#sbgy

So obviously with that burst of violence from the gang, the phantom world is changing them in some fashion, right? A lot of the comments I saw on webtoons are calling that they're all turning into phantoms.

I 100% agree. In fact, going off the discussion the Origami Crane Group (OCG) were having, they should have turned into phantoms the minute they entered the shadow world at the start of the school year.

As the OCG member following the group said in ep 38, "All of those kids should be at least comatose, especially the girl!"

With the fact that the gang started sounding like phantoms to Ashlyn during the fight and that both Ashlyn and Logan have "spoken" the phantom's language-- Ashlyn naturally, and Logan when enraged with Barron-- I'm assuming that the process of turning into phantoms is finally taking hold of the gang.

The timeline of how long they've been in the phantom world is slightly vague, but the Savannah trip happened early in the school year and by the newest episode they've just finished midterm exams, meaning that it's been about 4ish months since then. Which is a pretty long period to avoid becoming a phantom when the change is usually instantaneous!

My main thoughts on what's going on are this:

The OCG are studying/messing with the phantom world for currently unknown reasons. Because of this, the Sorrel-Weed House "guide" picked the group after somehow identifying that Ashlyn has a connection to the phantom world.

The expected result would be for everyone in the group to end up comatose as their souls/shadows/whatever turn into phantoms. For some reason, perhaps the fact that Ashlyn's connection to the phantom world is somehow different from other people's (borne from the fact that her parents brushed with phantoms during her birth?), she prevents the phantom-ification and everyone retains their minds in the phantom world.

Except whatever Ashlyn is doing can't keep the others safe from the effects of the world forever, as seen in how violent and "mindless" they became in the fight before Ashlyn ordered them to calm down. The property of the phantom world that changes them is still trying to do it, and the passive use of her power isn't as effective anymore, now Ashlyn has to purposefully tap into the phantom language to stop them and let them regain their senses.

Another thing of note from the dialogue in ep 38 comes from Jasmine (tattoo lady) going over her interaction with the gang again. At the end, she mentions that after the gang left, the "rift" was permanently closed. If this isn't just what happens when anyone enters the rift, then that means Ashlyn and the gang entering the rift somehow ended up closing it when they shouldn't be able to.

I think this could link to Ashlyn's powers in two ways:

She has a natural ability to close rifts between the worlds, but because she didn't know about it, she couldn't do it properly, leaving her and the gang stuck in the phantom world at night anyway. Still better than being comatose, though!

Instead of actually closing the rift, Ashlyn instead sort of "became" the rift, triggering her and everyone to keep getting stuck in the phantom world even without being near a rift. This could also explain why her parents are seeing phantoms again and the phantoms' are able to semi-interact with the real world at times.

Why are the OCG chucking phantom-sensitive (and non-sensitive) people into the phantom world? Unclear. Since the "Boss" of the OCG has ordered them to keep an eye on the gang to figure out why they aren't reacting instead of, idk, killing them, I'm assuming there's a research segment to the OCG. I do wonder if they're using the power to assassinate people? Or planning to do that, with the random groups at the Sorrel-Weed House being tests.

If nothing else, we do know at least two more groups know about the phantom world; an OCG member mentions them. "Both sides are still trying to track us down."

Who are these two sides? There's not enough info to know much, but I'm leaning towards one group doing similar things to the OCG, while another opposes them. This is because the OCG member specifically refers to them as "sides" rather than just other groups.

So one group is doing the same stuff as OCG, and would want to strike them down to create a monopoly on the phantom world, and the other group wants to stop them altogether and use the phantom world some other way. Both are trouble for the OCG, so they have to stay low after the Sorrel-Weed House incident, as it was somehow noticeable to the other two groups and could be tied to the OCG, placing them in Savannah.

With the knowledge that there are other groups, it makes me wonder where Mr. Thomas (the teacher) fits into all this. The fact that he could see the difference in Ashlyn's shadow has lead to the assumption that he's part of the OCG, but I'm not sure that I buy it.

For one thing, you'd think that if he was part of the OCG, he'd already know that Ashlyn and the gang have ties to the phantom world and that strange things are happening to them, but he seemed genuinely thrown by the sight. For another, it's been shown with Ashlyn's parents that one can see and experience things like/related to phantoms without being a part of the OCG. (To different degrees, though-- the parents can see the phantoms but not Ashlyn's shadow, while the teacher can see the shadow.)

I think there are two possibilities with Mr. Thomas. Either he's someone who is slightly sensitive to the phantom world but is unaware of the OCG or other groups, and was startled by Ashlyn's shadow because he had no idea it could happen, or he's a part of one of the other sides and was startled by Ashlyn's shadow because he didn't realize she was tied to the event in the Sorrel-Weed House.