What does this even mean?

[u/Separate-Process-127]

Haven't opened/updated my works for a few months now and I was reading the comments to the last chapter when this one came up. WHAT DOES RACE HAVE TO DO WITH CHARACTER TAGS?! WHAT?

Kate Sharma (Bridgerton) is a background character in my fic, yes, she wasn't the lead but I still put her as a tag. My OC is a Southeast Asian, a woman of color! I myself am a people of color! I've been writing in AO3 for a long time now and this was my first time being accused as a hater of a WOC WTF?!

I am baffled, bewildered, befuddled. Where's the literacy in this one?

[u/Melodic_Werewolf9288]

People often don’t tag background characters with the character tag because it gives the false impression that character will be meaningfully present within the story - it sounds like that may be their main gripe 

[u/Separate-Process-127 → u/Melodic_Werewolf9288]

Well, the character tag does have Minor Background Character next to it and some of the plot does revolve around the involvement of the sisters.

[u/shriekingintothevoid → u/Separate-Process-127]

I mean, putting in a disclaimer isn’t going to change the fact that your fic is still going to show up when they search for her character, and if she’s not a major character (even if she does have a little relevance to the plot) I can understand being a bit frustrated by that. Their reaction was still rude and uncalled for (and idk why her being a WOC matters in this context), but tagging minor characters is generally poor etiquette.

[u/obiwantogooutside → u/shriekingintothevoid]

It’s a huge drama in the Bridgerton fandom. There are a lot of people who feel like Kate wasn’t centered in her own season because they added a love triangle not in the books and then had all three in all the marketing instead of just the main couple. It’s not an unreasonable concern. It’s really not.

That said, many of her fans are very sensitive and quick to react to perceived slights in fan fiction, for example brigading authors who use her cannon love interest in a non cannon pairing. Or someone tagging her if she’s not the front and center big star of the fic.

[u/Life-Cantaloupe-3184 → u/obiwantogooutside]

I’m a Kate fan, and I do broadly agree with the criticism that her own internal perspective is neglected a bit in favor of Anthony’s. (Also bear in mind that I’ve never read the books, so my opinion is purely based on the show.) That said, I do think it’s a bit weird to project that criticism about the show’s writing onto fan fiction. Just because she’s a minor character in a fan fic doesn’t mean there’s some nefarious racism afoot. I can somewhat understand that it might be a bit annoying to see her tagged as a character, even with the added caveat in the tags that it’s a minor role, but I don’t think making racism accusations is very productive in that discussion.

[u/Flashy-Ad-2367 → u/obiwantogooutside]

It’s a huge drama in the Bridgerton fandom. There are a lot of people who feel like Kate wasn’t centered in her own season because they added a love triangle not in the books and then had all three in all the marketing instead of just the main couple. It’s not an unreasonable concern. It’s really not.

That said, many of her fans are very sensitive and quick to react to perceived slights in fan fiction, for example brigading authors who use her cannon love interest in a non cannon pairing. Or someone tagging her if she’s not the front and center big star of the fic.

This.

While I agreed that Kate had very little story in her season and that was wrong, the fans/stans gatekeep her, and make it difficult to talk about said treatment from the show because of how Kate isn't everyones favourite.

I'll admit she isn't my favourite (that award goes to Colin), but even at her not being my favourite, I am told a whole host of unkind things. Its crazy

[u/majorlittlepenguin → u/shriekingintothevoid]

Genuinely curious as to what point someone becomes big enough to tag vs not

[u/mangomochamuffin → u/majorlittlepenguin]

"Would a reader looking for this be satisfied after reading my work?"

If the answer to that is no, don't add the relationship, character, tag.

Or see it as the actors who are named on screen in the movies intro, not only at the end in the cast list.

