Do you plan on making a fanfiction of this?
Also, is spider now like a friendly spirit that cares for all especially children, but when he becomes like a entity of wrath, is it like a justice wrath where he takes out "bad people" or/and set bad people straight, by giving them warnings to becomes better or not he'll take them out? considering he was abused by his foster family, neglected by everyone around him,and now even murdered by the man he hoped to love him, even though jake said he did, he still killed him in this au, yet he would have never done that to kiri, lo'ak, basically his family,he wouldn't even think about it, but not only did jake thought about it, especially the whole flight while spider was sleeping, laying his head on neytiri's back, even moving him that way so he can sleep and the wind doesn't disturb him, as well as jake holding spider like a father, yet all he was thinking about was killing spider, and neytiri who was slowly accepting spider, was too late and even had to think about it more, and when she finally runs to stop it, spider is in jakes arms, bleeding, far too late. (so horrible and traumatic) would he ever haunt jake and neytiri to guilt them? like laughing or making noise outside of their home,even walking by the ocean, but everyone knows he's dead so its like a kind of spooky gloomy yet comforting presence?or will he be doing something else and somewhere else? i also thought about ronal, being the tsahik, can she sense him and even see him when hes hiding?or is he always appearing as if he was alive, but just uncanny. can he fly as well? does he hang out in the trees or in the deep ocean? can he also now sense eywa like kiri? can also go to the spirit realm and grow his connection with spider, as well as helping her with her grief of loosing him and staying forever young? sorry for the so many questions, in case if you do answer, ill be looking forward to it!
Hello! Thank you for the interest in the Peter Pan AU! Please, donโt apologize for asking questions! It is absolutely lovely that you are so interested in it! <3
Iโm sorry it took me so long to answer, yesterday was a bit hectic and I wanted to take care in answering your questions!
Ok, so I will try to answer as best as I can, if thereโs something I missed or didnโt explain enough, feel free to ask! Itโs a little bit incoherent and thereโs a lot of text, but I hope itโs good enough explanation.
Generally, I imagine Spider as close as possible to his baseline, that is him being extremely kind and caring boy. He gravitates towards people younger than him or close to his age, yes, but it is more a force of habit. Children are more open minded and way more curious, I feel that even when people were still suspicious of him, children would be more welcoming on the simple principle that they would not have such a wide point of reference what a sky person if capable of. Itโs just safer with kids than with fully grown adults sometimes.
BUT the death scarred him deeply and it left a mark. One that is most of the time invisible to most people (aside form the forever fresh looking scar on his neck, a scar that, if you look at it at a right angle, still looks like an open wound. When the sun catches it just right, or you squint, or look from the corner of your eye, you can almost see the torn cartilage) but is also glaringly obvious to any tsahik or those with higher spiritual connection. Spider feels off. Like he is not supposed to be here (which is true, he is functionally dead โ a glitched echo of a boy that should not be present among the living). Spider seems to be unaware of his state most of the time. He eats, and talks, and moves like he used to. Happy and carefree and still full of love and life.
Yet there are times when all laughter stops, when his chest stills and his eyes empty. A blink and you miss it moments where Spiderโs mind seems to stall and try to comprehend what has happened. Usually he shakes himself out of it on his own, or somebody brave (most often Kiri) snaps him out of it and old Spider is back.
Itโs a long moment until anybody realizes that itโs not only those moments that Spider zones out that are not the only the signs that something is off about him, tho.
Neytiri and Jake left his body behind. Jake could not bear having him near. Killing an innocent boy broke him. And it broke Neytiri too. She finally started seeing Spider for who he was, not who was his father, but it was all too late. Her husband killed him. They both had an innocent blood on their hands and what for? Because of fear. Because they both chose the path of less resistance.
They both had to face their children and tell them Spider was not coming back.
Guilt choked them and made the admission a half-truth. They could not look their children in the eyes and tell them that the blood still crusting under their fingernails was spilled by them. So they avoided the whole truth, avoided telling them who killed their brother, just choked out that he did not make it.
Kiri was suspicious. She stared at them silent and holding herself away. A step behind Loโak and Tuk. She, just like Neytiri, felt how the whole of Pandora shifted. She felt something awaken and take a breath. And she knew, intangibly, that it was Spider. She knew she was lied to. And while Tuk was inconsolable, crying her little heart out for another brother lost, begging for him to come back; and while Loโak closed himself off, running towards water. Towards solitude and furious yet silent grief. Kiri waited.
She stared out the marui, looking for golden locks catching the sunlight. Cold and calculating in a way that scared Neytiri. Because the damage was running far deeper than her and her husbands grief and guilt.
And then one night, he was back. Walking in like nothing happened. Moonlight washed him out of colors, making his arrival a silent, haunting thing. Kiri met him on the beach. She could not sleep that night, the feeling โ knowledge โ that her Spider is close, keeping her awake.
(Neytiri too. And Ronal. They both knew something was approaching. Benign. For now.)
He smiled while she cried, open arms ready to soothe her pain away. Voice strong (and yet she could hear hoarseness and a weird, uncanny whistle in it, something neither Tuk or Loโak did) murmuring that he is back, and whole, and safe. That all is good. All is right.
Neytiri screamed upon seeing him. Jake made a noise nobody ever heard him make โ a gutted, high wail. Uncanny coming from the great Toruk Makto. He fell to his knees, tears in his eyes. Yet, body angled away. Spider eyes, warm and sweet up until now, clouded seeing him. But aside from a passing moment, all seemed truly well.
(Ronal closed here eyes and prayed. Asking Eywa what the ever loving fuck was happening here. Why there was a wraith in her village. Why it was a sky child. Why. Why. Why- What should be done. Leave him. Was the answer. Leave him be. Was it because the sky wraith was beyond Eywaโs grasp? Did death interfere with Eywaโs blessing? No answers.)
