Amat App/Info

[badgermole_pupil]

» Name: Toph Beifong
» Canon: Avatar the Last Airbender
» Reference: http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Toph_Beifong
» Canon Point: “Earth King,” Season 2, Episode 18 (After being captured in a metal coffin)
» Gender: Female
» Age: 12 (Aged up to 18 in Amat)
CHARACTER INTERPRETATION
» Appearance: Provided that she is dressed the way that she prefers, “Rustic” is a polite way of describing Toph. She has dark, long hair tied up and out of the way in a bun behind her head. Her eyes are a pale, glassy color and stare sightlessly forward. She has a very masculine appearance, with chiseled features that are weathered by long hours in the sun and physical exertion, exercise that has built a powerful and athletic build. Tomboyish by nature, she dresses in a tunic and loose-fitting pants. She never wears shoes or socks of any variety when away from society functions on the behalf of her family, her feet having developed callouses over the years and the young woman preferring to feel the soil under her feet. Not a bit of makeup is visible on her person, and from her general behavior, she seems unconcerned with her appearance in general and maintains herself more for health and mobility than she does in any effort to make herself desirable to others romantically. It is not that she does not care about her appearance, but rather a defensive mechanism to appear as if she doesn't interrelated with her blindness.

Aged up by six years physically, Toph is taller and more statuesque. She still has strong, broad shoulders and a well-sculpted frame. Not willowy, she is strong, well honed and even more masculine in appearance and carries herself with ease and confidence. Her hair, methods of dress and general countenance is unchanged from her younger years, but above all she has grown nearly a full foot and a half in height and now stands eye to eye with a woman of average stature.

» Orientation: Heterosexual. Toph displays no interest in girls at any point through the series, and appears at various points to have a mild crush and interest in Sokka, one which goes nowhere during the course of the series, but which causes some mild tension between her and Suki. In subsequent canon, she is accused of having a crush on a young man named Satoru by Aang, something that she does not deny, but does not develop further within the span of canon. It is also a known fact from the Korra series that she has a daughter, though whether or not she marries is unknown. We otherwise don't see much of her romantic preferences in the series.

» Personality:
Toph is a fiercely independent, stubborn, obstinate and aggressive individual with a chip on her shoulder the size of a rather large boulder. Born blind, she has had to struggle with the smothering and coddling of her parents. The Beifongs, one of the richest and most politically powerful families in the Earth Nation, held influence over the southern portions of the nation and the town of Gaoling in particular. Her parents, Lao and Poppy Beifong, believed that the blindness that she possessed caused her to be a weak, frail and delicate woman who needed to be protected from the world around her. Their protective nature reached the extremes of attempting to keep her hidden away from the world around, to the point where only a few even within Gaoling were initially aware that the Beifongs had a daughter. She was raised in nearly smothering and oppressive high society of the southern nation, taught courtly etiquette and the expectations of a lady. Eventually, despite the fact that she deeply loved her parents, she could stand their smothering no longer and ran away for the first time at the age of six.

Hiding within a deep cave, she fumbled along in the darkness until she encountered the blind creatures known as badgermoles, creators of Earth-bending techniques. Developing a kinship through their shared blindness she was able to learn the principles of Earth-bending from them and sought for a means to break with the oppressive treatment of her parents, practicing her arts in secret with all of the skill of a savant and learning ways to cope with her blindness through sensing the vibrations of the earth in her feet. As she gained the capacity to “see” through her feet, her rebellions took on a new form entirely, the girl disguising herself in martial arts clothing and sneaking off to enter underground fighting rings of Earth-benders, taking the moniker “The Blind Bandit.” Only after the last Airbender Aang's intervention was her ruse broken and the secret revealed to her parents, resulting in a further confrontation she resolved ultimately by running away. Though she loved her parents and wanted to seek reconciliation (something she was attempting to do when tricked by Master Yu with a forged missive from Poppy), she could no longer tolerate their world or the way that they smothered her.

Much of her traditional personality is a reflection of her refusal to be the daughter her parents wished for her to be. She understands high society and is intimately familiar with courtly etiquette, but pointedly refuses to adhere to them, even in situations where it might benefit her. Instead, she is crude, a touch vulgar, blunt and bald to the point of being confrontationally offensive and mocking towards everyone. Her mockery only changes in tone from cruel to playful when dealing with people that she actually likes (such as Aang, Sokka and eventually others of their company). Sarcastic to her core, she very rarely seems to behave responsibly or take anything that seriously, preferring to live a life on her own terms. It isn't that she craves an easy life, however, as she trains almost obsessively and spends her days trying to make herself useful. What is important to her in a lot of ways is that she is doing what she wants, not what others want her to do.

Toph is a quick study and a swift learner when it comes to human nature. Though she relies, in part, upon her Earth-bending both for the limited sense of truth-telling she performs and for being able to see to get around, she has long years of time listening to people who speak around her and pay little attention to her presence. It has given her a good sense of others' intentions and motivations, one that is only clouded by her own stubbornness and dislike of sympathy. She tends to take her observations and address them baldly, with the sort of brutal honesty that makes people uncomfortable in social situations. It isn't out of any sort of active malice. She simply cares little for protecting and nurturing others' feelings. She is a pragmatist and realist, and places results and needs over feelings quite frequently, such as when she forgives Zuko far faster than the rest of the party, knowing that they need a Fire Bender to teach Aang (Though this has not happened at her canon point, her pragmatism is seen throughout her career.).

