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My blorbo. My guy. My firstborn son. You did him so clean, thank you you're a kind and talented individual.

Pū, prince of Dalaam! Made with Blender! 🌪

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Exactly, which I think really speaks about how much he is NOT okay, by definition. Like, I wouldn't be happy if the only people who "cared " about me were the fangirls who swoon all over me because I'm cool and I'm the prince. Like, can we give Poo a break? In general I think his whole background, if you take canon literally, is pretty hollow and sad from my prospective. Man I just really want him to give up on his kingdom (for how selfish that is) and just live a normal life with someone that actually cares about him. Like, ACTUALLY, cares about him.

going insane over how Ness and Paula both have a parent who puts on a brave face and tells them that they understand why they have to set out to save the world... while the character who fills that role for Jeff isn't his father, but rather Tony

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Then there's Poo, who has... Uhh... His master I guess...? But Poo aside, Tony ny fucking beloved, YOU are Jeff's family and he totally deserves it.

going insane over how Ness and Paula both have a parent who puts on a brave face and tells them that they understand why they have to set out to save the world... while the character who fills that role for Jeff isn't his father, but rather Tony

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This makes me mad in many different ways and none of them are because of my ship.

so i just beat earthbound by myself for the first time. something i noticed about the ending is that while Paula's father hears her prayer, and Ness's mother hears it as well, Dr. Andonuts doesn't. he starts praying because the Mr. Saturns heard the prayer.

the one praying for Jeff is Tony. and i LOVE that detail, that the family who's praying for Jeff is the one he chose.

meanwhile, the people praying for Poo, uh

...look, the guy kinda got around

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This. This is peak.

the GAANG if they made presentations

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Saving this

i know we joke about cis artists having the weirdest sense of anatomy, but also even when the anatomy is fine, no one seems to want to draw women doing normal things

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GIVE IT TO ME. GIVE IT TO ME. INFODUMP ME RIGHT NOW I LOVE MAGICANT RELATED STUFF RAHHHH/ jk kk you don't need to if you don't feel comfortable, art slaps btw

Self-perception

This is based on an AU i had back in 2021 that will never see the light of the day because I kinda have grown out of it (and also because I get embarrassed sharing angsty stuff 🥲)

I don't know how to explain exactly what it was about, but it was related to magicant and Ness's underlying issues with himself

Yeap

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BANGER ART BANGER ART BANGER ART

what to do if your manipulative boss doesn't respect you, step one:

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Its perfect. PERFECT.

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Poo looks so unbotherered, he just like me fr

leaking my favorite part of the animatic because i thought it would make a good gif. i think it's very cutesy

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You missed the part where you feel intense guilt after you pass to another hyperfixation

What I mean when I do not control the hyperfixation.

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Yep. Don't care that she's canonically with Zuko. Mai IS dating Ty Lee and they put her with Zuko to hide it.

weird that you have to be a certain level of In Deep with atla to understand & ship mailee (i want to say that it should be clear to first time viewers but experience has taught me this is not usually the case) bc it's just the most obvious thing in the world to me. yeah ik that's "zuko's gf" but really she is dating the circus girl. for thematic reasons

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I thought for a moment that Poo was wearing a pretty princess dress

well?

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UNA DI NOI. UNA DI NOI. UNA DI NOI.

i feel like i'm going Italian

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I have no comment to add this time. The picture alone is more than a thousand words.

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Everyday I blame tumblr for not having a save feature. "Cat" is the perfect way to describe Blue Spirit and I'm gonna use it unironically from now on.

The Blue Spirit

Before we get into the episode, a couple of thoughts that have been rattling around my brain: -Last episode was heavy. I need jokes please. -it's been a while since I've seen a hybrid animal. I thought those were going to be a running gag. -It's been a while since there has been any gorgeous background art. -The last couple of episodes have really pushed Sokka and Katara to the background. I'm missing the ensemble style episodes.

Episode time!

It's Zhao. Hi asshole. Actually this conversation is touching on something I've been wondering about:

The fire nation has bigger fish to fry than a quarter-trained 12 year old.

If this whole episode happens at night time I'm going to really miss my CRT.

Zhao is now turbo asshole. Also there's a weird blue cat on his roof.

Imagine having a sick day on an Appa couch. Heavenly. And where are they hiding this time? Why is there a giant tapestry?

Looks like this won't be much of a Sokka episode.

Not going to be a Katara episode either. This is a novel way of benching your side characters.

How does airbending make you go faster? I could see earthbending making you faster, just by moving your running surface, but how does Aang do it?

I do like roadrunner shenenigannery.

Momo doesn't understand English confirmed. Also he has green-tinted vision? Do his irises coat his pupils? That would be weird.

Behold! A non-hydrid animal.

"It's been almost an hour and you haven't given the men an order." Ouch. Burn.

I'm not much of a Zuko fan, but even I have to admit that this is a sucky situation in a long line of sucky situations. You have to feel for him here.

Frog popsicles. Did not see that coming. Note the lack of hybridity.

Now he looks like those arrow guys.

Using aerial weaponry against an airbender seems really stupid. I guess they've got numbers one their side.

Is literally everybody in this world a professionally trained acrobat? Do all four nations include that in the school curriculum?

Compensating?

Could the action wait until morning please? I can't see.

Zhao doubling down on the asshole behaviour. Not cool. Keeping someone barely alive in captivity for as long as possible has to be some sort of war crime. Waging a war for a century against an entire planet is probably also a war crime, so again, bigger fish. There are assholes that are entertaining to watch and fun to root for, and assholes that are just plain mean. Zhao is now firmly in the latter category.

Poor Momo is trying his best. Zhao's right about there being no one to rescue Aang this time though. Even Appa's benched by babysitting duties.

The blue cat is back. Clinging to the underside of a moving cart using just your fingernails has got to be murder on the hands.

Good lord these guards are blind. This episode is too dark for me to see anything but I still saw blue cat guy hot foot it into the compound. His mask even has white parts.

Oh god he's monologuing. Blegh. Although convenient for blue cat guy. A desire to monologue may be Zhao's most consistent character trait.

Did the frogs do that?

The hallway-that-eats-our-guys just ate one of our guys. What should we do? How about send two more of our guys down the hallway-that-eats-our-guys? And leave only one to guard the door keeping the world's most powerful bender contained? Sounds good.

CAT.

He extinguished that guy! That gets funnier the more I think about it. All that fancy bending, years of training, and your fatal weakness is a bucket.

Exactly how many of those sword flourishes were necessary?

I like the blue cat's theme music. It's some sort of wind instrument, a bit kazoo-like, but it sounds a lot like this plastic toy trumpet I had as a kid that I'd play with whenever I was mad at my parents. I loved that thing, but it mysteriously vanished one day.

Blue cat is doing some seriously precision sword bending. Imagine if he'd missed? How do you live down cutting off the Avatar's hands and feet?

It WAS the frogs! Caught red- um. Footed? Do frogs have hands?

The return of One Man Army Aang.

Blue cat is surprisingly go with the flow for having just been catapulted dozens of feet without warning. Stuck the landing too. Sort of.

I'm sure there's some fascinating fight choreography going on at the moment but I CAN'T SEE IT.

Aang can briefly function as a load-bearing helicopter. Briefly.

So… how many of these guards are dead?

I am a dumb! How did I NOT see that coming? I am dumb! Much dumb!

Turns out there is one hairstyle worse than Zuko's usual.

In addition to roadrunnering, helicoptering, and ladderwalking, Aang can also carry someone taller and heavier than him at high speeds while fleeing the enemy. Is there anything airbending can't do?

Or maybe it was the frogs. Also I just realised that Fire Nation ships are shaped like Fire Nation shoes. I bet those shoes give you bunions.

Zuko was out for a WHILE. Might want to get that head wound checked out.

This hit unexpectedly hard. This episode's second surprisingly heavy scene. Can't they at least hug?

Was the kazoo-trumpet diagetic all along?

"Did you make any new friends?" "No. I don't think I did." Me:

Appa is your friend, not your toothbrush.

Final Thoughts

This was a character episode disguised as an action episode. Which I did not realise until I figured out that Blue cat man was Zuko all along.

Firebender Zuko has chihuahua energy. Blue Spirit Zuko has cat energy. Discuss.

Everyone needed a hug this episode. Including me. Except Zhao. Screw Zhao.

Zuko seems much more confident with those swords than he is with his fire. I don't mean to compare skill levels; I have no way of evaluating that. I mean he seems more sure of his movements with swords. Fire makes him shouty. Swords make him dance.

Can't really say much about Sokka and Katara this episode, although I do like that the reason they're out of commission is a direct consequence of last episode's exploits. Makes the through narrative feel more grounded if the small things as well as the large plot points have continuity/consequences.

Momo! Poor Momo. He really tried! Actually, I've been assuming, but is Momo a boy lemur?

I am utterly indifferent to the Arrow guys. Nice bit of stealthy worldbuilding, but I'll eat my hat if they ever recur.

This episode was The Storm part 2. Parallel angst threads concluding in the two mains staring contemplatively in silence after each other? Yep. Storm Part 2. This episode may have had even less humour than The Storm. I found the recurring frog jokes worked better than the Sokka and Katara are sick jokes.

I've been kind of nitpicky about this episode, but don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it. Kind of really ended on a downer though. It's also contributing to a growing suspicion of mine: would they pour all this development into Zuko, and set up a more powerful villain to take his place, if they meant for Zuko to stay the villain? The show started giving us insight into Zuko's character, and arguably a reason to pity him, at the same time as it gave us those things for Aang - The Southern Air Temple. This show has 60-some episodes. Would you humanise your villain in episode three if he was supposed to be the antagonist for the rest of the show's run? You could, but it would be a waste of writing energy. So what's going to happen? Is this war going to have three sides? I can't see Zuko fully switching sides, when his reasons for chasing Aang are so personal. Whatever Honour means in the fire nation, Zuko's only way to get it back seems to be capturing Aang. I can't think of anything Aang could give him that would be worth forever forfeiting his Honour.

I think this episode made the correct choice, in not having Zuko say anything when he wakes up in the forest with Aang. Like the end of the Southern Air Temple, and the end of (I think?) the Winter Solstice Part 2, some moments are enough - no dialogue needed. But - bear with me as I stray into fanfiction territory - wouldn't it be fascinating to hear the conversation Aang and Zuko might have had? And isn't it neat that Aang chose the conversational topic he did - not questioning why Zuko rescued him, but attempting to reach out? There was a choice made in his one-sided conversation with Zuko that I want to pick at. I can't put into words why I found that short scene so impactful. But I want to pick at it.

I'll be rewatching this episode on the CRT in my parents' basement when I can, because the brightness on my little laptop just does not go high enough. This episode was dark. Fittingly so, but still. I want to SEE.

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Holy shit bro I need that Claus so much

chibified guys for keychains and stickers ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ i need to put them on everything this instant