[hider=Zhen Mie Lun]

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[b]Name:[/b]  Zhen Mie Lun
[b]Age:[/b]  35
[b]Gender:[/b] Female 
[b]Element:[/b]  Air

[b]Residence:[/b]  Upper Ring
[b]Occupation:[/b] Professor at the University of Ba Sing Se


[b]Who are you?[/b] 

My childhood was normal until the age of seven. My parents were both well placed government officials and from families with illustrious histories and high expectations. The Lun family has historically relied on their wits and their reputation for excellent work; they did not have a noble title or great wealth that could carry them, a single disappointing generation could ruin all that they had. Having a Bender inside the family was not an option for them, and so as soon as I turned seven and was old enough that the test was accurate, they administered a test for bending ability; they would do the same for my younger siblings. Unlike them, I was a Bender. What followed next was an extremely loud screaming match between my parents of which I only remember portions of, but my Grandfather’s files have helped me regarding the details. 
 
Eventually  they stopped shouting about whose side of the family was at fault, if the claim of five hundred years of nonbenders on my father’s side was false, how their admittedly far-fetched dream of having me grow up to marry a certain young prince was now completely impossible and worked on a course of action. They explored whether they could go to the RSF without any public exposure or if they should simply try to handle the matter in the privacy of their own home and concoct a story about a tragic accident, but then my Grandfather mentioned another option, one he learned about when he received the security clearances necessary for his term as Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry: The LSF.
 
All was arranged for my parents, the paperwork for my trip to “boarding school” was produced, and if I died they were assured that all of the official records would say nothing of the actual circumstances. The years in training were unpleasant; I am told I cried a lot at first, more than most, but also that I displayed a commendable amount of endurance and malleability. I recall them comparing me to wet clay.
 
After training they determined other ways that I could be useful. At the time there was a classified project inside the RSF to catalog the old spiritual works of the benders, and I was invited to join them. It was a welcome change, and all of those hours inside the classified library are times I look back fondly on, especially as my relationship with my parents never fully recovered. My work proved useful when a new directive came from the highest levels of the government; a plan to replace the previous official policy of total censorship regarding the works of the past with an effort to develop a counter-narrative. They laid out a plan for my adult life; I would be the intellectual spearhead of this movement, a philosophical wunderkind. It went exactly as expected; my first published work was a scathing and authoritative analysis of Bender spirituality, immediately it was hailed as the definitive treatment of the topic. More acclaim followed, I became a staple of televised debates, my books reached the bestseller lists, and my rise in the philosophy department at the University of Ba Sing Se has been one of the fastest in the long history of the college. I broadened my horizons, producing works of moral philosophy that argued for a new, modern system based on utilitarian concerns, creating the Doing What We Can charitable foundation, which is committed to using its money towards whatever cause would save the most lives per Yuan, and marrying an equally fast rising law professor. In all outward respects, my life has been a success, my Husband and I are constant fixtures at prestigious social gatherings, I have humiliated my philosophical opponents in public debates, and I live in a lovely house in the upper ring that’s only downside is having to commute to the middle ring when it is time to teach classes. None of this matters, none of this can make me happy. I have a two thousand page manuscript sitting unfinished where I am to defend notions that I have long stopped believing, obsolete ideas like objective truth and free will. It doesn’t matter how many people tell me I am right if I don’t believe it myself, if I can’t see the world as anything except a collection of particles. I feel like I would be happier without the fame, without the prestige, if I could just go back to those days where I sat all by myself in the classified library. My marriage is one without love, it lumbers onward sustained by sheer inertia, neither I nor my husband invest any intimacy or care in it. I suspect he finds it elsewhere, while I learn to do without except for the rare moments of daydreaming of another relationship. The only thing I can say I truly like is teaching, whether it is instructing Ba Sing Se’s finest at the university, or helping to sharpen the next batch of LSF, there is something satisfying about shaping someone’s mind and seeing them grow.
 

[b]What is your opinion on Benders? [/b]
 I would like to preface this by saying that I am well versed in the philosophical works of the Bender era. I have read the religious and philosophical works of six Avatars, along with the spiritual works of Guru Pathik, Guru Laghima, Tenzin, Katara, Iroh, Zaheer, Unalaq, and Jinora and many other important works. I would venture to say that I have read more comprehensively on this subject than anyone else known to the public (I acknowledge to possibility there may be some with greater knowledge who aren’t yet known). I have found all of these works to be wanting and inferior to modern philosophy, full of untruths and sloppy logic. I find more value in analyzing their words as an insight into primitive psychology and anxieties rather than taking them as serious attempts to answer philosophical questions.

Those words were about the Bender’s philosophical system, but I am equally hostile towards the act of Bending. The legacy of Benders has been one of strife, inequality, and a feebleminded worldview that destroys any hope of progress. Bending is simply incompatible with a modern society, one that guarantees welfare for all and finds truths that were obscured by old superstitions. I say this without any malice to individual Benders; I will even admit our present system is excessively cruel. I wish that I could persuade all of them to see what is at stake so that would give up voluntarily, and even if there are some who cannot be swayed, I want their neutralization to be swift and without any suffering. This is the cost of the modern world, where modern agriculture and medicine have saved more lives than even the greatest Avatars, and one that surely has even more wonders we have yet to see.  Perhaps tomorrows scientists shall abolish death, put joy in a pill or find a way to download ten thousand minds into a device the size of a pebble. Will there be a moment when we have found the last answer, when there is no mystery left in the world? I don’t know, but the present system is the only thing that has any hope of reaching that goal. That alone means that there is no cost I would not bear to uphold it.
 
 [b]Bending Skills[/b]
	Master-level Air Bender
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 [b]Equipment:[/b]
 Combat Suit:
	[img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/da/de/89/dade89e68ac717caf04bb72849c486ce.jpg[/img]
 
 Features:
	▅▅▅▅
 
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