Zephyrine’s Corner

What does it take to make African mythology real? Everything we had. Over 70% of our Kickstarter Backers came from Tumblr. Thank you. Now it's yours.

1. If you see this post, highly recommend taking it as an opportunity to set a timer for 15 minutes and switch over to ACTIVITY YOU ENJOY. if after those 15 minutes, you want to go back to scrolling, that's okay!

2. Huge shout out to this popping up in my notifs often, bc I do go back to activity.

One of the only asexual activists is Yasmin Benoit, a Black woman. She has raised so much awareness for the community. She was the first asexual person to lead Pride in London, she started the #thisiswhatasexuallookslike movement and is THE leading voice for the community.

And you all will celebrate international asexuality day on April 6th but we wouldn't even have that if she hadn't cofounded it.

This has been happening all month with little to no international media attention. Here are a few organizations you can check out for resources or to support:

ActionAid India

SEEDS India

GlobalGiving <- No longer taking donations

If you see this, please repost and follow.

Transgender community, please please please do NOT use this product! It will kill you if used, please do not use it whatsoever.

Hello!

I'm not a burn survivor myself, so I'll mostly talk about facial differences/visible disability in general and link some stuff made by burn survivors.

First thing, I think it's important to remember that being a burn survivor changes a lot of things - not only appearance. Very important part is the psychological one, but I'm not a burn survivor so I will just let the resources linked below speak.

From the physical aspect, burns can also come with: chronic pain, limited range of motion due to scarring, tightened skin, problems with regulating temperature, itching, skin irritation, and even different nutritional needs during the initial healing process.

There is also specific everyday care associated with burns - something you basically never see in fiction. That could be things like occupational therapy, physical therapy, skincare (like heavy moisturizing and scar massaging), wearing sunblock, wearing splints, or stretching to prevent contractures or tightness.

There are also different types of burns and they (unsurprisingly) differ from each other - for example, electrical burns have a much higher rate of amputation than any other type. Chemical burns can cause eye issues. A burn caused by a fire in a closed space might result in a brain injury due to the lack of oxygen. A much larger portion of people than you (probably) assume have survived burn injuries as small children, and if they were young enough they might not even remember the event at all, unlike older people who might be very affected by the trauma.

Experiences of a person with 80% body surface burns, a person with quadruple amputations from an electrical burn, a person with a facial burn, and a person burnt very recently will be different from someone who has a 5% body surface 2nd degree burn in a spot that’s usually hidden, who has lived with their burn for a decade - despite them all being burn survivors.

When it comes to more thorough research, I recommend going through Phoenix Society’s and Face Equality International’s websites to learn more about both real burn survivor’s perspectives, and face equality as a social justice topic. I think the 3rd link (see below) puts it very well when talking about burn survivors being represented in fiction:

“Most likely, these characters were not created by someone with lived experience. The result is an increasingly garbled game of telephone [...] To avoid contributing to this false narrative, embrace research as part of the process. Explore interviews, first-person accounts, and articles from reliable sources.”

I personally think that the links below should be mandatory reading for writing not only burn survivors, not only people with facial differences, but visibly disabled people in general - because the treatment we get is often so similar the advice still holds up just fine. And if you don't plan on writing any of these, you should still read them to see how prevalent of a problem ableism in media is.

Lise Deguire's Hey Hollywood - scars don't make you evil.

Face Equality International's International Media Standard on Disfigurement.

Niki Averton's Tips for Writing about Burn Survivors.

The main sentiment that you will read from basically any first-hand source is that if you're writing the burn survivor to be either:

evil (just throw the whole character away)

a guy with the "World's Saddest Most Tragic Backstory Ever and It's So Sad and Tragic" (because he revealed he has a scar)

a helpless victim who is there to be The Helpless Victim

...then you're already doing it wrong and need to make some major changes.

From our blog's reblogs and posts, you might want to look at tips for writing a visibly different/disabled character and tips on drawing people with facial differences. Neither are specific to burn survivors but cover the topic of visible disability and facial differences.

Now for tips on drawing burn survivors (that weren't included in the last link);

Reference real people. 99.9% drawings of burn survivors seem to go through the same "increasingly garbled game of telephone" that Niki Averton mentions with how burn survivors are written, in that the newer the drawing, the less in common it has with how real people with burns look like because people reference from each other and none of them ever think to actually check if their depiction is accurate. If you just google "burn survivor" you will very quickly notice that burn survivors don't have that damn red overlay layer put on top of their skin. It just doesn't look like that, and basic research (aka Google Images search) will tell you that - and still, people color a hand with bright red and think that's how it looks like (it doesn't).

