#in fairness i was raised on bollywood

[jikangairodo]

𝗚𝗘𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪 𝗠𝗘 𝗕𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥.

ALIAS / NAME: i'm Nero everywhere. Jay if you wanna get rly up close and personal. i may scream and skitter off like a cat tho, fair warning

BIRTHDAY: October 9th

ZODIAC SIGN: a quintessential libra tbh, complete with the indecisiveness and empty brain

HEIGHT: 5"2-3 if i stand very straight. I'm holding onto that 1 inch like my life depends on it

HOBBIES: doomscrolling, video games, drawing, writing, plants

FAVORITE COLOR: green and believe it or not, beige

CURRENT BOOK: i'm in the process of reading all the fics put out by the last exchange event i participated in. there's at least 3 30k fics included and 23 smaller ones. i'm counting them all as 1 giant book idc

LAST SONG: does it count as a song if it's a 1 hour long mashup of 80's bollywood tracks? im a little filmi

LAST FILM / SHOW: movie- Dunki (do not recommend) last show- Severance (so good)

INSPIRATION: anything I watch/ read/ see, as in art. real life experiences

BEHIND URL: Nanami says it one time is2g. It was like my 7th choice. ratioed was taken =/

FUN FACT ABOUT ME: i have 200+ plants. mostly hoya but i have a good few philos in there. I picked up urdu while growing up and watching bollywood movies??? my muslim, bangladeshi parents, raising me in posh, central london really thought, why not add some more cultural confusion into the mix??? what could possibly go wrong??? i had an identity crisis, mum

TAGGED BY: @antishaman my beloved

TAGGING: i think most people i would've tagged have been tagged already? if not, consider this my tag <3

#[ooc] #me @myself #nero stop typing #stop typing now #no one needs to know #most of this #akhakjfhaklhfsl #listening to a bolly mashup rn #kya khoob lagte ho #bari sundar dikte ho

[ferretwhomst]

listening to bollywood music always gets me thinking abt the desi pines au again... so here is some more information

- scary-oke happens except instead of taking over midnight they sing some cheesy bollywood song instead. thinking something like gallan goodiyaan or disco deewane. OH OR GIRLS LIKE TO SWING... (Also yes they do the hooksteps. i have spent an ungodly amount of time imagining them doing the hooksteps)

- stan is a huge movie buff btw. he doesn't talk much about it but he lovesss sappy bollywood movies and those shitty (affectionate) hindi tv serials... the duchess approved gets replaced with one of those. which i think is fair because they dramatize everything to the same degree lmao

- thinking also about voiceclaims for the stan twins. i imagine the star twins would sound the same because despite their cultural background, they were still brought up in cali and developed accents accordingly. the stan twins tho were raised in mumbai so. have to rethink how they sound because i cannot for the life of me imagine stan speaking hindi in his regular new jersey accent. (he would definitely still have some aspects of the NJ accent because filbrick is still a new jerseyite, but still)

- speaking of religion, caryn is hindu and raises the boys as such. not particularly devout or spiritual, being a fake psychic (and astrologer in this au) and all, but she teaches the boys about the mythology and the traditions. filbrick is also still jewish, and the family celebrates events from both religions. lucky bastards get hanukkah right after diwali /j. present day ford and stan are atheists, but still celebrate the festivals and whatnot for the hell of it

- i am aware that irl, in both judaism and hinduism there are Differing Opinions about interfaith marriage to this day; however this is fiction so i am choosing to imagine it's not that much of an issue. maybe people are just kinda less bigoted, or maybe they were and maybe caryn and filbrick honestly just don't give a fuck. idk. it's not a main focus point of my au so i am choosing not to dedicate Too much thought to it

- instead of "poindexter" which is primarily an american slang nickname, stan calls ford "chashmesh" which is a hindi nickname for someone who wears glasses. he still calls him this when both of them wear glasses in their old age because he's petty. it annoys ford even more every time he does it WHDJSNEJD

- he also still calls him "sixer" which is funny because despite cricket being such a popular sport in india, they both probs suck ass at cricket and have never hit a six(er) in their lives lmao

- once stan and ford reconcile they quickly realize they can talk absolute shit about people in hindi and nobody here will have a clue what they're talking about

#ferret rambles #gravity falls #desi pines au #stan pines #ford pines #filbrick pines #caryn pines

[musings-on-aching-flowers]

Sumeru: a first impression, and my honest opinion

Growing up, I’ve always struggled to find representation. 

I’m a second-generation Indian diaspora, born to Australian parents, raised on Western media and Bollywood. I am dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed - the kind of Indian you don’t see in North Indian media, because fair is the beauty standard. I didn’t really have anything else to turn to, though, and I grew up despising how dark I was, to the point where I avoided the sun in the summertime in attempt to preserve my marginally fairer winter complexion. 

For a long time also, to many of my peers growing up, I was the first impression they had of Indians, and I felt in this way, everything I did had to be perfect. Even still, I feel like anything representing India as a country and culture must be perfect, because, intentionally or not, whatever image of a place someone is first exposed to, that becomes the impression people have of the country and people as a whole, and it’s immensely difficult to change that. 

So representation ultimately terrifies me. So much Western media has gotten it wrong. We were always painted as the caricature nerd-type character in Western media - I love Phineas and Ferb but look at Baljeet, or Raj from Big Bang Theory. And that was if Indians were lucky enough to be included: more often they were not, which, as a kid, is hard - you can’t really see yourself reflected in many characters on screen - someone who shares the same traits as you. 

Now, what relevance does this have to Genshin Impact? A lot, actually.

You see, Sumeru is an interesting case. I recognise the exploration music as Indian - strains of the Sitar and flute, melodies and scales characteristic of Indian music that I grew up listening to, singing and playing. Don’t get me wrong, Indian music is not a monolith by any means, there’s huge variety wherever you turn, but I recognise it. The combat music, too. Honestly, whenever they break out the Sitar it’s heartwrenchingly familiar to me. 

I also recognise the region names. They’re Sanskriti, like Gandharva Ville, Chinvat Ravine, Gandha Hill. The chapter title for this part of the Archon Quest is ‘Pages of Purana’. Even the names of the various jades you use to level up characters are derived from Sanskrit - but this is also due to Sanskriti words spanning the Dharmic religions i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and so on. Personally, I am Hindu, so of course Buddhist stuff is immediately recognisable and familiar to me as well, considering that Buddhism originated as an offshoot of Hinduism, and also began in India before it was spread down the Silk Road to take root in East Asia. 

The problem is, I don’t recognise the names. I don’t recognise the clothes. I don’t recognise the skin colour of the NPC character models. 

Now, you could make the argument that India is a very large place, and the names are very diverse. And they are, to an extent. But I know my culture, I know the kinds of names we have. I don’t recognise it. These names and clothing and whatever else are more Middle-Eastern. And therein lies the problem. To lump together various different regions and cultures and treat it as a monolith, isn’t that in itself breaking from the established tradition? Why couldn’t Sumeru have been dedicated to one region, whether that be India or the Middle East?  

And before anyone decries me for being overly sensitive or unfair, I will ask this. Why is it that Inazuma, Liyue and Mondstadt get utmost respect in the handling of their respective regions and cultures? Each region is based on one country - that in itself is immediately recognisable. The names of the characters are appropriate and, again, immediately recognisable. And don’t come at me with nonsense like arguing Enkanomiya isn’t based on anywhere, that’s wilfully obtuse and you know it.

Another thing - the complexions characteristic of both the Middle East and India are dark. Dark, as in the last shades on the cosmetic line dark, as in hair almost-black dark, as in pupils only discernable in the sunlight dark. I want to see that reflected in the kinds of characters that populate Sumeru. The little girl in me that applied ‘Fair and Lovely’ masks in the hopes that she would become fairer is hurting for that kind of representation. I want to see people that look like me populate a region with music and names familiar to me. That, to me, would be the most healing of all.

Genshin Impact is enormous. It is probably the biggest game today. This kind of representation is going to have an enormous impact on how people perceive India and Indian culture, along with Middle Eastern culture, whether they may realise it or not. I desperately want my experience of Sumeru to be positive, but I am absolutely terrified of what I might find. I have been hurt by poor representation enough times before. I'm terrified of playing and being proven right again, and that saddens me, because I love this game.

Ultimately, what I want is for people to see India and Indian culture in its full beauty, and appreciate it the way I appreciate it.  If you have time now, why not go watch a Bharatanatyam dancer or Sitar player perform, or visit a nearby temple or mosque and pay your respects, or participate in your local Diwali festival, since it’s coming up soon? After all, Indian culture isn’t just butter chicken, naan and stolen diamonds housed in the British Museum. 

That was my first impression of Sumeru, as an Indian. I hope I’m proven wrong. 

#genshin impact #sumeru #al haitham #India #representation matters #representation #media representation #brown skin #My experiences as Indian diaspora who struggled with double identity for a very very long time #I truly cannot stress to you how much representation matters #A lot of my self-esteem issues when I was young would have been resolved if I had had the kind of representation #that characters like Kate and Edwina Sharma in Bridgerton provide #(not that I would be watching that at a young age but you get the idea) #I just hope that I'm proven wrong and they get it more right #but I'm not holding out much hope #I guess we'll see #3.0 update #genshin sumeru #tighnari #genshin #inazuma #liyue #mondstadt #kusanali

[brigdh]

I used to write weekly reviews of what I was reading and post them to tumblr, but then I fell out of the habit. However, I did manage to finish some books last month, and maybe you will enjoy reading my thoughts?

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi. A thriller set in modern-day London. Anisa, a Pakistani immigrant from a wealthy family, dreams of translating great works of literature, but is stuck doing the subtitles on Bollywood movies. Her white boyfriend Adam speaks eight languages fluently, perfectly, like he was born to them. At first Anisa is only jealous, but then she learns that Adam is hiding a connection to the Centre, a mysterious organization that promises to teach anyone any language in only two weeks – for a price. And, well, who wouldn't be tempted? But visiting the Centre is only the beginning of Anisa's uncovering a whole host of secrets, as she meets and grows close to the Indian woman of her own age who runs the place; she and Anisa fall instantly into a close friendship which reveals some of Anisa's own missing pieces.

Anisa is a fabulous character – sympathetic and self-centered, unreliable and occasionally awful, trying her best but so often (like most of us) just justifying her own lack of action. The writing is fantastic, compelling and funny and sad and precise. Right from the first page, I had trouble putting it down.

The mystery of how the Centre does what it does is obvious from fairly early on, but I didn't feel like that was a problem. The drive of The Centre isn't so much about answering the question of "how?" but that of "what now?" Knowledge (of a language or of anything else) is power, but access to power is complicated by race, gender, sexuality, class, age, and so many other factors, all of which come into play. Anisa – and the other characters, and readers ourselves – want to remake the world for the better, but can she do so by using the tools of the powerful? Or would the act of using their tools change her into just another copy of them? The Centre doesn't answer these questions (and to be fair, how on earth could a single novel do so?), but the way it raises them and the dilemma it poses to Anisa is just so good.

Hugely recommended, and I can't wait for Siddiqi's next book.

Gilded Needles by Michael McDowell. A historical thriller set in 1880s New York City, focused on the rivalry between two families: the Stallworths and the Shanks. The Stallworths are upper-class, respectable, and include a judge, a preacher, a would-be politician, and a fashionable hostess of ladies' committees. The Shanks are sordid criminals, and include a fence, a prostitute, an abortionist (which, you know, I don't have much of a problem with, except that she cares less about her patients actually surviving the procedure and more about getting paid), opium addicts, and lesbians. They come to one another's attention when the Stallworths decide to lead a 'clean up the slum' operation to boost their own political prominence, which unfortunately happens to focus on the Shanks's neighborhood and ultimately causes the death of three of the Shanks. Black Lena, matriarch of the Shanks family, seeks revenge, and vows to kill three of the Stallworths in return.

This novel is better categorized as a thriller than as horror, which is unfortunate because I wanted something scary to read for Halloween. But despite that, it's hugely compelling, a real race of devious motives and sinister plots and squalid historical detail. Not a single character in the book is remotely likable, and despite their outward differences, the Shanks and the Stallworths are united in finding the very concept of morality irrelevant and laughable. The Shanks come out ahead as slightly easier to root for because at least they seem to like one another, whereas the Stallworths hate one another as much as they hate the poor, the unpopular, and the pathetic. Gilded Needles is a bit like watching a reality show, where everyone is terrible but you still have a great time throwing back popcorn as they tear the competition to bits.

