Cyren Myadd Writes - Tumblr Posts

I would love for Avatar to continue even after movie and 4 and 5, but ONLY, I repeat, ONLY if it's following James Cameron's plan for the story after he's passed the baton onto a younger director. I will be DISTRAUGHT if avatar gets the star wars/MCU treatment where Disney buys it and turns it into a cash cow and milks it for a bunch of low-quality, poorly written series. I would rather have it end as 5 and be left alone than let Disney get their greedy rat paws on the creative rights 😭

Avatar haters crying, screaming, throwing up. 😎

Don't Ask Questions You Already Know The Answer To: an Avatar one-shot

📢SPOILER WARNING FOR AVATAR 3: plot is inspired by script leaks!📢

When the RDA recaptures Spider months after the Battle at Three Brothers Rock, they make a shocking discovery: he now has the ability to breathe Pandoran air without a mask. This is a cause for celebration. Ardmore believes the sci-ops crew can study Spider's body and find a way to replicate his miraculous ability in other humans. All of a sudden, humanity’s future on Pandora isn't limited to metal facilities and exopacks. They now have not just a chance to survive on Pandora, but to thrive.

While the sci-ops crew move forward with their invasive investigation, Spider asks Quaritch a hard question: “If they decide to kill me, will you let them?”

This idea has been itching my brain for awhile and I just had to scratch it! Don't worry, I'm still working on my other fic, I just needed to scratch this itch. I hope you enjoy! And if anyone is interested in me expanding on this one-shot, please let me know cause I'm open to that if there's interest, though BITTW will come first of course!

Final Update on Blood Is Thicker Than Water

Hello to everyone who has been following Blood Is Thicker Than Water! As you can see, I went from feeling very passionate about this fic, updating 9kish word chapters weekly, to burning out and completely losing all motivation for it. This fic has been a wild ride, I’ve learned a lot about myself as a writer and I’ve greatly appreciated all the wonderful comments and support I’ve gotten from my lovely readers 💙 As much as I’ve enjoyed writing BITTW, looking back, I also have a lot of regrets. Partly with planning because this fic has expanded into something way bigger than I ever wanted it to, and also partly with the content. I regret making this fic as dark as I did, and unfortunately, it was just going to get darker as it went on. At this point, there’s no way to backtrack and turn this into a lighter story without basically rewriting the whole thing, especially after chapter 17. I think I greatly overestimated the kind of content I was comfortable writing and forced myself to keep going with it even though I knew in my gut I was uncomfortable with it. One of the most important things I’ve learned about myself on this journey is that just because I’m comfortable reading certain dark themes, that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable writing dark themes. I will be mindful not to make this mistake again in the future.

This fic started out as a passion project I genuinely loved writing, but now it’s turned into something I dread working on. I’ve had to be honest with myself that it’s not good to force myself to keep writing something I don’t enjoy anymore, so I am sad to announce that I am done with Blood Is Thicker Than Water.

I’m sorry to all my readers who were excited to keep reading. Even though I can’t keep working on this anymore, I don’t want to leave everyone on a never-ending cliffhanger. I still want to give you guys closure on how this was going to end, so this final chapter includes the summary of the ending of BITTW. I hope you guys enjoy it, and if you have any questions about the ending, feel free to send me an ask.

Hi I Love Blood Is Thicker Than Water.❤️❤️❤️

Do you have any other Spider and Quaritch Fanfic Planned?

I'm glad you enjoyed it 💙

Yes, I do have another multi-chapter Spider and Quaritch fanfic planned that would act as a sequel to my one shot, "Don't Ask Questions You Already Know The Answer To," but I'm not ready to start it yet. I need a break after BITTW, plus my personal life is very busy rn. In the meantime, I'm gonna get around to answering the awesome writing prompts folks have sent me with some one-shots!

Even though I haven't started writing it yet and probably won't for a long while, I wrote up a little description of it just for fun :) lmk what you think!

"Along Came Spider"

Quaritch spent his whole life knowing exactly what he believed in: a better future for humanity, no matter the cost— even if that cost was murder. He never doubted himself, never questioned his mission. His loyalty never wavered.

And then along came Spider.

Now, Quaritch has thrown away everything he ever believed in for the sake of his son. The RDA brands him a traitor for disobeying orders, while the Na’vi outcast Spider for saving his life. With no plan and no allies, they’re forced to flee to a strange, harsh land inhabited by a clan that’s even stranger and harsher. Taken prisoner by this tribe of heretical warriors, the only thing they can depend on is each other. But even with all the bridges they burned, the past still haunts them. Quaritch nurses his hunger for revenge against Jake, while Spider dreams of forgiveness from his friends. Surviving their new captors and their unhealed wounds will either drive the father and son further apart, or bring them closer than ever before— if they survive at all.

Can we get a story with spider and one of the recoms getting into a prank war until Quaritch has enough and has to use his dad voice to tell them to cut it out

Great prompt anon!

3k words 🚨TW: foul language🚨

It was taco day in the cafeteria. Quaritch wasn’t really a fan of tacos, but his squad was back in Bridgehead for the day and they needed fuel. Besides, Quaritch had a headache coming on in anticipation of the mind-numbing meeting he had to attend with Ardmore after lunch, so he didn’t have the energy to find any other type of food. So, tacos it was.

Quaritch grabbed a recom-sized plate for himself as well as a human-sized one for Spider, before tromping back to the human-sized table his squad had commandeered. They looked a little ridiculous, squatting on the table which looked like it was meant for children next to them. Despite being the right size to sit in the seats, Spider opted to sit on top of the table with the others. When Quaritch set the tray of food down in front of Spider, he eyed it warily. Spider had grown up in the jungle, presumably eating a mix of whatever the natives ate and dehydrated MREs left behind by the RDA. For all Quaritch knew, Spider didn’t even know what a taco was.

His suspicion was confirmed a few minutes later when Spider asked, “what the hell is that?”

“It’s a taco.” Quaritch replied tiredly. He pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stave off the impending headache.

“I know what a taco is!” Spider said indignantly. “I don’t know what that is,” he clarified, pointing to a serving of sour cream set on the side of his tray.

“Oh,” Quaritch hummed in understanding. Last time he checked, there weren’t lots of places to find sour cream out in the jungle, so it made sense Spider wouldn’t recognize it. “That right there is—”

“It’s ice cream!” Wainfleet jumped in before he could finish his sentence.

“Really?” Spider’s eyes lit up. He didn’t know what sour cream was, but somehow, he knew about ice cream. Go figure.

Even perched atop the table with the rest of the recoms, Spider’s eyeline was so low that the exasperated look Quaritch shot Wainfleet literally went over his head. Wainfleet just gave his commanding officer a shit-eating grin in response. Today was the first day since Spider had “joined the team” that Spider hadn’t cussed someone out or thrown a fit about something. It looked like Wainfleet was determined to keep the streak going.

“Oh yeah, buddy, tacos and ice cream is everybody’s favorite lunch back on earth. Go ahead and try some!” Wainfleet encouraged, barely holding back a laugh. The other recoms glanced over at his words, their lips twitching in amusement at Spider’s ignorance.

Before Quaritch could decide whether or not to intervene, Spider took a huge bite of pure sour cream. His eyes bugged out wide as he gagged on the sour cream, and the whole table exploded into laughter at his expense. The only ones who weren’t laughing were Quaritch, who looked like he wanted an aspirin, or maybe a couple of shots of whiskey if aspirin wasn’t available, and Spider, whose face flushed pink from anger and embarrassment.

“That wasn’t ice cream!” He cried.

“Yeah, no shit! It’s sour cream, dumbass,” Wainfleet wheezed, “oh, god, you shoulda seen the look on your face!”

“I can show him,” Z-dog said with a wicked grin as she brandished her tablet, “I got it on video.”

The whole table howled with renewed bouts of laughter as Z-dog replayed Spider’s hilarious reaction on screen. Now Spider’s ears burned pink to match the rest of his face, the way they did whenever he was about to pitch a fit. Quaritch groaned in anticipation of another day filled with teenage attitude. And the morning had gone so peacefully too.

“You’re an asshole!” Spider yelled. He snatched a taco off his plate and reared back to throw it right at Wainfleet’s bald dome of a head.

“No!” With reflexes that only came from parenting an unruly child, Quaritch managed to grab Spider’s wrist and before he sent the would-be missile sailing at its shiny, blue target.

“But he—” Spider began to protest, only for Quaritch to cut him off with a look. He huffed and muttered something that was no doubt very rude in Na’vi, but wisely decided not to protest any further.

“Alright, that’s enough. Are you soldiers or a pack of fucking hyenas?” Quaritch asked his squad.

Finally, the big blue idiots shut up, their faces ranging on a scale from scolded to shameless. Despite being the one who nearly caused a food fight, Wainfleet looked the most shameless of them all. “Aww, c’mon, boss. It was just a harmless prank!”

“Whatever it was, it’s over. Get your shit together. We have a meeting in ten,” said Quaritch. The look in his eyes was enough of a warning for the recoms to sober up and finish eating.

Beside him, Spider grumbled under his breath again, but this time Quaritch’s sharp ears caught what he said. “A prank, huh?”

A sinking feeling settled into Quaritch’s stomach. Something told him this was just the beginning of a huge headache— one that had nothing to do with the one brewing behind his eyes.

***

The next day, the recoms were out in the jungle to continue their “field training” while they waited for any intel on Sully. To Quaritch’s relief, Spider had been in an uncharacteristically good mood all day, obeying orders and keeping his snarkiness to a minimum. It seemed like yesterday’s sour cream prank had been forgotten. He checked his watch and noted how late it was getting. Well, what do you know? It was almost time to call it a night and Spider had been on his best behavior all day. Maybe today would be the first day without having a Spider-related crisis. The thought made his lips twitch upwards in the barest hint of a smile.

When he heard a muffled scream followed by Spider laughing like a maniac, his smile went away.

“Jesus Christ,” he grumbled as he turned to see Spider sprint into the little camp they’d set up, an impish grin on his face. “What did you do?”

In answer, Spider just laughed even harder. Quaritch was saved from interrogating him by Wainfleet stomping into camp a moment later, effectively answering his question. A huge, furry yellow mass protruded from his mouth, like he’d tried to swallow a cat whole, and in one hand he held a plant that looked an awful lot like a cattail— a cattail with a bite taken out of it, revealing fluffy yellow insides.

It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together, but Quaritch asked anyway. “Wainfleet, what the hell did you do?”

