Aang AU Application - The Posthumans
Player Name: Zippy
Personal LJ: sparklemagpie
E-mail: glassfishnet@hotmail.com
AIM: glassfishgirl or calamityzippy
Other characters currently in-game: None.
Character Name:Aang
Canon source:Avatar the Last Airbender
PB: Steve Yoo
Personality:
Sensitive and serious Aang is a man who has grown out of the strangest and most fantastic of circumstances. He's been deeply influenced by the people who have raised him but retains a core self that has been difficult for anything to alter.
Aang has been raised to think of himself as a soldier and more importantly a weapon for his commanding officers to use to their will. As a small child he was bullied and broken into obeying the orders of his parents and his teachers to the letter.
Though he was welcomed into the arms of Ozai's family once he had proven that he could obey (and he eventually came to think of them as his own family and to be treated by Ozai and Ursa as a second son) Aang still defers to Ozai in particular instantly. If asked why he obeys Aang would say that he listens to Ozai because Ozai has been a father to him and deserves his respect and deference, but there is a deeper systematic terror underneath that excuse that he is not even fully aware of anymore, having repressed many of his worst memories. He just knows that obedience is what is required of him and however much it hurts his heart to commit an act, the alternative is much worse. He is on the outside exactly the sort of man that Ozai trained him to be: an honorable fire nation soldier, proud of his nation and loyal to it. He is businesslike, serene, unapologetic, and absolutely terrifying when pushed to the limits of his power.
Aang hides his more sensitive and peaceful leanings well - trained to smother his screaming instinct toward gentleness in order to survive and thrive and be loved - but these fractures in the foundation of his facade are still there, weighing heavily on his conscience with each slow step he takes on the path that his 'family' has laid out for him.
If no one he considers above him is there to hold him back he cannot resist an injured animal, a distressed elder, a crying child. Though he has been bullied and terrified into participating into horrifying acts of war faced with individual plights he does all he can to minimize damage. Other people's pain pulls on his heart and often shatters his uncaring mask. He is defensive and paranoid about his acts of kindness as they have been relegated to the realm of a guilty pleasure but he still cannot help but commit them, drawn like a moth to a flame. If the situation has been dire enough he has thrown his weight as the Avatar against his enemies, threatening them into cooperation toward a better goal by reminding them just who they are dealing with. But threatening thugs is among his boldest humanitarian acts as of yet, threatening the men who have lorded power over him all his life is still beyond his reach.
If given the chance to act by his own whims Aang is almost childlike, gradually more carefree, and eventually showing so much more of his deeply ingrained gentleness of spirit. He is a deeply curious man, eager to gather all knowledge as education and access to legend has long been one of his few solaces. When presented with a problem he attacks it from all sides, wanting to have every piece of information possible before making a decision. This approach is part political savvy gained from being brought up in the royal house of the Fire Nation and part and inborn sense of mediation that is part of what he is as the Avatar. If left to handle a situation on his own he naturally tends toward finding the path of least violence, wanting everything handled efficiently and without bloodshed if possible. As a soldier his obsession with finding the least-fatal outcomes for his men (and their enemies though he would never admit it) turned him into an accomplished tactician, lauded in the military for his keen eye for overwhelming targets into surrender. (He's a bit like Vash the Stampede but with more guilt and less guns.)
Although never quite able to slip from beneath his 'father's thumb, Aang has slowly worked out his life to justify his actions to himself. He instinctually wants peace, but cannot find a way to achieve it outrightly... so he works from within, determined to support the unity that would result from Fire Nation world conquest and trying to save lives on both sides in small ways that are acceptable to his superiors.
All efforts have been made to instill Aang with an ego befitting his station in the Royal house but he is stubbornly humble, even around peasants and those who are unmistakably under him in the general hierarchy. He disguises his instinct toward humility as indifference most of the time, and is deeply uncomfortable responding to praise as he has learned by now that most of it is empty and offered only to curry favor.
His access to the Avatar state and to any spiritual connection with his past selves has been stunted and severed by his emotional conditioning. Patience and work would be needed for him to access these wellsprings of knowledge and power again.
History:
Born into the peaceful loving society of the Air Nomads Aang was destined from birth to change his entire world. He was the Avatar, the reincarnation of the one soul in his world who could manipulate all four of the elements to his will. He was not supposed to be told about his destiny until he had turned 16, having fully mastered airbending and come to maturity. Instead however the Fire Nation had begun invading other lands. By the time Aang was only six years old the need for an Avatar to restore political balance was entirely too great to ignore, and his teachers broke protocol to inform him of just what he was.
