#exotice

[brandonecannon]

Salat cu pui i fructe exotice

[stochastique-blog]

Experiment - Automatic Random_Reblog - Ask me !

Nissan GTR by Nicholas TJ.R on Flickr.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Okay there’s something I’ve been seeing in a lot of pro Jedi spaces and it’s really starting to bug me: Buddhism is not some mystical perfect completely pacifist religion because it’s a minority religion in your country. Buddhists are just as capable of extremism, fundamentalism, political corruption, religious violence, and other abuses of institutional power as any other religion and to say otherwise is Orientalist bullshit.

[skadren]

so. let's talk about exoticism.

for those unfamiliar with the concept, exoticism involves the mystification and stereotyping of the culture being depicted. it's closely linked to orientalism, which in academic discourse is used to describe a specific eurocentric attitude or obsession directed towards the "eastern world", or the "orient".

(for reference, referring to that region as "the orient" or "oriental" is considered in extremely poor taste these days.)

this attitude places outside cultures as the "other", the "exotic". it posits that things from these cultures are fundamentally different; they do not belong and never will.

these things are seen as fascinating, but always lesser; something to be observed and made sense of, but in a way that results in subjugation and exploitation. instead of understanding the subject in its original context, it is taken out of place and forced to conform with a preexisting western understanding of the world. it is, essentially, stolen and put on display for clueless gawkers for the displayer's own benefit.

crucially, the person doing it is often oblivious to their own biases. they believe they are being objective and apolitical. but their interpretation of things is inherently biased, informed by their own preexisting worldview-- particularly when they are trying to impose their own understanding within the bounds of said worldview, rather than being willing to venture outside of it, or even simply accept that things can exist outside of it.

fandom of east asian media has a problem with exoticism-- specifically, in othering, stereotyping, and willfully misinterpreting various east asian cultures so they can cite it as an authority for more fandom credibility points for their preferred interpretation of the source material, telling everyone that's what it actually means, source: trust me bro. unfortunately, people eat it up every time, because most of them simply don't know any better.

i think on some level, that's why these people do it; subconsciously or not, they know that it will be difficult for people to question them or prove them wrong, given both the language barrier with the source material and the current internet landscape. they want to seem smart and culturally aware, and rely on their audience's cluelessness to sell their otherwise illogical or paper-thin argument.

i see it everywhere, gone unchallenged because no one seems to notice. and when you say anything it's "why are you ruining other people's fun" and "you're just being too sensitive" and "it's not that serious, it's just fandom" and "well you KNOW what i really mean (i'm a good little internet activist and therefore i can't be racist!)"

and it's harmful; a lot of discussions in these fandoms promote racist stereotypes, including the demasculinization of east asian men and the infantilization of east asians in general. they perpetuate the idea of our cultures being inherently more pedophilic, incestuous, or predatory. they cast us as being inherently strange and foreign, mystical and incomprehensible, who think in fundamentally different ways from you, who are normal.

no one seems to think that a fandom built around purportedly liking an east asian creation can be pervasively and overwhelmingly racist towards its very culture of origin, but that brings us back to the original definition of orientalism: a fascination, an obsession-- one that inherently degrades the object of that fascination.

regardless, i have argued in the past and will still argue that it's crucially important to engage in the cultural context around a work when trying to interpret it. it's just that when trying to perform this sort of analysis, some important questions to ask first are: is this overgeneralizing or stereotyping an entire group of people (or more)? is this actually applicable in the context of the media i am trying to analyze? is this sensationalizing a certain belief or practice that i don't fully understand?

is this what it actually means, or am i imposing my own standards of what i think it should mean?

[t4tails]

the absolute fits some dc fans have if u call starfire black is insane like "wahhh shes orange shes an alien her hair was so big in the 80s bc it was the disco era" why do u care so much. i hope dc gives her more natural black hairstyles in the future just to piss u off specifically

[constancecontraire]

feeling the need to inform people who were not already aware that charles baudelaire was specifically a horny poet. whole sections of les fleurs du mal are poems about how sexy his mistress was. i feel like the asoue connection has made him known for writing bleak poems (which he did) but i must set the record straight that this man wrote about fucking just as much

[hindahoney]

Has anyone else noticed the weird appropriation of Yiddish for specifically anti-zionist spaces? It makes me deeply uncomfortable.

[causalityparadoxes]

I think Mrs. Flood may be an Osirian. Specifically, Isis / Alozza

If they focus on the Osirian/Egyptian Mythology side of Sutekh, it would make sense: Isis is a goddess that has been associated with a million things. Importantly for this, she is connected to the sky, to rain, and to fate. She was also the sister-wife of Osiris, who himself is associated with cycles of nature. Including, the annual flooding of the Nile.

From there, the name 'Mrs. Flood' tracks! She is both the flood of rain and the wife of its endless cycle. She's also a widow, so of course she would have a married title yet no spouse.

It would make sense to include her specifically, as she is important to the Osiris Myth that Sutekh's history is based on. In it she collects pieces of Osiris that Sutekh/Set scatters after murdering him. After finding them, she resurrects Osiris for long enough to have Horus (or an aspect of him at least). Horus then 'defeats' Set. Which parallels the story in Pyramids of Mars.

Being an Osirian would explain her creepily ominous warning to Cherry. As while she would not be with Sutekh, she would still be a higher being with alien priorities. Her being on earth would also somewhat fit with the dweu. Where Isis waited on earth for Sutekh's awakening. Though not 1-1.

