i hope you find something you love, you know? something you're good at. make you feel like you matter. something you could do forever. 'cause when you do, it's gonna tell you who you are.
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Blockadebilly - B E E S ! - Tumblr Blog
also, this will rustle some jimmies based on fanfic rolling out, but: eddie actually doesn’t have the right to be mad at buck for making the decision he did! the will is a letter of trust, not a letter of intent. ‘i trust you above all else to take care of my child in the event i am not there to do it’ is not actually the same as ‘i want you to be in an active parental role while i am here’. if you’re not actually establishing any boundaries or intentions you can’t get upset with people for not being able to fully determine them. eddie being upset bc buck hasn’t fully grasped the emotional consequences of his actions is valid! eddie being mad bc “““but ur already raising a son””” like buck is supposed to be able to flesh out an unestablished intention is not actually valid! there’s nuance to the idea of being internally upset about circumstances and that bleeding through into frustration. eddie has been much more emotionally self aware of late and it needs to be respected lmao
anyway something something him going to hen of all people who struggled with the reality of what foster care actually meant, because it sounded like something else on paper. she’s not telling him not to do it she’s telling him to consider the fine print, to actually think about the emotional implications of the situation instead of agreeing bc it seems like the right thing or makes you feel good about what you’re doing. weigh the pros and cons. not a ‘no’, but a ‘consider’. and i don’t think buck really did weigh the difference between this is how i can put my body to use vs this is an emotionally fulfilling task, but like, that’s the point! hen and buck are v similar in the idea, if different in their methodology, of where you land on duty vs self and how much of you needs to be stretched thin before you feel worthy or capable of being where and who you are.
absolutely nothing in my brain except for kesha performing cannibal on huluween dragstravaganza
right after michael romance broke up they dropped frankie airo into the bong and smoked him. SAD. well theres other rhythm guitarists
i’ve only just seen the new episode but let me say athena’s reactions to being treated by the police the way she/the police treat everyone else all the time is Delicious! like, not that i want athena in this situation or that she deserves it or whatever, but that i think it will be important in her reassessing her own devotion & her biased worldview regarding her occupation
if i had a nickel for every time evan buckley got emotionally overattached to an old person who taught him a life lesson and then immediately died,
@911prideweek • Day 6: DATE NIGHT!
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: it’s more important to know and understand fully why something is harmful than it is to drop everything deemed problematic. It’s performative and does nothing. People wonder why nobody has critical thinking skills and this is part of it because no one knows how to simousltansly critique and consume media. You need to use discernment.
idont have any talent. i like to look at grass and i dont have other hobbies. when people ask me how im doing i ignore the question
hate to say i spent it all on masquerades buck/eddie | ace buck | 4 200 words
“It’s also that I like sex,” is what he says instead, and hates how pathetic it sounds. “And it’s fun, but it’s like—unless it’s with someone really important, it’s kind of the same level as going to the movies?”
Eddie smiles at him. Somehow, impossibly, it’s even softer than the last time, sweet at the edges.
“What if it is with someone really important?” he asks, and squeezes, his fingers pressing into the hollows between the bones of Buck’s hand.
or: buck picks up a pamphlet, has an existential crisis, and shows up at eddie's door, in that order.
It’s three in the morning.
It’s three in the morning, and this might be the worst idea Buck has ever had, and maybe if he turns around now and jumps back into the car he can still make it before—
“Hey,” Eddie says when he opens the door, the hallway yawning dark behind him. He’s in one of the shirts he usually wears to bed, with the collar all loose, and his hair is going in every possible direction, but they both know he wasn’t asleep. “You okay?”
Buck, in all honesty, thinks Eddie could have picked an easier question. Because he isn’t—notfine, but his heart has been in his throat for going on three hours, all of which he spent pacing around his apartment trying to talk himself out of coming here.
“I stole this pamphlet when I picked you up from group the other day,” is what comes out, the words bleeding into each other, making a mess on Eddie’s threshold.
Eddie blinks, even as the hint of a smile bends the corner of his mouth. “Good morning to you too, Buck. Come in.”
