#also ivan is alive

[ro5ani]

Some thoughts I've been having since round 6 but it's mostly me ranting about Ivan

So first of all, this whole thing where Till goes looking for Mizi's flower crown and they get attacked by the alien, it was all staged by Ivan. He was waiting for Till outside of the entrance and followed him as he went there

He didn't do anything to help them get away he was just watching how things played out, his goal was to get Till locked up so he could free him when no one was watching and they could escape (it would also show him as a savior thus making Till like him more)

You can see marks in the wall while he watches, my boy was stressed (maybe even worried that something would go terribly wrong). And before this scene, he is shown hugging the alien and there's an official art of him inside the aliens mouth (not sure what that means maybe that was the way of convincing it, it's known Ivan always does whatever the aliens want so he can use that later to his favor) ANYWAYS there are no scenes where he intervenes, so I'm pretty sure he planned the whole thing.

WHAT I'M TRYING TO GET AT IS, the meteor shower scene when they escaped.

If Ivan staged the whole thing he must've picked a specific day and time, so them escaping while there was a meteor shower is not a coincidence. Ivan did everything he could to convince Till, in the best way he could come up with.

Just like Till, Ivan suffered a lot of abuse even though it's not shown as much. At the beginning of round 3 we can see an alien threatening to throw him from the top of a building. He was scared and crying yet he saw, what probably was the most beautiful thing in his whole life, a meteor shower.

There's a lot of focus on Ivan's eyes throughout the series, he's very observant and it's also a way to emphasize how he is always looking at Till. But before he actually met Till, the meteor shower was the thing that caught his attention, and you can tell by the way his eyes fill with meteors when he looks at Till. Till to him is as shiny and sparkling as a meteor shower.

Ivan might be smart and very observant and mature for his age, but he's still a kid! He not only tried to save Till he also tried to impress him so they could get closer. So what did he do, like a kid showing off his toys to make an impression, he showed Till the most beautiful and impressive thing he knew.

And Till was impressed! But it was not enough, so it happened what happened.

The point of this whole thing is that I've seen a lot of people say Ivan's only way of catching Till's attention is by bothering/being mean to him, and while he did that a lot, he also risked his life and staged this whole thing so Till could be happy.

And even after that didn't work out, he kept looking out for Till in the only way he knew or was able to.

So my boy Ivan is not just a bully give him some credit😭 He could've been a little more honest but u don't expect the aliens to teach them proper communication.

SO THAT'S WHAT I WANTED TO GET OUT OF MY SYSTEM

If u read all of this thank you 😭 and feel free to share thoughts too!

And excuse any weird wording, i literally never write long stuff

[dreadark]

the difference between till at the start of round 6 and round 7

he doesn't seem like he's trying at all during round 6, having already fully given up living after losing mizi

but in round 7, even though he's lost even more, he's clearly putting all he has left into it

and the reason for that... has to be ivan, right?

he must have recognized ivan sacrificed himself for him, so for the sake of ivan's feelings till tries his absolute best to respond to them and perform that till sings at all here is for ivan

...but at the same time ivan is what haunts him

obviously, right? there's no way watching someone you were so close to you die like that right in front of you can give you actual "strength" (and this isn't even getting into the kiss...) contrary to ivan's (clearly wrong) conviction that till doesn't care enough for him to become a trauma to him, that's exactly what happens

this inextricable mix of love and hate, hurting and healing... this is the tragedy of their relationship to the end no matter how much ivan and till care for each other, they can't ever cure each other

[sunnyirry]

still a Till is alive truther (crazy ik) but god do I have so many comic ideas of him in heaven

[kitsquared]

Till the closest to winning Alien Stage among his friends

His friends

Whom are missing

Or dead

Right, what do you call someone who has no friends?

A loser

Credits to Translated cheer up comic

[ivanttakethis]

Round 7

Till doesn’t fight back as he’s fitted into his costume; a tailored, white suit.

Far more expensive than anything he’s ever worn or owned. Restrictive in a way he knows Luka’s isn’t.

He doesn’t argue when they slick his hair back. Or when they take out his piercings.

He doesn’t even look in the mirror once he’s ready.

Someone nearby whispers that he “looks like a prince.”

The collar of the jacket is too tight around his neck.

Don’t think about it.

The stage is dark when Till is shoved out to take his position.

A sea of stars unfolds above him, stretching out across the deep black yawn of space. Till allows himself a moment to look.

His heart stutters as something bright and fast streaks across the sky.

A meteor.

A shooting star.

He remembers when the sky was a brilliant orange and dozens of stars fell as easy as the rain.

Don’t think about it.

The overhead lights come on, nearly blinding him, and the crowd roars below. Luka must be making his entrance.

Till doesn’t look at the audience. He doesn’t look at Luka either.

His gaze drops to the stage beneath him, trying in vain to tune out all of the noise.

He blinks.

Once. Twice.

Blood pools at his feet. Soaks the soles of his boots.

Don’t think about him.

Till grips the microphone and squeezes his eyes shut.

The music starts.

Luka sings the opening lyrics… but it doesn’t sound quite like him.

This voice…

It’s higher. Sweeter. Familiar.

His eyes snap up, locking on to the figure across the stage from him. Glowing like an angel under the spotlight.

Mizi.

Still in her white dress with her long pink hair pulled back.

Just as she left them. Left him.

Till’s heart aches.

She turns to him, letting her golden gaze settle over his.

What he wouldn’t have done for her to look at him like that when they were kids.

Slowly, as she draws out the last note of the line, her lips lift into a gentle smile.

Something cracks.

Wait—

That smile doesn’t look right. It doesn’t feel right.

It feels like—

It feels like Luka…

Flashes of Round 5 hit Till hard and fast.

Mizi in a daze. Luka dancing circles around her. Getting too close. Smiling that same smile.

This is exactly what Luka did to Mizi. This is why she snapped.

Till doesn’t question who Luka pretended to be to get a rise out of her.

He knew it wasn’t him.

Luka comes closer, still wearing Mizi’s face.

He can’t move. Can’t run. Can’t think.

A strong hand cups his right cheek.

Till lunges.

He can barely hear the music over the thundering in his ears and the sound of his fists meeting Luka’s face over and over again.

That bastard is grinning up at him like he already won.

Till just hits harder.

Blood pours out of Luka’s nose and splatters on his suit.

For a moment, it’s Mizi looking up at him with a bloodied face.

Till doesn’t stop.

He won’t stop until they put him down.

Just like Sua. Just like Mizi. Just like—

Ivan.

Dark eyes bore into him as they slowly drain of life.

White suit. Slicked back hair. He looks like a prince.

They dressed me just like you.

His lips are still red.

Till stares back into the only gaze that ever wanted to hold him.

As if it could make up for all of the times he looked away.

The fire raging inside him freezes over. For a moment, everything is quiet.

At the end of this story…

There is only a cold spot stained with blood…

No gods. No worshippers.

[gold0venice]

Need to say how the last thing that Ivan actually tasted was his own blood, not Till’s lips

[crustyfloor]

I predict (and hope) we're gonna get more official art of Till finally looking Ivan's way, in IvanTill official art, we're always shown Till just generally not paying Ivan any mind because Ivan never sees when Till looks at him back. In Ivan's mind he is not acknowledged by Till so he voided many possibilities or idea of that not being the case, that idea is reflected in what we see when his perspective is spotlighted. Now that he's NOT gone, we have the opportunity to finally get a look into Till's side of things, a side of Till that Ivan failed to acknowledge and see.

[cherriko-art]

Ok more alnst rambles.

I think my favorite interpretation of both Sua and Ivan's deaths is that their self-sacrifice was less about saving their loved ones than it was that they themselves could not live without Mizi/Till. Like this belief that yes, we're choosing our loved ones over our own lives, but also with the belief that Mizi/Till would be able to live past their (Sua/Ivan) deaths.

But for both Sua and Ivan, they could not find any reason to live if Mizi/Till were to die instead in their rounds. Both are absolutely obsessed with their partners - their entire reason for living revolves around Mizi/Till, bc for both Sua and Ivan, their lives were empty husks until they met them.

Ivan calls Sua out for being a self-sacrificing idiot, calling her selfish bc it'll only leave Mizi traumatized over her death. According to him, her choosing to die was not out of love for Mizi, it was a purely selfish choice bc Sua cannot live without Mizi. But in the end, Ivan is the exact same.

So dying for their loved ones? Easy. But ask them to live with their loved ones' deaths? Over their dead bodies.

