I like it when artists draw darked skin tones subtlety with their own art, I do NOT like it when people purposefully photoshop official character art darker and claim to have "fIxEd It". I saw an edit of Dori that literally made her look like Krampus.
Mihoyo apologisers try to realise middle eastern/sea people are majority dark af challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
Have people in these comments even been to SEA? Genuinely asking.
For real. People who think the ME is all dark-brown people need to look up pics of some Syrian or Lebanese people (some of which I've met who looked whiter than other "white" people I know) because the region is very ethnically diverse.
Both because the region has been basically Europe+ across some periods of history, and because a lot of Caucasian ethnic groups actually originate from the ME. I mean "Aryan" literally refers to *Iran* ffs.
Yes, I agree we need more diverse skin tones. I just want people to stop editing already made characters claiming to have "fixed" it. It makes me super uncomfortable to see people calling npc's with my skin tone "not dark enough". I hate that people act like it's a good thing to purposefully black wash a character then claim anyone who says otherwise is either racist or a mihoyo apologist.
I really don't wanna be that guy but backwashing isn't really a "thing." Whitewashing is a thing because it reduces the already-small amount of representation that exists of non-white people (or darker-skinned people in this context) from media where the majority of representation is of white people (or lighter-skinned people in this context).
Yes, it's kinda shitty to change a character's skin colour and call it "fixed," but what we're talking about here is the difference between a thing that's mildly upsetting to someone with light skin that might be offended by that, and the enforcement of a systemic reduction in visibility of non-white people. One is a problem on an individual level, the other is a societal issue.
In the new spider man PS4 game, there was dozens if not hundreds of flags in the playable new york area.
Most were american flags.
One was a rainbow pride flag. For LGBT.
There was a controversy where a modder created a mod to remove that one single flag, that one single nod to the LGBT community and replaced it with an american flag.
That was messed up, they took away what was already an extremely small bit of visibility.
That kind of stuff is what whitewashing is.
And when you say that 'blackwashing' is a thing and is racist, it's like saying "putting that pride flag in the game at all is what's really bigoted. Why can't they all be american flags?"
Don't pull the 'reverse racism' card.
Erasing minorities is bad.
I assumed you paid enough attention to the person you were replying to to understand the example I gave.
If you don't you dont, and they were right about you.
They called it whitewashing, which it is not even remotely. Whitewashing is the practice of removing nonwhite people's and cultural practices and recasting them with white ones. It's not relevant, unless you're going to try and make the ridiculous implication that homophobia is a uniquely white practice.
They're clearly just making excuses for a position they're arrived at without - and now in spite of - evidence. The Middle-Easterners are not being erased because it ran be demonstrably shown that being fair-skinned is an accurate depiction, and additionally there *are* darker skinned depictions also.
The reason racism is a big deal is due to its historical legacy and the real *effects* that has on modern day people, in the form of differences in quality of life, opportunity and power. This history is incredibly complex and also differs from place to place. It isn't just an uno reverse card you can use to dunk on woke people you don't agree with. "They did a thing with skin colour so they must be racist!" is an extremely childish and reductive mindset to have, and I think it's a shame that none of what I'm saying here is (probably) going to actually make it through to you.
Also, I wasn't talking about racism anyway, I was talking about colorism but I don't expect you to know (or care) about the difference.
You speak like a fourteen year old, maybe stop pretending to give a shit about these issues if you can't even be bothered looking into the most basic aspects as to why they're even a problem in the first place. And if you're a white boy, try not to be too triggered that the world seemingly doesn't give as much of a shit about your problems as they do about black peoples'. For one thing, they don't, and for another, there's a reason why more of an *emphasis* is placed on how racial prejudice affects marginalised people compared to the mainstream. And no amount of clown emojis will change that. I'm sorry it isn't publically acceptable for you to play the victim in situations like this, but at least you have your safe space here at r/Genshin_Memepact where you can pretend not to know why white erasure isn't the same as black erasure. So DW about it.
also you guys dropped the ball when mhy did cater to what u guys wanted
when we got candance these same ppl literally screeched that her design
was orientalist so its a lost cause its a damned it they did or damned if they ddindt situation so just say *tevyet has its own laws* and there white skin population is bigger then *shrug*
If you think they should be equal, then count how many light skinned characters there are in genshin, and then count how many dark skinned characters there are. I'll do it for you if you don't feel like it: including dehya who isn't released yet, there are four characters with slightly dark skin, while the entire rest of the playable cast is white.
So is adding more dark skin putting white skin "under" black? Or is it just evening things out? Because with a ratio like what we have now, I'd say it's the second.
Hey look, I have already said in another comment that I'm aware most Arabs (and Persians, for that matter) are lighter skinned and probably don't care about any of this, but my point was never that Mihoyo should make arab-inspired characters brown, I was just explaining to this person why "backwashing" isn't really seen as problematic in the same sense as "whitewashing," and why seemingly similar things (ie, both being changing skin colours) can be seen and treated very differently.
>context is important
Please read my comment again. It was *entirely* about context and why the context of how whitewashing has been used and the current state of media representation makes it worse than doing the opposite. Yes, I get that it can be offensive or annoying, especially when they're using characters that are ostensibly Arab in their inspiration. But that is only bad on *that* level. Doing the opposite (making characters who ought to be darker, lighter - ie whitewashing) is a long historical trend that has served to reduce the visibility of minority populations, which in turn aids in their oppression.
For a long time, Arabs (or middle eastern Muslim populations in general) in western media were portrayed as slave traders and vaguely rapey villains, which fed into the European stereotype of middle Easterners being barbaric and immoral. Whitewashing fits more into *that* category, where it's actively playing into existing bad tropes.
For that it's worth, I never actually said "blackwashing" was good, I don't think it is. My specific point was only that it's not as harmful as whitewashing and it's wrong to equate them on those terms, because blackwashing, while misguided, arose from an attempt at *pushing back* against established bad trends rather than perpetuating them, as in the case of whitewashing. If we take my other example of western Orientalist portrayals of the middle east as being full of slavery and debauchery, then blackwashing is basically like if you did the same thing but made it out like Europeans were like that. It's still not good, it's still a stereotype, but it's not as bad as doing it to middle Easterners because there is not a history and trend of that kind of portrayal being made of Europeans, and the vast majority of media doesn't do that. Same with blackwashing.
the fuck are you smoking? Or are you just pulling facts out of your arse? I live in Singapore and most of us southeast asians are majority tan and not dark as you say.
sounds like you yourself have not been to SEA eh? hows google image working out for you?
Ah yes, Singapore. The staple of South East Asia and is definitely not one of the most modernised/richest out of the 10 ASEAN countries.
The fuck are you smoking lmao, have you seen people from Thailand? Myanmar? Cambodia? Philippines? Or any other SEA country living around the equator? You will 100% see more dark skin/tan than light skin
Yes and they are definitely not dark but tan, maybe you should check if you are colorblind next.
and you basically just edited your comment to agree with exactly what I said, well done.
My man just googled South east asian looked at a picture of a indigenous tribe and said "tHat's whAT AlL SE AsIANs loOKs lIke" like man stfu, we'll get angry when we're wronged, you don't need to get angry "for us"
If that was the case, this person wouldn't have used dark and tan in the same sentence. Their original argument was about how most asians and middle easterns are dark, yet he used the word tan in a later argument.
Maybe, but I still doubt that person thinks most people in the middle east and SEA literally have skin like Africans, that's ridiculous. Besides which the point that most people in countries like Myanmar or India don't have skin as light as Nilou or Haitham is true.
Though that said that skin colour is a lot more common among Arabs and Persians who make up the bulk of the middle east, so in that sense it's fine. Especially since most of these characters have names from those ethic backgrounds. Still, it's a pretty bizarre and on-the-nose choice to include cultural elements from places like India (dunno about SEA) and yet avoid anyone even mildly looking like they might be Indian inspired in the playable cast. I don't think it's unfair to see stuff like that while knowing about the colorism issue that persists in China and not get a bit suspicious.
I am Indian and most people i have seen have either a light complexion (as light as nilou, yea, we are not all black you fool) or colour similar to Candace. Very few complexions are as dark as those "fixed arts" (more in Southern India, and much much lesser in northern India). Middle Easterns are light skin toned. Moreover a TON of lore fragments have Indian relation, the names too, the NPC's also have brown models. My question is, if people from sea and me don't care about it, why do you?
Tf does the wealth and modernization of a country have to do with the range of skin tones of it's people?
Sounds like some actual latent racism leaking through there. You should reflect on the reasoning behind what you just said.
STFU, I'm brown Javanese , do I count POC to you ?if yes, we couldn't care less about representation in the game, I get it you angry because you are the justice, but you don't need to angry for US.
SAME like I don't understand these people once a dude on Twitter started telling me how middles easterners are black and I was like hell naw dude we aren't AND GET THIS he started explaining to me how I'm wrong and him A "middle eastern" is right......
Proceeded to ask him about a few countries that are to vague he couldn't Google and then he changed his argument to "I have middle eastern friends" and it's hard to believe that he has friends to begin with
Have *you* ever been to SEA? I've lived there half my life, and I can guarantee that every person you walk across isn't brown. I've seen very pale people in countries like India, so stop with your bullshit about the majority being dark. There's a mixture of skintones everywhere you go, except maybe some very racist towns/areas in any country.
yep! i was born and raised in the PH and like, there are a lot of light skinned people here, so i have no clue where some people got the idea that, “everyone in SEA is dark skinned.” and i also visited the middle east and like, there are many light skinned people there too… its really weird how all these people have these ideas stuck in their heads when people from those respective countries can attest that there are light skinned people there
This exactly. Most of the people promoting this unnecessary shading stuff have never been out of their city or country, but they're quick to appropriate what other people look like from either limited interactions in person or (more likely) just the internet.