Buck does, drawn into the empty space Eddie leaves as he takes a step back. Then he keeps going, following the familiar line of Eddie’s shoulders into the kitchen, where the range hood is the only source of light.
There’s a steaming mug of tea on the table, set on one of the crochet coasters Buck bought at a craft day at Christopher’s school.
“Sit down,” Eddie says, his voice amused. He puts a hand on Buck’s shoulder, squeezes, then pulls out a chair for himself.
He sprawls, sweatpants pulling taut over his knees. It’s far from the first time that Buck swallows around the urge to sit on his lap and wrap his arms around Eddie’s neck, just to feel him close.
He sits down. Carefully drags the coaster closer until he smells the tea, chamomile and valerian, the expensive anti-anxiety blend that’s been mysteriously reappearing in Eddie’s cabinet ever since Buck bought it on a whim a few months ago.
It’s terrifying. It’s been a long time since anything with Eddie has been terrifying, but this—Buck has to curl his hands into fists to stop them from shaking.
But Eddie waits for him, always. He doesn’t force Buck to meet his eyes, just sits and breathes and knocks his foot into Buck’s when it’s been something like ten minutes of silence.
Buck inhales. “I stole this pamphlet, right,” he says.
“It’s a pamphlet,” says Eddie, his voice soft, quiet. Safe. “Pretty sure they exist so you can take them.”
Buck runs a hand through his hair. Eddie knocks their feet together again, and then traps one of Buck’s between both of his.
“Buck,” he says, and this time, he waits until Buck looks at him. “What pamphlet could you possibly grab at the LGBT center that would have you this freaked out? You already know all of this stuff.”
Buck willfully stops his shaking, then, just for a second, just so he can look at Eddie.
Eddie, who isn’t looking haunted these days. Eddie who somehow stands straighter now that he did when Buck first met him; Eddie who spends actual time on styling his hair and attends something called a self-empowerment group and says the word queer all soft and careful and profoundly loving.
Eddie, who made Hen cry the other day because he pulled up to work with a rainbow bumper sticker on his truck.
He’s been through so much, has done so much work, has rebuilt himself from the foundations up, and here Buck is at his kitchen table, having a crisis over something—
“Hey,” Eddie says, leaning forward and reaching across the tabletop to wrap careful fingers around Buck’s wrists. “Do I need to actually say out loud that you can tell me anything? Because you can.”
“I know,” Buck says, leaving out the part where it took him hours to pluck up the courage to come here. It’s just Eddie, and it’s not that long ago they sat at this very table four drinks deep while Eddie took a What Genders Am I Attracted To test they found on Google.
It’s just Eddie, and maybe that’s kind of a problem, because.
“I think I might be asexual,” Buck tells the tabletop.
*
It’s not like it has a beginning, really.
Buck has always tried his hardest to belong, and high school is no different. He doesn’t feel out of place, doesn’t feel weird. Benji Wentworth won’t shut up about his neighbor, and Buck meets her with her red hair down to the waist and brilliant green eyes and says oh, yeah, she’s gorgeous, because she is, and that’s all it takes for them to be best friends for the entire year. It’s always this girl or that girl, Alicia Collins getting dress coded for short shorts, racerback tanks for gym class that leave bra straps showing, and it doesn’t occur to Buck that there’s a right and a wrong way to understand all of it.
He looks at a girl’s eyes, the way her waist tapers just above the curve of her hips, the delicate bones moving under the skin of her wrists as she reaches up to put her hair in a ponytail. His friends are crazy about nipples poking through shirts when it’s cold out, and he figures they just have different tastes.
Maddie tells him girls aren’t scary. She’s right: Buck doesn’t quite understand what it is that makes the guys on the football team actually flush, red neck and all, when they start going out with someone and the team gives them shit about first or second base.
He doesn’t get the whole knees knocking, tongue-tied thing, not even when the older girl who works at the ice cream place – Helia, she grins and taps her name tag with a fingernail painted red – pulls him into the back alley on her break. He doesn’t get it, but he figures everyone’s exaggerating anyway, and then she brushes the side of his face and kisses him, and he puts his hands on her hips and feels how warm she is and thinks, oh.