[floorpancakes]

ok but im rly into the idea of till having a new era that brings the light back to his eyes and drives him forward if he gets to escape the arena. idk where he'd go from there but i want to see ivans sacrifice both haunt him and drive him to actually live his damn life after being the captured bird refusing freedom cause of mizi. once he knows she's alive with the resistance he might be able to actually experience other things and widen his world and if that happens and he puts his personal sense of rebellion towards the human cause OR settles into finding some other way to feel fulfilment that isn't a single person that could be deeply fascinating to me i think

[dropswand]

As I wait for round 7 and Ivan's OBVIOUS REVEAL THAT HE'S ALIVE BECAUSE HE IS ALIVE IM NOT INSANE ISTG HE'S ALIVE, I read more and more comments under Round 6 and become more and more depressed with the little details I notice.

It's not even funny anymore how much round 6 has ruined me. Send help its been months and I'm still not over it--

[apollos-boyfriend]

YAYYYY ALIEN STAGE. i like luka and hyuna the most (blondie and brunette) and YA fandom focuses on the most inane shit. glad youre enjoying!!!!!

i am i am :DD the songs fuck hard which is not a surprise to me but still very fun to actually experience. i do wish round 2's was longer bc i think it's my favorite so far but 1. i understand the narrative/story importance of it being so short and 2. i'm only on like. round 3. so i'm being a bit presumptuous by picking favorites already i think

[wingsofhcpe]

FIVAN NATION WE REALLY WON AFTER ALL!!!!!

(from Julian Kostov's Instagram)

[karamazovposting]

On Ivan and bipolar disorder (part three)

This is my favorite part of this whole thing. I haven't written it yet, that's literally the opening line, but here I'll be talking about one of the most interesting (to me) aspects of Ivan's character: how the other characters perceive him; I already know I'll be having a blast writing this. Internal vs external perception is probably my favorite topic when it comes to character study, so I was thinking of doing something similar for Dmitri as well in the future because I noticed some things that I want to talk about. I'll think about it.

For once I don't have to make an introduction where I explain what I'll be going over in this because there's none to be made, so let's start from the beginning. The first time we see Ivan is when they're all waiting for Dmitri at the beginning of the book, and what does he do? He takes the piss out of everyone, of course. And I think that in everything that happens there and in the following passages (I was particularly struck by Father Zosima's words about him, which I've already mentioned in here) we pretty much have the key to Ivan's character, and he doesn't even give it to us himself (very fitting indeed). The first thing we find out is that Alyosha is afraid Ivan will be condescending towards the monks and while Ivan technically isn't, he still adopts a subtly mocking tone with them, which checks out considering that Miusov says Ivan feigns arrogance to mask his own insecurity. Also it's very telling that Ivan's demeanor changes when it comes to Zosima, I feel like he actually does respect him and to some extent appreciates his words. Funnily enough I've found myself in a similar situation in the past (atheist surrounded by nuns, my family was there, they told me some things I appreciated; I wasn't making fun of anyone though I swear) so I get it.

Speaking of words, there are many used for him in those chapters, and there are even more as the novel goes on, brushstroke after brushstroke painting a rather confusing and contradictory picture of this young man: he's bright yet insecure and "a tomb", he's weird and a misunderstood outcast in his own family yet he's charming (said by multiple characters in multiple occasions, I think it's the word that's used the most to describe him) and refined, yet again eccentric. He's paradoxical and a riddle (another word used multiple times), and his own father fears him more than he fears the son who almost beat him to death and at first I couldn't understand why, considering everyone else's opinion of Ivan and the fact that Ivan actually helped get Dmitri off of their father when he was beating him, but then I went back to Book Two and stumbled upon a line that managed to completely go over my head in the past (how could that happen? God, the horror!) that does explain a lot and looking back now, to me feels like one of the most important lines (about Ivan) of the whole novel:

What seemed to [Aleksej] strangest of all was that his brother Ivan, [...] who alone had such influence on his father that he could have stopped him [...]

I don't think I need to explain why I think this line (that you can find in The old buffoon for context) is crucial so I won't say much about it, but it also explains why Ivan's presence in the Karamazov household is seen as a guarantee for quiet and order (as stated during Dmitri's trial, and we also see it in the fact that both Dmitri and Pavel had in mind to murder Fyodor only if Ivan had been out of the picture, though for different reasons), and honestly it surprised me: I mean, Ivan's influence over other people plays a very important role in the story, but him having influence over his father? Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov? Wow. Also I have something else to say about the quiet and order thing but it belongs in part four.

