#although i've almost waded through them all i've mostly caught up honestly

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Where is my fic where the humans never return and the Sully’s and Spider and Norm and Max and Mo’at and all the Omaticaya get to live together all happily and confront their trauma and issues in a healthy and supportive environment? It still can have plot without colonization drama okay here’s what’s happening and here is the plot:

-Neteyam is now in charge of training all the younger hunters, and he’s iconic at it. He’s very nice, but also stern and intense. He’s like Neytiri in his skills but he’s very calm and supportive, they all feel like they can trust him and come to him with issues. 

-Neteyam and Jake are subtly trying to get Lo’ak to help Neteyam with this current group. They want Lo’ak to be in charge of training when Neteyam has to become Olo’eyktan. Jake has a secret ulterior motive: having his sons share the burden of being in charge of the hunters and the training, so they can both have a chiller time in the many many years (knock on wood (throwback to my sayings Jake brings to the Omaticaya post)) that they have to take charge. 

-Kiri has now like, fully taken over for Neytiri as tsakarem in everything but like, official title. I’ve always had this belief that Neytiri doesn’t fit completely as tsakarem. She is a warrior more than she is a healer. She isn’t built for sitting still, staying home from the fight to heal the wounded. She has great healing skills, and she has a very strong connection to Eywa, but not as much or as strong as Mo’at and Kiri. Neytiri was never meant to be tsakarem, that was Sylwanin. The feeling of taking her sisters place has to be weird. 

-Lo’ak is not a bad teacher at all. At first he struggles because he literally can’t explain how he does anything. He’s like “you draw back the bow and shoot the bow” and Neteyam is in the back facepalming like oh, my god. But, eventually he learns. He recognizes someone doing something wrong and what it is and is able to translate that into explaining how to do it right from the get go. Ironically Tuk is the most helpful in this, all of her friends are too nervous to say shit to their teachers but Tuk is just in Lo’ak’s face like “THESE DIRECTIONS MAKE NO SENSE,” and Lo’ak is deep breathing attempting not to kill her in front of Eywa and everyone. He is here to set a good example and to prove to his dad and Neteyam he can be a leader, and killing Tuk will not help with that image. Even if it would be satisfying. 

-Mo’at and Spider have been testing Kiri’s Eywa connection for months. It’s a secret. Spider brought it up to Mo’at one day, and Mo’at was like “Very good observation young one, I have noticed this too. Let’s try to figure it out.” And Spider’s all pleased because she basically said she can tell he’s observant and sensitive to Eywa just like her. They clear entire days and tell anyone if it’s an emergency to find Neytiri, and then they just tell Kiri to go and they follow her into the forest and see what happens. Kiri thinks they are overreacting, but she likes a chill forest day with two of her favorite people. Sometimes they find a rare herb Mo’at was running low on, and then the next day they happen to need it for something. One time Kiri found a palulukan pup trapped under a piece of Sampson that had eroded and fallen. One time they just ended up finding some really good fruit and Kiri fell asleep surrounded by atokirina while Spider and Mo’at ate the fruit and chatted over her. One time while she was sleeping a sunbeam started to really beam right on her face, and then a tree sort of shifted and the leaves covered it. They both saw it and maybe it could’ve been the wind, but that was the best Kiri observation day. 

-Jake and Lo’ak’s mission to get Neteyam to chill out has been going on since he was like seven and told on Jake to Neytiri for balancing Lo’ak on one hand, which scares Neytiri. Jake told him snitches get stitches and he didn’t know what it meant but he took it very seriously. Now, Neteyam is not a tattletale, but he is a stick in the mud. Maybe Lo’ak steals a little extra alcohol (I know they have alcohol it’s in that deleted scene but idk what it’s called okay) from the clan’s celebration one night to share with Kiri and Spider, and Neteyam isn’t tattling but he is judging. Judgmentally. Maybe Neteyam hasn’t told Jake about Spider and Lo’ak practicing Spider jumping off of cliffs for Lo’ak to catch on his ikran, but he is definitely watching with the most disapproving looks he can manage. The mission is daunting, but Jake and Lo’ak will get Neteyam to relax if it kills them. And if it does, they can always resort to Lo’ak’s final option that Jake keeps vetoing: drug him when he isn’t expecting it. 

