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[summerongrand]

For no reason at all whatsoever (and because I am certainly not two and half weeks past a bad breakup), I almost bought McConnells ice cream today 🍦

[summerongrand]

Just wanted to say I appreciate your take on the whole white man/woc imbalanced power plot issue. This is something that I had a big problem with in season 4 and others definitely seemed to pick up on the same when all the storylines were Wesley, Nolan or Tim centric, and Nyla, Angela and Lucy were seemingly left as the 'other'. However I feel like I saw the issue be forgotten in the fandom a little. It seems this show has consistently favoured highlighting the male struggle and treating female storylines as trivial and unworthy, other than that of Bailey, the then newly introduced and now main cast white female character. I thought this would change with Lucy's story now being written consistently in s6 but it's clear that Tim's potentially the more favourable storyline. Now I can't speak from a psychological standpoint on what Tim did to Lucy but from a plot pov it's definitely making the white man vs woc power issue glaringly obvious. He is the one that gets to start or end their relationship. He's the white man with issues that is allowed to feel what he wants and grow his character while the asian woman is left behind despite her own depth and trauma. Let's hope that Lucy is given the same grace of dealing with her issues and growing as Tim, and Lucy gets her power back.

Hi Anon!

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful message. And thanks for patiently waiting for my response. I agree with everything you said. I believe the post you’re referring to is this one and possibly this one too.

It’s clear that the show has favored male storylines, particularly those of Wesley, Nolan, and Tim (and Bailey a non-WOC), while sidelining WOC ones. And even though the focus here is on Lucy and Chenford, I’m equally happy and willing to talk about race through the POVs of Angela/Wopez and Nyla/Jayla too.

I don’t think the actual act of Tim breaking up with Lucy has a racial dynamic to it other than the obvious. Them being of different races is just who they are. But their overall relationship (TO/Rookie, mentor/mentee, sergeant/gofer, friends, couple, etc.) does. And Melissa, bless her heart (affectionate), codes so heavily as Chinese in her mannerisms too and this gets projected onto Lucy. But that’s not talked about very often either. I say all of this to agree with you, Anon, because the “white man vs woc power issue” as you described has existed the whole time.

Let’s look at S5b and S6. A WOC masterminded the career progressions of at least two middle aged white men. One of them derailed her career progression. The other one broke up with her. Both broke her heart in very different ways. We did get some of Lucy’s character development and growth in S6 on the front end of the season. But even within that, her storyline has been about the 5 player trade (made to benefit Tim primarily) and Tim not being comfortable with her in UC. Tim gets demoted but he has a cushion to fall on because Lucy trampolined him into the Metro clouds and now the show’s able to use what Lucy did to benefit Tim again and use that to give him room to fall back on. This is part of the whole ‘using a WOC as a plot device to further a white man’s story’ which I’ve shared about in regards to the breakup (which is different than the act of breaking up) and you've detailed out too. We’ll see what happens to her story in the next few episodes, and I too hope that Lucy is given the same grace and that she does get her power back. But no matter what happens in future episodes, that trope was used so the genie’s already out of the bottle.

You did bring up the fandom, so I am going to talk about it a little more. This next part may be hard to hear, Anon, but … I have received negativity from Chenford fans for talking about Lucy and Melissa O’Neil’s race. This shows me that this topic is so worth talking about because there are people who feel a certain way about seeing race-related discussions about Lucy (they don’t want to be anywhere near it) and I do believe it’s unhealthy for the fandom to have these beliefs about a WOC. Others in the fandom have also encountered negativity and pushback when discussing this topic. Maybe it's even happened to you. People have shared their fandom experiences with me privately, but you’re the first to do it Anonymously which is great because that means you’ve given me the opportunity to respond to you publicly. 

Challenging this negatively held belief within our fandom and embracing Lucy/Mel’s racial and cultural identity is a worthy endeavor so let’s move the dial on that. It starts with talking about these topics in the context of The Rookieverse and keeping an open mind if these topics are unfamiliar to us. I mean, Mel wants more of that too.

Thanks again, Anon!

[summerongrand]

Coming next month to AO3 ...

Psyched On U

Lucy Chen is a psychology professor with a secret. Tim Bradford is an Army veteran who enrolls in her class under the GI Bill.

Or: Professor Lucy and Student Tim!

