CountVonNumenor
Onshi
Oh boy, I am about to tackle a real can of worms this time (even if I may have said this before, who knows). I will probably have to give a bit of context before going into the thing, just for a clear idea what sort of environment I am coming from, and therefore the influences in the thought process. Alright, so with these being told, I think it might be time to start the thread. Just one request: this is gonna be a rather sensible topic for some, so please, I really do want everything to stay as civilized as possible.
Preamble
As already established through multiple threads until now, I am from Romania. Our country is rather... interesting when it comes to social values, and what people seem as a priority or not. As a society, we are quite a mix between old and new. While elements of modern culture and society are slowly crawling here through the advent of the internet, they are continuously crashing with traditions and old ways of thought.
In terms of society evolution, I would say we are still in the process of catching up with the West. We are right on the edge of the Balkans, and just neighboring Eastern Europe - two areas of strong traditionalism and conservatism. Besides, 45 years spent under communist dictatorship (with second half strongly dominated by a form of communism that was strongly emphasizing traditions and old traditional moral values - at least on surface), combined with a turbulent first decade of capitalism and a still ongoing healing process even after 30 years has made for a bit of a paradox. While we are trying to pose as a modern society, pretending to be on the same pace with "the Western model". At the same time though, we did not adopt all of their social ideas and movements, judging them as silly.
Therefore, in Romania, there's little chance you will meet someone on the street caring about social justice, trying to make everything "politically correct" or anything that seems to be the latest trend on this matter particularly in Western Europe and the United States. People here were looking with raised eyebrows just a couple years ago when things went crazy in the US just because of an alleged act of injustice, and actually made fun of the puny attempt at local level here for a "BLM" protest at the time people were marching on the streets all around the West. If you put such question to the average Romanian, they will either have no idea what you are talking about, or will just tell you to go away with such stupid questions, as there are more important and pressing issues in our daily lives (right now, with increasing prices on everything, we might be slowly going towards "Current objective: Survive").
In short, nobody really cares about such issues. And for that, when I first stumbled upon a discussion about this so-called "art fixing", I was like "why do people even bother about it?". Even now, the subject is not clear enough for me, and so I am looking for a bit more detail on what is going on. Additionally, I would like to find out if such a problem has also been noticed in the Touhou fandom, or this entire process is just a fool's errand.
On with the subject...
I will try to keep this just on "art fixing", so I guess I will have to cut some corners. I will use points I have made a few weeks ago in another thread, and to which @Tenkko (sorry for the ping) has brought some good counterpoints.
So... it's been quite a while now since Twitter has imposed the rule that no guests on their website can see posts of any page without an account. Therefore, I had to make a pact with the devil and created a Twitter page. Since I am not posting there, I can say I might have just dodged a bullet (or multiple) from a death squad sent on my way. Among the artists I wanted to continue watching was one Brazilian girl called Linmie, who draws some quite nice Touhou art. Her style is very interesting, with characters whose proportions look much more human than most anime art, with fluffy hair and some other simple, yet cute details.
Why am I bringing her into the discussion? The reason is simple. It seems like one of her artistic liberties has taken a bit of a more...controversial turn, when she decided to depict her version of Reimu as tanned/with a dark skin complexion. Personally, I have been perfectly fine with it, especially since the overall drawing(s) are very good, and you can blame a bit of the darkness on possible filters and saturation. However, not everybody took it so well, which caused a war going one way or another. And it all started with a simple tweet. Now, in order to save some time, I will quote from my original post in regards to the matter:
Again, why I am bringing Linmie into the frame? Well, since this opens up what I would talk about. According to Tenkko, Linmie originally had a Tumblr page for uploading her art, but she had to drop it due to getting hate for possibly similar situation. All I can understand from the comments above is that people can quickly go from an extreme to another, especially in terms of their beliefs.
