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gguk-n · 2 months ago

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Hi could please write one where the reader is bengali and celebrates Durga Puja with Lando in india ( ollie or kimi works too but I'm not sure if you write for them)?

I did a ‘spin the wheel’ and got Ollie.

Puja Vibes

Ollie was as white as white gets and his girlfriend was the embodiment of the Bengali culture prancing around. She had helped Oliver expand his horizon; taught him new experiences and delicious food. She will argue, that there’s no dessert like Bengali dessert.

So, when it was time for Y/N to return home for Durga Puja, Ollie would be joining her too since he had no races or prior commitments.

They hadn’t dated for long but Ollie had showered her with gifts on Christmas and taught her all his family traditions. Y/N just wanted to do the same for him.

At the airport, they landed together with Ollie in tow who was enamoured by the hustle and bustle of the city. He saw cows crossing the road like it was another Tuesday and no one batted an eye. Y/N pointed out all the building explaining the significance and the reason behind their construction during the colonial era on the way to her home.

At home, preparations for Durga Puja were in full swing. Y/N’s uncle and aunt had decorated their house ornately. Oliver greeted everyone.

The festivities would start the next day. Everyone was up bright and early for the invocation (bodhon) Oliver was mesmerised by the shining lights and the bright colours and the beautiful way Goddess Durga was dressed.

The main event was Maha Ashtami which Y/N’s father had great pleasure in explaining to Oliver. Oliver was like a kid in a candy store; eyes wide open and mesmerised by the events unfolding in front of him.

You would find the poor boy following Y/N around like a lost puppy. It was adorable watching him hold onto her saree palo as she walked in front of him. “Lemme hold your hand” Ollie whined. “Everyone is here for the festival. What will the elder’s think?” Y/N reasoned. In Indian culture, blatant show of affection was frowned upon especially in the older generations, the younger ones couldn’t care less. That’s why Ollie was walking around holding her palo.

They were stood next to each other while Y/N’s mother made the preparations for Maha Ashtami. “Your dress looks so beautiful. Red truly is your colour” Ollie said. “Thank you babe” she said. “How did you do this?” He asked playing with the folds. “My mum helped. I’m still pretty bad at tying a saree” she said. “Is that what it’s called? A saree” he said enunciating each word. “Yup, it’s an Indian traditional wear but everyone wraps the cloth around them differently, depending on the region of the country” she explained. His mouth formed an O in understanding.

They finished up the celebration with all the rituals being done and Oliver asking way too many questions each step of the way.

On the last day after Vijaya Dashami, after the immersion in the water everyone returned back home, exhausted by the events of the past days when Y/N’s cousin showed her a video; actually a few.

One video, had Ollie following her around like a lost puppy. The other one was of him holding her palo so as to not get lost. And the last one was straight out of a Shah Rukh Khan movie where Ollie’s watch had gotten stuck in her palo and he tried to free himself while actively trying to follow her and not let her know that he might fray her outfit. Eventually, he did free himself but his eyes never left her as he walked behind her.

She showed the video to Ollie and the Shah Rukh Khan scene from Om Shanti Om. Ollie was seen laughing, “didn’t know I would be getting my Bollywood moment this year during Puja” she said. “I’m happy I could be of service, m’lady” he said tipping his imaginary hat. “I would still have loved if it was Shah Rukh Khan” she teased. “Wow! I can’t believe this.” He acted hurt with his hand on his chest. “You are unbelievable.” She muttered pressing her lips on his cheeks. “Don’t try to bribe me with kisses” he huffed. “I’m not. I love you my cute little bear” she cooed. “I’m not cute” he huffed again. “Sure, my rasgulla” she laughed pinching his cheeks. “I like that dessert. Can I have some more?” He replied lost in thought. “I’m sure my mother will find great pleasure in feeding you” she said laughing. “Let’s go” she said pulling him along. “I love you Y/N.” Ollie called out while being dragged along. “I love you too” she replied turning to look at him.

Y/N’s family cooed at them, young love

Hope you liked it! I tried my best

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neuroticbookworm · 1 month ago

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Engagement of QL Fandom in Indian Queer Media

I was tagged by @lurkingshan and invited to respond to an ask she received from @impala124 that noted the absence of India in the Asian queer media spaces and discussions, and questioned the reasons behind it. @starryalpacasstuff has also responded to it in a great post (check out the reblog additions for a treasure trove of Indian queer media recs), discussing, among many things, Korea’s culture export aiding their queer media ventures, access to Indian queer media, and the quality of Indian queer media. @twig-tea’s addition discussed the ease of access of Thai BLs via YouTube and how it prompted Korea and Japan to re-enter the genre.

My thoughts on Indian queer media are complicated and involve several detours to understand Indian media culture, its economic power, and how it navigates international viewership. For context, I am an Indian cinephile who grew up watching a wide variety of Indian media in terms of both language and genre. I naturally transitioned into watching Western content as globalization of the 2010s brought HBO and Comedy Central to Indian screens, and later sought out queer media, Asian media and Asian queer media on the internet.

