makahiya

old oc the lesbians wouldn’t pick the dress I wanted and went for the nightgown with a slit

gay people smh /j

yum

She's hatching.... 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

research is gonna come out that plants have consciousness and everyone's gonna lose their shit. this coincides with a stellar broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors and everyone's gonna ask the cast about it the point it becomes tiring. this is all swiftly forgotten when they add a less-than-stellar song where Audrey 2 ponders the nature of humanity in a solo ballad. i forgot where i was going with this. the song was dropped only 2 days after it was written in

i finally did it... i finished the OC associations game that @bladeofavernus tagged me in 😭

i'm so late to doing this so anyone who wants to do this, consider yourself tagged!!!

i'll be doing this one with my durge ajax, half-elf vengeance paladin! (this made me realize i don't have a lot of screenshots or gifs of him solo LMAO)

Animal: big dogs… woof... idk what breed specifically, i'm open to suggestions ;_;

Colors: pink and blue

Songs: Laughing with a Mouth of Blood by St. Vincent, Bird Song by Florence + the Machine, WTF? by OK Go, Human by Daughter

Number: multiples of 4

Plants: bougainvillea, hawthorn, touch-me-not (makahiya)

Smells: metallic scents, sterile alcohol, the scent of good food cooking, flowers

Gemstone: garnet, rose quartz

Time of day: midnight to dawn

Season: autumn

Places: open wide fields, mountains, the underdark

Food: he loves a good hearty beef stew (and it's also his go-to recipe), anything savoury

Drinks: distilled liquor, orange juice

Element: water

Seasonings: oregano, cinnamon, nutmeg

Sky: sunset when the sky turns pink and gold

Weather: a cool and sunny day

Magical power: divine smite, lay on hands

Weapons: SWOOOOOOORDS BABYYYYYY (sometimes with a shield)

Candy: sour candies

Method of long distance travel: walking (everywhere is walking distance to him)

Art style: thick lines and big shapes

Fear: claustrophobia

Mythological creature: werewolves, gryphons, dragons

Piece of stationery: tape

Three emojis: ⚔️💥🌺

Celestial body: a comet hurtling across the sky

seasian smoochuals have u guys seen this before. americans selling makahiya (the plant that closes its leaves/mimosa pudica) for 8 FUCKING DOLLARS FOR THIS SMALL PIECE OF SHIT

Makahiya Boi 2023 Reactive dye, mercerized combed cotton broadcloth, sublimation dye, mercerized cotton yarn, fiberfill, cotton piping cord, aluminum wire, and bamboo 59″ x 45″ x 35″

awakening

soft, i turn around to look at you after catching my breath and think about how nice this is: laying next to you, so close, unsleeping in this comfortable silence of smiles

when you complain about the cold, i huddle closer (i fear you can hear my heart but then i press my hand to your chest and feel yours race— i see, the both of us are conducting electricity)

your fingers come to dance on my back knowingly and i fold into myself like a makahiya plant (in english, a “touch-me-not”, but that’s not truthful in this moment), my voice shrinking along

the sound of your quiet laugh tickles my ear; i lift my gaze to find yours waiting and you kiss me, petal-soft, and i wilt in your hands until you make me bloom under your touch again

a tv show we did not finish said that the night is dark and full of terrors; talk to me until the sun comes up, until it cascades through the curtains and we blame our squinted smiles on the light

— jade a.

escapril day 30: “do you hear that?”

@poetryorchard day 30: the quiet romance of sleeplessness

napowrimo day 25: Write a love poem that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and has some lines break in unusual places (in the style of somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond by e. e. cummings).

I AM NOTHING BUT EATEN / a whisper between makahiyas tugging their petals taut / at your carrion-teethed nails / digging / digging / digging my insides raw / plucking my wilting crowns / feeding me back to murder / i am all but decaying / sprouting at spills of honeydew / seeding against roseate curves of wanting / wanting me bone-dry / wanting is what kills me / a million black holes deep / drifting into florets / in satin sheets between the cracks of my stems / down to the south / where the light falters / where sunflowers beg to be blinded / where i am touched by the all-father himself / but still i am divine / better than the gods in olympus / prowling every taunting flicker / blooming with thorns / even in my porcelain ribs / where i wish to crumble / spill ichor like it's angst / at the pit of my marrows / at the intervals where i am left in thirst / i am still / still as the waves of my breath / still holy as i ever was / never trembling to mercy / never succumbing to the horrors of you / never muted as you wish me to be / i am all claws / as any other woman / and you are you / drunk on hollowed innocence / struggling / scraping / tearing / finding where it hurts less / finding where you are called for / finding where there is hunger / still you are you / glorious and damned / cruel and famished / and scattered where i am whole.

YOU ARE EVERYTHING ROTTEN / i want to spit out / you are a god / one bite away from being devoured / and i am a girl / anything but fed / so when you starve / you will do so in death.

