#911 character study

[ironwolf011]

Buddie Character Study

Eddie: 

An isolater.

Afraid of commitment and being trapped in a life where he may be susceptible to falling short of his responsibilities. Religious guilt due to having dwindling faith, not only in God but in himself as well.

Eddie hides his emotions because he’s scared of how deep they are.

Eddie never builds that emotional attachment from the beginning. He has a deep-rooted self-hatred due to years of pressure from society and his parents' expectations. His parents raised him to be a man, and in doing so, never taught Eddie how to be human. This is why he falls back on heterosexual relationships.

There’s a clear line. A role to fill. He only got into a relationship with Shanon. When they met, he didn’t feel forced to perform. But then societal expectations were pushed on him, and she got pregnant. Then, it was right back to those roles.

He was expected to step up, provide, and be a man. Thus, he goes to the manliest thing he can think of: the Army. He had no roles in the Army. Just Eddie Diaz, a comrade, a soldier. He had taken after his parents, throwing himself into work just like his father, and realized this was becoming a vicious cycle. He was taught his entire life that he had to be the one to step up and bear all that weight. So he denies himself pleasures.

Eddie is a physical provider who needs someone emotionally intelligent because his parents never were. 

Buck:

A clinger.

Buck hides his emotions, and by doing so, he tends to put on a front that others may see on the outside, but it leads to a deep, irrational fear of people leaving him once they get past the surface level.

In doing so, he craves that emotional connection, anything to feel seen, but it almost becomes excessive. He often comes off as too strong or overbearing because of the attention and love he was denied as a child. Which, ultimately, leads to him having hookups and one-night stands, avoiding those emotions altogether, because every time feelings get involved, and he gets attached, people leave.

Buck wants people to stay because his entire life, he’s been ignored.

He needs to be needed, because he never had anyone who cared enough to acknowledge him or step up and be that rock for him. So he learned how to do it himself.  He would pick up skateboarding, get a motorbike, break limbs, be careless, anything to get people to notice.

He realized the only way he could get people to care about him was when he was being reckless. Which is where firefighting comes in, because no one saw firefighters as reckless or irresponsible.

Firefighters were heroes. Firefighters were brave. And all Buck ever wanted was to be depended on.

Buck is an emotionally intelligent person who needs to be provided for because his parents never did. 

Two sides of the same coin. Both are providers, both have absent parents, but for different reasons. They balance each other out and exactly what the other needs to succeed. 

[shortsandfics]

Maddie Buckley was a sister, a wife, and a mother. She loves her kids. Robby and Jee-Yun

She was a mother before she ever had a child though.

She loves her kids. She loves her husband. She loves her brothers.

She remembers the week before she ran from her ex husband. When she sat in bathroom of the hospital she worked at, she stared at the test and sobbed. She remembers her baby. She knew she had to leave when she saw the plus sign. She never told Doug never. She was waiting for his next on call night to leave.

Then during dinner one night she dropped a plate. And Doug was mad. So mad he turned red. He didn’t stop that night not till she begged she still never told him about her pregnancy. She left the next morning. She was off. She got her stuff and she didn’t look back. She stopped at a small town hospital 5 hours after she started driving. She doesn’t even know what state it was in. She didn’t remember which direction she had driven. She went into the hospital and asked for a sonogram. She asked for a whole battery of tests. She was bleeding but she needed conformation. When she got that conformation she sobbed.

She never told anyone what happened. She never told anyone of the 2 days spent in that motel room waiting for the bleeding to finally stop.

No one but Frank ever knew what had happened.

And a month later when she ended up in an apartment that belonged to the ghost of first Buck’s girlfriend, she looked at her brother, her baby. The boy she raised.

Daniel told her, he was dying, he knew it. And he asked her at 8 years old to look after Evan. He knew this was going to destroy their parents. Daniel laying in a hospital bed took one look at Evan, Danny, he said Evan was going to be good and loving. And he told Maddie in whispered tears, to raise him to be strong, like a firefighter.

Maddie knew Evan. She caught all his lies. She scolded him Evan at young ages. She watched him grow even when he didn’t know she was watching. At work in Hershey, she only ever looked at news from LA. She saw the news when he climbed that roller coaster, she watched him lose Devin. It killed her not to reach out.

So when she got to him and she saw him, she knew they would grow together. Be happy in this place her first baby made his home. Then when she had her children he held them and told them he loves them. She vowed to raise them to be strong too.

[galacticalec]

give us the explanation !!!!

Without further ado—

the list of reasons that I wholeheartedly believe the Buckley siblings are, in fact, just a torti and a goldie in disguise as humans:

Maddie is so spunky. We may not see it when we first meet her, still reeling from her experiences and the escape from her ex-husband, but it is so abundantly clear that she has this lovely, quirky, fire-y attitude that is, coincidentally, often a trait seen in tortoiseshell cats! Many call it a tortitude! Tortoiseshell cats are often hailed by vets and cat owners alike as super spunky, independent, and occasionally feisty. Sound familiar? (Josh and Maddie’s friendship is one very stellar example of it in action!)

Buck’s often blind loyalty, even when it turns toxic, is so quintessential golden retriever. From his trust in ex-partners to his trust in Bobby, the 118, his parents, Buck has had SO MANY INSTANCES of his trust being broken, of his blind faith and loyalty being used as a shield, leading to Buck himself getting ruined mentally and occasionally physically as a result. Many breeds of dogs are known to be loyal to a fault, but golden retrievers are on another level. One of the reasons that a decent portion of service dogs are goldens is due to their temperament, their ability to focus on a task for the purpose of helping their person out, while still being social enough to handle large crowds of people.

