#1. a Xena type situation where the writers could not make it canon but wanted to so did everything else they could get away with | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 11 months

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The I feel like she sees me line being said to Eddie who is the person that truly sees Buck for all that he is. Are we supposed to take this line at face value which would indicate piss poor writing because they needed to rush to a horrible ending or do we take it as Buck being an unreliable narrator? What was the audience supposed to interpret from Buck saying that, were we truly supposed to believe him or we supposed to be pissed at Buck for saying this to the one person that truly sees Buck?

Good morning to me, I guess.

I'm assuming you haven't really seen people's reactions in the fandom on tumblr because I feel like I saw this said in quite a few posts going around, but you are absolutely not supposed to take this line at face value. I'm surprised that people think you should. 9-1-1 has from the beginning had a habit of turning friendships into romantic relationships (Bathena and Madney) and taking their time with these things rather than having an instalove situation. Even Karen and Hen, who meet when they're set up on a date together, don't instantly fall in love. I do not think they would set Eddie or Buck up for an endgame relationship with a woman by having them date that woman immediately, even if they didn't plan to make Buddie canon.

Buck is clearly struggling post-death. He's lost and once again looking for the answer from a romantic partner. He did a lot of growth in regards to his family relationships this season but not his romantic ones. Remember, his couch ended up destroyed and he asked his latest girlfriend to pick the new one out for him. Again. He's still not picking his own damn couch. After being unable to sleep on the one his mom gave him but passed out instantly on Eddie's where he ran to feel safe.

If people think this is all, somehow, an accident or the writers are doing this without knowing what they're doing, then I can't help you. Do you also think the symbolism I put into my fanfics are a total accident? Do you guys think I picked the name of the poem "Fuchsia Emerald Alizarin Rose" just because the colors are fun and they accidentally spell out F.E.A.R. or do you think maybe I did that absolutely 100% on purpose and was waiting for someone to realize?

Buck saying that to Eddie is 100% supposed to make the audience raise their eyebrows. Especially when we see Eddie's reaction. He's confused and he's hurt and he's annoyed. Eddie then spends his next few lines showing Buck (and us) that he sees Buck. Buck misses it, it goes right over his head, but the audience is shown that Buck is wrong and Eddie sees him.

I think there was a lot of internal stuff going on behind the scenes way high up the ladder that meant Buddie didn't happen this season. No, I don't mean that in a tinhatting way, I just mean that they knew Fox wouldn't renew them, they didn't know if they'd get picked up somewhere else, Fox hasn't promoted or cared about this show the way it has its other shows in a while, and I think it's pretty clear there was shuffling and changes going on with 6B. So I think things had to be put off. Similar to the pandemic, where I genuinely wonder what kind of season four we would've gotten if we'd had the full 18 episodes and hadn't had to work around Covid. I think that when we know there was a big shift going on behind the scenes, we need to have some grace and patience in how that will effect the story that's told on screen.

But I think that this default to "everything good we see on our screens is an accident and the writers are making shitty choices" is a horrible bad faith argument, and it's exhausting. Aren't you exhausted? I'm exhausted. Fandom shouldn't treat the writing and production team like their enemies any more than the writing and production team should treat the fans like their enemies in some kind of war they have to win (looking at you, GoT showrunners).

We are supposed to be annoyed that Buck is missing the point. We are supposed to see Buck's yearning to be a husband and a father, and how he's missing what's right in front of him. We are supposed to put two and two together and see that Eddie was hurt by Buck's words, that Eddie sees Buck, that Eddie is Buck's safe place, and that Eddie in that moment decided he might not have a chance with Buck and needs to move on, because previously we saw Eddie admit he wants romance again but he doesn't want to go out on dates, we saw his aunt say she met her husband through work, we saw him say 'we have time' and then we saw him immediately after Buck tells him about this new girl who "sees him" flee to visit his mother and then immediately actually try dating. On a meta level this is also because Eddie needs confidence in himself as a romantic partner and needs some more experience under his belt before he's ready to take the plunge with Buck, but in Eddie's mind, I think it's pretty clear he feels Buck will never want him back and he's trying to find the love he wants somewhere else, even if his heart is still Buck's.

So that's what I think. I think it's not explicitly spelled out for a few reasons, but frankly if one of them was a woman we wouldn't need it explicitly spelled out and personally I kinda like that it's not. Something that annoys me with M/F pairings is the constant "we all know you two like each other" talks from third parties that half the time aren't about the characters but are about the audience, to either tell the audience SEE THEY LIKE EACH OTHER THAT'S WHAT THIS IS ABOUT or to give the audience some fanservice while the characters aren't ready to get together. I don't need to be pandered to that way, thank you, so I'm a fan of the slightly more subtle approach that I, personally, see going on with Buddie.

