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[apeopleperson]

Player info
Your Name: Ni
Your E-Mail/AIM/Whatever: cookirini
Livejournal: papirini
Your age: 27

Character info
Series/Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character's Name: Azula
Character's Sex: Female
Character's Age: 14
Canon point: Post-day of Black Sun
Abilities: Firebending: Firebending is one of the four bending arts in the world, and Azula, considered a prodigy, is one of the most powerful and adept firebenders in the entire series. As a master firebender she is capable of creating and manipulating fire, and her blue flames are much hotter and more intense than the yellow and red flames of more normal firebenders. She is capable of using her firebending not only for ranged attacks and to strengthen thrusts and kicks, but also to propel herself through the air to fly and shielding herself and deflecting multiple attacks with the flames; she can condense the flames in her hands and to cut through things, as well as create small, concentrated fireballs or very large walls of flame which are very destructive. Some of the firebending techniques seen in the series are also apparently unique to Azula.

Finally, Azula has mastered the technique of generating the "cold-blooded fire", lightning, which is the most dangerous technique that a firebender who is not the Avatar can learn. Also, due to the cyclical nature of firebending, Azula's bending is stronger during the day and during the summer, as firebending is connected to the close presence of the sun. Other natural heat generating items, like volcanoes and warm climates, and celestial objects such as comets can also increase Azula's power if they pass close enough to Earth's orbit. Even something as small as a candle can be used to power up Azula's attacks.

Genius/Cunning/Manipulation: Azula is one of the most brilliant minds, if not the most brilliant, in the series. It's implied that she has an eidetic memory, able to learn and remember nearly anything she's shown or taught and recalling minute details of such learning long after. She is also capable of using information she learns to her advantage, particularly when it comes to manipulating situations to her favor. Whether it it involves outright lying (which she does to successfully trick even those who are well aware of her natture), or subtle hints, she doesn't care as long as the information serves her purposes. Such strategic maneuvering helped her to almost single-handedly overthrow Ba Sing Se in a matter of weeks - an accomplishment which no Fire Kingdom general could accomplish in a hundred years. Her ability to perceive and use information also allows her to tell when others are lying or telling the truth about things.

Body Control: Azula has an incredible amount of control over her body, due partly to the nature of her bending and also due to her own manipulative nature. She is capable, for example, of lying so well that her heartbeat didn't change (a normal lie detection technique being to check for an elevated heartbeat). This despite telling what was clearly a blatant lie.


Strengths: Agility: Even without using her bending, Azula is extremely fast, able to use her speed against master benders to evade them.

Stamina: Azula has a great deal of stamina, and is capable of doing sustained battle at full power for an extended amount of time without tiring. Even in comparison to older, more experienced firebenders, Azula can almost always outlast them.

Espionage/Infiltration: Azula is shown to use her cunning to infiltrate even the strongest defenses, in order to gether information or to sabotage an enemy's plans.

Learning Curve: Azula has a very small learning curve, and is capable of learning and adapting techniques

Weaknesses: Firebending Deficiencies: While Azula is proficient is defense, as a mainly offensive bending art, firebending in general does not lend itself to defensive maneuvers very well against other bending types. Also, due to the nature of bending and their opposites, Azula's firebending is weakest against water in all of its forms; at night; and during the winter or in colder conditions. An eclipse can either severely weaken or nullify her bending, depending upon the completeness of the eclipse. Not only this, but if she loses control of her negative emotions (which is the primary way she learned how to become a strong firebender, unlike Zuko) her powers may weaken or she will lose control of the intensity of her flames. Also because of how she learned her firebending, she has little appreciation for the true nature of the art (which is the strength of vitality and energy, as opposed to merely being power for the sake of having power), which prevents her from knowing and mastering certain techniques, such as the Dancing Dragon.

Human: Despite her talents, Azula is still a human. She can be just as easily killed as anyone else once all is said and done.

