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.

Modern Marvels indeed

There’s a game that took the world by storm and it’s called Marvel Rivals, it should be noted that earlier Marvel games did exist before. There was something like a Marvel game on Facebook before and another that had Tigra on it, but these disappeared without a trace. There are still Marvel games getting released after Marvel Rivals, but it’s been suspected elsewhere that one reason why Marvel Rivals gained a lot of support and not something like Concord is that the female characters in the former are rather sexualised. Considering that historically the video game playerbase is historically male-majority, well not always when it comes to educational CD-Roms at that which had unisex audiences even, and this is also usually the same audience that’s more supportive of highly sexualised depictions of women that it kind of found this audience. So much so this led to a lot of porn involving them at all, not that this isn’t unique to Marvel Rivals at all but that Marvel Rivals seems palatable to a certain audience.

Given the growing desexualisation of familiar video game heroines like Cammy White from Street Fighter, as well as Kitana and Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat, Marvel Rivals feels like a weird throwback but one that found its audience. Even if not all early adopters of the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter games are male, the way these female characters were depicted in at least a number of the earlier games kind of influenced at least some gamers’ expectations for women. As if to compensate for the rather possibly masculine characterisations is to give them very sexualised presentations, but even then this phenomenon exists outside of video games. It’s even like this in the print side of things where such characters like Kitty Pryde arguably get masculinised over time, particularly when it comes to her characterisation. That’s not to say butch women and girls don’t exist at all in the real world, but it’s kind of hard thinking of Kitty Pryde as an everywoman when her interests and hobbies increasingly diverge from this over time even under Chris Claremont’s pen.

It’s like whenever he’s around at all though she had an interest in ballet before, this got overshadowed by longer lasting interests in or experiences with baseball and combat sports, it’s not that women and girls can’t get into sports at all. It’s not that women and girls can’t have tempers either, be mean to one another and stuff, but that Kitty Pryde came to be written as if she were a male character. Let’s not forget that Chris Claremont (who’s born in the late 1950s) came of age during both the rise of second wave feminism and the sexual revolution that it seems if Kitty Pryde were to be depicted as being into fashion and ballet either much longer or more frequently, there’s the possibility that she’ll be seen as utterly vapid and quite sexist in characterisation. So it seems there’s a tendency for subsequent writers to equate masculinisation with empowerment, not that it’s absent when it comes to fighting sexism, but it does pose new challenges of having to retain the characters’ femininity in another way. So sexualisation is in order to keep them distinct from their male counterparts.

It also risks communicating the message that to be feminised is to be sexualised, whilst other inherently feminine sensibilities like floral garments are disdained or ignored altogether. As if there’s a kind of palatable femininity that feels more reassuring if it were tarted up, well to certain people in the days after the sexual revolution, than if it were domestic and truly dedicated to the family (traditionally feminine vocations). Maybe not necessarily always the case but it does risk feeling this way when it comes to a version of femininity that’s palatable to pornsick people, which likely contributes to Marvel Rivals’ popularity when it comes to the way the womenfolk are depicted at all. If things like Super Mario are any indication, it’s possible to have a long-running and immensely popular video game franchise that doesn’t put girl characters in sexualised garments and give them ridiculous proportions for long, mind you Princess Peach has often worn a ballgown since her inception. It seems games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Tomb Raider were well-intentioned attempts to avoid the damsel in distress meme that plagued a good number of the earlier Super Mario games.

But this also went with sexualising the female characters a lot that even to this day, a nonsexualised strong female character continues to polarise gaming audiences. It’s like this in the other parts of the ACG canon where it seems a number of authors and cartoonists pass off their sexual fantasies as empowerment materials, especially Wonder Woman, that this kind of sexualisation’s painfully inescapable once these charaters become deeply entrenched for years. Even authors who don’t seem to actually put out porn themselves like Takeuchi Naoko find themselves affected by the environment they’re in, it’s the whole bad company corrupts good character thing in the Bible, it’s kind of hard to avoid being in this environment if you’re surrounded by things that would tempt you to do something or even if it doesn’t, it still influences you unconsciously. In the case with video games habitually sexualising female characters a lot that it’s going to desensitise somebody or anybody to it, that it becomes normal to view women as sex objects this way. To the extent a sexualised male character stands out more.

Marvel Rivals might be one of the more recent video games to perpetuate it, now that both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat actively strive to desexualise their own female cast as much as possible, that it seems its own popularity stems from having sexualised girl characters a lot. Concord is an interesting counterpoint in which it doesn’t just have diverse characters (in both senses of the word), but also where a number of its female characters are this desexualised, that it seems to deeply anger certain male gamers like almost no other. Marvel Rivals might not be the only, first or last video game to reintroduce and repopularise this sort of sexualisation that appeases to sexist male gamers a lot, it is the main one (that I can think of) that’s brought this to the forefront. But coupled with America’s decline (which has been prophesised by some) that it’s possible both Marvel Rivals and Mortal Kombat hinge on a nostalgic sentiment, the latter is especially about time travel to the past of sorts as of late.

It might not be evident with the former but it’s clear Marvel still strives to keep itself relevant in the present day, even when other countries’ games like China’s Genshin Impact are gaining people’s affections, it’s clear it still wants to be competitive in today’s market. But it’s still telling that even when a person does try their hardest not to give into peer pressure for most of the part, they’d still be affected by the environment they’re in. To the point where we get sexualised designs anyways, even when the character designer themself is not a pervert.

Is sartorial impracticality in character design objectifying?

I feel when it comes to what constitutes as a practical character design and whether if sexual objectification has anything to do with it, at other times it doesn’t seem to be what it ought to be. One could be dressed modestly and still dress impractically, speaking from personal experience wearing really baggy sleeves that get in the way of eating. In the context of superhero stories and the like (i.e. a good number of video games), it usually refers to highly sexualised character designs that get in the way of fighting or whatsoever. From my personal experience, it might be possible to dress demurely yet also impractically, that it does make one wonder if our understanding of impractical dressing’s largely limited to just dressing sexily.

But that would mean the subject matter’s more nuanced than the dichotomy of sexy/ugly, even this has shown up multiple times in video games before in some way. Most notably what both Princesses Zelda and Peach wear, though from a certain standpoint what they wear’s positively anodyne compared to the more sexualised likes of Samus Aran (even before she wore a catsuit, she kind of dressed skimpily and also the way some illustrators depict her catsuit risks pushing things), Lara Croft, Cammy White and Kitana. Actually with Lara Croft, it’s a more complicated by now. Especially when you have lots of women dressing like her in real life, whether the leggings or the shorts, that at this point the way Lara Croft dresses is very unremarkable.

Not necessarily any less sexualised, but highly unremarkable in this day. It would be all the more provocative to see another female character dress in a more demure yet stylish manner, given we’re practically desensitised to sexualised female designs both in ACG media and in real life, especially if it’s a character design that’s barely seen in years that it’s kind of monstrous in its own right. In the sense of being very out of the ordinary, like say supposing if this character named Jemima Szara goes about in a demure black turtleneck blouse and red maxiskirt paired with black tights and red shoes, it wouldn’t exactly be monstrous. It would (still) come off as kind of unusual, because we’re not used to seeing a civilian dress this way.

