"#their rs is only as equal as he decides it to be" hits the nail on the HEAD for me THANK you. llh and fdb are friends the way parents and children can be friends. fdb makes a very commendable effort at being equals with llh and llh can allow and enjoy it to an extent but there IS a gap. fdb not having access to llh's past puts him in a unique position to understand llh in a way that nobody else does and that IS good for llh, like fresh eyes on such a worn out painful story. but there's also an element of responsibility that llh has for fdb that he doesn't have for dfs. dfs is his equal and can make his own life choices. he only escaped dfs at the end because of dfs's own choice to trust him with the flower, not anything llh could have done. but he can still escape fdb on his own power just fine. ANYWAY EVERY RELATIONSHIP IN THIS SHOW IS KILLING ME IN UNIQUE AND SPECIFIC WAYS thank u for understanding

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NO THANK YOU for understanding!!!! I didn't even think anyone was going to read [inserts opinion that I think could get me into a situation surrounded by knives] as you can tell I hid it deep in the tags of reblogs of my own non-maintagged post hbhjbhjbhjbj - and even much less agree with something of it

hell yeah. to me their relationship is entirely premised on that gap between them, for better and for worse. that's how fdb can be unique to him but at the same time also puts him out of fdb's reach forever (that's why ep 30 hits hard). it's very likely llh wouldn't have continued with their relationship - at least with the degree of investment he did - if not for finding out his connection to sgd. so the familial element in it is virtually inseparable from the manner they ended up to be with each other. (like also, on top of how how lxy was literally a formative "adult" figure to bb fdb.)

while fdb thinks this is a friendship the whole time, llh actually treats fdb like a younger family member 小辈, with the front of being friends bc he was a Liar hiding his identity. and then post-identity reveal was bc he's just a Liar who doesn't feel the need to load his own problems on a younger member as an elder. (I do think this mismatched perceptions of their relationship is delicious)

also that's such a good add-on regarding dihua's relationship - particularly about the element of trust between them, which is a basis to why I can consider them friends in some dimension even back when they were more of rivals, unlike fdb with llh. like llh/fdb, they contain a paradox: being the ones who understand each other better than anyone else can but also bc they're so up close on each other that they fail to really see each other too. they're equals premised on the circumstance of them being from the same generation with a shared past (that is also part of their tragedy), but also, in a very curious space of it not being entirely mutual - simply due to llh being the person he is with the kind of conflict he's facing. (once again, all the relationships llh have are embedded with a degree of them being unrequited and it's <333 </333)

THEY REALLY ARE KILLING ME TOO IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE YEAH