#i apologize for my thesis

[galaxythreads]

i literally don't understand the mcu script writes who've bragged about never having seen the previous movies, like bro??? how do you expect that script to be consistent with the rest of the canon?????????

normally I'd laugh and be like Yeah, anon, these guys are insane, but you have bypassed Mental Breakdown part of my brain and now I am deeply, deeply curious.

---

Why is it that mcu script writers are so proud to be arrogant?

---

Warning for minor language.

So anyway, the person I thought of specifically as being Generally Terrible to the Franchise Lately was Michael Waldron, who wrote Loki, Dr. Strange 2, AND is currently working on Avengers: Secret Wars. (Yay)

So I did a lot of research about where this guy CAME from and how he's impacted everything because I swear to God I'd never heard of him before Loki. And now I see him everywhere, but usually only in loathing.

---

Michael Waldron, according to Wikipedia, is currently 35 as of 2022 and graduated from some Film School i haven't heard of and can't be bothered to remember. He is unmarried(?) and has been active in the film industry since 2014. (8 years, for those of you counting.) He started work on Loki in 2020(? unconfirmed).

The thing that struck me the most was how incredibly short his project list is.

My man has six (6) completed projects. He had three before he started on Loki. And while this doesn't necessarily mean that he's bad, it does show a level of inexperience that baffles me personally.

For comparison, Kenneth Brangah, one of four screenwriters for Thor 1's list is this:

And again, it's not like Brangah's list is enormous, but I do see a lot more experience under their belt before they were approached by MCU rather than Waldron, who had done three projects. Brangah had 20 years in sceenwriting when he went to work for Thor. Waldron had six.

And the amazing thing to me is that even the shows Waldron's executive producer on, he wrote like, two episodes for it? Then he handed it off to other writers. So he doesn't, as far as I can tell and I found, seem to have a lot of experience actually working the writing process, just supervising it.

(I could be wrong)

But here is his latest series Heels, for reference.

the section says "Written by" above the names, I cropped it weirdly.

---

So we have a man who has, at this point, worked six years in the industry. He has worked on three shows. He was the assistant for one show, he did not write in the other one, and he has written for ONE show, total. Produced one show, was the executive producer for ONE show.

What I am seeing here, is, from what I can see, a lack of experience. And it shows. Badly.

So why did Marvel hire him?

----

According to an interview Waldron did, where I'm drawing a great deal of this information, he has always wanted to work for the Big Leagues. He wanted to work on Star Wars mostly, from what I could see, but he didn't think that Marvel would be bad either. When he approached his agent about how to get working for Marvel his agent told him he needed to have written a movie.

Now you're probably wondering. I DID look at that list of projects he's been involved in, and there wasn't a movie.

You are correct!

Waldron wrote a movie called The Worst Guy of All Time and the Girl Who Came to Kill Him. It's on The Black List and was never filmed, to my understanding. But he sure did write that script. And that script, I believe, is where a lot of issues in Loki start to come to light, but we'll get to that in a minute.

"At some point the script made its way to Marvel as they were meeting people for Loki and that got him in the door to pitch and that pitch got him the job."

When Kevin Feige was hiring directors, Waldron walked in and "I thought I was going to get it, but that's my attitude, I guess, hopefully as unarrogantly as that can sound, but I think you got to be confident" (Waldron). Feige was apparently impressed and hired him on.

Which again, a bold choice that COULD have been great, to give a small name the chance to work on a project like this?? Incredible. Just not in this context.

I feel immensely confused that MCU, which is a multi-billion dollar industry, did NOT actually hire someone with years and years of experience like they did for Thor 1. Instead, they went with someone who, personally to me, didn't have enough experience to seem like he knew what he was doing.

So now Waldron is working in MCU. Things are going great for him. He has TWENTY WEEKS to come up with the plot, the scripts, and the story for the entire Loki series.

TWENTY. I cannot emphasize this enough. That is no time at all. They went from blank slate NO IDEAS to a full script in TWENTY. WEEKS.

So HOW then, did Waldron get approached to do Dr. Strange 2?

Apparently, Waldron and Owen Wilson were talking one day and Waldron got asked to do Dr. Strange 2 because it was just as chaotic as Loki was.

WALDRON: Yeah. By that time, I had been able to build the trust. We'd written Loki. Loki was in good shape at that point. It was headed into production. I was getting ready to go to Atlanta. Fortunately, the scripts were in good shape. One of our writers, a close friend of mine, Eric Martin, took my place and went and was the writer on set, which you've got to have, and he did amazing work carrying the show across the finish line, from a writing standpoint. And yeah, it was just, "All right. You did Loki. That was crazy. Come do Dr. Strange. This is going to be crazy, too." That was really fun.

And guess what! This is the instructions he was given FOR Dr. Strange 2.

WALDRON: It is purely, 100%, "Make the most kick ass Dr. Strange movie you can possibly make." There was no, "You got to get here. It's got to fit here."

Which, by the way, Feige stated that he had no plans for the Loki series beyond time travel, and Waldron was instructed to do whatever he felt like. A 100% most kick-ass time travel series, you might say.

---

Okay. So now that we have some background, I'm going to get onto my soapbox and explain why this man was a horrible, horrible directing choice and shows 0 understanding of the characters. This is going to go over Loki and Dr. Strange 2, for reference.

---

LOKI:

The biggest disaster I see with Loki is that the FIRST -- and I emphasize this, the FIRST -- thing that Waldron says about Loki in the interview is this:

Waldron: And I'd written a time travel movie about a character who was kind of a villain, and kind of a sh*thead, like Loki.

I think that the problem that Waldron suffered from the most in Loki is that Waldron didn't want to make a TV series about Loki. He doesn't like the character very much from what I can tell. Obviously, he calls him a sh*thead, but he never has anything nice to say about Loki as a whole either. He doesn't want to talk about Loki as a person, or Loki's story, Waldron wants to talk about the TVA. I seriously cannot emphasize this enough. Not once in the interview did Loki as a person come up. Loki didn't even seem to be a character to him.

The TVA is where Waldron seems like most of his time was spent, because that was, after all, what MCU wanted to do. I honestly, genuinely do not believe this man would have taken the job for Loki if it wasn't about time travel. Because Waldron could focus on the TVA and not Loki. Loki was an irritant he had to occasionally do something with.

And now we get to his script that was pitched to MCU.

Waldron: I sat down and I wrote a script that was a time travel action rom-com, is how I would describe it...because they [Marvel] wanted to make a time travel show. And I'd written a time travel movie about a character who was kind of a villain, and kind of a shithead, like Loki.

And the thing is, to me, sounds a lot like the TV series. A romcom, with time travel, and a sh*thead kind-of villain. That's the series we got. I do wonder how much of this pitch made it into the final series, because this is what Waldron had as a reference. (The director wanted to make a romance from what I understand, that was her vision of the series was this long-winding romance, and it doesn't look like anyone sat down in the writer's room and explained to them that the last thing that would fuel Loki's story forward was romance.)

And the thing is, Waldron doesn't seem to understand Loki as a character at all, if Loki is "kind of a villain and a sh*thead" because yeah, sure, Loki can be considered that, but that's not WHO Loki is. That's what people SEE him as.

Waldron at no point references having read the scripts for the Avengers, Thor 1 or the Dark World inside this interview. This doesn't mean he hasn't seen the movies or read the screenplay, as I often hear said about him, but it is strange to me that he makes so little mention of Loki.

This man is so focused on the TVA. Despite how much of a disaster the TVA ended up being. Here's some notable quotes:

WALDRON: What did I learn? Don't write one about time travel, because it's a pain in the ass.

WALDRON: ...A foundation of what constitutes a broken time law and what doesn't, so that we could then just, which is about Loki breaking a time law, and then you have to move all that stuff as far to the background as humanly possible, because you don't want the audience focusing on the rules of time travel during your show.

I love how "Loki breaking a time law" is supposed to be the center of it all and comes off as an afterthought.

And.

"don't want the audience focusing on the rules of time travel in your show" YEAH. CAUSE IT'S GARBAGE. Maybe if he and the others had had more than a weekend (exaggeration, untrue statement) to work on how time travel works, we'd have something that didn't make me want to scream into a pillow for ten years.

WALDRON:  All over our writer's room, our white boards were just covered in timelines. And it's just, "No, time travel works this way," "No, time travel works that way." That was the great challenge of our show, it was because the Time Variance Authority is an organization that literally manages and polices all of time, we had to define what time is to them and what time is in the MCU. 

I think we can blame this disaster on the Russo brothers. ^

WALDRON: Those are all questions we had to ask and define for ourselves. I think that what's fun about the TVA is it takes something remarkable, like time travel, and really packages it in a very soulless, sort of bureaucratic way. That's what was exciting to me, as a writer, was to take something so magical and just make it utterly soulless. -- So what we have is a writer's room so focused on the TVA that Loki becomes a secondary concern and the lens from which we VIEW the TVA, and then it stops becoming Loki's series and starts to become the TVA's.

But no one seemed to realize this.

And also "That's what was exciting to me...was to take something so magical and make it utterly soulless" is a GREAT way to go about time travel. I also think he applies this to everything and it shows.

So again. Writer focused on the TVA. Appears to me to not care about Loki. Spends a majority of the interview discussing ANYTHING but the main lead of his show. Does not want to talk about growth or character or WHERE LOKI CAME FROM? WHY ARE YOU NOT TALKING ABOUT YOUR LEAD?

But that's okay. Because we all know that the TVA was the main character of Loki, don't we?

---

Another interesting point, I thought, was how Waldron writes relationships. I watched a review of his TV series Heels, where the reviewer came to this conclusion about the main characters:

"...And that's just what made this show so fascinating, is that…all these characters, that in some way, treat each other horribly, but in other sense do care about each other, and they're all so entwined with trying to make this thing work."

and that sounded extremely familiar. Because this is the cast of Loki. Waldron seems to have discovered his Character Formula.

Thanks. I hate it.

I just...this man can't have been a bad writer in just Loki right, and this has to be a consistent theme across all his work? And honestly, he's worked on so little that I don't know. I can't have an honest opinion of him. From what he has worked on, terrible character chemistry seems to be the general vibe. Waldron does not seem to know how to write characters that you understand why they like each other.

Hence, Loki being abused by every figure of authority in Loki, and Slyive treating him horribly, but somehow they all like each other in the end.

Because that's Loki. The TVA series, Loki on the side, getting beat up. Because he's bad.

---

DR. STRANGE 2:

Dr. Strange 2 has a similar set of problems. It was written in a rushed time frame, there was no overarching idea for a plot and where the story needed to go, Waldron was just told to do what he wanted, and Waldron didn't seem to be too focused on character arcs.

Wanda, obviously, takes a devastating hit as far as arcs go, but I wouldn't say that Dr. Strange was spared, either. The two of them go through rapid flipflopping in terms of the growth they've incurred throughout the entire MCU, and it shows. Badly.

One thing that Waldron did say that absolutely baffled me was this:

WALDRON: I became good friends with Jac Schaeffer, head writer of WandaVision, while I was writing Loki. Her and I became good pals, because we were kind of in it together and everything...So, I had the benefit of just being able to call Jac and talk to her about Wanda's character and everything, because it was really important to me that I do right by her with what she did with Wanda as a character. And also, with Lizzie, who's a friend of mine. I really worked with her and made sure, "Okay, you guys just did this incredibly intimate show about this character that grew her so much. Let's make sure that we're doing that justice and telling a fulfilling next chapter of that story."

I am so confused. Waldron honestly appears to want to do right by Wanda, but Wanda's growth from WandaVision was destroyed in Dr Strange 2 (and I want to emphasize here that Waldron made no such comment about talking to Tom Hid. or previous directors of Thor movies) so then how did Wanda end up going through such a downward spiral? Waldron wanted to do right by her, and yet???

I think the biggest problem is that Waldron doesn't have to think long term. He's almost not supposed to. He said this:

WALDRON: Well, I think one of the joys of being a writer in the Marvel world is getting to make terrible messes and leave them for your predecessors

WALDRON: For instance, you write the Loki show and then you end up writing Dr. Strange 2, having to clean up your own mess and that can be a lot of fun.

WALDRON: And it will naturally connect to the MCU and it will naturally get the MCU to where it's supposed to go, in some ways that we expect and ways that sometimes you don't expect, and I think that's part of the fun.

Waldron was given the explicit instruction to write a good Dr. Strange movie, but not a good MCU movie. Part of the reason that Phase 4 feels like a bunch of puzzle pieces from different puzzles is that it was designed to be that way. Feige is just going with the flow to see what will happen rather than having any sort of idea of where to take the series.

"It will naturally get MCU to where it's supposed to go" is one of the most hilarious statements I've ever heard, by the way. As someone who has done original writing, and planned out a series, my 200+ page document of planning, background, and worldbuilding laughs at you. (And I still don't have it all finished, because I've had MONTHS to work on this). Maybe. Maybe they want to try and not publish the first draft of phase 4?

Waldron wasn't told to make a movie about Wanda, or how to progress Wanda's character in a way that made sense post her growth. And any problems that were there they blamed on the Darkhold, because it's someone else's problem to clean up. Very neat. Very good planning.

---

So overall, I don't think that MCU writers are proud of their ignorance, I just don't think that they see a problem with it. Writers are told to do what they want to, without there being any plans for character growth or plot advancement, so they do. They put whatever they want out on the sandbox and wait for someone else to clean it up.

Feige seems fully onboard with this plan. So the real problem, I think, is the fact that MCU is expecting writers to come up with complex, interconnected plots in twenty weeks, and the writer's don't have the time to write consistent character arcs, they just tell a flashy story because at least you get something out there.

I honestly don't imagine Secret Wars will be any different. Waldron has shown that he really really enjoys writing stories, but not characters. This is not to say that we should blame all of this on Waldron, because I don't think it's really his fault. I think it's more the fact that he's the byproduct of a system set to fail.

The writer's ignorance is someone else's problem in MCU, apparently. But don't worry. This will naturally get MCU where it's supposed to go. Just tilt your head and squint a little. Then close one eye. And then the other. Now you can see what brilliance Phase 4 is clearly.

#anti michael waldron #michael waldron #anon #answered #i apologize for my thesis #mcu #mcu meta #waldron #anti waldron #anti mcu #mcu critical

[kyoshi-lesbians]

Ty Lee | all-american bitch

I know my place and this is it

[video description: an amv centered on Ty Lee set to “all-american bitch” by Olivia Rodrigo. The video focuses on Ty Lee's dynamic with Azula throughout the years, and juxtaposes Ty Lee's bubbly flirty persona with her extremely efficient chi-blocking fighting style and shrewd observations. end description.]

cw for flashing. extended video description under the cut

First verse contrasts scenes of Ty Lee, Azula, and Mai as children with scenes of Azula threatening Ty Lee in Return to Omashu, and from then on being a weapon for Azula in her mission. Scenes mainly pull from the trio’s early book 2 action as they chase Aang. 

First chorus: on “Forgive and I forget”: Ty Lee mid-air doing a flip cuts to young Ty Lee landing a flip. young Azula pushes young Ty Lee to the ground and laughs. Ty Lee chi-blocks a kyoshi warrior on "And I act like it. She flirts with Sokka on “Got what you can’t resist” and chi-blocks Katara on “perfect all-american”

Second verse features mainly scenes from the end of book 2 when Ty Lee, Azula, and Mai are in Ba Sing Se disguised as Kyoshi warriors. Many of the scenes show Ty Lee being undignified, contrasting with the lyrics (but fitting the ironic tone of the song). These scenes include Ty Lee jumping into the sludge during The Drill, her covered in mud, and flying through the air with Mai after Appa flaps his tail at them. 

Second chorus: “Forgive and forget”: Ty Lee after her circus performance agreeing to join Azula. Other clips juxtapose Ty Lee during The Beach with Ty Lee fighting during The Boiling Rock. 

“I know my place”: Rapid cuts of Ty Lee and Mai beside Azula, cut to Ty Lee anxiously looking side to side during The Boiling Rock confrontation. On the second “I know my place”: Rapid cuts of Ty Lee hugging Mai, and Mai and Azula preparing to fight. 

“And this is it”: Ty Lee chi-blocks Azula. 

Bridge: Scenes from the fallout of Ty Lee betraying Azula - Mai and Ty Lee being arrested −  cut together with Ty Lee’s emotional outburst during The Beach campfire scenes. During the screaming and fast-paced music, there are rapid cuts of Ty Lee fighting and moments beside Azula, in between cuts shots of Ty Lee crying. 

Outro: Ty Lee bowing to Azula during Return to Omashu. Then Ty Lee crying during The Beach party, and Azula apologizing to her. 

#it's finally here... my ty lee thesis statement :) #apologies again for bringing usamericans anywhere near atla ...... but . you know. empire for an empire #this is literally the first time i've edited a video on any program at all in over a DECADE #and of course the ideas/moments that inspired me to do this whole thing were the most technically complicated to do lmao #i learned so much for this please clap #finally. shoutout to o who I literally could not have done it without! #and to every atla fanvid I studied... mutuals you are all so skilled! <3 #flashing cw #ty lee #amv #r.post

[whiskey-tango-matcha]

Then & Now (M, cold)

Hiii, hope you like A LOT of hurt followed by 2-3 sentences of comfort lmao. This is Greyson fic - Grey is sick on a day he and Reed are supposed to have a date, and he's sure Reed is going to be angry with him because Trauma(TM). It's told in a flashback sort of format which I really enjoyed because I love writing blurbs of colds at different times in life lol. I hope you guys like it, please let me know what ya think, good, bad, or otherwise :)

CW: Male snz, cold, pneumonia mention, coughing, contagion mention, lots and lots of whump lmao. A little over 4K words under the cut.

Then & Now

Now

“Morning, Chef.”

“Huh-! HhITSZHH-ue!”

Elijah turned towards Greyson, who was doubled over into his hoodie sleeve, and gave him a sympathetic grimace. “Cooks finally pulled you under, hmm?”

“Ugh, like way fuckin’ under,” Greyson muttered, rubbing his eye and sucking in through his nose. “I feel like ass.”

“Sorry, dude,” Elijah said, tossing his counterpart a box of tissues. “Sucks.”

Greyson caught the box and pulled out a few just in time. “HITSZHZH-uhh!” This one, he managed to catch in the handful of tissues. He wiped his nose and shrugged. “Yeah,” he said, tossing the used tissues. “Mbostly because I was supposed to have a date tonight.”

Elijah smirked at his friend, who was pushing past the GM into their shared office. The two of them sat in unison. “Do you guys still call them dates? You’ve been official for, like, six months.”

“It’s our six-month anniversary,” Greyson said, his voice flattened by congestion. “We were going to do EMP.”

“Awww, now I’m depressed,” Elijah said. “Also, why didn’t you tell me earlier you were going to Eleven Madison? I still know people there.”

“So does Reed,” Greyson said, massaging his temple. “That’s why we were goigg. Fuck, mby fuckin’ head is pounding. Do we have any -?”

Elijah placed the ibuprofen in front of the chef before he could ask, along with a bottle of cough syrup and a decongestant. “You know we have it all,” he said, pushing an old cup of water across the desk for Greyson to swallow his arsenal of pills. “And fair enough. Well that fuckin’ sucks, dude, I’m sorry. Hey, at least you can leave early, right? Matt’s closing?”

“Yeah,” Greyson said, unwrapping a cough drop and popping it in his mouth. “I’ll head out once the rush is over. I still have to text Reee – hh...hhNTSHH-ue! HGTSHH-uhh!” Greyson doubled over, sneezed into his arm, and groaned. “I’mb gonna kill the guys when they get in,” he said, mostly to himself.

“Don’t do that,” Elijah said, placing a hand on Greyson’s shoulder on his way out of the office. “Then you’ll have to stay all night.”

