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firedprince) wrote2008-09-11 10:23 pm
firedprince) wrote2008-09-11 10:23 pm
Entry tags:
application for realityshifted.
Player Name: Saffy
Player LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ariesrising
Email and/or AIM: namine [at] feathery.org / inherits the sun
Timezone: PST
Other Characters: Minami Ikki (crowheaded); and Sakurai Yuuto (hasarrived).
Character: Zuko
Series/Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Deviance: 1
Age: 16
Gender: Male
Species: Human (Firebender)
Canon Used: The TV show.
Appearance: Zuko is a teenage boy of about average height. Though his skin is pale, he is also very lean and fit. He has dark hair that tends to fall into his eyes, which are notably gold-colored. His most distinctive feature is the huge burn scar marring his left eye, sweeping back to the ear. His most common outfit is a red tunic with a gold sash, with dark pants-- the colors of the Fire Nation in which he was born.
Psychology:
Zuko's first impressions are of a bitter, hotheaded young prince who is concerned with nothing but himself. Yet, on more than a few occasions in the beginning of the series, he learned that his judgment wasn't always the best and helped his men as best as he could. He had trouble owning up to these acts, however.
Though he was as cold and arrogant and manipulative a bastard as he could be, being marked as a traitor to his own home changed him. Zuko sliced off his topknot to free himself of that past and fled into the Earth Kingdom with his uncle. Even then, he realized he had to take his own path and left Iroh behind in order to find himself. He found brief solace with a poor family who'd lost a son to the war, protecting them from aggressive bully soldiers and teaching their son a bit with a broadsword-- and when they realized he was a Firebender and the town cast him out, Zuko walked away.
For years, his hunt for the Avatar was the only thing truly keeping him going. This falls into Zuko's typical obsessive, passionate nature. The Avatar represented hope that Zuko could right the wrong he committed against his father and restore his honor. Indeed-- while he may deny it, what the people he respects think of him are more important than anything. This not only extends to his father, but to his uncle as well. When Ozai cast him out, Iroh took Zuko under his wing and trained him to be the strong young man he is today. Even then, given the chance to return to his sister's side at the price of Aang's life and his uncle's freedom, Zuko chose to turn against everything he had learned.
However, Zuko began to realize that something was wrong. Restoring his honor left him feeling emptier than ever, aside from his love for Mai. He was extremely angry, outspoken, and frustrated at every single thing. Not to mention he clearly felt alien in his old home, such as refusing the help of a few servants until Mai asked for something. It took Mai nearly breaking up with him for Zuko to admit that he was angry not at her, or his own father, or his family-- no, Zuko was angry at himself.
The self-hatred there is extreme. Zuko carries the sin of knowingly betraying his uncle. He pleaded with him, then berated him for not joining Zuko in capturing the Avatar, and then broke down and asked for his help. But rejection was all he received. Iroh was ashamed of Zuko's sudden lapse in judgment, and Zuko was ashamed that he wasn't happy with what he had. He had the world, didn't he? Aang was supposedly dead, he had his honor back, he had a girlfriend, and yet, and yet, and yet-- nothing was right.
When Zuko is in more relaxed situations, he's been shown to be extremely awkward socially. Being removed from his palace and sent on a suicide mission for so many years took a heavy toll on him. He also used to cling to Ursa, his mother, and now and then a little bit of that shy self leaks through; he has a tendency to say the wrong thing a /lot/. Zuko is a bit of a pushover, yes, but actually very shy and caring toward other people, particularly innocents. He meant to capture the Avatar alive, for example. While using other people to get to what he wants wasn't something he grew out of quickly, he never did it by actually harming them-- like Katara. What kind of coldhearted villain uses means like kidnapping and extortion /without/ physically harming the person?
And let's not skip over his inferiority complex. Azula has always been talented and cold and Father's Favorite, while Zuko fell on his face trying to impress him. Zuko has a history of failure and Azula never fails to point that out. For example, Azula mastered blue firebending /and/ lightning by the second season, and Zuko can only barely redirect the stuff should it come flying at him. Some of this inferiority and self-hate stems from the fact that he betrayed his uncle, who only wanted the best for his nephew.
