Application | Tu Shanshu

[12goingon113]

Player Information:
Name:
Bing
Age:
30ish
Contact:
agoodshinkickin (AIM)(Plurk)(Gmail)
Game Cast:
Michaelangelo (michaeljangelo)

Character Information:
Name:
Aang
Canon:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Canon Point:
Seconds after he's struck by Azula's Lightning at the end of the Book Two finale, "The Crossroads of Destiny."

Age:
12 (going on 113)
Reference:
http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Avatar_Wiki
http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Aang

Setting:
(Or why you should watch Avatar: The Last Airbender if you haven’t already.)

I find the best way to encapsulate the spirit of the world of Avatar is to describe it as a fictional Pan-Asian style agrarian society with technological achievements comparable to that of the United States circa the mid-1850s. For the most part it is a highly rational world that mostly adheres to basic scientific understanding of gravity, displacement, and thermodynamics.
Just as in our world nature here abors a vacuum, but unlike our world the flora and fauna that populate the Avatar world are very seldom composed of a single creature. A bear is an unusual creature of note, but a platypus-bear or armadillo-bear or even a tiger-bear is common place. The universally understood written language is a form of Chinese, and according to canon this pretty much hasn’t changed in thousands of years or so.

Politically, there are four countries, each with an elemental affinity: The Earth Kingdoms, Northern/Southern Water Tribes, Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Each country has its own unique culture, political structure, currency, and religious practices which tend to go hand in hand with their overall geographic climate.

Earth Kingdom:
Imagine a fictional Imperial era China and you’ll be on the right track. The Earth Kingdom is the largest of the four nations in both land and population. It’s composed of a couple small kingdoms, with each having their very own King. People from the Earth Kingdom have a reputation for being as stubborn as they are strong, and they built their cities to match. The architecture is designed to last, with cities often having walls hundreds of feet high to keep out invaders...or is it to keep in the citizenry? Arguably the greatest of the Earth Kingdom cities is Ba Sing Se, whose name quite literally means “Impenetrable City.”

Water Tribes:
The closest real world equivalent to the Water Tribes would be that of the Inuit cultures of North America. There are two Water Tribes with each situated on the opposing poles of the world. Due in part to the extreme polar environment the people of the Water Tribes are excellent hunters and fishermen. Both also share a culture heritage and are governed by a separate and distinct Chief but that is where the similarities seem to end.The Northern Tribe is known not only for being more grand in their presentation but for also practicing a more rigid and formal version of traditional Water Tribe culture. Their sister tribe to the South, however, tends to be far more laid back and lenient when it comes to matters of personal cultural affectation.

Fire Nation:
Composed of a series of Islands west of the Earth Kingdom, The Fire Nation is known for being as hot of temperature, as its people are passionate, and its food is spicy. Architectural and clothing elements resemble that of traditional Thailand and Indonesia. The Fire Nation is unique when compared to the other countries in the world in a couple of ways. For one, only the Fire Nation has a single unifying government, headed by the Fire Lord. For another, they are the only Nation that appears to be undergoing an industrial revolution.

Air Nomads:
The Air Nomads are a monastic order of people who roam the skies on flying bison when they are not residing at one of the four Air Temples which grace the cardinal “corners” of the globe. Named for their direction on the map, the Temples themselves are segregated by sex with East and West being populated by women and girls, and North and South housing the Men and Boys.
Unlike the other nations, each Air Nomad Temple governed, not by a King or Lord, but by its own Council of Elders. Children are raised communally, with most individual guidance coming from an appointed Mentor.

(For more information on the real world history that inspired the Avatar world, I would highly suggest checking out http://atla-annotated.tumblr.com/
It really is a beautifully crafted world that I know I’m not doing the slightest bit of justice with my quick summation here.)

One of the things that makes this world so different from other fictional pan-Asian universes is the idea of elemental manipulation called Bending. In the Avatar universe some people have a spiritual attunement to one of the four classic elements, and as a result of this have the ability to control that element as if they were an extension of their chi pathways. Whether or not one has the ability to bend an element is not based on any genetic component, but a spiritual one. Non-bender parents can have Bender children, and vice versa. Twins, identical in every other way, can be Bender/Non-Bender. Having said that, the element one is able to bend tends to follow National/Cultural lines. Fire Nation citizens produce firebenders, Earth Kingdom subject, earthbenders, and Water Tribesmen waterbenders. The Air Nomads are unique in that every Air Nomad was an airbender. It’s said that this is because they were a highly spiritual culture.