Greyson huffed out a laugh and pulled out his phone. He clicked on his conversation with Reed, sighing. He did not want to have this conversation.

Greyson

9:31AM

hey babe. gonna have to cancel tonight, the cooks infected me w their plague :( im rly sorry.

The chef set his phone on the desk, prepared to either be ghosted or gaslit – two of Collin’s favorite pastimes whenever Greyson had had to cancel their plans during their relationship – and was shocked when the phone buzzed with a text almost immediately. He was almost afraid to look at his boyfriend’s response.

Reed

9:32AM

Oh, baby don’t be sorry!! what time are you off? I’ll pick you up and take you home :) we can do a sick day little date night instead!

Greyson stared at the phone, stunned. He couldn’t help it; he read the message again, then out loud said, “What the fuck?”

Then – Ten Years Ago

“Chef?”

The Executive Chef looked up from his paperwork at Greyson and sighed. “What is it, Abbott?”

“I, um – hh! HTSHH-uh! HGXTSH-ue! Snf. Umb, I just wanted to see if it was okay if I… left a little early today?” Greyson asked, his voice barely above a whisper. His chef raised his eyebrows and put his clipboard down. Oh, no, Greyson thought.

“Leave...early? And leave your clean up and prep to whom, exactly? Me?” The Executive Chef huffed out a laugh. “That’s rich, Abbott. Why the fuck would you need to leave early?”

“I…” Greyson started, but his voice gave out on the single syllable. He attempted to clear his throat. “I just… I really feel like shit? I was hoping I could, like… sleep it off, I guess. I mbean, I wouldn’t want to get anyone else sigck.” Greyson felt a cough bubbling to the surface; he tried to quell it, to no avail. The younger man collapsed into a coughing fit that felt like it lasted a lifetime.

The Chef remained unmoved. “My guys,” he said, placing a hand on his chest as Greyson attempted to compose himself, “don’t get sick, Abbott. And if they do, I don’t fucking hear about it. Understand? Because I really don’t give a shit. If you’re here, you’re here. If you decide to leave early,” he shrugged, uncaring, “then you leave for good. And Abbott, if you try to get a job after walking out of my kitchen, I promise you I will make it impossible. I know you’ve only been here a couple months, but here’s what you need to learn: put your head down and do your fucking job, and you can work anywhere in the world after this. Be a whiny piece of shit who tries to walk out on his shift, and you’ll be working at McDonald’s for the rest of you life. Got it?”

Greyson, too shocked to rebut, just bobbed his head up and down.

“Let me hear you say it,” the Chef said. Greyson cleared his throat.

“Yes, Chef,” he said. The Chef nodded.

“Now get the fuck out of my office.”

Now

“Elijah. Look at this text.”

The GM looked up slowly from the iPad where he was going over reservations for the evening. “...Why?” he asked, taking the phone from Greyson’s hand.

“Just look. Tell mbe that’s ndot weird,” Greyson said, crossing his arms over his chest. Elijah looked down, confused, and read the text. He pinched his eyebrows together just a little, and read it again. “See? Isn’t that weird?”

“Greyson…” Elijah said, handing the phone back. “That’s not weird.”

“Seriously?” Greyson asked, reading the text yet again. “It’s bizarre. He’s ndot even a little mad? C’mon. That’s weird.”

“He’s being sweet,” Elijah explained, slowly, as though he were talking to a toddler. “Did you want him to be mad? Because that’s bizarre.”

“Ndo I don’t want him to be mad. I jus – HTSZHH-ue! HRRSHH!” Greyson wrenched to the side to sneeze, which sent him into a fit of hacking coughs. “I just figured he’d want to, like, yell at mbe or something. For canceling,” Greyson finished, his voice strained against another cough. Elijah didn’t respond, not at first, and instead pressed a hand onto the chef’s forehead.

“I think you’re sicker than we thought, because you’re acting fucking delusional,” he said as Greyson slapped his hand away. “Greyson, normal people don’t yell at each other for getting sick, or having to cancel a plan. That’s, like, really twisted.”

Greyson rolled his eyes. “It’s ndot twisted, Lij you fuckin’ drama queen,” he said, then held up a finger. “Onesec – hh! Hh...hnn.” Greyson sniffled, a let out a little irritated cough. “Lost it.”

“Go back to the kitchen,” Elijah said, pointing towards the swinging doors. “Sit down. Rest. Let your medicine kick in. I don’t want people seeing this -” he gestured to Greyson, as if to allude to his entire being – “when they walk past the restaurant. Alright? Text your boyfriend something nice. Not something unhinged.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Greyson muttered, turning toward the kitchen, his phone still open to the conversation with Reed. He turned towards Elijah again before pushing through the kitchen doors. “I still say that this is the unhinged thing.”

“Go to therapy, Greyson,” Elijah said, not looking up from the iPad. Greyson rolled his eyes, pushed into the kitchen, and regarded his phone once again.

Greyson

10:07AM

thanks, babe. it’s ok, I can take care of myself. it wont be a long day, ill just grab some nyquil omw home and sleep it off. ill reschedule our rezo too, don’t worry about that. im really sorry again for canceling. if I could taste the food id still go lol.

Figuring that sounded at least relatively normal, Greyson hit send. He sat down at his desk once again and placed his head in his hands. No way he’s not pissed, Greyson thought, and he really believed it. In all his years of dating, he’d never met anyone who would respond that way; they’d at least have a snippy remark about the last-minute nature of the cancellation.

Greyson’s phone pinged once again, and he couldn’t help but grab it right away to assess the damage.

Reed

10:08AM

honey, please don’t apologize, seriously. youre sick, it happens, its no biggie :) I already moved the reservation to next week but if we need to ill move it again. james at emp said to tell you feel better btw.

Greyson blinked, dumbstruck. He started typing without thinking.

Greyson

10:10AM

you REALLY arent mad? seriously?

Reed

10:10AM

im really not mad. who gets mad at someone for being sick…? is someone at work mad at you? am I supposed to be mad..? lol

Greyson

10:11AM

I mean its a last minute cancellation. id understand if u were mad.

Reed

10:11AM

welllll….im not. is that ok? haha

Reed

10:15AM

grey…? you believe me, right?

Reed

10:21AM

greyson..?

Then – Seven Years Ago

He was moving through molasses.

Greyson placed a sluggish hand to his own forehead – you can’t check yourself for a fever, dumbass – and blinked painfully. He’d made it to work, he’d made it through the day, and he’d made it back home, against all odds. Now, he was stuck on his couch, unable to even crawl to the bathroom for a thermometer.

It had all compounded on him, was his guess. The endless fourteen hour days for the better part of two years at his thankless sous chef job. The shitty Chicago-suburbs apartment with no heat, where he froze for the few hours a week he slept. The near-constant drinking. Sure, he was only twenty-five, but what was it they said about this industry? It ages you in dog years. Yeah, that was it.

“Hh-! Hh...ITSZHH-ue! HTSHHH-ue!” Greyson sneezed helplessly into the blanket he’d wrapped around himself, and groaned. This was not what he’d imagined when he moved here from Minnesota. He’d thought it would be glamorous, working as a sous chef at a high-end hotel in a big city. He thought he’d have friends, or a girlfriend, or something. Instead, he was trapped on his couch, benched by a sinus infection and seasonal depression that seemed to last the whole year round. Fuck this, Greyson thought. He couldn’t get off the couch, but he could reach his phone; Greyson pulled up Indeed and changed his search parameters.

Actively searching for work. Location: Any.

Now

“Um… Chef? What’s, uh… what’s going on?”

Greyson paused for a moment, a crate of spoiled food held on his shoulder. He turned towards Matt, keen to answer, but instead held the crate tighter and wrenched to the side. “HRTTSHH-uh!”

“Bless you,” Matt said, an automatic reaction. Greyson nodded, turned towards the dumpster, and dumped the food in before beginning the cycle anew: pick up crate. Turn to sneeze. Dump old food. Matt wasn’t sure if he should help his boss, or go inside for backup.

He chose the former, picking a crate filled to the brim with rotten tomatoes off the ground and hoisting it into the trash. “You gonna tell me what’s up?” he asked as the two of them continued gathering and tossing.

Greyson sighed, pulled a hand down his face, and shook his head. “I thingk Reed and I are over,” he said, voice soft and throaty. Matt’s eyebrows shot up.

“What? Seriously? What did you do?” Matt asked, prompting a stuffy laugh from his boss.

“I just don’t thingk it’s going to work,” Greyson said, shrugging. “I… I don’t want to, like, play gambes. I can’t do that again, ndot after Collin.”

“Chef,” Matt said as he gathered and tossed the last milk crate, “what are you talking about? Reed is, like, the most straight-shooting guy I’ve ever met. How is he playing games?”

Greyson, left without anything to occupy his hands, just shrugged and pulled out his phone. He handed it to Matt without explanation, and the sous quickly read through the text conversation Greyson and Reed had going. Matt furrowed his brow.

“I don’t get it,” he said, handing the phone back. “He wants to take care of you, what’s the problem with that?”

“He doesn’t want to take care of me, he wants to have the upper hand,” Greyson explained, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and sitting on the step just outside the back door. “Want one?”

“Sure,” Matt said, sitting beside his boss. “I mean, you shouldn’t be smoking if you’re -”

“HTSHH! Hh-! ITZSHH-ue!” Greyson turned into his elbow, taking a long moment to gather himself before handing Matt his cigarette.

“-sick,” Matt finished. The older man shrugged, and Matt plucked the lighter out of Greyson’s hand to light both of them up, not daring to push his boss any closer to the edge. For a moment, they smoked in silence, only Greyson’s sniffles and coughs interrupting the quiet.

“Boss,” Matt said, finally, “I think you need to talk to Reed.”

“I did,” Greyson said, stubbing out his cigarette. “You saw.”

“No, I mean actually talk to him,” Matt said. The two of them stood, looking at each other – a face-off without the malice. Matt continued. “Not ignore his texts and clean out the walk-in.”

Greyson scoffed. “Matt, just because you have sombe fairy-tale love story doesn’t mbean everyone else does, too. Okay? If it’s over between me and Reed, it’s fine. I’mb better off alone, anywaa – hh! Hh… Hhhii-!” Greyson stood with his elbow poised at his face, stuck in pre-sneeze agony for what seemed like an eternity. While he was incapacitated, Matt took his phone and typed out a message that his boss couldn’t see. Finally, Greyson lowered his arm and sucked in, fruitlessly, through his nose. “The fugck are you doigg?” he asked, snatching his phone back from his sous.

“If you’re not going to talk to Reed,” Matt shrugged, unapologetic, “I will.”

Greyson looked down at his phone, which buzzed twice in his hand. Reed’s face popped up on the screen. Call from: reed <3

Then – Three Years Ago

“HTSHH! Huh! ETZSHH-ue! HRTTSHH-ue!”

“Bless, bless, bless you. Allergies?” Collin asked, not looking up from his phone. Greyson sniffled in vain, and coughed painfully.

“Ndot exactly,” he croaked from the doorway to Collin’s living room. “Baby, do you thingk you could drive mbe to urdent care, actually?”

Collin looked up and slowly raised an eyebrow. “For what?” he asked, obviously annoyed. Greyson swallowed as best he could and placed a hand on his throat.

“I thingk… I mbight have strep. Or bronchitis, or sombething. I, uh… I’ve had a fever for like. A week.” Greyson had to stop to close his eyes and grab onto the door frame, a sordid attempt to keep from hitting the floor like a rotten sack of potatoes. Collin rolled his eyes.

“You’re such a drama queen. You seemed fine when you came over last night.”

“You were asleep whend I came over,” Greyson said, his eyes still closed. “Did you ndot notice that I haven’t been over in like five days?”

Collin shrugged. “I mean, yeah, but I figured you were busy with work. You’re always busy with work,” he said, the venom in his voice making clear that he wanted to fight.

Greyson, physically incapable of fighting at that moment, just slid slowly to the ground and nodded. “Yeah. You’re right,” he said. “Ndow I’m paying the price. Please, baby. Can you please just take me? I… I really don’t feel well.”

It was pathetic. He knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself; he was fairly sure he was moments from passing out. Collin turned and made himself comfier on the couch.

“I’ll call you an uber,” he said, pressing some buttons on his phone. “You barely make time for me, and now you’re asking me to be your chauffeur? Please, Greyson.” He showed his ailing boyfriend the phone. “He’ll be out front in five minutes. Better make your way down.”

“Okay,” Greyson said, pulling himself slowly to his feet. “Thangk you.”

Collin didn’t say a word as Greyson let himself out of the apartment. He made it downstairs, and into the uber, and into the waiting room at urgent care. He made it out by himself, too, with a laundry list of prognoses – strep, sinus infection, walking pneumonia – and a handful of prescriptions. When he texted Collin later to fill him in, his boyfriend didn’t text back.

Greyson fell asleep on his shower floor and awoke to freezing water pounding on him, and a courier pounding on his door. When he toweled off and answered it, chicken soup from the local bodega and a note that read feel better -c sat at his feet. Greyson breathed a sigh of relief; at least he had been forgiven.

Now

Reed had dated plenty of men is his thirty-five years of life, and had found that there were two general categories when it came to sick men: there was the Baby, and there was the Don’t Look at Me.

Greyson though, an enigma since the moment they met, seemed to fall into a third category, a category that was, to Reed, yet undiscovered: the You Hate Me.

Reed was good with the first two categories; the Don’t Look at Me, you left medicine outside their room and texted them funny memes. The Baby, you laid in bed with them and spoon-fed them soup. Easy. Understandable. Truthfully, this was one of his favorite things about men: they were easy to crack. He figured Greyson would likely fall into the Baby category, which was fine by him – there was nothing he’d like more than to look after an ailing Greyson, to be honest. This third category he seemed to embody, though, was not something Reed knew what to do with.

“He didn’t answer when I called him,” Reed said into the phone receiver. “I just want to know what’s going on, I mean, did I say something wrong?”

On the other end of the line, Elijah sighed. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. This is just… it’s just Greyson being Greyson.”

Reed wasn’t about to take this lying down. “Hey, are you guys super busy tonight? I mean, I don’t want to be that boyfriend, but, like, can I come get him? We really need to talk, and if what Matt said is true he probably shouldn’t be, like, working anyway, right?”

While Elijah paused, Reed pulled the phone away from his ear and once again re-read the text Matt had sent from Greyson’s phone: hey reed, it’s matt. grey is sick as hell, so DO NOT take any of the crazy weird shit he says seriously, k? his temperature needs to lower by like 5 degrees before you do this, but u guys need to actually talk. he’s being stupid.

“Please,” Reed heard Elijah’s tinny voice on the other end and put the phone back to his ear. “Please, come and collect him. I’m begging.”

Reed stood from the couch and grabbed his keys. “Give me twenty minutes. I’m on my way.”

Then – Two Years Ago

“Heyyy, baby, cand I buy you a dringk?”

The girl leaned back, her face marked by disgust. “No, thanks. Save your money and get yourself some NyQuil,” she said, disappearing into the crowd. Greyson huffed out a sigh and coughed into his hand – a long, crackling sound that made the other bar patrons inch their chairs away.

“She’s right, you know,” the bartender – Skip, Greyson had learned his name was a few weeks back when he had started coming in every night – said, filling Greyson’s shot glass yet again. “You need to go home.”

“And yet you pour mbe another drink,” Greyson said, knocking back the shot. “The duality of mban. NGTXSH! HTSHH! Huh-! HRRSHH-ue!” Greyson covered his mouth lazily with one hand, wiped it on his pants, hand held the glass up to indicate ‘another’.

“Bless you,” Skip said, not pouring the shot. “Greyson, seriously: go home. You sound fucking awful.”

“Are you cutting mbe off?” Greyson asked, his rheumy eyes meeting Skip’s over the bartop. “Because unless you are, I’mb staying.” He coughed again, into his elbow; the cough was quickly becoming a problem. He’d had a cold two weeks ago; the symptoms had been mild, but the cough had hung around. When he caught whatever-the-fuck this was two days ago, the cough had turned from an annoyance to a pressing issue; he should go home. He should go to the doctor, he should take a day off, he should, he should, he should.

But he wouldn’t. He would stay, and he would drink until he was kicked out, then he’d pass out on the train and not make it home to sleep. He’d go to work at seven AM and stay until midnight and do it all again.

“I’m not kicking you out,” Skip sighed. “I’m just saying… you should take care of yourself.”

Greyson blinked slowly. He could feel his lungs, heavy with fluid, gearing up to cough again; his head, pounding in spite or because of the alcohol; his heart crushed into a million, Collin-sized pieces. Take care of yourself. It felt impossible, when you’d never been shown how.

“This is mbe taking care of myself,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’ll have another.”

Now

Greyson rested his head on a case of lettuce in the corner of the walk-in. He knew he should be continuing his madness of cleaning, but he’d accidentally sat down on his fifth trip into the refrigerator, and now he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get up again.

Fucking Reed, Greyson thought as he allowed the cold salad box to sate the fever he had burning in his brain. Why can’t he just be up front with me? If you’re mad just say it, don’t fucking torture me.

Perhaps deep down, he knew he was being ridiculous; Matt and Elijah were most likely correct. The simplest answer – that Reed truly was just a good guy – was probably the right one. But he just couldn’t get out of his mind all the times he’d reached out, needed help and asked for it, and been shot down. He certainly couldn’t allow himself to believe that the person he was dating was truly good; he knew he’d never deserve that.

“Greyson?”

Speaking of Reed, that sounded a lot like him – was Greyson hearing things? Had he, in his fever-addled state, conjured a hallucination of his boyfriend to have a fight with? Bizarre, Grey, he thought to himself. That’s really fucking bizarre.

“Grey? Elijah said you were in here but I don’t – oh!”

Either this was a really crazy hallucination, or that really was Reed standing over him, in the walk-in. Greyson blinked hard, then blinked again, and suddenly Reed was on the ground next to him.

“Babe...it’s really cold in here. Do you think we can, um, leave?”

Greyson furrowed his eyebrows together. “Leave… and go where?” he asked, his voice cracking. “I have to… work. What are you doigg heeee...HRTSHH-ue! Huh -! HTSHH! NTSHH! IGXTSH!” Greyson attempted to stifle over and over, until Reed gently took his hand and pulled it away from his face.

“That has to hurt,” Reed said, his voice quiet and calm. “You can just… sneeze, you know. Like, regular.”

“Tryigg ndot to get you,” Greyson croaked, his eyes glazing over once again. “Youbettermov – HRRETSZCHH-ue! ITSZZHH-ue! Fuck – NGTSHHZ-ue!” Greyson sneezed into his lap, then coughed until his lungs felt sore. Reed didn’t move; he came closer and rubbed Greyson’s back.

“Bless you, baby,” Reed said, eventually.

“Thangks. Sorry,” Greyson murmured, pushing his hair out of his face and turning to look at Reed. “Why are you here?” he asked, levity out the window.

Reed let out a little laugh. “Umm, why do you think?” he asked. “You’ve been ignoring me since this morning. I got worried, since Matt said you were super sick – no lie detected, by the way, you sound truly awful –”

“Sorry,” Greyson said again, wiping under his nose. “I kndow, it’s gross.”

“Please, Grey,” Reed said, taking both sides of his boyfriend’s face in his hands and looking him in the eye. “Please. Stop apologizing. It’s okay to be sick. I don’t understand why you think I’m angry at you. I’m not.”

Greyson swallowed, painfully, and gave a little nod. “Okay,” he said, finally.

“Okay,” Reed repeated. “Anyway. I called Elijah. He said to come and collect you.”

At this, Greyson couldn’t help but cough out a laugh. “Collect mbe?” he asked. Reed smiled a little.

“Yeah,” he said. “His words, not mine.”

They both laughed, softly at first, then ramping up to near-hysteria. They only stopped when Greyson started coughing again and couldn’t seem to stop.

“Let’s go get you some water,” Reed said, helping his boyfriend to his shaky feet. Greyson allowed himself to be pulled out of the walk-in, and given a bottle of water that was sitting on his prep station. Greyson drank until the fit subsided, then regarded Reed once again.

“So… you really aren’t mbad?” he asked, rubbing his goosebumped arms up and down. Reed shook his head and shrugged off his windbreaker. He draped it over Greyson’s shoulders.

“I’m really not mad,” he insisted. Greyson nodded, seemingly satiated. Reed sighed through his nose and slipped his arms around the chef.

“Life’s done a number on you, huh?” he asked, quietly enough that it could’ve just been to himself. Greyson huffed out a sad little laugh.

“Like you wouldn’t believe, baby,” he murmured, pressing his hot head into Reed’s hair. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

#whiskeyswriting #snz #sickfic #snzfic #coldfic #snzblr #snez #male cold #male snz #this was a fun one! #whump #h/c #but mostly hurt lol #i know it's a lot of dialogue. my apologies i just love to write dialogue and HATE to write exposition lol #which is Not Good Writing but whatever #this is my horn snz blog not my doctoral thesis lmao

[why-the-heck-not]

computer science was a hoax from the universe to get me to study math in the pretense of ”hehe coding’s cool look at all these things u can do” *some mf vectors looming just around the corner* ”noNO dont look there; look here!! It’s ’hello world’ but in green heheh wOoOoo now it’s blue !! u are a god of this website” *matrices sharpening their knives somewhere*

#idk whY I’m going to the mathematical side of things #it’s ME who chooses the thesis topic #so could we maybe do without vectors MAYBE PERHAPS #(i dont like vectors. when we learned them at school I looked at them went ’’well I’ll never use this’’ and now look where we are #I owe my highschool math teacher’s an apology like oh no sometimes u do use vectors) #(I’m scared I’ll somehow choose a too difficult topic and make this impossible for myself) #(but also like I’m not MAKING anything from scratch; I’m just reading articles & writing from there (tho gotta have some own thoughts there #also I think?)) #(if I was smart I would’ve chosen this abt something I already know something abt instead of ’’I wanna see if I could like this’’) #(but alas im not) #codeblr #january 2024 #2024

[o-wild-west-wind]

so after the s2 teaser drop the pirates have been ping-ponging inside my brain for the past few days rapidly enough to reach a boiling point and I think it’s just cooked a theory: the Kiss™ was, for all intents and purposes, a marriage proposal—and Ed’s not raiding weddings just because he feels like the possibility of a future marriage is off the cards, but because he sees himself as, quite literally, having been jilted by a man who just said yes to his proposal.

Prefacing that a) I know the historical context is not (and absolutely should not) be given much weight in this show, and b) I am not a historian (so please correct me if I say anything patently ~falshe~) but that said and with my only qualification as being a Certified Slut for period dramas, I think a case could be made that this show—and Ed specifically—could be assuming an era-specific formula for romance.

While the majority of society was kind of a free-for-all when it came to sex/marriage/etc. in the 18th century, the upper echelons were still bound to a relatively strict level of propriety, as well as transactional views of a relationship; and at the same time, this was a period when the notion of marrying for love was rising in popularity (Stede, of course, is the poster child of someone forced into this contradiction). For the upper classes, you'd be lucky to get a period of courtship before the actual marriage, because if you did, it meant you got a shot at getting to know the person you were going to end up with (and had the potential for love). And—as such—courtship was kind of a thrilling, romantic thing with a few common qualities: it tended to be very public, very loaded & grandiose, and very brief, and even though it didn't have to end in marriage, marriage was always the end goal. You can probably see where I'm going here.

I think it's easy to read the "you wear fine things well" scene as a possible soft-launch of their courtship, and Lucius's nudges solidify it. Courtship was traditionally full of big, romantic gestures—maybe planning treasure hunts and setting ships on fire weren't typical ones, but they sure do count—and as much "getting to know you" as possible. Like dating, it was the time when you'd learn the other person's values, hobbies, preferences, etc., except perhaps to a shallower degree given the typical lack of privacy. If anything, Ed and Stede have a leg up in this respect.

Now, I do think it's a misconception that the majority of marriage proposals in this time happened after, like...3 weeks of knowing each other, but the trope is there for a reason. It was a lot more common for the engagement period to be the time you really got to know each other, and it wasn't abnormal for the engagement to last longer than the actual courtship; a marriage proposal kind of WAS the first truly official step in someone's relationship socially, emotionally, and physically. And while this might not have been true of the rungs of society Ed has been a part of, it definitely would've been true of Stede's.

Now, I don't think Stede is really thinking consciously of all of this during the timeline he's with Ed; he's intent on breaking all the rules he's felt strangled by his whole life. But Ed—he wants all that. He loves the idea of an aristocratic life, but he's also a romantic who wants an aristocratic love. Like how so many of us romanticize Jane Austen novels because it's a world we're so far removed from, Ed probably romanticizes love in Stede's world. He doesn't want the free-for-all he's been living; he loves the thrill of a courtship, of gentlemanly sensibilities, of the metaphorical dance of it all. And when an upper-crust gentleman appears to have initiated this courtship—and when he's being encouraged by everyone (except Izzy, but there's even more romance in rebellion) to reciprocate—he's going to indulge in it with all his heart. He's literally living a romantic novel dream world, and once he's sure of Stede's feelings, he has absolutely no reason not to expect that their trajectory is marriage. Sure, Stede is a pirate now—but he's still a gentleman, and isn't that what being wooed by a gentleman means?

So when they're in a desperate situation and the bar for grand gestures can't go higher, and they experience true privacy for the first time ever, and Stede kisses back, and he says yes to running away together—and Ed even asks for confirmation to make sure it’s all for real—"yes?" "I think so?" "yes!"—that's as good as a vow. That's a promise on par with a proposal. And this is probably when it clicks for Stede, too—he hears Mary's words, "we never would've chosen each other," and suddenly he realizes that he can finally choose love! And so there they are: relationship made official, 1700s style.

Cut to Ed, crashing weddings and stealing little cake toppers in dramatically tragic, anachronistic fashion—because, well...they were supposed to get married, weren't they? Because that's what gentlemen are supposed to do, or so he thought. But in reality, gentlemen aren't romantic; they're just fickle.

And let the divorce arc commence.

#i went for a thesis brainstorming walk and came back with this can i send this to my advisor instead #and apologies if this has been said before and I didn't notice i've been awol from fandom for a while and i miss her sm #also obligatory note that i think Kraken!Ed is 100% Izzy's doing but i do think the sims wedding era is something closer to his true self #and i love him for it <3 #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #our flag means death #blackbonnet #edward teach

[kaurwreck]

There's certainly Something about singularities in Bungou Stray Dogs presenting as massive, myth-derived creatures with more than passing resemblances to kaiju given the setting predates its analog to World War II.

Gojira and the kaiju genre were born in the aftermath of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Lucky Dragon Incident (in which an American hydrogen bomb test rained radioactive ash on a Japanese fishing boat and much of the South Pacific). Life form singularities (like Chuuya and Verlaine), the Seven Traitors, the Transcendants, Mori's fixation on skill-based warfare, and everything else about the Great War all indicate that skills are akin to nuclear arms.

But unlike nuclear arms, skills are generally framed as intrinsic to their user. They're neurological; as much as part of skill users' wiring as the rest of their synapses. Even for Kyouka, whose skill was inherited but not fully integrated, her skill more resembles hereditary neurochemical wiring than it does nuclear proliferation.

Gojira (1954) ends with Dr. Serizawa's promise that hydrogen bombs would always assure nightmarish, monstrous manifestations of the horrors of war. You'd think Dazai's gift, then, would be the enigmatic focal skill of the series; he's capable of nullifying hydrogen bombs, after all.

But it's Atsushi and his celestial Byakko that Shibusawa calls the antithesis of all other abilities. And, as explained in 55 Minutes, Byakko doesn't heal or regenerate Atsushi, it negates his wounds. Atsushi isn't only a particularly tenacious shounen protagonist, Byakko compels him to stand when he's been cut down. When Atsushi is at the edge of death, Byakko consumes him completely, and Atsushi is lost within him, moreso than even Chuuya is in his Corruption state (Chuuya is fully conscious in Corruption— if Atsushi is conscious, he's either repressing or sluggishly recalling the memory of what occurred). Akutagawa also mentions during the Cannibalism arc that Atsushi's claws cut through skills themselves (even Rashoumon, which eats space). Akutagawa also becomes aware, in 55 Minutes, that Byakko can be triggered by Atsushi's peril, and Akutagawa does so to negate the manifestation of a seemingly transcendant skill that otherwise had utterly defanged them (although he seems sorry to have to do it).

Nevertheless, although Atsushi's Byakko seemingly negates the metaphorical horrors of the Great War illustrated by the others and their relationships with their skills, it's Atsushi who posits that perhaps skills aren't innate. He says to Kunikida, "Maybe they come from somewhere else and stick to us. Maybe they're something we can't understand... I don't really know how to put it into words, but that's how I feel."

Much of 55 Minutes is colored by Atsushi's fear of Byakko and his understanding that Byakko could devour him. His fear is seemingly validated by the antagonist, a manifestation of a skill that seemingly swallowed its human. But although textually consistent with his expressed fear, Atsushi's tone, demeanor, timing, and thought processes from when he speaks that line until the light novel ends aren't. His musings reflect his namesake's exploration of and uneasy relationship with the nature of existence, which he understood to be constructed by one's culture and environment better than most due to his somewhat rootless childhood.

I think it's interesting that someone with a skill capable of cutting through other skills, negating wounds, and antithesizing all skills challenges whether skills are innate at all. And if they're not, what does that imply about the parallels between skills, the horrors of war, and the fear of nuclear holocaust?

It's important to me that the scars of American imperialism and disregard for the sanctity of life are not erased from the narrative when discussing the world wars and nuclear proliferation. So I hesitate to posit anything about what skills may be in Bungou Stray Dogs that is too abstracted from trauma wrought by Western imperialism, Japanese imperialism, or the horrors of World Wars I & II. But perhaps that's it; when Atsushi speculates that skills are something that sticks to you, I'm reminded of how trauma has shaped and informed his own. He is certain that Byakko's negation and restless hunger are connected to his birth and subsequent suffering. At first, I thought we were being teased with his early background. But there's no need to tease; the reason so many characters in Bungou Stray Dogs are orphans directly relates to the Great War and the generational trauma still reverberating in its aftermath, and amid the threat of another, even more destructive war.

Perhaps Atsushi was implying that skills are constructs born not from any innate self, if there's such a thing, but from traumas, experiences, needs, cultures, and environments. Which is to say that skills aren't separable, exactly, from their users, but they're not innate either. They're like our personalities: immutable once shaped in the crucible of our most formative years, but nevertheless reflections of not only ourselves, but of what we need and who we become when confronted by others, in all of their beauty and horror.

Thus, perhaps it isn't Atsushi's skill that's so very antithetical to all others. It's his understanding of it, his ability to cut through to others, his compassion, his cowardice, his curiosity, and his separation from his sense of self that both inflicted him with Byakko and which will allow him to transcend it to become who he desires to be. It reminds me that, shortly before his death, his namesake decided to become a writer. And that although he wrote and lived only briefly, his sincerity, thoughtfulness, and introspective skepticism cut, and continue to cut, with a brilliance emblematic of life.

Anyway. Atsushi is both the main character and protagonist of Bungou Stray Dogs. Dazai knows this, too; even if he can nullify Byakko, he's just as impacted by Atsushi's brimming earnestness as everyone else Atsushi encounters. Atsushi liberates the narrative so that it's not a warning that the horrors of war will proliferate so long as we are capable of mass destruction, but instead it's a promise that hope needn't be intrinsic to persist all the same.

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd atsushi #atsushi nakajima #bsd meta #this was all sleep deprived stream of consciousness #but it helped me untangle my nagging fixation on 55 Minutes and Dead Apple #the last sentence does my actual understanding of this thought's thesis an injustice #but im too sleep deprived to articulate myself with any precision so itll have to suffice #i apologize for the timing #but i also dont #because nakajima atsushi's body of work is reviving my skeptical curious optimism lately

[chenfordspiral]

A Chenford Thesis on 5x12

Hello hello, I’m back with another Chenford ‘thesis’, or whatever we wanna call these things! This time, 5x12 will be taken apart as I try to analyze every little detail that I’ve noticed during my approximately 936481 rewatches. 

Be warned. I thought my essay for 5x08 was long. But this one has taken the cake. And I seriously have no idea when or how the f*** that happened. Anyway, if you’re interested and willing to sacrifice some of your time, enjoy the next... no. I better don't say how long this actually is...

Let’s start this whole thing with the episode's cold open.

I love how Tim has always been the one to open doors and let Lucy walk in, or out, first. As early as 1x03, he’s been the one to hold the doors open. And did you catch Lucy’s excited look after she says “I love your music” to Kelly Clarkson? She’s looking toward Tim, wanting to share her excitement with him. Because he’s the one she wants to enjoy and share everything with. 

I don’t know why these two little details make me so giddy and wanna squeal with joy, but they do. 

I’m just so completely gone for them at this point. 

I’m barely ten sentences in, and I’m already struggling to keep writing because I can’t stop my little happy dance.

This is gonna be great.  

We jump to the next (?) morning, and see Tamara doing yoga in her and Lucy’s apartment. I’m so glad she’s finally back. I’ve been wondering where in the world she’s been since we last saw her in 5x03. 

Lucy comes out of her bedroom, surprising Tamara a bit: “You’re here,” to which Lucy responds sarcastically “I live here.” But then Tamara lets her, and all of us, know why she’s surprised. “I went to bed at one and you still weren’t home.” “Oh, I came home around then. I must have just missed you. Trivia went late.” “And how was trivia?” 

Yeah, we can all tell by the way she asks that she knows that Lucy’s lying to her. We don’t know what happened the night before, but Tamara definitely knows that trivia is not where Lucy was. This is shaping up to become an interesting conversation between these two honorary sisters. 

Lucy has a whole cover story already planned, like she did the episode before when Nolan asked her and Tim what they did the night before (not that he was asking them about their plans together, he was just making conversation). “Amazing. I came up with this obscure fact about Josephine Baker so I’m feeling pretty good about myself.” This actually sounds believable, right? If it weren’t for the way Tamara asked before, I’d totally buy that story. But Tamara knows better than me. 

“You are such a smooth liar. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. All that undercover training.” 

Oh, Lucy. You’re being called out here. Tamara knows you well enough to spot your lies at this point. But, as always, Lucy denies. “I’m not lying.” But her little sister ain’t letting her off the hook here. She needs confirmation. And she needs Lucy to know that she knows. Whatever that may be. 

“I saw Tim drop you off.” Busted. No point in hiding it anymore, Lucy. 

And can I just briefly say how happy it makes me that Tamara is the first person to officially know they’re dating? Yes, I suspect that Genny knows, too. But we never saw that. Tamara is the first person whose reaction we’ve seen on screen. These two have started out as a rookie and her ‘puppy’ and are now roomies/besties/sisters – simply put: family. It’s so wonderful to see how far they’ve come.

Lucy realizes that there’s no way she can deny anything here anymore. Which means that something must have happened that made it perfectly clear to Tamara that it wasn’t just a friendly get together between two friends, but that they’re actually together together now. No, I’m totally not imagining them making out like teenagers in his truck. Nope. Not at all.

Lucy lets her bag fall to the floor unceremoniously, almost literally dropping the weight that’s been on her shoulders because she’s been keeping her relationship with Tim a secret. Finally, there’s at least one person she can share this with. “Urgh. Thank god! I am so over coming up with cover stories.” Yeah, I’d be, too. 

She quickly moves around the couch to sit down on it in front of Tamara as she says it. And that girl needs details. “Ok, why the big secret? You’re both single.” Well, technically they’re not. Not anymore, at least. Lucy was single for all of three minutes before Tim asked her out. But Tamara’s asking what we’re all wondering. Why are you still hiding this? Yes, we have the job issue, but that could be taken care of so you could be together officially. What’s holding you back?

“I mean, we’re just keeping it under wraps until we figure things out.” Okay. That makes sense. Neither one of them is ready to face those professional changes yet, are they? Because it’s such a big part of who they are. Working together is how they met. How they got to know each other. It’s where they fell in love with each other. It’s hard having to let that go. 

But they will have to, eventually. Nope, I don’t think I’m liking this any more than they are. Because it’s how we fell in love with these two, as well. Side by side, riding together in the shop. Okay, they haven’t done that regularly for quite some time, but still. 

And Tamara catches on remarkably quickly. So she lets it be and switches topics. Ish. “Well, if you ever need me to, uh, clear out for the night, you know, play my music real loud, just let me know.” Ooh, did she really just go there? Wow. These two must be as close as we all think they are for her to be comfortable enough to talk about this kind of thing. 

Lucy’s trying to hide her laugh by pressing her lips together because she did not expect that from her little sis. “We’re not sleeping together.” Now that’s got Tamara intrigued. And confused. Look at her reaction. She can’t think of any reason why these two would not have slept together at this point. She clearly was not expecting that. “Why not?”

Lucy takes a moment before she answers. “We’re… taking it slow. We wanna do this right.” There we have it. She wants to make sure she doesn’t screw anything up. Not that sleeping together would do that. But she wants to just be with him before going any further. And again, I admire her for that. And she says we. Because she knows that they’re in this together. And that Tim respects her choices and wishes. 

“So, you’re not sure how you feel?” Again, Tamara can’t really come up with any reason as to why they haven’t done it yet other than this. Because that would explain why they’re holding off on that. She doesn’t know how long they’ve been together, but she knows that it’s weird for Lucy not to have slept with him yet. And they’re both adults, right? 

“No, I know exactly how I feel. I mean, this is the most amazing relationship I’ve been in since… ever.” Wow. It’s only been a few weeks, they haven’t even taken each other’s clothes of, and yet, she knows this is the most amazing relationship she’s ever had. Yup, girl is in love. And I couldn’t be happier with that knowledge. Because it’s so amazing to hear her say that out loud. But it’s just making Tamara wonder even more. 

“Okay, and you’re waiting why, again?” Yeah Lucy, why are you waiting? Well, we kind of know why. She and Tim still haven’t talked about the obvious elephant in the room: he’s her boss. They can’t actually be together because the LAPD doesn’t allow it. But she considers Tamara’s point of view. ‘You know you love each other, you’re happy, why are you waiting?’

Which is what gives us one of the most unexpected little Chenford moments in TR history. Okay, that sounded dramatic, and it wasn’t even unexpected anymore when the episode actually aired, because we’d seen the sneak peek, but still – unexpected that it happened at all. Tim and Lucy greet each other in the parking lot before their shift, moving to walk side by side and falling into step. Both of them reach for the other. Tim ‘I hate public displays of affection’ Bradford can’t keep his hand to himself and taps her thigh while she brushes his hand with hers.

I can’t believe this moment actually happened. These two don’t care that they’re surrounded by a dozen cops who could’ve spotted their little flirty gestures. Also, they saw each other, what, a few hours before and yet, can’t keep their hands to themselves? Gosh, I love them. They’re so in love. 

I love that Tim is willing to display his affection. We barely saw any of that with his previous girlfriends, and definitely not in public. Him and Blondie Bitchface barely treated each other as if they were dating. It all just felt forced. But with Lucy, it’s natural. Because he adores her and wants to be close to her at all times. And look at that damn smile. Oh, our boy is so. Freaking. Happy. 

