App for CnC.
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Dalrint.
AGE: Old
JOURNAL: dalrint
IM: Farobservr
E-MAIL: just use LJ messenger
RETURNING: Ayup. Stargirl, Misfit, Annabeth Chase and Ophelia
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Mai
FANDOM: Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon)
CHRONOLOGY: Right at the end of Boiling Rock Part 2, when she’s facing off with Azula.
CLASS: Hero
SUPERHERO NAME: The Knife
ALTER EGO: Mai, probably a student or unemployed.
BACKGROUND:
Some background: A hundred years ago, the last Avatar disappeared during a great volcanic eruption on his home island. The Fire Nation, lead by the great Fire Lord Sozin, annihilated the Air Nomad tribe to prevent the next Avatar from being born, and set out to wave a hundred years of war against the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom. Over the last century they have conquered large chunks of the earth kingdom, annihilated the Southern Water Tribe’s water benders, and decimated the remaining Air Nomad temples. However, the new Avatar had been born, before the rest of the Air Nomads were destroyed, and slept away the century trapped inside an ice-berg, only to be woken by a water tribe girl and her brother.
Mai was the only daughter of a Fire Nation noble family of moderate influence and power. Her parents, however, had aspirations of being far more influential, and so Mai had to become the ‘perfect’ daughter. Be quiet, look pretty, don’t cause any trouble and don’t do anything that could make her father look bad and hurt his career. With the Fire Nation at war with the other two nations (they’d long ago annihilated the Air Nomads), chances for advancement were not as rare as they had once been, but they still required effort and keeping up appearances.
So Mai spent most of her childhood being quiet, and not getting into trouble, and staying in her room as much as possible to avoid having to ‘deal’ with it. She became an expert at repressing her irritation, and then eventually just repressing most of her feelings, as it was far easier to leave them inside than worry about how her mother would react to them.
She did, however, have one upside to spending so much time in her room…she picked up a hobby. She found one of the house guards knives one night, and tried throwing it at her bedroom wall…and then she kept throwing it. And throwing it, and throwing it, until she could hit almost anything in her room with her eyes closed. And then she branched out into other knives, smaller knives, larger knives, getting better with each passing year. Her parents weren’t thrilled, but they let her have her hobby if only because it kept her out of the way so she wasn’t causing trouble.
When she was old enough, she was sent off to the Royal Academy for Girls, where she met and befriended Ty Lee, and then both of them were sucked into Princess Azula’s inner-circle of friends. Even at that age Azula was something of a terror, indiscriminately hurting animals or ordering people to do humiliating things, which wouldn’t have been so bad if her bending wasn’t already strong enough to let her back up her commands.
Azula honestly scared Mai a little bit, but her mother immediately encouraged the friendship, and spending time at the palace was never a bad thing. It got her away from her parents, and let her occasionally see Prince Zuko, a boy she’d had something of a crush on from the first time she’d met him. Azula tended to exploit this obvious little crush, using it to humiliate Mai or Zuko at any given time. (Having them end up falling into the palace pond at one point.)
However, life went on much the same as it had for Mai, despite her new friends. Her parents continued to try and make her the ‘perfect’ daughter, and she grew more and more repressed as the years passed. Zuko was raised mostly by his mother, and was a huge contrast to Azula, which was probably one of the things that drew Mai to him. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of speaking out against his father, and was forced to fight him (getting a nasty scar). His father gave him an impossible task, go out of and find the Avatar (who had been missing/dead for a hundred years) and make sure that the Fire Nation would never have to face the danger of an Avatar again.
After Zuko’s banishment, Mai shifted even deeper emotional disinterest, an attitude that reflected itself in her clothing and the way she maintained herself. She still looked ‘pretty’ of course, it wouldn’t do to have her mother on her case that much, but pretty much everything began to bore her.
As the war with the Earth Kingdom continued, her father’s political machinations allowed him to be placed as the Governor of one of the recently captured Earth Kingdom cities, and Mai went along, of course. Rumors of the Avatars resurgence (and Zuko’s disastrous failure to catch him during a battle between the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe) were spreading all over the world, and the Fire Nation was moving its invasion into high gear to make sure they had solid ground to stand on if the Avatar actually struck.
