No black manic pixie dream boys (and girls)

When it comes to the website Tumblr Sexypedia which focuses on characters considered sexy by Tumblr nerd standards where it boils down to the characters’ angst, malevolence, power, style, intelligence and being pale or ethnically white. There’s only one live action character of colour out of all the anime characters enlisted there (Hisoka Morow could probably be a white man), since that website enlists being ethnically white as what makes the character Tumblr sexy it does point out to a manic pixie dream girl quality that’s not bequeathed to blacks.

In the sense that blacks are only attractive if they fit stereotypes, as what the vlogger Kai Decadence pointed out in Reddit. Black men are only attractive if they are manly, sexually top their partners, promiscuous, thuggish, urban and have large penises (which’s something not all black men have, likewise there are black men who’re celibate, effeminate* or are in a monogamous relationship). Manic pixie dream girls are attractive for being quirky and unusual, but that’s usually bequeathed to white characters (when it comes to Asian women having the hair streak, it’s like a bad attempt at subverting stereotypes about Asian women).

A white person can live outside of stereotypes and be quirky, black people only live as stereotypes. There are black men with a lot of angst, style, power and malevolence but they don’t have the same manic pixie dream girl status their white counterparts are given. (I also think this goes hand in hand with being unable to empathise with black people, which dehumanises them along with the stereotyping of being superhuman, promiscuous and well-endowed, which’s something not all black people are.)

Black women don’t get to be manic pixie dream girls as they’re stereotyped as either sexless mammies, oversexed Jezebels, domineering Sapphires or animals. They don’t get to be quirky the way some of them are in real life, it feels like with black men black women are only attractive if they fit a stereotype in addition to fitting white beauty standards. That still proves my point that when it comes to manic pixie dream girls and Tumblr sexymen (the latter’s evidently a male version of the former), black people don’t get to be either of them.

Again, it’s got to do with stereotypes they’re expected to fulfill so while some white characters get rejected for being too conventionally attractive (which again fuels my suspicion that Tumblr sexymen are essentially manic pixie dream girls), black characters never get mentioned since the only way they’d ever be attractive is if they fulfill a stereotype (Finn gets slotted into that well-endowed stereotype but his actor might be average or less than that).

There are probably scores of angsty, malevolent, intelligent or powerful black characters whether in Western media or in African ones, the latter because they’d be too obscure and the former for some reason those characters never get included as Tumblr sexymen. That’s probably true for Latino characters and Asian characters outside of Japanese media, where if the latter does show up they’d be stereotyped as sexless even if there are Asian men who do have sex with white women (most notably Balinese gigolos).

Latino characters are only sexy if they fulfill stereotypes, which’s why (brown) Latino characters like Jaime Reyes never get included as Tumblr sexymen. Rick Sanchez might technically be Latino or Hispanic and yes white people can be Latino too but since he’s white, he gets a pass and probably so does Professor Membrane. That still proves my point that black and brown characters don’t get to be Tumblr sexymen, only as stereotypes but not quirky Tumblr hunks.

*See also RuPaul and black drag queens for more information.

Colours

When it comes to colours, they’re things the cones in the eyes can see coming from visible light where red has a longer wavelength, green a medium one and blue-violet a short one. Yellow’s intermediate between red and green. Cyan’s intermediate between blue and green but magenta, while intermediate between blue and red, is the absence of green from white light and unlike yellow and cyan it doesn’t have its own wavelength. (It could be argued that beiges and browns are extraspectral colours but they’re often dull yellows and reds.) White is actually all the colours but black’s the absence and most black items (even Vantablack) show the near-absence of colour.

That’s just how trichromats see the world, tetrachromats (those with one more cone receptive to a different wavelength of light, often ultraviolet for fishes and birds) can see more colours but only a handful of them illustrate what they actually see (see also Concetta Antico for more information). The way we see colours also affects the way we describe them, so if a Russian or an Italian speaker can see light blue and dark blue (azzurro/goluboy and blu/siniy) as separate colours, they’ll describe them as such whereas English, French and German don’t have that. (Irish can see two shades of green like glas and uaine as separate colours so uaine’s always a brighter green, but glas refers to both dull green of plants and grey of sheep and horses.)

