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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Avoiding ambiguous brown without cultural coding

@ahivemindoftwelvecati asked:

How should I, a white person, avoid making characters fall into the vaguely brown stereotype in my fantasy books? I’m against coding cultures into this book, as I’m really trying to create a unique world (ironically by studying a lot of different cultures). By doing this though, am I doomed to remove characters from cultural context, or leave people wandering in vague color shades? Especially since some of my characters would fall into various indigenous ethnicities, but share nothing cultural

In an interesting way, I think the Star Wars novels kind of do an okay job about it (of course, others might differ, in which case I defer to them, but in my opinion they pull off something similar). For context, it all takes place in a galaxy where absolutely none of Earth’s cultures are present, but there are still human beings that are Latine-coded, Black-coded, etc, and they accomplish this through very simple descriptions of character appearances. For example, there was a Black-coded woman and her description ran something along the lines of “She had dark, rich brown skin and her hair was curled tightly, pulled back into a bun. She hated the moist heat of the swamp planet, but she had to admit her hair never looked better.” Through that, the audience understands that she’s most likely Black-coded (dark skin+tight curls), but they avoid cultural points (also the little detail of humid heat being great for curls is just a cute lil extra IMO, that’s something I hear people with 3- or 4-type hair saying a lot).

The pitfall here is that, since there’s no cultures analogous to what we have here in our world, each reader will have different interpretations of what each character might identify as ethnically. Who someone might headcanon as Korean, another might headcanon as Chinese, etc. That’s something you have to figure out for yourself if you’re okay with having--just that vague sense of ‘ah, this person must be from this vague region of the world’--or if you want to be more explicit.

--Sophia

So… to expand on the point Sophia put out that it’s up to the reader to determine what race somebody “really” is and how that’s a problem.

One of my best friends is mixed Japanese/white. Thanks to genetic roulette, they get approached by various Indigenous peoples asking what nation they’re from, because they look really Indigenous.

I’m mixed Mohawk/Mi’kmaq/white. Thanks to genetic roulette, nobody can tell where I’m from and I’ve gotten everything from West Asian, North Indian, and Great Lakes Native (basically, anywhere that golden-tanned skin + dark hair + no monolid is considered normative, I could pass for there)

My mom, meanwhile, looks very, very Mexican, despite being the same mixes as me at a higher percentage Native; she tans more pink/red and tans darker than I do. She also has a totally different face shape than I do.

Aka, there are dozens upon dozens of groups that look interchangeable, and the only thing that separates us is our culture.

When you’re dealing with more “obvious” features like type 4 hair, monolids, very dark skin, very pale skin, and those stereotypical things, yeah, you can usually peg down a general region. You’re basically only going to have Black people with kinky, delicate hair (but, are they African, Australian Indigenous, or Black Native? Because Australian Aboriginals are also very dark skinned and have a similar hair texture; Black Natives sometimes inherit the level 4 hair texture). You’re basically only going to have Northern settled peoples with white skin (barring albinism/vitiligo) but are they Norwegian or Sami?

What happens to all the people who are ambiguous in real life?

The trope has a basis in reality. Humans would like to think that a certain set of features = obviously from this place, but as soon as you expand your sample size beyond models, movie stars, and idealized art, you find that people look really different and you absolutely cannot rely on this logic.

It’s even a known fact among the modelling industry that anyone vaguely not-white who looks like they could maybe belong to any other group of brown people is put in for casting calls for that group, even if they’re not part of that group. It’s messed up, but it happens all the time. A Latine person could be put in as Arab, and an Ojibwe person can be put in as Filipino.

Culture is the thing that separates these people in real life. So as soon as you take that culture away, you’ve essentially lost any representation you could get. You’ll get diversity, yes, but it will not be representation.

Sure, you perhaps gain some representation as people look at parts of their culture that might be incorporated (maybe by accident, maybe on purpose) and say “hey, that’s us!”

But you’ve also strewn infighting by having perhaps multiple groups be able to say the same thing, and these multiple groups could very well share a lot of phenotypic traits, so suddenly you’ve represented nobody because you haven’t put anything solid that would sway the needle one way or the other.

If you start to assume too much that features = obviously this person is from x part of the world, then you really ignore a whole lot of human migration, diffusion, and people who just lived in really similar biomes so their physical features, skin tone, and hair type ended up being the same just purely because that had the best chance of surviving the region, or had no reason to change.

Diversity exists because of the environment. Skin tone, hair type, jaw shape, etc exist because of the food available, how it was grown/gathered (horticulture and “hunter-gathering” vs agriculture), the way food was eaten, the amount of sunlight, and the vitamins available in diet. This happened over tens of thousands of years.

But also, certain environments produced very similar coping strategies. There are only so many ways to survive a very hot desert, so unless you’ve really messed with the natural world in fantasy, you’re going to end up pulling from earth’s coping strategies for the very hot desert. Which means you could end up being kinda hurtful towards desert peoples who see their clothing and food growing ways used, with people who look like them because skin tone is environmental, but hardly anything else about their culture was taken.

Especially for Indigenous peoples, culture and land protection is what makes us Indigenous. How are you going to show us in your work unless you dig into our cultural principles (land protection) at the very least? Nothing about our facial features or skin tone are particularly unique to us, and assuming they are is how you get caricatures. There are Black Natives* to white Natives to mixed cultures with European and Indigenous practices (Metis) and everything in between. And that’s just North America’s range.

This isn’t even counting how there are Indigenous people everywhere, so when you say “Indigenous” do you mean the Mohawk? The San? Mbororo? Ainu? Sami? Samoan? There are literally thousands of groups that are primarily separated from the dominant group because of their way of life and maybe some subtle phenotyping. But primarily, they are separated by their culture.

I would suggest, at the very least, to have some degree of basic cultural beliefs to help differentiate groups of brown people who would otherwise be interchangeable. Land stewardship and using every part of the natural world for Indigenous groups, for example. You can’t really find Indigenous groups without that, so if it was missing I would raise an eyebrow.

Distinct foodstuffs and diets are another way to differentiate and code; you know that this group that uses chickpeas, sorghum, barley, and wheat is probably from West Asia, and that group that eats rice at every meal is probably somewhere from East Asia. Food is a very fast way to differentiate between groups, because even far-reaching staples are fairly different across cultures.

You don’t have to 1 to 1 code a culture. But for actually differentiating between people, you’re going to need more than one point of reference beyond looks. Food, nomad status (as in, settled vs nomadic vs hybrid), basic religious practices (monotheist vs pantheist), and broad-reaching cultural attitudes (collectivism vs individualism, who you’re expected to be collectivist with) are all points that help break apart these groups and let them know you see them.

It’s important to note that even if you do fantasy, it’s read in the real world. It’s read by humans, who are pattern recognizing machines. We will see patterns. Niki points out ways to try and avoid this patterning below, but it’s going to happen regardless.

It’s up to you what you actually want, out of not overtly coding anyone.

~ Mod Lesya

*Black Natives and cultural practice is a fraught topic (mostly because of slave-owning tribes) that is mostly summed up as: Black Natives are often barred from tribal participation because anti-Blackness is rife within North American Indigenous communities, but they have been tending the land just as much as if not more than their former enslavers; as such, they are members of the cultures/nations and should be recognized. They have been part of the land as North American Indigenous peoples for centuries, at this point, and the fact there is still enough anti-Blackness in Native communities that Reservation Dogs used nothing but Black caricature is… a problem to say the least.

This isn’t counting mixed Black/Natives who had their Native parent/grandparent cast out for marrying someone Black, who were raised in cultural practices without community ties because of anti-Blackness, who should also be recognized. If it’s valid to mix white culture with North American practices, it’s valid to mix Black culture (Black American and/or African Indigenous) with North American practices.

Do you want diversity or do you want representation?

Lesya raises a very important point that I encourage you to really think about. Why do you want to have diversity in your fantasy worldbuilding? Is it because you want your readers to feel seen and represented? Or is it because you want your fantasy world to feel well-rounded and realistic? These are two different motivations, which will require different approaches.

If you want representation, then go back and reread Lesya’s answer. Representation that’s only skin-deep isn’t really representation, and won’t help your readers feel seen. If, however, you want diversity for diversity’s sake--because diversity is realistic, and because it’s simply good writing to include it--then I have some more thoughts to offer.

In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with creating a fantasy world that has fictional diversity that doesn’t directly parallel real-life groups and cultures, as long as you’re aware that that’s what you’re doing. This is arguably very common in high fantasy, though the effectiveness with which it’s executed varies wildly from author to author. N. K. Jemisin describes what she did for the Broken Earth trilogy in this blog post.

Unless you’re working with a very small subsection of the world (and even then--everything’s connected), diversity is natural, because people will be living in different geographical areas that each have their own climate, fauna and flora, which will shape both their physical appearance and their way of life. Thinking about the physical environment is a good starting point for figuring out what your population groups will look like and how they’ll behave.

But as Lesya pointed out, it’s very easy, when doing this, to inadvertently re-create elements of coding that will remind your readers of real-world groups, even if that wasn’t your intent. If that happens, you’ll have two options:

1) Very deliberately alter the coding to make it clear that you’re not trying to represent a certain real-world group (in the post I linked above, Jemisin talks about what she did to avoid appropriating Maori culture), or

2) Embrace it and go the representation route after all, which will entail a lot of research and care to make sure your coding makes sense, is respectful, and doesn’t reinforce harmful stereotypes.

Assuming you’re going with option 1, there are still more issues to be mindful of. We said before that representation that doesn’t include culture isn’t really representation. Here’s the thing: This is also true of fictional diversity. Even if your fantasy cultures are entirely created from scratch, they still need to exist, and be distinct and thoughtfully portrayed, in order for your world to feel well-rounded and realistic.

Diversity is more than physical appearance

As Lesya demonstrated, physical appearance alone isn’t enough to make groups of people distinct from another. In order to avoid the “ambiguous brown” trope you’re worried about, you will need to give your different groups of people distinct cultures.

There might be some cases where it would make sense for an entire fantasy world to have a single, homogenous culture, within which people of various ethnic backgrounds exist, resulting in a variety of physical appearances but everyone sharing the same culture. But if you’re planning to do this, you need to give a lot of thought to why things came to be this way. If an entire world is made up of a single culture, that usually indicates something very traumatic happened on a large scale. Maybe an apocalypse, or massive amounts of forced assimiliation or genocide. I don’t recommend going that route unless you’re willing to grapple with all the trauma that entails, and all the potentially problematic implications. You’re much better off populating your world with a diversity of cultures. They don’t need to be coded based on real-world cultures, but they need to exist.

In my opinion, the main issue with “ambiguous brown” characters is that it makes it seem we’re all interchangeable. In real life, we're not. Make sure that's the case in your fantasy world, too. Craft your population groups so they're distinct, each with their own history, culture, language, and traditions. Your worldbuilding needs to be deep enough to counteract the absence of parallels to real-life cultures. We need to be able to look at it and say, "okay, this is not representing me specifically, but it's also not lumping me in with everyone else that vaguely looks like me."

And don't make the mistake of thinking one skin tone = one group. That's not true in real life, and it shouldn't be in fantasy either. Using skin color and a handful of stereotypical features as shorthand for ethnicity or culture is not only shallow worldbuilding, it also feeds into the racist pseudoscience that sorts people into four or five neat color-coded boxes and collapses the world's diversity into a handful of supposedly biologically determined races. If you're creating cultures from scratch, this is your chance to challenge those ideas and populate your cultures with people who don't all look the same. Within a single group, you can have characters with a variety of skin tones, hair texture, eye color, height and build, etc. Because this is what happens in the real world. Some groups include a lot more diversity than others, but variation exists everywhere.

This will partly depend on how interconnected your world is, and how much interaction exists between your various groups. More interaction and exchange tends to lead to a wider range of physical characteristics within each group, and it also results in similar features being found in multiple groups. Think about how that might play out in your fantasy world, and make sure you're being as specific as possible with your fictional cultures so that you don't have to rely on physical appearance alone to distinguish your population groups from one another.

- Mod Niki

#diversity #representation #ambiguously brown #tropes #fantasy #worldbuilding #coding #culture #cultures #race coding #ethnic coding #asks

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fishklok · 2 years

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Hopefully my question makes sense, but how are you able to draw people/characters with distinct facial features and still make them attractive?? I feel like even when I do give my characters different eye shapes or noses shapes they still look the same, like I want my characters to be look different from each other and still look hot haha.

Hi anon, I hope I can help you out with this, but please keep in mind that I'm a self taught artist and I have no real character design training.

I think Metalocalypse is actually a good way to practice drawing unique features, because the show rarely repeats facial features on different characters, but the art style is simple enough that it's easy to recreate.

Regardless of your style, if you get the lines representing Nathan's high cheekbones, the nasolabial folds, the bridge of his nose, and the brow crease, his face will be recognizable

Giving characters unique specific features is an important step, but I think equally important is to think about what overall shapes you're going to keep in mind while drawing said character.

I've used this example before, but on paper Magnus and Skwisgaar have rather similar features

By which I mean they're both tall skinny dudes with long hair, gaunt faces, large noses, prominent cheekbones. But when you see them next to each other, you start to notice the differences between their designs that go beyond individual features. To the point where if you slapped Magnus' hair + goatee onto Skwisgaar, it would look very odd (I'm not going to recreate that, don't worry).

The difference that stands out to me the most is while they're both rather angular characters, Skwisgaar's overall design is much softer than Magnus'. His face is made up of more sloping lines that are rarely broken up. So when I go to draw Skwisgaar, I go into the drawing ready to draw a bunch of softer angles, while with Magnus I might as well get the ruler out.

Here are some basic sketches which are basically just me slapping the character's features down onto the page

Usually at this stage I erase my guidelines as I go, but I kept them there for the sake of this example. I don't draw the eyes in great detail because I find it easy to get too focused on things like iris size or pupil placement (and also I don't draw the expression at this stage), which can distract me from getting down the overall feel/rhythm/vibe of the character. It's like building a house. You gotta set the foundation before you start painting the windowsills.

Also use irl references.

It doesn't have to be exact. but sometimes it can be easy to lose your sense of reality when you've been staring at cartoons for so long. I'll usually rely on irl references for proportions or anatomical details, while for the individual features I'll reference the source material.

This really isn't a tutorial, I'm sorry. It's more me trying to put words to what goes through my head whenever I draw a character.

For something actionable, I'd say look at random mtl characters and try to identify the key shapes/features that make up their design. What was the first feature you noticed about them? If you were going to draw them, what kind of motions would you make with your hand? Also try doing silhouette practice, then move on to drawing the characters with no hair or other definable features.

I used mtl as an example because like I said before, the show's character design is great to study from. But the exercises I described can be used with actual people too. Sometimes I like to use the website This Person Does Not Exist to generate faces to practice identifying certain features. It's a good muscle to train.

This response went all over the place, I'm really sorry. I hope that in this ramble there are at least a few nuggets of useful information.

