one of the most devastating aspects of orufrey’s relationship to me is the fact that, by qifrey’s own account, olruggio has rediscovered his secret too often to keep track of— and he still chooses to forgive qifrey in each and every instance he learns, again, about the silverwood disease. we can easily assume his finding out manifests differently every time— maybe it comes as a confession, maybe it’s like a twisted problem that olruggio conspires to work out for himself, maybe it’s something blurted in the thick of an argument; maybe it comes with uneasy acceptance, maybe it’s more of a struggle to make olruggio understand— but no matter the symptom, his cause is always the same without fail. olruggio has never once hesitated to sacrifice everything he is for qifrey’s sake; he has never once considered being spiteful, keeping his own memory intact and letting qifrey shoulder his burden alone. in all their time enduring that same, indefinite cycle— ouroboros the whole way down— the thought to act selfishly has never, not even once, crossed olruggio’s mind
I know the picture frame is recurring motif through the whole series, but I've always found these two chapter covers side by side to be particularly striking. The many many layers of Qifrey versus Olruggio remaining the same through every slice of time.
i can't stop thinking about how excited this doofus was when he kneeled down to talk to sakura on the phone. look at him smiling and blushing and fidgeting. he is so clearly in love with her and it's maddening BECAUSE HE DOESN'T FUCKING REALIZE THAT HE IS.
happy pride month to everyone but specifically the gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun characters because there's no heterosexual explanation for this rainbow nor for the way they act in both the anime and the manga
i just i love i love love love how they incorporated the little bits of characterization here ITS SO GOOD
cocos confident straight line
agotts incredibly swift line as if shes rushing, right in front of coco??
riches little circle!!!! THE WAY SHES IN HER OWN LITTLE CORNER IS ALSO EXCELLENT
tetias excited swoop
THE WAY OLLY WAITS FOR THE GIRLS TO START THEIR LINES BEFORE GOING IN HIMSELF IS SOOOOOO GOOD
QIFREY JUST SITTING THERE, WAND IN HAND, NOT DRAWING BUT WATCHING
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
dededos
origamiaround
janainaart
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
kaledo-art
prguitarman
romaincrisis
