Cultural backgrounds and male character design

Whilst a country like Japan might not be any better either, given its own struggles with misogyny and sexism, but it seems the west is kind of peculiar in the sense that its own idea of masculinity is so hypermasculine that it rests on caricatural machismo. Case in point would be Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure where the characters come to dress quite flamboyantly, though westerners see them as gay even if the Japanese don’t see them this case. It should be noted that the bar for dressing well is higher in Japan than in the west, where the Japanese are even required to dress in suits when going to work at all. But then again Japan is a collectivist society, where people do things to go with the flow to avoid standing out like a sore thumb.

If something is trending in Japanese fashion, then it really is trending and the Japanese follow suit. Americans don’t just dress more casually but that American women are more inclined to dress quite provocatively, so from this standpoint that the bar for male objectification in western culture is going to be low. Though Japan itself might not be any better in this regard to a possible extent, but western culture’s sort of peculiar in that men are deliberately desexualised. Which would explain why K-Pop boy bands seem gay in comparison, even if they don’t necessarily go about in leather trousers and fishnet shirts, but seem more effeminate and sexualised in a way that puts a bad taste in westerners’ mouths.

This could also be applied to the Jojo characters for similar reasons, where they do dress in a way that’s not too out of place in fashion shows and magazines. If because Hirohiko Araki himself is inspired by those, in addition to the Japanese requirement of dressing well to impress others. Whilst the Jojo characters do dress well and may in fact dress fashionably for the decades the stories are published in, they’re also seen as gay by many westerners who are unaccustomed to actual fashion sense. Befittingly, I have a couple of characters inspired by their Jojo counterparts, these include the forensic scientist Fabrice Tientcheu and criminal political science student Colin Sallow.

The former’s based on Trish Una and also her stand Spice Girl, the latter’s based on Dio Brando. Right down to similar clothing, habit of using knives and the ability to stop time, though Colin only does that to a specified place but enough for him to do whatever he wants and also to make an escape. Fabrice Tientcheu’s a scientist but he dresses in a really tight shirt and tight trousers that highlight his muscles, Colin’s no different with his own shirt and trousers doing the same, despite technically wearing a suit himself. You might say it’s pushing it because of their occupations, but the fact that the bar for male objectification is so low that dressing like a Jojo character would sexualise them in an uncomfortable way. Not that it’s deliberate at all in Jojo, but it comes off this way to westerners.

When the bar for male objectification is either a man in a suit or a shirtless muscular man in western media, it’s really low and the former is also why the bar for stylish men’s fashion is really low in western culture. Say what you will about South Korea and Japan as well as Jojo again, but the bar for stylish men’s fashion is higher in the former two. Thus explaining why Jojo’s the way it is, even when somebody isn’t in the mood to wear a suit, he’s still expected to dress well in both Japan and South Korea. Though the Japanese know that the Jojo characters dress flamboyantly, they’re not seen as particularly gay to them.

It kind of speaks volumes about the expectations for male fashion in a way that’s not highly prioritised in western culture, like how men are not expected to care about it at all. It’s kind of telling that Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is authored by a Japanese and not an American, especially given that he’s not only into fashion, but also because Japanese men are also expected to dress well to impress others that a number of Jojo characters may’ve dressed in a way that trended in Japan and still is so to some extent today. If superhero movies are any indication, these characters would be expected to dress in a quasi-militaristic fashion.

It’s not hard to see how culture plays a role in the way character design’s done. Whilst there are cases that do converge, there are those are do and it’s particularly evident with things like Jojo, JJK and others, compared to superhero media. As for Jujutsu Kaisen, whilst the characters don’t seem to dress like their Jojo counterparts, they’re also disinclined towards quasimilitaristic dress as you see in superhero media, despite using superhuman abilities in combat a lot. So culture does play a role in character design, perhaps in ways we don’t expect nor realise. Sort of like how western culture tends towards a peculiar form of masculinity, not that Japan and South Korea are any less masculine and sexist.

But as both Japan and South Korea are influenced by China, even both using the same orthography in the past, though as of know only Japan and Taiwan still use Chinese characters a lot, whereas Korea moved onto Hangul. So inevitably, the Japanese and Korean conceptions of masculinity resemble the Chinese version more, relative to the west, even if these two went in their own directions over time. There’s something in Chinese culture called civil and military service (wu-wen), which are both masculine but one has been prioritised more over the other. So inevitably, the masculinity displayed in Jojo (and possibly JJK) adheres to the Chinese model more.

Maybe not exactly but this should give you an idea of where this is coming from, as this is also shared by South Korea too. I remember this study by Lawrence Monocello that whilst male beauty ideals overlap to some extent in both America and South Korea, they still differ in most other regards. According to that study, tallness is associated with manliness and also the expectation of being domineering/dominant. So logically it’s possible that being really muscular is also associated with manliness, thus it’s also domineering. Not that muscular male characters don’t appear in Japanese comics at all, but they’re far from the default and I remember reading somewhere that Japanese animators were instructed to draw more muscular characters.

Even if muscular male characters do exist in anime and manga, there’s also a great variety in male body shapes, that a skinny male character could still be the star of the show. He could even attract a lot of women, if harem anime stories are any indication. Though it does seem puzzling to think that whilst bands like Duran Duran and Bay City Rollers were widely popular among girls, despite not having bulging muscles and tattoos in sight (though they both came from an earlier generation), for some reason this didn’t get translated into muse material for western romance novels. Especially once their female fans entered adulthood, which should’ve deeply imprinted onto them by then.

Or for another matter how a good number of women got into geek culture because of Harry Potter and anime, the former doesn’t even have this many muscular men and there were people who did gay pairings between the titular protagonist and Draco Malfoy. But for some reason this mostly didn’t carry over to romantasy, a cross between fantasy and romance, where you’d expect a stronger Harry Potter influence by now (maybe outside of young adult fiction). Maybe not exactly with HP but rather something like Lord Of The Rings, which even has a blond character in the form of Legolas that some people have paired him up with Aragorn. Though the cultural difference thing seems more plausible, which explains a lot of things.

Especially regarding the expectations for a very attractive male character, that in Japanese anime male characters can still be attractive, even if they’re not olive-skinned, muscular or have blond, red, pink, grey/white and blue hair. Whilst in western romance books and the like, though male romantic leads can have tattoos, they’re generally not going to be blond or red-haired. Maybe this may not be the case with M/M romance stories, but I suppose in other romance stories there’s still the expectation of making romance heroes dark-haired. It still hints at a difference between cultural expectations for male beauty and also masculinity in general, even if they converge at times.

In the sense that when it comes to making male characters attractive, in western romance novels they adhere to western expectations. Whilst something like anime offers more leeway in allowing a lot more attractive male characters with blond hair, red hair, pink hair and the like, it also hints at male characters having to live up to Japanese expectations. I remember somewhere that Japanese women prefer the thin macho look in men, thin macho meaning that they have muscles but it’s not bulging, a rather wiry look at that. And back to Monocello, in South Korea it’s not necessary for a man to be this muscular in order to be seen as attractive, whereas in America (and other western countries) it’s imperative.

Considering that Korea’s been influenced by Japan before and that both of them were also heavily influenced by China, that they’re going to share similar masculine ideals despite a degree of westernisation also having taken place. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the masculine beauty ideals held by both South Korea and Japan are rather similar, in which the menfolk could have muscle tone but not particularly bulging at that. The fact that both bodybuilding and muscular Christianity originated in the west, so I feel this might be partly culpable for influencing masculine beauty ideals there. So it’s not a surprise why the male ideals in both western romance novels and superhero media parallel each other.

To some extent but moreso than it is with between Japanese girls’ media and that of Japanese gay media, where when it comes to making male characters in the former they’re not going to have bulging muscles and tattoos. They don’t even have body hair, whereas there’s a fetish for this among gay men. They could be tall but not necessarily muscular, not even close to what’s touted in western romance novels.

Cartoon character iconography

When it comes to cartoon character iconography and especially those of superheroes, once an outfit is designed for the character comes expectations for what they should look like, should they ever wear new outfits at all. In the case with Supergirl, she’s a female counterpart to her cousin Superman and the expected iconography for her involves blonde hair, blue blouse, red cape, red boots and a red skirt though the belt varies from circular to v-shaped. But certain aberrations do happen such as red shorts, a proper catsuit, blue skirts and the like, though the expected iconography is supposed to be a feminised version of Superman’s own outfit, barring the hair itself. Or for another matter, the expected iconography for Rogue’s that of a woman who dresses in a brown jacket and a green and yellow catsuit with yellow boots.

I guess if Rogue existed in the real world that even if she retained her love of dressing in yellows and greens, and sometimes wore her old clothing from time to time she would’ve also changed with the times in some way. This is what she ended up doing in the comics from time to time, but her most iconic outfit’s from the 1990s and this is the same outfit a number of cartoonists return to from time to time. To put it this way, Siouxsie Sioux is a real life musician whose most iconic get-up consists of teased black hair and black clothing, though this is the same look that she graduated from as time passed. She now has straight greying hair and doesn’t dress in the same way she did when she was younger, but you should get the point I’m making regarding iconography.

It’s easier to draw cartoon characters in the same outfits as it’s easier to draw from memory, especially over time that’s become an accepted part of their respective iconographies. It also makes it easier to lend itself to merchandising, given the character’s expected iconography. Back to Supergirl, her expected presentation’s that of a blonde woman who wears a feminised Superman outfit. Cassandra Cain’s expected presentation’s that of a young Asian American woman who dresses in a black coloured Bat outfit that comes with a mask that fully obscures her face, though ironically given her knack for reading body language this would’ve impeded her ability to carry out such a task. But sometimes impractical outfits become part of the character’s expected iconography like the latter one.

