#I can't with the hotness i'm creating
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
heywoodvirgin · 1 year ago
Text
Tumblr media
88 notes · View notes
vimbry · 5 months ago
Text
"likes don't do anything" they do
"there's no algorithm" there is
"well nobody uses the for you tab" I do
"reblog all art and fics you see" there's no thought put into that. if this does work on people, then it's just pity engagement borne out of guilt rather than genuine interest, which is arguably worse than having none, because it's totally hollow.
#if I make art of my ocs who I'm personally fond of and spent a few days drawing just right and it gets 3 reblogs then it gets 3 reblogs#it's rational to feel a little disappointed sure. but I can't do anything about that. it's just luck#and I got Very lucky accumulating a few thousand followers on my main-turned-art-only blog off the back of when m.oomin was very popular#(tho realistically many of those users are probably inactive/passive followers now)#and having this number of people tuned into my posts Still only gets me a couple dozen notes on original stuff.#every 3 years or so something might blow up. like that bugs bunny comic lol. and I did Not expect it to#especially bc it happened about a year after I shared it as well.#it can happen any time. so don't feel discouraged when your art doesn't get noticed right away#the one advantage this website has is that there's far less of a fomo culture compared to other socials where trends come and go in a week#and people will still interact with older posts. especially bc it's easier to find what you want through the tagging system. sort of.#there's really no way to predict this or aim for large engagement! oh unless you're specifically catering to the current hot topic#like d.unmeshi is wiiiildly popular right now. I've seen comics get 5-digit notes in under 48 hours 'cause more eyes are on it.#but if it's not something you personally like and you're only creating things for the attention then you're gonna be unhappy#and people will inevitably move on.#I'd much rather swing my art back around every few months or so until it finds someone it resonates with#than make people who were never planning to engage with it feel bad for no reason
21 notes · View notes
cosmossystem · 5 months ago
Text
so this post may be controversial but i will no longer be silenced. i need people to start being accepting of bears/fat men in general that don't fit into the "dad" vibe or aren't conventionally attractive. quit acting like they've all gotta be incels/mladys/neckbeards/racist weebs etc. because first off, fat hairy nerdy men with patchy beards and glasses or acne or bald spots or whatever are HOT and i'm tired of pretending they're not!!!!!! and more importantly!!! even if you aren't attracted to them (or even if you are) i need you to start being fucking normal about them. because if you keep treating every fat hairy guy with glasses as if he's this rampant bigot, you're just gonna create more divides, and also you're a fucking asshole who equates looks with morality. something something alt-right pipeline, someone's worth is not determined by how attractive you find them, etc. please stop being fatphobic to ppl you don't like lol
#💙 cass#fatphobia#i am SO serious i think the archetype of 'fat incel with glasses and a patchy beard and lives in his mom's basement'#regardless of whether or not it's accurate (often isn't)#is like. Am i supposed to not find that attractive. I love nerdy lookin guys. They're hot!!!!#Glasses are hot! Stubble is hot! Fatness is hot!!!! like why are you trying to say they aren't. i have working eyes???#I mean i don't like incels but this ain't about that it's about yalls rampant anti-masculism and fatphobia. Lol#i hate how we've made it seem like you can't actually find fat guys attractive. WHat's up with that btw#like even in gay spaces when you say 'i love bears' theres a really specific kind of guy that ppl associate with being a bear#hell i don't even always want to say bear. I want to say that i like fat guys in general#because i just really do!!!! i don't get why this is an issue#again that's only half of the point i'm making here. i'm also saying you need to be normal about people you don't find attractive#and ESPECIALLY when it comes to yalls internalized fatphobia. damn. reflect on that! thanks#that part is way more important but just. i feel like i never see anyone actually expressing attraction to fat guys#which is CRIMINAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#again probably because we've created this idea that no one could Ever find a fat person attractive. societal fatphobia etc#but anyway. the way i would die for a trans bear with glasses.................
18 notes · View notes
dandunn · 8 months ago
Text
'don't ship that, ship THIS'
'why are people focused on THAT when they could look at THIS'
'bad media literacy nuance reading comprehension-'
'why is NO-ONE writing fic about-'
Tumblr media
7 notes · View notes
mimicteruyo · 3 months ago
Text
In hindsight it's actually really easy to pinpoint where the writing changes hands during the final case of Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney.
