#I PERSONALLY blame bad writing for most of it

[lexirosewrites]

Ok hear me out the grammys r today & I am a swiftie

(PSA not Nancy Wheeler friendly & Billy Hargrove pops in like a jump scare but he's somehow better than Nancy??)

O!Steve loves his career, he gets to make music with his favorite producer & best friend ever B!Robin Buckley, he gets to tour his music around the world, his fans made it possible for him to pivot his career, & now he is free from the overbearing thumb of his previous record label. He's on top of the world, prepping to embark on his most ambitious & physically demanding tour of his career with a partner working on her own growing career in journalism

Then, Jonathan Byers messages him. He's a beta who works w A!Nancy Wheeler at her news network job where she's rising in the ranks as an investigative reporter. He confesses to Steve with evidence tht Nancy has been cheating on Steve w Jonathan for going on 3 months. Jonathan is ending things w Nancy & he felt Steve should know what Nancy has done & Jonathan emphasizes he feels terrible. Steve doesn't blame Jonathan necessarily, Steve is more upset w Nancy. So Steve breaks things off, gets professional movers to take all of her things out of his various apartments & homes & mail them all to her New York address all at once, gets her to give back every key she has, and Nancy doesn't even have the decency to pretend at remorse for how she's shattered him, just sneers & makes a remark abt him writing a song abt her as if the 5 years they were together meant nothing

Steve rebounds HARD

His begins his tour & decides to indulge in a relationship w blue eyed bad boy British actor Billy Hargrove, he's crass & abrasive & it ends like a car crash behind the closed doors of Steve's beloved Nashville apartment, but at least Billy parts w a statement tht shows the asshole is even more understanding than Nancy abt how Steve will write a song or 2 abt this

The show must go on & it does. It's during a break btwn cities tht his little step-brother Dustin sends him the link to a clip of a podcast

It's a group of 4 friends, two of them alphas, 1 a beta & 1 an omega man. 2 of them are involved in professional hockey. The podcast involves them playing d&d but they also chat for abt an hour at the start of every episode. The alpha Eddie Munson plays as star goalie of The Detroit Red Wings (a team his grandpa Otis cheers for) & the beta Felix calls plays from the box. While A!Jeff & O!Gareth both have lucrative careers in computer science & robotics. Gareth works w NASA & the Mars Rovers, no wonder Dustin likes the podcast his twerp of a brother is coworkers w Gareth

This particular clip is from the first hour of a recent episode & is abt how Eddie has been a not at all secret fan of Steve since his debut & how he got to see the tour when it stopped in Detroit & how it was the best show Eddie's ever seen. Eddie confesses he was a little sad to learn Steve isn't meeting anyone backstage during this tour as he puts himself on vocal rest as often as possible to maintain the ability to sing for 3 hours straight, because Eddie had a friendship bracelet he made with his number on it & he happily implies it was his phone number & the alpha graciously responds to the teasing abt having a long time celebrity crush on Steve

Steve is charmed

He only needs to send 2 messages to Dustin before he's sending a text to Eddie's personal number. They hit it off, they're both goofy in the same ways, Eddie is theatrical in a different but complimentary way, soon they're meeting up privately btwn stops on his tour & Eddie's prep for hockey season & then Steve is very publicly at a Red Wings game & soon after Eddie is in the very visible VIP tent at the New York show trading his own handmade bracelets w fans

& Steve ends the night w a lyric change he only told Robin about bc she's 50% of his impulse control just like he's 50% of her impulse control & they secretly recorded a remix of the encore song because they liked it so much. The lyric tht used to reference Nancy with "karma is the girl on the screen" is changed to "karma is the guy on the wings" which makes the crowd explode with noise

When the show is done Steve knows fans r waiting to see him exit the stadium waving one last goodbye for the night & he knows they see Eddie clearly waiting for Steve & tht they're all recording so he does something he's never done for a beau: he runs ahead of his security right into Eddie's arms & is swept into a kiss tht makes him feel like they're the only ppl in the world

The multiple videos from multiple angles go viral within minutes of posting & the internet descends into madness when the remix is dropped w the lyric change just 3 hours later, but Steve & Eddie r too busy cuddling in Steves nest in his NYC penthouse the both of them laughing at the ketchup blood in a bad slasher movie to care abt tht

biting both of them from happiness🥰

[olderthannetfic]

Don't take this as me defending AI/GPT, but people are WAY too paranoid about it. I find it especially ironic when people use AI to try to detect AI (though that seems to be more of an academics thing than a hobby thing). There's so many words/phrases/punctuation that are easily declared as AI red flags and they're all...normal grammar, to me?

