#join us! joooooooin uuuuuussss!

[tiltingheartand]

OK so, I've been following you for a bit and obviously I have seen the 911 canon bi dude flailing and I am interested, because I like procedurals and also canon bi guys (and canon bi girls obvs). HOWEVER I feel kinda bad because I cannot tell the different buff, brown haired, white dudes apart in the gifs and I want to know if they are more easily distinguishable in the show (distinct voices and/or mannerisms) or if you just get used to it? (love the enthusiasm btw, it's great to see on my dash, i love people genuinely loving things)

… oh my god, okay, so, fun (and actually unrelated) fact — my mom started watching the show before i did, so i saw bits and pieces of a few episodes before i committed to Watching, and i distinctly remember asking her how she could tell buck and eddie apart because i wasn’t sure who was who.

(… it was an episode where the characters were wearing those yellow hazmat suits at the beginning, which Did Not Help)

anyway she started listing off all the differences, and pointed out “first of all, eddie isn’t even white, he’s half mexican” which is SUPER HELPFUL when characters are wearing yellow hazmat suits, let me tell you.

BUT. ANYWAY. i sympathize with going “wait but which one is which, i am Confused”, even if it’s with a different character than i had the issue with.

i will say, they are absolutely more easily distinguishable in the show — it’s hard to tell from the gifsets i’ve been reblogging, but i (personally) would put buck as closer to blond? or like. somewhere between that and actual brown hair. (like, his stubble grows in super fair when we see it. thing.) whereas tommy has super-dark hair/stubble/etc. and they’re very distinct characters from each other, in ways i can’t quite articulate because i’ve been up for an hour already by accident.

(ALSO, as i was reminded, buck has a birthmark above his left eye/eyebrow, and i’m not sure how clear it is in any of the million gifsets i’ve reblogged. i swear i remember mentioning that but apparently i was wrong)

but also, crucially, there is the time element to consider — buck is a main character from the very first episode, he’s in almost every episode of the show, and up until s7 we know tommy from a) three flashback episodes in the second season, showing us what the 118 used to be (starting in 2005, ending in … i wanna say 2017?); he transferred to a different firehouse before the show started, and b) a phone call chimney makes in one episode where he’s calling in a favor, which we only see chim’s side of.

which is to say: i think part of it might genuinely just be “you get used to it”? because by the time tommy shows up and has any time in the same scene as buck, you’ve known buck for six full seasons and the first few episodes of a seventh.

ALSO, oh man, if you like procedurals you will almost definitely love this show. i looooove procedurals, and this is such a good one. it also! in fact! has canon queer rep from the beginning!!! hen is a married black lesbian raising a kid with her wife (who is equally awesome, and also a literal rocket scientist).