Fridge Horror / My Hero Academia

"Fridge Horror" reactions are defined as happening post-viewing, as such Spoilers Off applies to this page.

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• Because of how Quirks work in general, anyone at any time could be born with theoretically any power, ranging from seemingly harmless (like Mineta and his sticky balls) to terrifyingly broken (like All For One and his limitless ability to steal Quirks). This is easily Paranoia Fuel in itself considering the sheer range of Quirk users already introduced, like how one (who is thankfully a good guy) has the power to brainwash anyone who replies to him, and another (a genuine villain) has the power to disintegrate everything he touches.
  • The latter even applied his power to his whole family by accident, which also raises the question of how many accidents happened simply because a Quirk user was born with a power they couldn't control, or how often it's happened by now.
  • Eri herself had a similar scenario with the one above — by accidentally rewinding her father out of existence. By the end of her arc, she's Conveniently an Orphan because her mother disowned her and her grandfather was in critical condition.
  • Less horrifying, but still bad: Present Mic was born with his Quirk active. How exactly did they manage to keep him from harming anyone until he was old enough to understand that his voice — a baby's only form of communication — hurt people badly enough to damage their eardrums?
• Hawks' mother had extra floating eyeballs as her Quirk, and she could see through all of them. Imagine running into her on the way home at night.
• Just the fact that there are superpowers in a world that once did not have superpowers is frightening. Dictators, religious extremists, and anyone who has no regard for the lives of others may have gained the upper hand. The fact that the series focuses solely on Japan mitigates the global implications of the possibility that terrorists and tyrannical systems gained superpowers. Just what is the world like outside UA?
  • It is even worse to imagine what it was like when superpowers weren't in 80% of the population. Back when it wasn't even 10%, all it would take is one person with a powerful Quirk to have ambitions of personal conquest. All For One was subtle about it, but the odds that someone didn't try and take over a country openly with a powerful Quirk is highly unlikely.
  • On another note, something that can be just as dangerous as one person with evil intentions is the public panic over who might be that type of person, and it's confirmed that the process of Quirks being accepted in society took years or even decades of strife (and even then, the fact that they gradually became more and more common likely had a hand in making them more accepted). It's very easy to imagine people with evil intentions, with or without dangerous Quirks of their own, stoking the fear of dangerous Quirk users to incite violence and oppression against people who have them, all the way up to outright genocide if it's combined with other forms of strife and bigotry real life humans would be more familiar with.
  • While one hasn't been properly introduced yet and the other is only just being fleshed out as of June 2019, Gentle does mention two villains called Destro and Oji Harima, both of who are just as infamous, if not more so, than ALL FOR ONE! And Destro is said to be the leader of a group called the Quirk Liberation Army. Meaning this may well be a case of Ascended Fridge Horror (and it was).
  • It's possible that Destro's more interested in removing limits on Quirk usage, but the 'Liberation Army' part does bring to mind a terrorist or some such organization.
  • Both are true, as it turns out. The Liberation Army battled entire countries to reduce limits on Quirk/meta ability usage.
• While the observation that a lot of the heroes in the Top 10 have Quirks that are Difficult, but Awesome can be a sign of good work, there is another possibility. All Might describes All For One going after strong Quirks when talking about the comparative weakness of his predecessors's base Quirks, and All For One would have been very active until very recently in canon. It is possible that the reason most of the Top 10 heroes either have really difficult Quirks, or fairly mutant Quirks, is that All for One would have stolen the powers of people with a lot more simple and powerful Quirks quickly. Further evidence is that a lot of the heroes highly ranked with more traditionally simple and powerful Quirks like Miruko, Kamui Woods, and Ryuku are 26 by around the time that All Might retires, putting their debuts at 20ish around the time All For One was presumed dead.
• When explaining to Midoriya why he's going through such rigorous training by cleaning up a beach, All Might says that if an unprepared vessel inherits One for All, their limbs would fly off and their entire body would explode. Uh, how exactly does he know that?
  • Perhaps it happened to one one of his predecessors, who tried to pass it to a weak person. After that, the knowledge was passed on to avoid repeating the same mistake.
    • Chapter 304 introduces the fourth user of One For All, Hikage Shinomori, who cultivated One For All for 18 years. In his final years, Shinomori's body began to rupture and passed away at the age of forty. At that time, Shinomori believed that this was because he did not train his body properly and so he likely passed down the advice that a decent level of physical fitness was a prerequisite to inherit One For All. Although decades after his death, Shinomori learnt the true cause of his death from All Might: Rapid Aging due to One For All leeching his life force. This drawback doesn't affect All Might or Izuku since they were born Quirkless.