Lucy takes a moment to recollect herself before she lets Tim know: “Uhm, tonight is the night.” We all know this was coming thanks to the promo and sneak peek, but Tim definitely did not. He turns to look at her and furrows his brows. Something tells me that they must’ve had a moment or two where they were close to crossing that final line, but Lucy said not yet; not tonight. So he’s pleasantly surprised with where this conversation is going. “Really?”

And look at the way Lucy’s smiling at him before he asks. Yeah, she’s definitely enjoying being able to catch him off guard like this. “Yes, really,” she says in a tone of voice that has me going weak. And leaves no room for questioning. How is Tim supposed to say no to that? Look at that excited smile once he realizes that she means what he thinks she meant. And then he doesn’t miss a beat. Because he’s been ready for that for a while. 

“My place or yours? Jealous dog, or nosy roommate?” And, omg. I’m only now fully realizing the heavy side eye she gives him while he’s talking. Yup. She’s ready, too. But as the words register, she stops walking and lets him know that “Tamara knows.” Whoops. Tim ain’t looking too happy about it. “What? You told her?!” “No, she has eyes. I didn’t have to.”

Uhm, Lucy. Yes, that is true. But what about the all the other people in your lives? Do they not have eyes, too? Do you really think you’ve been keeping this from everybody? I am certain that some of the people they’re closest to have figured it out. Or suspect there’s something going on. Both Grey and Aaron have definitely seen the change. Aaron maybe even more so than anyone else because he’s been riding with both of them. He’s also the only person, aside from Tim, who knew that she wanted to break up with Assford.  

Lucy keeps talking. Yes, Tamara knows, “But, she is staying at her friends tonight, so.” Soooo, he can come over and they can do stuff. Somebody please tell these two to stop looking at each other all hot and bothered in front of the station. At this rate, everyone will know without either one of them needing to say a word. 

“Hey.” Oh, thank god. Or in this case, Grey. Watch how fast they snap out of their little bubble, put a foot of distance between them and turn toward Grey. They can try all they want, but he definitely saw them looking at each other. Oooh, if he didn’t suspect before, which he totally did, he definitely does now. “Coincidence, I was just gonna call you. Lopez needs Aaron’s help on a surveillance. So I was thinking, why don’t you two ride together today?” 

They share a quick look before answering. “Great.” “Yeah, whatever you need, sir.” 

Aaaand, more reason for Grey to suspect something’s happening between them. Remember how uncomfortable they were at the idea of having to ride together again in 5x08? And now they share one quick look and agree with no hesitation? Yeah, they’re really making this easy for him. 

Also, I’m convinced that Grey takes the opportunity here to hopefully make them realize that they need to talk about the work thing and eventually officially let him know. He’s let them be since he noticed the change in their relationship, but he’s still a professional. He can’t in good conscience let them work together like this for too much longer. He’s subtly trying to give them a nudge in the right direction.

Grey walks off, leaving Tim and Lucy standing in the parking lot.

“Mmmh, this is gonna be awkward.” I have to agree with Lucy here. Before, they were going into work thinking they’d just see each other at the end of shift. They could spend the entire day thinking about what’s gonna happen later that night, but it’d be fine because they’re not together all the time. Now, they have to spend the rest of the day in close proximity knowing what they wanna do later. That does sound a little awkward. 

They start walking toward the entrance, immediately gravitating toward each other again. They literally can’t stay apart from each other, it’s like they’re attached at the hip. And I just love how comfortable they are with that. 

Anyway. Tim disagrees with her. “Doesn’t have to be. We’ve ridden together hundreds of times.” “Never as a couple.” COUPLE! It is now in fact canon that one of them has referred to them as a couple. And Lucy’s the one saying it first! Nope, I’m not freaking out. 

But she has a point. This is different. 

“On the streets we won’t be.” Haha, Timothy. You keep telling yourself that you can completely separate professional and personal here. If you could, you two wouldn’t even be dating in the first place. “So, are you telling me that you’re not gonna be thinking about tonight?” (Does she say so or sir? I still don’t know.) And oh, now she’s the one holding the door open for him? How I love these two. He takes a beat before, very unconvincingly, answering “Not at all. Thank you.” 

Lucy looks at him as he walks inside. “Me neither,” she says as she proceeds to drop her gaze to check out his ass. Lucy, my girl. You’re very subtle. Don’t be shocked if half the station’s already suspecting you’re together. You’re already kind of acting as if everybody knows. How bad is this going to be once it’s actually official? 

Moving on. 

“I could tell Grey I got food poisoning.” Interesting. I love how much Lucy doesn’t want them to ride together today. But I have to wonder why. Is it more than just about what she’d planned for tonight? Or is it also a way of avoiding that talk they don’t seem to want to have yet? “Just to get out of riding with me?” Yup, Tim ain’t happy that she wants to get out of this. He likes spending time with her, no matter where it is. 

“Yeah. I mean, I get the day off. We avoid all this weirdness. Wins all around.” “You’re overthinking this. We leave our personal life at the door. Just like always.” Again, Timothy. If you had ever been able to do that with Lucy, you wouldn’t be dating. It’s been personal from day one. And it’s only gotten more personal since then. 

“Oh, and you can just shut it off? At 7:59, I’m your girlfriend.” His WHAT?! I’ll be honest. I squealed so loud that I feared I’d woken up one of my neighbors at two in the morning (hi to all my fellow Europeans out there). I was NOT expecting Lucy Chen, the woman who calls the guys she dates WIP rather than boyfriend, referring to herself as Tim’s girlfriend after a matter of weeks of being with him. 

Time and time again, she’s shown that this relationship with Tim is different to all her previous ones. And I love the progress here. She just wasn’t with the right person before. She tried to keep everyone at a distance as much as possible because she didn’t want to commit to anybody. Yes, she dated them, but that’s in part because it was fun to be with someone because at least she’d be with someone. 

But none of those relationships ever had a chance of lasting. The guys always seemed more invested than her. And the one guy we know that she actually referred to as her boyfriend is the one who cheated on her with her best friend. It’s hard to fully trust and commit to someone after that. Especially when you have Vanessa and Patrick Chen as your parents. 

But she’s found the one exception in Tim. So she’s perfectly happy to acknowledge their relationship for what it is. Because she trusts him. And she has faith in them to be able to make this work, no matter what. 

“At 8:01, I’m – I’m your what? Your subordinate?” “Yeah.” Tim looks very unimpressed. He can’t believe she doesn’t believe that he can separate the two. But Lucy knows better. “Really? Hmm.” She then proceeds to do this cute little pose as if she were asking ‘So how do I look? Notice anything?’ And oh, yup. Something seems a little off. But I couldn’t put my finger on it, either. “What?” asks Tim as he’s kind of mirroring her stance, totally oblivious. 

“My duty belt. My taser is on the wrong side. Normally you’d be all over me for something like this.” Oh, the taser, duh. Damn, I’m blind. Anyway. Lucy points it out: ‘normally.’ Because that’s what you’d kind of expect from Tim, right? On the job, he’s always been more of a hardass, especially while she was his rookie. Sure, he’s softened a bit toward her over time, but ultimately, he always made sure to let her know when she did something wrong. And not always in kind. 

So Lucy has a valid point. But we also know what he’s willing to do for the people he loves. We know what he almost did for Isabel. There’s no doubt he’d do the same for Lucy. 

“You did that on purpose?” “Mh-mh.” “You don’t do Tim Tests. I do Tim Tests.” “Well, that’s cause this isn’t a Tim Test. It’s a Lucy Lesson.” I cannot with these two. They really are two parts of one whole. Tim Tests, Lucy Lessons. What are they gonna put their future children through? Chenford Challenges? “And admit it. You are taking it easy on me. We’re not even on duty yet and our dynamic has changed.” 

And another little “Lucy arm touch”. Girl, your love is showing. And Tim is, again, less than impressed by what she has to say. He’s really not enjoying this and wants it to be over. “Get in the car.” “It’s called a shop.” Oh, the Lucy sass. I love it. Unlike Tim in this moment. He just stares at her and motions his finger for her to just get in the car. She smirks at him while she closes the trunk. 

I really should’ve seen what was coming from a mile away, but I didn’t.

When we next see them, they’re casually strolling down the sidewalk side by side, both holding to-go coffee cups in their hands. Lucy stops him with another little arm touch to get his attention. “Hey. So, you haven’t noticed?” I admit, I was expecting another ‘what?’ from Tim. But this time, he knew what she meant. “That you’re carrying your coffee in your gun hand? Of course I did. I just haven’t said anything because these Lucy Lessons are pointless.” 

Oh, Tim’s still a little grumpy about the whole thing. But at least he knew to expect another lesson. “You really don’t think you’re treating me differently?” I can answer this for Tim. No, he doesn’t. But he is, actually. We all remember 2x19, when he snapped at her for carrying the police tape in her gun hand instead of her left. His reaction now is the complete opposite. Tim, why are you denying this?

“You’re not a rookie. You wanna change up your duty belt, carry your coffee in your right hand, it’s up to you. You know. This isn’t about us. I’d give Thorsen the same leeway.” Would you though, Tim? No, she’s not a rookie anymore, and neither is Aaron. But that hasn’t stopped him from chastising them when they did something wrong, which would include keeping their gun hand free. So of course it is about them, Tim’s just in denial here. 

Why? Because Tim Bradford doesn’t like change. But he knows, deep down, that their work relationship has to change at some point in order for them to build a lasting personal and romantic relationship.  

And Lucy doesn’t believe him when he says it, either. She hums a very disbelieving mh-mh, definitely not buying it. I actually think it’s fascinating that Tim isn’t the one to consider the work issue, at all, as it seems. I always thought that they wouldn’t get together because Tim would never date a subordinate officer and break rules that way. I expected him to be like ‘Ok, no. We can’t do this. I want to, but we can’t’. 

I fully expected them to not get together until after they’d sorted out that problem. So now for Lucy to be the one to actually think about this and Tim being ignorant about it? Plot twist I did not see coming. But again, it makes sense, actually. Because Tim doesn’t like change.

They’re interrupted by a dispenser guy looking for help because another one, who we later learn is called Sergio, is threatening his business by parking his pot dispensary van basically in front of his store. I won’t go over this scene in detail, but will point out a few things. 

First, Tim just snatching the coffee cup out of Lucy’s hand to put aside. He’s always had a thing for snatching things out of her hand, and I don’t know why I enjoy that so much. But I’m glad the tradition continues. Second, they fall into an easy rhythm, working together seamlessly. And I don’t even have to point out the mirrored stances, do I? Third, their expressions when Sergio climbs into the van but can’t get away because he doesn’t have his keys. Perfection. And lastly, Tim’s “I don’t have time for this” as he grabs his radio. The whole scene is hilarious, but that last part always sends me. 

We jump to the station, where they’re processing Sergio. “Okay, so we are citing you out, which means we will not be talking your fingerprints or your mug shots as long as you promise to show up in court.” “Anything to get out of here.” Sergio grabs the bag after Lucy’s taken it out of the lockers and put it down in front of him. “Wait a minute. Where are my earrings?” “I put them in the bag.” “Sure you did. They’re a half carat each.” Only now is Tim looking up from his paperwork. Surely this guy isn’t insinuating that his girlfriend stole something, is he? 

“I didn’t take your earrings. I know they were in there.” “Must be a nice perk of the job. Pocket whatever catches your eye.” Oh, yeah. Tim’s a little pissed now. Look at the way he’s looking at Sergio. No one is allowed to accuse Lucy, of all people, of stealing. So he chimes in. “Sir, no one stole anything.” “This is robbery. Wait a minute. You had your gun – this is armed robbery.” Woah, woops. This guy ain’t holding back. 

“Ok, I’m sure your earrings will turn up and we’ll call you when we have them.” Is it just me or was Tim intentionally looking at Lucy for a few seconds while saying that as if to gauge her reaction? Like he was making sure that they’re on the same page and nothing was actually handled wrong? I don’t know, but while I was writing this, that look seemed a little calculating after staring at it for way too long. Or maybe it was just his way of saying ‘don’t worry, I got your back. You did nothing wrong’.

Guess I will never know. For now I’m a little undecided, but considering how the episode continues, it might’ve just been that reassuring ‘I got you’ look. 

Sergio is still pissed and demands a receipt, but Lucy tells him they don’t issue those. ”Look, it’s all in the police report. If you want to file a complaint, you can do so at the front desk on your way out.” He’s still grumpy when he leaves. Lucy turns back toward Tim: “I didn’t take the earrings.” “I know.” Ok, so maybe that look really was just a reassurance that he got her back, and I started reading too much into it while rewatching over and over again. Woopsie. Apologies for this little mess. Anyway.

“This stuff happens sometimes.” Look at you Tim. Totally defending your girl. But Lucy doesn’t like that. “No, it doesn’t. Not to me. God, I’ve been so focused on us. Did I screw up?” She looks at him a little pleadingly: ‘Tell me I didn’t make a mistake because I was the one too focused on us.’ And Tim doesn’t like that option, either. Because that would mean that he was part of the reason she screwed up. And that would be the worst thing for him. 

He doesn’t want her to fail in her job. Ever. But even less so if he thinks he was part of the problem or the catalyst for it. No, she would never blame him. And neither would any of us. But Tim is a master at blaming himself for things he’s not actually to blame for. So if Lucy did in fact screw up, he’d have to write her up. Because he’s the supervisor patrol sergeant, he takes care of these things. He’d be the reason she might get punished. 

And that just won’t do. 

Which is why they spend the next several minutes (hours?) looking for those earrings. But no luck. They can’t find them. Tim will literally not give up. “We’ll keep checking until we find them.” But Lucy reminds him that he needs to report it. “Wait. Okay, okay, okay, look. You need to file a memorandum with the chief. It’s protocol. I get it.” She seems perfectly content with the fact that he’ll have to do this. She’s not scared of what might happen to her. She just needs him to accept that he’ll have to report her soon. 

Tim’s not giving in though. “We’re not there yet.” “Well, how long can it wait?” “I have discretion with things like this. We find the earrings, no paperwork necessary.” ”But if we don’t, you need to report me to IA.” He’s staring at her with wide eyes and a slightly opened mouth, appalled at the idea of having to report her. So he thinks of one last possibility. “Maybe janitorial swept them up.” He stands up and walks off, leaving Lucy very confused and disbelieving that he would just not give up and report her. 

When Lucy comes home, we see Tamara packing a bag, ready to go to her friend’s house, leaving the place for Lucy and Tim. “Sorry! I meant to be outta here by now!” But there’s no Tim. Lucy acknowledges Tamara with a deep sigh, which makes her turn back around and look at her. “Don’t worry about it. We cancelled our date.” 

Can I just say how much I love the fact that these two are close enough for Lucy to just walk into Tamara’s room and make herself comfortable on her bed? They really have come so incredibly far. 

We can see that Tamara is a little surprised. “What happened?” “Well, Tim and I rode together today, and it really drove home all of the problems with dating your boss.” Oh, right to the point Lucy. But she’s right. There isn’t just one problem, there are several. Tim being her boss is number one. One of them, or both, losing focus and potentially making mistakes because they’re together is number two. Tim not wanting to report her when she makes mistakes is number three. Basically ignoring the fact that there are problems is number four. 

Yes, I’m looking at you, Timothy. 

And Tamara knows it, too. “It did seem tricky, but I didn’t wanna say anything.” Because they’re finally together. Because she doesn’t want to disrupt their happiness. Because she knows that they have to get there on their own and figure it out themselves. 

“Does that mean you guys are breaking up?” NO. Don’t even put that out there, please. These two have been through so much together, I’m sure they’ll figure it out. But I get why Tamara would immediately jump to worst case scenario. I don’t think she’s had a lot of good examples of healthy relationships in her life. Hell, even Lucy herself hasn’t exactly been a great example. Tamara saw her relationship with the WIP. 

But Lucy isn’t even entertaining that idea. “No. We’ll figure out how to make it work.” 

Look at her being totally content that they’ll figure it all out. Breaking up isn’t even an option for her. They’ve made it this far, no way is she giving up now. I’m glad we’re on the same page here, Lucy. Tamara is not fully convinced yet, though. “Great. How?” 

Again, I don’t blame her for being sceptic. She doesn’t know everything, but she knows enough to know that something’s gotta change for them at work. But given everything she knows about Lucy and her past relationships and semi-commitment, and everything she knows about Tim and him being a creature of habit (because everybody who’s known him for longer than a second knows that), it seems almost impossible to her at the moment to see how they could make it work. 

I was always very excited, if not a little scared, to see how they would handle the work issue whenever they decided to make Chenford canon. We didn’t know what to expect going into the episode, so this was kind of the point for me to really start being scared. Even though I had complete faith in Tim and Lucy to work it out together, because that ‘how’ just stuck with me, and TV shows have a tendency to make things more dramatic than they have to be. But given the relative drama-free way they made them canon, I really didn’t need to worry about this at all, did I?

Tamara opens the door sometime later, and we see Tim standing there, both hands in his pockets. Tamara turns around without saying anything to him, instead choosing to let Lucy know “Lucy, your boyfriend’s here!” 

Wow. Not only did we get Lucy calling them a couple and herself Tim’s girlfriend earlier, now we have someone referring to Tim as Lucy’s boyfriend. We just keep on winning with this episode, don’t we. But I cannot get over Tim’s reaction here. That tiny smile turns into a frown so fast. I’m cackling. 

I still don’t know how to fully interpret it, to be honest. Is he surprised to hear someone refer to him as Lucy’s boyfriend? Is he surprised with how easily she says it? Does he not want her to use that title? Okay, I think we can rule out that last one. But still, his expression is pure gold here. And I am choosing to believe it’s because it’s the first time he’s heard it; makes it all more real once you hear it from someone else. 

“Did she tell you I figured it out on my own? I’d make a great detective.” “I have no doubt.” I love how supportive he is of her here. Not only have Lucy and Tamara come a long way, but Tim and Tamara have as well. She went from simply being Lucy’s puppy to someone he genuinely cares for and supports. They’re already such a cute little family. 

Have I mentioned Tim just casually walking into the apartment without actually being invited in? No? Okay. Then I have now. Because he doesn’t need an invitation anymore, he’s always welcome in Lucy’s space now. And Tamara’s, too. He’s not an outsider looking in anymore. He finally gets to be a part of Lucy’s life the way he’s wanted for longer than he’s willing to admit. 

Lucy emerges from her bedroom. “Hey. I thought we cancelled.” “Uh, we didn’t.” “Oh.” So Tim was still expecting something tonight? Or did he just wanna talk about work and how to proceed with the earring situation? Either way, he just wants to spend more time with his girlfriend. Wow, we can actually say that now. This is still wild. 

Also, note how Lucy didn’t correct Tamara when she called Tim boyfriend. She always made sure everyone, including the guy she was dating, knew that they were not her boyfriend, even after they’d been together for a while. Calling herself his girlfriend, not correcting someone when they call Tim her boyfriend… Lucy, I love how much you love him. 

And oh. A Chenford hug! Can you see me melting? Look at the way she slides one hand over his shoulder to the side of his neck and the other over his chest. Look at the way he bends down toward her and just totally nuzzles into her neck, taking comfort in her arms. Definitely reminds me of 4x09. No, I am not crying again. 

And with Tamara right there next to them. They can finally show their affection for each other not just to each other but in front of someone else, and I love that they don’t shy away from it and are totally comfortable with it. 

There’s a few moments of awkward silence as they look at Tamara and she’s looking at them. She seems to sense that they need to be alone and talk, and excuses herself to her room, leaving them be. Tim starts explaining why he’s there. “Ok, listen. I– I’ve been going over things from today. What if someone found the earrings a-and assumed they belonged to a female officer, so they left them in the women’s locker room.” Okay, so earring situation it is. 

