Lazybird

this is mainly about how people are calling mizisua "mutually toxic" even though so far almost all the toxicity we've seen is from Sua. I feel like we're back to people reading true face and thinking Mizi is the evil face that she narrates. I'm not trying to demonise Sua but I'm sick of people acting like Mizi is actively evil. So far what we know of kid Mizi is that she

- is physically abused by her mother

- is patronised/infantalised by Sua (IN A WAY THAT SHE COMPARES TO MAKING HERSELF A PET. A PET. QUITE A SIGNIFICANT THING IN STAGEVERSE.)

- is probably low income, which gives her a transactional view of the world

Hi Mizi!! Thanks for the ask hehe

off the top of your head: notes for characterization? what are the most essential traits of this character to you (personality traits, important connections/dynamics, voice)?

I struggle so much with characterising Mizi ngl... I think my fav aspect of her is her constant guilt complex over making people love her. I relate to her a lot in that regard (the woes of being conventionally attractive and gay lol), and that's a very core trait for her! She feels guilty for "using" the affection of others around her, despite that not being the case. I already went into this already, but besides Sua and her guardian, I think the way she rejects Till and by extension her feelings towards him as a friend in general are a very important connection to understanding her as a character.

Also this is sort of me trying not to repeat you lol, but I also think violence is a very important part of her character

do you have particular niche takes on this character? defend those takes. (openly controversial takes are permitted, but also: hyper-specific headcanons which you believe in and no one else has considered enough to disagree with yet. pick a hill to die on.)

ok so i was re watching round one and noticed something about the logo out front of the circus

there are four balloons around the bunny, and one of them seems familliar

what if the balloons represent each member/each members mid show trick somehow? it would make sense for each couples balloons to be together for marketing reasons, so the yellow star one is probably Sua's, maybe reflecting how she had a solo with the spotlight on her.

I'm assuming that Ivan's balloon is the blue one with the eight pointed star, since he's always had a shooting star motif since black sorrow. Maybe he'll also get a solo singing part? or if this post is anything to go off of, some sort of gymnastics routine

[translation: Unsha, regarding the preliminary evaluation stage, I dare to ask you about the performance where I changed outfits three times, looked up at the sky, exposed my upper body, and then did two somersaults.]

That leaves Till with the red balloon. I genuinely have zero idea what this could be hinting at, but in the in-universe poster, Tills balloon is a lot smaller than the rest.

does he not have his own solo? Possibly the games are rigged in Ivans favour so he doesn't have to sell to many of his body parts?

i wonder what she meant by this

it's kinda reductive to till's character, because a lot of his struggle is about being caught at extremes and not knowing moderation. he's bisexual. the answer is both.

i am of the belief that luka dealt with child sexual abuse (csa). my points will be in order from less -> more definitive, for the drama of it all.

4. what i said in this post

it's not hard evidence, but i thought the parallel of dissociation was incredibly interesting.

3. the relationship between him and heperu

there's a post to be made about the different ways the alnst characters refer to their owners, but all that is necessary to delve into right now is that there are only two characters that refer to their owners as parents, and luka (who calls heperu father) is one of them. it is familial, and implies a closeness that is... higher than normal for a segyein and their pet. heperu is very clearly placing himself in a parental role with luka, and there are many implications that come with that. a father is caring, and protective, and loving. a father is a patriarch. a father has complete and total control over his children. but! i am talking about this specifically in regards to child sexual abuse.

[translation by whatafruit on twitter]

heperu's easy manhandling of luka in this birthday comic is very very interesting, especially as luka accepts it easily. this point is mainly just pointing out heperu's closeness with luka, especially as no other owner is shown this hands-on (heh) with their pet, in the sense that every part of him is managed and monitored and controlled by heperu.

2. his childish and self-soothing behavior

[translation by whatafruit on twitter]

luka is a couple years older than hyuna and hyunwoo, who are the same age, which makes it even more obvious how out-of-place his actions are. his childish behavior could be excused somewhat because of his upbringing, which likely included little social interaction with anyone other than heperu, and the series does make a point of telling us that he never really matured. it's incredibly obvious in how his face changes when he sees hyuna -- he becomes giddy to see her to the point of completely ignoring the circumstances he's in, like a toddler. he's emotionally stunted and engages in repetitive and self-soothing behavior very regularly (hyunwoo's comment in the comic above implies that this is not an uncommon occurrence).

an explanation for this beyond the ones i already mentioned: he was sexually abused. infantile self-soothing behaviors, like the ones luka displays (as well as the fantasy of hyuna that he retains) is a very common indicator that a child is being sexually abused. and luka, who again never had the chance to mature, the only alnst character still trapped in the same situation, shows these same behaviors years and years later.

1. the attempted kiss with hyuna

there are two very notable things about these screenshots from all-in: one, that luka's hands are not yet blue, which means this took place prior to hyunwoo's death; and two, that luka is attempting to take her clothes off as well as kiss her.

now, normally i would chalk this up to a man in a misogynistic world doing what he thinks he is allowed to when he likes a girl. while that definitely could play a role, misogyny is not the topic of this post (if you'd like some good posts on that & gender roles in relation to luka i recommend these two by murder-kill), and i find the fact that luka is quite young and more importantly should not know what kissing is much more pertinent.

[translation by whatafruit on twitter, vivinos' patreon]

'kissing' is a trend that came about when ivan and till were, judging by their appearances in that comic, older than hyuna and luka were depicted in the previous screenshots. segyein sex ed is incredibly rudimentary and reduces it to simply 'mating', as in, a way to create offspring. this is assuming he had even already been educated on that at this point, which he might not have been bc of his age. the point of this is to say that given the really high possibility that the 'kissing trend' either didn't happen in the 49th class, or that it happened after luka attempted to assault hyuna, luka should not have a single clue that pressing your mouth to another human's mouth is a display of love.

unless, of course, he'd experienced it before.

children who have been abused are very very prone to replicating that behavior with their peers (it's how we get child-on-child sexual abuse, or COCSA, as depicted here), and that's demonstrated through the entirety of alnst. luka is attempting to both kiss her and undress her, completely ignoring her own distress (as we zoom in on her face in all-in, her collar goes from yellow to red, and we can assume luka moved closer in). luka is attempting to sexually assault his friend in an environment where this behavior (ESPECIALLY kissing) should not have been something he was aware of as a possibility, unless he had already dealt with it himself.

taking all of this into account, i assume that luka would be taking his own assault and assuming that it is a demonstration of affection from his father, regardless of his own enjoyment. he then decides that because he loves hyuna, this is something he can do to her! her opinion doesn't matter, because his own doesn't when it happens to him, but she will eventually accept it as a show of his love just like he did <3 essentially, to use hyuna's words on the matter,

who up power tripping it,, and by it i mean,, haha,,,lets jurst say,,,,,my mizisua

tap for better quality :'(