#whitewashing

[scionsword]

psst if youre unsure of a character's skin tone, id rather you overestimate how much melanin they have than underestimate

[the-bitter-ocean]

ISAT yetee merchandise has an ongoing issue with the visibly darker skinned characters of color getting lightened / whitewashed. (IMAGES AND EXPLANATION UNDER THE CUT)

I’m going to preface this with I’m giving both @insertdisc5 and the company yetee the benefit of the doubt because I am doubtful that this is with intentional malice, but it is a growing concern because this is a pattern that has been repeated multiple times across different products offered. Given how the (largely white) fandom space that’s curated online tends to ignore (at best) or perpetuate it directly at worst these harmful instances of characters getting their features erased … the last thing I expected was it happening in a official setting that was in *theory* looked over by the dev directly and approved. Given how the game writing makes the effort to represent the different characters and their culture in a way that felt respectful it felt, hurtful to say the least.

Many people in the fandom including myself have made posts directly commentating on this issue (that happens in fanart very commonly but now also in official merch), as well as emailed yetee and were essentially given the default (sorry, we can’t help at this time) regarding the products coming out lighter. In contrast the poster ( which is on the very same post as the whitewashed keychains and released at the exact same time as a bundle) the timing of it getting fixed for anatomical errors with the hands was handled the next day. When looking at the post I could see that there were plenty of tags, rbs and comments talking of the merch drop that happened on February 9-10 were people expressing their feelings regarding not wanting the characters to be whitewashed. Zero response.

The following photos given I’ve changed to pure grayscale solely so we can gage the values without getting distracted by red or blue tint from the photos. It goes as follows:

Now this isn’t to say that every single instance of isat merch of the characters were all lightened. Some of them like metal pins of the entire group are on model:

And even with the case of the poster or the notecard that came with the mirror photo, the skintones while not completely accurate are at least clear that both Bonnie and mirabelle werent lightened at all and are darker than their canon in game sprites. I’d rather have the characters be a tad darker than average than lightened or having features removed:

It’s clear that rather than the artist themselves of the merch doing the whitewashing, it’s due to whatever printer yetee has making the skintones far lighter than it should and that’s a problem. It’s misrepresenting the characters as well as the artists who worked hard to actually be on model to begin with. To me the solution is if you know the printer will print values lighter, you need to make the scans darker in post before delivery to compensate. Actually do multiple tests in person to check for consistency and quality instead of just rely on the display photo and hoping for the best.

I want everyone in this community ( especially those of color like myself) to feel represented and safe in the fandom space we’re in. I know some people have expressed fear of criticizing anything related to the game, because they didn’t want to come across as mean spirited or ruining the vibes or afraid of being on the receiving backlash/ hate from people when expressing anything less then 100% positive of a popular creator of work, but I didn’t want this to just get buried and forgotten or go unaddressed. If it’s not talked about and given the chance to fix it properly, we all just end up making the same mistakes over and over, become complacent and then slowly the environment of the space isn’t welcoming as it used to be. Again, to be clear this isn’t meant to be hate for hates sake or bad faith criticism. I say this with nothing but love as a fan for this games story, characters and all the lovely folks I’ve met while playing.

[creatingblackcharacters]

I Tested SweetDream's Chat for a Week. Here's What Surprised Me

Going in, I assumed I'd be reviewing another novelty chatbot. A week with SweetDream changed my framing entirely. What stands out isn't a single gimmick but the consistency of the conversation. The chat on sweetdream.ai holds context across days, picks up threads I'd dropped, and responds with a kind of emotional timing that most tools I've tried simply don't have. When I mentioned offhand that I'd had a rough Monday, my AI companion circled back to it Tuesday without prompting.

That sense of continuity is what separates a believable AI girlfriend from a script. The platform lets you shape personality, voice, backstory and small quirks up front, but the realism comes alive in how those traits surface mid-conversation rather than being announced. It reads less like autocomplete and more like someone who remembers you.

Other features round it out cleanly: lifelike photos and video, voice notes, even real-time calls that genuinely sound human. But after a week of testing, the chat itself is the headline. If you're comparing platforms, this is the one to benchmark the others against.

[creatingblackcharacters]

No, That’s Not ‘How Color Works’. - Whitewashing

Whitewashing, as defined by Merriam-Webster:

"to alter (something) in a way that favors, features, or caters to white people: such as a) to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of white people and minimizes or misrepresents that of nonwhite people and B) to alter (an original story) by casting a white performer in a role based on a nonwhite person or fictional character"

In fandom context, we know it to include:

Making someone’s skin lighter

Making someone’s hair a thinner texture

Changing someone’s nose to be thinner

Shrinking their lips

Changing the character in their entirety to be someone else

The Normalization of Whitewashing

Remember how I mentioned last lesson that despite the nature of poorly drawn Black characters, most audiences are not turned off enough to discourage the action in professional works? Similar idea with whitewashing. Not the same- unlike the Ambiguously Brown Character, which claims to have plausible deniability, overt whitewashing is usually enough to make fans speak up! But that’s the key word here- overt! It has to be “bad enough” to make enough people speak up, but as we’ve seen many a time, “bad enough” seems to have a much higher threshold for nonblack viewership (sometimes the limit doesn’t exist!)

Some visual examples

This is a link to my personal thread on a Netflix show I was watching- Worst Ex Ever. Now, while the show itself was quite enlightening, there was something I could not get over. I thought I was going crazy. And that was that no matter how dark the person of color would be in real life, the animated portions would draw this light pinkish-brown. Every. Single. Time. It's like they couldn't fathom scrolling down the color wheel. And this is a Netflix original! Netflix has plenty of money for someone to have caught this in creation. But... it was produced. And put out. And they're making more of it.

