Thinking About How Lo’ak Will Never Hear Neteyam Tell Him He’s Good Enough In Canon

Hey ya'll! I am still very much in ATWOW but I need non-fic specific inspo lmfao. Please feel free to flood the ask box!

Thinking about Ronen Rubenstein in that Behind The Blinds photoshoot again.

Photoshoot from here.

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WISHING UPON A LONE STAR — ...

Ever since he first discovered the thrill of the stage in his junior year of high school (thank you, unnamed guidance counselor who encourag

Friendships

Kiri and Spider have been best friends since the beginning

They met when Kiri was still an infant and Spider around 2. He still wasn't allowed to leave the labs but he snuck in to one of Kiri's checkups

He was a climber and a builder - hence his name - and so it was hard to keep him out of where he wanted to be

So when the toddler heard another cry in the building it was only a matter of time before he found it

He wanders, stumbling through the offices he's confined to and sneaking until he reaches the Avatars

Jake is there, Kiri in his arms, sitting next to Ms. Grace's tank. He's talking and it sounds like a story which Spider loves so he of course toddles his way over. He climbs into the Na'vi's lap without regard for his size, skin, or the fact that he's only met Jake a handful of times.

Jake, to his credit, catches the tiny human with a free palm under his butt. Paying no heed to the flabbergasted look on the mans face, he peers down to stroke the girls cheek

He flies for a moment while Jake tries to keep them apart but then the girl has his hand in her palm

She blinks up with big eyes and Spider offers a giant toothless grin: there was no going back after that

Neteyam comes with Kiri

He's Spiders age but double his size, 2' taller for the 2 months he's younger

Still, Spider doesn't let the few kids his age on Pandora get away. He's a social butterfly and opts to conquer Neteyam's introverted ways.

And so he toddles after the blue boy everytime he comes with his sister

Kiri is growing fast, especially next to human growth standards, but she still has a ways to go to meet Spider, so her big brother will have to do

It's 3 months of toddling after him, pulling his tail, and playing with the pretty beads adoring his hair while Neytiri tries desperately to keep the little human away from him

But, once again, containing Spider is mission the adults surrounding him have yet to accomplish

And so Neteyam finds himself with a little blonde flea attached to his side

He chases the younger boy through the halls, giggling at the tiny hisses Neteyam lets out when he catches him. He pulls his tail and climbs onto his big boy bed - he can use the grown up bunks now! - while Neteyam tackles his obstacles with ease.

The other boy is shyer but Spider has learned how to rile him up by now

They play for the hour or two that Jake spends with Kiri getting monitored in the labs. If Neytiri is there then it's harder, but Spider can normally get a story for them at least.

It continues on for a while with Kiri joining them as she starts to crawl, then toddle with their hair or her brothers tail in her fist

And it seems that gets Spider a little too comfortable

Namesake on full display, he tries to climb the bunkbed ladders of the bunk room while Neteyam is chasing him

He's gotten far too big for most of Spiders tricks to slow him down so the child thinks this is his chance to get a rare upper hand

Except bunk beds are tall and metal is slick and maybe Spider isn't really that much of a big kid yet

He really does try to catch himself but its too slippery and he hits the ground hard

The scientists around the lab don't like it when he cries and really does try to keep it in, but his arm really hurts and he can't help but let it escape

He waits for Neteyam to mock him or tell him to stop but instead finds himself craddled against the boys chest.

"Shhhh, shh, 's okay Spi, just stop cryin'. I-I'll get my Daddy and Uncl' Norm." Spider only shakes his head and cries more, clinging to the other boys beads.

"No'uh, 'm okay. 'm a big boy."

Neteyam stutters for a minute before he nods. The two boys stay curled on the floor for a few minutes then with Spiders arm cradled between them.

"Don't worry, 'm here Spi. Every'tings okay."

Their relationship is never as close as the others growing up but there's an understanding between them the others never have

They're equals, the two oldest brothers.