Wainfleet angrily pointed his cattail at Spider like a spear and tried to say something, but all that came out of his mouth was more yellow fuzz. He doubled over, hacking and wheezing around the plant matter. It almost seemed to defy the laws of physics how much fluff kept coming out of his mouth. Just when you’d think there couldn’t possibly be more, another round of the stuff would appear.

Spider was wheezing almost as hard as Wainfleet was from how hard he was laughing. “I told— I told him— it was like a— a— Na’vi corndog!”

“And you believed him?” Quaritch asked Wainfleet exasperatedly.

Wainfleet gave him a sheepish shrug as he tried to spit out the never-ending stream of plant fur. At this point, the rest of the recoms noticed his plight, and soon everyone except for Quaritch joined Spider in laughing their asses off at him. Z-dog whipped out her tablet and started filming. As they laughed and jeered, Wainfleet’s tail whipped behind him and his ears flattened against his skull. He let out another muffled roar and made a violent gesture at Spider like he wanted to wring his neck. The furious look in his eyes wasn’t enough to make Spider stop laughing, but it was enough to send him scurrying behind Quaritch. This move proved wise when Wainfleet lunged for Spider a moment later, and was stopped by Quaritch’s disappointed scowl.

“Alright, that’s enough everybody! We need to secure the camp before dark!” Quaritch barked before turning to Wainfleet. “You, go clean that shit outta your mouth, and you,” he frowned down at Spider, who was trying very hard to look like he wasn’t hiding behind him for protection, “better not start lying to us about what these plants do. I catch you giving us something that ain’t safe to eat again and I’ll beat you ‘til you don’t need those stripes to look blue anymore.”

“Aww, c’mon, it’s not like I gave him something poisonous!” Spider whined. “It was just a prank.”

Just a prank. The sinking feeling returned to Quaritch’s stomach, along with his headache. Why did he have a feeling this wasn’t going to be the last time he heard that?

(A/N: for anyone who needs a visual, this is what happened to Wainfleet: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JFKAEnIwtLg)

***

It was less than twenty-four hours before the next prank. The following morning, as they broke camp and prepared the ikran to travel, a piercing scream broke the silence. Quaritch was rearranging Cupcake’s saddlebags when he heard the cry and instantly recognized Spider’s voice. He’d never moved so fast in his life. One minute, he was on the edge of their camp and the next he was at Spider’s side, ready to destroy whatever had dared to make him scream like that. His panic quickly turned to anger when instead of a threat, he found Wainfleet guffawing loudly while Spider cussed him out in a mix of Na’vi and English. Quaritch’s fists shook ever so slightly from how badly Spider’s scream had scared him. He’d gotten so scared it made him feel sick to his stomach, only for it to turn out to be another damn prank. A low growl rose in his throat, but Spider and Wainfleet were too wrapped up in their prank war to notice.

“What the hell even is this?” Spider asked as he angrily pulled something out of his sleeping bag: an evil-looking bug that would’ve been frightening if it wasn’t made of plastic.

“It’s a spider, Spider. What, you don’t like it? Why’d you name yourself after something you don’t like?” Wainfleet chuckled.

“You’re such a dick!” Spider reared back to hurl the fake spider at him, but Quaritch snatched it out of his hand before he could. With a snarl, he chucked the hunk of plastic as far off into the jungle as he could.

“Hey!” Wainfleet protested as his toy disappeared into the undergrowth.

Both Spider and Wainfleet turned to look at Quaritch with matching petulant expressions over having their spat interrupted, but the glower Quaritch gave them was so intense all their childish protests instantly died in their throats.

“Ikran. Now.” Quaritch hissed through clenched teeth.

They made the wise choice to say, “yes sir,” and obey him without complaint. Any other answer would’ve ended with somebody getting chucked into the woods after the toy spider.

***

Quaritch made the mistake of assuming his anger at them in the morning would be enough to bring the prank war to an armistice. That evening, Spider launched his counterattack. When Wainfleet went to lay down for the night, he let out a shriek of disgust at finding a creepy-crawly in his bedroll. It was exactly like what he’d done to Spider, except for one important difference. His unwanted visitor wasn’t made from harmless plastic— and neither were its fangs.

“That’s it!” Wainfleet roared after he’d been bitten on the hand by the Pandoran creature. “I’m gonna teach that little brat a lesson!”

Spider started snickering from across the camp when he heard Wainfleet’s furious voice, but he sobered up fast once he realized Wainfleet wasn’t joking about his threat this time. Once Wainfleet started stomping towards him like an angry titanothere, Spider made the smart choice to make himself scarce. He bolted for the nearest cover, which just so happened to be Quaritch’s tent.

Quaritch was in the middle of writing a status report to Ardmore when he heard Wainfleet start hollering and decided to ignore it. He would deal with those idiots later. Unfortunately, “later” came much sooner than he would have liked when he found himself with a sweaty human teenager scrambling over him to hide in the back of the tent. Bony elbows and knees somehow found the most painful places to land, and a dirty foot sent his tablet flying out of the tent.

“Boy, are you out of your goddamn mind?” Quaritch roared.

Spider slunk into the furthest corner of the tent like a cornered animal. “Sorry.”

An instant later, Wainfleet’s head poked into the tent. His eyes glossed over Quaritch like he wasn’t even there and landed on Spider. “Get back here!”

“No way!” Spider snapped back. The two of them quickly devolved into a shouting match with Quaritch stuck in the middle, completely ignored.

“It’s too late to hide now, you little shit! Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it back.”

“You’re the one who can’t take it back! All I did was finish what you started!”

“I didn’t use a real bug!” Wainfleet waved his hand, which had a swollen insect bite on the palm.

“Sounds like you’re just a pussy!”

“You little bastard!”

“That is enough!” Quaritch’s roar interrupted the shouting match before it could get physical. His gruff voice carried a deep authority to it that instantly cowed the two pranksters. Once he was sure he had their attention, he started dressing them down like he should’ve done yesterday. “You two have been acting like toddlers ever since you started this ridiculous prank war and I’m sick of it! Wainfleet, you’re a grown man for Christ’s sake. The boy is here to teach us and he can’t do that if you keep fucking around with him!”

Wainfleet’s ears drooped down in shame and he murmured an apology. Spider smirked at him.

“And what are you looking so smug for, huh?” Quaritch asked, and his smirk vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Did you forget you only get to stay out here so long as you behave yourself? You gotta be smarter than this, kid. Not everyone is gonna be as lenient with you as I am, and you’ll get yourself in deep shit acting a fool like this. If I was anybody else, your ass would already be back in Ardmore’s custody, do you understand that?”

Spider squirmed in place at the uncomfortable reminder and also murmured an apology.

“You two are done pranking each other, got it?”

“Yes, sir.” They chorused.

“And when we get back to base, you’re gonna scrub down the latrines until they’re clean enough to eat off of.”

“Yes, sir.”

***

Spider cursed under his breath as he scrubbed the filthy toilet before him— a recom-sized toilet, complete with recom-sized skid marks. Stupid Wainfleet, stupid prank, stupid toilet! He braced his arms against the toilet seat to get a better angle for scrubbing, but he was scrubbing so hard that he slipped. Spider squealed in horror as he nearly fell face-first into the toilet. He managed to catch himself and avoid an accidental-swirly at the last second.

“This is bullshit!” He hurled his cleaning rag against the wall with a wet THWAP!

A moment later, Wainfleet peered around the edge of the stall. “Can’t believe I’m saying it, but I agree with you. I’m an elite member of fucking project Phoenix, not some dumb grunt. This is a punishment for rookies.”

“Yeah, and I’m not a rookie. I didn’t sign up to get bossed around by Quaritch. I didn’t sign up for this at all!” Spider threw his hands up in frustration at his miserable situation.

“I know Quaritch is the boss around here, but he oughta have a little more respect for his squad.”

“And a little more respect for me too!”

Wainfleet gave Spider a sly look out of the corner of his eyes. He held up a bottle of shaving cream he’d found in the bathroom cabinet. “Hey, kid… what do you say we knock the boss down a peg?”

Spider frowned as he processed Wainfleet’s words before giving him a sly grin of his own. “What do you have in mind?”

***

Spider barely contained his laughter as he and Wainfleet snuck down the hallway to Quaritch's room. Usually, Quaritch took a brief nap after his meetings with Ardmore, which made him a perfect target for their prank: the classic shaving-cream-on-the-hand trick. The two pranksters peeked into Quaritch’s room and saw him fast asleep on his oversized bed.

“Go on, I’m right behind you.” Wainfleet whispered, handing him the shaving cream.

Armed with the shaving cream can, Spider slunk into the room as silently as a thanator on the hunt. He’d played plenty of pranks on Lo’ak and Neteyam growing up, so he knew exactly how to approach a sleeping Na’vi without setting off their sensitive hearing. Once he was close enough, he saw Quaritch lying with his hand splayed, palm facing up, right next to his face. He couldn’t have asked for a better set up. Spider took a moment to compose himself before filling Quaritch’s empty palm with a big, fluffy dollop of cream. If he laughed now, the prank would be ruined.

After the set-up was complete, Spider turned to Wainfleet, ready for him to finish the job. He wasn’t there. Spider frowned in confusion when he realized that Wainfleet was still standing in the doorway instead of right behind him like they’d planned.

Once Wainfleet saw he was looking, he gave Spider a devious grin and slowly started to close the door. Spider’s jaw dropped as he realized what Wainfleet was doing.

“Wainfleet, no!” He whispered as loud as he dared. Spider lunged for the door, but he was way too late.

CLICK! The sound of the door locking echoed in the quiet room, shortly followed by Wainfleet’s muffled laughs from the otherside.

“Wainfleet!” Spider hissed desperately as he tried to open the locked door.

The next sound he heard was that of Quaritch waking up and realizing his hand was full of shaving cream. His holler could be heard all throughout Bridgehead:

“MILES JAVIER SOCORRO!”

This is such a cool AU idea! If Spider is freaked out, can you imagine how scary it would be for the Sully children to encounter this man who looks and sounds just like their dad but is working to hurt them? How uncanny it would be for Neytiri, to see the lost boy she met in the woods 15 years ago, but no longer willing to learn from her? How horrifying it would be for Jake, to see what he could've become if things had gone differently?

I have this little blurb in my mind:

Tuk is captured and alone on the seadragon after Jake and Neytiri launched their counterattack on the recoms. Quaritch took Kiri away to be his sole hostage and now Tuk's completely alone, tied up on a sinking ship. She knows her parents are here, she saw her mom's arrow, but she doesn't know where they are and she's too scared to call out in case an enemy hears.

