#when he said he wad in the philippines

[stackofeggs]

im trying to get back into watching hermitcraft because i miss it so much </3

so I'm going to binge Mumbo's series and live react every episode. or every 2. or 3

currently at: s9 ep10 ("IM BACK!")

philippines mention

#I'm so behind that even he came back from his hiatus wow #i have so many draft reblogs to. publish #also HAHA THE WAY I JUMPED FROM MY SEAT #when he said he wad in the philippines #sorry guys its my toxic filipino trait #you can hear the birds... i love it i love that #mumbo #egg16.txt #college is so bleakkk i need to love things again!!!!

[humansofnewyork]

“I remember there was a day in kindergarten when we were supposed to bring our dads to school. It was some type of performance or something. I’d never met my father. So I asked my mom if he could come, and she told me: ‘He’s too busy.  He lives in Malaysia.  And he’s a king.’ My father was a king? That meant I was a princess! It made me feel so proud. But as I got older, I came to realize it was an elaborate story my mom had invented to comfort me. She was a single mother. We’d immigrated from the Philippines when I was six, and we were living in a rented room. That’s not how a princess was supposed to live. But whenever I’d ask more about my father, my mother would become withdrawn. She’d offer few details.  She told me that she’d been working as a nurse in Malaysia. And that she met the king at a party. But the rest of the story seemed to be painful, so I took it upon myself to never open that box. I stopped thinking about it. Then one night, when I was fourteen years old, the phone rang. There was a strange voice on the line. I’d never heard the accent before. It said: ‘I represent His Royal Highness, and we’ve received your letters.’ I quickly handed the phone to my mom and she spoke to the man for several minutes. When she finally hung up, she told me: ‘Your dad wants to meet you now.’ I took a week off school. We flew to London and stayed at the InterContinental hotel. We were greeted in the lobby by a lawyer, who gave us a wad of cash to go shopping, and told us that ‘His Royal Highness’ would be available for lunch the next day. We agreed to meet in the hotel restaurant. But it wasn’t just us. My father had an entourage with him. During our meal he was very polite. He told me I looked like my older sister. But my mother did the majority of the talking. She had demands. She wanted financial support, which was provided. But she also wanted paternity in writing, which was never agreed to. Our lunch lasted about an hour. Afterwards my father told me: ‘My people will call you.’ And we did meet twice again. Each time in London. Each time for an hour. But I was never brought into the family. I was never fully acknowledged. Thankfully, before we left that first lunch, my mother did make one last request.  She insisted that I take a photo with my father.” #quarantinestories

[cutesilyo]

no place in the world (like manila) — an amephil fanfic

A few months after the outbreak of the Philippine-American War, Alfred falls in love with and is betrayed by a bright-eyed teenager with the prettiest smile on this side of the Orient in a single night. 

This is not a love story.

Also available on AO3.

—

"Sir, I don't think it's safe for you to leave the camp," Major-General MacArthur warned. "I don't know how, but the revolutionaries know your face. They could attack you!"

"Pshaw," Alfred snorted. "I'm a nation. What could they do that could take me down, huh?"

MacArthur's mustache bristled in displeasure. "Be that as it may sir, might I remind you that you only arrived in Manila a week ago? Knowing you, you'd just get lost and I'd have to put together a whole squad of troops just to hunt you down. You could get captured, Alfred. I don't know how to tell you just how badly that would bring down morale."

Alfred just wagged his fingers, a bright grin on his face. "Look, if I get captured, I'd bust out of whatever crappy holding place they'd put me in without barely breaking a sweat! And knowing our soldiers, that's just the stuff that would make a great story to tell at dinnertime. How's that for morale?"

The way that MacArthur simply stared at him blankly told Alfred that this was not a convincing argument.

"I hate it when you do that," he groaned, slumping back on his seat. The leather was hot with the heat of the tropical sun and it stuck uncomfortably to his skin. Oh, how badly he wanted to just finally get up and leave. "I'm just saying, I can't stay inside here forever just waiting for you to dictate our next move."

"It's part of our strategy—"

"And it's boring. I'm bored, Major-General. I might as well look around." Alfred's eyes glinted dangerously. "Besides, you'll capture the whole nation for me soon enough, won't you? No harm in wanting to see what we're winning once this war is over."

The silence lasted for a few seconds before the major-general sighed in defeat.

—

Private Patton R. Wilkes was assigned to “accompany” Alfred while he roamed around Manila, but he knew that MacArthur just wanted someone to make sure he would actually return to camp instead of getting lost or, God forbid, taking the next ship back to America. Though the both of them were dressed in civilian clothing, the private carried himself with a strict stiffness that just screamed hardened military man. If Alfred wanted any chance of escape, it looked like the private would be hard to shake off.

Alfred tried to stay optimistic about the trip anyway. He hadn't paid much attention to the city while he was on the way to the American camp, but he certainly expected it to have an air of exoticness. He was a bit disappointed not to see anything like the palaces of Japan or the distinctly oriental architecture of China. Instead, he found street signs written in Spanish, the excited chatter of fast-talking brown-skinned people, and the cacophony of guitars, church bells, and the sound of horse-drawn carriages trotting along the stoned roads. Walking around Manila was like looking at a funhouse mirror version of Mexico: more or less the same, but with just enough differences to make his head spin.

"Uh, you alright there, sir?" Patton asked.

"Was just thinking about a bad memory, is all," Alfred grimaced. He's sure that Alejandro would have his head once he returned to the continent. He's been pissing off a lot of Spanish-speaking nations recently, that's for sure. "Come to think of it, the Philippine Islands must have its own personification too, right?"

The private's face darkened. "He's a force to reckon with, sire. Haven't seen no hide nor hair of him myself, but some guys in the other squadron barely survived after fighting with the kid."

"A kid?" Alfred furrowed his eyebrows. He didn't know there were still nations out there who were that young. Then again, he was only a teenager himself, and he was even younger when he fought against Arthur as well. "I don't know how I feel about fighting a kid. Couldn't I just give him a lollipop or something and this could all just work itself out?"

He meant it as a joke, but Patton seemed to take it seriously and started furiously shaking his head. "Don't think you could even try negotiating with him sir, the kid's a savage. Hacked and slashed his way through the guys with some kind of golden knife, they said. We're lucky our medics are so darned fast, otherwise, we would've been down almost a dozen men from him alone."

Something in Alfred's resolve hardened at the thought of losing his soldiers to someone so brutal. He clapped the other man on the shoulder and said, "Don't you worry, Pat. We'll end this soon, and when we win, we'll make sure that nobody from these islands ever lays a hand on any of our own."

That seemed to comfort Patton somewhat, though he was still shaking with anger. "I'll give them a good walloping right by your side, sire."

"Now that's the kind of patriotic determination I wanna see!" Alfred crowed. He then immediately scrambled for his wallet and hurriedly gave the private a wad of bills. Some onlookers openly gawked at seeing the number of dollar bills in his hand. "Tell you what, why don't you buy some booze, head back to camp, and inspire your fellow soldiers, eh? God knows we need some fun around here."

"Um," Patton blinked, caught off-guard. "I don't know if Major-General MacArthur—"

"Tell Major-General MacArthur that I'm just trying to boost morale," Alfred winked. "Also, tell him I'll back by next morning!"

He didn't get to hear Patton's response as he took off running wildly in the opposite direction. He barely registered running past the stores, wet market, and the cathedral; he just wanted to be alone and independent, exploring this new land to his heart's content. The buildings were shorter and the roads were narrower here than in his own country, but Alfred was just so glad to finally be in a place filled with people just like he was used to.

Alfred collapsed on his knees, winded. When he looked up, he was surprised to see that he had apparently made it to one of Manila's many ports. Past the numerous small fishing boats and trading boats, he could see that the sun was already beginning to set. The sky was painted in a pretty combination of pinks and oranges in contrast to the ocean's blue, the stars already starting to twinkle faintly into appearance one by one. The rhythmic lapping of the waves against the rocks seemed louder than everything else around him — a stark reminder that no matter where he went, there was always something bigger to discover.

He stood there for a moment, mesmerized when a loud grunt startled him out of his stupor.

He turned to find some kind of bull staring at him with its beady eyes, its long horns curving towards the back instead of to the front. It was pulling a wagon full of leafy vegetables that Alfred couldn't recognize, and the old man riding it looked startled to come across a foreigner.

"Hijo, padaan naman po," he said, with a strained smile.

"Oh, sorry, I don't know what you mean," Alfred tried, but the man just continued smiling at him. He was starting to think that maybe abandoning Patton, who wasn't fluent but at the very least conversational in Tagalog, was a bad idea.

Luckily, someone came to his rescue. A teenager with bright eyes approached him, an amused twitch of the lips on his sharp face. He was dressed simply: unlike the suit and tie ensemble of the richer Filipinos he'd come across or the pale blue uniform of the Philippine Army, he wore a thin white top and trousers cut just above his ankles. The scabbard on his hip would have been concerning if Alfred didn't know just how many Filipinos carried knives in their daily lives. All in all, he looked just like any other street vendor, but the red handkerchief tied around his neck was vibrant enough to make him stand out. "You are American, yes?"

"Ah yeah," Alfred flushed, a bit flustered. The way the stranger leaned in was a little too close for comfort, but he looked harmless and at least he spoke English. "Can you help me? I think that man is talking to me, but I can't understand what he's saying."

The teenager grabbed his arm to pull him to the side. The old man tipped his straw hat in thanks, and the teenager smiled, saying: "Pasensya na po, lolo! Hindi kasi taga-rito."

The two of them watched the wagon pass them by. They stood there in silence for a moment, and then Alfred blurted out, "I didn't know I was in the way, I swear."

"You did seem quite distracted." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other boy laugh. The both of them turned to each other at the same time, a small smile on each other's faces. "Not that I blame you. I am sure you have sunsets in America, but it is different here than in other countries. I think the colors are more vibrant, do you agree?"

"Certainly takes my breath away," he admitted. "I do have to ask, how come you speak English so well? I've only been in Manila for a few days but I don't think I've met another Filipino that's as good as you are."

The teenager only laughed again and held on to Alfred's arm tighter. As he looked up at him, his eyes and grin were equally bright with mirth; and despite himself, Alfred was a bit charmed. "Us Filipinos are not as stupid as you think, señorito. Now, you say you are a stranger to Manila, yes? Come with me, and let me show you around my city."

—

They ended up hailing a tranvia, a carriage made to carry a whole group of people instead of just a pair. Alfred found it small and quaint, making an internal note to build tram lines in the city once he was able. Yet the energy that the teenager had with him was larger than life. He had apparently noticed the other passengers giving Alfred a suspicious side-eye, and immediately launched into a round of jokes to dispel the tension. Though he barely understood the jokes due to them being told in a mix of Spanish and Tagalog, the way that the whole tranvia burst into loud laughter was enough to assure him that his companion was quite the comedic performer.

When they got off, the driver even thanked them for the entertainment and told them not to pay the fare anymore. Alfred let out an excited whoo! as the teenager did an exaggerated bow.

As the carriage rode off, Alfred turned to his new friend and exclaimed, "Wow! The way you handled that was amazing! I mean, I've been through worse than an awkward train ride, but you definitely saved my ass back there."

The teenager blushed slightly. "Think nothing of it. I would rather see my companions happy and comfortable in my care than anything else."

"Still, that thing you did was certainly a swell sight." Alfred breathed in the cold evening air and let it out with a contented sigh. He looked straight into the other boy's eyes as he said, "And it's really nice that you're going through all the trouble to be with me tonight too! Like, we don't even know each other's names but you just whisked me away like some kind of fairytale hero! That was really awesome of you, I have to say."

"You are a man of sweet words," the teenager said, with a smile that looked almost bittersweet. Then, as if he had completely forgotten about his melancholy, he grabbed Alfred's arm again and dragged him towards the next street corner. "But let us not waste time talking! Most of these shops close soon, and I would hate for us to miss them!"

Helpless, Alfred let himself be strung along.

Sadly, most of the shops they went past had already closed for the day. Still, the teenager cheerily talked his ear off about what wares they sold and the local gossip about the people who ran those stores — like Pepito, owner of the clay pottery store, who had apparently given away all his lotto winnings to the next city's blacksmith. The one time that they had actually been able to buy something was when they came across a small, brightly-colored cart that apparently sold the Filipino version of ice cream. Both the vendor — Mang Tomas, as he was introduced — and the teenager had chuckled when he brought out a wallet full of dollars, so the teenager had to reach into his own pocket to pay with a few coins. As they walked past yet another cathedral, Alfred caught his friend singing the hymns under his breath. When they reached the plaza, the teenager then asked the lady standing nearby — Aling Nena, he was told — to give him a jasmine garland, the scent of the white flowers so powerful that it immediately made Alfred sneeze on his friend's face when he put them around his neck. Yet instead of getting mad like he expected, the teenager had only laughed and told him he looked handsome.

No matter where they went or who they talked to, his friend always seemed to know everyone's names. Alfred had no idea how he had the time to possibly get so familiar with all the people around him, but he certainly understood the sentiment; he loved talking with all the Americans that he came across with too. Personally getting to know the people who made his nation always made him feel more connected with them in a way that war and politics never could.

And if the Philippine Islands was truly to be his someday, Alfred knew he wanted to treat them similarly. More than anything or anyone else though, nobody in the archipelago had intrigued him most than the young man beside him whose smile was brighter than any star.

Yet all his experience in small talk failed him tonight, and not for lack of trying. Every time he asked questions about his friend, he was always diverted away from the topic.