They might be opposites but they've got one another's backs...even if that's just taking left while the other takes right to corner Lo'ak at highcamp.

Neteyam never made friends easily

Spider forced himself into the picture and his siblings never really got a choice in the matter

Sure, being the Ole'ekytans son meant some of the other kids would clamor for his attention but he never did good at being more than casual

Responsibilities stack on him like like the berries on Tuks tarts: he doesn't have the time or strength to devote to anything else

His siblings are enough though. There's a war and he can't loose focus or they'll get hurt

He left them once and lost Spider - he won't let it happen again

It gets lonely though

He chases after his kid brother and protects his sisters from as much as he can but...there's no one to look after him

Then he meets Ao'nung

Ao'nung is brave and cool and gets it in a way his siblings just can't

He may not have grown up in a war but he has a little sister and another on the way - he knows the responsibility of an important father and its addicting to have that person in his life

They lean on eachother, quietly, and he finally has something for himself

He tells him things he never told anyone else

He talks about his fathers expectations and pressure, his mothers trauma, his worry over the human they left behind, and his fear for Kiri's future. He talks about Lo'ak running into danger and Tuk losing her innocence and Ao'nung talks about his anger. About the fear he has of whats to come, about Tsireya and how he worries this will break her. He's weak around him and Neteyam savors it.

Time goes by and he gets hurt. His arm might never be the same as it was and his ear still rings with the echoes of gunshots but he has his brother back and his family is safe

Neytiri finally, finally lets Spider come home but it's not over

He doesn't think it ever will be

But Ao'nung slips his hand into his and maybe he'll be okay

Maybe he doesn't have to do this alone

Rotxo was Ao'nungs first friend

They were friends from the first time they sat through lessons together and they've been attached at the hip ever since

Rotxo knows Ao'nung will be a great Ole'ekytan but he'll need a right hand and Rotxo is ready to step up

For a long time he thinks maybe he'll be more than that but the Sullys arrive and they both find that path a different way

Still, they're eachothers person

They back one another up no matter what and there is rarely one without the other

In training they pair up, have joint moves that they make just for themselves and know the others gaps or weaknesses like its their own

Tonowari didn't want to train them for war but they didn't want to risk being unprepared

So when the sky people reach their waters, they spend every hour they can steal with one another

They spar and wrestle and carve more weapons

Their hands shake with fear and adrenaline but they keep their thighs pressed to the others and carry on

Rotxo gains muscle mass and Ao'nung learns to use a bow Neteyam carved. They grow their skills, their strength, but also their fear

Unlike the Sullys, they didn't grow up with war on the horizon

They don't know what's coming and cling to each other while they can.

No matter what, they know they can rely on the other

It isn't until they see Quaritch dead that they'll let go of the breath they're holding but they hold the other up until then

Nothing could pry them apart and nothing that tries will walk away

Spreading the Rotxo x Spider agenda

Listen they're buddies

Rotxo has no clue what the hell he's supposed to do with this little demon when he shows up after Three Brothers Rock but he keeps showing up and he's actually kind of cool

He's like Lo'ak but slightly calmer?? He'll dive headfirst off the cliffs but he'll also sunbathe for 3 hours and that's the energy he needs

At first, their relationship is sorta tense; Lo'ak gave them a run for their money the first time they tried the mean girl routine but a few still try to pick on Spider

Seeing his siblings band around him and he himself attempt to bite and claw his way out of it is sort of his introduction to the group

(aka that's when he realizes they're cool, Kiri dragged Spider with them about a half hour after they got settled)

Meanwhile Spider lowkey thinks Rotxo is a little bitch tbh, it takes until Rotxo punches a guy for him to separate him from Ao'nung at all

Once they start actually talking its game over

Rotxo falls first but Spider falls harder

Spider grew up with absolutely 0 belief that anyone would ever be romantically interested in him and so he never really paid that stuff any mind

So when Rotxo tentatively offers him a courting gift, he has literally no clue why everyone is freaking out cause they're just bros???

