ciel

Everyone's familiar with the jerk x nice dynamic. Especially the jerk bad boy x nice girl. And the nice girl usually ends up fixing or trying to fix the guy.

So basically when I first saw the Nightcord at 25:00(or just Niigo lol) story, I immediately saw Ena as the designated jerk asshole character and Mizuki as the nice girl. Which was kinda accurate in a sense(what Ena told Mafuyu in the main story in her rant after it was revealed that Mafuyu wanted to disappear was kinda not...right to say and all though I do like her later direct and blunt treatment of Mafuyu as it's funny) as Ena is the sorta brooding-ish tsundere character who lost the will to live in the past and Mizuki usually lightens the mood and calms her down(and riles her up too as part of their friendly dynamic hehehe).

So of course I expected Mizuki to be the one to help out or "fix" Ena. Sure I saw some fan content concerning Ena and Mizuki with the latter's secret being involved but I thought it was literally just fan content and that Mizuki's feelings wouldn't get explored and would get just shafted to the side. I dunno I was always used to seeing fans of some franchises picking up the slack for the bubbly characters who have lore(and usually that fan content involves the tsundere or cold brooding character comforting the nice bubbly character which I personally am really into yet hardly see in canon official content. Well until pjsk I guess).

Then I actually read the lore and witnessed the Mizu5 era of the fandom and literally couldn't believe that Ena freaking Shinonome confronted Mizuki mcchickenfreaking Akiyama's whole hiding emotions/secret shebang in Mizu2 and that Mafuyu clocking Mizuki hiding her feelings actually went somewhere.

I would've thought that was something from a fanfiction but NO it's CANON WTF

And Ena, the supposed asshole jerk character, actually went through development by helping people(Mafuyu, Mizuki) and realizing her love for herself(well for art technically, but she IS art metaphorically) in the process. And Mizuki didn't have to like "fix" her or anything though she's the designated nice girl of the unit who brightens the mood, and has to allow herself to get help and show her negative feelings too without feeling like a burden.

(I hate how Mizuki got hate in some parts of the fandom for physically pushing Ena away in a period of stress in Ena5, like come on she looked super sorry too it is nuanceddd)

I think Ena is a spin on the tsundere/mean trope as usually those characters are smart and like. "Logical" but in a really pessimistic way. Yet Ena is all for expression and has more feeling involved and is kinda dense and stoopid/silly while Mizuki is academically and emotionally intelligent

Also did I mention that I think that Mizuki is an interesting spin on the trope of "nice girl who was mean/not-so-nice in the past"? Except she didn't bully anyone as the trope usually goes - she was just openly cynical for a period of time due to inevitable societal rejection and the lack of self-expression.

Anyways happy pride month, love MizuEna, meow bark bark