krystalhuntress

[krystalhuntress]

CHAPPELL ROAN PHOTOGRAPHED BY KIRT BARNETT FOR POLYESTER ZINE

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I love this drawing by Henry Patrick Raleigh

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they should make an international travel that is free if you're internet friends

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this came from my mind. why would you revoke my rbing privileges.

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fact: every single theater production can be improved by lesbians

#why is emmet so low like huh

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katara toph foils time!!!!!!!

(id under the cut because it's too long for alt text)

ID: image of a deconstructed venn diagram in which toph is on one side and katara is on the other.

below an image of toph from "the runaway" a bulleted list of green text reads:

– materially spoiled, emotionally oppressed – gender noncomforming, finds femininity stifling – comes from repressive household, thus thinks that respecting an individual’s capabilities and self-sufficiency is the correct approach to teamwork – considers vulnerability a weakness – wants to distance herself from her mother’s legacy – resents father’s repressive control – marginalized due to ableism

below an image of katara, taken from the same frame, a bulleted list of blue text reads:

– emotionally spoiled, materially oppresed – enjoys performing femininity despite resenting/resisting patriarchal oppression – comes from communal society, thus thinks that helping others and expecting their help in return is the correct approach to teamwork – knows that there is strength to be found in vulnerability – wants to honor her mother’s legacy – resents father’s reluctant abandonment – marginalized due to imperialism

below and in between both columns a bulleted list of turquoise text reads:

– the most headstrong, stubborn girls on the planet – feel stifled by/hate deferring to authority, first instinct is to resist and rebel – think committing crimes that endanger themselves and others is fine as long as it’s morally justified – complicated relationship to motherhood – resentful of father – best benders of their respective elements in the whole world – incorporate each other’s bending styles into their techniques – often underestimated due to how they are socially perceived – have something to prove to their families and to the world – love fun, mischief, hijinks, tomfoolery (both violent and benign) – hate being denied or criticized in any way – hate being reminded of their limitations – quick to anger, always lash out at the slightest provocation – easily wins every fight they’re in, except for with each other – perfectly evenly matched

[krystalhuntress]

the idea that katara isn’t fun and doesn’t know how to embrace mischief & tomfoolery is ridiculous when you consider that the reason she was so enamored by aang in the first place is that he took her penguin sledding. when defending aang, katara says, “don't you see? aang's brought us something we haven't had in a long time: fun.” sokka replies, “fun?! we can't fight firebenders with fun!” this exchange is crucial to defining their characters. she was forced to grow up too fast after her village was raided but, unlike sokka, she knows that she deserves to be a kid, that she deserved a childhood, and she clings to that desperately.

she loves to have fun. think about the alacrity with which she rides the mailchutes in omashu, flies around on a glider at the northern air temple, divers from a waterfall yelling “waterbending bomb!” with glee. katara loves an andrenaline rush just as much as aang does. and she loves mischief too. she revels in stealing from pirates, not just because it’s a cultural artefact that is rightfully hers (though yes, this is also very much the case), but because it’s daring and bold and fun.

katara isn’t a rule-follower just because she’s caring and good at domestic labor and gender-conforming (whatever that means). katara hates rules just as much as toph does; she just rebels in different ways. just because katara enjoys presenting femininely, likes fashion and makeup and cute boys, doesn’t mean she’s not a rebellious & chaotic free-spirit who loves freezing guys to walls for the crime of being kind of rude to her friend, or who laughs with aang about how cool it was when they committed ecoterrorism.

despite arguments to the contrary, katara does have a good sense of humor, she’s dry and witty and playfully mean, and she laughs at aang’s antics. the true reason she’s unimpressed by sokka is quite simply because he is her brother and it is her god-given right as his younger sister to undermine him at every turn! but when it actually comes down to it, she defends him and praises him and supports him because she knows, even if she isn’t wont to admit it, that he’s brilliant and talented, even if he is “kind of an idiot sometimes.”