This would be a very good moment for the following message: please do not harass Linmie, or show her any hate towards her. Artists do not deserve getting hate from such little things I might have put her in a bad light in this thread, and if it looks like I did so, I am very sorry. I really appreciate her works
With my little Eastern European brain, there is one thing I have noticed. In theory, art has no limits. However, I would like to ask the following question: where does one cross the line from improving something to "improving/correcting" something? Unfortunately, I cannot remember her name right now, but there has been at least one infamous case of a so-called artist who was taking various bits of art from people, and was redrawing them as she thought they would be "correct" - usually done on Japanese characters (though western ones do not get safe), by changing the skin complexion towards something darker (first execution squad is already on the way because I mentioned the funny skin color problem in 2022) and adding more body weight (I have triggered the second execution squad - mentioned the "fat pride" movement). In this end, this "artist" has apparently been called out for such practices, and at least on that front, activity ceased. However, I do not think such a trend has ended. I mean I do not have a problem with someone taking some liberties on the character, as long as they stay true on the spirit of said character. I also do not have a problem when someone tries to "fix" them in the way of "drawing [character] in a more realistic manner" - sure, not always will that translate properly (just like in cosplay, some details seem to be lost in translation). However, there is one point where I think it might be a little too much. (And I am not going into the whole problem of blackwashing vs whitewashing, since that is a completely different discussion I am not ready for)
Personally, I really cannot add anything more to this, especially since, again, I am coming from a part of the world where, had it not been for internet access and social media, I would not have even known such issues eve exist.
Conclusion
In order to repeat one of the points made at the beginning. In a way, I am a bit puzzled of how the West works nowadays in terms of moralities. And I am saying this from the perspective of an Eastern European. For us, when we look at the West and see them argue over stuff like political correctness and social justice, we are looking at them like on aliens, especially since here nobody is too bothered by such problems. But to be fair, we have higher problems here right now, including the classic "Current objective: Survive", so nobody is interested in discussing representation when you barely have enough money to get by on a daily basis and everything is becoming more and more expensive.
This is a weird thing I see about art going on in the other side of the world, and do not understand how did we even get there. Personally, even with how little I know about what is going on, I still think "fixing" art just for the sake of fitting a personal agenda is something stupid. Sure, it is one thing to take liberties and create your own thing, but there is one point in which things are going just a little too far. I feel this thread has deviated too much from the original intent, and this is usually happening when I do not feel in complete control of what I say, at least in terms of knowing the full details of a situation, and thus very possibly spreading misinformation.
Therefore, I am looking to get a bette understand of what is going on. Plus, since Touhou is such a big series when it comes to fan art, has anything like this happened to the fandom and its fan creations? I would like to think we are still safe from it, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe there is more than I could think of, and right now I am only tipping the top of an iceberg not worth getting into. I just want to understand a little better what can o worms of the Western world did I discover.
If this thread has been too much, I am ready to remove it.
Also post-thread note: stay as far away from looking into Touhou art on DeviantArt. At least from my (unlucky) experience of once checking the tag I used for drawings, I ended up wishing to bleach my eyes. Better not explain what I saw there, even with the "keep everything safe" settings on.
Preamble
As already established through multiple threads until now, I am from Romania. Our country is rather... interesting when it comes to social values, and what people seem as a priority or not. As a society, we are quite a mix between old and new. While elements of modern culture and society are slowly crawling here through the advent of the internet, they are continuously crashing with traditions and old ways of thought.
In terms of society evolution, I would say we are still in the process of catching up with the West. We are right on the edge of the Balkans, and just neighboring Eastern Europe - two areas of strong traditionalism and conservatism. Besides, 45 years spent under communist dictatorship (with second half strongly dominated by a form of communism that was strongly emphasizing traditions and old traditional moral values - at least on surface), combined with a turbulent first decade of capitalism and a still ongoing healing process even after 30 years has made for a bit of a paradox. While we are trying to pose as a modern society, pretending to be on the same pace with "the Western model". At the same time though, we did not adopt all of their social ideas and movements, judging them as silly.
Therefore, in Romania, there's little chance you will meet someone on the street caring about social justice, trying to make everything "politically correct" or anything that seems to be the latest trend on this matter particularly in Western Europe and the United States. People here were looking with raised eyebrows just a couple years ago when things went crazy in the US just because of an alleged act of injustice, and actually made fun of the puny attempt at local level here for a "BLM" protest at the time people were marching on the streets all around the West. If you put such question to the average Romanian, they will either have no idea what you are talking about, or will just tell you to go away with such stupid questions, as there are more important and pressing issues in our daily lives (right now, with increasing prices on everything, we might be slowly going towards "Current objective: Survive").
In short, nobody really cares about such issues. And for that, when I first stumbled upon a discussion about this so-called "art fixing", I was like "why do people even bother about it?". Even now, the subject is not clear enough for me, and so I am looking for a bit more detail on what is going on. Additionally, I would like to find out if such a problem has also been noticed in the Touhou fandom, or this entire process is just a fool's errand.
On with the subject...
I will try to keep this just on "art fixing", so I guess I will have to cut some corners. I will use points I have made a few weeks ago in another thread, and to which @Tenkko (sorry for the ping) has brought some good counterpoints.
