Burning Embers
is an ongoing My Hero Academia fic by Blueiscuteio. The story follows Izuku Midoriya as he's saved from the Sludge Villain by Endeavor, not All Might. Read as one simple change affects the world as we know it.
Burning Embers contains examples of:
- 0% Approval Rating: Shouta Aizawa. Following his stunt after the Quirk Assessment Test, students are much more wary of him.
- Action Girl: Ochako Uraraka provides a healthy dose when she disables the Nomu at the USJ.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: The big one. Instead of being saved by All Might to kick off the story, Izuku is saved by the No. 2 Hero, Endeavor.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Izuku himself. While most of his training is off-screen, he manages to score fourteen villain points, and forty rescue points for a total of fifty-four while quirkless. He later makes it to the semifinals of the Sports Festival, defeating Tsuyu and Shoji and beating Todoroki until he uses his fire.
- Uraraka manages to disable the Nomu at the USJ.
- Class 1-A mostly take different internships to develop better skills like Jirou interning with Eraserhead, Ashido, Kirishima and Sero going to Gunhead to learn martial arts, Ochaco going to Hawks, and Izuku going to Endeavour.
- Adaptational Karma: In canon, Iida suffered no consequences for going after Stain on his own and abandoning his mentor in the middle of an emergency in the process because the police chief decided to cover for him. Here, Endeavour insists he gets charged with vigilantism and the police do so.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
- In canon, Izuku wouldn't meet Endeavor until the Sports Festival, where he initially gains a negative impression of the man after learning about Todoroki's Freudian Excuse, but would later come to see him as a cherished mentor following his change into The Atoner and interning under him. Here, he sees the hero in a much more positive light from the get-go after being saved by him alongside his 'inspirational' words.
- In canon, the majority of Class 1-A had a neutral impression of Izuku on the first day but quickly accepted him as one of their own by time for the USJ. Here, due to still being quirkless, his class' reaction is all over the place. Some, like Uraraka and Shoji, are still supportive of him and friendly, the latter being much closer to him from the start. Others, like Iida and Kirishima, unintentionally express Condescending Compassion towards him, the former thinking it was too dangerous for Izuku to be in the Hero Course upon learning, and the latter praising his skill with the caveat of "for a quirkless person". And others are just outright dismissive even if they don't mean to be, Kaminari wondering why Izuku wasn't expelled instead of the six that were, Yaoyoruzu bluntly pointing out Izuku's foolishness in facing Bakugo during the battle trial due to their "differences in ability", and Asui outright telling him he can't be a hero and should give up.
- This is subverted for Todoroki as his dislike of Izuku comes from Izuku's positive viewing of Endeavor, not his quirkless nature, but befriends him after the Sports Festival just like in canon.
- Adapted Out: Mineta and Satou are permanently expelled following the Quirk Assessment tests.
- Content Warnings: Chapter 18 begins with trigger warnings for Midnight's behaviour when Bakugou gets chained up for the medal ceremony as well as Bakugou getting chained up happening from his perspective.
- Didn't See That Coming:
- Curious' attempt to interview Bakugou about him being chained up by U.A. goes sideways when he interprets it as pity and attacks her.
- Endeavour is startled to see that Izuku took his "Don't even try" style speech as a call to action, much less that he got where he did because of it.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Bakugo's reaction to anyone trying to support or help after an incident. The most notable being when Curious tries to interview Bakugou about him being chained up and tries to sympathize with him, but Bakugou reacts poorly to the attempt to befriend him and assaults her.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Aizawa. Though not permanent, he expelled several students on the first day of school due to half-assing it on the Quirk Assessment Tests.
- Fantastic Ableism: Bigotry against Quirkless is prevalent, with even the students in 1-A largely being dismissive against Izuku. When the Meta Liberation Army finds out about him, Re-Destro is furious and vows to destroy him.
- Played with in a strange way when the MLA discuss Shinsou. On the one hand, his quirk is the opposite of everything they strive for, since he controls people, therefore taking away their freedom. But if they- or anyone else, really- was to stop him from using his quirk, then then Shinsou would be unable to have the same freedom that everyone else does, which is again against their philosophies.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Endeavour yells at Izuku for thinking he could be a Hero without putting in the effort, which Izuku admits is right and he starts being proactive.
- Last-Name Basis: Due to her continually telling him that she thinks he would be unable to become a hero, Izuku refers to Tsuyu by her last name.
- Mythology Gag: When speculating that Izuku has a "Secret Quirk" that allowed him to do so well in the Sports Festival, Ashido suggests that he has a secret quirk passed down throughout history that was secret and that at some point Izuku would have to face an ancient rival... AKA the main plot of My Hero Academia.
- Oblivious to His Own Description: Shouto mentions that even the most socially inept person alive could see the trap Kizuki was trying to bait Izuku into and Burnin mentions that Shouto proved that to his confusion.
- Obvious Rule Patch: There is one thing preventing unscrupulous Heroes from abusing their popularity to simply arrest people on a whim, and that's the fact they don't actually have the powers of arrest, only to detain and only when the perpetrator used their Quirk to commit a crime or committed a serious enough crime.
- Power Misidentification: After the Sports Festival, people try to speculate on what Quirk Izuku has, not realising he's Quirkless.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Endeavor gives one to Izuku in the first chapter. Instead of attacking the boy's quirkless nature, he correctly points out that Izuku's dream is worthless without effort.
- Izuku later gives one to Todoroki about him not using his fire, even using very similar wording to Endeavour's original rant.
- Unreliable Narrator: Aizawa claims that Orientation is useless fluff, except it later turns out that at the very least, Hero Students are supposed to get their Hero Network accounts, and no one at UA apparently saw fit to give 1-A their accounts later on in spite of knowing what Aizawa does every year, putting them at a disadvantage compared to the other hero class.
- Villain Has a Point: The Meta Liberation Army leaders are not wrong in their opinion that U.A. chaining Bakugou up to force him to take his medal is all sorts of messed up.
- Worthy Opponent: Because Uraraka managed to dodge his own attacks and immobilize the Nomu at the USJ attack, Shigaraki focuses on her as his biggest threat in class 1-A, even defending this statement to Teacher when Teacher expresses doubt.
