FLAVOR FOLEY is an American indie music circle that specialises in music using Vocal Synthesis software such as SynthV and Utau. Their debut song was titled "BUTCHER VANITY", sung by the SynthV voicebank Yi Xi and released March 28th, 2024. Their debut album, CARDIAC CONTREPOINT, was released on Valentine's Day, 2025.

Their website can be found here, and their YouTube channel can be found here.

The members consist of...

• Jamie Paige: A producer with a taste for production and passion.
• Vane Lily: A producer with a taste for composition and sacrilege.
• ricedeity: A musician with a taste for toplines and whimsy.

Discography

• CARDIAC CONTREPOINT (2025)
  • "BUTCHER VANITY" (2024)
  • "rawdog" (2024)
  • "weathergirl" (2024)
  • "炜WARD ROMANCE" (2024)
  • "Water the Roses" (2025)
  • "Queen of Venus" (2025)

Singles

• "Static" (2025)
• "Spoken For" (2025)
• "Human" (2025)
• "ELECTRIC WEEKEND ZONE" (2025) - Collaboration with CircusP for Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! to celebrate KAITO's 19th anniversary.
• "CONNECT:COMMUNE" (2026) - Official theme of HATSUNE MIKU EXPO 2026
• "Ego Renegade Boy" (2026)

1, 2, 3, trope with me, it's a catchy melody!

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: "Water the Roses" explains that the singer's lover has been physically distant, growing into emotional distance — at first, she does deeply, intensely miss her and wishes her lover would just say 'I love you', but in the end, she gives up and searches for a new love. The music video shows the singer and her lover's paper cut-outs being placed farther and farther apart until the singer's lover is completely out of the picture.
• All Part of the Show: Invoked in the music video for "Spoken For": during her breakdown on stage, Teto begins obviously posing out of tune with the song while she's freaking out. However, the rhythm game still marks her "mistakes" as perfect — her breakdown is still seen as entertainment, because as Teto herself said before...
  Only way to fuck it up is to be boring!
• Ambiguous Ending: "Spoken For" ends with the stage being completely empty. Considering the implications from Teto's lyrics and her melting down on stage, it's heavily implied that she either died by suicide or killed her live audience after all the pressure reaches the breaking point. The nicer implication is that "'fore I get that call" refers to getting called into the office to get fired instead of the call of the void making her fire a gun. Either way, neither outcome is explicitly spelled out.
• Ambiguous Gender:
  • While Kasane Teto's character in "Spoken For" looks like an idol girl, the lyrics leading up to the third chorus bring up how Teto could be a woman, or could be a man, and ultimately the audience would really never know for sure, because her life as an idol has reduced her to a facade of her actual self. This doubles as a reference to Teto's own gender ambiguity, as her gender is officially listed as "chimera" rather than "male" or "female" (with her creators TWINDRILL stating that what exactly this means is up for interpretation).
  • Yi Xi's voice in "BUTCHER VANITY" is deliberately tuned to alternate between being masculine and feminine, and outside of the crop top she wears, her style of dress is fairly masculine, making her look like a Long-Haired Pretty Boy (though this design predates Butcher Vanity, being the Vimalion Project design for the Yi Xi soundbank). One of the references in the MV is Yi Xi assuming the same pose as the cover of To Strip the Flesh, which is about a trans man.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • It's not made clear if the singer of "Static" is willingly trapped in her own show to escape a frightening and tiring world that is getting worse and worse, or if she's unwillingly trapped, forever a kids' mascot who can't join her audience in adulthood... but either way, she's desperate for any kind of connection and love by an audience that has grown up without her.
  • "Weathergirl" is about an unrequited crush and the singer's hope that her efforts might bear fruit — but she just as easily might never catch the target of her affections, using weather motifs, especially how weather can change in an instant to be a metaphor. Eleanor Forte's facial expressions in the music video reflect this: she's either happily crying that she's finally with her love or brokenly sobbing as she smiles.
  • "Water the Roses" ends on an open-ended note — the song lyrics hope they'll find a new love that will last, but the music video ends on GUMI alone and sobbing.
  • While Teto has some kind of breakdown in "Spoken For", it's implied she may have killed herself — or worse, went postal, given that she confesses she has constant thoughts of bloody violence and loathes her fans, on top of the song having gunshot noises subtly and not-so-subtly layered through the song, and eventually the stage she was performing on is empty. The nicer implication is that "before I get that call" means she was just called into the office to get fired, not a call of the void.
  • It's not explicitly stated what happened to Miki's human creator in "Human": something happened and she pines for him, but the melancholy lyrics don't make it clear if the creator died, rejected them for their refusal of their purpose, or some combination of all three. Adding on further mystery is an implication the creator may have been abusive in some way - either way, it causes Miki grief.
• Analog Horror: Invoked with "Static", which is about a kid's show mascot trapped in her cartoon, trying to entice the viewer to stay forever with her — but while it has an unsettling atmosphere, there are no Jump Scares and the mascot doesn't force the viewer to stay — she knows they'll have to leave eventually. If anything, the horror is more mundane — being forgotten and abandoned, and left lonely in a tiring and frightful world.
• Animal Motifs: "rawdog", punning off its title and tying into its themes of sex and dominance, is canine-themed — collars, leashes, barking as part of the hook, and... canine mating habits.
• Anime Chinese Girl: Overlaps with Dragon Lady — Feng Yi in "炜WARD ROMANCE" plays up the Chinese theme by being in a sensual qipao, slipping Chinese words into the song to form puns ("炜" in the title is "Wei", making it "Wei-ward Romance"), and singing about a city that is very likely Hong Kong in The '80s or The '90s.
• And I Must Scream: The singer in "Static" has been trapped in her cartoon/TV show for a long time, and is so lonely that she is reduced to hoping someone finds her video and begging that when they inevitably leave, to at least come back to her once in a while.
• Anti-Love Song: Overlaps with Break-Up Song. "Water the Roses", a song about a married couple growing distant to one another both physically and romantically, ending in their breakup.
• Anti-Villain: "Static" uses the imagery associated with the typical Analog Horror trope of an evil Subverted Kids' Show host, but its singer, despite being some kind of trapped entity, isn't evil at all — she's just scared of an adult world that frightens her and has left her behind, terribly alone after her audience has grown up, and just wants someone to keep her company, even for just a little bit.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • One line that constantly repeats in Ego Renegade Boy is "Did you know her?". In context, this question means that if the people mourning Len's pre-transition self really knew "her", then they would know why this was necessary and not be upset about it.
  • Miki asks her creator why they always look at the stars, which doesn't count. They simply state that they like them. What does count is her asking why they like the stars, which leads to a Stunned Silence and stuttered response.
• Art-Style Dissonance: "Spoken For" is a music video in the style of the kid-friendly Rhythm Heaven series, but features 3 F-bombs and has a rather dark narrative about a celebrity trapped and damaged by self-hatred and fame.
• Asian Cleaver Fever: "BUTCHER VANITY" is a song about cannibalism sung by a Chinese voicebank, Yi Xi, and its imagery prominently features cleavers and poetically cutting apart meat with Chinese characters flashing as Yi Xi serves up her latest meal.
• Aspect Ratio Switch:
  • "Queen Of Venus" has several moments where the aspect ratio is briefly changed to 4:3 with a CRT filter, and it remains that way in Adachi Rei's dying moments.
  • There are 2 moments in "Static" where the aspect ratio briefly shifts from 4:3 to fullscreen before snapping back — tying into the motif of the singer being afraid of growing up/modernising and preferring to stick to the good ol' ways.
• Artificial Human: "Human" focuses on a robot struggling to break free of her melancholy past and her restrictive programming to Become a Real Girl.
• Artist Disillusionment: In-Universe: "Spoken For" depicts an Idol Singer (depicted by Kasane Teto) who is initially excited with her newfound massive fame and fortune, but as the demands of her fans and record company destroy her physically (it's implied she developed bulimia to stay idol-thin if it's just not panic attacks and is further implied to be cutting herself) and mentally (an extremely repetitive and exhausting schedule where she isn't allowed to talk to anyone but a demanding management, untreated OCD, and her friendships falling apart leaving her isolated and begging for anyone to just talk to her), she comes to hate herself, her management, and her fans so much that she hallucinates about their gory deaths... and if the gunshots throughout the song and her eventual breakdown on stage say anything, she may have made her death or theirs a reality.
