Buddie vs Tevan

Ship War
ShipWar:	Buddie vs. Tevan
Date(s):	April 2024 — present
Location:	Tumblr, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit
Fandom:	9-1-1
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This article documents a currently unfolding situation within the fannish realm. Content may change quickly, and the page structure itself may undergo major revision. New details are very welcome.

Buddie vs. Tevan is an ongoing ship war in the 9-1-1 fandom, between fans of two Evan "Buck" Buckley pairings: the currently fanon Buck/Eddie (aka. Buddie) and the previously canonical Buck/Tommy (aka. Tevan or Bucktommy). As of December 2024, the ship war is still very much an unfolding event that started when Lou Ferrigno Jr. (Tommy Kinard's actor) returned as a guest star once again in March 2024, after his previous guest appearances on season two as a love interest to the character of Buck. Although Tevan has since broken up in canon, it seems unlikely that this ship war will end due to how passionate fans in both camps are.

Overview

Buck/Eddie have been the juggernaut pairing in the 9-1-1 since shortly after Eddie Diaz's introduction to the show in season two; with many fans anticipating that the pairing may eventually go canon. There have long been debates over whether the show's crew and promotional team are queerbaiting the pairing, as the cast and crew are aware of the significant fanbase for the pairing.

In March 2024, in the seventh season of the show, the character of Tommy Kinard was temporarily brought back, having previously played a small role as a minor character in flashback episodes. His reintroduction to the show served as canonical confirmation that the character of Buck was bisexual, as they got into a romantic relationship over a few episodes.

This has led to growing conflict between Buddie fans and the new Tevan fans. Accusations of homophobia were thrown against Buddie shippers that did not ship Tevan, and on the other hand, some Buddie fans felt betrayed by other fans "jumping ship". A third group argued multishipping was the solution, but some of these fans also became heated and accused those not multishipping of being immature; this was mostly thrown at Buddie fans, with posts implying there was no normal Buddie shipper that exclusively shipped Buddie.

Tevan fans have accused Buddie shippers of harassment and death treats, and often made call out posts about Buddies behaviors towards Tommy as character and their dislike of Lou Ferrigno Jr.

Buddie fans have accused Tevan shippers of the same, and also of doxxing, with one Twitter/X user, that was still a minor, having to file a police report after being doxxed twice by a Tevan account.

However, the fight didn't stay between the fans. At least two separate journalists were harassed on Twitter/X by Tevan shippers, to the point where both journalists had to leave the social media for a couple of weeks, after writing articles that either talked positively about Buddie or questioned if Tevan was going to be endgame.

Actors were also attacked. A 4-hour-long Twitter/X Spaces (a public live voice chat) was created by Tommy fans, where most of it focused on bashing Oliver Stark (Evan "Buck" Buckley), for not defending Lou Ferrigno Jr. The accusation came after Stark posted an Instagram Stories to his account with a mustache filter as a joke since his co-star Ryan Guzman (Eddie Diaz) was sporting a mustache as Eddie Diaz on season eight. Later that day, more Instagram Stories were posted showing both Stark and Guzman hanging out with Kenneth Choi (Howard "Chimney" Han) and Aisha Hinds (Henrietta "Hen" Wilson) in of their houses. The Twitter/X Spaces host's problem with the situation seemed to be the fact that Lou Ferrigno Jr. was never seen hanging out with the cast of the show, and they believed said cast was deliberately excluding the 40-year-old guest star.

Buddies were also accused of bullying Lou Ferrigno Jr., after a Buddie account took screenshots of Ferrigno's old Instagram posts where he posted bigoted memes, and other questionable posts and posted them on Twitter/X, at which point the guest star replied with another questionable declaration. This lead Tevan shippers to accuse Buddies of hacking the actor's account to further paint him in a bad light, arguing that Ferrigno had blocked some Tevan (more commonly caled Bucktommy at the time) accounts, which they found suspect and believed it to be the work of hacker. There was no actual evidence for these accusations.

During the hiatus between season seven and eight, Lou Ferrigno Jr. seemingly also took a hiatus from the internet, he was also absent of any behind the scenes content before season eight's debut. Tevans shippers believed that was done on purpose in order to protect the guest star from the deemed "toxic buddies".

