Fandom Culture Sometimes Kinda Reminds Me Of The Feeling Of Being In An AP English Class Where One Quarter

i'm a hungry little clout goblin but in the way that i jump in excitement when i get an ao3 comment because it is validation that other people have seen into my obsessed fandom brain and enjoyed what it produces

KIT WE NEED TO COOK!!!!

The moment that the sliding door of their rented room clicked shut behind her, Katara heard shuffling, a groggy voice whispering. “Katara? Is that you?”

“Aang?” She whisper-shouted back, blinking into the darkness. She fumbled around by the door until she managed to grab a sea-moss lantern by the door and tugged off the cover. Immediately, what the lantern illuminated had her in stitches. Aang was there, sprawled across a thin bamboo mat, clearly half-asleep, but for whatever reason, not in the bedroom he shared with Sokka. She settled down onto a floor cushion next to him, still giggling at the way he continued to groggily blink at her. “What are you still doing up?”

He pulled himself up onto his elbows, rubbing at his eyes in a way that reminded Katara of a seal-penguin pup. “I went to check on you before bed, but you weren’t in your room. I wanted to make sure you got home alright.”

She wrinkled her nose at him teasingly. “What, you thought I was kidnapped or something? Joining an illegal street fighting ring? You can trust me to be able to take care of myself, you know.”

“Firstly, you and I both know that with how our sparring went back at Jet’s compound, if anyone is winning a street fight between the two of us, it’s me .” Mock-offended, Katara parted her lips to respond before Aang held up a hand to stop her. “And secondly,” He continued, grinning slightly as Katara stuck out her tongue at him, “I know full well that you can do much more than just hold your own. But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry about you, Katara.” She felt her heart beat sporadically for a moment, and instantly wanted to curse at herself. 

“So what were you up to, Ms. Street Fighter?”

“For the record, I would have a much cooler fighting name than that,” Katara huffed, reaching up to gather her hair over her shoulder.

-ch8 of the teenager in the iceberg by quillthrills

THE AWE IN HIS EYES IM CRYING ☹️☹️☹️

Commissioned art made by one of the best artists @heyhanibee

no love story trope will ever hit quite as hard as "two traumatized teens (often) with unique abilities who are forced to save the world each help the other shoulder the burden of their respective destinies and slowly become each others safe places as they shift from friends to something more."

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

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Elsie wasn’t quite sure how to communicate the magnitude of her gratitude without shifting their dynamic from mortal enemies to something…else.  

She meant to thank him, in a way that would be normal for a TA to speak to her fellow TA, in a way that was perfectly normal and unassuming so that she could move away from Jack’s brief moment of human-ness, but all that came out was “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

She meant to make him smile, meant to maybe soften the hard lines of his face into something that looked slightly less neutral toward her, but instead, she watched a wave of tension roll through the muscles of his jaw, watched his navy sleeves shift and strain slightly as he crossed his arms over one another.

“Right,” He said softly, and his tone was civil on the surface, but at the same time, cold , so much colder than the friendly one he had offered Ivy. 

A few more moments passed, and Elsie felt like the Titanic, facing against the icy chill of the towering iceberg and certain death. “...Okay, did I do something, or…?”

 The sounds of shuffling and flipping pages began to calm and quiet, the clatters and rustling ebbing as Jack and Elsie straightened, feeling the attention of a class teeming with first years suddenly shift entirely to them as the clock hands turned and ticked their way to eight o’ clock sharp.

“Did I?” Jack's eyes flicked to her in the few moments before the overlapping background sounds dissipated entirely, and even if he kept his face neutral, his tone, the way he emphasized “I”, was anything but. Her lips parted and she felt her eyes widen, her jaw loosen in surprise. 

He turned back to the lecture hall, and his next words were barely a mutter as he leaned past her to adjust his laptop and pull up the slides she’d watched him go over a million times in the last forty-five minutes. Her eyes didn’t leave his face, and when he spoke,  his lips parted so briefly that she was could have been convinced he hadn’t spoken at all, if it hadn’t been for the little look he tossed at her back over his shoulder, his gaze locking so closely with her that she was sure she couldn’t have looked away even if she tried. 

“You tell me , Elsie.”

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-quantum entanglement, quillthrills on ao3

THIS IS NOW POSTEDDDD 😚 HOPE U ENJOY THE NEW FIC <3

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˗

⊹  ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖  ⌬ ⋆   ༘ ⚛︎ ⊹ ࣪ ⚛︎ ˖

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˗

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

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