expiationlogs | one way or another

[At first Ethlyn thinks that sounds unusual, but maybe it isn't. Toph is direct, if nothing else. A hostile copy of her wouldn't see any reason to hesitate in attacking, if that was what she had it in mind to do.

Whether or not running away was worth it. Ethlyn recalls their conversation during the desert journey... the feelings about her parents, closer to the surface than Toph probably wants to acknowledge.]

Don't move around too quickly--it's best to not pull or jar anything that's been just healed if you don't have to. [And with the Willow Clinic's relative safety, there's no need for Toph to go storming around.] So she's got some opinions on your life choices. Do you think it was worth it?

[It's more rhetorical, given what Ethlyn knows about Toph by now, but she wants to help pick this apart in case it helps Toph deal with the copy a second time.]

[ She's certainly going to learn more from a lost fight than from a copy trying to have a heart-to-heart with her, so in that sense, her double was right on the money. Toph is already putting more effort and thought into what happened than just running into her normally would've inspired. That would be easy to dismiss as another crazy effect of this place, to be tolerated until it went away.

Now, although she's coming at it sideways, she's at least starting to think about it... and Ethlyn's prompting is annoyingly pushing her in the right direction.

She huffs at the expression of concern (what if she wants to go storming around) but keeps herself in place as instructed. She wants to recover as fast as possible to go out there and have her rematch, and she's appreciative that Ethlyn can make that happen a lot faster than normal. ]

Yeah. I mean, duh. My parents would take me back in a heartbeat if I agreed to be their good little daughter. As far as they're concerned, they're just waiting for me to come to my senses.

If I'm not living like that, it's because I don't want to be!

[ She's more indignant about this than usual, strung up and high key from her fight. Toph also is alluding to something she hasn't really dealt with: her decision to abandon her parents is a continual decision she's making, something she has to reaffirm and reinforce over and over again. Even here, where she has no way to contact her parents, she knows how they would want her to behave.

Ignoring that, leaving it behind, means continuing to leave them behind. It's a decision she's consciously sticking to. And sometimes it really hurts. ]

[Well... that's interesting. Not everyone's parents, so publicly humiliated by a disobedient child, would be so willing to welcome them back into the family fold. But for Toph, the door is still open.

And that means that every day she doesn't go back through, it's because she chooses not to.]

So they want you back, and you're resisting them. At least, the version of 'you' that they could live with. [Ethlyn puts her chin on her hand.] If they just disowned you officially, it would still hurt, but you could have turned your back on them completely.

[ Toph's parents really do love her in their own way. She knows that. That's kind of the whole problem.

And maybe she's sympathetic to Zuko for more reasons than she wants to admit out loud. ]

I'm still a Beifong, [ she mutters, rubbing at her eyes with frustration because she can feel tears trying to well up again as she says it out loud. ] They won't admit I'm their daughter in public anymore, but they haven't, you know, struck me from the register. [ Which obviously says enough to her to mean they'd take her back if Toph was willing to be who they wanted.

She looks up again and takes a breath, blinking quickly to suppress emotion. ]

I built my school and everything with my own money. I'm doing things on my own. I guess-- it's stupid, but part of me feels like, if I just show them how much I can do, maybe they'll like me for who I am.

[It's almost crueler, whether it's meant to be or not. Disowning her almost completely, but leaving her that lure, the door of the gilded cage left open just enough that she could see it and choose to walk back through.

But if everything Toph says about herself and her accomplishments is true--and having seen her in action enough, Ethlyn has no reason to doubt it--and it's still not enough? To be asked about a child who ended a war, invented new forms of her art, founded a school...

No. Enough has nothing to do with it. It's that it's not correct. That's how the Beifongs can contrive to be ashamed of their child. They had a story they told everyone about their delicate, disabled little girl, and she went and told the world that they had it hose-on-head backwards. So it doesn't matter what Toph does from now on, as long as it's something that isn't "fragile blind waif," it's not the right answer. In fact, it can only ever get more wrong.]

No, it's not stupid. But... [Ethlyn leans back, wondering how to put these thoughts coherently.] It's rational. And your parents' feelings are not rational. I suspect that to them, you aren't trying to prove yourself worthy, you're just humiliating them by making them look like fools... which is ridiculous, of course, but when people dig into their sense of grievance they don't think clearly.