But Kiri insists on braiding the little beads into the front of his hair and Rotxo damn near goes down when he sees his gift accepted

Listen he acts all big and tough but he's a big damn softie

Homie is a marshmallow

His next gift was a pair of woven gloves that honestly are absolute crap cause Na'vi don't normally need them but Jake may have quietly dropped that it could help Spider with riding

because yes, Jake is in on it and dammit he needs to make up for the lost Dad time

Spider thinks they're the shit and starts trying to make more pairs. At first, Rotxo thinks his weren't good enough until an even shittier pair ends up on his Marui in the morning

Kiri eventually sits Spider down to be like ",,, you know how na'vi courting is...right??"

But he thinks she is trying to get him to notice his feelings for Rotxo (which she is) and court him (she groaned so loud the birds flew away)

So they both start attempting to court the other, not realizing that the other already is

It isn't until Tsireya sits them down 3 months in and sounds it out for them that they realize anything

At that point though they just settle into a courtship filled with competition

Cause now someone needs to win

Gifts, lessons, help, etc fly between them to everyone's amusement and frustration

Eventually, Rotxo gets a little too confident and gets him a blend of herbs from Ronal that is not human safe and that's when they finally have to call it quits (Spider is adamant that almost killing your boyfriend means he won)

Rotxo is the second person that Spider tells what happened to him in his captivity

(Kiri was the first, they spent hours one night lamenting everything that happened with their feet in the water)

Unlike Kiri, Rotxo had no idea what the sky people are capable of

It's he who finally gets Spider to tell the Sullys, Tonowari, and Norm what happened

Rotxo trains him with Neteyam to get Spider's strength back up, trying to help him regain his abilities from before and feel capable again

Spider never really got real lessons on much of anything, it was all that Neteyam and Lo'ak taught him after Jakes lessons or the few times he snuck with them on a hunt

So his fighting style is a weird mix of instinct, forest techniques, and the military skills he picked up in Bridgehead

Rotxo thinks its hot lowkey but Ao'nung and Tonowari decide he needs real training

(Especially if he's gonna be a part of their clan someday)

Thoughts??? I have many

Sully kid childhood headcanons

❤️ Spider and Kiri had been dealing with the seizures for years without knowing what they were - they started when the sky people returned and normally were very small or more akin to falling asleep than anything - essentially the scene where Spider sits over her at the start of the movie

❤️ They dealt with it quietly thinking it was more of Kiri being blessed/weird than a medical concern - Spider almost threw up when he found out it was medical and she could have died

❤️ Spider has a lot of tiny immunities and adaptations on Pandora - some of them are small and almost unnoticeable like allergy adaptions or food tolerances and others almost seem like super powers, like him not being killed by wildlife immediately (something they sort of blame as him being attached to Kiri for most of their childhoods) or his heat resistance (aka how this mostly white ass child has his skin in tact)

❤️ Na'vi don't really have periods so the first period for all of the AFAB kids was ROUGH

❤️ Trans! Spider was first and they thought he was actively dying ,,, like homie wears a loincloth it was bad

❤️ Kiri was ten times worse cause Na'vi are intersex and they were sort of betting on that overriding the human half but then she woke up cramping

❤️ Neytiri damn near killed Jake for not explaining them to her (to be fair, he tried. She thought it was barbaric and something only Spider would deal with and promptly blocked it from her memory)

❤️ Tbh Jake had no idea if he had sons or daughters until their first communions with their parents - it wasn't until joining ques that he really understood how Na'vi understand gender

❤️ Norm taught Spider than Paz was a hero - he didn't find out she was on the enemy side until he was almost 14. Lo'ak almost punched him for it

