Unhappily Ever After

I pointed out before about the odd mismatch between Disney animated films having a strong preference for heterosexual monogamous and married relationships (especially in films like Cinderella and The Little Mermaid), and some Disney stars (those who appear in live action productions and the like) going on to seemingly undermine these values themselves as they grow up. Hayley Mills would be one example who starred in films like The Parent Trap (eventually to be remade in the 1990s starring the red-haired Lindsay Lohan) and Pollyana, who’d go on having an affair with a married older man and then having an affair with a man closer to her age. If marrying a divorced woman, unless if it’s on the grounds of infidelity, is still committing infidelity it still seems strange why the classic Disney animated films promote lifelong monogamous relationships, when some of Disney’s own live action stars fall short of this whenever they get divorced somewhere down the road, especially after having affairs of sorts themselves.

Certainly not all child stars turn out badly as they get older, whether if they worked for Disney or not, but because Disney has become the defacto family entertainment brand for years and one that’s technically more biased towards lifelong monogamous married relationships in a number of its films (The Incredibles, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Zootropolis/Zootopia, among others so far), but wherein the child stars of its live action productions go on having affairs and divorces themselves that it feels much more jarring this way. Moreso than if they came from Warner Bros because Warner Bros is not something that’s strongly this associated with family entertainment the way Disney is for decades, well to the same extent since Warner Bros has already released this much adult-orientated films without putting it under a special label the way Disney did with Touchstone for years and now more recently 20th Century Fox/20th Century Studios at this point.

Even if not all former Disney child stars do this, it still makes for a particularly odd irony between the messages many Disney animated films promote and the lives the Disney stars lead as they get older, where it’s surreal to think somebody who appeared in a live action Disney series called ‘The Suite Life of Zack and Cody’ would go on cohabiting with another former child star. Where one would assume that if Brenda Song were to get into a relationship with Macaulay Culkin, that logically they should get married and she should start calling herself Brenda Song-Culkin by then. To this day they never got married, despite raising children together, and as of late the would-be Mrs Macaulay Culkin still voiced cartoon characters for the House of Mouse. Together with her would-be husband, the Mr Brenda Song in her life. One would wonder what went wrong in the House of Mouse then? Celestial said that those in Hollywood mix occult rituals with sexual abuse, that inevitably ruins people’s souls (and morals) halfway through.

Somebody said that a Disney boss may’ve molested his female colleagues, I wish I could find it but it’s something that I remembered. It’s as if Disney never seems sincere about its intentions and messages, where its yes to a lifelong monogamous married, heterosexual relationship is really a no when you have Disney stars turning out to have affairs and divorces themselves. Christina Aguilera has been noted to have affairs with women, even when she was a married to a man, and with Disney films like Mulan (which she contributed a song to) also centring on a monogamous relationship between a woman and a man that it seems even weirder why in real life she’d go on having romantic relationships with women more than men when the Mulan films were about a married relationship between a man and a woman. Fellow Disney star Britney Spears has had a string of failed relationships with men, three of which ended in divorce, coupled with her aborting her would-be first child with her boyfriend Justin Timberlake is just as jarring when a good number of Disney animated films have female characters who only pine after one man.

She too could’ve been molested by a Disney executive before (and so was Christina) that would explain some things, but it still makes for a weird irony given the lives they lead diverges significantly from their cartoon princess counterparts. When many of the Disney princesses do get into relationships themselves, it’s often with just one man and in some films, they get married eventually and never get into affairs with other people of any sex/gender in any way. They never separate from their spouses, something not a number of Disney live action stars can consistently live up to. If The Little Mermaid’s any indication, if the other woman shows up she’s often on the side of wrong. Yet people like Hayley Mills were also the other women in their lovers’ lives, especially if they have (had) wives of their own when these happened. It makes for a strange irony that’s also found outside of fandom where Disney animated films tend to promote and depict lifelong, monogamous straight married relationships, but its own live action stars frequently fall short of it. Well not all Disney stars fall into this trap either.

But for every Ricky Ullman, there’s a Justin Timberlake. He too also starred in Disney productions, likely got molested by Lou Pearlman, was set to have a child with Spears and isn’t above putting out two raunchy albums himself. The second one even had a Parental Advisory: Explicit Content warning slapped on its cover, his own songs have also been played on Radio Disney before alongside his contemporaries Spears and Aguilera, as well as newer ones like Sabrina Carpenter (also raunchy) and Olivia Rodrigo (progressively potty-mouthed). Explicit fanfiction is one thing, Disney stars coming to do explicit albums is another. One even more depressing transformation is what became of the Jonas Brothers, who all came from a Christian family themselves and likely would’ve been molested by a Disney executive too. The Jonas Brothers have been compared to Hanson, also a similar brother band, but since the former had already starred in big-name musical productions thus giving them a major headstart over the latter.

In the case with the latter, they certainly had their first taste of fame but in local shows that were presumably taped by their family and a few others, meanwhile the Jonas Brothers starred in big-name musicals like Oliver, Les Miserables, La boheme, A Christmas Carol, The Velveteen Rabbit and Beauty and the Beast. But this also makes them more suspectible to worldly influence at any point that they eventually caved into it, Nick Jonas in particular ended up marrying a Hindu woman (Priyanka Chopra) that he could end up converting to Hinduism for real this year in the summer. He might be on his way to getting there, that it does make one wonder what he could’ve ended up doing if he (and the rest of his band) quit the secular showbiz industry earlier. If they swapped showbiz for a life of singing in choirs (and other Christian things), it could’ve turned out better but if Michael Tait’s any indication, the Christian music industry would be far better off not imitating its secular counterpart too closely. Lest it also ends up with the same problems.

Although it’s not inherently wrong to listen to secular music, doable in theory and in principle, but harder to pull off in practise and moreso if Christian musicians are pressured to follow secular music trends, regardless if that sort of stuff risks ruining their inhibitions if they have convictions around things like swearing. At best secular music is something that can be enjoyed rarely, given the potential for idolatry is always around the corner (it’s like this with me with some bands), since much listening time has to be allocated to not only real Christian music (the sort that strives not to follow worldly trends this much) but also to sermons (long or short). Likewise with things like Disney and football, they’re not inherently wrong in and of themselves, but it’s very easy to turn them into idols. At best they can be enjoyed for brief intervals, since much time has to be allocated to other things like sermons and reading the Bible again, given I do struggle with idolatry myself and do harder to not give into it anymore.

I used to watch a lot of secular programmes and listen to secular music for long, but not anymore as of now and Disney is one of those things that’s easy to turn into an idol at any point. It gets much worse when it comes to Disney having a streaming service with so much content to choose from, much of it’s secular, that streaming sermons in a successive go would’ve been more spiritually sensible instead. It’s not unique to Disney itself as it can be found with many more things in life, but being a fan of any these things can make it harder to be a good Christian. Realistically one could learn to live without consuming this much secular media (for as much as they can consistently maintain it, as the flesh battles with the spirit) by forgoing it in favour of its Christian counterparts more, it’s like this with me when it comes to secular music that over time I came to listen to it less and less. As of late it’s really rare for me to listen to secular music, much rarer if I watch something like secular productions like Treasure Island.

That’s not to say I don’t consume secular media anymore, or even sinful ones from time to time, but it’s increasingly tempered by a stronger reliance on Christian media. Even if enjoying Disney and the like aren’t bad in and of themselves, they’re still easy to turn into idols at any point. It’s like this with me with some bands before, as of late I’m trying harder not to have idols even when the urge shows up. But there’s much to be gained from not loving the world much, which Disney’s very much a part of, that also goes for other things like not only Warner Bros but also Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon’s the channel behind things like The Fairly Oddparents, Rugrats and Hey Arnold, with its own issues with sex pests preying on minors (and likely occult acts behind the scenes), and its own child star turning out to be an adulteress in the form of Ariana Grande. Though these programmes aren’t bad in and of themselves as well, they’re also easy to turn into idols at any point as it is with me and Rugrats. The thing with Rugrats is that although it’s about small children having adventures, the 2020s reboot had one adult character get reimagined as a lesbian single mum.

In the earlier version she did have a husband who’s rather wimpy, my siblings called her a soccer mum and there are heterosexual women and couples who’re like these two, making her a lesbian certainly shocked some people. But it seems the more secular media condones sinful actions like not only infidelity (as it is in Rocko’s Modern Life, another Nicktoon by the way), but also homosexuality the more untrustworthy or questionable they turn out to be. Actually it’s kind of surprising in hindsight why something like Rocko’s Modern Life got away with depicting infidelity twice, whereas something like Ren and Stimpy and also Invader Zim get condemned for being too disturbing, why would a parent object to gore in an animated cartoon but not a cartoon woman with such a revealing outfit exposing such huge breasts without realising this would lead people to struggle with lust? (It’s like this from my personal experiences with my late mum.) Though there are Christians who do reasonably object to whatever Disney and co put out, but from my own experience here in the Philippines outrage only happens when it’s outright occult (Gravity Falls).

