Venezia

[thememedaddy]

[substellaris]

Random doodles

[sunsbleeding]

[fuckyeahyoga]

[captaindrewboy]

I hate when I tell people I'm into Comp Sci and programming and they go "ooh there's a lot of money there". I'm not DOING it for the MONEY I'm DOING it because I want to FUCK the COMPUTER!!!!

[kk1smet]

he looked at me, the prat—

[rockwgooglyeyes]

A beloved mutual said something that very much tickled my noodle, making me think on it.

This was on the heels of a thing about ivantill not being romantically requited in canon (which I agree with) but the original post was mostly focused on the fact that, at least I believe, Till didn't reciprocate Ivan's feelings. Which, I mean, they loved each other, but not necessarily in the same way. Now, a friend and mutual of mine (@alien-til-i-stage) actually makes the argument that it doesn't *matter* whether or not either of their feelings were romantic or platonic or whatever, because they loved each other and they had a monumental connection and that's what matters. Now, I love that to bits, that's so incredibly real, but at the same time I am nothing if not a dog with a bone so I actually want to talk about my thoughts on this.

Now, I don't think it's at all bad or wrong or even controversial to say that Ivan might not have had romantic feelings for Till. I think it's really fair to question whether or not Ivan really loved Till romantically, especially given that they were never taught about relationships and undoubtedly, their only real example for "romance" was Mizi and Sua. I would argue that Ivan actually does have a little bit more probability to know about romance due to his background (growing up on the streets) as well as his knowledge background (enjoying literature. While literature doesn't necessarily have romance in it, a lot of dramas do depict some kind of romantic relationship) but that's really neither here nor there.

I'll get down to the real point of this post, which is my thoughts on whether or not Ivan actually had romantic feelings for Till in the main, canon universe/timeline of ALNST, and I would say yes. I admittedly haven't really questioned whether or not Ivan's feelings were romantic or something else but when I do think about it, I would say that my answer is "I believe Ivan." I believe it's romantic because that's what he says it is.

As much shit as I give him for being an unreliable narrator, one of the few things that we can trust Ivan's thoughts on? Himself. Obviously disregarding the way that he thinks of himself as someone horrible and shallow and monstrous but like, he's self aware. He's introspective. While he never explicitly says that his feelings for Till are romantic, it's heavily implied with both his behavior (sweats in looking at the birthday kiss comic and the fact that apparently his excuse for asking about that was "kissing is popular in the garden rn" which is pretty flagrant in it being about mizisua) as well as the symbolism/allusions around him, the fact that he directly compares himself and Till to Mizisua, it's heavily heavily implied that he believes his love towards Till to be romantic, at least, in part.

(two images with extremely different vibes but basically, example of the symbolism/comparison and example of the behavior) (also "thank you for being the victim of my shallow emotions" anybody??)

To give a little context, I am autistic and I'm on the aroace spectrum, two things I also headcanon Ivan to be, and so the fact that he believes his feelings to be romantic, if he thinks he knows what he's feeling, I am inclined very heavily to believe him. I find cataloguing and defining my feelings very difficult, especially in a way that allistic people understand, so I often end up using metaphors to communicate them because I am very rarely able to pinpoint my feelings and be like "oh yeah I am happy right now." This is especially true when it comes to my feelings about other people, because of how much I know about biases, perspective, first encounters, etc, I tend to get really, really in my head about stuff.

So basically, tl;dr, the reason I believe Ivan about his feelings for Till being romantic is that very rarely do I ever say "I have feelings for this person" without doubting myself and double checking and running it over in my mind for hours upon hours because I am neurotic as hell and I kind of feel like Ivan wouldn't be so certain on the Till thing if he hadn't thought about it a lot.

tagging @bluemoonscape per his request <3 love you pookie

[thoughtcascades]

idk how to flirt but i can make things awkward if you're into that

[what-iz-life]

My childhood trauma didn't make me stronger. it made me a people pleaser. it made me forgive way too much. it made me not speak when i'm supposed to. it made me an extreme empath.

[diaryofrey]

i read a lot of books and i know youre not the most fond of them but when i read love confessions in them all i can think about is your name, 'my heart is yours and i dont want it back', 'you have bewitched me body and soul and I love, I love, I love you. And wish from this day forth never to be parted from you', 'the idea of you is better than the reality of anyone else', god i could tell you a thousand lines and talk about hundreds of loves but you are the one i think of everytime i read about them, youre the proof that patroclus wasnt lying when he said he'd recognize achilles with touch alone. my life was an open book, and you became the person who didn't rip the chapter but ended up annotating my soul.

[almightaylor]

it’s either that or nothing

[pppuri]

watching you (please look at me once)

[unpardonablesins]

art + lemony snicket

x x x x x

[caspervi]

Socmed aus be like:

[sunsfawn]

…flirting?

[my-random--thoughts-deactivated]

Your daily dose of fluffy animal content ♡

[appleslightning]

do you remember when we were eleven? let’s go back to that. i’ll throw remembralls into the sky and you can try to catch them.