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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 1 month

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why are people so against oliver and ryan talking about buddie, don't we want this, don't we want buddie to be canon? i'm sorry are we rooting for buck to end up with tommy or something, like I don't understand why so many people are saying stop asking them about buddie?

If we want Buddie then shouldn't we be asking buddie questions? I mean I'm so sorry but I'm just very confused, shouldn't we be happy that buddie is getting this much press and love? Why are we against it?

Okay, this is going to be a long one.

There are a few reasons why people are concerned about publications teasing Buddie happening and using the ship name and asking Oliver and Ryan about the ship. I'll try to be as concise as possible.

I would like to note, I'm not going to answer a bunch of questions about this. Other people have answered similar questions plenty of times, if you take a bit to look around 911blr. I'm sure @catdadeddie has gone into this a few times.

However, I understand that we are getting a lot of new fans this season, and so I want to try and explain comprehensively for those who haven't been around. I hope this covers everything.

Whenever a ship is between two people of the same gender as opposed to two people of the opposite gender (I know, I know, but we can't get into the gender spectrum right now just play along with me), everyone involved has to be very, very careful when it comes to talking about that ship ahead of said ship going canon.

It is very easy to slip into something called "queerbaiting." I'm assuming that you and most people online and in fandom by now have heard of this term but just in case: queerbaiting is when a show acts like a queer ship might happen in marketing and promotion in order to draw in a queer audience.

Historically, this was done by having a main character played by a woman have a romantic thing with another woman (flirting, even kissing!) who was a guest star, hinting at the main character's bisexuality/queerness, only for that guest star to never come back and for the show to act like it had never happened. This was done during something called, IIRC, "sweeps week" which was basically an important week for TV viewer ratings in the 90s. It was a way to boost your numbers by drawing in queer viewers with the promise of actual queer rep that then wasn't realized. It's a marketing tactic.

Nowadays the nature of queerbaiting has changed a bit. It's an overused term that frankly people love to (mis)use whenever a ship of theirs doesn't go canon and a show dares to do things like having two people (like say Ryan and Oliver) who play the two halves of the ship do an interview together (whether you ship Buddie or not, they are close friends, and it makes sense that they'd do a few interviews together - that is not queerbaiting). A good example of real queerbaiting is Rizzoli & Isles which, among other things, took out billboards and magazine spreads showing the characters (two women) in suggestively sexual and romantic positions and with slogans hinting that the two had more than just friendship together, then never, ever delivered on it and in fact laughed at the idea of the characters being gay for each other.

(I WAS THERE, GANDALF!!!)

Because of this unfortunate treatment of queer audiences and the (historic) dearth of actual queer characters and queer ships going canon (it's getting better but still), networks, showrunners, and so on have to be very careful when, say, they want to make a queer ship canon.

Look at how ABC handled Chenford, a popular ship in their show The Rookie. Chenford was not a planned ship - the fans adored the chemistry between the two characters (Lucy Chen and Tim Bradford), the writers liked the idea and decided to lean into it, ABC gave the go-ahead, and the ship officially got together and went canon last season. ABC heavily promoted Chenford and the ship and made a lot of jokes about it in the last couple of seasons leading into the ship going canon, using the ship heavily in their marketing.

ABC cannot necessarily do that with Buddie, because even if Buddie is going canon, until that happens, they could get accused of queerbaiting. There's a much bigger minefield to navigate because of this historic misuse of queer audiences and queer characters.

So whenever journalists and publications use a popular non-canonical queer ship name for clicks and fandom interest, if that ship doesn't immediately go canon or if the network/showrunner/etc doesn't say "yeah they're totally gonna kiss! with tongue!" people accuse the show of queerbaiting. This is unfair to the show for two reasons: one, the network is not going to bother sending "shut the fuck up" letters to every single damn publication out there for using a ship name in their headline and talking about a ship - they'll be accused of homophobia and it draws even MORE attention to the issue re: the Barbra Streisand effect (look it up); and two, the people involved in the show are NOT going to spoil the anticipation and surprise by admitting ANY ship is going to go canon before it does.

This is simple marketing - the movie trailer doesn't (or shouldn't, anyway) show you the ending of the movie or everything that happens in it. TV shows want you to tune in every week and speculate and guess. They're not gonna spoil a ship ahead of time.

This means that when journalists and articles pull this shit, they're putting the showrunner, the writers, the actors doing interviews, and the network in a bad situation that they can't really do anything about. Not without causing more mess.

So that's reason number one why a lot of us are annoyed: by yelling about Buddie, these articles and journalists are setting the cast and crew we love up to get yelled at for queerbaiting if Buddie doesn't immediately happen, and there's nothing the cast and crew can do about it, and it's all so the journalists and articles can use us, the fandom, for clicks. So we're also kinda getting used here, and it doesn't feel great.

The second reason we're annoyed about Buddie questions is that it's being asked of the actors who, nine times out of ten, have ZERO CONTROL OVER THE STORYLINES.

Now, there are exceptions. Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays Maddie, has pushed back on a couple storylines that were given to her and has therefore had a strong hand in shaping Maddie's character. One infamous (in a positive way) example is that Maddie and Eddie were supposed to be an endgame couple. JLH, however, immediately loved the character of Chimney and clicked with Chim's actor Kenneth Choi, so she asked if Maddie could get with Chim instead, feeling he'd be a better fit for her character. And lo, both the beautiful ship Madney and the insanity that is Buddie shipping was born because Buck ended up stepping into that co-parenting-Chris role that Maddie obviously would've originally filled.

However, it should be noted that JLH was an established star before coming onto 9-1-1, and her husband is friends with Tim the showrunner. I would argue that the only other two actors who have any power on their storylines are Peter and Angela, the latter because she can do whatever she wants forever, and the former because (like Angela) he is an executive producer on the show.

