Hi, so if you agree with this person's opinions, please block me! I do not want you on my page!
LONG RANT BELOW //
The fact that this is the second time Rei has shared these opinions on their account about being pro-whitewashing has gotten me tired. I am posting these opinions on my Tumblr as I have the most reach here cause I am blocked my the majority of the Obey Me community on Twitter.
This rant is specifically about Rei and people who think like Rei, and not the Japanese artist who did this, because I do not care what actions they took afterwards, I am just tired of this pattern in this fandom and many other fandoms. Also I do not believe in respectability politics so I am going to be honest as fuck. I am tired of this shit.
First of all, if yall wanna read the thread yourself , no one was attacking/harassing the Japanese artist for whitewashing Mammon as stated by @/planettemarte. I also don't condone harassing ANY artists for making mistakes like these. It's always a different can of worms in situations like these because some artists will fix their change, some artists don't, and then there's some artists who are annoyed and let racist opinions spew after. It's always different each time. No artist should get death threats or doxxed for this.
I am so tired of people worshipping Japanese artists while also infantilizing them by saying "they didn't know any better". Bullshit. They are clearly aware; they use the same internet we do and play the same game we do. There are multiple cards in game where Mammon, Simeon and Diavolo have dark brown skin. They just choose to ignore that and focus on the cards that depict these three with the lightest skin tone possible.
Green people do not fucking exist. They are not a race, and nobody is drawing Mammon green.
Not just in Obey me, but it feels like 'dark skin' is just an optional trait of a character. I just don't understand it because most Japanese artists I've seen draw close to canon as much as possible. So, when they see a visibly brown character, this specific crowd (not all Japanese artists do this) will make them gray or beige.
I am just tired of fandoms platforming artists who continue to be colorist about brown skinned characters. Why is it so hard to use a darker brown? I've seen these same artists shade brown hair, trees, and even chocolate for Valentine's day or White day. Lighting doesn't cause a dark skinned person to become sour cream white, thats fucking bullshit.
The main reason why this is more than just whitewashing is because opinions like these make brown skin and darkskin people of color not feel welcomed in the fandom. People who think like Rei don't listen to actual poc voices. They pick and choose the ones that agree with them and disregard everyone else as "keyboard warriors" and being butthurt.
Y'all will platform an artist who draws all the dateables the color of sour cream, y'all use AAVE when talking to people, and use memes & meme audios made from marginalized dark skinned folks (specifically black people) and then wonder why some artists & fans have left Obey me. If y'all call yourselves "allies", you're doing a horrible job. It's because of shit like this, saying "be greatful that these artists have drawn this for us", I'm not fucking greatful for that, Why are they scared of the fucking color brown?
Call me a SJW, but honestly I don't fucking understand how these people play a gay ass game like Obey Me with inclusive dateables, and a gender neutral MC and not be woke at all. Look I know I was all over the place with these points and that I am not the best debater/talker/whatever this is to say these points in the most "correct" way, I guess but-
It should make you upset that another artist is erasing the representation in the game for the white-centered beauty standard (specifically talking about the color, not the race). What is the point of having brown characters and then certain artists drawing them white, and then folks like Rei berate the people who call those artists out on it?
The last thing I want to say is look at the difference between whitewashing and "blackwashing". Whitewashing is ALWAYS out of hate and malice because the artist doesn't want to depict ethic features, curly hair, and or darker skin. It is made to erase those features and keep the beauty standard in mind.
"Blackwashing" is always out of love, because there is little representation of poc characters in media. People draw their faves as their race because they see themselves in that character, and want to share their culture with that character. "Blackwashing" has never been used to get rid of existing Japanese or any other culture's representation. Biracial Japanese people exist.