By then Azula was trying to track down her brother and helping her father, and Ty Lee had run off to join the circus, so there wasn’t any reason for her to want to stay in the capital anyway.
If anything though, Omashu was even more boring than being back home. As she put it, it was ‘unbearably bleak,’ and even her mothers chiding couldn’t force her to keep that hidden away. At least there was a small rebellion going on in the city, so that at least gave her an excuse to occasionally use her knives (something she’d pretty much perfected by then, along with wrist and ankle arrow launchers and a decent amount of martial arts), but otherwise there was nothing to do there.
When Princess Azula arrived with Ty Lee, intent on recruiting Mai into her hunt for Zuko and his Uncle, Mai was immediately on board. Not necessarily to hunt Zuko (although the thought of seeing Zuko again appealed), but more for the fact that it would get her away from the city and out doing something.
While this was happening, the Avatar arrived in the city and accidentally kidnapped her little brother. Azula, Mai and Ty Lee were going to handle the exchange (Mai’s little brother for the king of Omashu) but things went wrong, and neither sided ended up giving up their prisoner during the battle. Afterwards though, the Avatar returned her brother without getting the King, and Mai left with Azula and Ty Lee on their hunt.
They had two purposes now though, to hunt down Zuko and to hunt down the Avatar. They spent the next several months doing this, chasing both of their prey all the way across the Earth Kingdom. Along the way they defeated and captured the Kyoshi Warriors, and assisted in an attempted breach of the great wall of Ba Sing Se with a massive Fire Nation Drill. Ba Sing Se was the last real bastion of power in the world that hadn’t fallen to the Earth Kingdom. While the Water Tribe Fortress still existed in the north pole, there wasn’t enough of them there to mount any sort of serious threat.
When that didn’t work though, they infiltrated the Kingdom using the Kyoshi uniforms, and Mai helped Azula organized a rebellion amongst the kingdom’s elite security force, which allowed them to take over the palace without actually having to invade the country.
During the conflict, Azula managed to convince Zuko to switch sides, and he helped them take over the Earth Kingdom, betraying his Uncle in the process and resulting in the near-death of the Avatar. Afterwards, though, Zuko’s guilt overwhelmed him, and he was intent on remaining in the Kingdom when Mai and Azula and the others returned home.
Azula decided to use Mai’s old crush (and Zuko’s old crush that Mai didn’t know about) to manipulate Zuko into coming home, and so she tricked Mai and Zuko into showing up at a ‘meeting’ that turned into a date. During the course of the evening they managed to give Azula and Ty Lee (who were following and snickering at them) the slip, and then went out to explore the city.
They ran into a girl Zuko had gone on a date with, and he claimed Mai was a ‘knife thrower from the circus.’ Mai decided to show off then, and made Zuko go stand across the court yard with a fish on his head, which she plucked off with a knife. Then she offered to let the girl Zuko knew throw one too, which made the fire prince panic…and fall into a fountain. “Now we’re even.” Mai had said with a grin, bringing up memories from their childhood.
And she really was having a nice time, nice enough that she was even laughing as Zuko tried to chase her down once she emerged from the fountain, and when he finally caught her, they kissed. Being around him brought out some of those emotions she tried so hard to repress…and it really wasn’t a bad thing, she found. Around him, at least.
And of course, she tried to get him to come home with them, working unknowingly into Azula’s clever plan. Between Mai and Iroh being taken back to the Fire Nation, Zuko finally agreed to come home. Mai was (inwardly) thrilled.
The next few months were a mixture of happiness and irritation. She spent much of her time with Zuko and Azula and Ty Lee back at the Capital, trying to get Zuko out of the funk he’d sunk into and keeping herself amused. She liked being back there, especially now that her parents were still off governing Omashu. It was almost a chance to let herself open up a little. Around Zuko, at least. Unfortunatley, Zuko himself wasn’t really ‘happy’ to be home, though he couldn’t figure out why.
They went on vacation to Ember Island, where Zuko was suddenly acting quite possessive of her when other boys showed an interest in her. (Boys she thought were mostly idiots, honestly) and they broke up for a couple hours. That night around the fire she and all her friends managed to let off a lot of anger and frustration, though Mai still kept herself (mostly) inward. She did at least try to explain to them why she was that way, though all Azula did was mock her about it.
