oh you want Ango thoughts? I'll give you Ango thoughts. hope you're okay with pain and suffering though because ohoghhgh, this man is filled with SO much pain and suffering
so basically. Ango is a fundamentally tragic character, and the tragedies mainly lie within his perceived self-contradictions. he hates everything he does the most. he hates all-nighters but forces himself to pull them anyway. he hates working overtime but does it anyway. he hates working in general actually but he can't let himself stop working because it would give room for the human parts of him to start living again and he can't have that. he deeply cares about human lives but is forced, again and again, to be in a position where he has to treat them objectively and impersonally. he never wanted to befriend Dazai and Oda, but he did, and he got attached, and then he lost them both in one fell swoop. he blames himself even though he was in a position where he couldn't do anything else. he had no choice. he tried his best to save Oda but his job demanded too much of him and he has so little left to give (he's given all he had already). deep down inside he wants to save lives and he'll give himself up a hundred times over for that cause. he wants to believe that it's all worth it but it's so hard. he wants to bury himself in the past because he can't see a future for himself. he doesn't think he even deserves a future after all he's done. he wishes Dazai had shot him. he wishes Chuuya had strangled him. he thinks it's what he deserves. he's willing to throw his life away to repay his debts. he doesn't know what he's working toward, so he throws himself into his work to avoid thinking about that. if he never clocks out, he never has to clock in, and if he never clocks out, he never has to spend time with himself and the ghosts hovering within his shadow. if never clocks out, the gears in the darker recesses of his mind won't have a chance to start turning. if he never stops reading memories, if he never stops burying himself in mementos of times long past, if he never lets his ability shut off, if he never stops standing behind the camera and clicking the shutter on the narrative, he won't have to think about the gaping void of his future and the murky gray of his present and the unpleasant reality of being. he sees himself as an instrument more than a person, as a means to an end. orders don't make him who he is but he would do anything he's told to do if he believes it's right. he's trying desperately to hold onto a sepia-toned past to avoid the full spectrum of reality. he's stuck in a loop of endless self-hatred. every single one of his transgressions flash through his mind as an unending film reel, and the discarded footage winds its way through the wrinkles of his brain like creeping vines, like a spreading infection, like rivulets of decay. he blames himself for each and every snapshot of sin. he's merely a tool with little control over his actions, and he realizes that, but the one thing he can control is the camera's perspective. the guilt is stifling him. he doesn't know where he'd be without it. he believes his life is worth less than other people's. he hates himself. he's constantly punishing himself. he knows his conceptions of himself are contradictory, but he can't imagine a different way of living. he doesn't want to imagine a different way of living. he wants to drown in his work but is finding that he's learning how to breathe underwater. he wants to control the narrative but can only control the way it's framed. he wants to think it's enough. it isn't. it'll never be enough. it's already too much. it's both. it's neither
YESSSSSSSSSS I love this so much thank you thank you 😮💨😭
this is so beautifully written you couldn't have said it any better