Let alone an investigative journalist a la Lois Lane and also Insomniac’s Mary Jane Watson, but that’s got to do with American culture favouring both sexiness and comfort in dress over ornamentation and demureness as it is in Japan. Especially among Japanese women in real life that makes the differences between them and their ACG counterparts all the more drastic, but it also means that sometimes dressing impractically doesn’t necessarily mean the character’s sexualised. Princess Peach could be seen as dressing impractically despite dressing modestly, especially if she does certain things contrary to the way she dresses. Lara Croft could be seen as dressing comfortably, despite also dressing skimpily, especially if she starts going about in hot, damp places as there are women who do dress like her for this purpose alone.

It kind of upends one’s understanding of what it means to dress in such a manner, since sometimes dressing impractically might sometimes mean the character dresses too fancily for something. Princess Peach is generally like this and there could’ve been instances where she did dress too impractically for the occasion, just by wearing a nice gown alone and one of my sisters point out that I dress impractically because I habitually wear blouses with baggy sleeves a lot. I don’t play video games much but just by going from my own experiences dressing in such a manner that sometimes dressing impractically might also mean dressing in a way that’s too fancy or gets in the way of eating in my case, not necessarily because the character’s outfit is sexualised.

Not necessarily always because the character’s outfit is sexualised, which means our understanding of what it means to dress practically is kind of context-dependent. Somebody like Lara Croft might actually tend towards comfort over dressing fancily, the sort who feels more comfortable wearing shorts or leggings over a super nice dress, when she’s out looking for adventures in far off places. It happens to be rather skimpy or sexualised, given how they risk coming off as at inopportune times. A hypothetical character like Jemima Szara could be seen as dressing impractically, because she opts to dress in a black blouse and long red skirt with red shoes and black tights, as to look kind out of place and too fancy for the occasion.

Characters like Zelda and Peach, both Nintendo princesses by the way, do upend one’s understanding of what an impractical character design’s like, in that they needn’t to be sexualised to be impractical for the situation they’re put into. They also upend the sexy/ugly dichotomy so falsely assumed by a number of gamers when it comes to coming up with nonsexualised female character designs, similar things can be said of Lara Croft herself who dresses quite practically for the situation, despite being also rather sexualised at the same time (favouring shorts or leggings), there are even women who dress like her in the real world by the way. So it seems what is impractical needn’t to be sexualised, since this can involve dressing too fancily for the circumstances they’re in.

But one that fundamentally upends our understanding of things like these.

Once More on Jean-Louis

The person who inspired his fashion sense and character design is none other than the late David Bowie himself, especially in his Ziggy Stardust days, that to the extent he even shares a few of his hobbies (owning dogs, reading books, liking clothing/fashion) and some of his sartorial choices (the red Ziggy Stardust mullet, anybody?). But Jean-Louis isn’t really a facsimile of him given he actually enjoys hunting and fishing, something David Robert Jones never did. Not even close, also he doesn’t cook. Jean-Louis facially doesn’t look like him either, despite being also a natural blond himself. Inspired by David Bowie, yes but not a facsimile of him either. Similar enough where you can see the influence more clearly, but dissimilar enough to not be interchangeable with the man who fell down to earth.

Not to mention that Jean-Louis Lumiere is a detective, albeit one who manipulates light in multiple ways. In the same way that Colin Sallow bears an uncanny resemblance to a younger Liam Howlett (from the band The Prodigy), but is also in most regards his own man because he enjoys birdwatching a lot, throws knives, has a way around knives in general, is a budding politician himself, is something of an escapologist, box his way around his enemies, being into falconry and keeping birds (namely chickens, ducks, pigeons and geese) for pets. He’s also been educated in Sweden, more specifically Gothenborg where another favourite of mine, Ace of Base, come from so he was something of a foreign exchange student himself.

Or for another matter, Jean-Louis’s colleague Fabrice Tientcheu being based on a younger Maxim Reality and though he has some similarities with him like an apparent sympathy for cats, being into high culture and stuff, but also does things Maxim wouldn’t do like work as a forensic scientist, play football, read up on the likes of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, show an interest in existentialism in general and is somewhat of a cultural Catholic (he’s Cameroonian). Actually a few of them come from Queen’s Freddie Mercury, like actually owning cats himself and having a sister, though Maxim could have one himself. Even if they’re based on actual musicians, they’re still their own people. Jean-Louis is based on David Bowie but does a number of unBowie like things like hunting in his spare time, he’s also very much into biology and conservation.

Jean-Louis was at some point more like David Bowie…when it comes to certain things to put it politely, but to service the limited scope of a mobile game, he’s going to be a cuckold like his mentor and father figure Richard Sorm. Both their wives went on cheating on them with men other than themselves, both of them ended up becoming left to their own devices as a result (Richard getting drunk a lot, Jean-Louis both raising his son and hunting a lot more often), until Jean-Louis divorced his wife and inspired Richard to do the same with Emma Havisham. I actually wrote a story where PD James’s characters Adam Dalgliesh and Emma Lavenham (whom she’s named after) live apart, not that they’re divorced, but that Adam’s habit of leaving his wife for a long time just so he can drink and avoid getting drugged by her led to her cheating on him many times.

This story’s known as ‘Finding Adam‘ where they have a son together but neither of them do a good job at parenting, to the point where their son would rather hang out at his friends’ houses whenever Emma carried out her extramarital affairs but afterwards she’ll take him back much to his chagrin. Richard’s son Ian has done the same thing, but to keep problems from escalating he had Jean-Louis raise him instead. Predictably like her namesake, Emma Havisham would take him away from people whom she doesn’t want him to hang out with, despite her own tendency towards infidelity every now and then. Ian’s been recovering from being abused by his mum a lot that even when he could’ve lived with his now divorced father, he prefers to hang out with Jean-Louis more.

Unsurprisingly, he even got into hunting because of him, though this hobby puts him at loggerheads with some of his classmates. Jean-Louis is practically his father in a way his own biological father isn’t, because he’s the one who raised him even if it may’ve been intermittent at times if it weren’t for his mother demanding that he return to her, even if she often brings him people he dislikes (the very same people she dates). Upon realising that Ian has serious mental health problems that he has Iasonas Michaelides counsel him, especially whenever he himself cannot always be there for him or whatever. Now as for Jean-Louis’s shade of red hair, despite not being a natural redhead, it’s a deeper red.

The sort of dyed red hair that Chappell Roan has (or maybe had, as she could’ve changed it into some other colour by now), kind of close to how and why some cartoonists use bright reds to denote red hair, but without being bright red itself. Comes to think of it this way, this is the shade of red that characters like Jean Grey, Barbara Gordon and Rahne Sinclair could plausibly have, as they’ve been depicted with really bright red hair before. In the sense of being a dark but still naturalistic red hair shade, almost brown even that I feel this is what cartoonists may’ve been aiming for. But it didn’t turn out as expected, given what they used didn’t give them the results they expected, though the advent of computer colouring has made it easier to get that shade of red hair right.

