A beacon in the dark
is a My Hero Academia fanfic by NohaIjiachi.
The story follows Izuku Midoriya's standard path except that, at the age of four, he becomes blind. After being ostracized and bullied even more than in the original, he befriends another social pariah named Miki, who helps him train self-defense and put him back in the path of being a hero.
Tropes
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: On top of being Quirkless, Midoriya also suddenly goes blind at the age of four, spending the rest of his childhood being even more bullied and ostracized than in the original manga. He also takes his losses with much more pain than in the source material. He also has much more emotional issues and deep-seated fear and anger of people treating him with kid gloves, leading him to easily either shut down or blow up.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In no small part due to the author's art style, Midoriya is considerably more attractive, since the clothes he wears are much more form-fitting, and because Midoriya started to train much earlier, his muscles are much more defined. Several characters do comment he is attractive and All Might disagrees when Shigaraki calls Midoriya "plain-looking."Kirishima: Bro, you're packed. I don't know how it works in blind-people land, but for us with sight that's generally pretty hot.
- Adaptational Badass: Midoriya starts practicing much earlier and as a result, by the time things start happening, he is much stronger and capable of doing martial arts. Furthermore, his Disability Superpower quirk made him even more powerful than he would be with only One For All, which he still gets. It does come with the expected side-effect, though, Midoriya is still as prone to self-destructive behavior as before, and his extra powers only made his already self-destructive actions even worse.
- Adaptation Expansion: The events of Midoriya and Shigaraki's encounter at a mall are much longer, with Shigaraki and Midoriya actually fighting, as well as severe implications of this fight for Midoriya's public reputation and health.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed, but Bakugou is considerably less nasty. After he threatens Midoriya when he finds out they both were going to U.A., Bakugou has a Jerkass Realization and no longer pesters him, though he is still pretty brutal in the Villains vs. Heroes Exercise. He even sends a get well gift to Midoriya when the latter is in the hospital.
- Adaptational Personality Change: Midoriya is considerably more self-confident and even sassier and cheeky at times, much in counterpart to his Shrinking Violet personality in the original. However, he is also shown to have even less self-control than before, to the point that All Might and Aizawa fear for him going down to a self-destructive path.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Toshinori and Aizawa are much closer here. In the source material, they admitted not to be close and not do well together, here they are friends before Midoriya even gets into the picture and only grow closer afterward, with Aizawa sometimes even being Toshinori's emotional support a few times.
- While Yaoyorozu is always shown to be friends with Todoroki, in the fic, she seems to become close friends with the rest of his friends too, which includes Midoriya, Uraraka, Iida, etc.
- Toshinori also befriends and reveals his secret to Midoriya's mom, making them much closer than the original, and meet much earlier.
- Adaptational Sexuality: In the original, there are tiny hints of Todoroki's sexuality, with his Implied Love Interest being Yaoyorozu. Here, he is openly attracted to Midoriya. Similarly, Midoriya shows attraction to Todoroki, while he previously only shows interest in women.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Miki's quirk is inflicting pain on the people she touches, despite her being described as one of the nicest girls in the fic. By later on, she has decided that she wants to do the opposite of what her Quirk was made to and start taking first aid classes, pondering about a medical future.
- Berserk Button: Having spent a majority of his life blind and quirkless, Izuku has developed a complex over being perceived as weak and/or dependent on somebody else, becoming stubborn and ill-tempered whenever he feels like someone is patronizing him or forbidding him exclusively from doing something.
- Blessed with Suck: This version of Izuku actually has a quirk, being the ability to "see" his surroundings as a sixth sense. Unfortunately, his quirk took away his ability to see like a normal person and it took him years before he even knew he had it. Not only that, but it makes him an empath (meaning he can be easily overwhelmed by the emotions around him) and can give him a Psychic Nosebleed if he pushes it too far, with x-ray scans revealing that prolonged use beyond his limits can give him brain damage.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: All Might is largely covered by Midoriya's blood while trying to rescue him. He is in such a state of shock, and he stays like this for a while.
- Deconstruction: Chapter 16 is one of the many times Midoriya was in the hospital. By showcasing how absolutely heart-wrenching and tragic it is to everyone else to see him like this, including his mother, who just thought her son was going out with friends, as well as his mentor and best friend, both of which blame themselves. Not to mention Aizawa trying to reassure and keep everyone together while Iida relives the same fears he had with Tensei.
- Demoted to Extra: Bakugou is much less relevant to the plot than in the manga. Several of arcs that would focus on his end up with the focus deflected to another character, usually either Midoriya, Uraraka and/or Todoroki.
- Disability Superpower: Midoriya's blindness is a side effect of his quirk: he can't see anything, but he can detect people in a long radius.
- Double-Meaning Title: "A Beacon in the Dark" can both refer to Midoriya gaining hope again when he is in a dark place, as well as to how his quirk works, allowing him to see certain lights while being blind.
- The Empath: Midoriya's ability to see mind lights expands into being able to see others' emotions. It comes with the Logical Weakness that being able to see (and thus feel) others' emotions on his own can cause him to become completely overwhelmed and "shut down" mentally for a while, basically becoming a robot.
- Fan Disservice: Midoriya's muscular body shows up in chapter 18, but it's to showcase how marred by scar tissue his back is.
- Good Counterpart: Miki to Bakugou, which is lampshaded by Uraraka and Midoriya, as being someone with the energy of the latter, but without his personality flaws.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Midoriya quirk basically replaced his ability to see with the ability to detect things extra-sensory. While it took nearly a decade before he realized he had it and the quirk itself isn't all that flashy, his quirk is proven to be incredibly effective for intel gathering, it makes him impossible to ambush and it can be deadly if he pushes his powers onto another person, Serial Killer and Tarturas-level villain Muscular reduced to clawing his own eyes out when exposed to it.
- Important Haircut: Midoriya, after entering U.A. Miki takes him to her hairdresser who cuts off his bangs.
- Irony: Since Midorya's quirk gives him extra-sensory awareness of his surroundings without the need for eyes, Hagakure's quirk is useless around him. In other words (and this is lampshaded), the blind guy is the only one who can see the invisible girl.
- Jerkass Realization: Bakugou has a light one when he accuses Midoriya of faking his blindness to gather pity and enter U.A. Midoriya's reaction is so heart-wrenching that Bakugou can't come up with an answer to it and walks away. By the next time they interact, Bakugou avoids Midoriya.
- Logical Weakness: Using his Quirk for long periods without shutting it off can cause Midoriya to become overwhelmed and "shut down" mentally for a while, basically becoming a robot. This side effect is said to be a common problem for those with empathic Quirks.
- Mythology Gag: Midoriya being called plain-looking by Shigaraki, which is how he is referred to in the source material, but since he goes through Adaptational Attractiveness, All Might scoffs at that description after being unable to identify Midoriya through it.
- Original Character: Miki and her mother Ichiko, both of which play important parts in the growth of Midoriya as he almost crosses the Despair Event Horizon.
- Positive Friend Influence: Miki to Midoriya.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The fic doesn't walks through everything that happened, just through the things that changed from the manga's canon. It trusts the reader to remember general details and focus on what's different, so as to not lose focus or time.
- Reflectionless Useless Eyes: Izuku's eyes are described as being a milky-green in contrast to their canon counterpart's deep green, showing just how useless they are.
- Sensory Overload: Midoriya develops the power of pushing his quirks onto others, the result is that no one but him seems to be able to handle that, which leads Muscular to try to claw his eyes out.
- Switching P.O.V.: Many characters can be the POV in a single chapter.
