beta
I really adored Masumi's conversation about collectivism and individualism, in relation to empathy. How due to her sexuality, she feels like she's unable to empathise with the heteronormative society she lives in, and in turn said society cannot empathise with her. How she feels alone and ostracised, yet at the same time doesn't reach out, leading her to self-inflict herself with same prejudices she fears others will inflict onto her. A never ending cycle of self-inflicted hatred.
This. This right here, just one word... how??? How does an author come up with such a bullshit brain-dead concept and actually execute it well???
Regret.
You know, as silly as this was. It hit hard. It was all about wanting to be remembered… beautifully. How everyone has an intrinsic want to be remembered more than we were in actuality, that instead of being remembered for how we were—the good, bad, and the ugly—we rather be an idealised construct. A caricature. A fabrication. That we rather BE a lie, because in our lives we couldn’t work towards the truth.
Brain damage.
... Brain damage, but it tastes funny.
This was a story about the loss of humanity, but what does that even mean? The main character, Sada, epitomises what it means to 'dead'. He loses his life, and comes back as a hollow... raw... version of himself. He has to commit atrocities, that his old self could only shudder to think about to stay alive. He literally and metaphorically, dies in every sense of the word. Yet, he isn't dead, not entirely at least, and maybe that makes him 'human' enough.
Ao no Flag