Buck starts kissing people that day, and never stops.
His first girlfriend’s name is Aimee. She wears her dark hair braided down the center of her back and laughs like nobody’s watching, and Buck is enamored with the way she holds him, with the gentle touch of her fingers when she runs them through his hair. He asks what she wants and does his best to give it to her, learns where to put his mouth and what to do with his tongue, and he loves it, loves the sounds she makes and the way her ribs flutter around a breath; he loves the concentrated frown between her eyebrows when she touches him back, and her hair, loose and beautiful, brushing his naked chest when she leans over him. He loves sneaking around behind her parents’ back, loves when it’s just them and they can take their time, close and warm and together.
Most of all, he loves that she doesn’t look through him.
But Aimee goes to college, and Buck goes off the deep end, and he can always taste it on the back of his tongue, the way they’d laugh together.
He’s a little surprised when he finds the feeling again behind a stranger’s teeth the day he turns twenty-one, all alone in a bar until he isn’t. He never gets her name, but she grins like a shark and screws like one too, eager for anything he’ll give her and more than that, and it’s—fun. It feels good, and it fills the emptiness of a birthday spent by himself, and they have a drink and play pool afterwards like they’re friends. She looks at him, squeezes his arm, kisses him on the cheek when he walks her out to her buddy’s car. It fizzes under his skin for the rest of the night, the way he came with her mouth on his and the way she grinned at some terrible drunk joke he made, all of it tangled together. It feels good; feels right. Like he’s taken the correct turn on a blind map.
So he keeps chasing, and sex becomes a familiar, comfortable high, a constant in a life that erodes every foundation he’s ever known. It’s addictive, but he tries not to think about it that way. He’s not hurting anybody – quite the opposite, if the glowing reviews are anything to go by, and it’s certainly not a hardship to have a lapful of a beautiful woman, to hold her close, kiss the column of her neck, and end the night with lipstick over half his face.
And besides, it helps him get by in the world: he works in construction, at a ranch, behind a bar, surrounded by guys who talk about sex far more frequently than they have it, and he does the familiar dance, his eyes-hair-waist to their ass-tits-mouth. He’s lived enough life by now to know they’re not talking about the same thing, but the end result is the same, side grins and slaps on the back and the occasional “Buckley, you dog”.
That’s what sex is. A fun thing to do, and a currency. He has it, so he’s like everyone else, and it fills up the places inside him that are yawning and echoing and hopelessly empty.
But then there’s Abby, and she’s an Aimee turned up to a hundred, endlessly kind and stunning and smart. In his heart of hearts, Buck can admit that he feels pathetic next to her sometimes, a paper boat in an ocean, a puppy dog that will never grow past being swatted with a newspaper for his mistakes. But then he holds her, kisses her, makes love to her, and she props her chin up on his chest with a smile, squinting just a little, laughing because his face is blurry without her glasses on, and all he feels is calm.
There’s Abby, and after Abby comes an emptiness he no longer knows how to fill, and then—
And then, there’s Eddie Diaz.
*
“Huh,” is all Eddie says.
Buck waits, and counts time in the soft strokes of Eddie’s fingers over his pulse point. The faucet drips into the sink every so often, a metallic little plink, a reminder that another half a minute or so has gone by in silence.
“That’s it?” Buck asks, eventually. He can’t look Eddie in the eye. “You’re not going to point out that I’ve had sex with half this city?”
“I feel like you’re well aware of that,” Eddie says. There’s no judgment, no confusion in his voice. “But I—I guess I am surprised. That’s okay, right?”
Buck snorts. “Is it okay to be surprised that your sex addict best friend apparently doesn’t like sex?”
“I don’t even know where to start with that sentence,” Eddie sighs. Buck, despite himself, smiles and manages to hold it for a few seconds. Still, he doesn’t raise his head, just hypnotizes the spot where Eddie’s thumb hits the tabletop once in a while, never ceasing its soothing brush over Buck’s wrist. “Do you actually? Not like sex?”