Verisance, "In Rotten Spills of Desire" (2023, August 18)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUNKY!!! MINE IS THE TOUCH-ME-NOT OR CALLED THE MAKAHIYA OR OR CALLED THE MIMOSA PUDICA BECAUSE ITS A TYPE OF FERN THAT WHEN ITS TOUCHED, THE LEAVES WILL FOLD TOGETHER AND ITS SO FUNKY!! ITS FOLDING IS LIKE THIS:

SEE HOW THE END IS FOLDING TOGETHER? THATS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IT IS TOUCHED!!! SO COOL!!!!

OH THATS SO COOL OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :OO I FORGOT 2 MENTION GIANT WATER LILLIES!!!!!!!!!! THERE'S SOME THAT R STRONG ENOUGH 2 STAND ON N ITS REAL COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was the most recent book I finished: The Sacrifice by Rin Chupeco. Perfect for spooky season (I read this over the long Undas weekend!), it features a Hollywood film crew going to a tropical island to film a documentary about the island’s curse. Nothing could possibly go wrong, they think - except then everything goes spectacularly, horrifically wrong. Spoiler-free review: Overall a very fun read, quite spooky in lots of places - I will never look at makahiya the same way again, and this just upped the balete spook factor significantly. Would make an amazing movie imo, given the visuals. Twists were pretty good for the most part, sometimes predictable but mostly not, and that ending was not a bad way to cap the entire story. Most importantly though, every single jerk in this story got their comeuppance, and I am so happy they did. Rating: Four Mumu and One Duwende (4 1/2) Buy here: https://read.sourcebooks.com/young-adult/9781728255910-the-sacrifice-tp.html More comprehensive rambling take under the Read More for spoilers and language.

From the moment this book started I knew whose side I was on: the mumu’s (or the Diwata’s, to give it its proper name). It’s so clear that the white people are disrespectful, and are someplace where they really shouldn’t be, that they’ve paved their way by paying bribes and by just outright ignoring what other people have told them. This is a running theme throughout the book that’s established very early on, and every time it happens I find myself wanting the Diwata to kill every single puting dayuhan that disrespects them. Eventually it’s clear that they don’t all deserve to die, but it takes a while to figure out which ones don’t and which ones do, and generally speaking the ones who do really deserve to get killed. Actually this whole book is a send-up of all the stupid things white people do when they’re abroad: disrespecting local traditions and people, taking things that don’t belong to them, and looking down on things they think are “primitive” or “beneath them” just because it’s unfamiliar or they don’t understand how something works. Also utterly unsurprised that most of the shit is perpetrated by a Hollywood film crew: a microcosm of all the things that are terrible about Americans abroad (and even in their own country, as the novel will show). I don’t want to get into specifics because spoilers, but honestly, read this book and you will be cheering the Diwata on just like I was, especially if you’re from a country that’s a former colony or, y’know, are intimately familiar with a certain type of tourist (who are not always white, it must be noted, but have privilege regardless). Speaking of the Diwata: for all that I was cheering them on, they are legitimately terrifying. There were moments throughout this novel that had me thinking that this would make for a very good movie, because damn me if I didn’t visualize certain parts in my head the same way I would a scene in a show or a movie, and spook myself out something fierce. The use of balete and makahiya as key visual components just ups the spooky factor incredibly. Now, I know balete are spooky enough on their own, but the use of makahiya was new and interesting and very very spooky. (I was also watching Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities in between reading this, so my imagination was working very well indeed - especially after Episode 6.) On a more serious note, and going back to white people and colonialism: some of my friends, who read the ARC version of this novel, mentioned they weren’t quite sold on the inclusion of Cortes, a fictional Spanish soldier who traveled to the Philippines with Magellan and who’s involved in the history of the island and the Diwata. While I can see how that character can feel extraneous to everything that’s going on, I tend to think of them as a reflection of the Hemslock character in the present of the novel - something which I think works, given how Hemslock is obsessed with Cortes’ journal and the information within it, which supposedly tells him how to control the Diwata on the island. There were also some concerns about how Lapulapu was made out to be the villain in Cortes’ journal for supposedly participating in sacrifices that allowed him to “control” the Diwata and therefore helped him win against the Spanish. To my mind, though, I don’t think that’s the case, since that information comes solely from Cortes, who I consider unreliable as fuck because he’s an invader and a white man looking down his nose at anyone who doesn’t Look Like Him, so of course he would attribute Lapulapu’s success and prowess at holding onto power to a god, and not to his own capabilities as a leader and warrior. Because surely, surely this brown savage needs the help of a higher power in order to succeed against white men with guns. This ties in with what Hemslock himself thinks and does towards the latter end of the novel, where he claims that these “brown bastards” don’t deserve the power of the Diwata, and that he does, because as a white American man with a shitton of guns, he’s “better” - which is of course utter horseshit. Things do not go as he planned, obviously - much like things did not go as planned for Cortes. (What all of this reminds me of that bullshit “ancient aliens” idea: how brown people couldn’t have created things like the Pyramids and the Nazca Lines because they were “primitive” so they had help from aliens. The surface might be different, but the thought is more or less the same: racist and paternalistic all the way down.) Now, while all of the above is anger-inducing (as it should be imo), there’s also parts that are a bit softer and more heartwarming. One of the bigger underlying themes has to do with filial love and piety. It’s not obvious at first, and is only really made clear towards almost the end of the story, but I think the way it was handled was beautiful and bittersweet. There’s also the romance between Alon, the nonbinary protagonist, and Chase, the son of one of the members of the Hollywood crew. I can see where some reviewers are coming from when they say the romance was superfluous, but I thought it was rather lovely and appropriate. I appreciate that didn’t go any further than it had to, and that while it was there as a kind of sweet undertone to all horrific things that were going on, it didn’t get in the way of the horror at all. i do admit that it was a bit jarring in some places, but that was something I was able to let slide fairly easily. One thing though that I didn’t quite agree with: the use of Tagalog in the narrative. While there’s nothing wrong with Tagalog itself, it’s just weird that this island is located in Leyte, in the Visayas, and Alon, the Diwata, and some of the other minor characters are all using Tagalog. Hell, if I’m not mistaken the term “diwata” itself is Tagalog. The thing is, Tagalog isn’t much used in Leyte: they use Waray, or a form of Bisaya. So why are these very likely Bisaya characters talking in Tagalog, of all things? Likely because that’s what Chupeco’s familiar with, but surely they could’ve, Idk, talked to someone from the region to help them with this? Surely there would’ve been a lot of Waray and/or Bisaya speakers out there who would’ve been glad to give them a hand.

