an idea… rafe and shy reader having sex for the first time
everything's overwhelming with rafe, but this is particularly so. you thought you were completely ready for it, from the way you had handled everything else so well. in fact, rafe was the one taking things at the slowest pace possible, trying to make sure he didn’t pressure you into something you weren’t ready for.
you didn’t like it—thought he was trying to be something he’s not. he’s gentle with you but never like this, never to this extent. it must be a big deal then, sleeping with rafe, giving him your virginity, you finally decide, if he’s acting so differently about it.
in fact, you think you’ve been ready to give it up since you first started dating him. rafe brings it out of you, coaxes a different side of you out with gentle words and soft touches. you’re going mad over it. you can’t count the amount of times you’ve crawled into his lap at any given opportunity, anywhere the two of you are alone—his truck, the couch in your living room and at tannyhill, the hidden booth at the country club. you’re begging for it, not sure how much more obvious you can get.
you finally decide tonight’s the night—following a nice dinner with the two of you. you had spent extra long getting dressed up, a pretty white lingerie set on underneath your blue dress, all done up for rafe. finally back at tannyhill, entire body vibrating and tingling with excitement, you don’t wait another moment, crawling into rafe’s lap and kissing him hard. you take off your dress and rafe stops just for a second to take in how forward you’re being.
“hey,” he finally breathes against your lips, pulling away. “c’mon, you’re not ready for this.”
“yes i am!” you whine, impatient and horny, feeling rafe get hard underneath you. you want him to be able to do all the things you know he wants to do, want them done to you. “i am, i am-” and you lean back to kiss him, ending up pinned underneath him before long.
he knows you’re not, but he plays along. you’re so wet already he doesn’t have to do much, but he makes you cum all over his fingers anyways, hoping it’ll satiate you.
“please, rafe,” you moan against his mouth, pushing in for another needy kiss. “wan’ it inside. please.” and he does know you, knows everything about you, but even he can’t resist when you say things like that.
you watch with big eyes while he lines himself up with your wet hole, hovering over you. you think you’re so ready, that three of rafe’s fingers inside you should be comparable to what you’re about to feel, that you’re more than prepared. your eyes squeeze shut when rafe pushes inside, all the air leaving your lungs. you try to moan out but it’s more of a gasp than anything else, one that rafe swallows into a kiss.
your eyes get watery—it’s just habit. it hurts, too, because rafe is so much bigger than you expected. you bite your cheek, looking up at rafe through teary eyes and clasping a hand over your mouth—you don’t want to admit that he was right.
“c’mon kid, give it up. y’not ready for this, i know you,” rafe says, leaning in close to your ear to whisper it quietly. he’s not even half-way inside you.
“i-i can take it,” you hiccup. you hate disappointing rafe.
and it’s not that he doesn’t want to—he does, desperately so, wants to fuck you within an inch of your sanity every time you walk into a room and look at him with your shy eyes and sweet smile. he wants to break you, wants you cumming on his dick until there’s nothing left in your head, no shyness left in your heart. but he wants it when you’re ready for it, not like this.
it only takes another minute, you finally admit you’re not ready, and rafe pulls out of you. you feel like crying, terribly sad and dejected, wishing you could just be normal for rafe for once, be what he wants.
“stop,” he says, wiping away a stray tear. his arm rests over your stomach, trying to get you to lighten up. “when you’re ready for it, i’ll fuck you until you can’t think. s’just not today, kid.”
you finally agree when he says that, getting over it because you know without a doubt in your mind—rafe knows you better than you know yourself.
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🤔 Admittedly I was a little disappointed by the reveal (but certainly not surprised the foreshadowing was heavy in this episode lol), but not actually against how Beth (and Will) seem to be playing with it thus far- which is to say that I do think it has a lot of potential, and I suspect there's more to what we're seeing).
;) Big ol' ramble below
Mostly the theory has turned me off until now (at least insofar as I've witnessed it transpire in the fandom at large) because it struck me as so painfully ironic to see Trudy, a 1950s housewife, struggle to exist under the system that she's in, fail to fit the mold assigned to her, and be denied her personhood very literally for it (this being ironic insofar as how it mimics how she would have been treated back then). This and because frankly I just think she's a lot less interesting if she's fully a robot LOL, but I'll hopefully get to that in a bit.
Not that the hints at her mechanical nature and the relevance of Tucker's background were lost on me; I can appreciate why those would contribute to a plausible, fun and I think still mostly harmless theory (now fact). However, minus one or two specific posts I've seen on the matter (namely a recent one suggesting that if Trudy is a robot Beth is probably taking inspiration from The Stepford Wives, :( sorry person who made that post I couldn't find it I wanted to credit yoouuu), I've seen the theory just about exclusively presented in a manner that, rather than explore the metaphorical and political significance of Trudy being partially or fully mechanical, at best disregards the parts of her narrative that are at their core about sexism (among other related things), and at worst negates them entirely (i.e. Trudy only thinking and acting how she does because she's a robot malfunctioning and not because the world itself is causing harm and she rightfully wants something more than the role she was forced into, Trudy not even having any real thoughts and feelings of her own, etc.). I just think it kind of sucks to shove all those important things about her aside and say "actually, there's no person suffering here, she's just a robot" and perhaps worse yet to imply that she does have thoughts and feelings but because they result in Weird™ behavior it must be a problem with her code and not at all relate to what women were subjugated to during this point in American history.
