13:26am

I'm having the time of my life with this. Lil snippet of the dialogue only so far because everything else is clunky but i swear it's coming together very slowly.

Nox winces. "Vi…this isn't—that bad. I swear! It's—"

"Oh, save it. This isn't that bad? This is insane. I mean, causing a scandal in broad daylight?! What the fuck, this is like—"

"—Vi, I know it sounds bad, but—"

Just a reminder that just because someone didn’t intend harm doesn’t make the impact of the harm disappear. Saying Punko didn’t initially base the designs on a real culture doesn’t address the problem. Orientalism isn’t about making a conscious intent, it’s about reusing harmful tropes and stereotypes that have been around media for a long time. Anyone can unintentionally recreate those harmful stereotypes without realizing where they came from.

Again this happened as well when people found out about Buddy’s past and called him a street rat not realizing it was a derogatory term because the word was used in lots of media and unfortunately normalized to describe people in his unfortunate circumstances. Sometimes stereotypes and tropes can be normalized through media, and it is important to be willing to recognize and learn from that.

So the question is not whether if it was unintentional or not. It’s whether that arc portrays orientalist stereotypes. If people, especially Middle Eastern readers, recognize those tropes and can point to specific examples, that’s a valid discussion to have regardless of intent.