How's the cruise going, NSWERs? Many things happened in the MMU since the last post, so let's find out! Are our girls really close to reach the utopia we dream? What is the Blue Valentine Stage? Do they love or hate each other or… both? Follow me in this deep dive into NMIXX Lore overarching 2 Webtoon Episodes, the Concept Photos, Trailers, MVs tracing back to older content.
TL;DR and theories are at the end.
If this is your first journey, I recommend giving a look at the 3rd anniversary lore recap before everything else.
| Welcome to MIXXTOPIA | Debut and O.O MV | Rebuild of MIXXTOPIA | Fe3O4 Declaration, Sense Break Awake, Soñar MV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Towards The MIXXTOPIA | DICE MV | NMIXX Breaking Walls, again. | DASH MV |
| Expanding The 'MIXX' | New Frontier, MAMA 2022 | Escaping from a MIXX Dystopia. | OUTSIDER CLUB |
| Exposing the Secret of Sweet Oasis | Dizziness From Freedom & Wisdom, Love and Courage | The Finest Strangers in MIXX | SIMULATION OUT and Visual Films |
| How to Reach MIXXTOPIA | LMLT MV | The Sky Beyond FIELD | See That? MV |
| Once Upon a Time in MIXXTOPIA | MIXX World Map, NMIXX Adventure Fairytale | A Flight From FIELD | Hardboiled & Aurora, High Horse, Confession of Midas girl, MMU project |
| A MIXXsummer Night's Dream Party | Party O' Clock MV | Over The Singularity (Per Mare Ad Astra) | Know About Me MV |
IMPETUS crystals
In the Fe3O4 Forward Original Highlight Medley SQU4D showcased the members' Impetuses. They were described as love and each girl explained their own. I highlighted some patterns: Haewon and Sullyoon prefer to give love; Jiwoo, Lily and Kyujin prefer being loved while Bae can't choose between. Their IMPETUSes will gain importance the more we dive into the Blue Valentine Stage.
We melt down the raw gemstones of our emotions and use them to fuel a new journey. When all emotions coalesce, they create the greatest power.
Basically how the MMU engine works. All their crystals are connected together in a single core to power the ship.
Haewon's IMPETUS
I don't think the shape of my love can be defined. There is no clear form – sometimes a liquid, sometimes a solid, and with a soft, warm gray hue. It maintains a tepid temperature. I love giving love. But when it is given to me, I worry I won't be able to return as much. When I consider someone "my person," I give them my whole heart without limits. I want to continue sharing my warmth with you.
Jiwoo's IMPETUS
My love is heart-shaped, a mix of soft pink, deep pink, and sky blue. To me, love means that no matter what someone does – even when they're being difficult – you just can't bring yourself to be mad at them. When you're in love, doesn't everything they do seem adorable? I love the feeling of being loved the most.
Lily's IMPETUS
My love is comprised of many colors. Passionate red represents my fiery energy, soft pink captures my romantic and tender feelings, and earthy green reflects my love for the people who matter most – my family, friends and fan. Beyond that, I experience the layers of countless emotions wash over me in a flood all at once. It's hard to sum them up with just one word. Only when these emotions in different hues and shapes come together do the true form and color of my love emerge. I love being loved the most. Giving and receiving both make me happy, but there's a special kind of joy in receiving love.
Kyujin's IMPETUS
My love is a mix of deep black, sleek red, and shimmering gold at the edges. I love both giving and receiving love, but if I had to choose, I like receiving it just a little more. Love feels both simple and complicated to me.
Bae's IMPETUS
My love is a mix of red and yellow, sparking with electricity. However, its shape is unclear to me. Can something invisible even have a shape? Maybe that's why love can feels so hard to grasp sometimes, yet other times, it comes so easily To me, love means being willing to give up anything for the one I care about. Even if it requires a little sacrifice, I want to cherish and protect my love. I love being loved and always want to receive it. But just as much, I love giving it. It would be impossible to choose between the two.
