Laura38_6

👁👁

lmfao okay the contrast of Coco having what is CLEARLY a panic attack induced artblock with Agott just going "bruh, skill issue????" face....

this feels like one of those scenes Shirahama-sensei drew from memory with her editor, because she's been in this exact position before.

....what would "losing the art completely" entail, here?

Meanwhile, Coco can't even bring herself to confide in her only friends that her entire wrist might be burned off if she doesn't figure this out.

But yeah, no biggie. :) It's a learning opportunity, sure.

I once heard somewhere:

The first thought that pops into your head, that's how you were raised.

The second thought - that's the person you decide to be.

But the guiiiiillllt, Agott, imagine the guuuuiiiiilt 👀

WHEEZE

oh no. her heart was in the right place.

Sure thing, Coco, we ALL go through the trials and tribulations of our friend having his parent killed but then brought back to life through forbidden magic in a way you yourself have dreamed of bringing your dead mom back to life but then he snaps a manacle on your wrist and forces you to be his dancing puppet to bring him to the king in order to make dark deals--where were we?

Anyway

This must be, at the very least, VERY cathartic for her.

Sometimes, Shirahama-sensei grabs us by the scruff and says "you WILL learn about class privilege and disparity today" and sometimes she gently forces our head into a pillow and pats us and goes "it's ok, I get art block too"

the duality of manga

Your honor, they're SO cute. Come ON.

Unless all those were whisper-screamed, I think it's a little late for that.

Unless there's some sound-dampening spell on those bunk beds.

MMMMmmmm the soft glow of firelight and the adults talking in the night, when you should be fast asleep.... there's just something about it.

Agott's not dumb, she might be able to sus out something weird about this story.....

But man, I'm also impressed by how quickly Coco opens up to Agott, and how smoothly she lies in these situations. Qifrey's best student in that department--

Though as a side note, I'm SO glad this manga doesn't fall into the common trope of 'this person lies badly and obviously but no one seems to notice'. Coco lies smoothly, and it's believable, which makes the resulting lack of knowledge of the others feel real and heavy.

The narratives!!! They're FOILING!

And in a beautiful twist of fate, Agott is doing something JUST for Coco here. She isn't doing it as a means to an end, to further her own spellwork. She's just being a friend. ಥ_ಥ

WRITE THAT DOWN, WRITE THAT DOWN

jk I know someone already has a wiki of all the sigils, should I at some point need to reference them.

Beldaruit 100% has an entire tome full of these somewhere. He must love them to death.

So the seal can have multiple sigils, right? Presumably? Because otherwise how would you indicate that you want to make, say, a piece of light in the shape of a bird? Usually the LIGHT sigil goes in the middle, but the bird sigil must also need to be there?

URGH I wanna finish reading so I can look stuff up freely. But I can't!! THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS

Hmmm. I wonder if it IS enough. Or if Coco, in some way, is also suppressing her anger because she needs to, in order to keep going.

I'm. I'm SO glad we have these little moments of joy interspersed between the horrible, stomach-twisting horrors.. I'm so glad in the middle of all of this, Agott gets to have fun.

HOLY SHIT 😂the dads have been here THE WHOLE TIME

Oh Yeasties, are we in it now? Have the turns tabled?

What are you looking all gloomed up for? You do this to people. You were going to do this to a CHILD without bothering to ask for more details.

"The guy who found him" that's his fuckin' husband??????

the disrespect

somehow that's even more tragic.

Oh, we're exiling him? To the isle of OBLIVION?

What a nice place. I'm sure it's so cozy. I'm sure it's very fitting retirement for someone who gave their life to the order.

Of course. Of course he'd believe that. You gotta believe that there's a way to undo little mistakes here and there. A gun that unshoots people.

The pendulum swings again - from the horrors of one extreme to the other..............truly Shirahama-sensei can't keep getting away with this.... (she will)

HMMMM. Does she know that Qifrey somehow managed to recover some memories back after what happened to him?

The Knights: idk why people keep turning to the dark side

I am SO excited for when this washed up piece of seaweed with a chip on his shoulder gets a super-sad backstory explaining why he is such shiny little cog in the life-taking-machine, and everyone will immediately scurry off to love his ass

Oh, the GRANDMA has to slap sense into him? SHe has to remind him not to be a dick to a panicked widower?

"Family" huh. So they're presumably not married, or not recognized to be an official couple here?

So, I gotta admit - when this couple appeared, I thought 'oh, nice, how casually they've brought up the fact that being gay isn't a huge deal here'. I kinda took it for granted.

Are we now, perhaps revisiting that thought? Are we gonna tuck another form of discrimination into the fold?

"Them's the breaks"? When you are facing a person who has lost someone most dear to them?

These people are, at the VERY minimum, in DESPERATE need of coaching how to talk to others without coming off as dickweeds. I would be willing to bet my right hand that this alone would decrease the number of people defecting to the Brimmed Caps side immensely.

what did I just say?

"them's the breaks"

"we won't fix the problem, we'll just punish the person that was a part of the problem"

A truly Punitive legal system, can't say the author didn't nail it.

(nervously looking at my 300 chapters of an AU comic)

He's just like me, fr

Somewhere out there is a manga that's running parallel to this one, and it's all about taming dragons to ride. And yeah, witches are a thing, but no one knows how their magic works, so anyway--

This is much kinder than the 'normies' language I've been hearing out and about the fandom... 😅

Unironically, the tax benefits seem to be a part of it.

Magic is such a good metaphor, and I've completely decoupled it from art at this point.

Well, okay, not DECOUPLED, it's still very much a good metaphor for craft of all sort, in its own way...

But it's very clearly just a shorthand for power. And not only physical power, but political power...... social power. Knowledge as power. Power inherited through bloodlines, power as you acquire it from inherent, inborn privilege. The power to help others, at the cost of your own social status.....

That's another spell for liiiiight?

I love this drawing of Agott, it's possibly my favorite so far. She's so....child.

Look at what you've done! You've taken this perfectly good child and you've given it an existential amount of anxiety!