This could’ve shown up in comics a couple of times before, it’s a pretty interesting shade of red as it’s kind of really red without being too bright red itself. Well there’s another cartoon character in the Marvel canon who dyed her blonde hair red is Elsa Bloodstone, because as initially introduced she really has natural blonde hair. But white women dyeing their hair red is a fairly common occurrence in the real world, whether as a fashion statement or following the trends in hair colour. Before Chappell Roan arrived, there was France’s Mylene Farmer. She’s a French singer who dyed her natural brown hair red for years, though it could’ve greyed by then which gives her an even more convenient excuse to dye it red agan. Moreso that it’s become part of her public image and she sang songs like ‘Libertine’.

Though in reality I feel Chappell Roan’s more of a modern Katy Perry as both of them came from Christian households, before getting exposed to secular music a lot and becoming really flamboyant secular musicians. Katy Perry even started out as a Christian musician and it’s unknown if she’ll return to both God and her roots in a way, assuming if her own relatives and the like have been praying for her to return to Him this time. Maybe she will in due time if God operates under His own timing, so you might as well wait and see her do it in earnest. I even prayed for her to be saved and maybe she will return to God, though in His own timing and maybe in an unexpected fashion. Her own husband Russell Brand’s saved and he’s likely praying for her to go back to God this time around.

Maybe she really will but the right time will show up when God wills it to, so there’s a chance that Katy Perry at present might be returning to Him. But the process is going to be hard and it’s like this with me before, so eventually she might return one day. Okay, I’m getting off-topic but it’s kind of telling that Chappell Roan’s more of a modern Katy Perry than she’s an American Mylene Farmer, given the former two come from Christian households and presumably went to Christian schools just the same. So going to the secular world means they get to act out in ways they wouldn’t if they remained closer to their Christian roots, though not in a good way if this involves bringing God’s judgements on them. Not to mention both of them have mental health issues, Katy Perry with her struggles with depression and Chappell Roan’s own issue with bipolar disorder.

But even then I feel Katy Perry could find her way back eventually, especially with people’s intercessions, that ultimately she’ll return to God in earnest. Maybe this is also true for Chappell Roan, presumably if other people who personally knew her (related or not), have done the same thing as well. Jean-Louis Lumiere is kind of similar because he did go to the same Catholic school as Jemima Szara did, she actively prays for him and may even want to marry him one day. He has a bad experience with his previous wife, Margaret, who cheated on him multiple times with other men. He initially let it slide but that’s because they weren’t particularly that close when they were married, mostly due to their generally incompatible stances and personalities. Jean-Louis likes hunting animals and reading nature books, his ex-wife wants to be an actress and be a celebrity.

It kind of turns things on its head because in the DC and Marvel canons, it seems superheroes are like the celebrities of their respective worlds. But it’s weirder still to have superheroes who technically have jobs but spend much more time literally fighting bad guys instead, it’s like saying that Supergirl is an actress but spends more time beating up bad guys. The superhero school is peculiar in that characters who’re supposed to have jobs often wound up brawling with bad guys more often than they should, especially if they have salaried jobs at that. The Wasp is technically a fashion designer, but she doesn’t appear to have much time on designing clothes and sewing them herself. True, people can handle multiple jobs at once. But superheroes spend a lot of their time fighting people as vigilantes.

Making Jean-Louis and his cohorts detectives and officers of sorts seems to be a doable compromise, since this has a precedent in Top Ten, though given Alan Moore’s then stronger sympathy for superheroes, it didn’t feel like a crime story at all. It might not even be the first superhero noir story either, but that having a proper superpowered detective in the form of Jean-Louis Lumiere would be interesting. If because he manipulates light in multiple ways that assist him in criminal investigation, like he could literally light a way to find criminals with, render something invisible to uncover clues, set up lasers to retrieve offending items with (or even destroying them himself). Superpowered detectives have existed before, though one that manipulates light is an interesting choice.

If because it’s something that would easily lend itself to private investigation, especially when it comes to looking out for clues in the dark. It’s also an ability that easily lends itself to hunting at night and in the wee hours in the morning, again it’s something not many consider even if this is what the anglerfish does. I’m not saying many superhero writers are against hunting as much as it’s something they barely thought of much, even if the application makes perfect sense when it comes to tracking down game animals in poorly lit areas. Again they’re not against hunting but they were likely never into hunting to begin with, nor do they have any secondhand knowledge of hunting themselves. Anyhow, Jean-Louis likes hunting rats and deer with his dogs and friend Akosamesew, despite his friend not having any powers himself.

But even then it’s something not a lot of writers have considered when it comes to light manipulation being used in both private investigation and hunting, or even reading books just the same and that’s something Jean-Louis would easily make use of. When it comes to light-manipulating characters, I feel any one of them could use such an ability to hunt and/or detect, maybe they already did but not so often. It’s not that authors behind their stories are against hunting but they were never into hunting this much either, so this explains why there are a lot of stories where we get yet another glorified fistfight. But not stories where a photokinetic would use such an ability in their hunting trips, even if it’s actually plausible they would easily do just that if they’re into hunting themselves.

On the controversial subject of fur farming, given how some fur farmers get fur from foxes by electrocuting them to death, perhaps an electrokinetic would gravitate to fur farming. It’s quite vexing but it’s also something they’d gravitate to if they’re this starved for money, though I suppose even if superhero writers don’t necessarily condemn fur farming themselves it’s something they don’t know more about. It’s doubtful somebody like Stan Lee would even have a character like Electro actually be a fur farmer himself, assuming if he doesn’t know anything about fur farming to begin with. Even if this is likely how he makes money this way, even going so far to electrocute foxes for a living just to supply fox coats to certain clients. I don’t read Spider-Man comics much but this is how he’d funnel his abilities into something useful, however disturbing it may be to some.

But I know fur farming better than I know Spider-Man lore, so I feel this is what Electro would gravitate to if he’s desperate for a consistent salary. It does speak volumes about how and why there are practically no stories about a photokinetic hunter, even if this is something they’d gravitate to if they’re in the mood for hunting themselves, even if this is an ability that’s useful for detecting both vermin and game animals in the dark. It’s not that superhero writers necessarily condone fur farming and hunting either, but these are subject matters that they’re barely aware of if possible. Maybe not at all and this explains why they don’t write stories about these kinds of things to begin with, they were never interested in those from the start. Even when it would make sense for a photokinetic like Jean-Louis to do both hunting and detecting really.

The Mezzanine

I pretty much said that Colin Sallow’s based on Liam Howlett and Fabrice Tientcheu’s based on Maxim Reality, even if they themselves aren’t outright nor consistent facsimiles of them in other regards. Not to mention these two are based on Dio Brando and Trish Una from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure respectively, that’s if the latter’s reimagined as a Cameroonian man working in forensic science and has actual cats to boot as Trish’s stand Spice Girl’s actually based on a cat, though it’s not obvious at first until it scratches something. (This is something Killer Queen, another cat-based stand, has never really done to my knowledge.) One would wonder what could be said of their Massive Attack counterparts, seeing as Massive Attack’s not only a contemporary of the Prodigy but also best friends together in a way.