Also the attractiveness thing I cannot speak on lmao. Attractiveness is very subjective and I think my answer is...everything I learned about art came from those How to Draw Manga books.

#my art #art tutorial #i guess?#same face syndrome

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potter-imagines · 3 years

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Pre-Game Rituals (Fred Weasley)

Request: Hiya!! I was wondering if you could do an imagine with Fred. Where Ginny kind of idolises her like at hogwarts she’s always goes up to the reader and asks if she can do her hair for quidditch practice or something...

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

Warnings: None

Word Count: 4.3k

The common room was dead with activity for a Saturday, although that was in large part due to the anticipated match up between Gryffindor and Slytherin tonight. You loved attending Quidditch games, especially seeing as most of your friends were on the Gryffindor team and you got to cheer them on alongside Hermione. Getting to see your boyfriend knocking opponents around and acting as a human bowling ball was an obvious plus as well. Before most games, your boyfriend would coin you into a pre-game ritual, which happened to be a nap. He claimed these snooze sessions next to you gave him his energy to play but, you’d seen him take his O.W.L.s on two hours of sleep and a ‘stay-awake’ creation him and his twin brewed up. Cuddled up in bed sounded like a blissful dream to you on any given occasion but currently, you were in the middle of another event. Not only did you have a pre-game ritual with your boyfriend, you also had one with his little sister who was on the team as well. A few hours to the start of every Gryffindor match, Ginerva Weasley goes prancing around the castle with her hairbrush in hand, searching for you and today was no different.

Your fingers brushed through the ginger locks as you separated the left half of Ginny’s hair into three parts. The silk like strands slipped through your parted fingers as you detangled the frizzed knots. Ginny’s hair was by far the most beautiful you had seen so you hardly turned down her request when she’d ask you to braid her hair. Her deep red hair mixed with auburn tones and long wisps was a unique find outside Hogwarts. Having the Weasley siblings around meant you saw a head of ginger around nearly every corner. In the Muggle world though, you had only passed a few with hair that resembled theirs.

However in those sightings, you never saw a single person whose hair was as fiery and bold as Ginny’s. There were times Ginny despised the color as it made her stick out like a sore thumb and put no mystery in identifying her. Everyone knew on sight that she was a Weasley. To you, she felt the flaming shade complimented Ginny, as well as her personality, to perfection. The youngest Weasley differed immensely from her siblings. Not only in terms of gender, personality as well. It could be argued she was the bravest of the bunch. Already faster on the Quidditch pitch than her older brother Ron, and possibly sneakier than her older twin brothers, Fred and George.

With a small pull, you began to braid from the top of Ginny’s head. You raked in a new strand of hair after every weave. Ginny’s hair was not only long but thick and heavy in weight. It always took a bit more force and harsh knotting to make sure the braids actually stuck, especially seeing as she’d be flying like the wind in a few hours, she needed them tight.

Ginny Weasley sat lazily in a criss-cross style shoulders hunched forward. It was unusual for her not to be talking your ear off in these moments. Ginny always had a story to share, a secret to tell, or an embarrassing memory of her brothers to spill. There was yet to come a day where she ran out of cringe worthy moments of your boyfriend, and her brother, Fred, to leak. In those countless hair sessions, a friendship outside your connection to Ginny through Fred formed. Within a month of hanging out with the youngest Weasley, you sincerely considered her to be a close friend. Between the endless laughter and feistiness of Ginny, a strong friendship grew. You could tell something was off but with Ginny, it was better to give her time to come around and at least open up a bit before you questioned her.

That moment seemed to be approaching as the bottom section of the braid fell from your grasp as Ginny moved her frame abruptly. Her head falling to face the floor caused your hold in her hair to grab her body back a bit. Resting your hand on her shoulder, you leaned her back so she was up snug against the bottom of the couch you sat on.

“You gotta stop fidgeting, Gin. Your braid is gonna be crooked if you keep squirming around!” You smiled softly down at Ginny but as her head turned to face you, you were shocked to find her face was dull, long like a horse. That one-of-a-kind glimmering light that typical lit her eyes was blown out. The residue left a worrisome display instead. She sent you an apologetic look then turned back to face the fire. Her body was as straight as a line and as stiff as Harry’s Great Aunt.

“Sorry… just a bit distracted.” The raspiness in her voice made you wonder if she felt ill. Usually before a match the young girl couldn’t sit still! Her knees would bounce in excitement and you’d have to pin her down to get the braids in but today, she was hardly moving an inch. Pausing your braid in the middle of her scalp, you arch your brows to Ginny.

“What’s on your mind Ginny?”

“A bit nervous about the match- that’s all.” She dismissed your worries with a sigh, clearly still crackling under stress. Although Ginny was your boyfriend's little sister, with time, she became your little sister. You stopped thinking of her as Fred’s sister and one of your best friends. Seeing her flooded with pressure caused concern in you as well but she looked up to you and it was partially your duty to make sure the self doubts you had as a young girl never disrupted Ginny.

Giving the girl a gentle smile, your hands began to rake through her hair again. The first braid was half way done so you resumed your work as you reassured her,

“Slytherin never plays fair but I believe in you guys. You’re gonna pull it off, don’t stress. Just fly clear of Malfoy and Flint and you should be fine.”

“Yeah you’re right…” She trailed off. Furrowing your fixation on her hair, you slowly pried further.

“What else is the matter-” But before you could seek out any further information, your body jerked forward as two arms snaked around your upper body. You shrieked in freight then quickly whipped your head around to see Fred Weasley grinning down at you. Should’ve guessed, you thought to yourself. He was bound to come searching for you sooner or later and drag you to his room for a nap.

“Ah, I was wondering where the two of you snuck off to. Good afternoon, angel.” Fred leaned his head towards you to kiss your cheek. After leaving one, he left another, and another, and another until you had to push him back. You managed to hold onto the already started braid as you held Fred back with your hand on his chest. His hand immediately went to cover yours and squeeze on your grip, then pulled away glancing between his sister sitting in front of you and yourself.

“Hello, lovie. Where is the other, less annoying half of you?” You smiled a sickly sweet grin to Fred as he gave you a warning glare. Reaching up, you used your free hand to pull Fred down by his collar and placed a sugared kiss to his lips. Always ready for your affection Fred returned the kiss softly, his hands cupping around your chin to leaned your head back. An awkward cough ruined the mood as Ginny fidgetted silently. Fred released his grip on your face at once and threw his leg over the couch. Inviting himself into the conversation, he threw either leg over the maroon couch and slipped in besides you. His face was bright and gleeful, the apples of his cheeks a tint red. The orange hair sprouting down to his shoulders was brighter, shinier than normal. You felt your heart race at the sight. Wrapping his arm around your shoulder, Fred glued himself snug to your side.

“Flirting with Alicia or Katie, can’t tell,” He tossed his head back to motion over to his twin talking up your friends in the corner. The three were laughing and talking hushly, all huddled close. You stopped your hands to glance over, then looked down as you felt Ginny moving beneath you. Fred drummed his finger on the right unbraided, half of her head causing the girl to blindly swing her arm backwards trying to swat at him. You scolded him sternly, threatening him if he messed up the half you were working on. Chuckling at her flailing arms and your attempt at being stern, Fred leaned back into the couch and tossed his arm around your shoulder. “You ready for the big match, Gin?”

Although the only portion visible was the backside of her head, both Fred and yourself watched her shudder and wince at the inquiry. Fred was happier than ever which was a typical mood for him on any given day but especially the day of a match. Most felt the nervous butterflies and sickening feeling before an important game but Fred? You were almost 100% positive Fred had never experienced the feeling of anxiousness. His confidence seemed to flourish under pressure.

Ginny was never to the big stage, though. She didn’t bask in the glory and attention the same way her brothers did. There was that fear of not living up to everyones expectations that crept into her mind as she took the pitch each match. Ginny ducked her head as she scratched the side of her neck.

“Uh huh.” Ginny’s sigh earned a frown on Fred’s lips. You’d be lying if you said it wasn’t adorable. The concern read from his features as he sent you a short look. He had an idea based off the alarming gleam in your eyes, but as her brother, he wasn’t willing to back off. His long arms tightened around your shoulder as he tilted his head to Ginny in question.

“You don’t sound very confident at all- what’s the matter with you? It’s the biggest match of the season!” He cheered loudly, causing the young girl to jump in her spot. You tucked the three strands in a weaving pattern trying everything in your power to finish as quickly as you could so Ginny would be free to escape this conversation. Maybe it was a male thing but Fred was just not reading the room correctly. Between Ginny’s uncomfortable shifting and your stern stares, he still just wasn’t understanding her nerves. You snatched the hair tie off the couch cushion and wrapped it around the end of her braid. Tapping his side with your elbow, you looked to Fred sternly.

“I think she realizes that, Fred. Let’s not stress her out even more.” Your tone was pointed and you expected Fred to pick up but clearly, it went straight over his head. This earned a raspy chuckle of disbelief from Fred. Slipping his grip from your waist, Fred leaned forward. Placing his elbows on his knees, his chin rested in the palm of his hands. He had a teasing look as he scoffed,

“Stressed? Since when has a game ever stressed you out, Ginny? You’re the youngest starter on our team! There’s no need to be worried about anything.” Fred’s face was bright with excitement at thought at the upcoming match. His rosy cheeks were squished as he smiled gleefully. A loud groan emanated from Ginny as she threw her head back in frustration, though remained silent. Her once lively orbs reddening by the second as salty tears brimmed. The grin vanished from Fred’s face. He turned to you in confusion, his face resembling that of a wounded puppy.

At times, Fred had moments where he didn’t particularly like his little sister, but he always loved her. It was the brotherly instinct in him; the constant need to keep a watchful eye out for Ginny. He knew she could hold her own, but he couldn’t help that protective nature. Sending him a sharp look, you muttered quietly under your breath,

“Nice work…”

The common room was slowly beginning to scatter out as students made the most of their time before the big match. You caught a glimpse of George walking out the portrait with Lee by his side. You wondered what kind of mischief they were up to, it certainly couldn’t be anything good. Harry and Ron were trudging up the staircase to their room assumingly and Hermione was sitting on the opposite side of the room reading quietly. The atmosphere was relaxed like the calm before a storm. Win or lose, the common room would be buzzing with energy tonight. It was just a matter of happy celebration, or tense aftermath of defeat.

You reached out for the right half of Ginny’s hair and repeated your steps. You parted the bright strands and braided them tightly.

Fred on the other hand was lost to his sister’s emotions and eager for answers. Reaching forward, Fred squeezed Ginny’s shoulder in a comforting manner. His face was scrunched together in concern as he sweetly asked her,

“… what’s the matter, little one? I’m sure your big brother can help.”

You had to physically bite your tongue to keep from ‘aweing’ at him. The one thing you loved more than anything about Fred was how caring and comforting he could be. Your heart was dripping in adoration. There had been a handful of moments you heard Fred refer to Ginny as ‘Little One’. It was typically in mocking sense or playful, however in her fragile moments, it was said with such serenity and gentleness. He was always there to help his little sister and protect her. You couldn’t help but imagine how great of a dad Fred would be in the future. He was the only man you could ever see yourself with and knowing how great of a person he truly is just made you even more certain.

Standing from the couch, Fred shuffled around the two of you so he was sitting in front of Ginny. She sniffled quietly using the sleeve of her sweater to rub her eyes. Your eyes darted between the half finished braid and the pair. Fred was patient in giving Ginny her time and finally, she came around.

“What if I lose it for us? If we don’t win, everyone is gonna hate me! It’ll be my fault and Oliver will probably kick me off the team and I’ll have nothing! And you’ll all be mad at me and mum and dad will be disappointed-” Her frantic ramble was shut down when Fred started to talk over her. It was a crazy thought; one he could not allow to marinate in her mind.

“What’re you talking about? Do you even hear yourself, Ginny?” His voice was booming causing both Ginny and yourself to jump in surprise. Your eyes met for a brief second before he took a deep breath, “First off; Oliver Wood has lost a handful of matches for us and he’s still our captain. I mean, Harry has fallen off his bloody broomstick how many times and he’s still our top Seeker! You’re the best one on that pitch Ginny- well besides George and I, but you know what I mean.” Fred chuckled a bit as a small smile cracked on Ginny’s lips. Her eyes lifted from the ground to glance up at her brother. From your spot on the couch, you couldn’t read her features. You were also too invested in the braid to look away. But Fred bending down to wrap his arms around his sister and practically squish her was answer enough. Ginny squealed at Fred’s bone crushing grip, pleading with him to let go.

You rolled your eyes at the siblings, laughing to yourself as you finished securing the hair tie in the finished braid. Leaning back you smoothed your fingers over the weaved pattern. Her hair was somehow more ginger in this style and you adored it. Peaking your head over Ginny’s shoulder, you pointed out,

“And I don’t think it’s even possible for your parents to be disappointed in you. Fred, George and Ron destroyed the family car and your parents still love them and forgave them.”

“Well I wouldn’t say forgave-” Fred winced as he recalled the event. It had been years and Molly still brought it up when she was angry with the boys. They all knew it was something they’d never fully live down in Molly’s eyes. Even on her deathbed Fred was certain she’d find a way to bring it up. Flicking the material of his sweatshirt, you glared playful at Fred for his interruption. You wrapped Ginny in a hug from behind, your arms captured around her shoulders. She melted in your grip, embracing your comforting hold. Fred folded his legs together and just sort of watched.

There was a sudden jolt of awe, that moment where everything just clicked. It came out of nowhere like a car speeding through a red light. His back pressed into the coffee table for support while he just stared. There was no one more important in this world to Fred Weasley than his family. Seeing his little sister hurt and finding solace in you, it was difficult for Fred to string together the proper words on how it made him feel. The emotions brewing inside him were entirely new- like the feeling of opening presents on Christmas morning and finding you got everything that you asked for. This sheer hypnotic haze that covered Fred went unbeknownst to you as your attention stayed locked on Ginny.

“What I’m trying to say is, it really is just a game. No one's gonna disown you if you make a mistake; Freddie here makes twenty mistakes before breakfast every morning. And even if they are bigger and play dirty, you’re faster and smarter than their entire lineup combined. We all believe in you, Ginny. I’ve seen you do it a million different times and I’ll be right there cheering you on.” Letting go of her, your head lifted to greet the eyes of Fred Weasley. Immediately you took notice of the change in his gaze. Still mesmerizing as ever to be under, yet heavier than before. Instead of throwing a childish jab back, he just held your stare, speechless for once.

Your head tilted in confusion at his odd behavior as Ginny placed her hands on either side of her body to push herself up. This seemed to pull Fred from his trance as he mimicked her actions and stood from the floor. Brushing off her pants and sweater, she gave you both a look of gratitude and said,

“Thank you, Y/n. It really means a lot- thank you too, Freddie.”

“ ‘course, we’ll always be here for you- even if we do lose, you’ll still be my favorite sister.” Fred said with a cheek smirk. Ginny rolled her eyes in slight annoyance. Just when he was sweet, he was sour once again.

