#i only know people who speak tamil

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

I feel like with Jake as the Olo'eyktan and human scientists a stone's throw away, the Sully kids (and many others) grew up with a healthy dose of both English and Na'vi (though obviously more Na'vi in key ways) and they're so used to this mesh of English/Na'vi that sometimes they forget themselves when they're in Awa'atlu.

Like, Ao'nung will be pissing Lo'ak off and he'll get so heated that he just busts into a mix of English and Na'vi and everyone is just staring at him, completely baffled, with the other Sullys off to the side trying to hold back their laughter and it just gets worse.

And don't even get me started on forgetting certain words. Imagine little Tuk chattering away with Tsireya and all of a sudden she pauses because she forgot the Na'vi word for it. This is followed by her frustratedly trying to convey what word she's trying to say to Tsireya but the more agitated she gets the more English sneaks in: "No, no, it's yellow and green like--like a pineapple but not because only Earth has pineapples and it's small and looks like an oval and---". . . suffice to say, Tsireya never found out what word Tuk forgot.

I feel like Kiri and Neteyam would be the two that mostly speak English purposely, though. Whenever Kiri wants to feel close to her mother, she'll just talk about her day and what's been going on and all that in English, as if she were talking to Grace. Neteyam has a fondness for speaking English whenever he doesn't want to be understood by anyone but his family. Things like that.

And there's probably so many more scenarios dude. What do you think about English in the Sully's lives?

Adorable! Tuk and Tsireya!! This is the cutest ask, I love little Omaticaya and them meshing with the humans that stayed after the Assault on the Tree of Souls.

I unfortunately am not lucky enough to be bilingual, but from my friends and family that are I imagine it would be quite similar. Conversations in the Sully house are just like Navenglish lol, it's a combo. Jake calls his kids sweetheart, babygirl, kiddo, and bud and also ma'evi and ma yawntutsyìp in the same sentences. ALSO Jake calls Neytiri babe 24/7 I don't make the rules. Does she start to say it baCK? I think so... I think so...

Curse words are CRAZY, the mix of Na'vi curse words and English ones (and some surprise Spanish ones Spider has learned in an attempt to get closer to his mom) that Lo'ak and Spider use on the regular is truly unimaginable.

Norm is a xenolinguist this man loves languages. You know those people that can just pick up a language like that? Their brains are just wired for it. That's how I picture Norm. I think he designates language days in Hells Gate from when Spider is little, where all the scientists can only speak in one language. Most of the time it's Na'vi or English and everyone can ignore you if you speak in the wrong one and everyone is ruthless. If you forget the right word, you had better explain what you meant because everyone goes mysteriously deaf when the wrong language slips in. Sometimes Norm will go off the rails and all of a sudden it's Malayalam day for Max or Spanish day so Spider can feel connected to his mom. Then one of the lab techs is feeling like brushing up on her Korean and all of a sudden it's Korean day. Spider is the best child ever at learning languages he soaks up information like a sponge man. Also Lo'ak loves these days so he can come learn swear words. I don't think he knows but i'm convinced he's good at languages too.

I made a post about this but specifically the human sayings that Jake brings to the Omaticaya, they are hit or miss dude. I have another post in the works about this, but I really stand by that they love 'you win some, you lose some.' It sounds so dramatic with no context.

I think they are high fiving and flipping each other off like crazy. It's not English but it is a communication style for sure, and one the Na'vi don't do. You cannot convince me once they know it every Omaticaya teenager isn't flipping each other off from the back of an ikran every single day. I think Ao'nung in particular really enjoys these lol.

Tsireya I think really is invested in learning English. She's not very good at it but she really wants to learn! Her and Lo'ak trade lessons, her teaching him a word in sign language and him teaching her in English.

[1010ninetynine]

honestly i don't agree with terf ideology but to call it colonialist is interesting imo.

it’s always so fucking funny to me when terfs are like “how can you say trans women and women are the same thing! being born as a man makes you different!” because like. yes. trans women and cis women are different. so are black women and white women. and straight women and queer woman. and women from different countries and different socioeconomic statuses. there’s diversity in the experience of womanhood? what a wild concept

[welcometotheravenclawcommonroom]

(South) Indian Harry Potter Headcanons:

Harry knew he was Indian (mostly because the Dursley’s used to say racist shit to him) but he didn’t know where in India the potters were from until he went to Hogwarts. He finds out from the Patils, who were close with the potters because desis stick together.

The Patils are from the north and use Hindi to speak to each other. Neither of them knows Telugu/Tamil/Marathi/Malayalam/insert Southern language of choice here (I personally headcanon Telugu because it’s the only Indian language I speak and because there’s a huge diaspora of telugumandi in the west, but feel free to choose whatever you’d like). So Harry has to rediscover his heritage language on his own.

He also studies Sanskrit, and it opens up a HUGE world of spells that they don’t teach at Hogwarts (because of course Indian wizards don’t do spells in Latin). He and the Patils know a bunch of spells that nobody else does.

Harry’s pleat game is ON POINT. It makes sense, since he had to do all the chores at the Dursley’s and that includes perfectly folded and ironed laundry with the edges aligned neatly, or else he would risk being punished. But the result is that if you want your saree drape to pass the inspection of even the most judgemental auntie, you go to Harry to help with your pleats.

Even when they’ve graduated and all have their own homes, it’s a pretty regular sight for the Patil twins to come through Harry’s floo, half dressed, to have Harry pleat their sarees or their lehenga dupatta for them.

Harry LOVES spices. The dursleys only liked bland food, but Harry has always liked flavorful foods, and has no problem with (hot) spicy food either. He uses lots of spices in his own cooking now. His food is very flavorful, but when he’s cooking for himself, it’s too spicy for all his friends (even the Patils). So nobody can eat his leftovers unless he was specifically cooking with other people in mind. Ron learned this the first time he rummaged through Harry’s fridge after a night of drinking. Now Harry labels all his food as to whether or not it’s “Harry spicy”.

James LOVED to buy Lily sarees. He’d order them with custom, wizard-themed designs from weaving villages in south India. The women who made them assumed he was just very imaginative, so he wasn’t violating the statute of secrecy since saree patterns are often vibrant and unique. Harry finds some of them in the old potter manor, and they still smell like the perfumes and scented oils his mother would wear when James took her to the local temple for Hindu holidays.

Indian witches often store extra magic in or enchant pieces of their copious jewelry with spells that can keep them safe if they’re ever in a situation where they don’t have their wands. stuff like, each bangle can function as an emergency portkey that can take you to different safe locations if you say the activation word, or ones that create an instant magical shield when you tap them. Harry finds some of his mothers gajulu, gives them to his female friends.

He ties Rhaki on Ron and Neville, and all the weasley boys. Ron was the first person he ever tied it on, because Ron was the first person who he ever bonded with, and his closest brother.

Harry always cooks idli sambar or dosa for his friends for breakfast the next morning after a night of drinking together, and it’s the perfect hangover food because it definitely brings you back to full alertness/knocks the last bit of post-hangover grogginess right out of your system.

Harry’s parselmouth abilities are valued in his native culture because of the sacredness of snakes in Hinduism, and it comes to be something he’s really proud of (personally I think the ‘parselmouth connected to the horcrux’ thing is dumb, so I’ve always imagined Harry was just naturally a parselmouth).

As the number of Indian immigrants/expats continues to grow after they graduate, Harry helps some of his students (he’s the DADA teacher) start the Hogwarts “South Asian Student Union”.

He always has snacks out for his students when they come to visit his office hours, and they’re all Indian snacks and sweets. His personal favorite is kaju barfi, but he always has a good variety of both sweet and spicy treats, especially for stressed out owl and newts students.

He collaborates with Hermione, who works in the ministry, to make it mandatory for Hogwarts students to a “foreign magical language” course so they can broaden both their minds and their spell repertoires. Padma Patil becomes the “Sanskrit Spells” teacher, and Seamus teaches “Irish Gaelic”. (It took him a little longer to get his course started, since it turns out that at least 40% of Gaelic spells are just increasingly complicated and violent ways to repel the English).

Hermione and Harry also work together to make sure there are employees in the international magical cooperation department who specialize in post-colonial relations, because the magical world also has its issues with that colonialist mindset towards countries that were formerly part of the empire.

Just south Indian Harry embracing his heritage, learning about what was ripped from him, and using it to enact meaningful change in a multicultural magical society.

[waitmyturtles]

Thinking About QL Fandoms and Markets For Indian Queer Media

Alright, ::rubs hands together::, let's see if this old auntie can get the link history of this thread straight first.

@impala124 originally wrote in an ask to dear @lurkingshan about Shan's thoughts on a developing fandom for Indian queer media.