Tetrachromats can see further colours that if they ever have a language of their own, they’d have words to describe those extra colours. The way we perceive and describe colour’s important in how we feel and regard things as, where in China red’s the colour of happiness and is used in weddings where white’s the colour of mourning (in addition to black and khaki or beige). For me, I always see white as an angry colour because it’s like what happens in a rainy day with all the clouds and watery noises. Blue is a happy colour because it’s the colour of the sky when it’s bright and dry (I like sunny days more than rainy days).

(Blue’s also the colour of early mornings and evenings.)

How we perceive colour also affects the way we describe them, whether culturally or scientifically when it comes to impossible colours where you see a darker, Stygian blue after seeing a bright yellow.

The funny thing about geography

The funny thing about geography’s that much of East Asia and Russia are actually west of the American West Coast, so we go to California eastwards. Likewise Australia’s south of the Philippines so we go southwards when getting there. America’s west of Africa and Europe so they go eastwards there. Both Africa and Europe are west of Asia but then again, Africa and Asia are culturally nonwestern while the Americas and Europe are. In some respects, both South-East Asia and Africa show similarities to other Eastern cultures but also sometimes to Western cultures due to colonisation.

Hong Kong is east of Mainland China but is culturally Westernised due to British influence, so the same thing can be said of Macau when it comes to Portuguese occupation. Mexico’s interesting because it’s west of Spain but it’s westernised by Spain for centuries but that’s similar to the Philippines to some extent especially when prior to aeroplanes that Spanish ships would sail westwards here. Any African would’ve gone southwest to the Philippines if it weren’t for aeroplanes. Likewise, Japan and Taiwan are north of the Philippines and they went south over here.

Today, it’s somewhat more straightforward where Nigerians and Spaniards can go to the Philippines eastwards. But geography still has its peculiarities where you still go south for Australia and north for Taiwan if you’re a Filipino.

Not a hoax

It’s been said that Saint Malachy wrote down the future popes in a paper which was eventually rediscovered, which if it were true it would be a Biblical prophecy of the end times where he predicts the latest pope and the last one. I do think Catholics and Eastern Orthodox can and do have a personal relationship with God, which can manifest in the forms of visions and prophecies such as the ones Malachy saw and wrote down. Many of these popes have come to pass, the latest one might be the last true pope.

There are also Catholics who have vivid depictions of hell such as Saint Teresa of Avila who said Hell is a dark place. It’s been prophesised by Anne Emmerich that there would be two popes, one close to the Catholic Church and the other a heretic where the latter might be an antecedent to the Antichrist. She said that there will be a coming of the dark church as well as a church being rebuilt in the end times. The end is coming, the world’s getting worse and the prophecies are coming true with regards to a false church and the last true pope standing.

What next

If the end times is real, then things are really going to get worse before they get better. Now that LGBT’s mainstream, there’s a chance that as what others said that other things will be made mainstream, something like bestiality and paedophilia like it were in Ancient Sumeria, Babylon, Greece and Rome. Sodom and Gomorrah were infamous for homosexuality, which made Lot and his family (save for his wife) escape. In Ancient Greece and Rome, there were relationships between teenaged boys and adult men.

There could’ve also been lesbian relationships there as well but throughout the 19th and 20th century LGBT people were for most of the part underground and even if they stopped being illegal in the 1960s up to the 1990s they wouldn’t get really mainstream until the 2000s and 2010s especially when you start having more gay characters in children’s media. Much more than it did in the 1990s. Now the next vices to be made mainstream are polyamory, BDSM, bestiality and paedophilia the latter which has been pushing to be made mainstream.

In the last days, Europe and North America as well as parts of Asia will be the target of His wrath when it comes to their vices and in no time, they will be bombed. Survivors will either stay in those places or head elsewhere to African countries where by then they’re already first world countries (they will be so in the 2020s). Sodom and Gomorrah live on in Europe and America, especially when it comes to the mainstreaming of LGBT and other vices.

The Middle Eastern influence on Africa

Given the Arabian Peninsula and Israel being close to Africa, it would be inevitable that both of them would exert a big influence on Africa whether if it’s the introduction of dogs, pigs and horses, the Afro-Asiatic languages, the spread of both Islam, Christianity and Judaism or shared cuisine such as shawarma, a degree of Middle Eastern influence is inevitable in parts of Africa. One such mark would be Ajami or the tendency to write languages like Hausa in Arabic script, which obviously indicated both the influence of Arabic via Islam and that there were already written African languages other than Egyptian/Coptic.