A ton of trashy fun in a historical setting? My very favorite kind of book.

#book reviews #books #michael mcdowell #Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

[roshni23]

Fair & Bleh

As a kid, I remember seeing Priyanka Chopra as the face of fair and lovely. I remember older family members claiming the importance of staying out of the sun, associating beauty with lighter skin. I remember being infuriated when Priyanka Chopra commented supporting Black Lives Matter because it felt superficial and hypocritical. Though she was young when she was the face of Fair & Lovely, she supported one thing in South Asia while supporting another in the US.

Fair and Lovely capitalized on a major insecurity many South Asians had due to culture valuing a specific attribute they had little control over. This feels wildly exploitive and using major Bollywood stars as their campaign faces further exploited an already vulnerable consumer base. Contrasting this company with one like Dove, which took its customers' insecurities and traditional beauty standards, is interesting. I still remember seeing Dove's Real Beauty campaign, challenging traditional beauty standards and asking its customers to accept themselves. Though there was a "need" and demand for Fair & Lovely's product, the brand messaging capitalized on a problematic cultural norm - one that will hopefully change even more over time and will put Fair & Lovely in a difficult branding position - opening it up to more risk.

I'm not sure this relates directly to our branding project on tourism for a specific region in Italy. However, I could see a world where something political in Italy raises backlash globally, and the region would need to protect its "brand" as a part of a larger country. In this case, the region would need to defend itself by casting a positive, accepting message.

#2023MITSloanBrandingSB

[sallibhoy]

Fair & Lovely

Reading this case, the question that kept coming to my mind was - who bears what responsibility here?  Looking at the evolution of Fair & Lovely as a product, it is clear that there are forces at play that are far beyond Unilever’s control. The legacy of colonialism and Western beauty standards that place a premium on fair skin extend beyond the reach of any one corporation or product and are now deeply ingrained in South Asian culture/beauty standards both in the subcontinent and in the diaspora. Even for me, growing up in a fairly progressive Pakistani American home in Los Angeles, speaking about fairness as a beauty ideal was an unchallenged norm. My mom would never have purchased Fair and Lovely or suggested that we bleach our skin - but we did make turmeric masks to “brighten” or were told to eat mango because old wives’ tales say it makes you fairer.

In operating in the subcontinent (and putting aside how Unilever may have contributed historically to making this beauty ideal as widespread as it is), I think it is a challenging question to consider how companies can and should respond if this is a product that customers want? If Unilever’s customers in South Asia are actively seeking out whitening creams and solutions, does questioning these problematic ideals create a combative relationship with the brand that ultimately drives consumers to competitors for the same product? 

We spoke briefly in the last class about how brands select celebrities to feature in ads and represent their brands. In India, nearly every major Bollywood star has featured in some type of whitening cream campaign. Is it the role of celebrities as public figures to turn down these partnerships? It seems like the message is Unilever sending to consumers when it rebrands its products from “Fair and Lovely” to “Glow and Lovely” but uses the same product and messaging (Glow and Lovely Ad) to promote it that we still hold the same beauty ideals but have learned to use more woke language around it.

I think looking at how these issues touch the beauty industry in the US also raises some important questions. One of the key “whitening” ingredients in Fair & Lovely is niacinamide, which can be found in a host of trendy beauty products that promise “brighter” and “clearer” skin but don’t use language that so obviously reinforces colorism. Are brands like Glossier, that offer a niacinamide serum, delivering on customer needs or also contributing to problematic beauty ideals?

In some ways, the case of Fair and Lovely feels relatively clear cut. It is a product that contributes to what we can all reasonably agree are harmful social dynamics and ideals. But for products that exist in more of a gray area, is there a framework for how brands can and should determine what the impact of their branding and their products are on society? And to make decisions accordingly?

#MITSloan2022SBrandingA

[nailainnature]

Fair =/= Lovely

Well, this one is personal. As a South Asian American woman, the phrase "fair and lovely" alone is enough to trigger an avalanche of anger and frustration built up since childhood. Even though I was born and raised here, I am well acquainted with the suggestions to use Fair & Lovely to look "prettier", as well as the barrage of US media that places whiteness as the standard (and anything else as less than). As an avid fan of Bollywood, something that always stood out to me in Fair & Lovely ads is the role of celebrity in cementing the aspirational image of having lighter skin. When you see your childhood crush Shahrukh Khan espousing how attractive fair skin is, it’s hard for that to not have an impact on you. The iconic celebrity endorsements were two brands coming together to create a shared message and fantasy. But times change and brands don’t always endure – whether you’re a celebrity or a product.

During the racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder, the epicenter was in the US but we saw reverberations across the globe. Similar to the States, we saw Bollywood celebrities posting #BLM across their socials. But the public doesn’t forget things easily, especially when many Bollywood celebrities have “Fair & Lovely” as part of their brand image. This led to an internal reckoning within India – how could these celebrities’ BLM posts be accepted sincerely when they were promoting colorism and whiteness by the same breath? Interestingly, this did not lead celebrities to renounce their association with the brand. I think this speaks to the power of the celebrity endorsement and how long-lasting they can be. Depending on the impact of the endorsement or co-branding, it can be challenging for the parties involved to separate themselves from each other later down the line, even when they are no longer aligned on a shared message. So my question here is, after you hitch your brand to another brand, is this a marriage for life? If yes, what should brands consider before they decide to join forces? And if no, how do brands successfully separate when things are no longer looking fair and lovely?

#MITSloan2022SBrandingA

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this Week # 154 (Year 3/Week 50):

I went crazy this week, but I managed to catch a bunch of good movies: ‘The teacher’s Lounge’, Bi Gan’s ‘A short Story’, ‘The Delinquents’, ‘Battleship Potemkin’, ‘Riders of Justice’, ‘Belle de Jour’, ‘Werner Herzog, Radical Dreamer’, ‘Crock of Gold’, ‘Jazz on a summer’s Day’... So, on average, more than one great film per day - It was worth it!

🍿

The Teachers' Lounge, a new, intense German school drama, with 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. A conscientious and empathetic teacher tries to do right by her 7th grade students, when accusations of theft are raised against one of them. Her earnest attempts to stand up for fairness and truth, cause everything around her to unravel.

The trailer doesn't hint at how tight and absorbing it is. 9/10.

🍿

3 Chinese shorts by Bi Gan:

🍿 A Short Story is the latest spectacular film from the director of 'Long Day's Journey Into Night'. Magical realism of the most dreamy of emotions. Mystical visions about a black cat, a burning scarecrow in the fog (Photo Above), and a search for "the most precious thing in the world". The search brings the cat to meet 3 figures: A dying robot, a demon magician, and a woman who eats noodles to forget her lover. It was commissioned by the president of a Chinese cat food company, a fan of Gan's work, who gave him complete freedom to create 'anything he wants'. 10/10.

🍿 "My son has the same watch..."

The poet and the singer (Aka Diamond Sutra), a black & white poem about a murder in the countryside.

🍿 Secret Goldfish (2016) is an even shorter poem, which can be viewed even without translation. The English subtitles are here.

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The delinquents, another inexplicably weird Argentinian drama (that doesn't star Ricardo Darín). What a strange existentialist tale of two unremarkably boring bank tellers from Buenos Aires, Moran and Román. The bald one decides to steal a large sum of money from the bank, as a way to escape his soulless life, and in the process implicates his other dull colleague.

An unconventional 3 hours+ rambling metaphor that doesn't focus on a single story line, but instead leisurely jumps from one detail to another, with unconnected music choices that come and go as they please. Quirky, slow and absolutely immersive! 8/10.

🍿

2 Silent era classics:

🍿 First re-watch in 40 years: Eisenstein's epic masterpiece Battleship Potemkin, long considered to be the one of The greatest movies ever made. Still excitingly modern today - 9/10.

🍿 The Unchanging Sea, my first DW Griffith, about a fisherman who suffers from amnesia because of a wreck at sea. It was clearly shot around Malibu!

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Because of this 'Can you teach me your favorite Indian dance moves?', I wanted some outrageously-colorful song and dance Bollywood ridiculousness. Bunty aur Babli is the answer to 'What if Bonnie and Clyde but in Hindi with lots of open shirt sexiness and belly dancing? Suspension of disbelief is required.

🍿

Christmas Special: Another re-watch of my favorite Anders Thomas Jensen's terrific thriller, Riders of justice. It perfectly works on every level: Action, a slice of Danish life, humor, depth, and it's also extremely humane. Always 10/10.

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"I see you need a firm hand..."

After seeing the newly-edited trailer recently, I had to bask in another re-watch of Buñuel's masterful Belle de Jour, the most erotic of all masterpieces, with the coldest, most beautiful 23-year-old masochist in the world. 10/10.

🍿

Another re-watch: The French thriller Tell no one, based on a mystery novel by Harlan Coben, whose "novels often involve the resurfacing of unresolved or misinterpreted events in the past, murders, or fatal accidents and have multiple twists." François Cluzet is the chain smoking pediatrician, whose wife was murdered 8 years ago, when suddenly...

My previous review here.

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2 Norwegian thrillers by Erik Skjoldbjærg:

🍿Insomnia, the original nightmare on which the Christopher Nolan film was remade. Young Bad Cop Stellan Skarsgård comes to arctic city Tromsø to solve a murder mystery, and screws it up, without getting caught. Norsk-Noir, which is not really dark, but blindingly bright, so bright that he can't fall asleep.

🍿 Pioneer is a manly offshore diving thriller, which stars 'Headhunters' Aksel Hennie. The only distinct feature of the story is the background, Norway in the early 80's, when vast oil reserved were discovered in the North Sea, and huge enterprises were ready to start drilling there. 3/10.

🍿

"This was a man!"

I'm not qualified to analyze Willie the Spear-Shaker, so I enjoyed the 1953 version of his Julius Caesar on its surface levels only. With Marlon Brando, James Mason and John Gielgud. Since Caesar was slain at the mid-point of the play, it was mostly about the guilt and justifications of the assassins, especially "Noble Brutus". Apparently, regicide and the political struggle for succession were themes current around 1600, at the time it was written.

[The main visuals I couldn't get over with are the large, decorative floor brushes the Roman centurions wore on top of their Galea helmets. They had to...]

🍿

The quiet earth, an odd post-apocalyptic sci-fi story about 'the last man on earth' from New Zealand. A man wakes up to find that there's nobody left on earth. He struggles with being alone, goes a bit crazy, (tries some cross dressing and playing God), Etc.

When I was a child, I thrived on a similar fantasy (minus the cross dressing), so I enjoyed the first half of the movie. Later on he finds two other survivors, and various 'scientific' explanations are offered, which made it all confusing and senseless.

🍿

Werner Herzog X 3:

🍿 "Werner is a mythological figure" says Wim Wenders, in the recent documentary Werner Herzog, Radical Dreamer. A fantastic, beautiful chronicle into the life and brain of one of the greatest living directors today, and possibly ever. I saw less than 20 of his 75 film output, and I really must get my shit together and go through the rest of this manic, visionary's extensive 'oeuvre'. The trailer. 10/10

"It's injustice in life that we do not have wings"...

🍿 Lessons of Darkness was his impressionistic, ethereal poem about the Kuwaiti oil fires after the first Gulf War. An out of body experience, like an alien that visits the nightmare landscapes and trying to understand its meaning. For some reason, 1992 audiences reacted furiously to this film when it was first screened, accusing it for anesthetizing the horrors of war. (Always blame the messenger!)

🍿 Portrait Werner Herzog, a 1986 self-portrait he did about himself, talking about some of his earlier films. It includes a conversation with his mentor Lotte Eisner, the film critic and co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française.

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6 more documentaries:

🍿 "Fuck itself is the most popular word in the Irish vocabulary..."

I never heard of legendary Irish poet and "Nipple erector" songwriter Shane MacGowen until his recent death, having missed the whole Punk and Pogues eras. So the recent bio-pic Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan was a revelation. But not for long. I am a new convert and started listening to all his terrific songs.

RIP, Shane MacGowan! 10/10.

🍿 Jazz on a Summer’s Day, a magnificent concert film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. Selected for the National Film Registry, and scoring 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It absolutely encapsulates most idyllic vibes of golden days of summer, and magic of the beautiful East Coast 1950's. And what a line-up: Thelonious Monk, Sonny Stitt, Anita O'Day, Dinah Washington, Gerry Mulligan, Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong, and Mahalia Jackson with a magical finale of 'The Lord's Prayer'. 10/10.