Indian Media Industry - A Primer

I know there are a lot of countries right now that produce QL media, so I am gonna mainly consider Thailand, Japan, and Korea, the three countries most prolific with ql, for the purpose of this discussion. All of these countries, while regionally diverse, have managed to considerably homogenize in language and culture over the course of history and colonization. India, on the other hand, is still significantly and distinctly diverse in language, culture, religion, food, media styles, social norms, and on and on. India has 22 official languages and thousands of regional ones that are used in various capacities everyday. This diversity is then reflected in the media produced by India, with multiple powerhouse film industries dominating box offices simultaneously. Bollywood is the biggest one and obviously well known internationally, but Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali-language film industries are successful in their own right and consistently produce box office hits and self-sustain in the larger Indian media landscape. This makes domestic media highly regional in India. Even today, in the age of social media, it takes a box office success to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees for a film to break out of its domestic audience and cross over into other Indian states.

This diversity has also led to the different industries developing media styles unique to them. I watched this video a while ago of a creator documenting his experience of dipping toes into Indian Cinema for the first time, and he ends up covering three movies from three different industries, because the pathos of each of them is so fundamentally different yet effective in their own ways. This diversity also applies to the television industry, both traditional cable TV soaps, and the modern shows made for streaming sites. And all of this, *waves hands*, presents a set of challenges like no other country faces for both Indian queer creators and Indian queer media audiences.

The Challenges for Creators

Since the Indian media industry is not a big monolith and is made up of multiple film industries, queer creators who are trying to get their foot in the door will face a unique uphill battle in whichever regional industry they’re trying to break into. And trying to research, learn, and understand each and every single one of them will take me and my non-existent research team years, so the simpler thing to do would be listing the factors that have worked for other countries to foster their media industries to produce QL content, and discuss if India could replicate them. The list goes like this:

Japan’s rich history in yaoi

Thailand’s use of BL as a soft power to promote tourism

Korea’s culture export via kpop and other media

While India does have religious mythology that discusses sex, gender and queerness, it is often subtext with a lot of intersectionality. Does Ardhanarishvara represent fluid gender, or a symbol of harmony, or both? The debates are endless. Japan’s yaoi roots are as deep as they are explicit. And this rich history could be why the Japanese domestic audience is open to queer media even when the country is still conservative.

Thailand’s rise as a major player in the QL industry is remarkable, but there is a case to be made that the country’s media industry was directly and indirectly boosted by the government’s interest in establishing revenue from tourism, and exporting culture to international audiences via food and media. While the revenue from tourism in India is substantial, the Indian economy is not built on it. And the Indian media industry is thriving and regularly makes bank with their already established content models, so the producers have a pretty low incentive to deviate and fund queer media.

I bet every coin I own that not a single one of us on this hellsite have successfully eluded the allure of Korean media in our lives. The Korean media industry is a well-calibrated machine that shall and will target every single human into funneling their time, attention and money into the Korean culture and economy. And I think queer creators looking to make queer content in Korea would’ve had good incubation in an industry that was looking to make as much content as possible. And once again, while Indian movies have significant international box office collections, that is not where the Indian media industry, and just India in general, makes its money. The priorities are just not the same. And to be perfectly honest, India is nowhere near the level of Korea at producing and exporting television shows to international audiences.

All of this is a long winded way of saying that the conditions required to foster a QL industry in India are not the same as what we have seen work so far from the other major players. And sadly no one has really figured out the winning formula yet.

These are just a few reasons, and I haven’t even discussed nepotism and how painful class mobility is in India, making it even harder for new queer creators to break into the industry. There’s a reason why movies with queer representation like Badhaai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, and Kapoor & Sons all feature characters in the upper middle class or above. Hell, they’re even played by actors whose portfolio is already filled with daring and experimental roles, or by first- or second-gen nepo babies who would literally have nothing to lose from the potential backlash for playing a queer character. Poor, queer characters in Indian media have never been a part of a fluffy romance as far as I know. They are reserved for the gritty dramas where intersectionality of queerness, poverty, class and caste could be examined.

The Challenges for the Audience

And once again, all of this, *aggressively waves hands*, makes things harder for even the domestic audience to engage with Indian queer media, let alone international audiences. Kathaal - The Core, a 2023 Malayalam movie about a queer man in his fifties coming out of the closet and contesting in his village body elections, was a box office success in Kerala, and I can tell y’all with complete certainty that not many people outside of Kerala would’ve even heard of it. And this was not some small indie venture – in fact, the lead characters were played by Mammootty and Jyothika, who are both absolute legends in their own right in the South Indian film industry.