  • More likely than not, he was referring to when Midoriya used his powers for the first time. We see it breaks his bones, but if his body was any weaker, he probably would have completely lost the limb. Likely All Might is extrapolating from his own bone-breaking injuries when he was in training.
    • Nope. All Might confirms later on that he could use One for All at 100% right off the bat, without any issues, and that he isn't really sure why Midoriya's having so much trouble.
    • The reason why Midoriya is likely having trouble is because of a concept called "Quirk numbers" introduced in Two Heroes, and the doctor who turned out to be working for All For One. The same doctor that claimed Deku had no Quirk. Think about that.
    • Not quite. He diagnosed Izuku as Quirkless due to a) the failure of a Quirk to develop and b) the present of a pinky toe joint only present in Quirkless people. It's extremely unlikely the doctor stole Izuku's Quirk; he wouldn't have even come to see him if Izuku had been exhibiting a Quirk before that.
    • Reminder that the doctor himself diagnosed Izuku though (who, and I repeat, works for someone that steals Quirks). He could be lying about Izuku's results (or maybe stealing ones Quirk regenerates a pinky toe joint, so he's dancing around the truth). The doctor lying and stealing his Quirk makes more sense than Izuku, for absolutely no reason at all besides "plot", is one of the remaining percent. Both of his parents have Quirks, after all. Also, what makes you think that he wouldn't have come to see him if he hadn't developed a Quirk before? He certainly Would Harm a Child, after all.
    • Just because something is unlikely does not mean that it cannot be true. Right now, the idea the Izuku had his Quirk stolen is mere fanon.
    • To add to that, Midoriya had gone there because his Quirk hadn't developed and, besides sudden mutations like that of Shigaraki, his theoritical Quirk should have been either his father's, his mother's or a combination, none of which look very useful and would fall among the more quirky Quirks that he isn't fond of stealing (hence why Best Jeanist is still in active). Midoriya developing a poweful mutation Quirk is just as likely as him being an atavist Quirkless, and the latter makes more sense given that, on one side, there is no way to know what a Quirk will be until it develops (so it would be the height of stupidity to steal an unknown that would most likely be a dud), when stealing a Quirk you cannot steal the control on it but you do steal the raw power it has developed (so it's way better to steal mature Quirks as opposed to dormant ones) and an hospital sees a lot of patients which could be targets for Quirk stealing, but the region doesn't seem to have a higher ratio of Quirkless kids, and on the other side it hasn't been mentioned that any of the unQuirked characters has had the bones growth (it may seem that's just an extra bone on the most useless appendage ever, but it's enough to cause discomfort when walking normally, which would have been mentioned).

• Endeavor and his wife Rei did not have a happy relationship — given how he only married her in order to produce a child strong enough to surpass All Might. She was absolutely aware of that. Knowing this, it doesn't take much to infer that he likely forced her to bear his children, just like he pushed her into a loveless marriage.
  • It gets worse when you realize how Todoroki has three older siblings — this means that Endeavor forced his wife multiple times.
  • His indifferent expression when he told Todoroki how his mother is in mental care also sadly makes sense. After having finally gotten the heir that he'd always wanted, he couldn't care less about her.
  • A scary comparison to make: Endeavor basically sought out someone with a Quirk he wanted to mix with his own and had a kid who basically has both a Fire and an Ice Quirk. That isn't all that different from All for One putting a bunch of Quirks into someone to create a Nomu.
  • It gets even worse. With All Might retiring after his fight with All For One (promoting Endeavor to top hero by default in the process), it means that all the suffering that the family went through due to Endeavor and his obsession with producing a strong child ended up being All for Nothing.
  • However, much of what was assumed does not make sense given how the implications are they got married when Endeavor would only be likely twenty. Barring the far-fetched possibility that Endeavor was considering starting a family when he was just a rookie hero, this paints questions over a lot of this.
    • Or Endeavor very much understood his own limits and confident enough that he himself couldn't beat All Might so he just went with the Nuclear Option.
  • Prior to Chapter 290, Endeavor's abuse still isn't known to the public, something which his son Natsuo is particularly upset about. It calls to mind the many instances in real life of celebrities and other respected figures getting away with horrendous actions without being held accountable until years later, if at all.
  • By Chapter 301, it is revealed that the early years of the family had been peaceful enough so the fact that Endeavour became the jerkass hero we knew by the time Shoto is five showcases how much of a Sanity Slippage did Enji had over his rivalry with All Might.
