#recom trudy

[thetombedspirit]

I've been hearing about how Trudy was meant to "come back", but the actress declined. So I can only assume that meant that Trudy was meant to return as a Recombinant.

Which likely meant she would have been put on Quaritch's deja blue team. Maybe she doesn't remember that she defected and that fact was purposely kept under wraps by the higher ups, or maybe she does remember and they thought they could use her insider knowledge against Jake and the Na'vi (which, obviously, fat chance getting anything out of her)

And now I can't stop thinking of Trudy becoming the mother protective figure that Spider had been missing all his life while he was the RDA's captive. And when push comes to shove, Trudy will help Spider escape and absolutely would she save her nephew Neyteyam.

And on top of that, Norm's reaction to Trudy in a Na'vi body would be the cherry on top🤣

[skylarstark4826]

“You mean, there’s a baby in there? Like, a whole baby?” Lo’ak went to snake his hand over the edge of the bed to poke at the stretched skin of his aunt’s stomach. He pulled it back quickly when Norm gave it an annoyed tap, turning to the man with his own annoyed expression.

Norm rolled his eyes when Lo’ak stuck out his tongue.

The scientist turned his back to the shack’s visitors to lift a jar of translucent jelly up to Trudy’s stomach, spooning a small amount out and spreading it into a thin layer. His wife winced slightly at the coolness of it, but a reassuring hand quickly found its way into her own.

Spider looked to Lo’ak as Norm worked. His stomach dropped at the way Lo’ak’s ears perked up; he could see the boy’s nose twitching and pupils widening like the cats they’d seen on video. Knowing nothing good would come from interrupting Norm again, Spider pulled Lo’ak back by the upper arm when a hand began to reach out again.

Norm had his back to them, but Trudy watched the boys fondly. She hoped her own child would be as fun as those two.

“Yes, Lo’ak, there’s a baby in here.” She patted the sides of her stomach. The uneven firmness below the pads of her fingers, and frequent kicks that had her wincing were confirmation enough that she was expecting.

The white corded device Norm held made its way across her skin. She glanced up to see her husband’s scrunched concentration face looking at the ultrasound monitor.

When he got the angle right, he spoke to the boys, “Yep, and here he is!”

Norm gestured to the fuzzy black and white image on the screen. Both boys leant forwards to get a better look. The alternating lines formed a semi-circle that had them squinting and tilting their heads side to side to decipher what they were looking at. Patterns criss-crossed the screen in esoteric sequences that few could understand.

Spider scratched his chin. “I dunno. Doesn’t look like anything really.”

“Of course it does. See? Here’s his leg, and I think this is a hand?” Norm traced his finger over the outline of a blob of mismatched pixels. Neither Spider nor Lo’ak could see the resemblance.

Lo’ak tapped the screen, ears perking up at the sound his nail made against the glass. “How did this get here?”

The wide eyes and innocent look on his face as he turned to face the others had Spider snickering into his hand.

He started laughing before he even spoke, “Lo’ak, when a man and a woman love each other very much-“

“Skxawng, I know where babies come from!” Lo’ak’s pulled back over his teeth when a mighty hiss came from his mouth. “I meant how did this get onto the screen? How does it see through skin?”

Norm gave Spider a disapproving side glance, but turned his attention to the other, hopefully more engaged child. He pulled the device away from Trudy’s stomach - the image turning to noise on the screen - and held it up for Lo’ak to get a better look.

“This sends out soundwaves that can travel through solid objects, then times how long it takes for them to return. By doing this really quickly millions of times a second, it can make a picture out of these soundwaves, which is displayed here.” Norm gestured to the monitor. “That allows us to monitor the baby’s growth without any intrusive procedures.”

He looked back to Lo’ak, only to find the young boy’s eyes beginning to glaze over. Norm muttered to himself as he turned back to continue his wife’s checkup, “Why do I even bother?”

It was now Trudy’s turn to reassuringly squeeze his hand.

Norm sighed again, but pointed vaguely to one side of the shack and spoke as he worked, “Jake told me to keep you guys occupied for the morning. I’m sure you’ll find something interesting over there. Go through the old Hell’s Gate video logs if you want. Just don’t touch anything that looks fragile.”

That instruction would likely go ignored, but he didn’t really expect anything more from the 13 and 11 year olds. The sound of a metal box clattering to the ground and the halting of rapid steps had Norm using up yet another of his daily sighs.

Trudy watched Norm switch the ultrasound back on and continue working his way across her belly. He wasn’t a doctor by trade, but he’d picked up a few things about foetal development from his occasional work with Mo’at and the other Omatikaya healers; he just hoped that Na’vi-specific knowledge would transfer to humans.

It wasn’t like babies came with a manual, though he wondered if Trudy would approve of him writing one.

Hmm, he’d have to note that down for later. Keep a logbook of his findings. Then again, he fully expected himself to panic the moment his son was born; no idea how he would go about raising a child.

Speaking of children, Norm glanced up to a flash of blue he spotted through the shack’s glass inner door. He couldn’t help but smile at Tuktirey’s wide grin as she waved at him. Once the pressurisation cycle finished and the outside air had been purged, the door hissed open, and Tuk ran through and up to Norm.

“Woah, Tuk, you need your mask!” Lo’ak peered over the top of the monitor when he saw his sister sprint past the rack. Past experience had quickly taught him the importance of the masks.

Tuk whined, “It makes my face itchy. I don’t like it.” She pouted and crossed her arms. Her brother couldn’t tell her what to do, so she stood her ground.

Thankfully, Trudy came to Lo’ak’s aid. “Sorry girlie. If you want to be in here, you need to put one on. Just like us humans have to when we’re outside.”

“But I wanna see the baby!”

Trudy raised an eyebrow, and Tuk sulked over to the rack by the entrance. Lo’ak left his place at the monitor to help her fit the cannister’s strap over her shoulder and secure the head bands in place. She tried to shrug his hands away, but Lo’ak was quick enough to work around her, and she was soon breathing the correct air, albeit with an annoyed scrunch of her nose.

“Don’t come crying to me when you can’t breathe then.” Lo’ak rolled his eyes and strolled back over to Spider, who was watching the interaction with his own exopack hanging from his bandoleer and belt.

Trudy jerked her head in Tuk’s direction to hint at her husband. He looked at her in question. She flicked her eyes across to the girl again, but it still took a moment to click for Norm. His mouth formed an O in realisation.

He placed the ultrasound down and went over to Tuk. Crouching before the young girl, he lifted her chin up to be eye to eye with her, though she was nearly as tall as humans much older than herself.

“Why don’t I show you the baby then?” Norm tilted his head to the side.

He saw her ears instantly perk up and her eyes brightened. Ruffling her braids, he scooped her up and carried her over to the bed Trudy lay on, placing her softly next to his wife. Tuk shuffled backwards until she brushed against Trudy’s legs and turned to face Norm expectantly.

He smiled at her, “I’ll show you how the machine works, then you can give it a go if you want?”

Tuk nodded rapidly, reaching out with grabby hands until Norm could demonstrate. Moving the device over another part of Trudy’s stomach, the lines appeared on the screen and Tuk gasped.

“Look! It’s a foot!” The little girl pointed at the amorphous blob, but Norm did have to admit she was right. Five toes, and distinctly foot shaped.

Tuk bumped her curled fist against Norm’s in a gesture her dad had taught her. She giggled when another foot-shaped blob drifted into view next to the first.

“So, if that’s where his feet are, his head must be down here.” Norm said whilst tapping his chin in mock thought, passing the ultrasound to Tuk then gently tapping lower on Trudy’s stomach. “Be gentle.”

Tuk nodded enthusiastically, and Norm once again silently thanked his wife for being so patient with kids. Without her, he would be an exasperated mess, shooing them away from his equipment. Although, Trudy still winced when Tuk’s inexperienced hand pressed the device a little too hard into her.

“Gentle, gentle. It won’t work otherwise.” Norm placed his palm over Tuk’s and carefully guided the device around.

Tuk kept looking up to the screen in awe, then back down to move to a different place. Every time she looked, Norm could see her pupils blow wider than the last, until he was sure they could get no bigger.

Once they had covered Trudy’s entire stomach, Norm gently took the ultrasound and wiped it down, passing more wipes to Trudy. Tuk sat looking at the screen again, but this time there was a thoughtful scrunch to her brow, one that only a young child pondering the universe could possess.

“What is it girlie? You look confused.” Trudy swung her legs over the edge of the bed and pressed her hands into her back to flex her stiff spine.