Super Deluxe was a 2019 Tamil-language black comedy film that tells four interwoven stories that run in parallel, and one of the stories is about a trans woman who, pre-transition, was married and had a son. She returns to her family as her post-transition self after years of disappearance, and the film engages in conversation around sex and gender, through the innocent questions of her young son. The movie is gorgeously made, and outrageously sharp and witty in its commentary on society’s views on sex, morality, religion and family. And once again, I don’t think it is well-known outside of the domestic and international award-circuit audiences it was promoted to (last I checked, it was available to domestic audiences on Netflix).

Sometimes, even the domestic audience might miss the queer representation in their regional media when it is indie enough to not get aggressively promoted. The Hindi-language anthology movie from Netflix, Ajeeb Daastaans (2021), featured a story where two women from different caste and social class meet at the workplace (the sapphic story, Geeli Pucchi, starts at 1:17:05, if anyone wants to check it out). It served biting commentary on the intersectionality of queerness, misogyny, caste and class. And once again, I’ve never found a person with whom I could discuss it with (other than my mom, with whom I watched it).

And sometimes, even when a massive show with queer representation is well promoted and well received by critics, it still manages to fly under the radar in Indian queer fandom spaces. Amazon Prime India spent a lot of coin on the show Made in Heaven (2019) – and it was worth it. The show follows the lives of two wedding planners, Tara and Karan. Karan is closeted (except to his close friends) for most of the show, but after he makes some powerful enemies in his line of work, he gets publicly outed, which puts him on the path of dealing with his family’s shades of acceptance, queer rights activism, and reconciling with an old friend. The car scene in episode 9 made me cry, and yet I’ve never read a word about this show from Indian QL fan blogs here on Tumblr.

Following every film and TV show that releases in one language, across all modes and platforms, and keeping an eye out for queer representation is hard enough. Doing it in multiple languages is downright impossible. And then personal preferences come into play. Personally, I enjoy nearly all genres of media, but I am primarily an angst monster, so I seek out and watch sad shit on the regular. All four examples I’ve listed in this section are good queer representations, but they are deeply sad, rage-inducing, heartbreaking and realistic. If one wanted to watch an Indian queer romance that’s inside the bubble, I’m not sure if they can even find one – I have certainly not come across any. Even the queer Bollywood movies designed for a box office run, paying homage to iconic Bollywood romance sequences, were still outside the bubble. When a niche audience like the QL fandom collides with a complex media-churning machine like the Indian media industry that is fundamentally not designed to cater to them, all we get is a lot of puzzled looks and question marks.

A Thought Experiment On The Future Of Indian QLs

Now that I have established the challenges, I want to engage in a little thought experiment – if we were to receive a steady stream of Indian QL content, what would it look like, and how can the fandom engage with it?

If we are looking for content from a stable production entity for Indian queer media, like Thailand’s GMMTV, Japan’s MBS Drama Shower, and Korea’s Strongberry, we would be waiting for a long time, at the very least a decade or two. What we could get are small indie queer shows like Romil and Jugal, squirreled away in a streaming platform exclusive to India and only accessible internationally via VPN. Another example is the list of sapphic shows @twig-tea shared with us a while ago, here. These are gonna be low budget, probably-not-great-quality shows reminiscent of early GMMTV.

Another variety of QL content we could get are the Bollywood queer romance films and TV shows. They will be cheesy and tropey and romantic, and might interact with the bubble, but probably mostly from the safety of an upper middle class setting. This means they would eventually run out of fresh perspectives they could tune into in their limited scope and the stories might turn stale and repetitive (I’m deriving this from the general state of things in the Indian media landscape over the last couple years). International access might be a little easier than the previous case, but not as easy as going to YouTube and hitting play.

The third and final variety are the gritty dramas with heavy social, cultural, religious, gender and class commentary that Indian cinema industry has always made, and has upgraded in the recent years to include queerness. Once again, the access will be hard, but if we are looking for queer stories that also show the audience what it is like being queer in India, beyond the glitz, the glam and the colors of pre-packaged Indian experience often sold to the West, this is where we will find it. Most of it will be sad, but we are a sad bunch who constantly make sad shit, so it will be on brand for us.

And all of these different varieties of content are gonna need to be picked up and promoted by the Indian folks in the QL fandom who are tuned into these regional industries. India not being a cultural monolith that is easy to package and ship is precisely why we have all these beautiful and crazy and sometimes even contradictory styles of media that are offered for us to explore. And therefore, the fandom engagement on Indian QL content would also vastly differ from the fandom engagement for Japan, Thailand and Korea. A dedicated fandom captain might not emerge, but rather, a collective group of folks tuning into and promoting finds from their regional industries would be the way to go. In addition, if this content is not available in English, we would need fan subbers to provide translation expertise to even make it accessible, something we see often for Japanese media on Tumblr.

I know from observation that watching media in a different regional language could sometimes be as foreign to Indian audiences as watching media from other countries. The language, traditions, mannerisms, social mores and food would all be different from region to region, but I guess it would be a good litmus test to observe how well the fandom acclimates to a culture that is so eye-wateringly diverse and not as constantly promoted to them.