    • Or due to the fraticidal rage and supposed death of the son he had been training before, given that it seems like comments about him weren't uncommon during the spartan trainings.
• It's shown that Kaminari Denki's electricity Quirk, if overused, shorts out his brain and turns him into an idiot for a while. His Intelligence stat is at 1/5 and he has the worst grades in Class 1-A. What if each time he overloads, a little more of his brain is permanently damaged? What if eventually, one overload will permanently turn him into a vegetable? It certainly makes those times his friends forced him to overload much more cringe-worthy to look at.
• In an Omake within the 7th Volume; a fan asked the author, Horikoshi, why the winged Nomu from the Stain Arc specifically picked out and took off with Midoriya. Horikoshi answered "I will do my best to explain about Nomu later on" — along with a drawing of a boy seen in the very first chapter, as one of Bakugo's friends (and thus by extension acquainted with Midoriya), during childhood. That boy's Quirk was having wings.
  • Adding to it was that he wasn't seen in middle school with Katsuki and his other friends, meaning that he either moved away or All For One took him when he was still in elementary school.
    • Fan theories make that one even worse when you consider that he was revealed to be the grandson of the doctor who told Midoriya he didn't have a Quirk. The same doctor a lot of people assume to be the same one we saw with All For One.
    • It was recently revealed that Nomu are made from corpses. Unless this kid is an exception, the Doctor most likely killed him as a prerequisite.
    • The entire confirmation of them being the same person opens up a whole can of worms here. Were Garaki and Dr. Tsubasa always the same person? Did Garaki Kill and Replace him at some point? Was the younger Tsubasa abducted and killed by a man using the guise of his own grandfather, or even his actual grandfather? And either way, just how many of his patients, which we know include children, must have gone missing because he thought their Quirks might be useful for his experiments?
• Due to the way Magne's Quirk works, the package with a magnetic bar she used in the invasion has some disturbing connotations... Looks like it would've had female and male parts from mutilated corpses mixed inside to work as a magnet. Unless it's just something more along the lines of a harmless hair sample, in which case, that's fine.
• Toru is invisible, all the time, and said Quirk does not apply to her clothes. This has a couple of unsettling implications if you think about what could happen:
  • Since she has to be naked for her Quirk to be useful at all, this means she cannot be wearing any sort of armor or protective gear when she fights, and she's never implied to be physically stronger or tougher than a normal person. This puts her at very high risk for injury due to any villain who's capable of perceiving her via their Quirk or who has a wide area of attack. She's also at high risk for collateral damage since her allies can't see her any better than villains.
    • It could've happened very easily when UA was first invaded by Shigaraki. She had been teleported to the plateau with Todoroki, who was unaware of her presence. He used a wide range ice attack which she's lucky not to have been caught in since he implied prolonged exposure would harm the victims.
    • There are other practical concerns with being naked of course. For starters, she's barefoot, which means that she is vulnerable to injury from stones, broken glass, insects, etc. as well as from both frostbite and scolding depending on the temperature. And speaking of the elements, whilst she may have a certain protection from UV rays (although UV and the visible spectrum are actually two completely different things), on a cold day she would quickly run the risk of death.
  • There's also no indication that her Quirk turns off if she's injured or unconscious, which means that if she is injured in battle, her allies aren't going to be able to protect her or give her treatment unless they're lucky enough to stumble onto her without hurting her further.
  • And even if they do find her, unless they have someone like Recovery Girl on hand, treating her injuries is going to be almost impossible since nobody would be able to see exactly what they're doing. Would Tooru even know how badly she's been hurt aside from knowing where the pain is or what isn't responding to her anymore?
  • And then there are the psychological effects of being invisible 24/7; remember The Invisible Man?
  • While the manga seems to imply Tooru's Quirk is light-manipulation based (as mentioned on her character page) and mean that things like her eyelids could be blocking out light like everyone else's from her own perspective Mirio's Quirk brings up an interesting point for other "invisibility" Quirk bearers: Light passing through a person's eyes without catching any light (which assumedly would make at least the pupils of the eyes visible) would mean that person is blind as long as they are invisible, and even if they weren't blind to start with eyelids that can't protect them would put them at higher risk of going blind anyway.
    • But obviously her Quirk doesn't really work like that since she probably has a Required Secondary Power.
• Recovery Girl's Quirk is so rare and so useful in healing other people who are hurt by U.A.'s rigorous training and recently, villain encounters, that one must wonder how far back U.A. will be set if she dies.
  • Fortunately, most people with healing Quirks seem to go into medicine, and there seem to be specific laws allowing healers to heal people, so a school of UA's prestige would likely find another.