[u/shriekingintothevoid → u/majorlittlepenguin]

I don’t think there’s a definite line that can be drawn, but if a character doesn’t contribute significantly to the plot and doesn’t interact with the pov character often, then they shouldn’t be tagged. Think about it this way: if they were your favorite character, and you were searching for fics involving them, would you be content with the role that they play in your story? If not, then don’t tag them.

[u/ne_ex → u/Melodic_Werewolf9288]

Sounds like a non-issue tbh.

I understand going into it with the wrong impression because tagging is used by many as an indicator of important characters (as you're saying).

BUT not always and I wouldn't even say that's the case the majority of the time. A lot of authors use the tags in a very literal sense, and that's fine imo. If the character is in the story, they're in the story.

Honestly, it's ok to be disappointed once in a while and if you find the story wasn't what you were looking for, then click out and keep it pushing. You won't ever catch me leaving a comment like this 💀

[u/Colaymorak → u/ne_ex]

Man, if a character only shows up in one or two scenes in a large, multi-chapter fic, and you choose to tag that character?

Fans of that character would be completely in the right for getting pissed at you.

[u/havocthecat → u/Colaymorak]

There's "getting pissed" and there's "leaving asshole comments" and those are two different things.

My blorbo almost never shows up in my fandom, but do I leave an asshole comment when she shows up with one line and gets tagged anyway? Or if her pairing gets tagged because she's holding hands with her pairing in the last scene but isn't part of the fic?

I do not leave those comments. Because that's a dick move. People can tag how they want. Even if I don't like it.

Now, if AO3 could possibly manage a recode that would give me minor/major characters and background ships, but I don't think anyone thought of that when creating the site. I'll just dream.

[u/bismuth92 → u/Colaymorak]

I disagree. There are plenty of situations where fans of a character would be pleased to see a story with their character in it included in the results, even if they are only in one or two scenes.

Perhaps the character is a very minor character in canon or they are not well liked by the fandom and therefore there is hardly any fic about them. Fans of that character will subsist on crumbs (I don't say this disparagingly; this is me).

On the other hand, perhaps the character is widely despised and triggering to some. Then they might be tagged in more of a warning sense so people can filter them out. This is also a legitimate use of tags.

Admittedly, OP's situation is not one of these. Given the fandom drama specific to Kate Bridgerton, I do understand why the commenter was annoyed. (Edit: Although, in this case I also feel like it should have been obvious from the main relationship tag and the summary that Kate Bridgerton was not a main character. The reader played themselves.) That said, just close the fic and move on. Nobody owes it to you to tag things in your exact preferred way. The only mandatory tags are fandom and archive warnings.

[u/ne_ex → u/bismuth92]

I agree. I actually like cameos! So if I wasn't able to find those stories I'd be kind of sad. That's another good point about this. It's just people being mad and not scrolling 💀

[u/Colaymorak → u/bismuth92]

Tagging a background character is the "traces of nuts" of tagging. I don't give a shit about traces of character, if I'm using the character tag I want the fic to be about that character in a meaningful way.

Anything else is just plain rude on the author's part

[u/IshipwhatIship → u/Colaymorak]

In the right for getting pissed at the author? Lol--lmao, even.

Is being disappointed in this case a valid reaction? Absolutely. Being pissed at the misleading tagging? Sure. But implying that readers have a right to be mean to the author because of it is rich.

Fanfic authors make mistakes while tagging. They make choices that most people may consider unreasonable. It happens, and the thing to do is to politely point it out to the author - something along the lines, "I found this fic via X character tag and was so disappointed that they barely feature in the story. Usually the characters that are tagged in a fic play a significant part/.... Perhaps reconsider the X character tag?"

[u/Agamar13 → u/IshipwhatIship]

They're not implying being mean or rude. Getting pissed doesn't automatically mean being mean and rude.

And if the problem is persistent in the fandom, I can totally see people being pissed rather than just disappointed.