In the same vein, maybe don't just draw an able-bodied person and then put some scarring on top (or maybe do exactly that. No burn scar and no burn survivor is the same, and there are people that fit what I just described... but hear me out for a second). Think about how scars interact with their features - do they have both of their ears? Do they still have all of their hair? Do they only have parts of their eyebrow? Do they have all of their fingers? Can they move the same as before their burn, or are their scars limiting their joints? How did their body react to the post-burn hypermetabolism? Lots to think about. Take into account what type and thickness of burns your character has.

Ditch the mask trope. Just ditch it. There's no need to cover your character's scar from the world unless you as the author think it requires to be hidden, is too scary to show, or other ableist trope that seems to always come up with drawings of visibly disabled people, especially burn survivors. The one exception I will mention is a transparent face orthosis/mask (TFO) that facial burn survivors might wear while awaiting a skin graft early after their injury. But as the name suggests, it's transparent and doesn't work for the "scary facial difference, better cover it up and only reveal it in some hyper dramatic scene!" trope because you can see right through it. (I will also mention that TFOs are a very modern thing. Your medieval burn survivor wouldn't be wearing one).

No "body horror", no "gore" tags or trigger warnings or whatever. That's a human being. If you feel the need to warn your followers before they see a disabled person existing, you're better off not drawing them.

Some last notes;

Throughout this ask I used the term "burn survivor" rather than "burn victim" because that is, to my knowledge, the general community preferred phrase. Individual opinions will differ (because no group is a monolith) but "burn survivor" is generally the safest term to use and probably the best if talking about a fictional character.

Similarly, I used "facial difference" rather than "disfigurement". Just as the above, opinions will differ on what is the best to use but I personally, as someone with facial asymmetry and a cranial nerve disorder, heavily prefer the term "facial difference" over "disfigurement". (I am in this case The Individual Opinion Differing because you can notice that in the links above, facial difference and disfigurement are used interchangeably. The general community uses both, some people have specific preferences. I'm some people). When talking about a fictional character, "facial difference", "visible difference" and "disfigurement" are all probably fine. Just stay away from calling a person "deformed".

First off, we are ignoring the fact that Aang did resolve to kill Ozai when given no other option, after consulting with the other Avatars.

Yangchen: Many great and wise Air Nomads have detached themselves and achieved spiritual enlightenment, but the Avatar can never do it. Because your sole duty is to the world. Here is my wisdom for you: Selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs, and do whatever it takes to protect the world.

[Yangchen's spirit vanishes.] Aang: [Sorrowfully.] I guess I don't have a choice, Momo. have to kill the Fire Lord.

We're also ignoring the very obviously shown themes of mercy requiring strength and restraint throughout the show, not just with Aang, but with characters like Zuko and Katara. And despite that, mercy is constantly talked down upon and viciously mocked by representants of the Fire Nation.

Because the Fire Nation spits upon mercy, it's whole imperialist system is built around the disregard of the value of human life. Nations and cultures are to br squashed if they pose a threat, captured enemies are to be used for labour and even forced to fight their own people, the Fire Nation's own soldiers are to be sacrificed if it is convenient.

The Air Nomads' philosphies of valuing life under any circumstances is set as a stark difference to this mentality. It's a mostly unconditional value of human life, set up against the highly conditional values assigned to humans in the Fire Nation. And this is a philosophy that Aang grew up with, and more importantly, one of the only things he has left from his people who were genocided.

[Maybe we should bring back taring and feathering people some of y'all need to be publicly shamed. Is this Fire Lord Ozai's alt account???]

I think many people still fail to grasp the intersection between Aang the Avatar and Aang the Last Airbender. Yes, there have been previous Air Nomad Avatars, but Aang, at the point of 100 AG is the only Air Nomad. And yes, his hesitation around killing Ozai does directly tie back to his upbringing by the monks.

Aang: This goes against everything I learned from the monks. I can't just go around wiping out people I don't like. Sokka: Sure you can. You're the Avatar. If it's in the name of keeping balance, I'm pretty sure the universe will forgive you. Aang: This isn't a joke, Sokka! None of you understand the position I'm in.

And he is right. For all the support and empathy the Gaang can provide him, they cannot help him carry the legacy of the Air Nomads. Aang is the only member of them who still lives. And their legacy lives in him, only him. If he breaks his vow of non killing, that is not only a personal moral loss, but a moral loss of his entire people. It's agreeing with the idea that the Air Nomads and their traditions being wrong and weak, and in order to survive and "do the right thing" Aang must abandon their traditions. Which would've been rough in a world where the Air Nomads still exist, but in the world Aang exists in, it is essentially agreeing that the Air Nomads and their values have no place in the world.

Ozai: You're weak, just like the rest of your people! They did not deserve to exist in this world ... in my world! Prepare to join them. Prepare to die!