“I’m your only sister Fred but thanks. I should probably go get some homework finished so I’ll see you down at the pitch later. Thanks for doing my hair, Y/n. You’re the best- I wish you really were my sister.”

“So you’re telling me, after all this time, I’m not your sister?” You asked teasingly. Ginny laughed happily, clearly pleased with your response. Fred knew how much Ginny looked up to you, how badly she wants to follow in your footsteps, and it makes him thrilled. Not only does he loves how much his sister adores you, but how great of a role model you are to her. He understood how easy it could be to shove her away or dismiss her, and Fred wouldn’t blame you if you did. However you never once turned Ginny away and it played a role in his feelings evolving so intensely. Her cheeks tinted red as she gave you one last wave and skipped up the steps to her dorm. As she disappeared from view, you looked over to Fred only to see his eyes already planted on you. The weight of his stare was suffocating and made you fidget. The second you met his gaze, Fred’s mouth dropped open as he confessed,

“I’m in love with you.” The word vomit rolled effortlessly from his lips. The contagious smile Fred seemed to constantly cause rose to your face. Having been together for some years, Fred was no stranger to broadcasting his feelings for you. Something about this felt more serious than the other times. Sinking into the cushion, you nodded over to the boy in agreeance.

“I’m in love with you, too.” Shaking his head, Fred lunged forward so he was kneeling in front of you. His hands slipped inside your own as he set your intertwined hands in your lap. That playfulness has been swept away as his eyes read full honesty. Fred’s soft features were rough, sharp on the edges as his jaw clenched with tension. Giving your hand a loving squeeze, Fred locked his eyes on yours.

“No, Y/n, I’m like, Alice fell down the rabbit hole, deeply in love with you- I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Just… promise me you’ll stick around, okay?” His voice was filled with worry and fear. You jumped forward to crunch him in a tight embrace. Fred chuckled at your abruptness but exchanged the hug nonetheless. His fingers trailed up and down the bones of your spine drawing circles and shapes as he rubbed your back. You could feel his nose pressing into your hair and soon enough, a sloppy kiss was planted on your head. Grinning like a fool, you glanced up to him with a cheesy smile.

“Hate to break it to you, Fred, but I’m not going anywhere, sorry.” You remarked, reaching up on your tippy toes to kiss his lips. Fred leaned into your lips, his hands wrapping around your waist for support. As he pulled away, you noticed that one of a kind glint reached his eyes. Before you could hypothesize his next move, Fred’s arm swooped around your lower back to scoop you up from your legs. He lifted you up and repositioned so he was carrying you in his arms. You hollered in surprise as Fred just chuckled.

“Good, don’t think I’d let you anyhow, angel. Now c’mon, someone owes me a nap.” He stated, sending you a cheeky wink. Fred began to walk towards the stairwell heading towards the boys dormitory. Clinging to his arm, you glared deathly to Fred.

“If you drop me I am writing to Molly the second I can reach a quill and parchment.” You threatened. Fred walked through the opening to the staircase then started to skip up the steps, still holding your body. You shook with every step, trying your best to mask your giggles with angry looks and sneers. Tightening his face, Fred thought on it for a moment then scowled at the idea.

“Relax, Y/n. Don’t have to take it that far- I just said I’m in love with you and that’s how you’re gonna treat me.” He teased you. His room was on the second to top floor and you could tell you were approaching by the way he slowed down. Fred’s fingers tickled at your side as he made his way towards his door. Instead of setting you down, Fred swung the door open still grasping on to you. He wasted no time slamming the door shut and practically flinging you onto his bed. Your melodic laughter filled every inch of his room making Fred glow red in pleasure. He tugged off his robes and tie, then crawled into his bed next to you. You reached over the side of the mattress for a comfy shirt of his and some pajama pants he kept lying around. He couldn’t tear his gaze, nor did he want to. Winking over to Fred, you threw his comforter over your body and cuddled up next to him.

“If it’s any constellation, I’m like, furthest rock down in the ocean, deeply in love with you.” You admitted softly. Fred’s head snapped down in your direction as he grinned to himself,

“I reckon that’s gotta count for something, love. But could we switch so I’m the little spoon? You know we’ll lose the match if I’m not and then it’ll be your fault, not Ginny’s.”

You let out a dramatic groan as you flipped around to throw your arm over Fred. His face was lit in joy as he snuggled into your hold. You smiled to yourself as you felt his lips brush against your hand and leave a small trail of kisses on each finger. Fred and his rituals, you laughed to yourself as the feeling of sleep entered your body and your eyes fell shut. The soothing sound of Fred humming was a perfect lullaby for any person to find sleep in but it had become your favorite sound. Soon, Fred would have to get ready and go face Slytherin but for now, your arms seemed to be the only place he wanted to be.

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infinityactual · 2 years

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So, it's been months, but this post has been stuck in my head since September and I'm a petty bitch, so.

Apparently I deleted the screencap I had wherein the fuckhead who capped my tags replied to my fuck you by attempting to accuse me of 'doubling down on refusing to improve' or somesuch bullshit.

Which is not at all what my point was.

My point - and I will die on this hill ten times over - is that when it comes to fanart or personal creativity, let people do whatever. Unless they ask for critique, just leave them alone and let them have fun. Keep your opinions to yourself. And that isn't asking anything unreasonable; it's basic creative courtesy.

HUGE post under the cut.

Before the above assclownery, I had seen a lot of posts from people complaining about artists drawing older men 'wrong'. And I think every single complaint revolved around "You're just drawing a 20 yo and giving him silver hair!! That's not an old man!" and honestly, I didn't think anything of it the first few times I saw this.

But as I saw it more, it started to bother me because it was always in reference to fanart, specifically.

Fanart. Something that fans of a given media draw out of love and appreciation for the characters in said media. Something fun, something not (usually) done for profit. So upon seeing yet another 'stop drawing twentysomethings with silver hair 2021' tag, I reblogged it with my own tags (capped in the linked post) and went about my day.

The thing that just made me instantly angry was the proclamation of "I'm an artist. Calm down and go look at some reference."

Obviously this person didn't bother to check things out before putting both feet in their mouth. I may not have a damn degree from some hoity-toity art school (no shade on people that do, some of the coolest ppl I've met have art degrees) but I'm sure as hell an artist. Creativity does not require a degree.

And guess what. I draw old characters.

The secondary point I'd been hoping to get across in the tags is that aging a face is fucking hard. It takes effort and practice and often doesn't look good with hard lines. A lot of age is shown in shadows and lines too fine to be rendered with any but a .005 pen; and even then, it still tends look off unless you're drawing on a fairly large scale.

And my tertiary point was that people age differently depending on a huge kaleidoscope of factors! How often do they go outside? Do they have any inherited or otherwise chronic health problems, mental or physical? Male, female, intersex or transgender (and how much have they transitioned, if at all?), do they use drugs or alcohol? How often? I could spend hours listing factors that contribute to a person's appearance, and age isn't the biggest factor by far.

Hell, take Lord Hood and Lasky for example:

Most people I ask, including people well outside the Halo fandom, put Hood's age between 70 and 80.

He's 64.

A lot of people put Lasky at around his late 30s, maybe early 40s on the absolute outside.

He's 48 or 49 by the time Halo 5 rolls around, maybe 50 during Infinite.

Hood looks much older than he is bc of all those wrinkles, like someone let him sit in the dryer too long. Meanwhile Lasky looks a lot younger than his actual age. And these are just two examples from a single game series.

So when I draw Lasky, I draw him as is:

The only obvious wrinkles he has are on his forehead, right above his eyebrows. That's also one of his few unique identifying features, and anyone reading this who knows anything about cartooning, caricatures or comics will likely know that you focus on the few unique features that make a person recognizable but still easy to draw.

But unless you're drawing professionally as a career or doing commission work, your primary goal should not be constant improvement; that's a real good way to hit burnout and lose your passion for something. Even professionals take breaks and doodle stupid 'bad' art on their own time for funsies. I can cite countless examples I've seen personally, from the legendary DnD artist Todd Lockwood to commission artists on this beloved hellsite just trying to make the rent.

Fanart and personal work isn't always about improvement or practice. And it shouldn't be!! People need to have the ability to just crank out stupid lil doodles of their beloved older men without fussing over making sure they get every wrinkle right to be certain they convey his exact age 'correctly', or whether they have the skills to do so. If I had a dime for every thing I didn't draw because I don't have the skill, I'd put Jeff Bezoar to fucking shame with my wealth. Creators - amateur and professional alike - should be able to do this without having to see people, especially other fucking creators, bad mouthing them in posts or tags or comments.

Constant improvement should never be a primary goal with any skill. Bad art is still art, every single person who has ever put pen to paper started out drawing 'cringey' art. Fanart and personal work not done as part of a career or for commission should not be subject to the same standards. And lastly

Even 'bad' art, stupid little doodles and fanart still contribute to the learning process.

Otherwise I would not be where I am. All of my skill was developed by drawing personal stuff or making fanart. My skill making vinyl stickers by hand that makes people say I'm talented all started years ago with one sticker that took me five attempts to make because I didn't know jack shit about working with vinyl at the time. I kept making personal stickers for my car sporadically for years, and over time I got better simply because I was doing. I wasn't making stickers with the goal of improving my skill with an Xacto knife. I was making stickers because I couldn't find any designs I wanted and goddammit I wanted unique stickers for my shitty lil Cobalt.

And I'm able to take Giuseppe from this:

to this:

Not because I was trying to improve my skill at rendering faces, but because he's my Short King and I love him, and I love drawing him, and I also love the idea that he gets to live to be an old grandpa.

And no, I did not use reference for this, I just fucking drew it because I wanted to, and pulled from my past experience drawing old men from back when I actually DID sit my ass down and trawl references and guides on how to add age to a face, because I wanted to learn how to draw my 70+ year old Mechwarrior better.

#actual rants #art rant #the fucking reading comprehension on this site i swear to fucking god #and like what mindset makes you feel like you're obligated to give unsolicited critique #or bash fucking FANART of all things #hoky fucking shit its FANART #LIKE HOW HARD IS IT FOR SOME PEOPLE TO JUST LET OTHERS ENJOY SHIT #thank you and goodnight

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highdio · 3 years

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Got an ask and follow-up re: whether Dio is an "archetypal villain" so doing it as one reply (fwiw I just did a reply re: Dio's nuance so keeping this to the 'archetype' part of the ask).

“so, i seen some people say Dio is simply a archetypal villain, perhaps even flat. what would you say to someone that told you he was without nuance? i plenty believe he has, but sometimes i dont know exactly what to say”

“someone i asked about what was their favorite villain told me he was a archetypal villain. and i think two years ago i saw a meme pic about how Dio fans are obnoxious or something. i mostly got my liking from him by analyses, alongside the fact that i do think personally that he DID change as a character, not completely, but he had some development.”

I partly agree with that, although maybe there's not one single 'archetypal villain.’ The person you spoke with probably meant that Dio's is Evil with a capital 'E,' as opposed to a villain who does the bad things for understandable reasons, or who gets corrupted by events outside their control. Araki's vision for Dio (in Part 1 especially) is, morally speaking, black-and-white, with Dio's Evil defined by Araki as an innate trait rather than the effect of his circumstances.

fwiw David Mamet's got a good list of eight villain archetypes - the anti-villain, the beast, the bully, the machine, the mastermind, the evil incarnate, the henchman, and the fanatic - and I thought for the purpose of this reply it's helpful to defining Dio's specific brand of badness. Of those archetypes, two stand out as defining Dio's *specific* type: the Evil Incarnate and (technically not on the list but inspired by it) the Anti-Hero.

(fwiw you can read my convo here about why Dio isn't a bully type. I see him mistyped this way especially by people who want to expand Jonathan's role in the series. tl;dr, basically it comes down to the fact that Dio's charisma - his most important character trait btw - draws people toward him while a bully actively seeks out confrontation. The bully barges into a room, the charismatic character gets you to barge into a room. Dio is the latter.)

Evil Incarnate's almost self-explanatory - Dio's literally called that in the series (邪悪の化身) - although I can talk more about this if you want. By contrast, his anti-hero role's maybe less obvious ... but that designation offers us a way of reconciling some of the stuff listed under Mamet's 'Evil incarnate' that doesn't work with how Dio's written. Specifically, an Evil incarnate-type villain's primary role in the narrative is usually as an obstacle to the hero's journey, ie, as an antagonist. imo, Dio functions instead primarily as a parallel protagonist.

(I've written about this before but) Araki's said this a lot: Dio joins Jonathan as a dual protagonist in Phantom Blood, and Dio's own story follows a Hero's rising arc.

(Was surprised I didn't notice this until I hunted a gif for this reply: while the Part 1 OP features both main characters throughout, it's Dio alone who's given a special manga panel mini-montage during its bridge, emphasizing his hero-style arc.)

In a lot of ways Dio's more fleshed out than the actual hero since Araki had already worked out the specifics of his personality in a prior series (whereas Jonathan was vaguer to Araki, even as Part 1 was being published: "just as Jonathan was unsure how to live his life, I was unsure as to where to take his character.") Phantom Blood starts off with Dio's introduction, not Jonathan's. As Araki puts it,

The title of the series is Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, but first and foremost, I actually wanted to draw Dio.

The hero's introduction is inserted within Dio's introduction, as a story-within-a-story recalled in a flashback by Dio's dad. We don't get to meet Jonathan on his own terms until the next chapter, and, because of this ordering, if you read Part 1 cold you could start off thinking it's Dio who's going to be the hero. Dio's story's a riff on your stereotypical rags-to-riches tale but with the obvious twist that he's written as unapologetically Evil. Like the rags-to-riches protag, Dio's faced with increasingly difficult setbacks and challenges throughout his story's progress, and, in spite of these, he keeps moving forward. Araki, again:

Dio moves in a rising direction, like Jonathan. Dio accepts and embraces his evil nature and follows his dark path without hesitation. In other words, both Dio and Jonathan are living life with everything they’ve got, and both always maintain a rising personal arc.

In other words, Dio has his own upward rising arc by design and it's independent of the hero's. ofc his interactions with the Joestars throughout the series are significant and their back-and-forths drive the larger story, but the trajectory of Dio's arc remains largely the same throughout all this.

If you see Dio as a protagonist then you also recognize that Jonathan's (and later Jotaro and company's) relentless pursuit (yes, they pursue him, because charisma is a gravitational force) provides the antagonistic force to Dio's arc. (And going back to the Araki quote, that "without hesitation part" is really important - Dio's willful embrace of his Evil nature and the intentionality of his actions throughout Part 1 again align him with a heroic type: it's a positive character trait, just in Dio's case it's executed wrongly.)

So call Dio an anti-hero or, if it makes you more comfortable, a Villain who thinks he's the Hero in the story. This isn't a unique situation (and probably as you're reading this you might be thinking, well all villains have their own story arc too) but imo Araki writing Dio with this specific perspective and intent sets him apart from what we think of as the more generic model of a villain, whose role within the narrative is secondary to the hero's and whose arc is cleanly set up as in opposition to that hero.

