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summerongrand · 2 days

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Just wanted to say I appreciate your take on the whole white man/woc imbalanced power plot issue. This is something that I had a big problem with in season 4 and others definitely seemed to pick up on the same when all the storylines were Wesley, Nolan or Tim centric, and Nyla, Angela and Lucy were seemingly left as the 'other'. However I feel like I saw the issue be forgotten in the fandom a little. It seems this show has consistently favoured highlighting the male struggle and treating female storylines as trivial and unworthy, other than that of Bailey, the then newly introduced and now main cast white female character. I thought this would change with Lucy's story now being written consistently in s6 but it's clear that Tim's potentially the more favourable storyline. Now I can't speak from a psychological standpoint on what Tim did to Lucy but from a plot pov it's definitely making the white man vs woc power issue glaringly obvious. He is the one that gets to start or end their relationship. He's the white man with issues that is allowed to feel what he wants and grow his character while the asian woman is left behind despite her own depth and trauma. Let's hope that Lucy is given the same grace of dealing with her issues and growing as Tim, and Lucy gets her power back.

Hi Anon!

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful message. And thanks for patiently waiting for my response. I agree with everything you said. I believe the post you’re referring to is this one and possibly this one too.

It’s clear that the show has favored male storylines, particularly those of Wesley, Nolan, and Tim (and Bailey a non-WOC), while sidelining WOC ones. And even though the focus here is on Lucy and Chenford, I’m equally happy and willing to talk about race through the POVs of Angela/Wopez and Nyla/Jayla too.

I don’t think the actual act of Tim breaking up with Lucy has a racial dynamic to it other than the obvious. Them being of different races is just who they are. But their overall relationship (TO/Rookie, mentor/mentee, sergeant/gofer, friends, couple, etc.) does. And Melissa, bless her heart (affectionate), codes so heavily as Chinese in her mannerisms too and this gets projected onto Lucy. But that’s not talked about very often either. I say all of this to agree with you, Anon, because the “white man vs woc power issue” as you described has existed the whole time.

Let’s look at S5b and S6. A WOC masterminded the career progressions of at least two middle aged white men. One of them derailed her career progression. The other one broke up with her. Both broke her heart in very different ways. We did get some of Lucy’s character development and growth in S6 on the front end of the season. But even within that, her storyline has been about the 5 player trade (made to benefit Tim primarily) and Tim not being comfortable with her in UC. Tim gets demoted but he has a cushion to fall on because Lucy trampolined him into the Metro clouds and now the show’s able to use what Lucy did to benefit Tim again and use that to give him room to fall back on. This is part of the whole ‘using a WOC as a plot device to further a white man’s story’ which I’ve shared about in regards to the breakup (which is different than the act of breaking up) and you've detailed out too. We’ll see what happens to her story in the next few episodes, and I too hope that Lucy is given the same grace and that she does get her power back. But no matter what happens in future episodes, that trope was used so the genie’s already out of the bottle.

You did bring up the fandom, so I am going to talk about it a little more. This next part may be hard to hear, Anon, but … I have received negativity from Chenford fans for talking about Lucy and Melissa O’Neil’s race. This shows me that this topic is so worth talking about because there are people who feel a certain way about seeing race-related discussions about Lucy (they don’t want to be anywhere near it) and I do believe it’s unhealthy for the fandom to have these beliefs about a WOC. Others in the fandom have also encountered negativity and pushback when discussing this topic. Maybe it's even happened to you. People have shared their fandom experiences with me privately, but you’re the first to do it Anonymously which is great because that means you’ve given me the opportunity to respond to you publicly.

Challenging this negatively held belief within our fandom and embracing Lucy/Mel’s racial and cultural identity is a worthy endeavor so let’s move the dial on that. It starts with talking about these topics in the context of The Rookieverse and keeping an open mind if these topics are unfamiliar to us. I mean, Mel wants more of that too.

Thanks again, Anon!

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loveyourownsmiilee · 23 days

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Buddie & Chenford: Interesting Similarities, Pure Coincidence, Or Smart Marketing?

Hello friends!! I’ve been thinking a lot about these two pairings and the actors that play these characters lately. And I just keep thinking about similarities I’ve noticed both with the actors and the characters. So I went on a deep dive and uncovered some things that were eye opening and eyebrow rising. Again these are all things I’ve just found to be suspiciously similar and made me really side eye everything that we’ve seen and everything that’s yet to come. I’m simply sharing my findings and once again leaving you to come to your own conclusions. I’m not trying to force any specific opinion onto anyone, simply sharing some things I found to be very similar and suspicious. These are my thoughts and I’m just sharing them. Take what you will from this please.

In this post I will be discussing a lot about certain people so I wanted to make a quick introduction to them:

Eric Winter who plays Tim Bradford

Melissa O’Neil who plays Lucy Chen

Oliver Stark who plays Evan Buckley

Ryan Guzman who plays Eddie Diaz

Alexi Hawley, The Rookie’s show runner

Tim Minear, 9-1-1’s show runner

The similarities I’ve uncovered far surpass what we’ve seen of the characters on the show. There have been some parallels with Chenford and Buddie and sure I will discuss that briefly. But I’m mainly going to focus on the behaviors of the actors portraying them.

The one obvious difference as of right now between the two pairings is that Chenford is currently an established couple, whereas Buddie is still considered to be platonic.

But before Chenford became a thing, they had a huge fan base who would ship the two characters heavily because of their natural chemistry on and off the screen. Early on, the characters started as mentor/mentee type where Bradford was Chen’s Sargent and partner while she was a rookie in the LAPD. Kind of like Buck and Eddie but only in the sense where they’re partners at work even though Eddie was technically a probie his first year!

Alexi gave many interviews in the beginning how he didn’t think there’d ever be a time they’d persue a romantic relationship between those two characters regardless of the magic they brought onto the show. He did emphasize that they had a specific dynamic and that it’s mostly come from the actors chemistry.

Now why do I mention this? Because Tim has been very back and forth about Buddie. In the beginning he too would talk about their chemistry and dynamic but wouldn’t confirm or deny if things would become romantic.

Both Alexi and Tim had been asked questions on whether or not Chenford and Buddie would become anything more. And in the earlier years, both showrunners would stick to explaining how the chemistry these four had was very palpable and something they hadn’t foreseen. And that neither showrunner would stop writing specific scripts to prevent that intimacy and chemistry from flourishing.

Recently though, both their tones have changed. Both Alexi and Tim have made it known that they want to keep exploring the dynamic/relationship the characters have on the show.

Alexi:

Tim:

In an interview during season 3, Oliver mentioned how Tim doesn’t really anticipate how certain scenes he writes will come into fruition because of the chemistry between Ryan and Oliver.

So basically even though neither relationship was originally in the plans, the showrunners couldn’t account for the beautiful natural chemistry between their actors. And once the stories started rolling out, they couldn’t help that their viewers started seeing a deeper bond then what was intended.

Joint Press Tours

As we know, Oliver and Ryan have been going on this press tour together to promote this season of 9-1-1. And a lot of their interviews really hone in on the Buddie relationship. Well Eric and Melissa also went on a press tour before the season their characters got together romantically. It’s interesting because they went on similar talk shows as Ryan and Oliver and even got asked similar questions.

One important thing to mention is the love for the fans all four of these actors have. They’re always mentioning their respective fan base who without our love and support, wouldn’t have such a lovely coupling on a show so many people watch. Here’s a little video of all four of them mentioning their fans and how without us they wouldn’t be able to do what they do.

This next thing is probably nothing but I just found it a little interesting because both of those relationships had an article dedicated to their respective timelines.

Now I don’t see articles such as this for any other friendship on either show. Nor have I seen one recently for any of the established couples. But there was a deliberate reason they created one for Buck and Eddie. And that happened to be something they also did with Tim and Lucy when they became a couple. So I just find this interesting and somewhat suspicious.

The Actors Thoughts Matter Too

Throughout the years, all four actors have been asked endlessly about their thoughts on their characters’ relationships. And I would say they’ve always somewhat varied. Like in the beginning, it’s really blatantly obvious that all four actors were adamant about what a great friendship it was and it was pretty much mostly platonic. But all four of them were also on board should things take a romantic turn. Instead of posting pictures, I’m just going to insert a few quotes from each of them.

Eric Winter: “Whether it's deeper friendship or whether it's going to be love, whatever the case is, she's not his typical rookie.” In the same article he mentioned how he “was on board with it” should it go in the romantic direction. (x)

Melissa O’Neil: “At that point, [the chatter] was really happening online, and we thought for sure that maybe there was subtext…We were asking [Hawley]: 'Is this a true confession that she's masking as a thing?' And he goes, 'No, it's not. This is a joke.' So I don't know when it clicked. But I was surprised because even at that point, it was not a thing." (x)

Ryan Guzman: “If the fans want to go there with it, it’s cool. I mean, we see all the memes, we see all the things that are posted on Instagram and you know I’m all for it.” (x)

Oliver Stark: “If somebody watches the show and that is what they read into it then I’m all for it. I’m so yes so wherever it goes I’m happy to go with it.” (x)

It’s always a good thing for any ship that the actors portraying them are on board and can see the potential of a romance brewing. It also stems from having that raw natural chemistry with your on screen partner which both pairs have. It makes it easier to come off on screen and that’s what grabs the audience’s interest.

I mean there’s a lot more articles and a simple Google search can bring you to them. I personally think this is already long enough but we all pretty much know that the actors love these characters and would be alright with them being in romantic relationships. We’ve already gotten Chenford and with the similarities we’ve seen and may continue to see, I think Buddie is on the same track to becoming canon too. Especially considering they’re now on the same network and have similar publicity strategies being implemented.

Buddie & Chenford Parallels:

The final thing I’m going to bring up will be the similar storylines or scenes we’ve gotten on both shows that heavily parallel one another. If Buddie, a non canon pairing is mirroring a couple that also started off as partners and are now a romantic couple, then it’s very reasonable to think they’ll become romantic too.

Instead of actually posting gifs, I’m going to attach beautifully created gifsets that already show all four characters paralleling one another.

Here’s a lovely gifset by @lover-of-mine that’s a bit angsty.

Here’s another one where one tells the other they’re newly single haha. Made by @livelovecaliforniadreams

A shooting parallel made by @halsteadsass 😭

And if you just need a GREAT summary of every other moment that’s heavily paralleled, then it’s all here by the lovely @livelovecaliforniadreams!!!

One last thing to keep in mind is that yes Eric and Melissa really started promoting season 5 before it aired. And that was ultimately the season they pretty much got together. The same season in which both of their characters were actually dating other people. And I made a little comparison of stills that were similar to a current possible storyline we would get with Buddie. Not necessarily saying Eddie and Tommy are going to be a thing. But the whole jealousy aspect is very similar in these pictures lol.

Anyways if you’ve taken the time to fully get to the end, thank you so much! Again this is just something that’s been driving me wild because I’m seeing too many similarities and I wanted it all put together. I will reference where I gathered my info down here. If you have any questions, my ask box is always open 💜

Chenford References: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Buddie References: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

#buddie #chenford #911 on abc #the rookie #Oliver stark #ryan guzman #Eric winter #melissa o'neil #911 cast #the rookie cast #tim minear #alexi hawley #buddie meta #chenford meta #long post

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