#also for those new here i don't hate tommy cause he's with buck i just hate tommy even before he came back thank you

[lenaboskow]

so at first i thought lou was a standard pr nightmare but now i'm convinced he's just making shit up for the laughs. not like, in a mean way, and i don't think he was messing about the tommy storyline originally being with eddie, but like, he goes from talking about buddie in one interview and how tommy definitely knows there's something there, to campaigning for a main the next, and then back to "oh yeah tommy's just here for a good time" and then back to "tommy and buck are so much deeper than labels it's two souls connecting on a deep level" (or whatever) so yeah i think he's fucking with us.

[bellabrady]

Hey! I want to say absolutely no hate here, you can think whatever you want about characters, I just want to make some points for you to consider! If it makes you change your mind, cool! If it doesn’t, well that follow button doesn’t need my finger on it since we clearly have different views :)

I am not going to be commenting on Chim begins since I haven’t watched it in a while, but I just finished rewatching Hen Begins and was discussing Bobby Begins Again with someone, so here we go.

In Hen Begins, Tommy is never hostile towards her. He doesn’t defend her from the captain, but he’s also a young gay man who is probably terrified of that same hate being turned to him. When Hen is doing her speech on the fire truck most of the crew has tightened jaws and seems mad, but Tommy seems relaxed and thoughtful. And at the end of the episode he tells Hen: “We would’ve done a sweep of the area eventually, but eventually would’ve been too late. Good job.” with a smile and then proceeds to shake her hand and pat her on the shoulder. It is also heavily implied that he was one of the people who left a complaint about the captain and his treatment. Everything about this episode screams a man who was keeping his head low and trying to slip under the radar, not a man trying to be hateful.

In Bobby Begins Again, they throw him a nice going away party. I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to buy assholes who are rude to me a cake.

Then later Chimney is able to call him up and ask a favor that Tommy does without complaint, which makes it seem like they’re on good terms.

And in the most recent episodes, he steals a helicopter and lies to higher-ups, something that could easily get him fired and cause him to lose everything. Once again, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t risk my job and my life (they were on a dangerous mission after all) for people I’m not good friends with.

Lastly, Buck does not strike me as the type to date someone who doesn’t like his friends, his family

Again, no hate, just giving you my observations

thank you for being so nice about this!

i do disagree, however. tommy was 100% hostile to hen in hen begins. ('new york bitchiness is a compliment?' for example, or him throwing gear at her feet so she'll tidy it up and barely sparing her a glance)

i also am simply not a fan of giving characters' past actions depth when it's very clear that back then, they weren't written with that depth in mind. i can promise you the writers did not write hen begins & chimney begins while thinking of tommy as a gay, closeted man. (yes, i'm aware there was that one jacob twilight joke but personally i think you might be giving the writers a little too much credit if you think that was planned forshadowing or something. it was just a silly scene)

furthermore, even if we do run with the whole 'tommy was afraid to speak up because he was afraid and closeted'...standing up against misogyny and racism has nothing to do with being closeted, since neither of those things are related to sexuality, so standing up against those things won't make anyone assume that you're gay. tommy being closeted isn't an excuse, in my opinion.

i'm also aware that the characters have forgiven tommy but i just...don't really care about that because in this show, everyone forgives everyone, constantly. buck forgave his parents and they have a good relationship now — that doesn't mean i have to forgive the buckley parents now too.

as for your last point, i'd argue taylor definitely wasn't the biggest fan of buck's friends and family and they weren't a huge fan of her either. but i also don't think that really matters here, since it's been established that tommy is good with hen and chim, so buck has no reason to assume there's bad blood. it once again boils down to the simple fact that i, as a viewer, do not have to forgive a character's actions simply because other characters did.

anyway, once again thank you for not being rude about this and i hope you have a nice day :)

(i hope my response doesn't come across as rude either)

[hainethehero]

Just to follow up on the last ask about forgiving - right off the bat, you had an excellent point. I don't want to distract from that. Actually quite a few points. Were people sending death threats for real?!?! Anyway, one thing that's been bothering me. Is the real world views that people are enforcing. Along with this 'rule' that a character has to be redeemed/good in order to like. Like, why should I have to 'forgive' or have some stranger on the internet tell me 'they forgive' a character in order to like them. And why does the character have to have changed? I don't want to go on a tangent, but gosh if Tommy was still pulling the 'I'm a straight cis white guy card' to fly under the radar and told Buck to do it, and Buck did. That would make for interesting TV as Buck realized what he was doing was wrong/ hurting his friends and then his, Hen and Chim and Eddie could really bond/bring forward a compelling racism story line. Like, we could see that, and it wouldn't have to be a bad thing! AND! AND! Imagine how that would help the buck/tommy ship. Tommy's new boyfriend helping him to come out, not just when it's easy. Everyone wins!

