#took a couple creative liberates with this <3

[chilling-in-the-void-alone]

I'm gonna have the whole set in my toybox!

yippie, have a sort of screenshot redraw of one of the sillies from the musicals I've been very normal about recently (again) <3

anyhow I've been thinking I might draw the rest of the lords like this (based on screenshots from the pro-shot of The Summoning), my friend voted on me drawing Blinky next so,, here's hoping I actually do that. (I mean I did this as like a shadow practice/study so it would all be useful practice at the end of the day)

Also <3 funny wip screenshot + the image referenced for this below the cut

he speed (eg motion blur before I fixed it)

and the image referenced <3

[fabfemmeboy]

One of the things that strikes me, looking back, is both how long it took to get marriage equality and then how quickly it happened.

Like...we got married in 2008, as part of that pre-prop 8 cohort where it was legal in California for 3 months.  I still get instinctively angry thinking about election night 2008; everyone else was celebrating tolerance and diversity and I was refreshing state returns and watching my marriage be dissolved in the most liberal state in the country.  

(Turned out it didn’t actually dissolve my marriage because the writers of the legislation didn’t know what the hell they were doing, so it wasn’t retroactive.  But they tried, and there was a whole court case about whether we + 18,000 other couples were still married.)

So from 6/2008-1/2013, we were simultaneously legally married and not legally married.  If we had lived in California, we would have had state marriage rights but we lived in Maryland, which at the time didn’t recognize same-sex marriages.  We had to get really creative when my partner applied to school because he was under 27 and “not married” so he needed his parents’ information for FAFSA, but his parents had literally taken him to conversion camp on his birthday so we didn’t talk to them.  We did all our taxes with him as a random dependent member of my household.  And every time I filled out forms from HR, like insurance or whatever, my first question was “Where is this being adjudicated?”  Because in some states, I was allowed to list him as my partner.  In others I had to list him as a random beneficiary.  I remember I was all excited when it turned out that one of our policies was out of Iowa, which had just recognized marriage equality, so I got to list him as my legal spouse.  Oh, and the HR director was uber-religious and got mad at me every time I asked and just said “Write what’s true!”  Well, it’s true that I’m married and I have the certificate to prove it, but this is a law office and you’re HR so you know damn well it’s not that simple.

Then Maryland started recognizing out-of-state marriages if they were valid when performed.  So our taxes that year were weird.  We were single in the eyes of the Federal government, but married in the eyes of the state. So we (like countless other taxpayers) had to do two sets of tax returns: the federal ones we actually filed, and a “dummy federal” that showed what our numbers would have been if we’d been considered married, so we could use those numbers to put on our state returns.   By that point, lots of states (mostly California, New England, and Iowa) had people in the same situation.  And I still had to ask “what state is this form for?” for everything, but at least I was at a job where the HR person wasn’t so awful.

Then on 6/26/13, DOMA was struck down (and so was Prop 8, which I actually celebrated harder because it was Personal).  So for our 2014 taxes, we just did one set as we were federally married.  And originally people in states that didn’t recognize their marriage were supposed to still be unmarried for federal taxes, but the Obama administration said you could file as married anyway, so people had to still do dummy returns - only this time with federal-married and state-unmarried.

it took another 2 years before it was finally just legal.  Everywhere.  

In reality, it wasn’t all that long.  Universal marriage equality nationwide was ordered the day before our 7th anniversary.  But it felt like a lifetime.  And that’s nothing compared to the people who had a handful of domestic partnerships or civil unions beforehand because states kept changing their minds, or who got married in the 2004 window in California (which was much shorter than the 2008 window).  And the roughly 8 years since marriage equality was ordered nationwide feels like another lifetime - like we’ve had it forever, even though (for perspective) it had been in place for fewer than 5 years before the pandemic hit.  Time is so fucking weird.

[mariacallous]

The recipe sold itself as “unique.” Toward the end of March, an anonymous blonde woman appeared on the TikTok page @foodfuns3 and committed a culinary crime. First, she poured an entire box of angel hair pasta into a blender, then she blitzed it into dust, added a couple of eggs, and rolled the resulting dough into new pasta strips. Gamely, she took a bite of the thick, grainy Frakenpasta after cooking it; unconvincingly, she ended the video with the words, “Mmm! It’s like the perfect consistency.”

Despite this onscreen bite, it’s probably safe to assume this pasta dish ended up in the bin.

It’s no longer news that disgusting food videos on TikTok are intentional rage bait, designed to rile up viewers and gain comments, shares, and views for creators. Yet while no one eats the food in these ridiculous recipe videos, they do feed an entire online ecosystem.

Shortly after the blonde woman blended her pasta, The Washington Post tested her recipe on its own social media channels, while the British newspaper Metro made its own video about the “dish.” On TikTok itself, multiple creators responded, superimposing themselves over the video and adding their own commentary. Thanks to the sheer number of hideous recipes that now populate TikTok, a new job has emerged: Recipe Reactor.

Chef Reactions is not the name recorded on Chef Reactions’ birth certificate. Despite the fact that he has more than 3 million TikTok followers, Chef Reactions closely guards his real name and identity because, he says, “I get death threats every single day.” Fiercely protective of his family and a carer for his 88-year-old grandmother, he’s only been recognized three times in public since he exploded on social media a year ago, and he wants to keep it that way. “I’ve worked in kitchens my whole life,” he says. “I didn’t start this with the intention of becoming famous.”

What provokes the death threats? Multiple times a week, Chef Reactions picks an online recipe video and—it’s in the name—reacts to it. He is known for his deadpan delivery, liberal use of swear words, and very evident culinary knowledge. (He really is a chef with almost 20 years’ experience.) The 40-year-old creator reacts to everything from genuinely delicious-looking chocolate sculptures to people cooking inside their toilet bowls.

Some have accused him of bullying, “which I didn’t understand, because most of the videos that I talk about are purposely made for shock value.” (Some recipe videos are also fetish content.) The chef’s angry reactions are unscripted and authentic: “I come from a background of not wasting food, both in my professional life and my personal life. When I was a kid, I was forced to sit at the kitchen table until I finished everything on my plate, so wasting food is a pet peeve of mine.”

Chef Reactions created his TikTok account in May 2022 because, he says, “a dishwasher that worked for me had a video go viral … and it was really stupid, it was maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Deciding that if she could do it, he could do it too, the chef created his first video, a silly three-second clip in which he makes eyes at some butt-shaped dough.

The Chef Reactions channel grew quickly. He recently quit his job; brand deals, merchandise sales, and Patreon supporters enable him to recipe-react full time. “I’ve been a chef for so long that it’s hard for me to think of what I do now as work, because I worked so very hard before,” he says. He notes that while he is by no means rich or “set for life,” he could afford a year off to be with his family if he stopped making videos right now. “This has changed my life in ways that I never thought were possible,” he says.

Yet in the year Chef Reactions has been creating his videos, he says the number of rage bait (and fetish) recipes on TikTok has grown. “These accounts are multiplying like gremlins,” he says, “And now people say that I’m partially responsible for that.” Some viewers believe that gross food creators are making videos specifically for the chef to react to, meaning he’s taking the bait and feeding the baiters. While he says it would be “egotistical” for him to believe that videos are made specifically for him, he does acknowledge his part in this strange new ecosystem.

“Without them, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today, so it’s kind of a double-edged sword,” he says. Equally: “I’m not the only person that does food reactions.”

Tanara Mallory is perhaps currently the most famous and quotable recipe reactor on TikTok; her catchphrase “Everybody’s so creative!” now regularly pops up in the comment section of food videos. The 47-year-old, Philadelphia-based production cook is—as Chef Reactions himself puts it —“hilarious”; her faux-enthusiastic response videos have earned her 3.4 million followers.

Unlike Chef Reactions, however, Mallory has found it hard to profit from her fame. She told The Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this month that the money she has earned so far only covers “gas and groceries,” even though the hashtag #everybodysocreative now has 486 million views. It’s a problem as old as social media itself: the ability of any creator to monetize their content often depends on their race. “Mallory’s situation,” journalist Beatrice Forman wrote in her profile of the TikTok star, “is all too common for Black social media creators, who have shaped internet culture for decades.” (Mallory didn’t respond to interview requests for this story.)

Yet while recipe reactions may not always be profitable, they do remain popular. Beyond comedy value, why do people like to watch?

Zoë Glatt, a digital anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft’s Social Media Collective, argues that “​​what makes bad recipe videos so perfect for reactions is the ambiguity around whether the original content is made sincerely.” Numerous disturbing recipes have been reported as real trends over the years, and therefore it is undoubtedly satisfying for audiences to hear a straight-talker “reflecting on just how bad these recipes are.”

Glatt says that “reaction videos have always existed as a sort of meta-economy that feeds off of and into the genres of content.” While some reactors do “the bare minimum,” riding the coattails of an original video’s popularity, the best reactions, she says, “offer meaningful or entertaining commentary, reflecting and reifying the feelings that audiences have toward the video and helping to create a sense of community and shared understanding.” Arguably, shared understanding is crucial when you’ve just watched someone blend angel hair and you have to decide if the world’s lost the plot or you have.

It’s unclear how long recipe reactions will continue to be popular. Chef Reactions says, “I think of myself always as on my 14th of 15 minutes of fame.” He is branching out onto YouTube because of rumors of a TikTok ban, and he hopes the world will continue to have an appetite for his content. But being uncertain about the future doesn’t trouble him too much. “If you were to ask me a year ago what my retirement plan was, I would have said, ‘Having a heart attack hovering over an empty deep fryer.’ I didn’t have a retirement plan,” he says. He still doesn’t, but he does now have a flourishing online career. “If it all goes away tomorrow, I can always fall back onto my skill set and continue being a chef.”

[wanderinglotus7]

POET IN PROGRESS

November and December brought me the peace I needed to wrap up 2023 on a high note and walk into 2024 with a new mindset. God gave me a taste of what the "slow life" really entails. I appreciate all the small moments I can get just to enjoy the simple pleasures life has to offer. That saying, I've been thinking a lot about my life. Yet, this isn't new to me. With my vision board in sight, I began asking myself some questions...WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

Loaded question. Really, what am I doing with my life. It could be the change of the seasons or God gracing me a break from work, but I began asking myself where is life directing me. I'm 27 now, and opening a new chapter in my life. I'm leaving the grief & anxiety behind me (hopefully they wont become a major distraction in my life again). Singlehood has taught me to place myself first. To love myself again! I'm not in a rush to level-up in my career. I still have another year and a couple more clinical hours to rack-up before i can sit down for the LICSW exam (ugh). (I'm still 50/50 on this decision). I'm blessed to be with Adelante for almost 2 years come June. Call me a career woman LOL!

My health & mental health are pretty stable. I've reconnected with some old friends as well as reconnected with some new ones. I'm still capable of providing for myself. Therapy helped with asserting my boundaries. I'm able to focus on my hobbies. So, what's missing...?

I guess I'm still adjusting to my new life. Finding that perfect work/life balance will be a constant theme in my life. As long as I can address my needs early before compassion fatigue & burn-out take over, I should be fine. Then the aspect of school popped into my head. Not too long ago, I just completed 6 years worth of college, and I have the student loans to prove it. Why am I thinking about returning to school. In reality, I don't have the time to enroll in college again. Not even for a part-time program. Anyway, what would I study. I don't need to take any classes related to social work or psychology. My current work experiences is giving me all the lessons I need to better understand the world better. Then there's my vision board.