Even before the arrival of Islam, this was mentioned in the Bible with regards to Israel coming under Egyptian rule and that Egypt itself would fall under Roman occupation, thus becoming one of the earliest African countries to become Christian and still has a substantial Christian population (Ethiopia and Eritrea are majority Christian African countries for centuries). This does explain why there are African Jews going southwards in Zimbabwe and that there are African populations with claims to Judaism such as Igbo Jews for instance. Islam’s much stronger in the North and Northwest, going as far as Cameroon in Central Africa with regards to the Hausa and Fulani and Kenya and Tanzania to the East.

This is practically how dogs, horses, pigs and the Afro-Asiatic languages spread to Africa, going from the Arabian peninsula and Israel to Africa where they get established for centuries, spread and mutate. If African dogs do come from Middle Eastern wolves, this shouldn’t be surprising because Africa’s close to the Arabian peninsula. Likewise, this is how some Arabians and Levantines migrated to Africa, though over time some of their descendants will show more Sub-Saharan African DNA (true for Nigerien Tuaregs in one study).

Comes to think of it, this is also how wheat spread to Africa that if it had been grown in Sumeria it would be introduced to this continent sometime later from Sumeria to Egypt. Trade between Arab states and Africa would be inevitable and why Arabic’s the main language in a handful of African countries along with Arabic script used for some African languages a little southwards.

World War III

I remember reading the Valdres prophecy before where somebody who wrote that letter said that World War III would make World War II look like child’s play, especially in terms of the scope and the fact that the nuclear bomb attacks only happened twice in Japan back then. She said that much of Europe, America and Japan will be devastated by nuclear attacks, which can pollute the air and have some people flee to poorer nations for their safety even if they’ll not be welcomed there. (I even have a feeling that by the time WWIII happens, Nigeria will already be a first world country and become the destination for European refugees fleeing the war.)

I tried out Nukemap to see what would happen if a nuclear attack ever happens to Norway and Sweden, which may happen anyways in the future. Of course, the Bible has predicted about wars in which things like WWII and the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroun has already happened. But the third world war would be very apocalyptic in Europe and Japan, where many lives will be lost and those who survive either stay and clean the place up or flee elsewhere in Asia and Africa where they migrate there but will not be welcomed. The third world war will happen in the 2030s-2040s, which’s already when much of Africa has become first world enough to support those immigrants.

By the time Cameroon’s already a first world country (this will happen in 2023), it will welcome those European immigrants fleeing the war and they will try to make peace in there. There will be many nuclear attacks in Europe coming from Russia, China and South Korea and either one of them will attack Japan. This will mark the third and fourth times Japan will be attacked by a nuclear bomb and this will hit the capital. Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Madrid will burn in a nuclear fire where others flee for their lives once they head to the newly rich Africa for safety.

Africa in those years will already become a world power of a continent, especially when it comes to Nigeria becoming a first world country in 2022 and this will happen soon. Africa will become rich enough to make use of its natural resources, some like Democratic Republic of Congo will use these for electricity and war especially towards Europe. Europe will be attacked by Asia, Russia and Africa where the capitals will be bombed and sacked. There will be survivors who’ll stay in Europe but others will flee to the now first world African countries of Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Cameroon.

Europe won’t be gone but the capitals will become nuclear wastelands not unlike what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki before, except that they’re everywhere in Europe or almost so.

Fandom racism

When it comes to certain fandoms, there’s a tendency to put white characters on a pedestal whereas black characters are vilified, marginalised or ignored altogether (though admittedly, I was guilty of this at some point). It’s like how some Flash fans keep on vilifying Iris West, even though she has done nothing wrong and she might have not done nothing wrong at all. For another matter, this can also be applied to Finn who might be molested and harassed as a youth but for some reason fans pity Kylo Ren more. If Kylo can be redeemed, why can’t Finn?

I shudder to think if The Flash writers ever depict Caitlin Snow as capable of rape and murder in a more nonhuman form that makes it subversive especially when it comes to the repeat dehumanisation of black people that could provoke the fanbase especially if Iris West remains human but Caitlin Snow becomes a werewolf for good. Fans would blame Iris West for why Caitlin Snow became a werewolf, even if the latter became one by her own will that Iris becomes a convenient scapegoat for their problems.