(It's the part where one of the two witnesses on the stand stops talking and basically no longer exists in the narrative and they abruptly change the subject away from the case on trial, natch.)
(Oh and after that point Luke ceases to exist outside of animated cutscenes which is WILD)
4 notes · View notes
xalonelydreamerx · 2 years ago
Text
I think I'm gonna write an analysis as soon as I finish rereading the trilogy but yeah s2 was fucking terrible.
I've seen many people saying they're happy about Alina, and while yes, I'm glad she didn't lose her powers and didn't end up with Mal, there are so much bigger problems with this season
Aside the costume still looking bad, pacing being all over the place because there are simply too many characters and the annoying repentance of the flashbacks, Alina comes as extremely annoying, stuck up, tone deaf and overall a bitch.
Unlike some, I do love book!Alina because she's a very flawed character but lots of her mistakes actually do make sense if you're able to let go of the grudge that comes from reading a YA 2010 book.
Show! Alina was intentionally supposed to be portrayed as strong, bold, confident and smart since s1. She's not supposed to be naive, ignorant, selfish and emotional like book!Alina but somehow she ends up coming across as so much worse.
The Darkling is no better. He comes off as extremely pathetic. He already was in s1, but I was hoping he was gonna have an arc in this season and become more like his canon self. Sadly, that wasn't meant to be.
Show!Darkling has no personality other than wanting Alina in such a desperate way that is hard to look at. I know the girlies gash over him being a ✨ simp ✨ but there's a difference between pathetic (affectionate) and pathetic (degoratory). He wants to keep the grisha safe but even that a aspect suffers from a very detrimental alteration they did on the show which I will now mention.
Apparently, grisha aren't the oppressed group we know in canon. On no, the season hits you with the hammer about how it's the fold and everything that happened in s1 that made everybody turn against grisha. Not that they've been capturing them, enslaving them and burning them for hundred of years, na-ah.
I have no comment on the crows since I hardly ever cared for them. Some scenes were good, but they suffered with how much the story was rushed.
The ending was shit, because while it's cool that alina kept her powers and an arc of her becoming basically a new antagonist is interesting on paper, it doesn't work here because it wasn't built up well and as I mentioned Alina came off as incredible unlikable and darklina was extremely one-sided.
The script was very poor and this isn't a hate towards the actors because they don't really have any control of it.
While I'll continue shipping darklina they were both done very dirty because they were ooc since the first season and the second one reduced them both to something beyond recognition.
27 notes · View notes
coffeeandcalligraphy · 1 year ago
Text
taking suggestions for a lonan and harrison's favourite movies list!!!!! preferably 2006 & before!!! any genre!!!!!
9 notes · View notes
fresiants · 2 years ago
Note
The Lestrange couple is actually interesting.
Bellatrix does come from an extremely messed up family. Not only do they behead their slaves after they become too old to carry tea and stuff their heads and hang them on the wall, you know, normal stuff. Then, according to the Black family tree, her father was only 13 when she was born. So you know, clearly healthy stuff. Also, if Filch is to be believed, hanging students days on end by the thumbs was common practice not too long ago from the 90s, and torture instruments are manufactured with enough regularity (I don't believe those things would have survived Fred and George, nor the Marauders).
In his forth year, Arthur was punished badly enough so that he has scars he keeps well into adulthood despite the wonders of magical medicine. (Most scars do fade away after a decade or so, which makes me think the whipping was either extreme or their was some Black Magic involved) for being out of his dorm.
We don't know much about Rodolphus, but his father or uncle was one of the first associates of Tom Riddle, and he would also in all likely hood attended school to taste this kind of extreme discipline that left Arthur scared for life. Also, according to Sirius they were part of a gang of bullies.
So is it any surprise that Voldemort was able to recruit followers who if not violent themselves, where quite desensitized to violence. So, even if Voldemort is extremely sadistic and does not treat his followers well to put it mildly, to people like Bellatrix, it must have seemed not that bad and normal. Also, their hatred for Muggleborn might have also mixed with envy. During the second half of the XXth century, corporal punishment was on the decline, and frankly, six of the best cannot in honesty be compared to the strappado. I would imagine members of these pureblood Slytherin gang of bullies viciously mocking muggleborn students and their inability to keep up with what they would perceive as normal things. It would probably like humiliation through babying, escorting them to "safety" while constantly mocking them:
"Twenty and already dizzy ? How adorable ! Let me take pictures of you. See, we don't hate muggles, we find them so wee!" (proceed to wrap them in frilly stuff before taking pictures).