CONVERSELY I don't think Trudy being a robot (or at least partially one) at least from what Beth and Will have presented us thus far, inherently suffers from any of these issues? First and foremost because Trudy definitely appears to possess sentience, thoughts, and emotions of her own, matters which immediately complicate her degree of personhood and don't inherently box her behavior in as a bug in her programming rather than an issue with the world she's been put in, quite the opposite in fact! I think they have a very solid groundwork laid out here to make a strong statement with Trudy's narrative (and perhaps ask the question of what is really malfunctioning here), all the more so since [I pull out a Rebecca Swallows-style conspiracy board] I don't think she's entirely robotic in nature? Actually you should just read Mack's tags in this post cause he has great thoughts on the matter (of which those are just some of them), but if I can direct your attention to one thing in particular, it would be Beth's fact (I *believe* from episode 2) about Trudy never graduating high school because of her essay where she suggested that "perhaps women could one day domesticate themselves", a statement that could of course be interpreted a number of ways but ultimately threatened the patriarchal status quo enough (in suggesting women's independence) to cost Trudy her diploma. Taken on its own this fact appears to contradict the theory that Trudy has always been robotic in nature, because it doesn't really make sense that Trudy would have been set up to go through high school (or school at all really) when Tucker's intention was/is for her to be the perfect housewife. You may then suggest that Trudy's memories of this are fabricated and not actually her lived experiences, in which case firstly perhaps you should reread my earlier point on the robot theory being used to actively negate and otherwise disregard the portions of Trudy's narrative that pertain to sexism and feminism, and secondly it really doesn't make any sense to me that Tucker would implant those kind of memories into Trudy's brain? To be completely honest if she's been a robot from the very beginning (rather than someone who became a cyborg, which is what I'm trying to suggest here), then I don't see why Tucker would program her with actual sentience in the first place (suspending my disbelief here with regards to the possibility of programming sentience to begin with). It seems much more likely to me then that Trudy was not always a robot, and instead altered by Tucker to force her into a role of subordination and remedy her """imperfections""". This option is significantly more interesting to me one, because it implies that Trudy has actually lived a life up until the present, full of its own complexities and strife (and dreams, and real actual memories worth exploring, etc.), and hence is not by any means "just a robot", and second because it amplifies the hypothetical statement being made on the lives of the real living women of the era and how they were treated and seen as being "in need of fixing" for not conforming to gender roles or otherwise acting "out of line" with what was expected of them.
OKAY THIS GOT OUT OF HAND SO I'M CUTTING MYSELF OFF HERE but I wanted to my share my current thoughts what with this ending and where I'm at so hopefully that was at least interesting to whoever has chosen to read through this one okay thank you byyyyyyyyye~
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one of the things about having an unstable parent is that it can so easily ruin your future. you want to get out, but getting out takes having agency. it takes the resume and the grades and the stellar community service history.
but you have to choose your battles. you know if you sign up for an after-school activity, it'll be okay for a while, so long as the activity is parent-approved and god-fearing. over time, like all things, it will become an argument (i can't keep carting your ass to these things) or a weapon (talk to me like that again, see if you get to go to practice). sometimes, if you love the thing, it's worth it. but you also know better than to love something: that's how they get you. if you ever actually want something, it will always be the center of their attention. they will never stop threatening you with it. telling you of course i'm a good parent, i came to all of those stupid events.
you learn to balance yourself perfectly. you can either have a social life or you can have hobbies. both of these things will be under constant scrutiny. you spend too much time with her, you should be at home with family is equally paired with you're acting like this because you're addicted to what's on that goddamn screen. you cannot ever actually win, so everything falls within a barter system that you calculate before entering: do you want to learn how to drive? if so, you'll need to give up asking for a new laptop, even though yours died. maybe you can work on a computer at the library. of course, that would mean you'd be allowed to go to the library, which would mean something else has to bleed. nothing ever actually comes free.
and that bitter, horrible irony: you could be literally following their orders and it still isn't pretty. they tell you to get a job; they hate that your job keeps you late and gives you access to actual money. they tell you to do better in school; they say no child of mine needs a tutor. they want you to stop being so morose, don't you know there are people who are really suffering - but they revile the idea you might actually need therapy.
you didn't survive that fall the way other people would. you've seen other people scramble and get their way out, however they could. maybe you were made too-soft: the answer didn't come to you easily. it wasn't quick. it was brutal and nasty. some people even asked you why didn't you just work hard and escape during school? and you felt your head spinning. why didn't you? (they control your financial aid. they control your loan status. they love having that kind of thing). maybe in another life you got diagnosed sooner and got the meds you needed to actually focus and got attention from the right teachers who helped you clear hurdles to get up out of here - but for now? here?
the effort of trying. the effort of not-dying. that kind of effort was absolutely agonizing.
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yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.
to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!
i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.
also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.
they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.
they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.
i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.
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