tommy's hot to go!

collins (he/they) 🛵 i love gay people.

[firehose118]

what I covet, I keep

bucktommy | rated e | 9.1k

“What do you want, sweetheart?” Tommy asks. “What can I give you?”  Evan rolls against him; big strong body alternately hitching forward and pushing back into Tommy’s hand with very little finesse. Tommy knows what Evan is going to say before the words make it out of his mouth.  “Want you to fuck me,” he says. He pulls away from Tommy’s shoulder and looks Tommy in the eye. “Want you inside of me.”  Tommy should ask if he’s sure. Tommy should remind him that Eddie is just down the hall, and that even as tired as he looked, there’s no way he’s fallen asleep in the maybe five minutes that have passed since Evan left him. Tommy should tease Evan for never being able to stay quiet when he’s getting fucked, and Tommy should propose that they do something else.  He should. But all of his blood runs south at the thought of staking such an unmistakable claim on Evan; at leaving Eddie with no doubts about just how good Evan is getting it from Tommy.  “I can do that,” Tommy agrees readily, dragging a dry finger over Evan’s hole. I can. Me. Or: Eddie is back for the weekend and Tommy stakes a claim.

{read on ao3}

tags below the cut

tagging some mutuals and people who showed interest in this as a wip:

@bucksbignaturals @rcmclachlan @epiphainie @ohithankyou @lavenderleahy

@espressotonicc @cliophilyra @a-mel0n @hehasacleft @meibhin

@peppermintquartz @wee-fuckin-woo @readingisbetterthanfandom @trombonechurchill @tommysbignaturals

@devirnis @alchemistc @ambernotember @leashybebes @sugarpenchant

@harmless-variety-of-garden-snake @screamlet @bigfootsmom @wikiangela

@newtkelly @aringofsalt @thecarrott @beanarie @disastardly @beefcakekinard

[daddykinkkinard]

now what if tommy is jealous of eddie because he was romantically involved w his own best friend, sal 🧍

[mysterious-shelf]

posted this on twt but thought i’d share here too, here’s a little bucktommy rtv au (with help from @daddykinkkinard <3)

a new season of the traitors usa is airing, and among the cast are survivor all-star tommy kinard and masterchef sweetheart evan ‘buck’ buckley. the two of whom catch feelings for each other very quickly after they meet in the castle.

which complicates things when tommy gets chosen to be a traitor at the first roundtable.

and so tommy spends his entire run just dying inside because he’s forced to lie to buck, who’s the faithfuls’ ray of sunshine, who’s trying so hard to get the traitors out but is also so so empathetic towards them.

“ohh bless the traitors, this must be so hard for them, huh?” buck says with a smile.

“yeah… must be…” tommy replies through gritted teeth.

at some point, buck’s positive persona puts him into the limelight (because the littlest things can get you voted out on this fuckass show). he’s accused of being insincere by a faithful, and one of tommy’s fellow traitors uses this to completely sway the vote onto buck.

it’s looking like the banishment is clear, and buck’s getting emotional, which sucks, but hey at least the traitors are getting out of this roundtable scot-free, right? except, when voting rolls round, one random vote is thrown towards the traitor who swayed the vote onto buck, and for no logical reason at all, because he hasn’t really done anything to warrant a vote.

and that vote came from tommy.

tommy, who’s so fuming at the prospect of buck leaving that, for a moment, he just isn’t thinking straight, and he just has to vote for the guy who’s pushed buck out of the game, forgetting that they’re literally on the same team.

neither buck or tommy’s eyes are dry when buck says his goodbye.

when the traitors congregate in the turret later that night, tommy, with a clearer head, tries to explain his vote away using… i don’t know, some stupid silly reason. but his fellow traitors aren’t convinced, and their worries only grow when tommy spends the whole next day just acting… off. he really cared about buck that much?

it feels like tommy’s a ticking time bomb now, so his fellow traitors simply throw him under the bus at the roundtable, and he’s voted out. tommy stands, does his little speech, says he came onto the show for the money but has since found something worth so much more. eyebrows raise, but there isn’t really time to speculate before he’s revealed as a traitor, and everyone cheers, and tommy cheers too, but for another reason.

later, uncloaked is filmed, and buck and tommy reunite. maybe confess their love. it’s emotional. it’s a lot. 50yo donna wonders if she’s accidentally switched to the drama channel. people tweet about how they’re doing entirely too much for a couple who was only apart for 24 hours.

and then it cuts to the live show and there they are, buck and tommy, six months into a happy relationship.

and then they get invited to do a season of the amazing race as america’s sweethearts. and all the sweet and crazy dynamics that come with that. and maybe a few bumps in the relationship that someone with more TAR knowledge can expand on, but of course they come out of it all stronger than they were before.

