The expressions and spikey hair are like Till, except one of them has long hair, the other looks like a radish, a pineapple, and then a normal spikey Till ball
All the girls are waitresses like usual and dressed in pretty outfits to attract customers, but the role of the guys keep changing.
I'm just a bit surprised Ivan's the janitor in this one because he's almost always placed into the position of the popular guy™ across universes. He was the handsome facecard in the maid AU, while Till was the one mopping the floor. Luka went from the boss in the maid AU, to a fanservice waitor in the bunny barrista AU, and now he's the dude who holds signs in front of the store.
Till was already the fanservice guy who's job was to hold up signs in the bunny barrista AU, so I guess he's finally taking the job of a waiter this time.
I went into it expecting that the whole course was going to be about Messiah Project: Starshine Symphony, but it turns out ALSNT and other OCs were mentioned and shown pretty frequently. Vivinos was in Section 1 together with Qmeng for the introduction, as well as Section 8 for their reaction to the complete music video. Sun Lee (technical director for Vivimeng's works) taught After Effects in a few videos. Everything else was all by Qmeng. She also interviewed PD Lee (ALNST animation producer), Callnong (ALNST assistant director) and Lee Youjin.
The entire thing is 23 hours long, so my memory is very fuzzy and may not be accurate, or in the right order. There's a lot of good animation lessons that I find very useful, but it's not what I was taking notes here, since I wanted to focus on trivia and lore. The list also ended up being waay too long, so this post is only half of it. The rest has more about Messiah Project and other Qmeng characters, but I don't know if this sub would be that interested ;-;
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I'd love if there's a subreddit, discord or any space for anything related to both creators and what they've worked on, not just the world of ALNST/ZOMST. If it exists, what would you like to see and discuss? Pink B Club, the classes, collaborations, or other niche stuff?
I personally would like to learn more about Vivinos older stuff from fans of those, as well as discuss about Qmeng's different series. I rewatched the Messiah Project video and noticed that nobody seems to care about making analysis or figuring out the story, unlike the comment section under Vivinos's Trigger series 🥲 (kinda sad because Qmeng's stuff actually has a lot more lore out there compared to what I was able to find for PBC/Trigger). I'm just dying to have people to talk to about these lol
Also if anyone's curious:
Pic 5 Marie's hugging the 2 Till fakers
Pic 6 contains Vivinos's illustrations for the novel Philia Rose (she's the official artist).
Pic 7, 8, 10 are Qmeng's Chase the Shadow series. The guy hugging the wolf is Geun, the 3rd Till lookalike
Source: xhslink.com/o/28QBC0HfaU7
Tweet repost: https://x.com/alnststella/status/2076186146732941530
(Sua's song title seems to be a mojibake)
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I'd prefer to call humans the aliens, but I usually end up using it on Segyeins in discussions because I don't want to add to the pile of confusion. I'd normally just try to avoid using the word "alien" altogether, since the fandom and canon usage refer to complete opposites and I don't like to keep going against canon terms.
Since Segyeins are the real native inhabitants, it's humans who are officially classified as the aliens in the story. And this is a pretty important distinction to me, especially when the word Segyein is a direct contrast to Wegyein (alien).
But it also doesn't help that Segyeins were also called aliens in some of the early official material, back when they were still ironing out the kinks of the lore and the official English names were still inconsistent.
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Since r1 is about the sexualization of female idols within the industry, there's been many interesting theories speculating that the Ivantill round could head the same way and depict how male Kpop idols are treated by their female fanbases. And while I really like the theories about it, such as the one where they're made to shipbait the fans, I haven't seen anyone talking about the possibility of Till not being an idol together with Ivan.
Because in ZOMST, Mizisua were idol trainees, which was a concept that originated from their beta versions. Beta Till was an unpopular rock artist, while Ivan was in a lavender relationship with Sua. In the Rock AU, Till is still the underground rock artist, while Ivan's the one who gets fancams and approached by multiple idol agencies, even though he stays in the band for Till. Rock Till seems to dislike the idea of them selling out to become idols, as well as the fandom culture that comes with it (fancams). Vivinos has also said that Ivan loves being an idol, so there's a great potential for juxtaposition.
I still like to imagine the possibility of Ivan and Till being made to provide shipping fanservice and the potential drama that comes with it, but it'll be under a different context if both of them aren't even under the same music agencies. And maybe the critique of celebrity culture would shift beyond the world of the Kpop industry to focus on struggling artists in the underground music scene who are overshadowed by mainstream idols.
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Of course, it's directly forbidden to distribute Patreon subscription posts. Sharing the art book en masse is also frowned upon and discouraged. But I'm not talking about those or Anakt Garden Kit. What I'm wondering about are the opinions on limited time content, like the Alien Stage Magazine exclusively sold in the 2022 Seoul Illustration Fair, Disc: Mizisua, and the Ivan & Till Rough Book?
Many people in the fandom would've already come across something from the Ivantill booklet by now, since it's been reposted all over the place. Most of what's inside are sketches, so there isn't much text to miss out on. But Disc: Mizisua and the Alien Stage Magazine do contain a lot of text, which is wild considering how unknown and obscure it is to find anything about them in the fandom.
Especially since Disc: Mizisua is probably the most important one of the three, as it's the only place that contains the BTS and commentary of the video, Mizisua. The BTS for the video is absent on Patreon. The art book even has information for the Top 3 video, but skips over Mizisua.
On the other hand, based on photos I've seen from the Alien Stage Magazine, there isn't much lore we don't already know by now. Most of the artworks featured in it are already posted online under official accounts. Though, there's still a teensy itty bit of extra information. And it'll be sad if the whole mag fades away into unknown existence.
Freaky little mf presenting a rope to Till while imagining it wrapped around his neck with those little hearts. I'm starting to believe in the Ivan neck fetish agenda from some of the replies of my older post.
I was laughing my ass off because at first I thought it was Sua passively threatening Till due to the way the eyes and eyebrows were drawn, and the photo was rather distorted. But then I found the second photo and realized those 2 shikishis were placed in the Ivan row. Anyway I'm not disappointed if it's either of them.
I also like that there's the rare sight of Ivan looking pissed in the shikishi on the right. He's wearing a collar in that one too, but it's hard to tell if it's the same for the left. If he's also wearing one, then it indicates the rope skit was likely a very very very early interaction before they had their fistfight over flowers. Or was that fistfight supposed to be their first interaction?
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This is mostly a joke theory about Freddy. But I find it funny that Till's never been depicted with a real guitar ever since he broke his face while carrying one his own size. He's shown playing with other instruments multiple times, but the guitar is absent in every other shot of him practicing it before entering Alien Stage. He's always just fingering the air with the power of his imagination. Even during the training test, he's just using a stringless simulator.
It took Alien Stage for Urak to give him Freddy, who's the closest thing that Till gets to play as a guitar extracurricularly ever since the face-crunching incident, despite that it's actually a father of 2 children. But rather than the guitar being the one to crush Till, it's Freddy who gets obliterated this time around.
So instead of trusting Till to not hurt anyone nor himself again with a normal non-living intrument, the Segyeins decided to replace Freddy with a holographic guitar (which probably takes more of their budget). And with Blink Gone, Till's back to being forced to do guitar lip-sync like usual instead of showing off his true guitar skills.
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Anyway I always thought Freddy was just a gimmick to farm aura for Till, but I thought putting it in the context of the Anakt Garden Kit story is funnier if that restriction carried over to Alien Stage: Till's facecard was just too important for Anakt authorities to entrust it within the sniping range of a real guitar, so Freddy wasn't just there to make Till look flashy. He's the loophole Urak found to bypass the no-guitar rule outside of class.
Hopefully Till finally gets to touch a real guitar again in the rebellion
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I was trying to transcribe the texts in the first Alien Stage Magazine from the pages I've seen shared online, but some of these were really hard to make out. The 4th one is just impossible to read. I'm sure of the 5th one except for "pesh".
The translucent black boxes with the English version are edited in by me and the placeholders are for letters I can't make out.
Now that we're at the school AU timeline, I'm low key hoping these comics will get finished because they seem to take place in a similar setting.
Not having high hopes though, since "A Useful Talent" is still unfinished and it took place in the canon universe.
A lot of people have already complained about the fandom's crashout towards Till blushing over Mizi in the new ZOMST comic. But I just would like to point out that this is NOT a new thing at all and it's not unexpexted to see it again in this AU. People just forgot about these old art.
The first screenshot is Vivinos's own art posted back in 2023. The characters have the exact same outfits as the Anakt Arts High series, and the Zomst comic confirms they're likely the same AU because they're in the same departments. The second picture is from Qmeng's early School AU comic, where Till also blushes at Mizi.
Maybe you can disregard the 2nd one by Qmeng since it's a one-time separate AU where Luka's their teacher, but Anakt Arts High artworks have been consistently posted throughout the years from time to time. The new comic is just showing what's already been depicted with Till from an early art.
That doesn't mean Till can't fall for Ivan later on in this AU, but I feel like the fandom might have some collective amnesia given the amount of outcry over something that was already portrayed in the very same universe from long ago
Does anyone know why this skikishi is blurred out in certain areas? The second half of Till and Ivan's thought bubbles are too botched. The MTL is also giving me different translations for Ivan's part depending on how much I zoom in and out
Idk isn't it a little too fancy for him? Urak is trash in his treatment of pets, so lorewise, Till's white uniform is baggier and dirtier than everyone else's. Ivan is the one who has special treatment for being well-behaved, so he gets to wear shoes and a fine-pressed white top with an extra shirt collar.
But somehow in many visualizations, Till gets to wear a black top with thumbhole cuffs and a white tank top underneath, which is finally revealed in the last picture. Where would he get those when Urak fails to provide his basic material needs in clothing?
Since everyone else is just shown wearing the exact same white uniform in Anakt Garden other than Ivan, I thought this could've only taken place sometime near the preparation of Alien Stage, like how Ivan is wearing his Black Sorrow top in pic 3. I also thought it might just be Till's "casual" fit whenever he goes back to Urak's place and doesn't have to abide by AG's dressing code, but picture 1, 5 and 12 kinda disprove that.
I like seeing the mountain of behind-the-scenes content we get from Vivimeng in regards to the lore, art, and animation, but I'm starving to learn more of what goes on behind the music.
There doesn't seem to be much info even though music is the *huge* other half of ALNST's main content. The lyrics are literally the "dialogue" of the storytelling. We got several trivia like: the happy accident of Sweet Dream/Bl8M, Hyuna's main song was initially Take My Hand, Qmeng apparently played the "drum code" of Black Sorrow, and PBH got a sore throat singing Cure etc. And...?
Considering tons of lore analysis from the fandom relies lyrical interpretation and how a minor difference in wording could leave a huge impact, can we get to know the thoughts of the people behind them? After all, Manju is the lyrcist for most of the main songs (with Choi Yongsu as the composer), while Xenovibe is the lyricist and composer for most of the sub songs.
Like, to what degree of input does Vivinos have over the lyric writing and music direction? Was it Xenovibe's idea to reference UTTE (which he also wrote) in the lyrics of Paratise, and to include the xylophone letimotif from Blink Gone (by Yongsu) in MVL, or did Vivimeng tell him to do that? What's Manju's reasoning for why the lyrics of Blink Gone seem so impersonal to the characters, compared to his writing for Black Sorrow, Cure, and Karma?
I've also seen people say Ivan's heartbeat can be heard in Cure and while I personally don't have the ear to hear it, I'd like to learn more extra musical details like this from the composers. The choice in genre, instruments, anything...how they were chosen to tell the story. Also the vocalists. I've seen PBH revealing some info about the process and his thoughts, but what about the other VAs? What is the reason behind the choice of covers, which seems to be Kang's responsibility? So many questions!
I was looking up both images the same day and noticed that the first 3 lines of Savin's art from the official Messiah Project instagram is identical to Till's description from his Anakt Garden Collection art.
Till's art stood out to me because I was wondering why his description looked so different from the other 5 characters, so I immediately recognized the same strings of text when I saw Savin's art. Every Anakt pethuman starts off with "UNIT: [insert codename]" in giant letters, but Till is the only one who begins with Zone: GLACIER. No one else has the zone category and it makes me think did the Segyeins move him into some special secret location? Why did Till get a label checking the radiation levels?
Savin's other lines at least provides more info: He's in a volcanic area with the temperature of a "galactic carrier". Maybe it's a place that looks like it's supposed to be hot but is cold? It was also posted in 2023, while the draft of Anakt Garden Collection came out in 2024. So if Till's lines aren't just copypasted gibberish, then it's a reference to Savin. Still doesn't really answer a lot of questions though.
I'm not one to make crack theories about ALNST taking place in the same world as Messiah Project, but this was an interesting food for thought. The only other art from MP that depicts a desert environment which Savin here seems to be in is this, where Hera (redhead) goes to meetup Oz (greenhead). Hera likely lives with Savin because he's her guardian, so maybe this place is something important to both. Whatever it is, it's so special that the Segyeins have to drag Till to it to observe how his body reacts to playing instruments. And maybe Anakt Garden was built around that area
Iirc Unsha used his connections to get Ivan qualified as first place for his admission to Anakt Garden, so I initially thought everyone else was also celebrating about passing the entrance exam. But then I realized it didn't make sense since they're holding different things from Ivan, Mizisua were already in Anakt, and Till knew Mizi by then.
Based on Till’s clothing and his seemingly older appearance, I thought this might have taken place near the current time and this scene was about him recieving notice that he's qualified to participate in Alien Stage, but Mizisua look like young kids in here when they passed? Unless it's the art style and angle that made them look young?
Or were they just random competitions and subjects that they passed?
Someone asked this during the Malaysian fansign and 6 months later, Vivimeng actually delivered new Top 3 Ivan art.
Ivan fans, how are we feeling today?