no forgiveness needed—COMRADEEEE 🥺🤝🏾😭😭😭💔 ivan makes me sooo (bites bricks bites drywall)

i think about this CONSTANTLY, i was literally chatting with someone about something along these lines in DMs the other day because (at least right this minute) i don’t have the inspiration and/or plot motivation to do a whole deep dive a la fic hahaha

so, here’s my thing. i think that till rarely says unintentionally insensitive things to ivan. let me expound:

1 — they are both autistic, to me, though till is audhd to ivan’s classic autism presentation. what this means, specifically, in terms of processing is that they both kind of fail to read each other’s emotions because they are SUPER foreign to each other (opposing personality types) and i think that this leans into till being like “you’re really cold” and/or “why did you do that” with no thought or consequence as to whether ivan would be upset about what he’s saying or how he’s saying it

i think ivan’s general response to any kind of uncomfortable emotional stimulus is “didn’t like that” AKA complete shutdown. thankfully, till’s EQ is pretty high and he’s very observational so he’s usually the first one to sigh and apologize despite ivan being a brat to him. all is dismissed following the apology

2 — it’s less likely that it’s anything till is saying to ivan or about ivan that has ivan down in the dumps. i think till is very much a “shows how he feels via actions” person and ivan knows that. so what’s the most frustrating to ivan is that he is always, always off on the wrong foot.

he doesn’t know how to be nice like mizi. and by the time he “trains himself how to act like a human”, he’s laid down the groundwork of what their relationship is going to be from that point forward and he probably feels stuck there. and it makes him itchy.

i think there’s no particular triggers to ivan’s bad days. just like sometimes, when it dawns him they’re all going to die and till won’t let ivan save him, they cannot fix each other, so on and so forth, ivan gets even more recessive than usual. he goes nonverbal and blank (in the privacy of his own room—he doesn’t like the vulnerability of people seeing him when he’s not masking)

furthering point 2, ivan lashes out (violently) sometimes in his childhood, but it’s just because any physical response is better than being completely ignored…and it’s not like till is ignoring him on purpose, ivan is just. there all the time? and till doesn’t actively give ivan the time of day lol, so. it’s a catalyst

generally, speaking, i just think canon ivan is the most pathetic and miserable creature who holds till in the highest regard because till is such a inscrutable entity to him lol. i think till infuriates ivan and ivan’s instincts yell at him to obliterate anything he can’t control, but he loves till so bad because till is flawed, because he’s human and desperately emotive and irrational—all things ivan is not.

idk if i even answered your question tbh. anyways. as you can see, i’m filled with thoughts about ivan 25/8. it’s a disease (thumbs up emoji)