#luka next

[krash-8]

au design doodles be upon ye, ruko edition

[stompandhollar]

The image you’ve each created of the other, the people you think you love, don’t exist.

[moshaeu]

ok last of the alnst for now

[crustyfloor]

A new pop-up store dropped for ALIEN STAGE's 2nd anniversary and wow. It's so sick.

It's Interesting what exactly these experiments are focusing on and monitoring.

Instrument practice

I found it interesting earlier that Till was so tame, more so than he usually is when he's going through experiments, but music, and making music is what he loves doing, So he was fully in his element here. This was probably the only thing he was made to do by the aliens that he at least tolerated.

(Additionally, judging by his collar (orange), he was at least calm. maybe he just isn't fazed anymore.)

//Side note, that head contraption looks familiar BUT this most likely isn't related at least i hope

(It puts me at ease, at least..)

Dance practice

This surprised me, but I suppose Mizi needed more skills.

She looks very startled here, and nervous(?) +It looks like she's doing this while singing. And with that face covering I assume this was a test monitoring her dance balance, precision, etc. At first, I did think it was odd, "Why would Shine put her through that" But alas I was reminded that even though Mizi is the flower of the group she was never untouchable, to Shine, this was the equivalent of teaching your dog to sit and stay.

(seeing this it reminded me of those scenes in movies where the people are dancing, and the music gets faster and faster until they fall. I wonder if she was doing through something similar to that)

Singing practice (?)

Similar to Till she also looks quite calm outwardly, if the machine around her neck is an iteration of the collars they have, then this process wasn't something she liked, or given how intense this experiment looks, this was a test of high-pressure to ensure she always stayed calm during performances (?). Then again this could also be a posture practice given all the structure focused on maintaining her position.

(What I believe was another form of this test was shown before so I think so)

(With her hands in a praying stance I wonder if she was praying to herself or singing a religious song (sweet dream?) It's also interesting that the machinery around her looks like a halo, and she looks so...angelic? holy?)

Image making practice

By image making, I think they made Ivan replicate expressions with his face. Whether this process was painful for him or not...I'm not sure. But it looked visibly uncomfortable, maybe that was the point. (His expression, even in this circumstance is so dubious..)

Ivan, among other things, needed to have a spotless appearance to be successful, his image was a priority given his skills were certainly guaranteed.

I assume the aliens eventually took note of his lack of expression, in the real world this can be a detriment to one's career, so the Aliens had to ensure quality was perfect. (To a more...dedicated level)

Superiority test

'Superiority test' Is very vague.

HyunA is very calm here too, likely sedated in that water with all the tablets on her. I guess this was a test to get an idea of a pet human's strengths and weaknesses, endurance, and temperament to compare and contrast them with others, testing who is more viable for Alien stage?

Another interesting, and sad part about this is that HyunWoo was there, watching his sister through her experiments.

(Also, it looks like both of her legs are normal, no alien leg yet.)

Heart rate variability

And finally, the most visceral of them all. The wording 'variability' makes this all the more sickening, the Aliens were testing his heart hours, testing it at different rates, speeds, and states. And he was in agony the entire time. Even the way he's clutching his chest, it gives me chills. This would've been a completely harmless test in a normal setting, as something quite similar to this can be performed efficiently in real life. But he's being tortured in the process.

This is one of the first times we've ever seen Luka's face so truly clear and unprotected, (understandably so.) He's even crying.

[enden-k]

puppy

[fluffysoraa]

💚💛

[peachymune]

Did I ever show the colored version

[berrycubes]

(10/14) MEIKO and Luka from Vocaloid!! : )

[sangled]

vocaloids (x)

[ithroweggsatbillionaires]

Disclaimers on that last part

I have not yet seen Season 2 and I based it on the impression I got from other posts

I thought the zesty Romeo image was real (see no.1)

The creator of zesty Romeo is "hero :)" or "ivorsblocksleeve" on Tiktok

[aakaneeee]

Mizi and Sua's relationship isn't as "perfect" as it's been portrayed until now.

According to "The True Face", where Mizi notes that her and Sua had a fight recently, and the backstage of My Clematis appears the same during the teaser.

Despite that... Mizi isn't a monster.

