LAIN IWAKURA 3/5demotivateJuly 9 2010, 02:17:29 UTC
Personality:
Lain is, at the outset, a chronically shy and developmentally stunted teenager. Though fourteen, she stands about a head shorter than most of her classmates, seems physically childlike, and still wanders around her house in bear pajamas. She can be tortuously withdrawn, failing to answer even direct questions, staring silently at her father for him to puzzle out her needs, or mumbling and stuttering her way out of confrontations. Basically, she becomes one of those people who are so terrified of engaging in human interaction that they come off rude or unsocialized, although she intends neither.
She bears little ill will toward other people, although her withdrawn nature prevents her from being friendly with them either. She by and large seems to observe life from a quiet corner, unseen and nonparticipatory, disaffected and directionless. Hello, teenage identity crisis of the late bloomer.
What happens when Lain comes in contact with her "other half" --her real father's uploaded personality and the routines written into his internet protocol-- is that she finally begins to branch out, often in wild, contradictory and experimental ways. But most of her unfolding personality comes across online, where she begins to split into several identities, not all of which are cognizant of each other at first: there's the childlike sponge for information who wants to know everything her computer can tell her; there's the sweet center of attention who enjoys being doted upon by her internet friends; there's the assertive internet detective; the confident hacker; and the surly forum troll who will go after anyone and everyone, including Lain herself.
"Why do you act like that part of me that I hate?"
The three "main" personalities are broken down on the production end as "childish" Lain (the introvert), "advanced" Lain (the net presence), and "evil" Lain (the troll). Advanced Lain sees herself as indistinguishable from the childish Lain, but rejects the troll personality, even going so far as trying to kill it until she realizes it will kill them both. The "core" child component rejects both.
As Lain grows more and more omnipresent in the Wired, her personalities become ever more divergent. She no longer can simply shift gears from quiet to angry; when her shy form is confronted with her net counterpart's exploits, she breaks down until she blacks out completely, leaving advanced Lain to solve things. The troll personality, on the other hand, diverges so completely that it leads a completely secondary, Tyler Durden-esque life, infiltrating all those insidious corners of the Wired until she basically acts as spyware snooping on anyone who's ever written a saucy private blog entry or admitted the wrong thing over the phone. And now she's discovered her ability as a component of the Wired allows her to tap into the subconscious resonance between man and machine to rewrite collective human memory.
As a result, Lain is more alone than she's ever been. Even if she manages to negotiate her various personalities, which she's still in conflict with, she's left with no one else to interact with but herself. By rewriting people's memories when the rumors about her finally become too inconvenient, she splits her identity again, between the side of her that knows what she's done and the modified copy of herself that she wrote to be compatible with other people's behavior. Her core personality, the child, is forced to stand aside and fade into virtual nonexistence as the "real" world goes on around her.
Lain is, at the outset, a chronically shy and developmentally stunted teenager. Though fourteen, she stands about a head shorter than most of her classmates, seems physically childlike, and still wanders around her house in bear pajamas. She can be tortuously withdrawn, failing to answer even direct questions, staring silently at her father for him to puzzle out her needs, or mumbling and stuttering her way out of confrontations. Basically, she becomes one of those people who are so terrified of engaging in human interaction that they come off rude or unsocialized, although she intends neither.
She bears little ill will toward other people, although her withdrawn nature prevents her from being friendly with them either. She by and large seems to observe life from a quiet corner, unseen and nonparticipatory, disaffected and directionless. Hello, teenage identity crisis of the late bloomer.
What happens when Lain comes in contact with her "other half" --her real father's uploaded personality and the routines written into his internet protocol-- is that she finally begins to branch out, often in wild, contradictory and experimental ways. But most of her unfolding personality comes across online, where she begins to split into several identities, not all of which are cognizant of each other at first: there's the childlike sponge for information who wants to know everything her computer can tell her; there's the sweet center of attention who enjoys being doted upon by her internet friends; there's the assertive internet detective; the confident hacker; and the surly forum troll who will go after anyone and everyone, including Lain herself.
"Why do you act like that part of me that I hate?"
The three "main" personalities are broken down on the production end as "childish" Lain (the introvert), "advanced" Lain (the net presence), and "evil" Lain (the troll). Advanced Lain sees herself as indistinguishable from the childish Lain, but rejects the troll personality, even going so far as trying to kill it until she realizes it will kill them both. The "core" child component rejects both.
As Lain grows more and more omnipresent in the Wired, her personalities become ever more divergent. She no longer can simply shift gears from quiet to angry; when her shy form is confronted with her net counterpart's exploits, she breaks down until she blacks out completely, leaving advanced Lain to solve things. The troll personality, on the other hand, diverges so completely that it leads a completely secondary, Tyler Durden-esque life, infiltrating all those insidious corners of the Wired until she basically acts as spyware snooping on anyone who's ever written a saucy private blog entry or admitted the wrong thing over the phone. And now she's discovered her ability as a component of the Wired allows her to tap into the subconscious resonance between man and machine to rewrite collective human memory.
As a result, Lain is more alone than she's ever been. Even if she manages to negotiate her various personalities, which she's still in conflict with, she's left with no one else to interact with but herself. By rewriting people's memories when the rumors about her finally become too inconvenient, she splits her identity again, between the side of her that knows what she's done and the modified copy of herself that she wrote to be compatible with other people's behavior. Her core personality, the child, is forced to stand aside and fade into virtual nonexistence as the "real" world goes on around her.
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