#i KNOW why the number of people who don't want to interpret eddie as queer has grown. i KNOW why the number of people who don't want canon

[thatbuddie]

"eddie isn't queer/gay," you say. "he is straight in canon, so him being gay is just a head canon. it's ok for others to think of him as straight because that's what he is."

let's ignore for a second the fact that eddie has never ever ever ever not even once, said in canon that he is a heterosexual very straight guy. seriously!!! he has never once said it!!! if i am "assuming" he's gay then you are also "assuming" he is straight even though he has never once said it!!

how do you think we got bi buck as canon? like i am serious right now, answer the question. how do you think we go bi buck canon? evan buckley was never conceived to be a bisexual man at the beginning of 911. the reason we have evan buckley as a canonically bisexual character today is because us, queer fans of 911, interpreted him and headcanoned him as bisexual. i would go even further and say that it was us, BUDDIE FANS, who interpreted him and headcanoned him as bi. even before the writers were explicitly writing him as bisexual. we read his actions and his story and his identity and said: "this is a bi character!" and the writers looked back and realized that it made sense! and so they started writing him explicitly and canonically as bi.

was it wrong of us to headcanon a character as bisexual then? like for all intents and purposes we were reading a "straight" character as bi. were we doing something wrong? how come you are not complaining/chastising us/shaming us for how we took evan buckley, an otherwise straight character, and saw him as bi? is it because it now serves a purpose to you that he is bi?

also, taking characters that aren't confirmed queer and reading them as queer is what the queer community, and specifically the queer fandom community, has been doing for DECADES. look up the history of queer coding, i am begging you. it has been through the means of queer coding and the perseverance of people that are engaged in it that actual queer representation in media has increased. and let me tell you right now, eddie diaz is, undoubtedly and undeniably, one of the most queer coded characters there is. whether you think this queer coding is conscious by the writers or not. eddie diaz is queer coded.

and i want everyone who says things like "eddie diaz is not a queer character. he is straight in canon. it's wrong to assume a character is queer without the character saying so" to know that this is exactly what straight and homophobic people say. you are using the SAME rhetoric that has been used to shame queer fans for decades for seeing themselves and their experiences in fictional characters of all types. in fact, us, queer fans (and again BUDDIE FANS), were told so many times by straight fans that we were wrong for reading buck as bisexual. and where are we now? where did reading buck as bi take us? oh yeah, to having bi buck in canon.

so please just stop with the "eddie isn't queer in canon" comments. if you don't want to interpret eddie as queer then that is your prerogative. i will be judging why that is, for sure, but it is your right. but be honest about it. it has nothing to do with whether or not he is straight (which hasn't been said) or queer coded (which he so obviously is seeing as so many of us can very easily read him as queer). it's a personal preference and you're not engaging with canon better because of it.

[stuckyevanstanfan]

Tumblr is annoying...this was supposed to be under a read more and it is glitching...

So I've mentioned stuff in real life is cutting into my internet time. Sometimes I'll write comments in my notes app that I don't end up posting. 

I've decided to compile them into one large part to get them out of there and hopefully move on from those feelings. The first bunch were written in April pre-hiatus and the second batch in May after 7x07. 

The purpose is to let the thoughts go free so I can feel peace etc. Most of them probably don't apply any longer anyway.

Feel free to ignore this…if you do want to respond they're numbered. 

(I actually have no idea if I posted or commented any of these thoughts before…just went through my notes app and copied and pasted the 911 ramblings I did, so sorry if you've seen one before)

1. I don't get this fandom...I see comments saying they haven't made Buddie cracks since season 2, they are so respectful of buddie's relationship, long-form storytelling, etc. 

Then comments about how the way Buddie fans act will make them not reward Buddie fans with Buddie and that fans don't deserve it. 

This implies they don't respect Buddie or long-form storytelling and they're willing to cut off their nose to spite their face. 

2. I don't know why people say they'd prefer Buck and Eddie stay friends rather than get together in an unsatisfying way. 

I didn't like the way Booth and Bones got together and ended up stopping the show. However I'm still glad to know that they are canon and in love. That's out there in the universe even if I never finished watching their story. 

It would have been so upsetting if Bones and Booth hadn't gotten together at all. 

Unsatisfying is a matter of perspective.

3. I'm very curious to know if all the tuck fics that feature just Buck/Tommy (no pining Buck or eventual buddie) imply that Buck and Tommy are a for now couple or if they're thinking of marriage and spending their lives together.