Even when not all of Disney media is outright occult/LGBT/whatever that obviously offends people, it’s very easy to make an idol out of Disney (or anything else) at any point. The emergence of a Disney-specific streaming service has only made it worse because it could make it easier for one to forgo the need to worship God by listening to a sermon (and reading lectionaries and devotionals while they’re at it) just to bingewatch their favourite Disney movies since childhood, though similar things can be said of others like ESPN to an extent or something like Netflix and Crunchyroll just the same. (On YouTube and Tiktok, things like sporting events are best enjoyed for brief, rare moments since one’s better off using those to stream sermons instead.) Somebody like Angelamarie Ucci went on saying that idols can disappoint people and it’s like this with me with one musician before, it would be no different if it’s a legacy brand like Disney that it would be just as discouraging to read that Uncle Walt molested a young lad in his care. Or anything else really. Well to tell you something about my family, I have an aunt who watches Disney films in her spare time.

She also likely listens to sermons and reads lectionaries, I also have a cousin who went to Disneyland and likely watches Disney films herself. But the latter also struggles with a raging porn addiction that cost the life of her husband and currently her job, that it does make for a weird contrast between the perceived wholesomeness of Disney films and some of their fans indulging in far less wholesome things (I’ve done something similar before). Another one also likes Disney but isn’t above doing porn of its characters himself, then again animator and cartoonist Carl Barks had done something similar before. So did Toby Bluth who’s even the younger brother of Don Bluth, or for another matter Chris Saunders just the same. Where it still makes for a study of ironic contrasts between Disney’s aim to be a wholesome family brand and its employees partaking in less than wholesome activities and obsessions, be they animators, musicians or actors, that it’s going to be hard maintaining this wholesome air when the people working for it doing contrary and contrarian things.

It’s debatable if demons may even use animations to possess people (which makes it like a weirder version of The Exorcist where Pazuzu decides to possess Reagan through something like Sleeping Beauty), or if these same productions get used by witches to bewitch people with, but if bad company corrupts good character when you have perverts working alongside their squarer peers that it’s going to poison the well anyways. It could even poison people who consume such media themselves, that makes it harder to overcome these strongholds if they don’t actively minimise their exposure to these (it’s like this with me with some cartoon characters, though not from the House of Mouse). Add to that Walt Disney made a deal with the Devil to get rich and famous, where it’s going to be really hard avoiding such negative influences if it’s deeply ingrained in childhood. So this might explain the contradictions in Disney as a whole, where you have technically wholesome live action series and animated productions on one hand. On the other hand you have Disney professionals cheating on their spouses and/or cohabiting.

Ucci’s point makes sense when she said something about Beyonce singing the song ‘Single Ladies’ despite being a married woman by now, that it could also apply to Disney where it parades stories about characters getting into lifelong monogamous, straight and married relationships with their lovers. Yet ironically a number of Disney stars aren’t above cheating on their spouses and also divorcing them, others aren’t even above cohabiting with their lovers that both Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song should’ve been a married couple by now. The would-be Mrs Culkin and her would-be husband went on voicing characters in a film about a married couple, a rather jarring irony in hindsight that makes one wonder if Disney as a company actually practises what it preaches. And even when it doesn’t seem to be openly hypocritical, it’s still very surreal why former Disney stars act so contrary to their cartoon counterparts. Disney media doesn’t always outright promote the occult or even rebellion, but there’s still something contradictory about them in some ways others can’t articulate well about.

Returning to the example of Bobby Driscoll, he should have been the coolest kid in his school. But he got bullied, did drugs and died ingloriously, whilst his abuser went on to create a theme park and more of them would be made after both men’s passings, though it’s still haunting why Disney as a company continues to be successful whilst continuing to bury his ghost. Celestial said that a woman whom Oscar killed would be avenged, so it’s logically God might also avenge Driscoll since he seemed to have read church tracts before he died. He might do this by getting the Russian government to dissolve the Walt Disney Company for killing Christians in secret, only to have the remaining assets get bought by Brazil’s Globo. Russia might do a lot to openly publicise the wrongs the Disney company did, essentially posthumously doxing Walt Disney this way. It will even do this for other Disney professionals over the years, effectively shaming many of them beyond the grave, and for the entire world to see and openly so.

But that’s not all folks as Russia will do the same for other US media companies like Paramount, Netflix and possibly a few more, it might not be above doxing American musicians for the same reason as to turn America into an example of what not to do. The Backstreet Boys could be next, given some members aren’t above having affairs with their fans, and one of them’s not above raping women himself that they too will be made into a warning for other musicians to unlearn from. Certainly not all Disney employees past and present are this ethically and morally inconsistent for most of the part, but I feel they wouldn’t be spared from this either and Disney would become one of many bywords of what not to do as a media company. Soyutzmultfilm might take its place as the face of family entertainment, if not it then some other media company would but it wouldn’t be American at all this time. Whatever that is but it’s not going to be American as America would be a massive hasbeen in the future, barely remembered by many then and even those who were around when it was actually powerful and famous, as with the rest of America, before disappearing.

Even much of American influence will be undone throughout the world in many ways that if Globo were to get a handle over characters like Mickey Mouse, most people would end up thinking he’s a Globo character instead. American influence might be greatly undone in the countries it heavily influenced, whether if it’s the Philippines in the East or Canada in the west, that it would be harder to recognise there was even any American influence at all decades later. The Philippines might be more peculiar because for an East Asian country that prides in being Christian-majority, it barely acts the part and doesn’t bother striving to repent either, that nearly all western influence will be revoked there. Not just the American influence but also the Spanish influence, that there will be very little to recognise any residual Spanish influence here beyond the surnames, architecture and religion (which will be about it by then). It would be immediately and greatly substituted by its Chinese and other east Asian counterparts by then, where the Philippines effectively and practically becomes just like any other East Asian county in nearly all regards.

Not just in name order and the like, but also food, mannerism, philosophy, holiday and stuff. Canada could be considered peculiar in its own right where it might stand out as an odd reminder that a country called America existed between it and Mexico (which by then would’ve largely disappeared into the waters and have its remaining terrestrial territories get handed over to these two courtesy of Russia), especially when it practically shares not only its language but also borders and history with it regarding their ties to Britain together. American influence is already getting undone there but America’s defeat in WWIII and its eventual disappearance would both accelerate and exacerbate this, should Canada consent to joining Russia in some way as one of its many protectorates, American influence will get eroded even more this way. Some Canadian politician might get emboldened to revive America on Canadian soil, petitioning it to get renamed to New America, yet he’ll also be seen as a laughingstock by his peers and the Canadian public.

The Saddam Hussein of his generation because Mr Hussein tried doing something similar, something similar to America’s spiritual predecessor in Ancient Babylon, but this results in a very different Canada that’s more indebted to Russia than at present. Or at least a version of Canada that’s more strongly tied to Eurasia than to the United States, culturally and geopolitically speaking in the future. Canadian culture would be Russified and Europeanised a lot, just as the Philippines will be easternised a lot (more like its neighbours in East China like China and Vietnam, should it become socialist following an American collapse), the war on Iran would continue as of late and it’s going to expand to other countries as the rest have turned against America. Since there’s a passage of the monster that Mystery Babylon rode on turning against her, this is a kind of fulfillment of Biblical prophecy in a way regarding how growing numbers of countries feel around America, since it’s been compared to her among prophets multiple times over. Interestingly one of the earliest symbols of America is a woman named Columbia, readily giving way to who the country has to been analogised to by these people, where it is truly Mystery Babylon.

America will get destroyed in the process, both internally and externally, as soon as the earthquake hits California. This will even ruin its multimedia industry a lot, prompting the cancellation of a number of productions halfway through. And this will be the end of America, the end of Mystery Babylon as well.

The Big One

There’s another prophecy of a massive earthquake coming to halve the United States, where it could radically change food production and food consumption there, where the prophetess in question urges other Christians to rely on God to give them food and cope with a massive change underway. One that will destroy the United States as we know it, one that will succeed in undermining the American Dream a lot. To the point of dismantling it altogether, where it seems the American Dream’s really unattainable to begin with. California and the rest of the North American west coast are no strangers to natural disasters, though it would be horrifying if this earthquake’s strong enough to destroy Hollywood as we know it. This would be enough to destroy or halt subsequent productions to the point where we might never see further sequels to films like Toy Story and Frozen ever again, it could be strong enough to destroy other buildings and institutions just the same. Celestial has talked about the dirt of Hollywood before, where such characters mix witchcraft with sexual abuse, especially towards the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears and even boy bands like Backstreet Boys and Nsync.

