It never really influenced me much

I have listened to K-Pop myself and for some curious reason, I never really get obsessive or curious over any K-Pop band or musician for long the way I do with European bands like Ace of Base, Massive Attack, The Prodigy and Aqua, nor am I actually that influenced by them beyond some interest in South Korea itself in a way. I don’t think I’m really that heavily influenced by any K-Pop band or musician to the extent that I don’t really bother namedropping any one K-Pop member the way I do with Ace of Base members when it comes to learning Indonesian. These are from my notebooks and examples include ‘Jenny membukakan pintu untuk Malin’ (Jenny Berggren’s the younger sister of Malin Berggren, who’s actually the middle child in their family) and ‘Kartu tersebut akan beritahu Ulf Jonas akan pulang’ (Jonas Berggren is the oldest sibling in the family, Ulf Ekberg’s the only nonrelative and was also involved in white supremacy at some point). Nor creating characters resembling any K-Pop celebrity the way I do with the Prodigy and Massive Attack, mind you I based the characters of Fabrice Tientcheu (a forensic scientist) and Colin Sallow (a young politician) after the two oldest surviving members (Maxim and Liam Howlett). Then there’s the Nigerian lawyer Babatunde Osofisan who’s clearly Grant Marshall and the Florentine economist Gaetano Saturni who’s based on Robert Del Naja, not to mention I even have a habit of mirroring mirrored Ace of Base, Massive Attack and Aqua fansites.

Let’s not forget I have also listened to the likes of Altan, Clannad and Capercaillie where these bands piqued my interests in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic, wherein I even bothered learning those for a time being. It’s kind of weird to think not a single K-Pop band actually influenced me to learn Korean in any way, where any K-Pop band has seriously influenced some of the people I have encountered or followed online in any way before. I actually know somebody who does fanart of both Backstreet Boys and Stray Kids, despite being into the Backstreet Boys at some point I don’t like them anymore. But it’s strange that I never really gotten into any K-Pop band or musician, let alone for as long as I have with these bands to the point of mirroring archived fansites mentioning them in any capacity. Let alone namedropping any K-Pop member when learning a new language the way I have with Ace of Base and Aqua members, that it seems whatever influence K-Pop bands have on me is very negligible. The influence they have on me is likely not that tangible, beyond some interest in the K-Pop industry and Korean culture, that it’s kind of strange I never created characters resembling K-Pop musicians. I never namedrop any K-Pop musician when learning a new language like Indonesian, never bothered archiving fansites about them in any way I have with Ace of Base, Massive Attack and Aqua.

It’s not entirely absent but it’s not particularly noticeable in my life that it seems whatever interest I have in K-Pop is more likely to be in passing, since I don’t really get particularly attached to any K-Pop band for some reason. I neither like nor dislike K-Pop that much, but I never really gotten into any K-Pop musician or band that much for that long. The music isn’t bad, but it never really obsessed me much. I’m not entirely immune to K-Pop’s charms but it’s something that I never really got obsessive over in any way, but that I never really developed much interest in any K-Pop band to the point of actively looking for any fansite about any one of them really.

Whither K-Pop

Nakita has a lot of videos concerning the spiritual state of the K-Pop industry and by extension, its originator South Korea itself, that it seems less appealing from the inside out. Not just that K-Pop trainees have to undergo grueling schedules to get to where they are or could be if they never become K-Pop musicians at all (E-Jay auditioned as one but ended up writing songs for the film ‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ instead), but there’s also the odd possibility of Satanic rituals getting done behind close doors that some K-Pop producers’ and musicians’ ascent to popularity takes on a more dubiously Faustinian quality. No different from their western counterparts to the extent of K-Pop musicians repeatedly alluding to the occult and the Devil himself, for they are rebellious and proud per the Bible’s stance on the same. There are even people who also said that JY Park is a false teacher who leads people astray with his dubious teachings and equally dubious music, which would explain why Stray Kids are called Stray Kids. He might even molest all members behind closed doors, but it’s not hidden to God and it will be found out in public.

I feel the issue of idolatry would be the same if somebody substitutes BTS for INXS, but what will differ is a change in sentiment towards South Korean mass culture/Hallyu. I suppose if more scandals were to be uncovered surrounding the K-Pop industry that it might even become unfashionable to publicly admit to liking K-Pop and Hallyu, that it may become highly stigmatised in the future. The issue of idolatry would remain if something like Hungarian, Romanian, Swedish and Polish music were to get really popularised in Canada, but it would become more socially acceptable to partake in anti-Korean sentiment there that to defend K-Pop is to be an outcast. And even then K-Pop is pretty questionable in and of itself, where you have others admitting they couldn’t get into K-Pop because they found the male musicians to be too effeminate and cartoonish. That’s not to say K-Pop boy bands and male solo musicians are necessarily effeminate, but they do things that are really strange for bands like Backstreet Boys and One Direction to regularly do. It’s not uncommon for K-Pop boy band members to dye their hair in strange colours, wear makeup and act cutesy. It would be really weird if many Backstreet Boys members did the same.

(The Backstreet Boys would also be judged for the same things their K-Pop counterparts do, to the point where they all die ingloriously as well as get found out for adultery, sex trafficking and filming snuff videos featuring women, children and animals.)

