#Bollywood dance modern
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Watching Bucchigiri?! and seeing all the genuinely well implemented references to Arabic art folklore: 🥰🥰😍😘💙❤️🩷
Watching American YouTubers react to it all calling it "Indian" and not even doing that respectfully: 💀💀💀💀💀
#bucchigiri#seriously even if the plot doesn't seem too interesting rn i just LOVE the style#the main character s name is a hidden “Aladdin”#there is actually well written arabic#they even somehow correctly accounted for the difference in writing between modern and medieval#but i see YouTubers reaction saying it's set in some kind of Indian-china fusion#just because the main character lives with his mom in a Chinese restaurant#or another saying “oh yea it's from u know-*does the cliche hand above head Bollywood dance move*”#also the ending has the female character in actually accurate arab clothes that are nit just a sexualised belly dancer outfit#even though i don't like her character#but god dammit this was done with love for arab culture
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not @ me like associating all bollywood songs with ya mans Shri Krishn like he's my school girl crush 😂🥰 re-listened to tum kya mile frm rocky aur rani ki prem kahani and it made me have feels haha:
"Beiraada raaston ki
Bann gaye ho manzilein
Mushkilein hal hain tumhin se
Ya tumhin ho mushkilein
Tum kya mile
Tum kya mile
Hum na rahe hum
Tum kya mile
Jaise mere
Dil mein khile
Phagun ke mausam
Tum kya mile" ~ 💙
imagine doing a dramatic bollywood enactment of it and Him just watching and smiling his natkhat smile ajajahaksksb 😭😭😭
(afterthought may have been inspired by @dancingpotato s post haha)
#gopiblr#krishnablr#help i also thought of him when my mum played the janky ass 'o balma' song 😂💀#just like dancing to it and having fun#i wonder if the gopis and krishna were around in modern times would they jam to bollywood 🤔 probably tbh
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Dance party. 🎊🟠🟡🟣🟢🎉🔴🎵
#jazz dance#bollywood dance#dance life#dance music#dance mix#break dance#international dance day#dance day#dancers of tumblr#dancers#ballet#modern dance#neo expressionism#jean michel basquiat#basquiat#abstract expressionism#oil stick#childrens book illustration#hip hop dance#tap dance#magic mike#bboying#bboy#bboylife#just dance#edmlife#raverlife#ravers#neo pop art#alvin ailey
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nobody compares to you
chapter 13
pairing: ellie x reader
synopsis: you're in your junior year of college and at a party, you run into the girl who broke your heart: ellie williams. despite the time it took to reset your life, will you risk a broken heart again for her?
content warnings: modern college au, cursing, angst, dealer!ellie, mentions of marijuana and descriptions of its usage, descriptions of anaphylactic shock, brief mention of needles, descriptions of anxiety, mentions of death, descriptions of jealousy, mentions of breakups, several flashback scenes, mentions of LSD and its usage, descriptions of acid tripping, ellie's POV, minors do not interact
word count: 9k
chapters: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen
series masterlist
my masterlist
i have a ko-if if you like my work so much that you feel compelled to tip me ♡︎
the "nobody compares to you" spotify playlist
songs featured in this chapter (including a surprise audio AND drawing commission in the middle of the fic):
the aaron taylor song “i think i love you again”
the carpenters song “merry christmas darling”
palestine will be free
“Where the fuck even are you?”
“Not home.”
“Well, no shit. I’m literally sitting on your living room couch, dumbass.”
“Get out of my apartment, weirdo.”
“Stop procrastinating, asshole.”
Ellie rolls her eyes as a couple of bright yellow leaves slowly dance down on the pavement from the nearby trees on her path home. One hand holds her phone up in front of her with Dina’s face front and center on the screen through FaceTime.
Having just dropped off a rather large order to a couple of stoner sophomores living on campus, Ellie’d decided to take the longer, more scenic route home instead of the usual way she’d go every day. She had a “date” lined up with Daniela in about an hour or so, a meeting she wasn’t particularly looking forward to being present for. Having no real enthusiasm to actually be on time to meet up with her, Ellie was purposely and leisurely delaying her return home to get ready.
Dina, busy lounging on the couch in Jesse and Ellie’s living room, busies herself by finishing a bland, microwaveable box of mac and cheese she’d found shoved in the back of the duo’s full freezer. She was casually killing time talking to Ellie through video chat while she waited for Jesse to finish getting ready for their movie date night.
Jesse enjoyed dragging Dina along to a movie theater in the neighbouring downtown area that showed old and foreign films. Back home in Jackson throughout their childhood, he and Ellie would make Dina sit through old sci-fi pictures, cult horror films, martial arts movies in a completely different language and with no subtitles. Dina would sit in the middle of the two in complete boredom as she listened to them psychoanalyzing background characters who had two lines and spending hours explaining their personal interpretations of a single camera angle in some inconsequential scene.
When they all began attending university, Jesse was over the moon upon discovering the nearby theater and the kind of films they would show. Dina complained every single time, but she secretly enjoyed these date nights regardless, always arguing with Jesse on the way home with her own analyses of the movie they’d just seen. She was a little less enthusiastic this time, however, upon hearing that the film they were about to go see was an early 2000s Bollywood movie that had a running time of nearly four hours.
Jesse had just gotten home from working out at the gym and was busy showering, and Dina decided to preoccupy herself in the meantime by thoroughly berating Ellie for her disinterest and voluntary tardiness for her “date” later that evening.
“El, I really don’t understand why you’re even bothering with her,” Dina says after a huge, wet slurp of her mac and cheese. “Leave that poor freshman girl alone. You really don’t even seem to like her that much.”
“She’s still got Joel’s jacket and I want it back.” Ellie shrugs nonchalantly.
“Maybe if you didn’t pass that shabby old thing around to every new girl you see for a month…” Dina replies, not bothering to mutter under her breath.
“Oh, leave me the fuck alone, Woodward,” Ellie says, chuckling. “Slutshamer.”
Jesse jaunts into the living room, jet black hair damp from the shower and fully dressed, and spots Ellie’s face on Dina’s tiny screen. He waltzes towards the couch and, without any warning, stealthily snatches Dina’s phone right out of her hand.
“Hey!” Dina protests indignantly, trying to reach for it back.
Jesse ignores her as Ellie laughs.
“Yo, what the fuck, Williams.” Jesse scolds the auburn-haired girl.
“Wassup, Chang.”
“What the hell did you ditch me and the gym for earlier? Today’s our cardio day.”
“Had a huge delivery I needed to make,” Ellie shrugs. “Wanted two 40 bags on top of a few lavender pre-rolls. And they lived on the opposite side of campus.”
“A likely excuse,” Jesse scoffs. “I think you’ve been harbouring a secret, years-long grudge against me and actually hate me for some reason.”
“Oh, it’s not a secret. I do hate you.”
“Dickhead.” Jesse chuckles as Dina heartily laughs behind him with a mouthful of mac and cheese.
Before Jesse can continue to berate his best friend, his own phone rings noisily from the inside of one of his jeans pockets.
“Oh, look. Someone who actually loves and appreciates me.” He says indignantly, handing small-scale Ellie back to Dina.
Ellie playfully rolls her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that Jesse’s phone is currently buzzing and blaring with the personalized ringtone he’d set for your contact years ago shortly after you’d all met for the first time.
Dina, recognizing the familiar sound as well and noticing Ellie’s tight lips and rigid expression, quickly attempts to change the subject.
“So where exactly are you gonna be meeting up with the Daniela girl?” Dina quickly asks Ellie at the same time that Jesse booms, “Good evening once again to my absolute favourite person in the whole world!”
Ellie hesitantly begins to reply to Dina but cuts off almost immediately when she hears Jesse’s tone turn serious and mutter a name she’d come to despise.
“Oh. Hey, Anderson. What’s up?” Jesse says blankly. “Where’s—”
“Oh, shit.” Dina inadvertently murmurs as Ellie’s face immediately goes red with fury.
“Why the fuck is Anderson calling Jesse on her phone?” Ellie demands quietly of Dina.
“I mean… she is on a date with her tonight…” Dina reluctantly admits, knowing that lying to Ellie about your current whereabouts is pointless after figuring Jesse would eventually blab it to her anyway.
“Are you fucking serious?” Ellie seethes.
“I don’t really know why she’d be calling Jesse, though. That doesn’t make any sense...” Dina says, setting down her fork and turning her head back towards her boyfriend as Ellie watches intently him from the corner of Dina’s phone screen.
Both girls stare Jesse down as he intently listens to the other end of the line, the two getting more and more nervous as his face gets stonier as each second passes. When he finally speaks, his voice is grave and urgent.
“Is she breathing?”
“What?” Both Dina and Ellie simultaneously say in distress, which Jesse ignores.
“What did she eat?” He asks Abby.
“What’s going on?” Dina implores of him fearfully, sitting up straighter in her seat and completely abandoning her partially eaten mac and cheese on the coffee table.
Jesse holds up a pointer finger as an indication that he needs to keep listening as Ellie hushes her sternly, fiercely trying to eavesdrop on Jesse’s conversation.
“Okay. What did you eat?” Jesse questions.
The way Jesse’s face falls elicits a sharply drawn breath from Dina and drains all the colour from Ellie’s face.
“Did she have any?” He asks.
While Jesse listens for Abby’s lengthy response, Ellie quickly averts her eyes back to Dina.
“Dina.” She says hastily. “Where did Anderson take her tonight?”
“Orchards. It’s that fancy restaurant that’s like, right by here.”
“I know. They serve a lot of seafood there, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think Anderson ordered any?”
“El, how am I supposed to know that?”
“Well, does Anderson know that she’s deadly fucking allergic to shellfish? That she can’t even fucking touch that shit?”
Dina’s terrified face suddenly goes completely pale before she responds.
“I-I don’t know...”
“Does she have any pockets or some kind of bag with her?” They hear Jesse say. “See if she has her EpiPen in there.”
“E-El… I don’t think she does.” Dina stammers.” I helped her get dressed tonight and I saw her before she left, and I-I don’t think—”
Ellie nearly drops her phone on the pavement from how clammy her hands have become from complete fear. When she hears Jesse fiercely mutter a furious “fuck,” she immediately breaks into a sprint.
“Dina!” Ellie demands. “Give me back to Jesse! Now!” Dina hastily hands her phone to her petrified boyfriend without question as he quickly asks Abby to stay calm and give him a quick second.
“Jess!” Ellie breathlessly yells, not bothering to keep her voice down and without any concern for the fellow students she was alarming as she ran by. “Go to my room right now and search in the bottom drawer of my desk!!!”
