#like... we know LFJ is friends/friendly with both Kenneth Choi and Ryan Guzmán and we have seen zero SM interactions/pics/etc

[ironworked]

Yeah, what I'm thinking is that it is, or should be, about inspiration rather than pressure.

If I remember correctly they've said the relationship was well-received by the audience (but extending the arc is a good indicator), so this should be about letting them know we still care, and also care about the break-up.

About hopefully influencing enough whatever internal data/numbers the network and Minear use to gauge audience reaction, so that if he's on the fence about a reunion, or unsure about Buck's future storylines, or in the aftermath of yet another relationship that didn't hit, or staring down the last season or the series finale even... the writers room remembers that this is one thing people did care about and were invested in.

The unfortunate truth of this situation is that if Tim et al are pressured into bringing Tommy back because of viewer outcry...we're probably not gonna like how they do it.

No writer likes to be forced to write something, and Tim has expressly said he refuses to - and honestly, he should refuse.

If "they" forced them to bring him back - which I don't think is a thing that would happen anyway - they might play nice for a bit just to give us a WORSE breakup, one that defamed Tommy's character, or even killed him off.

There are two optimal situations here:

They were kind of on the fence about bringing him back. Thinking maybe, someday, it's an option we could explore. I think there's a decent chance of this being the case, given that the breakup is so open-ended. They didn't hate each other, in fact they broke up because they loved each other. If they were waffling about it, this could tip them over into "yes, this is something we want to do."

They were always going to bring him back, but the finality of everyone's words recently is because they have no idea how or when so didn't want to be too open-ended about it. I'm...not sure how realistic this is. Usually when they plan to bring something back, they leave it more open than they did.

But if they were like "nope, we're never going to, we have other plans for Buck, it's totally over," first of all they're probably not going to be swayed from that, and if they WERE (by external forces, for example), they'd resent the hell out of it, and that would not be fun for any of us.

So we can all enjoy our delulu - I sure AF am - but let's temper it with realism.