another of my zomst/alnst analysis
HEAR ME OUT, im going to yap, yknow the drill: this will be long im sorry
the new MiziSua ZOMST comic is so good and really brings into light Sua's side of things and I have so much I want to say in regards to both of them now that we know for sure Sua purposefully does what she does so Mizi relies on her. i wanted to post this on twitter also but this fandom has the reading comprehension and attention span of a gold fish and they fucking HATE when you go slightly off script in whatever headcanons they've decided for themselves
for example, please hear me out, i'm going to start off talking about Mizi's hair: short vs long. i dont think im crazy to point out that Mizi prefers her hair long vs short because she actually chooses that for herself. Mizi chooses to grow it out to get back some form of autonomy that she feels like she doesn't have.
the conversation about her hair is a sensitive topic for some because they love their butch Mizi headcanons and like it's not that it's bad by all means do it i don't care, that label is more than just hair anyway, but some people really use it to justify the butch/masc headcanon for her or even go as far to say she is happier with the short hair/being masculine, but for me that is not the case. the way I see it, when Mizi has short hair it almost always not something she actively chose for herself or wanted to happen. a character's hair tells a story.
especially in this new zomst comic, Mizi and Sua are side by side but their hair only emphasizes what they're saying in the scene. Mizi is literally asking Sua if she can stay over for a bit because Sua has a bigger house and Mizi doesn't want to live with her mom anymore and it's not possible for her to have her own place yet and that she'll pay Sua back someday once she moves out etc. Sua unconditionally offers Mizi her home without payment. the stark contrast in their situation is only emphasized by the creative decision to show it in their design as well.
Mizi's hair is short, she is dirtied, bruised, and desperate for an escape and Sua has long hair, is well-kept and offering Mizi her home without payment. i always felt like Mizi's hair actually tells us more than people believe and i dont think it's as simple as oh she would be butch or whatever because they believe she is not conforming to the traditional sense of femininity entrusted on her. i dont even believe it was forced on her like that, but rather something she wants to lean into because it's what she enjoys and is true to her, but everyone AROUND HER weaponizes it against her. im saying this from experience, i only grew up to embrace my feminine attributes because i knew i always liked being that way but when you grow up as a girl people around you make YOU feel uncomfortable with the body you were born in.
anyway back to Mizi, in every instance where her hair is short she seems to be always stripped of her autonomy:
-she had her hair short when she was a baby so her hair is just growing anyway, but also being a child means you have no authority, you look for guidance from the adults in your life who in her case almost always failed her and didn't understand her and had control over her, her mom in zomst, Shine in alnst
-has poor living conditions: in zomst her mother/guardian is physically abusive and neglectful that basic grooming etc is harder on the child because the parent doesn't want to care for it, in a lot of instances when children have long hair and parents are not attentive to their grooming that hair become tangled/matted so having it short is easier
-in alien stage her hair deadass gets cut off without her consent because she was getting shot at and the stray laser sliced it all off. her trying to survive got her hair cut off not by her own choice. she was in a tough situation and she did what she did to survive.
so basically what im getting at is i have a different interpretation of why she gets short hair than what i usually see others believe which is they think she wants to be more masculine and reject femininity and i would argue that the short hair mean she is being STRIPPED of her autonomy because she has no other choice.
the fact that when her hair finally grows out is the year Mizi begs Shine to enter her into Alien Stage and there she grows and meets her friends and gained some semblance of self.
in zomst, when she gets out of her abusive household Mizi grows her hair out, and keeps it long all through out the rest of her school days, graduation, idol debut, and even when she gets turned into a zombie, it stays long. i even think you can pair it with how she remained in the toxic industry that exploits her because to some fucked up degree Mizi believes she still CHOSE this for herself and no one has control over her, not even Sua because as Mizi has said before, she hates feeling weak. So her stardom is worth feeling the negative effects of it but she realizes too late how it actually brought her back to square one: having no control over herself and life.
slapping sua was her breaking point, that's why we get a flashback in that split second sua hugs her because the whole thing reminded Mizi of her past. a past she so desperately wanted to run from, yet is her current reality even though she has grown so much since then: in age, hair, and status
so yeah, femme mizi is the way to go for me and on the next post because this shit is getting too long, im going to talk about how SUA instead is the one that would like to stray from the femininity forced on her since she was little.
the way she cut her hair on her own accord, how she was treated as the prized pony by her caretaker Nigeh, how a lot of her sisters would treat her badly because she was the favorite since Nigeh favored Sua aka Nigeh's prettiest doll (she viewed the girls she adopted as dolls she she can dress them up to look cute), how everyone even Mizi mentions to Sua's face that she is small and weak and they could crush her even in ZOMST, Sua goes from long hair, to short and keeps it short until she is turned into a zombie and how that can symbolize how she gave away her freedom and autonomy and be a zombie with Mizi for the rest of eternity because to Sua, it's always and will forever be Mizi. without Mizi, there is no Sua to Sua's eyes.