🍿"Today I learned" about the alternative Monte Verità community outside Lucarno in Switzerland. It was an early-stage "hippy" commune which was established on an empty hill in the late 1890's. This settlement was a vegetarian, free-love, anti-bourgeois, nudist, feminist pacifist artist colony, out of which grew many of the later alternative lifestyle movements. The colony attracted many important early 1900's European figures, from Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Rudolph Steiner, Krishnamurti, Lenin and Trotsky, to DH Lawrence, Isadora Duncan, Paul Klee and so many others. There were outdoor group orgies, vegetarian food only, interpretive dance school, famous anarchists pursued by the secret police, Etc. Otto Gross, the mad psychoanalyst considered the founding grandfather of 20th-century counterculture, was one of the early founders.

Freak out is a fascinating 2014 Swedish documentary about the place. It draws parallels between that society these early utopians rebelled against with today's heartless capitalism. It uses too many re-enactments, but is still extremely interesting.

🍿 Al Nakba, a horrifying 4-part series about the tragedy of Palestine, produced by Al Jazeera, and told from the prospective of the dispossessed, as well as some of the "New Historians". Israelis were never told about 'the other side', and until today cannot bear the thought that the Jewish Homeland from its inspection was specifically formulated as a project of systematic ethnic cleansing.

🍿 "Seal's rectum tastes like nuts..."

The Most Remote Restaurant in the World is a beautifully-shot and unusual story. The opening of a two-star Michelin restaurant in Ilimanaq, Greenland, a tiny village of only 53 inhabitants. A nerve-racking race to prepare everything for the first night was as gripping as a Bourne thriller. Sourcing only local ingredients, freshly-killed whale, birds, was fascinating. The successful first night, in spite of all hurdles, was wonderful to watch.

Obviously, this was a vanity project by a wealthy restaurateur (from the Faroe Islands), which caters exclusively for the 1%'ers who are willing to fly from Hong Kong and elsewhere, take a long boat ride, just for the exclusive experience of a 10,000dkk dinner in the middle of nowhere. 7/10.

🍿 Tower is a mostly-animated retelling of the 1966 University of Texas tower massacre. For 18 years it stayed as the deadliest mass shooting in the US. It uses sleek clean-line rotoscoping to recreate the story and the interviews with survivors. But the pretty technique is highly distracting. The modern vernacular used by all the re-creators is specifically from 2016, not the 60's, and the whole experience ends up as an exercise in presentation. A banal and vapid experience. 1/10.

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Laurel and Hardy's Babes in Toyland was the first movie I remember seeing on my own at the local cinema. It must have been 1961, and I was around 8 years old. 62 years later it's an agony to revisit. 1/10.

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2 shorts:

🍿 Anima, a 2019 hallucinatory music video, directed by P T Anderson, to accompany Radiohead Thom Yorke's 3rd studio album. A wordless, dreamy mood piece.

🍿 The Typewriter (Supercut), Ariel Avissar’s homage to typewriters in film and television, set to Leroy Anderson's "The Typewriter".

🍿

Googlewhack used to be a term for 'searching two words on the old Google and being thrilled if only one result is returned'. Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure is an infectious 2004 one man show, beautifully performed and highly documented, about life on the early internet. 10/10.

Gorman is an English comedian. His more recent show, Modern life is goodish, is similar in style, him manically jumping non-stop, meandering from one topic to another. The best part of these are the 'Found Poems'. F. Ex., Badger culling, Fijian currency, The God particle, Flag outrage, The horse meat scandal, Wedding rings for men, Marathon water theft, Dog show controversy, The new pound coin, Candy Crush scandal, Celeb chef, British bake off...

(Actually, they are all collected on one link, here)

🍿  

Throw-back to the "Art project”:  

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

[fantasyricket01]

Fantasy Cricket on Blockchain: Revolutionizing the World of Sports Gaming

In recent years, the fusion of blockchain technology with sports gaming has ushered in a new era of innovation and excitement, giving birth to a rapidly growing trend - Fantasy Cricket on Blockchain. This cutting-edge combination is set to redefine the way cricket enthusiasts engage with their favorite sport, offering a seamless and transparent gaming experience like never before. In this blog, we will explore the importance of Fantasy Cricket on Blockchain and its widespread popularity in India, as well as delve into the fundamental rules governing the game.

I. Importance of Fantasy Cricket on Blockchain

Transparency and Fairness: The utilization of blockchain technology in Fantasy Cricket ensures complete transparency and fairness in the gaming ecosystem. Every transaction, team selection, and player performance is recorded on the blockchain, making it immutable and tamper-proof. This level of transparency builds trust among users and eliminates any concerns about cheating or manipulation.

Decentralization: Traditional fantasy gaming platforms are centralized, raising concerns about data privacy and ownership. On the contrary, Fantasy Cricket on Blockchain operates on a decentralized network where no single entity has absolute control. This decentralization not only ensures data security but also allows users to have full ownership of their in-game assets, such as players and rewards.

Smart Contracts: Blockchain enables the use of smart contracts in Fantasy Cricket, automating the process of payouts and rewards. Smart contracts eliminate the need for intermediaries, reducing transaction costs, and expediting the prize distribution process. Players can be confident that they will receive their winnings as soon as the stipulated conditions are met.

Real-Time Updates: Blockchain technology allows real-time updates of player scores, match results, and rankings. This real-time information enhances the overall gaming experience, enabling players to make quick and informed decisions during the game.

Enhanced Security: Blockchain's robust security features make Fantasy Cricket platforms on blockchain highly resilient to hacks and cyber threats. Players can enjoy gaming without worrying about their personal and financial data being compromised.

Global Reach: Fantasy Cricket on Blockchain breaks the barriers of geographical limitations, attracting cricket enthusiasts from all corners of the globe. Players can participate in leagues and tournaments with users from different countries, fostering a diverse and engaging gaming community.

II. Cricket's Popularity in India

Cricket is not just a sport in India; it is a way of life that unites the nation like no other. With a rich history dating back to the British colonial era, cricket has grown to become India's most popular and beloved sport. Here are some reasons behind its unparalleled popularity:

Cultural Significance: Cricket is deeply ingrained in India's culture and has become an integral part of the nation's identity. It transcends boundaries, language, and social hierarchies, uniting Indians of diverse backgrounds in their love for the sport.

National Heroes: Indian cricket has produced numerous iconic players who have achieved legendary status. From Kapil Dev to Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni to Virat Kohli, these players have captured the hearts of millions and inspired generations to take up cricket as a passion.

Thrilling Competitions: Cricket tournaments like the Indian Premier League (IPL) have revolutionized the game, providing nail-biting entertainment and intense rivalries. The league format and city-based teams have added a unique flavor, making it one of the most-watched sporting events globally.

Cricket and Bollywood Synergy: The amalgamation of cricket and Bollywood, India's vibrant film industry, has further fueled cricket's popularity. Celebrities owning teams, star-studded performances during opening ceremonies, and team endorsements have created an exciting blend of sports and entertainment.

Emotional Connect: Cricket has an unparalleled ability to evoke emotions among fans. Victories are celebrated as national festivals, and defeats are mourned collectively. The sport has become a medium for people to express their patriotism, pride, and passion for the nation.

III. Fantasy Cricket Rules

Fantasy Cricket operates on a simple yet intriguing set of rules that offer users the thrill of managing a virtual cricket team. Here's how it works:

Team Selection: Players participating in Fantasy Cricket must create a team comprising real-life cricket players who are set to play in an upcoming match. The selection of players is subject to certain budget constraints, and each player is assigned a value based on their recent form and performance.

Player Categories: Players are classified into different categories based on their roles, such as batsmen, bowlers, all-rounders, and wicket-keepers. Participants must strategize their team composition by selecting players from each category to ensure a balanced and competitive team.

Captain and Vice-Captain Selection: Participants must nominate a captain and vice-captain from their chosen team. The captain receives double the points scored during the match, while the vice-captain earns 1.5 times the points. This decision can significantly impact a player's overall score.

Points System: The Fantasy Cricket platform assigns points to each player based on their performance in the actual match. Points are awarded for scoring runs, taking wickets, catching, and other significant contributions. Conversely, points are deducted for negative actions, such as conceding runs or getting dismissed cheaply.

Leagues and Contests: Fantasy Cricket offers various types of leagues and contests with different entry fees and prize pools. Participants can join public leagues with users from around the world or create private leagues with friends and family for a more personalized experience.

Results and Prizes: After the real match concludes, the Fantasy Cricket platform calculates the points earned by each participant based on their selected players' performances. Winners are determined based on the total points accumulated, and prizes are distributed accordingly.

Conclusion

Fantasy Cricket on Blockchain is a revolutionary concept that has changed the way cricket enthusiasts interact with their beloved sport. By incorporating blockchain technology, the gaming experience has become more transparent, secure, and accessible to a global audience. In a cricket-crazed country like India, Fantasy Cricket has taken the nation by storm, creating a new dimension of excitement for cricket fans. As the game continues to evolve and attract millions of players, it is evident that the fusion of blockchain and Fantasy Cricket has brought a win-win situation for all stakeholders involved in the realm of sports gaming.

[dandylion-s]

.....i am still reeling from that uquiz which told me I’m AUGUST from Folklore because I need drama in romance and that I eventually end up alone because of this and that I prefer unattainable crushes because I can keep these scenarios to my mind all because I consumed too much romantic media as a child. Like....the read

#HOW DO THEY KNOW #in fairness i was raised on bollywood #so what do you expect #folklore #august

[distantvoices]

I'm only posting this because I haven't seen anyone else post about it on Tumblr. Recently, two South Indian men, a father and his son- Jeyaraj and Fenix -were taken into custody by the police for keeping their store open for 15 minutes longer than the curfew allowed during the coronavirus lockdown in Tamil Nadu. Instead of a fair trial, these men were tortured to death in their jail cells.

The only action taken against the police officers who did this to them was that they were asked to transfer to other branches and Jeyaraj and Fenix's family was paid off by the government.

Whilst Bollywood celebrities posted black squares and other images in support of the BLM movement, they refuse to speak about police brutality in their own country. I'm not saying that their support towards BLM is wrong but it comes off as performative when they cheer for change in other countries and stay silent when the same thing happens here.

Police brutality in India against Muslims, dark skinned people and people from poor backgrounds is very common.

They also arrested a Muslim woman who is pregnant, for peacefully protesting CAA NRC.

For more information about Jeyaraj and Fenix's case click on the link below-

TRIGGER WARNING - TORTURE, POLICE BRUTALITY, BLOOD

Please reblog and help spread awareness about this. Thank you.

#Jeyaraj #Fenix #Safoora Zargar #what im saying is that if you're indian #stop coddling these celebrities and putting them on a pedestal #and bully them instead :)

[sooibian]

Wherever You Are

Pairing: Kai x You as Lys ft. Baekhyun, Minseok, Yixing

Description:  When you least expect it, love, quite literally, sweeps you off your feet

Themes: Romani AU, magical realism, romance, angst, drama ™ (i grew up on a healthy dose of Bollywood and it! shows!), secret relationship, heavily influenced by Mmmh Kai

Warnings: Blood, weapons, violence

Word Count: +9.5k (i’m sorry i haven’t had the time to proof-read this at all)

Tagging: @changshapatrol​ @rosetvler​ @bbyunz​ @is-that-baekhyuns-shirt​ @royal-aeris @bbhmystar​ @his-mochi-cheeks​ @littleflowercrown13​ 

Part of the Steampunk Romani AU collab with @leewalberg​ @vampwrrr​ @xui-n-soowillbethedeathofme​

Pre-reading notes:

1. This is a spin-off for Lys from Star-Crossed but it can be read as a standalone oneshot. I’ve tried my best to translate the events of that fic into Lys’ POV but feel free to shoot me a message if something still confuses you.

2. Lys is a mind-reader, Baekhyun has the ability to influence physical objects with his mind, Yixing is a dragon and he’s the leader of the clan (Bulibasha), and Kai - as we all know - can teleport!!

3. Glossary: bulibasha - clan leader, dado - father, dya - mother, gadjo - someone of non-romani descent / origin, dragă - darling, iubirea mea - my love, lautari - a group of romani musicians, zakono - a key institution for enforcing the Romani Code.

