competitioneddie

[competitioneddie]

hey so.

are we picturing buck in that gymbro shirt that goes

Lats

Glutes

Biceps

Triceps

Quads

[competitioneddie]

We are so back bestie

[competitioneddie]

evan buckley // how to be a dog, andrew kane

[competitioneddie]

As someone who genuinely likes Tommy as a character specifically because he's so flawed and morally questionable, points 3 and 8 are so so valid.

Maybe everything else makes Tommy a bad person but doesn't directly affect Buck as long as he doesn't find out about Tommy's past or sees him acting out his bigoted beliefs. He can be oblivious to everything else, but 3 and 8 stand out as a bad romantic match.

Tommy is valid for not wanting to deal with Buck's possible internalised homophobia and having to stand on the sidelines as Buck comes out to everyone, he might be triggered because he didn't get to come out safely or he might be scared that this is just a trial run for a baby bi man, which is a fucking valid fear starting a relationship!!! But there are oceans between being afraid and having quite literally no faith in the relationship you're entering. Don't do that to yourself baby, pace yourself a bit and start out as a casual thing and see where it goes, cut your losses if it really doesn't work but be emotionally available to the other person and tell them the reason, allow them to know and do what they want with the knowledge. It's clearly not the case with Buck because it has been pointed out endlessly that Tommy isn't the landing place for Buck, but someone else might see your struggle and want to put in the work to make you feel confident in your relationship, don't doom yourself Tommy!

And as for 8, this is such a stark contrast with Eddie who took one look at Buck after the breakup and said you know what, my basketball buddie is not that important to me, Buck's my best friend and I'm gonna ditch Tommy's ass for hurting him. Tommy was positively ecstatic that Eddie had left. That's so mean and not romantic in the least, if you love someone you can't be so openly happy that their best friend left temporarily and surreptitiously reinforce Buck's fear that Eddie's gone forever, no matter how jealous you were of their relationship. Sure, you can have that knee-jerk reaction, but at some point you've gotta learn to keep it in check because it's not healthy to think of your partner in terms of a prize. There is no competition, either Buck loves Eddie romantically or he doesn't, and even if he does it's not about who scores more brownie points. It's ultimately up to Buck and if pressed he would probably choose Tommy in a misguided attempt to make it work to prove that he's not unlovable, which sucks for Tommy same as it sucked for Taylor, but I truly honestly think he would never ever go for Eddie unless Eddie made the first move. Buck treats their friendship like it's this very fragile thing that will startle and break if he looks at it funny. He would never risk it. Tommy doesn't deserve to be in that kind of relationship and ultimately I think he was smart to break things off with Buck, but they're so ill fitting as a couple because they really can't get past Eddie. Someone else might look the other way but because Tommy knows Eddie and maybe suspects he's not as straight as Buck thinks, he's always going to fear that romantic potential and that's unfair to himself first, to Buck, Eddie, and to Eddie's potential partner.

Is Eddie perfect? Hell no, but he pushed for Buck and Tommy to get together, and once confronted with Tommy being gone, he felt for Buck, put aside his ONE (1) instance of joy and sat there in silence for his best friend who'd been dumped by someone Eddie for once liked, and thought quietly to himself, how can I best support Buck through his breakup and not enable him to get back together with someone who, from my side of things, doesn't seem interested in the kind of long term partnership Buck craves? That's a friendly thing to do and if Tommy can't see past that, that's on Tommy until Eddie has some kind of sexuality realisation that makes it undeniable that he's been sabotaging Buck's relationships. There is so far no canon evidence to believe that Eddie is after Buck romantically, yet the only instance where that is canonically touched on is in the context of Tommy's up to that point unfounded jealousy and suspicion. Tommy is the one making buddie canon in his head.

If Tommy loved Buck and wanted to make things work, he'd have expressed his fears about Eddie at the very least, or reasoned with himself that there is no reason to see Eddie as competition, and he would've supported Buck through Eddie's departure instead of rubbing salt on that particular wound. The point is Tommy doesn't want to make things work unless they're low effort which is very valid and understandandable for a man in his 40s who came out later in life and has experienced the kind of solid, loving relationship he wants. He's repeating Buck's mistakes of craving intimacy and speedrunning through a relationship with shaky foundations and to his credit, Tommy at least has the insight to notice this and end it before Buck gets more attached.

The thing is, and I think this doesn't get touched on enough, that Tommy and Abby worked for such a long time because they were friends too, and Tommy can see all of that potential for Buck and Eddie and be adult enough to step aside when he becomes aware that he will never be able to look past that and trust Buck and Eddie not to wreck Tommy's relationship with Buck.

okay in tommy hater era because here is a list of reasons i hate him

1: racist.

