#eddie is a brave character like he always has been even if he has that little bit of doubt

[thatbuddie]

i know we’ve been saying this for so long but like, this is almost unprecedented, y’all. normally when you want queer characters and queer relationships you have to SEARCH for them. you go into shows knowing they have lgbt+ rep and ships. especially for m/m otps. they’re planned beforehand. they are introduced with the idea of “these characters are achillean and will get together.”

but this? buck? i can assure you no one on the 911 team thought he would be introduced as bisexual at any point. but the truth is, just like it happens in real life for so many bisexual people (and queer people in general), he’s found himself. he’s found his truth, his light. he’s realizing this was always who he was even if he did not understand it before or have the words to express it properly. we’ve watched a character organically grow into one of the best (if not the best) representations of a bisexual individual there has ever been on tv.

and buddie? oh my god don’t get me started on buddie. they bloomed. they’ve happened organically. they were never ever ever supposed to be what they are. and yet here we are, 6 seasons later, knowing we are getting there. knowing they are each other’s heart and soul. knowing they will be together not because execs created them to be together but because they make sense. finally there has been a show brave enough to see the magic and beauty of what they themselves created. they’re taking a chance on them, on us, and i think there will never be anything else to top this.

we should enjoy this. we should savor it. this is special. a once in a lifetime kind of thing (just like buck and eddie are living their once in a lifetime love story.)

[911-ls-whats-your-emergency]

I am honestly so happy with Buck/Tommy. Not because I don't want Buddie endgame anymore - that's still my dream. But because the payoff will be so much richer (and honestly more believable for the casual fan) than if they go from "straight" to bi Buck to Buddie in a few episodes.

And so far, Tommy's character is GREAT! He has chemistry with both Eddie & Buck and based on his delivery of "MY attention?" he seems to be the most aware of the potential for Buddie out of the three of them. So yeah he's gonna take the opportunity to kiss Buck when it's offered (who wouldn't??) and probably a lot more than that and he's gonna be able to walk Buck through this new thing with some confidence so that if/when Buddie does come about, it can be more about the emotions.

They've honestly set him up to potentially be Eddie's queer guru as well - or even just given us someone who Eddie can talk about on screen about Buck, which has been rare in the past. And since Tommy seems aware of the Buck/Eddie of it all from the beginning, I'm hopeful he won't be the love interest who has to put on a brave face while being tossed aside for no reason in favor of the main pairing (a trope I hate) but rather he can be like "yeah I always knew this was coming but I wanted to have some fun in the meantime".

Also now that they confirmed Season 8, I want it to be slowwwww. I want everyone in the 911 universe to be rooting for them before they're even fully aware. I want every fan, not just the tumblr buddie community, to be screaming at their TV "JUST KISS ALREADY" every time Buddie is on screen. And then when they finally do, we can all die happy :) because love is love and these two deserve each other in the best way possible.

[lenaboskow]

i'm bored at work so here's an updated list of everything tommy kinard has ever said or done that makes him a bad person who hasn't changed/learned from his mistakes (even if he's not being inherently/explicitly racist anymore) (before you come at me for saying people can change, here's my previous pinned post from 7x05 that explains how he hasn't. i go into it more here about the back half of the season, but all of these points still stand)

season two

chimney begins

the first thing tommy says to/about chimney is "did you forget to tip the delivery driver?". if it wasn't for the fact that they had asian food delivered and chimney is asian, this could've been passed off, but instead they chose to have the first act of racism/general harassment be done by tommy, not the racist captain.

then when they return from a call and see chimney dutifully cleaning, tommy says to chimney: "you're still here?". not inherently racist, but still rude

we get some montages of chimney being left out/harrasef, and tommy is always at the forefront. it culminates in the locker room scene where tommy says "i don't think about you enough to hate you", which again isn't inherently racist but it is rude.

at the end, the only way chimney manages to earn a semblance of respect from tommy is by saving his life, which is fucked up. you shouldn't have to save someone's life to he treated with dignity. but fine, maybe tommy learned his lesson, right?

wrong

hen begins

at the beginning, tommy, chimney, gerrard, and a few others are standing up in the loft while hen walks in. gerrard says a few racist/sexist words, and chim stands up for her. tommy just stands there, not even looking like he might want to say something. not saying something when it happens is almost as bad as doing, and obviously chimney, who'd been there a shorter time, was brave enough to stand up for her.

then tommy, during a meal, tommy says about hen: "new york bitchiness is a compliment?". there's no non sexist explanation for this comment

actually that entire meal, he ignores chimney's attempts move the conversation away, which says a lot

again, general enabling of the racism and sexism

during hen's "see me" speech, tommy looks pissed off to be there, and then proceeds to look annoyed when he apologizes to her at the end of the episode (if you can even call it that)

post begins episodes

now, we don't know a whole lot about how hen and chimney interacted with tommy after the events of their begins episodes, but we do know they weren't close enough to keep in touch after. chimney loses touch for two years immediately after he leaves, and by season seven hen forgot that tommy worked at harbor. i don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like behavior for people who worked closely for ten years.

season seven

7x04

this episode was from buck's pov, so it's actually the time where tommy is the most tolerable. that doesn't mean he doesn't have his moments, though:

calling buck "kid" and "evan" is a weird way to introduce a love interest. tommy calling him "kid" shows that tommy is aware of the age difference, which as i explain here is at least the same as buck and abby's (and here why that screenshot of tim saying he's 40 is irrelevant). also, tommy calls buck "evan" with no on screen explanation, and we know that lou was explicitly told tommy isn't "allowed" to call him buck. you know the only other characters who aren't allowed to call him buck? his parents. that's all I'll say.

we don't really see much of tommy again until the basketball scene, and then it's focused on buck and eddie anyways, so the next time we see him and buck really interact is the loft scene (which is telling about who buck was trying to get the attention of, but that's a different conversation). in this scene, tommy makes a condescending remark about how "we weren't trying to make you feel left out" and "eddie can have more than one friend", which... again, brings us back to the age difference because it sounds like (in context) that tommy is reprimanding a child. having them kiss right after that was definitely an interesting choice (in terms of their relationship)

7x05

oh the date. i have so many feelings about this. we know that tommy knows buck isn't out, because buck told maddie they purposely picked an out of the way spot, and despite the face tommy made at the comment, he didn't seem surprised when buck told him it was his "first date with a dude" (it seemed more like a "i already know this, you don't have to repeat it" face). because of this, the way tommy acted when eddie showed up and freaked buck out has no excuse. the closet comment? even if tommy didn't know buck wasn't out and decided he didn't want to date someone who wasn't out, he shouldn't have made that comment knowing it could out buck to his best friend, who he clearly wasn't ready to tell. lucky for buck, eddie's an idiot (affectionate) with a one track mind (buck) and didn't register the comment.

then we have tommy leaving buck at the curb. leaving the date isn't the problem, it's the fact that he didn't tell buck until he got in the uber, which obviously upset buck (though he was admittedly more upset over lying to eddie). the rest of the episode is spent on buck coming out to eddie, and we don't see tommy again until buck is apologizing for the date, which... why should buck have to apologize for not being ready to come out? buck did nothing wrong on the date. if you just figured out you were queer and hadn't had the chance to tell your best friend before they accidentally crashed your date, you'd react the same way, don't try to tell me otherwise. it was tommy who should've apologized, plain and simple.

7x06

the bachelor party. tommy's excuse for not dressing up made no sense to me... he was obviously going to have to change anyways, so why not put in a little effort for your date? i see people saying that only eddie put effort in, but henren was dressed too, just more subtly. tommy chose not to dress up, and made a half hearted excuse of "they had henleys in the 80s" (which you would know, wouldn't you, 70s baby?)

then we have tommy leaving, which fair he's on call, and we don't see him again until the hospital kiss. this is the only time we see tommy look remotely interested in buck the entire episode (every other time he has an rbf face, even when they're hugging).

7x09

we only see tommy during the medal ceremony, and he still manages to say something to piss me off. "enjoy it while it lasts" because he can't indulge his boyfriend for two seconds. it's becoming a pattern, i'm afraid

7x10

the date scene was a weird way to end their s7 relationship. buck was opening up about his trauma, tried to find middle ground by saying "so we both have daddy issues" (nothing in the context made it seem sexual, in fact i didn't realize until tommy made the joke, so it's possible buck didn't either) and then tommy says "i don't" despite admitting that he did only a few seconds before. buck says with a slightly resigned (barely there, but still there) tone, "but you think i do" and tommy responds with "god i hope so". any other context and it would've been fine, but buck had just been talking ahout how his father figure literally died and came back to life. there's a post somewhere (pretty sure it was an ask someone sent me actually, if i can find it i'll link)that talks about how buck has a habit of going along with his love interests to avoid causing waves, and how that's exactly what buck was doing in 7x10, and it makes perfect sense. if buck had a problem with it, he wouldn't immediately say. he'd sit on it for weeks before even considering bringing it up (like natalia and death, and how he avoided taylor in s5). even if he wasn't uncomfortable, it doesn't take away from the fact that the timing was weird and buck wasn't in a good headspace to respond properly.

in conclusion

tommy is repeatedly a bad person. just because he hasn't said anything racist or sexist since season two, it doesn't negate this. you'll notice that almost all of his scenes are here, if not all. the writers have chosen to have him repeatedly look bad and like someone who only cares about himself (with the way he constantly tries to defend his actions by blaming gerrard, and how he only cares about his feelings about being out), but the bt stans are too excited at the prospect of two white men kissing (or just two men and they don't care who, thus dumping eddie, it depends on the bt) that they choose to look past it and hate on ryan/eddie instead.

these last three months in the fandom have felt so different compared to the rest. the fandom i knew pre s7 would never act this way. is it because lou is a nepo baby? i know it's not because of his looks. but either way, i'm disappointed, and hope s8 treats us (fans who actually care about the characters and don't actively want less for them) better

(if i missed anything, let me know and i'll edit the post to add it)

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  @cuips-not-cute! cuips_not_cute has six fics in the Stranger Things fandom on AO3 and all of them are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @cuips-not-cute:

he could be brave

blood is an aphrodisiac

honeyed affection

blinking red light

cyclical

"cuips is a master of taking the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride. The amount of times I've laughed and cried at the same time reading his fics have been too numerous to count. Especially the depth of the sex scenes and the character beats and growth they portray are gorgeous to read - and also very titillating. I love Steve and Eddie in every one of cuips stories, adore the little mannerisms they are given and the way they interact with each other and other characters. Besides the inspiring prose cuips can pull off a plot like few other people I've found so far - since blinking red light is still ongoing, I'll just point to cyclical for that. I'm very thankful to cuips for writing and posting these stories and for being a very active part of this lovely fandom." -- anonymous

Below the cut, @cuips-not-cute answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

i don’t even know. i was happily in the ofmd fandom when i watched season 4 almost three years ago now (oh god) and then the characters… they got me. i fear they’ll never leave.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

god, so many. they’re all kinda the same flavor though so i’ll list out what i’m always filtering for to find a new fic: bottom/sub eddie, creature/monster eddie, post s4, canon compliant, soft dom steve, sex pollen, spit kink, rimming (perhaps my FAVORITE ever thing to read), switch eddie/switch steve… the list goes on.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

probably also rimming. there’s just something so romantic about eating ass. and i really love to stick with post s4 canon compliant aus, too, i don’t think i’ve written an actual for real au yet, though i do have an idea for one after brl.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

i don’t know if i can pick!! my ao3 bookmarks host my many all-time faves, but if you wanna go by the fic i’ve reread the most it’s probably the affliction of the feeling. it’s so fucking good.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

YES!!! i have never written omegaverse!!! which is crazy, ‘cause i like it a LOT. i have a post-s4 omegaverse au kicking around in my head currently, and i cannot wait to sink my teeth into all the messy biology and politics that come with the omegaverse.

What is your writing process like?

chaotic, in a word. usually, i’ll get a fic idea while i’m balls-deep in writing another fic so i’ll shove it to the side and let it simmer while i finish that first one, then i’ll spend a good long while planning it out in ridiculous detail, and THEN i’ll start actually drafting. i like to have a fully fleshed out outline and a couple chapters written and edited before i start posting, and once posting begins i tend to deviate quite a bit from my outline but it’s all good fun.

Do you have any writing quirks?

definitely. i don’t like pointing them out for fear of other folks seeing them in everything i do, but they’re there. one that i don’t mind so much is my absolute abuse of the word “little.” everything is “a little” of this, “a little” of that, but i try to cut my usage down significantly while i’m editing.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

i always TRY to keep a schedule but… yeah. it never works. i’m far too busy for one, but attempts are made. i’d like to one day write a fic in full before posting it, because i think it’d be a whole lot better if i let it sit for that long but lord, i sure do like getting ao3 comments on every chapter. they make the writing motivation go WAY up.

Which fic are you most proud of?

brl, definitely. that fucker is LONG and i’m barely halfway through it. i think i’ve done a lot of cool things with it and i’m going to do some more cool things and i’ve made a lot of really awesome friends in the process of writing it so it’s got some pretty insane sentimental value to me. it’s definitely going to be a fic i’ll miss writing once i finish it, but that’s what the epilogue series is for!!!

