Ooh Okay Now I Understand. Wow, The Room For Angst With Lo'ak And Spider... From Spider's Pov, Lo'ak

ooh okay now I understand. Wow, the room for angst with Lo'ak and Spider... from Spider's pov, Lo'ak has thrown away this amazing life he's always wanted, so no wonder he's in a bad mood. And from Lo'ak's pov, Spider's always had the freedom and lack of pressure and expectations he's always wanted, so Lo'ak's finally run away and gotten what he always wanted with Quaritch and the recoms since he couldn't get it with the Sullies.

I can definitely see Spider and Leo butting heads over their differences! A Na'vi who sees Na'vi as evil vs a human who sees humans as evil is interesting. And I guess Kai would be more wary of Spider if Leo butts heads with him... and poor Leo will always think of sweet little baby MJ when he looks at Spider awww.

This is your au, you do whatever you want with it, but I think it would be a really interesting story if Spider finds a way to escape (since Quaritch is less evil in this au, maybe he wouldn't put a tracker in Spider's mask so Spider finds an opportunity to slip away when they're distracted) and makes his way back to Jake and co. And Jake, maybe losing Lo'ak made him reflect on his parenting and he regrets the way he treated Spider so he officially takes Spider in. So we have Jake adopting Quaritch's son and Quaritch adopting Jake's son. And whenever Jake and Quaritch run into each other they're like:

"You stole my son!"

"No, YOU stole my son!"

wait I have another question!

so I understand Kai and Leo are adopted by Quaritch when they're young, and Lo'ak runs away from home because of problems with Jake and then Quaritch takes him in after he gets injured. But what's Spider's deal?

In all of your art, Spider looks like he's not happy to be there, while the other boys all seem happy. Why is Spider still acting like he's a prisoner? Wouldn't Spider be happy that Lo'ak is there since they're best friends? And you described Kai as being like "mowgli" and since Spider is like "tarzan" wouldn't they get along since they're similar?

sorry for so many questions this au is so interesting!

I explained about Leo and Kai in previous post

About Spider

He gets captured almost like in canon. The difference is that of all the recoms, only Warren dies in the process (I can do anything I want in my au and I want recoms to live😌)

So he behaves pretty much like in the movie. About Lo’ak - Spider just genuinely doesn’t understand why would Lo’ak leave his family and everything else (everything Spider ever wanted) and join the “bad guys”. And seeing Lo’ak admiring Quaritch and craving his approval is weird to him. He doesn’t understand it’s literally what he was like around Jake - and that in turn was weird for Lo’ak

The only difference between their cases is that Quaritch is really starting to treat Lo’ak like a son, while Spider has never been anything more than a stray cat to Jake (angst yeah)

Leo and Spider also mirror each other, but in a different way (a human boy raised among the na’vi and a na’vi boy raised by humans). They will have a few problems becoming friends at first, mostly because their very different views of na’vi and humans

Also for Leo the villain is Sully because he’s the reason his father and so many people he cares about are gone. Na’vi - they abandoned him. Quaritch, on the other hand, is a hero to him. He saved Leo when he was a baby and he's been taking care of him ever since

It’s all a matter of perspective

Kai is… different. Spider is Tarzan because he has dreadlocks and climbs trees and I guess you can say he lived in the forest, but Kai is Mowgl because he was literally raised by animals. He behaves more like an animal than like na’vi or human

So he’s close to nature and animals, but not to na’vi culture or Eywa (though he can speak na’vi and he knows other stuff, how to use a bow for example - his father taught him before he died). Also Kai is… you can say weird? wild?… He doesn’t talk much. And he only cares about what Leo cares about.

But after all eventually all the kids gradually get along and become good friends

It’s ok I’m really happy you’re interested😖💙💙💙

I still believe to this day that we are missing a scene that should've happened between Spider agreeing the "ride along" and the ikran-bonding scene. I get why Quaritch started to like Spider cause that's his kid even if he won't admit it, but we don't know what happened for Spider to start liking Quaritch. Jack Champion once referenced a scene he filmed that never made it to the final cut where he bullied the recoms into going barefoot. We never see the recoms wear shoes again after Spider joins the group so we know this scene "happened" just off-screen. There's gotta be just one little scene of Quaritch doing something to Spider that made him start to trust him that they cut for whatever reason. I'm not saying there should've been a whole extra arc or anything, but come on, give us SOMETHING!

This is why so many people ended up hating or not understanding Spider. They TOLD us through the way Quaritch and Spider behaved towards each other that they cared, but they didn't SHOW us what actually happened! SHOW not TELL is so important in story telling!

If I don't find out what happened with spider and quaritch in the months that they spent together next movie I’m storming down to disney myself

Me looking at the unfinished second half of Common Enemy 😭

Miles the Terrible and his son Miles

Im obviously inspired by the painting Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan. I find their dynamic is quite fitting for Quaritch and Spider despite the fact that i dont think Quaritch deserves to be Spider’s dad

As someone who is judged for where i came from and who my father is, i can relate to Spider on a personal level. So no i dont want to see the kids take on their fathers’ feud, and i hope the take away from this painting is not how fatherly Quaritch is. I hope i convey a terror

Also i like Spider with fluffy curly hair 🫶

And i painted this in a burst of energy so it kinda a little crooked and messy 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Artwork for an atwow themed pinball machine lol

Image source