Burstfoot

Old Mizuki fanart i made a year ago 😼

I think ill start to upload my art here!! If anyone wanna follow me on instagram:

Art acc –> l1laaac_

Main acc –> l1laaac

See you later! (⁠＾⁠∇⁠＾⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♪

"We'll be okay"

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Non gif version bc Tumblr hates quality

I can't stop thinking about how much of mizuki's conflict in prsk is resolved entirely by ena's actions, not mizuki's own, and that's actually really fucking good. hear me out.

One of the driving emotions for Mizuki's conflict is obviously fear; she's afraid of being left once people know her secret, she's afraid she can only ever have shallow connections with people who wouldn't really accept her as who she is, she's afraid of losing the few friends she has and the one space where she feels like she can express herself through their shared art.

But beyond that, the other driving emotion for her is guilt. She feels guilty that she's been "deceiving" everyone else, she feels guilty that she's left Ena waiting for so long without telling her her secret, she feels guilty that everyone else seems to be moving forward and facing their fears while she seemingly can't. And when her secret is revealed, the strongest emotion she's going through isn't her fear of being left behind, it's the guilt that's been eating her away from the inside.

She tells ena that it can't be the same, that now ena won't be able to treat her the same, that she knows Ena and Kanade and Mafuyu are so kind they'll smile and tell her they're fine with it, but that they'll just be forcing themselves for the sake of kindness. That they'd rather not have to deal with everything that makes Mizuki complicated, but they would anyway because they're kind like that. That she can't bear that. She doesn't deserve that.

And all of this guilt is so real for this young trans girl to feel because it's what we're pushed towards constantly, even when we're supposedly accepted for who we are. The lie that we're deceiving others when we present as our own gender is so deeply written into our collective psyche, and even beyond that, even in "progressive" spaces, the violence we suffer is often treated as our own burden to bear, as something we have to deal with and not burden other people with.

So many basic bitch stories about trans women, with trans women protags written by cis people, have them struggle and "grow" as the story progresses, having to "face their fears", to come out to people they're scared of leaving them, to "trust their loved ones" and take that first step. I think a lot about The Missing, a game that gets a lot of the horror of being a trans girl and yet still has the protagonist, who is so terrified of how her mom would react to her coming out she tries to end her own life, learn the lesson that she should come out anyway, trust this person that's only given her reasons to fear her, because that's the only way for her to move forward.

Mizuki doesn't do that. She doesn't have to. Mizu5 is all about the horror of being outed before you're ready to come out yourself, even to someone you know would show you kindness. And it allows Mizuki to stew in her own guilt, the guilt that she never faced her fears herself, that she's burdening N25 with her suffering. But Ena5 is about Ena, so patient and unwilling to hurt Mizuki, finally being moved to action by kaito and meiko agreeing that it's up to her to be selfish and try to bring Mizuki back, to recognize that Mizuki doesn't want to be alone.

It's up to Ena to do the scary thing, for her to be open and vulnerable about her feelings. For her to go up to Mizuki, despite being ignored for so long, as someone who is so sensitive to being ignored- to being rejected- and to tell Mizuki what she needs- and deserves- to hear. That she's wanted. That Ena doesn't care if Mizuki thinks she deserves it or not, that Mizuki's guilt shouldn't factor in because Ena wants Mizuki beside her.

It's the ultimate transfem fantasy because it's the fantasy of being truly wanted, of being unconditionally loved. It's the fantasy of someone seeing you for who you are, and not just "accepting you" as if it's a favor they're doing you, but going as far as telling you that the way you've been conditioned by a lifetime of violence to feel and act to protect yourself is NOT your fault, it's NOT just your responsibility to deal with, that you deserve someone who will go through the effort of digging you out of that hole and that you're not a burden for needing that.

In a lot of subtle ways, Mizuki's story feels 1000% written by people who understand trans girls so far beyond the scope of the usual explaining-transness-to-cis-people style of narrative, even understanding ways that these narratives fuck up routinely and also understanding exactly what is needed to sneak this into a highly commercial hatsune miku gacha game. There's a lot of compromises made there for the sake of being this kind of story in this kind of game, but what we get in return is so much more meaningful as a transfem narrative than anything of similar popularity that I can think of, it fills me with so much emotion and I truly can't fathom believing it's somehow "bait" or "not real rep" unless you've never had to think about transmisogyny and how it emotionally affects you to this degree.

