Something That Never Fails To Make Me Sad About Touya, And Something That Puts Him Apart From His Siblings,

something that never fails to make me sad about touya, and something that puts him apart from his siblings, is that he did have some semblance of love and affection from enji early on (even if that affection was mostly his dad training him), and he was the only todoroki kid to know that version of their father. to give a young child all your attention and passing down your aspirations to them, putting in their head that that is their purpose, only to then rip it away in the blink of an eye while saying it's for their own good without actually talking to them about it. there are so many things wrong with that.

was touya's quirk compatible with his body? no. but there is support gear that could help lessen the damage, even if only a little, that endeavor would have been able to invest in if he cared but he didn't, he saw that touya wouldn't be able to be what he wanted him to be on his own, that the expectations he put on his eldest child didn't disappear, so his solution was to replace him.

his face when natsuo is born is not an expression a 5 y/o should have when they get another sibling (look at fuyumi), but he does because he knows the purpose of why natsuo was born, because it's the same thing he was told was his purpose basically since he was born until he couldn't fulfill that role. then when shouto was born it just got worse, because all touya knew was that if his quirk wasn't enough, if he wasn't enough, wasn't better than shouto, then he was a failure and useless to his father. half of the time when you see young touya it's of him begging his dad to just look at him, because he knows his worth to his father is based on his quirk and it's strength, knows that it's the only reason he's alive and his parents are married.

to him, shouto being trained, no matter how brutal, meant their father cared about him.

(i know this has probably been said so many times before but i was rereading the todoroki family chapters and had Thoughts and Feelings)