Ofc, a villainous anti-hero is by nature appealing because we know we really shouldn't root for him. We should hate him ... but we still sort of love him, especially when, because of that rising story arc that Araki gave him, he keeps coming back after stupidly impossible odds. Usually when you get decapitated you lose but Dio's not like that, and there's something compelling about a character who repeatedly breaks the narrative flow by improv-ing his way through impossible situations.

tl;dr, basically if you're looking to characterize what 'type' of villain Dio is (and why he's attractive), Dio is Evil personified fused with the inconvenient fact of his also being more or less protagonist-identified. Araki wrote Dio with a hero in mind, and that fact keeps him interesting on his own terms and places him in the contrarian posture of a particularly reprehensible anti-hero.

#Anonymous #replies tag #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #dio brando #mp #dioposts #dio talk

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swanlake1998 · 3 years

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Article: For transgender dancers, progress can't come fast enough

Date: March 8, 2020

By: Avichai Scher

Sean Dorsey was tired of being the only transgender dancer in the room. So he took the bold step of starting his own company, the San Francisco-based Sean Dorsey Dance, and become the first openly trans director of a full-time dance company. It was a milestone for transgender and gender-nonconforming dancers and choreographers, and Dorsey hoped it would lead to a more inclusive dance world.

The company is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, yet Dorsey remains the only openly trans artistic director of a full-time dance company in the country.

“We’ve definitely made progress since I started, when there was really no context for institutional or social support of trans dancers,” Dorsey said. “But there’s still a major lack of representation across the dance world.”

Dance, especially older forms such as ballet and modern dance, is mostly structured around strict gender lines. While the growing acceptance of transgender people in the United States has extended somewhat into the art form, trans dancers are often forced to choose between being their authentic selves and career opportunities.

Issues start in training

Dorsey’s choreography often deals with trans issues, and he is committed to being an advocate in the dance world for transgender people. But even in his own company, Dorsey is the only trans performer.

“In San Francisco, at least, I don’t have the luxury of holding an audition for trans dancers,” he said. “There just aren’t very many at the professional level.”

Dorsey said this is largely because barriers for trans and gender-nonconforming dancers start at a young age — as most training programs are gender-specific.

Jayna Ledford, 19, made headlines when she came out as transgender in an Instagram post in 2018. She was studying at the Kirov Ballet Academy at the time, a traditional ballet program in Washington, D.C. It was the first time a dancer at an acclaimed ballet school had publicly come out as trans.

Classes at Kirov, like most ballet conservatories, are generally separated by sex assigned at birth, and when students are combined, teachers offer different steps for men and women. Ledford, however, found ways to get the training that matched her gender identity, including dancing on her toes in special pointe shoes, which is done almost exclusively by women and requires unique training.

“I wanted to do what the females were doing,” she said. “I’d do it on the side and not pay attention to what the guys were doing. I’d also stay after class and practice pointe technique with my female friends.”

She hadn’t had the training other females at the school had, but she was hoping to transfer from the men’s program to the women’s.

“I knew I had a lot of catching up to do in terms of pointe work,” she said. “But just being in the room with the females, that’s what I wanted.”

The Kirov Academy told Ledford she could not join the women’s program unless she physically transitioned. Ledford was not ready for that, so she left the school. She was disappointed but now says she understands the academy’s position. The school confirmed Ledford’s account but declined to comment.

Maxfield Haynes, 22, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, said the large, prestigious ballet school where they trained was not supportive of someone presenting as male wearing pointe shoes.

It wasn’t until Haynes enrolled at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University that they were able to explore the more feminine aspects of ballet technique. Ledford also found higher education to be more supportive than a conservatory. She now studies at Montclair State University and practices pointe technique daily.

Lack of professional opportunities

After NYU, Haynes chose to dance with Complexions Contemporary Ballet partially because the company is explicitly supportive of gender fluidity, and even had a specific role for Haynes that is gender-nonconforming. In the David Bowie tribute piece, “Stardust,” Haynes dons pointe shoes and was partnered with male dancers.

“It was everything I could have dreamed of,” Haynes said of the role. “As nonbinary, I like to get to show all aspects of gender. I don’t think about dancing like a man or a woman, just myself.”

Opportunities to dance roles that are gender-nonconforming are rare in the concert dance world, even if dancers are becoming more open about being gender-nonconforming in their offstage lives. And those who want to physically transition face a stark choice, as none of the major dance companies in the U.S. currently have openly transgender dancers on their rosters.

Alby Sabrina Pretto recently made the difficult choice to begin physically transitioning with hormone replacement therapy at the expense of her performing career. She was a dancer with Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo, an all-male comedy troupe, for eight years. While she got to dance in pointe shoes, the style of the company is rooted in the comedy of men portraying women, which ultimately wasn’t how Pretto identified.

“There were moments I wanted to do things like a ballerina would and be ethereal and pretty,” Pretto said. “To dance like a woman.”

She knew that physically transitioning would mean she could not continue with the company.

“I wanted to have a career, and that slowed down my decision to transition,” Pretto said. “I waited until I felt like I had done what I wanted to do there.”

Liz Harler, general manager of Les Ballet Trockadero, said in a statement that transitioning does not disqualify dancers from the company.

“Dancers who expressed interest in transitioning to female have been told that their job would not be in jeopardy, though none have chosen to do so while continuing with the Trocks’ rigorous dancing and touring schedule,” Harler said.

Both Ledford and Pretto hope for the day when they can attend an audition and be hired without having to explain their gender identity.

Ledford said. “I’ll audition as any other woman. If I get in, then I’ll sit down and talk with them.”

Ledford is “optimistic” that this can happen in the next few years, but Pretto isn’t so sure.

“I am not naive, I know I cannot just audition for a major ballet company and join the female corps de ballet,” Pretto said. “But I would love for that to happen for me. It’s the ultimate dream.”

Her skepticism is partly based on the experience of her former Trockadero colleague, Chase Johnsey, who is gender fluid. He made headlines in 2018 when he was cast in a female ensemble role in the English National Ballet’s production of “Sleeping Beauty,” though it was not on pointe, and the heavy costume concealed his body. No additional female roles came his way afterward.

The question of who gets opportunities as a dancer often comes down to the taste of directors and producers and what they imagine their audiences want to see, not just ability.

Pretto danced a couple of character roles recently with Eglevsky Ballet, a growing ballet ensemble on Long Island, New York. The director, Maurice Brandon Curry, said he would consider Pretto for a female ensemble role next year, because her pointe work is “excellent,” though he wonders how some in the audience will react.

“Casting Alby in a female role would not be about passing as female, but I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge my concern about an audience member who was offended,” Curry said. “But art is not prejudice; it’s about inclusivity and open minds. If someone is not willing to have that experience, they don’t have a legitimate place in our audiences.”

Signs of change

Dorsey said that even having discussions about gender identity in dance is progress from when he started, and he’s encouraged by changes he’s seen: Most theaters either already have gender-neutral restrooms or create them for his company’s visit; trans and gender-nonconforming students attend his workshops in various cities and share with him their efforts to be accepted in their dance communities; the San Francisco Ballet persuaded him to lead a training session on gender identity in dance; and he was on the cover of Dance Magazine.

Ledford was recently a “Gaynor Girl,” a spokesperson for the popular pointe shoe brand Gaynor Minded. Pretto said she worked up the courage to use the ladies' locker room at one of New York’s busiest studios, Steps on Broadway, and no one seemed to mind.

Still, the art form has not yet caught up to reflect the audience, Dorsey said. His company has worked in over 30 cities in the U.S. and abroad, and he is usually the first trans choreographer a theater has presented. But he said the response from audiences is almost always positive.

“Dance audiences are ready and hungry for trans voices,” he said. “It's our dance institutions that are still catching up.”

#article #ballet #an article from last year but still important #sean dorsey #jayna ledford #maxfield haynes #alby sabrina pretto

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kyidyl · 3 years

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Kyidyl Explains Bones - Part 3

Well, I had this halfway done and then TUMBLR ATE IT, so let me start again. UGH.

(These posts are collected under the KyidylBones tag. Do with that information what you will, lol.)

So what are we getting into today? Sex determination!

Ethical Note: I’m adding this bc not everyone who sees this post saw my post yesterday and this is important info, especially on Tumblr. Anthropologists of all stripes are well aware that sex and gender are extremely complicated. Trust me, we know. But we still do sex determination for a few reasons. First, because missing persons databases are arranged on a male/female binary, and if we’re comparing a set of remains to that database to identify the remains then we need that info. Second, demographic info for populations that have disappeared is important, even if those populations are historical. This might shock you (<--sarcasm), but written records are usually either lacking or inaccurate. Third, if we know the sex of the skeleton we can compare that to the grave goods and learn some interesting cultural things, including possibly being trans, because none of the signs of being trans survive physically in the skeleton. So I am going to be using male/female binary language, but it isn’t to exclude the wide variety of sexes and genders that don’t exist on that binary, it’s because it’s what I’ve got to work with. And if you have questions about this, feel free to ask, but please be respectful.

Alright, so there are some vocab words for today’s post and I had them all nicely written out in an easy to read paragraph, but it got eaten, so I’m just gonna present them in list fashion this time:

Characteristic - All physical markers of human variation exist on a spectrum because humans are varied and we invented the categories to begin with. If something is characteristic of, say, a male? It means that it is very, very distinctly male. It matches the stereotypical expectation of what you’d see in a male. It’s a standard for an obvious example of a given thing.

Landmark - A landmark on your bones is a feature of the bones that is always in the same place. We use this to help us identify a bone and to help us know what side it is on. IE, your lesser trochanter is a bump on your femur (thigh bone) that is on the inside towards the back. It’s always in that spot, so we know which direction it should face and ergo which side it would be on. Landmarks are unique to the bone in question.

Foramen - A hole on a bone. The big one in your skull that your spinal cord goes through is the foramen magnum and it literally means big hole. But there are a lot of little ones all over your skeleton so your nerves and blood vessels can do to your skeleton what the weirwood did to Bryden Rivers. I said what I said. ;)

Bilateral - Both sides. Humans have bilateral symmetry and so one side is symmetrical (externally and WRT your skeleton, but not always your organs.) to the other. You can split us down the middle and the two sides are basically the same.

Ok, so there’s another set of terms that you need to know, but I’m going to be copying and pasting this into every post going forward so I’m making it separate. Anyone who works with any kind of anatomy uses these terms to be very specific about the location of something on the body. They are:

Anterior/Posterior - Front and back respectively. I remember them because my mom used to say posterior when she didn’t want to say butt, and because A comes before P the way front comes before back. Sometimes people say dorsal and ventral, and I remember that because a dorsal fin is on a whale’s back.

Proximal/Distal - Near and far vertically in relationship to the center of your body. I remember it because one end of the bone is in close proximity to me and the other one is distant.

Medial/Lateral - Near and far horizontally in relationship to the center of your body. I remember it because medial is closer to the middle of my body, and lateral isn’t medial. Also, if you are reading left to right L comes before M and you’d get to a lateral body part before a medial one.

So, where to begin? How do we know what sex people were assigned at birth from just their skeleton? Let’s start with what everyone is most familiar with:

The Pelvis

The pelvis of an adult human is a really common thing for an archaeologist to find. And by the time we find it, it’s usually in three pieces (excluding your tailbone aka last vertebra). Your left and right hip bones, called the innominates, and your sacrum. Mind you, the pelvis is made up of a number of bones, but they all fuse in adulthood except these three (fun fact: I’m so used to using the individual names for them that I had to *google* the word innominate.), so this is what we usually find. If it’s a kid, they still survive well because they’re thick, heavy bones, but they aren’t fused. Another fun fact, the bumps of bone that you feel under your ass are called your ischium and I’m only telling you that because I think it’s a fun word to say. Your hop bones, like the actual entirety of the flat bladed part at the top, that’s called the Illium. I like that word too. Aaanyway, here’s a human pelvis:

(Source)

These are actual bone specimens in the top down view, both are women, but they are of different ethnic origin.

(Source)

This is a cast (IE, plastic), front view of a male pelvis.

You can see those 3 pieces I’m talking about. The only joint there that remains unfused is the sacroiliac joint, IE, where the two halves of the pelvis join the sacrum. However! You sacrum is technically a series of fused vertebrae and your spinal cord runs almost all the way to the very tip. There are some conditions which cause these not to fuse, or to not fuse properly, or to not properly encase the spinal cord and it causes all KINDS of issues. But anyway, yeah, your sacrum is a really tough hunk of bone because it carries a lot of weight. The bit in the front is called the pubic symphysis and, despite what certain tumblr posts would have you believe, having children does NOT leave a notch on the inner side of it from the muscle tearing away tiny chunks of the bone. In fact, it is hotly debated whether or not pregnancy leaves behind any skeletal evidence at all.

Alright, so basically speaking, females make da babies and males don’t, so the different equipment is differently shaped......

.....wait, no, that’s not right. Let’s back up. Male and female humans are differently proportioned and their center of gravity is, on average, different. This is the whole thing about men having upper body strength and women having thighs that can crush watermelons. This is on *average* (I will be saying a lot about averages in these posts.) true. And so the physics of the forces exerted on your bones is different. Males are top-heavy, and so their pelvis is shaped in response to their gate and muscle structure because the pelvis supports and distributes the weight of your entire body. And bipedalism means that the shape of the pelvis is very, very different depending on the weight distribution. These changes to the pelvis are really obvious, which is why we can tell from just a few bones whether or not a hominin was bipedal. It changes the *entire* body.

It is true though that the pelvis of a female is different than a male, because a female pelvis has to be able to support the weight of a developing child while still allowing the individual to walk. So the interaction of average size, a uterus, and the bipedal gate means that male and female pelvises are a different shape.

Here is a comparison:

(Source)

So firstly, that angle is called the sub-public angle, and because a females pelvis is wider and flatter than a male’s (when viewed from the front) it’s wider in the front. This also gives any babies more room. Secondly, you can see the difference in the tilt of the sacrum - in the female you can’t see the tailbone. This, again, is due to the confluence of weight distribution and the necessity of passing a baby’s head through that space. It would be a lot harder to push it out if you had a tailbone in the way. Lastly, you can see that the shape of the circle when you look top down and bottom up are different - wider on the woman because of the same reasons I’ve already mentioned. There is one more major difference between the male and female pelvis, and that’s the sciatic notch:

(Source)

Characteristic of male on the left, intermediate in the middle, and female on the right (and dang, she was young, too.). Thinner is male, wider is female. Usually you can fit your thumb in a female’s notch but barely or not at all in a male. I personally find the subpubic arch and the sciatic notch the easiest to use because, fun fact #2, those 3 sections are a bitch to hold together with your hands and that makes it hard to see the other shapes. The amount of sacrums and pelvic bones I’ve accidentally dropped while trying to determine sex....it’s a lot, ok? It’s a lot. I only have two hands and pelvises are big.