How did you get the idea for blinking red light?

from another fic!!! @racketghost is the author of one of my favorite things i’ve ever read, which is the good omens zach and miri au, closed set (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320960/chapters/55862155 <- hyperlinked), wherein crowley has been lying about the existence of some angelic sex tapes to all of hell, and then he and aziraphale have to actually make the tapes. it’s awesome. it’s gorgeous. brl is one big giant love letter to this fic, because it means so fucking much to me and i think about it ALL the time. 

When writing honeyed affection, what was something you didn’t expect?

hmm, i don’t know? ha is, i think, a pretty easygoing fic with lots and lots of porn stuffed inside it, and that was all i intended it to be so i cannot think of anything i was surprised by!!

What inspired blood is an aphrodisiac?

i just wanted to write vampire eddie. it was july ‘22, kas theories were everywhere, i had to try it. these days i think i would change a LOT about it because my ideas and hcs surrounding the characters have evolved significantly, but i’ll write vampire eddie again and “fix” everything i no longer like about biaa.

What was your favorite part to write from he could be brave?

…the fisting. i genuinely think some of my best writing is in that scene, and while i feel the same way about this fic as i do biaa, the fisting scene will always hold a special place in my heart. i’m very, very excited to write the fisting chapter in brl because of this scene. fisting rules.

How do/did you feel writing cyclical?

i wrote cyclical during a very weird few months of my life, so writing it was sort of my way of dealing with all the insane shit going on around me, and i think it shows. in a good way, though, because cyclical is a timeloop fic so it needed to be a little angsty and insane. i’m stupidly proud of that fic. @ryeallytired actually BOUND it into a PHYSICAL BOOK and SENT IT TO ME and when i tell you that is the singular most precious object i own, i mean it.

What was the most difficult part of writing blinking red light?

PLOTTING THAT BITCH. GOD. i’m so happy to be actually WRITING it now, the planning was genuinely so brutal. my issue was that i was sticking too close to the plot of closed set (<3) which just… did not work for steddie. closed set’s premise centers around crowley lying about making sex tapes, yes, but he lied about them to PROTECT aziraphale, which is the messiest, kindest, riskiest fucking thing ever. and it’s awesome. in the early planning stages of brl, i was trying to put eddie in the crowley role of lying about having made sex tapes with steve, but it reallyyy didn’t work. there was an oc and i absolutely hated him, plus i didn’t like what that premise was doing to eddie’s character… ugh. it was a MESS. it took several rubber duck-ing conversations with my brilliant friend @lollaika and a rewatch of zach and miri to finally realize that it had to be STEVE who brings up the idea of sex tapes so that he could protect eddie, rather than eddie bringing it up to save his own hide (yikes).

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

oooh, lots. reallyyyy loved chapter 8 of cyclical with all of the pov shifts, that was super fun to write. i also really enjoyed writing the dry humping/sex tape convo in the first chapter of brl, and i’m stupidly excited to write chapters 12, 13, 15, and 17, because of specific scenes that will happen in each.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

i do!! after brl is completed i’ll have to choose from two story ideas (because i cannot have two wips at once or i’ll get SO stressed), one being a semi-realistic steddie cowboy au based off my own experiences with growing up on a farm and featuring messy, earnest cowboys and not-fully-human eddie, and the other being the omegaverse au i want to write, which will have a very fun mix of vampire eddie, dubcon bitching, and accidental mating bites!!!

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

i cannot think of anything!! this was super fun :D

Thank you to our author, @cuips-not-cute, and our anonymous nominator! See more of cuips_not_cute's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[rebelangelwings]

Thank you so much for the request Sparrow <3

It's a little open ended but I hope you like it!

____________________________________

could i please request a buddie/reader getting together fic? i dont mind the specifics but maybe reader thinks buck and eddie are already dating (even though they arent) so when one of them confesses, reader is really confused and it ends up with all of them tgt?

______________________________________

Y/n had been introduced to the 118 family through Maddie and her work at Dispatch. The two had clicked instantly, sharing knowing looks about particularly arrogant members of staff or stifling giggles in the breakroom. Relatively new to the area, y/n didn't have any friends or many family members she could regularly see other than her cousin and their kid who she doted on. 

Chimney had been her first encounter with an official member of Firehouse 118, when he kindly picked up a tipsy Maddie and y/n from a Dispatch work Christmas party, and chatted along with her before dropping her to her small apartment. 

"So, y/n do you have any family in the area?" Chimney looked at her in the rear view mirror.

"My cousin Lola doesn't live far. She has a kid, Joey. I adore her." She replied with a smile on her face at the mention of Joey. 

Maddie tuned into the conversation, sitting up and exclaiming, "oh she is so adorable, Chim! She's got this wheelchair with all these Disney characters painted on it that y/n did by hand!"

Y/n smiled but ducked and shook her head slightly at Maddie bragging on her behalf. "We've actually been having a bit of trouble recently…trying to find or get Joey into a school that is accessible. There aren't as many around as you might like to think." 

Chim looked thoughtful, "my pal, Eddie, he's another firefighter at the 118, his son Christopher has CP. I could ask him if he'd be willing to speak with you about how he got Chris into his school?"

Not one to naturally ask for help, y/n felt awkward, "do you think he would mind? I don't want to put people out, especially as he's never even met me."

"Come meet him then!," Maddie chirped, spinning in her seat, "Bobby is having a BBQ tomorrow afternoon. You should come, right Chim?"

"Absolutely. Bobby always says, 'the merrier' and there are always so many leftovers. We can pick you up if you want?" 

And so the next afternoon, y/n found herself in the garden of the captain of the 118, someone who she had spoken to plenty of times over the Dispatch radios, but never met.

Everyone in the extended 118 family was kind and welcoming, not thrown off at all at an outsider joining them.

Maddie had gone round giving introductions, most memorably for y/n were two tall and effortlessly handsome men who were seemingly teasing each other, shoulder and thighs pressed together and beers in hand. 

Buck and Eddie. 

Y/n would have been enamored with them, had she not taken note of the way Eddie's hand rested on Buck's shoulder, or Buck teased Eddie about his cooking catastrophes, or the looks of sheer devotion both of them had for each other. 

Of course these two gorgeous, kind, selfless, brave, firefighters were already spoken for. 

Y/n did get an opportunity to speak to Eddie about little Joey, and he was more than happy to speak about Christopher's school and his struggle and eventual success with getting him enrolled. 

"It's really sweet of you to care so much for your cousin's kid," Eddie smiled at her. 

"Me and my cousin are close. More like best friends, and we have a bit of a rocky relationship with the rest of the family so it was just pretty natural to step in and be a part of Joey's life."

Eddie nodded appreciatively. 

Later, Buck found y/n trying to find a drink in the kitchen, "hey, y/n, I forgot to say earlier how great it is to finally meet you - Maddie talks about you a lot." 

Y/n looked up from the fridge and beamed, "naaw that is really sweet and I am most definitely going to tease her about that later…what sort of stuff has she said about me, exactly?" She becomes suspicious. 

Buck looked mischievous as he said conspiratorially, "Uh… does blue vomit right a bell?"

Y/n gasped, "she didn't?!"

Buck nodded, repressing a laugh, "mhm. An unfortunate incident with a hot glue gun? Oh! My favourite has to be the one with the LEGO."

Y/n had her head in her hands whilst Buck laughed at her embarrassment. Finally  she lifted her head and raised an eyebrow, "Laugh it up Buckley. Go ahead. But Maddie talks to me too and I know a fair amount of your greatest hits."

"You're bluffing."

"Am I? Am I really…Firehose?" 

Buck's mouth dropped open as his ears turned pink, "wha- how did she…dammit Chim!" 

"Not to mention the bread that landed you in hospital, or your unfortunate boy-band blond frosted tips phase."

"Hey, that was fashionable when I was in Peru!" Buck tried to defend himself. 

"Baby, that has never been fashionable anywhere on the globe." 

At that moment, Eddie joined them in the kitchen area. He was overcome with an emotion he didn't often feel, which confused him to no end. Because, jealousy was not completely foreign to him, however, confusion over who he was jealous of in this situation, was a foreign concept to Eddie Diaz. 

__________________________________

Weeks went by following y/n's first introduction to the 118, and many encounters had followed, either as a big group, or as quiet nights drinking wine with the Buckley siblings, or a meeting at a coffee shop with Eddie to talk about the bureaucracy of the American education system. 

Whilst y/n enjoyed the company of Buck and Eddie very much so, she didn't allow her feelings to be anything more than friendship, knowing they were unavailable on several levels. 

The boys however, had found themselves conflicted for a while now. 

Firstly, Eddie was still ruminating over his feelings of jealousy that occurred that day, hearing and seeing the almost flirty conversation between his best friend and the beautiful woman that cared so deeply about her family. 

Buck, in a slightly different position, was far more in tune with her sexuality that Eddie. Buck had explored other options on his travels, he knew that he was not straight although he had yet to place a label on himself, and he had even been in a poly relationship whilst in South America. It hadn't lasted long and was mostly about sex rather than feelings, but it had opened his eyes to other options. Buck was also painfully aware of how in love with Eddie Diaz he was. Had been for a while now. But he had yet to make any moves, giving Eddie space to come to terms with his own identity and feelings. 

And, unbeknown to Buck, Eddie had realised his feelings towards his best friend were not strictly platonic. He was talking with his therapist, Frank, and slowly coming to his own conclusions. 

So, when y/n arrived, all yellow energy and wit, that really threw a spanner into the works for Eddie. 

Unknowingly, both men experienced the same "oh" moment about their feelings towards y/n at the same moment. They had arranged a playmate between Chrisopher and Joey, the three adults first taking them to the zoo, and then returning to Eddie's house for snacks. The two children were crowded around y/n as they recounted their favourite animals from their trip, and she proceeded to illustrate them in a sketchbook. 

The children were amazed at her accuracy, as were Buck and Eddie when they saw her work. 

"You're an incredible artist, y/n," Buck told her.

"Don't be silly, they're just doodles, Buck" She rolled her eyes.  

"Not like any doodle that I've ever seen," Eddie chipped in. 

"Well then I'll take the title of Doodle Queen if it's up for grabs," she joked, not looking up from her paper. 

Both men glanced at each other, smiling fondly. 

__________________________________

Things started to evolve from there, at least for Buck and Eddie. 

Eddie began to feel a low level of animosity towards Buck, thinking that he would make a move on y/n. 

And Buck, whilst he was open to ideas of polyamory, did not think Eddie or y/n would be, and thus felt anxious at the prospect of becoming a third wheel. 

The other members of the 118 started to sense the different dynamic between the two, having expected them to finally realise and admit their feelings for each other by now. 

Everything changed when the 118 were dispatched to multiple vehicle pile ups.

"Alright Team," Bobby directed as they exited the engine. Each member took stock of the several damaged cars, a small fire already forming from one and a lorry pressing a small Toyota precariously onto the edge of the bridge. "Hen, Chim, you're on triage, work your way through the casualties. Buck, Eddie, I want you harnessed up and working on that Toyota, I'll assist from up top. Let's go!" 

As they got closer to the teetering vehicle, Buck turned to Eddie, "isn't that… is that y/n?"

"Shit. Y/n!" Eddie began running, joined immediately by Buck. 

Y/n was just coming round to consciousness, confused why she had fallen asleep upright. When she finally managed to peel her eyes open, being stuck together by something, she could see a clear view of LA. 

Looking around frantically, she started to remember the moments before she had fallen asleep: horns honking, crashed from behind her, her leg hurting with the force she applied the car brakes, it not making a different because a lorry slammed into the rear of her tiny car and propelled it through the bridge barriers. Pain. Airbags. Nothing. 

The moment before she felt her heart was going pound right out of her chest, she heard two familiar voices. 

"Y/n, is that you?!"

"Y/n?!"

"Buck! Eddie!" She clarified her identity. As she turned to get a better look at them, there was a wobbling sensation that had her freezing. 

"Woah woah! Don't move, y/n. Y/n, do not move, okay?" That was Buck. 

"You're going to be just fine, but we need you to stay really still, okay? Just let us do all the work, y/n." Eddie that time.

For the next few minutes she could hear them speaking in low voices to each other, could hear shouting from the rest of the scene, and the occasional radio crackle. The lack of distraction from her view of impending doom wasn't serving her well. 

"Uh…guys. I don't mean to be any trouble and I know you're doing your best out there, but I'm really freaking out. Like, about to have a panic attack kind of freak out." She called. 

A pause. And then Eddie spoke, "That's okay, mi amor. You're doing great, y/n, handling this like a champ. We've secured the bumper of the car to our engine so we've got you a little more secure. Still need you to stay nice and still though, got it?"

Y/n nodded to herself, "Thank you for updating me. However, I've been driving this car for years now and I'm well aware of it falling to pieces. I don't know how confident I feel about it being secured to the engine."

"That's why Buck and I are putting on harnesses right now and are going to get you out. Don't you worry, you're going great, just keep taking deep breaths."

Buck was next to speak, "Eddie's right, you're going great, y/n. We're on our way to you now, okay?"

Buck didn't lie. Within minutes she could hear movement at the rear door of the vehicle. The rear of the vehicle had been squashed like an accordion in the collision with the lorry, and so they were going to use jaws on the back door to access her. 

She was instructed to cover her eyes if she could and keep her back to the machinery. 

Soon, she felt the door being removed, and the unforgiving movement that alerted her to someone else entering the car. 