Also, first: I did not catch that look on Lucy’s face right before they switch angles after Tim says ‘today’ when I first watched the episode. She is enjoying something here. That is screaming smug and mischievous. We just don’t know why. Second: I know I mentioned how Tim is now welcome in Lucy’s space, but I just adore the way he feels comfortable enough to just walk around her apartment and sit down at the kitchen counter. Third: he’s clearly been at her place many times before this since they started dating. 

And lastly: he is still trying to find a way to not have to report Lucy. Damn, he really doesn’t want to have to do this. But Lucy knows that he can’t avoid it forever. 

“Yeah, I checked already. I mean, come on. Y-you have to report it now.” “I know.” Look at the way he keeps his eyes closed for that extra second before answering. He is not liking this. At all. Yes, he knows he has to do it, but he’s still hesitant. He doesn’t want to be the reason Lucy might have to face whatever consequences there are for being accused of stealing. “I mean, if it was Aaron, you would’ve reported him already.” 

“I know. But it’s not Aaron. I-It’s you.” And there we have it. The confirmation that Tim will follow his heart instead of his head when it comes to the people he loves. Really, when it comes to Lucy. Because over time she’s come to be more important than anything else. He’s finally found the right person, he’s not willing to risk anything because of his job. And remember, this is the same guy who laid into Lucy for not reporting him for suicidal ideation in 2x01. She was protecting him and all he did was get mad at her. But now he is the one trying to turn a blind eye and protect her. He really has come such a long way. Oh, the things love can do to a man. 

“And you can’t be subjective when it comes to me, right?” All he can do is shake his head. No, he really can’t. He wants to, but he can’t. Because Lucy is more important than following protocol, no matter how wrong it is from a professional point of view. And he knows it and doesn’t like it. We all know he would definitely report her eventually, because he has to. Lucy is his voice of reason and would never let him cover for her and her mistakes. 

Lucy hums a “Mh-hmm.” She totally knew it. “And thus endeth the Lucy Lesson.” Okay. Well played, Lucy. Well played. I should’ve, but I did not see this coming. At all. And Tim didn’t, either. “The what? The earrings were never missing?” I am dying at the way he said that ‘what’. He’s so exasperated but damn. Lucy is having the time of her life. Listen to her laughs. Once more, she got him. I hope they never change, because this is just another chapter of their awesome ‘prank war’.

“Nope. I set them aside and gave them back to Sergio after work.” “That’s evil. And impressive. And evil.” “I know, but – you weren’t facing the problem.” She is, once again, absolutely right. He wasn’t facing it. He was trying his best to ignore it. But they can’t ignore it for much longer. Even less so now that they know that he really can’t stay subjective with her. 

“Okay. Well, now I am. So what do we do?” We. Ever since they started dating, it’s been a we instead of an I. And I love that. Because they’re facing these problems together, not apart. They’ll find a way to work it all out together. They’ve finally made it here, there isn’t a world in which they won’t figure it out together. I love how absolutely sure they are with and of each other. And I appreciate TR for making them deal with this so maturely. There’s no unnecessary fighting or arguing. 

It's the next day, and Tim and Lucy are riding together again. They’re still brainstorming what to do about the work situation. “We only have two real options.” “Break up or one of leaves Mid-Wilshire.” Again, straight to the point. They both know there’s not many possibilities here. Well, two, to be exact, as Lucy points out and Tim fills in the gaps. It’s either this, or that. 

Lucy is quick to jump in. “It should be me.” Wow. Neither one of them entertained the idea of breaking up for even a fraction of a second. It was silently agreed that that was not an option. And I am losing it again. Because that speaks volumes. They danced around each other for so long, hid their true feelings from each other for months before taking the leap, but it’s only taken a few weeks of dating for them to be absolutely confident in their relationship and sure of their commitment to each other.

Lucy doesn’t even blink before offering to be the one to leave. She’s willing to change something professionally? Humongous. Because we’ve never seen Lucy so committed to anyone before. And I love that for her. And for Tim. 

But Tim doesn’t like that idea. “No. No, you love it here.” “No, I do, but –“ Lucy knows that Tim’s a creature of habit who needs stability. She knows how much he loves patrol. She doesn’t want him to compromise that for her and their relationship. “There isn’t an open sergeant supervisor job anywhere else in the division. I checked. Which means you would have to take a demotion, and that’s not happening. So…” 

So, she’s thought this through. She looked up available options and saw that there wasn’t anything that would be fitting for Tim (does that mean she also knows about the position Grey offers Tim later?). So she offers to be the one to transfer, even though she knows that means she’ll have to prove herself all over again. 

But it’s the lesser evil for her because she can easily go to a different station as a P2, but he can’t just transfer anywhere because there’d have to be an available supervisor position for him first for her to be okay with that. 

“Lucy, I –“ He doesn’t look happy at the thought of her leaving Mid-Wilshire. Because he doesn’t want the burden to fall on her. But Lucy’s quick to stop him. “No, it’ll be fine. Rookies leave their first station after making P2 all the time.” She doesn’t sound thrilled at the prospect either, but she knows that that’s the only way they can be together without hiding and without him having to take a demotion. 

“That’s true.” He might be agreeing with her here, but he’s still not loving the idea of her leaving. She looks over at him. “So. This is the best move, right?” She’s actively turning her attention toward him because she’s not just making this decision on her own. She wants his input because his opinion matters. This isn’t just about her, it’s about both of them, so they’re both included in the decision-making process. 

“Maybe. But we don’t have to decide right now.” Oh, he still doesn’t want to face it, does he? But the look toward her after she turns her gaze back forward? Wow. That basically screams, “Oh, she would actually do this for us.” He’s not expecting to be more important than her job and be put first. Because in his previous relationships, he had to be the one to make all the sacrifices, no debate. 

But Lucy’s willing to be the one to sacrifice something. She knows he doesn’t like doing things he doesn’t want to. She knows he doesn’t like change. So she doesn’t even ask him to be the one to go. As much as he’s not expecting to be put ahead of anything else, she’s not expecting him to want to change something professionally, either. But maybe he would make an exception here. Because Lucy has always been different. But we’ll see.  

And again. They’re having a conversation about their relationship in front of a billion cameras. They know these shop cams are there, right? Do they not care who reviews the footage and hears their conversations? For two people who still haven’t made their relationship public, they don’t seem to be worried about that at all. (And yes, I know. This is how the show works. Where else could they have this conversation while they’re working if not in the shop or with their body cams on? But if we pretended this was real life, they’d probably have been found out a while ago.)

They hear the call from Nolan about the hostage situation with the doctor’s family. I don’t have much to say about this entire sequence except for: they’re total badasses and work together seamlessly – still. They’ve built a professional trust over the years that is hard to break. They might have started as rookie and TO, but somewhere along the way – ignoring the romantic part of it all – they’ve learned to trust each other implicitly and became partners on the job. 

But who knows how long that would work while they’re dating. We already saw a glimpse of what Tim is willing to do for Lucy with the earring situation. So that change needs to happen before something significant can even happen on duty. 

After their shift, they’re in the parking lot again. This time, they’re standing at the back of the shop, ready to unload. Tim’s opening the trunk when he tells Lucy “Nice work today.” She’s a little surprised at the compliment, but not nearly as much as she used to be, like in 4x03 after her failed attempt to prank Tim with the booties again. Why? Because getting a compliment or a ‘good job’ from Tim is not an everyday occurrence. But he’s gotten much better with it, especially with her. 

She smiles. “You, too. It’s not a bad way to end our partnership. Saving a family.” “Yeah,” he responds as Lucy picks lint off his uniform. Married, much? They’ve been together for a matter of weeks, and they’re already acting as if it’s been years. Because… it has been years, hasn’t it? They might not have been together romantically, but they’ve always had that special connection that had them acting like a married couple even when they were dating other people. Lucy’s first two shifts as his rookie just bonded them in a way that is hard to break.

Anyway. “Although, we’re – we’re still not partners,” Tim continues. There’s a slight teasing note in his voice, and it gets him the reaction from Lucy he was likely expecting. A smile and a little loving shove to the arm. “I mean, on the job, anyway,” he adds. Uhm, Timothy. You are partners on the job. You can say whatever you want – she’s your partner. But oh, wait. You’re still not admitting you’re partners on the job, but did you just tell her you’re partners in life? 

Oh, Tim. I love you. And I love your love for Lucy. 

Look at the way he looks at her. I know I’ve often mentioned this before, but I adore the way he’s just openly showing her how much he adores her now that they’re together. Because now he can. He doesn’t have to hide it and suppress his feelings for her anymore. And neither does she as she looks back at him lovingly. Have we ever seen her look at someone that way before? 

Well, actually. This reminds me of the way she looked at him when they finally got that dance at Nyla’s wedding. Damn. Girl’s been smitten for a while. How did it take them so long to get here, again? 

“It’s gonna be so weird going to a different station, knowing I’m not gonna see you all day.” “Yeah.” Oh, this is making me feel very melancholy and sad. This really is about to be the end of an era, isn’t it? I mentioned this very early in this essay, but again: we fell in love with these two in the shop, side by side. We watched them slowly but surely fall for each other in that same shop. It’s hard to imagine that being over (even though we already got a taste of it after Lucy got back from UC school). 

But this has more finality to it. Because now it really is time for a new beginning. The dating era, if you will. Or the we’re-gonna-spend-the-rest-of-our-lives-together era.  

Maybe it’s actually a good thing they started dating before they figured out that whole work situation. Because it gave them the time to transition from partners on the job, or whatever they were after 5x01 and until 5x08, to partners in life while still having something familiar to fall back on. 

Tim continues. “And there’s no guarantee that our shifts will sync up.” He’s talking from experience. We know him and Isabel worked in different divisions and had to sync up their shifts as best as possible. But Lucy doesn’t know what that’s like. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Lucy, stop breaking my heart. “Wait wait wait. So by doing the right thing we’re actually gonna see each other a lot less?” “Most likely.” “Nooo.” Again, stop breaking my heart, Lucy. That ‘no’ is seriously tugging on my heartstrings. 

Because this is not what she wanted when she suggested transferring. She didn’t even think about that possibility. She just wanted to do this right, so they could finally stop hiding. After Tim’s confirmative “Yeah,” Lucy turns back toward the shop. Neither one of them is happy about the possibility of seeing each other significantly less. But as Lucy goes to grab the war bags out of the trunk, watch Tim. We can practically see the wheels turning and land on: ‘no, this isn’t happening’. Right here in this moment, he decides that this isn’t how it’s gonna be. 

Lucy grabs the war bags and turns back toward Tim: “I’m gonna put in my transfer request in the morning.” Oh. She doesn’t like the prospect of not seeing Tim as much, but is still willing to transfer anyway? Wow. Because she still believes they can make it work. Because she knows it’s the right thing to do. And again: she doesn’t necessarily think Tim would want to change something. She knows him. 

But we saw that Tim had a bit of a moment of revelation right before she said it. Because he knows that neither one of them would be truly happy with that. And once more, he got confirmation that Lucy is willing to transfer, even if she doesn’t love it. 

So this is that last bit of reassurance he needs. She doesn’t love this, but is still willing to transfer so they can stay together. She’s choosing Tim. And that’s huge. For both of them. For Tim, because he’s finally put first in a relationship. For Lucy, because she’s ready to fully commit to this relationship in a way she never has before. 

And because she is, he’s taking the burden from her by taking the bags from her. 

We all see this moment for what it is: coming full circle. The guy who always made Lucy carry all the gear, even at the beginning of this episode, is now willingly taking the bags from her. And we see Lucy’s reaction to that. She’s not expecting it, hence that little move and the appreciative smile. Wow. But it’s also something more. With this little moment he’s showing her that he's willing to do something he doesn’t normally do. So, in a way, this is foreshadowing for the bigger gesture that’s coming later.   

Also, Tim’s reaction to Lucy’s reaction? That just screams ‘damn it, I’m freaking whipped’. And I love it. 

It’s after shift when Tim is knocking on Grey’s door. He didn’t even change into civvies yet, he’s still in uniform. “Got a minute?” “Sure,” Grey responds, motioning for Tim to come in. He closes the door behind him before he moves to take a seat at Grey’s desk. We know that whatever Tim has to say is important. He has to clear his throat before he starts talking. “I’ve been keeping something from you.” Grey tilts his head. He’s intrigued. Is this the moment? 

Tim takes another breath and then just lets it out. “Lucy and I started dating a few weeks ago.” Yup, Tim’s actually coming clean here. And that’s not easy. Because he’s telling his boss that he’s been dating a subordinate for weeks. That he’s dating his former rookie. That he fell in love with his former rookie. That’s a kind of vulnerability Tim doesn’t like. Because he doesn’t know how Grey will respond and if he and Lucy have to face any consequences. 

Grey takes a breath as he leans back in his chair. Ha, that little smirk. Yeah, he totally knows already. “I suspected as much.” See, he definitely saw the change in their behavior. And let’s be real. Anybody with eyes could see the change. They haven’t exactly been subtle. They could barely keep any kind of distance between them. Sure, Grey didn’t know for sure, but he knew enough. 

“Sir, we wouldn’t have lied but we… needed time to figure out how we felt.” Figure out how you felt? Maybe that’s not entirely true, because I’m sure they both know how they feel about each other. But making sure they really are on the same page about where this relationship is going and how they feel about that? Yeah, that’s definitely the case. I might be wrong, but, well. Anyway. 

“And since we’re having this talk, I assume it’s serious.” “It is,” Tim says without hesitation. There is no doubt in his mind anymore that he and Lucy are building something that’s real. Something that’s meant to last. Forever. 

“But, for it to be appropriate, I need to move out of her chain of command.” No, Grey doesn’t seem very happy at the prospect of Tim leaving patrol. He’s a great sergeant, a great supervisor, and Grey doesn’t like losing him to a different job. But he still says “Ok.” Tim’s simple ‘it is’ is enough for Grey to accept it. 

Because Grey knows that Tim, of all people, would never date a subordinate officer unless it was serious. He probably never even got close to any of his previous rookies, as far as we can tell. He seems to keep it firmly professional. But with Lucy it’s been different from day one. She had a front row seat to his heartbreak over Isabel. He let her in, couldn’t have prevented it if he’d tried. 

Lucy just managed to warm herself into his heart. He never meant to fall in love with her. It just happened. 

And Grey knows that. He’s seen happily married Tim. He’s seen heartbroken Tim after Isabel left. He’s seen him trying to find his way again but never quite getting it right. He’s seen Lucy experience the worst kind of trauma and still persevere. All the while witnessing that neither ever seemed as much like themselves as they are when they’re around each other. Because they’ve always brought out the best in each other. So he let them be for as long as he could fathom turning a blind eye on them and until they were ready to come to him.  

And he’s not planning on reprimanding the two of them or reporting them to IA. And I love that. Sure, it was against the rules. But he knows why they hid it. Because he knows them both. 

This entire scene is so powerful. We have a direct link back to when Tim asked Grey about what it would mean to transfer to the NYPD when Rachel moved. We saw how much he hated the idea of having to start over. But we also have a link back to when Grey told him he’d scored well on the sergeant’s exam and how hesitant he was to take that position at North Hollywood. Grey immediately looked over at Lucy. He knew why Tim was hesitant. 

So he knows that this relationship with Lucy isn’t just casual or something short term when Tim is willing to move out of patrol. And while Grey’s not exactly happy about it, he’s still willing to offer him a different job. But he’s also making sure that Tim knows the open spot isn’t a great position. 

“Unfortunately, there’s only one position open that will do that.” “I’ll take it.” Timothy! Oh, my heart. He doesn’t even let Grey tell him what that position is before he says he’ll take it, without hesitation. Right now, he couldn’t care less about what that position is. He only cares that it’s no longer in Lucy’s chain of command. “It’s not a great job.” Tim shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll take it.” 

Oh, my heart can‘t handle this. 

For the first time in Tim’s life – that we’ve seen – he’s willing to change his career because of a relationship, for the woman he’s with. We all know Tim’s a creature of habit, and both Lucy and Grey have even called him a control freak before. 

Tim doesn’t really like change. He likes stability, which is something he didn’t have growing up. There’s a reason he chose to join the military and then the LAPD. There’s structure. And protocols. And rules.

Yes, he’s putting his life on the line every day so there’s a certain kind of instability, but protecting people is something he’s good at. Something he trusts himself to be able to do. Even as a sergeant, he stayed on patrol. Because that’s where he wants to be, it’s what he likes. What gives him comfort. 

For Tim to change career paths, he has to feel safe and secure in his life outside of work. And Lucy is the first person in a long time, maybe ever, that has provided him with stability and safety in every possible way, long before they even started dating. 

She helped him through the Isabel stuff, didn’t leave his side in the quarantine house. She recorded audiobooks for him so he could study for the sergeant’s exam. She was there for him when he confronted his father, she showed up to the hospital even though they were still awkward with each other. She’s there when he needs her. And even when he doesn’t. She takes care of him no questions asked. 

I came across a song a while ago and part of the lyrics perfectly describe Tim’s situation here: I just don’t like change / Cause it’s so hard for me to rearrange / But with you it’s not the same / Cause now I would leave home and change my name.   

Because this relationship with Lucy is different. Yes, they’ve only been together for like a month and a half or so at this point, but Tim knows this is different. Because Lucy was ready to change stations and start over so they could stay together without hiding or breaking rules. 

She didn’t ask or expect him to switch jobs. She didn’t say: you need to go, cause I’m staying here, I don’t care what you want – my needs are more important than yours. No. She said: you, our relationship, is more important than anything else. She’s shown him that he’s more important. She offered and was willing to be the one to change stations. She put him and their relationship ahead of everything else. What other woman has ever really put him first in their relationship? 

Ashley wanted him to retire for her, Rachel moved across the country. Neither one of them even truly considered his opinion. It was ‘so this is your only option, otherwise we’re done’. Isabel lost herself to drugs because she felt she couldn’t live up to Tim’s standards. Every single relationship has manifested that ‘I don’t deserve to be loved’ feeling in his mind. 

But Lucy has always been different. Because Tim is different for her (I keep repeating myself, help). For once, him and his comfort and needs are what’s important and considered in a relationship. It’s not all take take take from Lucy and give give give from Tim. It’s a partnership. A give and take. From both of them. It’s grounded in mutual trust, and respect, and friendship. 

So he’s willing to do what he doesn’t like: change something. 

Tim Bradford, romantic at heart. But we already knew that. But it’s just so beautiful to see again.

He needed that absolute certainty that this relationship is as serious for Lucy as it is for him. Yes, she’s given him numerous indications that it was, but when you’ve experienced so much romantic trauma, you start doubting everything, whether you want to or not. 

We briefly saw that uncertainty in 5x09 in Grey’s office when Lucy still hadn’t broken up with Assford. “If you’re having second thoughts…” because some part of him still couldn’t believe that this was real. He needed that reassurance that it’s still happening, while he also made sure that she’s still on board, that he wasn’t pressuring or forcing her to do something she didn’t want to.

Lucy was quick to shut those insecurities down. “No, I – I’m not” as she looked at him with fondness. He smiled back at her, happy that she still wanted it. “Good.” I really can’t ignore those looks. They’re in Grey’s office, at work, looking at each other with so much love and affection in their eyes that I’m sure they’d forgotten where they were in that moment.  

And we saw those heart eyes again at the end of that episode, when he could finally properly ask her out on a date, and they stared at each other after she said yes. 

But back to 5x12.

So, Lucy being absolutely willing to change stations and refusing for him to even think about a demotion was that last bit of assurance that he might’ve needed. That, and the fact that neither one of them would be happy having to try and sync up schedules when working at different stations is what made him go to Grey, come clean, and take a lesser job without knowing what that job even was. 

