#this post is my magnum opus and ive wanted to write it for a long time and i figured now would be the best time to do it :)

[tdlauren]

Alright, here we go. I'm doing this.

So, if you like Gwuncan or hate it; I'm pretty sure most of us can agree the way they got together was contrived and poorly written with the icing on top being Courtney.

So here I go; how I personally think Gwuncan SHOULD'VE gone. Or at least a better way of getting them together. This is also a minor analysis of them. Long post under the cut.

So let's begin. Starting with action and how it goes into world tour.

In action they have an established friendship. Whilst they were acquainted in Island, they never really had an actual friendship. They respected each other, had a few moments of banter and closeness but were otherwise not close friends. Action, however, lets them get closer. They have fun banter where they can riff at each other without it feeling like genuine hatred. Their shared common interests also giving them more to talk about. Their bonding is just way less toxic than him and Courtney's. Even if Duncan likes it, their relationship is doomed to fail.

And now we have the Courtney problem.

While Duncan, being attracted to Courtney physically; does really not seem to like her. He finds their bickering fun most of the time; but as it later goes on, it feels less like bickering for fun and bickering in an unhealthy way. I don't even HATE Courtney! I've warmed up to her

But like I said, their relationship was doomed to fail beyond Island. It was NEVER meant to work long term. Their mutual attraction gets them far, but it doesn't make them GOOD together. If they did not find the other attractive they would not even be friends, or even acquainted. At all.

Courtney likes being in control of her surroundings and the people ahead of her, she likes being a winner and being competitive. And her relationship with Duncan in action brings out the worst part of her, especially with this.

It's not a shocker that Duncan wouldn't like this. Let's skip to World Tour, though.

Courtney and Duncan are back together for some reason. But now we have the love triangle. Courtney and Gwen already have a mutual dislike of each other, Courtney's is especially strong considering her assumptions that Duncan cheated on her with Gwen in action.

The first challenge arrives and they've been bickering the ENTIRE time. Leading to Duncan's annoyance and him willingly getting himself off the show.

Now we're here without Duncan, what now? Well, Gwen & Courtney end up making a friendship. Personally; I don't like this decision. It feels forced and it's just the lead up the 'betrayal' of Courtney's trust with Gwen.

I think Gwen & Courtney would be much better as not friends, but bond over their hatred of Heather the same way they do, while still not being friends they can come to a mutual agreement on a person.

I See London would be essentially the same; but I have a few changes at the ending.

I think this scene should've led to them breaking up. Duncan is clearly frustrated with Courtney here, and even though Courtney says she's 'not mad', she clearly is, at least a little.

I feel like Duncan at this point should've snapped and broken up with her. Having Gwen walk in on Courtney getting angry over their breakup and seeing Duncan look at her.

The bathroom scene can still stay the same, yes, even Tyler.

Gwen's guilt would not be the fact that she kissed Duncan who's still dating Courtney, but that she feels kind of guilty about it BECAUSE they just broke up and is getting the guy on the so called rebound.

Courtney is still bitter about the break up; and hearing him move on so fast would hurt her ego a ton. So they decide to not tell anyone, except, well, Tyler saw it. Most of it is the same as well, Courtney still throws a fit but its about Gwen taking her sloppy seconds so soon after they broke up.

A lot of the show after this point can stay the same, just with the situation changing minorly to make it still true to the show and keep most of the plot points flowing in ways they already would've gone.

Duncan is still annoyed with Courtney, still throws a shoe at her, they still make out on the boat to ROTI, etc. All Stars doesn't exist either <3

[evelili]

I just finished your Magnum Opus, and it was super great. I especially loved the Pinkie chapter (which surprised me because she’s my least favorite character!). Anyway, do you have any mlp fic recommendations?

oh boy do i have a list for you, strap in!

if you read my magnum opus writeup, you may have seen i mentioned three authors that dragged me back into mlp. if you're interested in sciset (and what's probably the most popular eqg fic on the entire site), Long Road to Friendship by Albi is a longfic that started after the first eqg movie and is a rlly lighthearted read. i don't normally care for OCs but gosh if i dont accept Albi's version of trixie's parents as canon in my heart haha. if you're interested in pony adventure fic, i also rlly liked Sunset of Time, another rlly well done longfic ive carried in my brain since i first read it xd

the second author, Monochromatic, aka the raritwi authority aka someone who has a GREAT taste in editors, has written three of the most formative longfic ive ever read: The Enchanted Library, its sequel The Enchanted Kingdom, and Crimson Lips which i unfortunately can no longer link since she's taken it down, but i believe you can still buy physically through PFP if you wanted to take a gamble on it (it would be a very good gamble). apart from her longfic though i also adore some of her shorter works, including but not limited to The Choices We Make, a really interesting Pinkie study that's definitely shaped how i view her, Your Own Worst Enemy, which is just. peak rarity content, and Injuring Eternity, which while being one of her older works still has certain passages that wreck me emotionally on sight.

and the third author responsible for my magnum opus is the one and only Aragon, who i can not only recommend for his fics but ALSO for his blog posts and comics (see the comic index on his profile for links to all of them, as well as this amazing blogpost about his neighbour that is just peak comedy). he's also the writer responsible for the banger longfic Crime and Funishment which absolutely defined my writing aspirations for a few years and is the definition of comedy if you looked it up in my heart, as well as In Hindsight, yet another banger rarity fic, and Love Is In Doom which is just bloody, silly, stupid fun (and has sunset shimmer in it)

and then if we want to talk fics i love written by other authors, Sleepless Knights by r5h has my favourite brand of scitwi written right into the margins, Administrative Angel by horizon has one of the most amazing endings to an opening chapter ive ever read AND an amazing celestia, The Best Night Ever by Capn_Chryssalid is a fandom classic with a groundhog day twist on the gala episode from s1, Side by Side by Krickis is a feel-good rarijack oneshot w a focus on lgbt (specifically trans) themes, Wax Earplugs by Reedhoarse has a dysfunctional mess of an adagio dazzle that i adore, Merge Request by FanOfMostEverything has all the scitwi/midnight shenanigans you could ask for wrapped up in the relatable content of github hell, Guppy Love by PaulAsaran is a rarijack longfic with an incredibly realistic setting and an interpretation of mermaids that i love so much, Doused Flame by heartlessons has me handshaking on the "sopping wet pathetic relatable guy" flash sentry interpretation that won me over recently, 80 Days 'Til the World's Farthest Shore by Cynewulf feels like reading a professionally published short story (and i mean that in the best of ways, it's enthralling), and finally if you'll allow me to be self-centred a bit i also am very proud of my two oneshots Heartstrings and Something About Midnights if you wanted to check em out too xd

oops long post!! im not sorry for it, i hope you can find something in here that catches your fancy (or even all of it haha), there's soooo many incredible fics in the fandom it floors me every day that i can read all these incredible works for free!!!

[kissmetwicekissmedeadly]

GUYS. GUYS LISTEN

////NSFW, MINORS DNI 🔞‼

not to overhype it but.

