#am i doing this right yet

[avimates]

RANBOO IN A DRESS

[foolsocracy]

put dick on a team and trust he will make sure they can perform as an acrobat troop

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Trapped in a vicious cycle of pining? Try gay sex! (More things to learn over at Tiger Tiger!)

[hinamie]

"I'll show you every day that choosing to live was worth it"

some of my favourite scenes from @hijinks-n-lowjinks' fic things i would miss from the other side . this fic tore my heart out fr but like in a good way and i wanted to pay it homage the only way i know how <3

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[trans-axolotl]

my gendered experience growing up as an intersex person was overwhelmingly defined by my responses and resistance to everything that got me labeled as a failure: failure to quickly get a gender assigned at birth, failure to go through a normal puberty and grow up into a woman, failure at meeting the standards for "complete womanhood" because of my intersex sex traits, and yet simultaneously failing to ever be acknowledged as a "real man" and being treated as a threat when I expressed I wanted to transition.

before i realized i was a man and came out as trans, the ways that girlhood was denied to me was very often humiliating and painful. locker rooms filled with other girls were a frequent source of shame. there were many big and small ways that i was told that my intersex body made me insufficient, incomplete, broken. i was forced onto estrogen, forced into shaving my body hair, and was constantly being told to change myself to better fit this mystical idea of a "normal woman." and even though I ultimately ended up becoming a man, the denial of girlhood was painful.

but i think that these things would have been even more difficult to navigate as an intersex girl if on top of everything I already said, i was having to cope with the denial of my girlhood while i was forced into boys locker rooms. if my doctors were forcing me onto testosterone hrt and refusing to even discuss estrogen, if all my legal paperwork had "M" on it and was a logistical nightmare to change, if every support group for my intersex variation labeled it as a "men's support group," if the LGBTQ community spaces i tried to join were misogynistic towards me often to the point of exile, if my self determination as an intersex girl was denied in most spaces of my life, and on and on and on. while listing all these things out i also don't want to make it seem like it's all about suffering and pain--so much of transition for me has been about joy in my self determination and how much it feels like a reclamation of autonomy to decide what I want my body and self to be like--i know this is an experience i share with so many of my trans intersex friends.

as an person who was AFAB, although there were many ways that trying to grow up as an intersex girl were a painful, logistical nightmare, many times and places that i was excluded from woman's spaces, etc. however, there was a simultaneous affirmation that i was right to strive for that in the first place. which is logic rooted in some fucked up compulsory dyadism, but also which would have made some things slightly easier or even possible at all if i had wanted to embrace being an intersex girl within this fucked up system.

pretty much every time i've seen people on tumblr talking about "afab transfems" in an intersex context, people seem happy to collapse these experiences and act like there's no meaningful distinction or point in distinguishing between different types of intersex embodiment. it seems incredibly extractive, to be perfectly honest with you--taking terms already used by a community to make meaning of their experiences and to expand and dilute that term enough that it means something pretty different than the original.

it's making me think about the concept of epistemic injustice, which is a term coined by Miranda Fricker to describe oppression related to knowledge, communication, and making meaning of the world. There's two subtypes of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice refers to the dynamic where marginalized people are labeled as not credible, excluded from conversations, and their testimony and knowledge is labeled as unreliable, even when they're the ones who are experts and have first hand experience of what people are talking about. (this is why i probably won't make this post rebloggable--i've noticed this pattern on tumblr many times where trans men speaking about transmisogyny get lots of notes and are given a lot of grace, where trans women are silenced, attacked for not having perfect wording, and otherwise delegitimized.)

the second type is called hermeneutical injustice. it describes how marginalized people are denied the right to make sense of the experiences in their own lives. this can look like preventing people from building community, terminology, a political understanding of themselves, and the interpretive resources needed to process how you live in the world.

this is a form of injustice that I think almost all intersex people are very familiar with--we are denied community and interpretive resources to the point that we're told we don't even exist, that intersex isn't a real word, and so many more examples that leave us isolated and with very few options for understanding what we're collectively experiencing. as an intersex person i really intimately understand how frustrating, confusing, and painful it is to not have words for your experiences, your identity, your life.

so it makes me really sad and pissed off when it seems like intersex people seem to be replicating this exact same type of epistemic injustice towards transfems and specifically towards intersex transfems. pretty much every time recently i see people talking about "afab transfems" they're doing so in a way that seems to deny that trans women even have the right to make sense of their own experiences in the world. there seems to be this mindset that these political frameworks, these interpretive resources that transfems have built up are just up for grabs for anyone. and then on top of that has come with it a lot of cruel, hateful language and direct attacks towards many intersex transfems who are facing so much harassment right now.