Tuk didn’t respond immediately, so Norm took the opportunity to press a kiss to Trudy’s cheek and pull up a chair to sit beside them both.

When the question had been thoroughly processed and was ready to be asked, Tuk shuffled off the bed and moved to point at the last displayed image on the screen, then down to Trudy’s belly. “How is the baby so small, when humans like Uncle Norm and Spider are so tall?”

Trudy had to resist the urge to coo.

She gently tapped Norm when he went to explain. Norm acquiesced and sat back in his chair with open ears.

Trudy started, “So you know how Na’vi are generally bigger than humans? Like how your mum is bigger than me, and Lo’ak is taller than most of the scientists, despite being so much younger?” Tuk sat up with the utmost attention, nodding along to Trudy’s words. The woman continued, “So human babies are smaller than Na’vi babies because humans are smaller. The baby needs to fit inside me. I’d pop otherwise!”

Tuk giggled, “Your belly looks like it might.”

“Whoa ho, young lady! Are you saying I look fat?” Trudy put her hands on her hips in mock indignation.

“Maybe a little.” Tuk put her fingers together, leaving a small distance between them. She pulled her hands back to her cheeks and giggled again.

Trudy grinned ear to ear. “I guess we’ll have to ask your dad to find photos from when your mum was pregnant. I can’t be the only fat one after all.” She looked to where the boys were still watching video logs, Lo’ak perched precariously on the back of a chair. She called to them, “Lo’ak, I need your help here.”

The boy’s head perked up, and from the mischievous look his aunt gave him, sprinted over. Norm saw it too, handing an exopack to Trudy and pulling one over his own head. Tuk watched on curiously.

“Right, let’s get you to your dad then. Lo’ak, grab her arms.”

Trudy reached down for Tuk’s legs, grasping them strongly whilst Lo’ak lifted her by her shoulders. Shrieking with laughter, Tuk hung between the two of them as they shuffled into the airlock and out the door.

The young girl kept laughing all the way to the Sullys’ Marui, loud enough that it distracted Trudy from the ache that began to seep into her limbs. Pacing along behind them was Spider and Norm, the latter of which looked slightly concerned. For whom, she wasn’t sure.

At that point in the mid-morning, Jake had finished airing out the clansmen’s grievances for the day, delegating out tasks to remedy the issues that’d been brought up. Now he sat in his Marui with his mate preparing for a scouting flight. The yearly migration of ‘Angtsìk had begun a few days ago, and their numbers needed to be surveyed to ensure only the needed amount were hunted.

The last thing he expected to see was his daughter, looking like she was about to burst from laughing too hard, being held strung between his son and heavily pregnant friend, with Norm and Spider following.

The flick of his tail and raised eyebrow from his mate betrayed their confusion. “Um, hi? Didn’t expect you guys to be done so soon.”

Trudy lowered Tuk’s feet down so she could stand on her own, but not before Lo’ak started tickling his sister’s sides and filling the hut with giggling shrieks. Tuk jumped and wriggled around to evade his hands, but the attempts were futile, and he kept finding a way through her defences.

Trudy’s back cracked as she twisted to the side. “This cheeky thing-” She pointed to where Tuk was squirming away from her brother and pressing her arms firmly against her sides, “Called me fat. I think we should get out some of her baby photos.”

Both Jake and Neytiri could see the mischievous twinkle in the other woman’s eyes, and it brought them all onto the same wavelength.

Neytiri had to hide her grin behind her hand to put on a mask of faux seriousness, “Oh yes, from when shewas all small and chubby.” Cameras were the one Sky People invention the Na’vi woman liked. No longer did memories have to fade from the mind.

The hut’s occupants took a seat, Spider crouched beside Jake as Norm helped Trudy down. Tuk took refuge from her brother’s attack in her dad’s lap, curling into his chest and sticking her tongue out teasingly. Lo’ak nodded conspiratorially to Spider, and they both lunged forward to poke at her again. Her head flicked back as the laughter began anew.

Jake wrapped his youngest child in a protective cocoon, but soon found himself the victim of the boys’ attack. Only after having children did he learn his Avatar body was even more ticklish than his human one.

He started to wriggle himself, until the cocoon was broken and Tuk dashed away to the safety of her mum beside one of their trunks. Neytiri didn’t look up from where she searched for the drive they kept their photos on, but did wrap her tail around her daughter. Neither boy dared make another attempt; Neytiri would tickle them until they were crying with laughter to protect Tuk.

Tuk peered over the edge of the box just as Neytiri grasped the small thumb drive from the bottom. She’d seen her parents plug it into her dad’s laptop before, but was never too interested in its contents. Now, she couldn’t wait to see the old photos.

Moving back to the group, Neytiri and Tuk traversed their way through the afternoon’s scouting preparation that lay forgotten on the floor. The others could go on without them.

Lo’ak passed his dad the laptop and they quickly set it up for them all to see, then plugged in the drive Neytiri handed over.

“Alright, should we go all the way back?” Jake looked to his daughter, who nodded eagerly.

Trudy concurred, “I think that may be needed. Neytiri, did Jake take any pictures when you were pregnant?”

Jake answered for his mate, “Yep, and here they are!”

Scrolling through the list, there were pages upon pages of candid photos of Neytiri going about daily life in their hut; most of them had her rolling her eyes at her mate’s off-screen antics as he took the picture.

In several, Neytiri was crouched over and chopping food, her distended belly getting in her way. Even in the hastily taken image they could make out how annoyed it made her. Another was a more composed shot; a side profile with Neytiri resting her hands gently on her stomach and gazing down fondly.

Tuk burst from her seat when the image appeared, “Wow mum, you’re fat too!”

“Bah! She was way more tactful with me earlier.” Trudy laughed alongside the rest of them.

Neytiri raised an eyebrow and pointed at the screen. “Don’t say that too quick, little one. That is you in there.”

The little girl’s hands flew to her mouth to cover her gasp, “Really?! That’s me?! I made you fat!”

Lo’ak snickered beside the adults. He went to teasingly poke at his sister again, but a quick hand and raised eyebrow stopped him. He glanced up to see his mother’s unimpressed look, then sheepishly brought his hand back.

“Don’t tease too quickly, son.” Jake gently took the laptop from his mate and scrolled to a different set of images. “These are from when your mum was pregnant with you. I don’t know about you, but I think you were even bigger!”

Now it was Tuk’s turn to giggle, much to the enjoyment of everyone, bar Lo’ak.

Jake continued, “And when you all came out, we would wrap you up in the warmest blanket we could find.” He gestured off to a pile on the side of the room. Spider took the cue and passed over the topmost piece of fabric.

Tuk suddenly found herself in her father’s lap, being wrapped up tightly until only her face and the tips of her ears were visible. Her tail coiled around her leg in surprise and stayed there under the blanket, her arms pressed to her sides.

It took all the effort the adults had not to fawn over the startled expression on the little girl. Jake himself didn’t succeed. He cooed at his daughter and brushed a stray hair from her face. With pupils the size of dinner plates, Tuk found herself being cradled by her dad and rocked back and forth as Jake sung softly.

“Hush little baby, don’t say a word, papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring…” Jake paused as Tuk’s eyes grew heavy.

She fought with fleeting energy to stay awake, but it was a futile battle against the warmth and slow rocking rhythm, and she was soon asleep.

Jake finally looked up, seeing varying looks of surprise and awe on the faces of the hut’s occupants. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I never learnt the rest of the words.” He looked down to his snoozing daughter. “Never needed to.”

Spider was the first to break the silence, thankfully keeping his voice low, “Did I ever get wrapped up?”

Norm snorted, and Trudy smirked. Jake’s ears perked up at their reactions to the question. He handed the bundled Tuk to Neytiri, who moved to the little girls sleeping mat, then gestured alongside Spider for them to continue.

For the first time ever, Jake saw his friend look smug.

“Yeah, you were a little terror around the lab, and you only got worse when you learnt to walk. We tried to wrap you up like that to stop you from wandering around our equipment, but you seemed to have a knack for escaping.” Norm had pulled out his own tablet and was searching through his own photos. “To this day, I still don’t know how, we once found you bundled up in your blanket on top of a bookshelf.”

The photo he showed to everyone was proof enough of his story. Baby Spider, asleep, wrapped in a blanket, and very high off the ground.

“Still got some of that baby fat, aye?” Trudy reached over to pinch at Spider’s cheek.

The teen squirmed away in an embarrassed huff.