[thetouchof118]

stress baker buck my beloafed 🍞

[thetouchof118]

buck whenever he gets the itch to call tommy

[thetouchof118]

buck coming unannounced to 118's houses to distribute some bread

[thetouchof118]

can we talk first? yeah, of course.

[thetouchof118]

'cause our people are what make life worth living.

[daddykinkkinard]

sometimes i think about buck baking and working the dough a little too intensely the first few times.

how he began baking with the hope that he could channel the anger into his knuckles, but not into an experience that breeds injury—no, tommy wouldn't like that. the last thing he needs is to worry.—instead into kneading a dough to release his hurt. perhaps even wishing that the pain he folds neatly into the loaves sublimates from the heat of the oven.

maybe buck took up baking so that he could witness firsthand how something, after being subject to a fire so all-consuming, could still become an object of desire—tommy would love this. he should probably call him.

how someone, after being subject to a love so all-consuming, could still become an object of desire.—tommy loved him. he should definitely call him.

[bucksaiga]

I hate that Tommy was basically like "the world has everything to offer you now and in this world I am nothing. And as much as I wish I could be that guy, I'm simply not him. And I'd rather tell myself that I meant nothing than you prove it in the future."

Yet he doesn't realize that Buck is basically like "I have to take every thought of you and throw it into the oven and let fire turn it into something that I can hold. That I can consume. And I'll do it again and again and again until my fridge is full of all the ways I can eat this feeling without letting it eat me alive. You are everything and I am addicted to you."

[johanna-swann]

I actually have sooo many issues with 911 lately that haven't even got much to do with any ships.

Like. They wrote out almost all of the side characters. Chris is gone, Linda and Sue are gone, Athena's kids are gone (even though Harry just moved in with her and Bobby again? Seriously, where is Harry?), Ravi is gone, Carla is gone. I know the GA maybe don't care that much, casual viewers might not even have noticed that this many characters have just vanished from the show, but in my opinion this is one of the things that give a show running as long as 911 life. Having a big cast is a good thing. Otherwise things are going to get very monotonous very soon.

Actually, that's my second point. They keep repeating storylines! Every season Hen and Karen have to fight a custody battle over one of their kids.

Every season Eddie ends up realising he has a lot of repressed trauma and issues which keep him from leading a healthy happy and free life.

Every season Bathena realise that they have communication issues and they fight about it, but then something traumatic happens and they forgive each other without ever really talking things out.

Every season we are reminded that Maddie's most prominent character trait is "traumatised", the writers just alternatingly bring up Doug again and sometimes the ppd arc.

Every season we see Buck being somewhat restless, looking and searching for something that will bring him true happiness and cycling through love interests that never stick around and each time when you think "oh, there it is, he's getting somewhere now" the writers go "BEEEP! WRONG!" and we start all over again. [This is not just about recent events aka Tommy, the break-up and Buck potentially going back to his 1.0 ways, this also happened in season 6 when he had his "it doesn't matter what other people see in me, I'm enough" revelation only to suddenly be like "omg, Natalia just sees me".]

And Chimney- he had his moment last season with the wedding episode, Kenneth Choi really ate that episode up, but his most prominent character trait is "Maddie's supportive husband". There's really not that much going on with him otherwise.

Another point I briefly touched upon above is consistency. Like Harry moving back in with Athena and Bobby and then just vanishing. Or Gerrard being more like a slightly unfriendly grandpa than an actual antagonist in season 8 when he was still spouting slurs in season 7.

