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Personal Information
Name: Zen
Age: 28
Personal LJ: zendequervain
Email / AIM / MSN: zendequervain at gmail dot com, ZenobiaDeQue, dequervain at hotmail dot com
Character Information
Character Name: Toph Bei Fong
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon)
Timeline: At the end of the show, right after Zuko gets crowned Fire Lord, before the meetup in Ba Sing Se.
Source: Toph's wiki page
Character History: All of her life, Toph's parents, the illustrious Bei Fong family (richest in the Earth Kingdom, probably the world), kept her isolated, cloistered from the world they were certain she couldn't deal with, to the extent that very few people even knew she existed. They claimed that they were protecting her, that her blindness rendered her too vulnerable to ever function alone. She never had a single friend up until she met the Avatar, and even that took awhile to really work out. Entirely too smart and stubborn for her own good, Toph ran away from home multiple times. At the tender age of 6, she ran away and found herself lost in some caves where she was found by Badgermoles, from whom she learned Earthbending by mimicking their movements in the darkness.
It opened up an entirely new world to her, in terms of independence and skill. After returning to her parents' estate, she worked in secret to perfect her 'bending, eventually entering a series of Earthbending tournaments known as Earth Rumble. In those tournaments, the small child going by the guise of "The Blind Bandit" had a perfect score of 42-0. That is, until Avatar Aang showed up and defeated her with an Airbending move. This streak of winning helped her develop her tough, sassy, take no crap attitude when she wasn't pretending to be an obedient little daughter to her parents. The Avatar found his way to her family's home and invited himself and his friends for dinner (because everyone wants the Avatar around. It's an honor!), and later on, he and Toph were kidnapped by some of the Earth Rumble contestants and the organizer, who claimed that they cheated. When her father and several others came to their rescue, she revealed to him that she actually was an incredible Earthbender. That she could stand on her own. And she kicked the ass of every single one of the dunderheads who'd had the temerity to kidnap her.
Unfortunately for her, her parents didn't see her strength as a good thing. No, exactly the opposite. They saw it as a reason to put her on 24 hour surveillance and forbid her from going with the Avatar to help save the world from the Fire Nation. Crushed by their decision and lack of support, she ran away to join the Avatar and his friends that night, and to teach the Avatar Earthbending. It didn't actually go so well for the group at first. Her stubborn attitude and lack of social skills made it very difficult. At one point she left them in a rage, running into General Iroh in the process and having a nice chat that convinced her to go back to them and try to work together.
Teaching Aang Earthbending proved difficult, but they managed slowly. Their personalities being almost complete opposites, there were some troublesome starts and stops, but the Avatar being the Avatar, progressed rather quickly once things got going. She learned how to be part of a group and be more of a team player, and was incredibly happy with her new life. Unfortunately, things didn't quite stay that way. Appa (Aang's flying bison) was stolen when they were in the desert; and she blamed herself for not being able to save him. It had been a choice between keeping the Library from sinking long enough for the rest of the group to get out (chased by an angry owl demon) and attacking the Sandbenders who were after the bison, and the sand just wasn't solid enough for her to see straight or give her any purchase, and to let the library sink would've meant the rest of the group's deaths. They started on a long journey to find Appa, following rumors to the great city of Ba Sing Se, capital of the Earth Kingdom.
Ba Sing Se itself was full of treachery; the Earth King's trusted aide had kept him under such wraps that he didn't even know of the war going on. Eventually they recovered Appa and all was well, but not without some fancy 'bending, having had to storm the Earth King's castle itself and fight hundreds of Dai Li agents merely to get there, and then convince the Earth King of the war itself. It was here that Toph received a note telling her that her mother was in the city and wanted to meet her. So she went, while Aang and Sokka went on a trip to see Sokka's father while Katara and Toph stayed with in the city. Only to be kidnapped in a metal box, by the Earth Rumble organizer and her very own Earthbending teacher from back home, whom her father had paid to drag her back home. Nevermind the war, nevermind the Avatar and how he was supposed to save the world, no. All that mattered to her family was that she be back home, locked in their gilded cage.