“My wife here thought it was hilarious,” Trudy bumped Norm gently with her elbow, “But you gave Max and me a heart attack. We did our best to baby-proof everything, but you still managed to climb onto desks and shelves. Come to think of it, we’ll probably need to do that again soon.”

“Why don’t you take a look at some of these photos then?” Trudy took the tablet from Norm and passed it to Spider.

The teen looked through the list slowly, Lo’ak coming to sit beside him to look too. Eventually, Spider found one, tapping on the thumbnail to expand it.

A small boy, with an enormous mass of curly blonde hair and the brightest blue eyes, sat on the edge of a workbench, trying to pull the straps of a modified exopack mask over his head. Max’s arm could be seen trying to aid the boy, but only getting more hair in the way.

“I remember this. It was my first mask.” Spider looked up to Norm.

The scientist smiled back, “Yep, that day was the first time you left Hell’s Gate. We didn’t go far, just down to the river. That’s also the first time you met Kiri.” Norm gave him a knowing look.

Spider blushed, and Lo’ak gave him a teasing nudge. Even Neytiri couldn’t help but smile at his obvious crush. Several more photos were flicked through when they heard shuffling from behind them.

Tuk’s head popped up from the wrapped blanket, looking bright and alert. “Dad, is it morning already?”

“Well that’s about right. Five-minute nap, and she’s up and ready to go.” Jake slid his hand down his face. “No, it’s still the same day.”

“Okay! Can I look at some more photos then?”

“You won’t go to sleep again anyway,” He muttered quietly, then louder, “Sure can.” He glanced over to a rather bemused looking Norm and Trudy. “I wish years of sleepless nights upon you both.”

Norm held his hands up in surrender.

Tuk quickly rejoined the circle, this time leaning heavily into Spider’s side to look at the photos, and completely forgetting how he and her brother were tickling her before.

Neytiri joined the other adults on the opposite side of the hut, her tail intertwining with her mate’s. She asked Norm and Trudy, “Why are they so interested in these old photos?”

“Norm was doing an ultrasound, and none of them believed that a baby could fit in here.” Trudy tapped her stomach. “We explained that humans are smaller, so human babies are smaller too.”

“Oh! I’ve got an idea.” The kids turned to Norm at the sudden sound. “Hey Spider, can I please have that back for a second?”

Spider passed the tablet back over, Norm taking it and flicking through several menus and typing in search bars. Jake just shrugged at the boys’ confused looks.

“We said before how humans are just smaller,” Norm began, “But we didn’t say why.”

He pulled up an image on the screen and turned it around to show the kids. Neytiri too leant forwards to get a better look. There were two circles side by side, one slightly smaller than the other, but both made of strokes of blue, green, and white.

Norm pointed to each of them. “This is Earth, and this is Pandora. See how Pandora is smaller, which means it has less gravity. Only about 80% of Earth’s.”

He paused when Tuk held her hand up.

The little girl asked with bright and wide eyes, “What’s gravity?”

Jake grasped her below her arms and threw her up. She shrieked in delight, and was caught again on her way down. Being placed on the ground once more, Jake said, “That’s gravity. It’s what pulls you back down.”

“Yep, and there’s less of it here than on Earth.” Norm smiled at the giggling girl. “So here, it’s easier for things to evolve and grow bigger.”

Norm pulled the tablet down again, flicking through to another photo. “I forgot that Max catalogued the remaining data we had from Hell’s Gate, so I found these old images from Earth.”

The children and Neytiri cocked their heads to the side at the strange animal he showed them. Jake, however, nodded in understanding.

“This is an elephant, the largest land animal on Earth. I actually have a photo of me with one somewhere… Ah ha!”

Norm stood in dark sunglasses and a wide-brim hat patting the flank of the enormous animal. He was sombre when he spoke, “They had died out to the point that they only really existed in zoos or highly protected reserves, so I was very fortunate to get this photo.”

Trudy huffed a laugh from his side when Tuk’s ears stuck up to the ceiling and her nose pressed into the tablet. They all knew the little girl had an infatuation with what she called fluffy cuddly animals, and it just so happened she thought a lot of Earth’s wildlife fit into that category. Those who had lived on Earth were loath to tell her about the fact that lions and tigers had sharp claws and teeth that could very easily kill their prey.

“Should I look for some more pictures of elephants then?”

Tuk nodded eagerly to the scientist’s question, then focussed back on the screen.

Norm continued, “Alright then. This is the largest land animal on Earth, but it’s still only half the size of the Hammerhead Titanothere, the nearest equivalent on Pandora. We think that lower gravity allows creatures here to develop-”

Looking up from his impromptu presentation, he found the rest of the adults smirking at him, the boys nowhere to be seen, and Tuk still trying to press her nose into the tablet. Norm sighed a heavy sigh; how often he felt like he was talking to a brick wall with the kids.

Jake couldn’t help but smile at his friend’s optimism.

When Norm and Trudy’s son was born, the Sullys soon received an invite to meet the new baby. The children were practically bouncing off the walls in anticipation of meeting him, and Neytiri couldn’t help but concur with their sentiment. She’d never met a newborn human baby; Spider was at least a year old when she first saw him.

The airlock to the medical shack was crowded with all the occupants squished together as the pressure equalised. Jake glanced to Neytiri. Whilst not their own child, the feeling of seeing a new life for the first time was still running high through them. It brought them back to when each of their children took their first breaths, and every milestone that came after.

When the door hissed open, they exited to the interior and quickly went about putting the masks on; Lo’ak somehow managed to get the strap of his tangled in his new braids that Kiri did the day before, and Tuk still didn’t remember which way the tubing was supposed to go.

Kiri rolled her eyes at her brother, and Neytiri helped Tuk right her mask. Then she grabbed the girl to stop her from sprinting and jumping on Trudy.

The sound of the airlock door opening and closing again brought their attention behind them. Spider waved eagerly through the glass, clearly having received the same invitation as them. Removing his exopack and clipping it to his bandoleer, Spider joined them as they made their way to the bed.

Norm sat in an uncomfortable looking chair to the side of Trudy’s bed, his head forward and eyes closed as he dozed. Trudy herself had blanket pulled up to her mid-section, and looked like she was about to fall asleep too. She would’ve if it wasn’t for the small bundle she held to her chest.

“Um… Should we come back later?” Trudy’s head perked up when Jake asked.

“No, no. You’re good.” The yawn the woman let out contradicted her statement.

Trudy dropped her arm from the bundle to her husband, knocking him on the back of his head harder than she intended.

“What, where, how?” Norm sat bolt upright, eyes wide and frantically searching for danger.

Trudy scoffed, “My knight in shining armour.”

Finally realising where he was, Norm sunk back into the chair. He reached over to pull the cloth down slightly from the bundle. Stroking a finger oh so gently across the baby’s forehead caused the infant’s mouth to twitch slightly. Norm grinned brightly to his wife. Their baby’s first smile. Neither of them could believe the fact that this little thing had come from them; two halves put together to make a whole.

Neytiri rested her head on her mate’s shoulder, intertwining their tails together behind them. Kiri, Neteyam and even Lo’ak couldn’t help but coo.

Jake spoke softly to not rouse the babe, “How’re you holding up?”

Norm looked to Trudy to answer. She blinked rapidly to keep herself awake, “Sore, and thankful that is over. Can’t say I enjoyed it.”

Neytiri hummed in agreement, “The birthing process is painful, and can be very long.”

“Yeah, I’m glad my hand still works.” Norm held up his bandaged fingers, Trudy rolling her eyes.

“I wasn’t gripping you that hard.”

Norm winced.

“Are you done talking about grown-up things? I wanna see the baby.” Tuk’s whine pierced the air. Neytiri softly reminded her to keep her voice down.

Like a chain reaction, Tuktirey looked to Jake, who looked to Norm, who looked to Trudy. Rolling her eyes again, Trudy nodded and shuffled her legs to the side of the bed to make room for Tuk to carefully climb up. Sensing her slight wobble, Jake reached over and grasped his daughter gently under the arms to stop her from falling forward.

The rest of them moved around the bed, Kiri standing beside Norm, Lo’ak and Spider with Neteyam on the other side, and Neytiri next to Jake.

Slowly, Trudy pulled the cloth down from around the baby’s head. The cooler air hit his downy hair, and he wriggled slightly in his sleep. A small squeak came from his mouth.

“Oh, Ma Tsmuke, he’s beautiful!” Neytiri’s hand flew to her mouth to hold in the gasp.

Jake looked up to his friends, “Do you have a name?”

“We’ve got a few ideas, but nothing final yet.”

