#Tim’s just an anarchist

[batfamilycannons]

A daily occurrence

Jason, English nerd, Todd: USE OXFORD COMMAS, CUNT!

Tim, I dropped out of high school I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, Drake: No.

Dick, I speak like 17 languages fluently and still refuse to follow or learn the grammar rules in this one, Grayson: a what?

[alternis]

had some very good thoughts and decided to scrap the zsasz subplot from third eye au and replace the character with an original villain named 'cut-throat', who shiva was hired to kill before a Wrench got thrown in the plans via tim. this allows me a bit more leeway to customise tim's trauma in fun original ways, and also gives a meta-reason why this villain never appeared in real canon (bc he would have gotten ganked by our girl sandy anyway)

[roxineedstosleep]

Could you do a snippet for yandere platonic Batfam where reader accidentally gets hurt and is able to hide it for a few days until someone (May be Dick?) finds it and asks / gets upset about it? Love your writing!!! ♥️♥️♥️♥️

Hi there!!!

First of all: Thank you sweetie!

It's been a while since I've written, mostly because of the university, I'm about to graduate and I'm crazy because I'm approaching my final exams (I even have to defend my research work to be able to get my bachelor's degree)!

But, I got to thinking a bit about what you have written above… and even more so because I myself am a little bit crashed after my last film shoot for my final year of my degree. And can I just say that being in a bad way and having to hide it is terrible.

So… here goes!

(I'm sorry if I sound a bit comical in this writing, but I think the best way to get over something is to laugh at yourself a bit so you don't think about the pain too much; I hope you enjoy it anyway.)

Disclaimer: I don't know if you've noticed, but English is not my native/mother tongue. Occasionally, when I think too much, I write them in my language and then translate it in a trusted translator. So, if there's a grammatical problem or a strange term, it's the translator's fault.

Let's face it… having a large family is terribly exhausting.

It's never quiet enough, everyone is in everyone else's business, you can't leave your favorite mermelade in the fridge for less than a day. Someone is always occupying the bathroom or using your favorite shampoo or watching something on TV at too much volume and someone is probably occupying your bed at nap time.

Did I mention about meddling too much in other people's business? Yes? Well… triple it.

Having multiple siblings was new.

Having multiple siblings, a father and a butler/grandfather isn't exactly bread and butter either.

It wouldn't be so bad to belong to a large and numerous one if it was your blood family and you had lived with them all your life. I mean, sometimes blood is too thick and you have no choice but to learn to love them or just be nice to each other.

Like I said, it wouldn't be so bad if they were really your family.

But the Waynes were not your family. Not distant relatives or anything like that.

You were just living your life, as quietly as possible… and poof!

New room, new butler/grandfather, pets beyond belief, 4 new male siblings and a father with serious emotional constipation issues. And, to add more salt to your wound…. all have serious abandonment issues and death-related trauma.

After several escape attempts, sleep strikes, hunger strikes and any other kind of protest that an anarchist could be proud of… you realized that it was simply impossible to get out of this without risking the path of death.

Which, to top it all off, was also unreliable because apparently your older brother Jason had revived as well as another of your siblings. So no, dying was also not a viable option to which one could resort in the worst case scenario.

What to do?

Well, not much. Trying not to die of suffocation of affection or finding a way to have privacy while going to the bathroom just seemed to be the best survival tools you could resort to.

What does that entail?

It implies that Tim was going to give you hours and hours of lectures on his latest discovery of a case, even if you don't understand half the things he's told you or mentioned at all.

Richard and Damian trying to teach you new tricks almost every second, taking you to the Zoo or not leaving you alone to go to the bathroom.

That Jason, oh holy cow he is the only one more relaxed, takes you with him on his motorcycle to eat ice cream and to the public library. Without being able to scape, because it seems that you have a kind of GPS inserted in the bone marrow.

(Sometimes you don't know if it's true or not, but sometimes you also felt pain between your bones, almost during the cold seasons, and you didn't want to burst your poor little head thinking of different viable possibilities knowing them. No scars, no remembering anythins about any surgery).

Have a grandfather who will not hesitate to make you cookies, your favorite foods whenever you want … without leaving you aside at any time.

Plus a terribly quiet father, who if he can will carry you for as long as you spend time together, won't let you near the secret basement and enjoys being in the same room with you.

Do you see any privacy in this?

No, because even at the bathroom door would be the pets trying to get in and see you for themselves while you want to do your business.

The worst of that? Titus always judge you when you close the curtains.

As I mentioned and it was clear: Having a large family implies little privacy… Having a large, obsessive family means NO privacy.

So, knowing that you have over 50 nanochips tracking in all your clothes, two security monitors embedded - God knows how - in your body (monitors that only tell you if you are in designated safe place), 20 high definition surveillance cameras in every room and a Great Dane chasing you like a chick …. How the heck do you fall down the stairs and hit your pelvic bone without anyone noticing?

No kidding, how?

And if you had to blame someone for your fall… you'd totally blame Damian for it.

It's not that the kid pushed you down the stairs, but over time he had tamed himself into various things and relaxed into looking his age. You know!!! He started acting like a normal teenager!

What do Damian's kids do at his age? Well, they leave things lying around and have messing around them when they can, of course they do!

You just wanted some yogurt with orange marmalade. Maybe some oatmeal cookies. Alfred had left it for you in the fridge when he noticed you'd been watching video tutorials on homemade marmalade for hours. Who were you to deny such a gesture of generosity?

I mean, Alfred was the one who allowed you to hide in the attic for hours on end so you could have some time to yourself.

And how did it end? You, slipping down the main stairs of the old Wayne mansion, down a nicely polished wooden staircase, rolling all the way down (which is no small flight of stairs, it should be noted) to the bottom of the first floor.

Now, lying on the ground is not so bad in itself. What is bad is not being able to feel your legs and still not being able to understand how you manage to tidy up your neural wiring so that your legs can still move on their own and go to the kitchen to rescue all the delicacies Alfred left you in time.

And it's a good thing you managed to do it… because within seconds Bart had rushed in to ransack the fridge and the fruit basket.

But that's not the point.

The important thing is that this time you managed, I insist a little on the feat of action, to climb up to your room and not notice how you couldn't really feel your legs.

You ate, you lay down… and to your bad or good luck, you couldn't get up …. and without anyone noticing there was an emergency and everyone went out to sort it out.

Weak limbs, limited movement and you don't want to mention the embarrassing actions you did in order to go to the toilet.

It's not like you hid it either, I mean, there was no one who could even notice because they weren't entirely available to watch you. Nor is it that you would have run away, otherwise they would have been at your side in less than a second.

The detail, as they insist, is that you had probably bruised your back badly and your body was now taxing you extra for your food craving.

I insist, you did not hide anything.

But still, when you're found completely itchy on the floor, ridiculously trying to run away in the direction of the bathroom… that's when everyone really goes crazy.

First, having to carry you and not dying of embarrassment when you notice that Bruce definitely doesn't give a damn about having to carry you to the bathroom and do almost everything for you.

Or having Dick and Jason carry you and fit you into some kind of weird medical scanner they have in the cave.

Or that Tim keeps track of your periods, types of meds you take and, for fuck's sake, knows how the fuck to inject something into your spine.

Or that Damian had the gall to look a little embarrassed when he heard that a pair of boxers lying outside the laundry basket was to blame for all this.

NO matter.

At the end of the day they heal you, pamper you, leave you alone when you need to take a nap and figure out a way to fix it without looking like complete maniacs who built some kind of internal plumbing that sucks up the dirty laundry and throws it straight into the washing machine.

Like the time they didn't look like maniacs by sanding all the edges of the tables and nightstands.

Or the time they bought a whole brand of sanitary towels when they realised that not all women use tampons.