Which part of the city are you from? was met with a vague Do you ask the flower which vine it came from? You are better off simply enjoying the whole garden.

Where is your family? had been completely ignored as his friend said You must be hungry, yes? I know a place with the best empanadas this side of Binondo.

What is your name? earned him a cheeky wink and a teasing If your mind still ventures to inane questions like that, then I am not doing very well in completely impressing you.

How old are you? made the teenager burst out into loud, hearty laughter that lasted for more than a minute. Alfred didn't even bother to try asking anything else after that, choosing to focus on his empanadas and arroz a la valenciana for the rest of the meal.

Later, when they were served a bottle of gin to share along with a bowl of peanuts, his friend had the grace to apologize for his behavior.

"I truly am sorry," he said, but the playful grin on his face made it difficult to take his apology seriously. "I simply do not think that you knowing more about me is more important than us having a good time together."

"How am I supposed to find you again if I don't know who you are, huh?" Alfred couldn't stop himself from whining. He ignored the glass in front of him, taking a swig straight from the bottle and letting the alcohol burn down his throat. His friend watched him in bemusement. "This has been the best night of my life in a long time. And if this is the last time we see each other, I don't think I'm going to forgive myself if I don't push you into giving me a hint."

This time, it was his friend's turn to take a drink: he filled his glass half-full and downed it all in one go. "You are certainly bold, señorito, I will give you that. A good friend of mine warned me about how loud and annoying Americans were, but it seems he neglected to tell me about how forward you all were as well."

Alfred resisted the urge to roll his eyes; of course, he would get deflected yet again. "Alright, I'll bite. Tell me more about your friend."

The teenager looked surprised. "You wish to know more about a man that insulted you?"

"If this is the closest I get to you telling me more about yourself, I'll take it," he shrugged. "Besides, I'd love to know how this friend of yours thinks. Americans are the greatest people in the world! He must be stupid if he doesn't know that."

The other boy laughed. "Of course you would say that, you biased brute. And I will have you know that my friend was quite smart, actually. One of the smartest men I have ever known."

Alfred felt like he wouldn't like the answer, but he asked anyway: "Was?"

All traces of laughter from his friend's face faded away into a hollow smile. "Killed by firing squad a few years ago."

Silently, Alfred poured gin into both of their glasses. They drank in solemn solidarity.

"My sincere condolences," said Alfred, and he meant it: he had lost too many friends himself over the centuries. "And I'm sorry I called him stupid."

His friend waved it off. "No worries. Pepe was incredibly intelligent, but he definitely had his fair share of stupid moments — you wouldn't believe how many times that man fell in love over the course of his short lifetime. Still, I miss him terribly and I wish he was still around. God only knows what he would have thought about everything happening at present."

"Oh, I know the feeling." Despite him dying decades prior, Alfred still longed for George Washington's steadfast guidance sometimes. He reached, a bit messily, for another drink. "It's uncanny, yeah? Some people just have this weird ability to analyze the present and predict the future. I certainly don't know how they do anything like it, really. I kind of just talk big and hope for the best."

"Funny that you talk about the future," the teenager chuckled. "Somehow, my friend even managed to predict that you would come here, Alfred. I did not believe him at the time, of course, but here you are."

"Here I am," Alfred repeated faintly. "Hold on, how did you know my—"

"Why were you all alone in my city, señorito?" His friend interrupted, looking up at him through his eyelashes. He leaned closer, close enough for the skin of their arms to touch, and Alfred suddenly forgot about all his worries. "I was very surprised to see you on your own, looking every bit like a lost little lamb. You are very lucky that I found you."

"Lucky indeed," he murmured, adjusting the collar of his shirt. It felt like the temperature in the room had risen by a dozen degrees. "Just wanted to explore, is all. MacArthur told me we had to stay low for a few more weeks, I got bored, and he let me out."

Those bright eyes were practically glittering as the teenager looked up at him, his fingers slowly tracing up his arm. "And you were alone? I always thought American soldiers traveled in pairs, but perhaps I was mistaken."

"No! No, you're right, you're definitely right," Alfred stammered out. He was sure his face was completely red by now. "I was with Private Wilkes earlier, but we, ah, got separated. He must be on the way back to Bulacan by now."

"How unfortunate," the other practically purred, clearly delighted. "Say, tell me, how did this Wilkes look like? Because I am sure that he does not look as handsome as you do."

That damned smile, now coy instead of kind and sweet, was tantalizingly close. If only he had the courage to lean down—

Alfred, trying desperately to distract himself, grabbed the bottle again and took a long swig.

There were about a million promises that threatened to spill from Alfred's lips, each one more outrageous than the other: Come with me. Stay with me. I'll keep you safe. I'll love you. Yet at the moment, he found himself tongue-tied. He didn't know if it was the alcohol or the atmosphere or the way the young boy across the table had so effortlessly allured him, but he felt like he was about to go insane. He barely registered the both of them standing up to leave, didn't question why they didn't need to pay at the restaurant, paid no heed to what his friend had whispered to the men standing guard by the door. His mind was in a muddy haze, and all he could focus on was the fact that his friend was holding his hand as he was led into the dark streets.

Dimly, Alfred thought that however striking he looked by the setting sun, he looked much more ethereal bathed in moonlight.

He must have said this aloud because the teenager laughed.

"You are a man of sweet words," he said, and there's that oddly bittersweet smile again. "And I wish we could have met in better circumstances."

"What's wrong with the way we met today? I had fun," Alfred argued. He swayed slightly on his feet, and his friend held on to him to keep him from falling. "Didn't you have fun?"

"You forget we are at war, señorito. And you forget that you are seeking to control me and my people, not find a lover." Despite the harsh words, the way his friend said this was soft and sad. Almost like he was somehow hurt. "It does not matter what we feel today if we are bound to fight each other tomorrow. Should you not know this by now?"

They walked together in silence, each supporting the other. Slowly, Alfred's alcohol-induced dizziness began to subside. It was replaced by a growing emptiness in his chest — and a heavy, heavy realization.

"You knew I was America this entire time." When his friend deigned to respond, he continued. "Then, why...?"

At this, the teenager laughed — broken and wistful and desperate, all at once. "I do not know myself. I was ready to attack you, but for some reason, the look in your eyes as you watched the sunset stopped me. I thought, if you could look at my country with such amazement, then you could see that this war is unnecessary. That if you could know my land and my people the way I knew them, full of vibrancy and color and light, then you could realize that they did not deserve to die.

"Yet as the night went on I began to realize my efforts were fruitless. It was not them you were looking at anymore, but me." Here, his friend faced him; Alfred barely catching a glimpse of his wet eyes before the teenager looked away. "Believe me, I would love to spend another night like this with you. But you have your responsibilities and so do I."

"Fruitless," Alfred repeated hollowly. The cold night wind was in stark contrast to the hot rage he felt bubbling inside him. He forcefully wrenched himself away from his friend, yelling: "You made me tell you classified information!"

In seconds, he watched the teenager's face go from shock to hurt to an angry glare.

"Do you not understand how badly I need to win this war? My people did not give their lives to free me from Spain just so you could swoop in and take over! So forgive me, señorito," his friend spat mockingly, "for trying to find whatever advantages my poor nation can get against such an imperialistic nation like you!"

"And do you not understand what we're trying to do here?" Alfred shouted. "We are fighting this war to save you! Don't you see that your country is a mess? That you're underdeveloped, uneducated, and unfit for self-rule? I was the hero who helped save your people from Spain, jackass, and—"

"—and you promised to give us independence, and yet all your countrymen seem to do is kill." The teenager finished, both his eyes and the hilt of his knife glinting golden under the moonlight. "Is that what freedom means to you, America? I beg to differ."

As Alfred stepped away from him in furious, furious betrayal, all he could think about was that the other boy looked so small.

"I thought of you as my friend," he said.

"And I thought of you as my liberator," the teenager said coolly. "I see we were both wrong."

A harsh whinny interrupted them both. Alfred turned to find Patton riding a chestnut brown horse, his face red from exhaustion but seemingly unharmed. The private stopped in front of him, dismounting without grace on the pavement. His face was red from exhaustion and his clothes looked considerably ruffled, but otherwise, he looked unharmed.

"It ain't my position to say this sire, but don't you dare ever try to run away from me like that again," Patton panted, giving a quick side-eye to the other teenager before dismissing him. "We best hurry now, because those two won't be happy about their stolen horse."

Just as he was about to ask who those two were, a pair of Filipinos with muskets turned the corner and ran towards them. He vaguely recognized them as the same two men who were standing guard at the restaurant. They shouted loudly, a mix of Tagalog and Spanish expletives that Alfred could barely recognize, and a phrase distinct enough that he felt like it was something significant: amang bayan.

Patton evidently recognized the words. He looked at him in a wide-eyed panic, saying, "Sire, we need to leave—"

And as quick as lightning, Patton fell to the ground with a sickening crack. Caught completely off-guard and his arms restrained, he was helpless against the teenager who had a knife at his throat: a knife that, as Alfred began to realize with a horrified lurch of his stomach, was engraved with golden flowers and the insignia of an eight-rayed sun.

"You must be Private Wilkes," the Philippines smiled. "I do hope you are enjoying my country."

"Get off him or else!" Alfred screamed, the combined events of the night making him feel like he was about to reach his breaking point. He reached for the pistol he kept hidden on his belt and took aim, hoping to God that the other nation wouldn't force him to shoot. Even after everything, he didn't feel like he had the nerve to hurt Philippines after the hours they spent together; maybe some other day, but not tonight.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the two men had caught up to them. They angled their muskets at him from a distance. The horse, which Alfred had been planning to use for escape, had already taken off running in the commotion.

Patton stared up at him with fear in his eyes, a bleeding gash on his forehead, and Alfred's hands began to shake.

Above all else, Philippines was still smiling: eyes bright, amused twitch of the lips on his sharp face. Slowly, he stood to approach him.

Like a switch had been flicked, his features turned soft and kind again — more like the boy that Alfred had met earlier, the boy who had dragged him around the streets of Manila with lighthearted laughter, the boy whose smile was brighter than any star. All Alfred could do was stand there, mesmerized once again, as his hand was gently pried away from the gun.

"Alfred," Philippines said this quietly, almost like he was invoking a prayer. He motioned the men to stand down. "I do not wish to fight."

"I don't want to either," Alfred admitted. Maybe there was hope... "C'mon, we can talk this through, right? Look, we haven't had a battle in months. It should be really easy to negotiate, yeah? I'll set up a meeting with your generals and mine, we'll have a civil discussion with no weapons allowed, and we'll reach a compromise."

The other nation was leaning in, and this time, Alfred took his chance. He held Philippines' cheek in his hands and they kissed, soft and quick and chaste.

"Of course," Alfred said, as he pulled away. "I would need your complete surrender—"

He was swiftly kneed in the stomach, disarmed, and shot.

"Alfred, I do not wish to fight," Philippines said, as he watched Alfred collapse to the ground. "But I have to. I hope you understand."

He vaguely registered Patton reaching out to him as his eyes closed and the blood pooled around him, but all he could focus on was watching the other nation walk away into the darkness.

—

When Alfred came to, he was already back at camp. Without thinking, he immediately trudged to the general's war office.

"Good morning, Major-General MacArthur," he smiled, bright and cheery. "Gather the troops. I want to destroy Manila immediately."

—

Notes:

This is set in October 1899, during those months when there were no battles or skirmishes between the two armies. On the first day of November, the Americans launched a major attack on the Filipinos. This attack happened in San Fabian, Pangasinan, not in Manila, but let's forget about that.

Major-General MacArthur is, of course, Arthur MacArthur Jr., who was a major military figure during the Philippine-American War. I also claim artistic license in hinting that the American camp was in Bulacan because it probably wasn't.

Alfred's comments about Manila looking like Mexico are based on a comment by former president Manuel L. Quezon when he visited Mexico back in 1937: "Everything was the same." He meant that very, very affectionately.

Here's a nifty map of modern Manila. Alfred and Patton start out in Quiapo, which is basically the heart of downtown Manila. Alfred runs all the way to Muelle del Rey, which, coincidentally, happens to be the same place where the Jones Bridge stands today. Alfred and Phili take the tranvia to Binondo, Manila's business district and home to the world's oldest Chinatown.

The names of the store owners and vendors that Phili talks about are references to assorted media in Philippine pop culture. Pepito is a reference to Pepito Manaloto, a long-time comedy show about a man who won the lotto. Mang Tomas (Mang being an informal way to refer to a male adult older than you) is the name of a popular brand of gravy. Aling Nena (Aling being an informal way to refer to a female adult older than you) is a reference to the song Tindahan ni Aling Nena, about a boy who falls in love with a storeowner's daughter.

The garland of white jasmines that Phili puts around Alfred's neck are supposed to be sampaguitas, our national flower. They're usually sold near churches and are given as a sign of respect.

I have no idea if there are actually empanadas and valenciana sold somewhere in Binondo, but let's jot that down to artistic license. But these are very much Filipino foods that were adapted from Spanish foods, which is why Phili brings it up when Alfred asks about his family.

The old friend that Phili keeps talking about is Jose Rizal, our national hero. He is primarily known for being a great writer, whose novels inspired the Philippine War for Independence, and for being killed for it. He is also known for being having a long list of lovers, many of them not even Filipino. Lesser known is the fact that he visited America, hated it, went on a train ride with an American, and hated it. He wrote a whole diary entry about how much he didn't like America and Americans. He had also predicted that out of all the world powers, it would be America who would probably take an interest in conquering the Philippines when Spain was out of the picture. Go figure. Rizal was also affectionately known by his nickname, Pepe.

I imagine Phili to be particularly proficient in arnis, which is also known as kali or eskrima. It's a kind of Filipino martial art, most easily recognizable as that one martial art where everyone is dual-wielding a pair of sticks. The sticks are actually for training. Traditionally, arnis is fought by dual-wielding knives or swords, and it's meant to be quick and efficient in defending, attacking, disarming, and killing. Phili's fictional ornately designed knife is inspired by this very real ornately designed knife. The detail of the eight-rayed sun is a reference to the eight-rayed sun in the Philippine flag.

Lastly (phew!), some Tagalog to English translations!

Hijo, padaan naman po - Young boy, kindly let me pass Pasensya na po, lolo! Hindi kasi taga-rito - Sorry, grandfather*! He's not from around here. Lolo literally means grandfather but is a general way to refer to any elderly man regardless of any actual blood relation. Amang bayan - Fatherland

#hws #hws america #hws philippines #usph #amephil #hetalia philippines #hetalia america #aph philippines #aph america #historical hetalia #mine

[fourthingsandawizard]

Dan and Phil Rize Summary, Sept. 12/13, 2018

(Note: I spent the first half of my lunch break at work simultaneously watching this and trying to eat fried rice, so if this summary isn't as great as normal... Sorry? Haha)

-They were arguing over what to put in the notification, and Phil accidentally typed "Dan and Phil are in Man" instead of Manila

-Someone in the chat asked "What's up?" Dan answered, "Not Phil! He's barely awake!"

-It was midnight in Manila, so two hours behind where they were in Australia

-Phil: "We've just been on a plane, that was fun!" Dan: "No, we swam from Sydney to Manila."

-Dan: "Phil almost immediately got deported." Apparently when Phil went through security, the lady asked questions like what the addresses were for the hotel he was staying in and the address for the theater he was performing at were, and the most Phil could remember was that they were in Manila, somewhere in the city. Dan said that he thought Phil just looked so confused that the security person just thought he couldn't possibly be lying.

-They got in an argument because Phil claimed that Dan pushed him in front in their security line even though Dan knew all the info and if he gone first, it wouldn't have been a problem

-Phil had noodles with what he called "mystery meat." Dan: "No one wants to know about your mystery meat."

-Chat: "How's the weather?" Phil: "The weather is typhoon."

-Their plane went on a crazy flight path to avoid the storm, but their pilot seemed super casual about it, even though they could still see lightning out the windows.

-Someone in the chat asked if Dan had written the mpreg yet. Dan: "Not yet."

-Lightning facts with Phil: if you're in a field and your hair stands up, you're probably about to get hit. He talked about their weird static experience at Google that one time

-Apparently there's a lot of honking in the traffic in Manila, even though the cars are sitting still, which is very different from home for them. Phil: "In the UK, you'll probably do about five big honks in your life."

-There's a Sims video coming soon, and according to Phil, it's "a doozy." He wouldn't let Dan reveal much more than that, but Dan said if we thought the last one was crazy, we have no idea

-They both helped edit the Bucket of Doom video, so you can watch and try to guess who did which part. Phil said he did the Hedwig part

-Phil apparently got a text from Kath that only said "Bodyguard" and really confused him, but she was talking about a new BBC show

-Geography lessons with Dan: Dan was very confused as to why it took 8 hours to get from Sydney to Manila when it only takes 6.5 to go from England to NYC across the whole Atlantic. Phil said it was because of the storm, the chat suggested Flat Earth and aliens

-Dan went a bit stir crazy on the plane and started immitating and then harmonizing with the noises the plane was making. Phil said it made his ears hurt, and he told Dan to stop because it was annoying the lady next to them because he knew if he said it was just annoying him, Dan would just do it louder

-The person at their rainforest airbnb left all the doors and windows open because they thought they would be there sooner, so the whole place was filled with bugs

-Phil, showing us his forehead: "I laid by the pool, and now I have freckies!" (No, that's not a typo, he actually said "freckies" instead of "freckles," this man is too cute, it should be illegal) Bonus: Phil said he went through "Phil-tosynthisis"

-The cable car the went on had a glass bottom that scared Phil a bit, and in true older brother fashion, Martyn likes to try to rock them

-They mentioned some of the dangerous plants their tour guide pointed out, and in true Phil fashion, he almost immediately touched one

-They spent a nice day at the beach eating ice cream, then saw on the news the next day that the same beach was closed due to a four meter crocodile

-They started Googling the most dangerous animals in the Philippines to see if they were safer there, to which Phil said, "You know what the answer to that is in all places? Humans."

-Phil wanted to have a microsleep during the liveshow, but Dan wouldn't let him because people had said they were skipping classes just to watch

-For Truth Bombs (What would Dan and Phil's super powers be?), they decided to try out the groupchat feature and bring three people in at once

-The first person was in a car on their way to karate, and D&P were worried because they thought they were driving the car while on Rize (spoiler, they weren't). Their answer wad that they would have the power to ruin sleep schedules

-The second person seemed overwhelmed and was calling for their mom to see they were in the livestream. They said they were blanking on a answer, so settled on their powers being the power to mind blank. Dan said that would be very helpful if, say, they had to save a burning orphanage and then just blanked and didn't help

-I tried really, really hard to understand the third person's answer, but the volume was going crazy with so many people talking at once. Something about crafting? Or weird situatuons? I'm really sorry, I tried to understand you!

-The person going to karate won because their answer was accurate AND they stayed in the groupchat waiting that whole time

-Phil: "I felt like we were in the Brady Bunch with all the squares!"

-Phil: "What season is it in Manila?" Dan: "I don't know. Wet?"

-They have a show tomorrow, then they're headed to Singapore

-The Rize giveaway is still happening, they'll tell us more in the next liveshow

-They're still "squirreling away" at the TBC dates, but they just can't say anything about it right now

-Phil was annoyed because the airport put his Manila stamp right overtop of his America stamp

-Apparently the pictures on their Indian visas will be...interesting? (Dan said something about an edgy filter?)

-They're excited to sample all the food that Manila fans have been suggesting, and Phil said something about a bee-themed fast food place?

-They aren't sure when they'll have good internet for another show next week, so they'll keep us updated

#dan and phil #dan and phil rize #dan and phil liveshow #amazingphil #danielhowell #phil lester #dan howell #danisnotonfire #dip and pip #phandom #interactive introverts #dan and phil ii

[gumnut-logic]

A Little Privacy

Title: A Little Privacy Tales of Sotto Voce Author: Gumnut 8 Sep 2018 Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS Rating: Teen Summary: “Virgil, give yourself a break. Let someone help you for a change.” Word count: 3094 Spoilers & warnings: Spoilers for Season 2 and Sotto Voce  Author’s note: Tales of Sotto Voce is planned to be a series of random fics written in the universe created by the events in Sotto Voce - I highly recommend you read that fic first or these won’t make much sense. There will be no order to the fics or set genre, I’m planning to write whatever comes to mind. Especially since several characters are jumping up and down on said mind. ::rolls eyes:: This first one was just a random thought that managed to jell before the others. It is not necessarily anything that has been asked for, but they should appear later. It is also another example of a fic with a life of its own, though it did eventually go in the direction I wanted it to, it definitely did it with less humour and more action than I had planned. I hope you enjoy it anyway ::hugs::

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

I don’t like it.

You don’t have to. I have a right to some privacy, Eos.

But this will remove you from our sight. John is not happy either.

John will live.

We won’t be able to help you if anything goes wrong.

Nothing is going to go wrong.

How do you know?

He sighed, staring up at the trees overhead for a moment. It was a gorgeous day. The sun dancing through the leaves, the smell of fresh mown lawn from the parklands over the road, cheers and shouts from the sports field as a friendly game of rugby tussled its way across the grass. He had purposefully dumped his hire car solely so he could walk in the sun. It was a short walk to the doctors’ rooms and he wanted to enjoy the calm of the quiet before once again facing his demons.

It’s a doctor’s appointment, Eos. No explosives, no cliffs, no daring escapades, no rescues. I will be fine.

I don’t like it.

So you have said repeatedly.

Virgil…

Eos, I have a right to my own privacy. It will only be for an hour. I will be fine, I promise.

I don’t like it.

Well, I’m sorry, but you will just have to put up with it.

He reached the ivy-covered fence and the wooden gate to the medical rooms and stood for a moment staring out across the park across the road.

See you soon, Eos.

She didn’t immediately answer, probably pouting from his previous statement.

I’m signing off…

Be safe, Virgil.

I will.

And he reached into his pocket and flicked the switch on the isolator he and Brains had developed. It was a small device that interrupted the transmissions of the z-band network. It created a bubble around him that protected him from any digital contact, it isolated him and gave him some privacy from, well, Eos.

It also cut him from communication with International Rescue and wiped him off the grid. Scott and John hated it. Eos, upon discovery of its existence, had been hurt. He had spent a great deal of time speaking with her – once she would speak to him again – explaining his reasoning. She still hated it.

He understood that she sensed his presence far more than he sensed hers. That she was able to be aware of him at all times and removing himself from that awareness scared her. He wasn’t the only one who had been traumatised by the Hood’s recent attack. But he needed his privacy. There were times where he knew he wouldn’t want his niece knowing his every move.

And this was one of them.

The doctor was a high-end specialist, located by Colonel Casey and vetted by Scott and Penelope with a wad of confidentiality forms and a massive background check. Virgil needed to talk about what had happened to him. He was not stupid enough to think he could idly return to his occupation without some form of counselling or psychological assessment and Doc Slick was the answer to that problem.

It had also led to the need for the isolator. His first visit had been cut short because Eos had reacted badly to his emotional state. The receptionist still gave him strange looks when he arrived for appointments - her computer had never recovered. The second appointment had seen the fire alarm triggered by a frantic AI.

Virgil had spoken to her at length, but Eos had only expressed her worry more. The following appointments were more stable, but Virgil couldn’t really speak his mind with Eos in the room. And he needed too.

The doctor didn’t know about Eos, there were no confidentiality forms on the planet that would let Virgil tell anyone about the AI, but he knew enough to know that Virgil was worried about something.

So, the isolator came into play.

He sighed. It was incredibly quiet when it was turned on. He could tell something was missing. The thought of what hid behind his forehead was a disquieting at the best of times, but ironically when he was disconnected from Eos, it came to the fore and bugged him even more.

He should just get it over and done with. He pushed the gate open and walked down the path through the small neat garden to the front door.

Candy was the name on the receptionist’s badge, and she certainly lived up to it with a sweet smile for him the moment he walked in the door. She had been vetted also, Penelope uncovering all sorts of interesting facts about the woman, including the fact she was currently dating two men at the same time. They had been both vetted as well – Penelope was definitely thorough.

“Mr Tracy, how nice to see you today.” She glanced warily at her computer.

He dipped his head politely and smiled a little. “Hi, Candy. How’s your day b-been?” His speech still struggled from time to time and it annoyed him beyond belief. He had never felt so much empathy for Brains. To think the brilliant engineer had lived with it all his life.

“All well and good. The doctor is just finishing up with his previous patient. Would you like to take a seat?”

“Of course.” He walked over to the plush seating by the front window and sat down. A glance at the security camera and sure enough it was pointed directly at him. Another sigh. And he used to think Scott was over protective.

He shot it a very pointed glare and a moment later it swivelled away.

A count to ten in his head.

And it swivelled back.

He grabbed a magazine and buried himself behind it.

The lights suddenly flickered and died. “And there goes my computer.” It was muttered and he looked over the top of the magazine to see Candy glaring at her dead screen. “I’m sorry, Mr Tracy, but we seem to have lost power. This is the second time this week.”

Virgil stood up. “A-anything I can do to help?”

She smiled. “No, no, I think it has something to do with the roadworks two streets over. It will come back on eventually. You sit down. The doctor will still want to see you.”

Sitting back down, he grabbed another magazine and actually found something interesting to read. The isolator denied him access to the network, so his tablet and phone were useless while it was on. So, two-year-old gossip mags were his only entertainment.

He had to wait quite some time. It was unusual and it became apparent why when an ambulance pulled up outside and some paramedics, dragging a hover gurney, ran into the building. With direction from Candy, they disappeared into the doctor’s rooms.

Candy caught his eye and smiled reassuringly, but the worry behind it was obvious. For a moment Virgil was concerned the patient was the doctor himself.  He was about to get to his feet and ask if he could help, but the doors flung open again and a female patient obviously distressed was wheeled out. Doc Slick followed, spouting obs and patient background to the paramedics as they walked.

Virgil went back to his magazine.

Eventually the doctor returned and greeted Virgil with an apology for the delay.

“Understandable. I hope she will be o-okay.”

The doctor half-smiled. “She will be.” He clapped his hands together. “Now how about we have a little talk.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Of course, D-doc.”

Slick grinned and ushered him into his office.

The room looked completely different with the lights down for the count. “Sorry about the power outage. I swear one of the council guys keeps reading his maps wrong. Last week they hit a water main and twice this week the power has been cut.”

“Yes, Candy was saying.”

“Have a seat.” The Doc waved him to the comfortable lounge where he had bared his soul before. He shut the door behind him, and as Virgil sat down, took a seat himself. “So how have things been?”

Virgil shrugged. “Okay.”

“I hear your brothers helped with that earthquake in the Philippines.”

Virgil blinked. “Y-yeah.”