Jake nodded; it had taken him and Neytiri several weeks after each of their children’s births to complete their naming ceremonies. As far as he was concerned, he would whole-heartedly perform the same rite for his friends’ son, and he knew Mo’at would have no objections either.

With a weight growing on his arms, Jake felt Tuk lean even further forwards. She had never seen a human baby before. Though her siblings teased her for being the youngest, saying she was still a baby herself, he knew she preened at the attention she got. She was the smallest and had never been anything but the smallest in their immediate circle. A new baby upset that status quo.

But from the chirp she made and the wide eyes she watched the baby with, Jake didn’t think she would mind too much.

“Huh, I think someone has a new best friend.”

Tuk didn’t even hear Trudy’s chuff. All she could see was the tiny nose, soft skin, chubby cheeks and peacefully closed eyes. All warm and wrapped up, it was a sight of such utter safety that had her wishing she was held tightly in her own mother’s arms, keeping her safe as the sounds of thunderstorms rolled overhead, or reassuring her that a bad dream wasn’t real.

That same awe slipped into her voice, “Can I… Can I hold him?”

The look of pure hope in her eyes nearly had Norm agreeing to anything she asked right there and then, but he at least had the self-preservation to glance to his wife.

Trudy nodded, but added, “I think it might be a good idea if your dad helps you.”

Understanding what she meant, Jake wouldn’t fit on the bed with his daughter, so he pulled Tuk up into his side and lowered them both down, crossing his legs. Tuk sat in his lap with her back pressed up to his chest and his arms encircling her.

“So we’ve got to be real careful, alright? We’re gonna hold our arms like this, and have his head resting here. Human babies’ heads are heavy.” Tuk nodded seriously to Jake’s instructions. “If your arms get tired, let me know.”

Taking his son carefully from Trudy, Norm slowly lowered him down until Jake’s longer arms could reach out. The baby was situated snuggly, Jake resting his head in the crook of his elbow. He felt Tuk’s arms come up under his to wrap around the newborn too. He let her take some of the weight, just to get a feel, but sure to keep him secure.

Jake rolled his eyes when Neytiri crouched to double check his hold, Kiri leaning over too to watch.

Hearing a click from off to the side, they all glanced to the source. Somehow having found Norm’s camera, Spider had his eye up to the viewfinder and was pressing the shutter button rapidly.

Lo’ak stood to his friend’s side with his thumbs up and a wide grin spread across his face. “Looking good sis.”

Tuk didn’t even glance up when Neteyam hissed at them to put the camera down.

Trudy managed to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, but gestured for Norm. He pulled her arm over his shoulder and took some of her weight as she leant slightly to the side.

Tuk’s stillness had the whole room watching silently, with Norm holding his breath. She just stared and watched with wide eyes. He couldn’t help the slight increase in heartrate that started to thump in his chest.

“Well, what do you think?”

Finally, she looked up, a cheek-splitting grin on her face.

“He’s so… small.”

[choclodox]

Lyle’s IQ score Head Canon

HEAR ME OUT: as much as Lyle def gives me himbo™️ energy, I also feel like he’s supposed to be…PRETTY SMART? he’s just also goofy. Like, I feel like he’s one of those friends that’s the smartest but also the dumbest person you’ve ever had at the same time.

Here is my evidence (dons glasses and grabs a laser pointer)

1. First and foremost, I’m pretty sure Quaritch wouldn’t let a dumbo be able to advance to the rank of Corporal, so Lyle needs to have SOME level of competency (but there’s still some room for his goofball nature lol).

Side note, studies show that people who are comical tend to have higher IQs since it ranks critical thinking to understand humor and make jokes. So Lyle is at least smart in that department.

2. In the first movie, we can see that Trudy trusts him enough to work on her Samson. We all know how much Trudy LOVED her Baby, so she must have had some serious trust in Lyle (someone who wasn’t an RDA mechanic) to let him even TOUCH her Rogue One’s equipment.

3. Also in the first movie, Lyle actually knows his stuff about combat theory and the AMP suits. When Quaritch has Lyle survey the aftermath of the Omatikaya’s retaliation for the destruction of the Tree of Voices, Lyle is able to describe in detail what the damages are. He’s able to tell that the arrows were fired from Ikrans based off the angles of the arrows in the damaged equipment and dead bodies, he can say for a fact that the AMP suits are not just damaged but what exactly is damaged (the Driver in this case).

4. Now in the 2nd movie, we actually get to see more of his smarts come into action. Lyle actually gets promoted from Corporal to Lieutenant and becomes second in command to Quaritch. The RDA wouldn’t let that happen if he was purely a trigger happy soldier; you needs some gray matter for that position.

5. Next, Quaritch looks to LYLE to pull the security feed off of OG Quaritch’s AMP suit. And Quaritch is a smart guy too, but it feels like Big Curly Q knows he’s out of his depth on this one and just hands it off to Lyle because he knows that he actually knows his stuff.

But ya, thanks for coming to my TedTalk :)

Also, a few other hcs I embrace

Lyle is that ONE gringo friend that knows FLUENT Spanish (and possibly knows other languages as well). And when I say Gringo, I don’t mean he’s white but is still Hispanic, no. There is a reason why JamCam named this man after Wainfleet, Ohio (the Ohio of Ohio). But nobody questions his ability to speak Spanish. You leave him alone in any Authentic Hispanic setting and come back in 20 minutes, they’re running to the liquor store because they already ran out of Tequila/pisco/etc. TEAM LATINO LOVES HIM

*side note, Jake probably knows some Spanish too since he did his tours in Venezuela. Who knows, maybe he taught some to Spider because he knows he’s team Latino. A

*and Quaritch probably knows some of Nigeria’s native languages (Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, etc) since he did 3 whole tours there before coming to Pandora

Lyle likes 90s music (Britney Spears, Mariah Carey) but mainly SHAKIRA. I could see him just dancing alone to Hips Don’t Lie and someone walks in trying to get his attention, but he doesn’t notice and they have to clear their throat and he just screams when he finally notices them

He can dance Samba, Cumbia, Tango, Flamenco. ANYTHING in that family HE CAN DO IT FLAWLESSLY ASU PAPI

Might come from a family of mechanics and worked in a mom and pop mechanic shop (I embrace that one HC where he has a love for cars and just engineering in general). Maybe he wanted to be a more refined engineer but just couldn’t pass the tests since he was more of an intuitive thinker and tests favor more of the technical thinkers.

Likes DragonBall Z but will never admit it

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

gone but not forgiving

Avatar (2009) / Dead Girls, Penelope Scott / "Self-portrait as a broken Venus statuette" by Autobiography of a Wound: Poem by Brynne Rebele-Henry / Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora / Chain by Audre Lorde (drive line from this post by @fearlastyear) / Dead Mom, Beetlejuice / Avatar: The High Ground / Missing Mom, TV Tropes / Avatar (2022) / les filles mortes, serena crane @mothprincess / "Burn The Witch," Shawn James / Dead Girl! (Shake My Head), Au/Ra / forever fifteen, Mothica / Marina, Ingeborg Bachmann 

[womenofpandoraweek]

Women of Pandora Week 2023

June 25-July 1

Day 1: Tsaheylu | Forest | Trauma

Day 2: Eywa | Music & Dance | Hair

Day 3: Recovery | Songcord | Sisterhood

Day 4: Motherhood | Grief | 5 + 1

Day 5: Ancestors | Resurrection | Sky People's Return

Day 6: Scars | Rescue | Battle & Hunt

Day 7: Childhood | Firsts | Atokirina

Here are the prompts for Women of Pandora Week! You can tackle one a day or mix and match prompts—do whatever comes to your mind!

Reminder that anything can be made for Women of Pandora Week! You can write fics or headcanon posts, make a playlist or a moodboard or a web weaving, you can make video edits or fan art! Anything and everything is welcomed! Just remember to post and tag this blog once the day comes!

The general rules for Women of Pandora Week can be found HERE.

If you have any questions please send an ask!

[meenawrites]

any ideas in the Trudy Lives AU for when Spider gets taken by the recoms? her reaction? what she tells the sully’s when they admit that he was with them when he got captured? what she’d do after in the following months, planning, etc, and finally her seeing him again? sorry if this is a bit much, I am just very invested in what you’ve created.

YES thank you for asking!

I have actually been thinking about this for the past two days. I'm still not entirely sure sure about how it would go down, BUT! Here are my thoughts so far!

So I think it would actually happen on a day Trudy is like preoccupied with something back at High Camp. She'd had a bit of a bad feeling in her gut that day, but had elected to ignore it. The raid had gone well after all, and things were generally in their favor.

