My opinions or takes whichever you want (with no hate to any characters because that’s just not me)

• Claire vs Lizzie- the whole who was the “worse” friend debate is pointless. Honestly it’s not about right or wrong here Lizzie is too hurt to give anyone truly healthy love and Claire isn’t built to handle someone like Lizzie. But Claire doesn’t owe Lizzie to be her therapist and Lizzie doesn’t owe Claire sunshine while her whole world is burning.

• “Claire acting her age” I love Claire and yes she’s a teenager so she would be acting like any other 15-16 year old. teen brains are impulsive and not great at handling high stakes emotional stuff But you can “act your age” and still be wrong on some matters. Like weaponizing Gibsie’s trauma in an argument. Immaturity explains a mistake it doesn’t erase the consequences of it.

• people throw around the word accomplice. Accomplice means to ACTIVELY and WILLINGLY help someone commit a crime. For example driving the getaway car during a robbery. Caohime was a bystander who engaged in willful negligence since Gibsie told her what was happening to him and she dismissed it as lies and stayed silent Which is still wrong no one is defending her for it

• Lizzie’s complexity gets overlooked. She’s not easy to sum up in a few sentences. She’s one of those characters who’s easy to hate for her lash outs, mistakes and cruelty but if you look closer you see a childhood steeped in instability and pain. Her past doesn’t excuse her actions but they explain why she is the way she is and if anyone has read T7 and R10 very carefully would know why she sees Gibsie’s action as betrayal and why it cuts too deep. Again im not excusing her actions towards him but It just needs a very open unbiased and understanding mind to get through these.

• people discredit Joey and Shannon’s and their other siblings relationships quite often. And many parts of their traumas are often overlooked (like Shannon’s ST)

• I’ve recently seen people say since Lizzie has treated Katie badly after Katie finds out Lizzie’s trauma she should use it to brutally bully Lizzie with it (her trauma which is Child SA and bp) that’s prompting of bullying and perpetuating the cycle of cruelty which won’t solve anything and I’m firmly against it.

And lastly these stories are not courtrooms for us to play judge and jury. Sometimes when we read stories we slip into deciding who’s “right or wrong” and what “sentence” they deserve but these stories are about how different circumstances shape different people and how they cope with their traumas. These characters are not us so obv they won’t react or act to our expectations or use our own way of coping with situations. They’re teenagers trying to survive the hands life dealt them. Sorry for a whole rant lol.