Eddie Diaz - Blog Posts
does everyone remember that one scene where there's an argument about good cop/bad cop parenting and buck and eddie are just sort of standing off to the side. and when someone is like "can't you just both be the good cop" to the parents who were arguing, buck and eddie are (in unison) like Noooo and everyone literally stops saving some guy's life to turn and stare at them. and they don't appear to realize they've said anything strange. okay. so i am rotating that in my mind and i am thinking about how easy it is to assume that buck would be the Good Cop parent in chris's life because it would be easier for him to be the fun dad especially at first when he doesn't have as much of an established role yet. and this is largely true (ie that time eddie has to give buck the You'd Better Back Me Up look when chris is grounded from playing video games or whatever; and btw the implications of that in the sense of like....... eddie expecting buck to back him up. and the idea of buck being empowered to Not back him up if he wanted to. and chris instinctively knowing this enough to do the "one parent said no so i'm going to ask the other parent" thing that kids do. anyway.) Anyway. i think it is largely true that buck is the fun dad but i also think he is sometimes the serious dad. like he is the one who half the time has the Big Talks with chris when something is going on in their family. and also he is definitely the one who made chris eat his vegetables when he was a kid. because eddie is much quicker to say okay :) let's order pizza. when he doesn't feel like cooking. and buck gives him a Look and eddie is like UGH fine. we'll order a salad with the pizza and chris you'll eat some of it. or else. and then proceed to not actually make him eat it. idk. they're a family. yay.
abc hire me instead of that man no watermarks and no bubbles version only on patreon
has this been done yet?
Eddie isn't sure what he's expecting when Buck meets him at the airport. Red-rimmed eyes, splotchy face, hunched shoulders probably. Not this. Distant eyes, blank face, straight-backed. He'd been braced to catch Buck as soon as he landed, had spent his whole flight locking every bit of his own grief away to be thought about at a later date, let the guilt pool in his chest instead.
I should've been there, I could've -
He'd been ready to catch Buck, but it's Eddie who falls into Buck's waiting arms. Eddie who tears up. Eddie who clutches at the back of Buck's shirt like a scared child. And it's Buck sweeping his hands up and down Eddie's back, holding him together, murmuring:
"It's okay. I've got you. It's not your fault."
Eddie doesn't cry in LAX. His grief is a private thing. Always has been. He locks it into his bedroom and lets it out behind closed doors. But Buck is the safest space he's ever had, so he lets himself break a little. Lets himself shake apart under Buck's hands until he can ground himself with a deep breath at the junction of Buck's neck and shoulder. Until he can stand on his own.
Buck looks at him, eyes searching, deepest of furrows between his brows, so devastatingly gentle. And Eddie kind of wants to fucking scream at him for being okay. He'd needed to take care of Buck. He'd needed to have something to do. But now Buck is looking at him like he can fix him, and Eddie wants him to. So badly. But Buck knows Eddie's grief is for South Bedford Street, not LAX, so all he does is lead Eddie out to the parking lot.
It's a silent drive. Buck tells him the details of the funeral. Clinical. Sparing. And Eddie watches Buck's knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. Listens to the creak of leather under an unyielding grip. And he sees it then. The countdown over Buck's head, ticking away steadily. He's grateful in a way.
They pull up to the house silently. The engine falls quiet. And they stare at the door. The door Bobby had appeared on the other side of just a few months ago for a goodbye dinner. At the house. The house Bobby made coffee in when Eddie couldn't stomach being alone. At the home. The home Bobby helped him build in every way.
Buck gets out of the car. Eddie follows. Buck unlocks the door. Eddie locks it behind them. Buck disappears into the kitchen. Eddie pauses.
Can't quite separate Bobby from kitchens in his mind. And it's not like Bobby ever cooked anything in Eddie's kitchen, but there's some stupid grief-crazed part of his brain that thinks he'll find Bobby at the stove for a last supper. A parting gift to Eddie. Because Bobby was always too good. Too generous. Too understanding. When it came to Eddie.
When he finally makes it in there, Buck is stood staring into the fridge. Vacant. Eddie joins him, presses their shoulders together as hard as he can without knocking Buck away, and looks at Buck's fingers curled loosely around two beer bottles. Eddie knows it's not the early hour staying his hand.
It feels wrong. To find comfort in alcohol at Bobby's expense.
Carefully, Eddie unpicks Buck's fingers from the bottles and watches as Buck's arm falls limp to his side with such weight it bounces off his hip. Swings once, twice, stops suddenly. Eddie grabs the water filter. Closes the fridge.