Promptly and silently, Jesse darts in the direction of Ellie’s bedroom with Dina following closely behind him.
“There’s an old EpiPen of hers somewhere in there! I think it’s probably a couple of months expired now, but grab it anyway!”
Jesse and Dina unceremoniously bust into Ellie’s bedroom and follow her instructions precisely. After forcibly yanking open the bottom-most drawer of her computer desk, they begin to desperately rifle through it. After a few seconds of frantic ransacking through its miscellaneous contents, Jesse pulls out a thick, plastic cylindrical object with tiny lettering embellished all over the translucent plastic.
“Look for the little slot on the side of it that shows you some liquid-y shit inside!” Ellie presses him. “Is it still completely clear and clean, or is it all brown and murky?”
“It’s clear.” Jesse replies after quickly inspecting the EpiPen.
“Okay, go!” Ellie orders. “Dina’s gonna call 911 right now! Orchards is right around the corner from our place, so run! Inject the needle on the outside of her thigh! And check her pulse and see if she’s breathing, ‘cause you’ll need to do CPR if she isn’t! Paramedics probably won’t get there for another five minutes or so, so you just gotta keep doing chest compressions until they can get there!”
Jesse nods and immediately sprints out of the room after handing Dina her phone, placing his own back to his ear and quickly informing Abby that he’d be there shortly, firmly asking her to check your pulse.
Dina sets her eyes on Ellie, pure terror engraved on her face.
“Ellie, s-shouldn’t we grab the EpiPen she has now in her apartment? I think I know where it is, probably. Isn’t that safer than—”
“Her apartment is fifteen minutes away from that restaurant and Jesse can get there in two! We can’t waste any more time!” Ellie clarifies quickly. “Now, I need you to hang up right away and call 911 and explain everything that’s just happened! Go!”
Ellie doesn’t bother waiting for Dina to end the call and roughly taps on the red button herself.
She shoves her phone into the pocket of her hoodie and quickens her pace.
Her lungs winded and her heart threatening to beat out of her chest, she couldn't seem to care any less about her own breathing at that very moment. She trusts nothing else but her own feet to get her exactly where she desperately needs to be. She sees nothing and no one else but the pavement directly in front of her, cutting across the university’s campus through the fastest route she can think of in the moment.
Despite never having been a religious person in any way, Ellie begins to plead a desperate prayer in her mind to whatever god or deity that could possibly exist that you were still breathing somehow and that Jesse had found you and gotten there in time.
She takes a moment to pull her phone out and check how long it’s been since she ended the FaceTime call with Dina, seeing that a little less than five minutes had just passed. She considers calling her once more for any updates; but not wanting to risk being a possible distraction in case Dina is needed in the moment, she ultimately decides against doing so and instead wills her feet to move faster.
Unwelcome thoughts begin to involuntarily flood Ellie’s mind as she sprints.
She thinks of the last time you’d seen each other: that night of your heart-to-heart dinner with Jesse at Sterling’s. It felt almost fated for her and Dina to walk into the same restaurant at the same time that the two of you had been meeting. Ellie recalls the identical look of dismay on both of your faces, equally overwhelmed at the sight of one another. She can still feel the angry yet doleful tears that fell down her red cheeks as she stormed away from the diner, threatening to expose endless repressed feelings of remorse and heartache.
She remembers the day she saw your sudden reunion with Abby Anderson, you dressed in that beautiful floral sundress and very obviously flirting with the tall, muscular blonde. Her nails were so angrily digging into her palms at the sight of you two that she can still feel the phantom marks that had nearly drawn blood. She’d nearly frightened Dina, who was lounging on the living room couch with a joint in hand, when she busted into her and Jesse’s apartment with immediate choice words that were aroused by her unbridled anger.
She recalls the last time you’d actually spoken to one other directly after that miserable, unfortunate night of the Sigma Eta party, how taken aback she was at how you were still so undeniably beautiful underneath the pale moonlight. Having been sitting on the hood of her Jeep while she watched in amusement at your futile attempts to keep yourself warm, she thinks of the way your eyes were furiously and desperately trying to avoid her piercing ocean green gaze. The memory of the angry, fleeting look you’d given Daniela when you’d obviously noticed Joel’s old motorcycle jacket resting on her shoulders is one she can never forget; nor could she the air of raw, bitter indignation that radiated off you at the sight of one of your signature lavender joints nestled in between Daniela’s lips.
She can still feel the visceral rage that sparked inside her from Frat Guy Adam’s casual cruelty towards you, followed by feelings of heartbreak at watching the way your face had fallen at his words. The sheer remorse from pathetically having done nothing right when it happened still weighs on her. Ellie can never forget the simultaneous feelings of shame and comfort she’d felt after your heated encounter with her in the bathroom of Sterling’s: shame from being forcibly confronted with a reminder of the deepest regret of her whole life; and comfort at finally being able to see with her own ocean green eyes, after so long, the face of a person she once adored more than she did anyone else in the world.
Maybe even still.
Ellie eventually finds herself at the intersection right where her shared apartment with Jesse is located. Her hasty pursuit is frustratingly impeded when she’s stopped by the angry, glowing red hand at the crosswalk she needs to get past to reach Orchards, cars endlessly coming one after the other. For a few moments, she’s at least able to catch a much-needed, painful breath.
While she bounces up and down on her feet in impatience, very seriously contemplating running across anyway and risking being hit by a speeding car, Ellie thinks of one thing and one thing only: the first moment her eyes met yours all those years ago. The moment when she knew, deep down and instinctively, that everything had changed.
She’s brutally broken out of her brief reverie by the blaring of sirens booming from around the corner. Her head immediately shoots towards the sound and she watches as two ambulances with flashing red and white lights speed down the road and towards what she believes is the direction of the nearest emergency room.
Ellie wastes no time bolting down the crosswalk the millisecond that the orange pedestrian signal finally blinks to white, sprinting down the street of Orchards. She’s somehow able to spot Dina’s figure in the middle of a small crowd of people gathered next to the restaurant and immediately sprints towards her. By the time Ellie is able to reach her, most of the unfamiliar bystanders have dispersed with whispers. Her heart races as she sees Dina’s cheeks wet and dripping endlessly with tears.
“Dina!” Ellie huffs, using the last of her breath and energy to dash to her side.
“Ellie!” Dina sighs in relief upon spotting her friend.
They envelop each other in a tight embrace, Dina hiccuping slightly into Ellie’s shoulder.
“What happened? Did you guys make it in time? Is she okay? Where is she? Where’s Jesse?” Ellie rambles.
“Sh-she’s okay, I think,” Dina stammers. “She was breathing when Jesse got here, but her pulse was really slow. The paramedics got here a few minutes after Jesse did.”
She sloppily wipes her eyes with the back of her hands before continuing.
“They said that the EpiPen probably saved her life, said that she would have had a lot less of a chance if we had just waited for them to arrive. Expired EpiPen was apparently better than nothing, as long as it wasn’t too far off from when it did expire.”
Ellie takes a relieved breath in at hearing this.
“Thank god. Thank fucking god. That’s what I thought, but I-I honestly wasn’t sure. I couldn’t remember clearly in the moment.”
“How did you even know that?” Dina asks her in genuine curiosity.
“I-I… wh-when we were, you know, t-together…” Ellie mutters awkwardly. “I made sure to know, j-just in case.”
“Oh, Ellie…”
Ellie wrings her hands together and clears her throat in embarrassment.
“So where’s Jess? Where’s Anderson?” She asks, changing the subject and voice dripping in disdain at the last word.
“Jesse rode in the ambulance with her and the paramedics, and Abby said that she’d follow behind in her car,” Dina replies. “I stayed behind ‘cause I figured you were on your way and I wanted to be able to tell you what happened in person.”
“Thank you, D, seriously.”
Dina stares at Ellie earnestly for a moment.
“You really do still love her.” Dina says, not as a question but as a statement.
Ellie doesn’t respond to this remark, her lips tight and her ocean green eyes unreadable.
“Come on. Let’s go see her.”
You had been brought to St. Peter’s Hospital, the closest one located to your university. When Ellie and Dina had gotten there, they found Jesse sitting alone in the mostly empty waiting room. He was staring up at the dreary off-white ceiling, his left leg nervously bouncing up and down as one of his hands gripped his right knee. When he spots the two girls enter the room, he immediately jumps out of his seat to meet them. He pulls his girlfriend into a tight embrace and gives her a tender kiss on the forehead, and then he places a firm and reassuring hand on his best friend’s shoulder.
“How is she?” Ellie asks nervously.
“Unconcious still, but she’s alive,” Jesse replies somberly. “The paramedics in the ambulance told me that they were pumping her full of adrenaline; and so now, they’re either still doing that or they’re just trying to get her heart rate back to normal. Apparently, her tongue was so swollen and her throat closed up completely, so they’ve got to reopen her airways ‘cause she’s having a hard time breathing.”
“Oh, god…” Dina chokes out.
“Don’t worry, D.” Jesse consoles. “She’s gonna be fine. She’s strong, and we know that. They’re taking care of her, and she’ll hopefully be awake soon.”
“I know, I know…” Dina sniffles. “It’s really not like me to fall apart like this. But she’s like a sister to me, you know. I mean, she basically is.”
“Me too, babe. Don’t worry. We all love her too. No need to explain.” Jesse says.
Dina gives him a soft smile as he gives her another tender forehead kiss. Watching such a small but affectionate scene between the two makes Ellie feel as if she’s intruding on a private moment she shouldn’t be witnessing. Jealousy in the form of a knife in the stomach twists inside her while her heart aches to feel that kind of intimacy.
“Oh, shit, I should call her uncle,” Dina suddenly realizes, pulling away from Jesse slightly. “I think I still have his number from freshman year. He should know what’s going on.”
“Good idea.” Jesse agrees. “He’s one of her emergency contacts, but I’m not sure if he knows just yet.”
“I’ll call the girls too,” She continues, referring to the other girls who lived in the Wilson Valley building with you and Dina during your freshman year. “I know that they’ll also want to know.”
She pulls her phone out of her pocket before muttering a quick “be right back” and exiting the waiting room.
Jesse and Ellie watch her walk out silently. After a moment or two, Jesse speaks up.
“Are you okay, El?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, man. Don’t do that. You know what I mean.”
“I’m fine, Jess.”
“Dude.”
“What?”
Jesse turns his whole body to face Ellie straight on, crossing his arms against his chest and frowning.
“You’re completely red in the face, you look the most stressed out than I’ve ever seen you, and you’re here.”
“So?” Ellie replies stubbornly.
