"Calling something exotic emphasizes its distance from the reader. We don’t refer to things as exotic..."

“Calling something exotic emphasizes its distance from the reader. We don’t refer to things as exotic if we think of them as ordinary. We call something exotic if it’s so different that we see no way to emulate it or understand how it came to be. We call someone exotic if we aren’t especially interested in viewing them as people — just as objects representing their culture.”

- Fantasy author N. K. Jemisin on The Unexotic Exotic (via universemademanifest)