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zukoisgayforsokka · 3 years

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Autistic Toph Masterpost

It’s a long one folks. The @mightyoctopus and I are both autistic, and the other day we were discussing and concluded that Toph is also autistic. Here’s some canon evidence to prove it.

It has been said before that bending is a metaphor for neurodivergence. An innate, often unconscious extension of the person, connected to emotions.

Toph’s Bending

Toph is the best earthbender in the world, and this didn’t happen by chance. She took to bending incredibly naturally. Here’s how it links to her being autistic.

Special interest - Toph knows everything about earthbending, more than most people as she learned from the badgermoles. She is truly an expert, and it’s her favourite thing to talk about, and the topic she knows the most about.

[ID: Toph at Earth Rumble holding up her Championship Belt, a serious expression on her face. /End ID]

Heightened senses - Many autistic people are more sensitive to sensory inputs than non-autistic people. Toph is incredibly in tune with the world around her, constantly aware of everything through her earthbending. This saves people on multiple occasions: hearing Azula in The Chase, and saving the pregnant lady’s husband in The Serpent’s Pass are two examples

[ID: Image 1: Toph lays on her front on the ground in an earthbent tent, her head tilted as though listening, one palm flat to the floor. Image 2: On the Serpent’s path, the man falls off the cliff. Toph, somewhat far ahead, has instantly turned and bent out a rock ledge to catch him.Momo sits on her shoulder. /End ID]

Stimming - Self-stimulatory behaviour is defined as “the repetition of physical movements, sounds, words, or moving objects”. Toph is almost constantly bending. This is partially due to using it to ‘see’, but through the lense of bending being neurodivergence, we know benders need to bend, and to deprive them of their element makes them depressed (See: Hama, or the LoK).

[ID: Toph in greyscale, white beams traveling along the ground and over her to show the waves of sound and movement she uses to earthbend. /End ID]

It is not uncommon for adults, usually parents or teaches, to try and stop an autistic child from stimming, (very harmful for the kid’s mental health).

Toph’s parents and teacher discouraged her from bending, wanting to keep her only to the basics. It’s no wonder baby Toph ran away, overwhelmed and confused. The freedom she found through earth bending and Earth Rumble is what helped her be comfortable and confident, much like when autistic teens and adults allow themselves the freedom to stim and it benefits their mental health.

[ID: Image 1: Toph sits quietly in a chair at her parents’ house. In focus is her earthbending teacher, talking. Image 2: Baby Toph has her eyes closed and sniffs at the nose of a badgermole. Image 3: Toph at Earth Rumble, she is pointing and laughing. /End ID]

Moving away from bending to other general autistic traits

Shoes - Toph doesn’t like shoes as they restrict her sight. Consider also: it’s very common for ND people to hate the sensory hell that is shoes and socks. Toph is the poster girl for shoe-hating autistic people

[ID: Toph wearing Fire NAtion clothes and her Earth Kingdom head band. She is pushing one foot into a shoe, the bottom of which is straining against its seems as though about to break. /End ID]

Sensory - Toph hates the sensation of shoes and loves the texture of earth to the point of always being dirty

Transcript:

Toph: “You call it dirt, I call it a healthy coating of Earth”:

[ID: Toph in her underclothes having just woken up in Ba Sing Se. Her hair is a large messy mane around her head, and she is speaking. Katara is out of focus in the foreground, looking at Toph. /End ID]

Blunt - Toph is blunt often to the point of insult, and sees no reason to pointlessly soften her words, which is a very common trait of autistic people.

Transcript:

Toph: You blew it. You had a perfect stance, and perfect form. But when it came right down to it, you didn’t have the guts.

[ID: Toph poking Aang in the chest and shouting at him. He looks sad. /End ID]

Theory of Mind - this is understanding someone else’s thought process and perspective, which is harder for most autistic people. In Bitter Work when Toph starts training Aang, she gives him one set of instructions, then gets frustrated when he can’t grasp them. It isn’t until Katara suggests that “He responds well to positive teaching” that Toph tries again, and even then she doesn’t compromise her brash teaching style, just occasionally adding in a small nod of approval

[ID: Image 1: Toph stands looking slightly cross. Katara is next to her, talking brightly and gesturing back towards Aang, who sits on the ground urther behind them. Image 2: Aang high in the air with his feet on 2 different pillars, holding a weight in both hands, he is smiling big and bright. Toph stands on her own pillar, hands behind her back. /End ID]

Masking - This is something autistic people learn to try fit in. When we see Toph around her parents, she is soft and quiet, nothing like her usual self. When a change in routine occurs (the avatar visits), she gets overwhelmed and angry by Aang’s threat and lashes out.

