daniel cant even fucken hold a violin correctly

I don’t know if it’s because she isn’t as popular or as well-liked as the rest of the camp camp kids, but my girl has grown so much since Camp Cool Kidz! 

The whole point of that episode was to show how manipulating and deceiving Ered could be

Max: “Nikki, give it up! She doesn’t care about you, she just uses people!” Ered: “Don’t listen to him, Nikki!”  Nikki: “Don’t worry Ered, I know it’s not true!” 

Ered: “Uh, no? Of course it’s true, just don’t listen to him - I need you on my side.” 

Like seriously, you don’t need to know a thing about Ered before this episode to put together that she is just a selfish kid who doesn’t care about anyone except herself and what she wants. Nikki makes it painfully clear how much she admires Ered and Ered just uses that to her advantage, even admitting to it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She doesn’t care about anyone or any of the campers in this episode, she just wants to make herself seem more cool. She’s manipulative and selfish, and she doesn’t care about the repercussions or seems to even care about the fact that she used people. 

Look at her reaction after everything fell apart - she didn’t care that Nikki was upset, she just complained that everything that happened was ‘decidedly uncool,’ and based off the context of things, she probably blames everything on everyone else, and not her.

FAST FORWARD TO SEASON 3!! 

Ered Gets Her Cool Back was the huge game changer for her - it may have seen like a silly plot, but the underlying theme was Ered trying to regain back her self confidence. And Nerris was the one who helped her with that throughout the episode

Ered was so wrapped up in trying to come off as ‘cool’ the whole episode, that she wasn’t able to recognize that what was lost was her confidence. After Nerris was able to convey this to her, you could really see the change in her character - or rather this was the most obvious example of her character development. 

“You guys got it all wrong anyway, it doesn’t take a perceptioning check to know that Nerris was always the coolest camper here.”  Not only has she dropped the whole ‘everyone else is lame and I am obviously better than everyone’ attitude that she had in Camp Cool Kidz, but she is even going out of her way to ‘resign’ her ‘cool title’ and giving it to Nerris because she was able to realize that she can’t do things on her own - she needs other people and friends to help her confidence. Once everyone laughed at her, that was when she lost her self-esteem. She just needed someone to help her out and open her eyes to the fact that everyone needs someone to trust. She even recognizes Nikki’s feelings and told her that she ‘liked her old digs better.’ She didn’t address any of the other characters and their clothes swap, only Nikki’s because she knows that Nikkis looks up to her like a big sister, and she wants her to know that what’s cool is having your own personality and your own style.

And if anyone thinks this was just a one time change - I raise you The Lake Lilac Summer Social. 

Neil doesn’t approach her for help, she is the one that asks him ‘What’s up skinny jeans?’ When has Ered ever asked anyone what was wrong? Definitely not in any other episode I can think of. On top of that, she even gave him advice (albeit it may not have been the best - but to her it was the best advice) and even tried to console him that ‘whatever happens, happens.’ Meaning it’s not the end of the world if things don’t go the way you planned, it will all be ‘cool’ in the end. 

TL;DR ERED HAS GONE FROM A SELFISH MANIPULATIVE PERSON TO SOMEONE WHO RECOGNIZES AND UNDERSTANDS PEOPLE’S SELF ESTEEM ISSUES AND GOES OUT OF HER WAY TO HELP OTHERS REALIZE THAT THEY ARE ‘COOL’ JUST THE WAY YOU ARE AND YOU GUYS ARE JUST MEAN AND ONLY CARE ABOUT MAX AND DAVID’S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT