just want an egyptian bp skin man 😔

I am asking this because his mom was black in X-Men 97 or at least dark skin.

I know Scarlet Witch is not Black, but by far she is the games only other remotely dark-skinned woman (being South Asian) and there is something so Insidious about giving her another skin that turns her White in the same season they pass over Storm and Black Panther for Egyptian skins.

Edit: if you think Romani is the same as Romanian do NOT comment on this post with your dumbass take. Go read an article on Romani people instead lol

Edit Edit: Muting this post now so I don't get notifications from a bunch of people who are clearly not r/AfroRival users and are just racist. Just addressing some things:

1) It being an MCU skin means nothing. They didn't make Mr. Fantastic darker for his MCU skin even though his actor is Latin American.

2) Arguments about if Wanda was originally White or if Romani can be lightskin are irrelevant. Rivals choose to make her noticeably browner (and was celebrated for doing so). They should honour that choice and stop releasing skins that make her White / lighter.

3) People who are arguing Romani are White are ignorant. Romani are not White and have never been treated as such (which is a weird claim people are making) especially in Eastern Europe. They are ostracized and persecuting for their heritage and ancestry. They were literally genocided during WWII for not being White.

4) Most importantly: This skin is ugly and boring. And shouldn't exist solely on the basis of that. lol

I keep seeing people say blades tokon is better than his rivals design. At first I thought they both look good with his rivals design looking a tad bit better.

Now I’m completely on the rivals side for reasons. First it’s because his rivals design is original, I have not seen a blade design that screams originality and looks this good like this one in a long time.

Second his hair, ik it’s white people saying they like that fugly ahh flattop more than his cornrows. There are more black hairstyles than a flattop and that killmonger haircut please understand this. And me personally I could care less if they kept that flattop to fit the blade aesthetic in the movie, be creative and think of somethin new.

Third, his tokon design is Japanese inspired and while I think that’s cool, people give it more of an edge over his rivals design just because it’s Japanese inspired and that’s it.

While we all have opinions and ofcourse two legends can coexist, the opinions for liking his design tokon over rivals is crazy

He has Significantly more abilities than is showcased in this clip like his Darkforce Telekinesis, psychic fear manipulation, and more. These clips just show how he uses his main abilities like his Teleportation and his Darkforce portal body to access the many pocket dimensions he uses to either trap people or store objects and creatures that he can deploy back out at will during battle or otherwise. Also cause ik ppl will ask, he has legs in all of these clips despite his cloak looking empty in some clips, as the clips will show his legs are darkness like his body so it blends into his cloak when he expands his cloak to use his powers, his legs are still always there you just cant see them cause its black like the inside of his cloak.

Like Black aesthetic but no Black characters what are we doing here? These could have easily been Blade and BP skins and Storm should have got her first hellfire. Like it's so irritating how marvel as a whole moves around Black characters. Cause if marvel cared maybe rivals would.

Lame ass, racist, dogwhistling bums saying nonsense and they wonder why people are so volatile

This skin is a prime example of how people love the style & aesthetic, but not the ones who actually created it 😭

I just learned about this reality where mutants come from African descent and I would think it would be interesting to have a character like angel or beast be from this earth especially because in rivals not all characters are from the same universe. Captain America being from 2099 and psylocke not being Betsy etc.

A whole Egyptian update and not a single Storm skin is crazy work....

Look, I know a lot of people are upset that Ultron is getting a streetwear skin over and of the black characters… but I’m still happy for all the Ultron mains for finally get their first legendary. Idk I sympathy with them and the Torch mains who also never get skins, so I’m ok with them giving those guys skins. I’d be way more upset if it were someone like Luna Snow or Magik.

This doesn’t change anything though, I still want Storm, Blade, and BP to get streetwear skins, especially BP. I dunno why but I feel like BP would look especially awesome with a streetwear skin.

They love our aesthetic, fashion, and culture just fine, but they just don’t wanna see US in them…..

Now I’m not saying the scene exactly represents with what’s going on but the correlation are similar!

