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#(esp after looking away during That Agni Kai)
daforged · 3 years
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once again parent-child dynamics in fiction will b the death of me <3
#im . im watching avatar again#as always i am obsessed w iroh & zuko#but specifically ive been rly. interested in the idea of parental sacrifice. not like life or death sacrifice#but like ... emotional sacrifice. letting kids lash out and hurt you repeatedly & slowly trying to teach them better ways to handle emotion#like ... its smth i noticed in the sabrina netflix series as well (but i think its much less intentional there :/)#but like ... the whole concept that as a parent u will be treated unfairly by a child that has little emotional control and only u#to use as an outlet ... and its ur responsibility not only to take that without returning it but to also teach them kindness and coping#skills ... idk. idk it makes me very Something#its. i think its an incredible display of love to take ur child’s immature emotional outbursts and give them nothing but support & kindness#it just . the selflessness blows me away a little. like thats unconditional love. there is so much power there#anyway. am thinking abt the repeated instances of iroh putting himself between zuko & someone who’s abt to hurt him#(esp after looking away during That Agni Kai)#& the way he literally never gives up on or gets angry w zuko or Anything . nothing but support & love#like. the amount of love and emotional control that sort of thing requires is. immense.#(& like im not saying zuko deserves ppl getting angry w him i just. its a human emotion yknow)#anyway. am constantly overwhelmed by the strength of that bond & by zuko’s emotional growth as always#the depth & unconditional nature of it just. is something else to me. esp i think because my brain is The Strange Way That It Is . idk#freewheeling bitextual
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reineyday · 3 years
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some feelings abt touya and bnha 302 in general! (long post)
jesus this whooooole chapter makes me so so so sad for touya, like he's canonically a crier and i just have all these images now of him crying off to the side while enji looks at his other kids and gives them the time of day. knowing that he was/is a frustrated crier makes the fact that dabi cant cry cuz of his burned tear ducts that much sadder ohhman
one of the things i cant get over is how touya was SO shunned by his dad that when he went to go tell enji about his fire turning from red to blue, he says "i might be as awesome as shouto sooner or later!" like?? this boy is 13 and shouto is 5 yet he's talking like the brother that's eight years younger than him is better than him and thar it's just a fact. the sky is blue, enji wants to beat all might one day, and shouto is better than the rest of his siblings. nevermind that he's only five and just wants to play with his siblings (and dont even mention to me how shouto says he wants to play with "touya and them" cuz im gonna fucking cry abt it. like even though touya's accepted he's bottom of the ladder in this family, shouto clearly wants some sort of acknowledgement from his older siblings and especially his older brother. IM FVCKN SOBBN). enji has made it clear in this family that shouto was what he was looking for and everyone else is not as important, and i knew this from shouto's pov but it's kinda wild to see it implied so casually in touya's words.
"you'll be glad you created me! i just know it!" HOLY SHIT. god my heart. oh my fuck. literally all enji had to do was show up to the fucking mountain, and he couldnt even do that? what the hell?? your son asks you to go to the mountain, you tell your wife not to let him go traim but she said she couldnt stop him, and instead of going yourself to make sure he's okay and BECAUSE HE ASKED YOU TO COME (and with an actually valid reason, no less! fire changing colour is kind of a big fucking deal!!!) you just?? let him go and let him stay there??? my god the amount of times touya must have burned himself and the trees with tears in his eyes. ahhhHHH!!!
what kills me (and touya too soon?) was that we thought before the back story started that enji forced touya to train till he burned up. then when 290 came out--and definitely after 301--we thought maybe touya overtrained himself and burned up. and sure, he was definitely overtraining, but to find out that the burns that "killed" him started just bc he was crying so much he lost control and didnt know how to ease up on his flames? he was upset and literally trying to get himself to stop crying, and then he just set himself aflame and burned up cuz of all his emotions??? that HURTS. holy fuck.
i cant believe natsuo's feeling lowkey guilty for not socking enji in the face like he wasnt EIGHT???? and let's be real, enji woukdnt have fucking listened to natsuo telling him to talk to touya--he already wasnt listening when touya would straight up say "look at me" and when even rei said touya just wanted enji to look at him and notice him. listen, i know sometimes miscommunications happen in families and children are embarrassed to admit they want attention and so their parents remain unaware that theyre not giving their kid something they want, but touya was as clear as can be on MANY occasions, and even rei agreed touya needed the attention and enji just wasnt listening.
also i know there was discourse abt touya being sexist by telling natsu that "the women in this house are good for nothing" and mb it was partly diff translations cuz i feel like saying "this house" makes it specific to rei and yumi instead of all women everywhere, but even disregarding that--i think it's a valid thought for him to have when rei wasnt standing up for him (where he could see, at least) and yumi admitted herself that she was too scared to interfere and so just tried to fix things and keep appearances. i feel like based on what touya's seen from them, it makes sense that he has that opinion. (also gonna mention that i think rei's and yumi's choices also make sense and i think they were valid, seeing as how they were afraid as well.)
