How Have I Never Thought About How Hawks' Favorite Hero Was Endeavor, When He Himself Acknowledges That

My MHA OCs (and their pookies) in their cultural clothing

Fucking enormous piece that I am SO proud of but my GOD it killed me to make it!!! This was a weekly prompt for a MHA OCs server I'm in and it took me basically the whole week to do it 😭

Don't EVER let me draw this many ppl in one image EVER AGAIN!!!

(And now for the close-ups)

In order we have: Toko and Shoto, Hawks and Angel, and Ren and Dabi (I haven't talked much about anybody besides Toko on this account but psh,,,)

Would you believe that everyone in this image is masc 💀

I refuse to spend more time on this, his jacket is so ugly

🍵

aaaaaaa

im so bummed we didnt get more of hawks and tokoyami in nyc in world heroes mission i think abt it all the time

Some modern au for fem dabihawks weekend over on Twitter 🙏

Twicehawks :3

It’s my turn to post for the @hawksbigbang! (it’s almost 2 am, it’s TECHNICALLY the 22nd and mods said time didn’t matter so no takebacks) This is pic 1/3 for @thegc4life‘s fic:

A Doctor, A Vigilante, and a Runaway

(beta’d by FowlEmily)

which I am obsessed with for… reasons you can probably guess. CHISAKICHISAKICHISAKI

Hawks!

I’ll post the others when the next chapter is up.

Writing Hawks is hard bc he is the living embodiment of Optimism, where I have zero optimism. Rereading my work, deleting half I wrote, and then fretting if I veered too much in the opposite direction.

But no, this bastard placed the fate of Japan in a plan where he just... HOPED Endeavor could read his mind. And fuck you it worked.

So I feel a little better about my writing.

He has his hero suit under the biz suit, a sword at his back, has resumed being cheerful & expressive, & continues to be called “Hawks.” I’m still digesting all of this. Many change but also not much at all.

I'll be actually serious in answering this - yes, some of the development is lacking, but I also think there's a step in the right direction.

I've said over the years a lot of Hawks's issues are over agency and choice, yes?

He spells out here: he cannot refuse. In some ways it's because he as a person (as Hawks/Keigo) could never just sit back and not do anything, but also because they won't let him. Let's remember what else is in this part of 192 because I think it shows how clear the relationship is.

He's bowing. He's acknowledging his subservience here. He's below her.

One of the worries of the manga with Hawks's narrative is that he would always fall into this pit of letting other people make decisions for him no matter what. I strongly believe he essentially also caged himself here because while he could break out, there were consequences.

However, let's look at Hawks's "breaking free", which I think was illustrated to be looked at along with these panels.

While I argue Keigo isn't free here, not of the cage he's imprisoned himself, he is literally free of anyone ordering him to do anything he doesn't want to again. Nagant even mentions he must have been ordered to do horrible things. So, I do want to say that one the biggest issues, it seems, at the end was Keigo not having control of his own life.

While I do think there's more he could be doing, the idea that he can make his own decisions, that he's now so high above everyone that his life is no longer as expendable as it once was, might indeed be an improvement.

I'll save this for a longer meta, but Keigo was always curious for being a caged bird who couldn't fly free in his imagery, but his skills were always impeccable control - over his quirk and over others. The manipulation was really what caught my eye initially. And it provided lovely irony for someone who hasn't ever really controlled his life and desperately believes he can't.

He could have said no. Mera was there, even if he sorely needs a nap. Hawks doesn't have to or need to be the new Prez/Chairman. I think he wants to be, because he realized he can't shape the society he stated he wants all along from where he was. That it was the people running the society who made him false promises and maybe he can do better. Can he? Pardoning La Brava and Gentle is the right step. Retiring the Hero part and likely making "heroes" less prominent in their society is a good step. Allowing Nagant to whatever she likes is a good step. We need to see what happens with Toga/Spinner/Compress as well, because Hawks now controls their fates, too. He has a lot of work to do. He has a LOT to make up for. But he can do more like this, than as a hero. He doesn't need his wings to cause change. Just the mouth and sharp wit he had all along - and that made him interesting in the first place. And that's why I think this final image pulls it together. It is literally the image above, but a very different sort of Keigo. Maybe it's the light-hearted one we should have wanted all along.