I won't read any of them though 😂

4. "Tommy can't replace you. No one can. You're the most important person in the world to be, besides Christopher."

#Buddie wish list

(This was presumably something I wrote when we thought the Tommy Eddie friendship was making Buck worry Tommy would replace him. And I had made a note to add it to my buddie wish list tag. As an aside, Tumblr is useless - I know I've had that tag or even mentioned "wish" on my blog before but when I search the posts don't appear

Anyway..... Now I feel I need reassurance in the opposite direction. Buck needs to make it clear that Christopher and Eddie are his priority over Tommy. This is why I don't understand people who want Buck and Tommy to get married, or write fics where Buck thinks Tommy is the one. Just make it clear you don't care about Christopher&Buck and Eddie&Buck and don't care if their relationship changes. If you're writing him to have the thought about Tommy being the one and he wants to marry him and he's the most important person to him, then he can't have the same thoughts he used to have about Christopher and Eddie.

If Christopher and Tommy are both injured in the hospital asking for him, Buck should choose Christopher.)

I’ve seen posts trying to argue the opposite and how they can all be his priorities and how Tommy loves that Buck loves Chris and Eddie, but they’re not good arguments

5. This is what I need Tim to say if he wants to convince me to drop Buddie:

"I know we said we'd leave it open and we like how you interpret Buck and Eddie, but I don't see them in a romantic sense and they never will be. These two men can love each other completely but have no desire to have sex with each other. Even if one or both is queer, I am writing them to love each other in a way that is not sexual or romantic. You may think they complete each other in a romantic sense, but I think it's in a platonic, familial sense. You can't control who you have that sexual spark with."

If he's not willing to say it, then that means buddie canon to me.

If buddie didn't go canon, then he baited fans. Relationship baiting is extremely annoying and I can't stand showrunners who act like that because they must not respect their fans enough. They care more about money than integrity. 

I'd also be willing to accept this:

“I'm really sorry for stringing you all along, but buddie is not something I'll be writing. I know I put in so many parallels to the other canon couples, and that was a dumb thing for me to do when I never intended to make them a canon couple. I realize now that there were other ways I could have written their friendship not to come across as romantic at times. I'm owning that mistake, and moving forward I will not try to bait you into thinking buddie will ever be canon.”

6. Did they ever address Tommy talking about sleeping with grateful victims?? 

No one is willing to talk about it. 

I've even tried using tumblr's search function to find posts about it but there is nothing (I’m not sure if people aren't talking about it or if tumblr's search function is that bad)

7. I always thought they'd be able to make Buck and Eddie get together while still feeling like Buck and Eddie, but something is off

The gifs I saw of 7x04 seemed OOC

8. I know we're getting buddie eventually, not from anything we've seen in the episode (because I haven't seen it - this was about 7x04), but because of Tim's quote in this interview:

Minear much preferred having Buck go through this experience with someone the audience already knew, rather than having to “invent some bi character for Buck to have an awakening with.” Fortunately for Minear, when he finally got them together, “they had chemistry!”

And it isn’t lost on Minear that Buck’s dynamic with Tommy echoes the one he once had with Eddie, calling it “almost a reprise of the dynamic from [Eddie]’s first episode where Buck was super jealous of the new guy. Now he’s jealous for a different reason.”

Tim would not be dumb enough to talk about the bucktommy situation echoing what happened with Eddie if it wouldn't eventually lead to Eddie. 

If he wanted bucktommy to be a valid relationship on its own, he wouldn't piggyback off what happened with buddie and expect it to work. 

9. Why did they have to make Buck and Eddie into pod people? There were better ways to do this storyline than turning thirty something year old men into fanfic teenagers

10. Honestly at this point with some of the sexual posts I'm seeing about bucktommy, I'm expecting those former buddie stans to say that Tommy will be the best sex Buck ever has and that Eddie will be a step down that he'll have to settle for just because he loves him, but he'll always dream of Tommy and hope for a threesome to have a proper dicking down again because Eddie can't find his prostate 🙄

I have no idea why fandom is gassing up an average white dude, none at all

[adding on: I ended up blocking tags during the hiatus so I haven’t seen anything since then and I’m not sure if this is still the case]

11.I know people are enthusiastic about Buck's first kiss with a man, but imagine if it were Eddie - wouldn't it be a disappointing kiss after all this time? It would be like the feeling after that pirate show kiss

12. Buck, who screams out "Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!" every time Eddie gets hurt or is in danger - that Buck, injuring Eddie and having no reaction? Illogical. 

