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4aceclover · 6 months ago

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Shadow house theory

So I have an interesting theory that I don't think many people have actually taken into consideration, this one centers around our deer Blue Rose Mistress Barbara and her living doll Barbie.

Specifically Barbara herself and the amount of soot that she produces. Is it possible that what we're seeing in those moments or she's producing so much soot that it gives her a lot of pain is her having an emotional / mental breakdown

First things first what is an (emotional) mental breakdown (I'm sticking with mental but this can also apply to emotional breakdowns as well)

A period of severe emotional distress during which a person may feel paralyzed and entirely incapable of coping with challenges

Some of the symptoms of this may include (but are limited to):

Mental changes-

Depression

Emotional numbness

Loss of interest

Mood swings

Panic attacks

Sleep disruptions

Anxiety

Social withdrawal

No motivation

Paranoia

Personality changes-

Avoiding social events

Paranoia

Feeling hopeless and or helpless

Loss of interest

Physical changes-

Change in appetite

Exhaustion

Fatigue

Chest pain

Now let's go back and look at Barbara as a whole specifically how her character is presented to us and her relationships with some of the other characters

What do we know about Barbara explicitly well she-

Tends to get annoyed by things very quickly even for no reason sometimes

Has trust issues

Constantly comparing yourself to the previous starburst and everyone around her

Is constantly putting on a brave face when in reality she's nervous and terrified about everything she does

Says anything she does or tries to do will inevitably end up in failure and that it was all for nothing

Because of the way Barbie tends to look all the time she's seen as very hostile and someone you don't want to get too close to or piss off

Made it to where the star bearers didn't have to help in cleaning

Holds in a lot of her emotions

Has seizures which causes her immense pain as she releases her soot

Has no control over her soot expulsion

Is highly emotional like Kate

Used to be a lot like emilico

Her flower represents unacquainted love

Always puts her in the star bearers first even if it means hurting others in the children wing she supposed to be taking care of

Is easily manipulated

Doesn't realize that the cream she was given that was supposed to help Barbies scar heel is actually a poison

Is being used by Thomas as a living battery until she dies meaning she was never going to become an adult

And this is just the surface level stuff about this poor girl her relationships with others show what kind of person she used to be and is now

One of the first pieces of evidence to support the fact that she might be having mental breakdowns every time she releases her soot it's because of this manga panels from chapter 50

This panel reveals that because Barbara holds in all of her feelings about how she feels inadequate as a star-bearer, her fear and so many other things it, and how much it affects her soot at the same time.

We've seen time and time again that the shadows can only produce soot when they're feeling negative emotions, however one easy to overlook detail is the fact that depending on what influence they gain from their living doll it will determine their Emotional State

For example Matilda and Louise there both happy-go-lucky girls with very kind-hearted living dolls, therefore their soot quantity is much lower, than someone like John who because of the influence he received from his living doll which was Shaun's impulsiveness, he has a much higher quantity as he uses his emotions to make decisions. He's more intuition than he is brain.

Characters who have extremely low soot quantities usually have higher amounts of positive emotions we see that in both Shirley and Matilda they both have low soot quantities but they have some of the best personalities, they're kind-hearted, sweet, lively and mischievous

And considering the show and manga have made it clear that at one point Barbie and Barbara were a lot like Emilico and Kate it suddenly makes it clear why Barbara has so much soot coming out of her the only thing she was lacking was Kate's confidence.

(And remember before ever meeting Christopher and MaryRose she was always super emotional, but she had much better control over her emotions, something we see when MaryRose offers a hand to her and she thinks she's teasing her causing her anger to expel a lot of soot around her body, but not nearly to the point we see now in the story!)

