#people who headcanon eddie actually wanting buck to shut up... you are wrong. you are so wrong. you have never been more wrong.

[mythtakens]

"Penny didn't make me feel like that." "Exactly. Someday somebody will, and you'll never let them go."

[iphyslitterator]

I'm in a 911 group chat that includes a Buddie fan, and she was passionately defending Tommy's right to bring up his anxieties over Eddie in 8x11 (yay), and then she asked me to elaborate when I commented, "If we're not Buddie-shipping + *don't* think this was a central insecurity, Tommy is actually way more in the wrong/dumber/more excruciatingly self-sabotaging." Two weeks later, I have typed up my working theory for her and am cross-posting it here for posterity:

Let's start from the premise that "I think Evan's in love with Eddie" was not a central reason behind the breakup, which is defensible because a) the text gave no indication of it previously, at least not one that would be legible to the general audience, and b) the only piece of "evidence" Tommy offers is that Buck is living in Eddie's house.

(I'm sure the thought had crossed Tommy's mind: they're close, Eddie's hot, he went to Buck's apartment in the first place on the assumption that Buck was jealous over Eddie. I actually used to headcanon that they'd talked about it casually, but I was overestimating their communication skills 🙄)

Here are some things we learn or can plausibly infer from the 8x11 bar scene (I can elaborate upon request): he misses Buck and wants to get back together with him (urge to call him; driving by his place); he's lonely; the 118 stopped speaking to him; he has no reason to believe Buck missed him too (Buck didn't tell him! he doesn't know about the baking!).

And he has all this time to think in the morning, while he's buying champagne and cooking half a paycheck's worth of eggs, about how wow, it's weird being in Eddie's house. Like, this was a pretty intense and devoted thing for Evan to do. But, well, Evan's pretty intensely devoted to his family, and vice versa. It's a great family. He's kind of jealous. And, okay, he didn't reach out to them after the breakup either, but he'd maybe hoped.... Anyway, whatever, it's clearly not happening. They don't miss him, they do miss Eddie. Evan misses Eddie, Evan probably just missed sex with Tommy. Still, though, maybe Tommy can ask Evan to take him back. Maybe they can still try again.

(Throw in the headcanon that it was unhinged of Buck to ask Tommy to move out of a house into an apartment with no doors (we know Tommy has a car lift and a Muay Thai setup), and you also get "Evan wouldn't move out for me, but he did for Eddie.")

So my primary contention about "now that the competition's out of the way" is that Tommy feels acutely that the competition is NOT out of the way.

Part of that is an abrupt rise in paranoia that Evan is pining for Eddie -- he's living in the guy's house! And then Buck doesn't technically deny it, he just says Eddie's straight, which, come on, Tommy knows all about crushes on straight guys.

But it's not just about that. It's about Tommy once again being on the outside of the firefam's close bond. It's not just Eddie haunting the narrative. Tommy has expressed his longing to be part of that family onscreen three times: 7x04 ("I was super jealous....I wanted to be a part of that"), 7x10 ("a little jealous" of Buck's bond with Bobby), 8x05 ("It's a wonderful thing, having a crew like that behind you, even when things go wrong"). The competition's not even close (he thinks); Tommy was never Evan's priority, he won't be if they get back together right now, and maybe he never will be.

But this all comes out as "I think you have feelings for your best friend." Which, in this scenario where that's (mostly) not true or important, is uncool for at least three reasons:

a) IT'S SO DUMB, baby, shut uppppp, why are you so committed to expressing your anxieties in a way that is totally incomprehensible to your beloved and indeed to most people who aren't studying you like a bug on tumblr dot com 💀

b) He is once again hinting at his desire for a family without articulating it, and he NEEDS to stop that.

c) As in the breakup, he's constructing a narrative about Buck's feelings, without Buck's input, that fits his own pessimistic worldview. In neither case does it go quite as far as Buck denying + Tommy disbelieving, but it's trending that direction, and it's patronizing (and arguably biphobic). If Buck needs to understand Tommy more, i.e. look past the cool exterior, Tommy needs to "understand" Buck less, i.e. let go of his preconceived notions and let Evan be the authority on his own feelings.

So my thesis as a Bucktommy fan and writer is that it's part of Tommy's consistent I-want-a-family theme (and secondarily, I think the non-Buddie GA's takeaway was essentially supposed be Ryan Guzman's "lol Tommy's insecure"). Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[lover-of-mine]

While we're on the topic of Eddie’s sexuality I wanted to say something. And before I start I want to say that I mean this with respect and I don't mean for any of this to sound condescending at any point. It's just how I see it (and I could change my mind if the writers do it correctly).

So here we go:

I think for a lot of people (myself included) it's hard to picture Eddie as bisexual because of the way his other relationships with women –not Shannon– were written.

I personally headcanon him as gay AND demi, and I wouldn’t have any issues with unlabeled/queer Eddie. I think him being demisexual could explain a lot about why he felt such a strong connection with Shannon, if done correctly. But when it comes to bisexuality it's tricky because he said in the past that he feels like he has to perform when he's on dates (with women), he had a panic attack over the idea of committing to a woman, he never actively seeked to start a relationship with either Ana or Marisol, they just kinda appeared at the right place and right time and he took it as some sort of ~sign~.

And I know a lot of that could be explained with comphet still. Or the fact that he wasn't over Shannon. But it would take some explaining as well and I don't know if the writers are willing to do it or if we'll have to fill in the blanks.

I'm not saying it can't be done, though. I just don't trust the writers much. Especially when we have Buck, who is (to me, also a bisexual person) really good bisexual representation and he still couldn't say the word bisexual on screen yet!! (which is something that could make me go on another whole rant so I'll leave it there)

PD: by the time I finished writing this, I realized most of the routes they can take with his sexuality would need some explaining and some time on screen that I don't know if they'll ever give. Both because he was always written as a complex character and because they (allegedly) tried to do this in the past and it got shut down, so they had to backtrack.

Hello, your arguments are why I push for the idea that he's demi. All of it makes sense if you add in the fact that he can't fill the space because Buck already has it, which works whatever label you give him. The relationship with Ana specifically was written in a way that allows you to read to Eddie as gay, I agree with that, especially the breakup and the whole thing with liking the idea of her and all that, but also negating the possibility that he had something real with Shannon because of his relationship with other women feels weird. I understand the contrast between Buck as bi representation and the possibility of Eddie being bisexual as well. But my thing was always with the way that his relationship with Shannon was written and how much it defines the way they write Eddie. I see the possibility that he wasn't in love with her. I understand that the way he deals with love after her death makes it very easy to make him gay. But for me, what always made sense is the demi angle with him actually being in love with Shannon and the whole thing he has with other women is because of Buck and the way you can't fill a space that's already filled. And I also understand all my arguments are also points for him being gay. But anything that explicitly erases the possibility of him loving Shannon will have to be handled with care because of the Kim plotline. Because if they handle making Eddie gay wrong, they can get the general audience looking all ?? Because he just blew up his life chasing her. It's why I always come back to don't label him, let him say he loved Shannon, now he loves Buck and he doesn't care. Anything will need a level of explaining, but we just need him to love Buck. And saying he loves Buck is easier than saying her gay. Does this make sense?