Like any six year old boy suddenly told that the whole world rested on his shoulders Aang was terrified. That night he went to the stables, mounted his flying bison, Appa, and took off into the fierce winds of an oncoming winter storm, determined that maybe if he ran far enough he could outrun his daunting new responsibilities. Perhaps given the chance to land somewhere and hide for a few days, to mull over what he had been handed, grieve for his lost youth, and to think about the height of the stakes lay in front of him he may have calmed down, reconsidered, turned around, and become the savior his people, all people needed. But the storm was stronger than a six year old, still struggling for mastery of his element, could fend off. Both he and Appa were driven out of the sky, swallowed up by cold ocean waves despite Aang's best efforts.
They would remain trapped in the ice for 100 years, suspended in time thanks only to the strength of Aang's power as the Avatar which had emerged in the moment of their defeat to preserve them.
A century passed outside Aang's little shell of ice. The Fire Nation used their quickly progressing technology to scale the walls of the Air Nomad temples and mudered every airbender they could lay their hands on. Within a generation the air nomads as they had been were gone, wiped from the face of the planet through pure genocide. The Fire Nation had passed through two more rulers and moved on to invading the vast lands of the Earth Kingdom peice by peice when the Avatar was found again.
Ozai, still only a Prince, had just finished spearheading an invasion into the southern Earth Kingdom, decimating Kyoshi island on their way into Southern Water Tribe lands. After laying waste to the village and leaving only a few survivors his ship turned their bow out toward the frozen southern seas.
Halfway to their destination the ship ran aground of an ice floe, it's prow smashing into Aang's frozen prison and dispelling his power. The little boy was frozen to the bone, both he and Appa disoriented, hungry and scared. When Ozai climbed down into their crater of ice and offered a warm meal and a ride to someplace safe Aang threw himself into the Prince's arms in tears.
The tattoos on the boy, and his enormous bison companion, were impossible to miss markers. In 100 years a new Avatar had yet to be born into the ranks of the waterbenders and the world had been scoured for the airbender Avatar that must still be alive somewhere. Ozai's grandfather, father and older brother had all searched fruitlessly for him. Seeking the Avatar was a joke of a quest by now, a wild goose chase.
And then there was Aang, dropped into Ozai's lap like a gift from the Gods...
The Fire Nation's prince did not miss the opportunity that had been placed before him, personally and for his country as a whole. He returned home immediately to the clamour of a Fire Nation bolstered by knowing that they had surely won the war now that the Avatar was theirs to mould.
Aang's first six months in the Fire Nation were spent in a dark underground room, access to fresh air and light rationed as per his cooperation with his captors and at only six years old, alone and grieving, it took very little time for him to be broken by the deprivation.
Ozai had jumped the line due to his serendipitous find, taking his elder brother Iroh's place as Crown Prince, and Aang - as his ticket to one day being Fire Lord - was kept strictly under Ozai's thumb. Once the young boy had learned to be obedient above all else he was finally brought out from his cell and welcomed into a more normal existence, if being an adopted son to the royal family could be considered normal. By age nine Aang had been integrated into studies and training with Ozai's blood children - Zuko who was just a few months younger than Aang, and Azula, two years his junior. Ozai's wife Ursa felt badly for Aang's alienation from most people and his old life and she did her level best to be kind and understanding to him, coming down on her children harshly when they picked on their new sibling. Though Azula had a nasty temperament as a child that took years of patient ferocity for Ursa to curb young Zuko took his mother's words more to heart and he and Aang slowly built a brotherly sort of friendship that would sustain them through the difficult years in their future.
Aang's life within the palace walls was sheltered and peaceful but outside the older he got the more he began to be put through his paces. With Appa pressed into service as transportation Aang took many trips over to the Earth Kingdom, participating in some of the bloodiest battles of the war at barely 10 years old. Each time he was then ushered home and given a few weeks reprieve from the chaos and death, returning to his quiet walled in life with Zuko and Azula in classes, tucked into bed and bid goodnight by Ursa's soft sympathetic smile.
As the war pushed on and Aang grew older his conscience began more and more to nag him, his inner rebellion coming to a head when it was decided that he needed to learn Earthbending in order to combat the Earth Kingdom forces properly. An instructor was found for him, Toph Bei Fong, Earthbending master and only surviving member of the Bei Fong family. Fire nation soldiers had discovered her when they killed her family in a raid on the city of Gaoling, startled when burning her eyes out of their sockets didn't stop her from killing eight men in a grief fueled rage.
Blinded, kept continually starved, and locked up in metal manacles Toph had been kept alive purely for the fact that it would have been a waste to kill someone who could instead be whipped until she did the work of a hundred men, tearing down old buildings and bringing together new ones. When Aang was fourteen she was pulled away from building work and put on the task of training him.