• The Reveal of Toga Himiko's Quirk is full of this:
  • First, the real Camie is either dead or has been kidnapped by the villains and possibly used to create a new Nomu.
  • If Toga has been impersonating Camie for three days straight, does that mean she has gone to her home and interacted with Camie's family without being discovered? Imagine those folk going about their lives as usual without noticing anything aside of their daughter/sister acting "a bit weird lately".
  • Toga can, as far as we know, impersonate Izuku and Ochaco with only people who know them really well being able to tell the difference. The things she could do with this advantage are pure Paranoia Fuel.
  • This is alleviated with the latest Hassaikai Arc giving an explanation. Toga can only maintain about a day with a cup of blood, meanwhile, the blood she got from Izuku doesn't fill a full cup. So she can't hold the transformation for long either way. Though still, the Paranoia Fuel is still there.
  • Also, how much blood would Toga have taken if she was able to impersonate Camie for three days straight? That's depending if Twice didn't just duplicate the amount of blood Toga took from Camie.
  • A little alleviated that Camie is alive in Chapter 164.
• The fact that One For All grows stronger with each user. Normally, this would be an unquestionable benefit, but in this case, it also puts a heavier strain on the user's body. While this can be overcome by learning to only use a fraction of the power, it can be hard without first getting used to the Quirk, meaning eventually the Quirk will become useless as its first use would just tear the user's body apart well before they can learn to control it.
  • This also highlights the benefit of passing One For All to a Quirkless successor, as Nana did with All Might and All Might did with Deku. Because that person doesn't have any extra power outside that of a normal human's to add to One For All, the power compiled into it for each new Quirkless user is greatly lessened when compared to passing it on to someone with their own Quirk. This, theoretically, helps delay that dangerous "using this power equals death" scenario that could happen many, many generations down the line.
    • Except that not only doesn't work, due to most people (anyone not All For One, that is) being physically unable to handle more than one Quirk, let alone one that, again, is continuing to grow stronger, it will actually kill people with Quirks even faster
• Once the One for All's owner selects a successor and passes the power, the previous owner starts losing his/her power as the successor grows stronger. That means that, when Sensei went after Nana, who had already passed her Quirk to All Might, she wasn't even close to her prime while he was at his best; considering that it took All Might's full power to defeat him the first time, Nana was on the receiving end of a horrifying Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Kirishima has a minute scar in the upper corner of his right eye from the moment his Quirk activated for the first time without warning and he accidentally sliced himself while rubbing his eyes. What if he rubbed his eye a little lower?
  • Here's a fridge horror based on that: think of all the ways the class found out about their Quirks. Sato for example probably ate some sugar at some point and became a really strong, mentally slowed toddler. Think of how often little kids are offered cookies, juices, and other things with sugar in them, and imagine how that might turn your kid out of nowhere into the equivalent of a gorilla. That's not even getting into some other Quirks that could have been really unpleasant to discover at random...imagine baby Mt. Lady randomly growing massive one day and how that must have freaked her parents out.
  • We've seen how Tokoyami's Quirk gets very uncontrollable and dangerous at night. And that's when he's a teenager. Now, what about when he was just a small child who had only just found out about it and didn't understand? The scenarios are through the roof. Did his parents tuck him to bed and turn off the lights only to wake up seeing this unknown menacing shadow tearing up their son's room? What kind of psychological effects could have on him?
  • It gets even more horrifying with some of the Quirks we've seen that can't be turned off... like Shigaraki's "Decay" Quirk. It's implied that he inadvertently killed his own father with it as a very young child.
  • Try 'his entire family', per Chapter 222. Where do you think he got his hands?!
• The knowledge that Bakugou's Explosion is the result of the combination of his parent's nitric acid and glycerin Quirks is at face value a neat little bit of trivia. Then the Quirk Singularity is described as new, more powerful, and uncontrollable abilities emerging from different Quirks mixing over the generations. Bakugou's strength may not just be the product of all his training.
  • Granted, Bakugou's Quirk wasn't nearly as powerful when it first manifested, since he could only create small sparks as a child. But if he truly is affected by the Singularity, any children he has might be able to produce larger and more erratic explosions right off the bat.
    • Or produce "explosions" of an entirely different sort (say an antigravity explosion or cryogenic blast)
• In Episode 28, a newspaper is seen with pictures of five heroes killed by Stain. At least one of them was◊ among the background extras in the Sports Festival Arc.
