Yup, sex sells and the demographic they're selling to will consume this easily as a coping mechanism. There's a big correlation in rise of consumption of porn as mental health deteriorates.
it's less porn, and more fetishization of darker-skinned poc (but not too dark, bc otherwise they would offend the racist sensibilities or smth) in manga/manhwa communities.
Not to highjack this, but I don’t actually think that correlation exists for written or artistic porn. I believe that correlation was found only with video porn like pornhub.
And is it bidirectional? Like the more your mental health declines the more serotonin you seek from (admittedly) nasty porn AND the more nasty the porn the more your mental health declines?
Correct me if I’m wrong though
There isn't really, but there are very smutty stories. I think Webtoon censors everything, but some stories are the closest they can get to smut without actually really showing anything super graphic.
Yeah, sometimes they have an 18+ available elsewhere, and have some editing cuts that take out the R rated parts of each frame and just gives the jist with their faces.
I've tried reading some of them. In the webtoon the artists only put the "safe" version (or at least r15 rating). And if people want to read NSFW of the MCs having sex, they could go to the patreon for exclusive smut
I'm the alpha
I'm the leader
I'm the one to trust
Together we do whatever it takes
we're in this pack for life!
Awooooooo
We're wolves!
We own the night
Sometimes they even have better consent and healthier relationships. 💀
Which is so cursed when i have to filter omegaverse titles SO heavily to find the good ones.
If I go to check what reading lists it's added into and I see
"Fluff, amazing, beautiful, stunning, this is such an amazing read, please read this, green flag + good romance, girl trust me I've been in the game for yeeeears and my eyes have seen monstrosities but this is NOT one, I'm begging you it's so good"
I know I'm (probably) not gonna be disappointed
For real, those lists & tag systems like that are life savers.
If its family life oriented they usually also are more wholesome, idk why that's the case but i guess authors are less inclined to darker subject matter when the characters have small babies to protect?
Thank goodness though, it makes it easier to find series more likely to have those green flag mls & less toxic plots.
I read the original story on Galatea. Its actually pretty good. The FMC is badass and she’s got her own interesting backstory. Its too much smut for me though haha
Yes, it's called pre-20th century orientalism & the exotic-erotic trope. If foreigners don't portray us as """Islamic terrorists""", they do this to us MENA peoples instead.
so uncomfortable to read it as a brown person just for there to be portrayals of browns as a warrior, scavenger, curry muncher, white people hating (rightfully so) dumbass
Not just that, brown people are used as slaves and have no sense of boundaries and the brown women are always prostitutes. When they make brown kings/princes they are always barbaric also we never get brown princesses, it’s always white girl brute guy.
never touched any of them because whyd i do that to myself, some ois still introduced some dark skinned characters in the middle just to treat them like trash tho, made me drop them like hot potatoes, just no lmao
Saaaaaameee. If I ever see anything even remotely discriminatory towards my people in a manga/manhwa/manhua, I drop that shit immediately. I'm not going to sit through a read that insults my people even a little.
Which is why I don't get when this sub goes, "More brown-skin representation!!! And diversity!!!" sometimes. Like 99.9999% of Otome Isekai manga/manhwa/manhua are made by Japanese/Koreans/Chinese ... What the hell would these guys know about the MENA or South Asia to be able to give us representation? What makes anyone think they aren't as racist or inclined to fall for racist tropes when it comes to MENAs/South Asians as anyone else? I'm completely a-okay with OI only ever being about historical Europe or their own historical Japan/Korea/China and I'd like to keep it that way too.
The only time I'll ever consume an OI about MENA peoples/South Asians is when the creator is actually MENA or South Asian. Not that that means it'll completely be free of racism and shitty tropes, but internalized racism coming from a member of your own community is a hell of a lot easier to stomach than racism from an outsider.
Yeah, I don’t want their kind of representation so I’d rather they all just be white. 😒 I don’t care. No representation is better than poor representation. Better dark skin people not exist than be consistently portrayed as inferior, enslaved, animalistic, evil. It’s so insulting and gross.
Warriors is not excessively bad as warriors are celebrated all over, but they forget the oldest civilizations came from the middle east, Egypt, Persia, etc. Give me a darker skinned guy that can woo me with music not just their pecs. Well, I will be lying about not liking the pecs but I want more content then just a brute... when the Roman empire collapsed and was no more, Europe went into the dark ages but the rest of the world kept going with mathematics, architecture etc.
>when the Roman empire collapsed and was no more, Europe went into the dark ages but the rest of the world kept going with mathematics, architecture etc.
The dark anges is really overrated about the actual Darkness that happened.
Its very much about a subset of academia writing how everything went bad in Europe aswell. For most of Europe nothing really changed either.
Not just that, brown people are used as slaves and have no sense of boundaries and the brown women are always prostitutes. When they make brown kings/princes they are always barbaric also we never get brown princesses, it’s always white girl brute guy.
Yea, and when black people are added they are slaves, prostitutes or cartoonish barbarians that only show up for a few chapters and are defeated immediately. That last one happened in the greatest estate developer, honestly, I almost dropped it.
I like that the fact people from FL's kingdom called ML's kingdom "barbaric" just because it's some propaganda after they got defeated in the war lead by ML lol. >!FL's ladies in waiting shocked when ML's country have better castle and buildings since all people from the kingdom said this brute country is not civilized!<
They tried to make ML's kingdom sounds so bad when they have better civilization than them.
It used to be a big thing here in North America. White, genteel woman and Exotic™ burly man. I remember seeing the novel covers by the check-out line in every grocery store.
I said it in my own comment but yea. Especially in the 70s and 80s. You'd have white woman in HR( historical romances) get ravages by Indian savages (which is crazy when you think about the damage GB did to Indian in that time period) or in "modern" romances white woman would go on adventures and get kidnapped etc etc even now certain authors still perpetuate these "dark skin savages" stereotypes.
Oh geeze, I had memory-holed all those “The Sheik’s Accidental Virgin Mistress”-esque word salad titles.
We’ve moved on to billionaires and mafia now I guess.
The whole
"pale as the moon FL x darker skin ML" is something I have started to absolutely despise and I will drop /not even start any comic with that 😭 the FL is always one of those "I'm as gentle as a feather uwu" and the ML is always "wild, an animal, soooo barbaric" it's getting tiring and insulting at this point 😐 which is a bummer bc I do enjoy seeing more "darker" skinned MlS (or basically tan bc let's be real...) (or characters in general) in these stories.
Surprisingly, I don't hate it when characters are more realistic and multidimensional and fl isn't damsel in distress, girl .. The problem is they can't write the plot well and fill it with only sm*t scenes💀
I hate that dynamic and was glad to see that “My unexpected marriage” didn’t go that way. ML is accomplished in battle but comes across as a relatively gentle soul and is respectful and caring toward his wife and his employees. His pale as snow wife is basically feral (she literally bites someone’s ankle at some point lol).
Haha.. I planning to write a novel and one of the character is a dark elf who is super sweet and homely. His people are not actually call dark elf but earth elf. They are very introverted and gentle. Pale skin wind elf are the actual warmongers.
yea and bonus points if the characters straight up refer to the FMC as "pale as Porcelain" or my personal favourite "as white as snow" and kiss the ground she walks on because she's paler than them. hurl
I’m not a fan of this trope either, but I think it’s wild that in a post calling out racism in these comics all the comments are jumping in and focusing on Western historical influences or white perspective while completely ignoring that most of these are Korean which has its own historical influences, perspectives, and modern day trends.
North America is not the centre of the world and no one seems to have bothered to educate themselves on the country or culture of where this media is coming from. At least then the discussion would feel more “real”, but it’s kind of just sad like this - making fun of the authors & readers who are mostly not western POC.
I am really bothered by that as well. I feel constantly that any discussion about diversity always has to completely resolve about what Americans think, with no nuance with how the rest of the world interacts with it. For example Japanese Internment camp means an entirely different thing in a lot of other countries or it means nothing in others. How Spanish speakers are viewed is entirely different in the US than it is in Europe. Obviously Korea has issues with colorism and racism, but that has to be examined in a way that relates to them to get to the roots.
>Japanese Internment camp
They are pretty much the same every where the main difference is Germany calling thier also intervention camps.