The western male musicians who do regularly wear makeup in any way are far likelier to be not at all from prefabricated boy bands, something like those from the Prodigy, Tokio Hotel, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Bauhaus, The Damned and the like, that if Bill Kaulitz had been a boy band member (if both Robbie Williams and Harry Styles are any indication), then he’d have to put on a facade of being somebody contrary to his usual presentation. Then again it’s possible it’s not uncommon for western boy bands to be molested by their producers, that they too get corrupted spiritually over time provided when occult activity’s involved at all (even Boyzone’s Shane Lynch said this). This makes their Korean counterparts even more peculiar given how popular they really are outside of South Korea, the way Japanese boy bands aren’t to the same extent and even those who aren’t from prefab bands aren’t well-known to the general public outside of Japanophiles. K-Pop might be popular among certain sectors of the general public, but it’s something that gets more international airplay than J-Pop does, at least for now if K-Pop were to end for real.

That’s from my experience listening to K-Pop not only on local (Philippine) radio stations but also their Mexican counterparts like Radio Disney (believe it or not, it’s still a thing in Latin America for now as the original one’s gone as it will sold to Brazil’s Globo to become Radio Jovem or something due to Disney’s failings), that K-Pop is really more popular among overseas audiences in a way J-Pop isn’t that you can be into K-Pop without really being into anime productions. It’s possible for one’s interest in J-Pop to grow independent of being into anime, but they’re generally entwined not just due to the nature of anime soundtracks containing those but also an overall Japanophilia. In the Philippines I kind of get the impression that Hallyu/South Korean mass culture’s more popular among non-anime fans, but it could be that Hallyu’s better marketed to those outside of geek circles. And even then it’s strange why would both South Korea and the Philippines, both East Asian countries with substantial Christian populations, would openly partake in idolatry that they will get comeuppances for what they do as to be given over to China forever.

South Korea might end up reuniting with North Korea, that the later version of Hallyu (if it were to persist in some way) would evolve to fit the new Korean reality at best. But even then the K-Pop industry as we know it might not exist anymore and likely the same for offshoots like P-Pop, where if a P-Pop industry were to grow substantially and since these musicians are openly referred to as idols, that such an industry and likely a degree of Korean (and moreso Western/American) influence in the Philippines will be revoked forever. If because the Philippines loves its sins and chooses to do evil, that the things that make it distinctive in East Asia will either be revoked or minimised, that eventually in the near future the Philippines will really be no different from the rest of its neighbours in most regards. South Korea would be no different either as it’s been suspected that K-Pop takes its cues from American music and more specifically African American music, quite unsurprisingly some of the earliest K-Pop musicians like Seo Taji were also into hip hop at some point, that such an industry would collapse and get revoked over time as well. Ultimately the K-Pop industry and its offshoots will be over, same goes for the J-Pop idol industry that it will look very different in the future.

And even if J-Pop were to continue existing in the future, it would be one where there are no openly proclaimed idols at all. It would be a different music industry in the wider East Asian region by then where there were once prefab boy bands and girl groups, now there are going to be more K-Rock, Trot, K-Rap and Ballad musicians as Trot is a genre specific to South Korea. There might still be singers who don’t write their own songs and play instruments, there might still be pop bands in the molds of Aqua and Ace of Base, but the boy band and girl group schools will be over by then. If because with these bands there’s a tendency to deliberate cultish interest in them, where members have to adopt personae to appeal to these people regardless of who they really are in person. And even their social media presence is more likely to be highly curated, considering that it might not fully reflect on what else interests them offline. It would be frightening if somebody like AJ McLean doesn’t have affairs with his fans (same with Nick Carter), but also films himself abusing women and animals (which Nick also does) that goes to show you their own public online presences don’t fully represent their actual personalities, given the nature of dark web.

And it would be pretty frightening if Nick Carter also films himself abusing women and animals mixed with Satanic rituals, that there will even come a time when all the Backstreet Boys will show up onstage dressed as demons and flashing the Satanic pentagram onscreen that makes you wonder who they actually serve, and it’s much likelier they don’t really serve God at all, despite Brian Littrell proclaiming himself to be a Christian. This is also true for their K-Pop counterparts and why such curated personae exist, even when the musicians themselves don’t consistently live up to it even in private and online. It’s not necessarily wrong to be in a vocal group and boy bands really do have their roots in doo-wop, but the way boy bands and girl groups are made deliberate idolatry in their fans that it’s likely why such affections exist in the first place. To the extent it’s wiser to do a Zac Hanson than to do a Brian Littrell, losing fans by mistake only to come closer to God and do the Great Commission (that Littrell himself wanted to do at some point). A would-be member named Burk Parsons went on to become a pastor instead, dodging a bullet that would’ve had fans writing pornographic stories about him by then. (This would’ve been called visuals at the height of BSB’s popularity.)

