Chapter Text
Shoto Todoroki often wished that he were a less liminal person, he seemed to always exist in the in-between. He was half and half and it seemed he always would be; fire and ice, red and white, scarred and unscathed, hero and victim, like his mother and like his father. He longed to exist outside of thresholds, to be more definite, to pick a side.
It seemed to him that the world was the opposite, everywhere he looked seemed so definite – so divided, so black and white. The world would never shut up about heroes and villains, good and evil, quirk and quirkless both sides screaming at each other that they are the best, like children in a playground.
So where did he fit in?
He would look at himself and wonder if when the time came, he would be able to fall so perfectly into his own role, or if he would trip up and land somewhere in between hero and villain and be stuck there forever, a piece of waste discarded by heroes and villains alike.
They were not so different in his eyes, he knew first-hand heroes would not hesitate to hurt, to burn, to kill. How are villains any different?
Sometimes liminality does not seem so bad. He would rather be some odd mix of two contrasting things than to be shoved into the role of one bad thing. But still he longed for the simplicity of fitting in, of being able to look into the mirror and see someone so ordinary and unremarkable. He spoke of this desire to Fuyumi once and she told him he was being deeply ungrateful – that he should be happy to be so ‘interesting’ and ‘memorable’. But could he not find a compromise? – he could still be ‘remarkable’ with both sides of his face matching.
When he was younger, he had locked himself in a cupboard for a week with nothing but a huge tub of slightly burned rice and the first book he had grabbed. It was Touya’s copy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the original English, and since he had already been privately tutored to fluency in the language, he was able to read the text with only some difficulty. He had read the book over and over and over again not just in that week but throughout his life.
‘when the battle’s lost, and won.’
In Macbeth, the idea of liminality is shown throughout, and it had always fascinated Shoto. The space between good and evil, man and woman, the supernatural and nature was explored in detail, and he had quickly become obsessed with it. Fuyumi had never hesitated to tell him he was an unusual child, but she was always particularly questionable about his new hobby. He would follow her around as she prepared food for their family and talk for hours about how Lady Macbeth momentarily existed in a point between male and female, something seemingly impossible. While she was washing out rice, he would rant about how she asks the spirits to ‘unsex her’ and proceeds to act in more stereotypically masculine way, even going as far to question Macbeths own masculinity as she convinced him to be the king and argued with him as equals. She would cut the carrots and he would talk about how at the end of the play she is left behind by Macbeth and falls back into the ‘weaknesses’ of femininity, ultimately going mad and killing herself – Shakespeare’s, or perhaps nature itself’s, ultimate punishment for trying to escape her role.
Fuyumi would just stare at him, pity in her eyes and ask him why he could not be more like the other kids his age.
He did not feel ‘interesting’ or ‘memorable’ in those moments, just felt like he was an alien to his family, speaking a language they would never bother to learn, running in a race where his legs were tied together and everyone else had a head start.
In the study of anthropology, liminality is defined as the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.
UA was his rite of passage; it would take him from child to hero. But sometimes Shoto does not want to be a hero, what happens then - would he exist in ambiguity forever?
He was no longer a child, yesterday a woman at the shop called him ‘young man’ when he helped her get a can of soup from the bottom shelf that she could no longer bend down to get, and he had been given his own set of house keys only a few weeks ago. The clothes he wore when he was a child no longer fit him and he no longer laughed at the jokes in the book that was once his favourite. But he was not a hero either, he still had to sleep with at least one light on and he still could not reach the top of the doorway to the training room like Touya always used to do.
After he gains his status of ‘hero’, would he forget his pre-ritual life? Natsuo once told him the human brain contains what is estimated to be around 2.5 petabytes of memory, there is a limit to what he can remember, an eventual barrier to his memories. Eventually will he forget all his pre-ritual life, who will he become? Will he become him?
If memory is stored, then it must be able to be measured. How is it measured – in seconds, in hours, in days, in bytes, in words?
When his memory is full which ones go first? Can he choose?
What happens if the memory is vital – if you forget how to walk or talk? Or are those skills so deeply ingrained that they cannot be forgotten?
“Shoto Todoroki?”
Are memories lost chronologically or based on importance? How can importance be valued in something as fickle as a memory?
Thirteen days ago, when he was reciting a text so deeply ingrained into his memory that even the thought of it filled him with a calming sense of familiarity, he could not remember Act 5, Scene 5, Line 20 and his flames burned brightly with the panic he caused himself.
Memory cannot be based in importance if he could forget something as important as Macbeth. It also disproved the idea that things repeated or taught from a young age cannot be forgotten.