Vampirella’s own outfit would be hard to comfortably wear without risking indecent exposure, though some cartoonists take this too far, sometimes without regarding the character’s own dignity in certain situations. But it’s become an accepted part of her associated iconography, despite how inconvenient it would be in some situations as to warrant more modest redesigns. So if this outfit was designed for the character in mind from the get go, or gets popularised in a more accessible format as it is with Rogue, it would be hard departing from the expected iconography without risking backlash of some sort. There have been attempts to get Black Canary from not wearing fishnets, most notably in the late 1980s and also in the 1990s, though the fishnet thing’s so deeply entrenched that it’s easier to return to those.

Than to risk the unknown, though the animated productions have shown that this is possible without changing the character’s overall look that much, all you have to do is to substitute fishnets for an opaque pair of tights. But even then there’s often the expectation for what the character should look like, if such a look was either part of the character or is popularised in other media, that giving them an entirely different outfit would be a very drastic departure. Sort of like what happened to Street Fighter’s Cammy White upon her latest appearance, for a long time she wore a thong leotard with a beret and two braids. Then comes the latest Street Fighter game with her sporting shorter hair and a more modest ensemble, that inevitably a degree of backlash would’ve occurred anyways.

When it comes to real life musicians, fans would inevitably have a favourite look, even if the musicians themselves have moved on from it as fashions change. Let’s say your favourite David Bowie hairstyle is the iconic red mullet, even though he moved on from that haircut as the mid-1970s marched on. Then one could on go saying that they liked Liam Howlett* best when he was younger and had undyed hair to boot, this is one example but not the only one that I can hypothetically come up with. But the thing with cartoon characters is that they’re designed with certain looks in mind, not so much something they chose at their own volition, since they’re not even real. In Rogue’s case, her most iconic look is the one that got popularised on television.

But it still often reinforces people’s expectations of them, that doing a radical redesign would make them practically unrecognisable. So there’s much care to make them recognisable whilst redesigning them in some way, given how such portrayals reinforce people’s expectations of them.

*He’s a member of the group called The Prodigy and he’s its resident keyboardist.

Something about our detectives

Jean-Louis Lumiere—The Professional

When he was younger, he was the protege and understudy of the department’s previous detective Richard Sorm, but since his retirement he became the main detective around. Believe or it, I came up with a similar character in 2016, sometime after David Bowie died. He’s kind of based on David Bowie too, especially during his Ziggy Stardust days and stuff. Much like Mr Bowie, Jean is also a natural blond. He even has the same hairstyle as Bowie did in his Ziggy Stardust period, dressing in a more modest, two-piece version of the Woodlands Creatures outfit even. Just replace the rabbits with stars and moons and you’d get his outfit. But he’s also shown to dress in other Bowiesque outfits too, especially in later game generations.

As for his hobbies and preferences, he shares at least some of those with Bowie. Including reading, owning/caring for dogs, a love for fashion (being an orphan, one of his parents worked in dressmaking) and some boxing. But he also does very unBowie things like wrestling, hunting (he worked as a professional hunter for awhile), playing football/soccer, cooking meat and fishing. Though he is particularly harsh towards criminals, often beating them up whenever they do something bad, but he’s also loving towards his closest friends and family. He’s even something of a surrogate parent to Richard’s son Ian, caring for him when his real parents failed to (Richard’s drunk and depressed, Emma Havisham frequently cheats on him).

He is good friends with Akosamesew Kanewopasikot, somebody he knew since middle and high school. They share several hobbies together, so they often hunt and fish together. He actually learnt some martial arts from him as well, though he often gravitates to wrestling more. Additionally, Jean-Louis manipulates light himself. He uses it to either mostly render himself invisible or anything else invisible as to sneak upon something/someone, create strobes to either light one’s way around or to blind somebody else with, create devastating lasers or cast holographic illusions often to trick somebody else with in some way or another. He uses this to disguise himself as somebody else from time to time. And due to his hunting experience that he’s bound to have good marksmanship.

Jemima Szara—The Amateur

She’s essentially a synthesis of Nancy Drew and another one, Jemima Shore (that’s where she got her name from), though with elements of Marianne Faithfull thrown into her. For those who don’t know, Marianne Faithfull is a singer who at some point or another got into affairs (like Jemima Shore until lately, where there’s a new story depicting her as a married wife of 3 or something), survived a miscarriage and drug addiction and stuff, she’s still around making music and is possibly a grandmother and even a great-grandmother by now. She also came from an aristocratic family on her mother’s side, had to endure jeering from her classmates because she didn’t have a car and her grandmother being a misandrist due to rape-induced trauma.

So alluding back to Marianne Faithfull, Jemima’s middle name is Ewelina (the Polish form of Marianne’s own middle name, Evelyn), she came from a gentry background from both her parents’ sides, got sneered at for not having a car and her aunt’s a misandrist due to her rape trauma. Much like both Shore and Faithfull, Szara also got into affairs with other men. Like Faithfull, she endured a miscarriage and was involved in a love triangle between two men. Then again, like I said before, Jemima Shore probably doesn’t do that anymore. She’s possibly a married mother in a new story this year or into the future, due to my intercessions to have her author stop her from cheating and have her get married instead, it’s a true story as to put an end to the heroine’s bad habits. So it eventually worked in the coming months and possibly in a future installment, what I said about her might come true in some form or another.

Jemima Szara, like her namesake, works as a journalist and her uncanny sense of direction helps her and others find cases to solve and something to report on, that she’s something of a valued ally to Jean-Louis even if she repeatedly calls him out for his ruthlessness when handling criminals. Likewise Jean-Louis finds her too intrusive and often has Akosamesew keep an eye on her, should she get into trouble by chance. Also Jemima Szara has the same hair colour as both Nancy Drew and Jemima Shore, strawberry blonde hair. Actually Szara also has something in common with Drew, like both of them have a white cat and a dog, have widowers for fathers and loving surrogate mothers to fall back on. (Szara also has a younger brother in Filip Szary, just like Marianne Faithfull.)

Body dysmorphia, video games and comic books

This isn’t commonly brought up and speaking from my own experience with my late mother not objecting to the overly buxom characters in animation, but objecting to skinny women in fashion magazines that among women who can’t get into comics/video games/whatever, it could be the other way around when it comes to self-dissatisfaction. In the case with comics and video games, it would be this easy to conjure images of the ideal woman in practise. It’s like wondering how and why so many cartoon women lack cellulite in their legs, aren’t hairy for long (especially when it comes to Marvel’s Tigra, who’s supposed to be covered in fur) and some don’t even have saggy breasts, let alone without being old.

Cartoonists and game developers (though not all of them, thankfully enough) will often come up with very idealised and sexualised images of women, perhaps in ways that risk making someone else feel worse about herself, especially regarding how women are more likely to develop body dysmorphia than men. The lack of any positive role model in whatever they can easily find could further put them off of things that should provide strong female role models, but it’s often undermined by constant idealisation and stuff. Tigra could easily be a role model for hairy women, since there are portrayals of her being really hairy and she’s technically covered in fur. Here you have a woman who wears little and is shown as quite hairy, though unfortunately she’s usually drawn as if she’s painted.

This would be very discouraging to those seeking a role model to relate to and aspire to be, one who’s not ashamed of her hairiness and owns it real well. Conversely speaking, I don’t think I’ve encountered superhero cartoonists giving female characters cellulite, which is odd as women are more likely to store fat in their thighs than men do. I guess it seems unsightly seeing a female cartoon character with flabby thighs, more often than not they either have muscular thighs or skinny thighs. Not to mention it’s not uncommon for them to have thin waists, as to provide the illusion of having wider hips because women often store fat in their hips as well.

When combined with bigger breasts and cellulite free thighs, you get a rather idealised image of women. Far more idealised than that in fashion magazines where one could always easily focus on the well-made garments, given so many women in the world of superhero cartoons and video games tend to either dress skimpily or look painted on, which only magnifies other people’s insecurities. I kind of think that it’s not other people’s fault why they’re more put off by depictions of women in comic books and video games, moreso than they would with fashion magazines given the way they’re portrayed in the former two is far more extreme and more male biased in some way. (Fashion magazines tend to have more women onboard so.)

I remember somewhere in an academic paper that the idealisation of women in fashion magazines wouldn’t give into the same hyperreal sexist expectations of what women should be the way anime productions do, since fashion magazines tend to have more female editors and writers onboard so this would be true for superhero comics and video games really. This makes a lot of sense that the prototype for Jean Baudrillard’s hyperreal woman’s that of a drag queen, in the sense that the female characteristics are ridiculously exaggerated and enacted by a man. So this would be true for the way superhero cartoonists and character designers depict womenfolk, this may not be true for all of them, but it does play out the way they’re described.

I suspect if we were to restrict it to the writing side of things, the sexism angle will still play out in some way. Sort of like how in both superhero comics and video games, there’s a tendency to create female versions of male characters. This is what Anita Sarkeesian termed ‘Miss Male Character’, where it’s particularly obvious if you look at a handful of DC and Marvel characters. With Batman there are Batgirls and Batwoman, with Superman you have Supergirl, with both Hulk and Red Hulk there are She-Hulk and Red She-Hulk. I remember reading somewhere in a study stating that female characters are also often subordinated to their male counterparts, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise why Catwoman doesn’t have Catman as her sidekick.

