#gatekeeping buck and eddie is not enough

[peggingeddiediaz]

I had to step back for a bit but now I’m back and pettier than ever.

How can you call yourself a Buck fan and be happy with his bi storyline getting reduced to him jumping into another relationship, immediately after coming out and think that’s good for his character.

“Buck seems happy and that’s enough” Yeah, the disingenuous defense to keep from looking deeper into the BT relationship. I know the majority of Tommy fans started watching during 7x04 but Buck was also happy while dating Abby, Ali, Taylor and Natalia, but let’s ignore that because now you get to see two men kissing and that’s hot, no need to analyze any further.

“I love their development throughout the season” What development? They’ve kissed twice and had 2 and a half dates. Tommy showed more excitement while hanging out with Eddie in 1 episode than he ever has with Buck. Yall love to act like seeing two white men kissing on tv is this insane form of representation.

A lot of my issues with fanon buddie also got even worse with fanon BT. The infantilization/uwufication of Buck is worse than ever, for fans who love how BT are two “masculine gay men” you lot love to write Buck so female coded you might as well be writing a Het relationship (buck is never beating the "self insert character" allegations), and now, the racism towards Eddie is not as subtle as it was before, now you have BT stans writing Eddie as a violent person towards Buck and have white savior Tommy save the day, or have Eddie die so Chris can go and live with Buck and Tommy. Insane stanning for a bland character who is a bad copy of Eddie and with more screentime on cameo that in the actual show.

The hamster wheel is as present as ever, and worse than that, it has fans now.

[wrestlingisfake]

I'm seeing people complain that "Team AEW" doesn't have any "homegrown" AEW talent on it.

First things first, it's "Team AEW," not "Team AEW originals" or "Team Homegrown." The only qualifications for being on the team are supporting AEW, and wanting to defend it from the dastardly heels. If you can't figure out how that's consistent with the characters of Bryan Danielson, Eddie Kingston, and FTR (whether you like them or not), then you haven't been paying attention.

Second, I find it odd that Eddie Kingston, who made his AEW debut at Daily's Place in July 2020, doesn't make the cut as "homegrown." So who the hell does, then? Does it have to be wrestlers who appeared on the first show? Does it have to be wrestlers that never wrestled anywhere else? Can you only be homegrown AEW talent if Tony Khan literally found you growing in a cabbage patch in 2019?

Having lived through "there aren't enough ECW originals on WWECW" and "the TNA originals are standing up to the Main Event Mafia," I'm familiar with the weird gatekeeper vibe of wanting to support the old guard against the carpetbaggers. But AEW is literally only five years old. That's not enough history to meaningfully distinguish from "originals" and "outsiders." (Note that AEW tried this already in the women's division last year, and it went over like a lead balloon.) Most of the talent that AEW truly developed from the ground up--guys like Griff Garrison and Top Flight--are still getting their reps in, and are years away from wrestling Kazuchika Okada in a PPV main event.

If you want a story where the founders and pillars of AEW battle to defend its honor from evil invaders, this was never going to be it. The story is about the idea that everybody who complains about the Young Bucks and their friends--i.e., everybody on the ground floor of AEW--was right, and they really are "fucking children." For better or worse, this is a story about the top AEW stars of 2024 saving AEW from the jackasses who created it, and made it a place they cared about in the first place. And like it or not, the top AEW stars of 2024 were never going to exclusively be people who were there from the beginning.

[outrunningthedark]

“I often wonder if they know how much they perpetuate the intolerance towards us whom aren't just 'happy enough to be alive with what we have'. How hard is it to understand that certain people might find it harder to properly love and care for those with more needs or that it's not our fault that we happen to have been raised by those people?” “Just because we need more help doesn't mean we don't deserve more than happenstance. The way in which Eddie recognizes his previous failures as a father and has done so well at course correction combined with who Buck is to Christopher is the perfect representation of a disabled character deserving of more than happenstance.” my friend @idealuk had time today.  When you try to make excuses for Shannon’s behavior you are ignoring the words of disabled people who were raised by a parent (or parents) like her. [And hey, look! It’s not me this time!] When you reduce Buck’s role in Christopher’s life because the idea that Eddie has to “share” his role as a parent - except not really, because Christopher will probably never call Buck ‘Dad’ - makes you angry [so much so that you gotta dust off that gatekeeping list!], you are ignoring the reality that many disabled people feel like they are being cared for out of obligation - it’s not everyday that someone new comes along and decides to help in whatever way they can just because they love us *that* much and want to see us thrive. Buck doesn’t need blood or legal ties to give a damn about his best friend’s son and THAT IS WHY HE IS IMPORTANT TO THE STORY.