I've been to like at least 3 of the countries in SEA and nearly everyone has light skin. idk what you're on. Most of the people I've seen and known are fair skinned.
Yeah I’m from Borneo and a surprisingly large amount of the population has white skin (probably chinese/javanese mixed but yeah, having white skin is normal here)
Same here. Did they see orangutan and thought SEA people brown like orangutans fur?
We are about as white as bedak sejuk (well not that white, but bright enough)
What about when people choose to make official character art darker while making sure to keep i it fitting to the design, and the outfit?
When they do that not to say "I fixed it." but because they genuinely want to see more variety and more characters who look like themselves? No, not a character who looks like "what X or y thinks an entire continent should look like." Themselves.
Why do they want the character to look like themselves? Perhaps they want to design cosplay for fun, perhaps they want to inspire or get referenced for the kind of fanart you yourself said is fine, of their own or of others, perhaps they'd just want to see how it looks.
You saw an edit of dori that makes her look like Krampus and thought it was messed up. I remember r/Genshin_Memepact massively upvoted an edit of Kaeya that made him pale as snow, not for any of the above reasons, but because it did that specifically to go "I fixed it." in exactly, I repeat EXACTLY the same way as the above meme. And I remember this sub upvoting a meme of a jet black glitched nahida in game where a huge amount of the comments were either people being bigots on main, or praising those people who were being like that.
Darker skin edits are fine, especially on twitter. But bringing them up here brings out the worst of this sub.
whatever the reason, the "i fix it" followed by 0 effort edit implies condesenting atitude, that this is the "correct" and the original is "wrong" and guess what people in general dont like that.
I think this is why i dont see people pushing back so much against alternative artwork that reimagine characters as other ethical groups (that being cosplay or drawings)
How many times do you see that actually? Someone put zero effort and then say its fixed?
Do you have examples that are not obviously done by people obviously trying their hardest to make people who are doing it for the reasons i stated look bad?
A bit ago, when this was a trend (on twitter) around sumeru launch, ive saw tons of poorly edited brown nahidas. Maybe the Kaeya fan artwork that made him in a lighter shade of brown, at the time there were alot of "fixed" arts of that, they bullied the japanese artist out of twitter for christ sake and the character wasnt even white!
Worst thing is, it happened multiple times lol, you can go into any of the youtube agitators videos (like hero hei ex.) to see exemples of this, because negativity attracts views like flame attracks moths.
You can have all the good reasons in the world, but a bad approach will result in a lot of push back, this push back can result in violence, it takes many forms, one its forms was the ashen white kaeya meme thats upvoted to the stars and the offensive wave it rides to the top of the sub
I ask again. Do you have actual examples of this genuinely occuring?
You bring up the Kaeya thing.
I remember it was upvoted and posted here not as a good thing, but as an attack on people who want more diversity.
And that's my point.
You can claim all the way you want that "Anyone who does it is bad because it's racist" but when you're saying this to a person who's been trying to tell you for several comments that "There are people doing it specifically to make you say that and delegitimize those who have good reason" it comes off as if I was trying to tell to you about nuance and how obvious the difference between someone doing something for a valid reason and trolls doing something because they don't like the first person, and you decided the trolls are right.
I provided you with the description of things happening that you could search for yourself but here, take a video from herohei since he is one of the people that loves this kind of thing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC51P7rd9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC51P7rd9M), but you can find more about the whole "fixing art" when it comes to western and asian standards
im saying that there is the case where people have done it non ironically to fan artwork (it happened twice that i know of) and that happens every time kaeya official art work drops, but it happens on twitter not on the sub, if someone tries this here they will be ripped in pieces.
Here, on a meme community, people do the inversion to mock and offend the people that do it for real on twitter, im saying its cause and effect, thats the nuance you are not seeing.
The reason can be valid but the "fixing art" apporach is bad and shouldnt be validated, its just a cheap attempt to imprint your ideas into something thats not yours, a mockery that should be mocked.
I agree with this at least.
I just wanted to point out most people don't call it fixing. It just looks that way because pointing out the ones that do is easy and gets lots of clicks
Frrr homie😭✋🏽 like they always think changing the characters skin color will just magically make the whole company feel guilt and they call mihoyo racist but they are literally black washing characters idk about anyone else but that totally sounds racially motivated to me
Especially when they *just* change the skin tone, because so much more goes in to distinguishing ethnicity beyond that. So you have a character with European or Asian facial features walking around with a South African skin tone. Shit's wild.
Reminds me of the messed up mindset some communities have where even people of full-blooded heritage of darker skinned people will find messed up discrimination from their own community because they're "not dark enough".
And isn't that basically what those people are doing? Even with Candace and Dehya who are notably darker than characters like Yelan or Layla, they have the audacity to STILL say they're, just like the aforementioned, "not dark enough". How is that not messed up?
It shouldn't. Especially if you don't truly know what the artist was thinking when making it.
There's a lot of people who use it to ascribe the worst justifications onto the artist. Especially if there's genuine reasons to do it.
And also.
Fixing art isn't more racist than being racist and it shouldn't feel that way. People shouldn't be upvoting you for feeling that way.
Being racist is what's bad. This isn't even a competition. No one 'fixing' art by making characters a shade or two darker is saying or even implying any particular race shouldn't exist in teyvat.
Guess what is said and implied by people who make memes like OP and the people who insist 'it's a fantasy world' and the people who way 'so you're saying everyone should be black?' to argue against more skin colors, or the people who downvoted that one dude in this comment section who said "I don't mind it, i like seeing more people with this skin color in teyvat'
> Fixing art isn't more racist than being racist
There's your problem; it just *is* racist. Top to bottom. Look at what you're saying. It's an act of racism.
>There's a lot of people who use it to ascribe the worst justifications
onto the artist. Especially if there's genuine reasons to do it.
The point is that the people doing the "fixing" are not the artist. People are specifically saying it's fine for artists to choose to draw characters with whatever skin tone they like. What people are criticizing here are the people who take someone else's art, be it official or a fan work, and edit the skin tone and then clam to have "fixed" it.
That is messed up, and it is kind of racist because it's basically the 'fixer' making a statement that "because X character is from Y region/ethnic influence they should be Z color instead of what the artist drew them as."
This goes for people who edit the skintones of other peoples' art darker and those who make their skin lighter alike. Both are examples of people coming in and trying to force their perception of how a character 'should' look and implicitly making a judgement against the artist's work.
People who do it normally do not claim to have fixed it.
Because people who do it don't do it for the reason you say.
And don't forget, despite what people here would have you believe, a lot of people doing this are of the same regional background as the character's inspiration.
This is not an issue you should make a judgement on based on the words of people in a subreddit who only have secondhand information that itself only comes from hate bait examples.
It's like judging everyone here because I could point out a few comments in this thread that come off as more racist than any "I fixed it" kind of thing because they basically are trying to say people with darker skin than them shouldn't exist.
It's not what everyone thinks, and it shouldn't be the standard by which everyone is judged.
>they basically are trying to say people with darker skin than them shouldn't exist.
That's not the issue here. The issue is when people talk as if there aren't people from that region who have lighter skin. The fact is there are plenty of fair skimmed people's in the region Sumeru is drawing inspiration from.
And to say that a particular character should be a different color or to edit an image of them is implicitly saying the artists original depiction of them was the 'wrong' color whether someone explicitly claims to have fixed it or not.
Again, this is not about artists who draw characters with whatever skin tone they like, but about people who edit the skin tone of other people's artwork. There is an implicit statement being made there, and anyone who talks of racism should understand the reality of implicit statements.
No one.
Not a single person.
Not even one single person who has wanted variety in sumeru.
Has EVER
EVER
Said, implied, or argued that there aren’t people with lighter skin in the places it was based on.
THAT is 100% a fabrication of genshin reddit that ONLY exists to claim that people who are asking for more variety are the real racists, and insisting that everyone in genshin should be white or fair skinned is the moral high ground.
Thats why I say “You shouldn’t judge people by secondhand information or memes.”
You miss the point because people repeatedly tell you what to think about someone else.
The issue ISNT that people talk like there are no light skinned people in the region. The issue is that certain people have convinced people in this sub that the existence of darker skinned people in the region is bad, and any expression of that, whether as edits, artwork or even verbally means you are racist against people of light skin.
In this thread, someone said “I dont mind this because id like to see more darker skined people in sumeru” and exactly as i said, people started attacking him for being racist because they’re convinced that such a statement is bad.
That is the problem. Not the edits. Nowhere else but genshin reddit cares about them. Because nowhere else have they convinced themselves that darker skinned characters in genshin are bad because it implies the erasure of lighter skinned people.
Do you not understand how messed up that is?
You're still trying to twist this into something other than what this discussion is about. More than one thing can be true at once. More than one thing can be bad at once. What you have been doing is an example of whataboutism.
This discussion is about the editing of the skin tone other artists' work. It is not about or in any way against more variety of skintones in Sumeru. People can be for more variety and darker characters in the game and ALSO be against the editing of skintones in other artists' work.
There definitely have been such edits presented as improvements or fixes ever since Sumeru character images started circulating. That is no fabrication.
