Monthly Archives: November 2016

Post US Election 2016 Post UPDATED

I’m in Australia. So really, the elections in the US, and the circus that’s been going around it, have been an occasional source of entertainment for me. I’ve really been too busy to keep track. But as I said over in Monster Hunter Nation: I’m ecstatic that Trump won because that means Hillary lost. And I was someone who was reading Clinton and the media’s behavior as “They’ve rigged the election, they know something’s been done.” Nobody’s happier than I am to be wrong on that score.

At any rate, I had delicious popcorn, and one of the local news channels was doing a ‘live, as it happens’ show of the elections called America Decides. As far as commentators go, it was actually fairly even-handed, which surprised me, so I stuck with that show. Rhys came home, and laughed when he saw me watching the elections with popcorn.

2016electionsusThat popcorn’s yummy.

The moment that he decides to get serious about running:

Because, really, that’s just asking for it.

Before I get the usual screaming, I didn’t like Hillary because Benghazi and all the other shit she’s recently done, and all her history from before, and her aiding and abetting her husband in escaping rape accusations. Frankly, I think we escaped getting into a World War for certain with her losing the Presidency. Trump? We have a maybe on that score now.

Why did Trump win?

https://www.facebook.com/JonathanPieReporter/videos/1044777035645189/

And the above, because woah.

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Notes on Dwende

Note: This is an expansion of a short post I made over at According to Hoyt, in response to Mary Catelli and Foxfier. As per usual, this description is based off our own experiences and encounters, as well as those descriptions that were related to us by others.

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Dwende is/are the Filipino catch-all term for faeries, brownies, nature spirits. It’s accepted belief that they share ‘space’ with human beings and encounters with them – intended and unintended – are part of the reason why superstitious belief is very strong in the Philippines. (Larry Correia’s Monster Hunters could probably go on safaris in the Philippines.) This post is to give a rough description of the dwende as we’ve encountered them (note I use present tense; even now I hear about encounters from my mother’s household.)

Because dwende are spirits who dwell in the land, they can be found anywhere, even urbanized areas. They are most often found in places where there is a bit of quiet -anything from deep forest to a small, stinking alleyway. Generally they are invisible to human eyes, though people with the gift of third sight or sixth sense can see or feel their presence. They vary in description from the typical small brownie, or small winged fairies, to manifesting as human-sized, or larger, beings; size seems to be relative to their ‘strength’ in ‘power’. They range from strange in appearance, fair, or ugly – not much different from the Western descriptions of fae.

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The Visiting Virgin Mary Statue

This being the Philippines, our practice of Catholicism may seem very strange to even other Catholics. I don’t know if the tradition of a visiting saint or Jesus or Mother Mary statue is common outside of the Philippines, but it happens. Usually (and this is the rough description from someone who hasn’t been involved in the process,) the caretakers ask if the statue (Usually a Mother Mary statue of some kind) will be welcomed to the household for a week’s praying of the rosary and novenas. It is done to bring blessings to the household; and daily from 3pm to 4pm, a full 15 mysteries of the rosary is said by a group of people, including the caretakers, praying for the family. Then afterward there is a bit of snacks and tea and coffee.

I had to consult with my mother because this story happened when I was quite young, maybe 7 years old, and requires a bit of a background story. I should note this doesn’t quite fall under ‘folklore’ and more ‘religious experience.’ Continue reading

The Noodle Incident

This is a slightly more expanded version of a comment I made in According To Hoyt.

The Noodle Incident, as I like to call it, happened some years ago, probably 2005 or 2006. It was an otherwise unremarkable weekend evening, where I was taking it easy after a week of work and had been enjoying game-play grind session in Lineage II. We’d been playing for a while and decided to take a break for food. We parked our characters outside of the room we’d been hunting in and I went downstairs to cook myself a double batch of Lucky Me! Pancit Canton (the calamansi flavored one.) (These are a brand and type of instant noodles.) My mom and the maid were eating dinner at the time and my mom commented about the double batch, which was a little unusual for me. I said I was craving the flavor. The noodles take about 3 minutes to cook, and you make a paste of the other ingredients – seasoning, flavor powder, a bit of oil and soy sauce included in the packet. You then drain the noodles of almost all the water, leaving behind roughly a spoon’s worth, and then toss the noodles with the resultant sauce. I took myself, my big bowl of pancit, and a fork back upstairs when I was done.