“Williams.” Jesse stresses sternly. “You know Dina and I saw everything you had in that desk drawer.”
Ellie says nothing in reply and Jesse continues.
“You literally still had her old EpiPen from like, two years ago. That entire drawer was full of her shit.”
Ellie clenches her jaw and balls up her fists.
“You still have all those old letters she used to write you all the time, all these mementos and knickknacks from when you two were together. You even have Barbie Bear.” Jesse points out. “Do you know that she’s been chewing Dina out nonstop about her for years because she thinks Dina stole her?”
“Look, she and I just stopped talking to each other all of a sudden before sophomore year. I never had an actual chance to give her all of her shit back—”
“You literally could have given them to me or Dina or even any of the Wilson girls so we could return them.”
“Look—”
“And what about the rest of it? Shit that you didn’t have to actually give back to her? It’s been years. You could have easily thrown it all out.”
“You don’t understa—”
“You didn’t even bother leaving all that shit back home in Jackson. You brought it all here with you to keep in our apartment.”
“I… I—”
“She could have fucking died tonight, El. And you’re still bullshitting me.”
“Jesse.” Ellie croaks out through quivering lips and watery eyes.
“You saved her life. She could have very well been in a worse state right now if it weren’t for you. You told me and Dina what to do. Nobody told you to do any of that. And by the sorry state of you, it looks like you just ran three marathons in a row just to get here and make sure she was okay in person.”
Tears threaten to flow down from Ellie’s ocean green eyes, and it takes every ounce of strength that she has left in her to will them not to fall.
“She means so, so much to me and Dina. And to a whole bunch of other people too. When she gets hurt, we feel that shit too.” Jesse says. “I need you to get your motherfucking shit together, Williams. Now.”
Before Ellie can even form some kind of thought in response to his declaration, Dina suddenly reenters the waiting room.
“Called her uncle and told him everything I know. He’s currently looking up the first flight out and he’ll hopefully be here sometime tomorrow.” Dina informs the pair as she walks over. “Just got off the phone with Astrid too. Most of the girls are either busy or asleep by now, but she said she’ll let them know too as soon as possible. If she’s awake tomorrow, they’ll try to come by to pay her a visit.”
“Okay, good.” Jesse nods in response. “Thanks for doing that, D. I was so focused on what’s been going on, and none of that even crossed my mind.”
“They deserved to know.” Dina smiles sadly before suddenly frowning. “But why did she even go into anaphylactic shock in the first place? They both asked me, but I realized that you never actually told either of us and I didn’t really know what to tell them.”
“She and Anderson were making out, and Anderson had eaten some seafood bouillabaisse for dinner. Apparently, it had a bunch of chopped-up shrimp in it that she couldn’t see.” Jesse says plainly.
Dina inadvertently glances at Ellie in slight sympathy, but Jesse looks at her with zero remorse on his face.
“She didn’t tell Abby that she was really allergic?” Dina asks.
“Anderson apparently had no idea, said that she wouldn’t have ordered it if she knew in the first place.” Jesse clarified.
“Anderson should have fucking double-checked re-fucking-gardless.” Ellie angrily interjects.
“It’s not Abby’s fault, Ellie. There’s no way she could have just known instinctively.” Dina reasons.
“Doesn’t matter. Isn’t she studying to be a fucking doctor? Isn’t that some basic shit that they teach at med school or whatever? She should have known better.” Ellie seethes. “Where the fuck is she, anyway? I thought she came along.”
“She went down to the food court for a breather.” Jesse says.
“Oh, she needs a breather?” Ellie sneers. “Yeah, go ahead and catch your breath when the person you almost killed tonight can’t even fucking breathe—”
“Ellie!” Dina scolds.
“Whatever.” Ellie scoffs.
“El,” Dina suddenly brings up. “Have you talked to Daniela yet?”
“What about her?” Ellie asks.
“Weren’t you supposed to meet up with her…” Dina checks the time on her phone. “... almost an hour ago?”
“So?”
“Ellie.”
Ellie clicks her tongue.
“Fine, let me text her right now that I won’t make it—” She begins to say begrudgingly, but she cuts herself off as someone else enters the waiting room.
Abby Anderson quietly walks through the door, sipping a plain black coffee from a styrofoam cup. She looks up from her drink and gives Jesse an awkward but polite smile which he respectfully returns along with a nod.
Ellie’s entire body goes cold with frigid, icy hatred, exacerbated when her furious ocean green eyes suddenly meet with Abby Anderson’s tired sky blue ones.
“Actually,” Ellie suddenly says. “I’m gonna give her a call and see if she’s still free to meet up tonight. I still want my jacket back.”
Both Dina and Jesse look as if they’re each about to interject with a response, but Ellie is too quick for either of them to say a word.
Ellie storms out of the waiting room, not giving a second look at Abby Anderson.
Ellie throws Joel’s old leather jacket onto her bed, sighing softly. She sheds her sweaty grey hoodie and throws it down next to the jacket before pulling her phone out. She proceeds to call Jesse, but she’s greeted with ten, empty-sounding buzzes before being redirected to his voicemail. She then attempts to call Dina but is greeted with an immediate automated message stating that the call could not be completed.
Groaning in exasperation, Ellie collapses into her desk chair and roughly kicks off her Converse. After a moment or two, she notices the bottom-most drawer of her desk and the way it’s hanging off the frame precariously. Sighing, she crouches down on the floor and begins to rearrange its previous contents.��
At first, she shoves items back into the drawer at random, but she immediately pauses once her hand grazes across the fur of a pink stuffed animal.
Barbie Bear.
She picks up the stuffed animal and stares sadly into its plastic eyes. Noticing that the light pink ribbon around its neck has gotten loose, Ellie delicately attempts to retie it back into a bow. After a couple of lopsided tries, she’s eventually satisfied once she’s able to center the ribbon correctly. She carefully places Barbie Bear back into the drawer before returning to restore its contents with more consideration.
After replacing a few pairs of old earrings of yours into a small box, she picks up a stack of old letters that she’d tied together with a piece of brown twine. Ellie resists the urge to go through each of them, but when she notices that one had fallen out of the stack and is now lying on the floor, her willpower dwindles almost instantly.
Ellie picks up the envelope gingerly, almost as if she’s afraid that her touch will cause it to burst into flames. She reads her name on the front written with green ink and flips it over to where the flap of the envelope is torn open. She runs her fingers over the wax seal that had secured the letter inside: the design of Saturn amongst several stars. Nervously, she slips the card out from inside and unfolds it to reveal your handwriting.
Dear Ellie,
It is currently 4:27 A.M. and I can’t sleep, and for some reason, I can’t stop watching that story you posted on Instagram earlier over and over. The one of you singing and playing your electric guitar to that Aaron Taylor song. Not to be gay as fuck, but it is so easy to get lost in the sound of your voice. Also, I really like your lips. And your hands.
I know I said this yesterday already, but you’ve been overworking yourself way too much lately. I’m glad that you’ve been putting a lot of effort into your schoolwork, but have you eaten? When was the last time you had a full meal (microwaveable ramen does not count)? Have you been taking any time for yourself? It’s really sweet that you still make time to come hang out with me most days, but you need some you time too, you know.
Not that I don’t love seeing your goofy face all the time. I don’t know, I think me writing all that out is me casually acknowledging that I have attachment issues and attempting to work on it. Oh, well. I’m pretty attached to you, fucking dork.
Okay, heading to bed now. Hopefully, I’ll actually be able to fall asleep this time. But hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow (I know I just said that you need to take more time for yourself, but shut up). You’re always the best part of my day.
Ellie can’t seem to let herself read the final piece of the letter, the part where you’d signed your name.
She delicately folds the card once more and places it back into its envelope. Turning it over in her hand and tenderly running her fingers over where you’d addressed her name, she wonders if your handwriting is still the same as it was all those years ago.
Reluctantly, Ellie tucks the letter back into the stack before tying them all securely together once more.
Earlier That Evening
Ellie was fifty-two minutes late to her supposed “date” with Daniela. This was Ellie’s third failed attempt at reacquiring Joel’s old motorcycle jacket, and they had previously decided to meet up outside the coffee shop on campus where Daniela recently started working after the end of her shift.
But after Ellie’s unexplained absence from their meeting, Daniela bitterly stormed back home to her dorm. She had half a mind to say no when Ellie called her with a half-assed explanation and asked if she could come over to retrieve her jacket. But after giving in, Ellie arrived at her dorm room within half an hour.
It wasn’t a total shock to Ellie when she was greeted with a look of annoyance when Daniela opened the door for her. Ellie attempted to feign a guilty expression, but all that she could muster was an indifferent grimace. Daniela said nothing as she silently beckoned Ellie to follow her and come in, an AirPod playing music loudly in one ear.
Ellie took a quick glance around the place, never having actually been inside Daniela’s room before. The twin-size beds, old wooden dressers, and scuffed-up desks were an all-too-familiar sight for Ellie, having gone through the same torturous experience herself only a couple of years back in her freshman year. But a few things were different as Daniela and her roommate had attempted to really personalize their living area. Ellie tried not to make a face of repulsion when spotting a few Taylor Swift concert posters above one of the desks.
Daniela plopped onto, what Ellie had assumed was, her bed but made no gesture that welcomed Ellie to do the same. She merely stared at her passively as Ellie tried to avoid looking her directly in the eye.
“You’re an hour late.” Daniela pointed out.
“Only fifty-two minutes late.” Ellie attempted to joke.
Daniela only hummed in response, unsmiling. She picked up a faded brown jacket that was sitting on top of her pillow by the collar and handed it over to Ellie.
“Thanks,” Ellie muttered, tucking the jacket under her arm. “Uh, thanks a lot for looking after it. Needed it back ‘cause it’s really my dad’s old jacket.”
“Oh, sorry. I would have given it back sooner if I knew that.” Daniela replied, not sounding the least bit sorry.
“It’s okay.” Ellie mumbled awkwardly.
There was an uncomfortable moment or two of complete silence where Daniela continued to merely gaze at Ellie, unwavering and unapologetic, while Ellie focused her eyes on her Converse as she wrung her hands together.
“Hey, look…” Ellie eventually spoke up. “I really am sorry about being late. I just had a really important emergency that I had to deal with.”
“It’s fine,” Daniela replied remorselessly. “Tara told me that you suddenly had to deal with some shit.”
“Wait, what?”
“Tara. Tara Maclay. She works with me at Ruston.”
“Oh, right.”
Another awkward moment of silence.
“Your ex-girlfriend, right?” Daniela asks unexpectedly.
“What?”