"Sit down," he whispers. Sure, steady.
Buck sits down.
Eddie grabs two glasses. Fills them with water. Leaves the filter on the side. Who cares? Who fucking cares? Takes the glasses over to the table in shaking hands. Spills only a little. Sits opposite Buck. Stares into his cup.
"I didn't say it back," Buck rasps eventually.
Eddie picks his head up with great effort. Ony manages it because he wants to see what hurt he's caused. Their missing medic. Absent in their hour of need.
"What?"
"B-he-he told me he loved me." Buck's eyes go wide. Horrified. Haunted. Hollow. "He t-told me he l-loved me, and I could-couldn't say it back be-because that would mean..." Buck chokes a sob into his hand. "I thought we'd fix it. I-I-I thought we'd find a way. We-we always do. I couldn't say it-it. I didn't want t-to let him go. And now, he's..." Buck's face crumples first. Then, the rest of his body follows, folding in on itself in the chair until he looks almost as small as Christopher had the first time he'd ever sat at this table. "He's d-gone, and he doesn't know I love him."
"He knows, Buck." Eddie's hand curls into a fist on the tabletop. Doesn't know what to do. For all he'd been ready to hold Buck together, he's not sure how. "He knows you love him, Buck. You told him every single day."
"But I never said the words!" he snaps. Pure rage. Pure guilt. He looks up at Eddie. Blue eyes wet and red and wild. The rage and the guilt seeps away, leaves only pure grief. "I never said the words."
He sobs then. Doesn't choke it down. Lets it out. Eddie reacts like it's instinct even though he's never done this before. Just somehow knows in his bones what to do when it comes to Buck.
He stands, rounds the table, slides a hand into Buck's hair, one on his shoulder, pulls Buck's face into his stomach and holds him there, holds him together. Buck's fingers tangle themselves in Eddie's belt loops. A lifeline. And Eddie holds him tight as he can.
"All the times you cooked for him. All the times he cooked for you. The two of you cooking together. You had your own language, Buck. He knows you love him."
And all Eddie hears is: you're gonna stand there with a hundred-something bodies on you and tell me I'm not fit for duty. Did Bobby know Eddie loved him too?
Squeezing his eyes shut tight, Eddie drops his cheek to the top of Buck's head. Stops holding Buck together and starts holding on. Buck's hands grasp at his hips, twist into the back of his shirt just like Eddie's had at the airport.
And all Eddie hears is: I just want to make sure you don't think you have to lose everything before you can allow yourself to feel anything.
Some current thoughts about Buddie...
Scrolling through the Buddie tag recently (I really shouldn't do it too much 🙈😅) has been a lot of things from people writing about Buddie weddings to "how are people talking about buddie canon like that, I don't think they will happen at all..."
Feelings are valid, of course, but in both cases my personal thought is: Maybe try to chill a little, please? 😅
Pretty sure I find myself somewhere in the middle, definitely leaning towards optimistic.
Why you might ask? In my opinon, the writers aren't necessarily subtle anymore to make it clear to the general audience what they want to do. And the show is in a phase where it lets the audience hanging a little with Buck being like "In love with Eddie?", kind of defensively and weirdly denying it and then saying something like he understands T is threatened by what he and Eddie have. And some other honestly a bit crazy lines 🤭😃 But that was pretty much it for now, wasn't it? It needs to be followed up at SOME point. If they don't do that - what WAS the point of bringing it up?
This also goes for three mentions of Eddie's straightness (two times from his bi bestie in total defensiveness and one time from the mustache wearing mister himself) and the reactions to that - two from other gay men, the *scoffs* "okay" from one in specific 🤭😃
Sooo, my guess is they will have Eddie catch up a little in the remaining episodes. Or at least it's what I hope. (I've read opinions on this from several other Buddie fans and I agree that I would like to see Eddie get there before Buck realizes.)
I don't think Buddie will get together in season 8 just yet. With the renewal they will probably drag this out a bit more into season 9. Will they/won't they and more pining. Perhaps an almost kiss (I would be delighted, honestly).
I'm leaning more towards third party admission for one or both of them. I do think the audience will know, at least. (The promo has been there, too - at the beginning of the season, at New Year's, journalists see it, they were mentioned on another show (!) - to only name some.)