Tim also knows that Lucy never would’ve let him go to Grey to be the one to sacrifice professionally and accept any sergeant job available, which is why he didn’t tell her. Why he went to Grey alone and before she could put in her transfer request.  

And let’s be honest. Lucy has always mattered more than his job. He took the sergeant’s exam, but didn’t transfer so he could finish training her, as already briefly mentioned. I’m almost certain that a part of him didn’t want to leave for NY because that would’ve meant leaving her, too. He made her the arresting officer on every report because she deserved the recognition, and he wanted her to succeed. 

So, in a way, it’s actually very Tim for him to take a professional step back. But he’s okay with that. Because it’s Lucy. No, he won’t be on patrol anymore, probably for the first time since he started as a rookie. 

But he’s content with that decision. Because it doesn’t matter. As long as he can be with Lucy, none of that matters. 

And he’s not giving any more than Lucy was willing to give herself. And that’s the big difference. 

We see a beautiful shot of downtown LA (Is it downtown? Someone please correct my European a** if I’m wrong.) before we see Tim and Lucy in her apartment again. He’s chilling at her kitchen counter while she’s standing on the other side. 

“So I’ve been thinking. Hollywood division would be kind of ideal.” I love that Lucy is still fully committed to that transfer. She’s already made her peace with it. She’s been thinking about which station would be the best for her to not have to commute all over town every day and has actually made a decision. I love her commitment to it all.  

She turns around, moving toward the fridge, because, yes. She’s totally cooking for her boyfriend. And I love that. We know they both love to cook, and there’s something so sweet in knowing that they’re now with someone who they can enjoy that with. And there’s something extra sweet and intimate about the fact that Tim isn’t helping her because she wants to cook for him. She totally told him to sit his butt down and chill, I’m sure of it.

“Well, it’s not necessary. I... talked to Grey and you’re looking at the new Court Liaison Sergeant.” Court Liaison?! Wow, Grey really wasn’t lying when he said that it’s not a great job. Man, our boy Timothy is really in love. He could’ve said no after Grey eventually told him what the job was, but he very obviously didn’t. The things they’re both willing to do for each other, urgh. They make me sick. 

And Lucy is shocked. Not only did he tell Grey, although, that isn’t her concern here, but he also took a very boring sounding job without telling her. She stares at him for a few moments while she closes the fridge and then moves back toward the counter. “But that’s a desk job.” Oh. This is getting worse. Not only does Tim now have to deal with the courts and lawyers and what not. But he also has to sit at a desk for it? Yeah, that’s really not a great job for him. 

“Yeah. Out of your chain of command.” He sounds so calm. He doesn’t care about the job. He just wants to be with her. Again, this is huge for Tim. He took a job without knowing what it is and even after finding out, he sticks with that decision to leave patrol. As long as it gets him out of Lucy’s chain of command so they can both stay at Mid-Wilshire, he would’ve taken any job. And he has. 

Lucy keeps staring at him. She thought they’d agreed that she’d transfer, and suddenly he’s telling her he took a desk job? Yeah, she didn’t see this coming. And watch the look on her face right before she starts moving around the counter to be closer to Tim. That’s not exactly happy. Why? Because Tim hates desk work. “You’ll be bored out of your mind.” I love that she’s only concerned about his well-being and happiness and nothing else. She doesn’t even mention the fact that he told Grey about their relationship.  

“That doesn’t matter. Look, you and I’ll get to see each other every day a-and you won’t have to travel to some, I don’t know, far away station where they’re gonna make you work the midnight shift because you’re a newbie.” “Tim, it’s–“ But he interrupts her. “It’s done. Okay? No sense in arguing about it.” Yeah, he’s right. Why argue when it’s already a done deal? Nothing she could say to him right would make him change his mind. But aww. Look at him looking at her. I’ve probably said it a few times already, but my heart is melting. 

He is so incredibly smitten. But also thankful. Because he now knows with absolute certainty that this is real. She wouldn’t have suggested to transfer if she wasn’t fully committed to him. To them. 

Lucy seems to accept it (for now). “But we’re so good at arguing.” They really are. She leans over toward him, moving her hands over his shoulders toward his neck, kissing him in a move that is so incredibly sweet and intimate. Because he just sits there and lets it happen. He murmurs a little “I know” before going in for another kiss while standing up. His right hand moves toward her thigh – because he’s a thigh man – trailing upwards to her waist while her hands slide from his shoulders down over his chest. 

“But I’m hoping we’re good at certain other things, as well.” Oh. Well, I did not see this one coming. But there it is. Because our man Timothy has been ready for this for a while. Even more so since Lucy put it on the table the day before. They’re gravitating toward each other until they’re basically pressed together from head to toe as Lucy’s hands settle on his chest. 

 “Oh?” Uhm, yup. She’s definitely on board. 

I love everything about this moment. His smile! Have we ever seen him smile like this? Then there’s the swaying, their foreheads almost touching, their noses actually touching, the overall gravitational pull toward one another, her playing with his shirt as she asks “You wanna find out right now?” 

Everything about this makes my heart flutter. Because it’s so perfectly them. 

And yeah, fine, ok. This episode only aired two weeks after the one with their first date. So Lucy’s “I wanna take things slow” seems to have been thrown out the window. 

But again. I choose to live in a world where that date happened in late November/early December, and this is therefore about six to seven-ish weeks later. (I’m not sorry for making my own timeline. I actually think 5x10 might’ve been supposed to air in December, too but got pushed back because it was a crossover and Feds had a pretty big cliffhanger they wanted to carry over to the new year. But who knows with these shows.)

Now, is seven weeks long to wait until you sleep with someone or not? For Lucy, it seems long. For both of them, really. We know they don’t usually shy away from that. They’ve known each other for years at this point so it was never about getting to know each other first. No. It was about cherishing the early stages of this new relationship. A relationship that will be the last for both of them. 

So, I’d consider it an acceptable amount of time for them to wait. We don’t know how long Lucy planned on waiting; maybe it was always just a spur of the moment kind of thing and without giving herself a timeline to keep up with, at least not past what she said in 5x10 (first & second date, first kiss). I’ve recently had the thought that she might’ve needed that reassurance about their jobs before taking that next step just as much as Tim did. 

Because dating your boss is one thing, actually sleeping with him is something else entirely.  

Maybe it’s a little out there, but it could’ve also played a part in her decision. She wants to do this relationship right, after all, and part of doing this right includes following the rules about dating within the same chain of command. It wasn’t just about making sure she didn’t screw it up; it was about making sure that every potential risk wouldn’t be a risk that could threaten their relationship. 

She wasn’t ready for this before, for many different little reasons. And that’s perfectly fine. Healthy. Admirable, even. Because no one should ever feel obligated to do something in a relationship before they’re ready and I love her for setting some boundaries (and him for accepting it so easily). It doesn’t matter that it’s Tim, and that she wants it all with him. Or maybe it does. A whole lot, actually. Because it’s Tim. Nothing has ever been more important than them and doing it the right way. 

And Lucy is definitely ready now. Because the last issue that was in their way is taken care of. They’re no longer working together, at least not within the same chain of command. They can be together now. Officially. Openly.

So she starts popping those buttons on his shirt as soon as he whispers that soft “Yeah” and before their lips even touch again. That shirt is coming off fast, dear god. And Tim came prepared. No Henley like he wore the night before when he came over. No. A button down, with snaps. Easy and fast access guaranteed. Also, the little moan from Lucy as she pushes the shirt over his shoulders? Someone send help, please. 

I die a little every time I see the way he’s looking at her as she’s admiring his body while he strips. And it’s the way that Tim, who we all know likes everything pretty clean-cut and organized, just lets his shirt fall to the floor. Seriously, I don’t know why that gives me so much satisfaction, but it does. And then there’s Lucy touching him, tracing the tip of her fingers from his sides over the v-cut toward his abdomen.

Excuse me for a second while I try to recollect myself. 

It’s so freaking intimate. 

As soon as that shirt is gone, his hands go to cradle her face while she’s moving her left to the side of his face and her right to his back, both getting lost in another passion-fueled kiss while Lucy lets out another pleased little noise. Girl is enjoying herself alright. And they keep swaying into those kisses, too. As they break apart to get a breath of air, Lucy’s hand moves down his back to settle on his waist before they go back for an even more passionate kiss. Because holy moly, Tim ain’t holding anything back anymore. 

And as they keep swaying with those kisses – really, it kinda looks like they’re dancing because they’re constantly moving, which is also what they did in that airplane bathroom – that Tim’s back is turned toward us. And we get a good look at his scars. 

There is something so poetic about seeing those scars. We could already see the bullet wound from when he got shot in the Pilot on his abdomen when he took his shirt off. But now we can see the rest. Four scars on his back – one on his neck, one on either one of his shoulder blades, another on the small of his back. 

Tim has endured so much emotional and physical trauma in his life. Here, we get to see the physical side of it. He’s scarred, but he lets himself love and be loved again. Because he trusts Lucy with everything. His life, his happiness, his heart. 

He once said that trust has to be earned. And Lucy’s earned his trust, time and time again. Because she kept showing up. She cared. She’s shown him that people are worthy of trust. That she is worthy of his trust. And that he is worthy of hers.  

And, this might be very far-fetched, but I can’t get my brain to shut up. We can see Tim’s scars, but we also see Lucy admiring him while he was taking his shirt of. Yes, she’s appreciating his body, but I also see it as a subtle metaphor that, despite all his scars – physical and emotional – she still adores him. All of him. 

No matter how scarred he might be, he’s still worthy of love. He deserves love. Because he’s so much more than just his scars or his past. 

“I got half a dozen scars. Bullet wounds. Knife wounds. Broken bottle. Then there’s the ones you can’t see. Isabel’s addiction. A dad who would tune me up on the regular. And whether I like it or not, they’re a part of me.”

Yes, it’s all part of his story, but it’s not the whole story. Those scars aren’t everything. 

He said it himself once when he confronted his father: “I’m who I am in spite of you!” 

In spite of all the pain, he chose to be the kind of man he is and not be like his father. He found a way to become his own person. And somewhere along the way, after even more heartbreak, he found a reason to become an even better version of himself. But, to be fair: that version’s been there all along. Lucy just managed to bring it (back) to the surface. 

And now he can freely look at that reason whenever he wants with so much adoration, so much love in his eyes that I’m feeling sick to my stomach because the butterflies are creating havoc in there. 

Tim just walked away from almost a decade and a half of patrol. And yet, he’s happy. He’s beaming with joy. Because he gets to be with Lucy. I know we’ve all noticed it, but I have to point it out again. We have never seen Tim so calm and at peace before. This is what finding and being with the right person will do to you. 

And he’s done the same for her. Because she was willing to walk away from her job, too. The woman who doesn’t like commitment was ready to start over professionally at a different station after being with Tim for a few weeks. 

She also has more than enough reasons to not want to put her heart out there. Her trauma might not be like the one Tim has experienced, but it’s still trauma. Her parents made sure to make her feel unlovable basically her whole life. Again, the only guy she seemed to be kind of serious about cheated on her. Others broke up with her without a second thought. So her defense mechanism became keeping guys at a romantic distance. 

Yes, she’s a very caring person who’s there for her friends and those in need – which I love, because she became the opposite of her parents whose care is always conditional. But romantically? She likes to keep her distance even when she’s in a relationship; and even though she’s often the one to make the first move. But in 5x08, she was the one who was hesitant until Tim made clear he wanted it as much as she did. That she mattered to him enough for him to be willing to risk it all. That he loved her enough to risk it.  

Tim did the opposite of her parents and every other guy before him: make her feel wanted and appreciated and loved just the way she is.  

Her willingness to transfer is such a beautiful gesture of love. No, they’re nowhere near ready to actually say those words, but they showed each other their love through these selfless gestures, no words necessary. 

They really have found their forever person. 

But back to the scene.   

And then there’s something about the way Lucy just lets her head fall back in this moment while they’re kissing right before they start walking toward her bedroom. It’s like she’s completely giving herself to him here. Because she is. Lucy “commitment phobe” Chen is one hundred percent in this. She’s ready for this next step with the only guy she’s ever loved. 

Also, I’m a sucker for their height difference. Now I just need a kiss where she’s not wearing some kind of heels. Then I’ve seen everything I needed to see. Okay, not everything, but it’s one of the things that’s been on my wish list since before they were together. 

Lucy lets out another moan as she’s smiling into that kiss as they start moving toward the bedroom. She even giggles into that kiss. Again, girl’s enjoying herself; she’s happy. One of his hands then comes up to move behind her head while the other goes to the door frame, preventing Lucy’s head from hitting the wall. He’s always been protective of her, and that only heightened after the whole Caleb thing and even more so once he realized he was in love with her. So to see this little move? Yeah, I don’t know why it makes me go feral, but it does. Because even in their haze of lust, he’s making sure she feels safe with him. 

And this entire time, we see respectful Tim. Yes, he’s the one to start the flirting and steer the conversation in that direction. But he doesn’t just go for it, he waits for her response. He’s letting her know he’s ready, but he’s also letting her decide whether she’s ready for this, too.   

And once she’s given him the verbal confirmation and he knows she is, he doesn’t hold back. He’s pretty firm with those kisses and his hands cupping her face, but: it’s not forceful. It’s passionate. It’s a mix of joy and hunger and want and desire. It’s love. You can see in the way he kisses her and cradles her face how much he loves her. 

As they continue to make out against the door frame – seriously, how is this even real?! – one of Lucy’s hands moves toward his neck, holding him close. His left moves from cradling the side of her face to her waist as they actually finally back into her bedroom. He closes the door almost all the way before fully slamming it shut, but instead of going straight for the bed, we can see that they’re still at that door. Because we can see Lucy’s hair against the not entirely see-through glass, where Tim has undoubtedly pushed her back against. They just love making out against doors, don’t they? 

Damn, these two are seriously hungry for each other. 

And after all this time, I don’t blame them. Because they deserve this. It’s time to enjoy this new intimacy. This happiness. This love. 

They’ve fought their demons, separately and together. They’ve experienced different kinds of traumas over the years and still managed to come out stronger than ever before. They’ve ignored and struggled with their feelings for far longer than they realized before finally accepting them and taking the leap together. 

And if anyone deserves to finally be this freakishly happy, it’s Tim and Lucy. 

My deepest gratitude goes, once again, to @escapismqueen. This time, she actually did kind of write parts of this, so thank you for letting me use it all and providing me with the necessary inspiration and missing words when my brain just couldn’t properly function anymore. Also, a big thank you to everyone who has taken their time to read my stuff about 5x08 and/or 5x10 and now also this. Every single one of you makes me want to keep writing. And it’s so much fun, too. I'm excited to see where this journey takes me next. 

#chenford #the rookie #lucy chen #tim bradford #how did this get so out of hand #it feels a little all over the place so apologies if it doesn't make much sense haha #this is what i do instead of focusing on my bachelor's #someone seriously send help #i just love being in my little chenford bubble #because i love these two idiots in love #a chenford thesis

[moondancer35]

my english professor let us do a compare/contrast essay on anything we wanted to do and he should not have let me choose miraculous ladybug. this essay was supposed to be like. a thousand words and i've doubled that. IM NOT EVEN DONE. sadly i cannot share the whole thing since it includes things about an au i'm working on but i can share this

#my poor professor though honestly #i've written him a note at the end apologizing for making a simple essay into a fucking thesis #this was not my intention when i started this assignment. i blacked out and when i came to i had 2000+ words of jibberish #but god if it isn't one of the most well put-together things i've ever written. #miraculous ladybug

[displayheartcode]

wait you wrote your thesis on people monetizing fanworks? that sounds super interesting, i'd love to hear more about that!

My exact thesis title was Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence: Exploring How Fanfiction Has Changed Publishing.

I had six chapters:

Evolving Definitions, where I talked about copyright law and the many historical origins of the hobby.

A Brief History of Fanfiction in Online Spaces, where I explored the history of migration – from LJ to FFN and AO3 and Wattpad, etc.

The Lexicon of Fanfiction, where I talked about language and marketing with how it overlaps with current trad tactics.

Authors Behaving Badly :-D. This was wild because I got to fact-check so many online urban legends. MZB, Anne Rice, CClaire, the A/B/O lawsuit... Even 50 Shades had a lengthy footnote! I discussed a lot about ethics, both online and offline practices, where people draw the line between filing off the serial numbers and plagiarism, etc.

Surveys. I talked to five people who have a foot in both wolds, editors and freelancers and writers, and asked them on how they defined certain terms, spheres of influence, use of monetizing, etc.

The conclusion, which had a super fun feature about the Realm of Ruins disaster. I also went into detail about Big Bang Press, and what can be determined for the future. (SPOILER: Not much! Between the evolving online landscape and the increased monetization, we are in unknown territory!)

Once again, major thanks to people like @battlestar-royco, @longsightmyth, @colubrina, @flyingcrowbar and others for supplying quotes and extra reference materials. Great motivators and people!

#libraryleopard #my thesis advisor used to work with CClaire and then also at the house where 50 shades was published #i apologized so many times in my emails to her about the cursed information #the moral is when you give rachel carte blanche on a paper topic you should expect information overload #and she will fact-check like hell #laptopgate was blown out of proportion and i could find only one case where rice used a c&d on a fan #rachel in real life #rachel talks pub

[de-sire-blog]

ppl comment all the time on the lab „omg you describe lab work so accurately like howww“

yea i wish i didn’t know any of it tbh but oh well i chose this profession now it’s too late

#to apologize #jk I don’t hate it #i just get the ick thinking about starting my masters thesis

[sevens-evan]

ten page paper on faulkner due tomorrow. six pages deep somebody put me down like a dog

#evan says shit #i'm just typing words at this point #this is maybe the worst paper i've ever written lmaooooo #defintely the worst i've written in college #utterly incoherent #no thesis statement #repetitive #it's for my advisor's class too #genuinely i might go to office hours and apologize to her for the experience of reading this #do y'all think i can still blame it on the concussion

[viksalos]

ever since we figured out my husband, his sister, and his cousins are all autistic, the possibility that i married into an entirely autistic catholic family where all of the older adults are undiagnosed is kind of objectively hilarious tbh. everyone's autistic drives compel them to need a bunch of alone time but everyone's catholic cultural mores compel them to put family first and repress the hell out of themselves. no wonder they're all passive-aggressive as hell to each other all the time and got mad at me when i didn't pick up on how to do "family" that way. i literally did get catholic religious trauma-by-proxy lmfao

#text #ik i haven't been on here a lot lately but my husband's grandpa passed away on new year's day #and that seems to have like... clicked something in both my husband's and my MIL's brains somehow? #(not that i'm saying it's a good thing he passed away. everybody liked him including me; he seems like he was a remarkable person) #like my husband was like ''oh shit vik actually is right about this neurodivergence stuff'' both in himself and in his family #and my MIL actually seems like she might have taken it to heart when i called her out for acting like a grown adult bully lmao? #like she hasn't apologized yet or anything. but now that my husband understands his own neurodivergence; #HE might be able to explain to his mom how she likely has RSD and i wasn't actually rejecting her #i personally struggle to explain this to her without freaking out that i'm not masking enough for her and/or getting angry :) #but ANYWAYS she did not yell at me at the funeral which is a minor victory for now lol #and the funeral was literally the day after my thesis proposal so i am exhausted af #(the thesis proposal went well too btw. i passed & will defend my thesis for real in a couple months; so i'll FINALLY be doctor vik!!) #so that's all the updates for now o7

[kaladinpdfs]

moash theory 101 is a recommended prerequisite for this blog

#after you take moash theory you can take moash haterism 233 or moash apologism 220 #for best hater practice I feel like you have to have a base understanding of the guy you’re hating #otherwise like. just don’t engage in moash discussion you do not have to defend your thesis…. #especially on other people’s posts…. #like that’s the thing none of this matters moashcourse isn’t real but #it’s annoying that every time i make a Moash post on my other blog someone has to show up like #making up a guy to get mad at. #this wouldn’t be a problem if you took moash theory 101!!! or just made your own post!!!

