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Mar 16, 2009 3:07 AM
#1

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Jan 2008
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THIS IS AN ANIME ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS THE MANGA BEYOND THIS EPISODE.
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Lain's split persona took over her real life D:
Mar 19, 2009 8:00 AM
#2

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Mar 2007
991
This anime was lame :(
Instagram: Luzifurr
Sep 5, 2009 6:56 AM
#3

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Jan 2008
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It is getting quite esoteric! I do hope it all makes sense in the end.

Finally getting to see some more of "wild Lain" - what a b****!
Nov 21, 2009 10:19 PM
#4

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Aug 2009
136
This episode is terrifying. The doll are great.
Jul 5, 2010 8:09 AM
#5

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Feb 2009
310
Does anyone here know the band "she"? (http://www.shemusic.org)
I noticed that there are audio samples from this episode used in the track "day 5" from album "days". (listen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqJrgNucF8E)
There are more samples from "Serial Experiments Lain" in that album.
If you like electronic music I recommend you check it out. There even is a "cyberpunk" side story to it http://www.shemusic.org/days/17/
It's also interesting, because the musician's name is Lain Trzaska.
Jul 28, 2010 2:15 AM
#6

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Feb 2009
3436
O_O

This was the craziest and most mindfuckish episode so far, basically Lain is being completely isolated from the real world, or so it seems...
Oct 16, 2010 9:48 PM
#7

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Oct 2008
7711
Completely mindfucked.
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.~
Nov 8, 2010 3:50 PM
#8

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Mar 2009
65239
The part where Lain was happy that her friends forgot everything and then suddenly her other personality appeared.. that was the best part for me.
Nov 20, 2010 1:06 AM
#9

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Aug 2009
345
Not even gonna pretend like I know what that was about x.x But I enjoyed it all the same. If I had to make a guess on anything, I'd speculate that Lain is probably the physical manifestation of the wired/internet, hence the crumbling of the boundary between the real world and the wired world. But that's just me speculating :)

Mar 26, 2011 4:30 PM

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Apr 2010
222
Those dolls were so creepy. Also, wild Lain is horrible.

If you don't remember something, it never happened. If you aren't remembered, you never existed. <3
Apr 14, 2011 6:38 PM

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Jul 2009
164
Definitely not echoing the 'Mindfuck' consensus, either for this rewatching, or when I originally watched it back a couple years ago. Lain is already established to be a goddess of the internet by this point. As well, since there's likely interference from 'God' and the other parts of Lain, it's no surprise this attempt at a reset didn't work.
Oct 14, 2011 6:18 AM

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Dec 2010
4764
I'm not sure of this, but maybe Lain's personality has once again split at the point where she became aware of her abilities. Maybe she can't remain the old Lain after this, but at the same time her "past" personality wasn't erased, but more likely - recreated...
Jan 21, 2012 7:58 PM

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Mar 2011
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Whoa, this is getting pretty crazy. Wild Lain is pretty insane.
Feb 11, 2012 12:40 PM

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Apr 2011
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Things just got a whole lot creepier. It also feels like things are piecing themselves together, though.
Mar 25, 2012 11:52 PM

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And once again - some questions got answered, while many new ones arose. Has her Wired-personality taken over? If that's the case, then where is the real Lain? Have they switched places? Really hope that all of this will make sense in the end...
Mar 31, 2012 9:01 PM
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Jul 2018
564612
I think this was a bad place to stop watching for almost a month. I'm thoroughly confused.
With the mention of the 7th protocol, I've got an idea of what might happen and what's going on.

What I don't know though, is whatever happened to Phantoma or that possibly murderous little kid from earlier?
Apr 7, 2012 7:50 PM

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May 2009
203
This anime is quite the epitome of 'mindfuck'. Whenever you begin to conceptualize things, you get lost again. It's absurd yet fascinating at the same time.
May 23, 2012 6:09 AM

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Jan 2012
2608
Wow, this was so messed up and creepy. The wild Lain is a nut. O_O


Oct 16, 2012 3:58 PM

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May 2012
53
Gorgeous episode. Absolutely.
That doeasn't mean I liked what I saw, beacuse I didn't - wild Lain that takes her life, Lain hated by the whole school ect. yet the episode was ingenious.
Nov 16, 2012 1:32 PM

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Jan 2012
116
This episode for me had the most WTF moments in it so far along with even more questions.