Sullyoon's IMPETUS
My love is like the light from a flashlight, glowing pink and white. To me, love means wanting to give someone everything I possibly can. I love giving love. I want my love to bring you comfort, but also make your heart flutter.
Concept (Photos)
All NMIXX comebacks are inspired by a movie and this is not an exception. The original inspiration for this comeback is most probably based on the 2010 movie Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, where a couple relationship deteriorates overtime despite the love for each other.
VALENTINE Ver. The days were different with you, and different without you.
In this shoot the girls are wearing the same outfits of the Webtoon. For the first part the girls were said to act bright, holding hands, smiling, laughing, playing… Lily called it LOVE concept. Then in the HATE Concept the girls were directed to be colder, alone, empty, sad.
Basically the message is: we loved each other but something happened between us and we're sad because we're not together anymore.
BLUE Ver. Our cake, sweet yet bitter, soft yet sharp – just like you and me.
I thought the cakes represented the girls' IMPETUS so I tried to match many things between the crystals and the cakes (colors, shapes, descriptions, give/receive love and attitude in the Webtoon) but the only somehow consistent one is Lily's. I still want to believe the cake-impetus theory where the knife is the hate towards the cake of love. Haewon said in the Behind: We used two props with completely opposite vibes, a soft. mushy cake and a glass knife [not everyone had a knife], fragile and therefore even sharper. We really brought out our Love & Hate theme.
The cake of the Motion Poster is a mash-up of all the six cakes seen here. What's interesting is that the beating glass heart with blue liquid inside (IMPETUS) is shattered by the knife Sullyoon is holding in the photoshoot. Indeed, in a moment we'll see that she's the one who started the Love & Hate situation.
CHAOS Ver. To you, whom I love the most but hate.
The phrase above is written on a blue apple. More orange apples with glass shards are used as props. Apples hold a strong symbolism given by many myths throughout cultures all over the world: temptation, love, discord, immortality. Knowing the past greek inspirations in NMIXX, "To the most beautiful" was the phrase written on the golden apple of discord thrown by Eris to Athena, Hera and Aphrodite which lead to the Trojan War.
Sullyoon has the Blue Valentine Cyber Sigilism scarification on her back. Here she's paired with Haewon who has smudged red lipstick. As demonstrated above, the Jacket is usually loosely related to the lore so this tattoo could mean her love left her hurt.
Webtoon: BLUE VALENTINE
EP.1 "Entering the Blue Valentine Stage" (full translation here)
Lily: The Communicator
Jiwoo: The Investigator
Sullyoon: The Doctor
Bae: The Scouter
Kyujin: The Engineer
Haewon: The Captain
Stuck in the Blue Valentine Stage
To reach MIXXTOPIA, aboard the MMU, NMIXX enters a black hole that stretches out like the sea. They reach the "Blue Valentine Stage" (BVS) while sleeping, but woken up by the notification, they run to witness the mesmerizing blue waves of the celestial body.
They celebrate reaching this Stage with a party. A round of hide-and-seek starts with Bae counting. One by one, Bae tracks down Lily > Haewon & Jiwoo > Kyujin > Sullyoon.
Walking by some passengers, Jiwoo hears them talking of water leaking in a room and sudden dangerous ship movements. Haewon and Kyujin check the MMU Steering Wheel and find out that sparks erupt from it. Everyone gathers at the engine core. Haewon is clear: "Look at the IMPETUS. The longer we stay in this stage, the more unstable it becomes.”
Bae and Kyujin, want to push forward despite the risks, while Sullyoon and Haewon question whether they should turn back, weary of repeated failures in past attempts. As the conflict escalates between Bae and Sullyoon, sparks shoot violently from the failing engine. Lily cries out in desperation for the fighting to stop. At that moment, the engine breaks apart with a loud tear. The IMPETUS flows in the room. Sullyoon turns her back on the group and walks away, with her IMPETUS leaving a trace behind here.