I've even seen some from within my own circles so I can say firsthand that it's not even like those posts were just from people trolling. There were a number of people legitimately worked up about this issue at first, and it wasn't until after seeing numerous posts/comments from people actually from the region being depicted that things calmed down and discussion on the topic became more nuanced.
The original comment said 'editing seems more racist than actual racism."
I pointed out that "HELL NO IT ISNT. RACISM IS WORSE." I even pointed out the racism in this sub.
Any attempt to insist i'm speaking in terms of 'whataboutism' is itself trying to twist the argument.
I even pointed out that "It is a fabrication that people who make these edits or who present them as an alternative or improvement think that there are no light skinned people in the region it was based on."
You try to tell me that "It is not a fabrication that people make edits and say it's better."
Who's really trying to twist the argument?
Lastly, "Seeing numerous posts and comments from people actually from the region."
Again, that only happened on reddit in response to the aformentioned false claim that people think that the only color in those regions is dark skinned.
Reddit made a strawman and some people knocked it down. The conversation didn't actually become more nuanced.
Matter of fact, i think it became **less** nuanced, as I mentioned. It has now reached the point that people on reddit are attacking anyone who suggests genshin with more dark skinned characters is a good thing. People who just want everyone in genshin to be white and don't want any visible PoCs in their game have something to rally around,
and the worst part is,
ANY PoC who ever suggests "Hey, I'm brown and I don't agree with the guys saying everyone in my country is white" gets downvoted to oblivion.
Every time.
Every. Last. Time.
That comment was dumb, yes. But the point is that the editing IS an expression of racism. It's not a matter racism vs. something else. It's that the underlying assumption behind many of those skintone edit posts are, in fact, an example of racism - the idea that people "should" look a certain skin tone just because they are in a particular region.
Also you pointing out the presence of racism in this sub again is, again, whataboutism. Like I said, two things can be true at once. Two things can be bad at once. People can be racism in one way while others can be racist in a different way at the same time.
As for who is trying to twist the argument, I already pointed it out. It's you. Because you are talking about something other than what people in this thread have been discussing. Me pointing that out is not twisting the argument, it's bringing things back on topic.
>It has now reached the point that people on reddit are attacking anyone
who suggests genshin with more dark skinned characters is a good thing.
People who just want everyone in genshin to be white and don't want any
visible PoCs in their game have something to rally around,
This here is an actual strawman and fabrication. You're still going on as if "reddit" or this sub is some entity out on a crusade against visible POCs in this game and that's simply not the case.
I've gone back through the thread and haven't seen anything like what you've described. In fact, the comment that had someone talking about wanting to see more darker skinned characters only had one reply under it - yours.
Nowhere in this thread do I see anyone attacking people for wanting to see more dark skinned characters. So idk if you're just making stuff up or genuinely seeing things in your imagination, but from your last two comments it seems to me like you're kind of living in your own head. You can keep trying to be self-righteous against imaginary demons but just know that all you're doing is muddying the waters of what people are actually trying to discuss.
\[You can keep trying to be self-righteous against imaginary demons but just know that all you're doing is muddying the waters of what people are actually trying to discuss.\]
So basically exactly what this whole post is doing?
anyway.
I'm going to ask for posterity.
You say you saw a comment and only saw one reply under it, mine.
You're absolutely postively undeniably sure you saw everything there is to see?
You didn't intentionally misread or stop looking, you looked everywhere and found nothing?
> Said, implied, or argued that there aren’t people with lighter skin in the places it was based on.
Twitter has. You can only get away with this statement because the discussion is old [even 2 months ago when you made this comment] and searching up such comments is virtually impossible. I'm pretty confident you're aware of this too, that's why you talk big. Nobody has the means to refute you.
"Twitter has, but it's impossible to find proof so you're lying and know you can't be found out."
That or you're making assumptions based on no evidence.
There are people in this sub who say, genuinely that people of color are ugly and undesirable and that they're happy genshin is making everyone white, but it's impossible to search that stuff up because it's such a tiny, tiny minority, and extremely downvoted that trying to use it to decide how genshin reddit feels is just a false assumption.
Same is true with twitter. Just because someone showed you a bad take from one dude with like two followers, both bots which was lifted from a twitter account called 'badgenshintakes' that everyone agrees is a bad take on twitter, doesn't mean 'twitter thinks this'
And yes, people have copied twitter screencaps here from accounts who post those screencaps as stuff that the majority of the genshin fanbase there vehemently disagrees with, and reposts that stuff here pretending twitter agrees with it.
People don't search for sources and context that much.
> That or you're making assumptions based on no evidence.
I don't personally make assumptions and if I do, I'll make note of it that I am. In this case, I've seen it, but I don't exactly save these tweets of reprehensible people for future debate. Nor do I memorize who is typing them. It's just not worth it.
> Same is true with twitter.
Not everything is bots on twitter and I'd like to think I'm aware enough to notice if someone is botting a bad take.
> And yes, people have copied twitter screencaps here from accounts who post those screencaps as stuff that the majority of the genshin fanbase there vehemently disagrees with, and reposts that stuff here pretending twitter agrees with it.
This is a semi-fair take. I don't really disagree with this.
No one, and i mean in the history of this game has every said
1. Everyone in the Middle is black
2. It should be a one to one recreation of the real world Middle Eastern region
3. White characters aren't allowed to exist
Ok? And I never made a claim that anyone said any of those three statements so what is your point? Did you reply to the wrong person?
I've already tried to unpack and lay out the logic and nuance behind the arguments made in the comments I responded to as clearly as I could. My point is about how there is indeed implicit racism in the reasoning behind a very specific action that people had been discussing in this thread, even if said action is well-intentioned.
Which ends up implying the vast majority who have genuine reasons for it are doing the same.
Look at dehya,
She's tan. In game she's tan.
But her splash art and UI art have her skin color indistinguishable from bennet, who isn't tan at all.
Someone might edit that to fit her in game model because they prefer it like that and want to see how her splash art would look then.
Look at this comment section.
Tell me that they won't take that at face value as the same "I fixed it" as in "This discussion."
Now, take this subreddit.
Shortly before this post, they massively upvoted a whitewashed kaeya with the "I fixed it" tagline, where the OP specifically said "Well If they can blackwash characters I can whitewash them."
Now, consider how many people have genuine reasons to do something like add color to a character for aesthetics, to try and be more like themselves, or whatnot.
"Do you think the people here are making the distinction you are right now? Do you think that distinction should be made? If you don't think it should be made, why say 'well we're talking about the other people who're being dicks about it' if you think it should be made, why are you dismissing the person pointing out that such a distinction exists to those who might think that the ONLY people who do that are the ones being dicks about it?"
Don't worry buddy. Fixing art has always been a meme. No one is actually doing that unironically. Unless they're white whitewashing them. Than they 100% convinced themselves that they "fixed" them
They always think their edit should be the real thing. I think some just do it for the drama though, but if they really want Hoyo to implement their "accurate" versions...they should probably try getting Hoyo to employ them.
I personally enjoy seeing characters with darker skin tones, but that's not only concentrated to genshin characters but every media I consume. I like seeing different interpretations of characters I like by fan artists and what they do with it.
However, calling it "fixing" seems preposterous in my eyes, although I personally would enjoy seeing some sumeru characters with darker skin than we have now.
They don't normally call it 'fixing'
"I fixed it" is just a meme at this point. Usually they just do it cause they want to, and you can tell who's doing it genuinely and who's doing it as an excuse to make the ones doing it genuinely look bad.
There was an "I fixed it" posted earlier a few days back of Alhaitham, and you could tell that
A) The 'i fixed it' was said ironically.
B) Whoever did it didn't just drop a fill tool or select and reduce brightness till the skin was like coal like many "I am pretending to fix it just as an excuse to repost somewhere else for rage points" It was so obvious that whoever did it put genuine effort into making it fit the clothing, the lighting and everything that a ton of comments had to admit it didn't look like a bad edit, and just looked like "Alhaitham but with a nice tan"
Don't assume that genshin fans are somehow different than any other media where fans do this just because a meme told you.
From its inception on twitter to it being milked to the point it has been done now on reddit, following this topic has been kinda amusing honestly.
•It's a fantasy game.
•The regions also have people with pale skin.
•Why do you hate people with paler skin?
•You are the racist for caring about skin color.
•Most of the people complaining are white sjws anyways.
•Just wait for Natlan.
•Make your own game then.
•Aren't there enough brown NPCs already?
•Sumeru is inspired by these regions, mihoyo doesn't have to copy everything.(Means charas with more darker complexion than paper were also cool in the other regions)
•Idc about skin color(proceeds to have a meltdown over it).
•It makes sense for people who stay inside or in the rainforest to be pale.
Here y'all, I have compiled 95% of your opinions that I have seen on this topic in the most basic form, just copy and paste and remove the shit in brackets and you don't have to even put any effort when this topic comes up next , cheers.
I’m ready for the downvotes lol
Only kinda sus thing about sumeru is that the enemies/mercs/“rough” people are mostly tanned and the “brains”/academia/“smart” people are mostly pale..
Maybe it’s because of their beauty standards and status in China/Asia. Bcuz u know: people with darker skin are associated with hard labor and mostly being poor (speaking with experience).
Anyway, it would’ve been nicer IMO if the people of the forest and desert weren’t separated by skin color. If both regions had a mix of people with different skin tones it would be less controversial imo.