Don't worry, they're looking out for you… even if they look like deranged Arkhan freaks in the process.

[incorrectbatfam]

I h3ad cannon athat all the batfam members have had/are still in their emo/goth phases.

Example:

Bruce dressed as a bat and punches criminals at night (I also head cannon that he listens to the rolling stones and MCR)

Anyways thoughts?

Also what were the other batfam members emo/goth phases like?

Dick: He was hella neurotic in his late Robin/early Nightwing days. That plus his mullet and guitar tells me he probably tried to live out of a used van he bought for $700 after a fight with Bruce only to come home a week later when someone knocked on his window.

Jason: He's the theater/classic lit goth. When he was younger he would read by the glow of a candelabra even though the lights work perfectly fine. Post-resurrection, he graduates to the biker anarchist who has no problem launching a molotov at a CEO's mansion.

Tim: He's from the 90s. He's sitting in that Y2K grunge-emo-punk gray area where his playlist is a mix of the Clash, Nirvana, and Green Day. He's coloring his hair with Kool-Aid, playing with makeup, ripping his own clothes, and talking about new songs on AOL.

Damian: He's aiming for dark academia, but that's hard to pull off if you know what American schools look like. He annotates the margins of his books with notes he thinks are insightful but are actually just basic observations. Also he listens to Imagine Dragons.

Duke: This kid isn't emo or goth, he is a punk through and through. Sassing the cops? Jumping off a bridge? Leading a ragtag vigilante team? If he wanted to, I bet he can pull off a leather jacket with some homemade spikes while blasting Bad Brains and Death.

Cullen: Canonically, he watches anime and Supernatural, and I've made a lot of Tumblr references with him. He's definitely your quintessential 2010s emo nerd—Black Parade, fandoms, the whole shabang. He also definitely followed Dan and Phil.

Stephanie: She strikes me as the early 2000s pop-punker—think MySpace and Avril Lavigne. She probably had a Not Like Other Girls phase that she quickly grew out of. I can see her cutting posters out of magazines and sneaking her MP3 under an oversized hoodie.

Cassandra: She canonically listens to Killswitch Engage, so I like to imagine what she was like as a baby metalhead. Maybe she thrifted a Pantera shirt and chopped her hair with safety scissors. And at concerts she's absolutely up front when the wall of death happens.

Barbara: I think she dabbled in a little bit of everything without ever outwardly expressing it. Her playlist is all over the board, from softer rock to screamo. She also experimented with makeup a little, like black lipstick, and is more involved in the activism side of things.

Harper: She's definitely industrial punk with a huge emphasis on the DIY aspect of the subculture. She strings soda tabs into chains, turns old screws into boot spikes, and even learned to give herself tattoos. She also absolutely has a drawer full of patch pants.

Carrie: She's a TikTok e-girl, leaning into the pinks and purples along with black and white. She turns fishnet leggings into gloves and has a bunch of animal ear headbands. She also listens to Melanie Martinez and Tame Impala regardless of if they count as alternative.

Kate: Queer people play a huge role in the punk scene and vice versa. I can absolutely see Kate jamming out to an early Pansy Division track or searching places like Bandcamp to support smaller indie artists. Also she has a jacket that says "Nazi punks fuck off."

Alfred: Before punk and its subgenres, Alfred was canonically a delinquent and in that day, delinquency meant gelled-up hair and moving like Elvis. The hair didn't work out for him, but he was able to catch one of the first shows Buddy Holly played in London.

Selina: Alt cultures are based on not having much and working with what you got. Selina would use the five-finger discount at big-box stores and save her money to support small businesses. She also went around listening to free local rock shows on Fridays.

Bruce: He listened to the Rolling Stones before, but his first real intro to the scene was a handmade zine he found on the floor at school. From there, he explored more underground artists and took up journaling as a way to vent his feelings. And then: Batman.

[gretahayes]

Unpopular opinion- timlonnie is literally so funny to me, it's an anarchist who (rightfully) hates rich people falling in love with the biggest nepo baby in this side of galaxy, it's the biggest "i am gonna fuck your mom" @ batman except it is "i am going to be in a committed relationship with your son and he Will commit crimes just to piss you off", Tim (billionaire) listens to Lonnie talking about how billionaires are burden on the society (right and based) and is twirling his hair and kicking his feet and giggling like a school girl, Jack would have hated Lonnie so much he wouldnt even realize his son is bi and that's ok cause Lonnie would have hated him even more. I love it so much there is an artwork where Lonnie is like "i just beat up your dad, wanna go out?" and it is ingrained in my mind permanently

Timlonnie is fucking hilarious to me (hasn't read Tim's solo but has read RR) like why do you as a man...

[rainbowstargazerlilies]

Mechs Ships Tournament: Shipping Round 4 Poll 1

Propaganda:

Polymechs:

They're inseparable they hate each other they would die for each other they actively enjoy killing each other ect ect ect

Look they're immortal and stuck in a spaceship you don't think they've hit all possible combinations over the years and settled into a weird comfortable vibe you can only get if youve murdered, been murdered, and had sex with every one (maybe minus nastya) of your friends?

immortal space pirats.... cuddle piles, romantic... not romanticm... poly mechs <3

(Points to every album) there thats my propaganda. But in all seriousness they are a group of immortals with nothing to do but sing and love each other in their own fucked up ways <3 

Chaotic little guys on a ship for a long time, the relationship web they got going on could rival the coven web

you cant tell me you would live with people for millions of years without it getting even a little gay.

Polygamy

when you spend millennia doing music and violence and shenanigans with the same 8 other people on a ship (and when the ship is technically another person), there's bound to be some group canoodling

i care them

they're everything to each other!!!

i refuse to pick

it’s polymechs!! what isn’t to love

Look at them.

how could you pick individual ships when they are so good together!! with the exception of nastya + jonny cos they are siblings your honour.

a lot of people have polymechs with her and aurora being monogamous but she canonically has queer orgies. on mechs tumblr account she describes herself as "The only one seemingly capable of a committed, responsible and fair relationship" so polymechs with all of relationships besides nastyaurora being on and off and everchanging is both the best polymechs and the most canon compliant polymechs to me

The idea that they're crewmates. You ask one of them what their relationship is with another and they say, "That's my crewmate". And then, maybe one of them meets someone on another ship, and they mention they don't have strong feelings about someone because, "they're only my crewmate" And they just cannot comprehend the idea of being crewmates with someone and not having strong feelings about them. They're immortal and half of them hate life, but even if that wasn't true, they'd die for any of the others a million times over. They've murdered billions of people on a whim, but even if that wasn't true, they'd murder anyone if it made one of their crewmate's lives a bit better. Remember how Tim blew up a moon for Bertie? He had only known Bertie for about 10 years. What would he do for people he had known for about 10 millennia? What would Ashes do for the people who would never betray them? What would Nastya do for the people who would always spend time with her and never die? What would Brian do for the people who would always forgive him for following his beliefs? What would Raphaella do for the people who are always willing to help her with her experiments? What would Ivy do for the people who'd always stay and tell their stories? What would the Toy Soldier do for the people who only ordered it to do what it wants to do and always lets it be involved? What would Jonny do for the people he could never permanently hurt? What would Marius do for his family? They all love each other more than anything, even if they don't have the words for it. (via @mchasmfiend)

Loki/Sigyn:

https://youtu.be/TdKCUmOa5Jw?si=Y3owraM96zp4kdrs and https://youtu.be/nxVjWJJmt9Q?si=76dQ6LBg00eldlUY

anti ship lesbians/sappics

Transgender lesbian anarchists.

spsaphics

Round-up for the round here :)

[leafcutteroverlord]

Tim wears a R on his costume as Robin, Kon wears a S on his Superboy costume because it’s the crest of the House of El, and Lonnie wears the big anarchist A on his classic Anarky costume.

