#also its slowly being hinted at what happened to maria and mamoru and thats just fucked up

[moonsuke]

I've always been annoyed when people are stuck writing female characters in feminine tropes, but when it's a male character they tend to be my fav... The opposite is true too of course. I usually dislike the male characters playing stereotypically masculine roles and love the female ones who do.

And that's why I continue loving Shun :D

He's the 'dead lover" that still exerts a passive influence in the show by being a motivational force and object of yearning for our main characters. And despite Maria's name popping up more, the way they remember her is entirely different from how they remember Shun. Her death brings about anger, regret and guilt. She plays a more "active" role too in the sense that when we remember her, its her feelings (especially towards Saki) at the fore front. She loves Saki, she wants to protect her, yet she has to stay with Mamoru to protect him because he needs her more.

It could be because their physical memories of Shun were wiped out and only their emotional ones remain, but when he's brought up its always about the main characters' feelings for him instead, like how they missed, loved and yearned for him. Actually even before his death, he was subjected to the whims of both Saki and Satoru a lot. Like in the eps touching on him and Satoru being together, he was mostly going along with what Satoru wants. Even Satoru revealed he had to persuade Shun into being in a relationship with him. And with Saki, he always had a powerful influence on her subconscious before and after his death, almost always in the form of revelations and a source of strength and motivation. His storyline and death deals with themes of self-sacrifice and loneliness too so he's definitely a more "passive" character in this sense. The smart, gentle one everyone loved who had to die too young.

Shun is like a drug to them I swear with how addicted to him these 2 are. There's the simpler part of me that just likes that the 2 leads are so in love with him lmao. We actually rarely get to see Satoru being sentimental and open with his feelings even for his friends, but when it comes to Shun, he opens up like in these screenshots. It seems he truly loved him, couldn't get over him even after a decade ;-; Same with Saki ;-;

It's sad too though because this complicated love polygon ends up with some being less loved than others. Mamoru > Maria > Saki > Shun < Satoru with Saki's feelings for Maria being there yet overshadowed by her feelings for Shun. Shun too likes Satoru but probably loves Saki more. And eventually I was spoiled to know Saki and Satoru ends up together and in love :)

Also that Shun would make a final appearance as Saki finally remembers his face :) I hope we get to see some Satoru and Shun too though :))