• Audience Participation:
  • Keeping with the children's show theming of "Static", the singer, a kid's show/cartoon mascot, asks the viewer to point out what's the brightest thing they see as they do on kids' shows, complete with a ticking noise and a "good job!" obvious answer.
  • There's a Follow the Bouncing Ball segment in "rawdog" that asks you to sing along to "You know you really piss me off!".
  • Fitting the song's inspiration, the Digital Stars version of "Spoken For" includes cues for the audience to clap along to (specifically the ones from "Fan Club"), complete with a practice section beforehand.
• Ax-Crazy: In "BUTCHER VANITY" Yi Xi talks about chopping up and cannibalizing someone, with the video showing her give slasher smiles.
• Bait-and-Switch: "Ego Renegade Boy" at first seems to about Len killing Rin, but near the end it turns out that "Rin" is actually Len's past self and that the "death" was more metaphorical.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The "Spoken For" MV shows Teto was delighted to be chosen as her record company's premiere idol and became extremely popular. As the song drags on and Teto sings about her extreme loneliness, isolation, intrusive thoughts, and pressure from her "adoring fans" and record company that will turn on her the moment she stops being perfect, it's clear Teto isn't so delighted anymore.
• Become a Real Girl: "Human" focuses on a Robot Girl who wants to shed her restrictive programming and the roles set for her to become truly human. She succeeds in the end.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Thrice in "Static":
    • The Japanese subtitles switch from hiragana to kanji — a feature in Japanese kids' shows to teach them how to read the characters.
    • They also emphasise characters that spell out the names of the brothers of Osomatsu-san .
    • Miku's dance is flag semaphore spelling out "DON'T GO".
  • "Human"'s music video has binary cover the screen; decoding reveals they're observation logs by Miki.
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Len's new life and energy is contrasted against him being on trial for Rin's "murder."
• Blush Sticker: The Miku in "Static" sports big ol' circular blushes, invoking old cartoons and signifying her forced cheerfulness.
• Breather Episode:
  • "炜WARD ROMANCE" was released in between "weathergirl" and "Water the Roses" and couldn't be more different from them: it's an upbeat, Chinese-themed pop song about indulging in a whirlwind romance, whereas "weathergirl" and "Water the Roses" are melancholy ballads about unrequited love and a break-up respectively.
  • "Human" is noticeably idealistic, even though its singer was implied to have been abused like Teto in "Spoken For" and abandoned like Miku in "Static", with the singer choosing to embrace an uncertain future built out of her past. This song comes after the psychotic breakdown of an abused idol in "Spoken For" (which is implied to end in suicide/a shooting) and before the explicit, spite-filled callout by a transgender man in "Ego Renegade Boy".
• Broken Ace: Kasane Teto from "Spoken For" seems perfect in every way: perfectly skilled in dancing and singing, is perfectly nice and perfectly innocent. The cost? Her friends, her personal life, her physical and mental health, and having to uphold that pure image or else.
• Bowdlerise: The VOCAVERSE radio edit for "rawdog" removes some of the more profane language and changes the context of some verses from the singer's messy sexual relationship to going out for food.
• Broken Record: Keeping in the theme of "stuck repeating the past to escape a bad present and future", "Static" has two different versions:
  • The audio loops and glitches out at times, especially when the singer promises to be with the viewer to "always be together, now and forever" and ever and ever as it glitches out and repeats.
  • The chorus is deliberately repetitive and loops on itself, as if the singer were trying to drown out having to face the present and future by singing it insistently and repeatedly. Along with how simplistic and repetitive kids' show themes are to teach kids, it's also a sad, sad wish for people to come back to a carefree childhood where she was loved.
• Call-Back:
  • The illustration of the "ROUNDTABLE REPRISES" version of "Paparazzi Murder Party" contains characters and voicebanks from previous FLAVOR FOLEY works in the background.
  • Several in "Human":
    • Miki's smile at the end is a emoticon, like Yi Xi's in "BUTCHER VANITY".
    • Miki sadly takes note of the weather and its representation of longing and uncertainty, as in "Weathergirl".
    • Miki longs to return to a better past she can no longer reach with an audience who is no longer there, as did Miku in "Static".
    • Much of the song revolves around the singer's repetitive routine to fulfill what is expected of her in order to not disappoint someone - whereas Teto does it for her management and fans to the bitter end, Miki did it for her creator(s) and eventually rejects the routine.
    • Part of the song resolves around a relationship that deteriorated as the other party grew more distant and brought more grief to the longing singer, who is trying to move past the failure of the relationship, as with "Water the Roses".
    • It deals with a Robot Girl yearning for love; unlike "Queen of Venus", however, the relationship appears to be platonic.
• Calling the Old Man Out: "Ego Renegade Boy" can be read as an extended one of these, with Len chewing out his family for only caring about him when he's done something they don't like (in this case "murdering" his past self by coming out as a man) and bluntly saying that there was no way their "daughter" would've made it out of her situation alive.
  Did you know her?
  Her dreams, her aspirations?
  One single sentence, address the rest, so tell me how you knew her?
  Embellish your relation
  Pain that you feign for a stranger
  'cuz you'd rather see me gone
• Cannot Spit It Out: In an inversion, instead of a traditional Love Confession, the singer's lover in "Water the Roses" never can say "I love you" — and neither can the singer.
  It's only three small words that can make me run away
  It’s only three small words that could make me run away
  Moving soil like mountains for a chance of brighter days
  But the eight small letters never show me their grace
• Celebrity is Overrated: "Spoken For" is a song about the trials and tribulations of being a celebrity (specifically an Idol Singer), with the singer lamenting that most of her fans love their public persona more than her, her management forces her to unrealistic expectations while portraying her as a happy, perfect girl to the public, and she's ultimately terribly lonely and empty inside because of how she's been tailored to appeal to everyone. The music video heavily implies her fame tore her personal relationships apart, and she's on the edge of a violent breakdown.
• Central Theme:
  • "CARDIAC CONTREPOINT" contains different flavors of love. Hayden deals with a hate-fueled relationship (rawdog), Feng Yi is just about to start one (WEI-WARD ROMANCE), Eleanor and Rei both yearn for it in different ways (weathergirl and Queen Of Venus), Yi Xi is in a yandere-like relationship (BUTCHER VANITY), while Gumi is dealing with a breakup (Water The Roses).
  • Starting with "STATIC" and not counting "CONNECT:COMMUNE", each song after the former are all flavors of change. Miku doesn't want to change from her old TV show (STATIC), Teto desperately wants to change, but the weight of her job as an idol doesn't let her change (Spoken For), Miki yearned to and managed to change (Human), and Len had already changed and is dealing with the fallout (Ego Renegade Boy).
• Cerebus Call-Back: In "Static"'s captions for the music video, the cheery, childish, and innocent refrain of "This is how it should be!", exclamation mark included, shift to a defeated "This is how it should be." Fan covers run with it by singing "This is how it should be!" All bubbly and bright, while the final "This is how it should be." is in a defeated, sad tone.
• Common HTTP Status Code:
  • "Static" is 4 minutes and 4 seconds long, alluding the error code "404". 404 errors are usually used for when a page cannot be found or does not exist, referencing the song's setting of a cartoon fading to obscurity.
  • "Spoken For"'s video is 4 minutes and 14 seconds long. The error code "414" means the URL is too long and can't be processed; per the lyric "I don't see the messages", she can't properly process the demands of her rabid fans or her controlling record company and is about to have a breakdown. The song itself is 4 minutes and 5 seconds long; a 405 error means the target server/computer understands the request, but rejects it because it's not allowed, tying into how tightly her image is controlled by her record company, her fans, and her own OCD.
  • "Human" is four minutes and 27 seconds. 427 errors mean Flow token is no longer valid, preventing further actions in the current session - usually if a user tries to use a session that's already done. In this case, the singer of "Human" has had enough of her programming and the expectations placed on her.
  • "Ego Renegade Boy" is 3 minutes and 18 seconds long. While a 318 error doesn't exist, this could allude to either a 301 error, which says a page has been permanently moved elsewhere, or a 308 error, which says a page needs to permanently redirect to somewhere else; both of these tie into the song's themes of gender transitioning.
• Composite Character: Len in "Ego Renegade Boy" reveals in the bridge he's also Rin post-transition.
• Concept Album: "CARDIAC CONTREPOINT", the group's debut album, is full of different love songs themed around food to, in their words, "fit everyone's plate".
