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Okay listen, I feel as though Dabi has been too laser focused on one goal or another the majority of his life to really have time for noticing other people unless they are right in front of his face long enough for that focus to shift for a second. Even when he was small and going to school, coming from a home like his and knowing you have to keep it a secret is extremely isolating and makes it very hard to even consider forming attachments. Having to listen to kids and adults make comments about your abusive parent that you know to be false does weird shit to your brain and it makes school almost not feel like a real place with real people in it. I’d imagine it’s considerably worse when that abusive parent happens to be a celebrity, so people are probably talking about him all the time. That all makes it sort of hard to notice other people, especially when you are a very driven little boy who wants most in the world for his family at least to see and acknowledge him, other people I think would come second.

Maybe a few people did catch his eye in passing, but he was just so fucking angry at the world and himself and everyone who couldn’t fucking find the value in him or see what he was going through, I’m not sure he would’ve entertained any interest in anyone very long, if that makes sense?

He and Keigo would’ve been together one on one quite a bit while they knew each other as kids, and when they weren’t one on one, it would’ve been adults with them, which would obviously kind of force him to eventually pay attention to Kei’s existence. And I’m still deciding but I don’t think I want Touya to have ever told him he was Endevor’s kid, which would have let him actually exist as more of a full person, and eventually talk about his home situation, even if he wasn’t allowed to mention names. Keigo would still have talked about endeavor, because of course he would, but I think he’s an empathetic enough person to notice the kind of shutdown that tended to cause in Touya and stopped doing it as often.

All of that to say, I think before sekoto peak, the only person he got know enough for them to actually feel real and for him to realize he was attracted to, was probably Keigo. The rest of his life was training, or training himself after Endeavor ditched him. I also feel like his younger self had quite a bit of a superiority complex, and the fact that Hawks was also young and intensively training and was being held to similarly unrealistically high standards and understood, probably helped.

Moving on to after he ran from Garaki’s orphanage/hospital thing. He’s now too focused on surviving and plotting his revenge and still chasing his family’s validation more than anything, to have time for other people. Again. Where I think Hawks wants the freedom to actually be with someone but knows he can’t, nothing’s stopping Dabi, but he has more important shit to deal with at the moment. I think he also has a very low view of his physical appearance post-burns, I mean he calls himself disgusting multiple times in canon. So that may be a contributing factor, but I think its mostly just that romance [which he probably has a hard time believing in growing up with the example he did] and/or sex probably feel very secondary, and would only be a distraction to his main goals.

Overall tho, I have a hard time imagining him with a woman. I just. It does not make sense in my head. He’s very Keigosexual, but even if he weren’t, him being with a woman feels wrong. All of the women he interacts with in canon fit into the roll of either mom or sister, and I just can’t picture him behaving differently with anyone else.

Thus, I have to add him to the fucking list. Dearest media maker people. Stop doing this. It’s a stupid trope. Or keep the trope, I don’t care, but like. The only non white person on this list AND THE LAST is fucking Touya. Do better.

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That leads us neatly into Touya and gender.

Transfem Dabi has my heart and T4T hotwings has my fucking soul. T4T hotwings with transmasc Hawks and transfem Dabi is one of the main reasons I can’t see Hawks as gay. I didn’t want to go into it before I’d made this post and a proper explanation of how I see Touya and gender though, but the other post has now been updated, and I am now going to explain.

Touya’s backstory is one I think a lot of trans people can probably relate to, as unfortunate as that is. Losing your family because they refused to acknowledge you, finding a new name for yourself [also cremation is a very trans coded name, seriously T^T], your appearance changing to the point they’d no longer recognize you if they saw you, then going on to amass a found family of your own.

I’m gonna go into Transmasc Dabi first.

To begin, I love headcannoning him this way and that Dr. Garaki did his top surgery, and I think it is perfectly plausible, if you mess with some things in his childhood first. I put the two quotes below, not as direct evidence of why Dabi couldn’t be transmasc, I myself was a horrid tiny misogynist who parroted my dad’s bullshit like this all the time as a small child. But that’s the thing, he’s most likely only saying these things because he’s heard them from Endeavor. And if these are Endeavors opinions, he never would have even considered an afab Touya as a potential successor.

