I reblogged this last month, tagged it, and said “might as well see if it works.” I used this video as a reference to find all the forms that i needed (which is A LOT, especially if you’re a dependent) and sent them through the mail, not really allowing myself to hope.
dude.
$2,714 of medical debt from my top surgery - gone. im shaking this was such a weight on me for 2 years and it fucking worked. what the fuck.
I've always had many thoughts for young olly... his regrets of not being able to help and his fear through the whole process. fear of his best friend dying in front of him and having to lose his memories, but still keeping a brave face the whole time...
I think of him being regretful for many things but never once for loving his best friend, and he knows it'll never change with or without his memories
i wonder if everytime qifrey erases his memories he thinks he'd kill a version of him... how even if he's still the same it's no longer the person he was...
how many times have he thought of the first one he exchanged his tassels with?
i wonder if he ever look at the tassel and think of the boy he made promise with?
thinking of olruggio being one of the few qifrey lets touch his scar, and whenever olruggio cups his face it's always on his right cheek, thumbing the scars very gently...
thoughts about dreams and hugs,, the foreign feeling of warmth from a hug,,, (loosely a continuation of
so i've noticed something about orufrey's body language
and i have been going insane about it ever since! kamome shirahama your attention to details will be the death of me /pos
hands are the most expressive non-verbal tool humans have, and since it's also quite literally the tool that gives the witches their magic, watching hands in witch hat atelier is beyond important. implied spoilers up to ch93 under cut! [don't mind the language of half the screenshots, that's beside the point]
qifrey so very often tends to clasp his hands together, rubbing them against each other or simply clinging to his long robes. a gesture so telling of just how uncomfortable due to silverwood he constantly is, always slightly nervous, always tip-toeing around the edge of a cliff.
and he's been doing so since childhood! his emotions are so closed-off when it comes to casual body language, which is both an indicator of his character and the ways in which he deals with his curse. unable to trust even his closest friend, he chooses the only vaguely soothing thing: to curl into himself, to detach, to distance.
meanwhile olruggio, despite his scruffiness, generally comes off as a more open, "simple" man, hands flying all over the place when he's agitated. he expresses his emotions freely, without restrain.
qifrey curls into a ball for comfort, meanwhile olly splays like a star, comfortable in his skin an in qifrey's presence
and what happens when they start to interact?
olly keeps reaching for qifrey, talking some sense into him with his hands, with spontaneous and emotional physical touch.
he does so even upon first meeting
he keeps and keeps reaching out to qifrey, both literally and symbolically.
no matter how hard qifrey tries to run away, to hide deeper into himself, olruggio will always be there to offer him a friendly hand or otherwise
this particular parallel is especially dear to me:
they changed so much,
but they also haven't changed at all
and the culmination of this dynamic in a single image for me is this:
qifrey, gaze averted, hands uncomfortably clasped together, fake smile on his face
and olruggio, calm and confident, leaning into qifrey's personal space with familiar ease, resting an arm on his shoulder in a friendly gesture.
everything that shirahama consistently portrays as the manga goes on and the history unravels, neatly and wordlessly shown in a single static image. the art of showing, but not telling, thus nurturing a deeper understanding of these characters. absolutely brilliant
Olruggio's on the verge of passing out from exhaustion but when Agott shyly ask him if he can review her spell he's like "Yes Gimme!". He may be dying from overwork but there's always time to help the daughter™
when you look at that boy it feels like something inhuman looks right back at you...
I adore the idea of the parasite, to a degree, being a sentient being. It knows what it wants and it waits until it can finally weave its roots around it. This is about 'jealousy', but not that of Qifrey, but of the third 'person' in this relationship.
