But seriously, if you were in their shoes would you speak up? If you could, then great, but it’s so much harder when you’re actually in such a fragile mental and emotional state. If anything I give them props for not breaking down or lashing out. Just because they’re mentally adults doesn’t mean they’re perfect, steel minded badasses. 25 isn’t even that old.
Besides, sure the cause of the misunderstanding is cliche. But if they just solved things so easily then this would be even more boring. And it would be unrealistic. They’ve been abused and neglected all this time and LITERALLY the only person they could trust was each other. Then suddenly they’re pulled into the palace with no real explanation by the ‘family’ that never gave a crap before, in a place full of political games. If anything suddenly showering them with affection and care would make them more on edge, since they’d be wondering what the catch is. So why would they bother talking to the emperor? How do they know he’ll even speak honestly, if at all? And why are they obligated to try and understand the royals who basically left them for dead? Because they’re family? UwU oppas and daddy love them so much tho? Fuck that noise.
Commit this to memory, for all y’all’s sakes. When someone hurts you, especially THAT badly, you have absolutely no obligation to listen to or forgive them. Could you fix things if you did? Maybe. But you’d likely face even more pain in the process, and you shouldn’t have to put yourself through that just for the sake of being ‘the better/ good person.’ Whether or not you talk to them is YOUR choice. And even if they have a good reason, that doesn’t automatically make what happened okay.
From what they’ve seen, he’s a total hypocrite. He neglects them, never wanted them, even wanted to kill them, then suddenly summons them and acts like he wants them as family. He treats them almost like they’re his legitimate kids. Just as they’re lowering their guard, getting their hopes up, they hear all this, and also see they’re not even officially registered/ acknowledged.
On the other hand, the emperor has never really dealt with children bc his kids all grew up like, immediately. Is he supposed to just unload all his thought processes on toddlers? Should he expect them to understand??? And what would he even say???? “Hey kids sorry I abandoned you, but it’s because I was forced or else I would have died. I won’t kill you now though, and you can have anything you want.” Even if he said things directly I doubt anyone would take that very well.
All that said, while I feel while the reactions and reasonings for each character are flawed and realistic, the plot forces those reactions and coincidences to happen in such a clunky and cliche way.
I doubt their runaway plan will be at all thought out, but I can hope. Either way it’s the author’s fault, not the twins’.
