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buddielove · 3 years

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Hi! I'm a gay fan of 911 and I have a question about the whole Buddie fandom. As much as I like Buck and Eddie, it's frustrating that a HUGE part of the fandom is pushing for these two characters to get together instead of putting energy into supporting Hen & Carla and Michael & Dave. Not to mention Carlos and TK in Lone Star. Can you explain to me the appeal of wanting these two men together? Wouldn't it be more interesting to see two heterosexual males just be able to bond in a non-toxic fashion? That's something we don't get to see often on television.

Hey! This is MAD long lmao I am so sorry! You caught me on a day I felt like talking! Also this took like a year to answer you lolololol. This does have a few ʻhot takesʻ so please be warned! So like in this essay....

So first I am also apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, so I do understand how it could come across as a fetish or being non supportive of the current canonically LGBTQIA+ characters, however I think a lot of the interest around Buddie and the want for them to be confirmed as a couple is how they are being written. Me personally I knew since s2 e1 Buck and Eddie were written not as rivals but as two people who would eventually become friends, but it wasn’t until the Christmas episode with the elf assuming Buck was Chris’s dad and Eddie’s partner that I was like ‘hold on!’ because I was really hoping Abbey would return and I didn’t see Eddie as a possible Buck live interest because of that. The elf’s comment wasn’t played off like most other shows would (think Dean and Sam arriving anywhere in Supernatural) it made me go back and look at the other episodes to see exactly how Buck and Eddie were being framed/written. And as we have moved into further seasons I think there has been a shift in how Buddie is being written, in s3 it was very much like two people progressing into a deeper friendship then the blood clot/lawsuit gets in the way and they both have to deal with emotions surrounding that, then Buck’s response to Eddie being trapped (we see how is he when Boddy is trapped in a fire WITH A GUNMAN, it’s emotional but not to the point is is with Eddie), even the love interests feel very pushed on us and there’s so little banter between Buddie about their gfs and how they feel about these new beginnings. It feels off, not like a friendship in the slightest, more like two people trying to force something and not wanting to deal with any other feelings. Then when Eddie gets shot and reveals Buck is Chris’s legal Guardian in the event Eddie dies, that’s huge, and he did this after only a year of knowing Buck (I have friends with kids. I’ve known one of them for FIVE years, I’m at their house every week, the kid calls me family. I’m person #10 on the list of ‘who gets my kid if I die’, not #1 lol) It just feels like it’s all building up to something, and people are getting tired of waiting for that something! We’re all emotionally tired from the past two years, and probably from many shows queerbaiting us and this is something that could happen, seems to be something the actors are ok with and the fans want. So why do they keep drawing it out. This isn’t about us demanding they ignore the chance to write a healthy platonic male friendship, or forcing two characters to be gay, it’s about holding the writers to what they’ve implied and seeing what could come of it.

Also think of it like this; If Buddie is confirmed it will still be a good example of a healthy friendship which then developed into something else, like Booth/Bones! Showing the natural progression of friendship to relationship that happens a lot in real life. It’s two men who previously (on screen at least) have only been with woman, but now they have an emotionally connection with someone which they then develop and explore. This could be 911’s first nontoxic depiction of two gay characters coming together, because sorry not sorry the canon couples aren’t perfect (which does humanize them) but they also reenforce harmful troupes that plaque the LGBTQIA+ community, which I’m sure you understand: TK was a drug addict, who only got with Carlos at first cause he was hot and sex was TK’s new addition (all gay men are sex addicts who do drugs and sleep with anything that moves). Carlos was ashamed and wanted to keep TK on the downlow (poc gay men want to pretend to be straight but have free access to gay sex). Hen cheated on Karen seemingly the first chance she got (lesbians can’t handle monogamy when pushed, and cheat on their long term partners). All known and documented troupes that happen far too often.

I’m not saying Buddie is some gay jesus ship that’s gonna save the entertainment industry but if done right it could prove to be one of the few healthy depictions of two men getting into a gay relationship we have. If they plan it out correctly, show us the relationship development, like they did with Maddie/Chim for example, Buddie could be used as a positive example of a gay fictional relationship (I really could go into depth about this. I probably should tbh).