So... it's been quite a while now since Twitter has imposed the rule that no guests on their website can see posts of any page without an account. Therefore, I had to make a pact with the devil and created a Twitter page. Since I am not posting there, I can say I might have just dodged a bullet (or multiple) from a death squad sent on my way. Among the artists I wanted to continue watching was one Brazilian girl called Linmie, who draws some quite nice Touhou art. Her style is very interesting, with characters whose proportions look much more human than most anime art, with fluffy hair and some other simple, yet cute details.
Why am I bringing her into the discussion? The reason is simple. It seems like one of her artistic liberties has taken a bit of a more...controversial turn, when she decided to depict her version of Reimu as tanned/with a dark skin complexion. Personally, I have been perfectly fine with it, especially since the overall drawing(s) are very good, and you can blame a bit of the darkness on possible filters and saturation. However, not everybody took it so well, which caused a war going one way or another. And it all started with a simple tweet. Now, in order to save some time, I will quote from my original post in regards to the matter:
Again, why I am bringing Linmie into the frame? Well, since this opens up what I would talk about. According to Tenkko, Linmie originally had a Tumblr page for uploading her art, but she had to drop it due to getting hate for possibly similar situation. All I can understand from the comments above is that people can quickly go from an extreme to another, especially in terms of their beliefs.
This would be a very good moment for the following message: please do not harass Linmie, or show her any hate towards her. Artists do not deserve getting hate from such little things I might have put her in a bad light in this thread, and if it looks like I did so, I am very sorry. I really appreciate her works
With my little Eastern European brain, there is one thing I have noticed. In theory, art has no limits. However, I would like to ask the following question: where does one cross the line from improving something to "improving/correcting" something? Unfortunately, I cannot remember her name right now, but there has been at least one infamous case of a so-called artist who was taking various bits of art from people, and was redrawing them as she thought they would be "correct" - usually done on Japanese characters (though western ones do not get safe), by changing the skin complexion towards something darker (first execution squad is already on the way because I mentioned the funny skin color problem in 2022) and adding more body weight (I have triggered the second execution squad - mentioned the "fat pride" movement). In this end, this "artist" has apparently been called out for such practices, and at least on that front, activity ceased. However, I do not think such a trend has ended. I mean I do not have a problem with someone taking some liberties on the character, as long as they stay true on the spirit of said character. I also do not have a problem when someone tries to "fix" them in the way of "drawing [character] in a more realistic manner" - sure, not always will that translate properly (just like in cosplay, some details seem to be lost in translation). However, there is one point where I think it might be a little too much. (And I am not going into the whole problem of blackwashing vs whitewashing, since that is a completely different discussion I am not ready for)
Personally, I really cannot add anything more to this, especially since, again, I am coming from a part of the world where, had it not been for internet access and social media, I would not have even known such issues eve exist.
Conclusion
In order to repeat one of the points made at the beginning. In a way, I am a bit puzzled of how the West works nowadays in terms of moralities. And I am saying this from the perspective of an Eastern European. For us, when we look at the West and see them argue over stuff like political correctness and social justice, we are looking at them like on aliens, especially since here nobody is too bothered by such problems. But to be fair, we have higher problems here right now, including the classic "Current objective: Survive", so nobody is interested in discussing representation when you barely have enough money to get by on a daily basis and everything is becoming more and more expensive.
This is a weird thing I see about art going on in the other side of the world, and do not understand how did we even get there. Personally, even with how little I know about what is going on, I still think "fixing" art just for the sake of fitting a personal agenda is something stupid. Sure, it is one thing to take liberties and create your own thing, but there is one point in which things are going just a little too far. I feel this thread has deviated too much from the original intent, and this is usually happening when I do not feel in complete control of what I say, at least in terms of knowing the full details of a situation, and thus very possibly spreading misinformation.
Therefore, I am looking to get a bette understand of what is going on. Plus, since Touhou is such a big series when it comes to fan art, has anything like this happened to the fandom and its fan creations? I would like to think we are still safe from it, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe there is more than I could think of, and right now I am only tipping the top of an iceberg not worth getting into. I just want to understand a little better what can o worms of the Western world did I discover.
If this thread has been too much, I am ready to remove it.
Also post-thread note: stay as far away from looking into Touhou art on DeviantArt. At least from my (unlucky) experience of once checking the tag I used for drawings, I ended up wishing to bleach my eyes. Better not explain what I saw there, even with the "keep everything safe" settings on.
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). It looks like that "fixers" are trying to promote their conception of beauty by blaming the artist for not representing some characters in the way the fixers want.
