#big delicious bowl of bernadette lore just for u my friend

[maddiemuu]

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 W BERNADETTE. PLS.

HI HELLO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG!!!! i had a Week. putting this under a cut bc it is soo long LMAO

cw for mention of miscarriage + fatphobia/negative body image stuff + some descriptions of like. emotional abuse/shitty family dynamics. mom and dad berkshire suck real bad.

ummmm in short. itsa very bad. in long. bernadette has Many issues. here r some of her most defining ones (to me):

ok so first r her anger issues lol. bernadette is fucking MEAN which is extra bad bc she is very easily pissed off and does not rly bother controlling most of her impulses re:anger. she's fully aware of how unlikely she is to face consequences for her actions, so she can't really internally justify doing anything differently. like why bother lol.

NEXT r her wacko relationships with her siblings + by extension their horrible horrible parents. she especially has a MAJOR inferiority complex centered around her relationship w/ her younger sister beatrice. she HHHHATES beatrice, which is very funny to me bc beatrice is 16. bernadette has insane one sided beef with her despite being a full decade older. she fully views beatrice as like. the kid her parents had to spite her for not being "good enough" as a daughter which like. ok not an entirely inaccurate read on why beatrice exists. their parents should definitely not have had even one child, much less three. but here we are. bernadette blames beatrice for a lot of her mistreatment/role as the scapegoat as the family (the logic being that without beatrice around, there wouldn't be anyone around to make her look worse by comparison lol) even though that is entirely illogical + her parents DEF would have just found someone else to pit her against. bernadette is a lot closer with bentley due to a lot of diff factors, but she does still resent him a fair bit lol. they look very similar, and it especially makes her pretty upset that he doesn't get the same shit for being fat that she does. she just generally thinks he gets things pretty easy for being a man and being the oldest. he is oblivious to this 👍. bernadette also resents her parents, and has been made VERY aware she is the least favorite child, but instead of choosing to reject the inherently unfairly stacked system they have built, she's managed to convince herself that there's a chance she can earn their approval and love by just Proving how much better she is than her siblings. she is wrong about this ! on some level, she is aware she is wrong. but she's spent most of her life with that bootstrap mentality and is too afraid of what will happen if she gives it up. some fun "spoilers" related to bernadette + her fam's future: she does soooort of get a taste of being the favorite daughter (by default) again when beatrice is 20 and gets disowned for being gay (she is fine. she has her own money + a career by that point), but it's more like... she gets to be the second least favorite LOL. bernadette does also eventually get married but i have been too lazy to design her husband. maybe somedayyy. she really wanted kids and was pregnant twice but ended up miscarrying both times, and then decided she didn't ever want to try again or become a parent through other means. her marriage ends in a MEGA DIVORCE bc she and her husband can never come to an agreement about where to go from there. she never remarries but she can have one or two boytoys i think. a little treat from me to her. (one idea i've tossed around is a childhood friend/child of her parents' friends who has been singularly OBSESSED with her since they were like 12. she was his first kiss. she has forgotten this. He Has Not. she strings him along for her entertainment and he is aware of it but also totally fine with the situation) bentley on the other hand has two daughters and while he and bernadette remain somewhat close for the rest of his life (he dies first lol. in 2034 iirc? clock's a tickin bentley. better get to work on that bucket list) he is definitely (unintentionally) sort of insensitive about this.

related, she's just also generally pretty insecure at her core. the ice queen persona isn't a Lie, it's more of like. an idealized version of herself (to her at least lol). nothing can hurt her that way!!!! she's in control! she is also a major control freak which is really unfortunate bc at the end of the day she really does not control much at all <3. she's especially insecure about her body, which once again was MAJORLY exacerbated by seeing how beatrice was rewarded for being the Pretty, Thin Daughter, while she was the Ugly and Fat one. also did not help that she used to be much thinner and her family will not let her forget that.

ok i am going to cut myself off here i think bc otherwise u will be getting a whole thesis on bernadette. i love her i love talking about her. there is so much wrong with her. thank you SO much for the ask