Then someone approaches her. Instead of Jake, it's Spider, shaken up from watching Neytiri eviscerate people who look like him, but still determined to save his friends. He comforts her, cuts her free, and tells her to follow him to the moon pool. Tuk wants to go search for Kiri and her parents, but Spider tells her they should just escape and let Jake and Neytiri worry about saving Kiri. It's too dangerous for them to wander around, and they'd be just as likely to run into enemies as family. They don't know how many recoms are still alive. Tuk reluctantly agrees and follows him.

Before they can escape into the water, Tuk hears a voice speaking nearby. It's her dad's voice. Her eyes light up. Spider sees the look on her face and tries to warn her, but he's too late.

"Daddy!" Tuk cries and runs towards the voice, so relieved her father is okay.

"Tuk, no!" Spider tries to grab her, but she slips away.

Tuk runs around a corner and collides straight into the man speaking. She buries her face in his side, fighting back tears. "Dad, you're okay!"

"Tuk..." Spider groans somewhere behind her. She doesn't understand why Spider sounds so scared. They found Dad, everything's gonna be okay now, right? But then her overwhelming relief fades away and she realizes something is very wrong. The man she's hugging is wearing human clothes. He feels thinner and leaner than her dad. Slowly, she raises her head to look up at the man she's hugging. It's her dad's face, but at the same time, it's not. No dreadlocks frame his face, no laugh lines crinkle in the corner of his eyes, and he doesn't have the small scars he got from his battle with the original Quaritch.

When he smiles at her, it's her dad's smile, but it lacks the warmth and familiarity. There's a mean-spirited edge to it that her dad would never give her. Tuk tries to pull away, but it's too late, he pulls her tight to his side.

He opens his mouth, and her dad's laugh comes out, but it's not his words. "Aw, were you expecting somebody else?"

Posting with permission from the artist, malinka624!

Please check out their Twitter and go show your love for the original post!

I wonder if the treatment of Sully's kids and Spider will be different during captivity. I can just see Quaritch trying to make Spider as comfortable as possible, trying to feed him the "homemade" food from the previous post while Lo'ak and Kiri are in the most uncomfortable position on the ground and getting some leftovers or nothing at all 💀

Spider squirmed uncomfortably against the thick rope binding his wrists together— and then immediately felt guilty for it. Across from him, Kiri and Lo'ak were bound with their wrists and ankles twisted awkwardly behind their backs, sharp rocks digging into their knees. Tight gags bound their mouths shut, so their communication was limited to terrified looks whenever they made eye contact. Half-dried blood oozed from cuts they’d gotten during their capture. Spider didn't have a right to complain about his wrists, not when his friends were hogtied like yerik carcasses ready for the cookfire. He wasn't even sitting on the rocky ground; a soft, woven mat beneath his knees protected him from the cold floor of the cave they were kept in. A part of Spider wondered why their captors would treat a full-blooded demon more gently than two half-breeds, but that question was ignored in favor of trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

Around them, strange Na'vi with pale blue skin and black war paint moved around the cave, preparing weapons and other supplies. If Spider had to guess, he'd say this was a war party from an unknown tribe, but unfortunately, he didn't have enough information to guess what they were doing so close to home, and more importantly, why. Normally, the sight of a Na'vi war party, even an unknown one, would've been good news, but the fact that these people had kidnapped him and his friends gave him the sneaking suspicion that these warriors weren't here to help Jake fight the RDA. Even more worryingly, Spider spotted human-made guns and grenades amongst the supplies the warriors were moving around, meaning someone had taught these people how to use Sky People weapons.

The sound of voices made the three of them look up. On the opposite side of the cave, two new Na'vi entered the war camp, and the way the other warriors gathered around to greet them respectfully told Spider they must be important. One was a female Na'vi with the same pale blue skin as the others. Even from across the cave, Spider could make out the ornate red headdress and intricate paint patterns she wore, marking her as high status; a tsahik or olo'eykte. Her companion was dressed in much plainer clothing by comparison; the same loincloth and simple paint design all the others wore. However, no amount of unfamiliar paint and regalia could hide the familiar blue stripes of a forest Na'vi. Spider exchanged a confused look with Kiri and Lo'ak. What was a forest Na'vi doing with these strange warriors?

The female leader addressed her warriors calmly while the forest Na'vi stood rigidly at her side, his tail lashing in clear agitation. Then, one of the warriors pointed towards the spot where Spider and his friends were tied up. Before the warrior even finished raising his hand, the forest Na'vi made a beeline right towards them.

Spider hissed through his teeth. There was something eerily familiar about the way the Na'vi stormed in a straight line towards his destination without caring if he got in the way of others. Slowly, Spider shook his head. The human weapons, taking Kiri and Lo'ak hostage while treating Spider with kid gloves... In his gut, he already knew who it was, but his mind wasn't ready to accept the ugly truth yet.

"Spider!" It wasn't until the Na'vi— no, the recom, yelled his name that he was forced to face the truth. There was no mistaking that low drawl.

"Quaritch," he didn't whisper it so much as soundlessly mouth it when the man skidded to a stop in front of them. The confrontation he'd been dreading for months was finally here, and he had no one to blame but himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see matching expressions of horror on Kiri and Lo’ak’s faces. The monster from their nightmares was standing right in front of them, and they had no idea it was Spider’s fault. Lo’ak tried to say something, but it was muffled through his gag. He strained against his bonds, tail lashing furiously, and Kiri pressed her shoulder against him in a weak attempt to soothe him. Thankfully, Quaritch ignored them, and instead knelt before Spider.

Spider tried to shrink away from him, but there was nowhere to go. Quaritch took him by the shoulders and gently turned him this way and that, eyes and fingers roving over his body and his exopack for any sign of damage.

"You good, kid?" He asked, lightly tugging Spider's arm so he could get a better look at a nasty scratch he'd acquired when the strange warriors had abducted them. Once Quaritch determined the scratch wasn't life threatening, his ears sagged in relief and he clapped Spider on the shoulders.

"Yeah, you're good, you're good," he answered his own question in a low mutter, more to himself than to Spider. A low, relieved chuckle escaped his lips, and then he smiled. Spider could count on one hand how many times he'd seen Quaritch smile, and most of the time it was more of a cruel grimace than a smile. This look was different— it was genuine. He smiled down at Spider like this was the best day of his life. No one other than Kiri had ever looked at him like that, and it made him want to burst into tears and attack him and bury his head in his chest all at once. Instead, Spider did nothing but return his look with a baleful stare.

Quaritch tentatively reached out like he was going to cup Spider's face in his hand, but Spider bared his teeth and jerked his head away. To his relief, Quaritch let him go. His smile turned slightly sad, but also unsurprised at the aggressive reaction.

"Ma Kwarit." Spider looked up as the leader of the warriors approached them. It took him a moment to realize "Kwarit" was her attempt at pronouncing Quaritch's alien name. The woman stared down at him with an unreadable look on her face. Her eyes were somehow both hot and cold; bright orange-gold like a fire, but there was no warmth behind them. Spider glared back at her with the fiercest look he could muster, and clenched his hands to stop them from shaking.

"Varang, I apology for running." Quaritch greeted her in broken Na'vi.

The woman, Varang, waved away his apology dismissively. "These children, they are the ones you sent my warriors to look for?"

"Yes. My son," Quaritch patted Spider on the shoulder with one hand before gesturing at Lo'ak and Kiri with the other, "and children Toruk Makto. Your warriors is good."

"They are the best," Varang agreed. She didn't sound boastful when she said it, as if she were simply stating an immutable fact. Her fiery cold eyes roamed over Lo'ak and Kiri, taking in their half-breed features, before coming to a stop on Spider. It was a challenge to hold her gaze without flinching, but he did his best to meet her eyes with a steady glare.

After a long moment of analyzing Spider's face, she said, "I do not see you in the face of your son, but I see your fire in his eyes."

To Spider’s mortification, Quaritch chuckled at that and ruffled his hair. “Yes, he gets from me.”

Spider hissed at him and jerked away as hard as he could. He ended up accidentally scraping his injured arm against the rock wall and his angry hiss turned into a grunt of pain.

“And when he becomes angry, he is so determined to get his way that he will hurt himself in doing so. That is something else he has in common with you,” Varang observed, the barest hint of a smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.

This time, when Quaritch laughed it was slightly more forced. “He need medicine. Call healer. And food.”

“My healers have never helped a Sky Person before. They could harm him as easily as heal him. The same can be said of our food.”

“Son is smart. He know what help and what hurt Sky People. He know what to eat.”

“Wait—” Spider interrupted, and he found himself pinned under Varang’s intense hot-cold gaze once more and it almost made him lose his nerve. “I see you, Varang.” He greeted her as best he could with his hands tied. “My friends also need food and medicine. Please.”

Varang’s hairless brow raised a fraction of a centimeter. “He speaks better than you do, ma Kwarit.”

“That’s because I taught him to speak. And I can tell he hasn’t been practicing.” Spider added.

Varang exhaled heavily through her nose, which was probably the closest thing to a laugh he’d get from her. That was a good sign. Something Spider had learned during his captivity was that it was always better to get on the good side of those who had power over you. It had worked with Quaritch— maybe a little bit too well considering how things turned out.

“Please?” Spider asked Varang again hopefully.

Varang turned to Quaritch, and to his dismay, he realized she was leaving the decision up to him. 

Quaritch eyed Lo’ak and Kiri’s many scratches and bruises apathetically before he shrugged. “They look fine to me.”

Varang nodded to one of her warriors. “Bring a bowl of food and a healer for the Sky Child. Leave the other two alone.”

“No!” Spider protested, but Varang was already walking away, taking her entourage of warriors with her. Lo’ak caught his eye and shrugged weakly as if to say, well, at least you tried.

“Dammit,” Spider curled in on himself and kept his eyes trained on his bound hands. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Kiri and Lo’ak. Silently, he prayed Quaritch would leave with the others, but unfortunately, his prayers went unanswered. Quaritch stayed right where he was. Mercifully, he didn’t try to touch him again, but he kept taking deep breaths like he was about to start speaking but always stopped himself.

“What?” Spider snapped after what felt like the hundredth aborted attempt at speaking.

Quaritch’s ears flicked back in surprise at the sudden word. “I was just— Spider, listen— I want to— we need to have—“ he interrupted his own stammering with a frustrated hiss and ran his hands through his hair. “Jesus, I sound like an idiot.”