Act 5, Scene 5, Line 20 - a line that Shoto had recited to himself over and over again since he had forgotten it - stated that tomorrow will keep coming every day ‘To the last syllable of recorded time’. It suggested that time is measured in syllables rather than seconds, then maybe memory was the same for they are so similar. That suggests that words themselves are what is filling up his brain, each syllable taking up a byte.
He had been taught to never use contractions, to speak properly and fully - what if this filled up his mind faster?
Do those who speak more forget faster? Do they blather and blabber on until they can’t even remember the most basic of things? Will they forget how to walk? To talk? Are humans destined to talk and talk and talk until they forget how to do just that? What do they do then – are they left with nothing but their rotting bodies and a head full of fading memories? Is that their ‘last syllable’ of time?
Are those surrounded by people destined to forget faster? Do the words of other people fill up your brain until you cannot remember who you are? Will it happen to him?
The quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.
What if he never reaches the threshold, if he runs out of time, out of memory, out of syllables before then. Is life death’s true threshold, with everyone existing in between the two destined to die eventually?
How can the world around him exist so happily in the in-between that they are forced into? Can people have multiple rites of passages, multiple rituals that change them from one thing to-
“SHOTO TODOROKI!”
He started and turned from where he had been staring out the window up to see who had spoken and quickly found himself looking directly into the dark eyes of his new homeroom teacher, glowing red with anger. He plastered on his brightest smile and looked up at his teacher, Fuyumi had drilled into his head the importance of first impressions earlier this morning. “Yes?”
His teacher stared unblinkingly at him, tilting his head at him in disappointment as if he just could not believe what he was looking at. “Can you at least attempt to look like you are paying any form of attention to me when I am talking?”
His homeroom teacher, a tall lanky man who looked like he had not gotten a full night’s sleep for several years, had introduced himself as Aizawa. His hair was something his father would have scoffed at and called unprofessional, and he was wearing a black jumpsuit and white scarf, his monochromatic outfit combined with his icy glare making him look like a villain from the old school hero comics Touya used to read. He had spared little time for introductions before he had immediately launched into a long speech on the intricacies and dangers of becoming a hero, Shoto making the now-regretted decision to tune him out in favour of his own thoughts.
“Sorry Aizawa-sensei.” He said bowing his head slightly and trying to ignore the laughs from some of his new classmates. He got the feeling he had not made the best first impression.
Today was his first official day of UA, excluding the orientation day that had taken place the day before, that had consisted of many tests and, in Shoto’s mind, did not count. The day was mostly a blur to him, he had found an interesting documentary on the influence of Shakespeare’s plays in modern western media the night before and had stayed up all night watching it, failing to notice just how long it was. He wondered if any of his classmates had tried to speak with him yesterday, he did not remember any trying but his classmates all seemed to know each other’s names so their must have been some form of introductions. He remembered that his teacher had promised to expel whoever came last in the test but there were still twenty people sitting around him so nothing extreme must have happened.
He had never attended actual school, forced into private education by his father. As a result, he had never really been around people his own age and, according to Fuyumi, he ‘had all the social skills of a piece of soggy cardboard’. Going off that unfortunate combination it was not all that surprising that he had never had a friend. It wasn’t for a lack of trying; in the few times he had been allowed outside he had introduced himself to people, but they tended to get one look at him and quickly walk in the other direction. Natsuo had told him it was due to his fashion sense, which he once described as a grandfather who had just discovered colour - his siblings, the ones that were still alive at least, had always had a way with words.
He was uncomfortably aware that most of his classmates would probably see him as weird. He saw the way his siblings looked at him in confusion after he had said something particularly odd in their eyes, looking up at each other above his head helplessly. He hated it, it made him feel dumb.
He didn’t want to complain though, he couldn’t - he had made them deal with him enough already.
The quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.
Today he begins his transition to the status he will hold after the rite is compete, theoretically getting rid of the quality of ambiguity that comes with liminality. By entering UA he has passed the middle stage of his rite of passage and he would willingly admit that he had high expectations. His whole life he had told himself that once he reaches UA everything will make sense and he will finally be happy.
But he was at UA and still nothing made sense.
The quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage
The quality of ambiguity or disorientation
ambiguity or disorientation
“Todoroki!” He yet again looked up to meet the disappointed eyes of his teacher, “I suggest you refrain from ignoring me if you want to remain in this class. That goes for the rest of you too: becoming a hero takes focus.”
He stared over the class for a few moments, his tired eyes reaching deep into the souls of all twenty of them, clutching their attention tightly in a firm grasp. The class collectively sat up straighter in their chairs, each member to scared to even take a breath in fear of angering their new teacher. He seemed to look at Shoto in particular, making him squirm slightly in his seat.
“Present Mic will be here soon for your first lesson. Please behave.”