#I did know i be post to many panels

[project-zorya-askblog]

The Snitch.

Dr Kraken is gonna beat up those who say anything shit about him.

Dr Kraken belongs to @creator-of-creativious / @fountian-of-youth

And Albert Wise in my OC

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

If I was in a lucid dream with a ghost, I would simply impress them with my blunt rolling skills

[kbitty]

um. hey guys

(original mlp comic by @punkitt-is-here if you didn't know)

[umbrellajam]

Tales of the Teen Titans #53 - Dick and Kory vs. Donna and Terry; very cute doubles match inside Titans Tower

Batman (Vol. 1) #468 - Tim practicing against a ball machine at Wayne Manor. Bizarrely, he's shown playing both left- and right-handed in different panels (but primarily left). Artist mistake Ambidextrous Tim evidence?!

[jessicas-pi]

Fic Snippet Time: in which tristan stalks sabine's secret space tumblr art account

---

Tristan was scrolling aimlessly on a totally illegal blogging holosite to kill time and subtly rebel against Gar-Butthead-Saxon when he saw something that made him wonder if he was hallucinating.

It was a series of a couple images, in a blog post—comic book pages. They had a fantasy-ish look to them. There was a guy who wore a tunic and haphazard bits of armor, and a girl who had full armor and ridiculously elaborate braids in her pure-white hair.

But that wasn’t what threw him for such a loop. No, the thing that made him wonder if he was going crazy was that he was almost certain he recognized the handwriting from the speech bubbles.

He blinked a few times and shook his head, then tapped on the image to make it larger, looking the page over. 

Not only did the handwriting match his sister’s, the girl looked just like Sabine.

Now, here’s the thing. Tristan had always been Sabine’s biggest fan, up until she ruined everything. But even if he was furious with her now, he still worried about her, a little. And if he had somehow come across a comic drawn by Sabine, and therefore had come across Sabine’s HoloNet blog, well, then—maybe he could follow this lead and find out… something, about her.

So Tristan read the page.

It looked like he was picking up right in the middle of a plot arc, not at the beginning. In the first panel, the girl and guy were face to face. In fact, she was gripping the sides of his face, holding him still, and staring fiercely at him. He looked nervous. In the second panel, she was still staring at him just as intensely, but this one gave her a speech bubble: “You’re beautiful.” and the guy turned bright red. 

(Woah. Was Sabine giving herself a love interest?! Mmm… nah, this was probably just a comic relief crush thing. If it was a love interest, he wouldn’t look like that.) 

In the third panel along the top, the guy had leaned back and was reaching up behind his neck bashfully, looking away and stammering: “Y–you really think so? Th–thanks! I mean—I—I think you’re beautiful too—um—” (Definitely a comic relief crush.)

The fourth panel—the beginning of a new row in the middle of the page—had a man with a goatee leaning in over the guy’s shoulder and informing him, “She’s delirious, kid.” and the guy looking embarrassed and saying, “Oh. Right.”

The panel next to that had Goatee Guy talking with a grinning woman, who had pale greenish skin and horns that swept backwards from her head. “I hope that dreamblossom wears off soon.” “I dunno, I kinda like this side of Saren.” “Yeah, well, as entertaining as it is, we won’t be finishing the mission with her like this.” and in the background, Little Miss Delirium was glomping the blushy guy, with a woozy, wobbly kind of speech bubble saying “Surpriiiiise huuuuug!”

Tristan snickered, reading on. It seemed that Goatee Guy (Jarran Kan’es) and Horn Lady (Dula Synara) were renegade bandits fighting a corrupt Empire and also so in love. Saren Binne (Real subtle, Sabine. Reeeal subtle.) was a young bounty hunter (wait, is that what she’s been doing with herself all this time?!) with a mysterious past. Also, there was a dragon named Chomper, a burly purple warrior named Orilos Gareb, and the blushy crush guy—Ridge Zera—who was apparently Jarran’s apprentice. (Apprentice of what? Crimes against the government? Cool, Tristan could get on board with that.) 

At the bottom of the post, after the two comic pages, there were links to the previous pages, the next pages, and a masterpost that had all the comics so far. 

There was also a counter proclaiming that this post had almost 4,000,000 notes.

Okay then.

Apparently, Sabine didn’t just have a secret art holoblog.

She had a massively popular secret art holoblog.

Because even banished from her family, she just HAD to be the successful Wren kid, DIDN’T SHE?!

[dailyhtfboards]

Day 90

Today’s board is:

Aw, look he’s almost aware of his impending doom <333

(From TV episode 4C Who’s to Flame)

[not-kamenx]

Beyblade X Ep 34: A Rainbow Guest

GES SJACSLSVWJEVEJEVENEBB BC LABJEBWEVD KB VEJEDV WHAT IN THE OMINOUS SPINNING DRAKE IS THIS EPISODE

Okay, first off, I WAS SO DISTRAUGHT AFTER GETTING HIT WITH A FOUND FAMILY EPISODE THEN WE GET HIT WITH JAXON’S TEAMMATE, SIGRID NANAIRO AND HER REALLY BLUNT ATTITUDE TO EVERYTHING EXCEPT SUSHI. Okay I’m gonna be honest, I did get spoiled that she was Multi’s sister BUT LEGITIMATELY I’M STILL SURPRISED

She and Jaxon are similar but not at the same time??? I mean they both love Komaba Sushi (I figured ever since Memories of Sushi ep because the bigger set was given to her while Chrome was too busy focusing on Jaxon and getting fed blah blah blah and yeah) AND THEY’RE PRETTY BLUNT but Jaxon seems to prefer choose his words while she prefers to choose her actions

The way Robin went to grab the mask and practically suffocated Jaxon had me giggling, LIKE DO THEY JUST HAVE IT ON STANDBY???

Like he was so happy to see her and now he’s getting choked by his hair in the mask

Anyways when Robin was surprised she knew him I figured he’d put two and two together, since in the first ep he knew Jaxon was part of Team Pendragon and so was she? Mini plot hole I suppose

BUT YEAH I noticed throughout the episode Robin kept defending Multi from Sigrid even though he keeps getting cut off which, GAHHHHHH AND EARLIER DURING THE VOTES SHE TRIED TO COMFORT HIM they’re adorable honestly

anyways the reactions when Robin and Jaxon find out they’re sisters 😭

THIS IS THE MOST HORRIFIED EXPRESSION IVE SEEN JAXON EXPRESS IM CRYING WHY DOES HE LOOK SO MORTIFIED

and later on we get a look at baby Multi and Sigrid, WHICH OMG I WANNA DRAW MULTI WITH SHORT HAIR NOW

and…. Babadudum…. You guessed it… why I’m immediately posting my reaction to this….

We get a lovely momentary session where Chrome is slowly continuing to lose it over Jaxon in the corner of a room while Sigrid sits there like the bestie who has to hear about her friend’s relationship problems

CHROME YES I WANTED TO SEE YOU BUT NOT LIKE THIS, HAVE A DAMN SLICE OF LIFE MOMENT OR SOMETHING HELP

and thennnn some shady shit just casually breaks into Komaba Sushi and steals the bey plans Multi had. Hello, how does no one spot this THEY HAVE TWO HUGE ASS BUILDINGS SURROUNDING THEM???