When Zuko finally expressed his own frustration and anger at himself, Mai tried to comfort him, and they were once again dating when they returned to the capital. However, Zuko’s unhappiness about being there, this strange sensation of anger, wasn’t going away, no matter how much Mai tried to cheer him up and distract him. He had all the things he’d always wanted, yet he was still so lost all the time.
Things continued along until the day of the eclipse. The Avatar and his friends were planning an invasion of the Fire Nation Capital, intent on taking out the Fire Lord and his generals while they were powerless. (Fire Benders draw their power from the sun, and with an eclipse going on that power was gone.) However, the Fire Lord had become aware of this, and arranged for a trap for them.
Along with the rest of the capital, Mai spent the eclipse in security bunkers with Ty Lee while the Avatar and his friends led an invasion of the city. Unfortunately, when she got home, she found a letter from Zuko saying he’d ‘gone off to join the avatar’ and was breaking up with her.
She was furious. She spent weeks just moping around (even more than usual, really) and trying to figure out she could have figured it out and stopped him. Finally though, she received a letter from her uncle the Warden of the Boiling Rock prison, that he’d caught Zuko and was holding him there.
With Azula and Ty Lee, Mai went to face down Zuko at the prison. She threw his letter in his face, not even able to contain her anger at him. He tried to explain which just made her feel worse and angrier, somehow. But there was something in his eyes…
When the riot broke out he managed to lock her in his cell thanks to a guard distracting her, and left her there after they exchanged one long, angry look. When another guard went by she convinced him to let her out, and she went racing after Zuko through the prison riot.
When she caught up, she found that Zuko and his friends were battling Azula and Ty Lee on an escaping Gondela…and that the prison guards were trying to cut the wire and kill Zuko and everyone else! Ty Lee and Azula escaped to another gondola, but Mai found herself dumbstruck. She couldn’t just let them kill him! Despite everything, she cared about him a lot. More than she had even realized.
She quickly disarmed the guards who were cutting the rope, and spent enough time defending the gondola control that Zuko and his friends escaped before she was finally subdued. When Azula and Ty Lee got back, Azula was furious…she sent the guards away, and asked Mai why she would betray her. Even Mai was surprised at her response. Despite her fear of Azula, she didn’t regret what she had done. “I love Zuko more than I fear you.”
With a shout of anger, Azula lifted her arms, and Mai braced herself to fight back, even though she knew it was a fight she wouldn’t be walking away from…
And then she was suddenly in the porter room in the City.
PERSONALITY:
If there was one word to really describe Mai, it would be ‘subdued.’ She has long since learned to keep a lid on most of her emotions, good and bad, and though they do emerge from time to time, in general the only thing she really lets out is boredom and frustration. When she’s first doing something exciting, she might almost seem happy about it, but that passes into boredom as soon as it’s over or the challenge disappears.
On the same vein, she’s very easily bored, and will sit and mope around playing with her knives when things get too dull to deal with.
When she is just around her friends though, without having to worry, sometimes her emotions poke through. She’s friendly, even caring, around Zuko (in her own odd way) and her anger and frustration tend to bubble over when Azula or Ty Lee try to pry.
Despite her repression, Mai is still a Fire Nation noble, and has certain expectations and obvious reactions from that upbringing. She likes to get her own way, she’s used to having servants doing things for her, she doesn’t do her own chores or worry about money or cleaning or cooking. She can cook, she just doesn’t particularly like doing it, and other than having to learn how, never bothers. It’s ‘boring’ so she just doesn’t care.
She hates getting dirty, and despite pretty much doing whatever Azula orders her, will refuse something like that if it could get disgusting. (“Azula can throw all the lightning she wants at me, I’m not jumping in that wall-juice sludge.”) She also won’t fight in situations she doesn’t really care about, like when Sokka and Toph show up to rescue the Earth King’s bear, she doesn’t even get out of her chair. (“Just take the bear.”) She’s not getting all dirty to defend a bear, after all.
POWER:
Infinite Knives - Mai will never run out of knives. Whenever she tugs a knife from her holster or fires an arrow from her launcher, another one will be there when she needs it.