❤️ Lo'ak was the kid to ALMOST break a bone every other day

❤️ Lo'ak somehow never actually got hurt but Neteyam got hurt every single time trying to stop him

❤️ it's how come Neteyam had the pain tolerance to keep swimming

❤️ Kiri brought something home on a regular basis and had puppy eyes that got Jake and Neteyam to do almost anything - Neytiri was immune to all the puppy dog eyes her kids had...except Tuks. Tuk clocked her with just a hint of a pout

❤️ Kiri would take home anything she found - sometimes for good reason and sometimes because she decided it was her best friend

❤️ Jake likes to tease that Spider was one of such finds, it hurts when they're little but he wears it like a badge of pride when he feels comfortable in his place in the family

❤️ Neteyam has a gorgeous voice but any instrument he plays sounds like a dying wailing cow

❤️ Lo'ak is the opposite - if they could stop bickering, they would be a pretty good duet

❤️ Kiri, lovingly, sucks at both. She can do some spiritual songs for ceremony but it is with a ton of work to sound decent

❤️ Spider can sing well but the instruments are normally about as big as him...he does play a mad triangle when he makes one out of old lab equipment tho

❤️ Neteyam went through a mean phase that lasted approximately a week...he was snippy and just sort of bratty to everyone when he was like 11. It was fine until he made baby Tuk cry and Neytiri gave him the eye opening of a lifetime...he made being the best big brother ever his life goal after that

❤️ Spider and Lo'ak like to teach the ikran tricks - including some that probably should have gotten them both killed

❤️ Spider has a missing nick in his ear and scars on the back of his cheek from a tussle he and Lo'ak got into with the Syaksyuk near hometree - Lo'ak almost lost a couple fingers prying it off his face

❤️ They had to do all of Kiri's chores for a month and half to convince her to fix them up AND cover for them but Lo'ak had dirt on virtually everyone so he convinced her

❤️ Lo'ak was the village gossip - he was horrible at keeping secrets but he knew everything about everyone. His siblings had to censor him to keep him from getting his shit rocked

❤️ Neteyam had a line of kids with crushes on him and was oblivious to it. He was a very eligible bachelor to his age group and many wanted to court him through their teenage years with hopes of being his mate. He picked up on virtually none of it and was a bit of an accidental heartbreaker

❤️ Lo'ak, on the other hand, had a bit of the bad boy thing going until his mom dragged him across hometree by the ear. After that, his dorky side sort of overtook the bad boy look and he was sort of the town mischief maker. Very mixed reception from the older crowd but most of the younger were very fond of him

❤️ Kiri and Spider were always a package deal and the town weirdos. They had some of the youth fond of them but it was more of a distanced friendship than anything. They were mostly close with one another and their siblings.

❤️ "Monkey Boy" was because Jake said that raising the 5 of them was like herding monkeys but Spider was the only earthling so he was the only one who could be a monkey

❤️ Fun fact they do not understand what monkeys are

❤️ Tbr they don't understand a lot of earth things but they feel cool saying it

❤️ All of them are fluent but would probably sound very different with native speakers that hadn't just spent a decade on Pandora

❤️ Spider is BUILT but they all think he's puny cause he's so much smaller than Na'vi. On earth, he would be a pretty impressive athlete and it's literally just from this kid trying to survive

❤️ Lo'ak didn't tell anyone but he got into several fights protecting his siblings over the years. He also got Trudy to teach him to shoot long before Jake was aware...he always had a feeling that war wasn't over with

❤️ Lo'ak was always the best fighter, he just wasn't the best solider, Neteyam was. Jake just never realized the difference

❤️ Teamwork makes the dreamwork and these kids have nightmares

Ya'll send me ideas pls my brain ain't braining

Metkayina daughter

okay okay so I have thoughts and want opinions on what ya'll want for the last kiddo

Avatar baby - (A lovely suggestion where the munchkin is made of their DNA and grown like an avatar body)

