For the record, when the person in your notes going “PREACH” is the same stupid cunt who got mad at someone making edits of Savanaclaw, and other reblogs feature people I have seen REPEATEDLY dismissing any sort of racial discussion ranging from the ‘exotic’ fiasco from Fairy Gala to the shallow usage of culture in Scarabia, to someone who OPENLY ridiculed ppl making dark-skinned edits of Neige - it’s not a good thing.
“With such an arsenal of diversity, less significant physical discrepancies may, at the creator’s will, lose any meaning” – that is not a good thing. It being a fantasy setting should not magically make it so that different phenotypes suddenly become a non-option. If your fantasy series shows an extremely limited, half-assed attempt with just one (1) character (Sam) with any physically unique features (his locs, his darker skin), then you are reflecting a bias, intentionally or not, in how you design characters and think of ethnic phenotypes outside flat straight hair and thin negligible lips. Are there black people with Ethnocentric traits? Yes. That’s an obvious fact of life. But are phenotypes like full lips and textured hair widely ignored? Also yes. And guess what? That’s not a fucking good thing. You want to say it can be a deliberate or unconscious decision of how Toboso creates characters? Well, there you have it. Since she’s designed Sam the way she has, she’s made it very clear it is a deliberate choice to make Jack, Leona, Jamil, and Kalim look like this.
Yeah, real fucking great diversity, mate. If she can have such a ~diverse~ set of humans, beastfolk, and fae, then it should be no problem for her to branch ou t when it comes to the rest of their designs. But she chose not to. I wonder why? Because they lost meaning? Is that supposed to be a good thing? Is it a good thing they’re all the same light, greyish brown?
The world of Twisted Wonderland from what we have seen pays attention to diversity mainly species and culture than the skin color of the characters (Well, yes, I remember the fairies gala during which Leona, Kalim and Jamil were called „exotic” but as far as we saw no one did comment on them in a negative way because of the color of their skin. Not every comment on this topic is fully linguistically negative).
So you’re saying, that Kalim, Leona, and Jamil being singled out as ‘exotic’ wasn’t a racial thing? Because the flimsy explanation in-game was “oh they’re from rich backgrounds in hot climates uwu”? When “exotic”, HISTORICALLY, get used as a way to fetishise skin colour and make it another case of “othering” dark skin from light skin? The way it’s disguised as a compliment when it all comes down to othering someone’s dark skin or otherwise ethnic traits compared to white people? Kind of like how only the dark-skinned characters are considered ‘exotic’? A term used for animals and objects is meant to compliment people?
From what we can see, race (I mean mermaids, fairies, beastmen) in this context is, as already, the subject of comment. At this point I would like to mention Sebek, who so far is probably the only character discriminating against someone on the basis of race, interestingly- only people. While being half fae. Sebek, I know you can do better; -;
Are you fucking illiterate? Rook Hunt spends 90% of his lifetime obsessing, OBSESSING, over Beastfolk like Leona, stalking him, asking him (and Fae, for that matter), questions he has no business asking or are they obligated to answer. He actively waters Leona down to only his animalistic traits, which he himself exasperates because he’s HARASSING Leona whenever the opportunity comes up. He touches Ruggie’s tail without consent and makes unwarranted comments on his fur when forcing him to tell him about Leona when he doesn’t want to. Just because his comments are camoflauged under his obsession towards beauty doesn’t mean he isn’t discriminatory against them.
However … what does all of this have to do with anything? That the world is rich in diversity, blends, and non-obviousness. Reality is intertwined with imagination and magic. What does all this have to do with whitewashing? The fact is that there are not only two races! Even with us. There are many ethnic groups, mixed relationships, emigration. Closing into “black” and “white” (I know that whitewashing affects not only blacks, but this post would still be longer) closes us to other people, to other possibilities like you know, Mulattoes, Latinos, Gypsies e.t.c-they all seem to be in some untouched gray area in discussion of whitewashing and somewhere beyond the topic itself.
You want to argue about whitewashing, when you’re too fucking stupid to recognise that G*psy is a slur against Romani? That “m*latto* is outdated and has history of being controversial as well? And none of these groups are ‘untouched grey areas’. You just don’t pay attention to discussions focused on them. Just because you do not see it, does not mean it isn’t happening (and it very much is, unless you’ve been living under a goddamn rock during the, for example, ENTIRE issue of whitewashing in the Netflix Winx Club).
A character in fantasy world can have all sorts of features. They may have white hair and black skin with sharp eyes. They may have the most fanciful heterochromia, birthmarks, and yes, the fantasy world is based on the real world, but doesn’t have to obey its laws.
And yet, again, here’s Toboso’s vast and creative design choices for her dark-skinned major characters.
She couldn’t even be bothered to make more than one (1) character with ANY SIGNIFICANT variation in skin tone. All four of them are just this ‘consumable’, light brown that I could find on an apartment’s carpet. And that’s JUST me bringing up skin colour because, again, in a fantasy setting, why couldn’t she be bothered to think about unique phenotypes? Why is it okay for her to reflect her own biases again and again and again like the rest of mainstream media thoughout centuries, but it’s suddenly problematic for fans of colour to want more than just the same recycled designs? When shows MUCH older than TWST, like JJBA and HxH, can have designs like Avdol, Annie, Smokey Brown (awful fucking name tho) and Canary, why can’t Toboso be bothered to more than just Sam? Is there a good reason? Or did Soma and Agni use up all her ink?