The way such obsession’s engineered and deliberated to even induce sexual obsessions with them at various points, even if it’s not unique to boy bands as others undergo this in a way as well, that even if not all boy band fans (much less K-Pop and BSB fans) remain like this, but it’s terribly not uncommon to find pornographic fanfictions with K-Pop and BSB really. And why it speaks volumes to this sort of engineered rebellion and idolatry that those who could’ve formed families (sometimes it doesn’t go as expected due to their own shortcomings affecting things) end up getting really devoted to those bands instead. The problem’s the same if you substitute Stray Kids with Stray Cats, but what’s different with K-Pop is how upfront it is about these things as to warrant getting removed for good. To close things though I didn’t get into any K-Pop band for real, I do have my moments of idolatry towards musicians and bands as to get disappointed at times, and I listened to K-Pop before until God told me to stop listening to this and eventually I did. Angelamarie Ucci said that idols can disappoint people (as it did to me before), that there’s a current backlash to Taylor Swift (her former favourite musician) for having a man she truly loves in her life.

It’s like this with one musician, though I’ve prayed for it, it does prove Ucci’s point right. She’s likely praying for Taylor Swift too and will be saved in due time, though it remains to be seen if it gets fulfilled at all, but ultimately there’s something about the showbiz industry that deliberates obsessive behaviours towards otherwise unlikable people that it feels like a cosmic prank played by Satan to go after people the public doesn’t genuinely trust and like all the time and why idolatry’s bad, which is something I still struggle with at times, to the point where things happen if I can’t worship God and Mammon. I do pray for them, though some will be answered in due time, as for others it might not be answered at all if they continue to do evil, so said the Lord.

Smells like reprobate spirit

Here’s somebody prophesising that Seattle will actually get nuked by Russia, which is one of those cities in the Pacific Northwest. This is something specific to the North American continent where it’s characterised by a climate comparable to parts of Europe as well as having a kind of cultural character that’s open to anything kind of politically leftist, it should also be noted that Seattle is the city that begat the likes of grunge rock music and Microsoft. The latter is the one that gives us the most commonly used operating system, though China’s Huawei might introduce something that wouldn’t just preserve things from whatever Microsoft’s browsers and the like had (for want of a better phrasing) but also improve on it significantly. Like if you use your browser from a previous OS, Huawei’s own Windows might preserve all the websites you go there (your bookmarks as well) and so on.

A case of the pupil becoming better than their teacher, bluer than blue and gladder than glad. One might wonder if either China’s Huawei or perhaps Russia’s Ucoz might introduce something that improves on other existing American technologies like web browsers for instance, where Huawei might introduce something like Microsoft Edge but better. Russia’s Ucoz (or China’s own versions) might improve on existing software needed to make websites more easily with to the point of getting popularised all over the world and becoming the new world standard in a way, an even more telling sign is when both China and Russia introduce softwares that help preserve bookmarks from a previous browser and operating system when updating the computer or changing to another operating system at all. Which is practically what I said before, wherein China and Russia improve on the technologies America introduced.

In the same way America improved on the technologies countries like France introduced, especially when it comes to something like animation. Then we get to Seattle’s other best known export as first introduced in the 1980s and 1990s, you may know this as grunge and this is best typified by the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. Although Pearl Jam might not be any better in some or similar regards either, but being more familiar with the former two both of them are no strangers to blaspheming God at all. To the point of mocking the crucification of Jesus Christ, don’t be deceived as you don’t God without not getting away with it. Which is the crux of this person’s prophecy and whilst this isn’t even unique to these bands alone, but being well-around around the world carries a weighty (ir)responsibility that Seattle bears and wrought onto the world.

(Similar things can be said of Nine Inch Nails too, though Trent Reznor might not have come from Seattle or even the general Pacific Northwest himself and will get punished for the same thing. Maybe he already did when he developed a drug addiction after the release of Closer’s music video.)

Before grunge it could be said that the best-known musician to emerge from Seattle was Jimi Hendrix and he does similarly gritty-sounding music, though both the physiogeographical and socioeconomic conditions has what made Seattle beget grunge is more specific. In addition to being kind of grey and remote, for a time being it wasn’t that prosperous so bands would spent time improving and playing at home. That and developing a peculiar sound and mentality that reflects on the circumstances they came from, but since grunge also means dirt and the Bible also likens spiritual defilement to dirt. So it befits that bands like Soundgarden and Nirvana also churn out filth, especially something of the spiritual variety. Kurt Cobain was even so angry at God at to blaspheme him repeatedly, though it could also be said that he was deeply traumatised by his parents’ divorce that it’s a wound that’s never healed.

(Somebody said that my issues with unforgiveness might stem from the unhealed wounds of trauma, so this might explain why I have recurring issues with it and the like.)

There’s a video somewhere online where somebody insinuated that they saw Kurt Cobain in hell or something, admittedly I’ve gotten mad at God for being able to let a pet live as this happened to me before something like that since I didn’t want her to die at the time. Kurt Cobain could’ve eventually been reconciled to God at some point, but from rejecting him so much that he ended up killing himself eventually. Although it could be said that Nirvana’s legacy continues in a tangible way as one member from this band went on to form Foo Fighters, but since he admitted to having been in an affair with another woman that perhaps Nirvana’s own legacy is more questionable than one realises. It should be noted that Soundgarden’s very own Chris Cornell also killed himself, prompting Chester Bennington to do the same thing, that it seems Seattle’s up to no good in a way.