God was sending me a message via my vision board. God is telling me that this season is my time to invest in my passion. That passion is writing. If money wasn't an issue, your girl would be spending her time travelling and reading good books. If money wasn't an issue, I would be working in a bookstore. As an alternative, I can visualize myself as a travel blogger. I don't technically want to become a professional author/writer full time because my intentions behind writing isn't motivated by money. Plus, my inspiration doesn't work like that. It comes and goes like the ocean waves. I WRITE BECAUSE I HAVE SO MANY STORIES TO SHARE.

GOD BLESSED ME WITH A POWER FOR WORDS. My pencil is my sword. My words give me voice.

"Your life is already artful-waiting, just waiting to make it art."- Toni Morrison

Thank you liberal art colleges for pushing your students out of their comfort zones. I'm glad I took a few English courses at Bridgewater College before I graduated. The English department was my gateway into the world of poetry. Ever since then, its been one notebook after another. Ding! Why not go back to school for creative writing. PROBLEM: Time & Money. God always makes a way out of no way. Starting in June, I'm going back to school. I'm taking 3 six week online workshop classes to improve my skills & knowledge around poetry. And I entered my first chapbook, Mariposa, into a recent poetry chapbook contest. Fingers-crossed.

[drarryangels]

For the prompts, can I please get Drarry and touch starved? P.s. you're writing is amazing.

SO. I am so, so incredibly sorry. This prompt is soooo oooold. Oh my god I’m so sorry it took me so long to get to this. I love and appreciate you, and a million apologies. 

I hope you like this. I tried hard. 

1990

“Boy!” Uncle Vernon shouted, pointing viciously at Harry. Every step took him closer and closer to Harry, sweatily clambering into his space. “Get in the cupboard now!”

Harry wrapped his arms around himself and slowly edged towards the cupboard. He was only a couple steps from the entrance of the cupboard now. His cupboard. Oh, how he wished it wasn’t his. How he wished it was a cupboard like any other. 

Uncle Vernon came closer. A step before the sill of the cupboard door, Harry stopped and wheeled around to Uncle Vernon’s purple face. “I don’t want to go,” Harry whimpered, doing his best to prevent his face from crinkling up into a sob. 

Every bone in his body was screaming at him to close his mouth, shut it all down. No tears, no little gasps of air. His body betrayed him. 

“What did you say, boy?” Uncle Vernon leered down at Harry, leaning closer and closer. 

“Nothing,” Harry murmured. He backed even further towards the cupboard. Harry chanced a glance backwards. Darkness crept out of the edges of the tiny cupboard, sneaking out of the spiderwebs and into Harry’s belly. He shook his head back and forth a little. One breath and he’d be inside.

No matter what Uncle Vernon did, no matter how many meals he had to miss, no matter how many chores he had to do. No matter what it cost, Harry didn’t think he could go a centimeter closer to the beckoning cupboard door. The tiny grail on the door gleamed cruelly at him, waiting for the door to slam behind him. 

“Get in,” Uncle Vernon said. Mockery fell out of his voice and the sharp knife of brutality edged its way into his tone. It wouldn’t be long before Aunt Petunia would come pecking out of the kitchen, wielding a hot frying pan. 

See, the thing about the Dursleys was that they never touched Harry. Harry couldn’t think of a single time in his life when he had been willingly touched by another human, except for when an odd man had come up to shake his hand in a store nearly a year ago. 

Even when the Dursleys forced him to do something, they refused to touch him. The only contact Harry ever received was when someone’s shoulder brushed against his on the rare occasion that he was taken out in public. 

Despite the fact that the Dursleys never allowed their bare skin anywhere near his, they did happen to be very creative in punishing him in other ways. Belts and frying pans were favorites. 

Uncle Vernon’s voice came through him in waves and wobbled throughout his skull before he could understand what was happening. By the time it reached his understanding that Uncle Vernon would make him sorry if he didn’t go in his cupboard when asked, the end of a well oiled belt was already whipping down through the air. 

The sharp crack of the end of the leather belt resounded through the entry way. Pain slapped across Harry’s shoulder, and he reached up automatically to protect himself. A light whip drifted through the air in shimmering horror. The belt fell perfectly on his wrist, which would be easily covered up by a long sleeved t-shirt and passed off as a nasty fall if seen. The Dursleys were nothing if not excellent at maintaining a reputation.

Harry distantly felt himself crumple over, falling back into his cupboard. The dark corners swallowed him whole as he tumbled onto the pillow crammed in the back. Most days it served as his matress, but occasionally, the ratty feathers made for his blanket. Uncle Vernon slammed the door before his skimpy frame was tucked all the way in,and his foot got caught in the doorway. Uncle Vernon took a long look at a bony toe wiggled into a hole in one of Dudley’s ratty socks before slamming the crooked door over Harry’s ankle repeatedly. 

Harry didn’t make a peep. The door slammed over and over again and the noise cracked through the house like a quiet flame lighting under a cold rock. Spikes drove up Harry’s leg, but he managed to pull in his foot by the pant leg and stared wide eyed up at Uncle Vernon until he slammed the door for good. 

The shiny metal grill grinned at him through stripes of shuttered light. Then Uncle Vernon slid the grill closed and Harry was alone. 

That cupboard door didn’t open for another week after that. 

1999

Firelight flickered over Harry’s face and warmed him up through the tip of his nose. A weight dipped the couch next to him, but he didn’t turn to look who it was. If he bothered to think about it, he knew who it was. No one other than Ron and Hermione spoke to him these days, and even they didn’t come by often. After the war had ended, all of Harry’s friends got busy with the continuation of their lives and Harry fell behind with every step of a life he hadn’t expected. Only one person ever came around these days.

“Potter,” Draco said softly. No matter how many times Harry had asked him to call him Harry instead of Potter, Draco still insisted on it. “Potter,” Draco said again.

“What is it?” Harry asked quietly, still not looking up. 

Grimmauld Place stood sturdy and strong, warmer and brighter since Harry had moved in and renovated after the war. It served as both a dreadful reminder and a longing glimpse at everything the war had taken and given, but Harry couldn’t imagine ever letting go of it. Surprisingly, it had become home. 

“Am I allowed to ask what happened today?” Draco said, scooting closer on the couch and bringing his knees up to his chin. 

Harry shrugged and sunk deeper into the couch cushions. Draco could ask.

He could ask all he wanted about the little guest bedroom at the top of the stairs. He could ask about how small it was, or how Harry had ended up locked in there for the better part of a day thanks to the upended magic of Blacks. He could ask about when Draco had come around for tea, as he always did, why he had found Harry in a sobbing, shaking mess clutching onto the handle of the locked door. Why when Draco opened the door, Harry couldn’t move at first because he was expecting a blow to come hailing from above, his reward for being liberated. 

Although Draco could ask, that didn’t mean Harry had to answer any of the questions. 

But then, Draco had pried Harry’s hands off the rusted door handle and touched Harry’s back gently and Harry had hurtled forward, catching Draco into a crushing hug. And instead of doing everything Harry expected him to do, he’d simply tugged Harry a little closer and held on. 

So when Draco said, “It’s okay if the answer is no.”

Harry said, “No. I mean yes. I- I’m sorry. I’ll explain.” Draco watched him patiently and Harry took a deep breath. “My aunt and uncle… they didn’t treat me like a person really.”

Draco lay his hand over the hand Harry was worrying into the threads of the pillow on the couch. “We don’t have to talk about this-”

“I do,” Harry interrupted. He finally looked up at Draco, whose eyes were open and sweet, and who was sitting, ready to listen like no one ever was. “If you don’t mind listening, I’d like to talk about it.”

“Okay,” a soft smile slipped over Draco’s cheeks and he intertwined his fingers with Harry’s, effectively stopping him from rubbing holes into the couch. 

Harry toyed with the pillow in between them for a moment before pushing it off the couch. He watched Draco watch him as he moved closer to him and closed the gap in between their knees on the couch. “I never think about it like this, but I suppose my aunt and uncle abused me.” Harry tried to ignore Draco’s sharp intake of breath. “They never touched me. Not with their skin at least. But they were pretty generous with getting me to do what they wanted with a belt or kitchen ware.”

Draco was shaking his head, his mouth open in a little ‘o’. Something in Harry’s chest squeezed tightly. Lungs, heart, ribs. He shook his shoulders a little and rotated his body to face Draco’s.

“It’s… difficult to talk about. Or even think about really.” Harry inhaled heavily. “When I was two, they put me in a cupboard. The one under the stairs.” Harry’s words came out jolted and uneven. He tried to control the ragged timing of his air coming out in abrasive gasps. The sound echoed endlessly in his ears. “I lived there until I was almost eleven.”

“Potter,” Draco interrupted. The two were now sitting opposite each other, their knees touching. Harry stared at the ground while Draco tried to pick up Harry’s face with his eyes. “You really don’t have to tell me any of this.” Draco paused. “I know things are different between us now. But I’m not- I’m not Ronald or Hermione.”

Harry finally squeezed Draco’s hand in return. This part was new. The touching and hand holding. It only ever happened when they were alone, in private, but it still existed in the most wonderful, stomach-swooping of ways. 

“I know,” Harry said slowly, “but it’s easier to say this to you.”

“Why me?”

“Because in some ways… you understand it?” Harry looked at Draco carefully. Maybe Harry was reading this all wrong, and Draco had no idea how important it was that he tell Draco this and not Ron and Hermione. Harry tried to shrug it off casually. 

Draco lightly brushed his fingers over Harry’s shoulder before dropping his hand back into his own lap. “I think I get it. The things I went through when I was younger with my father, and the things from the Manor when the Dark- when He was there, are different. But I suppose, they’re the same in some ways.”

Harry nodded, mostly to reassure himself. And it was with that he found himself telling Draco everything that had transpired from the moment he could remember recognizing that the Dursleys were not his own family. He told Draco all about the cupboard, the chores, the bullying. They never touched him with their bare skin. How he’d had a panic attack when Hermione hugged him for the first time. How he never let anyone touch him until fifth year, when Cho had kissed him. He cried then because the feeling of bare skin touching a part of him that was so new was so inherently wrong, even though it felt so good. He spoke until his mouth was dry about the hitting, and the ignoring, and the slapping away all traces of magic. 

It was horrible, every bit of it. When he finished, his face was wet with tears and his tongue was paper from every bit of his life that he hadn’t let himself touch. But by the end, Draco was looking at him with a face that didn’t look any different than it had when he had started. Sadder, maybe. But there was no pity or revenge. 

“Do you know,” Harry laughed wetly, trying to pull every torn memory from the past several hours into one sentence. “The thing I was most afraid of was being seen.”

“I know,” Draco whispered, his cheeks glimmering with unnoticed tears. “I know.”

Maybe it was the look in Draco’s eyes, or the way he was leaning just slightly forward into Harry’s words. Perhaps it was because Draco Malfoy had become a beautiful soul. For the first time in his life, Harry reached out to touch someone before they touched him. It was a move of trust, and of giving a piece of himself to someone he was expecting to protect it forever. He linked his fingers between Draco’s and pulled him in to kiss him on the cheek. 

The second passed in the gust of an exhale and Harry leaned back again. Draco smiled through his tears and cautiously swiped his thumb under Harry’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Draco said. “For what they did to you, and for being so cruel when we met. And thank you for telling me.” 

Relief plunged through Harry’s veins. Someday, he thought, he would tell Draco the other things. Dumbledore and his missions and crazy plans. The give and take of both having and not having Sirius in his life. His parents. Dying and then coming back to life. 

Someday. For now, he just let Draco hold onto his hand and talk to him quietly about things that wouldn’t matter in the morning. 