But then the Sully's come back frantic, Kiri is crying, and her blond little son (though not so little anymore) is nowhere to be seen.

Jake wants to leave right then and there to protect the clan, but Trudy forces him to stay to get a proper explanation out of him. He's trying to quickly say what happened but Kiri interrupts him and says they took him, the RDA has him.

And Trudy loses it because clearly Jake was about to leave without Spider.

Now here's where I have a bit of a dilemma. I feel like through actually watching Trudy parent Spider and Neytiri and Trudy being kind of friends, I'm not sure Neytiri would have as much hatred for the boy as she does in canon. Then again it could have been triggered again because of the appearance of the recoms. What I'm saying is maybe Neytiri would oblige Trudy here and go back for him or maybe not. I'm still debating but for the sake of canon let's go with the fact that she doesn't.

Trudy goes on a whole angry rant about what an asshole move it was to just let him be kidnapped and they have no intention of going back for him. Jake's like he's a tough kid and human he'll be fine. And she's like BULLSHIT, do you know why he's a tough kid? Because everyone aside from me made him so! And how could you say that? You don't know what they're gonna do to him. They'll do anything to find out where you are. He's SIXTEEN, Jake! SIXTEEN!

Again, don't know if Jake's friendship with Trudy here would compel him to make a rescue attempt or not, which is why my idea for this event with my Trudy Lives AU isn't solid, solid, but let's continue as if it had gone in canon.

Once she sees he's not going to budge, she's gonna be like, "I respect the fact that you're leaving to get a target off your clan's back. But I will never fucking forgive you for leaving MY kid!"

I think Trudy's spiel would have given Kiri the courage to be like hell yeah how could you leave him that's my best friend! I think the others might be too cowed by her parents' decision to actually go for him right then and there.

Right before the Sully family is going to leave, I think Kiri would run to the lab where Trudy is and tell her she wants to stay to help her get Spider back. Trudy is super touched, but she'd not going to make the same mistake Jake did and let a kid get swept up in this war. So she's like, "I appreciate it, kid, but I can't let you." Kiri starts protesting and she's like, "I can't drag you into this. The whole reason I'm pissed with your old man is because he's fine with Spider getting dragged into this, a KID getting dragged into this shitshow. And I'm not gonna do the same with you. I'm gonna get him back. Ya hear me, Kiri? I'm gonna get him back to you, alright?"

Kiri thinks that if anyone can do it, it's gonna be Trudy so she reluctantly leaves with her family.

Trudy's trained military and a practical woman first and foremost so no matter how much her mama bear instincts are raging at her to just go in guns flying to get her kid back, she sits and tries to make a plan. She ropes the other scientists into it because she knows she won't be able to do it lonewolf-style.

I think first off she'd scout out Bridgehead with the help of some (maybe three) Omatikaya warrior friends she's made over the years (if anyone has suggestions for names or personalities for them I'm all ears). But Bridghead looks basically impenetrable and she'd have no shot of getting in. Besides the whole point of Jake leaving was to get them off of the Omaticaya's backs so she can't really mobilize them to attack the base. She doubted they would follow her anyway.

So she waits, clocking guard shifts and watching. Eventually, whenever Quarritch decides to pull Spider out of the torture machine and be his Na'vi guide, Trudy starts tailing the recom group from afar.

She'd heard about the recoms but had never actually laid eyes on them herself, and seeing Wainfleet's and Quarritch's sends shivers down her spine. And those guys have her son.

For plot reasons, I think she wouldn't be able to make a move for Spider until they start raiding Metkayina clans. For drama reasons anyway. And besides, the recoms are all trained military as well but now in bodies suited to the planet. It would be no easy feat.

Now part of me wants her to go for it before then anyway and get captured. Spider says he won't do anything for Quarritch anymore if he so much as lays a hand on her, so now Trudy is also just traipsing with them as another captive.

The other part of me wants her to take her shot when the RDA is preoccupied with hunting tulkuns to send a signal to the Sully's. Amidst the chaos of the hunt, I think she would be able to drop down onto the boat unnoticed (possibly with the help of a Na'vi friend of hers' ikran and her own kestrel is nearby or something). She hides on the ship until she sees Spider come out of the mouth of the tulkun looking absolutely sick to his stomach.

Because of how long he's been with the recoms, I think they'd probably keep less of a watchful eye on him, which would allow Trudy to signal him and make a run for it under their noses. She nabs Spider and they jump off the boat together, getting picked up by her Na'vi friend along the way on the back of her ikran. It would be a good half hour to an hour before Quarritch even noticed the kid was gone since he had been busy plotting with the tulkun hunters. And he can't justify going to get them.

Luckily because Trudy's a smart and skilled adult, she'd have more spare exopacks and once Spider says there's a tracker in his, she gives another one and they ditch his somewhere in the middle of the ocean or something.

From here, Trudy would probably pilot her kestrel towards Awa'atlu. I imagine that she's such a good pilot, she'd long since disabled any tracking signals or anything from her kestrel and flies solo/manually (so the RDA can't track her). She's going there because as pissed as she is with Jake for leaving her son and running, she knows he deserves to know how close Quarritch is and what his plans are.

I'd imagine in this version, since Trudy got him back NETEYAM DOESN'T DIE AND ALL IS WELL.

Need Jake to do some apologizing and shit but well that's out of the scope of this question rn.

Hope that answered the question. If you guys have any thoughts about what I mentioned I was uncertain about, please feel free to share.

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

What if Paz somehow saved Sylwanin and the other kids from being, you know, killed. Just a little, wacky idea for you.

Ohhh, complicated question. I never imagined Paz was at Pandora at that time, tbh. Grace has been on Pandora for so fucking long, she's been there for 30 years. She's been there longer than Neytiri has been alive. There has never been a time Neytiri's life wasn't touched by the sky-people, which is sad to think about.

But back to Paz- I don't think she would've been around for that. BUT, if she was, well, it just postpones the inevitable, quite frankly. Sylwanin and Tsu'tey would've had their good relationships with Grace, and tensions would have continued for a while longer instead of the banning of avatars from Omaticaya land. I do think there would have been another incident that would've caused this ban, just later. Mining would have continued and Sylwanin is still alive and already disillusioned towards the humans. It just adds a really interested dynamic to Jake and Neytiri's relationship when Jake would enter the picture, Sylwanin would NOT be pleased; she was the biggest advocate for the humans beforehand, like Neytiri, I'm sure she feels somewhat responsible for the destruction.

Another note; I really hesitate at fanon characterization of Paz. It comes from a place of wanting Spider to have a parent he can think highly of, one who loved him and prioritized him and his ideals (and the comics hint this of course). In actuality, we know nothing about her except that she died in the Assault on the Tree of Souls. Aside from Trudy, every RDA soldier we see is extremely racist towards the Na'vi and is nothing but excited to wipe them out. I really caution against white savior-ing and humanizing the colonizers, it's a trait that is really overused in this series in particular. The recoms and Quaritch have no excuse and never will, and frankly, neither does Paz. It is really worrying how many people want to excuse them. I know you were just throwing out a scenario though.

[baybaybear1]

Living well is the best revenge, so they say. In Jake's quiet fury at the dismissive, heartless way everyone spoke of his brother's death and the complete lack of empathy he found at every turn and corner, he decides to find a way to live the best life he can possibly conceive, with the opportunity Tommy left behind for him: a fresh start on a new world... just not exactly the way the RDA vultures meant.

(In which Jake Sully pulls the ultimate con on every person who failed to treat his brother's memory with respect, and every person who failed to be kind to their fellow man.)

One of my favorite paragraphs from the story

"His name is Miles, but I call him Spider, because he likes to drive me crazy by trying to climb up anything he can get his little hands on," Paz Soccoro says to the group of fascinated humans and dreamwalkers watching the baby sit on her lap, her hands around his sides to keep him balanced as he reaches for the grass they're all sitting on and tugs at the strands. "He's my little spider monkey .

My little monito . And he's the first human born on Pandora. "

Miles, or Spider, is a little white baby boy with bright blue eyes and ridiculous golden curls. He's got the tiniest little exo-mask on his head that Jake has ever seen

• The tubing is connected to Paz's exo-pack, he doesn't have his own, which is why she can't let him go free like he obviously wants, making little excited noises as he waves his hands and rips up tiny fistfuls of grass.

"He's cute but like... that is the whitest little Latino baby I have ever seen in my life," Asha said, making the group of humans crack up and Spider made more excited noises. "It's like your baby-daddy's genetics took your own out back and had 'em shot."