I wrote my fucking magnum opus smut, okay. 5100+ words. and it's about a certain kink rather than just a standard sex session. which means just a little PIV towards the end (but enough to make it satisfying ok ok listen)

it's with roy mustang. yeah, i know, this guy again. most of you dont fuck with him BUT

lets say it like that

if you want to read a nice long xxsycamore fic about squirting and glove kink, and i mean these two kinks explored thoroughly, then give it a read.

that's what i wanted to say!! because ive been wanting to write something with squirting but not just one sentence of squirting (""""and and and suddenly she cummed but not only cummed because water started coming out too*the chara cums as well and it ends there* """") (has anyone written this IN THIS FANDOM??? i hope not, im specifically talking about the other 33454 fandoms i read fics in please) (nothing wrong with keeping it to one sentence tho im talking about NEEDING TO SEE MORE)

so yeah if you ever wanted me to write nice, long, thorough squirting scene, scroll down a bit on that upcoming roy mustang fic and it's right there. you dont have to read it for roy. ignore him he's there to get the job done (im joking i love him)

YEAH. POSTING SOON, IM NERVOUS BUT ALSO IM NOT BECAUSE THIS IS 100% SELF INDULGENCE AND I DONT HAVE BIG EXPECTATIONS AND AAAA

[nicegaai]

stuck on writing again. im gonna talk myself thru it in text post form

okay if i dont wrap this oneshot up before my brain completely burns out editing it i will lose my mind

naturally theres buildup to sex and then i really just do not want to write it. i can fade to black or otherwise gloss over it, sure. whatever. but then i have to write something AFTER IT and i also dont know what to do with that.

like i have a little bit im working on ...... as much as i dont want it to feel abrupt i just want it to be OVERRRR . i dont want to wrap up anything, i dont want to think about this. the dramatic spoiled artist in my brain is throwing a tantrum. It's Whatever. this isnt my magnum opus, its just me trying to exorcise myself of the ince/st kink demon again . it never works and i feel real weird about it. like am i propagandizing atp? im scared im passing this kink onto others accidentally. sorry im like this. nobody look at me. anyway

i dont want this to be Good as much as i want it to be Done <- lying

i could try to cut it off early . but oh my god if i ended it as soon as they start making out thats weird, i dont like that flow. if i cut it as soon as theyre in bed together thats ... tht only works if its a fade to black and then we come back afterwards right? wouldnt it be strange to have 5k words of buildup, then they kiss and it fades to black, and then thats it?

reading that, i might feel cheated. but my god i do not want to write another bj i dont want to write them actually doing it. i would NEVER get around to finishing that. like i said. i am so close to burnout i need to figure out how to end this quick. i wanna do it TONIGHTTTT.

and i think i do need to add more. i guess the morning after?

ughhhgh sghdhgshgshdskgks dgshkld gsd hsd js dsdkskfhsdkjfs dksjkhdf ksjhdfks jdhfksj dfksjdhfkjshdfkjshdf

ok ok .

because, i do want to play with the fallout a little. i have ideas. but i am also so so tired. of this i mean. (the fallout is ofc that they fuck again. which i also won't write.)

ok current game plan.

i go back into the document. i have an hr n a half. i write up a short aftersex interaction and end it whenever it feels right. do NOT make it long enough to let them leave the room. it is a SHORT conversation. then i go back and finalize the fadeout sex.

at this point i probably will have to leave (friday niteee bb) (i am a very slow writer) but when i get back i can go over the highlighted text ive marked to edit / research / etc... clean it up quickly. then do the ao3 format stuff i suppose !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! add tags summary etc.

....yeah ! yeah i guess.

writing fanfic is all about learning who u are as a writer i think. id like to move on to personal projects someday yk... first thing ive learned: do not let urself edit the same 15 pages on an eternal ocd loop: u will explode and die before u get to the actual end

anyway after this i promise to write all that cousin sex. somehow i have never lost interest in that au. having friends to talk ab ur au with always makes them more fun

[mostlymaudlin]

Hi! For ao3 wrapped I’d love if you answered 5, 12, and 30 😊

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

this SHOULDN'T have surprised me, but bangable was my first outright smut piece for aftg, and i laughed when i woke up the next morning and my inbox was POPPIN. i feel like aftg fandom is usually p quiet in the comment section (or im just spoiled by the richness of simon snow fandom), but people were SO READY to talk about this blowjob hahahha.

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

oh man LOL. theres a short answer and a long answer and im gonna go for long bc maybe talking abt it all will hold me accountable for finishing stuff.

ok so like technically i have 1 million wips. jk. technically technically i have 41 aftg wips (and ENDLESS more simon snow wips), but most of those google docs are resting in peace in my "wip graveyard" folder. they may be resurrected one day but who knows.

so more accurately i am currently sitting on four wips! all aftg.

my hs au We Can Live Forever... which i actually completed the next chapter for! but i dont want to post it until i finish the one after bc i kind of leave it off on a mean note. i might post it anyway so that people get mad at me and motivate me to keep writing though...

what i have dubbed "slut au," in which our favorite resident ace neil explores sex. its sitting at 20k rn, about halfway thru the plot. very messy atm. about 60% smut.

my secret aftg winter exchange fic

my (NEW AS OF A FEW HOURS AGO) secret aftg mixtape exchange fic

im also p much always playing w flash fics, AAAAND i have been thinking abt revisiting this old au i was working on last spring where neil works at a froyo shop. i actually wrote an entire first draft for that -- i think its sitting at like 12k but its a complete mess. i think of her tho... the found family vibes were v good...

OH and i am seriously considering doing a magnum opus andrew POV fic. i need to move into my own apartment in order to accomplish this because i want to like. really go ham analyzing the books and scaffolding that plot bc if i do it im going to tell the same story but with a very different structure i think. and i cannot do this in my current living situation. so that would probs be my Fic of 2023 if true.

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

cheesy. but more than anything i think i've come to know myself as a fiction writer this year. ive always written fiction in bits and pieces, and ive done a shit ton of professional nonfiction writing. writing snowbaz last year felt good in that i was finally writing regularly, but switching fandoms upped my confidence because thats when i could finally prove to myself that i wasn't just copying rainbow rowell hahaha. WHICH LIKE she definitely continues to influence my writing but i think ive developed my style in a way where its more my own now -- i don't lean on the style of aftg the way i did for simon snow fics. and while andrew is undeniably NOT my character, ive done a lot of work around the way i write his POV that im proud of. and this makes me think that if i wanted to write original stories i could... even tho i havent rly come up with a story i want to tell on my own just yet!

from this ask meme!

[actuallyitsstar]

🫓 What is your most popular fic?

🥘 What category do most of your fics fall under?

🍛 Have any comments, tags or reactions to one of your fics every made you laugh or cry or both?

🍢 Have you ever gotten hate on a fic?

🍣 What helps you focus or get in the mood to write?