Also, again, not defending it, but people really act like AI writing/art is the worse thing that could ever possibly happen and if you use it you're some evil and irredeemable bastard who Eats Real Creatives For Breakfast, and not in the sexy "cannibalism as an act of love" way! Like, again, I wouldn't personally read or look at AI art/fic myself (at least not knowingly) bc I prefer things that are created by humans, but it's not like it's the worst thing ever to grace our sacred fandom spaces. And like, objectively, it is kinda cool in theory, you know? "This computer program can effortlessly spit out any type of art/fiction you want" is the type of thing a lot of people never even dreamed would happen. I don't blame people for playing with it, even if I am opposed to it.

I also don't like it when people hate AI for reasons that aren't a realistic problem. Like when they make it too high tech if that makes sense? "This AI DIRECTLY COPIES THE STYLE OF THIS PARTICULAR ARTIST/AUTHOR/MUSICIAN" no it does not. we're not quite there yet. And I'm sorry, but most indie artists/freelance authors/small musicians are not that special. Sure if one individual person decides to feed a different certain other individual person's work to gpt and then say "finish this piece of writing for me, in this style" then you might get something thematically similar but if i tell ChatGPT "Write me an actually good Star Wars script, but in the style of FanfictionWriter420 on ao3" without any context of who FanfictionWriter420 is, I likely will not get what I want. "Write me a song that could be a Beatles song" sure, maybe I might get something semi-passable, but this whole thing of "gpt is PERSONALLY STEALING YOUR FANFICTION SO LOCK IT DOWN NOW" (um, like someone can't simply make an ao3 account and then just .... feed user-locked fic to the gen AI?!??!💀💀💀) is just...not happening.

Like please hate AI for the actual bad that AI does, no need to fearmonger and make things up.

--

[lapisnotlazuli]

Calling Lapis fans/defenders "gooners" is insanely closed minded of people. Steven Universe is a show where things aren't black and white because it is written realistically. Just because someone takes the time to understand or defend a character doesn't mean they just like the character for their looks.

Lapis was used over and over again. First she was put in the mirror and used that way, then by Peridot and Jasper as a source of information, then by Jasper in a fusion. She never even wanted to be part of a war, she got caught up in one and it took thousands of years to escape.

Jasper was abusive and it's implied/can be assumed she was physical with Lapis on the ship (if anybody wants I can go into detail on this). Lapis had one chance to save Steven. She didn't want to be used again and she snapped back. Jasper was fully ready to use her, Lapis was reacting in a fight/flight mode. Sure she WAS by the ocean but could she really summon the water before Jasper hurt/shattered her and went after Steven? In a life or death situation you don't think logically. Her first instinct wasn't even to fight, she tries to run and Jasper grabs her. Maybe there were other solutions but it mainly feels like victim blaming. Jasper was ready to use Lapis for power and Lapis knew this. Lapis very much just reacted. Why does she have to be a perfect victim to Jasper's force/abuse? Why do people forget how logic can fly out the door in a life or death scenario? Sure she could have done things differently but SU writes her realistically, people being abused don't always make the prettiest choices.

Once Lapis got to Earth, she had a day before another gem who used her (Peridot) started to try to be her friend. She just wasn't ready for that. Peridot sorry might have felt genuine from Peridot's POV but to Lapis it just sounded like "sorry I used you but you were just really useful lol". Apologies with a "but" often feel so half hearted and like the situation was actually just the receivers fault. Of course, Lapis shouldn't have yelled or broke the tape recorder but she had tried to just say no earlier. She didn't go straight to yelling like people act like she did. She was pushed past a point and snapped. Both gems in this episode could have handled it better.

Putting that aside, they become great friends later and are close!! However there's only about a year between this and her finding out the diamonds were aware of Earth. She didn't have time to heal in that year- no human would and a year is almost nothing to gems. She wanted to keep Peridot safe, that's why she tried to take Peridot with her. Even though Peridot wanted to stay, Lapis was too scared to. She snapped at Peridot because she was scared for herself and Peridot. Peridot was era 2, she would have never known the war like Lapis did. Of course, yelling and taking the barn wasn't the right thing but it is not black and white. Judging based off future and the end of S5, they talked and Lapis most likely apologized.

