#lin and toph

[linbeifongandtenzin-fightme]

Lin Beifong got told to get over her problems with people so they could complain about her to HER! She got told to be the bigger person by everyone who hurt her she could’ve been the antagonist and I still would’ve chose her side. She is the bigger person. And she shouldn’t be called a bitch for knowing that and distancing herself from the assholes who hurt her. Period.

[nyamadermont]

You Cover Me With Water

@flashfictionfridayofficial

#FFF 206 Sink or Swim

Avatar: Legend of Korra

612 words

CW: Implied sexual content

[Image ID: A dark blue rectangle with a watery texture. The text #FFF 206 Sink or Swim" is centered, in white. /End ID]

A gift for @slowdissolve ahead of a busy day tomorrow.

Story below the cut.

Lin was running along behind Tenzin and Kya and Bumi when the earth lifted her straight up. She teetered, but kept her balance, just like Toph had taught her. 

She frowned. Toph hadn’t said anything. She was just following the others. She started to climb down the rock when she realized just how high she was. 

Back on the ground, Lin turned to her mother. “I wanna go with them!” When she stomped her foot, her whole body felt funny. 

“I know Kya is a water bender, but Bumi won’t keep track of you and Tenzin at the same time. I can’t follow you when you’re in the water, so you have to stay on the ground.”

Lin crossed her arms like Toph and Katara did. 

“I don’t need you.”

Her mother’s face changed a little, and Lin felt something strange. 

“You need me more than you think, Rock Lobster. Where is the ground? Under the water. You can’t breathe water. Don’t get in the water.”

An hour later, Lin cried herself to sleep in her mother’s lap with Katara soothing her older son. As she drifted to sleep, she heard Bumi’s voice saying, “She’s so much heavier than Tenzin, I couldn’t keep her from sinking…”

***

“Hey Badgermole!”

Lin scowled at her schoolwork and looked for something she could hurl at the infuriating Tenzin. 

“I told you not to call me that, Moon Peach.”

Tenzin skidded to a halt, his face already bright red.

When he didn’t say anything in response, she rolled her eye and slammed her pen down. “Come on, Tenzin. Out with it. I have work to do.”

“Pumice.”

Lin blinked. “Is a rock. Do you even know what a point is if it’s not on your head?”

Tenzin dug in a pocket of his robes and pulled out a small, pale, rough rock. He blew against it gently. It rolled along his hand and when it got to his fingertips, he flipped it up. He grabbed her water glass from her work table, and used it to catch the rock as it fell.

“Hey! I was drinking that!”

He shrugged. “I’m sure you can pull all the impurities out. I watched your mom train you on it enough.”

He stopped long enough to bring the glass in front of her and wait for her to look at it. 

Her irritation was growing. She had three papers to write, Toph wanted her bills paid, and she still had to pick Su up from dance class. 

“Point, Tenzin. No time, no patience.”

“It floats. Some kinds of rocks float. Even if they’re all rough and sharp to hold.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she frowned. 

“So what. It floats. It doesn’t write my papers or do my chores. Why are we talking about pumice?”

“You can float, Lin. Rocks don’t only sink.”

She blinked again, trying to collect her thoughts. 

But just as she opened her mouth to say… something, the rock released a little bubble of air, spun over, and settled to the bottom of the glass. 

She didn’t even look at him. 

***

The water in the pool lapped over the edge, spilling over the rocks. With a final groan, they stilled. 

Kya pressed her forehead against Lin’s, pressing down with her whole body. 

Lin’s breath shook, and slowly evened. Her arms lay weakly at her sides, her fingers caressing Kya’s legs. 

Kya kissed Lin’s face gently, savoring the soft feel of her. 

Lin inhaled, and brought her hands up to Kya’s face. 

“You cover me with water." She kissed her, pulling her closer.

"I should sink, but now I finally know how it feels to swim.”

[kilo-charlie7]

UPDATE!

I’m really happy to be reblogging this post about my miscarriage to share that I gave birth to my first baby boy this past December! We are all happy, healthy, and grateful.