And the timeline! We talked about this before ("last March", Mara's fostering to adoption timeline, Tommy tranferring to harbour "5 years ago"), but the newest "Tommy was actually Abby's Tommy" twist just adds to that. Tommy was with Abby for over 2 years. They were engaged. This was at a time when he was still at the 118. Tommy dated Abby presumably because he was in denial or maybe because he was hiding. In either case, wouldn't his team at least have heard about his fiancée, Abby the dispatcher? Wouldn't that have rung a bell when Buck eventually brought her around only a year or two later? Tommy did talk about his private life at least a little at work, even under Gerrard. It just doesn't make sense. (Not to mention this seems wildly out of character for Tommy who around the same time also said about himself "being single is easier".)

Then there's the pacing. This was a huge issue in season 7. They jumped from one personal soap opera drama to the next without taking any breathers, had almost no procedural in their drama the whole season, still somehow decided to spend one third of the entire season just on the opening disaster and also squeezed in a "Bobby begins for the third time now" episode. But okay, it was a shortened season, there were strikes, they switched networks, they were under a lot of pressure - I'll cut them some slack. At least they set up a bunch of interesting stuff for the following season.

But we're in season 8 now. The renewal was announced very early, they had a lot of time to plan this time. Also they have almost double the episodes they had last season, there's really no need to rush any of the major plots. I am done cutting them slack.

They wanna do a 3 part opening disaster again? Okay fine, you have the time now. I feel like they could've easily done it in 2 episodes (especially 8x02 felt a little "eh"), but okay. Better than the breakneck speed you were going at befo- Oh, what's that? 8x04 flying in with a steel chair. You resolved 70% percent of the plots you set up last season in one single episode with no build up, no emotional pay off and no lasting consequences? And you also squeezed in multiple unrelated calls at the same time? Damn, okay then. Good-bye potentially interesting storylines. Fuck me for being invested I guess. I thought there would at least maybe be some follow up in 8x05, but no.

Now that Halloween episode wasn't bad, it was actually the best episode of this season imo, but instead of following up on previously established conflicts and developments they just hit us with new Wilson family trauma and conflict that was also immediately fixed again. And now 8x06 has speedrun and dumped another storyline that had potential to go to deeper and interesting places. Not gonna talk too much about that though because this post is about the show as a whole, not ships.

And I am not yet convinced that there will be much more to come on the only thing that's left from last season: Eddie's deep dive into his trauma and repression. It's totally possible at this point that being told "you deserve nice things" by a random stranger actually solved all of his problems, it would be very in tone with 911's new style.

What are they even gonna do with the rest of this season? Revisiting the Hotshots set sounds fun, but ultimately inconsequential. You know what's great about a regular old procedural drama with ~20 episodes per season that comes on weekly? You have time. You can let the viewers sit with their emotions and thoughts for a week and keep them engaged by stretching things out a little.

But why should I bother getting emotionally invested in problems the characters are gonna solve within the same episode anyway? Or rather, even if I wanted to, how am I supposed to care if you don't give me the time to develop any feelings about anything that's happening? "Henren lost in court and are now completely forbidden from seeing Mara at all!" Damn, that must be so har- "JUST KIDDING! Ortiz is exposed and everything is perfect again now." Oh. Okay then, I guess.

Bottom line: The characters are all stuck in their own hamster wheels, they keep cutting side characters that could bring a breeze of fresh air (I'm honestly surprised they even kept Josh until now), they rush through all the storylines a such a ridiculous speed that I don't even have time to feel any sort of way about it, they don't even try to keep a consistency or sensible timeline going and they seem to strongly prioritise random funny bits that'll entertain the very casual viewers right now in this moment (tiger call, Billy Boils, Bee-nado, the 'Stache tm, "wait, it's the same Abby?", Gerrard being a fangirl at heart) instead of playing the long game and catering to people who actually pay a little attention to the show.

[On that last remark: I'm not talking about hardcore fans who analyse every single frame here, I mean casual fans who've watched the show on and off again for a while and who may not be involved in fandom but genuinely care about the show.]