In my opinion, people are dooming more again (when do they not though 🙃🙂) because Eddie wasn't in 8x14 and there are only a few episodes left in season 8. Buck realized he likes men in ONE episode, right? I'm just saying. Technically it doesn't need much more for Eddie either, especially if he doesn't outright say anything, e. g. "I'm gay/into Buck/men", but they show or have him do or even say something that makes it clear.
That's where I personally stand right now. No dooming, but hardly any thoughts about a wedding yet either. I cannot bring myself to go there much when they aren't even together yet. In fact, I have barely read any fics where they get married, tbh. Engaged yes, but not married. Then again I'm not really a wedding kind of person. Happy when my ships do get there, but I won't be "screaming, crying, throwing up" about it 🙊🙈😅 (I say that now and then will probably be one of the first people to cry when Buck and Eddie, a queer slow burn ship on a network procedural show, emotionally exchange vows lolsob).
ImPatiently waiting for a first kiss (for now). 🤞🤞😇✌️🫶🌈
Omg following all this without watching must be HILARIOUS. But if you’re looking for a website to watch this season on as it releases (or only slightly later lol) hmu, I can also only legally access the first 7 seasons in my country sadly. And if not, have fun watching us loose our minds😂😂
As a 9-1-1 fan who's only watched up to season 7 following this season on tumblr is so fucking funny.
Like this started because I'm british and now I am willingly not catching up because hearing the most random pieces of information and going "they did WHAT" is so much funnier.
Like ABC have you actually lost your minds? This is incredible.
Buckley-Diaz Family: Dear Theodosia by Lin-Manuel Miranda
STOP WHAT IS THIS PICTURE. WHY HAVE I NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE.
eddie is so unbelievably real sometimes
saying “i want him” about the character but not in a romantic or sexual way . i just Require him i need to Obtain him
If I had a nickel for every time a character found out that a seemingly good woman was hurting people and got shot in the shoulder right after discovering the truth and taking action, splashing their partner dressed in white with blood and when everyone is running the partner stays put, completely horrified not knowing what to do, while the person they love is bleeding out - I’d have to nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
“Who kisses who first” “who pursues who” “who realizes first” you’re all wrong. Who is the first one to call Christopher “our son”
so much more interesting for his character. to ME. to have had eddie in texas for this arc. cause I genuinely do believe there's such a thing as too many character NDEs at once (like while I loved the bridge collapse none of the NDEs meant much to me cause there was just too much to focus on and not enough time to give it the proper emotional punch. eddie's ribs got crushed. did I give a shit. did it do anything for his character. no) but this absence is Everything for his character. because eddies been so focused on losing christopher and getting him back that he's almost convinced himself he can be fine in Texas. and maybe when it was a competition between Chris and Everyone/Anyone else that could be true but he has chris back in his corner now and he has to choose between continuing this lie to himself that he and chris can be happy in texas or he has to come face to face with the fact that this life he built in los angeles could never be a transient moment in his life. not only has he been immeasurably changed by these people he met at the 118 but he is still and forever bound to them and that's Not Nothing. we saw him acknowledge it but at that point he didn't think he had a choice. now he does and he will be confronted with that in the most devastating way and the impact of his absence will be so much more defining and monumental for him than being just another trapped 118 member
THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOD IM SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP IM ACTUALLY SPEECHLESS
hotshots xyz gets accused of homophobia because it doesn't have any canon queer characters on the show so they pull a rise of skywalker and start doing a bunch of press about an upcoming queer arc meanwhile the execs are cornering buck and eddie and going hey would you mind sharing a smooch in the back of this one scene so we can fulfill our diversity quota...
buck also accidentally putting chris through it
No matter how many times i watch 7x04 im still shaking crying throwing up like WHAT DO YOU MEAN.
WHAT DO YOU MEANNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!