It should be noted that there were news reports hinting about the latter regarding Lou Pearlman, where it seemed creating boy bands was an outlet for his…sex fantasies that it might not be a stretch that he could’ve actually molested his musicians himself. Not to mention he even created the Backstreet Boys as a confluence of both New Kids On The Block and Chippendales, the latter is really racy, that it seems to have seeped into the Backstreet Boys to some degree. Though the song ‘Quit Playing Games With My Heart’ is lyrically wholesome, the actual video is sexualised enough to be questionable for some people like my brother. The Backstreet Boys first gained traction in Europe, which likely has countries that have a lower age of consent than in America (where they come from), wherein Nick Carter would’ve already been legal age in places like Germany and Britain at the time when the video was taken at all. When he actually turned 18, that’s when somebody made him go trouserless on a magazine cover. Which makes the Backstreet Boys much more sexualised than one would care to realise.

This wasn’t lost on would-be Backstreet Boy member Burk Parsons who felt that the band he was set to join was actually racier than the public would admit, coupled with Lou Pearlman deliberately exposing his employees to porn that it’s not a stretch to assume this was when Carter got his habit of watching porn from. Nakita said the same thing about Korean boy bands, which makes them even more sexualised than one would admit, although it’s more obvious than with their western boy bands where such bandmates have to strut in a way that reveals their bodies, provided they forgo wearing the undershirt at all. Then comes reports of Walt Disney himself having molested somebody like Bobby Driscoll, that when coupled with frequent reports of paedophiles (and even gay men) working for his company, that lends itself to a particular brand of unwholesomeness that even infects Christians like Glenn Keane. It’s kind of surreal to think that Disney as a company’s not above portraying its cartoon heroines getting married, but one Disney star (Brenda Song) is currently cohabiting with somebody else and even raising a family with him.

That she continues to appear in Disney productions makes for a weird disconnect between the values it purports in its main animation canon and actual Disney professionals’ questionable relationship choices (Walt Disney, Brenda Song, Nick Jonas in a way, Christina Aguilera having had affairs with women despite being married to a man before, so on and so forth), not to mention the latter two continue to have their songs played on Radio Disney (Disney’s very own music radio network in Latin America) still suggests something’s wrong in the state of Calisota. Certainly not all of Disney’s media canon reflects this, but a good chunk of the classical Disney canon’s built on things like monogamous heterosexual relationships and moreso if it’s a monogamous married, heterosexual relationship at that. This is reflected in stories like Beauty and The Beast, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid and like where in The Little Mermaid, the other woman is clearly evil and out to steal the heroine’s man. But in real life among a number of Disney stars, you have former child stars who’re not above engaging in extramarital affairs with women (Christina Aguilera in particular), women who start families with their men without getting married like Ms Song (who should’ve been Mrs Macaulay Culkin by then), ad infinitum.

It gets weirder with some of the earlier Disney stars where although such productions churn out visions of a wholesome childhood, some like Bobby Driscoll were actually molested and do drugs as he got older. Hayley Mills seems to be more well-adjusted than he was, yet as she got older herself she’d go on doing un-Disney things herself. This includes having an affair with another man and begetting a son with him, despite having done the same thing with her husband. She also has the peculiar dishonour of having a racist popstar for a son, you may know him as Crispin Mills from the band Kula Shaker. Since she got into Hinduism, this is likely where he got his fascination with India from. Knowing a tree by its fruit, you’ll know why he ended up this way. Like mother, like son. Certainly not all Disney child stars turn out this way, but it’s kind of surreal to think somebody like Raven Simone was assumed to be straight. Since many of the Disney cartoon heroines are straight themselves, there’s something surreal about her turning out to be a lesbian. (Since Celestial has a prophecy of the Cosby family going to die one by one, she might be next in line as she played a character there.) It gets odder still when it comes to somebody like Sabrina Carpenter.

Before she became really awful, she actually started out as having a wholesome image. Or at least that’s what some people assumed her to be, likely even having expected her to keep up with it for long. She even voiced a number of cartoon characters herself, then she reinvents herself as super raunchy. Well her songs still get played on Radio Disney, which makes it even more jarring in hindsight. Like she never truly left Disney in this way, despite getting less wholesome over time. But the same can be said of Miley Cyrus before her, where once she got onstage wearing lingerie she twerked against one singer’s…part. Olivia Rodrigo also starred in a Disney programme before, eventually becoming a foul-mouthed musician as she got older. Still her songs get censored and aired on Radio Disney, so she never really left Disney either just the same. I guess the fruit doesn’t fall too far from the tree that even when both Rodrigo and Carpenter get less wholesome over time, their tracks get played on Radio Disney in nearly every Latin American country like Mexico. So it’s like joining the Mafia, it ensures lifelong loyalty that if they do leave when they still live, they’ll get stalked.

Disney and possibly the entirety of California aren’t really entirely this odious, but there’s something kind of odiously jarring that a city called ‘The Angels’ in Spanish would harbour something so demonically evil, that makes it harder to avoid sin and even the appearance of evil. It should be noted that cartoonist Charles M Schulz moved to Santa Rosa, California with his family but over a period of time, one of his daughters got into a relationship and then with her mother’s help, she had to abort the foetus who could’ve been her child, their first grandchild in other words. Sparky would go on having an affair with another woman, that makes one wonder if a cartoon rooted in Christianity like Peanuts whose success would ironically predispose Schulz to a life of perpetual worldliness, that feels sadder than it should be. Furthering the irony is that Schulz married a divorced woman who often nagged at him, whose own mannerisms would get reverberated in one of his characters (Lucy Van Pelt). California houses things like the CRU organisation, but also Hollywood and the porn industry, which makes for an awkward neighbourhood spiritually speaking. Though it could be said that Baja California (the other half of California) isn’t any better, it is very awkward spiritally speaking.

Then comes Analia Campbell alleging that Walt Disney had a deal with the Devil to get to where he was at the height of his powers, where the smoking gun made in his lifetime is ‘Hell’s Bells’ which tells you who he’s actually affiliated with. Even in the years following his passing, telltale signs surely show up as if Disney remains posthumously bound to the Devil that Radio Disney wouldn’t be above playing songs by such characters and groups like AC/DC, David Bowie and even Taylor Swift, who all made a deal with the Devil themselves. Liking Disney isn’t evil in and of itself, though it’s very easy to make an idol out of it. There are high-profile cases of Disney fans owning so much merchandise based on Disney characters that it’s practically the closest to what the Bible says about idolatry in and of itself, even when one could do the same thing with other things like The Prodigy and Ace of Base (I’ve done these before) and it wouldn’t be any better either. Conversely speaking, it might be possible to be a Disney adult and be content with not owning or having this much, especially if they’re either not particularly rich or are very stingy with their money. It is possible but when you exclude pirated media, then they’re stuck with curated clips on Disney’s official social media channels, visiting Disney websites and listening to Radio Disney online.

To reiterate what I said before that at this point in time, one could be an Ace of Base or Prodigy fan on the cheap. Even when they’re unable to attend their concerts due to certain financial restraints and/or other priorities going on in their lives, they can still officially support them by merely streaming their music on services like Spotify at any time. Something much of Disney has kind of lost because in order to officially watch Disney films in their entirety or get Disney books and comics, you’d have to pay for something to get something. Which makes Disney fandom even more unnecessarily materialistic, even when one could be a Disney adult and still not get much Disney media and merchandise for long (or for as long as they can keep up with it). So it’s this easy to make Disney into an idol, even when it’s not unique to it either. To repeat, it seems Disney’s preference for wholesomeness feels like a massive pretense, when you have former Disney stars doing really salacious things as they get older. It still makes for a massive disconnect between the classic Disney films being very wholesome stories where good triumphs evil and where monogamous, heterosexual marriages are shown as right, yet you have Disney stars indulging in un-Disney things like having affairs with men and women and cohabiting with people who could’ve been their spouses.

It could be said that Disney’s erstwhile Soviet counterpart Soyuzmultfilm isn’t any better at times as well, but to my knowledge there are really not much reports of Soyuzmultfilm professionals doing these things often. It’s even odder still that Soyuzmultfilm even covered the same stories that Disney would adapt later on, be it The Snow Queen (which Frozen’s based on) or The Little Mermaid, given Soyuzmultfilm’s not known for a number of curious scandal that plague Disney that it argued that Soyuzmultfilm’s like a more effortlessly wholesome version of Disney. Or at least is more consistent about it than Disney will ever be, since I recall Celestial saying that Russia’s more righteous than America will ever be. It makes for a particularly weird irony that the Soviet Union has its own Disney that manages to be consistently more wholesome than the real McCoy will ever be, meanwhile the House of Mouse’s not above hiring questionable characters to work on its productions. Or that some child stars working on Disney productions would go on to be the least wholesome people around in town, it’s as if Disney’s own preference for wholesomeness doesn’t necessarily guarantee a lifelong commitment to it for these people.

