EAH YouTube (MirrorTube?) After Legacy Day

lines from my WIP:

what if jack & elsie from love, theoretically met as rival undergraduates, and were forced to co-TA a first-year physics class?

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˗ˏˋ fic summary: ˎˊ˗

elsie hannaway, famed people pleaser, hates jack smith turner with a burning passion. since the very moment she looked up the cute boy in her first year physics class excitedly, only to realize that he had been behind the paper years before that had single handedly reduced her future field of study to a subject of mockery, elsie has taken every single negative emotion that she usually keeps locked behind a carefully curated version of herself and funnelled it into unadulterated loathing. now, in the fifth and final year of her undergraduate degree, the only thing standing between her and an acceptance into her program of choice is a spot TA-ing the university's introductory physics course. unfortunately, jack smith turner will be standing beside her as her co-TA. in theory, this is an impossible arrangement, but jack and elsie are soon to discover that things are never as they seem. elsie can be a million versions of herself simultaneously, an electron can be a particle and a wave, and perhaps jack smith turner can be both a scourge on theoretical physics and the best thing that has ever happened to her.

˗ˏˋ more lines from my WIP!!! lolllll: ˎˊ˗

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ꜱᴇᴘᴛᴇᴍʙᴇʀ, ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀʀɪᴇ ᴄᴜʀɪᴇ ᴡɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʜʏꜱɪᴄꜱ ᴅᴇᴘᴀʀᴛᴍᴇɴᴛ

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On paper, Elsie had prepared about as much as she could for her first tutorial session. She had roped Cece into watching her go through her diligently prepared PowerPoint in exchange for watching one of the art-nouveau films she'd gotten into recently, and Elsie had spent hours doing her best to add graphics that seemed bright and approachable without looking too childish. She'd even linked report lines for student support with her female students in mind, hoping that her male students wouldn’t be able to get away with casual misogynistic jabs about women in STEM. 

However, in a much more real way, Elsie felt as though she hadn’t prepared at all. She wasn’t sure it was possible at all for anyone to ever be prepared for Jack Smith Turner. There was something about him that seemed to cut straight through crowds, and more concerningly, cut through her, and Elsie would be lying if it didn’t leave her stomach doing flips every time. 

She had expected Jack to be as polished as ever, but oddly enough, it seemed as though he felt similarly to her when he did arrive. He’d been almost as early as she was, but in an I’ve-been-in-a-manic-episode-of-stress-and-anxiety-since-three-in- the-morning way, which she found strangely endearing, considering that he was usually so unbothered that she’d taken to referring to him as “The Ice King” when complaining to Cece late at night. She had to tell herself not to humanize the enemy, Elsie, but it was so hard not to when he was dropping papers, tugging at his clothes, and pushing glasses up his nose that she swore he didn’t have before. For the first time in the four years she had known him, Elsie was beginning to wonder whether Jack had secretly had a soul all along. At least twenty minutes worth of rustling paper and furious typing passed before Elsie finally attempted to address the years-long-feud-shaped elephant in the room. 

“I was thinking that we should split and alternate the labs,” Elsie blurted, and as the words left her lips she was immediately hit with the overwhelming urge to pull the words back and rearrange them until they sounded less strange and awkward, more poised and polished, and less like someone who had been obsessively fixating on how to best organize the course for days now. 

Jack looked startled for a moment at the break in their carefully curated silence, but his features were schooled back into neutrality so quickly that Elsie wondered whether he had ever not had such a blank look on his face. “I’m sorry?”

“We should split the lab class into two groups, and alternate the experiments week to week. Then we can make the most of having two TAs, and…” She trailed off, eyes flicking away from Jack’s. “And we won’t step on each other’s toes. You won’t have to deal with me inserting theory into everything, and I won’t have to deal with your experimental whatnot. It can be like we were never stuck with each other at all.” 

Jack’s eyebrows furrowed, emotion pooling in those same piercing eyes. He neatly tucked the sprawled papers in front of him into a metal-tipped navy blue folder, the same color as the waffle-fabricked Henley that had been pulling at Elsie’s attention since he had pushed through the door that morning. Elsie watched his motions almost nervously, drawn to those strong-looking hands as they dwarfed everything they picked up. “Whatever you need, Elsie,” He said simply, eyes flitting everywhere but her. His voice was flat- not happy, but not angry either. Merely unbothered, and overwhelmingly neutral.