Slowly over the course of his adventure, Zuko went from a pure antagonist to being something of an anti-hero. Only through Iroh's help and his own reflections does Zuko realize that he is meant to be Aang's shadow and right the wrongs his great-grandfather committed a hundred years ago. The destiny of a fire lord and an avatar are in his blood, and the struggle between those sides of him can bring him to his knees at any time. Still, traveling the world to see the state of it and a good amount of introspection will bring the true Zuko to light. Only then will he be satisfied with himself.
Other Skills/Abilities: Zuko has an innate ability known as Firebending. It allows him to create fire from his own energy and manipulate it. However, he can still be burned by others' fire, or even his own if it gets out of control. Fire Nation firebending comes from the anger and passion within.
Zuko was also taught by his uncle how to redirect lightning, which is the highest form of firebending. Firebenders are a particularly military society, and so Zuko was trained extensively in martial arts; Firebending is based on a style of Kung Fu that utilizes aggressive, quick, assassin-like moves to down the opponent quickly.
Zuko spent a long period of time unable to 'bend while in hiding, and that was when he unveiled his skills with dual-wielding swords, particularly scimitars. He is practically unbeatable with them. Fast, strong, and silent, Zuko makes the perfect killing machine in his own right.
Other Weaknesses: As can be expected, Waterbenders and Firebenders are complete opposites. He is at a particular disadvantage in the cold. However, unlike Waterbenders, he doesn't need to draw his fire from the environment-- only from within. Still, any attack he uses can be deflected with a strong enough blast of water, and he can't firebend while under the water or anything. The best way to touch him, it seems, is to be faster than he is.
However, if his strategic mind, swords, and Firebending fail him... Zuko bleeds red just like the next squishy human.
History:
Zuko is the firstborn son of Fire Lord Ozai and Ursa. A short while after his birth came his sister, Azula, named for her talented grandfather whom she took after. Zuko led a relatively quiet childhood, clinging to his mother most of the time, while Azula played with the other noble kids. Zuko was not a troublemaker, considering-- his sister was filled with cruelty even as a girl-- and he always did as his parents told him. Nothing meant more than what they thought of him.
And then... everything changed. Conspiracy fell upon the palace. Ursa murdered Ozai's father and was banished for it, but in the process had saved her son's life, and gotten Ozai crowned as Fire Lord rather than his older and childless brother, Iroh. All Zuko knew was that his mother had gone, and he was forced to grow up very quickly. He learned barriers, formalities, and yet still retained that hotheadedness in the face of his sister's cold arrogance. He didn't know that it would damn him.
When he was around the age of 13, Zuko attended a war meeting with his father. One of the generals had a horrible strategy that involved sacrificing many new soldiers to the enemy. Zuko didn't know how much he valued human life until that moment. He spoke out of turn, which disrespected the Fire Lord in his own war room. Furious, Ozai challenged his son to an Agni Kai, which is an old-fashioned Firebender duel. Zuko thought he was going to face the general, who would surely lose. But it was his father. Zuko begged on his knees for his father's forgiveness and said he did not want to fight him. This cowardice was even worse than the outburst, no matter how right it had been, and his father burned him horribly for it, then banished him. He told Zuko that if he captured the Avatar-- who had not been seen for a hundred years-- he would be able to return and have his honor back.
So, for three years before the Avatar awakened, Zuko traveled with his uncle by sea to track where the Avatar could have been. During this time he drilled himself over and over in the Firebending lessons his uncle taught him, put up with his anecdotes, practiced his swordsmanship, and did a lot of thinking. He became bitter and spiteful toward those who tried to disagree with him and extremely obsessed with capturing the Avatar.
And then the sign came. Zuko pursued the Avatar mercilessly after that, going so far as to use Katara as bait. He kept her necklace as something to track her with, and used her to get closer to the Avatar on more than one occasion. However, Admiral Zhao was also after the Avatar, using more harmful means. When he finally did succeed in capturing Aang, Zuko disguised himselfas a ninja and snuck into the compound, took out several guards, and rescued the Avatar. As they fled, however, Zuko was hurt. Aang helped him to safety and mentioned that the could be friends someday, but Zuko brushed him off, and the gap between them returned.
