#the hellish todoroki family

[bullsfish]

Shoto Todoroki; rising.

I think my art hiatus might be coming to an end. I hope so.

[njk-mr]

Just kill me atp.

[hnychn]

my mind is in shock

[mha spoilers]

i saw a couple of videos on tiktok talking about how they feel bad for shoto bcs he wasn’t in touya’s flashback when he thinks of the ideal family yk?

and people in the comments were just like, “shoto just wants to eat soba with his big brother and touya hates him for no reason”

but there’s akshually a very big reason ☝🏽🤓

shoto quite literally represents everything touya could have been and could have had. before shoto was born, touya was his father’s pride and joy—the closest thing endeavor had to fulfilling his life’s dream of surpassing all might. but then with the development of touya’s quirk and how it was destroying himself, endeavor realized he couldn’t push touya far enough without possibly killing him.

in comes shoto! who is, quite literally, the perfect son. shoto embodies the whole reason he married rei to begin with, he wanted a child who could wield both of their quirks and use them to become the new number one. (because, let’s be real, by this point in his life, endeavor never expected to become number one so he needed someone stronger—better—from his bloodline to fill his dreams for him) so endeavor pushes touya to the back burner and focuses everything on shoto.

i mean, no wonder the boy went crazy. imagine being the apple of your (albeit toxic and manupulative and abusive) father’s eye, only to suddenly be pushed aside for someone better, someone stronger—more perfect. and not even just a random someone, your baby brother. i’d go crazy too, shit. and so, he [touya] starts to build up all this bitterness and anger and resentment towards shoto for taking that away from him, and also directs it at endeavor for casting him aside like some broken toy.

touya also resents shoto because he represents endeavor as a whole, i mean think about it—shoto goes to endeavor’s agency for his work studies, endeavor keeps shoto on a tight leash, shoto begins to open up to his father a little more (heavy emphasis on ‘a little’), shoto realizes that the hatred he carried for his father was only holding him back and so he begins his looonggg journey of forgiveness.

shoto is everything touya isn’t.

shoto is a hero, touya is a villain.

shoto is capable of forgiveness, touya wants revenge.

shoto is his father’s pride, touya is his father’s regret.

and touya hates him for it.

[tenderheartedtheodore]

you may all ignore how this applies to like several other characters but this came to me in a vision*

*i am severely sleep deprived

[slutforsnow]

I fucking love Natsuo and to see people hate on him for "acting like a child" pisses me off.

I just saw a hate post on Natsuo because he "acts like a child" his years of trauma and neglect have stunted his development emotionally and during the dinners, it was like trying to play happy family when he DESPISES Endeavor and ONLY TRIES to keep his mouth shut FOR Fuyumi because he loves his sister and brother so dearly. He can't stand Endeavor for the hell he put Rei, Touya, and Shoto through, not to mention neglecting himself and Fuyumi. He has every right to blow up on Endeavor, and I will die on that hill. LIKE I GET IT MAY UPSET YOU BECAUSE FUYUMIS TRYING TO PULL THE FAMILY BACK TOGETHER BECAUSE SHE HAD TO STEP IN AS A MOTHER FIGURE FOR SHOTONATSUOHES TRYING FOR HER!! And not mention I feel like Natsuo hates himself because he's the one who looks almost exactly like Endeavor, so he hates himself for looking so similar to his & his family's abuser. AND LIKE DID WE FORGET HE DYED/BLEACHED HIS RED STREAKS TO NOT HAVE THEM? HE DESPISES ALL PARTS OF ENDEAVOR; SURE IT SEEMS PETTY, BUT IT'S VALID. He has every right to cut off Endeavor and make sure his kid(s) never see him. Rei is going to enjoy seeing her grandkid(s) the same way Fuyumi and Shoto with love their niece(s) and nephew(s).

They can never make me hate you, Natsuo Todoroki. You don't have to forgive him, and I support your decision and how Horikoshi wrote you. Silly and goofy still but holding a burning hatred for the man who neglected you, Fuyumi & Touya, before his death.

[loverln]

GUYS SOMEONE POINTED OUT THAT IIDA DIDNT CHEER WITH EVERYONE WHEN TODOROKI FINALLY WON AND NOW IM LITERALLY SOBBING.

HONORARY BIG BROTHER IIDA. PLEASE I CANT.

