#i'm open to discussion!

[uncanny-tranny]

The whole "breasts shouldn't be politicized because the primary purpose of breasts is to feed babies!" can be a fine jumping-off point, but I really wish people thought deeper than that when we talk about the ways in which bodies are politicized and restricted.

Like, why's it that when we talk about breasts, they must have some Higher Purpose? It's true that breasts aren't inherently sexual, but they aren't valuable solely because they can potentially feed a baby. A human body doesn't have to serve a Higher Purpose in order for it to not be legislated against or policed, and I just wish people would remember it isn't always about babies, about other people, about anything else other than the people who have that body.

[captainjonnitkessler]

What's your feelings on landback?

It's complicated! Especially since "landback" is used as an extremely vague catch-all term for a wide variety of action.

Some people define it as defending and expanding sovereignty over the land already controlled by indigenous tribes, forcing the US government to uphold its treaties, generally supporting and protecting indigenous cultures, and fighting for environmental protections and better stewardship of the earth, all of which I fully support.

Some people define it as "returning sovereignty of ancestral lands to the tribes who used to inhabit them" and tbqh I don't know how that's supposed to work. Kind of seems like any steps taken to ensure that native people retain control over the land/government would necessitate disenfranchising 98% of the country, and that seems pretty bad to me! And no, I don't think disenfranchising almost your entire population is an ethical or effective way to make reparations for past atrocities.

Most of the info I can find on the subject is very much style over substance and doesn't contain any actual plan of action, so it's hard to find concrete info on what the second group is actually proposing.

[transneilyoung]

david crosby and graham nash - definitely fucked definitely in love with each other in some way

neil young and stephen stills - didn't fuck but that isn't needed for the toxic yaoi to be real

robbie robertson and levon helm - this was real as hell

anything including bob dylan - obviously real

peter tork and mike nesmith - didn't fuck but should've

paul mccartney and john lennon - acknowledge as real on some level while deriving no pleasure from it

paul simon and art garfunkel - i would bet both my kidneys on it

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Bingqiu ponies (Happy Birthday @Piosplayhouse!)

[sensorydephrivation]

Amatonormative assumptions and the language of a hard launch: a rambly DnP essay thing

I have a lot of Discourse Thoughts about hard launching and all that, but there’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been said. This fandom is one that generally has significant representation on both sides of any major issue; any take you look for you can find someone genuinely believing. What I am interested in analyzing is how some people are insistent, whether or not they want it to happen or believe it will happen, that they haven’t Hard Launched, and others are equally insistent that they have. Because on the surface those should be completely contradictory takes, but a large amount of people believe each to be true.

I’ve seen posts making comparisons to PJ and Sophie, and I definitely think that’s a useful tool because it brings up the real question here: how do we speak about romantic and platonic relationships, and what underlying assumptions are at play when we use or don't use certain words?

Firstly, this issue is obviously mostly to entirely due to homophobia. Why do people assume PJ and Sophie are a couple just because they live together, even though they've never used the words? Because they're a man and a woman. Why couldn't DnP be publicly open about their relationship back in the day? Because they're gay. I'm not going to spend too much time on this point because it's obvious, but I feel like it's important to remember that Dan and Phil's relationship wasn't some Great Secret for no reason. They weren't no-homo-ing because of privacy or whatever, but because they weren't yet ready to face the immense challenges being publicly out sticks you with, especially in the early 2010s. If homophobia wasn't a thing, everything else I'm going to say in this post would still be true, but it would all be significantly less charged. Just remember that gay marriage wasn't legal in the UK when DnP met each other, and that 2000s pop culture overall was routinely, openly, virulently homophobic. Just keep that in mind. (Also, everything I talk about in this post refers to 2019 onwards, after they came out. I wasn't around for the no-homo era and can't speak on it. I'm also not going to be talking about the speculation around their relationship, because that's been talked about so much. It definitely is a factor in all of this, but you know that already)

Onto the main point of this post. The reason DnP haven't "hard launched" (that term itself is incredibly vague, but its popular meaning in this fandom seems to be explicit confirmation of a romantic relationship, which is how I'm using it here) while also having clearly done so is because their use of language does not line up with conventional expectations of how language around romantic and platonic relationships should be used.

The concept of "dating" as we think of it today is relatively recent, and language around it is even newer. The terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" only became prominent in the mid- to late- 20th century, and it took a while for them to gain the connotation (of almost always meaning a romantic relationship) that they have today. And yet people have still had romantic relationships for forever! How these things were described would depend on the society's norms around marriage and sex and often on the exact social dynamic of the couple. Today, we think we're better than all that and can find words for anything.