Being locked in a metal box was quite possibly the worst thing that could've happened to her. Nobody could 'bend metal. She couldn't see anything. Couldn't do anything. Couldn't save herself. Or so she thought. She continually beat on the metal out of anger and despair as the two men carted her toward her family's home, and began to realize that she could see. There were particles of Earth in the metal, Earth she could use. The men had quickly tuned her out, giving her the time to get just the right grasp on those particles, creating a nice big dent in the box and subsequently a very loud tearing noise as she ripped a hole clean out of it. When they went to investigate, she slammed them into the box with Earth, then pulled the edges of the hole shut behind them, locking both men inside. After making sure they knew she still held the title of the best Earthbender in the world, the blind girl headed back the direction she'd come, back to Ba Sing Se, utilizing her 'bending mastery to ride waves of Earth very quickly, and met Sokka and Aang on the way. They arrived to find that the city had been infiltrated and taken over by Fire Nation - namely, Princess Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, who'd gotten control of the Dai Li. The Gaang was able to rescue the Earth King and his pet bear, Bosco, but were forced to flee after the Avatar was nearly killed -(he was only saved by Katara's healing water), leaving the city in Fire Nation hands.
With the rest of the world thinking that Aang was dead, the Gaang, along with Katara and Sokka's father and some of the other Water Tribe men, headed straight for the Fire Nation in a stolen ship to avoid detection. The next few months included a failed invasion attempt on the Fire Nation capital on the Day of Black Sun (an eclipse), quite a bit of comraderie, giving Fire Nation soldiers the slip, pulling pranks on townspeople, and general fun times while still trying to stay hidden. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation joined them to teach Aang Firebending (finally), and he went on a monumental life-changing field trip with everyone. Except for Toph. She might be a bit bitter about this. During that time, she also worked on perfecting her metalbending, and picked up Sandbending. Just before the final fight, she'd mastered it so well that she was able to create a perfect and incredibly detailed town model in sand.
The final fight with the Fire Nation was a terrifying one for her. She, Sokka, and Sokka's warrior girlfriend Suki were tasked with taking down the Fire Nation's airship fleet. They weren't able to get them before they took off, so took over one ship from the inside, with Toph metalbending herself armor out of a door and taking down multiple firebenders at once. They used that ship to crash through all of the others, having to run haphazardly across the top of theirs. After their ship finally fell apart from the multiple impacts, Sokka and Toph fell, and were caught by the protruding 'bender platform of the ship they'd crashed into. Hanging by one hand hundreds of feet in the air with firebenders closing in, the small Earthbender faced death for the first time. Sokka's grip was failing. It was either death by fall or death by fire. Fortunately, Suki had hijacked another ship, and saved them just in time.
After the war was over, Zuko was crowned Fire Lord, and everything got back to normal (read: boring). Headcanon alert: At this time, the Earth King, reinstalled on his throne after Ba Sing Se was liberated, asked Toph to stay in the city to advise him and train his 'benders. This suited her for the time being, though she did make a side trip to try to make nice with her parents one more time, which made it entirely clear that Toph the Earthbender, Toph the Blind Bandit, was not welcome. Toph the invalid was.
Character Personality: Toph is 12. In some things, she's incredibly mature for her age, but in others, she's very immature. She's come out of her shell a ton since meeting up with the Gaang, and that helped a lot. Potty humor, crass language, wicked pranks, cheating, and terrible nicknames are all up her alley. At the same time, she has very good manners (and one heck of a familial status back home) that she can employ when she wants to, and isn't afraid to use them to her best advantage, or to that of her friends. Speaking of friends, Toph is a little iffy on making them. It's kind of hard for her, and she can be incredibly selfish, though less so than she was before joining the Avatar. Having grown up as a spoiled only child who was essentially caged in her family's estates has left her with some awkwardness in dealing with people, though she's extremely good at playing the helpless little girl to get what she wants sometimes. She's extremely confident in her Earthbending (and Metalbending and Sandbending) abilities, but less confident in other areas, which she generally hides beneath some serious bluster and snark.
Powers:
Earthbending: manipulation of the element of Earth (dirt and rock) through martial art and touch. With it, she can see via seismic sense, through vibrations in the ground or any other surface she touches. Since she's blind, this is the only way she can see the world. Via this ability she can also tell when most organics are lying or unhealthy.
Metalbending: Advanced form of Earthbending. Toph invented it and is its best (and only) practitioner. Woe to Transformers to whom she gets close enough to 'bend, if she's angry. Woe. This is more crude than her Earthbending, but she gets better with practice (and has put a lot of time into practicing it).