Lapis did do things wrong but she still isn't a bad person. The fandom seems to think someone has to be perfect to be a good person but the truth is noone is perfect.

She could've done things differently and she could've done the "right" thing several times but she grew and changed after her choices. She came back to help defend Earth- she came back to Peridot. I wish people didn't just hate her to make another character look better. Lapis is a good person who was used over and over again, of course she had some flaws. But at the end of the day what matters is the nuance of the situation.

I will always defend Lapis because people never take more than 5 seconds to understand her. Black and white thinking is far to common especially in this fandom.

[angelwolf985]

Dean saying, "He manipulated him. He made him promises. Said 'Paradise on Earth,' and Cas bought it. And you know what it got him? It got him dead! Now you may be able to forget about that, but I can't!" just entirely confirms this whole thing is about cas i hate it here

[designernishiki]

ever think about the fact that nishiki largely spiraled the way he did because of being considered incompetent and unfavorable in comparison to kiryu by everyone important in his life, and thus was constantly neglected and forgotten about. and then think about how the bomb would never have had to go off if kiryu and/or yumi just paid literally any attention to him after the showdown. talked to him. helped him to his feet. kept an eye on him. anything. instead of more or less forgetting he was there and allowing him the opportunity to do what he did. do you ever think about that. i sure do

[kyliafanfiction]

I sometimes feel like characters who do truly monstrous things while also having been victims of some pretty insane shit themselves are sort of an exercise in empathy. Or at least, should be seen as such.

Like, in real life, if a person who has been horribly broken by their experiences and failed by society than proceeds to rape someone - it's hard to feel the justifiable sympathy/empathy for that person (without excusing their rape, never do that) because well, you can look at this actual human person they hurt, or worse, and it feels gross and disrespectful to the rape victim.

And this is understandable. (And applies to more than just rapists/rape victims of course, that's just the most visceral one and thus picked for that reason)

But a fictional rape victim is... fictional. You can't 'disrespect' their trauma, and while obviously rape/whatever else is real, and people may related to the rape victim and thus see your comments about the rapist also being a victim as somehow being about their experience...

Well, it's not.

Because the rapist here, didn't actually hurt a real person. Fictional characters are objects. They're objects that often grab us by the throat and refuse to leave our fucking heads, yes, but they're objects. They are tools used by writers to tell a story, and readers to tell a story.

And one of the things fictional characters are good for is allowing us to consider experiences we never had, and imagine ourselves in other circumstances and lives. (Also just fun and fascinating and interesting to watch their stories).

It's very easy to feel for the rape victim in fiction, and rightly so. That's Level 1 Empathy there. Granted, some people IRL fail that, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Advanced Empathy, hard Empathy is feeling for the rapist. Not for the rape, of course, even if they feel guilt about it, but if someone really was failed on multiple levels and was broken and damaged and went through the sort of psychological wringer that would leave most of us here on tumblr catatonic - they do deserve the same Empathy any human (any person) who went through all that.

Even after they also do the bad thing, critically they still deserve Empathy. And that is fucking hard. I very often have a hard time feeling bad for truly awful people who also deserve empathy and sympathy, real and even fictional (despite all this, yeah, I'm not perfect on this) for what they (separately) went through.

It also becomes even harder when what they went through is utterly bound up with what they did. How what they went through and experiences is in part responsible for what they did - because they still made a choice. The circumstances may have left them not in their right mind, may have left them feeling without choice, may have driven them to things they normally might not think of or do, but they still chose to do that bad thing. And that's not okay. They still hurt someone.

And yet - one cannot remove the action from the circumstances. So you can still feel empathy, and elucidate all the factors and circumstances as to what led up to their choices and why, and it doesn't change that they did the horrible thing. The rape, or the murders, or whatever.

But circling back - with a fictional character... they didn't hurt a real person. There's no one who is real that suffered. The things the character did IRL are bad because they hurt real people.

So you're not being disrespectful to the victim by feeling that empathy, or sympathy. By exploring the things that they were a victim for. Even by wanting to focus on those things - fictional characters should be compelling in all their aspects, if they're written well.

