#If anyone has any opinions please comment I'm open to discussion and feedback!!

[reiderwriter]

small psa to american/non-uk fanfiction writers trying to write dialogue for characters from the uk or europe: stop using pet names

love, pet, duck, sweetheart, babes etc they're all regional pet names you'd probably only encounter in one part of the country, and most of the times the characters using them actually speak queen's english (think the marauder's/ sherlock etc they're upper class characters they're not speaking dialects)

pet names are also really condescending when they're being used by someone of the same age as you - when I'm in the uk I expect to get called love or pet a lot, but only by people my grandparents and parents age who view me as a child, or a creep on the street trying to get overly familiar

I don't know if this is just my personal ick, but it just doesn't sit right in the dialogue for me - think about the dialogue the characters use in the primary content you're writing for, and if they're not speaking in a specific regional dialect/ you can't tell if they are, or they're not a bit of a creep and a flirt, try not to delve into those unspecific pet names

((that is to say if you establish a small pet name between the characters within the fic that would work, or if its a kink related pet name like princess/ baby girl that would probably work too, just not in outside dialogue - we're still pretty stiff upper lip lmao))