I'm no expert on what makes a relationship romantic vs platonic or even how to define those terms. I find it hard to define the concept of romance in a way that doesn't bring with it centuries of heteronormative amatonormative assumptions. And boy are there assumptions. (No, people who live together for life do not have to be romantically involved, that's a silly thing to believe.) When people see a relationship that lines up or does not line up with those assumptions, they expect it to have a clean, simple label. But the words we used for romantic relationships outside of marriage, due to how new they are, are completely not simple!

While these days they seem to be the most "unambiguous" terms to describe a romantic relationship, "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are essentially euphemisms that can seem infantilizing and demeaning of the seriousness of a relationship. It's easy to see how they aren't for everyone, even if many people are fine using them for serious committed relationships. "Partner" is kind of ambiguous on purpose, thought like bf and gf, I think it's on its way to becoming a word with mainly romantic connotations. The term "significant other" is out of fashion these days, but just like bf, gf, and "partner," it's basically a euphemism that doesn't mean much in and of itself. We have no words to describe an unmarried romantic couple that aren't on some level unclear or unindicative of the actual nature of the relationship.

Dan and Phil have acknowledged that they were once in a romantic relationship, have made many many jokes about having sex with each other, and are committed life partners. On some level, you can take the combination of these things as a very clear confirmation of a current romantic relationship, which many do. Yes, this requires making a few assumptions, but they aren't the craziest assumptions in the world. In fact, as one can see from the PJ and Sophie example, they are assumptions that are often normal and expected to be made in social situations. So why do so many others not see it this way?

Well for one, we are a mostly queer community that understands the complexity of queer relationships and how these assumptions do not get applied equally. We see how these assumptions are often used against queer people to devalue their identities, especially those on the ace-aro spectrum and/or in queerplatonic relationships. We also are an extremely online community, familiar with the complicated layers of discourse around RPF and shipping, and hesitant to make assumptions in a way that could potentially damage relationships or invade someone's privacy.

But honestly? It's because DnP don't call themselves boyfriends. They don't explicitly frame their activities in romantic ways (e.g. call things dates). The terms they use and jokes they make, even in 2024, are not the sort of things we expect from the set of assumptions that go with a committed romantic relationship. (This is also where the discourse about whether or not they're open/poly comes from, but that's a topic for another day.)

The Date Night video stretches this to its absolute max. The game is full of cards about kissing and other things that fit cleanly into the set of romantic relationship assumptions, but they didn't use any of those cards. They only used things that were ambiguous, and tried to downplay the romantic implications as much as possible aside from the lampshading of it at the start of the video ("this is a great game to play with your best buddy as well" "phil says no homo" as well as the entire "ugh i can't believe they send us this" tone of the intro). The use of "partner" in this video is the clearest example of this. The game uses this word exclusively- after all, it's a standard, accepted, gender-neutral word for people in a romantic relationship. Phil confidently reads it off the card, with the "I don't care which set of assumptions this assigns us" attitude that's been prevalent over the past year and past few months especially. Dan avoids it half the time, and at the end of the video, seems to clearly mock the term, saying it in a silly voice and then comparing it to how stereotypical cowboys use the word. This stuck out to me; it made it very noticeable that they don't use that word at least in videos, and made me think about the connation of the word they do use-- "friend." That term, unlike any of the words I've mentioned so far, implies literally nothing. "Friends" can be people with a barely positive relationship or people with an incredibly meaningful relationship they center their life around. With no other qualifiers, it also implies that the people in question don't have a romantic relationship (are "just friends"), or even (because of amatonormativity) that their relationship is not especially deep or meaningful.

Dan and Phil have defined their relationship in quite a few ways-- or rather, Dan has, in BIG and in his interviews for WAD. These quotes circulate on here constantly as people discuss the meaning of them. I'm not really interested in talking about those as they've already been talked to death. I do think it's worth noting that we only get these things from Dan-- the one time Phil has ever spoken on his "current dating life" it was just to say "I don't want to talk about that, the door is closed." Obviously some of this is because the interviewers were pushy, but also I'm sure Dan enjoys his elaborate poetic metaphors enough to not be able to shut up about them haha. (Very unrelated but I wonder if this will come up if they end up doing interviews for TIT?) The thing is, these definitions show a deep, meaningful, complex, committed relationship. They include directly romantic terms like "husbands," "soul mates," and "normal gay relationship." You would think being willing to call someone your husband, even with a million other words around it, would mean you wouldn't have a problem calling them your partner, right? Yet these words do not reflect the language they use when speaking about each other in videos!

