#admin venus

Pain takes place basically between It's Not My Fault and After Pain.

This is mostly a timeline question, but I feel fairly confident in this based on the staging of the MVs and comparing it to both the hourglass and the end of Pain character summary.

In It's Not My Fault, Muu spends the vast majority at the top of the hourglass as she sets it that way at the beginning of the MV. (Rei only flips it back at the very end.)

In Pain, we actively see the moment that the hourglass runs out.

And in After Pain, we only really see Mu at the bottom of the hourglass, after she's fallen from grace.

As for the actual story of Mu, we also see that follow this roughly three MV arc:

In It's Not My Fault, Mu spends most of the time as queen bee and is just generally slaying throughout. She's in control, and she's loving life.

Then, Rei shows up, and everyone in Mu's entourage (and she) immediately notice her general disinterest/disapproval of Mu, and they immediately turn on her.

(I also really love how this scene paints Rei as the transfer student coming into this wild scenario. She's just squinting like, what the fuck is going on at this school? Why are they all worshipping Mu? And they're like, whoops, you weren't supposed to ask that question, get pranked.)

Right at the end of the It's Not My Fault MV, we see Rei flip the hourglass, accompanied by this image of her, on the ground, gripping the leg of a chair in the classroom. We can now assume that this is the moment in which Rei flips out and hits Mu with the chair, as we see in Pain.

We now know this is the pivotal point at which the social dynamics shift to favor Rei over Mu.

This leads into Mu being bullied within the mid-ending (before she talks about Haruka) part of Pain and when she kils Rei. This is the same timeline as in After Pain, with the staging of the kill scene in Pain being a direct reference.

So, that's our timeline! I honestly think it's really funny that they were like, "well, we told the end of Mu's story in a song called After Pain, so maybe we should make that song chronologically after the song Pain." But, y'know, it works.

The Pain MV shows Mu comparing two sets of "villains" and "heroes"-- Es and Haruka, and herself and Rei.

The lyrics of the song are written such that they, in large part, can refer to Mu and Rei's situation in addition to Es and Haruka's. Although, generally speaking, I'd say that the lyrics lean more towards Mu telling Es how she feels, whereas the MV depicts what was happening with Mu and Rei. Still, there's undeniably crossover based on how the lyrics are distributed across the MV.

No really, if only you judged me INNOCENT He wouldn’t have had to die, poor baby I mean after all, it’s not my fault

This lyric is most clearly directed at Es about Haruka; Haruka directly stated that he'd only kill himself if we voted Mu guilty, and we did. Therefore, Haruka's death was preventable if Es had found Mu innocent.

However, it also applies closely to Rei about herself. If Rei had judged Mu innocent (giving her "proper" respect and worship upon arrival), she wouldn't have had to die, because the bullying wouldn't have started in the first place. Mu could have continued being the beloved spoiled princess, and Rei wouldn't have lost her life.

I'm... not sure if that's the right interpretation, though? After all, Mu is pretty harsh towards herself in the way she's portrayed in the Pain MV.

She depicts herself as childishly taunting a lot of the time, and the consistent "it's not my fault"s feel more like they're used to chastise her previous self who actually believed that.

This line, similarly, would be used to say "it's lame that Es is alive and Haruka isn't, when his death is their fault." But, when you apply it to Mu and Rei, especially with the staging, the undeniable interpretation is "it's lame that I, Mu, the villain, am still the one who's alive [when it's my fault."

Though Mu taunts Es for being a murderer, she, too, is a murderer. That's even something they connect over in the audio drama.

Mu: I’m so sorry for killing a person! Rei too…! I’m sorry! hic… *cries* Warden-san… you too… you… Es: … Mu: When Haruka died… Mahiru too… and Shidou too… you were also having it rough… Es: … Mu: Hey.. It’s okay to cry… Es: …ah… They both cry.

Mu clearly understands Es' guilt over the Haruka situation by the end of the audio drama, and she clearly sees it as similar to the guilt she feels over the Rei situation. So, interestingly, I think the more accurate to Mu interpretation of the earlier lyric--

No really, if only you judged me INNOCENT He wouldn’t have had to die, poor baby

--is "if only [I] had judged [Rei] innocent, [she] wouldn't have had to die, poor baby."

While Rei did kinda die as a result of not worshipping Mu, I guess, the bigger issue was the bullying. While the file asserted that Mu wasn't the one who prompted the bullying directly, she "understood that anyone who rebels against her must fall, and that she was undoubtedly the center of the universe."