The rest of that line is also interesting in my opinion:

[...] [Ivan] sat now quite unmoved, with downcast eyes, apparently waiting with interest to see how it would end, as though he had nothing to do with it.

This, maybe trivial, line never really left my head, which means it must mean something to me. Maybe because that behaviour fits Ivan's character so well and I always like when he gets to act like a normal, unbothered, and even childish at times, twenty-three year old (he's not even angry there, what a rare occurrence) and because according to how the other characters speak of him, it feels unexpected (and turned out to be useful for this post).

Back to how others speak of him, someone (Fyodor I think) goes as far as saying that maybe Ivan deliberately seeks torment, which honestly feels a little too familiar to me and that's why that's another line I can't seem to get out of my head; when people have such a high opinion of you they do tend to blame your own struggle on you, at least in my experience, as it's their only way of rationalizing it. You should be better than that, you should be smarter than that. But you're not, so maybe you actually want it; why would such a brilliant person be like that otherwise? You're not allowed to be "weak" and I think Ivan is a perfect example of this as he has internalized this concept, but I'll go over it in part four.

But what does all this have to do with bipolar disorder? I'm getting there, but you'll have to bear with me because this whole thing gets quite intricated at this point and I have to be as clear as I can (and I can't, ever), so let's take a seemingly nonsensical step back to see the bigger picture.

None of the brothers are stupid: Dmitri is naive, impulsive and uneducated, sure, but the narrator does describe him as a fairly intelligent man in spite of it, Pavel was basically a child prodigy and a very smart young adult (and maybe I should talk about it sometime because everyone in the novel considers him to be capable but stupid and there's only one person who explicitly recognizes his intelligence in a genuine way apart from the narrator, guess who), and Aleksej, while also uneducated, isn't stupid either. But there is a particular emphasis put on Ivan's intelligence and it's hard to find a paragraph where he is present or where someone else is talking about him that doesn't mention it. Ivan is bright, Ivan is educated, Ivan is an academic. It's pretty much the first thing the other characters think of when thinking about him, it's almost some sort of morbid fixation. And it's not a positive thing either as it does nothing but feed into his insecurities and Pavel even uses it against him by telling him how intelligent he is over and over until he officially loses it. Ivan is smart to the point of being charming and admired, but that turns out to be a double-edged sword (of course) because everyone puts him on a pedestral and higher the pedestral, deadlier the fall, as we see in the second half of the novel. In my opinion the only one who seems to view him as a human being and not as some sort of ghost or higher, detached entity (apart from Zosima) is Alyosha; Dmitri considers Ivan to be better than everyone else including himself, Smerdyakov is...well, Smerdyakov, his father's attitude towards him is basically I don't understand what's up with him and I don't really care (in addition to what I said a few paragraphs ago) and even Katya is charmed by him more than she loves him, at least at first. Everyone else doesn't even really know him and that's partially his own fault, but I can't blame him.

Why do I consider this bipolar coding? To make it short, intelligent people are often considered charismatic and many psychiatric studies suggest that there's a link between bipolar disorder and high intelligence (which to me personally kind of feels like a consolation prize, like nature saying hey, you'll hate being alive but at least you're not an idiot!, thanks a lot I guess) and it's also worth mentioning that bipolar disorder is linked to creativity as well since Ivan has come up with multiple poems over the years, which means he must be a creative person to a certain degree. I haven't been citing my sources because this is not an academic paper and I'm just some guy on Tumblr who doesn't even study psychiatry and just happens to be basically cursed, but there's a book about this topic that I want to mention: Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by American psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison; I've also read her (very relatable) autobiography and I'm a big fan of hers since she knows what she's talking about even more than the average psychiatrist because she has bipolar disorder herself. For anecdotal evidence, I keep a mental list of historical figures and artists (including contemporaries/celebrities who are still alive) diagnosed with bipolar disorder (so if you ever want to know if someone has/had it hit me up I guess) that I won't include here for obvious reasons, but let me just say that the doctors who did the aforementioned studies do seem to have a point (and I'm an artist myself). I want to make clear that I'm not trying to play into the overused, boring, inaccurate, and generally uncomfortable (for me at least) mentally ill tormented genius trope/stereotype and that it's obviously not what Dostoevsky was going for either; it's just that I've personally had people fixate on my intellect my whole life (not to mention the general weird fascination the average person has for mental illness and mentally ill people as well) and seeing Ivan go through that same experience combined with the studies I just mentioned made this association inevitable for me. Also people seem to find you more fun and charming when you're manic/hypomanic (only when you're the "right" kind of manic/hypomanic of course, when you're experiencing dysphoric mania/hypomania people just become ableist because that's the "wrong" kind of mania/hypomania, duh) which is...uhm...I don't really know how to feel about it honestly, but it's a fact so I'm mentioning it.

