Pyespie @pyespie - Tumblr Blog

karvakera

skibidi

sweetlambeyed

utena thing I won’t finish

closetcoffincasket

Takano Miyo

marchmedicine

gyattdaemn… a women’s… lave

meldelmew

nattnattkatt

DAY 70: hertamei doodle. I screamed when I saw that lightcone

cosmicquilt

the heart rate monitor stays ON during sex

flowryluv

party corner conversation

liyrical

geniuses’ rendezvous

They’re so butchfemme to me..

#honkai star rail #hsr #acheron #black swan #acheswan #hsr fanart

eepy-bells

Friend infodumped abt farcille so much I drew them

#WOOOOOOO I CHEERED!!!!!!#i’m so proud of myself for willing this into existence #dunmeshi #farcille #Eating it with my mind

bravesaboteur

The more I think about it, the more Laios and Falin's different perceptions of their parents are a case of "same parents, different childhood".

Whenever someone asks Laios about his and Falin's family, he comments on how they treated Falin but never comments about how how their childhood affected him - in fact, he kind of glosses over it. It's Falin that everyone is rallying to save, it's Falin that's Marcille's friend, it's Falin that everyone has a positive opinion of - he's just the weirdo brother that gets to share some of her light sometimes. He's the one who's only tolerated when he's useful in a dungeon. Falin's treatment is a large part of the reason that he left, but it's the symptom of a larger issue.

When we see Laios' thoughts of his parents in his nightmares, it's all about the expectations that he's supposed to live up to: the expectation to stop being "childish", the expectation to get married (to who his parents picked) and have children, the expectation to take over from his father as the village chief, the expectation to adapt to something that he isn't able to be in the way that people want him to. And these are all things that he has had to be told in some way: he had to be told that Shuro didn't like him, he had to be told that told that the gold-peelers were taking advantage of him - these aren't thoughts that just appeared on their own, these are all failures that someone has explicitly pointed out to him and they haunt him. Some of the things he considers his biggest failures are his failure to provide for and protect Falin and those have very tangible examples he can point to.

We get a glimpse of what happens when he fails to live up to his father's expectations when Falin is born. He expects a certain reaction from Laios and when he fails to give that reaction he physically puts him down, dismisses him, and underestimates how much he understands.

And that's something that's shown to be a bit of a sore point for him - people thinking that he doesn't understand something because he doesn't express himself like people expect. The few times we see him snap at people are because people think he isn't understanding something because he isn't reacting "normally".

On Falin's side, the expectations seem to be a lot different - she's the younger one, for one, she's a girl, and she was so young when the fallout from her having magic happened. She too had an arranged engagement, but that was broken off when she was sent away to magic school and since then, their parents only seem to be passively involved in her life. She's mostly been freed of the expectations that their parents had for her in her village - she won't be coming back after all. She understands why they sent her away, she wasn't completely oblivious to the villagers treatment of her and it was, arguably, for the best so she is at peace with what their relationship is for now. But she still wants to go to her hometown and see for herself with adult eyes because she has never really had the space to do that.

I don't think their parents are inherently evil people - the truth is probably somewhere between Laios and Falin's version of the story, Laios' side tinged by too much cynicism and Falin's by too much naivete.

It just strikes me that when he tried to provide the "normal" way he failed, but given the space to do something similar to what people expected of him, but in his own way, he succeeded. He isn't perfect but his efforts are ultimately fruitful and he is able to carve out a place for himself, Falin, and others who had been ostracized like them to call home.