A kind of Sodom and Gomorrah where evil or embarassment hides behind a cool veneer, I remember this sermon where somebody said that even if Bill Gates does good things he’s not necessarily a (consistently) good person behind closed doors. Eventually it turned out he too had an affair with another woman, there’s also another statement by someone else that he’s actually really evil. Seattle might not seem like the go-for American city of sin at first when compared to Los Angeles and New York, but if you look hard enough it’s also got its own vices that it popularises onto the world. Another one would be Hooters where workers for that restaurant dress provocatively and then get sexually harassed for it, that it does make one wonder why would a country like America even popularise this thing to begin with. Even if countries like Japan aren’t without their own issues with sexual harassment as well, but America’s case is more peculiar.

In the sense that America proclaims itself to be a Christian country, yet it also continues to do much to the contrary without collectively trying to better itself that it’s pointless (this also goes for the Philippines too as what many preachers have pointed out). It’s kind of surreal to think that the nation that has some of the most prominent and widely distributed Christian ministries today also widely distributes and popularises filth like porn magazines and porn films, it’s a house divided and so double-minded as to get unstable over time. Hooters and arguably grunge bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden are no different either, with the latter two they even get international airplay in places like Mexico and the Philippines. Seattle still seems like an unlikely target of God’s ire the way Los Angeles and New York are, but still warranting this as it’s really no better either. To the point where you’d have to get out in time.

Or before that as Seattle will hit by Russian nuclear bombs five times, enough to wipe out people in an instant. Seattle will be terribly irradiated when this happens, it should be noted that North America faces Russia to its west. As soon as Russia takes back Alaska, it will bomb the Pacific Northwest. It will nuke cities like Portland, Seattle and Aberdeen, America will be so terribly irradiated that the whole world plunges into a kind of nuclear winter lasting for years. A kind of global cooling happens, as a result of the most disastrous world war to ever be unleashed. There would be so many casualties that makes the previous World War seem like child’s play, per another woman’s wording of the same prophetic vision given to Emmanuel Minos before he passed away. Whilst WWII is the first time nuclear bombs were ever carried out in combat, WWIII’s usage of the same would be more widespread.

This is because there were really only two nuclear bombs that got detonated in just two Japanese cities, WWIII’s use of nuclear warfare happens on multiple sites like Moscow, New York and Minneapolis. Living conditions will worsen to the point where Americans may even eat their own children and fur kids alike, America might even cease to exist as a nation-state due to its own sins. Before this, America may invade Iran very soon. This further exacerbates tensions between America and West Asia, to the extent that they will come to ally more with Russia from then on. America will be wiped off from the planet in both ways (physiogeographically and culturally) because it is the highest sinner, the most arrogant nation-state to ever exist in recent memory. Even if it were possible for America to remain in some manner, its influence would still get undone as it already is elsewhere.

It’s a kind of befitting coincidence that the emergence and popularisation of grunge music coincided with the start of America as either the world’s only superpower or a true hyperpower if there ever was one at all, or for another matter Microsoft since it also comes from Seattle. There are also prophecies of Florida getting destroyed big time, very much where the Backstreet Boys started out there and will also get judged themselves along with the entire state. Another musical phenomenon from America to emerge when America was the unchallenged superpower in the 1990s and 2000s, with many more scandals revolving around them that the next ones will arrive swiftly. Not just with the rape accusations but also accusations of adultery behind all their wives’ backs, human trafficking and involvement in snuff videos that it seem this band’s worse than they think of themselves as. much worse than fans would realise.

In a sense they are also symptomatic of America’s duplicity, both as missionary and corrupter of people. As much as I have had nostalgia for the 1990s and early 2000s, it was also a decade where America/Mystery Babylon truly reigned supreme. The most evil country and civilisation at this point in time, spewing good and evil at the same time. Utterly evil, worthy of destruction and judgement.

They’ve been gone astray

When it comes to Nakita pointing out that Stray Kids’s own manager, JY Park, is a false teacher and he does a lot to lead people astray, it does make people wonder why he’d call this band as such? Pretending to be a pastor yet doing a lot to the contrary at times, even calling himself the Asian counterpart to P Diddy (who’s involved in human trafficking himself) and possibly molesting or abusing his own trainees even, what sort of man he really is and why he’ll be judged for this. Nakita went on saying that when the Stray Kids first appeared in public, they weren’t this muscular before. She went on saying that K-Pop is anti-Christian, because it promotes and propagates worldly values a lot.

For the longest period in my life, I listened to a lot of secular music. But as of late, the closer I get to God, the less time I have for secular music even when I felt like doing this at times. I’m still not there yet, getting it wrong even when I wanted to do right many times over, it kind of hurts not doing the good you want to do. He also made groups I have listened to before Stray Kids got big, something like Wonder Girls (I Got Nobody But You) and Miss A. The weird thing about K-Pop is that I listened to that sort of music before, but I never developed a strong fascination with any K-Pop band. Even more remarkable still is that at this point in my life, I have some interest in K-Pop but never particularly interested in any one K-Pop musician and band for long. Well I know some people who’re way more into K-Pop than I’ll ever be.

One wrote for various outfits like Teen Vogue, Rebellion (what a minute, does this tie into what K-Pop’s been doing all along?) and the like over the years, the other is also a Backstreet Boys whose very own JY Park is none other than Brian Littrell. Not so much that he’s the manager of the group, but in the sense of being an outspoken Christian who does a lot to the contrary. When Burk Parsons got interviewed by Tim Challies years ago, he said that Littrell was going to serve in ministry himself. He also said that he was going to be part of the Backstreet Boys himself, but by following God’s plan he dodged a bullet. Otherwise we could’ve gotten porn fanfics of Burk Parsons on somewhere like AO3, there was a time when these stories were called visuals during the height of the Backstreet Boys’ popularity.

