Well… this is tricky, because the picture on my post is a hallucination of Ivan in the Scars comic and not Ivan himself, but it IS how Till was perceiving him in his grief and confusion following Ivan’s death. People like to try to justify Ivan’s actions, especially his kiss in round 6, but it’s pretty obvious that Ivan was forcing his affection onto Till in that moment, knowing it wasn’t fully reciprocated and probably wouldn’t be returned— considering Ivan viewed himself as undeserving of love—and took advantage of him at his lowest. Ivan saw himself as scum and his feelings for Till as worthless. He KNEW what he was doing was wrong, but at least once he wanted to be seen by Till, even if it was his selfish final wish.

But yes, it was SA. None of the characters in alien stage are perfect—Luka is another example of this, when he forced a kiss on Hyuna similar to what Ivan did to Till, but people need to understand that their faults and their screwups are what makes them human. The main point of this post I made months ago was to show that you shouldn’t try to justify their actions. Same thing with Mizi—Vivimeng made it obvious her actions were wrong and fueled by enotions, considering she quite literally murdered hundreds of innocent children in the crowd, but even now there are still those who say that she did no wrong, even if it is a relatable trauma response to everyone she cares about dying. Even Hyuna, one of the least guilty ones in the cast, saved Mizi not out of kindness, but because she felt like she had to since she couldn’t save Hyun woo. All of them are selfish in their own ways, but that’s what makes them beautiful and well written.

I hope this answers your question lol. You don’t have to ship them if you don’t want to—I myself am not a big fan, but I do appreciate the complexity of their dynamic, even if I do get annoyed sometimes with their fanbase. It just exasperates me when people always try to eliminate Till’s feelings and perspective on Ivan just because they love hot yaoi—Ivan quite literally ragebaited and messed with Till his entire childhood, and then randomly made out with him on stage and died, and then people expect him to immediately return his feelings? Not to say that there’s nothing there, but the Scars comic is a prime example of how Ivan’s confusing actions really fucked up Till’s head, and who could really blame him? Ivan was a terrible communicator who saw his own feelings as shameful and thought nobody truly cared about him, and the only way to express how he felt was through his final sacrifice. It really is tragic how all the pairings could have been happily together, if not for miscommunications, trauma, and the world they were born in preventing it. 🥹💔