“Dado, can I go along with Minseok?”

“Where to, dragă?”

“To the horse fair....the one in the village?”

“That’s no place for a pretty princess such as yourself -”

“But..but.. dado!”

“The camp has everything you’ll ever need, dragă.”

You woke up to the same old chirping of crickets, the same old crimson, black, and gold panels draping your tent, the same old wine stained goblet on your nightstand, the same old aroma of steamed xaimoko and hearty cornbread, and... the same old stinging in your heart. 

Lips stretched into a habitual wide grin, you greeted the lass who brought you dinner with a drawn out “Morning”.

“It’s seven in the evening, Lys. You know how your father feels about you sleeping during sunset!” Vera exclaimed and gathered her skirts to sit on the edge of your bed, her gentle fingers combing through to untangle knots in her mistress’ long, dark hair.

Having mastered the art of repressing the emotions that threatened to colour your expression at the mere mention of your father, feigning excitement, you took her hand in yours and coyly quizzed her on the topic she was dying to discuss, “Tell me more about the whitesmith boy, Vera? Did he prove to be,” you cleared your throat and said in a hushed whisper, “worth his mettle?” and drew the question out with a roaring laughter.

“Hush, Lys!” Said Vera bashfully, biting on her lower lip to suppress the smile that was beginning to form on her mellow, innocent face. The whitesmith boy, better known as Kris, was the clan’s most eligible bachelor until yesterday. 

Young girls, in pairs or trios, would hide behind the shrubbery by the river to catch a glimpse of him shirtless, bring him bent out of shape wares to fix and polish - even the ones whose weights their delicate hands couldn’t bear - and watch him at his job for hours at an end as sweat would drip down his neck, making his light, cotton shirt cling onto his well defined back. 

As any young man his age would, Kris surely enjoyed the attention but he didn’t thrive on it. His heart belonged solely to his beloved. He settled for the most simple woman, some would say for the want of a better word, but you were convinced that none of them had experienced the sweetness that was love. 

You had - but only vicariously. Love, trust, anticipation, joy - all vicariously. The only emotions you truly understood, first-hand, were longing, anger, and sadness. 

“Lys?” A finger poking into your side broke you out of your reverie.

“Hmm?”

“I said, yes.”

“What for?” You asked, an innocent eyebrow raised in question.

She only giggled in response and darted out of your tent. Grinning wide, you turned to your meal and just then the aggressive tramp of horses’ hooves and sharp, piercing cries of pain and fear from men, women, and children reached your ears. Before you could make sense of the situation, your shell-shocked eyes followed Vera’s body as it fell inside your tent with a dull thud, an arrow pierced through her chest. 

Your dinner tray toppled over as you ran to her aid and struggled with the bitter truth that you could do nothing to breathe life into the one person out of the very few that truly cared for you. With your hand on her teared stained cheek, you listened to her conscience ferociously chant, dya...dya...take care of dya!

“I will, Vera. I promise to take care of your mother.” 

Only when she was reassured did Vera allow life to drain out of her eyes while tears started to line yours and grief clawed at your throat. You began to drag her limp body towards the bed and it wasn’t long before a familiar face barged into your tent. Throwing his crossbow to the side, your brother helped you hoist Vera’s body up onto your bed. 

“What’s going on -”

“We’ve been attacked by a group of dacoits. Stay inside. Whatever happens, do not leave your tent! You understand me?” Minseok commanded, his dark eyes piercing yours while blood trickled down the side of his face.

“You’re hurt -”

He shook his head and repeated, panic betraying his voice, “Just... stay safe, Lys. Will you?”

Breaking down into sobs you nodded frantically as the ugly realisation of loss washed over you. Minseok pulled you into a tight embrace, praying fervently, “It could’ve been you. It could’ve been you instead of - of Vera! Thank God! Thank God, it wasn’t you!” 

His every word felt like a punch in the gut.

He then marched out with his crossbow in hand, vengeance in his eyes and your heart clenched with fear for your brother’s life. Hiding behind the entrance panels, you watched the scene outside.

The settlement was barren except for the dacoits and a handful of men from the clan out on the field; the rest had scurried into the safe confines of their caravans and tents. Men on horseback, dressed in black robes, had their faces covered in black scarves. They spoke a different tongue but you understood that they sought revenge. A life for a life, they repeated over and over in broken Romani. They menacingly circled Baekhyun with arrows and daggers pointed to his heart. Baekhyun’s stance was alert with his jamdhar in his hand as a majestic black and gold dragon hovered over them, a tattered body dangling from his spine chilling, bloody mouth.

It happened within a matter of seconds - the dacoits lay slain - some with arrows pierced through their chests, some eviscerated into smithereens and the rest crumbled to black dust - the doing of Minseok, Baekhyun, and Yixing respectively.

With one flap of his massive wings, Yixing descended, gracefully landing on his human feet as a man-servant trotted to his aid with a black robe to cover his modesty yet, very little was left to imagination.

“They really thought -”

Before Yixing could complete his sentence, an unconscious Baekhyun collapsed - right in the centre of the bloody chaos. That jamdhar is going to be his undoing, you said to yourself. A girl with dark unruly hair rushed to his side - your fiancé’s side - the sight turning your limbs to ice.

Your heart sank to your stomach but the edges of your mouth curled up in a smile as you met her eyes from a distance with sheer contempt in your own.

A man you didn't recognise, supported by two others on either side, was being ushered into Yixing's private chamber.

You felt a hand against the small of your back. Minseok whispered into your ear, "Dado wants to see you."

***

In the centre of the room slouched a man on a wooden chair, his hands roped together at the back, face bruised and bloodied - evidently the doing of your own brother.

“What’s all this?” You asked the three men surrounding him.

“The bandits left their dog behind,” spat Yixing.

“So? What am I supposed to do?” You directed the question to your father.

“We need to know who he is, where he’s from, and...why we were attacked.” Replied your father, eyes forcefully trained on the unconscious man on the chair.

“You should’ve probably left him with some life in his body to answer your questions.” You said to Minseok indignantly.

“Lys!” Your father was prepared to reprimand you at your insolence in front of Bulibasha.

“Dado - ”

“Lys, just hold his hand and tell us what he’s thinking.” Minseok tried to lighten the tense atmosphere with his calm voice.

“I have better things to do than hold a gadjo’s hand and listen to the filth of his mind. I’ll leave you big and strong men to it.” You sauntered over to your father, the corner of your mouth raised in a smirk. Dusting the lint off of his magnificent black and red woollen cloak that was embroidered along the edges with the finest gold thread, you sang, “I’m nothing more than just a pretty princess, anway.”

“Lys, please!” Cried Minseok.

“What would you have me do, Minseok? Stay here with you all while my fiancé is canoodling with the Bladerunner by the pond?” You retorted.

Yixing shot you a puzzled glance while Minseok and your father averted their eyes.

"It’s known to be their usual hideout.” You half-shrugged at Yixing, your casual tone not doing much to ease the frown lines on his handsome face.

While you were busy squabbling with your family, the man on the chair lifted his head up, rope evidently cut loose with a push dagger, and immediately all four pairs of eyes turned to him. Underneath the caked blood and grime on his face, he flaunted golden skin, luscious lips, and sharp, distinct features. His eyes met yours and crinkled into crescents as his lips curved into a disrespectful smirk.

He gave you a casual two-finger salute goodbye and….vanished.

Breaking into an uncontrollable fit of laughter at the three men caught unawares, you turned on your heels and merrily skipped out of Yixing’s private chamber.

.

.

.

The next morning found you by the river, still trying to wrap your head around the events of yesterday. ‘Thank God it wasn’t you!’ Your brother’s gentle voice rang ominously in your ears. ‘But what if it was?’ you reasoned with yourself, ‘Would it have meant being finally free or trapped in a permanent state of oblivion?’ In tune with your mind, your feet wandered, taking you deeper into the viridian forest.

You stumbled upon something stock-still and landed on your back causing that something to stir and wince in pain as it slowly regained consciousness. You crawled as far away from it as you could only to recognize him by the pleated black cummerband around his waist. The gadjo struggled to hold himself up and flattened to the ground again.

His agony brought you some solace as Vera’s ashen face flashed before your eyes. Laughing, you exclaimed, "So this is how far you managed to get! A stone's throw from Bulibasha's tent."

The man winced again but a smile began to form on his lips. "Wa-water," he breathed but you leisurely rested your back against the trunk of a nearby tree and denied his request with a little shake of your head, “A life for a life, gadjo. Repay your debt. Your people killed my friend.”

“Not- not my doing,” he said throatily and began dragging himself towards the river. He was sculpted like the dancers of a lăutari - long and lean, elegantly broader along the shoulders and chest and enviably slim around the waist. 

You offered him no help. Instead, waited with a bated breath for his soul to escape him. But his snail’s pace had started to exasperate you. So you begrudgingly volunteered to bring him water as his dying wish.

“Here you go, gadjo. Seeing the way my brother beat you up, a sip or two of water won’t be of much help, anyway.” You sneered, holding the edge of the cupped leaf to his bruised lips.

As he drank, colour slowly returned to his ghost-white, bloodied face. “Kai,” he said in a voice that was husky and deep.

“What?”

“It’s my name. You’d do well to remember it.” His face lit up with a smile and his eyes found your thick golden anklet bejeweled with iridescent beads. He flicked the bead trinkets with his finger and squeezed his eyes shut as if in admiration of a great symphony.

Before you could even make sense of the situation...of him...he vanished again.

.

.

.

Kai, you mouthed, curled up in bed at midnight.

“Kai,” you said the gadjo’s name out loud, the tips of your fingers tracing the movement of your lips and despite yourself, blood began to warm your face. It had been a week since you met him in the forest but the man had capsized your mind. You inwardly admonished yourself for not killing him when you had the chance - it was the least you could’ve done for Vera - but you couldn’t bring yourself to hurt him.

You saw truth in his innocent yet compelling eyes.

A whirlpool of emotions rose in your chest as you tossed and turned in bed causing a bead of your anklet to tangle with a loose silk thread from your quilt. Groaning, you sat up to undo it, and heard a sudden, loud crack.

Kai had unexpectedly appeared, standing at the foot of your bed. Arms crossed over his chest and head tilted to the side, he smiled down at you.

Returning his smile, you said, “If I scream, there’ll be at least ten men here, in no time, with sharp objects pointed at your throat.”

Gaze intertwined with yours, Kai knelt before you as his deft fingers found the troublesome bead. Smirking, he slowly pushed the quilt out of the way, and you instinctively pulled your skirts down below your knees. His mouth found the loose thread and he bit on it to free you from the restraint as his warm breath fanned your ankle and his soft lips brushed ever so slightly against your skin. As delicate as the touch was, it felt like being imprinted with a blazing hot cast-iron.

“If you truly wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have saved my life. And I’m here to thank you for that,” he smiled, and took the bold step of sitting next to you, on your bed. He then clicked his tongue, fingers ghosting along the curve of your ankle, and piped cockily, “Besides, you know I’d vanish before your sluggish men even manage to get here.”

“You think you’re very brave, gadjo?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just a fool for walking into the lioness’ den.”

His expression suddenly turned solemn. Studying your face intently, he whispered, “I’m sorry about your friend. I didn’t -”

“You didn’t what?” Your heart thumped wildly in your chest in a rather desperate anticipation of his innocence. So you immediately placed your clammy hand upon his trembling, cold one.

His voice grew thick with anguish as he explained, “I didn’t know those men were going to storm your clan. I’d only met them that morning. They said they were traveling south and I - I really had nowhere to go so I joined them without giving it much thought. I was desperate for company.”

His words were very much in line with his thoughts and memories. Images of the dacoits just as you’d seen them that evening, their boisterous banter, their journey towards the settlement, the food and wine and spoils they shared along the way, all flashed before your eyes.

You knew a liar when you saw one - their features were drawn out a bit differently, you’d believed. Baekhyun was a liar. He’d lied when you had asked him if he loved you. But Kai on the other hand…

“At the time you didn’t realize that they were plunderers?” You asked delicately.

“All I understood was that they weren’t men of strong character. But I didn’t care for their morality. I knew I could protect myself if worse came to worst.”

“Why didn’t you simply run...vanish when they besieged my clan?” As hard as you tried, you failed to keep the edge off of your voice.