they're living together when they go on their first date but buck is dead set on doing it right. it has to be perfect. it's eddie. it's the rest of his life. he has to make it perfect. and also a little bit silly. because that's them! they've done all the heavy stuff couples have, now they get this light little first step which is heavy in its own way but it's them. so they get ready together in their house and it's totally normal and fine and neither of them are freaking out about what to wear because they're too busy ogling the other until suddenly buck just vanishes. eddie hears the front door open and close and he's just kind of stood in his room clueless and then there's a knock on the front door and eddie opens it and buck is there with flowers he'd stashed in his truck and eddie is blushing and rolling his eyes and laughing all at once and buck kisses his cheek and asks if he's ready to go and eddie says just gimme a sec to put these flowers in some water and buck nods and tells him his carriage awaits and it's so dumb but eddie loves him so much and buck loves the way eddie laughs at him when he's ridiculous. and the date goes. well, it goes a bit awkwardly at first but they settle into it quick and they share a dessert and buck pays and then they drive home. and buck walks eddie up to the door and says i had a really good time tonight and eddie says yeah me too and because he's caught onto the game buck's playing he beats him to the punch and leans back against the door with a cheeky little grin and asks if buck wants to come in for a nightcap and buck blushes and says i really shouldn't, don't want you to get the wrong impression and eddie raises his eyebrows and says we're ending tonight in the same bed anyway and buck goes ooh confident i like it and eddie rolls his eyes and buck leans in to kiss him just a chaste quick thing and whispers goodnight eddie against his mouth and then he's walking down the driveway as eddie reboots and eddie will shout buck get your ass home. now.
Hockey AU!! The new guy is irritatingly perfect, and Buck seems to be the only one who minds it. Which just makes everything WORSE. Why is no one else bothered by his stupid perfect face and his stupid perfect shots and his stupid perfect everything?
Inspired by all the Hockey AUs I've been reading recently. Good shit lemme tell ya!!!
mhhhhhhh MHMHMM SO NORMAL ABOUT THIS
36, 37, or 41 for the setting prompts ☺️
for the setting prompt 036, a long, winding road (8x12 coda)
“Someone peed.”
There’s silence for one unbearable second, and then Buck’s voice crackles over the line, muffled and thready but there. Always there. Thank God, Eddie thinks. “Huh?”
Buck is usually the one in charge of saying something off-the-cuff when he picks up the phone. And then Eddie will say Hi, Buck, and Buck will say Hi, Eddie and get back to whatever it is he needed to say, unperturbed. “Someone peed in my backseat,” Eddie sighs, rolling his window back up so he can hear better. They have to be down, usually, when he’s by himself. The whipping of the wind manages to loosen some sort of invisible noose cuffed around his neck, whatever’s been making him feel suffocated and hollowed out. Eddie’s alright with being trapped for now, stuck inside of the familiar four walls of Buck’s voice. “My last rider today. He was really drunk.”
“Oh,” Buck coughs out, like he’s holding back a laugh maybe for Eddie’s sake, but it doesn’t really work. Something similar to relief skitters down Eddie’s spine, settling down near his tailbone. “That’s, uh, geez.” He clears his throat, swallowing down the rest of his laugh. Eddie can imagine the twist of his mouth, a peek of pearly white coming out to bite down on his bottom lip. “How even–did he just like, whip it out or something–”
“You don’t wanna know the specifics,” Eddie interrupts before Buck can let his imagination run wild, a shiver running through him at the not distant enough memory. “I had to perform black magic to get the fuckin’ smell out.”
Eddie turns right, the road long and winding before him, seemingly endless. If he had to choose one thing to miss about El Paso, maybe it’d be the sunsets. They were always so orange, almost angry in their vibrancy, setting alight all the buildings and the roads and the yuccas. “Sorry,” Buck says, and he has the audacity to sound genuine. “If I were your passenger, I’d at least have the decency to not do it on your seats.”
“Ah,” Eddie says, cranking up the shitty AC that doesn’t blow nearly hard enough, undoing the top button of his shirt. The driver’s seat will probably don a permanent sweat stain in the shape of his body soon. “‘Preciate it, bud.”
There’s the scrape of a chair against wood on the other end, an exasperated groan.
“Old man knees,” Eddie says.
“Fuck off,” Buck huffs, but there’s no trace of heat behind it. “One to talk, I can hear your bones when you sit down.” There’s some shuffling, a puff of breath. “I could,” Buck corrects himself softly, almost like Eddie’s not supposed to hear it.
Eddie swallows, dryness creeping up his throat in one fell swoop. The road keeps winding, the sky darkens to something more burnt and final, contrails making pretty patterns in it. “Hey,” Eddie speaks up after a beat. “Chris hugged me today.”
“That–” There’s a pause, and then the shuffling stops. “Shit, Eddie, that’s great.”
He sounds so pleased about it that Eddie can’t help but smile to himself, rubbing over an aching spot in his chest, tender like a damp spot of soil.
“Mhm. Thanks for, uh, getting me out of my head.”
“No biggie,” Buck says, and Eddie can picture the boyish up-down flop of his shoulders as he shrugs, his no big deal, just doing what I do shrug. He’s probably ducking his head too, though, blinking and looking off to the side like he’s trying to make himself smaller.