Or why not a lot of superhero writers would bother turning Black Canary and Supergirl into actual mother figures for both Robin and Superman, since Supergirl’s now depicted as being actually older than Superman himself. This is made evident by the fact that in some recent stories, she was already a teenager when Clark was sent to earth as a baby. (My Adventures With Superman has both of them start out as babies when they get sent elsewhere.) There’s an even more irritating tendency to give muscular female characters naturally big breasts, not that these don’t exist in real life but when there’s only one who qualifies (Rasa von Werder/Kellie Everts), then such depictions are going to be statistically unrealistic.

Very muscular women usually tend to have square breasts/more defined pectoral muscles, though these tend themselves to a rather androgynous character that not many cartoonists and designers go for. Even if these kinds of depictions have toned down lately, as well as the existence of flat-chested female characters out there somewhere, it’s kind of surreal to think that some can’t do without a fictional buxom woman out there in their stories. It’s not that being buxom is a bad thing, but rather the preponderance of such would easily make someone else feel insecure about the way she looks. Like it communicates a message that those with smaller breasts aren’t attractive, not feminine and stuff.

So it shouldn’t be hard to see why agentic and empowered female characters are undermined by unnecessary sexualisation, which puts some women off of those who’d otherwise be role models in some way.

What if it’s a guy?

When it comes to the way women are portrayed in such media, which made worse by the sort of occupations they work in that would preclude such attire. Considering that Cammy White is something of a soldier, it wouldn’t make sense for her to wear a thong in combat. Not to mention she doesn’t seem to be a particularly flirtatious character at all, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to dress this way until recently. One would only wonder why Abby Sciutto would dress like a sexualised little girl from time to time, whereas if she were male and often wore tight trousers and a mesh shirt you’d say that she looks perverted or unprofessional. Supposing if I have a character called Fabrice Tientcheu and dresses in a tight shirt and trousers, despite being a scientist, you’d say this is inappropriate.

But that’s what people have been doing to Abby Sciutto from time to time, if it doesn’t make sense for a forensic scientist like her to dress like a sexualised schoolgirl, then you should know this by now when I’m proposing Fabrice’s presentation to you. That’s not to say there aren’t any male characters that wear mesh shirts before and the like, one example would be the one found in the Ali G movie and another in the X-Man comics (I think). Though I don’t think these kinds of appearances are recurring to the extent that both DC’s Black Canary and Zatanna get, even though oddly enough the former herself isn’t actually and exactly so flirtatious and promiscuous. She’s only ever involved in just two relationships with men, that’s about it really. Well to my knowledge, but you should get where I’m coming from.

Supposing if somebody has the audacity to publish a game featuring a man wearing bondage trousers, despite appearing to wear a suit, that he’s also a salesman makes one wonder why he’s dressed this way. You’d think he might risk tripping onto something, or whatever you think would befall him. But this is what people have been doing to female characters before in a way, some of these outfits also put them into unwanted accidents if you think about this. Graham Knightley might seem perverted and strange to you, because he actually wears bondage trousers with a suit. But when you have Cammy White, who’s supposedly a soldier, yet wore a thong leotard it should give you an idea of how bad this is for years.

It’s not that there aren’t any male characters who wear these garments before, though not very often because people would think these are too kinky/fruity/whatever, despite doing the same things to their female counterparts. These may not be directly equivalent but let’s say Colin Sallow is the son of a politician and studies political science himself, yet he dresses in a tight shirt and tight trousers with a suit that one might wonder why he dresses this way. You’d say he doesn’t look respectable, well at least some of you would feel this way. But one would wonder why somebody like Lara Croft would wear crop tops and booty shorts to work in archaeology, it’s essentially no different really.

Add to that both Fabrice and Colin have very muscular physiques, their shirts are almost kind of like body paint that one would might wonder why do they have to show off their bodies in some way despite being a scientist and a politician respectively. But then again Lara Croft was shown as particularly buxom before, like she has to show off her breasts in some way despite being an archaeologist herself. Or for another matter, Cammy White showing off her bum for years despite being a soldier. You might argue in here but the point I’m making is that if you make a male character dress in this sort of way to show off his physique, despite being a scientist/politician or why he’d wear bondage trousers (despite being a salesman), this is to give you an idea of what’s been done to the womenfolk.

Not to mention I feel these portrayals of women might even contribute to body dysmorphia for some people, like they feel inadequate looking at these characters. Like they could never ever be them in some way, despite people’s insistence that they are strong female characters. It’s like their good qualities and strengths get undermined by dressing and appearing in such a sexualised way that it would be unthinkable had they been men, like if you’re fine with Abby Sciutto dressing in a minidress then you should be fine with a male Abby Sciutto dressing in a tight shirt and trousers. Even if Abby Sciutto doesn’t always dress this way and neither does Fabrice Tientcheu, it’s still strange dressing her as if she were a little girl beyond her years.

It’s something one would never do to a man really. Why on earth would a professional grown woman working in forensics dress like a little girl? Would you be fine with her if she was a man who dresses in fishnet shirts, tight trousers and sometimes tight shirts? That’s what people have been doing to womenfolk, like they often dress provocative for no reason at all. If you have Graham Knightley wearing bondage trousers with a suit, despite being a salesman, you’d wonder why he dresses this way but that’s practically what people have been doing to Cammy White for years. If you’re weirded out by him wearing provocative trousers, you’d have to be weirded out by a female soldier in a thong really. It’s like they’re putting out their sexual fantasies in the open.

That’s not to say there aren’t any menfolk in video games who dress kind of scantily, though not very often because it would seem pervy or something. But that’s what people have been doing to the womenfolk and why it should be strange seeing a female soldier out and about in a thong, if you’re weirded out by a salesman wearing bondage trousers.

Would this fly if it were a guy?

I feel when it comes to the way male and female characters are portrayed in popular fiction (video games and crime media included), at other times it’s kind of unequal in the sense that many womenfolk are given outfits contrary to their actual intentions and personalities. It wouldn’t make sense for a character like Cammy White to wear a thong in combat, until recently if Street Fighter 6 is any indication given her stern personality. Morrigan Aensland, being a seductress, would gleefully moon around in this outfit. Imagine if you have a male character dressed up in what appears to a suit until you realise that his trousers have bondage ribbons to each side, making you wonder why on earth would he dress like this?

But the thing is that similar things have been done to female characters over the years that it’s obvious people are going to be desensitised to nearly naked women in some way, as if women are there to be looked at constantly and if they’re ready for sex or something. Not to mention I even argued that these kinds of images may even trigger someone’s body dysmorphia in a way it wouldn’t be with fashion magazines, especially when it comes to the female characters’ proportions and tendency to show more skin than needed. When it comes to clothing, one can always conceal their faults with some article of clothing. But when it comes to the way female video game and cartoon characters are portrayed, they’re almost always kind of perfect.

Maybe not necessarily perfect but given this is drawn that one can easily whip up the ideal woman, whereas with fashion you have to mold yourself to fit this. It’s like how a number of these cartoon characters rarely have cellulite in their thighs, even though women are more inclined to store that than men do, or why it’s pretty rare to find a hairy female cartoon character at all. The closest that I can think of would be Marvel’s Tigra, though she’s usually portrayed as if she were body-painted. So any depiction of Tigra as being actually hairy, as it is with her own eponymous miniseries magazine and a brief appearance in the She-Hulk stories, is occasional at best.

It’s not hard to see that female characters that consistently don’t have much body hair to begin with are going to be the majority, not just in the worlds of DC and Marvel but also something like Street Fighter, Tekken and Mortal Kombat, among many others. It’s not hard to see how this communicates the idea that the ideal female body (especially in most video games and comics) has to be without cellulite, not much body hair (which would be unfair to those who’re predisposed to being hairy) and almost always there to be gawked at. This is changing for the better in some games, something like even Concord for instance. But the backlash towards Concord points out at something.

Sort of like how there’s a lot of complaints towards this game having a fat character as a playable character, whilst this isn’t even unique to it as Overwatch has it too. But it still communicates the message that can alienate or harm those with body dysmorphic disorder, the more I think about and consider it. As for the more successful Marvel Rivals game, the only female character with a smaller bust is Peni Parker. But then again she’s a young girl, though it does communicate the message that women with smaller breasts are less womanly looking. Not helped by that most of the female characters in this game tend to have bigger breasts, coupled with narrow waists and wider hips as to impart a more zaftig figure.

Given my own struggles with body image, it’s not hard to see how and why these games could be off-putting to certain women. Instead of celebrating the female form, these images reinforce their inadequacies. To make matters worse, it’s more common for women to develop body dysmorphia so such portrayals are going to rub them off the wrong way anyways. The fact that both comics and video games struggle with female audiences should suggest that when it comes to those with body dysmorphia, which women and girls are more prone to, the way these characters are drawn often make them feel worse about themselves. It’s kind of easier to excuse these as they seem to be imaginary.

But I feel this could be even more harmful since people like Freja Beha Erichsen and Kate Moss don’t sport enormous chests, whereas Ivy Valentine and Sophitita often do which could easily trigger one’s insecurities about her breast size. Not only that but there are instances of female cartoon characters who are technically fully-clothed, but wear such skin tight outfits that could easily be body paint. It’s like they wanted a naked woman without making her actually naked, but then again it could be argued that female nudity in drawn art might be more off-putting than a photographed fully-clothed fashion model because the former could reinforce one’s insecurities about their body image.