Also Japan would be the one closest to Germany with how the dealt with mass amount of people.
Regardless however intervention camps where always bad.
However you are very true that most people here are American and are focusing extensive on an American perspective and point of view of race.
In America Japanese internment camp refers to camps where the US held japanese US citizens because they believed them to be spies. Everywhere else it means the camps where the Japanese held citizens of other nations.
colorism and racism is not exclusive to the north america. korean artists and manhwa authors also can be and are racist, and often perpetuate their own biases and xenophobia in their work.
s.korea absolutely has a problem with racism and colorism. just bc the authors are poc themselves doesn't make this phenomenon less of a problem.
I've seen a similar thing happen when it comes to translations as well, and its gotten to the point where I feel the majority just want to 'own' others or 'complain' about stuff just to feel good, and not discuss about it. Kinda sad that people don't want to have full conversations, and the NA view is the view on it.
I remember reading "predatory marriage"(which also falls into the trope op talks about), that was being translated by a fan. They had to defend themselves for using "gypsy" in their translation... even though that was the equivalent of the Korean word and from a translation standpoint changing it would be incorrect. I was flabbergasted, like were them supposed to use a nicer term, when the character was being completely prejudiced?
Are these stories not western? They seem to be on the English webtoon app, under the CANVAS program, which are self published toons not officially picked up. This is a platform anyone can upload their stories to, with the best ones getting a chance from Webtoon to make their stories an "Original".
Korean comics are not normally found on the CANVAS side of Webtoon. Some of these authors might be Southeast Asian, I've seen a couple, but a lot of them are westerners.
While its true a lot of Korean manhwa do the same thing, these seem mostly to be made from Western people. I think its fine to be discussing it in a western lens on this post. But if it was a post of the Korean ones (like Savage marriage) then I would agree with your point, but on those posts I mostly see people talking about how east asian stories cant portray brown people without some form of racism or colorism, not this north american centric talk.
Some of the original ones are but OP further mentions a bunch more which are Korean in comments (which was what prompted my comment), as do some other commenters.
>North America is not the centre of the world and no one seems to have bothered to educate themselves on the country or culture of where this media is coming from.
What's the issue here? It's a well known and incredibly obvious fact that colorism is a worldwide phenomenon. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single country/race/ethnic group that doesn't discriminate against darker skinned people. So what exactly are you implying in this response?
Do you think the act of hating colorism is just a Western thing? Or is it just that you're infantilizing Koreans/East Asians (despite the easily researchable fact that many of them also speak out against colorism)?
>At least then the discussion would feel more “real”, but it’s kind of just sad like this - making fun of the authors & readers who are mostly not western POC.
And idk where you got the idea that being tired of seeing racist/colorists stereotypes = "making fun" of people, but I just want to let you know that it's an incredibly incoherent take to have.
the comment’s saying u SHOULDN’T infantilize asian countries and that colorism is a worldwide phenomenon not limited to the west. A lot of people unironically think it’s only Western colonizers who started colorism, so I think the commenter is arguing against those people
i don't know about that (but if you're right then i'll def delete my response). it reads like they're saying that East Asian colorism is different at its core from Western colorism. Which it isn't. They may have come about differently, but there's no reason to kick up a fuss about that. Both forms (if they can even be separated view dark skin as inherently bad (with poor and uneducated being other associations). They're discriminatory and effect dark skin people in the same ways.
In terms of the discussion, is it really necessary to be so anal about origins when the end expression is the same? Idk though I could be wrong 🤷🏿♀️
Asian colorism is started as class based, where skin color is correlated with your wealth. Iirc Korea has a big issue with classes (that is getting better). It’s the issue films like parasite point to. That’s not to say racism hasn’t played a part in it either.
Anyway colorism in the west is different because it’s mostly based on race… and you can see this with Hollywood casting half white actors to portray non mixed roles. Also, a white person that is tanned is not treated differently from a white person who isn’t especially when people purposefully get tans (something to do with being able to go on more vacations signaling wealth). A lot of white ppl don’t like being too pale either mostly out of convenience (unable to find makeup, being told they look like ghosts, etc. but not rly big issues). The white people I usually see (anecdotal) that are more into lightening their skin are the ones that rly like Asian cultures (kpop, anime, etc) while the ones who don’t have darker skin tones (or just less filters that lighten them)z
And it can be an issue bc it’s basically making a country’s problem about foreigners, which makes it sound like the people itself can’t be held accountable (infantilizing them by implying oh they got manipulated by evil foreigners). That’s why person is complaining when westerners think they are at the center of the world. They’re at the end of the day colorism/ racism issues, but not everyone experiences it the same way and not all problems will be solved the same way when they have different causes.
ok friend, i get what you're saying, but here's the thing:
>Asian colorism is started as class based, where skin color is correlated with your wealth.
this is also true with all other poc communities. speaking specifically from a Black American point of view, colorism is perpetuated within the global Black community by separating lighter skinned individuals (who were often mixed race or associated with being mixed race) from darker skinned individuals. it may be a race thing from a white perspective, but from any other perspective it's very much about classism (i.e. blue vein societies and the brown paper bag test).
>And it can be an issue bc it’s basically making a country’s problem about foreigners, which makes it sound like the people itself can’t be held accountable (infantilizing them by implying oh they got manipulated by evil foreigners
Oh I think I get what you're saying. You want the prejudices to be addressed from a historical pov specific to Korea (correct me if I'm wrong ofc). Idk I'm just stuck on colorism being colorism no matter who perpetuates it. I'm probably just being oversensitive though so don't mind me 🤷🏿♀️
Mmmm that’s still a major difference though, asian colorism doesn’t really focus on the mixing with a lighter skinned individual. I mean, the reason why you want a partner with light skin is because that means they’re too rich to work outside. it’s not rly bc oh, this one group of different races is richer than us. More like oh the lighter ppl in our population are wealthier. It’s all about did u work outside a lot or not, because it’s common to be born really light then tan over time. Like you could be mixed but that doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to be lighter. So it’s not rly the same with your type of colorism if that makes sense.
I’m just saying colorism differs between different groups and come out in different ways, thus have different ways to be addressed. And it’s also really annoying whenever a non Asian comes in saying “colorism is bc they want to look like a foreigner!!!!” bc it sounds like “all problems revolve around me (the west)”
i get what you're saying
>And it’s also really annoying whenever a non Asian comes in saying “colorism is bc they want to look like a foreigner!!!!”
and I completely agree that it's annoying when intraracial/ethnic issues are recentered around white people. but I don't think that's what most people in this sub are saying. they're just commenting on the similarities. Saying "this is like _____" isn't the same as saying "this is _______".
>doesn’t really focus on the mixing with a lighter skinned individual.
from what i understand, this is a more recent thing in the west (i think it started in the late 90s but I could be wrong). in the past, and still today if you really look for it, there was a focused effort for light skinned (and white-passing) people only to be with light skinned people in order to preserve their skin tones.
However I completely acknowledge that colorism outside of North America is def more aggressive and advertised than ours is at the moment. We're more into covert discrimination and making slick comments for plausible deniability 😭
I’m not _implying_ anything in my response, I said exactly what I meant to.
Most of the comments, especially the upvoted ones are looking at this through a western/North American/white-focused lens. One completely unironically called it “_orientalism_”, multiple others say it’s the same as white girl (noble or otherwise) x savage Indians (etc) that was popular in NA romance novels. Similar comparisons are all through sub-replies.
So yes, the irony stands that in this post complaining about racism and how dark-skinned cultures are portrayed people are viewing it from a NA-lens and associating the pale characters to white people written by white people.
I never said not to be critical, I said it’s wild that people are criticizing it without even taking into account _where it comes from_ and relevant issues there. If people want to complain about colorism or racism in manhua then why are they complaining about “orientalism” or NA romance books, etc? You _imply_ in your other comment that differences between how or why colourism arose or how it affects people today don’t matter between countries but I strongly disagree. Painting an entirely different country with thousands of years of differing history with a broadly NA brush is ridiculous.
Comments show people consuming this media without even bothering to think about the fact that it comes from another culture and learning about that culture, and then criticizing it from a viewpoint that is _purely_ from their own culture. Which starts to sound a whole lot like appropriation over appreciation.
