my atla fandom hot take that is unobjectionable but for some reason consequential due to its prevalence is that toph wouldn’t consistently refer to sokka as ‘snoozles’ the way she refers to aang as ‘twinkle toes.’ the epithet of ‘snoozles,’ which she uses exactly once, in “bitter work,” is entirely dependent on its context, which is that she woke up early because she was excited to train aang. if anything, toph is far more of a “snoozles” than sokka is. when he tells them in “the painted lady” that they’ll have to wake up 43 minutes earlier from from on to make up for the day they spent in jang hui, toph emphatically declares “well i’m not waking up early.” and mind you, these are toph’s sleeping habits on a regular day, whereas sokka is usually regimented and disciplined to the point that toph mocks him for it (see also, “finagle away, o schedule master” earlier in that scene):
she also refers him as ‘sleuthy one,’ in “sozin’s comet,” but that’s just as context-dependent as snoozles. it would be weird of her to call him that consistently, the same way it would be weird of her to call him by a nickname that implies he’s in any way lazy, when in fact, she is far more likely to mock him for being an overly-organized hard-ass.
aang is the only character who is actually bestowed a consistent nickname. while the epithets with which toph refers to katara follow a generally consistent pattern—first ‘sugar queen’ in “the chase,” then ‘sweetness’ in “the earth king,” and (my personal favorite) ‘madame fussy britches’ in “the runaway”—she never uses the same nickname twice. she refers to suki as ‘honey’ in “sozin’s comet,” but i wouldn’t even call that a nickname per se. and zuko’s only nickname by a member of the gaang, ‘sifu hotman,’ is coined by aang, not toph. with the sole exception of aang, toph primarily refers to her friends by their names, and only uses nicknames in specific contexts, when the occasion actually calls for her to employ a mocking epithet.
however, if toph were to refer to sokka by a consistent nickname, the obvious contender is clearly ‘captain boomerang.’ although it’s a somewhat silly name, it’s evident through her tone when she calls him that in “sozin’s comet” that it is sincere. when she is hanging on to his hand and says “aye aye, captain,” she is not being remotely sarcastic; she is expressing dire fear for their lives, but she trusts him completely. even the shit ass comics are able to recognize that this is toph’s ultimate nickname for sokka, because it represents how she truly views him. beneath her irreverent recalcitrance, toph clearly holds a lot of respect, fondness, and admiration for sokka as a friend and as a leader. she does not think of him as ‘snoozles’; she thinks of him as her captain.
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