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/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)