[internetwerewolf]

um um um do you have a jekyll character design

also do you ship him with anyone

your clervalstein brings me life i love it so much marry me thanks :)

SJSJSJSJ Drawing Clervalstein gives me so much joy, they are the world 2 me TY,, and in terms of Strange Case YAYA i have a Jekyll, though it'd be unfair to not plug @electrosweaters-arts because she designed him first as a Cryptid College character and i metamorphosised his modern design into an old Victorian man. We share him like a tug o war dog toy :) In terms of normal strange case stuff I have a little lineup I did to get a grasp of how Id generally like to draw them a bit ago :D (I'm very inconsistent with how I draw them anyways though)

With relationships I've always gotta keep Utterson + Jekyll in my heart,, they're in love I can smell it (I've also thought about a poly V relationship dynamic with Jekyll Utterson and Lanyon, mostly for the shenanigans of what if ur metamour is someone you cant help having beef with and are also divorced and remarried to 18 times)

#Finishing writing this electro just informed me i am describing the V dynamic as an auspistice like in homestuck #I would like to formally apologize for my ex homestuck roots i need to lie down now #cryptid college is a whole different can of worms there's so much obscure lore there and remixing #i could write a thesis on where out jekyll and hyde designs came from LMAO #jekyll and hyde

[chenfordspiral]

A Chenford Thesis on 5x08

So, during my latest season 5 rewatch (thank you, hiatus nr 28593 this season), I kept getting stuck at 5x08. I could watch the Chenford scenes a hundred times a day. I’ve had a lot of time to think about why I absolutely love this episode and the way Chenford finally happened. 

Apologies if I keep repeating myself sometimes. This got way out of hand for some reason and I might’ve lost track a bit, so…

Anyway, let’s get started with my essay, or whatever this is, on how we got to the end of 5x08 and why Chenford’s development makes me weak in the knees. 

Would a big love confession scene because one of them is in danger have been nice to see in the moment? Sure. Would it have taken away from the impact of it all? Yes, yes, I think it would’ve. Because these two characters are not that. They’re private people, Tim especially, and yes, Lucy is more outgoing and once told Nolan to go for a big-ass proposal with Bailey, but when it really matters, that’s also not her. A big confession in the heat of the moment would’ve been OOC for them. The quieter, just the two of them outside way worked way better than anything else could have.

But I’m getting ahead of myself already. Let’s start at the beginning. 

All of 5x08 is the perfect lead-up to the end scene of that episode. 

Both Tim and Lucy are clearly uncomfortable at the idea of having to spend an entire shift together in the same car. They haven’t been the same with each other since they found a certain someone on Lucy’s couch and Tim encouraged her to go to UC school. 

They’ve become so much more than just colleagues to one another, but neither one of them is ready to have to face the other for the next approximately 10-12 hours. At this point, we’ve seen Lucy realize that Tim means more to her than just a friend, and we’ve definitely seen that Tim fell head-over-heals in 4x22/5x01 and just a little bit more each episode since.

So, there is nothing easy about having to be this close to each other again while thinking the other doesn’t return those romantic feelings. We see that weirdness in the shop before Lucy decides to break the silence. Without even trying, the manage to slip into a conversation that feels like them. They’re bickering like an old married couple. 

They disagree, but don’t insult each other for their different opinions – they banter back and forth, the way they have since sometime during Lucy’s rookie year. 

This wonderful moment, where we briefly saw them being them again, gets interrupted by Lucy’s idiotic WIP. Be warned, I will not be nice to this guy. I might even get through all of this without having to type out his name. Yes, I’m that petty. No, I’m not sorry. 

Lucy looks super uncomfortable right from the start. She doesn’t want to talk to this guy right now, especially not with Tim right next to her. But Assford doesn’t even register her unease. She manages to avoid having to talk very long, and couldn’t have hung up the phone any more quickly after he says he loves her. 

Now, we know Tim isn’t one for personal talk in the shop, even though Lucy’s already broken through that barrier here. But we saw the way he was avoiding even looking Lucy in the eye before she scurried off to get the war bags back at the station. He doesn’t want to have to spend so much time being so close to her. 

He doesn’t want to get involved in her personal life again. (Okay, he does, but you know what I mean.) But he clocks in on her uneasiness. And yeah, he didn’t think Lucy and the idiot he set her up with were serious enough to be talking about moving in together. So, he starts a conversation about something personal. Because he needs to know. 

“Are you two moving in together?” He looks and sounds a little broken. Because if they’re that serious, he really never has a chance. I know, he doesn’t think he has one now, but that would shut that door even more. Lucy doesn’t say yes, but she also doesn’t say no. But she does say that mr. clingy just dropped it on her earlier that day. We all see how confused and nervous she is. 

He asks if they’re happy – notice his use of ‘right?!’ at the end of that question; it’s become a pattern with them – and that moving in would be the obvious thing to do next. See, he can’t have her but still wants her to be happy. Even though he clearly doesn’t like the guy she’s with. Tim, you big selfless idiot.  

And Lucy tries to deflect, tries to convince him, and herself, that she’s happy with the guy. But we can all tell that she isn’t. And that Tim isn’t convinced either. 

The conversation is put on hold because they get called to a dispute. This might seem very random, but that couple served two purposes. One, giving an example of a couple that might be doing things better than Lucy with her WIP but still not the right way. And two, showing that sometimes, cops get called to weird scenes that seem totally random. But that’s patrol. 

Then they’re all busy trying to help the woman who’s had a bomb strapped to her neck. We see what they have to deal with on patrol, the inhuman things people do. We see them trying to handle seeing a woman killed by a bomb.  

They’re still talking about it when they’re back in the shop after it all went down. Again, they’re pulled out of the moment by her pathetic-excuse-for-a-boyfriend. This time, he seems to call to make sure she’s okay after hearing what happened on the news. But as soon as she says she’s ok, he changes course. Immediately putting pressure on her by talking about a house they should move on if she likes it. 

She hasn’t even seen the house. Let alone actually agreed to even look at houses. In the morning, she said “I’ll think about it. We’ll talk tonight.” That was not a yes. It was a ‘maybe; can we please talk about this later’. But he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t realize how much he’s bothering and smothering her right now. 

Tim only has to take one look at Lucy to see that she’s uncomfortable. He was already looking at her when she turned to glance at him, likely looking for his help to get her out of this conversation. Lucy, honey. Wanting to get out of a conversation with your WIP should ring several alarm bells. You shouldn’t need ‘saving’. 

But Tim does what he always does – making sure Lucy’s okay. So he puts on his best TO voice and tells her to stop taking personal calls while on duty. Dumbass takes the hint, but not before throwing some shade at Tim.  

Lucy takes a moment to regroup after hanging up the phone before she turns to Tim. “Thanks”. Tim nods his acknowledgement, and they both turn their focus back to work. But I’m still stuck at how Lucy looked for comfort and help from Tim and he gave it willingly. Because he wants her to be happy. And those phone calls put her on edge. 

So he did what he could do to help make her feel a bit better. I love this guy and his big-ass heart. 

The next time we see them in the shop, Lucy is looking at her phone again. Tim takes one look at her after glancing at her phone (Timmy, you bein’ kinda nosy) and starts talking again. Again, he is the one to start a conversation about personal stuff. 

He doesn’t shy away from the truth and just says it as it is: tell your idiotic WIP that you don’t wanna move in if you don’t want to move in. And I’m not sure if Lucy is just very out of tune with her feelings or what, but come on, she knows exactly what the problem is and why she doesn’t want to move in with mr. ignorance.

Every time I rewatch this episode and get to this specific scene, I cannot stop myself from saying “You know exactly what the problem is. It’s sitting right there next to you” after Lucy says she doesn’t get what the problem is. Seriously, even if I’m not actively listening, that part always gets my attention and I mutter those words. 

Lucy keeps talking, saying that she and the WIP are great together and that they never fight. Well, Tim coming in again with the truth: maybe that’s the problem. Or one of them, anyway. If you don’t fight, there’s barely any passion. Lack of friction and arguments doesn’t leave much room to improve and work on a relationship if you want to make it last. 

Lucy isn’t one to shy away from confrontation. We’ve seen her stand her ground with Tim basically since day one. Why is she not herself with Ch… oh, almost typed his name. Woops. Anyhow, we all know Lucy usually confronts what’s bothering her head-on. Why is she hiding? 

In semi-typical Chenford (or is it Lucy?)-fashion, she tries to deflect a bit here, jokingly asking if she and her can’t-read-the-room-bf should be more like the couple from the call they dealt with earlier. Tim denies, because that is not what he means. 

“Do you guys not fight because you don’t disagree on things or because you don’t think it’s worth the bother?” 

Again, right to the point. He hits the nail right on the head. We can see that Lucy realizes the latter to be true. She doesn’t argue with ADA Boring because it’s not worth it. She doesn’t put in the effort like she usually does. Why?

Well, because those arguments would immediately show that they are not compatible, and it would likely end that relationship sooner rather than later. Deep down, Lucy knows that.

Right from their first interaction, you could see that they don’t see eye-to-eye on things. Yes, her and Tim don’t agree on a lot of things, either. But she puts in that effort. Because she cares. 

This whole conversation shows that she’s staying with the dumbass not because she really wants to, but more because of guilt, fear, and the fact that she doesn’t want to commit to any guy. Well, there is one she’d love to commit to, but thinks she’ll never have the chance to. 

Guilt because she stills blames herself for the Rosalind debacle even though we all know it’s not her fault. Commitment issues because she hasn’t felt about anybody that seriously before, until... well, we’ll get to that and the fear part later. 

Tim can see that she realizes that she’s just along for the ride in that relationship, trying to commit to someone who seems great on paper but isn’t right for her. Once more, Tim tells her what he thinks.

“You deserve someone who’s worth the effort.” 

Because he wants her to be happy, because he cherishes and adores and loves her. 

Because he wants her to be in a relationship where she wants to work through the tough stuff, where she doesn’t shy away from the conflict, where she can be herself. 

Because he wants her to realize that she’s not gonna be happy with this guy when she can’t even be herself without having that relationship implode.  

Time and time again, they’ve shown us how incompatible Lucy and mr. you-can-leave-anytime-now are. Even their first encounter was indicative that this would never work out (still baffles me that she went out with him again after that double date). He seems more interested in forming her into someone he wants instead of really accepting who she is. 

And that just won’t do in a relationship. Ok, again, Tim and Lucy constantly try to make the other see things differently, but they’re not trying to change each other. At least not in a way that would totally go against who they are. They want them to be better versions of themselves. 

I mean, come on. Lucy as a lawyer? Tim retiring at 40ish? Who are these people who claim to love them? 

Tim and Lucy constantly make each other want to be better. 

And look at Lucy. Surely, she can see that montage that the Rookie SM account posted as part of the sneak peak before the episode aired play out before her eyes. All the times they’ve put in an effort. For each other. Even when they were still rookie and TO.  

She made an effort back then. Why not with her collar of a WIP? It took some time, but I’ve come to realize that the title for the episode might as well have referred to Assford’s presence in Lucy’s life and how he’s like a weight holding her down.  

The conversation seems to be over for the time being as they both turn a bit away from one another, lost in thought, especially Lucy. She absorbs everything he just said. The wheels are starting to turn in her head. 

Before either one of them can too wrapped up in thoughts, we see a car speeding past them. They discover that a second person has become victim of having a collar bomb strapped around their neck. 

I’m gonna skip over some case related moments but will say that I love how easily they slip from personal talk in the shop to being solely focused on the case and trying to find a way to help the guy. Now, let me jump right to when Creighton just takes matters into his own hands and starts cutting the bomb off with garden tools. 

It’s just a little moment in an episode with many awesome Chenford scenes, but I absolutely love how Tim reaches for Lucy to get her to cover behind the door of the shop. And then how he’s shielding her, keeping her behind him as best as possible with one hand on her shoulder and the other on her arm. 

Tim, your love for her is showing. And I’m getting emotional again. 

This entire sequence, from seeing the collar bomb on Creighton to when Tim radios in to pick up their suspect shows how easily Tim and Lucy slipped back into their partnership. He lets her take charge with the interview. They wordlessly communicate with one another. They just need to share a few looks to know what the other is thinking and move forward with the questioning. 

You can’t force this kind of connection, it’s just there. We can all see and feel it. And they probably do as well.  

We get to the last Chenford podcar scene of the episode. They’re coordinating with Harper on how to proceed after getting the last victim’s name. After, we hear Lucy’s phone going off, again. Thank god it’s not another face time call with what’s-his-name and just a message.

But even just a text is mildly pissing Lucy off. Because dude keeps sending her stuff even though she’s made it perfectly clear she wanted to talk about it with him later, not while on duty. 

Tim immediately picks up on it again and asks if it’s more listings, which, of course it is. Because ADA clueless is being an inconsiderate idiot. Even more so for sending listings for places Lucy would never even consider living, even if she wanted to move in with jackass. 

Off of her frustration, Tim works up the courage to ask something he’s probably been wondering about since the start of their day. “Do you love him?”

No, Timothy, she does not. Otherwise she’d be happy to talk to the WIP about it every chance she gets, not be completely frustrated with him. But he asks anyway because he needs to hear the answer.  

Lucy tries to deflect again, similar to the way she did when he asked if she was happy. ‘They haven’t been dating long’... which, well, is semi-true. It is the longest relationship for Lucy that we’ve seen on the show (gag). 

And it’s been roughly 10ish months at this point (thank you, TR, for the super wacky timeline. I’m deciding to go with November here, hence the 10 months, because we saw a date of Nov ’22 in 5x09; but who really knows…). 

After so long, you know whether you love someone or not. And Lucy knows she doesn’t love him but tries to avoid having to admit it right away. 

Tim seems to accept her obvious avoidance. But lets her know that dumbass loves her. So she shouldn’t lead him on if she doesn’t feel that way about him. 

I don’t know why I always get so emotional watching this. Probably because Tim’s statement could easily be about himself, too. 

And now Lucy might finally be realizing the problem. She knows that her WIP loves her (although, I’m still not convinced, because he shouldn’t be trying to change and pressure her into anything if he really did love her). 

Lucy knows that she should, theoretically, love him back. Because on paper, he seems great and she even says, “he’s so great in so many different ways”. 

I hate this line. Because time and time again, they’ve managed to show him as a not great guy. No matter how much I try, I cannot for the life of me think of him as anything but annoying and so obviously not right for Lucy. 

Anyway. Lucy proceeds to talk as she processes what’s bothering her and comes to the conclusion that “he’s just not…“ and immediately looks over at Tim before looking back out the window. Lucy, what?! 

Could you be more obvious? You basically just said you can’t love Assford because he’s not Tim. You basically just said you’re in love with Tim… cool. I’m cool. Perfectly fine. Not losing my mind over this at all. 

That was the loudest unspoken ‘you’ I’ve ever heard. And that’s the problem of it all, isn’t it? She’s realized at some point that she likes Tim more than she thought possible and seems frustrated with herself for not being able to let him go after thinking he rejected her. Frustrated with the whole situation, really.

But that’s also just it. You can’t just stop wanting someone. Yes, you try to move on when you think it’s never gonna happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy or happen quickly. 

Lucy seems to never truly have been in love with anyone before. Otherwise she would’ve committed to someone already, and not just tried to settle for dumbass ADA bitch. 

Finally, Lucy has voiced the problem of it all: she can’t love anybody else because somehow, she fell in love with Tim. Again, she can’t love Assford because he’s. not. Tim. Swoon. 

I’m sure Tim could feel that her gaze shifted toward him… whether he knew that’s what she almost said or not, I’m not sure. But I am sure he hoped that’s what she could mean. 

He looks over at her, trying to figure her out. But she’s already looking away, so he turns his focus back on the road. Both of them are left with their own thoughts and the case. And I can practically feel the tension through my screen. 

Tim and Lucy, my loves. Can you two please actually talk to one another? Without leaving any room for doubts, without subtext, without beating around the bush. 

Just say what you really wanna say. The other person might surprise you with their answer. 

And then we get to the last scene of the episode. Every moment has led to this. 

We see Tim sitting outside the station, alone, before we see Lucy walk up to him, getting them in the same shot together. And isn’t that just the perfect metaphor for their relationship? Tim was alone and broken when they met in the Pilot. And then there comes Lucy, sunshine personified, and bit by bit, brings light back into his life, stealing his heart along the way without even trying. 

She constantly challenged him, made him see when he was in the wrong and why, yet never judged or blamed him for things out of his control (wife who abandoned him, learning differently, childhood trauma because of an abusive father, taking the blame for everything) and made sure he knew that those things were nothing bad or to be ashamed of or his fault. 

Unlike so many other people in his life, Lucy never tried to change him. She simply brought out the person he is underneath all the tough guy exterior. She didn’t ask him to change - he wanted to be better because her opinion of him started to matter at some point. 

We might all see the difference Lucy made in Tim’s life more easily than the impact he’s had on her, but the deeper we look, the more obvious it gets. 

The Lucy from 1x01 needed to learn that the world was not as nice as we’d all sometimes wish it were. 

Tim said it himself in 3x11. She’s a kind and empathetic person who needed to see the world in a different light. He might’ve gone about it a bit controversially at first, but that all stemmed from a place of deep-seated hurt and heartbreak (still no excuse, but more understandable and shows that he’s human). 

But he still managed to challenge her. Made her see that she could be and is a great cop. Trained her to believe in herself and her abilities - something her parents never did. And something Lucy desperately needed in her life. Someone who believes in her and trusts her choices. Someone who accepts her the way she is. Someone who has her back. 

They both became better versions of themselves because of each other. Because there was finally a person who didn’t judge. No, it wasn’t romantic right from the start. But that pull toward one another has always been there. It’s only gotten stronger as they got to know each other better and then eventually bubbled to the surface at the end of season 4 and beginning of 5. 

Kay, back to the actual scene. 

I still really wanna know what Lucy was planning on talking to Tim about. Somebody please tell me… because “We need to talk” is usually not accompanied by anything good. 

I love how Tim immediately puts his phone down and turns his attention, and his body, toward Lucy. She has his full attention, no matter what this conversation is going to be about. 

Now, Lucy is the one who comes to Tim, but he is the one to start the conversation. And because they’ve been talking about her relationship with mr. can’t-read-the-room-and-pick-up-on-Lucy’s-discomfort before, it’s what he thinks they’ll continue to talk about.  

First though: just think about how weird this must be for them. All day, Tim’s been trying to help the woman he’s fallen for work through her relationship with someone else. And Lucy’s been working through the problems she has with her WIP with the guy she’s actually in love with. 

Yup, weird. 

Anyway.

We can tell that Tim is not expecting this conversation to be about anything but Lucy and her relationship with Assford. He doesn’t even entertain the idea that Lucy might’ve come to him to talk about them. He just wants to help her see that whatever she’s doing is not working. He’s being the friend he’s become for her over time. Because he’s not expecting to ever mean as much to her as she means to him. 

“Look, this clearly isn’t working out. I don’t know why you won’t just admit it.” 

Thank you, Tim, for saying what the entire fandom’s been thinking for a while now. 

“Unless, I mean, is it guilt? Is it because of what Rosalind did to him?” 

For some reason, likely because she’s frustrated with the situation as is and really didn’t want to talk about her WIP, Lucy deflects. Again. “Oh, like I’m the only one who stayed too long when things aren’t working? You dated a lifeguard. You don’t even like going to the beach!” 