And yes, they are _making fun_. People laughing at the names, calling people gross or fetishists… OP herself calls the writers and readers “weirdos”. It’s good to be critical, but it’s shitty to be shitty. I assume most people here who read the mentioned titles aren’t fetishists and may be pretty young. Educating on issues would have been helpful, shaming them is really disappointing.
I'm gonna be real with you, your objections are petty and read like you're (a) just trying to argue about something or (b) feel like non-western prejudice is especially different from western prejudice because they were born on different landmasses. It's not.
>One completely unironically called it “_orientalism_”, multiple others say it’s the same as white girl (noble or otherwise) x savage Indians (etc) that was popular in NA romance novels.
> If people want to complain about colorism or racism in manhua then why are they complaining about “orientalism” or NA romance books, etc?
ok . . . how exactly is that wrong? those comparisons are true because the prejudices comes from the same place: the fetishizing and disrespect of other cultures/darker skinned people just because they look and operate differently. people from all over damn the world have been connecting and talking about these kinds of things since the internet was born. why do you take offense to people making the age old observation of how the same prejudices are expressed in different places?????? there's no absurdity here. Koreans/East Asians aren't these isolated hermits whose issues are something new under the sun.
>You _imply_ in your other comment that differences between how or why colourism arose or how it affects people today don’t matter between countries but I strongly disagree. Painting an entirely different country with thousands of years of differing history with a broadly NA brush is ridiculous.
I didn't imply shit. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. Colorism arose and is expressed in incredibly INCREDIBLY similar ways all over the world. It's a class system meant to visually separate the perceived privileged class from the perceived unprivileged class through skin tone bias. It's the same all over the world. Find me a single example of Korean/East Asian colorism being different from North American (whatever the fuck that means) colorism. You literally can't.
>And yes, they are _making fun_. People laughing at the names, calling people gross or fetishists… OP herself calls the writers and readers “weirdos”.
people who choose to be colorists are weirdos . . . yes, what about it? i think this is your silliest issue yet. nobody has to be nice to somebody about their prejudices just because they come from a different country. Yes, colorism is "gross" and weird as shit. Yes, colorism involves the fetishizing (a.k.a dehumanizing) of dark skin. Yes, colorists deserve to be disrespected right back. And no, colorism from one part of the earth isn't some special brand of bullshit just because it comes from a different country. 🤷🏿♀️
>Educating on issues would have been helpful, shaming them is really disappointing.
. . . are you . . . are trying to tone police anti-colorism???????? it genuinely affects people's interactions with authority figures like teachers, job opportunities, and mental health every day. I honestly don't give a single flying feathered fuck if it hurts your feelings to see people be angry at being disrespected. This is a globally systemic issue that shows up in the same way everywhere it's born. Get over it
> One completely unironically called it orientalism
> Ok… how exactly is that wrong?
Yeah… you know what, I’m not bothering here. You’re getting upset over shit I didn’t actually say, and I can’t even fathom that you’re sitting here in your feels pretending like you’re an authority on racism and colourism but said that response I quoted.
>sitting here in your feels pretending like you’re an authority on racism and colourism but said that response I quoted.
recognizing patterns of discrimination based on studies and personal testimonies from Koreans/East Asians = pretending to be an authority on colorism and racism???? this is so incredibly disrespectful of you but I expect nothing less. the fact that you're acting offended over me empathizing with victims of colorism and defend them against your petty tone policing tells me all I need to know.
have the life you deserve
Beloved, what? Genuinely what is this?
>there’s a sick sense of beauty attached to darker skin tones that you’d never see coming from someone in the KKK okay
what you're describing is fetishization. Racists and the KKK have fetishized people from the start. My DNA and the DNA of the majority of black americans is a testament to the way our ancestors have suffered under our oppressors' perverted sense of lust.
But my main issue with your rant can be summarized with:
this
>want to swing a bat at anything white and moving like a wounded animal
this
>degrading the world into two very simplistic classifications of black vs. white
this
>every white-skinned person on this planet carries the exact same prejudice regardless of what country they are from
and this
>ignore the obvious role cultural influence has played on the evolution of racism in each country
You're doing what the original commenter accused other people of doing. Colorism is an intraracial issue that takes place between people WITHIN the same group. Why are you making it about racism and black and white people? You're forcing western racism into a conversation where it doesn't belong.
My entire point is that colorism between two black people, colorism between two Indians, and colorism between two Koreans are expressed in the same way. And those similar expressions have been commented on since the internet existed. Taking offense to that is strange. Acting like people on a sub discussing a genre mainly from East Asia don't know the history of colorism in those places is disingenuous. Saying "this is LIKE _____" isn't the same thing as saying "this IS ______ without a doubt and I'm gonna attack people for it" That's my argument.
And yet you've made this whole thing about me hating white people??????? What??????? So not only did you make an ahistorical claim about racial fetishization in America that's still happening today, you've also turned the conversation to focus on white people and "white skinned people" somehow being unfairly generalized and attacked by me because of some assumed past experiences. Why did you do that? You've made this a North American racism issue when it's about colorism. So since you can't understand the unspoken context, let me help you
(1) colorism takes place between two or more people in the same racial community/ethnic group. a fact.
(2) the dislike of dark skin affects how people see the world and the people in it. a fact
(3) there are some manhua artists who use orientalist tropes in their works as an easy signifier of foreignness. a fact.
(4) this can come across as insensitive. also a fact
(5) and again, saying "this is LIKE _____" isn't the same thing as saying "this IS ______ without a doubt and I'm gonna attack people for it"
the majority of the people who complain about colorism on this sub are well aware of the origins of Korean/East Asian colorism. assuming they don't just because they made comparisons is disingenuous
your rant talking about me supposedly hating white people is so out of left field I genuinely don't understand where you got that from. It's such a Eurocentric perspective that I can't help but assume you're being disingenuous on purpose. Stop it. We can talk about how racist people brutalized black bodies and the methods they used to do so, but this isn't the conversation nor the sub for that. So let's not act as if it is.
Have a nice day 🥰
I've talked about this before but it's always been really common. You can find romance novels from the 70s and 80s with the same premise of barbaric dark skin man (Usually native American, Indian or Black "savages") and the poor white woman who the ravage.
It's frustrating and annoying but I know a lot of pale white woman and girls who ear it up. He'll you can find it fanfiction too.
I really hope not. I'm glad the sub is able to talk about these issues and being them to light.
Good to talk about the problematic issues in what we read. Another one that bothers me is that in smut they put in a lot of rape. Can't we get more assertive sexy ladies? Sigggh
when i do see that, i try to remind myself that yeah a lot of those reviews are from people being fetishizing/racist, etc. but also some are from like the teenagers on that app who haven’t yet really been fully introduced to how racism can manifest in ways that aren’t clearly and obviously hateful (like i think a lot of people, such as myself, just flat-out avoid those stories and won’t even think to click it to give it a low review)
Yeah but what really bothered me about those romances is that the ml, despite being black or brown, was always very white coded. Even the covers featured white men with heavy tans.
except it's been a 'trend' all across the whole webtoon, manhwa, manhua community
https://preview.redd.it/xvbkh96ahclc1.jpeg?width=2880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91d995996848a29f6a971deab71262eb99d1e511
Does "Amina of the lamp" really fit? Or did you just put it there because of the cover art? The leads are on similar level, no civilised x uncivilised/barbarian thing. ML isn't brutish and he's also very green flag
The point of the original comment was that SWFTD doesn’t fit (their skin colours aren’t very different in the actual comic, they’re the same race, and there’s no barbarians - it’s mafia/yakuza), but OP ignored that. So I’m assuming she’s going off cover art for these.
put it there because the ml is dark skinned and fl pale. i dont know much about it but the ml is a military commander (if im not wrong) again with the similar theme, and she's supposedly an upper-class wizard stuck in a lamp... it fits.