Maddie values her own space and independence while also being close to a select few, sometimes finding herself drifting far away from those she cares about for longer periods of time but always. coming. back. Much like a cat and their people, Maddie spends a solid portion of her time separated from the rest of her family (and extended 118 family), between her job in dispatch, where it is almost always her alone on each call, and her yearning to have her own place, her own stuff, her own memories after moving to L.A, I’d argue that Maddie is one of the most solitary characters in the show, but that does not make her cold or rude, but instead highlights how happy she is when she gets those moments with Chim or Buck or Josh or the many MANY members of her new west coast family!

Buck is task-oriented and “trainable”, for the lack of a better word. This one doesn’t need much explanation— look at his history of rehabilitation! Buck wants to get back to work? He will break records doing so. He found a structure and a skillset in firefighting that he loves and genuinely continues to improve upon. You can also insert here Clipboard Buck, the ultimate malicious compliance, task-oriented, trying to be helpful golden retriever in a man costume. Many Goldens are renowned for their technical abilities, and some are even known to take advantage of their knowledge to open doors they shouldn’t open or game their owners for extra treats.

Here are some rapid fire extras as well:

This is not the case in every house, but with every cat/dog house I have been in with bonded animals, the dog is always enthusiastic and ready to play but tries to respect the cat’s boundaries (sometimes the dog forgets and they get into spats but they always somehow end up playing or napping nearby by the end of the night anyway). Buck and Maddie may have their moments of upsetting one another but at the end of the day, they will always be there in each-other’s corners.

Color-scheme wise, it tracks.

Siblings who would go to war for their loved ones would of course be some of the most loyal yet often underrated protectors (cats being prone to sensing mood shifts and often moving to comfort and stand by their side while dogs will get defensive and physically fend off any who wish their people harm).

Buck and Goldies both being eager to experience anything and everything while Maddie and Tortis are more cautious and selective, more likely to stick to what they know (Maddie hopping jobs to dispatch to continue helping people in dire situations like when she was a nurse, for example)

I have more, honestly, but this list ALREADY got away from me. ,:))

(special shoutout to @kinkley-are-adorkable-flirts and @operator-please-take-my-call for requesting more!!)

[fionaswhvre]

I can't believe there are Buck stans out there who hate Maddie for leaving him?? Did y'all never watch the show or do you not understand how abuse works?? Maddie is someone who grew up with parents who were too busy grieving their dead child to love their remaining children. While Buck had his older sister looking out for him, she had no one until she met Doug. Doug was probably really nice to her at first. Maybe he was the first person to show Maddie the kind of love she always wanted. Maybe he was showing Maddie he was protecting her by keeping her away from the rest of the world. Like Eddie, Maddie was always the caretaker. She raised Buck and took care of her grieving mother. So when she found someone who was willing to take care of her, in his own fucked up way, she found herself drawn to him because she had never been shown any better love.

So of course she doesn't want to leave the one person who's willing to love her. That doesn't mean she doesn't love Buck. She loves him like her own son. She gave him her own jeep, essentially cutting off her own means to escape an abusive partner.

She was also a teenager who fell in love with the wrong person. She is not a villain, she is a victim.

[fionaswhvre]

I've seen a lot of people call Eddie ooc this season and while I appreciate everyone's opinions, here are my reasons about why it isn't true:

• Lighter version: First of all, Ryan Guzman already said in interviews that we're gonna see a lighter Eddie this season, because this is the first time we're seeing him without any trauma. So obviously he's gonna look and act different.. this is just a version we haven't seen before and we've got an explanation why.

•7×04: People saying this episode was very OOC of Eddie to not pay attention to Buck's needs- it was confirmed by Tim that the entire episode was in Buck's POV so he was seeing things that weren't there.

That being said, even if the episode wasn't from Buck's POV, I don't think it is very wrong of Eddie to make a new friend and for once, may not be in tune with Buck's every need. This is the first time we've seen him this chippy and relaxed and he is someone who's known for always taking care of others instead of himself. So maybe if for once he cannot see if his very much adult friend is jealous of his other adult friendship, that's not on him.

Also, it was established by the end that Eddie was feeling bad for making Buck feel left out, which is a very in character thing for him. He was the one who felt bad for missing out on how Buck was feeling.

• 7×05: There were a lot of weird things going on with Eddie this episode, I will admit. First was his asking Marisol to move in with him, when we haven't even seen them exchange words before this.

First, this very issue was addressed by Bobby. He said that he doesn't think Eddie seems to be in love enough with her for them to be living together. Now, Eddie would be considered OOC if he was acting this way and everyone in the show thought this was normal. But, when people in the universe are addressing that he's acting differently, then that means it is a deliberate writer's choice to show us that. They're voicing the audience through their characters.

We have never seen Eddie talk about sex this much before, but that could make sense if he's overcompensating for something. And given how much comphet his conversation with Bobby indicated, I do think that his sudden interest in sex can count as an overcompensation.

I know people wanted to see jealous Eddie when Buck told him about Tommy, but in that moment it wouldn't make sense for him to show any negative emotion when Buck was being so vulnerable. In a classic Eddie Diaz fashion, whatever he was feeling, he hid it well or is not ready to accept it himself, and he only wanted to be as supportive of Buck as he could.

The only thing throwing me off is how he said that he tends to move too fast. But in the same episode he said he could be a commitment phobe. So I think Eddie is himself confused about what he's feeling rn and Tim has said that he will be questioning these things soon.