Bio baby - Someone carries the baby (pls comment your preference, this one would take some finagling but like intersex Rotxo and trans Spider are both canon in my lil universe so i feel the need to add it

Random adoption - baby just fucking ,, showed up, parents aren't overly important but Rocorro raise her

Specific adoption - Similar to the boys, she's adopted from someone specific

pls comment or send asks with y'alls thoughts, I'm v curious about what y'all think

Spider + Kiri Platonic HCs

Platonic soulmates

Kiri claims him as her platonic partner when she's like 16 as a way to establish him as part of her family

At first it causes some raised eyebrows, people suspecting they are more than friends or something shady is happening until it is clear Spider is content with his respective partner and they are content with just having their brother at her side

They each have a little matching braid in their hair with beads for the other, it's a little reminder and a little claim when nothing in their lives are stable

They are also best friends with Lo'ak and act as a trio but he's more popular and less of a "village freak" so to speak and so their dynamic has always been a little bit different

Before she was born, Spider was always intrigued by Grace and her pregnancy. He would curl up by her tank with his toys or tablet, babbling to the tank and to the sister he didn't yet know was his

The occasional floating visitor kept Neytiri from separating him from Grace and later baby Kiri

They have about a 2 year age gap but it's not exact with Na'vi aging

Kiri was convinced braiding Spiders hair would create a tswin if they tried hard enough as a small child

Spider didn't really get it but let her play with his hair whenever she wanted, just liking the attention and the soft touches

Spider had a crush on her for about a year when they were 12 and 10 but later realized it was moreso just a lot of care he didn't know how to process

Kiri is the reason Spider learned what love is

Lo'ak and Kiri grew up tag teaming Jake and Neytiri with comments about their 'other brother' or 'Dads human kid' in attempts to get them to accept Spider as family

It sort of worked on Jake but scared Neytiri more

Kiri is the only one who can always find Spider when he runs off, but Spider is takes hours trying to find them when the rolls are reversed

It helps them both to know that someone always comes looking

Neytiri reluctantly lets it be that Kiri added a bead to her and their siblings songchords for Spider

Spider thinks Kiri is the strongest person he's ever met (though if you ask he'll say Jake)

She was who kept coming to mind when the RDA tried to search his mind and he had to blur her face and voice until he could barely remember them for fear of what it could mean for them

Their relationship is how Jake learned of platonic bonds in Na'vi culture and how valued they are in their society

It's also part of why he starts trying to bring Spider into the family more and more as the kids grow older

Spider thinks that Kiri will want him around less after Neteyam is shot but she leans on him tenfold

They're one anothers anchor

Kiri forgives Spider for saving Quaritch but its something they're never able to completely forget

On the same page, they never forgive Neytiri for pulling them away when Spider was taken and places blame on themself and their mother on bad days since they didn't go back

Kiri is the only one who really knows what humans can and cannot have of the Na'vi - she had to learn since Lo'ak and Spider kept daring one another to do stupid things

Kiri hates the dreads and ends up twisting and braiding his hair with Rotxo when they get to Awa'talu

Spider and Rotxo dye Kiri's tips red like her mothers with berries and paint - which almost got them killed by Neytiri but Kiri loved it

When Rotxo starts courting Spider, Kiri helps him by adding some of Rotxo's stripes to his paint (it's the first pattern that wasn't hers he ever wears)

Spider spends days with Kiri gathering gifts when Kiri tries to pursue their first real relationships

He also dyes the girls tail red with his hair dye knowledge when she breaks Kiri's heart

This is exactly what I want my posts to inspire thank you

Hey so if spider makes it through everything and all that what’s the plan

Like are we just gonna have an elderly man one day chillin with his still-young little siblings on the beach until one of them smacks him for a snide ass comment and breaks him in half?

👹👹I loved this, the angst was beautiful!! And yes you did get the ask right!

I can’t wait to read more work from you!

Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :)