#shouto’s mom was abused and then abused her child continuing the cycle of abuse | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

movedkagen · 3 years

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REI TODOROKI STUDY / MASTERPOST .

This is mostly ripped from discord so if it’s choppy that’s why ---

TRIGGER WARNINGS : MISOGYNY, DOMESTIC ABUSE, CHILD ABUSE, CHILDBIRTH, CHILD LOSS, GENDER DYSPHORIA.

Rei never necessarily dreamed of being a mother. She had a dream, once. She painted and has a profound natural talent for art, but her family was conservative and never entertained her getting a job. Girls like her were only good for getting married. The most rebellious thing she ever did was anonymously release a few paintings while she was engaged.

Painting continued to be a coping mechanism when she was in the mental hospital, though they were much darker --- her paintings in there were very gruesome depictions of ... typically feminine things --- pregnancy, childbirth, housewife duties. She just painted them as very painful and bloody because that's how they felt to her and that's how she emotionally processed how she sees her own value as a woman. Obviously this isn’t too relevant in the grander scheme of things but I’m just providing some insight into Rei as a painter.

Now before I start, I obviously don't write Rei as Black but i think about how in Black and poc cultures women are blamed for their abusive and shitty husbands. If he hit them its because THEY made him mad, and if he cheated it's because THEY couldn't keep him/make him happy. And i write rei with those burdens. i say this bc i remember rei being on the phone like "i can't take it anymore i can't be around him i'm scared" right before she hurt shouto and i'm like ... if she did that then she must have called her mother before. and like her mother obviously didn't tell her to leave so i hc her mother was always like "be a good wife and smooth things over, keep ur man happy, if ur household falls apart thats on u"

Rei struggled the most with Touya and fuyumi. She never hurt them or anything but she had weird behaviors around them...And her biggest crime w them was the "weak constitution" she had. With Touya she was still trying to make it work with endeavor so she kept excusing his abuse because she was trying to keep things smooth... like stupid shit like "don't make ur father upset" and "u know he has a temper". not intentional but honestly just how she was raised and she thought she was doing the right thing by avoiding conflict and keeping enji happy. She tried to protect him but honestly she didn’t resent Enji as much as she did later, with Shouto.

With fuyumi....It’s more a personal hc but I told inad that like. Rei never wanted a daughter due to how she was raised. her family was very sexist and oppressive. She cried when fuyumi was born. she did NOT want a daughter and did not want fuyumi to be like her, a woman she perceived as weak. Because my rei KNOWS she’s weak. Her quirk may have been strong but her "constitution" emotionally was frail. But fuyumi is a child and doesn’t understand why her mom gets upset when she tries to help in the kitchen and Rei tells her to stop.

Touya has every right to resent Rei --- unfortunately though, Abuse is usually a cycle… I hced Rei dealt with a lot of mental and emotional abuse from her parents, her mother especially. that's how rei's family was. and in my hc quirk marriage is just a revamped arranged marriage. like quirk marriages in and of themselves are not evil like it's just. a cultural practice basically. but rei's family w endeavor........... her abuse was most prominently her own mother, They were VERY conservative, Very “the woman should serve the man” type people. endeavor was looking for someone with the right quirk so like. It’s reasonable to think that rei’s quirk had potential to be as strong as endeavor’s, just with ice. Yet she NEVER became a pro-hero? I think it’s because her parents never even considered it. Her taking an active duty job would have been disgraceful.

And culturally, most arranged marriages are agreements. i don't think Enji stomped in and kidnapped rei. There was an agreement. He was young, too. Like. Rei probably got married at like 18-19...he was no. 2 by 20. He was so driven to be no. 1. He is 46 now, and fuyumi is 23. like he's been grinding his whole career.

So if touya’s older, they had him basically right when they got married. The kids are all about four years apart so it’s probable that he basically had a kid, waited for the quirk to manifest, and then would have another...and fuyumi is the ONLY one who doesn't have that 4 yr age gap. she's closer to touya's age than the other gaps. SO I hc Touya And fuyumi r closer in age like that Bc Touya was supposed to be the Child who Succeeded. his fire quirk WAS strong. and therefore fuyumi was actually just. a planned child. because at that time their marriage wasn't complete shit it was like. something rei was optimistic abt.

for anyone who’s seen game of thrones, there's one scene where sb accuses cersei of hating the king and she talks almost wistfully about how she was so excited to marry him bc of how strong and famous he was and she was so nervous on her wedding night but then stannis stumbled in drunk and came in 2 minutes and said another woman's name and she quickly became disillusioned by the idea of her whole marriage. I compare Rei’s view on her marriage to that scene.

she agreed to marry endeavor and he was a desirable bachelor @ that point. she was excited to try and get to know him and "be a good wife" to him but. his focus on work was always first. and rei, raised how she was and trying to make things work how she was, did her best to maintain what she thought a good home was for HIM. to keep HIM happy. i don't actually think he started out smacking everyone around. i think physically, touya rei and shouto were the people he abused while natsuo and fuyumi never got that.

he was training touya and fuyumi was planned and that was the only "happy" part of the marriage

it was when touya started “failing” that the things got ugly. I think fuyumi has memories of the family being functional and happy because at the beginning they WERE ... they were functional and did things together and acted like a nuclear family. through a child’s perception, that’s what she wanted to go back to.

Anyways, Rei Met enji. And like., She ofc didn’t love him but she at least kind of liked him as a person. When a man like that comes and asks to marry your daughter it’s not some ogre carrying her off, he was a desirable bachelor & her parents LEAPT at it.

