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[fuckyeah]

I know I am so behind on my paperlegends recs, but they're going to be delayed a little more as I scramble to get ready for my trip. I am not ready in the slightest, and I'm starting to freak out a little. Also, I have resigned to the fact that I won't have this fic done in time for the Teen Wolf contest, haha.However! I did want to open the floor for a fandom

Comments

[fuckyeah]

To be honest, I wasn't thinking about Loaded March when I made this post, but I'm not going to lie: I recall being uncomfortable at some parts. I know now that you're not anti-[nationality], but before I met you and actually got to know you, I did have some concerns. Don't ask me to say which parts exactly, because I've forgotten them already, just I remember being taken back a bit.

Exactly! Like, if the author just had to include the scene I mentioned, they could have easily used other descriptions. Using "large American woman" is not only stereotypical, it just comes off as lazy writing in my opinion.

Oh yeah, I don't mind saying someone has an accent, but typing out phonetically rarely seems to be done right, and is just a pain to read some times. And that's just in English-based dialects. When I see people having their French characters use "Zee" or their Japanese characters using Rs for Ls, I just hang my head and cry. Actually no, I don't cry, I seethe and rage a little bit.

I guess I wouldn't be so upset if the stereotypes added something to the story, but it doesn't. It doesn't help establish the scene any more, it doesn't help portray the characters in a positive light, it does nothing to contribute to the story. In fact, it only detracted from what was a relatively decent story. In fact, I think it was more jarring to me in this case because I could see myself enjoying the story if it wasn't for those examples I listed. As it was, it just left a sour taste in my mouth so I couldn't really finish it, but I know others might not be as bothered by it I guess.

[loaded_march]

The sad part about having written those things in LM by accident is that I wasn't even thinking about it. I wasn't even aware that I was doing it. I've seen it done in published books, though, and I never thought anything of it. But now that I'm aware of it and even knowing that it's not important to the story, it's easy enough to revise it so that it's more neutral, somehow. Since I plan on going through LM to edit/rework/add scenes once I finish the series (mainly to fix continuity errors), I intend on fixing those parts that might offend someone, too.

I know what you mean about the accent things -- both those that you mentioned are stereotypes. It just tells me that the people who use them might not ever have conversed with someone whose first language isn't English and isn't familiar with the actual accent. Or maybe they just don't know that those are stereotypes.

[fuckyeah]

I understand that. I mean, I've written and said things before that I wasn't even thinking about, and then when I look back I cringe when I realize how it could be taken. I've seen it in published books as well, but I think as a society we move to strip epithets that could be taken wrongly to more neutral ones, we'll see less of it in published works. I hope.

The thing is? Those two examples I listed? I have actually seen comments from people saying they didn't realize writing accents like that was considered a stereotype. *facepalms*