#have a random todofam meta instead lol

[makeste]

A theory I have seen is that Fuyumi wants the family back so desperately, because she and Toya experienced the better Endeavor, where everything was alright. My guess is that after his decent into abuse its stopped being like a normal family and Natsuo and Shoto never experienced a normal family. But that is just a therory

okay so speaking as someone who grew up with an abusive and neglectful parent (though in my case it was my mom rather than my dad)... it’s complicated. there are a lot of emotions there. I think one of the things Horikoshi has really excelled at with the whole Todoroki plot is the way that he’s used the four siblings to show the different ways that children respond to parental abuse. and I can say from personal experience that all of them are valid. not just the bitterness, anger, and resentment that Touya, Natsuo, and Shouto have all shown at times, but also that intense (but tentative, almost wishful-thinking) longing to just have a normal family that we see from Fuyumi. speaking again from experience, that last one isn’t an outlier at all. in fact, in my case, I’d say that was honestly the strongest feeling out of all of them, and it even fueled a lot of the other three emotions. btw just a heads up I’m gonna delve into some personal stuff here briefly, so yeah. I won’t put details, but if anyone wants an abuse trigger warning added to the post or anything like that, just let me know.

so the thing is, even during my angriest times, if some magic wish-granting genie had poofed in and told the child me, “’sup, I’m here to solve all of your family problems, just tell me what you want me to do,” I wouldn’t have wanted them to take my mom away and lock her up somewhere and make her suffer or anything like that. honestly, even during the worst of it, the thing I wanted more than anything else was just to have a normal family. my mom had a lot of untreated mental health issues, and it was basically a situation where you never knew which version of her you were going to get on any given day. so there were times when she was a kind and loving mother who took care of me and my siblings. and there were a great many more times when she was temperamental and erratic, and we all (my dad included) basically just walked on eggshells around her and did our best to lay low and try not to bother her because even little things might set her off, and we never knew how she was going to react. and my dad worked a lot, and my sibs and I were homeschooled for reasons which I’m not gonna get into because this post is already veering off on too many tangents, but anyway so the short of it is that my sibs and I grew up in this unstable environment and ended up more or less raising ourselves. and I resented my mom a lot for that, growing up, and I still do honestly.

now a lot’s happened since then, and she’s gotten some help, and my siblings and I are all adults now and we’re more or less good, even though we all took a certain amount of Psychic Damage along the way and we’re each still dealing with that. and we each have different relationships with our mom now, and a couple of my sibs are even fairly close to her. but for my part, I pretty much have no relationship with her at all outside of seeing her a few times a year at family get-togethers and the like. the thing is, even though my mom did eventually (after a LOT of false starts and struggles and heartache) get some help, she’s never really shown remorse for what my siblings and I went through because of her. she’s never taken responsibility for any of it. she blames a lot of other people, and will go on long rants about all of the terrible things that have happened to her and all of the horrible ways people have treated her (some of which is true, and some of which very much is not). but there’s never even the slightest acknowledgement of any of the things she herself has done to hurt others. she either passes the blame or just pretends it never happened. 

and honestly, it sucks. even now, there’s little to no real desire to change on her part. she’s gotten therapy and meds now, and so emotionally she’s much more stable than when we were kids, but one of the unfortunate results is that it’s all the more clear now that a lot of her behavior never had anything to do with her mental illness at all. she just didn’t care at all about how she was hurting others; or at the very least, didn’t care to face it. and that’s just how it is.

anyway, so I’m sorry to keep breaking away and telling you guys my own life story lol. but the point I’m trying to get at here is that I actually relate to Fuyumi so much, though. what I wanted more than anything was for my mom to care, and to say she was sorry, and for me to be able to believe that and to trust her, and for her to actually change. that was it.

and so for me, here’s the biggest difference between the Endeavor situation, and my own and so many others. the difference is that unlike people in real life, we know Endeavor is actually remorseful for what he’s done. we know it for certain because we’ve seen it for ourselves, from his own point of view. the manga actually lets us get inside his head and shows us that he really is sincere, that he really is sorry, and that he really is trying to change. and that’s something that’s impossible to get in real life. that certainty that the person really means it, that they’re genuinely remorseful and committed to making amends.

and for me, that’s fucking wish fulfillment right there. for the abusive parent to finally realize the error of their ways and be sorry and try to do right by their kids. I fucking wanted that. hell, I still want it, even though I’ve made my peace with things the way that they are. that chance to somehow heal the broken relationship, and have your parent genuinely try their best to be a real parent to you, even if it’s years after the fact? shit. I’d take that in a heartbeat.

and so when it comes to Fuyumi and her attempts to get her family to reconcile and experience a few normal things, I f feel that. I really do. because when you’re growing up in that type of situation, normal is all that you want. and I don’t think it’s anything that requires an explanation on her part, because it’s not actually an unusual reaction at all. it’s natural. it’s the most natural thing in the world. honestly it’s annoying that fandom sometimes tries to shame her for having those feelings. like honestly, fuck that. because the thing is, I’d wager that almost every kid who grew up with an abusive parent has at some time or other felt the exact same way.

and that includes Touya, Natsuo, and Shouto as well. literally the only difference between them and Fuyumi is that they feel that Endeavor’s change of heart is simply coming too late. it’s not that they don’t want their family back, just like she does; it’s that from their point of view, it’s something they can’t get back. for Fuyumi, that dream of having a normal family is something she’s still seeking. for Natsuo and Touya, that dream of having a normal family is something that was destroyed. something that Endeavor killed. something they’re in mourning of. and so Touya wants revenge for it, and Natsuo is trying to pick himself up and move past it. and meanwhile Shouto is caught somewhere in the middle of all of those reactions, because he’s still trying to decide whether or not he can ever bring himself to trust his father again. he’s somewhere in between his brothers’ mourning and his sister’s hopefulness. sort of a Schrodinger type of deal lol.

but anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that all four siblings are really experiencing the same thing, just in different ways. Fuyu may be the one arranging family dinners and the like, but that same longing to be part of a normal family is at the core of Natsuo, Shouto, and even Touya’s behavior as well. Natsuo’s hurt and resentment, and Touya’s spite and bitterness, come from being denied the thing they want. and Fuyu’s shaky attempts at reconciliation come from her desire to still obtain it somehow. but at the end of the day they’re the exact same feelings. and they all come from the same place.

anyways, hopefully that makes some kind of sense. basically, everyone is valid. Fuyu is valid, Natsu and Shouto are valid, and Touya is murdery which isn’t cool, but his feelings are still valid too nonetheless. hugs and therapy for the Todoroki children in 2021, Horikoshi. please and thank you.