A grim thought

When it comes to prophecies about famine happening on American soil, something that’s been pointed out by people like Celestial before, it should be noted that America has had recurring problems with food insecurity. It’s even more obvious among certain people in certain places and circumstances, despite the fact that America is also currently the richest country on earth. It doesn’t help when not only there’s serious income inequality between the rich and the poor (exacerbated by other factors like disability and ethnicity, with both Native Americans and African Americans being worse off), but also the presence of food deserts and why grocery stores are even unavailable or absent in some remote parts of the United States. Somebody else had certain thoughts about Disney’s Bambi, wondering if hunters in that film did this because they’re also really hungry and unable to afford certain things to eat, as to be given into hunting to make up for this and get what they needed.

But this is also because she experienced food insecurity often in her life, witnessing the people around her doing these things to get food, however questionable their methods are. A much more shocking possibility is if Americans begin to eat companion animals like cats and dogs, the very same things they chide East Asians like Filipinos, the Chinese and Vietnamese for. A case of getting judged from judging others (I get this from time to time, sometimes in my failed attempts to not get mad at somebody), where once Americans do eat cats and dogs that’s when East Asians begin making fun of them in kind (or perhaps unkind in this case). This kind of hypocrisy’s been suspected in Asian American circles before, where white Americans don’t get made fun of for eating roadkill but how dare an East Asian eat dogs. At times I even think it’s kind of disingenuous for white Americans to give China flack for dog abuse, when countries like Germany are no different in a sense when it comes to dog poisoning.

Mind you this is a serious problem over there, where you have websites alerting people where poison baits could be, it’s not uncommon to have German language reports of people out to poison dogs and there was an antidog website called Gegenhund, where it can had a poison bait calculator to tell you how much it takes to poison a dog to death. That and the persistent twin of hunters feeling legally entitled to shoot somebody else’s dog for intruding on game animals like the roe deer, so in this sense Germany’s less dog friendly than one realises if it weren’t for the dual phenomena of both dog poisoning and dogs getting shot by hunters. One would wonder if white Americans will finally feel the sting of this once they’re caught dead eating dogs themselves, that it would take a lot to realise how hypocritical it risks looking when it’s aimed at nonwhite people. But I guess being majority white absolves oneself of animal abuse, even when the antidog sentiment is no different in Germany really.

Germany does give China a run for its money when it comes to dog abuse, though this isn’t commonly acknowledged or rather admitted in Anglophone circles. I actually know of a pastor who’s currently aiming to feed people there in the United States, which goes to show you that prophecies of a famine coming to America (or at least where longstanding issues with food insecurity worsen more than they should) are turning out to be true, but one that makes you wonder why America even has food deserts to begin with. Imagine being the richest country in the world and yet be unable to effectively resolve recurring issues of food insecurity going in both directions.

Fandom and Consumerism

It’s not wrong to support bands and musicians financially and economically, but I feel it’s not always feasible for those who literally can’t afford to do other things to show their fandom for someone or something. Maybe that’s me speaking from my experience being unemployed and then underemployed, given I have something of a job from selling clothes but I’m also at the mercy of somebody else’s budget and time when it comes to buying materials needed to making something or anything to sell to somebody or anybody. There are likely some Taylor Swift and K-Pop fans who feel the same way too, wanting to support their favourite musicians but are unable to afford other things and/or spend their fannish budget on more important things like supporting family members and close friends, anybody they personally know.

There is a way to show one’s fandom for any musician or band without breaking the bank much, one can stream their favourite songs and albums for free on platforms like Spotify. One can livestream concerts on social media websites like Tiktok and Youtube, one can read free articles on available fansites and fan communities, and even mirror entire archived fansites. I’ve done this one many times over when it comes to my other favourite bands like Ace of Base and Massive Attack, one can even find pirated materials online if they’re willing to go the extra mile (I’ve done this many times too and likely some K-Pop and Taylor Swift fans too). Surely it does pose problems just the same like idolatry* and stuff, but I feel the way K-Pop agencies treat fannish love is painfully predatory.

It’s as if it’s not enough for K-Pop musicians to interact with their fans online, it’s not enough for K-Pop fans to merely stream music and read available materials about their favourite musicians and bands, it’s not even enough for K-Pop fans to just buy albums even when others can’t afford to get limited edition materials about their favourite celebrities that it’s actually rather cruel. I even think it’s cruel of K-Pop agencies to constantly exploit fans’ devotion to celebrities to such a disgusting extent that we have saesang stalkers to begin with, it’s cruel of K-Pop agencies to make fans buy things related to their favourite bands and musicians even when they literally can’t afford these materials themselves. No doubt it plays into the graven images made out of stone and wood thing.

But it’s also bad for their budget, especially if K-Pop fans might find themselves in a situation where supporting such musicians is financially insensible, to the point where not supporting them is the only way they can manage their budgets better the next time around. If some K-Pop fans can’t afford to attend concerts, yet there’s the risk it would interfere with other things like attending church and helping around family members and close friends alike, then quitting K-Pop fandom’s the only way they can do this to be not only closer to God, but also truly available for those who actually know them best. Nakita even said that K-Pop is ungodly and very worldly, that no sooner or later some K-Pop agencies will go into administration. Especially JYP Entertainment this year.

Made worse by that its founder moonlights as a pastor, yet enables idolatry of his bands that he deliberately makes others stumble, as to warrant getting judged by God (I did this before and got into trouble just the same). Actually this isn’t even unique to him, even if other founders of K-Pop agencies are secular from the get-go, made worse by that South Korea has one of the largest Christian populations in East Asia, next to the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Vietnam (yes, Christians exist in the latter three enough to justify the existence of such websites like these). What does this tell you about the state of South Korea where it’s both a Christian nation and also prone to idolatry? It’s kind of double-minded as to be uncertain whether to actually go back to God, or get worse over time that it’s kind of depressing.

