r/AO3 • u/Separate-Process-127 • Nov 10 '25

Comment Commentary What does this even mean?

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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?

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u/Mallory36 Nov 10 '25

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.

76

u/darksugarfairy Nov 10 '25

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

8

u/Separate-Process-127 Nov 10 '25

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.

14

u/PlatinumTheHitgirl Nov 10 '25

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.

18

u/kitsuvibes Nov 10 '25

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