the strangest girl in town

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‎intro

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⋆ 𐙚 ̊ hii !!! my name is riley (ri for short, i don't care) ೃ࿔* 9teen she/her ⊹♡ reader, writer, analyst, shitposter

୭౿ mainly SFW but some NSFW content ! read at your own discretion

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i think a lot of avatar fans are really notorious for mischaracterization, like just across the board.

many love to pin jake as a bad father. not true. yeah he's a little aggressive but if my kids were doing stupid shit during war i don't think i'd be very sunshine and rainbows about it. jake needed to be a little mean to lo'ak because he kept fucking up. of course jake had his lapses in judgement, but they're all pretty justified. like when lo'ak is at the center of a problem jake immediately tries to shut him down, and yes yes i know he says some mean things, but parents or anyone adult who's been around kids/teens like this can understand jake's point of view. they're putting the metkayina in a lot of danger by hiding out amongst them. the gracious thing to do is lay low, blend in, and not cause scenes. lo'ak does none of this. but he does mature by the end of the third film. he's found his voice and proven himself as a warrior. that's his character arc guys! characters cannot evolve if they're flaws don't have a negative impact on them!!

it doesn't shock me that kiri/spider/spiri haters tend to write off kiri as just "spider's girlfriend" because of course they would, but it shocks me that kiri/spider/spiri fans also unknowingly do this.

every now and again i'll come across some fanfiction or scenarios surrounding spiri and the sully family. a popular one i've seen is "kiri finding out that her dad almost nerfed spider" and her response is usually along the lines of resenting her father for the rest of time, hating her family, and on the occasion running off with spider. and like, idk but this just would never happen?

like i think we tend to apply a lot of human moral customs onto the na'vi when we really shouldn't. call me fallacious idc but like, the na'vi moral code is different. and miss daughter-of-eywa kiri knows this. i bet you she can understand the nuances of the situation and trust that her parents aren't cold blooded killers. it's not like they cut off spider's kuru. like did we all collectively miss the whole ceremony before spider was almost killed? it would've been a mercy kill, like they do with hunted animals. and if jake did go through with it, it would've been quick and painless. i can bet you kiri can understand the nuances.

additionally, kiri isn't spider's savior. she doesn't exist just to fight his battles for him. i can bet you spider (who also understands the na'vi culture) was forgiving to jake and neytiri. at first he begged for mercy, but he reluctantly accepted it, because he's capable of looking at the bigger picture. like a soldier going on a suicide mission knowing he won't come back but that his sacrifice will make the na'vi that much safer. and if spider is able to move on and still have trust in jake and neytiri, so is kiri. she wouldn't hold that against them forever.

now oh the dreaded neytiri and spider...

i think both the pro and anti spider crowds tend to paint neytiri as a mindless hater who would kill spider the first chance he got. yes, until the latter half of fire and ash she had a pretty strong dislike for spider. but it wasn't hate. why do i think this? she allows him to play with her kids. if she truly hated spider, she would've made extra sure that spider never got near her kids. like those are her babies, her most prized possessions.

like i think we forget that it isn't actually spider that she hates. it's humans, it's the RDA, it's quaritch. if neytiri didn't know that spider was quaritch's son, i doubt she'd have any reservations about him at all.

and she was never outright cruel to spider, at least up until neteyam's death. but i think anything she said or did during neteyam's mourning period needs to be weighed on a different scale. like this was a mother grieving her firstborn son, of course she's going to act a little ugly and misplace her anger.

during the time that spider was growing up alongside the sully kids, she never shooed him away, she never harmed him, there is no allusion to her causing him any sort of physical or emotional harm. if that were the case, spider likely wouldn't come around so often or risk his life to protect the sully's. jake described him as a stray cat, and that's likely the extent of his treatment from jake and neytiri until the latter half of fire and ash. neytiri was more wary of him than anything. obviously that changed after he got kidnapped, because they had no way of knowing what kind of information spider might've given up.

oh and to add to this, i don't think jake and neytiri believed that spider would just give up their location at the drop of a hat. i think that jake, who knew the inner workings of the rda, was worried about how far the RDA would go in order to get that information out of spider. they wouldn't have known that quaritch prevented a much worse outcome for spider, although he created that worse outcome for the na'vi and tulkun. jake is well aware that the rda is willing to cross a lot of ethical lines to get what they want. and spider is only 16, and he naturally wouldn't have the resolve that a military vet would have. i'm convinced that had quaritch not stepped in when he did, spider either would've gone unconscious, gave up the information as he got weaker, or potentially died. the sully's had no reason to distrust spider, so it was more likely the knowledge of how far the RDA may be willing to go to get that information.

