#(especially because I think dabi blames himself a lot for twice's death too and forgiving himself is even harder)

[whileyoureinschoolidothisallday]

for the ask game - I need to know what categories dabihawks and shigadabi fall under for u 👀

- @yinyuedijun

HI MAO I would be delighted!!!!! Thanks for the ask! =D

Shigadabi - Makes sense, compels me. Simple and clean. Actually tied with dabitwice as my favorite canon dabi ship

Dabihawks - THIS ONE IS LESS CLEAR. On one hand, there are SO many thematic parallels between these characters and I like the idea of pairing Hawks with loud emotional borderline manic characters to contrast his near terrifying control, so on one hand I wanna say Makes Sense, Doesn't Compel Me. But on the other hand, HORI NEVER FUCKING DID ANYTHING WITH THOSE PARALLELS!!!!!!!!! IT LITERALLY HOLDS ZERO WEIGHT IN REGARDS TO THE CANON CHARACTERS AND THEIR INTERACTIONS!!!!!!!! IT BUILDS UP TO NOTHING!!!! So in that case, I have to say Doesn't Make Sense, Doesn't Compel Me.

Unfortunately it will always be Doesn't Compel Me cause I do not like Hawks as a character specifically in regards to the canon. Idk how Hori did it, but he literally created a character that is literally Cop Incarnate, down to his patchy-ass goatee, and it REPELS me. It's like I've literally already been a room with this man irl and I could feel the slime from proximity.

(It doesn't help that Hawks has a lot of potentially interesting parts to his character, but Hori never takes them further than that. He's literally ONLY Cop Incarnate. Which is why I think I CAN be persuaded to read him in fic form, because sometimes those traits are explored and given the appropriate amount of screen time!!! So then he's still Cop but at least gets to be interesting about it!!!!!)

(also the dabihawks/dabixhawksxreader fics I have read have been.....................................................................................we'll say juvenile, to be nice)

(on that note, I will say that the porn that comes from those two is hot as hell!!!!!!!!! They be puttin them boys in situations!!!!!!! 👀👀)

Stick a ship in my ask box and I'll tell you which of these options it is for me!

[linkspooky]

Shigaraki and Dabi

Heroes hurt their own families in order to help complete strangers. Words said by Shigaraki, and lived by Dabi. If you haven’t noticed, there’s quite a lot of parallels between the two of them. Especially their childhood selves, dark haired hero hopefuls whose hair turned white due to stress and eventually fell and became villains. They were the children closest to the heroes, the son of Endeavor, the grandson of Nana Shimura, and yet both of them fell through the cracks the hardest. Let’s talk about the foiling of these two, under the cut. 

1. Father Says No

Both Shigaraki and Dabi are characters who grew up in a strict, patriarchical household where the father was the head of the household and determined all the rules. 

The Shimura household was built by Koutarou, who held all the money, and therefore determined all the rules. The same can be said for the Todoroki household, which only came into being to fuel Enji’s ambitions. This is something Enji literally thinks, his first priority when having children was not to love and raise them, but to raise heirs that would carry on his quirk and make up for the weakness in it.

Enji also literally used his financial wealth and status to pressure her family into arranging a marriage. In the households, the patriarch is the ultimate authority and cannot be questioned. Koutarou sets the rules of the household because he has all the money. Endeavor sets the rules of the household because these children are there to be his heirs. Toya and Tenko both break the rules in their father’s households in some way and become scapegoats. 

Ironically, they break the rules in opposite ways. Tenko, because he wants to become a hero. 

Toya, because his flawof the flames being too harsh for his flame constitution and burning his own skin makes him unable to become a hero and carry on his father’s legacy.

Quick tangent to explain what I mean with Toya. This is speculation, because we haven’t been shown the exact details, so feel free to point and laugh at me if I’m wrong. Endeavor says (incorrectly) that if Toya had reached his goal for him, that all of his pent up negative emotions would have disappeared just like that. (They wouldn’t.)

Which means, Endeavor once again projected himself on his child. Toya was supposed to fix all Endeavor’s hurt feelings for him. So, when Toya failed at the training. When Toya wasn’t good enough. When Toya was flawed. 