[ID: Image 1: A close-up of Toph at her parents’ house, hair tied back, smiling serenly with an open expression. Image 2: Toph at her parents’ house, hair tied back wearing a fancy dress. She is stood up at the table, leaning forward on her hands and yelling. On the wall behind her and her mother’s face is smeared food from where bowls have flown. /End ID]

Inflexibility - Autistic people love routine, and we struggle when things go differently to how we expected. This is part of why Katara and Toph clash so much. As the lovely @rolandtowen made a couple of great (and correct) posts and is working on a masterpost for, Katara is also autistic

They initially clash in The Chase, as Katara has an expectation of how to set up camp (divide tasks among the group), whereas Toph had a different expectation of travelling (carrying her own weight). When faced with a routine different to the usual or expected one, both girls get overwhelmed, frustrated and constantly argue

In The Runaway, they keep fighting.

[ID:Image 1: It is night, Katara is angry with her hands on her hips. Toph is angry with one fist up and clenched. They are in the middle of an argument. Image 2: Toph and Katara wearing Fire Nation clothes, both stood in mud, hands braced against the other’s hands as they are fighting. /End ID]

Autistic people often have a very strong moral compass, as seen many times throughout the show in Katara. It’s also common for autistic people to reject or ignore social rules they see as pointless, as seen through Toph having no qualms against stealing.

Part of why they fight is a clash of morals, which also links back to Theory of Mind, neither girl fully understanding the other one’s thought process or behaviour reasoning, nor do they take the time to talk.

[ID: Sokka, Toph and Aang in Fire Nation clothes, carrying baskets of supplies and laughing brightl.y /End ID]

Jokes - Despite finding many things funny, Toph doesn’t always pick up on jokes

Transcript:

Toph: Zuko needs to go back to whatever the original source of firebending is

Sokka: So, is he jumping into a volcano?

Toph: I don’t know. For earthbending the original benders were badgermoles

Here Sokka is trying to set up a joke, and knows Toph has a dark sense of humour. But she doesn’t interpret his statement as a joke, she’s too focused on talking about her special interest: earthbending.

[ID: Toph sits holding a bowl, staring straight ahead. Sokka sits next to her, smiling and looking at Toph. They are lit by a campfire’s light /End ID]

Boundaries - Toph struggles to know other people’s boundaries, and assumes them to be the same as her own. This results in her punching her friends harder than they’re expecting, and throwing around the gaang with earthbending.

[ID: Image 1: An image of a large rock potruding out the ground as though just earthbent. Image 2: Sokka in his sleeping bag flying through the air, screaming. Image 3: Katara with her arms out, angry. Toph in front of her, back to the viewer, one arm to the side. Following this arm’s motion Aang is flying through the air towards Appa, having just been thrown by an earthbent rock. Image 4: Toph and Katara walking away from the viewer, Toph punching Katara’s arm, Katara stumbling slightly from the impact /End ID]

Gender - There is a high comorbidity between autistic and trans and non-binary people. Some think this is because autistic people are more likely to know their gender and not care about societal roles and expectations, thus more likely to transition. We’re also more likely to be gender non-conforming, as we want to be ourselves and be comfortable, rather than bother with gender roles.

Toph is not just happy at being played by a man at the Ember Island Players, she is exstatic. She doesn’t care about hwo society percieves her, and potentially prefers being percieved by others as more masculine. Her relationship with gender is different to what is expected of most cis girls

[ID: Toph holding the box railings at the theatre, beaming excitedly. Katara lounges next to her, looking disappointed. /End ID]

This concludes my masterpost on why Toph is autistic. If you made it this far, thank you for reading. If you have any thoughts or additional points, please let me know.

Have some happy baby Toph as thanks for making it this far

[ID: Baby Toph kneeling on the ground laughing as a badgermole licks the side of her face. /End ID] @atladescribed

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casualdadnomad · 4 years

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in the modern au, how did “that’s rough buddy” happen?

this is the first post i’ve done with the modern Yue lore and i forgot how much i love her!

modern atla masterpost :)

Background on the Yue situation:

Yue moved to their school Sokka’s sophomore year (one year before the au takes place)

She was really smart and very nice, but her parents were very overbearing

after a few months it becomes glaringly evident that she’s a literal prodigy and despite taking high level classes has too much potential

and her rich ass parents were not about to let that go to waste

eventually she left to go to a better school and take college classes and that nonsense

because we all know the american public school system is shit

she had to go off and do better things to reach her full potential

(get it because in canon she turned into the moon because the world needed her-- I’m sure you get it)