[kimbapisnotsushi]

you seem to have a good read on HQ and your takes are great, so i have a question...and if you'd rather not go there, please ignore this! but i see oikawa get called "arrogant" quite often and i'm curious, would you say he is? what is it that makes people think that? imo he has a plenty of flaws, but i truly don't think arrogance is one of them. self-centered, sure, but not arrogant i think. i'm open to being wrong, i'm just legit so confused by that particular criticism, it makes me doubting my reading comprehension. i feel like that one post that's like "free my man, he didn't do that. he did a lot of other stuff tho" LOL. if you do answer this, then thanks for your time!

oh, dear anon. this is a very very big question and i'm honored you think i am capable of providing an answer that does it justice!! i don't consider myself an oikawa expert by far, but i'll do my best because he's still very beloved to me, and i hope whatever i say helps!

(but also - maybe take what i say with a grain of salt LMAO)

anyways, to get the main point out of the way: i completely agree that oikawa isn't arrogant! i actually haven't seen any commentary about that myself (bless!!!), so i can't say for sure why some people might think that, but my guess is that they think his pridefulness = arrogance — they think that the confidence he has in himself and seijoh contributes nothing to their actual power and is utterly meaningless if they don't win, especially in the face of ushijima. which, like, come on. what kind of captain would he be if he wasn't confident in himself and his teammates? is he supposed to tell them that they're going to lose??? is he supposed to discourage their hard work and effort???

or maybe it's because oikawa acts like he's all that, but doesn't have anything to show for it. who does he think he is? what does he think his pride is worth? what right does he have to go around making grand declarations when he has nothing to his name?

(which isn't entirely true, either, but we'll get into that, promise.)

now, do i think that he can, occasionally, be flippant, shallow, and/or petty? yeah, sure. he's got one hell of a personality about it. even iwaizumi says as much. oikawa is great at being a little shit. it's one of my favorite things about him!

but is oikawa genuinely arrogant, or self-centered? well . . . i don't think so.

see, here's the thing about oikawa: he knows he's good, but he doesn't think he's good enough. i think it'd be easiest to really explain what that meant if we broke this down into two separate parts, so let's give it a go, shall we?

(buckle up, friends, because it's about to get LONG. also: TIMESKIP SPOILERS!! and there's a tldr at the start of the tags because. WOW.)

so, first things first: if people are calling oikawa arrogant, then i'm like 99% sure that they don't actually know what the word "arrogant" means.

"arrogant" is used to describe someone full of themselves. it's used to describe someone conceited and pompous. it's used to describe someone so assured of and invested in their self-importance that they don't care for other people, and if it seems like they do, then it's usually wildly off the mark and still serves to inflate their own egos.

oikawa has never once been like that. he's been pretty much the exact opposite, in fact.

and yeah, sure, by his third year of high school, he knows he's good at volleyball, and that's fine! it's perfectly all right to claim you're good at something if you have the skills/experience to back it up. confidence is healthy as long as it isn't in overabundance, and we actually see a lot of this throughout the series!

(not to mention that this was where ushijima fell short. he was overflowing with confidence. he did not believe, for even a single second, that hinata shouyou and his meager, scrappy little flock of crows could beat him.

but oikawa? he knew. he knew what it looked like to make something bloom.)

the key to oikawa's confidence that made him better was that he could pinpoint others' strengths and weaknesses just as well as he could with his own. and (bear with me, please, i might get kind of boring here bc it's nothing that hasn't been said in the manga before) i don't mean it in the way we see the coaches or more analytical players do, as observations to be taken advantage of by everyone else; i mean that in the sense of how vital it is to his position as a setter. that was always the biggest difference between oikawa and kageyama: no matter how much more raw talent kageyama had, no matter how much better oikawa believed him to be, kageyama, especially in the beginning, struggled to do what oikawa could with a team. kageyama struggled to bring out the best in each player. and it wasn't because he didn't know how -- oikawa freely admitted that kageyama had the skill for it, that kageyama, once he got his shit together, could win against him -- it was because kageyama didn't have that same confidence in himself.

(not until much later, anyways. but that's another story, for another time.)

so, oikawa's confident. he knows he's good. he can bring out the best in each player. he's got a killer serve (and a killer smile!), a mind for tactics that borders on machievallianism, and cherishes the trust he is given like it's something precious. his coaches let him lead without leaning on them. his team has the utmost respect and admiration for him. he has a reputation. from karasuno to shiratorizawa to the whole of miyagi -- there is not a single character who knows oikawa tooru and would believe that he is, in any way, bad at volleyball.

but it's not enough. despite all of that, oikawa still doesn't think he's good enough. and that, friends, brings us to the second point.

oikawa tooru is nothing if not passionate.

so were the others, of course. kageyama kept going after his grandfather's death. hinata kept going while being a nobody from nowhere with no one to back him up. atsumu kept going while osamu didn't. it's not even about just those who went pro -- kenma, kuroo, noya, and everyone else found things that they were passionate about and kept going with it. the entire story revolves around loving what you do and trying to keep that love alive, and, sometimes, that can be really, really difficult when it seems like it doesn't love you back.

oikawa was so insecure over kageyama to the point where he nearly decked the poor kid. oikawa got crushed by ushijima-- who kept telling him that his team was not good enough, that his choices were not good enough, that there was nothing good enough to be proud of -- for years in a row. oikawa was taught that there would always be someone better than him no matter how skilled he was, but if he let that stop him then he didn't fucking belong on the court in the first place.

oikawa tooru is intimately acquainted with not being good enough, but he keeps trying to be. he keeps going. he tries to keep the love alive even if he's not loved back. he pushes and practices and takes a plane far from home to become even better. even if he doesn't have the skill, even if he doesn't have the talent, even if he doesn't have the love -- he still has his pride. and what does that mean, in the end? how far does that take him?

in the end, oikawa tooru walks across a world stage and sees people who believed in him on the other side and calls it a family reunion. in the end, he gets to play the volleyball that reminds him of why he loves it and how it gives him so much love back. in the end, his pride is unyielding and unbreakable, a product of the forge. he molded it with his own two hands. he will not let it falter so easily.

arrogance would not have taken oikawa tooru this far. i hope this has proven that he is anything but.

remember: instinct is something you polish. talent is something you make bloom. and never, ever let anyone else tell you what your pride is worth.

[boo-cool-robot]

Mentally rotating a Maki + Megumi AMV set to Daisy Grenade's Baby Blackout....like:

They say he's got his daddy's looks

But he's got the devil in him

How could you expect me?

Not to tear you apart

Say he's got his daddy's looks

But he's got the devil in him

How could you expect me?

Not to tear you

apart

[bastardlybonkers]

i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one

his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.

ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication

ok yknow what Edit: i shouldve made it even more explicit at the end of this post, i hadnt thought i would need to since i started the post with this, but i think a few too many people are missing my point so i just wanna clarify. i shouldnt have said 'really clashed' and left it at that because yeah they did, but it wasnt just their opposite methods of communication, it is also very much that toshiro was experiencing microaggressions via laios. it may have been unintentional on laios's part, but it still happened and wore him down, made it harder for him to communicate on top of both the more subtle social cues that he was raised with and his own communication difficulties. i also want to say that the fandom reaction to toshiro and the complete ignorance of this point is also racist tbh or at the very least ignorant. i understand that the anime did not cover this panel, and neither did the manga, as this was an omake, but im gonna be real with you guys. there are enough context clues within the story to clue you into this. if you didnt pick up on it thats ok, but i think this is a good lesson in picking up subtext in the stories that youre watching and/or reading. kui shouldnt have to explicitly say 'by the way laios was racist to toshiro' for this point to be understood, and at the very least, when the author portrays a character in a sympathetic light (as kui clearly does) it should make you question Why they are doing so and what makes them sympathetic, rather than youre immediate and only reaction to be 'well i hated what this guy did/said so i hate them and they suck'. idk exactly how to finish this, just. idk. question your biases and gut reactions to things you see in media and stories, and think about whether or not theres subtext that youre missing.

[deoidesign]

What if I.

when your main characters start dating after years of writing so they finally get to be like this

[fishtrouts]

I couldn’t resist the art vs artist trend!!! What a whirlwind of a year 2024 has been!

So many moments of joy and excitement, challenges to face! I feel like I’ve grown so much, both artistically and as a person. To me, this year feels like a breakthrough!

Art-wise, I got more comfortable with backgrounds, and they started appearing so much more often in my comics. It’s wonderful to look back on them and still feel proud of those panels. This year also saw the introduction of new dragon characters with diverse personalities and shapes! We witnessed Hopper and Swordfish slowly growing into sliiiightly more regal-looking wyrms, both in appearance and personality. My style has definitely shifted to a more mature and refined place. This feels only natural, and I can’t wait to see how my art and dragons evolve in the year to come!

In 2024, I also launched my very own store, a pin pack of Swordfish and Hopper, and a dragon plushie! I posted more often than I did last year, but it’s my hope and goal for 2025 to share even more consistently.

Creativity isn’t something to force, so I won’t be too hard on myself if I fall short of this goal. Instead, I want to keep working on finding a balance between my art and life. It’s an ongoing journey, and while I know I’ll never achieve a perfect balance (because life ebbs and flows), I can keep moving closer to a version of it that feels right for me.

Here’s to 2025!! And lots more dragons!!! Thank you for sticking with me on this journey!

[kyri45]

FOR MY MINIONS!

I’m not the best with words, so I’ll try what I can, but It’s almost impossible to describe the sheer amount of joy I had yesterday evening because of the takeover

The excitement you could feel from everything that was happening was so strong that at one point I thought “damn, I wanna partecipate in this as well” after quickly remembering that I was the takeover.

Never would I thought that so many of you joined, the dedication in every fanart, meme, animatic, fanfiction, edit that I saw could be absolutely felt through your work and passion.

Seeing all the fandom joined together and so passioned and joyful for something so small as my silly comic kind of teared me up. It motivates me and brighten my day knowing that some of you find comforts in my update

The numbers!

In just 2 hours we were able to make the fandom tag trend, and it reached number one a couple of hours later.

But! Even for just a little, you did the impossible!

You made the comic tag trend!!

More than 700 posts have been posted during the takeover, and I’m absolutely STUNNED by all that you created!!

And now, what you have been waiting for …

A deal is a deal! Prepare yourself, because tomorrow you are in for a treat.

Our story continues with a 40 panels double update on December 8th, 1PM-2PM!

You all deserved it! Just for your information, even if the tag didn’t succeed to trend, I would have gave you the double update anyway, no way I would have left all your dedication unrewarded.

Have a small Spicynoodle doodle for now as my appreciation of all of you! Thank you again from the bottom of my heart!💜

[kozachenko]

Shortly after that Zanmu drawing, I went on an art spree and made small little drawings of a majority of the current playable characters in Touhou (I've been procrastinating on drawing Aya and Ran) and finally gave myself refernce points for how to draw all these characters going forward! Also, don't mind the change in background colour, that's just me changing the background so the values are actually visible lol.

Artist's Notes;

So the first one I started with was Reimu, and the inspiration for her pose came from this pose reference on Pinterest of a girl doing ribbon dancing, and I thought "Damn, that's very Reimu-coded" and did a quick little Reimu drawing from that.

This was also the drawing where I finally learned what makes a Reimu drawing feel like Reimu. It's the shirt, it's literally just the shirt. I decided to try making Reimu's shirt have a stronger square shape and oh my god it's like I discovered some kind of secret sauce because it just feels so much more like Reimu. I also gave Reimu a tabard and loose pants because I felt like that also fit her very well and also tied in some element's of Yukari's design into hers. I also made her bow look more like a very geometric butterfly as a bit of a tie in to "Diochromatic Lotus Butterfly" and also because I think butterfly symbolism fits her a lot. I also left the hands unfinished because they are not the focus of this piece, Reimu is, I don't wanna cry over how I can't get the hands right and then never get to the actually fun parts of the drawing. Previously, I did some design experimentation with Reimu where I added a little ornament on her obi that was inspired by Yuna's design from Final Fantasy 10 (I can't remember if I ever posted that one lol, also FFX is so good you guys I love it so much) and I like it, I think it adds some fun assymetry to her design that I think makes it look neat. I also gave her some more traditional Japanese shoes (I don't know the name of them so please correct me if you know) since I've seen other artists doing it and I love that look so I added that to this drawing as well.

I also really like how Marisa turned out, I experimented a bit with her body type and outfit, though I didn't really go too off-model with her compared to Reimu. I liked the longer sleeves on her and I gave her a big bow on the back of her apron since I thought it looked cute. I couldn't find a spot for the bow on her hat that looked good so sadly that isn't present in this version of her :( I do like how her face turned out though, since I've also been experimenting with how differently stylized I can make faces in my art. I will always love mangas like Hunter X Hunter that can put two extremely differently stylized characters on the same panel and make it look cohesive, it's why I love the style so much.

I think the crulest irony is not being able to draw your favourite character well while you're hyperfixating on them, but then only being able to draw them how you picture them once they're no longer your favourite, and that happened with Sakuya here. I was initially gonna give her the flashiest eyeshadow known to man but when I removed the layer wih the eyeshadow rendering on it I ended up liking it more without it, so now she's just got some nice bottom lashes. I tried giving her more of an hourglass shape for her body type, mainly to differentiate her more from Reimu and Marisa, and I focused on making as many points in her drawing as sharp as I can. I also gave her some white gloves because I like the idea of Sakuya having fancy gloves, it fits her. To me, Sakuya has always been the most high femme of the main Touhou characters. Maybe this is just because she was my gay awakening, maybe it's just influence from the fandom, but it just kind of makes sense to me. Much like Marisa, I also emphasized the bow ribbons for extra oomph with the silhouette and when I added the red bows and looked at the overall design, I fixed the lack of red anywhere else by just... covering her in blood... I mean she does work for two vampires and she's exactly the sanest person in Gensokyo so please pardon my indulgence in edginess it couldn't be helped.