Spider exchanged a bewildered glance with Kiri and Lo’ak. None of them, not even Spider, had ever seen Quaritch look nervous before. It wasn’t an emotion they thought he was capable of. Spider looked up at Quaritch warily, wondering what the hell he was trying to say. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Quaritch was trying to apologize to him.

After an unbearably awkward silence, Quaritch reached into a small pouch attached to his belt and pulled out a spartan fruit. He passed it to Spider while avoiding eye contact, almost shyly. “Here.”

Spider stared down at the fruit in his lap, confused. Spartan fruit didn’t grow in this part of the forest, and judging by the fruit’s slightly battered appearance, Quaritch must’ve been carrying it around with him for a while. Slowly, Spider raised his gaze from the spartan fruit to squint up at Quaritch.

“It’s a spartan fruit.” Quaritch told him, as if Spider wasn’t the one who had taught him that. “You told me it was your favorite.”

Spider said nothing.

The longer he remained silent, the more fidgety Quaritch got. His tail swished behind him and he struggled to meet Spider’s eyes for more than a few seconds at a time.

“I just— I just thought you might want it.” Quaritch scratched at the back of neck while avoiding eye contact again.

They lapsed into another silence that was so awkward it was almost painful. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lo’ak scrunch up his face at him as if to say, what the hell is happening? All Spider could do was shrug.

Finally, Spider cleared his throat, moreso to interrupt the horrible silence than because he wanted to say anything. “Um… thank you.”

Reluctantly, he took the fruit, telegraphing his movements so Quaritch could see what he was doing. When he saw Spider had accepted his gift, he smiled another genuine, not-evil smile.

With his fruit in hand, Spider slowly got to a crouch and started shuffling away from him. Quaritch frowned. He let Spider move away without a fight, but kept a narrowed eye on him, ready to grab him if he looked like he was going to bolt— not that there was anywhere to bolt to in this cavern full of enemies.

Spider made a big show of moving slowly so Quaritch wouldn’t get any bad ideas about his intentions, and came to a stop next to Lo’ak. Then, before Quaritch could realize what he was doing, he pulled down Lo’ak’s gag and raised the fruit to his lips. Lo’ak started scarfing it down like it was his last meal.

“Dammit, Spider, that was supposed to be for you!” Quaritch seized the strap of Spider’s exopack and hauled him back before Lo’ak could take another bite.

“I don’t want your damn fruit, I want to make sure my friends are okay!” Spider snapped.

Quaritch yanked the half-eaten fruit out of his hands. “Your little friends will be just fine without food for a day or two. As long as their daddy cooperates, they’ll be back home before they know it.”

“My dad’s gonna kill your ass again!” Lo’ak yelled now that his gag was off. He strained against his bonds like he wanted to throw himself at Quaritch.

“Shut up.” Quaritch said irritably.

“Fuck you!”

Quaritch brandished his knife threateningly at Lo’ak. “You keep your mouth shut or I’ll make that hand look like a real Na’vi, boy!”

Despite the threat, Lo’ak looked like he wanted to snap back at Quaritch anyway. Kiri tried to say something through her gag and pressed herself against Lo’ak’s side. Behind Quaritch’s arm, Spider desperately shook his head, praying Lo’ak would listen to reason. Thankfully, he did, though he let out one last angry hiss before settling back next to Kiri in defeat.

His surrender sent an ugly smirk shooting over Quaritch’s face. “Well, would you look at that. A Sully can learn to follow orders. Ha!”

Quaritch’s mean-spirited laugh was interrupted by the arrival of a young woman carrying a medicine bag in one hand and a bowl filled with different kinds of food in the other. Clearly, whoever made the bowl had no idea what was safe for humans, so they’d compensated by putting in a little bit of everything.

“Here we are! You, girl, heal up now please my son.” Quaritch ordered in Na’vi so bad that even Spider had trouble deciphering it.

The poor healer stared at Quaritch in confusion. “I do not understand your speaking.”

“He told you to treat their wounds first, then me.” Spider “translated,” nodding urgently at Kiri and Lo’ak.

The healer turned towards Kiri with her bag at the ready only for Quaritch to grab her by the hand and pull her back.

“No, no, no. Not them. Him. Him only. Do not listen what he say. He lie.” Quaritch said very slowly.

The healer still looked confused, but she opened her bag and knelt next to Spider. She hissed softly through her teeth as she examined the nasty cut on his arm. “I do not know what to do. His flesh is not of Eywa. I am afraid I may hurt him.”

“Listen him. He will say you what safe use.”

“You want me to listen to him?” The woman’s brow furrowed in confusion. “But you just told me not to. You said he lies.”

“Listen to him!” Quaritch repeated. He banged his hand against the floor in frustration, making the poor healer squeak in surprise. “Go on, Spider, tell her what to use.”

“Hmm…” Spider made a big show of peering into her bag. His sharp eyes instantly identified which plants were safe and unsafe for him to use, but he feigned confusion with a shrug. “Huh, that’s funny. I can’t seem to remember what’s safe for me. Oh well…”

“Spider…” Quaritch bared his teeth in a wolfish smile— now this was the smile Spider was used to seeing from Quaritch, the same one he had whenever he got a lead on Jake or threatened an RDA grunt into submission. “Tell the nice lady what to use on you. Now.”

The borderline demonic smile sent a chill through Spider, but he held his ground. Remembering how pathetic Quaritch sounded when he asked Neytiri to let him go gave him strength. As much as Quaritch liked to threaten him with “old school ass whippings” Spider was confident Quaritch wouldn’t actually hurt him— at least, not physically.

Spider bared his teeth in a smaller, less-pointy version of Quaritch’s evil smile. “Maybe if she helps my friends first, it’ll jog my memory.”

An ugly, forced chuckle escaped Quaritch’s teeth. “Oh, so that’s how you want to play it, huh? Fine! Nobody gets medical attention now.”

Spider forced his expression to stay calm. He folded his arms behind his head and laid back against the damp stone. “That’s fine with me. I guess I’ll just lay here in this cold, dark cave with my open cuts. Sure would be a shame if I got an infection. Did I ever tell you that humans are way more likely to die from infections than Na’vi? Our bodies just don’t fight off bacteria the same way.”

Quaritch stared him down, teeth bared and tail swishing. For a moment, Spider thought he was really going to risk it just to spite Jake’s children, but then the moment passed and Quaritch snarled in frustration. “When did you get so manipulative? Has Sully been teaching you this shit? Fine. You, girl, heal children Toruk Makto first. Then my son.”

Spider smirked as he watched the exasperated healer finally get to work on Kiri and Lo’ak’s injuries. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

With an irritated grumble, Quaritch got to his feet and fidgeted with his loincloth. Clearly, he wasn’t used to wearing it yet. “Alright, I gotta leave you alone now, but don’t go getting any big ideas, ‘cause I’ll be back soon. If your ass has moved an inch from this spot when I get back, you won’t need that paint to look blue anymore, you read me?”

“Lima charlie, sir.” Spider replied with as much sarcasm as he dared.

Quaritch narrowed his eyes at the disrespectful tone, but must’ve decided it wasn’t worth it to say anything. He turned to leave, but hesitated, his back to Spider.

“Spider… son… when I get back, we’re gonna have a talk, alright? We just— we need to talk.” He said without looking at Spider.

“Okay,” Spider said, more to get rid of Quaritch than anything.

Quaritch hesitated a moment longer like he wanted to say something, but instead he left without saying another word. As soon as he was out of sight, Spider scooped up the bowl of food and scrambled over to his friends. He yanked off Kiri’s gag and started feeding her and Lo’ak while the healer patched them up.

“Are you guys okay?” Spider asked.

“We’re fucking fantastic, bro.” Lo’ak answered, and Spider instantly felt stupid for asking such a question.

“We’ll live,” Kiri replied before turning to the healer and switching to Na’vi. “You should mix yalna bark with the fireflower root— it will stop the bleeding faster and clean the wound better.”

The healer’s eyes widened as she realized the wisdom to Kiri’s words and did as she instructed.

“I can’t believe Quaritch is going after Dad again. That asshole just doesn’t quit!” Lo’ak said frustratedly.

“I know.” Kiri agreed. “And he was acting so strange… Spider, what do you think he wants to talk to you about?”

Spider shifted uncomfortably as Lo’ak and Kiri watched him. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter, cause we’re not sticking around to find out. C’mon, this lady doesn’t understand English. Let’s come up with a plan to get out of here.”

💙I hope you enjoyed! Please comment or reblog to let me know what you think, or send me a writing prompt if you want to see more💙

It's so sweet that Quaritch carried fruit for Spider all the time! But imagine that he actually kept it for himself because he liked them too and it was his last one. With a heavy heart, he decides to give it to his son to show his love, and suddenly he sees the son of his enemy eating the fruit instead of Spider..

Quaritch:

Yes, I think I'm funny.

You don't just think you're funny, you ARE funny, this made me wheeze 😂 that's the moment Quaritch decides he can't give Spider nice things.

@xxxxyxx is referring to this oneshot I wrote about Spider, Kiri, and Lo'ak getting captured by the Ash Clan:

Can you write a snippet of Quaritch following through with his version of “an old school ass whipping”

Nothing too serious because I don’t think he’d abuse Spider but I do think he’d be the type of parent to resort to physical discipline if pushed enough.

In the exchange between him and Spider, Spider does not seemed alarmed with fear and is actually a little cheeky. I think he’s used to adults just letting him get away with things.

I think it’s be interesting to read Spider’s reaction to an adult/authority figure disciplining him (whether physical or some other punishment) for not following instructions rather than just checking to see if he has not been harmed.

It doesn’t have to relate to him running off which is where Quaritch uses the threat. It could be anything.

Okay, so I know you requested me to write about Quaritch disciplining Spider, but I’ve seen that explored a bunch of times before, and honestly, after what I wrote in Blood Is Thicker Than Water, I’ve kind of gotten a bad taste in my mouth for writing disciplinary scenes involving Quaritch. Idk why, but your ask gave me inspiration for a scene of Jake disciplining Spider instead, and it ended up taking a pretty different direction than your request. Sorry that this isn’t exactly what you requested, but I wanted to write something that I haven’t seen explored by other writers before, so I hope you still enjoy it!

Lucky Number Five (6k words)

One.

Two.

Three.

Jake counted the children in the marui, and then he counted them again. Tuk napped in the back corner of their home, nestled among her blankets. That was one. Lo’ak stood at the entrance of the marui, waving goodbye to Tsireya. That brought the count up to two. In the center, by the cookfire, Kiri helped Neytiri chop fish and vegetables for a stew. That made three.