But what came first, Ivan's self-isolation or people's misunderstanding of him as a person? Is it the former that caused the latter or the other way around? To me this feels like having to talk about the good old chicken and egg dilemma and I still haven't figured it out in relation to myself, so I guess this will remain unanswered for now (or forever). But what I do know is that bipolar disorder is a lonely experience, no matter how hard someone tries to not make it lonely; people just don't get it even if you explain yourself a thousand times over and over. It doesn't mean you don't have relationships with others, it just means you know you have to keep some things to yourself sometimes and you get used to it, which seems to be Ivan's case too; to me the best example of it is when he's just about to tell Alyosha about the devil but stops himself from doing so and decides to push him away instead. In my opinion it's also connected to his inability to show "weakness" that I already mentioned and that is often one of the core experiences of living with bipolar disorder, but I won't go over that now. I'll just say the problem when it comes to Ivan is that everyone (the readers, the other characters, even himself) gets tangled in a net of performance; living with bipolar disorder feels like having to constantly keep up a certain kind of act (that I wouldn't even know how to explain) in front of others due to the stigma, and I'm pretty sure that's the case with every neurodivergence and invisible disability (bipolar disorder is in fact a disability and I'm legally disabled, that's why I mentioned ableism earlier). Ivan knows what people think and expect of him (we've seen it in his first real interaction with Alyosha and I've already talked about it in part two) and we see few moments when he goes mask off, and apart from those moments his facial expressions are always described as being forced or "off" in some other way. One thing that struck me is the significant contrast between what Mrs. Khokhlakova in particular says about him and how we actually see him behave when he doesn't bother with his forced coldness and collectedness (usually by himself or around his family): she talks about how refined and chivalrious he is multiple times because that's the side of him she sees (and almost everyone else sees), yet he's the character who swears the most (I don't know if "swearing" is the right term as in the novel there are no actual curse words in the modern sense but he doesn't really speak kindly does he); his language is even worse than Dmitri's. I'm not saying that being polite in public/formal settings and swearing like a sailor in private/informal settings is something unusual because I'm also like that (as I'm afraid you might have noticed, sorry for all the swearing!), I just wanted to point that out because to me it seems important in general and relevant for this post.

This doesn't mean I think of Ivan as a fake person because I would have to have that same opinion of myself and I don't, it's quite hard to explain if you haven't lived the bipolar experience first-hand or don't really know what masking is and I hope you'll understand what I'm trying to say here; it's just that he hides and polishes some parts of himself due to a combination of childhood emotional neglect, mental illness, and a personality that's difficult on its own (but really, when you have a disorder like this one it's quite hard to tell what's personality and what's mental illness, especially because at times they're one and the same; it shapes you and sometimes you can't even do anything about it and to me it's no surprise Ivan's sense of self is as warped as it is), all factors that contribute to his partially self-inflicted isolation. I mean, he does say himself to Alyosha that at first he kept him at a distance on purpose and you can also find a glimpse of that in his own philosophy: he openly says that he loves humanity but dislikes humans. He can only show affection from afar and I think that also reflects in the situation with Pavel and in Ivan's own guilt: I don't think Ivan lacks empathy (quite the opposite), he just doesn't have the tools to do anything with it. Could he really have done something? He says he would have if Pavel had explicitly told him to stay in their father's house (here the conversation shifts on the physical aspect of things as Ivan now feels guilty for also being physically distant from his family and not only emotionally), but Ivan's words are never really reliable. How can we expect someone who's incapable of getting close to people to help them? Even when trying to help Dmitri escape prison he's still rough with him. There's a reason why his thing with Katya is a mess as well and he refuses to admit that he loves her (he even says to Alyosha that he doesn't like her and he's with her only to prevent a catastrophe at Mitya's trial, which are later stated to be lies by the narrator): he always tries to convert his feelings into reason, otherwise his whole façade crumbles.