Toph had been stalwart that she wouldn't teach her art to anyone en route from the Earth Kingdom but upon meeting Aang and sensing the dishonesty in his laughter at his father's cruel jokes and his discomfort with seeing her mistreated Toph agreed to impart her knowledge to him in exchange for improved conditions - better food, better clothes, and more creature comforts in her little metal cell.
Although it was an immense risk to Toph's captors to let the little Earthbender out of her shackles - they knew exactly how much she was capable of - Aang insisted that she teach him 'properly' and backed her bid for better treatment by insisting the he would not learn from her unless she was treated more respectfully.
Aang and Toph formed a close friendship over many months as she shaped his Earthbending skill around her own. She told him of how her life at home had been over shadowed by the war, of how the Fire Nation soldiers occupying her lands treated the natives, how her parents had died, how she had lost her eyes. Aang felt deeply guilty and frustrated by his helplessness, driven finally to dig in his heels at being asked to go to the Earth Kingdom yet again to fight.
Ozai, having recently come to the throne after his father's death from illness, was not oblivious to Aang's blossoming friendship with Toph. He had been happy to let it slide until Aang became belligerent, but once that first refusal had been uttered punishment was swift and cruel. Rather than try to harm Aang, who was both valuable and powerful, Toph was hauled from the dungeons in manacles that bound her up to her knees and elbows, struggling and screaming as she was held down on the executioners block.
Her last words to Aang were for him not to give in, not to make her death meaningless, but the realization that his 'father' was prepared to destroy every comfort and friendship in his life if he resisted orders was enough to crush Aang's rebellious urges on the spot.
He grieved for Toph desperately, mind wild with horror at the realities she had brought into his world and his helplessness in knowing that Ozai would do anything and everything to keep him from doing a single thing that could be perceived as betraying the Fire Nation. His selfish desire to protect those closest to him, his terror of Ozai, and the degree to which he had been told for all his childhood and now believed thanks to years of manipulation that he was helpless against the might of the Fire Nation's leaders combined to destroy what little defiance he had mustered. He gathered up what scraps of Toph's memory he could and withdrew into grief and hopelessness.
The Avatar that the world so needed was not a man he felt that he could be.
As Aang grew into adulthood he committed himself to ending the war as quickly as possible with as few fatalities as possible, devouring tactical knowledge and muscling his way into pivotal war room meetings. Very rarely in the field he made a point of his status as the Avatar and as a Captain and later Commander, bossing lower-ranked men around and threatening them when they failed to cooperate. Though he ultimately answered to his superiors and Ozai he became a figure not unlike Schindler, ferrying men women and children away from death as much as possible while paying into the war effort with every witnessed breath.
Aang also made his friendships and connections closer to home, taking solace in his kinship with Zuko and his less than brotherly affection for Azula who grew more mysterious and inviting each time he returned home after weeks abroad. When romance ultimately blossomed between the two Ozai was far from disapproving, thrilled by the prospect of the Avatar marrying into his family and giving him grandchildren by his favourite child.
Though many thought that their wedding was just for show Azula and Aang had formed a genuine bond over his military studies. Though she desperately wanted the fame and violence of war Azula's incredible talent at firebending had been viewed as important to keep in the family line and as such she had been sequestered and schooled in proper ladies duties, living vicariously through the adventures of her brother and lover.
After their marriage especially however the months Aang spent abroad panged at them both. Ozai had been reluctant to allow her to travel to the Earth Kingdom, but once Aang became her husband his word on what was and was not allowed for her became final and he wasted no time in bringing her along on his military campaigns. While Zuko stayed home with his own wife and raised his first child, Aang and Azula cut a swathe across the Earth Kingdom, combining their intelligence and skill to make cities fall like dominoes with far less bloodshed than others had caused due to Aang's intervention and despite Azula's endless thirst for the thrill of combat.
Finally the last Earth Kingdom city lay between the Fire Nation and domination of the world, the walled empire of Ba Sing Se that had resisted siege upon siege. The city built by Earthbending was felled by it upon Aang's arrival, but Ba Sing Se's forces waited on the other side of the walls. Even as the city's defenses were leveled it's soldiers, a last bastion of fighters and earth benders from all over the continent, flooded out to make their last bid for freedom. Fighting side by side in the chaos Aang and Azula squared off against a legion of combatants, covering one another's flanks and fighting in the flowing paired style of unison firebenders.
But one stray shot turned the tide. Azula took an angry charge at a soldier who had cut her clothing and came out the other side having electrocuted the man but with his sword rammed through her chest.