Youmu was really fun to do but also kinda challenging. In my mind I wanted to make her feel different compared to everyone else I've drawn so far, short enough to be somewhat accurate to canon, but not too childish looking since she never really acts all that childish in cannon and it wouldn't make sense for her to look like a child. I also had to make her look fast and speedy without her looking like Sakuya and potentially avoiding same body syndrome with Aya, who's whole gimmick is speed. In the end, I think her drawing is my favourite, mainly because of the shapes and silhouette. I also really like how I golden-ratioed myon. I also took a few liberties with her outfit and decided to give it some layers to add visual interest. I also like how the cuts in the clothing add more triangles, which adds to the shape language. For her face, I was wondering what to do with her eyes until I decided to just go for the simple, glowing, circular eyes she has in the final product. I was also listening to a bunch of Gorrilaz albums while drawing these (Demon Days is my favourite album btw, idk how basic of a take that is though) and my brain 100% was subconsciously influenced by some elements of the art style (it's so good omg). I also like the shade of green I gave her, though I am a certified green lover so I am 100% biased.

Reisen is where I let myself get a little weird with it, because as you can see, I turned her into an anthropomorphic bunny because she is a weird moon rabbit god dammit, why should she look normal? I was more excited about drawing her IN design than her modern design so that's why she's dressed like that, but I do have a sketch of her in my sketchbook of her modern design. I also had fun rendering her velvet suit jacket. This also helped me tie in some of the reds in her eye and ear, which is also a nice bonus. I also gave her pure white fur to create more visual contrast. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how she turned out, though I wish I didn't shade the legs too much because it's kinda blending with the skirt colour....welp, ya win some ya lose some I guess.

Sanae is also relatively on-model compared to everyone else here, though I did try to make some changes to her outfit to make her feel different from Reimu. First of all, I made her big sleeves (IDK the proper Japanese term for them, if there is one, so again if you know please correct me on this) more open than Reimu's, as well as making them more pointy to give her a different silhouette. I also tried out a new rendering style on her eyes that I also applied to Cirno (we'll get to her in a moment) to also make her face feel different from Reimu's. I'll be honest, I didn't really know what to do with her body type so she just kinda got the "basic slim girl" look in her drawing. I'm not too big a fan of the frills I added to her skirt though, I don't really think she needs them. I'm glad I gave Reimu pants and a tabard instead of a normal skirt because that does help to make the two of them feel different. I also kept her little frog hair clip the same shade of blue as her dress, mainly to economize my colour usage and limit the palette into something a little more tight-nit. I do like how her little hair snake looks though, it's cute lol.

And finally, we have Cirno. I have been a firm believer of "long sleeve Cirno is best Cirno" ever since I saw the art of her in PMiSS because she's an ice fairy, I think it would make sense for her to want to keep herself warm, same reason she has little socks too. Now that I look at it more, her colours are pretty similar to her design in Great Fairy Wars, and honestly I like that, I think keeping her colour palette simple is a good idea so I'm happy about that. I mainly wanted to focus on rendering her wings though, mainly because rendering ice and crystals is fun even though I have done zero studies of them! I also wanted to experiment with rendering her eyes in a similar way to Sanae's, and I like how they turned out! I don't know if I'll continue with this style in the future but it will probably stick around because to me, any stylistically different way of doing eyes is another facial feature I can use to bend the rules of same face syndrome.

While I'm on the topic, I want to mention that the reason Hunter X Hunter's art works so well is because everything is kinda rendered the same. It showed me that if you do everything else consistently in your style (i.e. rendering, lineart, shading), stylizing each character's faces differently will be a lot easier, at least that's how I see it. IDK if I'm ever gonna do drawings of Aya and Ran in this style since I gotta think about them more as well as stop procrastinating lol.

[aphel1on]

the longer i look at this panel the more deranged i feel about it. this is environmental storytelling at its finest.

the eodio stand-in doll in particular makes me crazy. where did it come from? did thistle just pop into the village like "hey ungrateful wretches, one of you needs to make me a life-sized mannequin, For Reasons". did he make it himself? seems quite unlikely, yet the possibility haunts me. i mean, i guess there could've been one just lying around the dungeon somewhere. it's the act of replacement itself that really gets to me. (edit: it's been pointed out to me that the eodio doll also could have been left behind as part of delgal's escape plan. slightly different kind of madness but tbh, just as funny-sad to me if that happened and thistle went Ok, Guess That's Eodio Now.)

both the wives are there too. we know very little about them, which makes me tend to assume thistle wasn't all that close to them, but they're still included. when did they end up here? did he kick their souls out of their bodies at some point, or were they among those who left their bodies voluntarily to try and escape? when did yaad become an effective orphan, delgal an effective widower? women in the margins of the narrative, tell me your stories!

and the fact that they're surrounded with the living paintings, which thistle habitually wanders through to relive the past. this truly is his inner sanctum, his place of utmost comfort... and it may as well be a tomb.

that panel is so creepy when you first see it. just a sense of "ohh jeez, there's a lot to unpack there".

and actually, yeah, it remains creepy from pretty much any angle, but the more you think about it the more it's also tragic.

this is where many of thistle's happiest moments took place. everything he had in that picture is now gone. first he lost their warm regard, then one-by-one their bodies became hollow shells. before the end, none of the people here needed or enjoyed food anymore. the dinner table, as a center of both family life and nutrition, became obsolete.

a line from someone else's excellent post about thistle has stuck in my head ever since i read it: "to eat is to live, but to eat together is to be loved". to me, this is the sentiment and symbolism at the core of everything that happens in dungeon meshi.

it makes this bit all the sadder and more disturbing.

there's several things to note here:

thistle has gone from seated and eating with them as part of the family, to a lonely and ominous figure hovering over delgal's shoulder

eodio is conspicuously absent from view, and his body would have been a husk by now, but yaad says parents, which forces me to assume that they are sitting at the table with eodio's soulless body, hidden under yaad's speech bubble

they're not actually eating anything.

those plates are empty. you could assume that they've already finished eating, maybe, but yaad refers to it as sitting around the dinner table. in fact, he compares it to what he's currently doing; sitting at the dinner table watching the touden party eat, not eating anything himself.

it paints a pretty grim picture. for some time even after the fantasy had fallen apart, even after there was no need or desire to eat, they kept gathering around the dinner table. at that point, i'd guess only so as not to provoke thistle's wrath.

but even that last happened a long, long time ago.

this is a callback to what senshi said in the golden kingdom: the reason the people keep maintaining their fields and silverware and so forth is that they need to do so in order to stay sane.

paradoxically, the dinner table is the most striking evidence of thistle's insanity, and at the same time, it's the only anchor to sanity he has left.

he kept enforcing the ritual of dinner together long after it lost significance. when even that was impossible- because almost everyone's souls were gone- he kept their bodies at the table anyway. it's fine. it's fine! he's protected them, physically, just like he set out to. they're all still breathing. at a glance it looks like they could wake up and resume dinner at any moment. like this, it's easy to pretend.