Even Paz lets out a little laugh. "Yeah.

I've... noticed," she agreed.

Most of the Na'vi have dispersed to give the humans room to... fawn over a baby.

The only people around now are Eytukan, Mo'at, and Neytiri. The humans so far are Jake, Asha, Eve, Haru, Jay, and Craig.

Jake can see, however, a number of humans trying to get a look as they peer around the roots of Hometree curiously.

Spider makes a loud noise and thrusts his hands out to Jake, bouncing up and down on his mom's lap. Jake reaches out to let Spider grab onto his big blue hand and the baby gives a big mostly-gummy smile. Looks like he's starting to get a few teeth in. Jake feels like he's melting, smiling immediately. "Hi, little man," he says in a pitched voice, and then, more normal, "I would have thought he'd be shy. I mean... I'm huge and blue, he can't

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

Listen, I see this and I do agree, I swear. But honestly, the Tsu'tey and Trudy living possibilities are literally endless. My Norm/Tsu'tey headcanons are going to rock your world. And Trudy headcanons? They're gonna go crazy.

[iliketangerines]

kinktober 2024

day one: temperature play || bi han x reader

day two: double penetration || kung lao x reader x raiden

day three: public sex + pet play || shang tsung x reader

day four: sensory deprivation || mileena x reader

day five: rough sex + aftercare || tsu'tey x reader

day six: a/b/o heats or ruts + sadism-masochism || reiko x reader

day seven: bruising or bitemarks + size difference || tonowari x reader

day eight: cock warming || geras x reader

day nine: praise kink + fingering || jake sully x reader

day ten: lingerie + overstimulation || kenshi takahashi x reader

day eleven: hair-pulling || mavado x reader

day twelve: dirty talk + breathplay || rain x reader

day thirteen: free use + aftercare || syzoth x reader

day fourteen: frotting + collaring || liu kang x reader

day fifteen: humiliation + glory hole + teasing || recoms x reader

day sixteen: dacryphilia || trudy chacon x reader

day seventeen: squirting + dom-sub || quan chi x reader

day eighteen: massaging || ashrah x reader

day nineteen: suspension || general shao x reader

day twenty: cunnilingus + threesome || liu kang x reader x kung lao

day twenty-one: gun play || erron black x reader

day twenty-two: thigh riding || quaritch x reader

day twenty-three: degradation + breeding || raiden x reader

day twenty-four: glove kink || lyle wainfleet

day twenty-five: pussy slapping || titan havik x reader

day twenty-six: pegging + edgeplay || johnny cage x reader

day twenty-seven: lapdances + breast worship || kitana x reader

day twenty-eight: fucking machine || johnny cage x reader

day twenty-nine: hunter-prey || neytiri x reader

day thirty: sex pollen || kuai liang x reader

day thirty-one: free space || tomas vrbada x reader

[anxiousdreamcore]

“There was no denying it, RDA descended back to Pandora after fifteen peaceful years, and the sky people are stronger than ever. Sorrow is brought upon the Na’vi once more as the younger generation is forced abandon their carefree lives in order to steel themselves for hell to come. Will they succeed in becoming formidable warriors after a life worth of tranquility? Can they close their hearts to unleash violence in the name of defending all that is dear to them? Will they cave into the cruelty?

How long will they keep that precious spark of innocence protected?”

.

This was a project I’ve been working on and off with for almost two months and only recently got the energy to finish. I’m unsure if I can commit to writing the fanfiction itself yet, which will cover all of the Sully children and how they’re dealing with the new war in the period in-between the initial return of RDA and recom encounter, but at least I’m done with the cover! The idea is to mimic the comic book covers of the avatar franchise, and I chose Spider for it because Eywa knows he never gets the spotlight.

I wanted said cover to have a dark atmosphere that reflects the seriousness of Omatikaya’s situation and the loss of innocence for the younger cast of characters. The Spider we see here is a Spider that witnessed his home go up in flames and almost lost his family trying to escape Hell’s gate. He’s cried rivers and the only emotion left in him now is anger, so he is ready to kick ass and help the war effort in whatever way he can, which is demonstrated through how he glares the viewer directly in the eye. In this particular scene, by guarding the loot that they’re transporting to high camp via scorpion. The face paint is a variant of the one Trudy wore in the first movie and I saw it fitting for him to paint himself for the coming battle.

.

(Do not repost my artwork on any other platform, with or without credit. I DO NOT give my consent to do so and I will find out😘)

[skylarstark4826]

I really absolutely love this beautiful fanart of Avatar of the ship of Norudy/Trudorm of the characters of Norm Spellman and Trudy Chacon together especially because although it is a little sad to see Norm crying because he is still hurt and he felt guilty about the death of the woman he loved while watching the photo of him along with his beloved Trudy at the same time if they think about it it it is also something very beautiful because that they show us that regardless of the time that had passed since the death of Trudy Norm still the beloved and she kept missing her and sincerely although I am aware that in the Avatar 2 movie Trudy did not come back also as a Recom despite that I still imagine that it would have been if she had returned and that at the same time Trudy would have had the luck and happiness of having been able to meet his beloved Norm again and how would his reaction have been to see her again sincerely and if they ask me the truth I would have been very happy to have seen that the truth

By the way, this beautiful fanart of theirs is not mine and the credits are not for me but I warn you that right here I am going to leave you the link of the true creator of this beautiful masterpiece on Instagram

[cyren-myadd]

This concept art has been living in my head rent free

This concept art of Spider with a kuru literally keeps me up some nights wondering what it means. I got so excited over the new D23 concept art that I went looking through some old Avatar stuff I had saved and came across this again, which reignited all the burning questions I have about it.

Concept art typically leads to two outcomes: either it gets scrapped and removed from the plot or it gets refined and is eventually realized within the story. The same is true for this particular piece of concept art. Its existence means it's either:

A) an old idea that they ended up scrapping, or

B) it's an idea they're going with and will eventually be realized in the movies.

The reason I keep myself up at night wondering whether its A or B is because of the context of this concept art. The art was originally shown on a gigantic screen at some big avatar showcase thing in Los Angeles. There's no way showing this was some oversight or mistake. Unlike the script that was shown on accident, this was shown to avatar fans INTENTIONALLY. Which leaves me with the question of why they would show such a shocking concept on purpose?

If option A is right and this is just an old idea they scrapped, why show people? This isn't a minor change (ie switching the Metkayina eye color from yellow to blue/green) that won't really make an impact on the plot. Spider growing a kuru would be a massive change that would radically effect the story. I think I read somewhere that James Cameron at some point wanted the character Trudy to return as a recombinant like Quaritch, but scrapped the idea because the actress, Michelle Rodriguez, didn't want to reprise her role. Could you imagine if before Avatar 2 released, they showed concept art of Trudy as recom, and everyone got all excited to see how that would play out, only for it to be revealed that it was an old scrapped idea and we were never going to see it on screen? That would be such a confusing and disappointing thing to do. This is how I feel about this concept art. If it's never going to happen, why show it at all? Since intentionally showing concept art for an idea they scrapped doesn't make any sense, that makes me wonder if option B is right, but option B doesn't make a lot of sense either.

If option B is right, once again, why show people? That's a MASSIVE spoiler. Showing this image would be like if they showed concept art of Neteyam's funeral before Avatar 2 released, spoiling the major death of the story. It wouldn't make any more sense to spoil a big death than it would to spoil such a radical change like Spider getting a kuru. I'll admit that when I first saw this image, I accepted it at face value and I made this long post theorizing that Spider will get a kuru and that this will somehow be connected to the leaked script where he gets the ability to breathe the Pandoran air, but since then I've rethought my position. It just doesn't make sense to me that they would show it on purpose if they actually do intend to give Spider a kuru in Avatar 3. But at the same time, it also doesn't make sense that they would show a scrapped idea that's so wildly out of the range of what we know is possible in the avatar universe.

Unless there's some secret third option I'm missing, I'm going to keep wondering and wondering whether this image is just a scrapped idea or a real spoiler of what's to come. I guess I'll get my answer when Avatar 3 finally comes out and this idea happens or not, but I'll still wonder why they showed it.

Do you guys think this concept art is depicting a scrapped idea or a spoiler, and why? And does anyone have any idea why they would show this regardless if its a scrap or a spoiler?