After she left and went somewhere interesting that isn’t the bucket of lukewarm mashed potatoes we call the american midwest, she and Sokka didn’t do the long distance thing. They were 16, why would they?

sometimes they comment on each other’s instagram posts or wish each other happy birthday but that’s all

alright now to the iconic “that’s rough buddy”

i’m a slut for the “Sokka drives Toph and Zuko around because they’re both blind af” headcanon

this interaction definitely happened in the car at night

Sokka was driving Zuko home from some group hangout

for the sake of them being alone in the car, Katara wasn’t there

Zuko was the last one to be dropped off, so they were driving around and talking about life and shit

Zuko brought up his first relationship, with Mai from years ago, before they realized “oh this is what friendship feels like ha i guess i just never felt friendship before”

he asks Sokka about his first relationship

because right now Sokka is with QUEEN suki

Sokka says he doesn’t want to talk about it, even though the breakup was “mutual”, because it hurt him a lot more than he lets on

after a few silent minutes, he opens up a little bit about what happened

Zuko, my mans who is unaware how to respond to Emotions, has no idea what to say to this

tbh as a fellow autistic person i stan

insert “that’s rough buddy”

Sokka actually laughs because okay that’s a little funny

my boys are ✨bonding✨ okay and i love them

anyways thanks for this ask! all this low key zukka nonsense gave me my daily dose of serotonin

anyways always feel free to send asks! ♥(ˆ⌣ˆԅ)

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whenyourfavouritedies · 3 years

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idk if your atla blog not having asks is your choice or if its a dumb tumblr quirk (feel free to delete this if you didnt want asks about it) but your atla blog is really nice :)

Definitely a tumblr quirk as I thought asks were on. Thank you lovely 💜 usually I have my latest ao3 fic as the pinned post so if you read fic check that out too, there should be a link in the bio. Autistic Toph masterpost currently has pride of place in the pinned feature

#ask #i double checked and asks are definitely one #and I've received them on the atla blog before #although now you mention it not recently #love a functional website #/s

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casualdadnomad · 4 years

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another set of headcanons from my modern au! favorite tv shows/movies. idk, media? you know what i mean

modern atla masterpost :)

everyone hates the office

i mean, obviously. in a group of all POC, including an autistic guy, a blind girl, and multiple LGBTQ people, hell no.

Sokka and Suki love Brooklyn 99

they both idolize rosa diaz. she’s a badass bisexual icon, just like them.

Aang and Katara introduced Toph to New Girl

they figured she would like nick miller

they were right, but she usually won’t watch tv alone because she hates descriptive audio

she is into true crime shows and podcasts, because it’s mostly narration

Zuko can’t pay attention to tv unless it’s funny

Azula watches grey’s anatomy, but hates the romantic subplots. she just wants to watch ppl suffer

you guys are gonna hate me for saying this but you know i had to include it

glee

Ty Lee adores glee. she doesn’t care for the plot much, and will schuester belongs in prison, but she’s watched it a million times and loves it

she made Mai watch it with her because she insisted the britney+santana dynamic was the same as theirs

Mai is honored that ty lee sees her as a santana

Zuko watches that 70s show repeatedly

he likes hyde a lot

Katara watches it with him sometimes and constantly talks about how eric is not good enough for donna

Zuko wholeheartedly agrees with this sentiment

arguments over the best holiday movie exist

(and no, none of them are christian, we don’t whitewash here. they exchange holiday gifts, because of social norms and for fun but that’s all)

Zuko and Ty Lee say it’s Elf

Katara, Sokka, and Aang say it’s home alone

Suki and Mai, weirdly, voted the santa clause because “killing santa and then being forced to become santa is the funniest shit”

Toph said Die Hard. she was then put in holiday party time-out for ten minutes.

Suki insisted the movie cats was based off a true story just to fuck with Sokka’s head

everyone else got in on it too, now Sokka is crying in the corner

lightning bending = electricity bending so Zuko has infinite veto control over movies

Zuko likes disney channel original movies, because from ages 0-17 he lived under the iron rule of his aspiring cult leader father (small town shenanigans hc on the masterpost explains this a little) so he never got to watch tv like that

Zuko and Toph watch stranger things with Aang, because Zuko has no idea what’s going on and Toph accepts Aang’s version of descriptive audio rather than the tv’s. it’s just Aang describing everything that happens.

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