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Musing: Pali Boulos
My character for Mordy's lovely roleplay, "You Cannot Find Hope on Earth", is a Turkish, Muslim Rom named Pali Shandor Boulos. He fled Turkey when the traditionalism of his family became too much- Romani gypsies aren't particularly accepting of homosexuals (in fact, for a long time, homosexuals and transgendered individuals within the Romani culture were killed by their own families, which was seen as acceptable by the Kris, or the court of Romani elders), nor are Muslims at all, and yeah.
His theme song is "Jednou" by Gipsy.cz, a Czech Romani hip hop group. I didn't think of it at the time, but that's extremely ironic.
The song's lyrics are totally unrelated to Pali as a character. Jednou means "Once"- the song seems to be about interracial romance. I picked it because of the beat and tone of the entire thing, and how it starts out so melancholy, launches into a rather up-beat section and ends on the same melancholy note, because I feel that, though Pali is an optimist, sadness always lingers around the edges.
What's ironic is that Radoslav Banga, the lead singer/rapper, is a huge traditionalist, hence the strong Romani overtone to every piece of music he rights. And Pali kind of can't stand tradition.
But I guess that doesn't much matter. Banga's opinion doesn't affect Pali, really.
edit; at the same time, the idea of a forbidden interracial relationship is very non-traditional. The idea of not being able to be with the one you love is similar to Pali's position; he was with Benedek, and knew his parents would be upset about this, so he left.
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