Which means it’s likely, Toya went in Endeavor’s mind from being the one who could carry his dreams, to being the one that Endeavor could scapegoat to blame for his negative emotions. Which meant, at some point he tossed Toya aside. At that point he started treating Toya differently. Toya probably pushed himself more and more to try to go back to the way things used to be, which is probably why his hair turning white, he started to crawl to Natsu every day. 

There’s also a lot of similiarities and differences between their households. 

Enji wanted his children to be born heroes.  Koutarou’s rule was no heroes allowed. 

Shimura and Toya both had a sibling they would run to and confide in. For Shimura it was Hana, and for Toya it was Natsu. 

Shimura Tenko is the youngest sibling in the household. While Touya Todoroki was the oldest. 

On the surface, the Shimura household seems more comfortable than the Todoroki household. Shimura receives a lot of comfort from his other relatives, his grandparents, his mother, his sister. However, none of them really confronted the problem in the household and at the end of the day Tenko was still getting beaten. 

The Todoroki household also doesn’t seem like it was a place of much comfort for Toya. It really does seem from flashbacks that all he had to confide in when things started going wrong was Natsu (again feel free to taunt me cruelly if I’m wrong). 

So, you have Tenko who is quietly and gently denied by his family, and Toya who suffers all alone in his household, either getting beaten himself, pushing himself too hard in training, or hearing his father beat his mother and Shoto. 

However for both of them, it’s a gradual accumulation over time. The stress of the household overtakes them. Their hair turns from its original dark coloring to white from the sheer stress of it alone. They, as children, are made to bear the stress of their entire unhealthy household, because they are the scapegoat. 

Endeavor genuinely believes that if Toya had somehow lived up to his promise he would never have turned abusive. 

Kotaro believes that it was Tenko who was upsetting the peace of the household, because he would just not stop it with the hero talk. 

They both soak up all this stress until it explodes outward. However, the incidents that turned them from Tenko -> Shigaraki, and from Toya -> Dabi are entirely different. 

Toya committed what was essentially a suicide. He either staged his own death, or failed at his own suicide and survived. Tenko didn’t kill himself, he killed everyone else around him. Shigaraki destroyed the household that was denying him. 

To simplify the manner in which they lash out. Touya destroys himself, Tenko destroys other people, especially the ones he believes are oppressing him or his friends. 

Well you say, Dabi is trying to take down endeavor. However, Dabi still sees Endeavor and himself as one in the same. His flames are Endeavor’s flames.

One last thing, Dabi and Shigaraki are both marked by their father’s abuse. Dabi was burned by Endeavor’s flames. Dabi literally lives with third degree burns, looking like a living zombie. Then makes his burns even worse by using his flames in the self destructive manner Endeavor taught him. 

Not only does Shigaraki still carry the lip and eye scars from being beaten up with a gardening tool, but Kotaro’s hand reaching out to his face is a symbol that Shigaraki keeps on him literally to this day by wearing a hand over his face constantly. 

2. Friendship and Ideals

So I think all the subtle differences in their backgrounds is what leads to them expressing themselves differently as adults. There are several similarities between them, but I think hardcore Shigaraki fans can tell you all the reasons they prefer Shigaraki, and hardcore Dabi fans can do the same with Dabi. 

I think a lot of it has to do with their relationships to their families. Families define how you connect with other people.

Shigaraki was instructed to always keep his family close to him. He’s always confronting his own feelings about his family, his pain from his family, that’s why when he lashes out he also takes his own personal feelings and pushes them outwards. Shigaraki isn’t concerned with right or wrong, moreso, these are my feelings. I reject the society that rejects me. What Shigaraki is concerned first and foremost, is feelings. His own feelings of being rejected, and also the feelings of people who were rejected just like him. 

Shigaraki is the heart of his group. He’s the person they all rally around, because they gave him a place of belonging. And, Shigaraki has also expressed several times murderous monster that he is that he cares about the individual feelings of those closest to him. I won’t let you trample on Twice’s feelings, his first thing to do when waking up is order the league to be close to him. 

Unlike Dabi, we’ve also seen Shigaraki directly confront the feelings of his missing family once more. He forgives his sister, he tries to comfort his mom. He destroys his father again. He tells his family that he denies them. He tells his grandfather that he still hates her. 