Background: http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Azula
Appearance: http://images.wikia.com/avatar/images/1/12/Princess_Azula.png

Personality: Practically raised to rule from the very beginning, Azula is not her father's favorite for nothing. Fire Lord Ozai prides himself on being utterly ruthless, militant, confident and dominating, and Azula has soaked up his mannerisms and teachings on the superiority of the Fire Nation and its firebenders to the point of near-fanaticism. And as a privileged member of the royal family, she was taught to believe that she is not only proof of the Fire Nation's glory, but she is also the inheritor of the entire world and has been given a divine imperative to be a greater ruler than any other ever - except her own father, of course, who is her only equal. Meanwhile, all other elements are inferior in all ways: culturally, intrinsically, technologically, and it's the duty of the Fire Nation to conquer everyone else and 'teach' them firebender culture so they might become 'enlightened'. Those firebenders who do not live up to the expectations of the nation and the orders of both her and the Fire Lord (i.e. Zuko) are losers at best and traitors at worst, deserving nothing less than death and dishonor. As for herself, she knows she's better than everyone else - she is a prodigy, a genius, absolutely Machiavellian, and arguably the most intelligent Avatar character in all aspects. What's more, everyone else knows it as well; as Zuko once remarked, Ozai once said Azula was "born lucky", while Zuko was merely "lucky to be born".

However, her merciless pursuit of perfection, as well as a completely casual use of sadism and remorseless manipulation of others, is not just a result of her father's influence, though it does contribute heavily. It is implied throughout the series that ever she has been this way ever since she was very young, and possibly has what our world would call a narcissistic personality disorder. Her own mother expressed concern over Azula's violent behavior, her manipulation of people, and her enjoyment of causing pain and humiliation as a child for her own amusement and gain. Azula also had no problem with members of her own family being hurt or murdered, be it her mother, her grandfather, or Zuko and Iroh. This callousness has become more extreme as the years went by because there is no moderating force to try and temper or even understand Azula's dark traits, which have become her defining ones. Indeed, her two best friends are bound to her not by comraderie, but by fear of what Azula is capable of doing. Even Iroh, a seasoned general with years of training who is actually a stronger firebender than Azula, is wary of what she is capable of.

Her lack of pity, kindness and remorse, as well as her single-minded drive to be better than everyone in name and in fact is also part of the key to her incredible skill as a firebender. Indeed she has such a control over her emotions that she is capable of wielding lightning, the "cold-blooded fire", with incredible ease despite her age, her flame is blue, and she is an incredibly good liar and manipulator - much to the surprise of Toph, who finds that Azula is capable of making up the most bold-faced, ridiculous lies with no way for her hearing to detect a change in demeanor. More important was her manipulation of Zuko, who, despite knowing better about his sister, is well manipulated by Azula throughout the series to the point where he betrays Iroh and the Gaang in order to 'restore his lost honor'. Likewise she is also good at figuring out when other people are lying, since she with her ability to stay focused can somehow tell when people are having doubts, remorse, or are making things up.

Yet despite her outward appearance of perfection, Azula is not perfect, which she despises. She is barely able to function as a human being in some respects; unable to converse with others her age normally, unable to fully express some of her deepest feelings, and unable to express when she is upset without paranoia, violence and anger. She also feels she cannot be any less than perfect; those who remind her of her shortcomings, or worse, upstage her, are subject to her wrath when it spills over. She does not believe in trust, or perhaps, due to her poisonous upbringing and natural mentality, she cannot believe that trust will not end in anything less than failure, and failure is something she cannot have no matter what. Not even when everyone around her is opening up about her insecurities is she fully willing to admit that she has ever failed at everything, or that she is not the person she projects herself as.

Interestingly, she at one point subtly acknowledges that she is a monster (or more appropriately, believes herself to be one) and that knowing this sometimes hurt. A great deal of this inability is based on the family dynamic she had when she grew up - just as Ozai favored her over Zuko, Ursa favored Zuko over Azula. And just as Zuko wishes his father would love and respect him, Azula also wishes this of her mother; unfortunately, her mother has been gone for many years, and because of this she never got the chance to prove herself to her mother, nor did she ever get to feel the love her mother actually felt for her. Nor was Iroh the presence in her life that he was in Zuko's, which allowed Zuko's inner goodness to be cultivated and ultimately help him overcome his need for Ozai's twisted sense of 'honor'. Azula, on the other hand, has no such recourse, and this has resulted in her depending completely on her father's wishes and expectations, who has indeed turned her into a monster - his monster. It is this lack of a mother, and the perception that she can never reconcile with the distant figure of Ursa from her past, has contributed to a small sense of guilt - and a instability of the mind which festers and slowly grows with each confirmation of her own innate evilness and inability to know and feel the love of others or to love them back, only to know that everyone fears her as an abomination and is out to destroy her unless she does something about it. The truth is that her greatest enemy is not Zuko, or the Avatar, but herself.

