tillwehavefaces

[tillwehavefaces]

So I’m mostly a multi-shipper at this point. I know a lot of people will hate me just for saying this, but I will be happy with Buddie or with BuckTommy. I wasn’t at first – I’ve been a Buddie shipper for years and I thought (and still mostly think) that Tommy is a plot device to help Buck realize he’s bi and ultimately bring about Buddie. But I also have enjoyed how Buck and Tommy’s relationship progressed and wouldn’t be upset if that’s how things played out. That being said, I so love the long game of how Buck and Eddie’s relationship has developed over the years and I believe that there are genuine feelings there, and I'm secretly rooting for a Buddie endgame.

However.

If Buddie goes canon in the S8 finale, I am going to be livid.

Now? After Eddie treated Buck like shit and then made up for it by shoving Chris and Pepa’s affection at him? No. Just no.

I have a lot of thoughts* about the kitchen fight scene. (If you can even call it that, because Buck wasn’t even fighting back.) I won’t get too into the weeds here, but suffice it to say that I fall somewhere in the middle of “Eddie is an abuser who’s as terrible as Doug was” and “Eddie was right and that scene was romantic” (and if you’re one of those people who thinks that Eddie should have actually hit Buck, or that Buck was turned on by the whole thing … ewwww).

It’s not just about an apology. I think that there are multiple ways of apologizing, and Eddie flying Chris out was his way of doing that. I also think that what Buck needs, more than an apology, is to hear that Eddie was feeling sad and guilty and angry at himself and that he lashed out at Buck even though Buck was doing nothing wrong.

There are a number of other posts on here that demonstrate how Buck has been doing nothing but thinking about his friends in the aftermath of Bobby’s death (and doing so genuinely, even if there are better ways that he could have gone about it … but imo, intentions count), so I won’t get into that here.

But I will say that a large part of Eddie’s implication here was that Buck would make it about himself if Eddie told him he was offered the firefighter position in El Paso. And to be fair, Buck definitely did screw things up with how he acted when Eddie first started getting ready to move to Texas. But then he made up for it. And not just by distracting Eddie from what he’d done. He went through the effort and expense to move out of his loft so Eddie would have a subletter and could afford the house in Texas. When Eddie told Buck that he thought he might be better off coming back to LA even though he hadn’t fixed things with Chris, Buck was the one to tell him he needed to stay for his son.

I would love to see Buddie go canon. But until Eddie makes up for the things he said to Buck and for taking his own emotions out on Buck (the same way Buck has made up for it when he's screwed up in the past), I hope it doesn’t happen. Because until Eddie does that, you won’t be able to convince me that Buck hasn’t internalized everything Eddie said, and Buck deserves better than that. He deserves someone who thinks he’s wonderful.

To be honest, they both deserve better than that. They deserve a beginning that isn’t marred by what happened during that exchange. Eddie deserves better than getting into a relationship with someone he cares deeply about when he still hasn’t dealt with his anger issues and all of the underlying grief for Shannon that made him go after Kim in the first place and resulted in him driving Christopher all the way to Texas. Buck deserves better than getting into a relationship with someone who’s just drilled into his head that he’s a shit person. He deserves better than to enter a relationship where he’s always going to worry that he’s being selfish and making things about him, where he feels like he constantly has to make up for being himself in order to deserve Eddie’s love.

If they show early signs of Buddie canon like Eddie realizes his feelings for Buck, or Buck realizes that Tommy and Maddie were right and he loves Eddie, but he’s not very happy about it at this point, that’ll be awesome. It’ll indicate that Buddie is going canon but that they’re going to do it in a way that is healthy and joyful for both of these men. But if they have a kiss or a love confession or whatever, and suddenly they both forget about that fight … I’ll hate the writers forever for making Eddie regress into his past angry, violent persona and hurting Buck right before he and Buck get together.

[tillwehavefaces]

I have literally never posted about Buddie before, but I want to add my two cents to the whole Buck/Tommy debate. I know there are mixed feelings and both sides have valid points, but to those who were expecting a Buddie kiss this soon - I don't get it?

Ever since I found out abc had picked up 911, I was and remain cautiously hopeful for Buddie endgame - in fact, the kiss makes me far more hopeful than I was a week ago. Because the truth is that if they'd gone straight for Buddie, it would have been bad storytelling. Offensively bad storytelling.

Hear me out. I agree with y'all that the storytelling that's happened up until now makes it clear that Buddie are in love with each other. I also happen to think that the storytelling that's happened up until now makes it clear that neither of these himbos have any clue that they're in love with each other, or that they even could fall in love with a man.

And it's not for lack of opportunity, if the writers had wanted to go that way, obviously! There's was Buck's reaction to Eddie being stuck in the well and Eddie making Buck Christopher's guardian in his will and both of them almost dying and Eddie having a literal breakdown over all the trauma he's repressed and they've both been to therapy and they've both broken up with women who were all wrong for them ... I could go on and on.

But not only did the writers not take any of these opportunities to make at least one of them realize their feelings for the other might not be platonic (certainly, no explicit indication on screen), but because fox was so afraid of losing viewers if they made both their supposedly straight male firefighters queer, they doubled down on Eddie and Buck seeing their relationship as platonic. Every time one of them went through some kind of life-changing experience and questioned deeply held beliefs about themselves yet never questioned their sexuality, it made it seem less and less likely that *anything* would make them realize they might be queer and in love with their best friend.

Honestly, I think if abc had gotten the show at a different point, they might have been able to go straight into Buddie. For example, a season earlier? Eddie's just gotten through a ton of trauma with the help of a therapist and is returning to the 118, and it would've been easy to write a storyline where he's realized his feelings for Buck and tries to do something about it. Or maybe right after Buck's near-death experience. But they both got through those traumas and started dating new women, as oblivious to the love right in front of them as ever. And that's how S6 ended.

So I don't think there's anything abc could have done to convince me that either one of them suddenly realizes how they feel without something happening. If that Buck/Tommy kiss had instead been a Buddie kiss, I would have loved it, but I wouldn't have really believed it. It wouldn't have felt genuine.

Excuse my nerdy science brain, but it's like inertia - Buck and Eddie have both been going in one direction for so long (the 'we're straight best friends!' direction) that it's going to take some kind of force to knock them off that path. It can't be near death experiences, cause they've both been there and it hasn't worked. It can't be finding new girlfriends or breaking up with said girlfriends. No, it's gotta be something really obvious.

That force is Tommy. A canon gay character who recognizes Buck as queer even when Buck doesn't recognize himself as queer. Who (unknowingly) forces Buck to confront that part of himself by kissing him, which will in turn force Eddie to confront his feelings and reaction to seeing his best friend and co-parent now dating a man. I can't say for sure that Buddie is coming, but I honestly think this (not Tommy specifically, but a queer man who is outside the whole Buddie situation) is the only way to tell this story in a way that makes it feel true to life, given the mess that fox created.