[moonstonediaz]

Thank you for saying that, I mean this season you can say"but I think that maybe..." and everyone is like if you don't like it stop watching, but jesus we have to accept everything the writers do as dogmas? I hope they're right, but I still think this year the writing is a little bit strange? These people don't talk to each other, everyone lives, buck is more worried about the gift to buy toT than chris, eddie takes decisions out of the blue. I hope in the end it'll be worth

i’m 90% positive this is about the gatekeeping thing i posted about in the tags earlier this morning. my response under the cut bc i’m considering it discourse

so, discourse warning!

anon, i’m going to start at by saying none of this is me getting upset with you so please don’t take this personally 🥺

the thing is, everyone will criticize and complain about everything. that’s how we’ve culminated at a society. the grass is always greener blah blah. and the best way i can compare it is with a non-fandom example:

it costs way too much money to fill up my tank. but that doesn’t mean i’m going to buy a new car. i love my car, it’s just fucking expensive to fill up. am i going to make a comment when i have to pay $70 at the gas station? of course, but maybe not every time. $70 is a lot, but i know what to expect when i fill up. but the car is still great and i love it with my whole heart.

if fandom is my car and specific episodes/scenes are the gas that i complain about every now and then—why should that one little aspect of complaint be the reason to give it up completely? following that same logic i should get rid of my dog bc sometimes he eats too fast and throws up. i should sell my house bc attic freaks me out. i have intrusive thoughts sometime so maybe i sh—

anyway. at the end of the day it is a tv show and it is just fandom. it really isn’t that serious. so i don’t understand why people can see a post saying “i hated that this episode wasn’t cheery. it’s christmas, it should’ve been happy” and automatically resort to saying you should just stop watching it then. that makes no logical sense to me. these are also the people who say you should “curate your online experience.” okay, so what are you doing then? you’re obviously still seeing people post that enough that it compels you to make your own anti post, so…?

i rarely, if ever, participate in fandom discourse but this one rubbed me wrong because it felt like nearly everyone was unhappy with how the episode played out. when it shakes up the general fandom that much, i don’t have a problem stepping in.

i firmly believe that this season feels weird for a reason, that the writers know what they’re doing and they’re going to give us a great 5B. i’ll eat my words if it ends up being shit, but that’s where i’m at now. it has to be going somewhere.

[buttercupbuck]

Hi! Hope this ask doesn’t come as a rude. I’m not American, I’m from another country that have tons of nationalities as well, and it’s a common thing that people here have up 2-3 native languages. And sometimes the language that we talk can be a mess of languages.

So I just wanted to clarify on why Eddie speaking Spanish counts as a gate keeping? I just want to understand that and not to stir any drama. I tried to put this situation on reality of my country and if I wrote a Slavic and non Slavic characters, and non Slavic would speak in his language, it wouldn’t be considered as gatekeeping. I realize that all countries and cultures are different, so I really just want to understand that moment, and I really love Eddie and don’t want to suddenly write him as inappropriate. But I really don’t want to add any drama so please feel free to ignore my message!

yeah of course! 

so i swear im really not trying to be a gatekeeper in general despite my jokes, but when it comes to spanish, it’s just...not non-spanish speakers’ place to decide when and how to use it in fic, because it usually just ends up being really exploitative and insensitive when they do choose to incorporate it. 

my main issue (even though i have a lot of them) with the way people write eddie speaking spanish in fics is that it’s incredibly fetishistic - latino men and the spanish language have a pretty long history of being fetishized in media, and while the show doesn’t really fall into that, the fics absolutely do - they have him speaking spanish when he’s horny, or when he’s trying to romance buck, or when he’s angry (another latino stereotype), etc. a lot of fic writers exploit spanish bc they want to “spice up” their fic, and it’s just really gross.