an important value to me is this idea of reciprocity as a foundation for solidarity. to me reciprocity means that we're prioritizing the ways we care for each other, we're thinking about how we can uplift each other, and we're watching out for extractive or exploitative patterns where one group is constantly expected to be in "solidarity" with another group without getting the same respect and care back toward them. i think that there could be so many ways that intersex people of all genders could share our overlapping experiences and actually be in true, meaningful solidarity with each other, but i barely ever actually see that happen on tumblr. and that pisses me off, because i do think that there's so much we have in common that we could celebrate and support each other with. i feel so much kinship with so, so many of my trans intersex friends, and ways where i see our lives converge. but i don't think that can happen in an environment where there's no acknowledgment of the ways that our experiences will sometimes (often) differ from each other, and the ways that we have unique needs.

another frustration i've had based on this most recent couple months of transmisogynistic intersex posting on tumblr is how intersex people have been mostly ignoring intersex community resources and devaluing the existing intersex terminology that people created to try to meet our needs. so much of what i've seen people describing on tumblr seems to really line up with the term ipsogender. Ipsogender is a term coined by an intersex sociologist Cary Gabriel Costello, and is used to describe intersex people whose gender matches the gender they were medically assigned at birth, but who might not feel like cis or trans fits them, might experience dysphoria, and who might feel like they've ended up transitioning medically or socially in some ways. this is a word that exists that an intersex person put time into coining because they wanted other intersex people to feel seen, embraced, and have ways of understanding themselves and communicating to others, and that's something that's super meaningful to me! and yet, i've rarely seen anyone reference it, and also seen multiple people making fun of it in other spaces online.

there's also intergender, which is another intersex specific gender term used to describe when your gender is inseparable from your intersex traits, and that your intersex identity is intertwined with your gender identity in some way. some people just identify as intergender, others use it as an adjective and exist as an intergender man or woman. intersex terminology like this is really important to me, especially because we're so often denied the right to make sense of our own experiences.

i think ultimately what i wanted to say with this post is just that when i think about intersex community, some of the most important values of intersex community for me are solidarity, care for each other, and affirming our right to define our own existence. and i don't think that can happen in a community where people are acting in extractive ways, harassing and attacking their fellow community members, and being dismissive of the realities of other intersex people's lives.

[pigswithwings]

mirage in my sillier style

[rookdaw]

monster X monster hunter

[ganondoodle]

there goes my favorite drawing software ...

i defended their plans for the version2 and all, bc i didnt see much wrong with it and liked csp alot, but i guess i should have become a hater back then already

after that one big mistake that sparked so much outrage they really said but how can we actually lose EVERYONE, they saw deviantart doing it and thought BET I CAN DO IT FASTER

(they say they dont use user data but are basing it on stable diffusion of all things, they literally only ask people to think morally/ethically when using it to not use stolen stuff like thats ever worked with anything ever, plus "we cant guarantee that there will be no copyright infringement" OH YOU DONT SAY)

[makiswirl]

jolyne..... but LITTLE

[spiderbeam]

THEY MISSPELLED

HIS NAME

[marblerose-rue]

halsin (as a warrior cat)

(request)

[nombitenary]

hyena dragon. like this. (WIP)

[wynandcore]

How have we gone from like. The first movie where Tron was basically the deuteragonist. To four minutes of screentime in Legacy. To him just not fucking being there

[clownfettis]

This idea has been stuck in my mind for months, and I'm do glad to have finally made it

This is the most experimental I've ever been with my art. I'm really proud

This was inspired by @beluvbug 's amazing Princess of Gender Dysphoria AU, and all the amazing AUs that came from it. Check them all out!!

Expect a lot more experimental pixel brush art full of symbolism for this jester, because I'm obsessed with him and projected on him to hell and back

Textless version under the cut

[accirax]

Chessgram Theory: Who is Kotoko Breaking?

While the object Kotoko is breaking in Deep Cover’s thumbnail is still certainly up for debate, many people (including myself) are of the belief that she’s snapped a white bishop from the game of chess. Given where Kotoko’s mental state is right now and what’s implied by the lyrics of Deep Cover, I think it’s likely that this MV’s theme will depict all of the prisoners as different chess pieces. Therefore, it’s worth asking: who is that? And, in a larger sense, which prisoners could be represented by which chess pieces?