It could be said that Disney fans are just as unwholesome too but as to why California will be hit hardest by the earthquake is that it condones so much evil, it’s practically inescapable even for those who do want to do better by God. Disney’s not above hiring gay men to work on its productions, but if it’s not uncommon for them to work for Disney, that inevitably their preferences get carried over to their heterosexual coworkers. Maybe not necessarily carried over but it kind of influences them unconsciously so where some of the male Disney characters appear to appease the gay male gaze more than the straight female gaze, gay animator Andreas Deja based the more recent version of Gaston after gay musclemen as in his earlier incarnation he was more fey (and more appeasing to the straight female gaze, by accident). The differences become more apparent when it comes to Disney’s Twisted Wonderland being made by women and having male characters that appeal to straight female preferences more, from what I’ve seen almost none of them are close to the Muscle Mary types that Gaston would eventually be based on. Certainly not all straight women feel this way either, but if we go by the Fandom Sexyman phenomenon, it wouldn’t always line up with gay male preferences.

Even then it does risk feeling this way at times where it seems the official Disney idea of a handsome man is somebody who’s physically fit and recognisably masculine, but for some women he can be skinny though he also has to be better-dressed too. Maybe not all Disney male characters fall into the former, but it seems when Disney’s own version of Hercules doesn’t inspire the same fervour women have for Gravity Falls’s Bill Cipher (who’s often anthropomorphised as a suit-wearing young man), it’s not hard to get the feeling that at least some of the Disney heroes seem to be things gay men are more into. It still contributes to an oddly contradictory environment where the classic Disney canon’s has a lot of openly and unabashedly straight, monogamous and married relationships, but on the other hand you have gay men behind the scenes doing certain things and Disney stars all grown up doing very un-Disney things like indulging in infidelity and cohabitation. Even if not all Disney productions openly promote the occult or its proxy rebellion, there’s something about the House of Mouse where deep down inside not everything is wholesome and pure as to warrant God’s impending judgement.

It would be a pretty horrifying future where one day soon after Russia colonises America, it dissolves the Disney company for killing Christians behind closed doors, only to hand over the remaining assets (especially Mickey and Friends and the entire Radio Disney network) to Brazil’s Rede Globo. From then on Globo publishes the adventures of Mickey, Donald and Ze Carioca, whilst renaming Radio Disney to Radio Jovem or something. It’s possible other aspects and assets of Disney will survive under Globo like National Geographic and possibly a few more like the Marvel Christian comics, but by then that will be all there is to the former Walt Disney Company. If an earthquake so destructive will significantly ruin not only California (where the Disney company’s located in) but also the rest of America (where one of its divisions, Marvel, is located in the east coast), how much more devastating if/when American cities get met by nuclear bombs which are ruinous enough to evaporate anything closest to them, that inevitably much of the US media canon will be lost to time forever this way. Maybe it’s even for the best as much of it’s not good to begin with, befitting the fate of America as Mystery Babylon.

The nation-state said to corrupt the world with its abominations, only to be destroyed by its enemies in due time. It would be pretty horrifying if Disney among other US companies would have the audacity to kill Christians behind closed times, only to be forcibly dissolved by the Russian government once Russia gets a hold of America after defeating it in WWIII. As the first becomes the last, the last becomes the first that Russia will unseat America as the head of western civilisation. This will also go hand in hand with the emergence of a new dark ages for the west, wherein after both western Europe and North America get massively destroyed by nuclear radiation in WWIII, the most prosperous western countries are those closest to Russia (both geographically and ideologically). Especially the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechia, Slovakia, Russia itself, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova (soon to be reunited with Romania), Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, where it becomes a weird replay of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire, which Russia sees itself as the successor-state to this. Celestial said that Russia might become very nationalistic after taking over the west for good.

Since it fancies itself as the successor to the Eastern Roman Empire that it’s feasible ‘Byzantinecore’ fashions would become a thing in the west, if this even includes countries that weren’t aligned with it for long like France, soon to be dissolved United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and possibly Canada. It wouldn’t be any better as there might be another Babylon waiting in the midst, but it’s inevitable American influence will be erased anyways. Even if it’s mostly at best, it’s going to get undone as to be forgotten over time so soon.

Dejected

Always in a low mood

Often feeling down, he

Can’t clown around a lot.

The American Nightmare

When it comes to prophecies about America ending and then getting destroyed, it’s kind of rare for Christians to admit America is built on stolen indigenous lands, that Native Americans do deserve justice from so much racism that it’s kind of provocative seeing them as actual people. Though there’s no mistaking that Native Americans are the descendants of East Asians who crossed over to North America in the very distant past, it’s also true that they came to the Americas first to the point of getting habituated to these places for centuries. Enough to develop their own cultures independent of much foreign influence, until the arrival of European colonisation in the early modern era. I said that even when Native Americans are clearly descended from East Asians, but being so isolated from East Asia for years as to develop their own cultures and cultural idiosyncrasies.

When it comes to countries like the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and Korea, due to their closeness to China that it’s inevitable varying degrees of Chinese influence will happen to them both collectively and individually, where it comes evident when it comes to things like siopao, lumpia rolls, printing press and tofu. But Native Americans, despite being genetically East Asians themselves, are so cut off from East Asia for years that their own cultures are more informed by what’s readily available in the Americas. So instead of creating foodstuffs out of soybeans the way it would be in East Asia (tempe in Indonesia, taho in the Philippines), they create foodstuffs out of corn instead like cornbread for instance. Perhaps save for South America, dogs are unmistakably an East Asian import that went with Native Americans, but the only domesticants native to the Americas (prior to European colonisation) are guinea pigs, llamas, turkeys and Muscovy ducks.

Native Americans are technically the first Americans (well, retroactively so), but they’re also ironically not considered to be all-American either. Well in their defence, at least some of them feel like they were never really American, well due to knowing their communal and family histories so well, that the lands they lived in got superseded by this settler-colony called America. America is a European country superimposed onto indigenous North American countries, though the same thing can be said of its politer twin sibling Canada. That’s not to say Native American Christians are nonexistent, much less practising Christians at that, there’s the recently recognised Saint Kateri. She was a disabled Mohawk woman who converted to Christianity, so there’s still room for people like her in present day Canada and America. Not all Native Americans have antagonistic feelings towards Christianity, since there are some who’re actually this sympathetic to it.

I remember being interested in these people before in the 2000s, sometime after I lost my mother. Though at times this gets soured by their own negative experiences with the Church, abuse and the like, which is enough to pass down the mistrust to their future relatives. The cycle can be broken but it’s another matter to want reconciliation, where it seems many Native Americans are often hurt by living in a settler colonial country, wherein they’re often marginalised and discriminated against. Not all Native Americans reside in reservations for long, but for some it feels safer than venturing outside of them. Only to get discriminated against that would be enough to take a serious toll on their mental health, having been abused a lot in my formative years, it too took a major toll on my mental health where it makes it harder for me to forgive even when I try hard not to get mad at my enemies. (This might also explain why I get triggered by something a lot, somebody on Reddit said that I might be traumatised.)

Or in one relative’s case, having to repress emotions in front of her parents and also striving harder not to get found out for being vulnerable (and perverted), on top of working in something stressful in healthcare would also take a toll on her mental health. To the point of turning to maladaptive coping mechanisms like using porn to calm herself down when she’s been told to feel good makes it harder to actually come as she is, without being judged let alone for something that’s really shameful that goes both ways. Being ashamed of being too vulnerable, being ashamed of being too perverted. Yet she was also socialised to not feel terrible to the point where at times she has no other outlet to avoid negative emotions a lot, where being a pervert feels like the lesser evil, so that’s going to take a big hit to her mental health with all these expectations pressuring her to feel and act in a certain way in public. Or myself with certain, albeit morbid, obsessions before.

Even if not all Native Americans do drugs and drink, but when somethings takes a big toll on your mental health, yet you also aren’t allowed to act in a certain way, that it’s going to take a lot to appear calm and happy when in reality you’re falling apart. You’re deteriorating internally, striving harder to feel better but never quite getting it right all the time (it’s my own struggle with sin so). This is also no different with the racisms aimed at African Americans, Asian Americans and Latin Americans, that even when not all of them are resentful to their white counterparts, but being constantly discriminated against would really take a big toll on their mental health, when compounded by having to act in a certain way around certain people that it would be real hard to come as they are. Without getting flack for admitting they got discriminated against, what they’re actually struggling with for all those years and stuff, that it takes a lot to act nice around them yet needing to have an outlet to vent out those awful feelings.

