There's a new song by Madds Buckley called Sitting Pretty and like the fucking ways it highlights the overlaps between Mahiru and Kazui I've been finding difficult to articulate is wild.
The fact that ultimately marriage is something every gender is pressured into. That many people desire to get married because they view it as a display of their genuine love and desire to be with another for the rest of their lives regardless of how messy a concept it is. That many people not having the right to choose that in their own time, through exploring their own feelings, their truths due to pressures around them ultimately leads to an unfathomable amount of isolation and pain.
As well as how this plays into Yuno's desire to be judged for her behavior as someone having come up in a time where people are a bit more socially accepting. Yet those things are still frowned upon and vome with the assumption of others failing the individual doing it because why would someone do this if they didn't have to. Yet, Yuno straight up says like she's doing it for herself, it's fun, and she gains a form of emotional security from it. She never goes damn I should not have been doing that shit nope every trial she just goes I did that but flippantly acting like I did it flippantly like YOLO is wild too, I did it for me and nobody else.
"Those days, in a word is, I’m just me, no right or wrong to it. But honestly it was all fun, him and him, all of them kind. The only thing annoying was the occasional, I love you’s." - "YOLO! That kind of energy doesn’t exist here. Life saving caresses that let life go on, that’s all I wanted.'
Highlighting how Yuno has the right to choose what she does with her body, how she feels about those choices as well as the results of them. That she knows she has the right to feel complicated about it and desire punishment. Then feel bad abput that as well because in comparisom to others she feels what she's veen through hasn't been that hard.
23/06/27 (Amane’s Birthday)
Amane: What is it…… Kashiki Yuno. Don’t sit so close to me. Go away.
Yuno: Sorry for barging in when you’re getting into your worldview thing. But Mahiru-san’s finally managed to get to sleep. Humour me with some small talk while I take a break. By the way, Amane. Have you ever wished you were never born? I’ve thankfully lived a pretty fun life so far, so haven’t really. But you seem to be struggling with something. So I kinda wondered if you thought like that.
Amane: ……I don’t think that. Being born into this world is the first miracle any person experiences, and is something to celebrate. Even if after birth I was put through trial after trial, the value of that will never disappear.
Yuno: Hmm. Ok. ……happy birthday, then. It’s good that you were brought into the world, I guess.
And you can't really blame her for feeling this way when her peers in Milgram are,
Haruka "My parents straight up neglected me then gave up and acted like I didn't exist" Sakurai
Futa "I was jumped and lost an eye" Kajiyama
Mu "The bullying never ends and my friend committed suicide" Kusunoki
Shidou "My entire family lost their lives in an accident" Kirisaki
Mahiru "I lived on the run for days and my partner hung himself" Shiina
Kazui "I thought the worst thing that could happen if I was honest about my feelings was my parents killing me and I was wrong worse things can happen when you live" Mukuhara
Amane "If shock collars were prominent during my youth my parents would have gotten me one. I'm so used to nobody giving a damn about my thoughts or feelings I've stopped trying to hold a polite dialogue about it. You either stay out of my lane or I'll run you over when you veer into it." Momose
Meanwhile Yuno is here like my family is normal and kind. My mother wanted to discuss this with me but it doesn't naturally come up. I was given time to process this but communicating about this sort of stuff is dofficult because I don't want my family to feel responsible for my chpices and I know they will. My family loves me and I love them. I don't know how mamy times Milgram needs me to state this but it's been helpful tp duscuss things with people outside my family so this has been kind of good for me.
Like damn of course she's like please punish me,
"LIFE, I wish I could have gone with you too. LIFE, I was just freaked out about becoming a mom, so why. Don’t forgive me, don’t forgive me don’t forgive me, don’t forgive me. Think about those who should have lived instead of me, so why?"
"Hug me again as you once did. Don’t leave me alone, don’t leave me. Why was I born to be me? Why does it hurt so much?" - -
"LIFE, I wanted you to care enough to Tear and Drop me."
Haruka and Yuno both wanted life to tell them they were wrong, that how they were being wasn't how they should be. To affirm what they already believed about themselves and their actions.
"But it’s not scary at all, because it’s LOVE. I can really think it’s great. See isn’t it a great thing?"
"“Indecent” and “careless”, but still you judge “innocent” with a shrug? I have much more that needs fixing, so why? LIFE, I wanted you to care enough to scold me and tell me I was wrong."
This is one of the reasons that every time Yuno's accident is pprtrayed before trial three it's framed as this positive empowering thing. Becayse it's life finally giving her what she believes she deserves for her actions. What others keep refusing to do. It's life quite literally tearing and dropping her. Something it takes all of Milgram to admit she didn't want or deserve to have happen to her. Regardless of how complicated her feelings around her life and how she lived it are and will continue to be.
Even if others may have gone through what she believes are more difficult things and don't have access to the same supports she does. Even if every decision that led her here was her own amd the ones she'll have to make after this for the rest of her life feel nothing but harder due to her experiences here. She wants to try to live not only for those who were there for, the lessons they imparted on her, the connections they made but as Life shows at every turn for herself because it's what she deserves.
What everyone deserves to live a life for themselves with those they care about and who care for them in their lives. It's not bad to recognize that it's a privilege to have that. What's bad is people convincing themselves they don't deserve that due to things we may never be able to change or convincing oyrselves we can choose who is deserving of having that.
