( * @thmyis ︱ hc + a word for a headcanon ) : hc + friendships!
she’s had friends, certainly. mostly she had friends in highschool, and a handful she carried over to university, but the world is a harsh place, and freddie has grown calloused. she’s grown out of friends. her job makes it impossible to keep them, and the few she started with were quick to stab her in the back when it came to furthering their own careers. she isn’t innocent of such cruelties.
in her adulthood, lounds can say she has a few close friends, she may try to count alana bloom among that dwindling number, or wendy “windy city”, or even abigail hobbs if she is being kind to herself. but that does not mean they see freddie in the same light. in all honesty, she prefers the word acquaintance, or perhaps ally. her isolation is self imposed, it has grown from a distrust in a world that was not meant for kindness without gain. there is no one in the world freddie lounds won’t use.
even in her late thirties this statement remains mostly true, with only one exception. her success brings her peace of mind, though that could also be a side effect of therapy. she gains friends, builds trust as thin as the bridges might be. it takes time, it takes work, and there are days the harsh cold of a past self surface, people who bring it out in her, she is still manipulative, she is still blunt, and harsh when the days are long, but there is always wendy, and there are always her inner circle, coaxing her back from who she was to who she has become. through those people she has learned it takes time to thaw.