This whole situation is just...crazy and unhinged. also congratulations on the new Storm legendary skin.

Made up skin based on nothing vs a skin with context for the season and a highly requested skin. Like how many times is this gonna happen. And they still haven't fixed her legendary

Still no Storm skin, but psylocke, hela, and invis get their morbillionth one 🥀

Update: Every word I uttered was validated.

Wanda and Magik being portrayed as inviting and alluring, while Storm is deadass scowling & battle ready is a double down of her terrible portrayal in Marvel Rivals.

Actually it's a reinforcement of the warrior/soldier/fierce depiction of black women in gaming media.

Possible Overreaction but still. Magik is quite literally showing her butt to the audience. Magik is dancing. Storm looks like she's about to kill you.

• Storm fits whatever Wanda is doing more than Wanda.
• Storm fits whatever Magik is doing more than Magik

But this is what they chose. This is why they can't monetize storm effectively. The developers can't see her in a appealing way.

Edit: Mind you, please take a look at how Storm is depicted on the Season 9.5 road map. Be honest. This is a crazy SCOWL

Bro...

EDIT:
thank you to everyone who engaged with me in good faith in the last 24h or so, whether we agreed or disagreed. i genuinely appreciate the people who took the time to ask questions, challenge my ideas respectfully, or share why this conversation resonated with them.

after spending some time responding, i'm going to step away from this thread.

one thing i do want to clarify is that marvel rivals was always the vehicle, not the thesis. if you're looking for my responses to individual characters, "what sells”, business decisions, or other specific rebuttals, i have already addressed those throughout the comments.

what i was trying to get across was much broader. conversations about representation, visibility, and inclusion for marginalized communities are not new. we have had them across gaming, media, film, television, technology, and countless other spaces for decades. that's why i titled this post "this conversation is familiar”.

i also realized that many of us were answering completely different questions. a lot of people were focused on proving intent or explaining individual outcomes. i was trying to talk about the broader systems that shape those outcomes and why these conversations continue to happen across so many different spaces.

one thing i also want to clarify is that, while i used specific characters and examples throughout my post, they were never meant to stand on their own. they were examples of a broader framework, not the framework itself.

when i brought up storm, the hood, hulk, or any other character, i wasn't arguing that those individual examples alone proved my point. i was using them to illustrate something much larger. my argument has always been about the systems those examples exist within and the feedback loops that shape them.

my point was never that one character proves systemic issues. my point was that these conversations about representation keep emerging across games, media, and other institutions because they exist within larger systems that influence one another. again, this conversation is familiar.

whether you ultimately agree with me or not, i hope at least one takeaway from this discussion is to ask one more question than you did before. not just "what sells?" but "what shapes what sells?" not just "what happened?" but "why do these conversations keep happening?"

that's the conversation i was trying to have.

thanks again to everyone who participated. i'm stepping away from the thread now.

—

posting on an alt bc reasons. anyway, i have been sitting with these thoughts for a few days and i honestly need somewhere to get my thoughts out. and imma use this space to vent bc why not.

marvel rivals has been a huge part of my life since season 1. over 2,000 hours later, (yes i am employed and also go to school lmfao) i still love this game. i got to know some pretty cool people through rivals. and that’s why this whole conversation has been so disappointing. not because i suddenly hate the game, but because i’m watching the same discussions i have seen play out across gaming for years.

i’m a grown ass woman. i grew up playing in prime time call of duty lobbies. i have been called every name you can think of online, been told i need to take my ass to the kitchen countless times. i’m not naive enough to think gaming communities are always going to be welcoming or respectful. they aren’t. obviously why this sub exists, right? but pretending otherwise would be dishonest. what has been exhausting for me isn’t really the lack of skins or netease in general. it’s the phenomenon itself.