If there is one fast, sure-fire way to turn Toph into an irate, nasty and angry young woman, it is to give her the slightest hint of sympathy or pity. She is blind, but she isn't a charity case. She is young, but she is a savant, one of the greatest Earth-benders alive, and with potential the likes of which few will see in generations, and she knows it. She's proud of who and what she is, what she's accomplished and her pride displays itself, not in immature whining but in an aggressive and more mature sort of ego of one who has proven herself several times. Any time a character (most especially Katara) tries to help her, she reacts negatively, insisting that she can “Pull her own weight.” Only through the guidance of Iroh does she come to terms with the fact that help isn't necessarily pity or charity, but possibly the bonds of friendship. Still, she is slow to view assistance as anything other than pity, and stubbornly prefers to protect and support herself.

Toph's relationships are tricky at best. At her canon point, she is still in a fairly antagonistic relationship with Katara. The two girls are near diametrical opposites, the Water Bender being supportive, nurturing, kind-hearted and frequently more soft-spoken. They rarely see eye to eye and argue often. Toph is slowly beginning to reach a point where she can see the common ground between them, but it will not be for some months before they truly show each other complete respect. Aang and Toph have an equally strained relationship to that of Katara and Toph. Though she willingly teaches the Avatar in the ways of Earth-bending, her confrontational and direct style rarely connect well with his evasive and positive attitude. Only after seeing him stand up to a dangerous wild beast to protect Sokka does she begin to observe deep within him the tendencies of an Earth Bender. Nevertheless, though she becomes more positive of his skills, the two often clash due to their drastically different outlooks on life. Still, she develops a growing friendship with Aang, one seen in her nicknames for him and playful (as opposed to cruel) jabs, calling him “Twinkle Toes” from almost their earliest meetings.

She has a sort of on-again, off-again crush on Sokka that stems from the fact that, of Aang's companions, he is the least likely to coddle her and does not react negatively towards her irresponsibility. Their humors initially clashed, and she frequently insults him with various barbs at his expense, but most of them are in good nature more than anything else. However, she has no sense of how to approach him with her attraction and is considerably jealous of Suki, who has a great deal of Sokka's interest as a result. At this canon point, her relationship with Zuko has not developed as it will in the later series, and she is aware of him primarily as a distant and dangerous opponent.

» Re-App Changes: N/A
SAMPLES
» First Person Sample Choice: Prompt 2

I need a job.

[It's as simple as that. The figure standing there with her arms crossed in front of her chest, staring off in some direction away from the video feed sounds bound and determined. Her glassy eyes gaze sightlessly off while she kicks a rock into the distance. She grunts and spits in a decidedly unladylike fashion.]

I've already heard about the hostel, and that's all well and good. I don't give a fig. I can take care of myself, by myself. I'm nobody's charity case. So, who's hiring? No skimping on the hard work just because I'm a girl. You don't want me to kick your butt.

[She gave a roguish grin, lips curled back while she barked out a laugh. Her foot moved out, gently shifting in a circle along the ground until it tapped the device. Reaching down, the blind girl plucked her device up and stared at it with an alarmingly accurate position. She winked and shut the feed off without another word.]

» Third Person Sample Choice: Prompt 2

Toph was still panting, lying back. Her partner lay beside her, looking relaxed and pleased with themselves. In the back of her mind, she could feel the temptation there, the urge to have just enjoyed the act for once, to appreciate the feeling she'd gotten, the way that her body ached so differently than any exercise regimen ever seemed to cause. It would have been so easy to let that moment just linger, to lie there with them.

With an almost savage bark of a grunt, she slid to the side at the feel of a hand trying to enjoy the afterglow with her, flipping around and planting her feet firmly on the ground. Toph stood and turned her head so that her words could be heard clearly. “No offense,” she rumbled out. “You weren't bad, but I'm not the pillow talk type. Not my style.”

Her foot shifted forward very gently, feeling the fabric of her clothes on the ground. Reaching down and not listening to a word that was being said behind her, she lifted the shirt and started to put it on before she frowned, pulled it off of her head and cast it in annoyance to the side. Their shirt, not hers. She could smell it on the fabric. Her foot pulled up the right one next and she started to dress, moving through the room as if she weren't blind. She'd paced it a couple times in the midst of the intense love-making. She remembered what distances were involved. It would take a little fumbling to find her cane, but she could handle herself.

“I can see myself out,” she said eventually at the door, hand whipping in a pre-emptive motion to keep them from trying to help, whether they planned to or not. She just wanted to get away from here. She felt like a burden, and she couldn't stand the idea of being a burden, or worse being someone's pretty little pet to dandle off of her knee. Helping each other out was one thing, but she wasn't ready to start … falling for people. The thought scared her. As her hands slid along the wall, grazing the doorframe and moving quickly to the knob, she turned back and offered a sneer to show there were at least no hard feelings.

“Besides. You snore worse than Appa.” And with that, she was gone.