The pitch of Kai’s voice rose as he continued to explain, “I grew numb...my hands and legs and...mind...I’ve seen war and suffering and I didn’t expect to cross paths with tragedy again so soon. So I - nobody noticed this at the time because of the chaos - but I fought on your side. I tried to save as many as I could.”

You contemplated on his words for a moment without realizing that his fingers were now laced with yours.

“- when my brother found you, you just -”

“I thought I - ,” his voice dropped and lower lip quivered slightly, “ - deserved the punishment.”

Fighting back your tears, you asked, “Why didn’t you explain this to them?”

“Did you see the look on your brother’s face? And the dragon’s? He was breathing fire even in his human form. They were ready to bring me to justice for the crimes I didn’t commit.”

You gave Kai a quick once-over. His face still bore bruises from the beating but his clothes were impeccable. Rich, even. He was dressed in a blue cashmere smock, red velvet pants, and his fingernails were coated in a deep teal. He wore a beaded bracelet on his right wrist that sparkled in the dim lighting of your tent - as did the platinum ring laced with exquisite tiny diamonds on his right hand index finger.

Had the dacoits looted him, they would’ve comfortably lived on the gains from the ring alone for a good part of the year. What was the need for them to tread such a great distance to loot your clan, you wondered.

Yet again, you grew wary of the man before you.

“Why are you telling me all this?” You asked.

“Because I don’t want you to resent me for the death of your friend.”

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you asked defensively, “Why do you care what I think, gadjo?”

“Kai,” he corrected you and placed a chaste kiss on your forehead. Tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear, he disappeared again.

.

.

.

The scattered morning light filtered through the thicket and descended in brilliant pearls in the unshackled stream of water amidst the medley of the trinkets on your anklet, the ballads of songbirds, and gushing water hitting rubbled mass as you tiptoed deeper into the forest.

A firm grasp balanced you by your arm as you hopped over rocks to cross the stream.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re tailing me, gadjo.” You teased him.

“Here,” he thrust some peeled almonds in your hand as soon as you got to the other side. Smiling, he said, “eat up. These extraordinary tiny things will help with your poor memory.”

He walked ahead of you, guiding, as you both slipped further into the capricious forest.

“You leave only to come crawling back so soon, Kai?” Although you uttered his name almost derisively, you felt heat rising up your cheeks as it fell from your lips.

“You see? The almonds help.” He stated matter-of-factly.

You merely scoffed in response.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” He asked, retaining a casual tone.

Letting out a deep sigh, you bombarded him with your well thought out mental list of questions in response. The questions that had plagued your mind since your very first encounter with him.

“Where are you from, gadjo? Don’t you have a home? A... girl waiting for you?” You deliberately held on to his arm on the pretext of steadying yourself ...and his mind drew a blank.

I can’t remember anything before you.

You were about to say something more but then stopped short, retreating until your back hit the trunk of a tree. He followed and halted only at a hair breadth’s distance from you, towering over, as sunlight danced on his skin.

He breathed, “You tell me. Do I?”

“Hmm?” Brows quirked, you stared right back into his eyes as his head continued to lower slowly and you, despite yourself, started going up on the tip of your toes, his hand around your waist holding you steady.

“Do I have a girl,” he whispered, his index finger lifting your chin up, his warm breath tickling your face and his lips ghosting over yours, “waiting for me?”

Your eyelids drooped almost instinctively as the back of his fingers gently caressed the side of your face.

“Kai -”

He chuckled, swiftly scooping you up in his arms. You felt your whole body squint and your ears popped rather painfully. It wasn’t long before Kai’s feet found firm ground in a meadow full of beautiful plume thistles while you stayed burying your face in the crook of his neck, eyes firmly squeezed shut.

He gently put you down but your legs gave out. Feeling squeamish, you berated him, “Warn me the next time, yes?”

He pulled you in a tight embrace, panic betraying his voice, he asked, “Are- are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize!”

“How do you survive this at all? It’s- it feels terrible! I feel horribly queasy and my spine is trying to claw its way out of my back!” You argued aimlessly.

“One gets used to it.” He said softly as you lay on your back and he lied down next to you.

“Where are we?”

“We’re very close to Cluj-Napoca. Prince Jongin’s would-have-been kingdom.” His vague and casual tone was starting to vex you a little.

“Prince Jongin?” You enquired rather haughtily.

He answered, “Yours truly,” and bent his neck down in a bow.

“You - you’re a prince?”

He turned to face you and you excitedly followed suit. Tracing your jawline with his finger he whispered, “Not anymore. I mean - forget it, it’s a long story.” He sighed and turned his face to the clear blue skies again.

Propping yourself up on your elbows, you urged him to continue, “I have all the time in the world.”

He took a moment to contemplate on your words and then his own before indulging you with a wistful smile on his face, “I turned out to be someone..something nobody expected out of me. More capable than the rightful heir, more popular with the people, more popular within the court, and more popular with the King himself.”

“Hmm...I’ll need a little more than that.”

Kai chuckled, his eyes crinkling into half moons again. “Three months ago, Cluj-Napoca was attacked by the Kingdom of Bucharest. My father - the King - was recovering from an affliction of the nerves at the time. Although I am not much of a fighter myself...well, I wasn’t trained to be one but what I lack in strength, I make up for in agility.. I led the army into battle and we managed to protect our territorial integrity and independence.”

Kai had been continuously fidgeting with the lace on his black tunic while narrating the story of his bravado, leaving you utterly astonished at the duplexity of his personality.

“So what went wrong?” You asked, studying him closely.

“The thing is I am not the King’s legitimate son,” he laughed and continued the story in a slightly higher pitch as if imitating someone, “I was born out of love, says my mother. I’m the son of a concubine.”

“But, if after everything, the King was in your favour then why did you leave?”

“He was toying with the idea of making my half-brother renounce his title. So before matters could get any worse for her son, the Queen asked me to ‘disappear into the night’ as compensation for not driving me to the streets when I was a mere boy.”

Aghast, you enquired, “So you just left?”

He simply shrugged and replied, “I am not built for a life of frivolity and merely keeping up appearances.”

“But what of your mother?”

“She’s not built for a life otherwise than of frivolity and keeping up appearances. Besides, she’s been offered an elevated position within the court by the Queen after my disappearance and she intends on keeping it. And as for my father...well, he thinks I’m a traitor who abandoned his own people. That’s why on the day that your clan was raided...I couldn’t think straight. The war with Bucharest has clearly taken a heavy toll on me...suffering of others is far beyond the level of my tolerance.”

“But what about your subjects? Tell me, how are you so casual about this?”

“You’re the daughter of the richest man in the clan. Why do you want to leave?”

“It’s not the same. Also, how do you know what I want? And- and don’t answer a question with a question. It’s annoying.”

He huddled closer to you and bragged, “It’s all in your eyes.”

“Enough, gadjo, this is not about me.” Your face flamed and your stomach was in knots in anticipation of his answer.

He let out a heavy sigh and replied, “Life is an adventure that is best lived boldly. I can go wherever I want, whenever I like. Why should someone like me bear the stifling burden of a crown when I can be...free.”

.

.

.

True to his character, Kai yet again appeared out of nowhere, took the heavy jute tote out of your hand and asked, “Don’t you have a handmaiden for these things?”

He was dressed entirely in black - dress shirt tucked into fitted trousers - and his face was covered with a sequined veil mask, leaving only his alluring eyes exposed. To say that you were not used to his abrupt appearances would be a gross understatement.

“I’m picking up some specific things for Vera’s mother...also, we’re in the middle of a bazaar, gadjo! You’re growing bolder by the day.”

“Lys, did you forget to take your almonds this morning?”

You scorned, “Do you have a death wish? If my brother sees you here... or the dragon... or..”

“Your precious fiancé?” He teased. “The one who’s..what was it again? Yes, the one who’s busy canoodling with the Bladerunner by the pond?”

Suppressing a grin, you gave him the side-eye and asked, “So you’re different, then? Better than Baekhyun?”

“Vastly! Tremendously! Immensely! Extremely!”

Shaking your head, you shot him an offhanded remark, “I don’t believe you.”

He immediately grabbed you by your wrist and dragged you inside what seemed like a dingy storage room for grains and pulses. Setting the bag down on the floor, he looked you in the eyes and roughly placed your hand on his chest.

”Don’t you think I’m different? Don’t you believe that I’m better? Don’t you understand I can make you happy? Truly happy?” He asked, his heart pulsing against your fingertips.

The overwhelming words you want to say...talk to me comfortably...I’ll listen to you...loosen the boundaries...I’m like you, too.

Eyes glistening, he pleaded, “Fly away with me.”

“No.” You stated plainly while your head and heart hammered wildly at the words he so bravely uttered and the ones he didn’t.

Brows knit together, his face scrunched in comprehension of your answer. “Why not?”

“It makes me squeamish.” You shrugged.

“Stop being funny.”

“You’re being funny. Whatever happened to you wanting to be free?”

“I don’t understand.”

Arms defensively crossed over your chest, you looked away from him and muttered, “You know what I mean -”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I didn’t mean I wanted to be free from you!” Kai’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline as he continued to argue, “Please don’t tell me you’re in love with the idiot you’re engaged to.”

“Of course not! It was just an arrangement to keep his loyalties with the family.”

“Then what is it?” He asked in his softest voice.

“I can hear the words you don't say, gadjo.” You bellowed, nearly throwing him back.

He shushed you before asking in a whisper, “So?”

“Isn’t it terrifying?” You struggled to keep your voice low at his very tempting yet terrifying proposition.

“On the contrary, in fact. I’ve never been good at putting my feelings into words. I say the things I don’t mean and freeze when I’m expected to say something. I’m easily misunderstood, Lys.”

“But everyone has secrets that they’d like to keep...secret. And from where I stand, you’re a man of too many secrets, gadjo.”

“And you’re the woman capable of unveiling them all. Look, I have nothing to hide and I don’t even want to keep anything from you. The rest,” he gulped hard before continuing, “is up to you. Think about it, would you rather be trapped in a loveless marriage? You’re the bravest woman I know, Lys. Don’t try to run away from truth.”

Ever since you’d met Kai, he was all you could think of. With him you felt safe and happy - the two emotions that had eluded you for the longest time. You wouldn’t dare to admit this to yourself but as frightening as it was, you also felt loved. All these years caught in an airless vortex, you felt like you could finally breathe - finally someone wanted you for who you were and not what you pretended to be - but something was still holding you back.

***

Kai’s words kept you up all night.

Eloping with him was a solution to all of your problems but it meant bringing shame to your family. You knew for a fact that you’d never be happy at the cost of their happiness. Sleep and answers eluding you, you scraped your hair up in a bun and threw a shawl over your shoulders to go see your father.

The fragrance of sandalwood mixed with liquor pervaded the air as you knelt beside his sleeping form. Age had started to prominently line his skin yet he looked a lot youthful without a scowl painted across his features. You planted a soft kiss on his forehead and the back of his hand, perennially struggling with your feelings towards him. He was your father, after all, and you couldn’t say that he never loved you. You only wished that he tried to understand you better.

“Dado,” you whispered against his hand, “I love you.” and broke down, sobbing quietly.

Suddenly, his disturbing thoughts came unravelled to you, filling you with unbridled rage and fear.

Fear for Kai’s life.

“You ice-veined monster...” You whispered against his hand before storming out of the tent.

.

.

.

“We have to stop seeing each other, gadjo.” Avoiding Kai’s eyes, you broke it to him as coolly as you could, caging a maelstrom of emotions within you.

“Would you stop calling me that? It’s cold and impersonal.” He took your hand in his as you both continued to trod lightly into the forest.

“And you’d like me to be warm...and personal..with a gadjo.. Because?”

Hurt flashed in his eyes at your remark but at this point you wanted nothing more than to save his life. When you grew to be so protective of Kai, you couldn’t tell but you knew you would do anything to save him from your vicious father. And to be able to do that, you needed him gone for good.

“Because I’m not just anyone. I am...” Breathing heavily, he pinned you to a tree.

Yours, roared his conscience. Unambiguously.

A welcome warmth seeped into your veins but you maintained a stoic demeanour. If he could hear your thoughts he’d take you away...far, far away from this stockade you called home. Tears you’d been trying so hard to hold back, spilled from your eyes as he lowered his mouth to meet yours in a deep kiss.

“We can’t be together, Kai.” Breaking the kiss, you pushed him away and sank to the ground, weeping.