So in order for canon[-ish] compliant transmasc Dabi to work, either Endeavor would have to be less misogynistic [difficulty level: impossible] or Touya could never have been set up as an heir to begin with. You could still get potentially similar rage and resentment from him, especially after Shouto was born when it became clear all Endeavor ever wanted was a successor, which then brought on the same sort of “I’ve been here this whole time, it could’ve been me, why wasn’t I good enough??” type thing. People don’t say he has eldest daughter syndrome for no reason.

Now on to Transfem Dabi

Who could be very canon compliant actually! I mean the only thing you’d really be changing is that she transitions after she escapes Garaki’s hospital thing. She frankly may end up connecting with the League through Mags; maybe they meet going to the same person selling E

Now that I’m thinking about it, an au where Magne takes in the disaster area that is teenage Dabi and helps her get at least some of her shit together would be precious. I may have to draw something like that at some point 9-9 And then maybe they end up going and joining the league together-

In an AU where Dabi and Kei still had known each other as kids, him finding out who exactly she is would just be SO SHVSJDTN I’ve met up years later with with another trans person I knew when we were both pre transition and just. Gods. I don’t even know how to describe that feeling. To have been separately growing and changing, and then to go meet them again and get to see them living as their actual self finally it’s just. Mmmmmm

And Dabi just looking at Kei and being like dude wtf why did you not tell me this???

Okay, finally Dabi in This AU

Dabi in this au. . . I think some flavor of genderqueer, I’m just not sure what exactly. I think he’s fine being perceived as a cis man and that it doesn’t bother him, but also that he wouldn’t mind being referred to as she or they. It’s more a matter of just. Not really giving a shit though, y’know? Idk maybe some form of agender? Something like that

I’ve run out of steam tho. I may add to this post later, but for now, this’s what I’ve got. I’m tired.

Goodbye.

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Why exactly do I think hawks is bi, you ask? To start with, he gives off ex sapphic tomboy energy. I don’t really know how to elaborate on that sentence, he just does.

I feel like the commission probably offered him the option to have a few discrete sexual encounters [with NDAs and shit] to try and fulfill his needs without him actually being in a relationship publicly and losing the illusion of availability. But given the fact that he hasn’t allowed himself to consider the possibility of ever having a partner, let alone being permitted to have sex, maybe the idea of hooking up with someone he doesn’t know scared him too much. Not to mention the fact that it would all just be another commission orchestrated situation. Maybe he’s somewhere on the demisexual spectrum, or maybe it’s just his upbringing, or maybe both. Who knows.

I think he can and does experience attraction without knowing someone tho, but has learned to suppress it over the years knowing he’s not allowed to do anything with it, which probably has lead to a lot of shame which sucks.

The primary reason I think he’s bi tho, is t4t dabihawks. Because of course it is. Transfem Dabi AUs have a special place in my heart and I think they would still very much be together. Actually in this au, I’m not even completely sure he’s 100% cis guy man. Maybe agender or something but really doesn’t give a shit what people call him and is chill being perceived as a cis dude? Idk.

Anyway. I do understand headcanoning him as gay, especially since we aren’t really shown evidence that he’s attracted to women in canon, [besides the fact that he just sounds like he’s flirting with everyone he talks to, but I don’t think that’s anything more than his persona] and that the commission probably thinks it wouldn’t be good for his reputation or whatever if the world knew he liked men, so it makes sense why we wouldn’t know about it, but. Idk. I just feel like he does have the potential to like women, even if it isn’t as common as for him to like men or other gender diverse people. So. He’s going on the list.