EP.2 "A Heart Split Into Six Pieces" (full translation here)
On the MMU, passengers like Black Sheep, Talking Plant and Curly Girl discuss the split among NMIXX after the engine failure. Sullyoon and Haewon argue for turning back, while Bae, Jiwoo, and Kyujin push to continue. Lily is just upset by the conflict itself but as time goes by she'll end up in the Return Faction.
The group’s disagreements soon spill into personal clashes: Sullyoon and Jiwoo argue over sincerity and fear, Haewon and Bae quarrel playfully but reveal deeper frustrations, and Lily and Kyujin’s confrontation escalates into a fight after Kyujin admits her fear of failing again.
As tensions grow, small acts of spite and mischief spread among them, deepening mistrust. Soon accidents and near-attacks make the girls question if someone is truly crossing the line, from Sullyoon being shoved into water supposedly by Jiwoo who ran to help her instead to Lily nearly falling from a clean-cut railing, something only Kyujin could do. Suspicion isolates them, and they pass each other in silence, no longer able to communicate openly.
In the main hall, all the passengers are reunited for a public debate. Sullyoon and Haewon insist on returning, calling for safety and caution; Bae, Jiwoo, and Kyujin argue for pressing forward, and Lily pleads for unity above all. The passengers note that while their opinions differ, their motives all stem from care for one another. The girls begin to realize this too, though their bond remains fractured.
Webtoon Analysis
Before getting into deep waters, let's note simple things:
- Pabllo Vittar spotted on the escalator during the Hide & Seek, right after Bae count.
- On board we have a Black Sheep and other humanoid animals, kids, schoolgirls, a man on a wheelchair, a girl with a robotic arm and a talking plant. The MMU is really inclusive!
- They reached BVS while sleeping, it's very common for them to reach places while sleeping.
- They're not inside the black hole yet. The blue waves that give the characteristic BVS stretch out from it and they're stuck there, since months.
- The MMU status heavily depends on the fuel, the IMPETUS, which comes from the six crystals of the girls connected to the ship engine. Since it's linked to their emotions it became unstable, leading to an explosion.
- Apparently failing and being reborn countless times it's normalized in the MIXX, When Sullyoon said that they've always failed at this (BVS) point nobody reacted.
- Interesting balloon "You won't run away now, will you?" from Bae to Sullyoon when catching her in the game. Sullyoon is called out as "scared" in two scenes by Jiwoo.
- Haewon said the problem is not external but comes from the IMPETUS, which is the crystallization of NMIXX emotions.
Theoretically, entering in a blackhole would require seconds due to the immense gravitational attraction, however they're stuck outside it in its (gravitational) waves. But we shouldn't think scientifically: this black hole is supposed to be a portal to MIXXTOPIA, the place beyond imagination, so right now we're at the edge of imagination and it's completely possible that physics laws are non-existing here.
Who gave the Blue Valentine Stage its name? Obviously Kyujin and Sullyoon, as they're the only ones that can remember past journeys. When this situation happened in the past and failed, they named it after the famous movie and Kyujin programmed the notification in the MMU. In fact, Sullyoon is the first person to wake up after the notification because she recognized it (and has probably PTSD from it).
The fact that they always failed at this point is clearly linked to the girls real desires to reach MXTP or it's bound to the girls' personalities. Have you ever gone on holiday with your friends and started hating them day after day even if you really love them?
To grasp the reason why Sullyoon's fear took over the excitement of discovery we need to look at how her past shaped her character. She's the Doctor and along with Kyujin, remembers all the past journeys. She believes that even this journey is bound to fail. To say such a statement with such an animation she must be really sure, there's no trace of hope there. The last journey failed due to a Kyujin mistake, but this time even Captain Haewon said the issue is not external. Is Sullyoon herself the reason why they keep failing? How could she be so bold otherwise? Thanks to the trial-and-error from past journeys she would have found the way to resolve the current problem as Kyujin did with her mistake from the previous one, but no. She knows NMIXX will fail and has no intention to solve the problem. Is the problem unsolvable? Is it because of her? Did she had to endure so much pain in the past she prefers not to achieve NMIXX dream?
