dejlah:

superheroladies:

Sometimes being a non native English speaker in western fandom can get downright terrifying because some people will misinterpret you and your approach so badly and dogpile or salt about you on another public platform or throw slander or whatever. I used to be able to pop out lots of meta and theories with confidence but that started to die out lately. Now I’m reduced to *typing something offhand that I think is neat* then read it again and go nah western fandom won’t accept this POV *save as draft*.

Please don’t stop. Meta and theories from other cultures are every bit as important, in a lot of cases, more important than ones which just reinforce the default. And it is true. A lot of people will be rude or try to minimize you. You can’t, unfortunately, stop that. I wish we could. But to lose your input lessens us all. Please don’t stop.

Thank you for this kind and encouraging respond it really means a lot. There is always this line between introducing cultural insight that everyone seems to enjoy, and bringing in perception on media based on your upbringing in a certain culture. For example, if I say character x is being disciplined, not abused, I will get a huge backlash. It’s very popular for westerners on here to come up to us and go “sorry you were abused, your beating was abuse” and it messes with our minds. It legit messes with my mind how people try to act like they know better based on their own values, because even spanking is deemed abuse to most in the west (and west here mostly means America and English speaking Europe). 

There is this cultural line that I and others are afraid to cross. Of course the language barrier aspect is more about dread, especially since many people who write meta get wordy and present themselves as all-knowing, so it’s very easy for basic level English speaking person to be misunderstood and become an easy stepping stone, and in fandom sphere, easily demonized. This also applies to beliefs due to culture, that sometimes are not acceptable to the majority of the west -homophobia is hammered into our heads and systematically taught, and in fact a crime in many countries- so unlearning that can take a long process because when you know that something is literally illegal, it’s difficult to get past. So you see many people from different cultures saying things that are well-meaning but not acceptable in modern fandom politics and thus these people are instantly assumed to be beyond redemption and intentionally malicious. There’s a lot of respectability politics that go on, where it’s we accept all cultures, but they must abide by our values first and foremost, so they must learn them or leave. It’s a difficult slippery slope.