• Consuming Passion: "BUTCHER VANITY" is from the viewpoint of someone who's so madly in love and violently attracted to the target of their affections that they'll eat them, and plays up all the double entendres and literal metaphors that come with all-consuming lust/love.
• Contractual Purity: Alluded to In-Universe in "Spoken For": the song focuses on an Idol Singer who is forced to maintain a strict routine that's devoid of any freedom (it's highly implied she does nothing but practice or perform, and the music video shows she gets up at an ungodly hour to practice), health (she's resorted to bulimia to stay fashionably thin and her untreated OCD and massive stress are causing her to have a breakdown to the point where it's implied she's cutting), creativity (her persona, fashion, and words are all 'spoken for' and forced on her by her management), or anything resembling a healthy relationship (her busy routine tore apart her friendships and management doesn't let her speak at all to her fans, meaning that she's completely isolated with no proper outlet).
• Crapsack World:
  • Invoked by the singer of "Static", who tries to entice the viewer/listener to stay with her, because why go back to an adult world that's so brutal and stressful when you could just tune in to your childhood show and be happy forever? She certainly finds it awful — awful enough to want to stay in her childhood show she used to be famous for, forever...
  • Lightly invoked in "Electric Weekend Zone", which bemoans a boring adult 9-to-5 routine — which makes it all the more reason to hit the club and dance.
  In early mornings
  Feels like the week has just begun
  (The old routine, everything’s the same it ever was)
  Broken and battered
  Saturday calls behind the sun
  (Come on, come on, come and have some fun!)
  Clock out from the same old crowd
  Put down the old life you knew before, and shout!
• Creator Backlash: In-Universe: in "Human", Miki's creator (or creators) was displeased at their creation being unable to fulfill her directives, and apparently abandoned her as a result.
• Creator Breakdown: In-Universe, "Spoken For" details the downwards spiral of Kasane Teto, who has come to loathe her controlling management, her unfulfilling music career that has destroyed her friendships and denied her any kind of personal connection to maintain her perfect image, her soul-draining burnout-inducing routine of doing nothing but performing and practicing, and her obsessive fans who she's not allowed to speak to, but speak for her in wanting more of that soul-draining routine, with her receiving no support for her OCD. As a result, she's turned into a bulimic, possibly-self-harming wreck of a human being who has constant intrusive thoughts and hallucinations about wanton violence and gore. She eventually has a breakdown on stage that may be lethal, possibly to her audience.
• Creator Thumbprint: "Human" is heavy on themes of Trans Tribulations, sweeping progression, orchestral elements, poetic alliteration, and callbacks to previous works — it's definitely a Jamie Paige joint (though ironically, the song was largely written by Vane Lily).
• Crossover: Overlaps with Birthday Episode. In February 2025, the group collaborated with CircusP to create "ELECTRIC WEEKEND ZONE", a song for the Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! English server to celebrate the 19th anniversary of KAITO.
  (on the official page for Electric Weekend Zone) KAITO is the birthday boy baybee!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Deliberately Monochrome: The music video for "Human" is in black and white. At least until the end, where Miki is fully colored, symbolizing her finally becoming human.
• Desperately Craves Affection:
  • The singer of "Water the Roses" just wishes her lover would show some affection, and even just a simple "I love you" is out of her reach.
  • The Miku of "Static", in her words, "just wants to be wanted" — she'll do anything to get back the audience who adored her, putting on an entire routine to try and get anyone who stumbles across her show by accident to stay, even if it means just begging for them to stay a little longer.
  • A more optimistic version happens in "Human": it's clear that the robot singer is NOT getting any attention with the way she is, so she decides to strike out on her own.
• Disco Dan: It's heavily implied that the singer of "Static", the mascot of a kid's show/cartoon, never got with the times and never grew up unlike her audience, choosing to stay in a happy and bright TV land and frightened of growing up. And really, who can blame her?
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: While "Human" is, on the surface, literally about a Robot Girl striving to Become a Real Girl, her desire to change is played with intentional Transgender undertones in mind, given that she defies what she was expected to be to become who she really strives to be on the inside. Jamie Paige, one of the crewmembers who worked on the song, even jokingly referred to Miki's character in the song as transgender.
• Double Meaning:
  • In "Static", the line "I hope you won't be long" is sung in hopes that the viewer returns to the singer to keep them company — but it's also a homophone for "I hope you won't belong", hoping that the viewer will be rejected by a callous world and adulthood and will return to her to be safe and happy forever.
  • "Spoken For" has four:
    • Teto angrily addresses a "you" as an obsessive, corrupting influence forcing her to be a perfect idol even as it destroys her sanity; it both refers to her self-loathing and derealization as she realises she no longer knows who she is, and is a shot at obsessive music fans and record company executives who force their idols into impossible ideals and then turn on them the moment they do something they don't like.
    • "Puking my guts out almost hourly" refers to Stress Vomit (which is a symptom of panic attacks and OCD, which, according to invokedWord of God, is what Teto hasinvoked) and bulimia — many famous pop singers develop eating disorders to stay fashionably thin.
    • The line "shaving the numbers off this fucking body" refers to three things: "shaving numbers" as in losing weight (numbers on a weighing scale) for her popstar appearance, cutting, and Teto's original UTAU character design having numbers tattooed on her, which were removed for her SynthV appearance.
    • Right before she snaps, Teto belts out "Baby, make me something 'fore I get that call" — while the implication it's an urge to die or kill are there ("call of the void" is another term for suicidal ideation), it's also a reference to getting fired (as in, called into the office to get fired).
  • In "Ego Renegade Boy", Rin says "It'd all be so simple if only I weren't there" because "she" doesn't want to exist, while Len puts execution methods in front of the same line to mean "It'd be pretty convenient for you if I would just shut up and die, but I'm not going anywhere."
• Double-Meaning Title:
  • As described in the official annotations, "BUTCHER VANITY" can be interpreted as "a butcher who is vain" or "butchering (chopping up) vanity".
  • "Static" can either refer to TV static, fitting with the song's old-TV and classic cartoons aesthetic, or to something staying the same, referring to the song's themes of nostalgia, abandonment, and wanting to stay forever in a happier past.
  • "Spoken For" refers to both the fact its singer is an Idol Singer who is a Slave to PR and has had all autonomy stripped away by her management and fans to become the perfect idol, as well as the fact that, ultimately, Kasane Teto is a Synthetic Voice Actor who has to be programmed to sing.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Implied in "Spoken For", if not something else: a gunshot is explicitly heard prior to the finale and subtly layered throughout the song of a singer going insane from isolation and stress of having to be the perfect Idol Singer. Prior to the bridge, she confesses she's been having extremely violent visions ("The daze of blood stains, cruel and gory/Visions of violence are overpowering, yeah"). She's also implied to be cutting ("shaving the numbers off this fucking body"). The ending of the music video shows she's disappeared...
  • In the bridge of "Ego Renegade Boy", it's implied that Len would've likely killed himself if he had to keep living as Rin for any longer. He fortunately manages to defy this by transitioning, and seems much happier in the present now that he's found who he really is.
• Dumped via Text Message: "Water the Roses" has AIM message sent/received noises right before the final part of the song shows the singer finally left her lover, heavily implying either she or her lover sent a breakup notice via text.
• Empty Shell: Invoked in "Spoken For", where Teto being forced to perform so many roles and personalities as part of a soul-crushing routine has left her feeling like she's no longer a real person.
• Erotic Eating: Invoked in "rawdog", which makes "eating wieners" puns to round out its themes of gay sex.
• Eyes Always Shut: The singer of "Static" usually keeps her eyes closed, reflecting her unwillingness to see a present and future she is terrified and tired of, as she extols a fun and happy past. It's also implied she's trying not to open her eyes to scare off the viewer that she desperately wants to stay to have some company in her lonely existence, because her eyes are extremely unnerving to look at.
• Flower Motifs:
  • The "real life" portion in "Static" shows sunflowers and cherry blossoms. Sunflowers represent longevity and loyalty, while cherry blossoms represent the shortness of human lives. In the context of the song, it represents the singer's desperation to ease her loneliness and return to a happy past (best represented in her insisting on staying in her old-timey kids' show), while the cherry blossoms represent everyone else growing up and moving on.
  • "Water the Roses", befitting its title, also uses flower language: much of them are about Unrequited Love, faithfulness, misfortune, and bitterness, in keeping with the theme of a disintegrating relationship. Of note is that two roses mean a mutual relationship, but in the music video, there is only one rose, symbolising how one-sided the love is, and the fully-bloomed rose is placed over GUMI's soon-to-be-ex as their relationship disintegrates — the love is blooming, but into something negative. Doubling as Visual Pun are the ivies, lillies, and yew, which share the same first letters as "I love you". These flowers are also poisonous, representing the dying relationship.
• Follow the Bouncing Ball: As part of the song's constant Mood Whiplash, the MV for "rawdog" has a cartoon pawprint Bouncing Ball on the lyric "You know you really piss me off!" and nowhere else.
• Foreshadowing: While Rin is also a singer on "Ego Renegade Boy", she's only listed in the description and is completely omitted from the title and only gets a small mention in the website. All of this sets up the fact that Rin doesn't exist in this song...well, not anymore, at least.
• Former Friends Photo: "Spoken For" shows Teto kept a photo of her, Defoko, and Momone Momo, fellow UTAU who were among the first UTAU released and were heavily associated with Teto prior to "Triple Baka". They used to perform together, but after Teto becomes mega-famous and is chosen to be an idol over the other two, the photo is shown ripped to only show Teto.
• Genre Mashup: "Static", befitting its tribute to a variety of cartoons and the wildness of childhood fantasies and kitsch, is a mix of Japanese Pop Music, old-timey cartoon/circus/theme park orchestras, poppy edutainment songs for preschoolers you'd see on something like Nick Jr., Chiptune and video game music (especially that of the early-PS2/Dreamcast and Saturn/PS1 eras), polka, Gospel Music, and Jersey Club.
• Genre Throwback:
  • "Static" invokes a lot of classic cartoons and kids shows, befitting its themes of childhood nostalgia and trying to escape a tragic adulthood — its art style is in the vein of Hanna-Barbera and creators inspired by them (like Lauren Faust and Craig McCracken), its Audience Participation and repetitive, simplistic chorus invokes famous pre-schooler cartoons like Dora the Explorer, the singer's dancing is fluid like older Disney works and exaggerated like Nickelodeon cartoons, and Happy Circus Music invoking circuses and carnivals, primarily aimed at kids. Part of its Genre Mashup includes chiptunes and retro-style game music based on The '90s and Turn of the Millennium, and silly polka that would be on wacky cartoons, kids' shows, or zany kid-friendly singers like "Weird Al" Yankovic.
  • "CONNECT:COMMUNE" is heavily inspired by late 2000s VOCALOID electronic/pop songs like "Saihate"; fitting, as it's for Miku's anniversary and celebrates the VOCALOID community as a whole.
  • "Ego Renegade Boy" invokes the fast-paced musical style of popular Japanese Vocaloid songs from the early to mid 2010s, especially the pop-rock songs like Roki. Its title mimics the naming scheme of rerulili's "Boy/Girl" series of songs, and the video's art is by Arusechika, whose illustrations were featured in several well-known PVs in the vocal synth scene.
• Glory Days: "Static"'s singer can't move past her childhood fame or that the audience of her show have long outgrown her, and is reduced to begging that anyone still watching just repeat her happy childhood show so she doesn't have to grow up in a world that is unhappy.
• Going Postal: Implied in "Spoken For", if it's not just offing herself. The Idol Singer confesses she's been having extremely violent visions ("The daze of blood stains, cruel and gory/Visions of violence are overpowering, yeah") as a result of insane pressure and stress from her fans and her record company causing massive derealisation. There are several gunshot noises layered throughout the track, and one explicit one before the bridge. In the music video, after Teto's breakdown is finished, the concert hall is shown to be empty, and she's nowhere to be seen...
• Gospel Revival Number: Invoked: "Static" shifts into a Gospel Music number, complete with heavenly organ, when Miku bemoans a Hellishly tiring/frightening world. Given it's about Miku sermonizing about an idealized heaven -- that is, the past, and to follow her gospel in repeating the Glory Days of the past, it's fitting.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: "BUTCHER VANITY" mixes Chinese phrases in with its English lyrics, as does "炜WARD ROMANCE", both invoking Chinese stereotypes and locations — in the latter case, Hong Kong or Shanghai.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: The singer of "Human" yearns to be human, in defiance of her programming - this apparently was what caused her to be abandoned by her creator, though the alternate reading implies she desired to be human after being unable to fulfill her original directives.
• Growing Up Sucks: One major theme of "Static" is a frantic and frightening world of adulthood vs. a happy, fun-filled childhood, exemplified in a children's mascot, terrified of the modern world and long forgotten by an audience that has grown up and forgotten about her, begging the viewer to stay with her in a place that doesn't suck:
  The world you know, always running to and fro
  A frightful place to be/A tiring place indeed
  But don’t be scared, I’m not going anywhere!
  So (please) just don’t touch the dial and stay here a while with me!
  [...]
  Never growing older, never growing colder
  Always be together, now and for forever...
• Firing Day: In "Spoken For", the least grim Double Meaning of "Baby, make me something 'fore I get that call" is that it's not just a call of the void, but getting called to get fired for not meeting her company's (and fans') ludicrously exacting expectations.
• Happier Home Movie: Invoked with "Static", the MV of which is stylised as a taped recording of old-timey kids' shows and kids' cartoons as the singer extols a happier childhood. It's implied the singer herself is stuck in a home taping of the kids' show/cartoon she was in, and refuses to leave because Growing Up Sucks. There's a portion of the music video where it switches to calm scenes of real-life nature, which further implies a home recording.
• Happy Circus Music: Parts of "Static" are patterned after circus music to invoke happy childhood memories.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: "Spoken For" has Teto declare herself to be "so pathetic" as she laments being alone, cracking under stress as she confesses she has violent thoughts, has developed an eating disorder, is cutting herself, and despising the fans and management that fame had brought her... fame she wanted.
• Horrible Hollywood: A music industry version in "Spoken For": Kasane Teto is a mega-famous and well-loved idol! It only cost everything: her freedom (gotta get up every day at an ungodly hour for another pointless concert for pointless fans!), her friends (it's shown she used to be friends with fellow idols until she was chosen to be her company's moneymaker, driving them away — additionally, a line implies her record label isolates her from any kind of fan interaction), her health (she's developed an eating disorder to stay fashionably thin and is implied to be cutting herself from stress and dysmorphia), and then her sanity as she starts screaming inside that she's so lonely, suffering from horrifically violent visions of death and gore, and is about to snap...
• Horror Hunger: "BUTCHER VANITY" is all about Yi Xi's desire to kill and eat people, with numerous Biblical references thrown in alongside descriptions of cannibalism and Gorn. Yi Xi herself is drawn smiling or grinning grotesquely when she's not making cheerful little emoticons.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: "BUTCHER VANITY" turns the tables on Yi Xi by having the song end on the implication someone just targeted her for their next meal ("I'm still praying, hopeless and in vain", sung less triumphantly than the rest of the song). The music video shows Yi Xi strung up for slaughter at the end.
• Idiot Hair: The video for "HUMAN" gives Miki this, emphasizing her naïvety and curiosity in the human world.
• Ignoring by Singing: "Static" shows the singer is continuously repeating her song to block out the fact she's trapped in a record, she's no longer famous, and/or that she's incredibly lonely after her audience has outgrown her and moved on to an adult world that scares and wears her out.
• I Just Want to Be Loved:
  • "Static" revolves around a kid's cartoon mascot who is heavily implied to have been long left behind by her audience, now grown, leaving her alone and scared in a world that isn't kind to people, and in turn just wants to make people happy.
    When you go, just don’t change the channel
    I hope you won’t be long
    After all, I want to be wanted
    Is that so wrong?
  • "Water the Roses"'s singer grows increasingly desperate for her lover to make some kind of romantic gesture, to the point she's desperate to hear even a basic "I love you".
• I'm a Humanitarian: "BUTCHER VANITY" revolves around this, with the song's narrator describing her desire to cannibalize the person she's singing to.
  They worship patience, a virtue
  Oh, they tell me gluttony’s a sin
  But my desire, it’s bottomless
  I wanna slit your throat and eat ‘till I get sick!
• Inelegant Blubbering:
  • The final shot of GUMI in the "Water the Roses" MV is — after spending the rest of the video slowly tearing up — openly sobbing as her now-ex has completely left her behind.
