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I'm a few weeks late to this, ShiftUp dropped the reveal trailer to the Stellar Blade sequel.
For the non-gamers, Stellar Blade is a South Korean action adventure game released in 2024 on the PS5, and on PC a year later. It caught a ton of media attention for its "goonbait" protagonist EVE, her sex appeal was central to the game's marketing. EVE is based on a body-scan of South Korean model Shin Jae-eun, but it's obvious that her body proportions were deliberately exaggerated in the game. IGN France ran a preview piece calling EVE "a doll sexualized by someone you would think has never seen a woman", and issued an apology for that comment after getting called out. The game was a smashing success, sold millions of copies and became the champion game for the anti-woke.
Now the Stellar Blade sequel is self published, and will feature a new protagonist, Evie. The gameplay has also seemingly taken a different style, now set in a populated, linear city area as opposed to the post-apocalyptic world of the original. Now as per tradition, the studio is caught up in a controversy again, but from both sides. The wokes are saying Evie looks like a minor but is still sexualised, now which normal adult would jerk off to that...
Edit: forgot to put it here, some users on resetera also threatened to report the game to payment processors, who were delisting certain games from Steam and other platforms last year.
But the ShiftUp CEO dismissed those criticisms, and recently reposted a comic making fun of those complaints.
The non-wokes are upset because they wanted EVE, and Evie's assets are comparatively tame. And at least some of them (including Asmongold) agree she looks too young as well.
The biggest highlight for me is how "pedophile" has become the last truly potent scare word left in the discourse. But just like "sexist," "racist," and "homophobic" during the Gamergate era (which once forced constant defensive crouching and ritual apologies from those at the receiving end), the term is now being inflated and abused by both sides. Age-gap relationships between consenting adults, anime-style character design, and anything that triggers either tribe's sensitivities gets shoved under the label. Both sides are eager to fire this particular silver bullet at each other because it's the last remaining moral failing both can still agree is beyond the pale. Eventually, we're gonna roll our eyes at this too.
There is no "steelman" for pedophilia, unlike for racism (freedom of association), sexism (traditional gender roles), and homophobia (traditional sexual morality). There's no virtuous principle or sympathetic situation that causes people to think "hmm, maybe sex with kids isn't so black and white." So I expect the taboo to hold indefinitely barring a radical shift in the legal and social understanding of what childhood is and what children are.
As for the sequel's main character -- look, I grew up on early chan imageboards and the unfiltered early 2000s internet so I have a pretty high tolerance and probably a quite warped sense of what's within the bounds of good taste -- but even in my opinion, that's a 7 year old's face on a young woman's body. That's bad enough, but all the exploitative and opportunistic camera angels make it uncanny and perverse. I probably wouldn't play it unless they aged her up at least to adolescence.
EDIT: I'm not talking about the SJW version of "pedophilia" meaning attraction to women under 30. And yes I'm aware that people online like to motte and bailey the term in bad faith. I don't have any problem with people playing this or making this game, just saying it's not for me.
Depends what you're steelmanning. As usual, what's happened is a word referring to a genuinely bad thing has had its meaning tortured to make it into a useable weapon where it doesn't apply. Finding big eyes cute does not mean that you're going to go off and rape a baby, any more than asking a man with a dress to use the mens' loo means you're going to go and machine-gun the Hutus.
There doesn't need to be. There is no sex with kids in that trailer. Look at racism: there is no sympathetic principle that makes people think that beating an old black man to death because you hate looking at his dirty skin is okay either; people tire of 'racism' because that's very clearly not what's under discussion.
I don't know anyone IRL who thinks having sex with a 17 year old (bailey) is the same as having sex with a 7 year old (motte). It's a convenient rhetorical cudgel, so people pretend they believe that, but I'm pretty sure almost nobody really believes it. If you called someone who had sex with a high school senior a pedo, most people would roll their eyes; if you called someone who had sex with a 7 year old a pedo people would agree and be out for blood. They bailey might erode, but the motte is not going anywhere.
Contrast that with "racist." Getting called a racist in the 90s was a serious allegation and could make you radioactive even if the underlying charge was ridiculous. But now both frivolous accusations (bailey) AND substantive allegations (motte) are drawing eye rolls. Soon the word racist will be completely powerless, and even actual racial supremacists and chauvinists will be able to mostly shrug it off if they act civil enough. Not so with "pedophile." That one's going to stick around.
Okay, I see your point better now. I partially disagree with your assertion - genuine expressions of pure racial hatred draw more than eye rolls in all but the most edgy communities.
I’m very far from woke but I’ve left group chats because they really were just nastiness about Jewish noses and things.
I actually feel the same way you do, I quit 4chan because it just became nastiness and wasn't even funny, just the same racial insults and tired jokes repeated ad nauseam. I admit I didn't just roll my eyes and keep scrolling, I left. But I think the difference is that I didn't feel righteous outrage at the extreme racism, I just thought it was distasteful and stupid. I imagine it might have been the same for you, if you've grown up online. Holocaust jokes are dumb and mean-spirited but probably not particularly shocking. You close the browser and immediately move in.
In constrast, I don't think I would ever have such a low key reaction to actual pre-pubescent pedophilia. Even SFW sexualized depiction of pre-pubescent children are extreme creepy and disturbing to me, and I don't think I'm unusual in reactiomng that way. Theoretically you could imagine a society where everyone has been desensitized to it, but we're nowhere near that and a lot would have to change first. Even here in Japan, the vast majority of people find the sexualization of children to be really creepy and beyond the pale despite what "Weird Japan!" clickbait websites claim.
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