The whitewashing allegations seem to hover around Leona. What do we know about him? He is a beastman based on Scar, a cult figure, the antagonist of The Lion King. He is the prince of a kingdom called Afterglow Savannah (depends on the translation). This country is inhabited by both beastmen (Ruggie) and people (Rook-emigration? Who knows?) The main argument „Leona must be black” theory, is that the action of the “Lion King” takes place in Africa, and more specifically in Kenya. And since the country of Leona itself, suggests a similar location in terms of the Savannah, as well as the original location that Disney studio modeled when creating the animation, the conclusion is that Leona and all residents of Afterglow Savannah should be black to resemble the people of Kenya.
First off, no one’s fucking said that EVERY character from Afterglow Savannah has to be black. Not a single fucking person. That’s why it’s FINE that characters like Ruggie and Rook aren’t dark-skinned (you could easily just say Ruggie is mixed).
The problem is … it doesn’t have to be that way. Because Pride Land wasn’t Kenya or Afterglow Savannah after all. The inspired site does not have to be the target site.
And YET. The Lion King uses SWAHILI NAMES for its animal characters. It has songs USING THE SWAHILI LANGUAGE. KILAMANJARO IS IN THE ICONIC OPENING SCENE. IT IS INDISPUTABLY SET IN AFRICA. Just because it is not set in an explicitly stated African country, it USES THE LANGUAGE AND SCENERY ITSELF. It’s in AFRICA.
And from what we know, the country mentioned in the game may be a place containing many, smaller cultures, minorities, and the color of the skin seems to have absolutely no meaning. How important is an animal which characteristics you have and social status (Ruggie in Afterglow Savannah was discriminated because he was a hyena and lived in a slum ). And important thing- we don’t know much about Afterglow Savannah. Nobody from Aniplex or Yana Toboso said that Afterglow Savannach is 100% Africa. Because inspiration is not the same as a literal transfer of reality.
You suffer from “colourblindness”, and there’s a plethora of fucking issues with that. Since Afterglow Savannah has several cultures within it, it should reflect that in having several skin colours and phenotypes. Not just cookie-cutter design bullshit Toboso may pull. The clothing Cheka wears are based off African prints, his name, usually spelt T’cheka, is African in origin. The moment you want to start using the language and clothing of the culture you’re ‘inspired’ by, you better fucking deliver and ACKNOWLEDGE that beyond just the pretty aesthetics to make things seem more ‘exotic’, as the game wants to put it. It is a location based off the Lion King’s setting, which gets its inspiration from Kenya and Tanzania, using a language and scenery from Africa. So the Afterglow Savannah better fucking reflect that in its culture and people. The charcters themselves are BEASTFOLK, not ANIMALS, and using AFRICA, which has AFRICAN PEOPLE IN IT, it’s a bad look to JUST look at these characters as animals.
BUT going to the point. Is Leona black? He doesn’t have to. But do you know who is? Sam. Really, why isn’t anyone talking about him? And why is that so? Why isn’t Leona black, but Sam is?
You REALLY don’t want Leona to be black, huh. Anyway Sam HAS come up in discussions in that he’s the one (1) character with darker skin and anything unique about his design (the locs).
Being inspired by a given character means transferring the most characteristic features and transforming them into a new, but similar form. Sam is a character modeled on the evil voodoo magician Dr. Facilier. A black character in the fairy tale “The Princess and the Frog” (one of my favorite Disney animations btw) which is the first Disney animation full of black heroes. If Sam were white - yes it would be definitive problem. The color of his skin, despite the fact that it does not define the character (no skin color defines a human), is a key element due to the original.
Convenient avoidance of the racist and inaccurate portrayal of voodou in the Princess in the Frog to begin with, not to mention Sam’s edgy, nonsensical bone makeup that FURTHER reflects Toboso’s own biases and interpretations of something part of Haitian culture.
Are you really doing this? “Leona doesn’t have to be black, you have Sam, be happy you have one (1) black character uwu”. Since Sam can have some pigment, WHY CAN’T THE OTHERS? Since Sam has unique phenotypes, WHY CAN’T THE OTHERS. And why is, even then, do people STILL manage to give Sam a lighter complexion in their fanart of him, let alone of the lighter skinned characters of colour?
Like our two students from Scarabia, they are presented as coming from a place culturally similar to Agrabah (a fictional place) because it was a special place for the action.
For the record, the only reason Aladdin takes place in Agrabah is that, because, originally it was meant to take place in Iran. But then the war happened and Disney didn’t want to risk hurting their sales. So now you have a setting haphazardly mixing unique SWANA cultures for the aesthetic and happily calling it “barbaric” within the first few verses at the very beginning of the goddamn movie.
Leona, in turn, is a character modeled on ANIMAL. Not a man of a given culture. His skin color does NOT matter, because it is in no way relevant to the prototype. In that case, we got a man with lion’s physical features, a scar on his eye, green eyes, and a bad temper. Because it matters to the original. We have many iconic scenes related to the movie with him. And that’s all.
And, again, we come back to the fact that Toboso is STILL CLEARLY USING INSPIRATION from African cultures, and watering down characters to JUST their animalistic traits is a bad look and reflects poorly on her decision-making skills (and you for that matter).
Racism and colourism are just as prevalent in Japan as they are in the West. People are discriminated against because of their skin colour, or just because of their ethnic background (the Ainu, the Okinawan), or just because they’re mixed (see: J’Nique Nicole and how she was treated working in Japan).
Japan isn’t your magical “race doesn’t matter” utopia. Toboso is a grown ass Japanese woman in an industry centred on designs and worldbuilding, she fucking knows better. She CAN do better. You want to ask WHY Leona has to be black? Why DOESN’T he have to be black? Why DOESN’T Afterglow Savannah have to reflect the FACT it takes inspiration DIRECTLY FROM Africa?
Simple. She just doesn’t want to put in the effort. And that’s not praise-worthy.
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