#𓆩☼𓆪 headcanon. ⸻ the guy who's gonna win this whole fucking thing. ༄

[mskwtz]

e.li is going to uc berkeley college of environmental design, majoring in architecture with a minor in geospatial information science and technology. he didn’t want to leave california, not wanting to be too far from home, but going to berkeley gives him space to be independent at almost 6 hours away from encino. the campus has a martial arts program which he takes full advantage of, always wanting to hone his craft and learn new skill sets. he’s going to school 20/30 minutes away from mo.on so they spend a whole lot of time together. he probably stays over at her apartment with ri.ver more often than not. college is a very scary new experience, and he has a lot of anxious moments at the start, but it’s also a good place for him to find himself and go explore who he really is and really wants to be outside of the craziness that became his life the last few years of high school. he’s going to be the happiest he’s ever been.

[mskwtz]

the MIT thing / fight with demetri is complicated because while i understand dem's feelings re: he thought they'd had this plan forever and he's hurt that suddenly that has changed, hawk is valid in choosing what is best for him and his own future. if you're going to shell out thousands for an education, you should probably be sure it's the one you really want, and he's clearly been uncertain that MIT is that for him. he should have told dem sooner, that's for sure. he shouldn't have lashed out and said demetri talking about it was annoying. that's also for sure. but dem shouldn't have called him a moron, and kept rubbing it in to hawk every chance he gets. they're both right about their feelings and they're both wrong in the ways they've lashed out. and miguel saying to hawk "i hear you but MIT is pretty great" he KNOWS. he knows MIT is a great school, he knows it's somewhere plenty of people would kill to go, but he also knows it's not where HE wants to go and that shouldn't be something people are getting on him about when he is incredibly smart and has a lot of options and doors open for him. as someone who went to college and had to make a decision, it's not one you take lightly. there are so many different things to consider and if you think about a school and you're like i don't really know if i want that then it's probably not the option you wanna go for.

[mskwtz]

cris I need to know how hawk feels about taking tory's spot in the sekai taikai squad after everything that went down

NOT GOOD. He was thrilled for the opportunity to go after all because he’d been really bummed about how shit went down with Demetri. He gave up on the fight to let Demetri have it even though he really wanted it because their friendship was crumbling before his eyes and he didn’t want to make it worse. It was like his silent apology. But he was disappointed anyway. In his ideal world it would have been himself, Miguel, Sam, Tory, Robby, and Demetri. They were the ones who he’d have wanted to have a trip to Barcelona with and the ones he think would be the strongest contenders to go - even Demetri who Hawk thinks had improved so much since he started. He wasn’t lying when he said the 6th spot was his. The only reason he’s going though being because Tory bowed out and especially the reason why? It doesn’t feel good.

We discussed the timeline and how fucking weird it is but he tried really hard to talk to Tory. Get her to come back even knowing what that meant for him because he’s worked so hard on letting C.obra K.ai and the cut throat instincts it gave him go because it’s not the guy he wants to be anymore. Unfortunately he’s in a weird middle ground still where he doesn’t know entirely what he wants and who he is and he’s walking a fine line between doing what’s best for him and doing what a good friend/brother would do. He wants Tory to be happy though, first and foremost, and it bothers him that he has no fucking idea how he can help.

I think if anyone can relate to the situation she found herself in at the end it’s him. I think he’s held onto the ck way tightest even if he thinks he hasn’t. He’s still angry, his gut still tells him to strike first in situations where he feels threatened in some capacity. I think Robby fully embraced MD before he was CK and especially now he’s a lot lighter. Not always but more so than he was when things were bad for him. Miguel wasn’t so much CK as he was Johnny’s karate student. Johnnys way has always been his way. Hawk and Tory are the ones who both went full cobra until things got bad enough that they had to get out. He understands how she feels when it comes down to it on that front. He hates it, don’t get me wrong, but he gets it. And more than anything he feels for her.

[mskwtz]

oh the factoids didn’t have this one my bad:

he’s allergic to tree nuts. pretty severely actually. has an epipen on standby. he can’t really get things from the bakery or ice cream shops because of cross contamination concerns which is a bummer.