Shan subsequently asked a few of us on the internet, brown Asian and/or otherwise, to weigh in, which @starryalpacasstuff did here. Starry's piece has a few great reblogs with media resources that everyone should scurry to check out.

The inimitable @neuroticbookworm then decided to show us her literary Tae Bo skills and dropped an absolute MONSTER of a must-read regional media and industry analysis here. (Let me emphasize that this is a MUST-READ PIECE if you're interested in Indian media.)

I'm going to use NBW's piece as a reference throughout my weak-ass response tea here, because she covered almost everything that needed to be said about why there ISN'T a robust or developed fandom on the internet for Indian queer media. So go read that first, and if you forget to click back here, it's all good, because I'm just gonna offer some unorganized macro-level thoughts at this point.

****

I'd like to first amplify a number of themes that @neuroticbookworm made clear in her piece about the "media industry in India." I'm only putting that phrase in quotes not because NBW wrote it (she didn't), but because it's a wholly inaccurate phrase.

1) INDIA IS *NOT* A SINGLE, UNIFIED CULTURAL MONOLITH. Remember your early social studies classes on early civilizations? The Aryans, Harappa, Mohenjo Daro? Those specific civilizations arose in the north of the Indian sub-continent, and not a lot of social studies spaces outside of Indian classrooms give love to the other regional areas in India -- like, say, all of South India, hello -- that belong to other civilization definitions.

To be grossly overgeneral, ancient civilizations in the northern subcontinent were known as Aryan civilizations, while those of the southern subcontinent were known as Dravidian civilizations. We see these differences today in the food we brown people eat, and ESPECIALLY in the languages we speak. Tamil (a Dravidian South Indian language) couldn't be farther away from Hindi (a North Indian language emanating from Sanskrit).

2) While the prominent political nationalists of India (😐) would like to have you believe that all Indians are monolithically similar -- or rather, SHOULD be monolithically similar by way of all Indians speaking Hindi, consuming Hindi media, and erasing religious diversity (🤬) -- nothing could be farther from the truth of our incredibly diverse and complicated subcontinent. We Indians are regionally, and therefore culturally, diverse in a great myriad of ways, way beyond our food, language, and religious preferences.

[For my non-Indians and non-Asians reading this, think about the two dishes you see the most on Indian restaurant menus outside of India. Chicken tikka masala and tandoori chicken, right? That's typical "Indian" food to the untrained eye. CTM is a British dish borne from immigrant South Asian chefs; and tandoori chicken was created by North Indian Punjabis. My own Indian origins are half-half (lah), I'm half-South and half-North Indian (with some SE Asia thrown in there, boleh!). My brain fucking freezes when I speak to someone who thinks the extent of "Indian food" is CTM and TC, and I have to explain, for the millionth time, the basics of the incredible array of South Indian vegetarian food that I grew up eating and loving.]

Thus, what I'm trying to say is, when we say the word "INDIAN," there are some questions that a curious listener should be tuned into asking to get specifics about just what kind of "India" or "Indian" the speaker is speaking of. I'll often get the question, "but WHERE in India are your parents from," from tuned-in Asians, who want to know specifically about my regional background.

VERY SO OFTEN IN POPULAR DIALOGUE ABOUT "INDIAN MEDIA," THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTION OF THE CONVERSATION IS THAT THE SPEAKER IS ONLY SPEAKING ABOUT HINDI-LANGUAGE MEDIA, WITHOUT RECOGNIZING THAT REGIONAL AND/OR NON-HINDI LANGUAGE MARKETS MIGHT BE MAKING MEDIA, EVEN POPULAR MEDIA, FOR THEIR SPECIFIC REGIONAL MARKETS AND AUDIENCES WITHOUT AS MUCH OF A GLANCE TO THE DOMINANT HINDI-SPEAKING NORTH.

NBW says this brilliantly in her incredible piece, which delineates the major differences in the MANY regional and even sub-regional media markets of India, that produce a VAST array of media in the languages of the regions, markets, and audiences that this media serves.

On a personal note, when I was a kid, I only watched old South Indian films subtitled in English that my South Indian dad found. My North Indian mom watched them with us happily. We didn't do Bollywood in my house because frankly, dad hated those films and wasn't into them. Now that I think about it, it's probably because those Hindi films didn't bear a single resemblance to the cultural and life he lived growing up in South India.

3) Alright, so we have established that in terms of media, to speak about "Indian media" as a monolith is utterly incorrect, and just, go back to NBW's piece to get an excellent analysis of the details of that situation.

NBW does a bang-up job highlighting important pieces of regional media throughout her post, and like I mentioned before, there are multiple lists of media in the reblogs Starry's piece linked above ( @silverquillsideas notes in her reblog of Starry's piece that two important films come out of the state of Bengal, a market that us Indians should certainly pay attention to in particular.)

I therefore might posit that there might not actually be a unified "fandom for Indian queer media."

IT IS CLEAR from the reblogs of the various pieces that we've written over the last few days, that us Indians who love QLs certainly don't INHERENTLY know, universally, about ALL the queer media, across the subcontinent, in the MANY languages we speak, that has been made.

We have a lot of learning to do across our own regional identities.

I'd argue that, instead, from an organic growth perspective, that regional media markets in India would respond to THEIR OWN AUDIENCE'S AND MARKET'S DEMANDS and create queer media WITHIN THEIR OWN REGIONS

a) if their market(s) demanded it, AND b) if there was either pre-production funding, or a guarantee of net revenue from the airing of such media.

A fandom doth not create media.

It is filmmakers that create media.

And those filmmakers need

✨ MONEY ✨

✨ MONEY ✨

✨ MONEY ✨

to make media.

Some regional markets will, by nature, be willing to take risks on a filmmaker's desire to make queer media. Those projects could succeed, or could fail. Badhaai Do is one of the best examples of a Bollywood breakout piece that gained even some international attention, and certainly attention ACROSS the subcontinent.

But I want to emphasize this point about

MONEY.

The question that we're pondering is, why isn't there a more prominent fandom for Indian queer media and/or QLs?

@twig-tea made note, in her reblog of Starry's original piece, about the importance of accessibility and subtitling, an important note not just for international audiences, but for regional Indian populations that don't speak the same language(s). Accessibility allows fans to watch the media of their own markets, and markets outside of their boundaries.

But even bigger than this is, before we even get into accessibility, is: the filmmakers need money to spend to MAKE projects, and in an ideal scenario for themselves and/or their studios, they then need to (hopefully) make a PROFIT to demonstrate a sustainable desire and demand for the media they're producing, a profit that could hopefully be re-invested into more and new queer media projects.

Let me not get into all the obstacles in which filmmakers, queer or otherwise, might run into issues with production fundraising for a queer-centered project. We Indians know about our conservative, often violent, obstacles.

NBW does a fabulous job in her piece discussing what COULD be made by way of queer media that COULD gain a stronger cultural foothold over time across the subcontinent.

4) A fandom, most often, develops as a response to media already created. A fandom, HOWEVER, *IS*, often, in today's digital age, often recruited to fundraise for projects they want to see! GoFundMe, right?

I think it was @impala124 in a reblog that mentioned that there's already a "market" for Indian QLs. But we've established now that there are actually many unconnected regional media markets in India that can't be assumed to be glommed together.

If a fandom WANTS to see a particular kind of media, in their own specific regional market, it's certainly well within its rights of speech to create internet buzz for it.

But I think we as fans also need to take responsibility for a better understanding of the economics of media creation, and to be patient as queer media is produced across the subcontinent, and to simply do our best to hype it up on the internet when we can, so that commercial sponsors and potential production funders can then pay attention to what us fans want -- and what we're willing to pay for.

And let me be honest, this is a *tremendously difficult proposition* for a field of media that's just really small against the giant, mainstream, well-funded media markets of India. And this field of queer media would be guaranteed to face crippling and disgusting conservative criticism as it gains more of a prominent cultural foothold -- as we are seeing in South Korea literally at this very second.

Looking on the economic bright side: we see in Thailand and in Japan that QLs make MONEY. Shit, not just Japan being into Japanese QLs, but also, Japan is so into Thai QLs that the major Thai channel and studio, GMMTV, has a distribution deal with the Japanese channel TV Asahi to air Thai QLs in Japan. MONEY, BABY! INTERNATIONAL DOLLAS. Great Sapol, of the QLs Manner of Death and Wandee Goodday, just wrapped a stint in a mainstream Japanese drama, and I'll assume that's because he's hotttt and talented gotten a lot of attention in Japan from his previous Thai QL work, as well as his lengthy resume in Thai mainstream media.

The hunger for QLs is there in these two major national markets, and the Thai and Japanese audience markets have proven that the demand for content for these countries can be economically fruitful. So the media markets of these two (much smaller than India) countries are pumping ever more money into production, and filmmakers are responding with more QL content than ever.