It doesn’t seem obvious because Massive Attack sounds very different from the Prodigy, coming from the Southwest than Southeast and rap more often early on. This is particularly obvious when it comes to the earliest Massive Attack album, Blue Lines, where you could hear a fair bit of rapping in some songs like Daydreaming, Safe From Harm and stuff. Let’s not also forget that the Massive Attack members are very outspoken about their support for Palestine, the country that became Political Israel and may even be the real Israel, assuming if Palestinians are the direct descendants of the ancient Israelites (something even some Israeli Jews like Paul Wexler have admitted). They’re also striving to be as environmentally conscious as possible, having released a show with little CO2 emissions as possible.

If their Massive Attack counterparts were to show up in this game at all, they’ll show up as Gaetano Saturni (Robert Del Naja) and Tifeoluwa Babatunde (Daddy G). Gaetano Saturni is a Florentine economist whose ability is practically the same as that of Vanilla Ice, only that he uses it to make a quick escape from people who’re out to kill him and to take out rubbish. Being from Florence, he has a particular way of speaking Italian. But it would be more obvious if the game ever gets translated in Italian as he’d actually get to speak in an obviously Tuscan way, not just by implying that he talks like this but also colloquialisms and idiosyncrasies particular to Tuscan dialects. Case in point that if he’s referring to ice, he’d say diaccio instead of ghiaccio. (Wait until Ghiaccio gets mad about people misusing Tuscanisms.)

If he’s talking about a fox, he’d say golpe instead of volpe. Sort of like how in French, the earliest word for fox is goupil, but being taboo it got eclipsed by renard instead (as in Renart the fox). Actually goupil’s still in use in some French dialects by the way, but renard’s much more commonly used. Similar things happened in the Spanish language where the original word for fox there is vulpeja, before getting displaced by the more commonly used zorro. Of all the major Romance languages, only both Romanian and Italian use the original Latin word for fox (the Romanian version is vulpe). Even then this gives you an idea that he’s specifically from Florence, Tuscany and not from any other place in Italy, moreso if the game ever gets translated into Italian at all.

Moving onto Tifeoluwa Babatunde, he’s a Nigerian just as Fabrice Tientcheu’s Cameroonian. Appropriately enough, Cameroon shares a border with Nigeria. Logically, Ivory Coast shares a border with Ghana. There’s already some Nigerian representation in video games, but the most notable one to date is Overwatch’s Doomfist. It wouldn’t hurt to add more though in Tifeoluwa’s case, he’s pretty much a lawyer and though black lawyers do exist in fiction, both international and Nigerian, it does make one wonder why such character types aren’t commonly encountered outside of African media. Much like having a black scientist around, black lawyers aren’t nonexistent in fiction. But it’s kind of hard coming up with a well-known black lawyer, let alone in ACG media and much less video games (to my knowledge).

Maybe they do exist but very rarely at that, even if they help break stereotypes. As for his own supernatural ability, if he has any at all, would be to manipulate mirrors or something. Except that he uses this to make criminals and the like confront their own misdeeds, though it’s kind of odd how and why in the ACG world, whenever you have superpowered lawyers there ought to be superpowered ways of charging people of something, instead of beating up people for no discernable reason. It kind of goes back to one of my issues with superhero stories, it’s not so much the outfits that are bothersome but rather why supernatural abilities are often funnelled into combat, instead of something that’s conducive to actual occupations.

Regardless if the character even has any real talent for fighting or the urge to fight that it becomes nonsensical real easily, since a character like Cindy Moon could’ve eventually made a living from weaving textiles. Spider-Man himself’s been shown to sew his own clothes, but I suppose a what if story featuring Peter Parker truly using such an ability for tailoring for good (whether they’re organic or mechanical) isn’t going to happen because it would bore certain people. Even if this is exactly what he did before and he could’ve actually focused on tailoring as a side-job if journalism doesn’t pay much or vice versa, though part of the other problem’s that it seems many superhero writers aren’t well-versed in other things. Something like sewing for a living would mean Peter Parker could’ve easily done that really.

Even then it’s still baffling why superpowered characters feel compelled to fight, instead of using their abilities more constructively more often. Coupled with that actual African characters are already pretty rare in non-African ACG media, that it would be really remarkable witnessing a Cameroonian scientist use his ability to soften things to do forensics with, or a Nigerian lawyer use mirrors to make people confront their own wrongdoing. Actual African characters are unfortunately rather rare in international ACG media, even if they could provide representation for Africans. Storm practically stands alone in the US comics canon, since Tempest is also from another real African country (Nigeria) but is nowhere as famous as she is, most other African ACG characters tend to come from imaginary nations instead.

It’s even weirder still to think that given DC and Marvel’s habit of changing their characters’ backstories (in other words, retconning things), nobody bothered to grandfather a Zimbabwean nationality onto Mari Jiwe or a Cameroonian nationality onto T’Challa, which further reinforces the view that Africans are exotic black people. By exotic, they’re not African American, not helped by that both DC and Marvel are specifically American publishing houses at that, and will inculcate American views of people onto others. Or Southern Europeans like Wonder Woman for another matter, where in the American mind Greece might as well be a place forever stuck in mythologised antiquity. Ditto the presence of hip hop as exemplified by Yung Light and Taki Tsan.

Similar things can be said about Italians to an extent that you’ll never encounter an Italian rapper in American fictions, even if they certainly exist if the likes of Nesli, Fabri Fibra and Vacca are any indication, pale Italians aren’t nonexistent in American fictions. But they’re still expected to fit the mold in some regards, that a character like Wildstorm’s Diva is all the more exceptional just by having blonde hair and really pale skin, presumably to flip Italian stereotypes on its head. That doesn’t mean all Italians are this pasty either but that the Italian character in American fiction has to follow the script, that’s by adhering to American ideas about Italianness. Somebody like Ragnell pointed out that Helena Bertinelli’s kind of stereotypical, if it weren’t for her mob ties that presumably Italy’s more Mario Puzo than Dante Alighieri.

Aligning more with American perceptions of Italy and Italians than how Italians actually see themselves as, not just in appearance but also in demeanour. That’s not to say issues with the Mafia are nonexistent in Italy itself, but I brought up Dante Alighieri because the way Americans perceive Italy isn’t how Italians know themselves as. Mario Puzo in the sense of playing into American ideas about Italianness, how unlike Italians are from Northern European norms and so on. Ditto Francesco Petrarca, ditto Mina Mazzini, ditto Adriano Celentano, ditto Milva, ditto Jovanotti, ditto Pupi Avati and ditto Pino Daniele. It’s not so much that Italians are necessarily pasty blonds and redheads, but the American conception of Italianness differs from the way Italians conceive it to be.

Mind you, Robert Del Naja isn’t that olive-skinned and likely had brown hair when he was younger, as he’s older now. He’s also of Italian descent and well so is Richard Barbieri from the band Japan, the latter’s also kind of pale and he himself doesn’t exactly fit Italian stereotypes in other regards. Not that all Italians are pallid either, but that the Northern European and North American conception of Italianness differs from the Italians’ own understanding and perception of themselves. As Gaetano Saturni is based on Robert Del Naja, so he’s just as pale as he is. Well, it should be noted that when Helena Bertinelli first appeared in comics, she was as fair-skinned as every girl in the DC canon. When she showed up again for real, she was given darker skin. I remember somebody on Tumblr saying that it still played into Italian sterotypes.