isn't that what being a dungeon lord is, at the core of it? rejecting reality, staying in the prison of one's impossible desires. it's just one long game of pretend.

thistle did all this to protect his loved ones. no matter how obsessive and twisted he became in pursuit of that over the years, his core motivation never changed. this is all he has left of that dream: his loved ones' bodies gathered around the locus of their happiest memories together. like this, he can tell himself he's succeeded.

when eodio's body vanished with delgal's soul in it- when he couldn't even have that anymore... well.

i want to reach through the screen and shake him. no, they're not, thistle. THISTLE, NO, THEY'RE NOT! the doll of eodio is the closest thing to him in this panel, underlining the point. when that final illusion was shattered, he became completely unable to cope with reality.

therefore casually forgetting the creepy eodio doll isn't real.

thistle isn't stupid. eodio's body vanished at the same time as delgal's soul. shortly after, more adventurers came pouring in than ever before. deep down, he knows what happened. if he didn't, being confronted with the truth by mithrun wouldn't have made him panic so hard he summoned chimera falin to the first floor.

yet still...

he absolutely can't admit that to himself. he is clinging to the last scraps of the illusion with everything he has.

this is a dungeon lord at the end of desire. this is a lotus-eater machine left running long after its conclusion. this is mithrun lying listlessly in his bed, his replica lover having given up any pretense of being human. the illusion is all that's left. (an illusion is all it ever was.) thistle and the citizens of the golden kingdom- they're ghosts just as much as the ones who wander the dungeon floors. and if it weren't for thistle sealing the lion away, he would've been eaten by it long ago.

all of this encapsulated by that single panel of the dinner table.

[lej222]

Supernatural Involvement and Ominous Signs in ASLFUA

For a while, many readers have theorized that there is some kind of a higher power/higher being in ASLFUA, and looking at the latest episodes it seems to have been confirmed. With this post, I've tried to gather every instance of the higher power's implied presence and all the ominous scenes in the story. I also included foreshadowing scenes that could have made Miae aware of certain things if she had paid attention because coincidences are important in the story, and certain moments that were defining in the plot. The list contains spoilers for the newest KR episodes and it keeps being updated.

Episode 2 :

Miae is reading a book in the library about how the last day of 1999 will be the end of the world: "'1999, a terrifying overlord is coming...the end of the human race.." -> this might be a reference to the famous prophecy of Nostradamus in which in the 7th month of 1999 a great king of terror would descend from the skies (which makes me think...is it July in the story right now?)

The Hwang family's phone stops working

Miae's dresser breaks and therefore she has to take out the trash, where she sees Cheol crying

"This boy is about to be this girl's most special person, someone whom she will never be able to forget."

Episode 3

Miae and her mother visit the Buddha statue and Miae's wish is not to be in the same class with Cheol - it doesn't come true.

Miae, Cheol and Jisu all become classmates in their last year. Miae and Cheol become deskmates by coincidence.

Episode 4

Cheol's furniture becomes Miae's, along with the contents of his dresser, something only he knows about

Episode 5

Yunhui calls Miae on their new cordless phone, the line is interrupted by another conversation, "Did you get the present I sent you?" - it sounds like a message to Miae from the higher power about Cheol

Episode 8

Miae ruins her bangs, her mother says she should do something about her hair - the first time we are told Miae should go to a hairdresser to fix it

Hwanggeum Academy uses corporal punishment - might be relevant later on?

Miae has to go to karaoke so she gives up on going to the hair salon (this foreshadowing is super crazy btw)

Episode 9

Cheol is compared to the protagonist of the comic Miae reads, 'My First Love Next Door Is Number 1' - gets into trouble and transfers, fights the school bully and wins, nicknamed Lucifer, has a facial scar, lives next door

As Miae is thinking about Cheol, her thoughts are interrupted by a cockroach in the classroom

Episode 11

Miae notes how strange it is that she keeps seeing Cheol while they didn't bump into each other the previous year (just like how Jisu later keeps commenting how strange he keeps meeting Miae) - Miae acknowledges the higher power

Yunhui's pager says "between friends goodbye"

Episode 12

Miae has a weird feeling when she's talking to Cheol's shoe as if it understands what she's saying

Episode 15

In her dream, Miae remembers Cheol crying and her making a wish with a stone tower about how she wants to be his friend. The phone suddenly rings, the TV becomes static and there's a storm outside despite the weather forecast not saying anything about it. The other end of the phone is silent and the lights go out.

Episode 17

Cheol's shoe gets smudged with ink so Miae cannot give it back to him. She cannot concentrate on her practice test, foreshadowing her involvement with Cheol's academy.

Episode 21

Miae again remembers some memories about Cheol saying he doesn't want to be her friend while she's sleeping

Side note: while Soonkki is a great writer, there's some inconsistency about Jisu's seating arrangement. I think she always meant him to sit in Block 1, that's why we got limited panels of that area of the classroom, but his position kept changing until his official introduction. Here, he should have been sitting in front of Seonghan, but there's another boy in that seat. In episode 23, we get a panel of Block1 again, and there's a boy who looks like Jisu from behind in that.

She again remembers her time with Cheol while sleeping on the bus

Episode 24

Daebak Academy notebook says "The teacher is spoon-feeding you, so why can't you pass" -> the higher power is giving hints to Miae, why can't she understand them?

Episode 29

Miae thinks about how she doesn't bump into Cheol as much as before, we get a close-up of the shoe and the Daebak Academy notebook

Episode 37

Miae falls on Cheol while playing soccer

Episode 39

Miae and Cheol are arguing but still bump into each other because of their parents

While Miae thinks about how Cheol should smile at people, she almost gets hit by a ball but Cheol saves her.

Episode 40

Cheol goes to Miae's house to do their homework. Miae's mother says she wonders if it will rain before she leaves. Cheol tries to change the lightbulb in Miae's room, but the lights go out because of the storm. Miae thinks "again?" and they fall on each other. She tells Cheol they should be friends.

Episode 41

Cheol agrees to be Miae's friend and we see a flashback of young Miae wishing they would be friends. While they are doing their homework the rain stops. Miae says planes even fly in the rain and Cheol replies that airplanes fly above the clouds.

Episode 42

Miae answers their phone and the line is interrupted again. Someone thanks their boss for the present and says they will do well on their own from now. -> is it a sign Miae should do well on her own after the hints?

Interesting to note that every time Miae might be involved with the higher power, certain objects in her room are highlighted - Cheol's shoe, the lamp, the notebooks. They all give signs to Miae that she keeps ignoring.

Episode 43

Cheol and Yonghui point out that Miae should get a haircut. Miae ends up cutting it herself instead of going to a salon.

Episode 45

Miae wishes upon a star instead of a plane so that the presentation in class will go okay. This actually comes true, as also noted by the narrator in ep 46.

