#i say his bday is the day I adopted him haha he was already 1 year old so yeah he’ll be 5

[soobinies]

I can’t believe my older dog will be 5 years old next month

It’s been 4 years since I adopted him

[neverdoingmuch]

I’m here for the ‘swords not as pets’ agenda. Swords as cars: solid, get you from place to place, potentially dangerous, customizable, something people name. Wwx losing his license taking the fall for a mistake jc made (idk, dui maybe?) and just choosing to mod the hell out of a self-balancing scooter or segway or something so it goes dangerously fast. Alternatively: spending 3 months inventing the first functional actual levitating hoverboard, with an insane top speed. 3 months in the (1/2)

sawdfert this is delightful!! i saw segway and i immediately started wheezing,, there was no time for laughing i went straight to the wheezing. i think it would make more sense if wwx lost his car and got a motorcycle? like hoverboards and segways are cool but motorcycles have that big reputation of being dangerous and there’s the whole ‘rebellious teen gets a motorcycle and becomes a delinquent’ thing? like motorcycles are fast and if you crash it’s so much worse than if you were in a car and there’s no airbags or anything. but also?? wwx rocking up to school on a segway while playing his flute like the shittiest entrance ever? iconic. but let’s stick with chenqing as a motorcycle/scooter (motorcycle-esque scooter not the ones that try and take out your ankles).

okay so all the major sects are super rich so in a modern au it would make sense for all the sect heirs to get cars. i’m not saying that jc and wwx complain about jzx being stuck-up bc he was given a porsche for his birthday even though they were also given cars for their birthdays,,, but i am. at first it would have been this major point of contention between yzy and jfm bc wwx isn’t even their son so why is he getting a car too but wwx is like ah it’s so i can drive jc and jyl to school! you wouldn’t want their cars being left outside the school all day would you? someone in my maths class had their car get keyed and it was super expensive to fix,, and yzy is like yes wwx may have a car only to protect my children from parking hassles,, also wwx must pay for his own parking. so wwx and jc both get given cars for their bdays.

now wwx gets bored easily,, so you could translate him being a cultivation genius to him being really good at driving. im talking that jc is still getting the hang of switching gears and wwx is out there casually drifting around corners. (this does mean he has to get new tyres really frequently but he’s friends with wen ning, whose family runs the mechanics that wwx likes to go to so he just helps around the shop for a bit and gets a discount (yes its the family discount)). anyway wwx really enjoys driving, also! he just rocks up to wen ning’s place one day and is like dude, i wanna pimp my ride, wanna help and wen ning is like heck yeah. so wwx pays for some upgrades with his own money and he spends hours doing some custom work to make it look cool,,

it’s all going well until wwx and jc go to wen chao’s party one night and jc gets absolutely sloshed,,, like completely hammered. wwx had walked in, grabbed a cup of lemonade or something and was gonna hang with his friends but lwj was there for some reason so he spent the entire night talking to him in the back garden. which means that when jc wanted to leave he saw wwx hanging out with lwj and went ew gross and just decided to drive home himself. he crashes and when wwx comes home the next day jc gets super pissed at him bc he was meant to be the designated driver and if he hadnt been screwing around with lwj jc wouldnt have tried to drive home and now his parents will be super pissed and wwx is like woah chill my grandmother is a mechanic and she can fix this up just give me a couple of days. 

so wwx goes to baoshan sanren mechanics (which is just the back entrance to the wen sibling’s mechanics) and spends the next three days getting rid of all of his customisations and mods so his car looks exactly like jc’s. does he cry when he has to spend like five mins spraying the inside of the car with axe body spray to get the jc stench going on? maybe a little. but he does it and returns the car to jc! and jc is like oh wow my car is fixed, your grandma is a miracle worker and wwx is like haha yeah (:

anyway wwx mysteriously and suddenly discovers a passion for public transport,, it’s a good way to stay humble jiang cheng, he says, also i used all my petrol money buying porn from nhs or whatever. anyway wwx is doing the whole pt to school thing but then one afternoon wen chao and wzh find him and idk maybe the party got too rowdy so the cops came and wc got in trouble with his dad? he assumes wwx called the cops on him so he shoves wwx into his car and drives him out to the middle of no where and dumps him in the burial mounds scrap metal recycling place or whatever. 

the train line isn’t running that day and there’s no phone service either so wwx is stuck there overnight. he gets super bored. so what does he do? he finds an abandoned scooter and starts scavenging for parts. he’s not expecting it to actually work but by the time the sun rises he’s found some actually decent parts and he thinks that he could get it working. tbh he kinda forgets to go back home and just walks into town to buy some food and then goes back and continues fiddling with the scooter. he doesnt live there for the three months but the people in yiling just accept that this random teenager has all but moved into their scrap heap and adopt him anyway. so he goes and visits the burial mounds every day after school so none of his friends or family really see him anymore. 

until! one day he rocks up to school on his scooter. scooters,, are kinda like sad pathetic motorcycles,, but wwx mods his scooter with like a powerful engine and new steering and everything so people see it and go oh! a motorcycle! even though it’s not actually (can you do that with a scooter? idk but suspend your disbelief pls). so lwj is like hnnngg wwx in a leather jacket on a motorcycle but also wei ying, stop riding a motorcycle, *enter statistics about motorcycle crashes here* and wwx is like no! you cant take chenqing away from me. and jc is pissed bc they were meant to be brothers and have matching cars and be able to work on them and give them cool paint jobs together! but now wwx has this bike which has been modded to hell and back and refuses to drive his car bc it’s not as cool as his bike. so we get to have the whole ‘everyone thinks wwx is doing something dumb and dangerous’ bc he has a motorcycle and why isnt he just driving his car anymore? but we also get to keep some of the nuance of the demonic cultivation bc yeah it’s more dangerous than driving in a car but wwx doesnt have a car anymore and scooters are a loottt safer than motorcycles (if my two seconds of research is correct).

so! wwx won’t abandon chenqing and he did most of his work using scrap parts so he goes back to the wens and is like wen ning my best bro check her out and he’s like oooooooh and they start modding chenqing together. wen qing doesnt know why wwx is constantly over at their shop all the time but jc keeps arguing with wwx and wwx grows more distant with his family and friends bc he’s making ~bad decisions~ and a motorcycle is a gateway to idk teen delinquent shenanigans like smoking and doing graffiti so he’s kinda ousted from respectable rich people society and wen qing is like i have two (2) brothers now and they’re adorable not that i’ll ever tell them that. and wwx modding chenqing got him a reputation in yiling like everyone saw him walk in one day and then drive out with this sexy sexy bike so people start coming to him for mods and stuff and wwx earns the title yiling patriarch and wen ning, his trusted best friend and helper, gets called the ghost general bc idk he helps a lot but the customers never meet him. so they become some dynamic duo for car and bike mods!

anyway,, yzy delivers him an ultimatum one day: the car or the bike (or more accurately: the family or the bike) but wwx can’t drive the car anymore so he just gets quietly disowned and drops out of school. (we’ll save jzxuan the suffering in this au he can keep his car). he goes to the wens and theyre like hey whats up? wait no you cant live in a scrap heap,, not even if you buy a tent,,, just live with us please. and then wwx gets adopted by the wens and idk i want them to have a happy ending so wwx and wn go off and do some actual mechanic and modding training with some expert (sqdcfgt imagine if it was the real baoshan sanren who just happened to be in the market for some apprentices and saw wwx and wn’s work and was like them and then later realised it was her grandson). so they get their apprenticeship and they disappear off somewhere for a year or two - when wwx had been disowned he’d deleted everyone’s contacts and was like if they text me i’ll add them back but im not gonna have a contact list cemetery. (no one contacts him). 

eventually the 13 years pass and wwx has been helping the wens raise their little nephew a-yuan who is showing a real aptitude for being a mechanic even though he’s just a kid and just generally enjoying the quiet life of being a mechanic while doing fun mods and lil baby projects. then one day lwj’s car breaks down while he’s driving through the area and he calls up the local mechanic and guess who rocks up? it’s wwx. and then we get to have them dance around each other and wwx being like lwj doesnt trust me, he’s just sitting here and watching me work all day ): and lwj is like dont let him go dont let him go dont let him go,, and eventually they get their romance but this is way too long already so im im gonna end this here

i didnt mean to make this an entire au but i adored your idea so much anon so i kinda had to!!

[yayninjabob]

A story behind a story

I have never wrote 100,000 words of anything in my life and 9 months ago when I first sat down to write Villain: Redux I definitely did NOT anticipate the length it would reach by the end of Part I. Now that it is done though I feel like I can talk about it.  Well not really the story but the story behind the story?  

A very lengthy and personal author's note for Part I: Remote Control

How I started writing again: My relationship with my writing was non existent for years.  I honestly went through a very long drought where I felt like everything I created just sucked so bad and I had zero motivation for creating shit.  I would talk with my therapist or my wife and friends about feeling so out of touch with my creative side and feeling pretty lost without it.  Really, I pretty much felt like it was dead forever.  I eventually started a personal journal again... And little drabbles here and there would come to mind... It felt alright but meh. "What did you enjoy about writing that you still feel is missing?" I was asked. Ffffffuck me I dont know.  Writing as a teen and in my early twenties wasn't something I ever thought about even when I did it every damn day of my life.  I guess I missed having that ongoing plot in the back of my head that I could escape to whenever life was lame. Daydreaming crazy stories as a kid was just my favorite past time and writing went with it.  But I just didnt have any more stories in my head. Nothing new or exciting enough at least. Anyways. January was my dads bday.  2019 and that year my dad asked for something.  Now my dad isn't one to ask for gifts. No, normally he is extremely frustrating and expects everyone to read his mind while saying "I dont care" yet if his gifts dont meet his secretive expectations he gets all butthurt and emo and says that nobody knows him.  Ok but January 2019 he asks me to write him something.   "What?  A story?  A poem?  A birthday card?" "I dont care just write me something." Typical. "I dont care."  Yeah right.  What the hell does he expect from me jeez.... My dad was the OG storyteller in my life- real shit or bullshit- he could spin a crazy story like no one else. My uncles and his friends would sit around smoking and drinking and listening to one wild tale after the next.   He could entertain people for HOURS just with the shit he’d say.  I always thought he'd make a brilliant stand up comedian but my dad would just laugh at the idea. So for his gift I figured I'd retell one of his personal wild tales - his first encounter with a mountain lion at 12 during a hunting trip with my late great uncle Joe who was his adoptive father figure.  Honestly my dad was always so incredibly descriptive and I heard that tale about a bazillion times growing up, and even though he hadnt shared it in probably 15+ years, it was easy to recall. I could just close my eyes and see it clear as day.  I stayed loyal to his story but I used my own words.  It really surprised me how easy I found those words though.  Writing had been such an impossible challenge for so long yet when I finished the short story I had written 12 pages in a single afternoon and I was shocked but in a good way.  It was his story so I was pretty sure he would like it. He's got a pretty big ego lol. I typed it up on the typewriter my dad had gotten me back when I was a teen and serious about becoming a "real writer."  I figured he would appreciate that.  I gave him the story on his birthday.  He didnt read it right away. We went to the backyard and the two of us shared a joint and while I started chasing the dogs in the yard for a bit I saw he finally picked the story up. And when he finished he started crying. Which is always weird when it's your dad right?  He isn't one to cry easily. Last time I saw tears in his eyes was three years prior at my wedding but even that wasnt like this.  He told me "You need to write again.   You need to try." But I still felt like I couldn't. I never really thought I was good at it anyway.  Sure, people told me they liked my writing and it meant a lot that my dad was moved so much by my short story that I started to believe “hey maybe I can write,” but... I dunno.  I had a rough idea for an original novel that I sat down with later that month and tried to work out... But it just felt forced and uninteresting.  It wasnt a story my mind could just escape to effortlessly.  The passion just wasnt there. After a while my wife suggested to me "Well when you retold your dad's story that was easier right?  Maybe you should retell another story that you love." And so in August 2019 I sat down and wrote what would eventually become the scarring scene for Villain: Redux

Part I:  Remote Control I spent the rest of August, September and October slowly falling back into my old world of Villain.  I reread both Villain and VillainE for the first time in yeeeeeears.  What. A. Trip. So much stood out to me that was like "Ok young me, I see where you were going but this could be so much better."  I made my list of what I liked and what I wanted to change.. Constructed my outline and then I just went for it.   Halloween night that year was spent finishing my first draft of chapter 1.  It was still in Buttercup's limited POV.  I liked it OK enough but I wondered if it would be improved if I tried third person instead.  I said "fuck it why not" and went for it again but in third person, adding the beginning history of Townsville and then the opening scene with Mojo.   When I finished it I was pretty amused with it and I found myself just starting right away on chapter 2 and adding even more details to my overall outline- it became a trilogy.  It was flowing SO easy and for once writing didnt feel like some forced chore I was performing.   The entire time though I debated whether or not to share any of it.  I didn't think anyone would read it.  But personally, I was falling in love with my new rendition and I really didn't want to stop writing it. So once again I said "fuck it why not" and I started this tumblr to start documenting my new commitment to rewriting Villain for good.  I edited the first chapter and uploaded it a couple days before Thanksgiving. And the support I got from readers honestly made me cry haha... I really really thought the story would go unnoticed.  After all, when I first started writing for the PpG fandom it was always an uphill battle and 90 percent of my first reviews were just flames and criticism.  The original Villain really took a while to gain much of a readership and even though it had its moment of somewhat popularity in the fandom, that moment came after it was completed. A brief glance at the PpG section on FFnet showed me that things really hadnt changed- still 99 percent PpGxRrB romances.  Man, it just seemed so unfair. I freaking love this show and TBH I will never understand the fandom's fixation on those damn Rowdyruffs.  Whatever.  It is what it is.  But because of that and because I hadnt been an active writer in the fandom for like a decade I really thought I'd be lucky to get one review.   And I did!  On the first day!  And I was PUMPED lol.   Then over the next couple of days I got more and most from names I recognized from the past!  I was so touched by some of the things you guys said, you will have no idea what those first 7 reviews meant to me.  And of course the reviews to follow throughout the next chapters only continued to motivate me further. And now I'm done with Part I.  Jeez what a freaking journey.  I feel like I've learned a lot though and I hope that the story only improves from here.   Today, this story invades my subconscious more than I would like to admit.  But.  It is so nice to have an exciting story to escape to once more.  And I feel like I can say that my creative drive is finally restored again which feels amazing.  Who knew it would be this rewrite of all things to do it. So yeah.  I owe the biggest thanks to my readers (the reviewers especially), my wife, and of course my dad.   I know we are just at the beginning of this story, but personally I just feel like I've accomplished more than I could've imagined already... like I said... 100,000 words is something I’ve never done before lol.  And I cant wait to share the rest of the story with everyone.   Anyways that’s my long soppy backstory on how I decided to rewrite Villain.  Thanks for reading. :)

[callioope]

11 Questions Meme

I was tagged by @letthepeoplesay-oh and @ta-dala -- thanks both of you because I love these! Also I’m just going to combine these into one long post so I cut it so it wouldn’t be ridiculous.

Rules: Answer the questions given to you. Make 11 questions of your own. Tag 11 people.

First set: (letthepeoplesay-oh)

1. If you could have any animal (real or fictional) as a pet, what would it be? My actual dog is pretty awesome, but that’s probably not the point of this question. So I’m going to say a red panda because they are the cutest animal and that’s a fact.

2. What’s your Hogwarts house? (Or your best guess, if you’re not a fan!) I spent all my life thinking I was a Hufflepuff, but Pottermore put me in Ravenclaw.

3. If you could change the smell of rain to any other smell, what would you choose? Ummmm so I can’t actually smell so I don’t really know how to answer this question. Isn’t the smell of rain supposed to be pleasant? 

4. What was your favorite book as a child? Haha well ok. My sister and I always loved to check out There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake by Hazel Edwards from the library. I don’t know what we loved about it, maybe that the hippo got up to so many strange activities on a roof? So we recently found it super cheap on Amazon and reread it, and it’s actually kind of creepy? There’s a line where the kid is talking about how they like to watch TV and it goes “He watches. I know he does.” So anyways. We liked a weird book.

5. If the police came to your house to arrest you right now, what crime would they charge you with? Listen, when it comes to cops, I am basically Ben Wyatt. I’m Lawful Good. I’ve refused to jaywalk before. I don’t even know how to answer this. I cannot imagine myself committing a crime.

