Another Bit of Everything

qiflings band AU yayayayayayyy!!

Olruggio in Qifrey's body: All right, we can figure out how to fix this, just relax-

Biyoo from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

"basically shes an unidentified round fucking thing"

I think people are right to be critical of the constant "mom and dad" jokes in WHA (a few is alright but at some point... it's subconscious bias, it really is), but to say there's nothing parental about the way Qifrey acts with the girls is also... off, to me?

maybe my opinion is skewed because I did not grow up with a standard nuclear family dynamic and my mother was very invested in teaching me and sharing knowledge. I've had people who took on mentor roles and they were lovely, I owe them a lot, but they did not take on a caregiver role in the way that Qifrey does

the atelier "family" dynamic is interesting to me because it's got that veneer of "cute typical family" but it's not typical by our standards, and I don't think it's typical in universe either. witch society essentially sends kids to live with their mentors, who will become their primary adult figure/caregiver from the time a child is anywhere between 7-10 years old. that doesn't make the mentor the child's parent, per se, but it does mean that the responsibilities a parent traditionally has in our world are offloaded to another adult when a child is past a certain age.

but in places like the great hall, the young witches can presumably go see their birth parents at any time, can hang out with other kids, and also will likely get to know a lot more adult figures who will also take on mentor-type roles (since passing on knowledge to the next generation appears to be very culturally important to witches - so says Jujy and I trust her). the point is, there are other people around who can help provide for children and make sure they grow up healthy/safe/educated, etc. in the case of Qifrey's atelier, because they are isolated, Qifrey is the one in charge of everything: teaching, food prep, well-being, and so on and so forth. by necessity, the role Qifrey must take on to take adequate care of the girls is a parental one, or at least that of a provider.

but what really makes Qifrey come across as parental to me is the amount of effort he puts into it. he really does go above and beyond what is necessarily expected of him in all aspects of the girls' lives, not just as a teacher in charge of their education. I wouldn't call him their "dad", because he's not and that's not the role he takes on (don't even get me started on the "mom" thing) but I would absolutely say he's parental!