#she's slippery and in denial about a lot of things imo

[fatalism-and-villainy]

In seriousness, I think people sometimes take Chiyoh’s “violence is what you understand” line too much at face value as a reading of Will.

On the one hand, she’s not wrong that Will has a tendency to communicate and understand others through violence, especially wrt his relationship with Hannibal. But she’s also really missing the context that Will actually understands quite a bit about persuasion through means other than violence! So much of his behaviour in the first half of season 2 involves manipulating others through telling them what they want to hear or showing them what they expect to see; in the latter half, he tries to entrap Hannibal via femme-fataling it up and ingratiating himself to Hannibal, pretending to be on board with his murder lifestyle (ostensibly) to get Hannibal to give him some actionable evidence. A consequence of Will’s empathy is that he’s extremely good at reading people and knowing how to appeal to them.

Also… this is a man who is extremely open to being seduced. His response to emotional turmoil has historically been to kiss Alana Bloom and readily crawl into bed with Margot Verger. No, having sex with a woman wouldn’t dissuade him from his violently-oriented obsession with Hannibal, but from Chiyoh’s POV, he was into the kiss! There was no indication he wasn’t responsive to her advances. It seems clear that the kiss was just a distraction and she was always planning to send him careening off that train.

And why shouldn’t she? She’s not a femme fatale, and while she does make some keen insights into Will’s psyche, she’s not really adept at verbal persuasion - he tries to manipulate her during their conversations much more than she tries to manipulate him. Brute force seems to be her MO in most situations - her response to most problems is to point a gun at them. And while she’s not down with capital punishment, she is willing to enforce the most ruthlessly punitive justice imaginable (her prisoner is only allowed the sound of water). I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that violence is (also) what she understands. And she’s just a much more interesting character to me when I interpret her as not being as straightforwardly morally righteous as she wants to think she is, and as using Will’s mindset to explain her methods as a form of deflection.

Also, it’s worth noting - in the next episode, she initially has her gun aimed at Hannibal, before turning it towards Will and shooting him. Who else has no idea what he wants to do with Hannibal until he actually does it, and is continually torn between whether he’s going to kill/capture Hannibal or help him? Will Graham. Bedelia also has the line about Chiyoh possibly being Hannibal’s worst mistake instead of Will - and while sadly not much is made of that, it does further establish a link between the two characters. Will is undoubtedly projecting some of his own stuff onto her, but he’s also not wrong that they have plenty in common, and I think she’s projecting back onto him!

[opalspring]

About Muu's murder possibly being an accident

Here are some ponders over Muu’s killing of Rei having been potentially unintentional, as well as some observations on her way of thinking.

I’ve been thinking about all this for a bit and wanted to share it. This is gonna be a little long. 

Cw: discussion about suicide

About the “Muu chasing Rei” scene

So, the scene in Afterpain where Muu runs after Rei has always seemed a little strange to me. Why are there so many cuts in the montage, on top of the tone of the song changing completely (not sure that’s the right term)?

It could have just been a way to save on the animation budget and fit the music’s rhythm better, but still.

Let’s have a look at some shots I think are important in this scene:

This shot could hint at the fact Muu’s school shoes were wet and slippery at the time. This will be important later.

Note how the hourglass looks balanced on both sides here.

We can’t see Muu’s shoes here. Why? This has to be important imo

Basically, I think the running scene is made up of two completely distinct scenes. From my understanding, there is one scene where Muu possibly confessed to Rei/ apologized for her actions and ending with Rei leaving, and another where Muu chased after Rei in her school shoes (probably slippery from stepping in the water) and accidentally stabbed her after tripping while she was planning to commit suicide in front of Rei.

Here’s a possible montage of how the chasing scene (with the stabbing) happened chronologically. Added some extras from inmf at the end too.

(This took way too long to make lol)

The ellipse with the screen turning white is important: we’re missing a lot of context on what happened before the stabbing. One way we could explain Rei turning around would be if Muu called out to her (explaining the crows dispersing). But maybe we’ll see in her 3rd mv.

In any case, Muu’s expression during the stabbing shows she’s just as shocked as Rei about what’s happening. Plus, the shoe falling far back behind Muu indicates she tripped with a lot of force, and there’s the detail of her shoes being slippery because of the water from the hose at school. This could reinforce the idea that Rei getting stabbed was an accident.

The other scene would probably just be Muu apologizing/confessing to Rei, then getting ignored. The biggest hint for this is how Muu’s shoes are hidden from view when this happens. This is probably a clue on how she actually has her outdoor shoes at that time. 

About Muu being in denial about the murder

One thing a little eyebrow-raising about Muu is how she keeps denying being in the wrong whenever asked about her murder. At first glance it looks like she feels unconcerned by it and maybe that’s partly true when looking at her second trial interrogation answers. However, I don’t think that’s all there is to it.

Muu might actually be so traumatized by the accident that she simply refuses to acknowledge it, or even think about it, period. This is hinted at in this interrogation question:

What’s the thing you’re most afraid of?

“Painful things, scary things, and also embarrassing things.”

From this we can guess Muu prefers to pretend like things she’s not happy with never happened, since they're painful to think about. It’s not the best idea when it comes to her murdering a person, but this might be what’s happening here and not her not caring about the whole thing.

In my opinion, Muu’s stubbornness about not acknowledging her murder could be partly because she doesn’t want to admit she killed the girl she loves, while she was (maybe) trying to stab herself instead. It was such a huge mistake for her that Muu’s mind likely refused to process it. 