Is this a response to my post about Severus and Lily? If it isn't, please ignore this whole post lol.
I agree that in the wizarding world, these acts were perceived as normal, as evidenced by the prevalence of bullying and violence that went unpunished and ignored everyone, even by the teachers who were responsible for safeguarding them. Regardless of the gravity of the situation, students were only ever subjected to detention as a form of discipline.
But we must consider that Severus hated the Marauders for bullying him and always tried to persuade Lily to stay away from them for this specific reason. It's understandable that, given his character, he might find it difficult to empathize with others. However, it's still a shame that he couldn't see the similarity between the Marauders and Mulciber's group. If you see your housemate bullying other kids, shouldn't it remind you of your own bullies? I think this situation was also heavily influenced by the house rivalries at Hogwarts.
Severus probably harbored a "serve them right" attitude when Mulciber bullied Mary McDonald, as if attacking a Gryffindor student was a form of avenging his own bullying. This is a childish mindset that many victims adopt, seeking to hurt their bullies by wishing harm on those around them. You may have heard people say things like "I hope your child experiences bullying in the future, then you'll know how it feels" or "I hope your daughter gets cheated on, so you'll feel the pain you caused others." It's the same type of mindset where you can't hurt the bully, so you hope someone they care about gets hurt instead. As someone who was once a victim of bullying, i totally understand why some people might think this way, but I refuse to defend this behaviour as it is wrong in my book.
Hence, I truly believe that even if Severus hadn't called Lily 'Mudblood', their friendship wouldn't have lasted long. Severus cherished Lily because she was the first person to ever show him kindness, and he loved her deeply to the point that he thought she was the only friend he needed. He only cared about his and Lily's well-being (as an individual) He couldn't care less about other Muggle-borns and this didn't sit well with Lily.
Things were already looking bad for Severus. But here's where things got worse. Lily Evans... the only person Severus ever care about... failed to comprehend why Severus refused to let her to associate with the Marauders. In fact, she felt offended by it.
Snape’s whole face contorted and he spluttered, “Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends’ too! You’re not going to— I won’t let you— ”
“Let me? Let me?”
Lily’s bright green eyes were slits. Snape backtracked at once.
But we also shouldn't ignore the fact that Severus called everyone(muggleborns) aside from Lily 'Mudblood', which mean she had probably tolerated him a lot, hoping that he would finally get a grip and realised what he was doing was wrong.
But of course, that never happened. Doesn't really help that his only friend wasn't very understanding herself and already had feelings for James even when he was bullying Severus, which was confirmed by JK Rowling herself in an interview. (I mean... why would Severus feel the need to remind Lily that James wasn't a good lad if she wasn't interested in him?)
Interviewer: How did they get together? She hated James, from what we’ve seen.
JKR: Did she really? You’re a woman, you know what I’m saying. [Laughter.]
She was referring to the stereotype that women are attracted to 'bad boys' *puke*
14 notes · View notes
harmonybarmy · 2 years ago
Text
I would assume that misty is going to kill and eat showtunes so I want to forgive her for everything, but since it seems like she just became showtunes 2.0 I simply cannot.
9 notes · View notes
noys-boise · 2 years ago
Text
speaking of hot takes this one is going to be real controversial but honestly straight couples who aren't accepted for whatever random forbidden love reason always resonated more with me than queer couples who live in an idealistic world where queerphobia straight up doesn't exist. i wish the world was like that but it's not and it doesn't make me feel that happy it just makes me feel a disconnect. of course everyone is allowed to like their things and i don't mind these types of queer media, hell i consume them too i just tend to gravitate towards "realer" stories emotionally
11 notes · View notes
vegaseatsass · 2 years ago
Text
Today is the first day I've had any lasting free time and my brain is just. a rock. a smooth polished stone. I can't even get myself to read new fanfic now that I have the time, I'm just... sittin here
6 notes · View notes
thebluespacecow · 30 days ago
Text
I'm always insane about artist who can be traditionaly hot. What do you mean you can have it all. Who let you
0 notes
keets-writing-corner · 10 months ago
Text
Thinking a LOT about Lucifer in the latest Hazbin episode. Idk what I was expecting but not this??
As I was watching my immediate thought was just "huh... Lucifer is kinda of weird..." but as the episode went on I realized the issue
the dude is off the chain depressed, like he says it as a joke but holy cow it is SO BAD
He's manically just creating rubber ducks cuz his daughter really like it that one time but it's empty, it's never good enough but he keeps doing it, maybe cuz he doesn't know how to pass the time otherwise.
Tumblr media
like I get the feeling he HAS better things he SHOULD be doing than making rubber duck after rubber duck. At first I was like, "Bruh why isn't the king of hell doing anything?" aaaaand then it became clear...
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
The dude is disassociating so bad he can barely hold a conversation let alone remember information. He clearly WANTS to, he wants to be involved with his daughter so bad, he wants to care about the things she's doing so bad, but his depression keeps interfering. It's like he can only hear every other word and he grasps onto the ones he does hear semi-out of context. Like you can see every time he catches something that he hadn't before and he just "well shit I didn't catch that part"
and that's why he reacts so weird when people talk to him. He is struggling so bad to engage with the conversation he's only getting 50% of it
Tumblr media
does that look like the face of a man who knows what the hell the conversation is even about??? he is STRUGGLING
Tumblr media Tumblr media
like Charlie spent so long telling him about the hotel, and he STILL didn't understand what she wanted. Yeah it comes off as ditzy but literally I've been in that position where your brain just "nope, not doing this right now" and nerfs your conversation comprehension. So as someone who's BEEN in that position, to me it feels exactly like what he's dealing with. He's sorta engaged with the conversation, but only as much as his brain will allow
For example, when I'm dealing with this, this is what someone talking to me feels like this where the crossed out parts are what I missed and bold is what I catch, "Hey! You know I was thinking for dinner we could either make some chicken with rice? But if you don't feel like cooking, pasta is super easy and you love that right? What do you want to do?" you can kinda get that someone is trying to talk to you about dinner, and towards the end you get the impression that they asked something that needs your input so you can decently put 2 and 2 together and try and pass off, but crucial bits were left out, I would have no idea that either chicken or pasta is in the conversation only having heard "rice". When someone is just talking at me, I can decently pass off as being engaged but the second I'm required to participate in the conversation I'm screwed. Seem familiar? At which point I have 2 options, try to give a bullshit answer, or admit that I missed what they were saying and ask them to repeat
Lucifer, unfortunately, is trying so damn hard to hide that he's dealing with like 24/7 dissociation, so he can't admit that he's missing entire chunks of the conversation, hence his really weird replies. He does eventually get the full picture and then he and Charlie start having the real conversation
Also, the Alastor/Lucifer rivalry was hilarious but also really indicative of more of what Lucifer is dealing with
Tumblr media
Alastor is, unfortunately, really good at picking up people's insecurities, and thanks to Charlie's description earlier and watching Lucifer clearly trying to overcompensate, he immediately picks up on the fact that Lucifer KNOWS he struggles to be a good dad (we know cuz it's cuz of the depression, hard to be engaged when your brain keeps turning off) and decides to rub salt in the wound by pretending he's been acting as a surrogate father to Charlie. Now why Alastor decided to pick a fight with the king of hell is beyond me, I do not understand Alastor (and I LIKE IT) (maybe it's cuz Alastor thinks he's hot shit and was expecting Lucifer to at least have heard of him but Lucifer just treats him like a nobody? who knows)(why would Lucifer listen to radio anyways when he can't even pay attention to a conversation it'd just be white noise)
But yeah I just was expecting someone who oozed either charisma or presence and instead I got a depressed dad who's dissociating so bad he can barely function and be present in his life. The only thing it seems he CAN do is make rubber ducks cuz his daughter really liked it that one time
Tumblr media
Idk Lucifer is tragic to me. Whatever the full details of what heavan did to him absolutely broke him and he can't deal with it. He's aware of it, and he doesn't know how to fix it, so he tries to over compensate and sorta makes an ass out of himself but no one says or does anything cuz this guy is supposed to be THE king of hell
Suddenly it's making a lot more sense why he just rolls over and lets heaven do what it wants and even told Charlie to go in his place the start of the show. He's not in any headspace to hold a basic conversation let alone negotiate! He didn't even know who Alastor was, he's been so out of touch
idk I like him, he seems sweet, I hope Charlie brings some light back into his life. He really needs to get out of that rubber duck room
Tumblr media
14K notes · View notes
headspace-hotel · 1 year ago
Text
I will write this thought about Veganism and Classism in the USA in another post so as to not derail the other thread:
There are comments in the notes that say meat is only cheaper than plant based foods because of subsidies artificially lowering the price of meat in the United States. This is...part of the story but not all of it.
For my animal agriculture lab we went to a butcher shop and watched the butcher cut up a pig into various cuts of meat. I have had to study quite a bit about the meat industry in that class. This has been the first time I fully realized how strongly the meat on a single animal is divided up by socioeconomic class.
Like yes, meat cumulatively takes more natural resources to create and thus should be more expensive, but once that animal is cut apart, it is divided up between rich and poor based on how good to eat the parts are. I was really shocked at watching this process and seeing just how clean and crisp an indicator of class this is.
Specifically, the types of meat I'm most familiar with are traditionally "waste" parts left over once the desirable parts are gone. For example, beef brisket is the dangly, floppy bit on the front of a cow's neck. Pork spareribs are the part of the ribcage that's barely got anything on it.
And that stuff is a tier above the "meat" that is most of what poor people eat: sausage, hot dogs, bologna, other heavily processed meat products that are essentially made up of all the scraps from the carcass that can't go into the "cuts" of meat. Where my mom comes from in North Carolina, you can buy "livermush" which is a processed meat product made up of a mixture of liver and a bunch of random body parts ground up and congealed together. There's also "head cheese" (made of parts of the pig's head) and pickled pigs' feet and chitlin's (that's made of intestines iirc) and cracklin's (basically crispy fried pig skin) and probably a bunch of stuff i'm forgetting. A lot of traditional Southern cooking uses basically scraps of animal ingredients to stretch across multiple meals, like putting pork fat in beans or saving bacon grease for gravy or the like.
So another dysfunctional thing about our food system, is that instead of people of each socioeconomic class eating a certain number of animals, every individual animal is basically divided up along class lines, with the poorest people eating the scraps no one else will eat (oftentimes heavily processed in a way that makes it incredibly unhealthy).
Even the 70% lean ground beef is made by injecting extra leftover fat back into the ground-up meat because the extra fat is undesirable on the "better" cuts. (Gross!)
I've made, or eaten, many a recipe where the only thing that makes it non-vegan is the chicken broth. Chicken broth, just leftover chicken bones and cartilage rendered and boiled down in water? How much is that "driving demand" for meat, when it's basically a byproduct?
That class really made me twist my brain around about the idea of abstaining from animal products as a way to deprive the industry of profits. Nobody eats "X number of cows, pigs, chickens in a lifetime" because depending on the socioeconomic class, they're eating different parts of the animal, splitting it with someone richer or poorer than they are. If a bunch of people who only ate processed meats anyway abstained, that wouldn't equal "saving" X number of animals, it would just mean the scraps and byproducts from a bunch of people's steaks or pork chops would have something different happen to them.
The other major relevant conclusion I got from that class, was that animal agriculture is so dominant because of monoculture. People think it's animal agriculture vs. plant agriculture (or plants used for human consumption vs. using them to feed livestock), but from capitalism's point of view, feeding animals corn is just another way to use corn to generate profits.
People think we could feed the world by using the grain fed to animals to feed humans, but...the grain fed to animals, is not actually a viable diet for the human population, because it's literally just corn and soybean. Like animal agriculture is used to give some semblance of variety to the consumer's diet in a system that is almost totally dominated by like 3 monocrops.
Do y'all have any idea how much of the American diet is just corn?!?! Corn starch, corn syrup, corn this, corn that, processed into the appearance of variety. And chickens and pigs are just another way to process corn. That's basically why we have them, because they can eat our corn. It's a total disaster.