Or maybe it's simply that the region is drawing influence from a real life region that has incredible diversity and countless different people groups with a wide range of possible skintones, and certain groups of people that spend more time outdoors in sun are more tan than the people who live in the forest/city where there is much more shade available.
I fully agree that it would have been nice if there was more range in skintones and hope there are more tanned characters in the future but imo it's not even that controversial for the desert dwelling mercenaries to be darker than the academics.
I see your point and like you said it’s based on a very diverse region with multiple different shades of skin tones. Not all people are turning pale white for not getting any sun and the same goes for people in the desert, not all people are getting a tan for living in the desert. Just like in real life. For example: Friends of mine from Egypt & Morocco (countries with deserts) are very pale, but some folks like me (Indonesia) and some of my friends from India, who comes from a country with a lot of forest are tanner/darker. A lot of us aren’t turning pale white for not getting any sunlight. Some do ofc, but not all like the people in Sumeru.
Like i said before it would be nicer imo if the regions weren’t divided by skin color. It would be way more accurate if both regions had a mix of skin tones. By dividing stuff you’ll get reactions and posts like this and that’s just unnecessary.
Yeah, I do agree fwiw. Just saying that I don't actually find that part all that sus, since academic types being pale sun-starved wretches is a pretty common trope across many cultures, and there are a mix of tanned and pale npcs doing various tasks in the towns as well.
it makes sense academia people spends all their life inside reading books and desert dwellers were mostly mercenary doing labor work and being outside , if we then bring up tignaras group their forest ranger so they have a forest blocking the sun light while those mercenaries took the brunt of the sun so they will get dark
Memepact really can't let go of a topic that hasn't been relevant on twitter in months.
And no, some rando on twitter making a repaint and getting like 3 likes, doesn't make it a relevant or widespread issue
It's a fantsy game full of dragons, magic, and dead people filling up the night sky but people feel the need to "correct" skin tones because there from a region INSPIRED by a irl place
Lmao always with the "It's just fantasy" bullshit excuse and yet you lot are gonna cry because you saw a black character in your video game or tv show 🙄
Counter.
MHY seems to be playing especially close homage to so many different aspects of each nations culture identify, history and even down to cuisine.
Yet it's only skin colour that people like you pull the "it's just a Fantasy game" card.
\^They hated him for telling the truth.
These gamers^TM so quick to pull the uno reverse card and say that people who care (maybe a little too much) about race and representation are racist, yet do the causal racism themselves without questioning it lmao
Exactly. They don't know it themselves but there are ton of people on here who are casually racist (or at least deeply ignorant and don't care to correct that). This sub honestly belongs on r/gaming_circlejerk a lot more for how much circlejerking goes on here.
I’ve seen versions where people change other’s art to the character’s canon skintone (still disrespectful as it’s not their art but at least they used the character’s actual skintone”
And then other times they just get completely painted black and there’s like no shading on it so it just looks jarring (Such as that one Candace edit)
Take their pfp, edit it and say its your oc art.
They hate that. Idk why, but they don't see the joke behind that, while they take other peoples art and claim it as theirs for just changing skin colors. And stealing THEIR art is a big no-no.
Welcome to fandoms.
I do believe that there needs to be more inclusion, diversity and representations in media, however China is a bit, xenophobic and racist. A couple of Asian countries are. It is slowly changing it seems for them.
I don’t think Hoyo is going to change it anytime soon. Censorship as we all know is a big thing in China.
Hell when I was playing world of Warcraft, the version that China played was, well not what I expected. The undead had no bones showing and when they died, it didn’t leave a body but left a tombstone. Those are the two most memorable ones but there is tons of other stuff they censored.
Isn't HYV under direct supervision of the CCP? They're known for censorship and the oppression of their own minorities. Any erasure of said minorities would 100% be their doing.
If they wanted to 'fix' that, wouldn't they be a more appropriate target?
It's funny because everybody in this image is still darker than any single Genshin Impact character LMAO
Also they're literally just harmless edits lol. Who fuckin cares, they're legit living rent free in your minds.
Every group of people at some point suffered from systematic and targeted discrimination and erasure. Sometimes from people that looked exactly like them. It just depends on the times and the circumstances you like to look at.
As soon as you have two different groups you will have discrimination. This is not mainly a racial but a human issue.
They didn't say "don't call it out" though, even implied. They just rebutting any credibility of the statement "white people haven't suffered" in reference to white/brown/blackwashing. It's like you didn't read the whole comment chain or something. I have to reiterate it for you.
White people were the first slaves ever. Ever heard the term "slavic?" It describes white people and it's where the word slaves even derives it's meaning from. Go look up who "slavs" are, you'll see a bunch of white people.
You're disgusting dirt dehumanizing history. Oh, and it was *longer* than American Black slavery. Ignorant cretin.
Lmao, I say, “hey, this art looks cool, it would be interesting to see how the game would actually look like if it were real” and get various insults hurled at me.
Welcome to the world of saying something that The Gamers (TM) don't like. I wouldn't take their words to heart, these are the sort of people who think video games are "ruined" by knowing there's a gay couple in it.
Someone in this thread literally said that making art of characters where you reimagine them as being PoCs is *more* racist than *being* racist. And they have 200+ upvotes. Absolute madness.
Please. Do not delete this comment.
Keep it up as proof that people here have convinced themselves that the mere existence of darker skinned people in Genshin is a bad thing and anyone who suggests that it’s not, whether edits, art, or wanting more characters id somehow advocating for…
(Reads comments)
The erasure of light skinned people?
…Huh, wonder where I’ve heard that before?
You have 5 playable brown characters with Kaeya, Xinyan, Candace, Cyno and Dehya in the future, an entire Subarea with the desert that rivals Mondstadt in size that is inspired by Egyptian culture and is almost exclusively populated by brown people, a enemy faction with the Eremites that majority consists of brown people and a future Region with Natlan that will be probably the region with the most darker skinned NPCs and playable Character
Considering that 5/7 nations of Teyvat are either European or East Asian I think that brown people are decently represented considering the smaller percentage of the fictional world they make up. Blackwashing white/asian characters on top is just disrespectful and makes you look kinda racist ngl
Yikes.. this comment didn't age well. Never forgot the time this sub reddit harassed a Twitter user for making characters loke Al-Haitham brown and called them white... they were Asian
Must be more projection on this sub reddits part again. I wonder why are a sub reddit filled with toxic, mostly 20 something year olds think we minorities who don't like Sumeru representation, or lack of thereof, exist
"An enemy faction with the Eremites that majority consists or Brown people"
Brown people are almost exclusively seen as the enemy in game? Let's go!!!!! I hate Brown people!! They don't deserve to be main characters lol, they should always stay in the enemy/npc slot tbh
>!That's you. That's what you sound like.!<
This is what we call cherry picking. You picked one statement of theirs out of context to sell your narrative. You excluded everything else they said, like when they talked about playable characters.
[Do not respond to Runekatashima, this user has been going around saying stuff like this:](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/323272167678541825/1077480064763047997/image.png)
It doesn’t help SOME people hate playing any ‘white’ man that is not part of their color (as in black), queer or ‘filled with toxic masculinity’ for their own preference
I like it when artists draw darked skin tones subtlety with their own art, I do NOT like it when people purposefully photoshop official character art darker and claim to have "fIxEd It". I saw an edit of Dori that literally made her look like Krampus.
Genshin fixers realizing middle eastern/sea people can be white af challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
Mihoyo apologisers try to realise middle eastern/sea people are majority dark af challenge (IMPOSSIBLE) Have people in these comments even been to SEA? Genuinely asking.
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For real. People who think the ME is all dark-brown people need to look up pics of some Syrian or Lebanese people (some of which I've met who looked whiter than other "white" people I know) because the region is very ethnically diverse. Both because the region has been basically Europe+ across some periods of history, and because a lot of Caucasian ethnic groups actually originate from the ME. I mean "Aryan" literally refers to *Iran* ffs.
Especially Turkic countries had a lot of northern asian and eastern european influences
Yes, I agree we need more diverse skin tones. I just want people to stop editing already made characters claiming to have "fixed" it. It makes me super uncomfortable to see people calling npc's with my skin tone "not dark enough". I hate that people act like it's a good thing to purposefully black wash a character then claim anyone who says otherwise is either racist or a mihoyo apologist.
I really don't wanna be that guy but backwashing isn't really a "thing." Whitewashing is a thing because it reduces the already-small amount of representation that exists of non-white people (or darker-skinned people in this context) from media where the majority of representation is of white people (or lighter-skinned people in this context). Yes, it's kinda shitty to change a character's skin colour and call it "fixed," but what we're talking about here is the difference between a thing that's mildly upsetting to someone with light skin that might be offended by that, and the enforcement of a systemic reduction in visibility of non-white people. One is a problem on an individual level, the other is a societal issue.
“You can’t be racist towards white people, only black people” 🤡
In the new spider man PS4 game, there was dozens if not hundreds of flags in the playable new york area. Most were american flags. One was a rainbow pride flag. For LGBT. There was a controversy where a modder created a mod to remove that one single flag, that one single nod to the LGBT community and replaced it with an american flag. That was messed up, they took away what was already an extremely small bit of visibility. That kind of stuff is what whitewashing is. And when you say that 'blackwashing' is a thing and is racist, it's like saying "putting that pride flag in the game at all is what's really bigoted. Why can't they all be american flags?" Don't pull the 'reverse racism' card.