Whereas one could appreciate the craftsmanship put into a well-done garment, though from my own experience fashion magazines are seen as kind of insubstantial. But I guess it’s easier to overlook the faults in the things you’re more biased to, even though it shouldn’t come as a surprise why these kinds of things are off-putting to others. Especially to those suffering from body dysmorphia that the stark contrast between men and women reinforces their inadequacies.

She plays video games

She plays video games when she

Feels like it, often these are for

Kids but they help solve problems.

Here comes another one

Anatoly Sidorov

A Russian mafia hitman whose ability is rooted in nuclear fusion, but since quantum tunnelling/phasing is part of this, as well as probability alone, so it makes sense that he doesn’t just manipulate thermonuclear radiation but also goes through surfaces and the like. He’s actually based on Marvel’s Kate Pryde, where he even has a snake named Mikoyan (hers is a dragon named Lockheed, considering that dragons are actually based on snakes). He has the same skills with the katana as she does, excellent in stealth and unarmed combat as well. He even shares her hot temper and defiance, which also got him into trouble before. He also dresses like her, the whole black and blue clothing thing.

Though his outfit also resembles what Michael Hutchence wore in a fashion show, Michael Hutchence being the fallen frontman of the band INXS. Though he seemed to have it all at first, he actually battled depression and lost. INXS is an Australian rock band by the way, I remember listening to its music before on the radio and also on Channel V (I think). It even had a reality show on that channel where its surviving members went out to find a new singer for the band, this resulted in the song called ‘Afterglow’. Before that, they even had Sanandra Maitreya (Terence Trent D’Arby) onboard for awhile. INXS never seemed to have much luck finding a new vocalist for long.

Anatoly Sidorov has black hair and brown eyes, there are some Russians who look like this. There are also red-haired Russians, like Katya from the duo Tatu. Thankfully, things like Marvel Comics kind of reflects this in a way. Colossus, one of Kate Pryde’s former boyfriends, has black hair. Natalia ‘Natasha’ Romanova is red-haired, so they’re in really good company then. Anatoly’s own mother is Armenian, whilst his father is regular white Russian. So he’s probably from Krasnodar Krai (especially Sochi) then, or somewhere near it in some way and then he got picked up by the Russian Mafia. The rest is history and why he’s out for revenge in Canada.

More inspirations

Edward Hadlund

Based on Sale and his stand Kraftwerk, he has the ability to manipulate an object’s kinetic energy by not only freezing it in place but also adding more kinetic energy to it, thus intensifying the attacks and impacts they have on something or someone. He’s also a vegetarian like John Zelensky (well from time to time, as he’s usually a vegan), despite or rather because of his allergies to cats and phobia of dogs. So he gets Fabrice’s disdain for the latter, though he’s less disdainful of them for most of the part. He also doesn’t like Jean-Louis’s habit of hunting, finding it annoying and a major waste of time. As for his appearance, well I’m going to tell you something: he’s like a masculinised version of Linda Evangelista.

Well, facially speaking. Another male character based on a female model, just like what Hamish Gallagher is to Freja Beja Erichsen, it’s kind of strange to say this but the late George Perez also did something similar to one DC character. I forgot their name but I do remember that he based them after a woman he knew, so he’s in really good company here (Tommy Heikkinen is based on Nina Hagen by the way). He kind of dresses like Sale, a bit more punk rock, but you could see the similarities. Well his fashion sense could be changed should he actually get to appear in a video game himself, if this ever comes to fruition at all. This has happened to Overwatch’s Mercy before where she was going to be a black man, get this she was going to be a black man.

An angelic black male doctor, that could be an inspiration to young black men around the world in search of better, less stereotypical representation. Somebody on DeviantART commented that African Americans do lack representation, especially if occupation options seem limited and certain occupations aren’t always welcomed by their community. Regardless if it makes certain African Americans feel less left out this way, that I feel a game featuring a black male doctor would help them a lot. In Eddie’s case, it’s got to do with something that might be more conventionally appealing, since certain people in games would demand people to redesign a character to be more commercially viable. So Eddie wouldn’t be punk for long when he appears in a video game for real.

Yvette Tientcheu

Fabrice’s twin sister and a seamstress who went to Canada to be closer to her brother, though she ended up falling in love with Jean-Louis. Considering that Jean-Louis is based on David Bowie, so Yvette is logically his Iman. Iman being David Bowie’s last wife and true love in a way Mary Angela Barnett isn’t, (not) helped by that she had an open marriage with him. So they went about cheating on each other a lot, whilst coming to raise their son for as much as they can remain together for his sake. She actually doesn’t mind his interests in hunting and dogs, though she finds it baffling to raise the latter since she only grew up with cats. Again their father is deathly afraid of dogs and will always be leery of them in some way or another, leading to conflicts with his would-be son in law.

She was based on Emma Lavenham but as I came to write a story featuring the latter, she developed a habit of cheating on her spouse (Adam Dalgliesh) whenever he’s away from her, drinking a lot at pubs. So the character more closely based on her at this point is Emma Havisham, also a literature professor and one who slept with Akosamesew, despite forbidding her son to be with his friends. Yvette being more like Iman helps her stand out from her in some regards, being very accepting of her boyfriend’s habits and mannerisms. I have to reiterate that both Yvette and Fabrice are twins, fraternal twins at that. She loves him deeply and tries to be there for him, and he for her but sometimes due to their occupational demands it doesn’t always go as expected.

She’s also the one who has to mediate between her brother and her boyfriend, especially concerning dogs as the former attempted to poison the latter’s dogs (and nearly got killed by him). And sometimes she had to mediate between her father and her boyfriend, again involving dogs because her family never raised dogs due to their father’s cynophobia. Jean-Louis being a touchy dog lover, Fabrice and his father being somewhat suspicious of dogs and Yvette being clueless around them. Though in a gesture of authentic kindness, Jean-Louis has given her books about cats and a plush cat toy to keep her happy. Jean-Louis is more than happy and willing to treat her well, whilst Yvette usually lets him do his own thing for as long as he’s not a jerk.

Some inspirations on the characters

Jemima Szara

She’s based on both Jemima Shore (her namesake by the way) and Nancy Drew, as they’re both amateur detectives with strawberry blonde hair. Jemima Szara tends to work as an investigative journalist, but because she tends to report crime that she often works with the police. She has an uncannily good sense of direction, sort of like a GPS device, which is good for finding out criminal cases in addition to her own intelligence. She’s had relationships with other men before, though she’s currently dating Maurice Lu (who’s also her best friend). She also had something of a girlhood crush on Richard Sorm, whom she also dated before moving onto other men and eventually Maurice.

There’s also some Marianne Faithfull in her because she dated a guy named Nick Hunter (Mick Jagger), despite being married at the time and eventually miscarrying their child. One of her aunts is a major misandrist, stemming from being raped herself. Faithfull’s grandmother was a misandrist due to being raped herself, one that had negative consequences for her in her formative years. Jemima has a younger brother named Nicholas, who works as a newspaper cartoonist, and their only surviving parent is Bonifacy Szary. Her middle name is Ewelina, the Polish form of Evelyn (Marianne’s middle name is Evelyn). She has a white cat named Sneg and a dog named Lome.

There’s a bit of Yasuho Hirose in her, especially in having a similar ability. Except that Jemima often uses this in investigative journalism, as well as assisting police officers find criminal offenders and their victims. It’s something that I don’t think not a lot of writers have considered, concerning the use of such abilities for noncombative purposes. In the case with both superhero stories and ability battle manga, there’s a tendency for writers to resort to depicting characters indulging in creative ways of attacking each other, instead of creative ways of solving cases, cooking and the like. Jemima being an investigative reporter with an uncanny sense of direction works in this case.

Fabrice Tientcheu

A Cameroonian forensic scientist with the ability to soften items, he’s based on both Trish Una and her stand Spice Girl, considering he went undercover as a janitor to find Colin Sallow. Considering that Spice Girl is actually based on cats, whilst it’s not particularly obvious at first, it does leave claw marks (something Killer Queen hasn’t done to my knowledge). Fabrice actually has cats himself but that’s because his father is afraid of dogs (there’s also a real Cameroonian musician named Mink who feels the same way too), so he’s got them instead and is more used to those than he is with dogs. It’s not that strange when there really are African cat owners out there, I’m part of a group called ‘Kenyan Cat Lovers’.

In Tientcheu’s case, his father’s wary of dogs so they got cats instead. Not particularly perfect but it’s something they got considering his father having cynophobia, Fabrice also looks like a younger Maxim Reality. As in he’s one of the surviving members of the band The Prodigy, alongside Liam Howlett, since Keith Flint passed away and the other two (Leeroy Thornhill and Sharky) left for certain reasons. Despite being based on Maxim, he’s also based on Freddie Mercury. Especially considering his outfit being reminiscent of Freddie’s own, but with the colours reversed (white coat, yellow shirt). He even likes cats too, so there’s some commonality between the two.

He’s even got Freddie’s boxing skills too, though he’s not shown engaging in combat that often. As for the Trish Una connection, he’s shown to dress in clothes with a numbers pattern like hers. Well not so often, but to show you that the fruit doesn’t fall too far from the tree. In his case, it’s as if Spice Girl’s connection to cats has been made explicit, given the stand doesn’t seem to resemble a cat at first. But it’s done something Killer Queen hasn’t done, to my knowledge that perhaps the similarities have more to do with its actions than its overall appearance. It seems unlikely at first but since Hirohiko Araki said it, so it’s going to show up however unlikely it appears to be.