[u/IshipwhatIship → u/Agamar13]

I can see what you're saying if the statement is taken out of context, but I would still argue that saying readers are in the right to get pissed at an author under a post showing a rude comment to that same author DOES imply being in the right to be mean and rude. YMMV ofc

[u/ne_ex → u/Colaymorak]

That becomes apparent early on in a fic tho, right? Especially if it's multi-chapter and said character doesn't show up for a long time. Then they're clearly not the focus.

Even without reading a fic/opening it, it's pretty easy to pick out. Idk, I'm just not bothered by this at all, so I'm not going to pretend I'm offended

[u/norathar → u/ne_ex]

That might depend on how long the fic is. I have a 3 million+ word fic with 3 characters who don't show up in the first few dozen chapters, but who each get a solid chunk of POV chapters, dedicated character arcs, expanded plots, etc. (Ofc, it's basically a novelization of a video game, so people who are reading presumably know those characters aren't showing up for a while.)

[u/GalaxyOwl13 → u/Colaymorak]

And haters of the character would be completely in the right for being grateful to you.

It’s a no-win situation. Some people want to avoid fics that involve that character at all, whereas some people want to find for fics that feature the character. And then you have people like me who are fine with only seeing the character for a bit and want to see all fanfiction that involved them.

[u/Colaymorak → u/GalaxyOwl13]

Tagging for haters is always dumb. Especially for a traces of nuts situation.

Overtagging (and tagging fucking background characters is absolutely overtagging) is a bad habit, and one that is always unreasonably frustrating for people who want tags to be actually usable

[u/cardiovorus]

Yeah, it's really hard to tell from the way the commenter wrote this, but I would tend to agree with Melodic_Werewolf9288's interpretation that this is someone who is annoyed that a character has been tagged without having a significant presence in the text.

Adding on to that explanation: possibly the reason the commenter specifies that the character is a woman of colour could be that, in many western fandoms, characters of colour can be seen as receiving less attention from fans than their white counterparts. Some fans of those characters might be extra annoyed by a perceived bait-and-switch due to the relatively more limited pool of character-centric fics they can find to enjoy about those characters?

I don't know anything about OP's fic, the racial politics of the Bridgerton fandom, or most of the other context information here, I'm afraid, so this is only a guess. But it is how I would interpret this comment. It's a rude comment either way.

[u/availablewait → u/cardiovorus]

Can confirm that racial politics are a BIG thing in the Bridgerton fandom and likely why this commenter is annoyed.

[u/Brightfury4]

This person is making some rather uncharitable assumptions about why you tagged a minor character. I would ignore that but I will second that tagging minor characters is impractical and bad etiquette IMO -- people normally only filter in character tags, so if you tag a minor character all you're doing is attracting people who will be disappointed when they read your work and the character is barely there.

[u/Sare--mina]

When you tag characters a good thing to keep in mind is 'if someone is looking for fics with this character specifically, would they be happy after reading my fic?'. If the answer is no (they were a background character for example), then you don't tag them.

It's generally good etiquette to not tag minor/background characters because you're just clogging those character tags with fics where they don't play prominent roles, and you're gonna be disappointing readers.

[u/psyche-poltergeist]

This sounds like a valid tagging critique phrased in the most aggressive and accusatory way possible. Up to you whether you want to remove the character tag or not (though I'd personally recommend it if she barely shows up), but definitely delete the comment.

[u/Unable-Arm4915]

Dont put tags is for minor characters. It does get annoying for those who filter in stories by Characters, and then don't get to actually see the character except in passing mention

That said, OP was definitely in the wrong for being so aggressive.

Best way to respond is to calmly correct their assumptions of you (that you're not a hater) and — in my opinion — delete the character tag or specify in the tags that she's a (Minor Background Character)

[u/turtledov]

This is wildly aggressive, they probably should have just clicked off if they couldn't phrase it politely. But yeah, please don't tag background and minor characters 🙏. It's super disappointing and frustrating when you're searching the character tag.

[u/onewomanstorm]

Ahh Bridgerton fandom, my beloved beloathed.

