#early hb was a public menace

[dryeyed]

heavenbreaker thoughts. feat. discord things

i still have to fully solidify a lot of what HB's motives and ideology are in my brain, but i have been munching on the stain shit seraph and i kinda talked about during our bnha watch. i think on the extreme downlow, shouta targeted heroes that only cared about themselves, and those who cared too little about themselves to throw themselves into danger( essentially self sacrificing ). Causing Problems On Purpose to see how heroes would work. then targeting the Shitty Ones.

i think sometimes he might've been working with akkie in the beginning as the two both got into their respective activism niches. but like. he got a good ol case of the "took it too far on his own", alcohol content 74%.

and i really do think that he kept heavenbreaker so far fucking underground during his early years. nobody really knew about HB past a name, and none could really make a connection just from discretion alone. his actions were mellow-ish in terms of ideology, nothing compared to what comes after when aksha goes missing. i think then it just becomes even more of a generalized anger towards the very world itself, rather than shitty heroes in a shitty hero society. more on a private/public info post incoming, but i think only nezu really found out from the Bad Shit and made the connections. he started getting reckless. he was quickly becoming the one thing he was actively seeking to destroy. started from a good place. ended with almost getting himself killed several times from all the bad shit he was putting himself in

i think he actually just gives up when aksha disappears, even if hizashi tells him he’s looking for her. and not gives up his act and gets it together, i think he gives up as a hero entirely. what good are they if they, if he, can’t save or protect those closest to him?? addiction gets worse and subsequently so do heavenbreaker's actions/general ideology. he puts targets in hospitals sometimes. he loses himself until hizashi physically shows up in the states and does something about it.

and shouta does a complete 180 once he does, once he moves back to japan and fixates on actually helping to find her. it's almost like someone grabbed his hand that had been so far beneath the surface and finally pulled him up for air. not like yet not unlike guiding a child having a tantrum to somewhere else for a perspective change. literally.

i think he looks back on these years with disdain and regret, yeah, but he also uses it as fuel to make sure he stays on most heroic and just path he knows how. uses it as fuel to teach his students that hero work isn’t flashy and fun, it’s dangerous and tragic.

imo i gotta work out the details, but i think the only way he becomes a teacher is 1) hizashi + possibly nemuri genuinely begging nezu, telling him shouta is would be a good fit for homeroom and 2) shouta promising nezu through and through that he’s done with that life, and wants to commit to walking the path of a pro-hero

i'm cooking an hc that in the beginning of his teachers days, he actually struggled a bit with flashbacks. he'd be going to hold out a hand to help a kid up or he'd be in the middle of saying something to someone, and he just gets this flash. or right in the corner of his eye, someone or the person he's talking to is bloodied to the point of near-death and its just this jolt.

rough timeline: first emergences of heavenbreaker: ages 18-22 aksha disappears: age 22 heavenbreaker gets increasingly more and more aggressive and agitated: 22-25 shouta moves back to japan: 25

on the flip-side of that:

i think honestly. the difference between shouta's normal verse and villain verse is that he just. doesn't stop. he never becomes a teacher, hizashi doesn't get through to him. au where everything goes wrong, and part of that is his mental health and its deterioration

villain verse is literally just au where everyone fails their dice rolls