Slothy the Sloth

I absolutely love Mia Cech, I follow her on insta and she seems adorable. But I doubt this is the right track to follow for a character like Toph. (I'm also certain this wasn't Mia's decision but rather the writers, but they are once again letting the young actors take the fall for them just like they did with the changes in Sokka's character, I'm noticing a bad pattern here.)

The whole point of Toph is that she was raised with femininity and grace forced upon her, manners and etiquette being an important part of high society. Being feminine for her also meant not being able to fully embrace her element, seeing as earth is often associated with brute force and strength.

Being feminine just wasn't her, and in running away and embracing who she really is she rejected it completely, learning to love herself in her own way. Toph being Toph drove forward the story! And yes, this came with a bunch of flaws. Toph had a big mouth, was aggressive, rude (which she chose to be), not hygienic, and chose to exhibit bad manners.

The way she basically says that Toph can be a tomboy in a cartoon and that's okay because a cartoon isn't real, but as soon as she's a real girl she should be feminized because "real girls don't act that way", is not only completely misogynistic, even sexist, it's also very dehumanizing to girls that do act like Toph, because now they're being told they're not a real girl.

Why are we pretending tomboys are an unrealistic representation of girls/women? Why are we going with the narrative that "feminine girls can be strong too" for Toph when that's been Katara's narrative the whole time, but that got stripped away from her as well??

I'll also reiterate it's a gross misunderstanding of Toph as a character. Her whole story in tales of ba sing se was about re-embracing some of her femininity but not letting it define her as a whole, she knows who she is without having to conform to society, because even when she does she still won't be good enough for some people.