(x) Bro Kenny Literally Kept Telling Him It's A Shit Idea. If Bobby Really Is Dead Then This Is Just...

Eddie's going to leave his parents' house after a huge blow up fight with his mom and he's going to be alone in his truck and he's going to look longingly at the passenger seat and sigh because Buck should be there.

And then he's going to call Buck on his drive home and Buck will have Eddie's back when he tells him about the fight. And when Eddie gets home he'll park the car and sigh and close his eyes and Buck will still be talking and Eddie will pretend Buck's in the car with him (where he belongs) for just a few seconds and then he'll tell Buck he's home and they'll hang up and Eddie will be alone again.

And he'll realize that the person who has always had his back is over 800 miles away and he misses him more than he ever thought he would. And it'll hit him like a ton of bricks that Buck is the first person he calls after a bad day and after a good one. That Buck is the voice he wants to hear when he's spiraling. That the reason it's been so hard to look directly that his relationship with Buck is because it's something beyond friendship. He loves him to the core.

The interesting thing about the "if you’re asking me to choose between you and my son" line is that Buck isn't doing that at all. Not once has he said, or even implied that he wanted Eddie to choose. This is Eddie projecting, because he is choosing and he hates it! Of course he's going to choose Chris every time, but it's killing him that he has to choose at all!

i think this will either go one of two ways. either A) they see the backlash, realize it's not going to go away, and reverse bobby's death, (cmon you're gonna risk losing angela basset?) saving the very little face they have left for their very popular show. or B) they won't have the balls to tell Tim Minear to change the story and he runs the show into the ground. either the show will become incredibly grief stricken and depressing that it's not fun to watch anymore or they're going to move on so quickly from Bobby it feels unnatural and the show will feel incredibly soulless.

Angela Bassett has already said she doesn't see a world where Athena and Bobby don't end up together at the end of the show. the interviews have revealed that literally everybody (the cast, the crew, the execs) did not think this was a good idea. we know there were multiple endings filmed, that the execs had to talk Minear out of a 4 minute helicopter chase scene in the middle of an episode when they couldn't even be bothered to show eddie once, and the deadline article points out that this was a this was "the biggest risk Tim has ever taken in his 30 year career." people apparently understood this was an incredibly risky and stupid move.

and as much as i would like to hold onto all of that, i think there's a very real, simple, and terrifying possibility that they're not going to reverse this and that the show is going to be run into the ground, despite all of the obvious reasons not to.

i think the best thing to do is keeping up the pressure because there are so many cracks in this already that it's very possible we could fix if we don't let it die.

i'm sorry for the dramatics, but i really don't wanna lose this show to a bad writing decision, especially not when i feel like there is something we can do and this could maybe be reversed.



911 Text Posts 11/? (Eddie Diaz)

maybe it seems silly to people who consume media in a ‘normal’ way, but for some people this show has been a huge part of their lives since it first started. we love these characters. we’ve put so many hours and so much work into fanfics and art and edits because these characters matter to us. we see ourselves in them.

and it would have been one thing if we went into this show knowing characters would be killed off, but we’ve been told that wouldn’t happen. it’s next level cruel to take a show that we feel so safe with, and suddenly turn it into this. and in his interview it genuinely feels like tim is mocking the fans for believing what he told us about not killing mains.

idk. i’m angry and i’m sad.

oh Christ shut the fuck up with your holier than thou shit, pretending you're not just another toxic buddie shipper while parroting their favorite lies and bullshit at the same time. block shit you don't like and shut the FUCK up. y'all been showing your asses for literally years, being misogynistic and racist to every single female love interest that gets in your way and adding some violent homophobia for the actual queer rep, all because you fetishise straight men kissing. y'all are the ones posting child rape fics to the archive and to inboxes. y'all the ones harassing people because you're blocked. y'all the ones trying to dox people and fail because you're just that pathetic. I've been in this fandom from day one and there's a reason buddie shippers are infamous outside this fandom for toxic bigotry. shut the ENTIRE fuck up I'm so goddamn sick of y'all. I'm genuinely embarrassed to ever have BEEN one of you. entitled, pathetic, friendless trash, every single one of you.

Hey, so what is this supposed to accomplish?