And it began there. Idle talk that eventually cut to the core of his issues. And there were issues. He still had trouble relaxing around John, through no fault of his poor brother. He was frustrated that he couldn’t go out on rescues, particularly like that one in the Philippines which would have required his specific skill set and equipment load. And, of course, there were nightmares.

God, the nightmares. With his connection with Eos, the nightmares took on a whole new meaning. The first time it had happened, the whole of International Rescue had ended up in his bedroom. Eos had been terrified, not understanding what was happening to him. She had calmed somewhat since, once he and John had explained extensively and she became familiar with the signs. Her help had since become invaluable in waking him up during the worst of them and reassuring him that he was okay.

Doc Slick was gentle with his words, but it was inevitable that there were moments of vulnerability in this room that Virgil would dread to show anywhere else. He needed to do this to get better, he knew this, but it was hard.

Consequently, he was usually exhausted at the end of the sessions and today was no different.

He ran a hand over his face as the doctor stood up. The man held out his hand and Virgil took it, hauling himself to his feet. “Th-thanks, Doc.”

Slick smiled a little. “You’re doing great, Virgil.”

“Yeah, I g-guess.”

The doctor fixed him with his eyes. “Virgil, give yourself a break. Let someone help you for a change.”

He had to let out a laugh at that, thinking of his four brothers, his sister, his grandma, Brains and Eos, all of who had been trying to help him so much. He didn’t think there was anything he could do to repay them.

“S-sure, Doc.”

Slick frowned, but ushered him towards the door. “Don’t hesitate to visit when you need to Virgil, but in the meantime, see you next week?”

“Yeah, I’ll make the ap-appointment.”

He opened the door and walked out into the reception area only to come face to face with a lounging Scott Tracy, apparently chatting up Candy. His brother was dressed up in his full IR regalia, leaning on the front desk with that luring playboy smile of his.

Virgil froze in his tracks, the doctor colliding with his back. “What?”

“Oh, hey, Virg.” The casual air faded as his brother looked closer at him. “You okay?”

“W-what are you doing here?”

“Um…” Scott Tracy lost for words. He never thought he’d see that.

Virgil glared at him before turning his attention to the receptionist. Pulling out his credit card and speaking nicely to Candy, he processed his appointment and made the next one. He ignored the doctor greeting his brother, shaking his hand and making small talk.

With a polite farewell to Candy and a nod to his doctor, he grabbed Scott by his arm and dragged him out the door. The mum and her kid in the waiting room stared openly.

Once out on the garden path, he rounded on his brother. “What the h-hell are you doing here?”

Scott wasn’t looking him in the eye, a clear sign of guilt. “Uh, there was a power blackout.”

“So?”

“You’ve been gone two hours.”

“I repeat, so?!”

“Uh…”

Something about the sounds from the park across the road drew his attention. There were yells of amazement and at least one clear word came through.

“You d-didn’t.”

“Virgil.”

He turned and stalked to the gate opening it to the view across the road.

Where Thunderbird One was parked in the middle of the rugby field.

“Scott? Really?” He felt like clawing his hair out.

“Eos and John panicked.” Scott ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, not my best judgement call, I admit.”

“You’ve g-got to be kidding me. One hour. I asked for one hour!”

“It was two! And there was no contact. The whole block is dead, Virgil.”

“It was a p-power outage.”

“It could have been anything!”

“Well, it wasn’t!”

The crowd over the road was getting bigger and there were more than a few looks darting in their direction. Behind them, both Candy and Doc Slick had edged out onto the path, catching sight of the Thunderbird across the road.

“Virgil, are you okay?” Slick looked concerned.

“Ah, sorry, D-doc, I’m fine. Just a mis-misunderstanding.” He glared at his brother again. “I’m going back to my car.”

“Virg.”

“Not n-now.” And he turned his back on his brother and stalked down the formerly peaceful street, listening to first his brother speaking over his comms reassuring some hyperactive voices that Virgil was okay. Then his doctor speaking to Scott.

God damnit.

And the delighted yells of ‘Thunderbird’ across the park.

One hour, just one hour.

One lousy hour to himself.

He made it to the end of the street, turned the corner so he was out of sight and let his back lean against the high fence and dropped his head into his hands.

It was all so hard.

“Hey, sir, are you okay?”

He looked up as a man about his age approached. “I’m okay, no w-worries.” He forced a smile.

The man looked him up and down a moment. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Then please give me all your valuables.” There was a knife in the man’s hand.

Virgil couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. “You have got to be k-kidding me.”

“No joke, mate. Give me what I want or you’ll pay for it.” Supposedly he thought he was menacing.

Virgil moved. A hand came up deflecting the knife, the other grabbing the man’s free hand and twisting his wrist, forcing him to turn. Another grab at the knife arm, and Virgil dug his fingers into tendons, forcing him to let go. The knife bounced off the pavement as the man yelped. Virgil pushed his weight forward and the man was flung to the ground. A knee in the middle of his back and he was contained. “You were s-saying?”

He said a lot of things, none of them repeatable.

“Listen, I’ve h-had a bad day. Could you p-please just shut up.”

The man fell silent.

Now what the hell was he going to do?

“Virgil?” Scott. Of course, he followed. “What the hell?”

“Can you believe he tried to mug me?”

“Really? Well that was a stupid idea.”

“I think he’s w-worked that out now. Have you got a-anything in that uniform of y-yours I could res-strain him with?”

A few moments later the mugger was tied up with a jimmied IR harness. He kept staring at Scott’s uniform. “You’re a Thunderbird?”

Both brothers ignored him. Scott called the police, and Virgil made a quick verbal statement when they arrived. Eventually they were left to themselves, the only sounds, the mutterings of the crowd down the road. Virgil walked them towards his car further down the street.

“I’m sorry, Virg.”

The engineer sighed. “I know. I kn-now. And believe it or n-not, I can unders-stand.” He caught his brother’s eyes. There had been so many times when Virgil had been too far away to help and would have done anything to be beside his brother.

“Forgiven?”

“Sure.” Virgil shrugged. “Though the c-council may never forgive you after what you’ve d-done to their rugby f-field.”

“I’ll pay for it.” He smirked. “They are lucky I didn’t bring your ‘bird. Remember what you did to that stadium in Oklahoma?”

“Don’t r-remind me. I’m lucky if they’ll ever l-let me in the state again.” He smiled, and on impulse, turned around and hugged his brother. “Thanks, b-bro, for always being there.”

Scott startled, but then returned the hug with gusto. “Always, Virg, always.”

He stepped back after a moment and looked up at his brother. “Now go m-move that t-tin can of yours so they can go back to their game.”

Scott smirked. “I suspect the opportunity to see a Thunderbird outranked their game.”

“Show off.”

“Yeah, them the perks.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Go on, g-get out of here.”

Scott touched his arm, his eyes earnest. “Virg, let her back in. She’s frantic.”

“Aw, hell.”

Scott squeezed his arm. “Yeah.” And with a short wave, he was off up the street.

Virgil turned to his car, climbing in and shutting the door before reaching for the isolator.

The moment it was switched off, he was engulfed.

It was a hug, the swirl of a dress, a sob, a welcome, a jumble of worry, relief and love. Words tumbled through his mind so fast he was only able to capture a few. His heart froze and his mind stalled. Overloaded.

God.

Eos-

And it stopped. She stepped back. And he was breathing again.

He clutched a hand to his chest, panting at the lack of oxygen.

Sorry.

He had never been so glad that Scott had left when he did. If he had seen what Eos was capable of doing, there would have been consequences.

A little slower next time, please. Give me the chance to breathe.

Sorry.

His comm chirped in his collar and touched it with a slightly shaky hand. “I’m f-fine, John.”

“Good to hear.” John’s sharp tone only spoke of worry. “Scott reported the mugging. Eos was concerned.”

“I n-noticed.”

“I was concerned.”

“I’m fine, John. A-ask Eos.” And with that he cut the connection.

Eos, I know you were worried, but there was no need to send Scott.

You were mugged!

Attempted mugging. He regretted it immediately.

But I couldn’t contact you. I couldn’t find you.

Eos, I’m okay.

I didn’t know that!

It never worried you before our connection.

That was different.

Why?

I didn’t know how…important you are.

In what way?

In every way.

He shut his eyes for a moment. Eos, we need to work this out. You can’t call International Rescue every time I go off grid a little longer than expected. A sigh. Let’s get home and then perhaps we can work out a compromise or two?

Yes, Virgil.

I’m not your boss, Eos. I’m just family.

She sent him a smile.

He smiled back.

Pulling out the keys, he started the car.

And yawned.

Letting other people help was hard work.

But he couldn’t help but love them for it.

-o-o-o-

FIN

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds fanfic #virgil tracy #eos #sotto voce

[angelatheexplorer]

Magkari kita sa Lugar nga puno sang paghigugma, The City of Love, Iloilo City!

Part 1:

Iloilo city was called city of love because of things that makes the experience memorable and you will feel the love. Like the people living in there that very hospitable and caring. Even they get angry already the voice are still in a sweet tone. That’s what the Ilonggo’s ways of showing their love, even in just a voice you will feel the love. You must try the foods in there such as “The Lapaz Batchoy”, the best bakery “The JD Bakeshop”, “The Molo Balls & The Pancit Molo” in Molo, and many more delicious delicacy that Iloilo City could offer. And also a lot of places that must be explore for you to know the facts behind the story of it.

 Let’s go and come with me during my experience on my college city tour.

 My most favorite destination on our itinerary during city tour is the “ The Casa Mariquit”. It is one of the oldest heritage houses. It was located in Santa Isabel St., Jaro, Iloilo City. The moment I step in the basement of the Casa Mariquit, I ready myself to be transported back in time. Probably this is city’s best kept secrets, the Spanish colonial ancestral house. I learn a lot during we visit there from our tour guide and from the caretaker of the house.When we enter the house I feel the presence of creepiness. My hairs stand on end from the caretaker’s ghost stories. The Amorsolo painting of Don Fernando Lopez, which seems to follow me with his eyes. And the eerie chimes of an antique grandfather clock. The most come out appreciative of Ilonggo architecture and heritage, as well as the history of the Ilonggo old rich Javellana and Lopez families, upon leaving the home of Maria Salvacion “Mariquit” Javellana-Lopez, the wife of Fernando Hofileña Lopez Sr. who served as Vice President of the Philippines for three terms 1949-1953 under Elpidio R. Quirino and 1965-1969 and 1969-1972 under Ferdinand E. Marcos.It comes out well when I pose beside the doors of solid yakal and among its fretwork of solid wood with carvings. The wide windows and little windows serve as perfect photo frames, as well as provide lighting in the sala and rooms, and good ventilation.

 The place is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the P50 entrance fee is used to maintain the house, that’s what the caretaker said. Not most of time the visitors come so the caretaker sometimes use his own money to buy light bulbs, floor wax and other cleaning materials. From the ground floor, one goes up a grand staircase made of thick and still-gleaming Philippine mahogany to reach a small museum to the left that shows two desks owned by the former vice president. One desk has a gavel, a seal and notebooks with the penmanship of Fernando Sr. Behind it is his bust and portrait painted by Fernando Amorsolo. In the small museum to the right are two full-body portraits of Toto Nanding in a barong and Inday Mariquit in a terno, and a 1901 model of a Kienzle grandfather clock that still tells time.The master bedroom, dining room and small family chapel are a walk back in time to 1803 when Don Ramon first built the house. There are antique wall clocks, wooden and chipped chess boards, leather bags, faded magazines, a phonograph and old cameras on top of black-and-white photographs, portraits and paintings.Mariquit’s family also owned a telephone and a gramophone, all in great shape and spotless. One of the interesting features of the master bedroom are the wooden floor planks, which conceal a vault installed in 1910 to keep Don Ramon’s wads of cash and coins that he lent to other “hacenderos” (sugarcane planters).

As the story goes, his wealth multiplied further when he would seize the property of other hacenderos if they failed to pay back.While some restoration has been done,caretaker said the original red bricks and wooden architecture have been preserved.The bricks were made at the factory of Don Julio Javellana, Mariquit’s grandfather, in La Paz District and “cemented” with egg white.According to the caretaker, the adhesive was made of ash, ground rice, egg white and beach sand that were supposed to make the bricks “bawod” (flow), instead of crumbling, in case of earthquakes.

And the ghost bump part is that Mariquit died in 1999 at the age of 95. The neighbors have claimed that she could be seen occasionally visiting the house of her childhood where, from the ventanillas, she could be seen smiling wanly at passersby, that was the tour guide said.

#lagawkitaILOILO

[kpop-melody]

How would BTS propose ?

Anonymous said :

How would the boys ask for marriage? .~

Hi sweetie~thanks for requesting ! .. here’s your requested reaction and I hope you like it >< .

I didn't think creatively ,since they are human beings their ways would be more special than we think...so I became more logical and made these proposals depend on their habits that we all know ...sorry if this sounds silly but I didn't have much time to think deeply about them ,their personalities and how they would propose ..sorry again !

Jin:

Jin would try his best to make it unexpected ,and made the propose as a surprise when you both do the thing you like together .When you were cooking some dinner since you decided to spend the day together ,Jin was giving you orders ,yes you didn't know how to cook but Jin liked to give instructions and be the leader ,and you didn't mind cuz the time you spent was with your boyfriend ,and that’s all what you would ask for .

-“babe ,give me the mixed spices box please ...” he said while mixing stuff in the bowl .

-“ok ..” you replied quickly ,and went straight to the cabinet and opened it ,there ..a small red fancy box was placed .

-“what’s this ?” …you mumbled while taking it out and staring at it .