[mskwtz]

HAWK'S MENTAL HEALTH : an important meta about hawk's mental health and how i portray him. this is a very long analysis with definitions and examples from canon i draw these headcanons on, so be warned that under the read more is a lot of words. tw for anxiety, depression, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts.

basic definitions

major depressive disorder - a mental disorder characterized by a persistently depressed mood and long-term loss of pleasure or interest in life, often with other symptoms such as disturbed sleep, feelings of guilt or inadequacy, and suic/idal thoughts.

generalized anxiety disorder - generalized anxiety disorder (or GAD) is marked by excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry about everyday life events for no obvious reason. people with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder tend to always expect disaster and can’t stop worrying about various aspects of life.

panic disorder - panic disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by unexpected and repeated episodes of intense fear accompanied by physical symptoms that may include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, or abdominal distress.

symptoms of depression - italics are symptoms we can see in canon.

sadness, fearfulness, emptiness, hopelessness

angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters

reduced appetite

slowed thinking, speaking, or body movements

feelings of worthlessness or guilt, fixating on past failures or self-blame

frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide

anxiety, agitation or restlessness

trouble sleeping

difficulty thinking clearly, concentrating, or making decisions

symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder - italics are symptoms we can see in canon

trouble falling or staying asleep

trembling and twitching

tense muscles

headaches

irritability

urinating often

fatigue

unable to relax

difficulty controlling feelings of worry

feeling restless, wound up, or on edge

perceiving situations as more threatening than they are

difficulty in letting go of worries

there are many more, and everyone is different, but i wanted to focus on these in particular in regards to hawk.

given his scar is in such a noticeable place, he grew used to people staring, questioning, or (worse) laughing at him for it. he spent most of his childhood / teenage years being tormented by his peers for his scar, something he couldn’t control about himself, and that had a huge toll on him. his self esteem was shot before he even had the chance to grow into his own person. he grew up with the idea that there was something wrong with him, and like he was not worthy of much because of it.

what we can see. in canon s1 scenes, i’ve noticed he fidgets with his hands a lot. in this scene and in the scene where he’s at his first class at ck. this shows his uneasiness, and restlessness. he doesn’t feel comfortable around a lot of people, certainly not in the lunch cafeteria or in new scary situations. he also looks so tense in all of his eli scenes, hunched over, like he’s ready to flee. he doesn’t show signs of happiness often, thinks poorly of himself and assumes that people are saying the worst about him (ie. assuming yasmine is making fun of him). when he does speak, he also does so pretty slowly & softly. 

nearing the end of s1, and the entirety of s2 and s3, we can see that this boy absolutely has angry outbursts, and a bad temper. but you can see a peak into that irritable side even before, in the flashback to pre-script flip.

he raises his voice and bangs his hands against the table, showing that irritable side to him even when he’s still soft spoken eli. on top of that, in this scene he’s displaying restlessness, inability to relax, constant worrying, assuming the worst. when it comes down to it this kid doesn’t like himself or life all that much.

going further into the second and third seasons, the main thing we can see is him leaning mostly into anger and having plenty of outbursts, but a big catalyst to him slowly becoming someone he doesn’t recognize anymore is the idea that things are more threatening to cobra kai than realistically they are. demetri’s 1 star yelp review to anyone else would be a whatever sort of thing - people leave crappy yelp reviews all the time. but hawk saw that as a threat to cobra kai, which at that point in time he equated to being a direct threat to him, and he responded as though it was a huge threat. i wish they dived more into all of this canonly but there’s only 10 episodes a season, plenty of other characters that need developing, and talking about mental illness is something not a whole lot of shows dive into. 

not so much being able to see it but lining these hcs up with the sheer rage we get from hawk most of the time, i believe he tries really hard to act like he’s fine and not experiencing a lot of the above traits. even after he flips the script, that doesn’t go away. he tries so hard to be his best, and to succeed, and to support his senseis even if they’re wrong because he doesn’t believe in himself as much as he’d like everyone else to believe. and i’ve found, in my own personal experience, when you don’t want others to know you’re struggling during a particularly anxious moment, you can respond with anger. & so he does. a lot.

season 4 brings us back a little bit to who he is at his core. not entirely, he still leans a lot into anger and his confidence is a little better than it was before he became the hawk. i think we get a lot of the guilt, self blaming, and fixating on his past wrong doings from s4. he doesn’t feel good about himself or anything he’s done, and he’s coming to accept that. he shies in on himself when confronted by chris and nate. he knows he doesn’t belong there, he knows he did so much shit wrong, and he thinks about it often. and after the incident, he tells demetri he deserved it for everything he did. he also struggles to focus & concentrate with training, messing up a few times at the tournament ( and likely in training prior to ).