That means that Mu is finally acknowledging her role in starting this. While she insisted heavily in her second audio drama that she didn't play a hand in the bullying, she's now acknowledged to herself that, by not stopping her followers and believing she was in the right, she condoned the violence and let it continue.

Mu has finally realized she doesn't understand or think of how others feel.

This is explicitly stated in the audio drama in regards to Haruka:

Mu: I’m sorry for not understanding Haruka’s feelings..! Mu is an idiot.. so even now Mu still doesn’t get it…

It's also basically directly stated in the lyrics.

(While this is partially targeted at Es, as all lyrics are, I believe it applies to herself as well.)

But is also seemingly a trend with her. She's never been good at understanding others, because historically in her life, she hasn't had to. That's something she's finally started to self reflect on:

While this lyric could be read as Es-coded, I think it's more accurately Mu blaming herself for never thinking about what others are thinking. In the Pain MV, this happens right before she starts sobbing from Rei hitting her with the chair-- the display of "unsightliness" that tore down her throne. She's blaming herself for not understanding that her status hinged around her perception of being beautiful, not reading the room.

Before, she didn't see any reason to think of anyone else-- she was, after all, the center of the universe. But now that Haruka is gone and Mu still doesn't completely understand why he killed himself, she's left at a loss that only understanding Haruka would have been able to fill. She doesn't have a chance to get to know him better now, because he's already gone.

It's only by realizing that she doesn't understand others that Mu was able to grow and gain awareness of herself.

I was shocked to see how (in my opinion) accurately Mu portrayed herself in Pain. She showed herself as the villain at the beginning, then showed herself breaking down in a moment of weakness, followed by her stubbornly trying to hold onto her pride despite her world becoming hell once the bullying turned towards her. It shows her snapping and killing as a way to try to regain control. It's all accurate to how I've read the story, and unlike After Pain (where she's pitying herself as the victim) or It's Not My Fault (where she presents her meanness as a virtue), it shows her in both her understandable parts and her flaws.

I don't think Mu would have ever been able to have this much nuanced understanding of herself if she hadn't started to understand how other people feel in response to her. This is something that I believe is directly brought on by mourning Haruka, and she has NO idea how to handle it.

Mu wants to blame Es because it's the only way she can repent.

I'm not sure I phrased it exactly right there, but basically, Mu knows there's not anything she can do to save Haruka or Rei anymore. They're dead and gone; their fates have been sealed.

Not doing anything to honor their memory or atone just leaves Mu feeling guilty though, and while she's got a better pulse on the situation now, Mu has never been good at just taking negative emotion as it comes. It's all still foreign to her. Typically when this happens, she lashes out to try to turn the tables of the pain. She's not quite at that level of self servingness anymore, so she turns to Es.

The best way she can find to appropriately atone while also punishing herself and acknowledging blame is to compare herself to Es-- to acknowledge her own faults while bringing Es to the same painful conclusion she's come to realize-- that whether she intended it or not, she murdered someone who, at the beginning of the story, was innocent.

She's vengeful on Haruka's behalf, upset as his death, but she's a murderer, too. Mu is judging both of them as murderers and as villains. She wants Es to go down the same path of acknowledging that they have blood on their hands that she has. And, like, honestly? Pop off, queen.

Anyways, some final scattered thoughts:

Mu having so much of her social status/"worth" being tied to her beauty makes the Cinderella cover make a TON of sense.

I was initially thinking this cover would go to Mu just because it's a popular song that someone would cover, and I thought it fit her best stylistically and lyrics wise out of the options, but uh, yeah, checks.

So irritating!! Hello to the unfortunate me I’m confused, I hate it, I hate it

me when the hourglass fits

No no no, It’s not okay I’ll go back to a cocoon and try again

Bonus points for cocoon!

What exactly is Mu wearing at the end?

It's giving religious-- I heard some people say Mother Mary vibes? That could make sense with Haruka's weird mom complex stuff.

(Which, by the way, it's so unfortunate for Mu that she really just wanted a genuine friend and Haruka came with a lot of his own issues, too. Would be nice for her to have a solid, dependable friend who just likes her for her and doesn't die instantly. My bad Haruka.)

VOTE: INNOCENT

This one is really easy in my eyes. Mu has acknowledged what she's done wrong and grown from the situation. I think she's unlikely to do it again. I think it's even possible that she'll try to seek help to establish a more "normal" life with people reacting to her in a normal way after this is all over. While she's definitely made mistakes, I don't think she's a threat to society at this point or anything, which means my mind is easily made up. At least if I didn't get to finish Shidou's change in mindset arc, we got Mu's :')

Life mostly showcases current Yuno reflecting on her past self and caring about her in a way she didn't at the time.