And yet, of course, if you do that empathy and do talk about what the bad person went through and all that context, people come at you. They call you evil, just as bad as the (again, fictional) character, or they say that you're treading dangerously close to the arguments people use to defend the real people who do these things in real life. Or you're disrespecting all the victims of these crimes IRL. Especially of course, if the person coming at you has a reason this comes close to home.

But again - fictional.

In an ideal world, we'd all feel sympathy and empathy when it's called for, regardless of what the person did. Even the worst most monstrous people deserve human treatment in prison. And if you don't have empathy, that's hard. Even if you do have empathy, that's hard.

So if you look at a fictional character (who doesn't hurt a real person by virtue of being fictional) that does horrible, vile things, but went through so much, and you still can't empathize or sympathize with them... I mean, it doesn't make you a bad person, not even close, this is still fiction, and there's people I should empathize with in fiction that I don't, but...

It's still a failure of your ability to be empathetic. And we're all humans. We're all failing at that, among other things, all the time. But... it's good to be aware of that. at least?

At the very least, bear that in mind when other people are talking about that context, and that victimization. And please, for the love of god, don't fucking pretend that the victimization didn't happen, that this person who did do terrible things (in fiction) suddenly didn't also (in fiction) experience awful shit, as if doing a bad thing erases all the bad things done to you.

Again - it doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but like... the horrible state of prisons in our society is a real, actual problem. The way we as a society dehumanize people who do bad things is a real actual problem for a lot of reasons (not least because it creates an incentive for authority that wants to dehumanize a person or a group to expand the definition of 'did bad things' to make their dehumanization now acceptable, among other things).

So yeah. Fictional character who suffers but than also makes others suffer - that's a useful exercise in Empathy. And doing that doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person, or actually defending the sorts of crimes, IRL or Fictional, that this character did. Contextualizing is not whitewashing, empathy is not erasing, and humanizing is not disrespecting the victim(s).

So yeah, they fictional character did bad things. But there's more to them than that. And you can say but and talk about what comes after but without disrespecting the fictional victim. Because the fictional victim... is just as fictional. Just as not real.

Is it possible for this to end up being taken too far? Yes. But that's a reason to be mindful of yourself when it comes to real people, not to never do it. And when it comes to fictional people - again, fictional. Nobody was actually, really hurt.

(I really do want to make clear, before people read the tags, that this applies to all crimes these sorts of characters do, rape was just picked as the one to use as the example.)

[alicentflorent]

FTWDs final season could have been so much better if it was revealed that Troy was running padre and controlling madison (as revenge) this whole time. He knew enough about nick and Alicia to make madison think padre knew who and where they were this whole time. And here are some other reasons how this storyline would make sense and be more interesting:

- Troy has a military background so him taking over and running a military base makes more sense than two teenagers building it up by themselves because all the adults died.

- taking and training up children to be solidiers also would make a little sense because of his own fucked up upbringing and the idea he has of the type of people who were made for this world. He would have probably had the same idea as shrike, that the kids stood a better chance at padre than with their “weak” parents. The mother of his child dying for being a good person and not getting to raise their daughter (who would not be named after his abuser) could have also played into this idea of the kids being separated from their good parents.

- shrikes radiation cure experiments: Troy ran walker bite experiments before, just to see how people would turn. So it would also make sense if the work we see shrike doing was something he approved of or an idea he himself came up with. As for shrike, it would make sense that she turned out this way if she’d spent years being mentored by someone like troy otto instead of becoming evil and stealing children just because her dad died.

- the scene where madison smashes the glass to expose “padre” would have been such a good and shocking reveal if it was Troy. Imagine Madison finding out that Troy is not only alive but had been the one running this the whole time!

There’s also a lot of other things I would have done differently for the other characters too and I would have liked Madison to have a little villain era and do some really fucked up shit as she tries to take down Troy and padre. How dark would Madison go? Would she survive with her humanity still intact?

I know I’m just talking into the void here because no one care about this shitshow but I just hate it when shows have a plot that could have been good, maybe even great but then completely miss the mark and fans come with better theories and ideas with minimal effort and thought.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Worst Guy Ever - Also, Unfortunately, Very Homosexual Convo. (subtextually)

[loumauve]

Why do you like Ikrie? 😉😏

(sorry about the delay, smirky, winky anony-mouse)

..why do I like Ikrie. The question might as well be - what don't I like about Ikrie, or.. why do plants like sunlight. She's warm, her existence nourishes me, she comforts me.

I like her because she's Ikrie.