There is, however, one person a with the ability to bend all four elements, and that person is the Avatar. Reincarnated once a generation into one of the four nations, the Avatar is tasked with maintaining world-wide balance. And balance not only between nations, but also between Benders and Non-Benders, and the Material World with the Spirit World.

The Spirit World is a separate plane of existence that runs parallel, and on the occasional solstice or equinox, perpendicular to the Material World. It’s a plane that’s pretty heavily populated given the apparent Animism of the Avatar Universe. There are spirits for seemingly inanimate things like the Ocean and the Moon, as well as forest spirits, and even those we might classify as demons. While the Spirits can come and go as they please, only the Avatar has the ability to cross over into the Spirit World seemingly at will by going into what is known as the Avatar State.

The Avatar State is the focus of every past incarnation of the Avatar through the body of the currently active one. The Avatar is at his or her most powerful in this state, because it allows them to tap into the wisdom, abilities, and power of their previous selves. As luck would have it, it’s also where the Avatar is their most vulnerable. If someone should strike and kill the Avatar while in the Avatar State the Avatar cycle will be forever broken, and no new Avatar will be reborn.
All four nations lived in relative harmony for hundreds of years, and then one day...the Fire Nation Attacked. A Fire Lord by the name of Sozin wished to expand his empire, and began a campaign of conquest into the Earth Kingdom. The only thing that stopped his expansion into foreign lands was the power of the Avatar at the time, another Fire Nation native by the name of Roku. The two had once been great friends, but Sozin’s ambition drove them apart. They didn’t speak for years until the night that Roku died while fighting a volcano.

Twelve years after the death of Avatar Roku, and riding on the powerboost from a nearby comet, Fire Lord Sozin saw his chance to expand his kingdom once again, and ordered a full scale genocidal attack on the Air Nomads. His plan was to remove the only obstacle that stood between him and global conquest: The Avatar. The world knew that the next Avatar would be born an Air Nomad, but the identity of that child was unknown but to a few, and would not be revealed the child turned 16. Even the Avatars themselves didn’t know of their status until they reached that age, so Sozin figured that by killing all of the Air Nomads he would surely kill the new Avatar as well.

What Sozin didn’t know is that the Air Nomads had informed Aang, the newest incarnation of the Avatar Spirit, of his identity at the age of twelve, and that the weight of this revelation forced the boy to run away from home in secret with only some camping equipment and his beloved Sky Bison. So the one Air Nomad that Sozin wished to kill wasn’t at any of the Air Temples the day of the attack, but rather frozen at the bottom of the Southern Sea due to a freak twist of fate.

For three generations the war rages. One by one villages and cities fall under the Fire Nation’s rule save for two Earth Kingdom strongholds, and the Northern Water Tribe. All looks pretty bleak until Aang is discovered and defrosted by two Southern Water Tribe siblings, Sokka and Katara. News quickly spreads that the Avatar has returned, but he’s not ready to face the Fire Lord and stop the war.

The plan is simple: Aang, who is already a master of airbending, must now master the remaining three elements as well as the spiritual Avatar state so that he can face and defeat the new Fire Lord, Sozin’s grandson Ozai, before the comet that aided in the destruction of his people 100 years ago returns at the end of the summer.

Aang and his friends travel the world in search of teachers for Aang, all the while keeping their eyes peeled for the Fire Nation who are seeking to capture and destroy him.

No pressure, right?

During the last episode of Season two Aang is beneath the now fallen city of Ba Sing Se attempting to rescue his friend Katara and escape. There are too many, and there will be no escape if Aang doesn’t separate himself from the fighting and concentrate on controlling the Avatar State. Just as he’s rising from his meditation with the Avatar State fully within his control, he’s shot in the back by a bolt of lightning, and falls.

Aang will be entering the game as he’s falling.

Personality:
Were it not for the fact that he’s also the reincarnation of the centuries’ old spirit of the world incarnate, one could easily say that Aang is just your run of the mill twelve year old boy. He’s kind, affectionate, with more than a bit of a mischievous streak. Some might even go so far as to call him an incurable prankster.

The sad truth of it is that no matter how average he may seem at first glance, once you hear of his title, or see the great power that comes part and parcel with it, it’s kind of hard to forget his status as The Avatar. Were it within his abilities to do so, forgetting is exactly what he’d encourage you to do, because in truth he’s actually not overly fond of being the Avatar. In fact, in many ways Aang sees it as more of a curse than the blessing people keep insisting it is.