and poor natsu being woken up in the middle of the night (what was implied to be often enough, esp cuz it seemed they share a room and their futons are close) bc of touya's pain. that's a lot of emotional responsibility for an eight year old, and it is also so sad that at 13, touya didnt have anyone else to turn to but his kid brother. at 13, i remember being fully aware of the distinction in maturity between an 8 year old and myself, and it sucks that touya couldnt go to anyone but a younger child with all his pain. i bet yumi being too scared to interfere translated to touya as "she wouldnt help me" and thats another reason he didnt go to the 2nd oldest when he needed to vent. (also not related to this but how the FUCK was natsuo so tall at 8 years old? wh a t)
this chapter. this fucking chapter. my heart aches for touya, and it's just such a huge fucking shame he didnt get the attention and validation and support he needed. there must have been workarounds so that touya could safely use his quirk. there weere DEFINITELY better ways to support your son through a self-destructive quirk, ways that involved actually being there and seeing him. i feel like if someone showed him the attention he needed and talked him through how to better control his emotions (and by extension, his flames) and a positive and healthy way, he could have been someone so great. and if he ever learned how to set aside the way he felt infefior to shouto and saw that shouto just wanted to play with his cool older siblings, it might have been really beneficial to see that there was someone there who thinks he's cool and gave him attention just bc he was an older brother, who needed him when everyone else in the househild didnt seem to need him.
and lastly, the fact that the chapter ends with rei saying that shouto is the family hero and that shouto will have to face dabi?? and it makes me angry that shouto has to take on that responsibility. that he was five and suffering for things he wasnt even a part of, couldnt be properly aware of, bc he was so young. he just saw that he was separated from his siblings and that his dad bullied his mom, then grew up shouldering enji's heavy goals and high expectations and abusive training alongside the barely-there memories of his older brother who died (i say barely there bc if natsu didnt even know shouto liked cold soba, shouto was definitely not around enough to have solid memories of touya before he "died"), and now he has to do the emotional labour of fighting his villain brother (who i bet shouto lowkey empathizes with when he thinks abt it late at night) as well as suffer the physical consequences of that agni kai. and it makes me angry that he has to do that, bc he's a Good Guy and he probably feels he has some sort of filial and familial responsibility. he's only 16. he just wanted to play with touya and them, and now he has to deal with this horse shit dabi's causing cuz his dad's an emotionally neglecting asshat who couldnt see past his dumb fucking ego until he saw shouto play with a bunch of kids during shou's remedial exam a decade after his eldest son burned himself to death. what the fuckety fuck.
lastly, since we saw touya burn uo the way he did... did he really just like... burn so much his jaw fell off, and that's how they found the jawbone? cuz holy hot (BURNING too soon???) damn that must have been painful as all hell. i wonder if next chapter we get to see if someone found touya at the park and helped him out and sorted out the jaw bone thing, or if we finally get to see if deku wakes up lol.
anyways this chapter hurt my heart big time, and i kinda wanna draw kid touya crying while being overlooked by his family to let out some of those feelings but we'll see.
and i still stand by my idealistic and naively optimistic hope that dabi gets redeemed and they soend some actually time together as a family (without enji. or at least, with an enji that has apologized to touya in seiza. like, forehead-to-floor apologize.)
does this hope sort out how dabi redeems himself, seeing as how he's murdered people in cold blood and shouldnt be excused for that bc those actions are also inarguably terrible? no. not sure how he could redeem himself for that kinda stuff honestly, but it doesnt mean i dont still somehow want the todoroki sibs to get along, cuz im weak for mending families.
also id like to send a huge kudos out into the world to rei todoroki for being firm for once and for also not running away from her mistakes like her asshole husband has been. i really admire and respect that. she was afraid and being abused, but now that she's been away from enji and has had time to heal, now that her and shouto are in the mend and she's seen that her eldest son is alive and a villain, she's a place where she can acknowledge that even though she was a victim too, she played a part in touya's emotional neglect and she's taking responsibility and that speaks to some incredible fucking strength. damn.
i hope one day that dabi realizes the same in regards to his mother and natsuo, who shouldered a lot of his emotional pain and suffered the consequences of his outbursts (even though his emotions are valid and his outbursts understandable, he still hurt rei and put a lot of pressure on natsu), and i also hope he sees that for all that he hates his father, his whole existence revolves around enji and it's a shitty place to be (and then he'll have ANGST abt it and that shit will be!! so good!!!)
yeah i think those were all my feelings. i had so many lol. their family situation is so difficult, i hope they all turn out okay and alive and healing.
oh i guess i also wanted to say that i kept calling enji an asshat and asshole cuz he was for sure, but i still think his redemption is valid and im glad he's taking those steps to be a better person by being a better father. i dont know if id want his family to forgive him for all that horrible shit he put them through (im personally hoping that no matter what anyone else does, natsuo will choose to to cooperate in the healing of his family as a unit but will never forgive enji) but i think it's good of people to try to be better than they were yesterday regardless of whether or not they get forgiveness. i dont personally like enji, but i dont hate that he's getting a redemption. i just hope it's a redemption that makes sense and forces him to put in the work, and isnt something like a death sacrifice for shouto or dabi. i want him to be alive and i want his redemption process to hurt like a fucking bitch while he forces himself to make better choices and be a better person, cuz redemption isnt supposed to be easy in the slightest. i GUESS all the crying he did in 302 was a good start.
anyways, if for some reason you read all the way down to the bottom--hello! and thanks for reading haha. cheers! :)))
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