There are times when they say "friend" "buddy" or "mate" in a clearly humorous, ironic way, and seem aware that it isn't a term that makes people think of a committed, long term relationship. Other times, they use the word as if it is a fully accurate descriptor of their relationship-- in the glue story, Dan jokes about being ashamed to be seen as "the friend of the glue guy," and in How Phil Nearly Died, he quotes himself telling the hospital staff he is looking for "my friend." I use the hospital stories as examples because they are high-stakes (or seemingly high-stakes in the case of the glue story) situations and examples of how other people in their real lives perceive them. The way they choose to tell these stories to the internet is one in which the fact that a random hospital worker would likely interact differently with Dan if he was Phil's friendly roommate as opposed to his life partner doesn't matter. In other words: if they actually do call each other "friends" irl around strangers, those strangers probably have a very different impression of their relationship than we do. Their consistency in describing themselves doing so just means that they want to consistently use the term "friends" in their videos, not that they actually do that in real life. But to a viewer who is unsure about their relationship status, the fact that they are clearly life partners, no matter platonic or romantic, but in all situations opt for a word that does not imply that seems to be confirmation that their relationship is not clearly romantic, or at least that they don't want to refer to it as such.

If I have to draw a conclusion from all this, it's that DnP consider their relationship very complex and unusual (ymmv on if it is, lol) and have had to deal with a ridiculous level of scrutiny about it nonetheless. Again, Phil has almost never spoken on this, but Dan clearly dislikes any descriptor that carries with it a sense of assumptions about the nature of the relationship, hence why he uses like fifty contradicting ones or strange metaphors instead. "Friend" carries with it no assumptions. You can be "friends" and be in a romantic relationship-- plenty of people say "I married my best friend." But our society considers romantic relationships to be more meaningful and important than platonic ones. People assume that if you are in a romantic relationship, you would want to describe your relationship exclusively using terms that carry that set of assumptions, because that is the most important part about it. I honestly think Dan is being quite subversive in refusing to do so.

I have no idea if or when this will ever change, but I hope I've given enough context for those who are convinced they've already hard launched to understand why others are still waiting, and for those who don't think they have to understand why the issue is more complicated than it seems. This topic has fascinated me ever since I first started watching them, and I hope this post can help people reach a bit more of a understanding, rather than inciting more discourse.

[wenellyb]

Buck and Tommy just got together and there are already hundreds and hundreds of posts in the 911 tags talking about how Buck and Tommy's "break up" will happen.

And it's fine, people are allowed to share their theories, I share mine as well, but I can't help but wonder what's the angle here?

From what I've seen, most people are sure Buck and Tommy are temporary because they're sure "Buddie is Endgame"? But how would they know?

As far as we know Buck and Eddie are best friends and there hasn't been any indication that the writers are planning for them to have à romantic relation in season 7. Reading interviews with shipping goggles on isn't canon, it's fan theory.

If they had planned it, they would have put some "seeds", some small hints here and there when Buck and Tommy got together, showing that Buck and Eddie's relationship is not meant to be seen platonic, like Buck being unsure about Tommy or Eddie being supportive but a little jealous.

But they haven't, all we've seen right now is Buck being head over heels for Tommy, telling his sister what he likes about him and telling Eddie how he can't stop thinking about Tommy. Buck has such a massive crush on Tommy he invited him to his sister's wedding.

Buck's coming out scene to Eddie was so beautiful and emotional, but there was no hint of Eddie being jealous or him having romantic feelings for Buck. We even got the sweetest and most platonic hug ever.

Where exactly are we supposed to get the message that Buck is harboring a secret crush for his best friend? Or are we supposed to imagine that he'll magically develop romantic feelings in the middle of the season?

I don't understand where the "Tommy is a placeholder for Eddie" theories are coming from???

Buck hurt Eddie to get Tommy's attention, his words not mine. How are the writers going to go from that and make us believe that he was in reality in love with Eddie? How would that go?

I have nothing against Buddie, I even like the idea of them, but at the end of the day, I believe what I see on screen. Fan theories are just theories.

I'm sorry but to me, Buck is all about Tommy.