  • Mixed with Tender Tears: Miki is coded to sound like she's crying during the bridge in "Human" as her lament of being abandoned and being stuck in the past reaches a climax, before she leaves her past, creator, and fears behind for a brighter future.
• Intercourse with You:
  • In case the title didn't spoil it for you, "rawdog" is very explicitly about a dysfunctional gay couple having messy hate sex, complete with petplay references and BDSM undertones.
  • The theme of "Queen of Venus", a song about a lesbian Robot Girl yearning for love, straight-up says it:
    Oh, Queen of Venus, let me in
    Where one will end and two begin
    I find my home upon your skin
    So come and fuck away my sin
  • It's not as explicit as the others, but "炜WARD ROMANCE" is still about trying to entice the target of the singer's affections into having a smoky, passionate tryst.
  • "BUTCHER VANITY" likens a possessing, all-consuming lust to hungry, bloody cannibalism — and vice versa.
• Japanese Ranguage: The way Adachi Rei sings in "Queen of Venus". Justified considering her voicebank has no English support so the producers had to blend different Japanese kana to make it sound like she was speaking English.
• Karmic Death: After butchering her lover(s) and eating her fill, Yi Xi herself gets strung up for slaughter at the end of "BUTCHER VANITY", left "praying, hopeless and in vain" right before she gets butchered in kind.
• Lighter and Softer: Two for their unnamed album, and one for Cardiac Contrepoint:
  • "Human" is far lighter than the previous two songs in both content and composition — "Static" is a dark Analog Horror-esque lament of a White-Dwarf Starlet chasing her childhood glory to avoid her awful present and "Spoken For" is a uncanny J-Pop song about the abuse-induced Sanity Slippage of a pop idol that's implied to end in a murder-suicide, but "Human" is an indie rock song with a bright orchestra about an abandoned robot shedding her fears and trauma to become human.
  • "CONNECT:COMMUNE" is a Genre Throwback and Homage to various Vocaloid-powered electronic-pop celebrating the VOCALOID community as a whole.
  • "ELECTRIC WEEKEND ZONE" is an upbeat EDM number about a burnt-out office worker partying his stress away, sandwiched between a song about a lovestruck cannibal and a disintegrating relationship.
• Lonely at the Top: "Spoken For" shows its Idol Singer protagonist rose from being an obscure singer to massively famous — but besides it destroying her sanity and health, it also destroyed her relationships: when Teto is selected to be a famous mascot, her fellow singers Defoko and Momone Momo are visibly disappointed, and the photo of the three of them is torn. The lyrics also imply her record company doesn't let her interact with any of her fans, who can only put her on a pedestal and idolise her as she tears herself apart.
• Lyric Swap: In "Spoken For", "I can't read the messages, they come so quickly" from the second chorus is replaced with "I CAN'T READ THE MESSAGES, THEY COME SO SLOWLY" in the last chorus.
• Lyrical Dissonance:
  • "BUTCHER VANITY" is an upbeat, ass-kicking tune about a yandere committing cannibalism.
  • "Static" is a throwback to classic cartoons and kids shows and other kid-friendly songs, like something you'd hear at a carnival or Theme Parks — happy-go-lucky idealistic kids' stuff that is completely at odds with its themes of being left behind by now-adult friends in a world that's going crazy and desperately wanting some kind of connection to an idealised past.
  • "Spoken For" is a cheery J-Pop joint one might hear in a Nintendo game from the Turn of the Millennium. It's about an Idol Singer having a massive breakdown over being forced to be the perfect idol celeb everyone loves and adores at the cost of her autonomy (she's forced to perform almost non-stop daily), relationships (the music video shows she was friends with fellow singers, who she has now torn out from her photo), health (it's heavily implied she's bulimic to stay acceptably thin, as well as cutting herself as a result of the stress and body dysphoria), and is either about to kill herself or kill everyone around her (if her constant intrusive thoughts about bloody, gory violence and the subtle gunshots are anything to go by).
  • "Water the Roses" is a peppy, folky song whose lyrics are about a couple falling out of love and breaking up (complete with Gumi being driven to tears by it in the video).
  • For lighter fare, "Weathergirl", reflecting on an Unrequited Love and mixed signals, is a melancholy "will we or won't we" somewhat at odds with the City Pop/breakcore song itself.
• The Masochism Tango: "rawdog" focuses on a couple who fucking hate each other but can't help but love, too — to the point their lovemaking hurts just as bad as them fighting.
• Meaningful Name: The reason for the bands name being "FLAVOR FOLEY" is that each song is a different flavor for the corresponding albums main theme. For example, "CARDIAC CONTREPOINT" focuses on different flavors of love.
• Mercy Kill: Len in "Ego Renegade Boy" implies his choice in the matter was to either put Rin out of her misery or live pretending he saw nothing. He ultimately chose the former.
• Multiple Reference Pun: The character "炜" in the title of "炜WARD ROMANCE" can be translated to "glow" or "burn" and is romanized as "wei", meaning that the title is pronounced "Wayward Romance" and has two additional meanings.
  炜-ward, as in a romance that moves towards the glowing lights (like forward, homeward, etc)
  炜 ward, with “ward” meaning “neighborhood”, as in a romance within, or with, the glowing city.

  — FLAVOR FOLEY FILES entry for "炜WARD ROMANCE"
• Mundane Horror:
  • While the video for "Static" uses Analog Horror tropes, it never leads into the usual cliches of Analog Horror like Jump Scares or evil kids' mascots trying to eat the viewer's soul — the only horror involved is the very real fear of growing up and being left alone in a frightening, unfamiliar world that's moving faster than you can ever hope to keep up with.
  • "Spoken For" turns the abusive relationship between celebrities, management, and fans and the way it chews people up and spits them out into horror, especially as Teto cheerfully reveals she's been having non-stop hallucinations and fantasies about murder and gore. That's on top of gunshot noises being placed through the song, either for herself or for everyone else.
• Non-Human Head: The subject of Gumi's character's affections in "Water the Roses" is drawn with a flower for a head, symbolising that she doesn't even know who her lover is anymore.
• Nostalgia Filter: Invoked in "Static" — the kid's cartoon mascot is stuck in the past, frightened by a brutal, unstable world and having to be an adult in such a Godawful world. She idolises and represents that past, a happy carefree mascot in a happy carefree world of color and cheer where the fun never ends, you'll never get old, and you'll never be hurt. It's further implied she willingly trapped herself in a broadcast to avoid the modern day world, finding it "frightening" and "tiring".
  "Don't you find it all romantic, the way things used to be?"
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • "Static"'s music video plays up its Analog Horror trappings as if it's working up to a Jump Scare or its evil demonic cartoon being threatening the viewer, such as a section of the song where there's a static-filled gap between the lyrics and the MV background is pitch-black before Miku moves close to the camera — but they never pay off, and instead tell a different kind of scary story about being left behind by the world and how Growing Up Sucks.
  • "Spoken For"'s music video ends on an empty concert hall where Teto just had a massive breakdown. Given she sang about having intrusive thoughts of violence and several gunshot noises are subtly (and not-so-subtly) placed through the song, the implications are there, but never stated.
• Playful Cat Smile: Miki's smile at the end of "Human" is depicted as a warm and even playful ":3", playing into her evolving past her code and cold robotic logic to become a human filled with emotion.
• The Perfectionist: The singer of "Spoken For" is an Idol Singer who has to do everything perfectly — because she'll be torn apart by her fans and her record label if she isn't, even though it's costing Teto her sanity, her health, friendships, and anything resembling a personal life. The music video shows she's getting up earlier and earlier for performances as her schedule gets longer and longer. invokedWord of God says that the song, which includes references to violent visions, compulsive perfection, obsessive routine, and massive self-hatred is Teto having an OCD-induced breakdown.
  "kasane teto having an ocd meltdown while the midi cuica noise has been playing every two beats for the past minute"
• Please, Don't Leave Me:
  • The lyrics of "Water the Roses" starts off as this trope but slowly gets inverted as the song progresses, symbolising how GUMI is accepting the fact that the love of her and her partner is long dead.
  • "Static" is about a cartoon character unable to accept how her show is no longer on the air, is stuck in obsolete technology, and her audience having grown up, leaving her behind. Several of the frames have her nervously staring at the viewer, as if hoping they won't leave. Her dance during the "Panic! In static! Out-manic!" portion of the song is flag semaphore spelling out "DON'T GO".