At the end of the 2nd episode the girls talked out loud their emotions and intentions: their wounds started healing… Sullyoon's too? A snail on a leaf gives the reader a spark of hope as the animals embodies values like resilience, perseverance and steadiness.
With our bond fractured like this… is there any way back to how we used to be?
Paradox of Love Trailer
This film is narrated by a voiceover and showed as if we were watching a videocassette playing tapes of the girls fighting.
Love / Hate: noun. concept. collision. Touch and recoil. Soft and sharp. A gaze. A break. No answers. Only feeling – styled and torn.
- Touch and recoil: sounds of censored swear words, angry Lily arguing.
- A gaze: sounds of a tape rolling, Jiwoo staring and smiling.
- No answers: silence, Kyujin with her head tilted looking down on you. Kinda "what do you want me to do?".
- Only feelings: Sullyoon smiling with eyes closed and staring.
- Collision: sounds of a ticking clock. Haewon shedding a tear.
- Empty: static noise, Bae with a blank stare.
- Styled and torn: everyone doing the things above.
A communicator that gets angry? An engineer that has no answers? A captain crying? A scouter with a hollow gaze? Investigator and Doctor are too general to define but everyone else should definitely not have that attitude. This behavior is the natural reaction to the current situation on the MMU.
\"I know a place\" and they will bring you there
Chapter 1: Love turns, beauty breaks. (Sullyoon & Jiwoo)
A beautiful landscape of infinite green hills and flowers. A flock of birds flying away from the only tree. Jiwoo and Sullyoon completely in love with each other. Then Sullyoon's face darkens and turns. She is now physically grounded by Jiwoo. The two start wrestling but no one can win.
Love changes and it's no longer as beautiful as it was. Love can change so much it becomes hate. This scene gives the same vibes as the ending of Confession of midas girl, where Sullyoon's face, the visual of the group, cracks.
Chapter 2: She focused. She let go. (Lily & Bae)
Bae is inside a white room, looking through a manual phoropter Lily outside in the field. She's blindfolded with pearls and is firing bullets Bae's room. The glass protected her.
The Phoropter is the device that can correct the eyesight through various lenses. A scouter, whose role heavily depends on their eyesight should never have sight problems. But here Bae is fixing her vision. On the other side, Lily the communicator has abandoned the diplomacy and embraced violence. Hate really changes people completely.
Chapter 3: Open hands. Closed heart. (Haewon & Kyujin)
Somewhere else in the field, Haewon is about to insert a key in a keyhole on Kyujin's back. Fast flashes of the two being lovely. It's night and Haewon buried Kyujin with a shovel.
It's hard to interpret this scene. Haewon after unlocking Kyujin have a great time with her but when night comes… Haewon looks at the moon, both are not happy anymore and Kyujin seems blocked. Haewon gets rid of her doll(?). Is it a representation of a one-night-stand relationship? An egoistic one? In addition, Haewon is removing dirt but also compressing it: they made the un/digging purposefully ambiguous, as if she's torn between love and hate.
You were watching love and hate. Where every touch becomes tension and every fight is just another dance. We have yet to find the answer. Do you know the solution to this collision? If so, please tell us. We will always be here. (To be continued…)
The three pairs are playing tug of war, making colorful bubbles and looking each other at a fountain. In the next scene the atmosphere changed: Sullyoon is spraying only blue bubbles on a defenseless Jiwoo, Lily won the tug of war against Bae who is now on the ground while Kyujin and Haewon are avoiding each other gaze now. Seems like the Return Faction has the upper hand. Everyone has a heart shaped clock necklace.
Trailer Analysis
Is this landscape where Haewon watered flowers all over in LMLT MV? Maybe. We need to refresh how MIXX works. We left FIELD with a spaceship and at the moment we're at the edge of MIXX, stuck in front of a black hole, allegedly a portal for MIXXTOPIA. There's no way a infinite green field is near us now, unless… "in MIXX territories expands with imagination".