I asked all of the Dragon Age fans about the series, and uh… I didn’t know things were this bad, guys! Apparently this is a man of color, but it doesn't seem like the creators want you to know that 🤣. Jokes aside, as I’ve discussed before, the noticeable whitewashing- and that was one of many racist things I was told- was not enough to prevent sales... so why would they stop? I can only hope this new game, with all the updates, is enough to turn the tide. But the series has gone on for a while now, that if they’d chosen to do ye same olde… there clearly would not be a lack of financial support to prevent it.

Colorism as a Tool

Even when actors of color are cast, colorism often plays a role in normalizing whitewashing to audiences, even to Black audiences! People think “oh well at least they’re Black!” as if that is the only important part. It is not.

While Aaron Pierre, the actor cast for John Stewart of Green Lantern fame, is a GORGEOUS, STUNNING man, he is not the dark-skinned man that John Stewart is supposed to be and should not have been cast! To me, this is overt colorism, but clearly for many people this is not “enough” to warrant concern or even prevent the casting itself- including the studio behind the movie! Black fans have plead for years for the character of Storm to be played by a dark-skinned, preferably African, woman, and it has never happened.

It naturally happens in fan spaces as well, which is another indicator that colorism as a tool for whitewashing is quite effective for audiences. If I see one more Zendaya fan cast for Kida from Atlantis, I will scream. It’s been happening for years, and I don’t think any of the people who just want to see her and Tom on screen either understand or care that Kida is a dark-skinned character. Zendaya doesn’t look anything like Kida- it doesn’t matter if she’s Black too! Just because someone is Black does not mean they can play every single Black character! I’ve even seen people fancast Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame, to which… I don’t have the words. I can’t fathom what would cause these decisions other than racism.

The Common Excuses

I must be honest. I don’t really feel like re-iterating how certain things are not okay and how to fix them, because I’ve already discussed these things in massive detail. So I’m just going to direct the excuses I regularly hear to my lessons, where you can read up on them.

“Their hair/eyes are like that because they’re biracial so-”

Relevant Lessons: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 8, 9, 10

There is nothing wrong with having biracial characters with a range of features. I am not saying that! Because yeah, genetics do happen!

But I mentioned this in my last lesson, and I will re-emphasize here, that using biracial identity as a way to whitewash is a sinister form of racism. The intention here- the real intention- is the issue here! The idea that somehow this character can only look the way you want them to look by "diluting" their Blackness… I don’t know how you can explain yourselves out of that one.

You don’t get to use us as an excuse for diversity while still trying to maintain your preference for Eurocentric beauty standards. Black biracial people don’t always look light skinned, thin-haired and ambiguous, and even the ones that do don’t deserve to be treated as your fetish for pretend antiracism. If you just want to draw a white person with a tan, do that. But don’t change a character’s entire look just so you can work in some whiteness. If you want to claim that canon Black character’s mother was white, then I guess they inherited some of her personality because their features should not change.

“It’s my style/It’s the color-”

Relevant Lessons: 3, 4, 10

I hate all excuses for whitewashing, but I’ve grown to despise, hate, abhor and loathe this one the most as I’ve become an artist. I wish there were stronger words to describe just how much I hate the “style” and “color” excuse.

Are style and use of color oft intertwined? Absolutely. I’m not saying they aren’t. But out of everything, there are two things I want artists to understand:

1. Style does not cancel out racism! No style forces you to choose ashy greys and to change peoples’ features. That’s you! If you look at something, and it looks offensive, you change the style. You grow as an artist!

2. “Everyone who is brown will look ashy so I just-” if you recognize that your Black characters look strange in comparison to your nonblack characters, then it’s time to try something else! I don’t understand this sudden need for “realism” when it comes to color and lighting, but not when it comes to hair, for example. No one cares about realism when giving every and all Black characters wavy tresses they probably wouldn’t have, but suddenly milquetoast watercolor attempts at brown and off-putting lighting is “how it works”. That’s not fair.

The color picker is an available tool! I use it often!

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if someone gets the outfit color palette right via color picking, but the skin color is multiple shades lighter. That means they were looking at that character and chose not to proceed.

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if the white characters in the show are completely correct in their palettes. Again, that means they cared enough to look at everyone else… and not the Black characters.

If you use the color picker and the color picked is… disrespectful, you do not have to use that! You can simply choose a better color that is still similar to the brown that ought to be depicted!

“It’s the lighting-”

Relevant Lessons: 4, 5

If your white characters do not shine like snow in the sunlight because of your lighting, then your lighting does not make your Black characters suddenly light tan.

If your Black characters look bad in your lighting of choice- for example, putting a very dark-skinned character in electric white lighting can be ghastly- try changing the intensity or the color of the lighting. DON’T change your character’s skin color!

I'm going to show you some pictures of South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech. Pay attention to the choices of light, color, and makeup.

Look how BEAUTIFUL she is! Look at the choices of intensity and color of light, and how they make her look different in each image.

Now look at this image in comparison:

In this image, whoever did her makeup and took this picture did not take into consideration her skin tone. She's also under this really intense lighting. This is an example of "increasing the lighting does NOT make an image "better"". She didn't need to have lighter skin or "more lighting" to look good. She needed BETTER lighting, lighting that worked with HER.

To see this as an example in drawn art, @dsm7 makes an excellent argument for proper lighting and color, why it is an issue to use it as an excuse, and how to solve that problem.