They just need to find a superhero with a big M for the most unholy team-up ever.

[occultist-romantic]

all women are welcomed into my account <3 radfems, misandrists, gender criticals, marxists, anarchists, abolitionists, witches... and my sweet girlfriend <3

dni: if you get butthurt easily, m*n, libfems, misogynists, homophobes, tras, tims, maps, porn blogs, pro-ana blogs, capitalists, racists, paraphiles, proshippers, all that strange shit. seek help.

i don't like m*n, i don't want m*n interacting with my account. i will be mean to you.

don't come here to tell me about m*n's feelings, i don't give a shit if you're sad, i hope you feel worse

kids shouldnt go through hormone therapy and face horrible medical consequences

don't come to me to discuss gods' genders. if you were normal, you would have just worshiped and worked with them without obsessively questioning. divine beings' genders don't matter.

[esfordays]

I want Dick to kill a politician

Just say fuck it, and kill whoever the president during that era of canon is

Even if it’s Lex, just fuck it. Dude has had enough

People start to use Nightwing as a Punk / Anarchist icon, and he’s too tired to give a shit

Jason studded his costume and he hasn’t changed it

There is now a wall of patches on his back, courtesy of Tim and co. that Dick keeps saying he’ll take off, but hasn’t yet

After a few months, he gives up and embraces it, spiked dog collar and all

Starts using a chain as well as his sticks, and wears some sweet boots

The boots have coloured beads all over them

This is how they all found out Dick was gay or whatever

[thewingedwolf]

a lot of my free time is spent listening to a podcast run and researched by a professor of genocide studies who went into those studies specifically bc in an attempt to escape the violence of his angry, alcoholic father he signed up to go off to war in afghanistan only to realize that the whole war and war in general is a) stupid & boring and b) a series of horrific war crimes that had made the civilian population deeply suspicious of him even tho His Morals Were In The Right Place (tm). when he got home and threw himself into being anti violence, joining anarchist orgs & studying theory & trying to understand why he was sent to the other side of the world to be traumatized for no good reason while traumatizing the local population with his very presence, his shithead father died & he found out that his father was Like That bc their family was chased out of armenia because of genocide and it kicked off a cycle of violence & anger in the men of his family. he absolutely lost his shit, got his degree in genocide studies, and moved to armenia (do not ask me how he convinced his wife to do this with him. he’s really open about every other aspect of his life except his wife and kids which is imo very valid).

all that to say, he has this interesting perspective of war in that he has this cultural trauma of being the victim of a horrific crime while also himself being the perpetrator of imperialism & serving in an area that had recently been the site of several horrific war crimes (really similar to tim o’brien, who served in my lai several months after the massacre but didn’t know the massacre had happened & pieced together what happened from the horrified whispers of the civilians & brags from soldiers). it makes him both hyper critical of soldiers who do terrible things & empathetic to soldiers who are forced from home to do terrible things & angry on behalf of civilians who are victims of war crimes. i have ragged on him for being Very Midwestern about certain things but his research is interesting & sad & well done, & it’s really made me think about my own place in The Greater World & every time the internet loses its mind over some aspect of history i am violently reminded that most people just look at history and go “but MY SIDE was justified actually” when that’s such a BABY IDEA OF HOW HISTORY AND WAR WORKS.

[starseneyes]

Chenford REWIND- Lucy Chen / Tim Bradford - The Rookie - Season 4 Ep 21 & 22

Here's another pair of episodes that have been requested together a few times, now, so I'd love to answer the call!

SPOILER ALERT: If you hate spoilers, you'll hate this. Run away. Turn around. Scroll on by. If you do choose to enter in, I'm going to write this as though I were seeing the episodes for the first time, but I will be spoiling both these episodes and reference episodes leading up to it.

If you're ready to read, I'm ready to share. Let's dive in!

Mother's Day

"Mm, yeah, that's a hard pass. Look, I'm boycotting Mother's Day, but even if I wasn't, I really don't think this is the right time to meet your parents."

Lucy Chen putting up her walls and keeping the men she dates at arms' length is completely on-brand. We haven't even heard her call a guy she was seeing "boyfriend" to date on this show.

And with everything going on with her mother and her utter lack of support for her daughter, I don't blame her for not making a big deal out of Mother's Day.

Also, Chris, honey. It will never be the right time for Lucy to meet your parents because y'all ain't gonna last. Lucy is meant to be with Tim. You saw it, once, at the world's worst double date, but you've chosen to ignore it. So, you're a moron.

"I figured you'd say that. But they've been hounding me about meeting you for weeks."

Run, Lucy. Run. Because his parents sound as clingy as he is, and you do not need that drama in your life.

Your instinct is right not to want to meet his parents... maybe you don't need to continue knowing Chris, either. Just sayin'.

"Are you really freezing your mom out?" "I mean, I bought her flowers. I'm not an anarchist." "I'm thinking we just lock in the Hyatt. They have a lazy river, what else do you need?"

Oh, look. Tim and his Blonde Bitch and Lucy and her Dead Weight Puffin have run into each other in the station.

Last time the four of them were together, it looked like Chris and Ashley were mighty jealous of Tim and Lucy's connection. I mean, if I were sitting at a semi-romantic dinner next to the love of my life, I'd be distracted, too!

"You think I'd be sick of beaches, at this point, but it's gonna be awesome."

Watch how Lucy looks at her man (and I don't have to clarify which man in the scene, because y'all know how this goes).

She's looking at Tim like he's got a second head. Because there's no way this man is going to be happy going to the beach. He doesn't. like. SAND!!

"I gotta get to work." "Me, too. I'll walk out with you."

Good. You two can take a long walk together, realize you're perfect for one another, and leave Tim and Lucy the hell alone. Everybody wins! (especially us)

"Call me if you change your mind." "I'm not going to."

Love how he touches Lucy and she physically pushes him away. Like, back off, dude. When Lucy's mind is made up, it's made up.

"Change your mind about what?" "He wants me to meet his parents. So, uh, whose idea was Hawaii?" "Mine, I guess, why?" "

Nyla's arrival interrupts the thoughts, but we all know why. Tim Bradford is Tim Bradford-ing, again, and giving too much in a relationship. He hates sand! And he's suggesting they vacation... on an island.

But there's something else needling at her about this vacation...

"Are you proposing to Ashley?"

Look. At. Her. Face. Her face right before she asks. She's building up the courage to ask him this, because big Hawaii vacation is more than he ever did with Rachel, and it screams romance, right?

"What!?"

Cackling laughing at this. This is the furthest thing from his mind, right now. Yes, he's dating this... person... and they're doing dating people things. But, he's not even thinking about marrying her.

"Of course not. We've only been dating a few months."

This suggests that Tim Bradford likes to take things slow, and isn't in a rush when dating someone. But, the "of course not" shows that he thinks it should be obvious to Lucy.

"You might not be aware of some of the signals that you're sending." "What kind of signals?" "The kind that makes her get a manicure because she's assuming she'll be sending pictures of her hand to all her friends."

Tim looks terrified. Look, we all know Ashley is a placeholder girlfriend until Tim and Lucy get their act together. But he doesn't know that.

Tim is visibly shaken. His hand is unsteady on the wheel, he's looking back at Lucy repeatedly while stumbling through answering the call. Because he really never contemplating marrying this woman. Something in him knows she isn't the one.

*hint* The gorgeous, badass gal beside you with the sunshine-y personality and compassionate heart is right there. Might wanna ask her something sometime, eh?

"My abuela taught me the perfect curse to put on him."

I have to put this line in here for context. Yes, Angela is talking about Nyla's ex. But we now know that if you need a curse, Angela's your gal.