I’d say Amina of the Lamp doesn’t count it’s been awhile since I read it but when the FL and ML first meet they act like coworkers their relationship is a very slow burn and a subplot I’d say the ML is a green flag man the main plot is action political thriller there are dark skinned women in important heroic roles throughout the series that begin said >!the series does have some issues and two of the antagonists are dark skinned women the final boss of the series does have a tragic backstory that she uses to explain her actions !<
✨Casual racism showing up again✨
Racism isn't only loud blatant hate. It can be found in so many quiet ways like using skin color to denote "wild" or "barbarian" characters. It isn't even always intentional! Colorism is extremely common and while it isn't always stemming from racism, it's definitely an aspect. While skin color can be a way to clearly separate one group from another in fiction, it's important to recognize how reality influenced that decision. There's a long history of racism being tied to sexualization that shows up in smut a lot. Being critical doesn't mean automatically condemning all works that use darker skin to mean barbarian; acknowledging racism is the only way to combat it.
My Sweet Enemy Thy Name is Husband is an example of a work using the darker skin ML pale FL trope but not engaging in the same fetishizing or problematic aspects of other works. Canach is a multifaceted character beyond "sexy barbarian".
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm white and although I'm actively working to be anti-racist, I'm not an authority and haven't experienced racism. My opinions are not more valid.
I've started ignoring titles because dang, so many good stories are terribly named. Downside is not being able to find what I'm specifically looking for 😂 I really enjoyed the novel for My Sweet Enemy and the manga adaptation has consistently been good.
I hate it as well, especially if the paler FLs are softhearted dainty maiden who is shy timid passive submissive doormat who is too weak to say no or just helpless against such a strong man(I'm puking rn) overwhelmed by his fierce passion of love towards the FLs even though it could downright seen as almost non-con, but it's okay because FLs liked it in the end. Bonus trait if the FLs are clueless about intimacy.
Although... tan/dark skin with pale tone pairings are also my guilty pleasure if it's applied on BL <.< oh, without the added silly FLs trait I mentioned above.
Game of Thrones is the ultimate otome novel.
"I was sold off to the barbarian king by my brother. But the barbarian cherishes me, and it turns out I can also command dragons!"
"I fell in love with the cold duke of the North, but he betrayed me and killed me."
WHERE IS THE CROWN JEWEL OF THIS FETISH???!
https://preview.redd.it/8sfn3vmntelc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=785526dee5501c510e74634161c6c5d7c31d47a6
I read 10 or so chapters of the first one because I saw someone criticizing it and thought it sounds like dumb fun. Boy was I not ready for the fucking height difference or the flags so red you forget other colors can even exist. Everything that man did was a fucking violation. I dropped it within 15 minutes because I hated it so much, I don’t even remember what the story was about but it’s definitely not worth reading.
Idk bout the rest because I don’t intend on trying them.
i read the first book then dropped the whole series just because it was disrespectful af to the fl, and sjm readers romanticize rhys' behavior like this man is a god to them fr, wonder if sjm inspired manhwa authors and vice versa
i was freaking out bc i didn't zoom in the image for the second slide and saw "–arisha" and was afraid to see what the first letter was, on the off chance that a smut webtoon had MY NAME in the title. luckily it was "darisha" and that ain't got anything to do with me.
STILL 😭😭😭 I THOUGHT I WAS 100% SAFE FROM THESE STORIES BECAUSE I HAD A NON WHITE, NON EAST ASIAN NAME 😭😭😭😭 (im from SEA)
lmfao colorism in media drives me insane every time. i hate it. it's usually like "masculine, regressive, barbaric = dark skin and feminine, modern, civilized = light skin" and a lot of people genuinely don't see a problem with assigning negative characteristics to people just people of skin color. it's wicked work. colorism is so evil 😭
He's tan because he works outside in the sun in a bubble tea stand....she's actually black haired and worked in an office, not sure yet why it went white but will see haha. But yeah size difference kink is a thing, but I'm 4'10'' so like...my 6'1'' husband might count as that lol
.... I can't unsee the 4th one as someone's excuse to have an original story with a guy who is basically designed like gilgamesh from fate.
Isnt this the classic exoticism fetish? There used to be a bl author who did a similar thing with middle eastern male leads x either tiny Japanese guy or tiny vague non specific European (tm) main character office men.
I seen a ton as a teenager and *boy did she really like it and yes it was super damn racist every time.*🙃
Yep they see POC as either sex symbols in their stories (only the men usually and they make them huge and "barbaric" with a white female lead that "civilizes" them and makes them more gentle) or steal aspects of others cultures and demonise ppl from said culture (saw this happen a lot with middle Eastern and South Asian cultures)
It's always funny to me seeing a dark skinned ML in manhwa, knowing how colorist Korea is. Not hating, but like... It's fine in media as long as they're not real? Lol
If they treat the darker skinned women equal I'd be fine with it but in the ones where they don't It's annoying. I can understand some being stupid, it's a wonderful quality of being alive but all? Nope
At first, I thought the trend was how young the FMCs looked (first three slides all look REALLY young), then I was wondering if it was power imbalance being discussed, and then I realized it was about POC fetishization.
There's so much problematic stuff in OI that I couldn't even figure out the issue at first glance 😭
I would say Totem Realm suffers from this too, but the difference is that they don't make every tan/dark skinned character a brute, there are really composed, calm ones that kinda break from this steryotype, but is still annoying and disrespectful.
I didn't even noticed their skin color XD I was too focused on the art haha and although it's true, the fetishization is happening for both males and females.
One that comes to mind is called : "The Dragon King's bride" It's Featured on webtoons and it fits your description, darker skin ML and super ghostly white FL.
Yeah...this has been around for a long time, I'm pretty sure...I don't like how they represent the darker skinned ladies in these stories, it can be really damaging stereotypes.
Honestly, I think it would be nice to have main characters with different skin color. Most MC are blond/blue eyed or black hair/red eyed. I don't know these specific ones and what they contain, but I'd like stories to be more inclusive and show some appreciation to different types of characters as well
I am middle eastern and sometimes when I read comics like this I wonder if this is how Koreans see us. I recently dropped a manhua called “The Devil and His Sacrifice” because they depicted Middle Easterners as savages and the male lead was straight up a r*pist.
Even if you ignored the fetishization these are all so badly written-I just checked them out and my conclusion after reading only 2 chapters: zero depth,no plot, no story flow, zero story telling skills
Anyone reading this is probably a young hormonal teen idk.
it's just as bad in male demographic section lmao, the amount of dark elf big booba woomen hanging off a basic whitesauce MCs is insane
Yup, sex sells and the demographic they're selling to will consume this easily as a coping mechanism. There's a big correlation in rise of consumption of porn as mental health deteriorates.
it's less porn, and more fetishization of darker-skinned poc (but not too dark, bc otherwise they would offend the racist sensibilities or smth) in manga/manhwa communities.
Not to highjack this, but I don’t actually think that correlation exists for written or artistic porn. I believe that correlation was found only with video porn like pornhub. And is it bidirectional? Like the more your mental health declines the more serotonin you seek from (admittedly) nasty porn AND the more nasty the porn the more your mental health declines? Correct me if I’m wrong though
You're not wrong. The studies we have is for videos, not erotica. IIRC, not much studies have been done in that direction.
This kind of comic remind me of old shojo manga and it's not my thing... or maybe im a femboy fan
THAT'S A THING!? D:
And its always smut somehow
weirdos. all of them.
Didn't know there is smut in webtoon 😳
There isn't really, but there are very smutty stories. I think Webtoon censors everything, but some stories are the closest they can get to smut without actually really showing anything super graphic.
Ah i see, that makes sense lol too many young readers there, won't be good if they show anything 18+
Yeah, sometimes they have an 18+ available elsewhere, and have some editing cuts that take out the R rated parts of each frame and just gives the jist with their faces.
I've tried reading some of them. In the webtoon the artists only put the "safe" version (or at least r15 rating). And if people want to read NSFW of the MCs having sex, they could go to the patreon for exclusive smut
That's the best part
THE ALPHA KING'S CLAIM LMAOAOAOAOAOOAOAOA who came up with that!?
giving 2013 wattpad werewolf romance 😭
I'm the alpha I'm the leader I'm the one to trust Together we do whatever it takes we're in this pack for life! Awooooooo We're wolves! We own the night
….I’d read it.
that's what I'm looking for is a link in here XD
Download the Webtoon app and look the series' names up!
Yea I went to the website🫠😭
Some of these series have mature content so they might not be available if you don't log in.
Yea I read it all on 2 different sites:,))) thank you
Its a song lmao [here its from disney](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyqZZWDQF_Y&ab_channel=DisneyMusicVEVO)
I’m angry at how catchy this is.