‼️DISCLAIMER FOR NEXT EXAMPLE‼️

Okay. I am about to show y’all a fan-created example from my personal experience. It is a TEACHING EXPERIENCE ONLY. I am not including the artist’s name in this image. It happened a couple years ago, and it’s over- they’ve chosen to be who they are despite me kindly confronting them about it. The only reason I’m including it at all is because I feel like it would be remiss to have such a clear-cut, multi-level example, and not teach with it. That said, no, I am not telling anyone to act out towards them. Again, that is not what I’m telling you to do. The last thing I need is a literal lynch mob of angry nonblack viewership for trying to teach you all, and y’all sitting there watching it happen to me. Every example of whitewashing is not going to be so obvious, but I hope you learn how to spot the examples in the art you see and share.

I'm obviously a Hades fan, particularly of Patroclus- despite my disdain for the lack of effort in his canon character design. So I've seen a lot of things. That said:

“Well it’s just MY design of them-”

Relevant Lessons: ALL

The sepia coloring did not do this. The lighting did not do this. The design is the exact same as the Hades version, even down to the shape of the hair curling in the back. The only thing that is different… is the man himself.

Y'all. Y'all! You CANNOT take a pre-existing Black character and say “oh well this is my design of them” …and the design is of a whole white person. Because if the rest of the fit is the same, and the only thing that changed is the Blackness… Racism. If you’re going to “make up your own design”, then do that!

“Blackwashing”

Speaking of: I’m sure someone edgy out there thinks they’re so smart as they retort to the screen: “but if that’s not okay, then why is Blackwashing okay?” To which I say- shut up. 😐

The “definition” by fandom: making a nonblack character Black, usually an anime character, but characters in general.

Funny enough, the actual definition in the dictionary (or closest to) is “to defame”, in contrast with whitewash (as in whitewashing history). Maybe racist fans ARE using it correctly when they say you’re blackwashing their characters, when they mean you’re making them “less likable because they’re Black now”. 🤔

Anyway: Blackwashing is not real for the same reason reverse racism is not real.

Me painting these characters brown is not going to take away from the fact that there are far more of you in media than there is of me. Me saying that I ‘headcanon a character as Black with 4C hair’ is not going to make the studio go “oh! Well they must be Black with 4C hair now!” Me saying “oh I think I’d like this character better if they were Black” as a beta tester (less overtly, obviously, because I’m not racist!) will never make a studio change that character. Black viewers have minimal value in comparison to the power of the white viewer’s dollar. I could draw white characters Black every single day of every single game media… and they would still produce majority white characters. There has not been centuries- if not millennia, when we consider Jesus Christ himself, even- of purposeful “Blackwashing” with the intent of removing the original ethnicity- and thus importance- of white people. No one has ever been allowed to forget when someone is white. No one has ever been allowed to forget or not acknowledge white people.

How it could be "solved"

Personally, I love Black edits and I welcome them here. I find them creative and fun. But if you really, REALLY didn’t want us to make those edits, then naturally, we need more Black characters in all of our media!

I wouldn’t have to make edits if I saw more of me to begin with in the things I like to watch- but when we have those characters, racists act an ass about them. We’re not allowed to even be present! I’ve seen too many gamer bros mocking the existence of Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed, and he was a real ass man. But if we made a game about African peoples in African societies, how many of the gamer bros would actually play those games? Do you think there’d be as much support, when we hear so much about Black characters that are treated so abhorrently? How many games do we have where people would love their faves just as much if they were Black? I even learned that Solas was apparently supposed to be a man of color. IMAGINE how many people would not have liked that man, with the same exact plot and characterization.

Something I’ve noticed recently: apparently "Blackwashing" is not a thing when White fans “allow” it. Take this recent trend with Miku. International Miku was beloved! But if you draw any other character as Black on any other day, there will be people that are horrid about it. Ask any artist, Black artists and Black cosplayers especially, who’s ever done it what their comments are like. I’ve read entire missives akin to white supremacist drivel on how it’s somehow morally wrong to make characters Black. Meanwhile no amount of “hey maybe you shouldn’t do this” prevented the movie Gods of Egypt from being created, with a cast full of British White people.

Solutions to Avoiding Whitewashing!

1) Using References!!

Do I think you should know what Black people look like? Yes. We’re humans. It’s 2024. Everyone knows what we look like when it’s time to hate and discriminate against us, so you know what we look like when it’s time to love and depict us. If you’re on Tumblr, you have access to the Internet. ESPECIALLY if you’re in the U.S., as Black people are the source of damn near every piece of online pop culture. If you can find my dialect to make my jokes, you can find pictures of me.

Would I rather you use a reference every single time so that you can only strengthen your depiction of my people? ABSOLUTELY.

Anyone on the Internet telling you not to use a reference or that you shouldn’t need a reference? Unfollow them. You don’t need that negativity in your life. Why would you deprive yourself of a tool to create? The greatest portrait painters in history had to look at their subjects! You are not getting paid nearly as much to do this as Hans Holbein, and he had to stare at Henry VIII correct else lose his head- you can pull up multiple references. I’d far rather be judged for using hella references than be judged for being a racist!

Part of the issue is people draw what they’re used to, what they’re comfortable with (thus last lesson). But if what you’re used to is not what someone will look like… That’s not okay. Their features are not the issue, your skills are the issue. Learn! Practice! There is no rush. No one is rushing you to be perfect at drawing Black characters, and no one is rushing you to post them. You can just practice! If you’re not a professional, you can take as long as you need to draw! If you need to draw that piece of hair over and over until you feel like you have down the shape, you do that! If you need to use a tool that would draw the hair for you, you get that tool!

