Today, I dropped the final two chapters, an extended Epilogue, for A New Mission: Happiness is Simple. I sure hope these were worth the wait for those still riding with these characters and story. A part of me was maybe even holding off on finishing because it meant that this creative and emotional chapter of my life, which began with A New Mission: Ash to Fire back in January 2023, is over.
With so many Avatar Fire and Ash insights and content starting to emerge, it might just be time for me to retire writing our little Ash families that were, of course, originally crafted with very limited knowledge of Avatar 3 💙
Despite its divergence, I hope this two-story, character-rich, mega-saga, topping out at over 850,000 words, brought readers hours of joy. And, based on what I've heard, I think my first story is going to have shockingly similar major plot points to the 3rd film. We will see! (still can't believe "Ash" and "Fire" are in the official title lol)
And now, I get the great satisfaction of actually going back and reading this second story from start to finish for the first time (sure to be making edits and catching embarrassing mistakes and errors that have been up for over a year along the way, ugh haha.)
But wow. What a journey. Is this truly the last we will see of our cherished recom families, and my writing in general? I'm not sure. Right *now,* I'd say so. I just want to bask in this writing achievement and take a big, contented break and be proud of these works. But you never know! There will be a lot of time between Avatar 3 and 4 after all 💙 Anywyay, for those who have read A New Mission, thank you.
Extra special shoutout to @tsukioreo and @ellenoir for their works below that really breathed life into the sequel.
Are there Bridgerton Pride & Prejudice & Zombies AU fanfics? If not, I feel like there needs to be.
Can you imagine Kate and Anthony kicking ass at killing zombies with all that sexual tension?
"He was like a stray cat."
Me, an intellectual: ... That's a child.
[contains Bridgerton book series spoilers]
I’m going to try to be careful with my words because my intentions are never to upset anyone especially members of a fellow marginalized community that I personally don’t belong too. I am disappointed in the rewriting of Francesca’s story. A big part of her book is her deep love for John Sterling and struggle with infertility. She loved John more than anything and when he died she mourned for yearsss and only rejoined the marriage market because she desperately wanted kids of her own after losing their child. I understand queer representation is important to those in the LGBTQ+ community, but there are many books about LGBTQ+ love that Netflix could adapt into a show or movie. Heartstopper is an example of one they’ve adapted and I’ve seen so many people who love and resonate with that show. Or an alternative would be to make Eloise lesbian/bi because it would make more sense. There’s very little representation in media for women who struggle with infertility and I’ve heard from many women whose favorite book was Francesca’s because of how they related to her struggle. Not only that, but they made her immediately develop a crush on Michaela when in the books it’s Michael who immediately falls for Francesca upon meeting her and he struggles with those feelings when before and especially after John dies. To make Francesca have feelings for Michaela completely diminishes her love for John that makes her mourning so strong. Michael also has a big internal conflict with inheriting the Kilmartin estate after John’s death. This also takes representation from women who have lost their husbands while pregnant with their child(ren). Majority of the people I know who are upset about it aren’t upset because of Francesca’s sexuality but because of how it throws away her whole story. One of my best friends is a black woman who is bi and has read all the books and before I even finished part 2 she was texting me upset because she herself has had a miscarriage and loved Francesca’s story.
So I mentioned this before but in the Spouses Friend Group the guys still have their titles, and the girls roast them daily for it.
Simon gets the worst of it because he has the highest title and his occasion posh attitude.
“Okay Duke of Hastings, you’re getting posh points,” Kate will say to him when Simon says something in rich without Penelope there to translate.
Penelope and Phillip are constantly going back and forth about which title to call him because technically Phillip has two, he has the one from his family and the one he earned by getting his phd.
“Sir Crane.”
“Dr. Crane.”
“Mm, no it’s Sir Crane.”
“Dr. Crane. Isn’t your father a baron?”
“Yes, but I am no baroness, Sir Crane.”
“Come my little lordling, we have a staff meeting!” Sophie will say as she leads Gareth to said staff meeting.