Since Tevan's break-up, both Tommy's fans and his actor have been involved in controversies. The split happened in 8x06 on the 7th of November. This led to immediate extreme reactions from the Tevan fans, most notably the harassment of actors on the show, mainly the ones playing Eddie Diaz and Evan "Buck" Buckley. Some fans on social media calling for Ryan Guzman, a born citizen of the United State of America with Mexican heritage, to be deported (for some added context this was on the same week as the 2024 election that resulted in Trumps win). Oliver Stark was also accused of biphobia after a post episode interview where he expressed he wanted Buck to explore his bisexuality more. And calls for him to be fired, as well as deported, since Oliver Stark was born in the UK and his USAmerican citizenship status is not known.

Lou Ferrigno Jr. himself got into some controversies over two interviews given after his departure from the series. In the first one, he admits he had issues with his character ending. He also says he was under the impression the characters worked, that they had a connection, which for some, including his on fans, looked like he was blindsighted by it. However, as some have pointed out, the guest star would have been aware of how many episodes he was in as a guest star. As for his second interview, some feel the way he talked about 9-1-1's writing, saying he is unsatisfied, that it feels like it came out of nowhere, to be unprofessional on his part.

From the Buddie side there has been some gloating, over being correct about their prediction that Tommy's character was temporary, at least as Buck's boyfriend.

As of December 2024, there are still controversies happening, but a cliffhanger involving Eddie and Buck has occupied most of Buddie fan's time with its positive implications to the ship. Tommy fans continue to produce writings criticizing the show's decision, while others theorize how he is going to come back.

Tommy's Character

Character status and screentime

Originally, it was anticipated that Tommy would be a short-term character, since it was confirmed his actor was only signed up for four episodes. Buddie fans believed he would only be around for a few episodes, allowing for the stage to be set for a Buddie endgame, while some Tevan fans already believed Tevan was being set up as endgame during season seven.

[Miya22101]

i’m not getting attached he’s only in a few episodes i refuse to hurt myself for no reason 😭 he’s a placeholder for eddie and im sticking to it

[crustynubs]

I feel totally the same lol, he's literally just off brand eddie and I can't see him as anything else

[Miya22101]

i forgot he was on the show previously so whatever episode he helped hen was my first look at him and i like him hes cool but hes no eddie he’s bucks bi realization for me and that is all good friend tho

Online, the character of Tommy appears to have been relatively popular for such a minor character, which led his fans to speculation that he might return for season eight as well.

Tommy went on to appear in more episodes than some fans previously expected him to, speculated to be a consequence of the show being renewed early on during season seven for an eighth season, giving the showrunner the possibility to stretch out some plots. However, his screentime remained relatively limited, totalizing less than 30 minutes of screentime in three episodes he guest starred in season eight.

The expectation for more Tevan and much of Tommy's growing fandom, despite his limited screentime, could be attributed to Tommy's actor Lou Ferrigno Jr. accepting money on cameo even as late as October 2024 to send messages to fans. From very early on in his cameo days, the actor shared headcanons about his character to fans that bought his videos. Also in one of his videos he accidentally spoiled a medal ceremony that was being filmed, while he filmed one of his cameos on set.

As season 8a was airing, through the Cameo app's DMs (that are also paid for by the fans) Ferrigno implied that the Tevan pairing was heading in a good direction, promising his fans future storylines, even though, as some fans would find out later, he had already filmed the Tevan break up scene at the time of those messages.

Buck's Character

Buck's bisexuality arc

The storyline of Buck's bisexual realization received positive coverage in the media and from fans.

Possible Topics for Expansion

• Claims of toxic relationship/abuse/mistreatment etc. aimed at both pairings by the fans of the opposing pairing.
• Criticisms and debate over the actors engagement with the fandom, particularly as the actor who plays Tommy, Lou Ferrigno Jr., seems to be involved in quite a few of these recently.
• Weaponisation of the Hen/Karen pairing in criticisms of both achillean pairings (and the resulting frustration from Henren fans because of that).
• Notable users?
• See Talk page for more topics and discussions.

Meta

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

• 'I don’t get the Tommy hate', r/911FOX, 5 June 2024, ^{Archived version} - A discussion thread about the reaction to Tommy and Tevan, including arguements about Buddie vs Tevan in the comments replying to the thread.
• 'I've seen a lot of discourse about why tommy [..] Is there anything specific that started it?' Tumblr 28 August 2024 An answer to the question of why fan don't like Tommy or his relationship with Buck, with specific examples from episodes.