It had been a week since the battle at Three Brothers Rock, but Jake still had to bite back the instinct to look for number four. His heart told him to count again; told him that if he checked just one more time he would see Neteyam tucking the blankets tighter around Tuk, or playfully teasing Lo’ak, or asking Neytiri if she needed any more help with dinner, but his mind knew better than his heart. No matter how many times he counted, there would never be a number four.

However, he was still missing a number. Jake didn’t know when exactly he started doing this, but at some point in his parenting career, he’d assigned a number to each of his children, and that number was the order in which he would always check on them based on the likelihood that they would need adult supervision. Maybe it was just his way of keeping track of so many kids, or maybe it was some leftover instinct to “sound off” from his Marine days. Whatever the case, the system worked for him. As the youngest and most delicate, Tuk was always the first child he checked on. Coming in second place was Lo’ak, the resident trouble-maker. Number three was Kiri, more responsible than Lo’ak, but still prone to making trouble of her own on occasion. Neteyam, as the oldest and most mature of the bunch, was number four, the last child he checked on because he was the least likely to be in trouble.

One, two, three, four. Jake had sounded off the mental count thousands of times over the years whenever he needed to make sure all of his children were accounted for. But the count didn’t always stop there. Sometimes, not most of the time, but sometimes there was a fifth child on the list, tacked onto the end more out of courtesy than anything.

Jake counted again just to be sure.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Number five was missing.

“Where’s Spider?” He asked the question so suddenly, that it startled everyone. Tuk peered out sleepily from her blankets, and Kiri and Neytiri gave him confused looks from across the cookfire.

“Huh?” Asked Lo’ak as he came to sit down next to Tuk.

“I asked where Spider is. I told all of you to be back home before sundown. It’s almost dark, so where is he?” He directed his question at Kiri, figuring she would be the most likely to know, but all she did was shrug.

“I haven’t seen him since this morning. I’ve been helping Mom and Ronal in the healing marui. I think he said he was going to help Lo’ak with his chores.” She said before turning her attention back to chopping vegetables.

The casual way she answered the question irritated Jake. If Spider wasn’t back by now, it either meant he was willingly disobeying Jake or he was in some kind of trouble. Why was Kiri acting like it was no big deal? His tail started to twitch in frustration as he rounded on Lo’ak. “Have you seen Spider?”

His question came out harsher than he intended it to, making Lo’ak jump slightly. “Uh… yeah, I hung out with him earlier, but he went off with Rotxo in the afternoon. I think he was gonna teach him to spearfish or something?”

“You think?” Jake repeated exasperatedly.

“I dunno, I wasn’t really paying attention.” Lo’ak said, sheepishly playing with the beads on the ends of his braids.

“Yeah, cause you were too busy looking at Tsireyaaa—“ Tuk giggled in a singsong voice.

Lo’ak threw a blanket at her. “I was not!”

An irritated huff left Jake’s lips as he got to his feet. “I’m going to go find him.”

“Ma Jake,” Neytiri’s voice stopped him in his tracks, “dinner is almost ready. Stay and eat with your family. I’m sure the boy is fine.”

“No, I told everyone to be back here before sundown. It’s sundown and he’s not here, so it’s not fine.” Before Neytiri could get another word in, he left the marui, tail lashing behind him with anxiety.

He rushed through the peaceful village, passing Reef Na’vi settling into their homes for the night. The setting sun painted the sky a deep orange, and a chorus of insects created a soothing symphony for the evening. Everything was so calm, surely nothing was really wrong, right? Despite what he tried to tell himself, images of Spider hurt or dead kept flashing through his mind. He was so consumed with his worries that he nearly ran right into Rotxo.

“Oh! Hi, Jake!” Rotxo greeted him cheerfully once he recovered from nearly losing his balance.

“Rotxo, sorry, didn’t see you there. Have you seen Spider?”

“Yeah, I was teaching him how to spearfish by the diving hole. I think he’s still there—“ Rotxo had barely finished pointing in the direction of the diving hole before Jake was off, making a beeline for it.

The longer it took to reach the hole, the faster he went, so he was practically sprinting by the time he reached it. Jake skidded to a stop on the rocky edge of the hole, startling a few small marine ikran into flight. He frantically looked around for any sign of Spider, but the whole place was deserted. The hole was dead still except for the steady undulations of bioluminescent seaweed dancing in the current, and the swaying of the mangrove branches up above. All he could hear was the gentle sound of waves lapping against rock and the occasional cry of a marine ikran. No sign of number five.

“Dammit!” Jake hissed under his breath. His ears flattened against his skull and his tail thrashed like an angry snake. Now he didn’t know what to do. None of the other children seemed to have any idea where Spider was and Rotxo was his last lead. Awa’atlu’s atoll was a massive area full of hiding places, and Spider was one little human. He could be anywhere.

Just before he made up his mind to start searching somewhere else, a soft sound drew his attention. Down the side of the hole directly to his left, a familiar dreadlocked head surfaced amongst the bioluminescent seaweed.

“Spider!” He called, sprinting across the rocks towards him.

At the sound of his name, Spider turned. Underneath the sheen of his mask, his face split into a wide grin and he started swimming to meet him, a child-sized Metkayina speargun in his hand. “Hey, Jake! What’s up?”

Jake knelt on the edge of sea rock and hauled Spider out of the water by the strap of his exopack as soon as he was in reach. He quickly checked Spider over for any sign of injury or damage to his equipment. As far as he could tell, there was none.

“You alright? Where the hell have you been?”

Spider’s grin faded as he took in the panic in Jake’s body language. “Yeah, I’m fine, I was just practicing the spearfishing stuff Rotxo taught me.”

Jake’s shoulders sagged and he let out a deep sigh as a surge of relief overwhelmed him. It lasted for a grand total of five seconds before it was replaced by a rush of anger. He hadn’t been this scared and angry since Lo’ak had gotten lost beyond the reef.

Jake seized Spider by the shoulders and shook him. His voice came out in a low snarl. “What the hell is the matter with you, boy? Have you just been fucking around out here this whole time?”

Spider’s eyes went wide and he tried to recoil, but Jake’s grip was too tight. “Jake, I— wait— did something happen?”

“You almost gave me a heart attack, that’s what happened!” Jake snapped as he got to his feet.

“Jeez, relax, I’m fine, see? Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Spider said as he gathered up his speargun and stood. Before Jake could get another word in, Spider turned on his heel and started walking away.

Jake’s ears went flat against his skull in a mix of shock and anger at the blatant disrespect. Not even Lo’ak in his most rebellious mood would dare to walk away from him when he was being scolded. It took a lot of effort to keep his voice level. “And where do you think you’re going, young man?”

Spider stopped and glanced back at Jake with a bewildered look on his face. “I’m getting back in so I can keep spearfishing?”

Jake crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, are you now?”

“Yeah?”

“And what about dinner?”

“I’ll eat later.”

“And when were you planning to go to bed, huh?”

Spider shrugged. “I dunno. Whenever I guess.”

Without another word, he turned his back on Jake again and got ready to dive into the water. The sheer disrespect almost made Jake laugh. He ended up hissing through his teeth instead. “Get your ass back over here. Now.”

Before Spider had a chance to disobey him again, Jake crossed the distance he had put between them in a single step and seized him by the arm.

“Jake, what—“

“I don’t want to hear it.” Jake cut him off by roughly steering him in the direction of home with a firm hand on his shoulder. The action was familiar to him. He’d done it to Lo’ak a hundred times after his troublemaking escapades. In fact, he was already mentally planning the lecture and accompanying punishment for disobedience he’d give to Spider once they got home. It was going to be nearly identical to the one he’d given Lo’ak after he’d scared everyone by getting lost outside the reef. Maybe Spider’s attitude would improve after a day of being stuck inside the marui doing chores. “You’re gonna march your butt back to the marui and—“

His eyes widened in surprise when Spider jerked his shoulder out of his grip and twisted away from him.

“Get the hell off me!” Spider yelled. He backed away from Jake, one hand covering the shoulder he had grabbed.

For a moment, all Jake could do was stare at him in shock, mouth slightly ajar. Then he closed it, tightening it into a sharp, angry line. Never in all his years as a parent had one of his children dared to use such language at him, especially not when they were already in trouble. “What did you just say to me, boy?”

“I told you to get the hell off me.” Spider repeated boldly, heedless of the hole he was digging himself into.

“Alright, that’s it!” Jake stormed towards Spider with a snarl. “I was gonna go easy on you, but since you want to have an attitude, we can do this the hard way.”

Spider scurried back to stay out of reach, but his retreat wasn’t a sign of submissiveness. If anything, Spider puffed up just as angrily as Jake. He hopped up onto a nearby mangrove root so he could better look him in the eye. “Attitude? I’m just minding my own business and you’re all pissy at me for some reason!”

“Minding your own business?” Jake repeated with a scoff. Even when Lo’ak got in trouble he had the sense to own up to it instead of lying about it. He jabbed an accusatory finger towards Spider’s chest. “You know damn well what you’re doing. I don’t know why you think you get to stay out past curfew all of a sudden, but the rules haven’t changed just ‘cause we left the forest.”

Spider threw his hands up in frustration. “Bro, what are you talking about?”

“Playing dumb isn’t going to help you! You’re out past your curfew and there’s going to be consequences.”

“What fucking curfew?” Spider yelled so loudly that it made Jake recoil. His voice cracked hard mid-sentence, and Jake suddenly realized that the tone he’d mistaken for disrespectful was actually scared and confused. 

Jake's first instinct was to yell right back, but he forced himself to take a deep breath. He put his hands up in a calming gesture, and when he finally spoke, he managed to keep his voice civil. “Spider, this morning I told you and Lo’ak and Kiri to come back before sundown, remember?”

Spider’s brows knit together in confusion. He was still on edge, but he relaxed slightly at seeing Jake calm down. “You told Lo’ak and Kiri to come back. You didn’t say it to me.”

“Spider,” Jake had to take another calming breath to keep from losing his cool again. He couldn’t tell if this was genuine confusion or some bizarre attempt to get out of trouble, but either way he figured more yelling wouldn’t solve the situation. “You were standing right between Lo’ak and Kiri when I said it. Why would you think I wasn’t saying it to you too?”

“Why would I think you were? I’m not one of your kids.” 

“I— well— no, you’re not, but you still have to follow the rules. Back when you lived in Hell’s Gate with the McCoskers, could you just wander off whenever you felt like it?”

Spider squinted at him in confusion. “Uh… yeah, I could? I did that all the time.”

Now it was Jake’s turn to squint. “You didn’t have a curfew with the McCoskers?”