“Your ex-girlfriend. The shit you had to deal with tonight.”
“Oh, uh…”
“No point in lying, Ellie.” Daniela shrugged. “Tara already told me the gist.”
“Oh. What did she say exactly?”
“Not much. Said that you needed to help deal with something for someone you both know. She didn’t tell me exactly that it was your ex-girlfriend, but it was pretty obvious. I read between the lines.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“She really shouldn’t have told you all that.”
“She was ranting to another co-worker and I overheard your name and I was curious.” Daniela shrugged again, unabashed.
Another awkward moment of silence.
“So you still into your ex or something, Ellie?” Daniela spoke up again.
“She’s not really my ex-girlfriend.”
“Whatever.”
Another awkward moment of silence.
“Well?” Daniela asked.
“It’s kind of complicated.”
“That’s just the bullshit way of saying yes,” Daniela rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t matter if she’s your ‘ex’ or whatever.”
“Look, Daniela—”
“I know we aren’t serious or whatever, but I don’t really feel like dealing with someone else’s ex drama.”
“There’s no drama. I don’t even speak to her anymore.”
“And yet you ditched me to go and help her out with something earlier.”
“It’s not like that. And it was also an emergency.”
“So you said.”
Ellie wasn’t sure why she felt the need to explain herself to a girl she barely knew. Part of her felt compelled to do so as if she could continue to actively ignore her feelings by saying these things out loud.
Another awkward moment of silence.
��God, you’re such an asshole fuckboy, Ellie.”
“Hey, what the fuck—”
“You know that you can get girls and do, but you just like to fuck around with them and play with their feelings.”
“Alright, first of all, you said yourself that we’re nothing serious. We’ve barely even done anything.” Ellie said defensively. “Second, I literally just said that I don’t even talk to her anymore! Not even tonight!”
Ellie scoffed as Daniela rolled her eyes once more.
“Look,” Ellie continued through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry that I was late tonight. And I get it if your feelings are hurt. But nothing’s happening between me and my ex.”
“You just said that she wasn’t your ex.”
“Sh-she’s— she’s not, she’s—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Daniela muttered as stood up from her bed. “At this point, I’m over it, and I really don’t give a fuck anymore. You’re hot and all, Ellie. But this is not worth it.”
She popped an AirPod in her ear once more and sauntered over to the door.
“Word of advice. Figure out your feelings for this ‘ex’ of yours and decide if you actually wanna be with her or not before getting involved with anyone else. Nobody deserves that hanging over their head, especially when you’re so clearly still in love with her.”
And with that, Daniela opened the door and peered at her expectantly. Ellie took the hint and walked towards her direction and through the doorway. Before Ellie could fully turn around and give any parting words, Daniela shut the door in her face.
Present
Ellie collapses onto her bed next to Joel’s old motorcycle jacket. She pulls her phone out again, contemplating calling Jesse and Dina once more. But realizing they’ll probably call her if they have anything important that they feel she needs to know, she drops the phone down to her side in defeat.
She continues to lay in her bed for a while, stewing in her unresolved feelings with nobody to confide in. Closing her eyes, her mind begins to race against her will with reminders of the path life led her down after you.
First was Marisol. Less than two months into sophomore year of college, Jesse and Dina were completely aghast to see Ellie walking around campus with a girl they’d never seen her with before. She was in Ellie’s Aerospace Engineering class, and Ellie had claimed to have had an eye on her since last year. Jesse and Dina watched helplessly as their friend flaunted her new girlfriend around everywhere for the next couple of months.
Ellie wasn’t initially sure what it was that attracted her to Marisol in the first place. She was naturally beautiful with her long, black hair and slender figure, and she was the textbook definition of a perfect girlfriend. It took two and a half months of overly extravagant dates and bouquets of Marisol’s favourite flowers and late nights spent at her dorm room for Ellie to understand what it was about Marisol that she was drawn to: it was her eyes. Down to the specks in her irises and how her eyelids curved, Marisol’s eyes resembled yours far too well. After coming to this harrowing realization, Ellie quickly broke things off with her tactlessly and with a half-assed, mostly untrue justification.
The next was Luz who she had met during her near-daily workouts at the gym with Jesse. Ellie spent several autumn weeks with them, allowing Luz to whisk her about to different parties with different groups of friends every weekend. But one fateful night when they had dragged Ellie to a party at the same Sigma Eta frat house where you’d both first met, a bad acid trip cemented the end of her time with Luz.
As Ellie’s dilated pupils focused intensely on Luz’s black boots, a pair very similar to your favourites, she felt a sensation begin to roughly tug at something inside her. From her spot on the living room couch, her eyes darted up to a spot by the wall where a small group of partygoers were congregating. She zeroed in on a random girl she’d never seen before whose multi-coloured features, as a result of LSD brain fog, began to morph into those of someone she was desperately trying to forget.
Once the last parts of the stranger’s face had fully formed to impersonate yours, she abruptly stood up from her slouched position on the couch, muttered an excuse to Luz about using the bathroom, and desperately begged Jesse to come pick her up immediately. After Jesse helped her click on her seatbelt in the passenger seat with a tight-lipped expression where he fought the urge to remind her of the significance of this house, Ellie never looked back and swore never to trip on acid again, subsequently ghosting Luz after that night.
A couple of weeks before winter break, she met a sweet and quiet girl named Simi. They met through a dating app during one of Ellie’s crossfaded swiping sprees at 2 in the morning. Ellie’s affair with her was extremely short-lived, ending things with her a day before everyone left campus to head home for the holidays. While spending the day hanging out at Simi’s dorm room as her new girlfriend packed for her trip home, Ellie suddenly and unfairly started a fight with her after Simi had begun to mindlessly sing the song “Merry Christmas Darling” under her breath.
Ellie had unkindly demanded for her to “shut up” immediately, understandably hurting Simi’s feelings. The fight was short and confusing, as Ellie had refused to elaborate on her sudden explosion. As she unceremoniously marched out of the dorm room, Ellie aggressively tried to suppress memories of you singing that same Carpenters song on a loop all of December of the previous year. You’d claimed you couldn’t get it out of your head and needed to sing it out loud at least fifty times a day so you could stop thinking about it. Though Ellie had playfully cussed you out and thrown several pillows at you on multiple occasions, that song now belonged to you forever and nobody else.
After Simi were strings of countless others, some who had used Ellie as their brief college lesbian experience and many whose names Ellie would never be able to recall. She never hooked up with the same person more than twice, never actually took another one out for an actual date until Daniela.
Ellie had found Daniela incredibly pretty when she’d first laid eyes on her on a warm September afternoon earlier in the year. She was lounging on the quad as Dina did her homework and Jesse lazily strummed his guitar when a group of freshmen walked by. Ellie hadn’t spared them a glance until one of the girls approached her, all shy and giggly, and said that one of her friends found Ellie very cute. After pointing Daniela out and asking for her number, Ellie shrugged and relented. She ignored Dina and Jesse’s identical judgmental looks and eye-rolls in her peripheral vision.
Ellie enjoyed the undivided attention of someone completely enamoured by her. Daniela was constantly responsive, did whatever Ellie wanted to do, and was always so eager to please her. Ellie’d bring her to the movies, go on long drives with her in her Jeep, take her to whatever restaurants she’d want to eat at.
To anyone who keenly observed when they were together, it was quite obvious who was far more invested between the two. Despite spending an ample amount of time with her in the past month or so, Ellie continued to keep Daniela at arm’s length. On multiple occasions when Ellie’d convinced Jesse and Dina to allow Daniela to accompany them, the long-time couple would watch how disconnected their friend was from this new girl she’d been seeing.
Dina would constantly give Jesse a raised eyebrow look that silently would ask, “Is she really serious?” to which Jesse would give her a tight-lipped, wordless grimace that replied with “We both know she’s a fucking dumbass.” They both placed bets on when exactly Ellie would eventually ditch this new girlfriend.
Unbeknownst to them, it’s Ellie who was so easily discarded this time around. Feeling so unmoved and unaffected about the split with Daniela, Ellie tries to feel some kind of guilt over her lack of reciprocation. It’s her own actions, after all, that landed her dumped in the first place. She’s never fully seen Daniela as an actual girlfriend, and she knows full well that she shouldn’t have strung her along.
But as she continues to lay in her bed, ocean green eyes shut and a hand woven through her auburn locks, she thinks of only you.
Ellie can’t remember a single moment in her life when she’s felt more in need of another person’s company than she does at this very moment. Unable to trouble Dina to be her listening ear as she always is or bother Jesse to bluntly set her straight as usual, she feels the loneliness of the gloomy, dark room creep into her guilty conscience.
Her fingers begin to mindlessly search her bedsheets as she continues to stare at her decrepit bedroom ceiling, seeking for her silver joint box that had fallen out of her pocket when she’d collapsed on her bed. Instead of the feel of cold metal, her hand comes across something smooth and warm. Pulling the brown leather jacket up to her face, Ellie’s mind murmurs a single word.
Joel.
She pulls her phone out to search for her father’s face within her favourite contacts. She hesitates for a moment but pushes herself to call.
Joel picks up after only two rings.
“Ellie? Jesus, kiddo, what the hell time is it?”
“Hello to you too, old man.” Ellie chuckles.
“Everythin’ alright?” Joel’s voice asks, tired but urgent.
“Y-yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
Ellie can almost hear her father sitting up straight in bed.
“What’s wrong, Ellie?”
“I-I…” She stutters. “Joel…”
With a whimpering tone, she suddenly recounts the night’s events in complete detail. Joel listens attentively, only ever interrupting with sharp intakes of breath and hushed, imperceptible asides. After listening to his daughter’s sorrowful spiel, he finally speaks.
“Oh, baby girl…” Joel utters. “I truly am sorry. It’s been a real rough night for all of y’all.”
“Yeah…”
“That poor kid… I’m glad she had you three lookin’ out for her tonight.”
Ellie says nothing to this, pursing her lips.
“How about you, Ellie?” Joel continues. “How are you feelin’ after everythin’ that’s happened?”
“I-I’m not really sure. I’m not sure I know how to feel.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to just yet. It just happened and all.”
“All I feel is so much fucking guilt, Joel. It feels like my mind is empty but overflowing all at the same time. I feel so motherfucking powerless and I don’t know what to do.”
There’s a moment of silence before her father speaks again.
“You given any thought to the conversation we had before you left for school, kiddo?”
Last August: Jackson
Ellie’s bedroom was full of boxes and bags packed with everything she planned to bring to college for her junior year. The space was slightly more barren, closet mostly empty and trinkets missing from her shelves. It was only a couple more days before she, Dina, and Jesse would be making their journey back to their university, and she was uncharacteristically ahead of schedule.