Makahiya Bogambilia

she named after two kinds of flowering plants I’ve mentioned her before but also I had like fifteen followers back then lmao.

she’s wearing a filipiñana 

Gabi-gabi na lamang kung magliwanag ang dambuhalang apoy sa tuktok ng Bundok Telakawa. “Malamang,” ‘ika ni Maningning Vilog sa kanyang Tata Casia habang payapang namamahinga sa ilalim ng inaagiw na kamalig at walang lamang dulang, “ay nananabako na naman ang higanteng si Capas.” Pananabakong siyang ritwal upang pansamantalang maghilom ang mga sugat sa damdamin, guniguni, pag-aasam, at pagnanasa matapos mauwi sa malaking kabiguan ang pag-ibig niya kay Tarlak. Subalit mali pala ang naunang hinuha, ang liwanag na nakikita ng mag-ama, at iba pa na sinlaki ng palanggana at plaka, sinliit ng bungaga ng baso at platito, at korteng parisukat-parihaba na waring aandap-andap na Sanyo o Toshiba sa gitna ng dilim, na palipat-lipat ng direksyon na sinasabayan pa ng hugong at pagyanig sa lupa, ay mata pala ng Caterpillar at Komatsu na walang-awang sinususo hanggang sa masaid ang banal na Lawa ng Tambo. Pagputok ng mga silahis, animo’y nilamon ng liwanag si Aranguren at ni isang bakas ng kanyang pag-iral, ni palatandaan ng samyo o abo, ay walang nakita. Nawala ang kita sa malayo na anyo ng isang babae na nakahiga na may ilong, bibig, baba, at dalawang magandang hubog na suso na waring sa isang dalaga, habang ang bagong Aguinaldo na mahilig uminom ng Viagra, at mga Bagong Macabebe ay tuwang-tuwa habang minumura ang mga gaya nina Evangelista’t Calosa, habang siya’y kandung-kandong nina Trump at Xi at taas noong ipinagmamalaki kasama ang kanyang BCDA sa Facebook, Twitter, at IG na ilang porsiyento na lamang ay tapos na ang Phase 1A ng New Clark City at handa na umano ang Filipinas para sa isang palaruang world class. Ngayon, isa nang patay na ilang ang gitna ng San Jose, Concepcion, Botolan, at Bamban. Nawala ang mala-Great Wall na panangga ng Zambales, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, at Pampanga laban sa nanunuot-sa-butong Amihan kung Disyembre hanggang Pebrero na regalo ng lusaw na niyebe mula Kremlin at Siberia, at ang propesiya noon sa isang malaking baha — ng propetang si Vizconde de la Riva May Granada sa Bulsa — ng tubig mula Sapa ng Dingding at Namria, gayundin mula Ilog ng Lungcob, ay tila nakatakdang maganap. Hindi dapat ginalaw ang Susong Dalaga! Hindi dapat winasak ang Susong Dalaga! Dahilan upang balisa’t mag-alab ang mata ng mga kantero, magbubukid, at magtutubo! Ang nananabakong si Capas balita’y nasa kapatagan na at nais usigin ang lumapastangan sa sagradong kaayusan ng kosmos at mga atomo sa kalikasan, na ayon sa mga matatabil at malabiga ay umanib na ring ganap sa kilusang iniapo ng Kolorum at Hukbalahap na nagkukuta sa Bundok Mor-Asia at Bundok Canouman, na bulung-bulunga’y may lakas na gaya sa binatang kalabaw at liksing wari sa alamid at kidlat, na handog umano ng mga ispirito ng mga namayapang gerilya at insurekto na nangangalaga sa Bukal ng Mapaling Danum at Bundok Bueno. Mula noo’y nagmistulang araw na ang gabi at palihim-tahimik na gumagalaw, na waring sa tubig ng Mabalacat, hanging-bukid ng Cabiao, luwad ng Bayambang, at dalampasigan ng Masinloc, ang nagising na bayan ng mga higante. At mula nga noo’y gabi-gabi at araw-araw na lamang kung magliwanag ang dambuhalang apoy, hindi sa tuktok ng Bundok Telakawa kundi sa ibabaw ng lupang kinatitirikan ng mga makahiya, kogon, talahib, paragis, at trigu-triguhan. Ito ang planetang bumihag sa Dakilang Bernardo Carpio na simpula ng hinog na bugnay at mabolo. Pumipitik nang mabigat ang pulso ng lahat na waring sa paghatak ng makina sa bawat hibla ng pinatuyong pinya, kangkong, kopra, at abaka, o waring sa paglakatak ng makinilya na uhaw at gutom humabi ng letra ng makatang si Bigornia o ng nobelistang si Sicat. Bumangon na mula sa putik ang kinatatakutang banta, kaya dapat maghanda na sa pagputok ng mga bulo at pagkiwal ng mga puyo. Sa pagitan ng agaw-dilim at agaw-liwanag nangabubuhay ang prosa ni Abreu. Rene Boy Abiva, "Ang Gunita't Abo ng Susong Dalaga at ang Bagong Alamat"