She takes her fears and doubts and shoves them deep into a glacier crack, together with her grief. She forsakes the ways of her people if they do more harm than good, she's not afraid to ask for help or offer it. She knows the value of shared burdens and past grievances laid to rest.

I don't know. I guess Ikrie (like Aloy and Beta, each in their own ways) represents parts of myself that I've done my best to nourish and grow, and some that I still struggle to come to terms with.

I like that she's her own person, that she knows what she wants and when to take some time to process before she proceeds. I want the best for her because she's been through a lot and she deserves love and rest and calm (and all the excitement and thrill she might want).

I don't know who you are, anony-mouse, but I think it would be easier to understand if you come hang out and ask more specific questions. I promise I don't bite and I'm always happy to chat about my fandom faves. I'd have done more of that lately but a big work project kinda ate up all of my time and energy, and I'm still recovering from that.

[gaydogmarriage]

feel like many of the ppl who critique hoyo for how they write women dont actually know wtf theyre talking about and arent much better themselves

[privateolives]

When media only represented lgbt people as sassy and promiscuous, everyone cried for more wholesome stories. Now that the norm is wholesome falling in love stories, people are demanding kinks again.

Girl, your enemy isn't one or the other. Your enemy is The Single Narrative and pretending that either representation is Bad is a fool's game.

Just because something is more prevalent at the moment doesn't make it inherently bad. It's perfectly good to represent that parts of the experience. We just need to recognise that we need to start diversifying our stories when one particular narrative starts becoming too prevalent, instead of declaring one thing Bad Representation and going into the exact opposite camp to show how Not That we are. If that's the only attitude we have, then we risk making this new Opposite the only new narrative.

Prevalent depictions tend to come in waves of reactions to things happening in society but also very much in relation to previous depictions. You see this not just inside LGBT narratives but also in media representation of racial stereotypes, focus on masculine and feminen tendencies in fashion history, etc.

Lately though, I've been seeing posts getting more and more hostile towards the Previous Representation as if it's that experience's fault for existing - such as lgbt people who "pass straight" vs "incredibly queercoded", narratives of people who want to heal troubled family relations and a general tendency for creative work (especially in writing prompts) to just take one trope and inverting it, then calling that the peak of creativity, even when there's not necesarrily any bottomline thought to what this new story is trying to say beyond "being the opposite".

That's not to say any one person who wants to try turning tropes on their heads are inherently Problematic or anything of the sort, but it's worth examining if one representation makes that representation inherently problematic, or just in need of more diversity.

More diversity than just pointing at the opposite camp and making that the new norm until we're all sick to death of that one. Lest we just repeat the same cycle without creating actual diverse representation; Or even worse, start creating the idea that the beautiful, multi-faceted experience that is the LGBT community as a whole just falls into new binaries of experiences than just sex and preference.

[brutal-out-here]

Wait hold up Michone leaves!?!?

[starpros-sunshine]

"You just need to lower your expectations" No you don't, actually. Don't let them hand you mediocrity under the excuse that your standards are just too high. Demand more.

[giantkillerjack]

It is very true that this "kid-glove explaining" IS sometimes the only way to get any assistance at all, and that this is absolutely not the fault of the disabled people who have been put in so horrible a position by their ableist loved ones. You have to do what you must to survive.

But i just want to emphasize how it is also true that the labor of these kinds of repeated forced-calm explanations can be extremely harmful for the disabled person long-term.

I say this because I THOUGHT I had made progress with teaching my family, but in fact I had only gained a LOT of additional trauma and grief during a time when I desperately needed non-ableist support.

I was sick and in crisis for years, and during that time, I repeatedly spent the energy i could have used to ask friends for help on instead begging my family to learn how to stop hLeping me and start Helping me.

This genuinely endangered my life on multiple occasions. Imagine the difference between getting immediate help bailing water out of your sinking ship (ex. my friend Laura metaphorically jumping into my boat with buckets and pumps and no judgment), and having to instead stand in your increasingly-sinking ship explaining (so SO gently or else they will dismiss you entirely, even though the water is creeping up to your neck) to someone that "actually no, adding water to my boat doesn't help please PLEASE just bail it out; I cannot emphasize enough that I can't swim why do I have to keep saying that? no I don't think I could have avoided that hurricane and it hurts that you keep asking; no I am not faking it - why would I fake this?? What kind of person do you think I am??" - as they allow the water to creep up to your chin. That's the difference between help and hLep.