🍥 What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

✨ send me an emoji and ask me about my fanfic! ✨

🫓 : what is your most popular fic?

this is most certainly time takes no prisoners (you'll see). very much hands down, very much no contest lol 😅

🥘: what category do most of your fics fall under?

found family lol. what can i say. something about it does in fact hit different for me. i always want more and the brainrot is never ending and it's arguably not the most popular fic genre, so when i run out of content in the fandom of choice atm, i start making my own lol

🍛: have any comments, tags or reactions to one of your fics every made you laugh or cry or both?

well, yes, for starters, several of yours!! 💗 like when someone leaves a nice/heartfelt and/or detailed comment on my silly little fics i am quite LITERALLY screaming crying (and only metaphorically throwing up) about it. that shit does in fact mean the most to me and i wouldn't push myself to actually try and do things i don't feel very good at if people did not seem to want me to do it, so when people feel Some Type of Way after reading something i wrote that is the ultimate goal. i wouldn't write stuff if i didn't want whoever's reading it to connect with and remember it, so i connect just as much back when they do!

🍢 : have you ever gotten hate on a fic?

thankfully i actually haven't yet!

🍣 : what helps you focus or get in the mood to write?

oof tbh i think me being ~in the mood to write~ is controlled by the whims of deities interested only in toying with me 😭😭 ive learned that even if i am not exactly in the mood i have to just Do it. and eventually i will either stop bc im like wow everything i am writing right now absolutely sucks! or i will get into it and figure out a whole bunch of shit and write 5k words. there is basically no in between lmao

🍥 : what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

this is also gonna have to be time takes no prisoners. it is kind of a big first fic for me- longest, first top gun fic, first fic to rly get comments or kudos, most chapters, fic i am the most proud of, first series based work, etc etc- and the story (though obviously not my own, as it IS just a retelling of largely canonical events i can't take any credit for) means the absolute world to me. it's probably going to wind up being my fanfic magnum opus lol. it is always gonna hold a special place in my heart. i just adore this fandom and these characters and i just akdhdjhfjfhf love everything about the whole mav-is-bradleys-dad shit and the by extension found-family-w-people-mav-knows shit. it is just major *chefs kiss* for me <3

if i needed to give a more creative answer in the pre ttnp timeline (bc that is how it feels sometimes lol. there is pre and post ttnp/top gun brainrot and nothing in between), i'd have probably said all this effort to make it look effortless, which was the first writing of any kind i had done since like 2018 or something idk. i wrote and posted it last year, not too long before i began to write ttnp (it was actually right before i saw tgm at all), and it's for the world's most obscure fandom and it's very very self indulgent and i rly did just write it for myself, there's like under 50 fics in that fandom and mine has less hits than that lol. but i was and am very proud of it! (tho w the hindsight of rereading i hate the formatting so much god learn to use paragraph breaks what is wrong with you aaaaaaa).

[tamaharu]

thank you @eurydicees for tagging me (〃´▽` ) i love talking about myself. a list of my five favorite fics ive written (and thoughts!) oldest to newest

1. don't knock it till you've tried it

the magnus archives + 5.6k. this is, i wanna say, my most popular fic? and im glad for it! its one thing for your most popular content to be something you hate, but i think this still holds up really well. theres a lot i like about it, such as the pronoun/titles between povs, georgies whole pov, the ending line. high five past me. and OH MAN is it crazy that this has 700 kudos. its a very nice feeling to know that that many people liked something you wrote... even if what you wrote is about a guy murdering his past self haha.

2. i'm not wearing my usual lipstick, i thought maybe we would kiss tonight

ohshc + 16.4k. my ouran magnum opus! i still care so deeply for this hc, and i have gotten so many sweet comments on this, im very glad it resonated with a lot of people. 3k hits!!! i think thats really really good for an ouran fic posted in 2020. if i have time there are a few things id like to go back and change about this - unnecessary prose or some of the ending - but frankly, the emotional heart of this is something im very proud of. every person who reads this and either gets their gender reflected to them OR at least is indoctrinated into trans!tamaki is another point towards me making it to heaven. if i was going through this list by favorites, this definitely holds the number one spot.

3. blunt not the heart

the magnus archives + 11.3k. OH MY GOD. this is my UNDERRATED GEM. my white fucking whale. i am SO MAD that this has received DUST considering my another tma fic has 700~ kudos. SO MAD. i really really like melanie king as a character. outside of the feminism of it all, its really fucking hard to write an effective character study. getting into a characters head is difficult. you know what would make it easier? NOT WRITING IT IN SCRIPT FORMAT LOL. but heres the thing: i made it fucking work. the fact that tma is an audio drama/script format already definitely lends itself easier to translation, but it was an interesting exercise to try and get into melanies head while still maintaining the format. and tying it into macbeth? inspired choice, past me! while its not more popular unfortunately, im still insanely proud of it, and the attention it did get is personally satisfying. please read it!

4. Feel Your Way Home

artemis fowl + 12.6k. ah.. my artemis fowl magnum opus.. i still care for that silly little guy a whole lot, but at this point i will say that my artemis fowl obsession was bright, but fleeting. im really really glad i managed to write this before i fell out of it, and even more so I GOT IT PUBLISHED ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY!! thats something i am weirdly very proud of. i worked really hard on this for several long months, and i think it turned out very very well. this is one where i really dont care how much attention its gotten for not, as it was very much written for myself. and im pleased with it.

5. name your courage now

ace attorney + 11.8k. my newest one! probably still have a serious case of rose-tinted glasses on, but idc. i love maya and her relationships to her siblings a whole lot. i found her dialouge during her testimony just so insanely ripe for potential, i was shocked nobody else had ever seemed to talk about it. i have so many feelings about bridge to the turnabout! frankly, the entire time i knew what i wanted to do with this story, and i feel as if i pulled it off really effectivly. keeping it emotional while also utilizing aspects of mayas brash, funny voice for the narration was a challenge i enjoyed. that, and trying to use the canon dialouge for the most part, while also attempting to speed it up/make it sound less like it came out of a video game. again, im proud of it, and heres to hoping that it'll get more attention.

thats it! im not big on tagging ppl but if you wanna do this by all means, please tag me so i can read your stuff °˖✧◝(￣▽￣)◜✧˖°

[fymagnificentwomcn]

t’s truly something how all princes/sultans in tmck are so pressed…I get their life isn’t easy, but all that blaming & truly how it can affect everyone’s perception. Murad even accused his mother of faking an assassination attempt on her life, incredible *sarcasm of course*. And Atike was just his cheerleader most of the time, ugh. All that blaming by people who even weren’t there. Thanks for writing that piece!

Aww thank you so much! This piece is my magnum opus I guess lol (Link here:https://fymagnificentwomcn.tumblr.com/post/610970504341405696/no-she-isnt-the-whole-evil-k%C3%B6sem-thing-isnt )

Murad’s angry 24/7 & gets so ridiculous with blame-shifting – he would need a good anger management therapy LBR.

And there’s one scene that portrays his character in nutshell:

Doctor: you cannot drink anymore wine, Your Majesty.

Murad, literally 5 minutes later: Yusuf, bring me wine!

Murad in 1 minute, another example:

Kösem: Don’t marry Silahtar to Atike, you also have another sister and if you do it, it will end in tragedy!

Murad: No worriez, I’ve thought about Gevherhan, I will marry her to Kemankeş ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I mentioned a lot of blame-shifting in my previous posts, but he even at moment began questioning his mum about Gülbahar and whether she truly committed treason (and Gülbahar herself admitted to it).