I also want to mention Ippolit Kirillovič's words about him at the trial because they seem very important to me, but only very briefly because first, many things he says have already been talked about in my other posts and second, it seems a little unfair to leave the other members of the family out because Ippolit Kirillovič says many interesting things about all of them; maybe I'll make a post about that in the future. Basically, Ippolit Kirillovič doesn't particularly like Ivan because he got the better of him in a couple public arguments they had in the past (very funny to me by the way), but he still prefaces his criticism of him by talking about his positive qualities (once again, his vigorous intellect and brilliant education) and saying he was welcome in their community (but not in the same way Dmitri was). This is yet another case of me not knowing where I'm going with this, but this particular instance stood out to me so it was worth mentioning; I think it summarizes the other characters' attitude towards Ivan quite well, but I can't really explain it.

Another thing that I noticed is that no one ever calls him by a nickname, not even Alyosha. I wrote a post about the use of names and nicknames in The Brothers Karamazov months ago but I hated the way it turned out because I felt like I wasn't making any sense so I decided to throw the whole thing away and I don't even know if I should try writing it again. Anyway, it's very interesting to me that pretty much everyone is referred to by a nickname (even Rakitin of all people) except for Ivan; not even Alyosha calls him anything other than his name (and if I remember correctly not even Katya, who talks to Ivan using the informal you, does). Actually, there are a couple instances where this does happen and that drives me even more insane because the first one happens at the beginning of the novel, when his father calls him Vanya a few times only to never do it again (and honestly Ivan didn't seem to like that either), and the second one is Rakitin mockingly referring to him as Vanechka when talking about him to Aleksej (because of course he'd never call Ivan that to his face and I also have a feeling he'd get decked if he tried). I don't really know where I'm going with this (again) but I wanted to throw it in anyway because it always stood out to me considering the only main characters that are never referred to like that are Fyodor, Ivan, and Smerdyakov and well, there seem to be implications here. In the aforementioned deleted post I wrote about this topic I mentioned sense of belonging (Mitya belongs there after all) and affection/connection (everyone loves Alyosha) in opposition to being excluded (Smerdyakov is not a legitimate son) and being unable to connect with others (Ivan is an outcast due to the multiple reasons I went over in the previous paragraphs). Maybe I really should try writing it again.

Well, I think I'm done for now. I found it a little hard to separate the themes of part three from the ones of part four, because the latter will focus on Ivan's self-perception (among what happens from Book Eleven to the epilogue and other, more "medical", things) but we see how he perceives himself through the devil but the devil is not an actual real person in the book so I couldn't really include that here and in my mind the themes of these two parts kind of blended together so I had to to figure out where to break them apart.

This took longer than usual (which bothers me but oh well) because I had to take a break from pretty much everything (which is why lately many posts have been queued) for a while due to the February-March period always being whacky for me bipolar-wise, mostly because of the seasonal change (something that plays a huge role in this shitshow of a disorder and something I'll go over in part four because surprise surprise) that always makes me mentally and physically tired. All of this, which can be summarized with bipolar disorder bipolar disordering, to say that I hope this part isn't as messy as it seems to me and that I hope you can't tell I wrote it during a time I wasn't getting enough sleep (I swear I did my best given the circumstances), and if I "disappear" or interact less from time to time it's usually because of this kind of stuff. I'm still not getting enough sleep by the way so I might take a break from serious posts again, I love that daylight savings time happens during one of the worst seasonal changes of the whole year for me every year and it doesn't mess with my disorder at all.

It sure didn't help that I chose to make part three more complicated than the others thinking it wouldn't go in a completely different direction than I had originally planned and wouldn't therefore have to reorganize my thoughts during a period I simply couldn't do so; I will obviously be punished for my hubris. But until then I'll be working on part four (and some other unfinished stuff I have in my drafts and have no idea when I'll post), which will be the last part of my bipolar Ivan Karamazov essay.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Ivan/Riley/Chase playlist!

