A single decision can save lives, or it can destroy them. The most interesting ones can do both.
Powdered Gold and Pottery
is another My Hero Academia Alternate Universe Fanfic by PitViperOfDoom. Unrelated to their previous work, Yesterday Upon The Stair (save for some Original Characters appearing in both), the story follows Hiyamizu Shouto as he enters Yuuei, hoping to become a hero utterly unlike Endeavor... who surpassed All-Might to become the Number One Hero years ago.
That's far from the only change in this world. Here, All Might has been retired for quite some time, focusing on other ways to help society, such as the Peacemakers project. Midoriya Izuku has a Quirk and intends to become an underground hero. And that's barely scratching the surface...
For other examples of their work, check out Yesterday Upon The Stair, It's Over, Isn't It (it's only just begun), and Witness (Good Neighbors).
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Endeavor may no longer be directly involved in the lives of Shouto and the rest of his family, but all the years under his thumb have still left their mark.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While still very much a Jerkass who throws his weight around and believes that the best defense is an unstoppable offense, it's very notable that when Katsuki calls out the winners of the second Heroes vs. Villains match, he demands to know what the point of winning a fight is when you fail to save anyone in the process.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- While Izuku and Katsuki aren't exactly on the best of terms, with the latter regarding the former as a Hypocrite hiding his true self behind a sunny facade, Izuku isn't nearly as intimidated by him. He also refers them by his first name rather than the nickname 'Kacchan'.
- Kirishima and Shinsou are well acquainted through their work in the Peacemakers, to the point where Kirishima considers him to be his bro and knows what his Quirk is. They're both also very familiar with Yagi, with Eijirou nearly falling out of his chair upon learning he's going to be one of their teachers at U.A.
- Mirio also knows Izuku, aka 'Freckles', from one of the Peacemakers' community service projects, and is clearly thrilled by the fact he's attending U.A.
- Sir Nighteye and Yagi Toshinori's relationship is nowhere near as strained as it became in canon. Nighteye even teases Toshinori about making sure he doesn't wind up dating any of his coworkers... or, failing that, making sure it doesn't impact his work.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Aizawa confronts Izuku during the Quirk Assessment tests:Aizawa: Do you think this is a joke, Midoriya?
Izuku: You're the one saying we don't deserve to be heroes if we can't pitch a ball far enough. That's the funniest joke I've heard all day. - Battle Discretion Shot: During Izuku and Eijirou's match with Hitoshi and Momo, the traps she set up in the bomb room are not detailed, and we focus on Izuku and Hitoshi's fight while Eijirou attempts to barge through, offering only sound effects, shouts, and a glimpse of the aftermath.
- Blue and Orange Contrast: Incorporated into Shouto's hero costume, which mixes muted orange with periwinkle blue, mixing together into a watercolor effect. The color combination was suggested by Fuyumi; Natsuo suggested that the orange should be on the right and the blue on the left.
- Demoted to Extra: Thus far, Mineta's sole appearance is in Chapter 4, lamenting that he ended up in General Studies instead. Time will tell whether or not this doubles as a Downplayed Adapted Out.
- Has a Type: According to Nighteye's teasing, Toshinori apparently has a thing for 'strong, stoic workaholics'.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: During their first exercise with Toshinori, Katsuki presumes this will happen with Shouto and Tsuyu: the latter's frog-like physiology doesn't mesh well with the former's ice powers, and using them runs the risk of sending her into torpor. Turns out they had already accounted for this in their plans, and it allowed Tsuyu to pull off a Deliberate Injury Gambit after Shouto heated up the room for her sake.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- The Sludge Villain is still loose at the start of the story, and still attacks a student to try and take over their body. In this case, however, his intended victim is Shouto, whom he caught in the middle of a panic attack.
- Katsuki's relationship with Izuku doesn't appear to be nearly as awful but he still dislikes him, accusing him of being a liar who's "smiley bullshit is an act".
- Shouto still dislikes using the fire half of his 'Half Cold, Half Hot' quirk and is deeply uncomfortable with any attention he garners for it.
- In an offhand comment in Chapter Six, Midoriya mentions that there's a vigilante named Dabi going around, implying that despite Touya living with the rest of the Hiyamizus, he's still acting outside the law, though this time as a vigilante rather than a villain.