-“ohh …I don't know .Suga was here before you come ,open it and let's see what's inside !” he said simply ,acting super professional as his eyes locked on the bowl in front of him .

You opened it slowly ,you knew something was wrong ,and knew that Suga won't leave his stuff for others to reach ,and you expected something but you didn't want to seem silly .As you opened the box your expectations came true ,at least Suga won't ask to marry you after all! ..a small peace of paper was written on it (will you marry me?~) ,and a simple golden ring was there too .As you were reading it Jin let the spoon down and turned to face you “you won't reject me right?” …you looked up at him with eyes filled with tears ,his sweet smile was full of hope to you saying yes ,and you didn't let him down ,you said yes ,for his cute way to propose ,for his sweet smile ,and for the hope of him being your partner till the last breath in your life.

Suga :

After a long day at work ,your boyfriend came only to see you and have lots of cuddles .You were lying on his chest ,talking about your day full of embarrassing stories and you didn't resist to tell him ,yes he maybe would tease you ,but after it he would give you the strengthen and the courage to face those people again ,he is so helpful .he was playing with your hair ,humming from time to time at some sentences ,till you finished ,and there a scary silence showed up ,and you know when this happens he would be thinking about something else .You looked up at him as he was staring at the window the whole time .”wanna tell me what annoys you that much to not react at all?” you whispered ,but he didn't look at you at all ,ok there IS something wrong ..

-“ umm …I was thinking of a song I produced and sang lately ,I think it won't be professional or enough “ he said ,taking the phone from the table next to the bed and searching for the song .

-“enough for what? ,come on let me hear it ,of course it's professional ,It's done by the genius yoongi!” you said while putting on the headphones and started focusing on the intro of the song . It was romantic , describing a girl in a wonderful way ,which made your heart melt ,then it started to talk about great times happened between him and her …there you were sure it was you ,but the end was shocking ,he started saying things like ( I want this good times last longer // I want to hold you closer every night till I get older // I want you to be officially mine and say it out loud to the world //……..) and when the song was over ,he whispered by his manly voice as he took off the earphone and had a ring in his hand “enough for a precious girl like you , will you marry me Y/N?” …

Rap Monster :

Sharing interests together was something normal between you and Namjoon, your love ..and sharing books was also something you both used to do .At midnight when you were at the end of a book your Joonie gave to you ,you were curious about those highlights you have noticed when you were reading it the whole week .At every chapter there was a highlighted word ,you thought they would make sense or ,Namjoon just highlighted them randomly !. You grabbed a paper and a pen and started from the beginning : Chapter one : want, chapter four : to, chapter eight : be ,chapter fifteen : my ,chapter twenty three : love ,chapter thirteen : forever  .. (want to be my love forever ?) .You pouted ,is this a proposal or a cheesy filtration ? ...so you picked up your phone and messaged him although it wad 2 am but you knew he would be up reading a book ..or ..waiting for an answer :

-“ joonie ? ...what will happen if I answered with yes ? And what  will happen if I answered with no ?”

-“finished reading ?”

-“yep ..now answer me ..I'm curios “

-“well ,if you answered with yes you would be my love forever as it was said ,and if you answered with no ..you would be my love forever too !”

-“....Joonie? ...are flirting or..?”

-“yes ...the answer is I'm flirting but in more official way ...”

-“official ? ...”

-“Y/N???”

-“...yeh?”

-“will you marry me?” ...

J-hope :

This hyped boy would plan for this for so long ..like so so long! .One day ,you waked up at 4:14 pm from your daily nap as someone just rang your door bell ,when you opened it ,a bouquet of flowers was placed there ,with a card was written on it (two days left ..) ...two days for what? ..you checked the date ,and it was 4/12 ..you pouted ,your boyfriend Hoseok isn't here cuz he’s on tour so he won’t mess with you ,it’s not your anniversary and not your birthday ...so? ...you just ignored it and continued your day normally .The next day ...at 6:06 pm another bouquet of flowers was placed outside with a card written on it (one day left ) ..ok ..that started to get creepy ...the third day ..you came back from your late shift at work at 10:30 pm ,when you found a bouquet with a card ( did you miss me? I did ,and I'm waiting for you in the backyard) there you stated to get scared ...with hesitant steps you walked to the backyard ...and there was the shock ...sparkling lights were thrown in a beautiful way on the trees and your Hoseok was waiting for you in a fancy suit at the middle in front of huge amount of flowers which were designed to be like a large clock on the grass with the time (11:11) ...

-“DAMN ..Hoseok ? ..aren't you on a tour?” ..

-“well ,I wanted to spend this special time with you !” ..he said ,standing in front of you ,nervous af .

-“ ohh ,so YOU are the one who sent those bouquets...I thought it was a serial killer or something “ ..

-“ohh ..did I miss up?” he said with a scared smile on his face ...

-“no ..not at all ,but what about this clock?... and why are you dressed like this?” ..you said pointing at the huge clock on the grass and his suit ,so he took a deep breath ,closed his eyes and started speaking super fast from nervousness :

-“well ..I decided to make those special iconic times be more special since you know we spent two years together and I saved them by heart ! ..the 4:14 , two years ago was the first time to kiss you ...the 6:06 , last year was the first time to hear the first (I love you) from you ..and the 11:11 , also from the last year we were cuddling talking about future ,when we started to talk about family and children and , from there I started thinking ...” then he opened his eyes and stared into your eyes deeply ..” I was going to ask you this question two days ago ,from the first bouquet, so it would be the first kiss after the question ,and yesterday would be the first time to hear I love you after the question and I would refuse to hear it till the right time ..and today would be the first time to say (I want you to be by myside forever ) out loud ...but the manager refused to let me go till I finish the concert in Philippine ,so ..I would feel satisfied if you just said yes even though my plans gone with the wind ...”

-“and the yes is for the question you wanted to ask three-“he cut you ..super afraid from your answer ..

-“to my questions Y/N ...to my question which I'll say now ...so ...will you marry me? ...I know I couldn’t make the proposal special but the manager was THAT cruel ,and I promise I’ll make our coming marriage years better and treat you well ,so ...?”

Jimin :

This cute pie would train for days till he would miss up ...totally ruin everything! .It was a normal day when you cancelled your extra hours at work because you wanted to rest... directly to yours and Jimin’s house ,and you didn't expect for him to come till midnight cuz he had schedule to follow up with .As you entered the house ,the lights were off ,only candles were everywhere in the salon as a table was placed there with some plates and a cake ..you pouted ..did Jimin do all that for me or...? ...you heard whispers of someone inside the room of you two ...you tip toes toward it to see Jimin leaning his head on the mirror, his eyes closed and saying out loud “ok again ...Y/N ...I love you ..and I wanna love you till the last day of our lives...no no ...no I won't talk about death now ..again ...Y/N ..I was in love with you for a long long time ..and I'll always do ..so will you give me the chance to stand by your side whatever happened to you ,me or around us? ...no ..that's too ornate ..again ...more direct ...Y/N ...will you marry me ?...no ..too serious again ..Y/N ...uhh ...I'll totally miss up ..uhhh ..I hope she accept !” ...you pouted at that stupid idea you had a minute ago ...then quickly smiled and tip toed back to the door ...there you opened it and closed it again..shouting “ohhh my GOD!! ...what's this ..JIMIN??? babe are you home??” ...and started acting as if you didn't see anything and arrived home two seconds ago ...there ..you heard a shout after five seconds “YES ..I'M HERE!” ...and he got out ,his head down but super brave ...just different from the one near the mirror one minute ago ..but! ... as he spotted you he stopped ..took a huge breath and became super nervous...there you continued acting “Jiminie? ..did you prepare all that?” ...he nodded ...came closer with a weird smile and dragged you to sit in front of him on the table ..there ..he stared at you as you said “ohh Jimin ..what are all these for? ..I don't think our anniversary is now “...he started playing with his fingers ..trying to speak out but failed ..one minute as you can't control yourself not to say that you saw everything he finally said “Y/N ..yes it's not our anniversary but ..I realized now how much I love you and how much I need you by my side ...Y/N ..I was in love with-“ ...there he stopped as he saw you smiling ..damn he was about to explode because of how tense he was ..so you continued for him “with you since a long long time ...and I'll always do ..so will you give me the chance to be by your side whatever happened to you ,me or around us?” ...there he was super shocked ..he stopped playing with his fingers ..but his eyes locked on you as you thought his brain stopped working for a minute ,trying to figure out how did you know ,but you cut the doubt with certainty ...”yes Jiminie I accept ..I totally accept!” ...

V :

Taehyung and you were making some bracelets by some coloured wool threads for the kids in the park next to your house .. you two are used to do this when he had some free time cuz you two like children and like to share this time in a helpful way .As a kid was sitting in front of you two ,waiting for his bracelets to be done by you ,you asked as your eyes locked on what you were making “Tae?? ..what are you doing ?” ...he answered as his tone seemed as if he was focusing on something else “making couple things for us ...” ...you giggled “you made three pairs already !” ...he replied fast “no ..this's rings pair, not bracelets ..I used golden threads too ! ...till we choose the rings together !” ...you stopped what you were doing and looked at him “but Tae ..I don't like rings ..!” ...he smiled as his eyes still on the ring he was making “but make some exception for these rings ,they're our rings !” the kid cut your thoughts “can I have a ring too?” ...he giggled “ohh ..but I can't marry a little boy! ..just the girl I love!” ..your eyes were still wide as you couldn't get out of the shock that he already proposed to you! ...the kid interrupted your pink dreams again as he said “so I'll have a new friend? ...you gonna give make me have a new boy to be friends with?” ...he smiled warmly and looked deep in your eyes “no cutie ,we are going to give you friendS ...around five or six ...right babe?” ...

Jungkook :

This maknae would do his best to make the way he reposes unforgettable ! ...you got a call from him as he said “wear fancy dress ...I'm on my way to pick you up” ...he didn't give you a second to ask anything ,so you put your dress on and some make up ,made a simple hairstyle and there someone knocked at your door ...when you opened you saw the driver ,behind him the newest Audi car ,you pouted “did Jungkook-ah send you?” ..he smiled “yes he did ..now please?” and he opened the door for you. After a long drive you arrived finally ,the car stopped in front of a huge villa which you expected it was unaffordable even by Jungkook’s high salary ..the maid opened the door even before you reach it and took you to the backyard ,which was a fascinating garden more than a simple backyard .As you stood there ,staring at the great decoration was made and the beautiful kinds of flowers ,he said behind you “like it?” ...you turned facing him as he was more than perfect with a suit on...“ohh my God! ..of course I did ..I mean ..why did you even do that? ...” ..he smiled simply “because you deserve ..” ..and took your hand ..dragging you to a small table with a box and a bouquet of flowers placed on it ..there were more four similar tables in front of you which made a long line ended with a huge table with plates full of food on it ! ..he smiled “open it!” ..you opened the first box to see the neckless you liked last week when you both were shopping together ,you looked at him “Kookie ! ..you didn't have-“ ..he cut you by placing a finger on your lips ..then dragged you to the second box which had a small taco  ...you giggled and said “I can't imagine that you still remember my wish I made that night !” ...he smiled “I told you shooting stars make the dreams come true !” ...the third box? ..it had your shared box of wishes you both decided to make them whenever you had the chance to ...you heard him saying “I wanna start making those wishes ...with you ! ,I think I made your first two wishes.. and my first one is in the last box! ..I hope you do it for me” ...you smiled “sure I will do it ..come on ,I'm curious to know it!” ...you went together to the last box ..as you opened it ..you saw a diamond ring placed on a huge amount of coloured dried flowers leaves ..you looked shocked at him when he said “when we decided to make those dreams come true ..I knew that this journey would be long ..and I wanted to start it with the first wish I made ,and it was when I first met you ..sorry my first wish wasn't to travel and see pyramids ..it was to get married to you ..so ...Y/N ..will you marry me and start working on our endless dreams together till the last day we spend together? .and it witl start if you said yes?”  ..

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[lloydfanugao-blog]

Understanding the self

Refllection

Chapter 1

What I have learned in this chapter is that , All of us think that we already understand ourselves but deep down there is more to it. We need to understand ourselves better in order for us to achieve something and also satisfy our well-being. It is just like when I was in my younger days and I was hanging out with my friends which I have known recently. There was one time when we passed by a kid same as our age and that kid was a loner, my friends teased that kid, I was at the side fully knowing that it was already a form of bullying. And i just went with the flow because i was also scared that if I defended the bullied kid, my friends would kick me out of their group. So for the sake of staying with my friends I also teased the kid. As time passed by my friends became more of a bully, there was one time a guidance counselor that called me and talked to me saying that i shouldn't continue hanging out with a group of bullies because the guidance counselor noticed that I was different from them. At that time a lot of thoughts came to me like "Am I really this kind of person who bullies others?", "Do I enjoy doing these?". No, was my answer to those thoughts. Therefore I have realized that I have been lying about myself and ignored my true feelings which lead me to a decision that I will not continue hanging out with my friends who are bullies any longer. This is why knowing ourselves is very important because every action that we do reflects to our personalities and the way people see us. If we don't correct our improper actions then the people will see us as a bad person and that will only embarass and hurt ourselves.