Here it is: the big guns. The magnum opus of this series. The fic that started it all and is also somehow the one I've most recently updated. The holy grail slow-burn poly-shipping mutual-pining Soulmate AU and the longest fic in this series by a long shot (if only due to the fact that I stopped updating the Ziggy/Scott one, and even that was not a slow burn). I left y'all on tenterhooks for MONTHS as I updated this thing and whenever I want inspiration for writing slow-burns I come back to this fic. It meant so much to get to write asexual Riley and his soulmates' supportive reactions as well as Kaylee's aromantic journey, too!

Also, apparently it's the most kudosed one in the Dino Charge fandom? And the second-most viewed? So thank y'all so much! Once again, I cannot believe that these passion project rarepair fics have spoken so well to the good people of the power rangers fandom. I started this series when I was eighteen (I wrote the vast majority of it at eighteen) and a freshman in college and I got so much joy from writing all of these traumatized idiots sitting within stories that were just begging for a bit of tweaking/exploring. Thank you all so much for coming along this journey with me over the years- it means more than I can say!

@skyland2703 @madhare0512 @khruschevshoe @liveinalovelyway @disastardly @augment-techs @infinitysgrace @our-raven-strife-universe @estel-eruantien @miss-morgans-lover

[ivanttakethis]

Round 7 Predictions

Since we’re only halfway through Alien Stage, I don’t think there will be a Round 7 winner.

There’s a ton of material Q and V could get into if both Till and Luka survive in some way or another. I also think there’s still a lot more left to learn about the lore of Alien Stage as a competition and how the whole system functions for the competition part to end so quickly.

I think Till will be rescued by the rebels at some point, either before or during Round 7. He’ll get to reconnect with Mizi, see how much she’s changed, and hopefully come to see her as less of a godly savior and more of a person.

Freeing Till would also force him to confront his own wants and dreams beyond escaping the competition and taking Mizi with him. What does Till want out of life now that both he and Mizi are free? How does he process all of the shit that went down in the previous rounds, especially Round 6?

As for Luka I think one of two things will happen: (1) he won’t be rescued by the rebels at all or (2) he’s offered the opportunity to leave with them but he refuses.

The second option is definitely more interesting as it will tell us more about Luka’s mindset, but also Hyuna’s if she can choose whether or not a rescue attempt is made for him. It would possibly give us insight into how they feel about each other given the current circumstances.

Either way, I don’t think Luka will leave Alien Stage or rebel against the aliens.

What would be his reason to? He’s the face of the whole competition. His status within the alien society has provided him with a lot of access that he could possibly not be able to live without, given his chronic illnesses.

But more than that, I think he’ll stay for personal reasons. Fame? Accolades? Ego? Maybe a mix of all three? Or perhaps some long buried guilt or remorse? There’s still a lot we don’t know about his feelings and motivations.

Personally I think he’s too interesting of a character to kill off so soon (a.k.a. I want to study him under a microscope).

Now this next part is me being delusional, so I’m putting it under the cut.

So,

If Till is rescued before Round 7 starts, that leaves Luka as the winner by default. But that’d probably be pretty boring as a finale for the audience.

How do they spice things up? By healing/reviving Ivan and putting him up against Luka.

Think about it: they’re both insanely popular in-universe, they’re somewhat equally matched in terms of singing ability, and they’re both considered pretty boys.

Think of the fashion! Think of the theatrics!! The material is LITERALLY. RIGHT. THERE.

In my opinion they’re two of the most complex characters in the cast, but they haven’t had much (if any) direct interaction with one another. I’d like to see how their similarities and differences stack up once they’re side by side, and what that tells us about each of them.

They’re also both weirdos (in their own ways), so putting them head to head would be the ultimate Freak (derogatory) vs. Freak (affectionate) final showdown.

And if Ivan were to win, he would essentially take over Luka’s role as the face of Alien Stage. How would that affect him personally? What would he do with his life after?

If he learns that Till managed to escape with the rebels, would Ivan still want to escape on his own? Or would he be content to stay put with the knowledge that Till is free?

Similar to Till with Mizi, who is Ivan beyond helping and supporting Till? What are his hopes and dreams?

I went more in depth about how Ivan could potentially be brought back and what ramifications it could have on the story depending on how it’s done in this post, if anyone wants to read that.

[theogony]

just speed watched the entirety of alien stage!!! some notes on my experience

what the fuck