If you want to post, you can say you are practicing! If you make clear you are practicing, then be willing to accept that people may have feedback. I’d far rather deal with someone saying they’re unconfident and practicing, than someone posting a whitewashed caricature and closing their ears because “well at least I’m trying!”

2) Empathize! Care about actual Black people when you create a Black character!

Imagine, if you will, in the Twilight Zone: you went to an artist, and you asked for a white character (I typed in “regular looking white dude” on google). There’s hardly ever any white characters, you’re so super excited about this one! You paid good money, because you’ve seen just how amazing this artist creates! They’re so good at drawing characters of color! But no matter how many times you ask, they send you back an image of… Assad Zaman.

That man might be fine as hell! Gorgeous! Beautifully done! Chef’s kiss. Stunning! But… He’s not white. That’s not what you asked or paid for. You can’t even fathom how they mixed this up, they don’t even look alike! And when you confront them, they gaslight you, they call YOU the issue for not understanding how you can’t tell that this is a white man! They would never get this wrong! They have white friends, you’re the racist! But you’re not stupid, and you have functioning eyes- you can SEE what this drawing looks like! And… It’s not you.

It’s dehumanizing. It’s being told that there’s a “better way” to look like you, and that’s by… Not looking like you. You, as you exist, are what’s incorrect. Your identity is incorrect, not their drawing. It’s better to have thinner hair instead of an afro or locs, it’s better to have lighter skin, it’s better to have a straighter, thinner nose over a round one, and smaller lips.

And what makes it worse is knowing that people who don’t look like you? Probably won’t care. They won’t be willing to see- not unable, but unwilling- that playing with this caricature is harmful, that they’re propagating harm by not acknowledging it. They’re letting you know that your humanity means less to them than the clout received with a whitewashed or half-assed Black character, and that people will applaud them for that ‘attempt at inclusion’. And people will applaud! They will be entertained by the mere performance! And that hurts.

I’m going to say this, and it’s awkward and I try not to say it directly on here, but… Having Black friends and/or being around actual, real life Black people would help. I can tell from some of the questions I receive that Black characters and their traits- especially things like our hair and our cultures- are being treated as… alien concepts. But even if, for whatever reason, you legitimately don’t know any Black people, you do not need to know us individually to care about our humanity as a whole! Even if you do not know we’re there, we are, and we could possibly see your work!

By acknowledging Blackness and making room to understand what it means- and that includes how we can look- you are doing the bare minimum of acknowledging our personhood. If you cannot do even that, you don’t need to be drawing us.

Conclusion

Here’s the thing: if you want to draw a white man with tanned skin, do that. Just do it! You do NOT have to erase me to have more of you! There is not a single fandom where the majority of the white fans ever said “gee, not another white guy!” It simply doesn’t happen. God knows we wish it did sometimes. You will always have an audience for white characters. There’s no danger to any of you of “being erased”.

(Without putting on my political hat, I will say that a lot of white people who consider themselves to be far from white supremacist will express beliefs in line with great replacement theory if you push them hard enough. It is unfortunately not as uncommon an idea as you might think. I would do some self-evaluation.)

People are going to notice that you only ever draw white people, but… To be frank, that has never stopped anybody from being successful. Again, Jen Zee, at Supergiant with the terrible dark-skinned characters… Still has a job. at Supergiant. A professional studio. Dragon Age. Multiple games of consistent whitewashing and racist writing. Still going. If racism prevented creation and popularity, I wouldn’t have to have this blog. Alas, that is the society we currently live in.

But if you ACTUALLY want to depict Black characters, if you ACTUALLY want to do right and be respectful- not because you want the clout, but because it’s the right damn thing to do- then you need to commit! This means drawing them as they are meant to be! Accept that you’ll likely lose some fan base, who was there (whether they were aware of it or not) for the white and lighter skinned characters. Accept that this means that trying to appeal to those people by whitewashing characters is 1) wrong, 2) racist, which is 3) something you chose to do when you could simply have just… Drawn more white people.

I’ll say it again: antiracism is hard. It’s hard doing the right thing in a society that rewards racism so easily. It’s really hard knowing that people will stop supporting you or caring as much about your work when you start including Black characters as actively as you do white ones, especially if you start talking about the importance of it. But in my honest opinion, I’d far rather be someone that cared about others, with genuine fans, than someone that was racist for the fleeting internet clout of strangers. And that may be less ‘hopeful’ than I normally am in these lessons, but… People make choices. And people who have been informed- as you are now- are aware of the choices they are making. It’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers- let’s choose better actions.

[blackfilmmakers]

Due to some alarmingly ignorant events we’ve witnessed the other day, I now feel compelled to make a series of posts discussing non-human characters that are intended to be Black

Assuming a non-human character HAS to be white is due to whiteness being framed as the default. This tends to lead many to believe that they can depict any character as a white person uncritically. The truth of the matter is that even if the character isn’t human, you can still potentially be whitewashing them. Hollywood (storytellers in general) have had a long history of only ever including poc by depicting them as something inhuman, so it’s not like it’s impossible to pick up these intentions

Often when someone is pointed out to have whitewashed these characters, they become extremely defensive and double down into the mindset of how these characters don’t have a canon real race assigned to them, therefore they have the “right” to depict them however they please

Which, sorry, the writers had some faith in y'all to use critical thinking to naturally come to (what should be) obvious conclusions. Seriously, I’ve seen y'all depict Kung Fu Panda characters as white people, despite the fact that the story’s location takes place in Ancient China and is unapologetically Chinese (depicted by white people but nevertheless). And don’t even try to bring up how “they can be white if they traveled from a distant country,” because y'all shut that down immediately when Black people bring up that we also traveled. We are not doing this “rules for thee, not for me" type reasoning

Essentially, who you decide gets to be depicted as Black or not can potentially be rooted in racial or other bigoted biases. Again, rather than confront those biases, many get defensive without examining what has led them to hold onto these beliefs. And as we’ve also seen, those of us who do call out this behavior are framed as the aggressor for the crime of disturbing someone’s fun by making them feel bad. Believe it or not, antiblackness is not fun; at least for normal people.

