Reposting this from my twitter thread because it hasn't left my head (and adding a tiny bit more).
Seen so many questionable takes lately about the ivantill kiss, and I know everyone is allowed to have different opinions and interpretations but.
No, Ivan didn’t just pretend to kiss Till for the show. And no, he wasn't trying to make Till hate him either or trying to trigger him over his implied SA to snap him into action.
I think the whole point of the scene (confirmed by the creators) is Ivan finally breaking his mask of perfection and control and giving in to his messy, all consuming feelings, being selfish for once.
Yes, by the end before the strangling starts, he appears more clear headed and now focused on the objective of manipulating the score. But he doesn't really look at it until AFTER he starts strangling Till.
The kiss itself wasn't part of the strategy, or at least not entirely something calculated. Ivan could have skipped the kiss and strangled Till right away and gotten the same result.
The fact that he kissed him AGAIN after he started strangling him, more softly and 'personal', almost like a goodbye or an apology (whether for his selfishness or for their past), tells me he wanted it.
I think a last selfish act doesn't diminish the love he had for Till, it just shows the tragedy of ALNST. Ivan is only human after all. And no matter what kind of mask he built for himself and what illusion of control he had over his life, when faced with the real, imminent possibility of losing Till, he crumbled and did something unexpected.
I have more to say about the Ivan and Sua parallels and how he finally understands her in the Confession comic etc etc but I think I've yapped enough.
I just don't like it when people try to mold the narrative because they're uncomfortable with an unconsensual kiss. It's meant to be painful and heartwrenching, a reflection on Ivan's one sided-feelings and his desperation at the moment —to be seen for the first (and last) time, to not be left behind, to convey his emotions in the only way he could when being seconds away from death.
After all the team confirmed that Ivan is clumsy with emotions and only knows to convey them in 'childish' ways (the nuzzling against his face, the picking fights with Till and teasing him).
I think some people like to think of the kiss as something purely calculated and selfless because it makes it more 'palatable', but in my opinion this take washes out Ivan's character and the flaws that make him just as human, vulnerable and complex as the rest of the cast. He was willing to throw away his life and his perfect image because he wanted something that badly.
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"eddie isn't queer/gay," you say. "he is straight in canon, so him being gay is just a head canon. it's ok for others to think of him as straight because that's what he is."
let's ignore for a second the fact that eddie has never ever ever ever not even once, said in canon that he is a heterosexual very straight guy. seriously!!! he has never once said it!!! if i am "assuming" he's gay then you are also "assuming" he is straight even though he has never once said it!!
how do you think we got bi buck as canon? like i am serious right now, answer the question. how do you think we go bi buck canon? evan buckley was never conceived to be a bisexual man at the beginning of 911. the reason we have evan buckley as a canonically bisexual character today is because us, queer fans of 911, interpreted him and headcanoned him as bisexual. i would go even further and say that it was us, BUDDIE FANS, who interpreted him and headcanoned him as bi. even before the writers were explicitly writing him as bisexual. we read his actions and his story and his identity and said: "this is a bi character!" and the writers looked back and realized that it made sense! and so they started writing him explicitly and canonically as bi.
was it wrong of us to headcanon a character as bisexual then? like for all intents and purposes we were reading a "straight" character as bi. were we doing something wrong? how come you are not complaining/chastising us/shaming us for how we took evan buckley, an otherwise straight character, and saw him as bi? is it because it now serves a purpose to you that he is bi?
also, taking characters that aren't confirmed queer and reading them as queer is what the queer community, and specifically the queer fandom community, has been doing for DECADES. look up the history of queer coding, i am begging you. it has been through the means of queer coding and the perseverance of people that are engaged in it that actual queer representation in media has increased. and let me tell you right now, eddie diaz is, undoubtedly and undeniably, one of the most queer coded characters there is. whether you think this queer coding is conscious by the writers or not. eddie diaz is queer coded.
and i want everyone who says things like "eddie diaz is not a queer character. he is straight in canon. it's wrong to assume a character is queer without the character saying so" to know that this is exactly what straight and homophobic people say. you are using the SAME rhetoric that has been used to shame queer fans for decades for seeing themselves and their experiences in fictional characters of all types. in fact, us, queer fans (and again BUDDIE FANS), were told so many times by straight fans that we were wrong for reading buck as bisexual. and where are we now? where did reading buck as bi take us? oh yeah, to having bi buck in canon.
so please just stop with the "eddie isn't queer in canon" comments. if you don't want to interpret eddie as queer then that is your prerogative. i will be judging why that is, for sure, but it is your right. but be honest about it. it has nothing to do with whether or not he is straight (which hasn't been said) or queer coded (which he so obviously is seeing as so many of us can very easily read him as queer). it's a personal preference and you're not engaging with canon better because of it.
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i’m sorry are you telling me that after everything he said about his family supposedly being close— doting on his little sister and having a warm older brother whom yue qingyuan reminds him of— shen yuan was never once properly hugged before he died???
like i know he immediately tries to cover it with an uncomfy aside about how it wasn’t a pretty young woman hugging him or w/e, but he clearly isn’t talking about a first romantic hug specifically, because the context is being tackled by a crying 15-year-old whom he calls a huge baby for it.
so this is literally his first real, tight hug in his 20ish years of life and it happens in a ‘fictional’ world with a child he thinks might grow up to brutally-yet-justifiably (to his mind) torture him after he died alone and had his soul transplanted into someone else’s body.
babe??? i really don’t think your life was nearly as idyllic as you implied and i would love to know what the fuck is up with that
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