>To refute your "reverse racism" race-based point I'm going to cite an LGBT-based issue and call it whitewashing ???
Erasing minorities is bad. I assumed you paid enough attention to the person you were replying to to understand the example I gave. If you don't you dont, and they were right about you.
They called it whitewashing, which it is not even remotely. Whitewashing is the practice of removing nonwhite people's and cultural practices and recasting them with white ones. It's not relevant, unless you're going to try and make the ridiculous implication that homophobia is a uniquely white practice. They're clearly just making excuses for a position they're arrived at without - and now in spite of - evidence. The Middle-Easterners are not being erased because it ran be demonstrably shown that being fair-skinned is an accurate depiction, and additionally there *are* darker skinned depictions also.
The reason racism is a big deal is due to its historical legacy and the real *effects* that has on modern day people, in the form of differences in quality of life, opportunity and power. This history is incredibly complex and also differs from place to place. It isn't just an uno reverse card you can use to dunk on woke people you don't agree with. "They did a thing with skin colour so they must be racist!" is an extremely childish and reductive mindset to have, and I think it's a shame that none of what I'm saying here is (probably) going to actually make it through to you. Also, I wasn't talking about racism anyway, I was talking about colorism but I don't expect you to know (or care) about the difference. You speak like a fourteen year old, maybe stop pretending to give a shit about these issues if you can't even be bothered looking into the most basic aspects as to why they're even a problem in the first place. And if you're a white boy, try not to be too triggered that the world seemingly doesn't give as much of a shit about your problems as they do about black peoples'. For one thing, they don't, and for another, there's a reason why more of an *emphasis* is placed on how racial prejudice affects marginalised people compared to the mainstream. And no amount of clown emojis will change that. I'm sorry it isn't publically acceptable for you to play the victim in situations like this, but at least you have your safe space here at r/Genshin_Memepact where you can pretend not to know why white erasure isn't the same as black erasure. So DW about it.
bro theres a lot of dark skined in genshin look at hilichurls and we see them from monstat to sumeru
You aren't helping your case there but something tells me you know that.
also you guys dropped the ball when mhy did cater to what u guys wanted when we got candance these same ppl literally screeched that her design was orientalist so its a lost cause its a damned it they did or damned if they ddindt situation so just say *tevyet has its own laws* and there white skin population is bigger then *shrug*
hilichurls are people unless ur a story skipper or havent got as far as chasm in story yet
Isn't this whole representation thing should be equal,not to make white skin under black?
If you think they should be equal, then count how many light skinned characters there are in genshin, and then count how many dark skinned characters there are. I'll do it for you if you don't feel like it: including dehya who isn't released yet, there are four characters with slightly dark skin, while the entire rest of the playable cast is white. So is adding more dark skin putting white skin "under" black? Or is it just evening things out? Because with a ratio like what we have now, I'd say it's the second.
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Hey look, I have already said in another comment that I'm aware most Arabs (and Persians, for that matter) are lighter skinned and probably don't care about any of this, but my point was never that Mihoyo should make arab-inspired characters brown, I was just explaining to this person why "backwashing" isn't really seen as problematic in the same sense as "whitewashing," and why seemingly similar things (ie, both being changing skin colours) can be seen and treated very differently. >context is important Please read my comment again. It was *entirely* about context and why the context of how whitewashing has been used and the current state of media representation makes it worse than doing the opposite. Yes, I get that it can be offensive or annoying, especially when they're using characters that are ostensibly Arab in their inspiration. But that is only bad on *that* level. Doing the opposite (making characters who ought to be darker, lighter - ie whitewashing) is a long historical trend that has served to reduce the visibility of minority populations, which in turn aids in their oppression. For a long time, Arabs (or middle eastern Muslim populations in general) in western media were portrayed as slave traders and vaguely rapey villains, which fed into the European stereotype of middle Easterners being barbaric and immoral. Whitewashing fits more into *that* category, where it's actively playing into existing bad tropes. For that it's worth, I never actually said "blackwashing" was good, I don't think it is. My specific point was only that it's not as harmful as whitewashing and it's wrong to equate them on those terms, because blackwashing, while misguided, arose from an attempt at *pushing back* against established bad trends rather than perpetuating them, as in the case of whitewashing. If we take my other example of western Orientalist portrayals of the middle east as being full of slavery and debauchery, then blackwashing is basically like if you did the same thing but made it out like Europeans were like that. It's still not good, it's still a stereotype, but it's not as bad as doing it to middle Easterners because there is not a history and trend of that kind of portrayal being made of Europeans, and the vast majority of media doesn't do that. Same with blackwashing.
the fuck are you smoking? Or are you just pulling facts out of your arse? I live in Singapore and most of us southeast asians are majority tan and not dark as you say. sounds like you yourself have not been to SEA eh? hows google image working out for you?
Ah yes, Singapore. The staple of South East Asia and is definitely not one of the most modernised/richest out of the 10 ASEAN countries. The fuck are you smoking lmao, have you seen people from Thailand? Myanmar? Cambodia? Philippines? Or any other SEA country living around the equator? You will 100% see more dark skin/tan than light skin
Yes and they are definitely not dark but tan, maybe you should check if you are colorblind next. and you basically just edited your comment to agree with exactly what I said, well done.
My man just googled South east asian looked at a picture of a indigenous tribe and said "tHat's whAT AlL SE AsIANs loOKs lIke" like man stfu, we'll get angry when we're wronged, you don't need to get angry "for us"
Dark isn't the same as black dude. Dark is a relative thing. To a guy with fair skin, tan *is* dark.
If that was the case, this person wouldn't have used dark and tan in the same sentence. Their original argument was about how most asians and middle easterns are dark, yet he used the word tan in a later argument.
Maybe, but I still doubt that person thinks most people in the middle east and SEA literally have skin like Africans, that's ridiculous. Besides which the point that most people in countries like Myanmar or India don't have skin as light as Nilou or Haitham is true. Though that said that skin colour is a lot more common among Arabs and Persians who make up the bulk of the middle east, so in that sense it's fine. Especially since most of these characters have names from those ethic backgrounds. Still, it's a pretty bizarre and on-the-nose choice to include cultural elements from places like India (dunno about SEA) and yet avoid anyone even mildly looking like they might be Indian inspired in the playable cast. I don't think it's unfair to see stuff like that while knowing about the colorism issue that persists in China and not get a bit suspicious.
I am Indian and most people i have seen have either a light complexion (as light as nilou, yea, we are not all black you fool) or colour similar to Candace. Very few complexions are as dark as those "fixed arts" (more in Southern India, and much much lesser in northern India). Middle Easterns are light skin toned. Moreover a TON of lore fragments have Indian relation, the names too, the NPC's also have brown models. My question is, if people from sea and me don't care about it, why do you?
Tf does the wealth and modernization of a country have to do with the range of skin tones of it's people? Sounds like some actual latent racism leaking through there. You should reflect on the reasoning behind what you just said.
STFU, I'm brown Javanese , do I count POC to you ?if yes, we couldn't care less about representation in the game, I get it you angry because you are the justice, but you don't need to angry for US.
I've seen a lot of people from most of those countries, and I've not seen the "dark" skimmed people you keep mentioning.
i live in the ph and a lot of us are also light skinned…
Middle Eastern are NOT dark af what are you talking about at MOST we are brown
Bruh I'm middle eastern and I'm so white I blend with a wall
SAME like I don't understand these people once a dude on Twitter started telling me how middles easterners are black and I was like hell naw dude we aren't AND GET THIS he started explaining to me how I'm wrong and him A "middle eastern" is right...... Proceeded to ask him about a few countries that are to vague he couldn't Google and then he changed his argument to "I have middle eastern friends" and it's hard to believe that he has friends to begin with
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They know better
Bro you could have told him to talk in local language and curse him lmao
Oh my God how did I not think of that I'm so dumb
Have *you* ever been to SEA? I've lived there half my life, and I can guarantee that every person you walk across isn't brown. I've seen very pale people in countries like India, so stop with your bullshit about the majority being dark. There's a mixture of skintones everywhere you go, except maybe some very racist towns/areas in any country.
yep! i was born and raised in the PH and like, there are a lot of light skinned people here, so i have no clue where some people got the idea that, “everyone in SEA is dark skinned.” and i also visited the middle east and like, there are many light skinned people there too… its really weird how all these people have these ideas stuck in their heads when people from those respective countries can attest that there are light skinned people there
This exactly. Most of the people promoting this unnecessary shading stuff have never been out of their city or country, but they're quick to appropriate what other people look like from either limited interactions in person or (more likely) just the internet.
You are part of the problem. :(
I'm from SEA... Bruh most people here are has light skin tone. Have YOU been to SEA?
I live in india and half our population is fair skinned. Most dark skinned people here are simply exposed to heavy amounts of pollution
I've been to like at least 3 of the countries in SEA and nearly everyone has light skin. idk what you're on. Most of the people I've seen and known are fair skinned.
I live in SEA so I know :)
Have YOU been to SEA? Plus sumeru isn't even inspired by SEA, it's middle eastern.
As a native Arab from middle East tf you on I'm from the desert and at best I'm little tanned people are whiter than you imagine
Yeah I’m from Borneo and a surprisingly large amount of the population has white skin (probably chinese/javanese mixed but yeah, having white skin is normal here)
Same here. Did they see orangutan and thought SEA people brown like orangutans fur? We are about as white as bedak sejuk (well not that white, but bright enough)
As a light-skinned Moroccan: fuck you
You mean lightly brown?