This is where the whole get angry and don’t sin thing comes into play, there is a way to express those ugly feelings without hurting yourself or anybody, or for another matter seeking some other sin to mask it. But it still gets complicated by the way people are socialised that it’s going to be hard coming forth with what causes them to sin, without judging them for doing this way at some point, that it’s going to be hard being honest about being discriminated against if you’re black/Asian/Native American without intimidating or angering somebody else (white fragility much). There goes the pressure to appear acceptable and accomodating to people, for fear of lashing out against them at any point. Enough to resort to some kind of outlet to avoid angering others, knowing they feel terrible but also trying harder not to act on it. Compounded by the feeling of walking on eggshells whenever racists are around, that it’s going to take a lot to feel fine as to resort to questionable methods of calming yourself down like drinking heavily. Let’s not forget that given how stigmatised mental illness is, that it’s going to be hard coming forth about it.

Without getting flack for it that when compounded by racism, it’s going to be hard admitting you got discriminated a lot. But without angering white people around (white tears), that you bottle it up and then drink or smoke or get addicted to something else to ease the pain. Maybe by getting recompensed, Native Americans might be able to get back their territories. Though it’s going to take time getting used to it, when they’re so used to be marginalised that it would be awkward at first. But eventually God will come around for them.

Rivalry

Sometime ago a game like Marvel Rivals emerged and quickly endeared itself to many gamers, or did it? It turns out some gamers and especially female gamers have objected to the way the superheroines are portrayed there, if I was honest most of the female characters there are ridiculously busty. They also tend to be leaner than their male counterparts, which makes them seem more palatable to certain male gamers. Though it’s true not all male gamers are sexist perverts, let alone for life, but a number of games in the past have set the tone for certain things. Not just in depicting helpless women a lot, but also sexualised heroines fairly often too. In the cases with characters like Kitana, Sonya Blade, Cammy White and Lara Croft, though these characters are ostensibly admirable heroines this is undercut by unnecessary sexualisation at times, well until recently with newer games featuring the three of them appearing to be less sexualised than they did in recent memory. Though unfortunately this isn’t well-received by other male gamers, despite their respective developers’ sincere attempts to concede to feminist criticism.

Actually even in games that don’t sexualise female characters a lot, either that they simply don’t show up in the games at all, are made functionally interchangeable with their male counterparts in gameplay (though this is a grey area), and are also glorified NPCs as well. Based on my meagre gaming experience on PBS Kids of all things, but it’s kind of telling that when it comes to depicting and creating female characters in video games with most game developers being male that it’s going to be a hit or miss at times. Sometimes it gets complicated that even when the game doesn’t seem to be outright sexist, it’s subtly sexist in that the female characters either simply don’t show up at all or are practically NPCs at most. Conversely speaking, especially in the Japanese video game industry, there are games that technically fail the Bechdel Test but are highly aimed at the female gamer demographic in terms of the ways the male characters are portrayed as to appease to them (something like Ensemble All Stars).

Although the Japanese video game industry isn’t any better, this is something the US counterpart missed out on. Well for most of the part as it’s going to be hard naming what is the US equivalent to the Ensemble Stars game that the US equivalent would have to be created instead, but this implies the US equivalents to these games are either nonexistent or very rare at most. In the sense of a video game that’s unabashedly aimed at women that objectifies male characters a lot, that it may not necessarily be a popstar raising game the way Ensemble Stars is, but something that’s kind of upfront about pandering to cishet female preferences a lot. Or if there ought to be a way to push the envelope with male character designs that is somewhat closer to what their female counterparts get, like what would happen if you were to chance upon a male character who goes about pairing an Italian suit with a dog collar, it wouldn’t seem particularly that sexualised compared to what the womenfolk get.

But it is pushing things when compared to the way male characters are usually depicted, that does speak volumes about the rampant sexualisation of female characters in ACG media a lot. Where if you have a male character going about in a suit but where the tie’s replaced by a bondage collar/choker, it is pushing things in a way that’s barely if ever done to male characters. Or that it’s been done to male characters before but not for long (mind you I’ve seen Hank Pym wear bondage clothing before), whereas it’s painfully commonplace to see female characters go about in skimpy and really sexualised outfits, to the point where Super Mario’s Princess Peach stands out more for usually wearing more modest dresses. There are some people who feel that young girls shouldn’t wear skimpy clothing, to the point where it makes the character designs for early-teen characters like Misty feel iffier in this light. She’s supposed to be in the 10-14 age range so far, but dresses in a crop top and short shorts that make one wonder if she’s going to risk injuring herself more if she does something by accident when going out on a trip.

Princess Peach is very much an adult woman but she usually is more covered up, which goes to you show you given her prominence in the video game canon that a female character needn’t to be too sexualised to have any renown or impact. One other contender within the early video game canon would be Princess Zelda, who in her official appearances, barely if ever dresses this skimpily either. Though it could be argued that the sexualisation of female characters in the video game industry also started out early, it seems to have surged in tandem with having more agentic female characters around, that it feels like an attempt to compensate for having potentially emasculating fictional womenfolk around. Marvel Rivals seems like a more recent permutation of this meme, surely there are a lot of playable female characters around. But they tend to have absurd proportions, a number of them dress in a very sexualised manner and fewer still are stuck with the same colour scheme, despite being ostensibly very different women respectively.

If characters like Aloy are any indication, if you have a female character who’s both strong and not that sexualised, she’d intimidate some guy gamers a lot. Further compounding the problem is that even when the female character is sexy, but if she doesn’t have certain proportions then she’s not sexy enough. There’s this blogger who insinuated that such players aren’t even interested in good character design, they’re more interested in wanting the womenfolk to be as arousing as possible. Believe or not, I actually know of somebody who’s attracted to redheads, fat women, muscular women and giantesses, but the same fellow draws the line at ugly women and short-haired women that he seems to prove her point right. Sound character design might as well be traded for whatever that’s immediately arousing, especially in female characters, that contributes to an unnecessarily sexualised environment. I suppose if it were possible to push the envelope with male characters, that even when it doesn’t seem provocative compared to the women, it would still be daring compared to the way male characters are usually portrayed.

Let’s say that the upshot politican Colin Sallow wears a mustard-coloured Italian pantsuit with a very tight shirt that ironically leaves practically nothing to the imagination, despite being coloured black, then there’s forensic scientist Fabrice Tientcheu who also wears something similar. Then comes financial adviser Ilmar Tuglas who’s the most modest of the three men, if because he wears a buttoned up bottle green trenchcoat that’s paired with a violet dress-shirt, bottle green trousers and a violet choker with an emerald gem at the centre. He doesn’t seem that particularly provocatively dressed when compared to a female character, it would still be a rather odd character design choice despite not being this sexualised either. It’s not just that he wears a choker and jewel-toned garments, but that he also actually wears jewellery at all. When it comes to something like body dysmorphic disorder, this is kind of exacerbated in the ACG canon where such character designers can readily whip up the ideal woman. I even argued elsewhere that such depictions might even be more harmful than fashion magazines.

One can appreciate a well-done dress, but it’s kind of hard measuring up to a cartoon heroine with more sexualised proportions than you, goes about in a very sexualised manner despite appearances to the contrary and is sometimes depicted as if she were a porn star, that would be much more drastic than if she were confronted by a woman wearing a modest but nice gown. It’s easier for others to let these ACG depictions slide but in the sense they either think it’s imaginary or a mere mistake, without knowing it could be even more harmful as it more effectively communicates a certain message. With clothing you could learn to make something that suits your likings, or to create something for somebody else. But with cartooning and the like, one could cook up the ideal woman. It’s like if somebody’s so exposed to a near lifetime of looking at naked and scantily clad women in artbooks, comics and video games that it feels unfeminine for a woman to dress much more modestly, to the point where it might even be more provocative for a woman to go about dressed in a roomy abaya in public.

This isn’t always the case for Muslim-majority characters like Malaysia and plausibly Iran, Turkey and Morocco where you’re bound to have women who’ll find ways of undermining the modesty mandate in some other way, pushing things despite appearances to the contrary, though not for long. But supposing if things like Malaysian folk clothing, hanfu/traditional Han Chinese clothing, Indonesian folk clothing, precolonial clothing and Burmese folk clothing were to get popularised in the Philippines, especially after America collapses, that Filipinas might dress more provocatively if many of them went about in panlingpaos, changaos, baju kurung, ruqun and the like in public, than if they wore short shorts and leggings just the same. If because it would be really odd seeing more Filipinas dressing much more modestly than they did, where it would surely freak out a lot of people if a lot of young Philippine women wore panlingpao and baju kurung to the streets. There could be issues of cultural appropriation, but it’s essentially no different if white women went about in sexualised versions of Native American clothing.