When I was texting @waitmyturtles discussing how we can approach answering this question (remember when this all started with a question, some two thousand-ish words ago? Yes, that question), at a point in our conversation I exclaimed "Ugh, everything in India is too complicated!" This long-ass post of mine is in no way the complete account of why things are the way they are in the Indian queer media landscape. But all I know for sure is that it’s not simple. And I really do not want anything related to India to be simple, because being unbearably frustrating and complicated is not a bug, but a feature of India. The road to Indian QLs is unique, but I will do my best to check the paths and share and recommend them to my friends whenever possible. And I invite my fellow Indian QL fans to do the same.

#well i sure didn't start the draft with a plan to write >2k words #and yet here we are #indian queer media #indian ql #fandom meta #long post #media recs #made in heaven #super deluxe #badhaai do #shubh mangal zyada saavdhan

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zeherili-ankhein · 25 days ago

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For some reason I actually don't like Bengali culture 'cause they mostly prioritize 'non-veg' when it comes to food. Even Brahmans are eating non-veg and Vaishnavs (with tulsi kanthi around their neck!)

How shameful it is! Sanatan Dharma never taught us to cause harm to any innocent living being! My family's forcing me to eat non-veg, stopping from chanting hari-nam (which mentally, physically and spiritually gives me peace) And being a Brahmin I have to consume meat and other non-veg items. I feel extreme guilt and pray to god and ask for forgiveness, idk what's happening to the people nowadays. Such an animal-like life we're living!

💀 LMAO YOU'RE SO STUPID FOR SENDING THIS

Just stop eating nonveg if you don't want to, why attack a perticular group of people who have been eating meat for the past thousands of years??

Also don't forget all human beings used to be carnivorous in the beginning XD

“Sanatan Dharma never taught us to cause harm to any innocent living beings”

My dear in Maa Kali maybe read or do a bit research. Earlier Vedic era people very much consumed meat, I'm not saying this there are evidences too. (I think @randomx123 can explain this subject better if you are down to know more)

And Indians have been consuming meat for very long time, it's not a sudden 100-200 years ago thing.

Yes, not every part of India have similar diet I agree, but if you had the guts to learn a little bit maybe you'd know, how geography and other factors matter in the food habits of people.

My family's forcing me to eat non-veg, stopping from chanting hari-nam

That's a your family problem darling~ I know enough people and friends who don't eat any fish or certain meat like Mutton or Chicken or have went completely Vegetarian, while their family still eat their regular diet.

I myself don't eat fish (mostly), because the smell makes me nausea but that's not making me shit on my family's eating habits or going on random people's asks and hating on their entire jati (very demure very mindful of me see)

Also it's a your family issue if they are stopping you from doing Hari-naam

Because most of the families I know, loves to go to any and every Kirtan and listen to Hari-naam. It truly does gives peace to anyone who listens... I loved sitting at Mayapur and listening to Hari-naam.

And being a Brahmin I have to consume meat and other non-veg items. I feel extreme guilt and pray to god and ask for forgiveness, idk what's happening to the people nowadays. Such an animal-like life we're living!

Just... Stop consuming meat..?? Also Idk why you'd bring in the fact that you are a Brahmin because most Bangali Brahmins consume meat and fish just like any others here. And them being “Brahmin” have nothing to do with it.

Also don't be too proud of being a “Brahmin” because according to Sanatan Dharma only those who have acquired “Brahman Gyaan” or “Supreme Self-knowledge” are called Brahmin. And you clearly have not done any of that...

I pray to God for you so that you can get a little bit more education to not hate other humans for what they eat and instead focus on your own self and bhakti.

Shaktism have practices and traditions of offering meat and alcohol to different Gods and even Bali Pratha, and that's also in Sanatan Dharma.

It's ok if you don't like Bengali culture nobody forced you to be a Bangali or like our culture, just don't hate like a fool, or say things that makes no sense to people. You'll just sound dumb instead.

Also what are you talking about??? There are places where Vaishnavs are strictly vegetarian, they don't even consume garlic or onions. Maybe you have seen some people consuming meat, but don't generalize like that...

And let me tell you something, Idk how many families have this, but in my own family, on anyone's birthday you are supposed to wear a Tulsi mala during ashirbad, and we consume our birthday lunch (which usually consists of meat) wearing that mala. So not everyone who wears a Tusli mala is a Vaishnav or vegetarian.

Lastly just because I'm feeling a bit evil, I'll just tell you... Do you know Deer meat used to be delicacy in ancient Bengal?? Or it's mentioned in Manasa Mangal, about the different food items like Goat intestines and all... Or they fact some people still consume snails or turtle (that's illegal now, but I've seen my family eat) or different birds like pigeons.

Bengalis consuming meat is not something recent it's been for ages, get over it.

While I do agree, we shouldn't be too brutal on other creatures, they too have the right to live their lives in peace without getting killed for someone's food or personal pleasure.