“I mean, maybe when I was like, really little, but not that I can remember, no. And besides, I haven’t lived with the McCoskers since the RDA came back, remember? It’s been almost two years since then.”

For a moment, Jake was almost stunned into silence, but he recovered from his surprise and changed tactics. “Okay, forget the McCoskers. Think about when we lived in High Camp. You had a curfew then.”

“No, your kids had a curfew, but I didn’t. Don’t you remember how Lo’ak was always jealous?”

“I—” Jake frowned. Now that Spider mentioned it, he vaguely remembered Lo’ak begging Jake to extend his curfew because of something to do with Spider. “But Norm and Max and everyone, they made sure you got home and ate dinner before dark, right?”

“Norm and Max were always super busy. It’s really hard to keep human life support running out there. They didn’t have time to babysit me; they had to keep the lights on.” Spider shrugged like it was no big deal. He must’ve noticed the shocked look on Jake’s face because he quickly added. “Jake, relax. I’m a tough kid, remember? I know how to get my own dinner and I know when to go to sleep. I was fine.”

“Oh, Eywa…” The realization finally hit Jake. Spider’s confusion was one hundred percent genuine; he really didn’t understand why Jake was angry at him for staying out at night. Jake pressed his hands to his lips and took another deep breath. He sat down on the mangrove root and patted the spot next to him. Spider still looked a little nervous, but he sat down next to Jake anyway. His legs were far too short to reach the sandy ground below, so they swung in the air halfway down Jake’s calves, making him look much younger than he was.

“Spider,” Jake began. He put a hand on Spider’s shoulder and turned him so they were face to face, “you’re not one of my kids, but while we stay in Awa’atlu, you’re living in our marui. That means I’m responsible for you just like I’m responsible for Lo’ak, Kiri, and Tuk. So you have to follow the rules— that includes the curfew.”

Spider made a face. “I really have to have a curfew now? But why?”

“The same reason Kiri and Lo’ak and Aonung and Rotxo and every other kid has a curfew. It’s to keep you safe. If you don’t come back at sundown, I won’t know where you are or if something bad happened to you.” Jake ruffled Spider’s hair the same way he did to Lo’ak all the time.

“Nothing bad’s gonna happen to me,” Spider shoved his hand off with a scoff. “I can take care of myself. I never had a curfew before. Why do I gotta have one now?”

Jake's patience started to wear thin again. His irritation started to leak into his voice. “Because I said so, that’s why.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“You do not speak that way to me, young man.” Jake scolded.

Spider shrunk under the reprimand, but still held his ground. “Well, it is…”

Jake threw his hands up in exasperation. “What is so important that you need to stay out at night anyway, huh?”

“Uh, food? You know, that thing I need to survive?” Spider drawled with so much venomous sarcasm that for a split second Jake felt like he was talking to his father instead. “Do you think I’m out here freezing my butt off for fun? I’m trying to catch some dinner. I know it’s been awhile since you were human, but remember that humans need to eat too.”

“Alright, first of all, lose the attitude, kid.” Jake snapped. “Second of all, what are you talking about? Food? We have food at home. Neytiri made dinner for everyone.”

An ugly sound that was half-scoff, half-laugh escaped Spider’s throat. “No. Ms. Sully made food for your family. Not for me.”

“Spider, is that what this is about?” Jake’s voice softened slightly with pity. “Neytiri? Listen, I know things are… complicated right now, but Neytiri doesn’t mind if you eat what she cooked.”

“Oh, I bet she’d love it if I ate some of her cooking,” Spider said bitterly. Seeing the confused look on Jake’s face, he added, “she never cooks things humans can eat. This morning Kiri warned me she was making pincer fish stew. Do you know how toxic pincer fish are to humans? If I ate it I’d probably puke my own brains out.”

Jake cringed. “Oh… I’m sorry, kiddo, I didn’t realize she was making something that would hurt you. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Why would I? It’s not the first time she’s cooked poisonous food when she knows I’m staying for dinner.”

“Don’t talk like that. Neytiri wouldn’t do that on purpose. She’s just been so distracted since… since everything. I promise it was just a mistake.”

“Yeah, a mistake.” Spider scoffed. “Maybe it was this time, but didn’t you ever notice that every time she heard me, Kiri, and Lo’ak were planning a sleepover that she’d make something I couldn’t eat? It’s not like she’s in the habit of making human-friendly food.”

“What— no, but that’s not—“ Jake spluttered as he tried to think of a rebuttal, but no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t. Since they’d gotten Spider back, all their meals were sympathy gifts from the Metkayina or were prepared by Jake. Neytiri had been too bereaved to cook, so Jake had picked up the slack. Tonight was the first night she’d cooked since the battle. Even thinking back further, back to when they lived in the forest, Jake couldn’t recall a time Spider had stayed over for dinner when Neytiri cooked. It was always when Jake cooked or when they ate a feast prepared by the clan.

Now that he was really thinking about it, he vaguely remembered an ugly argument between Kiri and Neytiri that had happened a long time ago: Kiri accused Neytiri of cooking food that was poisonous for humans on purpose so Spider couldn’t spend the night with them, and Neytiri argued back that it was too hard for her to modify every recipe she knew to make it human-friendly.

“Okay, maybe she did do that, but that was before. She always knew you could get food from somewhere else. Things are different now. Today really was just a mistake.” Jake tried to get Spider to look at him, but Spider stubbornly kept his head down and let his thick locs hide his face.

“Yeah, whatever. Can I go now? If I don’t catch a fish soon I’m gonna go hungry tonight.” Spider started to slide off the root they sat on.

Before he could slink out of reach, Jake grabbed him by the shoulders. He knelt on the hard sandy ground in front of him so they were face to face. “Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying? You’re coming home with me. Now. I’ll let breaking curfew slide just this once since you didn’t understand the rules, but this is the last time you’re going out by yourself at night. If I ever catch you breaking curfew again, you’re gonna be grounded, you read me?”

“What? But how am I supposed to feed myself?” Spider cried. There was so much genuine panic in his voice that it made Jake cringe with guilt. Did Spider seriously think he would let him starve? “During the day I have to help everyone out with the chores. I won’t have enough time to find food if—“

“Spider!” Jake cut him off with a gentle squeeze to his shoulders. Once he was sure he had Spider’s full attention, he continued in a slow, clear voice. “Look, here’s the deal, kid: as long as you live under my roof and follow my rules, I will make sure you have plenty of food. You don’t have to hunt for yourself after dark. From now on, you will come back home and eat dinner with us every night before sundown. How’s that sound?”

Spider stayed quiet for a long moment, a furrow in his brow. Jake gave him a reassuring, fatherly smile, the same smile that always seemed to help his children when they were scared. He hoped that Spider was finally getting it. After a long moment of hard thought, Spider shook his head and said, “no thank you.”

Jake stared at him incredulously. “What do you mean, no thank you?”

“I mean, I’m good.” Spider grabbed Jake’s oversized hands and carefully peeled them off his shoulders. “That whole deal thing you’re offering me? No thanks. I’d rather keep my freedom.”

He tried to slink away again, but Jake stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “Spider, the deal isn’t optional.”

“So you’re forcing me to follow this stupid curfew?” Spider tried to twist out of his grip, but Jake wasn’t budging. “What? Like a prisoner or something?”

“A prisoner? Jesus, Spider, I’m not imprisoning you, I’m taking care of you! Why can’t you just—” Jake cut himself off. He was going to ask Spider why he couldn’t just trust him, but considering everything they’d just talked about, it felt stupid to ask him to do that. With a deep sigh, he gently took both of Spider’s hands and lightly squeezed them.

“Okay, look at it this way. Lo’ak and Kiri have a curfew too. Why do you think they have a curfew?”

Spider stopped trying to squirm away from him, but he wouldn’t look him in the eyes either. He kept his gaze on the ground, where he nudged a small rock with his toe. His begrudging answer came after a moment, “so you know that they’re safe.”

“Yep, that’s right. We give our kids curfews because we love them.” Jake nodded. “A curfew isn’t a punishment. It’s just a rule to keep you kids safe.”

Spider kicked the rock, sending it flying into the diving hole with a small splash. He still wouldn’t look at Jake. “I’m not a kid. I’m older than Kiri and Lo’ak. I don’t need this stupid rule to stay safe.”

“Yes, you do. You’re sixteen. Sixteen-year-olds have curfews.”

Suddenly, Spider looked up at him, his dark eyes shining with an emotion Jake couldn’t identify. “So why didn’t I have a curfew when I was fifteen? Or fourteen? Or— hell, I don’t think I’ve had one since I was like ten. You say that kids need curfews, but I never had one. And it was fine. If it wasn’t fine, you and Norm and everybody wouldn’t have let it happen. So it was fine, right?”

Jake’s ears twitched downwards and it became a struggle to hold Spider’s gaze. The strange look in his eyes was almost pleading, silently begging Jake to confirm what he’d said; that it was perfectly fine that all the adults had let a teenager run around with no guardian looking after him. Jake licked his lips. It would be easy to agree with him; just tell him that the way he’d been treated was fine and come up with some bullshit excuse for why things had to change now. Spider had always gotten enough food and rest; it wasn’t like he was wasting away while the adults ignored him. Sure, he didn’t have anyone looking out for him the way Jake and Neytiri looked out for their children, but there was a war going on. They had bigger things to worry about. Spider wasn’t their problem.

It was fine, right?

“No.” When Jake finally answered, he couldn’t look Spider in the eyes. He kept his gaze trained on the stony ground beneath his knees. “No, Spider, it wasn’t fine. A kid’s not supposed to live like that. A kid’s supposed to have somebody making sure they come home and eat dinner and go to bed every night. You shouldn’t have had to look out for yourself like that.”

In the edges of his vision, he saw Spider’s dreadlocks sway as he shook his head. “No, it was fine. I was fine. I mean, I always knew I wasn’t treated the same as the other kids, but it wasn’t like it was bad or anything. Kiri and Lo’ak and Tuk are your responsibility, ‘cause you’re their parents. I don’t have parents, so I’m nobody’s responsibility. It wouldn’t be fair to make somebody else look after me when it wasn’t their fault I was stuck there.”

Hearing Spider frantically try to rationalize his treatment only made Jake feel worse. He shrunk into himself as Spider continued.

“That’s just how the world works. You know, like, if something ever happened to you and Neytiri, Lo’ak and Kiri would have to look out for themselves too, ‘cause it wouldn’t be fair to make somebody else have to look after them.”