And here is where Aang was moments before he was dropped into modern New York, on his knees in the chaos of battle watching his wife bleed to death in his arms...
How does your AU differ from canon? Aang's original canon can be found here. This AU basically rewrite's Aang's life having had him leave the air nomads earlier (here he is 6, in canon he was 12) and then subsequently discovered after 100 years by Ozai when he came to the southern oceans to decimate it's remaining population, instead of being discovered by Katara and Sokka, who were young children then in this new timeline, or Zuko who was only 6 himself. He was then taken home and basically raised by the villains of the series, groomed into a weapon by his 'family'.
Strengths: As the Avatar Aang can bend all four elements to his will (with varying degrees of skill). He is nearly master-level as an airbender but is mostly self-trained, and is instead most accomplished with fire. He has been trained in Earthbending basics and his affinity for the element is strong but he rarely depends on Earthbending in battle. He has deduced some water bending on his own but has had no training or experience with it and it's very weak. His chakra is tangled and misaligned because he did not learn his bending disciplines in the proper order, starting at the end with fire, moving in reverse to Earth and all but skipping Water. Given enough time and training he could master the manipulation of all four elements properly but he'll be fighting conditioning the whole way.
His childhood in the Royal house gave him excellent manners and political savvy (at least in Fire Nation politics which are basically covered in sucking up and backstabbing 101.) He naturally tends toward leadership as he has been groomed for a position of power and he is aware of (and occasionally a little arrogant about) the fact that he's had a much finer education that others in his world.
Weaknesses: Naive about the world outside of the royal cloisters and the battlefield Aang will be baffled by the new more advanced technology of this Earth and overwhelmingly saddened by how that technology and the metal and steel of modern building has eclipsed nature.
Though dealing in fire nation politics has taught him how to spot a liar he is emotionally gullible and will easily be suckered into believing a sob story.
Preferred drop-in point: New York because CASTMATES!
What are some of your plans for this character in their new environment? Interact horribly with all my younger castmates used to the regular Aang, explore his innate desire to be compromising and kind and see that part of him break through the tough shell he's squeezed into right now, have him at length be able to access the Avatar state, the memories and skills of his past lives, and master his various elements.
First Person Journal Sample:
[The sound is shaky at first, it crackles, and there is the soft sound of an elderly woman's voice just out of microphone range.
Then the soft and deeply polite voice of a young man interupts. He thanks her with a reserved manner but a warm tone, clearing his throat before speaking into the microphone.]
Hello. This is Aang. I'm told if I speak into this machine I can leave a message so that others can find me. I don't think that anyone from my home has followed me here, at least I hope not, but just in case...
I'm in a city called New York. When I arrived I had to fight my way out of being doused in poisoned water so I'd rather not be more specific. If this message reaches you and my name is familiar, please call this number.
Father. Brother. Azula. I hope you're not here but if you are I'm sorry. I'll try to find you if I can.
Thank you.
[The feed runs silently for a few moments until there is some mumbling and the elderly voice returns. 'That's it. Now just hit the red one dea-' Click.]
Third Person Sample:
They were annoying things. That's what Azula had always said, every morning, rolling out of bed and flinging the shutters open, howling out into the hot air to dispel them in a cloud of fluttering wings.
But she isn't here right now and he can't look away, his fingers still as stones as the little bird pecks and hops, pecks and hops, and at length stretches it's neck into the cradle of his hands to guzzle another mouthful of seeds. Aang's fingers twitch just faintly, breath held in behind a smile. He doesn't dare breathe out until the bird hops away again and flits off back to its nest.
He misses the air temples in moments like these, the smell of the mountain rain and the updrafts that carried him into the clouds like he were part of them. But those memories are old and faded and painful to dig up again and again so he tries to swallow them back, taking a deep cleansing breath and focusing on the moment. The chill air, his fingers full of tiny round seeds sliding against one another, each the perfectly formed map of a full grown tree waiting for the right time to break open...
He let his hands go slack brushing the seeds off into the grass where the other animals would reach them easily, unrolling from his crouch and arching up. It was such a nice clear sky... He needed to get back to work on building a new glider.
Katara had encouraged him to do that, actually, suggesting that if he now had freedom from his responsibilities in this world perhaps he should literally and figuratively learn to fly. Or re-learn as the case was. It wasn't that he'd forgotten his airbending, no, but he'd spent years immersed in trying to learn fire, earth and water. He took in a deep breath and let it out again with a sigh.
What was that modern expression again? To get back to one's roots? Maybe that was what this bizarre detour from life was all about in the first place. He liked that thought...