-Tuk’s band of friends are all obsessed with Spider (especially the war orphans). It’s truly the worst thing that has ever happened to the Omaticaya. Tuk brought a bracelet he made her to her friends once, it was the most delicately woven bracelet ever. Kid has small hands and an extra finger, he can weave. What else is he gonna do while he’s sitting there watching Kiri trance/sleep for hours? All of a sudden, every single child needs a Spider original. He’s the Louis Vuitton of the Omaticaya. Mo’at, who’s been wearing Spider originals since she first met him when he was three and decided he was Eywa’s child, is very smug. No one dares to call her out. In fact, every Sully has a Spider original except Neytiri. Even Jake, who got an armband when Spider was very little. He still has it but that is between him and Eywa. The parents all hate this, because it means they kind of all like him. Spider’s now been around so fucking long everyone would be really sad if he left, and now they actually know it. 

-How do they know they would miss Spider if he was gone?? He got sick for a month one time when he was thirteen. He caught some human sickness from a sample in the lab and because he’s literally never sick due to his mask and generally sterile environment AND the fact that he mostly lives with a different species, he got wrecked by it. Just destroyed. Everyone got kind of worried he might not make it for a while? The first few days he wasn’t there no one really noticed, besides every once and a while a “good riddance the Sully’s and that human aren’t causing a ruckus.” But the kids miss him, because their ringleader Tuk is a mess. Lo’ak and Kiri are simply moping around. Neteyam is really trying to buck everyone up and be the leader but he’s kinda lackluster. Even Mo’at is snappier than usual. Neytiri is kinda pissed, like she knew they all liked him but god at what cost? The human child was never going to make it, right? He just doesn’t belong there. Her mother of all people should know that. They’d seen what destruction humans brought, but also how fragile they were, how easy to kill. But if she has to look at Jake’s face one more time she’ll punch something so she goes storming over to the human compound to ask to see the kid. Jake and the kids can’t go see him, they don’t know if they could catch what he has. But Neytiri knows Mo’at has been going, so she’s fine. She brings him medicine and just things she knows he likes that the kids have. She does not ask or tell anyone she is going, and when the kids question where their stuff is she pretends she had no earthly idea what they are talking about. It’s fine, how many wooden “space ikran” does Lo’ak really need for his pretend assault on Earth? Neytiri visits him daily for the rest of the time he is sick. One time, towards the middle of his quarantine, he gives her a woven bracelet. It’s not up to his usual craftsmanship but it is still beautiful. The child was obviously delirious and didn’t intend for her to have that. She keeps it but does not wear it. He needs the space and the time, there is too much between them.

-Spider was not delirious. He did intend for her to wear it. He totally noticed she isn’t. But he has also noticed she doesn’t ignore him anymore, treats him almost normally. Maybe just a little too carefully and formally. 

-This is particularly dramatic for the plot, but I’m partial to Eywa blessed Spider. I want him to complete his iknimaya and uniltaron and be a full member of the clan. I am a particularly huge fan of the headcanon where he can bond lightly through the back of the neck or his wrist, I like the wrist one (Bitter changed the culture of our society). I also enjoy him finding an ikran to bond with who has a deformed or cut kuru. I don’t care how, but get my man his ikran. Ooh, maybe a forest ikran, the ones the Na’vi are too big to ride. Fun-sized, Spider-sized. Here is where the drama comes in: Spider and Lo’ak dare Norm to go through the trials with him. I’ve always thought it’s odd Norm never tried, he was so jealous of Jake and he lives in the village basically. I want the drama of Norm Spellman clowning his way through the very serious rites of passage while Jake, Spider, Lo’ak, and Norm’s band of 47 adopted orphans all try so hard not to laugh at him. He’s being so SERIOUS and trying so hard but he’s not really made for this lol. I think he’s secretly doing it for Spider, to make sure no ones looking or laughing at him for being different when Norm is right there acting a fool. I think Jake would be the most ecstatic and supportive friend while also ruthlessly bullying him.

-I think a diplomatic visit from the Metkayina and TO the Metkayina could totally happen at one point in the plot, and if we really wanted to spice it up... we could sprinkle in some locorro, but this is getting far too long already. Anyways where is this fic for me.