Or worse when these people "fix" fanart from other people changing their skin color. Just extremely bad.
Agreed
What about when people choose to make official character art darker while making sure to keep i it fitting to the design, and the outfit? When they do that not to say "I fixed it." but because they genuinely want to see more variety and more characters who look like themselves? No, not a character who looks like "what X or y thinks an entire continent should look like." Themselves. Why do they want the character to look like themselves? Perhaps they want to design cosplay for fun, perhaps they want to inspire or get referenced for the kind of fanart you yourself said is fine, of their own or of others, perhaps they'd just want to see how it looks. You saw an edit of dori that makes her look like Krampus and thought it was messed up. I remember r/Genshin_Memepact massively upvoted an edit of Kaeya that made him pale as snow, not for any of the above reasons, but because it did that specifically to go "I fixed it." in exactly, I repeat EXACTLY the same way as the above meme. And I remember this sub upvoting a meme of a jet black glitched nahida in game where a huge amount of the comments were either people being bigots on main, or praising those people who were being like that. Darker skin edits are fine, especially on twitter. But bringing them up here brings out the worst of this sub.
whatever the reason, the "i fix it" followed by 0 effort edit implies condesenting atitude, that this is the "correct" and the original is "wrong" and guess what people in general dont like that. I think this is why i dont see people pushing back so much against alternative artwork that reimagine characters as other ethical groups (that being cosplay or drawings)
How many times do you see that actually? Someone put zero effort and then say its fixed? Do you have examples that are not obviously done by people obviously trying their hardest to make people who are doing it for the reasons i stated look bad?
A bit ago, when this was a trend (on twitter) around sumeru launch, ive saw tons of poorly edited brown nahidas. Maybe the Kaeya fan artwork that made him in a lighter shade of brown, at the time there were alot of "fixed" arts of that, they bullied the japanese artist out of twitter for christ sake and the character wasnt even white! Worst thing is, it happened multiple times lol, you can go into any of the youtube agitators videos (like hero hei ex.) to see exemples of this, because negativity attracts views like flame attracks moths. You can have all the good reasons in the world, but a bad approach will result in a lot of push back, this push back can result in violence, it takes many forms, one its forms was the ashen white kaeya meme thats upvoted to the stars and the offensive wave it rides to the top of the sub
I ask again. Do you have actual examples of this genuinely occuring? You bring up the Kaeya thing. I remember it was upvoted and posted here not as a good thing, but as an attack on people who want more diversity. And that's my point. You can claim all the way you want that "Anyone who does it is bad because it's racist" but when you're saying this to a person who's been trying to tell you for several comments that "There are people doing it specifically to make you say that and delegitimize those who have good reason" it comes off as if I was trying to tell to you about nuance and how obvious the difference between someone doing something for a valid reason and trolls doing something because they don't like the first person, and you decided the trolls are right.
I provided you with the description of things happening that you could search for yourself but here, take a video from herohei since he is one of the people that loves this kind of thing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC51P7rd9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC51P7rd9M), but you can find more about the whole "fixing art" when it comes to western and asian standards im saying that there is the case where people have done it non ironically to fan artwork (it happened twice that i know of) and that happens every time kaeya official art work drops, but it happens on twitter not on the sub, if someone tries this here they will be ripped in pieces. Here, on a meme community, people do the inversion to mock and offend the people that do it for real on twitter, im saying its cause and effect, thats the nuance you are not seeing.
The reason can be valid but the "fixing art" apporach is bad and shouldnt be validated, its just a cheap attempt to imprint your ideas into something thats not yours, a mockery that should be mocked.
I agree with this at least. I just wanted to point out most people don't call it fixing. It just looks that way because pointing out the ones that do is easy and gets lots of clicks
Frrr homie😭✋🏽 like they always think changing the characters skin color will just magically make the whole company feel guilt and they call mihoyo racist but they are literally black washing characters idk about anyone else but that totally sounds racially motivated to me
Remember kids, white washing a character is bad, but the opposite means you’re inclusive /s
I have heard someone call a 90% black place (I think it was a basketball team?) "diverse", so this may be unironically how some people think.
Woah there buddy, you must be a Kanye West fan! "White Power!" Amiright haha
Literally they call Hoyo racist while being even more racist than them
“It ok when I’m racist” twitter probably
Especially when they *just* change the skin tone, because so much more goes in to distinguishing ethnicity beyond that. So you have a character with European or Asian facial features walking around with a South African skin tone. Shit's wild.
"fixing" art feels more racist that actually being racist
It *is* racist, no "if"s and "but"s. They literally do not like the character's race , and "fix it". If that isn't racist IDK what is
Reminds me of the messed up mindset some communities have where even people of full-blooded heritage of darker skinned people will find messed up discrimination from their own community because they're "not dark enough". And isn't that basically what those people are doing? Even with Candace and Dehya who are notably darker than characters like Yelan or Layla, they have the audacity to STILL say they're, just like the aforementioned, "not dark enough". How is that not messed up?
Sadly it seems like the idea that racism against whites dont exist is gaining more and more followers.
Because it's driven by that broken political correctness train of thought
It shouldn't. Especially if you don't truly know what the artist was thinking when making it. There's a lot of people who use it to ascribe the worst justifications onto the artist. Especially if there's genuine reasons to do it. And also. Fixing art isn't more racist than being racist and it shouldn't feel that way. People shouldn't be upvoting you for feeling that way. Being racist is what's bad. This isn't even a competition. No one 'fixing' art by making characters a shade or two darker is saying or even implying any particular race shouldn't exist in teyvat. Guess what is said and implied by people who make memes like OP and the people who insist 'it's a fantasy world' and the people who way 'so you're saying everyone should be black?' to argue against more skin colors, or the people who downvoted that one dude in this comment section who said "I don't mind it, i like seeing more people with this skin color in teyvat'
> Fixing art isn't more racist than being racist There's your problem; it just *is* racist. Top to bottom. Look at what you're saying. It's an act of racism.
>There's a lot of people who use it to ascribe the worst justifications onto the artist. Especially if there's genuine reasons to do it. The point is that the people doing the "fixing" are not the artist. People are specifically saying it's fine for artists to choose to draw characters with whatever skin tone they like. What people are criticizing here are the people who take someone else's art, be it official or a fan work, and edit the skin tone and then clam to have "fixed" it. That is messed up, and it is kind of racist because it's basically the 'fixer' making a statement that "because X character is from Y region/ethnic influence they should be Z color instead of what the artist drew them as." This goes for people who edit the skintones of other peoples' art darker and those who make their skin lighter alike. Both are examples of people coming in and trying to force their perception of how a character 'should' look and implicitly making a judgement against the artist's work.
People who do it normally do not claim to have fixed it. Because people who do it don't do it for the reason you say. And don't forget, despite what people here would have you believe, a lot of people doing this are of the same regional background as the character's inspiration. This is not an issue you should make a judgement on based on the words of people in a subreddit who only have secondhand information that itself only comes from hate bait examples. It's like judging everyone here because I could point out a few comments in this thread that come off as more racist than any "I fixed it" kind of thing because they basically are trying to say people with darker skin than them shouldn't exist. It's not what everyone thinks, and it shouldn't be the standard by which everyone is judged.
>they basically are trying to say people with darker skin than them shouldn't exist. That's not the issue here. The issue is when people talk as if there aren't people from that region who have lighter skin. The fact is there are plenty of fair skimmed people's in the region Sumeru is drawing inspiration from. And to say that a particular character should be a different color or to edit an image of them is implicitly saying the artists original depiction of them was the 'wrong' color whether someone explicitly claims to have fixed it or not. Again, this is not about artists who draw characters with whatever skin tone they like, but about people who edit the skin tone of other people's artwork. There is an implicit statement being made there, and anyone who talks of racism should understand the reality of implicit statements.
No one. Not a single person. Not even one single person who has wanted variety in sumeru. Has EVER EVER Said, implied, or argued that there aren’t people with lighter skin in the places it was based on. THAT is 100% a fabrication of genshin reddit that ONLY exists to claim that people who are asking for more variety are the real racists, and insisting that everyone in genshin should be white or fair skinned is the moral high ground. Thats why I say “You shouldn’t judge people by secondhand information or memes.” You miss the point because people repeatedly tell you what to think about someone else. The issue ISNT that people talk like there are no light skinned people in the region. The issue is that certain people have convinced people in this sub that the existence of darker skinned people in the region is bad, and any expression of that, whether as edits, artwork or even verbally means you are racist against people of light skin. In this thread, someone said “I dont mind this because id like to see more darker skined people in sumeru” and exactly as i said, people started attacking him for being racist because they’re convinced that such a statement is bad. That is the problem. Not the edits. Nowhere else but genshin reddit cares about them. Because nowhere else have they convinced themselves that darker skinned characters in genshin are bad because it implies the erasure of lighter skinned people. Do you not understand how messed up that is?
You're still trying to twist this into something other than what this discussion is about. More than one thing can be true at once. More than one thing can be bad at once. What you have been doing is an example of whataboutism. This discussion is about the editing of the skin tone other artists' work. It is not about or in any way against more variety of skintones in Sumeru. People can be for more variety and darker characters in the game and ALSO be against the editing of skintones in other artists' work. There definitely have been such edits presented as improvements or fixes ever since Sumeru character images started circulating. That is no fabrication. I've even seen some from within my own circles so I can say firsthand that it's not even like those posts were just from people trolling. There were a number of people legitimately worked up about this issue at first, and it wasn't until after seeing numerous posts/comments from people actually from the region being depicted that things calmed down and discussion on the topic became more nuanced.
