You Will Live To 100

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.

everyone talks abotu the jane doe ass wipeouts but honestly these ones are sm funnier to me,, like why does she look like that?? 😭

(not my images, they came from this thread on X-itter)

silence (and the lack thereof)

+ i did not end up going down this route but i kinda went down a rabbit hole researching the importance of silence in linguistics and found this neat passage from the world of silence by max picard and it made me think of them so i thought id share with the class🫡

Was rewatching some of the HSR animations and HE LOOKS SO GODDAMN HAPPY HERE AS AN OLD MAN HELP

rambling about blade / yingxing headcanons and ideas that I've thought abt or seen floating around

(his white hair, him not knowing what tech is, how the Mara permanently messed up his hands and muscle memory so he can't do what he loved anymore, etc etc)

Headcanon #1: white hair

Everyone except Dan Feng had white hair, and I'm p sure I mentioned this before but imagine

So Yingxing is the only short-life species right, and he's getting old and noticing it and realizing that compared to the others, he doesn't have much time left

And one of the others notices how melancholy he is, and how he's trying to hide it for their sake, and is like "hmm," before being like "hey what if we all got white hair but didn't tell Dan Feng"

And all of them know it's to make Yingxing feel less alone, but it's played off as a "hehe pranking Dan Feng" moment

Headcanon #2: old man blade not knowing how tech works

We see this a bit with current Blade and Silver Wolf, but I like to imagine it was still part of his personality to a lesser extent

He would have been the "old guy" of the group who was an expert with traditional crafts and technology, but not so much with newer things since he preferred to make things "the old way" or by hand, since it made him feel more connected with his work

Like, he would have kept up with the newer stuff being made and used it if it would have helped him with his work, but wouldn't have bothered with stuff like phones, computers, the internet, etc

So the others would always ask him for help with anything they broke, and he'd ask for help with anything internet or computer related

Headcanon #3: him knowing how to craft stuff besides weapons, armor, et cetera

This is a stretch but if his skills expanded beyond just weapons and armor he could probably help fix everyone's clothes (they'd probably get torn up in battle) or make little hand-made gifts and stuff like statues and jewelry and armor and cutlery

Like he also would have been an artist specializing in handmade things, but no one would have suspected him of making such tiny and delicate things until they got to know him

Headcanon #4:

So as Blade, he still has damaged hands and scars, and I've seen a headcanon of sorts floating around that the Mara focuses only on the wounds that need the most urgent healing, and leaves "minor" or less severe wounds unhealed

And the Mara would have focused on all the fatal wounds Jingliu inflicted while killing Blade, leaving other wounds to heal improperly

So now as Blade, his hands are too damaged to perform fine crafts and movements, except for swordplay, which he sort of got beaten into him by Jingliu

My other headcanon of sorts is that the Mara messed with his muscle memory, not just his ability to remember events

So his mind and nervous system are essentially too scrambled for him to learn any type of craft or fine motor skill except for swordplay (and maybe driving)

And I kind of feel like he would find some peace if he were still able to make things, sort of like how some people use embroidery or weaving or drawing as a coping method / escapism, but even that form of art / self expression has been taken from him

It'd be like if Robin permanently lost the ability to sing or if Serval suddenly became tone-deaf and couldn't play guitar

WIP for art class, still need to fix the larger flower 🙃

So like. These guys.

Out of My Mind *reads the news* I see this new year is off to a great start 😩

When your battle maniac bf is apparently well versed in anatomy

.... But you are not🫠

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THEY WERE MARRIED

are you guys fighting or flirting? ...i can't tell