Why you can't expect people to be nice to you when you whitewash: a breakdown for beginners
A reply to @ariarirangrang recent comic. I pray that this will be enough to perhaps make you understand and change as a person for the better.
Hi Aria. My name is Lis. Nice to meet you.
I have been part of the Look Outside fandom since the very beginning—around a year and a half now. This game means a great deal to me.
Beyond its incredible story, visuals, and gameplay, the thing that truly drew me in was its diversity.
For a long time—and even today, unfortunately—POC (People of Color, including Black, Brown, Asian, and many other non-white communities) have faced severe discrimination. Beyond the real world, where racism, violence, and prejudice continue to affect countless people every day, fiction and media—spaces that should offer comfort and escapism—have often reflected those same biases. Many stories are built around assumptions that center white characters while sidelining everyone else.
There has long been a horrible, horrible lack of meaningful representation for people of color in media. While the situation has improved in recent years, and we are seeing more Black, Brown, Asian, and other non-white characters included in mainstream works, genuine representation is still uncommon. Even in more progressive media, the overwhelming majority of the cast is often white, while POC characters are limited to one or two supporting roles. They frequently receive less screen time than their white counterparts, have less narrative importance and depth, or are killed off entirely so that the authors won't have to deal with including non-white characters, reinforcing the idea that they are secondary rather than integral to the world being portrayed.
Racism is rampant in fandom spaces as well. Fandoms are supposed to be places where people can come together and celebrate something they love regardless of their race, nationality, gender, or background. Yet Black and Brown fans often encounter racism, colorism, and other forms of prejudice even within these communities.
I belong to a minority whose identity is frequently erased or overlooked in popular media. My culture and religion are often referenced, borrowed from, or misrepresented, yet rarely acknowledged or authentically represented by popular media.
Many of my friends in this fandom are Black and Brown. Alongside the discrimination they may face in their daily lives, they also have to navigate media and fandom spaces that are still overwhelmingly centered around white characters and audiences.
This shit fucking hurts. There is no break from it. Every day we are reminded that we are considered "less important" by the white-european-centric world. We can not escape it in real life, and it's hard to escape it even in fandom.
That is what made Look Outside feel so special to so many of us.
Look Outside broke away from that pattern. Its cast is made up predominantly of people of color and other underrepresented groups, including explicitly LGBTQ+ characters. Instead of having only one or two non-white characters included for "diversity points", the game presented a big cast of fully realized protagonists and supporting characters with distinct personalities, motivations, and meaningful roles in the story while having dark colored skin.
For once, my friends and I didn't have to watch the fandom gravitate almost exclusively toward white characters while overlooking everyone else. The characters people analyzed, created fan art of, wrote stories about, and celebrated were overwhelmingly Black and Brown because they were the heart of the game itself.
That mattered. For many Black and Brown fans, it was genuinely comforting to see characters who looked like them treated as complex, well-written, and beloved protagonists rather than token additions or background figures. Representation alone isn't enough, but when that representation is thoughtful, central to the story, and embraced by the community, it can make people feel seen in a way that is still far too uncommon.
And then people like you come along and take that away by choosing to redraw a Black or Brown character as white.
In your comic, you asked why it's considered acceptable to make a white character darker, but not acceptable to make a dark-skinned character white.
This is a topic that has been discussed extensively for years, and there are many essays and videos that explain it in far greater depth than I can here. I'll do my best to summarize it though:
As I mentioned earlier, even today, dark-skinned characters are still vastly underrepresented compared to white characters. When someone reimagines a white character as Black or Brown, it is usually done because they genuinely love that character and want to imagine someone who looks more like themselves, their family, or their friends. It is a response to the longstanding lack of canon characters from their own communities.
Changing a dark-skinned character into a white one has a very different cultural impact. White characters are already abundant across virtually every form of media. hell, even Look Outside has a handful of them. So when someone chooses to whiten one of the relatively few prominent Black or Brown characters, it can feel like taking away one of the few examples of meaningful representation that people have.
Even if your intention is simply that you find white skin easier or more enjoyable to draw, the result can still carry uncomfortable implications. It suggests that dark skin is something to be erased or replaced to make a character more appealing. Whether or not that was your intention, that is why many fans perceive it as having racist undertones.
Think of it as a food bank. A food bank exists to support people who have less. Someone who struggles to afford groceries using a food bank is exactly what it is there for. But if someone who is already financially comfortable takes food from that same limited supply, people are likely to question this person's morality.
Whitewashing works in a similar way. White characters are not a scarce resource, they make up the overwhelming majority of characters across film, television, books, and games. Black and Brown characters, especially ones who are central, well-written, and beloved, are still comparatively rare. Because of that imbalance, adding more representation where there is little is fundamentally different from removing or altering representation where there is already so little.
Hell, even in your own "vent" comic, you said that you were "used to drawing anime characters who are all fair-skinned." I think that's worth reflecting on for a moment. Why are white, thin characters so consistently presented by mainstream media as the standard in anime, while dark-skinned people are so often overlooked or excluded from those same media?