Right then, I guess the thought of barely having to co-teach with me is so appealing that he’s ready to start pretending I’m not here already. 

Elsie did her best to ignore the bitter aftertaste of her thoughts, the way something sparked in her at his indifference. Before she could say something she would almost certainly regret, the door creaked open, the hinges themselves sounding hesitant to disturb the fragile tension that hung suspended over the room. Elsie whirled toward the door, excitement spiking in her chest when her eyes landed on the girl standing nervously in the doorway, backlit by the weak fluorescence of the hallway and front-lit by the early morning sunlight streaming through the mahogany benches of the second-floor lecture hall. 

She was tall, somehow both lanky and elegant, and the way she moved as she slowly approached the front desk reminded Elsie of a baby deer, all long legs and big brown eyes. Those same eyes were framed in thick black lashes, and her dark brown hair, curled and straightened in a perfect blowout, bounced around her shoulders and cascaded down her back in a shiny effortless-looking wave that made Elsie wish she had sprung for a nicer conditioner the last time she was stocking up. The girl couldn’t have been older than 17 or 18, but she looked polished beyond her years in a way Elsie could only dream of being.

Elsie was momentarily trapped in a spiral of thoughts on how much less put together her own first-year self had been in comparison, but was quickly broken out when the girl’s impossibly white sneakers squeaked to a stop in front of her. “I’m Ivy, Ivy Myers, I’m… um, here for Physics,” she paused, her eyes flitting downward to double check the Google Maps page she had pulled up on her phone, “...100?”

Elsie’s mind began whirring, scanning the girl. Nervousness. Tended toward perfectionism, if the flawlessly coiffed hair and perfectly pleated skirt were any indicator. Curiously, the books tucked under her arm were on various historical eras- Medieval History (Carolingian-Era Conflict), said one, while another was titled, The Masculinization of Women’s Medicine through Early France, the spines colored in complementary shades of deep pinks and blues. 

Perfect. Interests to appeal to. 

Elsie beamed, adopting a bubbly tone as she adjusted her posture from tired, overworked-TA to cheerleader-off-duty. She figured that considering how shy Ivy seemed, she might mesh a bit better with someone willing to go out of their way to make her feel comfortable. “Oh my gosh, I love the Carolingian era!”

“Really?” Ivy beamed, her eyes lighting up.

“...Really?” Jack lifted an eyebrow, and Elsie shot him a glare over her shoulder, bristling at his incredulous tone. Okay, maybe she wasn’t really into the Carolingian era, and in fact knew absolutely nothing about it, but Jack certainly didn’t know that, and she was strangely irritated at him for behaving as if he knew anything about her or her interests.

Ivy continued on, unbothered by the tense exchange between the two TAs. “I’m, um, actually a History major. The Arts advisors told me that I needed to take a science class to fulfill a requirement, so…” Ivy shrugged. “Here I am.” She bit her lip, looking off to the side somewhat. “I… I was just hoping to come in early to ask the two of you some questions?”

Elsie and Jack exchanged a sidelong look, their gazes filled with confusion rather than anger for once as they attempted to communicate their mutual skepticism telepathically. “We haven’t assigned any of the readings or practice problems yet,” Jack said, and his tone was gentle in a way that Elsie had never heard before. It was strangely sweet, hearing his voice at a low, placating rumble. “So there’s no need to-”

“I bought the textbook ahead of time.” Ivy tugged a folder filled with neatly done practice problems out from in between the history books she still clutched under her arm, and Elsie could see that some were highlighted with question marks and hastily scrawled notes in pink sparkly pen. “I know what science students think of people in humanities programs, and I didn’t want to give anyone any reason to think any less of me, so…” She trailed off again, but Elsie had heard enough that her heart broke a little for this perfectly polished girl and her need to defend her intelligence against a hypothetical room of science students who all thought less of her. Her lips parted to say something, anything to comfort her new student, but Jack beat her to the punch. 

“If anyone in this class gives you a hard time, or anyone in the program for that matter, please don’t hesitate to come to me. Elitism has no place in the sciences, and it certainly has no place in our classroom.” He looked to Elsie for confirmation and she nodded quickly, somewhat stunned at the intensity of his tone. Here he was, the face of all experimental physicists who thought themselves better than theorists, and yet, he was taking a hard stance against elitism, against self-superiority. Elsie couldn’t quite tell if he was merely a walking contradiction, or if she had misjudged him just a bit too harshly. 