There are also several less obvious ways of determining sex from a skeleton, so you guys should definitely visit the source for the above image because they go into it deeper and there are several excellent images of public bones.

So how else do we determine sex? The next easiest way is from the skull, because the features are distinct and skulls survive well.

The Skull

In my opinion the easiest landmark to use on a skull for sex determination is the jaw. There are several features of the jaw that can be used here - and, mind you, when determining sex we measure every small and large sex-linked feature according to a scale and then average it all out. We never look at any single thing (although sometimes the individual has something so characteristic that you can’t help it. The individual in my position has a brow like a neanderthal, so it was pretty obvious.). Anyway, there are several features here but the easiest is to look at the shape of the lateral distal posterior portion of the jaw. It’s called the masseteric tuberosity. Basically, it’s a little bit of bone that sticks out of the back of your jaw. It’s one of the attachment points of the masseter aka chewing muscles attach. Because males have stronger muscles pulling on that part of the jaw and exerting more force, it flares out further for them when you look at it from the front, like this:

(Source)

It’s that sticky-outy thing thing that I circled in red. Here is an example of the same thing on females:

(Source)

Female jaws are rounder, and so that bit is less defined, flares out less, and is not as sharp as it is on males. And this is a reminder that these measures aren’t absolutes - humans have a lot of variance in them. The female asian and the male on the right both have somewhat atypical structures, while the female european and the two other males have a very characteristic structure.

The two other easiest to identify are the shape of the brown line and the shape of the chin (the mental protuberance). Here is an image of the comparison:

(Source: Pinterest, but this images are from the Human Bone Manual text that I use and I used this image so I wouldn’t have to make my own. :P)

You can see in the profile that the female skull has a higher, more vertical forehead with less pronounced brow ridges. If you look, you can also see that her chin protrudes less in profile, and is softer and less pronounced in the frontal view. The angle under her teeth is less severe.

So these three things, the chin, the brow, and the jaw, are the easiest to identify the most likely to be characteristic of the sex of the individual. But, if you compare the images I’ve used here you’ll also notice that there are other differences in the skull. Females have more of a slope to the bottom of their jaw, the bump on the back of their heads (the occipital protuberance) tends to be far less pronounced; and this is the case for all muscle attachments generally speaking. On average, males are more easily able to build muscle mass and are larger, and so their muscles pull harder on their skeletons and create larger muscle attachments. The round, blunt thing to the right of the back of the jaw that sticks out from the skull (the mastoid process), is also at a different angle and is larger in males. This is another case of the muscles being bigger and stronger - the mastoid process is where several of your jaw and neck muscles attach.

There you have it, then. The easiest ways to tell the sex of a skeleton. :)

This post has been approved by Gage the science doggo:

#science #anthropology #skeletons #human remains #human skeletons #education #KyidylBones #archaeology #bioarchaeology #humans #bones #human bones

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pt-disconnected · 2 years

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Anonymous Ask Responses #13

As expected, not too long after the new part, a bunch of asks came up! And as usual, I'll be replying to them here! At this point even if they're not all Anonymous, they all get put in here for the sake of making it a single post. Most of them are Anons so I guess the name sticks? Either way, here's the questions- along with another bit of art by @athenwrench at the end (thank you for the art!)

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First, a little segment of people who are happy to see Gaster getting completely destroyed.

"Pt gaster is pissed"

Pretty much, yeah. How unfortunate that Player had to pull a Jevil and go for chaos- since chaos is unpredictable. (Insert 'The World Revolving' here, alongside PT!Gaster screaming.)

"Peck you gaster lol"

Yup. Just a big peck neck right there. Bigger than DJ Grooves if I can say so- although the Conductor may disagree. And yes, I am a fan of A Hat In Time.

"Pfft 'slot face' perfect name for pt gaster lol" (This ask was delayed for a bit, so to whoever sent this, sorry I ended up missing it for so long.)

I mean, it's kinda a given. And also it makes him more akin to a bishop rather than a knight in terms of the shapes of chess pieces.

And now, back to our regular programming.

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"I live to see kris smiling"

Can 100% relate. I think seeing Gaster get completely one-upped and then just ragequit would make most anyone who hates him smile. Which probably includes most of us.

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"I think Susie’s reaction was pretty much everyone’s reaction to Gaster being a Lightner lol"

Yeah, pretty much! Nobody really expected that- we probably all expected Gaster from Undertale, but no- he's human. Lynx really pulled a fast one on us there!

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"Who is your favorite Deltarune character from chapters 1 and 2"

From the games? I'll have to be honest, that's a pretty good question. I kinda have a tie between a few of them.

Firstly there's good ol' Spamton G. Spamton. I really think he'd have been a nice character to know had we seen him before... well, whatever happened to him. But the strings that held him up, and yet dragged him down, made him someone else entirely. I kinda feel bad for the guy.

Then, we have Ralsei. Wholesome goat boi- need I say more? Though some people speculate there's more to him than that, I think that the reason he talks with Kris while we're watching the others is because of Kris being concerned about what we might do. They're insecure- they wanted to talk with Ralsei on his own, so that nobody else would know what might be going on. Perhaps there's more than just us controlling Kris- after all Kris is always asleep before doing... well, whatever happens at night during the games. And lastly, while Noelle is also very high on the list, the character who snags the third spot is...

Berdly.

Yes, I know. It's insane. But dammit I relate to the guy. Partially because of the stress put on him because he's seen as being so smart (though the reasons for my end are different), and partly because...

Well, let's just say I have probably well over 5k Pokémon TCG cards. If not more.

So yeah. I'm a bit of a geek in some ways myself.

...Oh yeah, KK is also a fun character. He actually would let us buy 400 bagels if we had the room in our inventory. Great guy.

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@prhthezanko:

"Was that a chess pun? Nice. So out of curiosity, did Susie see any defining features that the Player might identify? Since I know you believe the player didn't see the Ralsei and the others against Gaster, so they wouldn't know the backstory, could they maybe put 2 and 2 together with his appearance being similar to Gaster?" Yes, that was in fact a chess pun. I wanted to do something creative with the ACT menu, and the moment I saw that the one consistent option was 'Check', I knew right then what I wanted to do. Because that one option is what is consistent throughout both Undertale and Deltarune- so the opportunity to make something unique from it was perfect. (And I mean, come on, with PT!Gaster, it was bound to make for a good scene. Especially with how much board game referencing he does... that made it so much better, throwing him off with the same thing he does.)

As for your question, Susie probably would have seen the scars, but the Player may not fully put the pieces together since they didn't see Gaster themselves- at least, not after his helmet broke. But during the next encounter, well... I can only give you a simple reply.

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And now for the bit of art by @athenwrench... it may not be the best, but nobody is perfect right off the bat. And even after a while, nobody is perfect. So I'm still quite impressed regardless!

"Yup, he's pissed. I went for a sort of pasty white appearance because he hasn't seen the sun in who knows how long."

I definitely like the detail of how the slot in the helmet is still seen- although the question remains, how the heck does he see through it?! Does he have a camera on the outside and screens inside or something stupid like that? It's really kinda baffling.

But yeah, he definitely hasn't seen the sun for... what was it again? 66.5 years?

That's gotta be a lot of lost vitamin D. Stunned that they're still going- the bunker must've had supplies of the stuff.

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And with that, we have reached the baker's dozen of Anon Ask segments! Hopefully the next part of the story won't take nearly as long- though I can't say that it'll be out this month, for which I apologize. I'm gonna be taking a small vacation at the later end of the month, during which I'll likely not be online much. So I'm most likely replying early-mid March.

But when I get back, trust me I'm going to be writing the next part for you all. I really appreciate how much you all enjoy the story, and I hope that I can keep it enjoyable!

Until then, see you all!

Oh yeah, before I forget:

LynxGriffin has been reposting a new project, I don't know for sure whether or not it's him working on it (I think it is, but if it is, he seems to be keeping it quiet. Probably for a good reason.)

However, whether he's the one making it or not, I still really like how it looks and works, and it's only just about to start the real story. So if you haven't checked it out, you should do that now!

Anthrofractal

I'm going to be adding this to the pinned post as well, alongside a link to DemoPhone's Chronology story! So if you ever want to check those out, you can always find the links there!

For real this time: see you all later!

#undertale #deltarune #lynxgriffin #paper trail #pt-disconnected #anon asks #the gif #fan art

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youarejesting · 4 years

Text

Wild Space

Pairing: Alien!Jimin x Reader Beta: @jung-hoseok-s-airplane Genre: Romance, Angst, Fluff, SFW Rating: 16+ (slight mature themes implied something) Words: 4.6k

Summary: You are on an expedition to explore a new world, the one you encounter is so beautiful and unique but you find the real beauty in its people. Though they are a little different you feel yourself falling in love with culture, their way of life and their cute ears and tails.

“This is unit one we have finally finished docking and are now beginning assembly and exploration of planet B52. It seems this planet's flora are similar to that of earth, none have started to move or eat us which is a bonus.” It took a whole day to land the station so you weren’t as excited to be here as you had previously been. Your team leader cleared their throat disapprovingly which earned him a rolling of your eyes. “I mean none of the participants within the exploration have been consumed to date.”

The wording though correct probably didn’t need to be said with the snobbish tone, but you were feeling particularly sassy. Wanting to get away for a while after being cooped up in the station you picked up your bag full of supplies and headed out.

The air was fresh like dizzyingly so, the place was green and rich with life and you thought if the earth needed time to rejuvenate then this could be the new substitute in that time. But the colours were odd, it really was a new world. The green grass had a pink tinge to it, the oceans were mauve. But it was all deemed safe perfectly so. We humans are smarter and have figured out how to promote the world's health and well-being.

“The temperatures are stable and the solar flares are filtered by the Ozone layers.” Watching one of the two suns ‘set’ was relieving, sure it wasn’t the fore sun but it did cool the air significantly. The fore sun was practically the same distance between earth and our sun with a slight more reddish tone than our bright yellow one. But in this solar system there was a dwarf sun well really it is just a burning planet but it orbits the sun so close, burning just the same but in a vibrant blue. No one could get close enough to test the elements on the dwarf sun that made it burn that colour but it was beautiful.

As one of the suns moved behind the other a beautiful pinkish haze took over the planet giving it a hazy romantic feel. Talk about rose coloured glasses. This transition revealed the neighbouring planet of B52 a large celestial body with rings which in the glow of the afternoon sun were in shades of pink and purple and the planet was a deep lavender.

The astrologists and physicians had both determined that the two planets moved together in harmony and both planets were deemed liveable but they were never going to collide as they equal gravity, each pulling the other at the same intensity. The sky was never the typical sky blue but always a haze of purple, at its lightest it was a soft lilac and at its darkest the sky was a deep byzantium.

Because of this the water on the planet reflected the purple tones and the clearest waters were a mauve but the darkest were a heavy plum. “The fauna is also similar to that of the earth with a few abnormal features, here and there.” You looked upon a small group of tiny animals; they walked on all fours and were fluffy somewhere between a hamster and a cat. They were predominantly ears and eyes, which is probably how they found you, turning and freezing. Big round orbs looking shiny and innocent and with a squeak they were gone.

Being a linguist you didn’t really have anything to do, the crew usually just gave you odd jobs and as of late that job was completing the reports. You were exploring and recording your observations while the others set up the station and greenhouse. The sooner one can grow their own foods the better off for all of you.

You followed what almost looked like a tiny dinosaur that walked slowly to a nearby tree and began eating berries. You had decided you would be useful and started sketching what you see whilst moving about. The ferns moved in the gentle breeze and an almost odd and yet sweet floral scent enveloped you. A river on your left trickling quiet quickly and in the distance you thought you could hear a waterfall.

From the river emerged what looked like an axolotl each foot pulling it onto the red toned grass and shook itself like a dog and you realized it was fluffy. This caused you to giggle, you began drawing the animal while singing softly. When you were done you continued reporting.

In the middle of your ramblings about the health of the planet and such, you heard a rustle behind you. It was odd because when you turned there was nothing there. You were out of earshot so you dropped your professional jargon.

“There seem to be no immediate signs of danger but the crew is working as per protocol for the safety of the team.”

You watched as a flying mouse landed in a tree squeaking and chewing at some sort of fruit it gathered. It was very much the bumble bee dilemma wings too small for the size of its body. It was colourful though like a rainbow lorikeet, it’s tail multicoloured.

“No sign of intelligent life, so far-”

Another rustle behind you accompanied by heavy breathing, you tried to glance around at whatever it was. Looking as far as you could out of your peripheral vision the only feature you caught was a long red tail swishing low, and whatever it was walked on all four legs. You tried to grab your radio but you heard a low rumble from the animal in question. The thing seemed to change shape and moved until it was right behind you mirroring your posture on two legs, its nose pressed to the back of your neck sniffing.

The figure moved around you and you saw it completely. A man, well mostly. He was muscular and lean, he had claw-like nails and teeth that were sharper than a human. On the top of his head were two ears that were peaked and alert. His tail puffed and he growled. In fear of this strange new life especially the fear of being killed caused a tear to roll down your cheek, he circled around you faster and breathed you in.

You stood still as he stepped behind you once more and seemed to brush past your ponytail; it must have startled him as he pulled it firmly, causing you to fall back. He growled at your sudden movement and jumped on top of you baring his teeth over your neck. Unmoving once more you watched him slowly circle your form, he sniffed you here and there licking the side of your boot and you were thankful for the fact he had some sort of fabric over the lower half of his body so you didn’t see anything unnecessary.

His eyes were dark, his hair a vibrant red as were his ears and tail; he was mixed in appearance. You couldn’t determine whether he was canine or feline, he had features from both sides.

Sniffing he nudged your arm burying his nose against the underarm of your shirt. You knew you were sweaty, it’s not like deodorant was a priority on a space trip there was some but not enough to last a whole expedition. And if you know anything about the animal kingdom, smell was what they used to identify each other.

He growled circling you again before curling up beside you and placing his head on your chest watching you as his eyes drifted shut with a heavy sigh. He was beautiful, he reminded you of the exotic people in the avatar movie where those blue aliens were so tall and human-like but just slightly off. He wasn’t blue, but he was very naturally beautiful.

After an hour or two of trying to get out from underneath him you gave up entirely. At another point you accidentally started patting the young man’s head forgetting he was not a sweet domesticated animal despite the ears and tail.

As the fore sun began to set over you, the cold breeze began seeping into your skin and shivers bloomed from within you. The action seemed to wake him, eyes widening as he launched himself away. Backing away, you shared equal expressions of fear. Trying not to move, wanting to appear harmless, he was also unwilling to move. Eyes searching the area for any danger, he saw you shiver again curling up with a small whimper. He looked around calmer as the minutes passed. He said something softly and you raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know what you said?” you whispered, blinking he made a face. Very slowly you sat up reaching into your pocket to retrieve an apple. He watched you curiously as you took a bite and proceeded to sniff the air. Holding out the apple, he braved getting a little closer to examine what you were eating. He gave it a lick and again before taking a bite.