so as demetri pointed out, hawk struggled with nocturnal enuresis (aka, wetting the bed) past what is normal for kids. stress and anxiety can trigger this, and he was under plenty of that throughout elementary, middle, and most of high school. he struggled on & off with the bed wetting until about halfway through 7th grade, and at that point it’s humiliating. this was probably the worst thing dem could have told everyone. he lingers on that for a long time, and starts to linger on it again after this party. 

symptoms of panic disorder

heart palpitations, a pounding heartbeat, or an accelerated heart rate

sweating

trembling or shaking

sensations of shortness of breath, smothering, or choking

feelings of impending doom

feelings of being out of control

i drew this inspo from 3 particular moments, and maybe they could be explained as either being a result of anger or because 2 of them are in the middle of fights, but jacob is a very expressive actor and so i think his face says a lot.

these scenes always kind of get me like. wow. because he’s breathing so heavy, and you can almost tell he’s shaking, and feeling overwhelmed. it gives me the feeling that he’s experienced panic attacks before, especially given what he went through every day for years. they were worse before he changed his image, though they were still present after the fact. he has especially bad panic attacks after the serious moments he gets himself wrapped up in (the school fight / miguel’s injury, the night of breaking demetri’s arm, the house party and deciding to leave cobra kai, after the hair cut incident). they sometimes come on randomly and unexpected. they can be caused by chronic stress, which has been a constant in his life before and after becoming hawk.

what we don’t see. these are things in my own personal interpretation hawk experiences that we don’t get indication of by canon per se but that i take based on everything above.

he has parents who care, and who also helicopter parented up until he flipped the script. they did have him go to therapy for a while throughout middle school. he stopped going before starting high school by his own choice (a good one? no. but he didn’t feel like it was helping).

he often has a hard time sleeping.

he gets headaches a lot

when things get particularly difficult in his life / the karate war, he finds his appetite is lacking.

sometimes he just can’t focus or concentrate because of the weight of everything he’s feeling now, which can make training a real bitch.

he had occasional suicidal thoughts during his pre-teen / early teenage years. he felt like nothing would get better, and like it would be the best option for him. he never attempted, but those thoughts lingered. he doesn’t think them as often having more people in his life, and more of a purpose.

post s4 timeline, he is going back to therapy to deal with everything he tried to pretend wasn’t there. he realizes it’s gotten bad and wants to take care of it.

[mskwtz]

“I don’t know where I fit in here.” “I don’t know who I am these days.” “Uh, didn’t really work for me so still, uh, figuring it out.”

Hawk has spent so long trying to figure out who he is and where he belongs and his hair, silly as it may seem, has reflected it every step of the way. The fact that he’s back to the blue fully in s6 is him going back to that moment when he initially got the mohawk and gained that confidence in the first place. Before he lost himself in cob.ra k.ai, before his hair was cut off, before the se.kai tai.kai trials. He’s going back to his roots, when he was just a kid who didn’t want to feel like shit anymore so he took matters into his own hands. As much as I love purple hawk (obviously), I love the multi spiked blue. It’s like a blend between who he was at the start and who he was in co.bra k.ai because he isn’t the same kid he was when he first walked into that dojo but he’s also not the same guy who let that dojo turn him into the worst version of himself. He’s in the middle, a product of everything he’s gone through, a mix between three different dojos and three different senseis.

It’s probably not that deep to the writers but it’s deep to me !!!

[mskwtz]

The Hawk™ Factoids

✌️ favorite emoji

💙 favorite color

He sleeps on his stomach

He likes Hawaiian pizza (don’t tell mr Larusso)

He thinks mustard is disgusting.

Bread and butter pickles > dill pickles (I’m disowning him)

He lives in the same neighborhood as the larussos.

His favorite candies are twizzlers and skittles.

Favorite Star Wars movie is Revenge of the Sith (don’t judge him too hard)

He has a blue lightsaber. Him and Demetri have had many battles over the years.

Dominos is the superior pizza chain (no one asked you Tory)

He’ll try any food at least once.