“And Ivy?” He continued, leaning down slightly to meet her eyes properly. “You’re putting in more work on the first day than most of the people in this class will this whole year. Don’t forget that. You deserve a seat in this classroom just as much as anyone else.” He looked as though he would’ve continued, but the door creaked open yet again, this time making way for a flood of buzzing first-years scrambling to find seats and compare Rate My Prof scores. 

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♥ i'm working on making a full one-shot of this, and my ao3 is here if you'd like to stick around for it to come out:) ->

˗ˏˋquillthrills on ao3ˎˊ˗

sooo.... anyone else ever wondered how different ATLA would have been if aang had been frozen at age 16 instead of age 12?

yeah... me too 😌 my new fanfic "the teenager in the iceberg" follows the events of the show, but with only aang aged up, while everyone else remains their canon age.

also...cmon....how funny is it to switch zuko and aang's iconic dialogue to "you're just a teenager!" "...so are you?"

this idea was originally inspired by the talented @allgremlinart's aged up aang drawings, so please go show them some love!!:)<3

enjoy the excerpts from chapter three, that just dropped this morning!

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Katara watched Aang take one last, painful look at the temple, then turn to the sky ahead, lit up in shades of orange, pink, and gold. She swore she could see arrows in every cloud, arrows like the ones inked across Aang’s body, and the gentle breeze that carried the crisp night air towards them seemed to wrap around them like a loving spirit.

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

“...You have no idea where we’re going, do you?” Sokka sighed, turning the map that was held against Appa’s saddle with a couple of rocks toward himself. “I’ve been charting our progress, and it’s starting to look more like a scrap of paper a toddler is practising circles on than a navigational tool.”

“C’mon Sokka, I’m an Air nomad, travel is in my blood. I have a very strong internal compass. Besides, you’ll find that as a nomad, I’m a master of evasive manoeuvring.” Katara raised an eyebrow, looking up from her spot near the back of the saddle as she stitched a rip in Sokka’s pants. “Besides,” Aang continued, typical teenage boy overconfidence emitting from his tone of voice. “I know it’s near water.”

Sokka leaned over the edge of the saddle, eyes scanning the blue expanse below them that stretched as far as the eye could see. “We must be getting close then,” he scoffed, his tone dripping in sarcasm as he slouched back into his spot across from Katara.

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“Aang,” she said distractedly, “could you hold this for me?” She handed him the mirror. 

“Y-yeah, no problem.”

She tugged out her hair ties, flipping her head upside down for a moment to make sure that it had all gotten loose, then she gingerly tugged a few tendrils of water from the nearby ocean and wrapped tiny streams around her hair, tugging out the crimped braid pattern and reviving her curls. Then, she carefully bent the remaining liquid back out. 

She couldn’t see his face through her thick hair as she stood back up, but from his voice, Aang seemed impressed. “I get that you haven’t been able to learn any big combat moves, but for someone whose bending is self- taught, you sure have a pretty good handle on these smaller things.”

She properly flipped her head up now, curls and waves bouncing around her face. Her dark brown locks shone with honey-toned highlights, all different shades of caramel and chocolate sparkling as they framed her face. She reached up, gently twisting and clipping a few strands out of the way, but a few wayward pieces still fell forward, gently brushing against soft, full lips and smooth skin. Aang awkwardly froze for a moment, caught off guard by how different she looked when her hair was loose and free. He had a weird urge to tell her so, but bit his tongue, instead focusing on her answer. 

“I learned most of the smaller things from helping Gran-Gran.” Katara’s eyes sparkled, clearly caught up in a vision of home as she reached up to brush up her hair. “ As she’s gotten older, her range of mobility has started leaving her. It’s not really comfortable or safe for her to stoop over to wash her hair, so I learned how to bring the water to her and wash it while she was sitting up, then I learned how to dry it for her fast.”

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Sokka yelped, his voice defensive and offensive all at once. “There is no way a bunch of girls in cutesy makeup and dresses managed to tie me up.”

“Awe, you think our makeup is cutesy? How sweet .” The girl's voice was crooning at first, sweet and gentle, but Katara could see from the way her muscles flexed as she held Sokka by the collar that there was venom hiding behind those words. She was right. “Throw him to the Unagi.”