when katara accuses toph of endangering them with her scams (which sokka also gets upset with her for, by the way), her way of making things right with toph is by coming up with a scam of her own. because katara didn’t want toph to think she was “motherly” just because she snapped at her. katara rejects the notion of being “the mom friend,” because she knows that she had to take on more responsibility than she should have due to both her parents being gone, and she knows that she deserved a childhood. and she loves to have fun. she’s mad at toph because toph excluded her from that fun, assuming she was “too feminine” to partake in antics, which is toph’s own internalized bias against katara’s femininity and not actually a reflection of katara’s true wants and desires.

yes, katara is feminine. she cooks and sews and heals and midwifes and presents femininely on purpose. yes, katara is commanding. she likes to tell people what to do, whether it be bossing her friends around or inspiring a prison riot. but, despite the fact that sokka calls her a “wet blanket” (to be a bitch, not because the insult actually applies) and toph accuses her of being “motherly” (due to toph’s own issues with being repressed by her parents), katara is full of that same joie de vivre aang is, and this is, in fact, a defining aspect of her personality.

[krystalhuntress]

it’s so funny how toph tells katara that she “hates fun” because obviously that’s not even true like at all, it’s just petty sibling bickering, but also. sokka, who famously hates fun, is right there. imagine being a cool jock who loves adventure and then ur little sister, a fellow cool jock who loves adventure, implies u can’t hang, but ur brother, whose idea of a good time is “taking a nap” & whose idea of a vacation is “going to the library,” knows how to party. toph rly crossed a line there didnt she 

[krystalhuntress]

wake up sheeple !! the notion that katara is the overbearing, responsible member of the group was a lie peddled by Big Toph to distract from the fact that the actual overbearing, responsible member of the group (sokka) also happens to be her favorite.

[krystalhuntress]

atla meme - [5/7] dynamics - katara & toph

The truth is, sometimes Katara does act motherly, but that’s not always a bad thing. She’s compassionate and kind, and she actually cares about me, you know, the real me. That’s more than my own mom… Don’t ever tell her I said any of this.

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it’s incredible to me that people will watch “the runaway” and come away with the conclusion that “toph was right: katara does hate fun!!” like... katara was mad BECAUSE toph excluded her from said fun. toph associates femininity with her upper class mother’s carefully constructed gender/class performance and the insistence that toph also perform femininity, which toph found stifling, so she projected that resentment of hyperfemininity onto katara and called her a “mom” because she assumed that because katara is feminine, she wouldn’t like scamming scammers, even though by this point in the show I’d like to think that we all know that this would be what katara considers fun, and if toph hadn’t deliberately excluded her, she wouldn’t have lashed out. and toph didn’t call katara a mom because “she acts like a mom,” but because, as aforementioned, toph associates femininity with her family’s stifling and oppressive expectations. but katara’s femininity isn’t a bad thing; it’s not her fault that she naturally confirms to certain gender roles that toph rejects. but katara being called a mom made her upset due to her own baggage concerning her mother and katara’s compulsion to carry on her legacy, even though at this point in the show we don’t know yet how kya died, so it’s not fully clear that katara feels an obligation to reward kya’s sacrifice. and anyone who thinks that “katara raised sokka and sokka didn’t do shit and he thinks of her as his mother and katara is more mature than sokka etc etc” like that’s such a blatantly bad takeaway from sokka’s confession in that episode I don’t even know what to tell u. anyway, “the runaway” is a good episode, but no one understands it for some reason. ugh

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in “the ember island players,” katara, as someone who has often teased toph for her gender non-conformity, expects toph to be hurt by her portrayal, and is irritated to find that this is not the case. were katara portrayed by a man, she would be offended to her core. she doesn’t understand why toph considers this the best possible outcome. but, of course, toph loves this portrayal. toph is delighted by the fact that she is portrayed by a buff young man as opposed to a small girl because that’s what she wants to be seen as. she wants to be treated with the social benefits that come from being someone who is clearly physically strong, masculine, takes up space, is loud and authoritative. toph’s gender, physicality, and disability bar her from being treated as the person she is. she is repressed by her father & by her social position, expected to be weak, dainty, quiet, obedient, helpless, and feminine. the ember island players refuse to accept the fact that toph, who is so uniquely powerful and strong, is actually a little girl. but even sadder is the fact that so does she. 