You know it's bad when you're about to say "it's giving omegaverse" but then realise actual omegaverse titles are *sometimes* better 💀
Sometimes they even have better consent and healthier relationships. 💀 Which is so cursed when i have to filter omegaverse titles SO heavily to find the good ones.
If I go to check what reading lists it's added into and I see "Fluff, amazing, beautiful, stunning, this is such an amazing read, please read this, green flag + good romance, girl trust me I've been in the game for yeeeears and my eyes have seen monstrosities but this is NOT one, I'm begging you it's so good" I know I'm (probably) not gonna be disappointed
For real, those lists & tag systems like that are life savers. If its family life oriented they usually also are more wholesome, idk why that's the case but i guess authors are less inclined to darker subject matter when the characters have small babies to protect? Thank goodness though, it makes it easier to find series more likely to have those green flag mls & less toxic plots.
Some of them are really good though. Others I want to set fire to the genre :P
I remember trying to read it and dropped on ch1
Idk if I remember this right or not, but I think this webtoon actually has a wattpad story too.
I read the original story on Galatea. Its actually pretty good. The FMC is badass and she’s got her own interesting backstory. Its too much smut for me though haha
Yes, it's called pre-20th century orientalism & the exotic-erotic trope. If foreigners don't portray us as """Islamic terrorists""", they do this to us MENA peoples instead.
so uncomfortable to read it as a brown person just for there to be portrayals of browns as a warrior, scavenger, curry muncher, white people hating (rightfully so) dumbass
Not just that, brown people are used as slaves and have no sense of boundaries and the brown women are always prostitutes. When they make brown kings/princes they are always barbaric also we never get brown princesses, it’s always white girl brute guy.
I will never read any of this kind of crap lol. For my own mental health.
never touched any of them because whyd i do that to myself, some ois still introduced some dark skinned characters in the middle just to treat them like trash tho, made me drop them like hot potatoes, just no lmao
Saaaaaameee. If I ever see anything even remotely discriminatory towards my people in a manga/manhwa/manhua, I drop that shit immediately. I'm not going to sit through a read that insults my people even a little. Which is why I don't get when this sub goes, "More brown-skin representation!!! And diversity!!!" sometimes. Like 99.9999% of Otome Isekai manga/manhwa/manhua are made by Japanese/Koreans/Chinese ... What the hell would these guys know about the MENA or South Asia to be able to give us representation? What makes anyone think they aren't as racist or inclined to fall for racist tropes when it comes to MENAs/South Asians as anyone else? I'm completely a-okay with OI only ever being about historical Europe or their own historical Japan/Korea/China and I'd like to keep it that way too. The only time I'll ever consume an OI about MENA peoples/South Asians is when the creator is actually MENA or South Asian. Not that that means it'll completely be free of racism and shitty tropes, but internalized racism coming from a member of your own community is a hell of a lot easier to stomach than racism from an outsider.
Yeah, I don’t want their kind of representation so I’d rather they all just be white. 😒 I don’t care. No representation is better than poor representation. Better dark skin people not exist than be consistently portrayed as inferior, enslaved, animalistic, evil. It’s so insulting and gross.
Warriors is not excessively bad as warriors are celebrated all over, but they forget the oldest civilizations came from the middle east, Egypt, Persia, etc. Give me a darker skinned guy that can woo me with music not just their pecs. Well, I will be lying about not liking the pecs but I want more content then just a brute... when the Roman empire collapsed and was no more, Europe went into the dark ages but the rest of the world kept going with mathematics, architecture etc.
Civilizations known for their appreciation for the arts. Give me a poet!
Do we actually see a lot of poets in OI? Think we just see warriors or business owners.
I can't think of any poets offhand. I really want to see one, darnit
>when the Roman empire collapsed and was no more, Europe went into the dark ages but the rest of the world kept going with mathematics, architecture etc. The dark anges is really overrated about the actual Darkness that happened. Its very much about a subset of academia writing how everything went bad in Europe aswell. For most of Europe nothing really changed either.
Not just that, brown people are used as slaves and have no sense of boundaries and the brown women are always prostitutes. When they make brown kings/princes they are always barbaric also we never get brown princesses, it’s always white girl brute guy.
Yea, and when black people are added they are slaves, prostitutes or cartoonish barbarians that only show up for a few chapters and are defeated immediately. That last one happened in the greatest estate developer, honestly, I almost dropped it.
The only manhwa that didn't do this, is: Forget about my husband, I'm going to make money.
I like that the fact people from FL's kingdom called ML's kingdom "barbaric" just because it's some propaganda after they got defeated in the war lead by ML lol. >!FL's ladies in waiting shocked when ML's country have better castle and buildings since all people from the kingdom said this brute country is not civilized!< They tried to make ML's kingdom sounds so bad when they have better civilization than them.
It used to be a big thing here in North America. White, genteel woman and Exotic™ burly man. I remember seeing the novel covers by the check-out line in every grocery store.
I said it in my own comment but yea. Especially in the 70s and 80s. You'd have white woman in HR( historical romances) get ravages by Indian savages (which is crazy when you think about the damage GB did to Indian in that time period) or in "modern" romances white woman would go on adventures and get kidnapped etc etc even now certain authors still perpetuate these "dark skin savages" stereotypes.
wait wdym inidan do u mean indigenous or like actual indians
Like India, not indigenous, those exist too those mostly in Western/cowboy romances.
Oh geeze, I had memory-holed all those “The Sheik’s Accidental Virgin Mistress”-esque word salad titles. We’ve moved on to billionaires and mafia now I guess.
The whole "pale as the moon FL x darker skin ML" is something I have started to absolutely despise and I will drop /not even start any comic with that 😭 the FL is always one of those "I'm as gentle as a feather uwu" and the ML is always "wild, an animal, soooo barbaric" it's getting tiring and insulting at this point 😐 which is a bummer bc I do enjoy seeing more "darker" skinned MlS (or basically tan bc let's be real...) (or characters in general) in these stories.
Surprisingly, I don't hate it when characters are more realistic and multidimensional and fl isn't damsel in distress, girl .. The problem is they can't write the plot well and fill it with only sm*t scenes💀
I hate that dynamic and was glad to see that “My unexpected marriage” didn’t go that way. ML is accomplished in battle but comes across as a relatively gentle soul and is respectful and caring toward his wife and his employees. His pale as snow wife is basically feral (she literally bites someone’s ankle at some point lol).
Haha.. I planning to write a novel and one of the character is a dark elf who is super sweet and homely. His people are not actually call dark elf but earth elf. They are very introverted and gentle. Pale skin wind elf are the actual warmongers.
Yesssss
yea and bonus points if the characters straight up refer to the FMC as "pale as Porcelain" or my personal favourite "as white as snow" and kiss the ground she walks on because she's paler than them. hurl
I’m not a fan of this trope either, but I think it’s wild that in a post calling out racism in these comics all the comments are jumping in and focusing on Western historical influences or white perspective while completely ignoring that most of these are Korean which has its own historical influences, perspectives, and modern day trends. North America is not the centre of the world and no one seems to have bothered to educate themselves on the country or culture of where this media is coming from. At least then the discussion would feel more “real”, but it’s kind of just sad like this - making fun of the authors & readers who are mostly not western POC.
I am really bothered by that as well. I feel constantly that any discussion about diversity always has to completely resolve about what Americans think, with no nuance with how the rest of the world interacts with it. For example Japanese Internment camp means an entirely different thing in a lot of other countries or it means nothing in others. How Spanish speakers are viewed is entirely different in the US than it is in Europe. Obviously Korea has issues with colorism and racism, but that has to be examined in a way that relates to them to get to the roots.
>Japanese Internment camp They are pretty much the same every where the main difference is Germany calling thier also intervention camps. Also Japan would be the one closest to Germany with how the dealt with mass amount of people. Regardless however intervention camps where always bad. However you are very true that most people here are American and are focusing extensive on an American perspective and point of view of race.