Graham Knightley

As opposed to Fabrice Tientcheu, his connection to cats is implicit. He does dress somewhat like Yoshikage Kira’s stand Killer Queen, having the same fingerless gloves and boots and there’s an embroidered leopard patch on the left part of his jacket. And he’s been caught dead wearing a floral shirt, referencing Stray Cat being a cat that controls plants. He has the same power as Killer Queen, the same motivations as Yoshikage Kira at least when he first appeared (he’s no longer a serial killer in the later Jojo stories). Why is his surname Knightley? Because there’s somebody in the real world named Keira Knightley, so the connection to Yoshikage Kira is also based on wordplay.

He also shares the latter version’s interest in bondage, what no better way to communicate by that he wears bondage trousers himself. It’s like how some cartoonists communicate the idea that a female character is promiscuous by the way she dresses, so it’s only fair to do the same to a male character. He’s so kinky that he’s going to be open about it and Jemima even dated him before, despite being married to another woman. He’s not just a salesman but also the son of somebody who’s both a member of the British gentry (like Jemima and also an immigrant to boot) and a billionaire, he’s very much the epitome of eat the rich. As in he’s both contemptible and rich as to warrant getting attacked by humbler characters.

It’s not surprising given the growing distrust of multibillionaires like Elon Musk that it feels fit to have the son of a billionaire be an actual serial killer, since there’s somebody else saying that really rich people think of themselves as above the law. But I suppose for some people, the idea that the very rich indulge in crimes themselves feels kind of unthinkable, though this means that they’re not any better than poor people doing the same thing too. This makes him pretty relevant in some way, perhaps it’s no surprise why Absolute DC’s Batman is an engineer who can afford to make his own stuff without relying a lot on wealth to do it. Advancements in technology have made it easier to get something, without relying on much money when it comes to piracy.

Colin Sallow

Like I said elsewhere that he’s based on Dio Brando, despite also coming from a dream, right down to the fashion sense and ability. Except that in this case, both spacetime and gravity are interrelated as they are in reality. So if he lowers gravity in a localised area, he also slows (or if you will, stops) time too. This is convenient for not only literally stopping people in their tracks, but also for escapology and it’s going to be tough tracking him down at all. He’s also based on Tadzio from Death In Venice, well Tadzio as represented in the 1970s film, even dressing up as a sailor but only undercover to kill somebody else with. He kind of comes from a political family and is groomed for a life in politics, but he’s also a serial killer who’s weirdly loyal to his father.

So much so he killed the son of his father’s rival, he does this because he honours his father so much that he’s not going to let the other one win. Just as Fabrice Tientcheu is based on Maxim Reality, Colin Sallow is also based on a younger Liam Howlett. The two surviving members of the band the Prodigy, effectively a duo at this point, perhaps save for live members showing up in concerts. So there are really only two original members of the Prodigy left, Keith Flint’s no longer with us and Leeroy Thornhill and Sharky have gone on doing something else. So befittingly there are only two characters based on these two musicians, the other one being Fabrice. The same guy he ended up attacking, well Colin is usually pretty cool-headed and good-tempered.

This makes his capacity to murder all the more shocking, given he seems so nice and well-mannered. Maybe he’s got something nasty in his closet, despite contrary appearances. Not to mention he’s also based on the cinematic version of Tadzio, the unlikeliest inspiration for a fictional murderer. As for his father’s rivals, they’re also based on the real life Medici family. They went from being a plutocratic family, whose wealth came from banking/usury, to becoming a proper aristocratic family serving the Holy Roman Empire. The Medici did inspire some characters in Skull Girls, some fighting game in the 2010s, but it would be interesting to use one such incident in their family history as the inspiration for a mystery/puzzle game.

Akosamesew Kanewopasikot

He is based on DC Comics’s Cassandra Cain but I feel transposing a number of characteristics associated with her personality and upbringing would read differently when grafted onto a Native American character, because it kind of becomes triggering considering the history Native Americans have with white people upon colonisation. Especially where they find every bits of their culture (and even their languages) stripped from them in a bid to assimilate into white settler colonial cultures, that I feel an indigenous Cassandra Cain would be far more tragic given the context. Akosamesew is capable of speaking, though not particularly well in Cree as he should be.

But due to colonisation, it’s not uncommon for Native Americans to be this fluent in English. So he’s not as fluent in Cree as he wishes and wants to be, considering he puts every effort into learning it as much as possible. He’s also been trained to be something of a living weapon, though it’s something he wishes he’d unlearn or at least wouldn’t be reminded of daily. Due to his uncanny ability to read body language well, he’s considerate but also very conscious, fearful to the point of being timid and tries very hard to be polite. He does strive to be more outgoing, but he feels the need to not hurt or offend anybody. He’s also good at catching criminals this way, leading to an interesting confrontation with Colin.

He’s also based on a historical figure known as Poundmaker, who also has dreadlocks like he does and is also of nearly the same ethnicity. Maybe not so much in the personality side of things, but mostly in the way they look. When it comes to the world of anime, the first dreadlocked Native American character would probably be Gat from Saiyuki, which is based on Journey to the West. Then comes Mink from Dramatical Murder, which is based on a really graphic video game. Though there is a precedence for dreadlocked indigenous people among the Cree, or so it seems to be, it’s not something you see often in the media. Mostly because it’s usually seen as something black people wear.

Jean-Louis Lumiere

Based on David Bowie though he still has his own idiosyncrasies that make him his own person to a decent extent, this character emerged in 2016 alongside Maurice Lu though neither of them have names yet. To go further with the David Bowie comparisons, he also has natural blond hair. He dyed it red and cut into a Ziggy Stardust mullet, he even dresses like him and has a loving black girlfriend in the form of Yvette Tientcheu, Fabrice’s twin sister and seamstress. He’s also the game’s main detective by the way, though he can be rather ruthless when dealing with criminals. He has the ability to manipulate light, which he uses to render something, someone or himself invisible, create holographic illusions, glares and lasers.

He’s also good at unarmed combat, not just in savate but also primarily wrestling. Both freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling, he’s done them both when he was younger whilst training to be a detective under Richard Sorm. Having been orphaned at age 19, he not only looked up to his uncle but also to Mr Sorm because he’s his mentor. In a sense he’s also his successor, despite the differing abilities. Despite the fact that Jemima Szara is based on Jemima Shore, Jean-Louis has a black dog named Minuit just as Jemima Shore’s black cat is named Midnight. The other thing keeping Jemima Szara tethered to her namesake is that she’s sometimes attracted to married men, though the latter is probably already married herself at this point.

Whereas Jean-Louis has a schizophrenic cousin just as Bowie had a schizophrenic brother, even if Jean-Louis still isn’t exactly like David Bowie in other regards. He also seems to share Bowie’s love for dogs, whom he takes out for hunting every early morning. Anyways Jean-Louis enjoys hunting with his friends and dog, reading (just like Bowie himself), writing, playing football/soccer and fishing, he’s kind of rustic in some regards having been brought up in a Quebecois countryside. His girlfriend is Yvette Tientcheu, though he sometimes gets into fights with their father over dogs. Their dad is deathly afraid of dogs, Fabrice’s suspicious of them and Yvette doesn’t know what to do with them, so conflicts happen.

John Zelensky

Named after Volodimir Zelenskyy (oddly enough), but parts of his life are based on that of River Phoenix. River Phoenix was the older brother of Joaquin Phoenix, having played a younger Indiana Jones before. River Phoenix also played music when he can and could, having done some recordings with his sister. Just as River spent his formative years in Venezuela, John spent his own in Mexico. He’s kind of nostalgic for Mexicana, often planning on going there again in years. He knows some Mexican Spanish, which he uses to communicate with others online. He has thoughts of acquiring Mexican citizenship one day, though this might put his career into jeopardy.

Much like these two, he’s of Jewish descent. In the case with River Phoenix, he’s in some regards the farthest from what you expect young Jewish men to be. In the sense that you’d expect Jewish men to be respectable, kind of square sort of people. But River Phoenix did drugs in private, until they got the better of him. You’d expect Jewish men to be nerdy, studious and stuff, but River Phoenix was no big nerd. He seemed to be more comfortable with rock music, than he would with acting and he would’ve gone on as a musician anyways had he lived. John Zelensky also doesn’t seem to be a particularly nerdy man either, being more into Goth and punk rock. Well, he’s in good company really.

Especially when you rope in some members of the Ramones and Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell being Jewish, that you begin to see where I’m coming from when it comes to something like a Jewish rocker. They really are present in rock music in some way or another, whether if it’s Gene Simmons from the band Kiss (I was made for loving you), or somebody like the late Hillel Slovak who was a member of the band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Coincidentally, River Phoenix was a friend of Flea (one of the members). It’s not that strange really and some of them are really prominent, but it’s easier to fall back on Jewish stereotypes, especially if your point of reference is really narrow and limited.

Ellen Wachak

Renamed from Ellen Tonkawa, she has the ability to magnetise things like Mariah and her stand Bastet in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. She often calls it telekinesis, because it’s like she moves things with her mind. She still does it to this day. She’s also based on Kate Miskin, except that she actually loves her grandmum. She’s also based on this woman from the nonfiction book Women In The Martial Arts, because she’s also part indigenous and part East Asian. In her case, she’s part Dene/Chipewyan and part Korean. She knows some martial arts, particularly gungdo as she has a particular affinity for projectiles/marksmanship. It’s not that there aren’t any mixed race indigenous people, either in fiction or in real life.