"When did hotels get this expensive?" "Oh, that's pretty good." "Seriously?" "Yeah, I mean, it's a nice hotel."

First off, Lucy is doing all the planning for any trips they take once they get their act together. Second, this kinda hurts. It drives home how long it's been since Tim's taken a romantic vacation.

We know that Tim remained faithful to Isabelle while she was missing. We know that they were together for a long time. But when did they stop going on vacation together? How long has it been?

Tim, you deserve to go on more romantic vacations... but not with Baywatch Reject, okay?

"Oh, you're going to Hawaii. Congratulations on your engagement." "Ah, told you." "I'm not getting engaged!" "Does your girlfriend know that?" "Yes. It's not an issue."

Annnnddd... another voice echoing the romantic vibe of Hawaii that lends to the expectation of engagement. I was rolling!

"Looks like you won't be the only one getting married." "What?" "Nothing. Ignore her."

I love the look that Angela and Lucy exchange, here. Much as there have to be bets rolling around about Chenford, I'm sure there are other bets, gossip, and secrets in that station.

Angela knows Tim better than most, but even she knows that Lucy could be onto something she's not. When this all started, Tim and Lucy had to hear about each other through the rest of the Station.

Now, they've got one another on speed dial and are the first to know what's going on with the other. So... maybe Tim is proposing.

"Ashley can't possibly think I'm proposing." "Why not? I mean, you're of a certain age-"

Tim's face on that had me rolling. We can estimate he's about 10-12 years older than Lucy. And that reaction was priceless.

"She is in her prime. I mean, on paper, it's, it's like a no-brainer. Okay, be honest. Can you see yourself married to her?"

He can't. We can see in his face right there that he really can't. And as the wheels are turning, something pops into his mind that sets him on edge. He glances over at Lucy and he nearly gulps.

Now, I can't tell you what he saw. I'm a Meta writer, not the show Writer or the actor. I can postulate all I like, but I don't know the answer here. But my guess? If he thinks of the future and being married again... he sees Lucy.

Because the person for him isn't the person he's dating. I truly believe he started this relationship with Ashley as a way to distance himself from his growing feelings for Lucy. He's burying them deep down, the same way he did his trauma with his father. And like his father, it's going to take an external force to bring it all to a head.

Lucy is trying to get Tim to talk this out, the way that she talks things out. But we can feel the edge to everything, here. She's not yet fully aware of what she feels, but it's there.

It's dripping in her hesitancy at first asking him if he's proposing, in her nervousness at his response to this question. Because if he's that serious about Ashley, there will never be room for them.

And as Lucy waits for her answer, Tim realizes he can't say the truth. So, he lies.

"Yeah. I can."

The cameras purposefully focus on Lucy, here. On her disappointment. On her sadness. Because, she's not ready to admit it, but she's falling for Tim.

Yes, she is with Chris for the same reason Tim is with Ashley. They both think the other isn’t an option (though for different reasons, at this point). They're both deflecting because they can't get hung up on something that'll never happen.

It's admirable, in a way. They're trying to be happy for the other person while hoping they'll pretend themselves into believing they're happy, too.

"I'm not expecting a proposal. I would say no if you asked."

Proving that everyone got into Tim's head, he addresses the issue with Ashley directly. But I don't think he expected this. Tim isn't ready to face his feelings for Lucy, but having this door shut is unexpected.

"I have no interest in every being married or having kids. I'm just not wired that way."

First of all, there is nothing wrong with being this way. Nothing at all. Some of my closest friends never wanted to be married or have kids, and as we near 40, they've stuck to that and are quite happy.

But there is something wrong with Tim being with someone like that. Because he wants the wife and kids.

Tim didn't have the stability of a safe and loving home, and he wants so badly to break the cycle and pass on a different legacy to his own kids.

Tim spots Lucy watching from the window, and he decides to turn the situation on his head. He's been stressed the eff out all day worrying about this. Now that he knows Ashley has zero interest in marriage, he has to have some fun.

Lucy's Heart Breaks

I don't think she knows until this moment just how deep it is, how she feels about Tim. She's known for a while that something was there—something that could never be.

But watching through the glass as he gets engaged to someone else... it hits so hard she can't ignore it. She can't pretend it away. She can't bounce back.

I've seen people say this is the moment for her—the moment she realizes she's falling for Tim. I go back and forth on it. Because she's known for a long time that she has a thing for Tim.

We saw back in 4x01 that she was totally ready to sleep with him. And while Lucy's confident in her sexuality, she doesn't sleep with just anyone. We know she doesn't do one night stands. She has her standards and sticks to them.

Even earlier in this episode, she can't be completely oblivious to how she feels when he says he can see himself marrying Ashley. No, I'd argue that Lucy has known since 4x01 that there was something there.

Is this a point of no return for her in terms of pretending? Yeah, I can go with that. Because in this moment, she can't shake it loose, and she can't move on. Tim is engaged and she's heartbroken, and they were never even really a thing, right?

So, is this the moment she realizes she has feelings for him? No. I think 4x01 sealed that up because she knew she was willing to sleep with him that night. But, is this the point of no return in terms of pretending not to have said feelings? Yeah, I can roll with that.

Chris approaches, and she keeps looking back at the parking lot, because that's where her mind is stuck.

"It's a good thing you didn't come because my mom, she drove me crazy."

Lucy offers a half-laugh. But she's visibly upset. She's so distracted that even Chris, Mr-Hums-THE-Song-And-Can't-Read-A-Room picks up on it.

"What's wrong?" "Nothing. I-"

Her phone goes off to the "GOT YOU!" message and now she's pissed. Because she's now had to deal with a slew of emotions striking her all at once, only to find out it was a joke.

"Could you just wait here. I need to go find Lopez and figure out how to put a curse on someone." "Yeah, right. Oh, you're serious."

"Serious as a heart attack", as they say. Tim screwed with her emotions, and she's pissed.

Day in the Hole

AKA "Finding Your New Favorite Flavor"

"Come on. We gotta get to work." "She'll be here." "Seriously, we gotta go." "She'll be here."

Mom and Dad waiting for their daughter to show up. Come on, you see it, too! Tim's back from his vacation with the Land of Sand, and we've thankfully left Lucy's jump-scare behind us.

Hopefully the curse doesn't work too well because Lucy might want things to not fall off in the future, if you know what I mean.

Lucy is applauding like a proud mother as Tamara nearly kills a couple people. Tim's glaring like a slightly-annoyed father. I love this family.

"My car was your first car." "I mean, if we're including cars I've stolen, this is probably like my fifth." "What?" "Joke!"

Yeah, you can't joke like that around your step-dad. Tim's a bit of a hard-ass, if you hadn't noticed.

"You are gonna take it to the mechanic though, right? You never know what these cars have been through." "Yeah, Tim set me up with his guy." "What, you did?" "Yeah." "Oh, you have a heart after all."

Mom and Dad... you're flirting in front of the kid. Like, Tamara's not the kind to go "ew", but, still. You might want to chill out considering you're still dating other people.

"Relax, ok? It was purely self-interest. You would be a total drag to ride with if she died in a fireball of mangled metal on the 405."

Did you hear how Lucy gave him that motherly "tsk" in the middle of this!? I've heard it a few times since in Season 5, but this is the first time I can remember it really standing out to me in previous seasons.

"Joke!"

Not your best first attempt at a dad joke, Timothy, but since it's you, we'll let it stand.

"Previous owner of your car is Jake Butler."

Can I say I love how Tamara kept picking things up off the desk (like a kid) and Lucy played the mother role by wordlessly taking each thing away all while continuing her work? Lucy is such a natural mom!

"Let's take a look at his mugshot... But." "What? What the what?!"

This next shot is GENIUS. I have no idea who came up with this (writer/director, etc), but it's genius. We go from the two shot of them looking at the monitor to a shot of Tim approaching.