Personal LJ: sparklemagpie
E-mail: glassfishnet@hotmail.com
AIM: glassfishgirl or calamityzippy
Other characters currently in-game: None.
Character Name:Aang
Canon source:Avatar the Last Airbender
PB: Steve Yoo
Personality:
Sensitive and serious Aang is a man who has grown out of the strangest and most fantastic of circumstances. He's been deeply influenced by the people who have raised him but retains a core self that has been difficult for anything to alter.
Aang has been raised to think of himself as a soldier and more importantly a weapon for his commanding officers to use to their will. As a small child he was bullied and broken into obeying the orders of his parents and his teachers to the letter.
Though he was welcomed into the arms of Ozai's family once he had proven that he could obey (and he eventually came to think of them as his own family and to be treated by Ozai and Ursa as a second son) Aang still defers to Ozai in particular instantly. If asked why he obeys Aang would say that he listens to Ozai because Ozai has been a father to him and deserves his respect and deference, but there is a deeper systematic terror underneath that excuse that he is not even fully aware of anymore, having repressed many of his worst memories. He just knows that obedience is what is required of him and however much it hurts his heart to commit an act, the alternative is much worse. He is on the outside exactly the sort of man that Ozai trained him to be: an honorable fire nation soldier, proud of his nation and loyal to it. He is businesslike, serene, unapologetic, and absolutely terrifying when pushed to the limits of his power.
Aang hides his more sensitive and peaceful leanings well - trained to smother his screaming instinct toward gentleness in order to survive and thrive and be loved - but these fractures in the foundation of his facade are still there, weighing heavily on his conscience with each slow step he takes on the path that his 'family' has laid out for him.
If no one he considers above him is there to hold him back he cannot resist an injured animal, a distressed elder, a crying child. Though he has been bullied and terrified into participating into horrifying acts of war faced with individual plights he does all he can to minimize damage. Other people's pain pulls on his heart and often shatters his uncaring mask. He is defensive and paranoid about his acts of kindness as they have been relegated to the realm of a guilty pleasure but he still cannot help but commit them, drawn like a moth to a flame. If the situation has been dire enough he has thrown his weight as the Avatar against his enemies, threatening them into cooperation toward a better goal by reminding them just who they are dealing with. But threatening thugs is among his boldest humanitarian acts as of yet, threatening the men who have lorded power over him all his life is still beyond his reach.
If given the chance to act by his own whims Aang is almost childlike, gradually more carefree, and eventually showing so much more of his deeply ingrained gentleness of spirit. He is a deeply curious man, eager to gather all knowledge as education and access to legend has long been one of his few solaces. When presented with a problem he attacks it from all sides, wanting to have every piece of information possible before making a decision. This approach is part political savvy gained from being brought up in the royal house of the Fire Nation and part and inborn sense of mediation that is part of what he is as the Avatar. If left to handle a situation on his own he naturally tends toward finding the path of least violence, wanting everything handled efficiently and without bloodshed if possible. As a soldier his obsession with finding the least-fatal outcomes for his men (and their enemies though he would never admit it) turned him into an accomplished tactician, lauded in the military for his keen eye for overwhelming targets into surrender. (He's a bit like Vash the Stampede but with more guilt and less guns.)
Although never quite able to slip from beneath his 'father's thumb, Aang has slowly worked out his life to justify his actions to himself. He instinctually wants peace, but cannot find a way to achieve it outrightly... so he works from within, determined to support the unity that would result from Fire Nation world conquest and trying to save lives on both sides in small ways that are acceptable to his superiors.
All efforts have been made to instill Aang with an ego befitting his station in the Royal house but he is stubbornly humble, even around peasants and those who are unmistakably under him in the general hierarchy. He disguises his instinct toward humility as indifference most of the time, and is deeply uncomfortable responding to praise as he has learned by now that most of it is empty and offered only to curry favor.
His access to the Avatar state and to any spiritual connection with his past selves has been stunted and severed by his emotional conditioning. Patience and work would be needed for him to access these wellsprings of knowledge and power again.
History:
Born into the peaceful loving society of the Air Nomads Aang was destined from birth to change his entire world. He was the Avatar, the reincarnation of the one soul in his world who could manipulate all four of the elements to his will. He was not supposed to be told about his destiny until he had turned 16, having fully mastered airbending and come to maturity. Instead however the Fire Nation had begun invading other lands. By the time Aang was only six years old the need for an Avatar to restore political balance was entirely too great to ignore, and his teachers broke protocol to inform him of just what he was.
