#whitewashing tw

(This post is intended to spread awareness of both the situation, and the action plan originally proposed by VHSTAPE on the Deltarune forums.)

There is currently a "Flower Café" T-shirt for sale on Fangamer right now. It was announced via this Bluesky post! The problem? Well, you read the title.

(Comparison graphic by VHSTAPE)

Blue is much lighter than he should be – roughly the same skintone as Aqua. Yes, the shirt is intended to be pastel, but, as I hope we all know, a pastel color palette is no excuse to whitewash. (If you are unfamiliar with how to draw Black people in a pastel palette, VHSTAPE and I both recommend this post by @creatingblackcharacters, which is a fantastic resource for intentionally creating Black characters.)

The goal is to make it so Blue's skintone will be changed in later releases of this shirt.

The method will be commenting on the Bluesky post (linked above) and emailing Fangamer ([email protected]), asking them to properly represent Black fans. We should be polite, but nonetheless request that this be changed, and emphasize its importance.

Here is an e-mail template, provided by VHSTAPE:

"[TO] [email protected] [SUBJECT] "Flower Cafe" T-Shirt Blue Whitewashing Hello, I am a fan of DELTARUNE and the Fangamer merchandise line. I notice that in the newly-released "Flower Cafe" shirt, Blue is whitewashed. His color on the t-shirt is significantly lighter than his in-game skin tone. I would like to suggest that for future releases of this shirt that his skin tone be darkened to match the lower luminance of his sprite. If this looks uncanny, I'm sure the artist could figure out a more appealing color palette that does not whitewash the only canonically Black character in the game.

Thank you for your consideration, [YOUR NAME]"

I recommend that you change up what is written a bit, and make it more personal to you, if you have the energy/free time to. Add in personal anecdotes and so on. This will make each e-mail seem more personal, and, thus, more convincing, and it'll be less likely to be considered spam. (If you do not have that energy, though, sending just the template as written is already fantastic!)

OK I was scared to talk about this for a long while because I didn't want harassment but something wrong happened to me and it's within my rights to say something against it.

So straight to the point. I'll say the server owner threw a tantrum over me pointing out whitewashing in one of their arts. And a number of server members did nothing about it when it happened either/ignored it. I would not consider this a safe space for POC.

Be respectful and do not tag this as drama or whatever please

Screenshots for proof: ( I'm "Kanmani")

https://twitter.com/shu1230svt/status/1639275452312240129?s=20

Cabal members and Death Eathers? Yep, that sounds like an HP roleplay. I don't know how they can say they don't support JK Rowling views when having that much antisemitism on their main.

Another thing that gets to me is this little disclaimer on their pinned post.

we DO NOT address anonymous asks regarding triggers, problematic faceclaims, hate mail, members, or changes you’d like to see made to worldbuilding. we have no problems discussing any of the previously mentioned topics, but ask that you do so off-anon so we can have a back-and-forth conversation. these things need to be discussed when there’s an issue, but we don’t believe it needs to be done on the main right away. messages of this nature sent on anon WILL BE DELETED.

Sorry, but not everyone feel comfortable going to anyone with issues, even less when they are as delicate as triggers and dismissing people because of that is really harmful. They are forcing people to confront their triggers, and probably justify them judging by the tone of the message, which is so harmful. Imagine going to someone about something that triggers you and have them want to have a back and forth about it. No, that's not how you deal with triggers.

And can we talk about the whitewashing?

I'll start. I'm Keira/Collie, and I'm mixed korean-american.

let's go with your "but M isn't POC! they're literally Greek! 🙄"-take. OKAY.

but they're also canonically brown-skinned. as are, i am sure, a sizeable number of people in (and from) Greece.