#please say yes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xiao-come-home · 4 months

Text

Can't stop thinking about Neuvillette not liking christmas at first and you finally warming him up to it & realizing whats important :(

A/N: next day update lmao as soon as i posted it i saw official Christmas fontaine art skull emoji there might be some mistakes bc i was very focused on writing the original idea i had in my mind. i really hope it makes sense in the end bc at this point i kinda fried my brain. merry Christmas!

Christmas time is surely a time that is treasured by many people. For Neuvillette though? A time when people pass him by so many times and greet him so much, that the judge has a hard time keeping track of how many heard him saying them back.

Green, red, blue, orange - the bright colors used to give the poor, young dragon a headache, when he first appeared on this world. The jarring sound of bells rang in his head many hours later, in the dead of night. Furina’s Christmas-loving attitude certainly made it more challenging, as „the Christmas spirit,” like she always called it, had to be present every year.

The young dragon yelped slightly when his hair got tangled in some Christmas ornament; Neuvillette can’t say how much time has passed until he finally got that damned thing out of his long hair. Once stepping past the familiar door of his home, the judge plopped on his bed heavily, letting out a defeated sigh. The moonlight from the tall window kissed his face gently, making him stare at the mountains far, far away.

„Just what is this holiday about?” Little did Neuvillette know, but this question was about to remain unanswered for a very long time.

Years, if not centuries have passed, having now the chief of justice has fully accustomed to the human tradition. He passes shop windows and stalls decorated with colorful Christmas lights, and now they don’t seem that hurtful to his eyes. „It is simply a human tradition,” is what occupied his mind every year during the gift-giving period.

Neuvillette sat by his desk, his orchid eyes concentrated on the paper in front of him; the pen in his hand danced between his index and middle finger.

Christmas lights - check. Ornaments - check. Christmas carols that lady Furina loves singing - check. Christmas gifts - check. Sweet pastries for lady Furina (decorated accordingly to the holiday) - check. Additional clothing provided for the patrolling melusines - check.

For Neuvillette, this is what holidays were for a long time. Nothing changed, nothing appeared new or grew old. And for some reason, despite everything staying the same, gave people the same amount of joy every year.

Neuvillette expected it to go the same way as before. Well, mostly - because now, he’s spending his holidays with you, therefore making the tradition a little bit easier to understand. The smell of the finest Fontaine dishes was the most distinctive for his nose whenever he entered his home, the blinking lights could be seen from the other side of the street. He knew you wanted to decorate the house like you always used to, but this year kept you extraordinarily busy compared to the last one, so Neuvillette offered his help with the matter; your joy was more than convincing, giving the dragon’s heart a lovely squeeze in his chest.

He didn’t know that he owned so many ornaments until that day. He examined various pieces with caution, the way they glittered in different angles, and truly experienced how much of it stayed on his hands later on instead. He more than often paid attention to you rather than decorating, noting to himself that your eyes shine even more vividly than any other plastic sprinkled with glitter. He discovered how much your smile grew even more heavenly whenever you found a good spot for your wooden reindeer.

It would be a lie if Neuvillette said he didn’t enjoy preparing for this year’s upcoming celebration.

Now that he was the one ruling the nation of Fontaine, it was going to be his first Christmas without Furina and Focalors’ active presence.

And the day has finally come.

The fireplace kept crackling gently, hugging you two with comforting warmth. Neuvillette watches you rummage through your gifts, smiling to himself when you gasp blissfully, exclaiming that none of it was necessary, but it’s clear you’re enjoying it more than he ever could... except it's a lie.

Your eyes are absolutely mesmerizing with the shining lights around the room. Green, red, blue, orange - every color accents something else, that he yearns to watch over and over again. The bells that hung on most of his doors ring every time you move, causing his head to turn to the direction the sound came from - it means you’re nearby. Although he got better at avoiding his hair getting tangled in wintery trinkets, nowadays a laugh can be heard, before your hands swiftly take it out and place it on a table nearby. An unwise thought appeared in his mind, to clutter his hair with some other accessories, if it meant to hear you laugh once again. Instead, his hand travelled to one of his gifts - a thematically accurate hair clips - that held his hair nicely and allowed him to come home with fewer unwanted bibelots.

Earlier that day, Neuvillette’s eyes softened at the sight of melusines’ fluffy clothes embracing their tiny bodies. Some of them waved their gloved hands at the Chief of Justice during his walk to provide Furina with her favorite cakes, some of them scolded him for not wearing a scarf, while offering their woolen hats - to which Neuvillette politely declined. He kept thinking of Furina possibly overdoing her sweet tooth - so made a mental note to remind her to eat sensibly and not to open her gifts right after he leaves.

It takes him a while to truly realize in what state he’s in.

He did not need to have any list this year, no - it seemed to come naturally.

And it no longer felt like a chore.