Like any six year old boy suddenly told that the whole world rested on his shoulders Aang was terrified. That night he went to the stables, mounted his flying bison, Appa, and took off into the fierce winds of an oncoming winter storm, determined that maybe if he ran far enough he could outrun his daunting new responsibilities. Perhaps given the chance to land somewhere and hide for a few days, to mull over what he had been handed, grieve for his lost youth, and to think about the height of the stakes lay in front of him he may have calmed down, reconsidered, turned around, and become the savior his people, all people needed. But the storm was stronger than a six year old, still struggling for mastery of his element, could fend off. Both he and Appa were driven out of the sky, swallowed up by cold ocean waves despite Aang's best efforts.
They would remain trapped in the ice for 100 years, suspended in time thanks only to the strength of Aang's power as the Avatar which had emerged in the moment of their defeat to preserve them.
A century passed outside Aang's little shell of ice. The Fire Nation used their quickly progressing technology to scale the walls of the Air Nomad temples and mudered every airbender they could lay their hands on. Within a generation the air nomads as they had been were gone, wiped from the face of the planet through pure genocide. The Fire Nation had passed through two more rulers and moved on to invading the vast lands of the Earth Kingdom peice by peice when the Avatar was found again.
Ozai, still only a Prince, had just finished spearheading an invasion into the southern Earth Kingdom, decimating Kyoshi island on their way into Southern Water Tribe lands. After laying waste to the village and leaving only a few survivors his ship turned their bow out toward the frozen southern seas.
Halfway to their destination the ship ran aground of an ice floe, it's prow smashing into Aang's frozen prison and dispelling his power. The little boy was frozen to the bone, both he and Appa disoriented, hungry and scared. When Ozai climbed down into their crater of ice and offered a warm meal and a ride to someplace safe Aang threw himself into the Prince's arms in tears.
The tattoos on the boy, and his enormous bison companion, were impossible to miss markers. In 100 years a new Avatar had yet to be born into the ranks of the waterbenders and the world had been scoured for the airbender Avatar that must still be alive somewhere. Ozai's grandfather, father and older brother had all searched fruitlessly for him. Seeking the Avatar was a joke of a quest by now, a wild goose chase.
And then there was Aang, dropped into Ozai's lap like a gift from the Gods...
The Fire Nation's prince did not miss the opportunity that had been placed before him, personally and for his country as a whole. He returned home immediately to the clamour of a Fire Nation bolstered by knowing that they had surely won the war now that the Avatar was theirs to mould.
Aang's first six months in the Fire Nation were spent in a dark underground room, access to fresh air and light rationed as per his cooperation with his captors and at only six years old, alone and grieving, it took very little time for him to be broken by the deprivation.
Ozai had jumped the line due to his serendipitous find, taking his elder brother Iroh's place as Crown Prince, and Aang - as his ticket to one day being Fire Lord - was kept strictly under Ozai's thumb. Once the young boy had learned to be obedient above all else he was finally brought out from his cell and welcomed into a more normal existence, if being an adopted son to the royal family could be considered normal. By age nine Aang had been integrated into studies and training with Ozai's blood children - Zuko who was just a few months younger than Aang, and Azula, two years his junior. Ozai's wife Ursa felt badly for Aang's alienation from most people and his old life and she did her level best to be kind and understanding to him, coming down on her children harshly when they picked on their new sibling. Though Azula had a nasty temperament as a child that took years of patient ferocity for Ursa to curb young Zuko took his mother's words more to heart and he and Aang slowly built a brotherly sort of friendship that would sustain them through the difficult years in their future.
Aang's life within the palace walls was sheltered and peaceful but outside the older he got the more he began to be put through his paces. With Appa pressed into service as transportation Aang took many trips over to the Earth Kingdom, participating in some of the bloodiest battles of the war at barely 10 years old. Each time he was then ushered home and given a few weeks reprieve from the chaos and death, returning to his quiet walled in life with Zuko and Azula in classes, tucked into bed and bid goodnight by Ursa's soft sympathetic smile.
As the war pushed on and Aang grew older his conscience began more and more to nag him, his inner rebellion coming to a head when it was decided that he needed to learn Earthbending in order to combat the Earth Kingdom forces properly. An instructor was found for him, Toph Bei Fong, Earthbending master and only surviving member of the Bei Fong family. Fire nation soldiers had discovered her when they killed her family in a raid on the city of Gaoling, startled when burning her eyes out of their sockets didn't stop her from killing eight men in a grief fueled rage.
Blinded, kept continually starved, and locked up in metal manacles Toph had been kept alive purely for the fact that it would have been a waste to kill someone who could instead be whipped until she did the work of a hundred men, tearing down old buildings and bringing together new ones. When Aang was fourteen she was pulled away from building work and put on the task of training him.
