#tbh I sometimes feel ashamed being Fil-Am because I don't feel like I'm a true Filipino as listed above

[mrs-lockley]

(I'm definitely not procrastinating)

⭐⭐⭐SPAMMING YOU WITH STARS NYEEEEEOW ⭐⭐⭐

⭐⭐⭐

I wanna learn more about your Kapangpangan fic! I need crumbs please I'm begging KAJHSDKJAS Anything you wanna share! (Also love love love your work and your support! Literally you are so kind HNNGGG)

Hehe thank you Nelly! I'm actually struggling with part 2 right now so this will help me sort my thoughts out! I'll do 9 facts for each star 😘

Where the Spirit Meets the Bones was partly inspired by the Little Mermaid. I was surprised I haven't seen a Little Mermaid AU for Namor, so I decided to write one! I debated on making her a Sirena because I did see a few Sirena/Mermaid fics in the tag, but after doing some research, I decided to settle on Sirena because I felt that a Sirena was right for her.

The title and premise of the fic is inspired by the song ivy by Taylor Swift, my favorite song from my favorite album by her (Evermore is her best work and completely underrated, imo). The entire song screamed Namor to me and if you look closely at the lyrics, it'll give many hints to more of the reader's backstory. 👀👀

Speaking of the reader's backstory, it's been hinted at throughout the first part, but she was human before she became a Sirena. How she became a Sirena and why the ocean spared her life will be revealed in part 2! She may seem sweet in part 1, but she has just as many skeletons in the closet and darkness like Namor. She's just better at hiding it.

Originally I was going to have Namor and our Sirena meet when she rescues him at sea because she was intrigued by the wings on his ankles and pointed ears. But I scrapped that idea because I wanted more of a slow burn and build up before that meeting. That’s when I got the idea of her finding Namor visiting his mother on the seashore and leaving behind the jasmine flowers as an offering.

Although he did not know what our Sirena looked like when she rescued him, Namor painted jasmine flowers in his cavern to mark that that was the first time he was nearly discovered by humans in a foreign land, but was saved by her.

His original intentions were to learn more about her to see if she was a princess or goddess that he could have diplomatic ties with, so he restored her necklace with vibranium and offered two Talokanil pearls as a possible token of diplomacy and courtship. But all that changed when he and the Sirena meet face-to-face for the first time. It was almost love at first sight, but it was definitely love at first sound. 

I went back and forth on having it be a standalone, but then I decided to make it a duet. I have several ideas for part 2 that I don’t want to spoil too much, and depending how long it is, I might make it 3 parts if people are still interested  👀 It would take place over the course of the 20th century and lead up to modern day 

Part 2 will go more in-depth about their relationship, and I may or may not be planning on incorporating the bakunawa as a metaphor for their relationship since I already did a lot of emphasis on them meeting under a bright moon 

Ultimately I made the reader a Sirena Kapampangan because while I do love reading Filipino!reader fics, I felt a little isolated because I don’t understand a lot of Tagalog. My parents only spoke Kapampangan at home (I can speak a little bit (but understand Kapampangan fluently), my mom made me speak English when she spoke to me in Kapampangan so I wouldn’t struggle with English) so I struggle with grammar sometimes and don’t really know which is my first language. I did pick up a little bit of Tagalog from watching TFC and most of my Filipino-American friends are Tagalog. We would do Taglish with each other but I’d get my Kapampangan mixed up with Tagalog words and get frustrated with myself for not knowing Tagalog, but also feel incredibly guilty because I’ve heard that back home, Kapampangan is slowly dying out and I want to preserve it. I can’t read or write Kapampangan and some of the Kapampangan terms I used in the fic, I had to double check the translations to make sure I spelled it right. This is getting a little personal but even among my Filipino friends, I always felt like the odd ball and a fraud because we don’t know any other Kapampangans here in the States (and a majority of my immediate family are in Pampanga). So this fic is really personal to me because for once, I feel a bit more included in the Filipino space. The Asian diaspora is real and even my Fil-Am friends feel it too, so we try to learn more about our history. It’s just even in the Asian-American community here in the States, Filipinos are still looked down on by our East Asian cousins that I still struggle with my Southeast Asian and Filipino identity. Doing research for this fic has made me want to learn more about my history, specifically Kapampangan history, which sadly I did not learn much about from my parents because  growing up they did not get a chance to teach us much about it since they were working to provide for my Ate and me. So in a way, this fic is really personal and self-indulgent because this is the kind of fairytale that Little Me would have wanted to read. This fic is a fairytale for my younger self and other Filipino girls, not just Kapampangan, to read. It’s a love story for our younger selves.