For the record, they have red hair. The blog no longer exists, but I kind of remember some of the wording. Not to mention they’re kind of pasty but even if not all Italians are necessarily pasty themselves, both Northern European and North American ideas of Italianness are different from how Italians conceive it to be. It seems when it comes to the way both Italians and Nigerians are portrayed in North American ACG stories like those from the DC canon, they often play into American and Northern European ideas of them in some manner. Not like how they see themselves as, that perhaps with America’s decline comes a more honest portrayal of themselves this time.

California Girl

Somebody said that the destruction of California is the true beginning of the end of America as we know it, even if America’s own decline had been underway for some time now. Japan too will also face its own downfall and disaster, if not demise, but from rejecting God so much that it’s practically like Ananias and Sapphira on a nationwide scale. The couple that vehemently denied God in their hearts and eventually died together, Japan is no different but on a larger scale as many of its people are like them. Though thankfully Saint Ananias is a different person from Ananias, husband of Sapphira despite sharing the same name together, in the same way Jude is the brother of James and actually has the same name as Judas Iscariot as it’s evident in other languages.

It’s been known to people that Japan is the missionary’s graveyard, given how hard it is to convert many more Japanese to Christianity. Compare this to China where despite (or rather because of) opposition to Christianity there, it grew exponentially and the number of Christians in China is substantial enough to justify a decent number of onlinel lectionaries and devotionals to read. There are also fairly substantial Christian communities in both Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam to justify the need for multiple lectionaries and devotionals to read, it’s also like this in both Cambodia and Malaysia to some extent. Japan seems to have a lot of good things going on for it, but ultimately vehemently rejected God all the way.

To the point where a natural disaster will finish or undermine it in a sad way, whereas for California its demise is the true start of America’s end as a superpower. It’s not surprising because the multimedia industry in California is a major contributor to the US economy, given this is where people get much of their entertainment fix from if their own countries’ local industries aren’t substantial enough. This is where many famous Hollywood studios are located in, there is where Netlix is from and possibly a few other streaming services just the same. This is where one of the Disney theme parks are located in, where I think one other prophecy kind of mentioned this. This is also where America’s porn industry is from, so this shouldn’t be surprising.

This shouldn’t surprise Christians that if you reap what you sow, then this is what you get and this is what California will be getting. The East Coast would be next in line for destruction for similar reasons, however politically incorrect it may be because New York is the world’s gay capital. It’s also the centre of America’s own publishing industry, wherein DC used to coexist with Marvel. Or for another matter, both the American Midwest and the American South. If California’s own destruction is the true beginning of America’s end, this would have geopolitical ramifications for America’s own allies in the Asia-Pacific region. This would make them just as susceptible to being captured by China, but one that’s permanent due to their own sins.

I don’t think it’s just the Philippines that will be getting this, since South Korea and Japan would also undergo this just the same. South Korea for similar reasons like the Philippines and Japan for blaspheming against the Holy Ghost, to the point where the latter doesn’t just get destroyed it also gets captured by China for this reason. But this would be a kind of return to form because China used to influence the rest of East Asia to varying degrees depending on the country, this becomes particularly evident when it comes to cuisine and for others, the rest of their own cultures like orthography and the like. I remember what Celestial said that the Soviet Union might return but with many more members this time, given God will use Russia as a weapon of indignation against backsliding Europe.

This would be no different with him using China to accomplish the same thing to both South Korea and the Philippines (reprobate apostasy) and Japan (repeat blasphemy against the Holy Spirit), that it’s conceivable there will be a new Sinosphere with many more members this time. Many of which weren’t part of the earlier Sinosphere as these include Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines, which now constitute as part of Greater China along with the Sinosphere proper (Vietnam, Korea and Japan). A kind of eastern parallel to the new Soviet Union, with a new eastern bloc composed of all the African countries. But this still plays into the true decline of America, as its sphere of influence is already diminishing.

This natural disaster would only hasten its ongoing decline and it’s even plausible it might further hasten the undoing of American influence wherever it went, the more its own allies fall to its enemies for good. Given Canada’s newfound mistrust of America, one would wonder if it’ll ever consent to joining Russia at any point in the future. But even when this happens, this will result in a new west with Russia as its epicentre. Then again Russia does see itself as a new Rome and Rome for the longest period of time greatly influenced Europe, not just in terms of spreading Christianity elsewhere there but also on a linguistic level. Not just due to the emergence of the Romance languages proper.

But also evident in Germanic, Slavic and Celtic languages to varying degrees, for as long as Christianity is spread there with either Greek or Latin as the ecclesiastical languages depending on the denomination. It’s very recent that America would be the seat of western civilisation, since would’ve went to Rome centuries ago. Even then if a thousand years is a day to God, then America’s really just a major flash in the pan. Perhaps America really isn’t meant to last for long, perhaps as a consequence of its sins. But if some things are there for a season, America’s rapid rise and fall kind of plays into this. Perhaps America is never meant to last this long, which is the most horrifying part as this involves realising how transient American influence actually is. But it’s kind of evident with Europe and Canada actively revoking American products, the earthquake will hasten things further.

This also means as a weakened America’s unable to stop Russia from conquering the west, or China conquering the Asia-Pacific region for another matter, these situations will happen anyways and it’s going to be permanent. Russia wouldn’t just succeed in invading Poland but also the rest of Europe and possibly North America to an extent, whereas Japan, South Korea and the Philippines all get captured by China in some manner. And I think even when America starts collapsing for good that coupled with its inability to defend these countries from defending them against its enemies is when these countries kind of hesitantly agree to join their enemies anyways, if it means finding some other superpower to rely on now that America’s way too helpless and impotent to help them.

The destruction of Japan precedes the destruction of America, though Japan’s going to get destroyed for repeatedly blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. America will get destroyed due to it being Mystery Babylon that it’s going to be finished sooner than expected, but since this largely concerns the forthcoming California earthquake that it could ruin other industries. Mind you Sony’s Santa Monica studio is the one behind the God of War series, just as Tencent’s Riot Games is also somewhere in California too. The one behind League of Legends (thus begetting the Arcane programme) and Valorant, unless if these studios move away from California in time they’ll also get destroyed in some way.

But if America’s own video game industry gets ruined by this and America’s own forthcoming economic collapse, would people turn to alternatives more by necessity? This is highly plausible because not only does Japan already have one of the world’s largest video game industries, there are also other countries that are churning out their own successful video games like China with Genshin Impact and Black Myth Wukong, France with Steelrising and Assassin’s Creed in a way. Italy’s got Entoria and eventually La Divine Commedia at any point, though Cameroon’s even got its own gaming publisher in the form of Krio’o Games. The loss of America as a multimedia superpower would necessiate alternatives in its place, however awkward it is (it’s like me whenever some sermons don’t go as expected).

But even then if America’s overdue for destruction, then the California earthquake is one of those and one that’ll succeed in hastening America’s decline.

Horrible to think that

The more I think of what Nick Carter would’ve been like if he was in his twenties in the 2010s and never joined a boy band, the more I feel he could’ve easily joined Gamergate instead. For those who don’t know, this is a trolling movement aimed at harassing anybody who criticises legitimate problems in the video game industry like sexism. I’ve been around similar circles when I was younger and given the many rape allegations around Carter that I can easily see him actually joining those circles for real, going on harassing and annoying any broad who dares to point out misogyny in his favourite video games. That’s not to say every man who plays video games is going to be a misgoynist since others like Andrea Pirlo and Usain Bolt are fine enough guys who see video games as a fun diversion.