She isn't a cruel manipulator who hates everyone, nor is she someone who acts oblivious on purpose to gain sympathy.

She isn't a murderer out for blood.

Mizi is a survivor who's brain taught her that her survival, her facade, are the reason for her friends' deaths.

"The True Face" portrays first a twisted image of Sua, the one she loved, the one she last saw laying lifeless in a pool of her own blood, calling her cunning and taunting her for ,,throwing her, and then all her other friends away". Explaining that she must feel like a waste. Must be nice, right? To be the sole survivor, since after the death of Luka's entire world, he can barely count as alive. To remain the last one standing, stepping on the musty, dark pile of the corpses whose deaths she thinks she caused.

Well, the phrase "Must be nice, right?" has haunted her her whole life. She's pretty, oblivious, comes from a nice alien family, she most definetly hasn't seen the horrors! No one expects her to have seen how bad the reality they live in truly is. Poor girl, doesn't understand what is going on even when slapped because of her repulsion for eventually having to mate with a male, doesn't understand why her friend can't stop liking her. Her outburst when her God told her the same phrase must have been just a one time thing! But no. It wasn't. Mizi has always been surrounded by death and gore, her tantrums were adorable and her cries were just "the hardships of children." Maybe she should have a TV, no? She saw her "provider" crushed at such a young age and she was adopted right after: that was the last human interaction she had until Alien Stage.

That's probably why she seems so fascinated about Sua's anatomy being the same as her's. She's so alienated that humanity seems foreign to her, as if she isn't part of the species.

At first, when I saw the image of Mizi looking so intently at the contestant being shot, I thought she was searching death for herself. But after reading the next pages... yes, she was looking for a place where she could crush someone. But again: she could. It's a hypothetical way of wording it. It doesn't mean she wanted to kill someone. (Maybe except Luka in Round 5, more on that later.) It means she was glad that in case it was needed, she could, so her grief about Sua, Till, Ivan and Hyuna's deaths are real, unlike what some people have been saying after the two comics came out.

Mizi, just like we've learned about Luka, doesn't really know the concept of being human. She, just like him, only knows suffering, but her facade doesn't inflict the same: quite the opposite. By acting the way she is, she attracts people. She makes them happy. She makes them love her, as much as she doesn't like this. They love her until her obliviousness gets too much and they get annoyed with her, or until she slips and again, they get annoyed with her. There really is no way of winning here, is there?

I personally think that the frame of the two hands, holding eachother like they are praying, between them, a squished heart, bleeding and nailed down, represents Mizi trying to protect Sua's heart. Atleast, the organ is definetly her's, because of the lyrics in "heart" : From iron to red drench. It seems like Mizi, just like she said, can crush Sua if she wants.. and she's doing it without realizing. Between the two women, there's a sense of codependency, but they also find the other oblivious and fragile, trying to protect them, but ending up hurting them even more. The photo is like she's praying to a Christian relic, but crumbling it down to nothing in the process.

According to Sweet Dream, it's safe to assume that Luka wasn't an example shown on screen just for Till. And, with Mizi's like for Alien Stage from a young age, I doubt she didn't already know who he was. And that also counts for his fragility.

I believe that it wasn't the way Luka acted that reminded Mizi of Sua, but their shared fragility. Their elegance and empty gaze. And, because of how similar they appear, enough to give her hallucinations, I think that she associates them. Hence, beating Luka up in Round 5 might have been truly murderous: she didn't want to kill Sua, but she did mention that she could.. if that's what she wished for. So, she might've thought she could just kill him too, because she really wanted to, right?

It's really interesting how Mizi and Luka being the last survivors has been hinted from a simple design choice: both of them having blue tips, Mizi's hair and Luka's fingers. It was quite clear (but I, for example, didn't notice this) that they would be important. Also, Luka getting so little content should've been an indicator too. Currently, he's the only one without a comic from his perspective and he has the least amount of songs, so there must be more about him.

To end this off, I have 4 possible outcomes now:

-Everyone dies

-Mizi is the last one standing

-Luka is the last one standing (let's be honest, currently, that's the worst possible outcome for him, he'd just be put in the system all over again and abused even harsher)

-They both live, but are put back into the system (well that would hurt!.. but it's unlikely)

Personally, I want for Luka to live. I want him to learn and have Hyuna's death propped onto his shoulders. I want him to experience guilt, unimaginable guilt, but learn to forgive himself. Killing him off now, after just learning that he was, infact, loved back, and that he should learn to love himself too, would be so useless.