It’s not that he minds helping people, and fostering peace and harmony wherever he goes...he quite likes that part. Loves it really. What he doesn’t like is that he can’t just be Aang when he does it. He was raised by humble monks to be a humble monk, and because of that he knows fancy words and titles don’t solve problems, actions do. Aang is at his best when he’s not encumbered by the trappings of his position. When he’s free to live the life he’s always dreamed of: wandering the world in search of adventure, helping those he can along the way, and all the while surrounded by those he’s closest to. It’s the threat of the loss of this style of living, of this sense of autonomy, that ultimately forces Aang to run away.

This desire to retain his freedom through adventure is often side-eyed and questioned by those he meets along the way. A sane person doesn’t just try to ride Hopping-Hogmonkeys for fun. Especially when everyone knows that they don’t like to be ridden in the first place. But for Aang...that just makes it all the tantalizing a task. Not everyone wakes from one hundred years of frozen sleep beneath Antarctic waves and immediately asks to go Penguin Sledding, but Aang did. He’s just that kind of kid. The combination of his airbending mastery and his questionable attention span only serve to encourage him further along this path. There’s far less to fear when one has the ability to laugh in the very face of gravity. An activity he participates in often.


Which isn’t to say that Aang is 100% sweetness and good intentioned light, because...he’s not. He has quite a fierce jealous streak, and will resort to seemingly very un-Aang like behavior, like lying or other forms of deception, in an effort to retain things he believes to be his. It’s a side effect not only being 12, but of also having lost everyone and everything dear to him. Though usually kept in check by his affable nature, Aang does have a temper that he will unleash upon those who threaten his friends, or succeed in causing them harm.

Prior to the locking of his chakra, Aang had the ability to tap into the wisdom and power of all of his past lives at once. This ability, called The Avatar State, was meant to be a resource for him to draw from should he require help bringing balance to the world. Unfortunately the Hundred Year War happened before he could learn to control it effectively and for a time any traumatic or overly emotional episode ran the risk of triggering that State. This effectively reduced Aang to nothing more than an angry force of nature. While Aang cannot access this state at this point in canon, the memories of being able to do so, and the damage that inevitably followed in the State’s wake serve as a constant reminder to Aang to mind his temper.

Aang is also very proud, and doesn’t always weather defeat/failure well in the slightest. He’s one of those kids who will actively avoid challenges in favor of partaking in activities that he already knows he excels at just to avoid the chance at failure. While it’s likely that he’ll outgrow some of these tendencies naturally, it will take more than the passage of time to get Aang to face his problems head on, especially when considering his upbringing favors the path of least resistance as strongly as it does.

Considering what he’s lived through, and the sheer weight to the destiny that lay before him, Aang is surprisingly well adjusted and rather unflappable. He’s a happy kid who loves to laugh, and inspire joy in others.

This unflappability will help him when he first arrives in game. He won't remember much of his last moments of home unless someone attempts to heal him through via his Chi pathways. Waking up in somewhere new is kind of old hat for Aang by this point in his life. Being told he's between life and death will only serve to solidify his belief he's in the Spirit World. Its when he finds himself able to Bend, an activity not possible on that plane of existence, that the words will sink in and he'll panic. Seeing Toph will likely send him into a panic as well, as he was sure she was fine when he left her.

In no time he'll settle into life on the Turtle, finding contentment in not having to be the Avatar for this world, and finding at least a little comfort in knowing his world is waiting for him back home. This contentment will be short lived, however, because even though he's reluctant about it...he can't help but be a hero.

Appearance:
(canon)
(fanwork by nyla47 @ dreamwidth)

Abilities:
Airbending: The ability to manipulate, and in some cases generate, the element of air.
Mostly defensive in its application, airbending uses circular motions to conduct the air in discrete directions allowing for a variety of effects depending on the strength of the motions used and the skill of the Airbender performing them. Airbenders can create walls of air strong enough to repel people and weapons, whirlwinds and small vacuums that can be used to snatch things from people’s hands as well as tornadoes for locomotion. A strong enough air blast can even be used to erode rock.

Using airbending, Airbenders are naturally light on their feet, can jump tens of feet into the air, and run at an accelerated pace. With the aid of a glider Airbenders can fly for short bursts.

Aang invented an airbending form that he calls the Air Scooter. It’s a small focused ball of air that one can ride like a top.

Waterbending: The ability to direct and manipulate water in its various states.
Along with being able to push and pull water through the air as tendrils of many sizes, a Waterbender is capable of shifting their element from its frozen, liquid, and gaseous forms at will. Water can be moved as a large wave, or refined to an edge sharp enough to cut through metal.

