#shameless preferences

[sunderwight]

Hualian Idol AU where instead of the statues the big reveal of Hua Cheng's longstanding amorous fixation on Xie Lian is all of his self-insert "my mom sold me to One Direction" style fanfics located in the depths of some boyband RPF archive.

[corpusdiem-seizethedead]

Charlie: What do you have there, Angel?

Angel: Oh, it's just a to-do list

Charlie: That's great! I should do one for myself as w-

Angel:

Charlie:

Charlie: This list just says "Husk" and it has a heart drawn beside it

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

everytime someone’s mean to debbie in s11 i just think of s1 debbie as the girl they’re saying shit about and i cry. please be nice to my girl shes like 2 months old (she’s 20)

[bheaste]

Happy (Late) Trans Visibility Day !!!

Here’s a trans pride doodle of my favorite fictional feathered fowl, Miss Partridge!

[thecurioustale]

My New Book Is Out! | Tokens of Zeal

My new book is out!

Buy it! Buy it now!

That's right: In secret, on January 2 of this year I began writing a book of essays. Some of you may know that I have an online journal, which I created in the summer of 2003 when I was just 21 years old and have kept up with ever since. For my new book I went back to the journal and read through it, entry by entry, drawing out excerpts of interest that became conversation pieces for 81 various and sundry essays reflecting on my past life and past thoughts.

The essays are short, often very short. They are less challenging than my usual writing, I would say. My purpose was not to advance my personal frontier of philosophy and intellectual thought in 2024, or to reach a niche audience of deep thinkers, but instead to reflect sincerely on some things I've seen along the way and muse upon how my thoughts have changed and stayed the same over twenty years.

I mention this to you because I am a bit worried that anyone who reads this book might think there's not much to me as an author, and might be dissuaded from reading my works of fiction when those books eventually come out, so I'll lampshade that by adding that I wrote this book in two-and-a-half months. Make of that what you will. I told myself I wouldn't self-sabotage the book by needlessly saying negative things about it, and I am proud of it, not only the fact that I finished it at all, let alone so quickly, but of the actual contents too.

This book is "Volume 1" in a hypothetical series, as it doesn't cover the entire twenty years of the journal but only the first four months, from August to November of 2003—at which point the essays had reached "book length" (lol). So really this book is a snapshot of my life in the latter half of 2003. At that time, I was fading out of college due to financial hardship and other issues, and did not realize that I would never (as yet) return.

I have been wanting for years to go back and reread my journal, and writing a book out of it was the perfect impetus to finally do it. I think a few things stand out about the Josh of 2023:

First, my principles have remained remarkably consistent, but my awareness and understanding of the world has grown drastically, and so those same principles have led me over time to some different policy views and worldviews on some things.

Second, I was a 21-year-old arrogant block of cheese, full of hormones and self-conviction, and that definitely shows up at times in ways that I simultaneously am not proud of and yet which I admire for their sheer gall. There is something very magnetic about the old me which doesn't exist anymore.

Third, following up on that point, it was pretty inspiring and encouraging to revisit the old me, with all that native optimism and drive. I don't express those qualities anymore because life has worn me down and also because I have come to recognize that humanity's problems are a lot more stubborn and irremediable than I thought. By glimpsing into the past, I couldn't help but be cheered on by the old Josh's proud, utopian sense of human inevitability. It lifted my own spirits in the here and now!

I made the mistake of announcing the book on Patreon right after I finished writing it, i.e. back in mid-March. Then I had to wring my hands every week about how post-production was taking longer than expected. Between the irritating realities of formatting a book in software not properly equipped to format a book (never write a book in Google Docs), the complexities of my detail-oriented manner and strong vision regarding the cover design (and engaging for the first time ever with modern generative AI, and having to learn those ropes), and sustaining illnesses and other life priorities and so on, it would take me another two months in all to finally reach today, where I can now publicly declare:

The book is done! It is for sale right now. It is called:

Tokens of Zeal: Words from a Vanished Age

(Caption: Book front cover of Tokens of Zeal: Words from a Vanished Age, by Joshua Calars.)

You can buy it through Amazon in either paperback or e-book format. (I recommend the paperback version for aesthetics as it is much truer to my design vision for the book's layout and appearance, but my profit margin is actually a dollar bigger with the e-book version, so really just go with whichever version you prefer.) It is available in the US as well as in basically all the other countries that Amazon has expanded its publishing service into. If you need help finding a link to a particular version, give me a ping and I will point you there (if there is a "there" to be pointed to). This is my second published book, following Prelude to After The Hero in 2015, and the first book to be published in print.