We have not even begun to contemplate reaching that tipping point in India, across our regional markets, yet. Again, NBW offers some creative paths forward that will take time to develop.

Fuck, I mean. Imagine Bollywood looking towards Thailand and its branded pair formula as an inspiration to develop queer media. (IMAGINE.) Get two super popular Bollywood actors together in a branded acting coupling/partnership. Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan doing India's version of What Did You Eat Yesterday?. In aprons! Making keema and rajma and chapatis. ShahSaif (SaifShah?!). KhanKhan. How would that go down?

It's a proven economic formula in Thailand. And that's just one example. We're well familiar, separately, with how Japanese QLs gain traction in bigger media spaces for its audiences, with media being adopted for the screen, as they mostly are, from popular yaoi and yuri mangas.

India and its regional media markets need some proven economic formulas within its regional markets to prove that queer media can gain culturally important footholds across the mindsets of various audiences -- and to prove that those footholds can produce profits.

The fandom element in this is that the regional fandoms, while creating buzz, could also prove to be important economic factors to a regional queer media industry being able to survive, and maybe even thrive.

Assuming that I am speaking to a mostly progressive group of fans here: we can only hope for this, and we must support the queer media that the subcontinent currently produces, IN *ALL* THE LANGUAGES (!!!!), to demonstrate to producers that Indians, wider South Asians, and even non-South Asians, WANT THIS MEDIA. We want it, we SHOULD want it, and damn it, we should SPEND OUR MONEY on it, to show our appreciate to the filmmakers taking risks to make this media.

I'm out! I need a chai and a samosa and a dosa.

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Spider-Man India, but... where from India?

A SUPER long post featuring talks of: cultural identity, characterisation, the caste system, and what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man.

I’m prefacing this by saying that I am a second-generation immigrant. I was born in Australia, but my cultural background is from South India. My experiences with what it means to be “Indian��� is going to be very different from the experiences of those who are born and brought up in India.

If you, reader, want to add anything, please reblog and add your thoughts. This is meant to be a post open for discussion — the more interaction we get, the better we become aware of these nuances.

So I made this poll asking folks to pick a region of India where I would draw Pavitr Prabhakar in their cultural wear. This idea had been on my mind for a long while now, as I had been inspired by Annie Hazarika’s Northeastern Spidey artwork in the wake of ATSV’s release, but never got the time to actually do it until now. I wanted to get a little interactive and made the poll so I could have people choose which of the different regions — North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South — to do first.

The outcome was not what I expected. As you can see, out of 83 votes:

THE RESULTS

South India takes up almost half of all votes (44.6%), followed by Northeast and Central (both 14.5%) and then East (13.3%). In all my life growing up, support towards or even just the awareness of South India was pretty low. Despite this being a very contained poll, why would nearly half of all voters pick South India in favour of other popular choices like Central or North India?

Then I thought about the layout of the poll: Title, Options, Context.

Title: "Tell us who you want to see…"

Options: North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South

Context: I want to make art of the boy again

At first I thought: ah geez. this is my fault. I didn't make the poll clear enough. do they think I want them to figure out where Pavitr came from? That's not what I wanted, maybe I should have added the context before the options.

Then I thought: ah geez. is it my fault for people not reading the entire damn thing before clicking a button? That's pretty stupid.

But regardless, the thought did prompt a line of thinking I know many of us desi folk have been considering since Spider-Man India was first conceived — or, at least, since the announcement that he was going to appear in ATSV. Hell, even I thought of it:

Where did Spider-Man India come from?

FROM A CULTURALLY DIVERSE INDIA

As we know, India is so culturally diverse, and no doubt ATSV creators had to take that into account. Because the ORIGINAL Spider-Man India came from Mumbai — most likely because Mumbai and Manhattan both started with the same letter.

But going beyond that, it’s also because Mumbai is one of the most recognisable cities in India - it’s also known as Bombay. It’s where Bollywood films are shot. It’s where superstar Hindi actors and actresses show up. Mumbai is synonymous with India in that regard, because the easiest way Western countries can interact with Indian culture is through BOLLYWOOD, through HINDI FILMS, through MUMBAI. Suddenly, India is Mumbai, India is a Hindi-only country, India is just this isolated thing we see through an infinitely narrow lens.

We’ve gotten a little better in recent years, but boy I will tell you how uncomfortable I’ve gotten when people (yes, even desi people) come up to me and tell me, Oh, you’re Indian right? Can you speak Hindi? Why don’t you speak Hindi? You’re not Indian if you don’t speak Hindi, that’s India’s national language!

I have been — still am — so afraid of telling people that I don’t speak Hindi, that I’m Tamil, that I don’t care that Hindi is India’s “national” language (it’s an administrative language, Kavin, get your fucking facts right). It’s weird, it’s isolating, and it has made me feel like I wasn’t “Indian” enough to be accepted into the group of “Indian” people.

So I am thankful that ATSV went out of their way to integrate as much variety of Indian culture into the Mumbattan sequence. Maybe that way, the younger generation of desi folk won’t feel so isolated, and that younger Western people will be more open to learning about all these cultural differences within such a vast country.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SPIDER-MAN INDIA?

Everything, actually. There’s a thing called supremacy. You might have heard of it. We all engaged with it at some point, and if you are Indian, no matter where you live, it is inescapable.

It happens the moment you are born — who your family is, where you are born, the language you speak, the colour of your skin; these will be bound to you for life, and it is nigh impossible to break down the stereotypes associated with them.

Certain ethnic groups will be more favourable than others (Centrals, and thus their cultures, will always be favoured over than Souths, as an example) and the same can be said for social groups (Brahmins are more likely to secure influential roles in politics or other areas like priesthood, while the lowers castes, especially Dalits, aren’t even given the decency of respect). Don’t even get me started on colourism, where obviously those of fairer skin will win the lottery while those of darker skin aren’t given the time of day. It’s even worse when morality ties into it — “lighter skinned Indians, like Brahmins, embody good qualities like justice and wisdom”, “dark skinned Indians are cunning and poor, they are untrustworthy”. It’s fucking nuts.

This means, of course, you have a billion people trying to make themselves heard in a system that tries to crush everyone who is not privileged. It only makes sense that people want to elevate themselves and break free from a society that refuses to acknowledge them. These frustrations manifest outwardly, like in protests, but other times — most times — it goes unheard, quietly shaping your way of life, your way of thinking. It becomes a fundamental part of you, and it can go unacknowledged for generations.

So when you have a character like Pavitr Prabhakar enter the scene, people immediately latch onto him and start asking questions many Western audiences don’t even consider. Who is he? What food does he eat? What does he do on Fridays? What’s his family like, his community? All these questions pop up, because, amidst all this turmoil going on in the background, you want a mainstream popular character to be like you, who knows your way of life so intimately, that he may as well be a part of your community.

BUT THAT'S THE THING — HE'S FICTIONAL

I am guilty of this. In fact, I’ve flaunted in numerous posts how I think he’s the perfect Tamil boy, how he dances bharatanatyam, how he does all these Tamil things that no one will understand except myself. All these niche things that only I, and maybe a few others, will understand.

I’ve seen other people do it, too. I’ve seen people geek out over his dark brown skin, his kalari dhoti, how he fights so effortlessly in the kalaripayattu martial arts style. I’ve seen people write him as Malayali, as Hindi, as every kind of Indian person imaginable.

I’ve also seen him be written where he’s subjected to typical Indian and broader Asian stereotypes. You know the ones I’m so fond of calling out. The thing is, I’ve seen so much of Pavitr being presented in so many different ways, and I worry how the rest of the desi folk will take it. 

You finally have a character who could be you, but now he’s someone else’s plaything. Your entire life is shaped by what you can and can’t do simply because you were born to an Indian family, and here’s the one person who could represent you now at the mercy of someone else’s whims. He’s off living a life that is so distant from yours, you can hardly recognise him.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, yeah? But, again, you’re looking at it from that infinitely narrow lens Westerners use to look at India from Bollywood.

AND PAVITR PRABHAKAR DOESN'T LIVE IN INDIA

He lives in Mumbattan. He lives in a made-up, fictional world that doesn’t follow the way of life of our world. He lives in a city where Mumbai and Manhattan got fucking squashed together. There are so many memes about colonialism right there. Mumbattan isn’t real! Spider-Man India isn’t real!! He’s just a dude!! The logic of our world doesn’t apply to him!!!

“But his surname originates from ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he’s wearing a kalari dhoti so surely he’s ______” okay but does that matter?

“But his skin colour is darker so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he lives in Mumbai so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

I sound insensitive and brash and annoying and it looks like I’m yapping just for the sake of riling you up, so direct that little burst of anger you got there at me, and keep reading.

Listen. I’m going to ask you a question that I’ve asked myself a million times over. I want you to answer honestly. I want you to ask this question to yourself and answer honestly:

Are you trying to convince me on who Pavitr Prabhakar should be?