I even know of one pastor who played Mortal Kombat when he was younger and he turned out fine, which leads to an utterly odd thought that if someone can be into Mortal Kombat and turn out to be a well-adjusted member of society, then one could play something less salacious like Super Mario and end up really annoying to women. This isn’t true for all Super Mario fans, and Mortal Kombat fans either and either way, but the thing with Nick Carter is that since he’s been accused of rape multiple times over coupled with video games having had issues with objectifying and dehumanising women a lot, so the way he was brought up in, part of which is really sexualised when he was growing up, helps contribute to a really skewered view of women as disposable sex objects not helped by him allegedly having an affair with another woman.

Literature on whether or not video games affect one’s perception is mixed, but when you have people making fanfictions of their favourite video games like Mortal Kombat, Super Mario and God of War that it does influence them in certain ways. Not necessarily always for ill or good, but it’s present on some level. Nick Carter, unfortunately, seems closer to the meme of video games influencing people for the worst, as evidenced by the many rape allegations thrown at him and video games themselves having issues with misogyny and sexism for years, that inevitably they do influence the way he perceives women to be. This may not be true for all video gamers and even guy gamers for another matter, but the influence is there in some manner and in ways people may not always immediatly realise or recognise it as.

Like I said before that video games’ influence on people isn’t always for good or ill, but it’s there whenever people make fanfictions and essays based on stories like Street Fighter and Animal Crossing. It’s there whenever something like Mortal Kombat inspires them to make video games themselves, it’s there whenever people set out to dress up as characters like Sindel and Princess Peach. It’s there whenever people make fanart out of series like King of Fighters, Animal Crossing and Pokemon, it’s not always for good or evil but it’s going to be present in some fashion anyways. So video games’ impact on Nick Carter is going to be around in some manner whenever he homages them in his body of work, that it’s not implausible that the games he liked playing would’ve affected the way he views women.

So it’s going to be present in his life and sometimes in ways he himself doesn’t always immediately recognise it as, whether if they even shape his perception of women or not. Add to that he’s got a temper and has been mean to somebody like Kaya from Pussycat Dolls that if he never joined a boy band in his youth if he was a young man in the 2010s, he would’ve inevitably gravitated towards Gamergate and the like instead. I can even see Nick Carter as being more upfront about his misogyny and dehumanisation of women in this scenario, given he puts on a facade whenever he’s with the Backstreet Boys at all since the 1990s. Celebrities aren’t always what even they themselves make out to be that somebody like Harry Styles might be more vanilla and milder-mannered in person than one realises or even he himself knew from time to time, so logically Nick might be nastier in person on a really bad day.

The personas they cultivate are very carefully curated as to live up to public and fan expectations of them, even when these sometimes slip and reveal sides that they don’t want to show often. Harry Styles could be less flashy in person especially if he can’t always keep up with his public image, Nick Carter might actually be meaner and more devious in person on a bad day. Compounded by that fans don’t just personally not know these celebrities, but they don’t personally encounter them that much in person that there’ll be sides to their favourite celebrities that are practically unknowable to them. It’s one thing to learn that Nick Carter likes comic books and video games, but it’s another to encounter another side of say Harry Styles this often in person where he might actually be very contrary to the usual public image. This could even apply to the rest of the Backstreet Boys or any other celebrity.

Especially with celebrities who have carefully curated public images that there’s going to be a side to them that’s practically and highly unknowable to not just the general public, but also their fans that it would be pretty shocking to realise that somebody like Bang Chan might be the sort of fellow who’d rather watch football matches than actually enjoying fashion himself. Bang Chan would rather follow his favourite football leagues like either Manchester United or Real Madrid online than fashion designers like Giorgio Armani and Dolce and Gabbana, he might know Andrea Pirlo and Steven Gerrard better than he knows Madeleine Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin. I might be projecting here but there’s a possibility that celebrities themselves may not always live up to their public personas that much on certain days.

It’s known that Nick Carter likes playing video games but it is uncertain if there are other video games that he likes that might be really surprising or off-putting even to his fans that would more clearly influence his view of women, given Super Mario is one of the video games that he publicly admits to enjoying or acknowledging in any way. It would be particularly shocking if Nick Carter’s not above playing video games that objectify women a lot, but one that might not be a stretch if he’s a serious gamer himself. If somebody plays a wide variety of video games that they’re going to be not above enjoying certain things even for a time being, in the same way somebody who’s a wide listener wouldn’t be above enjoying certain things for a certain time. For the record, I don’t play video games much.

But it’s not inconceivable for somebody like Nick Carter to be not above playing more misogynistic or pornographic video games, if he’s a dedicated gamer himself who likely plays a wider variety of video games than I do. It’s like if somebody’s a really wide listerner that if they couldn’t be above listening to bands like Skinny Puppy, The Wurzels, The Chicks, Basil Valdez, Miriam Makeba, Celeste Legaspi and Barbie’s Cradle at various points in their life, so a serious gamer like Nick Carter wouldn’t be above things like Dead Or Alive and Soul Calibur either. This is pure speculation on my part, since I don’t play video games as much as he does, but it’s highly plausible he’s still not above those things. But this is one that reveals a more human side to him.

If Super Mario was one of his gateway drugs to gaming, then there are likely other games he plays or has played that’s not publicly known in any way. He may not necessarily play Soul Calibur but he could’ve played something like this at one point in his life, or for another matter Dead Or Alive and although this is speculative, he wouldn’t be above those things as a serious gamer himself. Even if some of the things he did in private are true like with Kaya saying that he watched porn before, a good number of his fans would dismiss these things and would do anything to gaslight people like her. Even if Nick Carter’s not above watching porn and may even be not above playing pornographic games himself, there’s going to be a side to any celebrity that fans don’t immediately believe or accept.

It’s hard to truly like somebody if you don’t accept that they have any other faults, so the way many of his fans act around him is less like somebody who truly understands and knows his shortcomings, and more like obsessive cultists who don’t want to hear anything bad about them. It doesn’t help that many of his fans don’t accept or realise that he could be abusive to women, even if the media he likes would’ve influenced his viewpoint of them, that I feel they’re more in love with his public image than they are to rationally reckon with his other shortcomings. It’s even worse if he continues to pursue affairs with other women, despite being married himself, that it’s like he essentially grooms others to be his mistresses of some sort.

Which only expounds the possibility that he kind of objectifies women, that women are there to gratify his ego and stuff means he doesn’t really see them as people. Compare this to Gerard Way who adamantly refused to make women flash something, that even when he could have, he never did. He’s not above his own issues but he never really objectifies women this much. So far nobody around him so far has admitted he watched porn, unlike how a certain Pussycat Doll felt about Nick Carter. There are no rape allegations around Gerard Way as far as I know about it, Nick Carter has a lot of those around him and then we have Kaya having admitted he watched porn, so there’s a chance that Nick really doesn’t see women as people at various points in his life.

