The Shadow That Lurks Within

The Shadow That Lurks Within is a mysterious Entity that is the source of all conflict on many worlds. He serves as the main overarching antagonist for the first half of Meme Series and then a supporting character for the second half.

## Appearance

During flashbacks, The Shadow just appears as the shadow of whoever he's talking to with his trademark smile on it.

The Shadow's true physical appearance is very similar to that of a Cursed but more orderly. He retains the usual Cursed design aspects, that being a dark, silhouetted body accented with a white glowing smile and lighting shape. Only The Shadow's teeth are larger and his lightning shape is in the form of a scarf rather than an exposed soul. The Shadow also has no visible eyes, his claws are relatively more hand shaped and he is vaguely wearing a suit and hi-topped sneakers.

## Personality

The Shadow is a cunning and charismatic villain who's goals don't seem to be anything other than chaos and destruction. He is easily able to manipulate others onto his side and make them do most of the legwork. He always displays a condescending yet charming personality, never showing any other emotions even when his plans blow up in his face, in fact a lot of times he expects them to, as shown in Meme Team when he knew his scheme was going to fail, which is why he place a robot duplicate in his stead by the time the Hopeless Heroes got to him.

As the story goes on more details are revealed about his true motives. It's shown he seemingly has contempt for Art World specifically, due to a reason that is eventually revealed to be the fact that the Artworlders rely solely on love and peace to move forward as a society, especially when conflict and hate has gotten them to where they are now. The Shadow, as a source of conflict, felt the need to rectify this and punish the Artworlders for their hypocrisy.

The Shadow has lived for a long time, and thus he is extremely smart and knowledgeable about how the universe and people work. He's able to identify patterns in how people act, which is how he's able to manipulate them. He also seems to know a little bit about OPO's identity, calling them an "anomaly," although he admits he can't fully grasp OPO's true place of origin. He's also a bit of a dramatic person prone to spout monologues about his plans. This may be picked up from his brother, who does the same thing.

The Shadow is both a nihilist and a narcissist. He believes he is above everyone in the universe simply because he accepts conflict as a part of reality. He casts his allies aside when he's done with them, and ultimately doesn't care if his own life is lost if his goals are accomplished.

## Lore

The Shadow was originally a being named Arcturus, who lived on a distant planet with an older brother. This planet was attacked by The Curse, and Arcturus was infected, however he was able to retain his sanity, but losing his previous identity in the process. The Curse still gave him an evil nature and he began to see all other lifeforms as toys to mess around with, and started planting seeds that led to causing conflict on many worlds. It's implied he was the one to coerce the Ionite Warrior to steal Ouroboros, leading to the destruction of Planet Xarven.

The Shadow would arrive on Art World during the end of the Revolution Against Tradition, and would see the humans oppressively putting an end to their wars and establishing a peaceful society by force. The Shadow was angered by this and decided he would need to take a more active role in causing conflict on this planet, so he devised a plan that would put Art World in an endless era of hate and war.

The Shadow would amass many allies, who would go around and cause chaos all over the world. The Shadow himself would go after the eldest Grandstone child and attempt to fill his head with nightmares, which would make him doubt himself in his life. The purpose of this was to damage the credibility of the superheroes Fatherman and Galactia by making their kids not be as good as they were. He was prevented from completing this goal for unknown reasons.

### Meme Series Issue 1

The Shadow would make his first appearance along with Juno and Siarnaq, who had downed a Twilight Mage's vehicle, and planned to kidnap her so the Twilight Mages couldn't cast the Cleansing Spell on the world. The three villains would then take their leave.

He would make another appearance in Grand Dad's mind during Grimbleween, showing that he is one of the only things Grand Dad is afraid of.

### Meme Series Issue 2

It was implied, and later confirmed that Pasqualio was working under The Shadow.

### Meme Series Issue 4

It would be revealed that The Shadow was the one who told Yoinker about his rapidly decreasing lifespan, and planted the idea of radicalism in his head.

### Meme Team

The Shadow would make his first full fledged appearance in Meme Team.

## Trivia

* The Shadow resists damage from elemental attacks like some other dark space tyrant we know hmm i wonder if they have any relation to each other hmmmmm