Week 100! (for real) (Patreon)

This is the finished update marker for week 100, a panel from 159 - Disease from the ninth arc.

So I believe this is the first time I've been able to touch on the ninth arc, where Kale went into his own head again to find Max, and then later his fox self, only to see them fight and nearly kill each other, demanding Kale picks a side. Besides the seventh arc (a very short arc that introduced the Door that would see use later) this was the first one to advance the mindscape plot with Fox Kale, also confirming that Max was indeed not only involved in all of that, but had some manner in getting into Kale's head as well.

I suppose there's a lot that could be said about this particular scene and fight. The method or manner in which Max managed to manifest in Kale's mind is still unknown and is planned to be revealed at some point, so I won't divulge that quite yet. I will reveal something smaller though that I think a few people at the time suspected, which is that the fact Max uses a knife is inspired by a certain character from Bleach that I have completely forgotten because I haven't watched Bleach for many years at this point. But if you're knowledgeable about it, you probably know which character I'm talking about since Max's knife resembles their weapon pretty blatantly. 

I had the idea at the time, and still do to some extent, that the weapons people manifest in these mindscape situations are somewhat representative of their personalities and intent. You have Kale's rapier, which is thin and flimsy but can pierce when it needs to; Fox Kale's greatsword, gigantic and intimidating but not especially great at actually hurting people thus far; Hugo's smoke manipulation, which alludes to his deceptive and sneaky behavior and attitude; and Max, a fancy knife that does as much as is needed, with... well, an explosive secret, I suppose. I'm not even sure where I got the idea to put a "bomb" in there, but that's not this specific panel so I won't get into it really.