Episode 46

Daebak Academy booklet says "nothing comes easy"

Episode 47

Something I've noticed is that throughout the story Miae keeps thinking she forgot something, and there's usually a situation that seems like the answer to it. Here, it turns out she forgot about Jinseop's homework. And Taekwang's song is about how someone cannot do both things at the same time. It was the same when she forgot about her homework while playing soccer. Forgetting about things is a recurring plot point for Miae, which culminates in the Jisu subplot where we learn Miae completely forgot about his existence even though she didn't have many friends who were boys.

Episode 50

Cheol's father wants to take a picture of Cheol and Miae, but Cheol refuses

Episode 51

Miae again cuts her own hair and wonders if she cut it too straight

Episode 55

Cheol kicks Miae's pencil into Jisu's chair (side note: you can see here again how Jisu's seating arrangement was inconsistent, he should have been closer to the window)

Episode 56

Miae gets sent out to the corridor with Jisu

Miae's friends talk about handsome boys and someone mentions the number1 student (Jisu)

Episode 60

Jisu becomes Miae's folk dance partner - the first time Cheol and Miae are not doing something together

Episode 61

Hwanggeum Academy booklet says "there's nothing you can't do if you put the work in, do not expect a miracle" when Miae is struggling with the dance

Episode 65

Cheol's father takes a picture of Cheol and Miae after the sports festival

Episode 66

In Miae's dream, Cheol's sister says for a while means 5-6 yrs, Miae counts she will be in middle school by then. There's also a memory of Miae running after Cheol, saying "wait for me".

Miae's mother tells her to get a haircut but Miae replies she needs a bigger allowance for it.

The narrator says Miae should watch where she's walking after she bumps into Cheol.

Episode 67

Miae loses her name tag and Jisu finds it

Episode 70

Miae wonders how her wishes never come true, but remembers she also made one with the stone tower as a kid, but cannot recall what it was about.

Episode 71

Miae's mom notes their phone keeps ringing since yesterday. The day before Miae wanted to tease Cheol with how she heard him saying he "loved her" in the shop and she saw him shirtless the same night.

Miae doesn't realize it was Jisu who called her a pervert

Episode 72

Miae notices someone wearing her name tag (Jisu), but doesn't find the culprit

Episode 75

Cheol wants to ask Miae something, but the homeroom teacher interrupts. Miae and Jisu get called to the teachers' room and have to do cleaning duty together for a week.

Episode 76

We see Miae's mom at a hair salon - could the lady in orange be Jisu's mother? who knows

Episode 77

Cheol stands up for Miae, but when Honggyu asks if they are dating, they both vehemently deny it. It suddenly starts raining.

Episode 78

Miae and cheol promise to be friends for real, forever. The narration comments, "But will they end up regretting their promise?". The rain stops. "1999, the final year of the century is half over" -> Miae's story is half over at this point. I have pointed out this before, but the series seems to be about the transition period between childhood and young adulthood, symbolized by the last year before the new millennium. Hence the title, 'green apple academy'

In her dream, Miae remembers asking Cheol if they are friends. She is awoken by their phone. the Daebak Academy notebook says "you are in danger if you are relaxed" and we see a girl talking to Cheol.

Episode 81

Cheol and Miae fall on each other and almost kiss, but the phone rings. Later, they do end up in the same position with an accidental kiss.

Episode 82

Miae wants to confront Cheol about the kiss and gets embarrassed, but her actions are interrupted when the trash bag she gave Jisu splits open, spilling its contents. Miae runs to him to collect it.

Episode 83

While Miae talks to her friends, she thinks back on her memories with Cheol and the narration says "I always liked.." and Miae looks surprised by it.

Episode 86

Interesting detail that Cheol doesn't know why Miae keeps looking at airplanes. If we assume she has a reason for doing it from the past, it's likely not related to Cheol.

Episode 87

Miae uses the trashbag as an excuse to run away from Cheol, repeating how she has to throw it out. All of a sudden, Jisu appears and takes it out of her hand, giving her a chance to run. It's just my personal theory that the trashbag here symbolizes Miae's vulnerability and reluctance to face her feelings, and Jisu takes it from her hand. It makes sense when we remember how his words made her think about her actions when she wanted to interrupt the confession. It's a great early foreshadowing that Jisu might play an important role in Miae's growth story as her voice of reason.

Episode 89

Cheol and Miae take photos together in a photo booth, first with Jinseop and Song-I, then the two of them alone. We don't know if Miae still has her pictures, but we can assume she somehow lost them during running around from the bullies because we never see them again. Cheol gives her a new name tag in the next episode.

Episode 95

Cheol gifts Miae an airplane model for her birthday. I personally believe this episode marks the end of the first part of the story and it's a turning point, but more about this under ep96.

While Miae leaves for school, their phone suddenly rings and her mom answers it. Miae sees posters about love on her way to school. For the first time, Jisu arives early for cleaning duty.

Episode 96

The series has had 2 symbolic illustrations at the end of 2 episodes. The first one was at the end of ep2, when Cheol and Miae's story started in the present:

Miae is offering a green apple to Cheol - a biblical allusion, here, the green apple probably signifies how Miae helps Cheol in the first part of the story to mature and grow as a person with her own knowledge.

This illustration comes at the end of ep96. Like I mentioned, I believe this marks the start of the second half of the story which focuses on Miae's growth as a person. Space is an important concept in the series, Miae also has planet stickers on the wall of her room,has a charm on her bag, etc.

"16 years old. An age much like the universe." "16 years old. An age where it's like you're thrown into space." - highlights the narration.

But why is it compared to space? We have the illustration right after Jisu splashes water on Miae's face and Cheol wakes up from his dream. In my opinion, it's because this is where these kids' limited worlds start to expand. In part 1, Cheol and Miae were mainly together, but as you grow up you start to feel like you're just one insignificant part of a greater whole. You might feel like you're the center of the universe when you're a teenager, and that the world is ending when you experience negative emotions, but as the illustration shows us, it's not just Miae and Cheol standing alone in the universe. There are other people, facing different directions, but they are all interconnected by an invisible force. Miae is looking at Cheol, but Jisu is standing in her shadow- because even though she was not aware of him, Jisu had his own life happening parallel to what we saw in part1, and this is where he starts to have an intersection with Miae. If there is a higher power in the story, it is aware of all these connections and talks about youth in a nostalgic way. The sense that these moments are fleeting is always present in the story, however, connections formed between individuals will always have a lasting impact, just like how the universe will continue to exist. Being thrown into space might feel like losing your footing, but here it's the personal relationships that ground these teenagers and make them stay close to Earth.

Episode 98

The teacher tells Miae to cut her hair after Jisu takes the blame for ruining the plant.

Cheol is acting strange because of his dream, and while Jisu looks at Miae the narration box says: "16 years old. An age riddled with the unknown, just like the universe."

Episode 99

Miae's hair gets stuck in the zipper of Cheol's bag and he pulls it out, ruining her bangs in the process. They go to the infirmary after Miae gets scratched by the zipper.

Episode 100

At the countryside, while Miae picked a flower she thought how nice it would be if Cheol came to her school - and it became true. She thinks how it was so strange -> Miae again unknowingly acknowledges the higher power when it comes to Cheol

Episode 101

It's raining and the TV is not working in Cheol's home. He remembers taking a picture with Miae in the countryside. He asks his father about the picture on the sports day -> the data was lost. Miae gets grounded by her mother and she wants her to quit the academy.