Bit there's a thing called food chain, and that's scientifically and naturally VERY normal.

Lastly have a happy life, and I genuinely hope, you find peace in what you do, and can genuinely stop eating things you don't want to...

#anon ask #anon who was kinda hating #anon hate #veg anon #being bengali #banglablr #sanatandharma #hinduism #sanatan dharma #desiblr

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fireboltposts · 1 month ago

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• I'm visiting my hometown and there was a major festival called Durga Puja a few days ago and so it made me think why not write something about it which includes my ultimate bias Bang Chan.

• Here Bang Chan is not a Stray Kids member, just a regular boy.

• Where my desi Stays at ?

• Anyways for context Durga Puja, is an annual festival originating in the Indian subcontinent which reveres and pays homage to the Hindu goddess Durga, and is also celebrated because of Durga's victory over the demon Mahishasura.

• You had met your best friend Chan when you went to study MBA in a reputed Australian university. Despite your cultural differences y'all became fast friends, bonding over similar music tastes.

• Your other friends there called you things like "two peas in a pod" and "everlasting friends", one never leaving the other alone.

• He was always in awe of your Indian/Bengali culture. You were one of those who took immense pride in their culture, never one to shy away about being Indian. He was always asking you questions about your culture and you found his curiosity really impressive and daresay, cute.

• So naturally after you went back home after your MBA y'all kept in touch for a year when it finally occurred to you that you missed your best friend and texting and video calling just wasn't enough.

• So you invited him over after informing your parents. Your Indian parents raised their eyebrow at first at you at the idea of a "forsha chele" (white guy) and after bombarding multiple questions at you about Chan like "what does he do?","what are his future plans?""do you like this boy?","where did you two meet in University, you went to befriend boys in the university instead of studying?"(at which you rolled your eyes) , your parents hesitantly agreed to have him over.

• This was Chan's first trip to a foreign country and he was excited to go meet with his best friend whom he missed a ton too.

• His flight landed at 5pm on a Tuesday in the Indian time and soon y'all headed to your home in Kolkata. The city was full of colorful banners and people, all busy shopping for the upcoming festival.

• "Wow it's crowded", Chan giggled, "but I like the smell of this flower that I'm getting, it's strong but pleasant". "You'll find this saptaparni flower growing only during this time Channie", you explain, as you go shopping after some time for some Indian attire.

• He shyly asked to try out Indian attire and you pleasantly surprised at the request. So you took him out shopping, with your protective parents in tow, who were smitten with Chan since his first "Nomoshkar" (Bengali version of Namaste, a form of Indian greeting) with folded hands. They eagerly helped the shy and overwhelmed Chan choose his outfits and you felt for a second as if he was their child and not you and you found it adorable how well he was getting along with your parents.

• Soon the days of the festival finally arrived. You had heart eyes seeing Chan in traditional attire and can't help but blush a bit at the sight of your best friend, but you'd never admit it to him, yet you showered the shy boy with compliments and he giggled cutely and went "naurrrr" and hid his face in his hands.

• He, too, was blushing and gushing at how beautiful you looked in a saree. This was his first time seeing you in Indian attire too

• For five days straight, you went to different pandals in the city. (pandal is a large, temporary, open-sided tent that is often used for religious or other gathering). He was in awe of their exquisite artwork and the decorations and fairy lights and the goddess idols displayed. He was constantly taking photos and videos on his phone. He even took goofy ,silly selfies with you.

• You were too concentrated on his childlike awe at everything going on. You had never seen him like this before and secretly you found it too too adorable.

• Then came the street food, poor boy couldn't handle too much spice but luckily you had carried some small chocolates and water with you, knowing this could be an issue. As the days went by, he had tried a lot of Indian dishes and Bengali sweets as well.

• Even the friends from your locality were smitten by this boy's charms.

• On the day of the immersion of the idol, he had joined you in dancing to the upbeat music of the band playing along with the drummers. He was feeling shy at first but you pouted "pleaseee" and how could he say no to your puppy eyes especially with you looking that beautiful in your black saree.

• Soon it was time for him to go back to Australia and you were feeling down as you didn't know when you'd meet next. Your parents packed him lots of Indian food for him and told him to go safely and call you as soon as he landed so they knew he'd be safe.

• You hugged Chan on the roof of your house, crying as you didn't want to let him go and he gently rubbed your hair whispering things like "I'll be back Y/N",don't cry please it breaks my heart".

• You hugged Chan tightly again outside the airport despite the other passengers giving you both weird looks and Channie planted a sweet kiss on your cheek which made you blush and smiled at you one last time and stepped inside the airport, waving at you.

Pdhajwisuyeja I wrote ittt finally I don't know what was I thinking ahhhh 🫣🫣.

Pic/gif credits to the respective owners, only the Durga Puja pic is mine. Do like and comment and reblog if you like. Hope you liked it 🫣.

