This is a Toph/Zuko story, which are characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender, though setting is an Alternate Universe set in the modern era, but with bending. In this story all characters depicted are adults. Toph Beifong and Zuko are 23 and 27 respectfully. Jin too is 27.

This work is part of a series i'm calling 'Letting Go And Holding Tight', which consists of two parts: Curious Depravity, which will consist of 4 chapters total, and Freak Is A Compliment which will be a one-shot. I'm splitting the two for tagging purposes, fans of the show may already be able to guess why ;)

Before you read i also want to shoutout BabishBerry from whom i commissioned a cover for this series for and AndyABDL whose old Toph pic was a big visual inspiration. Please give 'em a follow (and be nice!). Also: this was already a late submission when i first shared this fic, but this was supposed to be a submission for daisy-fingers' Duh-cember.

As for me: any comments, criticism or feedback is welcome :)

Content Warning: self esteem issues and references to past child abuse the latter is kept quite vague on the details and the former never goes existential, but that's just my perspective on it as a random internet stranger: better safe than sorry!

PS: since Exasy asked: Toph Beifong is female and uses she / her / her / herself pronouns, while Zuko is male and uses he / him / his / himself pronouns. (I hope that helps, i started colouring them in text and quickly realized it would take hours, but if any has a quick way to change the colour of only certain words i'd be happy to colour them all for easier readability). Other characters will also have their own colours, though this fic does not focus on them.