another thing is that eddie’s first language is without a doubt english. the way he speaks spanish on the show makes that pretty clear - he speaks it slowly and carefully compared to people who grew up with it and speak it fluently. at most, we’ve seen him speak a maximum of 4-word sentences in spanish. so he’s not going to slip into spanish when he’s angry, or passionate, or whatever, because it’s not his first language or even close. even if he grew up around some of it, it’s not an unconscious thing that he doesn’t have to think about.

also,,,as someone who is also mixed and who learned spanish later in life and struggles with it, it’s incredibly invalidating when fic writers disregard all of the above to have eddie speak perfect, “sexy” spanish. there’s already so much shame that comes with not speaking good spanish as a mixed person, and it’s just...really hurtful for people who aren’t even in the community to imply that it’s not enough, either. i’m not saying that my experiences are universal or that they even translate to eddie’s, because we really don’t know much about his upbringing at all, but i still think it’s so weird that fic writers completely ignore canon in order to fetishize eddie, so it’s just awful on a lot of levels 

and then it’s just inaccurate on so many other levels, as well - the google translate is always horrible and obvious, they have him speaking spanish to non-spanish speakers (which he hasn’t done and wouldn’t do), and so on. 

anyway, thank you a lot for asking! i really do appreciate it - if anything didn’t make sense, please let me know! 

[wanderingwomanwondering]

*so long, so sorry*

Thank you for reading my post and sharing your thoughts, @afleetingindecency!!! I appreciate discussion so damn much so thank you ❤️

“The only risk is that the audience ends up encouraged to get some weird "straight with an exception" ideas rather than embracing Eddie and Buck as part of the queer spectrum. This is easy to avoid so I hope the show takes pains to do so.”

I can definitely see some members of the GA thinking like this. People use all sorts of tricks to shrink and box-in queerness in an attempt to protect??? heteronormativity. It’s frustrating and embarrassing when people choose to be that wrong-headed and that loudly too. Anyway, I agree that tptb can counter that kind of thinking pretty easily within the narrative and one way is by having buck/eddie’s therapists do a little education. I love that idea!! It won’t necessarily stop people from thinking problematic thoughts but it will at least provide a clear, educated, and professional counterargument within the show itself.

I will say for me personally, I don’t love but I do accept when people irl “cope” with their or others’ queerness by asserting that a person they have a queer interest in is the exception to their rule. People know themselves better than me and there is such a thing as queer identity development. Not everyone is at a place where they can understand that one queer moment/interest/desire is enough to get them a comfy chair and a delicious plate at the LGBTQIA Family BBQ, if they want it and aren’t being shitty to other queer people while they’re on their own journey of self-discovery. I try not to gatekeep. On the flipside, if they really don’t want to come to the gay bbq, we’re probably better off if no one is forcing them to be there. We can recline and eat our burgers wo their bullshit LOL.

In terms of tv rep though, we have to be mindful of how the GA can twist things in queerphobic ways that lead to irl harm in our actual living breathing communities so I definitely see your point and agree that tptb can and should work to counter harmful corruptions of the narrative in the actual show.

To your other point about Taylor as a catalyst for buck’s confession of feelings, at least to the audience. I like it and would take that confession however I could get it, lol. But I do struggle with yet another gf doing even part of her bf’s emotional labor. Taylor would be an easy option to get buck talking but I do think there are other ways to do it. Could be maddie when she’s healthier. Could be bobby if something happens at work that makes him notice. We have precedent for him doing that with various characters. Could be buck’s therapist, Dr. Copeland. We have tons of options.

In terms of queer tragedy porn, I couldn’t agree with you more! The tragic queer backstory is so painfully real and common, but it’s CONSTANT use in media feels like a Hayes Code holdover. It also serves as a shortcut to emotional storytelling. Thanks, I hate it! It’s 2021. If we can’t tell deep, emotional, meaningful queer stories without specifically queer-related tragedy and trauma then wtaf?! Again I’m not denying the truly fucked up shit our community endures AND also, alot of that queerphobic behavior persists bc non-queer people aren’t being shown an abundance of queer stories that expect and demonstrate better behavior from non-queer people toward queer people.