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saleeba · 7 months ago

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you look good in red and white ; william saliba

summary ♡ new year celebrations back home prove to be a handful but william tries his best to help you out.

pairing ♡ william saliba x bengali!fem!reader

content ♡ fluff, husband!william, reader is stresseddd and just needs a sit-down tbh, bengali words/terminology, reader is mentioned as having siblings, y/c/n = your cousin’s name, y/s/n = your sibling’s name, kissing, willo being the bestest husband ever !!!!

a/n ♡ arsenal football club are so bengali-coded pass it on 💯💯 ok so red & white are super traditional & prevalent in bengali culture + they’re ofc arsenal’s colours so i connected the dots 🤓☝🏽 (you didn’t connect shit ;-;) hehe anyway it was bengali new year this time last weekend & what better way to belatedly celebrate it than with a short and sweet wilo fic :D happy bengali new year / shubho noboborsho & i hope u all (bengali or otherwise!) enjoy this one !! ❤️🤍

“william! here, try this for us!”

no sooner than he had stepped a sandal-clad foot into the kitchen, you’re there shoving a chomchom into william’s mouth, the poor boy immediately being startled by your shouting and the manic running around of your siblings and cousins — not to mention the softly sweet intrusion his mouth experiences at the hands of his wife.

william had decided to escape the company of your dad and uncles once the mid-morning conversation turned to politics, knowing how chaotically passionate the men in your family get once the topic of current events gets brought up, in search of your comforting company in what’s the first time you’ve taken him back home in your relationship, never mind for such an important festivity. bengali new year in your motherland just hit differently and you wanted william to be fully immersed in every part of the extravagancies that your heritage brought to help pop his bengali culture cherry. unfortunately, being one of the “older younger” members of the extended family, you had taken it upon yourself to be at the forefront of all the festive tasks which meant that the new year wasn’t going to be quite the relaxed and enjoyable shared time either you or william had been thinking of.

although, admittedly, he shouldn’t have been so surprised at the utter carnage unfolding in the kitchen since every single one of your relatives was up at the slightest sliver of dawn today, rushing about the residence to begin the pressing yet procrastinated matter of setting up decorations, preparing the food and creating the most stunning of placards for the neighbourhood’s parade; all before one in the afternoon. the hubbub was so sweeping that william had missed a good morning kiss from you — having gotten up so early to denote roles to your younger relatives in the food preparation — and he hadn’t even seen you at the brief breakfast the family had managed to slip into the schedule, making him miss your presence way too much than was allowed in his terms. it was quite definitive of your relationship that you had essentially found him before he had seen you, rushing over in an outfit that william had never seen you in — a red and white shari wrapped around your body, gold jewellery adorning nearly every possible inch of you, the tinkle-tinkle of your anklets melodically ringing in his ears as you make your way over. it all takes his breath away regardless.

“how is it, huh?” you anxiously enquire, taking a quick bite of the sweet yourself, cheeks filling with the spongey sugary goodness as it muffles your voice. “we spent forever making the mix, first it was too soft then too hard, and then y/c/n accidentally dropped it on the floor then we had to argue about what the shape was gonna be and th–”

your stressed-out rambling causes william to laugh, taking the remainder of the chomchom from you and popping it into his mouth before telling you that it’s delicious and there is no reason to worry about it.

“i can give you a hand, y’know? i’m not that bad in front of dough.” he teases, offering to take some load off you and your appointed kitchen team for the day.

you’re quick to refuse, knowing there are quite literally hundreds of sweets and snacks needed to be made in a short amount of time to share throughout the neighbourhood and you don’t want his new year experience to be tainted with the interfamilial arguments that are sure to ensure within these here four walls over the next few hours.

“you should save yourself and rest before we set out for the parade, will, before we fully make you into our mishti guinea pig.” you usher him as best as you can towards the kitchen door and into the courtyard. “besides, i don’t want to be getting a strongly worded text from mikel for fattening you up too much for your job.”

another chuckle from your husband, who accepts, setting off to lend his hand in something else that isn’t getting in the middle of flour and sugar being haphazardly thrown around.

he finds himself in the company of some of your youngest cousins who assign him the role of batter in an impromptu game of cricket in the courtyard, taking the time to teach him all the techniques of a nationally beloved sport that he’s a complete novice in. after a couple of attempts of trying to understand the rules but giving up, his side nonetheless win the game and your baby cousin pipes up with the notion that william is now a “true bengali”, which makes your husband’s heart glow with affection for this new family of his.

the chattering and rushing of a group of yourself and some other cousins as you all pass through the courtyard pulls at his attention, intently watching as a number of you scramble around tables set up for the food and pace back and forth behind them and the kitchen, carrying what seems to be enough snacks to feed the whole country, never mind the neighbourhood. william can see the tension etched onto your face, brows nearly crossed over into a v-shape, and he so badly wants to step in and tell you to sit down for at least a minute but he knows the tasks at hand are more pressing and you really want to get this right for him, your family and the neighbours. he decides that he’ll have to remedy your stress once it’s actually appropriate to do so.

another hour or two follows before the lack of you gets to william, now missing your presence by his side so much that he’s pacing around the house like a madman, dipping into every room and asking whoever he stumbles into where your whereabouts may be. william was damn near about to start shouting your name from the rooftop before an aunt of yours points him towards the direction of the garden where you’re there by yourself, hastily brushing vivid paint over the sketched-out placards for the parade very, very last-minutely. you don’t even have to look up to know that it’s your lover who’s rushing towards you.

