Me Every Time I Think My Upload Schedule Is Going To Be Consistent Again

i think that by far, the most common zutara trope i've seen is zuko freeing katara from her unhappy marriage with the clingy, unappreciative aang.

i've always felt that that aang would genuinely worship the ground katara walked on and be exceedingly kind and respectful, and so i've always thought that this trope would make a lot more sense flipped, with aang in the position of being katara's safe space after zukko reverts back to his angry, sullen, lashing out persona that he was before uncle iroh & the gaang's involvement.

this fic is the result of me having the thought "might f around and write a kataang fic that flips the usual zutara trope of "zuko helps katara escape a failing relationship with aang" 😳"

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Zuko was all alone, heading an entire empire and facilitating the transition of his nation from a war-bringer to a force for peace. At first, she told herself that it was only because he had needed help that she chose to stay with him, but that wasn’t being entirely honest. After that play on Ember Island, all of the scenes where the two of them were in love had opened Katara’s eyes to the possibility, and try as she might, she couldn’t shut them again. And Zuko, after all that he’d sacrificed to help them, after redeeming himself in her eyes, even fighting alongside her, he had seemed like her best chance at home. 

So she had stayed with him. 

---

Zuko proposed, after just six months, but Katara thought little of the brief timeline. When you know, you know, right? He had given her his mother’s ring, and had her dress in Fire Nation colours for the ceremony. She had been under the impression that the wedding would be a welding of cultures, and so she had spent weeks painstakingly carving a traditional water tribe proposal necklace. 

When she had presented it to him, Zuko had only said that a Fire Lord couldn’t be seen wearing another nation’s trinkets . She had quietly dabbed away her tears when he wasn’t looking.

---

The moon rose and set six more nights before Katara rose with it, slipping outside of the castle during the changing of the guard, draped in traditional water tribe colours for the first night in years. Before anyone had seen her, she had made it, slipping between Fire Nation homes almost silently. She only paused to pull clothes and a cloth head covering from a clothesline, silently apologizing to whatever family she had just stolen from. She tucked a couple of coins and a piece of gold jewellery into one of the pockets of the pants still on the clothesline, an attempt at making amends for her crime, then blended into the night again. 

She hadn’t stopped moving until she’d finally found a small forest, then she’d made herself a bed of moss and curled up as if she was a child back on the tundra, pretending to be a sleeping snow fox alongside Sokka.

She missed her brother. She missed her home.

---

She knew where she would go once the cargo ship reached the land. The last location Aang had been in was the Western Air temple. So that was where she would go. If she needed to, to find Aang, she’d scour every inch of the mainland. She knew he would do the same for her. Which begged the question- why hadn’t he come to her when he began to feel that something was off?

It was that question that Katara started with, as she settled into a comfortable position on Aang’s woven rug, a cup of hot tea curling steam around her body that she absent-mindedly bent into shapes around her.

---

Aang sighed, looking away. “Katara, I hate to give you more reasons to feel distressed, but in case you hadn’t remembered, you told me to stay away. Told me my “juvenile crush” was ridiculous and made you uncomfortable. I felt awful, and so, I backed off. I kept sending letters every couple months, trying to make sure you were okay, but you told me you were too busy, and I respected that.”

Katara’s tone was unsettlingly neutral when she responded. “...What?”

Aang titled his head, confused. “You said, in your letters, that-”

She responded in that same tone. “What letters , Aang?”

♥ the rest of the (completed) fic can be found here!! ->

the teenager in the iceberg- ch7 sneak-peek!!!

“Psht,” Aang rolled his eyes, sending a breeze to blow back Sokka’s sandy hair. “Katara’s a friend, Sokka. Dependable, just like Appa, or Momo.”

“Thanks.” Katara said flatly, pretending to suddenly be interested in observing the sand at her feet. Dependable. He sure did know what a girl wanted to hear.

“Hah, maybe you should go into the jewellery business, instead of doing your whole world-saving thing!” Sokka exclaimed from the water’s edge, seemingly unaware of the tension that had been crackling between the two benders only moments before. 

 “I don’t see why I can’t do both!” Aang ambled over to him, leaving Katara thoroughly confused and more than a little hurt. “I would say that you should start a business too, but it looks like you don’t have too much of a chance of breaking into the fishing industry.”

“Mmm, care to help? I don’t see you doing much more than watching from the sidelines.” Sokka shot him with the daggers in his eyes.

“A vegetarian fisher?” Aang raised an eyebrow, but walked into the water alongside Sokka regardless.

“Maybe you can do the bookkeeping for the business. I think you have the potential to have a real head for numbers.” The fish shot up beside Sokka, splashing teasingly, and Sokka lunged, only to come up with empty hands yet again.

Aang doubled over, weak with laughter, which was made worse when the fish came up yet again, just to splash Sokka with a small wave of water. “I think to have a bookkeeper, you need to be able to catch fish to sell,” he managed through his chuckling.

“Yeah, alright, Air-Boy.” Sokka fixed him with another glare, and before Aang could dart out of the water, Sokka tackled him, managing to submerge him for only a couple seconds before Aang erupted from the water in a burst of wind, using the waterbending he’d already learned to combat Sokka’s overeager splashing. 

Katara giggled, settling back onto one of the larger rocks, but her smile faded as she watched the way Aang’s eyes shone in merriment, the way he grinned playfully. Katara’s a friend.

She couldn’t stop replaying the words over and over again, even as Sokka finally caught and roasted his fish, even as she and Aang foraged for the nuts and berries that would make up his dinner, even as she extinguished that night’s cooking fire.