Caitlin Snow might have the ability to relapse and commit rape in the form of a wolf, but people will always blame Iris West for this. Not to mention white women can be pretty racist, whether if it’s scolding a black person for simply being there, believing in racist stereotypes that almost nobody can fulfill and show little empathy for somebody’s suffering, especially if they happen to be of another ethnicity. Caitlin Snow, unlike Iris West and Linda Park, might still have the capacity to rape and murder now that she can do this in wolf form but people will be bigoted to Iris more.

The stuff I’m saying are hypothetical but there’s going to be a lot of racism in some fandoms especially whenever a white character gets canonically engaged to a black character that brings out the bigots in some people.

Kids read comics

As what others said, there are still children who do read comics but the comics they read are much likelier to be either newspaper comics, Archie comics, things like Dog Man and Smile or Japanese manga. In fact, Dog Man has sold over a million copies and is a frequent bestseller favourite over at New York Times. Peanuts books have sold over a hundred million, which should give an idea of what actually sells in comic books and there are some manga that do sell over a hundred million as well. Berserk has sold almost over a million for Dark Horse Comics, which outsells most superhero trade paperbacks.

If there’s anything kids are likelier to read, it’s going to be Dog Man and the newspaper comics. There are kids who do read superhero comics such as Iceman and X-Men, which I do know from experience as well as Archie but I think there are also kids who do read newspaper cartoons in trade paperback form such as Calvin and Hobbes that should attest to the latter’s popularity. There are probably more readers of comics than one realises, if one includes newspaper strips which always have a wider audience than most comic books and comics in general do.

It’s not that there aren’t any kids who do read superhero comics, they do exist but if we go by statistics (especially in Italy, if I can remember it) more kids are likelier to read manga and Disney comics than they do with superheroes. Again that’s not to say child readers of superheroes are nonexistent, they do exist in some form or another but that’s dwarfed by the numbers of kids who read manga and Dog Man or even Peanuts, Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. (The latter four are much likelier to have a lot of casual readers, only two of them have made a lot of merchandise and money for their respective authors.)

Some kids’ magazines like K-Zone have room for comics such as Batrisha and Rugrats, which should be saying in that there’s a market for kids’ comics even if their tastes can differ from the adult readership that surrounds some contemporary superhero comics these days.

Real world African countries

There are probably already some comics that do feature real life African countries, but I think outside of African comics (which do exist, such as Supa Strikas which even aired in Southeast Asia) there isn’t much media that do focus on individual African countries, possibly outside of select international nonfiction. There are marked differences between African countries, owing to their ethnic composition, colonial history and geography. There are deserts in Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ghana and Morocco but there are no deserts at all in Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo.

Gabon, Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, both Congos and Senegal are Francophone African countries (though Cameroon does have a considerable Anglophone population) whereas Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Nigeria are Anglophone African countries. Even then, there are further differences between each country where I’d say that Ghana has more cat owners than Nigeria does. Or at least more widespread in that it’s not confined to the Muslim North like it is in Nigeria. There are more Muslims in the Northern and Northwestern part of Africa than there is further South.

There are probably already African characters who do come from real world African countries, Storm’s Kenyan and Muhammad Avdol’s Egyptian but there’s also a tendency to regard Africa as a single country disregarding the national, ethnic and cultural differences (though I myself am guilty of this to some extent and from time to time). That explains why there aren’t a lot of African characters who do come from a specific African country. It wouldn’t hurt if there’s ever a Togolese character, though it could be argued they already exist in Togolese comics but they’re not well known outside of that country.

Let alone, a real African country which would be interesting because that not only exists but is worthy of somebody’s curiosity. Let’s say that DC’s Queen Bee comes from Cameroon and is Bamileke herself, the Bamilekes being one of Cameroon’s major ethnic groups alongside the Fang people. (There are others such as Hausa, Fulani and Baka Pygmies.) She comes from a fondom or something ruled by chieftains (fons). That would be an interesting detail to explore, since these are actual nobilities and kingdoms of sorts in Cameroon.

It can be done, if only there were more people who’re interested in African countries enough to explore them both virtually and in real life.