“No! Eywa, no, Spider! That’s not how this works!” Jake cried. Just the thought of his children living like Spider —having no one waiting on them to come home at night, staying out late to get food for themselves because they couldn’t count on anyone else to feed them— was enough to make him feel sick to his stomach. “It doesn’t matter if a kid doesn’t have parents. They still need somebody taking care of them. That’s why you had your foster parents.”

“Yeah, I guess I needed them when I was little, but I pretty much just slept in the same house as them by the time I was, like, ten or so. And they’re long gone by now. I was fine without anybody looking out for me for the past year and a half. You don’t need to start now.”

“Spider, I was…” Jake hesitated, struggling to find the right words. He forced himself to look Spider in the eyes. “I was wrong, okay. I was Olo’eyktan. When your foster family abandoned you, I should’ve done something— should’ve appointed somebody or— or I don’t know. I just shouldn’t have done nothing.”

“Jake, I was fine.” Spider protested weakly.

“No, you weren’t. Not if you think it’s normal to get food all by yourself at night.”

“It’s not?”

“No! Jesus, if something ever happened to me and Neytiri,” Jake’s voice cracked with emotion at the thought, “I would never want my kids to live like this— so it’s not right to let you live like this either.”

“Jake,” Spider seemed taken aback by the emotion in his voice. “It’s okay.”

“No, kiddo, it’s not. But I’m gonna make it okay now.” He got to his feet and held a hand out to Spider. “Come on, let’s go home.”

Instead of taking his hand, Spider backed away. His eyes darted between Jake’s hand and the spearfish he’d left lying near the edge of the diving hole. The wind picked up ever so slightly, and Jake caught a whiff of the human stench of fear coming off of Spider. He frowned. Did the thought of letting himself be dependent on Jake scare him that badly?

“Look, Jake, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think it’s better if things stay the same as they’ve always been.”

Jake’s frown deepened. “What? Do you want to be out here in the dark catching food by yourself?”

Spider grimaced. “Not really, but I just think it’s for the best. It’s really nice of you to offer to take care of me, but I know how the world works. You can make promises now, when things are peaceful, but they won’t stay peaceful forever. Once things get tough again, you’re going to put your family first. I’d rather keep taking care of myself so that when things do get tough again, I’ll already be used to it.”

Jake didn’t know what to say to that. The diving hole went silent save for the waves lapping at the rock below and the occasional hiss of his exopack. Alpha Centauri had long since sunk below the horizon, leaving them illuminated by the soft blue light of Polyphemus and his moons. Spider took his silence as an answer. He knelt and scooped up his child-size speargun before turning back towards the water.

“I’m sorry I scared you today, but just forget about the curfew thing, okay? I can take care of myself.”

The breeze picked up, sending another wave of human-fear towards Jake’s nose. Spider was doing a good job of hiding it, but he really was scared. It reminded him uncomfortably of people he’d known back on Earth— people who had been let down so many times that the thought of trusting someone else to care for them was terrifying. If you give someone the power to feed you, you give them the power to starve you, someone had told him when he decided to join the Marines. The Marine Corp kept him fed as long as he was an able-bodied soldier, but the minute that changed, they’d let him starve. Clearly, Spider thought he would end up starving too if he let Jake have the power to feed him. Jake had to prove to him that he meant what he said. Empty promises wouldn’t be enough.

“Spider, wait,” he called just before Spider could jump into the water. Spider looked back at him warily.

Slowly, telegraphing his movements so Spider could clearly see what he was doing, he unsheathed his knife and held it up to his dreads. Spider’s eyes widened as he carefully severed a lock of his hair.

“Jake, what are you doing? You don’t have to—”

“No. I wasn’t just making an empty promise. I’m going to take care of you from now on.” He approached Spider and knelt so they were on the same level again, and offered the lock of hair towards him. “I want to take you on as my mll’an’eveng.”

“Mll’an’eveng,” Spider echoed, staring at the hair in disbelief. It was rare a Na’vi custom done whenever a child ended up orphaned and was too old for parental tsaheylu with adoptive parents. To the Na’vi, if a child and adult never made the parental bond in infancy, then they could never truly be child and parent, but they had an exception for children who were orphaned later in life, after they’d already established a parental bond with their birth parents. Taking in a child as mll’an’eveng wasn’t the same as adoption, but it was more like a wardship or foster home, acknowledging that the child had already bonded with other parents and their new ones could never replace that bond. An adult would be bound to take care of a mll’an’eveng with steep consequences if they failed, just like there would be consequences for neglecting their own child.

“But I’m human—” Spider protested.

“I don’t care. We don’t need tsaheylu to make you my mll’an’eveng.”

“Neytiri won’t—”

“Let me worry about her.”

“Jake, I don’t know…” Spider put a hand to his own hair and wove his fingers through it anxiously.

“It’s your choice whether you want to do this or not,” Jake said, “but no matter what your answer is, I’m still going to watch out for you. I just want to prove to you that I mean it.”

Spider’s fingers knotted so tightly in his locks that it looked painful. The stench of fear was so strong that Jake didn’t need the breeze to smell it coming off of him. Jake was just about to take his lock of hair back when Spider suddenly moved. He slipped his own small knife from its sheath and sliced off a dreadlock. With slightly trembling fingers, he handed it to Jake.

The two locks of hair rested in his giant blue palm, one smooth, neat, and uniform black, the other uneven, unkempt and mottled in shades of bronze. With all the solemnity of any other Na’vi ritual, Jake took the two locks of hair and wound them around each other, joining them into one strand. Jake then used some stray string stowed away in his loincloth pouch to tie the strand around his wrist. As per the custom of the mll’an’eveng ritual, Jake would wear the hair on his wrist for the next four days as a visible declaration of wardship over Spider for all to see.

Spider let out a heavy breath as Jake finished tying the hair to his wrist, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His bottom lip trembled and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut to fight back tears.

“Hey, it’s okay, bud. C’mere.” Jake pulled Spider into a hug, letting him bury the smooth surface of his mask into the crook of Jake’s neck.

“I’m not crying.” Spider mumbled into his shoulder.

Jake tried not to laugh as he patted him on the back. “Of course not.” He gave Spider a minute to pull himself together before giving him one last squeeze and standing up.

“Alright. Are you ready to go home now?” He offered his hand.

Small, pale fingers slipped between large, blue ones. “Yeah, I am.”

Na'vi Vocab:

Mll’an: to accept

‘Eveng: a child

I combined these two words together to create “Mll’an’eveng” or “accepted child,” a Na’vi term for a child an adult is accepting as their responsibility, but not formally adopting, similar to a ward or a foster kid. This is not canon lore, just something I made up for this one-shot.

💙Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments and reblogs, and if you want to see more from me, feel free to send me a prompt in my ask box 💙

Oh I love Jake and Spider's relationship. Could you please add this to AO3? It would be easier to read to someone who usually has to use a translator to understand anything (that person is me lol)

Here you go!

Have you watched Avatar The Last Airbender? If so, I'm curious what kind of bending you think the characters from Avatar (Blue one) would have in this universe!

omg I LOVE thinking about an avatar avatar AU (avatar squared lol) I'm so glad I got this question!

So I know some people like to base the elements off of personality when making an ATLA AU, but I want to go by tribe so-

Sky People/Avatars/Recoms= fire nation

Omaticaya= Air Nomads, except they bond with wind dragons instead of sky bison and they aren't pacifists

Metkayina= Water tribe, but tropical instead of arctic

so Jake was a firebender soldier for the Fire Nation tasked with removing a group of Air Nomads from their ancestral home so the Fire Nation could build a mine. One day, he gets separated from his squad and lost in the forest where he's attacked by a sabertooth moose lion. The moose lion is about to kill him when all of a sudden Jake earthbends and escapes the moose lion. Jake is confused by his newfound ability to earthbend and little does he know he was being watched by an airbending huntress, Neytiri, the entire time. Neytiri brings Jake to the giant tree where her people live and announces she's found the Avatar (cue theme music). The Omaticaya are wary of Jake, but Mo'at checks him out and realizes he is in fact the Avatar and announces it is their duty to teach Jake how to airbend, fire nation soldier or not, and appoints Neytiri as his teacher. Jake goes along with the teaching, because, hey, new element, but he still feels loyal to the Fire Nation.

The story progresses just like A1, with Jake going back and forth on what to do until the Colonel Quaritch, leads a group of firebending soldiers in airships in a devastating attack on the Airbenders. This pushes Jake to turn against the Fire Nation and embrace his role as the Avatar. He's joined by a few nonbender Fire Nation citizens who are sympathetic to the cause, like Grace, Norm, Max, and Trudy. While defecting, Quaritch fatally wounds Grace and the airbenders ask the spirits to save her. Grace falls into a coma, and later they discover she is pregnant. Colonel Quaritch targets a sacred tree which acts as a portal to the spirit world with the intention of doing some Zhao-The-Moon-Slayer nonsense that he believes will help the Fire Nation. Jake, with a mighty red wind dragon, leads the Airbenders in a counterattack and successfully defeats the Fire Nation and Colonel Quaritch gets dragged into the portal by a vengeful nature spirit.

Years pass, and together, Jake and Neytiri raise their family. The oldest, Neteyam, is their pride and joy, an airbending prodigy who became the youngest person to ever earn his airbending tattoos. He is also very skilled with the bow, like his mother. Jake and Neytiri also adopted Kiri, the baby born from Grace (who passed away shortly after she was born) whose father is unknown. Despite Grace being a nonbending Fire Nation woman, Kiri is an airbender. She's not the most talented bender, but she has a very strong connection to the spirit world (like Jinora). Their second son, Lo'ak, is a firebender like Jake, and he secretly wishes he was an airbender like the rest of his family. Because of his upbringing, Lo'ak has a very unique firebending technique that is heavily influenced by airbending: it's very acrobatic and involves using fire jets to let him jump around. Their youngest is Tuk, a bubbly, energetic little airbender. She loves to ride around on air scooters and befriend wild animals. And of course, there's also Spider, a nonbender war orphan of unclear parentage who became best friends with their children. Though Spider isn't a bender, he's heavily influenced by being surrounded by airbenders just like Lo'ak, and he can run and jump around so agilely he almost looks like he's airbending.

As the years pass, Mo'at encourages Jake to continue on his journey to become a fully realized Avatar, especially since she fears the Fire Nation will strike back some day. Jake, who has only mastered fire and air at this point, keeps brushing it off until it's too late.

Quaritch somehow returns from the spirit world, younger, healthier, and angrier than every before. He also now has blue fire! When he miraculously returns to the Fire Nation, he wants his wealth and status back, but General Ardmore tells him he needs to capture the Avatar to restore his honor, so Quaritch gladly assembles a team of elite nonbending soldiers to hunt him down.

Quaritch manages to capture Spider, prompting Jake and his family to flee to the tropical Water Tribe so Jake can finally start learning waterbending. The water tribe are wary of Kiri, who looks very Fire Nation despite being an airbender, and Lo'ak, who looks more like his mother but actually is a firebender, but Jake reminds them that he's Fire Nation himself, and as the Avatar, they have a responsibility to teach him. Tonowari agrees to become Jake's waterbending master and allow his family to stay with him.

Then ensues the teenage bullying and shenanigans, and Lo'ak befriends a Unagi named Payakan. He also falls for Tsireya:

"I'm a Firebender! That's all they see 😡😡😡"

"I see you 🥺🥺🥺"

Meanwhile, Quaritch realizes that Spider is the son of one of his old concubines, making him his heir and the only family he has left, which gives him very conflicting feelings about Ardmore torturing him for information on the Avatar. Almost dying and getting lost in the Spirit World made him realize he doesn't have a legacy to leave behind. Quaritch frees Spider and then Spider challenges Quaritch to an Agni Kai, demanding that if he wins he'll be set free but if he loses he'll cooperate with Quaritch. Quaritch points out that Spider isn't a bender, but Spider grabs the equivalent of a flame thrower from one of his soldiers and yells "I said, Agni Kai, bitch!"

The battle results in half the arena being burnt down, but Quaritch wins in the end and Spider reluctantly agrees to be his translator (the nations speak different languages in this AU and spider knows air language and water language).

and then yadda yadda yadda, Jake masters waterbending, Quaritch somehow figures out where Jake is, grabs his kids, they have a big epic battle on a Fire Nation ship, Neteyam dies, Quaritch nearly drowns but is rescued by Spider, and then everyone goes home the end.

Am I The Asshole for pranking the new kid in my village?

I (15M) played a small prank on this weird boy (14M) who just moved to my village. I thought it was no big deal, but my little sister said I'm an asshole so I guess I'm just trying to get a different point of view.

So for some background, a couple weeks ago, this new family moved into my village. The oldest son and the baby sister seem normal enough, but the middle two kids, a boy and a girl, are super weird. The other day, me and my friends were just harmlessly teasing the weird girl, but then the weird boy got all butthurt about it. He started a fist fight with us for literally no reason and his older brother joined in, and those two did not fight fair.

After the fight, I was hanging out with my friends when the weird boy came up to us out of nowhere and gave us this fake apology. I bet he only apologized cause his parents were scared my dad would kick them out of the village if he didn't lol. But anyway, me and my friends pranked him by pretending we wanted to go fishing with him and then we left him in the middle of nowhere. It's been a couple hours since we left him and he hasn't come back yet, but he's probably fine. I told my sister what I did and she got really upset and said the weird boy could be hurt and that I need to tell his family what I did. She also said I was an asshole, but I think she's just being sensitive. Am I really the asshole?

NTA= not the asshole

YTA= you're the asshole

NAH= no assholes here

ESH= everyone sucks here

Am I the Asshole for making my son hold up his end of the deal we made?

I (20M) recently found the long lost son (16M) of the person I was cloned from (long story, don't ask) and I was forced to take him into my organization's custody against his will. The kid wasn't really thrilled about being held in corporate custody, but I cut a deal with him: he would act as a guide and translator for me and my squad, and in return he would get privileges he wouldn't be given otherwise. A couple months go by and everything is just peachy. The kid's attitude improved and he cooperated as a guide, and I can't believe I'm saying it, but the kid started to grow on me.

But then everything went to hell in a handbasket when I got a lead on our target and the kid had to actually do some translating. When I started interrogating some suspects who possibly had a lead on my target, the kid freaked out on me and started yelling at me to stop. I don't really get why he was so upset. Me and my guys might've roughed up the suspects a little bit, but it's not like we killed anyone. The kid's a bit of a bleeding heart, I guess. He tried to back out on our deal and said he wasn't gonna take part in this, and I ended up having to cut the interrogation short, which cost me valuable time looking for leads. Afterwards, I reminded him about our deal and I made him keep working as my translator for the rest of the interrogation process. He wasn't happy about it, but he'd made a deal with me, plus I REALLY needed a translator.

Fast forward a couple days, we find our target and it doesn't go according to plan. I nearly died in a nasty shipwreck trying to do my job, but luckily my kid saved my ass from drowning. I was weak and lost in the middle of enemy territory, so I got ready to high tail it outta there. I asked my son to come with me, but he just hissed at me and ran away. I haven't seen him since. My boy doesn't exactly have a way with words, but I guess his little hiss was his way of calling me an asshole, which I don't really think is fair, since I did so much for him. I know he wasn't happy with the interrogations, but I saved his ungrateful tail from getting tortured and from getting stabbed to death by my target's crazy wife. Besides, he agreed to be my translator to get out of my CO's custody, I was just making him hold up his end of the bargain.

I know if I just had a second chance with my son, I could get him to come around again. How can I get my son back? I'm not really an asshole, am I?

NTA= not the asshole

YTA= you're the asshole

NAH= no assholes here

ESH= everyone sucks here

Am I The Asshole for saving the life of an evil person?

This whole thing is so screwed up that I don’t even know where to start. Sorry if this is confusing.

So a couple of months ago, I (16M) was captured by the clone of my crazy dead biological father and taken to the RDA to get tortured for information. I’m an orphan, so I don’t have any living family (other than my friends, who I consider my family, but they’re 14M, 14F, and 8F so there wasn’t really anything they could do) and I knew there was no one who would come rescue me. By the time they started interrogating me, I was pretty sure I was as good as dead. I even told the enemy that they would have to kill me before I would talk. But obviously I didn’t die or I wouldn’t be here writing this. The clone saved me. We made a deal that I would act as his guide and translator and in return he would protect me from being tortured and he wouldn’t make me give up any info. I spent the next few months in the jungle teaching him and his squad how to survive in the forest and I can’t believe I’m saying this but it was kind of… nice? I guess? I dunno maybe I had stockholm syndrome or something.

But anyways, it didn’t last forever cause he eventually got a lead on his target, who just so happens to be my best friends’ dad, and we went after him. The clone did so many horrible things. He set villages on fire, hunted an innocent tulkun mother and her calf, threatened to kill people, and I think the only reason he didn’t kill anyone is because I begged him not to. When he finally tracked down my friends’ dad, he and his soldiers ended up using my friends as hostages, and the worst part is that my friends’ older brother (15M) was shot by his right hand man when he helped me and 14M escape. After that, the clone was still holding 14F hostage, and he almost got my friends’ dad to surrender, but before he could, my friends’ mom grabbed me and took me as a hostage too. She was going to kill me to avenge her son, and I thought the clone was just gonna let her do it. Taking out my friends’ dad was the only thing he seemed to care about, but to my surprise, he let 14F go after their mom cut me. Thankfully, we were all able to walk away from that without anyone else dying or getting hurt.

Now here’s the part where I’m probably the asshole. After the big battle, I found the clone drowning underwater. I knew I should've just left him to die, I really really tried to, but for some reason I just couldn’t. I saved him. I guess I felt like I owed him or something. When he realized I saved him, clone called me his son and asked me to come with him, but I just hissed at him and ran back to my friends and their parents. I haven’t told anyone what I did yet. I know I need to tell them at some point but I just don’t know how. The clone was pretty beat up so I know he won’t come back anytime soon, but one thing I know about that bastard is that he doesn’t quit. He’ll be back at some point. What should I do? Am I the asshole?

Am I The Asshole for trying to protect my daughter from a bad influence?

Oel ngati kameia, English is not my first language so I hope everyone will be able to understand me. My daughter (13F) has become close friends with a boy (15M) and I am worried about how he will affect her. The boy is wild and irresponsible. He thinks he is entitled to go anywhere he wants and do whatever he pleases, and my children always get into trouble when they spend time with him. I have already noticed that my daughter’s behavior has changed since spending so much time with him. We used to get along so well, but now she doesn’t talk to me like she used to. She’s moodier and she constantly invites the boy over even when it is not appropriate for him to be there. He is clearly a bad influence on her.

Yesterday, my daughter and two other children went into a part of the forest that they know they are forbidden from entering with that boy. They ended up getting lost and my daughter fell and could’ve been seriously hurt if my husband and I hadn’t found them in time. My husband was scolding our son for taking his sisters somewhere they know they aren’t allowed to go, but the boy interrupted him. To my surprise, the boy actually took responsibility for leading my children into trouble for a change. That was, as my husband would put it, “my last straw.” I yelled at the boy and told him that this was all his fault and that he would never see my daughter again, but my husband stopped me. He told me that we cannot ban my daughter from spending time with the boy and that I need to “cut him some slack.” I don’t understand why my husband disagrees with me on this. The boy will only bring trouble. I’m only trying to protect my daughter from getting hurt. Am I the asshole?

And if it's possible for you, could you make a story of Avatar 2 by Neytiri and Spider Socorro together mother and son, please?

When I first saw the prompt, I was shocked, because I'd never thought of writing something like that before and it felt out of my comfort zone as I haven't written Neytiri much. I almost deleted it. But for some reason, it kept sitting in the back of my head and I finally decided just to give it a chance and write a little one shot. And that one shot turned into a two shot. Which turned into a three shot. So by the time I realized I had enough for three separate chapters I figured I might as well commit to making this a proper fic.

This was seriously the hardest thing I’ve ever written. When I first decided to attempt the prompt, my first thought was an AU where they adopt Spider right from the beginning, but then I thought it would be more interesting if I tried to keep things canonical but diverge from the main storyline instead. I tried so hard to write both Spider and Neytiri true to how they behave in canon while also trying to create a scenario where they would realistically bond like a mother and son. It’s really difficult since they have such a rocky relationship, I deadass think it would’ve been easier to write a Quaritch X Jake romance that sticks close to canon lmao. I'm not sure if the end result is exactly what anon had in mind, but this is what came of it, so I hope y'all enjoy!

and yes, I know I also said I would continue Special Treatment and Lucky Number Five. I am planning to continue them, my life's just gotten a lot busier, so I can't make any promises about updates unfortunately.

And as for Common Enemy... 😭😭😭 I think I intimidated myself out of finishing it, I might just go back and clean up the sketches and then post the comic as it is right now, you guys will still be able to enjoy the story, it'll just have sketchy art instead of the usual finished product, cause I bit off way more than I could chew with 15 pages.