Strengths: One-Track Mind/Determination: Nothing - nothing - can deter Azula from a goal once she sets her mind on it. She is very much a "end justifies the means" character, and she won't stop until she's achieved her goal. It's part of the reason why she's the proficient Firebender that she is.

Master Manipulator: "Azula always lies". And yet Azula is able to manipulate everyone around her with incredible ease, peppering her words with half-truths and outright lies in order to get the expected reaction - which always results in her gaining an advantage somehow.

Sociopathic Tendancies/Emotional Control: Azula is implied to have little to no remorse for her actions, or at least its what she lets herself feel. Because of this she's able to clamp down on her emotional state very easily, which allows her to commit acts of incredible cruelty, lying her way out of situations that otherwise should have gotten her defeated, or to summon lightning, which normally requires such emotional control.

Weaknesses: Perfectionist: Azula is a complete perfectionist. If what she is doing is not considered to be up to her standards, or if she loses at something, she will become very easily frustrated and lash out.

Superiority Complex: Azula looks upon people who do not live up to her standards - which is practically anyone who isn't a firebender, who doesn't follow her father unquestioningly, or anyone who just gets in her way of what she wants.

Trust Issues: To say the least. Azula trusts absolutely no one. She believes trust is for lesser people and that it will only undo her ambitions. Ironically, its something that Azula is in true need of, but she constantly rejects the notion.

Lack of Social Cues: Azula almost completely lacks the ability to function in normal social events. Everything - even friendly games - immediately becomes a war-like competition, she scares off normal kids when she speaks, and she doesn't know how to react when making small talk with people.

Fragile Mind/Control Freak: Perhaps the great irony of Azula. Despite her insistence that she is all right with who she is, she is in fact quite unstable. If she is not in control of everything around her, she does not react well. At all. And in fact, given the right circumstances, a lack of control can result in a complete breakdown and loss of sanity - as was what happened to her at the end of the series.

Samples
Action/Journal Sample: [Well, isn't she a sight for sore eyes. Or maybe not. Azula sits in a chair, legs crossed, paopu ice cream resting on one of the arms, and she is looking positively bored. There are no moogles nearby, and not a 'kupo' to be heard. Perhaps its best not to ask why.]

So...'Traverse Town', is it? Hmm. The name needs work. A proper territory of the Fire Nation should have one which reflects its gratefulness for being brought under our wing. Suggestions are welcome, as long as they are within the bounds of taste. But, I have to say that Ozai's Village has a certain ring to it.

[Shrug.]

Of course, you can all say the Fire Nation's lost to this 'Darkness' or that I'll never see my world again. Go on and say it until your face is blue. You'd be quite mistaken, actually! I intend to restore it to its proper place in the universe. Unlike the rest of you 'settlers' who've gotten nowhere with complaining and wishing on stars. Or whatever it is you lot have decided to pin your hopes on.

[A little smirk.]

So, I suggest you all get ready for the day my world is restored. My father will not tolerate subjects who are slackers.

RP Sample: (from her application for left4deadrp)

The turnpike. Hmm. How sad and unfortunate. And what a silly, useless name for a road. Alas, she was not in the Fire Nation anymore, and hence, Azula figured, most things would be silly and useless around her. Names. Words. People. And, these undead creatures.

With a smile, Azula brought her fingers up and began to charge her flames. The cloudy conditions were not wholly ideal for firebending, but she could more than make do. Besides, she needed some target practice if she was going to employ heavy-duty strafing on the Earth Kingdom when Sozin's Comet returned. And she would need all of the strength she could gather to handle the unending, glorious fire she would rain down upon those who dared to 'hope' that they could resist the Fire Nation. Those who tried to resist, after all, were idiots, rebels, cowards. If they'd only accepted that the Fire Nation was superior, she and her father would not have to take such drastic actions.

But it was a necessary evil. Just as she was.

The bending pulse didn't do much to the creatures. Hardly anything. But it didn't matter to Azula as she leaped onto a metal cart with wheels on it. With a smirk she saw several more infected coming towards her as well, and her arms began to circle around her body. The undeniable crackling of electricity began to echo in her ears.

The undead horde had some kind of protection against her firebending. Annoying, perhaps, to any normal bender. But that only made the challenge of finding their weak spot and overpowering them more exciting for the princess. It only fed her desire to kill them more.

It's time these beasts learned their lesson.

And, Azula knew, she would have fun being the teacher.

Have you read the rules & F.A.Q.s? Yup!