Hi everyone! How are you?

I'm sorry if I haven't responded to some of your comments and messages for the past few weeks. I've been having some internet and electricity connections because of the recent typhoon that hit my country.

The Philippines isn't a stranger to calamities and typhoons so growing up, I got used to the idea of at least 3 or 4 typhoons entering the country every year but this one was the scariest I've ever seen because my family and I weren't prepared and I'm pretty sure the entire country wasn't either. It's also unfortunate that my province was one of the places where the typhoon hit the hardest.

I thought that it was just going to pass through but I was wrong. I didn't sleep well for two days and on the night when it hit, I literally thought my whole house was going to fly off the ground. My mom and I were praying for hours in her room as we hugged our two dogs and just prayed and prayed for everyone to be safe and for it to be over.

And when it finally ended, I thought things weren't as bad as they were but in reality, it was devastating. News outlets were showing the after-effects of the disaster and it was heartbreaking. People had lost their houses, their livelihood, and their loved ones.

What a tragedy it was for something like this to happen during Christmas time.

I also want to point out that I do not support the romanticization of resiliency because it breeds toxic positivity. Constantly whipping out the resilience card is not only lazy but also dangerous. Whether in narratives about calamities or the present pandemic, using this toxic mindset is anything but progressive. Recognizing a painful situation is one thing, but putting sugar, spice, and everything nice on it is another.

Trivializing people's daily suffering as something solvable by a change in mindset and I want to emphasize the fact that before we paint something as "inspiring," let's think if someone is suffering at the expense of our amazement.

Nevertheless, I hope you are all doing okay and I wish you all a safe and Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

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And also to those curious about my upcoming stories, it might take me a little longer to write them because I'm really jam-packed with stuff for school but I currently have 2 stories in the making:

: An ATEEZ AU fanfic that is a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid.

: A AU fanfic that is a retelling of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of The Opera.

The publish dates are still unknown because I'm working out the details and I also wanna know if you guys are interested in a new Meteor Garden fanfiction about Lei? I'm still deciding between writing about him and his supposed relationship with Sang Tian or I could create an entirely new character that is still set in Hiraeth's storyline.

Please let me know in the comments!

Lots of love!

-sparklypsycho