I feel this is something that not many BSB fans would readily reckon with, not just because of Nick Carter’s own misdeeds, but the odd possibility that somebody like Gerard Way might be everything they make Nick out to be. Or the utterly ironic possibility that a rocker would be less sexist than a boy band member this time, especially when it comes to somebody like Gerard Way. I don’t think many BSB fans would easily reckon with these, lest there be somebody who actually fulfills their criteria much better than a Backstreet Boy would. Lest an outsider be the person they make a Backstreet Boy out to be, which is worse because that would mean the mental image they have of a certain Backstreet Boy isn’t and will never be how he is in reality. It’s like this with me before with a certain celebrity, then being so disappointed with them that I turned to others instead.

It’s probably no different with Nick Carter in this regard that it takes time to accept that Gerard Way could be the person they make Nick out to be, far moreso than Mr Carter would make himself out to be just the same. Or perhaps any other celebrity, which was my case before. Even if Nick Carter didn’t rape this much women, but with him objectifying women every now and then, he is likely someone who doesn’t see women as people. He sees them as playthings he can use when it’s convenient, to the point of carrying out an affair behind his wife’s back. Nick Carter might not be the person he constantly makes himself out to be on certain days, so he himself would often fall short of his efforts and goals. Not just his struggle with alcoholism, but also his struggle with his libido as well.

A more human, fallible Nick Carter if there ever was one, a Nick Carter who might do shadier things behind closed doors. A Nick Carter who’s not above playing games like Dead or Alive and Soul Calibur, a Nick Carter who watched porn before and might have an affair with someone else. A Nick Carter with real rough edges that can’t be easily smoothed out, no matter how hard he and his team tries. A Nick Carter with warts and bumps that can’t always be readily concealed, if his affair were to be outed any time soon. But a Nick Carter that people have difficulty accepting that he’s the same man as the one they knew before. In a way he does have some parallels to Taylor Swift, in the sense of both of them appearing to be wholesome, despite them being also really promiscuous.

Taylor Swift is an interesting case study of a celebrity whose cultivated persona clashes with her actual behaviour, like she makes herself out to be kind of innocent and likable but turns out to have a higher body count than Katy Perry ever would. Katy Perry to my knowledge only has romantic relationships with two men, Taylor Swift has much more than hers really over a period of time. To think that Taylor Swift desperately wants to be seen as this wholesome girl next door type, yet has been rather promiscuous in the past makes one wonder about Nick Carter when he was younger. Like he was made out to be this wholesome blond All-American type, yet in reality he wasn’t above abusing his girlfriends before, also not above watching porn just the same if you believe Kaya Jones.

He may not be even above pornographic games either, assuming if he’s really this into gaming. This would be like saying Nick Carter’s not above gorier games like God of War, Mortal Kombat (if he did try it out for a brief time at all) and Assassin’s Creed, among many others so even if it would’ve clashed with his wholesome persona that his manager and then he himself cultivate, it goes to show you that Nick Carter wouldn’t be above these things growing up. So in a sense he’s like other guys, sometimes for ill regarding his attitudes to women. In hindsight given video games’ own issues with sexism that this would’ve influenced how Nick would see women in his formative years, even if not all gamers turn out for ill since there’s a pastor who used to play Mortal Kombat before.

Some of the stuff I’m talking about is speculative at best, but I still feel Nick Carter isn’t always what he makes himself out to be. Perhaps in ways that are obvious to those who’ve encountered him on a really bad day like Kaya Jones.

Nootaikok et la colère froide

One Inuk character I made a year before and he’s very much based on Jojo’s Ghiaccio, oddly enough both of them embody or personify the peculiarly French idiom ‘colère froide’ well. If because both of them manipulate ice and have very hot tempers, colère froide is a Francophone idiom that refers to a type of anger that’s either self-controlled, bitter or implicit. Nootaikok’s anger is also partly coloured by the fact that he doesn’t like it whenever people criticise his culture, lifestyle and stuff as well as him raging at people who mispronounce Inuk words, especially Jemima Szara, whom he often insults and berates. Also his way of manipulating ice involves him getting literally warmed up, whilst freezing something or anything at the same time.

Much like Ghiaccio, he also ice-skates. But that’s got to do with him freezing his surroundings, that he really needs something to get around without hurting himself. In the case with superhero stories proper as done by both the DC and Marvel schools, it’s surprising why cryokinetic characters’ way of getting around things is to just slide on icy platforms, without regarding for them falling off because they never seem to wear ice skates at all. Well most of them do, with the exception of Golden Glider at some point. Actually a cryokinetic character that ice skates is the more realistic case because if you’re walking on ice, you could slip and hurt yourself so you need to wear something to get around it. So Ghiaccio’s stand White Album (which is really a suit that gives him cryokinesis) is well-thought out.

Golden Glider was originally an ice skater gone bad whose backstory is like the inversion of the infamous women in refrigerators meme where it’s a man’s death who motivated her, women in refrigerators wherein female characters are victimised to motivate the male characters. Since her ice skates made ice, it’s pretty natural for her to continue doing like this, up until the early 2010s reboot. Ghiaccio ice-skating whilst manipulating ice at the same time is really a more realistic way of going around cryokinesis, since it would be impractical if a cryokinetic wore shoes that’ll endanger them whenever they walk on ice at all. Though I wonder if it’s easier to push for something that looks/seems great, instead of something that’s actually more plausible but less amazing.

A cryokinetic who skates on frozen ground doesn’t seem amazing compared to a character who effortlessly walks on an icy platform they made whilst getting across something, even though the former is a more realistic outcome really. Perhaps this is possibly why Golden Glider was drastically reimagined in the later stories, going from a criminal ex-athlete whose ice-skates generated ice for her to skate on to someone more ethereal. Regardless if the former portrayal seems far more plausible when it comes to moving on ice at all, than becoming an ethereal being due to being comatose. There is a difference between Phantom Girl and Golden Glider, the former moves through surfaces whilst the latter’s powers take on an disembodied form due to being comatose.

Like as if she can’t be that interesting when she actually moves around in her own body, attacking people whereas most stand users have the excuse of having their stands (powers/battle familiars really) do the fighting for them whilst still being conscious. Not to mention that if you hurt the stand, you also hurt the stand user too. So there’s really a corporeality to most stands in a way it’s not with Golden Glider at this point (I don’t read comics much so bear with me), in that they actually function as a proper extensions of their users. Whether as superpowered doppelgangers of sort doing the dirty jobs for them, or in Ghiaccio’s case where his superpower is also his costume. This may not be true for all stand users, but they still feel like they’re organic extensions of their users.

Especially whenever they’re presented as arguably separate from their users, but still inseparable when both of them get injured. Whereas Golden Glider’s powers and consciousness seem weirdly disembodied from her body, in that the body gets injured but her soul goes largely unscathed for some reason. Jojo, for all its faults, does a better job at portraying disembodied powers better in that even if stands appear to be separate from their users, they’re still inseparable on some level because both of them get injured or harmed together. Wherein their disembodiment still feels like proper extensions of their users, instead of functioning very differently from them as it is with Golden Glider at this point.