“Earl of Kilmartin! Come bestow your presence on this lowly servant AND ANSWER YOUR PHONE!” Lucy yelled into Michael’s voice mail after calling him for the fifth time to make sure he ain’t dead or in jail again.
I was watching the deleted/original cut of the scene with Neytiri holding Spider hostage which — first off, incredible scene by the way like holy shit — but it made me think about how perfectly it served for Neytiri’s character.
Someone might’ve already talked about this already, but what I don’t think a lot of people realize is that this scene serves as the payoff for earlier Neytiri-related scenes as well as a starting point for her arc going forward.
If you haven’t watched the scene, here, it’s a far more impactful version of an already hard hitting scene and I’m going to treat it as what “really” happened in the story for the sake of analysis.
The first moment I’m focusing on is this one where Neytiri goes to pick up her bow after killing a few RDA grunts, only to find that the bow is now broken and unusable.
There’s a running theme in these two movies that I’ve seen people point out and that’s how Neytiri keeps losing things that are precious to her, whether they be people, places, or objects.
In the first movie, she loses a lot including but not limited to the Hometree, the Tree of Voices, her older sister, Tsu’tey, her Ikran, and her father. When her father dies, he grants her the Ceremonial Bow and that’s what she ends up using to fight in all subsequent battles.
In the second movie, she thankfully doesn’t lose as much, but she’s still forced to leave her home and her first born son is killed in the heat of battle, rough times all around.
You’ll note that I didn’t include losing her precious bow on the list of things she lost and that’s because she didn’t lose the bow, she broke it.
All the other losses I’ve described are caused by the RDA, but this one isn’t. Instead of her bow being broken by another grunt in the heat of the battle, she’s the one who breaks it by swinging it haphazardly at her enemies.
I may not know all that much about archery or making weapons, but I’m almost certain that bows aren’t designed to be used like that, which is why her bow broke the way that it did.
And it cannot be understated how important this bow must be to Neytiri. I mentioned before that it was given to her by her late father, making it an important connection to her family already, but it’s also made from the wood of Hometree. So not only is it a connection to her family, it’s a connection to her people and the home that was stolen from them.
All that and she still broke it, not because she didn’t cherish the bow, but because she just couldn’t control her anger enough to handle it properly.
And that’s what I feel Neytiri’s fatal flaw is, as well as what her arc will be primarily focusing on in the upcoming movies — Neytiri’s anger and hatred leads to blind rage, and she becomes liable to hurt those she cares about.
For the record, I am not making the claim that Neytiri’s flaw is that she gets angry. Being outraged by death and destruction, hating those who bring about injustice, these aren’t flaws and aren’t things she should be vilified for. What is a flaw is how she uses her anger, or rather how it uses her.
Jake spells it out pretty cleanly in a scene that happened a while ago. When Tonowari told Jake and Neytiri about the destruction the RDA was causing to the nearby villages, they immediately connect it back to Quaritch. Neytiri describes how they have to finish off Quaritch — “we have to hunt this demon, trap him, kill him” — and this is what Jake says in response to that idea:
He’s not dismissing the idea of doing something, he’s just cautioning her on how they go about doing it. That’s the crux of Neytiri’s most prevalent flaw, it isn’t her becoming angered at the injustice she and her people face, it’s her not being smart about how she acts on it.
The last two moments I’d like to draw attention to are the one where one of Quartich’s lackey calls Neytiri a “wild animal” and the one where she actually acts like one.
For the record, Lyle and Quaritch are in the wrong for likening Neytiri to an animal and dehumanizing her in the process, especially when the reason they insulted her was because she was acting violent in the video where she was protecting her husband. However, it’s undeniable that during the fight on the Sea Dragon, Neytiri is the most violent and rage filled we’ve ever seen her.
It’s particularly noticeable right before she realizes she broke her bow, which is definitely not a coincidence I’ll tell you that much.
She screams in the guys face and stabs him over and over and over again, after which she gets up and starts growling, searching for anything else that moves. It’s not a stretch to say that, in this moment, she’s acting almost like a bloodthirsty animal hungry for vengeance, not too dissimilar from the wild animal the recoms painted her as.