When the Fire Nation invaded the North Pole, intending to take over the last stronghold of Waterbenders in the world, Zhao and Zuko had their duel. Zuko offered him a hand up as he was falling, but Zhao let himself be engulfed in water, choosing spite over his own life. That invasion was a disaster. Iroh and Zuko were alone, now, without a ship and now without a name; the Fire Nation branded them as traitors and they were forced to go incognito in the Earth Nation during this time.
But Zuko still had plans of capturing the Avatar, or at least finding his own path. He left his uncle and for a while trained on his own. He helped a family and a town merely with his swords, until some corrupted soldiers dared to mess with them. When Zuko and his uncle caught up again, they decided to head to Ba Sing Se like all the other refugees and start over. For once, it seemed Zuko was finally coming to terms with who he was. They started their own tea shop after a run-in with a suspicious Jet destroyed their employer's shop.
However, the Avatar was also in the city. Zuko aided the escape of Appa in a small way, though it was largely unbeknownst to the rest of the cast. Azula managed to seize the city from the inside in a coup-de-t'at as a fake Kyoshi warrior at the same time. Zuko and Katara were then imprisoned in a rocky chamber beneath the palace, and while they nearly made peace, suddenly... Zuko chose his sister over his uncle. Azula killed Aang while he was in the Avatar State, and Iroh fought off all the soldiers in order to get the rest of Aang's friends to safety.
Iroh was tossed in Fire Nation prison as a traitor, while Azula and Zuko were worshiped as heroes. Azula had engineered her win such that while everyone thought the Avatar was dead, if he did turn up alive, Fire Lord Ozai would assume that it was Zuko's failure in killing him. Despite this thin ice, Zuko eased into princely life as much as could after three years. Him and Mai, one of Azula's friends and the governor's daughter, took up a steady relationship, and everything seemed to be going smoothly...
But the pieces to Zuko's own mystery were unraveling, and he could see himself failing. He was somewhat furious when he saw that yet another pair of creepy twins had invaded the royal compound, but no one seemed to take notice...
Canon Point: Zuko is taken directly after Season Three, Episode 6: "The Avatar and the Firelord".
Reality Description: Zuko's reality resembles Earth only slightly. It can be divided into four major nations, each representing an element and a type of Bending: Air Nomads, Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, and the Fire Nation. By the start of the series, the Air Nomads have been wiped out with their ruined temples as their only legacy, and the Water Tribe has split into two, one for each Pole, with the South in definite decline. The conquests of the megalomaniacal Fire Nation and their struggles to capture someone known as the Avatar provide the main conflict in the series.
Bending is a combination of telekinetic abilities with elements and martial arts. Each of the four types are based on a certain kind of real-world martial art, and there are even subtypes like Sandbending that people developed to adapt to the environment. Bending abilities are shown to be hereditary and are not possessed by everyone. Normal people can only Bend their innate element, but they can be influenced by the movements of others, such as Iroh's ability to redirect lightning that he created by watching Waterbenders.
All four elements are represented in the Avatar, a special person whose role it is to preserve peace and harmony in the world by mastering all the elements in a certain order. The Avatar has been continuously reborn for hundreds of years, and draws on his past lives to give him strength in something called the Avatar State. The Avatar of Zuko's time is named Aang, and he is the last Airbender... Zuko's ancestors wiped out the rest of them to ensure their conquest went smoothly. Oops.
The world at large is populated with all sorts of animals. While there are a few mundane ones still left, most of the Avatar universe has bizarre crossbreeds, like ostrich-horses and badgermoles. The most magnificent ones, and perhaps vaguely recognizable, are the ones that bind with the Avatar. Avatar Roku had a dragon. Aang, however, has a six-legged flying bison. Some of them inspired certain kinds of bending; it is said that the Fire Nation firebenders learned how to use fire from dragons (long since extinct), the Earthbenders from observing badgermoles (see: Toph Bei Fong), and the Airbenders from flying bison. Only the Waterbenders claim to draw their inspiration from the moon and the tides.