And it would also explain why it's so painful for her it's a form of a seizure, because of her anxiety & social withdrawness, it ends up causing her to have a panic attack which is in the form of these seizures. Since her soot makes up around 60% of the power Shadow house produces in a day, it's incredibly painful for her to keep that all in. Which is another way of saying how it's incredibly painful for someone to keep all of their negative emotions in and have them explode at random points, which would also explain her mood swings, exhaustion, and her trying to avoid any sort of social activity with people she doesn't trust (which is a form of paranoia). All of this is because she's constantly bottling up her feelings and having them explode which many people can say (myself included) bottling up your negative feelings is exhausting

And the fact that she doesn't want anyone to see her in this state in her mind she doesn't want people to see how weak she is, (which is honestly heartbreaking) because it's basically her being the most vulnerable. That's why she lets Barbie insult her so much, it's so she can get rid of more of the soot, but it's also her way of basically acknowledging how she feels about herself. She truly believes every horrible thing Barbie says to her is true, she thinks that way and Barbie reciprocates those feelings to her face when she's in this state, which only makes it worse, (but both of them don't even realize this because their kids who haven't been taught anything about their own mental health). Plus this also explains the way Barbie behaves. The story at one point made it clear that she used to be a lot like Emilico standing up for people who were weaker than her making friends with people who were like Rum, but after Christopher left the adult wing and they were betrayed by Rosemary and MaryRose she completely changed how she behaved in order to match what she believed a strong face should look like and act like.

We even see the consequences of her explosive anger and unpredictable mood swings (and to be honest evidence of herself hatred)

Once she realizes that she can't do what she wants to do for the children's wing on her own after feeling betrayed by MaryRose and Christopher supposedly going to the adult wing she felt helpless which caused her to lose control of her emotions causing an extreme soot explosion injuring the one person who stood by her side trying to calm her down

This perfectly highlights how in a mental breakdown you end up accidentally hurting people close to you, and I honestly believe that this was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to herself hatred. It was already bad enough that everything else around her happened, but that was stuff she just couldn't control, but right here is where we see her lose control over her emotions and her soot, causing her to hurt the person dearest to her. You know for a fact she blames herself for this even if Barbie herself never told her how much this hurt her, tried to tell her it wasn't her fault, or even tried to dismiss the situation as a whole, Barbara probably blames herself because it was indeed her fault

(an interesting fact I just realized is that if Barbie really did try to tell Barbara that she doesn't mind that she hurt her because she knows it was an accident, "she didn't mean to hurt me" then that mentality is a lot like pink pearl (volleyball) in the sense that she's making excuses for why Barbara did what she, did but she's not acknowledging her own pain, she's not acknowledging the fact that she was badly hurt)

This panel from chapter 107 absolutely confirms the fact that not only does she bottle up her motions to a dangerous degree, but has feelings for someone she doesn't even know that he could be dead. She knew about unification before this, but she doesn't know that unifying with Barbie would mean she would lose her, and that's important because it shows just how desperate she is to see Christopher again. She's willing to put her own living doll's life on the line if it means seeing someone she doesn't even know is dead

She bottled her own feelings, pushing down her feelings of love she felt for Christopher and because she never once acted on those feelings they were told him before he went to the adult wing she had to carry on those feelings of love, betrayal, paranoia, fear and anxiety with her this whole time.

All she wanted was for comrade to be by her side someone she can look up to and admire someone who would be there for her but she kept on getting hurt because she opened up herself to somebody else.

But ironically enough the manga is giving us someone else that she doesn't even realize she's opening up to in the form of Patrick someone who could be the next person who could help her

(after all her Arc is all about finding someone that she can trust and love with her feelings without being hurt again, and his Arc is about finding a way to deal with his feelings of love while trying to protect people who are weaker than him. Both of their ark's work because she needs somebody to save herself from these dark feelings that she has, and he failed once to save somebody who was in love with him. Now with Barbara in a compromising position that she's in she could be the next person that comes his way, but this time unlike Margaret he could actually end up saving her, bringing both of their stories together. After all why would they make so many parallels between Emilico and what Barbie used to be if they weren't planning something big with this story)

So what do you guys think am I over analyzing this or do you think I might have a little bit of a point this is just me looking into this kind of stuff it broke my heart seeing Barbara and such a scary state in the more I thought about it the more it really did look like it was trying to call out the mental state of these kids

#shadows house theory #Shadow's house barbara #shadows house barbie #mental breakdowns #personal theory #one of a few to many #Shadow's house #it's just a theory #don't take it too seriously please

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giantkillerjack · 1 year ago

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Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.