Also, a helper wants you to have all the help you could possibly need, and they recognize that they almost certainly can't provide you with everything you need on their own. (Ex. My partner can't help me with panic attacks most of the time due to her own mental illness. But she helps with all sorts of other stuff, communicates her limits, and actively encourages me to rely on my friends for support.)

Meanwhile, a hLeper might be offended that you would even want ANYONE'S assistance besides their own because it isn't about *your need,* it is about *their pride.*

If the people around me *get angry at me for being angry* when THEY are the ones who hurt ME, then I no longer want them around me. And I hope to have the skill and the privilege to be able to stay in control of that. I hope someday we all can have that.

And to every disabled person stuck waiting for better days: Please survive in the meantime because your survival is the key to a better future for us. It will be better with you there. I don't care if you disagree with me; you won't persuade me otherwise - I am a stubborn Jack. I want you there. Disabled survival is an act of radical resistance. You, along with the other contributiors to this post, are Punk As Fuck.

I go into these concepts some more in this version of the post.

[Also, if you have any trouble reading the opening paragraphs of this post, I edited the original post into a more dyslexic-friendly version, and I've tried to include that link in every version of the post that I refer to.]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hlep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you ask for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hlep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hlep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it helps reinforce the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hleper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

[takaraphoenix]

The thing about comic fandom is that there are so many characterizations and iterations of characters, in main timeline alone thanks to reboots or simply to... different writers on different series with very different takes, on top of adaptations and Elseworlds.

So you encounter "he would not fucking say that", very often in regards to actual canon content. And the majority of them are usually valid and right.

You go by a metric of "okay but this has been canon for So Long that the new, changed, different canon is contradictory to a long history of canon". Usually.

But sometimes, you hear people yell about inaccurate characterizations and you keep reading the comics and you keep running into... very consistent... characterizations, throughout different stories, different takes, different timelines even, and at one point, you should consider that maybe the character just isn't what you want them to be.

Some characters are just bad. Bad people, making bad choices and bad decisions. And it's not an inconsistent writing issue or slander of the character. If dozens of writers and dozens of series/runs/adaptations all agree on it, maybe it's you who wants this character to be something they're not.

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

We NEED more soft!Rafe after the new season. He moved out and got a whole house to himself maybe he could ask his girl to move in? Becasue he wants her there and to be part of his life...his new life where he's a better person

Request: SOFT RAFE PLSSS

I don't know when I found time to write this, but enjoy soft!Rafe asking his girlfriend to move in with him! Feel free to send more requests, I'll write when I find time

Warnings: soft!Rafe, relationship moving quickly, mention of Ward's death

—

‘’Rafe, I truly can’t see. I’m not cheating,'’ you promised as you walked with Rafe’s hands over your eyes.  

He had picked you up in late afternoon and refused to tell you where you were going. Just that he wanted to show you something...and that you had to close your eyes during the whole drive. 

Rafe laughed a bit, trusting you. ''Okay, okay.'' 

You walked a few more steps, then he stopped and removed his hands from your eyes, revealing a large two story house. 

A frown formed between your eyebrows. ‘’Who's house is this?''

He wrapped his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder. ‘’Mine,'' he whispered in your ear, giving you a gentle kiss on your jawline. ‘’As of this morning.'' 

Surprise filled your face. ‘’You bought a house?’’ 

Every time Rafe showed up to your place after a fight with his family — most often his father —, needing a bed to crash in for a few days, you tried talking to him about getting his own place. It would solve a lot of conflicts. But Rafe always said he wasn’t ready to leave the family nest. 

Behind you, Rafe hummed. ‘’I bought it with a part of my dad’s inheritance money. Sharing a house with Rose is not possible anymore. Too much has happened...’’ 

You covered his hands with yours in silent support. You’d heard the ugly stories about Rose and Rafe. He hadn’t always made the best decisions in the past, but Rose constantly blamed him for everything bad that happened to the family. Rafe may have deep personal issues, but it was wrong of her to villainize him.

‘’Do you want a tour?’’ he asked, his voice brimming with excitement, and the eagerness in his eyes made it impossible for you to refuse.

You followed Rafe up the steps to the porch of his new home. He fumbled briefly with the key before pushing the door open, but just as you were about to enter, he pulled you to a sudden stop.