[ Ethlyn has the situation exactly right, in a way Toph hasn't ever really experienced from telling someone else about her parents before. It's such a clear binary choice: be who she is, own her accomplishments and live to her fullest ability, or hold all of that in so that her parents will love her. She's choosing the first one now, but she'd chosen the second for many years, as a young, young child who couldn't imagine living without them.

That little girl is still there in her, and Toph keeps circling her choice over and over, trying to see a way to have both. ]

... I am humiliating them. [ Toph sounds less emotional, like she's recovering enough to be frustrated. She clenches her hands into the blankets, twisting the fabric. ] I'm the one determining the family legacy now, not them.

[ No one is ever going to remember Poppy and Lao Beifong, or anyone else, next to Toph. And she knows it. Usually she's proud of that, but she's also conscientious in a way she rarely admits that she doesn't have the backing of her parents behind her as she does it. ]

But-- I mean-- [ She huffs. ] I know all that. I don't get why she needs to yell at me about it!

[Toph is determining the family legacy. It must be driving her parents absolutely crazy that not only is their daughter so stubbornly disobedient, but that she's doing so in a way that makes the name Beifong famous throughout the land. And every time some stranger comes up to them to congratulate them on all their daughter's accomplishments, or asks if they're related to the Toph Beifong, it twists the knife even harder... and entrenches them deeper into their fury.]

Because she knows all that, too. And she has your anger, and your very direct approach to problems. [Namely: smash it.] You know it, but it still hurts... and you know that they would take you back if you went back to the version of yourself they want you to be.

It's another punishment, in a way. If you know that the door is open to you--on a few impossible little conditions--then every day you don't return to being their good little daughter is another day you're determined on shaming your parents.

Edited 2024-12-19 16:15 (UTC)

[ Her very direct approach to problems... That's true, and probably putting it mildly. Toph does prefer to smash anything that's in her way. Maybe from her double's perspective, Toph's insistence at ignoring her parents is irritating and unreasonable, like it is to her from the other angle.

She doesn't like identifying with her double; Toph scrunches up her nose in distaste. ]

... I guess in her position I'd be mad at me, too. It actually-- [ getting even more uncomfortable but pushing through ] it reminds me of a friend from home. A different one, not Katara.

He wasn't who his dad wanted him to be, either. He and his sister have the weirdest relationship. It's like they keep trying to convince each other to change so they don't have to let go, like they-- like they can't give up on one another...

[ Her words trail off and she grows quiet and reserved, suddenly realizing. It's so much easier to see when she's talking about Zuko and his crazy family than when she's talking about herself. She curls in on herself as the sadness wells up inside her. ]

That's it, huh. I haven't given up on them. [ And she needs to, in order to move on. Just like Zuko. ]

[It's no surprise to hear that Toph knows others who are in the same position as she is--being a disgrace to the family, yet constitutionally unable to be what they demand. People like that find another fight to fight, searching for the pride they'll never have at home.

The conclusion Toph is walking herself to is... sad. It's deeply sad and there's no way around it, and Ethlyn is selfishly a little glad she doesn't have to put on her doctorly neutral face. It's hard enough for grown men and women to deal with it, much less a child of thirteen.

She reaches out, putting a hand on Toph's shoulder.]

I have friends in your position too. It doesn't matter where you are, or how brave or respected or old you are. It's hard, no matter what.

[ Toph realizes suddenly with the uncommon jolt of self-awareness that comes over teenagers occasionally that she really knows very little about Ethlyn. For once, she doesn't shrug off her hand on her shoulder, and she uncurls a bit, body language opening up and receptive. ]

What about you? Do you get along with your family?

[ It feels like she needs to detach herself from her own thoughts after being so mired in them. Toph isn't naturally introspective. ]

[It's good to see Toph starting to relax a little bit. And at least the question of Ethlyn's family is a little bit of a lighter subject.

Well, it sort of isn't, but talking about her upbringing is fine. The Chalphys had their issues but they did their earnest best to be good to each other.]

I'm lucky that my father was more concerned about being a good parent than having a good reputation. My biggest problem was usually my brother and his tendency to hurl himself headlong into a situation without taking even half a minute to think it over.

[It's a well-worn complaint, but one spoken with clear affection.]

one way or another

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