We’re native and we like cartoons and we age regress so we were pretty excited to watch Spirit Rangers. We’ve watched five episodes so far and the first episode is still our fav. Spoilers ahead.

In the first part there is an unexpected storm and the spirit rangers go to investigate the cause. They find out that thunderbirds are the cause. They call the thunderbirds and the thunderbirds come down and say they can’t find their baby. So the spirit rangers go to find the baby. The turtle spirit ranger who has been feeling afraid and unsure for the whole episode realizes that the baby thunderbird might be feeling afraid and unsure too. He finds the baby thunderbird hiding in a cave and explains that the thunder is just the sound of her parents flapping their wings. Now that the baby thunderbird understands what the sound is, she feels less afraid and comes out of the cave. She is then reunited with her parents.

I really like this episode because the turtle doesn’t feel like he is ready to be a ranger and fears he will make mistakes. As trace I find that really relatable. I want to express myself and identify how I feel but I’m afraid other people will say I’m doing it wrong. I headcanon the turtle as trans ndn and I like when his siblings reassure him and tell him he’s ready. I also really like how specific this show gets with identifiers. The parent thunderbirds say they can’t find their “baby thunderbird”. They don’t just say “baby”; they say “baby thunderbird”. At first I thought “of course their baby is a thunderbird, they didn’t need to specify that” but that’s just an assumption. This happens throughout the show in different ways and it gives the world of the show a more radical feel, because characters are IDing people how they are instead of leaving it to be assumed.

My favorite part maybe is the turtle explaining to the baby thunderbird that the thunder is her parents flapping her wings. It made me think, “has she never heard her parents flap their wings before, and why would a thunderbird be afraid of something so natural to them?” Then I realized how trace that is: to not have experience people would assume you have given your race, and to be unfamiliar or even uncomfortable with things people of your race tend to accept. It also reminded me of how autistic people like me can feel out of place in their own culture. The baby thunderbird doesn’t like how loud the flapping is. She has a sensory sensitivity that makes her unlike other thunderbirds, but her parents still accept her and call her their “baby thunderbird”. I headcanon the baby thunderbird as autistic trans thunderbird.

If anyone has native media recs let us know. We’re pretty sensitive and tend to like stuff focused on native joy, rather than native suffering <3