• The fact that Sir Nighteye's death along with Mirio losing his Quirk could have been prevented if Midoriya and Mirio decided to save Eri when they first saw her makes this a Fridge Tearjerker than anything else. The full weight will certainly crush Izuku, assuming he hasn't figured it out yet.
  • It will be even worse for Mirio because he was the one who stopped them from saving her. Particularly since his Intangibility would have made it easy to defeat Overhaul at that time (Overhaul has to touch people to affect them which gave Mirio a considerable advantage against him as seen when they actually fought).

• The sheer amount of Quirks that the Nomus, and by extension All for One, have, raises the question of just where they keep getting them. How many people are sought out and dragged away for power confiscation? More unnervingly the fact that this went unreported or untraced makes you wonder what happened to the people whose Quirks were removed, seeing as the process didn't kill Ragdoll.
  • Fortunately, this one was at least a bit explained with the introduction of someone who can copy stolen Quirks permanently — one person's durability Quirk could have been reproduced 100 times rather than 100 people getting kidnapped and getting their Quirks stolen.
  • A lot of unease can come about when one thinks about all of the possible Quirks he could have taken. One for All is terrifying enough, but if he had taken Quirks as potent as Present Mic's, Shoto's, or Aizawa's, that might have tipped the battles against All Might into a very bad direction.
    • It's later revealed that they once did try to get Aizawa back when he was a student. Instead they got Shirakumo. Imagine if Kurogiri had been able to nullify quirks...
• How important Izuku/Deku is to the well being of the dramatis personae of the story at large:
  • If Izuku didn't exist or wasn't in the right place at the right time Katsuki Bakuguo would likely have died at the hands of the Sludge — unless he was absolutely essential for the villain's second escape.
    • Izuku may have been the reason All Might lost the bottle holding Sludge when he grabbed onto his leg, so Bakuguo would probably be safe.
  • Assuming that Izuku didn't inherit One For All and end up a UA, Mineta and Asui may well have been killed by the aquatic villains of the League during the attack on the USJ.
    • Without Izuku inheriting OfA, All Might would likely be teaching Mirio's third-year class. As the League attacked the USJ when they did because they had stolen a schedule stating that All Might would be present at that time, if All Might isn't one of 1-A's teachers, the League would not have attacked during 1-A's training.
  • Without Izuku at UA, his fight with Shoto Todoroki wouldn't have happened and Todoroki's realization — and subsequent character development — that his power was his, not his father's — wouldn't have occurred, at least not at that time.
  • Without that development, Shoto likely wouldn't have interned with his father and ended up in Hosu, absent as well would have been trainee hero Deku interning with Gran Torino — both ending up in Hosu.
  • Without Izuku and Shoto, Native and Tenya Ida would both have likely perished at the hands of Hero Killer Stain, who would likely still be at large.
  • Since he wouldn't be training Izuku/Deku as the successor to All Might, Gran Torino wouldn't have been in Hosu during the attack by the League of Villains and their Nomu, likely leading to the death of several more civilians and a more difficult fight over all.
  • With no Izuku, Kouta would have almost certainly been killed by Muscular during the School Trip fight with the league.
    • With no Izuku, the attack on the school trip would have been very different from canon, if it happened at all, as the villains involved in the attack joined the League because of Stain's big speech. Without Izuku, Stain would likely still be at large, resulting in the other villains not being inspired to join the League. Also, it was worried about the likely growing strength of the League that prompted UA to shift the school training trip to the woods, so avoiding that, Kouta would have been nowhere near the training trip and any potential villain attacks.
    • Also, it's confirmed at least part of the League's fascination with 1-A is due to Shigaraki's fascination with Izuku. The traitor who revealed the location probably also revealed that All Might wasn't going to be there, so it's not like they were targeting him. Their show of power could have been somewhere else without the draw of Izuku being there.
    • With no Izuku to fight Stain, the outcome would have been far worse. Iida went after Stain on his own, and Midoriya rescued him. With no Izuku, Iida and Native (the other hero Stain got a hold of) would most certainly have been killed. Think of how the death of a student during an internship would have affected UA.
  • How important Izuku was to rescuing Bakuguo is a matter of debate but anything from the attempted rescue not happening — potentially letting All For One carry on with his merry madness unmolested — to it failing — leading to several student deaths — or simply succeeding like usual are possible.
  • Assuming that Mirio Togata inherited One For All from All Might as was "originally" intended in the absence of Izuku, if everything stayed the same and he still jumped in front of that bullet to save Eri, One For All potentially would have been lost forever with nothing to counter All For One (Quirk) if either All For One (Villain) either escaped or passed his Quirk on to Tomura Shigaraki. This does assume that Mirio doesn't weigh the importance of One For All — and all the lives it may potentially save — against Eri, and act differently, assuming that he's pretty much the same otherwise, it's doubtful he would choose himself over Eri.
