the lonely moon will sing

the anakt flowers are consistently featured on screen throughout alnst, whether it's in the videos, official art, or the comics. they can't be shown that often if not to mean something, especially in a show as detail oriented and heavy in symbolism as alnst.

okay so there's been this theory running around that these flowers had hidden cameras in them used to monitor the children.

in the artbook, that theory was proven to be true.

so we know now that the anakt flowers are secretly cameras. seemingly innocent and beautiful decorations are used to spy on the children, a testament to the fact that they had no right to privacy, that their lives were not their own.

the fact that mizi ADORED those flowers but had no idea of their true purpose is reflective of her dream to sing in alnst. something idealized and gorgeous, but with darkness residing just beneath its exterior. she sees the world through rose colored lenses and is unaware of the evil that lurks just beneath her favorite things/dreams.

her reality is way more disturbing than she realizes, the aliens are way more cruel and invasive than what she expects, and her love for the spy devices disguised as flowers shows just that.

im not too sure if sua KNEW about the cameras, but she knew about the Snow Thing, so im gonna assume she knew abt the cameras too.

her letting mizi play with the flowers without telling her a thing and even allowing her to craft flower crowns out of them is an example of her deliberate avoidance of the truth behind alnst. through mizi's joy, she forgets about the harsh reality they live in, and escapes through that.

whenever mizi's holding them, the flowers almost look real.

the fact that she lets mizi give her flower crowns and put them on her head, and does the same in turn... she's willingly giving in to the system to keep mizi's blind-sighted joy alive. dooming them both because she can't bring herself to break the bliss.

as for till. he initially began to like the flowers because mizi likes them. till has always liked pretty things.

his talent being floral art, even if the flowers are spy devices... sort of reminds me of one of his coping mechanisms--making art that's representative of his pain.

he takes something terrible or twisted and reforms it into something pretty. something that can be appreciated rather than avoided.

(page 59 of the artbook has a quote referring to till that reads: “When I couldn't sleep because of insomnia, I could only fall asleep by squeezing out my physical strength with creation. I like to doodle, so I doodle anywhere, and I often write poetry (mainly about mizi) to support my emotions.”)

in comparison to many of the other ways till uses his hands (fighting, breaking things, playing loud and powerful melodies, etc), the way he handles the flowers is methodical. gentle. precise and careful.

we're shown his kinder side for the first time THROUGH a flower, too.

he knows his illusion is particularly fragile, so he does all he can to not mar it before getting lost in it. he uses it as a distraction.

till tends to trail behind mizi and sua with flower crowns/chains of his own because he wants to play with them as well, but he rarely makes the move to approach them.

at the end of the day, the false reality, the illusion of purity, is not till's to keep. no matter how peaceful the garden may seem, there will come a period of time when till has to go back. when he must be reminded that his body doesn't belong to him.

ivan never had much interest in the flowers. in fact, he was more often shown breaking them or stomping on them rather than playing with them. (whether that's because he KNEW about the cameras or simply because he wanted to piss till off (or both) im still iffy on but there's that)

ivan has always been the most connected to reality out of the group. he sought no form of escapism, in fact, he frowned upon it (he says mizi's optimism is too much for him at times, and criticized sua for living in a wonderland despite knowing how it will inevitably end. for nurturing mizi's innocence for so long and then shattering it in the cruelest way.)

he fell in love with till, who had no choice but to face reality head on and he relates to sua, who's also had her fate sealed by the society she lives in. he's very honest to himself about these facts.

he doesn't run from suffering, having been exposed to it since infancy. no point in avoiding the truth if it's being perpetually shoved in your face all the time. he keeps it real.

no interest in the flowers, no interest in a plastic paradise. (i could find a way to tie this to that one acrylic stand of ivan eating a flower but i think that's just a silly doodle. nothing SUPER DUPER deep about it.)

(look at him. what is his PROBLEM <3)

as for the overarching meaning, flowers in general tend to symbolize innocence, purity and beauty. by that logic, FAKE flowers would symbolize a fabrication of purity.