Which author started the young blonde, bubblegum chewing process server that shows up in several authors stories?
Which author started the young blonde, bubblegum chewing process server that shows up in several authors stories?
I don't know, I just got through reading a story by qhml1 and she was in it. Pretty sure JustPlainBob has used her also along with a dozen others. I just don't know who invented the character in the fist place and thought it would be fun to discover her origin.
It's entirely possible that it's not so much a recurring character as a trope subversion.
For example, Joss Whedon has stated that the idea behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer was that in a lot of classic films a petite blonde girl goes into a dark alley and never comes out. He wanted to subvert that so that the petite blonde girl went into an alley and it was the monsters who were in trouble.
Similarly, characters like process servers, bounty hunters, repo workers, etc. tend to be depicted as middle-aged, large, unshaven men. Portraying them as a young, blonde, bubblegum-chewing girl is a fairly obvious set of trait reversals.
But, in the case of the process server it's usually an obvious reference to the same character.
Reading in stories how people try to avoid process servers,
a young blonde, bubblegum chewing woman/girl would be more successful in actually serving writs.
I understand authors using this in a story. Probably because it started in real life, not in a story.
HM.
Were you limiting your question to SOL authors? I suspect the described character type was used by other non-SOL authors before the character was presented in an SOL story.
SOL and LIT are the only story sites I know of her being in. I have run across her exact same description in probably 40-50 stories. I figured one author came up with her and the rest followed along to make her a familiar character.
I searched "blond chewing served divorce gum".
The earliest story that comes up is "EGBDF" by Stangstar06 in 2011, with the same character in a few more of his stories after that.
Then, the same girl appears in JustPlainBob's story "Wally Finds Out" in 2017.
The earliest story that comes up is "EGBDF" by Stangstar06 in 2011, with the same character in a few more of his stories after that.
Then, the same girl appears in JustPlainBob's story "Wally Finds Out" in 2017.
I still think this character was probably created using a real life process server as a template.
A girl with this appearance will easily get to those who are weary and avoid traditional looking process servers.
HM.
FYI, I worked for 10 years as a Process Server in Washington State. We had male and female servers, young and old. I don't specifically remember any blonde, petite females, but it could have happened. In fact people are generally less likely to avoid female servers for the first attempts as they don't feel threatened by them.
Short funny story about Process serving.
We got a call from a company in Miami that wanted us to assist by serving an address in Washington.
The address? 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington D.C.
"Seattle is in Washington, right?"
I blame the education system.
young blonde, bubblegum chewing process server
Wasn't that Dog the bounty hunter's first job.