It’s even more depressing by that at any point where the South Korean government would’ve helped local ministries translate lectionaries and devotionals into languages other people may want to understand, or even get Korean publishers to have their Christian books licenced overseas and then translated into other languages, this never came to pass. Maybe not yet but if delayed obedience is still disobedience, then it’s on South Korea why it never took advantage of these to reach out to unsaved people in other places and even somewhere in China, as China’s got a growing Christian population at this point. Let alone Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei, Timor Leste, Bangladesh, wherever there are both rising Christian populations and a need to evangelise the locals there.

It’s kind of painful seeing fans being made to buy things they can’t always afford to, as if K-Pop agencies are really merciless in their quest for more money, regardless if fans themselves can’t afford to buy all those other merchandise and may even spend it on something else altogether.

*I struggle with idolatry from time to time.

Living for the world

I even said before that for a band that continues to be in the music industry themselves as they are for years, it’s shocking why despite having a resident Christian around Brian Littrell never makes his own fans attend church and worship God. Hanson has been guilty of this before to the point of God allowing a scandal to happen to get them back to him, since fame has really gotten into their heads that drastic measures have to be taken to get them to repent. Or for another matter Ace of Base when a stalker killed two members’ grandmother and got one member traumatised for the rest of her life, that living for the world turns out to be far worse than expected or rather assumed to be. No wonder why Jenny Berggren sings in church these days, with her older sister Malin now far away from the spotlight.

Brian Littrell never seemed to learn his lesson, never bothered trying hard not to repeat it again. It’s likely these former two do pray for their fans to come to God, given Jenny sings in church and Zac Hanson’s now a deacon or something. Brian Littrell admitted he wanted to serve in church before, but it’s shocking why to this day he never makes his fans attend church, preferring that they come to his cruises instead. Somebody online insinuated that people like him are proud (I struggle with this a lot, not wanting to be proud but these efforts backfire instead), another a radio preacher said that people like him are wicked. Even when he’s not outright wicked, he seems to be on the wrong path. Preferring fame and fortune above God, preferring the world above God.

That it’s likely both he and his band will be judged for turning themselves into stumbling blocks for their fans, with rape scandals surrounding Nick Carter that it’s even more shocking why he never made him accountable for what he did or does. Unfortunately this also means that Brian Littrell also made himself into a stumbling block for Nick, excusing him of whatever wrongdoing he does instead of praying for him to actively stop what he’s doing, with a feeling he could do much worse than that. This means not only will more rape scandals come to the BSB, but all members will be guilty of adultery or cheating on their wives with their fans it’s going to be big news. And if they perform in concert that once the floods arrive, they’ll all drown and die. It seems the whole drowning in your love song seems more like something to satiate their egos with.

The song ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’ never got sung by them, even if it exposes them for what they do. But that would mean owning up to what they do is wrong, striving to do better afterwards even if their efforts backfire (well, I could be relying on my own strength then). Unfortunately the Backstreet Boys never bother to do anything spiritually better, so it’s on them why they all got caught in the act for having affairs with their fans, showing up as demons this Christmas in Austria, and then getting killed in a flood that if witchcraft’s linked to rebellion, then they’ll never live long and I struggle with rebellion a lot to the point of getting comeuppances every now and then. At this point it’s going to get much worse for the Backstreet Boys also because the US economy’s in freefall, and if they do something this Christmas season they’ll get coal instead.

Affairs will be revealed for all of them, that it’s going to be terrifying why they choose to do evil anyways. To the point of having all of them die by drowning.

Uncomfortable in geek spaces

I feel the more I get closer to God, the more uncomfortable geek spaces become. Although technically anything can become an idol, even seemingly holy things at that, whenever they usurp the place of God but geek culture is kind of peculiar in how it kind of usually passes the radar of most Christians. Especially whenever you exclude the likes of Harry Potter and Dungeons and Dragons, that it seems large swathes of geek culture are weirdly innocuous despite posing similar problems at any point in time. Another problem is the rampant sexualisation of fictional characters, like how fans get really attached to certain characters as to porn of them (I did it before to something like the Punisher for instance).

But I more I become a Christian, the more abhorrent it gets. To the point where one’s best chance of not encountering this filth at any point is to avoid geek spaces altogether, because more often than not the wholesome stuff often coexists with the sleazier and more sexualised aspects. Often in the same spaces wherever I encounter, even if not all geeks are like this. But they are very filthy places that you’re better off without those, like if you don’t want to encounter sexualised versions of any cartoon character imaginable, you’d avoid these at any point because they’ll show up at unexpected times and places. I struggle with lust from time to time, not as often as other sins, but it’s there and I don’t want these with me anymore.

Even geek bloggers that do raise good points will from time to time post unwholesome content, that it’s like encountering filth where it shouldn’t be. It may not always involve porn, but it’s gotten to the point where I’d have to avoid these kinds of spaces to keep it from hurting me, and to the point where I’d have to go to less geeky places at times to avoid encountering such rubbish. I wound up missing these bloggers at times, but if they’re not a good influence to me I’d have to avoid them. In that sense, geek spaces are very worldly spaces. Though similar things can be said of less geeky things in life, but in geek culture this is amplified due to how consumerist it is, how idolatrous it really gets and so on. They’re also really sexualised, so they’re not good.

At other times it’s really vexing and conflicting because you don’t want to hate them, yet you feel like cutting them out of your life and you also love them, that it’s going to be tough managing these feelings that it’s likely even God felt the same things about his followers and worshippers. Wishing them well, loving them unconditionally, yet not tolerating their vices any longer that it’s real difficult cutting them off from your life, yet you don’t want to hate them either. Sometimes praying for these people is better, even if it doesn’t always turn out right (as it is in my case many times over). But it’s still telling that the people you associate with will influence you in some way or another, sometimes for good and sometimes for ill (as noted in the Bible with the latter).