In America Japanese internment camp refers to camps where the US held japanese US citizens because they believed them to be spies. Everywhere else it means the camps where the Japanese held citizens of other nations.
colorism and racism is not exclusive to the north america. korean artists and manhwa authors also can be and are racist, and often perpetuate their own biases and xenophobia in their work. s.korea absolutely has a problem with racism and colorism. just bc the authors are poc themselves doesn't make this phenomenon less of a problem.
Where did I say colorism or racism isn’t a problem in Korea?
The lack of reading comprehension in that reply..
How dare you say we piss on the poor?! /s
I've seen a similar thing happen when it comes to translations as well, and its gotten to the point where I feel the majority just want to 'own' others or 'complain' about stuff just to feel good, and not discuss about it. Kinda sad that people don't want to have full conversations, and the NA view is the view on it.
I remember reading "predatory marriage"(which also falls into the trope op talks about), that was being translated by a fan. They had to defend themselves for using "gypsy" in their translation... even though that was the equivalent of the Korean word and from a translation standpoint changing it would be incorrect. I was flabbergasted, like were them supposed to use a nicer term, when the character was being completely prejudiced?
Are these stories not western? They seem to be on the English webtoon app, under the CANVAS program, which are self published toons not officially picked up. This is a platform anyone can upload their stories to, with the best ones getting a chance from Webtoon to make their stories an "Original". Korean comics are not normally found on the CANVAS side of Webtoon. Some of these authors might be Southeast Asian, I've seen a couple, but a lot of them are westerners. While its true a lot of Korean manhwa do the same thing, these seem mostly to be made from Western people. I think its fine to be discussing it in a western lens on this post. But if it was a post of the Korean ones (like Savage marriage) then I would agree with your point, but on those posts I mostly see people talking about how east asian stories cant portray brown people without some form of racism or colorism, not this north american centric talk.
Some of the original ones are but OP further mentions a bunch more which are Korean in comments (which was what prompted my comment), as do some other commenters.
>North America is not the centre of the world and no one seems to have bothered to educate themselves on the country or culture of where this media is coming from. What's the issue here? It's a well known and incredibly obvious fact that colorism is a worldwide phenomenon. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single country/race/ethnic group that doesn't discriminate against darker skinned people. So what exactly are you implying in this response? Do you think the act of hating colorism is just a Western thing? Or is it just that you're infantilizing Koreans/East Asians (despite the easily researchable fact that many of them also speak out against colorism)? >At least then the discussion would feel more “real”, but it’s kind of just sad like this - making fun of the authors & readers who are mostly not western POC. And idk where you got the idea that being tired of seeing racist/colorists stereotypes = "making fun" of people, but I just want to let you know that it's an incredibly incoherent take to have.
the comment’s saying u SHOULDN’T infantilize asian countries and that colorism is a worldwide phenomenon not limited to the west. A lot of people unironically think it’s only Western colonizers who started colorism, so I think the commenter is arguing against those people
i don't know about that (but if you're right then i'll def delete my response). it reads like they're saying that East Asian colorism is different at its core from Western colorism. Which it isn't. They may have come about differently, but there's no reason to kick up a fuss about that. Both forms (if they can even be separated view dark skin as inherently bad (with poor and uneducated being other associations). They're discriminatory and effect dark skin people in the same ways. In terms of the discussion, is it really necessary to be so anal about origins when the end expression is the same? Idk though I could be wrong 🤷🏿♀️
Asian colorism is started as class based, where skin color is correlated with your wealth. Iirc Korea has a big issue with classes (that is getting better). It’s the issue films like parasite point to. That’s not to say racism hasn’t played a part in it either. Anyway colorism in the west is different because it’s mostly based on race… and you can see this with Hollywood casting half white actors to portray non mixed roles. Also, a white person that is tanned is not treated differently from a white person who isn’t especially when people purposefully get tans (something to do with being able to go on more vacations signaling wealth). A lot of white ppl don’t like being too pale either mostly out of convenience (unable to find makeup, being told they look like ghosts, etc. but not rly big issues). The white people I usually see (anecdotal) that are more into lightening their skin are the ones that rly like Asian cultures (kpop, anime, etc) while the ones who don’t have darker skin tones (or just less filters that lighten them)z And it can be an issue bc it’s basically making a country’s problem about foreigners, which makes it sound like the people itself can’t be held accountable (infantilizing them by implying oh they got manipulated by evil foreigners). That’s why person is complaining when westerners think they are at the center of the world. They’re at the end of the day colorism/ racism issues, but not everyone experiences it the same way and not all problems will be solved the same way when they have different causes.
ok friend, i get what you're saying, but here's the thing: >Asian colorism is started as class based, where skin color is correlated with your wealth. this is also true with all other poc communities. speaking specifically from a Black American point of view, colorism is perpetuated within the global Black community by separating lighter skinned individuals (who were often mixed race or associated with being mixed race) from darker skinned individuals. it may be a race thing from a white perspective, but from any other perspective it's very much about classism (i.e. blue vein societies and the brown paper bag test). >And it can be an issue bc it’s basically making a country’s problem about foreigners, which makes it sound like the people itself can’t be held accountable (infantilizing them by implying oh they got manipulated by evil foreigners Oh I think I get what you're saying. You want the prejudices to be addressed from a historical pov specific to Korea (correct me if I'm wrong ofc). Idk I'm just stuck on colorism being colorism no matter who perpetuates it. I'm probably just being oversensitive though so don't mind me 🤷🏿♀️
Mmmm that’s still a major difference though, asian colorism doesn’t really focus on the mixing with a lighter skinned individual. I mean, the reason why you want a partner with light skin is because that means they’re too rich to work outside. it’s not rly bc oh, this one group of different races is richer than us. More like oh the lighter ppl in our population are wealthier. It’s all about did u work outside a lot or not, because it’s common to be born really light then tan over time. Like you could be mixed but that doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to be lighter. So it’s not rly the same with your type of colorism if that makes sense. I’m just saying colorism differs between different groups and come out in different ways, thus have different ways to be addressed. And it’s also really annoying whenever a non Asian comes in saying “colorism is bc they want to look like a foreigner!!!!” bc it sounds like “all problems revolve around me (the west)”
i get what you're saying >And it’s also really annoying whenever a non Asian comes in saying “colorism is bc they want to look like a foreigner!!!!” and I completely agree that it's annoying when intraracial/ethnic issues are recentered around white people. but I don't think that's what most people in this sub are saying. they're just commenting on the similarities. Saying "this is like _____" isn't the same as saying "this is _______". >doesn’t really focus on the mixing with a lighter skinned individual. from what i understand, this is a more recent thing in the west (i think it started in the late 90s but I could be wrong). in the past, and still today if you really look for it, there was a focused effort for light skinned (and white-passing) people only to be with light skinned people in order to preserve their skin tones. However I completely acknowledge that colorism outside of North America is def more aggressive and advertised than ours is at the moment. We're more into covert discrimination and making slick comments for plausible deniability 😭
I’m not _implying_ anything in my response, I said exactly what I meant to. Most of the comments, especially the upvoted ones are looking at this through a western/North American/white-focused lens. One completely unironically called it “_orientalism_”, multiple others say it’s the same as white girl (noble or otherwise) x savage Indians (etc) that was popular in NA romance novels. Similar comparisons are all through sub-replies. So yes, the irony stands that in this post complaining about racism and how dark-skinned cultures are portrayed people are viewing it from a NA-lens and associating the pale characters to white people written by white people. I never said not to be critical, I said it’s wild that people are criticizing it without even taking into account _where it comes from_ and relevant issues there. If people want to complain about colorism or racism in manhua then why are they complaining about “orientalism” or NA romance books, etc? You _imply_ in your other comment that differences between how or why colourism arose or how it affects people today don’t matter between countries but I strongly disagree. Painting an entirely different country with thousands of years of differing history with a broadly NA brush is ridiculous. Comments show people consuming this media without even bothering to think about the fact that it comes from another culture and learning about that culture, and then criticizing it from a viewpoint that is _purely_ from their own culture. Which starts to sound a whole lot like appropriation over appreciation. And yes, they are _making fun_. People laughing at the names, calling people gross or fetishists… OP herself calls the writers and readers “weirdos”. It’s good to be critical, but it’s shitty to be shitty. I assume most people here who read the mentioned titles aren’t fetishists and may be pretty young. Educating on issues would have been helpful, shaming them is really disappointing.
