I think queer people as a community will do a LOT of healing once we accept that our experiences arenât neatly divided into identity boxes.
Transfems and transmascs share experiences
Binary and non-binary trans people share experiences
Trans and intersex people share experiences
Cis and trans people share experiences
Lesbians and bi people share experiences
Gay men and bi people share experiences
Bi and pan people share experiences
Lesbians and gay men share experiences
Monosexual and mspec people share experiences
Asexuals and allosexuals share experiences
And YES, these include â[identity] specific experiencesâ
Your experiences are colored by the other factors in your life as well such as race, class, and disability status.
In other words: these things arenât neat and clear cut, once we stop trying to divide ourselves and deny our siblings solidarity when they try to build it, we can get a lot of shit done
I have soooooo much I want to write about Doctor Odyssey and if I keep waiting for the perfect moment to write something PROPERLY GOOD AND COMPREHENSIVE then Iâm simply going to explode. So instead Iâm going to write a messy little post on my phone when half asleep and try to keep it to one main topic.
Yeah yeah the throuple had a threesome (and Iâm foaming at the mouth over it) but can we talk about the THEMES!!!!
This show is for crazy people (me specifically). Once again, I have a lot to say, but for now let me just focus on the wedding episode itself. That threesome is informed by the context of the rest of the episode in a way I simply CANNOT get over.
Letâs look at our passengers: the bride, groom, and best man. We find out all of them are being unfaithful to each other in various ways, miserable in their silence and unhealthy relationship dynamics. They all went to school together and were once close, but things went wrong somewhere along the way. The best manâs speech implies he has feelings for the groom, the groom is a sex addict whoâs had multiple partners (possibly the best man included) because he feels trapped in a lie, and the bride and best man are having sex with each other. And none of them are communicating about it, and the groom who had preexisting mental health struggles commits suicide.
What happens to the three of them is a tragedy and it is absolutely a result of heteronormative monogamous culture. That culture was passed down from the brideâs mother to her too by example and societal influence.
Iâm not exaggerating. Itâs not subtle!!! At all!!! Everything explodes for those passengers because monogamy and repressing bisexuality wasnât working for them.
Theyâre a dark mirror and cautionary tale. (Bonus points for how Averyâs sad backstory is that she was betrayed by her longtime friend / brief husband who cheated on her with a mutual friend as well, which is why sheâs definitely hesitant about love now.)
By comparison, Avery and Max and Tristan have been avoiding some similar big pitfalls: they know theyâre into each other and itâs not a secret, rivalries keep being squashed with effort, and no one is pressuring anyone to choose (so far).
This is what our beloved main characters have on their minds before what follows. And again, letâs not even get to the sex part yet⊠THE BUCKET LISTS!!! Iâm losing my Goddamn marbles!!! The way all 3 of their lists intersect? Holy shit. Off the top of my head: Max and Tristan want to fall in love and have kids, Avery and Max want to see the world, Tristan and Avery have niche interests outside of medicine that they want to explore more⊠We were given itemized lists to show how the 3 of them balance and round each other out perfectly.
Itâs not about any 2 of them because it wonât work with just any 2. Itâs ALL THREE â just like all the framing and blocking of shots is consistently all 3, they walked down the wedding aisle all 3 together, the first sex scene for any of them that WE as the audience see on screen is all 3 of them together, a âbad threesomeâ is defined as 2 people getting too wrapped up in each other and the 3rd being an accidental outsider, we often see that if one duo gets a couple-y moment then the other duos get similar moments later as well, etc etc. Sorry. Let me not continue the summary list here and now so I donât get too sidetracked but thereâs A LOT.
But like, my current point? That wedding episode is a goldmine and the threesome explicitly happening doesnât exist in a vacuum. Far from it. The themes are themeing in the whole show, of course, which is part of what I want to write about elsewhere at some point too: this show is repeatedly very deliberate about making sure heterosexuality or monogamy arenât framed as the default or only correct options, and queerness is sprinkled everywhere. But this wedding episode specifically⊠the themes were nearly the ONLY PLOT. Nothing else â itâs basically only that, and itâs very focused. The failures of monogamy are on full display. And thatâs why and how we get an explicit threesome right after it, which will lead us into how things will continue to develop for our trio.