The loss I feel from my first miscarriage will always be a part of me, but many new and good things have grown around it now too.

This drawing of Toph and baby Lin is modeled after a photo of me and my son. ♥️

This is going to be my first personal blog post ever. Don’t worry, it will be short. Haha. But I’ve decided it might be a good outlet for me to write about some recent experiences I’ve had!

Last year I started drawing a lot of stuff like this:

I had a lot of fun drawing the Gaang with their babies because my husband and I had decided to try and have a baby of our own! I got pregnant in September but ended up having a miscarriage at 10 weeks. I know some of you reading this understand how difficult and isolating it is to experience a miscarriage. This has definitely been one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. I fell into a major depression and also avoided looking at my art or even wanting to draw or be creative at all.

Lately though, thanks to great friends and my awesome husband, I feel like I’ve finally come up for air. Now, when I look back at these drawings I feel some hope for the future when it comes to having a kid of my own. I’m really thankful for the outlet I have with art and drawing!!

Thanks for reading. That’s all. :)

[wilcze-kudly]

People will go on about how "Katara's story is a tragedy" because she... ended up marrying the guy she loves, having children and grandchildren which she was always excited about and literally becoming a master waterbender and rising to the top of her field as a healer.

Yes, Katara's story has tragic aspects to it. And there are certainly flaws in how she is written in tlok (Though I will argue that there are actually more issues with how Toph and Zuko are just plopped in there for no reason in later seasons). And her storylines aren't perfect, for example her resolving her trauma around the murder of her mother being more used to prop up Zuko than her own internal turmoil. (Most of TSR is from Zuko's perspective and I hate that actually)

"Katara's story is a tragedy" Why do you have such a hard on for this woman's misery? Let her be happy, man.

You know what gaang girlie's life is an actual onscreen tragedy?

Toph's!

People will fucking downplay Toph's childhood abuse because she wasn't physically hurt, but her childhood was a never ending carousel of abelism, misogyny, neglect and isolation. The way Toph describes her parent's treatment of her as "pressure and pain" is heartbreaking.

Toph's only escape was Earth Rumble and earthbending, but despite her skills, she remained the perfect little lady her parents always wanted her to be. She's never known a different life, and she was only able to be her real self in secret.

And when Toph finally opens up to her parents, when she finally lays her real self bare in front of the people who are supposed to love and care for her?

She is met with what may be, in my opinion, the cruellest rejection in the show.

Despite this, even when Toph runs away, she still cares for her parents' approval. Hell, she's even lured into a trap due to her getting a forged letter from her mom and getting excited because it looked like her mom was finally accepting her.

It's also important to note how determined to be self sufficient and to prove herself Toph is. We can especially see this right after she joins the Gaang, where she refuses to participate in splitting with the rest of the group, insisting on "pulling her own weight". This isn't Toph being a brat, or spoilt, this is her wanting to prove that she can handle herself because people have handled and understimated her her entire life.

Eventually, Toph starts to learn to trust the members of the Gaang and this is a step in the right direction. She's literally making friends for the first time in her life I'm so proud of her.

However, I was genuinely upset when Toph's life changing field trip with Zuko didn't work out. When Toph was trying to connect with Zuko and he blew her off (I'm not blaming him tho they had shit to do), I couldn't help but remember the rejection Toph suffered from Lao.

Post canon, Toph continues to try and prove herself, starting a metalbending school and training new metalbenders.

She also reconciles with her father. Not before Lao disowns he rmultiple times and calls her a rude, ungrateful thing. And while he eventually comes to understand Toph and cherish her, that type of trauma sticks with you.

So it's no wonder really that Toph, someone who went her entire childhood seemingly without even speaking to someone her age, would have trouble forming connections. She has children with two different men, neither of which seem to stick around.

Toph tries to do right by her daughters and gives them the freedom she never got. Sadly, the pendulum swung too far to the other side, since it seems that she started to neglect her daughters, which led to them developing a sleugh of issues of their own.