And all of this, her accidentally breaking her father’s bow, being asked to be smart about it all, acting like a wild animal, it all comes to a head in the moment where she uses Spider’s life as leverage to save Kiri’s. It starts off good when she makes Quaritch let Kiri go, but when Kiri is freed from Quaritch’s grasp and she can turn her attention to the man himself…
…she puts the blade back against Spider’s neck and utters those infamous lines:
I’ve seen a lot of people comment on how “powerful” of a scene this is, and while I agree that it’s a powerful storytelling moment and extremely important to Neytiri’s character, I think a lot of people miss the fact that this isn’t an admirable moment of a mother’s rage, but a scary and dark moment where Neytiri is about to fall to Quaritch’s lows.
Because if Neytiri had actually gone through with this decision, then she would’ve done the same thing to her family that she did with her bow — destroy it. What’s important to note about Neytiri’s hatred towards Spider is that; while it’s understandable considering all the trauma she went through at the hands of his father and the RDA, she’s the only one in her family that feels this way towards him.
For one thing, Spider is both Lo’ak and Kiri’s best friend and they know how much Spider hates being Quaritch’s son, there’s no way that they’d just accept Neytiri after she killed their best friend. We don’t get much development on Spider’s relationship with Tuk or Neteyam, but we see Spider protect Tuk, tease Neteyam, and cry during Neteyam’s death, so they must be friends on some level.
And finally Jake. Admittedly, Jake is pretty lukewarm towards Spider throughout the entire movie, but I’d argue that’s him keeping a respectful distance because of him wanting to side with his wife and not any malice Jake genuinely holds towards Spider himself. We even see him checking over Spider at the end of the movie like he does with Lo’ak and Neteyam.
As much as Jake unconditionally loves Neytiri, I cannot see a world where he’s able to look at her the same way if she killed an innocent child.
And I do mean innocent, because at this point in time Spider’s only “crimes” are being human(not his choice) and being Quaritch’s son(also not his choice). Even if Neytiri’s feelings towards him are understandable and valid, her actions at this point are not justifiable and Jake knows it.
That’s not even mentioning how she hisses at Kiri during this scene, she’s not acting with her family’s best interest in mind, she’s acting on pure rage.
If she had gone through with it and killed Spider, Kiri and Lo’ak would hate her, Tuk wouldn’t be able to look at her the same way again, and Jake probably would’ve left her. She truly did come a hair’s width away from destroying something precious to her once again.
Now let’s talk about Spider for a minute because he’s crucial to all of this, as Neytiri’s hatred for humans extends to her hatred of him.
We already know that, to the Na’vi, “I see you” is considered a respectful greeting, but it’s also a show of great understanding between two people; it’s why Jake’s two pivotal emotional moments at the end of the movies are him telling a loved one “I see you,” it’s because he’s come to understand them as a person beyond what he initially thought.
In contrast, Neytiri does not see Spider, her eyes are shut. Instead of seeing Spider as a person, all she sees is just another human who ought to be with his own kind, a demon. And this is honestly fine, Neytiri isn’t Spider’s mother or caretaker so she’s not obligated to try and understand him as anything deeper than her enemies child and her own children’s best friend.
However, because Neytiri refuses to see Spider as anything other than another human, she lets this hatred for him and his heritage fester until she feels comfortable to threaten his life and see him as a means to an end. And that, no matter how much one may argue it’s understandable from her perspective, leads to dire consequences.
Namely, Spider’s choice to save Quaritch.
Now, before anyone yells at me let me clarify — I am not saying that Neytiri is responsible for Spider’s choice, nor is she responsible for any harm Quaritch will cause in the upcoming movies. However, it’s undeniable that her actions influenced Spider’s decision, whether directly or indirectly.
When Neytiri threatened Spider’s life, Quaritch initially plays off the fact that he’s technically not his son, citing that they aren’t even the same species. But when Neytiri pushes even further, he breaks and shows that he does actually care about Spider, willing to let go of his hostage in order to protect him.
