if you're going to rely on words alone

Name: juli
Pronouns: they/them or she/her
Contact: thessjuli on plurk or discord
Triggers: none
Other Characters: nope!

Link to Invitation: here


Name: Shoto Todoroki
Canon: My Hero Academia
Canonpoint: Post-season 6 episode No Man Is an Island
Age: 16

Powers & Abilities: Half-Cold Half-Hot Quirk


1. What is their worst fear? Why do they fear it?
There's little Shoto fears for himself anymore, having overcome so many trials and done so much soul-searching, made so many mistakes and learned from them. More than anything, he's learned to reach out to others and form strong bonds, and that's where his worst fear lives: that things will fall apart and no one will be able to hold them together. That people will turn away from each other or be lost to chaos and destruction. That everyone will go their separate ways and try to fight their battles alone, or be scattered to the winds and forced into the kind of isolation that defined Shoto's life up until he met his classmates.

He fears this because it was the state of his own family for most of his life - bonds that should have been his bedrock of support were brittle and barbed instead, each of them trying to play a role in a household that was already broken before Shoto was even born. For a long time, this solitude and the cracked foundation upon which Enji Todoroki built the hellish nightmare he called a family were all Shoto knew. Now that he's discovered how to be a part of something bigger than himself, to reach out to others and let them into his own heart, to stand by their sides and welcome them to stand by his, he never wants to see that nightmare come to pass again.


2. What kind of person could they love? Do they have any bonds already?
Love is difficult for Shoto to recognize or express because there wasn't much of it to be had when he was growing up. His parents' marriage was a loveless one made strictly for Quirk pairing and he was nothing but clay to mold for his father, who forced him to stay distant from his own siblings. He did (and does) love his mother, but even that was fraught enough that he didn't see or communicate with her for years. Uncomplicated love isn't something he's known much of yet in his young life, whether familial, platonic, or romantic.

The sort of person he could choose to love would value him as a person and his feelings and dreams more than his Quirk, lineage, or success, and be interested enough in knowing who he is under the surface to be patient with his introverted ways and lack of social savvy. They would also push him to be his best self, just as he would push them. They would possess compassion, dreams of their own, and the courage to stand up for their beliefs.


3. What is their greatest weakness? What makes them weak?
Shoto's greatest weakness is his difficulty with building interpersonal relationships. He's had to put in significant, active effort to make himself emotionally and socially available enough to make friends and be a peer to his classmates. Sometimes, he misses the forest for the trees, getting too caught up in his own feelings and worries to think about the bigger picture or notice what other people might be experiencing until it's pointed out to him. He's better with practical concerns and finding solutions than with heartfelt expressions of feeling, which sometimes meshes poorly with the needs of others during times of high stress and volatile emotions, and can sometimes lead to him second-guessing himself in situations where he feels strongly about something that has no clear solution.

By his very nature, Shoto is an embodiment of duality. It's most obviously expressed in his Quirk and appearance, but it extends to his personality, too - particularly since fire-based Quirks are well-known for their explicit connection to the wielder's emotional state, which is clearly true of Shoto's ice half as well. Where these two opposites clash can be a weak point for him, and he's always had difficulty reaching a state of balance because he spent so long rejecting and avoiding his left side. Only recently has he begun to accept the half-hot part of himself and let it out as both power and feeling. He can become weak when he lets one side or the other take over too much, either literally in battle or figuratively in how he handles himself.


4. What would be their worst way to die?
CW: child abuse, domestic abuse, mental breakdowns (also season 6 MHA anime spoilers, just in case)
In a way that causes despair or harm to others. One of the most traumatic experiences of his life was when, as a child, he overheard his mother tell his grandmother that his left side was unbearable for her to look at and that she couldn't handle raising him anymore; when he made his presence known, she poured boiling water from a kettle over the left side of his face, at which point Endeavor put her in a mental institution. Shoto blamed him, not his mother, for the incident, but he spent years avoiding his mother because he thought reminders of his existence would hurt her. By contrast, when he decided he still wanted to be a hero despite fearing and hating his father as a kid, his chosen role model was All Might, the Symbol of Peace - someone whose very presence inspired hope and whose signature declaration was simply I am here. Shoto is very willing to recognize, own up to, and make up for his own mistakes and failures, but he can't stand causing harm to others due to things out of his control.

More recently, when Dabi revealed his true identity as Toya Todoroki and Shoto fought him, he went out of his way to hurt Shoto by gleefully announcing that he would be happy if any of his siblings were killed - and especially wanted to kill Shoto himself, as his "replacement" - specifically because of how it would break Endeavor. It affected Shoto deeply.


Samples: TDM sample 1 and TDM sample 2