“god, it’s all going on today, isn’t it?” you speak before he can and try to place some humour in an otherwise extremely stressful situation, not even finding the time to take your eyes off the painting to look at william while explaining what’s going on. “y/s/n cut their finger and everyone else is so busy so i have to finish these and get them dried in…” you press your phone to check the time. “... 20 minutes.” yeah, you’re somewhat fucked right now.

“and who said you have to do it by yourself?” william rhetorically quizzes you; a mild scolding for bearing so much stress on yourself. “y/n, when’s the last time you sat down or even stopped your feet from running about the house? babe, i thought this was supposed to be a time when we both celebrated together, right? so why don’t we work together, too, yeah?”

you go to refuse him again and tell him to get ready for the parade with the rest of your family but william is having none of it.

“pass me a brush, please,” he softly demands with a sigh, hand outstretched as you eventually accept what he’s been saying to you since the morning and give him the tools he needs to help you finish the painting. you find yourselves completing it in more than half the time, leaving you plenty of time to fan them over to dry.

you turn to william, wanting to thank him for gently knocking some sense into you but getting instantly distracted when you finally allow yourself to take your husband in and appreciate him. you’re in awe of how extra handsome your husband looks in your culture’s traditional attire: a red and white panjabi set to match your shari, the golden handpainted motifs and embroidery sparkling against the rich colours of the cotton material.

“there, see, we finished it together! teamwork isn’t that bad, is it?” he teases and you respond with a tiny jab of your elbow on his side and a light laugh. “ah, hang on…”

he turns you to fully face him and points out that your red teep is slightly off-centre between your eyebrows, raising his hand to fix it while the other rests on the side of your face. your heartbeat picks up a little faster over his warm touch that you’d been missing for so many hours and the peek of his tongue out in concentration practically has hearts swirling in your eyes.

“there we go.” the way he smiles down at you tugs tenderly at your heartstrings and you can’t help but nearly smash your lips against his, the established habit of getting on your tiptoes to caress your alta-adorned hands along his broad shoulders helping to propel yourself into his embrace. william kisses back with all the might of a lover being starved of his wife’s touch for far too long.

a sudden call of your names quickly breaks the two of you apart, your aunt turning the corner towards you both with a camera waving in her hand and shouting something about taking a big family photo in front of the house before setting off. you and william are far too flustered to really comprehend what she’s saying before you’re wiping at your own mouths to rid yourselves of the red-stained evidence of your lipstick. your husband is about to take off behind your aunt to avoid any more time-wasting but you’re quick to grab his hand and pay him a greatly overdue compliment.

“oi, you look good in red and white.”

glossary of bengali terms ♡

chomchom = a milk-based bengali sweet.

shari = traditional clothing worn by bengali women; other languages may call it a "saree/sari".

mishti = bengali word for "sweet(s)".

panjabi = traditional clothing worn by bengali men.

teep = a small coloured dot/jewel worn between the eyebrows/on the forehead; you may see it being called a "bindi".

alta = red dye traditionally painted onto the hands and feet of bengali women during festivals and celebrations.

#william saliba #william saliba imagine #william saliba fluff #william saliba x reader #william saliba x fem!reader #footballer imagine #football imagine #football fic #footballer fluff #˗ˏˋ 📝 ˎˊ˗

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pastara-cell · 4 months ago

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God this blog may just turn into a tmf blog for a bit- Sorry hermitblr/trafficblr peeps

Just listing some basic drew headcanons here because I feel like I see the same ones over and over again so I’d like to combat that 🤺🤺/lh ofc, I love all headcanons

>Drew is Bengali, His great grandparents came to the uk from Kolkata (Whether it be from partition stuff or not) And since then, his family blood has still been entirely from west bengal

>Drew isn’t necessarily religious, however, He enjoys Hindu religious holidays (Like Diwali and Holi) and Pujas and He especially loves the food. His parents (who are Hindu) are fine with him being non religious, But do wish for him to participate in events just to spend time with him, which he doesn’t mind at all

>Adding onto that, he doesn’t eat beef or pork. Not for religious reasons, but because he just wasn’t raised on them and doesn’t enjoy the taste or texture.

