#fawnfare

[fawncon]

i cant possibly express how emotional i am over the choice to cut back to the sparkling firecracker when ヒカル mentions yoshiki's warmth. the firecracker the original hikaru was staring at when his father told him about love and loneliness. i didn't think this scene could possibly be improved from the manga, but getting to fully experience yoshiki's warmth, the crackling flame of his soul as it enters ヒカル's cold, longing void, takes my breath away every time.

[fawncon]

i just read the thread on mokumokuren's bsky where they say they describe hikanatsu as a "youth horror" rather than a "romance" but still encourage everyone to make their own interpretations, all while assuring us that it is a queer story no matter the genre.

them labeling it as youth horror instead of romance is not an attempt to downplay the queer elements, but to specifically express an aspect of queerness that is often overlooked -- one that is all too familiar to aro/ace individuals. calling it a romance would simply give people the wrong idea of what to expect from the characters and story.

i don't think i've ever seen any author outside of fandom spaces explicitly try to portray this gray area of not-platonic-not-romantic queer love, and as an aroace queer person myself, it really means the world. usually this kind of "representation" comes from the typical yaois i ship -- "best friend" pairs who cross lines and are speculated by fans to be queer but are never confirmed in any way by the authors or story, leaving it open for this aroace-brand queer interpretation.

but here we are, being confirmed by the author that what yoshiki and ヒカル have is so unique and special that it can't be defined by human concepts of romance and sexuality, but is still undeniably queer. it's... revolutionary, honestly.

[fawncon]

the way that the anime made it perfectly, painfully clear that yoshiki never intended to survive the day is fucking devastating me man.

this is what adaptation is all about. respecting the source material while finding new ways to twist the knife (pun intended)...

[fawncon]

i was reminded of this delicious little canon fact by a post on twitter and wanted to spread the word. what yoshiki is experiencing in this scene -- beneath the metaphor of breaching the taboo of queer sexuality -- is the release of pleasant endorphins on the verge of death. 🥰

[fawncon]

so today's update cut away from the boys as expected, but we DID get a cute pic of the gang with original hikaru 🥹

[fawncon]

since the anime came out, i've seen a lot of discourse about the differing feelings of original hikaru and ヒカル (and treating them as two completely different ships), and although obviously a big theme of the manga is that ヒカル is not hikaru and that's important for yoshiki to understand in order to move on from hikaru's death, he also... isn't that separate after all.

the ヒカル we know would not exist in this form without the original hikaru's wish for someone to stay by yoshiki's side. hikaru poured all of his love for yoshiki into the entity that became ヒカル, and he was reborn with all those feelings, along with his memories and base personality. yes, ヒカル has his own feelings, but they're born of and built from the feelings of the original hikaru, and i think that's so beautiful...

i just don't think we should be looking at ヒカル as a completely separate person, but more like a joint effort between a lonely god and a dying boy to protect a single bright soul.

[fawncon]

the experience of reading the summer hikaru died manga

[fawncon]

can't stop thinking about this last panel... was he feeling his pulse... how tender...