Leaning against her desk with a box full of comic books on the floor next to her, she was casually perusing an old graphic novel when Joel appeared in her open doorway.
“Knock, knock.”
“The door’s open, old man. Also, you can literally just walk in, you know.”
“Who raised you to have so much cheek against your elders, kid?”
“You, dude.”
The pair smirked at each other’s smart-mouthed retorts.
“Need any help packin’ up?”
“Nah. It’s pretty much done except for a handful of essentials.”
“Including that book you’re holdin’ right now?”
“Like I said: essentials.”
Joel chuckled.
“Well, the Changs sent over some dinner for us, if you want some. Wisa made K-kaw… Khao Tom Pa… no, Plah…” Joel stuttered, making an effort to pronounce the Thai dish correctly. “Khao Tom Plah, that’s it. She brought some over earlier, thought we might want some. She even made it without the prawns, just the way you like it.”
“Sick. She’s the best. I’ll text Jesse later to thank her.”
“Good.”
Joel lingered as Ellie went back to reading her comic, wistfully looking around his daughter’s nearly vacated bedroom. His eyes fell on a small box sitting at the foot of Ellie’s bed. It was an ordinary, cardboard box just as the others were, except it was heavily sealed with multiple layers of silver duct tape. He frowned.
“Still plannin’ on bringin’ that box?”
“What do you mean?” Ellie asked, knowing exactly what her father was referring to without looking up.
“You know you can just leave it here at home, right? It ain’t like I go through your doohickeys when you ain’t here.”
“So you do go through my shit when I am here?”
“Ellie.”
“What?”
“Why the hell are you doing this to yourself, kid?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We’ve been having this same conversation for the past year now.”
Ellie finally peeled her eyes away from her graphic novel, tossing it on the desk behind her and crossing her arms.
“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up, Joel.”
“I bring it up because I know that you ain’t been talkin’ about these feelings with anyone. Not me or Jesse or Dina. It’s been a year since you ditched that poor girl, and you’re still sulkin’ over it.”
“She ditched me.”
“Hold your horses; we both know that ain’t true.”
“What do you want from me, old man?”
“I want you to be happy, kiddo.”
“What makes you think I’m not happy?”
“Now, don’t try to bullshit me. You can grumble and deny it ‘til the cows come home, but even after all this time, all you ever do is brood and pine after that girl. Plain as day to anyone. You ain’t been the same since y’all broke up.”
“We weren’t together.”
“Yes, you were.”
Joel ignored his daughter’s subsequent eye-roll before continuing.
“You still have the box, Ellie.”
“I just forgot I even had it.”
“And yet, you’re bringin’ it to school with you, just like you did last year. Why?”
“It was just in my closet stuffed in with all this other shit I don’t touch. Had to take it out while I was packing.”
“That ain’t amount to a hill o’ beans. And you still ain’t answer my question.”
“Sorry, dude.”
“Ellie. You and I would down to Beacon Run all the damn time back when you were growin’ up. You used to beg me to go for dinner whenever you had a hankerin’ to order that cheesy crab dip with all those chips and jalapeños and such.”
Ellie raised her eyebrow, unsure where her father was going with this.
“Then all of a sudden, a few years ago, you seemed to hate the place. You’ll maybe get a plate of fries and nothin’ else. Matter of fact, I can’t, for the life of me, recall the last time I’ve seen you eat a plate of seafood with any kind of shellfish in it.”
Joel’s greying eyes pierced Ellie’s ocean green.
“Two years.” He continued. “It’s been two years. You almost never eat any kind of seafood no more, and even the Changs never cook us anythin’ that has shrimps or scallops or anythin’ of the like.”
Joel watched as his daughter stubbornly struggled to justify herself. He sighed sadly.
“I wish you’d let yourself be happy, Ellie. You could be.”
“That so? How do you figure that?”
“First step is admitting exactly what is clear as day to everyone around you.”
“Oh, yeah? And what is that?”
Present Day
“J-Joel… I-I…” Ellie sobs. “I love her.”
“I know, baby girl.”
Joel helplessly listens to his daughter’s desperate weeping from the other end of the line.
“So,” He eventually asks in between her snivels. “What now?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She sniffs.
“Kiddo, why do you think your feelings don’t matter?”
“Because relationships do not work for me. Love doesn’t work for me.”
“Your relationship with her didn’t work. Past tense. It’s been years. It was a tough situation. You’re a different person now.” Joel clarifies. “And there’s plenty love ‘round you, kiddo. You got a lotta love in your life. I need you t’realize that.”
“Except I-I’m not a different person, Joel. I-I am just an older, slightly more experienced version of myself. I-I…” Ellie stutters. “I’m afraid.”
“Of course you are, kid. It’s only natural.” Joel replies. “But you can’t live your whole life closed off from the rest of the world. You need and deserve love, Ellie.”
“Except I don’t, Joel! I fucking don’t!” She cries. “God, y-you just, you just don’t understand!”
“What don’t I understand?”
“She almost fucking died!” Ellie nearly screams.
A silence falls between the two, only broken by Ellie’s hot and angry tears noisily dropping onto the old leather jacket. She grips it tightly in one hand before continuing.
“I-if… if none of it happened… if I d-didn’t do all that to h-her all those years ago…” She stutters between shaky lips. “M-maybe she wouldn’t be where she is now. She wouldn’t have gone on a date w-with someone who didn’t know about…”
Ellie chokes back a sob.
“I-I… I would have known. I would have t-taken care of her. I would never have—”
“Ellie.”
“She needed me, and I… I let her down. Not just tonight. All those years ago. I couldn’t be what she needed. I fucking failed her.”
“It’s not that simple, kid.”
“Yes, it is! Her cousin fucking died! He was her whole fucking world, and she loved him more than anything, and he fucking died and I… I ran. I abandoned her.”
The blurry memory of your sleeping figure in the passenger seat of Ellie’s Jeep appears in front of her, wrapped up cozily in her flannel as she drives you home from Jackson and naive to what lies ahead.
“I know… I know what I’m capable of, Joel. I loved her so much all those years ago and… I still hurt her. I hurt her so fucking badly.”
Your image transforms to one of you awake and livid, Ellie’s flannel torn off and tears streaming down your face. Anger and betrayal are etched all over your face, just like they were all those years ago. The shame she’d felt back then is incomparable to what she feels now.
“I don’t ever want to do that to her again, ever. I just can’t. I won’t.”
Joel sighs deeply before finally speaking.
“Ellie. That fear is always gonna be there. But you’re young, and we make plenty of mistakes in our youth. God knows how much of my past I used to regret.”
Ellie takes deep breaths as her father continues to speak.
“Everythin’ that happened tonight? None of it was your fault. In fact, I reckon you’re the reason she’s still livin’ and breathin’ right now. I’m proud of you for that.”
“All I did was—”
“All you did was save her life.”
Ellie sniffles but doesn’t respond.
“Look, kiddo,” Joel continues. “As someone who has known you for a very long time, I know how much of a good heart you got. You’re a lovin’ person who deserves love. I wish you could believe that.”
The sound of people entering through the front door echoes all around the empty apartment, but Ellie hears nothing else but the sound of her own agonized sobs.
author’s notes:
belle posting TWO chapters of ncty within less than two weeks of each other??? what is this, may 2023???
saury for not posting this right away like promised yesterday, like i said, going thru some shit rn! but i hope y'all enjoyed regardless ♥︎
i'll give you a kiss on the mouth if you guess the bollywood movie i vaguely reference at the beginning of the chapter :)
the idea of reader being allergic to shellfish and going into anaphylactic shock came to me one day a while back when i was eating something with shrimp and randomly remembered that i am very allergic to shellfish and instead of being like, "i should go take some medicine immediately", i thought, "hmm this would be a wild plot point for ncty" LMFAOOOO
anyway, this is your reminder that if you have an epipen, don't be stupid, bring that shit with you wherever you go sldkfjsdl
the more of jesse that i include in this series, the more i enjoy writing him. he's such a fun character to write hehe
i thought having abby sipping on some hot, black coffee when ellie fucking canonically hates coffee was so hilarious, i pat myself on the fucking back for that one
yes i also pat myself on the back for the line regarding ellie's ocean green eyes and abby's sky blue ones. i fucking love parallels and symbolism. i'm a whore for them, in fact.
btw dina doesn't respond to ellie's phone call bc her phone died (prob from facetiming ellie for that long earlier in the night) and idk, jesse's either not paying attention or being petty LMFAO
the reappearance of barbie bearrrrr, my babyyyy. idk if y'all remember, but yes, barbie bear is a reference to the actual stuffed pink bear i sleep with every night named barbie. i had planned since chapter 4 (which is the chapter barbie bear is first mentioned) for ellie to have had her this whole time because i'm a fucking lunatic LOL
i mentioned in the author's notes section of the last chapter how reader's letterwriting hobby is inspired by me irl cause i do that all the time for friends, but reader's letter in this chapter is actually loosely based on a letter that soulmate ex wrote me, it's not word for word exactly, i altered it a bit to fit the story better, but it's very close because i'm INSANE, anyway
yes "i think i love you again" is on my playlist about my ex-girlfriend and "merry christmas darling" is on his playlist for me, go away
ellie's clear aversion to taylor swift is both a reference to a previous chapter where jesse subtly mentions her dislike for her and also to my personal belief that ellie really would not like her as a person or an artist at all irl lmfao
the names of all of ellie's ex gfs or whatever are inspired by something very specific but that's another heehee secret trivia that nobody else but me will ever know about (let's be real, i'll prob tell star later LOL)
i named jesse's mom after one of my fave co-workers hehe (and the dish she makes for them is thai bc my co-worker is from thailand)
ellie's declaration of love about reader that she makes to joel has also been a long time planned now, idk why i knew it was gonna be chapter 13 when i did it, but i just knew it was. it was always the plan for her to confess it out loud to joel first, above anyone else
the final conversation between ellie and joel is heavily inspired by a scene from one of my fave tv shows, crazy ex-girlfriend. the scene makes me bawl every time i watch it. please watch crazy ex-girlfriend. so good.
