#in short. hes a fucked up little freak and he fascinates me. this poor tragic child. i love him.

[shakingparadigm]

what is the theory that ivan manipulated the event where till and mizi met the wagyein?

It's not a theory, actually! It's confirmed that Ivan orchestrated the whole event. The true reason as to why however is still unknown. The information provides more context to this scene, though:

During the earlier times of ALNST the most rational explanation for this scene was that Till ran after a flower crown (presumably Mizi's) and Ivan followed him in out of curiosity. Now we know that Ivan was conveniently just standing there because he was waiting.

Side note, I find it heartbreaking (and maybe a little funny, sorry) that Till most likely didn't notice Ivan in this scene. That's just like him, isn't it. Always too busy running after Mizi while Ivan trails behind, an ever-present shadow.

I'm not sure how Ivan manipulated the circumstances for both of them to end up there, but it is confirmed that everything was intentional. What strikes me most is how they describe this particular scene:

I can't copy down what they said word-for-word (Patreon info), but they described Ivan watching "creepily" as Till and Mizi are faced with danger. We know that Ivan was familiar with the Cerberus wagyein beforehand, enough to touch its teeth and even to rest himself inside its maw. To Ivan, the wagyein is not dangerous, but to Till and Mizi, it could be. Ivan prepared the wagyein, led them there, and watched "creepily" from afar as Till fell on his knees, seemingly injured.

The closest I can get to making sense of Ivan's "scheme" is that he wanted to see how other children would react in a dangerous situation. Ivan's always been an observer, after all, and he's learned to survive by copying the more "normal" behaviors of his peers. This situation occured when Ivan was still young and had not yet developed his more charming mask, so perhaps he staged this encounter to study a situational response, to learn and mimic the emotion of fear. And what better subjects for the experiment than two of the most expressive and reactive humans of their batch? It helps that he was already fixated on Till beforehand, too. I think Ivan became irreversibly obssessed after this incident, especially since it's framed as a turning point in Ivan's life, comparing Till to the stars.

This is just my attempt at an interpretation, though. It could very well be for another reason. He most likely chose Till and Mizi specifically for personal reasons, not just for reaction. I'm still not sure on the purpose behind the whole thing.

The team wanted to capture Ivan's "dark emotions" through the shot of his stalking, which could relate to his more sinister intentions. His gaze can be read in a few different ways, though. Curiosity, interest, fear, etc. Maybe that's why they decided to redraw the shot in ROUND 6.

I think this better sells the feeling they were trying to convey.

#ivan u fucked up little guy. #also okay i just wanna clear this up #i know i make a lot of posts about ivans darker side and his more problematic traits #but this isn't me trying to villainize him or reduce him down to “toxic yaoi” #I HOPE YOU GUYS KNOW ALL MY TOXIC YAOI POSTS ARE LIGHTHEARTED. #i just want to clarify that ivan was always intended to be a darker and complicated character. even since his debut in round 3 #the way i refer to ivan (“twisted” “creepy” “obssessive” etc) are literally the direct words used by q and v themselves to describe him #but despite that id like to emphasize that i don't see ivan as a villain or a completely bad person. hes complicated #there is no normalcy in this world they are living in. none of the characters know what being truly normal is #this isn't me condoning his actions #but it has to be acknowledged that alnst is fucked up in nature. we can't expect perfect relationships from people who are born to die #plus ivan has a lot more layers past the “dark” parts. he's constantly battling himself and his desires #especially at the end of round 6 where he performs a myriad of conflicting actions (kiss strangle peck smile) #thanks to the r6 production notes we now know that ivan was going through a rapid internal conflict #“sure and unsure at the same time” #there is sooo much to ivan. his low self-esteem. his desire and possessiveness despite knowing till will never love him #his VEHEMENT insistence that till will never love him vs his desperate persistence in trying anyway #uh i need to shut up i think #anyways sorry. just wanted to clarify my thoughts on him in case people think im. yk. #in short. hes a fucked up little freak and he fascinates me. this poor tragic child. i love him. #SORRY I GOT CARRIED AWAY #alnst #alien stage #alien stage ivan #alnst ivan #asks

[carousels-on-fire]

Long post under the cut about going to PA to see my brother!!!