Another detail hints at Muu’s repressed feelings about the crime. As much as she claims to not think it’s her fault, imagery from her mvs /where she can’t lie/ suggests she’s very affected by it in reality:

Whether Muu stabbed Rei out of her own volition or by accident, one thing was sure, she was not in a right state of mind when it happened. Her face here also looks too shocked for the stabbing to have happened intentionally in my opinion.

The trembling hands add to this. 

This is just my interpretation but here Muu really doesn’t look like she meant for the stabbing to happen, since she's hyperventilating and sweating. 

Why the attempted suicide in the first place?

A thing of note from inmf is Muu’s insistence on everything being “as she wishes”. The milestone post for inmf on the yt channel says this:

“God gave me everything”

“Everything is as I wish”

Looking at inmf, it certainly seems this way from Muu’s perspective. However, after this shot of Muu looking back (at Rei calling her out on her actions most likely), we get this:

I find this transition interesting. It’s as if the existence of Rei put Muu in such turmoil it spinned her life around, and led to Rei's demise. It was definitely the turning point moment in inmf. The details are still unclear, but it could be that, when Rei entered Muu’s life, everything wasn’t “as she wishes” anymore. Muu had found something (well, someone) that she couldn’t control (and make hers since it’s implied she loved her).

To complement this, please look at this quote from Muu’s first voice drama:

“I did kill her. But she’s the one to blame! The situation was to a point I had no choice but to kill her. I had such an awful time.”

While I think Muu feels horrible about her murder like mentioned above, this quote, depending on how we interpret it, could show us how Muu couldn’t bear the thought of not having full control in her life. The “awful time” part could be a reference not only to the bullying, but also to the fact she couldn’t control Rei/ get her to love her. 

While she didn’t mean to, she killed Rei, and to cope with the thought she comforted herself by thinking about how it was "the only solution". For possibly the first time in her life, Muu couldn’t get what she wanted, so this was the “only possible outcome” (though I don’t think she believes that deep down).

It’s more complicated than that even, Rei may have been the first person Muu fell in love with. It’s only a headcanon I have, but it’s possible Muu was overwhelmed by her feelings and did everything she could to get Rei to like her (maybe the part where she’s apologizing). She didn't know what to do with her feelings and wanted them reciprocated at all costs. But when Rei understandably pushes her off, with Muu being a bully and all, Muu snaps and becomes suicidal. Some time passes, and her suicide note on her, Muu runs after Rei to take her own life, though we know how this ended.

Muu’s conflicting feelings for Rei

We talked earlier about the visuals during the Muu running scene in Afterpain, but the lyrics during this part are also worth looking into:

“Let’s meet up inside the pain, a place just for me 

Postmortem makeup to hide my heart, how to solve it is a secret 

The stabbing of the little devil’s voice, counterattack being a suicide note 

“I love YOU” ”

In my opinion these are definitely the most important lyrics of the song. The whole thing is too difficult for me to decipher, but I think the “postmortem makeup to hide my heart” could refer to Muu’s romantic feelings for Rei, and how she plans to “bury them” with her suicide. Another thing is the “I love YOU”. I think this is probably the contents of the suicide note, as it goes right after its mention in the song.

Earlier we mentioned how Muu could have tried to commit suicide “because of Rei”. The catalyst for this could have been Muu realizing her crush on Rei, and how she became Muu’s sole weakness.

Do you have apologetic feelings for the person you killed?

“I think the person who wronged first should apologize”

This question was released during T1, but with the additional context from inmf we can infer a few more things here. In Muu’s mind, Rei was the one who did the wrong thing first. That’s quite something to say when Muu was a bully at the time she met her, and the implications of Rei calling her out on it. So why did Muu answer this way? 

It could be simply because of the fact Muu felt unsettled by both Rei having the courage to denounce her bullying, and Muu’s own feelings for her. Once again, Muu was probably scared of things that were out of her control, and so she made Rei "the bad one" in her mind.

Muu's romantic feelings for Rei are also hinted at with Muu’s fondness of tropical fish, that could be influenced by Rei (because of the fish on her backpack). 

This part from inmf is also noteworthy:

Muu’s visibly distraught from what just happened (whether it was an accident or not, it must have been traumatizing for her). This here could be Muu’s mind trying to cope with the situation. And these are the words she chose:

“可哀想なの” = “I’m always the drama queen” in the official English tl, or alternatively “I’m the one who should be pitied”

Why would she say that in that situation? No matter how one looks at it, she just stabbed someone. So why should we pity her? 

In Muu’s mind, it could be that Rei was a component in her life that, for the first time in her life that could make her lose face, like we discussed earlier. We don’t know how Muu’s parents would react to their daughter being a lesbian, but some part of society at least would shun her for it. And the thought of this might have been unacceptable for Muu, who thought since childhood she'd always be pampered no matter what.

That and the fact she accidentally murdered her crush.

So there it is, I hope this wasn’t too confusing! It was very hard to organize all this because Muu, much like Fuuta, keeps her feelings hidden and has sides to her that seem contradictory at times. Muu is a very complex character but very well-written imo, she has both redeeming qualities and bad parts that really make her feel human so it was really fun to come up with this. I hope it didn't look like I was trying to make excuses for Muu or demonize her actions because I feel like it's important to look at the whole picture when discussing her case in particular.