„What’s got you smiling so much, hmm?” Your playful tone is evident in your voice, and the feeling of your elbow nudging his side is present right after. Neuvillette embraces you tightly, placing a sweet kiss on your forehead, and lets out a relieving sigh.

„I suppose this is what the holidays are truly about. Merry Christmas, ma chérie.”

As simple as it sounds, the kindness and small things matter more than anything when you have someone’s best interest at heart.

#is this bearable to read?????? does it make sense #please say yes #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin imagines #neuvillette #neuvillette x reader #.blurb

119 notes · View notes

starryalpacasstuff · 2 months

Text

Indian BL? FROM 2017????

There's an Indian BL from 2017 that I just watched. And I have incoherent thoughts

Before I continue, massive thanks to my bestie @anixknowsnothin for telling me about this show and proofreading the post for me. You don't even watch bl so I have no idea how you found this, but I'm incredibly grateful nonetheless

Here's the link to where I watched the show from, there's a glitch in the first episode subs where the subs seem to be from another show entirely, but it's only for the first ep and about 50% of the dialogue is in English anyways, so it shouldn't be hard to follow.(My ask box is also always open if there's a specific dialogue/scene in Hindi that you want the translation of)

Edit: The link seems to be region locked, so to watch it you can use a vpn and set your region to India, otherwise the episodes are available on youtube, albeit without subs

Note:- this post is going to have a few mild spoilers throughout, but I'll flag major spoilers in red

It's no secret that India is fairly behind when it comes to queer love shows if we compare it to other Asian countries. While it has a handful of great queer shows and movies, it's still quite a small quantity. Additionally, before this, I'd never watched an Indian show that felt like I was watching a bl (if you have recs, please send them my way!!). I'm not going to get into the technicalities of what feels like a bl and doesn't, because honestly, I'm not completely sure myself. For now, I'm just going based off of vibes and feelings, and this show felt like a bl through and through.

Titled 'Romil and Jugal' after its main characters, the story is a modern, desi, bl remake of the classic story...

Romeo and Juliet

Well, Bad Buddy was the first Thai bl I ever watched, so Romil and Jugal being the first Indian BL I watched just feels right, no?

I didn't actually know that the story was based off of Romeo and Juliet till the second episode, because I didn't bother looking for a synopsis, and jumped right in. However, it's links to Romeo and Juliet quickly became apparent, around the same time I started to see similarities between this show and Bad Buddy. I also did not know that this show came out in 2017 before I googled it, having already watched the entire thing, which was a pretty huge shock, because this BL is progressive by 2024 India standards.

Alright, enough of my rambling. Here's a synopsis of the show in case you haven't heard of it. (I couldn't find an official one, so I did my best to write a spoiler free synopsis)

Ramya happens to start talking to a slightly older woman at an airport, who believes that there is no romance in the younger generation. To prove her wrong, Ramya decides to tell the older woman her brother's love story. The story from the past is shown to us as Ramya narrates it to the woman in the present. Jugal is a closeted 19-year-old who lives with his parents. One day, a family moves into the house next door, and Jugal immediately falls for the son, Romil. The two of them attend the same college, and eventually become friends. The two of them eventually get together, but have to face the challenges of a homophobic society and having parents that hate each other.

I was a little skeptical of the show going in, but the show surpassed all of my expectations in the best way possible. It's no masterpiece, and it has its flaws, but it was far better than what I expected. It had both comical elements and darker themes, and it did not shy away from exploring the darker themes at all. Oh, and it has a few musical numbers. What did you expect? This is India after all.

The show is 10 episodes long, with 20 minutes per episode, and so it does unfortunately fall into some of the pitfalls that shorter shows tend to fall into, namely underdeveloped relationships and rushed endings. I did end up feeling a little bit like it didn't make sense for the pair to sacrifice and suffer as much as they did because they hadn't known each other for very long, and I felt like they should have been given more time to fall in love with each other. But it also could be argued that the show stays true to the play, and Romil and Jugal are dumb teenagers who make mistakes and stick with each other through them. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.

One thing that I loved the show for was that it showed us that the relationship is not all sunshine and rainbows. They argue, they break up, they get back together, and they do argue even after that. But every time, they eventually work through the issue and reconcile. The show even depicts Romil dealing with internalized homophobia and struggling to reconcile with the fact that he will never be who his family wants him to be. Although I do wish they'd have had more time to explore this, I'd say it was decently depicted and handled. The show really delves into how children are forced to uphold their family's wishes and are constantly put under pressure to make them proud. Although it clearly affects both of them, it's more obvious with Romil, who is expected by his family to date and marry the daughter of his father's boss, whom they think he is dating. There's a metaphor along this theme too, where Romil pretends to like the mango shake that his mom has been making for him since he was a kid, even though he hates it, and when he tries to tell her, he has to act like it was a joke to spare her feelings. The show also goes into the communal mindset of basing your actions off "what will people think?", and you can see how a lot of the characters' actions throughout the show are haunted by this question. Some of Romil and Jugal's earlier disagreements are due to this very mindset.