    • This also assumes that the increased strength and speed boosts that Mirio would have thanks to OfA would not have allowed him to defeat Overhaul before the Quirk destroying bullets could be used. In the canon fight, Mirio landed punches on both Overhaul and Chronostasis, which they were able to recover from and continue fighting. If Mirio possessed OfA, those hits would have ended the fight then and there.
    • Not to mention that, thanks to One For All super speed, he would have probably been able to take Eri out of the bullet's way without being hit by it, not to mention that, thanks to the huge training he already had for his own Quirk, he probably would have way more than just 20% by that point, if not directly 100%, so he would most likely one-shot Overhaul anyway
• From what can be seen on his character sheet/beneath his overall attire, roughly 80% of Dabi's body appears to be either rotting, slightly mummified, or severely burnt. We've no idea how he received those injuries, at least at this point in the series. Given Dabi's "Cremation" Quirk and overall character, it's not inconceivable to think he did that to himself; but it's just as likely he received those injuries in a fight... which must have been some fight. Either possibility seems equally horrific.
  • If Dabi's skin is burned that severely and he doesn't have some kind of pain resistance Quirk on top of it... this troper would hate to be him.
  • Chapter 267 reveals that Dabi is physically incapable of crying because his tear ducts have been burnt away. The psychological implications of that are not pretty.
  • He did indeed do that to himself, and keeps doing so. He has an enhanced version of Endeavour's Quirk, but his body was born with a resistance to ice, like his mother. So he hurts himself even more with his power. And Endeavour's less powerful Quirk takes already a heavy toll on him.
• A bit on the light side here, but Gang Orca is only the THIRD most villainous seeming hero, meaning there are two more heroes each with a more passing resemblance to a villain than him. One can only shudder at the idea of the reasons for that.
  • Just the fact that a list like that even exists is pretty demoralizing. Especially for Gang Orca, who is said to be self-conscious about how frightening his appearance is to children.
• A big one involving the Heights Alliance and the possibility of a traitor in U.A: now all of the students are in a single place. If the traitor was ordered to eliminate all of Class 1-A or decided that they were nearly exposed and needed to act immediately while they still could, they'd all be in one spot as opposed to being scattered all over Japan as they previously had been. In trying to protect the students, U.A. may have unintentionally made them all the more vulnerable to a single mass murder spree or event. For a rough example of how various traitors could do so...
  • A Toru traitor could slip around completely invisible and stab everyone in their sleep.
  • A Kaminari traitor could start an electrical fire and burn everyone alive in their sleep.
  • A Sero traitor could tape everyone's mouths and limbs down to suffocate them as they sleep.
  • A Jiro traitor could use her earphones to break the building's support pillar, dropping the thing on everyone in their sleep.
  • A Shoji traitor could spawn numerous hands to hold down his victims as he either smothers, strangles, or simply breaks their necks. As they sleep.
  • A Kota traitor could command an army of ants to eat everyone alive, as they sleep.
  • A Mina traitor could burn or dissolve everyone with acid as they sleep.
  • A Mineta traitor could suffocate people with sticky balls as they sleep.
  • And if the traitor is a teacher, then he/she can easily go to the dorms without being suspected of anything.
    • As they sleep.
• There's another possibility for a UA traitor that makes it worse. Whoever the traitor is, they could be being blackmailed into it by means of a Hostage Situation and having no choice but to comply with their handler's commands. Think about it; they'd be forced to ruin relationships they probably cherish simply because some asshole decided to turn them into a pawn by threatening their loved one.
  • This would make even more sense if one of them was a student...
  • It's possible that the principle subscribes to the blackmail idea. While All Might believes that his students "have the heart of a true hero", Nezu agreed with him. However, while Nezu may believe in that, he likely doesn't exclude the possibility of them being blackmailed into doing so.
• Eri's power highlights a terrifying Fridge Horror about Quirks in general: they aren't decided by someone's personality, and aren't some sort of mutant powers that follow standard comic book logic. You're either given them by an outside force, awakened to them by random factors from the spread of Quirks across humanity, or were born with one. Being born with a Quirk can be manipulated, passed on, and even combined in due time, as Todoroki is living proof of — but Quirks can completely disobey genealogy rules at random. And Eri was born with the Rewind Quirk when not a single person in her family line ever exhibited any traits of anything matching it. It's entirely possible that a friend, family member, or even your own children can just suddenly awaken to a new and extremely dangerous Quirk, and kill you, others, or even themselves with it in the process. And there's nothing you can do to prevent or know about it ahead of time.
