So I Just Realized Smth From The New Animated Short (which I Also Posted Abt Because Arles Hands Becoming

the dead siblings

after school at the jasmine dragon 🐉

(narrated) process vid here

this is all i could think of when i saw her trailer, like cherries are round and so are the wishing currencies—

A victim of the plague in Kýmare; the few that survive the initial intense wave of infection are left weakened and often bedridden or even comatose, with only a few years to live. Lyn is the exception; he has continued to go about his life with merely a few… unpleasant side effects. He's working on it. As for Lyn's expected lifespan. . . he's working on that too.

A mysterious figure, Lyn can be seen wandering about in secluded areas. He is often likened to some kind of wraith or spirit by the locals due to his outfit and the silent grace and elegance of his movements. His mask, hat, and cloak are meant to conceal the scars/damage he retained from the plague, and also to prevent further infections, which would be very bad for his health.

Looking at Him

this genre of ivan is so funny like does he even know he exists

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

random thing but i realized it might be helpful for some people so uh. theres this thingy where you can upload an image and it gives you a color palette based on it ! 

heres an example

and it also gives you the hex code values for them too its p neat !

here’s the link to the website !

A rambling analysis of Ivan's "Nowhere" (spoilers for up to round 7)

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.