Even when Atike asked him for permission to take children with her & Kösem to vaqf, he was totally okay with the idea, but later after kidnapping snapped at his mother that it was HER fault for gaving taken his sons there & began threatening her with exile far away. Charming as always.

Honestly, he’s like a broken record. In all his arguments, while Kösem has her logical arguments, his only argument is usually “I’m the only/rightful owner of Ottoman Empire, “I’m the shadow of God on Earth. Like dude do you realise how boring you are???

Don’t forget how mad he got when Kösem wrote to Kemankeş to have a backup plan if Murad died and Bayezid wanted to take the throne, which could have meant danger for other Kösem’s sons. After all, she didn’t take it from nothing, Gülbahar told her about assassination attempt to come & it actually already had happened by the time Murad received the letter. Yes, dude you are not immortal, you could have been killed, and life goes on you know? It doesn’t mean your mother doesn’t love you or is not going to mourn you, but she also needs to take care of your brothers and state ffs. He’s truly obsessed with this idea that after his death life will  (unfortunately in his view) go on – which is also meaningful since Kösem reminded him like two episodes earlier that state was going to remain even with both of them dead. And well we all know the “masterful” idea he conceived just before his death.

And it’s clear how even some of his siblings fear him – Gevherhan was scared immediately following the announcement of Kösem no longer being a regent (especially since he did in a way to put  blame on his mother for recent events to prop himself up, and he was also engaged in state matters at that point). Kasim also immediately fears being locked up in kafes or even executed. Judging by their conversations, despite problems going on, last 10 years were a peaceful time for their family.

As I said, out of all Kösem’s opponents only Handan and Derviş weren’t worse than her, and she was the only main player that never engaged in mass slaughter – Safiye, Halime&Co., Gülbahar&Sinan, Murad, Turhan - all did.

Same with Atike – she was a baby when when her father died, didn’t even spend her early years locked up as Ibrahim…. she’s honestly so blind it’s painful. The scene where she jumps at Kemankeş for trying to talk sense to Ibrahim not to appoint Genie Master as chief judge… please your brother is now acting contrary to Imperial law and it’s asking for further disaster if Cinci increases his influence among ulema by bringing people who pay him into it & it’s good Ibo is controlled in this way… nah, it’s actually necessary. And how you jump from this to your mother I have no idea either. A true performative “activist”, who talks about protecting her brother, but all is limited to talking  & exposing her moral superiority, while it’s not supported by any real actions helping him.

Well, you got your revenge on your mother for killing the husband who despised you, acted against your youngest brothers at that point, and likely was only praying you wouldn’t follow him also into afterlife.

I also forgot to mention one more example of Mu/rat manipulating the narrative – when he tells Atike following the failed dethronement attempt & Kasim’s death that their mother had lied to her and tried to kill him – he was after all put in kafes, he should be aware nobody planned an assassination attempt, bah he KNEW the whole plan from Sinan… and yes, Kösem being so adamant that nothing can happen to Mura/t cost her Kasim in the end.

Atike herself was aware that Mu/rat would have killed her brothers even if the dethronement attempt had not happened as she told him to his face after Kasim’s death and she stated that he had made the decision long ago. Later however she got the letter from Murad informing her who killed Silahtar and she even released Traitor No. 1 Sinan to spite her mum 😂.

I suppose princes at this point led the hardest existence because they were closed in kafes, unable to get decent education&experience or have families (maybe they were allowed to have sex with cariyes, but contraception had to be used or even abortion if the concubine of a sehzade has got pregnant) but at the same time they weren’t certain whether they wouldn’t be killed because the switch to anti-fratricide was pretty new&the times were turbulent. Osman clearly broke Imperial law by getting fetva from military judge to kill Mehmed, and Murad killed the biggest number of Ahmed’s sons obviously (yeah more than in the show because not all princes appeared in MYK, though we don’t know the exact number of Ahmed’s sons, Murad definitely also executed Suleiman, most likely his full brother). I laugh when people go about “rule-breaker” Murad. Wow by getting back to law that has already began to run its course, clap clap.

Murad was king of hypocrisy and it’s also a historical fact. As Halil İnalcık states in his book Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age: “ The tyrannical Murad IV was a habitual drinker and at the same time the most ruthless supporter of the prohibition againt alcohol”. Mu/rat tried to make use of religion in his attempts to drill absolute obedience, but he wasn’t a religious person himself & definitely tried to take from religion what it most suited him, while ignoring other things, e.g. he kept decreasing zakat, aka income tax that goes to charity. A small bit of trivia: apparently he was a big fan of Machiavelli’s The Prince, there were even some rumours that he translated the book himself (we can only imagine he also took from this book what he wanted 🤪 ).

Similarly Turhan manipulated the narrative, also in a hypocritical way – remember her going like: “how many padişahs you killed?” and she was the main force behind Ibo’s death… the moment Ibo told her that she “was a coward who hid behind his mother’s skirts”… it was clear he was doomed. There was explicit anger on Turhan’s side here. Not only because she felt insulted by him, but also because she felt a need to prove both to him and the world that she was capable to be on top without Kösem’s support.  Not to mention all her actions leading to Ibo’s situation, also her ordering Mehmed to sign his dad’s death order was so chilling “I don’t want dad to die”. Well, now let’s play morally pure, especially while murdering elderly (very elderly lbr :p) Haci in again a brutal way, including twisting his neck. It’s not even that she removed a padisah – she actively worked to make him crazier and for his rule to be total failure, it wasn’t even about her, Ibo or Kösem – whole nation suffered because she was impatient to take power into her hands./BTW pity we skipped the time period when they were both Valides and we know both tried to get rid of each other, without harming Mehmed/ And frankly even with Kösem it was a terrible & undeserved backstabbing because also Ibi criticised Turhan for this saying his mother always “loved and protected her, did so much for her” and I doubt Ibo was biased here considering that he was also on bad terms with his mum at that moment.

Later the situation truly calmed down & later princes could live much more peacefully because the practice of killing truly went out of style and also later there were less and less restrictions on princes and they could for example travel abroad with the reigning padişah. For example, Sultan Abdülaziz took princes for a European trip and they even had a chance to meet Queen Victoria.

And I laugh when people blame Kösem for “failing to protect the princes” instead of you know, blame the actual killer. Ahmed truly replenished dynasty, while Murad axed a number of his brothers, at the same time of course used his own propaganda. It is true that Murad executed the favourite of princes, Bayezid, during celebrations following the successful Revan campaign. Similarly, when Kasim was executed someone spread rumours about the prince impregnating a number of concubines & it was before the Baghdad campaign when even setting out on it Murad had to display his “splendour and glory”.

Show-wise I legit one read that Kösem killed Ahmed because she spared Bulbül following Safiye’s attempted coup lmao. It’s not like Ahmed wasn’t there when she made the decision & it’s not like it wasn’t Hümaşah who after all got Yasemin in, and I doubt anyone could oppose an Imperial princess anyway – she would have found another servant. And Bülbül later saved Kösem’s kids, so… scapegoating truly is in some people’s blood lmao.