Also, I think the irony of the tragic queer history is that it actually centers the factors that made the history tragic. That’s great for raising awareness but kinda sucks for the character’s story bc it gets drowned out by the sad circumstances. Of course it’s never that simple but you get my point. If I’m oversimplifying things, I don’t mean to, so I’ll just…leave it. 👀

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts with me 🤓 and indulge my reciprocal word vomit 😬

Buddie & TPTB

Before I get into it: Queer shit just happens and characters don’t necessarily need to provide receipts for queer desire. Queerness can evolve for a character, with an unexpected moment/encounter catalyzing a self-discovery process. Then before you know it, the character learns something about themselves that they didn’t know before. This is a thing that happens irl, why not on tv.

That said, I desperately want Buck and Eddie to have that kind of love story. I rambled on about that in a previous post. I think it would/could be realistic, compelling, and fun. I also think it’s a pristine opportunity to use the power of storytelling to help the general audience understand the complexity and nuance of discovering one’s queerness later in life/without prior queer receipts.

We know that if/when tptb proclaim Buck and Eddie’s love story and start to show them as increasingly romantically involved, many general audience members are going to feel “blindsided”, and both low-key and high-key queerphobia are going to spike. Idec but I do…to a point.

I hope for better but I’m a frickin’ realist. There are already so many micro- and macro-aggressions perpetrated against the queer corners of fandom when it comes to Buddie. I have no delusions that Buck and Eddie exploring their evolving queerness on screen will be met with resounding positivity, support, and enthusiasm. Many will be okay or at least neutral but the phobes will emerge from their hidey-holes full force. I say bring it, because it’s time for a prominent queer mlm relationship on a network tv show that wasn’t planned to be queer from jump. 

Anyway, the GA doesn’t read queer-coding and queer subtext like queer folks themselves do so the transition will likely shock the shit out of a lot of people, whether they decide to be aggressive angry hemorrhoids about it or not. Whatever happens, tptb have a golden opportunity to allow Eddie and Buck’s process of queer awakening and self-discovery to mirror/guide/inform the general audience, to a degree at least.

They can let Buck and Eddie ask and maybe fumble a bit with some of the same pressing questions the general audience has. The main GA questions that come immediately to my mind are:

Can Buck and Eddie develop queer attraction where they didn’t have or hadn’t realized it before?

Does Buck and Eddie’s deep and abiding love for one another have to be romantic and/or sexual? Can’t they just stay bros?

If they do realize that they want a romantic and/or sexual relationship with each other, what the hell do they do next? 

Frankly, I think it’s a little harder to do this kind of story/character work if both Buck and Eddie are not in the same or similar boats when it comes to figuring out their feelings and desires. But still, even if it’s only one of them. there are rich possibilities. It’s just better if it’s both, in MY headcanon. YMMV.

Can you imagine the world if these assumed straight dudes (by themselves and others) awkwardly, but with determination and pure love, ask the above questions as a complex arc presented on screen, out loud?! If they get to explore separately and together what it means to have these feelings/desires for another man and all the beauty and challenges of that process??? 

I can practically see the authentic, heartfelt, but still maybe awkward moment when they say “I love you and I think I’m in love with you” then the other is like “We gotta be sure, right?” Of course they both know in their heart but they are hesitant. One says “maybe we should kiss? If we hate it then we can just go back to being bros”. Then these fools kiss and it’s electric. No more bro/comphet for these idiots. It’s scary, it’s amazing, it’s beautiful, it’s unexpected, and it’s also completely inevitable in a wild way that blows them both back. Whatever they decide in their romantic/sexual adventure, they can do whatever they want free and clear, sky’s the limit.

A combination of deep conversations and passionate exploration (as much as you can have on a network tv station, FOX no less!). Palpable moments of reckoning with what it all means, but first and foremost LOVE. IT’S ALL LOVE and it’s beautiful and they can’t deny it. They won’t deny it. They may decide to be reserved and thoughtful at first, especially with starting a physical relationship OR they may dive right in but still ask the tough questions at various points. Whatever happens, they ARE NOT COWARDS. They can’t not pursue this, and in so doing they could maybe bring at least a portion of the GA along for the ride.

Again I say, whether the GA accepts canon Buddie or not I want 911 to do this. I want Buddie. I want tptb to be bold enough and forward thinking enough to go there. But how they handle it could have a meaningful real world impact with a host of positive implications for the GA and more importantly for the diverse queer community represented in fandom, if tptb are thoughtful and intentional in the process.

Buddie deserves this! The queer fandom deserves this! If the GA/tptb are open-minded/intentional enough, the GA can come along for the ride. And OH what a mf ride!!!