(I promise the entire thing is not as negative as the first few paragraphs, I needed to vent!) So first things first! My brother is awesome, he and his wife are so forward thinking compared to my parents and it was just nice to be around.  UNFORTUNATELY, the ship delivering me to that utopia of openness was my car driving me and my mother 14hrs, while playing car tag with my father. My parents are not, in any way, shape, or form, good people. They’re nasty, malicious, passive aggressive, aggressive aggressive, gaslighting, snippy, and just mean people all around. But they like to think they’re put upon nice people, and only THEY see the world as it really is. Its exhausting. They make me a worse person being around them. My mother spent the entire time calling my father every horrible word in the book, and finding every reason to be angry with him, even when there wasn’t a reason. And kept remarking about how he was probably throwing a temper tantrum in his car. The irony that I had to listen to her complaining instead. And she had the GPS on her phone too even though mine was open when I was driving and kept trying to tell me different directions. Basically being a control freak. And when I wasn’t driving she was tail gating people, flipping them off, speeding up and then slamming on the breaks to avoid running into people. I basically told her if she fucked my car up she got to pay for it. She’s a miserable person and I can’t wait to never have to speak to her again. My father spent the entire time being irate about everything, screaming at me about “helping out” with the dogs and just being a miserable asshole. And then turning a complete 180 and acting like everything was fine when my brother was around. He basically caused the poor dogs to fall down the stairs at my brother’s house twice just being a pushy impatient asshole. The dogs are old, the stairs are really steep. But...I can’t do anything about it that would help the dogs or help the situation at all. I’m powerless. Getting the dogs taken away would do more harm to the dogs. But they’re so mean to them. My brother even commented on it. BUT, BUT, in a beautiful moment my brother called my mom the fuck OUT for being a loud crazy bitch outside his house. He told her not to make a scene because his neighbor likes to sit outside on his porch and she was glaring daggers at him the whole night. It was nice to see her put in her place. Also my niece was not nearly as nerve-wracking to be around as I thought. After a couple minutes it was pretty easy to figure out how to interact with her. She’s two and only knows a few words so its not complicated yet, she’s not asking real questions. She’s cute but I don’t think I could be around her more than a couple hours, just because she does require constant attention. My brother got some photos of all of us with her and managed to get a great one of me pretending to bite her leg like a child eating demon. Kids seem to like me for some reason. I see a lot of my brother in her, and based on what I remember of the stories of him as a child, and how she’s being raised, she’s going to be a terror. Of the mischief and mayhem variety.  I do always feel slightly out of place around people who are really normal and have their shit together. But then my brother will do something really bizarre and its like ‘yep, there’s that family resemblance.’ To give some background info, my bro is a wedding photographer, he lives at the gym when he can, dresses really nice, he’s basically someone who would never ever need to be on Queer Eye. But he’ll do stuff like record himself driving and making monkey noises and getting really into character, its so funny. Or he’ll do shit, like we’ll reach for something in the center console of the car at the same time, and he’ll make sure to rub his arm against mine and be like “YEP let me make this as awkward as possible” with this ridiculous face. OR he’ll say something so off the wall in conversation that you almost don’t catch it, and then you laugh for like 5 minutes. I really hate that my friends don’t get to see my brother at his weirdness peak.  I hate that I didn’t get a selfie of us, because we’re really as different as you could possibly be appearance-wise.  Philly itself was kind of underwhelming overall. But, the 1hr and a half drive there kind of wore me out prior to actually walking around downtown. I think if it were like Savannah where I could take a bus into downtown, or in a place where I was used to walking long distances everyday it would have been fine. And I really only saw a little bit of the city because it took so long to get into the city and I had to leave before dark. So I’ll reserve judgement until then. The shops I did see and the variety of stuff was amazing. The oddity and punk stores were incredible. But it does worry me moving to a big city, that I’ll have to deal with traffic like that the entire time. Savannah traffic when I lived far from downtown wasn’t terrible. But Savannah is still a small city compared to Philly. I finally got to see the Mutter museum which I wanted to forever! Some of the skull exhibits made me so sad because some of them were from such young people. There was a wall of skulls with ages, nationalities, and sometimes a story. And it would be such tragic deaths. There were a lot of 25 and 26yr old suicides and that hit close to home. There were so subtly different. I loved trying to see the people in each face. The teenager skulls were so small. The children smaller still. The worst were the ones from women who died young in childbirth. I wish I got to see more of the fetal deformity exhibits at the Mutter Museum but we were running short on time. There was a Civil War exhibit about Black soldiers that was fascinating. Including a huge reproduction of a poster calling able bodied men of color to fight. My brother looked at it and said to me “How many of them do you think could even read this to know what they were getting into?” Its something to think about. But the sad part was the poster was about men of color getting their dignity and personhood reclaimed in that war. Its bitter to think they still haven’t completely gotten that, even after so much time. I could have spent days in that museum, it probably took me longer because I had to stop and read every single placard and try to picture what each thing was or was used for, or what it looked like alive.  There were a couple comic book stores that I got to check out, one with extremely helpful staff, one with not very helpful staff. I was on the hunt for that Hawkeye and Bucky comic that I saw panels of on here, and actually ended up finding it at Barnes and Noble. I did, while my brother and parents were busy at a wedding, get to see an old friend from college so that was cool. Its nice to just see people who aren’t my co-workers and get to do normal people stuff like go to lunch and socialize. Another thing I wish I’d gotten to try more of in Philly was food! I didn’t have much money to spend. The one cafe I went to had terrible, godawful pastries. Like...they tasted like someone forgot to add sugar to them at all. And they were stale/old tasting. I’m usually not one to complain about food that much, but this is an exception. BUT the one cafe thing my brother took me to was amazing. It was an italian place with coffee and pastries, but also actual food and wine. I asked the barman for ‘wine sweet enough to put in a hummingbird feeder’ and he did not disappoint. And the stuff is only like $8/bottle. The drink menu was intimidating though. It looked like it was in another language entirely. It probably, mostly was. The only really big downside to the trip was I caught a stomach-bug tuesday night and was out of commission wednesday and a lot of Thursday. Even though I was upright, it was like ‘at what cost?’. Even today I’m not 100% back to myself. But luckily my brother was super understanding/supportive. I felt so bad because my niece got sick too. She seemed to bounce back pretty quick though.   My brother is also awesome because he and his wife got me a copy of that John Olliver book Marlon Bundo about Mike Pence’s pet rabbit being gay and getting married to another boy rabbit. They bought one for me and one for my niece. They’re pretty great people. I’m so glad at least part of my family is sane and I don’t have to throw out the whole damned thing, you know?

#trip diary