Marked Redux: Chapter 1

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: Here we go! Ready to begin, Ruin?

Ruin: Yes!

ZeldaQueen: Brilliant!

Comments

[carakasla]

*deadpan* Yay, Zoey Redbird. I hate this judge mental bitch. At least with the other Sues, they try to hide behind a veil of faux humility but God damn, Zoey isn't even trying!

Wait...Redbird is Zoey's mother's maiden name? Then why does ZOEY go by Redbird? Why doesn't she go with her father's last name? I know, I know, it's super patriarchal to assume that Zoey would take on her father's name and she can take on any last name she wants because she can. Not my point, it's just far more common in the Western world (can't speak for more Asian cultures) for a child to take on his or her father's last name, unless there is a good reason otherwise (father was never in picture and mother put her maiden name on birth certificate; child despises father and takes on mother's maiden name; etc). So...why is Zoey Redbird even called Redbird and not have a more European sounding last name?

Everything in this chapter just makes me headdesk.

[zelda_queen]

Zoey's mother's maiden name is Redbird, so her grandmother is referred to as "Grandma Redbird" (because we know all proper Native people have names like that, yo). Technically Zoey's name at this point is legally Heffer, since her mom is married to him. She refuses to go by his name, though. It is mentioned that her name, prior to the marriage, was legally Zoey Montgomery (her birth father's name), but given that she gives herself the name "Redbird" when she goes to the HoN and all supplementary material just refers to her as Redbird, there's really not much point in bothering calling her anything different.

[actonthat]

(because we know all proper Native people have names like that, yo)

It took me all of five minutes to look up the most common surname of Native Americans when I was writing one, and it turns out that like many other ethnicities, they got smacked by assimilation and their names are more likely to be Johnson than Starrynight or whatever. It just boggles me that in the age of Google, you could be so lazy as to not even bother seeing if what you're writing pans out.

I mean, I know it's also racism-- of course this is how they are! all brown people are like that-- but it's just so nonsensical.

[zelda_queen]

The Cast ladies try waaaaaay too hard to make ethnicity known through stereotypical names. Just wait until we meet the token African American Red Fledgling vampire, Kramisha.

[carakasla]

True, but does it ever say that Zoey's step dad legally adopted her? That would be the only reason she would legally take on his last name. Otherwise, her name, on every legal document even in the HON, would be Zoey Montgomery, unless, like I said, her mom used her own maiden name on Zoey's birth certificate. Which wouldn't make a whole lot of sense since she has an older sibling. That who scenario is more common with only children and first borns.

It's always the little things that can majorly screw things up. This is why I made my own world for my books. I can do what I want without Earth logic holding me back.

(because we know all proper Native people have names like that, yo)

And I also want to shoot their horrible racism in the foot. Because that's fun.

[ruin_takada]

At least if we shot it in the foot, we could ship it off the front line and back where it came from like the insidious little Tommy it is.

[zelda_queen]

"True, but does it ever say that Zoey's step dad legally adopted her? That would be the only reason she would legally take on his last name."

I don't know if it's ever stated. I'm pretty sure her siblings go by the last name "Heffer" though. Chosen also has a narmish scene where he puts Zoey's mom up to gifting her a Bible that has their family tree pasted in it, and he edited his name in as her biological father instead of Mr. Montgomery. So... uh, there's at least one example of him trying to put some sort of ownership over her? Maybe?

It really doesn't matter, since she (somehow) becomes legally emancipated when she becomes a vampire and chooses her own name. Like just about everything else related to Zoey's human life, the whole thing is pointless.

[legal_assasin]

Buh, what? I thought he didn't want anything to do with her. And in the book before that one, he said he washed his hands with her.

*A la Joshscorcher* Consistency, please!