He sees something that stops him in his tracks... and then we get to see it, too.

Half the station's gathered around Lucy's monitor. And each actor is giving an amazing performance, here. I've paused and played a million times to appreciate each one. Do it. You won't be sorry.

"What's going on?"

Cue everyone looking at Tim. Except Lucy. She's about a beat behind everyone else, which draws my eye to her, every time. And the music bumps up to give us an auditory transition.

"It's even more uncanny in real life."

Through a combination of swift transitions, body doubles, and Eric Winter being in two different positions, we get the treat of meeting... Jake Butler. Tim's doppleganger.

Come on, how much fun must this have been for Eric Winter to get to play this kind of character after playing Tim for so long? And my husband especially appreciated Jake's pot belly.

Yes, while he hasn't seen this show, Matthew is fairly well-versed in Chenford and my appreciation for Melissa O'Neil and Eric Winter as performers.

We get a bit of split screen at the end (throwing me back to my Parent Trap obsession as a kid... yes the one with Haley Mills. I'm old). And I'm frankly excited at all the different techniques in use for this episode when one actor has to be two characters simultaneously.

"He really doesn't look that much like me." "The hell he doesn't." "Not the brightest bulb, though." "Oh. Oh my god. It's Tim and Dim."

The ladies get a chuckle out of that, but Tim's nonplussed.

"Yo. This is blowing my mind. It's like we're looking in a fun-house mirror of handsome." "Sit down Dim... Jake."

I died laughing the first time I saw this. Lucy really got into his head on that one. But, knowing how easily Lucy can get into his head these days, it's no surprise.

"Have we met before?" "No. That I'd remember." "Oh, you would."

Even Tim's doppleganger is flirting with his girl! Yes, I've seen the episode and know that Dim should know why Lucy looks familiar. But it's funnier this way and just plays into what a dumbass Dim is.

"You just wanna see me pretend to be Dim." "Duh." "Fine. I'll do it." "Yes! Okay, okay."

Lucy is so excited she puts both hands on Tim to stop him in his tracks as he's walking.

"So, uh, we gotta dirty you up. And then we have to slick back your hair, because, you know, that guy was, like, kinda greasy." "You are enjoying this way too much." "Oh, and tattoos! We gotta get tattoos."

Lucy, Tim Bradford isn't your Ken doll. As much as we all know you'd like to practice dressing (okay... undressing) him.

"Rescue 1 status?" "Rescue 1. We're ready in 60 seconds."

How much do I love that Lucy is heading the team to protect her man? There's no way she's going to let anyone hurt Tim, but it also gives us the chance to see some worried Lucy.

Tim's been worried about Lucy going undercover so many times, but we've not really seen her worried before. The hit man UC before was fairly safe. He wasn't in any real danger.

This is different. This is a criminal on his turf with a long drop and plenty of armed guns standing by. Lucy's worried for her man.

"Get ready to breach." "If anyone lays a hand on our UC, you put them down."

Let's be real. Lucy and Angela are two of the most important people in Tim's life at work and outside of it. And here they are getting to be his guardian angels—his wife and his best friend. I love it.

"So, I had Dim's girlfriend picked up." "Okay. Why are you being weird?" "It's easier to show you."

We need Sava to know who is going to go undercover with Tim, right? As if things weren't weird enough with Tim's doppleganger, now we've got Lucy's.

Tim is inside and already waiting for her reaction. Now he gets some payback for how much she was ragging on him and his doppleganger. Tim's smiling like an idiot.

"Guess we know who's going undercover with Dim." "Yeah, Juicy." "No." "That's Juicy." "I don't like that."

Our babies get to go undercover as a couple! They spend so much bloody time trying to run from how they feel, and now they've gotta cozy up to one another and play boyfriend/girlfriend? Sign me up! I'm so ready to see this.

We know both of them are capable in the field, though Lucy's a little more natural on the fly. But getting to see them together's gonna be fire, right?

"If we're gonna make this work, our backstory's gotta be airtight."

Oh, Lucy, honey. I didn't mean actual fire. You've lit enough candles to send a beacon to all of LA more powerful than the Bat Signal.

Lucy brings Tim a beer. And while they've shared drinks before and he's been in her apartment before, I find this particular combination so very domestic. They're brainstorming on the couch instead of at the counter, and I think all of this ambiance shows how relaxed they are around one another.

But also that Lucy's a tiny bit horny. Look, we know she's in a committed relationship with Curried Goat Boy, but subconsciously Lucy has lit a hundred candles because she wants Tim Bradford.

Now, Lucy's not a cheating person. We know this (and I go into more depth in 5x01 Meta and beyond). But, some part of her is subconsciously excited to have Tim in her home and wants the ambiance to be just right.

"Agreed. So, um, how did Dim and Juicy meet." "At a barbecue." "That's lame."

Also, are there barbecues out in LA? Like, real barbecues where you smoke meat for hours at a time? Or is Tim talking about a cook out? They really are two different things... I'm from the South, so we're kinda weird about that.

Plus, when Tim first said it, I said, "Lame." So, I take a small bit of pride in being on the same page with Lucy on this one!

"Really? You think you can do better." "Watch me! Okay, so, um, you were on the run from the cops. A bank robbery gone wrong. You ended up in my building, frantic, looking for a place to hide. And I opened the door for you. I lied to the cops for you. And, ooh, and it got me so hot that we hooked up while they were still searching the building."

Tim's mouth has fallen so far open that we're halfway to his O face.

He's imagining every bit of that. Because, after all, he remembers better when he listens, right? And Lucy just took him through one heck of a journey that will be burned into his brain for a long time.

He's imagining every bit of it... especially that last part.

It takes a second for him to recover.

"Okay. That's, that's, that's pretty good, actually." "Thank you." "Mmhmm." *giggle*

His brain's moving, now, and he's overthinking. Because, what bad guy will ever say, "Kiss your girlfriend or I'll pop a cap in your ass!"?

Also, I love Lucy's giggle. There's an episode in Season 5 where I discuss it extensively, but I love how it makes an appearance, here, considering where this scene is headed.

"So, look, we, we should, we should probably, you know, talk about the elephant in the room." "Hmm?" "You know, if we're gonna sell that we are, you know, actually boyfriend and girlfriend, then we might have to, uh, you know?"

And Lucy does know. But she's having a lot of fun fucking around with Tim. Come on, the girl is so repressed in her feelings for him that she's never gotten to really poke at him this way. And she is loving it.

"Have to, have to what?" "We might have to, to." "Okay, okay. We might have to PDA?" "You know what, forget it." "No, no! Okay, you're right."

Lucy nearly touches Tim's hand before he moves it. They're still very careful about being physical with one another, partly because of the boundaries of their job, but also the personal boundaries they've set with one another.

Remember what I said in 4x01 about proximity making it harder to deny what they feel. They're sitting as far away from each other on the couch as they can, as it is.

"Yeah, you're right. I mean, if we're gonna, if we're gonna have to kiss it probably shouldn't be for the first time." "That's what I'm saying." "Right, yeah."

Because the baddies need to see you kissing, right? Like, isn't that what everyone does when they're engaged in criminal activity? Stop to make out?

Maybe James Bond does, sure, but actual baddies?

Whatever. I wanna see them kiss as much as the rest of you. So, let's see if they can get through the initial awkwardness to get the job done.

"Should we maybe, uh, should we stand?"

It cracks me up that this is so awkward for them. Just a few months earlier (show time) these two were considering the horizontal mambo in his bed, and now they can't even figure out how to get through one kiss.

When Tim makes the kissy face and she runs away, it cracks me up so much. I mean, nobody really kisses like that, first of all, and I'd probably die laughing, too.

Fishy face Tim is not his best look.

