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- Thank you for being the victim of my shallow emotions.
- —Ivan to Till, Confession
IvanTill is the slash ship between Ivan and Till from the Alien Stage fandom.
Canon[]
As early as through official art by VIVINOS as well as director/designer QMENG, it can be judged that Till and Ivan were friends since childhood.
They are first seen together in the prologue, ALIEN STAGE, where Ivan holds Till while he looks away. The two do not have any canon interactions at the time, though at the end of ROUND 2, Ivan looks over at Till after the round is over. This is after he gets beaten and shoved in to a pod. Despite Ivan being what seems to be a very important part of Till's life, he is nowhere to be seen in ROUND 2 other than that.
ROUND 3 reveals that Ivan and Till have known each other since they were young as they both resided in Anakt Garden. Due to living a constraining life after being auctioned off to a rich alien, Ivan is portrayed to be a very reserved child, keeping a distance from the other children as they play. One day, a light-haired boy dashes past him into a cave, chasing a red flower crown that flows in the wind. Curious, Ivan follows the light-haired boy and finds him on the ground next to a startled pink-haired girl, an alien guarding their path. Ivan observes as the light-haired boy, Till, picks himself up and attacks. Fascinated by Till's free spirit and autonomy, Ivan frees Till from his prison and runs away with him, hand in hand, and for the first time, both of them look truly happy. But when Till lets go of Ivan's hand, stopping in his tracks, they realize that they have conflicting ideals after all as Till returns home for someone else. With a resigned smile, Ivan follows him, as his only hope for freedom favors captivity. Till only awakens from his injury at the end of the round and is shown to be largely unaware that the song is directed at him. At the end of the music video, a round between the two is teased.
Personality wise, Till is seen to be a rebel of sorts, being beat by the aliens for misbehaving and not being able to take his collar off as a result of such. He is also very expressive, said to be obvious when it comes to his crush on Mizi by the other kids back in the garden, as confirmed by the comics, in which he's unable to keep his composure while talking to her. Till can also be described as chaotic, loud and rude, but sensitive and awkward. Ivan, on the other hand, is calm and aloof. He has stoic, robotic tendencies and seems to have problems with either feeling emotions or with expressing them. This may be at least partly due to his upbringing as a "pet" of a rich alien. Ivan was at first shown as a loner, due to him being of quiet nature. This seems to have changed, with him taking on a polite, perfect, "princely" persona, learning to act emotions out and in result becoming quite popular among his peers. While Till is also mostly well liked despite his a bit cold exterior and eccentric behavior, he doesn't seem to attract as much romantic attention as Ivan, acting a bit annoyed for a moment when he thinks a person handing him a gift wants it delivered to Ivan again.
Till is also popular among his peers and is percieved as someone talented and introverted around others while at the same time being loud while practicing his instrument. His large dislike towards the segyein has been a very notable thing about his character as it's constantly shown that he purposefully rebels against them, especially his owner, Urak, despite it resulting in injuries. Unlike Ivan who, despite being aware of the aliens cruel nature rather goes along with what they say and listens to their every order. Despite this, Ivan has a positive view on Till's rebeling, as it show's his passion and energy which is one of the reasons why Ivan has such a deep affection for him in the first place, even though he does not understand why Till acts the way he does.
ROUND 6 is the round in which Ivan and Till go up against each other. In flashbacks within it, Till is shown hallucinating Mizi saving him from his presumed alien owner after going up against him, but instead it was Ivan who came to help him, taking his collar off. In the next flashback it is revealed the two of them had an encounter when they were kids yet to be sold and owned by a segyein, the two look at eachother with Till having a lively and an astonished expression while Ivan has a lifeless expression. Then, another flashback is shown of the two fighting over a flower wreath Ivan had stepped on, meaning their first meeting or series of first encounters were negative.