we really are thirteen chapters into this series, huh? crazy. anyway, love y'all. <3
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— hello! i have two ideas for desi! Reader x modern! Snow
FIRST: Coryo attending a desi wedding, seeing it's ways etc and the stuff that happens (like in which we stop the groom from entering until he hands over legit bundles of money to his sister in law's lmao) and Snow be like i have to be hella rich to marry reader
SECOND: teaching him how to cook basic desi cuisine (like legit basic shit like tea, aloo bhorta coz it's my favorite, daal which is also my favorite etc) and like a Bollywood movie night, maybe even dancing to a song and some nsfw shit
please vote pookies
#character x reader#x you#x female reader#x reader#fem reader#smut#scenario#oneshot#x reader smut#x you smut#desi tumblr#desi#desi reader#the ballad of songbirds and snakes#tbosas x you#tbosas smut#tbosas fanfiction#tbosas#coriolanus snow x reader#young coriolanus snow#coriolanus snow smut#coriolanus snow#coriolanus x reader#coriolanus smut#coriolanus x you#coriolanus snow x reader smut#coriolanus snow x you#coriolanus snow x female!reader#snow x reader#the hunger games
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rocky aur rani thoughts
it wasn't at all what i expected actually? like I'm not sure what I expected but it wasn't that
rani chatterjee let me raid your wardrobe
they really just promoted tum kya mile and jhumka because there were like no other really memorable songs--
I sound a bit mean but I had a blast, I laughed a lot, did tear up at least once, and didn't want to pull up 2048 at any time during the film
(spoilers under the cut)
the film had some real 2011 style feminism moments mixed in with more genuine things? the interview at the start made me want to die but there were some almost - ALMOST - coherent points in there
bollywood is not the place to make statements about fat shaming etc etc but there was almost smth valid in seeing any jokes about what whatshername ate clearly coming from ...people were not supposed to like?
rocky and rani were actually quite sweet, despite the ...extraness
i think the film kind of rolled over this as rocky was supposed to be wealthy, but there's a great deal of elitism in the sort of attitude Rani and her family have towards Rocky. It makes me wonder what this film would be if he didn't ... colour coordinate his cars to his clothes and live in a replica whitehouse. like on one hand it's arguably his wealth that makes him able to be the way he is, but on the other hand, the traditional/modern divide that they were showing is typically also a class divide. there's no reason for rockys english to not be good as he is now - and nothing apart from personal taste and "traditionalism" for them to critique, even though rocky isn't actually that traditional in comparison to his family, and even if he was, they - esp at the start - didn't know that
on the other hand I don't know a lot of Bengali people or a lot of Punjabi people so it may just be like a culture shock thing they're going for. idk. i understand it, i just think it's a little bit of a miss for a genuine criticism on their laughing at him
the grandparents element was funny lmao. like what's going on THERE. but it was almost kind of sweet, too, the way they just ...liked spending time together I guess
keh diya na... bas keh diya
^ half the cinema actually echoed this line with her. icons only
the film did pretty often pit men against men and women against women. this worked! when alia or her mom were yelling at men... this worked a little bit less? idk. i think sometimes it ends up feeling a bit mouthpiecey, and some of it was weirdly phrased and ...strongly delivered, to say the least. i understand that they're both from an environment in which they feel safe voicing their opinion, but I was nonetheless going - would someone actually say that? so openly? so maybe that's on me
everything about the alias dad storyline was just chefs kiss
i do think rockys relationship w his mom and sister needed a bit of work for the big fight scene to work. it sounds weird to say since so much of the film was abt the randhawas but ranveers mom's dynamics w everyone were a bit underdone
the guy playing young granddad was so hot. hotter than the real actor actually was back then tbh
all I could think during the ranveer dance routine was how much time did it take him to learn that dbdndndjdjf but that was excellent
idk. i think in some senses the scale of the movie interfered with its effectiveness, but I don't want it to be any smaller in the ayushmann khurana sense, if that...makes sense? idk. it did feel very kjo production, and I like that about it
tum kya mileeeee,,,, tum kya mileeeee,,,, hum na rahe hummmmm,,,, tum kya mileeeeee
ranis "i am speaking" was hot though the whole of that non-confrontation made me want to yell, though maybe because it was happening in public
SPEAKING OF when she crashes her car into his in the middle of a four lane road and then they just fucking stand there and talk and kiss for 10 minutes and all the other cars just go around....lmaoooooooo
still think the more obvious solution was for them both to move out of their family homes but ok
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A major part of the marauders fandom have hc of James Potter being desi, right? I am not a big one myself, but here's a fic idea.
Songfic? Modern AU? Yeah both.
James and Lily just enjoying their post graduation dating life while dancing in the rain on the song Zoobi Doobi
— James teaching Lily the lyrics and the meaning beforehand so she would understand what's it all about.
— Lily having trouble with catching up on the fast lyrics because she is still learning. But enjoying nonetheless.
— Them being all soaked, happy, laughing, loving and forgetting a big war is going all.
— And everything's just Happy.
PLEASE SOMEONE WRITE IT I BEG YOU!!!
(got inspired by the little dancing photo of them in the movies)
Part 1, 2, 3, 4
This is part 1 of my Bollywood x Harry Potter fic ideas
@foreignink
#desi james potter#james potter#lily evans#james x lily#jily#zoobi doobi#3 idiots#james being a big Bollywood fan#marauders#writing prompt#james and lily being in love#fanfiction ideas i get at 3 in the morning#if the marauders were desi
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My ideas for a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen theatrical musical which will never come to reality:
-based off the movie (if loosely) because the comics would be a pain to adapt
-also the songs would really help hiding the writing issues
-Mina’s actress wears a secret contraption that stretches into bat wings on command, and special makeup that highlights her features under certain types of light- thus allowing her to go Dracula mode onstage. She also gets costumes she can take off in one piece so that as her character develops she gradually ditches a more traditional Victorian getup for a modern, goth outfit.
-the Invisible Man is played by an actor in a bodysuit wearing a removable mask and moving puppet arms around (which represent face makeup and gloves respectively). To become invisible he simply drops them and moves around the stage, as other actors pretend they can’t see him.
-Hyde is a large stage puppet maneuvered by various actors, with Jekyll’s actor moving his face and providing his voice. The transformations consist of Jekyll simply entering or leaving his place in the puppet, the other puppeteers building it up around him or removing key pieces. And the mirror scenes are done with projections and pre-recorded audio.
-Lots of Puppets just. So Many Many Puppets. For the Nautilus for the Phantom’s men for Dante for all that sea life etc
As for the music:
-cheesy intro number on the line of “deviation from the norm will be punished unless its exploitable”
-We need at least one (1) sad song about Mina’s tragic backstory, or rather how she feels about it. Not very good this is.
-she also is given the role of protagonist back
-Jekyll is going to be framed as her love interest through and through btw. Same as Dorian. Tom already has his getting adopted by Allan arc. Literally a YA love triangle but they’re all goth middle aged queens.
-listen this is my idea so I make the rules
-EPIC NEMO THEME
-the hunt for Hyde becomes a short but catchy dance sequence.
-The Nautilus is introduced with a HUGE high level song worthy of a Bollywood musical with the aforementioned sea life puppets. Please ignore how incredibly dark the lyrics are.
-YES I KNOW THOSE MOMENTS ARE LITERALLY BACK TO BACK IN THE MOVIE. I’LL FIND A WAY TO SPACE THEM OUT.
-Mina and Dorian MUST have a duet that makes it into Lovers To Enemies To Lovers To Enemies playlists I SWEAR TO GOD.
-Confrontation 2
-Jekyll and Hyde literally have Confrontation 2
-Captain Nemo is going to get a solo song about his past and his motivations and here he should figure out M first, like in the comics (Allan has more of a mentor role / common thread between the other characters)
-Dorian Gray villain song complete with a little dance! A jaunty little gothic vaudeville song that uses his motif (which will sound whenever he’s onstage)
-Moriarty doesn’t dance because he thinks he’s above dancing but he does sing. He also has a villain song but it’s way more serious than Dorian’s
-Allan doesn’t sing a single line until the last song (as he’s dying)
the musical ends with Mina becoming the new leader of the League and getting her final costume change which will include a question mark motif as a nod to the original comics
And then intro number reprise but with a more tongue in cheek cynical tint and a final hopeful note. I need people to come out of the theater as full blown anarchists.
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The Jewish Bollywood Star: Esther Abraham
She was India's first female film producer
Esther Abraham was a Jewish Bollywood superstar and the first female film producer in India. She was a proud observant Jew even while shaping modern Indian culture.
Esther was born in Calcutta in 1916 to an Orthodox Jewish family. The Abrahams were Baghdadi Jews who had emigrated from Iraq in the 19th century. In school Esther excelled academically and athletically. She was a talented hockey player with a roomful of trophies. Esther was also an artist who attended Cambridge University after high school and majored in art.
After university, Esther became a kindergarten teacher at a Jewish school in Calcutta, but she yearned to be a performer. Her first job in the entertainment industry was as a dancer for a silent movie theater. Esther’s job was to entertain the audience during a pause in the film while the reel were changed.
Many members of Esther’s family were talented musicians and performers. She went to visit an actress cousin in Bombay who was appearing in a theater production. The director noticed tall, beautiful Esther and gave her a screen test.
Esther did so well on the test that she soon appeared in her first movie, Bhikaran, in 1936. Around this time she was given the screen name Pramila. Audiences fell in love with Pramila and she quickly became one of the most famous actresses in India. She also worked as a model and appeared on many magazine covers. In 1947, at age 31, Esther won the first Miss India contest – while pregnant with her fifth child.
At that time in India, the movie industry was controlled by a handful of extremely wealthy producers who exploited their actors and crew members and paid them only a measly salary. Esther Abraham decided to change that. She defied the studio system by becoming the first female producer of Bollywood feature films. Esther formed her own production company, Silver Productions, and produced sixteen feature films. She treated her cast and crew with respect and paid them well.
Esther starred in 30 films. In addition to being an actress and producer, she did her own stunts and worked as a stunt double for other performers. Esther also designed her own costumes and jewelry for every production.
Famous for her enchantingly beautiful eyes, audiences didn’t know that her eyesight was very poor and she did dance moves by counting the steps. Audiences also were likely unaware that she was Jewish – and probably wouldn’t have cared. Unlike so many countries with Jewish communities, India has no history of antisemitism.
Esther’s daughter Naqi Jahan was crowned Miss India in 1967, and they are the only mother and daughter who both won the title. Her son Haidar Ali is a successful Indian actor and screenwriter. Haidar described his mother: “A woman who was gifted by God with internal power and strength… she magnetized power…. One the home front she kept us together [clenching his fist] like this.”
Esther Abraham appeared in her last film in 2005, at age 90, playing a grandmother in the movie Thaang. She died a few months after its release. Until the end of her long life, Esther remained a practicing Jew. Her funeral was at the Maghen David synagogue, and her son Maurice read Psalms in Hebrew. Esther was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Mumbai.