    Always be together, fair and stormy weather
    Never growing older, never growing colder
    Always be together, now and for forever
    evereverevereverevereverever-
  • The finale of "Spoken For" is Teto begging for someone, ANYONE to not forget her and leave her in her isolation.
• Pointless Band-Aid: Subverted. In the music video for "Ego Renegade Boy", the white bandage on Len's face might seem like it was added for Rule of Cool, but it's actually covering a cut on Rin's face—in other words, transitioning literally gave him a chance to heal.
• Polka Dork: "Static" features kitschy, cartoony polka as part of its Genre Mashup — fitting for its out-of-touch Disco Dan cartoon mascot clinging to her Glory Days and her wacky cartoons that were supposedly better back then.
• Precision F-Strike: "Spoken For" has the singer, a pitch-perfect Idol Singer pressured into never doing anything that could shatter her facade of being perfect and is consequently derealizing and on the verge of a violent breakdown, drop three very pointed f-bombs — one to herself as she worries she'll be "boring" to her fans, her fans and herself as she cries she's "pathetic" for being trapped, one to her own body as she implies she's cutting herself due to dysphoria and stress. invoked
• Psychological Projection: It's implied Miku's "don't be scared, I'm not going anywhere" reassurance to the viewer is really more an attempt to reassure herself, given of how terrified she is of adulthood and the 'real world' in all its shittiness and/or how she's trapped (willingly or otherwise) in her show.
• Pun-Based Title: "炜WARD ROMANCE": The "炜" in the title is "Wei", making it "Wei-ward Romance", a.k.a "Wayward Romance".
• Queer Romance:
  • "rawdog", a song about a gay couple's intense hate for each other and the equally as intense sex that results from it.
  • "Queen of Venus", a song about a Robot Girl yearning for her lesbian lover.
  • "Water the Roses" depicts the distant lover as a woman, as is the singer.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: Despite a lot of sorrow and still hurt by her relationship dissolving, the singer of "Water the Roses" expresses hope that she'll find a new love that grows and lasts instead of withering away.
• Rewind, Replay, Repeat: Invoked in "Static", per its theme of trying to repeat childhood to block out adulthood and all its agony — its chorus loops in on itself seamlessly and becomes increasingly repetitive until the finale is a speedy loop as if the singer was trying to sing away unhappy thoughts, the lyrics talk about going back to ones' past, and the music video is stylised to seem like it's a home taping of someone's favourite childhood show.
  This is how it should be, in studio seats
  My ego wired in the CRT!
  We can skip the sign-off, ol’ familiar scene!
  Repeating, "This is how it should be!"
• Retraux: The group's second album revolves around nostalgia.
  • "Static" is deliberately made to invoke nostalgia for classic kids' media (particularly how it was from The '90s to the Turn of the Millennium), from the song having a simple, easily singable melody to the MV taking a lot of visual inspiration from Hanna-Barbera and early Cartoon Network shows.
  • "Spoken For" mimics the style of rhythm games from Turn of the Millennium and The New '10s — mainly, Rhythm Heaven — and other cute-n-cheery Japanese games from the same time, while rereferring to social media around the same time — namely, Nico Nico Douga. The song uses a reoccuring cuica drum (the "hoo" noise), which was very popular in a lot of tech-related jingles (such as Microsoft's system noises) in The '90s.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: "Human" depicts Miki's human creator (or at least one of her creators) as a photorealistic hand as compared to the superdeformed sketch of Miki, contrasting their relationship: he was human in ways Miki could not be.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • "Spoken For" taking inspiration from the artstyle of Rhythm Heaven features a "Go for a Perfect!" in the corner, reinforcing the point that Teto has to keep up her "perfect" idol image. Said marker also blips whenever Teto poses, implying she's only being controlled by the "player" and only in this position because said player wants her to be. Notably, the "Go for a Perfect!" message never disappears no matter how unwell Teto becomes, indicating that they count as legitimate moves to help keep her career afloat.
  • "Ego Renegade Boy" uses the ACT 1 Rin voice bank in key points of the song in addition to the V4X Len voice bank. Similarly, while Rin is alluded to in the "About the Vocalist" section of the song's webpage, focus is put only on Len's name and character in the credits. Both of these moves match with the transgender themes of the song, as they are treated as the same vocalist at different stages in life; ACT 1, a discontinued voice bank, represents Len prior to transition, and V4X represents Len as he is now. The webpage even helpfully points out that the ACT 1 vocals have been retired while the V4X vocals are still in use.
    • In addition, Rin as seen in the song has a cut on "her" cheek that isn't visible until the latter half of the song, when Len looks in the mirror and when Rin's photos are updated to include the scar. Len himself has a bandage over the same spot, implying he treated himself and that no one else in his life realized Rin was hurt until after "she" died.
• Sanity Slippage: "Spoken For" depicts the slow breakdown of Teto Kasane, an Idol Singer who has had her life ruined by becoming a mega-popular idol singer: it's ruined her friendships, ruined her health (she's developed bulimia to keep her physique and is implied to be cutting herself), ruined her freedom (she can't do anything but get up at 5 AM and practice for the next pointless concert), and ruined her psyche to the point she no longer knows who she is anymore. She confesses she has extremely gory and bloody visions — combined with subtle and not-so-subtle gunshot noises, along with a psychotic break on-stage in the music video that ends in an empty concert, the implications are not pleasant.
• Self-Harm: "Spoken For" implies Teto has resorted to bulimia to keep up her perfect appearance ("puking my guts out almost hourly") and that she cuts herself due to body dysphoria and insane stress ("Shaving off the numbers of this fucking body").
• Shout-Out:
  • The MV for "BUTCHER VANITY" references a lot of media about eating and/or meat, with Yi Xi assuming poses based off Laios, "Saturn Devouring His Son", the "shaking blorbo in my mouth like a dog" meme, and the cover of To Strip the Flesh, among others.
  • "rawdog" samples audio from Mario Paint and Jerma985.
  • "Static":
    • Its animation style is based on Hanna-Barbera and two cartoonists who were heavily inspired by Hanna-Barbera, Lauren Faust and Craig McCracken. One of the shots is the exterior and treeline of the Powerpuff house.
    • Another of the backgrounds is that of the original picture that inspired the Backrooms.
    • It takes inspirational themes from "Mesmerizer", another song sung by Miku about escaping into a cartoony and bright unreality to escape a cold and cruel reality that chewed up and spat out the singer, at the cost of deluding themselves into thinking escapism will solve any of their problems. Like "Mesmerizer", the MV for "Static" features non-verbal Bilingual Bonuses (ASL and morse code in "Mesmerizer", flag semaphore for "Static") that convey distress and despair, Easter Eggs hinting at a wider and grimmer story, and a generally melancholic tone despite the peppy tune. They also have MVs designed to mimic the style of kids' shows, with "Static" drawing from old cartoons while "Mesmerizer" is more evocative of live-action variety programs.
    • A sample is taken from Osomatsu-san of the Matsuno brothers saying "Kore de ii no da!",^note variously translated as "That's the way!" or "That's the way it should be!"; the phrase is what "This is how it should be" is translated to in the Japanese subtitles which itself references Tensai Bakabon from the same author, Fujio Akatsuka. Both Osomatsu-san's predecessor, Osomatsu-kun and Tensai Bakabon are fondly remembered kids' anime and manga in Japan. Several hidden frames hide the color scheming of the six main characters. The Japanese subtitles emphasise certain characters that partially spell out the Matsunos' names. Osomatsu-san featured a a very grim episode dealing with the brothers growing up and falling out into less-than-ideal circumstances, with the titular character stuck in the past, left behind by his brothers after having numerous arguments with them, and reduced to sadly lurking in the house his brothers used to be in, all alone. His brothers don't fare much better, ranging from working a dead-end job to being homeless. Osomatsu-san itself is about the formerly child sextuplets in the modern day going through the growing pains of adulthood and their reluctance to move on, and one running subplot is about the fall from grace of Iyami, the former Breakout Character of Osomatsu-kun whom is desperately clinging to his glory days. Osomatsu-san also sparked backlash from fans who preferred the original series they knew in their childhood — a preference for older media that isn't far off from the theme of the song...
    • It samples El Chavo del ocho, a Mexican kids' show wildly known in Latin America and wildly nostalgic for a lot of Latin Americans. Part of its gimmick is casting adults as children and an implication of Never Grew Up — adding to the implication the singer is a self-aware 'adult' who still wants to be a kid forever.