... but why shouldn't i?

I’ll tell you this again — I did the same thing. You’re not at fault for this, but I want you to just...have a little think over. Just a little moment of self-reflection, to think about why you are so intent on boxing this guy.

It took me a while to reorganise my thinking and how to best approach a character like Pavitr, so I will give you all the time you need as well as a little springboard to focus your thoughts on.

SPIDER-MAN (INDIA) IS JUST A MASK

“What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that’s a good thing.”

Stan Lee said that. Remember how he was so intent on making sure that everybody got the idea that Spider-Man as an entity is fundamentally broken without Peter Parker there to put on the suit and save the day? That ultimately it was the person beneath the mask, no matter who they were, that mattered most?

Spider-Man India is no less different. You can argue with me that Peter Parker!Spidey is supposed to represent working class struggles in the face of leering corporate entities who endanger the regular folk like us, and so Pavitr Prabhakar should also function the same way. Pavitr should also be a working class guy of this specific social standing fighting people of this other social standing.

But that takes away the authenticity of Spider-Man India. Looking at him through the Peter Parker lens forces you to look at him through the Western lens, and it significantly lessens what you can do with the character — suddenly, it’s a fight to be heard, to be seen, to be recognised. It’s yelling over each other that Pavitr Prabhakar is this ethnicity, is that caste, this or that, this or that, this or that.

There’s a reason why he’s called Spider-Man India, infuriatingly vague as it is. And that’s the point — the vagueness of his identity fulfils Lee’s purpose for a character that could theoretically be embodied by anyone. If he had been called “Spider-Man Mumbai”, you cut out a majority of the population (and in capitalist terms, you cut out a good chunk of the market).

And in the case of Spider-Man India? Whew — you’ve got about a billion people imagining a billion different versions of him.

Whoever you are, whatever you see in Pavitr, that is what is personal to you, and there is nothing wrong with that, and I will not fault you for it. I will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from Central due to the origins of his last name. I also will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from South due to him practising kalaripayattu. I also will not fault you for saying he is not Hindu. I also will not fault you for saying he is a particular ethnicity without any proof.

What I will fault you for is trying to convince me and the others around you that Pavitr Prabhakar should be this particular ethnicity/have this cultural background because of some specific reason. I literally don’t care and it is fundamentally going against his character, going against the “anyone can wear the mask” sentiment of Spider-Man. By doing this, you are strengthening the walls that first divided us. You’re feeding the stratification and segmentation of our cultures — something that is actually not present in the fictional world of Mumbattan.

Like I said before: Mumbattan isn’t real, so the divides between ethnicities and cultural backgrounds are practically nonexistent. The best thing is that it is visually there for all to see. My favourite piece of evidence is this:

It’s a marquee for a cinema in the Mumbattan sequence, in the “Quick tour: this is where the traffic is” section. It has four titles; the first two are written in Hindi. The third title is written in Bengali*, and the fourth title is written in Tamil. You go to Mumbai and you won’t see a single shred of Bengali nor Tamil there, much less any other language that's not common in Maharashtra (Western India). Seeing this for the first time, you know what went through my head?

Wow, the numerous cultures of India are so intermingled here in Mumbattan! Everyone and everything is welcome!

I was happy, not just because of Tamil representation, but because of the fact that the plethora of Indian cultures are showcased coexisting in such a short sequence. This is India embracing all the little parts that make up its grander identity. This scene literally opened my eyes seeing such beauty in all the diverse cultures thriving together. In a place where language and cultural backgrounds blend so easily, each one complementing one another.

It is so easy to believe that, from this colourful palette of a setting, Pavitr Prabhakar truly is Spider-Man India, no matter where he comes from.

It’s easy to believe that Pavitr can come from any part of India, and I won’t call you out if the origin you have for him is different from the origin I have. You don’t need to stake out territory and stand your ground — you’re entitled to that opinion, and I respect it. In fact, I encourage it!!!

Because there’s only so much you can show in a ten minute segment of a film about a country that has such a vast history and even greater number of cultures. I want to see all of it — I want him to be a Malayali boy, a Hindi boy, a Bengali boy, a Telugu boy, an Urdu boy, whatever!! I want you to write him or draw him immersed in your culture, so that I can see the beauty of your background, the wonderful little things that make your culture unique and different from mine!

And, as many friends have said, it’s so common for Indian folks to be migrating around within our own country. A person with a Maharashtrian surname might end up living in Punjab, and no one really minds that. I’m actually from Karnataka, my family speaks Kannada, but somewhere down the line my ancestors moved to Tamil Nadu and settled down and lived very fulfilling lives. So I don’t actually have the “pure Tamil” upbringing, contrary to popular belief; I’ve gotten a mix of both Kannada and Tamil lifestyles, and it’s made my life that much richer. 

So it’s common for people to “not” look like their surname, if that’s what you’re really afraid about. In fact, it just adds to that layer of nuance, that even despite these rigid identities between ethnicities we as Indian people still intermingle with one another, bringing slivers of our cultures to share with others. Pavitr could just as well have been born in one state and moved around the country, and he happens to live in Mumbattan now. It’s entirely possible and there’s nothing to disprove that.

We don’t need to clamber over one another declaring that only one ethnicity is the “right” ethnicity, because, again, you will be looking at Pavitr and the rest of India in that narrow Western lens — a country with such rich cultural variety reduced to a homogenous restrictive way of life.

THE POLL: REINTERPRETED

This whole thing started because I was wondering why my little poll was so skewed — I thought people assumed I was asking them where he came from, then paired his physical appearance with the most logical options available. I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow influenced this outcome without knowing.

Truth is, I will never really know. But I will be thankful for it, because it gave me the opportunity to finally broach this topic, something that many of us desi folk are hesitant to talk about. I hope you have learned something from this, whether you are desi or a casual Spider-Man fan or someone who just so happened to stumble upon this. 

So just…be a little more open. Recognise that India, like many many countries and nations, is made up of a plethora of smaller cultures. And remember, if you’re trying to convince Pavitr that he’s a particular ethnicity, he’s going to wave his hand at you and say, “Ha, me? No, I’m one of the people that live here in the best Indian city! I’m Spider-Man India, dost!”

(Regardless, he still considers you a friend, because to him, the people matter more to him than you trying to box him into something he’s not.)

*Note: thank you dear anon for letting me know that the third title was Bengali, twas my mistake for literally completely forgetting

[siriusblack-the-third]

ok, any headcanons on james that compliment the ones you've done for sirius?

i absolutely loved those and i'm really curious about james

HELL YEAH LETS GO

ADHD. This dude has to be moving, fidgeting, doing something, always. It tires him, and he sleeps very soundly for a full seven hours. Doesn't wake up even for earthquakes (Sirius once did a mini earthquake spell on the dorm room floor in the middle of the night as a prank. It did not wake him.)

Wakes up at an ungodly fucking hour. He doesn't own an alarm clock (it has no effect on him), but his internal clock is set to wake him up at exactly 4:30 in the morning for quidditch practice. He is done with jogging through the entire castle, half an hour of yoga, and an hour of quidditch before 7 A.M. rolls around. Sirius calls him "a demon from muggle hell" for it.

The only one who can keep up with Sirius' intelligence. He is scarily smart, but because most of his time is invested in quidditch and pranks, nobody realises just how smart he is until the results are handed out and he's right there next to Sirius on the top of the rankings. Both of them are always exchanging ranks 1 and 2 on overall performance. It annoys Snape and Lily to no end, because those two are always exchanging ranks 3 and 4 on the list.

The definition of Reckless. If Sirius hadn't stopped him, he would probably have turned the castle to rubble in less than five minutes. This was the exact reason why people (who were in the know) were surprised when Sirius was the one that sent Snape to Moony. They had all thought it would be James' fault.

A fucking bookworm. My dude reads literally everything from mystery to romance to encyclopaedias to research papers to fucking dictionaries of different languages. Even when he doesn't speak the language, the weirdo (affectionate and derogatory).

Indian. Specifically, from Pune city, Maharashtra.

About languages, he's learnt a lot of them. The order of learning of languages, starting from his native tongue, is thus: Marathi, Sanskrit, Hindi, English, Ancient Greek, Tamil, French and Latin. He learnt the first six at home, and French and Latin from Sirius. He's good with languages.

Photographic memory. The reason he never has to study, and also the fact that he understands everything he reads on the first try.

He and Sirius both have twelve OWLs and eight NEWTs. They have Outstandings in all of them.

My dude has the widest, largest doe eyes possible. The only people who can withstand them for more than two minutes are his parents and Sirius.

Bharatanatyam dancer. Has his Visharad certificate, and genuinely enjoys dancing. Gives at least three evenings per week for dance practice to keep up his muscle memory.