If you or anyone else disagrees with me and feels it was just "piss poor writing" then that's entirely your right. I'd just appreciate it if people who feel that way would stop watching the show, and stop putting their complaints into the inboxes of people who clearly do enjoy the show.

TL;DR - You answered your own question, Buck is an unreliable narrator (and always has been) and we are supposed to be frustrated he said this to Eddie who has proven time and again (and does so in that very scene) that he sees Buck.

#mads answers things #911 meta #I'd be a lot more open to talking about 6B and the writing #if I felt people understood how much things were clearly going on BTS #and that affected what happened on our screens #and if people were acting in good faith and trusting the writers #I agree that all the fun meta and speculation can become a bit uh #red-string-board for sure #I've seen and even playfully reblogged stuff that I felt was stretching it a bit #but I don't think it's conspiracy thinking or anything of that nature #to assume the writers are able to see what they're putting up on our screens #or that everything good about Buddie is on purpose instead of some happy accident #or that the writers wouldn't do all this stuff if they didn't have the intention of making Buddie canon #because honestly this sort of stuff going on with Buddie I have only seen in two other situations #1. a Xena type situation where the writers could not make it canon but wanted to so did everything else they could get away with #or 2. there was a schism among the powers that be and some or most of the BTS team wanted it but there were others #who did not and so there's a BTS tug of war going on #personally the 911 team seems really united so I don't think it's 2 and I doubt it's 1 but if it is 1 I think the move to ABC will fix that #I think it's more likely it's not 1 or 2 but BTS issues affecting various storylines and writing #(for example when was the last time Athena got a real character arc that lasted a full season like everyone else?)#(when was the last time Athena had genuine growth?)#(I feel like she's mostly the same person she was in season one compared to everyone else's leaps and bounds)#(and that's simply because Angela has been insanely busy filming in other places so she might be in every episode)#(but they can't usually make her a big FOCUS of a season because she hasn't been available)#but I would really like people to presume that maybe just maybe #the people whose careers it is to tell these stories know how to tell these stories #and that not everything we are shown or told by characters should be taken at face value #and that the writers want the audience to do the math themselves #without having to spell everything out constantly #anyway I fucking hate my job and I'm not sleeping well and I'm fucking exhausted so I'm gonna start charging for asks like these

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handlewithkara · 3 years

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@supercorpizgaybaiting heavily, but also not exclusively. It's not like Karadox or Karamel fans aren't also more or less secretly hoping that things could stil go their way or even Superdey fans were hopeful at some pepole. People are going to disagree what counts as subtext.

In the end, if writers put subtext there intentionally (and I know of at least one instance of a writer saying no in twitter to a claim about one of his episodes) then you don’t have to fight for your couple, the writers intend to do them as a couple anyway. However if the writers don’t want to do your couple because they are not feeling them, then they are not going to do them. And trying to force them is not going to lead to good results.

Take let’s say Mon-El being given Kara’s necklace or Mon-El giving Kara his Legion ring. Would you deny that those are traditional romantic signifiers, the kind of thing that would make a fan expect that those signifiers will come back in a way? Same with the long look and little quirky smile Kara gave Mon-El in episode 100. And yet at the same time there is a chance that they won’t be in a romantic context.

Same for let’s say Karadox fan who for example saw something special in the recent Kara and Brainy balcony scene.

Or who can point to a writer actually confirming that he wrote a Brainy scene back in season 3 as a potential tease of Karadox (the scene where Mon-El leaves the scene and Brainy walks in instead). Does that mean that Kara and Brainy have to end up as a couple? Because there is a good chance they won’t.

Because writers change, storylines change. There is no proof that something somebody wrote in season 3 was ever a promise that it would be back and even if it was meant as a promise it’s no proof that the completely different writers team feels any obligation to cash in the promise a writer who isn’t even with the show anymore made in season 3.

To me “baiting” is not a replacement for an actual storyline. If writers want to do a story, they will write that story. Point blank.

The complaint here has always been that about the supposed claims of baiting has been that they have never been exclusive. Ie, some scenes have paralleled Lois and Clark scenes from other media but:

1.) The show literally starts out with the show co-opting and reinterpreting and reinacting traditional Superman, including Superman and Lois scenes redoing them with Kara and Alex. And yet you don’t see as many people insisting the show HAS to do romantic Kara and Alex even though the show literally starts out with them reinacting and reinterpreting two iconic Superman and Lois scenes (Kara saving Alex on the plane, kid Kara taking Alex flying).

2.) A lot of supposed parallel scenes are really generic scenes that exist either for other characters on Supergirl as well (ie Kara saving somebody in a helicopter, Kara carrying somebody bridal style) or they also exist for Superman and non romantic characters.