I'm not saying you consciously believe dark skin is less. But when someone consistently changes canonically dark-skinned characters into white ones because white skin feels more comfortable or familiar to draw, that choice doesn't exist in a vacuum. It reflects, and unintentionally reinforces, the racist standards that have historically centered whiteness while marginalizing everyone else.
Imagine if there was a Korean character in mainstream Western media (which is already not that much), and someone said, "I'm just used to drawing blond, blue-eyed Europeans," before redrawing a canonically Korean character as white. Most people would immediately recognize why that feels wrong. Even if there were no malicious intent, the implication would still be that the character's ethnic identity is something to be erased in favor of something more familiar or aesthetically preferable.
Beyond the racial implications, the characters simply stop looking like themselves. Sam and the other Look Outside characters were deliberately designed the way they are. Their appearances are part of their identities and contribute to what makes them recognizable and memorable. When those defining features are removed, they lose an important part of what makes them so cool.
If you wish for a world in which you can lighten a character's skin color the same way someone can darken a skin color, start working towards creating a world in which dark-skinned people are just as safe, just as loved, just as respected, and just as represented in media as light-skinned people are. Maybe then, in this perfect future, we won't have to change anyone's skin color because everyone will have characters that look like them.
Whether or not that was your intention, repeatedly whitening canonically dark-skinned characters sends a message that many Black and Brown fans have heard throughout their lives: that their features are less appealing, less recognizable, or less worth preserving than white ones. That is why people react so strongly.
Which brings me to the rest of your comic, in which you not only horribly misrepresented what happened and the criticism you received, but also framed the situation to make yourself the victim.
Because Look Outside has such a diverse cast of characters, its fandom is also home to many people of color and people who care deeply about representation. As a result, when someone does something that is perceived as racist, (even if it wasn't intentional) people are likely to speak up and explain why it is harmful.
You are not the first person to receive this criticism, nor are you being singled out. We aren't doing this because we "enjoy" bullying someone. There were already some artists who have been called out for whitening Look Outside characters, both here on Tumblr and in Frankie's official Discord server. This is not a coordinated harassment campaign or a personal vendetta against you. It is a conversation that has existed in this fandom for a long time.
If this were simply about drawing characters in different art styles, color palettes, or interpretations, there would be no controversy. People experiment with Look Outside's characters all the time, and the community embraces that creativity. The criticism arises specifically when a character's race is changed by making a canonically dark-skinned character white, because that touches on a much larger issue of racial bias and racism.
You were criticized because of that specific choice, not because the fandom is looking for someone to attack. Presenting the response as though you were unfairly targeted ignores the actual concerns people raised and shifts attention away from the discussion they were trying to have.
When I first came across your art in the tag, I immediately noticed the pale, almost washed-out skin tones you used for characters who are canonically dark-skinned. I noticed it not because it was you specifically.
But do you know what my first thought was?
It wasn't, "Let's attack this artist for drawing the characters differently."
My first thought was, "This person is Korean, so there is a possibility that they grew up in a different cultural environment and may not have been exposed to the same conversations around racial representation, colorism, and the experiences of darker-skinned people."
I understood that you came from a different country and cultural background, and that there may also have been a language barrier involved. Because of that, many people, including myself, were willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. We assumed this could simply be a misunderstanding or a lack of awareness, and that, as an artist, you would be open to learning and growing as an artist should.
Your artwork is clearly skilled, and many of us hoped that, with time, you would become more comfortable and thoughtful when depicting darker-skinned characters.
The moment that changed the way many people viewed the situation was your response afterward.
When people began rightfully questioning your choice, you started deleting comments and blocking people who brought up those criticisms. To many of us, that sent the message that you were unwilling to listen or engage with the conversation.
No one expects every artist to understand every issue immediately. People make mistakes, especially when working across different cultures. What matters is how someone responds when those concerns are brought to their attention.
By refusing to engage with the criticism, it became difficult for people to see the situation as a simple misunderstanding. Instead, it appeared as though you were rejecting an opportunity to learn and reflect. How else were people supposed to understand this reaction other than you having racial bias and racist values?
And please don't try to claim the people were "rude" or "harassing you," like you did in your "vent" comic.
Because even in your own comic, you showed that there were nice omments, telling you that your art was beautiful and cool, but they were simply concerned about your lightening of skin color.
Were some comments snarky? Maybe. But you also need to understand where that frustration came from. When someone's actions contribute to a pattern that has hurt people for generations, you can't expect people to act "polite" (and even then, the harsher comments were never really rude, just sarcastic at best)
Imagine if a person decided to punch another person in the face, but when people around them criticize what happened, the person focuses only on how "mean" the people are instead of acknowledging the reason they were being criticized in the first place. Your actions exist in a wider world, and they have consequences.