Doesn't actually hate Slytherins. Neither does Sirius. Both of them have several friends from the house of Serpents, they just hate the ones that actively use Dark Magic on muggleborns, and Snape and his gang are a part of that.

Lmao the sheer arrogance in him, oh my fucking Gods—

Doesn't give a shit about the rules set by other people (unless they're set by his parents), but has a set of rules for himself that he strictly follows. No one can tell what these rules are, but he has them and he follows them. At the top of that list, there is "never betray your loved ones". He followed that one until his death.

Nevertheless, he will break every single rule. Every. Single. Rule. For Sirius. For Sirius, he will do anything, from taking care of him when he's sick to burning the world for him.

The Hat would actually have put him in Slytherin, except he had no ambitions except to cause chaos at the tiny age of eleven years. Otherwise, he's almost a perfect fit for Slytherin— determined, strong willed, cunning enough to pull difficult pranks, resourceful (because how else you gon plan epic pranks?)

He went to Gryffindor for three reasons and three reasons only: Sirius was there, he had no particular ambition, he wanted to be with Sirius.

M O T H E R H E N. Such a mother hen, but only for a select few people (the marauders, Lily, and Harry). He doesn't give a fuck about anyone else, but these are my people and if I weren't here they would literally get themselves killed put of household related incompetence how are you still alive by the Gods—

Follows ancient Vedic religion (because I do hehe)

Very very panromantic. Demisexual.

Had a crush on Sirius for a short while in fourth year, and then on Frank Longbottom in sixth year after he had one (1) glance at the older boy dressed in full Auror robes.

Loved his mother so much omg he was such a Mama's boyyy

Gave shit to Remus for looking like a professor at the tender age of fifteen, but wanted to become a Transfiguration Professor himself. He was also excellent at Potions (another reason Snape hated him) but decided ultimately that Transfiguration was his calling

Was in his last year of his Transfiguration Mastery on Samhain of 81.

Died with a Killing Curse on his lips. He was ready to cast it wandlessly, for his wife and child. Died with a Killing Curse on his lips.

[hussyknee]

hi, i hope i am not crossing a line, please ignore if this is bad question. i am just curious

in one of your posts u said your caste is karava. this is the first time i am hearing a sinhalese talk about caste (i speak tamil and never really felt confident in my sinhala to make sinhalese friends)

can you explain about the castes or tell me where find information about it

Caste is a fucked up concept across the board, obviously, but Sinhalese castes are different from Tamil Hindu in that they involve the cultural and socio-political organisation of the Sinhalese community, and has no connection to religious scripture.

There are thirteen castes that still exist today. We used to be a chiefly agrarian society, so the majority of Sinhalese are Govigama ("Govi" means farming) and they're the kind of "bourgeoisie" of the social order in that few are above them and anyone else is below them. Those that rank below them are castes like Bathgama and Kinnara (who are meant to be agricultural labourers) Vahampura (something to do with making cinnamon or treacle) Navadanna (artisans, especially makers of jewelry) and Rada (launderers). Radala is the caste of the nobility, and afaik the only one above Govigama. They're all from highlands of Kandy, the last Sinhalese holdout against the Europeans for about 200 years. There's no nobility among the lowlanders (between the Portuguese, Dutch and British, they were either killed, assimilated or fled to Kandy) so the Govigama caste is the highest one everywhere else. This means Govigama used to be the only one that was qualified to join the Theravada Buddhist priesthood* and also receive education and job opportunities as government servants—right up until the mid-20th century, when the karava gentry turned into robber barons under the British Empire's demand for cash crops.

Karava people are the majority inhabitants in the Southern coastal lands, which are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhist, as opposed to the Tamil lands of the Northern coast (Eelam really) and the proliferation of sparsely-populated Muslim communities in the rest of the coastal belt. Karava is called the fisherfolk caste by the rest of country, despite their own strong objections. Caste is reckoned patrilineally. I'm Karava through my Dad and I married into a Karava family. Nearly every Karava person I know insists that we're actually the warrior caste and were given the coastal lands as reward for our service to the king. I'm sure there's a legitimate case to be made for this, (this site keeps being referred to me) but I don't care enough to find out because the Karava insistence that being called fisherfolk is a Govigama conspiracy is incredibly funny. I mean, it could be true, what do I know, but so much of the cope and seethe stem from our lingering inferiority complex and resentment at having been treated as inferior until a few decades ago. After being ground under the Radala and Govigama feet along with the rest for ages beyond record, suddenly us lowlanders were rolling in money from our toddy, coconut and rubber plantations, matching or surpassing the wealth of the nobility. We were chasing off Tamil and Muslim minorities to establish our own lost cultural capitals in Anuradhapura and Pollonnaruwa that predated the Kandyan kingdom and making our own sect of the Buddhist priesthood (Amarapura Nikaya) that would ordain Karava people. The robber baron types also got very chummy with the British colonial administration and were awarded cushy jobs in government over the Govigama, who still disdained industrialization and commerce. (To this day my mother's family looks down on business people no matter how rich. Merchants are considered grasping and untrustworthy.) By the time of Sri Lanka's independence from the British in 1948, we had two varieties of equally rich, snooty, virulently ethnonationalist Sinhalese elites who had gotten ahead by selling us out to the British, but with the highland Radala still believing they were too pure-blooded to mix with the hoi polloi and the lowland Karava resentful at being considered the polloi no matter how hoi they'd become. Post-independence, Sri Lanka's adoption of free education and free state universities saw masses of lowlanders, Karava, Durava and Salagama all, sending their kids to university to attain upwardly mobile careers in engineering, medicine and teaching. "If the boy is Karava he's probably in engineering" is a common joke. It's a clear shift away from our rural agrarian roots into urban sprawl and high socio-economic competition in place of social stratification.

We also have a caste of Untouchables called the Rodiya. In ancient times, you and all your family being stripped of their lands and titles and banished into the Rodi Rahaya was one of the punishments reserved for the noble houses that ran afoul of the monarchy. It condemned your entire lineage forever. This was such a dire fate that some would have favoured execution.

Rodiyas were not permitted to cross a ferry, to draw water at a well, to enter a village, to till land, or learn a trade, as no recognised caste could deal or hold intercourse with a Rodiya [...] They were forced to subsist on alms or such gifts as they might receive for protecting the fields from wild beasts or burying the carcasses of dead cattle; but they were not allowed to come within a fenced field even to beg [...] They were prohibited from wearing a cloth on their heads, and neither men nor women were allowed to cover their bodies above the waist or below the knee. If benighted they dare not lie down in a shed appropriated to other travellers, but hid themselves in caves or deserted watch-huts. Though nominally Buddhists, they were not allowed to go into a temple, and could only pray "standing afar off"

(Source)

Allegations of witchcraft and cannibalism aside, the Rodiyas themselves were known to be a proud folk that considered themselves the pure-blooded descendants of the royalty that were punished this way. Here's a Reddit post that expounds on them more, along with photographs. It seems that the strictures against covering up had fallen away between the turn of the 20th century and the '70s. Not much is known about their current living conditions, but I believe that, like India's own Untouchables and the low caste of Eelam's Tamil Hindus, they must have converted to Christianity to escape the stigma.

Casteism is still somewhat of a problem in the Sinhalese community, but it's lessening every generation. My maternal grandparents weren't entirely happy about my mother marrying my Karava father but conceded because he was an engineer with a stable career. My older cousin had to fight his Karava family to marry his school sweetheart because she was both poor and Bathgama caste (I think "Padu" might be a derogatory name for it). The fact that he succeeded is noteworthy because it would have been a huge scandal in my parents' time. The Radalas are still a bunch of insular dipshits who try to keel over and die if one of them tries to marry out. But many of them are also migrating abroad so Idk if it's too much to hope that they leave the caste shit behind when they assimilate into Western society. It certainly hasn't worked for the Brahmin Indians. But the outlook is better for the rest of us.

*There is no caste system in Buddhism. The Buddha in fact was an egalitarian social reformer who advocated against the Vedic caste system and ordained Untouchables as well as women. So obviously the Theravadin priesthood of Sri Lanka, that bastion of the Buddha's Word, would make sure that only high caste men could ever be ordained. Love the fact that the Karava social revolution just made sure they had their own sect instead of, y'know, pushing for anything more equitable. I always say that if we really want to protect Buddhism we have to abolish the Sinhalese.

[shadowuserannie]

Tips for writing Singaporean characters/stuff to keep in mind

--They will have a second language. That's not even a debate. The three Mother Tongue languages taught in SG schools are Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. However, if you have, say, a Thai character, that Thai character is likely to pick Chinese because Thai isn't an option for them. But Singaporean-born-and-bred are more likely than not to also know a few random bits and pieces of other languages.

note that this is not as limiting as it sounds-just because three MT languages are taught doesn't mean only speakers of those languages exist. Dialects aren't taught, but people do speak them. Hindu can also be an option if your SG character is Indian. Chinese dialects like Teochew, Hokkien, and Cantonese are also options.