Chapter 2

My learnings in this chapter is that the way we interact to society is how our self is viewed for us and to other people. I have a lot of experiences in socializing to other people though it is already a given that we should interact to people of the society. There are also others who are also afraid of exposing theirselves to society or as we call them as introvertz, I can understand how they feel because I was once an introverted person when I was in my childhood days. I was scared of going outside and play with others kids my age. I always thought that they were bad kids and will bully me if I get close to them and this lead me to hinder my growth in society. As time passed by i slowly began to realize how lonely I was, I envied other kids enjoying their time playing with each other and so i tried to reach out to them and eventually I made friends. My friends used to viewed me as a nerd for being alone and just played indoors but when I got close to them, they see me in a different way. As i grew older I am finally able to socialize to society. At first I was easily influenced and naive to think that my actions wouldn't hurt other people because there was a time when I was in grade school a friend of mine called out to a highschool student, the way my friend called was irritating and loud but the highschool student just laughed and did a fist bump with my friend. Then I thought that if I call the same way as my friend did then maybe I can be friends with a highschool student, so i tried to do it but when I did it had an opposite effect, the highschool got angry at me. I asked my friend why it had a different result on me and then said that the one he called was already a friend of his. So then I realized that I should do things my way and not copy others because my social status depends on it.

Chapter 3

The lessons that I learned in this chapter is that our personal self can be reflected base on our culture. There are different kinds of culture in the world and if we know our culture then the people will have a basic view about our self and also the country we are from. I am a person born in the philippines and have learned the cultures of this country although some of these cultures are influenced by other countries. I learned these cultures from my families and friends. The first time I learned my culture is when I was young and it was during the wedding of my uncle and aunt, the people where wearing a dress called "barong tagalog". This would identify us as a people who respects the culture and proof that we are a people of the philippines. Next is the belief in spirits, my mother would always remind me to come home dark or else the spirits called "mananangal" or "tikbalang" would take me away and eat me because of this I get scared during night times. There is also the naming ways here in the philippines and that is we tend to repeat our given names like "yamyam" or "maymay", this made our country unique in terms of naming. Lastly I think the best way to truly identify us as filipinos is not just citizenship but also the language. In my opinion the most essential thing that we can learn from our culture is language because in my experience, when I was at boracay I unexpectedly had a talk with a foreigner who knows a bit of filipino, and I accidentally used the word "didto" which is a bisaya word and then the foreigner replied "oh your a bisaya". My language helped him identify that I am a bisaya person. There are a lot of cultures in the world and this helps build our personal self.

Chapter 4

The lessons that I have learned in this chapter is that self has a lot of concepts than to what we know and it is crucial that we should know all of these concepts because these affects our well-being. I began to understand these concepts when I was about 16 years old. During my birthday party I slowly realized that I was no longer a child and am approaching to become an adult. Thoughts were coming out of my mind that I should not act like a kid any longer and that I should follow the footsteps of my parents. Therefore I tried acting like a grown up man. I played less, helped do chores inside and outside of the house, watching news, and anything that adults do daily. Because of this my parents got a little worried and told me that I should first enjoy my youthful days before becoming old because this happens only once in a lifetime and so I wad back to being myself. There is another lesson that I learned in this chapter and that was about true and false self. It is actually common showing first to others your false self because first impression is very important that is why I also show my false self first. It is just like in the first days of school I try to show my false self to others in order to create and conduct a good relationship so that I can be a bit ease in going to school, and not just at school but also to all other strangers, there was a time I showed my true self to some stranger and that stranger became a bit uncomfortable with me and soon moved away from me because of that i felt responsible towards my actions.

Chapter 5

The lessons that I have learned in this chapter is that the western and eastern people has different views of the self. In the western, I came to an understanding based on televisions and news that most of them focuses on getting materials because in their belief that having better materials than others makes them a highly and better person and also I have learned that few of the western people strongly believe in their religion. When i had a conversation with my aunt who is an OFW, she said that there are only a few people going to church at where she is living which is at the western part. In the eastern, religion is very well-known and influential. The people's belief is mostly coming from their religion. I am also a part of the eastern and me and my family always go to church every sunday and would also follow the teachings. My parents has always thought me about religious deeds up until now that is how strong our belief is in religion. When I was a kid I sometimes get into a fight my friends and end up hurting each other and by the time my parents hear the news about me fighting, they would teach me about religious lessons and life lessons. Eastern people also believe in karma which I also believe because I sometimes experience it in my life like when I bullied my friend for being dumb, I trashtalked him and teased him, but in the end I was the one who was dumb because he got a high grade result in class while I got a failing grade.

Chapetr 6

In this chapter I learned that our bodies undergo changes and it also affects our hormones. All of the people undergo changes in their bodies and that includes me as well. I have noticed a lot of changes in and on my body. It started when I was in grade 3 I was 9 years old and the first thing I noticed was my pimples, it was growing out at my forehead until it scattered around my face, next was the increase in height and no changes in weight therefore I looked malnourished even though my parents keep on feeding me, then there was the hairs growing all over my body, and finally my reproductive parts in which my parents told me I had to undergo a surgery for my penis called "tuli". At first I was scared but my dad warned me if I did not do this I will never become like him so I mustered up courage in order for me to keep on growing. My parents told me that my traits coming from them is 50/50, 50% coming from my mother and 50% from my father. They also told me that 80% of intelligence is gained from the mother and since my mother is a validictorian they believe I can also get high grades, but I think I gained only 1% of intelligence from my mother. My uncle almost thought that I was a different person when we finally met after not meeting for a long time. As time passed by my body developed quickly and because of this my other families and friends that I have not met for a long time couldn't recognize me. As i grew so is my attitude like when I became an adolescent from childhood, I felt a bit more conscious about my body and myself to other people which lead to become shy and passive. But I have been trying to improve myself in order to be a better person.

Chapter 7

In this chapter I have learned that as we grow older our reproductive system becomes more aggressive and sex characteristics vary in gender. As a male, I have these male reproductive organs like the penis and the testis. My sexual hormones became more aggressive during my puberty stage. At first I was confused why am I having these weird feelings and asked my father what this is. My father said that it was normal for this to happen especially at my puberty stage and just let it happen. As I grew older my erogenous zones became more sensitive and would respond if being stimulated. There was one time when me and my father had a little conversation about orientation of my sexuality, he asked if I was a hetero or homo type of guy, I answered that I am a fully pledged hetero. As I became an adolescent I also wanted to experience having a relationship with a girl. I successfully experienced once but eventually we ended up our relationship due to some circumstances. I didn't let myself get distracted to it and just continued living the way I want to. My parents warned about premarital sex and that I could ruin someone's life or get sick and die early. While I was watching news on tv it said about gaining HIV/AIDS through premarital sex and it has been spreading fast over the years and it made me terrified and so I tried controlling my urges.

Chapter 8

What I have learned in this chapter is that our self is reflected based on our possessions and materials that we have. I have many kinds of materials that I possess some of those makes me happy like my gadgets, it helps me relieve from my stresses and forget the harsh life for awhile. And also of course my families and friends which helps me motivate on living in this world and experience a happy life. While there are some materials that I am dissatisfied with like my body which is a bit fatty and short in height. I sometimes do exercises to improve my body but I am a timid person so my exercises don't last long and I sometimes forget it. When I was a kid everytime me and my family went to a mall, I always ask my parents to buy toys before going home. Because of this I have a decent amount of toys. My family became worried about me because even though I have toys I wouldn't let it share to other kids. This led me to being a greedy person. And soon my friends got angry at me for not sharing my toys with them, then my parents forcefully took away my toys from me and that got me angry, then my parents thought me another life lesson, and so I finally shared my toys with my friends.

Chapter 9

The lessons that I have learned in this chapter is about the spirituality of one's life. When I was still 2 months old I was baptized as a Roman Catholic. Being baptized means the start of our journey of spiritual life and for me it began in an early age and it continues even now. As a part of catholic or christianity I should exercise my faith and I have been doing this for how many years like when I helped an old man and woman cross the main road, being a kind and responsible son to my parents, participating in catholic activities, praying to the church always, and many more. But like everyone else I also sometimes do misdeeds like swearing, bullying, cheating, etc. This is why we should always do acts of worship towards God. My parents thought me how to do the sign of the cross when I was little and that everytime we got or pass by the church I should always do the sign of the cross. Belief in spirituality is not just about religion but also about materials and places. Just like in our belief in my family that everytime we encounter a giant old tree my parents would say that a "capre" lives in that tree, or when its night time if we roam around the streets a "mananangal" would snatch us away and eat us. Filipinos tend to believe in spirits and will continue onto the next generation. When I was young I wondered and asked my parents that why do we need to be part of a religion when we can just do our ways and live what we want to be and then my parents replied to me that religion helps unite the people and guides them to the right path although I have learned the teachings I sometimes still do misdeeds but eventually I may be able to stop it and become a good samaritan.

Chapter 10

The lessons that I have learned in this chapter is that we should understand our role in society. Being the first born child of the family I can inherit my fathers position in his job but I refused because I want a different job aside my father's work. My father's job is about psychology but I think there is too much thinking process in that job which I don't like so instead I took Medtech. As the eldest brother of my siblings I have to be their role model to them and I can feel the responsibilities coming to me and the pressuring making things harder this is why I have been studying hard, my family is expecting me to graduate and I hope i will happen. I sometimes hangout with my friends from time to time to relieve stress from school. Me and my friends would sometimes play at the arcade, play sports like basketball and badminton, and play at the internet cafe at the same time this also improves my social status. In terms of religion, all of us has a role, my role is being a follower and as a follower I should keep on practicing their teachings like doing good deeds and just like I have shared at chapter 9 I always pray and help people. In order for people to recognize my political position they must first know my identity so fkr that to happen I have been socializing to people like during the introduction in first day of classes, I let them know my identity to recognize me.

Chapter 11

In this chapter I have learned that technologies or digitals can also create a reflection of our self. During this time and age digitals have been very influential and well-known throughout the world to the point that by just using these will reflect our self. As a millennial I have also been influenced by technology. I often use my phone to socialize with the netizens. Lately I mostly use my phone and neglected my daily outdoor routines. Its because I am heavily influenced by the internet. When I post something on the internet like sharing memes and someone reacts a laughing emoji, I feel like I have become a comedian, or when I share a post about God and get reacts like thumbs up or heart emojis, I feel like a faithful christian who has been spreading the word of God. But if theres a good side then there can also be a bad side of this. The first thing that I know is the cyberbullying, I have seen this a few times in the internet, netizens verbally abusing each other the worst was that a kid hung himself and it was live and made public. Another one was that our identity or accounts made in the internet can be easily hacked. I experienced it, my account being hacked. My friends were surprised and wondered why I posted something bad then I just explained to them what happened. So that is why we should be careful on what we do including the digital world to prevent on having more problems.

[pythonpie]

Sam the Bully (story)

The children at Eppler Elementary had always avoided Sam. Even as a kindergartener, he was over six feet tall, broad enough to fill a doorway, and so strong that he once crumpled a doorknob like a wad of paper! But when Marcus Sinclair befriended the large boy in the second grade, everyone began to truly fear him. If such a beastly looking person was friends with Marcus Sinclair, everyone knew better than to linger around him. Marcus was a grade A bully, a tyrant on the playground. Being a fifth grader, he was taller and stronger than most of his victims already, but he wanted real power over the entire playground. He had a few buddies that would manipulate and menace the younger kids, but he wanted to push his limits with other fifth graders, and even sixth graders! And if he played his cards right, perhaps the teachers… Sam was now eight years old and a staggering nine feet tall, reaching the height of the tall slide and swingset! He was a behemoth to behold amongst the other children. Upon befriending Sam, Marcus was hoping to find that such a brute would share in his urge to dominate and control. However, Sam was painfully shy, and preferred to be left alone. Through manipulation and deceit, Marcus and his friends convinced Sam that nobody would ever like him except them. They told him that the only way people would ever respect him is if he became their friend. Having never experienced friendship before, Sam soaked up every ounce of praise he could get from these boys and was happy to be a part of their group, despite the given harassment he endured from them. However, Sam was oblivious to the tasks Marcus was putting him up to. They twisted their words to sound like they were being victimized by other students. Geoffrey McConnell had a brand new action figure that Marcus really wanted, so Marcus went to Sam and told him that Geoffrey stole it and wouldn’t give it back. A stern expression and a good looming over him was enough for poor Geoff to give Marcus the toy for fear of being pummelled by a third grade gorilla. Similar episodes happened for a good year or so, with Marcus using Sam to threaten and menace others into giving into his will, all with Sam being innocent to what was actually happening. It wasn’t until Sam was used to exert physical violence that things felt wrong.

Sam was sitting by himself as usual, reading a book on pandas that his aunt has gotten him from her visit to the Philippines to visit other family. It was a cold, gray autumn day. Sam wore his favorite jacket and held the appearance of a giant pile of laundry with his clothing being so baggy and loose. He was contently reading under his tree when Marcus approached him, holding his arm in apparent pain.

“Sam! Ow…. Sam, some girl hit me!” he whined, putting on a convincing show for his giant lackey. Sam sat up in alarm and set his book aside, worried for his friend.

“Oh no! Here, I’ll go get someone-”

“No! No…you should go find that girl and have her apologize!” Marcus instructed. Sam nodded with a slight grunt. That sounded reasonable. Marcus continued his lie, leading Sam towards the monkey bars where a few third grade girls were making bracelets. They seemed too busy talking and making them to notice Marcus and Sam approaching.

“Who hit you?” Sam asked softly. Marcus hesitated. Who should he choose? He wanted to completely terrify whoever it was. Someone small and weak…

“That one! Yeah, she hit me!” Marcus exclaimed, pointing to the smallest girl. She was a grade older than Sam, but petite enough to look his age. Suddenly, all eyes were on her when Marcus made his bold accusation.

