[hider=You've heard of the term "Dancing Flame", haven't you?][CENTER][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/240307/825db74c6a2ad2497b63793e66810c12.png[/img]
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[sub][color=ff474c]"Bury me with books. Bury me with song. Don't you dare to bury me in silence."[/color][/sub][/center] 
[color=ff474c][sub][u]NAME[/u][/sub][/color]
[indent]Zhang Xi[/indent]

[color=ff474c][sub][u]AGE[/u][/sub][/color]
[indent]22[/indent]

[color=ff474c][sub][u]BIRTHPLACE[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]The Fire Islands, specifically Jonduri[/indent]

[color=ff474c][sub][u]ELEMENT[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]Fire[/indent]

[color=ff474c][sub][u]APPEARANCE DETAILS[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]Zhang Xie is a tall, fit woman. She makes a habit of binding her chest, due to the comfort of being used to it from repeated performances of flat-chested characters (usually men). Her hair is long and black, though it has been tied back into a tight, braided bun. The bun is braided with red and golden beads. Her eyes are a brilliant orange, flickering with an almost spiteful excitement for life. Scars litter her body, namely around her back, shoulders, and arms. They range from slashing to burn scars. Zhang Xie keeps herself clean when possible, to an almost obsessive degree. Her clothes are usually adorned with black stripes or checkerboard-like patterns, though she has some nice clothes to fit in with higher-class company. She prefers patterns to plain clothes that she would call 'boring' and 'lacking character'. Zhang Xie's main clothing color matches the red of her kingdom. She wears sharp eyeliner but wears little other makeup unless she is performing. Zhang Xie keeps a cart of various costumes and knickknacks from her life as a performer. That is why she wears an oversized backpack adorned with her artistic novelties. [/indent]

[color=ff474c][sub][u]PERSONALITY[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent] Zhang Xie is a persistent woman with the desire to succeed above all else, often to the point of self-detriment. Her whole life was spent in the competitive world of performance and it has drastically altered how she views the world. She will do anything if it means that she can put on a successful performance. This has, in the past, caused significant damage to her body due to the level of risk she has taken with her acrobatic feats. Thus the scars that litter her nimble frame. Her hotheaded desire for success has led to numerous stupid decisions, often to the detriment of her more popular brother. Her urge for success affects her combat expertise as well. While she is not the most well-trained warrior, a life of travel meant that Zhang Xie's parents taught her how to stand up against muggers and the like. Zhang Xie is not afraid to fight dirty for the sake of winning. Not to mention how Zhang Xie often acts before she thinks. It has led to a variety of sticky situations, but none quite like how she took the opportunity to run away from her family, take to pirating for a short time, then attempt to find the avatar. These rash decisions make Zhang Xie come off as brash and reckless, which is not entirely inaccurate. 

Another effect of Zhang Xie's theatrical youth is how she views her culture. Zhang Xie's entire life has revolved around it and she places a lot of self-worth in the words of the past. She has seen how the Earth Nation has destroyed cultural identity and ended the lives of hundreds of storytellers and it scares her. Because of this, Zhang Xie has a distrust for earthbenders. She wants to end the war, though she is unsure of a way to help, save for attempting to raise morale. That is until she saw the beams of light signifying the avatar's awakening. Zhang Xie is loyal, though it takes a lot to earn that loyalty. Her mother often teased her for caring more about the classics than for the lives of others. Her mother was not entirely wrong.

The biggest effect of Zhang Xie's childhood is that she spent it living under the names and shadows of legendary figures. Zhang Xie's entire life has been spent pretending to be the story characters. It has resulted in a desire to be legendary herself. At first, she thought this would be done by becoming famous. Her brother is a decently popular actor and many would say they would remember his name when he died. Zhang Xie was a lot less fortunate, as are most performers. However, Zhang Xie's thinking changed the moment she saw those streaks of light. She now yearns to become part of the legends herself, even if only a small part. Part of that desire comes from a sort of spiteful jealousy to gain status over her brother. Part of it comes from the sort of naivete that one who has never experienced a world outside of her own. Most of it comes from a fear of being forgotten.