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thinking abt that scene in “the western air temple” where sokka just picks up toph like she weighs nothing and she instinctively curls into him…. how long did he carry her around for until her feet healed….  thinking abt toph wanting sokka to save her in “the serpent’s pass” bc she likes the thought of being rescued as long as it’s by someone who respects her & sees her humanity sokka….. thinking abt the way ppl see toph and assume she doesn’t need emotional support or validation bc she is so sure of herself, but sokka never hesitates to tell her how cool he thinks she is, and it’s clear she basks in his praise every time…… how sokka gives her a piece of meteorite that he actively put aside while making his space sword as a gift for her and it immediately becomes her most treasured possession…. thinking abt sokka shielding toph with his body while airships crash around them….. the way she has complete faith in sokka even when they both think they’re about to die…. thinking abt toph & sokka agreeing that feelings are for losers as they open up to each other about their deepest vulnerabilities on a cliffside…… the way toph initially found it so difficult to understand why helping someone can be a sign of love & respect bc she was so used to being coddled & stifled & demeaned by her abusive, ableist family, but found a new, better, truer family who showed her that there is strength in vulnerability & trust & letting someone help you—in letting yourself be loved. 

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toph in "the chase"

4 episodes later...

by the season finale...

book 3...

and of course, the finale:

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I saw your toph+katara gender post and honestly... thank you for being one of few ppl i've seen who actually do a deeper analysis of toph? Most people tend to just go "i love toph she's cool <3" and while that's fine, its so nice to actually see someone Get Her. Esp wrt her gender expression and relationship to femininity. She's always been v imporant to me, like when i was like 12 i used to watch youtube clips of the toph+katara spa day scene on repeat and have Feelings abt it (still think its a super interesting scene??). Imo, while a lot of her expression is def rebelling (+overcompensating) and doing the oposite of her feminine upbringing, a lot of it is also a genuine JOY at being covered in dirt/burping/being loud and crass and tough? Idk i just feel like a lot of her contemporary "tomboy" characters were more defined as "ugh i hate Skirts and Dresses", but tophs brand of gnc joy and complex relationship w femininity always hit closer For Me? Like. She's loud and crass and rude and badass and cool, she does find it fun to dress girly but as like an Activity with a buddy, she's overjoyed at being portrayed as a big buff dude ("that's exactly how i would cast it!"), she's actually very spiritual and perceptive when not in Loud Mode, she keeps her fancy hairstyle but adds messy bangs, idk she's just. Character of all time. I'd love to hear if you have more thoughts on toph+gender (or just toph in general), and thank you for actually Understanding Her <33

YES!!!!! i have so many thoughts and feelings on toph. she is one of my absolute favorite characters i truly love her so much, and like you said, i hate when people dismiss her even as they claim to love her. "she's so badass" like okay, and?

toph is also just very important to me as her disability informs so much of her arc. and that disability is also inextricable from her gender and her family and all the factors that shape who she is, her strengths and her insecurities. you cannot separate her parents' abuse from her gender, class, or blindness. it's the combination of being an aristocratic blind girl that informs who she is and how she's perceived, especially by her family. she's an only child in a family that would clearly desire at least one son, and you cannot help but wonder whether they stopped at one for eugenicist purposes, whether they couldn't bear the "pain" of risking having another disabled child. and also because they clearly consider having a blind child such a handful that any other child would draw their attention away from her dire, pressing needs. so they completely smother her, but they also dismiss her, trivialize her desires and ignore her feelings and treat her more like a fragile porcelain doll than a person.