- It's All About Me: When Shouto asks what problem Bakugou has with him, Izuku give this trope as the explanation. Which also doubles as Bakugou's problem with Izuku.Izuku: Look, Katsuki’s a good person. And he’s going to be a great hero—I’ve known that since we were little. But he has this problem with forcing his way into other people’s business—and I don’t mean in the way that heroes do, where they step in to help even if they aren’t involved. I mean he takes things that aren’t about him and makes them about him, you know?
- Jerkass Has a Point: Bakugou's assessment of Aoyama and Satou's match against Iida and Tokoyami amounts to this; while he's incredibly rude about it, he points out that they were supposed to be handling a bomb threat, and their rough handling would have set it off.
- Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman: Aizawa is decidedly neutral towards new coworker Yagi but makes no secret of his distaste for his 'boss', which most of his peers treat as Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond. As he puts it when the others point out All-Might's accomplishments:Aizawa: Has he? Is he really the one doing those things? It's one thing for the richest man in Japan to fund a project — and I can get behind that. That's good. That's what wealthy heroes should be doing — that's the bare minimum of what a man hailed as the Symbol of Peace should be doing. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that throwing money at something and leaving others to do all the actual work counts as action. Especially for a hero who's claimed to have faced the worst this world has to offer.
- Loophole Abuse: Appears in Chapter Nine when Class 1-A decides to name Hiro their Class President."'I have a copy of the student handbook,' Yaoyorozu offered. 'I don’t think there are any rules against electing a dog president, but I could check.'"
- Not So Similar: Shouto thinks as much when Tenya compares his distaste to others praising his dual-elemental Quirk to how he comes from a well-known family. Tenya is blissfully unaware that Shouto, like him, comes from a 'heroic lineage'...but is trying to put as much distance between himself and his father as possible, while Tenya sees his own family as something to live up to.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: During the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, Sero repeatedly makes unintentionally rude comments about the Quirks of his new classmates, creating some awkward atmospheres even as he insists he hadn't meant it the way it sounded. Toshinori calls him out on it.
- Point of Divergence:
- Four years before the main story begins, Endeavor manages to surpass All Might in the national rankings, becoming recognized as the Number One Hero. Rei and her children have gotten away from his direct influence and are living with her brother/their uncle, under the surname Hiyamizu.
- All-Might has retired and has organized several charities and community-focused projects, such as the Peacemakers program. Yagi Toshinori is well known as his secretary rather than his Secret Identity and has far more experience working with students. This has also salvaged his relationship with Sir Nighteye.
- Izuku has a Quirk much like his mother's, Force Pull. His relationship with Katsuki is far less toxic; while Bakugou still dislikes him, Izuku isn't as intimidated, and calls him 'Katsuki' rather than 'Kacchan'.
- Secret Identity: Yagi Toshinori is known not as the alter ego of All Might but as his secretary.
- Superpower Lottery: As in Canon, Shouto Deconstructs this; his powerful dual Ice-and-Fire Quirk is the result of Endeavor selectively breeding for it. This gives him a complicated relationship with his own powers, particularly the side he inherited from his father.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted; Shouto has been seeing Dr. Morigawa, and has gotten a service dog named Hiro. At one point, he wonders whether or not Bakugou would punch him for recommending therapists.
- Transplant: Several Original Characters created by PitViperofDoom for a previous work, Yesterday Upon The Stair, make appearances in Powdered Gold and Pottery:
- Dr. Hitomi Morigawa is one of the most prominent. In her original incarnation, she's the tormented, poltergeist-like spirit of a little girl with an empathy-based quirk who was subjected to horrifying quirk experimentation before her death... and one of Izuku's closest companions. The trauma of her passing caused her to forget her identity in life, so she goes by the name "Rei". This version of Dr. Morigawa is in her thirties and utilizes her empathy quirk as a therapist. She's "chosen to spend her life helping other people with their demons", as Shouto puts it.
- Similarly, Uncle Yuki is recognizable to readers of Yesterday as Hino, going by his real name and without a bad case of dead.
- Okumura Nozomu is not the same Okumura seen in Yesterday; that Okumura is actually his 'troublesome brother'.
- Wham Line: Downplayed, but the final line of Chapter Nine reveals that the lunch period that usually gets interrupted by the League-engineered media break in passes by without incident. The following chapter gives us some idea of what they were up to instead: stealing information from the Peacemakers.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- During the Quirk Assessment Tests, Izuku calls Aizawa out for threatening to expel whoever scores the lowest.
- Katsuki vividly rips into Yuuga and Rikido after the second exercise for forgetting the main conceit of the match — that they were supposed to be retrieving a bomb. Had the exercise been real, their actions would have set it off, devastating the whole block.