Let's remember this comes soon after Ozai could've been killed by Aang, but was spared.

Calling Aang "weak, like the rest of his people" and undeserving of life is not just an idle taunt, it's Ozai placing a fire national imperialism flavoured moral judgement upon the Air Nomads. In 'his world' mercy is a flaw, and since human life is conditional, the 'flawed', merciful Air Nomads don't deserve to live, their ideals and beliefs don't deserve to live.

The moment Ozai says this during the final battle, Aang killing him would be agreeing with him, proving him right. It's agreeing that human life is conditional, that his people did not make the cut. That they somehow brought their destruction upon themselves, by being weak, by being wrong. Aang's battle against Ozai is as ideological as it is physical, and I find it strange that so few people acknowledge that.

I don't even think it's fair to say that atla presents another toothless "killing bad" message, which is so common in many kid's media. Like yeah, it does tell tou that killing is bad, but it certainly isn't toothless. Multiple characters, characters we are meant to like and trust are not against killing and see it as the practical option. All the past Avatars we see, characters that are meant to bestow ancient wisdom upon Aang are like "yeah you should kill that guy"! Aang himself struggles with killing, and so does Katara, but they are shown to be the most empathetic and compassionate characters of the show, is that shocking to us?

Atla asks the questions, especially in "the Southern Raiders" and the "Sozin's Comet" episodes, of whether our characters are willing to bear the weight of snuffing out a person's life, and urges us to not do violent things when going through anger and pain.

Like, the thing a lot of folks miss about Steven Universe is that the whole show’s a modern fairy tale about queer identity, with the Diamonds representing toxic family dynamics and the way that parental figures can harm their children through “tough love”. None of the Diamonds are really consciously “evil”, but they’re perpetuating a harmful status quo because the alternative would require them to accept fault and admit that they’re responsible for hurting the people around them. Killing the Diamonds wouldn’t have fixed anything because the show’s ultimate message is about love, not force — violence is ultimately just a way of enforcing your own will onto others, and while the show is clear that it is sometimes necessary to fight, it’s also a children’s show that doesn’t want to teach kids that their first and only solution to bad parenting is to murder their moms. Sometime it’s better to go minimal contact, even if your parents later change their minds and start trying to be better; what matters is that you love yourself and that you love the people around you.

As for ATLA, I think it’s actually similar in that the main villain is more of a metaphor than anything else: if the Diamonds are abusive parenting incarnate, Ozai is the sins of the colonialist Fire Nation manifested in one person. Ozai is written a deeply hollow character on purpose, with almost no real interiority to him besides conquering and gaining power. He’s written like this because this is the natural endpoint of a colonial superpower: while Fire Lord Sozin may have been a brutal conqueror, he at least loved his nation and viewed the war as a way to enrich them and share their culture with the world, while each subsequent Fire Lord had their motivations decay until they were merely conquering for the sake of conquering. (The elderly Sozin even acknowledges his regret over betraying Avatar Roku in his final days, though he still falls victim to the sunk-cost fallacy in the end.) Iroh and Zuko are both shaken out of this mindset after actually being exposed to the horrors of the war, but Ozai spends nearly his entire life insulated from the pains of the world, and the generational rot reduces him to more of a figurehead than anything else.

As Iroh notes in the finale, he and Zuko could both have theoretically killed Ozai in the past to try and end the Fire Nation’s threat, but they would’ve only been remembered as usurpers greedy for power instead of as the liberators they wanted to be. Aang had to be the one to defeat the Fire Lord, and he had to do it nonlethally because of the message it would send: that the Avatar, the sole survivor of a genocide and the person with the strongest possible reason to hate the Fire Nation, had ended the war on his own terms, not the Fire Lord’s. Avatar Aang would not be an avenger, but a healer, and he ushered in a new era by miraculously stripping the Fire Lord’s bending away for good. Ozai’s story doesn’t end with the bang of martyrdom, but a whimper as he’s reduced to a broken and inconsequential man whose death doesn’t even merit a footnote in the history of the world.

Today's pigeon is the São Tomé Pigeon (Columba thomensis)

The São Tomé olive pigeon or maroon pigeon (Columba thomensis) is an endangered species of pigeon which is endemic to the island of São Tomé off the coast of western Africa. It was described by José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage in 1888.

Photos:

Funfact: The olive pigeon occurs in several parts of the island of São Tomé, including the northwest (Chamiço), the central massif (Lagoa Amelia, Zampalma, Nova Ceilão, Bombaim and the valley of Rio Io Grande near Formoso Pequeno), the southwest (valleys of the rivers Xufexufe and Ana Chaves) and in the southeast (west of Água Izé, on Pico Maria Fernandes and north of São João dos Angolares).