[summerongrand]

A cute veteran said the sweetest thing to me

And if you think I'm tucking his words away for Tim Bradford to use on Lucy Chen in a fanfic, then you're 100% correct.

[summerongrand]

New idea: instead of writing the fic, you come over to my house and I tell you the entire plot while I pace my tiny kitchen. There’s a cup of tea, warm in your hands. The words don’t stop and the affection never leaves your expression.

[summerongrand]

Java, you will always be famous.

THE ROOKIE | 5.01 Double Down

[summerongrand]

It’s Day 2 of my conference. New speaker. Similar question:

How do you feel today?

I feel like I went through a breakup, okay?

[summerongrand]

I was at a conference today and the speaker asked:

What was the last thing that brought you tremendous sadness? Think about it.

And I was like ... what the heck, dude?! I haven't stopped thinking about IT since last Tuesday and now you want me to think about THAT while you're giving a talk?!!!!!!!!!!! 😭😭😭💔

[summerongrand]

So I’m reading this article. And it’s about this psychologist named Chen who does cross cultural comparisons between people from Hong Kong and Chinese-Canadians.

And I thought for no reason at all whatsoever that you guys should know this very specific information. None. Nope. Zero Rookie-related reason. Because I didn’t think about The Rookie or a certain actress at all when I read that. And I doubt you would either.

[summerongrand]

I don’t think people realize that, as much as Easter Eggs have become part of her brand identity, there’s also an inherently organic quality to them that’s as raw as her early works about her life. Her net worth is like 1B so people are gonna see her and pick her apart for being this mega celeb. But the reason she’s so famous is because she’s reproducing her back catalogue. The Stay Beautifuls, Fearlesses, Tim McGraws, Blank Spaces.

No because people don’t seem to understand. The scrambled letters, the Easter eggs, the hidden letters and messages, these are all tradition for us. No it’s not just promo, she’s doing this for us, we’ve been doing this from the beginning of her career.

We started by figuring out hidden messages in songs from her booklets to connecting barcodes all across the globe. I’m so excited, I’m so happy.

[summerongrand]

Wondering if I dodged a bullet or just lost the love of my liiiiiiife 🎶

(Lucy literally went through both 😭)

Did we make it? No, we didn't...💔

[summerongrand]

Okay picture Lucy teaching Tim how to meditate/hold tea ceremonies as part of his therapy and growth in the next season and one day Angela walks into Tim’s backyard looking for him and he’s out there being so peaceful by himself for the first time in a long time and at first he’s a little embarrassed Angela caught him but he’s proud of himself and really actually enjoys it all.

I feel like they could really capitalize on Lucy helping Tim in his healing journey. She has a lot of tools to help him! I could see him coming to her place in the season finale and asking for help. And in the start of the next season she’s just helping him learn how to navigate coping mechanisms and such and they get closer again and get back together and Tim carries these practices with him for the rest of his life.

Like imagine in 50 years, Lucy passes and her and Tim’s kids come to visit with him to make sure he’s okay and he’s sitting outside, under the cherry tree he planted for her years ago, holding a tea ceremony for Lucy by himself……like through all his years he really learned how to center himself with the mediation and tea and he feels close to Lucy when he does it and does it every day after she dies until he dies a year later.

I am really running wild with this cherry tree muse

[summerongrand]

Beautifully symbolic.

Tim plants a cherry tree in the backyard of the home he buys with Lucy; they watch it bloom and the cherry petals fall year after year as their family grows 💖

[summerongrand]

Me thinking back to those adorable AI generated photos of Chenford's daughters 🥰

Tim calls Lucy and his daughters’ baby, Tim is a girl dad.

[summerongrand]

Chenford coded.

going from “hold onto the memories they will hold onto you” to “i wish i could un-recall how we almost had it all” makes me want a lobotomy

[summerongrand]

LET’S FIX CHENFORD!!!! (Slowly and with equal care to both characters)

[summerongrand]

It's 2012. You're listening to All Too Well from Taylor Swift's Red album and thinking what a lyrical masterpiece it is.

It's 2021. The whole world knows All Too Well now and what Jake did to her. Taylor Swift drops 50 remixes of it and a short film. It wins a Grammy. She performs it on SNL.

It's 2024. Ryan Gosling performs a parody of it on SNL.

Our little song that became huge.

ryan gosling just sang a song in his snl monologue in tune of all too well because of his breakup with his ken character IM DYING