In Philippine Mythology, Diwata Are Forest Spirits, Protecting The Vast Rainforests Of The Archipelago.

Jujutsu kaisen fanfic centred around the Philippines

hindi na maliligaw - 1st chapter posted! 

Summary:

Childhood friends, Megumi, Nobara and Yuji, reunite in the Philippines years after Yuji disappears from their lives.

OR

Nanami and Haibara retire to the Philippines. Gojo and Geto are insistent on bringing their kids along to visit them.

If the current Eren answered (?

Sidapa headcanons

PIGILAN NINYO AKO sorry fam

(my take on Sidapa, the god of Death who resides on Mt. Madia-as)

Any living thing (sans those of the realm of the divine (e.g. gods, spirits, creatures of magic) and certain plants bc there are spirits living in them) withers when they touch him.

It’s why he’s so cautious and jittery all the time especially when surrounded by that much life.

The mountain’s inhabitants, the ones who know him for his true nature are super kind to him.

They talk to him. They keep a good distance from him (normally a foot away, close enough to be intimate but far enough to be safe) so he can be comfortable. The only ones capable of touching him are the spirits, but even then, it is a rule that he has to be the one to touch them first. They can’t touch him out of no where or else.

The animals love him. They just do. He’s so sweet to them, even if he can’t touch them.

Awww, you hungry? Alright, lemme ask some of the diwatas to give you some fruits.

The crocodiles are so restless today, I wonder– Oh! There’s a dead tree in the way of the river I’m so sorry, ok let me move it aside for you.

You’re about to give birth! How wonderful! … D-Do you m-mind if I’m there? When it happens? Or after? I’d love to meet your new born– Really? Oh, thank you.

Dork.

He’s big and broody and broad shouldered but he tries so hard not to touch anything look at this small precious child.

He sleeps all curled up too, wrapped in his own arms because he’s too afraid that at night he might reach out to something and make it wither accidentally.

For a god of Death he revels way too much in life. He’s so amazed by everything. By flowers and by silver fishes in the stream. By the trees and the sweet smell of fruits in the summer. By the ground and the little insects crawling on it.

He adores everything, but he can never be part of anything. Poor baby child.

Sometimes, children come into the mountain and get lost.

He always makes sure that they find their way home. And if he knows the child came into the mountain bc they were running away from something, he looks for a better home for them.

Just think of a little tribe maybe sa foot of the mountain just going “Quit dumping kids on us!”

… one time, somebody abandoned their baby up there.

When he found out Sidapa lay beside it, a foot away, out of reach, with his hands clenched into light fists held against his chest.

The child didn’t know Sidapa. But it did giggle a lot when Sidapa spoke gently to it, trying to give it some moments of happiness before the inevitable.

When it did die he cried. Gave the poor thing a proper burial.

He was inconsolable for days after that.

The spirits baby him. They always want him to smile. When he’s feeling down, they make flowers bloom and the animals will follow their lead, prancing about and showing him the things they find most beautiful.

Sometimes, they even give him portions of their fruits, or maybe shiny things they find around the forest floor.

He always eats the fruits. And the gifts? He either fashions into jewelry or he keeps in a special place.

When he fell in love with the moons he was really shy in asking the spirits and the mermaids to help “woo” them.

They teased him about it, but they couldn’t keep it up for too long because teasing Sidapa is cruel and uncalled for.

So they helped him woo them.

Except really, it wasn’t wooing. He just wanted the moons to be happy. Because the flowers and the siren songs made him happy so he wanted the moons to see them and be happy too.

… When Bulan came down after the whole fiasco with Bakunawa Sidapa was both giddy and nervous.

Bulan didn’t know about the one foot away rule. Plus, he’s kinda touchy, seeing as he had siblings who loved to hug so the first time he touched Sidapa–

which he did because he caught Sidapa smiling at a spirit busy blooming the flowers around him and he didn’t notice Bulan creeping lightly behind him until the boy moon touched his shoulder

– Sidapa jumped and began to shake, curling into himself. Oh, did the spirits have a field day after that.