But in the case with the west, it’s easier to relate back to white people than to consider the possibility of indigenous people who’re also descended from black and Asian people, probably because I feel it makes them too foreign in some way. Whiteness feels more approachable and familiar, making an indigenous person part Asian (though it’s always possible if this book is any indication) makes them too foreign and alien for some people. The one prominent mixed race indigenous character who’s not part white that I can think of is Eliza Maza from Gargoyles, she’s actually part black and admittedly it’s a long time I watched this programme. But it wouldn’t hurt to have an indigenous character who’s part East Asian.

Ellen Wachak might not be the first example of one, as there are likely others before her in fiction, though they are mostly in the minority. Aside from this, she enjoys collecting soft/plush toys and dolls. It’s not that there aren’t any doll collector type characters before, one example would be Alice Margatroid from Touhou, but I kind of suspect that such a character would come off as childish for some people. Especially if they’re an adult, despite that adult toy collectors (not that they collect sex toys) exist in the real world. It would be nice to have a mixed race officer who collects and plays with dolls in her spare time, though this involves humanising her a lot more than one usually would.

Hector Yang

Based on Jobin Higashikata in terms of manipulating heat without causing fire, though he also has albinism (pallor and a degree of vision impairment). Not that these characters never existed before, though it’s not pulled off often due to semantic connotations. The one video game character who’s comparable to him in any way would be Touhou Project’s Mokou no Fujiwara, who has white hair and manipulates fire. Whilst these characters personify the phrase white hot very well, it’s more common to associate the colour white with the cold, which is kind of understandable.

But the funny thing about heat is that in the case with flames and heated up items, the more energetic they get the more whitish or bluish they become. This is because shorter wavelengths are more energetic, with something reddish being relatively cool and something blue being really hot. Blue skies are often going to be warm and bright, because that’s where light is at its most energetic. Red skies tend to be cooler and dimmer, for the same reason but in reverse. Mokou seems to be the only truly white hot video game character at this point, if because she has white hair and manipulates fire. Not necessarily so unique, but not particularly common either.

It should be noted that the word for albino in Tagalog is ‘anak araw’ or ‘sun child’ because they’re so pale as to be reminiscent of sunlight, ironically the very thing that hurts them. The sun is hot and bright, but it kind of fits in a way. Snow also reflects a lot of light and can easily blind somebody if they’re not careful, though I don’t think it’s particularly common to associate white-haired characters with light. The only ones that do fit the bill are both versions of Amaterasu (one of them is from The Five Star Stories), Marvel’s Dagger at some point and arguably Mokou no Fujiwara, even though it’s kind of logical because there’s such thing as white light and white reflects all the colours. I’m misremembering the other one, but it kind of fits.

Mary Stilfox

Based on Aya Tsuji and her stand Cinderella, she has the ability to generate implants which she uses to replace someone’s organs with them. She actually works as a plastic surgeon so she’s often called upon to do surgeries of any and every variety, so her ability is perfect for this and why almost nobody has ever considered this. She’s also a Scottish immigrant who moved to Canada with her husband and has two sons or daughters (or maybe two sons and a daughter) there, ever since Jean-Louis got orphaned that he started seeing her as a kind of mother figure. (Jemima has hers in a housekeeper named Molly, yep another Nancy Drew reference.)

I feel there’s an argument to be made for Aya Tsuji being a surgeon because her ability’s convenient for it, like say you want a smaller nose and she could easily do that whilst operating on you. If somebody wants bigger breasts, she could’ve just practically the same thing too. Though it does make one wonder if there are anybody in comics out there who have been interested in plastic surgery at some point or another, well I was into this sort of thing before when I was younger. Considering that cosmetic surgery is such a big industry that Aya Tsuji could’ve been very much in demand for it, it’s no different with Mary Stilfox and why she’s the most in-demand plastic surgeon in town.

Mary Stilfox doesn’t mind Jean-Louis’s habit of hunting in his spare time, if because not only do some of her relatives back in Scotland do this (primarily for pest control), but that one of her most trusted friends is into hunting herself. She has some knowledge of hunting and she sometimes helps out Jean-Louis whenever he’s out to get those pesky vermin and game when he feels like it, since she’s no stranger to helping her own relatives whenever they do the same thing too. When she brought along her own cousin, that’s when he introduced him to ferreting–that’s hunting with ferrets. Predictably, she gave Jean-Louis tips on looking after ferrets, when she gave him one.

Patricia Kyenge

In terms of ability, she’s derivative of an earlier version of Josuke Higashikata as both of them restore things to where they were, but in her case she uses this often in nursing as well as doing everyday repair work for others. It’s something not a lot of people have considered or realised, since you could have characters with fantastical abilities yet refuse to use them in combat, especially if they see no point in doing it. There’s something of a missed opportunity for this version of Josuke to grow up using this same ability in medicine, whether as a nurse or doctor, but it makes perfect sense for him to do just that.

Oddly enough the character who got to be a medic is Yoshikage Kira in Jojolion, even though he’s ill-suited for medicine unlike Josuke I. There’s also a bit of Trish Una in here (Trish–Patricia), like her boyfriend Fabian she also likes cats. Considering that she’s a Congolese nurse who moved to Canada, there are Congolese people who actually have cats as pets (well, primarily for hunting rodents) and there’s one account of a Congolese chemist that has a cat do just the same. Since Patricia also has a relative who doesn’t like dogs much either, in fact that’s actually a grandparent, so she understands why Fabian’s father’s like this.

Patricia Kyenge is also named after Cecile Kyenge, a Congolese woman living and working in Italy. While Italy didn’t colonise the DRC the way Belgium did (it conquered Eritrea and Libya instead), it does attract immigrants from anywhere else in Africa. There are Italians of Nigerian and Ghanaian descent, one notable example being footballer Mario Balotelli who got adopted from a Ghanaian family. Though Italy’s no stranger to African servants at some point (I think), its relationship with African colonies happened more recently than that of the Netherlands, Britain, Portugal and Spain. So it never trafficked Africans to work in its American colonies, the way these four did.

Rose Marie Gaultier

The inspiration for her is Kate Bush in the music video ‘Wuthering Heights’, similar appearance but dissimilar personality and life. There’s a character in Italian crime fiction who has the ability to talk to the dead, just like hers, but I forgot their name though I do know they exist. It’s not that both superhero comics and video games lack women wearing dresses, but so far with the former there’s a tendency to make the dress either skimpy (Supergirl, Mary Marvel and Nightshade) or with thigh high slits (Raven), mostly to emphasise sex appeal.

It would be interesting to portray a kind of superheroine in a video game wearing a more modest dress, it can be pulled off. She dresses like a younger Kate Bush, similar preference for flowy and romantic dresses. But I feel considering that since there are video game developers who especially don’t do dress-up games (and also superhero cartoonists), so they wouldn’t be particularly inclined towards making their female characters dress stylishly. Or in a way that where their fashion sense tends to be more romantic than sexy, it may not be sexy like Dead or Alive or Soul Calibur but I feel there’s a tendency to play up sex appeal more.

Even if it’s something that’s not appealing to all women, especially if they’re really disgusted and/or alienated by this sort of thing. Maybe not necessarily a more romantic fashion sense, but rather a less sexualised way of dressing. I feel this would also extend to other female characters in this game I’m proposing, maybe not exactly like Rose but in the lines of less sexualisation for all of them. Given how video games get flak for sexualising female characters a lot, it would be nice to do the opposite direction for all the female characters here. Many video games at this point are currently desexualising female characters, but the more the merrier.

Nootaikok Alakannuark

Based on Jojo’s Ghiaccio in personality, ability and appearance, he embodies and personifies the peculiarly French idiom ‘colère froide’, which refers to lingering anger that borders on bitterness and resentment. It’s also a passive aggressive sort of anger, it’s not apparent but it’s there on some level. How does he manipulate the cold? He heats up whenever he creates something cold, like temperatures get transferred or they lower as his body temperature raises. So he absorbs heat and he has a hot temper, sort of makes sense on some level too. Many of the same things can also be said of Ghiaccio himself, he too embodies and personifies this French idiom well.

It’s one of those things that make sense in some other language, like colère froide in the case with these two. They manipulate the cold and they get angry real easily, in the case with Nootaikok he’s grieved by racism every time. He gets angry whenever people mispronounce Inuk words, especially whenever Jemima does it and goes so far to either scold or insult her for it. He also gets angry at others for doing the same thing too, sometimes getting angry at others whenever something bad happens. I feel Ghiaccio might not be the only character who’s like this, but he’s part of a minority of characters who’re like this. Even if the way he acts perfectly aligns with the French idiom colère froide real well.

And for another matter, Nootaikok Alakannuark too. Aside from that, both of them ice-skate. Both of them wear ice-skates, which is something you don’t see cryokinetic superheroes doing the same. Regardless of the risk of hurting themselves from slipping at any time, I feel the use of cryokinetic characters moving on icy platforms without wearing ice-skates looks cool. But it’s also weirdly impractical considering the possibility of slipping, so Ghiaccio wearing ice-skates while manipulating ice is appropriate. In some regards, it’s also good character design because this involves thinking through things. This may not be true for all the JJBA stand users, but it’s something to consider regarding cryokinesis at all.