In the next scene, Till appears to be drawing and Ivan watching closely right next to him, meaning they had most likely grown closer, or at least are not viewing each other in a negative light anymore. Later on, Ivan is shown paying close attention to Till's wounds, presumably from that incident, brushing up a scratch on his cheek and licking the blood. In another scene, where Till is still covered in bandages, Ivan is reaching out for Till's collar, most likely with the intent to open it as he's shown to be able to do multiple times, and metaphorically, to "free" him somehow.
Back to the present, both seem to be approaching the end of the song when Till stops singing completely. Ivan then throws his microphone onto the ground and leaves his position as he makes his way towards Till, grabbing his face and pressing his lips against his, a gesture that was called "kissing" on Earth but the word as well as implications of the gesture has died out along with their Earth in this universe due to the aliens invasion, at last, albeit receiving pushback from him. In a turn of events, Ivan then starts choking Till, in order to lower his own score to guarantee Till winning. Till is completely unresponsive to that, as if he has given up. The final scores of the singers are shown, with Till's being somewhat higher due to Ivan forfeiting the stage, then Ivan is shot multiple times and lets go of Till, falling onto the stage. In the end, Till is left staring down at Ivan's deceased body in a pool of blood mixed with rain, even after the stage lights turn off.
In the Final round, Till is put up against Luka for the Final Round, where they sing "Blink Gone." Till is still shaken up by Ivan's sacrifice, as can be seen from his red light on his headset, but he puts in his best effort, different from how he had completely given up in Round 6. In the middle of the song, Luka intentionally begins to remind Till of Ivan by putting his hand to Till's face, wrapping his hands around his throat, and touching the spot on his lips where Ivan kissed him. Till desperately tries to continue the song, but the reminder of the recent round greatly affects his performance, putting Luka on a higher score. Till's movements become even more sluggish as he gets flashbacks to Ivan's death with a red tint, and the screens behind the stage display photos of Ivan, it is left up for interpretation whether the stage actually displays the photos or if it were rather a fragment of Till's imagination of Ivan. When Luka pulls his chin up, Till hallucinates Ivan in his place.
Fanon[]
After the release of ROUND 2 and ROUND 3, IvanTill quickly rose to fame, with many official art and fan art being made of the two romantically/platonically. Despite Till currently being shown from only Ivan's point of view while Ivan hasn't been shown in Till's point of view at the time, as the centre of Till's round is his feelings and view on Mizi.
When ROUND 6 was released, pictures and videos of IvanTill's kiss quickly spread, causing the ship and Alien Stage to gain even more popularity. Alien Stage, specifically ROUND 6 and IvanTill, went trending on Twitter and Tiktok, and ROUND 6 was able to reach 1M views in less than 3 days. Much fanart about ROUND 6 was made, most noticeably, redraws of IvanTill as other ships.
It is the most written ship in the ALIEN STAGE AO3 tag. Despite Till canonically liking Mizi, most fans would rather pair Ivan and Till, and the two are commonly paired alongside Mizi with Sua, and even have parallels to the ship. They are also commonly seen to have a frenemies trope within the fandom, with Till being more angry and chaotic and Ivan being calm and gentle.
Quotes[]
- Ivan – “If you keep rebelling, they're not going to let you take off that collar.”
- Till – “Bastard.”
- Ivan – “What did I say? Did you not hear me?”
- Till – “Bastard.”
- — Ivan warns Till about his future, Till doesn't listen.
- Ivan – “Do you believe in god?”
- Till – “No! Stop talking”
- Ivan – “Once upon a time, mankind believed in God and had religion...”
- Till – “[sigh]”
- — My Clematis (Ivan & Till.ver)
- Ivan – “If all I can do as a human is to believe...”
- Till – “Why are you staring at me?”
- Ivan – “My god”
- Till – “Hey, Hey! wait!”
- Ivan – “My universe”
- Till – “Ah, Go away!!”