Fire Bending - Mai is now a fire bender, with the ability to control and create fire much the way other fire benders in the fire nation can. She won’t ever be as strong as any of the ‘big’ fire benders from the show though.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[video]
[Mai is seated on a lounge chair in her MAC apartment, her legs tugged up under her, looking at the camera in vague irritation.]
How do you manage to have a city full of advanced technology and beings with superpowers, and yet still have it be aggravatingly boring?
Some of it is…interesting, I guess. Playing with the…microwave? was fun for an hour or so. But honestly, how do you create something like television, which I thought maybe would be entertaining, and the fill it with garbage that wouldn’t keep a four year old amused.
[She sighs.]
Agni, I need something to do. Anyone here good with knives? I’m sure I can out-throw you. That might be fun.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Mai stood in the empty lot she had found off one of the City’s less crowded roads, surrounded by wooden blanks she had dragged there from various places she had found them. She’d set them up as targets, though she hadn’t found any paint so she was using details on the boards themselves to decide what she was aiming at. A knot here, a discoloration there, something she could use to judge her aim.
*fwit-thud* went the knife as she threw her arm out, watching the blade arc across the lot and smack soundly into one of the knots on a distant board, making the whole thing topple over. “Of course.” She sighed, walking over to it and tugging it back upright. Somehow, she suspected that was going to happen a lot. Too poor to afford real targets yet.
She left the knife in the board and then deftly slid her fingers into her sleeve, drawing out…the same knife again, studying it. Most of her knives looked the same, but Mai could tell them apart. It was like a mother with her children, probably, though she’d get annoyed if someone actually made that analogy at her.
She reached out and tugged the first knife from the board, holding it next to the second. Everything was the same, the detail on the metal, the little ripped spot on the grip. However the ‘power’ the city had given her worked, it apparently duplicated all the knives she already had as soon as she used one of them.
After a moment of thought, she tossed the duplicate knife away and slid the original back into its holster under her sleeve, smiling at the familiar sound of metal on leather. While the power could be very useful, she didn’t feel any attachment to these new knives. They weren’t hers. She’d still have to do what she could to make sure she kept her real knives.
For as long as she could, anyway.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER:
NAME: Dalrint.
AGE: Old
JOURNAL: dalrint
IM: Farobservr
E-MAIL: just use LJ messenger
RETURNING: Ayup. Stargirl, Misfit, Annabeth Chase and Ophelia
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Mai
FANDOM: Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon)
CHRONOLOGY: Right at the end of Boiling Rock Part 2, when she’s facing off with Azula.
CLASS: Hero
SUPERHERO NAME: The Knife
ALTER EGO: Mai, probably a student or unemployed.
BACKGROUND:
Some background: A hundred years ago, the last Avatar disappeared during a great volcanic eruption on his home island. The Fire Nation, lead by the great Fire Lord Sozin, annihilated the Air Nomad tribe to prevent the next Avatar from being born, and set out to wave a hundred years of war against the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom. Over the last century they have conquered large chunks of the earth kingdom, annihilated the Southern Water Tribe’s water benders, and decimated the remaining Air Nomad temples. However, the new Avatar had been born, before the rest of the Air Nomads were destroyed, and slept away the century trapped inside an ice-berg, only to be woken by a water tribe girl and her brother.
Mai was the only daughter of a Fire Nation noble family of moderate influence and power. Her parents, however, had aspirations of being far more influential, and so Mai had to become the ‘perfect’ daughter. Be quiet, look pretty, don’t cause any trouble and don’t do anything that could make her father look bad and hurt his career. With the Fire Nation at war with the other two nations (they’d long ago annihilated the Air Nomads), chances for advancement were not as rare as they had once been, but they still required effort and keeping up appearances.
So Mai spent most of her childhood being quiet, and not getting into trouble, and staying in her room as much as possible to avoid having to ‘deal’ with it. She became an expert at repressing her irritation, and then eventually just repressing most of her feelings, as it was far easier to leave them inside than worry about how her mother would react to them.
She did, however, have one upside to spending so much time in her room…she picked up a hobby. She found one of the house guards knives one night, and tried throwing it at her bedroom wall…and then she kept throwing it. And throwing it, and throwing it, until she could hit almost anything in her room with her eyes closed. And then she branched out into other knives, smaller knives, larger knives, getting better with each passing year. Her parents weren’t thrilled, but they let her have her hobby if only because it kept her out of the way so she wasn’t causing trouble.
