People who reduce Ivan kissing Till in Cure to nothing but sexual assault and demonize Ivan as some kind of obsessed predator are missing the point. It was an act Ivan did for various reasons, and it wasn't purely out of desire for Till or with intent to hurt him. He did it, in his own fucked up way, to protect Till.
To understand this, we need to establish a couple of things very clearly; the concept of "love" and the meaning of human physical, sexual, and romantic intimacy are foreign to 4NAKT and HyuLuka. They have been deliberately stripped of the meaning of these fundamental human things because that's the point of keeping a pet.
The less they know, the easier they are to control.
Anakt Garden and Segyein society continue to enforce heteronormative ideas. So the idea of living the same-gender is even more removed from them.
Another thing we must remember, is that the concept of "love" is twisted. "Love" is something a guardian/owner gives to their pet, it is the feeling fans have for these pets on-stage. These are the more concretized definition of "love". So when characters in ALNST love each other, they view it through this lens. It is not the sole definition, but it is the definition that sticks most in all their lives.
This is bad, because the relationship between guardian/owner and a pet is abusive. To maintain this "love" is required for their own protection (you only get priority if you're cute and obedient. see: Luka, Sua, Ivan), but it's not something kind or desirable.
MiziSua highlight this best. Sua has expressed how uncomfortable she feels in being seen as something "lovable" and "cute". Mizi enjoys the fact that she can "crush" Sua in her hands and is fixated on this aspect. Both of them have strong romantic feelings for each other but they verbalize love the way their segyein owners do; in how pitiable they are, how cute and breakable they can be under someone else's clutches.
Sua loves that Mizi is bright and seemingly unaware of the darkness around them. Mizi loves, as I said, how easily malleable Sua is under her hands.
IvanTill are the same, but Ivan in particular is like this.
Ivan views himself as a commodity, a product. He receives an abundance of "love" from Unsha, Unsha's wife and the fans. It feeds him, clothes him, keeps him sheltered and safe but it saps away at his humanity. It is not kind, and it comes at a price. They "love" him, so they use him and take from him.
He is only given "love" so long as he is useful in some capacity.
The closest word Ivan could likely find for his emotions for Till is this definition of "love". So he immediately views his own romantic feelings for Till as terrible, because he knows what "love" does. It takes, it asks for payment, it crushes and leaves one hollow.
It is the antithesis of the freedom of spirit he is drawn to in Till.
So from the get-go, he classifies his feelings as predatory. Nothing defines this better than Paratise.
Till isn't as entrenched in this idea because he's never experienced "love" from Urak. He's Urak's investment, Urak fucking hates him. So he's working on more of a blank slate than the rest. Till is on-guard, hates surprises, and doesn't understands love as anything beyond "uncomplicated, safe comfort".
Mizi does nothing to him, rarely does things with him. She's not a threat who could harm him and is consistently nice. She makes him feel...unthreatened, and that's about as close as Till can see love.
With this in mind, let's talk about what a kiss means.
It doesn't have the same meaning our society does. They don't even call it kiss in the comics, they call it touching lips. Someone spreads rumors that it's a thing boys and girls do, implied to arise out of "love".
It's human to want to kiss someone you love in modern western-centric societies. But to these characters, it's a foreign and strange, gross act. None of them have the cultural basis to understand why people do it, why it can feel good or be good. This act of "kissing", classified under "love", therefore becomes a part of exploitation, cruelty and abuse.
When Ivan kissed Till, it was indeed a selfish act, but it was also an intentional act of violence. It was love and "love". The former because he was going to die and it was adrenaline, impulse, fear, desperation, and despite the segyein's efforts, Ivan is messy and human. The latter because he wanted Till to hate him and not mourn him.
Ivan knew it'd hurt Till in some manner. To him it was likely on the same level as the choking.
The kiss was obviously not discussed before it happened, but like.......guys spontaneous kisses are a staple of romance media. Like these kinds of "Oh my emotions have overwhelmed me into dramatic action" is such a clichƩ. Till was haunted by the kiss because again, he too is operating with the same definitions Ivan is.
IVAN FUCKING DIED ON HIM. FOR HIM.
One second he's being caught in this strange and contradictory act, the next, his one proper friend throughout his life is dead at his feet! It wouldn't have mattered what the fuck Ivan did there, kiss or no kiss, it would have turned into HORROR. Yeah he felt confused about the kiss but the emphasis throughout the comics was on the strangulation, the clear act of violence. He scratches his neck, he doesn't speak. An act of violence and love wrapped into one at a terrible time.
I am not denying he had complicated, traumatic feelings about the kiss. But you have to keep in mind that both Ivan and Till are operating with incomplete information on the human experience itself, and are thus primed to hurt each other.
That's another important thing in ALNST! Characters hurt each other despite their deep love for one another because they have not been given the tools to be properly human. The entire story is an exploration of how humans love one another when they've been deprived of humanity itself.
Mizi isn't talking about how love is always predatory for funsies. This is how they've been forced to see human affection.
When Till recovers and rescues the pet kids, when Sua, Ivan and Hyuna die for their loved ones, when human rebels place their faith in a seemingly impossible dream- they all contradict the sentiment of love being nothing but predatory. So when Till emerges at the end of his arc, seeing that Ivan was a scared child, it paints the kiss in a different light.
No Ivan wasn't harassing Till for no reason, he tore the flowers because they were cameras.
No, Ivan didn't still Till's pencils for shits and giggles, it's just that he wanted an excuse to form a connection with Till and in his scared, clumsy child brain, this was his shot.
And no, Ivan didn't kiss Till because he wanted to exploit or use Till in a vulnerable moment, he was a man who knew he was dying trying to say goodbye and protect Till once again, in his scared, clumsy ways.
Please fucking, examine the symbolism in the series. PLEASE.
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