--If you're not Singaporean don't try writing Singlish. This is not a threat it's awareness. You can slip a Malay or Chinese word in while they're speaking, but space it apart. Most of us nowadays are better at full English. Please do not just tag "lah" onto the end of every sentence and call it a day. It's better to write us speaking in English, than whatever the hell you just made up.

--We don't mess around with education. What, you thought our declining mental health rate was for show? We have the STRESS. If it's a teenage Singaporean character they are definitely stressing about either O-Levels or A-Levels. Please don't make that their entire personality and call it a day though.

--Most Singaporeans fall into two categories: love spice or cannot tolerate spice. Of course there are in-between but most people love spice. Hawker center stalls have a tray of little chili sauce plates next to the cutlery tins. It's not for show.

--They're not celebrating Christmas. They acknowledge it exists (if you want to have them say something controversial, you can have them get annoyed by the limitless Christmas marketing to tourists that plays into the tourism industry) but it's like just another day for them. Regardless of race/ethnicity, they will definitely know Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, and Deepavali. That's a given. (Unless they're Christian/Catholic.)

--We start school on Jan 2. We end school in November (exact date depends per school). Our school year does not begin in the fall and end in the spring. [This only applies to primary and secondary school. Primary is 6 to 12 years old and Secondary is 13 to 16 years old.]

--Don't make them racist. For the love of whatever you (don't) worship DON'T MAKE THE SG REP RACIST. We respect other races and holidays and ethnicities and religions. Don't have your Singaporean character representing US call slurs or alienate someone who's a foreigner. Have them be accepting because THAT IS WHAT WE ARE RAISED AS. Also there's like a three-year jail time for catcalling a slur.

--Housing in Singapore is either HDB-built [making it a HDB flat] a condo [making it a condo flat] or private property. The last is the rarest because Singapore doesn't have land to spare. We are tiny. We are "Little Red Dot" because you spin a globe and we're LUCKY to get a dot. Anyway no "country" exists in Singapore. There is no empty country space to grow up in. All of us are city people.

--We don't have spring/summer/autumn/winter. We get monsoon seasons due to being a country close to the equator. We get heat that kills us, and it usually rains at least once a week in even the hottest spells. "Coldest" spells can be rain multiple times a day at peak monsoon season. A Singaporean who's touched snow is a Singaporean who has braved a winter country before and not the norm.

--if you create a Singaporean character I applaud you. I'm dying for rep of us. I will pick whatever you have written up solely for the SG character first, then I might stay for the actual plot. please can people remember we exist

[goth-automaton]

I think we can all agree, that Asian horror is great. But how many people are familiar with horror works from whole Asia, not only j-horror and k-horror? Don't get me wrong, I love these, but what about Indian horror? Malaysian horror? Thai horror? Iranian horror? There's so many good stories, that are less known! My beloved "Death Knot", for example. Or "Bhoothakaalam", an incredible (and relatable af) study of grief, depression and family relationships. Or "Zalava" – suspenseful, atmospheric and infused with mythology of the region. And let's not forget about "Irul: Ghost Hotel" – first found footage Malaysian Tamil film!

And again, don't get me wrong – I'm not writing this post to make anyone feel bad. In the end, you like what you like and that's A-okay, no need to force oneself to appease others. I just want to encourage all horror fans to check out cinematography, that usually isn't this popular among English speaking audience. Who knows, maybe you'll find a new favourite? 💜

[courtney-deserved-better]

hey sorry for doing this in a tumblr ask but my pet peeve with ur fics (which i love btw!) is that noah speaks tamil despite his family (or at least his mom) being from andhra pradesh, where they speak telugu. as for darjeeling they speak bengali/nepali ifeofmepepmf. again rlly sorry for bothering u! :)

no worries! this is actually a good reason for me to get into detail for my reasoning regarding that. in my fics noah's mom is from the chittoor district in andhra pradesh, where the official language is telugu but tamil is the first language of 26.75% of the population and is widely spoken in the border areas of the district (source). tamil is also the fifth most spoken language in india (source).

bengali and nepali are the official languages of darjeeling which is why the local that speaks to noah originally uses nepali. but there are over 100 different languages spoken as first languages in nepal (source) and while tamil is not on the list i think it isn't unreasonable that there could be people living in nepal who know tamil as a second or third language (or even aren't fluent but can string a few sentences together).

i think its important to note that while official languages absolutely exist and are often the most common languages spoken within a country, that doesn't necessarily mean they are the only languages spoken. and that people move all around the globe and carry/use their languages with them. in my hometown ive walked into stores where i can hear five different conversations being spoken in five different languages, none of which i speak or understand, and i love that! it's why i enjoy writing multilingual characters!

i hope that this helped you understand my reasoning! disclaimer that my information is coming from wikipedia and that's using 2011 census information but i'm cool with that because a) any potentially more accurate source is going to be less accessible than wikipedia and this is fanfiction so theres a limit to the time/energy im willing to spend on research (though i do want my fics to be accurate) and b) my compfics take place within a few years of 2011

[ambidextrousarcher]

“ராணி! தாங்கள் பாண்டிய நாட்டைச் சேர்ந்தவர்தானே?"

“ஆமாம்; நீ?"

“நானும் பாண்டிய நாட்டாள். சற்று முன் நான் சொன்ன ஊமை, சோழ நாட்டவள். ஆகையால்.."

“இருந்தாலும் பாதகமில்லை; உன்னைப் போல் இன்னும் சிலரும் அவளைப் பற்றி எனக்குச் சொல்லியிருக்கிறார்கள். அவளை என்னிடம் அழைத்து வருகிறாயா? அழைத்து வந்தால் உனக்கு வேண்டிய பொருள் தருவேன்.”

Excerpt From

Ponniyin Selvan Anaithu Pagangal (Tamil Edition)

Kalki

This material may be protected by copyright.

Context: Rakkammal talking to Nandini about Mandakini.

“My Queen! You belong to the Pandya country, do you not?”

“Yes, (what about) you?”

“I too belong to the Pandya lands. Some time I had discussed bout a mute woman, she is a woman of the Chozha lands. Hence…”

“Even if she is, there is no issue. Like you, some other people have told me about her. Will you bring her to me? If you do, I will give you what you wish for.”

Who could they be, these people who have spoken to Nandini about Mandakini in the past? It can’t be Vandiyathevan, he speaks of her in the future. Could it be Sembiyan Mahadevi? Anirudhhar? They are the only people who know about her and could have mentioned her to Nandini as of this point in the story.

Today’s snippet! Tagging @whippersnappersbookworm @harinishivaa @celestesinsight @thereader-radhika @themorguepoet @thelekhikawrites @mizutaama @deadloverscity @racoonpaws @favcolourrvibgior @willkatfanfromasia and @humapkehaikaun

[scryarchives]

𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤 - 𝐣𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟒

to get a little more information out of the supposed threat, jaime had invited the said "threat" to stay for dinner, and well, things get messy.

masterlist | previous , next !

– pairings: jaime reyes x oc

– warning: fluff, canon divergent, blue beetle movie spoilers, jaime being (slightly) ooc

– author's note: i won't lie, i'm surprised at how i somehow made jaime a little mean... disclaimer: i don't speak Spanish, Nahuatl or Tamil so please do correct me if i am wrong! read more under the cut! :)

translations: mamá dice que es la cena - mom says it's dinnner ¡Si no sales ahora, te patearé el trasero hasta llegar a Gotham! - if you don't get out now, i'll kick your ass all the way to gotham Ella tiene planes, ¿qué estás haciendo? - she has plans, what are you doing? ¿A dónde van todas? - where's everyone going?

His mind was filled with thoughts and worries, but his gaze was locked on the sun that sank behind the horizon, a sigh filling his lungs.

He was late for dinner. Again.

“Mama’s so gonna kill me,” He muttered under his breath, speeding home as quickly as he could. 

“I have notified her beforehand. You will be fine.”

“It won’t stop her worrying, though.”

Wishing that he could’ve enjoyed the beauty of the sunset longer, he spotted his home, amongst the other buildings in their little community. Jaime then allowed the beetle-like alien on his back to scan for any people passing, he lowered himself closer to the ground, dashing towards his bedroom window.

His head darted left and right, and with a grunt, lifted his bedroom window open, hopping through quickly and pulling his room blinds shut.

The armour-clad suit then began to vanish, Jaime’s arms darting around his room to find whatever articles of clothes to cover his bare body.

“Jaime, hermano!”

Milagro’s voice cut through the silence of his room – other than the cluttering of items as he rummaged around – her knuckles knocking against his bedroom door.