It took awhile. Lol, some of them took Bulan aside and scolded him explained, the others tried to calm Sidapa down with Siren songs and the sweet scents of all the flowers and fruits on the mountain.

He calmed down eventually.

That night though, he slept alone, curled up into himself again, replaying in his mind again and again the moment when Bulan touched his shoulder.

Dork.

They figure out the touching thing eventually. Of course they do. 

Sidapa is nothing but accommodating (you have to be, especially when human souls have questions they want answered or last requests they want fulfilled). He understands that Bulan likes to touch. That Sidapa lived in a world that was filled with love but devoid of touch. That Bulan came from a place rich with warmth and comfort.

Bulan taught him, (with his permission of course and very gently), how to receive touch. How to react to it.

Sidapa taught Bulan to see the beauty around him, how sometimes, sitting back and allowing yourself to overwhelmed by how happy everything makes you feel is the best thing about living.

LIFE AFTER DEATH | beliefs of the ancient tagalogs . . .

Back in the pre-colonial period, Tagalogs already believed in the final judgement of men— that is, the punishing of the evil and the rewarding of the good. The souls of good men were said to be taken to Maca, a village where they enjoyed eternal peace and happiness; a paradise. 

However, those who deserved punishment were brought to Kasanaan, the village of grief and affliction where they were tortured forever. The souls that ended up in Kasanaan were kept by the leader of the ancient hell, Sitan.

It is said that all the wicked went to that place, and there dwelt the demons, Sitan and his four agents, who embodied evil and punishment. 

Due to the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, Roman Catholicism was forcefully introduced to the Tagalog. In Roman Catholicism, a good person is sent to Heaven while a bad person is sent to Hell to burn in scalding oil.

Source: In outline of Philippine Mythology by F. Landa Jocano; Juan de Plasencia’s in 1589 “Relation of the Worship of the Tagalogs, Their Gods, and Their Burials and Superstitions”

Character Motivations

I tried to go for more external, concrete motivations in this list, but motivations can also be abstract, such as to become brave. If you’re struggling with writer’s block, try combining some of these to see what you come up with.

Your protagonist might desire:

* To rescue/protect a person

* To end a war/conflict

* To find a hidden treasure/location

* To defeat their nemesis

* To solve a mystery

* To fix a dystopian society/expose a dark truth about society

* To break free from captivity

* To return home

* To outwit the devil/make a deal with the devil (or another powerful force)

* To become wealthy/famous/powerful/immortal

Keep reading

Been looking into filipino mythology again cause I’m working on ocs and I thought I’d share some moon deities

land spirits

in cities and towns, you won’t really have to worry about this but it’s important to be careful and respectful of the land you plan to cross, especially if it’s your first time visiting and especially if it’s in a forest. land spirits like duwende live in trees, rocks, dirt mounds, caves, and pretty much everywhere else. duwende can be playful but will get angry if you destroy/disrespect their home, so always ask permission before you pass through and don’t spit, urinate, or even run around ((be really careful not to crush mounds))

Writing advice #?: Have your characters wash the dishes while they talk.

This is one of my favorite tricks, picked up from E.M. Forester and filtered through my own domestic-homebody lens.  Forester says that you should never ever tell us how a character feels; instead, show us what those emotions are doing to a character’s posture and tone and expression.  This makes “I felt sadness” into “my shoulders hunched and I sighed heavily, staring at the ground as my eyes filled with tears.”  Those emotions-as-motions are called objective correlatives.  Honestly, fic writers have gotten the memo on objective correlatives, but sometimes struggle with how to use them.