This is big for Spider as his only major desire is to have a family, specifically a parental figure who genuinely cared about him as he is. I’d even go as far as to say that this moment probably proved to Spider that Quaritch cares about him as more than just a mean’s to an end. He’d already helped Quaritch bond with an Ikran and find the Sully family(against his will), he had nothing else to offer but Quaritch still wanted him alive.
This, along with the months they spent together, are what pushed Spider to make his decision at the end of the movie, a decision he was explicitly conflicted about.
And this came about from Neytiri’s decision. I know a lot of people would argue that Neytiri had to do this because it was the only way to save her daughter, and I’ll agree that there weren’t many options for her. But this wasn’t a tactical move she was making, she wasn’t bluffing or putting on a show to force Quaritch’s hand, she was explicitly going to kill Spider just to make Quaritch hurt in the same way she was hurting.
Also, if we want to nitpick we could also say that the months Quaritch and Spider spent together also came about as a result of her actions. When they’re running away from the Recoms, Spider is the only one who falls to the ground and Neytiri doesn’t even think to try and go get him.
“B-But there’s no way Neytiri would’ve been able to save him and get away! She has her own children to worry about!” I hear you typing in the notes of this post, and to that I say you’ve got a point.
However, the fact that Neytiri doesn’t even consider going down to rescue him, doesn’t look over the branch and hesitate before making the difficult decision to prioritize Kiri and feel bad about it later shows that her reasoning is solidly NOT rooted in him being one of her kids or not.
She doesn’t even try, and because of that Quaritch and Spider end up forming the basis for a solid bond.
TLDR; Neytiri’s fatal flaw is that she allows her anger and hatred to cloud her better judgment and control her, leading to a destructive attitude that can ultimately hurt the people she loves and make things worse for her.
At this point, I’m pretty sure everyone has heard at least a little bit about the next movie, Avatar Fire and Ash. I’ve seen people theorizing that the fire tribe will be joining forces with the RDA, that they don’t believe in Eywa, and that Neytiri will have to infiltrate the tribe in order to rescue her children.
I’m not certain whether any of this is true, but what I am certain of is that — if these concept arts hold water by the time the movie is released — then the fire tribe we’ll be encountering in the third movie is going to be an extremely violent community, likely one that puts emphasis on anger and hatred.
And if the rumors are true and Neytiri really is going to be infiltrating them, then Neytiri’s flaws might be able to inform what narrative role the Ash People and Varaang in particular will have in the third movie.
I’ve already explained how in depth how her flaw is how she allows her anger to take control of her and close her vision; she’s volatile like lava and burns hot like fire, becoming liable to burn everything and everyone around her.
From that perspective, she seems more suited to be a fire Na’vi rather than a forest or reef one, no? The choice to take us to a volcanic, fire steeped region isn’t just James Cameron checking off the boxes like “oh we did forest and water, fire next!” its him taking us to a we might find uncomfortably befitting of our worst traits.
And that’s basically what I think Neytiri will have to face upon encountering the Ash People — they are the embodiment of all her flaws put on display.
Varaang specifically may work as her narrative foil, a literal funhouse version of her at her worst(from my perspective the concept art of Varaang actually looks a lot like Neytiri, so that’s interesting).
I also think it’s important to note that Neytiri is absolutely going to find out that Spider saved Quaritch in the third movie, or at least it’s incredibly likely if the Ash People really will be working with Quaritch. That means that her hatred for him and her need for revenge will come back into play, this isn’t over.
But this time things will be different, because in between Neytiri learning of Spider’s betrayal she will also get especially close to the Ash People and find that she is uncomfortably similar to them at her worst. Before she does something she might regret, Neytiri will be forced to ask herself some important questions:
Is revenge really worth it? Is this the kind of person she wants to be? If Jake wasn’t there that night, would she have the blood of a child on her hands? Will she hurt other people she loves because of her anger?