I would say that Shigaraki carries those feelings with him, while Dabi dissociates himself from his feelings.Shigaraki directly confronts those feelings because Shigaraki is the heart, feelings are what matter more to him. 

Dabi has feelings, obviously. Dabi has feelings even if he processes them in a way that’s not easy and palatable. Everyone in fact has feelings (though sometimes I wish I didn’t). Everyone expresses things in their own way if not in the typical way. 

Dabi is completely closed off in regards to his own feelings. He’s not like Shigaraki who is open enough about them he’ll tell his backstory to the whole league on the spot. In fact that’s another difference, the league generally knows Shigaraki’s issues, when they had no idea about Dabi’s. 

When really there was no good reason not to tell them. What are they not going to be up for murdering the number one hero? 

Friendship is a priority for Shigaraki. Individualism is a priority for Dabi. 

Dabi’s feelings towards the league are a messed up jumble, but his behavior towards them is pretty consistent. He takes every oppurtunity he can to insist that he’s not a part of them, that they’re all crazy and he’s the only sane one, that he doesn’t care about their feelings. This can’t all be Dabi just being tsundere or whatever, it’s physical steps taken for Dabi to distance himself from others. 

Dabi’s individual goals are more important than his connections to other people. Shigaraki has no distinct goal besides empty lashing out and therefore connects to people with similiar hurt feelings than his. 

Remember, Dabi self destructs. It’s likely, Dabi sees himself as a martyr. An individual willing to burn himself to take down the society with him. He’s trying to die for some cause like stain. 

So before I develop on this tangent one more difference in similarity between them. Shigaraki’s family is dead. He can’t really do anything but carry on their feelings with him. Tomarau means, to mourn. 

Dabi on the other hand, his family is still alive.He could have before the whole killing spree just shown up on their front doorstep. The reason he hasn’t, is because he can’t forgive Endeavor’s sin.

Whatever pushed him this far, whether it be a strong sense of justice, or a desire for personal revenge. Dabi values that, more than he values his connections with other people, even his own family who is still alive. This is once again the complex way Dabi handles his feelings, it’s likely he pushes his family away, the same way he pushes the league away and doesn’t process them. That’s why he says I thought about it so much I went crazy. He just insists he doesn’t care, and doesn’t think instead. Shigaraki lives constantly confronting his own feelings, Dabi lives by avoiding them. 

Dabi is impersonal, aloof, and only ever thinks of himself as an individual. He will cooperate with others if it suits his needs, but the bond of the league hasn’t quite reached him yet. There’s a consequence for this. 

So twice dying was Hawks fault. Because Hawks you know, stabbed him. 

However you could say, Dabi’s planning centering all around himself, and what he can accomplish as an individual, meant he failed to accomplish that Twice might get hurt as a result of him letting Hawks into the league as a Spy. It’s an unintended consequence, but still a consequence. 

Dabi showed up to save Twice but couldn’t. Then afterwards Dabi uses Twice’s death in the most gratuiotious way possible. Dabi insists once again he doesn’t care, that he never cared about Twice except as a tool that would have made fighting the heroes a lot easier. 

Shigaraki destroys everything around him. He destroys for the sake of the people around him. Dabi destroys himself, his own feelings, he self destructs. When people get caught up in his flames they’re sacrifices for his cause. 

Their priorities and the way they lash out are different. Dabi cares more for ideals than people. Shigaraki cares more for people than ideals.

However, they don’t have to destroy each other. Shigaraki trusts Dabi. Shigaraki of all the members of the league (with Toga as well) is the heart, is the best at sympathizing with the pain of other people because he is constantly in pain himself. 

Dabi made a mistake and as a result Twice got killed. He gambled with too high of circumstances. Twice let a secret slip and invited the heroes to the League’s compound. Twice brought Chisaki for a meeting and because of that Magne died. This kind of scenario has happened before. Of course Dabi insists that his motivations were less pure than Twice’s, he didn’t care what happened to the rest of the league as long as he got the dirt he wanted for his big reveal.

I’m not suggesting that Dabi is secretly a sweetheart, or a misunderstood angsting teddy bear. Just that Dabi is currently closed off from all of his feelings, that’s why he denies too the feelings of people around him and their attempts to reach out for him. Dabi has refused the compansionship of the league. 