Toph had been stalwart that she wouldn't teach her art to anyone en route from the Earth Kingdom but upon meeting Aang and sensing the dishonesty in his laughter at his father's cruel jokes and his discomfort with seeing her mistreated Toph agreed to impart her knowledge to him in exchange for improved conditions - better food, better clothes, and more creature comforts in her little metal cell.
Although it was an immense risk to Toph's captors to let the little Earthbender out of her shackles - they knew exactly how much she was capable of - Aang insisted that she teach him 'properly' and backed her bid for better treatment by insisting the he would not learn from her unless she was treated more respectfully.
Aang and Toph formed a close friendship over many months as she shaped his Earthbending skill around her own. She told him of how her life at home had been over shadowed by the war, of how the Fire Nation soldiers occupying her lands treated the natives, how her parents had died, how she had lost her eyes. Aang felt deeply guilty and frustrated by his helplessness, driven finally to dig in his heels at being asked to go to the Earth Kingdom yet again to fight.
Ozai, having recently come to the throne after his father's death from illness, was not oblivious to Aang's blossoming friendship with Toph. He had been happy to let it slide until Aang became belligerent, but once that first refusal had been uttered punishment was swift and cruel. Rather than try to harm Aang, who was both valuable and powerful, Toph was hauled from the dungeons in manacles that bound her up to her knees and elbows, struggling and screaming as she was held down on the executioners block.
Her last words to Aang were for him not to give in, not to make her death meaningless, but the realization that his 'father' was prepared to destroy every comfort and friendship in his life if he resisted orders was enough to crush Aang's rebellious urges on the spot.
He grieved for Toph desperately, mind wild with horror at the realities she had brought into his world and his helplessness in knowing that Ozai would do anything and everything to keep him from doing a single thing that could be perceived as betraying the Fire Nation. His selfish desire to protect those closest to him, his terror of Ozai, and the degree to which he had been told for all his childhood and now believed thanks to years of manipulation that he was helpless against the might of the Fire Nation's leaders combined to destroy what little defiance he had mustered. He gathered up what scraps of Toph's memory he could and withdrew into grief and hopelessness.
The Avatar that the world so needed was not a man he felt that he could be.
As Aang grew into adulthood he committed himself to ending the war as quickly as possible with as few fatalities as possible, devouring tactical knowledge and muscling his way into pivotal war room meetings. Very rarely in the field he made a point of his status as the Avatar and as a Captain and later Commander, bossing lower-ranked men around and threatening them when they failed to cooperate. Though he ultimately answered to his superiors and Ozai he became a figure not unlike Schindler, ferrying men women and children away from death as much as possible while paying into the war effort with every witnessed breath.
Aang also made his friendships and connections closer to home, taking solace in his kinship with Zuko and his less than brotherly affection for Azula who grew more mysterious and inviting each time he returned home after weeks abroad. When romance ultimately blossomed between the two Ozai was far from disapproving, thrilled by the prospect of the Avatar marrying into his family and giving him grandchildren by his favourite child.
Though many thought that their wedding was just for show Azula and Aang had formed a genuine bond over his military studies. Though she desperately wanted the fame and violence of war Azula's incredible talent at firebending had been viewed as important to keep in the family line and as such she had been sequestered and schooled in proper ladies duties, living vicariously through the adventures of her brother and lover.
After their marriage especially however the months Aang spent abroad panged at them both. Ozai had been reluctant to allow her to travel to the Earth Kingdom, but once Aang became her husband his word on what was and was not allowed for her became final and he wasted no time in bringing her along on his military campaigns. While Zuko stayed home with his own wife and raised his first child, Aang and Azula cut a swathe across the Earth Kingdom, combining their intelligence and skill to make cities fall like dominoes with far less bloodshed than others had caused due to Aang's intervention and despite Azula's endless thirst for the thrill of combat.
Finally the last Earth Kingdom city lay between the Fire Nation and domination of the world, the walled empire of Ba Sing Se that had resisted siege upon siege. The city built by Earthbending was felled by it upon Aang's arrival, but Ba Sing Se's forces waited on the other side of the walls. Even as the city's defenses were leveled it's soldiers, a last bastion of fighters and earth benders from all over the continent, flooded out to make their last bid for freedom. Fighting side by side in the chaos Aang and Azula squared off against a legion of combatants, covering one another's flanks and fighting in the flowing paired style of unison firebenders.
But one stray shot turned the tide. Azula took an angry charge at a soldier who had cut her clothing and came out the other side having electrocuted the man but with his sword rammed through her chest.