It would be painfully horrid if all the Backstreet Boys have fans for mistresses, but it seems Littrell seems more wedded to the world than he thinks of himself as. It’s even odder still to think that his contemporary Zac Hanson is actually living out the dream he had before, who also came from the same background as he did. But once Hansongate happened to him, it was that pivotal moment that drew him back to God, and his walk back to him was certainly awkward since I also backslided before and come from the same background as he did. Just replace Eastern Orthodoxy with Roman Catholicism, even though I’ve yet to convert to Catholicism myself. But even then there’s something wrong with Littrell choosing to love the world, even though he’s a Christian that it seems he might be double-minded.

Or perhaps he might not be double-minded at first, but he never stops his bandmates from blaspheming God, abusing people themselves (especially Nick Carter over the years), so on and so forth that he practically enables them. Or that being around in their company for so long it has dulled his judgement of sin, but either way it seems Brian Littrell arguably got worse over time. It’s really oddly telling why Brian Littrell never really quit the limelight for long to focus more on doing church service in private, the way both Zac Hanson and Jenny Berggren of Ace of Base (also a contemporary of the Backstreet Boys) did or ended up doing, the Berggren siblings survived a stalker attack but got one of them traumatised for long as to retire from the spotlight in order to take time to recover and heal. This also got Berggren closer to God this way.

Even then it seems there’s something wrong about the Backstreet Boys where it’s telling that when somebody on YouTube insinuated that people like him are arrogant (I struggle with this as well) and a radio preacher insinuated that people like him are wicked, it’s telling why Brian Littrell ended up this way that if he did start out wanting to serve God in earnest but got off-track for long and never repented, never tried doing better in any way the next time comes and stuff, it seems he’ll die at any point along with all his colleagues. Or JY Park and his family for another matter for corrupting people, that ultimately both Stray Kids and Backstreet Boys are going to be doomed in the future and so will the entire K-Pop industry. Even more alarming is when the entire K-Pop industry collapses for good.

Never to be seen again in any form along with its counterparts on anywhere else in East Asia, including the Philippines when it comes to P-Pop.

Don’t Get Your Fight On

In the world of superhero stories and their ilk (the ability battle school), characters are almost always compelled to fight in some way or another. Thus we barely get a glimpse of what they do in their personal lives, because they’re almost always made to fight regardless of how manufactured these battles are. There are stories where superheroes do spend time on their hobbies, but it’s usually not for long, as they have to fight villains for certain, unknown reasons. Not that there’s anything wrong with superheroes having downtime but it’s hard to see them having any real downtime, especially when they’re almost always compelled to fight villains this and that. It’s a setup that’s great for ‘versus’ type fan battles, but not great for building up the characters’ personal lives.

In the case with Supergirl, from what I’ve read, there’s not much emphasis on her personal life. Even if it helps to differentiate her from her better known cousin Superman in certain ways, like if Supergirl’s way more into learning about Earth cultures and biota than he is, befitting somebody who’s practically an outsider to Earth longer than him. But for as long as Supergirl’s compelled to fight villains every day, every hour, every minute, we barely get a sense of what she does in her downtime. Though this isn’t even unique to superhero stories as other storytelling schools have this to an extent, but it’s not hard to see how and why superhero stories repel or put off certain people. Like they have to fight recurring villains for some reason, even if they should’ve found a way to put an end to their antics.

Or at least minimise it more than it’s already being done, at least in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure there’s not this much recurring villains. The only recurring villains in the Jojo canon would be Dio Brando and possibly Yoshikage Kira, but even then the latter’s not a villain anymore in subsequent Jojo stories. I could be wrong about it but it seems in the world of superhero stories, superheroes have to have recurring villains. In fact, a good number of superhero stories have a lot of recurring villains of some sort. Like how Superman has to regularly confront Lex Luthor and Brainiac, or better still Batman with Catwoman, the Joker, Mr Freeze, The Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.

I even think it kind of makes it easier to not only take the villains for granted, but also tire of them eventually. Maybe this isn’t the case for others, but it’s kind of boring seeing the same villain again and again. In fact, it gets boring seeing the same villain again and again for years, or even the same villains all over again and again for long. But one thing I said before is that characters with extraordinary abilities needn’t to get into fights, when they could easily pool said abilities into doing something useful for everyday life. Like if you have a character who makes silk in the lines of Cindy Moon, they could always make a living from weaving or sewing. That’s actually the case with silkmaking for years, people would harvest silk from silkworms and then use it for weaving and sewing.

Having a character who makes silk themselves would easily bypass the whole killing the silkworm thing really, logically a pyrokinetic would do real well in cooking as fires were historically used to cook food with. That’s pretty obvious to people who use gas stoves, a pyrokinetic doing the same thing would be not much of a stretch really. But it does make one wonder if these writers are kind of creatively bankrupt in that they mostly churn out stories where the characters use their abilities in combat, not so much in other things that are really useful to humanity. Something like weaving, cooking, sewing, investigating and so much more, that seemingly useless abilities turn out to be useful in some other way. It needn’t to involve combat for somebody’s odd abilities to be useful, though it’s easier to resort to combat all over again.