Kotoko pretty clearly sees her situation as her and Es against the rest of the prison. So, I think that the characters would be divided as Kotoko and Es on one team, and everyone from 01-09 on the other. Kotoko is wearing black and appears to be breaking a white piece, so it’s pretty safe to assume that she and Es would be represented by the black pieces. It’s an interesting choice, given that, even to a non-Western audience, black can be considered a color of evil, and white a color of purity and truth. However, if the Es/Kotoko team is “mystery and anger” and the 01-09 team is “cold demeanors and death,” it fits well enough.

And that’s ignoring the most important part: in chess, the white team always moves first. This would fit with Kotoko’s vigilante worldview that everything she does is just a retaliation against others’ wrongdoing. The other characters attack first by sinning, and Kotoko is only picking them off before they can do any real damage to Team Warden.

Anyways, as for the pieces themselves, different websites seem to have slightly different opinions on what each piece can represent, with some obvious throughlines. I’ll be pulling quotes from these three articles, color coded according to which one is being used, which you can read more of if you wish. I’m also not a chess expert, so if I’m missing anything or got something wrong, I encourage you to add any of your own thoughts!

We’ll start with the Black Team, because there are fewer characters and I think it’s pretty obvious who’s who.

Kotoko Yuzuriha

Kotoko herself will probably be the black Queen. As anyone who’s played chess should know, your Queen is the most powerful piece in your arsenal because it can move on straights or diagonals for any distance.

The queen is our impulse to fight and possibly our id. It can argue based on beliefs. It can let loose and fight like a rook. It has no reason to hold back as a knight does and will often attack to the other side of the board just because it wants to.

This hyper-violent description of the Queen reminds me a lot of Kotoko. She attacks the other prisoners because, according to her beliefs, they’re criminals who deserve to be punished. Not to mention, the “id” is actually the same thing as the “es” in psychology. After we voted her innocent in the first trial, Kotoko became our teammate. She thinks that she’s the same as Es, so seeing herself as the “id” would fit perfectly with that self-assessment. Speaking of Es…

Es (and Jackalope?)

Es is most likely going to be the black King.

The king is not as powerful as the queen, but he is considered the most important piece that needs the most protection.

Even if Kotoko has more power than Es inside the prison, Es is still the one ultimately calling the shots. They’re the important piece who actually casts the votes that Kotoko can use to exact justice. The way that Es falls asleep between trials (or, at least, they did the first time) also reminds me of how the king can only move one space per turn, and often remains in the same square until closer to the end of the game.

The meaning of the Queen in the game of chess is she is plainly the closest support to the King and is often the second biggest (tallest) piece on the board, signifying her power and importance.

Es and Kotoko being the King and Queen together also opens them up to being assessed as a pair. They start the game next to each other, far across the board from the white pieces. If Es is the tallest, most notable piece in the prison, Kotoko isn’t far behind, acting as the King’s loyal fang.

I don’t know if any of the other pieces on the black team would have any sort of particular association. Maybe Jackalope could be the pawn that starts in front of the King (I think that’s the E pawn), so that he could hop out of the way on black’s first move to allow Kotoko to escape on a diagonal?

If I’m right about this theming, I also believe it’s possible that the black team would start only with the King and Queen. This would 1) make Kotoko and Es appear as rootable underdogs by having fewer pieces, 2) show how Kotoko is doing all of the work to defend justice, and 3) give Kotoko a lot of space to move around in from the start.

Now that we’re done with the black team, it’s time for the 01-09 White Team! Given that this side has many more main characters, there are several more possibilities to discuss here. I’ve settled on an answer for each of the prisoners, but there’s certainly room to be flexible with any of them.

Haruka Sakurai

Starting with Haruka… sorry, buddy, but I think you’re a Pawn.

Look, there are only eight pieces (not pawns) for each team on the board. If there are nine prisoners on the white team, at least one of them has to be a Pawn. And, especially through Kotoko’s account of the first Trial, Haruka wasn’t doing a whole lot. He didn’t get voted guilty, so she didn’t attack him, and he didn’t try to save any of the attacked prisoners, either. All he really did was get a new fit and align himself with Mu, someone who barely avoided being voted guilty in the first place.

There is a debate about whether the pawns are the peasants who live outside of the castle walls or are the soldiers protecting the royal court behind them.

Specifically, though, I think that Haruka would be the pawn that stands in front of Mu. Depending on which piece Mu is, it doesn’t have to work like this, but if you say that Pawn Haruka’s placement is basically a “if you want to attack her, you’ll have to get through me first,” that’s quite reminiscent of the threat he presented in his second audio drama.