Maurice Lu

His outfit’s actually based on what Andrew Eldritch (he’s from the band Sisters of Mercy) wore at some point, which is a yellow-apricot long coat worn with a black shirt, black shoes and black pair of trousers. But since he manipulates weather and many of these characters are based on their Jojo counterparts, so he could easily be analogised to Weather Experince. His shirt has a dragon motif, since in Chinese culture dragons are associated with weather and water. His long coat is actually a peacock blue beizi, a kind of Han Chinese long coat by the way, worn with a black shirt, black Han Chinese trousers and black shoes. He’s sort of like the Azure Dragon from the Four Celestial Beasts, so it could be said that Jean-Louis is the Vermillion Bird by then.

The Azure Dragon’s cardinal direction is east (Maurice’s actually from the Philippines, part of the Far East) and its element is wood, so the Vermillion Bird’s cardinal direction is south and its element is fire (while Jean-Louis doesn’t manipulate fire per se, his photokinesis comes close in a way). Logically Nootaikok could be analogised to the Black Turtle because its cardinal direction is North (he lives in Arctic Canada) and it’s associated with both water and the cold, so befittingly Nootaikok manipulates ice himself. Also Maurice is Jemima’s boyfriend and early on, her biggest male friend around. He gets jealous easily whenever Jemima flirts with some other guy, so he often tells her to stop immediately.

That’s not to say there aren’t any Asian guys who get into romantic and marital relationships with non-Asian women, whether if it’s Australian white women going out with Balinese gigolos, African women getting into relationships of sorts with Chinese men and Brazilian prostitutes having a thing for Filipino sailors, these kinds of relationships do happen. Francis Manapul is married to a white woman himself, he even has a family with her. It becomes even less strange why some white women are attracted to Korean men, earlier on in the 21st century this would’ve gone to Indonesian gigolos instead. It was such a phenomenon as to warrant getting mentioned often in the press and also in academia.

Alvin Kwame Boateng

He has the ability to run preternaturally fast (though he’s really just as fast as a moving vehicle), which he uses to cause serious fires as a way to keep criminals from attacking people any further. He’s also based on Usain Bolt, who’s a sprinter, football fanatic and avid gamer. Alvin also enjoys and plays football, and video games in his spare time. He’s particularly fond of puzzle games, football games and adventure games. There are black people who do work in video games, play video games and think about video games. Alvin could easily represent them, since they don’t seem to appear often in fiction. Maybe not as little as I made it out to be.

But it’s not hard to see how representation or the lack of it affects people, like if they’re only exposed to certain portrayals and preconceptions surrounding a certain ethnicity, then it becomes the baseline for what they expect them to be. The prototype for what they expect certain people to be, to the point where others internalise it and think of others as not conforming to their idea of their given identity. Like in the case with African Americans, there’s not much diversity in their portrayal on television until recently. The other black peoples more underrepresented than them, especially outside of African media, would be sub-Saharan Africans. They’re not necessarily this underrepresented.

But they’re much likelier to be kind of detached from who they are in reality, since I feel the prototypical black person in American media is most likely to be African American. Kind of makes sense that some of the most well-known black people in this day and age are more likely to be African American themselves, whether if it’s singer Beyonce Knowles or rapper Jay Z. But this would mean that black Africans are kind of underrepresented on the international stage, maybe not entirely so underrepresented, but not exactly often showing up in American media outside of certain preconceptions and African media. Both Fabrice and Alvin are black Africans working in Canada, though the former is a forensic scientist.

Hamish Gallagher

Because he’s based on Secco whose stand is called Oasis (the Gallagher brothers, his namesake, were part of the band also called Oasis), Hamish also has the ability to liquify solid ground as to cause potent shockwaves and augment his punches as to kill his victims. Despite sharing the same surname as the Gallagher brothers, he looks like a masculinised version of the Danish model Freja Beha Erichsen. His fashion sense is kind of punkish and traditional Goth, like he wears a black suit but with a moon print tie and combat boots. It’s also pretty practical to wear, given he liquifies anything solid. It’s kind of rock and roll, but also practical to wear when standing on liquified ground.

I guess when it comes to character design and clothing, it would be much easier making the character look cool, instead of making it actually practical when it comes to something. Not necessarily always practical in the sense of how it’s often conceptualised and actualised in live action superhero productions, but in the sense of being suited to the task and activity. Characters like Maurice Lu and Hamish Gallagher endure muddy, wet ground so wearing combat boots would be more practical for them, whereas somebody like Jean-Louis who’s given into wrestling would wear wrestling shoes instead. Not so much looking kind of tactical as it tends to be in live action superhero productions, but more in the lines of what somebody else would actually wear to something.

Not to mention he comes from Edinburgh, the same place where Mary Stilfox came from. When it comes to Scottish characters in American comic books, if Rahne Sinclair’s any indication, they’re oftentimes shown to come from somewhere rustic and parochial. Not that there aren’t any Scottish people who don’t live in the countryside anymore, but considering that Scotland actually has cities it’s kind of surprising why there’s not a single Scottish character that I can think of who comes from any Scottish city themself. Unsurprisingly, the most nonstereotypical portrayals of Scottishness come from actual Scots themselves. Especially stories by Irvine Welsh, as to give you an idea of how a Scot would come up with their fictional counterpart.

Cyril Darkholme

He has the ability to manipulate darkness from transducing and absorbing energy (especially electromagnetic energy), though the sort of darkness he makes is only restricted to force fields and solid constructs. That’s really about it though he uses those in very inventive, creative and lethal ways, something like creating a force field inside something to explode it. He also kind of looks like Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys, but with more sunken cheeks, deep-set eyes and serious eyebags that make him look older than he really is. (He’s about the same age or nearly so as many of the characters here, being in their early thirties or late twenties.)

He keeps his hair naturally blond, whereas Jean-Louis dyed his red. It should be noted that the character of Eve Eden, a Charlton (and then DC) heroine going by the stage name of Nightshade, is actually blonde herself but wears a black wig to fight crime or something. Another one would be Rumia from Touhou Project, but never wears any black wigs at all. Cyril would be in good company in this regard, because he’s also another blond-haired darkness manipulator. So there is some precedence for him in both comics and video games, though another one would be Marvel’s Darkstar. Not to mention, he’s basically something of a criminal and a serial killer. His lackey was the late Scott Nygaard, who could only move through shadows.

It’s sort of like how in comic books where darkness manipulation tends to be portrayed as a rather ghostly ability, it may not be true for all characters but it’s not uncommon to have them phase through things and stuff, especially shadows. But since poor old Scott is a mini boss, so it makes sense for both darkness manipulation and shadowmelding to be treated separately. If time manipulation and gravity manipulation are usually treated separately in fiction, so can both shadowmelding and darkness manipulation, which works in Scott’s advantage as he travels through darkness, but Cyril’s useless in the dark. Also Scott tends to be timid and cowering in Cyril’s presence, since the latter tends to be really mean and irritable.

Tommy Heikinnen

Some man of Finnish descent, he has the ability to nullify gravity (which also speeds up time) which he uses to assault his victims using centrifugal projectiles. Sort of like what Lang Rangler does through his stand Jumping Jack Flash, Tommy’s surname is taken from a writer reporting about feral rabbits in Helsinki. His face is a masculinised version of Nina Hagen’s, the latter being a German rock singer. He dresses like what Cinamon Hadley wore in one photograph, Cinamon was also the inspiration for the DC Comics character Death. She comes from the magazine series The Sandman as written by disgraced author Neil Gaiman, she also shares some traits with Terry Pratchett’s version (being the older relative of other characters and also friendly).

Mind you, Terry Pratchett was a good friend of Gaiman’s. But for most of the part, Tommy Heikinnen is practically a separate person from all the real world people who inspired him. Two of them being women, especially appearance wise. It should be noted that both Tommy and Colin are blue-eyed, something neither Nina Hagen nor Liam Howlett are, despite being the inspiration for these two. Also Tommy tends to be blond and usually keeps his hair braided, given there are instances where it’s worn loose and flowing. Conversely speaking, Colin Sallow has the ability to stop time in a localised area (which also increases gravity) and usually keeps his hair loose, but has it tied in a ponytail from time to time. Tommy could be feisty, whilst Colin’s often calm.

As for fictional Canadian characters of Finnish descent, they certainly do exist and already have. I haven’t read any stories featuring them, but this is pure speculation here. So Tommy Heikinnen is in good company here, a Finnish Canadian criminal if there ever was one. He’s also a competent fighter, being kind of well-versed in kickboxing and while he’s not an escapologist like Colin, he’s athletic enough to do physically challenging activities a lot. Like sprinting fast enough to track down his victims, being able to lift something heavy with ease and so on. Colin’s also kind of athletic too, having somewhat decent boxing and fighting skills though he tends to be an escapologist.

Richard Sorm

He has the ability to preternaturally replay events as to solve cases, or so he did at his peak since Jean-Louis is now the main detective of the department. He’s something of a recovering alcoholic, because he’d drink as to calm himself down or make himself happier, however destructive this habit tended to be. He also suffers from depression, basically if Leone Abbacchio and Adam Dalgliesh are one and the same person. I actually wrote an unofficial story involving the latter turning out to be not only depressed, but also negligent towards his family. His wife Emma Lavenham would cheat on him whenever he’s away, yet she often prevents their son Mick from hanging out with his friends for long.