Spider doesnโt intentionally haunt Jake, but there are moment when he justโฆ stares. Sometimes touching the horrid scar on his neck. Sometimes just looming with blank face, as if he is not fully here. Seconds or minutes of time slowing away, where neither Jake nor Spider move, one caught in the otherโs stare like a rabbit in wolfโs jaws. But then the moment breaks, Spider comes back to himself and moves on, leaving Jake forever uncomfortable and shaken.
Neytiri is excluded from any of those moments, Spiderโs eyes glide over her as if sheโs not even here. Itโs almost worse from what her husband goes through, because it makes the guilt of being too late untouched. There is no resolve for it. Spider doesnโt react at all to her making all her grief unanswered, empty and forever tearing at her.
She too hears at times how Spiderโs breath seems to whistle away. How his voice distorts and yet sounds whole, as if he were speaking through two throats at once.
Because of the uncanny air Spider has around him, most try to keep their distance. Even Loโak and Tuk seem to be unsure how to react, but they follow his lead โ Spider seems to be unaware of his undead state, never bringing any attention to it, never mentioning what happened. So they do not ask and try to live as if nothing happened.
(Loโak asked precisely once. Spiderโs eyes lost their shine, turning into empty voids. His voice gained this raspy, whistling quality Kiri once whispered about, and the scar on his neck suddenly deepened, giving him glimpses of torn throat. Spiderโs focus became a cold, pressing thing as he seemed to regard Loโak, searching his very soul. โIf he ever hurts youโฆ if he ever makes you feel like not enoughโฆโ - it wasnโt a threat and Jakeโs name never entered the conversation, yet Loโak suddenly understood that Spider somehow knew just how close to pulling the trigger Loโak was on that beach. And he just knew that if it were to happen again, Jakeโs very last problem would be guilt.)
Generally among Naโvi children seem to be cherished and loved far more often than among humans. They are treated like the precious gifts they are, yet nobody is perfect. Sometimes somebody doesnโt know what they are doing. Or they might accidently hurt a childโs feelings while having their well-being on their mind. Or they are too caught up in their own problems to realize itโs having an effect on their young wards. Or they are just not fit to take care of children. Whatever the problem is, small or big. Spider justโฆ knows.
Spider seems to just know when a child is being mistreated. When they are feeling low, unloved, lonely or scared. And he always tries to sooth them first โ make them laugh and feel better.
And then he moves onto dealing with the adults. His presence is silent yet overwhelming. He doesnโt scream. Doesnโt hurt them. Sometimes he doesnโt even speak. Yet his very appearance feels like a threat. Itโs like the life itself is shrinking away. Like a thorny vine is weaving in-between you lungs and spine. Like a cold hand is reaching through your rib cage to squeeze your heart. Like a cold blade is slowly dragging across your throat, stealing your voice and breath away.
Spider doesnโt fully remember those moments. They slip away from him, leaving him feeling uncanny and off. Like he missed a branch while jumping between trees. Like he watched himself do the haunting through heavy fog. Naโvi hiss and pull away, and he doesnโt fully understand why, they react so badly. In his mind he merely spoke to them. But then a child comes to tug at his loincloth and thank him in small voice, and he pushes those thoughts away. After all he did good, right?
But the thing is. Spider doesnโt have a very great grasp on what negative feelings are truly dangerous. Sometimes a child is greatly upset by a truly small thing. A parent refused to let them wander away with the big kids. Or scolded them for being disruptive. Or refused to do something. Itโs truly nothing, but kidsโ emotions donโt always are correctly tuned as reactions. And so sometimes Spider haunts a mother who refused her childโs plea for eating a poisonous fruit.
When those memories come back, dread settles in Spiderโs stomach โ because he doesnโt want to be unjust. He doesnโt want to be cruel and yetโฆ yet what if one day he is?
As for the spirit realmโฆ so. Remember when I called Spiderโs existence as a glitch? Yeah. In the spirit realm, if you search hard enough, you will find an imprint. A glimpse of golden locks, an echo of laughter, a shadow of a teen fleeting between branches. But when you try to follow those, to focus on them, the reality shifts and fragments. Spider should be there. He should be in the spirit world, but too many things went poorly and his soul never fully moved on, never got fully incorporated.
He can hear Eywa but has trouble understanding her, the connection blazes open, but where Kiri has trouble accessing it now, Spider gets swept away. Itโs a vortex ready to swallow him whole and spit him out. Itโs like you have very shitty speakers and play them at full volume, itโs just an overbearing cacophony.
Iโm not sure about flying, as you can see in the drawing dump, the full body shot looks like he is flying โ it fits the Peter Pan aesthetic, but the more I think about it, the less it fitsโฆ maybe he could be able to if he let go of his humanity? I truly donโt know yet. Itโs up to consideration.
Generally Spider keeps to his human habits and behaviors and physics 90% of the time โ then the uncanny feeling is just a hum at the back of the mind of anybody interacting with him, because they subconsciously understand he is no longer of their world. But when he slips and goes wraith-mode the uncanniness skyrockets and even the reality around him seems to forget it should not work by the rules assigned to the spirit realm.
As for the fanficโฆ Iโm not good enough to write it ๐ญ itโs just a huge project, I may write some shorts (โmayโ being the key word) but itโs too overwhelming to undertake for me ๐ญ
If anybody wants to yoink the idea and run with it, feel free, but please scream at me, that you have! I will offer you my firstborn โค๏ธ
Ok, itโs 2k of an answer, I hope itโs not too chaotic ๐
