ATLA-The Boy in the Iceberg and The Girl in Quarantine

I was 13 when Avatar: The Last Airbender became the relatable bridge from Pokemon and Sailor Moon into what would later be a full-fledged anime phase in high school. I told myself I was done with cartoons because I was advancing quickly into adulthood yet had no other metric to prove this to my non-existent friends. However, in June of the same year, my mother and I decided to move to Los Angeles from Nashville, Tennessee. Needless to say, it was quite the culture shock, so I retreated into a saving grace to be blessed with a narrative rife with complex, stimulating themes that were more than simple set-ups of kids trying to get a jawbreaker (sorry, Ed, Edd, and Eddy) with elegant animation.

Much like other Young Adult material, there was a categorization element to help determine hints about characters' backgrounds/structures that also resonated with my young self. I was quick to decide that if I was within this fictional universe, I would be a Water Bender like Katara (which I would also assume would roughly translate to Ravenclaw) until I realized my fiery personality might more closely align with the bad-assery of Fire Nation characters (Slytherin...not even because I was mean spirited so much because I was such a goody-goody who still managed to have a temper)...little did I know as I grew up how this would change. I found Toph the most relatable over time until I realized that she had the blunt confidence that I lacked and so eagerly thought I could will myself into possessing. I took countless online personality quizzes and answered questions to try and garner the results I hoped for that day. It took me until deep into adulthood with distance from these various classifications that everyone is the Divergent...everybody is some part of everything, or no one would have any depth.

The only way I was able to justify watching the series and still feel cool was my gratitude for the characters having tangible story arcs and subplots that made them feel truly human. I could hide my geekiness in the shroud of studying structure and character development. The series came to an end eventually, and I shifted away from cartoons and into anime in high school until I graduated at 16 and then dove head-first into college. One could easily say this show was the last relic of my childhood, much like Aang was the last of his people.

Long ago, before the time of quarantine, the globe of nations (seemed) to live in harmony. Then, everything changed when COVID-19 attacked.

Human decency, the master of most problems could stop it. But when the world needed it most, it vanished. (What felt like) a hundred years passed when considering the thought of finally scraping the bottom of the Netflix barrel, I discovered a new show to watch, an Avatar: The Last Airbender.

I am most certainly riffing on the dramatic opening lines of this cartoon series, but when I say I dove into this series like I was 13 all over again, I mean it. I watched every episode and even traipsed into the sequel, The Legend of Korra. I'm telling you, my Instagram discover page is not without an ATLA/LOK meme each time I scroll through astrology memes and moody Tumblr quotes. I learned that over the years, everyone is a bit of an Avatar rather than being completely in one camp (though I can hear my various friends on Instagram that I can share the aforementioned memes with screaming at me how they're Fire Nation or what have you). I've learned that initial predispositions change with time. I've learned that sometimes I gained more wisdom watching the show with subtitles than I did listening to the suddenly higher-pitched-than-I-remember voices of many of the characters.

The most important lesson from going back down that rabbit hole was a lot of the wisdom that is baked into the show about self-actualizaion, maturing/coming into your own as a person, and various other self-esteem boosting lessons were unfortunately lost on me since I thought I was already so mature. In my formative years, I spent so much time and energy playing Adult that I never actually became one.

A forced sabbatical of this pandemic gave me the unique opportunity to wrestle with these themes and begin integrating them more seriously in my life. Who would have thought a deep-dive back into what is classified as a children's show could actually help springboard me into adulthood?

I have moved on to different binge sessions since then, and I am finding things to learn from each, like how to get a proper bake on a loaf of bread or that I am definitely an April looking for her Andy (or an Eleanor looking for her Chidi, Phoebe for her Mike, or Santiago looking for her Jake, or....never mind; I digress). However, the fact that my nostalgia trip started and ended with Avatar: The Last Airbender says something to its inherent value of content and to just how far I would allow myself back into my youth. Granted, gems like Dexter's Laboratory, Pokemon (the original, not the reboot), PowerPuff Girls (the original, not the reboot) and Teen Titans (the original, not the reboot) are not on Netflix, so it isn't fully fair to say there aren't future trips down other memory lanes, but for now, having a cartoon spirit guide was sufficient enough of a trip for me. For now.