Objective correlatives can quickly become a) repetitive or b) melodramatic.  On the repetitive end, long scenes of dialogue can quickly turn into “he sighed” and “she nodded” so many times that he starts to feel like a window fan and she like a bobblehead.  On the melodramatic end, a debate about where to eat dinner can start to feel like an episode of Jerry Springer because “he shrieked” while “she clenched her fists” and they both “ground their teeth.”  If you leave the objective correlatives out entirely, then you have what’s known as “floating” dialogue — we get the words themselves but no idea how they’re being said, and feel completely disconnected from the scene.  If you try to get meaning across by telling us the characters’ thoughts instead, this quickly drifts into purple prose.

Instead, have them wash the dishes while they talk.

To be clear: it doesn’t have to be dishes.  They could be folding laundry or sweeping the floor or cooking a meal or making a bed or changing a lightbulb.  The point is to engage your characters in some meaningless, everyday household task that does not directly relate to the subject of the conversation.

This trick gives you a whole wealth of objective correlatives.  If your character is angry, then the way they scrub a bowl will be very different from how they’ll be scrubbing while happy.  If your character is taking a moment to think, then they might splash suds around for a few seconds.  A character who is not that invested in the conversation will be looking at the sink not paying much attention.  A character moderately invested will be looking at the speaker while continuing to scrub a pot.  If the character is suddenly very invested in the conversation, you can convey this by having them set the pot down entirely and give their full attention to the speaker.

A demonstration:

1

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella continued dropping forks into the dishwasher.

2

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella paused midway through slotting a fork into the dishwasher.  “What?”

3

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella laughed, not looking up from where she was arranging forks in the dishwasher.  “What?”

4

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

The forks slipped out of Drizella’s hand and clattered onto the floor of the dishwasher.  “What?”

5

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella shoved several forks into the dishwasher with unnecessary force, not seeming to notice when several bounced back out of the silverware rack.

See how cheaply and easily we can get across Drizella’s five different emotions about Anastasia leaving, all by telling the reader how she’s doing the dishes?  And all the while no heads were nodded, no teeth were clenched.

The reason I recommend having it be one of these boring domestic chores instead of, say, scaling a building or picking a lock, is that chores add a sense of realism and are low-stakes enough not to be distracting.  If you add a concurrent task that’s high-stakes, then potentially your readers are going to be so focused on the question of whether your characters will pick the lock in time that they don’t catch the dialogue.  But no one’s going to be on the edge of their seat wondering whether Drizella’s going to have enough clean forks for tomorrow.

And chores are a cheap-n-easy way to add a lot of realism to your story.  So much of the appeal of contemporary superhero stories comes from Spider-Man having to wash his costume in a Queens laundromat or Green Arrow cheating at darts, because those details are fun and interesting and make a story feel “real.”  Actually ask the question of what dishes or clothing or furniture your character owns and how often that stuff gets washed.  That’s how you avoid reality-breaking continuity errors like stating in Chapter 3 that all of your character’s worldly possessions fit in a single backpack and in Chapter 7 having your character find a pair of pants he forgot he owns.  You don’t have to tell the reader what dishes your character owns (please don’t; it’s already bad enough when Tolkien does it) but you should ideally know for yourself.

Anyway: objective correlatives are your friends.  They get emotion across, but for low-energy scenes can become repetitive and for high-energy scenes can become melodramatic.  The solution is to give your characters something relatively mundane to do while the conversation is going on, and domestic chores are not a bad starting place.

Lately I’ve been drawing Sano and Anina how they might appear in my novel, which means they tend to look simple – and sometimes even a little ragged – because they were pretty much broke throughout 90% of the novel XD. I wanted to draw them in Kataman colours but with a little more flare than usual. So, if they were a little more well off, they would probably wear something more like this.

And is it just me, or does Sano look younger every time I draw him XD? He really is canonically 16. He’s just… under-nourished and super-sheltered (and also super optimistic) which makes him look really young.

My next piece is an AU, and I’m really excited to get working on it!

I rendered some characters of the Philippine Mythopoeia book in the style of Renaissance grotesque, with creeping flora, weird fauna, monsters, and deities.