“What are you?” You asked, he watched you cautiously talking back in his strange language. Clueless to what he was saying you took your time repeating his words and he blinked almost shocked. He sniffed your pocket which you had left unzipped to retrieve the apple and he sniffed getting dangerously close to areas he shouldn’t but he pointed and spoke in his funny language.

“What’s in my pocket?” you pointed at the pocket and he pointed again at the pocket.

You pulled out dehydrated meat and held it up, “Meat” he snatched it sniffing and eating it quickly before reaching into your pocket grabbing the rest. He also found some berries they were almost like ones he was used to but these were so unique.

You sat there as he ate, you tried to talk to him but he was busy eating. Stomach growling signaling dinner time and you looked at the empty bag and frowned.

He noticed the frown of your face and looked at the empty food bag. He held it in his hand and took your hand in his, his claws brushing your skin but not causing you any harm. He pulled you through the woods and turned back as you tripped and stumbled your gait generally slower than his.

You passed a beautiful purple waterfall and the water as it fell reflected a purple glow on the rocks around them and as it splashed a mist of purple sprinkled the air and a typical rainbow prism appeared. You looked down, noticing you were walking on a trail. The flowers on either side were a gorgeous blue that in the shade of some trees seemed bioluminescent. He didn’t seem impressed by your abilities or in this case lack of, and deciding to pick you up over his shoulder and run. He was also unaffected by your added weight, running as he normally would.

He arrived at a small cave, the rock was metallic and each piece reflecting beautifully in the light of the setting sun. He placed you on your feet and you walked towards the stone and touched it brushing your fingers over the smooth arch entrance way.

You knew he must have carved and smoothed this himself, he watched you curiously as you ran your hand along something at the top it almost looked like a form of writing and you traced it slowly and turned to him pointing.

“Jimin,” he said and he patted his chest referring to himself.

“Jimin,” you pointed at the sign and then turned to him stepping closer and placing your hand on his chest over his rapidly beating heart. “Jimin.”

He gave a strange gesture with his hand but his eyes seemed light and his smile told you, you were correct. You slowly and gently took his hand placing it on your chest so he could feel your heartbeat.

“Y/n,” you breathed and his eyes searched yours. You repeated your hand on his chest and said his name before placing it back onto yours “Y/n.”

“Y/n,” he said, his mouth forming the name with a heavy accent.

The moment was broken as voices could be heard talking in the strange language and he pushed you inside the cave walking you deep inside and sat you on something soft. He said something sternly gesturing to the ground with his palm and you nodded as he ran back out.

He was asking you to stay, his body language was pretty clear. And you pulled out your rechargeable lamp, turning it over to turn the large dial underneath. With a satisfied click it turned on, lighting up the space.

With the light you could see every little detail and couldn’t help getting up and exploring. There was an area with stacked wood and sticks and beside it a pit with some ashes and coals in it and you understood it was a fireplace.

Above the fireplace was a hole in the cave again it was man made and impressed you greatly. The craftsmanship of how he made his house and a chimney and everything made you proud.

There were shelves with items wrapped in big leaves and a pile of the strange fabric he wore.

You looked to where he had sat you, it looked like a bed filled with soft iridescent furs. These animals must be magnificent.

You hung the lamp from a rock, your stomach rumbling again. If you remembered correctly there was a small selection of foil sealed food in your backpack.

Shrugging off your backpack you looked to the fire pit, stacking wood you took out your flint and started a fire. It was teal, the flames looking similar to the northern lights. You had a small pot that looked like a metal cereal bowl and you poured the contents into the pot and added some water.

It was a stew and you mixed it up, you didn’t want to seem selfish so you made sure to serve him some in the little metal dish. Hearing footsteps, he entered the cafe sniffing the air curiously.

“Jimin!” You smiled and he lowered his head with a smile. He had started blushing as he placed down handfuls of fruit. You handed him the plate and he watched you eat mimicking the way you used a spoon. He followed your lead scooping the food and blowing on it gently before he put it in his mouth. He hummed his tail flicking back and forth rapidly in excitement at the flavour.

You grew tired and it was late, you wanted to return but you couldn’t and you knew that. Not only because you didn’t know your way back but he seemed to not want anyone to see you. You instead tried to talk to him some more pointing at things and repeating what he would say and he realized you were trying to learn the language of his people.

He helped you and you were able to process so much. The whole reason you were on the trip was for this. You were a linguist and you wanted to learn and decipher their language. You noticed so many things about their language.

You pointed at the soft fur area and he said something that sounded complicated and you tried to say it. His laughter was like soft bells and you tried again, he continued laughing and he kept saying it until he shook his hand. You understood this gesture to mean yes.

He was teaching you so much, you had filled at least five pages of your notebook with new words and information you had learned about him. After an hour or two you had almost figured out the sentence structure and he was amazed.

He was preparing fruit and telling you what you assumed were their names as he handed them to you. He was so sweet, smiling and talking to you, while you were drawing him and his beautiful features.

He turned away looking through the basket of fruit while you packed up and walked over to the furs and laid down curling up. They were soft like silk but warm. You blamed the strict sleep schedule you all had to maintain on the expedition for your inability to stay awake. The crackling embers of the teal fire lulling you to sleep.

You dreamt of B52, but you didn’t dream of it colonised, you dreamt of it exactly how it was, you moved through the soft two toned grass and waded through the mauve waterfall playing when Jimin called your name. He smiled brushing your hair from your face and gently rubbing your ears affectionately.

They weren’t normal human ears, they were like his and you looked down to see his tail had hooked around yours and he leaned in to press his lips to yours when you woke.

Laying in the furs Jimin's body pressed against your back and his arm around you buried in the Furs. Standing you wanted to leave but you knew you couldn't leave without a trace. So you left behind the drawing of him concentrating looking down while he cut fruit.

Sneaking out you used your tracking device to not only mark this location but to also navigate your way back to the station following the trail of flowers until you arrived back.

“Where the hell have you been?” The leader hissed

“I was making friends with the locals,” You said, reaching for your backpack for your notebook.to show them what you had learnt.

“Haha, you are on cleaning duty for a week,” The captain said and you frowned and headed inside. “Grab a shovel, you are turning soil today.”

Ignoring him you walked to the small area inside the green house and began shoveling.

“Seriously though I met them, well one of them, he was super nice.” You tried to explain to your friend but she laughed looking at you like you were crazy.

“Did you eat something you shouldn’t have, breathed in pollen from a poisonous flower?” She turned to look at you “Bitten by a space tick, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“I am perfectly sane Namsoon and I am telling the truth,” You breathed, “It was cool they have their own language and they look like us except they have different ears and get this they have tails.”

“That sounds gross,” she blanched at the thought, “like a rat.”

“No, they are beautiful,” you tried to defend him.

“I think you should go rest today, you can help tomorrow” Namsoon took your shovel and turned away and you sighed and headed back to the station. On your way through the corridors to your chambers you passed the kitchen. Pausing in the hall, a big grin spread across your face, you turned around taking out your day’s rations and a small digital camera for photos of the planet turned back to the station entrance. Slipping into the woods wanting to find Jimin.

You arrived at his cave, thanking your forward thinking for marking the location on your navigation device. Entering it was quiet and he wasn’t there, you sat on his bed lying down staring at the roof.

You were working on the vocabulary when he came back in growling. He pounced on you his ears and tail puffed and teeth bared. He froze when he noticed it was you again and you were wide-eyed staring at him.

“Annyeong haseyo.” He smiled down at you, trapped below him, he was drenched and his hair was dripping water onto your face.

“Annyeong haseyo,” you grinned back, he beamed, flicking his hand in approval and he sniffed you, you spoke in english even though you knew he couldn’t understand “I went back to the station, does it smell weird?”

His nose tickled your neck and he paused catching a familiar scent and traveling down your body. You blushed as he got awfully close to certain private areas but he detoured to the pants pocket and tried to get the Jerky from your pocket.

“Meat,” he said and he used his claws but it not only ripped the pocket open but also scratched your leg causing you to call out in pain. He snatched the meat and was chewing happily. You frowned seeing the blood stain your light grey pants.

Opening your backpack and pulling out your little first aid kit. Trying to calm your heart, you knew he didn’t mean it but it scared you how wild he was.

You pulled the side of your pants down to reveal the area he had clawed on your thigh and you hissed at the sight. He turned confused by your noise and saw the cut, his smile fell and he lowered his head watching you.

He got closer looking at the wound and then at his hands, Nose scrunching at the smell of the paste you put on the wound. He stormed out of the cave, you continued to clean and dress the wound, you readjusted your pants and took a needle and thread and began sewing your pant leg. He came back with some fruits and he hung his head carrying washed fruit which he cut and gave to you.

It wasn’t easy to sneak away from the station, but you did almost every day to meet with him. You were so good at his language now you were able to hold conversations with him but he still had to explain a lot of things as best he could.

He liked it when you sang or played music and he would move around the cave with a smile. The two of you went to see the silky iridescent almost cow like creatures. He took you around showing you different flowers your favourite had to be one where he pulled you inside and sat on the leaf with you and the flower curled up around you both and inside it was like a galaxy all spotted with tiny little glowing creatures. They were completely harmless but reminded you of glow worms. He had you to try different foods. It was heaven not eating the bland genetically modified food everyday. That is until he gave you a particular fruit that made you super itchy, you decided to take an antihistamine from your first aid kit and he apologized and the two of you got back to Jimin’s favorite which was a sour fruit.

He took you swimming at the mauve waterfall and you were splashing one another and playing. He got scared when you were underwater for a long time. Diving under the water he grasped you by the waist and swam you up and called for you. “Y/n, gwaenchanha ni?”

He pulled you against the rocks holding you there with his hand on your waist and took your face with his other hand, his eyes burning in worry. You placed one hand over his leaning your cheek into his touch, “Nan gwaenchanha.”

He sighed in relief pressing his forehead to yours and looking down into your eyes. He stole your breath away, you licked your lips trying to keep them from going dry and he noticed the action licking his own. He leaned in slightly and you elongated your torso trying to bring yourself closer to him, his pupils dilated wide.

You felt his lip just touch yours, the two of you hadn’t kissed yet before his ears turned and pulled away grabbing you and pulling you through the water. He pushed you behind the waterfall and pressed his palm to your mouth and made the no gesture with his hand before slipping away.

There was a small group of them and they played and spoke, you watched them interact. They were no different from playful boys or puppies except they were fully grown men. Time passed and he finally got them to leave but you were freezing and wet.

Jimin grabbed you from the water and looked at you all blue and shivering. He picked you up, throwing you over his shoulder and raced back to his cave where he started the fire. He turned to see you had removed your clothes and found a spare shirt from your bag you curled up in the furs. He too changed out of sight and laid behind you trying to warm you with his body heat.

It was sweet he wasn’t trying to do anything but keep you warm, however, you knew how it must have looked to the young man who walked in, the deep growl traveling through the cave. Making you stiffen and he sat up and growled back his body crawling over yours protectively and they began arguing. You spoke to him slowly and he looked alarmed that you understood him.

He told you, to leave before you two were caught and someone was hurt. Jimin growled saying he didn’t want you to leave and at that moment you thought maybe he felt the same way as you. With a sigh Jimin agreed to return you in the morning and Taehyung nodded thankful for his defeat before he told you both he would guard the place.

Jimin explained the village were aware of the new people and were sceptical, he also said it was a festival tonight and everyone was in good spirits visiting neighbours. You leaned in pecking his lips with yours and grinning. “Gamsahabnida.”

He sat up looking at his pupils wide with affection.

You woke early and took your sketchbook and the camera. You went to leave and Jimin grabbed your hand a sad look on his face and pressed his hand to your chest. “Y/n. I love Y/n,” he said, he hadn’t remembered much from your lessons of your own language but this phrase was one he practiced well. You asked him to let his leader meet with you and your leader for a discussion, promising your men would come without weapons laughing about how weak your kind were compared.

You passed Taehyung and he sniffed you and began scolding Jimin all you understood was the words bed and you blushed realizing he knew more than you thought. You said goodbye to Taehyung and ran off to the ship.

You showed the captain the pictures and the drawings and explained how they lived peacefully but had things and resources we didn’t. “Jimin will meet me this afternoon and I would like you to meet him with me alone and without a weapon, if you bring a weapon I will actually kill you myself.

Another meeting came to a successful end and you smiled walking over to Taehyung, Jimin, and Namsoon who showed them both videos of earth, every meeting she would show them another video and they were amazed.

“Jimin-ssi,” you called and he turned beaming his ears perking up and tail swishing back and forth he began sniffing your neck and giving an almost purr. It was still unclear if they had more canine or feline features but you didn’t care.

“Why is it everytime you two meet he becomes more and more adorable, doting on you?”

“The pregnancy pheromones?” Namjoon said in english to Namsoon his nose and tail twitching. He learnt English quickly and you exchanged languages and linguistics with each other and each took your time teaching them each other's language. You blushed as Jungkook grinned patting your swollen stomach and handed you a big woven leaf basket full of berries. He was a sweet kid and looked up to Jimin. “We are very domestic people, when one of our own is pregnant we protect them?”

If you enjoyed this story don’t forget to Like | Share so others can enjoy it too. PLease see my [Masterlist] for more of my work.

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chemicalmagecraft · 3 years

Text

A Black Wind Howls Chapter 5: Winter Solstice Part Two

Previously on Avatar...

The fireballs tore through the smoke cloud, but the Black Wind was nowhere to be found.

"He's invisible!" Zhao shouted.

"What was that about you killing us?" he asked the black-clad man before kicking him into unconsciousness, then grinned.

The door suddenly creaked shut. When everyone looked at it they saw a rather short old woman with long white hair appear with her hand on the white lotus design in the middle of the door, as if out of thin air.

"Bending is connection to an element," Dorji said, her hands on Appa's reins. She held her hand out to a passing cloud, causing a miniature funnel cloud to form from it.

"By restricting one of the senses you use the most, you will unconsciously draw on other senses. And once you begin to feel the elements more, your control over them will only increase."

Dorji took a deep breath. "The reason I can't hear in the spirit world... is because I was born deaf."

oOoOo

"So that's why you have trouble hearing," Katara said. Dorji had decided to tell them what she'd told Aang while they were flying to the Fire Nation.

Dorji nodded. She looked nervous, her hands were shaking. "Y-you don't... think less of me, d-do you?"

Katara hugged her until she stopped trembling. "I don't," she reassured her after letting her go, "and I'm sure Aang and Sokka feel the same way!"

Aang and Sokka nodded.

"I don't think anyone would think less of you for being deaf," Sokka contributed.

Dorji's face fell. "Thank you, but..."

Sokka's face scrunched up in regret. "It'd be great if I could go a day without sticking my foot in my mouth."