[did-sm1-say-catfish]

hc: touya(as a kid) knew that the "Going outside in the cold gives you a common cold" myth was, well, a myth, but he would still tell his younger siblings to put on an extra layer because of getting sick. HE FED THEM LIES

fuyumi is a smart lady, she (current day) knows that he was lying but she still wears her coat a lot (even tho she has a fuckin ice quirk) just to think about her "dead" brother with a smileee

and natsuo never figured it out. he just accepted it as one of those things you learn as a kid that could never be incorrect and deceitful. and he still tells shoto to put on a jacket or he'll get sick.

and shoto just complies with natsuo and doesn't really believe it one way or the other. he can just heat himself up y'know'?

[linphd]

Shoto will be Endeavor’s favorite.

But you, Touya, shall be mine.

[autumnmobile12]

Just want to point out that in the Ambush Sim AU that while Touya teaches piano to grade schoolers, the window of opportunity to do so is very small. Most Japanese schools end the day around 3 in the afternoon (taking into account piano lessons are an extracurricular activity,) so depending on when dinner happens in the Todoroki household, he really only has two to three hours to teach. He's able to schedule more students during weekends and holiday breaks, but since he's otherwise unemployed, he has a lot of time to himself during the day.

So as shown in Chapter 6, he does most of the housework.

Endeavor doesn't do housework, he probably barred Shouto from doing any in favor of the rigorous training schedule, and the only reason Fuyumi and Touya alternate cooking meals is because she enjoys cooking and insists on that schedule. Other than that, Touya is the one taking care of cleaning, laundry, gardening, errands, and other assorted household maintenance. Even if Endeavor asks Fuyumi to run an errand in town or pick something up, Touya's usually the one to take care of it on her behalf since she's the one with the full-time teaching job.

However, by the Ambush Simulation: The Hellish Todoroki Family installment, he no longer lives at home. So everything he took care of in that house is going to start piling up with Shouto and Natsuo living on campus and Fuyumi and Endeavor working full time.

…

Endeavor: *comments on how laundry is falling behind and how the house seems dustier*

Fuyumi: *actually triggered to annoyance* I don’t know what to tell you, Dad. My housekeeper brother no longer lives here.

Endeavor: *realizing he's shot himself in the foot*

Touya: *diligently taking care of his Fukuoka residence and torn between feeling bad for Fuyumi and feeling vindicated that Father Dearest may finally be acknowledging he was an under-appreciated son*

[masochist-marmot]

Just finished watching MHA season 7

I am not okay. I am in shambles. A shallow husk of a human being. I have exhausted all my emotions and have nothing left to give. I'm sitting right there in the middle of charred earth and ash with tears frozen on my face. I might need a hero to sacrifice themselves to stitch my destroyed heart back together.

The level of character writing in this series is amazing. I stand by my (probably controversial) take that there are some issues with pacing and setup/payoff, though I haven't read the manga so I can't tell how much of that is an issue with the adaptation. But what the show does excel at is portraying a large cast of characters with deep and diverse motivations, and it somehow manages to build on them in a deliberate, believable manner. (Let me piss off another fandom real quick: JJK could never.)

I was spoiled on the Dabi reveal before I started watching the show. In fact, that spoiler got me interested in watching it in the first place. I picked up on the tiny hints that were sprinkled in from very early on and was interested to see how they pull the reveal off. I was a little disappointed with how one-note Dabi was for the entire time up until that point, and the reveal itself was far less effective without the intended shock value. I almost wrote it off as missed potential. However, the seeds that were sown were not in Dabi himself, but the Todoroki family dynamic. Once we get to the flashbacks and eventually the grand emotional showdown, we have already gone through a character arc with Shouto, Endeavor and the rest of the family, and we have seen how All For One grooms vulnerable youth to his cause. In the present, Dabi is only fueled by hatred and revenge. In the past, we see a sad little boy who is raised to believe that his value comes from the strength of his quirk, and who is then told he can't use it (thus stripping him of his value). He's practically abandoned as a failed project, and Endeavor's misguided attempts at discouraging him by distancing himself instead of showing him he's got value beyond his strength and usefulness drives poor Touya even further along his doomed path. And this is incredibly fertile soil for All For One's grooming. It's heartbreaking. The reason Dabi is so one-note is that there's nothing else left in him. He's too far gone to be saved. We can bring the entire Todoroki family together to finally see his cries for help and acknowledgment, but it's simply too late. Sometimes it's just not possible to bring the "black sheep" of the family back from the edge of self-destruction. God, it's too real, and devastating, and narratively satisfying.