The show also very candidly depicts the extreme homophobia of society in India. Romil and Jugal had to constantly hide who they were, always having to keep up a mask and I felt that reach somewhere deep inside me. When the pair come out, the show really shows how ugly homophobia can be in India. Their parents immediately disown them. They're mocked in college and wrongfully suspended for a fight that was provoked by other students. Very, very few people stand with them, and the pair very quickly realize that now that they are out, they simply cannot live in the city anymore. So with the help of Jugal's best friend and her mother, they flee to Mumbai, where they get jobs and live as paying guests with a friend of the aforementioned mother. But, even in Mumbai, the masks stay up. They have to act like cousins, for fear of being persecuted. The series depicted the worst-case scenario that so many of us live in fear of, so watching it was something of a cathartic experience for me.

Another thing that the show did quite well is showing how different people and their mindsets can be. Jugal's best friend, Ahalya, and her mom are very supportive, and they help the pair out quite a bit. Ahalya's mother provided a safe house for the pair and helped them find a fresh start. Meanwhile, Romil and Jugal's parents are incredibly homophobic. There was a scene that really stuck with me, (mild spoiler ahead, skip to the last sentence of the paragraph) where Ahalya's mother came across Jugal's mother, who prided herself on being educated and well-read, searching up how to cure homosexuality. Ahalya's mother then tells her off for calling herself educated yet believing that homosexuality is an illness. It is so important to me that the show depicted both the violent homophobia that permeates Indian society and the surprising, warm acceptance that one can find.

One final thing that I loved about this show so, so much is just how authentically Indian it feels. Asian cultures share a lot in common, but they also have their differences, so seeing a show where I can imagine encountering the characters in real life is really amazing. Rather than something big, it was little things sprinkled throughout the story that warmed my heart. The story felt like something I could hear the local aunties gossiping about. The way it depicts queerness in India hits incredibly close to home.

One thing I've learned watching Asian bls is that the ending of a show can make it or break it, but with this one, I'm stuck. The best way I can describe the ending is absolutely insane and incredibly Bollywood.

I believe this show was supposed to get a second season because the last two minutes of the show leave us with a massive cliffhanger. Now, it's been 7 years, so a second season is unlikely, so I'm simply pretending that the last two minutes of the show never happened. But the ending has so much more to it than just this (Major spoilers for the ending up ahead. I mean it when I say major, this is like going into Bad Buddy knowing that they're going to trick their parents in the end).

About halfway through the show, I remembered what play it was based upon and realized that there was a very real possibility that Romil and Jugal would die. The first half of the last episode leads up to this, telling us that they died when reconciling after an argument in the middle of the road when they were hit by a truck. We get a super emotional scene (yes, I cried) where the two families somewhat reconcile in their grief as they go to the police station to identify the bodies. Except... they're not dead, which is revealed when Romil's father hugs Romil's (not) dead body. They reveal that they planned this to show their family that they still loved their sons. I did say it was like PatPran tricking their parents in the end, didn't I? So the families reunite, Romil and Jugal get jobs in New Zealand and get married, and return to India for a wedding celebration (yes, I cried. again). The ending does feel slightly rushed, but if I'm being honest, it wasn't as terrible as it could have been. Believing that your child is dead for a bit is a somewhat justifiable reason for a sudden change of heart. There's a part where Romil and Jugal tell their parents that if they choose acceptance, they can reconcile, but if they choose to remain prejudiced, Romil and Jugal can simply get back on the stretchers, because they'll be as good as dead to their families anyways and it is *chef's kiss*.

All in all, the show was surprisingly heartfelt and poignant. It had me laughing, kicking my feet and even crying. There's a lot more about this show that I could talk about, but I'm going to stop here for now, and I'll try to write more on it later. This show really does deserve more recognition than it has, and I'm almost mad at myself for not knowing about it before. Am I being really biased when talking about this show? Absolutely. But I do think that this show is a worthwhile watch, and I'd really like to see what other people on here think of the show, especially because I'm aware that I am biased towards this show.

I'm tagging a few people who I know might be interested/have some thoughts about the show because this is a show that I really want to hear other people's opinions on and have conversations about, so I hope you guys don't mind!

@waitmyturtles @lurkingshan @bengiyo @neuroticbookworm

#good lord this post is almost 2k words #i think this is the longest post i have ever written #and there's more thoughts rattling around in my brain about this show #did i convince you to watch the show?#please say yes #i need people to talk to about this show #bl recs #indian bl #indian bl recs #romil and jugal #romil & jugal #bad buddy #i mean it's related #how does everything i write about somehow find it's way to that goddam show #but seriously romil and jugal was surprisingly very good #i did not expect it at all #but i have never been so glad to be proven wrong

50 notes · View notes