You say that the people criticizing you were hiding behind anoynimity, but even that isn't true! People didn't send you hate anon comments or from fake accounts, people were talking to you from their main accounts without hiding who they are because only bad reasons cause people to hide themsleves. The issue of racism however isn't, and so literally all of us discussed it openly.
No one threatened you. No one doxxed you. No one called you horrible names. People criticized your actions, which isn't rude; it's called being in a civilized society, and if anyone, it's you who hides behind your "poor bullied artist" persona to escape consequences.
I understand that criticism is difficult to hear. Nobody likes being told they made a mistake. But refusing to listen, deleting comments, and blocking people does not help you grow, not as an artist and not as a person.
And honestly, if you had simply said, "I understand. Thank you for explaining this to me. I'm sorry and I will try to improve," no one would have an issue with you, and we would accept you with open arms. People were willing to give you grace.
By deleting comments and blocking people instead of engaging with the criticism, it gave many people the impression that you were not interested in learning or changing. It made it seem like preserving your own comfort was more important.
And that is why people started becoming more "aggressive" (cause even then, again, no one harassed you. People just started talking about the issue more since it was you who were trying to bury it).
Many of my acquaintances have talked about how hurtful your depictions of the characters they love are. Your actions directly impacted other humans that are already facing dicrimination every day. You claim it's "scary" being a fan nowdays, when all you had to deal with were a few crtical comments, meanwhile Black and Brown people have to deal with real life danger, and to top it all off, constant danger of having their voices taken away in fandoms by people like you. How SCARED do you think THEY feel? You are not the victim here.
Finally, the last thing I want to talk about is that you have clearly shown that you are capable of drawing dark-skinned characters. You know how to do it. You understand how to do it. And yet, the fact that you still choose to depict them white shows that you have racist ideals even if you don't consider yourself as such.
Please, genuinely, take a moment to look inward and ask yourself: why does depicting white characters feel more natural, more comfortable, or more appealing to you than depicting dark-skinned characters? Could it be because you were raised to believe that whiteness is the base and the most desirable state, while anything else is below that and is considered bothersome or unpleasant? Because unfortunately, these ideas are so ingraned into our society even today that people end up growing up with racist ideals and not even knowing it, which is what I feel is your situation.
And NO! Sam being dark-skinned and Sam being light-skinned are not the same thing. One is a faithful representation of the character as he exists in the game: a character whose appearance is an important part of why so fans connected with him, while the other is a racist, whitewashing depiction that doesn't even look like him. Same goes for other characters and how you drew them. A lot of people joked about how the Sam you drew isn't actually Sam, but some random original character that only vaguely looks like him. So even if we ignore for a moment the issue of racism that making him white is, you are simply not making Look Outside fan art! That's just some random unrelated characters! It's like if I drew fan art of a character from Genshin Impact and then claimed it was Look Outside fan art.
A huge part of why Look Outside's message is so powerful comes from its identity as a game led by dark-skinned characters.
The core message of this game is about loving and accepting people regardless of how they look. That message is reflected directly in the way the characters are designed. Their appearances are unique, expressive, and diverse because the game refuses to treat one specific appearance (aka, white) as the "default" for humanity.
Even the human characters are allowed to look completely different from one another. They come in many different colors—white, black, brown, blue, purple—and they have different body types, heights, and builds. They can be skinny, muscular, fat, short, or tall. The women in this game are given the same diversity as the men; they are not all designed around the same narrow standard of tall, fair skinned and skinny with giant boobs. They are allowed to have different bodies, different features, and different ways of presenting themselves, be it fat, muscle or facial features.
That is what makes Look Outside so beautiful, especially visually. If every character in this game had been designed to fit the same narrow image of light skin, thin bodies, and conventional beauty standards, it would have become just another game among hundreds that center the same kinds of characters. WHy would you throw out the beauty of the game like that? As an artist, it should be your prority to find the beauty in the unusual, instead of deafulting to the same safe "standards". The devs of the game didn't work their asses off making sure the dark skinned characters have such beautiful colors and shading for you to to turn them white.
Look Outside shows a world where people who are often overlooked are actually central for once. The fact that so many dark-skinned characters are at the heart of the story, and that in certain endings, it is specifically those characters who help save the world, is incredibly meaningful to many fans.
It sends the message that marginalized people are not just side characters, background figures, or people waiting to be saved by the white saviors. They can be the heroes. They can build communities, support each other, and overcome impossible situations together. That they are important too.
That is why so many people find comfort and safety in this game. Not just because the characters look different, but because the game treats those differences as something valuable and worth showing, worth making the center.
By refusing to draw these characters dark skinned, you refuse to engage with the core idea and message of the game. And, other than making you racist, it simply makes you a bad fan.
Thank you for your time, and I hope that this post will be able to change your heart for the better. Me and I'm sure many other folks will be more than ready to answer any further questions and clarify it further if you want. You just need to open your mind and reach out. We are an accepting community, but we will never accept racism, misogyny, homophobia, or other cases of exclusion and aggression. And that is what makes this community so great.
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