Katara’s a friend.

She wasn’t sure if that was fully true. Not after the way she felt when she looked up at him, not after the way he’d jumped to protect her from Jet, not after the way her heart leapt into her throat at every accidental touch. 

Was this only friendship, to him?

She cast a sidelong glance to Aang, curled up with Momo under woven orange-and-yellow sleeping sheets. Moonlight danced across the planes of his cheekbones, his skin sparkling as if cast from mica. 

It was as if the moon spirits themselves were marking him as hers. 

Wordlessly, she leaned over him, quietly adjusting the branches to his right until the moon caught on the leaves above him, until his face was no longer illuminated. 

He wasn’t hers. She wasn’t sure why she had to keep reminding herself of that. 

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

i will never stop being so grateful that tumblr and ao3 exist because without them i never would’ve had a place to share my writing and i never would’ve known how many people would resonate with it 🤧 feeling overly emotional about it today for some reason but thank u so much to all the lovely people that engage w my work it is so flattering to me 😖😖😖

Eah textpost cause why not

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˗

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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˗

girl who does NOT play when it comes to her bald bf

pov me when floor

Would love to see your take on kataang in their late teens or early twenties just being adorable!

Here's a speedy doodle of them all a little older with some mild kataang, if that suits you, anon c:

The gaang is teaching Zuko how to have friends!!!

You’re telling me this ISN’T what happened in season 1 episode 1????

Is it hypocritical for Aang to be the one to call Zuko bald when he is objectively balder? Yes. Was this really funny to me? Also yes. God may forgive you for not capturing the avatar, but NO ONE will forgive you for that fuckass ponytail.

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︵‿presenting...quill's kataang week!‿︵

︵day one: cultural exchange/ culture sharing/ revival of traditions‿

︵‿︵︵︵‿︵︵‿‿hosted by @kataang-week︵‿︵︵︵‿︵︵‿‿

summary:

after an upsetting council meeting in which aang is painfully reminded of how little the other nations understand of air nomad culture, katara is there to remind him that he isn't as alone as he thinks OR: aang & katara friends to lovers post-war 👀

:D the following are excerpts from "and i promise, that one day i'll feel fine":

Aang typically prided himself on standing strong when it came to upholding the beliefs of his people. It was his responsibility, his burden of loss to carry and his gift.

But if he was being entirely honest with himself, moments such as the one he found himself in now, surrounded by a council of nations in which he was the only Airbending representative, it was difficult to remain pretending as if nothing was bothering him. He’d accepted a seat on the council of nations before fully understanding what it would mean to him, how it would feel . Every other representative was flanked with another member or two of their tribe.

Aang stood alone. 

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He’d been so sure that he’d kissed her, in the Cave of Two Lovers, and again before he’d entered the Fire Nation. Both times, he’d waited for her to say something, anything, to confirm that those kisses had been just as earthshaking for her as they had been for him, but both times, she hadn’t. He’d pressed her about it only once, and the moment she told him that she felt confused, Aang had felt like an absolute and utter idiot . The idea that he’d made Katara uncomfortable… It was enough for him to do his best to suppress his feelings as much as he could. 

That had left them where they were now- on opposite sides of a council room. Two teenagers who could end a war but couldn’t manage to communicate. Aang supposed that there was a bit of comedic irony present there, but truth be told, nothing felt funny to him at the moment. 

Not with how the other council members were speaking about his people. 

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“How can you say that?” Katara ran her hands through her hair incredulously, his jaw set. “Each nation standing on their own and neglecting the balance between our peoples is how the war started. The blood of the Air Nomads is just as much on the other nations for neglecting to remember that, for failing to come to the defence of the remaining Air temples after the first of the Fire Nation raids.” Aang flinched at the visceral reminder, the images it stirred, but regardless, Katara was right. She continued on, her voice dropping in volume but only gaining intensity.

“It’s "every nation on their own" until it was your nation, the one that this “nation of one” defended only months ago.” She spat the last of the words out as if they were laced with venom, her disgust evident as she reminded Hanh of the water spirit form Aang had taken to ward off the invasion of the Southern tribes.

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“Aang. There's no precedent for any of this. The scenario you’ve found yourself in… unique feels too simple of a way to put it. None of the monks would judge you for succumbing to moments of grief and anger.” 

“ I would judge me. I would not forgive myself.” 

“You should.” She smiled softly, shaking her head. “Even the great Avatar, saviour of the world, is not without moments of imperfection.”

Aang chuckled through his tears, his smile turning cocky. “You’d be surprised. I think you’ll find that I’m about as close to perfection as can be.”

“I know,” she said simply, and the genuine quality of her voice was enough to send a blush blooming across Aang’s face. She pushed on, internally berating herself for letting that slip. “And I understand why you feel alone, I really do, but I’m right here, in your corner. Please don’t forget that. You’ll always have me there." She smiled softly, shaking her head as she did. "If you’d escalated the situation back there, if you had snapped completely, I would’ve been right behind you, following your lead.”

Aang’s nose wrinkled as he laughed at the idea of the pair of them fighting the entire council.  Katara shook her head, her eyes fixed on his, her tone dead serious. “Let Sokka, or Zuko, or Toph pull us back to reality. I’m right there with you, in everything .” In life too, if you’d let me, she added silently, her hands itching to pull his hands back to hers. 

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♥ feel free to check out the entirety of this fic & my ao3 here! ->

to see the rest of the kataang week submissions from the other extremely talented and lovely members of this community, head over to @kataang-week :)<3 thank u so much to the wonderful mods for making all of this possible!