Now, as for why the threesome happens so relatively quickly? My hot take on that is that general audiences can be stupid and so the creators wanted to put the throuple explicitly on screen fairly early to get people to start Noticing. Show them how the characters need to be together⊠and that sets us up for the possible angst and tension to follow as they have to accept it emotionally for themselves too. Now, as an audience member, youâll more strongly know what to root for. Youâll know whatâs right because youâve seen it and youâll want them to get back to that place, come what may. (If youâre not a puritan.)
Itâs so fucking good. Insane silly show for insane people. Are we seeing the vision??? I need everyone to lock in.
This ramble is probably a disaster and I apologize for that but ohhhh man I had to put SOME words down so I wouldnât explode. Suffice it to say Iâm having a ball up in this bitch and I cannot believe this show exists. I couldnât believe my eyes and my brain cells in the pilot, and I REALLY canât believe them now.
What a time to be alive!!!!!! Polycule âlove festâ on a cruise ship, baby!!! The world needs more love, all kinds of love, as the Captain says!!!! Onward to gay week!!!! LETâS SEE THOSE BI MEN KISS
if they're gonna continue the current joyous vibe, I'm imagining that Buck gives the Lakers tickets to Madney and they drop Jee off at his place. they try baking when Eddie drops by because he wants to and he's not denying himself joy. he joins the baking plan but keeps being silly and enables Jee to do the same and Buck tries not to laugh because 'this is serious business, guys, we can't mess up the ingredients'. Eddie ends up throwing some flour in Buck's face and Buck stands frozen for a second as Jee starts laughing before it descends into an all-out food fight. Eddie takes Jee in his team and they try to chase Buck with flour and icing pipes and all sorts of silly messy things. they all end up eating marshmallows on the floor in the end, still messy, but Buck feels better, Eddie is joyous, and Jee is happily sitting between them. the camera also shows the fridge with Chris' pictures behind them.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I do actually think a storyline about Buck fucking around (or at least dating around) would be interesting. Like, my first instinct was that it would be bad for Buck, specifically, because he's always used sex in unhealthy ways and because I really do think he's seeking a permanent kind of love.
But, you know, that's not working for him right now. He's spent 8 years entering what he hopes to be long-term, forever kinds of relationships and they just keep falling through. Abby, Ali, Taylor, Natalia, Tommy. Five failed relationships, all of which he clung to beyond their expiration date (well, all except Ali, I guess). That's a lot for him to just want to try to jump in with another person he doesn't know and try to make it work, and he has just discovered this new part of his identityâwhich, of course, for some people, they wouldn't need to exploreâbut I do think it's something a single, unattached Buck would want to explore.
And I don't even necessarily think this would have to be a backslide. But if it was, that would be okay, too, because healing isn't linear and people fuck up and do things that aren't good for them all the time, and Buck feeling hopeless and going back to his old ways because what he really wants isn't working, makes a lot of sense to me. I will admit, my first instinct was that I didn't want him to backslide, but actually, I do think there would be an interesting story to tell there, and it might even sell the way his character has stagnated in the same boring, unfulfilling relationships over and over again by calling attention to it and recognizing that Buck is feeling it, tooânot just that the particular most recent relationship has failed, but that he's feeling like he's not worthy, can't make things work, isn't meant to be loved because it keeps happening. Which I don't think they've ever explored in depth before.
So having Buck backslide, or even just take a step back and decide he wants to have some casual sex for a bit while he tries to figure himself out (and by that, I do not mean his sexuality, but rather what he needs to make him happy), then I think there actually could be a really interesting story to be told there that would be both very true to the character and would serve to break this broken record of storylines for him (because yeah, it's been done before, but at least not since s1, really).
And honestly, I'm not sure where else they would go with Buck right now. This does actually feel like a logical progression for him, and I can't think of anything else they could do with him unless they decide to speedrun buddie and/or intertwine him fully with the Eddie and Chris plot (which I could see happening, and I also think could work). But beyond that, I don't see an obvious logical story progression for Buck at this moment, and I would rather see him backslide a bit with this than have them slap some completely random new plotline on him without warning, because we've all seen how poorly those have been handled lately.
And as an aside, I could also see a Buck backslide potentially causing some of the tension they're talking about for Buck and Eddie. Because Eddie's never directly known that part of Buck, and last season, he was ensuring Buck that he'd seen the growth in him and trusted him to talk to Christopher because of his past and his growth beyond it. And I could see Eddie struggling a bit with a side of Buck he's never actually encountered before, and maybe (if it is a legitimate backslide for him, and he's using casual sex as an unhealthy coping mechanism) with a part of Buck he doesn't know how to help.
I want to expand a little on something I talked about over on twitter, which is the concept of Eddie as an unreliable narrator and how this has kept him from confronting his sexuality.
Before the inevitable âEddie said he was heterosexual, heâs a straight man,â in the comments, Iâll just say that we already know gay Eddie has been a consideration from LFJR confirming it was originally going to be Tommy and Eddie together, never mind all the queer coding to date in Eddieâs general storyline. If you choose to take Eddieâs words at face value, thatâs fine, you do you! This post will get into why I donât.Â
Eddie tells Father Brian that he doesnât believe that he deserves to be forgiven, so when he sees him again, he recognizes Eddieâs decision to pick the healthier, less fun beverage for what it is: Eddie depriving himself of one of the small joys there are to be found in life. He confronts him on this, asking why he changed his mind, and Eddie looks genuinely perplexed. ââŠdecided I wanted water?âÂ
âSee, I think that you were punishing yourself. I think that you were denying yourself because you donât feel worthy right now.â You can tell that Eddie thinks this is a crock of shit and that the priest doesnât understand him at all - right up until he says Eddie doesnât feel worthy of joy.Â
Eddie tries to deflect by saying he doesnât have a lot to feel joyful about, and in doing so he is denying the accusation by saying itâs not about what he feels heâs worthy of. There just isnât a lot of joy in his life to be had right now. The priest challenges this perspective by putting a positive spin on all of the negative things Eddie lists, and in doing so, removes the excuse Eddie is using to avoid confronting that this is about him punishing himself. That he has been punishing himself, and itâs not clear yet how far back this behaviour actually goes.Â
Because hereâs the thing: Eddie thinks the water is just water. He doesnât understand the subconscious compulsion behind it, because this is something he has been doing for so long it no longer feels abnormal. At some point, he started depriving himself of enjoying the little things in life as a way of punishing himself whenever he felt like he wasnât living up to expectations, whenever he thought he was failing someone. The question is, when did it start, and what was the first thing he felt he deserved punishment for?Â
When Father Brian identifies the mustache as a disguise he asks Eddie what he thinks heâll see when he looks in the mirror without it, and Eddie says he thinks heâll see a failure, a man who doesnât deserve the joy heâs been depriving himself of. In a way, he is trying to become someone else to avoid confronting the person that he actually is, and the reason he feels heâs failed.Â
This isnât really something new: Shannon dies, and Eddie joins an illegal fight club where physical pain becomes an outlet for the anger and frustration heâs feeling. Chris is afraid of losing another parent, so Eddie deprives himself of the job that gives his life meaning outside of being Christopherâs dad rather than trying to find another solution. None of this is even taking into account the relationships he forces himself into because he feels he needs to find a replacement mother for Chris, and how forcing himself into that box he so clearly does not want for himself is just another way of depriving himself of joy.Â
Father Brian tells Eddie that God has already forgiven him for his mistakes, but hereâs the thing: Eddie doesnât give a shit about Godâs forgiveness, not really. The forgiveness Eddie is trying to earn isnât even just Christopherâs - itâs his own, too. And he doesnât know how to do that, because he doesnât know how to love himself. The only part of himself heâs ever tried to love - being a father - has been irreparably damaged in his eyes. So how does he come back from that? How does he get back to a point where he feels deserving of being Christopherâs dad again?Â
Whatâs interesting to me is that I do believe Christopher is the one bit of joy Eddieâs allowed himself up until now. His birth is the only time during Eddieâs entire marriage with Shannon that we see him actually happy, and this is one of the first examples of Eddie being an unreliable narrator that we have in the show because he acts like this wasnât the case.Â
Yet he was visibly unhappy for every part of his marriage we were shown, and by his own admission joining the army was just as much about running from it as it was about providing for his own family. He is unable to define what Shannon means to him, and he says he loved being married to her rather than saying he loved her. But in Shannonâs death, Eddie has romanticized her image so much that when Kim asks if she was the love of his life, he says he thinks she was.Â
If Chris represents one of the sole joys Eddie has allowed himself in life, then Shannon is the reason he has received it, and the guilt he feels for letting her down - for not loving her the way he should, for not being able to be there for her, for not being able to save her despite that being his job - is so immense he canât possibly imagine atoning for it. And to understand his guilt, we have to confront the reason he wasnât able to be the husband he felt she deserved.Â
See, we could maybe argue that Eddie didnât initially try to reconcile with Shannon while she was alive because he felt guilty for pushing her away, except when he has a moment to get back together, he chokes. He canât answer her when she asks what she means to him, and the fact that she even has to ask tells the audience that she isnât sure of his feelings, even though theyâve been actively sleeping together again and spending time together as a family. He is only able to make an offer of commitment when she thinks she is pregnant again, a repeat of how they got married in the first place, and I think thatâs what ultimately answers her question. She is the mother of his child, not the love of his life, but to Eddie, Chris is the real love and joy of his life, so the two kind of feel like the same thing.Â
We have seen in Bobbyâs storyline a widow with a tremendous amount of guilt move on and find his happily ever after. Bobby actually plays a role in the death of his wife and children, and he grapples with his guilt and suicidal tendencies because of it, but he is still able to heal as much as one can from such a trauma and fall in love with Athena.Â
In contrast, Eddie shows no interest in finding another relationship until he is prompted by others. When he does try to date, he has to fake his way through two separate relationships where he just couldnât love them the way he thought he should. He tried to - he wanted to. It would have been easier for him, and for Chris, if he could have.Â
Thereâs nothing objectively wrong with either of the women, he seems to enjoy their company and he finds them to be pretty, but it just isnât enough. On top of that, he admits dating has always felt like a performance, which you can especially see in his relationship with Ana where he just doesnât seem entirely like himself. Heâs the image of the man he thinks she wants him to be, because he doesnât want another repeat of his relationship with Shannon where he always fell short of what she wanted and needed. Heâs the âperfect boyfriend,â except for the part where he doesnât feel the same about her at all.Â
Marisol is a little different. While her development is limited, sheâs got a more laid-back personality that is closer to Eddieâs own, and arguably she should be a good fit. Marisol feels a bit like what Eddieâs idealized relationship with Shannon was like, and thatâs what makes it so very interesting when Eddie blows it all up by going out with Shannonâs doppelganger. Their relationship is an emotional affair, and Eddie admits it isnât sex that he wants with her which is interesting because we know he and Marisol are no longer being intimate. The truth is, he doesnât know what it is he wants from Kim, or frankly Marisol - just like he didnât know with Shannon.Â
Unfortunately, before figuring it out he pays for his sin of lying to everyone - to Chris, to Buck, and to Marisol - by getting caught in the worst possible way and traumatizing Chris in the process. We know this is how he feels from his actual confession to Father Brian, and I think to him it is the worst of all the sins he feels heâs committed because the only way he has been able to make up for everything else up until now is by being the best parent he possibly can. In a way, he has been trying to heal his own childhood trauma by breaking the cycle of toxic parenting, and giving Chris the life he never got to have.
So to Eddie, traumatizing Chris is his greatest failure, and he doesnât know how to recover from it because he still doesnât understand why he got involved with Kim in the first place. Itâs not just that he missed Shannon, or he would be able to explain that. It goes back to what Eddie says to Kim moments before Chris walks in - that he feels broken, and like he canât fix it. This feeling is only compounded by the fear that he has ruined his relationship with his son forever.Â
The conversation with Father Brian tells us that Eddie is hiding from himself and that he is denying himself of his desires as some kind of penance. The priest recognizes this and he recognizes that Eddie doesnât want the cop-out of being forgiven on behalf of God. He is someone who needs to feel they have actually earned it, and thatâs okay - just as long as he remembers that in order to take care of others, he has to take care of himself, too. More than that, heâs directed to do something fun just for himself, and those Catholic rituals that are still part of him even if he doesnât believe in them take over and allow him to do just that.Â
Thereâs something really beautiful about the same institution that led to Eddie and Shannon getting married too young being what kick-starts his journey of self discovery. It was never about rediscovering religion - he was never religious to begin with. It was always about going back to that old wound and finally healing from everything that followed. It was about reclaiming the childhood he lost from growing up too fast. But mostly, it was about being told he is allowed to focus on his needs sometimes, too.Â
These are my rushed thoughts for the people who are anti-gay Eddie as someone who wholeheartedly believes that he is.
The main argument I see against supporting Eddie Diaz as a queer-coded character, and or that his arc isnât right to evolve in the direction of making him canonically gay comes in several different shades of âwe need to see more healthy platonic relationships between men represented in media.â
That sentiment holds value, and it holds weight because itâs accurate. There is no way to negate the need to see that kind of representation or to seek it out within the characters, or stories we love the most.
The root that leads the search for that kind of representation stems from the real societal pressure that in order for men to be man-enough they should throw their hands up in surrender to societyâs void and walk its narrow path. The rusty warnings along the way deem that a fall is deadly, that in a blazing fire it is safest to breathe smoke; that should another man intervene and hold an extinguisher to those flames it works best at a distance. Walk alone, walk far, hold on but not too tight.
Stand at attention. A strong man does not weep. A strong man will provide. A strong man knows Godâs name. A strong man shouldnât feel too deeply. Wonât feel too deeply. Canât feel too deeply. A strong man will do whatâs right, and what needs to be done.
Eddieâs characterization is vast. The show explores the layers that make up each individual piece of his identity, and with each passing year it uncovers more of what heâs tried hardest to bury.
Eddie is a man who grew up navigating that path, walking it over and over until its direction was nothing but wishful thinking-hoping itâll carry him far enough and muscle memory-that it will regardless. Such a rigid path would let him continue onward should he find his eyes shut. A walk might not find itself a tedious task until its direction is challenged, and Eddie is a man who walks forward. This is a man whoâd crawl for miles before stopping to acknowledge his hands and knees were scraped raw.
Itâs a âmanmadeâ path. A path carved through repetition. At any cost he was always going to walk forward in complete darkness.
Eddie wouldnât stop until he finally had visual of the curves in his path-curves someone had created trailing by his side. What could slow his stride other than that which holds Eddieâs heart sane?
His son is perfect-his son will always be perfect. Heâll grow up to be a strong man. Shouldnât feel too deeply. Canât feel too deeply. Wonât feel too deeply.
What is it that holds Eddieâs heart sane?
What is it that makes a man strong?
The hardest moments on the show come when Eddie questions how he could ever call himself a man if he were let his son trail that narrow path behind him, and when he realizes how long he may have been.
This is a man who spent his entire life conforming to fit the wrong definition of strength and man whilst equating the two. Every step he takes to fit a certain narrative weighs him down and sends cracks up the walls he has relied on so heavily to stand tall. Though with every shockwave those walls are bound to cave in.
When Eddie moved away from home he finally found footing in a few different directions. Choosing love slowed his pace. Watching his chosen family in colour could stop him dead in his tracks.
There is beauty in vulnerability. To share love, light, and laughter; to cry, scream and hurt. To have someone, illuminate the best parts of life, and dim the worst. To watch the people he cares the most about exist freely and proudly. To change and regress and grow and change again. To find truth through the broken and mended shards of love that others hold still for him when he canât find his grip.
Bobby and Michael; Chimney and Bobby; Bobby and Eddie; Eddie and Chimney, Buck and Chimney; Buck and Bobby; Albert and Buck; Chimney and Ravi; Eddie and Buck.
âWe need to see more healthy platonic relationships between men represented in media.â Its found in a blended family, its found in chosen family, its found in brotherhood, and its found in partnership, its found in friendship.
To open and close and open again. To bury and uncover and bury, bury deep. To see clearly, find hope and take on change. To know love as unconditional. To realize what you know is no longer what you see. To know that the path youâre expected to walk is not what makes you who you are. That rather, the life you choose, the people you choose, the hearts you hold closest are inherently what carve out what makes up your own.
To see âhealthy platonic relationships between men,â and know that it doesnât change who they are. That the best relationships will only uncover deeper parts of yourself including the ones you didnât know you were allowed to show. Because, what if being vulnerable doesnât make you a certain way⊠what if it just shows you how to be true?
Using that kind of representation against the widely held head-canon that Eddie Diaz is queer-coded becomes homophonic rhetoric when it is found through dozens of men who love, and respect one another without any romantic undertone. To turn around, and actively put the continued search for that representation on the narrow path you fight against is where MY issue lies.
Eddie Diaz is a man who is still walking forward continuing to carve out a path that is bound to crumble.
To uncover the beauty in truth and error. To find connection with other men, and find closeness with another man. To watch the exploration and normalcy of love. To uncover that there is no set path. To know he gets to be who he is as he is, that trying to fit a certain narrative will only ever break his heart over and over and over again. Eddie can find his truth, but heâll find it when he realizes itâs always been present.
What if uncovering the truest parts of himself doesnât make him gay? What if he has a close vulnerable relationship with his best friend and it doesnât make him gay? But what if after everything heâs shoved down and repressed and unmasked-what if he so happens to be gay? I would think that doesnât mean heâs not man enough anymore? If Eddie were to realize he had fallen in love with his best friend does that mean that their vulnerability shared platonically in the past didnât count? Does Eddie being gay mean his journey to find what it is to be a man is void? Does Eddieâs potential queerness eliminate the past elements of platonic vulnerability on the show? Did Buckâs?
There is beauty in vulnerability but the best man knows there is power in acceptance.
Accepting others. Accepting yourself. Accepting the truth as it comes.
If that truth is queer-coded to such a large demographic why is it so unsettling?
A manâs journey to find what it means to be strong despite the void of societyâs narrow path is not devalued by his potential queerness.
okay actually i do need to say this. before i sleep. because if you genuinely believe that buck. BUCK BUCKLEY. truly saw a future with tommy and that this relationship was any different to his previous relationships. you do not understand buck buckley and frankly you never have. like, this is made abundantly clear during the conversation with josh. if you actually care to pay attention. because time and time again buck bases his identity, self-worth and happiness on the person he is dating. josh asks him if he considers tommy's happiness in the same way he considers his own. and buck's answer is yes, of course. because he is fundamentally unable to tell the difference between the two. because he thinks that making tommy happy is the same as being happy himself. when, actually, it's at the expense of his own happiness. he misunderstands entirely what josh is trying to say. he impulsively asks tommy to move in with him because he thinks it will make tommy happy which will then also make him happy. because buck is nothing if not a people pleaser. due to, well. the Trauma. he never got off the hamster wheel. dating a man didn't fix any of this. because it was never about that (and suggesting it was is, well. biphobic actually). buck's issue has always been that he does not know how to be in a relationship without shrinking himself down to the shape and size of a person he thinks his partner wants and losing himself in the process. which he was about to do again. and well. lmao. for once tommy's self-preservation was actually a good thing. because wow, that could have been taylor all over again.
there's just something. i've talked about the way eddie opens the door for buck so many times. how buck has lingered on the threshold of the diaz house so many times but especially in season 4, always waiting to be invited in. how eddie always checks who it is waiting on the other side whether through the peephole or by opening the backdoor just a smidge, and then upon seeing it's buck, flings the door wide open like. hey, it's you, come in, welcome home! how when his life is crashing and burning around him, he opens the door and just walks away because he knows buck will follow him into this mess without a shadow of a doubt. and now there's this. there's eddie, happy and sweaty and pantsless and vulnerable really when you think about it, but still he holds the door open wide, challenging really if you think about it. hey, buck, hey, look at me, ask me about it, i want to share it with you, i'm finding my joy and i want to share it with you.
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