#writing essays on tumblr dot com instead of for history of astronomy <3

[kodzuken]

this is gonna be kinda long and incomprehensible but hear me out: sth is really weird with buck, he is acting super ooc this season. first his relationship with taylor that seemed super weird in 5a but i brushed it off attributing it to me being negative abt it bc i don't like BT. but then with each passing episode he was acting weirder. he was once again focused on his own pain and making it abt himself. he tried to leave bc he felt unwanted. 1/3

2/2 then maddie left. and back in that episode when chim punched him and buck spent the entire episode telling chim how maddie just needs time and she's fine i didn't think much of it either. but now after boston, now that we know more? like buck is the caretaker. he loves his family. and maddie came to him, told him abt almost drowning jee and that she is leaving, she didn't tell him where and he just LET HER? he never would have before. 2/3

3/3 the buck we always knew would NEVER let maddie go if he suspected that it was THIS BAD. did he not even realize??? and then there is the cheating storyline. this was super ooc for the buck we know. and then the eddie thing? sth bad is happening to buck. i don't mean ooc in a 'this is bad writing' way. i think it's excellent writing. i think they're giving us subtle hints about how he is heading for sth Bad. i think once everyone else is "fixed" he is gonna go down. hard.

OKAY sorry i’ve been holding on to this since you sent it last night and i wanted to wait until i was off work so i could properly digest it and respond because i think you are actually the smartest anon that’s ever been in my inbox.

so my thing with buck is this: eddie hit the nail on the fucking head when he said in 504 “you’re the guy who likes to fix things”. he wasn’t just walking about buck’s relationship with maddie; he was stripping buck down to his very bones, the very root of his character -- beneath all of buck’s bravado, his flirting, his jokes and fun facts, he’s just a guy who wants to help, who wants to do the right thing, and most importantly, who wants to fix other people’s problems. it is of my personal opinion (but i’m right, actually) that buck wants to fix other people’s problems so he doesn’t have to fix his own. i could go on a mile long tangent about how buck compartmentalizes himself and his own issues (hello buck 1.0/2.0/3.0), and how everything we know about buck in canon goes to prove that he avoids dealing with his own problems by dealing with other people’s. he loves to be able to fix things, he hates when he can’t.

which brings us to season 5, and i think you’re literally so right, that buck is acting ooc, and it’s for a very good reason. as the audience, we’re SUPPOSED to be thinking, as my father said during 511, “what the fuck, buckley?”. we’re supposed to be wondering what’s going on in his head. and where with say, eddie, we very clearly know why he’s heading into the direction of a major breakdown, we don’t necessarily have that with buck. like obviously, we know he’s Been Through Shit (daniel, the shooting, the ladder truck, the tsunami, the blood clots, the lawsuit, jesus christ man), but we’ve also been made to believe that those things are things we’ve dealt with. personally i believe this is why dr. copeland was introduced in 4A -- to give viewers the impression that buck was dealing with his shit. but we very clearly see in season 5 that he hasn’t dealt with it, and with the huge fucking elephant in the room that is the shooting and the will, buck can’t deal with it.

so, he acts out of character. this is SO fucking pertinent to buck’s character, imo. he quite literally has a track record of making the wrong decision when he’s backed into a corner and doesn’t know what else to do; the lawsuit is a perfect example of this. so now, in season 5, we have a buck who has absolutely no direction as to how to move forward to healing, so he does what he does when he’s afraid -- he makes Decisions that aren’t necessarily the best for him in the long run. take taylor, for example -- he makes it clear that he’s tired of running after people, and yet he gets with taylor (not to MENTION everything that happens in past is prologue) anyway. he’s constantly making ooc decisions, and it isn’t bad writing. it’s fan-fucking-tastic writing, actually, because we’re slowly seeing buck break down in real time. this isn’t eddie clutching a back (with buck In The Room) because all of his trauma is hitting him at once; this is buck slowly but surely digging himself into a hole he won’t be able to get out of without serious help

and you’re right -- especially after everything that happened with doug, i don’t think buck normally would have let maddie go off by herself, especially if he feared she was in danger to herself. but this isn’t a buck who’s acting rationally; this isn’t a buck who’s head is on straight. this is a buck who’s grasping at the edge of a cliff, trying to hang on. this is a buck who can’t fix someone else’s problems, because his own are becoming suffocating.

so yeah, you’re right on the nose -- buck is going to put it away (hah) and help other people; he’s going to be there for maddie and chim, be there for eddie and chris, be there for bobby and may, and he’s not going to worry about himself. but as soon as he doesn’t have anything to fix, anything to focus on, the weight of everything is going to hit him at once, and he’s going to fucking break.