2009

“Mmph,” Draco groaned, turning his face into the pillow. Harry smiled and propped himself up on his elbow to watch the smooth swells and curves of Draco’s back. He scooted closer to Draco and bent his head down briefly to inhale into the joint of Draco’s shoulder and neck.

“Draco,” Harry whispered. He lifted a hand carefully to the back of Draco’s neck and trailed his fingertips down his spine, letting his hand bump over the soft ridges of his back. “Wake up.”

“Why?” Draco grumbled into the pillow. Harry brushed his lips lightly against the fine hairs at the soft nape of Draco’s neck. It was the kind of light kiss that was barely meant to be felt, only given. “Who s’this?” Draco muttered.

“It’s Harry,” he grinned and tried not to snicker. 

“Potter?” Draco sat up suddenly, his hair sticking up in every direction and a muddled expression smeared across his face from sleep. “I know him!”

Harry laughed and reached up to pat Draco’s hair down. “Love, you married him.”

Draco whirled to see Harry laying back in the white nest of the comforter and blankets. “Oh,” Draco flopped back and closed his eyes tightly against the thin golden light. “S’too early.”

Harry slung his body over Draco’s and threw a leg around his hips. Draco shifted under him and made a gruff noise that Harry ignored, instead opting to cuddle himself closer. “Not happy to hear you married me?”

Draco grunted and sleepily looped his hands around Harry’s waist. “A loser like you?” He shrugged lopsidedly, pressed up into the pillows. “I would never.”

Harry melted the rest of his body weight over Draco to squish him. “Git. I love you.”

Pale eyelashes lifted up and a hint of gray peeked out from Draco’s face. “I love you too.”

[scarletarosa]

List of Hindu Gods

Not by any means a complete listing, as there are countless gods in Hinduism. But the following are many of the most significant:

Primordial gods:

Brahman - the divine masculine consciousness (not to be confused with Brahma). Moksha (Enlightenment) is the realization of Brahman, an instantaneous awareness of the fundamental oneness of the universe.

Adi Parashakti -  the divine feminine energy of creative power; the “Cosmic Womb”. Manifests as the Mother-goddess, Parvati.

The Trimurti:

Brahma - the creator god

Vishnu - god of preservation and protection of all that is good. He embodies righteousness, compassion, and virtue. Whenever protection is needed upon Earth, he incarnates (there are around 24 Avatars of Vishnu). Seen as the Supreme God in the Vaishnaivism sect.

Shiva - god of destruction, asceticism, yoga, meditation, Enlightenment, and the Cosmic Dance. Commonly said to be the Supreme God as he is believed to embody Brahman, and is the husband of Shakti/Parvati. It is Shiva who has power over time and transformation, allowing the rebirth of Creation to occur. He is the very embodiment of purity, goodness, wisdom, and beauty. In Hinduism, yoga is meditation, pranayama, and various ascetic practices performed in order to achieve Enlightenment. 

The Tridevi:

Parvati - mother-goddess of love, fertility, devotion, marital happiness, family, beauty, abundance, nourishment, determination, and power. She is Shakti Herself and manifests as many other goddesses. The Ultimate Goddess, Mother of the Universe; wife of Lord Shiva.

Lakshmi - goddess of abundance, material wealth, good fortune, luxury, fertility, success, generosity, happiness, grace, charm, and splendour. Wife of Lord Vishnu. She has eight forms representing the eight types of wealth, called Ashtalakshmi. 

Saraswati - goddess of knowledge, wisdom, inspiration, clarity, logic, speech, music, art, and writing. Originally a river goddess. Wife of Lord Brahma.

Various Important Deities:

Indra - Lord of the Heavens. God of the sky, weather, storms, thunder, and war.

Varuna -  god of the oceans, water, aquatic animals, justice, and truth. He is the upholder of law and order in this world. He has a thousand eyes and oversees the whole world.

Agni - god of fire, heat, electricity, and the hearth; master of sacrificial offerings. No sacrifice is complete without his presence. His presence makes the sacrifice successful because he sends those sacrifices to the gods. He is the messenger as well as the priest of gods. He is kind and giving and loved by many. He is depicted as having 2 heads, 6 eyes, 7 hands, 3 legs, and 4 horns. 

Rudra - god of storms, lightning, and wind. Known as “The Howler” and is a fierce form of Shiva. Can both give and heal diseases.

Nataraja - Shiva’s form as the Lord of the Cosmic Dance. He is the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer. 

Bhairava - Shiva’s terrifying form as the destroyer of evil

Virabhadra - Shiva’s wrathful form of destruction

Ardhanarishvara - the united form of Shiva and Parvati - the inseparable divine couple who symbolize the act of Creation.

Hanuman - monkey-god of strength, knowledge, and victory 

Yama - god of the Dead and justice

Ganesha (Ganapati) - god of beginnings, the arts, science, intellect, and wisdom; the remover of obstacles. Son of Shiva and Parvati.

Kartikeya (Skanda/Murugan) - god of war and victory; an embodiment of perfection; son of Shiva and Parvati.

Ashokasundari - goddess of beauty and luxury. Daughter of Shiva and Parvati.

Mitra - god of the Sun, friendship, energy, integrity, and harmony.

Rama - god of reason, right action, and virtue; Avatar of Vishnu

Krishna - god of love, compassion, tenderness, and wisdom; Avatar of Vishnu

Narasimha - lion-god of courage and victory over evil; Avatar of Vishnu

Surya - god of the Sun, light, and power

Chandra - god of the Moon

Some notable forms of Shakti/Parvati:

Durga - warrior goddess of power, strength, courage, justice, determination, and protection. She is the form created by the powers of the gods combined- awakening as Shakti Herself. Durga rides upon a lion and has 8-10 arms, all of which hold divine weapons.

Kali - goddess of time, transformation, destruction, rebirth, ego death, and enlightenment. She is equally terrifying as she is beautiful, and she is the nourisher of her children. Thus, she is always portrayed as young and healthy. Mother Kali is terrifying because she represents what we must face in ourselves before we are liberated from our Egos, but she is wholly benevolent and loving. It is ignorance and evil  that she hates and annihilates. Kali Ma is said to be the Ultimate Reality.

Lalita (Tripura Sundari) - the beautiful and sweet goddess of creation, love, beauty, compassion, wisdom, and sensuality. She is the Beauty of the Three Worlds and is the loving defender of her children, her devotees. 

Chinnamasta - the goddess of transformation and sacrifice. Form that Parvati took after cutting off her own head in order to feed her followers her own blood. She represents paradoxes, being death/pleasure, nourishment/sacrifice, sex/self-control, beauty/macabre. 

Tara - the more serene form of Kali, goddess of hunger who is known as “the star”. 

Chandraghanta - Parvati as the compassionate and gentle protectress who embodies serenity, forgiveness, peace, grace, prosperity, courage, and strength. This form was utilized by Parvati when she went to meet with Shiva in one of his terrifying forms.

Kalaratri - a goddess similar to Kali, but is a different form of Parvati. She specifically represents the Night of Destruction. Kalaratri is seen carrying a sword and riding upon a donkey.

Brahmacharini - Parvati as the ascetic goddess who did severe penance in order to coax Shiva from his meditation so she could marry him. She performed severe austerity and due to this, She is called Brahmacharini.

Chamunda - goddess of war, disease, death, famines, and destruction. A skeletal goddess who is similar to Kali, but unlike the Mother, Chamunda is frail and unnurturing. She was originally known as a “Kali” due to her dark complexion, but earned her name Chamunda after killing the asuras named Chanda and Munda.   

Bagalamukhi - goddess of strength, control, violence, victory, and protection; destroyer of lies and gossip.

Dhumavati - goddess of poverty, misfortune, strife, loss, loneliness, ugliness, despair, and widows

Bhairavi - goddess of death

Bhuvaneshvari - goddess of all the worlds and the Universe, worldly pleasures, preseration, and knowledge.

Matangi - goddess of pollution, impurity, the arts, and knowledge

Kushmanda - goddess of light, good health, and the “Cosmic Egg”

Bhramari - goddess of bees, wasps, and hornets

Annapurna - Parvati as the goddess of food and nourishment

Additional gods:

Vayu - god of beauty and intelligence

Savitr - god of the “hidden Sun”- the Sun before dawn and after dusk.

Pushan - god of paths, cattle, meetings, marriages, and journeys; Psychopomp for the dead

Usha - goddess of the dawn

Soma - god of inspiration

Ashvins - twin deities of medicine who have healing powers.

Kama - god of love, lust, and desire. Husband of Rati.

Rati - goddess of love, sex, carnal desire, and sexual pleasure

Indrani (Shachi) - goddess of beauty, jealousy, and rage; wife of Indra.

Aditi - goddess of the infinite, the sky, consciousness, the past/present/future, and fertility 

Shukra - god of Venus, love, attachment, the arts, and pleasure

Balarama - god of agriculture and strength

Jagannath - ecstatic and most merciful form of Krishna

Shashthi - goddess of vegetation, reproduction, and fertility; protectress of children.

Kubera - god of the earth, mountains, minerals, jewels, and wealth; king of the yakshas (nature spirits).

Brihaspati - god of wisdom, hymns, rites, charms, and Jupiter; teacher and sage of the gods.

Kaushiki - goddess of revenge and victory

Akilandeswari - goddess of brokenness, change, evolving identities, and of letting go

Ratri - goddess of night

Chhaya - goddess of shadows

Saranyu - goddess of clouds and dusk

Yamuna - goddess of life

Dhamini - goddess of art and dance

Shani - god of justice, discipline, punishment, and Saturn 

Varahi - boar-goddess of war

Gayatri - goddess of the Gayatri Mantra

Daksha - god of kings

Shitala - goddess of sores, ghouls, pustules, and diseases

Ganga - goddess of the Ganga River and of purity

Mangala - god of war, celibacy, and Mars

Budha - god of intelligence, ambiguity, and Mercury 

[allegra-writes]

Hey Allie! Any tips for fanfic blogs that are starting out?

I always struggle with questions like this one, I don't wanna sound cliche or corny but my only tip would be IGNORE THE NUMBERS.

I was lucky enough to open this blog before tumblr's new algorithm fucked us all over, and watched the notes on my fics go from thousands to a couple of hundreds. I won't lie and say it didn't affect me, because the truth is it fucking hurt. But here's the thing, I KNEW my fics weren't losing quality and I actually liked the way I was writing more and more with each story. I started this blog as an exercise for my creative writing class, with absolutely no expectation other that to be able to fucking finish my stories (I would always abandon all my WIP unfinished) and to grow as a writer. It took me sometime to recover that feeling but I finally got it back, and I can tell you its LIBERATING. As long as YOU love your stories, it wont matter so much to you if you get 15 or 1500 notes.