And then we have our misguided pansexual queen Himiko Toga. I was pretty neutral on Toga for most of the series, because the yandere archetype never really appeals to me. Turns out there's a lot more to her than that. For her entire childhood, she was ostracised and derided for being different and gross. I see an interesting mix of autism-coding/queercoding in how her innate ways to approach love and affection are seen as wrong and abnormal, and how she fails to conform to social norms because nobody's explaining them to her. I do like how neither allegory is one-to-one, and how it's internally consistent with how the world and Toga as a character work. Her childhood environment stunts her emotional development and leaves her with a black-and-white thinking, where you are either good or evil, cute or gross, completely accepted or completely rejected... a hero or a villain (boy, the society desperately needs reconstruction). It leaves her desperate for deep connections, and the deepest connection she can get is from becoming the target of her affection with her quirk. It's a selfish kind of affection that literally weakens the other party. At the same time, she's sabotaging her relationships by intentionally showing her ugly side and looking for signs of rejection to enforce her expectation of not being accepted for who she is. As someone who's struggled with (and, through therapy, learned to manage) traits of borderline personality disorder, I can relate to her chaotic approach to interpersonal relationships and powerful but volatile emotions. When both Deku and Uraraka very reasonably condemn her actions as a villain, she takes that as a total and complete rejection of her as a person. This is an especially heavy blow to her after the loss of Twice has brought her entire worldview into question. Then, when Uraraka reflects on this more and tries to reach out to her again, she's in full defence mode. She can't risk being rejected again, so she lashes out to keep Uraraka at an arm's length. Yet despite all the maliciousness, despite being stabbed, Uraraka fights to get through to Toga and show her that she sees the beauty in her and is willing to accept her in spite of her flaws. And then, after being properly seen and accepted by someone she loves, she's able to commit a purely selfless act of affection by giving away her own blood to keep Uraraka alive. Blood is her love language, and for once she's able to give instead of taking. It's hauntingly beautiful, and it's heartbreaking, and it closes her character arc wonderfully. (Mind you, I think their relationship would have been toxic and codependent, but I don't care. I'll be a Togachako truther from this moment until the day I die.)

This season alone had a lot of effective (and also some less effective) character moments that I won't touch on because this post is already too long and rambling. I especially have a lot more thoughts about best boi Kacchan, but I'll leave that for another day.

[humangerbil]

On the tddkbb server we were discussing what the foods were at this dinner and I might have gone and gotten invested in figuring them all out.

Lots of images, with more below, to flip back and forth between as needed. Clean image, followed by numbered images. Numbers are per dish, which sometimes there are multiple of the same one.

Shumai - I would guess the pork variety since that is the kind that I always see with the pea on top. I wasn’t actually sure about this one until I looked at the manga panel and saw that the little cylinders are more wrinkly than in the anime, like they should be.

Mapo Tofu - Bakugo yells about this dish.

Hambagu or hamburger steak - This one I’m about 95% sure about. It’s got the salad and tomatoes there and I really can’t think of anything else it would be but I might be wrong. 

Leeks - This is a best guess. It could also be a cucumber dish or something else. But the way it is alone and the pieces are long makes me think leeks are most likely. Other ideas welcome.

Cabbage Rolls

Gyoza - This one I wasn’t sure about until the anime gave up the close up of Midoriya eating one, see below.

Tamagoyaki - I wasn’t sure about this one from the table spread shots but the fourth image and the manga panel shows the spirals very clearly giving it away. There does appear to be a minor animation error on the fourth image where the plate changes to white from black but mistakes happen.

Tatsutaage - I would have guessed karaage from the images alone since they are very similar dishes but Midoriya actually states the name of this dish when he is praising it.

Negiyaki or Okonomiyaki or other Okonomiya-related dish - This one I’m just guessing. In the first and second image it is shown cut up, in the close up shot it looks too flat and thin to be any of these but I can’t think of anything else it might be. As can be seen in the 9?s on the manga panels could be the same dish but neither really looks like anything specific. I think 9? blue is the same dish but they did change things between the manga and the anime so it’s really just a best guess. If anyone has any other ideas what this dish might be please tell me.

