The Time Traveler’s Dilemma: Getting Ancestry Right (So No One Has Kids at 10)

Time travel in fiction is tricky—especially when a character meets their own ancestors. One wrong date, and suddenly, someone’s having a child at age ten. Oops.

That’s exactly what I ran into while mapping out my main character Ron’s family tree. Since he travels back in time to meet his ancestors, their birthdates, ages, and major life events all need to line up. Otherwise, the entire timeline collapses.

I spent the day making sure everything made sense—when his ancestors were born, when they emigrated, when they had kids, and how old they were at key points in history. After much number-crunching, I finally have a solid timeline:

It took some effort, but now Ron’s journey through time makes sense—without any impossible parenthood scenarios.

Weaving Indigenous Traditions into Fiction and Awareness

Photo source: https://www.nuptials.ph/igorot-wedding/

I spent the better part of this early morning researching the tribes of the Ati that will make up much of my book. I was truly fascinated to read about the wedding traditions of various indigenous tribes. How colorful and full of stories they are compared with Christian weddings. And how sad that all throughout my formative education growing up in the Philippines, I was never taught this, likely because it wasn't very Christian (and I went to Catholic school) with its rituals involving worshipping pagans and belief systems in gods and deities. Reading about these tribes made me swell with pride in their resilience despite being marginalized, discriminated against, and displaced. I hope to bring about awareness of their existence and their plight in my book, even if I am taking huge liberties in fictionalizing their culture. I hope historians and the tribes themselves forgive me. But truly, what I want to see is that they all find their HEA (happily ever after) in real life. For now, if they can join me in my make-believe journey of creating a narrative of joy inspired by their culture, then I believe we will have reached a small amount of awareness of their existence. That would be a huge accomplishment for me as a Filipina.

Haribon (King Bird)

The Haribon is one of Dalikamata's animals. Its ability to travel far and wide makes it ideal for the Goddess to see what is going on that is beyond her physical sight. I've included the haribon in the prologue of this book, and is likely to reappear several more times. While doing research on the haribon, I was astounded to learn that this Philippine eagle is the third largest in the world and among the critically endangered species of its kind. It has a wingspan of nearly seven feet and a length of up to four feet from its crest to its tail. When I saw a picture of it, I just went holymotherf#*@$r.

The Philippine eagle is one of the largest and most endangered eagles in the world. The raptor is currently documented on just four Philippine islands—Mindanao, Luzon, Leyte, and Samar. Scientists estimate that perhaps only a few hundred pairs remain in the wild. With a wingspan of nearly seven feet and a weight of up to 14 pounds, the species, Pithecophaga jefferyi, casts an impressive shadow as it soars through its rainforest home. Its long tail helps it skillfully maneuver while hunting for its elusive prey, like flying lemurs or palm civets. Read more