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remaking the dabi-skin grafts thread before he dies and I don’t have a reason to do it anymore
Warning : graphic images, mentions of abuse and triggering content
Warning : graphic images, mentions of abuse and triggering content
Reminder I’m no doctor, this thread is the outcome of some hours of research and discussions with med students. Also this thread is for fun. If you’re about to comment something negative, get off my dick and thread.
Before we start analyzing why and how that could affect Dabi’s mental and physical health let’s talk about what skin graft surgery is, why it’s performed and what the healing process requires.
Skin grafting is a surgical procedure in which doctors take away (basically shave off) some of the patient’s skin, stretch it and staple it over burnt (or generally traumatized) skin. The main areas from which skin is taken are the buttocks and thighs.
There are also instances of skin donations, however they’re rare and I highly doubt the foreign skin would be accepted by the patient’s cells.
The procedure is very complicated and often requires the rest of the patient’s skin to be healthy enough for the ‘transplant’. In Dabi’s case it’s most likely that at least 60% of his skin was burned which would lead to death.
But we’re talking about a universe in which quirks are a thing, and specifically HEALING quirks. Therefore his chance of survival was far greater than expected.
Waking up from the surgery, pain is quite possibly the only thing the patient can feel. Not only because of the shaved skin parts of one’s body, but because of the staples as well. Besides the great discomfort, the staples also can and will limit movement around the body.
The patient may feel weak and exhausted. The only thing you can do is basically just sit in agony, and wait. The new skin grafts appear brown, with a purple-ish hue, then they turn red and finally after a long time they take the colour of human-like skin.
The healing process takes around 2 years. The first few weeks the patient should keep their grafts dry, so that the initial dressing can heal and support water later on. During those weeks patients are instructed to remain in the hospital¹.
According to the NHS, the patient may have to follow specific instructions in relation to alchohol, substances, dieting and sunblock for the rest of those 2 years².
So, how can all this apply to Dabi?
Let’s first discuss how he may have gotten the burns… yeah who are we kidding he’s Touya Todoroki I accept no other answers. Onward to what we know from Endeavor’s rambling.
Let’s first discuss how he may have gotten the burns… yeah who are we kidding he’s Touya Todoroki I accept no other answers. Onward to what we know from Endeavor’s rambling.
As he mentioned, Touya’s flames were too great and his body too frail in order to withstand the heat. So we can safely assume that due to the constant pressure put on him by Enji, he probably went berserk one day and lost control or just his little scars slowly became more and
more each day and slowly accumulated into one big mess that daddy paid to have fixed.
The second part of that theory can be debunked considering Enji would have recognized Dabi as his dead³ son whilst fighting him. The first part however, could be explained by Touya’s death.
He was left with a bunch of burns and no identity out in the streets, where some dumb and kind soul thought they could heal him. And so he was lead to the hospital.
How are we sure he was at a hospital? First of all the grafts are done by doctors duh, second we have this audio from the video game One’s Justice.
Obviously the biggest heroes at the time would rush to investigate this random ass burnt kid, which would explain why AM and GT were there.
Touya of course couldn’t stay there much, as they would most likely discover his identity, so he left. We could also assume that during this stay in the hospital he met Hawks but that’s a whole different story.
Moving on from the past theory, we can now discuss why the grafts haven’t healed properly, why his staples constantly multiply and how this whole ordeal affected his mental health and every day life.
Skin grafts as mentioned need constant care and will never heal if not treated with such. Dabi constantly using his quirk would explain why they’re still purple, and why he smells like burnt flesh.
We have also seen his burns expanding. NOT THE GRAFTS. THE BURNS. They’re not the same.
You can see the staples connect to darker skin, not healthy one.
You can see the staples connect to darker skin, not healthy one.
If he keeps burning the new and old skin, and popping off the staples with his grins, he’s going to need more than 4-5 staples thus why they keep multiplying.
5 staples in the first picture, 7 in the last.
5 staples in the first picture, 7 in the last.
Going back to point ², as small baby Dabi (using Dabi⁴ now as he’s a runaway) needed at least two years of care so that his grafts could heal. He probably never got it, and he could have had a substance abuse problem when it comes to painkillers.
But that’s just an assumption, I have no proof of that. Carrying on!
Small note regarding his eyes: Dabi has mentioned burning his tear-glands which could also imply he’s near sighted, a small explanation as to why he squinted in that forest camp episode.
Small note regarding his name ⁴ : Dabi means cremation/cremate the body and that definitely either connects to his past try to cremate himself, others or he’s just an edgy idiot that wanted an edgy name
Now onto mental health, I think it’s pretty obvious how burning your whole body, having dead cells everywhere, running away from the n.2 hero, and having to deal with the pain coming from your staples and burnt skin grafts… I suppose it can and will mess someone up.
Daily life would be hard. Talking about daily life, he wears baggy clothes because of his staples and grafts. Tight clothes are not advised when having that surgery, so I guess he did listen to the doctors as much as he should.
Anyways I just got over the 1k word count. This shouldn’t be taken seriously, it’s a theory. Don’t get pissy and say ‘’Oh hori could never do something like’’- fuck off I don’t care. Horikoshi is very much capable of giving us a background just as deep or even deeper than this.
That’s all. Thank you for your time.