Salad - Nothing exciting here just a simple salad with some cherry tomatoes

Soup, probably Miso - Miso soup would be the standard and it’s the right color for it but there are other options it could be since it is never said to be any specific type.

Rice - These are also their serving bowls, the take food from the spread and add it to their rice bowl.

Dipping Sauce - I haven’t been able to divine what kind of sauce. I’m leaning towards tartar sauce since that would go with the tatsutaage and the color sorta matches. It might also be shabu shabu but that wouldn't be chunky looking like this is. I would have assumed green onion sauce but it’s the wrong color for that and much too chunky looking. These could also be dishes for eating things without rice and they have some mapo tofu in them. If anyone has any other ideas of what it might be please let me know.

It's very clearly gyoza from this image.

And lastly, I give you my final point of this post.

Dabi hates fish. Fuyumi made this huge spread of dishes and didn't make one fish dish. Not a single one.

I'm gonna forever headcanon that Fuyumi doesn't cook fish because Touya hated it.

[anchovy89freya]

Dad!?

[purplepotatoscribbles]

Dabi after several months of therapy. Shouto also wants to play with him but he’s too shy to ask - Dabi is an asshole and he enjoys teasing his younger bro (in a loving way) but secretly, he already told Shigaraki who lives in a mental hospital right now (about to be released) that his brother will join their team. 💕

On the second picture, Dabi have chosen to keep some of his scars to remind him of his past.

[shigussy]

dabi's beef with geten is so fucking funny to me and it became way funnier when it was revealed they were related

[yokai-girlie]

MHA Chapter 426 Manga Spoilers Under the Cut

I’m playing a bit of compare and contrast with these images and trying to decipher what it all means. I’m really bad at putting my thoughts into words so i’m sorry if this makes no sense lol

This first one in my opinion is authentically Toya. That’s who he should’ve been is the best way I can describe it. Bright smile, fluffy hair, a family that is present and paying attention to him. They are happy to see him. They are proud of him. Why isn’t Shoto there? Because in a different reality, Shoto wasn’t necessary. Toya didn’t “fail”. This is a reality where Shoto being born was never necessary to begin with. Enji didn’t fail Toya in this reality.

But this is is the Reality of the situation.This is what has actually happened. This is what Too Late looks like. But Enji Todoroki is a stubborn man that refuses to give up. So he’s going to try anyways, even though he’s already failed. He’s going to make the most of the last moments he has left with his son.

Instead, he’s choosing to see someone that is authentically Dabi. A reality where Enji did fail, yes but he’s not too late. He’s choosing to cling to the hope of a reality where he can atone. He’s going to apologize for the rest of his life. He’s promising Toya his undivided attention because that is what Toya needed before it was too late.

Enji does this because this is all he can offer. And it will never be good enough and it will always be too late but it’s all he can do because he can’t change what he did in the past.

Where are Toya’s arms in all the pictures?

Well, that’s the source of the quirk. Enji spent his entire life focused on his children’s quirks. Now is not the time for that. Now is the time to focus on what really matters.

[gece-misin-nesin]

A family like the Todorokis are more likely to tolerate an abuser than someone whose reaction to being abused is against social norms (ask me how I know). It is so realistic that they twist themselves into knots about how it got to this point but any change is the abuser’s choice because the family still wont challenge for control. The fact that everyone knows how bad things were for Touya will just exacerbate the pain when he has to see all of them come in and face him as a united family. I cried for hours after Touya’s last appearance without being able to figure out why it got me. I had pretty much given up hope for a decent wrap up before that point but the Todoroki storyline is a bleak festering mess. Is the best option for abused kids to buckle down and stay quiet until you are no longer a minor and then go no contact and build a life on your own from scratch with very little support system like Natsuo kinda did? Fans absolutely can’t accept that. Even the godawful Naruto ending wasn’t so extremely incongruous with the genre and tone of a series that an author spent years and years on.

Unfortunately, you are right. However, while the Todorokis' way of dealing with their abuse might be 'realistic' it's completely understandable to be disappointed with how it ended. After all, we usually read fiction to escape from reality, or for some form of catharsis. And the ending of the Todorokis (or even the manga's as a whole) was...anything but that.

I am sorry you were able to relate to their situation so deeply, I can only say that I hope you can find the comfort you seek in something else. My best wishes to you, anon.