It doesn’t have to be like this. Characters can develop. Shigaraki especially has been shown to reach out to people multiple times. Kurogiri is fond of him. Himiko and Twice in their moment of weakness, are convinced to stay on Shigaraki’s side because he shows their face to them. Spinner basically questioned why he was even staying with the league at his lowest point when he thought they had no reason to be there, and it was Shigaraki who he found his cause in. 

Dabi is lacking something. He’s burned off and emotionally stunted his ability to develop connections with other people. 

Shigaraki is lacking something. He is, again and again, told that he needs a plan besides destroy everything. Shigaraki is very observant of the world, and understands the truth, but he can’t get people to listen. Unlike Dabi who planned to such an extent, that he literally made a live public broadcast to turn public opinion against Endeavor because that was more important than winning a fight. 

It’s true Dabi and Shigaraki could turn against each other, because Dabi doesn’t value people, because Shigaraki considers his lashing out more important than his ideals. They could also be the ones to balance each other out. We’re at an important turning point now, Dabi can either break off from the league now that his individual mission is compelte, or he can finally be reached by the league. 

I think Shigaraki might reach him, because even though they’re grown up so differently they started in the exact same place. They were both boys who wanted to be heroes, and just wanted one person to tell them it was okay, that they could be heroes too. 

[todomitoukei]

The Todoroki Family & The Umbrella Academy

disclaimer: contains spoilers for bnha chapter 291 & The Umbrella Academy season 1&2

For a while I thought there were mainly parallels between Shouto and Vanya from the Umbrella Academy, two characters who were isolated from their siblings growing up, but now with chapter 290 and 291 giving us a bit more information on Touya and a lot of people claiming he is in the wrong, I feel like it’s helpful to look at the parallels between Dabi and Vanya and how that can show us the possibilities concerning the Todoroki family’s future:

both have the strongest power in their family

end up being ignored by their father and told they’re not as powerful as their sibling(s)

end up isolating themselves from the whole family

expose their family’s secrets to the public

The last part is where the current bnha story ends, so we don’t know whether the aftermath is going to be similar, but let’s look at what happened then in the Umbrella Academy.

the siblings hold a grudge against her for it, not necessarily because of the exposure itself but because they’re all portrayed in a negative way

when they find out that she has powers, some of the siblings view her as a threat, but Allison actually stands up for her and tries to help her

them isolating her throughout the season leads to her causing the apocalypse, further painting her as a threat

while some of the siblings in season 2 still think they should stay away from her, they do end up treating her like a person and being on her side

Obviously not every family has to deal with things the same. But what I like about tUA is that it shows how differently people can react to the same person/events, and that they can change their opinions later down the line.

It’s understandable that some people disagree with Dabi’s decision to expose their family because of the negative effects this can have on the rest of the family that isn’t Endeavor, especially Shouto, whose whole career is essentially going to be about being a public figure.

But you also can’t decide how they’re going to react for them, nor can you say with certainty that they are going to be angry with him because of this.

In contrast to Vanya, Dabi didn’t speak ill of anyone in the family aside from Endeavor. Unlike some people in the fandom, he is not saying “Well, we were a happy family until Shouto came along and ruined everything.�� He is not holding a personal grudge against Shouto, because he never really got to know him in the first place.

To Dabi, Shouto is simply the living proof of him having failed as successor. Shouto’s birth was the turning point in his relationship with Endeavor, and for the longest time it was his goal to kill Shouto in the future, but only because Shouto represents what Touya wasn’t able to be.

And yes, Dabi is a villain, someone who has attacked and hurt people and put people’s lives at risk for his own personal goal of getting back at Endeavor. He’s not denying that, though. Also, let’s not forget if you want to bring up Kyushu to prove he put innocent people at risk - Hawks knew about it and didn’t stop it. He risked people’s lives just as much.

People love to be woke about mental health, and whenever there’s stories circulating online about real life abuse victims who speak up about their abuse or even get back at their abuser (in whatever way) - they are celebrated. And rightfully so because coming forward with something so deeply personal and traumatizing, exposing yourself to the public in a way that might stick with you forever is hard and not everyone can do that. But why do people suddenly draw the line at a fictional character who is the personification of how harmful the glorification and idolization of heroes in the bnha universe is. How heroes, who are supposed to protect citizens, are also capable of turning citizens into villains and get away with it.

