”How do you dethrone a tyrant? No, that's not it. The question is how do you balance a world by deliberately throwing it into chaos? The answer has to be more than me."

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Full Name
Xiaofan Fāng
pronounced: show (in shower) fawn fang

Nicknames
Xiao
Earthworm
Metal-head (some of her siblings call her this in jest)

Age
20

Gender
Non-binary and doesn’t mind being referred to as she/he/they.

Sexuality
Pansexual

Abilities
A late bloomer, Xiaofan got access to her earth bending (and other elements) later than most do; because of this, she has an unintuitive grasp on the other abilities, showing in less expression and more restraint. She’s fascinated by the nuances of bending, resulting in a strong technical grasp of the elements. She has a preference towards metal bending, and is interested in it’s potential for technological advancement and human enhancements. She has a book of female innovators tucked away at her bedside; Asami is one of her inspirations.

She grew up making things—sculptures, paintings, inventions—with earth and metal (and then the other elements), and is always looking for interesting ways to use her abilities. Her creativity makes her an innovator and dangerous foe, as she’s always for different angles to approach a problem or enemy. Her innovative interests lie in intersections and contradictions; like bending and chemistry, spirit energy and technology, or the freedom of art and her restraint in bending.

As someone who is able to center herself easily, she has a good temperament for spiritual access; she’s been meditating for years, trained by the White Lotus about the importance of a steady constitution and open mind—she has only been able to access avatar state a few times, though not ever through conscious will, only accidents and pressing circumstances and once while asleep. In fact, it is most often while dreaming she has been in contact with her past lives and the spirits, which is frustrating to her. She often comes in contact with an owl spirit, a comforting presence, but it is always elusive.

As for the other elements, water comes a bit easier to her than air and fire, and she aligns with it’s defense-is-offence nature; she is a good healer with a good grasp on chi pathways and able to pinpoint the tiniest pain points direct energy to. She also enjoys the feeling of stability that comes with the combination of water and earth, and uses them the most. Fire, she struggles the most with and finds hard to control; it’s a volatile element that is heavily affected by her mood, swelling up with power when emotionally passionate. She prefers to use it in small, potent doses—explosives and projectiles. With air, it requires effort for her to get into the free and intuitive mindset that characterize the that style of bending; She is most powerful if she meditates beforehand, being able to stabilize the rushing currents for a longer amount of time.

Her bending style, when not used in smaller amounts, lacks grace and precision—her earth bending is definitely better than the rest, though.

Fighting Style
Tanky, though not without precision. She tends to endure non-lethal hits, drawing out the amount of time she can look for weaknesses and do the most damage in a few moves.

She keeps a light-weight metal staff with her at all times, and uses it in close combat, as well as for bending. Her close-combat style is aggressive and sharp, aimed at handicapping the opponent or putting distance between them so she can deliver the finishing blow—without her staff, she uses a messy style of mixed martial arts; She also can use the metal for feather light armor enhancements (i.e encasing her knuckles in a thin metal layer) when going into battle, projectiles, and whatever she can think of. The staff style of fighting also facilitates other bending methods, like air blades.

Her bending style is subtle, and she avoids grandiose displays of flair. She is much more likely to metal bend a dollop of steel to the opponent’s foot and jab it through their ankle, than hurling boulder after boulder. While effective, her tactics require focus and planning, and she is susceptible to being caught off guard—outside experience will be a good wakeup call for her.

Physical Appearance
5’ 6’’, average height and stocky build. She’s got mussy, short black hair, framing her dark face and eyes, and can easily be perceived as either gender. Freckles inherited from her father dot her entire body—she has surprisingly pleasant smile, lighting up her whole face when it appears, though her neutral expression is enough to give off a gruff, stoic impression.