As for not supporting Hen and KAREN, or Michael and DAVID, I think fans do support them! The writers don’t. If you read fanfics Henren and Michael/David are featured heavily in many fics, and ik some people might say ‘well they’re only there so Buddie can talk about their gay side!!’ but both these couples have their own fans and fanfic tags! They aren’t just plot devices in Buddie stories. There is a huge side of the fandom that supports Henren and wants to see more of them and their family. Same with Michael and David, during the episode where Michael and Bobby team up to find that plastic surgeon who was working illegally many people where ecstatic that we were getting more Michael/David content and that David was getting more than a couple lines. But sadly it seems like the writers only want to delve into these story lines when they need filler, they even miss opportunities to include these other LGBTQIA+ characters when it makes sense;

(Someone came for me about this but I am going to bring it up again)

When Chris is sad and wants more human connection, instead of bring Harry + Michael/David and Denny+Nia+Henren back into the picture (and yes I understood at the time the pandemic was bad (lmao still is!!), but all the actors at some point would have/had crossed over into each other’s ‘bubbles’, so ALL the actors would have been exposed to each other so getting the children together with adults they had ALREADY been with during shooting wouldn’t have been a super spreader event) but instead they brought in Ana after only two on screen dates and pretended like it was a logical thing for someone who’s up to that point been extremely careful with their child.

They really could have pushed the ‘118 is a family!’ message here and included the canonically gay supporting characters, and the lesbian main character(s) but they did not and instead chose to push the Ana/Eddie coupling even though they hadn’t properly developed it yet. The writers themselves don’t seem to care about developing their canonically gay characters and including them more than they have to but fans are continuously developing Henren and Michael/David with hc and fics.

I’d like to use your logic against you for a second, in s1 we have a very healthy, platonic friendship between Chim/Bobby but that got written out to the point they are more like boss/employee unless the scene calls for them to seem closer, we now have Bobby and Michael friendship but again we hardly see Michael. On Lone Star we have Owen and Judd as a really, really good example of a healthy male friendship but we see Judd more often with Tommy now then we do with Owen, and in s2 it’s overshadowed by Owen trusting Charlie from Twilight and constantly getting fucked over! Why can’t the writter just be happy with these happy, healthy, emotionally well male-male friendship they’ve already included and expand upon them. There’s enough drama because the show literally involves burning buildings and people’s lives being at risk from some natural/man made disaster ever 12 seconds. Does it need to have so much interpersonal conflict and male peacocking??

#Buddie #Please donʻt get offended by anything in this!!!#These are JUST my opinions which MAY change the further we get into this show!!#ALSO IT IS JUST A TV SHOW!!!! PLEASE BE KIND TO ME AND TO EACH OTHER

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vyther16 · 3 years

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Hii!! Loving your fic. Also loved the last meta I have just read about yby and romantic feeling. As you have mentioned Teng zijing there, why do you think Yby was pissed off at FX for supposedly killing Teng zijing, pissed enough to pull out his sword at him? He also said, zijing didn't dserve to die. what do you make of that statement? Yby seemd like a man who would think Daqing's dirty politics is worthier than anyone's life. Was it becoz his whole high profile life has fallen apart for him?

Hello!! I'm glad you're enjoying my fic! And I'm glad you enjoyed my 1000+ word projection meta lol. I spent far too much time on that.

I had to go back and watch all of Teng Zijing’s early scenes, as well as Yan Bingyun’s first scene to answer this, because it’s been so long since I watched the earlier parts of the show. I’ve been mostly focused on the BeiQi arc because half of my favorite characters are from that arc, and Breathe au and the meta asks I’ve been getting deal mostly with those characters. So, I uh, I spent most of my weekend crying over Teng Zijing (and homework, but that’s beside the point.)

Now, to the meta:

So, the doylist answers to your questions first because I need to get my rambling thoughts in order for the watsonian answers:

1.why do you think Yby was pissed off at FX for supposedly killing Teng zijing, pissed enough to pull out his sword at him?

I think it was mostly a plot device to quickly introduce a character that we aren’t supposed to think about again for twenty or so eps, and also to help show how badass Fei Jie actually is, because we’ve only seen a goofy, mostly non-threatening side of Fei Jie so far and having all the men be afraid of him just showcases how powerful the man really is. (sorry, i just rewatched ep 1 lol)

2. He also said, zijing didn't dserve to die. what do you make of that statement?

I think yby saying that was mostly intended just to help us as viewers like teng zijing a little more and help solidify tzj as an important, honest character. I don’t think it was supposed to have any bearing on yby’s characterization tbh

3.Yby seemd like a man who would think Daqing's dirty politics is worthier than anyone's life. Was it becoz his whole high profile life has fallen apart for him?

I have no doylist answer to this question, just watsonian ones, so, more under the cut.

I’m unseparating the questions now because my watsonian answer is rambly and circles back and around to the different questions

Alright, this is deep into headcanon territory because, uh, these two characters never interact in the show, but I think that Yan Bingyun and Teng Zijing were as close to friends as Bingyun would allow himself. Like, I won’t go so far as to say they were bffs, because they most definitely were not, but they definitely had a slightly closer relationship than strictly perfection. (That sounds like they hooked up but i can assure you they did not. Teng Zijing is a devoted husband and yby has a hang-up or two about sex and attatchment. And tzj is firmly uninterested in teenagers anyway.)

I don’t think that they started off on the right foot, because Yan Bingyun is a teenager raised in a cult who has a position of relative power in said cult, and Teng Zijing is newly married man who is being blackmailed into working for said cult through the use of threats towards his newborn son and newlywed wife. Teng Zijing has a lot of (justified) anger at Overwatch, and Yan Bingyun would represent the corruption he sees in the system. (Because yby does represent the corruption in the system, to a much further extent than tzj would be able to see.)

Yan Bingyun wouldn’t have liked tzj at first because Teng Zijing is remarkably normal and well-adjusted, and that would have been so so strange to yby because tzj is not a diehard Everything is for DaQing overwatch member. He’s putting in enough effort that they don’t kill his family, and Yan Bingyun just fundamentally wouldn’t understand that. Yan Bingyun was raised that Everything is for DaQing, even his life should the mission require it. Yan Bingyun’s self is not his own. His life is for the state cause. “[Yan Bingyun’s] life is a coin to be spent by the state of Qing however the emperor likes, and he’s accepted this,” (x)(I’m quoting hunxi-guilai’s meta yet again bc it’s so good and fundamental to my understanding of yby)

But I think as they spent more time together (which they would have had to, given that they were colleagues, and Overwatch isn’t necessarily just a day job), Tang Zijing starts to realize that, ‘hey, this is a 16 year old boy who has been basically brainwashed his whole life. Until I can get the fuck out of this hell hole, I ought to do something to teach him that this isn’t all there is to life.’ (if he can’t parent his own son, he’ll parent someone else's until he can.) He does his missions, makes himself invaluable to yby, and tries to subtly knock some sense into him. It almost works, but yby also has Yan Ruohai and Chen Pingping (and Zhu Ge tbh) whispering in his ears and keeping him blindly, suicidally loyal to Qing.

And then Teng Zijing receives the fake orders to go kill Fan Xian, and then the orders are fake, and Yan Bingyun is made to take the fall because Chen Pingping has been planning this since he took Xiao En’s baby grandson 20 years ago. Teng Zijing sees the perfect opportunity to get out of Overwatch and has Fan Xian fake his death. And Yan Bingyun loses the one person who has been consistently a good subordinate and a good acquaintance. (Yby is not emotionally capable of friends yet okay?)

And immediately after losing that, he is told that he is going to BeiQi, for failing to train his men well enough to spot a fake order. So yes, I think he’s a little pissed that his entire fancy life is falling down around him, but that’s not, I think, what led him to point a sword at Fan Xian. In my hc, he genuinely did not think tzj deserved to die, and he was avenging his trusted subordinate in the only way he knew how. And while, yes, I do think yby would think that daqing politics are more important than people’s lives, i don’t think he’d appreciate a death that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with personal grudges. As far as Yan Bingyun knows, Fan Xian killed Teng Zijing in cold blood, after it came through that he was just following orders, and according to Yan Bingyun’s view of life, if it’s done under orders, you are not responsible for it. They were orders, and they were meant to be obeyed.

it took me nearly a thousand words to get to the point where i could actually answer your questions anon wow. That’s very typical of me isn’t it. Anyway, I’m tossing this to void without editing because it’s 9pm and I have class at 7am tomorrow and need to pull everything together. (weather permitting because it is icy af rn

#asks #anon #joy of life #qing yu nian #yan bingyun #teng zijing #meta #watch me fluctuate wildly between using full names initials and personal names for the characters #also watch me forget what the hell a capital letter is unless it's for ~dramatic effect~ or a name #and even then not always #i edit the hell out of my fics so that my dumb typing stuff gets fixed bc if i don't all my fics would look like my metas #and no one wants to read a fic with weird capitalization #at least i don't but maybe one of you all do idk #sorry about the editing today anon

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