Episode 102

I've mentioned symbolic objects in the story, but this one was noted by other readers as well: in ep 101, Miae accidentally drops the chalkboard eraser out of the window and Jisu fails to catch it - but Cheol does. However, in this episode Miae tosses it back to Jisu before saying she hopes they'll never see each other again (it's the first, but not the last time she declares it).

Cheol fails to convince Miae's mom about the academy -> Miae's mom points out Miae's grades have been dropping since last year. She makes her stance clear - she wants Miae to study.

Episode 103

It's raining and Miae cannot open Cheol's drawer in her room.

She tries to cut her hair, but the phone rings. On the other line, Miae hears someone saying "I only did what I did because you wanted it so bad, but you screwed up that chance! You don't deserve that project, I'm going to hand it to someone else." -> the first time the higher power tries to directly say Miae is late

Miae's mom cuts her hair instead of sending her to a salon...

Miae loses the name tag Cheol gave her

Episode 104

Jisu says "see you again" to Miae (and will keep saying for a while lol). Miae points out she never wanted to see him again.

Episode 106

After the teacher discovers their conversations in class, Miae and Cheol get separated and Miae becomes Jisu's deskmate. Miae and Cheol are not allowed to interact until the final exams are over.

Hwanggeum Academy's notebook remarks "Do you regret it now?"

Episode 107

Miae dreams about the flower from the countryside and a voice says she should hurry up and do what she wants about her wish if she remembers. She doesn't remember and the voice gets angry, Cheol appears and crushes the flower, telling her if she doesn't remember she should just forget it. The voice remarks Cheol is angry because Miae is late.

Episode 111

Jisu, who has also become aware of the coincidences, tells Cheol he's not the only one having something special with Miae.

When Miae calls Jisu her friend from the same class and tells him he should learn for himself, Jisu tries to say something, but he is interrupted by Cheol.

Episode 112

Miae thinks about their bet and how she should ask something serious, something more than friends do from Cheol, and we get a bunch of error messages. Cheol's dream is all fuzzy.

Jisu wins the bet, but we never get to know his wish because Miae gets angry at him.

Episode 115

The narration points out Cheol has changed and matured a lot, is it Miae's turn?

Episode 116

We see some posters about a summer festival, the forest in Midsummer Night's Dream and how everything is the product of coincidence.

The forest in Shakespeare's play is dominated by the supernatural - what we have in common with this story is the forest Miae and Cheol played together as kids, and obviously the involvement of a higher power. The coincidences poster is possibly a reference to Carl Jung's Synchronicity, a concept that states that seemingly meaningful coincidences have a deeper meaning, they don't have a rational explanation - almost like destiny, a deeper order in the universe. It's a connection between one's psyche and the material world (so you have to notice and acknowledge the deeper meaning of these coincidences in order to experience synchronicity). Jung used this to argue for the existence of the paranormal. For example, if you cannot decide something, you might come across a book on the topic. What a coincidence, right? In this interpretation, everything is interconnected in the universe, and we are a part of this web of connections. So those coincidences...were actually not coincidences. -> Hmmmmm.....I wonder.....meaningful coincidences, the universe, connections...why do they sound familiar??? BECAUSE OUR STORY IS EXACTLY ABOUT THIS NOTION! Who notices these coincidences? Miae about Cheol, Jisu about Miae....One has to be open to the possibility of the connection between our inner world and the outside world, only then they can start to notice the signs the universe is sending them. Soonkki, you deserve my applause! Because it was exactly what I said about the art at the end of ep 96 and the placement of the characters. Mind? Blown!

Miae thinks that she feels something is wrong

Yunhui's pager says friends goodbye

Jisu gets involved in the Yonghui-Yunhui storyline by coincidence

Episode 117

We see all the coincidences from Jisu's perspective and how he became aware of them. And what does he say about them? That they are fascinating and kind of funny! My boy Jisu got the synchronicity message.

This is the 3rd time Miae and Jisu didn't hold hands. The first time Miae pretended to help him up, only for him to fall back. Then Jisu held out his hand after the exam, but she didn't take it. Here, he again reaches out and Miae doesn't take his hand. Remember this later!

Episode 118

Someone steps on Cheol's bag, and he's worried it might be Taeuk

Jisu wants to join in another bet in exchange for his help

Episode 119

Jisu gets involved in the Shim storyline, and as we know from later he picks up the cigarettes to get revenge on him

Episode 122

Miae learns that Cheol rejected Seonyeong and the lights flicker in her room

She cannot remember her dream. The narration says that she should have realized that something changed.

Episode 123

Miae notes that she experienced the kiss in the comic book with Cheol

Jisu almost catches her, but Cheol pushes him away

Episode 126

The parents are having dinner together at a pig feet restaurant and toast for the future of their children. The TV is not working, and a boy who looks like Jisu tries to fix it.

Miae kisses Cheol

Episode 127

Miae has a dream again in the white dress. As she realizes she might like Cheol, the voice says she's too late and there's no use regretting it.

Episode 129

Miae remembers that they took a picture in the countryside together and wants to take one now. She makes a wish to an airplane about how she just wants one photo, and remarks that the planes never granted her wish before. Spoiler, they won't this time, either.

Miae chooses to take the picture with Cheol. The narration box says "she's always done whatever she sets her mind to. That has always been one of her better attributes. But Mi-ae, it seems as though you keep forgetting something. I told you, you're too late."

The pager's message means idiot, cancelled and it suddenly starts raining. Maie and Cheol cannot take their photo and Cheol cannot give her back the hairpin she dropped a few eps ago.

Episode 132

Graduation photos were postponed until the second semester

In Miae's dream, the voice says she's all over the place and cannot decide what she wants from Cheol. In her memory, Miae wishes at the stone tower that Cheol would like her back. The voice angrily remarks how it must not mean much to her.

Episode 133

While Cheol and Miae are looking at each other, Miae is smacked in the face by a flyer. Later while they are riding the bike, Cheol almost says she looks pretty but he is hit in the face with a flyer that belonged to Jisu.

Episode 134

Miae takes the cigarettes from Jisu and puts them in her backpack

While Jisu and Miae look at each other, the narration box says "Well. this is what we would call fate. What do you think?" Miae can sense the voice and dismisses it.

Jisu again says "see you later" and Miae answers let's not, but Jisu replies they never know and it would be fun.

On the radio in Miae's room there's a voice speaking, asking if it was a success and how there is something you can't stop thinking about. "A friend? The fact that you weren't wrong? Whatever it is, I don't think it's such a bad thing to obsess over it a little bit. I hope you have no regrets about it."

Episode 135

Miae's eyebrow and bangs are so ruined she has to finally go to a hair salon. Yunhui gives her money and says there's a cheap place where she can go. It turns out Jisu's mother is a hairdresser and after realizing she is Jisu's friend, she doesn't ask for money. So if anyone ever wondered why Miae kept ruining her hair in the story, here's the answer....

a little bit of strange wording here:

The narration says "Now that I think about it, this was about the time..wait,no, it was a little bit earlier that things started to go wrong, little by little. You two were completely oblivious, though. Just you two."