Zhang Xie has a level of naivete to her that comes from her sheltered living. She never had a chance to learn how others lived because she never lived in the same place for longer than a few weeks. It's also given her a sense of wanderlust. She craves connection but does not know how to maintain it.
[/indent]
[color=ff474c][sub][u]BIOGRAPHY[/u][/sub][/color] 
[indent]
Zhang Xie was born on the Fire Islands, specifically within the city of Jonduri. She is the child of the Zhang family, a family of traveling performers. It was no surprise that Zhang Xie was carted away from Jonduri within a few weeks of her birth. She lays no claim to a particular homeland, save for the Fire Nation as a whole. The closest thing she could call home was her family's traveling caravan.

Training began at the age of five. Some call that too early, but the Zhang family insists on teaching from a young age. Their performance, a mixture of opera, folk theatre, and acrobatic delights, involves much physical prowess. Zhang Xie was pushed to learn more. Do better. All the while, she competed with her brother, Zhang Ping, for the spotlight. The two were in a constant battle for their parent's affection. Such affection was only given if the children were improving their skills.

Unfortunately for Zhang Xie, her brother often won the proverbial battles. He was a natural. Zhang Xie's brash decisions and propensity for improvisation earned her much ire from her traveling company. That ire worsened throughout the war. The Zhang family made it their goal to bring up the morale of their people. They focused on performances that would light a fighting spirit within the hearts of the Fire Nation. That meant that the family became much more strict and less tolerant of Zhang Xie's foolish decisions.

A sort of loneliness blossomed in Zhang Xie. She became more competitive to counteract her family taking away her higher-level roles. Every opportunity to move up was taken, even if it meant driving a rift through her already rocky familial relationships. It was difficult for Zhang Xie to make friends, though she often desired them. The Zhang family never stayed in one place long enough to allow for that. A desire for people to care built up inside of her. A desire to be remembered.

Zhang Xie's reckless choices reached a breaking point several months before the avatar awoke. She had been performing a particularly dangerous stunt involving a staged battle with Zhang Ping. Her adrenaline kicked in and she made a poor choice that resulted in both her and Zhang Ping getting hurt. The two got in a fight which ended with Zhang Ping calling her a disgrace to the family and a danger to herself and others. Zhang Xie knew he was right and gave up. She tended to her wounds while her family took care of Zhang Ping.

That same night, Zhang Xie decided to set out on her own. It did not matter to her where she went, as long as it was away. She took a bag and boarded any ship that would take her, which turned out to be a pirate ship. The pirates were taking advantage of the war, charging absurd prices to bring goods from the Fire Nation to the Earth Nation and vice versa. They kept her around for her ability to entertain. It was a decent deal, though she was not a fan of the pirate life. When Zhang Xie saw the lights appear in the sky, she realized there was more she could do with her life. Nothing would make her more legendary than finding the avatar. As luck would have it, the pirates were stopping in a small, Earth Nation fishing village to do their illicit trade. Zhang Xie left the ship, arriving in the town three days after the lights appeared.
[/indent]

[color=ff474c][sub][u]TRIVIA[/u][/sub][/color] 
[list]
[*] Zhang Xie's performance style is heavily based on two main things: Chinese Folk Opera (Nanxi) and Japanese Kabuki Theatre.
[*] Zhang Xie's outfit is inspired by the gaudy costumes of Kabuki theatre and her hair is inspired by the ornate headdresses of Nanxi.
[*] Zhang Xie is a sucker for seafood. She loves octopus balls the most. In a way, seafood connects her to the many port cities her family traveled to for performance.
[*] Zhang Xie is fascinated with centipedes, spiders, and anything with an abnormal amount of legs.[/list]
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[@Achronum], I adjusted her sheet a bit to give a more reasonable time frame for her arrival in the Earth Nation! The big change is at the end of her biography, though her description has slightly changed as well to reflect the changes.