Fandom and especially geek fandoms kind of amplify these problems in very unnecessary ways, where sins take you further than you want to, which kind of affected this one Backstreet Boy fan that I know of who’s on her way to becoming a good Christian. But compounded by that how strange it is for somebody like Brian Littrell to be a professing Christian, yet still go on in the music industry without being concerned for his fans’ spiritual well-being as to be judged by God for this. Since he’s her favourite Backstreet Boy and she’s a fellow Christian like him, it’s kind of tragic why they never prayed for each other. Though honestly, I never prayed for other BSB members to get saved due to my own disdain for them. (Admittedly similar things have happened to me before, so it resulted in losing pets also the way.)

But it’s still kind of depressing why Littrell never seem concerned for her well-being, despite being Christians themselves, that he effectively made himself a stumbling block for her and others. The nature of geek fandom and in this case, Backstreet Boys fandom, exacerbates it that it would be better to do a Zac Hanson instead: do the unthinkable to get back to God, even if this means losing a good number of fans along the way, just to do God’s will more. But unfortunately the Backstreet Boys would rather much keep their fans and have them attend BSB cruises where one ought to attend church to worship God instead, that it’s on them why there’ll be more scandals coming to them in a succession. Rape scandals with Nick, possible infidelity scandals with other BSB members with BSB fans admitting to having affairs with them.

And likely with this fangirl if the Bible says that merely looking at another person risks being adulterous, then she has effectively cheated on her now ex-husband by writing pornographic BSB fanfictions a lot. I feel the nature of secular fandoms make it easy to do inappropriate things a lot more, that the struggle to not do these things gets complicated by these communities. Geek fandoms are practically no different and may exacerbate things far more than one intends to, it’s like with the nature of transformative fandoms you have women seeking to sexualise whatever they enjoy, but the heart is deceitful and it’s likely they’re deluding themselves to be more progressive than they really are (it’s even suspected by others).

It’s hard taking their claims to bisexuality seriously if they’re far more attracted to men than they are to women, that they might as well be straight. I knew of one woman who thought that she’s a lesbian but the fact that she remained attracted to men has her concluding that she’s bisexual, so it’s likely these fangirls might find it hard to admit that they’re straight even when it’s obvious that they’re more fixated on men than on women that they’d have to not only admit their heterosexuality but also own it. If the truth sets you free, then admitting that they’re straight would have them realising the obvious. Being honest about their heterosexuality would have them realising they were never really attracted to women, don’t struggle with these feelings and would likely explain their misogyny in a weird way.

Even then it’s kind of hard for people to admit to what they’re doing is wrong or ultimately untrue about what they actually do (I kind of struggle with lying from time to time), that this involves owning their actual feelings and intentions whether if they like it or not. Or any other vice that I feel geek spaces are going to be toxic from the inside out, that you’re better off without these communities for long. I have been in trollish communities before and it has affected my conduct, now I don’t go to these communities anymore but the sentiment lingers when it shouldn’t. So cutting off other toxic people would be the only way to minimise these feelings and problems over time, or anything else that’s toxic. Even if it’s hard at times when we have sympathies for these people and things, even praying for them that it’s kind of hard at times.

And also confusing because you want to wish them well, be closer to God and so on that loving your enemies is going to be tough in another way, so it’s going to be vexing for people like me at various points so. Love is hard, loving your enemies is hard, loving people despite their sins is hard, love is the most vexing and conflicting feeling one can have towards people. But if loving people means making them stop doing things, the way God does to us then it’s more loving to get them to stop doing wrong. I’m like this with one cousin who bothered me before and I do a lot to pray for her to stop doing these things that will ruin her life even further if she doesn’t stop, like bullying people or reading porn that at any point somebody will catch her doing this and it’s going to embarass her a lot.

If something like sin or vice finds you or anybody else, well it’s going to be humiliating being caught in the act as it is with me before, or possibly with her at any point if somebody catches her doing certain inappropriate things in private or whatever that’s going to humiliate her in the future. Or the Backstreet Boys for another matter for turning themselves in to a stumbling block that it’s going to be really embarassing if their fans admit to having affairs with them, that it’ll be really controversial the world over why the Backstreet Boys even encourage it themselves and moreso if all the BSB members do it. It’s a shame to be caught dead sinning, but fandom makes it worse because they let these people get away with it. I even said that fandom is concentrated idolatry and I struggle with idolatry and disobedience many times over.

Along with pride, bitterness and hatred that I strive not to do these things, but I keep on doing them anyways. It’s hard but it’s true many times over, stumbling and failing, getting comeuppances and stuff, but it’s painful and I don’t want it anymore. It’s hard because I’ve been rebellious many times over, to others like my father and to God, that I’m ashamed of myself. I wish to do better, but I fail a lot and feel depressed about it. I feel like I do nothing right, despite wishing to. Things could get better and it has before, but I wish life would be better so I’ll get better. But my sins know no end until I die, and I feel depressed over not achieving my goals the way I want to. And it’s likely true for other Christians, pardon if I’ve gotten off-tangent. But the world is no good and geek culture’s part of it, so it’s going to be bad anyways.

Underrepresented

I said before that Estonians, Lithuanians, Latvians and the like as well as actual African nationalities are painfully underrepresented in American ACG media until recently, but even then it’s kind of hard naming an Estonian character in either DC or Marvel who’s not a background extra. If because there’s really none at all, and there still isn’t one to this day. Senegalese characters are in short supply in DC and Marvel, but they might as well be similarly nonexistent. The same can be said of Latvians, Georgians (as in those coming from Georgia the country), Lithuanians, Armenians, Kazakhs, Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Tajiks, Krygyz, Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, Ugandans, Liberians, Angolans, Gabonese, Congolese (and Kinois), Mozambicans, Ivorians, Rwandans and so on.