But if we even saw a hint of one of Buck's LI's being anything but good and pure. And I'm picking on Buck here I know, this happens in a lot of other cases. But as we are seeing with Tommy in real time. Then we have to hate them.

I have no problem liking a villainous character that stays bad. And maybe that's why it seems odd to me that people say, 'oh they've done bad things, you can't like them.' Cause then I can't love my bad guys from say the comics! Or some of the heroes from the comics, either! But that's not exactly the problem I keep circling here and getting distracted from making this ask about - I'm rambling even when typing oie.

I think the real, main thing that I've been getting annoyed with, is the use of real world views to make people in fandom fall in line. Ignoring the real world and real people for a moment. Why does a POC person have to forgive Tommy, a not real person, in order for everyone to be allowed to like the character? We're each a monolithic group of separate minorities with one voice. There's no collective that can condemn or atone a person officially.

On the flip side, I know not everyone takes in media the same way. So my view of liking a character if I find them entertaining, even if they're a bad guy. Won't be the same for everyone. So a person who has dealt with some form of discrimination totally could see a character who does that form of discrimination and hate them for it. They could see the in-depth arch of 'redemption' or the throwaway line saying the character has changed. And for personal reasons choose to still not like the character. Or the character could still be flawed (art imitates life after all and no one is perfect) and they could still not 'forgive' or like the character.

But why does that mean everyone else needs to seek permission to do it? To say 'oh this character did bad things, but I can look past it, they've changed' or god forbid 'this is a character with flaws or is just bad' and still like the character.

It's also funny cause in Tommy's case, I don't really remember the begins episodes. Someone keeps brining up a guy named Sal to ship Eddie with now. And I'm like, who now? But anyway. I don't even remember Tommy from those episodes and a lot of other people who just tune in to watch week to week and all the new people who just started this season. Were probably like me and didn't realize Tommy was around before! Which doesn't really matter, I'm just now wondering how to clue up this ask.

So glad I can do this anonymously and not reveal to the world how awkward I can be when trying to communicate via the written word.

This was a bit confusing but I'll try my best.

First, yes, people were sending death threats both to Lou and Tim.

NO ONE is saying we can only forgive a character who did questionable things if POCs forgive them. I am stating that if POC have the right to dislike/have reservations about characters who showed racist behaviour in the past despite having redeemable qualities. No one has the right to police pocs about their feelings towards a character like that.

The initial point however, is that a large part of the fandom sees Tommy as the show meant to portray him- a flawed character who eventually reconciled his relationship with Hen and Chim. Tommy isn't a villain. He's literally a flawed character who was given a redemption montage in order to show how different the 118 was under Gerrard's racist and oppressive leadership versus Bobby's.

If anyone's a villain, it's Jonah. It's Gerrard. It's people with actual distorted complexes who just wanted to hurt people because they could.

And while Tommy's behaviour under Gerrard was bad and cannot be excused, it can and was explained by the show, that it was because of the environment fostered by the bigot Captain Gerrard. A layer of nuance is added when we find out in s7 that Tommy was actually very closeted in the 118 BECAUSE of Gerrard, hence the reason why he joined in on the questionable behaviour. Once Chimney saved him (and also humbled him) and Hen eviscerated them rightfully with her monologue speaking out against their racism, the power dynamic began to change. Gerrard was booted out and Tommy, Hen and Chimney became close friends, as evidenced by the farewell party they had for him, and the fact that they frequented that bar to hang out after work.

[bidisasterevankinard]

Hello!