Dabi isn’t someone who decided to run away from home as a teenager and just stick it to the man. He is someone who has been bred for a specific purpose and once his creator gave up on him, got tossed aside. For years he tried to reclaim his spot, to regain his father’s approval, attention and love, things he used to get, but suddenly were all taken away from him because he wasn’t good enough in his father’s eyes. And for a child, someone whose brain is still in development, it’s crucial to receive care and attention from its parents. Being denied that has negative, long-lasting impacts on the further development, more so than on an adult with a fully developed brain.

He is severly traumatized and was driven to insanity. Did he hurt Shouto by kidnapping his friend during his summer camp? Yes. Did he risk his family’s life by sending Ending to his family home? Yes. But his mind is only filled with the obsession of ruining Endeavor. He is not thinking clearly. Mental illness gets romanticized to the point where any depiction of the darker sides of it gets judged, as if he decided to become Dabi out of sheer boredome instead of it being the result of an abused and traumatized child.

I understand if you care about Shouto and don’t want him to suffer more than he already has. But why are you so okay with an entire family continuing to suffer in silence? Why is it so okay for the family to consider improving their relationship with their abuser while Dabi continues to suffer in silence? Why is he not a worthy victim? Much like Toga has already pointed out in regards to Twice’s death, why are they not viewed as people worth saving in the eyes of heroes who claim that’s what they are all about?

And to those focusing on the effects this might have on Shouto and his career - you do realize he has been vocal about this himself, right? Sure, he hasn’t spoken out about this in as much detail as Touya, partially because he probably didn’t know much about what the family was like before he was born, but he never pretended to have a good relationship with his father. Shouto outright says he hates his father, even in front of other pro heroes, like during the remedial course. So if anything, ask yourself why this child can express his hatred for his own father and the reasons why, and yet no one really reacts to it? Just because Shouto didn’t broadcast it to the whole world, doesn’t mean he never came forward with the truth. The difference between him and Dabi is that he just states these things as facts without any further purpose, whereas Dabi tries to make people see how negative the existence of heroes can be.

Of course it’s likely that they would never have come forward with this to that same extent themselves and would have been okay with that, too. Again, even though Shouto openly states his situation, he doesn’t seek any specific reaction from people. But do you really think the people who have suffered with Touya are not going to show any kind of understanding for him? That they won’t recognize that they could have been him? That Touya needed help he never received and thus ended up like this? Do you really think the people who are already unsure whether or not to forgive Endeavor are not going to recognize that he drove his own child to insanity? That their situation is even worse than they thought?

People are so easy to claim it’s sad how Shouto is starting to care about Endeavor now and that Dabi is ruining that relationship. Shouto isn’t starting to consider warming up to Endeavor because he thinks Endeavor did nothing wrong. Instead, much like Touya, Shouto is a child who is seeking a relationship with his parent, despite the circumstances. But is that what Shouto really needs? To move on with Endeavor in order to have a picture-perfect family, even when that’s never going to be the case? You can side with the abuser, but Dabi is the tragic result of something that could have been prevented. Their family was never normal. It was always a project of Endeavor, so stop pretending like Dabi is the cause of the family’s problems or somehow responsible for the exposure. He is allowed to come forward, even if it also affects the rest of his family. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care, or never cared. But his mind is clouded with the thirst for revenge to the point where he puts that in front of the well-being of his family. He can’t control that. People can’t just stop being mentally ill and that’s not going to change just because their mental state negatively affects those around them.

Unlike some other family members, he couldn’t even try to move on. His mind got lost in the darkness and this is his last cry for help. You might prefer for him to just stay dead and not make things worse for the family, but at the end of the day, Endeavor is the one who started all of this. And maybe, hopefully, the rest of the family can recognize that even though Touya didn’t actually die back then, Natsuo blaming Endeavor for Touya’s death is still correct because he did kill Touya, an innocent child, and turned it into someone whose only goal in life is to kill Endeavor.

Maybe they won’t be happy with the crimes Dabi has committed and the fact he exposed their family to the whole country. But I think they are going to recognize the tragedy behind this whole situation and possibly even learn that they, too, are allowed to speak up about this. Because the truth is freeing, even when it’s hard at first.