It’s kind of hard naming any prominent Czech, Hungarian or Slovak DC or Marvel character because there’s really none at all, none to begin with and still none today, like if you want real Czech, Hungarian or Slovak representation you might as well persue and peruse Czech, Hungarian and Slovak media instead. Romanians might as well be vampires and not ordinary people like everybody else, Estonians could easily be mistaken for Russians, and many Americans would think of Georgia as a US state, not a separate country somewhere in the Caucasus. So whatever Georgian mutant that shows up in the X-Men canon will mostly probably come from Atlanta, not somewhere like Tbilisi for instance. Who cares about Moldovans, they might as well be Romanians all along.

Ditto Croatians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Bosnians and Slovenes unless if they appear in Joe Sacco’s comics, and unfortunately Joe Sacco seems to be one of the few US cartoonists who do bother putting Yugoslavs in his comics. It’s even odder still to think that despite DC rebooting its canon every now and then, Slovaks and Latvians have yet to show up there even when it’s now possible to do so, or for another matter making existing characters like Terra and Vixen belong to actual nationalities this time. Terra being a Slovak woman and Vixen a Zimbabwean woman, DC writers could be free to grandfather a Congolese nationality onto Bwana Beast. Marvel’s no different to some extent, yet not a single Marvel writer bothered to retcon both Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver into being Romani Slovenes.

Making Victor von Doom Croatian would be nice but it destroys the illusion of plausible deniability if he actually came from somewhere in Croatia himself, who knows what would happen if somebody like Shuri were to be retconned into being a Bamileke Cameroonian herself. It’s even wilder to think there are practically no Namibians, Botswanans and Nigeriens in Marvel, there is some Botswanan representation in DC but he’s just a bitplayer. Just a character to be saved by Superman and nothing more, Superman being the resident All-American hero at DC Comics. There are really no Botswanan superheroes in either the DC or Marvel canon, not even a recurring Botswanan supporting character like what Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are to the Superman canon.

Botswanans are cannon fodder to DC and Marvel writers alike if they ever show up at all, Storm is pretty much alone in the entire US comics canon as the best known African character there. One would be hard-pressed to find any Kazakh characters in DC and Marvel, because they’re practically nonexistent there. You’d have to find Armenians in DC and Marvel in vain, even when Armenia’s no longer part of the Soviet Union at this point. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all part of the European Union now, but there’s not a single Baltic superhero to this day at either DC or Marvel. Not even a Baltic supervillain at that. Supposing if someone made a story involving an Estonian man named Ilmar Tuglas. He doesn’t just generate and manipulate strings, but also emeralds.

He also works as a financial adviser, despite having harbouring pro-socialist sentiments every now and then, come from a family of communists and fur farmers and lives somewhere in Ahja, Estonia, with family somewhere in Saaremaa (an Estonian island). He’s based on Kakyoin Noriaki from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure right down to his fashion sense and personality to a large extent, JJBA being a Japanese comic involving superpowers by the way. Let’s say that his author isn’t from Estonia themselves, and this character shows up in a North American comic or video game, he may not be a Marvel or DC character. But it does speak volumes about how strangely underrepresented Estonians are, despite Estonia being an EU member at this point in time, but I guess US writers could rather pay more mind to America’s longer-standing allies instead.

Estonia might not be that poor either, compared to say Georgia for instance, but it’ll often be overlooked by DC and Marvel. Especially when it comes to having a particularly prominent superhero of its own or more, compared to long-standing US allies like South Korea, to the point where Estonia might essentially serve as cannon fodder to US superheroes instead. Estonia had been thoroughly influenced by Russia before, around the time South Korea was created to contain the spread of socialism throughout the Korean peninsula, Russian influence was already years deep in Estonian culture. South Korea kind of inherited the showbiz culture from America, both K-Pop and K-Rap are evidently derivative of American popular music. It’s not that a showbiz culture is nonexistent in Estonia, but that it would’ve resembled Russia’s own instead.

It’s kind of astonishing to think that Russia was at some point the only other major superpower in the Cold War, but it never got its own Hollywood even when it had all the other communist allies around, or at least nowhere near the scale Hollywood does for America. As South Korea is a longer-standing US ally than Estonia is, it would’ve inevitably inherited the American showbiz culture. To the extent that US publishers are more willing to represent South Koreans than Estonians, because of the residual feeling that South Korea is really on its side, despite Estonia being a western country itself and it was a US ally for quite a while in recent memory. You could also say that South Korea has K-Pop, but then again K-Pop is derivative of American popular music in many ways, so it’s going to be more palatable to US and US ally tastes.

That’s why Marvel has Luna Snow, a K-Pop musician who moonlights as a superheroine, even if Estonia’s currently capitalistic at this point but it’s still going to have the suspicion of being a Russian ally despite appearances to the contrary at this point. That’s why Netflix, a US streaming service, has KPop Demon Hunters. Even if Estonia was for a long time a Swedish colony, then a Russia colony and now a ceritified member of the European Union, South Korea is a US ally from the get-go and its exports are going to be more compatible with American and US ally tastes, than with their Estonian counterparts (if they exist at all). So Estonians as well as Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians, Armenians and Moldovans are going to be this underrepresented in DC and Marvel, or for another matter Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Bulgarians.