As someone who has seen my fair share of TV shows, I'm wondering why anyone would think that that's the direction the screenwriters are going.

[dreamytfw]

I find it very interesting that there is, at best, minimal textual evidence that says or suggests Dean was sexually assaulted in Hell, but Sam being sexually assaulted in Hell is so blatant and explicit they constantly have Lucifer making "jokes" about it.

[johnslittlespoon]

i've spent my morning going insane over all the new pics hbu

[intheholler]

On Appalachian and Southern Stereotypes

After seeing some people leap at the opportunity to insult and further harm us under my posts, even by obviously leftist accounts, I wanted to address some of the most popular stereotypes of our region.

Not as an excuse. There are many negative, violent and otherwise harmful features of the American South. We have a horrific history especially in terms of the violence we inflicted and continue to inflict upon the Black community that cannot be forgotten, and, as a culture, we do need to pay our dues.

But maybe this will help y’all apply some nuance to the situation and understand that we aren’t all your enemy.

Stereotype 1: Everyone is a Republican Racist

Absolute horse shit, my friends. There are people like me all over the south and in the hollers. We just get drowned out by the fascists, and it is all by design. 

In my home state of North Carolina alone, they are working tirelessly to make it impossible for young, often liberal (if not outright leftist) voices to be heard. They specifically target regions with heavy POC populations.

As recently as May of this year, the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned their own previous ruling which once made gerrymandering illegal. This allows Republicans free range to draw their congressional lines wherever benefits them most. 

Meanwhile, Roy Cooper, our Democratic governor, has been in office since 2017.

Gerrymandering is a real problem, and it reflects the worst of us. But it does not reflect all of us.

We are a working class, pro-union people.

We are coal miners and mill workers and farmers.

We took up arms against the government and fought for our labor rights during the Coal Wars as recently as the 1920s.

We bled for labor rights at the Battle of Blair Mountain.

It’s a myth that you keep perpetuating that we are all closed minded, bigoted regressionists. It diminishes the efforts of everyone from the coal miners to people like me while we try to make the region a better place.

It actually only worsens what you say that you wish you could “saw off into the ocean.” 

That's my home you're talking about.

Stereotype 2: Everyone is Obese

36.3% of the overall population of the Southeast is obese. This is true.

Have you considered why that may be? For starters, Southerners are more likely to be uninsured compared to individuals living in the rest of the country.

"Among the total nonelderly population, 15% of individuals in the South are uninsured compared to 10% of individuals in the rest of the country."

Partially because they didn't even expand the same Medicaid benefits to us. and partially because we are just so fucking poor. 

17% of the American South is below the poverty line, compared to 13% in the Midwest, 13% in the West, and 13% in the Northeast.

Percentages under 5% may not seem like much, but when you consider 1% of the total United States population is around 3,140,000 people, yeah, that adds up real quick.

How does this relate? Well...

Mississippi has 19.58% of its residents below the poverty line, and a 39.1% obesity rate.

West Virginia has 17.10% of its residents below the poverty line, and a 40.6 % obesity rate.

Kentucky has 16.61% of its residents below the poverty line, and a 40.4% obesity rate.

Are you seeing the trend?

We, generally speaking, are more likely to be unable to afford to feed ourselves wholesome foods, and we are less likely to be able to afford medical insurance--two things that are obviously important to maintaing good health and a "healthy" weight.

By the same token... 

Stereotype #3: We're All Uneducated 

The South and Appalachia are some of the lowest ranked in terms of educational funding and spending per pupil in the entire country. We don't even break the top 30 on the list, y'all.

49. Tennessee at $8,324 per pupil 47. Mississippi at $8,919 per pupil 45. Alabama at $9,636 per pupil 42. Kentucky at $10,010 per pupil 36. North Carolina at $10,613 per pupil 35. South Carolina at  $10,719 per pupil 33. Georgia at $10,893 per pupil 32. West Virginia at $10,984 per pupil

The top three best-funded states, by comparison, receive between $18k and $20k per pupil.

In terms of higher education, student loans are a death sentence for everyone but especially impoverished kids just looking for a way out. It just isn't feasible for most of us. And that's if we even tested well after going to shitty schools our whole lives. If we had better education, we'd have better literacy in all things, including critical thinking, allowing us to better see through the bullshit we are taught. But we don't. And you aren't helping the ones who are trying in spite of that.