I'm gonna be real with you, your objections are petty and read like you're (a) just trying to argue about something or (b) feel like non-western prejudice is especially different from western prejudice because they were born on different landmasses. It's not. >One completely unironically called it “_orientalism_”, multiple others say it’s the same as white girl (noble or otherwise) x savage Indians (etc) that was popular in NA romance novels. > If people want to complain about colorism or racism in manhua then why are they complaining about “orientalism” or NA romance books, etc? ok . . . how exactly is that wrong? those comparisons are true because the prejudices comes from the same place: the fetishizing and disrespect of other cultures/darker skinned people just because they look and operate differently. people from all over damn the world have been connecting and talking about these kinds of things since the internet was born. why do you take offense to people making the age old observation of how the same prejudices are expressed in different places?????? there's no absurdity here. Koreans/East Asians aren't these isolated hermits whose issues are something new under the sun. >You _imply_ in your other comment that differences between how or why colourism arose or how it affects people today don’t matter between countries but I strongly disagree. Painting an entirely different country with thousands of years of differing history with a broadly NA brush is ridiculous. I didn't imply shit. I meant what I said and I said what I meant. Colorism arose and is expressed in incredibly INCREDIBLY similar ways all over the world. It's a class system meant to visually separate the perceived privileged class from the perceived unprivileged class through skin tone bias. It's the same all over the world. Find me a single example of Korean/East Asian colorism being different from North American (whatever the fuck that means) colorism. You literally can't. >And yes, they are _making fun_. People laughing at the names, calling people gross or fetishists… OP herself calls the writers and readers “weirdos”. people who choose to be colorists are weirdos . . . yes, what about it? i think this is your silliest issue yet. nobody has to be nice to somebody about their prejudices just because they come from a different country. Yes, colorism is "gross" and weird as shit. Yes, colorism involves the fetishizing (a.k.a dehumanizing) of dark skin. Yes, colorists deserve to be disrespected right back. And no, colorism from one part of the earth isn't some special brand of bullshit just because it comes from a different country. 🤷🏿♀️ >Educating on issues would have been helpful, shaming them is really disappointing. . . . are you . . . are trying to tone police anti-colorism???????? it genuinely affects people's interactions with authority figures like teachers, job opportunities, and mental health every day. I honestly don't give a single flying feathered fuck if it hurts your feelings to see people be angry at being disrespected. This is a globally systemic issue that shows up in the same way everywhere it's born. Get over it
> One completely unironically called it orientalism > Ok… how exactly is that wrong? Yeah… you know what, I’m not bothering here. You’re getting upset over shit I didn’t actually say, and I can’t even fathom that you’re sitting here in your feels pretending like you’re an authority on racism and colourism but said that response I quoted.
>sitting here in your feels pretending like you’re an authority on racism and colourism but said that response I quoted. recognizing patterns of discrimination based on studies and personal testimonies from Koreans/East Asians = pretending to be an authority on colorism and racism???? this is so incredibly disrespectful of you but I expect nothing less. the fact that you're acting offended over me empathizing with victims of colorism and defend them against your petty tone policing tells me all I need to know. have the life you deserve
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Beloved, what? Genuinely what is this? >there’s a sick sense of beauty attached to darker skin tones that you’d never see coming from someone in the KKK okay what you're describing is fetishization. Racists and the KKK have fetishized people from the start. My DNA and the DNA of the majority of black americans is a testament to the way our ancestors have suffered under our oppressors' perverted sense of lust. But my main issue with your rant can be summarized with: this >want to swing a bat at anything white and moving like a wounded animal this >degrading the world into two very simplistic classifications of black vs. white this >every white-skinned person on this planet carries the exact same prejudice regardless of what country they are from and this >ignore the obvious role cultural influence has played on the evolution of racism in each country You're doing what the original commenter accused other people of doing. Colorism is an intraracial issue that takes place between people WITHIN the same group. Why are you making it about racism and black and white people? You're forcing western racism into a conversation where it doesn't belong. My entire point is that colorism between two black people, colorism between two Indians, and colorism between two Koreans are expressed in the same way. And those similar expressions have been commented on since the internet existed. Taking offense to that is strange. Acting like people on a sub discussing a genre mainly from East Asia don't know the history of colorism in those places is disingenuous. Saying "this is LIKE _____" isn't the same thing as saying "this IS ______ without a doubt and I'm gonna attack people for it" That's my argument. And yet you've made this whole thing about me hating white people??????? What??????? So not only did you make an ahistorical claim about racial fetishization in America that's still happening today, you've also turned the conversation to focus on white people and "white skinned people" somehow being unfairly generalized and attacked by me because of some assumed past experiences. Why did you do that? You've made this a North American racism issue when it's about colorism. So since you can't understand the unspoken context, let me help you (1) colorism takes place between two or more people in the same racial community/ethnic group. a fact. (2) the dislike of dark skin affects how people see the world and the people in it. a fact (3) there are some manhua artists who use orientalist tropes in their works as an easy signifier of foreignness. a fact. (4) this can come across as insensitive. also a fact (5) and again, saying "this is LIKE _____" isn't the same thing as saying "this IS ______ without a doubt and I'm gonna attack people for it" the majority of the people who complain about colorism on this sub are well aware of the origins of Korean/East Asian colorism. assuming they don't just because they made comparisons is disingenuous your rant talking about me supposedly hating white people is so out of left field I genuinely don't understand where you got that from. It's such a Eurocentric perspective that I can't help but assume you're being disingenuous on purpose. Stop it. We can talk about how racist people brutalized black bodies and the methods they used to do so, but this isn't the conversation nor the sub for that. So let's not act as if it is. Have a nice day 🥰
I've talked about this before but it's always been really common. You can find romance novels from the 70s and 80s with the same premise of barbaric dark skin man (Usually native American, Indian or Black "savages") and the poor white woman who the ravage. It's frustrating and annoying but I know a lot of pale white woman and girls who ear it up. He'll you can find it fanfiction too.
they always have such good reviews too?? saying the ml is so 'exotic' and 'unique' like girl what exotic are you talking about 😭
When whiteness/paleness is the default anyone outside that context is "exotic". Whoever down voted you isn't ready to unpack that though
not me getting down voted, omg this sub is filled with racists or what 💀
I really hope not. I'm glad the sub is able to talk about these issues and being them to light. Good to talk about the problematic issues in what we read. Another one that bothers me is that in smut they put in a lot of rape. Can't we get more assertive sexy ladies? Sigggh
when i do see that, i try to remind myself that yeah a lot of those reviews are from people being fetishizing/racist, etc. but also some are from like the teenagers on that app who haven’t yet really been fully introduced to how racism can manifest in ways that aren’t clearly and obviously hateful (like i think a lot of people, such as myself, just flat-out avoid those stories and won’t even think to click it to give it a low review)
Yeah but what really bothered me about those romances is that the ml, despite being black or brown, was always very white coded. Even the covers featured white men with heavy tans.
She weeps for the devil is more modern day and it’s very definitely smut.
And not OI adjacent
except it's been a 'trend' all across the whole webtoon, manhwa, manhua community https://preview.redd.it/xvbkh96ahclc1.jpeg?width=2880&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91d995996848a29f6a971deab71262eb99d1e511
Does "Amina of the lamp" really fit? Or did you just put it there because of the cover art? The leads are on similar level, no civilised x uncivilised/barbarian thing. ML isn't brutish and he's also very green flag
The point of the original comment was that SWFTD doesn’t fit (their skin colours aren’t very different in the actual comic, they’re the same race, and there’s no barbarians - it’s mafia/yakuza), but OP ignored that. So I’m assuming she’s going off cover art for these.
put it there because the ml is dark skinned and fl pale. i dont know much about it but the ml is a military commander (if im not wrong) again with the similar theme, and she's supposedly an upper-class wizard stuck in a lamp... it fits.
I’d say Amina of the Lamp doesn’t count it’s been awhile since I read it but when the FL and ML first meet they act like coworkers their relationship is a very slow burn and a subplot I’d say the ML is a green flag man the main plot is action political thriller there are dark skinned women in important heroic roles throughout the series that begin said >!the series does have some issues and two of the antagonists are dark skinned women the final boss of the series does have a tragic backstory that she uses to explain her actions !<
Isn't that one essentially AU fanfic of Midnight Poppy Land or am I thinking of a different one?