  • That's not even getting into the potential problems this could cause in families. How many children like Eri or Tenko Shimura in such situations ended up being accused as not being random power mutants, but the results of affairs? After all, Quirks are generally inherited from parents. If your child has a Quirk very different from your own, it is easy to assume it isn't because of a rare mutation.
• Eri overusing her Quirk on Deku gives her an intense fever. It's unknown if this is a one-time incident or if this happens every time she exerts herself. If it's the latter, imagine how bad it must have been when she used her Quirk for the very first time as a toddler. Especially since Eri's mother considered her cursed and likely didn't do anything to help her sick daughter.
• The Nomu, High-End, expands upon the Fridge Horror that Nomus were once people. His obsession with strength and finding new opponents, and not to mention the very similar Quirk that allows him to increase/expand his muscles, may remind some people of Muscular. While it's left unconfirmed if Muscular is still imprisoned, this implies that the League of Villains might have got him out and somehow turned him into High End. So not only are Nomus people, but the LoV can make them without All for One's assistance.
  • Fortunately it turns out that Muscular is in fact arrested, that they can duplicate Quirks, and High End was just some other aggressive crook. Not good for the aggressive crook, but Muscular himself is perfectly fine.
• Remember back when everyone took Aizawa's fitness test and how Midoriya ended up dead last? Seems like a case of Informed Ability since some of the others have Quirks that wouldn't help in any of the tests, but what if it's not? We already know Aizawa would be gunning for Midoriya from the start (as stated by All Might). What if Aizawa deliberately rigged the test just to get an excuse to expel Midoriya? If it's true, then the only reason Midoriya wasn't expelled at all was that he showed his potential to Aizawa during the ball throw. Makes one wonder how many other students were expelled through the same means.
  • Delving into Aizawa's backstory offers some Nightmare Retardant in that the threat of expulsion is actually his method of training his students on how to deal with 'death' by exposing them to scenarios where they could or would realistically lose all hope of their dreams coming to fruition if he either actually followed through on the threat or didn't 'change his mind' afterwards. Basically, he's deliberately invoking Nightmare Fuel in regards to his students' ambitions to prepare them for an unfair and unforgiving career.
• A lighter horror, but a lot, and I mean a lot of the Sports Festival matches would have been a lot less ideal if one side had lost instead of won.
  • Shinshou vs Todoroki: with how upset Todoroki was, it would not have been hard for him to provoke Todoroki to trigger Brainwashing.
  • Sero vs Midoriya: The move Sero used on Todoroki would have been hard for Izuku to get out of. Breaking his feet would not snap him out of tape, and any broken arms would have stopped him from moving his arms.
  • Kaminari vs Iida: Wide range electric attacks would have caught Iida no matter how fast he moved.
  • Hatsume vs Ibara: Even if she wanted to win, Ibara would be on to her antics, and her vines could tear her tech apart.
  • Yaoyorozu vs Mina: She could produce bases to counter her acid before it could get used.
  • Aoyama vs Tokoyami: His navel laser is one, big, bright light, and Dark Shadow doesn't like light.
  • Teststetsu vs Bakugo: If he could deal with Todoroki's fire, explosions would be much easier even with less training.
  • Uraraka vs Kirishima: Kirishima would not be as prone to hitting her, and even trying to get close would just get her to levitate him into helplessness.
  • Midoriya vs Iida: Plenty of notes, Midoriya has the speed to help handle Iida and the agility to not be directly caught up. He'd also want to get back at Iida for sneaking Recipro by him, giving him motivation.
  • Ibara vs Todoroki: A bit less, but her vines might be able to get past his ice by going underground and bypassing his strategies.
  • Ashido vs Bakugo: Also a bit less, but she'd at least be at a better elemental match-up than Tokoyami.
  • Kirishima vs Tokoyami: Actually fairly less beneficial, assuming Kirishima can't fisticuff through Dark Shadow.
  • Iida vs Bakugo: He could dodge Bakugo's explosions easier and would not have the resource/mental hangup problems Todoroki had.
  • Tokoyami vs Todoroki: Without the fire power in full use, Dark Shadow could sneak around and over the ice attacks with Tokoyami in tow. He'd be harder to lock down.
• Just what Quirks and techniques did All Might and All for One do to each other to leave them with what injuries they left the fight with?
