Bleh

Toph: *puts down two more cups*

Katara: Please, no-

Katara who for a good chunk of her life thought she would live and die as the last waterbender of the southern water tribe. The person who experienced raids that came to KILL her. She genuinely thought she was the last of her kind as well.

And you have the audacity to be like “You couldn’t possibly understand!”

SPOILERS FOR AVATAR AANG: THE LAST AIRBENDER:

The MacGuffin of Truth, the ally-turned-betrayer, the powerful fury quelled by a glance at a loved one... it all felt very reliable. They played the hits. They stayed the path. What novelty came from the updated character designs and art style was undercut by unspecified fight choreography and nonexistent stakes.

Tahga was never going to succeed in the slightest. There would be no new Airbenders. Anyone who has even heard of The Legend of Korra knew that there were no new Airbenders. Republic City stands firm and unbothered by the Spirit Realm Temple That Crashed Into It. The Denied, a proto-Equalist movement, was never going to make headway. The characters we see are too young and unchanged by lives lived to be in any permanent danger. This is always the case in mid-quels, but Team Avatar is usually so good at plot and substance that I had expected more from the movie.

Also, and this might be a nitpick, but the Avatar State being used as a Nitro-boost, to catch a tower or to punch a little faster, is so anticlimactic. Aang was breaking out the Glowy Tattoos so much and for so little it felt like the creators of the film didn't want us to forget it could happen.

It doesn’t say anything unique, it doesn't blaze any new paths. I get why it was only released into two theaters. I dont get why I paid 25 dollars to see it in theaters.

Sure, the Northern Tribe might have benders, but they have such a different culture/identity around bending compared to the South. We see in Hama's flashbacks that the Southern Tribe had male and female benders at the helm, fighting equally, learning the same things, sharing the same tactics. They weren't left behind as strictly healers or defenseless women given a man's gift, they were strong.

And the thing that separates Katara and Aang's stories being the last benders of their nations is that Aang remembers what it means to be an Air Nomad. There are obviously blind spots because of how young he was, but Aang knows the customs and the culture and spiritual practices. He was able to pass those down to Tenzin and his grandchildren, he was able to start the process of rebuilding what was lost.

But Katara? She was even younger than Aang was when the Southern waterbenders were eradicated. There are Southern practices that are most definetly just... a fractured part of history because she never got to experience them. There are ways of hunting, of building, of navigating the waters, ways of healing, probably even spiritbending, that are simply lost to time.

And maybe her grandmother can clue her into it, memories from a nonbender living aside benders, but it's not the same. She didn't get to hear it from the waterbenders, she didn't get to learn from a Southern waterbender, she doesn't even know what to rebuild because it was never something she was versed in.

That's why The Puppet Master is such a heartbreaking episode. Because Hama could have been the Southern teacher Katara clearly wanted, she could have shown her more, but ended up passing on her legacy of Bloodbending. And on the inverse, I can't even fully call Hama a villain for wanting Katara to know how to bloodbend, because the ache of thinking you were the only one left for so long, the rage against a Nation known for destroying nations, would've driven anyone insane.

Like, Grace is in the bathroom, shaving, the curtain pulled to the side and suddenly he stops and says "stop touching my stuff". Rocky, frozen, somewhere behind him, can't fathom how Grace sensed that. He was so quiet. The razor is so loud. Grace's still facing away from him. What the fuck.

Carb starts your engine, protein keeps it going.

Cookie

Fruit (canned or fresh)

Chips

Piece of bread

Popcorn

Crackers

Easy protein add on:

Nuts

Spoonful of nut butter

Cheese

Roasted chickpea snacks

Glass of milk (dairy or non dairy)