“Wait,” he ordered, his strong arms wrapping around you as he effortlessly lifted you up.

You squeaked, startled by the sudden move. ‘’Rafe, we're not married, you know,’’ you said with a soft laugh, looping an arm behind his neck. ‘’You don't have to carry me over the threshold."

He set you down gently on the wooden floor of the entrance hall and shut the door behind him. 

Inside, the house felt big and empty, its openness accentuated by the sunlight streaming through the uncovered windows.

‘’I don’t know why, but I expected it to be fully furnished,’’ you admitted, glancing towards what you assumed was the living room. 

Rafe chuckled, his fingers lacing with yours as he guided you further in. ‘’Some people do buy them furnished, but this one wasn’t. You’ll have to help me pick out furniture because I suck at decorating.’’ 

The kitchen was massive and even had two ovens — a rich people thing. It was unfortunate Rafe didn’t cook. The backyard had a large patio where Rafe mentioned wanting to set a barbecue and a firepit, and maybe one of those large daybeds. He wanted his house to be cozy and feel like a home, not look straight out of a fucking magazine.

As he led you into the last room upstairs, the master bedroom, Rafe's voice grew soft. The words were burning on his tongue, but he didn’t know how to say them. 

‘’And here's our bedroom. I mean, the bedroom.’’ He made a mistake on purpose, just to see your reaction. 

You tried to hide the smile that spread across your lips, your heart beating fast in your chest. The slip of his tongue hadn't gone by unnoticed. Did he truly mean for you to live here with him? Was this why he took you to the house and insisted on making it a surprise? 

‘’There’s a big bathtub in the master bedroom, and—’’ Rafe continued, moving toward the bathroom to show you the bathtub, but you were not listening. 

Moving in with someone is a huge step in a relationship, not something you can decide on a whim. You and Rafe had only been together for a few months, so it felt a bit early to take that step. But then again, everything in your relationship had moved quickly from the start. He met your parents two weeks after your first kiss, and said ‘I love you’ after twenty-six days of dating — yes, you had counted them. 

When Rafe glanced back at you, he noticed you seemed deep in thought. ‘’Is everything okay?’’ he asked, an eyebrow raised in concern. 

You snapped out of your thoughts, shaking your head. ‘’Yeah, everything’s good,’’ you replied, smiling at him. ‘’I was just thinking of all the time it’ll take us to christen our house.’’ A mischievous grin curled on your lips as you walked toward him. ‘’Maybe we should start now. It’s a big house.’’ 

Rafe’s eyes flickered with surprise as he heard what you were implying. He expected you to refuse, to say it was too soon. 

‘’You’ll move in with me?’’ he asked, a hint of disbelief in his voice. 

You nodded, and a smile curled on Rafe's face. He's never been happier.

—

OBX taglist: @moralina@eudximoniakr @toylewestinnyc @rottenstyx@sweeterheartxamerica  @jordierama @viridwityy @izzy-laufeyson @kenzi-woycehoski @lilaconner @Katsukis1Wife   @hawkegfs @mommyruuetrue   @acornacreacure @snownjune @nmedina8611 @slvtherinseeker   @slvtherinseeker @poppet05 @1stevelacyfan @illf4iry @withbeautyandrage   @maybankslover @sunflowerziva @laylasbunbunny @Honey-marvel15 @leoluvsur-pappy @slytherhoes @kcskye123 @outerbanksacc   @pedrosprincess   @mikaelsonsstuff  @skyesthebomb   @a1mzcruml3y @iluurmom   @popeheywardssecretgf  @madelynie  @loverofdrewstarkey   @radiant-whore  @outsider-at-hogwarts @luci1fer @bbycowboi @rafecameronsbadussy @urbfsbitchlol @nomorespahgetti @bloodyhw @Veescorneroftheworld   @papayaboyluvr @slytherinambitious @darylscvmdumpster @tommysaxes @johannelis2302nely @lynbubble   @straberryshortcake143 @beth-gallagher22 @doestalker @rubyliquor @theflcwer @angelxxrose @sierraluvzz @cruzgrecia @evelestrange @sunnysunny133696  @under-seasoned-pasta @hoeforsirius   @buckyswhxre @emerald-09   @simonessolarsystem @rehead1180 @stvrkey  @ynmunson @riddle18  @love4ldr @withfireandbl00d @wonderland2425 @blublock404 @eddieslut69