Mai

let's be honest. he took the hit when he left. he lost so many of his fans then. but you know what he did?

he showed the boys that there was life after one direction.

he showed them that the hell they were enduring was escapable. that they could make it out and still sing and write songs and be happy.

if they'd really been as happy as they seemed to us, they would've come back after the hiatus. they promised us 18 months. its been 9 years.

im sure they loved us with all their hearts. that they enjoyed their time together as a band, as brothers. however, they were exploited and taken advantage of every step of the way.

now, liam's passing is the fucking culmination of the hell they endured. you can't argue with me that the liam of 2011 was SO SO FULL OF LIFE. he had so much promise. you just knew this boy was gonna go places.

but somehow, along the way, his light dimmed. that wasn't the liam we knew. we all subconsiously could see it. that liam hurt so much that he hurt a lot of people. that liam could've done better. that liam should've been given the chance to make amends.

but the young boy that was so full of life, he didnt deserve any of this. he deserved to have been kept safe and away from the shit that could destroy him.

the boys should have been protected and maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have to endure this devastating loss. maybe, just maybe, liam would still be alive.

(This post contains mentions of OBX s2 scenes, panic/anxiety, drugs and psychopathy. If you do not want/feel comfortable reading this, please don't! Also if you're anti rafe don't hate me please xoxo)

I've seen so many people call Rafe a psychopath/sociopath and honestly I don't think he is one. Other than the fact that psychopaths are rarely potrayed accurately in media and people not knowing the right terminology (even Drew himself has said that Rafe has psychopathic tendencies which, arguably, makes some sense). But from what I've seen so far, Rafe doesn't seem like a psychopath.

Why?

Because psychopaths feel no remorse or shame for their actions. Rafe has expressed those feelings multiple times, albeit not always verbally. He clearly feels regret for getting his family in this situation, and I don't believe that's just to please his dad.

Psychopaths also do not care about others and feel no connection to them, which leads to lying, manipulating, superficial charm to get what they want etc. Now, Rafe has lied a good few times, and definitely manipulates Barry to do shit for him in return for money. But he's not completely emotionless. He cares about his dad and Wheezie, he's often seen showing vulnerable emotions, which a psychopath would not do unless it gains them something. Also, his friendship with Kelce and Topper seemed genuine until he started losing it for real. The fact that he doesn't have many friends could also be due to his drug use, anxiety (being suspicious of others) or any other reason, and is not directly attributable to psychopathy.

They also generally do not learn from mistakes and do not have anxiety (although the latter is still controversial in current understandings of psychopathy). Clearly Rafe has some anxiety issues. Anytime he starts losing it (eg. s1 when Barry said he owned him now, s2 when he punched the wall in the island room) he starts breathing heavily, looking around sorta dazed/scared with those wide eyes, fidgets with his fingers. That to me seems like he's on the verge of a panic attack. And to dissolve that he starts screaming/punching things (or using drugs lol). Obviously that's bad coping, but it's not all violent tendencies. Also from season 2, clearly he's learned at least a bit from his mistakes.

Rafe truly believes he's doing the right thing. At least from his/his family's perspective, he tries to do the right thing. Now since his dad is Ward, clearly what benefits his family doesn't benefit everyone, but it seems like Rafe has a bit of tunnel vision in that sense. Even when he killed Peterkin, he immediately showed moral disengagement. Rafe STRUGGLES with the fact he killed someone. He doesn't ENJOY hurting others! He doesn't want to feel even worse about himself, so he tries to talk it right and make himself believe he did the right thing. Saying he saved his dad, saying Sarah was tearing their family apart. It's justifying behaviour to not feel miserable about his actions. A psychopath doesn't do this because they're so unemotional they don't even feel bad about what they did.

And lastly, (and i do truly hate myself for saying this), but usually psychopaths have a very prominiscious sex life. I know yall dirties wanna see Drew do a sex scene (mood.) but the fact that he doesn't seem to have any sort of sex/dating life seems contradictory to this.

The only reason rafe could be seen as a psychopath is because he truly believes the pogues deserve to get hurt, abuses drugs which occurs often in psychopaths and he's impulsive with little to no behavioural control. But these could be attributed to other issues as well.

Other than that, evidence of psychopathy is pretty much nonexistent. And it irks me that people call him a psychopath and think that therefore he does not deserve a redemption arc because 1. CLEARLY there is something wrong with him but it doesn't mean he can't grow and learn and heal? He's said multiple times that he needs and wants help, he wants to get clean, he didn't shoot the pogues when he had a chance to. He KNOWS something's wrong. He KNOWS he needs to change. Just because he's not capable of doing it on his own doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a redemption arc. OBX would be a real one if they show some good and realistic therapy scenes ! And 2. let's say he does show signs of psychopathy in s3, that still doesn't mean he can't get better? Psychopathy treatments are scarce and don't always work irl, but they're out there and it's worth a shot. I've seen people saying they want him to die, but if this were a real person, would you say the same? Even if he is a psychopath, he's still a victim of his circumstances, his environment, genetics and his dad. Take those factors out, would he not be capable of redemption?