Sandbending: also an alternate form of Earthbending. She mastered it extremely quickly and can create incredibly detailed models or sandcastles with a single movement.
Samples
First person: So. I almost got stepped on today by some big metal jerk. Pfft. He obviously wasn't watching where he was going. Too bad I don't squish as easily most non-metal people around here. [Insert slightly evil cackle here.] Aaaanyway, he's probably whining like a baby to some medic right now about his foot, but that serves him right for yelling at me after I knocked him over. Hah.
I gotta say, this place is seriously weird. Seriously. But I kinda like it. So many people to mess withmeet, so little time. I tell ya, we're gonna get along great, this city and me.
Third Person: In the back corner of a small park in Zone 2, a little, easily-missed stone 'tent' sheltered a short blind girl from prying optics. The girl herself huddled inside, knees pulled up to her chest, lost in thought. She'd settled into life in the nexus quite well, on the outside at least. Inside, she was scared half to death of the place. Everything felt and looked so strange to her seismic vision. There was practically no Earth anywhere, and the giant people made of metal had trouble looking where she was going. They, at least, were amusing, but also terrifying. It wouldn't take much for one of them to kill her, even on accident, and thinking about that brought back the memory of dangling by a weakening hand, her only contact with the world, above a vast emptiness with her death far below.
She'd never been more frightened in her life, not even when she'd been captured in a metal box to go home to her parents. At least then there was hope in the end. Hanging from Sokka's hand as he started losing his grip, she'd had to face her own end. It was something she didn't talk about. Didn't want to talk about. But it was still there, in the back of her mind. She wasn't sure that she could ever enjoy flying again, not that she'd loved it to begin with.
Enough of that thought.Toph sighed to herself, then slapped a hand on the ground, flicking it upward to close off the front of her rock tent, and laid down to try and sleep, but there was too much noise. To much vibration. Too many people coming and going, even though she'd tried to find the most out of the way place she could. Dang, she thought, rolling onto her back and sliding her hands up the walls of her tent. This is going to take a lot of getting used to.
Personal Information
Name: Zen
Age: 28
Personal LJ: zendequervain
Email / AIM / MSN: zendequervain at gmail dot com, ZenobiaDeQue, dequervain at hotmail dot com
Character Information
Character Name: Toph Bei Fong
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon)
Timeline: At the end of the show, right after Zuko gets crowned Fire Lord, before the meetup in Ba Sing Se.
Source: Toph's wiki page
Character History: All of her life, Toph's parents, the illustrious Bei Fong family (richest in the Earth Kingdom, probably the world), kept her isolated, cloistered from the world they were certain she couldn't deal with, to the extent that very few people even knew she existed. They claimed that they were protecting her, that her blindness rendered her too vulnerable to ever function alone. She never had a single friend up until she met the Avatar, and even that took awhile to really work out. Entirely too smart and stubborn for her own good, Toph ran away from home multiple times. At the tender age of 6, she ran away and found herself lost in some caves where she was found by Badgermoles, from whom she learned Earthbending by mimicking their movements in the darkness.
It opened up an entirely new world to her, in terms of independence and skill. After returning to her parents' estate, she worked in secret to perfect her 'bending, eventually entering a series of Earthbending tournaments known as Earth Rumble. In those tournaments, the small child going by the guise of "The Blind Bandit" had a perfect score of 42-0. That is, until Avatar Aang showed up and defeated her with an Airbending move. This streak of winning helped her develop her tough, sassy, take no crap attitude when she wasn't pretending to be an obedient little daughter to her parents. The Avatar found his way to her family's home and invited himself and his friends for dinner (because everyone wants the Avatar around. It's an honor!), and later on, he and Toph were kidnapped by some of the Earth Rumble contestants and the organizer, who claimed that they cheated. When her father and several others came to their rescue, she revealed to him that she actually was an incredible Earthbender. That she could stand on her own. And she kicked the ass of every single one of the dunderheads who'd had the temerity to kidnap her.