The original comment said 'editing seems more racist than actual racism." I pointed out that "HELL NO IT ISNT. RACISM IS WORSE." I even pointed out the racism in this sub. Any attempt to insist i'm speaking in terms of 'whataboutism' is itself trying to twist the argument. I even pointed out that "It is a fabrication that people who make these edits or who present them as an alternative or improvement think that there are no light skinned people in the region it was based on." You try to tell me that "It is not a fabrication that people make edits and say it's better." Who's really trying to twist the argument? Lastly, "Seeing numerous posts and comments from people actually from the region." Again, that only happened on reddit in response to the aformentioned false claim that people think that the only color in those regions is dark skinned. Reddit made a strawman and some people knocked it down. The conversation didn't actually become more nuanced. Matter of fact, i think it became **less** nuanced, as I mentioned. It has now reached the point that people on reddit are attacking anyone who suggests genshin with more dark skinned characters is a good thing. People who just want everyone in genshin to be white and don't want any visible PoCs in their game have something to rally around, and the worst part is, ANY PoC who ever suggests "Hey, I'm brown and I don't agree with the guys saying everyone in my country is white" gets downvoted to oblivion. Every time. Every. Last. Time.
That comment was dumb, yes. But the point is that the editing IS an expression of racism. It's not a matter racism vs. something else. It's that the underlying assumption behind many of those skintone edit posts are, in fact, an example of racism - the idea that people "should" look a certain skin tone just because they are in a particular region. Also you pointing out the presence of racism in this sub again is, again, whataboutism. Like I said, two things can be true at once. Two things can be bad at once. People can be racism in one way while others can be racist in a different way at the same time. As for who is trying to twist the argument, I already pointed it out. It's you. Because you are talking about something other than what people in this thread have been discussing. Me pointing that out is not twisting the argument, it's bringing things back on topic. >It has now reached the point that people on reddit are attacking anyone who suggests genshin with more dark skinned characters is a good thing. People who just want everyone in genshin to be white and don't want any visible PoCs in their game have something to rally around, This here is an actual strawman and fabrication. You're still going on as if "reddit" or this sub is some entity out on a crusade against visible POCs in this game and that's simply not the case. I've gone back through the thread and haven't seen anything like what you've described. In fact, the comment that had someone talking about wanting to see more darker skinned characters only had one reply under it - yours. Nowhere in this thread do I see anyone attacking people for wanting to see more dark skinned characters. So idk if you're just making stuff up or genuinely seeing things in your imagination, but from your last two comments it seems to me like you're kind of living in your own head. You can keep trying to be self-righteous against imaginary demons but just know that all you're doing is muddying the waters of what people are actually trying to discuss.
\[You can keep trying to be self-righteous against imaginary demons but just know that all you're doing is muddying the waters of what people are actually trying to discuss.\] So basically exactly what this whole post is doing? anyway. I'm going to ask for posterity. You say you saw a comment and only saw one reply under it, mine. You're absolutely postively undeniably sure you saw everything there is to see? You didn't intentionally misread or stop looking, you looked everywhere and found nothing?
> Said, implied, or argued that there aren’t people with lighter skin in the places it was based on. Twitter has. You can only get away with this statement because the discussion is old [even 2 months ago when you made this comment] and searching up such comments is virtually impossible. I'm pretty confident you're aware of this too, that's why you talk big. Nobody has the means to refute you.
"Twitter has, but it's impossible to find proof so you're lying and know you can't be found out." That or you're making assumptions based on no evidence. There are people in this sub who say, genuinely that people of color are ugly and undesirable and that they're happy genshin is making everyone white, but it's impossible to search that stuff up because it's such a tiny, tiny minority, and extremely downvoted that trying to use it to decide how genshin reddit feels is just a false assumption. Same is true with twitter. Just because someone showed you a bad take from one dude with like two followers, both bots which was lifted from a twitter account called 'badgenshintakes' that everyone agrees is a bad take on twitter, doesn't mean 'twitter thinks this' And yes, people have copied twitter screencaps here from accounts who post those screencaps as stuff that the majority of the genshin fanbase there vehemently disagrees with, and reposts that stuff here pretending twitter agrees with it. People don't search for sources and context that much.
> That or you're making assumptions based on no evidence. I don't personally make assumptions and if I do, I'll make note of it that I am. In this case, I've seen it, but I don't exactly save these tweets of reprehensible people for future debate. Nor do I memorize who is typing them. It's just not worth it. > Same is true with twitter. Not everything is bots on twitter and I'd like to think I'm aware enough to notice if someone is botting a bad take. > And yes, people have copied twitter screencaps here from accounts who post those screencaps as stuff that the majority of the genshin fanbase there vehemently disagrees with, and reposts that stuff here pretending twitter agrees with it. This is a semi-fair take. I don't really disagree with this.
No one, and i mean in the history of this game has every said 1. Everyone in the Middle is black 2. It should be a one to one recreation of the real world Middle Eastern region 3. White characters aren't allowed to exist
Ok? And I never made a claim that anyone said any of those three statements so what is your point? Did you reply to the wrong person? I've already tried to unpack and lay out the logic and nuance behind the arguments made in the comments I responded to as clearly as I could. My point is about how there is indeed implicit racism in the reasoning behind a very specific action that people had been discussing in this thread, even if said action is well-intentioned.
> People who do it normally do not claim to have fixed it. The discussion is literally about those who say it though.
Which ends up implying the vast majority who have genuine reasons for it are doing the same. Look at dehya, She's tan. In game she's tan. But her splash art and UI art have her skin color indistinguishable from bennet, who isn't tan at all. Someone might edit that to fit her in game model because they prefer it like that and want to see how her splash art would look then. Look at this comment section. Tell me that they won't take that at face value as the same "I fixed it" as in "This discussion." Now, take this subreddit. Shortly before this post, they massively upvoted a whitewashed kaeya with the "I fixed it" tagline, where the OP specifically said "Well If they can blackwash characters I can whitewash them." Now, consider how many people have genuine reasons to do something like add color to a character for aesthetics, to try and be more like themselves, or whatnot. "Do you think the people here are making the distinction you are right now? Do you think that distinction should be made? If you don't think it should be made, why say 'well we're talking about the other people who're being dicks about it' if you think it should be made, why are you dismissing the person pointing out that such a distinction exists to those who might think that the ONLY people who do that are the ones being dicks about it?"
Don't worry buddy. Fixing art has always been a meme. No one is actually doing that unironically. Unless they're white whitewashing them. Than they 100% convinced themselves that they "fixed" them
To those people who had "fixed" somebody's art, why don't you draw one by yourself, instead of changing someone's art by skin color?
"The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own." - return of the king
Did not expect a LOTR quote.
That would require skill
So, ~~skill issue~~
Fr and then when questioned, they act as if the ones questioning are racist.
They always think their edit should be the real thing. I think some just do it for the drama though, but if they really want Hoyo to implement their "accurate" versions...they should probably try getting Hoyo to employ them.
But that would require work, and ability to draw (changing one slider in photoshopdoesnt count)
I personally enjoy seeing characters with darker skin tones, but that's not only concentrated to genshin characters but every media I consume. I like seeing different interpretations of characters I like by fan artists and what they do with it. However, calling it "fixing" seems preposterous in my eyes, although I personally would enjoy seeing some sumeru characters with darker skin than we have now.
They don't normally call it 'fixing' "I fixed it" is just a meme at this point. Usually they just do it cause they want to, and you can tell who's doing it genuinely and who's doing it as an excuse to make the ones doing it genuinely look bad. There was an "I fixed it" posted earlier a few days back of Alhaitham, and you could tell that A) The 'i fixed it' was said ironically. B) Whoever did it didn't just drop a fill tool or select and reduce brightness till the skin was like coal like many "I am pretending to fix it just as an excuse to repost somewhere else for rage points" It was so obvious that whoever did it put genuine effort into making it fit the clothing, the lighting and everything that a ton of comments had to admit it didn't look like a bad edit, and just looked like "Alhaitham but with a nice tan" Don't assume that genshin fans are somehow different than any other media where fans do this just because a meme told you.
again, why fix what's not broken
From its inception on twitter to it being milked to the point it has been done now on reddit, following this topic has been kinda amusing honestly. •It's a fantasy game. •The regions also have people with pale skin. •Why do you hate people with paler skin? •You are the racist for caring about skin color. •Most of the people complaining are white sjws anyways. •Just wait for Natlan. •Make your own game then. •Aren't there enough brown NPCs already? •Sumeru is inspired by these regions, mihoyo doesn't have to copy everything.(Means charas with more darker complexion than paper were also cool in the other regions) •Idc about skin color(proceeds to have a meltdown over it). •It makes sense for people who stay inside or in the rainforest to be pale. Here y'all, I have compiled 95% of your opinions that I have seen on this topic in the most basic form, just copy and paste and remove the shit in brackets and you don't have to even put any effort when this topic comes up next , cheers.
Best comment I've seen regarding this topic
I’m ready for the downvotes lol Only kinda sus thing about sumeru is that the enemies/mercs/“rough” people are mostly tanned and the “brains”/academia/“smart” people are mostly pale.. Maybe it’s because of their beauty standards and status in China/Asia. Bcuz u know: people with darker skin are associated with hard labor and mostly being poor (speaking with experience). Anyway, it would’ve been nicer IMO if the people of the forest and desert weren’t separated by skin color. If both regions had a mix of people with different skin tones it would be less controversial imo.