For entertaining audiences for seventy years, and for being the first female film producer in India, we honor Esther Abraham, aka Pramila, as this week’s Thursday Hero.
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Hi again Sarah! My Indian films rec list just got super long cos of all the tropes and summaries so I'm making it into a proper post I can tag you in!
While I do that, here are my top five faves from both Bollywood and Kollywood (Tamil films) respectively:
Bollywood:
- Dhoom 2 (2006); I'm actually rewatching this right now and it's a SUPER fun, campy heist movie with a great soundtrack! The whole trilogy of movies are great but this one is my fave and they can all be watched as standalones
- 3 Idiots (2009); a modern classic that most people have heard of if they are casual fans of Bollywood. It takes place in an engineering college and has a super compelling plot I can't give away too much of
- Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008); It's a love story of an arranged marriage between a shy guy and this outgoing girl who kind of hates how quiet and introverted he is. And she thinks he expects her to be a traditional Indian wife so she kind of is sad abt being married. Then she goes to take dance lessons and in an attempt to connect with his wife, he goes to the lessons in disguise as a confident guy and they fall in love!
- A Bonus Rec: If you liked Aamir Khan (the lead actor in 3 Idiots) and Anushka Sharma (the lead actress of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi), they did a really adorable sci-fi movie called PK (2014) about an alien called PK who crashes into India and befriends a human lady. It's just such love letter to humanity and I LOVED Anushka's character back storyline in that movie, it changed my life ahahha
- Teri Meri Kahaani (2012); Heads up this does star Priyanka Chopra but before she became a Hollywood weirdo 😭 and back when she was super talented!! It also stars this really cute actor called Shahid Kapoor. These two play different characters in three different timelines and it explores the concept of soulmates and Hindu reincarnation!! Again CHANGED MY LIFE!
- Ram Leela (2013) or the longer title is Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. It's basically a hotter and older M18 version of Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending if I remember correctly! It starts Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh who fell in love on set (they were friends before that) and started dating just before the movie came out! They are now happily married 🥰
This got so long already hahaha I'll send you another ask with Tamil titles once you're ready for it! But these are all the fun titles I have loved, if you want more tragic ones (I love a good tragedy and having a good cry over movies), do let me know and I'll give you that list!
amazing thank you! i'm about to head to bed but i wanted to respond and let you know i got this, you can send me that list whenever you want no pressure, but these all sound really interesting! so i'll put them on my list of movies to watch!
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I AM BACK!
super random question, what type of music do you listen to? it's one of my fave questions to ask people cus it gives lots of insight into personality and stuffs
for me, i like kpop, jpop, rnb and hiphop (and now im kinda curious what sort of impression that gives of me 🤔)
-🐍(thanks for the sun warmed rock! its been so cold lately, so i really needed it)
Hi snake anon!
Uhhh it depends on the mood, really?
Sometimes pop hits for the nostalgia, most of the time some kind of alt or rock (I adore celtic punk and bagrock), anime and movie soundtracks, modern classical music (lots of Einaudi), bollywood soundtracks (the ones for Lagaan and Dangal especially!), anything gay (especially gay rap or country music) or feminist (I love angry/proud lyrics that make me think), some piano and violins, the "cringe" leftovers from the 2000s and 2010s (MCR, FOB, and TOP), the intro piece to Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses, the Arcana and Stardew Valley soundtracks, internet songs that made me smile ("It's Corn!" or that one by Sink-182), and several artists I support independently off of Spotify as part of my spiritual life ^.^
No idea what that says about me so I'll leave it up to you XD
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Desi Fashion: Inspo + Romance Tropes
Bollywood clichés, but make it fashion.
Outfit: 24-kali anarkali or peshwaz with extravagant zari work, opulently covered in jewels. Do not forget the passa/jhoomar. Gold is an evergreen choice of color, but any rich color that complements your radiance will be good to go.
Appropriate for: Performing classical dance in the imperial court in front of the emperor, who’s absolutely smitten at this point.
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Outfit: Embroidered all-white kurta and salwar (Anarkali + churidaar is another option) with colorful bandhani dupatta.
Appropriate for: tearing a piece of your dupatta to cover the wound he got white trying to save you from goons. Hey, hey, we’re talking about clichés.
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Outfit: Ajrak kurta with ripped jeans, Silk thread bangles you bought from Jaipur and colorful pompom earrings you bought from sarojini nagar. Jacket with Kutchi embroidery optional. Modern desi bourgeoisie chic/star plus bahu before becoming a bahu.
Appropriate for: Highly suitable for college or to make those trending “that girl” Instagram reels.
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Outfit: A set of uttariya, antariya and kayaband, with flowers tucked in your long hair. My personal favorite.
Appropriate for: Living in a small hut by a waterfall in the forest where you ( a.k.a. a mysterious maiden) rescue a wounded prince with your resplendent knowledge of jadibuties who ends up falling in love with you. ok ill stop now.
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An Aegean Bollywood Dream
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👀 Had anyone seen me post about Greece and Bollywood before? I hid that post because I misunderstand something about Turkish songs.
(I said I find less hit Turkish songs that sound like Bollywood. Turned out it’s my mistake that I didn’t find much of hit Turkish song that sound similar to Bollywood song. In fact there’s many of them but I have to search in Turkish, not English, in order to find them)
Anyway, back to Greece and Bollywood, I was wonder why do many greek songs give a strong Bollywood vibe? After I read more about this topic, I think there’s no certain answer for this question. One of my assumption is Greece is where the East meet the West, therefore there was the cultural integration back and forth from South Asia through Persia to Anatolia and EastMed where Greeks belong, then from the Greeks and EastMed along the way through Persia to South Asia since the time of ancient greek or at least Kingdom of Macedonia, and somehow this integration still continue in the Byzantine era, which may be the answer why the musics from these places has some relatable sound. Then the Turks came there later and adopt the local music into there culture, and as the Ottoman Empire consisted of people from both east and west, the music from both side may somehow influenced each other styles.
Another assumption of mine is - This - I read many thing about Greece and this is what I was unexpected to find, but it is also the fact I like. Yes, Greece had been in love with Bollywood films at a point in his life!
I love Indian films! And knowing that Herakles the best boi love a similar thing with me is very nice!
From English source that I found, it’s about the age of cold war, 50’s, that Bollywood films were very popular among working classes in Greece, especially whose family cane from Asia minor after the end of Greco-Turkish war, due to their story about the struggling of poor people and women in their harsh life where classist and social problem rained on them, which was relatable to the working classes life. Indian film became a solace for people. More than hundred of Bollywood songs were recreated in Greek version, and there even was a Greek song inspired by the beauty of an Indian actress, Madhubala. Some of the greek folk music Rebetika then also being integrated with some Bollywood music inspiration.
Unfortunately, the Bollywood films and music with Eastern vibe were seen as a low-class art and being despite by some people who side with the western culture, and sometime there were even the rebetika being banned during some era of military dictatorship because the kind of music “sound” Turkish. Anyway, about 70’s the popularity of Bollywood in Greece was shrinking as the western and greek own media become more favorable.
However, since modern India and Greece become allies in the field of culture, tourism and business, Greece again has been open for Indian culture and also wish to be a major shooting location of Bollywood movies. That is another nice thing to here!
Indian filmmakers are already very skillful in extracting beautiful scene out of any crappy place, then imagine them shooting film in an already magnificent place like Greek island. Yes. It certainly turn out very beautiful! And I am looking forward to seeing any future Indian film that take place in Greece. It must be coooool!!!
—
For the picture - I was thinking about Herakles in the 50’s - 60’s. Maybe, … m someday he was very tired because of a hard day, and he thought of some Bollywood films he’d watched which made him felt better during the unstable time of life, then he grabbed his bouzuki and tried playing a song from a film he remembered, and fell asleep, dreaming of a sweet dance with the filmmaker he liked, an old friend and rival of his mother, who was the maker behind the films that gave the solace he got along the days.
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Bollywood Films Based on Shakespeare's Plays
(that I can think of off the top of my head)
((because I'm bored and procrastinating))
(((also my thoughts)))
1) Maqbool (2003) - based on Macbeth
Possibly the best adaptation I've watched of anything in general. The translation into a different culture plus a modern time is seamless. Newer technology is incorporated into the plot devices, prophecies rewritten to be appropriate to the culture and context plus the "witches" are easily believably a part of the story instead of some highly mystical supernatural forces. The kingdom at stake this time is the underworld that was quite active and famously involved with Bollywood itself at the time, brilliant actors in all the roles, and the whole 'Lady Macbeth's children' thing is also leaned into quite well. 10/10 would recommend.
2) Omkara (2006) - based on Othello
From the same direction, Vishal Bhardwaj. Another amazing adaptation, a lot of the foreshadowing and metaphors are expressed through songs, a staple move for Bollywood so it also adapts well into its medium. Banger performance by Saif Ali Khan as Langda Tyagi (Iago). The ending is changed a wee bit as well, but it's highly significant in how it re-attributes agency that has been taken away from female characters in the original texts quite often. In this adaptation the matters revolve around a local election and the politics at play in the village. The cultural setting is made use of here as well characters are given well rounded personalities and motives that gives a new life to the play honestly. 10/10 because I'm such an easy person to please, I genuinely enjoyed this film.
3) Haider (2014) - based on Hamlet
Another one from Bharadwaj, I swear I'll move on to other stuff after this. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" - I think one of the most important aspect of this adaptation was choosing a setting where the city can be its own character the way Denmark is in the original. In this case, the setting is Kashmir, a valley that has had a bloody and contentious existence. Politically, it is a coveted piece of land where India and Pakistan have both laid their claims. This has led to continuous exploitation, army rule through a special act that allows civil liberties to be done away with and all mistreatment swept under a rug, and Kashmir becoming a battleground where the residents bear the brunt of these political battles. The issue of Kashmir is quite complex, that doesn't even begin to cover it, I will leave that alone for now. Haider is a resident of this valley and his father, a doctor, went missing with no news of him whatsoever. Instead of the ghost of his father he is visited by his father's cell mate, nicknamed Rooh (Spirit) who guides him on how to uncover this plot of people going missing with no news. The film follows the oppression in Kashmir through the lens of Haider while he slowly descends into madness. Ophelia (Arshia) is a journalist, and the play-within-a-play is conducted making use of local theatrical traditions. Great film, definitely worth a watch.
