Another For The @hawksbigbang! This One Is For @transhawks‘s Fic, Minutes To Midnight.

villain kids!!

do you ever think about how Hawks had the biggest failure in the manga? Like if the core theme is that people who are left of society need others to reach out to them and that if people genuinely try to understand others there can be a connection, essentially the character and narrative who completely failed this theme is Keigo and Jin. Keigo failed Jin. Like, Keigo's even been the mouthpiece for this theme of connectedness in the manga and bringing people together (his comments when Deku was brought in), several times over, and I keep thinking of how it will look when Shigaraki is saved and reached out to by Deku, how this will look when Touya is finally home with his family, when Himiko gets to have a normal night with Ochako and just be a normal girl. Keigo's just going to have to live with the very apparent realization that the kids succeeded where he failed and that Jin's blood is on his hands needlessly. He'll look at the kids and the villains they saved and look around himself and realize he could have had that, too, if only he'd tried to connect. Hawks has always been a really tragic character, and I know from the start we were into this idea of a boy thrown into tragic circumstances with no freedom out of them, but I think there's something to be said that the biggest failure in this manga, and likely of his life, was due to his own actions and buying into his own narrative of never having another choice.

Sth sth Takamis and overly empty spaces as a trauma response

Sth sth feeling safe in places that would look jarringly barren to a normal person, because such places are so radically different from Hawks's childhood home

Sth sth Hawks pretending that the past is in the past and he's over it but having such clear signs of overcorrection

I'm so sorry but ever since that teen Hawks page was translated on twitter I can't stop thinking about it. like. Mera treated him like a person. he was assigned to Hawks when he was already a teenager. did no one treat him like a person before then? was it such an uncommon occurrence that it seemed special when someone did? I mean, they didn't even let him have a person's name. they gave him a hero name, and to the HPSC, that was the name of a tool. of a product. they basically bought a child and treated him so coldly that Mera stood out to him because he treated him like a person. the bars of my enclosure.

Bird man

( bro im fighting with art block so bad rn )

My prediction on what was Scissors-kun's deal ended up being pretty correct: he was indeed abused - horrifically so, being tied up and locked away - and then abandoned by his family during the war because of his quirk. Except Horikoshi actually exceeded my expectations and revealed that it wasn't because of behavioral issues (not that it would've justified it! Never. but I was imagining a parallel to Toga), it was only because his quirk was a random mutation, and also his family sewn his mouth shut.

Because thing is. The set up for something like this was here all along. I predicted it based on things that were already happening in the story. Continued fear of 'abnormal' quirks; horrific domestic violence enacted due to this; Heroes never catching wind of this because this was from a family that weren't consider 'Villains', so this was Scissors-kun's normal. And this normal broke and the dark secret got revealed only because something extraordinary happened - the country collapsed. Scissors-kun family left him, so he was able to escape.

But... none of this is apparently going to be addressed. The happy ending is Scissors-kun being found and helped, instead of any widespread, far-reaching, systemic change that would prevent shit like this. No, 'but it's obviously going to be addressed off-screen' doesn't count. The story brought up on-page and explicitly that quirk discrimination is a thing, that abusive quirk counseling/treatment is a thing, that abuse and abandonment of children is a thing. I expect the solutions to be on-page and explicit as well, and not just 'if I reach out when it's not my business, then...!'

(Also. it is their fucking business. They're government employees. Their job is to save people and guarantee the welfare of all citizens. it is very much their business.)

I'm not upset that Scissors-kun isn't Shigaraki; never really expected that in the first place. Shigaraki died. Deku fucking failed. I've come to terms with it. I'm not upset that Shigaraki wasn't saved, but this kid was; not even in the meta-, story-, character-sense, because, fine, he's replacement goldfish Tenko, but I'll take the 'we'll do better next time', it's a good thing this kid gets saved, it's what Shigaraki would've wanted, it's what the League fought to destroy for. It's even good that The Old Lady has become a better person.

What baffles me is that this save occurs pretty much because of nothing except the purported 'What Deku Showed The World That Day (When He Killed A Man)'. This save isn't because Heroes and civilians have more awareness of victims. This save isn't because society is promising to stop quirk discrimination. This save isn't because Ochako learns of Toga's abusive parents and so sets out to tackle this issue of quirk-related domestic violence. This save isn't because Deku has lead a new movement to stop bystander inaction. (Moreover, about 'bystander inaction' - Scissors-kun lists 5 other people outside his immediate family of Dad/Mom/Sis who knew about him... and did nothing. His uncle, his aunt, his grandparents, his great-grandfather - if they didn't directly help sew Scissors-kun mouth shut, they still turned a blind eye and never alerted authorities. (Tenko explicitly states this as one of the factors that led to him lashing out, but I guess the story forgot about it long ago, so. Even with the memories sharing of Chapter 417 and 418, Deku never sees this.))

As I said above, none of the issues that lead to Scissors-kun being in the circumstances he was in has been addressed.

This save isn't because any random civilian has decided to help - because any rando can and should help! This isn't even because Old Lady came to the guilt-ridden conclusion herself to do better.

This save is because Old Lady, carrying the burden of guilt, watched Deku kill the kid she didn't save all those years ago (tho she doesn't know it) and is apparently inspired by this act of "I can't help but do something" to finally take action (as helpfully narrated by Hawks). It's not because civilians have done any deep thinking about the rot that permeates their culture; it's because Deku was a hard-working murderer on TV. There were dozens of other people on the street. Real change should've been a whole crowd of people seeing Scissors-kun and wanting to help - someone giving him a blanket or offering him shoes while another calls for an ambulance???

But whatever. I just want to state this: the first thing that truly saved Scissors-kun was Shigaraki's destruction. Without it, his family would've stayed in that house and kept him locked up. It's really only because of Shigaraki's destruction that Scissors-kun even got the opportunity to find freedom and get his hand held.

what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if what if wh-

when hawks’ fans spot him talking on the phone and they’re like omg is that your GIRLFRIEND on the phone???? and he’s like haha that’s a secret :D and it’s DABI ⬅️ we need to put horikoshi in jail 😑