I love how MYK played with the idea of historical representation & creation of narrative, how people “see” and how different factors might influence their perception & creation of narrative. And also how S2 put into different perspective some stuff from S1. I admit there were some things that back during first watch of MYKS1 made me go WTF? that I later understood when compared/contrasted with MYK S2. It’s clear that they truly planned a lot of the whole show back in S1.

It’s sometimes interesting how narratives may be created and repeated even without evidence supporting it - there is no historical evidence that Kösem took part in Osman’s dethronement, yet it is something that often pops up even in “historical articles” for example. People deduce since Kösem later became Valide quite soon because Mustafa’s (or rather Halime’s) reign didn’t last long, know Şehzade Mustafa’s (Suleiman’s son) story, and some rumours about what Ottoman women did to secure throne for their children, so they see getting rid of one’s stepson to claim throne for one’s child as logical and usual in Ottoman system,  even when there is no proper evidence backing it up. Because it seems natural and logical, so why not make it more spicy? We know next to nothing about Mahfiruz, but there is this “Betty vs Veronica” trope, so suddenly we learn that Mahfiruz was Kösem’s opposite, not politically involved or ambitious, but gentle & sweet, and even details like light hair pop up as opposed to Kösem’s dark hair (sometimes of course it is also extended to good vs. evil). Taken from where, other than fitting a known trope? Or when she’s presented as some sort of Mahidevran vol.2 as having as close relationship with Osman like Mahi did with Mustafa, perfect prince and jealous stepmother Kösem. I know some of the stuff is also derived from Western, orientalist plays, but those are obviously not sources and should not be treated as truth. And sometimes it it even repeated by historians. For example Uluçay, who  was very against Sultanate of Women & pretty much propagated a lot of rumours (and new approach to the period truly changed a lot of how academia writes about these women now). Let us look at this quote:

Taken from: Necdet Sakaoğlu, Famous Ottoman Women.

It’s clear what narrative Uluçay chose for his research.

It’s common practice to sometimes fill in the blanks (and sometimes even change stuff) with known cliches, tropes, and narratives.

It is truly a topic for an extended discussion, so I will stop for now, but when it comes to Ottoman history I do recommend Daniel Piterberg’s Ottoman Tragedy. History and Historography at Play, which shows how the same event may be even differently presented in historical works depending on chosen narrative that is often rooted in current context.

[smallblueandloud]

AAH TALK ABOUT babies and twins of my heartf, season 3, and a thousand years!! you have SO MANY WIPS IT’S SO EXCITED

:D i’m excited that you’re excited!!

okay so babies and twins of my heart (named after my tag for the twins) is nominally about luke and leia bonding in the space between episodes iv and v. really it’s just a mess of headcanons and feelings that i’m hoping to refine when i get back to star wars, whenever that is lmao.

“You’re the new pilot, aren’t you? The one who got the lucky shot on the Death Star.”

“It wasn’t lucky, ma’am,” says Luke, smiling so she knows he isn’t trying to disrespect her. “It was the Force.”

“You and Leia must get along wonderfully,” she says, like his aunt used to say You and Biggs are going out again, aren’t you. Not really a question, not especially sarcastic, and fond. “I’m Mon Mothma. It’s nice to meet you, Skywalker.”

season 3 is chapter 3 of the magnum opus, aka the agents of shield rerwite i will never stop complaining about. it’s uh. it’s Going. i haven’t proofread this scene at all but i skimmed and this line from maveth looked good:

Jemma frowns. “Actually, I’m not sure we even count as government employees anymore. S.H.I.E.L.D. sort of... imploded, recently? It’s a long story. The point is, yes, we are allowed to be queer now.”

and a thousand years.... whew. okay. i wrote this in late 2017 slash early 2018? i don’t know what doctor who fics i was writing while i worked on this, and tbh it doesn’t matter. i consider this my first real fic. coincidentally, it will Never, Ever see the light of day in its current form. snippets are all i’m ever planning on posting lmao.

but it’s clintnatlaura and it’s my own interpretation of how they got together, in the style of nor need we power or splendor and fics like that. it was going to have four parts, and i think i only finished part 1? god, it really was 8.5k. i really did that. it wasn’t TERRIBLE, actually, but it really didn’t feel like enough of my own idea for me to be inspired to write any more. i still reference the timeline i created for that fic for my other cnl fics, though! have the first few paragraphs:

Clint Barton, alias Hawkeye, signed S.H.I.E.L.D. employment papers in 1991. The young marksman, according to his file, got on their radar with his trick shots at a circus somewhere in Arkansas. Clint was asked to please not contradict this story by Nick Fury himself.

“What’s wrong with the real story?” Clint asked, ready to spread it anyway. “I don’t want to start off by spreadin’ rumors.” He smirked, slow and lazy. “Sir.”

“It makes us look like a bunch of dumbasses,” Fury replied, turning towards his desk and rubbing his remaining eye. “And ‘us’ now includes you, young man, so don’t even think about it.” He looked up from where he was stacking papers. “If you don’t break every record in our shooting range by Wednesday, I’m going to include in those rumors that you exaggerated your skills. Go.”

Fury sat down behind his desk and went back to his files. Clint turned and left.

[thegayfromrulid]

hello aj! ive been updatin a certain sao fic on ao3 since xmas eve and noticed you kudo’d it! i was so shocked cuz i didnt think you’d click but anyway, it only has 9 kudos and 257 hits so far which is kinda bummin me out. it’s my magnum opus but i feel like only i care abt it. so i wanted to know, what made you hit the kudo button? if you don’t know what fic i mean, it’s also hidden behind anon and its initials are ttwatg. oof, i feel like im dumb for bein secretive but im. so embarrassed by it

I first clicked on it because I saw it and thought “This looks like it could be [name left anonymous] from a certain server I’m in. I admit I do snoop around in fics posted by my friends and acquaintances in servers, though I don’t always openly comment/kudos because I get scared people will feel pressure from bigger name fic writers popping up on their stuff and I don’t want to stress them out.

But every so often, I break that rule because I can’t help myself. When I read what’s posted in its entirety and find myself very engaged for one reason or another, and it has a low amount of comments/kudos, I break the rule to try and encourage the reader to keep going. I’ve thought about it a lot; perhaps I should stop fearing stressing out fic writers and just go ahead and give them kudos/comments because I know they make me feel good. 

Now, based on your shock, you’re aware of my opinions on the ship (a ship I don’t ship) and the fact that I don’t like one of the characters in said ship. So, I’m even more certain I know who you are now. Knowing this (and my answer is so long gosh), why DID I hit kudos?

A couple of reasons. Your concept is interesting. Even if I don’t ship it, it’s a conflicting story that explores a very interesting dymanic. I like reading things that explore humans in situations that are conflicting/difficult. Another is your attention to detail. You’re exploring facets of this character’s life and giving life to their parents that we hardly see in canon. What happens in this sort of situation? How would they react? You’re forming that story yourself, and that takes a lot of creative energy and detail.

TL;DR - You’re a good writer. And I apologize for chickening out when I went to write a comment. At the time, I was scared I’d call attention to the fact that I think I know you. But you deserve that kudos, friend. I know it’s disheartening to have low hits and kudos and comments. And that probably doesn’t mean much coming from me, of all people. But hits and kudos do not make something worthy of being created. You’ve made something special that means something to you, and you were brave and shared it. I plan to keep reading, and I hope that’s okay. 

