This is what PEAK firebending defensive technique looks like

[u/LilyKarinss]

[u/LilyKarinss]

The Fire Lord going up against a malnourished kid who can shoot stone pellets like a machine gun:

Ozai: "The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math."

[u/JackofClubs77 → u/LilyKarinss]

I remember making an Earthbender OC as a kid who’s whole shtick was that he floated boulders around his head, broke them into smaller stone, and then fired them like drones. Ironically, this is just about the only way for an Earthbender to defeat Toph, purely by nature of “She can’t actually see it”

[u/Formal_Illustrator96 → u/JackofClubs77]

She’d be able to sense the rocks though? This just wouldn’t work in the slightest.

[u/earanhart → u/Formal_Illustrator96]

She doesn't see floating rocks the same way as she does things on the ground, its a different application of earth bending, but one every earth bender does to a degree.

The following is fan theory, but I think that is the base from which she developed her earth-sight ability. Train of logic being "I can sense rocks being bent, but what is the ground other than a big rock? If I bend that just a tiny bit, I should be able to sense it. Wait, I don't even need to bend it of I'm touching it to sense things on it."

[u/Formal_Illustrator96 → u/earanhart]

It’s the same thing. The way she sees movement of things on the ground and the way she sees floating rocks are both her ability to sense earth. The way she sees floating rock is the same way she sees the ground, she can “feel” the earth with her earth bending. Her seismic sense is the same thing too. She can feel the earth moving ever so slightly in response to the things on top of it, and through those movements, she can tell what’s on the earth and how it’s moving. This works whether or not the earth she’s sensing is connected to the ground or not.