So yeah, I feel motivated to do this more than ever. It’s 2026, y'all need to get over the fact that white isn’t the default.

[dalishious]

Isabela from Dragon Age is Black.

This is frustratingly often denied by the fandom, with many people saying she is anything but Black, including even claiming she is a white woman with a tan. But canonically speaking, Isabela is Black and has always been Black.

David Gaider, first lead writer for Dragon Age, said the following in Comic-Con 2012 panel called Creating Spaces for Divers Characters and Representations: “Bioware’s had a great experience including gay characters and Black characters. Although the thing about the fanart, I mean, you can mod our video games, obviously, so one of the most popular downloaded mods for Dragon Age II, as I recall, was a mod to change our one Black female character, Isabela, into a blonde, blue eyed character.” (Transcript courtesy of sapphim.) The video recording of this panel from Alt.theatre Magazine is no longer available, but here is an article on the panel as the best preserved proof.

Sheryl Chee, who created Isabela, said the following on a forum post in 2011: “No, Isabela is not "white" in the original game. I'm kind of tired of people saying that she was always "meant to be white" or  was "clearly a red-head" so I'm going to set the record straight. Isabela was always, always conceived as a dark-skinned, Rivaini woman.” Because Dragon Age: Origin’s in-game lighting was so bad in certain areas – one of those areas being where Isabela shows up – it’s sad that Chee had to go online and set the record straight this way.

Chee further added, “I gave her the second darkest skintone we had available.” This can be confirmed by looking at Isabela’s headmorph game files in the official Dragon Age toolkit and seeing she uses the skin tint “005” out of six available skin tints. Isabela also has other features that mark her racial background… but this is where the problems begin, because her nose and lips were the first to be taken away from her.

Isabela has been whitewashed more than any other Dragon Age character.

In Dragon Age: Origins, the game that Isabela first appears in, she has dark skin, a wide, soft nose, and full lips. When Isabela next appears in Dragon Age II, her skin is approximately the same, but her nose is much narrower, and her lips are much thinner.

The term whitewashing is most often used to describe making a non-white character, whiter. The term is also used to describe the lack of nonwhite people altogether in a setting where they should be; for example, if a movie takes place somewhere that many people of different races live, but only white people are on screen, that is also whitewashing. But when we are talking about an individual character like Isabela for example, we are referring to stripping away her visual characteristics that mark her as being Black. That is not just about skin, but also her facial features altogether.

As king in Dragon Age II, Alistair says to Isabela, “you look… different,” and she responds with “don’t we all” in a playful tone. BioWare knew exactly what they were doing when they changed her appearance. It was not an accident; it was taking a Black character, and giving her a new design with less afro-centric features the minute she had a main story role.

Isabela next appears as a multiplayer character in Dragon Age: Inquisition. In this game, her skin is noticeably lighter than in both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II.

Her in-game tarot card for Dragon Age: Inquisition is also extremely whitewashed - if they could colour the hat, why not her skin?

Then most recently in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, instead of correcting any of these mistakes, she remains heavily whitewashed.

Isabela has been made into one of the recurring faces of the Dragon Age franchise, much like Morrigan – she has appeared in every game, and many extra materials as well. But the face BioWare has chosen to use is very rarely actually Isabela’s face. Instead, that face has been heavily whitewashed to hell and back over and over and over.

In the cinematic trailer and official wallpapers used for advertising Dragon Age II, Isabela appears looking nearly as white as the iconic Hawke protagonist.

In Dragon Age: The World of Thedas vol. 1 she appears on a fresco art page, drastically paler.

She has a major role in the Dragon Age comics, "The Silent Grove", "Those Who Speak", and "Until we Sleep" where the colouring is very inconsistent. The worst is her cover for The Silent Grove #5.

If BioWare loves Isabela so much, why have they, as a company, let all this slide? It makes no sense, and instead it feels like they only want to promote the concept of Isabela, only in a way that will appeal to white audiences.

[batsandbirdsandpiggybanks]

Damian Wayne, Whitewashing, Linguistics and the Use of Akhi in Fanworks

ok, listen. i say this with all the love in my heart, because i know it comes from a place of compassion, but i gotta level with you all:

please stop using akhi in your batfamily fanworks.

genuinely.

i don’t know who will actually see this or even care and i'm not even the first person to bring this up, but akhi is not a familial term of endearment.

full disclosure, i myself am nowhere near an expert in all Arabic dialects and while i do not have an extensive knowledge of all the dialectical terms for “brother” that serve the purpose you're looking for, i do know there are some out there.

however, akhi is not one of them. it’s not even an nickname. so please, please stop using it like it is.

fair warning, this will be a long post because there are a lot of layers to this issue and to understand why it's even an issue at all, you have to understand all of those layers. so stick around, i guess, if you have questions and feel like being interrupted in your daily tumblr scroll by a very specific rant (though i did try to break it up into sections so it's at least somewhat navigable).