But it does bring up the question if women in sexualised clothing is so normalised, what does it take to dress provocatively then? Could it be that the sight of say Sonya Blade in a more modest outfit be more provactive than if she went about dressed as if she were a dominatrix? Going back to the other example, because it’s so common seeing Philippine women in short shorts and leggings, that they’d dress more provocatively if they went about dressed in baju kurung and sarong in public. If because what they’ll be wearing would be so shocking and strange that it polarises people at first, because it’s something the Philippine public’s not particularly this used to. It would be similarly bizarre if something like Swedish, Danish and Finnish folk clothing get so popularised among Canadian women, that it would also draw in accusations of cultural appropriation at any point. Even if these same garments don’t get sexualised at all, it would still be weird seeing Canadian women going about in Danish folk clothing in public spaces like malls and restaurants.

A lot weirder than if they went about in American clothing, because it’s been popularised for years. So it would be super strange seeing a character like Kitana go about wearing a Song dynasty panlingpao with Song dynasty trousers to boot, especially if others are more used to seeing her in more form-fitting or skimpier outfits before. It would be really strange seeing Tanya go about wearing a boubou/kaftan in Ankara print whilst finishing her opponents in kombat, one would only wonder if players have (to develop) the patience to put up with seeing Sophitita in a modest Norwegian bunad (or even Ivy Valentine wearing the same garment). It would be pretty controversial for many reasons, but the fact that so many people are desensitised to highly sexualised depictions, that it would be super out of the blue seeing more women (both fictional and real) dress much more modestly than they used to. Marvel Rivals seems like the latest iteration of an earlier but ongoing phenomenon when it comes to sexualised depictions of women, that it would potentially serve to normalise/popularise these things again.

Blue Corn Crisps

Opening a bag of corn crisps

Some of them are purple,

Made from blue corn too.

More on Colin Sallow again

Colin Sallow is a character I created sometime ago but he also came from a dream, he could be seen as the Dio Brando of the story (yellow clothing and knife-throwing antagonist who stops time), even right down to an apparent affinity with birds (Dio has his in Pet Shop Boy). But the rest of his depiction is a grab bag of other influences, including those you’d never expect to be combined in a particular manner. I said many times before that he resembles a younger Liam Howlett, the keyboardist and mastermind of the Essex band The Prodigy. He also exhibits his piano-playing skills, though there’s something else about him that you’d never expect. There’s actually a bit of Ace of Base in him, as in that Gothenburg-based act behind ‘Beautiful Life’ and ‘All That She Wants’, he actually went to the University of Gothenburg himself to study biology (he actually wants to study birds). His classmate there is named Pernilla Berggren, who’s named after the Berggren siblings and one woman that one of the AOB members dated (Ulf Ekberg), who likes cats and slapped him in the face over a remark about cat predation.

All of the Berggren siblings have (had) cats as pets, given Jonas Berggren has a fear of dogs due to a negative childhood experience. Colin Sallow doesn’t seem fond of dogs himself, just like Dio Brando, though it’s explicitly got to do with one dog killing his chickens before. Again there’s a bit of Ace of Base in him, because one AOB member explicitly admitting to not being fond of dogs himself. I remember saying this before that K-Pop musicians and bands never seemed to influence me when it comes to doing fictional characters at all, the way bands like The Prodigy, Ace of Base and Massive Attack do, or increasingly Aqua in some of my poems that’s kind of telling. I did listen to K-Pop bands and musicians before, but weirdly enough I never became really interested in any of them enough to bother archiving any extensive mention of them at all. I even have a habit of archiving old fansites pertaining to bands like Massive Attack, Aqua and Ace of Base, but K-Pop bands and musicians never really strongly interested me much. Not so much out of contempt, as catchy as the music is but they seem contrived and weirdly boring.

I did kind of get into Wonho though not for long and not quite as intense as I would with Aqua to bother archiving any mirrored website mentioning the latter at all, well I could make a character based on an Aqua member and this goes to show you that Wonho doesn’t have much of an influence on me in creating fictions. Let’s say his name is Rene Savard and he’s a raccoon kemonomimi who’s of both Metis and Mikmaq descent, he comes from somewhere in Quebec and had a falling out with his father over his beliefs (he’s a Christian and an aspiring marine biologist to boot), so he goes onboard with a ship to learn marine biology elsewhere and study marine animals wherever he went when he was younger. Mind you he’s based on Rene Dif, the deep-voiced bald member who also had a falling out with his own father enough to leave him for a long time. It doesn’t seem obvious because Mr Savard is a Canadian man of Metis and Mikmaq descent, but it’s there in some other way if you know something about Aqua yourself. Aqua isn’t really that obscure and so is Ace of Base.

But both bands are mentioned far less often on Fanlore and related media, that finding surviving websites in any form would be a massive endeavour in and of itself. There’s a good deal of Ace of Base in Colin himself, he got educated in Sweden for a time being. More specifically in Gothenburg, where Ace of Base came from. Okay I’m pretty much repeating myself but getting influenced by Ace of Base enough to do fictions of some sort, whether if this involves studying Indonesian only to mention AOB members there every now and then, does say something about the state of transformational fandom. One that seems strangely more biased towards men than to women that even when you have a band that’s usually not this demeaning to women whenever women members are frequently present at all (the Berggren sisters anybody?), Ace of Base never inspired this much fanfiction relative to the Backstreet Boys that it seems to lean towards an odd sort of feminism.

Though it’s true neither Aqua nor the Prodigy are any better with their own blunders (Barbie Girl and Smack My B Up), it’s still very odd. A sort of feminism that both rejects misogyny yet reinforces it in some way by excluding any band with a female member (and sometimes more than one female member) around, that feels kind of confusing for a community that calls itself highly feminist. Especially if these bands in question aren’t usually demeaning to or objectify women in any way, let alone if they have multiple female members around, that it kind of reinforces music industry misogyny in a different manner. Creating characters based on actual Ace of Base members in some way or another isn’t really hard, just as it’s not hard to create characters based on their Aqua or even Prodigy counterparts. If Liam Howlett is the basis for Colin Sallow, then Maxim Reality is the basis for Fabrice Tientcheu. Yep, another cat lover but one who is a Cameroonian forensic scientist to boot.

Then both Ulf Ekberg’s girlfriend and the Berggren siblings are the basis for Pernilla Berggren, that’s why she’s a biologist who specialises in cats (both housecats and their relatives) who studied at the University of Gothenburg with Colin before. It’s far from impossible and although Ace of Base fanworks do exist, they’re surprisingly rather rare compared to what happens to Backstreet Boys that lends itself to a kind of Schrodinger’s misogyny. It’s not that hard to put a bit of Ace of Base in him, despite being ostensibly based on a Prodigy member, that goes to you show it’s really not that hard to be influenced by Ace of Base, the Prodigy and Aqua enough to create fictional characters based on them in some way or another. Actually it’s also not that hard to be influenced by Massive Attack either and enough to create fictional characters based on their members just the same, since the economist Gaetano Saturni’s based on Robert del Naja and the lawyer Babatunde Osofisan’s based on Grant Marshall.

It’s not that hard really, even Araki Hirohiko’s no stranger to naming some of his characters after Sananda Maitreya/Terrence Trent D’Arby, Enya, Mariah Carey, Lisa Velez, Ronnie James Dio, Michel Polnareff, Paula Abdul, Vanilla Ice and Chaka Khan, so in a sense he did base his own characters after some of the musicians he listens to or listened to at some point in his life. So logically it wouldn’t be hard basing characters after members from the Prodigy, Ace of Base, Aqua and Massive Attack, just as one would with say the Backstreet Boys, One Direction and Nsync. But I feel a good number of professional writers alive today have cut their teeth on doing Backstreet Boys, One Direction and Nsync fanfic that their own professionally published stories contain some holdovers from their authors’ fanfiction pasts, fanworks based on the Prodigy and Ace of Base certainly do exist as I’ve seen some about the former and a little bit about the latter. They’re definitely not nonexistent, but transformational fandom remains heavily biased towards boy bands.

Not even generally non-misogynistic mixed-gender bands like Ace of Base figure that much in transformational fandom, which makes for a really odd exclusion in the annals of transformational fandom history. Like of all the bands they go after given transformational fandom’s pro-woman stance, they ignore bands like Ace of Base who usually don’t do this to their own female members often and don’t demean women much in their own body of work either, unlike Aqua and the Prodigy even by accident in their cases. One could use bands like The Prodigy and Ace of Base as inspiration for their own fictional characters, but at times it seems transformational fandom’s scope is much more limited than it cares to realise. The sky should be the limit but in transformational fandom, when it comes to real world musicians, it’s usually all about all-male rock bands or boy bands. So again transformational fandom’s scope is more limited in this regard, where bands that don’t degrade women whenever female members are often around are strangely sidelined.