A common thread with many of these countries is that they’re all former socialist countries, as to be conflated with Russia especially if they’re European countries at that. I suppose if somebody were to substitute Latveria, Transia/Trasnia and Sokovia for Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary, it could still run into problems but if they got represented in Cold War era stories, their characters would either serve as antagonistic foils to US heroes or join US teams if they’re heroic, which Natalia Romanova is both of these things and she’s Russian. From my personal experience reading US comic books and the like, the only times actual Yugoslavs get any representation at all in is Joe Sacco’s nonfiction works. But these highlight a strong disparity between Yugoslavs and their fictionalised proxies, because Joe Sacco’s a journalist who uses cartooning to talk about social issues in other countries.

Similar things can be said of the differences between the way actual African countries are portrayed in nonfiction as opposed to say the DC and Marvel canon, where in the former they actually show up and sometimes realistically so. But in the DC and Marvel stories, most actual African countries are nonexistent. There are practically no Angolans, Cameroonians, Ugandans, Namibians and Rwandans in either the DC or Marvel canon, which gets really weird because these two are no strangers to retcons and reboots that at any point where a writer could’ve grandfathered a Cameroonian nationality onto Black Panther and Shuri, this never came to pass. DC’s no stranger to reboots and the opportunity to make Vixen Zimbabwean never came to pass either, you might as well tell me to make my own characters so I did.

Fabrice Tientcheu is a Cameroonian forensic scientist who has the ability to soften things, is very high-culture himself (he likes reading books on sciences like astronomy and chemistry, as well as books by Jean Baudrillard, Umberto Eco, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus), owns cats because his father’s afraid of dogs (Cameroonian rapper Mink’s is afraid of dogs himself as well) and is actually based on another Jojo character, Trish Una who also has the same ability herself. He lives somewhere in Cameroon, whether if it’s Bamendjou or Bafang. But these are real places in Cameroon and also Africa, you could go there if you want to. He has a twin sister named Yvette, a seamstress who’s in love with his colleague and the resident detective Jean-Louis Lumiere.

Nigerians do get some representation in Marvel, via the character of Temper. But she’s not as well-known as Storm is, so Storm’s practically alone in the entire US comics canon as the best known fictional African to come from a real African country. If the adage the more, the merrier works; then it serves to have another Nigerian character around in the form of Tifeoluwa Babatunde Olatunji. He works as a lawyer and lives somewhere in Lagos, he sometimes gets into joking banter with Fabrice over rice and other foodstuffs. Even odder still over at DC is how and why there’ll never be an Elseworlds or Imaginary Story featuring an Icelandic Fire and a Chilean Ice, but I feel it kind of ties into stereotypes about Latin Americans and Scandinavians. Not just in terms of ability, but also personality.

From what I’ve read, Beatriz da Costa (Fire) is shown to be brash and flamboyant but Tora Olafsdotter (Ice) is more mild-mannered. That’s not to say there aren’t any Brazilians who act like Beatriz nor are there any Norwegians who act like Tora, but it still wouldn’t fit into the way they actually see themselves as. Supposing if there are characters with abilities similar to these two, but Fire is Scandinavian and Ice is Latin American this time. Sometime as early as 2010, I came up with an Icelandic male character who is Fire and manipulates volcanism himself, and Ice is a Japanese woman. This time both characters are female, thus further paralleling their DC counterparts. Linhildur Solveig Arnleifsdottir is analogised to Beatriz da Costa, though she has red hair and often at the receiving end of her husband’s affairs.

(She’s also a natural redhead to boot.) She comes from somewhere in Iceland, more specifically Reykjavik and she works as a government official. That’s not to say there aren’t any Scandinavian redheads out there in American ACG media, but it seems Age Of Mythology’s the rare instance of this unless if Jimmy Olsen counts (he’s obviously of Scandinavian descent himself). Dark-haired Scandinavians in DC do exist, but particularly in the form of Pieter Cross. Marvel’s Loki could also count in a way, because he’s based on Norse mythology. That’s not to say all Scandinavians are dark-haired (or red-haired or blond-haired either), but it still wouldn’t reflect the way they see themselves. Linhildur being a redhead reflects on the fact that Iceland does have a good number of redheads itself, then come Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

It seems within the Marvel canon, if foreign redheads do exist they’re usually more likely to come from either Scotland or Ireland. Not that redheads are nonexistent in both places, but it still wouldn’t be how they see themselves as. Quite frankly, I’m unable to name a famous Scottish or Irish redhead in music. People like Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh, Ronan Keating and Nicola Cloaghan are all Irish blonds, though with the last one you wouldn’t guess this until she stops dyeing her hair red for Bridgerton. The rest of Boyzone and Altan all have dark hair themselves, everybody in Clannad has natural dark hair (until lately as they’re getting older) and the same can be said of everybody in the band Capercaillie. Sinead O’Connor had natural dark hair. Nightcrawlers’ John Reid had natural blond hair when he was younger, Kevin McKidd’s also blond.

Karen Gillen are Moira Shearer are both the only natural Scottish redheads that I can think of, but since natural red hair’s rare so it’s to be expected that it would be easier naming blond and dark-haired Irish and Scottish celebrities instead, especially in my case. Moving over to England, I could name some natural redheads there. You have Mick Hucknall, Patricia Hodge when she was younger, Newton Faulkner, Ed Sheeran, arguably David J from Bauhaus when he was younger and Jess Glynne, even if red hair’s not stereotypically considered to be an English trait. Marvel’s Elsa Bloodstone could count, but in her earlier appearances she had blonde hair. Betsy Braddock’s also a natural blonde and so is her brother, though you could say that I’m very much wrong in here.