otherwise, if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve already read my main request and hopefully taken it to heart which is what i really care about, so feel free to continue on with your day if you so please.

if you happen to be sticking around, let me first outline the linguistic issue for you:

yes, akhi does mean “my brother.” that’s really the best and most literal word-for-word translation anyone could possibly give you.

in more grammatical terms, it is the first-person possessive form of the word akh, which, you could probably guess, means “brother”. the -i suffix at the end is what denotes possession and who - in this case, the speaker - is in possession of the object.

another word you might be more familiar with is habibi, which means “my beloved”. habib is the object, the noun form of “beloved” and -i is the possessive suffix, the “my”. and that’s pretty much how the suffix is used - it essentially serves the same function as putting “my” in front of “book” or “cat” or “brother” in English. only, possession is indicated at the end of the given word rather than as a separate predicate. hence why phrases like “his akhi” are a whole mess of grammatically incorrect in both languages, because you’re basically saying “his my brother.”

it is also important to note that while akh and its various forms are sometimes used in colloquial settings when talking about one’s brother, it is a word that comes from and is used primarily in formal Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic), or fus7a. fus7a is used in a number of ways - you'll find it in the news, books, speeches, official documents, formal letters and whatnot and most importantly, in the Qur’an, from which it originates. but it's not used in everyday conversation. while the dialects share many basic similarities with formal Arabic, there are entire grammatical rules, words and conjugations in fus7a that don’t ever get used in colloquial Arabic. as such, akhi takes on several different meanings across the colloquial dialects that diverge from the literal meaning in fus7a. and even if someone is using it to speak about their actual brother, it's a pretty formal way to do so and it does not have the meaning you’re all ascribing to it. if you want an actual term of endearment, you’ll have to dig deeper.

and that's where i'll leave you to do your own research, because i’m not here to give you an Arabic lesson. that’s what WordReference and Reddit threads are for (just be on the lookout for bots).

but do yourself a favor and don’t just rely on those (and definitely do not go to Duolingo, i wouldn't trust AI with George Clooney's birthday, let alone the linguistic structure of an entire language). look up language guides and forums online. there’s actually some really good and reliable stuff out there from native speakers. fuck it, even Urban Dictionary is a better resource than wherever the first of you got the word akhi from - no, really, it actually contains several entries that define how it's used in certain contexts (none of which, you will find, include familial terms of endearment). and there are plenty of other Arab users on this site who have already talked about this and have provided detailed explanations of how it’s used in formal and dialectical Arabic. there are even entire blogs on tumblr that are dedicated to teaching Arabic. if you don't trust the internet, patronize your local library's language section (though they're unfortunately more likely to have books on just Modern Standard Arabic).

i promise you, however unapproachable internet and library databases might seem when it comes to learning languages, it is not as difficult to navigate as you think it is. the information is 100% there if you bother to look for it. and it’s free.

now, why am i making such a big deal out of this?

because if you actually gave a shit about writing Damian as explicitly and meaningfully Arab, you’d recognize that Arabic is not some accessory you can adorn your characters with however you like and hope no one notices you've put it on backwards.

Arabic is a real, living language that is used by real, living people every day.

and listen, i really don’t want to discount the good intentions so many of you have in using this word. i know that a lot of you using it aren’t intentionally using it incorrectly (or at least, i assume that’s the case), that you really just want to acknowledge what DC itself is shit at acknowledging. but i need you to understand that it is not enough. it's not enough to copy + paste from Google Translate and hope for the best.

the first and most important rules of linguistics will tell you that direct, literal translation is a discrepancy in and of itself. for example: if you put the Iliad or, idk, Proust through Google Translate, what came out would be pretty shitty and incoherent. it wouldn't entirely make sense. that’s why translation exists as a profession. to make sense of colloquialisms, grammar and diction that lack cross-language equivalents.

anyway, back to your good intentions: of course it sucks that many of DC’s writers tend to avoid meaningful engagement with the cultural backgrounds of the characters they write, particularly their characters of color.

of course it sucks that they tend fall into harmful stereotypes and tropes that could be avoided with just a little bit of intentional, respectful research. hell, they have the means to hire professional cultural and linguistic consultants if they wanted - they have absolutely no excuse.

and of course it sucks ass that many don’t treat Arab stories with care or compassion, especially considering that the very origins of the al Ghuls as DC villains are deeply rooted in the orientalist demonization of Asians and Arabs. that beyond that, they are also consistently whitewashed by both writers and fans alike. Damian and Talia in particular, when they are portrayed as morally good (and sometimes even when they’re not), tend to be drawn with lighter skin, which is a whole other level of fucked up. not to mention the majority of actors who have portrayed both Talia and Ra’s al Ghul are not Arab and, in fact, the only Arab actor to portray Ra’s al Ghul is Alexander Siddig (shoutout, by the way, to an absolute legend and cinematic treasure).

and before any of you folks crawl your way out of the woodwork to inform me that “actually, white and white-passing Arabs exist, you ignorant, uncultured heathen”, i’m just gonna cut you off at the pass here to let you know that i know. i should fucking hope i’d be aware of my own existence.