“I didn’t hit you! Go away, Marcus!” she yelled, standing up to face him defiantly. Emily may have been the smallest, but she was stubborn and refused to give Marcus any power over her. Marcus looked up at Sam, not feeling confident that he would believe him.

“She’s lying! Sam, it really hurts!” he pretended to whimper. It was then that Emily realized that Sam was acting as Marcus’s bodyguard and grew very scared. Her eyes grew wide as Sam furrowed his brow and lumbered forward. Her friends had fled backwards like startled birds, leaving Emily only a few feet from the enormous boy.

“Why did you hit my friend?” Sam asked sternly, not understanding how huge and scary he appeared to her.

“I…I didn’t… I didn’t h-hit him!” Emily stammered, attempting to slowly back away. Sam was extremely uncomfortable. He hated scaring people, but he had to defend Marcus! That’s what friends did for each other…

“Sam, it’ll be even if you hit her back!” Marcus suggested through fake winces of pain. Emily’s heart leapt to her throat and she found herself stricken with fear. She’s heard about how strong Sam was. How he could rip playground equipment up from the ground. How he could twist bicycles like pipe cleaners. One hit from this oaf could shatter her bones. Emily had never felt so powerless, watching Sam’s meaty fist coiling in on itself. Emily sank to the ground in tears, begging Sam not to hurt her. By now, a crowd of students had gathered and Sam could see the principal rushing out the doors with a couple of parents toward them. Inside his head, Sam was fighting himself. This wasn’t right. None of this was right. He should get a teacher. But the girl said she didn’t do it, and wouldn’t confess even when Sam loomed over her. No! He couldn’t do this! Without a word, Sam turned on his heels and ran away. He thundered to his spot under his tree, grabbed his book, and hurried away inside to go somewhere to be by himself, ashamed and disgusted with himself and his so called “friend”.

The next day was lonelier than usual for Sam. Marcus and crew where angry at him and refused to let him hang out with them, calling him stupid, a baby, and a traitor. Sam was very upset to lose his only friends, and sat quietly by himself when he went to recess. But while Marcus shunned him, Emily found herself to be curious about the giant. Why didn’t he hit her? Wasn’t he supposed to be a heartless bully like the kids he hung around? Emily spent the next week observing him from a distance, taking in every mannerism. He seemed content to be alone, and did nothing to suggest he was violent or mean. In fact, she watched him be very tender when a bird came to investigate him. Maybe he wasn’t a big bully like Marcus. Maybe he was nice? Emily was a very friendly and social person. This brutish boy had sparked her curiosity.

#g/t #giant tiny #sam #Emily #stories

[nancygduarteus]

The Coming Obsolescence of Animal Meat

SAN FRANCISCO—The thought I had when the $100 chicken nugget hit my expectant tongue was the one cartoon villains have when they entrap a foreign critter and roast him over a spit: It tastes like chicken.

That’s because it was chicken—albeit chicken that had never laid an egg, sprouted a feather, or been swept through an electrified-water bath for slaughter. This chicken began life as a primordial mush in a bioreactor whose dimensions and brand I’m not allowed to describe to you, for intellectual-property reasons. Before that, it was a collection of cells swirling calmly in a red-hued, nutrient-rich “media,” with a glass flask for an eggshell. The chicken is definitely real, and technically animal flesh, but it left the world as it entered it—a mass of meat, ready for human consumption, with no brain or wings or feet.

This meat was what most of the world calls “lab grown,” but what Just, the company that makes the nugget, and other Silicon Valley start-ups want me to call “cultured meat” or “cell-based” meat, or better yet, “clean meat.” The argument is that almost all the food we eat, at some point, crosses a laboratory, whether in the course of researching flavors or perfecting packaging. So it is not fair to single out this particular product as being associated with freaky science. (Yes, I raised the point that all meat is technically cell-based, too, and no, this did not persuade anyone at the start-ups.)

“Every big brewery has a little room in the back which is clean, and has people in white lab coats, and they’re not ‘lab-grown’ beer,” argues Michael Selden, the co-founder of a cell-based-fish start-up, Finless Foods. “But we’re for some reason lab-grown fish, even though it really is the exact same thing.”

Regardless of what you call it, Just and others say it’s coming. Just, which was called Hampton Creek until last year, started out making vegan “eggs” and mayonnaise, then revealed in 2017 that it had also been working on cultured meat. The nugget was served to me to demonstrate that Just isn’t vaporware, in Silicon Valley parlance, or in this case, vapor-poultry. There’s a there there, and it’s edible.

Just has been mired in turmoil in recent years, as board members resigned and former employees complained of shoddy science. (CEO Josh Tetrick calls the claims “blatantly wrong.”) Because of what the company said are regulatory hurdles, Just missed its goal of making a commercial sale of the chicken nuggets by the end of 2018. The Atlantic ran a somewhat unflattering profile of  Tetrick in 2017, implying that the company is more style than substance.

Tetrick seemed eager to prove this magazine wrong. He told me he tries not to get too down about bad press. A couple of years ago, “we were pretty much just selling mayonnaise,” he said. But now the plant-based Just Egg, which was practically a prototype when the Atlantic article came out, is in grocery stores, and as of this week, you can order it at Bareburger and the mid-Atlantic chain Silver Diner.

Cultured chicken is, too, now on the horizon—that is, if people are willing to eat it. And if Just can ever make enough of it to feed them.

Tetrick is hawklike and southern, which, when combined with his conservational tendencies, lends him young–Al Gore energy. He’s nostalgic for chicken wings even though he’s vegan and does not eat them. When I visited Just a few weeks ago, he showed me a photo of wads of meat and fat in a bowl. They are chunks of Japanese beef that the company hopes to grow into a cultured version by scraping off samples within 24 hours of the animal’s demise. This product wasn’t ready for me to taste yet, but it’s important, in Tetrick’s view, to be a little bit aspirational. “If my team cannot see where we want to go, they’re never gonna go there,” he said.

“There” is a world in which cultured meat is inexpensive and everyone eats it, even if those same people have never heard of tempeh. Living, breathing, belching livestock is responsible for 15 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, about on par with cars. But Tetrick thinks that for many Americans, flavor and price rule the shopping cart, not environmentalism.

“I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, so imagine one of my friends who doesn’t care about any of the shit that I’m doing now,” he said, while perched on a bar stool in front of Just’s test kitchen. This hypothetical friend goes to a Piggly Wiggly to buy burgers. Except—oh wait!—next to the animal-based patties wrapped in clear plastic, he sees a Just burger patty for less money. “That, to me, is what it’s gonna take in order to break the dam of a habit,” Tetrick said.

Animal meat is a habit that many young Americans are ready to abandon. A quarter of 25-to-34-year-old Americans now say they are vegans or vegetarians, prompting The Economist to proclaim 2019 “the year of the vegan.” Burger King this month introduced a Whopper made with a plant-based Impossible patty. True, chicken grown in a bioreactor like Just’s is still animal, not vegetable; but without the factory-farming component, some vegetarians and vegans might be inclined to love their chickens and eat them too.

I am the ideal customer for this, because I enjoy meat-like flavors but don’t appreciate the more carnal elements of meat. I’m sure the Wrangler-clad Texan Council will revoke my Texanship for saying this, but I have never had a rare steak. I’ve never eaten something and thought, I wish this would make more of a murdery mess on my plate. And yet, I have no interest in passing up barbecue or Tex-Mex when I visit home or in telling my first-generation immigrant parents that I no longer eat meat. I would like a protein-rich substance that reminds me of my childhood and injects a robust, savory essence into my salad. I do not, however, care if that substance was ever technically alive.

Because frankly, life for many mass-bred animals is no life at all. In her book Big Chicken, Maryn McKenna describes seeing 30,000 birds crammed into a hot shed, some with bellies rubbed raw and legs twisted underneath them. Or, behold this description of the chicken-slaughtering process in a 2017 New Yorker story about Case Farms in Canton, Ohio:

At the plant, the birds are dumped into a chute that leads to the “live hang” area, a room bathed in black light, which keeps the birds calm. Every two seconds, employees grab a chicken and hang it upside down by its feet. “This piece here is called a breast rub,” Chester Hawk, the plant’s burly maintenance manager, told me, pointing to a plastic pad. “It’s rubbing their breast, and it’s giving them a calming sensation. You can see the bird coming toward the stunner. He’s very calm.” The birds are stunned by an electric pulse before entering the “kill room,” where a razor slits their throats as they pass. The room looks like the set of a horror movie: blood splatters everywhere and pools on the floor. One worker, known as the “backup killer,” stands in the middle, poking chickens with his knife and slicing their necks if they’re still alive.

(In response to the New Yorker story, Case Farms issued a statement that read, in part, “Our employees and growers share a committed responsibility to ensure the well-being and humane handling of all animals in our care.”)

Just’s process, meanwhile, is much more clinical. The company takes live cells from biopsies that don’t require the death of the chicken. It then isolates the cells that are most likely to grow, and gently nurtures them in tank-like bioreactors in a soup of proteins, sugar, and vitamins.

Across the bay from Just, in Emeryville, California, Finless Foods is attempting to perform this same procedure on fish. It’s not as far along as Just: Finless Foods has only 11 employees, to Just’s 120. Its office looks even less like a traditional workplace, with mismatched desks that early employees picked up from a used-furniture store. Its largest bioreactor only holds a liter of fish meat, while Just expects that in the “near term,” it will be able to produce hundreds to thousands of liters of meat.

Finless Foods’ Michael Selden rattled off an assortment of environmental and social injustices that motivate the need for cultured meat, from microplastics in our oceans, to greenhouse gases from shipping, to what he calls “environmental imperialism”: “The way that we get our food is very much just sort of like, we take what we want,” he told me. “If you live in San Francisco and you eat bluefin tuna, that bluefin tuna almost definitely comes from the Philippines. And we basically have fishing fleets in the Philippines that are, like, destroying local ecosystems to feed us.��

Whether Americans are sufficiently distraught over the state of Filipino ecosystems to replace a dinnertime staple remains to be seen. But for now, these companies have bigger challenges to getting to market.

For Finless Foods, a major hurdle is texture. It aims to make cultured bluefin tuna, which in animal form glistens like raspberry jam and springs back like a wet sponge. “I will not say we’ve fully solved that problem, because I’d be totally lying,” Selden said. The few journalists who have tasted the product were served a carp croquette that one reporter described as having “a pleasant aftertaste of the sea, though not fish as such.” Selden is looking into 3-D printing as a potential path to creating a sashimi-like simulacrum.

Similarly, when I asked Tetrick when his nuggets would actually be on sale, he glanced at Andrew Noyes, Just’s PR guy. “I know Andrew loves when I give timelines,” he said coyly. “I drive him crazy. It’s more likely than not … between now and the end of the year that we’re selling outside of the United States.”

Before that happens, the bioreactors needs to get larger, and there have to be many, many more of them, without sacrificing quality. Tetrick estimated that there would need to be 25 to 100 culturing facilities just to fulfill America’s demand for meat. These companies are also searching for a way to reduce the cost of the “media”—the vitamin slush the cells incubate in—potentially by reusing it.

Finally, the Just employees told me, they need the U.S. government to figure out a way to regulate the product, so people can rest assured that it’s not going to make them ill.

Al Almanza, the former acting deputy undersecretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, agrees that there aren’t enough data yet for food inspectors to know what’s normal or abnormal—and thus potentially unsafe—in a cultured-chicken plant. But he also says that regulators would probably expedite approval for Just if the company reached a scale at which it could sell its cultured meat, which it hasn’t yet. (The USDA did not return a request for comment.) And while Just argues that its process is better, from a food-safety standpoint, than animal slaughter, we only have the company’s word to go on at this point.

“Unless you have a perfectly sterile facility, with a cleanroom, and the bioreactors are being operated by robots, you’re at risk of some kind of contamination,” says Ben Wurgaft, a writer and historian who’s writing a book about laboratory-grown meat.

The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association has argued that only beef that’s been raised and slaughtered should be labeled “beef.” Just fervently hopes that when labeling rules do come down, it will be allowed to call its product “meat,” rather than “lab-grown meat,” for the good of public relations, if not fairness. “Back in Alabama, where all my old friends drive pickup trucks, imagine if Tesla put out a really fast, really affordable pickup truck, but Tesla couldn’t call it a pickup truck,” Tetrick said. “On the back, they had to say, like, ‘Electric mobility transport wheeler,’ or some godforsaken name. My friends do not want to drive that, because it fucks with their identity, unfortunately.”

On my visit to Just’s office, I asked Josh Hyman, the company’s chief of staff for research and development, whether the concept of cultured meat ever weirds anyone out.

“Yeah! I think it does,” he said as he prepared to fry up my $100 nugget from its frozen state. “Till you explain it.”

This is what Tetrick calls the “cultural component,” or letting “the consumer know this is a positive thing and they should eat it for dinner.”

As I chewed my nugget, I realized that though its taste asymptotically approached chicken, it was not, alas, chicken. It was crunchy, thanks to the fried, breaded coating; it was flavorful, thanks to the salt and spices inside; and its innards were creamy, which frankly is an improvement on the graininess of most processed nuggets. But it lacked the gamey animal kick that screams “chicken.”

We like meat to taste a certain way, but I realized that if I had never before had chicken, I might prefer this. ​Why is gaminess a virtue, anyway? Some people relish traditions such as hunting and fishing and the more visceral experiences with meat they provide. But if Just and similar companies are successful, future generations might only know chicken to be a pleasant, meat-esque paste, with no bones and skins to speak of. In fact, our entire notion of animal products might become unhinged from animals. The idea that human gustatory pleasure necessarily involves the inhumane farming of other creatures might come to be seen as outdated and gauche. A “real” chicken sandwich might be viewed, in some quarters, as barbarous as poaching. That is, if the bioreactor thing gets worked out.