But it still reinforces a message that rufosity’s the domain of Irish and Scottish people, especially in the Marvel canon. Even if not all redheads are Scottish or Irish themselves within Marvel itself, it still reinforces a particular view about these people. A view that some Irish and Scottish people internalise themselves, not that they’re any less red-haired either. It’s likely why outside of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic media, redheads are rarely ever Scandinavian in American media. I’m thinking in the lines of things like Age Of Mythology being the rare instances where you can find Scandinavian redheads in any way, the other one being God Of War when it comes to its own version of Thor. Ditto Latin American blonds, even when Cameron Diaz is a thing in real life.

Despite Cameron Diaz’s prominence and moreso when she was younger, given her father was Cuban himself, whenever Latin Americans show up in American media they usually tend to have dark hair. Beatriz da Costa might be the only instance that I can think of in American fiction who’s not dark-haired herself, one would wonder why there are so little to no natural Latin American blonds and redheads within DC and Marvel. They do show up in Latin American media, both nonfiction and fiction, but they’re very rare in DC and Marvel, if they show up at all. I do know that white Latinos exist and characters like Julio from X-Factor reflect on this in a way, even if natural blond and red hair aren’t necessarily common in Latin America either, but the fact that these two traits show up in Latin American comics among fictional characters acknowledges their existence.

The character I came up with is Piedad Franulic Kristof, a Chilean woman of Croatian and Hungarian descent. She’s analogised to Tora Olafsdotter in that both of them are light-haired women who manipulate the cold, but she’s also based on Nijimura Kei in that they’re resentful towards the people they serve (the Orvilles in Piedad’s case) and Kei also manipulates the cold herself. Piedad more specifically has mousy blonde hair which can also be regarded as light brown hair just the same, though it’s lighter than that of Colin Sallow. I feel it’s easier to think of Latin Americans as not only commonly dark-haired, but also somewhat darker than that of white Americans is the way the latter views the former and vice versa at times, when it comes to othering one another. Like if the prototypical American’s of either Western or Northern European descent, then the prototypical Latino’s of indigenous descent.

Blond hair’s more commonly found among countries like Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, even if not all Britons, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians and Danes are necessarily natural blonds, let alone for life. Like I said John Reid had blond hair when he was younger, Liam Howlett had blond hair when he was a young boy. But this is also where most white Americans come from, so to the prototypical white American resembles the prototypical Northern European. The prototypical Latin American is someone who’s either of indigenous or Spanish descent, and the Spanish are often assumed to be dark-haired themselves. Not that the Spanish are any less dark-haired in reality, but the way Americans conceptualise both Latinidad and Spanishness is different from how these people view it in themselves.

It should be noted that there are Latin Americans of Polish, German, Dutch, Croatian, Hungarian and Ukrainian descent, Piedad is a Chilean woman of both Croatian and Hungarian descent. So it reflects on this in a way but perhaps outside of Latin American fictions, this is very nearly nonexistent in US media. There’s a version of the Babysitters Club where one of the blonde characters got made into a dark-haired Latina, but I feel this is one of the few instances that kind of reflects on it in their own respective ways. But I feel when Latin Americans are in the US themselves, whether in real life or in fiction, they will be othered in a way they aren’t back in Latin America. Even if not all Latinos are practising Catholics or even Catholics in general, if being American means being Protestant, then the othering’s bound to happen anyways.

It wouldn’t be the case in countries like Ireland, Poland, Croatia, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and France, where Catholicism’s part of the cultural mainstream there. Not so much in countries like America, Britain, Canada and Finland where Protestantism’s part of the cultural mainstream there instead, so even white Latin Americans would be really othered in those places. It may not always be the case within DC and Marvel, but being American institutions, it’s going to play a role in some way. It’s not hard to see how and why Latin Americans, real or not, are going to be othered in American culture. It’s not that the Baptist church, Methodism, Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism are nonexistent in Britain, Finland, Latvia, Canada, Sweden and Norway, but America has been the hotbed of world Protestantism until recently.

If because due to Christianisation, the African countries are catching up real quickly here. Especially places like Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya, though they’re not without considerable Catholic populations to boot. But even if denominations don’t always get factored into the equation, Latin Americans are still going to be othered in America in other ways. So that’s why Latin American superheroes like Beatriz and others are portrayed the way they are in American ACG media, the portrayal’s not always racist but there’s a kind of implicit othering in some cases. Central Asians are weirdly very underrepresented in US fictional media in any capacity, given they don’t neatly fit into American boxes regarding not only both East Asia and West Asia, but also Eastern Europe.

This becomes particularly the case with both Kazakhs and Krygyz, because although many of them look East Asian, they also aren’t from somewhere further east like in both Indonesia and Malaysia, speak Turkic languages and actually have a degree of Western Eurasian DNA themselves, so they don’t neatly fit American prototypes for what Muslims ought to be. Both Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmens may fit American conceptions of Islam in many regards, but sadly they remain underrepresented in the American imaginary. Instead of actually representing Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmens this time around in both DC and Marvel, DC creatives like James Gunn and Greg Weisman would rather use proxies like Jarhunpurians and those from Qurac instead. Ditto Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians and even Palestinians to my knowledge.

There are Marvel writers who do kind of represent those coming from Lebanon in a way as it is with Sina Grace, but then again a good number of Marvel writers like Chris Claremont are Zionist, to the point of portraying even the worst Jewish character like Magneto more sympathetically than he would with an Arab like the Shadow King. David Haller, when he initially appeared, was the illegitimate teenage son of Charles Xavier and an Israeli national, who got possessed by the Shadow King. So with the combined efforts of Xavier and somebody else, David Haller finally got exorcised. But I don’t read comics that often, much less the DC and Marvel variety at this point, so I’m going by what I recall reading. But it kind of insinuates a message that Arabs are ought to corrupt minors like David Haller, well at the time so.