Eddie shakes his head even though Buck can’t see him. “Yes biggie. I know it’s not all fixed, but. You really helped a lot, Buck.”
Silence, then clinking. He must’ve sat down for coffee, probably his second of the day. It’s early enough in LA for it. Something constricts inside of Eddie’s chest then, like a big old iron fist clenching at the cage of his ribs. “Okay,” Buck acquiesces, so gentle Eddie barely hears it. “What are you doing? Anymore rides for today?”
“No,” Eddie says. “I’m driving over to Red Sands.”
“Red Sands?”
“I guess it doesn’t technically exist, it’s not regulated. It’s sort of what people call that giant desert area in the East—you know Hueco Tanks?”
“Of course.”
Yeah, Buck probably knows about every state park in existence. it just seems like something he’d be into. “Yeah, it’s not too far from there.”
The East side off of Montana Ave, Eddie remembers. He and Shannon used to drive out around Hueco Tanks in his beat up truck to get away from the city, park it, watch the sky. Maybe fuck on the truck bed under a blanket if it was dark enough, but that was neither here nor there. He’d look up and he wouldn’t feel so trapped for once, those precious minutes of stillness and quiet, the sky endless and all-encompassing. He didn’t know shit about constellations, so he’d make stuff up just so Shannon would laugh and bury her cold nose into his neck.
“Why’re you going there?”
“See the stars,” Eddie says. The sun continues to retreat farther, hiding itself away, and everything blazes red.
“Oh,” Buck says kind of wistfully. “Feeling sentimental?”
“Something like that.”
Eddie used to hate the sand. The desert, it just stretched on for miles and miles, that boring, ugly sand. He doesn’t really mind it now.
“Looks just the same,” Eddie says as he slows down on the road. Red-orange sand, dunes, small hills, sagebrush and yucca. There’s a couple of people zipping over the sand. “White guys love to come out here and ride their ATVs.”
Buck snorts. “I bet they do.”
Eddie wishes, with a sudden blinding ferocity, that Buck were there with him. He could picture it, even, Buck riding one of those eyesores over the blazing red sand dunes, the mostly reformed adrenaline junkie that he is.
“Wait,” Buck says suddenly. Eddie can hear him set down his mug. “Let me tell you what to look out for in the sky.”
That aching feeling intensifies tenfold, unrelenting. No matter how hard Eddie rubs at his chest, he can't work out the knot.
“Hm. Oh! You should be able to see Jupiter with your naked eye tonight. Mars, too.”
“Got it,” Eddie says, digging his knuckles into his ribcage. It hurts something fierce, but he keeps nudging. “I definitely know what those look like.”
“You can’t miss ‘em,” Buck insists. “You’ll know them when you see them. Trust me.”
Well, Eddie has never had any reason not to. “Sure,” Eddie says. “Yeah, just call me Galileo.”
Buck huffs and then laughs in that way he does that calls Eddie lame without actually saying it. “Man,” Buck says suddenly, forcefully, like it’s bursting out of him. “I really love you.”
Eddie swallows, the ache spreading down to his stomach, stale water trickling from a leaky ceiling. “Hm?” he asks, even though he heard Buck loud and clear.
“I didn’t.” There’s silence. “Mean to, uh.”
Eddie blinks at his steering wheel. “So you don’t love me?”
“No! Uh, yes? Uh, no, I just meant. That.” Eddie wishes he could see whatever face Buck is undoubtedly pulling right now. “That felt weird.”
Eddie doesn’t want to think about why he doesn’t like that. “Why?”
“Maybe, I-I don’t know, because. We don’t really. Say it, I don’t know.”
“Friends love each other,” Eddie says, and it doesn’t feel quite right.
There’s more silence. Eddie feels wrong-footed all of a sudden, cold sweat on his brow. Man, I really love you. Of course Buck loves him, that’s—of course he does. Eddie already knew that. Of course. But it hits him then, like a horse kick to the chest, how they don’t really say it. They just do it.
Man, I really love you, it knocks him right upside the head.
“Yeah,” Buck says after what feels like an eternity times two. He sounds muffled and far away again, and Eddie wants to tell him to speak directly into the microphone, maybe get him to say it again with even more certainty and veracity, but that’d be asking too much. “Yeah, they do.”
The desert stretches on for miles. The wind whips. The ATVs sparkle under the last dying rays of sun. Man, I really love you.