Earthbending: The ability to direct and manipulate earth, stone, and sand.
In the right hands earthbending is more than merely moving a rock, though learning how to do so is usually the first step. A powerful, and well trained, earthbender is capable of achieving a seismic sense of his surroundings merely by feeling the vibrations in the earth around themselves.

Inventory:
Aang won’t be arriving with much more than the tattered and burned clothing on his back.

Suite:
Wood or Water, though chances are good he'll end up spending the bulk of his time where ever the most people he knows are.

In-Character Samples:
Third Person:

He strips off his boots, and walks barefoot across the footbridge towards the great turtle’s head. The wind doesn’t sing to him here, nor does the water babble. The ground beneath his feet doesn’t thrum as it would back on solid earth. For the first time ever he doesn’t hear the world around him. The elements still, and his mind is quiet. Even the warmth of the sun begins to fade as settles himself down into a lotus position, closes his eyes and just exists.

While he was willing to sacrifice his attachment to Katara in order to achieve control over the Avatar State, it wasn’t until he came to Tu Vishan that Aang truly understood what it meant to completely forgo attachment to the world. For the first time he feels the true freedom that comes from completely severing oneself from...well, everything. It’s like no meditation session he’s ever experienced, and no trip to the spirit world could possibly compare. He sees why his people strove so hard for such transcendence. Why some gave everything they had for the ability to open themselves up to the universe and feel no connection. It’s...heady and intoxicating. To reach out in all directions and touch nothing.

Here in this space Aang isn’t running, neither towards nor away. He is feeling everything and nothing at the same time. Here in this moment, in this imponderable place, he knows a peace he’d long since forgotten he’d ever tasted at all. Aang is nothing more than a stray thought. A speck of happiness in a void of indifference.

But like all things it doesn’t last. Around the edges of his mind guilt begins to seep. Aang becomes aware of just how selfish this kind of bliss is. He belongs to the world; has a duty to the world and the people that live in it. His resolve begins to crack and through these cracks love floods his mind and empowers his will. Aang thinks of all the people he’s met in his life and cannot help but smile.

It’s this memory of love, and the feeling of warmth that comes with it, that prompts him to take a step back. To move away from the bliss, away from the white void. He feels himself return to his body, and is pleased to find a smile on his lips as he does so. His hands come together in a ceremonial gesture of gratitude as he bows towards the great Tu Vishan.

He needed this moment of pure clarity, and now that it’s over he feels lighter than the air itself, unburdened. Aang turns on a dime and sprints back towards the footbridge, the shell, and his shoes, then he whips up an air-scooter and makes his way back towards the city.

It’s time for adventure.

Network:

[The feed springs to life on a pensive Aang perched precariously in the chair that sits opposite his own network console. He sighs wistfully.]

Today I flew up to the tallest spire of the Palace. From up there the city below kind of reminded me of Omashu.

Not the way I left it though,covered in Fire Nation Red and its people fleeing to refugee camps, but the way I found it the very first time Monk Gyatso brought me there.
I think I was...six? Yeah, I’d have to have been six. Because it was my first big trip with Gyatso, and we were making a rest stop in Omashu on our way to the Eastern Air Temple so that I could finally meet my bison.

[Aang smiles fondly at the memory of Appa, but the smile turns bittersweet towards the end.]

Anyway, I remember being amazed and scared and excited all at the same time. Omashu was the biggest city I’d ever seen and had more people in it than I knew existed. The Air Nomads weren’t exactly a huge nation as nations go.

Anyway, it was everything I’d been taught by the Monks about order coming from chaos, but you know...with actual living breathing people, and not just words. And once I got over being scared of all the noise, and intimidated by all the people, I loved it.

I loved it even more after I became friends with Bumi. He was just a little kid like me at the time, and wouldn’t become king for years later. This place reminds me a lot of him too. I think he’d like it here on Tu Vishan. This is the kind of place a Mad Genius dreams of going when he dreams of going anywhere other than where he is. Who knows, maybe he was already here and this was the model for all his crazy schemes.

[It’s here that he pauses, his expression loses focus, and rather than look back into the camera, Aang looks as if he’s keeping a watchful eye on the middle ground.]

I miss them all so much.
It...it almost seems like everytime I close my eyes I’m in one place, but when I open them I’m somewhere else. And the people from before, I never get to see again. I never get to say goodbye. Or to tell them how much I love them. I know that the Monks taught me that all is suffering, and I understand that nothing can last forever, but...would it really be that hard to get a heads up before I’m pulled away from my friends? Is that really asking too much?