Toph becomes the cheif of police, which kind of makes sense. Republic City was only slowly emerging as an actual metropolis. Toph took on a role as a protector, and probably as a way to prove herself. But as Republic City grew, Toph probably realised that she became something she hated. A cog in the machine, and started to despise her job.

Searching for a semblance of the freedom and happiness her travels afforded her in her childhood, Toph leaves the city and takes up the life of a hermit in a swamp. She managed to fix her relationship with Suyin to some extent, but still seems reluctant or simply unable to connect with her daughter or grandchildren. Since she apparently hasn't seen Opal, a grown 20 year old woman since she was a little girl.

On the surface old Toph doesn't seem terribly dissimilar to young Toph, still tough and spunky. But she is more jaded, depressed and pessimistic. She comes out to save Suyin from immediate harm and manages to somewhat reconcile with Lin, but then she fucks right back off to the swamp where she seems to literally hide until Wu and Korra straight up force her to come with them.

Toph's story began with her alone and it seems to end with her alone as well. It's a story of a girl who grew up isolated and handled by others, and was woefully unprepared for the real world, which only jaded her further. She lives with the guilt of fucking up her daughters' lives and a belief in the pointlessness of life.

Toph started off longing to experience the world and ended up willingly isolating herself from it.

If that isn't a tragedy, I'm not sure what is.

Mind you, this is not the trauma olympics. I'm not saying that Toph has suffered more than Katara or that Katara's trauma is not as valid as Toph's. Katara and Toph's experiences are completely different, Katara being a victim of genocide and war, Toph being a victim of child abuse. I'm just saying that, objectively, Katara had a happier 'ending' than Toph.

[i-need-of-a-hobby]

katara (to bumi): what do we say to drugs and alcohol? bumi: no zuko (to izumi): what do we say to war crimes and genocide izumi: no

toph (to lin): what do we say to illegal bending arenas? lin: *sighs* get mom tickets toph: thats my girl katara: NO

[orsanedraws]

Beifongs I did couple of months ago for the ukrainian Avatar fan artbook!

[whatifitookalilnap]

Toph: I love all of my grandchildren equally. Opal, Korra………*tries really hard to remember the other names* Well, Wong, Hula Hoop, and uhhhhhh, Butter Jr.?????

Suyin: seriously Mom? You only got one grandchild’s name right! Korra’s not even one of my kids!

Toph: well duh, I know that. She’s Lin’s

Lin: the hell are you talking about? I don’t have any kids. I can assure you the Avatar is not my daughter-Korra don’t play with Naga on the street you’ll get run over!

Toph: not your daughter. Right.

[zukkaart]

Headcanon that the gaangs kids learn about Zuko’s misguided quest to capture the avatar and subsequently make a game out of it.

Bumi steals an air nomad necklace from his dad and whoever wears it becomes the “avatar” for the duration of the game. The “avatar” is given 100 seconds to hide.

When they “capture the avatar” the winner must shout “I have restored my honor!”

Zuko is mortified, everyone else thinks it’s endlessly hilarious.

[kashiomi-art]

Lin Beifong

[haunting-jane]

well

[feral-jackdaw]

I saw the post and immediately thought of her, lol

[linbeifongandtenzin-fightme]

To be honest, Toph and Su Beifong seem like they blame Lin for what happened between her and Tenzin. Like you can’t tell me Su told her she should’ve just gave him kids and she wouldn’t be heart broken and Toph 100% percent was probably like, “You’re father would be so disappointed with who are.” Type shit which is worse since she refused to tell her daughters who their fathers were.

[knightofthenewrepublic]

[hotpinkrathian]

I am so upset (not) at LoK for making women muscular I will never get over it 😤

Also, the audacity to say the LoK women are less sexy than the ATLA women is WILD considering the Atla girls are minors

[mintjuliee]

2 out of 2 giant hybrid species agree... Beifong faces are highly lickable 😂

[operationbeifong]

𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑷𝒀 𝑬𝑨𝑹𝑻𝑯 𝑴𝑶𝑵𝑻𝑯 — EARTHBENDING + SUB-SKILLS APPRECIATION POST.