2: even if you dont acknowledge that he himself was racist, his complacency in the system that othered women, queer people, and people of color, despite the fact that doing so might have kept himself safe. we also never see him apologizing for the way that he treated them.

3: refusing to give a closeted bisexual man the LITTLEST bit of understanding for not immediately being ready to come out to his best friend once he had his gay awakening.

4: that entire deleted scene where henren very clearly DONT fw tommy #standwithlesbians

5: that very same deleted scene where tommy refused to reveal his intentions with buck implying that tommys intention with buck was ALWAYS going to be breaking up with him, because he never had any real intentions with him.

6: the whole daddy issues scene. like that is an INSANE joke to make a) with a man you are not that close with and do not know his personal relationship with his father b) DURING A SERIOUS CONVERSATION c) ESPECIALLY considering bucks issues with his father

7: the entire breakup. tommy not telling buck the real reason he was breaking up with him (viewing his best friend as competition) and instead leaving him confused and alone because he couldnt handle buck and eddies relationship.

8: actively adding on to bucks anxiety about eddie never returning by treating eddie like he was gone (competition being 'out of the way' = not there anymore) and treating the departure of bucks closest friend as a positive thing just because it could mean something for their relationship.

9: CALLING BUCK EVAN. DESPITE THE FACT THAT NOBODY CALLED BUCK EVAN, THAT BUCK WAS HIS PREFERRED NAME, THAT ONLY PEOPLE THAT BUCK WAS CLOSE WITH WERE ALLOWED TO CALL HIM THAT. HE TOOK THAT SYMBOL OF CLOSENESS AND TURNED IT INTO A FUCKING LIKE RELATIONSHIP 'NICKNAME'

10: i just dont like him. i never got what buck thought was so cool about him (besides the fact that all of the traits he found cool he shared with eddie)

[competitioneddie]

respectfully agree op. nodding my head along. lemme go a bit deeper through my thought process.

i think fear of queerbaiting accounts for a lot of bucktommy shippers who fall into a cautious reading of the buddie narratives, but these shippers are not as polarised or anti buddie and are not generally the viewers who go nasty in the discourse. i'm generally not talking about that group of people when i make blanket statements about fandom discourse because these are also generally not the viewers or fans who engage in discourse, simply because they're doing their own thing, multi shipping or enjoying canon while simultaneously shipping non canon and being chill about it.

for a very loud subset of shipper's, though, and i feel they're not the majority, just indeed very vocal, that assumption just doesn't work with the eddie hate. a lot of eddie hate is racist in nature, by virtue of tommy being a white washed version of eddie who can do no wrong despite very distinct shared personality and background traits. of course it makes sense a buck who is subconsciously in love with his straight best friend would fall for someone who at first glance shares a lot of core traits and values with eddie. a lot of discourse around buddie "shutdowns" lmao comes from people who outright dislike eddie for reasons that are not related to queerbaiting (re: eddie is violent, abusive, a toxic macho, tommy was obviously justified in his racist and sexist behavior because he was repressed), they just want to read buddie as an impossible because they'd rather have the bland white bread version of it. which is why they still try to read things backwards and pretend that it's normal to have a character point out how straight macho man they are repeatedly, as if heterosexuality was not the norm and it was expected of people to come out as straight.

again i don't think these are a majority, just very loud about their racism. and they're spoiling the experience for everyone else, buddie shippers or not. i love eddie as a complex character with a lot of nuance. i love buck. i love tommy, he's a great antagonist and with some development he could thrive as a less amicable recurring character and add a lot of fun dynamics to the 118 (see casey, mills and severide from chicago fire, those guys hate each other deeply and it is delicious). i still mourn the eddietommy coming out/gay mentorship arc we could've had. yet I'm forced to tag a lot of my posts as anti because people will get very angry that someone points out their white blorbo isn't perfect or, God forbid, someone enjoys tommy as a character but not as buck's romantic partner. damn, buck has a lot of issues, are we not allowed to point them out either?