They never really divorced, but often lived apart from each other. You could say that despite AD falling in love with her, they ended up in a rather loveless marriage. Especially later on in life, after begetting Mick together that it’s shocking why Adam never divorced her or vice versa. Richard’s the same way with his own son Ian and his own wife Emma Havisham, except that Ian’s allowed to hang out with Jean-Louis but it makes one wonder if both parents did a bad job at parenting him. Jean-Louis feels more like his father than his actual father ever was and is, going so far to attend hunting expeditions together and stuff. Not to mention, Jean-Louis often saw Richard as his father after his own parents died.

He was his mentor and role model, so his methods of investigating resemble his even if their abilities differ. Much like Adam Dalgliesh, Richard Sorm has a habit of writing. He wrote poems, though they’re often very morbid, having attempted suicide multiple times before. Well, all roads lead to Finding Adam, where Adam Dalgliesh has attempted suicide before and often gets hospitalised for it. A man who seems to be a brilliant detective is actually a trainwreck as a parent and spouse, a real basket case behind closed doors. Richard Sorm is no different, having failed relationships before and stuff. While Richard was still a detective, Jean-Louis was the one who found Jemima trying to solve a case herself, though he had her sent back because she was intruding on his turf.

Trần Khôi Mạnh

A notorious criminal with the ability to create zippers as to not only make an escape but also to conceal weapons and trap people with, basically Bruno Buccellati if he’s a Vietnamese Canadian murderer on the run. When it comes to the way the Asian diaspora are seen in the west, one way is to portray them is to depict them as a model minority. The baseline for what other ethnic minorities should strive for and aspire to be, regardless of the former’s own struggles with racism and the like. The film Turning Red, as directed by the Canadian Domee Shi, depicts a girl who gets into loggerheads with her mother. Both of them are Chinese Canadian, where it turns out that the daughter in question wants to do things her parents disapprove of.

This might not be the only one to delve into cases where Asian westerners do rebel against their parents, another instance would be Simu Liu’s autobiography which got him beaten up by his own parents. Trần would be one such example where what appeared to be desiring a better life has taken on a turn for the worst, because he’s become a terrible serial killer on the run. One who’s even a gangster, well just like Bruno Buccellati. That’s not to say there aren’t any Asian western criminals either in fiction or in real life, but given the model minority stereotype it’s going to be hard thinking of them as actually indulging in criminality, let alone without the dog meat stereotype. One would wonder why nobody gets mad at Germans for poisoning dogs, even if it’s a big problem in German-speaking Europe.

Well, it’s something that plays into the othering of Asians in the western imaginary. Whilst they are upheld as an example to aspire to, they’re not necessarily fully trusted because they’re often treated as opposites of white westerners in some regards. So alien they might as well not be human, apart from white westerners and humanity in general. So to counter this, Maurice Lu actually keeps dogs and likes them. So does Hector Yang, though that’s because he’s legally blind and needs a dog to guide him whenever he’s out and about. Tran also keeps dogs, though he also uses them to attack his victims with. (Well, white boy Cyril does the same thing too.)

Alice Buquid

Another female character based on a male Jojo character, this time it’s Tsurugi Higashikata. Both of them have the same ability, that’s to find ways of unsettling people after folding something by proxy. She’s also the younger cousin of Maurice Lu and works as a seamstress, especially back in the Philippines where she acts as the main breadwinner since her own sister became a widow. She’s also kind of timid towards westerners, finding them rather strange upon arriving in Canada. She did make friends with Jemima and Patricia, though she pretty much prefers the Philippines more. She’s much happier in the latter than the former, mostly due to the racism she receives.

Now onto Asian seamstresses and the like, they do exist in fiction as they do in real life. But I feel outside of Asian media, they might as well be nonexistent in western media. It should be noted that whenever Asians get jobs in western media at all, they oftentimes work in STEM despite the existence of Asian westerners in the garment industry in the real world. At other times, it speaks to a narrow point of reference. Sometimes it’s due to holding onto preconceptions, regardless of the contrary facts being given (confirmation bias). So this is probably why it’s easier to portray Asian characters being into STEM, than say anything else that they’ve been caught dead doing in the real world.

Whether if it’s football like Maya Yoshida, or fashion in the case with one of my aunts, it’s going to be hard naming Asians who are into anything else if you either hold onto preconceptions or know so little about them that it’s going to play out the same for you. Other than that, it would be nice having a seamstress character in video games. This may’ve happened before and particularly in some dressup games, though this is largely hypothetical. But it’s not bad to have another seamstress character in video games, given the potential to explore what’s like to make clothes for a living, how to sew garments and stuff. One could have done an interactive fiction game with a tailor/seamstress in it, to teach people what’s like to make clothes for a living.

John Birdwhistle

The traitor of the department who’s in fact a spy sent to kill people, considering he has the ability to spread a virus that kills its victims instantly. Basically Pannacotta Fugo if Hirohiko Araki went with the idea without feeling bad about it, he even looks and acts like him but older (definitely a real adult). There were a few others leery of him, considering that he’s something of a serial killer who brutally attacks his victims. But the fact that he seemed to be on the side of good makes it easy for others to trust and overlook his faults, however detrimental they may be in the long run and in reality. In the case with characters who infect people to death, they certainly do exist but it’s not always well-thought out or well-done.

One particularly early example would be Infectious Lass from DC Comics, her ability’s potentially really deadly if you consider how infections can risk killing people in due time. Something that could’ve been played up at any point in the actual stories she may’ve appeared in, though I don’t think it’s used often because the consequences are going to be grisly. Even with less censorship restrictions, I feel writers generally shy away from it. If you have a character who could infect somebody to death, there’s no getting around how deadly and disgusting, even horrifying it is. Something like Resident Evil plays up this idea, though it’s something DC Comics may’ve considered but largely shy away from.

Since Resident Evil’s all about surviving a world where people get infected and become terrifying creatures to be defeated, this easily lends itself to macabre atmospheres and sentiments. Not so much with a superheroine that while it could be pulled off, the consequences are hardly ever going to be nice. I suppose making the character a villain would make things better, though making them a good guy may’ve already worked before in video games since Pannacotta Fugo did appear in a video game adaptation of Golden Wind. It wasn’t released internationally because the characters’ stands are often named after bands, albums and musicians, though they’re being renamed these days.

William Raube

The game’s very own Cioccolata and has the same ability (and occupation) as he does, he’s a surgeon gone rogue with the ability to spread a fungus that rapidly decays its victim. He is Mary Stilfox’s first boyfriend who’s incredibly cruel with an obsession with recording his victims’ deaths, no wonder why he’s on the run from the police. Both local and international, considering that Jean-Louis is Canadian. His ethics are very questionable, even early on in his career and the worse they got, the more Mary broke up with him. It’s not that there weren’t any Scottish villains before, one such example would probably be DC’s Doctor Alchemy.

Though having him be a rogue Scottish surgeon is an interesting development, one that makes him an evil parallel to Mary Stilfox in this regard. Or at least someone who ended up choosing the wrong path and ethos in life, someone who was involved in Mary’s life and were friends turned lovers for a while. Until he did sick experiments onto people that she got fed up with him and moved onto somebody else instead, to get back at her he did this to one of her male cousins and had her fuming with serious rage. I kind of feel that given Jojo’s tendency towards foreboding and the macabre, owing to the author’s love of horror, it would be befitting to adapt a chunk of it onto something mystery-related.

If because I feel mashing up Jojo with straight up superheroes kind of feels wrong, because Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure tends to have a rather foreboding atmosphere. One that’s more at home in a Roald Dahl story than it would with DC and Marvel, tonally speaking at times, but then again I read Roald Dahl a lot before. Maybe not wrong all the way, but I feel Jojo doesn’t consistently feel like its stories would belong in DC and Marvel. When I mean by foreboding, there’s often a feeling of looming misfortune and mishap happening at any point in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Something bad would happen at any point, something disgusting will happen at any point. Again Hirohiko Araki’s a horror fan and it shows.

Scott Nygard

He can be considered analogous to Pesci in that both of them travel through shadows, in the latter’s case through his stand Black Sabbath. I’m misremembering things but since this is a video game where the main boss is Cyril Darkholme, a character who transduces energy into darkness but is useless in the dark, so it makes sense for his ability to be separate from darkness manipulation proper. It’s like how in fiction it’s common to treat time manipulation as separate from gravity manipulation, even though they’re interrelated in science and reality. So it’s only fair to treat darkness manipulation and shadowmelding as separate, which works to Scott’s advantage as he’s a miniboss.

He also tends to cower in Cyril’s presence, since he often gets mad at him and makes him do things when he threatens him. So he does whatever Cyril tells him to do, though sometimes he does things at will. I feel when it comes to darkness manipulation in fiction, it’s often treated as a rather ghostly ability. Maybe not always consistently so, but in the lines of being kind of eerie and supernatural. Sort of like the thing with DC’s Obsidian, he doesn’t just manipulate darkness but also make himself intangible and stuff. But since darkness manipulation is separate from shadowmelding in this game, so Cyril only makes shadow constructs from transducing energy while Scott goes through shadows.

That’s really what both of them only do respectively, one only makes shadow constructs from transducing electromagnetism and the other only moves through shadows. Sometimes I feel it’s still kind of convenient to treat darkness manipulation as a rather ghostly ability, something that encompasses shadowmelding yet time manipulation’s treated independently of gravity manipulation. Even if both of them are interrelated in reality, or for another matter light manipulation and invisibility from time to time. Considering that Jean-Louis manipulates light himself, he’s shown to make someone, something and himself invisible. In addition to creating blinding glares, lasers and holographic disguises and illusions.