Advice number two would be DON'T LET ANYONE TELL YOU WHAT AND WHAT NOT TO WRITE. Of course, I'm not talking about not taking requests, taking requests is a good way of starting to make a following and it's fun. Plus it's a good solution for those "I wanna write but I don't know what" days. No, I'm talking about not letting anons intimidate you into stopping to write a character or a ship, or a type of story (dark!fic writers get a lot of those and even I did in the recent past. I think you know what I'm talking about). Unless of course you write pedophilia, in that case, you're sick and disgusting and please go burn in hell😊

Numero 3, make friends, have fun, join group chats. Find your tribe. The friends I made here helped me even when I abandoned tumblr earlier this year. But be honest about it, don't try to initiate conversations only to like, promote your fic at the second sentence you write because some of us are kinda insecure and feel a little bit bad when we think someone wants to be our friend but it turns out they only wanted us to boost their works. I mean, this one you can take it or leave it cause actually, some people asked me to check their blog first thing they said and later we became good friends or at least mutuals with some lovely blogs. ( @fallinfortom I'm looking at you, you are lovely and adorable and def didn't deserved all that stupid hate people gave you at first and I admire your strength and poise through it all and I want you to know you inspired me to finally stand up to my haters💜)

So yeah... That would be all for now. Truth is I had no idea what I was doing when I first started this blog and I kinda still don't, but I'm learning. Hope you find this useful💖

[duggardata]

All The Data:  Michaela (Bates) + Brandon Keilen

The Couple—

Michaela Christian (Bates) Keilen  (b. January 23, 1990)

Parents   Gil + Kelly Jo (Callaham) Bates

Child #   2 of 19

Hometown   Rocky Top, TN

Early Education   Homeschooling  (Abeka and IBLP / ATI)

Higher Education—

Tennessee College of Applied Technology (Bringing Up Bates (11–14–19), “Home is Where The Heart Is!”), Nursing / LPN  (2019—)

A.A. / A.S. in Liberal Arts / Medical Health Sciences (2016), Roane State Community College (Online)  (See Bringing Up Bates (9–22–16), “Three Pointers and Puppies.”)

Credentials—

Licensed Emergency Medical Technician  (TN; 2011—)

Licensed and AED–Certified First Responder  (TN; 2009—2012)

Occupation

Owner, Keilen Corner (Online Boutique)  (Oct. 2019—)

Nursing / LPN Student, Tennessee College of Applied Technology (2019—)  (See Bringing Up Bates (11–14–19), “Home is Where The Heart Is!”)

... Previously—

Owner, BrandonAndMichaela.com (Online Boutique)  (2017—2019)

Nanny  (Dates Unclear) (As of Late 2013 / 2014, Michel had the job for a “couple of years.”  Bringing Up Bates (1–22–15), “Training Up Bates.”)

EMT / First Responder, Medford Volunteer Fire Department  (Rocky Top, TN; 2009—?) (Bringing Up Bates (7–7–16), “The Big Chili.”)

Brandon Timothy Keilen  (b. September 15, 1989)

Parents   Ronald + Jillene “Jill” (Pope) Keilen

Child #   8 of 10  (Bringing Up Bates (2–26–15), “Michaela + Brandon”)

Hometown   _____, MI  (Id.)

Early Education   Homeschooling  (Id.)

Higher Education   B.A. in Biblical Ministry (2014), IBLP’s International Ministerial Institute  (Burnet, TX) (Note—Oddly, Brandon mentioned that his “final semester” at IMI was Fall 2013...  But, later, he’s still in school, and that’s why he and Michaela couldn’t get engaged until Spring 2015.  Duggar Data has a theory of why this is...  IMI is a 3–Year program, with an option to extend to 4 Years and earn a bachelor’s degree.  I think the 2013 graduation was from the 3–Year program.  Brandon must’ve opted to go for the bachelor’s degree, which explains the additional year.)

Occupation   [ Unknown ]

... Previously   Videographer / Creative Designer, Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP)  (Oak Brook, IL; ?—2019) (Note—Brandon first started working for IBLP in Chicago after his homeschool graduation, probably 2007 or 2008.  Bringing Up Bates (6–11–15), “Meet The Parents.”)

The Relationship—

First Meeting   c. March 2009

Location   IBLP Headquarters; Hinsdale, IL

Details   The Bates Family took a trip to Chicago, so that Michaela and her sisters could attend Journey to The Heart.  Before departing for the session, Michaela was at IBLP, where she happened to notice Brandon.  Brandon also recalls meeting the Bates Family, at that time.

Timing   We know that this all happened in 2009, “just after” Michaela’s 19th Birthday—i.e., January 23, 2009.  Apparently, it wasn’t immediately after, though, since Brandon recalls it as “Spring 2009.”  Duggar Data is pretty confident that it was March 2009—which is arguably in the spring—based on this Post on FreeJinger, reporting that that’s when Michaela did Journey to The Heart.  (Unfortunately, the Post cites to a page that’s now deleted, so it’s impossible to verify.)

Pre–Courtship   November 29, 2013  (See Also)  (Friday)

Location   by Phone  (Michaela in North Carolina.)

Details   After praying about it, Brandon called Gil Bates and asked him for permission to start a relationship with Michaela.  Gil and Kelly talked to Michaela, and called back later that day with their blessing.  Brandon then called Michaela, and their pre–courtship began.  (See Also.) 

Timing   On the “Our Story” Posts on their website, both of the Keilens recall the fateful first phone call happening on Black Friday 2013.  (Note—Thanksgiving 2013 was on November 28, so Black Friday was on the 29th.)  Oddly, some other evidence contradicts this, indicating it was on November 28.  Duggar Data can’t really explain why...  Brandon realized his feelings on November 28th, then called Gil on the 29th?  Regardless, my spreadsheet has November 29 as their Pre–C.S. Date, based on the “Our Story” Posts.

Courtship   December 30, 2013  (Monday)

Location   Restaurant at The English Inn; Eaton Rapids, MI

Details   While Michaela was visiting Brandon in Michigan, they went on a date to The English Inn.  Over dinner, Brandon gave Michaela a journal, a poem professing his love, and a gold–plated dried rose, then asked her to start an official courtship.  She agreed.  

Announced   January 2, 2014 on the Bates Family Website  (+3 Days)

Engagement   April 13, 2015  (See Also)  (Monday)

Location   Great Falls Park; McLean, VA  (See Bringing Up Bates (7–9–15), “Brandon Pops The Question.”)

Details   Brandon set up a scavenger hunt for Michaela, which led her all over the Washington, DC Area.  It coincided with cherry blossom season, which was a nice touch.  After a few too many clues, Michaela ended up at Great Falls Park, where Brand was waiting with the ring.  (Bringing Up Bates (7–9–15), “Brandon Pops The Question.”)

Announced   April 16, 2015 by UpTV  (+3 Days)

Featured On   Bringing Up Bates (7–9–15), “Brandon Pops The Question”

Wedding   August 15, 2015, 2:00 PM  (Saturday)

Location   Wallace Memorial Baptist Church; Knoxville, TN

Officiants   Gil Bates (Bride’s Father), Dr. S.M. Davis (Groom’s Mentor) (Bringing Up Bates (2–4–16), “Wedding Bliss and First Kiss.”)

MOH   Kelly Jo Bates  (Bride’s Mother) (Id.)

Best Man   [ Unknown / Unable to Verify ]

Announced   N/A  (No Formal / Media Announcement)

Featured On   Bringing Up Bates (2–4–16), “Wedding Bliss and A First Kiss”

Honeymoon   Wyoming and Montana  (See Also Bringing Up Bates (2–11–16), “Fly Fishin’, Zip Linin’ Honeymoon.”)

Information about the Keilens’ infertility struggle...  After the jump.

Infertility Struggle—

Since their marriage, Michaela + Brandon have struggled with infertility.  They went public with their struggle in January 2017, when they chose to discuss it on Bringing Up Bates (1–26–17), “Doggy Dilemmas.”  They have shared since shared additional details about their infertility on the show, their personal blog, and social media.  Here’s what we know—

Firstly, Michaela + Brandon very, very much want children, and it was expected they’d probably have a large family.  Here’s what’s been said about this—

Michaela:  “Brandon and I have talked a lot about having children...  I would have as many as I possibly could.”  (Bringing Up Bates [BUB] (1–22–15), “Training Up Bates.”)

Michaela (on the Keilens’ Blog):  “Growing up I always dreamed of being a mother someday. ... Children were the greatest miracle in my eyes, and I spent all my free time babysitting.  Every time I rocked a baby to sleep, I dreamed of someday cuddling my own little one.”

Brandon:  “That ... is an area we want the Lord to have control in. ...  He is just saying no for now.  We hope it’s not no for always—but, it’s no for now.”  (BUB (1–26–17), “Doggy Dilemmas.”)

Kelly:  “Everyone in the family has always predicted and said, ‘Michaela is going to be the one that has a really, super large family.’”  (BUB (1–26–17), “Doggy Dilemmas.”)

After 6 Months of marriage, Michaela + Brandon began to worry that Michaela wasn’t getting pregnant.  (BUB (1–26–17), “Doggy Dilemmas.”)  Michalea went to her doctor, who ran a few tests but told her:  “Don’t even think about a baby until you’ve been married at least a year…  Babies take time!”

By the Keilens’ 1st Anniversary, Michaela still wasn’t pregnant, and the Keilens decided to see a fertility specialist.  (BUB (1–26–17), “Doggy Dilemmas.”)  The Keilens have shared quite a bit about this process, including the following—

The doctor did extensive testing.  Apparently, Michaela + Brandon were both examined.  (BUB (1–25–18), “SUN Day, Fun Day.”)  Brandon hasn’t commented publicly on the process, but Michaela has...  She described doing “a lot of bloodwork,” and  getting “a lot of ultrasounds.”  (BUB (8–31–17), “Here’s The Scoop.”)  She stated that, over the course of a year, they “tried all of the major tests”—racking up significant medical bills, in the process.  (BUB (1–11–18), “Decorating Dilemmas Job Decisions.”)

Despite all the testing, the doctor hasn’t been able to determine what’s causing their fertility struggle.  (See BUB (8–31–17), “Here’s The Scoop” and BUB (1–25–18), “SUN Day, Fun Day.”)

One thing the tests did show is that Michaela hyper–ovulates.  Bringing Up Bates hasn’t mentioned what’s causing this, or whether her doctors even determined a cause.  (Medically speaking, hyper–ovulation means that, if Michaela conceives, she’s at increased risk of having multiples.)  (BUB (1–25–18), “SUN Day, Fun Day.”)

Around August 2017, Michaela decided to undergo one final test, “then take a little break” from all the medical intervention in her infertility.  The test was a hysterosalpingogram—i.e., a medical procedure that uses x–ray to visualize scarring in the uterus or fallopian tubes.  Dr. Vick did the test.  He identified, and was able to clear, a fallopian tube blockage.  He advised the Keilens to wait three cycles, then consider surgery if they’re still unable to conceive.  (BUB (1–25–18), “SUN Day, Fun Day.”)

As of 2020, it’s unknown if Michaela got—or intends to get—the surgery that Dr. Vick mentioned.

Michaela has said that she is interested in adoption, if she’s unable to have her own children, saying:  “Someday [I’ll have a baby], maybe, and if not, I’ll adopt me a baby.”  (BUB (8–31–17), “Here’s The Scoop.”)  As far as I know, Brandon hasn’t ever spoken publicly about the possibility of adoption, surrogacy, etc.

What’s Next—

The Predictor will assume a couple is incapable of having children if they’re 5+ SDs Late to announce Pregnancy #1, and they’ve been married for 5 Years.  In the Keilens’ case, they’re already >5 SDs Late to announce Pregnancy #1.  (As of April 11, 2020, they’re actually ~47 SDs Late...  Way, way later than 5 SDs...)  Their 5th Anniversary is this year, on August 15.  If they still haven’t announced a pregnancy by then, the Predictor will stop predicting children for them.

... That’s All The Data for Michaela + Brandon.

[randomguywithwords]

As The Dust Settles: Chapter 15 (Geten X Dabi Slowburn)

Chapter 15: Soldiering On

AO3 Link: Here

Previous Chapters: 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

––––––––

Extinguishing his flames, Dabi saw only charred ashes on the ground. Wind will get them. It always does. 

“What did they do to me? Why can’t I use my meta ability?” Geten said, as Dabi rubbed his arms. He turned to look at her.

“I should have figured…” Dabi muttered. “Tokugawa Prefecture was near their territory. These guys must have been one of the last few to acquire them.”