this is truly a multifaceted issue. personally, the racist side of it bothers me more than the queerbaiting because as you pointed out i've been there before and the media and production treatment of destiel, johnlock, sterek, merthur, to name a few, made it very clear that it was a no go. i don't think 911 is using buddie as queerbait, to me it's just not queer in the way most people want it to be, but again that is a deeply personal belief with very fuzzy limits and everyone is entitled to their own thoughts on what constitutes normal TV will they won't they and what crosses the queerbaiting line. racism is a clear cut issue so at the end of the day i am going to be more vocal about that because the amount of hate eddie gets for being anything less than perfect is very damaging for representation in that it feeds the media stereotype of token identities. what i love about tommy is that he's not perfect, he's gay and he's morally reproachable and those two truths can coexist, and i wish we saw more of him being gay and a not so good work/romantic partner, but the same doesn't hold true for eddie, it seems the second he makes a mistake he's the incarnation of every mean racist stereotype... and that's not okay. non white, non heteronormative characters are allowed to be imperfect too and be held to the same moral standards as their white heteronormative counterparts.

anyway i agree with your points and they make a lot of sense!!! i love being able to engage respectfully and from multiple points of view 🥰

genuinely makes me laugh that some people see buck insisting that he isn't in love with eddie as the show/writers shutting down buddie bc like... have you ever watched any tv ever.

did you watch new girl and were surprised when jess and nick kissed because they had both stated that they only liked each other as friends.

did you watch friends and think ross was telling the truth when he said he wasn't in love with rachel anymore for the hundredth time.

did you watch brooklyn nine-nine and hear jake say he totally wasn't into amy and just take that at face value.

be so for fucking real.

[competitioneddie]

oh but anything that might shut down bucktommy must not be taken at face value because *checks notes* that is obviously the show being purposely misleading to build up the tension.

personally i think it all comes down to racism but that's just me.

genuinely makes me laugh that some people see buck insisting that he isn't in love with eddie as the show/writers shutting down buddie bc like... have you ever watched any tv ever.

did you watch new girl and were surprised when jess and nick kissed because they had both stated that they only liked each other as friends.

did you watch friends and think ross was telling the truth when he said he wasn't in love with rachel anymore for the hundredth time.

did you watch brooklyn nine-nine and hear jake say he totally wasn't into amy and just take that at face value.

be so for fucking real.

[competitioneddie]

Get to know your mutuals!

I got tagged by @webeatthebees :3

Favourite Colour: Green

Currently Reading: Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Stephanie McCarter. This one is done from a gender critical perspective and I can't reccommend it enough if you're into classics.

Last Song: Upstate by Brenn!

Last Film: A real pain

Last Series: Chicago Fire

Sweet/Salty/Savory: Savory. Fun twist, I'm a gluten free girlie.

Tea or Coffee?: Insane amounts of coffee.

Working On: My master's thesis and my pre doctoral thesis proposal lol I have 3 WIPs sitting and crying in my Ellipsus dashboard but I just can't catch a break from real life.

I don't feel with enough authority to tag anyone but feel free to jump on this and say it's my fault!! So sorry this took me forever @webeatthebees I'm so swamped :'(

[competitioneddie]

how badly they fumbled this is astounding. they were written to share core values so they could fall in love yet that never happened. it stands to reason that they'd at least be friends. on the grounds of being coworkers. dispatch is a big enough part of LAFD that they sent eddie over as a liaison. eddie has to have heard maddie's voice through his radio a thousand times already. they both care for buck and chim. why no eddiemaddie bestieism why :(

I know I talk about this a lot but I honestly don’t understand how Eddie and Maddie are not best friends

They have had such similar childhoods with having to step up at a ridiculously young age, they both have terrible parents, they are notorious runners, they both practiced medicine before they ever went to Los Angeles (meaning they had a similar interest), they’re both shown to be musically inclined, they have a similar sense of humor, they both worked at dispatch, they are both parents to great kids and they both love Buck a ridiculous amount

How are they not besties? There was so much potential for a brother-sister relationship there!

[competitioneddie]

Eddie Diaz meets Hannah Arendt's architecture of longing fic I have not forgotten about you. I'm still haunted by the duality of not anymore/not yet and the love of God in punitive Catholicism.

[competitioneddie]

Eddie needs so badly to be on the receiving end of a Henren intervention where they lovingly point out to him, yet again, that they know he knows deep down what he wants. They told him he wanted to stay in LA and that was enough for him to entertain the thought long enough that when Chim said actually Eddie why don't you stop running he said yeah okay happy to comply. And Chimney wasn't even doing it as much for the team as he was doing it for his own grief journey but if the shoe fits. Eddie needs to be asked, hey, are you in love with Buck? You could be. We'd support you. It wouldn't be so crazy.

i feel like I've seen so much talk since the finale about Eddie and choosing joy and also so much about him being good at following orders but I haven't really seen anyone connect them yet in the context of 8x06 and 8x18.