If you do read it, first of all thank you! It's an honor that you would take the time. Second of all, I would love any feedback you care to offer. That's not a platitude either; feedback is hard to come by and I really would be interested in anything you have to say, good or bad. You can e-mail me, DM, reblog this, drop an ask, or tag me in an independent post. Whatever you like! Feedback will help me greatly when I eventually get around to writing Volume 2. And feel free to leave a review on Amazon, whether good or bad (though hopefully you enjoy the book); I am told it pleases The Algorithm. But most of all, if you enjoy the book, tell someone about it! Your word-of-mouth is currently 100 percent of my advertising budget, lol.

That's all. I wrote a book; it took four-and-a-half-months; it's done now; and it's the first time I've ever gotten to hold a book that I wrote in my hands as a physical thing, and that's pretty neat.

[ebenelephant]

everyone on this app is really pro body positivity until it comes to comparing the uk and us versions of a show

[superbellsubways]

thinking about making a sideblog for doodles or things i just dont wanna post over here for 6k+ people to see bc it can be #embarassing

[marley-manson]

Hawkeye has virtually no shame about public displays of emotional vulnerability and mental instability, imo.

I’ve seen a lot of people who place a lot of importance on Hawkeye’s “If this keeps up, people are gonna realize I'm as crazy as I think I am,” line in Hawk’s Nightmare but honestly I just see it as mainly a wry acknowledgement that he’s acting less than sane in public and weirding out his childhood friends back home by detailing his nightmares to them, with a side of alluding to his actual fear, which is being crazy, as he tells Sidney over and over during that conversation. The key word there is “think” not “realize” imo.

Sidney reassures him by telling him his nightmares mean he’s sane, not by telling him that they’ll go away and he’ll stop publically sleepwalking. In fact he implies it’s something that will continue until the war’s over, and Hawkeye doesn’t seem to have a problem with that as long as it doesn’t mean he’s actually going insane.

And Hawkeye never really demonstrates any concern over people witnessing his breakdowns, and in fact seems to go out of his way to make them public half the time. I mean you got your most blatant example in Bananas Crackers and Nuts where he’s happy to exaggerate his feelings to make people think he’s insane to get a break. But even when it’s genuinely serious (and less cartoony, tonally), he’s also got no issues making public scenes.

He doesn’t quietly seek out Potter or BJ alone when he decides yes he is in fact seriously ill in Bless You Hawkeye, he walks right into everyone having a meeting and announces that he’s gonna die. He’s not only perfectly fine with Sidney visting him for a consultation in Hawk’s Nightmare, he’s the first to acknowledge why he’s there during the poker game while Sidney’s trying to be politely subtle (”Mind if I come along?” “Fine with me Doc, as long as your couch has wheels on it.”) He also ofc calls his childhood friends and tells them he’s having fucked up nightmares about them, tells everyone else about them to ask for their opinions, and tries to have a heart to heart with Frank about being afraid to go to sleep.

He makes a joke about cracking up at the farewell party in GFA, and tells some random patient he just had his “head in a cast,” apropros of nothing. He throws a tantrum in Adam’s Ribs, he publically screams out his feelings at the end of For Want of a Boot, he loudly narrates his impending panic attack in CAVE (and says that the reason he kept quiet about it for a while is specifically because he didn’t want Potter to choose a less safe place to retreat to on his account), he casually describes his emotional state as “mania” to Potter in Depressing News while, yk, building a big tower for 2 days without breaks in the middle of the camp, he breaks down in front of BJ - a guy he’d only recently met - in The Late Captain Pierce, he angrily confronts everyone about feeling betrayed and abandoned by them in the phone scene in GFA. We don’t see what he does after Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde but he casually mentions the insomnia to Winchester in Dr. Winchester and Mr. Hyde so he’s fine talking about it. He has two public breakdowns in the O.R. that I can remember off-hand.

And he never demonstrates any shame or regret about the public nature of any of this.

He never tries to hide his feelings - I think the closest he gets is in Sons and Bowlers, and he proceeds to tell Charles how he’s feeling for the entire rest of the night in that one - and while nearly everyone else gets plotlines where something’s troubling them that they don’t want to talk about, Hawkeye never ever does. He’s usually the one prying these feelings out of other characters and chiding them for not talking about them. Even in GFA what’s stopping him from talking about it is the amnesia - he’s reluctant and upset about having the conversations about the bus because he’s subconsciously afraid of remembering, but he still does, and after he has his breakthrough he willingly talks it through with Sidney multiple times afterwards as well, both offscreen in Sidney’s mention of follow-up sessions (including Hawkeye explicitly wanting more of them), and on screen when Sidney visits the 4077.