Player LJ:
ariesrisingEmail and/or AIM: namine [at] feathery.org / inherits the sun
Timezone: PST
Other Characters: Minami Ikki (
crowheaded); and Sakurai Yuuto (hasarrived).Character: Zuko
Series/Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Deviance: 1
Age: 16
Gender: Male
Species: Human (Firebender)
Canon Used: The TV show.
Appearance: Zuko is a teenage boy of about average height. Though his skin is pale, he is also very lean and fit. He has dark hair that tends to fall into his eyes, which are notably gold-colored. His most distinctive feature is the huge burn scar marring his left eye, sweeping back to the ear. His most common outfit is a red tunic with a gold sash, with dark pants-- the colors of the Fire Nation in which he was born.
Psychology:
Zuko's first impressions are of a bitter, hotheaded young prince who is concerned with nothing but himself. Yet, on more than a few occasions in the beginning of the series, he learned that his judgment wasn't always the best and helped his men as best as he could. He had trouble owning up to these acts, however.
Though he was as cold and arrogant and manipulative a bastard as he could be, being marked as a traitor to his own home changed him. Zuko sliced off his topknot to free himself of that past and fled into the Earth Kingdom with his uncle. Even then, he realized he had to take his own path and left Iroh behind in order to find himself. He found brief solace with a poor family who'd lost a son to the war, protecting them from aggressive bully soldiers and teaching their son a bit with a broadsword-- and when they realized he was a Firebender and the town cast him out, Zuko walked away.
For years, his hunt for the Avatar was the only thing truly keeping him going. This falls into Zuko's typical obsessive, passionate nature. The Avatar represented hope that Zuko could right the wrong he committed against his father and restore his honor. Indeed-- while he may deny it, what the people he respects think of him are more important than anything. This not only extends to his father, but to his uncle as well. When Ozai cast him out, Iroh took Zuko under his wing and trained him to be the strong young man he is today. Even then, given the chance to return to his sister's side at the price of Aang's life and his uncle's freedom, Zuko chose to turn against everything he had learned.
However, Zuko began to realize that something was wrong. Restoring his honor left him feeling emptier than ever, aside from his love for Mai. He was extremely angry, outspoken, and frustrated at every single thing. Not to mention he clearly felt alien in his old home, such as refusing the help of a few servants until Mai asked for something. It took Mai nearly breaking up with him for Zuko to admit that he was angry not at her, or his own father, or his family-- no, Zuko was angry at himself.
The self-hatred there is extreme. Zuko carries the sin of knowingly betraying his uncle. He pleaded with him, then berated him for not joining Zuko in capturing the Avatar, and then broke down and asked for his help. But rejection was all he received. Iroh was ashamed of Zuko's sudden lapse in judgment, and Zuko was ashamed that he wasn't happy with what he had. He had the world, didn't he? Aang was supposedly dead, he had his honor back, he had a girlfriend, and yet, and yet, and yet-- nothing was right.
When Zuko is in more relaxed situations, he's been shown to be extremely awkward socially. Being removed from his palace and sent on a suicide mission for so many years took a heavy toll on him. He also used to cling to Ursa, his mother, and now and then a little bit of that shy self leaks through; he has a tendency to say the wrong thing a /lot/. Zuko is a bit of a pushover, yes, but actually very shy and caring toward other people, particularly innocents. He meant to capture the Avatar alive, for example. While using other people to get to what he wants wasn't something he grew out of quickly, he never did it by actually harming them-- like Katara. What kind of coldhearted villain uses means like kidnapping and extortion /without/ physically harming the person?
And let's not skip over his inferiority complex. Azula has always been talented and cold and Father's Favorite, while Zuko fell on his face trying to impress him. Zuko has a history of failure and Azula never fails to point that out. For example, Azula mastered blue firebending /and/ lightning by the second season, and Zuko can only barely redirect the stuff should it come flying at him. Some of this inferiority and self-hate stems from the fact that he betrayed his uncle, who only wanted the best for his nephew.