Buck breathes in, and holds it at the top to try and stop himself from shaking. It doesn’t really do anything other than make him aware of the sluggish thrum of blood through his body.
“I do,” he says, and thinks of Abby, of telling everyone at the firehouse that the sex was amazing and meaning something else, of getting mixed reactions. “I like the—the intimacy of it. I like being close to someone.”
Wordlessly, Eddie lets go of Buck’s wrists and threads their fingers together instead.
“But then I opened this pamphlet,” Buck says, quiet, almost drowned out by the sound of the fridge, which has started buzzing. “I guess I was curious? And now I’m just confused.”
“Okay, retrace your steps for me,” Eddie says, and Buck would be annoyed at the therapist speak if it didn’t bring him so much goddamn comfort. “And look at me, Buck. It’s just me.”
That’s the problem, Buck thinks, and his entire body screams it too, melting with the way their palms fit together, the tension bleeding out even where Buck might like to keep it.
But he looks up. Of course he does.
“There you are,” Eddie smiles, and he’s always overwhelming these days, but especially like this, holding Buck together, practiced. “What did the pamphlet say?”
Buck wants to rub at the back of his neck, where the skin is burning so acutely it must be bright red, but more than that, he doesn’t want to let go of Eddie. And he doesn’t, actually, want to hide.
“It was a list of bullet points,” he says, blinking at the steady shape of Eddie in the light from above the stove. “About what—sexual attraction might feel like? And I started reading the list and then I sort of panicked, because I haven’t—felt that, I don’t think. Ever.”
“Okay,” Eddie nods.
“Like—I get horny,” Buck says. Eddie’s eyebrow jumps, and Buck kind of wants to laugh hysterically about staring into his eyes all earnest while he says this to Eddie, of all people, but he’s still tasting his heart on the back of his tongue. “But it’s not attached to people, and I don’t think I realized until now that’s not, like. Standard.”
Eddie nods again and says nothing, because he knows Buck through and through, and he must see the way the words suddenly need to tumble out, one over the other, barely standing still long enough to be arranged into sentences.
“It said I might not experience sexual attraction if I just—notice body parts on people and think they look good and don’t want to have sex with them because of it? I didn’t think that was actually a thing. I thought it’s just something you say, like—someone has a nice ass, because they do, but it doesn’t mean looking at their ass makes me horny? Because I really thought—Eddie. Is it real?” Eddie blinks at him. “Have you ever felt that way with someone?”
Eddie takes one of his hands back, scratches his chin. Behind him, the fridge buzzes its monotone song.
“I mean, yeah,” he says. “Not all the time, but—with Shannon, I felt that way. And with—“ he blinks, startled, his eyes liquid-looking in the dark. “Um. I’ve felt that. Yeah.”
“With who?” Buck frowns. “Ana?”
Eddie snorts. “Definitely not.”
Buck opens his mouth to push him, and then something in his chest gives and falls into pieces when he imagines knowing the answer.
“It’s also that I like sex,” is what he says instead, and hates how pathetic it sounds. “And it’s fun, but it’s like—unless it’s with someone really important, it’s kind of the same level as going to the movies?”
Eddie smiles at him. Somehow, impossibly, it’s even softer than the last time, sweet at the edges.
“What if it is with someone really important?” he asks, and squeezes, his fingers pressing into the hollows between the bones of Buck’s hand. Out of nowhere, it’s harder to breathe.
“Then it’s,” he swallows, and thinks about Abby again, the way she’d lie on his chest and just talk, about anything, about everything. He’s thought about him and Eddie that way so many times he would have lost count years ago – not having sex, but being close, being together. Sharing something with each other they don’t give anyone else. “It’s still fun, and it still feels good, but it’s also just—that’s what I like about it. That’s what I kept looking for before Abby, before—I just wanted to feel close to someone, and until her it’d only ever work for a minute.”
Eddie brings his free hand back up to the tabletop. He reaches out a finger, runs a light touch over the bumps of Buck’s knuckles. Buck shivers.