in all seriousness, though, wholistic representation of Arabs cannot center only those of us who are light skinned, white or white-passing. to do so stinks of Westerners’ tendency to fetishize, aestheticize and appropriate ethnic cultures while giving less than a rat’s ass about the people they come from, like a kind of cherry picked whitewashing, if you will. like, "it's okay to celebrate and take part in your culture, but if you do it while being dark skinned, you're either primitive and barbaric or some kind of noble savage." obviously, skin color has no bearing on the legitimacy of Arab heritage. but leaving dark skinned Arabs out of the picture erases the real and immense diversity of the Arab world. and it makes representation dependent on proximity to whiteness and palatability to white audiences, which is entirely antithetical to the whole point of representation.

yes, we need representation, too - Arabs are not a monolith. but the fact remains that dark skinned people of color are consistently underrepresented across the board - fans of color on this and other hellsites have been saying this for literal years. and if you don’t believe that’s true of DC comics, i'm sorry, but you haven’t been paying attention.

so, yeah. both the current canon and fanon, in many ways, leave a lot to be desired when it comes to representation. but that is exactly why diving headfirst into the now fandom-wide phenomenon of using akhi in your fanworks doesn’t actually do anything to counteract the harm done. frankly, because many of you have no historical, cultural or linguistic context for this and other words, it often exacerbates and replicates it.

and idk, maybe this all seems a bit over-the-top for a word that literally just means “my brother.” but because so many of you forego background research entirely and just parrot each other, the way you’re using it is harmful. because you’re completely disregarding all of that historical, cultural and linguistic context in favor of portraying what you perceive to be a more accurate Damian. which is especially damaging when many of you show no inclination or desire to examine just how enshrined racism and orientalism are in many canon and fanon portrayals of Damian or how your own headcanons might reinforce the stereotypes that fuel those portrayals.

Arabic is a heavily racialized language in the West. the choice to use it in your works as non-Arab creators is one you make in a world full of stigmatization for people, languages and cultures that do not meet standards of European whiteness. the fact that the maximum level of effort English speakers are barely required to put into including another language in their work is to open the most laughable language resource on the internet and copy + paste is indicative of the imperial system that requires the rest of the world to be multilingual while the majority of those for whom English is their first language hold fluency in only one.

multilingualism is far more common outside of Western centers of imperialism because the system in place is designed to keep it that way. and the West’s xenophobia ensures that we view it as a kind of liability, rather than the strength that it is. and on top of that, the racialization of certain languages further reinforces that xenophobia by wrapping them up in a mess of simultaneous fetishization and denigration. which is how you end up with the expectation that immigrants do the cultural, intellectual and emotional labor of bridging language barriers. in other words, writing something even as innocuous as “Damian missed his akhi” in your fanfiction because you saw someone else do it without doing any research of your own is a privilege of ignorance that native Arabic speakers do not have. i wouldn’t be surprised if more than half of you English speakers using it don’t even know how to pronounce it properly because you’ve never been forced to learn the phonetics, much less the alphabet, of a language that isn’t your own.

again, i understand where it’s coming from. i understand the impulse to expand upon what DC has given us and actually explore Damian’s cultural heritage. i understand the desire to do his Arab roots justice. i wish DC was better at the job they literally gave themselves, too. seriously, i get it.

but by not doing the research necessary to understand what you're putting in your fanworks, you’re just repeating the same irresponsible mistakes that DC’s writers make. and not only is that reductive of the Arab character you’re trying to honor, but from a viewer’s perspective, it’s indicative of a lack of creative integrity. it’s just sloppy writing. it says that you’re not actually committed to creating accurate or compassionate Arab representation with Damian. you just care about making him believably Arab to a primarily non-Arab audience. and continuing to do it even after being informed tells me you don’t actually give a fuck about Arabs or our representation because you don’t respect our language enough to learn how we actually use it.

and i hope i can trust you to know the difference between an honest mistake and willful ignorance, here. i completely understand if this is your first time learning about any of this. but again, all the information you could possibly want is available 24/7 on the very same device you’re using to write your fanfiction and create your fanart. you know, the one you’re using right now to read this post?

if you have the time to write a 100k word fanfic you have more than enough time to learn how the word akhi is actually used.

and if you did your research, you would see that there are so many actual, beautiful terms of endearment you could be using instead. Arabic has no shortage of them - there are so many i couldn’t possibly provide you with a full, comprehensive list of them all. but i will give you a tiny bit:

khayye is a Levantine term usually reserved for a close brother - i could actually see Damian calling Dick this and it means the same thing as akhi, just more affectionate. and of course, there are plenty of other terms in other dialects, but i’m not as familiar with those yet and really, you should do your own research. i also mentioned habibi before, which is a very popular term of affection and it’s often used casually even with strangers as it’s not strictly platonic or romantic, though i personally don’t believe Damian would use it towards his family, at least not frequently or without sarcasm (which is the best way to use it, imo).

and there’s also more poetic ones like 3ayouni (my eyes), hayati (my life), qalbi (my heart, though don’t get it confused with kelbi, iykyk), ruhi (my soul), najmi (my star), nouri (my light), azizi (my treasure/precious one). and hundreds of others that are dialect- and family-specific.

there is so much to work with that y’all have left virtually untouched. don’t be afraid to get creative! that’s what fanfiction is all about, right?

that said, if you do choose to use Arabic in your fan works, remember that language doesn’t exist in a vacuum. use it as a character study. use it to ask those questions DC doesn’t. like:

does Damian speak Arabic?

why does Damian speak Arabic? and what dialect(s) does he speak? because yes, there are regional and national dialects all over the place. don’t limit yourself in your research.

was Arabic the primary language he spoke back in the League? and if it was, how has living in Gotham, a predominantly English-speaking environment, changed his relationship with the language?