[edited some since originally posted because I had some slightly more coherent thoughts about it]

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Alright, now that we’ve gotten that shit show out of the way.p

How Hawks being Trans in World Might Work

CW: overview on a trans guy’s childhood and medical history, transphobia mentioned

Dilemma Number 1: His Name

alright, so. he’d have to be going by Keigo, which is very much a masc name, by the time the commission got him. I propose

- he begins insisting that he is a boy from a very early age, probably from around three, and is baffled by other people somehow thinking he’s a girl all the time

- it becomes such a big deal that his mom is finally just like fuck it. whatever. I don’t have energy to fight you on this anymore, sure, you’re a boy. And then is like- well, if you’re not a girl, you can’t go around with a name like that, so we gotta call you something else.

- maybe it’s one of the reasons his dad abuses him. maybe letting kei have that is one of the reasons he abuses his mom.

- by the time she sells him off to the commission, it’s just second nature to call him her son, and just. Neglects to mention that he’s trans, because we’re already selling him, who gives a shit about his safety.

that brings us to

Dilemma Number 2: When the HPSC Realized

Because if they’d realized early on I feel like they would have tried their best to either squash it, or and if that didn’t work, given him HRT through puberty, so he wouldn’t have ended up with aforementioned hourglass figure and hips, so

- honestly, maybe just medical malpractice. Pediatricians doing brief genital inspections every few years to make sure everything is fine down there is pretty standard practice, but maybe the commission thought that would make them predatory [because obviously they weren’t already]. Or maybe they’d already determined the playboy persona they wanted him to have and that they weren’t intending on ever allowing him to be in a relationship, so what did it matter anyway?

- and if they didn’t know, he’d just continue on as he was, unhindered

- I think Touya would’ve been around eight or nine when the two initially met, making Kei seven or eight, and then the last time they saw each other would’ve been just after Rei was hospitalized, which would’ve made them twelve and thirteen

- so when Touya last saw him, Hawks probably would’ve already had at least some chest development and would’ve been binding, but nobody would’ve expected his voice to have dropped yet, so unless they talked about it, *which is very possible- haven’t decided yet-, there’s not a whole lot that wouldn’ve automatically alerted him to anything

- I do think Kei probably stopped taking his shirt off around people at the age of eleven tho

- I’d say the commission probably became aware of the situation shortly after Touya’s disappearance, because even if he was trying to avoid people seeing his chest, they’d eventually have to do at least partial physical exams and would need access to his chest and back for spine and heart checks.

- they might initially think it was gynecomastia [i mean technically it is, that’s how I referred to my chest pre top surgery], but with further testing realized he was trans.

and finally

Dilemma Number 3: Treatment

- Hawks is maybe thirteen or fourteen at this point, only five years away from his debut, and most likely he would’ve been so interwoven into future plans, his persona already well into development, and on a very clear trajectory to become what we know him as today, that it would’ve been more of a hassle for the commission to have to change everything, than to just let him proceed with medical transition

- so he goes on HRT when he’s fifteen, [it took a bit because the commission had sit and deliberate on this Very Hard Decision] and they continue as though nothing’s changed

- he gets top surgery at 17, a year before his debut

- and he is coached [unnecessarily] on how to never let that information see the light of day, and heavily shamed about it all

*if Dabi never did learn that hawks was trans, when he finally does, he is very much going to Magne [who is not dead in this au, fuck you Horikoshi] to just be like hi. y’know that hypothetical crush we talked about months ago, yeah, well, if that hypothetical crush was hypothetically trans, how might I specifically support them regarding that? Probably in a more convoluted roundabout way than that though.

Getting to see Hawks, a man who is not portrayed as particularly feminine and is short and shaped like me in media is really really nice. Getting to have gender envy over someone who’s body type actually reflects my own has greatly helped with my dysphoria and body image and he’s just so fucking important to me.

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Which brings me to the final section of this post:

Examples of Hawks’ Hips ass and Hourglass Figure, for your viewing pleasure, none of which are edited apart from color grading, he just looks like that

I will probably be adding more at some point

Honestly one of my favorite concept sketch turnarounds I’ve done in a long time lmao- look at their little blob selves