“But I really,” he swallows, “I really think I am. I might be. Asexual. It’s—all these things that I thought were just like, exaggerated, or I thought other people were playing them up, and then I was reading this piece of paper and it made—God, it made so much sense. I felt so fucking seen.”
Without a sound, still smiling, Eddie pulls Buck’s hand closer, higher. He bends his head, and presses a kiss to the back of it, lingering longer than he needs to. The light spills over the crown of his head, and paints the very tips of his hair gold.
Buck loves him so desperately he’s afraid it’s going to seep out through his skin, make a mess of the floor.
“I know the feeling,” Eddie says when he pulls away. “So – you’re asexual? You want to try it on and see if it fits?”
Just like that, Buck is biting back tears instead of words. He’d said the same thing, the night with the stupid online quiz and every time Eddie came back from therapy worrying his lip, looking at himself in every reflective surface like he wasn’t sure who he was seeing anymore.
Just try it on, Buck had said. See if it fits. Gay, bisexual, queer, or maybe none of those.
“Just like that?” he asks, his voice embarrassingly wet.
“Oh my God, Buck,” Eddie smiles. “Yes. Just like that. Thank you for trusting me with it.”
Buck shakes his head. “I didn’t even—“ he starts, but he can’t say he didn’t think about it, because it’d be an obvious lie. Eddie didn’t see him pacing his own living room like a caged animal, but he knows, the same way Buck knows that Eddie didn’t even attempt to go to sleep tonight. They know each other. Close, warm, together.
He did think about it. He thought about it for hours, because – isn’t this just another piece of baggage? Another thing to add to the pile of reasons Eddie shouldn’t want him, another way he’d complicate Eddie’s life? Wouldn’t it be easier to swallow it and never tell?
Dr. Copeland tells him almost every week, in no uncertain terms, to let Eddie make his own decisions when the time comes. And Buck has been wishing, has been hoping that they might finally come together one of these days, but now Eddie has to deal with him being—
“You’re not broken,” Eddie says, quiet, firm.
It’s an art, the way he does it – catches Buck’s thoughts mid-flight, straight out of the air, before Buck can hit himself where it hurts.
“Eddie,” he says.
“You’re not—“ he shakes his head, blinks up at the ceiling. “There isn’t a single thing wrong with you, Buck.”
And that—Buck has a long, long way to go before he can allow himself to think that, but the thing about Eddie is that he makes everything so easy to believe.
“You said you felt seen, right?” he asks, and waits for Buck’s nod. “Does it feel like something’s been off for a really long time and you finally set it right?”
Like it felt for you,Buck doesn’t say, because he’s blinking back tears. It’s the simplest, most straightforward thing he’s ever experienced, the way Eddie accepts him: always, and without question.
He clears his throat. “Yeah.”
Eddie nods, and his hand squeezes tight around Buck’s, until he feels like he’s being held.
“Then you’re not broken,” he says, and reaches his other hand out to brush soft, soft fingertips over Buck’s cheek. “You’re whole.”
Buck blinks his eyes open, and Eddie’s face shimmers in front of him distorted by a tear that finally falls, meeting Eddie’s thumb on its way down.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispers, confesses, like it’s a secret.
Eddie shakes his head. “You don’t have to know. It’ll come. You just wake up tomorrow and live your life. And maybe talk to your therapist.”
Buck laughs, thick, his throat full of tears. But his heart, at least, is back in its place, back to trying to beat right through his breastbone to get to Eddie.
“Definitely talk to my therapist,” Buck says, watching where the darkness pools in the corners of the room, watching the window over Eddie’s shoulder where the very first hints of a summer dawn are lightening the sky.
You’re not broken, he thinks, and meets Eddie’s gentle, gentle eyes. You’re whole.
“You know,” he says, “after I came to terms with Abby, I didn’t even have sex for months.”
Eddie’s eyebrows climb up his forehead, but his gaze stays the same, warm, steady.
“After Ali, too,” Buck continues. “And Taylor was just so much—going through the motions. And I thought—I thought, well, I was a sex addict, and being with them must have made me better.”