"We're professionals. Let's just get this done with." "Woah. Well that's romantic." "I'm not trying to be romantic." "Well, you're succeeding."

Tim and Lucy. Never change. Y'all are making me die laughing when normally I can't stand awkward scenes. But Tim and Lucy can be this frank with one another because neither thinks the other is an option.

Truly, that's what gives them all this freedom. They think the other person has zero interest. They each think it's all in their head. So, they can treat this little moment as something totally bizarre that they have to do for work.

Tim gives Lucy the most chaste-wouldn't-offend-my-Spanish-Catholic-grandmother kiss in the world. And he looks so damn proud of that tiny peck, too!

Lucy echoes all of our thoughts.

"I'm sorry. Is that it?" "You know what, if you're gonna criticize-"

Tired of talking, Lucy pulls him in with both her hands on his face. Their lips meet, and as soon as they do, Tim's hands instinctively go to her arms.

The kiss deepens as the camera shift around them, both of them leaning into one another as Lucy's right hand falls from Tim's face.

Their lips part briefly, the hint of a smile on Tim's lips as his hand settles on her shoulder. Lucy's left hand falls from his face.

This pause could have been the end of it. The second their lips parted, they had done the assignment. Case closed. Kiss achieved. Move on to the next thing.

But Tim and Lucy don't want to stop. Now that they're finally here, both of them want to keep going. Tim has her in his arms. She has her hands on his chest.

In this moment, they've forgotten the assignment. They've forgotten Chris and Ashley. This is the definition of "getting lost in the moment". Tim and Lucy are the moment.

Tim is a touching-foreheads kisser and a top-lip-lover. He goes for hers just as the door behind them opens.

You've. Been. Caught.

Lucy distances herself from Tim by pushing off of him with her hands. His left hand drops from her am as he literally runs to the wall to put distance between them.

"I should probably go."

I love Tamara. Like, she's not judging them in this moment, and she has absolutely no idea what is happening. But, she has to know that there's something between them just waiting to be unlocked.

"No. This is work. This is work."

Lucy spat it out the first time, but she says it again because, well, it's true. And she needs a way to explain this away. Not just to Tamara, but to herself.

"Yeah, yeah, we're, we're going undercover." "Hey, it's cool. I mean, you don't have to explain yourself. I should probably go." "No!" "No, I, I was just about to leave. You know what? No, I don't have anything."

Cackling. Dying. ROLLING the first time I heard that. Tim Bradford is so flustered he can't even remember if he brought anything in with him. And what would he be looking for, exactly? A file? Paperwork?

"I'll see you tomorrow." "Good work tonight. Ay."

Lucy. Chen. Did you really just say that? Even she can't believe she said that. But Tim is too flustered to call her out on it.

"Great work, as well. Bye."

Tim high-tails it out of there so fast. And Lucy lets him go. But why?

Because they both know what just happened wasn't some fluke. They both wanted it. They both felt it. And neither knows what would have happened if they hadn't been interrupted, but both knows that because they were... it's awkward.

Like, they could barely talk about having to kiss. How are they going to talk about the fact that it felt... real?

"I'm gonna go to my room." "Yeah, me, too."

Lucy can't talk about this. Tamara just walked in on her kissing a man who isn't the man she's dating. Not just thin-lipped kissing. We're talking mouths open, bodies touching, hunger growing kind of kissing. And it was with her boss.

And who is outside reeling? Tim Bradford. I love that the writers/director gave us this space to see how Tim feels. Because it would be so easy to dismiss this as a one-sided thing where the subordinate falls for her boss.

But Tim Bradford's been on his way down for a long time. He's been able to push it down, repeatedly. Even last episode when picturing his wife, he had to push Lucy down. I firmly believe it.

But tonight he kissed Lucy Chen. And she kissed back.

I used to think this was his moment of realization, but the more I've rewatched the episodes, I still think 4x01 was a huge revelatory moment for both of them that they've been pushing down and ignoring ever since. They never discussed it and they're both running from it.

This is the episode that makes it so much harder for Tim to run. He's been completely convinced his feelings were one-sided. But this is a hint to him that, maybe, he's wrong. Maybe, just maybe, she feels it, too.

Because she wasn't kissing him like a platonic coworker. She was breathing into him as much as he was breathing into her.

She didn't want to stop anymore than he did, and when Tamara walked in, they were both flustered. She felt it, too.

Yes, Tim's reeling from how he feels because he was smacked in the face with feels tonight. But he's also reeling from the fact that freaking Lucy Chen kissed him back.

"Hey." "Hey."

He was waiting for her. He's been thinking about this since last night, as has she. And he wants to talk to her before they head in.

"Listen, about-" "We should probably-" "Go ahead." "No, you go first." "You sure?" "Mmhmm." "Uh, okay. I just wanted to say..."

His eyes are so soft, here. Look at him. He's more of a show guy, but he's trying to find his words. And Lucy Chen's looking at him so expectantly.

And he chickens out.

"We need more work on our backstory. Give it more depth. Key moments. You know?" "Yeah, we, uh, we could take the morning, you know, while we're waiting for Hajick to call." "Great." "Great."

Look, obviously it's the Season 4 finale and they needed to drag this out more. But there are also a host of obstacles between Tim and Lucy, and he's not entirely sure of how he feels.

Having the night to think has also lead to time for him to doubt. He's doubting his own memories. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe the adrenaline. Maybe it meant something to him and nothing to her.

So, he chickens out. But Lucy doesn't know that. All she knows is that Tim wanted to talk to her, but it wasn't what she'd hoped to hear... so she shoves her feeling back down.

They're both in a point of mad denial. But, I think this episode was a turning point for them because it marks the end of them being able to pretend with themselves.

Yes, they'll still pretend with one another because they care so much about each other that they want the other to be happy, no matter what.

But, within their hearts both Tim and Lucy know there's something there that cannot be ignored any longer. Tim longs for Lucy. Lucy yearns for Tim. And until they start actually talking about all this, that's where they'll stay.

As always, thank you for reading! Please keep the requests coming! It rained all day, the kids had a rainy-weather fun day indoors, Matt has a cold, and I'm still nursing the back thing. So, writing this was a great distraction.

I really appreciate y'all reading and going on this journey with me. Next one'll likely be for Tuesday night's fresh airing of 5x13. But I'll try to get to more requests on the flipside! Stay safe out there.

[redjaybathood]

I'm sorry, I am still in the bomb shelter so I need to take my mind off the things like sounds of explosions and how my stomach is hurting right now from stress+constant coffee bc I've been pulling doubles and weekends on 3 hours of sleep basically the whole week+I literally have no food money left so I'm eating like, once a day and it's the cheapest crop there is. So yeah, my stomach is fucked up again.

Anyhow! Need to take my mind off things, and been browsing Tumblr insomuch as weak connection allows me. So happened upon a post that was about fixing Jason in comics. And the thing is, it's not about this particular post, I've seen a lot of them. By fixing things, people propose different things. Leave Gotham, have some of his own friends so not to steal from Dick of Tim, being community minded, etc etc. And most of the things listed are already in the canon.

Jason got his own friends back in 2016 with Artemis and Biz. Of course, Wonderfam/Artemis fans weren't happy about it either. And nobody would. You can literally not allow any established hero or villain or any character at all, to become Jason's friend, because it's stealing. You just need an OC. But fandom doesn't like OC that much either, seeing how when he got some more friends in 2020ish with Dana Harlowe (with a few unfortunate mentions in between, like Max Dawkins, fridged, and Numbers, rewamping Jason's story in Ma Gunn's school, never to be seen again), people were harping that it's rewriting Jason's history again, because he didn't have any childhood friends, otherwise he wouldn't be so alone and died. Now some people say that Martinborough doesn't respect Jason as a character and makes his OC the star of the show. So this doesn't work either.

