okay. tommy posting! a masterpost of introductory hcs for my portrayal. i might expand on specific points in different posts because i have a lot of thoughts and feelings.

first and foremost: tommy is closer to 50 than 40. lou is 39 but it doesn't make sense with the canon they've provided in s7 for tommy to be the same age, because if he was, that'd mean he was ~19 in '05 during chim begins and that's just not possible with him also having served (he's clearly not a probie and it seems like he's been at the 118 for years at that point). i'm putting him at maybe 45 or 46.

i do take a lot of inspiration from what lou has had to say about him. he's an only child of shitty parents who didn't really want to be parents, and that had a profound impact on him.

his dad was a miserable man and mediocre cop who felt bad about being mediocre and took it out on his wife and son.

tommy actually did fairly well in school, hoping it'd help assist in his plan of Getting Out, but things really didn't go his way on the college front and he felt trapped, which is what led him to enlisting.

and for the most part, he operated fairly well in the military. it was good to have order. and he was already accustomed to being treated terribly - but it was a little different because at least it wasn't his dad. he did his job and kept to himself, at least for a while, until he started a 'relationship' with another soldier. it was toxic and pretty terrible, overshadowed by DADT, and it ended pretty brutally. tommy had already become pretty disillusioned to the army by the point it ended, but it was another major factor in him getting out the first chance he got.

when he was discharged, he didn't even bother going home. he went to LA, choosing it as his new city because it felt very safe due to its size. it felt like a place that'd be easy to disappear and be just another guy.

he didn't immediately jump to a career with the LAFD. he had a few months of trying to figure his shit out, contemplating if he should finally try to go to college - but it was scary to think about so he ended up dropping the idea. he went through some basic jobs before applying to LAPD impulsively. army to police felt like a natural transition, and he thought maybe it would be a way to actually 'serve' his country, because being overseas doing shitty things for people who wouldn't give him good reasons hardly felt like 'service.' and he did make it through training, got a beat - but he realized pretty quickly that being a cop also wasn't for him. he stuck with it for a few months, though, because he was terrified of feeling lost and at least it was something and he did get to help people, sometimes. because he realized he did like helping people - and when, on one shift, he assisted some firefighters in helping rescue some kids from a wrecked car, and suddenly, a lot of things clicked for him. he turned in his badge and applied to the fire department a week later.

being in the army and then a cop means he wasn't surprised by the culture at the 118. he knew how to blend in well by that point. he knew what part to play to survive. and he does feel really bad about it. he worked hard to make peace with hen and chimney, and they're two people who are incredibly important to him - hen, because she was formative in helping him understand that he can be himself, and chimney because of course he wouldn't be alive without him.

(i also want to point out that i believe he briefly had a crush on chimney. but with all of the repression going on he refused to really recognize it. it did slightly contribute to him not wanting to be around chimney at first, though.)

tommy first acknowledged to himself that he was gay just before he put in for a transfer. of course he understood he was attracted to men long before that point; he'd had secret flings - not just the one in the military - but he'd still tried to be with women. he wanted to believe he was bisexual for a long time and that he could just 'suppress one side of it', but it didn't work. when he accepted he was gay, he put in for a transfer because he felt it'd be easier to start over at a new house. it was a very tough decision, because hen and howie had become family, and he had started to form a relationship with bobby... but he knew this was what he needed to be himself. he didn't have some big announcement about his identity like hen did when he transferred, but he didn't make efforts to hide it, either.

buck is the first firefighter he's dated, though. his prior relationships post-coming out were all with civilians - a few of which, yes, originated from meeting on calls. after the third time, though, he really felt it was a bad idea to continue that pattern. for him, personally, it felt like almost like a power imbalance, and he hated constantly wondering if the guys he was seeing just felt indebted.

he kept up with the 118 even after leaving - mostly because it's hard not to, with how often they make the news, but also because he genuinely does care about a lot of the people there. he reached out to chim after the car accident and the stabbing, and to hen after her accident.