Equipment and Personal Belongings
Metal Staff—this has gone through many iterations over the years, as her and her White Lotus teachers have been seeking the best weapon that balances strength, weight, and usefulness.
Headband — A gift from her favorite White Lotus teacher that keeps her hair out of her face when she spars. She has it on almost always.
Book of female innovators — Got it from her sister on her 9th birthday. It’s annotated and bookmarked so much that it’s intimidating.

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Goal
Wants to create something revolutionary, making a positive, systemic change in the world. She doesn’t know what yet, but wants to see the implementation of it—a technology, bending practice, whatever—while she’s alive. Of course, this means first getting rid of President San and creating an equitable environment for innovation to spread properly.

Secret
One thing that she’s kept to herself is her how strong bending always evokes strong emotions which she feels uncomfortable with, as they sometime threaten to overwhelm her; she is scared of unintentionally hurting others and this is one reason why her bending style is so subtle and technically focused. What she doesn’t realize is the more she refuses to deal with her lack of control, the more volatile the nature of her bending becomes. Also, no one knows about her struggles to contact the owl in her dreams or some of the other recurring themes...

Habits
o Gets lost in her thoughts and stares at nothing in particular. While doing this, she either looks absent minded or about to take a shit. It can disturb people.
o Does the bending equivalent of doodling when she’s anxious/bored/thinking, which means very subtly molding earth or whatever she has around her.

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Likes
o Learning (aspires to be a polymath: current strengths in microbiology & bending chemistry, rationality, and slight weakness in social sciences)
o Exercise and wellbeing practices
o Debate and discussion
o Making statues and sculptures and any form of art

Dislikes
o Censorship
o Betrayal, unfairness, injustice
o Toaster ovens

Strengths

o Mentally and psychically resilient
o Steady temperament
o Fast learner & curious—willing to make mistakes and understands it’s a part of the learning process.
o Good grasp on first principles and rational thinking

Weaknesses
o Tunnel Vision, can get too caught up in details and not enough on the larger picture.
o Struggles with healthy bodily/physiological self expression (evidenced in her bending and emotional expression)
o Perfectionist and Type A, not good with uncertainty
o Can come off as socially abrasive

Personality
Xiaofan usually appears cool, with a calm demeanor and sharp, observing gaze. She has an even temperament and rarely has strong outbursts to anything—if she’s angry, you’ll feel it in her silence and soft, but biting remarks. She is most alive when she’s exercising and creating things, and regains a childlike, open mind while doing so.

She’s remarkably patient with some things, like bending exercises and making mistakes, and remarkably impatient with other things, like social pleasantries and double-talk. The fact that she’s only grown up around people she trusts, has conditioned her to be straightforward and unapologetic about it. She also has a surprising sense of humor that can draws its strength from wit and/or unexpectedness.

Her nonchalant demeanor belies her Type A personality. While she can be open minded and creative in thought, her intense focus on details makes her a perfectionist. She’s stubborn when it comes to getting things right, which can mean practicing the same bending technique for days or locking herself in her room many evenings in a row to determine how to, theoretically, funnel spirit energy into toaster oven.

Brief History
The avatar grew up in a very warm family, with 4 siblings (all older) and her parents, in Ba Sing Se; they were all relocated when she was a baby, so she has very little memory of the place she they all called home—her home was the stronghold and wherever they needed to go to avoid suspicion or train. She’s had limited interaction outside her family and White Lotus circle, and started to itch for real world interactions when she was a young teenager, feeling like she was missing a huge chunk of potential knowledge; her stubborn curiosity pushed the White Lotus to acquiesce and she was allowed her first steps back into the earth kingdom with a White Lotus guide, once they had determined she was emotionally mature enough to remain under guise and avoid suspicion. She took on the young grandson role with ease and became fascinated with the the markets, the people, the spirits—this lasted only a few years, as the civil war expanded towards the border and she was once again forced to hide. While brief, the excursions out of her home left a long lasting impact on her desire to learn about and improve the world.

