古灵精怪的Betsy

“Even Pure Vanilla and Shadow Milk seem to be stacking up a millennium of their own here. ”

I keep seeing people say how crazy Mizi is and how innocent Sua was in comparison, but that’s just not true. I adore both Mizi and Sua, by the way. This isn’t criticism of either of them. But you can’t ignore what Sua does here if you want an accurate portrayal of their relationship in this world.

When Mizi becomes an idol, she’s manufactured into a sex symbol, crafted into something that can appeal to the male gaze despite how we KNOW she’s a lesbian. Specifically, we can see how Mizi’s breasts are often framed promiscuously to further her objectification:

So this shot where Sua finds Mizi, tied up and helpless, incoherent, and the first thing she does is frame an unaware Mizi’s breasts as if in a photoshoot—bitterly, ironically, before relief takes over—it goes to show something major about Mizisua’s relationship in both the ALNST and ZOMST verse.

In ALNST, Sua enables Mizi’s infantilization (something often levied against women in a misogynistic context) of herself by keeping Mizi “in the dark” (although Mizi is more aware than either of them want to acknowledge). People rightfully criticize Till for his innocent vision of Mizi to comfort himself with, but Sua has a version of Mizi in her head that she uses to comfort herself, too. She and Till aren’t incredibly different in this regard.

In ZOMST, this translates not to infantilization, but to objectification. Sua is bitter over Mizi’s decision to let the industry use her in this way, she’s disgusted by it, but then she wields it herself when Mizi is finally helpless and incapable of pushing Sua away again by miming taking a photo of Mizi’s breasts.

as a parallel to sua embracing mizi, we see a quick cut to mizi's mother (?) hugging mizi as a child.

i'm honestly not sure what the second panel below means, but it'll probably be discussed further in later media pieces vivimeng releases.

as a result, we see mizi lash out at sua.

mizi completely snaps, likely lying about how she's content with her idol career (as hinted by her smile in the first panel below). however, feeling so overwhelmed with this sudden confrontation and the stress of her career, she breaks down before running away.

we then see a better glimpse into the infection-swarmed world.

during the scene where mizi is running away from sua, we do see a zombie following behind her, likely hinting at how mizi got infected.

as the infection grows worse, sua, who hasn't been infected yet, sneaks into the heavily guarded base where mizi has been contained.

sua finally finds mizi in this pale, infected state. however, rather than appearing horrified, she looks both devastated and relieved to finally have mizi in her arms.

sua then kisses mizi to make herself be infected.

remember from the scene where sua is sneaking in? there are signs and caution tape that warn uninfected humans about the "one bite infection." sua is planning on kissing mizi to infect herself—both out of obsession and care for her.

i think sua's further obsession and care for mizi can be implied by the lyrics below. sua is fine with infecting and destroying herself, as long as she can be beside mizi.

she is built up on this codependency for mizi, where she'd cross any lines to be together with mizi. in her opinion, even if they are both physically "ruined," it doesn't matter since they're together. their love is the only thing that's important.