“What’re you talking about?” She pressed on, frenetically rubbing her hands. She made a few gestures, trying to use it, but to no avail. 

“You mean you don’t know?” Dabi stared at her. “You guys kept track on the League so well, so why not – oh.” 

Again with the hierarchy. The pieces put themselves together; Dabi knew why she was in the dark. 

“What? What ‘oh’?” Geten screeched. 

“Hey, calm down, girl. It’s only temporary.” Looking at the store, the door was still open and the lights were on. “Let’s get something to eat. Might help.”

That seemed to relax her for now, although she was still trying to move ice. The two of them entered the store and walked out carrying some snacks. In spite of the abandonment of this town, the snacks’ preservatives lasted for a long time. Dabi made sure to turn off the lights as they left.

“Ok, explain,” Geten said as they sat on the sidewalk. 

“First off, the quirk-erasing bullets are temporary. It was an unfinished product made by the Shie Hassaikai, a yakuza group that got shut down a while back.”

“And I’m guessing here,” Dabi said as he munched on his chips, “But your leaders – those lovely asshats – they knew about the Hassaikai. They probably knew the group had a way to erase your precious meta abilities. Since their whole army was based on the principle of free meta ability usage, your Re-destro didn’t wanna make everyone panic. So he and his group shut up. Makes sense?” 

“So they kept it from me.” Geten growled. “Again.”

What does she mean, again? Dabi took another bite in silence. 

“Well, like I said, it’s temporary, and we can just call for an extraction –” He pulled out his phone when Geten unexpectedly grabbed his arm.

“No! We’re not leaving.”

“But...you’re gonna be useless, aren’t you?” Dabi raised an eyebrow. “I mean, you saw what happened to that guy. We might be up against something...problematic.”

“We can handle it.” 

“Speak for yourself. You’re quirkless for the next couple of hours. And do you even have any ice?”

Geten balled her fist. “I have some ice cubes in my pocket. They’re cold enough to last a few hours. I’ll take care of myself. And I’ll help with this assignment.”

Dabi sighed. You and your ego will be the death of me. “Fine. Whatever, if you’re going to be so difficult about it.” He put his phone back in his pocket, and Geten released her grip. 

Her hands aren’t cold, he realised.

He caught her with a blank stare at the pavement. “What are you thinking about?” He asked, suddenly feeling that her pride was not the only reason she was so insistent on continuing.

No, she’s not that afraid of the rest laughing at her quirklessness, or that she got shot...but what was it?

She put on her hood. “Nothing.” Her face was shrouded once more, and Dabi felt a tinge of disappointment. Can’t see what’s she’s thinking, it’s unsettling, he rationalised. That was probably the reason. 

“Let’s go.” She said, standing up. She had stopped trying to use her quirk by now, giving up. He thought of saying something, but his mind came up blank. So he followed suit in silence, with the both of them getting on the motorcycle and speeding off. 

Are her hands shaking? Dabi thought. 

The silence of the ride was more somber than peaceful, knowing that what lay ahead was a real threat. Skeptic’s talk of this dissenter managing to evade capture from the soldiers sent to stop them sent chills down Dabi’s spine, but also a burning thrill. This better be good. 

“So, what’s the plan now?” Dabi shouted over the wind. 

“You still have your fire, so you can take care of large groups. I think it might be a gang or cult of some sort that hates the Liberation ideology, considering the advisor back there looked like he was beaten to death. I can run distraction or disruption. We should split up and use our communicators.” Geten replied.

Good plan, Dabi admitted. “Ok, and what if things go south?” 

She had no reply for a good three seconds.. “Usually things never go south for me, but seeing the condition I’m in...maybe we should regroup in an area?”

“Fine. Don’t die, okay?” Dabi thought out loud, then added hastily, “Gonna be a hassle to explain your death to everyone.” 

“Worry about yourself,” She retorted. “I’ll be fine.” 

If you say so...He thought, his grip tightening on the handlebars, unable to push out the thought that something bad was going to happen to her. She was quirkless, after all, during the most crucial time of the night. 

“Who do you think those guys were back there?” Dabi asked. 

No response came for a few seconds. “I don’t know,” She finally said, “But I don’t think they were just random thugs. It seemed more like a hit squad. And who’s Mesa?”

“No idea. Never heard it in my life.” Dabi racked his brains, but he never bothered keeping the names of people in his past. Just the few, and the rest were smouldering corpses like those trash back there. “Do you think they were targeting you?”

He felt her bristle at the question, as if that triggered a thought. “Don’t know,” She said throatily. 

Lying? Whatever. She’s not gonna tell me. But it might be linked to this whole assignment…

“Anyway, they might have tried to shoot me too, but I probably burnt the bullets up.”

“Fast reflexes,” She uttered.

“Thanks.” Was that an actual compliment? She sounds bitter about it – that she didn’t react fast in time. The rest of the ride was spent in silence, until Dabi saw their destination. 

“There.” He flicked his head towards the fast approaching factory. 

It was run-down and abandoned, complete with a “NO ENTRY” sign and worn-down wire fences which provided as much protection as fabric against a bullet. Towering metal and concrete chimneys gone dormant studded the compound; five-storey high buildings were placed next to them. Large metal containers occupied the expansive courtyard with dark lampposts situated in an orderly fashion, surrounding the containers like patrol guards.

Strange, have I been here before? No, that was impossible. He’d never visited Tokugawa Prefecture in his life. His mind was being a prick.

The two disembarked. “Guess we’re playing hide and seek. This place is massive,” Dabi said as he retrieved his earpiece from his pocket and wore it. Geten did the same.

“Let’s set here as the meeting point.” Geten pointed at their motorcycle. Dabi assented. 

“Search the buildings first. It’s the most logical place to hide,” She said as she rubbed her left arm up and down. Did she always do that? Or is she just nervous? Just as he finished the thought, she abruptly stopped and tucked her hands in her parka pocket.

They walked through the row of buildings, until Geten tapped his shoulder to draw his attention. She pointed at one of the doors. In particular, a handprint on the dusty iron. Damn, she spotted that? He nodded. 

The door was shackled by a chain, and said chain had been broken and strewn on the floor. Dabi pushed it open. 

He wasn’t surprised that he was greeted by darkness. With the faint strings of moonlight permeating through the dusty windows above, he could make out the silhouettes of stacks of crates, catwalks and broken lamps hanging on the ceiling like death row prisoners. No movement caught his eye when they stepped in. 

Getting her attention, he made a ‘split up’ gesture. She nodded and the two separated down the narrow paths.  

Dabi walked until he saw a sparkly glint of reflected light shining on one of the crates. He automatically read the label engraved on them, and his eyes widened. 

BUSHIDO ENTERPRISES PTE LTD 

So that’s why –

The ground shook. He heard Geten yell over the thundering of crates shifting. 

Shit. He turned and ran back as he saw crates beginning to collapse where Geten had headed. He spotted a blue parka and grabbed it, hauling her into the clear. With his other hand he shot a plume of azure flames into the darkness.

The fire illuminated a tall figure as it passed through like water around a rock. The figure had its hands braced to take the brunt of the damage. It looked like –

Dabi hid his surprise with a grin. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He retracted his hand. The fire lingered on some wooden planks strewn on the ground, casting a blue glow on the man’s face. 

“Beatdown.” Geten breathed, veins of fear pulsing through the word. 

Advisor to Violet Regiment, Shingu Takame, eyed the two of them with a stoic face, void of any expressions of pain. It seemed as if Dabi had sprayed water rather than a torrent of fire. The man had no words; he raised his fists and leapt towards them. 

–––––––––

Cliffhanger? Plot twist? Eh. 

Uhh right my thoughts on this chapter. I went through about 2 revisions? Major ones. I wrote the first draft in that flurry of creativity (and evasion of my academic responsibilities), then after hearing some of the thoughts on c14 (thanks Kannra in particular btw), it helped clear some of my thoughts and I realised I characterised Geten slightly incorrectly there, so I did a revision, and then once more when the chapter wasn’t “correct”. 

Yeah I always planned for Takame to be an antagonist here (I hoped I made that pretty clear with the last few sentences of this chapter). Also look at me with chapter planning. Much wow, very writer.

Hopefully he’ll be one of the few OCs I’ll ever need to use.

Next chapter’s going back to Geten and...yeah. Not gonna spoil anymore than that. Thanks for the support, any feedback is much thanks from me. 

[forestwater87]

hi! can i ask how you go about writing gwen? i’ve rewatched a bunch of her episodes and am still having trouble getting her on paper!

Okay, first you’re going to need to get a time machine and travel back in time to the summer of 2016, just after season 1 ended, when she had like 3 character traits and a couple dozen lines and zero fanfics, then fill her with elements of your own personality and project wildly onto her, slowly falling into deeper and darker despair as canon!Gwen becomes less like your iteration of the character with every season.

At least, that’s what I did, and it worked like gangbusters.

Fine, let’s try a serious answer. Gwen’s interesting because, despite how frequently she appears in the show and how much we love the shit out of her, it wasn’t really until seasons 3-4 that her backstory and less surface-level characteristics started getting filled in. She’s an ever-present enigma in a lot of ways.

So start with what we know for damn sure: 

She doesn’t like working at Camp Campbell.

She’s an anxious, emotional mess. 

She’s lazy when it comes to things she doesn’t care about, but is willing and able to step up when it’s called for.

She enjoys writing fan fiction and has a passion -- if not necessarily a talent -- for smut, drama, romance, violence, and monsterfucking. (Some of these things overlap.)

Her father’s an extremely successful musician, and their relationship is . . . complicated.

She’s beautiful and perfect and in love with David and also my girlfriend. Okay, that’s not true. This is where the projecting comes in, dang it.

Honestly, there’s . . . not a lot of there there. I think that’s why some fans are kind of bored by her, and why others absolutely love the shit out of her. Her personality is rock-solid -- seriously, just write “bored and seemingly uncaring with a heart of gold and a lust for monsters” and you’ve got a very solid Gwen portrayal right there -- but the backstory is virtually nonexistent, and that’s the bits you get to have fun with. 

For example, with all of our facts we have:

She doesn’t like working at Camp Campbell. Okay, but why doesn’t she like working there? Is it just because it’s dilapidated and Campbell is a shithead? Did she ever like working here and got burned out by its overwhelming mediocrity, or was she forced to take this job and hated it from day one? What’s the worst part of it for her: is it working with kids? Is it working with these kids? Is it the outdoors stuff? The lack of resources? That her coworker is an adorable goddamned idiot who doesn’t know how to adult? 

She’s an anxious, emotional mess. Anxiety, parasocial relationships (do those apply when talking about fictional characters and/or monsters?), serious doubt and/or regret about her life choices, a complicated and unclear sexuality . . . there’s a lot going on with Gwen. She is trash, and we love her. Add to it that she’s a psych major, and how little we know about her backstory, and she’s a great opportunity to armchair-psychologist and/or overidentify all over the place. Do you have emotional issues or identities you’d like to project onto someone? Congratulations -- Gwen now has all of those too!

She’s lazy when it comes to things she doesn’t care about, but is willing and able to step up when it’s called for. She’s a lot like Max in this way, which I think is why people are such a fan of their dynamic. She cares very deeply about some things and not at all about others, and it’s fun trying to parse out what will make her give a shit. It seems like high enough stakes will make her step up, but her idea of important is very different from David’s a lot of the time. Hell, for all we know her investment in her job changes on as little as her mood; that’s part of what you get to try and figure out as she takes shape in your writing.

