There's no rhyme or reason.

!!! WHA SPOILERS 93/VOL 16 !!!

“This is where my heart is”🧡 Olruggio is Qifrey’s home🥹 3rd DAY of Orufrey week✨

Then contrast this with Qifrey, who you could say is aware and somewhat ashamed of his own 'selfishness'. He benefits from having apprentices, he benefits from making Olruggio forget, he benefits from the lead Coco provides on the brimmed caps. He decisions often are based on moral dubiousness. But that doesn't undo the good he does by way of this as a mentor, friend, ect., especially the inadvertant parts of just how he interacts with people regardless of his baggage. Even where repeatedly erasing Oru's memories is, uh, bad (?), its also Oru's prefered outcome. If anything, it is Qifrey's current and considered sense of morality that makes him aware and regretful of his 'selfishness', and that makes his actions also have a positive benefit to others. On a reflexive, moment-to-moment level, his decisions are driven by his kindness and seflessness, regardless of long term ulterior motive and benefit. He doesn't wake up every day and look his apprentices in the eyes and decide to be nice and helpful because he's scheming or whatever.

To believe you are selfless and be unaware of the benefit to yourself. To believe you are selfish despite the positive impact you have on other -

Selfish and selfless are themselves morally charged words that maybe create a false good/bad dichotomy here. The duty to those you care about, to the world, and to yourself- none of them are more important than the others, and none of them exist in a vacuum, just as your actions don't exist in a vaccuum. Actions are never purely selfish or purely selfless.

Olruggio 'selfishness' is that he cares more about protecting the people he cares about than he does about the 'greater good' or whatever else.

I love this part so much -- the way this chapter parallels qifrey with coco's mother in multiple ways, including visually here in them both draping fabric over her protectively. the way he doesn't presume to step into her mother's place, but takes on the duty of shielding coco from the cold in her absence. visually we're also placed under the safety of his wing, as it were, to witness coco's most vulnerable state, feeling with her how big and steady and safe he is in her eyes despite as readers having just seen him as a confused hurting child himself for several chapters and knowing all his foibles and missteps well after almost 100 chapters. among all the other things shirahama is a master of, these subtleties of character perspectives is one of the most devastating ones to me.

(for all of the everything going on I think qifrey is actually consistently good at making sure he maintains the role of the adult in this relationship. he recognizes coco's reflexive smile as something akin to his own masking, but he doesn't bleed his own emotions into that, he's there to support her and actually manages to do it. and he apologizes when he slips up, which is probably just as important.)

Comfort

twt post

SPOILERS BELOW CUT

parting words (id in alt)

under read more for last 5 pages

Remembering this adult Coco vision from chapter 88, and I have alot of very jumbled thoughts/theories about it.

The Coco here is clearly wearing *Qifrey's* cloak, which would make you think that her adult self is going to be more like him (and also raises red flags about Qifrey's fate). But, keep in mind, this vision comes from *Qifrey* telling Coco about her future, not Coco talking about her own. This isn't a sneak-peek for the readers, this is what Qifrey personally thinks the future holds for her. This panel also doesn't show her face, which could just be for mysterious flair. If I was Shirahama I also would not randomly drop a full adult Coco design with zero warning, but I also believe it's meant to show that Qifrey believes that this is a future that he's not going to be present for :(

This Wouldn't be the first time we saw a character try to predict Coco's future instead of her predicting her own, too. Brimhat Coco is the opposite of the Coco we know. Covered in a series of chaotic spirals instead of her signature straight lines. This could be to show that this potential future Coco has gone completely off the deep end, yes, but it can also show that this portayal of her is *out of character*, and merely a vision of those who believe this is her fate. The above panel is from Utowin, and like, no shit one of the km is gonna be a little biased.

The only time Coco specifically references her potential brimhat self (that I can recall, at least) it's portrayed specifically as something that could've happened, and not something that will.

Now, with all this talk of characters predicting Coco's future self for her, what does Coco herself see?

Well uh. Nothing. When Coco talks about her own thoughts of the future witch she's going to become, we don't get any potential future visions. Simply the Coco of the past, and Coco of the present. Her description of who she wants to be is admittedly very similar to what Qifrey thinks, but it never portrays his *vision* of her future self as correct.

With the amount of emphasis Witch Hat puts on Coco forging her *own* path, making her *own* choices, becoming her *own* witch, I truly believe that its not out there for me to think that both of the potential futures we've seen for her are not fully correct, and that her true adult self is going to be a surprise for all of us.