[loreic]

The True Face: In-depth analysis

Okay now that I had a few hours to process all... that, I think I can analyze this objectively without crashing tf out 

Heavy, heavy analysis, speculation & theories ahead 

[Spoilers for the insane new Mizi comic obviously]

So the comic opens exactly where we left off after Weige right after Round 7 (the fact that Round 7, Weige, Arise and Walk, and now this happens in like the span of a few minutes is absolutely diabolical btw). Mizi is crashing tf out and just staring at Till’s blood literally on her hands, which immediately just shouts GUILT in all caps. 

We are then immediately jump scared by this.

Which is gonna give me nightmares for a whole week (thanks for that Vivinos), and sets the tone of this whole situation, giving us a glimpse at Mizi’s incredibly fragile mental state. Keep in mind that she had just had her life completely thrown upside down, witnessed Till get shot, then Hyuna two seconds later, all while still coming to terms with the fact Sua is gone. 

Girl is literally two seconds away from cracking. 

We then cut to a flashback set during their ANAKT Garden days. Considering how old they look and Sua later mentioning that they were running out of time and will have to take the stage soon, I’m suspecting this probably happened fairly recently, possibly within the year and not long before their graduation. 

The following sequence starts off tame enough, starting with this Luka-knockoff-looking ex-classmate cornering Mizi about her relationship with Till, which Mizi mistakenly assumed that he was asking about Sua. 

We come to find out Sua hasn’t been around much (god is anyone else kinda extremely creeped out by Neigh?), and that they have apparently been fighting. Which is rather interesting to me considering that mizisua has so far been portrayed like the perfect yuri couple doomed by the narrative (or at least slightly less convoluted and toxic when compared to ivantill and hyuluka anyway, ain’t nothing healthy in alnst). I do wonder what they were fighting about.

Then we get the whole heteronormality spiel from the Luka knockoff (which damn I could totally do a whole nother post on with how much lore that gave on life in general in the ANAKT Garden). Dude tries to confess, gets cut off, and things just immediately escalate from 1 to 10000. Like fking hell just look at this image: 

Luka knockoff goes on to accuse Mizi of being willingly oblivious to how half the boys have been crushing on her (keep in mind these kids raised by aliens with zero functional social cues or an accurate concept of how relationships are supposed to work), and Mizi absolutely loses it. 

I mean look at this face. 

Girl is Hyuna-grade levels of mentally unwell (I like how this seems to be a trend with vivinos, feeding us information about a character, lulling us into a false sense of security and then doing a complete 180 in their comics and giving them twenty different dimensions we never considered). She is literally having a mental breakdown and still trying to keep the friendly, innocent mask and smiling through it all, which just ends up coming off as slightly deranged.

Mizi ends up running to Sua (cue obvious unhealthy coping mechanism and codependency), and then she makes the mistake of using the exact same words Luka knockoff did 

It must be nice. 

Nice to remain willingly oblivious to it all, nice to be pretty enough to make others love you, nice to be loved by so many. That obviously wasn’t what Sua meant in her own context (it was also interesting to learn that Sua does envy Mizi to some degree, which I I think is a nice add that just makes her more human on a whole), and Mizi just reacts.

Considering how she immediately catches herself, I genuinely don’t think she meant it, but holy shit was that fked up. 

We’ve seen IvanTill fighting as kids and the whole thing with Luka and Hyunwoo that ended in tragedy but considering this and what the Luka knockoff did earlier, I’m getting the vibe that physical violence in the ANAKT Garden may be way more common than what we initially thought (or it could be that these poor kids have just never really properly grew out of that play-fighting-as-a-child phase, and it just escalated as they grew into young adults since corporal punishment from the aliens is normal and their humanity’s all kinds of screwed up) 

We then cut back to the present where we have apparition Sua accusing Mizi of being cunning, and ditching all of them. Now this took me a hot second to understand, because as far as we are concerned Sua was the one who left. She chose to die to save Mizi (and probably so that she didn’t have to deal with the pain of being the one left behind if we’re really going for that toxic angle). But then I realized I’m an idiot and that this was being written in Mizi’s pov and this version of Sua is literally a figment of her imagination and a personification of her guilt. 