6. If you could sit on a bench in a beautiful woods, who would you like sitting next to you on the bench and why? My fiance because we always go hiking together and idk there’s no one else I’d rather be with 

7. If you could choose your age forever, what age would you choose and why? I think 27? Idk why it just seems like the sweet spot between feeling young and feeling old? At least for me. 

8. What’s your earliest childhood memory? I used to say it was when I was 3, sitting in our backyard in San Antonio, our neighbor’s ball landed in our backyard and I liked it so I just decided to keep it. But I think that’s more a memory of a memory at this point. So I’m going to go with... I was 4, saw Beauty and the Beast on ice at Hershey Park in PA, would fall asleep listening to the soundtrack.

9. If you could go back in time and change history, what would you change? Everything? There’s too much badness in history, I’m struggling to pick one thing. Maybe stopping Christopher Columbus. I think this would have just delayed the horribleness that was wrought upon the Americas but... maybe if he was stopped, it could have been different. Anyways Orson Scott Card wrote a book about this (Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. It’s probably problematic (I mean the title sounds kind of problematic); I haven’t read it in years, and Card has a tendency to be problematic. But it certainly was an interesting thought experiment.)

10. If you were to change your name, what name would you adopt going forward? I used to use Fiona as a pen name before I started using Callioope... I guess I also like Abigail. I wanted to use this name for a future kid, but my fiance’s aunt is named Abigail so now we can’t use it. Dumb. Anyways I’ve always felt really lucky that I like my name and wouldn’t want to change it.

11. How do you like to spend a rainy day? Curled up on the couch, hot tea in hand, reading.

Second set: (ta-dala)

1. What is the “craziest” thing you’ve done for the love of something? Well. I went skydiving for my fiance. I have a strong fear of heights, he’d been wanting to do it for years and said he’d prefer to share such a life experience with me (so he wouldn’t go with anyone else). I refused for many years, but this past summer I finally took the leap (har har) and bought a groupon for it for his bday. I actually ended up having a blast, so I’m glad I went, but… I definitely thought it was a thing only crazy people do, before I did it.

2. What is your ultimate bucket-list travel destination? I would have said Efes, but I had the fortune of going there in 2014. (Both my user pic and cover pic are from Efes.) Otherwise there are so many places I want to go that it’s hard to choose just one. Hmmm we didn’t do Pamukkale when we were in Turkey soo maybe that. I mean, basically, ancient ruins are usually at the top of my list. And there are a lot of ancient ruins in Turkey along the southwest coast that we didn’t go to that I want to go back for. Oh and hot air ballooning in Cappadocia!

3. Cats or dogs? Dogs. I have nothing against cats, but I grew up with dogs all my life because my mom was allergic to cats.

4. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? I mean, right now I’m sleepy and still not quite 100% (but very close) recovered from being sick, soo… being at home, in pjs, on my couch is pretty appealing. But my usual answer to this is somewhere in Turkey, or maybe München. I’d move to München if distance was somehow made negligible by science fiction-esque modes of transportation and thus I wouldn’t be so separated from friends and family.

5. Write me a piece of advise that you’d go back and give to your younger self. Perfection is the enemy of good enough — you don’t even have to be great at something as long as  you try and give it the best you can.

6. Share one sentence of something you’ve written and tell me why you like it. “She discovers him on Endor, eyes dark and far away even after the Death Star disintegrates into fireworks above them, and they spend a night separate from the celebration, their own relief soft and slow and solemn as they reconcile their fears of tomorrow against its new promises.” from “if i wait (will you stay?)”

I enjoyed writing the imagery here; I liked the idea of Jyn and Cassian keeping their celebration of the destruction of the second Death Star private, it’s too deep and personal for them; I liked the alliteration of ‘soft and slow and solemn.’ The victory/beginning of the end of the war would be so charged for them because this is a war they’ve been fighting all their lives and it’d be the first glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel and I think that would terrify them as much as it would excite them.

7. Can you still love/be a fan of something/someone and be critical of a choice or decision? Why or why not? ABSOLUTELY!!! Thank you for this question, this is a good question and one I feel very strongly about. (Look, I’m a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones, there’s no way I haven’t learned how to take enjoyment from something while still being critical of it.)