Medicines of the "Lolas"

Medicines of the Lolas (grandmothers):

Boiled guava leaves for hives and skin rashes. The afflicted would bathe in the mixture.

Vinegar for rashes (Alibuyboy) caused by bites from the Higad (hairy caterpillar).

For wounds: place "Dahon ng Makahiya ng may asin", or leaves of the Mimosa pudica or "Touch-me-not" plant whose leaves fold inward when touched, mixed with a little salt.

Salabat or ginger brew tea for sore throat and coughs.

Aceite de Manzanilla, or Chamomile Oil, for "kabag", or gas pain, only used externally. The oil is rubbed on the stomach.

Dear Future Husband,

I know you're out there somewhere. So while I'm waiting and praying for you, I'm going to write this down. There are some things that I want you to know. Things about me and things I am hoping you will do when you finally get here. Yeah, I know it's crazy for me to write you this even though I don't really know you at all. Ang mahalaga naman ay makilala rin kita balang-araw.

I'm sort of an introvert. Thought you should know before anyone else. Hindi ko gusto na masyadong maraming tao. Hindi ko rin gusto na nakikipag-usap sa mga tao na kakakilala ko pa lang. Kapag napapaligiran ako ng mga tao na hindi ko kilala, tumitiklop ako na parang makahiya.

Mahilig ako magbasa ng libro at manuod ng movies. Preferably, romantic movies. Cheesy, sappy, full of cutesy, name it. My most favorite movies are The Notebook, A Walk To Remember, and 50 First Dates. I also like to listen to love songs. Lots and lots of love songs. But my most favorite is You from The Carpenters. I love coffee. I love the ambiance inside coffee shops. Bakit? Walang masyadong tao. May privacy ako kapag nasa loob ako ng kahit anong cafe. It would be lovely if one day you could join me there. Ikaw kaya? Do you even drink coffee?

I have collections of notebooks and pens. I love collecting them. And I'm a baker, by the way. Pangako ko sa'yo na ipagbe-bake kita ng kahit anong gusto mo.

There are just so many things I want to tell you. So many things. When are you coming? I'm so excited to meet you...

Happy valentine's day funny story—My first crush was in the first grade on this girl named Isabel, and I had been attending school in the Philippines countryside where my mother also grew up. We hung out all the time on our haunted school grounds and I remember the distinct feeling of just liking her so much and being a baby and sliding down large piles of mud unscathed during the rainy season to impress her and urging my parents to get us to school as early as possible so I could meet her at the makahiya in the playground and be the first ones to raze through the morning dew. In uniforms we were supposed to be mirrors but her hair was slightly wispier and a bit lighter brown than mine. I think we had the same pair of eyes, though.