Mizi still thinks she is responsible for Sua’s death. In that sense she did discard her for her own survival (unintentional or no) and on top of that she did leave the others. She did let herself be reduced by the rebels, she left Till and Ivan, all while knowing that they would most likely die. Is it her fault for being rescued? Hell no. But she definitely still feels guilty for leaving them. You could argue that she also, quite literally, ditched Hyuna in order to rush of to rescue Till, which indirectly ended up causing her death (It was Hyuna’s choice but Mizi sure as hell didn’t know that). 

We then cut to a flashback with Till (TILL IS ALIVE TRUST) and Mizi ends up confronting him, telling him that she loves Sua and asking if it is that hard to not like her. She asks him why he like her and Till (bro why) ends up responding with 

I mean, valid, but I think this properly confirms just how shallow Till’s love for Mizi is. He likes the idea of her, and though it doesn’t mean his feelings aren’t pure or true, it’s more of a crush really. Cute but almost entirely superficial, and just look how Mizi reacts: 

Her collar is RED. She knows people care and are attracted to her on a superficial level, that the Luka knockoff was right, but seems to decide to just ultimately let it be, to remain purposely oblivious. 

We cut back to the present and there we see apparition Sua has now become Mizi, the version of her from Round 1, the version of her that ‘killed’ Sua, which really just solidifies the fact that all that blue dialog is literally just her guilt taking.

This entire comic is basically centered around Mizi battling her survivor’s guilt, but honestly, as much as I hate to admit I think the Luka knockoff/evil Mizi were also right about her being purposely oblivious (to both her classmate’s affections and their situation on a whole). All the facts point to the fact that she was much more aware about everything than we were initially led to believe. I think she did have a vague inkling of what was going to happen, but ultimately decided to look away/remain in denial (I mean in hindsight how tf does one live 15-ish years in the Garden and not eventually find out the truth even by accident?). 

Evidence 1:  

First we have this with the Luka knockoff.

What a shame.

Shame she had to kill him? (lmao no, but am really frikin hoping she didn’t Hyunwoo him with how this guy pops up again with the back of his head broken in the subsequent art lol)

Not sure if I’m interpreting this one right, but I do think what she meant by it being a shame was the fact that he had to see her broken down this way. I do think this is the first time anyone actually noticed and called her out for her habit of remaining purposefully ignorant, hence the mental breakdown (also cause she got, you know, slapped in the face while she was at it). 

Also with how her collar light was green when talking about Sua but immediately turns red when Till is mentioned... yeah she's definitely not clueless about any of it.

Evidence 2: 

And then of course we have this whole sequence with Till. Hardly any explanation needed.

Basically both flashbacks imply that she is not nearly as ignorant and naive as she lets on (and what we as the audience were led to believe), but she puts on a harmless, innocent front. 

As for why she does it is pretty debatable, but I suspect that it was simply easier to remain blissfully ignorant, and it was just her way of coping with their less than ideal reality. I highly doubt she spent all that time taking advantage of being likable and playing dumb just so she could survive (again the one praising her for it is literally her guilt personified). Maybe a tiny part of her did subconsciously want to survive and decided to roll with it, but I think it’s pretty obvious she does genuinely care about the rest of her classmates and wasn’t actively trying to get them killed (unlike say Luka). 

What happened to Sua, Ivan, Till, and Hyuna definitely wasn’t her fault, but she isn’t entirely guiltless either. 

Honestly, I’m not too sure what to make of it, considering on one hand we have been led to believe that Mizi was this sole innocent girl who knew nothing about truth behind Alien Stage until Sua literally died in front of her, but on the other hand man do I love how we are getting more of layers to her character. 

[wintrydahlia]

midsummering

bonus full outfit doodles :)

[cameronhcwes]

anne sexton, a portrait in letters

[enden-k]

(1/?) ivlk actor au sketches

[1vylili3s]

live laugh love purelily (except white lily)

a special thanks to @benjyyzzz for recommending weige (you madman/j)

next time tomorrow: jestergem hurt/comfort is next!!! pls suggest what you'd liked the theme to be! :)))