Yuno's trial 3 design appears ghost like in a lot of the shots, a silent bystander. She directly interacts with the Yuno we see moving through her daily life, and most of the time seems to be deeply sad for her and sympathetic to her struggles.

Because of this bystander perspective, I think I'd feel comfortable saying that the lyrics of this song are meant to be from current Yuno's perspective. She's basically entrusting us with the whole story (as she now remembers it) and is reliving the experiences of her realizing she was pregnant to her losing her child along with us.

While this ghost of current Yuno obviously didn't impact anything as it happened in the real world, her catching past Yuno several times can probably be interpreted as her holding onto her past self and trying to comfort her, as well as sort of symbolically showing Yuno looking out for herself, as she seems to believe she did. Yuno believes she was too self centered with her baby's death; herself catching herself and therefore preventing her from dying alongside her baby is a good way to visually represent that.

Yuno either wishes or wished she died alongside her baby.

This is basically entirely a lyrical and vibe check, given that Yuno is like, "how am I the only one who survived?" That could obviously be portrayed as her being upset her baby died, but I definitely think some of it is being upset to an extent that she's still alive without anyone else, alone and cold again.

The lyrics about being the lone survivor also reflect both her dead baby and Mahiru; the audio drama especially takes time to parallel these two as situations where she loses a life she didn't want to lose and couldn't/didn't do anything about it. Both times, the harm came to the person through no intention of her own, and once the damage was done, Yuno could only wait for the grim results. I definitely think Yuno is dealing with some survivor's guilt among other things, which is totally understandable given everything she's gone through. Especially now, after going through the hell that is Milgram.

I definitely also think that there's a reading to be made about her feelings of coldness and apathy towards life in her past just being, like... depression. If she feels she can't make actual connections/self-isolates, doesn't have goals and can't find enjoyment in anything, that's just genuinely depression. Being a sugar baby and finding connection/emotion that way was just her way of coping with that. It makes a lot of sense, although it does make me even more sad for her. I hope she figures things out :(

Yuno is, like, 16.

This is a small note, but it says Yuno was born in 2004. I'm pretty sure Milgram is set to start in 2020? She said she was 18 at the beginning, but I think that was more her trying to be like "I'm 18+ :)" and concealing her age. So, she's doing all of this at an even younger age than we thought. I wonder if she also lied and said she was 18 on her dating apps and such?

Milgram does not have dead people as prisoners.

This is, in my opinion, confirmed by Yuno's files. As of right now, I don't think we have any reason to doubt the contents of the case files, and Yuno's directly state that while her baby was lost in the fall, she (the mother) survived. That means she isn't dead. In fact, we even learn that Yuno woke up later in the hospital and started recovery, returning to school.

While that cancels out that possibility, we unlock whatever is cooking with this thing:

"Save data from the point where the subject resumes normal life post regaining consciousness to MILGRAM." This sentence is really bothering me-- because it's missing a verb.

What is happening with this save data. What are we doing to MILGRAM. We are losing context by the word and I want to KNOW!!

I think there are two main options here. They are:

This sentence is indicating that Yuno's consciousness from post-waking up has now been uploaded to MILGRAM, which is why Yuno now remembers what happened after she woke up.

The Yuno that was uploaded to MILGRAM was taken from her unconscious state after falling down the stairs.

These could also both be true, for the record.

I don't really know what this means! I'll see if there are more clues next MV that I can piece together to make it make more sense.

The devs are trying to give us the most conclusive/satisfactory end to the mysteries possible this trial.

I say this not only because of the file-- which clearly indicates the base premise of the character as well as their crime, which puts an end to the majority of the theorizing-- and because, in the audio drama, Es literally asks Yuno "what were we supposed to do to succeed on your route?" She basically says she'd be mad no matter what we voted, which... yeah, checks out.

Still, I think the fact that the devs are trying to address the "we want to know what happened" as well as catering to some of the "what-ifs" shows that the third trial is, narratively, a wrap-up trial to them, and they want the audience to feel they have all the information in hand when going to click the vote buttons for the last time. Speaking of...

VOTE: INNOCENT

Duh. Why would I vote her guilty. Es and Yuno are being besties towards the end of the audio drama and Es takes off the warden hat because why would we even pretend like we're policing Yuno here. She is a girl who has gone through it and is still struggling with the mental consequences of both her actions and life itself, but that in no way makes her guilty of murder.