Male character designs and sexualisation of women

When it comes to the way male characters are designed in video games and other media, it’s rare to find them being anywhere as sexualised as their female counterparts are, rarer still is if they wear something as racy as their female counterparts do. I’m thinking in the lines of making somebody like Graham Knightley wear a bondage-inspired suit, where it’d be really odd seeing a salesman wear bondage trousers. But in reality they should’ve been just as incenced with Cammy White being a female soldier who used to go about in a thong leotard for a long time, though I feel it speaks volumes about how desensitised people are to rampant female objectification that male objectification feels more remarkable and shocking in this regard.

I suppose if you have a male scientist like Fabrice Tientcheu pair a fashionable version of a lab coat with a really tight shirt and tight trousers to show off his muscles, you’d think he’s pushing it and what he’s wearing is inappropriate. But then again Abby Sciutto has been shown wearing skimpy dresses and she’s also a scientist, like as if sexualised femininity’s the sugar made to sweeten medicine. One would only wonder if people can take to a politician like Colin Sallow wearing not only a tight shirt and tight trousers but also a jacket short enough to showcase his muscular bum, the way they would with Lara Croft being an archaeologist who goes about in booty shorts. As if being sexualised is a way of indicating that characters like Abby Sciutto and Lara Croft are female/feminine, because dressing otherwise would either make them look unsexy or unfeminine.

It’s as if femininity with these characters is communicated by dressing in a very sexualised way, instead of being feminine in a less sexualised manner (something like long and loose, floral garments or think Supergirl in a Chanel suit). If because I suppose it would make both Abby and Lara look frumpy, imagine if Abby Sciutto had the same personality and job but swapped miniskirts for a Gothed up version of the Chanel suit that she’d risk looking matronly. Maybe she has dressed more modestly before, but as it stands, the way characters like her, Cammy and Lara have been portrayed risks communicating a message that to be feminine in occupations like science and the military is to be sexualised. Ironically when Goths do enter certain occupations, they tone down their looks to be accepted and not draw too much attention to themselves.

Supposing if we have a police officer like John Zelensky who’s also Goth like Abby, but the fact that he dresses like a leather gay would make one wonder why she has to wear skimpy dresses whilst working in forensics in the first place. The argument that she’s Goth wouldn’t work when actual Goths have to tone down their fashion sense to get employed in more respectable occupations, so John Zelensky dressing like a leather gay is no different from what she wears onscreen: wearing sexualised garments in occupations that would preclude those. But that would involve realising how sexualised she actually is (from time to time), that they wouldn’t do at all to her had she been male. It still communicates a certain message that to be feminine is to be sexualised, even if one could be feminine without being sexualised.

It’s sexist because it’s not done often with menfolk, let alone without questioning the male characters’ sexuality (sort of like how the Jobros are seen as gay in the west, even when they could’ve been straight and aren’t seen as gay in Japan) or that men are ugly. But it’s not hard to see how the rampant sexualisation of women in the media would have other women turn to slash and the like to objectify men in earnest, if because being compared to an idealised version of femininity could risk being harmful to them in some way. That perhaps not being represented at all’s preferable to being misrepresented and objectified at every turn, it’s even more terrifying to think that there’s not a single western equivalent to Ensemble All-Stars despite things like Backstreet Boys being popular back in the day.

Having a lot more video games tailor-made for women’s tastes would be nice, though it remains to be seen if the western video game industry would be open to game developers creating something in the lines of Ensemble All-Stars. Or even male equivalents to the likes of Ivy Valentine, Cammy White, Lara Croft and Abby Sciutto in terms of attire, something like salesman Graham Knightley with his BDSM inspired suit or politician Colin Sallow and scientist Fabrice Tientcheu with their tight shirts and trousers paired with more respectable jackets and coats. But this involves realising how sexualised these characters are regarding why nobody bothered to outfit a male Abby Sciutto in a tight shirt and trousers coupled with a stylised lab coat, because that would look too fruity even when he doesn’t show much skin.

I suppose in this society and world, women are meant to be seen and not heard. They’re there to be looked at, even when they shouldn’t and needn’t to be. One would only wonder how would people react to Graham Knightley appearing in a BDSM inspired suit without questioning his sexuality, motivations or very existence, but turn a blind eye to a female soldier going about in a thong leotard until recently. Which goes to show you how desensitised we are to hypersexualised visions of women.

Fabrice Tientcheu and Graham Knightley

These two are based on Jojo characters that have cat-based stands (Killer Queen and oddly enough, Spice Girl), though these associations are reversed in their case. In Fabrice’s cases, it’s much more explicit in that he owns cats himself. But then again his own father’s deathly afraid of dogs who apparently passed on his distrust of dogs onto him, said dad’s also based on a Cameroonian musician who also has the same sentiment or fear. Graham’s case is more implicit in that he wears a jacket with an embroidered leopard head, his middle name is Leopold and his mother’s maiden name is Pussmaid (that was a legitimate surname), he also has the ability to explode things and people like Killer Queen does. Like I said before, Fabrice is based on Trish Una and her stand Spice Girl.

The latter’s also based on a cat though it’s not obvious at first, given it doesn’t seem to look much like a cat. It does however leave clawmarks, something Killer Queen doesn’t do to my knowledge. As Tientcheu is apparently a Bamileke surname and that leopards in Bamileke culture are associated with royalty, it’s also the same among Ghanaian and Ivorian Akans. Whilst the west habitually sees lions as the royalty of animals, among the Akans and Bamilekes this honour goes to their closest relatives instead. Not to mention Fabrice shares Trish’s snobbishness and Spice Girl’s dual nature of both politeness and cruelty towards enemies, and obviously the ability to soften things as to render them elastic. As a nod to Yoshikage Kira, Graham works as a salesman whilst being a murderer behind closed doors.

Whereas Fabrice is something of a forensic scientist who’s a failed footballer due to an injury, which kind of alludes to what became of the musician David J (from Bauhaus and Love and Rockets), despite the fact that he looks a lot like Maxim Reality from the Prodigy. Yep, these two are among the bands I liked before and still sympathetic to on some level, though Graham Knightley’s suit is based on somebody else’s. Namely Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys, but with a punkier flair. Wearing what’s his suit but as if Vivienne Westwood designed it, the late fashion designer who’s no stranger to incorporating bondage motifs into respectable formal clothing, as evidenced by the way she made suits before her passing. Oddly enough, there’s another character who shares his likeness.

That’s Cyril Rabeholm and he’s supposed to look like Nick Carter, but since this is tentative so he could end up looking like somebody else instead. Like Blixa Bargeld from Einstürzende Neubauten, if somebody else in the development team could become more interested in him instead. Even then you find traces of Nick in Cyril as both of them are fiercely temperamental and violent, as well as how Graham Knightley’s suit resembles his own. Not to mention both Cyril and Nick have pugs for pets, whereas Jean-Louis is content with mixed breed dogs instead. There’s another character who’s also going to be based on Nick Carter, but seeing how America will might disappear (if you believe her), perhaps it’s best to cut him out instead. For now, this is about two characters based on Yoshikage Kira and Trish Una, except that it’s if Trish Una grew up to be a forensic scientist and actually owns cats herself.

It’s not particularly obvious at first, but Spice Girl did something that Killer Queen doesn’t do (to my knowledge): leave clawmarks, which should give you an idea that it really is based on a cat.