Haruka also makes sense as a Pawn because he has a lot of potential. For anyone who doesn’t know, in chess, if a Pawn manages to make it to the other side of the board, they can transform into any other piece. Haruka’s quiet demeanor might let him slip under the radar, but if Kotoko takes her eye off of him for too long, he could wind up becoming a threat to the King (Es).

Haruka (VD2): “If you don’t forgive Mu-san, I’m going to kill you.”

In the audio drama, Es counters this plan by pointing out that, as a prisoner, Haruka cannot attack them. However, the sentiment is still there. Even if a Pawn doesn’t really stand a chance of attacking the King when Queen Kotoko is on the loose, there’s always the possibility that he could get too close and throw a wrench into Kotoko’s plans.

Yuno Kashiki

As for Yuno… well, we all know that she’s a Queen in general, but in chess, I don’t think that argument really holds up. Yuno really just isn’t… relevant? enough? to the conflicts of the prison as a whole (at least where Kotoko is involved) to be represented by such an important piece. But, if Yuno isn’t the Queen, what would she be…?

Personally, I think she would be a Rook.

The rook is brute force. It is a disregard to beliefs.

Simply put, Yuno is a Rook because she’s a pretty straightforward person. That’s not to say that she doesn’t lie, of course– her whole t1 attitude seems to have been a bit of an act, and that one section in the middle of Tear Drop makes it pretty obvious that Yuno conceals her true feelings on order to better please her customers sometimes– but that, in the end, Yuno always does what she wants. If she wants to barge forward or cut across the entire board sideways, she’ll do it. She often keeps to herself, just like how enemy pieces wouldn’t want to get directly in front of the Rook for fear of being curb stomped.

Back to her t1 attitude, though…

The rook is the castle, the walls, the protectorate of the city, and in being so, is the only piece not representative of a living thing.

While most sources attribute the Rook’s walls to protecting the other important pieces, Yuno’s walls protect herself. Yuno’s Castle keeps her true self locked behind cold and stony walls, giving her freedom from making any attachments.

Futa Kajiyama

Futa is a Knight because… he’s, uh, literally a knight.

The knight pieces are the protective knights in the castle. The pieces are shaped like a horse because it is symbolic of what knights rode during battle.

It doesn’t always have to be that deep. (/j)

Actually, though, there are other reasons to call Futa the Knight– possibly some of the same reasons why the Milgram creative team decided to make one of his MVs themed after fantasy RPGs in the first place.

The knight represents the pure inner-warrior. If a knight starts out passive, it will always end up aggressive and vice versa. It can't move very far, but it never moves in a straight line, always preferring to be tactical and thoughtful.

Futa definitely seems to cycle between aggressive and passive. He passively lived his life as a regular guy until he unleashed his aggression and became a cyberbully. That aggression fueled him until he learned of his victim’s death, at which point he shut down and seemed to become more passive and introspective again. Arriving in Milgram triggered his aggressive tendencies, but getting voted guilty and losing an eye for it triggered his passive terror. At the time of his second audio drama, it seems like he’s returned to aggressively questioning Es again, and it remains to be seen whether he keeps that attitude into t3 or if something happens that once again makes him lose his footing (or die).

Mu Kusunoki

Much like Yuno, Mu also has an argument for being called the Queen– more so than Yuno, considering her strong Queen Bee coding in It’s Not My Fault and the titles of both of her audio dramas– but also falls short in the “being opposed to Kotoko” department. Although Haruka certainly looks to her for leadership, I can’t imagine Kotoko actually considering Mu a serious enough threat to put Mu on the same level as herself.

So again, like Yuno, I think Mu might be the other Rook. Mu also displayed a very “whatever I say goes” attitude in INMF, so she can share the same rhetoric behind Yuno being represented by that piece. The logic behind the castle aspect is slightly different, though.

Every country or medieval estate would have its royalty who were protected within the walled city or castle.

Mu is a rich, half-European girl whose dad sells real estate. Of course she would be represented by the Castle! Mu’s tactics involve consolidating her power in order to lead from a place above it all, exactly like how a castle looks over the rest of the village. Additionally, I can’t find the source of whoever pointed it out first, but I’ve seen it mentioned that the dress Mu wears in her birthday art is a reference to the one that Belle wears in Disney’s interpretation of Beauty and the Beast. It’s a fairytale with a princess (and perhaps someday, a queen), yes, but it’s specifically one where the heroine is trapped within a castle. Making Mu into a Rook would be a great way to keep up her royal theming, while leaving the Queen for a character a bit more powerful and relevant to Kotoko.