These questions are ones she likely never wanted to ask herself, but they’re necessary because she’s starting right in the face of people who didn’t.
Hopefully, she finds that the answer is no.
No because what do you mean they were best friends as kids and Ekko had a crush on her, and then he tries to ‘rescue’ her from Silco but she doesn’t want to go with him and they end up on opposing sides as enemies and he insists that ‘Powder is gone, only Jinx is left’ but he paints a mural for Powder as one of the people they’ve lost and when he has the chance to kill her he can’t bring himself to do it because he still cares about her and she tries to blow them both up because she views death as mercy and wants to die with him and then he gets sent to another universe where she’s still Powder and he falls in love with her all over again and he goes back to his universe convinced he can save her and he has to watch her kill herself over and over again before managing to convince her to live and join the fight and they do and he wears her paint and then she just… dies anyways and now he’s lost her for like, the NINTH TIME
Arcane writers you will start coughing in 10 days
LMAOOOOOO
what is with the original atwow script and pissing. Lo'ak and Spider pissing together on a rock, Spider doing it again in the cell at Bridgehead… i’m glad they scripted it out eventually but was it necessary to include in the first place lmao
“human and Na'vi urine mixing” JAILLL
Spider from James Camerons Avatar moodboard
Two other oc of mine and are the origin of some kind of yandere curse. When I make yandere oc or when I include yandere in my stories I don’t like to attribute this terme to a certain mental illness for many reason. One I don’t like the association "mentally ill people = monsters" and two it give me more freedom in how I can explore my caracters without having to worry if my representation of a condition is accurate or not.
Now that it’s said, let me tell you the story of Mania and Ludus and how they became the Goddess of obcessive love and the god of playfull love.
Mania loved Ludus... in her own way
And Ludus loved Mania... in his own way.
It’s a shame they weren’t able to reconize the love they had for each other. They were traped in their own world, their own pain, unable to see the other as anything else but the role they needed them to play in their own life.
They were kids at first, born from neglecting fathers and either overprotective or uninterested mothers. The scars from their younger years left a hole where their hearst was suppose to be. A huge void, empty of feelings and compassion.
Doctors from all around the kingdom were called yo heal the young prince, the only heir to the throne. But none of them could do anything, the prince had to stay with this hole in his chest.
Mania’s mother was a witch, therefore she knew why this hole had appeared and she knew that the only person who could heal her was herself.
The whole in his heart kept Ludus from becoming a knight. He was unable to run, jump or laugh. Keeping him locked in this castle a silent castle. The rumors of his void in his chest driving people away and making him the hole in his chest grow larger as he grew up.
The two of them fanaly met when Ludus’s father, the king, decided that it was time for him to learn how to be a proper king. He move him in the royal castle, bigger than the one he grew up in. Mania’s mom was the right hand of the king, therefre the two of them lived in the castle since as long as Mania can remember.
It only took one look for them to reconize the familiar hole in each other’s chest.
They quickly became friends, bonding over what they had in common. Mania was studying magic with her mother. She was able to potions ans spells, allowing Ludus to run faster, jump higher and laugh louder.
Ludus’s cute attentions changed Mania’s frown into a smile, shocking the servants in the castle.
The holes in their chest closed slowly , progressively.
But nothing last forever, their intense feelings died down. Going from a explosive fireworks to a warm fireplace. Comforting for Mania but insufficient for Ludus. After spending such a long time in heavy silence calm didn’t please him. He looked for the fireworks, he had found with Mania, in others. Piercing the heart of his friend, who had previously healed him.
Ludus went after meaningless relationship, short love that he quickly grew tired of. The more relationship he had the less intense and fun they became.
While he ran around, Mania’s heart bled until it became as cold as ice.
Ludus didn’t deserve such a vivid throbing heart... not after wha he had done to Mania.
So she pulled it out ofhis chest. Still warm... still throbing... he couldn’t run anymore...
Soon Mania wasn’t able to run too, the ice of her heart frooze her flesh and bones... even her tears refused to spill out of her eyes.
How we weigh an octopus!