(I’m sorry this answer got so long x_x)

[gisapot]

In defense of Dionysus (written 12-03-2017, posted 12-03-2019.)

It is officially the anniversary of the last creative nonfiction piece I wrote. 

I did not realize it has been two years since I wrote this piece, the piece that I consider my magnum opus; two years since my grandfather had passed.

Posting this today of all days was not intentional. I did not intend to post this here because I had bigger plans for this piece; a greater exposure than this tiny blog only my friends and students know and avidly read (not that I am ungrateful for your support). I wanted to see this in print.

I wanted to submit this to Katitikan for its ‘places and spaces’ issue, but to submit this means to remove a thousand words from this five-thousand-word monster, and removing a thousand words is an insult to the integrity of the story I want to tell. To remove a thousand words is to break the legacy of my grandfather.

Another reason why I wanted to post this is to address a comment my mother had received on a photo she posted on her Facebook of her and my grandfather. I do not know if that was their last photo together. She shared the post to share to her world that it is the second anniversary of her father’s death, and someone said, “maayo gyod an badlungon kay ma mis gyod sa tanan!” 

Instead of posting a position paper in defense of my grandfather and his merits, looking only one-sided and biased towards the man who raised me, I want to show you this piece, in its entirety, in my grandfather’s entirety. 

Who really was Antonio Gulane? 

Dear Grandpa: A Story of The Kulafu Warrior.

Dear Grandpa, today is the third of December, twenty-seventeen. I am in the new house, the one you begged my mother to buy for you before you passed: the one-story house made of cement and stone. It has barely been a month since we got the house when you decided to christen it with your quiet passing, bringing in faces old that I’ve never seen in years, and new ones my mother insists I’ve met longer than my brain can recall.

Dear Grandpa, this asphalt house is the first permanent one we have had in a long time. How many houses have we lived in? I don’t know the number, but I know each and every one of them, complete with tiny slivers of memories that are distinctly of you, Grandma, your white chino shirts with her tie dye skirts and half-slips. I remember your loud insistent shouts and your ribs protruding through your thin brown skin as you sit at midnight half-naked, inhaling the smell of Mighty Red, Marlboro, or some lumboy leaves you roll on your own. The smell of it mixed with Kulafu has permeated every household we occupy, radiating out of your rotting yellow teeth as soon as the clock strikes one in the afternoon. Textbooks always told me these were signs of a broken home life, a dysfunctional family. To me, it became a sign that told me that I was home, no matter where I was.

I.                   Basement

I remember very little about the basement, but I do have pictures of it developed like pictures used to in those times Kodak and Konika were the epitome of photography technology, Richard Gomez’ face on the packs of the finished images. There were blue green walls, and it was constantly dark down there because there no natural light came in. The wooden jalousies were sealed shut and dusty, not really helping our cause. Our TV was a small black box always tuned in to ABS-CBN, and one picture showed it frozen on an old Colgate commercial along with my memory of my first Christmas. You were there with Grandma, candid shots of you making me laugh so that I would smile for the camera. I was a chubby child with skin as pink as the girls endorsing Pond’s for a healthy pink glow, a vast contrast to your dark lumad skin, even more elaborated by the harsh automatic flash of the film camera. Grandma always shied away from the light of it with a bashful grin that took on not only her face but in the lift of her shoulders, carrying me up to cover her face. You, however, were not afraid to show your grimace to a device that immortalized your state: displeased that your photo was taken, but not mad enough to be violent.

           I am thankful these photos exist to give me a sight of my childhood that I remembered better through scents. I remember nothing, no experiences and no objects, but I do remember the smell of a very big pink bottle of Johnson’s baby powder, your alcohol, Tatay’s aircon-scented laundry, pungent socks, and your cigarettes.

II.                Village

There is always this notion that when the word ‘village’ is present in the address you write on forms, you were someone with money and stability enough to live in a place that had security guards stationed at every entrance. We were renting this house, and I do not remember what it looks like nor do I have the pictures to actually believe that we lived here. There must be a gap in my memory, but I forgave myself long ago for not remembering anything. But I do hear stories from you and Grandma about my childhood: I liked Uncle Dennis’ Lucky Me mami noodles – the one in the blue packet (is it still in production anymore?) – because it smelled like gas. I didn’t eat it, I just smelled the smoke coming out of it. Every afternoon at five, Uncle Dennis and Grandma would take me for a walk to ‘get some Fita’, which was a codeword for fetching Nanay from the corner. You recalled that I never went with them if there was no Fita involved, so my mother resolved to buy Fita before she got to the corner leading to our house so I would greet her by sunset.

It was a quaint village but we had to move away for reasons I still cannot understand to this day, but know well enough that what happened made my mother lose the face to show to her in-laws. Just because she was a tiger does not mean she held the power; her in-laws were kings of the jungle. Grandma maintains we were nothing at the time. We had no one to our defence. We were ants next to them in the grand scheme of things, we could not talk back when the perpetrators had money and we did not, ruling the gated compound as they did. I never believed you to be one to run away from a fight. It did not seem like you or Nanay to be quiet or behaved when mouths start running the way they did towards us, but you just let it happen like it did. We moved houses before I could remember anything constructive of it, or take any pictures to remember it by.

III.             Pardo

There is something in Pardo that always drew me in. It seemed like a place that was alive, crowds of people coming in with the setting and rising of the sun every day, judging by the plethora of jeepneys that headed that way. I know that because of my constant commute to school, a small Montessori school, girls in bright red uniforms and at least one boy per batch in grey t-shirts. Other than that, I remember nothing that had to do with what was outside the house except the potted plants lined up by the patio that you sat next to, where you were supposed to be smoking your afternoon away. But you were not there, not at the house, not in any of the pictures. I never saw you in that year. I think you hated the place, or the stampede that came with it, or something else. All I know is that you were never there. Your sister stayed with us instead, a skinny woman with short hair who took orders for empanada from Nanay’s friends. I don’t remember you, but that does not mean I have no recollection of whether or not you were there. It means that I know for sure that you were not there, so I had nothing substantial to remember you of, unless it was Christmas.

I remember you distinctly during our only Christmas in that house, hiding in the darkness of the alley behind the back door where a big blue tank stood. You crouched there, smoking while Nanay and Tatay took pictures of me posing in front of the Noche Buena. I have a picture of that moment, smiling cutely while Grandma stood with her back turned away from the camera facing the door that led to the blackness. I remember she was scolding you in harsh whispers to turn the flame of your cigarette off and come inside to join the festivities, to not be a Grinch on Christmas. Once the photo was taken I got down from the chair I used as a stool, towering adults walking past me – both uncles, Nanay’s younger brothers – who tried talking you out of sitting outside. If you did not feel like socializing, there was always a TV. Your indifference towards Christmas was evident.

