lottie

PhD in buddienomics the worst person you know

[bawkbawkbuckley]

ok so i knowwww we love to say that buck keeps himself alive for eddie and for chris and sure, he probably does, BUT NOW. not only will he have his SON to keep himself alive for, BUT HE ALSO HAS HIMSELF. bc now as a dad, he’s gonna think of his future ahead of him. his future with his kid, with his lil family.

and i feel like im stepping away from looking at things all from a buddie canon pov. im reframing the way i look at buck, eddie, chris, and buddie. like from buck’s pov, he doesnt even know really how much time he has with the diaz boys. i mean they left him before they can leave him again. i mean him and eddie literally arent together. sure, he probably loves eddie but thats not a conscious thought he has and for all he knows eddie is straight and he might even marry some woman someday and then he’d be alone. sometimes this is hard to grasp when we look at it as audiences bc of dramatic irony — we know things like buck is in love with eddie and it’s probably reciprocated — but these characters dont know that.

so i am putting myself in buck’s shoes.

while yes i love the diaz boys. they are my family. yes pepa is like a real aunt to me. but they were once 800 miles away from me. god forbid something happens and they leave again. im only chris’s backup parent in case the worst thing possible happens - eddie’s death. then later on what if chris goes off to college and forgets abt me. what if eddie marries a woman and we hang out less. maybe he has more kids with her. where does that leave me. my relationships arent panning out. i cant even be a half. i have maddie and chim but theyre their own family. same for hen and karen and athena and the kids. my pseudo dad is dead. i know i have a family and i am not alone, but also. i kinda am though. like truly who do i have that is mine. who can be a constant in my life.

and the answer is his kid. bc yeah that kid had parents whom he lost but hes still buck’s blood and now he only has buck and hes just so much like buck. buck isnt a backup nor a second choice anymore. he is it. this is his family and he gets to keep it forever. so buck will now fight hard as hell to make sure he goes home to his kid bc this kid already lost both his parents. he cant lose buck too. and buck gets to come home to him and celebrate milestones with him and buck gets to have him. and then eddie will be there too ofc. and chris. and then they grow to be a lil family unit

this was in response to @notfirehose <3 our buck girls moment was so precious ily

[notfirehose]

buck’s pose at the end of the episode is particularly disturbing because the moment he’s reliving wasn’t him saying “just kill me, save eddie”. he was saying he’d PLAY THEIR DEAD SON indefinitely. stripping himself of his identity. surrendering his personhood. which makes eddie’s line about him never leaving new mexico particularly painful for him because he DID give himself up. he was prepared to leave who he was behind. he’s still in that shed

[notfirehose]

already saw two absolutely atrocious bridgerton opinions an it’s not even 10am. snipe me downnn

[notfirehose]

on ao3 recognizing hollanov writers as my fav buddie writers. i love community <3

[notfirehose]

[notfirehose]

look at him

[sinmonger]

Connor Storrie talking about Hudson Williams | 2026 Golden Globes

[911onabcbts]

Tim’s full article with Washington Post for anyone that can’t read it with it being locked behind a paywall.

[noahreids]

Heated Rivalry s01e04 | Shane's Glasses.

[notfirehose]

i’ve curated my for you page to be nothing but seafood boils, heated rivalry edits, and sea lions. i have never been happier

[notfirehose]

[notfirehose]

realizing buck has a backyard and will likely be hosting all the gatherings

[notfirehose]

[notfirehose]

Buck moves out two weeks after Eddie tells him he’s staying in LA.

He picked the first apartment he could find that would let him live there within the month, a crappy one bedroom near the station. He’d hired a moving company to bring everything over so nobody would have to help out while they were all grieving.  It was a lot, packing everything up, getting the apartment clean enough to drop all his stuff off. But he had to do it. He would’ve moved into a shoebox if he had to.

Because living with Eddie and Chris would’ve killed him. 

Buck has lived in a lot of different places. His childhood was spent in a cold house where he was never enough. Then, on the road, he went from place to place without ever putting down roots. He lived in Abby’s house, where he deluded himself into seeing a future that was over months before he finally let go. His loft was never a home. It was somewhere he lived, recovered from a crushed leg and countless work injuries. A place to lick his wounds more than anything else. And then, he lived in Eddie’s house. It had felt like a home until he was the only one left in it. A too-quiet shell more than anything else. Honestly, the only house of his that ever felt like home was the firehouse. And now, with Bobby gone, even that was slipping away.

Buck needed something he could keep. A place that was his, where he knew the floor wouldn’t fall out from under him. And he knew what it would be like to live with Eddie and Chris. It would feel like home. It would feel like forever. But when they were done playing house, Buck would be back on the curb. And it would crush him.

So, he didn’t tell Eddie before he left. Because Eddie was kind, and generous, and would try to convince him he didn’t have to go. That he was always welcome. And Buck couldn’t trust himself to say no to him. He’d always had trouble with that. So, he’d removed himself quietly and quickly so he could- for perhaps the first time in his life- choose self preservation.

—--

Eddie didn’t see it coming. He had been out all day running errands. Going grocery shopping for his family, buying some stamps for his abuela. He’d ask Buck if he wanted to come, but he’d said he had other plans. Eddie didn’t push it. Everything with Bobby was fresh, maybe he’d just wanted space. They’d been living together for two weeks, and were together practically nonstop. 

So, he stood on the porch, balancing the groceries on his hip, a bag of brown sugar sticking out of the top. (Buck had mentioned wanting to try making pineapple upside down cake). He fished out his keys and opened the door to find his house half empty. Honestly, for a second, he thought they’d been robbed. Then he saw the box labeled Chris Computer was untouched and realized only Buck’s stuff was gone. Eddie’s eyebrows creased in confusion as he pulled out his phone. Buck answers on the last ring.

Hey!

“Hey yourself. Where’s all your stuff? Did you get a storage unit? I know there’s a lot of boxes right now, but I figured we could pick between our stuff and store the doubles. Because if we’re making cuts, your TV is definitely better than mine,” Eddie laughs nervously. There’s a pause on the line before Buck answers.

Actually, I got a new apartment. I figured I could find somewhere to stay while I look for houses.

“You didn’t tell me.”

I thought I’d surprise you with your bed back. I’ll send my new address so you can visit in a few days when I’m all settled.

“Well, do you want me to come help you set up?”

Nope, I hired movers. But thanks! I got some stuff to do. See you at work tomorrow!

“Okay, bye.”

And then Buck hung up. Eddie looked around his empty house trying to figure out what he’d missed. How this had come out of nowhere. He glanced down at his phone, seeing the text for Buck’s new address. His stomach turned. It felt like a goodbye note on his bedside table.

[fraddit]

I know it's like... illegal to say this, but I really think it's clear, or at least very strongly implied, that Buck was living with Maddie and Chimney for the last seven months. I don't think they were ever roommates, except when Eddie was crashing on the couch for Bobby's funeral. I think in the week(s) Eddie was back in Texas packing up him and Chris, Buck was packing up too, and was gone by the time they returned.

[notfirehose]

i’m stuck on the fact buck has been trying and trying to get these cookies right because it was bobby’s recipe. and he forgot. he forgot the recipe. and he can’t ask what the missing ingredient is anymore. he won’t ever be able to again. and he let himself believe his house was haunted to pretend they’re still cooking together. bobby is still in reach. but he isn’t. and he’s an idiot for thinking it. and everyone around him feels bad for him. because he’s desperate for something he’ll never get again. like that’s seriously so heartbreaking

[vibecheckd]

What’s getting me isn’t “Chim is mean to Buck now,” it’s that the text and the meta-text have started to blur in a weird way, and I’m not sure the show realizes it. And to be clear from the jump: this isn’t about demonizing Chim or wrapping Buck in bubble wrap. I fully buy that Chim loves Buck; I fully buy that Buck can take a joke; I fully buy that everyone on this show uses banter and barbs as a way of not touching the real wound. What I’m chewing on is the pattern of choices the writers are making—what they’re putting on screen, what they’re not, and what that unintentionally codes as.

Because if you take any one line in isolation—the “you know what he (Bobby) was even better at? Not talking about baking,” the casual “Buck is stupid” style comments—it’s bog-standard 9-1-1 ribbing. That’s a house style. If those moments lived inside a surrounding text where we also saw Chim deliberately choosing Buck, backing Buck, or extending him clear verbal warmth, they’d scan as affectionate shorthand. But they don’t live in that context right now. The digs are increasingly standing alone, without equally memorable counterweights of softness or explicit care, and that imbalance shifts how they read.

That shift matters more now that Chim is Captain. When they were both under Bobby, the dynamic slotted more comfortably into “older, more jaded guy chirps the reckless golden retriever,” gallows humor as love, irritation as care. Buck has scared the shit out of everyone multiple times; an older-brother figure using barbed humor is very real. Chim as Captain might overcorrect by staying flippant, because taking Buck seriously means admitting how much there is to lose, and the fact that he is responsible for keeping his team safe. A captain repeatedly undercutting you, even as a joke, lands with a different charge than a peer doing it.

Which raises the question: is the show intentionally playing with the fact that Chim hasn’t fully recalibrated to who Buck is now—still talking to him like the kid he used to be—or are they just defaulting to an older version of the dynamic without thinking through how the context has changed?

There’s also a more uncomfortable but potentially rich version, where Chim really is lagging behind on updating his internal “Buck file,” still reacting to who Buck was seasons ago rather than who he’s become. If the writers leaned into that, it could be fascinating—Buck quietly outgrowing the narrative people keep putting him in; Chim struggling with leadership and defaulting to dynamics that are no longer kind or accurate.

But my actual frustration mostly sits at the meta level. The writers know “Buck as comedic relief” works. They know “Chim gets the dry line” works. They are using old tools without re-evaluating what those tools mean in a new context. The cumulative effect is accidental: they’re not trying to say Chim doesn’t care; they just aren’t protecting the complexity they’ve built for either of them. So we’re left filling in the gaps with, “Did they fall out? Did something happen off-screen? Is Chim resentful?” when I don’t actually think the room has decided any of that. It's less harmless now that we’ve spent years watching Buck nearly die, hold families together, become a third parent, grow into someone competent and generally emotionally literate.

I’m not asking for Chim to suddenly turn into a walking monologue about how proud he is of Buck. Flaws are interesting. Snark is fun. Complicated friendships where love comes out sideways are, frankly, the point. What I want is intentionality. If there’s real distance between them, name it. Let there be friction. Let Buck bristle. If Chim’s edge is about his own stress, grief, or insecurity in the captain role, then crack the door enough that it reads as a choice rather than default contempt. If none of this is purposeful and it’s just residual “Buck is the joke” writing: then that’s the problem. Because it quietly undercuts years of growth and makes Chimney, unfairly, the face of that undercutting.

So yeah, I don’t think Chimney doesn’t love his brother-in-law. I think the love is assumed, off-screen, while the jokes are on-screen, and the imbalance is starting to tell a story I’m not convinced they mean to be telling. And I really hope they either steer into that tension with clarity—or adjust the text so Chim’s warmth toward Buck is as legible now as his punchlines are.