Despite your protests, he carried you in his arms. Smiling, he nodded to gain your attention and trust before yelling, “Three…,” You engaged your core at “Two” and at “One” you felt a familiar uncomfortable knot in the pit of your stomach.

“It’s dark here.” You remarked, while still in the protective comfort of his arms.

“It’s night time in this part of the world, dragă.” He explained putting you down on your feet.

“Oh..you just called me -”

“I’ve been learning your tongue, iubirea mea.”

You were grateful for the darkness as it concealed just how smitten you were. Swiftly changing the subject, you asked, “Where are we?”

“Somewhere far, far away,” said Kai and you heard the smile in his voice, “at the edge of a crater of a volcano. But not to worry, it’s an inactive one.”

“How boring!” You teased, as he carefully sat you down.

A blanket of stars glimmered above as you and Kai cuddled closer to each other, enveloped in a cool breeze.

“Lys,” Kai’s eyes shone brighter than the stars as he turned to face you, “whatever it is, you can tell me. We’ll work it out. My father once said that there is no problem so complex, nor crisis so grave that cannot be satisfactorily resolved within twenty minutes. And twenty minutes is all we have. Right?”

“I have to be back in time for -”

“For lunch, yes.”

“Let me tell you a story,” you said, and Kai lay down, resting his head in your lap.

“Go on,” he urged you, the tip of his index finger meeting your nose in a little pat.

With your hand on his forehead, you narrated, “There was once a couple who married for love, much against the wishes of the Elders of their village. Because of this, the newlyweds were driven out. They wandered for weeks without food and water, travelling far and wide, seeking shelter...and acceptance. One day they found,” you swallowed hard and Kai’s expression turned solemn. He gently caressed your face with his fingers, calming you down to help you continue, “they found us. Our clan, I mean and my father was Clan Leader at the time. The woman had grown fragile and sick and was in an urgent need of care but my father denied them shelter. ‘They’ve been expelled for a good reason,’ he maintained. He lacked the basic human decency to even offer them some food for sustenance. They camped outside the settlement, pleading with anyone and everyone who crossed paths with them...until...until the woman could take it no longer. She died in her sleep and the man vowed to annihilate all those who were responsible for her death - our clan included. The leader of the dacoits who brought you to the clan that day is the man in the story, Kai.”

Brows furrowed, Kai opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out.

“My father - he - he recognized the man the day they stormed our settlement. And after everything, when he found you, it was like he’d struck gold. He was all set to incriminate you because our clan won’t rest until someone’s been punished. But truly - it’s all his fault. Had he not denied them refuge, the man wouldn’t have harboured resentment against us. Now he knows about us. He knows that you come to see me...he’s been keeping a close eye on us to be able to capture you at the right time. It won’t be long before he succeeds, Kai. So you must- I mean, we can’t -,” you huffed,  “after all, I’m engaged to be married. Minseok and Yixing are going to pay Baekhyun a visit tomorrow to fix a date for the wedding.”

Biting on his lower lip, Kai contemplated on your words for a while before speaking again. “Seventeen minutes. I have a plan. Do you trust me?” He looked at you with mischief twinking in his deep, dark eyes and a smile teasing the edges of his lips. You replied with a hesitant nod.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” You said.

“Anything,” Kai said with a smile. He closed his eyes and placing your hand on his chest.

“You can be anywhere, everywhere and with anyone, yet-”

“Yet?”

“You know what I mean,” your voice trailed off.

“I can be anywhere and everywhere,” said Kai, cupping your face in his hands,  “but I want to be by your side. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Don’t you see why it makes me upset when you say that we can’t see each other anymore? Don’t you see the irony? You can’t tell me that I can ‘port anywhere, except where I actually want to be. I love you, Lys.”

Looking straight into his eyes you said softly, “Love is a strong word.”

Brows quirked, he enquired, “Does it scare you?”

Your eyes glistened with tears as you responded, “As selfish as it may sound, I don’t want to bring dishonour to my family.”

“You won’t. I promise.”

“But what if your plan fails?”

“It won’t. And if at all it does, I’ll make sure you’re safe and sound. As for me, it’d be an honour to die for love.”

He loosened your fist open and placed a small china jar in your palm. You opened to find almonds in it. He grinned wide, and said, “Fresh ones.. in case you’d run out.”

.

.

.

If you loved Baekhyun you would’ve, without a doubt, stabbed the woman with the same knife that she sat polishing.

For the longest time you’d tried to hate her for being the object of your fiancé’s affections, admire her for her bravery, admonish her for her recklessness for if anyone were to ever find out… but you couldn’t bring yourself to feel anything for or against her.

Pivoting your attention to Kai’s best laid plan, chin up and voice firm, you said to her, “Show me your best blade.”

“What do you need it for?” She asked nonchalantly, entirely focused on the task at hand. Sure you’d grown softer since you’d met Kai but for her to not acknowledge a former Clan Leader’s presence fueled your anger.

You walked over to her and rested your hands on her shoulders, squeezing a little too harshly than you’d intended to. You wished she were thinking about anything other than Baekhyun but you weren’t surprised to find that she wasn’t.

“Lys!” She exclaimed, almost falling out of the little worn out wooden stool. She met your eyes, albeit with great difficulty.

Deliberately curling your lips into your best feature - a sinister smile, you whispered in her ear, “One that is good enough for carving a man’s heart out of his chest,” before tossing a piece of silver in her direction and strutting out with a navaja, a fighting knife.

***

“Do you have it?”

Kai appeared in your tent as you sat leisurely, snacking on peeled almonds.

“Solve a mystery for me. How do you always find me because I’ve never seen you wander in through the entrance panels. You just pop up out of nowhere.”

“We have an important task at hand.” He said, sitting down next to you, bearing the mannerism of an army general.

“No, I need to know. Now.”

Kai groaned at your unpredictable temperament and slapped his thighs.

“Alright, if you must know,” he said in a seductively low voice, leering at you as his nimble fingers drew circles along your foot. He slowly drew your skirts up with his other hand and you immediately smacked it down in protest.

“Fine,” he chimed. Letting out a sigh, he tugged at your anklet, “The sound of this has been burned into my memory. It’s how I find you everytime.”

“How very romantic. What if I were to take it off?” You asked playfully.

He tilted his head to the side, a hint of annoyance on his face. Firmly, he said, “Please, don’t.”

“Alright, alright!” You exclaimed at the sudden shift in his mood. “So what’s next?” You asked.

He removed an unassuming little vial from the pocket of his buckskin waistcoat and said, “This.”

You recognized the design of the vial - the opaque green glass bottle and its mouth closed with a black cork, “A spell?”

“The dragon’s wife is too trusting!” He exclaimed cockily.

“You went to see Bulibasha’s wife -”

“Assuming a disguise, of course!”

“Are you insane?!”

“Does it come as a surprise?”

“What did you tell her?!”

“I told her that this spell is the only way I can be with the one I love. And I wasn’t lying.”

“You really have a death wish, gadjo!”

“Kai!”

It took you a little while to calculate the risks of his audacity. Gaping at him, you finally spoke again, “Tell me what’s next. I have the blade.”

“Excellent.” He held the bottle up to your eye level and explained, “I’m going to sprinkle this on the Bladerunner when she’s on her way back home in the evening and her worst fears will come alive and start gnawing at her. And what do you think is her worst fear?”

“Losing Baekhyun.” You answered in a haughty disdain.

Kai chuckled. “Perfect. You said your brother and the dragon are going to visit your pretty little fiancé tonight? This spell will get the better of the Bladerunner and against her best judgement, she’s bound to go to see Baekhyun around the same time. The two men already have their suspicions about her and to catch her visiting Baekhyun at an ungodly hour will only reinforce their worst fears and this time they’ll not be able to wriggle out of it. Baekhyun and the Bladerunner will definitely be called into the dragon’s spine-chilling, morbid private chamber after that and a decision will be made.”

“What does that mean for us?” You asked, adrenaline making your blood quicken.

“Leave that to me. All you have to do is be there before they pronounce a decision and request a private audience with the dragon and your brother. And remember to,” he grabbed the navaja from your nightstand, its cutting edge reflecting the glint in Kai’s eyes. The corners of his mouth curled up, he quipped innocently, “use this well.”

.

.

.

The day unfolded exactly the way Kai had predicted.

Baekhyun and the Bladerunner had been called into Yixing’s private chamber at dawn. It was too early for the clan to start it’s day so you waited outside the tent just as Kai had instructed, listening closely for the right time to make an entrance. A loud and intense argument ensued between Minseok, Yixing, and Baekhyun - the three men who might as well be sworn brothers.

If you’d never met Kai, you would’ve thought that Baekhyun was being dramatic - fighting tooth and nail to save himself from heartbreak. It was a little selfish, you thought. Hearts mend, your father said to you when you had begged him not to put down your pet goat when she’d injured herself.

“But not without leaving a deep scar,” you muttered to yourself before barging into Bulibasha’s private chamber.

Seeing your father’s arrogant portrait next to the dragon’s in Yixing’s private chamber bolstered your bitterness towards him. Without another thought, you struck the portrait in its right eye with the navaja. That wasn’t what the knife was intended for but it was akin to killing two birds with one stone. As it went flying towards the portrait, it nicked the Bladerunner’s ear since she heroically pushed her lover out of harm’s way.

“Lys! You’ve ruined Father’s portrait!” Your dutiful big brother lambasted you.

Having dressed for the occasion in a red, black, and gold robes, and lips painted in a delicious scarlet, you walked with a deliberate swing in your hips, your dark, waist length hair emulating the movement. You allowed your fingernails to brush the Bladerunner’s arm as you sauntered over for the navaja under eagle-eyed stares.

With the knife in your hand, you came and stood before the Bladerunner, placed a hand on her cheek and whispered, “You have beautiful skin, Bladerunner. I’d hate to ruin it,” as you ran the edge of the navaja along her neck, pressing it just enough to leave her with a superficial cut. You were sure Baekhyun was bound to overreact, and he did.

He pulled you out of the way, standing like a barrier between the woman he loved and the one he tolerated. His firm grasp around your wrist was starting to hurt you but you maintained an unwavering demeanour. Your eyes landed on Baekhyun’s exposed sternum. It had been a while since you saw him without the basil necklace. The necklace was a testament of the promise you made to love and cherish each other forever but it was obviously no more than an accessory to him.  

“Hand it over. It never looked good on you, anyway.” You whispered and extended your hand toward him. Without a word, he slapped the necklace into your palm. Your heart hammered widely against your ribs because things were going exactly the way they were supposed to but in your experience it was never a good sign.

You knew what Baekhyun was going to do next. The look in your eyes taunted and teased him until he finally snapped. Baekhyun grabbed the dagger from your hand amidst loud gasps from everyone present.

He’d done it.

One prevalent belief still held by the clan was that taking a knife straight from someone’s hand meant that the relationship between the giver and the recipient had been severed.

Baekhyun had finally severed his relationship with you. Despite the anxiety bubbling in your stomach, you smiled inwardly at Kai’s genius.

“Baekhyun! What have you done?” Yixing’s voice thundered, echoing loudly in everyone’s ears but the enormity of his action was clearly lost on the Baekhyun. He continued to plead, “If the Bladerunner is to be punished, Bulibasha, I deserve a harsher punishment. I don’t care what the Zakono says. You can’t go on acting like she was alone in this!”

Minseok seemed firmly rooted to his place as he shot daggers at Baekhyun, his cat-like eyes disapproving Baekhyun’s out-of-character rebelliousness.

Now’s the time, you thought to yourself before being the one to break the uncomfortable silence. “He seeks her when he’s upset. And even when he’s not.” You turned to bow before Yixing and appealed, “Bulibasha, I would like to request a private audience.”

***

An exhausted Yixing slumped to the floor with his back against his spectacular dragon portrait. Face buried in hands, he groaned, “You young people really know how to complicate matters.”

“I agree,” Minseok joined in the whining while pouring wine into three goblets.

“Yixing, you have to stop acting like we have decades between us. And Minseok, put that down! It’s too early in the day for wine! Tell me what you’d rather have me do. He’s been in love with the Bladerunner forever.” You tried reasoning with them but Minseok only shook his head indignantly at your words.

“Baekhyun can’t do this to us after everything our family’s done for him. We took him in, fed him, clothed him. This is not how he repays us!” Minseok exclaimed.

