#poor Ivan

[pinkroseblooms]

Alien Stage is so good man 😭 I haven't been this invested in a story being told through a series of music videos since Trapped in the Closet.

[pearls-gone-wild]

I see your reading of Memory and raise you the sense that the entire plot of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance and everything Ivan has to manage is so Simon Ilyan gets to have some minimally-empire-endangering fun.

Now i can't claim to know this, but what it FEELS LIKE is the entire convoluted plot of Memory and everything that Miles agonizes over happens so that Simon Ilyan gets to live like a human being at last

[absha120420]

cafe au

[yo0hankim]

it was just a bad dream. hes okay. hes okay

[slkflowr]

all in a blink, gone.

[akaanir-of-starfleet]

#he suffers #he suffers and nobody understands (via @rattyjol​)

i love ivan so much

[crustyfloor]

do I be sad or think this is so cute it looks like Ivan mimicking Till's air guitar practice 😭😭😭

[katrasining]

the courtship dance was effective (?)

[stcharls-st]

[thornescratch]

The utter GLEE and willingness to choose violence that each of these men exhibits as soon as they pick up a tortilla, this team building exercise game was perfect, ten out of ten, no notes.

[sorrowcure]

WHEN I CHECK THE ALNST SOCIALS AFTER A DAY AND FIND OUT THIS DROPPED OM THE 20TH

AUGH THE ONE DAY I DIDNT CHECK IM LIKE GONNA TJROW UP IN A GOOD??? WAY (anywho sorry for being dead I'll be back,, maybe who knows)

(Art Source)

[tenshi-agerasia]

in-universe alien stage mechanisms and the use of colors in round 7 (a luka & till rant ft. mizi & hyuna)

it's generally agreed that alien stage can be interpreted as a metaphor for the kpop industry, and as someone who did tons of studying (because of my 3d fav) on how performances work in c-ent, i noticed some things on my nth rewatch of blink gone

meta-wise, the colors in the mv are green (to represent till) and purple (to represent luka). this combo works really well for the song, but is there an in-universe explanation to the lighting? yep:

take a look at the scoreboard. even in-universe, green represents till and purple represents luka. taking the idol theme more literally, we can also assume that these are their official colors. i went back to the TOP 3 video and well well well guess what appears during luka's part

the lightsticks, the projected neon signs, the same kind of mask (?), the stadium lights. we can reasonably assume that this purple is luka's official fan color and represents support for him.

and guess what color almost all of the crowd is repping during round 7 through lightsticks and masks?

that's right, overwhelmingly purple. don't forget that the winners of each round of alien stage are decided by live in-house voting, and audience members will always be biased towards who they're a fan of. remember that luka is insanely popular and already won a season, so his fanbase would be larger, more developed, and more devoted.

till was, for a lack of better words, cooked. he was doomed to lose from the start, because how can a few of his fans outvote the majority?

i've seen some people theorize that the result was rigged, and i completely disagree: you cannot fake support on this large of a scale. "oh, but the color of the lightsticks are controlled by the organizers" then explain the masks, a clear fandom symbol

also, from my experience in survival shows, vote counts in the final round are usually hidden until the results are announced, which explains the wobbliness of the scoreboard bars like they're inflatable tube men in front of a car or mattress dealership.

an alternative explanation to the lightsticks is that it represents the current vote, but i'm not inclined to believe this theory because, again, the masks. like real-life idol performances, i think that this is just a show of support from the audience.

back to the meta: mizi's appearance in the crowd is a reinvigoration of determination in till, and in terms of color, she is a break of bright green among the sea of purple. she not only stands out because she's someone he loves, she is visually a breath of fresh air for him.

do you think, in those last moments, he was not only happy to see her alive in front of him but to also see her wearing his color?

in this part where they're reaching out to each other, the pink-purple light that seems to be shining from mizi is representative of how she's a beacon of hope for till. in-universe, however, till is just moving towards the audience, the close proximity of the lightsticks illuminating his face with color.

mizi and till are surrounded by this vibrant purple, a symbol for luka. even with mizi's more pink-ish radiance, they are literally in his territory, at the mercy of the system that he has been through and learned to play along with.

the same can't be said about luka when he sees hyuna again:

the warmth of his fan color disappears, replaced by a colder indigo. the audience, his fans, the aliens that he knows how to use to keep himself alive mean nothing to him right now. it's this cold feeling of shock that makes him so unsure of how to react.

in this moment, he is no longer luka the performer, luka the idol, luka the twice winner of alien stage—he's just luka. he's vulnerable to emotion, an unfamiliar thing, and he's so painfully human.

