Please keep it up! And please spread it around as much as possible! Showing what we want in such a positive, productive, and visible manner is one of the most powerful forms of advocacy out there. And when folks keep posting artwork of their…
okay dont get me wrong this would be great but
if we cant be dark iron dwarves we wont be able to be dark skinned elves
this would look really strange ingame. not because it’s dark skinned but because it’s an elf. elves are meant to have weird ass skin colors like orange and purple imho
blizzard won’t go for it. if they wont let amazing lore locations like Karabor be our faction hub in WoD they aren’t going to add in a made up subrace (I’m sorry but it really is made up. No basis in canon)
you can roll a PoC human. blizzard isn’t making it so you can’t be a dark skinned elf because they hate the idea or anything, but like i said it would just look strange ingame because elves tend to not have very human skin tones in WoW
braces myself for inevitable shitstorm
When someone says “Elves don’t have human skintones in game”
“Dark skinned elves are strange and new and frightening! We shouldn’t ask for it because Blizzard, a billion dollar game company who’s revamping 10/13 of the player races, introducing like 12 different new races of monsters and humanoids + revamping a ton of animal models, and is basically rolling out like 6 different fucking orc races/skins with customized armor for each clan, wouldn’t dream of giving blood elves a couple of darker skin tone options... because dark skin in a fantasy world looks strange.”
A few other things:
Dark Iron Dwarf option =/= dark skinned elf. Dark skinned elves aren’t a subfaction like the Dark Iron or draenor orcs.
We’re not asking for updated lore to explain darker skinned characters — they don’t need to prove their worth in order to exist, they should simply exist alongside the lighter options.
Purple and orange aren’t races…
The artists who work on environments and the developers who decide which environments to use for gameplay literally have nothing to do with the player model artists what the fuck
You later admitted you didn’t play hordeside and “didn’t know blood elves have human skintones” (I literally don’t know how you WOULDN’T known that, have you never seen a blood elf in-game? on the loading screens? in art? anywhere? ? ???)
but even if that’s true ALL your reasons against dark skinned elves ever happening are fucking trash.
BRAEKIN TEH CANON!!1! NO WHERE does it say blood elves MUST be light skinned or CANNOT be dark skinned, find me the Official Blizzard source that says otherwise I dare you.
Even if there was a magical law somewhere? Guess what, you can break imaginary rules in an imaginary fantasy universe. Blizzard retcons characters and changes lore ALL THE FUCKING TIME and you’re telling me dark skinned options on elves would be “too different” like seriously shut the fuck up.
Also WOWEE we have a couple darker skin options for 1 race??? GUESS ALL THOSE UNGRATEFUL POC SHOULD JUST SHUT UP, LOOK HOW NICE WE’RE BEING GIVING THEM 1-2 OPTIONS AMID LIKE 14 LIGHT OPTIONS WHY ARENT THEY SATISFIED??
People like you are part of the problem.
Next time you try to shit on an attempt to improve representation and inclusion, eat it. Just eat it. Eat your own shit.
I think that this would have more of an impact when it came to “representation” if I don’t know, 99% of the people posting these black elf pictures were, I don’t know… black. Some artists that I know are white as fuck (Hola Señorita, ¿qué pasa?) have opted into this because black people look exotic (ugh) and so that’s why they feel it’s cool to throw on a fucking dashiki and tell me about how “Kwanzaa” their elf is.
Hi, I’m black. Black like, generations of my family have lived in the South long enough for me to know the effects racism can have on a lineage. Now, I don’t say that to someway invalidate the black experiences of others (there’s no paperbag test going on here), but rather to front-load this so that you don’t try to change the subject to Attack on Racist when really, it has all but nothing to do with that. I’m going to assume you’re black as well, so hopefully we have this out of the way.
First, this isn’t a POC thing. While I hate the term POC, I get what it means. Unless you are willing to commit to the notion that being black is little more than a changing of skin tone, then I think it is best we step away from that defense right now. I am no more represented by a black elf in a video game than I was represented by Bagheera in the Jungle Book or Koba in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
Now, there are IPs that do attempt to make a more dynamic take on race relations in a fantasy game accessible. They deal with systematic oppression and societal irregularities that favor a certain race over another. Dragon Age is an obvious choice to point this out with. Hell, even some of the speculative races like the Qun’ari draw from real life cultures that aren’t just “and white people.”
Hell, if you were actually asking Blizzard to make more that represents the distinction between darker-skinned elves and the lily white depictions we see, then I would have no issue with you using “POC” as what you are hoping to get represented, but you aren’t. There is no attempt what it feels like to be a black person in a white society, because there is no attempt to gain representation for anything. This is just someone saying “I want black elves” and that’s all there is to it.
Okay, I guess? When I was a kid, my dad used to paint Christmas angels black. I get it that, really, but what I don’t understand is why you feel when there is a race available in the game that has a darker skin tone in it (humans), you choose to ignore that and focus specifically on one alien/speculative fantasy race to address your concerns to. They’re fucking elves. Their trope comes from a lot of white people writing for a long time about being white.
Conversely, humans not having any black representation (I’m not including black dragons) is something that I can see being a real issue and concern. Because black people are real unlike black elves which can conform to whatever standard the person creating them is making. Don’t want black elves? Oh well! They aren’t real anyway, so you can’t make a case for why they should exist. Want black humans in lore? Well, that’s harder to explain away. Despite the fact we several ethnicities represented in “shades” of white models in this game (TOR was the only game I played where black people were black people, etc) and no lore characters that support them is pretty fucked up.
That pointy eared white people don’t have bigger lips and wider nostrils is honestly irrelevant.
I’ve always held that people should RP what they want and I’m not changing that premise. If you want to play a black elf, go for it. But know that each time you encourage someone to say “omg being black is so cool” because of their skin tone on an imaginary species in a video game rather than overcoming what adversity they have that has forged our culture and community, then you’ve really only reduced a people in real life to a simple commonality for the sake of a people in a fantasy game that no one really gives a shit about.
Doubtlessly, this falls on deaf ears or will end up being Harriet Beecher Stowe’d, but that’s why I feel that making this a struggle about my race appeared on a fantasy race of pretend people is far less beneficial than it is touted to be.
Also, to clarify, I think you are a great artist as are many of the people that have taken up this [cause], but I guess I don’t see why you’re wasting your time doing this when you could be effective more substantive changes on more important things. If this really means something to you, please don’t let it become a meme.
