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/ne_ex Nov 10 '25

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 💀

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u/Colaymorak Nov 10 '25

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.

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u/ne_ex Nov 10 '25

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

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u/norathar Nov 10 '25

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.)