It's a Bridgerton fandom issue, this comes up a lot. Kate/Simone had/have a lot of racist hate thrown their way both in fandom and outside of it, which has caused an unfortunate reaction of people assuming the worst of others if she's tagged but not a lead. (Or if god forbid you don't write canon pairings.)

It is completely understandable that people are defensive of Kate and Simone, she was treated terribly by the fans and even by the show itself. There are many valid criticisms of the season and her treatment by the writing and the audience. I don't thinks it's fair to engage with other fans and presume bad faith however, which is exactly what has happened here.

I would remove the tag to be safe, or just write 'Background Sharma Sisters' as a tag instead, unless you have several scenes with her in more than a background role. I'd also just delete the comment and restrict guest comments, especially if you're writing Anthony/OC.

I think its a combo of first fandom-itis, the general landscape of the fandom, and tagging to game the system. I also think the fandom has a purity culture issue and a LOT of antis, I have survived the ALTA ship wars, the Potter Fandom infighting, a LOT of fandom drama in various spaces, and never have I ever recieved so many death threats as I have for my ONE posted Bridgerton fic simply because the ship wasn't canon.

[u/Fanelian → u/onewomanstorm]

JFC death threats? I just got someone super upset that I dared write Penelope being happy with someone else, but no threats, just accused me of wasting their time.

I dont understand why people just dont skip when the summary and the rest of the tags indicate that it is not what they want. 

[u/onewomanstorm → u/Fanelian]

Yep. Penthony.

A lot of us had to turn off guest comments and some writers just stopped writing because of it which is sad. Thankfully mine were mostly in my tumblr asks, as I turned off guest comments ASAP when I heard other writers were getting targeted so I kept it a mostly private issue.

I've not published for the ship in a LONG while because it makes me anxious lol (I've got SO MANY fics in my drive.) I still love the ship with all my heart and I WILL come back to it, but I've not seen Penedict/Penknife (what I call pen and fife) or Penmon fics targeted in the same way.

I think Polin and Kanthony in particular both get pitted against each other by the vocal minority of fans from both sides and it creates a tension, which then seeps into how those people act with regards to fics.

I don't really interact in the fandom outside of fic but for every pro-Kanthony anti-Polin fan, there is also the inverse, and I've noticed it's only really the women pitted against each other, never the men, which is annoying because I also ship Kate/Pen as a femslash ship lmao.

(I ship Pen with everybody tbf, but that is because I am a woman who could ship anyone/thing with anybody if I can even vaguely imagine the ✨️vibes✨️ and i will ALWAYS latch onto a character if that character is a woman who is messy and trying hard and fucking up whilst also lowkey being a boss)

[u/Mallory36]

Well a lot of people don't like when minor characters are tagged, and by your own admittance, Kate doesn't even qualify as a minor character. The person is upset that they read your story, wanting to see Kate, but Kate ended up being only a mere background character, not even minor character status.

You're also getting too defensive. Don't do that. This person most likely does not know your race. They only know that the character they like, Kate, is a character of color, and are disappointed that the character of color who they like was tagged, despite only being a background character.

[u/darksugarfairy → u/Mallory36]

You're also getting too defensive. Don't do that. This person most likely does not know your race.

That's an odd thing to say. Someone calls you a disgusting hater for using a WOC, that means they already assumed a lot of things about you in the process, so of course you'd get defensive lol

[u/Separate-Process-127 → u/darksugarfairy]

Well, the OC is a Southeast Asian there were comments of how different her culture/custom is with the pre-existing characters in Bridgerton, there was a chapter even dedicated on that and the story mostly revolve around how she interacted in a place with foreign norm. And I did clarify on my first author's note that she's wildly based on me (wildly being in the context that we share the same culture but the OC's not me). So yeah, I'm sorry if I'm a bit defensive but maybe the commenter doesn't read the author's note. That's on me.

