You're afraid to be corny, but I was born on the cob

So, Shadow Milk Cookie's corruption involved ripping off his flowing, religious-coded robes, revealing a skintight bodysuit underneath. A skintight bodysuit that, mind you, he looks much happier in.

I’m stuck between wanting to commentate on the inherent queercoded nature of this, and just wanting to call him the word.

( NSFW joke under the cut... continue? )

I looove that Silent Salt isn’t able to see White Lily as separate from Dark Enchantress. It reinforces the flaws that were already established previously, via his treatment of the Virtues.

His beastly traits are that he is ruthlessly unforgiving, and that he dehumanizes others. Silent Salt sees others as their duties and their duties alone — their struggles do not matter.

You know what they say about three times making a pattern. So, if every trial 3 song is going to close with addressing/referencing another character, here are my predictions for who shows up in whose MV:

Kazui: assuming that the addressees are limited to other prisoners, Shidou — but if not, I could see him addressing his wife or the man he was interested in

Amane: Shidou and/or Fuuta — if Kazui's ends up being Shidou, then most certainly Fuuta

Mikoto: John

Kotoko: Es, Jackalope, and/or the audience — most likely Es

I am extremely cross with the MILGRAM translation team for translating "可哀想" (kawaisou) as "baby", when Muu refers to Haruka. "Kawaisou" is a word that means someone who is pitiful. You use it in order to express sympathy with someone who is in a sad situation. It does not imply age.

"Poor boy" would be a much more accurate translation. And it doesn't have the unfortunate side-effect of infantilizing an intellectually disabled character, and implying motherly feelings on Muu's end that she pointedly does not harbor. (Haruka saw her as a mother, but Muu viewed Haruka as a friend.)

I will ALSO say, though, I 100% commend the English translation team for localizing that one line as, "I won’t stop hurting you, ‘cause I’m a mean girl."

They seemed to understand the weight the phrase "mean girl" holds with English-speakers. The blonde girl, the "rich bitch". These ideas, these stereotypes internalized as facts in English-speaking audiences due to misogynistic teenage fiction, have been held against Muu from the release of her very first MV.

This is the idea that they invoke as they humanize her, show her trauma, show her love for Haruka.

"You thought I was nothing but a mean girl. That’s why you chose to punish me, even when it came at the cost of someone else's life… So I will become the villain from the PG movies of your past. I'll flatten myself into someone so 2D like that, as long as you apologize to him."

It turns the mirror back on the audience, and shines a light the misogyny Muu has been facing from the very start. I've said it many times, and I will say it again: Muu Kusunoki, they could never make me hate you!!!

God, I love the Beasts. Wretched little creatures. Fallen angels who have been abandoned by God. Objectified at every turn as solely their duty, even by one of their own — being called Beasts when they fail at their job. Presumably having very little contact with each other (or Silent Salt would have known more of their plights), leaving each individual Virtue feeling isolated and uniquely broken. And then, their bodies are shattered.

Holy emissaries filled with so much pain that they'll destroy what they were made to protect.

Cannot stress enough how integral this comic in the artbook was to understanding Isafrin for me. So many questions I had regarding Siffrin's actions/feelings towards Isabeau can be explained by "We're Friends. This Is Friends Behavior. *blushing*"

"Why does Siffrin say he doesn't know how he feels towards Isabeau, despite his internal monologue showing that he does with decent clarity?" They simply believe that it is Average Friends Behavior. Thinking about Isabeau when shown a buff man in a romantic evaluation context? Friends Behavior!

This, of course, interacts with him saying that he hates that he feels romantic attraction. They don't want to experience it. So he tells himself that anything he feels isn't romantic; it's Friends Behavior!

TL;DR: me when I'm in an "avoiding confronting my feelings" competition and my opponent is Siffrin

"Woaw I can’t believe that (XYZ thing that happened in the MVs) is 100% true, canon and real" So there’s thing funny thing called 'the whole concept of the MVs is that they are based off of how the prisoner feels, not facts'.

We know that the end report cards can lie, too. The thing that we can trust the most is what comes out of the prisoners' mouths, and even that comes with the caveat that they can lie, have their feelings/viewpoint manipulated by others, etc.

There is no reliable narrator in MILGRAM, and there is no 'canon' information about their crimes. At least, not yet.

Yes, sex is hot and all that (said acespecly), but also I think that it's not discussed enough that sexuality is just an extremely interesting form of characterization in fiction. Nothing wrong with liking it in a horny way, obviously, but I feel like it overshadows how interesting sexuality is as a topic outside of erotic contexts.

Some of my favorite pieces of art in the world are about people coming to terms with their sexuality (queer sexuality, kink, etc), people introspecting on why they find their kinks hot, and dealing with sexual issues. Including (or maybe especially?) the less pleasant stuff, like sexual trauma, sex as self-harm, balancing communication and consent in sexual scenarios, etc. It's an extremely fascinating form of characterization to me.