"Hey, mi amor, how are we doing?" Eddie. 

Eddie was with her. She allowed herself to breathe a little easier just knowing he was close. 

"Try not to move, okay, I'm going to access you real quick and then pop this C-collar on you just as a precaution." Eddie proceeded to feel her neck from behind her, getting her rapid pulse, then placing the hard plastic around her neck, forcing her gaze upwards. "Can you tell me where you're hurt, y/n?" 

"My head. Think I passed out. And my chest…probably the airbags." 

"Okay, good job, and can you wiggle your toes? No numbness anywhere?" Eddie asked while moving about doing something. 

"No numbness I don't think. I don't know, Eddie, I really want to get out now please." Her voice broke as her resolve started to crumble. 

"I know, mi amor, we're working on it."

"Eddie." She heard Buck. He sounded serious, almost like a warning. Then she heard the metallic grinding. 

"Okay, okay. Y/n this is what's going to happen, I'm going to cut your seat belt off and on the count of three I'm going to pull you through the middle of the seat and pass you over to Buck. We're going to be quick and we're going to be careful." 

She could hear the barely stifled panic in Eddie's voice.

The belt was cut and she made an effort not to move. 

"Okay, one…" Eddie had his arms around her waist, putting uncomfortable pressure on a sore spot, "two…" he moved causing the car to wobble precariously, "three!" Eddie heaved her body through the gap, ignoring the cry of pain. Y/n could barely make out what was happening before she was face to face with Buck who was reaching out for her. 

She moved her arms out too until she cast her eyes downward and noticed there was nothing but a sheer drop and water below them. If her head wound wasn't already making her queasy, that view certainly had done it. 

Eddie was gently guiding her to Buck as the car became less stable as a result of their abrupt movements, "y/n, you have to go. Buck had you, okay? He won't let you go. We won't let you go," he murmured in her ear whilst making eye contact with Buck. They seemed to be having another of their silent conversations. 

Buck nodded at her, getting a proper grip on her as the car shrieked, "I've got you sweetheart, we've got you. Just close your eyes."

She did as suggested and closed her eyes, and let herself be handed over, limbs automatically grasping at whatever they could, which happened to be Buck as she wrapped around him like a koala to a tree. 

She could still hear the metallic creaking growing louder and louder, and then a crack and she felt more than heard Buck gasp. 

"Eddie! Eddie, you okay?" Buck called somewhere stirring panic in y/n. 

"I'm good! Let's get her up here." Eddie was safe. 

Next thing she knew, she was being gently laid on the ground, although her limbs were reluctant to unfreeze from their terrified position. 

She could feel movement around her. 

"Hey," that was Buck. "Hey, sweetheart, you can open your eyes now. You're safe, y/n. 

Slowly, she peeled her eyes open and unbleached her arms and legs, relaxing onto the pavement below her. 

Buck was smiling down at her. 

"Eddie?" She asked. 

"Right here." She couldn't turn her head, but she could hear that he was to her side and feel something wrapped tightly around her arm. 

Buck didn't fully disappear from her view but he did move to lightly pressing on her sides, assessing her ribs and noting when she hissed in pain. 

Eddie appeared directly in front of her, "just going to shine this light in your eyes, just look straight ahead…Hey," he began softly, seeing the distress in her face, "You're doing really well. We'll get you out of here soon and to the hospital."

At Eddie's soft voice reminding her of an impending hospital stay where she was bound to be alone and uncomfortable, she couldn't help the burning tears that rolled fiercely down her face and tickled her ears. 

Eddie started to catch some of the tears with the back of his fingers, making concerned eye contact with Buck who leaned into y/n's line of vision. 

"Hey, hey, sweetheart. None of that, you're safe. We'll get you checked out at the hospital and you'll be back to normal in no time."

"I- I don't want-" she struggled to get her words out.

"Take a breath. That's it. What don't you want?"

"I don't want…to be a-alone. I'll be…all alone in the h-hospital. Like al-always." She stuttered. 

"You're not going to be alone. We won't let you be alone, okay mi amor?"

"Yeah, we'll stay with you, I know how much hospitals can suck without someone to distract you."

Y/n appreciated the sentiment but if anything, having Buck and Eddie sit vigil at her bedside only made it more apparent to her that she was alone whilst they had each other. 

"I don't want you wasting your time babysitting me. You have a life together. You have Chris. Plus, no offense, but you two being sickeningly cute and in love won't make me feel any less shit about being alone."

At that moment, Buck and Eddie shared a look over her form. Confusion at her assumption, turning to shock that she could see their inner feelings for the other, then settling into something that looked like contentment and understanding.

It was clear to both men that they shared the same affection for y/n and would do anything to stop her hurting. It was also apparent that both Buck and Eddie were willing - no not just willing, but that they yearned to share this role with y/n. 

Eddie was the first to make his move. He reached over across y/n, extending his fingers to his partner. Buck, surprised, but eyes full of contentment, wrapped his own fingers around Eddie's.

"Let's get you to the hospital and home. I think we have lots to talk about." 

[hainethehero]

No hate, genuine question. Why do yous think bucktommy was such a good relationship? Tommy bought him tickets to basketball when its established he doesn't like basketball and buck didn't even know if Tommy was gay or bi after 6 months like that doesn't seem like they knew each other at all what makes it seem like they have such a good relationship?

Genuine answer, I liked that Buck finally had someone that was upfront with him and really interested. Before then, it was mostly him chasing interests.

As for the basketball tickets etc., it was terrible writing. The writers clearly got direction from whoever (showrunner, execs etc) to just half-ass it. The writing was just terrible bc Tommy up until then was very in love with Buck, and even Oliver said, they were in the early stages of learning/exploring each other.

And again, there was clearly a miscommunication between the show & the interviews that Tim and Oliver did.

Tim said he liked Lou a lot and felt like Tommy was the perfect guy to set up Buck's queer storyline and relationship with. He also said he wanted to give the relationship respect and didn't want to make a big deal about it because a lot of shows do that, when queer couples should be treated not as something gratuitous and showy, but as something natural. He also said that he wanted to change up the fact that Buck has always been on a rollercoaster of relationships and has never quite settled and he wanted the opposite of that to happen with Tommy.

Oliver said that he wanted to do the same and be respectful of showing a genuine queer relationship. He even said that Buck and Tommy were taking things slow and getting to know each other and exploring this new territory for Buck. He even said he wanted a slow burn where the desire just builds etc.

Then, in the show, after season 7, there were barely any Buck and Tommy scenes. Yes, Buck and Tommy were there for Christopher's birthday, but that was more about Eddie. There was no genuine effort to develop their relationship. Most of season 8 was about Bathena & Henren, (not even Eddie or Chimney got enough screentime tbh). But they clearly showed through the writing and the pacing that the Buck/Tommy relationship was no longer something they wanted to spend time and energy on. The discrepancies then, are the difference in the interviews and then the show. People genuinely thought they were going to do what they said (see interview above & Google the rest of interviews bc there were a lot with the same sentiment expressed about being respectful about Buck and Tommy.) But they clearly didn't and went with the, "oh we were tricking you and rly just going to break them up so that Buck can kick off his yt boy angst" arc.

Honestly I'm still confused af:

Why did they dive into this plot if Tim and Oliver knew they were just going to half-ass it?

Did Oliver just not like Lou and ask Tim to end it abruptly?

If Oliver/the cast didn't like Lou, why did they keep him on?

If they did like Lou, why did no one defend him when he was getting sent death threats, petitions to get him off the show, degrading comments about his looks, name-calling etc?

And if Tim and Buck were genuinely truthful, that they wanted to be respectful in developing and building this queer relationship, why did they let it get railroaded by sloppy writing, bullying from stans, no promotion of the relationship ship whatsoever and minute long scenes where there's no deep conversations or focus on their dynamic?

If the 911 cast didn't like Lou so much, whyd they keep him on? Why did they continue the storyline? Why lie in interviews and say things like slow burn, instead of being brave and saying, well, i don't like the direction my character is going in, so we're scrapping Buck and Tommy?

It all just seems like blatant cowardice to me, from the entire cast, but specifically Tim and Oliver. And now that they broke up, Oliver's brilliant response is, "i want Buck to fuck this guy and that girl, and that girl and this guy and this girl..." like, CLEARLY he did not give a f--k about the relationship, so he should've expressed that earlier, instead of making stuff up about slow burn and desires, and getting over hurdles together.

So to answer your question, we were expecting what Tim and Oliver alluded to, (and up until 8x05 they seemed smitten with each other, even with boils on Buck's face- and then immediately broken up next ep) and instead got shitty pacing, little to no development of the relationship, and weak, half-assed writing that seemed more from a middle-schooler than an actual writer.

[ar3s-r4t-qu33n]

Idfc if he's real or not, he's still worse written than Eddie. Also the problem is in his fans that are making him no guilty, innocent baby and always refering that Coyle/Eddie/Everybody else im outlast are the same. And if you think it'll work, try to compare Walker (with PTSD after war) with Franco (who is just a sicko). Anyway Barbi's simps are way more agressive than any other fans when you say something bad, what's a fact, about a grown ass man. I feel like those people are just little kids who are getting upset after school and shouldn't play the game ;) When I see all those comments with "He'S mY PoOkIE" I'm getting sick... Ya'll should get a brain

Guys look!! I got one!!

You don't deserve a response, because if you were old enough to be playing Outlast, you would be able to figure out that shaming people for (checks notes) liking a fictional character in a horror series? Is plain stupid.

It would also serve you well to maybe do some spell check before you come into my asks like this. I'd take you more seriously if you maybe drafted this one more time, but here we go:

First of all, you don't know me. You can check out my like, five posts and see that only two of em are Franco related and none of them baby him. In fact, I don't think I've seen a post yet by anyone who says "Franco is a sweet, innocent baby who did no wrong" because... That's the point. He's interesting BECAUSE he's done shit wrong. We are playing Outlast. Everyone is complex and awful and interesting. Just because not every post is marked with a little footnote that says "oh by the way everyone, Franco is a bad, bad man 🥺 I don't support his actions, I'm not a Franco defender, I just wanted to draw him being silly 🥺" doesn't mean we're all out here claiming he's a saint. The fact that he's a fucked up lil guy is why we like him. I feel like that's a given with all Outlast characters? But that's just me after being a fan of this franchise for years now, idk, being able to step back and analyse a community to see what they enjoy about something is quite a fun and easy task, I recommend giving it a try instead of coming into "loser nobody who has been on Tumblr for like a week's" asks to complain to me like I can put all the Franco fans in the corner until they learn to interpret characters the way you have decided is objectively correct.

But even if they are "babying" him and apparently ignoring that this is the Outlast series and Franco is a character from Outlast... Oh no! What horror! Someone is misinterpreting a VIDEO GAME CHARACTER what a terrible and unique crime!

Franco "just a sicko" Barbi was abused and neglected by his father, his mother was murdered, and he only ever received affection after he killed someone. But yeah, he was just born fucked up whereas every other Outlast character earned their trauma and the right to kill the player. What a senseless and just untrue take and I'm sure you know that, you just want to complain because that's all you people like to do. You want to feel morally superior over someone because you don't understand why they feel the way they do instead of just moving on and ignoring them like any other sensible adult would. Because who's actually getting hurt if some people think Franco is their lil Pookie? Is it you? Does it cause you psychic damage? Because last I checked, this is the internet. We are responsible for ourselves, so unless somebody is actually hurting anyone...

Block the Franco tag. You are brave enough to type out this whole message to a stranger online and act morally superior because comparing which video game character deserves the right to kill you is THE most mature thing in the world, so you're definitely brave enough to block the tag and move on.

You are responsible for what you see online, but ESPECIALLY on Tumblr, it is so so easy to hide content you don't want to see, and mind your own business. Quite frankly, I don't care if I come across as aggressive here. You came into my asks about a tag/fandom you clearly aren't in trying to act like you're better than the rest of us. That's pretty damn aggressive, wouldn't you say?

This is Outlast. A game about fucked up guys doing fucked up shit, and we love them for it. If that is too much for you, if the mommy issues gangster is too crazy for you but Eddie and Trager and Knoth and Coyle are completely fine, no questions asked? I don't think this series is for you. Sexual horror is a staple of Outlast. Childhood trauma is a staple of Outlast. You can't be shocked when people respond to a new character in a video game they like.

YOU are not better than me because you like Chris Walker and I like Franco Barbi. I can't believe you need to be told this, we are all in the same uncomfortable freakshow cesspit that is The Outlast Fandom, no one is morally good. No one is better than anyone else. You cannot claim moral superiority over any character because at the end of the day, I can point to Wernicke and say with my full chest that he is objectively the worst because he's a literal nazi, and what then? Are you going to tell me that Franco is worse than a nazi? The debate is over, in the list of "who is the worst of these awful people", Wernicke wins hands DOWN. The point is null because EVERYONE SUCKS HERE!!! THAT'S THE POINT!!!!

Is that enough for you? Or are you gonna keep harassing people through your alts or getting your friends to do it? I can go alllllll day, baby, you ain't making me feel bad about my interests in the O U T L A S T fandom, dear GOD, this is ridiculous. Don't fucking condescend me, telling me to "get a brain" you don't KNOW ME, I am a stranger to you, why do you feel comfortable coming onto my blog harassing me about a video game character? That's not a good look for you and now it is immortalised here. Anonymous or not, you still did this. Whoever you are, you typed that out and sent it to a random person you do not know and felt comfortable enough to do so.

