we lived in the gaps

I keep these longings lockеd In lowercase, inside a vault

so long london is so eddie/shannon core

thinking about how despite everything. chim is still going to marry the love of his life. he's going to do whatever it takes to get back to maddie and jee, and the people he loves - who love him - are going to do whatever it takes to get him back, too. and maybe it won't be a perfect day, when he finally gets back to them; maybe he'll be in a hospital gown, and make some wisecrack about how maddie's supposed to be the one in a white dress, not him, but there will be a smile on his face, so wide his cheeks hurt, and he'll be surrounded by his family, and - and look, he doesn't have to say "for better or worse, in sickness and in health," and all that, because maddie already knows it, but she'll have tears in her eyes when he does, anyway, and chim will, too, won't even try to hide them, and they'll say "i do" underneath harsh fluorescent lights, and instead of wedding bells sending them off, it'll be the beep beep beeps of ecg's, and maybe it isn't what they pictured, when maddie proposed all those months ago, but it's - it's perfect, really, and he looks at the two great loves of his life, his daughter and his wife, and he can't help but feel like he's the luckiest man alive.

another thing re: nobody else is doing it like eddie. in a lot of ways buck's response to eddie in 2x01 is a warped, backwards version of the way buck always responds to people he finds cool and competent and skilled and charming. it's only because eddie stepped onto buck's territory that he postured; in another world, buck would have been all over eddie from the get-go. as it stands in 2x01 he's needling eddie over his war stories, he's watching eddie's Super Cool Workout, he's craning his head to see just how attractive eddie can be. 2x01 is buck's hero worship of eddie, just the ugly version.

to be honest, i don't think buck ever stopped seeing eddie like that. i mean, even in 7x04 he's gushing to tommy about him. the difference is that eddie's the first person buck has admired like that who's actually genuinely respected him as a fully-formed adult capable of making his own choices, not just some stupid, reckless tantrum-throwing kid who needed to be scolded. bobby tells buck he doesn't have to get in the ambulance. eddie just tells buck he'll see him in there. eddie's a stupid-hot competent skilled charming war hero who's inviting buck to stand with him and trusting buck and buck has literally never had that.

and then eddie! never! stops! buck thinks eddie's the best thing since sliced bread, his best friend. and eddie just... accepts all his love and gives it right back. eddie is never condescending or patronizing or paternalistic and he doesn't see buck as a nuisance. not only is eddie super cool and capable, he treats buck like he's capable too (not super cool)! so buck has spent the last six years like, being obsessed with this guy, and it's not the first time he's been obsessed with a shiny new someone, but eddie is... literally obsessed with him back. that's SPECIAL.

feel like it wouldn't hurt the fandom to make the madney wedding episode a little more about madney

first base is saving his child from a tsunami. second base is being yelled at in a grocery store. third base is clawing at the mud. fourth base is tasting his blood. fifth base is kissing another guy. sixth base is—

Saw a post that was like “what if Tommy finds out about the grocery store fight” and I’m like… and??? No offense but so what?? Oh no these best friends had one fight 5 years ago when they were both suffering from massive amounts of trauma??? Oh god Eddie said one mean thing and spent one day ignoring Buck after Buck went radio silent for the lawsuit, which presumably took much longer than one day??? Why the fuck should Tommy care more than “wow that sounds like it was a tough time back then” when clearly they made up for it years ago and have basically never fought since?

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

a very important takeaway from the coma dream is that bobby was a major part of why eddie was able to keep his head above water in s2. he used his discretion as captain to let eddie bring chris to the station, and probably did it multiple more times while eddie was still figuring out childcare with carla. he bonded with chris instantly and never let him or eddie feel like a burden. he was never judgmental of eddie's struggles and always assured him he was a great dad. even then, they loved each other so much :)

You know, one of the reasons I love season 1 is that the thesis of it is that these are very flawed people, doing heroic things. And I think that in season 1, Athena's abuses of power were approached with a critical lens. Athena is presented, at the beginning, as someone who cares more about her job than her family. And when she behaves in an extrajudicial manner she is (rightfully) reprimanded.

Because she is a black woman and a cop and a mother to black children, there is a lot of tension and conflict within her character that makes her a really compelling one. Additionally, time and time again, we have seen storylines where her children criticize her for acting more like a cop when she could be a mom.

Those little moments tell us that this is something that the show wants to discuss, but seven seasons in we've never really seen it go anywhere nor have we seen a change in Athena and in her behavior.

I think this is in part because this show wants to depict Athena heroically and because of genre expectations of procedural shows.

If Athena (our hero) is going to solve a crime in this 45-minute episode while keeping it dramatically interesting, then she is going to be investigating in non-legal ways - all while wearing a law enforcement officer's uniform. And that's not good. In unquestioningly depicting her role as heroic, the show falls into the trappings of copaganda: it normalizes law enforcement officers as people who solve crime (they don't) and kick-ass (they shouldn't) and that we should expect them to do it, which is dangerous. (this singular paragraph could be an entire essay on its own, i know, but I must continue).

So the show has dug itself into a hole. It wants to depict Athena as being flawed, but also depict her acting as a hero. However, it can never critically engage with her abuses of power, because if it does so then oh no she wouldn't be a hero! and we can't have that! (/s)

As part of my education, I've done some research on law enforcement organizations and specifically how their culture impacts police officers who are not white. Typically, research shows that when the bureaucracy becomes more diverse and representative of the population it can better address the needs of marginalized communities. The opposite is true of police officers in America.

Research actually shows that police officers of a non-white racial identity are more likely to racially profile people of their same racial identity. What we've observed is that when a Latino man, for example, puts on the badge, they no longer see themselves as a 'Latino man' but as a police officer. The identity of being a police officer, time and time again, supersedes any other identity a person may have.

Athena seeing herself as a police officer before being a mom? before being a black woman? In America, that's the norm, it is what becoming a police officer does to a person. But the show will never be able to fully critically engage with that part of Athena unless it is able to critically engage with policing, and it will never critically engage with policing because if they do so Athena won't be a hero.

Obviously, I am a viewer and a fan of the show. I, like everyone, am not immune to propaganda either. I try to contend with it being copaganda by critically examining Athena's behavior in the show and my own reactions to it. That takes work, and it is work that not everyone wants to do but it is the best advice I can offer to anyone struggling with this too.

oh baby im pulling for eddie diaz every time. eddie diaz and his big brown eyes, his cunty behavior, single dad neuroses and iron-fisted self control… well he has bewitched me, body and soul, and i love, i love, i love him.

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT + references to religion

i will say that the most gratifying thing about 7x05 was eddie seeing buck and tommy at the restaurant and not giving a fuck and just moving on with his life 👍🏽