does he experience culture shock at all and how has that effected his experience of Gotham?

does he use it around his Gotham family? why or why not? does his Gotham family use it with him? why or why not?

does he have different terms of endearment for each of the people he cares about in his life? do they each have terms of endearment for him?

what does Talia call him? some of DC’s writers have her call him “my heart”, which i have written in romanized Arabic above. you’re welcome.

does he also speak any Chinese dialects? and what role does that play in his life and identity? you don’t have to focus on just his Arab roots. Damian’s heritage is a combination of multiple ethnic backgrounds - do better than DC and find ways to make your work reflect that. as a canonically mixed character, Damian and mixed readers like him deserve to have that respectfully represented. though, as per the main point of this post, please do some conscientious research before using any Chinese dialects.

what’s his favorite Middle Eastern dish? shoutout to that one artist i saw (whose name i can’t remember, i’m so sorry) who drew Damian and Jason sharing a pot of mjaddara, one of my personal favorite easy meals to cook when i’m missing home.

does he read any Arab poetry and who is his favorite poet? does he prefer the classic poets or the modern ones? i personally think he might enjoy Imru’ al-Qays but i’m biased because we had a cat named after him and i kinda like the idea of Damian being a fan of one of the most notoriously sappy and melodramatic romantic poets history has to offer.

has he been able to use Arabic around other Arabic-speaking folks in Gotham? and on that note, where are Gotham’s Arab populations from and what dialects do they speak?

endless avenues to explore!

or, you know, if you truly, madly, deeply do not give a single flying fuck (though if you’ve made it this far into my rant and still don't care, i'm... impressed?): how about you try this nifty thing i like to call not using Arabic in your work at all?

i can’t imagine you’re anywhere near your wits’ end if you’re using Google Translate as your linguistics consultant, but you know what takes even less effort? not using it. which is perfectly fine. you don’t have to delve deeper if you don’t want to. i’m not gonna hunt you down and force you to study Arabic grammar.

but using a language that isn’t your own, especially if English is your first and only language, comes with a responsibility to do it justice. no one is forcing you, dear English speaking fanfic writer/fanartist, to use a language you don’t speak. and i mean that quite literally. the world is already built to save you the inconvenience of having to speak other languages. so if you’re gonna go in, go all in. don’t needlessly embarrass yourself, habibi.

if doing any further research just seems a bit too daunting for you, remember that language isn’t the end-all-be-all of cultural ties. it can be a bridge, a connector, at times a vessel and often a reflection of culture. but culture is more than the language(s) tied to it. people and their relationships to their culture(s) are more than the languages they speak. it’s entirely possible to write meaningful Arab representation without using Arabic.

and let me be so, so clear: language is, for many reasons, a very important part of preserving, nurturing and restoring culture, particularly for the world’s Indigenous and diasporic communities, of which Arabs are a part. but it has also been weaponized against those very same communities by imperial and colonial powers. including a random Arabic word in your fanart or fic, the meaning of which you have only a vague understanding, is not the ultimate signifier of Damian’s Arab heritage some of you seem to think it is. and i know most of you just use it as a cute little nod to his cultural background in your headcanons, but it means nothing without the context behind it, especially the way i see it used with reckless - albeit mostly well-meaning - abandon.

honestly, it’s just really fucking annoying to see so many people constantly misuse your language and be unwilling to correct themselves. kinda feels like you’re losing your mind, sometimes. which is a bit how i feel making this post.

look, i’m not asking you to do college thesis level research on the Arabic language before you make the art you create for zero financial compensation in your own free time. that’s not what this post is about.

but i am asking many of you to examine why you want to have Damian or Talia or whoever speak Arabic in your non-Arabic fanworks in the first place. as non-Arab fans and creators, determine what preconceptions of Arabs you might hold, question why they’re there and where they come from and do your best to learn about how they might influence your portrayal of Arab characters like Damian. if you’re desperate for a jumping off point in that regard, i recommend checking out TV Tropes’s pages on the al Ghuls.

again, language doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it’s irresponsible to treat it like it does. if you want to make meaningful content of Arab characters, i encourage you to go out there and build your creative integrity by doing enough research to at least feel confident that you understand what you're putting in your fanworks.

and, lastly, if you do choose to use Arabic in your work, please use it with respect.

.

anyways here are some resources to start off with for anyone interested:

Free online dictionaries - Spanish, French, Italian, German and more. Conjugations, audio pronunciations and forums for your questions.

TV Tropes

TV Tropes, the all-devouring pop-culture wiki, catalogs and cross-references recurrent plot devices, archetypes, and tropes in all forms of

Khallina – An open source website for teaching and studying Arab culture.

[hydeandseek128]

if I have to see whitewashed Bonnie art on my dash one more time im going to start biting people's faces off im so serious

I colorpicked Bonnie's skin tone from an art that I keep seeing pop up on my dash and compared it to their actual skintone. the shade used for their skin in the art is about the same shade as the shading on their hat

don't whitewash your Bonnies :(

[soulful-roses]

Racism, whitewashing, and colorism are inexcusable.

It is especially inexcusable when multiple people have called it out on your official merchandise, and when a black fan attempts to contextualize and address the issue, they are blocked and ignored.

Adrienne Insertdisc5. What are you doing?

Alienating your fans of color, only addressing issues in vague, nebulous terms, and most importantly, spending years actively ignoring these problems, is downright embarrassing. You should be ashamed of yourself.

These problems are only made worse when put in the context of the game. This continued behavior speaks to a lack of accountability in you and your team. We're thoroughly disappointed in you.