#note rants

[note-katha]

it's Fridayyyyyyyy nighttttt

[note-katha]

The way that America and the people here assume Christianity as the default is so damaging.

When I was a kid, no one understood what it meant that I was Hindu.

When I was a kid, a friend of mine asked if I was Christian and when I said no, he tried to tell the rest of class and said he didn't want to be my friend anymore.

When I was a kid, my elementary school and middle school taught next to nothing about India or Hinduism.

Wasn't America supposed to be the 'melting pot' of people?

So why do I have to be shamed or stared at because I didn't realize that people were praying? Or any story out of the Bible?

Why is it that people assume I'm Christian, without ever asking then give me looks if I say I'm not?

Why is it that so many people can't believe in their own religion because we live in a country that constantly reinforces that another is correct?

[note-katha]

on ‘being too diverse’

hello, hi, howdy. I’m Note. And to preface, this isn’t about anyone in particular, I just have many feelings and wanted to rant about them.

I’ve seen time and time again questions like “why is this character [X]?” or “Does this character really need to have [Y]?”

People tend to think that you can only be one or two diverse things at a time. Hell, as a kid, I was convinced I couldn’t be gay or queer because “I was already indian”. 

Yeah, let that sink in. Culture and media have convinced us that diversity is only one ‘difference’ at a time. So, let’s get this straight (even though I’m not)

I’m Indian. I’m panromantic. I’m demisexual. I’m genderfluid-nonbinary. I’m autistic. I have ADHD. I have chronic pain. I have bad eyesight. I have a genetic disorder. I’m depressed. I have anxiety. There’s probably more that I don’t think of because it’s normal to me.

I’m real, I am a real person that exists in this world. I am not too diverse. 

And any character like me, isn’t too diverse either.

We can’t continue to insist that characters that hit more than two points of a “diverse checklist” don’t exist, because people aren’t restricted or defined by any kind of checklist.

So, you tell me. Are you too diverse to be a fictional character? Because, at the end of the day, we write stories about people, people that may not exist in our worlds, but are like people in our worlds. 

Next time someone tells you a character is too diverse or you question a character’s ‘diversity’, ask yourself: do I know someone like this person?

That character might be completely different to you, but they just might be just like someone else. And that someone else will see that character as ‘normal’. Their normal.

[note-katha]

if you guys want to know what it can be like, trying to confidently write in America when you're POC,

I'm creating a for fun project and having anxiety over not having any white characters.

almost every book I've read has had a white character in an important role, to the extent that I get anxious that I'm doing something wrong if I don't.

While this isn't the same for everyone, this is my experience and why it's so important to me to have poc centric stories.

[note-katha]

Notey Rants: Writing

My issue when writing is that I genuinely don’t know how to come up with conflicts??

I can write an entire outline for a story but have no idea how to introduce a big bad or major conflict

And it’s so endlessly annoying because I CAN’T write deep epic fantasy stories or anything because of it.

Of The Gods, the kids are dealing with their issues, and that’s the ‘conflict’ but there’s no arching central plot

Corruption (A thing I finished before starting my writblr) had no proper story plot? LIke it was just increasingly confusing and endless events that just happened

I wish I could figure out things and do words correctly

I love writing but I just feel like I won’t be able to ever actually write a book if I can’t understand how to develop a central conflict in my stories

and the thing is, whenever I read books, I honestly can’t remember or notice the conflicts, so when I try to reference those stories, I’m lost.

This is just me venting because I’m struggling with outlining a story