About Hawks
His agency’s floors are so polished that you can see your reflection:
Hawks began investigating the nomu before he was assigned the mission to infiltrate the LoV:
^^ Tokoyami’s first internship with Hawks was post-Sports Festival, during the Hero Killer Arc. Hawks was assigned the infiltration mission post-Kamino.
Hawks is noted by the HPSC and by Endeavor for how much he snoops around, and Hawks pretty much tells Midoriya that the secret to being speedy is to anticipate what’s about to happen, which requires staying up to date.
He lets his fans touch his wings without asking:
His fans also tend to be on the young side.
He makes the gesture of removing his visor when he’s being particularly honest:
Once his visor is on or off, I don’t see a distinct relationship to his honesty, but when it transitions, it’s pretty distinct.
He gestures a lot with his hands:
*zips his mouth to indicate he’ll shut up* *unzips it later to speak*
*gestures for Endeavor to come back*
…whatever this gesture is
this gesture
*points at his eye to indicate what Endeavor nearly lost*
*holds out two fingers while talking about how they’re the top two heroes*
*gesturing* *covers his mouth* (not snitching, apparently)
*turns up his hands and winks at his boss to chide her for being disingenuous*
…and whatever this gesture is.
*spreads out his hands to emphasize sincerity*
He sticks his hands in his pockets when he’s feeling broody:
He also has tiny ankles, and either wears leggings or tall socks.
He’s apparently followed while in the PLF HQ, in addition to his cameras.
He rubs the back of his neck when he feels (mildly) guilty:
Rubs his chin while he thinks:
He uses finger guns ^^ and:
He has been known to fling books at kids. He’s counting on them to have fast reflexes, apparently.
He taps his feet (and puts one hand on his hip) when he feels impatient:
He doesn’t like waiting for his sidekicks to catch up to him.
He also seems to know where he’s going next—either the police called him to tell him that there was a rampage in a cantina, or Hawks can sense it with his feathers.
His sidekicks have given up on matching Hawks’s speed:
And Hawks didn’t think of himself as as a teacher:
This is presumably because Hawks is working towards a future where heroes sit back and relax, so slowing himself down to train future heroes presupposes failure.
But Hawks likes it when people try to keep up with him:
He partially picked Tokoyami as his intern specifically because he thought Tokoyami had the potential to keep up.
Hawks appreciates Tokoyami’s indignant determination.
He also seems amused/intrigued by Bakugo’s out-of-the-blue assertion he that was faster than Hawks.
And he grows to admire the next generation for progressing even faster than he did.
In other words, Hawks wants to be surpassed so that he can be ranked in the twenties instead of at #2:
He doesn’t want to sick back and let everyone else do the work, he wants to work WITH other people, but he refuses to slow down to do it. He wants people to reach and exceed his level.
In general, Hawks is impressed by ambition and determination:
Maybe because he fears he lacks both?
(^^ Gentle Criminal.)
Maybe because he’s lonely and wishes he could lean on someone dependable?
Logically speaking, every time Hawks flaps his wings, he must stir up enough air to blow his hair and clothes around (as well as others’):
Though personally, the musculature of his wings is so small I think he flies via telekinesis.
It’s hard for me to see them as anything other than vestigial. Which has symbolic implications, since it would mean Hawks was never meant to fly.
Hawks believes that the sight of his back doesn’t, or shouldn’t, reassure people:
Which is important because his wings are located on his back.
He tries to seem like an idiot:
He enjoys getting under people’s skin:
He also calls the PLF the Liberation Army, and he teaches Twice to do the same.
*leans in towards Shouto while still staring tauntingly at Endeavor*
Shouto is also a little starstuck by him. (Note: I’m not sure if Hawks is saying Shouto because it’s his hero name or his actual name. The suffix used is -kun.)
But he tells the truth in circumspect ways intended to be misinterpreted:
So one of his tells for when he’s lying is that he stops fooling around and starts speaking forthrightly:
and maybe??
As a kid, he intervened in a car accident that involved what looks to be an eighteen-wheeler and at least two cars:
Barring new information, the people are implied to be total strangers. They look like at least one dad-mom-son trio, a man (truck driver?), and two young women. It’s unspecified why Hawks was present at the accident—was he flying by? Was he in another car? Was he in one of the involved cars? Was he just hanging about for some reason? He also apparently left the scene of the accident after saving people.
Because the accident is emphasized as high-speed, it’s probable that Hawks did not have time to think before he saved them. So, he matches All Might’s assertion that the greatest heroes showed signs of it since childhood—their bodies moved before they could think.
Hawks disapproves of Stain’s ideology:
Stain wanted heroes to practice perfect altruism, like All Might—but Hawks professes to be not such a fan of All Might, and his desire for heroes to have mundane, leisurely lives suggests a desire for heroes to be ordinary people.
He hates depending on others to read between the lines:
He prefers to steer their actions by provoking them. Considering that passing the message to Endeavor relied on Endeavor knowing Hawks well enough, Hawks could also be reacting to the discomfort of being close enough to do that.
He almost never removes his headphones, not even during one-on-one conversations.
The only times I’ve noticed him with his headphones off are when he was seeing Endeavor off, when he paid Jeanist a visit, when he was on the phone with Dabi, and at the PLF rally. At those times, the headphones were lowered to be around his neck. (Except maybe at the rally, his collar hides his neck.)
He carries around some sort of towel:
Despite telekinetically manipulating his feathers, Hawks likes to wield them in his hands:
(Which winds up looking pretty funny when he lets go of them and they don’t fall.)
*releases the feather and it just floats there*
*hang on a sec while I get something out of my pocket*
Interestingly, by wielding these swordlike feathers by hand, Hawks keeps two of his biggest, toughest feathers in reserve near himself. Also, he uses these feathers for slices, not stabs.
His tendency to hold these feathers in reserve nearly paid off when he seemed willing to ambush Dabi (and fail his infiltration mission)Â in order to save Endeavor.
Hawks uses precise terminology to describe his feathers:
Primary feather, covert feather, etc.
He has distinct, natural marks at both corners of each eye:
Probably invoking the facial markings some birds have.
He wears the symbol of the Hero Commission.
I wonder if there might be an intentional pattern to when Horikoshi draws him with the symbol showing vs not showing.