It appears that the wild lain did some research on the 7th protocol, but I am not sure what that means yet. Maybe it has to do with the end of the episode where wild lain has taken over her real body?

Also, what was up with her little handheld unit saying peeping tom and suddenly everyone in the school was just staring at her?

Some things were revealed, but in the end, even more questions are being asked.
Dec 8, 2012 1:57 PM

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May 2012
25827
Seems Lain having problems with her own personality now, her split one or her wired personality seems to have taken over... it's getting really weird now but lets keep watching!
Dec 24, 2012 11:09 AM

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Nov 2012
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Runko said:
This anime was lame :(
but essential for the up cumming episodes.
..
Jan 18, 2013 12:07 PM

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Jan 2010
277
So is Lain God? I have a feeling that the "real world" that the "good" Lain sees doesn't exist, and the Wired is the real thing.
Jan 25, 2013 3:22 AM
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Jan 2013
2
I'm getting the same idea. Remember that time in the beginning when she came back home and her whole house was empty? The puzzle of the multiplying high-tech equipment in her room? Her making other people forget things now?

What if the "real world" is essentially Lain's own creation in a Matrix-type world? Her parents/sister aren't real, just projections. Most people at school are the same - think of it, as soon as Lain gets the "peeping Tom" message, everyone is staring at her. That is her reaction/her fear, not everyone else suddenly acting in unison for no reason. Everyone behaves like people in a dream. Lain's dream. Which fits well with the "lain is everyone and everywhere"-theme.

Maybe some people are real. The men in black, for one. And the Knights, possibly. Logged in from outside. Her friends - I'm not certain about those. They might well just be dream-like projections.

If it's not actually all a dream, but that would be disappointing.
Feb 4, 2013 10:52 PM

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Sep 2011
10430
Lain is slowly getting isolated from reality. Wired Lain is taking over!
Feb 12, 2013 3:11 PM

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Jan 2013
11047
I wonder if the ending will be satisfying
Feb 18, 2013 5:41 PM

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Aug 2012
243
man, lain's family sucks.

so lain was spying on arisu masturbating to her teacher? lmao
May 9, 2013 9:23 PM

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Aug 2007
1490
Wow, easily the best episode so far!
I really, really enjoyed it. For the past episodes you are focusing more on what is going on and why it is happening, but this shows the first major breakthrough.

I'm not sure if I'm correct or not, but what I'd like to think is Lain was from the Wired.
The "real Lain" is an ego that formed outside of the Wired, but the original, omnipotent one is trying to switch places with her so she can become the malevolent god of the real world as well as the Wired.

Jun 7, 2013 10:31 AM

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Apr 2013
2282
I really wanted to see the wild Lain but damn i hate her. I wonder what is going to happen to Lain. Mindfuck all over again.
Jun 26, 2013 10:41 AM
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Jun 2013
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Decadent said:
Not even gonna pretend like I know what that was about x.x But I enjoyed it all the same. If I had to make a guess on anything, I'd speculate that Lain is probably the physical manifestation of the wired/internet, hence the crumbling of the boundary between the real world and the wired world. But that's just me speculating :)

Very good! Lain is obviously open for interpretation, but that's what I got out of it. It's actually my favorite anime :)
Jun 26, 2013 4:13 PM

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Feb 2013
1275
I think that "peeping tom" message refers to incident when Lain spied on Arisu while she was fingering herself.

Anyways, this episode was mind blowing as usual.

"And if, there were so many people in the world, there had to be someone living an interesting life that wasn't ordinary. I was sure of it. Why wasn't that person me?"
- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Part V
[/center]
Jun 28, 2013 10:58 PM

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Mar 2013
877
We seriously need a proper explanation for all this stuff...
Aug 12, 2013 4:16 PM

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Jan 2012
603
MY MIND.
I'm just... This episode was enjoyable, but the biggest mindbubbling episode yet. So i'm guessing the 'lain' we've seen throughout is an entitiy thats stuck between both reality, and the wired? having no parents, no history or anything? Maybe she was born when the 'wired' was born? Or even more far-fetched, that the knights created her??
Smiley Lain looked hilarious, but i'm guessing whenever she changes the 'timeline' a different Lain comes about?!?
I'm so lost, yet intrigued!! I honestly don't see a good end for Lain in this.
vhynz said:
I think that "peeping tom" message refers to incident when Lain spied on Arisu while she was fingering herself.

Anyways, this episode was mind blowing as usual.

Yeah, thats what i thought!! >___<
Oct 29, 2013 10:34 AM

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Mar 2012
5785
Wondering if her sister will return to normal.
Nov 2, 2013 11:28 AM

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Feb 2011
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so wired lain is taking over.. wonder why.. is it just to affirm she exists?

@Baldark
"Also, what was up with her little handheld unit saying peeping tom and suddenly everyone in the school was just staring at her?"
i didn't understand it the first time, but once the episode was over it seems it was meaning they knew she spied on them

@xAvengerx
"Wondering if her sister will return to normal."
wondering that too, she's looking pretty pityful now

Fixes to make the Profile more bearable after "the Modern★Profile★Update★★Rip★Profile★"
Nov 4, 2013 7:06 PM

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Sep 2012
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i recognize myself, thus my absolute ego is inside me. Mindfucked.
Dec 7, 2013 2:49 AM
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Nov 2013
171
This was a really interesting episode, and one in which a bit more actually happened than usual. The majority of it is very surreal. I actually had to watch it twice to fully understand what had happened.

So, the opening scenes confused me, I still don't really understand much about the IP's, other than that somehow, they are the way in which people in the wired are able to exchange information, and Tachibana General Labs is trying to sabotage the implementation of the 7th protocol.

After this we see a scene of Lain asking her parents about the remarks of them not being her real parents. When she enters the room, neither of her parents move at all or make eye contact, and it is eerily similar to the behavior of her soulless sister. The only response she gets to her questions is a stare, similar to the one she gets from the entire school farther on in the episode. I'm not quite sure of the meaning of this, but the behavior of most of the people in this episode seems more like that of dolls than that of humans. Somebody else in this thread remarked that the school stare scene has a dreamlike quality about it, and i would say the same of this scene.

In the next scene we learn that Wild Lain has done something to upset Arisu and the rest of her friends, which we later learn is telling everyone about Arisu's fantasies of sex with one of her teachers. One of her friends motions to Arisu that a teacher is arriving at the school, and this is something i did not pick up on during my first watch, but this is the same teacher that Arisu was fantasizing about.

We cut to lain sitting in class, on her navi-phone thing. She enters the wired, and it is unclear to me whether she does this intentionally through her phone or whether she is pulled into the wired by another force. We see her walk down a hallway suspended in darkness, with rows of people (the only visible part of which are their mouths) on either side, gossiping, apparently about other things that Wild Lain has told the wired. At the end of the hallway, she meets a being that claims to "exist everywhere in that other world." The being then reveals itself to be Lain herself, and says that real world Lain is just a body, a hologram. Lain refuses to believe this, and wakes up in the classroom.

I believe that this next scene is very important, as it seems to imply that the "real world" may not be so real as we think. The entire scene is very dreamlike. Upon Lain's awakening, she looks up to find that everyone, including the teacher, has ceased all activity and are staring at her, motionless. She leaves the classroom to find the rest of the entire school doing the same. This screams "dream" to me, as suddenly the whole world seems to be revolving around Lain, and playing to her fears. The entire scene is very creepy, yet the music, which thus far in the series has tended to match the eerie tone, is very calm and again, dreamlike.

Afterwords, we see Lain crying outside of the school, and receiving a text from Arisu attempting to comfort her, after which an orb of destruction erupts from her body and destroys the supply closet she was sitting outside of. This, i believe, is the moment at which Lain of the Wired takes over Lain of the real world's body.

Next, we see Wild Lain witnessing another of Arisu's fantasies about her teacher, and tormenting her about it, essentially destroying Lain's only real friendship. This scene points to the remarks of 'god' about lain existing everywhere being true. Wild Lain did not somehow sneak into Arisu's bedroom and seat herself on the bed unnoticed. She appeared there.

Now we see Lain lying in bed, terrified while the wires around her spark and crackle. A short shot of cyberia, and Lain floating away from powerlines, which shortly dissapear, leaving Lain suspended in darkness. This scene I am not sure what to make of. It could be any number of things, to lain experiencing being everywhere, to a dream, to the plain of existence that Lain now resides on after having been forced out of her own body by Wild Lain.

A bed appears in the blackness, and with it, the other Lain. There are some lines in this scene that seemed important to me. "Why are you acting like the part of me that i hate?" Lain admits that there is a part of her like Wild Lain, even after her statements of "you're not me". Then, when Lain attempts to strangle Wild Lain, WL laughs, and says "I'm committing suicide!" Both of these statements seem to me like the point to Lain and WL being more two sides of the same coin, rather than completely different people. Lain asks a question: "Why do i have to feel your body heat?" She does not want to feel WL's body heat, because she does not wan't to admit that Wild Lain is a real person, as much as she is, or perhaps more than she is. The answer she receives is "Hey, I'm Lain, aren't I?"

We cut back to the hallway, but now, instead of just mouths, the rows of people all have Lain's face. But they are obviously not human, not real.
'God' tells Lain that they are all her, because like him, she is omnipresent in the wired. Lain is in denial of his words, and says "everything that you say is a lie". "As long as I am aware of myself, my true self is inside of me!" But Wild Lain is aware of herself as well, no?

'God' says that what Wild Lain did was right, and that "The Wired's information should be shared, shouldn't it?" And yet he makes no attempt to persuade her not to undo what she did. She succeeds in erasing the memories of her friends, only to discover that WL has taken over her body and her friends cannot see or hear her. "Lain is Lain, and I'm me" WL says, further cementing the idea that they are both parts of Lain.

The end of the episode is Lain at her navi, asking "I'm me, right? There's no other me but me, right? But most of the evidence in this episode points to that being incorrect.
Dec 7, 2013 8:18 PM

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May 2011
534
looks like the 2nd Lain is unable to stop the 3rd Lain. After all, they are herself, and the Wired world IS reality without a body after all. Is there even a fine line that segregates both worlds in the first place?
"If you reject me, I'll blast a hole in you!" Kanzaki H. Aria
Just kidding.

Dec 8, 2013 12:07 PM

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Jan 2013
137
Well, at least we know her parents are total weirdos.
Dec 12, 2013 7:21 AM

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Apr 2012
77
In this episode we learn about how Tashibana laboratories are trying to control the next-gen protocol for the wired since the 6th gen is reaching its limit.

Later on we see how lain is looking for information in the wired and we heard again about the small child-like person with a red/green stripped sweater, probably related with the bug in the protocole 6, this was mentioned before in the episode 3 in some random conversation in the wired.

Kami-sama (god) speaks to Lain, he explains that he's everywhere and only has slight influence in the wired, he also says that Lain is just a part of him, as some kind of extension from the wired, lain don't believe this, but it could explain why sometimes there is another lain in other places.

After that lain receive an email from "peeping Tom?" and starts the creepy part of the episode, lain's reality is imploding in some weird way, she is doubting if she's real or not and she's looking for Arisu, probably the only one she sees as a friend.