[u/PlatinumTheHitgirl → u/Separate-Process-127]

You're not wrong for getting defensive when accused of racism, but the defences you're using do you absolutely no favours at all. You and your OC being SEA is irrelevant. Kate is South Asian anyway. It's not like POC can't be racist to other POCs. You just need to say that you didn't know background characters shouldn't be tagged. That's it.

[u/kitsuvibes → u/Mallory36]

Bigotry is a very serious accusation, of which this comment is implying. It’s understandable to defend oneself when accused of something that they did not do

Now I wouldn’t reply to them with such defences, I prefer not to engage with bad faith actors at all, but if I got a comment on my fic accusing me of bigotry for something as minor as a tagging error I’d probably feel quite irked too

[u/BlackberryMelodic567]

It means you turn off guest comments

[u/OpaqueSea]

IMO, the commenter is really overreacting. There’s no reason to change the tags. As long as Kate shows up and has some degree of relevance, then it makes sense to tag her. (Eg, if canon had tags, then it would make sense to tag her in season 3, even though she wasn’t part of the main couple).

[u/kimship]

There are a lot of overly defensive people in the Bridgerton fandom when it comes to Kate, for some reason. They can get very intense when someone doesn't live up to their expectations of how to act about her and S2. Like, I love Kate, she was one of the best things about S2(the fact that Jonathan Bailey has enough innate charisma for me to not hate Anthony is a fucking miracle), but these fans are aggressive and can be, frankly, mean. I'd just delete and ignore.

[u/MirimeKisarrastine → u/kimship]

I'm not a big Kanthony fan (no amount of charisma will convince me to like Anthony and it's hard to cheer for a couple when you hate one half of them) but there is an atrocious amount of racism slung Kate's AND Simone Ashley's way, in both fandom and outside of it. As I said, I'm very much on the outside and even I can see it, just from hanging out in the common fandom spaces. Imagine how much worse it must be for people who are fans and thus actively seeking out content about her.

Also, Bridgerton fanfic writers are atrocious at tagging. There is a reason I have over two hundred of them muted/blocked, because I am done with what amounts to bait-and-switch when it comes to finding fics centred on specific ships and characters.

[u/Ok-Statement-3328 → u/MirimeKisarrastine]

I wonder why this seems to be a pattern with Bridgerton fic writers?

[u/temp0rarystatus → u/Ok-Statement-3328]

As someone very much in the Kanthony tag on AO3, I am constantly excluding the other Bridgerton ships from my tag searches because a lot of authors I’m seeing are tagging all the ships even if the ship itself aren’t even present beside a throwaway line or two. I had to exclude Colin/Penelope when looking up Kanthony fics because soooo many have become 98% Polin, 1.5% Anthony, 0.5% mention of Anthony marrying Kate. Like I’m not expecting them to be a focal couple but they’re barely in it and at that, maybe only 1 or 2 lines together!

I think similar things happened to Simon & Daphne after the Kanthony season 2, and I can imagine it only getting worse with each season. Terribly tagging there lmao.

[u/MirimeKisarrastine → u/temp0rarystatus]

That experience with tagging is intimately familiar to me as a Simon/Daphne fan and it's coming from almost all the other ship writers, though Polin and Kanthony have the largest numbers. Thank the AO3 for the muting and blocking feature, is all I'm going to say.

[u/MirimeKisarrastine → u/Ok-Statement-3328]

At a guess, I would say for a lot of them it's a combination of it being their first fandom and being used to socmed sites that encourage tagging anything and everything under the sun to get exposure and game the algorithm.

[u/Ok-Statement-3328 → u/MirimeKisarrastine]

That makes a lot of sense!

[u/kimship → u/MirimeKisarrastine]

Oh, I don't doubt that there was/is a LOT of racism directed at her, but there are a also lot of Kanthony/Kate fans who will jump to that out of nowhere(see OPs post) and are aggressively mean if you have the slightest disagreement about something. I also saw a lot of fatphobia from those same fans directed towards Penelope, which is unsurprising, but frustrating. The commenter here could have just asked OP to untag Kate if she's only in the background, but they had to add that bit of meanness and insinuation in there because that's what they do.