Miae's mother goes to the academy. One theory I can give on this is that Miae's family might be moving. She wished for it at the start of the story, mentions it in a later episode as well. Who knows ~

Episode 138

Miae doesn't tell Cheol her feelings because of her pride as she feels like she would lose first

Miae has a feeling as if something is trying to make her look bad in front of Cheol and her gun suddenly starts working

Everybody forgot to buy the picture they took together in ep 139

Episode 140

After conveying their feelings indirectly to each other, Miae tells Cheol they cannot date right now because her mom wouldn't allow it. She plans to go to the same high school, university, everything and thinks there's no one to stop them so nothing can go wrong.

Episode 141

Cheol imagines high school together with Miae and their friends

Every time Cheol is flustered, he accidentally drinks his sister's coffee and he cannot sleep at night..in a story where dreams are relevant I'm sure this is just a coincidence, right???🧐🙃😏

Miae says they should not be obvious before the entrance exam and they start to think of it as a competition

Someone watches them from the street

Episode 144-145

We get everything from Cheol's POV

Cheol got his scar because he wanted to give Miae the romance book she liked before they left and he fell on the stone tower

The picture his dad took of them is about a young Cheol accidentally kneeling with flowers in his hands, the same flowers from Miae's dream, in front of Miae. This picture was in the book Cheol and his family kept.

Cheol realized the book was in his dresser that is now in Miae's room, the one she couldn't open before

Episode 146

Miae sees two flyers in the newspaper, one is about how a student still didn't give it up, the other is about changing one's car

On the street, the same car ads keep flying after her in the wind

Miae goes with Yonghui to wait in a line and the same flyers are all over the place

Episode 147

Miae wants to call Cheol, but Jisu stops her. Miae notices how often they have met during vacation, and Jisu says these coincidences are fun. He remarks it's almost like as if some higher power is involved (!!). Miae is standing on the car ad, they look down on it with Jisu, then she kicks it away. Jisu tells her he has a feeling they will meet again, but Miae hopes they won't.

The academy is also full of the car ads and Miae falls on them

Miae thinks that for a while she's had a feeling as if something wants to get between her and Cheol, but brushes it off

Miae ends up with a bubble gum in her hair and goes to Jisu's house to fix it. Jisu tells her she should stay because he is bored, and there is a car ad on a stool.

Episode 148

We see some of Jisu's childhood memories and he was called a magpie by Miae which was a symbolic choice (I also made a post about it). Jisu in this story is the grateful magpie.

Miae and Jisu "touch hands" for the first time when they high-five (I wrote about how their hand hold never happened before)

After spotting some men smoking, Jisu tells Miae to go inside (one of them might be his father?)

Episode 149

Miae finally remembers Jisu

the narration boxs keeps saying how Jisu is cool and showing heart-thumping sounds and Miae is confused about these strange things

Miae not remembering Jisu was an important plot point considering she recalled everyone else from her past. As I theorized, memories and fate seem to be intertwined, the synchronicity theory also supports this. Synchronicity happens when seemingly unrelated events coincide and they become significant to you. It's easy to see why Jisu was aware of this notion, but Miae was not - because Miae had no idea about those coincidences other than meeting Jisu randomly. Him being her classmate, being the one who found her pencil, who helped her in the crowd, found her name tag, etc. - only Jisu knew about these. But right now, Miae was made aware that they knew each other in the past - a pretty big coincidence.

So now that Miae might have kickstarted her own fate, the question is whether she will be able to fight it or if there are certain things bound to happen no matter what. Is the narrator omnipotent and omniscient? So many questions that will hopefully get answered.

Episode 150

For the first time, Miae says she and Jisu will see each other again sometime. Before this, it was always Jisu who said it and Miae would reply that she didn't want to meet him again.

Miae remembers Jisu transferring, but doesn't know why he singled her out (so she will probably recall more memories later)

As Miae leaves Jisu's house, the car ads are flying in the air around her

Jisu enrolls at the academy and for the first time he says it's not a coincidence

Episode 155

Hwani tells her mother it would be great if they could keep being neighbours with Miae because she's fun. After a pause, Cheol's mother agrees.

Jisu keeps telling Miae she's a "traitor" or "bat" (depending on the translation, meaning she keeps secrets from others like the Yonghui Yunhui situation and the fact that she went to Jisu's house) and she might get into trouble because of that

Episode 156

The narrator directly communicates with Miae again, and informs us about Miae's thoughts. It makes heart-thumping sounds when she's with Jisu just like in previous episodes, but Miae ignores them.

Jisu again says how the coincidences are so fun. He counts to three until the teacher interrupts Miae and Cheol's bickering (similarly to Taekwang in ep 158)

When Jisu tells Miae he'll go out of the room to let her talk with Cheol, Miae thinks she'll talk to him regardless of anyone's interference and we get a close-up of an academy notebook saying 'NO' and a plane flying in the sky.

Episode 158

Flashforward in the episode to a scene with Cheol leaving Miae at the academy while a storm is coming and Miae looks like she's about to cry

An hour earlier in the story the dark clouds are already gathering (I mentioned how rainy weather is always connected to the change in Miae and Cheol's relationship, and how it's usually an ominous sign). After seeing Jisu's flustered face, Cheol tells Miae that he wants to change the lightbulb in her house before she gets hurt. The lights at the academy are highlighted as they keep vibrating. (I also noted how the lights are signs of the supposed higher power, they get their own panels in Miae's room, and they went out 2 times when Miae and Cheol's relationship changed)

After Jisu reveals that Miae was in his house and Cheol gets angry, Miae's pager starts buzzing (again, the pager messages always appear when the higher power wants to communicate with Miae).

Taekwang is an interesting character because the things he says are sometimes connected to the greater theme of the story. Like when he listened to his music and said how Miae cannot choose two things at the same time (come on, it was the foreshadowing for the current conflicts!), he smelled Jisu on Miae (???), Jisu even said he's the one he cannot deal with, and now he was counting the seconds until Miae got another sign. Is he used as a medium? (who knows lol)

Miae wants to check the pager message but the fluorescent lamp(?) breaks. Jisu shields Miae from the shards while they fall on the ground, making it his first successful attempt to save Miae in the story. The pager lands in the corner of the room.

Episode 159

Miae goes to a phone booth to check her messages and it's filled with the car ads so she kicks them away

The first message is a loud noise of a song recording. I personally think if there's a higher power in the story, this message came from it. The other is about Miae's friends telling her they'll visit her at her academy which gives Miae a sense of panic knowing Yonghui and Yunhui might meet.

Miae sees an airplane in the sky and the narration says Miae has a feeling that something is interfering with her and the panels get fuzzy with flashbacks to phone calls earlier in the story (omg this is actually crazy)

It starts raining and we get a glimpse of the last countryside memory we haven't seen yet about Miae running after Cheol at night. In the present, Miae trips just as she did as a kid, but instead of Cheol she meets Tae Uk.