"No, no," Dorji shook her head. "It... wasn't anything that you could've known about."

He sighed. "Yeah, thanks, but I still should've guessed."

"I... would understand if you were wary of having me accompany you, still," Dorji muttered nervously. "M-my ability to sense noise, w-while more expansive than a normal person's, requires me to actively decipher sounds. I don't think that's normal, anyway. I'd like to say I'm normally good at using my air sense to hear, but it's not perfect. Strong winds and rainstorms can sometimes interfere with my ability to make out sounds, and if I'm distracted..." Dorji absentmindedly touched at her hair, her hand shaking slightly. She bit her lip. "It... that was how..." She took a deep breath, then muttered, "I was too focused on what I was practicing. Didn't notice him until he had grabbed me by the hair..."

"Oh, that must've awful," Katara said. "But don't worry, we'll be here to watch your back from now on."

Dorji smiled at her. "Thank you."

"Uhh, speaking of watching your back..." Sokka said fearfully, pointing to something behind Dorji. Everyone turned to see a Fire Nation ship sailing in their direction at full steam.

"They're gaining on us!" Katara shouted.

Dorji squinted at the boat. "It looks like an outdated cruiser. I haven't seen one of its make before, but it's much too small to be a current Fire Navy ship. I've heard that they focused more on speed than power at the start of the war, though. Is... is that Prince Zuko?"

Katara tapped Dorji's shoulder. "He probably is," she said when Dorji glanced over to her. "He's... kinda been chasing Aang."

Dorji made a small noise, then looked back at the boat. "Didn't think he'd find the Avatar that soon..."

"How can you see someone that far away?" Sokka asked. "And how do you know about Zuko?"

Katara went to tap Dorji's shoulder. "I 'heard,' don't worry," Dorji said. "While my hearing is... not, my eyesight is, thankfully, very good. Though to be honest I can only recognize Zuko from this distance because of his very identifying facial features. I've only had him described to me and it's too far away to really make out fine details. As for why I know him, my father is... a member of the Earth Kingdom army. I know at least the general descriptions of most Fire Nation persons of interest, banished princes included. Speaking of which, I think that's Uncle Iroh yelling at Zuko."

"Uncle Iroh?" Katara asked.

Dorji stiffened slightly. "Z-Zuko's uncle, Iroh. He was originally the heir apparent to the previous Fire Lord, but his younger brother, Ozai, somehow managed to usurp his claim." She narrowed her eyes slightly. "They're loading something into a trebuchet. I think Iroh is fanning his face, so it might have some form of flammable, but pungent oil on it. Get ready to take evasive maneuvers, I'll try to block it." She pulled out her staff halves.

"Hold onto something!" Aang shouted, gripping Appa's reins.

Dorji slashed the air with her staff halves as the now-flaming ball of... something hurtled towards them. It was smashed way off course by a blast of air.

"I'll try to disable their catapult without harming anyone now," Dorji said. "It'll take them some time to reload, so hold Appa steady."

"We've got a problem with that!" Aang shouted, pointing ahead of Appa.

Pointing at the Fire Nation blockade to be specific.

"That's bad," Sokka said.

"This is why I wanted to come alone!" Aang shouted. "It's way too dangerous!"

Dorji, too focused on Zuko's ship to hear, had planted her feet in a stance very unlike traditional airbending. She swirled the two halves of her staff around the air fluidly, then combined them with a flourish and slashed sharply at Zuko's boat. She could barely see the catapult slashed into as if by a giant, invisible blade while the crew of the ship was only knocked over by the blast of air. Just after she did that, Appa darted off to the side to dodge a flaming ball. She only barely managed to stay on Appa's back

"What did I say about-" Dorji started to say, then trailed off when she saw the Fire Nation blockade. "Oh, that's the blockade. It's usually not this bad, they must have been worried you'd go to Crescent Island on the solstice."

"We can't go around, there's not enough time!" Katara said.

"Hang on, everyone!" Aang shouted, gripping Appa's reins and steering him away from another volley of fireballs, up into the clouds.

"I have an idea, but I'm not sure if it'll work," Dorji said, starting to dig through the bag of scrolls. "For now I'll try to ward off the fireballs. Someone alert me if it looks like I'm distracted, though." She pulled out a particular scroll, then quickly unfurled it. When the next volley of fireballs flew, though, Dorji managed to do something to blow them away from Appa just with a single wave of her hand.

"What's that scroll about, Dorji?" Sokka asked.

"A... unique airbending technique my grandmother made a long time ago," Dorji answered after a moment, eyes still on the scroll. Every so often she waved her hand or flicked her wrist, and the fireballs flying around them missed Appa. The wind seemed to get more lively as she kept it up, causing the clouds to shift around. "I haven't managed to learn how to do it yet, but if I do learn it might help out. You might like this one, Aang, it's pretty pacifistic. Potentially."

"Really?" Aang asked, still trying to keep Appa away from the fireballs even though they were mostly being deflected away by Dorji's winds. "How does it work."

"It's..." Dorji squinted at her scroll, then shrugged. "It has... something to do with air and light. Have you ever noticed that, when you stick something in water, it looks a little distorted?" She waved a hand at a fireball, knocking it back down at the blockade.

"As a member of the Southern Water Tribe," Sokka butted in, "I've noticed."

"Thank you, Sokka," Dorji muttered flatly. "A long time ago, my grandmother noticed that as well. After some research she came to learn that while light mostly travels in a straight line, it can be distorted when it passes through clear things. This includes water and glass, but it can also include..."

"Air," Katara finished. "So is that where those mirages come from?"

"There can be mirages in the South Pole?" Aang asked. "I thought they only happened in the desert or something!"

"Apparently," Dorji said, effortlessly directing yet another fireball away from Appa. "So my grandmother managed to figure out how to use that with airbending to cause light to pass around objects, usually herself. The technique, once mastered, allows the user to become more-or-less invisible, as well as potentially create mirages to trick someone into thinking something is where it isn't." She looked back down at the scroll, then started concentrating. "It's harder to do over a larger area, but hopefully..." She started swirling the arm she wasn't using to hold the scroll around, making the air around Appa start shimmering.

"And you think I'd like it because using it means I could sneak around people without fighting?" Aang asked.

"...Possibly," Dorji muttered, still reading from her scroll. "Fair warning, this is where I might start getting more dis... distracted."

True to what she said, the next few fireballs came dangerously close to hitting Appa. He managed to dodge the first, but then the next two collided in midair and exploded near Appa. Unfortunately, Sokka slipped off the side of the saddle when the bison jerked away from the explosion, screaming as he fell.

"Sokka!" Katara yelled.

"I'm going down!" Aang shouted, spurring Appa into a dive. "Dorji, try to slow his fall!"

"Right, sorry," Dorji muttered. The shimmering around Appa got lighter as she waved her hand at Sokka. Some of the nearby clouds started to swirl around him as his fall slowed down. Appa managed to fly below Sokka long before he hit the ocean, allowing Katara to catch him.

"You okay?" Katara asked.

"That... was not fun," Sokka whined.

"He's fine..." Katara rolled her eyes.

"Good, because it looks like they're about to fire again!" Aang shouted, pointing at the blockade. "Dorji, if you can do that invisibility thing you'd better do it now!"

"H-hang on," Dorji said, putting the scroll away and waving her arms a little frantically. The air around Appa started to shimmer even more, though it didn't quite look like the technique was working.

"Fire!" the commander of the blockade shouted. The ship he was on shot another fireball at Appa. It looked like the aim was a little off, but it would still hit Appa if he continued flying straight.

"Whoa!" Aang shouted, steering Appa to dodge the attack. He also threw a blast of air out, knocking it even further to the side. With that last fireball dodged, Appa was able to fly past the blockade. It seemed that the ships were only readied to fire on one the one side of the blockade, as the ships failed to fire on the group as Appa got further from them.

"Everyone okay?" Aang asked. "That last one was a little close, Appa wouldn't have been able to dodge it if it was any closer." He turned around to look at the rest of the group. "We should be there soon, so get... Where is Dorji?"

Katara and Sokka looked to where they last saw Dorji, but didn't see her. "She was right there," Katara said. "Where did she-" Katara was cut off when an unseen, shaking hand tapped her on the arm. "What was that?"

"I-I... I s-saw..." Dorji's voice, distorted for some reason, came from the spot next to Katara.

"Did she... become invisible?" Sokka asked. He carefully poked at the air where Dorji's voice came from until he hit something solid. He caught a flash of black cloth from under his finger for a moment when he lifted it, though the effect quickly reasserted itself.

"D-did I?" Dorji asked. "It... shouldn't work like this."

"What's wrong with it?" Aang asked.

"Nothing," Dorji muttered. "But that's the problem. This is a technique that requires concentration, and I'm not even concentrating on it. I can feel that it's working, but... It shouldn't be."

"Is there anything that you can think of that... might have caused this?" Katara asked. "Sorry, I have no idea what's going on."

"I... s-saw the man that snuck up on me," Dorji muttered. "Wh-when my father was captured. He was o-on the blockade. I-I panicked for a moment when I s-saw him."

"Hey," Katara said, grabbing where she thought Dorji's hand might be. It felt like she grabbed her wrist instead. Good enough. She felt her way down to Dorji's still-shaking hand, then squeezed it. "Take a deep breath, please."

They heard the sounds of an invisible girl taking a few deep breaths to calm herself down. "Thank you," Dorji muttered. "I feel better now."

"Do you think you can turn it off?" Sokka asked.

"At the very least, I can disrupt the technique by flowing air around my body in a way counter to how it's currently flowing..." Dorji muttered. "But I don't think I'll try that yet. Whatever happened here, whether it's related to the solstice, my panicking, or a mixture of both, I think it's safe to assume it's not going to happen again, or at the very least something that I can't reliably trigger. I can feel how the technique is working even though I'm not concentrating on using it, so my hope is that if I let it stay I might figure out how to actually use the technique. Plus we're going into enemy territory, so I think I'll take my chances hoping it lasts until we get out of here."

"That makes sense," Katara said. "By the way, how's your ankle?"

"It's better," she answered. "I should be able to walk and even fight, but I might have trouble running too fast. Don't be afraid to leave me behind if it comes to it, I can fend for myself even if I'm not invisible. And by myself it should be a simple matter to sneak by any guards that might be posted."

"We'll try not to leave you behind, though," Aang said. He pointed at the island that they were approaching, or rather the tower-like temple standing on it. "We're here, I'm gonna land Appa."

oOoOo

The grand door to the entrance of the temple opened, seemingly on its own. After a moment a quiet, distorted voice sounded from the door. "There isn't anyone in the main room, but I sense some people nearby. Fire sages, from their breathing and spiritual affinity."

"Good job, Dorji," Katara whispered.

"I'll scout ahead," Dorji said, now in the temple. "Try not to get spotted."

"We need to hurry, though," Aang said, walking into the room. "I need to get to the room at the top of the tower before sunset."

"Then we should avoid confrontation so we don't get caught- hide!"

Five old men in fire-themed red robes and hats walked into the room from one of the hallways around it. "We are the fire sages," the leader, the oldest-looking sage in the fanciest-looking robes, said. "We are the guardians of this temple."

"I don't suppose you're here to take me to the top of the temple?" Aang asked, smiling sheepishly.

The head sage shot a blast of fire at Aang. "No." The other sages also threw fire at him.

Aang quickly twirled his staff in front of himself, using airbending to form a shield of air in front of it that blocked the fire.

"Run," Aang shouted, "I'll distract them!"

Before he could do anything he was swept away by a strong gust of wind, getting knocked into Sokka and Katara and then pushed to one of the hallways that the sages didn't come from with the two. "You're the one that needs to reach the top," Dorji said. About half of her staff had turned visible when she made the gust, but it quickly faded again. "Run. Now."

Aang grimaced, then sighed. "Be careful. Meet back up with us as soon as you're done." He ran, dragging Sokka and Katara off with him.

The head sage sneered at the air next to where the staff disappeared. "I don't know how you're doing that, but you made a mistake by revealing your position. Split up, I'll deal with the ghost." The sages, at their leader's command, split off while the leader threw a blast of fire where he thought Dorji was.

A low but powerful gust of wind swept the sages that ran after Aang and the others off their feet while the fire that the leader shot hit only air. "What!?" the leader exclaimed, seeing the end of Dorji's staff fade away at the other end of the room, between the now-prone sages and the hallway. The head sage growled and threw more fireballs where the staff was, trying to keep Dorji on the defensive by constantly attacking her. The first few didn't seem to hit her so he started throwing his fire in random directions, trying to catch her. It didn't seem to work, but at the very least it seemed that it distracted her a bit judging from how one of the sages was able to quickly get up and dart to the hallway the Avatar went down.

"Good job, Shyu!" one of the other sages, who was still trying to get up, said. Another gust of wind tore through the room, knocking the remaining sages back down. They just barely saw the tip of a black staff flying down the hall the sage went down.

"Alright, who said that?" the head sage grumbled.

oOoOo

Shyu, the sage who had gotten past Dorji, somehow managed to catch up to Aang, Katara, and Sokka in a dead end. "Avatar, I wish to help you!" he told them.

"Why should we trust you?" Sokka shouted as they got ready to fight.

Shyu bowed in front of Aang, placing his hands on the floor. "I know what you must be here for, and want to help you. It's going to be hard for you to reach the Avatar's chamber before the rest of the sages without help." He started to get up but slammed back into the ground, the imprint of an invisible foot appearing on his robes and a surprised expression sprouting on his face. "Wha-"

"I assume from the fact that he was on the ground in a position that greatly limited his choices for attack that this sage is the only one who remembers his ancestral duties," a calm voice sounded from the air above him.

"Of course, Lady Raava," Shyu said. "Now please, we must hurry before we are caught."

"I'm not... right, what do you need to do?" The invisible foot lifted from his back and he was hauled up by the unseen Dorji.

Shyu quickly walked over to a lamp, slid it back to reveal a small hole in the wall, then placed his palm over the hole. Fire flashed from under his palm, then a secret passage opened up in the wall. "Inside, quickly," he commanded.

"Thank you," Aang said, then followed his orders. Sokka and Katara quickly followed after him.

Shyu entered the secret tunnel last, closing the door behind him. "They hopefully shouldn't consider the fact that I brought you in here," Shyu whispered, "but we should stay moving, and stay quiet. I'm not the only one who knows of these tunnels."

"What did you call me earlier?" Dorji asked as they walked.

"Lady Raava, the name of the Avatar Spirit from before she merged with the first Avatar," Shyu answered. "Are... are you not she? I had wondered, when you first attacked us, if the talk of the Avatar Spirit walking with each Avatar was more literal than we thought..."

"No, I'm not Raava," Dorji answered.

"I see," Shyu said, though he still looked puzzled. "How is it that I can't see you, then?"

"A long story that, no offense, I am not willing to share with a fire sage at this time."

Shyu nodded. "I understand."

"Hang on, did you just say that the Avatar Spirit is a girl?" Sokka asked.