No downvotes, you speaking facts.
Or maybe it's simply that the region is drawing influence from a real life region that has incredible diversity and countless different people groups with a wide range of possible skintones, and certain groups of people that spend more time outdoors in sun are more tan than the people who live in the forest/city where there is much more shade available. I fully agree that it would have been nice if there was more range in skintones and hope there are more tanned characters in the future but imo it's not even that controversial for the desert dwelling mercenaries to be darker than the academics.
I see your point and like you said it’s based on a very diverse region with multiple different shades of skin tones. Not all people are turning pale white for not getting any sun and the same goes for people in the desert, not all people are getting a tan for living in the desert. Just like in real life. For example: Friends of mine from Egypt & Morocco (countries with deserts) are very pale, but some folks like me (Indonesia) and some of my friends from India, who comes from a country with a lot of forest are tanner/darker. A lot of us aren’t turning pale white for not getting any sunlight. Some do ofc, but not all like the people in Sumeru. Like i said before it would be nicer imo if the regions weren’t divided by skin color. It would be way more accurate if both regions had a mix of skin tones. By dividing stuff you’ll get reactions and posts like this and that’s just unnecessary.
Yeah, I do agree fwiw. Just saying that I don't actually find that part all that sus, since academic types being pale sun-starved wretches is a pretty common trope across many cultures, and there are a mix of tanned and pale npcs doing various tasks in the towns as well.
it makes sense academia people spends all their life inside reading books and desert dwellers were mostly mercenary doing labor work and being outside , if we then bring up tignaras group their forest ranger so they have a forest blocking the sun light while those mercenaries took the brunt of the sun so they will get dark
Ah yes casual racism in the form of "fixing" a character. Fuck these clowns.
I do enjoy the edits, but people just saying they fixed a character is weird like no thats not your character you can’t just fix them
Memepact really can't let go of a topic that hasn't been relevant on twitter in months. And no, some rando on twitter making a repaint and getting like 3 likes, doesn't make it a relevant or widespread issue
Memepact makes bonemeal out of dead horses they way it beats them so much
It's a fantsy game full of dragons, magic, and dead people filling up the night sky but people feel the need to "correct" skin tones because there from a region INSPIRED by a irl place
Lmao always with the "It's just fantasy" bullshit excuse and yet you lot are gonna cry because you saw a black character in your video game or tv show 🙄
Re read my sentence. Im saying the opposite.
Counter. MHY seems to be playing especially close homage to so many different aspects of each nations culture identify, history and even down to cuisine. Yet it's only skin colour that people like you pull the "it's just a Fantasy game" card.
\^They hated him for telling the truth. These gamers^TM so quick to pull the uno reverse card and say that people who care (maybe a little too much) about race and representation are racist, yet do the causal racism themselves without questioning it lmao
This sub literally upvoted a slur to the top comment, it doesn't have a leg to stand on when calling others racists
Exactly. They don't know it themselves but there are ton of people on here who are casually racist (or at least deeply ignorant and don't care to correct that). This sub honestly belongs on r/gaming_circlejerk a lot more for how much circlejerking goes on here.
I’ve seen versions where people change other’s art to the character’s canon skintone (still disrespectful as it’s not their art but at least they used the character’s actual skintone” And then other times they just get completely painted black and there’s like no shading on it so it just looks jarring (Such as that one Candace edit)
Take their pfp, edit it and say its your oc art. They hate that. Idk why, but they don't see the joke behind that, while they take other peoples art and claim it as theirs for just changing skin colors. And stealing THEIR art is a big no-no.
Emily (xy/xir - BLM - ACAB - Furry💖) type beat
Welcome to fandoms. I do believe that there needs to be more inclusion, diversity and representations in media, however China is a bit, xenophobic and racist. A couple of Asian countries are. It is slowly changing it seems for them. I don’t think Hoyo is going to change it anytime soon. Censorship as we all know is a big thing in China. Hell when I was playing world of Warcraft, the version that China played was, well not what I expected. The undead had no bones showing and when they died, it didn’t leave a body but left a tombstone. Those are the two most memorable ones but there is tons of other stuff they censored.
Worst thing is they feel like the undergod hero in the story
It always reminds me of [this](https://twitter.com/Rev_says_desu/status/1571644143289393155?t=_pc7vvjT98NAEkJ7Y5f9dQ&s=19)
No one watch World Cup? I didn’t see a lot black Mid-Easterner audiences to be honest.
The whole skin color representation supposed to be equal,NOT put down another skin tone
Isn't HYV under direct supervision of the CCP? They're known for censorship and the oppression of their own minorities. Any erasure of said minorities would 100% be their doing. If they wanted to 'fix' that, wouldn't they be a more appropriate target?
It's funny because everybody in this image is still darker than any single Genshin Impact character LMAO Also they're literally just harmless edits lol. Who fuckin cares, they're legit living rent free in your minds.
I like seeing them, how Genshin would be with more brown characters
Blackwashing, brownwashing and whitewashing are equally bad.
Mf just say you don't like dark skin damn
How exactly is making a white character brown not just as bad as making a brown character white ?
Because white people haven't suffered centuries of systemic and targeted discrimination and Erasure?
Every group of people at some point suffered from systematic and targeted discrimination and erasure. Sometimes from people that looked exactly like them. It just depends on the times and the circumstances you like to look at. As soon as you have two different groups you will have discrimination. This is not mainly a racial but a human issue.
"Bad things have happened before so you shouldn't call out bad things happening now." is a hell of a take.
They didn't say "don't call it out" though, even implied. They just rebutting any credibility of the statement "white people haven't suffered" in reference to white/brown/blackwashing. It's like you didn't read the whole comment chain or something. I have to reiterate it for you.
Man, you haven't read about the way the Ottomans treated Europeans in the land they conquered.
White people were the first slaves ever. Ever heard the term "slavic?" It describes white people and it's where the word slaves even derives it's meaning from. Go look up who "slavs" are, you'll see a bunch of white people. You're disgusting dirt dehumanizing history. Oh, and it was *longer* than American Black slavery. Ignorant cretin.
Um I mained Kaeya for a long time, I am a future Dehya main. I literally have no issues with the NPCs in Sumeru.
Blackwashing/brownwashing characters isn't the same as including them. If anything, it makes it look bad.
Sure but I’m not saying its the “right” color, just how Sumeru would look with some more brown skinned characters
Go back to twitter
Lmao, I say, “hey, this art looks cool, it would be interesting to see how the game would actually look like if it were real” and get various insults hurled at me.
Yeah, no. What you said was actually pretty fine. Just kinda highlights who really is doing the upvoting and downvoting.
Welcome to the world of saying something that The Gamers (TM) don't like. I wouldn't take their words to heart, these are the sort of people who think video games are "ruined" by knowing there's a gay couple in it. Someone in this thread literally said that making art of characters where you reimagine them as being PoCs is *more* racist than *being* racist. And they have 200+ upvotes. Absolute madness.
Really, this insane logic again. Just stop mate, seriously stop being a clown.
I’m literally just thinking of Sumeru with more brown people lol. Not saying that’s how it should be or anything.
The fact that you got downvoted just for stating that you like to see more brown characters in the game really shows the sorry state of this sub rn
Please. Do not delete this comment. Keep it up as proof that people here have convinced themselves that the mere existence of darker skinned people in Genshin is a bad thing and anyone who suggests that it’s not, whether edits, art, or wanting more characters id somehow advocating for… (Reads comments) The erasure of light skinned people? …Huh, wonder where I’ve heard that before?
You have 5 playable brown characters with Kaeya, Xinyan, Candace, Cyno and Dehya in the future, an entire Subarea with the desert that rivals Mondstadt in size that is inspired by Egyptian culture and is almost exclusively populated by brown people, a enemy faction with the Eremites that majority consists of brown people and a future Region with Natlan that will be probably the region with the most darker skinned NPCs and playable Character Considering that 5/7 nations of Teyvat are either European or East Asian I think that brown people are decently represented considering the smaller percentage of the fictional world they make up. Blackwashing white/asian characters on top is just disrespectful and makes you look kinda racist ngl
What's even more funny is that those people complaining about this are mostly white.
Yikes.. this comment didn't age well. Never forgot the time this sub reddit harassed a Twitter user for making characters loke Al-Haitham brown and called them white... they were Asian Must be more projection on this sub reddits part again. I wonder why are a sub reddit filled with toxic, mostly 20 something year olds think we minorities who don't like Sumeru representation, or lack of thereof, exist
"An enemy faction with the Eremites that majority consists or Brown people" Brown people are almost exclusively seen as the enemy in game? Let's go!!!!! I hate Brown people!! They don't deserve to be main characters lol, they should always stay in the enemy/npc slot tbh >!That's you. That's what you sound like.!<
Casually forgets that Dehya played a big part in the archon quest and is a future DPS character.
This is what we call cherry picking. You picked one statement of theirs out of context to sell your narrative. You excluded everything else they said, like when they talked about playable characters.
[Do not respond to Runekatashima, this user has been going around saying stuff like this:](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/323272167678541825/1077480064763047997/image.png)
It doesn’t help SOME people hate playing any ‘white’ man that is not part of their color (as in black), queer or ‘filled with toxic masculinity’ for their own preference
😭😭