I mean. What am I even still doing here? The show is treading water and I end up disappointed more often than not. I'm still holding out a little hope that they actually will do something interesting with Eddie and his sea-monkeys, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

[johanna-swann]

Adding onto this because of a comment that a) I very much agree with and b) lead me to going through the 911 posts in my archive where I found more.

Comment by @peapodbond :

I’ve noticed in the last few seasons that they’ve also (mostly) stopped talking about characters when they’re not in a scene? No “we went to the movies last week” or “so-and-so is making dinner tonight”. Like damn, what happened to convos in the truck?? hen and athena have been friends for nearly fifteen years and i don’t think they’ve talked to each other in season eight??

What happened to the friendships? This is something I've also noticed before, but didn't think about when making the original post. Here's something I said about the friendships on 911 a couple of months ago:

All the friendships in season 1 were so much more flexible. Nowadays there is a standard way to pair people up (Hen and Chim, Buck and Eddie, Bobby and Athena) and giving other friendships their own time to shine (eg Buck and Hen day-drinking) is an exception to the rule. I miss season 1, out of all the seasons it had the strongest "found family" vibes.

Remember how much Hen and Athena used to hang out together? I loved that friendship. In season 1 Bobby and Chim were also really close friends, Hen and Buck used to be a lot closer. We used to have a lot of scenes like the poker night with Madney, Buck and Josh or Hen having coffee with Athena, Chim and Karen hanging out, Bobby and Michael going on adventures. But now it's like the only people these characters ever really talk to and spend quality time with are their love interests. And even when the characters do visit their friends or talk to them they either bring their love interest along or talk about their love interest. For a show that started with such a strong found family they sure are concentrating heavily on the couples instead of friendships these days.

Another unrelated thing I realised: They keep hinting at plotpoints in interviews and then never follow up on that. Most recently there was the Henren vs Madney conflict (due to Mara's living situation) that got scrapped entirely. (Tim Minear is now even denying that he ever thought of it that way? Sir, you were on record. We have screenshots and links to those interviews.)

Then I found this post from back in June about how Eddie's Abuela was supposed to uncover a family secret or something which was also said in an interview and that idea also got scrapped entirely. (Instead she was on set for the Madney wedding for some reason? Like. That's Eddie's grandmother and she lives in Texas. Has she ever even met the Hans?)

A lot of the promo interviews are also very misleading which isn't as bad as them just dropping plots entirely, but still annoying. Like how the bees ended up being relatively unimportant, the super dramatic fight against Ortiz ended up being resolved in maybe 20 minutes of screentime, Eddie wrangling with his catholic guilt was just him talking to a priest once, stuff like that.

They should really stop doing that in my opinion. If it's not in the can, don't print it on the lid. It's called false advertisement.

[atevanfool]

Sorry to add on to your post, but I just wanted to add that it, once again, is driving the narrative the love interest/spouse bonds are more important than friendship bonds. They're once again prioritizing them even though so many of the issues the couples have are things they would go to their friends for advice for or to rant about. Their worlds literally revolve around individual family circles now and is only an ensemble when on call.

[johanna-swann]

Yes exactly. It contributes to the trend away from found family dynamics to more "traditional" family values.

I didn't want to bring up the main characters' biological families as a point of critique because this is the "redemption for everyone" show and it's more a subjective preference than an actual flaw, but that's also a part of this.

I think every biological parent on this show (except Bobby's father who's been dead for half a century) has got a redemption arc at some point, no matter how shitty they were to their kids.

Chimney's dad moved to a different country when Chim was just a child grieving his mother, never really kept in touch with his son and after all these years he meets his granddaughter once and is forgiven. The Diaz parents tried to take Christopher from Eddie, constantly tell him they know what's best for Eddie and Chris and now they're just fine. The Buckley parents neglected their children emotionally and hid a huge secret from Buck while forcing Maddie to do the same, but at least they're trying I guess. Hen's mom never showed up for Hen's wedding (for homophobic reasons?), but they're actually pretty close now.

And yes, some of these developments make sense and are actually heartwarming to see, I especially really like Hen's mom. It's nice to see that sometimes you can patch things up and you can do better moving forward. But I would've liked to see both. To also see one story where the bio parent isn't forgiven because they actually don't deserve it. Just once.

