This Is Literally Exactly What Sokka Sounds Like In The Fortune-teller Ep When He's Desperately Trying

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.

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˗ˏˋ sneak peak: ˎˊ˗

As she stormed up the stairs to the TA coordination overseer’s office, Elsie thought to herself that this was perhaps the most anger she had ever allowed herself to feel in all twenty-one years of her life thus far. Worse than her flare of irritation at Ceecee months before for allowing her evil spikeball to eat the rare cheese collection Elsie had sprung for as a self-gifted birthday present, certainly worse than that time when that same spiny ball of fury had taken a midday nap on the seat of her office chair,  and somehow, worse than the fateful publication in Annals of Theoretical Physics that had undermined her future field of study entirely for years to come. 

Yes, all of that certainly paled in comparison to the events that had been set into motion only days before when she had, naively and idiotically, she might add, assumed that becoming an undergraduate TA in the last year of her degree could lead to nothing but good things. A boost on her grad school applications? Check. The ability to endow the incoming freshmen with a lifelong love and passion for physics? Double check. Co-TA-ing with the absolute blight on theoretical physics that was Jack Smith Turner? Who also happened to be six and a half feet of unfairly cruel gorgeousness? Who also also had sealed his fate as her sworn enemy since the faithful day he’d taken the last first-row seat in their Physics 110 class?

Unfortunately, quintuple-check, which is why she was currently storming up the stairs to the TA coordination center, only footsteps behind said long-legged perpetual thorn in her side. 

“It isn’t too late to give up and turn around, Jack,” Elsie huffed, mentally making a note to join Cece on her early-morning runs more often as she charged forward, propelled by pure indignation alone. “This is my TA spot, and we both know it.”

“Elsie, for the last time, there is no reason why we can’t just do this together,” Jack sighed, unfairly calm and unbothered-looking for someone who had remained several steps ahead of her since they’d begun climbing four flights of stairs ago. “The class is too large for one TA. You can’t run labs by yourself, an-”

“Oh, I can’t run labs by myself?” Elsie seethed, her rage peaking more steeply than a displacement verses time graph with increasing velocity- a concept that she could certainly teach better than this elitist theoretical-physics-invalidator-robot masquerading as a science undergraduate. Typically, she would never allow herself to snap at anyone the way she was now, but there was something about Jack that single-handedly managed to unravel every last one of her meticulously curated alternate personalities, and she hated him with the fire of a thousand Wolf-Rayet stars for it. The logical part of her brain knew that more likely than not, Jack was only intending to point out the obvious- that a class of two hundred plus only one TA would undoubtedly lead to disaster regardless of said TA’s competence- but something about his tone, so smooth and careful and goddamn patronizing was enough for her to allow her irritation to show quite plainly. 

“Elsie, you and I both know that’s not what I meant.” Jack groaned, halting in front of her to hold open the door, and Elsie had to bite her tongue to hold back her thanks. As she stormed through ahead of him, she thought that she saw his eyes lock onto her face for a moment, his gaze rapt with attention. His next words were a bit softer, more likely than not an attempt to placate her into not begging the coordinator to remove him from the course. “You’re smarter than deliberate misinterpretations.” 

Elsie couldn’t quite think of a sufficiently snappy response. She settled on, “You don’t know that,” which was admittedly not exactly her best scathing retort. 

“I’d like to think I do.” 

Elsie paused at the note of sincerity, her eyes flicking back to meet his, which hadn’t left her since she’d passed him at the door. “If I have even a little bit of luck, which unfortunately seems unlikely considering that I’ve been assigned to TA a year-long class with the guy that tried to delegitimize my entire field of interest when he was seventeen, you’ll never know me well enough to confirm or deny that.” Elsie’s voice was cold now, any hint of teasing gone, and with that, she pivoted sharply. If she had cared enough to see his response, she would have seen his face falling for a fraction of a second before he re-composed himself, steeling his expression once more. 

After bickering back and forth for some time in the hallway outside the heavy oak door over which of the two would plead their case first, the TA coordinator on duty (who happened to be a very underpaid and understandably irritated graduate student volunteer) eventually shouted through the door that the two of them could come in together or flirt somewhere she wasn’t. Shuddering at the thought of seeing Jack in any sort of romantic light, Elsie had pushed open the door first, with Jack hot on her heels. 

After only five minutes of the pair repeatedly cutting off one another and glaring vehemently at each other, the coordinator cut through their chatter with a single raised finger and a glare that entirely silenced both of them more effectively than the mute button on a remote. 

“Enough, please.” The coordinator, whose name according to her desk sign was Ashley, slid her head into her hands in exasperation, her irritation evident. The beads at the end of her blond braids clicked against the thick wooden desk and then her chair as she straightened, facing the two head-on. Her British accent had been more subtle when she had welcomed the pair in, but its increased intensity seemed to be directly correlated with the length of time she spent with the pair. She couldn’t have been any older than twenty-four or twenty-five, but she looked as tired as if she had been dealing with the two for years. “I can’t shuffle the first-year’s TA’s on a whim just because of some…petty rivalry.” 