That's weird.

[lillie98]

I headcannon Mike Wheeler as autistic (because we share the exact same strain) and I have a theory regarding Season 5. Many autistic people, including myself, have a warped sense of inherent danger. We will throw ourselves into dangerous situations not fully understanding the risks involved. It’s a dangerous situation, sure, but not so dangerous we should avoid it. Mike also has this problem, what with him diving head-first into every fight. He wants desperately to be a hero, to prove his worth and might as a person—to be remembered. If that means doing something stupid like getting himself killed, then that’s what it takes. It’s heartbreaking, but that’s the world he lives in. Hopper, Eleven, Will, they’ve all sacrificed their lives in some capacity to save the world, now it’s his turn.

Eddie touched on this concept with his “Don’t try to be heroes, not today. There is no shame in running,” but Mike doesn’t see it that way. In his mind, those who run are cowards, afraid to face their fears and fight for what they believe in. Has Mike been a bit cowardly these past two seasons by avoiding his feelings for Will? Yes, absolutely. But that’s his arc. Mike has to understand his actions, why he’s hiding, and the serious danger everyone is in. He has to face the music. Where does this lack of inherent danger come in? Glad you asked.

We all know Mike wants to be a hero. He wants to go down in history as someone good, someone who put others before themselves and saves the world. The Brave Knight, The Paladin. Paladins swear an oath of bravery and loyalty, vowing to avenge any threat that dares harm their allegiance (Byler anyone?). Something will threaten to harm/kill Will in Season 5, and Mike will have none of it. They’re not doing this again. Thus, Mike will throw himself in front of Vecna/Demogorgon/Brenner, etc. to protect Will, not fully comprehending the danger of the situation. He’ll be a hero. Unfortunately, this risky act will most likely cost him his life (temporarily). He doesn’t have to die. He’s the heart.

Lucas says, in the Season 4 hospital, that Max’s heart stopped for over a minute, but it miraculously started again. She is alive. El’s love for her conquered death itself. If we go on the “Will Has Powers” theory, then his love for Mike will conquer death and revive him. Mike only needs to be presumed dead, to be out long enough for Will and El to feel the effects of his death and consider joining Vecna. Because without their HEART, they’d fall apart. Both of them.

Back to what Eddie said, there really is no shame in running. Will doesn’t need Mike to do some egregious, knightly act of sacrifice to prove his love for him. His love is already enough. Will loves Mike for EXACTLY WHO HE IS. He always has, and THAT is the real heart of this story. Mike is not a hero because of what he does, but because of who he is. The way he loves, the way he stands up for what he believes in, the way he treasures his friends and protects them. The way he makes Will feel safe just by being there. That’s what Will fell in love with, not some fantastical DnD character that never actually existed.

Like Mike said in Season 2, “this isn’t DnD, this is real life.” DnD characters are fun, and it’s exciting to dream about slaying dragons or exploding orcs with your Magic Missiles, but that’s not real. It’s a game and it will end. Hit Points don’t magically restore you after a Long Rest and Healing Potions don’t deal 2d4+2 Healing. Actions have consequences and danger is real, even if your brain tells you it’s not. Paladins, Clerics, Bards, Rangers, they’re not real people. But Mike Wheeler is (in this context) and Mike Wheeler is enough. He is so enough. It’s time he wakes up and realizes he doesn’t have to be the Hero, slay the dragon, and make everything better, because it was NEVER HIS FAULT. Bad things happen and, sometimes, we can’t fix them. All we can do is stand beside our partner, hold their hand, and fight along with them—to remind them they are never alone. That, in and of itself, is truly heroic.

[sevensoulmates]

I wanted to say something to address some other posts I've been seeing about why some people would be "disappointed" that Buck getting with another man (causally or seriously) before Eddie would be the same as him getting with "another woman" and therefore remaining "on the hamster wheel". (I fucking hate that phrase now).

Anyway, this is SPECULATION because Bucktommy having any sort of romantic relationship is not confirmed yet.

BUT if Buck were to get with Tommy in any capacity I, personally, do NOT see it as Buck backsliding or returning back to Buck 1.0 (if he and Tommy are casual) or "not choosing himself" (ie. choosing Eddie immediately as his one true love).

First I want to address if Bucktommy are casual and if Buck just has a casual sexual relationship with Tommy that doesn't evolve into a full on long-term relationship. I would not see this as Buck reverting back to his Buck 1.0 ways. Because you guys are forgetting that Buck 1.0 wasn't just sleeping around to sleep around because he couldn't go a day without getting his dick wet. That's part of the reason why I didn't like in 7x01 that they were calling Buck a playboy because it, unfortunately, did not hit the truth of WHY Buck was sleeping around so much. Buck was sleeping with any pretty consenting girl he came across because he thought that was the only way he could get them to love him because he inherently believed that who he was would never be enough for anyone and that the only thing he could offer people was sex.

But sleeping casually with a man has a whole different layer to it that's inherently different than sleeping with a woman at this point in Buck's character arc.

He learned a lot in his relationships with Abby, Ali, Taylor and Natalia. Why wouldn't the same come from a relationship (of any kind) with Tommy? And him discovering that he's attracted to men and actually ACTING ON IT???? That IS choosing himself!!!

It is, unfortunately, a common bisexual/queer experience that sometimes people will realize that they do have a same-sex or nb/trans attraction AND opposite-sex attraction and they will CHOOSE not to act on their queerness because unfortunately, it is easier and safer to stick with the heterosexually perceived choice. This doesn't even have to be a conscious choice either. That's where comphet lives and thrives.

If Tommy is actually the catalyst that FORCES Buck to realize he has a real attraction to men (because again, it seems to me like Buck is not CONSCIOUSLY aware of his attraction to men and therefore was NOT sleeping casually with men in his 1.0 days or previous) then him actually choosing to act on it is MONUMENTOUS. We don't know how far that will go, if they will end up sleeping together or developing a bit of a relationship, or if Buck will actually be depicted on screen coming out. I don't know!

But sleeping casually with a man this time does not inherently have to mean that he's making the same old mistakes. It's possible we could finally see Buck setting firm boundaries, or it's possible Tommy says hey this is causal to me and Buck (as the GROWN MATURE SERIOUS ADULT y'all so badly want him to be) is able to accept that without being insecure about himself. There's so much we don't know that could happen as part of this relationship.

In my opinion, Buck allowing himself to actually go the tough route of exploring his sexuality IS choosing himself, opening himself up to a world of future possibility. And if he manages to actually be open about it with his friends and team too? Oh my goodness.

The circumstances are already LEAGUES different from where he was in season 1. If Buck is able to accept that he's into men, able to act on it and be open about it too? That IS accepting himself which was always the issue he had for many years. If he believes in himself to be enough to be brave and open about queerness as he discovers it? That IS "getting off the hamster wheel". It is breaking the pattern of self-destruction, of self-harm, of self-denial.

As for the possibility of it being a long term relationship, we already saw that Tim doesn't currently have plans for Tommy to stick around too long so I'm not really worried about that.

I personally believe that both Buck and Eddie require baby steps before they can get together romantically. Sorry to the people that just want them to confess and boom. I don't think that's satisfactory for myself and for a lot of other people and I don't think the writers would be satisfied with it too. I think we all want to see the nitty-gritty process of both of them realizing their queerness, the growing pains that come along with it, and the eventual step-by-step active choosing of each other.

Buck being able to accept himself and his queerness with another man is the perfect step to him eventually discovering that the place where his deepest love lives is in Eddie. You have to understand that Buck and Eddie have been STAGNANT in their relationship since season 4. They NEED something to come in and show them that their relationship CAN and SHOULD evolve and in order to do that they NEED to be BRAVE and take LEAPS. Buck with Tommy could be the first big leap. After that, it's Eddie's turn.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Why did Mike cut his hair? Let's look at the possible reasons put forth by myself and others in the fandom so far.

He would see Eddie whenever he looked in the mirror. I can see this being part of it, especially when combined with him wearing the sort of clothes he wore before meeting Eddie.

He and/or his family don't want him to be associated with Eddie/Hellfire. Fear is a powerful motivator, and the desecration of Eddie's grave make it clear that people still blame him for what happened. However, this would seem to fly in the face of Mike being the brave leader. Perhaps a setup for him to fully step into the role?

He's reverting to who he really is after trying hard to be someone else the past two seasons. It's normal for adolescents to experiment with identity expression. This can include copying the clothing and mannerisms of those they look up to. Ultimately, though, they will have to decide if any part of that identity is who they are. In terms of appearance, Mike may have decided it's not who he is (though Eddie's values may have still rang true to him).

Season 1/2 Mike is coming back. This is similar to #3, but it ties into what has been said about season 5 bringing the show full circle and season 2 being important.

Mike is trying to be more adult by cutting his hair and wearing more "mature" clothing. It's a serious time in Hawkins, and Mike has always seen himself as the leader of the Party. Surrounded by dynamic, action-oriented people like Hopper and Nancy, he may feel tremendous pressure to "step up" and be the inspirational knight that Will told him he is.

Mike has sort of struggled with who he is throughout the show, which can be expected in a show where we watch kids go through adolescence. I don't think it's a coincidence that we started watching these kids grow up starting at age 12. While it'd be frustrating to see him again go through an identity crisis, this time rejecting everything he did last season and reverting to an earlier stage, it could be satisfying if done right.

If #5 is right, then Mike has the right idea, but the wrong execution. He'd be treating everything Will said as another role to play, as opposed to the person Will thinks he already is.

That said, I don't want a season where Mike screws up, yet again, even if it would fit his overall series arc. Several episodes where Mike tells his friends to grow up or acts haughty? No thanks, not again.

I'd rather it be Mike slowly, but surely, growing into his own as a leader. I want to see Mike becoming his own person, being friends with people who have grown in their own ways without feeling the need for everyone to be the same. There's now a preppy-ish nerd, a brooding artist, a quirky mad-scientist, a kind athlete, a tomboy skater, and a sweet badass.

At the end of the day, I'm hoping Mike's change in appearance is a positive because everything seems to have been pointing towards the Party growing in their own directions while remaining ride-or-die friends. It'd be disappointing if it was just another character flaw for him to overcome.

[schrijverr]

All the Things Shannon Is and Isn’t

An addition to chapter 1 to 3, wherein we get Shannon’s POV of how she ended up married to Eddie and with Chris, as well as why she ended up divorcing him and why she decided to leave. And, most importantly, why she didn’t come back.

On AO3.

Ships: Shannon/Eddie & Shannon/Buck

Warnings: Catholic guilt, insecurities, misogyny, ableism, minor character death, emotionally abusive parents, child abandonment

~~~

Christopher has never been planned and it feels like Shannon never fully adjusted to his presence. The role of motherhood feeling ill suited as she tries to find the blessing in her reality. However, it doesn’t start with Christopher.

Shannon is four years old and her favorite toy is a stick she found and refuses to give up, much to her mothers frustration. Her mom wants her to play with the baby doll she got her, but Shannon refuses, instead enamored with her stick.

When she gets home from kindergarten one day, her stick is gone and her mother has bought her more doll clothes for the baby, as well as a plastic play bottle. Shannon cries at the loss and her mother tells her to be grateful for her presents. Shannon plays with the doll.

Shannon is eight years old, sitting in Sunday school as their priest explains to the girls how their body is like a piece of paper, you can crumble it up, but you can’t get the creases back out. They’re warned to not let their bodies be creased until their wedding days, to be pure for their husbands when the time comes, so they can give him Godly children.

She is a good Catholic girl. She isn’t going to let her paper get creased. She will wait for her husband, then give him children like she is supposed to.

Shannon is twelve years old, bleeding out the place she’s not supposed to talk about and crying in a school toilet stall, convinced she’s going to die. She says a few prayers with tears in her eyes, hoping God will heal her.

When the bleeding doesn’t stop, she braves her way out of the toilet and to the nurse. Shame curdles in her gut, even as she goes. She’s not supposed to talk about it and maybe dying would be less sinful, but she’s so scared, so maybe God will forgive her.

The nurse laughs gently when she confesses what’s happening and tells her it’s natural and happens to all the girls. Shannon is skeptical about that, but takes the pad with burning cheeks, before waiting in the office until her mother comes to pick her up.

Her mother tells her she will bleed every month, that it is a gift and a punishment of God after Eve ate the apple in paradise. It shows her that she is still pure and that is all she needs to know.

Shannon is eighteen and got accepted into college. She’s on a road trip with her friends, their last hurrah, before summer ends and they’re in college, starting their adult lives. They pass through El Paso, deciding to stick around and vacation there when their car breaks down.

In El Paso, Shannon meets Eddie Diaz.

Eddie is captivating. From the moment she first sees him, she is struck by how handsome he is. His quiet demeanor draws her in and she can’t help but want to get to know him better.

He seems surprised she wants to talk to him, then surprised she keeps coming back. Shannon almost stops trying to get him to make a move, heartbroken that he isn’t interested, before it’s like a switch has flipped and he’s suddenly returning her advances.

It’s a whirlwind romance from the novels her mother always read and Shannon is absolutely smitten with him. He’s handsome and kind and he doesn’t treat her like all the other boys do. He’s respectful and interested in what she has to say. He treats her like she’s special.

Eddie doesn’t seem to mind that Shannon leads, happy to follow along behind her. Eddie doesn’t seem to mind that Shannon wants to go to college, interested in what her studies will entail. Eddie doesn’t seem to mind that she prefers jeans and a tshirt, saying he likes the look her mother told her made her look like a boy.

And Eddie doesn’t seem to mind when she kisses him, when she pushes him backwards on the bed of his old truck that was once his father’s and straddles him.

Both of them had heard of abstinence, but Shannon was too giddy about the idea, telling herself she saved herself for her husband and Eddie is going to be her husband one day, while Eddie had too much to prove to say no. It would be their little secret and no one but them and God had to know. They both prayed Sunday that He’d keep it for them. Neither, however, had ever heard about the exact mechanism through which a baby was made and God wasn’t there to keep their secret.

Eddie Diaz is a good Catholic boy. Well, he isn’t, but he hasn’t told his mom or papi he doesn’t believe anymore when they drag him to Church. However, he’s not going to be a deadbeat father. His baby will not be abandoned, not if he had anything to say about it.

So, Shannon is still eighteen, married and a baby on the way. Everyone has always told Shannon she would be a mother one day and now one dat is here. She is not going to college after the summer and instead lives in El Paso, a town she was never meant to be in.

She called her mother crying, she did not come to the wedding. Shannon tells herself she doesn’t care, it was a shotgun courthouse wedding anyway, the scrapbook she made with friends when she was fourteen forgotten somewhere in her childhood bedroom she won’t return to anytime soon.

Her and Eddie have their own house now. It’s small and needs work done and the only reason they even have it, is because Eddie signed up for the army to support their family.

Their house is lonely.

Shannon knows no one in this town, her friends have moved onto to college and the people that live there have all guessed that the whirlwind romance didn’t just move so fast into marriage because they were so deeply in love. They give her the cold shoulder when she runs her errands or goes to Church.

The only people that talk to her regularly, is Eddie’s family and even that is stilted. Adriana is nice enough, but she has a family of her own and her husband is talking about moving for job opportunities, while Sophia is only thirteen and thus not really company like a peer would be.

She isn’t sure if she should be glad Ramon is away so often, since he always stares at her with disapproving eyes, or if she should be sad, because when he’s here, Helena has less reason to come around and stop by.

God, Helena. Helena Diaz. Her mother-in-law.

Shannon has never had a warm relationship with her own mother, but she misses the disapproving company greatly when stuck with Helena. Not that Helena doesn’t disapprove. She disapproves a lot, actually. However, she disapproves overbearingly, instead of the more apathetic attitude she’s known from her own childhood.

Helena’s primary trait is her comments. And her comments needle and dig into every little thing Shannon could be insecure about.

According to Helena, Shannon should take it easy, Shannon shouldn’t be lazy, Shannon should eat more vitamins, Shannon is eating too much red meat, Shannon should have let someone else paint the nursery and it’s the wrong color anyway, Shannon this, Shannon that. In short, Shannon is doing everything wrong and Helena knows better.

Shannon is a horrible mother before the baby is even born, if Helena is to be believed. And Shannon tries not to believe her. Her own nursery had been yellow and her mother swore by a hamburger a week to feed the growing fetus.

She talks to Eddie through a screen, missing the handsome boy, who would let her take the lead as she roams the empty halls he has barely lived in, while she tries to make it a home for both of them.

A part of her wishes she was in a college dorm right now, calling Eddie to hear about how working with his father is like. That she could tell him about her classes instead of lying about how bad her morning sickness is. As she does, she feels like a horrible mother and she buys multivitamins she can’t really afford on her next trip to the grocery store.

Her pregnancy progresses as Helena gets further and further into her head. Her own mother still is not picking up the phone. She hasn’t since Shannon first called to share the news.

When her due date comes close, Eddie is allowed leave. They meet again at the airport and it hits Shannon that she has spend more time without Eddie than with him, since she first met him. But she is still deeply in love with him, anxiously waiting what he’ll think of her now. If he can see the same horrible qualities Helena can.

For a moment, they just stand there, across from each other. Then as if he is a mechanical wound up toy, Eddie stutters forward, closing the distance between them and placing an awe-like hand on her stomach, taking a few moments to look at it, before looking her in the eyes.

The baby kicks and she can see the sparkle in his eyes, the magic everyone told her they’d feel, but she’s been searching for. As he hugs her closely and promises they’ll be the best parents there will ever be, she believes it for the first time again.

Eddie is the best husband she could have asked for. He waits on her hand and feet, bringing her the things she craves and massaging her sore feet. He compliments her nursery and apologizes he couldn’t be here as he puts together the crib, the two of them discussing baby names.

It’s so good that Shannon can ignore the times Helena comes by and Eddie shrinks into himself as the bad feeling wraps itself around her. How he brings her those stupid teas Helena swears by along with the weird cravings she requests.

Then her water breaks and she has to be rushed to the hospital, where it goes from scary to absolutely terrifying, before Shannon stops remembering anything at all.

Shannon is nineteen and a newly minted mother. She has always been told that the moment you first hold your baby, is the most magical there is, but she’s tired and she’s sweaty and holding the baby has to wait, because her and baby first need to be tended to, so neither will die.

When she does finally get to hold Christopher – her son, Christopher, who is now an actual human in her arms instead of a vague concept in her mind – she thinks that maybe she got to hold him too late in the chaos of them both nearly dying. That the bad that is childbirth has had time to settle in her bones, before the blessing of holding Christopher could exorcise it.

Her mother is there too. It’s the only time she’ll ever hold her grandson, assessing him critically, before saying nothing, except: “He’s tiny.”

And she’s right, Christopher is tiny. He’s loud, but tiny. He cries and the nurses make comments about healthy lungs that should make her grateful, but they don’t because she has a headache. Since Eddie came home, she feels like a horrible mother all over again.

Eddie is no longer a good husband, instead choosing to be a good father. Shannon hates him for it slightly.

He no longer waits on her hand and feet, instead rocking Christopher as he cries and cries until Eddie looks over to her with desperate eyes, begging her to make it stop, because seeing Christopher cry hurts him too. He expects her to have a magical motherly touch, but she doesn’t and she hates him for expecting that of her. For not looking after her the way he looks after Chris.

She tries to take the lead again, but Eddie doesn’t follow. Eddie suddenly minds when she kisses him, when she pushes him backwards on the bed in the room they’ve barely slept in together. Her only in a tshirt, that he didn’t mind before, but maybe minds now.

Of course, he has excuses, or reasons if she’s generous. About how her body is still healing from the birth and he doesn’t want to hurt her. How Chris might need them soon. How they need the rest, if they want to be awake enough to take care of their son.

He is such a good father and Shannon realizes that he might have never been a good husband after all. That he had been a good father all along and she’d just been too blind to see who the attention was for.

When she truly thinks about it, she has no clue what kind of partner Eddie is. He’d barely been a boyfriend, before he was a husband and he barely was a husband, before he was a provider off at war, and now he’s not just a husband, but a father. You are supposed to be a parent first, make your children your first priority, but Shannon can’t help but wish she’d been Eddie’s priority too. At least for a little while, at least until his leave was over again.

Without Eddie there, she is all alone. Well, not all alone. Helena helps, but Helena helps at a cost. She wants parenting to be done her way and with how exhausting it is, Shannon lets her walk all over her and take over. What does she know about being a mother anyway?

She wants to be a good mother, to hold Christopher close and know he will be fine, because she is there to care for him. But it feels like everything she does is wrong. Helena think so and if she listens close enough to the whispers at Church, she is not alone.

Everyone seems to know that Shannon is a horrible mother. No matter how hard she tries.

Shannon is twenty years old with a one year old on her hip as she waits in the airport with Helena, who disagrees with the fact she’s holding Christopher at all. Ramon had been too busy to come, already somewhere across the country in his truck.

She watches Eddie come towards them through the crowd, his face lighting up when he spots them. He looks so handsome then and Shannon wishes she could pretend he was looking at her, instead of the child in her arms.

It’s just because he hasn’t seen Christopher in forever, she tells herself. He can talk to her on the phone, but it’s hard to have contact with a baby like that. It’s only natural. He’s ignoring his mother too. Soon this will wear off and they’ll be a happy family together.

And she loves sharing Christopher with Eddie. She loves watching him hold Christopher gently, awe in his eyes as he traces a tiny nose and stares into tiny eyes. He is a good father and she will be a good mother too.

For a few weeks, she lives in that fantasy. Sure, Eddie still doesn’t touch her like she wants, but he’s just come out of a warzone and he’s taken with being Christopher’s dad. She can’t begrudge him that when he smiles at her widely whenever he looks up from Christopher to share with her the excitement of something he did. Or just to marvel at the fact that he exists.

However, Eddie being home isn’t a band aid that will fix everything. He finds a job, but it pays less than the army and they’re still struggling. He is a great help in caring for Christopher, but Christopher isn’t developing like all the books said he would and the doctors are prescribing things he needs that they can afford even less. And on top of that, Helena Diaz is still there and Eddie has even less resolve against her than Shannon has.

If Shannon had been a horrible mother before, both her and Eddie are horrible parents now according to Helena after they came back from that doctor’s visit.

Cerebral Palsy.

It’s thankfully nothing fatal, Shannon doesn’t know what she would have done with herself if it was. It has been hard, raising Christopher, and she feels like she fails him every day. However, the thought of him being hurt, of him hurting and hurting until he is gone and there is nothing she can do to prevent it from happening? That is just about the worst thing she can imagine.

They hold each other. The night after they come back from that hospital visit. They’ve taken Christopher’s crib out of his nursery and placed it in their room, unable to be parted of him just yet and needing to see him be okay.

In all the time Eddie’s been back, they haven’t held each other like they do that night. They huddle up on the bed and Eddie takes her into his big arms as she softly cries into his chest. His own mouth is tight, but he doesn’t cry, doesn’t break, just holds her through the storm.

Still, that closeness won’t be enough to tide them over and Shannon learns that the hard way.

She learns it in the way money is tighter and their debt grows larger. She learns it in the way Eddie picks up more and more jobs, never being home to be there for their family. She learns it in the way Helena talks to her after they break the news.

CP can be caused by a variety of reasons, but it has to do with the pregnancy and the birth. This naturally means that Shannon is responsible. That she did something wrong. That she purposefully did this to Christopher. That she is a horrible mother.

Logically, she knows that there is nothing wrong with Christopher. He’s developing fine with the treatment they’re fighting to afford. He smiles at them and babbles, though it’s intelligible. He’ll grow up and be fine. However, doubt can be a poisonous thing.

One day she comes home and hears Helena rip into Eddie about it. He doesn’t defend himself, barely speaks a word in her defense. Shannon stands frozen on the front porch, unsure whether to be glad it is not just her, or to be angry that it’s them both. Or to be angry at Eddie too.

In the end, she chooses to feel none of it. To lock it all away deep inside where she keeps all her other hurt.

She takes a few steps back and walks up the door much louder this time. It doesn’t stop the yelling, but at least Eddie tries to work Helena out of their house instead of passively taking it. It makes her wonder how many times this happened before. How many times he successfully got her out, before she was supposed to be back.

A few days later, she learns it in the way Eddie has re-enlisted without telling her.

It makes her so angry, that he is leaving again. That he can go and leave this shithole town behind and be far away from all the people that tell him he’s horrible. They’re supposed to do it together, but Shannon feels like he hasn’t been there in the way she has and now he’s escaping again. She screams at him: “You were supposed to have my back!”

Eddie insist that he has her back, yelling right back at her, while she does the same. They yell and yell, until they’re interrupted by Christopher’s crying. Then they don’t speak off it again. Neither of them say sorry and when they part again, it’s on bad terms. Shannon hates it. She just wants her husband to be there, but he isn’t.

Shannon is still twenty years old, alone once more with a one year old and surrounded by people who hate her. She’s alone. She’s scared. She’s hurting.

She calls her mother. Her mother doesn’t pick up.

She packs her bags. Unpacks them again the next day.

She pretends not to be home. Lets Helena in again next time, because Christopher won’t stop crying and her throat and arms are hurting from singing to him softly as she rocks him.

All throughout the same refrain echoes: You are a horrible mother.

You are a horrible mother. She hears in Helena’s voice when she speaks to her, she sees it in Ramon’s eyes when he’s home, she feels it in the silences when she calls with Eddie, she senses it in the way people pass her on the streets, in the way her mother doesn’t pick up, in the way Christopher’s cries pitch when she doesn’t know how to fix it.

Shannon is twenty-one and Christopher is two and neither have ever celebrated a birthday with Eddie physically there.

She’s a proper adult now, even allowed to drink, but she doesn’t have anyone to take her to a bar to celebrate. She tries not to care. It wouldn’t have been her first drink anyway, anyone can see she was playing at an adult long before she became one.

She and Christopher video call Eddie and he doesn’t look at her. She just wants him to look at her. A part of her is still a kid, who hasn’t had the chance yet to grow up. She’s only a girl, who just wants the boy she likes to like her back.

But the boy she likes doesn’t seem interested in her anymore. The handsome boy she was enamored with that summer, is all but gone. And all she can see is the way he won’t look at her, remember the way he didn’t touch her, hear the way he’s too excited about some of the men he’s serving with.

Shannon is twenty-one when she realizes her husband doesn’t love her and never will. That she married a stranger, who never became familiar and seems hell bent on being anywhere but here.

That he’s never going to have her back.

It’s painful and it aches.

She’s all alone in El Paso, her only company is a one year old and in-laws that hate her. A town that hates her too. Her mother doesn’t pick up when she calls. And for the first time, Shannon doesn’t just feel alone, she feels trapped too.

There is nowhere for her to go. She has no degree, no work experience, a small child she can already barely provide for, and she is married to a man that doesn’t love her, but has a duty to her anyway on top of it all.

Once the reality of her situation settles in, it has her in a choke hold.

Everyone has always told her she wanted to be a mother. And a part of her did think she wanted to be a mother, but she wanted to be a good mother. She wanted to have a stable job, a nice house, a husband who loved her, a dog maybe. Friends. A social life. Live in a city. Have a degree.

Instead she’s a horrible mother, who has no job and no experience, a small fixer upper with no one to do the fixing upping, a husband who is a stranger and not there anyway and incapable of loving her when he is, barely enough money to stay alive not to mention feeding a pet. No friends. No social life. A small town that hates her. Nothing but a high school diploma and a forgotten scholarship to her name.

And Christopher.

She has Christopher too.

Christopher is such a bright young kid, even if he is barely becoming a person of his own yet. She loves him and she hates that she can’t seem to do right by him. That there are days when having to care for him feel like so much and she’s drowning.

It’s despairing and Shannon slowly fills with lead as she gets heavier and heavier, until she becomes so heavy that she stumbles and the only way to get back up, is to be angry.

She is angry at Eddie for leaving her. For getting her pregnant and marrying her. For not loving her, when she loves him. She is angry at Helena for always disapproving. At Ramon for always looking down on her. At her mother for not picking up the phone. At her friends for leaving her behind. At herself for even getting in this position in the first place.

There is so much anger inside her and she knows that all that anger isn’t good for her, but if she ever stops being angry, she’s going to sit down and cry and never get up. And she can’t. She can’t. Christopher still needs her and she refuses to give Helena the satisfaction of being right, even if some days it feels like there is no other thing she can be.

Shannon is twenty-two and has a three year old that needs her and anger that is running out. She can’t let her anger run out without a plan. She has a three year old that needs her. He needs her. She has to try and be a good mother. She has to be a good mother.

Shannon is twenty-two.

Shannon is breaking her own heart.

Shannon is going to turn a town that already hates her against her more.

Shannon doesn’t see another way out anymore.

Shannon is trying to be a good mother.

Shannon needs to do something.

Shannon is divorcing Eddie.

Shannon is divorced.

Divorced.

Growing up, it never felt like divorce was an option. You married your husband and stayed with him until death did you part and Heaven allowed you to meet again.

It feels almost illegal to go to that lawyer, Christopher on her hip, and get those papers drawn up. It feels like she’ll be smitten when she puts those papers in package to send to Eddie, nestled there between messy drawings and homemade cookies. It feels kind of freeing too.

She is still trapped in that town that hates her more now, still trapped with her horrible ex-in-laws that hate her guts and aren’t afraid to let her know, still trapped in her lack of job experience that forces her to start at the bottom rung with little hope of moving up.

But she is no longer trapped in a marriage that was only hurting. A marriage that would never go anywhere except downhill.

Her elation wears off after a few weeks, but the anger she needed to carry herself doesn’t return. Instead there is a weary resignation. This is her life. For now. She chose herself, but she isn’t out yet. Eddie signed the papers, but they can’t organize everything with him on the other side of the planet. She’ll have to wait until he returns, then she can see what freedom means for her.

The thought makes her feel guilty. She wants to be a good mother. She just doesn’t want to be a good mother here. This place is toxic. It poisons every chance she has at trying, so she remains, exhausted and a horrible mother.

Shannon is twenty-two when she meets Evan. He is the first person to talk kindly to her since news of her divorce spread. In fact, he’s the only person besides Mrs. Johnson who talks to her at all, and Mrs. Johnson only does it, so she can gossip after Church. Shannon is just so desperate for human contact that she doesn’t even mind.

Evan is sweet and funny and he makes her smile, even when she makes a fool of herself. He’s kind about Christopher, then kind to Christopher when she brings him with her. He makes her feel young. He makes her feel alive.

He is everything she should want, but she doesn’t.

She likes him, sure, but she doesn’t love him. Her heart is still broken by Eddie, the man she loved, who didn’t love her back. She doesn’t hate him for it, but it still aches. Evan soothes that ache, but he doesn’t hold her feelings like Eddie did.

It doesn’t stop her from coming back, from getting wrapped up more and more with him, stringing him along and never fully committing. It probably makes her a horrible person, but she already is a horrible mother, what’s being a horrible person too in the grand scheme of things?

So, they flirt, they talk. He gives her parenting breaks that make her feel like the horrible mother everyone else is convinced she is. And together they make it through being an outsider in El Paso.

Shannon is twenty-three and is no longer solely responsible for a four year old, because Eddie comes home.

In a way, she doesn’t know how to feel about it. She sits in the Johnson farm kitchen and tries to process with the one consistent positive presence of the past year; Evan. He looks to be kind of awkward, but Shannon can ignore that for now. As a practically single mother, who feels universally hated, she’s gotten more than used to awkward.

Eddie being home is a good thing, she thinks. They can work out their divorce, get closure and be able to move on. He can do the talking to Helena. He can take care of Christopher too, letting her breathe slightly and sharing the load that comes with childcare.

However, she is also upset. Angry. Hurt. All the feelings, she’s been pushing down have come bubbling right up and she doesn’t know how to feel about seeing his face again. She loved him and he broke her heart. He left.

And now he’s back.

She doesn’t wait on him at the airport. She doesn’t have to. He’s not her husband. She just drinks tea with Evan and tries to convince herself it’s not a sin to not want to come greet the man, the boy, she once devoted herself to.

It feels weird when he doesn’t come home with Christopher at the end of the day, even if she isn’t sure he’s still supposed to live there, even if he owns the house. There aren’t any rules for this and she feels as out of her depth now as she did in that bathroom, seeing those two lines on that pregnancy test.

When she sees him again the next day, she feels awkward. Sore wounds tender and no script to follow. It seems Eddie doesn’t feel the same way. He’s angry at her. Angry about Evan. She can’t deny that anger hurts.

The anger hurts, because she feels shame too. She was supposed to devote her life to Eddie, but she didn’t. She divorced him. And then she moved on.

But she didn’t move on. She’s never gone further with Evan yet, still hung up on Eddie and feeling like- like a creased paper, for letting him flirt with her. Even if it feels so good when he does. To hear Eddie be mad, shrivels something inside her.

However, Shannon didn’t survive by shriveling up and one thing her and Eddie had always been good at, was matching each other’s anger and arguing. And it’s rich coming from Eddie, when he never even tried to be her husband when she needed him. He left first. Physically and emotionally. She just acknowledged it and made it real, when he was too scared.

She has been fighting for years to be accepted by the Diaz family and she never has been. It didn’t matter how hard she tried. So why try?

It’s almost nice that Eddie is mad at her, so she can be mad back. He looks down on her, so she can look down on him. She can condemn him too, for how he’s already let Helena take over, ignoring that she had too before, when she now snaps and takes Christopher with her.

Her defiance feels good, until she’s in the car with Christopher and he’s upset that he didn’t get to say bye bye to daddy. The little boy is absolutely thrilled to have Eddie home, none of the excitement has worn off yet. Nothing Shannon says comforts him.

A sinking feeling appears in Shannon’s chest. It’s a familiar one. A voice in her head that sounds very similar to Helena’s tells her she’s a horrible mother.

Still, when Eddie comes over, she feels protective about her friendship with Evan. She might not love him, but he’s been keeping her together, backing her up where no one else did. It’s her own thing. A thing she did for her. It feels fragile.

But when Eddie lets it go, when he lets her take the lead again, she can’t help but let him in. They do need to talk. She needs the closure. This is what she has been waiting for.

They fall into a rhythm together where he does the mornings and she does the nights. They’re barely home together, passing Christopher back and forth, or dropping him off at or picking him up from Helena’s house.

Christopher is still excited daddy is home and she can see how Eddie loves him. How easily this comes to him. How he never seems to struggle like she did. Shannon hates him for it. Shannon hates Helena too, for pointing out what Shannon already knows; Eddie is a good father and she is a horrible mother.

Evan keeps prodding how Eddie is, how Eddie is settling in, how Christopher feels about Eddie being home again. She hates Evan too.

Evan is her safe space, her little positive thing. He isn’t supposed to bring up Eddie, isn’t supposed to care about him. Evan is the one person that cares about her. She needs him to care about her. So, she waves him away, they flirt, then they fuck, but it doesn’t make Shannon feel as good as she hoped.

Shannon hates every moment of those two months.

Eddie coming back was supposed to change things. It was supposed to make it all better. They were supposed to work it out and Shannon was supposed to be free of this feeling in her chest that makes her feel like her own intestines are strangling her.

Instead, she just feels worse and worse. Eddie is still there serving as a daily reminder of her heartache, Helena informs her how horrible she is every time they’re forced to meet, Evan is not helping, and the town still hates her and keeps her trapped.

And then her mother calls again. Cancer. Terminal.

Her father had died young and her mother had always raised her alone. For as long as Shannon can remember, it had been the two of them against the world. Until Eddie. Until Christopher. Until Shannon messed it all up.

Now, she might lose her one family member she still has, beside her son. A son, who she is always failing, over and over again. She is a horrible mother, will she be a horrible daughter too?

The two of them call more and more and Shannon aches that she is not with her. Her mother is deteriorating and she needs someone by her side. Christopher is well cared for, he loves his father, who is much better at it than her anyway, and it’s not like he’d be lost without a motherly figure with the way Helena has been itching to take him since he was born.

Softly, under the hush of the night, where secrets will be swallowed by the darkness, she confesses to Evan: “Some days I wonder why I still try to be his mother.”

Evan is supposed be her positive thing, he likes her. He’s- he’s her boyfriend? situationship? fuck-buddy? friend. He’s her friend. The one friend she has ever had in this town, the one person that has her back. But he doesn’t have her back.

He seems disbelieving, as if she suggested she was going to murder someone and drink their blood. It makes her stomach feel tight, nauseous, and a familiar sick feeling settles in her bones. Shannon is a horrible mother.

It seals a fate, it rings in the end of a family. Though none of them can know at the time. That night, she decides that she needs to at least try not to be horrible in one aspect of her life, that she can’t stay and ruin Christopher more.

She sits Eddie down, tells him they should seriously work on splitting assets. Her divorce was supposed to set her free. She can’t be free when living under the same roof as Eddie, the same house that never became a home with a man that never became her husband.

It’s awkward to talk about all their stuff and the money; how little they have of it, how many bills they have to pay with it. It all makes guilt curdle in Shannon’s gut. She is never going to be able to provide for Christopher. She isn’t going to be able to give him the life he deserves. She is a horrible mother.

As they figure it out, her resolve on what she has to do hardens. She calls more with her mother, has meetings with a lawyer no one but her knows about. Fucks Evan and pretends it soothes away aches that have become a permanent part of her. Holds Christopher in her arms as he sleeps and softly promises that she is going to do better. For him. For them. For her.

She feels like a horrible person, like a horrible mother, dropping Christopher off at Evan’s with a vague excuse, the suitcases burning in her trunk. However, it’s a feeling she’s become used to and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to leave, if she says goodbye to Christopher. It is only temporary anyway. She’ll do better and then she’ll come back.

Shannon is twenty-three and no longer has a four year old relying on her. She is no longer trapped in a town that hates her and she has left the person most dear to her behind, because she couldn’t be what he needed.

She couldn’t be a good mother. Hopefully, she can still be a good daughter.

Seeing her mother like that. Dying and frail, makes something inside Shannon break. She so desperately wanted her mother, wanted someone that once cared for her, but her mother isn’t her mother anymore.