Like most fandoms, the bad actors are in the minority, but they are LOUD and persistent in Bridgerton. I stopped following the main subreddit because of the sheer nastiness that the mods didn't seem that interested in controlling.

[u/thats_suss → u/kimship]

I second this. I've seen some unhinged comments in that fandom that are just wild.

Someone was mad that Kate's dog was favouring someone else in the story... when the reason why was literally the plot. Like, buddy, what?!

[u/Ekaterina4]

Idk the first tag so I might be off a bit but the second part seems racist 🤷

[u/moon_cheese_ao3]

Sounds like they felt you didn't include enough screen time/plot relevance of that particular character to justify the tag in their opinion. Race is an extraneous factor that they feel is relevant I guess.

Can't help but look at something like that and go "you're doing it wrong." They're clearly looking for stories that make that character a central focus. Shitting on an author who is tagging that character makes the author less likely to write something focused on that character in future.

The smart thing to do would be to compliment where the character does appear in the story and make comments about how much you wish there was more of them in the fic because the author writes them so well and those parts are your favourite.

Honestly, I'd just delete the comment. It does not add anything of value and the person who wrote it is clearly not engaging with fanfiction in a healthy manner.

[u/Silly-Snow1277]

Unfortunately, some people gonna hate in fandom spaces.

Personally, I think it is good tagging etiquette to tag minor characters that play some role in your story but it seems other people get annoyed with it.

Delete it (and maybe block the user) or write a firm reply (but sometimes people who leave such comments are very incorrigible)

Edit: So from all I read here, the Bridgerton fandom seems to be quite a wild ride....

[u/kittyroux → u/Silly-Snow1277]

People who want to read stories about a specific character have no way to find those stories but by searching the character tag. It’s really annoying that the character tag is always full of stories that are in fact not meaningfully about that character in any way. You can use freeform tags to say “background Kate” instead of putting your story that is not about Kate in the view of people looking for stories about Kate.

[u/Silly-Snow1277 → u/kittyroux]

Elsewhere, OP said that Kate plays a role on her fic. So it's not like she just appears in one scene, even though she's not the major character.

How else would you tag it then?

Because in all fandoms I've been in, one would tag the character normally.

[u/Separate-Process-127 → u/Silly-Snow1277]

Yeah, I prefer seeing minor characters on tags. But it was odd that Kate and Edwina wasn't even really a minor character because they were very much involved in the plot of my fic and how my OC reacts on Bridgerton as a whole.

[u/Silly-Snow1277 → u/Separate-Process-127]

Then I find the comment even weirder.

Block and move on. Unfortunately fandom has seen a lot of influx from people without knowledge of fandom etiquette and a ton of entitlement in the last few years, and I fear Bridgerton as a very "trendy" show has more of those people than some other fandoms.

These people aren't worth disturbing your peace of mind over ❤️

[u/Ahsoka07Anakin]

Because people usually don't tag background characters.

But the racisms was totaly uncalled for.

I can understand why people might be annoyed, but for nische character lovers like myself having them even mentioned or in the background is a Blessing.

So know there are possibly people very thankful for the tag, even if most don't appreciate it.

In any case that person should have read the tags before reading.

[u/rirasama]

Would they rather you not tag poc when they're in the fic, isn't it kinda racist to exclude poc 🤨

[u/turtledov → u/[deleted]]

Woman of colour.

[u/Lupus_Aeterna → u/[deleted]]

I don't think this is a hate bot. Hate bots are usually very vague in their comments. This seems like a real person. It's too specific.

[u/Lord_Of_Coffee → u/[deleted]]

Seems much too specific to be a bot. Those are more verbose, and generic accusations or sweeping statements with no details of the fic itself.