It's not that actors never ever get to have a say ever, but the writers, showrunner, and network have much more power. They create the storylines, they make the decisions. Not actors. So when the actors are repeatedly asked about a ship, they're put in an awkward position where they might not even know the full storyline for their character that season and now they need to answer in a way that doesn't reveal any information they do know, but also doesn't insult shippers or dash their hopes. This is a double minefield for queer ships because, again: historic insults to queer fans and characters, nobody wants to be offensive.

The third reason is that this fandom has, historically, treated Tim, Oliver, and others like absolute dogshit over Buddie not going canon. Oliver's left Twitter and taken big social media breaks because of how he was yelled at online. It's not cool, guys. Vent all you want but directing it at the cast and crew isn't okay and maybe if it was just you talking sternly that would be fine (maybe) but when it's dozens of people? It's bullying. Full stop.

Every single time Buddie has not gone canon instantly, the actors and others have gotten verbally abused on social media. Every time the actors have been asked about Buddie and not said "ohmygod yes I want it to happen so bad" (they are not allowed to say this because it might create false hope because again: historical queerbaiting) they've gotten yelled at. We are tired of the actors getting yelled at over something over which they have no control.

The fourth reason is that Oliver, especially, has gotten asked about Buddie a LOT. A lot. The poor man is very tired. He's been cornered about Buddie and asked about it aggressively by certain journalists (one journalist, Max Gao, actually tried to corner Gavin who plays Chris over Buddie - this was a few years ago so Gavin was even younger than he is now and I personally think that is an incredibly unfairly loaded question to give to a child).

If I may dive into speculation for a moment, given how the actors have been SO gleeful about the move to ABC, the fact that they've admitted ABC is letting them do storylines and little moments that FOX wouldn't, and a few other things I won't get into here because this damn thing is long enough already... I suspect FOX would not let Buddie happen. If this is the case, then actors being asked about Buddie is even more loaded because they are being asked questions about it and they can't say "yeah we want to but the network won't let us." THEY WILL GET FIRED FOR THIS.

But, whether or not my speculation is true, the fact remains that when you are repeatedly, over and over, aggressively asked if this fan ship is going to happen or not, you get tired. There's only so many times that someone can give a diplomatic answer before you just want to snap "stop fucking asking me!" Journalists love to take advantage of fandom and social media chatter to get attention for their articles so asking over and over again about Buddie isn't because they genuinely care or think it'll happen, it's to get shippers reading their article, and so bombarding the actors and writers with this question when they've already kinda said their peace a lot about it is frustrating. Just! Leave them alone!

And AGAIN: if this was a M/F ship there could maybe be room for teasing the will-they-won't-they but because of historically bad treatment of queer characters and fans, THEY CANNOT DO THAT. So the only option open to them is to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT. And keeping one's mouth shut and threading that diplomatic needle for years is EXHAUSTING.

We do want Buddie to be canon, nonny, and in my opinion we are going to get it. All this recent PR supports that, (again: in my opinion).

However, we have seen Oliver get bombarded with what he thinks about Buddie until the cows come home, and he deserves a break. There's nothing new he can say, there's nothing new he's allowed to say. We have seen other parts of the fandom scream that we're being queerbaited because Buddie didn't instantly go canon, without any consideration for the fact that a) queerbaiting is a marketing tactic and b) there might be other factors at play preventing it going canon. We have seen journalists take advantage of us, the shippers, in order to get attention, and we have seen them create an awkward and embarrassing atmosphere in interviews by repeatedly asking about the ship. We have seen shippers make us look bad by hounding the cast and crew on social media about Buddie, treating every woman actress who plays a Buck/Eddie love interest like shit (yes, I know about Edy, but she could be a saint and parts of the fandom would still go onto Instagram to call her names), and generally being absolute pills that would tempt any showrunner, actor, or writer to say "y'know what fuck 'em let's not make Buddie canon I'm not rewarding this shitty behavior."

"If we want Buddie then shouldn't we be asking Buddie questions?" No. Not like journalists and fans have been. It's something to bring up - in my opinion - sparingly and with an awareness of how queer storylines and ships and fandom have been mocked, ignored, baited, and so on over the years. They don't ask about Buddie because they give a shit. They ask because they want our clicks for their ad revenue and they want our retweets and likes and comments. And it's certainly not something to bombard the actors with on social media and bitch at them if it doesn't happen. It just makes the rest of fandom look bad and makes us look like children.

Additionally: These are not new questions! They're not only asking these questions now that it looks like Buddie will go canon, with serious hope and consideration based on the marketing and storylines. They've been asking this since season fucking two, when Buddie was clearly not planned, just to get fangirl (gn) clicks. They wanted to get attention and teehee over how Oliver/Ryan/whoever reacted to people thinking Buck and Eddie should touch dicks. 'Kay?

We know the pattern. So when every piece of media is screaming BUDDIE!!! we are not seeing it as "OMG could we go canon?" We see it as another round of being taken advantage of for article attention, another round of parts of the fandom being bullies and yelling about being baited, and another round of the actors being backed into uncomfortable corners.

That's why we're concerned, worried, and annoyed.

*collapses* I hope this covered everything and explained it all.

#mads answers things #THIS IS SO LONG OH GOD #I wouldn't know concise if it smacked me in the face #making this rebloggable for now so people can spread the information if they find it helpful/informative #but the moment there is clowning (derogatory) I'm turning reblogs OFF I do NOT have the patience #I spent an hour working on this instead of the F&F AU so like not to sound aggressive but this BETTER have answered y'all's questions LOL

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