And it's even worse because almost all the USA's plant foods that aren't the giant industrial monocrops maintained by pesticides and machines, are harvested and cared for by undocumented migrant workers that get abused and mistreated and can't say anything because their boss will tattle on them to ICE.
8K notes · View notes
celeryw · 1 year ago
Text
help i can't sleep helppppp
0 notes
poguehearted77 · 17 days ago
Text
Baby Steps
Tumblr media
Summary: You and Rafe are expecting your first child and decide to take a trip to the beach, not expecting to be joined by a guest with chubby cheeks and pull ups.
-some more domesticated rafe as per your request-
Tumblr media
The golden hues of the late afternoon sun stretch across the horizon, casting a warm glow over the beach as you and Rafe arrive. You smile at the feeling of the hot sand between your toes.
The waves lazily lap against the shore, creating a serene soundtrack to your special day. It was a beautiful day out, for sure. With the cooler gripped in one hand, with the umbrella on top, and the box containing a special mini cake in his other hand, Rafe is already in full preparation mode.
“Here, let me help with that,” you offer, but Rafe shakes his head, his grin both charming and determined. "You're already carrying something valuable, let me handle the rest, okay?" Rafe reassures you as he places the items down in a nice vacated space.
Far enough from the waves to not get wet, but close enough to still hear the water cracking against the sand at an amplified volume as the perfect white noise for you to do some beach reading. You glance down at your rounded belly, letting your left hand rest over the precious cargo he's referring to.
"I'm only four months, babe. I can still carry things. Just let me help you set up at least." You hold onto the muscle of his upper arm with a soft frown and he can't resist. An idea visibly dawned upon him. "Yeah, you know what." He props open the cooler and pulls out a chilled bottle of water, "I need you to drink this, I don't want you to get too hot."
Your eyes roll and you take the bottle, about to ease yourself down onto the beach chair when Rafe is suddenly behind you, a guiding palm on your lower back to lighten your load as you sit down. "Rafe, you're joking, right? I know how to sit down by myself." You huff and he sees you're starting to get frustrated.
He crouches down to be near you, "Look, baby. I'm sorry, okay? It's all just so new to me and I don't want anything to happen to you or the baby especially not if I can help it." Your arms unfold, and your composure melts under his apologetic gaze.
How could you be mad at him? He was just so cute and excited to be a dad, he wanted to make sure you had the safest, most comfortable pregnancy possible, and he made sure of that at all times. He set up everything while you didn't lift a finger.
You'd even slipped into a light nap as he did so. Waking up under the shade of the beach umbrella and almost certain there was an extra layer of sunscreen on your arms that wasn't there before.
Your towels laid out on the sand in front of you where Rafe knelt, the cake now put away in the cooler as he organized the supplies in the first-aid kit he insisted on bringing along.
"Is this all you're gonna do all day?" You mumble, lifting up your sun hat a bit to see him better and he smiles. "Well, you fell asleep on me, so I was keeping myself busy." Taking that as your cue to stand, leaving your hat behind on the chair and untying the flowy coverup you'd been wearing.
"I'm up now, let's get in the water." He's right behind you as your heels kick up sand with your eager steps to the ocean. Your laughs blend harmoniously in the water. Playful splashes and stolen kisses fill your afternoon for the next hour until you're ready for lunch.
Now Rafe was lounging under the shade, sunglasses covering his sky-blue eyes as he relaxed on the chair. Meanwhile, you enjoyed the warm sun kissing your skin as you sat on the towel, preparing some sandwiches for you both to share.
That brings you to now, the two of you sitting on the sandy towels with satiated appetites and a pleased smile on your faces, enjoying each other's company. "You ready now?" Rafe proposes, referring to the mini cake in the cooler which had either a pink or blue filling. You shake your head.
"Not yet, I need more time." He laughs, "At this rate, you'll find out when the baby comes." He says casually and your brow arches, "Only me? Don't you mean the both of us?" His head shakes, "Uh uh, I'm eating that cake with or without you." He jokes and you swat at him, causing him to spill some water from the bottle he was sipping before putting it away.
His attention was stolen from you and focused on something behind you, before you could even turn your head, Rafe's reflexes are shown as his arms reach out for the tumbling toddler who'd tripped over the uneven terrain and it seems she'd been running at a pace faster than her chunky legs could keep up with.