“Yeah.” Eddie swallows, keeps rubbing at his chest that must be caving in. “I love you too,” Eddie says, and it feels too raw. “For the record.”
Buck laughs, more of an exhale of air than anything else. “Yeah. Yeah, good to know.”
Eddie is able to see Jupiter that night. Mars, too.
He JUST wanna keep on dancing in the pink pony club!!
They took his whimsy away 😭😭😭
s08e11 parallels: maddie & jee x eddie & christopher
08x06 -> 08x12 | Same Energy
eddie. oh my god. eddie. eddie please. eddie. eddieeeeeeeeee. EDDDIEEEEEEE. oh my goddddd. EDDIEEEEEE
Update: the site I've been watching the new releases on got taken down🥲 and the newest episode isn't up on any others I've checked D:
Does anyone have a good free website that maybe has the latest episode already?? I'm so mad I couldn't watch it in my free period like I usually do😢
Boutta watch the new episode guys wish me luck!!
Boutta watch the new episode guys wish me luck!!
For @eddiegettingshot 💜
This is what happens when I read too many girldad!Buck fics. And this isn't even all.
I DONT LIKE THIS I REALLY DONT LIKE THISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
No because I think this is the exact reason I fell in love with 9-1-1 so much. Season one, Bathena got together, and I was so dissapointed, because if you've watched more than two tv shows in your life, you know what happenes to couples who get together in the first season. They get used for drama, they are thrust into repeating storylines, they either aren't endgame, or they break up and make up all the time, over and over, and are horrible to each other bur still stay together. (Cough cough Ross and Rachel from Friends.) It kills the characters instantly, and it kills their storylines. I was so mad.
But then I kept watching, bc it's not like this was a new feeling - this happens all the time. Disappointing, but whatever. So I kept waiting for the inevitable fallout and breakup and unnecessary drama between Bathena, and it just... didn't happen. They just... moved foreward in their relationship, and the showrunners made them interesting as fuck - without breaking them up unnecessarily!! Fucking bonkers to me, especially how Henren started out in season one. But Bathena had fights, and drama, and happy moments, and they defied what I thought a season-one-couple was.
And then it just kept on going. Bathena, Madney, Henren - they all found their special person and they didn't have to give that up to remain interesting or original. I've never seen anything like it before. It was magical. Still is.
I think that's why I'm not terrified that they are going to fuck up Buddie. If any other show decided to get the two popular and constantly shipped male leads together, I KNOW they couldn't do them justice, especially in the long run. But 911 can. Because they've already done it. Multiple times. And that just makes me so freaking happy.
domestic buddie being imminent is also fun bc this show does a good job at keeping a relationship dynamic interesting after getting characters together. henren is established from day one and while karen isn’t around as much as the mains their presence/drama is still there. bathena got more interesting once they started blending their family. madney went thru sooo much up and down and now they’re happily married and maddie’s still getting serial killer kidnapped and saving chim’s life w hammers. domestic buddie are gonna keep having insane things happen bc that’s the show but now they will get to react to it as romantic partners and (eventual) husbands. :)
This is what I’m SAYING. It’s history happening right before our eyes, and for once, that is a good thing.
like obviously i am emotionally invested in buddie going canon from like, a character/story perspective but from a 'got a degree in sociology, has been on tumblr since 2012, was once a superwholocker' perspective, i am FAR more invested this shit is delightful and fASCINATING. despite all the shit in the world, despite the backlash towards LGBTQ people happening right now, there is a major network television show that already made one half of a m/m fan ship canonically bi, had him fuck a (different) man, and is now poised to make the pairing canon after more than SEVEN SEASONS OF SLOWBURN. like: they are a pairing that started as a classic wink-nudge jokey queerbait, possibly nearly went canon years ago before that was shutdown, but now it is HAPPENING. and no, i'm not here for arguments that it isn't. i know better than is good for me, what queerbaiting looks like, and it DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THIS. i have been in like 15 different shipwars for queerbaited pairings. I am that fan who once went up to the showrunner of OUAT in a restaurant to tell him, personally, to his face, that queer fans like me deserved better. and now, eight years after that incident, the queer fans of an ABC tv show might just be getting that 'better'. like. what the fuck. how did we get here?
this is a phenomenon that has literally never happened once on live action american television, and we are all watching it unfold, whether actively or via the persistent ubiquity of fandom osmosis and i am studying this show and TPTB and the actors and the fans like BUGS