           The concept of time is longer the younger you are. I look up at the clock as they plead you to come inside and eat some bread or ham, or an apple, whatever; it was eleven in the evening. You finally got up at three minutes later, but it felt like three hours. I wonder how that is so. When you walked past me, I wanted to ask – something, nothing, I don’t remember what I wanted to ask from you. But you just moved me aside and did not give me attention, and you sat on the sofa and I just stared, and I brushed it off. You were offered alcohol, and you asked for a bottle of Kulafu. I did not move. The moment I write this is when I remember that was the first out of two times where you did not make time for me. You always did.

 IV.             Sugar Apple

Since I was a child I always amused myself with the thought that Tisa backwards was ‘atis’. Of course, now that I am older I have come to realize that this is not true. But it also entertained me that this presupposition of mine was proved true with the sugar apples growing by the barbed wire fence right outside our house that closed the compound in. We were renting a bigger house this time, in a compound of three houses owned by a nice drummer amputee named Tony. I remember the whole town calling him Tony Kimpay like it was his full name. The house had light blue walls and a smooth ground floor that required a whole box and three-quarters of red Starwax and two coconut husks to shine. There was a second floor (a second floor! Only rich people had second floors, thought three-year-old me) where the floors were made of wood, and it was in this house where I learned that you never slept at night.

You sat outside from ten at night until six in the morning with a box of cigarettes, a mug of Nescafe coffee and three bottles of Kulafu, guarding the house in lieu of a dog or a security guard. You would entertain yourself with the ducks Tony owned, chasing them away once they started quacking at four in the morning along with the crowing of the chickens. It was from you where I learned to not fear ducks. And when Nanay’s cousin Dinah came to live with us while she went to college and told me to stay away from ducks because they bite, I did not believe her. They always run away from me because you taught me that I was bigger and more terrifying than any bird.

Sometimes you plucked the sugar apples and cut them in half to share with the family, but I never ate them. Instead, I was interested in the eba that grew next to it, eating it raw and with no salt to neutralize the taste. I loved how sour it was. I have pictures of me giving eba to my cousins who visited the house. Behind the camera, you turn your nose up away from the eba, because you did not like that I like them and preferred that I ate sugar apples instead because at least that is a fruit that made sense.

My first brother was born by then, and I did not remember an instance where you touched him. By then, people from the neighbourhood or Nanay’s friends from work came by to visit and coo at him. I would get jealous and insecure, because there is a baby stealing my mother’s attention, like all three-year-olds would feel when they have a new sibling. Because of the afternoon crowd on the second floor of the house, you woke up from your afternoon nap and went outside for a smoke to calm down to avoid snapping at someone. I followed you outside because I hated how Nanay did not give me any attention, all given to that stupid baby. An adult grabbed me, I don’t remember who it was but I know I insisted on going with you. You took a seat on a plastic stool Grandma uses for the laundry, and told me to go back inside once you lit the cigarette stick. I obey. I walked towards the door when I accidentally kick over last night’s Kulafu bottles. I turned around to pick them up, but you told me to leave it and go inside in that annoyed tone you spoke in when everything is not in order. Despite that, you crouched down and picked the bottles up without further complaint. Irritation was a trademark on you, a trademark I have come to not just learn, but to inherit.

 V.                Parrots

From the house with the ducks and the star apples and eba, we moved to a white house with a gate. It was not that far from the previous house, it was on a hill right behind it. The house was white, the inside also white except for the master bedroom which was decorated with faded yellow wallpaper. A few months after we moved there, Tatay bought me a pair of birds – a boy and a girl – for no reason at all. He just thought it would be nice to have a pet. They were yellow-green birds and I thought they were parrots and insisted that they speak after me. Under the cage of the birds was a wooden stand for your own rooster. It was then I learned that you liked cock fights, you bet on it and joined it even with the constant reports on the radio that these betting games were illegal because it went against animal rights or some random reason I thought of as a child that would rationalize the world.

I still do not know if the birds Tatay got me were parrots or not, but it is an appropriate analogy for you and K: at the age of three with a head as big as a basketball, he admired you for everything you did to the point that he copied your every move, especially your skill in many types of martial arts. Now as I am older and I look back, I think of the credibility of your claim, if you were really an expert as you said you were. But at the impressionable ages of seven and three, we believed you to be the Filipino Bruce Lee as you introduced yourself to be. You taught K how to use nunchucks and a bit of arnis with a stick you conjured out of nowhere, and I wish I had pictures to prove that you really did teach him and he learned well from  you, but all I have are pictures of K alone carrying his nunchucks obsessively everywhere he went. He threw a fit every time he was told that he could not bring them to social events or inside malls because it was ‘unfair’ and he really wanted to show off what he knew.

He was so much like you. He copied almost everything you were. You two were so alike in the shortness of fuse and how you both wanted everything to go your way or you would have to resort to violence. K would wrestle anyone who said no.

Despite the contrast – K a pale milky white while you were a reddish brown like Kulafu – you taught him to be like you and he had grown so attached to his childhood hero that it no longer looked adorable to me as the older sister, but scary. This turned terrified the moment you took an afternoon nap and started kicking in the air like you were fighting someone, asking if your enemy in your dream was going to fight back. K thought you were so cool.

Nanay always tells me that she understands because she is always at work that K was imprinted by you and grandma instead of her and Tatay as the actual parents, but I could not understand what she meant. It just did not reflect the families on textbooks, where the children were close to their parents and their grandparents lived in a separate house. How close he became with you and Grandma was beyond me. He insisted to sleep on your bed, eat out of Grandma’s hands, and sang the lyrics you whispered in his ear before he ever learned how to read. There was no doubt in his mind that you were invincible, and you were the best example.

 VI.             Dog

We lived a year in that white house. Half of that year I dazedly spent in hospitals because of a severe case of dengue. That year was a bad year for us, it was some sort of bad omen. Nanay decided to move us to Mandaue, a whole city over, because it was safer there from mosquitoes and it was closer to her workplace. Other than that, Tatay was an architect for a new private elementary school that was just erected there, and he decided to send Yelcin and I there. It was in a big compound owned by a chubby old man with droopy skin that made him look like a wrinkly dog. He looked even worse with his constant frown. You did not like him. You liked his sons instead because they drank with you Kulafu with you at two in the afternoon to stay awake instead of being so uppity like their father.

We got a dog too, a female golden retriever we aptly named Goldie. You did not like her at first because she was a non-human creature that came into the house and chased after me because she liked me. You got very angry with her because she wormed her way to the bedroom I shared with Nanay and Tatay, but then insisted she sleep at the foot of my bed to watch over me, and suddenly I see you sneak out chicken leftovers from my breakfast to her dog bowl in the morning. That is when I knew you started to like her.

You sat outside with her in the afternoons. With that you brought some noise, you talked to her and told her to behave and you would give her a dog biscuit shaped like a bone whenever you got bored. You were not quiet anymore. You would bathe her religiously on Saturday mornings before I woke up, and fed her strange things for her meals like fish and some malunggay leaves. She ate them gratefully, like it was not dangerous for her poor dog stomach to eat such things.

You did everything for Goldie. You treated her like your own child, spoiled her with all the dog treats in the world and reprimanded my mother if she did not bring home any more treats for the dog when you ran out. You built her a cage made of metal grills and spare raw coco lumber that you demanded  Tatay to bring from his site visits in Catmon, the plastic flooring for the only thing authentically pet-shop about that cage. You made Dennis buy some metal roofing  from the construction supply shop around right outside the corner of the street, and you built her a home with your bare hands. When it was done, you put Goldie inside, locked it, and hid in your bedroom with Grandma without a word and took a happy nap.

