fic director's commentary ask
ahhh thank u for asking, i lovee cool dry place!! sorry in advance bc i have a lot to say about it... to get super high-level with it, i think that my personal preference in fic is always going to be toward fic that is messy. there is obviously something very sweet about fic where they realize or admit their feelings and it's like a flip of a switch. they're together and everything is kinda solved. and there's a place for that type of story - i've certainly written those stories!! - but in general, i gravitate more toward fic where it isn't that easy. where there is not a straight or instant line between knowing the love is there and having a happily ever after. no hate to the whole 'friends to fiances' tag or whatever it is that's super popular w/ buddie but i am just a teeny tiny bit of hater about it. bc i always ending being like But Is That Realistic. But Would That Happen.
and i think it takes some of the tension out of the thing! isn't it more interesting when them getting together brings with it all the same old challenges and troubles that already exist in their relationship?? which is just my personal preference, obvi, and shit does not have to be realistic to be sweet or interesting or so on and so forth, but i think it's often more interesting to mee when buddie getting together is a little hard, and not bc of any lack of love between the two of them. so cool dry place was one of my tries at exploring that. i think eddie after chris comes home is in a super interesting headspace - in the imagined moment of this fic where chris comes home much earlier, obviously, but i think it's pretty true to where eddie is/could be in the show too - bc eddie is still so scared! he's trying very hard to be the person he wants to be to both christopher and buck in this moment, but the fear of messing things up with chris again is overwhelming him.
i think it kind of had to be buck's perspective for a lot of reasons - i don't think i ever considered making it eddie's - but mainly bc i think you need buck completely understanding why eddie is reacting like this - why he's soo hesitant and careful, why fear keeps getting the better of him with christopher - and being hurt by it anyway. it was originally supposed to be even a little more of a fight, but it never really got there, bc buck really does get it. he knows eddie so well. he understands basically all of why he feels this way, even if he doesn't agree with him.
i loveee the difference between eddie's confidence in the get-together / admission scene vs the main scene of the fic. his love for buck is something he feels so sure of, so it's so easy for him to say that to buck:
“We’re talking about the same thing,” Buck said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, easy as anything. Like he didn’t have any doubt.
vs later in the fic when he's all doubt. he's all second-guessing. it's so, so easy when it's just him and buck. there's just no question - even when there is for buck! even when this is brand-new to buck and he can barely believe it! but for eddie, it's when the whole rest of the world starts creeping in that he gets scared.
the fic doesn't get deep into this - in part bc it is buck's perspective - but i really liked having a chance to write a little about how eddie is feeling in this moment vis a vis being gay. i am an eddie gay truther (obviously.... lmao) and i have an endless well of thoughts and feelings on how eddie would be navigating his relationship to being gay. i like that in this fic, buck is only one who actually says 'gay'! eddie keeps talking around it a little, as much as it becomes clear that he's talked to buck about it before, and it's easier rn for buck to be the one to name it directly. i think sometimes i have a bit of hesitance about writing super directly about eddie and his identity and i think that's partly bc i think eddie's pretty hesitant, too, lmao - one day i'm going to actually tackle writing a coming out scene with eddie's parents, but i think it's going to be a real challenge. that's one of the things that i really love about eddie: as a character, he's striking a really, really interesting balance between keeping everything he feels hidden and being able to so clearly articulate the things that are important to him or that he's come to be sure of (will scene et al). it's fun to try to figure out how he talks about things like buck, like being gay, like being in love, when he knows what he feels but may not quite have figured out how to turn it into something he can talk about. u know what i mean??
i don't have a million things that i cut from this! along with the original concept being more a fight, they were also originally actually together, had kissed, etc etc, before this fight, but i figured out w/ consultation from the groupchat that it hit harder if they hadn't yet. if it was still all anticipation. it ratcheted up the drama and also made it a lot clearer how the anxiety between them was just building and building, bc they hadn't had any real outlet for it yet.
it's messy and it's hard and it's (hopefully) somewhat realistic. and they figure it out together!! i love buddie!!!!
FINAL NOTE: i may have said this here at one point, but i published this and stand there and get hit in the same week. i came up with the title of stand there and get hit like four months before i finished it (from spent gladiator 2 by the mountain goats! a banger!); for cool dry place, i was casting around for a title for like hours after the fic was finally done before i landed on cool dry place (from cool dry place, by katy kirby). i picked stand there and get hit knowing that i had just seen the mountain goats performing and they played spent gladiator 2, the same weekend that i started working on that fic. i did not even realize until after i published them both that katy kirby was the opener for that same show and played cool dry place!! it was so funny and delightful when i realized that. stream stand there and get hit by signetsealed.