And here is where Aang was moments before he was dropped into modern New York, on his knees in the chaos of battle watching his wife bleed to death in his arms...
How does your AU differ from canon? Aang's original canon can be found here. This AU basically rewrite's Aang's life having had him leave the air nomads earlier (here he is 6, in canon he was 12) and then subsequently discovered after 100 years by Ozai when he came to the southern oceans to decimate it's remaining population, instead of being discovered by Katara and Sokka, who were young children then in this new timeline, or Zuko who was only 6 himself. He was then taken home and basically raised by the villains of the series, groomed into a weapon by his 'family'.
Strengths: As the Avatar Aang can bend all four elements to his will (with varying degrees of skill). He is nearly master-level as an airbender but is mostly self-trained, and is instead most accomplished with fire. He has been trained in Earthbending basics and his affinity for the element is strong but he rarely depends on Earthbending in battle. He has deduced some water bending on his own but has had no training or experience with it and it's very weak. His chakra is tangled and misaligned because he did not learn his bending disciplines in the proper order, starting at the end with fire, moving in reverse to Earth and all but skipping Water. Given enough time and training he could master the manipulation of all four elements properly but he'll be fighting conditioning the whole way.
His childhood in the Royal house gave him excellent manners and political savvy (at least in Fire Nation politics which are basically covered in sucking up and backstabbing 101.) He naturally tends toward leadership as he has been groomed for a position of power and he is aware of (and occasionally a little arrogant about) the fact that he's had a much finer education that others in his world.
Weaknesses: Naive about the world outside of the royal cloisters and the battlefield Aang will be baffled by the new more advanced technology of this Earth and overwhelmingly saddened by how that technology and the metal and steel of modern building has eclipsed nature.
Though dealing in fire nation politics has taught him how to spot a liar he is emotionally gullible and will easily be suckered into believing a sob story.
Preferred drop-in point: New York because CASTMATES!
What are some of your plans for this character in their new environment? Interact horribly with all my younger castmates used to the regular Aang, explore his innate desire to be compromising and kind and see that part of him break through the tough shell he's squeezed into right now, have him at length be able to access the Avatar state, the memories and skills of his past lives, and master his various elements.
First Person Journal Sample:
[The sound is shaky at first, it crackles, and there is the soft sound of an elderly woman's voice just out of microphone range.
Then the soft and deeply polite voice of a young man interupts. He thanks her with a reserved manner but a warm tone, clearing his throat before speaking into the microphone.]
Hello. This is Aang. I'm told if I speak into this machine I can leave a message so that others can find me. I don't think that anyone from my home has followed me here, at least I hope not, but just in case...
I'm in a city called New York. When I arrived I had to fight my way out of being doused in poisoned water so I'd rather not be more specific. If this message reaches you and my name is familiar, please call this number.
Father. Brother. Azula. I hope you're not here but if you are I'm sorry. I'll try to find you if I can.
Thank you.
[The feed runs silently for a few moments until there is some mumbling and the elderly voice returns. 'That's it. Now just hit the red one dea-' Click.]
Third Person Sample:
They were annoying things. That's what Azula had always said, every morning, rolling out of bed and flinging the shutters open, howling out into the hot air to dispel them in a cloud of fluttering wings.
But she isn't here right now and he can't look away, his fingers still as stones as the little bird pecks and hops, pecks and hops, and at length stretches it's neck into the cradle of his hands to guzzle another mouthful of seeds. Aang's fingers twitch just faintly, breath held in behind a smile. He doesn't dare breathe out until the bird hops away again and flits off back to its nest.
He misses the air temples in moments like these, the smell of the mountain rain and the updrafts that carried him into the clouds like he were part of them. But those memories are old and faded and painful to dig up again and again so he tries to swallow them back, taking a deep cleansing breath and focusing on the moment. The chill air, his fingers full of tiny round seeds sliding against one another, each the perfectly formed map of a full grown tree waiting for the right time to break open...
He let his hands go slack brushing the seeds off into the grass where the other animals would reach them easily, unrolling from his crouch and arching up. It was such a nice clear sky... He needed to get back to work on building a new glider.
Katara had encouraged him to do that, actually, suggesting that if he now had freedom from his responsibilities in this world perhaps he should literally and figuratively learn to fly. Or re-learn as the case was. It wasn't that he'd forgotten his airbending, no, but he'd spent years immersed in trying to learn fire, earth and water. He took in a deep breath and let it out again with a sigh.
What was that modern expression again? To get back to one's roots? Maybe that was what this bizarre detour from life was all about in the first place. He liked that thought...