Irrelevant Artist

𑁍 Where do I begin,,,,,Ok so‼️I actually do like her canon design, if anything her design was actually my first ever exposure to Xiaolin showdown before I even watched it! But I decided to put my spin on her design and rewrite a bit of her lore.

𑁍 For her “Shadow” outfit, I took a wee bit of inspiration of Mai’s outfit from avatar buuuut having a few aspects of Chase's outfit, leaning to the idea of being a clone and reflecting the image of him! But still have its differences like Shadow wearing silver and having purple/blue tones that's opposite to Chase's gold and darker green color palette. I added a few lotus flower emblems too, a signature of how she became shadow and how lotus flowers symbolize “rebirth”.

𑁍 For her “Willow” outfit, I wanted to lean her outfit more to a… Pure beauty? If that makes sense- It's not that I didn't like her Willow disguise, I think it's pretty ok! But I am a little picky with her design because I trulyyy didn't like the gold color sticking out and stuff. 😭 Since her name is Willow, I decided to take a few color references of willow trees in the winter {I was gonna cheat a bit by taking inspo on wisteria trees but nahhh-}. I also wanted to reallly differ from her Shadow outfit {but still have the same similarities like the hair curled ends and lotus flower symbolism}, where her Shadow outfit is more androgynous {and a little masc leaning} while her Willow outfit is more feminine.

𑁍 Now… For lore, I want to keep the idea of Shadow being a clone and Hannibal being her creator {inspo being this post-} BUT!!! I want to expand on that. Shadow being somewhat of an “apprentice” under Hannibal’s care where his way of teaching is quite harsh and gruesome in many ways to prepare her for when she not only faces the monks but Chase too. After all, being the spitting image of your mentor's enemy and having to be trained to be a “better version” makes the pressure all the more heavy.

𑁍 Because she's trained under Hannibal’s care, she doesn't really get to experience things like proper familial relationships, regulating certain emotions, etc. Hence, she's like… A stoic soldier in some sense. Only focusing on the objectives she's given, you know?

𑁍 It's why I think Shadow’s relationship with Chase or Kimiko would be sooo interesting. For Chase, while the two would clash because ‘there can only be one true evil’ dynamic buuuut also I like to believe he'd try to do everything he can to somewhat {I mean keyword : somewhat} help make her lean away from Hannibal. {The concept of Chase being an actual older sibling, whether to teach her properly AND ragebait her at the same time.}

𑁍 As for Kimiko? Oooooh where do I begin- One of the things I actually dooo like {and I rarely see anyone mention this-} is that Shadow is Kimiko’s opposite in Xiaolin Chronicles {Like how Chase is opposite to Omi or Wuya is opposite to Dashi/Raimundo, etc.} Especially in some dialogues Shadow has to Kimiko. So in my reimagine, whenever it's just the two girls, Kimiko would be one of the few to genuinely try and understand Shadow.

𑁍 Oh- annnd I never mentioned this buuuut relating to the fact that Shadow is basically a clone of Chase, she doesn't get to experience femininity under Hannibal’s care {and honestly I like to believe that Hannibal was more than disappointed, if not frustrated as hell, to find out that Shadow was NOT a boy but a girl when creating her as said clone from the lotus flower but anyways-}. It's only in later episodes {because I don't want Willow’s introduction to be too soon-}, when Shadow gets to disguise herself as Willow in order to deceive the Monks, it's the closest to experiencing true femininity.

𑁍 And it's what brings Kimiko close to Willow, not knowing it's Shadow in disguise. The idea where Kimiko and Willow have a hangout together, where Kimiko helps do her makeup, brushing her hair, and overall letting loose, sooo much more. At that point it genuinely leaves Shadow confused with emotions because 1. It leaves her absolutely conflicted because somehow she??? Likes this???? Over fighting???? And having this deep dread of guilt about betraying this rare friendship, annnd 2. Having two identities as Willow and Shadow leaves her questioning about everything herself. Like her choices, her purpose, who she truly trulyyyyy wants to be overall.

{Kwjxosjdkdn Ok I think that's like,,,, All I can think of right now buuuut extra notes!

𑁍 Shadow was actually supposed to have a third design for when she figures herself out and being redeemed buuuut honestly that's more related to my xiaolin oc stuff, so maybe I'll touch on this another time since I haven't even touched on Willow’s redesign being related to my oc 😭

𑁍 My personal voice claim/s for Shadow/Willow is Mai from avatar orrr Mira from KPDH. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Jennifer Hale’s voice acting but it always threw me in a whiplash that Shadow/Willow had an Aussie/Texan accent in the series eifjeodjdk- Idk I think it would've been neat if Shadow/Willow had a different voice

𑁍 I like to imagine that Shadow and Jack have a one sided beef. The concept of Jack trying to be buddy buddy with her but Shadow absolutely cannot deal with his shit {“SOMEBODY SEDATE MEEEEEE” - Shadow most likely}.

𑁍 I knowww I said that Kimiko would be the one to help Shadow explore her femininity more as Willow buuuut one more thing I forgot to add is that Wuya would be the one to assist Shadow in terms of manners, poise, presentation, etc. as Willow, a way to ensure she stays close to her role and not have the monks be suspicious of her. {And honestly Wuya taught her with much grace than Hannibal but that's beside the point-}

I FINALLY FINISHED HER REDESIGN ‼️‼️‼️‼️

Did I really pull an entire all nighter when I have possibly have work, just to finish this piece? Yes. Yes I did. 😭

I don’t think bro realizes his classmate and desk seat buddy is a retired glamazon 😭 but that’s ok because they’re having fun chatting 💖💕💖💕💖 it was supposed to be a doodle until I decided to go all out on drawing it kdjdhdbegsjshdd talking with Michelle so true <3