From what I understand, the other lains are part of kami-sama in the wired and the lain we know is also part of him but with less knowledge of what or how they work. The problem for the lain we know is now that she knows who is she and also knows about the existence of the other lains and about kami-sama as a whole, she can't be part of that life she was before. She's contemplating about deleting the memories of her from the people she knows, but I don't think she haven't do it yet as we see in the final part of the episode, she's still in her room.

We don't know if all this is actually true, because there is also the possibility that this "kami-sama" is lying and he's doing this just to confuse lain for some reason.
TyrantRCDec 12, 2013 7:24 AM
なんとかなる
Feb 3, 2014 1:31 PM
The Shrike

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Nov 2009
11298
Splendid episode. I'm creeped out. Lain's world is a riddle wrapped in an enigma where nothing is what it seems. Or is it?
"Perhaps there is a universal, absolute truth. Perhaps it justifies every question. But that's beyond the reach of these small hands." Mamoru Oshii

There is a cult of ignorance (...) nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” Isaac Asimov

Jun 5, 2014 2:54 AM

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Nov 2013
586
Awesome. It definitely takes a couple watches to catch the details in this episode, and even then it's difficult to fully understand. It's also pretty interesting how everything's being revealed "from the inside-out."
Jun 18, 2014 1:15 PM

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Jun 2014
1665
Now that im starting to understand the message of the anime's theme, it seems to be the epitome of Facebook in a way.
Aug 30, 2014 8:15 PM

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Jun 2009
693
Beautiful episode. It was perfectly unsettling.

The transition from endless accusing stares to the absolute isolation of being left behind was especially poignant.

It’s rather depressing… because I have the feel Lain will stop existing if everyone forgets about her.
I think, then procrastinate.
Therefore, I am.
Sep 8, 2014 8:01 AM
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Aug 2014
109
m-i-c-h-a-e-l said:
Now that im starting to understand the message of the anime's theme, it seems to be the epitome of Facebook in a way.


I was actually thinking how applicable this anime is to the world we have today...all of our social media outlets; the 'rumors' we spread; the voyeurism; the pretension of cyber personalities... This anime is ingenious in asking the question of 'who we are'. It also makes sense in the way that our online lives can interrupt or'take over' our irl selves. I'm starting to see the bigger picture and the pieces are making sense here. Overall, I am curious to see how this story plays out.
Sep 8, 2014 6:23 PM

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Dec 2009
568
Wow, I didn't even realize 9mos past since I watched the last episode. I like thinking of this as a horror series more than anything. Just a nightmare for Lain.
Such junk...
Sep 11, 2014 12:50 PM

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Dec 2012
16302
Anisamar said:
Beautiful episode. It was perfectly unsettling.

The transition from endless accusing stares to the absolute isolation of being left behind was especially poignant.

It’s rather depressing… because I have the feel Lain will stop existing if everyone forgets about her.
Sep 21, 2014 7:22 AM

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Apr 2014
1167
man, lain looks pale af.
Jan 22, 2015 2:46 AM

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Oct 2013
2984
this shows meta is messed up
"Urushibara Ruka. The mannerisms and voice of a woman... No... More feminine than any woman. But he's a guy. Taller than Mayuri, but so very thin... But he's a guy. Looks great in a miko outfit... But he's a guy. It's already twilight And yet, it's so hot. The cicadas are crying. But... He's a guy."
Jan 25, 2015 1:41 PM

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Aug 2014
5132
Lots of development in this episode.
- It was true that Lain is omnipresent in the wired in some form of her or another
- There are not 3 but tons of different Lain's that exist within the wired
- This could all just be a metaphor for how people act differently online because there were tons of different kinds of Lains, there were business Lains and little girl Lains and all different kinds. The metaphor also symbolizes how those personalities sometimes consume them and change how they are in real life
-Lain's alternate wired version took over her body.
- The whole fight between Lain and Arisu could have been between their wired versions of themselves and nothing happened in real life. It could also all just be in Lains head or the wired or both. If either of these are true, then the real versions of them probably made up with each other and went back to how it was and that's when the wired version of Lain took over.
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It’s time to ditch the text file.
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