You couldn’t help but draw parallels between Kai and Baekhyun’s journey so far. While they didn’t have a lot in common, one thing was for sure. They’d forever been treated like outsiders in their own homes.

“Bulibasha -” You turned to plead with Yixing.

“This is a nice switch from Yixing for when you want to reprimand me to Bulibasha for when you need something from me.” Chastised Yixing, tilting his head to the side, expression blank.

Eyes downcast, you mumbled, “I don’t want to go ahead with the wedding.”

“The Lys I know would want revenge. The Lys I know would’ve asked for his head on a spike. And hers, too!” Yixing exclaimed.

“I’m just not the same Lys anymore. The both of you really need to stop trying to control everything and everyone around you. Minseok, you know we have better fighters now and we don’t really need Baekhyun anymore. And you can’t use me to keep him by your side forever. Besides,” you got up to fetch a goblet of wine for yourself, “forgive me but… i need some liquid courage before I -”

“Please don’t tell me you’re serious about the gadjo.” Minseok muttered nonchalantly, with blatant disregard for the surprise his statement had taken you with. 

Steadying yourself by tightly gripping the goblet, you asked, “You know about him?!”

“Of course, I do!” Minseok exclaimed, “I mean, we do, Yixing and I both. You thought you’d disappear randomly and nobody would ever find out? The gadjo even procured a spell from the Clan Leader’s wife! It was foolish, if you ask me.”

You offered no further explanation and said instead, “Kai. It’s his name. You’d do well to remember.”

Fuming, Yixing bellowed, “Have you no shame, Lys? His people stormed our clan. We lost no fewer than eight lives that day! You lost Vera! Have you forgotten already?”

With no care in the world, you started to defend Kai, “I haven’t forgotten and I never will. But the monsters who raided us weren’t his people. He was just as surprised by it as we were. Whatever happened is Dado’s fault.”

It was Minseok’s turn to rebuke you, “Lys, I know you love to blame him for everything but this is a serious matter. You’re taking things too far.”

“No, Minseok, it honestly is!”

Minseok and Yixing listened carefully as you revealed to them the secrets your father had been harbouring and how it was his ruse to pin the blame of the raid on Kai. Neither of them spoke for quite some time, trying to assimilate the information you’d just shared with them.

“Lys,” said Yixing calmly, as Minseok sat with his hand over his head, “even if what you say is true, you know the Zakono does not permit you to marry a gadjo.”

“Bulibasha, say that I was snatched...taken...it’s better than saying that I ran away. I can’t bear to be here any longer.” You walked over to where your brother sat, shaken and furious. You took his hands in yours, looked into his eyes and cried, “Minseok, someone like me is not meant to be confined… I want to be out in the world, moving constantly, exploring, unearthing its marvels and wonders, its deepest ...the most well kept secrets, just- just  living. I am begging you to let me live!”

“Lys, that’s enough!” Interrupted a new voice, bringing you a sudden surge of relief. 

You turned around to find Kai in light-toned pink fitted trousers and a broad cummerbund around his slim waist that accentuated the elegant lines of his body. A relaxed chiffon and lace tunic in the same pale pink shade with flared sleeves that closed around his wrists was tucked into the cummerbund and his ebony hair fell in silken locks over his forehead.

He took confident strides towards Yixing, and stated with a sense of surety in his eyes, “If we wanted, we could’ve disappeared without a trace.”

“Get out, gadjo,” said Minseok in a dangerously low voice, “nobody needs you here.”

“The woman I love does,” answered Kai coldly, “so I will stay until she asks me to leave.”

Anger igniting his momentum, Minseok lunged forward and punched Kai in the chest with all the strength he could muster causing Kai to stumble several feet back.

“Look at him!” Spat Minseok as you rushed to Kai’s aid while he struggled to gain his bearings. “What a weakling! I cannot trust him to protect my little sister.”

Regaining your composure, you said to your brother in a threateningly calm voice, “Minseok...don’t make me say it.”

Minseok turned to you, face scarlet and eyes bloodshot. He demanded, “What is left to be said, Lys?”

Brows furrowed you looked him in the eyes as your heart threatened to leap out of your chest. “Father doesn’t have a lot of years left and... you know how bad it’ll be if word got out we were raided because of his misdeeds...the wrong decisions he made as Clan Leader.”

Minseok laughed darkly and shot you a disgusted look. “You’re right, Lys. You’re clearly not a child anymore. But what would you rather have me do, huh? Disrespect the Zakono? Give you away to a man who abandoned his own people? One who doesn’t have a place to call home?”

“Minseok, that’s enough,” commanded Yixing, causing Minseok to stop at once. Hands on hips, he continued, “Everyone has the right to choose their own destiny. And I’m sure you understand this better than I do, you can’t expect our headstrong Lys to change her mind easily especially when it’s set on something. We’ll let you have your way, Lys. But -” Yixing’s scrutinizing gaze met Kai’s kind eyes.

Yixing reached for the leather coffer which sat in an inconspicuous corner of the tent. You’d been to the private chamber multiple times for various reasons before but you’d never noticed the coffer. He crouched over it, rummaging for something specific. It was a few minutes before he rose to his full height again, a talisman in his hand, his face saying nothing in particular.

He split the talisman in two, fastened one half of it to a black thread and quietly tied it around your neck and gave the other piece to Minseok. The talisman was similar to the one he wore around his wrist. It was very much like a jade stone, flickering in various shades of green as if alive and breathing.

“The talisman will tell us where you are - at all times. It’ll turn red to signal us when you’re in mortal danger. If that is to ever happen, no matter where you are, you know I’ll find to you in no time. And when the light goes out - ” before the mood could turn somber, Yixing continued with a voice heavily laced with pride, “Don’t ever think about taking the talisman off. Well, the truth is, you couldn’t even if you tried. This thread has been strengthened by a number of powerful charms and spells..fashioned by my own wife.”

You responded only with an understanding nod, the realization that you were finally going to have it your way had not sunk in yet. Yixing and Kai shared a look before Kai walked over to him with a grave expression on his face. Yixing drew a dagger out the bandoleer strapped around his thigh and Kai placed his hand on the teakwood desk in the room.

“Make it quick, Bulibasha,” said Kai.

“What’s going on?” You whispered into Minseok’s ear.

Minseok sighed before responding in a clipped tone, “Proof that we fought for you when the gadjo was taking you away as revenge for the death of his dacoit friends. But the gadjo just.. vanished with you and all we managed to get was -”

Your conversation was interrupted by Kai’s muffled cry of pain as he collapsed at Yixing’s feet.

“- a little finger.”

In a state of blind panic, you rushed to be by Kai’s side, struggling to form words. You were aware that Yixing wouldn’t let you go without proof of Kai’s commitment towards you but you never imagined it would come to this.

“Take this,” Yixing held the mouth of a vial to Kai’s lips as he grappled with consciousness. Kai hurriedly gulped down the milk of the poppy which knocked him out almost immediately. While he was asleep, Yixing called for his woman to clean and bandage him.

***

You spent that time sitting next to a sulking Minseok.

Setting aside his pride, Minseok finally asked, “Will you atleast come visit?”

You rested your head on your brother’s shoulder and he instinctively huddled closer to pat it affectionately. “Every full moon, I promise,” you replied softly as a silent tear rolled down your cheek.

He pulled out a heavy drawstring pouch from the inside pocket of his coat and handed it to you saying, “Keep this.”

You shook the purse in your hand until the coins jingled and then reprimanded Minseok, “Kai’s father is King for god’s sake! He can take care of me.”

“But I still want you to have it. I had so many dreams.. the wedding I’d planned for you..” said Minseok as tears sparkled like diamonds in his eyes, “please...keep it.”

You pulled your brother into a tight hug and sobbed, “Take care of yourself, always.”

“You’re a fine one to talk...eloping with a gadjo. Can’t say that I didn’t see this coming. Unconventional to the end, Lys.” He twisted your ear playfully while crying and laughing simultaneously.

“Let those idiots get married, Minseok, and set the fool who broke my heart free.”

“Lys -”

Pouting, you asked, “Won’t you do it for your darling sister?”

“Fine!” Minseok agreed begrudgingly, “Anything else, your highness?”

“Take care of Vera’s mother.”

“You know I already do,” said Minseok, flicking your forehead. “Promise me you’ll come visit? And you’ll always, always take care of yourself?”

You took Minseok’s hand in yours and pressed your lips to his knuckles, as his heart continued to weep.

***

It was nearly noon when Kai finally awoke.

You stood up as he walked over to you with a marked confidence in his demeanour like his little finger wasn’t carved out of his body just a few hours ago.  He wrapped his arms around your waist, while Yixing and Minseok watched uncomfortably, and rested his forehead against yours.

With your hand on his chest you asked Kai, “Are you alright?”

“Never been better. You look like a bride, iubirea mea,” he said, holding you closer, tighter as his hands travelled the length of your back.

“Shall we?” He asked, lowering his head to press his lips against yours. He deepened the kiss and you responded with equal fervour as he lifted you off your feet, twirling  you in his arms until you felt a familiar, intense drop in your stomach, one you’d soon have to get used to.

‘Cause I’m too wicked I want to take all of your heart Don’t you worry So soon, you have my world

You make me feel so Mm-mhm..

**********************

hello @diveinthebluewithyou​ this one’s for you...welcome to Romaniverse!! hope you enjoy <3

#exowritersnet #exosnet #kai angst #jongin angst #kai romance #jongin romance #kai fanfic #jongin fanfic #kai #jongin #exo romance #exo fluff #exo angst #kai fluff #kai smut #exo smut #exo #kim jongin #baekhyun #baekhyun fanfic #exo steampunk au #exo romani au #exo scenarios #kai scenarios #jongin scenarios #kai oneshot #jongin oneshot #exo oneshot

[thesims4blogger]

Community Blog: Discover The Sims 4 Fashion Street (Official Trailer)

The Sims team has released the official blog for The Sims 4 Fashion Street Kit!

The Sims Takes on Mumbai, India in Style with Shruti Sitara Singh

Welcome to Fashion Street! Located in the city-center of Mumbai, India, Fashion Street has long been the premier shopping destination in this coastal metropolis, with over 150 vendors selling various wares, from vintage garb, to homemade garments, to designer threads. And it’s not just a hub for all things clothing, it’s also a cultural epicenter where one can enjoy food, music, architecture, the occasional Bollywood celebrity sighting, and the company of friends, family and significant others — we hear it’s quite the place to take a date.

For the latest kit offering, The Sims™ is taking players to this beautiful corner of the world, and unlocking the distinct style one would encounter there. To do so, The Sims has collaborated with its friend and fashion expert Shruti Sitara Singh to co-create a comprehensive and authentic wardrobe of vibrant color, high-contrast patterns, iconic silhouettes and trendy statement pieces that can be integrated into a Sim’s closet.

Born, raised and currently based in Mumbai, Shruti Sitara Singh is an art-meets-fashion curator, creating immersive narratives that intersect art, music, theater, design and culture. She has worked with the Fashion Design Council of India as a curator and manager, led the launch of India’s first-ever digital fashion week, and served as a creative director for Lakmé Fashion Week. Her expertise is undeniable, but it’s her history with Mumbai’s fashion scene, and Fashion Street specifically, that made her the perfect partner for this kit.

“My first shopping experience was when I was in fourth grade,” reminisces Singh. “My mother had taken my sister and I to Fashion Street, and we were like ‘what is going on? There’s something known as shopping?’ That concept didn’t exist to me before that.”

Singh has been visiting Fashion Street ever since. Even though she now rubs shoulders and collaborates with India’s fashion elite, she still enjoys the thrill of the bargain. “I love bargaining. That’s what makes Fashion Street, Fashion Street. It’s a heaven for shopaholics, and it’s a mind-boggling experience. Fashion Street is an experience of its own.”

To be fair to Singh and Mumbai, The Sims 4 Fashion Street Kit is directly inspired by the city’s fashion scene, however one can’t talk Mumbai style without mentioning its vendor-lined walkway. Mumbai itself is often referred to as “The City of Dreams” because it offers a plethora of job opportunities for people all over India and its neighboring countries. As a result, these different cultures and ethnicities converge on Fashion Street.

“The Fashion Street Kit is inspired by a lot of India, and of course Mumbai,” explains Singh. “It’s inspired by the Indian handloom (weaving) industry, which is preserving and rendering a beautiful picture of our age old heritage, known worldwide for its richness and purity of its textiles. Each piece is adorned with lively colors and prints specific to different cultures, because Mumbai, the City of Dreams, is a melting pot.”