I was holding the big bowl of noodles in my left hand, sat back on the foot of my bed (my computer was at the end of my bed back then) and typed, “I’m back” with my right. There were still other people not back at their keyboards, so I took a forkful of my noodles, and stuck it in my mouth. I one-handed typed out a reply to something said in party, then removed the fork from my mouth to jam it back into the pile of noodles while I chewed, without looking at the bowl I still held in my left hand. Instead of noodles, my fork encountered the hard plastic bottom of the bowl. Thinking I’d spilled the noodles, I looked. Except, I hadn’t, and the bowl was completely empty.

I sighed, typed “BRB after buff” into the channel, rebuffed the party, and went back downstairs to ask for another batch of pancit canton. My mom looked at me funny and said that I shouldn’t eat so much instant noodles, and didn’t I just go upstairs? I said I hadn’t eaten more than a forkful of noodles, and that the rest had disappeared. She asked me if I was sure I hadn’t eaten them all, and I said, “C’mon, Mom. My mouth isn’t that big. That was a LOT of pancit.”

My mom laughed, remarked that the dwende* must be hungry, and asked the maid, who had finished eating and was listening to the exchange with wide eyes, to make me another batch.

And yes, the blasé response we have is because my family is used to weird shit happening. And no, I was alone in my room at the time.

 

*Dwende is/are the catch-all term we use for fairies, brownies, dwarves. Filipino folklore classifies them as ‘good’ or ‘white’ (Some people describe their encounters with them with the dwende manifesting with an aura of light); neutral or nature type (‘gray’) or black (malicious, wicked; bad spirits that aren’t demons or ghosts.)

 

I really should write about dwende sometime; it’ll be useful for some of my friends.

Reasoned Belief

Let me start off by saying outright: I’m no Fox Mulder, though I enjoy the X-Files as a show. I didn’t want to believe; but I’ve found, over the years, it doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t believe. That doesn’t stop the ‘other things’ in existing or, worse, believing in your existence. If I were to be compared to a character, I’m closer to Dana Scully.

I’ve actually wrestled with the decision to start describing various odd supernatural events that my family, friends and I have encountered over the years, largely because, well, I don’t want to sound utterly bonkers; plus I’m a fiction writer to boot. I don’t want to be derided as a fantasist who can’t tell reality from fantasy, or ‘looking for attention’ so I have to ‘make up’ stories about myself ‘to make myself seem more interesting’. Please. I’ve lived in the tail end of the Philippine dictatorship and caught the end of the Cold War, living in East Berlin. Our first apartment was a building set aside for the families of the Stazi and the second one was right across the street from the North Korean Embassy, and just a few streets away from Checkpoint Charlie. While at a diplomatic function with my parents I got hauled to do an impromptu stint as a model in Paris (what I remember the most of that night? Trying not to trip and fall in shoes that were too big for my feet, and worrying about the fact I didn’t have my glasses.) Life is plenty interesting without the supernatural having gotten mixed in; and I’d have been happier if it’d been nothing more than a fascinating thing I’d read or write fiction about.

That’s not what happened, and frankly, at some point I have to just shrug. I’m rather used to people thinking badly of me, spreading rumors, or wishing me ill. That would be nothing new. The thing that kept me from writing things like these down and sharing them is my reluctance to be seen badly by those whose opinions I do care about.

But I’ve been getting the urge to write these down; to the point that I sometimes can’t sleep. And even then, I’m unsure what is ‘safe’ to tell. Nevertheless, if you’re going to be the sort who’ll just heap negative commentary as opposed to discussion, don’t be surprised if I decide to ignore your comment or delete it if you’re especially offensive. Continue reading