Unfortunately for her, her parents didn't see her strength as a good thing. No, exactly the opposite. They saw it as a reason to put her on 24 hour surveillance and forbid her from going with the Avatar to help save the world from the Fire Nation. Crushed by their decision and lack of support, she ran away to join the Avatar and his friends that night, and to teach the Avatar Earthbending. It didn't actually go so well for the group at first. Her stubborn attitude and lack of social skills made it very difficult. At one point she left them in a rage, running into General Iroh in the process and having a nice chat that convinced her to go back to them and try to work together.
Teaching Aang Earthbending proved difficult, but they managed slowly. Their personalities being almost complete opposites, there were some troublesome starts and stops, but the Avatar being the Avatar, progressed rather quickly once things got going. She learned how to be part of a group and be more of a team player, and was incredibly happy with her new life. Unfortunately, things didn't quite stay that way. Appa (Aang's flying bison) was stolen when they were in the desert; and she blamed herself for not being able to save him. It had been a choice between keeping the Library from sinking long enough for the rest of the group to get out (chased by an angry owl demon) and attacking the Sandbenders who were after the bison, and the sand just wasn't solid enough for her to see straight or give her any purchase, and to let the library sink would've meant the rest of the group's deaths. They started on a long journey to find Appa, following rumors to the great city of Ba Sing Se, capital of the Earth Kingdom.
Ba Sing Se itself was full of treachery; the Earth King's trusted aide had kept him under such wraps that he didn't even know of the war going on. Eventually they recovered Appa and all was well, but not without some fancy 'bending, having had to storm the Earth King's castle itself and fight hundreds of Dai Li agents merely to get there, and then convince the Earth King of the war itself. It was here that Toph received a note telling her that her mother was in the city and wanted to meet her. So she went, while Aang and Sokka went on a trip to see Sokka's father while Katara and Toph stayed with in the city. Only to be kidnapped in a metal box, by the Earth Rumble organizer and her very own Earthbending teacher from back home, whom her father had paid to drag her back home. Nevermind the war, nevermind the Avatar and how he was supposed to save the world, no. All that mattered to her family was that she be back home, locked in their gilded cage.
Being locked in a metal box was quite possibly the worst thing that could've happened to her. Nobody could 'bend metal. She couldn't see anything. Couldn't do anything. Couldn't save herself. Or so she thought. She continually beat on the metal out of anger and despair as the two men carted her toward her family's home, and began to realize that she could see. There were particles of Earth in the metal, Earth she could use. The men had quickly tuned her out, giving her the time to get just the right grasp on those particles, creating a nice big dent in the box and subsequently a very loud tearing noise as she ripped a hole clean out of it. When they went to investigate, she slammed them into the box with Earth, then pulled the edges of the hole shut behind them, locking both men inside. After making sure they knew she still held the title of the best Earthbender in the world, the blind girl headed back the direction she'd come, back to Ba Sing Se, utilizing her 'bending mastery to ride waves of Earth very quickly, and met Sokka and Aang on the way. They arrived to find that the city had been infiltrated and taken over by Fire Nation - namely, Princess Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, who'd gotten control of the Dai Li. The Gaang was able to rescue the Earth King and his pet bear, Bosco, but were forced to flee after the Avatar was nearly killed -(he was only saved by Katara's healing water), leaving the city in Fire Nation hands.
With the rest of the world thinking that Aang was dead, the Gaang, along with Katara and Sokka's father and some of the other Water Tribe men, headed straight for the Fire Nation in a stolen ship to avoid detection. The next few months included a failed invasion attempt on the Fire Nation capital on the Day of Black Sun (an eclipse), quite a bit of comraderie, giving Fire Nation soldiers the slip, pulling pranks on townspeople, and general fun times while still trying to stay hidden. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation joined them to teach Aang Firebending (finally), and he went on a monumental life-changing field trip with everyone. Except for Toph. She might be a bit bitter about this. During that time, she also worked on perfecting her metalbending, and picked up Sandbending. Just before the final fight, she'd mastered it so well that she was able to create a perfect and incredibly detailed town model in sand.
The final fight with the Fire Nation was a terrifying one for her. She, Sokka, and Sokka's warrior girlfriend Suki were tasked with taking down the Fire Nation's airship fleet. They weren't able to get them before they took off, so took over one ship from the inside, with Toph metalbending herself armor out of a door and taking down multiple firebenders at once. They used that ship to crash through all of the others, having to run haphazardly across the top of theirs. After their ship finally fell apart from the multiple impacts, Sokka and Toph fell, and were caught by the protruding 'bender platform of the ship they'd crashed into. Hanging by one hand hundreds of feet in the air with firebenders closing in, the small Earthbender faced death for the first time. Sokka's grip was failing. It was either death by fall or death by fire. Fortunately, Suki had hijacked another ship, and saved them just in time.