You might have noticed that in LMLT, WLC and here the starting place has always a white background, the girls wake up in it and then the green field appears. In particular, in WLC and PoL they all wear a uniform. Is this how the directors represent the imagination expanding? From a blank space to an infinte landscape? With this explanation, the green field can be anywhere the girls want it to be, also here in the MMU.
If we want to frame this Trailer we can say that it's the manifestation of NMIXX emotions during the BVS, a moment of contradictions, distortions, This green field is the conceptual space where they're fighting for their love and hate towards each other. "Do you know the solution to this collision? If so, please tell us. We will always be here. (To be continued…)" The collision is between the members who want and don't want to continue, they don't know how to stop this bickering. They will always be here because they're stuck for the n-th time. Who's talking can be either the members themselves or, more probably, MMU passengers who want to solve the issue and move on.
Spinnin' On It MV
The video starts with the end: our six girls, in a house, divided in the two factions had a blue cream/cake-throwing war which ended when both teams collapsed, tired of fighting. Jiwoo eats a bit of cream from Sullyoon's face (her enemy), while Sullyoon treats Kyujin (from the enemy faction). A grey snail glides on the dirty floor.
In this video each girl has some representative items that her enemy will try to destroy to show their hate.
Bae & Haewon war
Bae opens a box and breaks all the eggs branded with Haewon representative word "BELOST5", transliterated "biroso", "비로소" meaning "finally", which as intended by Haewon is "This is the me I've truly been longing for". As she breaks the eggs, Haewon is really uncomfortable.
There are even more layers on this word: Be Lost? Getting lost in this universe of imagination or losing the ability of Captain in managing journey? Why 5? Haewon's last name is Oh and it means 5 in Korean. If you tie this thing with LOST being the opposite of WON and BE can somehow be paired with Hae, we maybe have the reason why she wants this to be her nickname on SNS.
It's Haewon turn. She's ironing some clothes with Bae's face printed on. She purposefully burn one if those with the iron. Bae now has the same iron branding Haewon made on the shirt on her neck. Ouch. At last, Haewon and Bae are sitting close in front of each other, Haewon is holding Bae's neck, touching and feeling her jugular veins with very intrusive thoughts.
Jiwoo & Sullyoon war + Lily
Lily is collecting Jiwoo's things because she likes her but sides with Sullyoon since she loves her too. Note that Lily is liking both members from the Forward and Return Faction. However, Lily's love for Sullyoon is not mutual. In fact, after getting a black ice-cream from Jiwoo, who is hiding behind the door, Sullyoon realizes she dislikes the taste and smashes it on Lily's collection. Actually Lily's folders were already dirty, so either it was not the first time Sullyoon smashed icecream on them or in this MV the scenes are not linear with time. By the way, Sullyoon still cares about Lily because she's caressing her eye some time after.
Anyway, the smash on Lily's Jiwoo's photo causes Jiwoo pain to the eye. In response, she bites a marshmallow, Sullyoon's representative item. A scene of Jiwoo biting her ear follows, as if the marshmellow and her ear were somehow connected.
Kyujin & Lily love
Kyujin initially has no enemies, or better, all are. She spills coffee on the floor, prepare tacks-filled cupcakes and chocolates in her dark room, locked from the others (or are the others locked in the light room by her?). One of the chocolates in the box has a Lily photo and Kyujin takes a bite of it. A few scenes after, we see Kyujin having an intimate moment with her in the light room, feeding one of the box chocolates to Lily.
All-out war, and love
Bae is about to pop the egg in the light room. Haewon turns her head pretty (as always) worried. The big wedding cake bomb-candles are lit and it explodes, setting the beginning of the final war between the faction that will have no winners. The cake can easily be the representation of the IMPETUS engine breaking in the Webtoon.