"I've never heard the name Raava before..." Aang said.

"I was lucky to learn that name at all," Shyu said, rubbing his chin. "It was mentioned in a scroll about the Avatar that I found a while back. I attributed the lack of knowledge on her to Fire Lord Sozin's regime, but if you only know her as the Avatar Spirit... I suppose it makes sense. The text said that she merged with the first Avatar thousands of years ago, so I suppose it might not be common knowledge..."

"I guess I should add that to the list of things I want to ask Roku about..." Aang said.

"These secret passages are actually Avatar Roku's work, you know," Shyu said. "Once upon a time he called this temple home. Though that was before my time, of course."

Aang stared at the walls of the tunnel. He quietly ran his hand along the cave-like wall. "It feels... strange, being told about all these things about my past lives, about myself, that I don't remember..."

"I can imagine," Dorji said. "I don't have any past lives, or at least I don't have any past lives that I can remember, but... Let's just say that some of my ancestors have done noteworthy things. Hearing about them, knowing that I'm related to them... It's a lot, and I imagine that being the Avatar is like that, but with more pressure. But..." An invisible hand squeezed Aang's shoulder lightly. "You have us. I... I do hope that that helps."

Aang smiled at where he thought Dorji's face was. "I think it does. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Though my eyes are up here."

Aang jumped. "Ah! Sorry!"

Dorji snorted. "That was a joke, you're good."

He sighed. "Thanks..."

"Hey, I thought that Air Nomads didn't know about their families," Sokka said.

"They don't. I was talking about my grandfather's lineage, however, and my grandfather is no Air Nomad."

"Your grandfather?" Katara asked.

"My father's father," Dorji answered. "He was an Earth Kingdom general before he retired. He still helps out, though certain situations even aside from his age prevent him from taking to battle anymore... He is still a powerful earthbender, though."

"Was... was he disappointed you're not an earthbender?" Sokka asked.

"Of course not!" Dorji said sharply. It was louder than her normal speaking voice, but thankfully only echoed a bit off the walls. "He would never be disappointed by something like that! He was delighted to learn that my father and I are airbenders, even if there was only so much he could teach us!"

Sokka backed up a bit, putting his hands out defensively. "I'll take your word for it," he said quickly.

"We're almost to the room," Shyu said. "Please quiet down, in case there's anyone up there already." He thought, then said, "I'm sorry, I never caught your name..."

"I'll scout ahead," Dorji said, anticipating what he wanted to ask.

Shyu nodded. "Yes, thank you. I can do it if you don't want to, but..."

"As I am currently invisible I'm the most logical choice," Dorji rationalized. "Plus if you're staying here with the others then you won't have an opportunity to set up an ambush, in the event that you're plotting against us."

"I would never do that," Shyu objected.

"No offense, but after a century of war and the genocide of my grandmother's people I reserve the right to not trust a Fire Nation official I have just met."

He sighed. "I suppose that's only fair... For the record, though, that thought hadn't occurred to me."

Dorji didn't answer.

"Did she leave already?" Shyu frowned.

Katara shrugged. "Maybe. She's pretty quiet..."

"Sorry about her," Aang said.

Shyu shook his head sadly. "It's... not like she's wrong, is she? You were wary of me, as well..."

"I mean, yeah," Sokka said. "The Fire Nation is pretty much the worst. Our mother died in a Fire Nation raid. You weren't the one who killed her, obviously, but stuff like that makes it hard to trust people from the Fire Nation..."

The sage chuckled sadly, his shoulders slumped. "You know, this is the first time I've ever spoken from anyone from outside the Fire Nation... I didn't know what to expect, but I suppose I can't complain with what you've said... I don't know what I can do to even begin to make up for the sins of my nation, aside from what I'm doing now, but after today I will do my best!"

"An admirable goal," Dorji's voice suddenly sounded from nowhere. "If you're serious about it, you'll find an opportunity soon. Now, the room and the route to it is clear, so let's hurry."

oOoOo

Shyu fell to his knees. "The doors are closed," he whispered. Sure enough, the massive, ornate doors in the middle of the room were shut, the five dragons on its face seeming to glare at the intruders and "traitor."

"Can't you just open them with firebending?" Sokka asked. "It looks a bit like a door in the Southern Air Temple that Aang opened with airbending."

"Maybe it has a similar mechanism," Shyu said, "but this door is made so that only a fully-realized Avatar can open it by themself. It needs five simultaneous fire blasts that otherwise need to be provided by five fire sages."

"I think I have an idea," Sokka muttered, rubbing his chin and looking at a lamp.

"I also have an idea," Dorji said. "Care to share notes?"

Sokka nodded. "Something my father showed me, once. We take some oil from those lamps and put them in animal skin pouches. Soak some twine in the oil and Shyu can light them all up at once!"

"Makeshift bombs," Dorji noted. "It sounds like it might work, at least in theory. My idea is to try to use my airbending to amplify and guide Shyu's firebending. It's actually a concept my father once told me about, as well. How about you set your idea up while we try our thing?"

"Sounds good," Sokka said. "Katara, can you give me some help? And... you probably want Aang, right?"

"He might help, hopefully. At the very least it might be good to introduce the concept to him. Approach the door, Shyu and Aang."

At Dorji's order, the sage and the Avatar approached the door. "Where do you want us to stand?" Shyu asked.

"You take a few steps back and face the door." A bit of dust kicked up behind where Shyu was standing, presumably where Dorji wanted him to stand. "Aang, you stand back. Try to feel what I'm doing to the air, but don't do anything unless you're absolutely sure you can help." A current of wind started to blow despite the lack of open windows in the room. "I am creating pathways of air that will contain and stoke your fire. In theory, this will make the fire powerful enough to trigger the mechanisms even with just your fire. Still, I'm going to need you to use as much fire as possible or it might not work."

A circle of air shimmered in front of Shyu for a moment. "Is that where I'm supposed to hit?" he asked.

"Yes. I'll tell you when it's ready, of course, but you have to shoot inside that circle, as close to center as possible."

Shyu nodded, starting to concentrate. He breathed deeply; in, then out. In, then out. He clenched both of his fists, raising them slightly and entering a firebending stance. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to.

"I take it you're ready?" Dorji asked.

He nodded.

"I'm almost ready, too. Once it's established it shouldn't be time-sensitive, so don't try to rush it once I say so, but..."

He nodded.

Dorji concentrated in silence for a few more moments. Finally... "There, it's ready when you are."

Shyu nodded again, took another deep breath, then punched as hard as he could with both fists. A large blast of fire sprouted from his fists, but most of its heat was funneled forward by Dorji's airbending. The flames spiraled forward and split into five branches that hit the five dragons on the door directly on the mouths. The dragons, thankfully, reacted to the fire, moving up to a position that allowed the doors to open. Shyu beamed at the door as it slowly opened, revealing a statue of Avatar Roku. However it started to slowly close as soon as it was fully opened. "Now, Avatar! Before it closes again!"

Aang nodded and quickly dashed through the doors. He sat down in front of the statue as the doors closed behind him.

"Aw, I wanted to try out my idea!" Sokka said, carrying over three of his makeshift bombs. Katara was walking behind him with the other two.

"Sorry, maybe next time," Dorji said. "Though now you have a few makeshift bombs."

"How is Aang supposed to get back out, actually?" Katara asked, a little concerned.

"There's a similar mechanism on the other side of the door," Shyu said. "Hopefully Avatar Roku can help with it. What do we do now, though?"

"You wander the halls, pretending to be looking for us," Dorji said. "Give them no hint that you have helped us." An invisible hand grabbed Shyu's and pulled it into a handshake. "We'll hide near here until Aang emerges. Good luck."

Shyu looked at his hand with surprise, then smiled at where he thought the girl might be. "Thank you, I wish you luck as well."

oOoOo

Aang waited in the sanctuary until a beam of sunlight hit the statue. He watched light engulf the statue, smoke pouring out of it. He stood up as the smoke engulfed him, seemingly transporting him to a mountaintop. The statue of Roku was gone, replaced by the spirit of the past Avatar.

"Avatar Roku," Aang said with a reverent bow.

His predecessor gave him a smile. "Avatar Aang. It's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you, too. Is the reason you brought me here related to that vision you showed me when you called me?"

Roku nodded. "The comet. One hundred years ago Fire Lord Sozin used the power of that comet to wipe out the Air Nomads."

Aang frowned. "I heard about that, actually. Sozin's Comet, it supposedly comes around once every century and gives firebending a boost." His frown deepened. "Hhhey, I don't suppose you know when, exactly, the comet showed up?"

Roku nodded. "Your fears are, unfortunately, correct. The comet will return by Summer's end, and it is unlikely that the current Fire Lord will do nothing with the power it will grant him." Roku bowed contritely. "I apologize for the mess that I have left you, Aang, but now it is up to you. You must end the war before the return of the comet, or I fear the Fire Lord will end it for you."

"I... I don't know how I can do that," Aang said. "I haven't even mastered all four elements, and that normally takes years!"

"That is true, yet you must master the elements by the comet. It is a tall task, but not impossible. If you trust in your friends and make allies, you will be able to avert this disaster."

Aang nodded, though he still looked nervous. "If you believe I can do it..."

Roku moved forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I know you can, Aang. You have done it in each of your past lives, even through hardships, and your past lives will forever be with you."

Aang gave him a nervous smile. "Thanks... Hey, speaking of past lives, have you ever heard the name Raava?"

Roku nodded. "Of course. She is the Avatar spirit, after all. However, I only learned her name after my death, when I met her in person. Well, as 'in person' as you can get between two spirits..."

"Why didn't you learn her name until then?" Aang asked.

"It is always easiest for an Avatar to communicate with more recent past Avatars, hence why the most recent Avatar is usually the current Avatar's spirit advisor. Raava first bonded with us thousands of years ago, with hundreds of Avatars between then and now. It's not impossible for you to contact Raava, of course, but it will require effort on your part. You might not be able to until much later in your life. For now, I suggest you worry about the war for now."

"Of course," Aang nodded. "How will I meet you again? I don't think I can come here every time I want advice..."

He nodded. "When you need me, you will find a way. I only used the power of the solstice to contact you because I wanted to make you aware of the comet as soon as possible. Otherwise, you should eventually learn to contact me through meditation. Now, the solstice will soon end..." He waved a hand, showing a vision of outside the sanctuary. The five fire sages stood at the ready in front of the doors, Shyu looking slightly uneasy. Armored Fire Nation soldiers bolstered their numbers, led by a helmetless man that looked quite pleased with himself. Aang could just barely see Sokka and Katara hiding behind a pillar, though he also noticed Zuko hiding behind another. "It seems that your enemies are anticipating your exit." He smiled. "Why don't you let this old man help you deal with them, to make up for dragging you all the way out here?"

Aang returned his smile, then his eyes and tattoos glowed. "Thank you," he said.

oOoOo

"Bathe him in fire as soon as that door opens!" Zhao ordered. As soon as the dragons on the doors started to move, the firebenders all took aim. They threw a wave of fire at the doors as soon as they started to open, before they could even see what was inside. The fire obscured the contents of the room... and then a tall, white-haired man in red robes emerged from the fire completely unscathed. His eyes glowed pure white as he glared at his countrymen. With a single wave of his hands he gathered all the fire that the firebenders had thrown at him and made it explode outward in a wave that knocked all the firebenders down or at least back, but barely pushed Katara and Sokka.

Zhao growled at the phantom Avatar as he braced himself against the wave of superheated air, then blinked when he saw a familiar shimmer in the air. His scowl turned into a predatory grin as he lunged at the shimmering air. The grin widened when he managed to grab something solid, perhaps a wrist, even though she tried to dodge. Dorji squirmed, but he quickly wrapped his other arm around her waist and switched the arm at her wrist to holding a fire dagger to her neck. The heat of the flame disrupted the smallest amount of Dorji's invisibility, revealing a small patch of the skin of her neck just a hair's breadth from his "blade."

The commander chuckled into Dorji's ear, or at least where he thought it was. "You can't cut your hair to escape this time, kid," he whispered. Zhao turned his attention back to Roku and sneered. "I have a hostage, Avatar! Give up the kid's body or I'l-"

His demand was cut off by a squelch and a spray of blood. He released Dorji and screamed, clutching the now-bleeding arm that he had used to grab Dorji. Roku used the distraction to blast him to the floor with another wave of fire.

"Go, now!" the Avatar ordered, looking at Katara and Sokka.

The siblings hesitated, but an invisible force dragged them towards the exit by their hands.

"We can't leave Aang!" Katara yelled, digging her feet in and forcing Dorji to stop with Sokka's help.

She noticed, though, that Dorji's hand was shaking. "A-a-avatar... R-roku... w-will..." There was a sound that, even muffled and distorted by the altered airflow around her, Katara and Sokka recognized as shallow, panicked breathing.

Sokka and Katara exchanged a look. "I'll make sure Aang gets out safely, you take care of Dorji," Sokka said.

Katara nodded and squeezed Dorji's hand. She noticed that the air around Dorji was starting to shimmer, enough that she could make out the rough outline of her body. "Let's go, Dorji," she said softly, then pulled Dorji along. She frowned at Avatar Roku, who was still throwing around the helpless Fire Nation fighters.

oOoOo

Appa flew as close to the now-melting temple as he could, guided by Katara at the reins. Sokka ran out of the temple. dragging an exhausted Aang over his shoulder. He quickly climbed onto Appa's saddle. "Yip yip!" he yelled, even though Appa was already flying. Katara got the message and had Appa fly up and away from the temple immediately.

"Where's Dorji?" Aang asked, looking around the saddle. He saw, in the back of the saddle, what appeared to be a ball of shimmering air. As he watched, Dorji seemed to shimmer back into existence as her invisibility "technique" finally failed. Dorji was curled into a ball, clutching the back of her head. Tears streamed down her face, her eyes closed.

Aang silently crawled over to Dorji and cautiously put his hand on her shoulder. Dorji jumped a bit, then looked up at Aang. She sniffed, then leaned forward and pressed her head onto Aang's shoulder. Aang hugged her as she sobbed, stroking her hair.

He waited until she looked back up at him to speak. "I'm sorry," he said. "Today was too much of a risk, and all I really learned from Roku was that Sozin's Comet is coming at the end of Summer. In hindsig-"

"N-no," Dorji muttered, shaking her head a little. She took a deep breath. "Even... even if you didn't learn much, the first meeting between an Avatar and their predecessor is still important. And as far as you knew he could've told you about a secret tunnel into the Fire Lord's palace. And it's not your fault that Zhao was there." She then slumped over and laid down. "Now if you excuse me, I need to sleep now..."

Aang nodded. "Thanks. Good night, Dorji."

She didn't answer, though Aang couldn't tell if it was because she had fallen asleep already or if she just stopped listening.

#fanfiction #avatar the last airbender fanfiction #Avatar The Last Airbender #avatar the last airbender oc #A Black Wind Howls #ABWH CH5

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