Several Just employees have culinary backgrounds, and Hyman presided in front of the tasting table like a proud chef. There was heating up and cooling down of a pot of oil to reach the perfect temperature for my nugget. Noyes, who lived in D.C. before moving out West, shifted warily and remarked a few times that we were running “behind schedule.”

After serving me the nugget, Hyman scrambled up a custard-colored mung-bean egg substitute—the Just Egg, which comes in a squeeze bottle. It was fine; I don’t love scrambled eggs. Then he fed me a dairy-free rum-raisin ice cream that was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had.

Finally, he served up a breakfast sandwich made with a firm, plant-based “egg” patty. The patty had a pleasing earthiness, offset perfectly by a glop of spicy, stringy pimento cheese. Even at 3 p.m., after a full lunch, it was objectively tasty. If I had been hungover, it would have been heaven.

“Is this real cheese?” I asked.

“No,” Hyman said.

“What is it?” I asked.

He smiled. “We’re not allowed to say.”

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/04/just-finless-foods-lab-grown-meat/587227/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

The Coming Obsolescence of Animal Meat

SAN FRANCISCO—The thought I had when the $100 chicken nugget hit my expectant tongue was the one cartoon villains have when they entrap a foreign critter and roast him over a spit: It tastes like chicken.

That’s because it was chicken—albeit chicken that had never laid an egg, sprouted a feather, or been swept through an electrified-water bath for slaughter. This chicken began life as a primordial mush in a bioreactor whose dimensions and brand I’m not allowed to describe to you, for intellectual-property reasons. Before that, it was a collection of cells swirling calmly in a red-hued, nutrient-rich “media,” with a glass flask for an eggshell. The chicken is definitely real, and technically animal flesh, but it left the world as it entered it—a mass of meat, ready for human consumption, with no brain or wings or feet.

This meat was what most of the world calls “lab grown,” but what Just, the company that makes the nugget, and other Silicon Valley start-ups want me to call “cultured meat” or “cell-based” meat, or better yet, “clean meat.” The argument is that almost all the food we eat, at some point, crosses a laboratory, whether in the course of researching flavors or perfecting packaging. So it is not fair to single out this particular product as being associated with freaky science. (Yes, I raised the point that all meat is technically cell-based, too, and no, this did not persuade anyone at the start-ups.)

“Every big brewery has a little room in the back which is clean, and has people in white lab coats, and they’re not ‘lab-grown’ beer,” argues Michael Selden, the co-founder of a cell-based-fish start-up, Finless Foods. “But we’re for some reason lab-grown fish, even though it really is the exact same thing.”

Regardless of what you call it, Just and others say it’s coming. Just, which was called Hampton Creek until last year, started out making vegan “eggs” and mayonnaise, then revealed in 2017 that it had also been working on cultured meat. The nugget was served to me to demonstrate that Just isn’t vaporware, in Silicon Valley parlance, or in this case, vapor-poultry. There’s a there there, and it’s edible.

Just has been mired in turmoil in recent years, as board members resigned and former employees complained of shoddy science. (CEO Josh Tetrick calls the claims “blatantly wrong.”) Because of what the company said are regulatory hurdles, Just missed its goal of making a commercial sale of the chicken nuggets by the end of 2018. The Atlantic ran a somewhat unflattering profile of  Tetrick in 2017, implying that the company is more style than substance.

Tetrick seemed eager to prove this magazine wrong. He told me he tries not to get too down about bad press. A couple of years ago, “we were pretty much just selling mayonnaise,” he said. But now the plant-based Just Egg, which was practically a prototype when the Atlantic article came out, is in grocery stores, and as of this week, you can order it at Bareburger and the mid-Atlantic chain Silver Diner.

Cultured chicken is, too, now on the horizon—that is, if people are willing to eat it. And if Just can ever make enough of it to feed them.

Tetrick is hawklike and southern, which, when combined with his conservational tendencies, lends him young–Al Gore energy. He’s nostalgic for chicken wings even though he’s vegan and does not eat them. When I visited Just a few weeks ago, he showed me a photo of wads of meat and fat in a bowl. They are chunks of Japanese beef that the company hopes to grow into a cultured version by scraping off samples within 24 hours of the animal’s demise. This product wasn’t ready for me to taste yet, but it’s important, in Tetrick’s view, to be a little bit aspirational. “If my team cannot see where we want to go, they’re never gonna go there,” he said.

“There” is a world in which cultured meat is inexpensive and everyone eats it, even if those same people have never heard of tempeh. Living, breathing, belching livestock is responsible for 15 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, about on par with cars. But Tetrick thinks that for many Americans, flavor and price rule the shopping cart, not environmentalism.

“I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, so imagine one of my friends who doesn’t care about any of the shit that I’m doing now,” he said, while perched on a bar stool in front of Just’s test kitchen. This hypothetical friend goes to a Piggly Wiggly to buy burgers. Except—oh wait!—next to the animal-based patties wrapped in clear plastic, he sees a Just burger patty for less money. “That, to me, is what it’s gonna take in order to break the dam of a habit,” Tetrick said.

Animal meat is a habit that many young Americans are ready to abandon. A quarter of 25-to-34-year-old Americans now say they are vegans or vegetarians, prompting The Economist to proclaim 2019 “the year of the vegan.” Burger King this month introduced a Whopper made with a plant-based Impossible patty. True, chicken grown in a bioreactor like Just’s is still animal, not vegetable; but without the factory-farming component, some vegetarians and vegans might be inclined to love their chickens and eat them too.

I am the ideal customer for this, because I enjoy meat-like flavors but don’t appreciate the more carnal elements of meat. I’m sure the Wrangler-clad Texan Council will revoke my Texanship for saying this, but I have never had a rare steak. I’ve never eaten something and thought, I wish this would make more of a murdery mess on my plate. And yet, I have no interest in passing up barbecue or Tex-Mex when I visit home or in telling my first-generation immigrant parents that I no longer eat meat. I would like a protein-rich substance that reminds me of my childhood and injects a robust, savory essence into my salad. I do not, however, care if that substance was ever technically alive.

Because frankly, life for many mass-bred animals is no life at all. In her book Big Chicken, Maryn McKenna describes seeing 30,000 birds crammed into a hot shed, some with bellies rubbed raw and legs twisted underneath them. Or, behold this description of the chicken-slaughtering process in a 2017 New Yorker story about Case Farms in Canton, Ohio:

At the plant, the birds are dumped into a chute that leads to the “live hang” area, a room bathed in black light, which keeps the birds calm. Every two seconds, employees grab a chicken and hang it upside down by its feet. “This piece here is called a breast rub,” Chester Hawk, the plant’s burly maintenance manager, told me, pointing to a plastic pad. “It’s rubbing their breast, and it’s giving them a calming sensation. You can see the bird coming toward the stunner. He’s very calm.” The birds are stunned by an electric pulse before entering the “kill room,” where a razor slits their throats as they pass. The room looks like the set of a horror movie: blood splatters everywhere and pools on the floor. One worker, known as the “backup killer,” stands in the middle, poking chickens with his knife and slicing their necks if they’re still alive.

(In response to the New Yorker story, Case Farms issued a statement that read, in part, “Our employees and growers share a committed responsibility to ensure the well-being and humane handling of all animals in our care.”)

Just’s process, meanwhile, is much more clinical. The company takes live cells from biopsies that don’t require the death of the chicken. It then isolates the cells that are most likely to grow, and gently nurtures them in tank-like bioreactors in a soup of proteins, sugar, and vitamins.

Across the bay from Just, in Emeryville, California, Finless Foods is attempting to perform this same procedure on fish. It’s not as far along as Just: Finless Foods has only 11 employees, to Just’s 120. Its office looks even less like a traditional workplace, with mismatched desks that early employees picked up from a used-furniture store. Its largest bioreactor only holds a liter of fish meat, while Just expects that in the “near term,” it will be able to produce hundreds to thousands of liters of meat.

Finless Foods’ Michael Selden rattled off an assortment of environmental and social injustices that motivate the need for cultured meat, from microplastics in our oceans, to greenhouse gases from shipping, to what he calls “environmental imperialism”: “The way that we get our food is very much just sort of like, we take what we want,” he told me. “If you live in San Francisco and you eat bluefin tuna, that bluefin tuna almost definitely comes from the Philippines. And we basically have fishing fleets in the Philippines that are, like, destroying local ecosystems to feed us.”

Whether Americans are sufficiently distraught over the state of Filipino ecosystems to replace a dinnertime staple remains to be seen. But for now, these companies have bigger challenges to getting to market.

For Finless Foods, a major hurdle is texture. It aims to make cultured bluefin tuna, which in animal form glistens like raspberry jam and springs back like a wet sponge. “I will not say we’ve fully solved that problem, because I’d be totally lying,” Selden said. The few journalists who have tasted the product were served a carp croquette that one reporter described as having “a pleasant aftertaste of the sea, though not fish as such.” Selden is looking into 3-D printing as a potential path to creating a sashimi-like simulacrum.

Similarly, when I asked Tetrick when his nuggets would actually be on sale, he glanced at Andrew Noyes, Just’s PR guy. “I know Andrew loves when I give timelines,” he said coyly. “I drive him crazy. It’s more likely than not … between now and the end of the year that we’re selling outside of the United States.”

Before that happens, the bioreactors needs to get larger, and there have to be many, many more of them, without sacrificing quality. Tetrick estimated that there would need to be 25 to 100 culturing facilities just to fulfill America’s demand for meat. These companies are also searching for a way to reduce the cost of the “media”—the vitamin slush the cells incubate in—potentially by reusing it.

Finally, the Just employees told me, they need the U.S. government to figure out a way to regulate the product, so people can rest assured that it’s not going to make them ill.

Al Almanza, the former acting deputy undersecretary for food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, agrees that there aren’t enough data yet for food inspectors to know what’s normal or abnormal—and thus potentially unsafe—in a cultured-chicken plant. But he also says that regulators would probably expedite approval for Just if the company reached a scale at which it could sell its cultured meat, which it hasn’t yet. (The USDA did not return a request for comment.) And while Just argues that its process is better, from a food-safety standpoint, than animal slaughter, we only have the company’s word to go on at this point.

“Unless you have a perfectly sterile facility, with a cleanroom, and the bioreactors are being operated by robots, you’re at risk of some kind of contamination,” says Ben Wurgaft, a writer and historian who’s writing a book about laboratory-grown meat.

The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association has argued that only beef that’s been raised and slaughtered should be labeled “beef.” Just fervently hopes that when labeling rules do come down, it will be allowed to call its product “meat,” rather than “lab-grown meat,” for the good of public relations, if not fairness. “Back in Alabama, where all my old friends drive pickup trucks, imagine if Tesla put out a really fast, really affordable pickup truck, but Tesla couldn’t call it a pickup truck,” Tetrick said. “On the back, they had to say, like, ‘Electric mobility transport wheeler,’ or some godforsaken name. My friends do not want to drive that, because it fucks with their identity, unfortunately.”

On my visit to Just’s office, I asked Josh Hyman, the company’s chief of staff for research and development, whether the concept of cultured meat ever weirds anyone out.

“Yeah! I think it does,” he said as he prepared to fry up my $100 nugget from its frozen state. “Till you explain it.”

This is what Tetrick calls the “cultural component,” or letting “the consumer know this is a positive thing and they should eat it for dinner.”

As I chewed my nugget, I realized that though its taste asymptotically approached chicken, it was not, alas, chicken. It was crunchy, thanks to the fried, breaded coating; it was flavorful, thanks to the salt and spices inside; and its innards were creamy, which frankly is an improvement on the graininess of most processed nuggets. But it lacked the gamey animal kick that screams “chicken.”

We like meat to taste a certain way, but I realized that if I had never before had chicken, I might prefer this. ​Why is gaminess a virtue, anyway? Some people relish traditions such as hunting and fishing and the more visceral experiences with meat they provide. But if Just and similar companies are successful, future generations might only know chicken to be a pleasant, meat-esque paste, with no bones and skins to speak of. In fact, our entire notion of animal products might become unhinged from animals. The idea that human gustatory pleasure necessarily involves the inhumane farming of other creatures might come to be seen as outdated and gauche. A “real” chicken sandwich might be viewed, in some quarters, as barbarous as poaching. That is, if the bioreactor thing gets worked out.

Several Just employees have culinary backgrounds, and Hyman presided in front of the tasting table like a proud chef. There was heating up and cooling down of a pot of oil to reach the perfect temperature for my nugget. Noyes, who lived in D.C. before moving out West, shifted warily and remarked a few times that we were running “behind schedule.”

After serving me the nugget, Hyman scrambled up a custard-colored mung-bean egg substitute—the Just Egg, which comes in a squeeze bottle. It was fine; I don’t love scrambled eggs. Then he fed me a dairy-free rum-raisin ice cream that was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had.

Finally, he served up a breakfast sandwich made with a firm, plant-based “egg” patty. The patty had a pleasing earthiness, offset perfectly by a glop of spicy, stringy pimento cheese. Even at 3 p.m., after a full lunch, it was objectively tasty. If I had been hungover, it would have been heaven.

“Is this real cheese?” I asked.

“No,” Hyman said.

“What is it?” I asked.

He smiled. “We’re not allowed to say.”

Article source here:The Atlantic