#subject: representation

[haysianrose]

An Ode to the Áo Dài

The traditional Vietnamese garment, which translates to “long shirt,” has been reimagined as a modern heirloom, writes author Thao Thai.

[...]

When Kelly Marie Tran wore an áo dài designed by Thái Nguyễn to the Oscars in 2022, this moment created a magnificent stir, both among Americans and Vietnamese people of the diaspora who’d never seen our national garment represented on a red carpet. It was, in so many ways, a kind of permission to exist outside of the margins, to have our culture spotlit without explanation or apology.

Nguyễn remembers receiving a phone call from Tran, who asked if it was possible to create an áo dài in three days. He said, “[That call] woke me up.” After 16 hours of work, the team at Thái Nguyễn Atelier finished the áo dài hours before the award show. Nguyễn describes the way that American PR companies and buyers once told him that his name and identity were too ethnic; they didn’t think an áo dài would ever be a mainstream garment. “I’ve been yearning for that moment,” Nguyễn says, recalling the first time he saw Tran at the Oscars. “Afterward, a Vietnamese follower sent me a photo of her five-year-old daughter in an áo dài and said, ‘She can wear this now to a birthday party, instead of a Cinderella or Snow White gown.’” In fact, Nguyễn is co-writing Mai’s Ao Dai, a children’s book about a girl who discovers the beauty of áo dài, with Vietnamese American writer Monique Truong. Such representation is already changing the way younger generations are embracing the áo dài.

Full article.

[bixels]

As cameras becomes more normalized (Sarah Bernhardt encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use cameras because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by manufacturing companies. I paint not because I want a painting but because I love the process of painting. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

if i have to explain to you that using a camera to take a picture is not the same as using generative ai to generate an image then you are a fucking moron.

[jjadmanii]

if you ever think ur doing a bad job just know it cant be worse than the historians that read “I tore open your letter and licked the envelope's seal for any lingering trace of you” “my darling, so near I seem to you, that I disdain this pen, and wait for a warmer language.” “I hope for you so much, and feel so eager for you, feel that I cannot wait, feel that now I must have you—” “To own a Susan of my own Is of itself a Bliss -Whatever Realm I forfeit, Lord, Continue me in this!” “I need her - I must have her, Oh give her to me” “Now, farewell, Susie... I add a kiss, shyly, lest there is somebody there! Don't let them see, will you Susie?” “Show me Eternity, and I will show you Memory -Both in one package lain And lifted back again -Be Sue - while I am Emily - Be next - what you have ever been -Infinity.”, and thought emily dickinson’s relationship with sue was that of two very close friends— sisterly like.

[valentinos-corner]

someone get kiyo out of that franchise and give him to a writer that knows how to handle stuff

[clonerightsagenda]

The thing with my latest review title is that it is not perfect on a craft level, it in fact does several things that particularly annoy me about the current SFF zeitgeist, but it was also designed for me personally.

[thirdity]

The sign is supposed to be based on the categories of “similitude” or “identity”. This presumed fallacy renders the sign coherent with the ideological notion of the subject. The subject as a presupposed transcendental unity which opens itself to the world (or to which the world opens) through the act of representation, as well as the subject that transfers its representations onto other subjects in the process of communication, is supposedly a philosophical fiction dominating all of the history of philosophy.

Umberto Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language

[saltyowlets]

Is it really enemies to lovers if you aren't using your ship to tackle the moral ambiguity of heading a military force who's roots comes from subjugating minority and indigenous communities and the politics that are akin to the Nuremberg trials because there is an understanding that manipulation by a religious militaristic regime is not a good enough excuse to absolve the inaction of a soldier?

[gaylightisminetocommand]

you don't understand i was obsessed with Night at the Museum as a kid and i loved Jed and subconsciously shipped him with Octavius before i even knew you were allowed to ship two boys together, heck, before i even knew what shipping was, and now Owen Wilson is Mobius and it's the same fucking thing again where he's playing a heavily queer-coded character but the media they're in forces him to call his soulmate his 'friend' but there's no fucking way they're straight but this time around i know what shipping is and i know what homosexuality is and maybe d*sney will never let them kiss but hell if that's gonna stop me from losing my mind over them-

[gothicseverance]

Gothic is primarily and persistently connected to the history of the ‘subject,’ generating ‘a coherent code for the representation of fragmented subjectivity.’

—Disintegrated Subjects

[philosophybits]

The rise of the notion of knowledge as a matter of rightly ordered inner representations — an unclouded and undistorting Mirror of Nature — was due to the notion that the difference between the man whose beliefs were true and the man whose beliefs were false was a matter of "how their minds worked." If this phrase is taken in the sense of "what they would say in a conversation," it is true but shallow and unphilosophical. To make it deep and philosophical, one must believe, with Descartes and Locke, that a taxonomy of mental entities and processes will lead to discoveries which will provide one with a method of discovering truth, and not just truth about the mind.

Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

[jfkisonthemoon]

they honestly couldve done so much with junpei beheaded/dismembered and im disappointed that it ended up just being mira. so much of his character and his relationship with akane is characterized by his lack of bodily autonomy, and him being openly beheaded during the nonary games would be the ultimate example of this. its perhaps the most brutal death in the game, and it never really gets explained or developed beyond the one puzzle that we get with it. junpei has been shown repeatedly to be subject to akane's plans or follow her blindly and i just think that would have been a really interesting angle to approach his beheading from. junpei has willingly signed up for nonary games in two different timelines just because he knew he would see her. he was infected with a deadly virus trying to find her. he grew desensitized to death as he took underground jobs to try and find her. his safety always comes second when shes in the picture, and his beheading wouldve been a prime opportunity to 1. exploit his willingness to let himself die/be injured for her and 2. make akane confront the fact that her confidence that junpei will always follow after her is not necessarily a positive thing.

[tectinic]

I somehow got a self ship so bad I can't even let TUMBLR know and y'all are my people.... how did I get here

[leikeliscomet]

I like how if u wanna anything about the doctor being aspec you gotta have video clips, interviews quotes, 5 links to the AVEN website and Sylvester McCoy holding the asexual flag or something but if u wanna say he isn't aspec you just have to say he isn't or "Moffat era" lmaoooooo

[kil9]

people who are like "kris deltarune uses exclusively they/them pronouns which implies they could be nonbinary" sound so fucking stupid thats like saying "toriel uses exclusively she/her implying she might be a woman"

[appleelevengreen]

excellent characterisation of ares in the pjo show btw. absolutely no notes 11/10

[ghostingfee]

heyyy npmd fandom, here's a grace chasity playlist with a darker tone focusing on themes of religion, lost innocence and rage