As she was growing up, her main influences were family, all of whom reacted variously to being taken away from their homes. The siblings were all supportive, they had no choice to be, and because most of them were also very young when they were taken [Nehru (3), Yue (5)], it was not a traumatic transition. The oldest siblings [Kanan (10), Hui-Ling (15)] struggled much more, but didn’t have deep ties, like a career or significant other, to make the transition harder than it needed to be. Her mother a professor and father on the earth bending police force, took their relocation in stride, pouring their time into teaching and guiding their children the best they could. The concept of being the avatar has always been normal to her, as she grew up under the guidance and protection of the White Lotus, and she takes the importance of it for granted.

Being inside a stronghold meant there was little to do than train, either with her teachers or siblings, and so she took to reading and art when she was young. There is a library in the stronghold she visits often, but never stays for long, preferring to bring the books outside—somewhere she can mold the earth whenever she feels like taking a break from text and intense thought. For her 9th birthday, Hui-Ling bought her a book on female inventors (her favorite one) and she’s been fixated on innovation in technology, bending, and art ever since.

She was not able to bend earth until she was 5, and her siblings could all do so before her age. When she could, attention was diverted towards training her to be the best avatar, and this created a distance between her and and few of her siblings for a short time. Her favorite White Lotus teacher saw the imminent emotional alienation, and worked with the teachers and her parents to create a system that would be more kind to Xiaofan’s emotional state; from then on, he was to double as her counselor, to encourage feedback and facilitate personalized learning, which is how they’ve come to a foundation-based approach to harness her technical grasp on bending. This focus has also led her to develop an interest in first principle thinking and rationality, which she’s found to go hand in hand with creativity.

Growing up, Xiaofan has never felt quite male or female, but doesn’t mind being referred to as female. It was something she came into very naturally, and has brought it up to her family over dinner once. Her parents have accepted it whole-heartedly and without question, and that was the end of that. She hasn’t had to think to hard about it, but exposure to outsiders mostly leaves her a little confused—they just don’t get it.

She began dreaming of the spirit world when she was 10, and grew up with the familiar presence of an owl in her dreams. As she’s grown, her dreams have become longer and more vivid, akin to lucid dreaming. The owl is still a constant fixture, but just as elusive, never communicating to her in a direct manner or giving any indication of its significance…

Even with the turmoil of the world outside, she considers herself to have lived a blessed life, having a supportive family that is protected under the White Lotus; she has a strong sense of loyalty to her family and community, and is determined to be a great avatar—the fact that her goal aligns with the task to usurp President San makes it easier to swallow the challenges ahead.

” If you will not die for us, you cannot ask us to die for you.”

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Full Name
Fan Zhong

Nicknames
One-Hand Fan

Age
26

Gender
Male

Sexuality
Heterosexual

Abilities
“The first weapon you wield is vigilance. The second is the knife in your sleeve.”

Fan is a master of the Qing Dao (Shortsword), the Shéng biāo (Rope Dart), the Sleeve Arrow, and an array of flying blades, and has some moderate hand-to-hand skills. His agileness and limberness also granted him impressive parkour and free-running skills, allowing him to scale almost any surface or terrain quickly and squeeze through most barriers and small spaces with noticeable ease, and was once considered a master of stealth.

However, due to his injury, the most valuable asset the once-assassin now possess is his extensive knowledge. While the other Bending Masters may focus on their particular bending style, or martial arts, or philosophies, it is the duty of Fan is teach the Avatar both personal defense and the ways of the world. The most recent avatars had endured many trials and tribulations during their journeys, most often due to ignorance and Fan would see this Avatar suffer a little less.

His sharp eye are on constant lookout for any attempt on the Avatar’s life and is attempting to teach her what so knows so that she might thrive once she has completed her education and he is no longer around. His personal experience has given a veritable treasure trove and knowledge to impart on her: diplomacy, history, courtly intrigue, the identities foreign officials and their stations, laws and politics, customs and traditions, camouflage and survival, strategy and warfare, counter espionage, herbs and their uses both medicinal and poison, in addition to his knowledge of the human body, his own assassination techniques, and most importantly… Pai Sho.

Fighting Style

“You know who was honorable? A lot of people who died, that’s who.”

Fan wholeheartedly believe that one should do whatever they can to ensure survival in a fight, and demonstrates this philosophy in his own combat style, which centers around speed and agility, dodging enemy attacks instead of blocking them. For this reason, he does not wear heavy armor or capes or use loose robes, but instead relies on just his sword and knives. Fan typically opens with his more ranged attacks before closing the gap to engage the opponent with melee as swiftly as possible before they’ve had the chance to recover mentally and physically. Fan actively employs an entire arsenal of dirty fighting, looking for any weakness in an opponent and exploiting it as brutally as possible, seeking to win by any means necessary. Using an extensive knowledge of chi and artery points of the human body, the Avatar’s Martial Instructor seeks to end combat as swiftly as possible.

This is all, assuming of course, that Fan hasn’t already poisoned everyone’s tea.

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Physical Appearance

Fan is a tall man of about six feet,with his face framed by length of black hair pulled back. He wear the traditional dark greens of his homeland, the Earth Kingdom, his outfit design to keep his movement as unimpeded as possible. His only visible weapon is his Qing Dao, the others carefully hidden up his only sleeve or elsewhere on his body. Wooden sandals adorn his feet, and his body is taut with lean but firm muscles. A sense of tired weariness hangs about his amber eyes.

Most peculiar is his left arm, or rather, the lack of it. His empty sleeve is carefully pinned to his clothing, and underneath, a patch of scar tissue that clearly showed where his arm was.

Equipment and Personal Belongings
“And I will place my Chrysanthemum… here…”

His weapons, a pair of steel shin and forearms guards, caltrops, a set of worn climbing spikes, and an extremely battered Pai Sho set that he insists on bringing everywhere.

Goal
“The recluses’ dream / coming true vividly / the peach blossoms”
Fan had actually been contemplating starting a peach orchard before being chosen as the Avatar’s instructor. Right now, keeping the Avatar alive long enough to realize the orchard seems like a worthy goal, if a little selfish.

Secret
"The quest for truth above all else."
Due to the events of the Avatar Korra’s life, the White Lotus have a greater understanding of the Avatar Cycle and Spirit, as well as the potential for destruction an Avatar could truly cause. In the event of the Avatar going rogue, or utilized against their will as a weapon, Fan has orders to neutralize her without hesitation. As bad as President San’s Republic might be, the thought of another Unalaq was reason enough to make this a viable option.

Habits

"Yes! High Fi-.... other hand."

In the occasional excitement of things, Fan sometimes forgets that he’s missing a particular limb much to his annoyance and the amusement of others.

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Likes
“Come on… just one more round!”

o Pai Sho
O Peach anything.
o A well organized plan that survives contact!

Dislikes
“Here we go- Again.”

o When the Avatar doesn’t heed his advice or chooses to skip her lessons.
o The “Fight First, Think Later,” mentality he views most Benders to have
o His four year losing streak to Kariya Amaris.

Strengths

“I'm paid to kill and protect people. Friends get a discount."

o Stealth and Acrobatics
o Worldly Knowledge and Experience
o Complete Mastery over his few chosen weapons
o A mind for tactics, strategy, and counter espionage.

Weaknesses
“If I was five years younger..."

o The loss of his left arm has considerably lessened his fighting ability and action economy. Simple things, such as holding heavy objects, tasks that require the use of more than one hand (holding a sword AND opening a door for example), are extremely difficult, if not outright impossible. Further more, while he is quite adept at hiding in the shadows and maintaining silence, personal disguises have become all but useless with his most identifying lack of a feature.

o Unlike a bender whose body is a weapon at all times, Fan has a limited number of weapons, especially flying daggers and arrows. These must be either recollected or replaced when used. In addition, if he is utterly disarmed or loses his sword, his handicap has made it so that his own martial arts is not enough to engage a skilled bender and win.

o Was trained for mores for agility instead of endurance, and while is fully capable of dodging blasts from a Bender, he has no method to defend himself from them, and probably could not survive more lethal blows.