[tojisun]

our shallow graves — 01

recom miles quaritch x recom fem reader

!! smut (between fuck buddies outside of main pair) - minors dni; heat (as a theme); mean quaritch; power imbalance; references to (made up past), including death and prev dead lovers; worldbuilding; fast slow-burn; the reader adopts a nickname (callsign) which gets used // 3k words

: this chapter lays the foundation of the fic and introduces the initial dynamic of quaritch and the reader; reader’s callsign is 10/10 from that one penguin in madagascar; this fic made me fascinated with deja blu fr; hope u guys would luv it <33

next // m.list

you don’t understand why you were one of the early ones they awakened. sure you signed up for the shitty program – because who wouldn’t want to be an eight-feet tall blue alien? apparently, other than the scientists, you were the only one in your squad who wanted the transfer – but you didn’t expect to be the first in the line up.

to be in colonel miles quaritch’s squad. 

other than walker and mansk, you knew absolutely no one from the deja blu team. but you’ve heard of them, alright. who wouldn’t? they have lines of kills and assists in terra and, now, in pandora; they are warmongers at most, rascals at least. 

you stare up at their imposing figures, trying to make sense of the fact that they’ve all been killed in action. 

despite not remembering much, you’ve come to terms with your own death during the initial war – a lone pilot, only meant to be an escort, gunned down by trudy’s bird before being further propelled into the lush forest floors of pandora by the banshees. it is a boring life story, one that is only worth telling because of your “sacrifice” in alien territory. 

(you still don’t understand why the shrink insisted on showing you the syphoned clips of your death. 

“it’s to help you move on,” she said as if she could ever understand the horror of seeing yourself fall to your death. as if you had not been a human trapped inside a fucking burning bird, being torn to pieces by, what could literally only be, flying dinosaurs. as if you were just another collateral. just another number added to the charts.

“i’m sorry,” she added, a small smile on her face as she turned to you, her hair tied in a neat bun and her white blouse tucked in her pencil skirt. “ultimately, thank you for your service, ma’am.”

fucking piece of shit. 

you wondered if she even has a licence or the RDA just handed your files to some science nerd and was told to play god for their little blue alien. to fix you right up so that they could send you to another suicide mission.)

but that wasn’t the case for the rest of the deja blu. you know they were directly fighting; leaders of smaller squadrons, following the beat of papa dragon. walker and mansk, themselves, have touched down with guns in their amp suits, directly under wainfleet’s command. you don’t know how they died – you couldn’t even fathom wainfleet dying. and yet there he stands with the others, bald as fuck but imposing nevertheless.

your eyes shift to the man beside him. not the tallest, zdinarsik got that title, but the one in command. 

colonel miles quaritch. big, blue, and seething. 

one more thing you noticed in this whole fuckery is that your recombinant body is short. you stood about two inches shorter than walker, and she’s a full head shorter than anyone else. as you line up beside her, with fike on your other side, you three could very well make a groupie of santa’s little helpers.

wainfleet smirks like he’s thinking the same. you would have rolled your eyes at him but the colonel began to move close, his combat boots echoing against metal floors, snuffing out any noise from the squad. 

“and who are you, kid?” he asks, standing directly in front of you.

you tell him your name, internally wincing when your tail unconsciously coils around your leg. you still don’t know how to control it – an easy tell of your anxiousness. the colonel’s lips lift up in a smirk, his eyes flashing at your tail in slight mirth, before recognition crosses his eyes.

“rico?” 

you startle at the use of your unofficial callsign, a feat only made possible after climbing up the ranks and being heralded as one of the best pilots.

(trudy had been the best pilot in hell’s gate; the one with the most medals, and rightfully so. she was the one who ripped through the skies with her samson, zigzagging like she had been riding a banshee instead of a plane. 

the one with the kindest heart.

there is a part of you that is grateful that it had been trudy who took you down.)

“yes sir,” you reply, blinking up at him after he’s dismissed your salute, feeling a little shy at being recognized, somewhat, by the colonel. 

quaritch hums, tilting his head to the side in thought, watching you with narrowed eyes. briefly, you wonder if he’s asking himself why it had not been socorro who was awakened. to be honest, you are asking yourself the same thing because it doesn’t matter if you were one of the best, not when socorro, sweet and gentle and pregnant socorro, had the colonel’s favouritism. 

(socorro’s child was a beautiful boy with sun-kissed hair and chocolate eyes. he was such a darling even though you’ve only seen the infant in passing, held lovingly in his mother’s arms.)

they could’ve made a blue alien baby this time around. maybe, then, they’d be happier too. 

the colonel certainly doesn’t deserve it but socorro does. 

“were you a private, rico?” quaritch asks, pulling you from your thoughts. he leans close again, dramatically bending his head down which highlights the difference in your heights.  

“no sir,” you reply. “i was a lance corporal, sir.”

he hums again, finally backing up and giving you more room to breathe. then, he sends you a smile. “well then, welcome to the team, kid.”

the tension seeps out of you as you nod, thanking him before he turns to the other recoms, chatting amiably. walker bumps you with her shoulder and you see her smile from your peripheral.

you give her a smaller one before willing your tail to finally uncoil from your damn leg and act normal.

of course it just swishes behind you.

-------

training is gruesome. you honestly thought that it would be easier with your stronger and newer body, but with the colonel around, that thought vanished. 

suicide drills were the squad’s least favourite, you especially. not only were the stakes increased to push the limits of your new bodies, but you all were always watched by the scientists, with their little sticks poking at your bodies and their little wires strapped down to whatever skin they wanted to bother this time around. 

wainfleet started screaming at them, calling them “fucking losers,” and barking at them to give the squad some space. quaritch quickly took over, grunting that whether they were losers or not, whatever they were doing was necessary. that said, he sent the scientists a heated glare, making it known that his words do not necessarily reflect his feelings – wainfleet had taken this as his victory. 

the tests weren’t fun, but you appreciated their purposes; through them, you learned that your na’vi DNA was extracted from a tipani warrior. the sentiment isn’t lost in you – they robbed the graves of the na’vi. you think you are used to what humans could do all for conquering pandora but for many days, you were unable to stomach any packet meal they fed your squad. walker had to talk you out of it because your unintentional hunger strike made you lag behind – an error that had you being summoned to the colonel’s office.

“we’re all tryin’ our best here, rico,” quaritch’s voice echoes in his office. 

you’ve never been inside the one he had back in hell’s gate and you had hoped that you would never see the day of being in his current one, but there you stood, tensed as the colonel studied you. 

he refused to sit on his customized chair, choosing instead to pace just behind his desk, his bulging arms hidden from your view as he clasped his hands behind his back. quaritch’s lips are pursed, almost pouty, and you beat yourself up at the thought of finding him – your nose scrunches at this – attractive when he’s busy scolding you. 

“our circumstances ain’t ideal, but we’re back as some lab-grown native and we oughta take advantage of what we’ve become,” he says, continuing his tirade amidst your silence, snapping you out of your humiliating thoughts. “your little stunt costs us a delay on proceeding with a recon of the area and the only reason i’m not benching you is because the general has faith in you – faith that, frankly, i’m still not understanding.”

your back straightens at his words, and you tamp down the need to wince at his scathing tone. he is right, after all. for some fucked up reason, the general – both ardmore who’s stationed in pandora and gonzales who’s still in terra – backed the need to have your soul transfer commence. you still don’t know what it had been for, given that past your flying skills, you are just another idiot who knows her way around a gun. not memorable to many, except, apparently, for those in command.

(‘maybe this was why the colonel doesn’t particularly like me,’ you would think later, safe in your room. ‘socorro may have the colonel���s attention but what is a colonel – one who already failed his priority mission – against two generals?’)

“i’m sorry, sir,” you utter, clear but not loud, and quaritch just watches you again with his unwavering stare.

finally, he grunts, turning his body away from you to fully face the glass window that oversees the lower-level operations. you take this as his dismissal and scurry out of his office.

-------

“and she’s finally back from tryna kill herself!” wainfleet’s voice echoes in the nearly empty mess hall and you roll your eyes at him, glowering when he just proceeds to chuckle.

you plop your tray in front of walker, sending her a small smile which she returns with a cute beam. her braids are out of her hair tie today, letting them frame her face in the way you saw the omatikaya prefer. shooting a quick glance at zdinarsik’s way and it’s clear that someone else prefers it this way too. 

“what’d the pukes say?” fike asks, sloshing around his packet meal, sneering in disgust when it jiggles like a slab of jello. more than the fact that you found out that your gene came from a corpse, this ‘food’ is about to do the trick of making you want to pursue starvation again.