He doesn’t drink caffeine much, if at all.

Cookies and cream or any remotely similar flavor is his go to for ice cream and milkshakes.

The boy loves Taco Bell, especially a good Crunchwrap.

He’s a straight A student, near the top of his class, even amidst the karate war.

He’s a perfectionist and a bit of a neat freak. His area is always in order, whether it’s his bedroom, his car, or his locker.

He’s spoiled. His parents spoil him like crazy.

[mskwtz]

when did hawk realize he liked moon?

el.i liked mo.on long before he was h.awk, & long before that party at the beach. he looked, and he looked a lot. d.em might have had his infatuation with ya.smine but el.i was much more interested in the girl with the softer aura, the nicer one. she didn't call y.asmine out on her crappy behavior, and she laughed along with her, but she was never outright mean. el.i picked up on that, and maybe it was giving her credit for the barest of the bare minimum but he appreciated that she didn't say hurtful things just to get a laugh out of people.

he'd first noticed her - really noticed her - in seventh grade and the first thing that drew him in wasn't even the fact that she is absolutely stunning, but rather her laugh. she has the sweetest laugh he has ever heard in his life. the kind of laugh that drew you in, as much as a recluse like him could be drawn in. when he heard that laugh and looked her way, he was a goner. he spent years stealing glances, doing so when (he hoped) no one would notice because eventually moon was friends with the likes of ky.ler and co and e.li wanted to stay off their radar as much as possible.

by the time he switched up everything about him, he took joh.nny's words to heart about making the alpha move and so that beach party was his chance. he looked, and this time not fleeting or secretly. he looked & made sure she saw him look, and if for nothing else he's thankful he became ha.wk if only because it gave him the guts to go after the girl of his dreams.

@moonlitkata

[mskwtz]

∗ 11﹕ what  is  a  headcanon  you  have  for  hawk  that  you  haven’t  posted ?

IT’S MUN TIME

hmmmm. i don’t think i posted this one ? if i did my bad.

now that he has this newfound confidence as well as being intimidating in the fact that he can totally kick your ass, he speaks up for kids being bullied for their looks whenever he sees it happening. maybe it’s not as honorable as it should be, he could easily be speaking up for any kid being bullied, but he takes it real personal when it’s for something beyond their control. alopecia? port wine stain? vitiligo? other scars, marks, etc. it hits home hard and he won’t stand for it, even in his ck era. when he bullied people it was people he had a problem with (mds, efs, people who generally were not in ck) and his insults didn’t touch on anyone’s appearance (ass face was a general thing, it had nothing to actually do with mitch’s face). he absolutely will get in someone’s face for running their mouth about someone for something like that. he’s not like that if someone’s being called a nerd or made fun of for things they like or even necessarily if they’re being picked on for their weight unless it’s someone he knows personally, but the physical things, the things that a lot of the time are a medical issue, he is ready to fight for those people.

[mskwtz]

i'd like to say that joining miy.agi d.o made him a better person but he's still a cocky little shit 9 times out of 10, still is ready to throw down at a moment's notice, and still antagonizes those he deems his enemies

[mskwtz]

the lyric "would they like what they saw or would they hate it too" fucking hiTS like he hates himself so hard

[mskwtz]

Taylor Swift songs that are peak E.li Moskowitz, not including those relevant to dynamics

a place in this world

innocent

castles crumbling

look what you made me do

the archer

this is me trying

long story short

anti-hero

you’re on your own kid

who’s afraid of little old me

i hate it here

the prophecy

I feel like rep, midnights and ttpd as a whole have a lot of songs that are just he.

[mskwtz]

Hawk does the flag hair for the sekai taikai only, it’s too goofy to be a full time thing but he would totally do it for the tournament

[mskwtz]

Just discussing with the squad how much of a mamas boy eli is

[mskwtz]

Also I DO think hawk would take into consideration other options but he is the type to be vigilant and on top of his shit so I don’t think he wouldn’t have applied anywhere at this point? It’s senior year and it may have just started but a lot of people apply even sooner than that. He did apply places but I don’t know that he applied to MIT because I don’t think he’s interested in going to MIT. But he’s been looking for sure.

[mskwtz]

hawk helped miguel buy the octopus necklace bc he knew how important it was for him and he knew how important his relationship with sam was. he wanted to help him.