>His parents love him, but are absent quite a lot due to work and business meetings. The only times he’ll see them for more than a months on end is during the winter months, mainly because thats holiday season. Other than that, 2 weeks at home, 2 weeks on a business trip, repeat

>His parents try to show their affection to him via gifts and food, because its really all they can send over while they’re away. Because of this, drew developed Gift giving and cooking food for people love languages

>this man can COOK. I know I said its one of his love languages, so you’d assume so, but oh my LORD this man can cook. Its half the reason henry and liam come over so often! He best at more traditional bengali food (although he hates doing it), but he can make pretty much anything if you give him a heads up, the ingredients, and enough time to tinker around with the recipe!

>His hair is actually wavy/loose curls, but he hates having curly hair, so he either straightens it so it doesn’t poof up, or uses a bit of hairspray. The only people who really know his hair is curly is the jomies (including jake, lia, and zoey) because they’ve slept over at his house, and have probably seen him when his hair was wet and curly again.

>He’s 15 feet into a glass closet. My sexuality head-canons for him change a lot, but I’ve sort of settled on omni/ace for now. However, For the most part, I think if he were to come out, he’d just be queer. I dont think he’d care for labels too much

>Obvious attachment issues, slight separation anxiety, although, I can see it being more leaning towards henry and liam than jake for that. He might have had an obsession with jake, but I think it’d have hurt more if henry and liam left him, considering they had been there the longest.

>He loves zoey, even still. He really does. He’s terrible at showing it, but he does his best.

>Zoey, knowing his love language is gift giving, and he’s rich, befriended him in late middle school/early high school, and they started dating seconds year odd high school. Drew definitely was the one who confessed after being hyped up about it by henry and liam and jake. Zoey definitely wasn’t planning on dating him, but shrugged it off as being able to get him to do more stuff. She eventually did develop feelings for him, but she was too far into the mess she had created to stop, so she kept pushing

>He has such an rbf guys, like, he would be thinking about the happiest thing ever and his face would be just this 1000 yard stare

>He definitely drinks energy drinks guys, probably monsters but I can see him bringing an alani to school because he knows he’s gonna get called emo if he brings a monster to school

>He is called emo quite a bit at school, although he isn’t. It doesn’t bother him much anymore.

>He loves cats and really really wants one, but he’s severely allergic. Like, your throat closes and you die unless you get to the ER or have an epipen level allergic.

>He has Two bearded dragons (Each around 18 inches long, a boy and a girl) named Jevin and Pearl, his two favourite hermits

>he watches hermitcraft. Probably the life series and Empires and Outsiders and Life steal and all that stuff too, but He watches hermitcraft RELIGIOUSLY (He’s watched every episode that Jevin, Pearl, Grian, and Xisuma have put out, and he’s working on Mumbo’s pov right now)

>His favourite broadway musicals are Heathers and Six. Mean girls is up there too, but those are his favorites

>He didn’t cry during the titanic because it was sad, but because he watched it with zoey and she was crying, which made him cry

>i’m not gonna diagnose him with anything necessarily because i’m in no way qualified for that, but he definitely has mood swings and his opinions change a lot depending on who else he finds has them. He can go from hating something for years to immediately liking it if Liam says its good, or go from liking something to hating it if Hailey likes it.

>He listens to music, heck, one of his main designs are airpods- So, I think that he definitely listens to electronic stuff, scenecore type shit (Asteria, Barely human, Odetari, Clover!, and allat jazz) Not because its his favourite, but because Liam and henry both listen to it, so drew likes it.

>He really cares about his friends, but is really shit at showing it.

>He’s not good at communication, and is not often sure how to communicate what he wants or what he needs without sounding blunt or rude. He often rehearses how talks will go.

>This mf does not regret bullying that music club guys- I love him but i’m not even gonna attempt to justify him bullying them because I feel like it takes away from his character a lot

>He hates Hailey and Zander, Mainly because he finds them annoying and freaky.

>He’s only bullied luke because of his connection to zander and the music club, he doesn’t really mind luke as a person

>Milly Is his second cousin, they really only have their families meet up on holidays, so they never grew up close. Drew and Milly dont view eachother as family, so they dont care about bullying eachother/doing stuff to eachother’s friends. Drew and Milly do both occasionally pull the “I’m going to tell Thamma (grandma)!”, which does admittedly stop the other from doing whatever they were going to do.

>Drew has picked on pretty much all the club members, except for sean. Whether this be because Sean is taller than him, older than him, Or because they simply just have never really talked, drew mostly leaves him alone. He forgets sean is there most of the time

>Insecure as shit, do I even need to say it lol?

I have a lot more, but these are my main headcanons. Ofc, I fluctuate a lot with them, I’m like a multishipper but instead of shipping its with headcanons.

#drew tmf #tmf drew #headcanons #tmf #freakblr #look at that i’m managing to shove hermitcraft into every au or fandom I find #its gotta be a talent at this point #I love the mexican or latino headcanons for dreww #but I feel like they’re super overused #Was it confirmer or something or is it just a headcanon?#grahhh rosy give us desi people representation through this silly lil asshole/silly

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