It’s not hard basing characters after members of Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam if Jojo’s Lisa Lisa is any indication, or for another matter basing characters off of Enya and Mariah Carey that goes to show you something about finding inspiration in these people and bands. Even if something like Jojo is not above reproach at times, basing non-misogynistic female characters after actual female musicians isn’t hard. If you could name one’s mother and mentor after Lisa Velez, then basing a character after Ace of Base members isn’t a stretch either. Basing characters after members of The Prodigy, Massive Attack and Aqua isn’t entirely impossible either, one could make another character based on Ace of Base called Birgitta Ekberg who’s an ecologist specialising in feral rabbits and it’s not that hard either. Mind you feral rabbits are very much a thing in Sweden as well, that there’s always the potential to base such characters after phenomena happening in these situations.

Actually even stray dog predation’s a thing in Sweden as well, something Birgitta Ekberg’s keen on from time to time and Colin himself’s well-aware of in his Gothenburg stay as a foreign exchange student. He said that he’s seen dogs hunt roe deer whenever their own owners aren’t looking, so using this subject matter as inspiration for stories or even discussions said by the characters themselves isn’t hard either. But it does say something about transformational fandom in its approach to storytelling when some of its own members graduate to doing professional fiction at all, that it’s easier to carry over common tics and obsessions found in transformational fandom, than to venture into rarely explored territories like the Prodigy, Ace of Base and even dog predation in Sweden to make new characters, stories and dialogues with those in mind. It’s even suspected that transformational fandom isn’t really that progressive.

So logically transformational fandom isn’t really that transformative, let alone wholly and consistently so, where it’s easier to stick to celebrities that can be easily pigeonholed into common fanfiction stereotypes than to use rather unexpected sources of inspiration to create very different, albeit fictitious, people instead. This is like using Maxim’s likeness (and to some extent his own mannerisms) for a character who’s unmistakably very African, very much into reading books himself, works in a STEM job, enjoys some stargazing and plays some football too, though it could be argued this has been done with some Duran Duran members before when it comes to a book series by Jemiah Jefferson. She had a website that’s billed as Duran Duran for bad kids, but then again Duran Duran is a fairly common obsession in transformational fandom. So something like Ace of Base would be a much unlikelier source of inspiration, given they don’t appear this much in transformational fandom to start with.

Or the Prodigy for another matter, that transformational fandom is usually rather limited in scope. Possibly more limited in scope than it cares to admit and realise, where it’s easier to stick to heartthrob music groups whose members can be easily stereotyped in fanfiction, than to go for such unusual sources of inspiration only to create characters that aren’t or seemingly not that tangentially a lot like the people they’re technically based on. It doesn’t just stop at creating a character that’s essentially a more glamourous version of Liam Howlett, it also means naming two female scientists after Ace of Base members where it shouldn’t be tricky doing something like these. Michel Polnareff doesn’t necessarily have such an elaborate hairstyle for most of the part, but Jean-Pierre Polnareff’s evidently named after him. Ronnie James Dio isn’t blond, but Dio Brando’s based on him anyways.

Both Chaka and Khan are two men named after Chaka Khan, using black musicians as inspiration for characters isn’t impossible either. But I still feel the usual nature of transformational fandom is to gravitate more towards male heartthrob type musicians, which boy bands (both western and Korean) have in spades, instead of even bands that don’t degrade or sexualise women in their body of work much whenever female members are frequently present at all (Ace of Base for instance). That it’s kind of suspected among some folks that transformational fandom isn’t really this progressive, nor is it this open-minded where it would be quite rare to encounter fanworks based around bands like The Damned, Ace of Base again or Aqua. Fanworks based on the Prodigy do exist but it usually manifests as either fanmade remixes or fanart, that it would be kind of odd basing two fictional characters after two members of the same band.

If because for those who were doing fanfictions based on bands like Nsync, Backstreet Boys and One Direction, some of who get professionally published kind of subliminally base these characters after their favourite musicians on some level. Fanart of bands like Love and Rockets and The Damned do exist, though I feel transformational fandom tends to gravitate towards male heartthrob types at most. Not just Duran Duran but also the true boy bands like New Kids On The Block, Backstreet Boys, Nsync, One Direction, BTS, Exo, Monsta X, Stray Kids and TXT, that basing fictional characters after any one of them is far likelier once some fanfiction writers begin writing for a living. Even if Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is any indication, basing fictional characters off of the likes of Enya, Mariah Carey, Lisa Velez, Sanandra Maitreya and Chaka Khan are already possible, or that Gundam’s Char Aznable is named after Armenian-French singer Charles Aznavour suggests it shouldn’t stop at heartthrob types when seeking musicians as inspiration at all.

Mind you, Ilmar Tuglas is just as based on Kakyoin Noriaki as he is after both Friedebert Tuglas (his namesake) and French songstress Sylvie Vartan (especially in terms of facial features but masculinised), and he works as a financial adviser to people like Graham Knightley (based on Kira Yoshikage) that it shouldn’t really end at heartthrob type musicians when seeking inspiration in music, it could be something like 1960s singers like Sylvie Vartan again. That’s not to say all transformational fandom participants are this narrow-minded, but many of them don’t seem to be the types of people who’d actually gravitate to these kinds of musicians. You’re much likelier to find transformational fan participants going after boy bands than those who listen to Aqua, Ace of Base, The Prodigy, Massive Attack and The Damned, much less the likes of Sylvie Vartan and Charles Aznavour, even though the latter yielded Char Aznable.

They miss these too

I pointed out in another post that there are likely also Ace of Base and Aqua fans who do miss going to their own favourite fansites that it’s worth bringing them back in some way, even if it’s not all of them (from my experience), that I even compiled a list of the surviving mirrored fansites with the most information about them. Not just biographies but also interviews and articles about them in any way that would be worth revisiting in mirrored forms, unless if online groups have the very interviews and articles that other fansites might have contained (especially Ace of Base from my experience). Similar things can be said of other bands that peaked in the 1990s but I often bring up both Ace of Base and Aqua in comparison to Backstreet Boys because these two didn’t just achieve similar levels of popularity in those years, but that Ace of Base even shared producers with BSB (Max Martin and Denniz Pop) that this is a fairer comparison this way.

Comparing Backstreet Boys to Leeds United or Arsenal wouldn’t be fair because these two are very different things, comparing Backstreet Boys to Ace of Base is a fairer example. (This is why I don’t often compare Backstreet Boys to other bands like Sisters of Mercy, it may be musical in nature but it’s never going to be fair either.) It’s easier for those in transformational fandom to eulogise Backstreet Boys than they would with Ace of Base, because deep down inside they’re kind of more biased towards men than to women. Somebody like Stitch admitted having a similar attitude of being not like other girls before, so with some Backstreet Boys fans this would be no different. Or that the Backstreet Boys often get pigeonholed into roles by their manager at some point that readily fits into popular fanfiction memes, though that hasn’t stopped people from doing certain questionable stories featuring their other contemporaries Hanson (which is wholly composed of brothers).

But there is a kind of internalised misogyny that permeates these kinds of communities. One that contributes to further misogyny in the music industry, where even if you have nonsexualised female musicians or nonsexualised female members in a band at all very frequently, they wouldn’t register much in most of these women’s minds. This could be a can of worms when it comes to female musicians who choose to sexualise themselves at all, but it should be noted that the Berggren sisters don’t really have highly sexualised public images for most of the part even at their prime. Especially when compared to Aqua’s Lene Nystrom that they might be palatable for certain cishet women, they could be easier to identify with at times than say somebody like Britney Spears in some ways. Or even Lene Nystrom herself for another matter for other women, though this isn’t considered much even when the potential’s there in some fashion or another.

One might relate to the Berggrens for having grown up with cats instead of dogs, one might relate to Ulf Ekberg when it comes to falling into the wrong crowd before. One might relate to Rene Dif in the sense of having a difficult relationship with one’s own parent as to spend time away from them, even if they may not necessarily go around the world the way he did. But I feel one possible reason why transformational fandom tends to eulogise Backstreet Boys more than Ace of Base is really because some women want to be validated for the kinds of men they’re attracted to, which is no different when it comes to the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch really. Being straight is one thing, the fact that there might be Ace of Base and Aqua fans who’re nostalgic for their favourite fansites suggest that it would be nice to revisit them in some way, maybe it might be worth bringing those back in some form.