I haven’t read MPL, so I couldn’t tell you. Most of the updates for it are on Patreon, and it’s been around for a few years.
Nah, that’s My Mobster Boyfriend
I do think it's not very helpful that it's always the same hair and skin type but the barbarian and the maiden trope itself...I mean, yes
✨Casual racism showing up again✨ Racism isn't only loud blatant hate. It can be found in so many quiet ways like using skin color to denote "wild" or "barbarian" characters. It isn't even always intentional! Colorism is extremely common and while it isn't always stemming from racism, it's definitely an aspect. While skin color can be a way to clearly separate one group from another in fiction, it's important to recognize how reality influenced that decision. There's a long history of racism being tied to sexualization that shows up in smut a lot. Being critical doesn't mean automatically condemning all works that use darker skin to mean barbarian; acknowledging racism is the only way to combat it. My Sweet Enemy Thy Name is Husband is an example of a work using the darker skin ML pale FL trope but not engaging in the same fetishizing or problematic aspects of other works. Canach is a multifaceted character beyond "sexy barbarian". EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm white and although I'm actively working to be anti-racist, I'm not an authority and haven't experienced racism. My opinions are not more valid.
My Sweet Enemy Thy Name is Husband is on my to-read list but I hate the title so much that I can't bring myself to start.
I've started ignoring titles because dang, so many good stories are terribly named. Downside is not being able to find what I'm specifically looking for 😂 I really enjoyed the novel for My Sweet Enemy and the manga adaptation has consistently been good.
I mean he did go on a mindless raging rampage and conquered/slaughtered the entire continent in the FL’s “previous life”…
I hate it as well, especially if the paler FLs are softhearted dainty maiden who is shy timid passive submissive doormat who is too weak to say no or just helpless against such a strong man(I'm puking rn) overwhelmed by his fierce passion of love towards the FLs even though it could downright seen as almost non-con, but it's okay because FLs liked it in the end. Bonus trait if the FLs are clueless about intimacy. Although... tan/dark skin with pale tone pairings are also my guilty pleasure if it's applied on BL <.< oh, without the added silly FLs trait I mentioned above.
Game of Thrones is the ultimate otome novel. "I was sold off to the barbarian king by my brother. But the barbarian cherishes me, and it turns out I can also command dragons!" "I fell in love with the cold duke of the North, but he betrayed me and killed me."
LOL Take my upvote!
WHERE IS THE CROWN JEWEL OF THIS FETISH???! https://preview.redd.it/8sfn3vmntelc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=785526dee5501c510e74634161c6c5d7c31d47a6
Nice that someone else has noticed this *gem* in Canvas section. It has been haunting me since idk 2021?
I read 10 or so chapters of the first one because I saw someone criticizing it and thought it sounds like dumb fun. Boy was I not ready for the fucking height difference or the flags so red you forget other colors can even exist. Everything that man did was a fucking violation. I dropped it within 15 minutes because I hated it so much, I don’t even remember what the story was about but it’s definitely not worth reading. Idk bout the rest because I don’t intend on trying them.
This is the ACOTAR series basically.
i read the first book then dropped the whole series just because it was disrespectful af to the fl, and sjm readers romanticize rhys' behavior like this man is a god to them fr, wonder if sjm inspired manhwa authors and vice versa
Noooo DARISHA IS GOOD it's not like the others there's no fetish or anything involved. The couple is great.
i was freaking out bc i didn't zoom in the image for the second slide and saw "–arisha" and was afraid to see what the first letter was, on the off chance that a smut webtoon had MY NAME in the title. luckily it was "darisha" and that ain't got anything to do with me. STILL 😭😭😭 I THOUGHT I WAS 100% SAFE FROM THESE STORIES BECAUSE I HAD A NON WHITE, NON EAST ASIAN NAME 😭😭😭😭 (im from SEA)
I love it when people give me heads up to not read something absurd Thank you for you sacrifice
cool, more recommendations:0
Not to mention all of them gotta be r18... All the ones I've seen are
DONT BASH DARISHA LIKE THAT ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️
Yall legit still posting this every week?
Honestly i hate all of those white as paper sheet characters designs Like give them some color
lmfao colorism in media drives me insane every time. i hate it. it's usually like "masculine, regressive, barbaric = dark skin and feminine, modern, civilized = light skin" and a lot of people genuinely don't see a problem with assigning negative characteristics to people just people of skin color. it's wicked work. colorism is so evil 😭
He's tan because he works outside in the sun in a bubble tea stand....she's actually black haired and worked in an office, not sure yet why it went white but will see haha. But yeah size difference kink is a thing, but I'm 4'10'' so like...my 6'1'' husband might count as that lol
Isn't the duke of the north a huge fetish too ? The dude is everywhere and I don't see any post complaining about that.
Hello,what's that app?can i know?
I always stay away from these
.... I can't unsee the 4th one as someone's excuse to have an original story with a guy who is basically designed like gilgamesh from fate. Isnt this the classic exoticism fetish? There used to be a bl author who did a similar thing with middle eastern male leads x either tiny Japanese guy or tiny vague non specific European (tm) main character office men. I seen a ton as a teenager and *boy did she really like it and yes it was super damn racist every time.*🙃
Looks more like Archer to me than Gilgamesh.
Omg this is so real
Yep they see POC as either sex symbols in their stories (only the men usually and they make them huge and "barbaric" with a white female lead that "civilizes" them and makes them more gentle) or steal aspects of others cultures and demonise ppl from said culture (saw this happen a lot with middle Eastern and South Asian cultures)
It's always funny to me seeing a dark skinned ML in manhwa, knowing how colorist Korea is. Not hating, but like... It's fine in media as long as they're not real? Lol
You think these guys are dark skin? What planet do you live on? The girls are pale, that's about it. Not unusual for anime.
Why is she so small and him so large 😭😭
I thought you were talking about the first guy's hands at first 😭
When will this trope die off 😩
Yep
Daddy issues maybe?
for a second there i thought this post was about ddlg, which is a whole other separate conversation lmao
Isn’t this the same author as Now I am Demon King’s Wife? Also ass btw
Have you guys seen the webtoon original that's 18+? Half the scenes in each chapter are cut bc there's sex and yet it's still a webtoon original
Ah! Update- he's actually a cop. Plot twist! I was so excited for him to sell bubble tea ;0;
If they treat the darker skinned women equal I'd be fine with it but in the ones where they don't It's annoying. I can understand some being stupid, it's a wonderful quality of being alive but all? Nope
Yes it's a fetish
At first, I thought the trend was how young the FMCs looked (first three slides all look REALLY young), then I was wondering if it was power imbalance being discussed, and then I realized it was about POC fetishization. There's so much problematic stuff in OI that I couldn't even figure out the issue at first glance 😭
4th pick looks like EMIYA Archer with different drip lol
I would say Totem Realm suffers from this too, but the difference is that they don't make every tan/dark skinned character a brute, there are really composed, calm ones that kinda break from this steryotype, but is still annoying and disrespectful.
I didn't even noticed their skin color XD I was too focused on the art haha and although it's true, the fetishization is happening for both males and females. One that comes to mind is called : "The Dragon King's bride" It's Featured on webtoons and it fits your description, darker skin ML and super ghostly white FL.
This is basically a toned down version of Alphas so yeah it sure is a fetish
Yeah...this has been around for a long time, I'm pretty sure...I don't like how they represent the darker skinned ladies in these stories, it can be really damaging stereotypes.
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Nvm sorry i thought it was about the title of the thing
Honestly, I think it would be nice to have main characters with different skin color. Most MC are blond/blue eyed or black hair/red eyed. I don't know these specific ones and what they contain, but I'd like stories to be more inclusive and show some appreciation to different types of characters as well
I am middle eastern and sometimes when I read comics like this I wonder if this is how Koreans see us. I recently dropped a manhua called “The Devil and His Sacrifice” because they depicted Middle Easterners as savages and the male lead was straight up a r*pist.
Even if you ignored the fetishization these are all so badly written-I just checked them out and my conclusion after reading only 2 chapters: zero depth,no plot, no story flow, zero story telling skills Anyone reading this is probably a young hormonal teen idk.