Which makes this school of writing all the more limiting because you’re compelled to write fights this and that, where using some other school of writing or narrative device would prove to be more malleable. Sort of like the limitations of using superheroes to communicate Biblical messages with, considering that there was something like the Power Mark comics before. This was a Christian superhero series but one where children often retold Bible stories through sophisticated devices, the titular hero Power Mark doesn’t spend much time beating up people. The fact that he forgives his sister who worked for a nefarious group doesn’t just exemplify the Christian virtue of loving your enemies, but also going against the superhero school’s more vindictive tendencies. Like how Kitty Pryde, Batman and Punisher are compelled by grudges towards people as to take out their anger on anybody who’s wronged them.

Kitty Pryde actually singlehandedly massacred an entire group of people for killing her own, but then again she has killed other people in anger before multiple times over. She’s even beat up people in anger, has repeatedly fought Professor Xavier and throws tantrums a lot that she’s far from cool-headed, I guess it’s an easier sell to have an angry character take out their frustrations on anybody who’s wronged them. Instead of a character who does their best to overcome bitterness and let God do the fighting for them, so this is probably why the Manga Next Bible series didn’t just do better, but also is more readily accessible even in pirated form. I suppose it’s easier to retell the Bible using a Japanese comics aesthetic, than it is to tell it through superheroes, given the expectations of what a superhero story should be as set by the DC and Marvel schools. So it kind of does explain why it’s so hard coming up with stories where characters would use their abilities outside of combat.

It’s already been done before but rather rarely and this also speaks volumes about a lot of these writers not writing and doing anything else that would make it easier and more convenient to tell stories involving characters who use their powers for something truly useful in everyday life, like it shouldn’t be hard for a character who secretes silk to pursue a life of weaving and sewing for a living. Since it’s been like this with silkmaking for years, that this is actually pretty plausible and even realistic. A character with a sonic scream would see no reason to fight, given they may have no use for it at all and may parlay such an ability into something else like radio announcements and stuff, that’s if you habitually listen to the radio and livestreams a lot like I do. This ability would be pretty useful in church sermons, the better for people to get the message of God more succintly and adequately.

Such attempts do exist but these are often intermittent at best, given the expectation is to have characters fight one another with these abilities. Even if it’s possible to have some other use for these abilities and skills, ones that would lend themselves well to something like criminal investigation. Or hunting for another matter, since one of my characters is named Jean-Louis Lumiere and he doesn’t just manipulate light, but he’s as much as a hunter as he’s a professional detective. Like if you manipulate light to make it easier to track down criminal activity, you could also do this to hunt game animals with. It’s not inconceivable that somebody like him would gravitate to these activities, though it does make one wonder if those authors have any knowledge of these things, even secondhand in a way.

The thing with KPop

KPop is one of many Korean exports to the world, though it’s far from the only facet of Korean music. Before KPop, South Korea did things like Trot and K-Ballads. These two things aren’t widely exported outside of that country, though they may lack certain baggage associated with KPop. Another particularly odd thing about KPop is that a number of boy band members dye their hair in colours you wouldn’t normally associate western boy bands with, let alone without being labelled as the bad boy of the group. That and dressing in a much more sexualised manner than is afforded to their western counterparts. Admittedly, I don’t know these groups well. But the thing here is that among western popular music groups, the sort of musicians who’d usually do these things were obviously not going to be boy band types.

No, these were more likely to be affiliated with either edgy dance music (the late Keith Flint from the Prodigy), edgy rock music (Bauhaus, Sex Pistols, The Clash) or even rap music on certain occasions, but not flat out boy bands. I don’t think I’ve seen the Backstreet Boys in their prime wearing crop tops and mesh shirts often the way their KPop counterparts do, maybe I’m misremembering but it’s not hard to see how and why KPop boy bands seem far more sexualised than their western counterparts are. Like they wear clothes no member of the Backstreet Boys would dare to wear in public, dye their hair in colours no member of the Backstreet Boys would often do (especially if you have more KPop members doing the same thing really) and act cloying in a way none of the Backstreet Boys would openly do.

It would be kind of a hot take to say that KPop boy bands make their western counterparts look frumpy and dowdy by comparison, if because they often wear outfits that no western boy band would do and a lot of their members dye their hair in ways most of the Backstreet Boys wouldn’t touch with a three metre pole. Comes to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen AJ McLean in his prime dye his hair pink the way Bang Chan did. None of the Backstreet Boys wear makeup as often as their Korean counterparts do, and it goes back to what I’ve been saying about KPop bands is that they do things that are unthinkable for their western counterparts. And usually among western musicians, the sort of men who’d frequently do this were often the edgy blokes. The sort of blokes who’re deeper into edgy music genres than something like boy band music.

Could you imagine Nick Carter in his prime dyeing his hair green like what some KPop musicians do, wear really sheer shirts and wear lipstick like they do? The closest comparable example would be Bill Kaulitz but he’s never part of a boy band to begin with. So he’s practically free to do whatever he likes to do, make the sort of music he and his bandmates love doing and stuff. Whereas with western boy bands, they’re often pigeonholed into roles and are expected to live up to this, which KPop boy bands also do. Sort of like how in KPop bands, a certain member’s made to fill out the role of the youngest sibling and another gets to rap. Or in western boy bands, there’s going to be a good boy type and a bad boy type, despite appearances to the contrary with others like Nick Carter at times.