[daddykinkkinard]

sorry to add onto this but i wanted to share something i also just. haven't really appreciated recently but—seeing tim take "inspiration" from five different movies for plotlines for two seasons is starting to get really lazy.

poseidon adventure was really good. vertigo was out of left field considering eddie mourning shannon was already abandoned a few seasons prior with ana. the swarm was abandoned immediately despite all of its marketing (apparently, not tim's fault). airport 1975 could have been so much better (you have a freaking pilot you just introduced for god's sake, see: losing side characters to bad writing). and risky business was a complete shot-for-shot remake that dragged on too long.

we get it, you want the allure and buzz of people jumping on the 9-1-1 train because the world is now too fast-paced and obsessed with the next viral tidbit and moment. but what happened to the found family, ensemble theme that we had?

the season's best episode being the halloween episode because of its good pacing when it's a filler/holiday/special episode (only focusing on a few calls and two storylines) is really telling of how the rest of the season has been going. i know we're only a few episodes in but we're about to hit midseason.

like every other long-running show, i really think this would have benefitted from having newer casts. we started with lucy, we could have gone somewhere with ravi, and we had potential with tommy too.

the writing's just become insanely repetitive that the characters not falling off their own hamster wheels will make me fall off the hamster wheel that is this show 🤷

[maygrcnt]

i think the real reason we need to bring back the voice overs in 911 is because it forced the writers to find a solid central theme in every episode instead of just shoving shit together

[johanna-swann]

Bringing this back actually, like holy fuck. What are they even doing in the writers' room lately?

[cull3nblaze]

Thank you ABC for making the decision to stop watching this show so much easier.

[johanna-swann]

I actually have sooo many issues with 911 lately that haven't even got much to do with any ships.

Like. They wrote out almost all of the side characters. Chris is gone, Linda and Sue are gone, Athena's kids are gone (even though Harry just moved in with her and Bobby again? Seriously, where is Harry?), Ravi is gone, Carla is gone. I know the GA maybe don't care that much, casual viewers might not even have noticed that this many characters have just vanished from the show, but in my opinion this is one of the things that give a show running as long as 911 life. Having a big cast is a good thing. Otherwise things are going to get very monotonous very soon.

Actually, that's my second point. They keep repeating storylines! Every season Hen and Karen have to fight a custody battle over one of their kids.

Every season Eddie ends up realising he has a lot of repressed trauma and issues which keep him from leading a healthy happy and free life.

Every season Bathena realise that they have communication issues and they fight about it, but then something traumatic happens and they forgive each other without ever really talking things out.

Every season we are reminded that Maddie's most prominent character trait is "traumatised", the writers just alternatingly bring up Doug again and sometimes the ppd arc.

Every season we see Buck being somewhat restless, looking and searching for something that will bring him true happiness and cycling through love interests that never stick around and each time when you think "oh, there it is, he's getting somewhere now" the writers go "BEEEP! WRONG!" and we start all over again. [This is not just about recent events aka Tommy, the break-up and Buck potentially going back to his 1.0 ways, this also happened in season 6 when he had his "it doesn't matter what other people see in me, I'm enough" revelation only to suddenly be like "omg, Natalia just sees me".]

And Chimney- he had his moment last season with the wedding episode, Kenneth Choi really ate that episode up, but his most prominent character trait is "Maddie's supportive husband". There's really not that much going on with him otherwise.

Another point I briefly touched upon above is consistency. Like Harry moving back in with Athena and Bobby and then just vanishing. Or Gerrard being more like a slightly unfriendly grandpa than an actual antagonist in season 8 when he was still spouting slurs in season 7.

And the timeline! We talked about this before ("last March", Mara's fostering to adoption timeline, Tommy tranferring to harbour "5 years ago"), but the newest "Tommy was actually Abby's Tommy" twist just adds to that. Tommy was with Abby for over 2 years. They were engaged. This was at a time when he was still at the 118. Tommy dated Abby presumably because he was in denial or maybe because he was hiding. In either case, wouldn't his team at least have heard about his fiancée, Abby the dispatcher? Wouldn't that have rung a bell when Buck eventually brought her around only a year or two later? Tommy did talk about his private life at least a little at work, even under Gerrard. It just doesn't make sense. (Not to mention this seems wildly out of character for Tommy who around the same time also said about himself "being single is easier".)