She enjoys writing fan fiction and has a passion -- if not necessarily a talent -- for smut, drama, romance, violence, and monsterfucking. (Some of these things overlap.) Not gonna lie, as a book snob I had the hardest time accepting that my girl loves 50 Shades knockoffs. Her tastes are . . . I don’t wanna say bad, but they do tend to be what is popularly considered the lowest common denominator: reality TV, fashion magazines, bodice-ripping romances, paranormal tween novels. Basically, anything with lots of sex and violence seems to be her jam. It creates a really interesting dichotomy, in that she reads all the time, but isn’t necessarily what we’d call well-read. She’s a nerd, but the “worst” kind: a fangirl, and arguably the most adolescent kind. Yet she has a liberal arts degree, which tends to focus heavily on literary and creative arts, so snobs like me would assume she should know better. Apparently pretentious college English classes didn’t rub off on her all that much. I don’t have much in the way of leading questions for this one, because unless you want to psychoanalyze why she enjoys Prison Teen Mom Wars (as I most definitely do), you just sort of need to be aware of and use the fact that she enjoys high-octane drama, fighting, and kinky sex.

Her father’s an extremely successful musician, and their relationship is . . . complicated. Really, there’s two ways to work with this: either Gwen just has a normal “millennial embarrassed by her boomer dad” relationship, which is relatable to the max but doesn’t have a ton of angst fodder, or she’s dealing with some deep-seated issues about being a show toddler and/or failing to live up to his creative legacy (or whatever other parent-child problems you could imagine). Her mom is a complete nonentity. There’s definitely love between her and at least one parent, and that needs to be incorporated into any sort of discussion about her dad, but I don’t think their problems have been magically solved, which has to potential for lots of interesting scenarios.

She’s beautiful. She doesn’t think she’s beautiful, that’s for sure. One Direction in its early period of completely sucking would have lots of opinions about this, but if you don’t think Gwen is a snack (snacc? I’m very old and out of touch), you’re wrong and also not welcome on this blog.

The fun part, in my opinion, is trying to fill in the blank spaces. If I was starting out my own creation of Gwen, I’d focus first on these points: what they tell us about her, and more importantly what they don’t.

I think the hardest thing about writing Gwen -- at least, what I struggle most with -- is trying to soften her up. I took her “crippling anxiety and regret” and filled it in with all my own angst, and I think a lot of fans do that; it’s one of the great things about her, her potential for angst. But despite crying a lot (more, I believe, than any other character except mayyyybe David), she’s not especially sensitive toward other people. And I think it’s tempting to take our love for her and translate it into her being much more perfect and snuggly than she actually is. It’s an incredibly hard balance to strike, and in my opinion this makes her the hardest character to write besides Max, which makes sense, considering #3 up there.

So my advice for that would be: lean into the bitchiness. Let her be blunt and dismissive; she’s more than that, of course, and I think one of the reasons people have gravitated so much toward gwom-type portrayals is her genuine concern and even affection towards other people, but focusing too hard on her kindness and/or her angst tends to push aside the trash goblin Gwen we all fell in love with.

Let her be a trash goblin. She deserves it.

[leonaesque]

Poetic Injustice: On Ateneo and Negotiating Complicity

To be a successful comprador is an art. Tony Tan Caktiong knows this. Given the scale at which multinational corporations influence Philippine culture, at this point, who are we to refute it? And how? Profit-seeking forces itself on us; to be recognized. Every mass-produced item of clothing featuring the pattern of an ever-smiling billion-dollar bee is indication enough: Art is execution. In fact, being the recipient of foreign capital requires deliberate hands able to maintain thousands upon thousands of labor-only contractual workers, despite their having worked at the same establishment for years on end. These workers produce what no middleman can. Yet a company will still view being bought-out by an industry giant as the ideal exit strategy. Each moving part makes for one striking image of monopoly– worthy, one might insist, of being featured in a gallery.

Jollibee Foods Corporations (JFC) acquires stakes or ownership of restaurant chains in order to expand, as it has done over the course of many years with local and foreign brands. Their current roster includes Greenwich, Chowking, Red Ribbon, Mang Inasal, Burger King PH, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and Panda Express PH. The company also runs businesses internationally, such as Smashburgers in the United States, and Yonghe Dawang or Yonghe King in China.[1] Of course, the face of this massive undertaking remains the once tiny Magnolia-inspired ice cream store, Jollibee, now every business-oriented insect’s wet dream.

Ernesto Tanmiantong, brother and successor of Tony Tan Caktiong as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Jollibee Foods Corporation, is the latest former Chairperson of the Ateneo de Manila University Board of Trustees.[2] One can even find his name, along with his wife’s, gracing a first-floor exhibit hall of the Ateneo Art Gallery, found inside the university’s so-called creative hub, the Arete. In the months before the start of the first semester of S.Y. 2018-2019, Tanmiantong’s adorable, marketing-committee-approved buddy in white gloves and a chef’s hat took a trip to the then-newly inaugurated art gallery for a photo-op. The mascot then posed with several installments and paintings, a couple of which depicted farmers and workers.

According to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), JFC is one of the most notorious businesses with regards to the perpetuation of the practice of contractualization.[3] Contractual workers are, according to law, not employed by– and, therefore, not the responsibility of– the company they provide labor to. Because of this, these workers do not receive benefits or compensation, are often subject to abusive working conditions, and are vulnerable to the shameless practice of mass termination. No doubt, the Public Relations stunt with the Ateneo Art Gallery was ill-timed; right at the height of protests against the corporation, in the midst of its non-compliance with the DOLE’s order to regularize upwards of 6,000 of its workers– there was Jollibee: tone-deaf and taking pictures to post on his Facebook profile, The Atenean Way.  

Ironically, as the statement by Ateneo’s School of Humanities Sanggunian (which condemned the incident) pointed out, perhaps even the person inside that oversized blinking head of the Jollibee mascot was a contractual worker, posing in a space that he might never have been able to enter without the cartoon-bee-mask of his exploitation.[4] Surely, it does not matter whether or not the institutional faux pas was an intentional case of art-washing. At least, it should not. Is there such a thing as art for art for art’s sake?

---

There is this poem entitled “The Doomed” written by Mikael De Lara Co. A friend of mine recommended it to me once after a workshop session because my piece, he said, reminded him of it. I do not think my friend meant to insult me. Unless he did.

“The Doomed” is a poem about writing a poem, wherein the poet-persona is aware that, while he is writing poems about lilies, there is violence somewhere, which he is both physically and socially detached from. This violence is manifest into the shooting of Liberal Party supporter and candidate, Hamira Agcong, in 2010, as well as the infamous Ampatuan Massacre that occurred in 2009, where 58 people were kidnapped and killed.  

Where do poems fall under in the realm of social praxis (if at all)? “The Doomed” ends with the lines “I want to find beauty in suffering. / I want to fail.” Yet, the poem’s aestheticization of the murders via tone and imagery is blatant. The declarative rejection of an ideal like beauty or portraying beauty betrays the poet’s pretentiousness in what can only be his underlying conservativity. There is no attempt to avoid it. With lines like “You sit at your desk / to write a poem about lilies and a clip of 9mm’s / is emptied into the chest of a mother…” and “… a backhoe in Ampatuan crushes the spines of 57 / – I am trying to find another word for bodies”, it sounds as though these killings are more poetic material than actual, politically motivated deaths. Tell me, is the reader to blame for reading what is on the page? Mikael De Lara Co fails in failing, making the poem and its project a useless endeavor.

Despite the pointedly crafted grief into the persona’s voice, “The Doomed” does nothing to grieve the circumstances which brings about its dramatic situation. Why are people “doomed”, if not for the bureaucrat capitalists that viciously plot to stay in power? Could the poet not have addressed that, instead of weeping about his writing process? I do not believe that the poem would have failed that, at least, because all language inevitably fails in the face of social reality. That would be lazy, if it were not bullshit.

But I suppose that is why “The Doomed” fails, most of all: The poet believes it is fine to write speeches for a leader who allowed farmers and indigenous people to be harassed, as long as they could be tagged as members of the New People’s Army, the armed faction of the Communist Party of the Philippines. A text speaks, though the words are not on the page. So, the poet dooms.

Mikael De Lara Co has won many awards for his writing and translations, including the prestige-inducing Don Carlos Palanca Award for Literature. He graduated BS Environmental Science from Ateneo de Manila University, where he was once an editor of Heights, the school’s official literary publication. He has been published in many other magazines, literary journals, and the like, where his author’s notes proudly indicate all these accomplishments and more, such as having, himself, worked for the Liberal Party and once been a member of the former President Benigno Aquino III’s staff under the Presidential Communications Operations Office. Ergo, ghostwriter, alongside a number of other Ateneans who were also once part of Heights.

“Noynoy Aquino was a fascist” is a phrase that does not get said often enough. The Aquino administration, with its neoliberal policies the color of dehydrated piss, is credited with the starving thousands of farmers to death. Unsurprising, I suppose, for a family of landlords to inherit a disdain for the very hands that feed them. Corazon Cojuanco Aquino passed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) during her regime, and her son amended it with an extension and reforms (CARPer), making it even easier for land owners not to have to redistribute their lands at all.

For all its “Kayo ang boss ko” and “Daang Matuwid” pandering, the Aquino administration did not skimp on its counterinsurgency program, Oplan Bayanihan, which heavily drew from the U.S. Counterinsurgency Guide.[5] Here, it was farmers and Lumad, some of the most vulnerable sectors of Philippine society, that were tagged as rebels, terrorists, communists, etc., simply for knowing and standing for their rights, as the government failed to decimate actual armed revolutionaries in the countryside.

The massacre that took place under the Aquino administration occurred in Kidapawan, Cotabato on April 1, 2016. According to reports, among the group of 6,000 protesters that was mainly composed of farmers and activists, 116 were injured, 87 went missing, and 3 were killed.[6] Perhaps the lilies in “The Doomed” were a metaphor for De Lara Co’s beloved Noynoy.

---

Speaking of Ateneo: For an institution that makes yearly claims to combat historical revisionism and uphold the memory of the victims of human rights violations under the Martial Law era, this university loves to slurp on major Marcos ass. In 2014, President Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ drew flack for having rubbed elbows with the iron butterfly herself, Imelda Marcos, at an Ateneo scholars’ benefactors’ event.[7] The mere thought of Imelda posing as a charitable, bloated cockroach in a wig that feasts on all that is lavish and garish, while the university welcomes her to do so is nearly comical. I imagine the blood.  

In 2019, a similar incident ensued[8], this time with Imelda’s daughter, Irene, whose art connoisseur lifestyle she lives second-hand. It was during the inauguration of the Arete’s amphitheater, named after Ignacio B. Jimenez, a crony of the corrupt family themselves.[9] Community backlash forced the building’s executive director, Yael Buencamino, to resign and for University President, Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ to issue a statement in response to the instance.

Yet, despite the triumph of Ateneans in demanding accountability for having the Marcoses at our literal and metaphorical dining table, there are also the Camposes, the Consunjis, the Lorenzos, and other local elite whose hands are stained with generational blood, that have established their presence in the campus with no near hopes of showing them out. Students could also be as loud as they pleased about the violations on workers’, farmers’, and national minorities’ rights that these families are frequently attached to, with only the answer of a warning that school organizations may lose sponsorship opportunities. What else can we expect? Of course, the names that line the halls that one studies in are the limits of academic freedom.