Rei was hopeful @ first. She thought "he’s handsome and strong maybe this will be a good marriage". She romanticized him a little bit. She kept thinking about being “good enough” for him. She kept giving him children, cleaning the house, being subservient because she was taught that those things made a good wife. she tried to be a good wife.

every time he got angry or distant she just blamed herself. what did SHE do to upset him. what did SHE do that didn't make him happy enough.

Endeavor didn’t hit her until shouto in my hc ... I think w shouto he just seriously lost his mind bc 3 kids in and no perceived progress. But up until that point, every time he got angry or distant Rei blamed herself. Every time he didn’t want to look at natsuo or called Touya a failure she blamed herself. And like. That fantasy was falling apart.

A resentment started brewing. She was starting to really resent her husband to the point where Touya being so similar to him made her uncomfortable. i do hc that at the time touya looked the most like him / had a temper (obviously we know him being angry would be him lashing out bc he was abused, i'm not saying his temper is wrong or bad). And fuyumi was so similar to HER I think being around her made her sad. I don’t think rei was weak and a pushover at the beginning....She was trying her best and by the very end she was tired

Now going into when she had her youngest child. All the other children disappointed enji and by default were rei’s “failures”. She didn't give him good enough children to make him happy. That was HER fault. She loved her children of course, but being a victim of abuse from her own family would sometimes get distant from them. Rei has very said, distant eyes. she's always been that way.

Whenever enji yelled at them (I don’t think he hit them @ that point in time) she would make excuses for him.

Touya and her were developing a strained relationship bc she’d ask the wrong questions and say the wrong things... “You shouldn’t have made your father mad” and things like that in response to his abuse because in her head smoothing things over is still the best approach. She wasn’t trying to hurt him, she just...wasn’t thinking rationally. She thought she was, but she was speaking from a place of abuse herself. She was taught to keep her head down.

When Touya would get angry he’d look so much like enji she’d visibly flinch away from his yelling. It strained their relationship. Like you know how you can’t take it out on the person who makes you angry so you take it out on someone else? like that. again, 100% wrong on rei's part. she made mistakes and tried too hard to please enji. She lowkey put her fear of enji into Touya as he got older. Tried not to show it but it was so clear he made her uncomfortable. And Fuyumi. She kept thinking fuyumi was gonna end up just like her and hated that.

there's distance with both of them because of those feelings. Then she has shouto and like. He’s her whole world. He’s nothing like her or enji and he’s sweet and he thinks the world of rei...Rei ADORED shouto. Natsuo was also very close with rei because endeavor straight up ignored him.

And the shit starts where he wants to train shouto and she’s trying to stop him. She wants to put her foot down. She doesn’t want him to take her baby and make him like himself. She couldn’t protect Touya, but she won’t let the same thing happen to shouto. SHe starts being defiant. The fighting starts, the hitting starts.

And you remember how right before she burns him she was on the phone with her family? Saying “I can’t take this anymore” over and over...She wanted to leave. That HAS to mean she has called them before which means this entire time every time she had a problem she probably called her mother or something for advice. And like. I’m sure. SURE Her mother was always on the other end telling her to smooth things over. To fix it. To make it right. To be a good wife. Insinuating she was a bad one for having problems in her house.

Which is why rei never left, She didn’t think to. It never crossed her mind outside of being some silly intrusive thought she’d never entertain... She had mental health issues for years, Anxiety and depression that went unchecked and developed into a schizoaffective disorder. She didn’t hear voices but she would just develop this severe irrational paranoia. and it all came to a head when she burned shouto.

when she got to the mental hospital I don’t think she took it well at all, I think she got there and kept insisting she was fine, was in denial that she was sick. I think she kept screaming and begging enji not to take her kids from her. I think she tried refusing medications, Pocketing pills, Hiding shit. Thinking she didn’t need help, she’s not crazy! Trying to leave and walk out. Her first year there was hard because they had to restrain her, give her injections. The whole ordeal.

She was very resistant to care at first. I also hc like. She’s clearly fine and having worked in a mental hospital before a lot of people ARE fine while they’re there but they’re so scared of integrating back into society they just don’t want to leave. She's not so mentally unwell she needs to be inpatient for 10 years that's just. not realistic. She could have been discharged earlier, but she didn’t wanna go back home. She was afraid to live in the real world again. So she stayed of her own choice there.

REI DOESN’T WANT TO LIVE IN THE HOUSE ENJI BUILT. In fact, when she gets out, she sees natsuo and fuyumi argue about who is going to live with her (to take care of her) and rei just quietly says she’s decided not to live with either of them. She loves her kids, she wants to have a place in their lives again somehow, but she’s also ashamed of how Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto all think they have to “save” her. She’s lost all the years to raise them, but if there’s one more thing she can do for them as a mother, it’s stand up on her own two feet and not burden them any more than she already has. She tells them that she’s sorry for being weak, but that she wants things to be different. And because of that, she says she’s gonna live in a group home for women until she can get a job and get her own place. She has help from the hospital and she’s going to use those resources.

The kids try to dispute it, but Rei won’t budge. She knows she failed them as a mother and knows she can’t change her weakness in her past, but she refuses to do that to them any longer. She isn’t a fool --- she knows it will make an already hard transition that much harder, but all she’s ever been is someone’s daughter. someone’s sister. someone’s wife. someone’s mother.

For the first time in her life, she wants to be Rei.

#* HOWL » saved.#IDK WHAT TO TAG THIS AS BUT HERE.#THIS POST IS RLY LONG BUT TAKE THE TIME TO READ IT I STG

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