Slowly over the course of his adventure, Zuko went from a pure antagonist to being something of an anti-hero. Only through Iroh's help and his own reflections does Zuko realize that he is meant to be Aang's shadow and right the wrongs his great-grandfather committed a hundred years ago. The destiny of a fire lord and an avatar are in his blood, and the struggle between those sides of him can bring him to his knees at any time. Still, traveling the world to see the state of it and a good amount of introspection will bring the true Zuko to light. Only then will he be satisfied with himself.
Other Skills/Abilities: Zuko has an innate ability known as Firebending. It allows him to create fire from his own energy and manipulate it. However, he can still be burned by others' fire, or even his own if it gets out of control. Fire Nation firebending comes from the anger and passion within.
Zuko was also taught by his uncle how to redirect lightning, which is the highest form of firebending. Firebenders are a particularly military society, and so Zuko was trained extensively in martial arts; Firebending is based on a style of Kung Fu that utilizes aggressive, quick, assassin-like moves to down the opponent quickly.
Zuko spent a long period of time unable to 'bend while in hiding, and that was when he unveiled his skills with dual-wielding swords, particularly scimitars. He is practically unbeatable with them. Fast, strong, and silent, Zuko makes the perfect killing machine in his own right.
Other Weaknesses: As can be expected, Waterbenders and Firebenders are complete opposites. He is at a particular disadvantage in the cold. However, unlike Waterbenders, he doesn't need to draw his fire from the environment-- only from within. Still, any attack he uses can be deflected with a strong enough blast of water, and he can't firebend while under the water or anything. The best way to touch him, it seems, is to be faster than he is.
However, if his strategic mind, swords, and Firebending fail him... Zuko bleeds red just like the next squishy human.
History:
Zuko is the firstborn son of Fire Lord Ozai and Ursa. A short while after his birth came his sister, Azula, named for her talented grandfather whom she took after. Zuko led a relatively quiet childhood, clinging to his mother most of the time, while Azula played with the other noble kids. Zuko was not a troublemaker, considering-- his sister was filled with cruelty even as a girl-- and he always did as his parents told him. Nothing meant more than what they thought of him.
And then... everything changed. Conspiracy fell upon the palace. Ursa murdered Ozai's father and was banished for it, but in the process had saved her son's life, and gotten Ozai crowned as Fire Lord rather than his older and childless brother, Iroh. All Zuko knew was that his mother had gone, and he was forced to grow up very quickly. He learned barriers, formalities, and yet still retained that hotheadedness in the face of his sister's cold arrogance. He didn't know that it would damn him.
When he was around the age of 13, Zuko attended a war meeting with his father. One of the generals had a horrible strategy that involved sacrificing many new soldiers to the enemy. Zuko didn't know how much he valued human life until that moment. He spoke out of turn, which disrespected the Fire Lord in his own war room. Furious, Ozai challenged his son to an Agni Kai, which is an old-fashioned Firebender duel. Zuko thought he was going to face the general, who would surely lose. But it was his father. Zuko begged on his knees for his father's forgiveness and said he did not want to fight him. This cowardice was even worse than the outburst, no matter how right it had been, and his father burned him horribly for it, then banished him. He told Zuko that if he captured the Avatar-- who had not been seen for a hundred years-- he would be able to return and have his honor back.
So, for three years before the Avatar awakened, Zuko traveled with his uncle by sea to track where the Avatar could have been. During this time he drilled himself over and over in the Firebending lessons his uncle taught him, put up with his anecdotes, practiced his swordsmanship, and did a lot of thinking. He became bitter and spiteful toward those who tried to disagree with him and extremely obsessed with capturing the Avatar.