---

A few semesters ago, I wrote a poem to be workshopped by my co-English staffers in Heights as part of our membership retention requirements. It was not a good poem, I know. It was about my experience of integrating with the striking workers of Sumifru, a multinational Japanese company that produces fruit, whose union was called NAMASUFA (Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Suyapa Farm). After struggling to get word out of their plight and facing violent dispersals and harassment, 200 workers came all the way from Compostela Valley to Metro Manila via boat and plane, despite the difficulties of travel due to the imposition of Martial Law throughout Mindanao. Their objective was to pressure the DOLE and its Secretary, Silvestre Bello III, into action; that is, to be firm in enforcing Sumifru’s compliance to regularize their workers, which the company refused to do even though the DOLE had legally recognized them as their workers’ employer. The workers set up camp in various places, such as Mendiola, Liwasang Bonifacio, and beside the Commission on Human Rights inside the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, and often welcomed students who came to learn about their cause.  

During the workshop, the discussion began with a silence and an awkward laugh. Political realism was how my poem was diagnosed, for obvious reasons. However, the main critique that I remember was that my use of language– the words multinational corporation and bureaucrat capitalists, in particular– did not induce the feeling of the struggle that the workers went through. It was not the language workers used or would use. I refuted this claim, saying I had talked to the workers. That this is exactly what they say. No, it is not poetic. It is real.

I agree, though, with the verdict that my poem was not good, if the basis were form. I agree because I do not think poems need to be good to say what is needed. If the basis were factors other than form, I still do not think the poem is good. I mean, either way, it does not change the fact that, ultimately, I only wrote a poem for a workshop, despite any intention of bringing awareness to NAMASUFA. Is a poem going to save them their jobs? Does that make a difference? Did it make a difference?

The Sumifru workers returned to Mindanao last July, 2019. I have left Heights as well.

---

Within the Ateneo campus, a tarpaulin overlooks the red brick road that the entire Loyola Schools population traverses. The sign merits a purposeful, impossible-to-miss position on the old Rizal Library building, immortalizing the critique: “We find the Ateneo today irrelevant to the Philippine situation because it can do no more than to service the power elite.” Nothing could be more fitting, in my opinion. The Ateneo de Manila University’s commitment to performativity deserves to be blasted in our faces, if at least once a day.

This declaration was taken from the “Down from the Hill” manifesto published by The Guidon in November of 1968. The manifesto was written by a group of five students, namely Jose Luis Alcuaz, Gerardo Esguerra, Emmanuel Lacaba, Leonardo Montemayor and Alfredo Salanga, all of whom actively campaigned for an anti-imperialist orientation to nationalism.

I want to talk about Eman Lacaba. Throughout the Marcos regime, he was a student activist– a radical, so to speak, as disapproving administrative bodies might now label him. Presently, he is known for being a poet, revolutionary, guerilla, and a martyr during the Martial Law era. One of his most often discussed poems is “An Open Letter to Filipino Artists”, a piece that finds itself into syllabi like a de-fanged snake. The poem is a detailing of his experience as a cadre of the New People’s Army; the provinces he visits, his process of proletarianizing from a burgis boy to a communist rebel, and so forth. The epigraph of the work, a quote from Ho Chi Minh, affirms his praxis– “A poet must learn how to lead an attack.” The poem is the revolution that Lacaba takes up arms for. I guess now that he is dead, Ateneans can wholeheartedly claim him as one of their own.  

After the Martial Law era, Ateneo decided to create a body dedicated to the integration of its students with various disenfranchised sectors of society, as encouragement for their middle to upper-middle class youth to become more socially aware and active. The Office of Social Concern and Involvement (OSCI) is the current iteration of this. Their programs, from first year to fourth, require students to be socially involved enough to pass their Theology units. Commendable, no? Still. You can almost get sanctioned for so much as lighting candles for state-murdered farmers on the sidewalk by the gates outside of campus if it is not an Office of Student Activities-approved event– something I learned the hard way. I was not aware that bureaucracy was a key principle in Catholic Social Teaching.

So, does this mean the opposite of active non-violence is that which is inactively violent? The areas that OSCI allows their students to immerse in are carefully chosen, the interactions are prepared for in advance. In fact, they do not want to use the term “immerse” lest they be misconstrued with the damn leftists that climb mountains and “brainwash” unsuspecting poor people. You know, the ones that dare challenge the status-quo? Ateneo, or at the very least, its administration, will recognize the necessity of political action, but only to a certain extent. Nothing like Eman, the warrior-poet, whose militance is much too red to aestheticize.

The contradiction between what is said (marketed, poeticized, apologized for, etc.) and what is done should be scrutinized, instead of convincing ourselves that our interests are not merely our own. The dominant culture of a society will expose who supports those who hold political and economic power.  

[1] Cigaral (List: Brands operated by Jollibee Foods Corp.)

[2] (Leadership)

[3] Patinio (Jollibee tops list of firms engaged in labor-only contracting: DOLE)

[4] SOH Sanggunian (The Statement of the SOH Sanggunian on Jollibee's PR Stunt)

[5] Karapatan (OPLAN BAYANIHAN For Beginners)

[6] Caparas (WITH VIDEOS: 3 dead, 87 missing, 116 hurt as police fire on Cotabato human barricade)

[7] Francisco (Ateneo de Manila 'sorry' over Imelda's visit)

[8] Paris (Irene Marcos was invited to Ateneo, and students are up in arms)

[9] Rappler.com (Ateneo hit for art ampitheater named after Marcos 'dummy')

Works Cited

Caparas, Jeff. “WITH VIDEOS: 3 Dead, 87 Missing, 116 Hurt as Police Fire on Cotabato Human Barricade.” InterAksyon.com, 1 Apr. 2016, web.archive.org/web/20160402013745/interaksyon.com/article/125901/breaking--security-forces-open-fire-on-cotabato-human-barricade.

Cigaral, Ian Nicolas. “List: Brands Operated by Jollibee Foods Corp.” Philstar.com, The Philippine Star, 24 July 2019, www.philstar.com/business/2019/07/24/1937490/list-brands-operated-jollibee-foods-corp.

Francisco, Katerina. “Ateneo De Manila 'Sorry' over Imelda's Visit.” Rappler, 6 July 2014, www.rappler.com/nation/62549-ateneo-manila-imelda-marcos-apology.

Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights). OPLAN BAYANIHAN For Beginners, Karapatan, 2011.

“Leadership.” Leadership | Ateneo Global, global.ateneo.edu/about/leadership.

Paris, Janella. “Irene Marcos Was Invited to Ateneo, and Students Are up in Arms.” Rappler, 8 Apr. 2019, www.rappler.com/nation/227702-irene-marcos-invited-to-ateneo-students-protest-april-2019.

Patinio, Ferdinand. “Jollibee Tops List of Firms Engaged in Labor-Only Contracting: DOLE.” Philippine News Agency RSS, Philippine News Agency, 28 May 2018, www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1036679.

Rappler.com. “Ateneo Hit for Art Ampitheater Named after Marcos 'Dummy'.” Rappler, 21 Apr. 2019, www.rappler.com/nation/228633-ateneo-ignacio-gimenez-ampitheater-marcos-dummy.

“SOH Sanggunian.” SOH Sanggunian - The Statement of the SOH Sanggunian on..., 2 July 2018, www.facebook.com/sohsanggu/photos/a.157891440898864/1893103380710986/?type=3.

[cowgirlontheloose]

The Man Who Cried At Railway Stations

1.  You grew up in the country, so diversions for you and your brothers were mostly outside. Trees to climb, bushes to hide in and a weedy ditch where you collected tadpoles or sailed sticks and leaves. Best of all though, were the CPR locomotives billowing smoke and glory past your home that brought you running always. 

Your ribcage vibrated to 17 tons of thunder and steel huffing by. The engineer with his red neckerchief and one elbow leaning from the window, waved and pulled the cord to ding-dong the brass bell of enchantment. You were close enough to see his moustache and easy smile.

You don’t recall how many trains passed daily, but certainly a couple and at least one night flyer at 11 p.m. heading for Hull, Ottawa and Montreal. You know that for sure. As a kid you lay awake for lonely hours fretting about school which you despised; wondering if you could play sick again. Maybe a stomach ache this time. Finally, thankfully, you heard the first distant chuff of the train. By the time it wailed past the house, your bed had transformed into a magic carpet drifting off to dreamland, the train labouring far below, streaming smoke and sparks into the night. 

Decades later you read accounts by others online who had the same experience. You also find an endless trail of sites offering statistics, studies, commentary, facts, fantasies and minutiae about trains. You find photos and videos, such as an 8-hour train sound track on a site called Virtual Dreamer (”We design sleep sounds for insomnia, tinnitus and noise masking.”) You note that over three million people have visited the site. One fan comments: “I almost cried when I saw this. I thought I was the ONLY ONE who had to hear the sound of a train horn in order to have a peaceful sleep. God bless you.

There are medical studies too. Some indicate that trains passing at night can raise heart rates and lead to cardio-vascular issues. Others enthuse about the calming and reassuring effects of the same. You also discover that people of all ages on the autism spectrum are fascinated by trains. Dr. Amanda Bennett of Philadelphia encourages parents to use this as motivation to reward desired behaviour in kids by “taking the train,” either with a model train or through Youtube videos. 

2.  Your son, now a parent of teenagers, may have genetically inherited his train love from you. The unpretentious depression-era brick farm house where he grew up was far enough from town that only the faintest sounds of passing trains (now diesel) could be heard if the wind was blowing from the south-east. But more likely, it was your partners influence that did it. This man, who spent six years in your lives, brought with him, besides a wicked sense of humour, an abiding affection for all things train.

He constructed, with your blessings, a waist high model train platform ostensibly for your son. It took up half the living room. Together and separately, son and partner tinkered, repaired, upgraded, dusted and ran that railroad like highly paid pros. Yes, they wore engineer hats. You have the photos to prove it. 

One evening as you lie aching in bed with a fever, you begged your man to fill a water bottle with near scalding water from the kitchen kettle. He disappeared downstairs. You waited. And waited. You moaned loudly, hinting. Then from the living room you heard the murmur of voices and yes, the clicking-clack of the model train rocketing across vast plains and through tunnels. You had been sidelined by an obsession. 

3.  At a writing course in creative non-fiction at the University of Minnesota, you meet a delightful couple. Greg and Jean are both in their early 80s. They are feisty and frail, full of curiosity and ideas drawn from long lives of exploring and risking in whatever situations they found themselves in. They became the dominant force in the group in a most charming way. Jean walked heavily with a cane and wore her white hair in one pigtail. At first you wondered if Greg had dementia, or whether he even knew where he was, but you soon discovered otherwise. Although quiet for long periods where he seemed to doze, he would suddenly open his very blue eyes and offer a thought with clarity, insight and humour. 

You all grappled that week to understand what creative non-fiction is or isn’t. You never do get clear about it, but really, who cares. The best explanation is written by Laura Wexler in an excerpt from “Saying Goodbye to ‘Once Upon A Time.’” She says:  “People tell stories to serve their political and psychic needs. Most of the stories aren’t the basis of their truth. Postmodernism allows us to see that even the most unreachable stories -- the stories in which truth seems to purposely hide in the shadows -- can be written as nonfiction by focusing as much on interpretation as event.

So you all write and read aloud some of your own shadowy truths. Several times readers pause when tears well up. It’s hard to explain that sort of thing, but it’s gorgeous when it happens. You yourself choke up reading aloud about your first cookbook and again over a day spent with three biologists and hundreds of rare snakes on a tiny island in Manitoba. Your tears are neither nostalgic nor sad. You are grateful to say them aloud and have them acknowledged with such tender respect.