 VII.          Protection

We had a house. It was in Opon, it was bound to PAG-IBIG housing loans, but we had a house. It was in a middle-class subdivision whose houses all looked the same, so our minimalist white and brown and green house with a terrace and an outdoor garden with Bermuda grass stood out. We had our own rooms, mine was pink and V’s was blue with a bunk bed since Nanay was pregnant with her third child and we were preparing for him. Nanay and Tatay’s room was a bright yellow with brown furniture. And yet you refused to see us sleep in our own rooms, us kids having to sleep in our parents’ room, on the floor with some mattresses, so that we do not get too hot in our own rooms. It was apparently better in the air-conditioned room, and it was so you could keep an eye on us all together.

We had a car too. It was a secondhand blue Nissan Terrano with a spare wheel on the back that we bought from your cousin who married into a rich family. We did not use the car much, but you took it out for spins around the subdivision so that it would not ‘gather dust’. I still do not know if that really is a valid concern for cars.

Your habits did not change: you still sat outside the house at midnight with your coffee and Kulafu and cigarettes, except now people stop in front of the house to take pictures, and you ‘shoo’ them away to keep them from plagiarizing my father’s work. (I will find in later years that they still succeeded in copying my father, what with subdivisions being erected that now use the same color scheme and the same layout and plan. It irritates the both of us. Whatever happened to intellectual property rights?)

           You hated the location, however. You hated that it was an entire city away from where we went to school and we did not get enough sleep. We passed out in the car the moment we get inside, to catch up on some sleep, wake up dazed and lost in school, then come home tired and lethargic to do any of our homework anymore because of how tired we were. We were practically in hell.

           Location was always the problem, wasn’t it? We just moved to the new home that was finally ours when it struck: Nanay was laid off of her job and had nowhere to go. With piling debts and deteriorating health and a baby who had more needs than her grown children, Nanay decided to work overseas.

           You were so violently against it. You were so mad. You did not want the family to be separated. Everyone should stay in one home, together, no matter the circumstance. It was all or nothing for you. But Nanay had already made up her mind, bought a ticket out, found a job that was waiting for her, all that was left was to leave for it. You did not look her in the eye that day she left, staying outside right in front of the car, like you were a boulder that could stop it from moving.

VIII.        Following

I remember very distinctly the moment K cried at the airport as we left Singapore after our first Christmas there. He was crying terribly hard, hating the fact that the family he grew up in, his own universe of discourse, was pulled apart into two different fabrics of time and space. It was difficult to be together now. He rolled on the floor of the then-existing budget terminal of Changi Airport, causing a scene, asking why we could not stay with her and be a happy family like those families in textbooks. He wanted to be with Nanay, with Tatay, but also with you and with Grandma and Uncle Dennis and Uncle Julius and their wives Elsa and Janice respectively, both parents and parental figures. K used to be the type that got so attached.  I cannot say the same for now, however.

When Nanay said she was working on our immigration to follow her to Singapore, K was excited. You, however, did not say anything. I think you have learned from when Nanay left the country, but you made us promise to call you by Skype every day while we waited to start schooling there. You could not bear to part from us, you and Grandma, but when was the best time to leave the nest, to be honest? And we belonged with our actual parents.

And every day like clockwork since we left, we called you through video call, your brown skin a bright white like the shirts on Tide commercials, asking how we are and what we are doing, same as yesterday. The call sits for two hours as we watch you nap on the wooden floor of the rest house, and when the computer overheats, you tell Dennis to shut it off and you slither away on the floor to your room, not showing that you are crying because of how you miss us. But it is okay, I know you console yourself, because Janice is pregnant, and you are sure this kid is not a kid you will let go.

When we left the country, you had no reason to stay in Cebu anymore, so you loudly declared to the entire family that you were all going back to Medellin where they grew up and where you raised them. There was a rest house there that Tatay constructed for us; somewhere we can sleep in whenever we visited Medellin for the weekend. It was a hut, brown with nipa leaves weaved together for the roof. Everything was made of wood except for the foundations and the bathroom, the cement wall painted green on the outside. Inside was tiled and decorated with seashells Tatay paid your nephew to collect from the beach behind the house. You spent your days there lying on the ground like a dog, never breaking your afternoon-nap-and-Kulafu-at-Midnight ritual like always. Sometimes you got bored and killed flies, made your own barbecue, and even built an extended hut for Grandma that you used as a convenience store. You would participate in secret games of masiao that another one of your nephews is a runner for, you and Grandma arguing about the how she calculated her own numbers and why yours is different, until the tumor in your stomach you kept joking about started hurting too much for you to laugh about it anymore.

 Dear Grandpa, throughout these homes we have come into, you repeatedly made me promise throughout my childhood to build you a concrete house that you can call your own. You called our constant moving a hassle and the hut that my father made for you not sturdy to withstand storms. You told me you were tired of the city, and asked me to build you a house in your hometown of Medellin, as big as I want, as long as it was strong and brave and could shelter you from the heavy storms.

Dear Grandpa, we have a home now. It is a bright yellow house in a subdivision a little ways away from the park that displayed an old train from Central that used to carry the sugar cane. The time is one-forty in the afternoon; I am sitting in front of your white coffin with a towel in my hair, and if I move to tilt my head rightwards I can see the bottle of Kulafu I bought for you as an offering. I am alone, save for the people passing by to get food, more ice cream, beer, or arguing about the wi-fi connection. Your Photoshopped portrait sits on top of your viewing glass, staring at the flurry of movement with your intense judging glare and thick eyebrows. You look angry in the photo, but Uncle Dennis says you were about to laugh as the photo was taken, and if I stared hard enough, I can almost see the moment that you do.

Dear Grandpa, you were powerful and strong-willed and loud for all the right reasons. You were never weak, and you never allowed people to spread nonsense about our family. I pretend not to know that the reason for your loss is not deterioration, but a dangerous formation. I pretend not to know that your every day habits are the cause of your passing. I pretend that you’ve never participated in vices in your life; it is in the Filipino culture, Nanay says, that once someone passes, he is an angel.

Dear Grandpa, I miss you very dearly. As I write this I keep erasing words and adding some more, getting distracted by the noise from the children and doors opening and San Miguel bottles tinkling against each other. This is the sound of our family, even as the shape of our living arrangement changes like the sky when it nears a storm. Dear Grandpa, in the years I have grown under your care we did not have a house whose deed was truly ours, but you have shown me the meaning of home and helped me remember it as my own now, as part of who we are: we are fighters, the heat of your Kulafu blood flowing through our veins – we are warriors.

Dear Grandpa, we might be so far away from each other, even further now that you have passed, but as I grow older and help Nanay and Tatay finish this house in your name, I will remember the way we have come, and how much further I have to go. In front of your coffin, I bow my head to mourn, but my blood boils hot under my skin – I will stand like you on this ground and do what I can, defending your name.

And if I can help it, Dear Grandpa, we will not move again any time soon.