“Buck,” Eddie says, a little like he’s out of breath.
“But I think,” Buck looks down at their hands, “I think I just found the kind of connection I was craving, uh. Somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else,” Eddie murmurs, and when Buck looks back up he finds him grinning, the kind of uninhibited smile that makes him look like a boy, still a little new on the face Buck loves so much. “Buck—“
“I’m not broken,” Buck says, even if he only half-believes it, even if he leaves evidence of the opposite on everything he touches. Eddie doesn’t think he’s broken, and that’s how he knows he’ll come to believe it, too. “And I know I’m—I’m a hell of a lot to put up with anyway, but if you could—if you’d have me—“
“Buck,” Eddie interrupts, his voice pure warmth. “How do you feel about kissing?”
“Um,” Buck says, his mouth suddenly dry, and Eddie—Eddie lets go, and then gets up to round the table and sit by Buck’s side, stumbling over chair legs. “I’m—yeah. Big fan. Love to try it someday.”
Eddie laughs, all genuine with a little snort at the end, unselfconscious. Buck’s knees go a little weak.
“Christ,” Eddie says, reaching for Buck’s face, pulling him close so gently it almost makes Buck cry again, “I love you.”
And when Eddie kisses him, it doesn’t feel like the alley behind an ice cream place, or the nondescript bathroom of a bar. It doesn’t feel like catching up on something he doesn’t even know is passing him by, like drowning things he doesn’t want to think about inside other people, like patching wounds that still leave blood on the sheets.
Eddie kisses him, sweet and careful, and it feels like coming home to rest.
“Frank’s going to have a field day with this, you know,” is the first thing he says when they separate, and Buck barks a laugh so sudden it’s almost painful. “He kept telling me to let you get to a place where you could put yourself forward as an option, and he’s right, but he’s also—I didn’t know how to explain to him that I’d love you through anything.”
“Eddie, Jesus,” Buck says, brushing his fingers over Eddie’s face, tugging him close by his t-shirt, craving everything.
“I would, you know,” Eddie says, pressing a kiss to Buck’s cheekbone, to the corner of his lips. “I have, I will. Anything.”
“Yeah, I—yeah,” Buck says, with no hope of finding the right words. He pulls Eddie back in instead, kisses him again, and it—God, it’s so much more than nice, so much more than fun. It’s another piece of him being set right, another thing sliding into place, it’s Eddie through touch, smell, taste, sight.
It’s Eddie, and Buck thinks he might be able to ask for anything he wants.
“Will you love me if I ask to sit on your lap?” he asks with his lips over Eddie’s. Eddie laughs so hard he has to lean back, his eyes squinting shut, but he never lets go, his fingers curled around the back of Buck’s neck.
“We’ll break the chair,” he grins.
“Probably,” Buck nods.
Eddie tilts his head, considering, and if Buck thought he’d seen light in his eyes before, then this—this escapes words.
“Come here,” he says, leaning back, the fabric of his sweatpants pulling taut over his knees. “Be careful.”
Buck isn’t, and he almost tips them backwards twice before he’s settled. The chair creaks ominously under their weight, but he can’t bring himself to care when he’s here, when he can hide his face in Eddie’s neck and breathe him in and feel him, feel him everywhere.
The fridge stops buzzing, leaving them in silence. Buck breathes, relishing the feeing of Eddie’s chest expanding right against his, until the plink of water in the sink reminds him of the passage of time.
Eddie presses a kiss into his hair, and Buck pulls his leg back so he can stand up and resettle himself, sideways on top of Eddie, arms wrapped around his neck the way he’s always imagined – but this time, Eddie’s there too, moving, letting him settle, his hands firm on the side of Buck’s thigh, in the small of his back.
“I love you,” Buck says, easy. “Don’t drop me.”
Eddie’s quiet laugh rumbles through both of them at once.