To be clear, I DO block content I don't want to see. I DO filter for ships I don't usually want to regularly interact with. The point of the post I made was to address a pattern I was noticing with anti-Eddie and anti-Buddie sentiment that I had seen multiple BIPOC creators also talk about.

Now, to address some of your points because I feel like you are projecting SO MUCH onto me.

Misogyny. I never made a single comment on my feelings regarding any of the characters' canon past relationships, but since you seem so sure I hate them like every other Buddie shipper supposedly does, I will make my views of them quite clear. I like most of Eddie and Buck's previous girlfriends/wife. I really liked Shannon, Abby, Anna, and Taylor. The other past relationships that I don't actively like I'm pretty neutral about. There are various reasons why I didn't think those relationships would work out, and they didn't, but I don't hate any of their past partners. I think people are free to dislike their past relationships if they want, but misogyny directed towards them isn't okay.

Racism. Any and all racism targeted towards the characters and their actors is unacceptable, full stop. Any acts of racism that any of those actors themselves have engaged in or excused is also unacceptable, full stop. Both are true statements, and I find it really shitty that in response to a post where I was attempting to respectfully point out behaviors directed at a character, which I found may have had racial bias underpinning them, I got this kind of response. As a community, we should all be concerned about racism, queerphobia, ableism, etc. regardless of who it's coming from and regardless of who it's being done to.

Harassment/Threats/Innappropriate Behavior/Etc. To be very, very clear. None of the horrendous behaviors that you have described BuckTommy shippers receiving from Buddie shippers and/or anti-BuckTommy shippers is okay. I have never and will never defend anyone doing those things. Those are examples of behavior I was referring to when it comes to toxicity I would like to see weeded out of fandom spaces. From BOTH sides of the shipping discourse. I feel like I made that clear when I acknowledged that Buddie shippers can and do engage in toxicity and racism as well. Literally NO ONE is exempt from criticism.

Fetishization/Fetishizing Straight Men Kissing. Um. What. To be clear, I am queer. I read, write, listen to, and engage with content that is almost exclusively queer or made by someone who is. I am just as concerned and interested in queer rep as the next queer person. I also have just as much right as any other queer person to critique that rep if I am unsatisfied with it and think it could be improved upon. And you do, too. I am not saying there is NO issue of some folks fetishizing mlm relationships, but I do think this narrative is incredibly overblown and lacks nuance, but I digress. The specific comment about wanting two straight dudes to kiss is what I am particularly concerned about. Buck isn't straight. He was initially written and acted that way throughout the majority of the show, but he ISN'T. Plus, as someone who is themselves bisexual and relates a lot to his character, I always kinda headcanoned him to be as well. There is also no reason why we should assume Eddie can't be gay. Personally, I headcanon him as a repressed gay man. For many, many reasons. What I find very interesting is the way you throw that statement out there like that as if Tommy wasn't introduced into the show initially through "Hen Begins" as, presumably, a straight man. Of course, we learn later that he was repressing his feelings and had previously dated and been engaged to a woman before he accepted himself fully and started dating men. He is still a gay man despite his past experiences. And at the very beginning of the show, when we are introduced to Michael, we get the reveal that he is gay and had recently come out to his entire family, who he had hid this from for over a decade. The presumption of straightness/cisness until explicitly stated otherwise annoys me so much, so I wanted to address that point specifically.

I have absolutely no ill-will towards you, and I hope you receive this well. I am sorry it seems you have been on the receiving end of a lot of negativity in the fandom. I would like to encourage you to keep an open mind that not everyone online and in this space is a person that hates you or is acting in bad faith just because they diagree with you or have expressed a critical view about something you like. I wish you well.