Her mother is confused and mean. Her mother needs care. She needs Shannon’s care, because she is confused and when Shannon tries to care, her mother is mean. God, Shannon tries to hard to be a good daughter. Tries so hard to be what her mother needs. Tries to do this one thing, because it is the one thing she was once good at.

Shannon has been a horrible daughter. A horrible daughter, who brought shame to the family that her mother had worked so hard to keep respectable. But she was a good daughter once too. She was once the pride and joy of her mother, even if she couldn’t dress like a lady to save her life and insisted on making her voice heard.

For four years, she has failed over and over again to be a good mother, and she needed to feel like she was a good daughter, but she isn’t. Her mother needs care, but Shannon can’t take care of anyone. Not of her mother, not of Christopher, not of herself.

Anything she touches, she ruins. She has fought against it time and time again, but Shannon is tired of fighting, tired of being angry, tired of failing, tired of being horrible.

Shannon is barely twenty-four and an orphan. She hasn’t seen her own son in nearly a year and doesn’t know what to do when she watches her mother get put into the ground. The tomb stone will read: ‘A beloved mother and wife’ and Shannon cries, because it’s the two things that will never be on hers.

She failed at being a good daughter. She failed at being a beloved mother and wife. Shannon abandoned her own child after ruining him time and time again, because she just kept being a horrible mother.

She promised Christopher that she’d come back to him and now she can come back to him. There is no mother that needs her care, no family that needs her here. And LA is a big city, in which she is a stranger, so there are no people that will miss her.

Shannon is terribly alone. However, a horrible part of her likes that. Likes that no one knows her and no one expects something from her. That no one knows she is a horrible person and no one reminds her off all the ways she failed.

If she returns to El Paso now, what will she find? She blocked Eddie, blocked Evan too. Evan will probably be gone, her one positive, no longer there. And Eddie- God, she can’t imagine how angry Eddie is with her.

Eddie is a good father. He doesn’t understand what it is like to fail. Sure, he ran, but he never fully left, not like her. Even Helena could see his qualities, where she only ever saw the worst of her. Probably because there wasn’t anything good to find.

She should go back. Should be there. But what will she offer? She has only ever ruined anything she touches and she failed at being all the things she was supposed to be. If she came back, she would only ruin Christopher more. She is not a good mother, Shannon is a horrible mother.

So, she doesn’t go back to El Paso, doesn’t unblock Eddie’s number and doesn’t try when she is so sure that she will fail. In trying to not be a horrible mother, she stopped being a mother at all.

~~

A/N:

I’m really thankful for everyone who read this. Shannon isn’t the most popular character, but she is so interesting to me and I loved exploring her. There are so many takes on her, but for this verse, I thought this would be interesting. Naturally, I don’t think she is a horrible mother, but Shannon thinks so. I do hope you enjoyed it and that I’ve done right by her <3

Also ‘Impersonal Hell’ by POESY is such a Shannon (or Shannon/Eddie) song. I’ve totally semi-plotted this out while listening to it.

[onward--upward]

Hi 🦀🦀 some Weird Asks for you: 18 (leaving it up to you to choose the passage), 25, 36 💞

HELLO BELOVED thank u!! 🦀🦀

25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

i am going to take this opportunity to talk about my baby boy avery o'connor from steppin' into fate <3 <3

he has a bunch of spare toothbrushes in his bathroom for when friends stay over, in a variety of colours.

he hates beer (bold and controversial opinion for a hockey player.)

his crush on buck was sooooo obvious that it's a running joke on the Kings' social media. he is never ever escaping the obsessed-with-evan-buckley accusations

when he's a little more settled in the league and has a longer contract he goes out and adopts TWO dogs in the summer break. avery o'connor dog dad CONFIRMED

he absolutely goes out and gets a bf at some point i just haven't decided Whom or When

36. They say to Write What You Know. Setting aside for a moment the fact that this is terrible advice... what do you Know?

excellent question!!! the answer is Not A Whole Lot. I know.... terrible retail jobs? academia? oh!!! i know Hockey, but i've already written about that one!

i know Being Bisexual and Stupid, that's why i gravitate towards evan buckley <3

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.

Okay this is my favourite question ever!!! I decided to go with the opening to my beloved soulmate AU, stitch my soul, because it was the story that i wrote over the longest period of time so i was interested to go back and see how it changed.

passage and the rest of the answer is under the cut because i don't want to clog up people's dashes <3

from the finished version:

For a long time, the crook of Eddie’s arm read only Ev. For such a long time, even, that his parents sometimes asked him if he was sure it hadn't settled yet. Maybe he had missed the signs. “It could be an unusual name, Eddie,” his mom says one night, when he’s been fighting with Shannon, his girlfriend who isn’t his soulmate, his girlfriend that his parents have never liked very much at all. “Ev. You never know, these days, what people are naming their children.” 

“It hasn’t settled,” he’d insisted, because you were supposed to know, when it did. And he’d never felt the shift, the one that you always see in movies when the music swells and everything falls into a sharp focus. There was no click, in his chest, nothing coming together. It just felt… unfinished. 

Unsettled. 

There are lots of potential reasons that a mark might take a long time to settle into your soulmate’s name. They make it seem like everyone settles right around the time they reach adulthood, but Eddie’s done the research, and he knows that plenty of people don’t settle that early. The experts don’t seem to be able to agree on why it takes longer, for some people. There’s no definitive explanation. And Eddie has never needed one. 

Because Shannon shows up on his doorstep at his parents’ house with a positive pregnancy test, and he marries her in a church that his parents pick out, and he enlists in the army because he’s 21 and terrified and he doesn’t have many employable skills. The scrawled Ev on the inside of his forearm doesn’t matter much, in the end, when he’s out there learning to have steady hands and quick problem-solving skills, and practising how to remove a bullet from beneath somebody’s skin. It doesn’t matter much when he’s flying home to cut the umbilical cord and meet his son and then shipping back out to the dust and the sand before any of it really starts to feel real. And he has Shannon – brave, beautiful Shannon. She’s never been his soulmate, and he’s never been hers. But he loves her. And he has Christopher, now, and he loves him, too. And whoever his Ev is, he doubts they would want… all of this, even if he was going to drop everything for them. Which he’s not. So it doesn’t matter. Hasn’t mattered, really, for a long time. He’s not sixteen years old anymore, watching the v fade in, sharp and kind of clumsy, deep black against his skin. He’s not that same kid who was Googling one of those lists that filled in common names to fill out your letters, skimming through them all, breath caught in his throat. Ev is kind of an unusual combination, really – nothing like Adriana’s first two letters, which had come in four days apart, spelling out Ma against her calf, and narrowed absolutely nothing down. Turns out Ev is even rarer when you filter by common names for Eddie’s geographical location. The possibilities used to fill up his head. Eva. Eve. Evelyn. 

(Everett. Evan. Evander. He tried to read those ones and forget them, but they lingered just as much. He shoved them to the back of his brain, where they couldn’t quite see the light of day.) 

But he isn’t that kid anymore. So he forgets about his letters altogether, for a while. Afghanistan is all his brain has room for, these days, and every spare space left over is filled by Chris. His team brings up soulmates on occasion, the usual locker room ribbing, trying to keep things lighthearted. He listens to cheesy romantic stories from those who’ve already found their match, the whining from those who are unlucky in their search. When the questions turn Eddie’s way, he brushes them off, and they mostly let him be. Nobody wants unhappy stories. There are enough of those out here. 

Eddie puts Ev aside. 

Christopher gets diagnosed with CP, Shannon is more and more stressed out every time they manage to speak to each other. He sees men and women die beneath his hands, and he wakes up some days to gunfire, and there’s no room anywhere for the little letters on his skin.

now, because i tend to write a lot of my first drafts by hand in notebooks, i actually have the first verison of this! (and my handwriting actually looks nice in this one, yay <3)

when i first wrote this i don't think i really had any idea where i was going with things, i was just thinking: soulmates, eddie's past with shannon, how does that work? and i just kind of sat down and went for it lol.

a lot of this survived to the final version! but it's missing a lot of connective tissue -- it's a much shorter version of the same passage. also i think it's interesting how in the original version i had eddie refering to his soulmate with she/her pronouns, where in the actual fic he always uses they/them even in his own head. this version of eddie i think always knew that his soulmate would be a guy, but shoved that wayyyy down where he didn't have to think about it. but it's one of those things that you do still know, even if you pretend you don't, so i'm glad i took the she/her pronouns out.

anyways i'm actually surprised how cohesive this original version is! a lot of my notebook first drafts include a lot of crossed out lines and false starts, especially if i don't really know where the story is going.

--

thank you my most beloved, i had wayyyy to much fun with these!!

here are the questions if anyone else wants to hear me ramble about writing <3

[sickofthistoxicshit]

Hi!! First of all, I have to say that I loved the episode because Buck is an amazing character and Oliver was incredible as an actor.

But not gonna lie, I’m a little bit disappointed (probably my own fault, too much fics consumed…haha!) about how they handled the Eddie content… I know he was affected for the chance of losing Buck, but at the same time, it felt like something was missing (don’t know if I’m explaining myself correctly)

What I’m trying to say is that at this point, I cannot really see buddie being canon, not because another love interest is going to appear or something like that, just because I think the show runners are not brave enough to do it.

Sorry for bothering you with the message, not my intention to annoy anyone with my pessimism. Maybe I’m just tired after a 24h shift and tomorrow I will see things differently ;)

Thanks so much,

B

Oliver was phenomenal!

I loved this episode for him! He was so good!!

I think, even if we didn't read and write fics, we would have still been disappointed.

Because in other shows, the focus is on the reaction of the people most close to you on a daily basis, (for those who watch Chicago Fire, and Station 19 and similar shows, all those characters have families, some closer than others, but the focus is often on the reaction of the people inside the firehouse, of those closest to them.) They don't outsource the drama to random characters unless there is a fundamental reason for it.

Like Vic's parents restaurant set on fire, or Travis' father being closeted gay who cheats on Montgomery's mom.

Or Casey's mother sprung out of jail in Chicago Fire, or Severide's dad showing up to stir the pot and Severide trying his damnedest to not be his old man.

There is a reason, but the injuries, the worry, the angst, the aftermath is always told from how it affects the firehouse and its people, the chosen family.

Vic recuperate with her boyfriend and her best friend, Andy helped Gibson through his hard time.

In Chicago Fire, Casey and Severide roomed together on two different occasions, helping each other through hard times.

So, really, it's not just the buddie thing. It's the firehouse and chosen family thing.

The showrunners, they lack conviction, they're waffling, and I think that's what gets us.

Because if it were two women, no one would have thought twice about getting them together.

Here, there is some psychological barrier that prevents the showrunners from following through on what they got rolling.

And I get the frustration and the crisis of faith, because it's all fucking there, but no one has the pair to make a definitive decision.

I'm waiting to see what comes next, I haven't lost hope in buddie yet, but something better give soon because it is kinda getting ridiculous.

I hope your shift went well. 🙏🤗

[scheodingers-muppet]

sorry i haven’t been posting i lowkey forgot i was real. but anyways back on my bullshit let’s go

fearless. y’all know the drill

Fearless: Steddie. Eddie to Steve. 1) i’m a sucker for fics where Steve just decides “who cares about homophobia, i’ll intimidate them until they leave us alone” (i know it’s unrealistic just let me have this) and Eddie is just starstruck anytime Steve stands up for him. also the line “run your hands through your hair” screams Steve. “you pull me in and i’m a little more brave” Eddie just wants to be brave, to stop running.

Fifteen: El. “somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them” “next to a redhead… and soon enough you’re best friends” her and max. “you’re dancing around the room when the night ends” you can’t convince me she didn’t do that. “your first kiss makes your head spin” “i swore i was gonna marry him but i realized some bigger dreams of mine” and “in this life, you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team” we only know about el in her relations to other people. the other characters have pieces of their plots that show us who they are outside of the group. el, however, only has the rainbow room and her interactions with the party. even in california, we can see the heavy influence from her old friends.

Love Story: Lumax!! “i close my eyes and the flashback starts” she thinks about Lucas for her happy memories. “daddy said stay away from Juliet” Billy tried to keep them apart; it’s not hard to imagine her stepdad would have an issue with him too. “escape this town for a little while” it’s not unlikely that they would want to leave hawkins. “they’re trying to tell me how to feel” both the racism and people trying to help her through Billy

Hey Stephen: STEDDIE!!!!! from Eddie. “i know looks can be deceiving” “as we walked, we were talking and i didn’t say half the things i wanted to” “of all the girls throwing rocks at your window, i’ll be the one standing out there in the cold” the whole chorus reminds me of the joke that Eddie hates loving a jock, but he just can’t help it. the references to shinning and i just know eddie would call steve his “knight in shinning armor” “all those other girls are beautiful but would they write a song for you?”

White Horse: El and Mike. I think El would get her ideas of romance from fairytales and movies. “this ain’t hollywood, this is a small town” “i was a dreamer before you went and let me down” “this is a big world, that was a small town” she’s gonna move on and be okay

You Belong With Me: Byler. the whole song is about being in love with your best friend. ignore the internalized misogyny and view it as “you guys are so different, but we fit together at such a good level” “i’m the one who makes you laugh when you know you’re about to cry” and the “crazy together” where they comforted each other.

Breathe: Nancy about Barb. there isn’t a huge reason other than the fact that this doesn’t fit any of the breakups and i think we don’t discuss the nancy-barb thing enough

Tell Me Why: Stancy. “you know you got a mean streak” about both of them. “i remember what you said last night” and the halloween party. “you tell me you love me then you cut me down” steve did not do enough to help nancy deal with losing barb. i feel like their relationship would have been very on-again-off-again and toxic tbh.

You’re Not Sorry: Stancy again. like i said, on-again-off-again

The Way I Loved You: Jopper. “he” is bob, “you” is hopper. i fully think they dated before she got with lonnie. and that it was a rollercoaster relationship. i think they were on-again-off-again and when they were off, she got with lonnie and ended up pregnant so they stayed together. i don’t care if it’s canon or not, that’s what happened.