when father brian says exactly is "I want you to do something frivolous, something fun, something that expresses pure joy" and despite the whole conversation, Eddie hears that as a one time command. so he does it, he follows orders to do something frivolous and joyful, and then after he does that one thing, because the instruction was to do one thing, it's back to his regularly scheduled misery.

he hasn't gotten there yet. it took everything in him to overcome all the guilt and denial and hurt for one single round of dancing to old time rock and roll, of course he was still looking at plane tickets. he wants to be back in LA but no one has given him permission yet, until Chimney does.

he had effectively already decided, already knew what he wanted, it's just that he always needs permission to want, because he is a catholic-raised former soldier. he does want Buck, wants him so badly in ways he doesn't fully understand yet, but once someone gives him the go ahead on that, oh man. he's gonna be so happy.

[competitioneddie]

top AND bottom crier too. bad credit eddie diaz about to rail new homeowner buck into next fiscal year crying over their beautiful house where theyre going to have a beautiful life together. saucy cockslut eddie diaz begging for it lying on his back crying while they christen the newest ugly couch he secretly loves because buck chose it for their home yay :)

very intense feelings about cock.

it's time for top/bottom discourse to end. the only thing i want to hear about is which one is the sex crier.

[competitioneddie]

I see you Eddie Diaz, I see you crying in the missionary position, you repressed little man.

it's time for top/bottom discourse to end. the only thing i want to hear about is which one is the sex crier.

[competitioneddie]

this is so intentional.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the subletter subtext when you’re ready, because I don’t really get it? So would love to understand.

i mean this is mostly me rambling but like. TO ME, the point of that line (plus buck's earlier insistence that eddie was a renter, plus all of the angst about eddie leaving centered so strongly around the house itself) is that the house is a symbol of buck's relationship with eddie (and chris, to some degree). so him going, 'it wasn't mine, i was subletting' is also him saying, 'eddie and chris aren't really mine, my place there was temporary'. this also ties into the symbolism of eddie's house in texas - he's repairing the house while he's repairing his relationship with chris, but buck is at a distance for both.

like, the thing is buck really did let eddie go in a more significant way than just giving up on fighting him about texas, in a way that i don't think either of them - certainly not eddie - have really grasped yet. he's the only one of the core team who didn't try to convince eddie to come back to los angeles. he wasn't pissed about the job offer or what it meant, even though eddie kind of wanted him to be pissed about it so they could have that fight; he was just pissed that he was the last to know. he doesn't expect eddie to choose him, so he can't bring himself to ask. so he doesn't. chim and hen can both push eddie on it, because there's less emotional baggage there, but buck can't make himself do it.

so even when they're both back in la for good - well, the house was always for eddie and chris. buck was just a subletter.

i'm really hoping they follow this thread through s9, because it's a reversal of their usual dynamic: eddie is the one who retreats behind walls and buck is the one who pushes. it'll be interesting to see it the other way around.

[competitioneddie]

the thing is. everyone got their stories wrapped up in .5 seconds to make it look like all is well and good in the world much the same way s6 tried to do.

the buddies are angry. the bucktommies are angry. the bobby loving wine moms are angry. the people who watch for drama and shock value have to be angry at that bland ending.

what all from that finale is supposed to keep the general audiences invested and tune in next fall?

[competitioneddie]

So I saw your post about them acting like Buck was getting a bad season ending because no Tommy and I was like huh?

So I braved into there side of things and my jaw dropped.

Because they are.

They are legit writing essays and think pieces on how poor Evan is the only one getting a bad ending and bad storyline for the finale. And poor Evan is going to end up all alone at the end of 8.18. And they just don’t understand how the show could do this. How could Tim do this. Nothing in 8b has hinted they were taking things the direction of not having Tommy and Evan Reunite. It’s been so clear all season they were going to and now this is just coming out of no where. And it’s so unfair to Evan.

I’m baffled. I’m bamboozled. I’m hoodwinked. Like what show are they even watching???

ATHENA'S HUSBAND DIED

[competitioneddie]

one thing i will say about bobby's death is that it adds realism, not for us, but in-universe. these guys have survived such outlandish events that the 'tomorrow isn't promised' most staunch proponent grew complacent in his job as a firefighter and let the wound with his teenage son fester for months despite the very real chance of him dying on the job every single day. because death just doesn't happen to them statistically speaking. he doesn't feel endangered.

[competitioneddie]

no because they're the same people who think tommy is peak goodpersonism despite being a dipshit to buck AND never having shown any remorse for being openly racist and misogynistic

"eDDIe is abUsiVE hE shouLD at LeASt aPOloGizE" said by the same people who enjoy toxic romantasy books