“said i needa take so many pills.” you shrug, tearing open your packet of faux meat with pinched lips and your shoulders tensed like you’re expecting to be shot at. “apparently, i stunted my growth.”

prager laughs. “aww, you gonna remain short?”

“aww, you gonna remain hairy?” you shot back, snorting when prager just pouts as he raises his hand to rub at his fuzzy chin. gross.

wainfleet barks out another laugh at the exchange before reaching across the table to place an apple onto your tray. “‘ere ya go, rico. real food.”

you don’t know where he got the fruit, you don’t even know if it’s ‘real’ like he just said, but you do not have room to complain. fake fruit is a whole lot better than the slush in the compound. 

“thanks,” you say, smiling bashfully, not expecting wainfleet, of all people, to adopt the mother hen role. he winks at you in reply, wiggling his brows, before straightening back up and fooling around with prager. 

you dump the packet back to your tray before picking up the apple. you wipe it on your shirt before bringing it up for a bite, humming in delight at the crunching sound it made.

“delicious?” mansk asks from beside you, his lips quirking up in a smile when you turn to him.

“yummy,” you reply, humming, taking another bite. he snickers, bumping your leg with his, before placing his own apple onto your tray too. 

“you gotta eat more,” is all he says when you make a questioning sound before bending over to hover his lips on the shell of your ear. “news spread fast that you got your ass reprimanded by the colonel yesterday.”

“uh-huh,” you mutter, unable to focus on what he’s saying at the sudden surge of heat engulfing you. 

your lips feel dry all of a sudden, your throat parched from unknown thirst, and you turn to mansk, wanting to ask him what the hell is happening to you – was this the fault of the fucking apple? – only to see his own face flushed, blue skin turning into dark purple. 

his eyes meet yours and all of a sudden, you feel like you are doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

huh. well, if that isn’t interesting.

-------

“jesus- devin, not too ha- ah!” 

your back arches at a particularly hard thrust, your jaw falling open for a drawn out garble. the explosion of pleasure races across your synapses, filling you up with nothing but a deafening white noise. blearily, you recognize mansk’s bigger hands wrapping around your waist, lifting you up from his lap only to drop you down again. a hiccupped moan escapes your lips, your eyes rolling to the back of your skull, feeling your walls spasming around him.

“rico, fuck, so good. so good.” mansk’s voice is faint, falling from his kiss-swollen lips in murmurs. you would have missed it without your new heightened senses, but the sound of his voice tickles your ears, making your tail flick behind you as you preen at his praises.

a giggly “thank you” barely makes it past your teeth when mansk manhandles you again, humping his hips up to grind himself along your pelvis, driving him deeper. you choke on your words, unable to stop the moan that is punched from your lungs, the sound so loud that mansk had to cover your mouth with one of his hands.

“not so loud,” he mumbles, bumping his forehead against yours. the sound of his rugged voice makes you clench around his length, making you feel utterly stuffed. you drag your blunt nails across his back, your eyes fluttering rapidly, feeling yourself tipping into the peak of your orgasm.

mansk laughs. “y’r unbelievable.” 

you do not know what it is that you said, your wobbly voice still smothered by his hand, as you get lost in the way he bounces you on his lap. mansk goes quiet, only letting muffled grunts pierce the air between the two of you, and you feel the sudden surge of primal need unleashing deep in your belly.

the tight clench of your abdomen almost hurts, your orgasm ripping through the remnants of your sanity. your last thought was: ‘motherfucker, why did no one ever tell you that the na’vi have heats?’

it is later when the haze lifts up that the warmth licking up from the core of your muscles – almost like it is burrowed deep within your blood vessels – is finally snuffed out. 

mansk is asleep on his bed, dead to the world. you shuffle out of his loose embrace, blinking blearily before realizing that he had cleaned you two up. a small smile graces your lips as you fully slink out of his bed, looping your tail around your leg as you pick up the pieces of your off-duty apparel. 

pressing a kiss on his forehead, and rolling your eyes when he sleepily bats you away like you are a fly, you grab your respirator and quietly leave his room. 

standing in the empty hallways, turning your head from side to side, you study the stillness of the metal walkway with bated breath, afraid that someone will eventually see you making your walk of shame to your room. when the silence continues, you finally begin to move, lithe steps only broken by the continuous hissing from your respirator as you occasionally take slight sips of air. 

nearing your room, your heart finally settles, your tensed back loosening up at the feeling of safety. you cross past one of the intersecting hallways, quick in your steps, when a hand reaches from the dark and grabs your wrist.

a scream nearly bubbles from your lips when a palm is shoved to your face, shutting you up once again. panicked eyes turn, trying to see who’s got such a strong hold on you, only for your heart to careen even faster when you make eye contact with quaritch.

no-

his sneer is terrifying, his bright amber eyes glinting with so much malice, it pins you right on the spot. cold dread washes over you like a tide, chasing away the quiet elation that settled deep within your veins. the heat is returning, you know that, but it is muted and mingled with fear that you can’t even feel the need to scratch the itch. 

your ears are pinned onto your skull, your tail drooping as it wraps itself around your leg again. this time the colonel doesn’t look at it in amusement, instead he continues to glare at you.

“colonel-” 

“next time, fuck around quietly,” quaritch barks out, cutting you off. “and go take a goddamn shower. you reek.”

he snatches his arm from your wrist as though he’s been burned before marching away, his combat boots echoing in the hallway. tears prick the back of your eyes and you run to your room, heaving, trying to calm yourself.

anger, hurt, and shame bubble deep inside your stomach, expanding, until you are finally reduced to tears. you cry your frustration away, hoping that by doing so, you would stop thinking about how good the colonel smelled as he glowered at you with his sharp eyes. 

(if only you had glanced at quaritch as he walked away, you would have seen the way he burrowed his face on his palm, chasing the sweet scent that roused him from his sleep and pushed his own heat into its beginnings.)

next

[womenofpandoraweek]

Women of Pandora Week 2023 is nearly here! ✨🎉✨🎉

In three days we will celebrate the amazing women and girls from the Avatar films! Prompts for the week can be found here and the rules here. Anything you can create is welcome: fan fiction, headcanon posts, art, web weavings and other edits, videos, or playlists.

We can't wait to see what you all have made! See you on Sunday for day one of Women of Pandora Week! Remember to use the tag #womenofpandoraweek2023 and/or tag this blog directly when the time comes!

[sunofpandora]

So I watched avatar 2 with my native mother.

1. I don't think we've ever cried harder together in our life.

2. First things first, the minute the kids came on screen she said “I'm adopting them all”

3. Said that Neteyam and lo’ak remind her of my brothers. (especially during the fight scene where they defend Kiri)

4. Was pissed bc trudy is still dead.

5. You know that scene in the beginning where Neytiri shoots the RDA ship pilots in the raid?

My mother turned to me and said “you took 6 years of archery in school. Why can't you do that?”

6. Called Rotxo and Ao’nung “Thing 1, and Thing 2.”

7. Was gushing over tsireya and told me she missed when I wore my hair like that (I wear braids most of the time, but when I was 12 I wore my hair like Tsireya’s with cornrows in the front and curls in the back)

8. Didn't recognize Jake at first. She thought the dreads made him look better though.

9. Said that “neteyam reminds me of that one kid on a soccer field who sits in the grass and picks flowers”

10. When Quaritch came back, she said “oh my god its coloniel scar face back to fuck things up”

11. 98% sure Spider has ADHD. (she works with kids who have ADHD and dyslexia)

12. Anytime ronal came on screen at the battle scene “when I was pregnant I wasn'triding winged aligators”

13. Couldn't take the Australian guy seriously (it was probably the accent. No offense to y'all with accents. Me and my mom have accents ourselves)

14. My personal favorite, when Kiri was sad she said “honey your not depressed. You just need to get your hair done”

15. We went through a whole box of tissues when Neteyam was shot.

16. Said, “Jake looks like he drives a ford F150 and has bad road rage”

17. Went on Amazon and ordered the avatar visual dictionary for herself afterwards.

18. Was pissed as spider for saving quaritch. And I quote,

“regardless of whether he kept spider alive or not, he took children away from their families, and placed them in the center of gunfire, in a war that was never theirs to fight. That is unforgivable. I would have let the bastard drown.”

19. Ao’nung was “man bun having, pain in the ass”

20. Her top two favorite characters were Kiri and Tonowari.

21. Kept flinching when Neytiri got on the ship to kill the recoms. Said “that's some shit out of a horror movie. Damn”

22. When she saw spider she said “I bet he smells like actual shit”

23. Z dog pissed her off more than any other character 😭