When she was old enough, she was sent off to the Royal Academy for Girls, where she met and befriended Ty Lee, and then both of them were sucked into Princess Azula’s inner-circle of friends. Even at that age Azula was something of a terror, indiscriminately hurting animals or ordering people to do humiliating things, which wouldn’t have been so bad if her bending wasn’t already strong enough to let her back up her commands.
Azula honestly scared Mai a little bit, but her mother immediately encouraged the friendship, and spending time at the palace was never a bad thing. It got her away from her parents, and let her occasionally see Prince Zuko, a boy she’d had something of a crush on from the first time she’d met him. Azula tended to exploit this obvious little crush, using it to humiliate Mai or Zuko at any given time. (Having them end up falling into the palace pond at one point.)
However, life went on much the same as it had for Mai, despite her new friends. Her parents continued to try and make her the ‘perfect’ daughter, and she grew more and more repressed as the years passed. Zuko was raised mostly by his mother, and was a huge contrast to Azula, which was probably one of the things that drew Mai to him. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of speaking out against his father, and was forced to fight him (getting a nasty scar). His father gave him an impossible task, go out of and find the Avatar (who had been missing/dead for a hundred years) and make sure that the Fire Nation would never have to face the danger of an Avatar again.
After Zuko’s banishment, Mai shifted even deeper emotional disinterest, an attitude that reflected itself in her clothing and the way she maintained herself. She still looked ‘pretty’ of course, it wouldn’t do to have her mother on her case that much, but pretty much everything began to bore her.
As the war with the Earth Kingdom continued, her father’s political machinations allowed him to be placed as the Governor of one of the recently captured Earth Kingdom cities, and Mai went along, of course. Rumors of the Avatars resurgence (and Zuko’s disastrous failure to catch him during a battle between the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe) were spreading all over the world, and the Fire Nation was moving its invasion into high gear to make sure they had solid ground to stand on if the Avatar actually struck.
By then Azula was trying to track down her brother and helping her father, and Ty Lee had run off to join the circus, so there wasn’t any reason for her to want to stay in the capital anyway.
If anything though, Omashu was even more boring than being back home. As she put it, it was ‘unbearably bleak,’ and even her mothers chiding couldn’t force her to keep that hidden away. At least there was a small rebellion going on in the city, so that at least gave her an excuse to occasionally use her knives (something she’d pretty much perfected by then, along with wrist and ankle arrow launchers and a decent amount of martial arts), but otherwise there was nothing to do there.
When Princess Azula arrived with Ty Lee, intent on recruiting Mai into her hunt for Zuko and his Uncle, Mai was immediately on board. Not necessarily to hunt Zuko (although the thought of seeing Zuko again appealed), but more for the fact that it would get her away from the city and out doing something.
While this was happening, the Avatar arrived in the city and accidentally kidnapped her little brother. Azula, Mai and Ty Lee were going to handle the exchange (Mai’s little brother for the king of Omashu) but things went wrong, and neither sided ended up giving up their prisoner during the battle. Afterwards though, the Avatar returned her brother without getting the King, and Mai left with Azula and Ty Lee on their hunt.
They had two purposes now though, to hunt down Zuko and to hunt down the Avatar. They spent the next several months doing this, chasing both of their prey all the way across the Earth Kingdom. Along the way they defeated and captured the Kyoshi Warriors, and assisted in an attempted breach of the great wall of Ba Sing Se with a massive Fire Nation Drill. Ba Sing Se was the last real bastion of power in the world that hadn’t fallen to the Earth Kingdom. While the Water Tribe Fortress still existed in the north pole, there wasn’t enough of them there to mount any sort of serious threat.
When that didn’t work though, they infiltrated the Kingdom using the Kyoshi uniforms, and Mai helped Azula organized a rebellion amongst the kingdom’s elite security force, which allowed them to take over the palace without actually having to invade the country.
During the conflict, Azula managed to convince Zuko to switch sides, and he helped them take over the Earth Kingdom, betraying his Uncle in the process and resulting in the near-death of the Avatar. Afterwards, though, Zuko’s guilt overwhelmed him, and he was intent on remaining in the Kingdom when Mai and Azula and the others returned home.