first of all, let's talk about the build up. because we, the audience, have also been waiting a long time, just like ena, and we have watched mizuki get ready little by little, we find ourselves perfectly positioned to empathise fully with both girls this event. we know the stakes and we feel them because real time has passed in the real world. over 3 years since ena's promise (around 1 in game). this build up felt as strong to us as it did to these two. we spend the whole event watching mizuki hype herself up – her hands are shaking, she can’t decide whether to message ena or not, she spends the whole festival smiling and enjoying it thinking it might be the last time she gets to laugh with niigo (and props to satohina’s voice acting because i could hear the anxiety in her voice the whole time). but you see, that’s exactly the issue. she even voices it, clearly, in her conversation with rui.

despite the fact that she is recognising that niigo probably won't reject her, she voices not only that she is scared of things changing, but also of being a burden.

"if i end up making them accept me"

"if i force them to talk to me in a certain way."

if you're trans, you know this fear. that people are humoring your identity out of politeness, rather than because they actually see you as who you are. for mizuki, this is coupled with the fear of losing her safe space where she's just one of the girls - they hang out and swap clothes and shop together and are so close. would things feel awkward if they knew she isn't cis? what if it's a burden on the rest of niigo, to be friends with someone like her? and mizuki hates being a burden, and this issue of hers gets discussed more in depth in ena5. because mizuki herself doesn't even recognise what she is saying rn as a major issue in this whole situation. she doesn't see that even if she gets to come out and it goes well, she'll still spiral. because meanwhile, this is ena:

the whole day, she's been watching over mizuki. miss "oblivious-as-all-hell-except-when-it-comes-to-this-pink-thing" has been worried all day, catching glimpses of mizuki's anxiety but shoving her worries aside in favor of trusting in mizuki and waiting until the end of the day as promised. she wants to do it right. she is ready to hear mizuki's confession, whatever it may be, and react the "right" way.

and see, here is why what happened, albeit horrifying, actually set them on a healing path much quicker than if mizuki had gotten the chance to come out to ena herself. because ena would have tried her best to react "well". and mizuki would have felt like she was "forcing" ena to accept her for who she is. that ena is only being kind, but things will never be the same. in time, the doubt would have eaten away at mizuki, and she would have tried to distance herself again and ena's efforts to pull her back would have taken much longer. the two of them would have needed to sit down and have a real, vulnerable heart-to-heart. from a storytelling standpoint, it would have been a nightmare to write right, and would have dragged on this arc for so much longer.

instead, we get this tragedy. mizuki doesn't get to come out, ena doesn't get to react the "right" way. mizuki sees her looking shocked (at the realisation that mizuki's coming out was robbed from them) and interprets her expression to mean that everything's changed. ena doesn't get to stop mizuki from leaving. they both suffer in between mizu5 and ena5. both of them unable to confide in anyone, all they have is rumination. which is a net good for ena. she gets to get used to the idea, and to reflect on everything that happened. ena, always impulsive, gets the chance to sit with her feelings, unable to do much, for weeks. it's good for ena, as a character, to have failed in stopping mizuki at the festival. as a person, ena is terrified of failure, but she also always managed to pick herself up and improve herself afterwards (with her art, and in this situation too). failing in reaching mizuki at the festival, ena gets the opportunity to reflect on what she could have done better, and why mizuki felt the way she did. and when she finds mizuki, she finally gets to see her unguarded. mizuki, the girl who is always smiling and brushing everything off. in the confrontation at the end of ena5, mizuki, hurt by what happened at the school festival and weeks of isolation, gets to be completely, utterly vulnerable in front of ena for the first time. she voices all her fears: of things changing, of niigo walking on eggshells around her not to offend her, of people talking behind ena's back if they see them together. she doesn't want to be a burden. she just wants to be. and the doubt that she's just a burden on her friends will always eat away at her so what's the point? and ena is angry, ena (the bleeding heart of the group) tells her none of that matters. all that matters is that she loves mizuki. that she cares about their friendship. that nothing would hurt more than losing her. that friends aren't burdens. you don't "deserve" to be friends you just are. and what she's learnt about mizuki changes nothing. and she doesn't care if mizuki is uncomfortable with the idea, if she says something that hurts her, ena wants to know because she wants to do better because that's what friends do! and it's only because mizuki has experienced weeks without ena and the rest of niigo, and because ena is so hurt and has run so much she can't stand anymore, that mizuki manages to allow ena to break through the last of her walls. she falls to her knees, and cries.