Saturday! The happiest day of the week!

[lizbee]

I have to go out, get a new supply of anti-depressants for the cat and hit the markets. Then it's back home to write the kiss meme fics.

Something else about Toph/Azula that I meant to say the other day: an extra-textual level for shipping it is that it bugs me when art (and fic, but mostly art) portrays Toph growing up to be conventionally slim, feminine and straight. Like this. (The girl who commissioned that has her own thoughts on the matter. Agree or disagree, though, you should totally go through her commissions tag, because even where I disagree with the characterisation, the art is amazing.)

(Also, Toph/Zuko? Really?)

(Clearly, I'm not biased because I'm a Mai/Zuko shipper. Absolutely not. I deny everything and you can't prove it.)

Not that Toph can't be slim, although it seems more likely she'd be stocky and muscular, since her character bible specifies she has broader and stronger arms than Aang. As for feminine and straight, well Toph sneers at your binaries. She is vast and contains multitudes, and knows that there's more than one way for a woman to be attractive.

Comments

[sqbr]

I had exactly the same reaction to that art. When I had to imagine an older Toph for a comic she was definitely neither slim nor traditionally feminine (and in my head she was dating Suki, though that never came up)

Clearly, I'm not biased because I'm a Mai/Zuko shipper.

Me neither :D

[nam_jai]

What does gossymer mean when they say, "Especially considering the creators decided to make the character appear exactly the opposite instead," do you know? Have the creators depicted Toph as an adult in some venue? Or is this simply a reference to the character originally being conceived as male?

Anyhow, that post bugs me. I have a cousin who, at 12, was built more or less like Toph, and as an adult she may be taller than she was at 12, of course, but she's still, yes, short and stocky. And yet she's an attractive woman, who managed to land a loving partner (in her case, a male one), despite not being some slim, willowy ideal. I like that Toph might inspire fan artists to depict a character who doesn't conform to that narrowly defined idea of beauty.

[lizbee]

It's a reference to the fact that they didn't just change her into a girl, but into a very small girl, to make the point that a powerful earthbender needn't be incredibly muscular.

[crossedwires]

I'm a little bothered that the close-up of Toph's face in the second link looks to me like she has caucasian features. I don't see why she couldn't be built more like Korra, if shorter, as an adult.

And I like Toph/Mai or Toph/Mai/Zuko, but really I ship Toph/everyone (except Iroh and other parental figures). :D

[lilacsigil]

I was Toph-shaped just before hitting puberty - stocky and kind of square - and I grew up tall and curvy and strong. But Toph in the cartoon has breasts, so I would presume she's started puberty and isn't going to grow *vastly* taller.

[frabjous]

(omg this is the most amazing thing ever)

So not in the Avatar fandom at all but Toph is a character who is not only not stereotypically feminine, but who actually enjoys/prefers being seen as not stereotypically feminine. So while whatever body shape she's grow into wouldn't be a choice, I can't see Toph choosing a stereotypically feminine appearance or role. For me good fanart combines body language, facial expression, costume, and context to bring a character to life (this link explains it pretty well). I think that Deviantart commission is extremely technically accomplished but when I see that girl I don't think "Oh that's Toph" because her character imo is primarily one of action and energy, whereas the woman in that picture is very passive and serene.

[holyschist]

This member of fandom likes to "assume" Toph grows up to be muscular and not-straight (and possibly not cis gendered) because that's a whole hell of a lot rarer than assuming she grows up to be slim and feminine and straight. Toph is such a rarity; it makes me angry to see her erased into yet another typically feminine-looking character. And even if she DID grow up to be tall and slender and classically pretty, I don't see that changing her attitude or magically making her love frilly clothes.

(I'm also not a big fan of all the ATLA art where the characters look white.)

[lizbee]

(I'm also not a big fan of all the ATLA art where the characters look white.)

THAT SHITS ME OFF NO END. I saw one where Zuko looked like Edward Cullen with a mild sunburn.