To The Imperfect Tomorrow

hikaru ga shinda natsu is about coming back wrong and haunting the narrative and being queer in a small rural town and internalised homophobia and summers that feel like they'll never end and the codependent homoerotic friendship you had when you were 15 and what it means to be dead or alive and navigating a world you feel like you dont belong to and grief and mourning and obsession and love and most importantly, having gay thoughts for the eldritch monster that bodysnatched your friend's corpse

WAIT DID HYUNWOO HIT HIM FIRST????

mutual desires

Bitches have the most gorgeous eyes and be named shit like Brant

Ivan moment frfr???

A rambling analysis of Ivan's "Nowhere"

I'll start with my thoughts on the song itself, then break down some of the lyrics.

So, "Nowhere" is quite a bit different from Ivan's other songs, mostly in regards to the melody and his singing. His voice is a lot more... flat, and the pitch and length of the notes vary a lot less. In "Cure" and "Black Sorrow," there's a lot more variance: Ivan's voice goes from soft and low, singing shorter notes, to louder and higher, holding long notes, et cetera.

In Nowhere, the notes are typically shorter, and tend to stay in the same general area on the scale. Ivan's tone stays very consistent; in his other songs, it goes from calm and collected to full of emotion and feelings. He sounds a lot more monotone in Nowhere, and not just because he's singing quietly. He's not entirely apathetic; there's still a lot of emotion in his voice. But it's muted. Numb.

The only line that lacks this somewhat monotone, apathetic tone is "In love with you, when you were mine." This line is EVERYWHERE, and plays in the background of the ENTIRE TRACK.

And all of this kind of makes sense. "Black Sorrow" and "Cure" were both declarations of Ivan's love, and his feelings for Till. They were meant to be heard; they were meant to have an audience in Till. Ivan was projecting his emotions outwards.

"Nowhere" was not meant to be heard by anyone but Ivan himself—not even Till. It represented Ivan's internal thoughts, ones he would never say to anyone else—sort of how like someone might find certain things about a friend or significant other annoying, but choose not to say anything despite thinking it. Ivan is tired, and perhaps even a bit annoyed. He's wondering why Till doesn't return his feelings, and likely, wondering why he himself continues to love Till despite that.

Now, onto the lyrics (English translation b/c my Korean is awful):

That's just the kind of kid he is, so laugh Laugh, because he can't do anything No one cares about someone like him There's nowhere in the world for him to rest

It's been stated (see image below) that Ivan feels like he cannot be loved—that he's undeserving of it, or just doesn't have the qualifications. These lyrics are Ivan speaking about himself. Ivan is unable to get Till to return his feelings ("no one cares about someone like him"), and he is also, ultimately, unable to save Till ("Laugh, because he can't do anything"). To make this second thing worse, it happened not once, but TWICE: first when Ivan couldn't get Till to leave with him, and then when his actions in Round 6 ended up seemingly being for nothing in Round 7.

Another bit of the lyrics is as such:

Worse and worse this painful wound I become more and more numb

Ivan is slowly becoming more and more apathetic, and resigned to his fate, saying that "this always happens to me." Even the song's title is a reference to this: there's nowhere for Ivan to find solace, and all of "this" is going nowhere—"this" being Ivan's relationship with Till. Ivan is resigned to his fate of loving Till—almost certainly more than he loves himself—un"till" the end: until death.

the dead siblings

Okay yes Mydei's trailer was cool and yes it was badass but can we just talk about how it was also super sad too 😭

Like I just wanted to give him a hug the whole time; he was going through it :(

The fact that one of his fallen people hugged him and then died with his last words being "My... deimos" was so depressing, especially since a big part of Mydei's character is him being the crown prince of Kremnos and not wanting to let his people down, but also feeling like he can't live up to their expectations because he doesn't romanticize or glorify "strife" for the sake of strife, and specifically wants to find another future for the Kremnoans

His face at the end of the trailer is the face of a man who did everything he could and tried to find every possible alternative to "strife," and yet ended up succumbing to his "destiny" in the end

Spoilers for 3.2:

It's also strongly implied to be what happened during his Coreflame trial with Nikador </3

the aglaea sunday combo is horrifying i dont even want to know what her stats will look like in sim uni

The emotional damage this will cause me when I watch this unfold in its entirety

Dwelling beneath the surface