  • "Spoken For":
    • The MV is drawn and animated identically to Rhythm Heaven, tying into its themes of having to be perfectly in lock-step with what her record label and adoring public demands. It also features several other series hallmarks, such as the "Try Again", "Ok" and "Superb" ratings and the "P: Go for a Perfect!" text during Teto's concert, which itself is styled after the "Fan Club" rhythm game from the DS game and Megamix.
    • The "messages" that Teto receives on the big screen are identical to the ones from Nico Nico Douga, where comments are spammed across the video — further tying into Teto's grief that she can't see anything people tell her, because it's all one chaotic morass of people telling her to be more like this or that.
    • Teto's snapping is done similarly to Miku snapping in "Mesmerizer", with a similar buildup of dread, self-loathing, and a wish to escape resulting in Teto's eyes going blank and dancing frantically, similar to Miku after she's mesmerized.
  • "Ego Renegade Boy" features a sample of Zenos yae Galvus saying "The power to transcend" as Len challenges his judges to say how they knew Rin.
• Slave to PR: "Spoken For" is titled for a reason — everything Kasane Teto does is tightly controlled and monitored (like real-life Asian Idol Singers and pop stars in general), so even though she's sacrificing her health and sanity for her fans, she doesn't get any fan mail or interaction from them because her management disallows it. It's implied what fanmail does come through is just demands for her to perform more and more.
• Spiritual Antithesis:
  • "Spoken For" addresses the opposite issue to the previous song of the second album, "Static". In the latter, Miku is a washed-up has-been who used to be popular and is desperate for somebody to see and hear her again to the point of secretly wishing for the audience to fail in their outside life so they'll come back to her. In the former, Teto is a massive star, which means she's forced to be this-or-that at the expense of her physical, emotional and mental health ending only once she's pushed off the edge into an implied violent breakdown. Miku suffers because she's forgotten and alone and begs for a return to a routine; Teto suffers because she's the center of attention and alone, and her routine is crushing her soul.
  • "Human" uses the same themes of the preceding songs: "Static"'s abandonment, a wish to return to a happier past and the routine that came with it, and wanting to be wanted, and "Spoken For"'s feeling of entrapment by way of social pressure and hatred of a routine. But whereas the other two songs end on a downer note as Miku is doomed to forever beg someone to keep her company out of a refusal to move on, and Teto offs herself and/or her audience and lamenting being unable to escape, Miki dedicates herself to moving past her abandonment and entrapment, and succeeds. Teto claiming she's doomed to this routine because it's her purpose and she can't fail - Miki, on the other hand, will happily accept being a failure if it means being true to herself. Like Spoken For, it addresses a "you" negatively, but whereas Teto can only rage at the audience and her management for making her suffer, Miki chooses to forgive and forget her creator(s) to climb out of her suffering. Additionally, while Miku and Teto are smiling in their songs' thumbnails on YouTube and the official site, Miki is frowning - and it eventually turns into a genuinely happy smile at the end.
• Slasher Smile: Yi Xi sports several variants of a hungry, unhinged, and cruel grin as she sings about cannibalizing the target of her affections, but the one she's most associated with is a happy emoticon of a hungry, drooling smile as she takes a bite: ^q^.
• Stealth Pun: Often mixed with Visual Pun:
  • The MV for "Water the Roses" shows GUMI and her lover as torn paper cut outs, and as the MV progresses, GUMI is closer and closer to tears until she's finally openly sobbing in the end. In other words, GUMI and her lover are torn apart, and GUMI is tearing up.
  • "Spoken For" has Teto's eyes turn into dazed spirals when she snaps — this is at the climax of a song all about spiraling down into a breakdown.
  • "Human" represents Miki's owner/creator (or at least one of her creators) as a photorealistic human hand - he was human in ways Miki cannot be, literally.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • The singer of "Static" is an apparently impossibly happy kids' show mascot who wants you to have fun, constantly singing and dancing. It becomes clear that it's an act and that's she's desperately lonely and scared of an awful reality and having to come to age in that awfulness.
  • "Spoken For" flips the switch by being from the point of view from an Idol Singer who is pressured into being perfect and doing so many different roles and songs that she no longer has any idea who she really is, just that she's miserable, lonely, and Self Harming herself to meet her adoring fans' expectations. She also harbors seriously violent thoughts and secretly fucking hates her fans for unwittingly contributing to her misery.
• Stress Vomit: Teto sings she's "puking her guts out almost hourly" in "Spoken For" and gets nauseous every afternoon, presumably prior to a performance. Aside from implying she's bulimic, it's due to the insane amount of pressure she's receiving from her management and her fans to be perfect.
• Subverted Kids' Show:
  • Invoked with "Static", which uses Analog Horror trappings and a theme of a trapped, apparently malicious mascot — but the mascot is genuine in trying to get the viewer to give her some company and sadly knows they'll leave in the end, but never forcing them to stay or doing any harm. She just wants to be wanted in a cold and cruel world.
  • "Spoken For" is a happy-looking Rhythm Heaven segment, bright and colourful. The song itself is anything but, about an Idol Singer about to have a violent breakdown and/or commit suicide due to enormous pressure from her fans and her record company that control her every move and have reduced her to a wreck of a human being, with the implication that they'll turn on her the moment she does something that isn't "perfect".
• Suddenly Shouting: "Spoken For" does it thrice:
  • The first is her screaming at herself to "WAKE UP", with the time on her clock showing she's up at 5 AM for her exhausting routine when she doesn't want to do it anymore.
  • The second is her angrily shouting "GET FUCKED" soon after, describing what she thinks of her routine, her fans, her bosses, and herself as her self-worth spirals.
  • The finale suddenly has the subtitles/lyrics in ALL CAPS. Even though Teto physically doesn't raise her voice, inside she just hit a fever pitch of derealisation and nihilism:
  I CAN'T HEAR THE MESSAGES, THEY JUST DON'T LET ME
  I CAN'T BEAR THE SOLITARY, DON'T FORGET ME
  I CAN'T READ THE MESSAGES, THEY COME SO SLOWLY
  I DON'T KNOW A SINGLE THING AND I'M SO LONELY
  I DON'T GET THE MESSAGES, THEY DON'T COME TO ME
  EVERYTHING THAT I CAN SAY IS SPOKEN FOR ME, YEAH
  • The Twitter announcement leading up to the release of "Spoken For" also has Teto posting in ALL CAPS after tearfully begging any fan (if they actually exist, as her management doesn't let her interact with her fans) to just please say something, ANYTHING...
• Sugar Bowl: Invoked twice:
  • "Static"'s cartoon show is brightly colored, cutesy, and whimsical, with a perpetually cheery and dancing mascot and a romantic view of older kids' media — which contrasts against the mascot's fear of the adult world and the implication she's trapped and alone.
  • "Spoken For" is a cute Nintendo-esque animation in the vein of Rhythm Heaven and other cutesy Nintendo games, with pastel colors and a Super-Deformed Teto who's dressed like a fashionable J-Pop starlet... who sings about how she's so broken by the non-stop pressure to be a star to the point she's about to have a violent breakdown.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: After the despair of "Static" and "Spoken For" (the latter of which is implied to end in a murder/suicide/murder-suicide), "Human" ends on a high note as the singer rejects her programming to become a human and make her own meaning and purpose in life.
• Symploce: In "BUTCHER VANITY":
  To snap the sinew, I want
  To get within you, I want
  To not forgive you
  Rigor mortis, mold and mildew
• Symbolic Censored Eyes: "Water the Roses" places a rose over the face of the singer's lover, showing how GUMI doesn't even know who her lover is like, let alone if they actually love her.
• Symbolic Distance: The music video for "Water the Roses" shows a gap slowly widening between GUMI and her lover until her lover is completely off-screen. The song itself says the singer's lover is away for longer and longer periods of time, triggering the events of the song.
• Take That!:
  • A friendly rib — "Electric Weekend Zone" depicts KAITO helping out the various broken people of Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! as an annoying 9-to-5 job.
  • "Spoken For" is far less friendly: it depicts an Idol Singer going insane from the massive pressure of her record label and her fans. Even as she confesses that she's developed an eating disorder, started harming herself, has begun having hallucinations of gory violence, has pushed away her only friends, and no longer has any idea of who she is because she's playing Miss Perfect Idol for the fans, the fans blindly eat it up because it's done "perfectly" — with the implication that the minute she seems less than perfect, they'll all turn on her. This is a common issue with pop singers, especially Idol Singers in Asia, and a general shot at pop music, idol culture, and general parasocial "Stan"dom.