The Sims 4 Fashion Street Kit is made up of a bevy of items for all Sims, from nose rings, henna tattoos, and sandals, to flowy wrap skirts and asymmetrical vests, two of Singh’s favorite pieces.

“Since our team could not visit Mumbai, we worked virtually with Shruti to deliver designs that are relevant to the latest trends on the streets of Mumbai while incorporating traditional themes throughout the kit,” shares Sophia Lee, Senior Concept Artist for The Sims. “I am personally excited to see the full-body evening gown which brings in-game tasteful modern design elements to a traditional saree.”

The wrap skirt is directly inspired by the women of the Koli fishing community in Mumbai, who have inhabited and worked Mumbai’s coastal waters for hundreds of years. “Fisherwomen usually wear a sari,” explains Singh. “Saris are draped differently with every community and culture; in every state you go, there is a different way it is draped.” The Fashion Street Kit’s wrap skirt is influenced by how the Koli women wear their saris. “It’s easy breezy, it’s more like a skirt because they have to walk a lot and go into the ocean to fish, that’s why it’s above the knee and tucked in, so it doesn’t go into the water. It’s a beautiful silhouette.”

“With kits, The Sims is creating an immersive experience where people, places and experiences can be discovered, and our players from around the world can experiment with these distinctly unique mini collections of curated content,” shares Sheila Judkins, Director of Global Brand Management, The Sims. And, Singh offers her vision for players experimenting with The Sims 4 Fashion Street Kit, “I would like players to experience Mumbai, to understand the culture, to understand the clothing, and how comfortable, region-specific and vibrant the prints are; and how colourful the culture is. I want the players to know more about Mumbai, and experience it through their own versions of how they play [with the kit].”

#news #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4 #sims 4 kits

[hotwings0203]

Heyy, okay lol second last one!!!

Let me just say that Udi Udi Jaye from the movie Raees is your guys' song! I will not take criticisms on that!!

Omg! If you're at an eid celebration and people are flying kites! He will totally walk up behind you and surround you with his wings and grab your hands to "help" you better control the kite. He will grab your wrists and lace his fingers with yours, and will lean down and in a low voice whisper in your ear "let me help you fly, meri chhoti churiya (my little bird)" and his breath is all warm and your blushing so much and he's basking in it, while you're like "Hawks! There! are! people!"

Okay, okay! You guys are at a community party or something and it suddenly starts raining like crazy, everyone is scrambling to get under cover or in their cars and Hawks totally uses this distraction as an opportunity to get you alone with him. Grabs your arm as you're trying to run for cover and your like "Hawks! What - where are you-?!?" And hes like "C'mon little bird!" as he drags you to this secluded spot in the park and just cages you both under his wings, and his hands are on your hips and hes standing too close, and he's just smirking at you and gazing at your flushes cheeks and your dark lashes with raindrops on them and hes admiring how your wet clothes are clinging to your body and goddd his wings are so mesmerizing as they surround you and isolate you from the world, and his messy golden hair makes him look so handsome anddd he ruins the moment by leaning down and whispering how you look to pretty when you're wet and chuckles and relishes in how you squeak "Hawks! We're gonna get in trouble! My parents are gonna find out!"

RIP Reader 😭😂

RAEES IS DEADASS ONE OF MY FAV BOLLYWOOD FILMS CUZ IM SHIA AND SRK WAS SHIA IN THAT MOVIE TOO LOLGOHLHL

Oh my gawdddd I’m salivating anima, seriously. You’re flying your kite and laughing while trying to knock down others, when all of a sudden you see a figure coming from behind the translucent kites and waving dupattas.

He comes out like a cheesy Bollywood actor from behind the makeshift screen, but it makes your heart beat faster nonetheless.

You smile demurely as he gives you a smug look at covers his eyes from the raging sun, peering in the sky for his beloved’s kite.

You raise an eyebrow as he circles around you, caressing the tresses of your hair and your smooth arms.

“Hawks, what’re you-“

“Shhh churiya, you wanna win, right? So let this buddy work his magic and fly with your kite.”

You gasp mockingly as he shoots his feather out, letting them glide in and out of paper-thin kites, those same kites somehow dropping to the ground like flies after the feathers pass through them.

“That’s cheating you asshole, ‘means I didn’t win fair and square.” You pout and drop your kite stick, but Hawks lunges for it and grabs you around your waist in the same motion, hooking his chin over your shoulder and playfully growling, nipping the crook of your neck while you squeal and writhe in his arms .

“Stop, let go, theyre gonna see!”

“So? Let them see. They’re gonna have to get used this and worse soon enough, right?”

And Keigo thinks to himself that even though you win the kite competition, the bigger victory is the string of curses of kamina, haram zadeh, kutta that leave your mouth after his insinuation.

When it’s raining outside and all the adults and children are running out of the park trying to wrap up their tinfoiled food and diving for cover, a gentle hand wraps around your shoulders and propels you forward.

“Keigo?”

“Just keep going! You don’t wanna ruin your makeup, do you?”

You both laugh as he pulls you through to park, almost a quarter of a mile down to where a lone gazebo was.

The two of you stumble and gasp for breath when in shelter of the tiny cover, catching your breaths while the rain around you pours everywhere.

He stops panting and lifts his head to look up at you, a soft yet dark glint in his eyes.

You realize your position suddenly, alone with him and away from prying eyes, nowhere to really go…exactly as he planned.

“K-keigo,” you utter defensively, raising both palms up to stop his advancing form.

He knocks your palms aside and puts both of his own on opposite sides of your head, caging you in against the wooden pillar behind you. His chest presses against yours, and you think you can feel him hardening when his thigh brushed against yours.

His breath comes out in little puffs against the side of your face, and out of sheer embarrassment you squeeze your eyes shut and turn your head.

The cocky bastard snickers and leans his head forward at an even more offensive proximity, teasing you relentlessly.

“Hmm? What’s this? You scared of being alone with me? You think I’m gonna bite you?”

He flashes his teeth and you whine in annoyance and frustration at constantly being flustered around him.

“Do you want me to? Cuz I can do so much more than just bite, churiya,” his voice drops an octave and you shiver when his lips brush against the front of your neck and jaw. “I can tease you, taste you, play with you however you want…love you. You have have to let me in.”

His resolve breaks and he attacks your smooth skin, growing hungrier when you moan and lightly push at his chest. He wants you all to himself, he wants to suffocate you until all you know is him and him only.

And who are you to say no to all that you know he’ll give?

#mha #bnha #mha hawks #muslim hawks #hawks headcannons #hawks #mha keigo takami #mha takami keigo #bnha keigo #keigo x reader #keigo tamaki

[rabiid-bunny]

To call racism a “white people problem” is just beyond ignorant. Plain and simple. I’m Indian and live in India atm and you’d be chocked on just how racist Han Chinese are to us. And also the other way around. I know of sooo many extremely racist Indians here who genuinely hates Chinese people. You shouldn’t gatekeeper racism like that. It hurts people like me who experience racism from non whites. (made a throwaway because you seem so aggressive with your ideas on racism and I don’t want to deal with that on my blog)

It began as a white people problem and it spread like a virus because of white people. The reason that racism exists is because of the ideal "nature of whiteness" and the rage for power behind it. Guess where that came from? Wypipo. There wouldn't be such harsh racism in India and if white people hadn't come there in the past and fucked shit up and told everyone fair skin in more beautiful. Racism around the entire globe was seeded by white people.

"India was ruled by the British from 1858-1947. This was the period when the racial discrimination took its worst form. The British were extremely fair skinned, hence they considered themselves as the most superior and influential."

"The white people became the ruling class and the dark people were the victims to racial discrimination and oppression."

This succession by the white people left behind the desperate desire of looking fair. Indians felt that only the light skin people can attain power, dignity and respect as they were the master race. The racial prejudice in our country has taken the form of colorism.

Google is god.

Now let me shed some light for you because this is a topic that can easily be mixed up and confused.

Racism is not about skin color. It's about power.

rac·​ism | \ ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi- \

: a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

You know why it's a white people problem? Because they hold the most power and wealth in the entire world. They are "superior."

There absolutely is racism within poc cultures. There is racism within Black cultures against Black people. Except it isn't racism. It's colorism.

col·​or·​ism | \ ˈkə-lə-ˌri-zəm , -lər-ˌi-zəm \

: prejudice or discrimination especially within a racial or ethnic group favoring people with lighter skin over those with darker skin.

The difference between colorism and racism is that colorism is discrimination within poc cultures minus an unbalanced wordly power dynamic. Colorism judges you for your shade of skin. Racism says you are less than and unworthy if you are not white. It's very important to know the difference between these two things. Where colorism has to do with how dark your skin is, racism is only concerned with your lack of whiteness.

The concept of "race" was a product of white colonialism. Cultures learned this from the early British invasions and rule. Therefore, if a child continues to hit other kids at school because the mother, who is in charge of them, keeps teaching them to do so, it's the mother's fault.

It needs to be corrected but it will not be corrected until the powerful racist white people of Hollywood tell Bollywood that not being a certain level of whiteness is okay.

And then they have to do that for every fucking culture they literally control behind the scenes. It's politics and world trade, my dear. It's alllll about the money and the power.

But what you're doing right this moment is pitting poc against each other (you and I but also the people in your country) and that is exactly what the white people in power want us to do. Do not play into their agenda.

Instead, let's put your rage towards something much more pressing. The state India is in right now is a direct effect of racism and white greed.

Racism = white supremacy = white power/greed

The patents on vaccines and the withholding of equipment that saves people's lives in a deadly pandemic is not only because white people in power want to get even more power but it's also because they do not care for brown countries because they are not white.

So let's stand in solidarity. I understand you have a lot of rage on this topic, as do I, but we must funnel that rage in the right direction.

To my followers, below is an org that you can donate to to help India right now. Please educate yourselves on what is happening there and if you can, raise awareness and give what you can 🖤

https://www.khalsaaid.org/donate

I hope you are staying safe, throwaway blog.

#ask #india #blm #personal

[lillianbrands]

Week 5: "Dark" is Beautiful

I have known about Fair and Lovely for a while now, from hearing about the problematic ties to the traditional caste system to impacts on self-esteem. Although I was not previously aware of the "Dark is Beautiful" campaign in particular, upon viewing the ads I was most struck by how not dark Nandita Das is on the scale of various Indians I personally know and see in US media.

This case raises many issues about how ethical it is for brands to take advantage of underlying customer biases and perceived needs, the concerning inclusion of false claims about long term product effects, and (though not mentioned in the case) the dominance of "Western" culture as shown by Unilever's over 50% market share for the India skin care market.

Certainly, bias against darkness in many cultures (Asian and not) is an issue that starts very early in people's lives. Growing up in sunny SoCal, I remember the comments I got when I went back to visit family in Taiwan about how (unfortunately) dark I was for an East Asian and even the way an Indian classmate in elementary school marveled that I was darker than she was - and I'm certain that what I experienced was extremely mild on the spectrum of "color bias." That being said, I believe we are entering an era where it is less permissible for companies, especially large corporates, to prey on these biases at least obviously (as seem by "Fair and Lovely's" recent removal of the word "Fair"). To what extent are companies socially responsible for this (and how much of this is based on consumer outrage versus government regulations) is a much richer discussion to be had.

The easiest issue the case brought up for me was the false claims about long term product effects - this is unequivocally wrong and I believe that the fact that no large "punishments" were imposed on Fair and Lovely and its competitors is telling, especially as: 1. guidelines by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) which was tied to India's Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act showed that and Consumer Protection Act (CPA) 2. 10% of ASCI complaints against exaggerated benefit advertising of personal care products in 2014 and 3. the Delhi Consumer Forum's (under the CPA) $22k fine on Emami and the Bollywood star for false advertising claims.

The "dominance" of Western culture in media and as evidenced by Unilever's India market share (under the Hindustan Unilever brand) further reinforces the aspiration to paleness and is a less discussed issue, likely because of the difficulty of quantifying or measuring this impact in some tangible way. The case attributes this desire for paleness to be attributed to many sources historically from Aryan invasion to caste skin tones to British colonization which is definitely important; however, I think it is important to question why paleness is still a priority when many other historical beauty standards have fallen by the wayside.

#MITSloan2022SBrandingA