And then the sign came. Zuko pursued the Avatar mercilessly after that, going so far as to use Katara as bait. He kept her necklace as something to track her with, and used her to get closer to the Avatar on more than one occasion. However, Admiral Zhao was also after the Avatar, using more harmful means. When he finally did succeed in capturing Aang, Zuko disguised himself
When the Fire Nation invaded the North Pole, intending to take over the last stronghold of Waterbenders in the world, Zhao and Zuko had their duel. Zuko offered him a hand up as he was falling, but Zhao let himself be engulfed in water, choosing spite over his own life. That invasion was a disaster. Iroh and Zuko were alone, now, without a ship and now without a name; the Fire Nation branded them as traitors and they were forced to go incognito in the Earth Nation during this time.
But Zuko still had plans of capturing the Avatar, or at least finding his own path. He left his uncle and for a while trained on his own. He helped a family and a town merely with his swords, until some corrupted soldiers dared to mess with them. When Zuko and his uncle caught up again, they decided to head to Ba Sing Se like all the other refugees and start over. For once, it seemed Zuko was finally coming to terms with who he was. They started their own tea shop after a run-in with a suspicious Jet destroyed their employer's shop.
However, the Avatar was also in the city. Zuko aided the escape of Appa in a small way, though it was largely unbeknownst to the rest of the cast. Azula managed to seize the city from the inside in a coup-de-t'at as a fake Kyoshi warrior at the same time. Zuko and Katara were then imprisoned in a rocky chamber beneath the palace, and while they nearly made peace, suddenly... Zuko chose his sister over his uncle. Azula killed Aang while he was in the Avatar State, and Iroh fought off all the soldiers in order to get the rest of Aang's friends to safety.
Iroh was tossed in Fire Nation prison as a traitor, while Azula and Zuko were worshiped as heroes. Azula had engineered her win such that while everyone thought the Avatar was dead, if he did turn up alive, Fire Lord Ozai would assume that it was Zuko's failure in killing him. Despite this thin ice, Zuko eased into princely life as much as could after three years. Him and Mai, one of Azula's friends and the governor's daughter, took up a steady relationship, and everything seemed to be going smoothly...
But the pieces to Zuko's own mystery were unraveling, and he could see himself failing. He was somewhat furious when he saw that yet another pair of creepy twins had invaded the royal compound, but no one seemed to take notice...
Canon Point: Zuko is taken directly after Season Three, Episode 6: "The Avatar and the Firelord".
Reality Description: Zuko's reality resembles Earth only slightly. It can be divided into four major nations, each representing an element and a type of Bending: Air Nomads, Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, and the Fire Nation. By the start of the series, the Air Nomads have been wiped out with their ruined temples as their only legacy, and the Water Tribe has split into two, one for each Pole, with the South in definite decline. The conquests of the megalomaniacal Fire Nation and their struggles to capture someone known as the Avatar provide the main conflict in the series.
Bending is a combination of telekinetic abilities with elements and martial arts. Each of the four types are based on a certain kind of real-world martial art, and there are even subtypes like Sandbending that people developed to adapt to the environment. Bending abilities are shown to be hereditary and are not possessed by everyone. Normal people can only Bend their innate element, but they can be influenced by the movements of others, such as Iroh's ability to redirect lightning that he created by watching Waterbenders.
All four elements are represented in the Avatar, a special person whose role it is to preserve peace and harmony in the world by mastering all the elements in a certain order. The Avatar has been continuously reborn for hundreds of years, and draws on his past lives to give him strength in something called the Avatar State. The Avatar of Zuko's time is named Aang, and he is the last Airbender... Zuko's ancestors wiped out the rest of them to ensure their conquest went smoothly. Oops.
The world at large is populated with all sorts of animals. While there are a few mundane ones still left, most of the Avatar universe has bizarre crossbreeds, like ostrich-horses and badgermoles. The most magnificent ones, and perhaps vaguely recognizable, are the ones that bind with the Avatar. Avatar Roku had a dragon. Aang, however, has a six-legged flying bison. Some of them inspired certain kinds of bending; it is said that the Fire Nation firebenders learned how to use fire from dragons (long since extinct), the Earthbenders from observing badgermoles (see: Toph Bei Fong), and the Airbenders from flying bison. Only the Waterbenders claim to draw their inspiration from the moon and the tides.