just a fan birb

When Todoroki Fuyumi, parentified since childhood, shoulders all the domestic labour to "make things easier" for others and for herself in a home that has never felt safe and has never met her or her loved ones' needs, who won't move out because taking care of others is how she helps, what she's good at, and because someone still needs her - she is, in her own way, sitting inside a birdcage with an open door. Because as miserable as her current situation is, at least she knows this role. She is needed, even if not particularly wanted, and sometimes she is even appreciated. She doesn't know how to live for herself, because she doesn't know who she is without the people she has taken care of all her life, without the relationships and the role she defines herself by. She was never given the environment to explore her identity separate from her family, was never supported in her own wants and wishes. Her wants and happiness are entirely dependent on those around her, entirely shaped by the role she takes on, because she has never had anything else. Even though she is grown now, she was never taught how to fly. No one was there to teach her or push her from the nest, and without that push, who would dare risk such a fall? And people need her. They're depending on her. She's the only one holding up splintering beams, holding together the walls. Who will take her place if she leaves? No one else can do it. No one else will. So she stays. And she dreams that one day things will be okay again, and maybe then she will finally give herself permission to discover what wings are like. Maybe then she will let herself learn who she is.