(Going back to Haruka for a moment, this would make him specifically the A or H pawn.)

Shidou Kirisaki

I really thought that Shidou might have more competition for the role of King, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that nobody fit the role quite as well as he did.

Shidou is the perfect balance of a piece who’s very problematic for Kotoko’s win condition, while also not being much of an active threat himself. There are very low odds that Shidou would ever actually try to harm Kotoko directly or get in her way to divert an attack. However, as long as he’s alive, Kotoko can’t win, because Shidou can keep attempting to heal all of the pieces Kotoko tries to eliminate. That’s not something that the King piece can actually do in a chess game, but hopefully you get my point.

Additionally, Triage let us know that Shidou is a family man. While the white Queen will obviously not be representative of Shidou’s deceased wife, and not every other prisoner would enjoy living under his reign (cough cough Amane), the optics of him being the “head of the family” are obviously there. It’s a pretty bad look if the white King starts the game by pleading with the black King to give him the death penalty, but… Well, at least Shidou changed his mind.

Mahiru Shiina

Not to answer the theory’s main question so early into the post, but… I think Mahiru is a white Bishop. Specifically, the one that Kotoko could be snapping in half in the thumbnail.

As far as I can remember, barring Undercover, Milgram’s MVs have only shown us things that have happened in the past. There are some things that could kind of hint at the future (like Shidou’s “So hey, prolong my life / I’m indispensable” in Triage) or depict prisoner’s fears of the future (like Futa potentially being afraid that Es could declare him guilty again at the end of Backdraft). But, I think that every instance of something like that happening could be explained as something that the character did or thought about in the past as well. That might be wrong, as I don’t want to take the time to write out how everything that appears like it could be in the future is actually in the past, but it sounds right to my memory.

My point being, while the snapped bishop could be indicative of Kotoko’s plans to crush someone in the future, if the chess pieces do represent characters, it makes far more sense if her smashing the white bishop is something that already happened in the past. Thus, it would probably be one of the three characters that Kotoko attacked in the past: Futa, Mahiru, or Mikoto.

Of the three options, I think Mahiru fits the role of bishop best.

The bishop is your belief structure. This is why a bishop that starts on white, will always be on white and vice versa for the black bishop.

While not a particularly religious person, Mahiru is someone who lives and dies based on her beliefs about the value of love. No matter what happens to her, she always keeps her same perspective, believing that love is the entirety of who she is and the only thing that’s worth living for. It’s how firmly she clung to those beliefs that sent her to Milgram, and her lack of awareness regarding her actions that got her voted guilty. AKA, Mahiru’s Bishop-like beliefs are exactly what sent her to be crushed in Kotoko’s palm.

To the extent that the blood in the thumbnail is the Bishop’s and not Kotoko’s, Mahiru was also the most grievously injured of the prisoners in between trials. I saw people joking that the thing Kotoko was crushing was “Mahiru’s bones,” and, like… maybe you’re not entirely wrong? 

I hope that you continue reading the post to hear my thoughts on the last three prisoners. But, if you are tapping out here… uhhhh, 0610 enjoyers, go crazy with this one.

Kazui Mukuhara

When I started theorizing for this post, I really thought that I was going to make Kazui the Queen to Shidou’s King. The two of them are pretty close, so the idea of Kazui being Shidou’s guardian makes total sense. And, most importantly, Kazui was the one to actually intercept and divert Kotoko’s attack on Futa. He’s been established as the most muscular prisoner in Milgram, on par with someone like Kotoko, which is perfect for him being the Queen!

Wellllll… I changed my mind and decided to make Kazui a Knight anyway.

There are a lot of good arguments for Kazui being a knight too, okay? After Cat, it’s pretty clear that Kazui was once a police officer. Thus, being a member of the castle guard would be a good match for his choice of career. They’re also probably the most traditionally “manly” piece, representative of an armed man on a horse, and Kazui tries very hard to be manly.

Knights can also hop over other pieces, much like how Kazui jumped into the fight between Kotoko and Futa. In fact…

Never underestimate [the Knight] for its limited range. It’s known as the "Queen Killer" for a reason!