(Never ask a woman about her age, or a man about his salary, or Backstreet Boys fans if Nick Carter raped somebody.)

Another thing is how KPop agencies openly encourage and enable idolatry of their bands, even if what their western counterparts do is practically no different really. Like it’s not enough to stream their music, find literature about them, buy merchandise associated with them, or even attend their concerts. Admittedly this is also what western musicians and bands do, which is more distresssing if a Christian musician also does this too, like they like being the centre of attention and stuff. (I do struggle with pride and I have prayed to God to do something about Jenny Berggren from Ace of Base, since it’s something she fell into and risked trouble for it before.) On a nationwide scale, it would be pretty distressing for a country with a substantial Christian population like South Korea to do this.

Somebody like Nakita said that one another reason why the South Korean birthrate is so low is because South Korea enables idolatry a lot, but most especially of KPop musicians at that. If you reap what you sow, this is what you get. And in the case with South Korea, this resulted in certain problems. Low birth rates is, in my opinion, one symptom of another problem. I find myself wondering if South Korea prioritising KPop at the expense of something that wouldn’t just unite Korean people, but also build better spiritual relationships with the rest of East Asia and how it results in unnecessary problems like the 4B movement and stuff. The 4B movement involves women not wanting to do with mediocre men, but I can’t help but assume part of it’s got to do with their expectations of men set by KPop.

That’s not to say KPop’s any less Korean but that at other times the average Korean man isn’t like his KPop counterparts, maybe not entirely but enough to be essentially two separate entities. One is a highly commercialised, consumerist enterprise and the other’s just a human being trying to make his way in life, the average Korean man would kill to have a career in such fields but doesn’t bother to. Even if KPop’s not the culprit in other cases, but with KDrama doing something similar in a way, it’s not hard to see how a number of Korean women feel dissatisfied with some Korean men, especially if their standards are set by the media they consume and peruse. As if these men don’t live up to their expectations for what they expect men to be, that such things produce a lot of unnecessary divisions between the sexes. Or for another matter, KPop producing unnecessary expectations of women for men.

Either way, KPop produces more problems than solutions. KPop thrives on selling illusions to unsuspecting people unaware of what those agencies are doing, especially if they have ulterior motives whilst pretending to be paragons like JY Park. JY Park has been suspected of being a false teacher or false prophet, even in Korean language media before, doing things contrary to what he proclaims himself to be. Like no Christian should make themselves into stumbling blocks for others, which is what both Berggren and Park do, though it’s possible for the former to snap out of it in time because of my intercessions. JY Park should have never made one of his singers sing indecent songs, seeing how Christians shouldn’t turn themselves into stumbling blocks for others at all. No Christian shouldn’t lead others astray, which is what people like him do.

Kind of makes one wonder why Stray Kids are called the way they are, as if they’re there to lead people astray with. JY Park may’ve been insincere with his faith in God all along, as if he really cares more about the world, than the word of God. Nakita said that his company will collapse and cease to exist by the end of this year, though other KPop companies will follow suit just the same. If he were to rebuild it, he’s going to lose his family members. And it’s more distressing to think that for a guy for calls himself a Christian, one of his bands Stray Kid have songs alluding to either the Devil or Hell like ‘Hellevator’, like why would a Christian want to go to Hell when they should be going to Heaven instead? Why isn’t he putting an end of his band’s antics, if they go on doing these kinds of songs to sing?

Perhaps birds of a feather flock together and if you can tell a tree by its fruit, then it’s telling that Bang Chan and his colleagues love to rub shoulders with a very worldly Christian. They love the world more than they love God, so that’s why they dress in ways that would’ve been relegated to edgy musicians before, be more sexualised than they should be and stuff. No wonder why God will put an end to their nonsense at the end of this year or even towards it, especially when Christmas season arrives. Mind you in the Philippines, Christmas season starts in September and ends in January. So that’s like five months of Christmas or something, so the end of many of those KPop agencies would arrive sooner than expected.

JYPE might experience financial problems around this time, before dissolving sometime between December and January. JY Park’s own New Year resolution is not make himself into a stumbling block for people ever again, since he calls himself a Christian and he should act the part. But since he refuses to, everything and everybody he has in his life will disappear in some fashion. Both idols and relatives will die, his company falls into serious administration and then vanishes without a trace. Expect the JYP website to have a 404 error, expect anything affiliated with JYP to disappear as well. Stray Kids will be no longer around, all its members will die, one by one. No more, no more.

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.

Between the two

When it comes to Goth cartoonists on the Internet, I feel that while Kai Decadence is one of the first that I got really interested in, it’s Arden Wachowski who’s the more talented of the two. Generally better sense of anatomy and while their comics aren’t always so polished, there’s something of an interesting story and angle not commonly found in Anglophone North American comics. As they’re Canadian, Cold Hard Teeth is more interesting than say Captain Canuck.

The latter’s a Canadian superhero as conceived by actual Canadians, but while the stories he appears in are serviceable, Cold Hard Teeth blows the waters off of it because it’s not only more readable but also has a more interesting premise. It’s about two musicians who go Goth upon realising that they’re monsters, also they’re into bands like Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy which makes the Goth angle all the more authentic and sincere. In ways those written by non-Goths don’t get immediately.