__________________________
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i’ve just learned that some people have literally never undergone a school lockdown drill so for science pls reply with 1) your country of residence 2) if you know/ have ever undergone a school lockdown drill
So, let's talk about cheating. That is the fandom's hot topic right now, isn't it? I'm going to address this once and then never again, so if you're going rant, or send hate, or bitch to me about how much you hate this storyline, do it now, because this is the first and only time I will be opening this topic as a point of discourse rather than a narrative development in Buck's story.
To begin: I am not without sympathy for the people who have been cheated on or have witnessed the damaging effects of cheating and have clung to/projected on Buck over the years, only to have him cheat on Taylor. I mean that genuinely. Having to reconcile your love for this character with the feelings of hurt/betrayal you carry from someone else's actions is a very shitty thing and I'm sorry you are in this position.
Having said that, some of you guys are letting real life cloud your perception of this fictional storyline to a dangerous and/or disconcerting degree, and I just... do not understand that at all. Since the clip dropped yesterday, I have seen so many bizarre, nonfactual, and interesting takes about Buck cheating (some of them dropped directly into my inbox!) so I'm going to bullet point them and be done with it:
1) Buck cheating is bad writing: No, it is not! Just the opposite, actually. Buck cheating on Taylor with Lucy is objectively brilliant writing in several different ways:
a) Buck cheating ties in Buck's past character traits with his present. This is a good thing. Often as time goes on, writers develop their characters so much that looking at the character from pilot to end feels like viewing two completely different characters. Character development is good, and is something every writer should strive for, but not when it transforms the character unrecognizably. Buck reverting to old tactics and mindsets calls back to previous behavior and coping mechanisms and demonstrates the writers' continued grasp on and understanding of this character.
b) Buck cheating demonstrates the non-linear nature of healing. Oftentimes, TV shows view healing as a conclusion rather than a point in someone's journey. They will shape a big storyline around this character finally finding some peace of mind after episodes of struggle and top it off with a nice, pretty, emotional finale, but true healing is not like that. Some days you heal 10%. Some days you heal 100%. Some days you think you have healed 90% when you haven't healed at all. Some months you cruise at a steady 100% before you drop like a rock and hit 0%. And that's just the way life is. Healing is painful and messy. Sometimes you do it right, and sometimes you do it very, very wrong, but none of it is wasted and all of it aids your personal journey. 9-1-1 views healing as points in Buck's personal journey rather than a finale; right now, his healing is at a 0% but it will not stay there. Which is, frankly, more than can be said for a lot of people who land at 0% and decide not to get back up again.
2) Buck cheating is lazy writing: No, it is not! Actually, Hen's cheating storyline was comparatively far lazier because there was no reason for it except than to create some drama between the happy lesbians. Hen cheating served no real narrative or character purpose, and though the storyline has since been revisited in the years since 9-1-1 has found their rhythm and given some sort of character purpose, the initial storyline was weak and flat, the writers basically saying, "we don't know what else to do with you so uhh let's have Hen kiss her ex-girlfriend!" What we are seeing with Buck is not that.
Buck's spiral is the culmination of months of self-editing, repression, and constant retriggering. Buck has a history of self-harm and suicidal ideation, and is untethered and adrift without any of his anchors in place (anchors being, not just Eddie and Maddie personally, but the feeling of "normalcy" he has built around their (and Chimney's) presence). Guys. He witnessed the man he loves get shot right in front of him. He had that man's blood in his mouth, and then had to clean it off of him in a hospital bathroom, so he could immediately comfort his son and pretend everything is normal. Buck is still pretending. We are not just witnessing Season 1 Buck; in fact, I would argue that this is Buck pre-Season 1, actually. This is Buck at the height of his self-destruction; the same Buck who would speed down the street on a motorcycle, or throw himself in harm's way just to get his parents to look at him. This is a version of Buck we have seen glimpses of but have never really seen. There is nothing lazy about this writing.