And in Bless You Hawkeye, the other trauma amnesia episode, he’s perfectly willing to a) accept it could be psychosomatic, b) talk about it with Sidney to find the root cause, and c) joke about it afterwards during a poker game.

And then you got a bunch of moments and jokes where he shamelessly reveals personal information about himself, sometimes likely exaggerations that he’s still fine with people believing, sometimes clearly accurate. I sucked my thumb until my twenties, I can’t get hard, here’s the kind of niche sex I like, I’m a coward and proud, I’m fucking my married ex, I was jealous of my dad’s girlfriend, monologue about how much I miss my dad to a stranger, monologue about how miserable I am to a stranger, monologue about how terrified I am to a stranger, etc etc.

There’s also overt commentary on this - in Check-Up for example, Hawkeye suggests that Trapper got an ulcer because he’s the strong silent type who keeps his feelings in, in contrast to himself. In Bless You Hawkeye Sidney points out that Hawkeye never holds back when it comes to his feelings about the war, which is why he’s assuming the root cause is something Hawkeye isn’t even consciously aware of and goes back to Hawkeye’s childhood.

When it comes to Hawkeye it’s very difficult for me to imagine a scenario where he would try to hide anything about himself, whether that’s his feelings or something about his life, and I have a feeling it was the same for the writers of the show most of the time too lol, hence relying on amnesia twice for the mystery and reveal structure.

[rosegoldendaydream]

THE FUCK YOU MEAN THEY BROKE UP

[errantgoat]

Astarion playthrough thoughts so far (finished Act 2)

The original content is there (mostly in Act 1), but I'm not sure if it warrants doing an origin run, considering what you lose when Astarion's not in the companion role. Basically you get a Tav with Astarion reskin, pretty much.

One thing that made it a little worth for me so far is that with all the small comments he makes, it did make me notice how eloquent and proper his speech patterns are...there's definitely some old- timey english slang in there as well. It's adorable.

but other than that

Someone summed it up better than I could.... Without Tav being there to give a damn, Astarion's playthrough feels super lonely. There's no reactivity with his questline when it comes to companions, they make no comments or even acknowledge any 'milestones' of his personal quest. (And they DO SO when he's a companion, seems like a real oversight.) Everything is handled so very privately, scars on his back are an inner dialogue starring the narrator in Act 2 for ef sake. At this point I'm not sure why he should choose the redemption route when nobody seems to care about anything concerning him at all, the LI included. :( It just makes me feel like he pretends to be a better person that he is, which in turn feels super sleazy, because he doesn't even try to canonically do that as a companion. :P

I'm planning on finishing Act 3 because my completionist soul wouldn't let me stop. BUT at this point I'm just doing it to be free of this game. XD This is it. The end. Next playthrough in 1-2 years time I SWEAR to GODS.

[mandy-faith-502]

Just finished shameless for the first time and, my god have I been missing out.

Spent the past few (don’t even know how long it took me to get through it) weeks doing basically nothing besides going to work and watching shameless.

[oneiriccatscradle]

“and then i realized i’m killing off your friend,” lianyu sounds incredulous, his tongue curling in distaste. “am i not? giving you your fourth betrayal, and what not?” lianyu then starts laughing, and laughing and laughing, until his fits turn into something more like sobs, “for fuck’s sake, scara— why can’t you just love me ”

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

the way that in mandy’s first ever scene she stands tall and walks and speaks with such confidence, but by her last scene she seems embarrassed and more timid. free my girl she did nothing wrong

[golden28s]

my gallavich headcanon is that mickey has started multiple fights about who's sophie's dad in mamma mia and he's absolutely convinced that her dad is bill and ian still thinks is sam

[theha1r]

@will3nd liked for a new interactions starter!

"shit!" steve curses loudly as his feet continue moving before his brain can tell them to stop and he goes full on barreling into the other, sending them both sprawling - landing in a tangle of limbs. "shit, shit, shit." he continues to curse, trying his best to entangle himself from the other. "shit i'm sorry, are you okay?" he barely even notices the cut on his own knee, slowly trickling blood down his leg.

[tonydaddingham]

okay yes unknown/nth is distressingly husbands-coded i won't deny it but why the fck are we sleeping on heavenly kind of state of mind by lewis capaldi