Then there's the pacing. This was a huge issue in season 7. They jumped from one personal soap opera drama to the next without taking any breathers, had almost no procedural in their drama the whole season, still somehow decided to spend one third of the entire season just on the opening disaster and also squeezed in a "Bobby begins for the third time now" episode. But okay, it was a shortened season, there were strikes, they switched networks, they were under a lot of pressure - I'll cut them some slack. At least they set up a bunch of interesting stuff for the following season.

But we're in season 8 now. The renewal was announced very early, they had a lot of time to plan this time. Also they have almost double the episodes they had last season, there's really no need to rush any of the major plots. I am done cutting them slack.

They wanna do a 3 part opening disaster again? Okay fine, you have the time now. I feel like they could've easily done it in 2 episodes (especially 8x02 felt a little "eh"), but okay. Better than the breakneck speed you were going at befo- Oh, what's that? 8x04 flying in with a steel chair. You resolved 70% percent of the plots you set up last season in one single episode with no build up, no emotional pay off and no lasting consequences? And you also squeezed in multiple unrelated calls at the same time? Damn, okay then. Good-bye potentially interesting storylines. Fuck me for being invested I guess. I thought there would at least maybe be some follow up in 8x05, but no.

Now that Halloween episode wasn't bad, it was actually the best episode of this season imo, but instead of following up on previously established conflicts and developments they just hit us with new Wilson family trauma and conflict that was also immediately fixed again. And now 8x06 has speedrun and dumped another storyline that had potential to go to deeper and interesting places. Not gonna talk too much about that though because this post is about the show as a whole, not ships.

And I am not yet convinced that there will be much more to come on the only thing that's left from last season: Eddie's deep dive into his trauma and repression. It's totally possible at this point that being told "you deserve nice things" by a random stranger actually solved all of his problems, it would be very in tone with 911's new style.

What are they even gonna do with the rest of this season? Revisiting the Hotshots set sounds fun, but ultimately inconsequential. You know what's great about a regular old procedural drama with ~20 episodes per season that comes on weekly? You have time. You can let the viewers sit with their emotions and thoughts for a week and keep them engaged by stretching things out a little.

But why should I bother getting emotionally invested in problems the characters are gonna solve within the same episode anyway? Or rather, even if I wanted to, how am I supposed to care if you don't give me the time to develop any feelings about anything that's happening? "Henren lost in court and are now completely forbidden from seeing Mara at all!" Damn, that must be so har- "JUST KIDDING! Ortiz is exposed and everything is perfect again now." Oh. Okay then, I guess.

Bottom line: The characters are all stuck in their own hamster wheels, they keep cutting side characters that could bring a breeze of fresh air (I'm honestly surprised they even kept Josh until now), they rush through all the storylines a such a ridiculous speed that I don't even have time to feel any sort of way about it, they don't even try to keep a consistency or sensible timeline going and they seem to strongly prioritise random funny bits that'll entertain the very casual viewers right now in this moment (tiger call, Billy Boils, Bee-nado, the 'Stache tm, "wait, it's the same Abby?", Gerrard being a fangirl at heart) instead of playing the long game and catering to people who actually pay a little attention to the show.

[On that last remark: I'm not talking about hardcore fans who analyse every single frame here, I mean casual fans who've watched the show on and off again for a while and who may not be involved in fandom but genuinely care about the show.]

I mean. What am I even still doing here? The show is treading water and I end up disappointed more often than not. I'm still holding out a little hope that they actually will do something interesting with Eddie and his sea-monkeys, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

[johanna-swann]

Adding onto this because of a comment that a) I very much agree with and b) lead me to going through the 911 posts in my archive where I found more.

Comment by @peapodbond :

I’ve noticed in the last few seasons that they’ve also (mostly) stopped talking about characters when they’re not in a scene? No “we went to the movies last week” or “so-and-so is making dinner tonight”. Like damn, what happened to convos in the truck?? hen and athena have been friends for nearly fifteen years and i don’t think they’ve talked to each other in season eight??

