Something I really loved about Toph, btw, is the way the gaang sometimes forgot that she’s disabled.
First of all, it showed the gaang didn’t just see her as her disability. Even though she called herself The Blind Bandit, they sometimes just forgot she’s blind, like when Sokka and Aang sent Katara a letter “written by Toph”. It’s obviously not great that they forget, like when they went to the secret library and forgot she can’t read until they went in and left her alone with Appa (and I’ll address that in a bit), but it shows that they see her as a person first.
Then there’s their reaction to the mistake when they forget. They almost always say “sorry”, and it always ends at that. Never dismissing her and excusing their behaviour, but also never going “OMG I’m SO SORRY I’m such a bad person will you EVER forgive me???”. This way of apologising isn’t just annoying, but it’s also not really an apology, it’s a request for you to stroke someone’s ego and tell them how they’re still a good person, and it requires you to confirm you’re not upset with them to move on. It shifts the responsibility on the situation to you instead of to them, because if you don’t accept this apology you become the bad guy because “they apologized”. Simply saying “sorry” in a genuine way is the best approach - you’re acknowledging that you made a mistake without making it into a big drama, while leaving the other person the option to still be upset about it.
Then there’s the purpose it serves from a writing standpoint. As a kid, if you’re not familiar with disabilities and you watch the show you might actually forget that Toph is blind, because she’s able to tell what is going on in her environment. So those moments serve to show she’s still disabled, and that you should remember that she’s disabled, and that doesn’t make her weak or frail or less than her peers. It’s a gentle reminder to the viewer “Hey! This character still has a disability that limits her in her daily life, even if her aid makes it a lot easier.”
And then the last point is that the gaang are all kids. And as much experience they may have with disabled people from growing up during a war, most of the gaang are just not disabled, at least not in the same way at Toph. And their lack of life experiences means they’re more likely to make mistakes when it comes to disabilities. They do a LOT right and it’s important to show how they handle it when they’re doing something wrong. You can’t expect anyone to be perfect. Your loved ones will forget about your disabilities sometimes, and it’s important they’ll know how to react to making mistakes.
When it comes to disabled characters, you need to first treat them as a person. They’re not their disability. They’re not their blindness or their missing limb or their anxiety or their autism. They’re a person first, and it’s something that affects their life, but it doesn’t define them.
You can show they’re disabled without making them helpless.
You can show they’re capable without erasing their disability.
You can have characters who are more disabled or less disabled, with access to aid or without it, and not forget they’re also a person with feelings and wants and a life outside of their disability.
You want to make sure your badass disabled character is still disabled even though they have access to really good aid? Show what their aid can’t do for them and how they deal with it.
For Toph it was reading, for example. For Edward Elric, we saw how his stumps were painful during bad weather, how his prosthetics were breakable and needed repairs, etc. Their writers didn’t forget about their disabilities just because they had a good aid.
But also, when you show their limitations, don’t show them as something to be pitied. Toph needs help writing a letter to her parents, Ed needs to wear an uncomfortable backup arm while Winry fixed the one he broke. They needed outside help for this, but they weren’t looked down on. They weren’t treated as a thing. They were still treated as people.