Stereotype 4: Bad Teeth

Quickly going to touch on this one--when we consider a lack of access to affordable, healthy food, shitty medical insurance in general and our poverty rate, this one is kind of obvious. Even so:

“Dental coverage was significantly lower than the national average in the South Atlantic (45.6%), East South Central (45.6%), West South Central (45.9%), and Pacific (48.0%) regions.”

Every time you make a toothless hillbilly joke, ask if poverty is really the butt of the joke you want to be making.

These are just the most pervasive of them, imo. And they can all be underlined by extreme poverty which is absolutely by design.

It also contributes to why it isn’t so easy to “just leave” as we are so often dismissively told to do. Moving is expensive.

And why should we have to, anyway? Why should we have to flee our homes?

Why, for those who feel safe enough and/or have no other choice, should we not stay and fight to better the region?

And why can’t you other leftists get behind us and help us in our fight instead of perpetuating harmful stereotypes? We're your people, too.

Just some food for thought. And I hope some of y’all take a big ol bite.

[deoidesign]

Happy EDS awareness month!

I'm a webcomic artist with EDS. be aware.

EDS affects many parts of my life. I have chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and I need to use a cane! I often find myself ruminating on themes of chronic illness in my work, whether or not I am intending to include them.

I already can't paint anymore, it hurts my hands too much... Anything that requires small details or precise motions will hurt me for days. I have a lot of grief around it. But working digitally allows me to still create!

I animate, I illustrate, I get to tell my stories. I have to go slow, take huge breaks (often against my will) and recover slowly. But, working in this space allows me the grace to do this.

So, I just wanted to share a bit of my experience with my audience, and say thank you for reading my work and supporting me! It means the world to me, and I hope maybe someone in my audience feels a little more seen through me sharing this. It causes me pain, but I love myself; and that includes my disability.

[lemm-moxx]

random UTMV oc crap ( expression practice and nightshade info #01 )

He brings a sort of unstable mold creature vibe to the multiverse that everyone doesn't really like

[ruelpsen]

Fuck it, I'm going to go out and say it: while I often enjoy being teased on here, a fair portion of what I receive irritates me as it's misguided at best and reeks deeply of unlearned, malicious fatphobia at its worst. Yes I want to be fatter but I'm not fat. I am a 140-lbs/63.5-kg twink despite all my efforts to gain weight. I'm not stick thin, sure, but I'm sure as hell not fat either. So why are some people insistent on calling me fat/huge/big? Are actual fat people too much for you (perhaps even in spite of you being a self-professed FA)? Is your idea of fatness grounded in equating 'not even that chubby' with 'fat' while not even being attracted to people who are actually fat? Do you solely find bloated skinny guys hot while still saying you like fat people? Or are you not attracted to fat people at all and here simply to take your fatphobia out on the people closest to your image of ideal thinness, who you'd be more openly attracted to if they lost 10-20 pounds, all while still scoffing at or ignoring the fat people at the heart of these communities?

Some of y'all really need to do better. Either own up to your love of people who are actually fat (which may entail adjusting your understanding of what fatness is), clean up your nomenclature, or don't be here. Yes unlearning biases like fatphobia takes time and effort, but your choices really are more or less that simple.

[isahorcrux]

In light of the recent announcement of the Harry Potter TV Show and the fact that this is primarily a Harry Potter fan fiction blog, the below needs to be said.

I am not excited about this show.

If you told my past self 5 years ago this, I’d be shocked.  Five years ago, if they announced a Harry Potter TV show I’d be doing everything in my power to be involved some way or another.  However, in the last five years JKR has shown her true colors and spent her free time and money attacking the trans community.  There are many reasons why I’m not excited about the show or looking forward to it in any regard, but to me the most important is that this show gives JKR more money and cultural capital to further her anti-trans agenda.  This is unacceptable.

I think a lot of us raised on Harry Potter really wanted to separate the art from the artist, dive further into fanfic and fandom and just ignore that the woman who created a world in which we’ve spent most of our lives escaping into.  However, we can’t do that.  It’s come to my attention over the past few days that a lot of people aren’t even aware of the active harm JKR is doing to the trans community.  Most people just say, ‘oh she said some weird stuff on twitter’ right?

Well, yeah.  But, did you also know she launched an active campaign against a reform bill that made it easier for trans people to legally change gender?  You know what happened?  The UK blocked that Bill and Scotland now has to launch a legal challenge to the government block.  She’s also funding a Sex Abuse Crisis Center that excludes trans women.  Yeah, that’s right.  She’s using her money from a book about love and acceptance to actively exclude a marginalized group from a crisis center.  She’s also publicly admitted via twitter that she funds anti-LGBTQ political activity in the UK.