neytiri is deeply traumatized by the RDA, we all know this. they took her son, her sister, her father, her people, and her home. she has every right to hate them. but at the same time, we can acknowledge that spider didn't cause any of that. and you may say "but neteyam but neteyam!" lest i remind you that the only one truly responsible for neteyam's death is lyle wainfleet. neteyam insisted to lo'ak in the third film that yes, they had to go back for spider. because that's their friend. that's their brother. neteyam holds no resentment towards spider. none of the kids do. not even neytiri does. but he is simply a scapegoat for her grief because he was born a human (and born of the wrong human).

this is why i constantly stress how important the mangkwan were for neytiri's character arc. they help neytiri see that her people are just as capable of committing the same evils as humans. they help her realize that her anger is misplaced. they helped her realize that killing spider—a human who has been nothing but loyal to the na'vi—would mean nothing. that his death would just be another corpse in a never ending war. and that his blood would be entirely on her hands.

in short, jake isn't a bad father, kiri and spider don't exist just to feed each other's storylines, and neytiri disliked spider rather than hated him (they are different).

it's not because i'm parasocial

it's because i fucking hate that book

i'm sorry, but liz buxbaum (the fmc, for those who don't know) is the most miserable, male centered, buzzkill ass girl ever

ok spoilers!!

a moment that truly made me hate liz is when she blew off her friend's plan to go prom dress shooping together so she could get clothes to impress her crush

her excuse? he mom died when she was a kid and it would be hard to go dress shopping without her.

i want to strangle her

and i want jack to have no part of that awful story. i'd love to see him involved in romance book film adaptations, but no lynn painter and no colleen hoover.

from what i've read, lynn painter is incapable of writing anything other than buzz kill, parent issue having, male centered female main characters and cocky, asshole male main characters in enemies-to-lovers high school romances.

when it comes to the character of miles spider socorro, i am a pretentious film nerd who can take no criticism over his favorite overrated director.

if you hate spider, i will simply believe that you do not understand his character or his importance to avatar as a whole.

these haters of spider also tend to hate kiri. which i take personally.

newsflash! franchises must evolve to stay alive

you can't expand a franchise without introducing new characters. new characters, especially child characters, are usually a pretty easy way to show how titular characters have changed and evolved. how their priorities have shifted from one film to the next.

it can't just be jake sully vs quaritch boss fights every film. even though it kind of is, but i have a point i promise.

the sully kids raise the stakes for jake and neytiri when the RDA returns.

in the first film, jake had literally nothing to lose. that's why leaving earth for pandora was such an easy decision. but now he's a husband and father. he has a whole lot more to lose.

now back to spider.

spider changes the stakes for quaritch, he's a crucial factor to neytiri's character arc.

technically, spider is the son of human quaritch, not the recom. but the recom has human quaritch's memories. spider humanizes quaritch; he gives him redeemable qualities that can negatively affect his (the RDA's) mission down the line. because for as dedicated quaritch is to the RDA, his paternal feelings for spider will always get in the way.

now to neytiri. i've probably talked about this before but i don't mind sounding like a broken record.

neytiri hates humans. we know this and it's made abundantly clear. despite the vast debate, it's one of her flaws. it holds her back.

spider and the mangkwan work in tandem to help her overcome this character flaw. yes, she has every right to hate humans for taking her son from her. but she doesn't have the right to take this hatred out on the one human who can assume complete innocence from the crimes of the RDA. when she goes to rescue jake from bridgehead, she sees first hand how spider was willing to put his life in danger to protect jake. from day one he has shown unwavering loyalty to the na'vi, but she turned a blind eye to it until jake's life was in active danger.

spider is an important character guys! he is important in the same way the mangkwan are. not all humans are inherently bad just as not all na'vi are inherently good.

it's only ever tiktok fans that hate spider too. but people on tiktok are dumb and need any kind of messaging in media to be spoon fed to them and spelled out in front of their faces. otherwise they'll get the wrong idea. because they always do.

give me spider and kiri more jeytiri parallels 🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀

hello i just want everyone to know that this was my view reading omegaverse quarjake smut today.