So curating a list of mirrored archived websites would be a way to conveniently revisit them, that if they miss going to these websites before it’s about time to bring them back that feels like going home. Going back to somewhere they stopped going to for a long time that it’s about time to see them again, especially if they remember going there at all that it’s nice seeing those again. Mind you that even if I recall avidly listening to them before, I didn’t exactly develop an actual fondness for them until 2025-2026 that it’s only now that I’ve begun mirroring websites involving them at all. Finding these websites on Archive.org is kind of daunting, since some of them don’t survive at all, that makes the task of mirroring surviving archived websites kind of admirable in and of itself, which leads to certain details like Jonas Berggren being afraid of dogs, Lene Nystrom being an army brat or Rene Dif having been a delinquent who didn’t have a good relationship with his father.

This would further pique any longtime fans’ interests in these websites, if they recall going there before, that it’s practically overdue to have any mention at all. This is partly based on my realisation that those on Fanlore are evidently more biased towards men, despite being a website that’s for women by women, than it does towards women and much less real world women who’re consistently and frequently part of bands like Ace of Base, which isn’t really this misogynistic unlike what Aqua got (by mistake). Which makes for a weird irony in a world that wants more girls’ girls (women supporting other women), that makes the near-omissions of these bands all the more jarring. If Backstreet Boys fans want to revisit their favourite websites that are technically gone, then it’s only fair Ace of Base fans feel the same way with their own and also Aqua fans as well.

Curating a list of the remaining archived fansites with the most information about these bands in question would be an interesting step towards correcting a lack of representation in fan history archives. It might not be the same kind of fandom the Backstreet Boys enjoy but they do provide a glimpse of the two bands at the height of their respective popularities and may even complement and contextualise any longer-form documents about them, one is an autobiography by Jenny Berggren, the second is an academic study about Aqua. I suspect this might involve seeing the two bands in a new light that when put together, they give a pretty good glimpse of what else one can either learn more about them or revisit them if they’ve been to those sites before. Besides Ace of Base fanzines do exist, but I feel when it comes to their fandom (and those of Aqua) really do deserve some mention.

Especially pertaining to their respective fansites that I feel Backstreet Boys fandom is very spoilt, dredging up and mirroring the remaining archived AOB and Aqua fansites is one such endeavour, but it’s easier for the BSB fandom to eulogise their own band for some reason.

Pro-Test

Somebody else has a prophecy of growing civil unrest all over the world, which may lead to the worst world war the planet has ever seen, one that might make the previous world war pale in comparison. Mind you I have interceded for others to cope with the rise of socialism here in the Philippines that if socialism were to become so popular here, that ultimately we could see violence aimed at landowners and politicians alike, even if it doesn’t get this violent it would still be disruptive seeing the Philippines go from a capitalist oligarchy to a socialist country. Sort of like the Russian Revolution before where an imperialist Russia gave way to a socialist one, though it didn’t entirely erase the need to hold onto Russian possessions like Poland and Estonia. Either that they became part of the Soviet Union proper (Moldova, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia) or they became satellite states (Romania, Slovakia, Czechia, Poland), so realistically a socialist Philippines might carry at least some holdovers from its capitalist past.

What would change is that it would be the norm for a lot of Philippine companies to be partly state-owned from then on, be it restaurants (Max’s, Aristocrat, Jollibee), clothing (Bench, Bayo, Penshoppe), publishing (Phoenix, New Day, Adarna) and anything and everything else, even something like GMA would become a partly state-owned media company this way. But given God’s out to revoke nearly all American influence over the world that the Philippines would be no exception, a rising socialist movement would accelerate and exacerbate this where it might no longer be fashionable for Philippine people to use English and have western names. Admittedly this is the sort of thing I’ve interceded for others to cope with, but one that would align of God’s plan to revoke nearly all American influence around the world that the things I’ve prayed for are either coming to pass or at already underway. The Irish language’s already getting popularised, though the language getting popularised in say Slovenia has yet to happen.

Even then with God revoking US influence around the world that it’s possible given the US empire kept the English language relevant far longer than it should, a US collapse might accelerate other countries’ drive to either preserve their own languages (Ireland for instance) or it would be more fashionable and practical to learn another language instead (Mandarin in the Philippines). So it’s actually plausible for something like Mandarin and Tagalog to get popularised a lot in the Philippines following US collapse and possibly growing sympathies for China, not helped by that the US will go into a civil war anytime soon, that it might no longer be practical to rely on America a lot when America itself is unable to help the Philippines in any way it likes that realpolitik is a more sensible option instead. It could be plausible for a number of Germans, Slovenes, Swiss, Austrians and Italians to learn Irish as a way to protest against US imperialism, knowing a band like Kneecap has made it hip to learn Irish and this band’s very sympathetic to Palestine.

Learning Irish would be a way to support Palestine (albeit indirectly due to their sympathies for Kneecap), and also to protest against US imperialism given many European countries have come to resent it a lot. Maybe not immediately and not in a way I’d expect, but it’s still plausible given how unpopular America has gotten that a US collapse would accelerate and exacerbate things. Even the Philippines might not only reconsider its relationships with China but grow to sympathise with it more once the US collapses, when coupled with a growing socialist movement, that ultimately it might even consent to it. Likewise the entire European Union might consent to Russian rule, for fear of getting bombed the way America will be getting. There will be greatly expanded versions of China and Russia, or that there will be new supranational unions aligned with either country. Greater China will be composed entirely of all the East Asian countries as well as some South Asian countries, Lesser China will be composed of all the African countries and their Oceanian counterparts.

A new version of the Commonwealth of Independent States would be composed of not only all the forever Soviet Union members, but also all European Union members as well as Canada and members of the former United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales), with America being there for a while before it disappears. The neutral powers would be composed of some West Asian countries, some South Asian countries and the remaining American countries other than Canada, even then it would be a very different world by then where American influence is nearly revoked in its entirety. English would be used less often, especially if it makes other countries like Ghana, Wales, Nigeria and Ireland prioritise or popularise their own indigenous languages more, that even the Philippines will follow suit where it would become the norm for a lot of Philippine websites to use more Tagalog (as well as Mandarin) from then on. It would be the norm for Philippine people to follow Chinese customs (right down to the name order) and have Tagalog personal names, it would be the norm for the Philippines to closely follow its neighbours like China and Vietnam from then on.

It might be very fashoinable for German, Austrian, Italian, Slovene, Slovak, Hungarian and Czech youths to learn Irish due to the popularity of phenomena like Kneecap, that even their countries’ websites might concede to this and may allow Irish-language options of things like Bible lectionaries for instance. They might even use Irish as a way to support Kneecap’s sympathies for Palestine, essentially the linguistic equivalent to the way the One Piece flag has become a symbol of protest. Even then American influence is waning and any growing unrest in the Philippines due to a growing socialist movement would serve to hasten this, a growing civil war in America would hasten it even further that the world gets de-Americanised this way. But America is a very double-minded country, that sliding into civil instability would be inevitable. It is a house so internally divided that it could collapse anytime soon, if its own culture wars and duplicitous character are any indication. A very duplicitous country that alternates between piety and reprobation, out of the same country come ministries and filth.

Given it’s also a superpower which only serves to magnify its duplicity on a scale that’s not widely enjoyed or done by countries like China and Russia, but then again China doesn’t just own up to its atheism. It even owns it, despite having a good number of online lectionaries and devotionals for its own Christians to turn to, whereas America is very anti-Christian yet it doesn’t own up to it and doesn’t own it either. So America is exceedingly double-minded, its double-mindedness manifests in other ways too. Mind you both Hollywood and the CRU ministry are in California together, this even extends to cultural exports like 1990s boy bands either. Burk Parsons had a similar feeling around Backstreet Boys, which he was set to join, where he felt that although the band was made to endear to parents, it had to be seductive enough to arouse lust in young girls that he eventually didn’t want to partake in it anymore. Perhaps it shouldn’t even be surprising why there’s so much pornographic fanfiction of the Backstreet Boys, these were even called visuals at some point.

It would be even more horrifying to learn that the Backstreet Boys might’ve been molested by Lou Pearlman in some occult ritual, or at least far more sexualised than one realises, that further contributes to a highly sexualised fandom environment. So far only Boyzone’s Shane Lynch admitted this is the case with the secular music industry where such people consecrate these records to the public, that ultimately leads to trouble (I’ve done something similar thing and lost two dogs before). One might wonder if this also extends to New Kids On The Block, a direct precursor to both the Backstreet Boys and Boyzone, that it could be more sinister than it really looks in a way people do recognise but can’t articulate properly why. The fact that America is a very double-minded country, one with a Jekyll and Hyde quality to its culture, leads to an environment where things have these dual purposes. One to entertain people and appear as innocent as possible, the other to corrupt them from the inside out that leads to a spiritually odd environment to be in. So much so that civil war erupts in America anyways.

And why these escalations and tensions would lead to WWIII anyways as well.

Sign of Jonah

They never saw the sign

Due to their disbelief

They never opened up.