Leave Gotham. He left Gotham plenty in 2016 run, and I'm not scandalsavage to be up to date on sales figures so I don't know how it did, financially speaking. İ would bet not that good tho. İ didn't enjoy the Year of the Villain event and Jason's group of kids/teen villains, and I don't see anyone enjoying them or even bringing them up in meta or hc or fic much. Yeah, I would bet it didn't do all that good. So. They probably wouldn't do that anymore.

And there's people who, the opposite. They want Jason back to street level, as if he ever was. Okay, so Red Hood: The Hill.

And there's people who say, Jason should help community in other, cool, hip, anarchist ways of growing community gardens or whatever. Do charity like multi gazillioner Bruce Wayne does. And wadda you know, Jason also did charity in canon! Again, Rebirth. İceberg Lounge arc.

The problem is consistency. The problem is making it matter for more than the issue it appears in.

İm sincerely holding up hopes for Martinborough's run. İt's a mini series, as far as I remember, and they're supposed to be easier in that - if you don't count, like, Rosenberg's Man Who Stopped Laughing being fucked by Zdarsky's Gotham War (fucking distasteful ; could have come up with a better name: Lover's Spat; or, Consequences of Not Getting Enough Sleep. Which honestly, I can relate, Bruce. Can relate.)

But from what I ve seen from the first issue, it's not exactly... There's too much going on and I don't know where he's going with it tbh.

[cock-holliday]

Calling antiziomism antisemitism has helped nobody even before October 7th bc they always used to cry that at the people who were aware of what they were doing to the Palestinians. Bc of the circles I was in that did talk about Palestine that sentiment would pop up a lot to defend israel, and then when I wandered to other parts of the net I'd come across "this is antisemitic!" About actually anti-Semitic tropes and stuff and my first reaction would be to roll my eyes before being like wait, no and then reading it better

It’s soooo endlessly frustrating. I’ve bitched a few times on here before over the past few years about how people would condemn a leftist space for being antisemitic and I, someone who has worked in combatting extremism for 10 years would go oh shit what happened? And then it went into three paths always

1. This “leftist” group was Tim Pool types or boog boys or shit like Black Hammer or queer-friendly libertarians who are just so supremely bigoted that any leftists with a hint of self-respect did not associate with them so it wasn’t really some new insidious type of antisemitism

2. Someone in the leftist group had shared some entry-level antisemitism without realizing and with civil conversation realized their error and apologized. There is a spectrum of genuine ignorance to willful ignorance to mask-off bigotry.

3. It was anti-zionism.

Scenario 3 was particularly thrown around in groups that were centered on or advocated for indigenous sovereignty. It struck me as bizarre that supposed leftists, communists, and anarchists who participated in (apparently ironic) calls for the end of The US then decried anti-Israel stances as antisemitic.

When I was in undergrad, a professor I admired took a firm stance in support of Palestine and for something like 5 years since, another professor had tried to get him fired for antisemitism. Among his evil actions were saying the words “free Palestine” and hanging a Palestine flag in his office. How scary.

I went to law school in a city that had a lot of anti-Palestine focus. Professors were threatened with firing. Students were threatened with expulsion. Speakers were canceled. Art exhibits were pulled. It had been rampant for a while. My city, and law school in particular, also had a blooming nazi problem since 2015.

When nazis threatened students, myself included, threatened community members, and organized events marching with swastikas and wolfsangels and sonnenrads, those of us who raised alarms and met with administrators were dismissed. When we went to journalists, and attorney mentors, and to social media, we were punished. While trying to screen a documentary about a nazi classmate, my org was literally locked out of the building we were going to screen in, and forced to cancel our event. The documentary was free, so in our public announcement canceling the event we linked the doc for people to watch on their own.

Students have been threatened, blackmailed, and pressured to stop speaking about nazis, and then the same administrations put out statements about condemning antisemitism when I/P conversations spiked again.

The two-faced audacity is appalling! Deans who insisted calling someone a nazi was akin to calling someone the N word are going to tell ME how they are committed to Jewish safety? Fuck yourselves.

When Palestinian and Arab students felt the heat of admin censoring, a number at my uni released a letter of support for Palestine. My org, a number of us also members of Jewish orgs on campus and around the city, had to decide what to say. We had been attending pro-Palestine rallies for years and speaking up about the conflict, but signing onto this letter would make our statement unanimous. We decided to write our own letter of support, not just standing with, but doubling down on what had been shared.

The relief from Palestinian students was touching and devastating. A colleague cried thanking us for standing with them. She had felt so alone.

The backlash was…also intense. We linked BDS and JVP in our letter of orgs to look into about the conflict, and recommended resources from Decolonize Palestine. We were told DP was biased and unreliable, and that BDS and JVP were terrorists. Terrorists. I said I was a member of JVP. I was disinvited from a Jewish law group I was a member of.

A number of years back I shared a documentary on pinkwashing in Israel in our LGBT org, particularly since a number of board members were big advocates of going on Israeli cruises. It was met with hostility and questions about why I was so “self-hating.” Ironically, if they had watched the documentary, most of the conversation is about anti-zionist Jews being asked that same question.

We’ve been going around and around on this same bullshit for forever. IVE been deep in it for about 5 years. I cannot imagine the toll of anti-zionists who have been in it for longer.

People were shocked to learn I was anti-zionist because I have dedicated so much time of my adult life to combatting nazis and white supremacists and I had to keep sitting people down to say, the fact you think that is contradictory is the problem! You are making my job so much harder! You are whining that your leftist environmental working group who focuses on indigenous liberation asked you if you were zionist when your firm zionist stance makes you directly opposed to the goals of the group!!

Lotta folks on this website with good takes on queer liberation and trans liberation have been letting slip their zionist tendencies for a while, and I guess that’s on me for thinking it wasn’t so deeply entrenched in their belief system, but I’ve been really disappointed with a bunch of people I had respect for lately, as the full breadth of their blindspots or vile stances have come out.

There has been a lot of conversation about the Magen David becoming a hate symbol and it’s exhausting to interact with people who react defensively to the suggestion. Does it mean everyone should stop using it? Of course not. Does it mean you should perhaps have sensitivity to someone who flinches upon seeing it? Absolutely.

There are people whose only exposure to Jews is being killed by them. There are people who only see the Magen David on a flag planted on their family’s graves and carved into their burned down homes and bulldozed into their razed fields. There are people whose ONLY association with the symbol is death. So then when Jews who continue to display the Magen David also signal support for Palestine, they are accused of trying to mark themselves as “good Jews” and signaling that other Jews are open season. What a self-centered sense of victimhood.

Even this conversation isn’t new. There has been conflict over the years in many cities when pride flags with the Magen David showed up. There was genuine antisemitism about it, sure, but there was also cause for concern when the flag is not just the Magen David but specifically modeled after the Israeli flag pattern AND flown to advertise Israeli tourism. Queer tourism has been deeply tied to Israel for a while now, and backlash to it is not the same as antisemitism.

The conflation over and over and the unwillingness to understand where backlash comes from and the requirement for Palestinians to be articulate and forgiving in their speech and the isolation of anti-zionist Jews makes everything soooooo difficult to navigate.

Putting together a list of orgs that funnel obscene amounts of money into the IDF? Must be an antisemitic plot. Protesting a business that fires pro-Palestine workers? Antisemitic attack on a mom n pop. Attacking weapons manufacturers? Antisemitism.

“Putting a Palestine flag next to your menorah is trying to isolate and mark zionist Jews as free to attack.” Calling people’s jobs, putting their faces on billboards, doxxing them, snitching to their families, all of THAT isn’t an attempt to isolate anti-zionist Jews and mark them as free to attack?

What absolute projections. What hypocrisy. Such blindness.

It’s been a particularly devastating few months for many, but I hope this is just the tipping point to really hash it out in the open. We’ve been sitting on this for too long and refusing to reckon with what it means for our community and our safety to hide behind ill-assumptions to support a genocidal regime carrying out their atrocities in our name and putting us all at risk when we cannot appropriately identify real threats.

[oifaaa]

As an unfortunate TikTok user (who has gotten onto the comic side of things) people really really like tim drake, I even saw some people saying they where happy that he got the solo robin run??? One person said Tim Drake is an anarchist :((( (he is the most centrist to ever centrist)

Don't get me wrong I do love Tim just not the victim complex Tim that seems to be really popular I don't even mind that he got his own solo run my problem is that it's a Robin run and no matter what anyone says Tim should not be Robin anymore especially since his Robin run cancelled Damians, im laughing tho at people somehow thinking tims a anarchist Tim grew up rich and gave unprompted anti drug speeches at school Tim who's got a cop bestie he goes to for advice yeah unfortunately not

[aalghul]

I have somehow gotten onto Tim Drake Stan TikTok (against my will) get me out of here they are calling him an anarchist

tim drake would literally tell people to just vote

[scotianostra]

Happy 58th Birthday to the multi-talented Scottish actor Alan Cumming born on January 27, 1965 in Aberfeldy.

Alan Cumming has an amazing volume of work under his belt, last year alone he was involved in 8 different projects and TV and Cinema, add to that he appears on stage, writes, produces, directs things, as you'd imagine there is a lot to go through in his bio.........

Born to Mary (Darling), an insurance company secretary, and Alex Cumming. a forester for Atholl Estate, Alanspent his infant years in Dunkeld before the family moved to Fassfern near Fort William, before moving to the east coast of Scotland in 1969, where Alan's father took up the position of Head Forester of Panmure Estate; it was there that Alan grew up. He went to Monikie Primary School and Carnoustie High School, where he began appearing in plays, and soon after that began working with with the Carnoustie Theatre Club and Carnoustie Musical Society, and never looked back.

In 1981, he left high school with some great exam results in several subjects, but because he was too young to enter any university or drama school he worked for just over a year as a sub-editor at D.C. Thomson Publishers in Dundee. There he worked on the launch of a new magazine, “Tops”, and was also the “Young Alan” who answered readers’ letters. 

In September 1982 he began a three-year course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He graduated in 1985 with a B.A. (Dramatic Studies) and awards for verse speaking and direction. He also had formed a cabaret double act with fellow student Forbes Masson called Victor and Barry, which went on to become hugely successful with tours (including two Perrier Pick of the Fringe seasons in London and a month-long engagement at the Sydney Opera House as part of an Australian tour), records and many TV appearances throughout the British Isles. Before graduating Alan made his professional theatre and film debuts in Macbeth at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow and in Gillies MacKinnon’s Passing Glory. 

After graduating, Alan worked extensively in Scottish theatre and television, including a stint on the soap opera High Road before moving to London when Conquest of the South Pole, a play by German playwright Manfred Karge, transferred from the Traverse Theatre in, Edinburgh to the the Royal Court in London, earning him his first Olivier award nomination for Most Promising Newcomer of 1988. 

Alan performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and then the Royal National Theatre, where he starred in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, which he also adapted with director Tim Supple. The production was nominated for Best revival at the 1991 Olivier awards and Alan won for Comedy Performance of the Year. His film career began with Ian Sellar’s Prague , in which he starred with Sandrine Bonnaire and Bruno Ganz. The film premiered at the 1992 Cannes film festival and went on to win him Best Actor award at the Atlantic Film Festival and a Scottish BAFTA Best Actor nomination. In the same year he made two films for the BBC. 

In the 1992 Olivier awards got his second nomination for Comedy Performance of the Year for La Bete. The next year he played Hamlet for the English Touring Theatre to great critical acclaim  going on to play the Emcee in Sam Mendes’ revival of Cabaret. He received a 1994 Olivier award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical for “Cabaret”, and for Hamlet he received the 1994 TMA Best Actor award and a Shakespeare Globe award nomination.

In 1994, he made his first Hollywood film, Circle of Friends then two films released in quick succession Emma and GoldenEye as a talented hacker, Boris Grishenko, these films brought him to be noticed by further American producers, and he appeared in several Hollywood films, such as Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and Buddy.

Returning home briefly in 1997 to work with Stanley Kubrick and the Spice Girls before reprising his role in Cabaret on Broadway. The show and his portrayal were a sensation, and he received the many plaudits and awards  for his performance including a Tony  for Best Actor in a Musical

Since then he has alternated between theatre and films, and also between smaller independent films and more mainstream fare.His films include Julie Taymor’s Titus, the Spy Kids trilogy, X-Men 2, Son of the Mask and the Showtime movie musical Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, and Battle of the Sexes. 

Cumming’s TV work includes Taggart, of course!  The short lived Scottish sitcom The High Life,  Travelling Man, Third Rock from the Sun, Sex and the City, Foyles War and Dr Who. He is probably best known for starring in the US  legal and political drama The Good Wife 

Alan lives in Manhattan  with his husband, illustrator Grant Shaffer, he has been nominated and won too many awards to mention here, and has champion causes for the  LGBT community worldwide. He published a novel,, Tommy’s Tale in 2002,  centring on the life of a bisexual guy living in London, and his biography  Not My Father’s Son, Cumming describes the emotional and physical violence his father inflicted on him in his childhood, he became estranged from his father in his early 20′s and it wasn’t until filming   Who Do You Think You Are in 2010 he spoke to him, his father telling him he suspected he wasn’t his biological father, Alan, along with his brother later had DNA tests which  proved they were indeed his biological children.

Alan today went up in my estimations when he announce he was sending back the OBE he was awarded in 2009 due to "the toxicity of empire".

He explained it in full on his Instagram account, posting;

Today is my 58th birthday and I want to tell you about something I recently did for myself. I returned my OBE. Fourteen years ago, I was incredibly grateful to receive it in the 2009 Queen’s birthday honours list, for it was awarded not just for my job as an actor but ‘for activism for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community, USA’. Back then the Defence of Marriage Act ensured that same sex couples couldn’t get married or enjoy the same basic legal rights as straight people, and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ensured that openly gay, lesbian or bisexual people were barred from serving in the military. (Incidentally both these policies were instituted by the Clinton administration). This is the statement I made at the time: ‘I am really shocked and delighted to receive this honour. I am especially happy to be honoured for my activism as much as for my work.  The fight for equality for the LGBT community in the US is something I am very passionate about, and I see this honour as encouragement to go on fighting for what I believe is right and for what I take for granted as a UK citizen. Thank you to the Queen and those who make up her Birthday honours list for bringing attention to the inaction of the US government on this issue. It makes me very proud to be British, and galvanised as an American’. The Queen’s death and the ensuing conversations about the role of monarchy and especially the way the British Empire profited at the expense (and death) of indigenous peoples across the world really opened my eyes. Also, thankfully, times and laws in the US have changed, and the great good the award brought to the LGBTQ+ cause back in 2009 is now less potent than the misgivings I have being associated with the toxicity of empire (OBE stands for Officer of the British Empire). So I returned my award, explained my reasons and reiterated my great gratitude for being given it in the first place. I’m now back to being plain old Alan Cumming again. Happy birthday to me!

If you want to see Alan let loose in oor ain land check out Channel 4’s Miriam & Alan: Lost In Scotland where we see the esteemed actor venturing around his native Scotland in a mobile home, with a new friend in tow – fellow thespian, the 80-year-old super Miriam Margolyes. The second series saw then explore the US.

I have to say I hope I look in as good shape as Alan when I reach my 58th birthday........but with just over 4 months left it's not going to happen is it!