- — My Clematis (Ivan & Till.ver)
- “Where your eyes reach
Where your fingertips brush
[I'll be] waiting for you endlessly” - — Ivan singing about Till (Black Sorrow)
- “Mizi never played with you, I did.”
- — Ivan to Till
- Ivan – “What is a loser?”
- Till – “It means you're a friendless idiot. Idiot.”
- Ivan – “Then that's you right?”
- — Ivan calling Till a loser
- “Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up... Cheer up.”
- — Ivan to himself after Till smacks him
- “I'm not sure what defines "close." (haha). We were fine, I guess. That's about it.”
- — Ivan's response to "Are you close with Till?" (Ivan's Interview)[1]
- “I try not to get too emotional... but thinking about how I'll be on stage for the first time with my childhood friend makes me want to do my best. I'm sure he's worked hard to come this far, and I hope he feels the same way.”
- — Ivan about going against Till in ROUND 6 (Ivan's Interview)
- Ivan – “Why don't we try that too? Having our lips face each other.”
- Till – “Ew! Why would we even do that?”
- Ivan – “Everyone does it these days. Let's try it too.”
- Till – “Hell no! That's gross!”
- Ivan (whining) – “I wanna try it~”
- Till – “I might think about it on your birthday.”
- Ivan – “You know I don't have a birthday. You'll at least do it once, right?”
- Till (thinking) – “You really think I'll do that?”
- Ivan – “Right?”
- Till (humming) – “Ding... Diding...”
- — Ivan asking Till to press lips to eachother
- “I didn't think I would do this either. To think that those words would come back to haunt me. I should've been kinder. But my situation is better than hers, because I know you won't care that much about me. Still, let me say this, just in case. Thank you for being the victim of my shallow emotions.”
- — Ivan to Till, Confession
Fandom[]
- FAN FICTION
- Ivan/Till tag on AO3
- Ivan & Till tag on AO3
Trivia[]
- On October 7th, QMENG posted a meme where Till is seen in a cat maid outfit, and Ivan is blushing.
- On the same day, QMENG posted a picture of Till saying "Haha! Weak human pets...I'll have to beat you with the blood of music running in my body! Hehe!" with Ivan behind him thinking about supposedly "+18 thoughts". It was then animated, voiced over, then published on YouTube and Twitter. In the animated version, romantic saxophone music was added when Ivan appeared.
- QMENG has also posted two other official arts with Till and Ivan. One shows them when they were younger, lying in the grass. Ivan is staring at Till in it while Till stares at the sky. It's named "Observation". The other shows them in present day on a stage, Ivan is also staring at Till while Till appears to be singing/talking calmly. It is named "Decision".
- This art was later paralleled by a teaser art piece for ROUND 6 posted on the YouTube account's community page, revealing the name of the song, "Cure". Ivan in it is reaching out for Till covered in scratches and bandages, with Ivan in focus and Till out of it, his eyes closed. Later a similar scene appears within the ROUND 6 MV itself.
- Ivan's voice actor, Park Byeong Hoon, covered the song 'Slow It Down' as Ivan singing about Till.[2]
- He also sang the first part of 'Unknown (Till The End)'.[3]
- Photocards sold during NYCC 2024 depict the characters with hearts seeping out of cracks in their skin. Ivan is depicted trying to keep his cracks together, symbolizing how he keeps his emotions hidden, yet in the end he is unable to stop himself from expressing his love for Till. Till's crack is located on the same spot as the cheek wound Ivan wiped blood from in a Round 6 flashback.
Gallery[]
- Main article: IvanTill/Gallery
Videos[]
References[]
[]
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| Alien Stage Ships • Alien Stage Characters | |||
| SHIPS | het | Hyuluka • MiziTill | |
| slash | IvanTill • LukaTill | ||
| femslash | Hyunamizi • HyunaSua • MiziSua | ||
| friend | 4NAKT • IvanMizi • IvanSua | ||
| CHARACTERS | female | Mizi | |