#i was gonna meme it but tbh the essay already wrote itself by the time i got here | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chase-the-ladybug · 11 months

Text

I’ve had skip to loafer on the brain lately and this one’s been marinating for a bit, but hear me out: aro Mitsumi.

Bear with me (manga spoilers ahead)

Firstly I know Shima has been headcannoned as aromantic (or arospec) by a lot of the fandom- and I do agree btw- but aro Mitsumi is slept on.

Are you telling me this is how she fantasies abt romantic confessions:

And she isnt remotely aro?

‘But OP’, you say. ‘She has a crush on Shima- how can she be aromantic?’

Firstly, there’s a spectrum of aromantism. She could be demiro, grayro, or another variation of the aromantic spectrum. A lot of these account for exceptions or other feelings of attraction outside of romance.

Moving on, from the start of her ‘catching feelings’ we’re introduced to the idea of having a crush through her best friend, Fumi. Whenever she has any sort of particular breakthroughs in understanding her feelings, it’s through Fumi talking about her own romantic experiences.

This is not to say Fumi is incorrect in how she descirbes romance, but often ppl who don’t experience romantic attraction struggle to distinguish what romantic feelings are in comparison to other types of feelings/attraction. This, coupled with the fact that even things that can be labelled ‘romantic’ vary from person to person, and the complexity that comes with that, means Mitsumi could have entirely mislabelled her feelings bc there’s no ‘non-romantic’ explanation for them.

In addition, the way she approached her relationship ending was another thing for me imo. The feelings were one part, but she also said she didn’t want to stress out about it with everything else in her life going on.

Obviously she still cares for Shima a great deal, and was mature and responsible in how she decided on/approached breaking up. But as someone who grew up saying ‘i don’t have time for relationships when i have so many goals i want to achieve- romance would be too stressful’… her goals respectively give her a convenient ‘out’ to developing a romantic relationship.

This out of hers allows her to not pay mind to romance, and we can see this play out through events with the student council. Ppl see her and Ujiie, and immediately make romantic assumptions about them. However, she’s oblivious to any of that, until it all hits her at once and she PANICS.

Ofc, we know it’s immediately dismissed by the narrative, and Mitsumi has always been oblivious. But I think it’s interesting how, specifically, her ignorance to amatonormativity is so blantantly presented to us after the break up.

Even with all of that though, I also want to mention that the way she cares about Shima is, awfully familiar to the way Shima does Mitsumi (aside from his specific complexity of recognising his own emotions). I think, if we are going to say Shima can like Mitsumi aromantically, that it’s only fair to say the other way around too.

In conclusion, aro Mitsumi is a valid reading.

#skip to loafer #skip and loafer #iwakura mitsumi #i was gonna meme it but tbh the essay already wrote itself by the time i got here #i love mitsumi sm and she reminds me of my younger self too #autistic… ambitious… why not aro?#if anyone else still wants to clown me abt this after reading all that- consider #im aro so i can headcanon whoever i want as aro 😌#stl #stl spoilers #oop i didnt forget the spoiler tag

53 notes · View notes