Towards the end of the video all enemies become lovers: Haewon is seen having an intimate moment with Bae where she's playing with her earring. Kyujin and Lily are interlocking their feet (?), Jiwoo and Sullyoon look at each other.
In the light room there's a bed and a wall with many objects hanging. Let's list and divide them into categories:
- Analysis (Hearing and Touch): Recordings, gloves, pipettes, dinosaur skull fossil. Mainly linked to the Investigator and the Scouter.
- Haewons's: Scissors (one of these were also on Haewon's desk in SENSE BREAK AWAKE), perfume bottles (KAB/Webtoon). Watches (sound of time ticking in PoL), hammer (has a ribbon on it).
- Lily: High heels (spotted because of those in the Webtoon)
- Knives… Kyujin? If not, she's the only without objects here and it would makes sense anyway as she's working in the dark room.
- Doctor things: syringes, scalpels, stethoscope. Sullyoon for sure.
- Plaque "I hate being without you". Note that a snail was covering the "being without" before the final battle.
From the shared Google Drive we can find more of the girls' representative items:
- Haewon: eggs, ribbon, "finally".
- Lily: wild flower.
- Kyujin: blueberry, tea, coffee, nails.
- Bae: key, sugar, clothes.
- Sullyoon: marshmallow, black ice-cream
- Jiwoo: tomato, vinyl, pictures.
In the video you might have seen some flashy visuals of pictures of the items above. The complete big picture has these pictures divided by member and connected with others' as in a detective board.
The NMIXX Watermelon game is really fun but doesn't hold much lore.
TL;DR
At the edge of MIXX, just before entering MIXXTOPIA, the MMU halts, as happened in the past. It's been months NMIXX are stuck before the black hole and the IMPETUS got unstable. The split between going Forward with the journey or Return for safety among them has ripped their friendship and the engine as well. This divergence led to hatred between them, even though they still love each other. After some pranks crossed the line, the tired girls might have understood that collaboration is key and a decision must be taken.
Theories
There's not a fixed couple in the contents we analyzed, but for sure someone from the Forward faction always fought with someone from the Return Faction. For our theories let's consider the couplings from the Webtoon and Spinnin' On It MV as canon. (for the record, in Paradox of Love the only difference is that Lily and Haewon switched enemies)
- Forward Faction: Jiwoo, Bae, Kyujin.
- Return Faction: Haewon, Sullyoon, Lily.
Whose hand pushed Sullyoon into the water? Who really cut the railing? As readers of the Webtoons we know that no NMIXX member did it, so we can safely believe someone else in the MMU took advantage of the situation to put the Return Faction in real danger. Would you reach MIXXTOPIA at the cost of other lives? Since we're heading in a place where everyone is respected, disrespect should not be tolerated even on the way. Whoever did this level of mischief wants the MMU to keep going, to reach the utopia or to make the journey fail as fast as possible? Could this person (or people) be another unforeseen threat to NMIXX? What I want to say is: what if Monopole sneaked into the MMU?
Who will win the dispute? Realistically the best outcome would be Haewon's view: first understand the issue, then proceed. But time is ticking and without the IMPETUS engine the MMU is a lifeless hollow metal box in the infinte void. With a fresh and healed mindset after the bickering, the girls should learn the most they can (especially Kyujin and Sullyoon) from this situation, solve whatever problem is left and enter the black hole without regrets.
Outro
We're so close yet so far from MIXXTOPIA. I've seen many people saying the PoL field is the MIXXTOPIA we didn't expect, which is inherently not true: there "everyone's diversity is respected". So, how will MIXXTOPIA look like? We only know it's a legendary place where all dreams and wishes come true and considering how different the dreams of each person could be… for sure it's going to be a little chaotic!
Thank you for keep reading my theories, I know they're long but in these three years you probably got accustomed, right? For new NSWERs, you'll be very soon! See you in the next [THEORY].
If you want to support this type of content, I'll buy NMIXX albums!
by CromaShin