“Mamá dice que es la cena!” Milagro huffed, turning to face the girl behind her. “Drea, I’m so so sorry about this, I do want to walk you home.”

“No, no it’s no biggie,” Drea smiled in understanding, placing her hand on Milagro’s shoulder. “I can walk home myself, we live right across each other anyways, remember?”

“My mama raised me better than that.”

Milagro’s smile turned into an apologetic one, her fist meeting with Jaime’s door again.

“Jaime Reyes, I swear!” She hissed. “¡Si no sales ahora, te patearé el trasero hasta llegar a Gotham!”

With that, the door snapped open, Jaime’s hair a mess with a sheen of sweat covering his tan skin. Milagro’s eyes widened slightly in realisation, a sigh escaping her lips.

“You stink, you better shower after dinner,” She muttered. “Come on, Drea, let’s go.”

“Go where?” Jaime frowned, leaning his weight on his doorway as he watched his sister and his neighbour walking out of the hallway.

“We’re going to the moon.”

“Very funny, Mili,” Jaime rolled his eyes. “Where are you going?”

“Where do you think, hermano? She’s heading home,” Milagro placed her hand on her hip in annoyance, Drea standing by her friend’s side as she placed a hand behind her neck.

“Yeah, but it was nice to catch up, Jaime,” She shrugged lightly. “Can’t wait to work together for job hunting.”

Jaime’s eyes widened, feeling his stomach jump into his throat, watching the only answer to all his questions almost walk right out of his front door.

He needed answers, and he needed them now.

“Wait!” Jaime called out and Drea turned around so quickly that he almost thought that she had planned for him to stop her.

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

Milargro frowned, a mixture of confusion and disbelief appearing on her face, as her brother, the man who never dared to be near her best friend, suddenly invited her over to stay for dinner.

“Hermano,” Milagro hissed in whispers. “Ella tiene planes, ¿qué estás haciendo?”

“You know, just to catch up and… stuff,” The male blurted his last word out, spitting out whatever came to his mind.

“I mean, my Amma is probably waiting for me,” Drea glanced behind her, Jaime’s mind running wild once more.

“Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to get to know Mili better? I mean, are you really best friends if you don’t know her favourite drink by heart?”

Jaime watched the woman closely, a smile almost growing on his lips the moment he saw her eyes widen in disbelief that he remembered such a small detail. 

Gotcha.

“Lemme call my mom real quick,” She nodded, her smile turning flat.

Jaime nodded, returning her smile with an eager one, his sister staring at him with widened eyes, jaw slack in disbelief.

“Jaime, I have no idea what you’re on about, but you better tell me by the end of dinner,” She hissed, jabbing a finger into his chest.

“Don’t worry,” He chuckled, lightly tapping the top of his sister’s head. “Nothing bad’s gonna happen.”

“So how’s your mother doing, Drea?” Bianca chimed, her son eyeing the girl’s reaction.

To say dinner was normal would’ve been an overstatement. Conversation popped up here and there, but most of the time it would’ve been awkward silence with the newcomer sitting at the table. Yes, the new neighbours did have meals with them now and then, but most of the conversations would’ve consisted of the two mothers in the family bonding over their parenting experiences.

Jaime cleared his throat, and Drea, who sat beside him, perked up instantly, a smile flashing on her features. 

There it was again, that smile. There was something about it that irked him, and Jaime couldn’t tell if it was because it appeared whenever she was called up, or if it was the fact that it wasn’t a genuine smile.

“Oh, she’s just fine,” She hummed. “Still a little exhausted. She spent a lot of time doing work before the move, so it’s all just built-up fatigue.”

“Yeah, driving can be tough when you’re new to a city,” Rudy, or César as he preferred to be called by the neighbour. “Happens to the best of us.”

“Ah, well, if she needs any help, we’re always here to help,” Bianca assured, her smile reaching her eyes. “And Rudy would gladly show her around, won’t you?”

“...I guess I could.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Mrs Reyes, and Señor César,” Came the response, and Jaime picked up that it was an almost automatic response.

“Oh, please, call me Tía Bianca! You’re practically family with how often you’ve come here!”

And for a split second, Jaime saw something other than the put-on happiness flash in Drea’s chestnut eyes. For a brief moment, he saw her eyes soften, turning into one of genuine happiness, of gratitude.

“Alright, Tía,” Drea’s mouth flickered into a soft smile. “Thanks again, for having me over, and for dinner.”

“No worries! Thank Jaime for the brilliant idea!”

In an instant, Jaime glanced over at the woman beside him, his deep brown eyes meeting hers. A smile grew on his features, and he winked up at her, amusement growing within him as he saw her cheeks flush for a moment, eyes widened in surprise.

A chuckle then escaped her, the Mexican boy turning away from his sister’s disgusted expression.

“Well, I’m just glad that I’m welcome,” She hummed. 

Jaime nodded as he glanced back at her, his eyes catching on a little stroke of red, just resting on her cheekbone.

“You got a little something,” He pointed out, his index aimed at the spot on his cheek.

Panic flooded through her for a second, her eyes gave it all away. Instantly, her palm was raised to the spot on her cheek, a fake smile gracing her lips once more.

“Yeah, my Mama called me over earlier, she asked me to help Amma paint the walls,” She exclaimed breathily. “Red’s their favourite colour.”

“Really, now?” Jaime furrowed his brows, yet his smile remained. “Strange how paint would fall on your face unless you deliberately put it there.”

“Well, it happens sometimes, hermano,” Milagro muttered. “It’s called having excess paint, and then it drips onto your face when you paint vertically.”

“Then wouldn’t you have noticed it and wiped it off?”

The male frowned over, his gaze locked onto hers. Fear filled her eyes as she broke their eye contact, her glance soon falling onto his mother’s. 

“Good point, uh… excuse me, I have to clean that up,” She muttered, standing up so quickly, that her chair almost fell backwards.

The Reyes family watched as the girl darted down the hallway, Milagro’s expression morphing back into one of horror and shock at her brother’s behaviour. Bianca frowned, confused about what had just happened as she watched Jaime get up from his seat, walking right after the girl.

“Scuse me,” He muttered.

“¿A dónde van todas?” Nana frowned, watching as two of the dinner’s participants dashed off, Rudy placing his hand on his mother’s shoulder, Jaime ignoring Milagro’s protest of annoyance.

“What the heck, Jaime?!” 

gif by @rob-pattinson

taglist: @mooncleaver @hoshi4k @mymanjaimereyes

< comment/dm me if you'd like to be on the taglist! >

[abihastastybeans]

HELLO

5, 10, 13, 15, 18, 19, 21, 29 from here

(i just realised that that's a lot so feel free to skip some/answer selectively if you want to do that!)

CAL HIIIII!!!!

(are you kidding ofcourse I'm gonna answer all of that, let's make a game out of it and see how long it takes me)(it's 15:05 when I started answering)

5. Favourite song in your native language

Can't think of one rn😭 The first one that came to mind is Venmadhi Venmadhi from Minnale because some guy was playing that on the bus yesterday. I think it's a lovely song, especially the third verse :)

10. Most enjoyable swear word in your native language

I don't really swear in Tamil😂 I only use words like stupid/wastrel/dog/buffalo... y'know the most common ones lol

But, again, the first swear word that came to mind is *looks around to make sure no one's listening* "watha" - which is basically the Tamil equivalent of fuck - because one of my friends called another friend that this morning lmao

13. Does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions ot traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

Well there's so many but i generally think that doing rituals/ chanting slokas or vedas must be very strange to outsiders who aren't really used to that! Imagine being a white christian and you encounter a yagna happening with a giant fire, lots of huge shirtless men saying very weird words in their blaring voice, adding all kinds of different things into the fire, while surrounding people watched on... I'd be terrified 😂💀

15. A saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

SO BEAUTIFUL. SO ELEGANT. JUST LOOKING LIKE A WOW.

18. Do you speak with a dialect of your native language?

Gosh I speak so many dialects - depending on who I'm talking with. There's what I consider the normal one, there's the one mixed with random English sentences😂, there's the local chennai dialect for when I'm dealing with/in public or local vendors💀, there's the tambrahm (wow it feels weird to say it like that) dialect because that's what I was raised on in mum's side of the family

19. Do you like your country's flag and/or emblem? What about the national anthem?

I've honestly never thought about this before...

Flag - 🇮🇳 It's a good one, I like what it stands for. But no one would forget the struggle it would take when you were 6 years old and were asked to draw the national flag and you wouldn't remember how many spokes are there in the ashoka chakra😭 or even if you remembered, you wouldn't know how to divide them evenly throughout the circle... So much stress. 7/10

Emblem - it's a bit complex if you ask me but eh. It looks cool i guess. I like the phrase 'satyameva jayathe' ("truth alone triumphs" in Sanskrit) so there's that :p 5/10

National Anthem - I love it!! I like the picture it paints, listing out all those places! Only criticism is that it was very difficult for younger abi to sing the beginning because it was so very low and i struggled for a long time😅 9/10

21. If you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be?

Aloo mutter gravy and methi roti👍

29. Does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country?

I was thinking really hard...before i realised🤭

MYSURU. WHY do you do that to your sambar??? It's nice, I'd be lying if I said it's bad, but how?????? How did you come to the decision "oh you know what. I'm gonna make this taste sweet. Yeah."??

We went to Mysore one time and had some sambar and do you know what happened, cal? My cousin threw up, that's what happened.

(it was because of the long uphill travel but the sambar definitely contributed :p)

What you lack in sambar, you make up for it with Udupi rasam so. I forgive you😤

(now the time is 15:55)

"Hi, I'm not from the US" ask set

[nothoughtsonlytrance]

(I feel like you'd like this ask game!!)

Ask game so we can tag phan!! shuffle your favorite playlist and post the first five songs that come up + if you think they can be related to DnP or not. Copy/paste this ask to your favorite mutuals!!

Okay! Here it is!

This is one of my all-time favorite songs by Laura Brehm. The lyrics to the song remind me of Dan's journey through embracing his sexuality and accepting his true self. Especially the lyrics to the chorus:

"I lay awake and I dream about/a place I can call home/where I am free and I can be myself/and I won't give this up for anything/not anymore/I am awake and dreaming"

This song is in Tamil, but the translated lyrics are really wholesome. It's about (according to the official music video,) "traveling on your own path (or river!) to seek out your dreams." It really speaks to how Dan and Phil followed their own paths through life and how they budded into a successful career. And through those paths, they ended up meeting each other! 😊

I think my favorite lyrics from the song are the pre-chorus:

Thinam thinamum yengi (Each and everyday I yearn for you) Kan moodi kaangiraen (I close my eyes and see you there) Thudi thudikkum nenjai (Within the steady beats of my heart) Un nizhalaai paarkiraen (I feel your shadow) Thirumba thirumba malaradhey (It blooms again and again)

Another one of my favorites! Dierks Bentley's Cover of "Pride(In the Name of Love") is probably one of the only country songs I'll even listen to (I'm not a country music fan lol) I think it definitely applies to Dan and Phil in the sense of how the song is about people who have lived their life with pride, not caring how the world views them. It really speaks volumes, especially how Dan and Phil don't care what others think about them and are living a true authentic life now that they are out and proud! 🌈

This song was the opening theme to the anime Kiznaiver and really holds a special place in my heart. (I never watched the anime, but when I first heard the song, I fell in love with it) Kinda sad fact, but this was the band's final record before the lead singer of the song, Michiyuki Kawashima, sadly passed away due to leukemia. The lyrics really tell a message of staying by someone's side no matter what and never leaving them, even when they are far away, and remind me of how Phil has always been there for Dan through his life, both the positives and negatives.

"Caught up in circles/All dreams and bright lights/Wait I'm here always/ brighter than sunshine"

THIS SONG makes me tear up EVERY SINGLE TIME because every single lyric reminds me of how Dan found his forever home with Phil. Before he met him, he felt he had no other reason to keep going in life, but when they met that fateful day in 2009, he found a "family of [his] own."

I think one lyric that really represents this is the second verse:

"Watching you go through all that you do/I never knew until I felt it too/But now I know that love is beautiful/There's so much more that I want to find out with you"

brb gonna go cry now 😭

Well, that's it! Highly recommend all of these songs, so you should give them a listen! Thanks for the ask @serendipnpipity!

[khaleesiofalicante]

hey what are your thoughts on the new president

I like him! I voted for him, so naturally, I have a positive view of his leadership. In this particular election, I believe he was the best choice, despite what I’ve been hearing from some of my friends in Colombo. Since AKD came to power, I’ve noticed growing classism and elitism among my peers in Colombo. Yuck!

He has already made some positive changes, and he’s been president for less than a week! For instance, the e-visa issue has been resolved, which is a relief. I hope the same can be done for the passport situation soon. I also appreciate the issues he highlighted in his manifesto (especially a lot of focus on women's empowerment - he mentioned the abortion laws, the microloans issue, and LGBT laws) and hope he can successfully address most of them.

That said, he does have flaws. The NPP as a whole is not very inclusive, and they need to work harder to earn the support and trust of the northern and eastern regions. He only has a somewhat familiar presence in the Tamil community, he is often not very accessible. For example, I speak Sinhala quite well, but I struggle to understand his political speeches because of the political jargon in Sinhala. This makes it challenging for many to connect with his message. While I can at least access English translations, we know not everyone speaks English. For eg, I really wish his first presidential address earlier this week could've had Tamil subtitles (since it was clearly pre-written/recorded)

Moreover, since he didn’t win votes in the north and east, there seems to be a lot of racism directed at Tamil people. I hope he can address this issue, because the only way forward is together.

Overall, I genuinely like him and wish him the best. While I’ve outlined my criticisms regarding his approach, I find it frustrating when people claim he won’t make a good president simply because he doesn’t speak English fluently, comes from a lower class, or is labeled as a communist (NPP democratic socialist is ugh!). Such negativity only perpetuates further division.

I truly don’t understand why some people root for him to fail, saying that those who voted for him will “learn their lesson.” This isn’t a cricket match where you root for the opposing team to lose. If AKD fails, it’s the people who will suffer further, and we’ve already endured enough hardship, especially during the economic crisis.

So, I wish him all the best, and I hope we can all contribute to the country’s growth while holding him accountable 🤍

[sophieswundergarten]

(Also very much not to do with me digging through everyone's past fics for the last week /s)

I think the Benedict humans should have more unconventional/interesting communication methods!! Specifically, I was thinking of ASL, because I really love learning it, but then it occurred to me that it would be fun if each duo/trio/group in the family had their own preferred way to talk.

I imagine that all of the kids use morse code (They teach Martina and SQ), while the adults favour sign. Within that, of course Miss Perumal and Reynie speak Tamil, and I feel like Mr. Benedict and Sticky would use Greek or Latin with each other.

Milligan and Kate have some complex system that consists mostly of their farm-code terms and meaningful glances (Moocho can participate in most of it, but his meaningful glances aren't compatible with both of them at the same time, so it takes longer).

I think Sticky and Reynie would be the type of silly people to sit down and teach themselves, like, Quenya (A Tolkien elvish conlang) or something just for kicks. Kate tried to learn with them, but she wasn't having near as much fun so it's something just the two of them do. Mr. Benedict knows Sindarin (Other Tolkien elf conlang), but it doesn't help him much.

Constance and Mr. Benedict have perfected a form of communication that is exclusively reciting snippets of poetry to each other. It's actually kind of impressive. They make it a game, and when one of them uses a poet the other doesn't know, they break off to ask about it. This was initially supposed to be part of Constance's schooling and broaden her artistic horizons, but she's stubborn and kept coming back to it so as not to admit defeat (And it fully delights Mr. Benedict anyway, so he lets it continue until it's just another thing they do)

I'm going to (sort of) pull this from the books and say that the twins speak to each other in Dutch. Rhonda, Number Two, Milligan, and Sticky all know a little or have picked it up over the years just from being around Nicholas, but when he and Nathaniel are in a room together they go too fast for anyone else to follow properly.

For some reason, I feel like Rhonda and Number Two (Besides the obvious Sister Speak that they're beginning to let Constance into) would enjoy speaking German or French? I'm not super sure where that idea came from, but there you go. (Their sister ability to communicate is a lot of sideways glances and exaggerated facial expressions, but it is occasionally supplemented with hand signals)

SQ leaves little written notes everywhere. Sometimes he puts them in spots that he knows only one person will get into (The cabinet with Number Two's mixing bowls, Mr. B's pen drawer, Sticky's encyclopedia shelf), but he also likes to sneak them into jacket pockets and things. His favourite is to try and slip them into Kate's bucket. He likes to use a special color code for each person when he can, so that way if someone gets into the mixing bowls and sees a little yellow slip of paper, they'll know who it is intended for.

Reynie's been asking Milligan to teach him some "spy codes", so they will often communicate short messages with an Alpha-Bravo-Charlie and number strategy, mostly assigning each member of the family a short "callsign" of sorts and then using it to check where someone is with each other.

Constance and Sticky, surprisingly, have worked out a fairly good system with their cheating morse code. They got a lot better at it, and now can do it so subtly and quickly that it's hard for anyone else to catch.

Martina and Kate make up absurdly long nicknames and terms for activities/locations and turn them into acronyms. They are fantastically over-complicated and no one has even tried to puzzle out what they're talking about.