In the canon story, Rosie has a fear of blizzards and extremely cold temperatures, this formed from her witnessing a bunch of people dying from freezing to death while moving to Wyoming. When the weather gets cold, she’s very dedicated to keeping her home warm and keeping it stocked with lots of blankets, and making sure she has plenty of food canned up, firewood, and plenty of rabbits alive and well in her hutches in case she needs to eat them. She also has a phobia of open bodies of water where she can’t see the shore, which developed as a young child when she had to cross the Atlantic Ocean while moving from Europe to the United States.

In the prairie fire AU, since she survived falling off the waterfall, but nearly drowned, the fear of water has been expanded to a fear of rushing bodies of water or rapids. She doesn’t like standing too close to the edge of any fast-moving river. However, she sees her fears as a challenge from God for her to overcome, which is why she lives in a houseboat on a lake in this AU.

Quentin can’t really feel empathy, at least not in the traditional sense. He certainly feels a need to preserve the well-being of those close to him, which can outwardly present itself as empathy sometimes, but that’s about as close as it gets. Although the nature in which he cares for people is mostly self-centered and self-serving, he will still be extremely protective over people he cares about and anyone hurting them will make him very angry. This has only ever applied to a few people in his life, Rosie for the most part, and also Emmett and Dolly somewhat. Also, the more he cares about someone, the less he’s willing to hurt them himself or will fantasize about it. With Emmett and Dolly, he certainly had times where he wanted to hurt them and would have enjoyed it. He did not feel that way about Rosie, which is why him accidentally killing her was so devastating for him.