I would like to put forth my idea for how I would like Eddie's coming out and feelings confession for Buck to go. I am a little torn on whether I want the feelings confession/Buddie getting together to happen this season— only because I worry we'll get it at the very end and miss out on early relationship development between them in a time skip for S9. I think I'd be fine with it eventually if that's what we end up getting bc Buddie being canon at all is important to me, but I would hate to not see how they handle everything after they get together. Regardless, I would love to see them do this:

I want Eddie to get his gay realization and/or acceptance and feelings realization while in El Paso. I want Eddie and Chris to come back home to LA after figuring everything out, and I want Eddie to eventually have that one-on-one coming out conversation with Buck like they did in S7. I want Buck to be visibly shaken by this information, internally having the biggest freak-out of his life because holy shit Eddie isn't straight before he composes himself. Because this moment isn't about him, it's about Eddie. He apologizes for his reaction— because of course Eddie noticed and seemed to have a brief moment of panic himself— and reassures him that he was just surprised. Maybe Buck asks him what happened in El Paso to make him realize or Eddie himself offers up that information. Maybe he met or befriended someone while he was in Texas and they got to talking one night about their relationships. Maybe this person is gay, and, like Eddie, had repressed their sexuality for a long, long time before realizing that they had fallen in love with their best friend (and maybe Eddie leaves this little detail out because in the process of talking through this persons' relationship with their friend, Eddie realizes just how similar it is to his and Buck's relationship and he isn't ready to share that). He tells Buck about how the conversation got him thinking about his past relationships with women and why they never seemed to work out. By the end of it, he realized it was because he didn't really want to be with women at all. Maybe he even realized he had a close friend as a kid, a boy, who his feelings for went beyond platonic. Buck's response to this is one of support, because of course it is. He hugs Eddie, thanks him for telling him, and reassures him that this didn't change anything between them, just as Eddie had when Buck told him about Tommy. And maybe Eddie leaves it at that. He doesn't say anything to the contrary, no matter how much he wants to tell Buck that he does want their relationship to change, because he still doesn't feel worthy enough to have what he wants.

And so begins the most awkward, adorable, hilarious series of events where these two oblivious dorks dance around their mutual feelings for each other, assuming that they are unrequited while we the audience and all their friends and family know that that's not the case. They'll stumble over their words and stare at each other longingly when the other isn't looking. Maybe there will be moments of jealousy when the other gets hit on by someone they know the other could he interested in. Maybe a guy flirts with Eddie and Buck does that thing where he tries so desperately to get all of Eddie's attention back on him. Maybe there will be moments here and there where one of them will attempt to confess their feelings, only to be interrupted before they can get the words out. Or they go into the conversation with shaky confidence only to completely change the subject when they realize they can't say it.

Eventually, one of their friends or family members intervenes because someone has to. The two of them are getting absolutely nowhere because they are too afraid to cross the line. I would love it if Maddie was the one to approach the conversation with Eddie. Mostly because I need more interactions between the two, but also because I think it makes the most sense for what Maddie would do in the situation. Sure, Buck is her brother, but she knows well enough after their previous conversations about Eddie that there is a very slim chance she can convince him to make the first move. I also just want Eddie to be the one to make the first move, period. For him to finally get to a place where he feels worthy enough to choose what he wants, and he does. And maybe that's the crux of his conversation with Maddie. That he doesn't feel worthy of Buck. And Maddie reassures him that that isn't the case. She tells him about how she used to feel the same way when she ran away from her family. How unworthy she felt for so long to be a mother and a wife after the bathtub incident with Jee-Yun. How scared she was to make a mistake that would ruin everything. But eventually, she pushed through it, despite the fear, and came out on the other side so much happier. And Eddie can do the same. His past mistakes do not define him if he doesn't let them. She's seen how much the two of them matter to each other, how they make each other better people. She's also seen how miserable they can be when they are apart. So she tells him to think about it, encouraging him to face his fears and push through them for a chance at the life that he wants, one full of joy.

And he does think about it, over and over again, but maybe it still takes him a bit before he's ready. Maybe he even tries to plan out the perfect love confession once he gets there. And maybe all of that goes completely out the window one night when it's just the two of them sitting side by side on the couch in their apartment (omg please let them be roommates once Eddie and Chris come back). There's a moment while they're talking where their eyes meet. Then a pause in the conversation as they look into each other's eyes. And this is the moment where the dam breaks. Eddie tells Buck that he loves him. He's loved him for a very long time, longer than he probably even realizes. That he couldn't stop thinking about him while he was away in El Paso. How scared he has been to tell him since he realized, especially once he and Chris came back home. And maybe he just starts rambling at this point because he's being very vulnerable in this moment and he's not used to that and once he starts he can't stop himself. And Buck is waiting patiently for him to stop talking so he can say what he needs to say, but at a certain point, he realizes Eddie isn't going to and takes matters into his own hands. He kisses Eddie. And it's not a great first kiss. It's not really meant to be, just a pressing of lips together long enough to get Eddie to shut up for a second so that when Buck pulls away he can tell him, "I love you, too". They look at each other for a moment and smile before leaning in again for a second kiss. And it's perfect. They'll eventually need to talk more about where they go from here. How and when they'll tell Chris, the 118, and the rest of their families. But for right now, it's just them sharing their first intimate moment as a couple, putting aside all of their fears and worries for as long as they can to make this moment last.