When Greg reads you are blown away. His very short piece is titled “This Man Cries At Railroad Stations.” He describes how as a small boy, he and his brother spent every weekend without fail riding the transit system around the city. They did this to escape their scary parents. The brothers invented their own transportation system and wove names like Forty Fort, Wounded Knee, Fiery Siding, Temperance River, Steamboat Spring and Thunder Bay into fancied railroad schedules, rejoicing in the evocative, liberating names. It saved them from the hell at home.

As an old man, Greg said he still cries at railroad stations.

You never forget them. You tear up now as you write about them. Somewhere you still have a wee yellow ticket Greg gave you. It says “Good For One Fare Between Minnehaha, Minnesota and All Points West. 

[smolbeandrabbles]

Bienvenue From Hell, Mon Amour - Ralph Anderson x Reader Drabble (The Outsider)

🎃 Happy Halloween! 🎃

Author’s Note: Here’s a five second fic idea I got Tuesday night... So you do get a Halloween themed fic after all! Eh... This trailer is giving me so much anxiety I just needed to get this one out of my system... 😬 In the words of Shakira, from whom my title is borrowed, I’m in ‘anxious anticipation’  No lyrics today, we’re going straight in!   Disclaimer: As before, I’m never going to do justice to Stephen King, I just love the character’s so much that I’ll just try my best...! / Once again I’ve read the book I’m allowed to do this, but I’m always gonna advise spoilers before the show comes out. / AU set with no Derek or Jeannie. Premise: Hot on the heels of a suspect, this house (and your partner) are about to test a lot more than just your nerve...

Words: 2035

Warnings: Potential ‘The Outsider’ Spoilers

______ The house stood alone in the middle of the field; grass overgrown on both sides and the remoteness - including trek up here made it almost impossible to reach by car. And you were pretty grumpy by the time you reached it. This place looked one “Welcome To Hell” sign away from a Supernatural episode. Something else your partner borderline refused to watch with you.  “Is there a reason we had to do this in the middle of the night?!” You hissed to your two companions.  Ralph and Yune looked to each other - smiles twitching on their lips, you could tell they were both itching to laugh out loud. Considering the circumstances, they decided against it. “Well, Y/N...” Ralph folded his arms, speaking softly “You wanna catch the guy don’t you?” “...” You narrowed your eyes at him “Yes.” “Alright then we have the warrant, we search the house! Time is of the essence-!” “What - we just gonna knock on the door?!” You indicated “There are no lights on!” They looked at each other again; “We have a warrant, we’ll just force it.” Yune gave a shrug like it was the obvious answer; You rolled your eyes; ugh men!  Turns out you did have to force the door, and it creaked open in an unnecessarily creepy way. You shivered; “Look I know it’s October 31st but seriously-!?” Ralph smacked your arm to get you to shut up and switched on his flashlight. The three of you listened for a minute, but there wasn’t a sound. You all exchanged looks before agreeing to step inside. Yune tried the light switch, “No power...” “Fantastic...” That left the two of you also reaching for your flashlights to follow detective Anderson’s lead; “it’s almost like this house knows the date!” “Maybe it’s haunted.” “Ralph!” He chuckled, it had never been something he’d thought about before. Funny how one case could completely change his perspective on the world. Placing his hands on his hips he turned to Yune, “I say we split... you take the upstairs, we’ll take the down...” “Alright.” He agreed with a nod, “If I find the power I’ll see if I can get that going...” Ralph gave a nod back “Thanks. Be careful.” “And you two. Watch out for El Cuco, Y/N!” You wheeled around; “Will you two STOP!”  Ralph clamped a hand over your mouth and pressed a finger to his lips as the house creaked again. But that only led you to glare at him.   “Alright, he could still be here... Keep your arms close...” He pushed you gently through into the corridor, “Call if you need anything...” “Feel like you’re dealing with the problem for me, Ralph!” Yune couldn’t help that last jab, which had you glaring at him next. But you knew the effect was lost in the gloomy house.  “This place is awful. Do people really live like this?” You visibly shivered, it was starting to give you the creeps. “Apparently so?” Ralph kept close enough for his shoulder to brush yours, but you noticed he wasn’t holding your hand just yet. Guess if you needed to spring into action it wouldn’t really help. You liked the way your light beams occasionally crossed as you swept the house, and he could see that gentle smile even in the dark. You were such a sap sometimes. He almost pushed you, but decided you might crash into something, so he nudged you instead; “Keep it professional.” “Oh. So I can’t smile around you now?” “Certainly not, imagine what everyone would say!” But there was amusement in his voice that only had you smiling more. At least he was here; the eeriness of the house would probably be really getting to you if not. And it was so quiet, even your breathing seemed too loud. “UGH-!” You ran into another spiderweb and he had to watch you fight with it for a moment whilst still trying to stay quiet, “This place is HELL!” Eventually you reached a room that even your flashlights couldn’t penetrate. “We need better torches...” He peered around, “No, I think we just need to step inside.” You glanced at him from the other side of the doorway - there was no way in hell you were going in there first. “Well, you’re the most senior detective here.” Ralph rolled his eyes grabbing your arm, “And yet it’s your case!” He shoved you in, and you tripped on the threshold causing you to stumble with a yell. Then he couldn’t hold his laugh in. “Yeah! Very funny!”  That only made him laugh harder, so you unclipped your spare torch battery and chucked it at him. “Ow! Geez-! You know that’s FCPD property!! You better go find it now! I’m not being responsible for you losing it!” “Well you are!” You pointed your light at his face and he had to shield his eyes; “No way! You threw it at me! Now search the room and do your job, detective.” You lowered your beam to the floor and then up to the wall. “This certainly looks like the kind of house a creepy murderer would live in.” “Innocent until evidence proves otherwise...” “Don’t make me blind you again...” You swept the beam over the wall, “I’m definitely thinking this is murder.” “Well...” He leant against the door frame, “What do you see detective?” You were about to answer him when there was a loud bang and a second loud creak above you. You visibly jumped, and placed your hand over your heart. It was almost impressive that you didn’t add a shriek. Ralph didn’t. “...It’s probably just Yune, it’s okay...” You looked across to him, opened your mouth and realised you might need a few more moments. He shook his head, “How exactly did you become a detective?!” “Do you want me to find something else to throw at you-!? Shut up!” He grinned “Tsk tsk! So feisty!” He liked that about you though; you were the hot headed impulsive one and you were a good foil to the way he was used to doing things. He learned a lot with you...  You took a deep breath to focus on the wall again, but before you had a chance to answer him the room was suddenly thrown into excruciatingly bright light. “AH-!” That has you both covering your eyes. “FOUND THE LIGHTS-!” Yune called triumphantly from upstairs. “Thanks Yune! We got it!” Ralph kept his head in his arm for a second until those spots disappeared “... Think you overdid it-!!” “Oops! Sorry guys!” When you opened them again you realised that someone had got a little too creative with the fake blood, and shut off your torch. Ralph’s hands were on his hips, “Well, congratulations! You found your real crime scene!” You looked around. Yeah someone had got really creative. You knew this was supposed to be fun for Halloween but... this didn’t even look realistic anymore. He pointed, “Ah look, there’s your battery...” you followed Ralph’s point and realised that it had rolled through a particularly sticky patch of blood, leaving another streak across the floor “...Compromising evidence Y/N, just... not a good start is it.” “Shut up!!” Ralph was starting to think that was your favourite phrase of the evening. Yune’s running footsteps announced him and his face appeared in the door way, “Did she find it in time?!” “She did. Sort of. I might have had to push her in!” This was the little house that most CSI’s used for training. They had done it up especially for Halloween and you wanted to check it out. Ralph wanted in for a laugh and so had come up with an elaborate case for you to work on, based on what the forensics team had told him, and had given you until tonight to figure out the who and where. The time limit was find the room it happened in before the lights went on. So, he’d enlisted a little help from Yune to throw ‘Impossible Case’ stories at you the whole way over here to up the ante. That left you with a good case of Halloween jitters. It wasn’t funny when the monsters were real…  You placed your hands on your hips, much the same way he did, and Ralph figured you were beginning to pick up some of his habits. He’d have to curb the enthusiasm just a bit. Like you hadn’t been outed for idolising him enough... You peered around; glad at least for some light thrown on the situation, you didn’t fancy the idea of stumbling around here in the dark now you know what befell you. You stepped carefully around the crime scene to retrieve your battery. They’d really overdone it on the fake spiderwebs, plastic body parts and been… liberal… with the fake blood. Even Ralph didn’t think he’d seen it in this much of a state before now. Yune grinned as you grimaced at your coated battery, trying to find something to wipe it on, “You’d love the back bedroom; fake skeletons just piled up everywhere. They should just open this as a haunted house, what do you think?” “Yes.” “NO!” Your and Ralph’s views were as extreme as the way in which you’d answered. And your partner chuckled again. You replaced everything on your belt and walked over, “What else have they done?” “Do they need to do anything? Isn’t it creepy enough?” Yune gave a shrug “Nah-!” Ralph nudged him “What did you drop? She jumped about 3 feet in the air.” You huffed as Yune peeled off into laughter again; “It’s gonna become a real crime scene in a minute!” Ralph raised an eyebrow and straightened his stance to give himself a couple more inches on you, his tone serious, “Threatening the life of an officer is an arrestable offence, young lady.” “Well, go on then.” He turned to Yune, “You’re the officer here...” Yune waved his hands; “Oh no, you made the threat.” Ralph folded his arms and looked back to you, “Looks like you’re off the hook.” “Oh? Forget your handcuffs, detective Anderson?” “No. I figure as I have a personal stake in this I simply cannot be involved.” You looked to Yune, who once again looked like he was trying desperately hard not to crack up. “I can’t believe you dealt with this in Texas.” He let out enough of a laugh then, “I can’t believe you deal with this - in fact you choose to deal with this.” “Appreciate the support.” Ralph’s voice was dry and he took a step back looking around; “Oh no!” He gasped, “Guess I forgot my kit-! Can’t be helped, we’ll have to call in CSI... tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?! When we stand in the middle of the scene?!” You spread your arms and walked in a tight circle to make your point,   “Surely we should be processing this immediately-! What about the integrity of the crime scene!?” You tapped your watch; much the same as he was constantly doing with you. Ralph liked teasing you as if you were a rookie, because you were susceptible to answering him back in ways that often made him laugh. And he knew he needed that - still, he didn’t really want to end up having to handle a mini version of himself.   Yup. I defiantly have to curb the enthusiasm...  He waved a hand at the mark your spare battery had left; “There’s your integrity right there...” You glared at it for a minute; damn equipment-! Yune checked his watch at seeing you tap yours, “Yeah, c’mon man-! You gotta be kidding, it’s barely even midnight!” “Which means it isn’t Halloween, it’s November 1st, and we can leave.” He looked expectantly to you, “Plus they’ll want it back for actual work tomorrow... c’mon I had a hard-enough time pushing you in here don’t tell me I have to drag you out?!” Your eyes flicked between them again, before you sighed, defeated “... He has a point.” “Thank you!”  Yune looked more than a little disappointed as you tracked back through the house and you tried not to marvel at the Halloween decorations too much. But someone in that CSI team had a pretty wild imagination to say the least. “...Next time...” He flicked the lights off “It’s gonna take me two hours to find the lights..!!” Ralph held his hand out for you to hop back out into the grass, and this time put his arm around you to walk back to the car, “I’ll allow it...” “It was fun...” You at least agreed, cuddling a little further into your partner in the cool night air. Ralph looked over his shoulder at Yune with a grin, “That was kinda fun... next time we should get some live actors though, see how she deals with that.” “RALPH!!!” 

---- @dennismitchell @happyskywhale @wltz-bby #MendoTagSquad.