Katara: BOY???? HOT BOY?????? HOT TEENAGE BOY?????????

Zuko: *speaks*

Brushing Appa of course. Zuko would be pretty decent at that, but would come back to Aang absolutely covered in slobber and bison hair. “Awww! He likes you! <3″

Then it’d be calming meditation and slowing Zuko’s breathing (”But I am calm!”), tracking an elusive and nigh legendary animal so they can ride it, teaching patience by baking the perfect cake ”You just slapped the frosting on! It looks awful! *airbends it into the horizon* “Again!”

When Zuko finally gets it right, he almost smiles at Aang saying: “Excellent work, my student.” Then to Zuko’s consternation and horror Aang flings it at the head of the Fire Nation Governor during a political function. “And now we run!”

Pranks would be absolutely the thing that would bluescreen Zuko. Here’s an airbending master, over a century old, witnessed the genocide of his people, and he’s juggling, doing dances and tricks with Momo for the village kids, and plaguing the local aristocrats and military officers with flying cakes and whoopie cushions.

“How am I supposed to beat the Firelord with whoopie cushions?!”

And then, perfectly serious for the first time since Zuko had met him: “You don’t. The Avatar is about restoring balance. This training isn’t so you can fight the Firelord - it’s so you can stop a war.”

It takes a long time for Zuko to understand this. But the weird thing is: the townsfolk actually like Aang. Sure the aristocrats and crooked merchants and the officers don’t, but even the common Fire Nation infantry hide their chuckles with a cough when they see their commander’s fancy armor get covered in honey and feathers by “Crazy Aang,” again.

And Zuko realizes, at that moment, that he’s been having fun.

So, waking early, with no prompting from Aang, Zuko feeds Momo, brushes Appa, washes off the slobber, brews Aang his morning tea -perfectly cooled- and then proceeds to make a new, beautiful cake with no explanation.

“That looks wonderful, my student. Your best yet! Who were you planning to-”

Then Zuko smashes it in Aang’s face.

But Aang and Bumi have been hanging out on and off over the century (and the White Lotus is Noticeably Different For It) so obviously the kids ask why

Aang’s still teaching the avatar; why won’t Bumi?

And Bumi stares them all dead in the eye, points at Aang, and says in a total deadpan “because if I have to sleep next to this asshole for more than a week I’ll kill you all myself”

When your notes make a perfect cat

And now Denia's story in WuWa 3.3 has a weeping angel-like scene that's actually pretty long where you have to navigate Denia past all these person-sized dolls that are literally like weeping angels.

I would kill to have a feature that switches off the movement. I can't even get past this part without dying a lot and it's an unskippable part of the main story! Honestly, I'd take an option that lets me jump to directly after this whole section. This is honestly so scary.

I watched someone walk-through the whole scene like 8 times before I did it myself. I even put on some headphones and listened to some bright, happy music while I was doing it so I wouldn't have to hear the horrible clacking movement noises of the dolls. And I was still freaking out the whole time.

There was a shimmer - a demon appeared.

"Curious. What ritual is this?"

"I got it from ChatGPT. I included all protections in my prompt!"

"Your first mistake was entrusting your work to the hallucination machine." It reached down to pinch the mixture, give it a sniff. "Potassium chloride? What ash is this?"

"Um." The disciple nudged a bucket with their boot.

"Tastes like ... maple. And potatoes. Blech." It wiped its fingertips clean on their robes. It paused, rubbing its tongues against the roof of its mouth. "Damnation, what did you anoint the candles with? Is that ... PAM?"

The disciple whimpered. "It wasn't specified."

"Pfft. Of course not." It sighed, and extended its tri-fingered hand. "Let me see that incantation." Shakily, the parchment was extended, and snatched with irritation. " 'Bene! Ecce incantatio initiorum ...' What the seven hells is this? You didn't even trim the auto response."

"Well, I don't speak Latin..."

The demon snorted. The parchment sailed over its shoulder to a candle and hovered there, alight, then disappeared in a puff of ash and smoke. "Right. Legally I could take at least a limb for this, but hey, you like your limbs, right? Pretty attached to them, you'd say?" The disciple desperately nodded. "Great. So here's what we're gonna do: you're going to write me an essay --"

"What?!" The disciple gasped, paled. "Wait, no, maybe an arm would be okay..."

"-- shut up. You're going to hand-write a 2,000 word essay -- listen, no -- and you're going to write it on the perils of sourcing research from generative AI. You are going to source this in MLA format -- yes the fuck you are --" tired of the protestations, the demon's hand loosely threatened the human's throat, and quickly made its point, "and you will do this and turn it in in two weeks' time, with a proper summoning ritual. And -- and this part is very important, mind you -- you are going to tell all your little demon-summoner buddies that if this ever happens again I will simply eat your fucking souls and be done with it. Do you understand me?"

The disciple nodded again, with wetter pants.

"Good. Fine." The demon roughly patted the student on the head and retreated back to the ruined glyph where it stood expectant, hands on what must have been its hips. "Alright. Banish me and call me up properly in two weeks. Don't make me come looking for you."

"I -- uh -- well, that is to say, I don't... um."

The demon's shoulders dropped. "You don't know how to banish."

"I don't know how to banish, no."

The demon let loose a series of deep, frustrated grumbles that had some resemblance to speech, enunciated with emphatic gestures, and gave the vague impression of a dinner getting cold. "Get a pen."

"What? Oh, I --"

One of the main reasons she stays by his side is because she sees herself as the guardian of flame alchemy. She’s trying to make sure of two things: 1. no one ever gets their hands on it again. and 2. the only person who can use it never misuses it again. That’s why she follows him. She has to. She’s watching the weapon she helped create.

And she has to keep him alive not only because he’s the one with the political power (meaning he’s her only real way to make sure the trials happen), but because he has to live long enough to atone for what he did with flame alchemy. The power SHE gave him.

From Riza’s point of view, every crime Mustang commits is hers too. Every time flame alchemy is used to kill that blood is on her hands too. Every person he killed is someone she killed by proxy.

She’s not just guarding him. She’s sharing his guilt. It’s like she’s trying to atone for her own sins, but he has to atone too so she can atone through him.