Again, baiting or supposed baiting is not a replacement for an actual storyline. Watch Xena and Gabrielle. Xena and Gabrielle weren’t baiting, it was writers writing a full fledged story that they cared deeply about.

This is what writers do when they really want to do a couple but are denied by a network to make it explicit. They write stuff about a kiss that is necessary to the plot somehow. Twice! They write crazy scenarios where Xena and Gabrielle are turned into vampires and bite each other. They write crazy scenarios where the plot forces them to dance sexily with each other. They find ways. (and yes even they even though they agreed with the shippers about the importance of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship, still disagreed with the fans when it came to weighing the importance of that story against the importance of Xena’s redemption journey)

I never bought the claim that the same constraints that existed during Xena and Gabrielle still hold true today or that they hold true on this particular show (does lgbt stories for other characters) or network (has tons of lgbt shows including multiple shows with lgbt leads). And with Xena and Gabrielle you can see what writers do exactly when they are under constraints. It was deep, heartfelt storylines with lots of screentime not arguments about what color socks the characters are wearing.

Kara recently had a line within the show “Who cares about the ratings?” and I’m pretty sure that this is actually reflective of how the writers of the show feel right now. They know that doing social awareness stories about a black lesbian or a trans superhero maybe are not going to get them the gangbuster ratings, but they are going to do it anyway because at this point they don’t care about the ratings and it is something they firmly believe is the right thing to do. It is something they are passionate about.

If they are not writing couple X, then so me that per se implies they are not passionate enough about them. And you can’t force love. You can’t force them to be passionate about it. Either they are feeling or they don’t.

There are a lot of instances where people read things into a situation and they shouldn't have.

See the only thing I disagree with here is whether the onus on that is on the audience or on the writers. Especially when I would argue there are tons of cases where fans clearly ignore “anti-bait” moments. ie the show returns and Lena is busy with Lex while Alex is the one obssessed with bringing back Kara. Everybody has a nightmare and Lena’s has nothing to do with Kara. Kara and Lena’s reuinion is not a topic at all where Kara first reconnects with the group. . Lena has her soulful conversations with Nia, not Kara. The writers actually can have gone to considerable lenghts to give them the barest minimum to still consititute a storyline that is part of the show and yet people still insist that a moment was baiting. Completely ignoring the context. Let’s hypothetically imagine a world where the writers genuinely don’t want to write them as a romance, but still genuinely want to write them as a meaningful friendship? Where they appreciate Lena as part of the show, they just don’t appreciate her in the future love interest way. Where they still want to write scenes about Lena doing cool and badass scenes, they are just not interested in writing them as a romance.

It just doesn’t strike me as fair that fans should essentially force tie their hands that they aren’t allowed to write any scenes, because no matter what scene they write, fans will insist that it is baiting, even if the scene actually doesn’t stick out compared to all the other scenes they write in a non romantic context for let’s say Kara/Alex, Kara/Brainy or Kara/Nia.

Like let’s say a Karadox fan feeling the balcony scene between Kara and Brainy feeling unfairly like a romantic scene (comnig basically back to back with Kelly and Alex, a romantic couple sharing a balcony scene) completely ignoring the context that people having deep talks on balconies is kind of a staple on Supergirl and Kara has done then with a long list of other characters both characters she was canonically romantically linked with and characters she was never romantically linked with. It’s definitely really nice that Brainy is in the rank of people Kara has great balcony scenes with but that is hardly proof that it has to be read as romantic when Kara has had those type of scenes with J’onn as well.

IMO the fight of the Lenashippers to me has always made more sense to me as “we are a big and loud fanbase, so you have to listen to us” rather than any claims of “we exclusively get scenes that are promises”. Again, if you were exclusively getting promises for your relationship, then you wouldn’t have to fight for it. It would just be the writers foreshadowing a storyline they are intending to do anyway.

In the end, if the writers don’t want to do your story, they are not going to do it. If they are not feeling it, if they don’t see the characters, the potential in the same way, you can’t force them. If “I think we should do a bigass storyline about Nia reconnecting with her mom” is something they feel more passionate about than they feel about developing whatever other relationship, then they don’t feel that passionate about that other relationship, at least not more than they feel about “we should tell cool stories about Nia’s dream powers”.

Because in the end, different people have different preferences and different likes. And you can’t force them to feel the same way you do about characters. There is roughly a million things I wish the show would cover in storylines and that will never happen. Like I think it’s pretty unlikely that the show will do a deep lengthy story on how Alex uses alcolhol in the few episodes we have left, or that they will do a deep dive storyline on Alex’s time before she joined the DEO. Because in the end, I have to accept that the writers just don’t see this topic the same way, just aren’t as interested in it as I am. They likely have a list of things they still want to tackle before the show ends and apparently those things I like or care about are not on that list at all or at least not high enough.

You can’t force people to have exactly the same interests as you.

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