It could also connect back to Ruby, as Isis' has strong connections to motherhood. If Ruby was say, secretly an Osirian, there are options. Especially considering her name's reference to both the Sun and the colour red, like girl is nearly a verbal description of the Eye of Ra. She could be the daughter of Isis herself, maybe a younger aspect of Horus (God of Light but also a god of the Sunday), hidden away as a human. Though that would be a very literal take. Honestly, when it comes to Ruby I'm not sold on anything specific.

Lastly, If they go this direction, I'm guessing the "vital object on a distant planet with no name" that rtd teased, will be related to the Osirians. Since they've already used the Eye of Horus, perhaps the Eye of Ra? It is has been depicted in relation to Isis. It's also often personified as a Goddess so, maybe Ruby herself? A living trap/weapon, idk). Whatever it is though, Mrs. Flood would be instrumental in defeating Sutekh. We'll see.

(Also: disclaimer and apology in advance to both people who actually know about the religions I'm mentioning, and to EU/Faction Paradox fans. For anything I may have got wrong 🙏)

[dailybotany]

Damp Thuja occidentalis (eastern white cedar) in the morning light.

[juniepops]

imagine if ppl were as stiffly weird abt other translations as they are with manga titles. like it's called Die Verwandlung my ass is NOT saying "Metamorphosis" 🙄

[gayestcowboy]

this might be one of my favorite twitter interactions ever

[avinkusprince]

^ me when i'm not at all suspicious and definitely don't have any intimate knowledge of the subject

[stardust-falling]

Anyway as much as I do appreciate westerners taking an interest in Chinese culture it sometimes feels like my culture is just viewed as an art piece. Chinese people and culture are not artworks on display for western viewers’ pleasure. We are very real people, with very real culture, and as someone who has been overseas and removed from my culture for a good portion of my life it sometimes hurts when CN culture is just viewed as surface level “pretty” or heaven forbid “aesthetic,” when it’s so much more than that.

[toskarinfr]

wait, you people are understanding that when Halimede says a character has It or not she's deliberately playing into the chaser aspect and following stereotypes of racialized masculinity surrounding trans women, right? you're not just nodding along?

[fatehbaz]

In 1913, a year before the Panama Canal was completed, the journalist Frederic J. Haskin wrote that “the conquest of the Isthmian barrier was the conquest of the mosquito.” This was a period when America [had] [...] by 1902 taken control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. [...] The connection between mosquito control and the United States’ imperial conquest can be seen in the work of William C. Gorgas, the Alabama-born Army surgeon who led efforts to eradicate yellow fever and malaria -- both mosquito-borne diseases -- during the first US occupation of Cuba (1898–1902) and was subsequently appointed Chief Sanitary Officer of in Panama. [...] Gorgas claimed that he had “made sanitary discoveries that will enable man to return [...] and again live and develop in his natural home, the tropics.” [...] In particular, the dwellings erected for the Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) conjoined the management of mosquitos with manipulating the interactions between people of different races and social classes. [...]

Gorgas arrived in Panama in 1904 [...]. Gorgas and others saw sanitation work as indistinguishable from the military occupation in Cuba and the success of the canal construction in Panama. [...] Spraying was largely carried out by mosquito brigades, which checked households for compliance [...]. But [...] these brigades also policed the activity of local residents. [...]

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There was much debate not only about who to enlist to build the canal, but also how to prevent organized resistance and revolt among them. 

As one official testified to the US congress in 1906, “there must be on the Isthmus a surplusage of labor. Otherwise, we will have interminable strikes.” [...] 

Furthermore, rather than one vulnerable workforce, Chief Engineer John Stevens believed that having several different nationalities and ethnicities would be easier to divide and create competition, compelling them to work harder.

In order to do this, the ICC created a segregated, dual payment system: the gold and silver rolls. [...] [W]hite workers from the US were mostly hired for skilled positions and received payment in gold. These “gold-roll” employees could spend leisure time in segregated clubs [...]. West Indians and Black workers from the United States were mostly assigned to the silver roll. [...]

[T]he gold- and silver-roll system constituted an apartheid society, a perverse reincarnation of the contemporary Jim Crow system that was in full effect at the time in the United States. [...]

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Although the ICC offered free housing to all its gold-roll employees, silver-roll employees paid rent. [...] As late as 1910, Galician workers on the silver roll were still living in boxcars ventilated only by a few small punched openings. [...] When West Indians requested basic amenities like blankets and shelter to keep their clothes from being soaked in the rain, the US government responded that they didn’t even need sheds. [...] For white workers [...] Type 13 [housing types] not only features a wraparound screened porch as a circulation space, but also a prominent band of empty space surrounding the enclosed bedrooms [...].

The distinctions associated with the categorical, systematic definition of different domestic architecture for different classes of people follows a history of typology in architecture and criminology that was closely associated with scientific racism, social Darwinism [...]. 

George W. Goethals, who took over as Chief Engineer of the project from Stevens in 1907, responded to requests for mosquito nets and screens for West Indians by repeating a common and racist misunderstanding: “It is generally admitted … [t]hat the colored people are immune.” Yet in 1912, “as many as two-thirds of all West Indians reported sick or required medical attention … [m]ost of them catching malaria several times [...].”

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Structured by prejudice, anti-mosquito architecture allowed malaria to continue spreading while reinforcing racial hierarchies. [...] US imperial concepts about the tropics as a place [...] “[...] divided the civilized, temperate North from the heat, humidity and backwardness of the tropics.” [...] While managing the laborers through their relationship to insects -- and each other -- this low-cost architecture was crucial in the broader effort to turn the Isthmus into an imperial outpost and render the landscape tropical.

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All text above by: Dante Furioso. “Sanitary Imperialism”. e-flux (Sick Architecture series). May 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[sentada]

srry but i cant help but think its really cute when a weird cis woman is a little enamored by trans womanhood