complicated feelings??!!!!!!!! sorry guys

i completely get that lyrica is an absolute angel of a child and is immensely forgiving and understanding (and don't get me wrong i LOVE her lol), but sometimes i wish she would be able to feel, for an extended period of time, something like anger or resentment (directed at someone other than fjord's mom), or maybe something that could even be considered as bad or selfish.

like, while reading the part where lyrica's all shaken up about the deaths, i was astounded at how quickly she was able to essentially get over it (aside from feeling badly that fjord is desensitized to it i guess??). it would be really cool to see her kind of have to grapple with that brief disillusionment of royalty for a longer period of time, or even struggle for a little bit to see atil and fjord in the same way before having her moon revelation. i just kept thinking that if *I* were in that situation at that age, i would probably feel greatly disturbed and deeply traumatized after watching my beloved brother fucking vaporize someone into a pool of blood.

i also feel this way towards lyrica's relationship with her mother throughout the story so far. like, again, i understand that lyrica loves her mother deeply and i also appreciate that the story has continued to flesh out the abuse throughout the comic (like in the mom's background story some chapters back). but, like another commenter said, it's strange that despite lyrica living under an abusive, alcoholic mother for the first 8 years of her life, she holds no prolonged anger or sadness, no resentment---and instead absolutely worships the ground her mother walks on (yes, there was some conflict in the beginning, but it was only that lyrica didn't fully TRUST her mother).

it would have been so interesting if lyrica maintained her same personality, and yet had this strained dynamic with her mother that only improved throughout the story on a long-term scale. maybe we could have seen lyrica struggle with loving her mother while having these deep-seated negative feelings about her. i also think having this would have also solved a lot of frustration many readers feel towards the mother...in having a dynamic like this, the mother's growth might be more apparent and seem more purposeful, as she would have actually had to mend a deeply fractured relationship. it would feel less like the readers have to just watch the mother have her happy ending without fully compensating for the immense harm she did---or at least balancing out the scales.

honestly, sometimes, their dynamic just makes me sad. like, sure, it's cute! but seeing lyrica at such a young age having to silence others talking about her mom's genuine abuse and neglect of her (especially given that the shoeshiner was so concerned he wanted to ADOPT lyrica like im devastated) is just heartbreaking, even if it's not meant to be. the salt kind of gets rubbed in the wound by then seeing everybody else look at the shoeshiner like he just committed a cardinal sin by pointing out that abuse, and seeing the mother referring to her own abusive behaviors as her "secret past."

this is just wishful thinking, but it would be incredibly interesting to have lyrica at some point recall her past life and perhaps have her perspective on her mother/her life shifted. maybe i just want lyrica to be able to express the feelings she is entitled to, even if they aren't written into her character.