Knights are often a good piece to use to attack Queens because of their unique L-shaped movement pattern. Unlike every other piece, they can attack the Queen from a position that can’t be immediately reversed upon them. Thus, Kazui’s ability to beat Kotoko could be an indicator of this “Queen Killer” quality, instead of the innate power of being a Queen himself. (This logic applies to Futa as well: he can attack Kotoko from the unique angle of appealing to Es’ morals and own sense of justice. Kotoko can’t do the same because, unlike Futa, she has yet to outwardly acknowledge that her murder could have been anything less than righteous.)

Also… the Knight is the only piece that doesn’t move in a straight line. Get it? The Knight doesn’t move straight? And that represents Kazui? Because Kazui is–

Amane Momose

Amane is the other Bishop because… religion.

The bishop stands close to the king and queen because it represents the church which many royal courts held near and dear to their hearts.

The Bishop represents the church, an important and very powerful entity throughout history and even today if you think about it.

Again, not everything has to be a reach. (/j)

So… yeah, Amane’s beliefs– specifically religious beliefs, this time– are also a huge part of her life. Even if she’s changed what the cult’s doctrine means to her, she still confesses that she carried out her murders for the sake of what her religion considers right and wrong.

This is also considered the third most powerful piece on the chessboard because back in the day religion could influence many people, even without the help of the royal family.

Not so much for Mahiru, but this sentiment also fits Amane pretty well! Between the threats of potential conversions and potential assassinations, Amane was definitely one of the prisoners to watch heading into t2. From what I’ve heard, the main reason why her vote was so down to the wire was mostly because people were afraid of the power that Amane held.

Interestingly, this would put another prisoner who was voted guilty in contention for the piece that Kotoko is crushing. However, I still think it’s more likely that that piece would be Mahiru, because Kotoko didn’t physically attack Amane. If it were Amane, it would more likely be that her beliefs were crushed as opposed to her bones, but… I don’t really think that really happened, either. Amane would almost certainly be a bishop, though, so there’s certainly a possibility that that broken piece could be her.

Mikoto/John Kayano

With only one prisoner left to go, you may have already come to the conclusion that Mikoto is the white Queen. And… yeah, I can’t really deny that at this point. Like I said, I wanted to make Kazui the Queen, but I couldn’t otherwise figure out what Mikoto would be.

Because, there’s one main thing that makes me think that Mikoto has to be the Queen… John’s lack of restraints.

She is allowed to move in any direction and in as many squares as she wants.

Due to the whole situation with John not technically being a prisoner, when John is the alter in charge, John cannot be restrained, even when voted guilty. That makes him very powerful; no matter what he does, we can’t use a guilty vote to try to stop him, much like many people hoped to do with Haruka when voting him guilty in t2. The Queen can visit any square, no matter whether it’s black or white, upright or reversed, Mikoto or John. Choosing any other piece that was constrained to a much more limited set of movement rules just felt off for him.

Next, while Kazui was able to defeat Kotoko and save Futa, the fight between John and Kotoko was a draw. That means that they are also evenly matched– perfect for both being the same kind of piece. Mikoto isn’t as close to Shidou as Kazui is (anymore, I think?), but they were at least smoking club buddies, so calling Mikoto the Queen to Shidou’s King isn’t the most ridiculous proposition.

Finally, making Mikoto the Queen, a very feminine piece, is super interesting in the context of people discussing how Mikoto is often associated with stereotypically feminine roles and the girl prisoners (oboetemasuka | candckirby | purgemarchlockdown). I don’t have a whole lot else to say on this matter considering these weren’t points of Mikoto’s characterization I originally noticed myself, but I encourage you to read these posts to get a taste of what I’m talking about. I’m sure there were other posts discussing it too, but… it’s so hard to find things on Tumblr ;-;

Conclusion

Finally, we’ve been through every prisoner! Here’s a summary of what I decided on (left or right side doesn’t matter):

The funny thing about this theory is that it could be fully disproven wrong in, like, a week, if either 1) that wasn’t a chess piece at all, or 2) the chess pieces obviously represent something else. For instance, the chess board could fully relate to, you know, Kotoko’s actual murder and not what she got up to in between trials. We are supposed to get more actual evidence regarding that too, aren’t we…?

Still, if it turns out that the chess board does represent Milgram, I will get the full satisfaction of having called it ahead of time, even if my assignments aren’t 100% correct. No matter what, I had fun thinking about it, which is (in my opinion) the highlight of theorizing! If you have anything else to add, I encourage you to communicate your thoughts in comments, tags, or reblogs. If you don’t, then I simply thank you for reading this far!

Deep Cover… soon.