4) Qayamat se Qayamat Tak (tr. From doomsday to doomsday) (1988) - based on Romeo and Juliet (kinda)
The star-crossed lovers story is technically not exclusive to Romeo Juliet. There are quite a few local stories that take the same form too, and it can be seen as a trope rather than a proper adaptation. However, it is credited with a revival of the Bollywood romance film, and is quite an important movie for the genre in that sense. 7/10 idk, personal biases about romance, it's nice though.
5) Goliyon ki raasleela: RamLeela (tr. A Dance of Bullets: RamLeela) (2013) - based on Romeo and Juliet
Talking of Romeo Juliet, this one actually does follow the play as an adaptation. It is set in a fictional village, and the lovers belong to two factions who are engaged in an on-going conflict. Though the film is generally not regarded as a good one, i think it does an okay job of putting the story in a modern context and also uses festivals and cultural omens to tell the story. 5/10 it's not that great
6) Angoor (tr. Grape) (1982) - based on Comedy of Errors
This is a FUN film, hell yeah. Maybe I just have a bias towards comedies, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Makes use of a bunch of running gags, takes common problems of the average Indian household to create comical errors, chock-full of shenanigans. 9/10 I promise it's fun
7) Dil Chahta Hai (tr. The Heart Wants-) (2001) - based on Much Ado About Nothing
This is as such a story about three friends but it's also about three parallel love stories. This is quite a landmark film in Bollywood because of all the taboos it broke through and for being an important bildungsroman film about friendship and familial relations too. There is your Benedict-Beatrice battle of wits eventually turning into a love story. There is also the story of a womaniser who thinks that people talking about what it's like to be in love are exaggerating or outright lying until he falls in love himself. The most controversial part of the film, however, is the third romance, which has a massive age gap between the third friend and his elderly muse. The two connect with each other through common interests, and the friends have a falling out over the relationship. They come together eventually, each having matured in different ways and with a more freeing understanding of human relationships of all kinds. 9/10 definitely watch this one.
Okay that's all I got for now, have fun ✌🏻
#Bollywood#films#adaptations#Shakespeare#literature#movies#desi#desi tumblr#desi tag#rec list#recommendations
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It may sound like fun and games, but it’s no joke. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, this decentralized group of activists came together to raise money for Ukraine and demolish Russian narratives on social media. They even have their own version of NATO’s Article 5 for mutual assistance, with the hashtag #NAFOArticle5, a cry for other fellas to pile in on social media posts. The fellas took a big step toward recognition last month by staging the NAFO summit in Vilnius. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas congratulated the group on its first summit and tweeted, “Behind every Fella is a real person who believes in #Ukraine’s victory.”
The world has changed markedly in the more than three decades since political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. popularized the term “soft power” in the pages of Foreign Policy. When that article was published in 1990, the dust had barely settled on the ruins of the Berlin Wall, most American homes didn’t have a personal computer, and the first internet meme of a dancing baby was still a few years in the future. The notion of government ministers attending a wartime summit and taking time to praise smack-talking cartoon dogs would have struck many political observers as far-fetched.
Although the modern vernacular of soft and hard power implies opposition, since the earliest civilizations it has been more of a continuum. In ancient times, Hellenization spread throughout the known world in the wake of Alexander the Great’s army. Proselytizing priests followed in the footsteps of Spain’s conquistadors. Imperial China presented a cultural wall against the steppe as powerful as any fortifications. The information age has modified the nature of soft power but not human nature. As Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine grinds on and governments in West Africa fall to coups, it’s evident that no surfeit of wishful thinking will reduce the appeal of hard power for some.
Today, many world leaders still reach for sports, language, food, music, and movies to advance their interests. These efforts aren’t inherently more persuasive than bullets or blockades, but it’s a much more pleasant and humane way of seeking to influence world events. Occasionally, soft power seems to work like a charm. The United Kingdom is widely viewed as having benefited from the recent royal pageantry, despite it coinciding with some messy political infighting in London’s Parliament. India certainly benefits to some degree from the widespread popularity of yoga and Bollywood, but the country’s status as a rising Asian nation and counterweight to China explains much of its appeal in the West.
Increasingly, some political representatives are taking the extra, and risky, step of engaging directly with global popular culture. China’s ambassador to the United States, for example, recently tweeted, “An American friend asked me: what kind of flower will grow out of China?” A torrent of responses cast doubt on this anecdote and questioned whether the ambassador had any notion of how Americans actually speak.
Advancing soft power through pop culture may get more difficult as the internet evolves. The NAFO fellas, for example, generally organize themselves on Twitter, which has been a popular platform for social movements from the Arab Spring to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. But Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter as “X” raises the question of whether the fellas will still be able to “tweet” and if anyone will notice if they do.
In a similar vein, Hollywood, which arguably did more in the 20th century to promote a beguiling image of the United States than the Marshall Plan or the Apollo program, is struggling with challenges at home and abroad. Labor strife casts doubts on new productions, artificial intelligence is encroaching, and competition from overseas is increasing. Content from Nigeria, Mexico, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and, of course, Bollywood is clamoring for the global attention span. Filmmaking can also backfire: Sony Pictures Entertainment suffered a major hack in 2014 that included threats to terrorize cinemas showing The Interview, a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korea’s leader.
North Korea may be a touchy Hermit Kingdom. But South Korea’s K-pop, its brand of popular music, furnishes Seoul’s leaders with a deep well of soft power to draw from. In September 2021, when the United Nations opened the first fully in-person General Assembly in New York after lifting COVID-era restrictions, South Korea’s then-president, Moon Jae-in, invited the group BTS to sing and dance (and speak) their way through the U.N. headquarters as his special presidential envoys for future generations and culture. At the time, South Korea was riding high, having recently been catapulted into the top 10 largest economies in the world. Now, it has just been elected to the U.N. Security Council.
Sports and pop culture don’t have a monopoly on soft power. A little more than a decade ago, Russia was viewed favorably by nearly half of Americans. (Russia’s favorables have since dropped to single digits in the United States.) But with the possible exception of the dissident punk-rock band Pussy Riot, Russian pop culture was almost entirely unknown, then and now. Americans are more familiar with the cannons of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov came to define classical dance; ironically, these Soviet defectors made ballet cool for a generation of Americans enrolled in classes during the Cold War. Only much later would some balletomanes understand that Nureyev self-identified as a Tatar and Baryshnikov as a Latvian.
Some government cultural campaigns are deliberately nostalgic. In 2020, Spain’s food ministry launched a campaign with the slogan El país más rico del mundo—which translates as either the “richest” or “tastiest” country in the world—plastering the motto on billboards in train stations and at bus stops. Centuries have passed since Spain had the world’s silver at its fingertips, but Spanish food and chefs are ubiquitous.
Language, and the pleasure of wordplay, is one of the most enduring aspects of a culture. Romance languages, a Roman legacy, flourished in medieval Europe. Many of the top-ranked countries in a recent survey of soft power subsidize global language schools, including Spain’s Cervantes Institute, Germany’s Goethe-Institut, China’s Confucius Institute, Italy’s Italian Cultural Institute, and the United Kingdom’s British Council. The guidepost has been France’s Alliance Française, which was founded independently by a circle of preeminent late 19th-century Parisians that included Jules Verne, Louis Pasteur, and Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French diplomat, developer of the Suez Canal, and leader of the plan to bring the Statue of Liberty to New York. French President Emmanuel Macron feted the 140th anniversary of the organization’s founding on July 21, remarking at a celebration at the Élysée presidential palace that the hundreds of schools scattered around the world, mostly underwritten by student fees, are “absolutely key for the diffusion of French culture but also of our values.”
Soft power may be pricey, but world leaders continue to pour money into a range of cultural offerings because they can’t be certain what will resonate. Last month, Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi watched the Bastille Day parade in Paris, including a flyby of three French-made jets in the Indian Air Force. Modi’s visit concluded with an announcement that India would buy 26 more Dassault Rafale jets and three additional Scorpène-class submarines. This year, during a state visit to Beijing with plenty of cultural baggage, Macron sealed commercial deals for aircraft, cosmetics, financial products, and pork. Soon thereafter, a French television station called it a “jackpot” when the news broke that China had agreed to extend the stay of a pair of giant pandas at the ZooParc de Beauval in France’s Loire Valley. The zoo’s director had been among the entourage that had recently accompanied Macron to Beijing, which has a monopoly on pandas around the world.
Sports, especially hosting global events, can be an expensive and risky way to project soft power, and in some cases, countries have been accused of “sportswashing.” None of this is new. Adolf Hitler wanted the 1936 Berlin Olympics to showcase his Nazi regime; it showcased instead the superlative skills of Jesse Owens, the African American athlete who walked away with four gold medals. More recently, pro-Tibetan protesters stormed the field during an Olympic torch-lighting ceremony ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Last year, Qatar faced widespread criticism when it banned soccer fans from wearing rainbow gear into games because visible support for LGBTQ rights is prohibited in the socially conservative kingdom.
Currently, the thorniest debates center on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and how to handle it when they face Ukrainian competitors, a headache that host countries probably had not envisioned when they bid for these events years ago. Some star Ukrainian athletes are refusing to shake hands with competitors from Russia or Belarus, which Moscow has used as a staging ground for its war in Ukraine. Some tennis fans, who may have thought they were witnessing poor sportsmanship, booed at the end of matches at Wimbledon and the French Open. Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan was disqualified after winning a world championship match in Milan for refusing to shake hands with her Russian opponent. She later posted a video on Instagram saying that what happened “raises a lot of questions.”
One question that hasn’t been answered is whether the fellas are making a real impact. Their social media messages have been so pointed, at least in part, because they echo the agitprop communication style developed by the Soviets to agitate nonbelievers and motivate the like-minded. But the fellas didn’t get their most cherished wish at NATO’s Vilnius summit, which ended without a major advance in Ukraine’s bid to join the security alliance.
The term “soft power” evokes more than wishful thinking, although that was certainly part of its appeal after the barbarism of the 20th century. Alongside other forms of persuasion, it can help a country cut trade deals, win friends, or join new clubs. Or not.
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What type of contemporary (mainstream? Modern?) music do you think would be easiest to dance to with the Inupiaq style of dance? Or is that just kind of disrespectful (kinda thought there would be a middle ground with like the teasing dance)?
I don't think it would be disrespectful. A little unorthodox and not for traditional cultural displays maybe, but pairing traditional dance styles with contemporary music? That's just new material working into what we already have. There's a story about a group of teenagers (though they might have been Athabascan instead of Inupiaq) who came back home from school and worked the twist into one of their traditional dances. No erasure to it, just bringing something new to something familiar.
I think the easiest contemporary music to use for traditional dances would be something like Bollywood songs or punchy rock versions of folk songs
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