#vs. Ena's explosive and self-hating vs Mafuyu's actively seeking to harm herself

[contraspem--spero]

ok im curious what do you think about mizuki akiyama, the character who is heavily implied if not canonically transfeminine/trans female?

not a malicious question

Hi anon! I'm grateful you seem to ask in good faith, so I'll answer even though I don't normally entertain fandom stuff on my blog.

I'll also be using they/them for Mizuki going forward even though I personally don't agree with that but I assume you would be more comfortable this way.

My short answer: I don't really care about them. I like Mizuki's design, some of their cards/focus songs slap, I liked the rooftop friendship storyline, Mizuki&An interactions and their character overall, but I have no personal stake in the The Big Secret storyline. I don't have to morally agree with every media I consume. I can (and do) enjoy things with non-binary or trans characters in them; that fact doesn't make me doubt gender critical or radical feminist ideas.

As of right now, it's only implied* they're transfem; for as long as it's not outright stated in canon I will keep hc-ing Mizuki as a gnc guy who faces isolation and bullying because of it, as did I for dressing in "men's clothing" and not wearing make up. Which might also be canon just as well in the future.

Mizuki never answers the question of why they dress the way they do with anything other than "Because I like it", which actually aligns the gender critical idea of clothes and make-up and nail polish etc having no gender and how both men and women can both dress however they want (whilst simultaneously being aware that some of traditionally female/feminine clothes are purposefully impractical, financially draining, or outright harmful to your body and it's no coincidence; the gc idea of people having the freedom to do whatever doesn't necessarily go against the feminist idea that patriarchy is the reason those roles and practices exist in the first place and are actively harmful to women and girls as a class), and honestly? I like the way that is written.

Maybe the message proseka writers intended to send wasn't "Mizuki is trans because they dress like a girl and being forced into male roles makes them depressed and transphobia is bad", maybe it was "Mizuki is simply a boy who likes pink and dresses and cute things and maybe we should stop bulling people for being different that the rest". Or maybe I'm dead wrong and they will be confirmed as transgender later down the line. Who knows. It makes very little difference to me anyway because they're not one of my favourite characters and that's that.

*whilst they're being referred as they/them in the official English translation, we should be very, very aware that English translation is oftentimes inaccurate and occasionally even harmful/blatantly wrong and is prone to buying into popular fandom headcanons (e.g: calling Nagi An's Aunt officially whereas in canon their relationship get no label and are much more complicated than that; unnecessary Tsukasa Angst in Saki's even where he most likely refers to Saki being lonely and not himself; the whole Spojoy Kanade honorifics blunder, while understandably untranslatable, was handled very poorly). Plus it's the only way to make the entire storyline to work in English as Japanese language has no pronouns and we can't judge based off that. Leaving out the pronoun issue we're left to judge based of... Clothes and song lyrics. *Shrugs*

**I also feel like Mizuki's storyline was done very dirty in general by proseka event format because it feels so. painfully. stretched out over three years. It seriously lacks the pacing, but that's my issue with N25 in general; they're moving a little bit too slow for my taste save for Ena.