Before I begin with my rant, I just want to say that this is not aimed at any race, gender, culture or ethnicity. It is all about just one person, one single person that showed me once again that there are all types of people in the world.

So, I'll take this from the top since that's what we like.
One fine morning, I get this dm on Wattpad from a person who was inquiring about oneshot requests and such. I'm like, I take them and I know a few too. Then this person says, 'Oh great! I've read some of your work and you are good writer. Would you accept a request?' Obviously I went ahead with it and said why not.

The next thing, now this is the first thing that set me off was how they asked me if I know 'anything' about BTS and I go, didn't you just say you like my work? I didn't say that though, I just very politely said I do know them and have known them for 4 years now. And the last time I checked, only a handful people knew I was working on a MonstaX FF.

So, you can well imagine how my mood went downhill from that point on. But I let it go and we continued talking about what kind of stories or genres I pick for writing. I told them everything honestly bcuz I am not taking on something I'm not comfortable with. They asked me a few more questions about what I know and what I would be willing to experiment with.

One thing that they asked was about BLM and again I was honest and said, I haven't done it or I don't see myself doing it bcuz a) I'm an Indian who has never left India. b) All of my poc friends from another countries are online and they are really great people, no arguments on that.
c) I don't know much about it to write bcuz neither did I ever experience it nor did I get a full account of it ever.

Like, the newspapers, when they give international news there's only page full of it and I remember that movement getting half the page. Still, I didn't get to know past the main points, which was what I think is better than not knowing absolutely anything.

After I explained it all and also about where I live, the person decided to ignore it all and just give me an outline of what their character looks and behaves like and all the stuff required for writing.

Now, I'm not usually this triggered or find myself thinking about it but this really made me think. I was forced to think bcuz this person multiple times mentioned how there is not much representation of poc, which I can't be very sure is the case. I've seen a lot and I mean a lot of books that have female leads who are not Korean. It just a matter of searching for it or coming across it somehow. It's a different thing that I didn't like them bcuz they were either cringe or extremely cringe.

But that's not even the point! The point is that this person blatantly ignored me. Now, I don't think it's good to just ignore a person like that even if you approached them for some kind of work. It wasn't like I was talking about my personal life, I was stating facts and giving reasons why I haven't or won't write on that topic.

Anygays, so this person continued to send me reference pictures and everything about the characters and how they wanted BTS members to be portrayed. Herein lies the next point that triggered me.

Now, the female OC was introduced to me as a poc with 4c hair, a curvy but thin body, short height, ballerina type. She was supposed to be the youngest kid, pampered and loved, basically a brat who doesn't like it when someone behaves in a way she doesn't see fit. I don't hate this type of character, in fact they make for a great character development.

So, the female character really wasn't the problem, it was the male characters a.k.a. BTS members.

I decided early on that if I ever show BTS members as bad people, it'll be for an AU, not where they are idols bcuz that's just assuming and so completely wrong.

So, I guess they had their personalities in mind with the intention of hurting the female lead, kind of like your usual bully plot. I won't go into details of what and how the members were to hurt the female lead, but they were just supposed to be complete jerks to her.

Putting aside the fact that they were going to be portrayed as idols for now, they requested me to show how the female lead was friends with them all despite them making fun of her for her skin colour and all that drama. The female lead was bullied by everyone in school as well (oh yeah, she was to be made a 17 year old girl) and she was kind of in drop bcuz her mom remarried. All the typical tropes, you know?

So, moving forward, she loves the members very much and they 'love' her too but she often felt like an outsider too. In school the people are jealous of her friendship with the boys (obvio), and that's another reason for bullying.
Flash forward to the twist, the female lead gets in an accident, the boys cry over her while she fights for her life and when she wakes up, she sees them, they start apologizing for everything and the girl forgives them. The end.

If I read that kind of story again or someone asked me to write, Imma flip. Seriously! What is wrong with people? How can they see anything good in someone that bullies them?
There was no romantic element in it but racism and bullying was still going to be glorified which sure as hell didn't sit well with me.

Still, thinking it would be a different experience, I said I'll write it but as I started analysing the plot deeper and constructing the details I realised how fucked up it was. I discussed this with a few of my friends and they all said how messed up it was and seeing how many links the person had shared with me for it, they even said they should write it themselves, which I think they could have done seeing how they had some books published as well.

So, I told the person I won't write it. I wasn't about to go and tell them that their mind is messed up, so I put it on not knowing enough and not wanting to use the stereotypes bcuz honestly what I know about discrimination in western countries is through movies like 12 years a slave and The Help. They were movies that depicted different times and I know discrimination remains the same every era, just the form is different but I wasn't about write with that kind of representation in my mind. Not to forget the BTS members were going to be shown as racists while being idols. That's another level of fucked up.

Then the person started saying how I'm considering poc as different, which I obviously did not. They also tried convincing me by saying I should take help and guidance, which I would have taken if the plot wasn't so bad, I had already asked one of my friends for help when I was first presented with the idea. They also tried guilt tripping me by sharing some personal issues but that didn't work on me cuz I got my own shit to handle.

That aside they started assuming things and saying things based on I don't know what when we were having a normal conversation. I let that go though bcuz I didn't have the energy nor did I feel the need to correct them. But I did however correct them when they continuously said 'God will help me'. I don't mind people saying that or believing, I really don't care about their beliefs bcuz it's not my business but I, for sure, can't let a person assume my beliefs or let them force it on me in any way.

So, I very nicely told them, I don't belong to a religion that necessarily believes in a God. That should have been a big clue to stop saying that to me, however, they sent me another text, right out of a religious book and that's when I muted them. I mean what was I supposed to do after seeing and reading all that stuff. Did they think I'd change my mind about the existence of God? Well, too bad, it's not happening in the next hundred centuries.

I decided to not engage further and vented out about it with my friends who agreed that what that person did was wrong and almost like forcing me to believe it. Like, did they not notice anything in our conversation? I live in India, place to the oldest religions in the world and my religion having established around 500 BC. That was a stupid move on their part but that doesn't mean I'm going to hate any religion or anything. There are all kinds of people after all.

 There's something called 'Writer's freedom' or 'Artistic freedom' which allows artists to express everything with no limits. If I went with it, I can represent people of any race, gender, caste, religion, ethnicity and culture. But what we have to remember is that it shouldn't be misleading, nor should it disrespect anyone. If I wrote that oneshot it would have been misleading and disrespectful as hell, no matter how much I researched on that topic.

It's almost like Tim Burton casting Samuel L. Jackson as the villain in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children as the first ever black person in his movies.

Burton's fandom is more scary than ARMY so I'm saying it now, I'll delete any comments hating me for saying that ;-;

But this is what happens when you stick to stereotypes or do something someone else is telling you. You lose your touch and not only that, you mislead people into believing that some specific people are just born bad.

For about a week I was so disturbed because of that person and what they said to me. Mostly because of the last thing they said to me before I muted them. I usually don't care but something about it all was so off. It was like they were trying to victimize themselves and then try to persuade me to do what they wanted. I guess, that is what you would call gaslighting.

I almost felt guilty after muting them because most of the time they were sweet but the way they delivered their words, assuming my mental health and all was just triggering. But I'm really glad I got out of it soon since I have a habit of overthinking about such topics.

The whole point is that you can't force a person to do something they don't want to do. Either they won't do it or it won't work if they did. And if you know someone like this and trying to force you to do something you don't think is right, just get the hell out of there.

That's it for today, yall. Hope you liked and enjoyed this tea. Until next time XD