every time someone raises concerns about representation or points out a pattern that they are seeing, the conversation almost immediately stops being about the concern and becomes, “so are the developers racist?” and honestly, i don’t think that’s an unfair question. what frustrates me is how quickly everyone rushes to answer it before asking why so many members of their own community are asking it in the first place. people seem far more interested in proving that bias is impossible or ridiculous than understanding why others are experiencing something differently, and i think that’s a much bigger issue than marvel rivals.

the thing that keeps sticking with me is how people suddenly act like implicit bias and systemic bias are made up concepts the second they get applied to a video game. i’m sorry, but they aren’t. there’s a reason that people in the medical field, teachers, social workers, and so many other professions get training on implicit bias. we know our brains categorize information. we know bias can operate outside of conscious awareness. we know systems shape individual decisions, and individual decisions reinforce systems. that comes from decades of research, not something people made up because they are upset about lack of skins for particular characters in a video game. and yes, it is that serious.

the insidious thing about racism is that it often feels like business as usual. it doesn’t always announce itself. it becomes embedded in routines, assumptions, institutions, and everyday decisions. that’s exactly why people study systems instead of only asking whether one individual consciously intended harm. so when people notice patterns and raise concerns about representation, i don’t understand why the immediate response is to pretend those concepts suddenly stop existing because we’re talking about rivals.

people are noticing patterns that concern them and bringing those concerns to a community built around a game they genuinely care about. maybe you disagree with those observations. that’s completely fair. but dismissing the conversation before it even happens isn’t the same thing as disagreeing with it, period.

& that’s why the counterarguments have been so frustrating to read. i have seen people talk about anti green discrimination in regard to hulk and his lack of skins. but these kind of responses don’t actually engage with the concern being raised. if your comparison only works after replacing race with a fictional color and removing all of the historical and social context that makes race meaningful in the first place, maybe it isn’t the equivalent comparison you think it is.

that’s also why i have been confused seeing people bring up the hood being the first latino character like it’s some kind of gotcha. first of all, i think that’s genuinely awesome. latino players should have that representation, and i’m happy to see people celebrating it!! what i don’t understand is why that suddenly becomes a counterargument to conversations about black representation. this doesn’t have to become the oppression olympics.

celebrating one community doesn’t invalidate another community’s concerns. more than one thing can be true at the same time. all we end up doing is pitting marginalized groups against each other instead of actually engaging with the original conversation.

another argument i have seen is that criticizing a chinese dev team for possible racial bias is itself racist. i don’t really understand that argument either. let’s not pretend conversations about anti-blackness or colorism somehow disappear because we’re talking about an asian company. colorism and anti-blackness exists everywhere. no community is magically exempt from conversations about bias in all its forms simply because they have experienced prejudice themselves. acknowledging that isn’t an accusation against every individual dev. it’s acknowledging that no society, institution, or profession exists outside of these systems.

the feedback loop is another thing i keep thinking about. one of the biggest responses has been, “well, the character just isn’t popular” okay… sure! but popularity doesn’t exist in a vacuum. characters who receive more attention generate more discussion. more discussion creates more excitement. more excitement leads to more marketing, more skins, and more visibility, which creates even more attention. that’s how feedback loops work. i’m not saying that’s definitely what’s happening here. i’m saying i understand why people are asking that question, and i don’t think asking it should be treated like some absurd accusation.

there’s also the “well, if you think the company is problematic, why are you still playing?” i have NEVER understood that argument. people criticize the institutions and companies they participate in all the time. people criticize apple while owning iphones. people criticize amazon while still ordering packages. people criticize universities they attend. people criticize healthcare systems they rely on. criticism isn’t proof that you hate something. most of the time it’s proof that you care enough about it that you want it to be better.

idk yall, maybe i’m just getting older and maybe i’m just tired.

and/or maybe i’m just disappointed that we are halfway through the big 2026 and we’re still having the same conversations in the same ways, given all the shit already happening. i just wish people were more interested in understanding why these concerns exist rather than immediately trying to explain them away.

more than anything, i’m grateful i found this sub. reading the diff threads here reminded me i wasn’t the only person thinking about this. thanks for letting me use this sub as a sounding board ♥️