Going to preface this by saying that this post actually is not meant to be mean or slanderous toward Kristen so if that's your beat, go find someone else to share it with. But here's the thing: it is very clear to me that Kristen has profound respect for Buck and Eddie's dynamic. As friends. Multiple times, she's made it very clear that she views their relationship through a strictly platonic lens. She's even said, paraphrasing, that the will scene (for example) was drawn from her life since her mom (I think?) made her best friend her legal guardian at one point. Kristen very clearly respects who/what Buck and Eddie are to each other, and she treats the intimacy of their dynamic with the gravitas it deserves, but she seems very invested in keeping them platonic, so I don't really trust her to give us canon!buddie. Honestly, with the way she feels about Buddie as romantic partners, I'm not even sure I'd want her to give us canon!buddie.
Now, I know there's the added layer of misdirection; she's never going to come out-right and say Buck and Eddie are soulmates on a crash course to each other, and I get that. I wasn't born yesterday, I know how PR works. But I think it's also fair to reserve a hefty dose of doubt considering nothing in her speech has given any indication that she even likes the idea of Buck and Eddie together as romantic partners.
I'm happy to be wrong. Honestly, despite all appearances, I'm not even really saying I don't believe Buddie is going canon because, to me, that still seems like the logical conclusion to both of their stories. But with Kristen at the helm, if at one point I was 99.9% sure of canon!buddie, I now sit at a solid 50% sure. I'd love to see it, I still want to see it, and we still might see it... but I'm going to keep a big dose of doubt kept in my pocket just in case.
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I don't think Buddy asks Helio any questions.
Kristen asked 'Why do bad things happen to good people?' because she believed in all the good things she was taught, but noticed the strange disconnect between the world as it was and the world as it was taught to her. So she thought, surely, if I can't come up with the answer, Helio will have it. And she hates him for dodging her question.
Buddy is far more deluded than Kristen ever was. And he is far, far angrier inside as a result, even if he deliberately conceals this fact from himself to protect himself from the inevitable mental breakdown this would cause. Buddy is not as altruistic and giving and caring as Kristen is. He wouldn't question why he was betrayed or dig into a question like 'Why do bad things happen to good people?' Those aren't the answers he needs, because of course he'd be betrayed by someone outside the church, that makes perfect sense. Of course bad things happen to good people, we simply live in a fallen world.
Or, well. He used to live in a fallen world. Now he's dead here. In Helio's divine domain.
I think Buddy, as he wanders through fields of corn to the big farmhouse where Helio is chilling out, privately thinks about the fact that Kristen Applebees' horrified expression was the last thing he ever saw before a sharp pain in his throat. I think Buddy assumes Helio knows he's thinking this and apologizes for bringing thoughts like that into paradise. I think he thanks Helio for recognizing his devotion and bringing him here once he died and dutifully deceives himself about his own rising emotions at contending with the fact that he's dead now.
After all, he was raised to die. He was raised to want to die.
To want to be here with his god whenever it was he called Buddy to him. So he doesn't feel upset, no, of course not. He's just a little surprised at how sudden it was. (How completely random. How unceremonious and unfair.) He's a little bit worried how his grandparents would react to the news is all. (He cracks a joke that maybe he'll see them here shortly after they do get the news. He doesn't laugh at it.) He had his own plans for how he'd spread the good word in life, but of course, Helio had other plans. (Nothing Buddy ever wanted really mattered. He knew that, he knew the will of Helio was the real thing that mattered, and everything else was just a small list of preapproved extracurriculars in the syllabus of his life.)
He can't be upset about this.
He shouldn't be upset about this.
This is his reward.
This place and these people and this god are his reward for a life of service and devotion and walking in the light.
It's not his place to be upset about his own reward. Kristen got upset when she went to heaven, when she met Helio, and look where that got her.
Look... look where that got her.
He thinks he hates her. For looking at him like that. All the ways she looked at him. Like he was something pitiful and contemptible. Someone she needed to threaten away from her little brother. Someone she has to double and triple check if he's going to revive her when he's under magical oath to do just that or lose his connection to a divinity she threw away after being chosen.
And then. In that last moment, she looked at him and he saw grief and horror and caring. Like his death was awful and unfair and tragic.
And he thinks maybe he hates her for that. For challenging him every conversation they had and looking at him like she knew something he didn't. Like she was above him. Like killing your own god twice in life is a preferable fate to living for the promise of eternal sunlight and cornbread in death. A promise which was kept to him.
Kristen was promised to Helio, too.
And he can't unsee her face. He can't move along and focus on what truly matters (Helio, the church, spreading the word, doling out divine punishment when needed) because he's reached the end. There is nothing left. Only this bright sunny cornfield and a god who... is nice. And who cares about him, personally. He got Buddy's name wrong the first and only time they held audience.
He thinks he hates Kristen, and he hates that that hatred isn't immediately squashed out of his soul just by being here. In paradise. Where he belongs. Where every follower of Helio belongs. Where he never has to have anyone look at him the way Kristen did ever again.
I don't think Buddy Dawn asks Helio any questions. Because how do you ask the god you devoted every waking minute of your life to, 'Why do I hate it here? Why does this feel like hell?'
(There's a part 2 now that the next ep is out >:3)
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'Life in the hands of Helio'
Warning for graphic description of gore + injury below
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[Image Description:
With his throat slit, blood bubbling up into his mouth and soaking into his white collared shirt, Buddy Dawn struggles in the arms of Kristen Applebee's. His eyes are wide, unseeing, and hands come up to try and grasp onto Kristen as some kind of anchor, mutedly pleading for help.
Kristen's hand hovers above his throat, unable to help him with his death all but promised by his own party leader, Kipperlilly, and her god too far out of reach. She is panicked and resigned to only hold the kid she had hated moments ago. There is no miracle, no burst of light from the crystals in her pocket, when Buddy Dawn dies.
There is a visual parallel, with both Kristen and Buddy being dotted with freckles and something familiar in their eyes. If there had never been 'The Bad Kids', if she'd never asked to be put in detention with the intent to convert people to Helio, would she have ended up the same way?
Buddy had once said "I don't hold on tight, 'cause I'm in someones hand [...] You know Helio is holding onto us tight." but there is no Helio in sight, only Kristen. All that is left is for Buddy to go and meet his so-called-god and ask why he let him die, unaware he will not get an answer.]
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something interesting that i haven’t seen anyone else really bring up is that kristen is not actually kipperlilly copperkettle’s biggest hater. it’s adaine.
like. kristen doesn’t like her, and is a bitch to her, and she gets on her nerves, but at least to me, adaine is the on whose dogging on her the most. she is also using the stupid names, she’s the one who suggested(jokingly) killing one of the rat grinders so they couldn’t graduate with honors.
kristen may not like her but adaine fucking hates her and of course she does! kipperlilly’s whole thing is that the bad kids are get special treatment when adaine has never gotten that in her life!! she was second to aelwyn her whole life and now that she has like. one thing going for her this girl is saying that it’s unfair?? adaine whole life was unfair!! esp with adaine having worked her ass off to get where she is and this girl found a loophole??
i’m just saying if nemesis tracking was put on kipperlilly i’m of the opinion that kristen would not be her main enemy
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