Status Updates From Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 3

«“You're way too soft, you know.”

“I've no need to be hard on my pupils when they're hard enough on themselves.”»

«I, too... hate adults who think of children as creatures rather than human beings.»

….so we won’t intimidate the child but we will gaslight the child
my grasp on where qifrey’s moral lines lie is flimsy at best, which is both unsettling and exciting

now if coco, who has only been studying magic for like 2 weeks now, was able to create a spell to help tartah work around his silverwash, why the FUCK hasn’t witch society as a whole been able to do anything to help them??? these bitches are lazy and only concerned with using magic to help themselves i swear. i’m with qifrey i’m radicalized already

okay uh so perhaps two things can be true at once. qifrey really was excited about the idea of tartah asking him a question and he did want to boost his confidence a bit, but also. he suspects that tartah is suspicious of him and is using his charm to try to deflect. BUT he was still delicate about it, no scare tactics like he used with nolnoa before

okay see i think this is completely genuine from qifrey. as much as he clearly has a dark side, he also has such a love for magic and discovery and teaching and i don’t think he would ever intentionally scare or intimidate a child. he ALWAYS crouches down to get on their level, it’s something i’ve noticed since the start

maybe i'm totally off here but i think qifrey is commenting on tartah's sharp eyes here as a subtle and completely innocent way to give him some encouragement and praise after seeing coco so upset about his silverwash. but since tartah is suspicious of him and it seems like we're looking up at him from his pov, it sounds more like an accusation to his ears. very curious to see how qifrey will handle this (charm)

oh agott my love. yes. yes that's exactly what she's saying. YOU feel guilty, and for good reason, but coco has held no grudge towards you this entire time (that's also just been you). she thinks the whole world is out to trip her up, probably because her own mother cast her aside and spoke to and about her like she was worthless. i see why she's the fan favorite, mommy issues galore in this fandom huh

THE KIDS CALL HIM OLLY TOO???????? oh they definitely picked it up from qifrey and maybe also (definitely) teased him for it at first

the transformation comment is a little one-off joke from tetia but clearly there's some truth to it if it's in play about the pre-pact witches. did they used to be able to turn themselves into creatures before drawing on the body was forbidden????? do brimmed cap witches still do it????

so the brimmed caps took something from qifrey.....memories? a loved one? something i can't even begin to predict? but at least we have confirmation that it is in fact personal

oh my god????? so healing witches tried to resist the denouncement of forbidden magic of COURSE they did!!! i wonder how their faction was eventually silenced or if some (or many) of them joined the brimmed caps

(cont.)
and coco is the only one who is awake, hugging her pillow and looking wistfully down at the candle as a pillow shaped like an eye watches her back. she is stuck at a perpetual crossroads. haunted by the weight of what she has lost and yearns to get back

this illustration seems rife with meaning so lemme overthink for a sec
richeh has bundled herself up in a blanket, she wants to hide from adulthood. tetia has her arms flung open, she wants to give to the world and receive thanks in return. agott has one hand clutched by her heart and the other clinging to the pillow beneath her, she is full of angst and insecurity and desperately wants to prove herself (cont.)

....hey qifrey
hey bud
you're starting to freak me out a little bit, just a tad
my heart is genuinely racing i know we're still so early on so it could take several volumes before we get the extent of his backstory but GOD is this riveting. the not knowing is killing me, WHAT IS HIS PLAN WHY IS HE SO OBSESSED HAVE I FALLEN IN LOVE WITH ANOTHER DOOMED WHITE HAIRED CHARACTER JUST TELL ME NOW

the brimmed cap telling coco in her nightmare that when the world falls apart, it'll be her fault, AND THEN THE PANEL ITSELF SHATTERS??? i eat that shit up every time

okay so not ALL of witch society comes from a long line of nepotism, but it is still significant that the most prominent and well respected families are those that are descended from the original 3. so it's more likely that it's a mix of nepotism and intellectual elitism, with disciples being chosen to pass on the secret, and then their children and students, and so on and so on

the clear contrast between tetia, richeh, and agott is so fascinating. richeh wants to stay childlike forever, while agott wants to be an adult as soon as possible, and lovely tetia has the healthiest mindset of all. she has a clear goal of traveling the world and helping others, and she's excited to achieve that, but she's not rushing herself past her limits. we've all been all 3 of these kids at one point

(cont.)
it's more difficult, and most of the time it feels like society is trying to bleed it out of us at all costs bc it has no capitalistic "value", but if you care enough about it like richeh clearly does, that wild creativity will never be snuffed out
this manga makes me so emo about art and how vital it is to this world and how terrifying it is for people to devalue it constantly

oh richeh too real
i get it though!! the price of the freedom of adulthood is responsibility, and that can feel like such a shackle to creativity. but i like to think that as we get older and are constantly forced to do things we don't want to do, we just have to make more of an effort to carve out the proper time and energy to continue cultivating the raw creativity that still lives inside us from childhood (cont.)

TETIA YOU ARE SO ADORABLE i love the reasoning behind her pigtails design that's so fucking cute (and makes me feel more vindicated for overthinking qifrey and olruggio's designs)

oh. oh qifrey *no*
and right after lecturing about the preciousness of memories and being so fatherly and gentle with coco when she feels bad for tartah oh GOD. how tragic it is for the "good guys" to sink to the same lows as the "bad guys" in service of what they deem to be the greater good. and we still don't even know what qifrey's greater good IS. but he's truly morally grey okay got it cool cool cool

so it's not caused by working around silverwood trees? it's just a genetic abnormality from birth? .....i'm still suspicious
but i adore that circular panel of tartah, almost as if he's in an eye himself
and a bit more of qifrey's disdain for witch society!! it does seem absolutely ridiculous that tartah wouldn't be accepted as a witch bc he has silverwash. genetic purity is part of the requirements too, how shocking