What happened to the friendships? This is something I've also noticed before, but didn't think about when making the original post. Here's something I said about the friendships on 911 a couple of months ago:

All the friendships in season 1 were so much more flexible. Nowadays there is a standard way to pair people up (Hen and Chim, Buck and Eddie, Bobby and Athena) and giving other friendships their own time to shine (eg Buck and Hen day-drinking) is an exception to the rule. I miss season 1, out of all the seasons it had the strongest "found family" vibes.

Remember how much Hen and Athena used to hang out together? I loved that friendship. In season 1 Bobby and Chim were also really close friends, Hen and Buck used to be a lot closer. We used to have a lot of scenes like the poker night with Madney, Buck and Josh or Hen having coffee with Athena, Chim and Karen hanging out, Bobby and Michael going on adventures. But now it's like the only people these characters ever really talk to and spend quality time with are their love interests. And even when the characters do visit their friends or talk to them they either bring their love interest along or talk about their love interest. For a show that started with such a strong found family they sure are concentrating heavily on the couples instead of friendships these days.

Another unrelated thing I realised: They keep hinting at plotpoints in interviews and then never follow up on that. Most recently there was the Henren vs Madney conflict (due to Mara's living situation) that got scrapped entirely. (Tim Minear is now even denying that he ever thought of it that way? Sir, you were on record. We have screenshots and links to those interviews.)

Then I found this post from back in June about how Eddie's Abuela was supposed to uncover a family secret or something which was also said in an interview and that idea also got scrapped entirely. (Instead she was on set for the Madney wedding for some reason? Like. That's Eddie's grandmother and she lives in Texas. Has she ever even met the Hans?)

A lot of the promo interviews are also very misleading which isn't as bad as them just dropping plots entirely, but still annoying. Like how the bees ended up being relatively unimportant, the super dramatic fight against Ortiz ended up being resolved in maybe 20 minutes of screentime, Eddie wrangling with his catholic guilt was just him talking to a priest once, stuff like that.

They should really stop doing that in my opinion. If it's not in the can, don't print it on the lid. It's called false advertisement.

[atevanfool]

Sorry to add on to your post, but I just wanted to add that it, once again, is driving the narrative the love interest/spouse bonds are more important than friendship bonds. They're once again prioritizing them even though so many of the issues the couples have are things they would go to their friends for advice for or to rant about. Their worlds literally revolve around individual family circles now and is only an ensemble when on call.

[johanna-swann]

Yes exactly. It contributes to the trend away from found family dynamics to more "traditional" family values.

I didn't want to bring up the main characters' biological families as a point of critique because this is the "redemption for everyone" show and it's more a subjective preference than an actual flaw, but that's also a part of this.

I think every biological parent on this show (except Bobby's father who's been dead for half a century) has got a redemption arc at some point, no matter how shitty they were to their kids.

Chimney's dad moved to a different country when Chim was just a child grieving his mother, never really kept in touch with his son and after all these years he meets his granddaughter once and is forgiven. The Diaz parents tried to take Christopher from Eddie, constantly tell him they know what's best for Eddie and Chris and now they're just fine. The Buckley parents neglected their children emotionally and hid a huge secret from Buck while forcing Maddie to do the same, but at least they're trying I guess. Hen's mom never showed up for Hen's wedding (for homophobic reasons?), but they're actually pretty close now.

And yes, some of these developments make sense and are actually heartwarming to see, I especially really like Hen's mom. It's nice to see that sometimes you can patch things up and you can do better moving forward. But I would've liked to see both. To also see one story where the bio parent isn't forgiven because they actually don't deserve it. Just once.

[daddykinkkinard]

anyway. i have personally seen their phones and i can positively say that tommy is named "crinkly" on buck's phone and buck is named "curly" on tommy's phone.

[lukaskyle-moved]

LOU FERRIGNO JR. as Donovan Rocker S.W.A.T. — 4.09 “Next of Kin”

[smaoineamhsalacharchive]

for completely totally utterly almost bizarrely normal reasons, here’s the clip of tan calling rocker princess 🫶🫶

[shxiao]

My princess 💞