Lanque Part 1.5
Alternative Title: Why I Fear the Mom Jades
TW: parental abuse, suicide and suicidal ideation
Lanque's existence and arc as a character is heavily dependent on those who live around him. He's a loving brother to Wanshi, and shares similar opinions of the more matriarchal jades to Daraya. These views heavily weigh into the character of Lanque, each to their own degree.
Wanshi
Due to Wanshi's young age, Lanque's relationship with her is quite simple, but incredibly nice. Lanque helps out with Wanshi's love of Soldier Purrbeasts and seems to carry a genuine interest to go along with it. They have a strong, positive brother-sister relationship. He's definitely playing off the “too cool for kids stuff” aspect, but he definitely cares for his sister and gives me vibes, personally, of wanting to be the supportive elder that he never really had the chance to have.
Daraya
Daraya is an interesting case. There's very little in the terms of explicit canon interaction between the two, but the shared opinions on Bronya and Lynera (the aforementioned Mom Jades) leads to a massive paradigm shift and how one could see the character of Lanque. Hiveswap is incredibly interesting due to the lack of any kind of reliable narrator, there's no one to give a pure, unbiased, objective truth to a character, and, even then, the jades are too human to be looked through the “objective lens” of a narrator. So what we know must be supported by other characters and what they say, so when Daraya says she finds Bronya and Lynera to be suppressive, toxic, and borderline abusive in the way that they treat their younger jades, the way that they go out and do the very things they heavily scold the other jades for, it's potent. And all of this climaxes in daraya's second bad ending, wherein she allows herself to be consumed by the fires of the building around her. Stay tuned for my possible first fanfiction release.
Lynera and Bronya
These two are lumped together with reason: their reaction to Lanque's NSFW route. Lanque accuses Lynera of being similar to him, in that she is a promiscuous person who frequently leaves the brooding caverns in search of quadrantship. Meanwhile, Bronya is slightly more explicit in her underhandedness. We know she has relationships outside of the caverns, likely pailing as well. Bronya responds to these accusations, much like Lynera does, by brushing them off and then casting more shade onto Lanque. This brings into question not only their personal lives and actions, but also their views on Lanque. We know, through his NSFW route, that Lanque isn't much for quadrantship, and more looks for a quick pail here and there. However, Bronya says he has matesprites and is quite abusive towards them. Again, this leads to the conundrum of the reliability of those around him. I personally believe that Lanque might be abusive towards the long-term matesprites he has, but that's for reasons that will be explained in part two. More importantly, I think it's a look into Bronya's character, in that she is an abusive guardian who lies about her “children” (other jades but Lynera) in order to guilt them or shame them for things they have not done. However, we see that this abuse doesn't seem to work on the jades, in that they don't seem to listen, but instead lash out in their own unique ways. Wanshi vents lightly to MSPAR, Daraya deals with suicidal ideation and, in her bad end, literally fucking kills herself because of her treatment by Bronya and Lynera. So when Lanque lashes out at Bronya and Lynera, the reader should hopefully be more inclined to agree with him due to the messages from literally every other jade. This is the impetus for all of Lanque's actions: he is fucking pissed and petty, he will not stand for being abused ans suppressed by people who don't act with honesty and integrity like those around him, and he is going to lash out and act impulsive because of it.