I’d argue that maybe you don’t really love something until you’re honest about its faults. That seems a little dramatic to say though. And I don’t want to devalue someone’s love of something because they’re not critical of it. (Also, some things just… are less problematic.)

With my own experience in fandom, I’ve felt more sincerely and honestly connected and engaged with a work once I’ve acknowledged its criticisms. I think it comes about naturally when you pay enough attention to something or analyze it deeply enough. And to some extent (depending on the work), I feel if I wasn’t honest about its faults, there’d be a level of idolization happening that isn’t 100% sincere. Placing works or people on a pedestal is dangerous. Understanding the faults of a person or thing, to me, seems like a more true/sincere/honest understanding of it.

Also, nothing in this world is 100% Perfect and Good. It’s possible for a Thing or Person to both propagate very good, positive, progressive ideas and beliefs and commit mistakes and misunderstandings that aren’t great. In fact, most things in life are probably this way. Open honesty about how something is good and how something is bad is a natural, and I’d say necessary, course for progressing and improving and gaining a better understanding of the world.

8. Rogue One. Dead or alive?  ;) I don’t… I don’t understand this question. What do you mean dead? Why would they be dead? Obviously alive… :P

9. You can only eat one food the rest of your life. What is it? (You really didn’t want to ask me this question. I apologize in advance.)

It’s potatoes. There are so many different ways to cook them. I’m assuming that I’m allowed to cook them in different ways? Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew? I mean, in addition to what Samwise already wisely (heyyy) pointed out, there’s baked potatoes, potatoes au gratin, Hasselback potatoes, roasted potatoes — and so many ways to roast them! You can also make french fries, you can make potato chips. Cream of potato soup. Hash browns! Tater tots! Gnocchi! (I have leftover gnocchi from Maggianos in the fridge and it’s time for dinner and guess what I’m doing when I’m done here. I took a break to eat) And honestly?? I’ve only really covered western cooking for potatoes here. I’ve had potatoes in Indian cuisine that is delicious!! I just can’t remember what any of those dishes were called.

Look, I just googled all the ways you can cook potatoes and the first line of the first link that came up said “the potato is the Mariah Carey of vegetables.” They’re not wrong.

10. Give me your Desert Island Discs list. This was very hard and for the record, these only reflect my tastes as of today.

Records: 

All This and Heaven Too by Florence + the Machine

Sibelius Symphony No. 2 by Jean Sibelius

While My Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles

(Can I count the end of Abbey Road as one medley? I mean, can I just bring Abbey Road? Only one song? FINE) it’s going to be whatever the best cover of Carry That Weight is with the longest jam session in it, research pending

Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky

Between Two Lungs by Florence + the Machine

Cassiopeia by Sara Bareilles

Howl by Florence + the Machine

On the Radio by Regina Spektor

A Day in the Life by the Beatles

Book of my choice: The Golden Compass. But I was very tempted to take Wicked. Gregory Maguire’s prose is next level it’s so beautiful I just…. But he’s a little darker for me. The Golden Compass has been a solid fave for a long time.

One luxury item… pen and paper?

11. What is your favorite curse word? I’m not really creative when it comes to cursing, I generally just say ‘fuck’ a lot.

My questions:

What was your favorite game to play as a child?

You hear just the first few notes of a song, recognize it instantly, and are filled with joy -- what song is it?

Name any goal you ever set for yourself that you are proud to have accomplished.

If you had to pick a senior yearbook quote today, what would it be?

What would your daemon be? (aka an animal manifestation of your ‘inner self’)

What was the first concert you ever went to?

If you were a city, what city would you be and why?

If you could automate a chore so you wouldn’t ever have to do it anymore, what would it be?

What is something you’ve learned in the past year?

Name a person, real or fictional, that has inspired you and explain how.

What is something anyone can do to make the world around them just a little bit better?

Tagging: @ta-dala (you seemed like you wanted more tags, so tagging you back! :) ), @theputterer, @magalis, @latinaspitfire, @thenewleeland, @estherlyon, @thestarbirdfromtheashes, @jenniferjuni-per, @lustfulpasiphae, @caffeinosis, @imsfire2 (and of course the disclaimer: no pressure/no worries if you don’t want to do it! and apologies if you’ve done it already)