Forever and Always: Byler fighting. “we almost never speak, i don’t feel welcomed anymore” they used to be so much closer. “i stare at the phone, he still hasn’t called” mike didn’t write will. “did i say something way to honest?” mike telling will “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” “here’s to everything coming down to nothing” tearing down Castle Byers

The Best Day: El. the first part about hopper. “i know you’re not scared of anything at all” and saying hopper is her hero. the second part about max. “i don’t know how my friends could be so mean” and her breakup with Mike. “we talk and window shop till i’ve forgotten their names” “i have an excellent father. his strength is making me stronger” the last part about joyce. “ you set up a paint set in the kitchen and you’re talking to me” joyce would show her so many different hobbies. “you’re the prettiest lady in the whole world” and “i love you for giving me your eyes” she starts doing her hair and dressing like joyce.

Change: the whole group, talking about the 4-year battle with a mirror/hell dimension “i’ll do anything to see it through” “the time will come for us to finally win.” “it’s hard to fight when the fight ain’t fair” “fight for what we’ve worked for all these years” “it was the fight of our lives”

Jump Then Fall: Steddie from Steve. “i watch you talk, you don’t notice” “i like the way your hair falls in your face” “i love each freckle on your face” from eddie “when people say things that bring you to your knees, i’ll catch you” i also just think this is how steve loves

Untouchable: ronance. robin loves the stars, you can’t convince me otherwise “untouchable like a distant diamond sky” “it’s like a million little stars spelling out your name” “i’m reaching out and i can’t tell you why” i also love the idea of “untouchable” being because robins scared to make her move (as we saw during her opening scene in season 4)

Come In With The Rain: stobin. platonic of course. i have a horrible feeling steve is gonna die in season 5 and i doubt robin will handle it well. “i know all the steps to your door but i don’t wanna go there anymore” the entire chorus “i know you by heart, and i don’t even know where to start”

Superstar: steddie. very steddie album. but imagine eddie going on tour and steve joking he’s gonna have to fight off all the groupies in love with eddie and he surprises him at one of his shows “you played in bars, you play guitar” “you sing me to sleep” steve would totally call eddie “superstar”

The Other Side Of The Door: lumax. we know max pushes people away when things get tough and we’ve also seen her and lucas fight and break up various times but she still loves him and misses him.

Today Was A Fairytale: i honestly can’t think of one

You All Over Me: Stancy, from steve’s perspective. he changed *because* of nancy. he’s a better person because of her. “i still got you all over me” “we were never really meant to be so i lied and i cried and i watched a piece of myself die” “held out and held on, god knows, too long”

that’s all i got

[thehitchhikerguide]

Season 2, Episode 8: Man at the Window

After that last episode, the bar had been set pretty low. I had some high hopes for this one since I saw that Michael Madsen was one of the guest stars. I'm guessing this was well before he took any phone call from QT.

This episode made me wonder about the screenwriters of The Hitchhiker - did they get THEIR ideas from spying on people? I say this because that is what this episode is about.

Our "hero" (played by Edward Albert, son of Green Acres star Eddie Albert), is first seen in a town square. I totally got a kick out of all the NYC references they make in this episode, when one look will tell you, this ain't NYC. He is seen with his motorcycle. He pulls something out.

A breast pump? No wait it's a recording device.

He's listening to this couple gripe about old age. Great, this is like a less interesting version of The Conversation. But then he picks up something else.

This woman with a black eye is on the phone with her lover. Sounds like someone is stepping out on someone, which is intriguing our main character. He follows her on his bike, completely oblivious to this guy...

The Hitchhiker doesn't attempt to get a ride, as I think it's pretty tough to hitchhike on a motorcycle. However I do see room on his seat.

Instead he lets us know that "Arthur Bradley Brown steals the words of others and uses them as they were his own. But what he doesn't hear are murmurs of danger, that could warn him of the violence that can pound with the human heart."

Arthur is able to follow this woman to an apartment.

He uses this window plunger to hear what is going on inside. Really? No one sees this in broad daylight?

We see this young woman's lover is...another woman! Wow 80s HBO, I'm impressed! Well I was until I found out this is how brave they were with this:

For a show that who's tagline always seem to be "look at these," I was pretty disappointed there was nothing steamy with this couple. This cuddle is as far as they go. That's the 80s for you.

Well there is the titular Man in the Window. Come on, they don't see this?

He is able to record them talking about the whole sorted affair and how Diane is married to a brutish cop, John. The other woman is Carla, a photography artist.

The snooping doesn't end here as he follows Diane back home to her husband.

Wow this guy is good, even at a cop's house he is able to be completely invisible while staying totally in sight.

Fine, it's okay to show the heterosexual sex, but not the women. Whatever 80s HBO.

Arthur takes this newly developing story to his agent who loves the writing because the conversations seem so real. Strange they didn't seem real when they were acted out, but okay. However, it doesn't have an ending. Even Hitchhiker episodes have those!

Instead of making one up, he decides to try to make one happen using this love triangle to his advantage. He starts by calling Michael Madsen and pretending to be his wife's lover.

He even tries to send flowers to Diane. She gets angry at Carla and Carla lets her know it wasn't her doing this.

Ooo back rubs. Steamy stuff. It's a little strange this woman has this naked photo of her girlfriend just facing out the window. Arthur uses this to take photo of just the cutout, instead of the women getting cozy on the couch.

He breaks into Diane and John's house. You'd think a cop would have better security than this.

He puts some device in the phone...I'll record everything!

He also places the picture of a picture on the bed. This triggers an argument with the couple where predictably, John beats on his wife while Arthur listens.

On further examination, John gets a clue to where the photo may have come from and gets the address of Carla, while still thinking Diane is having an affair with another man.

What ensues is a somewhat tame chase scene, where John, Arthur and Diane all speed towards Carla's place to warn her/save her.

I have to say there were some interesting camera angles on some of the transportation shots. I mean, this was directed by the same guy who directed Teen Wolf Too, so we are dealing with some expertise.

John puts his police siren on, but still manages to fall behind in the chase as he crashes into another car.

This give Arthur the advantage as he reaches Carla and scares the crap out of her by yelling at her, telling her not to be scared of him.

Diane comes over soon after and the two are reunited.

But realize they have no idea who this creepy guy screaming at them is.

Then John shows up with a gun and assumes Arthur to be the lover.

Arthur tells John that his wife is actually having an affair with a woman, and John pistol whips him. I'm not sure if this is because he doesn't believe him, or because he's mad his wife is a lesbian. Carla clocks John over the head with a bottle.

Cop sirens are heard as Arthur grabs the gun and in a very dazed state, stumbles out of the apartment.

The cops yell at him to drop the gun and instead he makes this stupid face.

And of course the cops start shooting at him like crazy.

And then:

Nothing.

It just ends with this freeze frame of him as you hear gun shots! I guess they had spent all their budget on that car crash (credit to that joke goes to my significant other). Ah well, it ends up being the most unintentionally funny ending ever. I was waiting for the Police Squad credit music to come on.

Oh wait, not over yet, I forgot about him. The Hitchhiker wanders in to tell us "Arthur Brown thought he could play people like instruments. He rearranged their lives like so many notes and used their emotions as chords. But then somebody came along that didn't appreciate Arthur's music...and put an end to Arthur's song."

Wouldn't that have made sense if he was actually a musician and not a wannabe John Travolta in Blow Out? This music analogy seems to be for a different episode, it doesn't seem to fit. All in all, an okay episode. I would have liked to see more Michael Madsen and more same-sex romance. Maybe we'll see it sometime on The Hitchhiker, but I won't hold my breath.

[buddiebeginz]

Great response as always Ali although I disagree about Eddie's sexuality. I think they could still have Eddie come out as gay. Which btw I think Eddie is gay and demi and you can be both. Though I don't think a primetime network show will delve into talking about demisexuality at least not with a main character like Eddie and not at this point. Not that I agree with that I just think that's where we're at in media.

You said you didn't know if they would have Eddie label himself as gay because they "doubled down on his Shannon love too long to try and undo that now" but my feeling has always been even years ago that Eddie loved Shannon but was never in love with her. I have always felt that he was just going through the motions of what he thought he was supposed to be doing.

If they had Eddie come out as a gay I don't think it would diminish the love he had for Shannon or what they shared, I mean Michael doesn't love Athena any less because he came out. I just think Eddie would finally be able to understand why he's felt so broken and disconnected from his relationships. Shannon will always be important to Eddie just for the fact that she's Chris' mom but you can also tell the way Eddie talks about her that she will always be an important person who changed his life.

At the same time though Eddie uses her and their marriage to hide behind. I feel like a big reason Shannon gets brought up so often is because if Eddie can convince himself that she was his soulmate and they had this great love until she died well then he doesn't have to really examine what he doesn't feel that with other women. But the thing is we know from flashbacks and even from the time that Shannon came back in s2 that her and Eddie did not have a picture perfect love story. They didn't seem to communicate well and fought more than they were even together. And right before she died Shannon had said she wanted a divorce, something Eddie has sort of pretended didn't happen.

I think part of Eddie having his queer awakening will be seeing his relationship with Shannon for what it really was and not hiding behind it (or Chris) anymore. He's going to have really take a long hard look at himself and what he really wants something I don't think he's ever really done.

I've seen a lot of people say they don't think Eddie will have any labels, like he'll just say he's in love with Buck and that will be that. I see how a storyline like that could work for Eddie but at the same time having a character like Eddie come out and actually say that he's gay would be so impactful to so many people myself included so I hope the show is brave enough to go there.

I am clapping

Q. A Tommy heavy episode and you have answered and posted several opinions trying to sound unbiased but your very loud Eddie/Buddie bias is showing.

A. I have spent most of the day stating very clearly that the show has established Tommy as a perfectly fine guy. A perfectly suitable choice for Buck. I have said that in multiple posts and answers today. But perfectly fine doesn't mean right, and I'm going to keep saying that because that's also clearly being established by the show. And if you genuinely watched last night's episode, or any episode that has featured Tommy, and came away with any other opinion then you didn't actually watch the episodes. But that's fitting for your pattern over these past months. None of you are actually bothering to watch the show. You're watching only his scenes, and not even pretending to pay attention to the actual point of any of his scenes. You're watching in order to fan girl over him on Twitter in the hopes that he will acknowledge you. End of story. This next part is going to piss you off, anon. I'm going to give you the business reasons why Tommy is not viable long term, and then I'm going to give you the storyline reasons why he's not viable long term. With today's media most viewers watch the episodes on some sort of streaming service after the live episode airs because the Netflix generation has no idea how to consume traditional weekly serials. They want the ability to skip commercials and other aspects of the show that they may not be particularly interested in. That's just the way it works nowadays. With that came an entirely different way of marketing. Shows depend on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and other social media platforms to promote their product. There is a reason why Buck/Eddie/Buddie is used for promotion by 911 more than any other aspect of their show. Without question and without hesitation their fanbase is by far the leading force behind their social media presence. And it's not particularly close. The cast overall is very popular with their audience. The main cast are all liked by the viewers, which is a rare feat for a television show. Everyone likes the couples on the show as well. But the Buddie fanbase are the viewers who actively engage in the marketing the most. And everyone involved in the show, Tim. Oliver and Ryan included, knows this. The show cannot afford to alienate or lose that fanbase. It's an undeniable fact. They make up too much of the viewership. Right or wrong, fair or not, that's the way media works nowadays. Clicks and likes equals money. It's the entire reason why you all tried to pretend you were thousands and thousands of people instead of the roughly few thousand people you actually turned out to be. And that's a generous number now. You're aware of how it works. You just don't have the numbers to actually compete. Everyone figured that out relatively easily. It's why you all turned to threats and bullying.

On paper Tommy is the love interest who they should have been able to make work. And had he been introduced in seasons 3 or 4 as a love interest he might have had a chance, but it's too late now. That's the real root of the problem the show finds itself in. It's too late to introduce other options for either Buck or Eddie that the audience will care about at all. No one else can compete with what they create together. It's that simple. And last night's episode was the perfect example. Talk to any viewer, any consistent viewer, that doesn't classify themselves as a shipper, and they're on Twitter just like everyone else, then read all the reviews, not just from the Buddie jurnos, and the overwhelming opinion of his scenes was that he wasn't necessary. He felt out of place, which the show intended by the way. Anything Tommy is there to do most of the audience believes Eddie can do better. And that opinion would go for Buck as well if we were talking about an Eddie love interest. It's too late, anon. And I think the show knows that as well. Any chance they had at not doing it is long gone. And not doing it at this point is going to cost them. But I think the plan is to pair them together. I don't know if they will have Eddie label himself as gay (though I'm a demi Eddie truther) because they doubled down on his Shannon love too long to try and undo that now, and I don't think they should undo it anyway. I think as far as the show goes he'll have been in love with Shannon and now he'll be in love with Buck. I think that's partly why they've compared Buck and Shannon when the opportunities have presented themselves to do so. Ryan did it several times in interviews during the off-season as well. I don't know how they plan to get them together story wise, but I do believe they're going to do it. And I don't really care how they do it. It's the right way to go. It's the best way forward story wise for both characters. And it really is their only option. The show is 3 for 3 on their endgame pairings and Buck and Eddie are too beloved to be stuck with endgames less than that of their peers. I'm sorry mine and other's media literacy have made us biased, anon. It's the burden of actually understanding what we're watching.

Thank you Nonny! Much appreciated, as usual!

As to this post? YES, YES and YEEEES! I completely agree with everything here. Everyone of us just keep repeating the same facts. It's nice to see all of these facts compiled and explained so nicely in one post.

I'm just posting this as it is. I've got nothing to add.

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.