Go off about lalna being Like That PLEASE I live for this info dumping stuff
YOU FOOL, YOU’VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD
Keep in mind, this is mostly about the tekkit-flux buddies lalna, a lot of this may not apply to other lalnas and pretty much has nothing to do with lalnable
Alright, so, Tekkit-FB lalna starts out in the VEEERY beginning as being pretty soft-spoken, calm, and even has a pretty stable friendship with Rythian- who he later threatens to nuke. What gives?
Well, the inciting incident that caused Rythian to show so much hatred, was genuinely an accident on Lalna’s part. From Lalna’s perspective, all he was doing was trying to show off the cool new things he made to his friends! And then they started attacking him, and, well, he defended himself automatically. You may be wondering what the hell this has to do with anything, but it’s establishing a foundational part of Lalna’s character- he wants to be a good person, but doesn’t have an understanding of how.
My view on Lalna after this is that he’s deflecting blame, one, because he didn’t want to start a war and he doesn’t get why nobody believes him. But he’s learned that people are going to attack him because of this, so he goes on the defensive, ready to take anyone out before they can get close to hurting him. When he says to Rythian “Retribution? Can’t I just say sorry?”, he’s being entirely serious- he didn’t mean to do anything bad, why is he being punished? Why can’t anyone accept that he’s sorry? And two, even though he knows he didn’t intend to do anything evil... he feels bad. Really, really bad. And we’ve all seen how well Lalnas handle feelings like that- by pretending they don’t exist! He can’t admit he had even the tiniest part in this tragedy, because it’d be opening the dam, and he’d drown in the guilt. He isolates, he puts on a dramatic act to scare people off, he does everything he can to avoid having to face what happened.
And to make things worse, he’s not exactly hanging around the greatest of people. Putting aside whether or not the Xephii he knows are Evil, he’s still fairly business-first, except for when he gets angry, and then he loses his goddamn mind. Honeydew is friendly, but he also has a fun habit of yelling at and beating up his friends over minor slights. Sjin is... Sjin. We’ve already established that Lalna doesn’t really have an innate awareness of social rules, so being around folks that are fully ready to discard or twist them wasn’t the most helpful. It’s an environment of (mostly) playful bullying, but it lacks real, deep connections, and sets up a precedent of being unable to tell how far you can really trust your friends, and when Lalna is wrestling with the concept of how badly he fucked up, he has nowhere safe to turn.
Of course, this is all very kind and generous to Lalna- he’s definitely making some pretty awful choices. He really had no reason to trap Rythian or just in general go as far as he did. He fucked up! He continues to fuck up! Some of this really isn’t his fault, but he makes it much, much worse for himself.
In Flux Buddies, we really see him start to grow, and a lot of that is because he actually has a real friend. Nano comes in with no expectations, interest in what he’s doing, and no knowledge of any nuke-related issues. There’s a reason i go so hard on the Do Not Separate Them front, and it’s because they really balance each other out! Nano is supportive and listens to him have feelings, but she’s far from afraid to call him out if he fucks up or is being a jerk. And she doesn’t leave when he fucks up- he’s got a space where he can process guilt without it consuming him. We don’t see this weird disconnect in FB that we see in other series, like in the art I didn’t want to put this rant on. He’s not acting to avoid anything, he’s just.. himself!
How he is around Xephos and Honeydew in the older series is the closest to how he really is, without as much paranoia and defensive violent tendencies. Theres definitely some descending into madness there, don’t get me wrong- he’s very dangerous and unstable, and willing to commit cruelties at the drop of a hat. But that’s not what a healthy and loved Lalna looks like.
In conclusion, Lalnas are pack animals and shouldn’t be left alone or else they’ll start trying to preemptively kill threats