it's why, by the time of "the chase," she gets inordinately defensive over katara's suggestion that she pitch in when setting up camp. i see a lot of people claim that toph in this episode is acting like a spoiled brat who refuses to do manual labor because she's too wealthy to understand, but that's not actually the case. toph is fine with doing manual labor (she literally spent who knows how long working in an underground wrestling ring, she's not unaccustomed to work), but she's averse to helping others. as she says, "i carry my own weight." she's establishing, erroneously but understandably, that her idea of affording others respect is assuming that everyone behaves on an individual basis. she's never had friends before, by her own admission, and so in her mind, the only model she's ever seen for "helping others" is smothering them, denying their agency, and deciding everything for them.

toph thinks that katara is a bitch because katara is suggesting that toph meddle in other people's affairs, instead of respecting their own business. and katara thinks that toph is a bitch because she does just straight up assume that toph is a spoiled brat who doesn't understand the value of community. and while toph isn't a spoiled brat, learning the value of community is indeed integral to her arc. and more than simply communal values of helping and sharing with others, she also learns to rely on them in turn. she learns how to embrace her vulnerability, and let others carry her weight for her. her apotheosis in the finale is literally hanging onto sokka, who is holding her entire weight with one hand, for dear life. putting her complete faith in him to carry her and protect her as he always does.

that ability to embrace her vulnerability among the people she actually trusts to not only love and support her, but also to recognize her as a human being and care about her as a a peer, is so crucial to her identity as someone who has learned from years of ableist stigma to put walls up and present herself as someone uniquely powerful and invulnerable. and it's not that she isn't uniquely powerful, but her strength is also largely a projection. it's why she's so delighted to be portrayed by a big buff man, because that's the kind of person she wishes she could be, so that she wouldn't have to be underestimated and belittled and oppressed by people who dismiss her and coddle her and disrespect her and, quite literally, put her in a box.

so if toph's experience with disability is informed by her class and her upbringing, then let's now turn to her experience with gender, which is equally informed by her background. katara often balks at toph's less feminine presentation, because despite her incredibly righteous crusade against limiting patriarchal standards, she nonetheless has her own hangups when it comes to gender. but then again, so does toph. just as katara disdains toph's masculinity, toph finds katara's femininity offensive because her only real model for femininity in her experience is that of aristocratic wifehood. poppy beifong, to be exact, who is not exactly a girlboss (let alone a revolutionary, like katara is). and when katara tries to shove toph back into a box, toph resists because of course she does, that's who she is. she's not going take what she experiences as violent repression lying down.

toph is wrong in "the runaway" to exclude katara from their fun, and she is wrong to call compare her to a mother, but it's not out of nowhere. there is an obvious precedent to these actions. katara is a genuinely feminine girl who loves to boss people around and dictate how they should live their lives. to toph, this is the most egregious sin imaginable. katara, through her femininity and authoritative attitude, is positioning herself, in toph's eyes, as her mother. and toph calls her out for being overbearing and claims that katara hates fun and wants to boss everyone around for this reason, even though sokka is obviously the primary fun-hating, overbearing member of the group.

however, sokka never dictates how toph should act or dress, sokka never made fun of toph for being blind (which is a thing that really deserves its own post, if we're being honest). sokka makes them spend their vacation time at the library and enforces his color-coded schedules on them and generally brings down the vibe what with his neuroticism and severity, but he also laughs at toph's jokes and banters with her in a way that treats her as a friend and not as a rival. and unlike katara, whose desires and commands seem completely arbitrary to toph, sokka's commands are grounded in a logic that toph can understand. so even if from an outside perspective, toph's claim that a revolutionary teenage girl who loves to cause trouble and seeks adventure and joy around every corner is trying to be the overbearing mom of the group makes no sense, it makes perfect sense to toph, based on her history with femininity, overbearing mothers, and feminine overbearing mothers.