Okay, I have to admit that I love Lucy’s roasting. So I need to pause here for a second. I had this all semi-planned out but then my emotions got the better of me. So, enjoy while I air out some of those frustrations. 

Both Tim and Lucy stayed with their respective partners for far too long. And for the wrong reasons. 

I get that Lucy felt guilty, and is too compassionate to leave someone when they’re hurt. Especially when she thinks it’s her fault. 

And neither one of them wanted to be alone. But Tim never should’ve stayed with Lifeguard Bitch after he realized they were on completely different paths regarding the future. 

I’m not saying she should change what she wants for Tim, but neither should he settle for something he clearly doesn’t want. He even said in 4x05 that he expected to already have kids. So he still wants it. He shouldn’t be with someone who clearly doesn’t want it. 

There’s no future there. But being alone wasn’t an option either because then he wouldn’t have been able to try to ignore his feelings for Lucy for as long as he did. 

In typical Tim Bradford fashion, he compromised who he is and what he wants to please the person he’s with. 

Take his reaction to Lifeguard’s revelations in 4x21: “Ok… great”. No Tim, not great. You clearly want the wife, the house and the 2.5 kids. Why are you not telling her that? End it right then and there. 

Why are you always the one compromising? Relationships are supposed to be a give and take, not just give for you, and take for Blondie. 

If she really did love him, she wouldn’t have dumped him the way she did. And not for the reason she did. Seriously, did she not know what his job was when they first went out? I mean, Bitch please. 

Sorry for the choice of words. My distaste for her and mr. hums-the-song just grew exponentially while writing this. Anyway, let me get back to the Chenford of it all. 

Now it’s Tim’s turn to be frustrated. Because this is not what this is about. All day he’s been trying to figure out why Lucy is still with Assford when she is clearly not happy, despite what she said earlier. He’s been trying to help her figure it all out.  

Tim wants Lucy to realize she deserves better, someone worthy of her. And no, he doesn’t think that’s him. In his mind, she is far too nice to ever possibly being able to like him in that way. So, this isn’t for him. It’s not about him. 

He says it himself: “This is not about me. No, it’s not about me, it’s about you. Staying in this safe relationship... because you’re scared.” Damn Tim. Straight to the point. 

But as soon as he says it, Lucy turns the conversation on its axis and actually makes it about them. Because all this time, it’s been about them, about him. “Of course I’m scared. If we do this and it doesn’t work, I’ll have ruined the most important relationship in my life.”

Again: Lucy?! What did you just say? My lack of words here is an accurate representation of my reaction when we were all watching it for the first time in December. 

And, yeah. I’ve seen different opinions about this whole scene. I don’t think it’s entirely out of the blue. We’ve seen them both struggle with their emotions and feelings for each other for a while at this point. Maybe we’ve seen it more from Tim’s side lately and that’s why it was surprising that it was Lucy who just blurted it out.

But I think it’s so wonderfully in character for her to just get lost in the moment and say what she’s been feeling for so long now because the word ‘scared’ triggered everything she’s been trying to ignore and work through. Her biggest fear is losing Tim completely. 

“Most important relationship in [her] life.” Yeah, I was not expecting to hear this. But I love it. We all know Lucy doesn’t want to put names to her relationships. She didn’t want to with Nolan (sorry for even mentioning this), not with Emmett and she made it perfectly clear that mr. hums-the-song was her WIP, not her boyfriend. 

But with Tim it’s somehow been a relationship for a while. She even called it that on her last day of training, which I still find hilarious, btw. They’re not together. Tim doesn’t even think she feels the same way as he does. Clearly, he was not expecting to hear this, either. 

She’s literally stunned him into silence. Look at the look on his face. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. He’s never been put first in any relationship. Okay, I firmly believe that he was Isabel’s priority once upon a time, but she too, chose something else over him at the end. Just like everybody else has.

But suddenly he hears Lucy say he is the most important to her. Him. Not anybody else. Him. Tim is the most important person in someone’s life. 

And then we see Lucy as she realizes what she just revealed to him. And she tries to backtrack. She’s not taking it back – she’s simply realizing that maybe she shouldn’t have revealed herself to him and drop this on him. 

But he doesn’t let her take it back. He agrees. Because they would lose each other if it didn’t work out. There’d be no going back to before. It’s either all in and risk it or continue this weird limbo they’ve found themselves in. 

And Lucy takes Tim’s “You’re right” as confirmation that it’s not gonna happen. That it’s not worth it to risk it all. Because she doesn’t want to lose him. There’d be no other person able to fill the hole that losing Tim would create. So they should just keep going as they have. Right? 

And yet. He doesn’t accept her “right?” the way he did in 5x01 in that hotel room. Because this is different. He can feel that this is different. That he seems to have a chance at a relationship with her after all. So he puts his cards on the table. And tells her that he thinks it is worth the risk. 

“Unless it is.”

Three words. Just three words and now it’s Lucy’s turn to be speechless for a moment. Because she had honestly thought that he wasn’t an option, either. Not after he told her to go to UC school and it was “time for [her] to move on.” She took it as rejection, he thought he was doing her a favor by removing himself from the equation that seemed to leave no space for him.

We see the wheels turning in her head as she realizes that he seems to want this as much as she does. She lets out a little breath as the tiniest smile starts to form on her lips as she stares at Tim. 

And he just looks back at her, gauging her reaction. He seems to find what he’s looking for because he leans back a bit, building up the courage to ask what he’s been dying to ask her for so long. Come on, we all know it’s true. His shoulders drop as he lets the weight fall off them and smiles. 

He starts to form words as he leans toward her again, but takes another second before he lets them out. “Do you wanna get dinner sometime?” 

Not ‘go on a date’. No. Because even in this moment, where they’re the only people that matter, he knows she still has a WIP. But he took his chance the moment he realized they were on the same page anyway. And I love it. Because he wastes no time at all to show her what he wants. He took a leap the second he realized she might feel the same way. 

All the previous heartbreak that started during his childhood seems to fade away from him. Right now, this is all that matters. Lucy is what matters. Because he matters to her, more than he ever thought possible. He’s willing to risk it all because all he wants, everything he’s been looking for his entire life, is right there in front of him. 

I will never not tear up at the way his eyes are so glassy with emotion and brimming with hope. Hope that she’ll say yes. Hope that this is finally the start of something he’s wanted for longer than he realized. 

And look at Lucy. She takes a moment to absorb everything that’s just happened. From realizing that she basically blurted out how she feels about him, to having him confirming that it’s reciprocated. That he’s willing to give this a shot because he believes they can make it work. 

He believes in her. In them. And that’s beautiful. Because Lucy doesn’t have many people like that in her life. She grew up with parents who always expected more of her, no matter what she did. We saw that in a few episodes in previous seasons and it’s so heartbreaking because we know Lucy wants to make her parents proud. She wants their approval.

But they never gave it to her. And yet somehow, here’s Tim. Who believes in her. First professionally, then personally and now romantically. Who makes her feel like she is enough. Because she is. For him, she is more than enough. She’s everything. 

They’ve both been exactly what the other has been looking for their entire lives. They’ve endured different kinds of trauma that only the other has managed to slowly heal because they’re two parts of one whole and only truly happy and themselves when they’re together. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true. 

She answers so clearly, so… sure. Like, ‘Yes of course you idiot. Why wouldn’t I want to go out with you? Nothing I’d want more.’ 

And then the relief in his eyes when she says yes. My heart hurts in the best way possible whenever I watch this scene and hear his breathless little “Yeah?”’. Happy Tim is my absolute favorite thing to see on the show. 

The elation of getting confirmation that she wants this just as much as he does. That she’s willing to risk it all with him. He’s been so afraid of getting rejected again, like he did in 5x01 (when, again, your timing was a bitch, Timothy). We saw how he considered talking to her in 5x06 in the parking lot and then the total devastation after the missed opportunity because a certain someone had to interrupt again. 

So, this time, he took his chance the second he saw an opportunity.

But as happy and elated he his right there, he completely deflates after Lucy says “No” right after. Because that’s the answer he expected. The one he feared. The (apparent) rejection after putting his heart on the line.  

He turns away from Lucy, trying to put the wall back up. His whole demeanor just changed. Watch his hands – he puts them up as if physically trying to distance himself again. But he accepts her ‘no’: “Okay”. Because her happiness will always matter more than his own.

But Lucy tries to make clear that’s not what she meant. “No, no, it’s just… not yet. I owe it to [jackass] to end things the right way with him”. (No you don’t Lucy. He’s an idiot.)

Again, Tim accepts her decision, turning away again. He looks like he’s ready to stand up to leave. But Lucy stops him. We can’t see it, but I’m guessing Lucy touches his leg to get his attention again. And she does; he turns back toward her again, listening to what she has to say.

“Ask me again. Later. After.” 

There’s no question here as to what she wants. She’s not there yet, because she still as a WIP. But as soon as he’s gone, she wants this. She wants Tim. She’s ready to commit to the only guy she’s ever fallen for. 

And we’re back to happy smiley Tim. “Deal”. He’ll wait as long as she needs. Because now he knows there’s something to wait for. He’s not alone in this. She’s right there with him and she wants it as much as he does. 

And I cannot get over how they look at each other then. There’s nothing between them anymore but happiness and the knowledge that they want the same thing: to be together. 

And for the first time we really see shy, bashful, in love Tim Bradford. Look at the way he looks away from Lucy. He looks like a lovesick puppy. And my heart is bursting with happiness again.   

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I totally understand the (initial) confusion about this scene. Because yes, at first it did seem as if it came out of nowhere. And that there might be a scene or dialogue missing. But after some time to reflect on it, I’ve come to realize how much I love the way they handled it. Because it didn’t come out of nowhere. 

Look, this relationship has always been super layered, long before they took the leap here. 

But, as pointed out above, the way Lucy just blurts it out is beautiful to me. 

Because she got comfortable with Tim in this moment. After months of being at odds with one another, she felt safe enough to finally say it.

Tim spent the whole shift helping her navigate what was bothering her - Assford and his insistence to annoy her with more house offers even though she was clearly uncomfortable while dealing with a tough case - and why it was bothering her – he’s not Tim.

It wasn’t supposed to be about Tim, but he didn’t even realize that the whole problem was him in the first place. He’s the reason why she can’t and won’t move forward with jackass. Because she can’t do that while not letting Tim go. 

And that’s the whole point. After Tim told her it was time for her to move on in 5x02, she tried to make it work with dumbass. But in all that time, she’s never truly let Tim go. Because he’s the one she wants at her side, whether she’s always realized it or not. 

She could stay with clueless as long as she tried to tell herself that Tim didn’t matter to her like that. But that firmly established wall kept crumbling ever since Tim drew it up. Every episode following 5x02 crumbles that wall further and further - until it’s finally gone in this beautiful scene outside their place of work. 

Until Lucy finally realizes that no relationship will work as long as it’s not with Tim, she won’t give it her all. Yes, she tries to tell herself it’s not worth to take the risk, but as soon as Tim reveals his hand, she’s on board. 

Because they both want the same thing. To finally be together, in every possible way and not just as quasi-partners on the job. Finally, they’re on the same page. 

And what makes this even more special: it’s Tim being ready before Lucy is. It’s him waiting for her. 

I never would’ve even imagined for it to happen this way around. Given everything we knew pre-season 5, Lucy seemed like the more likely option to want to talk about things. She always wants to talk things out. 

But maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised after 5x01. After all, Tim was the one who wanted to talk about them in that hotel room in Vegas. And yes, again, the timing was awful, seriously Timothy, but he couldn’t ignore the feelings stirring within him. 

And the fact that Tim is even willing to risk it all with someone who’s become so extremely important to him is beautiful and shows how much he’s grown and found himself again since the Pilot. He’s been broken so many times before that nobody would blame him to just never try this again. Even Lucy inadvertently broke his heart in that Vegas hotel room.  

But he wants to. With Lucy, he wants to, despite the previous heartbreak. Because she’s Lucy. Because she is one of the very few people who hasn’t just walked away. And she’s just offered him an in. 

Yes, they’ve been distant with one another for months before this, but even then - she didn’t leave. She wanted to be there when he was injured and then raced back to the hospital after hearing he had emergency surgery to make sure he was ok. Even through their awkwardness, she stayed. She made an effort. She cared. 

She’s seen every side of him and yet, she stayed. 

It’s interesting, actually, that Lucy might have been one of the few people that Tim (briefly) walked away from. Because Tim holds on to the people he loves as tightly as he can but will also put their happiness above his own no matter how much it might hurt him. 

He walked away from Isabel because he felt it was what was best for her, not for him and only once he knew she was getting better. We don’t know what happened with Rachel and who broke up with who, but she was the one to leave for another state. Lifeguard Bitch dumped him while he was in the hospital, right after he woke up from emergency surgery because he wouldn’t do what she wanted. 

Lucy has never walked away from Tim. But there he was, willing to let her go because he felt that that was best for her. He put her (seemingly) best interest above his own. Because he couldn’t, or wouldn’t see that she didn’t regret what happened between them, that she values him for who he is. That he means more to her than she, or he, could’ve ever imagined. Because somewhere deep down, he still doesn’t believe he’s worthy of love. (I wish I could give pre-canon-Chenford Tim a hug so badly.)

For two people who know how to communicate with one another, they really did a number on themselves in eps 5x01 and 5x02. Neither one of them actually listens to the other. It’s not communicating. They don’t ask for clarification; they just assume to know what the other means. 

Tim walked away in 5x02 before either one of them let their masks slip and we could see that they were both heartbroken, thinking the other regretted whatever it is that happened between them. 

These two have evolved from TO and Rookie, who, for all intends and purposes, should never care about each other as anything more than colleagues, to friends during Lucy’s rookie year, to best friends who bicker and annoy each other like a married couple. 

And somewhere along the way, they fell for each other without noticing, without meaning to. And I think neither one of them quite knew what do to once they had that moment of realization. 

We saw them struggle with it up until the very end of 5x08 when it all came out. When they just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Because they’re the light in each other’s life and just want to be together. 

And now they get to know what it’s like to actually be together the way they’ve wanted to for a while. From now on, they get to live life together. And I definitely didn’t tear up thinking about this last part. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I understand everyone’s opinion about this episode, good or bad. 

I simply think that, yes, it was a slow burn, but you can’t drag it out too long before it eventually burns out. Why create more drama when there is no real reason to? If they had written more drama for Chenford, it would’ve been created to keep more roadblocks in their way. No one would’ve wanted Lucy to move forward in her relationship with mr. boring. But that was the (almost) last thing keeping them apart. 

What could they have done to keep them apart for longer? The only thing I would’ve been okay with would’ve been a time in which they just hang out as friends every chance they get before taking the plunge. Drama? I don’t want that. 

But that might’ve also only lasted a few episodes before everything bubbled to the surface. Even with a slow burn, the flame’s gotta ignite at some point. 

Okay, Tim being her superior would’ve actually been a very real obstacle that many of us thought would keep them apart for longer. Especially since he’s such a stickler for rules. But I think I get why they moved them forward the way they did. Both Tim and Lucy got caught up in the moment – nothing but the two of them mattered. No rules, no significant others, no power imbalance at work could’ve kept them from going after what they wanted.  

The only thing that mattered was finally being able to be together after realizing they both wanted it.  

I personally really appreciate that they kept this real. Yes, the writers chose to have 5x08 be the ep to move things forward. But story-wise, it’s very true to real life. Tim and Lucy didn’t have much of a choice but to ride together again after Grey told them to. Not without revealing what exactly the reason for their discomfort was. 

Real life is when things happen when you least expect them. When you have to deal with things sooner than expected. When you blurt things out without thinking. When you put your heart on the line without knowing how the other feels. 

I haven’t been in this fandom long and have only watched The Rookie and shipped Chenford since mid-2022. But even I was becoming inpatient for them to be together after only 6 months. 

We’re all allowed to have our opinions. We can all have mature conversations about this and discuss it with respect. But the minute you completely disregard the fact that every person working on that show is a human being and call them names, and even tag them in those posts, you’ve gone too far.  

They don’t owe us anything. They don’t have to move the story forward the way we want. Yes, fans keep shows going to a certain degree, but it’s the writers’ decision what to do. Or maybe it’s the network’s decision and they have to run with it and make it work.

Basically all I saw all summer long was comments about needing Chenford to be together asap. Then it happens, and yet, this is when the negativity (and disrespect) in the fandom started. 

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: we were never all gonna get it the way we envisioned it. And maybe we all should’ve kept that in mind going into season 5 (I’m including myself in this, yes). But it’s okay to be disappointed. 

Did I expect it to happen the way it did? Nope. Was I a little thrown at first? Yup. But I’ve fallen in love with it since then. It’s so them. 

Let them learn together. Let them grow together. Let them become even better together. 

There is so much left to explore. Them getting together opened up a whole new world of potential storylines. And I for one cannot wait to see what is next in their journey. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional note 1:  I will forever be mad at The Rookie for making the-one-who-shall-not-be-named sound like the nicest guy when all I can see is red flag after red flag. They introduced him as a pesky ADA, who I immediately disliked, who was suddenly a real ‘nice guy’ the next time we saw him. It’s like they completely changed course and decided to use him in any way possible to keep Tim and Lucy apart. And make me uncomfortable in the process. 

I know there might be some fans out there who really like him, but I just always see the guy humming the song Lucy sang to keep herself calm when she was dying. Dude, that’s the woman you’re dating. How does that song get stuck in your head and NOT trigger you? 

Even this episode alone is reason enough for me to dislike him. I could go on for another 5 pages, but I’ll stop here and just say: I’m glad Lucy dumped him in maybe the least nicest way possible for someone as empathetic as her. 

Additional note 2:  I’ve mostly been very positive about Chenford’s development, but even I can admit that some things haven’t sat right with me all the time (and I mean pre-canon and after), mostly because I expected things to happen differently at times. But that doesn’t mean the way they’re handling it is bad or wrong. We can’t expect for them to integrate callbacks to all the significant moments from earlier seasons. 

I’ve simply chosen to be positive whenever I post something because I accept and appreciate what they’ve given us, but I understand and respect if some fans don’t. As long as we don’t expect everyone to see everything the way we do, and we don’t get all childish and mad when we don’t all agree (seriously, why do we always have to get mad at each other when we disagree on things?!), I’m happy to be here. Because Chenford and The Rookie are my safe space, my escape from reality. And sometimes I just need to get lost I these characters for a while to get back on track in real life. 

Thank you to @escapismqueen for listening to my constant ramblings whilst writing this and being my nr one supporter while I was struggling to get this done! I think I need to credit her for some of this because we think so much alike that she easily could’ve written parts of this herself. 

#i apologize for the length of this #no it is not 20 pages in a word doc #or is it #yes this is obviously written with a knowledge up to 5x17 #so i know some of what comes next in their journey #but i can't wait for what comes after #5x18 I'm looking at you #these are just my ramblings so i don't expect everyone to like it or agree #i just needed to get this out #because i freakin' love 5x08 #so what do i do now to survive the rest of the hiatus? #suggestions anyone? #chenford #the rookie #lucy chen #tim bradford #a chenford thesis

[nefertittythegreat]

#if you wanna know how my Sylvester post is coming #this is where we are and I'm not even done yet #this is officially longer then any paper I had to write for uni #it's a literal thesis #it's like 13 pgs double spaced #not as long as my fanfic chapters tho #lol #I'm gonna cut some of it #it's gonna be in three or four parts #I wasn't joking on my profile description #I am elaborating #🔫 #I just have a lot to say this is a real deep dove into Sylvester #and honest it's not deep enough #I would go and find quotes and in text examples #but #the semester just started🤷‍♀️ #consider this my apology when it comes out #I don't actually expect any you to really read it #it's a door stopper #but I will appreciate any who do and interact with it #it should be out before the end of the week