pff I loved it when you sang to me #;;#

Which I guess is a philosophical question, akin to the Matrix and all that - if this is all a simulation, is it better to know? It *think* echoes some Hindu/Buddhist ideas about breaking the cycle of samsara = breaking out of the simulation, but I'm not familiar enough to say for sure

I guess one interpretation is that this was all a simulation (which Lain basically says it is at one point) and Lain was somehow a program that went a little rogue, it makes sense that removing her would 'fix' the simulation but also keep all the simulated from being aware they were such.

So it's a combination of feeling seen and fucking, ow.

we are /demonstrably/ shown by the ending that *literally everyone she ever interacts with is somehow better off because she never existed*. It's like an anti-It's a Wonderful Life. And a fantasy that my depression has had in my own brain way too much

the plot never quite made sense to me, and I suppose it is somewhat dreamlike and vague. The ending also felt weirdly.. I don't want to say pro-suicide, but it's like, the series presents Lain as a depressed, quiet girl who goes out of her way to minimize her presence in everyone's life, and yet-