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“Katara, c’mon, we’re supposed to be sticking together, where are you going?” Aang tugged at her arm until she was facing him, looking at her earnestly as if he hadn’t basically been flirting with all of those girls back there.

The words came out before she could stop them. “I thought monks weren’t supposed to go around flirting with any random girl, and they’re definitely not supposed to go around catering to a village full of fangirls.”

Aang raised an eyebrow, his expression teasing in a way that made Katara want to splash the smirk off of his face in a wave of water. “You sure have a lot of opinions on what you think monks are supposed to do, considering that I’m the only one you’ve ever met.” He shifted his weight, leaning in a bit closer. “Matter of fact, maybe it's just that you have a lot of opinions on what you think I’m supposed to be doing.”

Katara stiffened at the memory of the words that Sokka had just said minutes before. “Why would I care what you’re doing? I don’t. ”

Aang shrugged, reaching past her to grab a papaya and biting into it. After swallowing, he reached into Katara’s satchel, his hand brushing her waist as he pulled out some coins and quietly thanked the vendor. “Keep telling yourself that, Katara.” Hearing her name from his lips did something to her, but she kept her gaze level, eyes blazing with flame until Aang backed off.

⁎⁺˳ ✧༚ ˎˊ˗ ♡ ˗ˏˋയ ✩

♥ check out the three chapters of this (ongoing) fic & my ao3 here! ->

nobody can convince me that medical student x superhero isn’t the absolute cutest pairing EVER.

imagine ur a nerdy med student and ur bf shows up at your house one day and he’s suddenly a medical marvel. u whip out your stethoscope to test his weird new heartrate immediately and later on you sneak him into lab at school so you can test all his vitals and just marvel at all the laws of science he's breaking by just existing.

bonus cuteness, after fights he knocks on ur bedroom window and asks u to help patch him up ☹️🫶 WHY ARE WE NOT SEEING THIS TROPE IN EVERY PIECE OF SUPERHERO MEDIA EVERR

its actually healing my heart that i got into climbing just as i found out that some of the natla cast are also into climbing thats such an adorable coincidence!!!

From Gordon's instagram story

this is the exact vibe of ATLA when it goes from the gaang escaping horrors beyond human comprehension to aang making goo-goo eyes at katara 😭🤍

it’s monday i’m in the labyrinth

By shojoranko on instagram

^ zuko & azula's dynamic summed up perfectly and you can't change my mind

ughhhh they’re SOOO nerdy cute girl x guy who didn’t realize he peaked in highschool until he left & started working on himself/ growing as a person?!! which is such a random dynamic and yet has quickly become one of my favourite ships in invincible 🥺🥺

REX SCREEN TIME REX SCREEN TIME REX SCREEN TIME ft. Rae😍😍😍

btw i love how rex made a drawing instead of a letter😭

⋆·˚ ༘ * kataangled: ⋆·˚ ༘ *

Katara didn’t look away from Aang, tears gathering in her eyes. Her lips were moving, but he didn’t understand what she was saying. He reached up to caress her hair, tucking a lock of it behind her ear, and in one fluid motion, he sliced cleanly through it with one of the ice shards still littering the floor. Katara’s hand shot up to her hair automatically, her lips parting in shock. Frantically, she sifted through the hair, which was fading from moonstone dappled silver to deep brown even as she whispered healing chants under her breath. “Why would you do that?” Katara gasped, her voice thick with tears. “I can’t- I can’t heal you anymore.” “You don’t need to.” Aang smiled softly. “You’re safe. You’re free from this place. You don’t need me anymore.” “I do ,” she wept. “How can you ask that of me? You showed me the sun, the trees, the grass, the sea. You showed me the world, and you became mine . I can’t let you go, Aang.” Full of urgency, of desperation, she pulled him close, and he kissed her roughly, his calloused palms enveloping her cheek as he did. She held him even as the kiss grew softer, his breathing slowing every moment. Her tears mixed with his as they slid over skin, painting the world in soft hues of saltwater.  “I don’t regret anything, except maybe cutting off your beautiful hair loopies.” Aang’s voice was raspy now, fading quickly. “I could have seen you just once, seen a glimpse of you while walking by the tower, and my life still would have been one without regrets.” His eyes blinked more slowly now, his pulse fading. 

all at once, everything is different, now that i see you (kataangled) by quillthrills (fanart by the amazing @kataangoogie ) ⋆·˚ ༘ *