Both Elsie and Jack surged forward, their words overlapping urgently as they attempted to communicate that no, this was very much more serious than a petty rivalry, but both shut up upon seeing the single finger Ashley raised in anticipation of their protest. “It’s not my job to understand the distinction between a petty rivalry and whatever layered conflict the two of you have going on, nor is it my job to mediate said conflict, but it is my job to make sure that this class is staffed. The two of you will be working together, whether you like it or not, so I would suggest making your way to the counselling office instead.” Ashley’s eyes slid between the two of them, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe they can help you two sort out all this… tension.” 

Elsie and Jack, understanding all at once that they had managed to push Ashley to the end of her rope, rose from their seats and shuffled to the door as if they had been put in time-out. 

As they began down the hallway, Elsie’s ballet flats clicking sharply against the navy-tiled floor, Elsie swore she heard Ashley add under her breath, “...Or, you two could just hook up already and stop subjecting the rest of us to your weirdo version of flirting.”

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♥ my ao3 is here if you'd like to stick around to read the rest of this multichap->

˗ˏˋquillthrills on ao3ˎˊ˗

@ever-so-ali i am obsessed with everything you've ever written hopefully i can one day join you on the other end of the fanfic writer -> published author pipeline

guys it's OUT NOW!!!! i'll do a proper promo post tomorrow so i guess anyone who sees it before then can be part of a super secret club hehe

new chapter of "the teenager in the iceberg" is gonna be out tonight!!! so excited to show you guys the fortuneteller ep!!

HER LITTLE BLUSH SHE'S SO CUTESY SO BABYGIRL

This trend but it's Dick and Kori

hi, i'm quill! welcome to my fanfiction & writing blog<3

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hii lovelies!!! my pronouns are she/her, and i'm a writer who's only started writing on ao3 as of somewhat recently (i.e. this year).

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♥ here's my ATLA masterlist ->

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i like them

rex going from most irritating character in invincible to my most adored character was not on my 2025 bingo card but i welcome it anyways

her face is literally :o -> :0 what a cutie<3

YOU CANT TELL ME THIS WASNT PUPPY LOVE

sokka would throw a temper tantrum if he saw that toph was "strength" and aang was "the world" and his sister was "the high priestess" and he was THE FOOL 💀

the following is an excerpt from my new ATLA aang is aaged up AU fanfic!! (or at least, a teaser from the upcoming update on wednesday) (!!!!) (so excited bc u guys seemed to really like the first ch and left so many lovely comments!!

i present to you, a little sample of ch2 of "the teenager in the iceberg"!!!

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The trio flew on through the sunset, until Tui rose above them, pulling the colour out of the sky as if she were weaving onyx black strands of soft wool into the most beautiful of tapestries. Katara settled on her back, tugging her fur lined overcoat closer, huddled against Sokka, who was in turn huddled against Aang for warmth. Moonlight and starlight bathed the three in enough light that neither Katara nor Aang could sleep, although Sokka seemed to be snoring away just fine. After a few hours of fruitless attempts to slip into dreamland, both Katara and Aang rose from their respective spots beside Sokka and moved to sit in the driver’s bench.

“Trouble sleeping too, huh?” Aang cocked a grin, tilting his head to Katara. She kept her eyes fixed upwards, trained on the moon and the stars, worried that if she looked away, she’d end up staring into his eyes like a weirdo. 

“I always feel so awake with the moon’s light on me. Sleeping under the stars has never really been a thing that works. It’s too energising, too… too much. It’s hard to explain.”

“No, no… I get it. I feel the same way in a windstorm, all those breezes and gusts of wind, it feels… exhilarating.” She watched through her peripheral vision as he looked up at the moon. “In times of war, I think we all tend to forget how spiritual bending is at its core. I’d say it’s a good thing that you’re in touch enough with the origins of your abilities to feel the moon’s pull tug at you just as much as it does on the ocean.” Katara raised an eyebrow at the cheesy sincerity, and he chuckled in response. “I’m serious! Out of all the nations, Airbenders have the highest rate of benders, and I’ve always felt like it’s because of how much we connect to the spiritual aspect of all of this. We feel our element through our veins, we acknowledge its origins, we treat it as a sacred art.”

Katara nodded, puzzling it all over. “I wish I’d gotten to learn bending as a child properly, the way you did, with the stories of its origins and the teaching of precise bending forms.”

Aang’s brows wrinkled at this. “You- you didn’t get a teacher? But… weren’t you the one to break me out of the iceberg?”

“You’re looking at the last Waterbender of the Southern Tribe.” She sighed, hanging her head. “Everything I know about my bending was either made up through trial and error, or scraped together by bits and pieces of the few bending scrolls my tribe held on to. We’ve never believed in building fortresses and kingdoms the way the Northern Tribe does, and so, when the Fire Nation raids began… our waterbending numbers just continued to dwindle as they were defeated and taken to Spirits know where.” She bit her lip, trying desperately to steady her voice.

“That's… that’s how my mother passed. I was there, in the tent, when she was…killed.”

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just finished the draft!! 4,424 words baybeeee!!!! you guys are eating GOOD w this update. releasing wednesday morning:))) catch up on the first chapter before then here ->

me when i write really flirty aang fics and then read them back and giggle and kick my feet

love rereading some of my writing like damn this person really knows how to write that appeals to all the things I personally love