Azula decided to use Mai’s old crush (and Zuko’s old crush that Mai didn’t know about) to manipulate Zuko into coming home, and so she tricked Mai and Zuko into showing up at a ‘meeting’ that turned into a date. During the course of the evening they managed to give Azula and Ty Lee (who were following and snickering at them) the slip, and then went out to explore the city.
They ran into a girl Zuko had gone on a date with, and he claimed Mai was a ‘knife thrower from the circus.’ Mai decided to show off then, and made Zuko go stand across the court yard with a fish on his head, which she plucked off with a knife. Then she offered to let the girl Zuko knew throw one too, which made the fire prince panic…and fall into a fountain. “Now we’re even.” Mai had said with a grin, bringing up memories from their childhood.
And she really was having a nice time, nice enough that she was even laughing as Zuko tried to chase her down once she emerged from the fountain, and when he finally caught her, they kissed. Being around him brought out some of those emotions she tried so hard to repress…and it really wasn’t a bad thing, she found. Around him, at least.
And of course, she tried to get him to come home with them, working unknowingly into Azula’s clever plan. Between Mai and Iroh being taken back to the Fire Nation, Zuko finally agreed to come home. Mai was (inwardly) thrilled.
The next few months were a mixture of happiness and irritation. She spent much of her time with Zuko and Azula and Ty Lee back at the Capital, trying to get Zuko out of the funk he’d sunk into and keeping herself amused. She liked being back there, especially now that her parents were still off governing Omashu. It was almost a chance to let herself open up a little. Around Zuko, at least. Unfortunatley, Zuko himself wasn’t really ‘happy’ to be home, though he couldn’t figure out why.
They went on vacation to Ember Island, where Zuko was suddenly acting quite possessive of her when other boys showed an interest in her. (Boys she thought were mostly idiots, honestly) and they broke up for a couple hours. That night around the fire she and all her friends managed to let off a lot of anger and frustration, though Mai still kept herself (mostly) inward. She did at least try to explain to them why she was that way, though all Azula did was mock her about it.
When Zuko finally expressed his own frustration and anger at himself, Mai tried to comfort him, and they were once again dating when they returned to the capital. However, Zuko’s unhappiness about being there, this strange sensation of anger, wasn’t going away, no matter how much Mai tried to cheer him up and distract him. He had all the things he’d always wanted, yet he was still so lost all the time.
Things continued along until the day of the eclipse. The Avatar and his friends were planning an invasion of the Fire Nation Capital, intent on taking out the Fire Lord and his generals while they were powerless. (Fire Benders draw their power from the sun, and with an eclipse going on that power was gone.) However, the Fire Lord had become aware of this, and arranged for a trap for them.
Along with the rest of the capital, Mai spent the eclipse in security bunkers with Ty Lee while the Avatar and his friends led an invasion of the city. Unfortunately, when she got home, she found a letter from Zuko saying he’d ‘gone off to join the avatar’ and was breaking up with her.
She was furious. She spent weeks just moping around (even more than usual, really) and trying to figure out she could have figured it out and stopped him. Finally though, she received a letter from her uncle the Warden of the Boiling Rock prison, that he’d caught Zuko and was holding him there.
With Azula and Ty Lee, Mai went to face down Zuko at the prison. She threw his letter in his face, not even able to contain her anger at him. He tried to explain which just made her feel worse and angrier, somehow. But there was something in his eyes…
When the riot broke out he managed to lock her in his cell thanks to a guard distracting her, and left her there after they exchanged one long, angry look. When another guard went by she convinced him to let her out, and she went racing after Zuko through the prison riot.
When she caught up, she found that Zuko and his friends were battling Azula and Ty Lee on an escaping Gondela…and that the prison guards were trying to cut the wire and kill Zuko and everyone else! Ty Lee and Azula escaped to another gondola, but Mai found herself dumbstruck. She couldn’t just let them kill him! Despite everything, she cared about him a lot. More than she had even realized.