And more recently in Absolute Superman, West Asians Ra’s Al-Ghul and his daughter Talia have invaded the US. Even as a Christian it’s kind of telling that it plays into a kind of xenophobic sentiment, but aimed specifically at West Asians regarding their supposed ability to ruin and undermine western civilisation (as represented by DC’s quintessentially Midwestern town Smallville). Palestinians are very underrepresented in US fictional media, especially when the US itself has a strong Zionist streak, that it’s this easy to demonise them. Even weirder still is that Palestine actually houses the world’s oldest Christian community, coupled with that there are some Israelis like Paul Wexler suspecting them to be the actual direct descendants of the ancient Israelities in a way Ashkenazi Jews aren’t.

Arthur Koestler, a Jew, was one of the earliest to point out that Ashkenazis aren’t related to the ancient Israelites as much as they are to the Khazars, a long-lost Turkic people. Even studies pointing out that Ashkenazis are the descendants of Judaised Caucasians, Slavs, Greeks, Turks, Iranians and East Asians (who may be Mongols, the folks who were close to the Turkic tribes) would still bring up the Khazar ghost in some way, given the Zionist insistence on the idea that Ashkenazis are the direct descendants of the Israelites. Actually Ashkenazis being more closely related to Slavs seems more plausible, not only because their folkways are more Slavic than West Asian, but also because they lived in Slavic lands far longer than they do in West Asia, as to be Slavicised over time. Mr Wexler even said that Yiddish really is a Slavic language with a heavy Germanic influence.

Not helped by that Ashkenazi Jews lived in Slavic countries like Slovakia, Poland, Belarus and Russia for so long, that they’d inevitably be fluent in Russian, Polish, Slovak and Belarusian which would’ve further Slavicised Yiddish despite having Germanic influence too. And Yiddish sounds like a Polish speaker trying to speak German themselves, or sing in my case since I listened to a duo singing the song ‘Tumbalalaika’ which seems like a German song with a Polish accent. (This is what you get for finally listening to something in Polish.) The profound Zionist streak that a number of DC and Marvel writers exhibit is likely why there are practically no Palestinian superheroes in both the DC and Marvel canons, why somebody like Kitty Pryde gets away with the very thing that got a Native American like John Proudstar into trouble and so on.

It’s as if being Jewish is enough to automatically absolve somebody of their wrongdoings, which reflects in the way the western world continues to support Zionist Israel at any time. It’s kind of also like this in something like Power Mark, where a number of characters who aren’t Biblical characters who get to be flawed are a Russian boy, a Chinese woman (Power Mark’s sister) and a Latin American girl, but the Jewish boy’s portrayed as rather flawless. I feel as if western countries readily support Zionism is partly because Jews are a kind of model minority’s model minority, if you know what I mean, as opposed to the way the Chinese, Indians and others are regarded as such, especially if they’re not only Gentile but also significantly more numerous and oppose western values themselves in some manner.

This might explain the orientalist othering these people often get in western fictions, where a westernised East Asian like Jubilee is considered a good guy but not the Mandarin. Or for another matter, characters coming from former European colonies like Vietnam (Karma) and the Philippines (Galura, Wave), which kind of insinuates the message that western countries are the gold standard for what’s good and progressive. Even when both China and India were far ahead of the west when it comes to women wearing trousers, West Asian countries and Russia having more women in STEM, China having had women play ball games in ancient history, Japan continuing to have a solid tradition of and industry for female readers of comics and so on.

Or even the odd fact that Japan’s ahead of the west when it comes to publishing professional M/M fiction out in the open, Patalliro being an old anime that features a sympathetic gay couple at the front. I’m getting off-topic but when it comes to media like DC and Marvel as well as their writers, being westerners they often promote western worldviews, sympathies and preferences, sometimes deliberately but more often than not unconsciously because of what they’re socialised and exposed to for years. The underrepresentation of other former communist western nationalities like Estonians and Latvians has to do with conflating them with Russians proper, even when at this point Estonia and Latvia are currently capitalist, that it shouldn’t be a stretch to actually introduce Estonian and Latvian superheroes right now.

Maybe not as America ended up alienating these two, them being staunch European Union members at this point, but I feel it’s possible to create an international media franchise that features actually Estonian and Latvian characters at the front and centre this time. It’s kind of obvious that as a lot of DC and Marvel writers are Americans, they’ll inevitably and usually have pro-US sympathies, sentiments, mindsets and sensibilities that get reflected in the stories they write about. Whether if it’s the othering of nonwesterners like Africans, West Asians and East Asians, the continued underrepresentation of certain nationalities and ethnicities (Latvians, Estonians, Georgians, Kazakhs, Slovaks, etc), or the propagation of western values and sensibilities, it’s there with many DC and Marvel writers for years.

Although the character of Linhildur might play into the redhead with fire powers stereotype in a way, she also represents a kind of Scandinavian character not commonly represented in US fiction stories. So far the only Scandinavian character with a fire ability is Karl Hansen from the Wildcats stories, whereas Norwegians like Sigrid Nansen and Tora Olafsdotter both have ice-based abilities. And even if Norway has glaciers, so does Chile and Chile’s close to Antarctica. It’s not a coincidence that both DC and Marvel writers habitually give fire-based abilities to Latin Americans, as if they’re so hot-tempered they’ll burst into flames anyways, when it comes to characters like Dante Pertuz, Firebird, that tattooed guy and Beatriz da Costa, even if it’s not true for all of them. Magma could also count in a way, as she has power over volcanism herself.

And she’s also a Brazilian citizen by the way, though similar things can be said of Iceland too. But it still plays into a kind of American conceptualisation of Latin American nationalities and countries, regardless if countries like Argentina and Chile both beg to differ as they’re closer to the South Pole as to get cold and dark around June and July, that Chile has glaciers says a lot about the missed opportunity to have a Chilean version of Ice this time. Sunspot being able to manipulate solar energy himself plays into the American belief of countries like Brazil having nearly constant unlimited daylight hours, but even if it were true and the same can be said of a certain Peruvian Overwatch character (I think), one would wonder why there’s no Argentinian character at either DC or Marvel who manipulates darkness themselves because it gets dark in Argentina every June and July.

It’s kind of depressing to think that in 2025 there are still no Namibian, Uzbek, Tajik, Kazakh, Armenian and Georgian superheroes and even supervillains at either DC or Marvel, when it comes to Georgians these characters come from somewhere in Batumi, Tbilisi or Gori. Not somewhere in Savannah, Atlanta or Douglasville, Georgia here is a country in the Caucasus. Latveria is real but not Slovakia, Transia is real but not Slovenia. So logically Wakanda is real, but not Cameroon. Qurac is real, but not Syria. What I’m saying is that Latveria, Transia, Qurac and Wakanda are treated as if they’re real countries in Marvel and DC, but for some reason their real-life doppelgangers are nonexistent in their place. You could actually travel to Ljubljana and even stay there for long after acquiring EU citizenship, but Transia will take its place in Marvel stories instead.

Singapore is so nonexistent in the Marvel canon that Madripoor takes its place instead, even when you could actually go there to Singapore yourself. Some of my relatives have done this more than a decade ago, you can even access to Singaporean websites too. Singaporeans speak English like Americans, but Madripoor is used in its place in Marvel. You should get an idea of how underrepresented Singaporeans are in Marvel, or for another matter Malaysians and Burmese since I can’t name a single character from either Malaysia or Myanmar in both DC and Marvel. Ditto Laotians, Cambodians get some representation in the forms of Rose Wilson and Sweet Lili. But I suppose no such equivalent exists for those from Kazakhstan, even to this day that Kazakhstan might as well belong in the world of Elseworlds and What If.

But countries like Qurac are serious business, despite being technically nonexistent in the real world.

She spends too much

She spends too much

Time sewing a dress

Wondering if it’ll stop.

She wonders if

She wonders if the storm

Will ever stop, hoping

It will stop soon now.

In search of pre-Columbian dogs

I feel when it comes to seeking out pre-Columbian dogs in the Americas, if this were somewhere in Canada, people are far better off looking for this in rez dogs instead. These are free-roaming owned dogs that hang out in reservations, places where Native Americans are relegated to whereas white European settlers took over most of their territory, which means Europeans and their Americanised descendants may have imposed their understandings (of dogs) onto them. There’s no doubt that bad ownership’s to blame when it comes to certain problems, but at the same time it’s possible large swathes of pre-Columbian DNA survives in rez dogs due to isolation. It’s kind of telling when a lot of European Americans can afford to get pedigree dogs, but Native Americans being a good deal poorer are often stuck with what others would call mongrels makes you wonder if there’s a kind of split between the two. A split between white settler society and indigenous society, the latter being marginalised and relegated to reservations. Not all Native Americans live in reservations, let alone for long especially if they’re looking for job opportunities elsewhere, but it’s likely rez dogs might be the direct descendants of pre-Columbian dogs.

Likewise the original St John dogs might survive in some indigenous reservations in some parts of Canada, or at least rez dogs with some admixture from them, that could tell us about certain cultural exchanges between the two demographics. It’s also likely that rez dogs might have some European admixture, but if a good number of them have pre-Columbian DNA then it’s a chance that they did survive European colonisation. But they’re just as marginalised as their human counterparts are, especially if/when European descendants not only prefer pedigree dogs, but can also afford to look after them. It’s not that Native Americans don’t care for dogs at all, well a good number of them do, but technically many of them are poorer than their European counterparts are. So the typical dog to them is a rez mongrel, it’s the kind of dog they’re more used to loitering around the reservation.

The dogs white people either suspect or pity. But to Native Americans that’s the sort of dog they’re more used to, that’s the dog they tend to have because that’s what’s readily available in their areas. As for St John water dogs, these dogs are suspected of being the forerunners to Labrador and Golden Retrievers, but it would be rather strange to think their genes survive in some Rez dogs. But that would mean Native Americans may have gotten St John dogs themselves at some point from their nice white neighbours, most likely as presents in search of dogs that can do the job well enough. This would mean the history of rez dogs parallel that of their owners, to the extent that they may be closely entwined with the European colonisation of what is now Canada and possibly the Americas in general. Rez dogs could be the direct descendants of both pre-Columbian dogs and to an extent, settlers’ dogs.

If this is true for some rez dogs in eastern Canada, regarding the possibility of some St John dog DNA in them, then this is going to be entwined with the colonisation of Canada really. Now as for the extinction of the Fuegian ‘dog’, which is descended from another canid altogether, it’s more of a tragic example of settler colonialism in the Southern Cone. If the domestic dog is unmistakably regarded as an invasive species in the Southern Cone, it is also unmistakably the animal of European colonisers, the same people who’re out to wipe out any sign of indigenous peoples there. To the extent of even wiping out the area’s resident domesticated carnivore, which is a tragic instance of settler colonialism wrecking havoc on indigenous peoples and cultures alike. So settler colonialism’s ability to obliterate indigenous peoples doesn’t just extend to their cultures, but also their domesticants.

Even if settler colonialism doesn’t succeed in obliterating indigenous peoples and their cultures, it could marginalise them by relegating them to certain areas, whereas white settlers can live anywhere they will to. This is also true for rez dogs where they could be mostly the descendants of pre-Columbian dogs but are relegated to reservations, whereas the settlers’ dogs thrive wherever their owners go. Very much like their human counterparts, to the extent that their survival’s based on the latter’s own.

She always

She always wonders

If he really loved her

Or if he really didn’t.

He favours

He favours the easiest

To manage over her

She’s never loved.