I'm gonna try to keep this short because I could easily turn this into a hundred-page rant if I let myself, and I can't bring myself to do that to you. 😅

I've been a silent lurker on Bucktommyblr since season 8 started. I started watching the show live at 8x05 and immediately stopped watching it after 8x06 because the breakup made me sick to my stomach. Right now, I'm sticking to my plan of not watching anything in full until I know their direction 'cause I don't feel like getting burned again. 😅

Before 8x06, I followed the Bucktommy tag and interacted with pretty much any post. After 8x06, I became more of a silent lurker, specifically for your blog. And I wanted to thank you for your Bucktommy content regarding the break-up.

After the breakup, but before I found your blog, I was starting to think I was going crazy. Almost everywhere I looked, it was people criticizing Buck for the entire episode while never really mentioning anything Tommy could've done better (and the few things I saw criticizing Tommy were clearly meant as hate, not a genuine complaint, so I don't count those).

Frankly, I found it really hard to find a blog that agreed with me that both Buck and Tommy were to blame, and both could've handled things a lot better. Like, I remember when everyone talked about how horrible Buck was at talking to Tommy because he didn't know about Abby six months in. Everywhere I looked, everyone was saying the same things about this.

This situation officially introduced me to your blog. I saw your post on the situation where you essentially said, "Um, guys, you know Tommy also didn't know about the Abby connection six months in, right? Their lack of communication skills comes from both of them." Like, I saw this post, and I literally yelled, "FINALLY!!" Many people came to the conclusion that I was crazy that day. 😂

Like, I do get why people are more willing to criticize Buck. He's the character we've been following for 8 seasons, and it is frustrating to see him act in a way that people don't necessarily agree he'd act (I do have opinions on this as well, but this is already too long 😭). But it got to a point where it felt like people didn't like Buck anymore (and I know that the Oliver situation didn't help), but they were still super in love with Tommy while ignoring the things Tommy should be called out on, specifically regarding 8x06. Some takes started to genuinely make me question whether I should even ship them anymore because it seemed like a lot of people were using Buck to prop Tommy up on a pedestal where he did nothing wrong. I can't stand it when relationships are portrayed like that.

You were one of the few exceptions I found to this. You've called out both Buck and Tommy and respectfully argued your stance to people who disagreed with you, and I've really admired you for this, especially since (just based on post reactions) our thoughts seem to be in the minority. You're part of the reason I haven't given up on Bucktommy and still chance their tags on AO3 and Tumblr, and I really appreciate you for that.

I'm sorry this is so long and that I might've gotten a bit rambly. This is after I promised myself I wouldn't write too much and could've said more. 😭 If you want, I can continue this in other asks, but I think I've taken enough of your time.

Nonny you're basically explained all my feeling too(and id you want you can say more ofc). After the finale of the season it's really hard for me in a fandom too, and recently I'm def less active bc my own problems are not helping feeling good and make my love to the ship sour. But yes, unfortunately i saw kinda the same in buddie fandom, and it happened here. People love Tommy really much, put him on pedestal, and as with Eddie do not love to look at him with critical part. Unfortunately bc of it Buck became just a tool to write Tommy in fics. It's already not so about bucktommy as about buckTOMMY. And partly i understand why. Tommy is a new shining not deep explored character, unlike Buck. But love to character and ship moves to blind love to only one character who "can't do bad"

I maybe might seem critical to Tommy more, but if people look at the post I reblog too, they'll see i agree that Buck was wrong too(I also explore it in my fics too), but yes, unfortunately somehow a lot of people only decided that in the wrong is only Buck

I'm always try to respectful, bc ofc we're all different and have opinions, but I was, is and will talk how Tommy DID wrong with Buck too. Communication problems came from both of them, Tommy's speech that is really biphobic, the way maybe he didn't plan it but what he said basically means "I wanted fun time and it's your problem if you thought we're serious"- this again comes to problem with two street communication, but at least 6 months in Buck, maybe wrong way, but stated his expectations, and actually he stated them in 7x5 too, in the way he could when he only understood he is interested in men. Also, Tommy twice showed himself as a runner. Twice. And if we add Tommy's running from 118 before 1s, it means three times. Remember what is show's stance about 3 times being a pattern?

Rn actually both Buck and Tommy should do a WORK TO BE BETTER. And if smt Buck is doing it. He's not clinging, he is giving Tommy space. Is baking can be seen as clinging? Maybe, but basically show made a point to show that Buck is in love. Eddie is not over Shannon after 6 years, why Buck should be after a week or month?

Partly this is why i still have hope for next part of the season but I'm still not sure if I will watch life or not