After the war was over, Zuko was crowned Fire Lord, and everything got back to normal (read: boring). Headcanon alert: At this time, the Earth King, reinstalled on his throne after Ba Sing Se was liberated, asked Toph to stay in the city to advise him and train his 'benders. This suited her for the time being, though she did make a side trip to try to make nice with her parents one more time, which made it entirely clear that Toph the Earthbender, Toph the Blind Bandit, was not welcome. Toph the invalid was.
Character Personality: Toph is 12. In some things, she's incredibly mature for her age, but in others, she's very immature. She's come out of her shell a ton since meeting up with the Gaang, and that helped a lot. Potty humor, crass language, wicked pranks, cheating, and terrible nicknames are all up her alley. At the same time, she has very good manners (and one heck of a familial status back home) that she can employ when she wants to, and isn't afraid to use them to her best advantage, or to that of her friends. Speaking of friends, Toph is a little iffy on making them. It's kind of hard for her, and she can be incredibly selfish, though less so than she was before joining the Avatar. Having grown up as a spoiled only child who was essentially caged in her family's estates has left her with some awkwardness in dealing with people, though she's extremely good at playing the helpless little girl to get what she wants sometimes. She's extremely confident in her Earthbending (and Metalbending and Sandbending) abilities, but less confident in other areas, which she generally hides beneath some serious bluster and snark.
Powers:
Earthbending: manipulation of the element of Earth (dirt and rock) through martial art and touch. With it, she can see via seismic sense, through vibrations in the ground or any other surface she touches. Since she's blind, this is the only way she can see the world. Via this ability she can also tell when most organics are lying or unhealthy.
Metalbending: Advanced form of Earthbending. Toph invented it and is its best (and only) practitioner. Woe to Transformers to whom she gets close enough to 'bend, if she's angry. Woe. This is more crude than her Earthbending, but she gets better with practice (and has put a lot of time into practicing it).
Sandbending: also an alternate form of Earthbending. She mastered it extremely quickly and can create incredibly detailed models or sandcastles with a single movement.
Samples
First person: So. I almost got stepped on today by some big metal jerk. Pfft. He obviously wasn't watching where he was going. Too bad I don't squish as easily most non-metal people around here. [Insert slightly evil cackle here.] Aaaanyway, he's probably whining like a baby to some medic right now about his foot, but that serves him right for yelling at me after I knocked him over. Hah.
I gotta say, this place is seriously weird. Seriously. But I kinda like it. So many people to mess withmeet, so little time. I tell ya, we're gonna get along great, this city and me.
Third Person: In the back corner of a small park in Zone 2, a little, easily-missed stone 'tent' sheltered a short blind girl from prying optics. The girl herself huddled inside, knees pulled up to her chest, lost in thought. She'd settled into life in the nexus quite well, on the outside at least. Inside, she was scared half to death of the place. Everything felt and looked so strange to her seismic vision. There was practically no Earth anywhere, and the giant people made of metal had trouble looking where she was going. They, at least, were amusing, but also terrifying. It wouldn't take much for one of them to kill her, even on accident, and thinking about that brought back the memory of dangling by a weakening hand, her only contact with the world, above a vast emptiness with her death far below.
She'd never been more frightened in her life, not even when she'd been captured in a metal box to go home to her parents. At least then there was hope in the end. Hanging from Sokka's hand as he started losing his grip, she'd had to face her own end. It was something she didn't talk about. Didn't want to talk about. But it was still there, in the back of her mind. She wasn't sure that she could ever enjoy flying again, not that she'd loved it to begin with.
Enough of that thought.Toph sighed to herself, then slapped a hand on the ground, flicking it upward to close off the front of her rock tent, and laid down to try and sleep, but there was too much noise. To much vibration. Too many people coming and going, even though she'd tried to find the most out of the way place she could. Dang, she thought, rolling onto her back and sliding her hands up the walls of her tent. This is going to take a lot of getting used to.