luka: (sees hyuna) holy shit it's you... mizi: till is literally dying behind you luka: this ain't about him

another detail: these shots were never shown in the mv so i'm assuming they're taken by in-universe cameras (see the red flashes in the audience), especially because of the angle (downwards pointing perspective)

[rebouks]

Previous // Next

Sawyer: Can I say hi to Pixie? Frankie: We don’t really have time, sweetie. Sawyer: Pleeeeease? I’ve been bored all morning, I wanna play! Frankie: Five minutes. Sawyer: Ten? Frankie: No more! … Frankie: Hi. Ivan: Y’alright? Frankie: I hope I’m not interrupting-.. I won’t be here long. Ivan: Reading is just my excuse not t’get wet. Frankie: That’s usually my go to as well. [Frankie laughed at her own joke for a split second before deciding it wasn’t actually even funny-.. nor a joke] Ivan: Summer holidays are as much a pain as they are fun, eh? Frankie: Yeah.. luckily, neither job minds me bringing him along. Ivan: Y’got two jobs? Frankie: Yeah. Ivan: That sounds rough-.. where else d’ya work? Frankie: Nowhere exciting. What do you do? Ivan: I’m a mechanical engineer-.. sounds fancier than it is though. Frankie: Ah! Good time keeping skills, mister. Sawyer: Did you just say you were a mechanic?! Ivan: Aye, kinda. Frankie: Sawyer-… Sawyer: Can you fix our truck? Frankie: Don’t be so rude. Ivan: [laughs] Don’t sweat it. Sawyer: Pleeeeease? You won’t let dad fix it and I’m tired of walking all the time-.. my feet hurt. Ivan: I could, if y’wanted? Frankie: No, it’s fine. Sawyer: MOOOM! [Frankie hesitated, glancing between Ivan and Sawyer] Ivan: I honestly don’t mind-.. s’your call though. Frankie: Uh, yeah.. okay.

[shakingparadigm]

what is the theory that ivan manipulated the event where till and mizi met the wagyein?

It's not a theory, actually! It's confirmed that Ivan orchestrated the whole event. The true reason as to why however is still unknown. The information provides more context to this scene, though:

During the earlier times of ALNST the most rational explanation for this scene was that Till ran after a flower crown (presumably Mizi's) and Ivan followed him in out of curiosity. Now we know that Ivan was conveniently just standing there because he was waiting.

Side note, I find it heartbreaking (and maybe a little funny, sorry) that Till most likely didn't notice Ivan in this scene. That's just like him, isn't it. Always too busy running after Mizi while Ivan trails behind, an ever-present shadow.

I'm not sure how Ivan manipulated the circumstances for both of them to end up there, but it is confirmed that everything was intentional. What strikes me most is how they describe this particular scene:

I can't copy down what they said word-for-word (Patreon info), but they described Ivan watching "creepily" as Till and Mizi are faced with danger. We know that Ivan was familiar with the Cerberus wagyein beforehand, enough to touch its teeth and even to rest himself inside its maw. To Ivan, the wagyein is not dangerous, but to Till and Mizi, it could be. Ivan prepared the wagyein, led them there, and watched "creepily" from afar as Till fell on his knees, seemingly injured.

The closest I can get to making sense of Ivan's "scheme" is that he wanted to see how other children would react in a dangerous situation. Ivan's always been an observer, after all, and he's learned to survive by copying the more "normal" behaviors of his peers. This situation occured when Ivan was still young and had not yet developed his more charming mask, so perhaps he staged this encounter to study a situational response, to learn and mimic the emotion of fear. And what better subjects for the experiment than two of the most expressive and reactive humans of their batch? It helps that he was already fixated on Till beforehand, too. I think Ivan became irreversibly obssessed after this incident, especially since it's framed as a turning point in Ivan's life, comparing Till to the stars.

This is just my attempt at an interpretation, though. It could very well be for another reason. He most likely chose Till and Mizi specifically for personal reasons, not just for reaction. I'm still not sure on the purpose behind the whole thing.

The team wanted to capture Ivan's "dark emotions" through the shot of his stalking, which could relate to his more sinister intentions. His gaze can be read in a few different ways, though. Curiosity, interest, fear, etc. Maybe that's why they decided to redraw the shot in ROUND 6.

I think this better sells the feeling they were trying to convey.

[anxious-chaos-art]

Dying is hard :(

Alt version with (non graphic) blood bc I couldn’t help myself undercut

[unshallow-feelings]

I think there's an essay to be written about Mizi and Ivan both believing that Till doesn't care about them but both of them want to form some connection with him and vice versa.