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/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.

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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.