Get to know TOPH BEIFONG who’s TWENTY-TWO years old. She is from TEXAS and is often times mistaken for LANA CONDOR while others say she reminds them of TOPH from AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER.
Headcanons
Toph has light and shadow perception. If she’s inside, she can tell where the light sources are coming from, and can tell if something passes in front of a light and get sort of a blobby sense of its shape from the shadow.
Toph has a guide dog named Badger. He’s a black lab, and she’s had him for two years. She much prefers using him than a cane. It feels more freeing and independent, and looks less obvious at first.
She’ll tell people her favorite color is green, even though she’s never seen it. She likes what it stands for, though. And hearing that its the colors of grass and leaves makes it all the more intriguing to her.
Toph doesn’t mind people asking her questions about being blind, it’s just when they’re stupid questions that she gets a little annoyed. Like “if you’re blind, how do you do blank”. The answer is usually something like “I didn’t know you needed to see to be able to do that.”
She knows people forget she’s blind sometimes and honestly, that’s how she prefers it. If they make comments about how the look or they try to show her something, she’ll usually just make a joke about it. She doesn’t take any of it too seriously because she’s not really that serious of a person.
Young at heart, Toph can be seen as childish at times, not really thinking about the consequences of her actions or comments.
She loves being outside and around nature. She loves the sounds and the smell of it.
Growing up in Texas, her family owned a farm. Well, her grandparents did. But they’d visit a lot. She loved being around all the animals, and she would just play in the dirt when she was a kid. This always worried her parents, so instead she started to do it in secret. She got her grandmother in on it, too. So if her parents asked her what they’d been doing all day, her grandmother would say they were inside watching TV or reading.
Toph had an instructor growing up, someone who taught her how to do things on her own. She hated him. He coddled her more than her parents. He never let her go past basic things, even though Toph was much more advanced than that.
She can’t swim, she never had a reason to learn. That doesn’t mean she won’t go to the beach or pool with her friends, it just means if she gets in the water, she’s not going very deep. And she does know how to tread water, just enough so she doesn’t drown. Her parents made someone teacher her how to do that after a scare at a neighbor's pool when she fell in.
Growing up, her family was wealthy. They were able to hire the best tutors and helpers for her. They were able to buy all the little necessities for their home to keep Toph safe.
She doesn’t know what yet, but Toph wants to accomplish something big in her life. She wants to be remembered. Not as the Beifong’s blind daughter, but as Toph, the first blind something. Or, heck, maybe it doesn’t even have to do with the fact she’s blind. She just knows she’s going to do something. And whatever it is, it’s going to be big.
Fun Facts
Toph has a tattoo on her left arm that says “Fuck Off” in Braille. She just likes the idea of it. Some people ask her why she would get a tattoo if she can’t see it and she just holds up her arm in response.
She loves action movies and superhero movies.
She likes to fight and gets annoyed when people won’t fight her because she’s blind.
Toph is bisexual.
She loves food, she’ll eat almost anything. And the spicier the better. She loves it when something feels like it’s just kicked you in the face.
Toph wears shoes with thin soles since her earthbending powers help her sense (“see”) things. She has one pair of shoes that she ripped the bottom off of so she looks like shes wearing shoes. She does wear socks with those shoes though because she doesn’t want to step in something gross or have it be too obvious what she’s doing.
Earthbending
Toph practices often. She isn’t shy about her powers. She throws rocks at people for fun. She loves going to the park and sitting on the ground and just pressing her hands to the dirt. It’s like she can see everyone out there having fun.
She can feel the vibrations of people’s steps and movements. When she wears normal shoes she can only sense a persons footsteps very lightly. She can “see” about up to their ankle. If she’s wearing thin shoes, she can see a person walking up to almost their knee. If shes wearing only socks she can get a better sense of their height and weight and how heavy their steps are or what kind of shoes they’re wearing. But if it’s her hands she puts on the ground and focuses, she can practically “sees” the outline of a whole person. The positions of their arms and head. The heavier the object or the more vibrations it causes, the easier it is for her to see. So wearing normal shoes and walking down the street sometimes she barely sees children’s footsteps or animals hopping around.
She practices not only “seeing” with her earthbending, but also manipulating the earth as often as she can. When she’s really practicing, she’ll go into the middle of the woods with Badger and practice around there. However if she knows she wants to try more extreme things, she’ll just take her cane and leave Badger at home because she wouldn’t want to risk his safety.
Is always trying new techniques and ways to earthbend.
Connections
Sokka Hakoda - Someone she loves having around. He’s like one of her best friends and someone she really enjoys pulling pranks with. Toph doesn’t mind being a little more open with him about her emotions and such, but she always makes it clear if he tells anyone else, she’ll punch him. And even for all the teasing she does, Sokka is her favorite person and being a little mean to people is how she shows affection.
Zuko Ozai - She’s friends with him. He’s a little awkward at times but she does enjoy hanging out with him.
Badger - her service dog, a black lab, and her best friend. She always has him with her. He means the world to her and he’s not just her best friend and her pet, but he’s her freedom to walk around and go places without feeling like she’s going to get lost or need to ask people for help.
Wanted Connections
Fight club - people willing to spar with toph. She loves MMA and loves to fight. She would also love a teacher to help her get better.
Friends - Toph needs friends that can either be the opposite of her or a lot like her. They can cause trouble together or someone to balance out her chaotic nature. Honestly she just needs friends of any shape and sort.
Fling - just someone Toph has maybe messed around with. Doesn’t have to be serious and doesn’t have to be something that is still going on. It was/ is more about having fun than actual feelings.
Betrayal - Toph is slow to open up, but she found someone (either a friend or a romantic partner) that she almost immediately felt like she could trust. So she opened up. But then something happened and they used her vulnerability against her or they grew apart and fell apart. And because of this Toph always thinks of them as someone who broke her heart and broke her trust. And someone who she wishes to still be friends with/still has feelings for but can’t bring herself to trust again.
Crush/Romance - Someone who either has a crush on her or she has a crush on them. Feelings that are either requited or not. It could lead somewhere or just stay quiet between them. Toph is slow to romance—slow to trust and to love— but she would love to have someone who loves her. It’s always a fear in relationships that she’s being used by her partner to get pity points or that they’re going to baby her. Which she hates the thought of. So to find someone who loves her and doesn’t ask her to take it easy or be careful or treats her like she’s incapable of things, someone she feels safe trusting with all her vulnerable parts, is something that she secretly longs for.
Roommate - for somewhat obvious reasons, Toph doesn’t like living alone. Her roommate could be someone who she’s friends with or someone who she rarely sees but is tolerant enough to help her make dinner and make sure the lights go on and off at the right times.