Personality
“If by my life or death I can protect you, I will.”

Fan is sarcastic, with a black sense of humor, and a pragmatic, amoral philosophy for life. He will often be the first to offer the most direct, albeit cold solution to problems, regardless of how it may affect the emotions of others, stemming from years of mission triage: achieving the greatest return on investment for his actions. He is rather apathetic to the idea of killing someone with his methods, arguing that what he does is no different than any Bender in existence.

However, he is not completely heartless, nor is he sadistic. He takes his duty of mentoring and guarding the Avatar very seriously, and views the success of this mission as not just simply protecting an innocent girl, but rather, the safety of the entire world. He is utterly loyal with the Avatar and while he may not always agree with her actions or ideals, he will do his best to ensure that she is safe in her endeavors of them.

As a tutor, he is a firm but gentle teacher, seeking to guide his charge rather than beating the lesson into her brain. Most lessons will involve a practical or physical aspect for the Avatar to utilize, showing through demonstration and careful explanation rather than a lecture or countless repetitions.

He is someone who will go to lengths to ensure that his own survival and the survival of his charge is paramount, but fully knows that he is not the sole teacher of the Avatar, and that his fellow instructors are vital for her training. Therefor, while he may not be as merry of lighthearted as his compatriots, he will gladly consort with them to develop their charge into the Avatar she is meant to be. Fan is actually rather shy about talking about himself, seeing this as an uncomfortable broach of his work-relationship.

Brief History
“Kill one, save ten. Kill ten, save a hundred. Kill a hundred…”

To tell the story of Fan, one must first tell the tale of the White Lotus, for the two are inexplicably entwined together. In the years following the Red Lotus Cell lead by the Airbender Zaheer, the Grand Masters of the Order met together to restructure the Order. The most recent debacle showed the desperate need for some drastic changes; once barely two dozen masters had stood against an occupied Ba Sing Sei held by thousands of Fire Nation soldiers and had achieved victory in almost an hour. Shortly after the Hundred Year War's conclusion, the society stopped concealing itself from the public eye and began to serve the world and the Avatar more openly, expanding their operations and recruiting more openly, swelling their numbers.

But it was only after the incident with the Red that the White begin to reflect that quantity did not always equal quality. Where before they had masters, now they had many, arguably skilled, but lackluster sentries. They had been reduced to glorified bodyguards, while the Red Lotus had focused on skills and resources, working in secret to produce the highest quality of Masters. Every instance before, from Unalaq to Amon, the White Lotus could do little but slow down attempts on their charge. Even now, they knew not of the whereabouts of the Red Lotus remnants, their numbers, or their powers.

A change was necessary. The few decades would find a rise of more off the books practices in lieu of their public face as the White Lotus saught to consolidate its power once more.

Their enemies had fallen into the shadows.

The White Lotus would follow.

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Fan Zhong was born the only child to two Sentinels of the White Lotus who had stood guard during the reign of Avatar Korra, and had been inducted into the Order at a rather young age, and had since considered the Order almost as his birthplace and home rather than any city or nation. The son of two benders, it was considered mild disappointment when he inherited neither of his parents talents, though his place in the Order was still assured.

Fan grew up against the backdrop of the civil unrest in the Earth Kingdom, as territories slowly splintered from the unrest caused by President San. His family became accustomed to living in occupied territory, moving from base to base with other cells of the White Lotus to stay ahead of the encroaching forces. It was during one these particular moves that Fan first came into contact with Zhen, an old bounty hunter with a cordial affiliation to the Order of the White Lotus. Zhen was a grizzled mercenary, a true money-grubber willing to do anything to make a quick buck who constantly acted like a wild hedonist unable to save a dollar ahead in his life. He made his living by selling them information, taking operatives from the Red and selling them back to the White for an inflated price. But the Order could only acknowledge his skills, and the coins changed hands frequently enough for him to become a reliable source.

Realizing that the tragedies he saw in his childhood were common occurrences in the world, the teenage Fan stole away from home to became a freelancer like Zhen to hunt down Red remnants around the world, acting as the man’s assistant…

…after Zhen knocked him down a mountain in protest of becoming the boy’s morally questionable guardian.
The mercenary trained him not only in bounty hunting, but in tracking, assassination, and all types of weaponry. At first, he only got in Zhen's way, but he eventually became his partner and equal. The Masters of the White Lotus saw the budding skill in Fan, especially those of discreet missions, and began to rely more and more on the two for such things. Year after year, Fan and Zhen traveled the globe from the icebergs of the two Tribes to the great pyramids of Omashu and everything in-between, hunting their quarry through ruined Sun Temples and the darkest slums of Ba Sing Sei. Many Red Lotus operatives were either caught or killed by the two, who were inducted deeper into the Order to allow Fan more training, especially against various bending styles, and by extension, Zhen. Sabotage, murder, blackmail, espionage: each act a move on the Pai Sho board of Red and White flowers. With the less than innocent actions of President San and his Task Force assassins to claim the Avatar, the battle in the shadows was erupting into full scale war.

About four years ago, word reached the White Lotus of a Red Lava-Bending master named Mao Lifu, who was unifying various bandits in an attempt to destabilize the already fragile Earth Kingdom countryside. Once again, Zhen and Fan were tasked with his capture or disposal and a cadre of Order sentinels were tasked to accompany them. It was as they were readying their bags the night before their journey that Zhen spoke the first affectionate words to his young apprentice.

It was to be their final mission together. He explained that he had been troubled over Fan following the same path as him due to the fact that he has too much potential in killing, displayed by emotionlessly their targets in a manner that took others many years to accomplish. He explained that even with such talent, doing what is necessary should not come before doing what the person wished to accomplish, likening such people to machines.
Those words set the stage for whappened next.

Somehow, the Red Lotus knew that they were coming and were ready for them. They were ambushed enroute to location of their target, on the downward slope of a rocky hill. Ultimately, the events of what followed are unknown to the White Lotus, save that the mission ended in a pyrrhic success. Fan Zhang returned alone, bloodied and with a ruined, blackened left arm, carrying the head of Mao Lifu. When asked what had occurred to the rest of his squad, including his mentor, Fan would only reply that there weren’t enough ashes left to warrant their retrieval.

It was after this mission that Fan became disillusioned with his ideal of any real change in the world, as it was impossible to save one person without losing another. Nothing could be done to save the man’s charred arm, resulting in its amputation, and Fan took the long road of recovery with nothing but silent determination, trying to adjust to his new life. While his recovery was all but assured, given the talent of the Order’s healers, it slowly became an issue of what to do with him.

His bladework was still sharp, and his mind even moreso, but their was still a hesitancy to give him any new tasks given his disability. The game the two Orders played was one where every failure meant perhaps hundreds of innocent deaths, yet to waste the man’s knowledge would have been a sin in of itself.

A solution was offered. Fan was still capable of serving the Order of the White Lotus, but he would be removed from active field-work, forced into a quasi-retirement as he worked as a mentor, and bodyguard, to the new Avatar. It was a task that would assuredly be a soft-job given the presence of the other masters and White Lotus sentinels. A “reward” for his years of faithful service and for his accomplishment of slaying one of the Red Lotus Masters.

After nearly years of recovery and training, the job was finally accepted with the same silent nod Fan had always given. He would protect and train the Avatar, to ready her for all the battles to come.

For this time, by saving one, he could save millions.