Okay, but imagine this: Eddie feelings realization brought about through another lookalike/doppelganger storyline. I know this sounds out-there, but considering the whole Shannon/Kim storyline was an actual thing that existed in the show— and we know how much the writers love doing parallels and they've been doing some very fanfiction-esque stoylines with 8b— I don't think this is completely outside the realm of possibility so stay with me on this completely ridiculous stream of thought for a bit.

Now I was not and am still not really a fan of the whole Shannon/Kim doppelganger storyline but I think if they did it again in a very specific way with a Buck doppelganger it would be so interesting. With the Shannon/Kim doppelganger, the importance of it is for Eddie to finally get closure for himself. To say the things he never got a chance to say to her so he could move on from that relationship. I think a Buck doppelganger can also be used as a way for Eddie to say all the things he couldn't say to Buck before he left. Only, this doesn't serve the purpose of Eddie finding closure and moving on, but as a catalyst for him realizing the full extent of his feelings.

In the present day, Eddie finds himself back in his hometown— a place he tried so hard to run away from— to be there for his son. He built an entire life for himself back in LA and now he's gonna have to start all over again. So he puts himself out there, attempting to meet new people and make new friends. In the process, he ends up meeting a man who looks and sounds a little too much like his best friend. And he knows it's a bad idea; he has had to live with the reality of just how bad an idea this is for months following what happened with Kim. But he misses his best friend so bad. Sure, they talk and do video calls to stay in touch, but it's not the same. He's not there with him in El Paso being a consistent presence in his life, and he feels so lonely without that presence. So he befriends this Buck doppelganger. They hit it off and start to spend more and more time together, and eventually, either Eddie decides to come clean or Buck's doppelganger finds out about his resemblance to Eddie's best friend, prompting Eddie to explain the whole situation and apologize for lying.

Maybe at this point, his Buck had already gone through his 8x11 storyline. He's already been confronted with the idea that his feelings for Eddie aren't platonic, and he's doing everything to push that train of thought aside. He can't entertain the idea that he is in love with his straight best friend, as he likes to say. He needs to distance himself from whatever feelings might be there. Which also includes distancing himself from Eddie. He doesn't answer his calls as much, doesn't make an effort to reach out, finds other distractions so he has an excuse for why he wasn't available to talk, etc. And it's driving Eddie crazy. He's never felt so disconnected from Buck, and it's starting to have an effect on his ability to function at this point.

So when Eddie tells him all this and Buck's doppelganger asks him what he would say to him right now if he could, Eddie throws all caution to the wind.

He says all the things he's been wanting to say, even the things he didn't know he wanted to say. He tells him how sorry he is for leaving. That he knows how deep Buck's abandonment issues run and how painful it is to have another person in his life leave him. How much he would give to have been able to stay and spare him that hurt. Hell, the thought of asking Buck to leave with him had even crossed his mind more than once, but how could he ever ask that of him? Los Angeles was his home. The 118 were his family. He built a stable foundation for himself that he'd never had throughout most of his life. Eddie wasn't going to be the one to take a wrecking ball to that stable foundation. As much as Eddie would like to be, he isn't worthy of that kind of consideration. Who would throw their entire life away to be with him? He would never ask him to make that choice. Just as he knows Buck was never asking Eddie to make a choice between him and Chris. But Eddie felt like that was what he was doing at the time— making a choice between what he wanted and what was best for his son. A choice had to be made whether he liked it or not, and he would always choose his son. But, if pressed on it, he would have to admit that if the choice were between Buck and anyone else? Buck would win every single time. He would say that he missed him and he wanted him to be a constant in his life again, in both their lives again. That the distance being put between them, both literal and figurative, was killing him.

And as he's listening to this— to his newfound friend pouring his heart out to him like he's his best friend— Buck's doppelganger makes the realization that everyone else in their lives has, waits for Eddie to finish what he has to say, and says to him:

"Wow. You must really love him."

And that is the moment. Eddie hears those words, processes them, thinks about everything he just said, everything they had been through together, and realizes.

Oh.

That's what this thing between them has been. That's what all this heartache and loneliness and panic he's been experiencing in the last few weeks has been about.

"Yeah, I do."

And this realization does not just magically fix everything. It's a starting point. He still has to work through what happened with Chris, and this revelation may be a central point to helping him get there. Because it forces him to examine everything about his life up to this point. His relationship with Buck, his relationship with his family, his relationship with Shannon, his relationships with women and his sexuality in general, and his relationship with religion. And once he does all of that, he can make the decision to choose something different, for himself and for Chris. They can reconcile. They can move back to LA, back to their found family with the 118 and Buck. He can love his best friend and choose to make him a part of their family.

I also like the idea of doing a parallel between Shannon and Buck as love interests for Eddie because I do think their relationships share similarities despite all of their differences.

Despite the fact that I do absolutely think Eddie loved Shannon, I do not think he was ever really in love with her. He had a genuine care and love for her, yes, but so much of that care and love was tied up in her relationship to him as the mother of his child, not just as his wife. Her relationship with Eddie will always be a part of who he is, undoubtedly. She was a friend to him, someone he loved, the first person he was ever intimate with, his wife, and the mother of his son. She played so many important roles in his life, and she can be all of those things and still not be the love of his life, nor even someone he necessarily loved in a romantic sense at all. Because they were still just kids when they got together and had Chris. They were still trying to figure out who they were and what they wanted to do with their lives when they got pregnant and rushed into marriage and parenthood. All the decisions that followed that were messy and difficult and their relationship shifted completely overnight. Would they have ever gotten married if they didn't have Christopher? My guess is probably not, but we'll never know for sure. When Kim says to Eddie "I guess she was the love of your life," he doesn't say, "she was," he says, "I think she was." He knows he loved her, but he is unsure if she was ever "the one". In hindsight, I think he looks back on their relationship with rose-colored glasses a lot of the time. He talks about how they were together as if the glimpses we saw of them constantly fighting and leaving each other and avoiding big conversations never happened or weren't as prevalent. They did love each other, but they did not love each other in the ways that either one of them deserved.

Compare that with Eddie's relationship with Buck, and I would argue he has played all of these same roles in Eddie's life that Shannon did, but in a much more harmonious and stable way. He's also the only other character to take on all of these roles in Eddie's life to the extent that he does. They are best friends, they love each other, Buck has become a parental figure of sorts for Chris and would legally be his guardian if anything happened to Eddie, and he has a closeness with Eddie and has done things for him/with him that romantic partners often do. Despite their rocky beginning, they became fast and inseparable friends. They've had each other's backs through nearly every single trial and tribulation that they've faced for the past 7 years. Buck seamlessly fit into both Eddie and Chris' lives as well, all three of them spending so much quality time together. They have been mistaken for a couple before. Buck heard that Eddie was struggling with childcare for Chris and provided a solution without needing to be asked. He helped Eddie find a solution to accommodate Chris' disability when he wanted to try skateboarding. He fought like hell to try to keep Chris safe when the tsunami hit. Whenever they've had major accidents/NDE's in the line of work, they are always each other's primary concern. Eddie made the decision on his own to change his will to make Buck Christopher's legal guardian if anything happened to him, and he is unwavering in his conviction that he would be the only other person besides himself that would fight like hell to make sure Chris has everything he wants and needs. Which could mean nothing, but as a single dad, Eddie's main concern when it comes to dating and marriage has to be how it will affect his son; what kind of parent would the other person be to him? Buck was there for Chris when Eddie got shot. He was the first person Chris ran to when he was angry with Eddie. He was there for both of them when Eddie went through his breakdown. He was there for Eddie when Chris decided to leave. He offered to help Eddie find a new place to live in El Paso. He was present for nearly every showing of his place to find a subletter— this one is actually ridiculous, like there's no way those folks didn't think they were together. And the big one, he chose to give up his apartment to sublease Eddie's house so that Eddie could leave without worrying about expenses. The entire episode we see him struggle with and unintentionally sabotage Eddie's move. The last thing he wants is for another person to leave him, but he willingly and happily put what Eddie and Chris needed over what he wanted in the end. It is one of the most selfless and loving things he could do and he did it.

One of the key similarities that I've noticed between Eddie's relationships with Shannon and Buck is what they get into their most heated arguments about. In both of these relationships, the big fights that each pair has centers around the other person leaving and how that effects them and Chris. Yes, Buck ready has pre-established abandonment issues, but Eddie's issues with other people leaving really only come up in the context of his romantic partners and how them leaving will affect his son. For Eddie and Shannon, it was Eddie running away from his responsibilities as a husband and father twice by enlisting in the army and Shannon doing the same once he came back into their lives. When she attempts to re-enter their lives, the main point of contention is whether or not she'll even stay if Eddie allows her back in. Ultimately, she does decide to leave once she's back in their lives, if only temporarily, to find out who she is as a person independent of her role as a wife and mother when she realizes she's not ready, and I don't blame her for that. But then she dies and that loss is permanent. Eddie doesn't get closure until he meets Kim and gets to say how he feels. How hurt he is that Shannon left seemingly without any consideration for him. She left a note for their son, but left nothing for him and that is devastating. His first major fight with Buck is over the lawsuit. All three of them are forced into a situation where they cannot be in contact because of Buck's decisions, and their confrontation over it is one of the few times we see Eddie so visibly upset. It's not exactly a "leaving" situation per se, but the outcome is similar. Eddie cannot contact his best friend for help, with his own personal issues and with what's going on with Chris. They both miss him; it feels like he left them and Buck made the choice to put them in that position when he didn't have to. The second time they have a big fight, it's over Eddie leaving. More specifically, over Eddie's perceived lack of care about Buck's feelings on the matter. And I say perceived because he obviously does care, it does matter to him that he's leaving his best friend behind. But he can't fully acknowledge to what extent he does and he won't allow himself to because his feelings come secondary to what he thinks he needs to do as a father. I feel I should also note that despite Buck's abandonment issues, it is so telling how he acts in response to Eddie leaving vs how the rest of the 118 act. They all consider Eddie family just as much as Buck, but the degree to which he's crashing out over it would suggest to me that there's more to their relationship than they realize. The proposed scenario with the Buck doppelganger is meant to be the moment where he finally allows himself to be fully, completely honest with himself about what he feels, what he wouldn't say. And in the aftermath, he has to reckon with what that means for him, for Chris, and his relationship with Buck.

Another things of note when it comes to Eddie's relationships: Every time we see Eddie in a relationship with a woman, we often see him run away from it or sabotage the relationship when things start to get more serious. They never work out because there is always something wrong on his end. By contrast, Buck and Eddie are both actively struggling with Eddie leaving. Neither one of them wants him to leave and that is apparent with the shift we see in their behavior. Idk maybe we'll get a gay Eddie storyline. To me it seems like the most logical endpoint for his character. I mean, the guy literally said that he feels like he needs to "perform" when he's out on dates with women... Plus, Tommy did essentially imply that he clocked him in the most recent episode and if there's anyone I'm gonna trust to know he isn't straight, it's the openly gay man who also repressed his feelings for men for decades and almost married a woman.

Tldr; all this to say, Shannon was Eddie's first love and Buck will be his last.

Do I think any of this is actually gonna happen in the show? No, I highly doubt it. But it was a fun little thought experiment about how I think this scenario would play out. I know this is ridiculously long, so if you read to the end, thank you!

been loving how ever since he came out his wardrobe immediately got 1000 times better like yes bi king stay slaying

my dream scenario of tommy making a big comeback arrival via helicopter with heavily pregnant marisol and landing on some random roof mid a 118 emergency response just so buck can help her deliver the baby (tim loves callbacks) and then sue eddie to keep it for himself (and tommy) while marisol realizes she's in love with abby and runs off into the sunset seems like a more realistic prediction with every passing minute