[D/S]ALITA

Re-Read: Gun Dealers’ Daughter by Gina Apostol, read with Elites and Ilustrados in Philippine Culture by Caroline Hau

“I am a coward. I do not have the imagination to possess affection. To be honest, I have never been able to envision society as a creature with genuine warmth or pumping heart.”

On the romanticism of the colonization of the Philippines, brought forth by Magellan’s arrival:

“A charming romance. Fancy dress-up for the evils that occurred in the colonizer’s name.”

Reeling, still, from the return of another Marcos to Malacañang, I decided to re-read Apostol. I read it once before, in a fugue state, too caught up in the language and the imagery of a pretty patient boarded up in New York (like the wife in the conjugal dictatorship) to really linger. I first read it as a sophomore in the same university as Sol and Jed and Soli, too like the narrator to surface something genuine. It didn’t take.

Now, though. With Hau in the margins and my own pencil marks, I am gutted. The amnesiac telling the same story, over and over, is told to forget it to make room for new memories. Is told to tell stories in the present tense. Everyone else, her doctor says, has already forgotten. How cruel. “It’s horrible,” the artist says, “how we forget the past, just like that—we forget how war has killed the best of us.”

Apostol is a master story-teller, that rare Twitter invention: someone who can write write. Her language repeats because it’s what the tongue remembers. It cuts like an accusation. It is accented with the inflections of this burgis girl who cannot pay attention during EDs in huts for all the roaches there, who retches at the funeral of those killed in protests. Apostol writes pointedly, “You are who survived.” Caroline Hau, academic-historian, herself a writer, rephrases it more plainly: the non-elite is the victim of the elite, killed off by two rich kids hatching an assassination plot. So what now?

It’s terrifying and comforting both that this is a story familiar in the now. Apostol tells it with grace.

“What about you? Did you love him or hate him?”

“Usually both at once.”

Okay so clearly I've underestimated y'all

So how about we make this more interesting?

Rituals at day’s end (#RitualsWIP)

a wip introduction

SUMMARY;

With the monarchy overthrown, the new administration has turned on the magical, believing them to have hastened the deadly disease that has threatened to rip the nation apart for centuries. They are not entirely wrong. Mayumi Garcia, a healer-turned-defector, is being summoned back, but she’s not sure she believes in the Viejo guardia anymore. She’s not sure she believes in anything.

FEATURING;

A renegade healer and the consummate golden boy sent after her

HERO CORRUPTION featuring a prophesied Chosen One

An overthrown monarchy/ police state vs. the people

(Fictionalized) Brown Asian rivals to lovers

CHARACTERS;

Mayumi Garcia; Trained as a healer by the Viejo guardia, Mayumi grows disillusioned with the sect’s uncaring attitude towards its people, sacrificing their wellness at the altar of an idealized nation-state. She defects from the Guard and lives as an outlaw medic in the Old Metro. When Bas comes for her, she is left with no choice but to return, or risk death at the hands of the new administration.

Basilio Lucero; Bas comes from a long line of Guard Leaders, groomed to inherit leadership. “A consummate golden boy,” he holds to their principles despite his own misgivings, believing their initial purpose to supersede its corruption. But he bears witness to his people edging closer to a point of no return, and so seeks Mayumi’s help.

Javier Dela Cruz; The prophesied chosen one, he is said to have the power to bring healing to the ruptured nation. His is a light heart, preserved to be pure within the walls of the Fortaleza. The recent upheaval of an overturned monarchy changes things, and the corruption of a hero is not unheard of. Healing is also broken bones.

This is such an interesting question!

For those who aren't familiar, Legion (2010) is a weird religious horror movie where God wearies of humanity's sinfulness and decides to send his angels to wipe us out. The only hope of salvation is the unborn child of an unmarried waitress. (The Jesus parallels are pointed and unambiguous.) The film itself is 75% standard horror fare---aided by The Angel Michael/Paul Bettany, the people in the diner at the edge of the desert hunker down and defend themselves against ""angels"" (interchangeable with demons or zombies) sent to kill them, until Jesus 2.0 can be born and taken to safety.

But, when this is one of the movies you watch on late night television, in the flush of extremely strong feelings about God and faith....it leaves a mark.

— magdalena lying there