She quickly disarmed the guards who were cutting the rope, and spent enough time defending the gondola control that Zuko and his friends escaped before she was finally subdued. When Azula and Ty Lee got back, Azula was furious…she sent the guards away, and asked Mai why she would betray her. Even Mai was surprised at her response. Despite her fear of Azula, she didn’t regret what she had done. “I love Zuko more than I fear you.”
With a shout of anger, Azula lifted her arms, and Mai braced herself to fight back, even though she knew it was a fight she wouldn’t be walking away from…
And then she was suddenly in the porter room in the City.
PERSONALITY:
If there was one word to really describe Mai, it would be ‘subdued.’ She has long since learned to keep a lid on most of her emotions, good and bad, and though they do emerge from time to time, in general the only thing she really lets out is boredom and frustration. When she’s first doing something exciting, she might almost seem happy about it, but that passes into boredom as soon as it’s over or the challenge disappears.
On the same vein, she’s very easily bored, and will sit and mope around playing with her knives when things get too dull to deal with.
When she is just around her friends though, without having to worry, sometimes her emotions poke through. She’s friendly, even caring, around Zuko (in her own odd way) and her anger and frustration tend to bubble over when Azula or Ty Lee try to pry.
Despite her repression, Mai is still a Fire Nation noble, and has certain expectations and obvious reactions from that upbringing. She likes to get her own way, she’s used to having servants doing things for her, she doesn’t do her own chores or worry about money or cleaning or cooking. She can cook, she just doesn’t particularly like doing it, and other than having to learn how, never bothers. It’s ‘boring’ so she just doesn’t care.
She hates getting dirty, and despite pretty much doing whatever Azula orders her, will refuse something like that if it could get disgusting. (“Azula can throw all the lightning she wants at me, I’m not jumping in that wall-juice sludge.”) She also won’t fight in situations she doesn’t really care about, like when Sokka and Toph show up to rescue the Earth King’s bear, she doesn’t even get out of her chair. (“Just take the bear.”) She’s not getting all dirty to defend a bear, after all.
POWER:
Infinite Knives - Mai will never run out of knives. Whenever she tugs a knife from her holster or fires an arrow from her launcher, another one will be there when she needs it.
Fire Bending - Mai is now a fire bender, with the ability to control and create fire much the way other fire benders in the fire nation can. She won’t ever be as strong as any of the ‘big’ fire benders from the show though.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[video]
[Mai is seated on a lounge chair in her MAC apartment, her legs tugged up under her, looking at the camera in vague irritation.]
How do you manage to have a city full of advanced technology and beings with superpowers, and yet still have it be aggravatingly boring?
Some of it is…interesting, I guess. Playing with the…microwave? was fun for an hour or so. But honestly, how do you create something like television, which I thought maybe would be entertaining, and the fill it with garbage that wouldn’t keep a four year old amused.
[She sighs.]
Agni, I need something to do. Anyone here good with knives? I’m sure I can out-throw you. That might be fun.
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
Mai stood in the empty lot she had found off one of the City’s less crowded roads, surrounded by wooden blanks she had dragged there from various places she had found them. She’d set them up as targets, though she hadn’t found any paint so she was using details on the boards themselves to decide what she was aiming at. A knot here, a discoloration there, something she could use to judge her aim.
*fwit-thud* went the knife as she threw her arm out, watching the blade arc across the lot and smack soundly into one of the knots on a distant board, making the whole thing topple over. “Of course.” She sighed, walking over to it and tugging it back upright. Somehow, she suspected that was going to happen a lot. Too poor to afford real targets yet.
She left the knife in the board and then deftly slid her fingers into her sleeve, drawing out…the same knife again, studying it. Most of her knives looked the same, but Mai could tell them apart. It was like a mother with her children, probably, though she’d get annoyed if someone actually made that analogy at her.
She reached out and tugged the first knife from the board, holding it next to the second. Everything was the same, the detail on the metal, the little ripped spot on the grip. However the ‘power’ the city had given her worked, it apparently duplicated all the knives she already had as soon as she used one of them.
After a moment of thought, she tossed the duplicate knife away and slid the original back into its holster under her sleeve, smiling at the familiar sound of metal on leather. While the power could be very useful, she didn’t feel any attachment to these new knives. They weren’t hers. She’d still have to do what she could to make sure she kept her real knives.
For as long as she could, anyway.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER: