bijoumikhawal

[bijoumikhawal]

no such thing as too much love. or too much garlic

[bijoumikhawal]

i first watched ohshc when i was like 10 on a bootleg dvd bought off a bootleg anime con in mexico (licensed items are for first worlders, real otakus make do...) and who knows where the japanese to spanish subs came from, probably a hero-without-cape rogue translation team doing their best, but in the scene from the pilot where tamaki is helping haruhi gather her stuff from the fountain there was a line in the subs that was something like "water cannot harm handsome men" and when i tell you that this is something i have quoted my entire life whenever i'm caught up in the rain or get splashed on or whatever and it makes it not a big deal. water literally cannot harm handsome men. that's literally a proverb from the bible. to me. anyway imagine my surprise when a couple years ago i made my bestie watch ohshc with licensed english subs and tamaki at no point says this neither on netflix nor any other translation i could find online. well he said it in my heart

[bijoumikhawal]

Tbh something I feel is missing in conversations about orientalism is that clothes which are accurate can still be used to orientalist ends.

For example, from an Egyptian perspective: you can perfectly replicate what a modern "bellydancer" wears in Egypt for your character. But if that character is not a dancer, not from Egypt, and not from the 21st century, odds are that outfit will still be orientalist (for example, early 20th and 19th century Egyptian dancers usually DIDN'T bare their stomaches and wore shirts under their vests. Sometimes very translucent shirts and very small vests, but still. Making a character from the 1850s-1920s wear a bra and nothing else on top is still an orientalism).

Additionally, a white "American Tribal Style bellydancer" may perfectly replicate harquus and even brew her own historically accurate gall ink for it, buy vintage tulle bi telli, perfectly do traditional Hindu face cosmetics, buy real Japanese hair ornaments... but when she combines those for her bellydancing act, she's still doing an orientalism. Not only because I think the western bellydance industry is inherently orientalist 90% of the time, but because she's creating an exotic fantasy for herself and her audience to financially profit off of and to create self esteem by pretending to BE "exotic".

RE: your tags. As an outsider looking in I'd say part of the problem here is whether or not Isabella is SEAsian, and the mixing of different Asian cultures to create this look.

my funny controversial veilguard opinion is that while i get why people are saying the 'sexy lof' armor is orientalist and i do think there's a convo to be had there... that armor is also based off of actual clothes people historically wore in southeast asia. like this

is absolutely based off of these

and while these are stylised forms of the outfit it's not because of the skin being shown. the women wearing shirts underneath are not wearing it as thai people wore tabengman historically. because historically we didn't really wear a lot of shirts, shirts were not legally mandated clothes until the 1940s. my thai grandmother is older than that. in fact a lot of asia didn't get around to stigmatizing and sexualizing breasts until the 1800s or later (like you can find photos of korean women in the 1900s with their breasts out and that was fine and normal culturally). the reason these are stylized though is bc they're made of silk and they're wearing brocades. most people would've worn this in plain fabric without gold brocades bc silk and gold are expensive.

and, to be clear, a lot of both the LoF and qunari armors and fashion is based off of historical southeast asian fashion. isabella is straight up wearing a hmong necklace.

the qunari ropes are also almost certainly based off of muay boran kard chuek which is this old way of binding your hands with hemp ropes in thailand for boxing. you can also see that in qunari concept art they've drawn them with intricate knots that are very chinese in origin, they're wearing armor in rattans weaved patterns. (i'll also point out that it was explicitly said in the past that people from east tevinter, which is closer to seheron, look like dorian, and dorian's va is half indo-fijian and half malay. that man belongs to the south pacific.)

and yes, we could have a whole conversation about specifically choosing to look at these armors instead of other southeast asian armors. but i think a lot of people think the armor is based off of western fantasies of belly dancer costumes... which while may have played a part, it's also very clear to me that the devs have used a lot of southeast asian inspiration for seheron, rivain, and part of tevinter.

[bijoumikhawal]

[bijoumikhawal]

extremely unsexy of adhd to make me both very annoying and very sensitive to the concept of being perceived as annoying

[bijoumikhawal]

Larissa De Jesús Negrón (Puerto Rican, 1994) - I Want What I Already Have (2022)

[bijoumikhawal]

eternal ass june ive already reincarnated 10,000 lives this month

[bijoumikhawal]

Trying to figure out if my sibling needs their egg cracked or if they're staying closeted until they feel more stable.

Points in favor of the latter: always uses girls names online. Uses anime girls for their pfp.

Points in favor of the former: cannot tell if they've computed the significance of doing that or remember admitting that sometimes they think about gender transition about. 6 years ago

[bijoumikhawal]

The birdwatcher

[bijoumikhawal]

help me cover an unexpected gap in fixed income

so tl;dr, my last student loan payment was at the start of June. i’m too sick to continue with tertiary education, so there won’t be any more. my next regular, non-deducted UC payment (welfare benefits) is at the end of July.

this is a serious problem.

i’m disabled, long-term unemployable due to that, and estranged from birth family. my only regular income is from state benefits.

rent is covered, B”H, so i’m looking to raise £1200 to cover me for July, plus extra margin just in case.

£0/£1200

if you can’t afford to donate, please boost! thank you 💙

[bijoumikhawal]

anyways my friend cass, a disabled transfem, is getting kicked out by her roommates for literally no reason and while she's able to stay at my place for a while i would appreciate help with costs for moving materials etc

her c$happ is $saccharinesunrise

[bijoumikhawal]

natural empathy or whatever you wanna call that is basically worthless, people just turn that on and off at their convenience

[bijoumikhawal]

[bijoumikhawal]

[bijoumikhawal]

Make sure you don't accidentally punish people for communicating their needs and boundaries. When someone cares enough to have the uncomfortable conversation, that's a compliment and a clear sign that they are invested in the relationship. Yes of course it's uncomfortable to hear that something you've been doing has been upsetting someone you care about when that was never your intention, but people generally only bother to have these conversations with the people they want to keep around - the people they trust to care. If they just didn't like you, they'd probably just try to avoid you. So make sure you don't make it into a more punishing experience than it has to be. Try to see the care and the trust behind the criticism, even when it triggers uncomfortable emotions. It's a good sign that they're there telling you.

[bijoumikhawal]

PLEASE dont forget the incredibly racialised aspect of transmisogynistic murders and violence i am begging yall to not forget the incredibly racialised aspect of transmisogynistic muders and violence. the trans women being murdered are most often black women! they are often sex workers! the murder problem exists at an intersection of yes transphobia and misogyny, but also racism and classism! transmisogynoir is a violent killer! PLEASE im begging yall to not forget the racialised nature of transmisogynistic murders and violence!!!

[bijoumikhawal]

met a woman today whose original real actual given-at-birth first name is "Vendetta." ma'am are you aware you are a videogame protagonist and/or a character in a skullduggery pleasant novel. real quick sorry to bother you miss but who exactly were your parents expecting you to avenge in their name