3) Buck wouldn't cheat/Buck cheating is character assassination: Yes, he would, while he is in the midst of a severe mental health crisis and no, it is not. Do you guys even stop and think about why people cheat? I know it's easier to believe that cheaters are irredeemably bad and don't deserve any kind of redemption, or that all cheaters cheat because they're terrible and broken inside, but life is rarely that clean-cut. Sometimes cheaters cheat because there is a breakdown in the relationship, either sexually or emotionally. People who are happy in their relationships do not cheat because they are being emotionally and sexually fulfilled. People who are committed to their relationships do not cheat because they are emotionally and sexually invested in that partnership. It is absolutely true that cheating is never the other person's fault, but it is also true that the joint relationship is the problem when people who do not usually cheat commit acts of infidelity. Buck's feelings of unfulfillment are the root cause of his cheating on Taylor, and while he could have gone about the situation differently (coming clean, rather than panicking and asking her to move in with him (another trauma response, by the way), neither his feelings nor the way he went about fulfilling himself make him an inherently bad person.
4) Poor mental health isn't an "excuse" for cheating: Mmmm. Now, see, the problem with this one is that so many of you have gotten used to the idea of aesthetically pleasing mental illness. Even if you say you haven't, you have. Aesthetic mental health is smudgy eyeliner and drinking hard liquor straight from the bottle. It is messy rooms and spilled pillbottles with little white pills arranged artfully on a blank surface; it is ghosting your friends only to follow up with a cheeky little text months later and have everything go back to normal.
That is not mental illness. That is Euphoria.
Mental illness, especially when compounded with severe trauma (childhood or otherwise) is a transformation. You are not yourself when you are in a bad mental health space. And when you are in the throes of a severe downward spiral, sometimes you hurt people, physically and emotionally. Sometimes you even do it on purpose. Does that make it right? No! Should you still suffer the consequences for the things you do when you are not okay? Absolutely! But acknowledging that severe mental illness is a contributor to Buck's poor decision making is not making an "excuse" out of mental illness, holy fucking shit. It is recognizing the fact that mental illness transforms you into an alternate version of yourself that you would not be if you were mentally well.
Look. I get it, cheating is a sensitive topic and I've had my own experiences with it. But the moral high ground in this fandom that prevents people from recognizing anything other than "cheating = bad" is so disturbing and annoying. Truly, what does it say about the world when characters are more nuanced than the actual people who watch them on TV? I think it was @yramesoruniverse who said that 9-1-1 is an adult show that tells adult stories about growth, love, and healing, and that is exactly what we are witnessing here. Adulthood -- adult trauma, adult pain, adult growth -- is not clean-cut, feel good, or pretty. It just is, and you either persevere through the good and bad of it, or let it take you down.
And to be clear, since I think a lot of people could do with the reminder: this is all fictional. No matter how hard you project your pain, trauma, or consciousness onto a character, your projection does not suddenly make them real. Buck is not real. Lucy is not real. Taylor is not real, and no one is actually being hurt here. They are little stick figures that do a pre-orchestrated dance on our TV screens every week, and then go away once we turn the TV off. I know we all love, or are at least invested in this show, but if the line between fiction and reality is so distorted for you that you cannot see the reason behind the narrative choice, or are legitimately angry with a character, writer, or actor (especially to the point of effecting you mentally/emotionally), then perhaps some time away from the show would do you good.
was just talking to my sister abt this but like. self harm as a form of addiction and the way that buck is falling back on old toxic behaviour as a coping mechanism bc it's the only thing that actually makes him feel good for even a moment when the rest of his life is falling apart, so he chases that high regardless of how destructive it actually is to him. and he'll feel like shit afterwards, bc none of it is an actual solution to any of his problems, but he'll keep doing it because at least it's something, and that's better than just sitting in his misery
people: i want eddie's and buck's traumas to be explored!
911: *explores buck's and eddie's traumas through the mistakes they make, their consequences and the way these take them on their healing journey*
people: no, not like that! it can't be complex and complicated and difficult!
what if EVERYONE is a wrench in their own way. the 118 toolbox that finally ends our suffering and breaks up buck and taylor
eddie diaz lookin like that montage from spongebob
you STAB caesar? you stab his body like the enemy? oh! oh! jail for brutus! jail for brutus for One Thousand Years!!
i mean maybe the man is just really emotional about the baseball season finally starting