There’s a gulf of difference between something like DC’s Black Alice and the characters at Cold Hard Teeth, or for another matter Courtney Gripling’s Goth makeover. Courtney being this character from As Told By Ginger, but like I said earlier Gordon’s and Tanner’s Goth makeover is sincere as their author actually got into Goth punk music at some point and stuck to it. For all its faults, it’s really well-written and it’s refreshing in a sea of bland superhero stories.

Kai Decadence’s stuff tends to be more sexualised, in the sense that he fetishises not only muscular men, but also bodybuilders and it shows in the way he draws cartoon characters. The less is said about his fursona, the better. While Kai Decadence is one of the earliest I got into, Arden Wachowski’s better even if their art’s not always polished but is at least interesting.

Immodesty

When it comes to Christianity and fashion/clothing, there’s a Bible verse stating that if a woman dresses like a prostitute, she has a deceiving and manipulative heart or something. As what this post suggests that sometimes what prostitutes dress isn’t always the stereotypical image people have in mind, given at some point in Milan prostitutes even wore white. Likewise among the Japanese, wearing tight clothing would be whorish enough. Among Muslims, something that’s skimpy (like short shorts) is whorish enough for them too.

I suspect if something like hanfu becomes so popularised and normalised in the Philippines that things like leggings and booty shorts become the province of prostitutes, the sort of women who’d wear something to seduce men with. While it’s possible to wear skimpy clothing without intending to seduce somebody, but if somebody dresses this way to attract attention then it sends a bad message to other people. Like as if you’re asking for this, that you get a lot of attention and perhaps too much attention.

It goes back to the Bible verse about women in seductive attire having a seductive attitude to boot, which the post suggests may not necessarily involve stereotypical prostitute fashion. To reiterate, to some people both skimpy and tight clothing would be whorish enough. If you don’t want to send the message of being seen as whorish to them, then don’t dress like this or that which goes in line with how dressing in such a way indicates loose morals on some level.

Redundancy in a red ocean

Somebody pointed out some of the real issues with the Concord game is that at this point, there’s a lot of competition that there’s no way for it to catch attention from people and hold onto it in any way it likes especially if it doesn’t have anything else going on for it. This is called a red ocean where there’s a lot of competition and you’d have to find a way to stand out for long to get this much attention or something, whereas a blue ocean is when there’s not much competition and you could do the first mover advantage: that is being the first to introduce something new and different to the market.

I can’t help but wonder if this is the same fate that befell Dante’s Inferno, this game was commonly considered to be a God of War ripoff in gameplay and to some extent, the theme itself. But to make matters worse, there are other games with both of them to varying degrees and then there’s Devil May Cry, which is also based on the Divine Comedy. So such a game like that already felt redundant when there are more well-established games with similar themes and gameplay for others to turn to at any point, Concord could simply be the modern version of it in some regards really.

Now supposing if I were to come up with a game that’s pretty different from the rest of the market wherein it’s a mashup between superhero and mystery, because the superheroes here are actually detectives and police officers but even then there are superpowered civilians as well. Supposing if this game is the first of its kind and a mobile one at that, it could be a first mover in a blue ocean because there’s practically nothing like it before. The first of its kind really, but similar things can be said of God of War and Overwatch when they first arrived on the scene. Or even Devil May Cry when you consider this.

They were able to cultivate and hold onto the audiences they grew and got, moreso than what Dante’s Inferno and Concord desired to. They were really playing catch-up in a more saturated market, a red ocean scenario if you will. Supposing if this hypothetical game not only attracted an audience but also held onto it for as long as it did and continues into the future, it has succeeded in doing this and prompts other games to do something similar to varying degrees of success. But this poses another problem for some of the newer games, especially once the market becomes saturated that they can’t compete any longer.

Supposing if this same hypothetical game was also the first to introduce references to certain crime fiction stories and characters, something like that one character (Jemima Szara) is based on another (Jemima Shore) that it gets publicised a lot and prompts other game publishers to pre-empt similar games, including flat-out adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple for instance. But the more other video game publishers churn out something similar like say licencing something from PD James’s estate, the more they risk running into a red ocean environment because their products could seem redundant by then.

Yep, another Concord/Dante’s Inferno. A game that can’t hold onto its audience for long, despite being rather serviceable but that’s not enough to stand out from every other game at this point. Because it’s such a competitive market that you’d have to fight hard to retain your customers/audience or else they’ll flock to something else altogether, especially a better established brand at that. Even if something is technically good and serviceable, because people develop emotional attachments to certain brands and products that it’s going to be hard adjusting to a new product in addition to all that added competition going on that it’s never going to succeed in the long run.

Supposing if somebody succeeds at creating an Adam Dalgliesh game yet does this when there’s so much competition around in a market for detective-superhero mobile games with literary references that it feels redundant, that it’s going to be stuck in a red ocean environment wouldn’t do it any favours even if the gameplay is good. Too much competition going on would be enough to render it redundant, especially if it’s not distinctive enough to stand out from its counterparts and contemporaries that it’s going to be another Concord/Dante’s Inferno. So history repeats itself with products like these.