So yeah, there’s a direct line of fans supporting official trademarked Harry Potter anything and that money directly harming transpeople.  Sorry for that rude awakening, but some of y’all are doing backflips to avoid seeing this.

Now, is there a way to prevent Warner Brothers (and Max, lol) from making this show?  Probably not?  After mergers and at a point when the tv and film industry isn’t booming, they need money.  You know what makes money?  Harry Potter.  Which is why they’re rebooting it.  Another question that’s been raised, will the looming writer’s strike affect this?  I would guess probably not?  Most UK writers (and International writers at large) are not in the WGA.  JKR has always wanted the most amount of British people involved in Harry Potter adaptations, so they’ll use the strike to find a UK writer and get them to work.

So what can we do?

Don’t watch the show.  Or, if you do.  Pirate it. In fact, cancel your Max subscription before the show launches.

They’re going to spend A LOT of money on this.  If the numbers aren’t there for them they will do what every other streamer does with an unsuccessful show and cancel it.  They announced 5 Fantastic Beast movies, and yet...where’s that last one?

Anyway, thanks for reading this whole thing if you’ve gotten this far.  Please share with friends who are excited about the show.  Please engage in meaningful discussions with other Potter fans.  Please support our trans friends and strangers.

Once again, this blog says FUCK JKR.

[reiderwriter]

small psa to american/non-uk fanfiction writers trying to write dialogue for characters from the uk or europe: stop using pet names

love, pet, duck, sweetheart, babes etc they're all regional pet names you'd probably only encounter in one part of the country, and most of the times the characters using them actually speak queen's english (think the marauder's/ sherlock etc they're upper class characters they're not speaking dialects)

pet names are also really condescending when they're being used by someone of the same age as you - when I'm in the uk I expect to get called love or pet a lot, but only by people my grandparents and parents age who view me as a child, or a creep on the street trying to get overly familiar

I don't know if this is just my personal ick, but it just doesn't sit right in the dialogue for me - think about the dialogue the characters use in the primary content you're writing for, and if they're not speaking in a specific regional dialect/ you can't tell if they are, or they're not a bit of a creep and a flirt, try not to delve into those unspecific pet names

((that is to say if you establish a small pet name between the characters within the fic that would work, or if its a kink related pet name like princess/ baby girl that would probably work too, just not in outside dialogue - we're still pretty stiff upper lip lmao))

[weralika]

has Andrew sucked Jeremy's dick?

[wenellyb]

I have nothing against Buddie, quite the opposite, I think it's a very cute ship but in the show, I see them as platonic.

Anyone who follows my blog knows that I love to make parallels between shows and Buck and Eddie make think of Will and Gunnar in Nashville.

They're best friends, share an incredible bond and at one point they even raised a kid together (with Avery). They have shared so many scenes that could be seen as ambiguous but they're not, because that's how best friends act. Because are you even best friends you've never had someone assume you and your best friend were dating?

But they're not dating, they have the strongest bond and have always been there for eachother, but their relationship has never been romantic.

That's how I see Buck and Eddie's relationship.

The reason I'm saying this is because I feel like Buck would have went for it if he had wanted to be with Eddie. He would have been more obvious.

He didn't have any problem doing it when he was interested in other men. He might have done it in a clumsy way or acted like didn't know exactly how to proceed but he "went for it" anyway...

Exhibit A: Buck was hitting on TK in the 9-1-1/9-1-1 Lone Star crossover. Buck didn't say "we should meet up" or "catch up", he said "we should get together". And he didnt say it to the whole group. He waited for a moment when they were both alone.

That's why TK thought Buck was hitting on him, because he was.

Same with Tommy. Buck was flirting with Tommy way before their moment in the kitchen.

Exhibit B: Buck admitted that he asked Tommy for a tour because he wanted to get to know him, he even asked Tommy out, after the tour. He didn't say "we should grab a beer" or "do you want to go out for drinks", he said "you should let me buy you a beer". That man was trying to get a date.

And then in Buck's kitchen, when Tommy still wouldn't get it, Buck told him point blank that he was trying to get his attention.

I really think Buck knows what he wants even if he's a little confused about how to get there. And I never really felt like he wanted to go there with Eddie. Buck and Eddie are each other's person but it doesn't always have to be romantic.