horse with a top hat who loves challenges. If that aspect was strong enough, it might be able to act on its own, stay ‘solid’, and basically be a “high-functioning” ghost. MOst youma though, seem to be pre-existing psuedosouls/ID/ideas/feelings put into golems or fake meat bodies, which makes them more ‘stable’ and solid if a bit single-mindedly stupid.

You can handwave the more ‘human’ acting youma as either more carefully prepared, were built with stronger more complete Concepts - especially if they came from angry or strong-emotioned people - etc., which is why there aren’t too many of them. Beryl’s monsters for example seem overall more ‘loyal’ than Nehelenia’s, which makes sense if you consider N was more directly responsible for their deaths. It’s lingering resentment.

ANYWAY, to bring this back to the question, I think a shadow is basically a psuedo-youma’ (or similar construct) being controlled by a person, at least at first. The only requirement I think is just having a magical/powerful inclination.

My personal canon of the Shittenou, is they’re kind of… reverants. Differently-Alive in the way vampires are, haunting their phylactery rocks or whatever (see PGSM) but with the fleshiness probably made by Beryl, who is probably powerful enough for that kind of thing. They make their Shadows in order to interact with people with less suspicion. They didn’t reincarnate, and their original bodies probably don’t exist.

Mio, in PGSM, is a Shadow made because of my belief Beryl is metaphorically and literally attached to Metallia in some regard, and can’t actually leave her underground bunker. Parasitized by her patron, in a sense, which is why Beryl has to feed her. Beryl also has more clarity about events than the Shittenou, making me think she is definitely Alive. (its interesting we only see PGSM moving around elsewhere when Metallia is controlling someone else). So same reason, Beryl needs a way to interact with others, period.

(au nonsense: Mio strikes me as an extremely powerful “spirit”, so whether Beryl non-chronically reincarnated back into her because of their connection or Mio was made so well she basically passes for human.)

There’s a bigger old post about it, but Tuxedo Mask is basically Endymion and Mamoru’s Shadow worn as a costume. A compromise between their mutual loathing of Endymion and heroic nature. (Again, weird-canonical Moonlight Knight follows a lot of youma rules)

I like to think the times we see Hotaru and Saturn interact with each other (in a way the other senshi never do with ‘themselves’) is Hotaru’s latent power allowing the aspect of herself she thinks as “Saturn” to literally be in front of her. Hotaru has a lot of self-issues to work out, and I wager it helps her literally confront things. (I personally like to think a lot of Mistress Nine’s appearance borrowed heavily from Hotaru’s mental influence too, but Hotaru has magic bullshit PSI powers which might give her a unfair edge.)

This is also basically how I think all the ~disguise magic~ stuff works, as a temp Shadow self based on your own perceptions (hence why they arent recognized by familar people). Depending on canon, sometimes its just Usagi or Mina or sometimes all of the Inners, but I think that’s more that they’re TOLD they can do that in certain parameters and most of them aren’t too interested in exploring it further. They could all, theoretically, do it with time. (again, in my own canon, Mina has done all kinds of more complicated shiz)

Speaking of, if you wanna salvage the nonsense bodyswitching canon of the Starlights, that’s basically it (my original idea was this was a Starseed/ senshi thing, based on the apparent as-long-as-your-seed-is-ok-your-meatself-is-negligible factoid). Handwave they’re doing it for the disguise, like the Shittenou, and ~somehow~ discovered the ability to make Shadows-as-’costumes’.

Speaking of Mina, I have no idea how canon the reasoning for Sailor V existing is anymore. The thought arises that Sailor V might have been past Venus’s Shadow Self (a mere  disguise, or also maybe an escape when duty became too heavy?) Did Mina inherit and repurpose it for the same reason, or because sometimes the weight and pressure of what “Venus” wants to do is too much to handle, so she pulls a Mamoru and wears it as a compromise?