13. People can like the bi Buck storyline without needing to become a bucktommy shipper. People offline do it all the time: watch a show and like it and not become shippers.

14. Buck has been turning down Eddie’s invitations to basketball for a while??? What?? Since when?? Why does that not sound like Buck?

And then the show expects me to believe he has a crush on Tommy so he finally goes when it's not just Eddie but Tommy will be there?

(Apparently some thought it was because he wanted Eddie's attention but someone pointed out he stared at Tommy the whole time?)

Why are they writing Buck to be so annoying just to reach bi Buck?

It feels like they're changing Buck and Eddie's friendship and even minimizing it

15. What are the best buddie scenes and why are they

The shooting

The will

Buck falling asleep on Eddie’s couch

Some of 6x13

16. What were the buddie friendship moments in 7x04 since everyone liked them so much? It seems there were Buck/Tommy and Eddie/Tommy moments but I haven't heard anything good about buddie

I just heard about the 7x05 scene about Buck wanting to help Eddie, but no one was talking about that when the episode aired. So I feel like there were possibly other moments no one decided to talk about. 

17. In what characterization of Eddie would he have Marisol watch Christopher twice in one week to hang out with Tommy instead, then ask Buck for a third time? I really don't get it. 

18. Kristen introduced Marisol

Tim implied it wasn't a good job since he knew nothing about her

Tim wants this storyline to get to know her since he didn't know her

Yet Kristen had the nun idea? 

He threw Kristen under the bus for not introducing her then decides to take her bad ideas?

19. I believe buddie is happening because I like believing the best in people. Based on various comments Tim has made and the way so many scenes have been written (jumping ship, wanting to help, etc.), he would either have to be dumb or cruel if it doesn't lead to buddie. Dumb if all of those insinuations and winks and nudges mean nothing, and cruel if he is doing them deliberately but it doesn't lead to buddie. 

Why would I want to think that he is dumb or cruel?

-> within a day of writing this, I ended up seeing a post that basically said that Tim is cruel enough to do this… I don't understand why people want to think that Tim is gleefully cackling at stringing fans along 🤷🏻‍♀️

20. It's so interesting how both sides think the other is fetishizing:

Bucktommy fans think the other side just cares about a noncanon ship and should support the actual queer couple

Buddie fans think the other side just wants Buck to kiss a man, any man, and don't care who it is

21. So... Controversial opinion... Buck fans don't seem to understand Eddie, Eddie fans don't seem to understand Buck, and buddie fans don't understand either

I say this as a self-owning buddie fan: there are so many things I feel are out of character, but they happen on the show, so the show clearly thinks they're in character, meaning I don't understand their characterization

Those were the initial batch of thoughts I had in April. Here are some May thoughts:

22. Hey, so at least Buck and Eddie are both cheaters 🤷‍♀️

23. Anti-buddies were right but got the reason all wrong... they said Buck and Eddie won't get together because they're both in other relationships and wouldn't cheat....

But Eddie ended up cheating anyway 🤷‍♀️

I assume the Bommy fans are ecstatic whereas the Medisol/Eddisol and Eddie fans are upset

In a way I guess this is more proof for buddie though, since Eddie can't end up with either Marisol or Kim after what happened. Both those relationships are tainted so he needs a new one

24. I know it's supposed to be about the journey as well as the destination, but the journey to Buddie has been horrible so far. 

People who said "Just enjoy the journey on the way to buddie" - how is this Eddie storyline enjoyable??

I really hope the payoff is worth it and not fizzle out like so many other storylines on this show

25.If buddie doesn't happen, how do you fumble such an incredible story? It's honestly like a train wreck. 

26. I’m confused about what bommy fans think about the name for Tommy/Thomas. Earlier they thought it was Thomas and how it was all red string of fate because of the old man Thomas telling Buck not to find it but to make it. Then fans were happy the plaque said Tommy. What made people want Thomas and now want Tommy? It seems very inconsistent. And then out loud they said his name was actually Thomas? 

27. The way people talk about Tim really makes me think buddie will happen because people seem to think he cares more about his reputation and what people think of him. He wouldn't want to be known as the showrunner who fumbled this.

28. Eddie may have been the misdirection/bait and switch (whatever people are calling it) for 7x04, but Tommy will end up being the misdirection on the eventual Buck/Eddie relationship