"Woah! Hey there, pudding," The nickname rolls off Rafe's tongue so naturally you hardly even recognize it, she looks up at him from within his stronghold. "Hi!" She waves and Rafe smiles so big it warms your heart to see.
"Where are your parents?" He follows up but she busies herself with the chain around his neck, blabbering the words 'Dada' in the sweetest voice you'd ever heard.
Rafe's eyes crinkle at the corners with his smile as he looks at you, mouthing the words, "She's so cute" and you mouth back, "I know," "I wonder where her parents are." You say, checking the tag on her swim top for any signs of identification but nothing. The two of you stand, the toddler hanging off Rafe's side, having the time of her life with a cheeky smile.
The two of you paced the beach, up and down. "I know her parents are worried sick," You mutter, checking your phone for any services you can contact for a 'lost baby on the beach please help!'
"If they don't come back, do you think we can keep her?" Rafe inquires and you laugh, "It's probably every parent's nightmare to hear a stranger say that as you're holding their missing child." You say, stopping in your tracks and placing your hands on your back with a sigh, worn out from all the walking.
"Are you okay?" Rafe checks in and you nod, "Maybe we should just go back and wait? Her parents might be walking around too and we keep missing them." Rafe agrees and the three of you walk back to your place on the beach, each of you holding her hand as she had insisted on being put down.
You kept her busy once you returned to your spot, building sand castles and giving her some water and sunscreen to keep her hydrated and protected from the slowly setting sun.
"How old are you?" Rafe laughs at your attempts to have full conversations with who he assumes is a two-year-old, but your guess was three. "Me Ava." She says and your eyes widen. Your initial question remained unanswered but now you had other answers.
"Ava! Hi Ava!" You coo, tickling her tummy until she's a bundle of fits and giggles, completely oblivious to the longing look Rafe has on you. "Tummy!" She says, and you laugh, not sure what she's talking about until she places a hand on your belly. "Big tummy!" She repeats and Rafe can't help but stifle a laugh at her direct observation.
"That's right. There's a baby in here." You explain but her head tilts, lost. "Baby?" You gave the soft waves of her hair a gentle pat, admiring her innocence, "Yep, it's either a girl baby or a boy baby." To your surprise, she begins chanting for a 'boy baby'. "See, Ava gets it." Rafe teases, always taking the opportunity to talk about having the boy he so desperately begs you for as if you had any say in the matter.
"Hungry," She whines and that sends Rafe digging into the cooler for snacks. You let her decide which fruit she wanted but her eye had caught sight of the mini container of cake that had been taken out in order to find the other items.
"Looks like she knows what she wants," Rafe smiles and you think about it, "We can't give her sugar, Rafe. Here, do you want some watermelon?" Her focus now is on the juicy red fruit you presented to her on a plate.
She must be fond of it, slurping up the juices and making a mess of her top. Fortunately, it was later washed off with the salt water when Rafe insisted on playing with her after she'd digested her food.
The sun was slowly beginning to set and the three of you had been lounging around for the last thirty minutes or so, when Ava made a loud shriek, "Mama!" She yelled, hopping off the towel and into her mom's arms.
Ava's mom graces you with a tight hug and a desperate stream of never-ending apologies and gratitude. She congratulated you on the little one you were expecting, confident you'd be amazing parents. "Now, what do you say to the nice people who watched you, Ava?" Her mom prompts, with what you could imagine is a very secure hold on Ava's hand, ensuring she doesn't slip away again.
"Thank you!" She beams, showing off her tiny baby teeth and you feel a twinge of sadness at the thought of her leaving. The last two hours, though chaotic, gave you the reassurance you were looking for with the whole parenting thing.
You wave them goodbye and you take a deep breath, "I'm ready," You don't have to explain anything more and you're both walking back to your spot to cut the cake. Only to see a toddler-sized footprint in it that Ava must've caused as she got up, denting the container and the contents inside smushing against its confines.
Pink.
"Wait…" You say, in disbelief, kneeling down with Rafe doing the same. "Are we-" He says, eyes misting over and you call him out, "Hey, I thought you wanted a boy." He holds you close, "I thought so too, but I'm honestly just glad it's with you." He brings you in for a kiss on your forehead. She's so loved already and she doesn't even know it.
Tumblr media
2K notes · View notes