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kaida-art · 3 years

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It feels like more and more this fandom is becoming anti-new-people. I don't know how else to phrase it but like people being assholes to someone asking what a cultivator is rather than just explaining it so that they learn. Instead of answering questions people ask, they are attacked for not knowing the answer already. If asking questions is so bad then how is anyone supposed to learn anything?

Hey nonny!

I really appreciate your input in "how not to be anti-new people". I do think it's very important to answer questions and be patient and forthright.

That said, have you read @hunxi-guilai 's blog? Have you seen the insane amount of work hunxi put into the blog? Can you really tell me the fandom is anti-newbies when there is that trove of resources? Not to mention @drwcn and a bunch of other blog... and just the amount of meta and explanations -- DETAILED explanation to linguistic nuances. There are different things about linguistic register and naming. And all the different ways to address people and cultural implications of so many actions. There's even explanations on how hard it is to translate in general!

I can see why you think the answer is a snarky and rude. But have you considered who is asking these questions? And that there's been a lot of bad-faith questions? I'm going to be honest: I have hell of a hard time not reading this question as either in bad faith or unfathomably entitled. (This is the question that hunxi answered with a simple "yes" that I reblogged that I assume is causing this ask:)

Why do I call this entitlement?

The person asking isn't putting in the effort to learn and is instead annoyed. How would you feel if some Chinese person showed up and asked you, "am I a dick? wtf is a wizard? Why can't you use a term from my culture in your translation and make it easy for me?"

The Untamed is Chinese media made for Chinese folk. And I'm so happy lots of non-chinese folk love it and share it and make content for it. As Chinese diaspora it makes my heart sing to get to talk to people in my everyday language about a media in the language that I was brought up in. I get to share all the beautiful things.

But not like this.

I don't have the energy to defend translation choices where the translator was trying to convey "this isn't your typical D&D magic system" by using a word that, frankly, if you just watched the show, you'd pick up.

So, please, if you're confused, ask me nicely why the word cultivator is used, what it means, etc. Please do not tell me you're "annoyed" with it because by framing it that way, it already feels like you're not willing to listen.

And nonny, that's why I reblogged so fast. I just don't have the bandwidth to deal with bad faith and entitled questions anymore.

Thanks for asking.

My inbox is open.

~Haoppo

[edit] P.S. I would like to add that the question was not really about what a cultivator is. Clearly the original asker knew enough to ID them as wizard analogs. So the response isn't about not welcoming ignorance and unwilling to teach. The response, as I read it, is only about the framing of the question and the cultural entitlement of the asker. Has the question been "can you explain what a cultivator is?" or "I don't understand why cultivator was the word chosen for what clearly seems like wizards" there would likely be a different answer. Language, even on paper, has tone. And the person you are asking questions to is human. Both are important to remember.

#fandom discourse

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kaida-art · 3 years

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