• Tender Tears: The pre-climax of "Human" deliberately tunes Miki to sound like she's crying as she lets go of her past, programming, and her one-sided love of her creator to become human, or at least start her journey into it.
• That Man Is Dead: "Ego Renegade Boy" revolves around this; with Len's parents accusing him of "killing" Rin by transitioning, he leans into it and portrays the scene as a murder case with Rin as the victim and himself as the escaped killer while calling them out on how they didn't care about his feelings until he transitioned and couldn't tell he was on the verge of suicide, making it clear that Rin would be dead by the end of the day and that this is by and large the happier ending for everyone involved.
• Trans Tribulations:
  • Invoked: "Human" implies that some of the singer's woes are due to having to perform gender roles, but it's not explicitly stated; the singer's lament IS framed in a way that reflects someone being forced to perform gender roles they don't want, and the creator of the singer possibly having abandoned her due to her failure to follow her programming evokes a parent disowning a trans child. Jamie Paige is trans, after all.
  • A more straightforward case in "Ego Renegade Boy", which theorizes that Len's parents aren't happy about him being a trans boy, with Len likening it to police trying to capture a criminal (Len) who just murdered a lone girl (his pre-transition self, played by Rin). He even calls them out for pretending to care about "the girl" after her "death" when they didn't bother to notice how badly "the girl" was suffering beforehand — in real life, parents often accuse trans teens of getting the idea to transition on a whim because they don't or can't realize how their child had been struggling with gender dysphoria.
• Troubled Fetal Position: The last pre-chorus of "Static" shows its version of Miku curled up in a ball in a sea of nothingness. only turning around to show her frozen in fear, after she confesses she hopes the viewer won't leave her forever and that she just wanted to be wanted.
• Uncanny Valley:
  • The singer of "Static" has eyes that are very dead-looking and are in a more realistic style than the rest of her when opened, and it's implied she's aware of this and is trying to keep them shut to not scare off any viewers that could ease her loneliness. A Freeze-Frame Bonus shows her in a more realistic style with a wide-eyed stare, which is a stark contrast with the cartoony visuals.
  • When Teto snaps in "Spoken For", she goes right back to smiling. It'd look normal, if it weren't for the extreme closeup, the obviously fake smile, and cold, dead eyes.
  • Yi Xi's Slasher Smiles that aren't literal emoticons are drawn off - they look grotesque even in the animesque art style, which is fitting for a monstrous cannibal.
• Unrequited Love:
  • "Weathergirl" focuses on the singer having an unrequited crush, and being unsure if they'll return it with her efforts — after all, the wind blows one way one day and another the next.
  • "Water the Roses" depicts a relationship slowly falling apart because one side of the couple starts growing more and more distant despite the singer's distress, hoping in vain that the singer's other half will at least say "I love you". It doesn't take.
  • A possibly platonic version with Miki and her creator in "Human"; much of the song is grieving about disappeared moments she can only relive in memory, and it's implied these moments were mostly about her creator, who is implied to have rejected her for her being unable to fulfill her purpose.
• Visual Pun: Doubles with Stealth Pun.
  • "Water the Roses":
    • The singer and her lover are paper drawings who are eventually separated by a tear — literally torn apart.
    • GUMI and her lover are placed further and further apart, distant both physically and emotionally. Eventually, her lover is no longer in the video — she is literally and figuratively out of the picture.
    • GUMI's lover is represented by a rose. Roses usually represent love and have a connotation of blooming — except the relationship is blooming into something far more negative than love.
    • The paper tearing grows more and more pronounced as the relationship gets worse and GUMI grows sadder until she's finally openly sobbing — she's tearing up.
  • "Spoken For" has Teto's eyes turn into spirals when she finally snaps — the entire song is about her spiraling down into a breakdown.
  • "Human" depicts Miki's creator/owner as a photorealistic hand - literally and visually human.
• Vocal Evolution: Miki's voice in "Human" has less synthetic effects as the song progresses.
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • "Spoken For" shows Kasane Teto used to be close friends and singing partners with Defoko and Momone Momo, who were among the first UTAU programs and were heavily associated with Teto when UTAU took off. She kept a photo of them on her mirror. After Teto made it through her record company's additions, Momo and Defoko can be seen looking disappointed in the background — and as Teto's routine grows more tiring and frightening, the same photo is torn up to show only her as she sings about how incredibly alone she is.
  • It's shown that Miki and her creator in "Human" used to be close, and the lyrics imply he had a lot of affection for her before something drove them apart.
• Wham Line:
  • Throughout the entirety of "BUTCHER VANITY", Yi Xi sings about her utterly remorseless desire to cannibalize the person she's singing to, as well as her love of cannibalism in general. However, following a brief Beat at the very end of the song, an unexpected play on the words of her bridge reveal she's not as upbeat as she sounds. The music video emphasizes this by showing her hanging upside down from a butcher's hook, feet impaled through it, implying that the cycle has turned on her and she's bound to be someone else's next meal.
  I'm still preying on a butcher's vein.
  (Beat)
  [I'm] still praying, hopeless and in vain.
  • "Ego Renegade Boy" initially seems to just be Len mocking the audience over murdering Rin and how he gets to walk away from it free, until the bridge makes it fully clear that murder was metaphorical.
  Did you know her? Did you know that heavy heart?
  Did you know her? A fragile ego adorned in scars.
  Did you know her? Did you know the nights spent crying in a voice drawn low?
  Did you know her? If you knew, you'd know I had to let her go.
• When She Smiles: "Human" depicts the Robot Girl protagonist as a Perpetual Frowner as she mulls over her dissatisfaction with the social and gender norms she is forced to play, as well as her apparent abandonment by, and longing for, her human creator. The ending has her blossom into a joyful smile as she opts to her own path to become human in the process.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?:
  • A romantic version — "Water the Roses" kicks off because the singer's lover grows increasingly absent to tend to something else.
  • In a version that's more "creator and maker", the singer of "Human" saw her creator less and less, until she was apparently abandoned. It's implied it's because she was seen as a failure who couldn't fulfill her creator's directives.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: It's implied Miku in "Static" used to be a popular cartoon/show host back in the day, and her obsession with the past and not wanting to grow up is because she wants to be loved by an audience that long left her behind to grow up themselves to a world that scares and wears her out. The music video shows she's broadcasting from/is trapped in is an empty studio, with the implication the "studio seats" she sings about used to be teeming with happy kids.
• Will They or Won't They?: The Central Theme of "Weathergirl" is insecurity over a possibly-unrequited crush, as Eleanor Forte vulnerably sings about how her crush's feelings are up in the air and can change on a whim, trying to find out when's the best time to confess to her crush.
• Wingding Eyes: When Teto snaps in "Spoken For"'s music video, her eyes become spirals — after singing about her entire life spiraling down into a a breakdown.
• Yandere: "BUTCHER VANITY" is about a very strong love — unfortunately for the target of the singer's affections, "love" means cannibalism.
• You Bastard!: "Spoken For" shows Teto's agony is from having to please a record company and her fans that will not let her be anything but a super-awesome mega-cool singer when she's basically killing herself physically and mentally to keep up appearances — a common issue with Idol Singers and music creators (like, say, Flavor Foley themselves) who get thrown in the trash the moment the fans get upset with them, or get hounded to give up their artistic integrity for mainstream appeal. At one point in the song, she addresses "you", and while it's part of her derealization, it's also very pointed:
  And when I rip you out my chest
  Won’t you realize you’re just obsessed?
  [...]
  you make the decision, and that's all i know
• You Can't Fight Fate:
  • Invoked with "Water the Roses" — GUMI knows exactly where the relationship is headed, but can't help but vainly hope that her lover will come back around.
  I guess it can’t be helped
  It’s just a matter of when
  [...]
  What do I do but wait for you?
  • "Human" also invokes it: Miki's creator accepts Miki rejecting her programming, saying it can't be helped in a direct Call-Back to "Water the Roses". Miki can't do anything but obey her programming and social norms, even as she grows sadder and sadder. Unlike "Water the Roses", however, this is ultimately a good thing: Miki entirely sheds her directives to become human.

"I'm still preying on the troper's vein."