toph presents masculinely as compensation, as a way to make herself seem strong and tough instead of dainty and submissive as she was always made out to be. she associates masculinity with strength and femininity with weakness because that's the paradigm she grew up in. it's why she's always teasing aang about his supposed femininity and calling him "twinkle toes" (which, as sokka points out, isn't manly). in their first interaction, aang beat her in a fight and humiliated her in front of all her adoring fans, and avatar or not, toph's gonna make him pay for that by undermining him in turn, by using his presentation as a monk to mock him. even if aang isn't gay or even gender non-conforming (within the assumptions of his own culture), toph is still employing the logic of sexism/homophobia to undermine aang when she makes jokes about him being "more in touch with [his] feminine side than most guys." and of course, the nickname "twinkle toes" is also deeply affectionate, and aang (bless his heart) never actually takes offense to it. but toph is trying to establish herself as more powerful than him due to the humiliating knowledge that he could beat her in a fight, easily.

toph's masculinity is inextricably tied to her invulnerability. she wants to be taken seriously and treated as a human being, which is respect that has been denied to her due to her status as a blind girl, save for her blind bandit persona, which superficially empowered her and made her feel strong. it's not coincidence that her rival earthbender is a guy who is essentially a parody of masculinity. toph wants to position herself as equivalent, if not directly superior, to the Most Masculine Man, because that's how she'll be afforded respect, in her mind. but she is a girl. and there's a part of her that likes being a girl, and wishes she could explore her femininity more than she's allowed herself to, beyond the confines of the beifong mansion. she keeps her hair long because she still loves her family and holds out hope that maybe one day they can accept her (she comes from a culture modeled off of tang dynasty china, so her long hair is likely a product of her adherence to confucian values). and once she embraces it, she genuinely does get into being made over at the fancy lady day spa.

femininity has been a genuinely harmful and repressive agent in toph's life, and it's understandable that she would internalize some misogynistic notions surrounding girl/womanhood as they were foisted onto her her entire childhood. but femininity isn't ontologically harmful. femininity isn't ontological, period. i think as toph gets older, and her friendship with katara grows deeper as they both come to be more honest with each other, she would grow to embrace her masculinity in a more organic and less compensatory way. less of a "i'm not like other girls" complex (which itself is not something that girls should be mocked and punished for, but rather a product of a patriarchal system that oppresses and alienates women, thus leading many less gender-conforming girls to attempt to assert their agency and individuality in any way they can, even if it means putting down others in the process), and more so genuinely coming to embrace her butchness. (you don't necessarily have to read her as a baby butch, of course, but considering that being a masculine girl is important to her, i think that's a really lovely and beautiful synthesis of her relationship to gender as a character.)

i think toph would learn stop pitting masculinity and femininity against each other, and instead embrace whatever aspects of either (or neither) she desires, while nonetheless respecting everyone else's deal in turn. i think she would also, in a key turning point, realize that even if she loves her parents, she doesn't have any obligation to be the daughter they expect her to be, and cuts her hair. and as she grows more secure in herself (which comes with age, no twelve year old is truly confident in their own skin), she would stop feeling the need to put other people down to feel big, and be comfortable embracing her desires. and, credit to her, she's clearly already on her way. the progress she makes being vulnerable, especially around sokka, even in what is chronologically a matter of months, is huge.

toph isn't just "badass" because she's strong and powerful. but rather, what makes her so powerful, at least to disabled viewers who see their struggles reflected in hers, is her ability to grow with her environment, allowing herself to admit help, and letting herself be loved. if you couldn't already tell, toph is incredibly important to me.

#the beifongs #toph beifong

[krystalhuntress]

[krystalhuntress]

Connect with the cosmic energy of the universe. Don’t bend the elements, but the energy within yourself.