  • This troper likes to imagine that, despite his years in America training with Of A and getting stronger, All Might never forget the desperation he felt at having to leave his master behind to face All for One in a weakened state. So when he finally had the chance to fight his enemy face to face, he held nothing back and probably threw a United States of Smash guided by bloodlust more than heroic reciprocation. As for All for One, given what has been learned about his motivations, namely trying to steal One for All back from its users, he potentially might have been trying to cripple All Might instead of killing him, thus weakening him enough to do so, only to get that anger-fueled Smash that wrecked his body enough to cost him the full breadth of Quirks he'd stolen up until then and put him on life support, necessitating the need for a successor of his own in Tomura Shigaraki.
• With the revelation that One for All contains the Quirks of its previous users inside of it comes the freakish reveal of the Black Whip, which nearly kills everyone around Midoriya. From the reader's perspective this is already horrifying up front, but think about it from a larger perspective: the community at large just witnessed Midoriya publicly unleash a Quirk he isn't documented for having at all, in a world where such info can spread like wildfire and just about everyone that wasn't an All for One ally or victim is restricted to solely one Quirk by genetic nature. Midoriya's life could become an absolute hell if villains or the wrong groups, in general, learn about him, and it might bring others closer to the truth of One for All without any control over it on his part, much less any way for him or All Might to even predict what might happen.
  • Even worse, what's to stop people from drawing a connection between Izuku and the multi-Quirked Nomu?
• The fact that Chapter 220 not only made Ascended Fridge Horror the existence of racism against mutant-type Quirks like Spinners, but also that there is an analog to the Klan who pushes for it running around, and given Spinner's own personal history they aren't without supporters still. What of the heroic characters who don't look human, like Ojiro and Tokoyami? Did they ever deal with the C.R.C?
• Toga's Personality Powers gives a whole new meaning of horrifying come Chapter 226. According to her backstory and Kizuki, her Quirk made her naturally attracted to blood. If this is true, then how many other Quirks are affecting the personalities of their owners? How many villains are just acting on instincts given to them by their Quirks?
  • On that note, does this mean All For One's obsession with stealing Quirks is a result of his Quirk? Or that Shigaraki's desire to destroy everything he hates is because of his Decay Quirk? Evidence for the latter's case is when, as a child, Shigaraki's Quirk didn't activate until he stated "he hates everything". Seems oddly coincidental.
  • Back to Toga, the parents' reaction to her Quirk makes you wonder about their own Quirks. Either they had totally different Quirks and Toga was a shocking mutation a la Eri, or they had similar Quirks that were repressed in similar ways. The only difference being they hadn't mentally snapped like their daughter had: yet. It also has the darkly hilarious thought that if they do have similar Quirks that Toga would probably be mentally healthier if her parents were villains who fully embraced their Quirk and took said daughter off on blood 'hunts' (or kicked her out right right then and there with the first bird).
• In Chapter 230, Geten states that, in the society envisioned by the Meta Liberation Army, one's standing in society is tied to how powerful their Quirk is. That's harsh enough already, but... what would that mean for the tiny percentage of Quirkless people still popping up out there? What would happen to a pre-One For All Izuku in that kind of society?
  • This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that the Social Darwinist society seems to be only his own vision. It's still unclear what the Re-Destro's vision (let alone everyone else in the army) is.
  • When Slidin-Go tries to pull rank on Hawks he is told off by Skeptic because Hawks is more useful to the league than he is due to the quality of intelligence he provides. The MLA clearly has no respect for loyalty as long as they can obtain an advantage in their operation. What kind of society would these guys build?
• Fridge Tearjerker. Shigaraki became a villain because nobody but All For One bothered to lend a hand to him at his Darkest Hour. How different would Shigaraki's life have gone if instead of All for One, All Might saw the hurting child and lent him a hand?
  • Gets worse when you consider the implications and All for One's declared standard operating procedure of finding people at their lowest point and twisting them to his own ends. He finds and takes a kid who just killed his whole family by accident with a Quirk he had no way of controlling that had awakened in response to parental abuse by his father. He then proceeds to invoke psychological torture on the kid by presenting him with the severed hands of his family to wear as a reminder. And given how much of a Psychopathic Manchild the kid grew up to be, you can bet that healthy emotional outlets weren't something All for One felt important to teach. Also, given that he managed to get to the kid before any of the authorities, just how long was he watching the Shimura family, waiting for something like what happened?
• Not much "horror" but still uncomfortable to think. It's been known since their establishment that the hidden purpose of the dorms is to monitor the students more closely by having them living in a single place. As of Chapter 242, set four months later, no conclusive evidence to pinpoint any suspect has been found. So while the question of whether the spy is one of 1-A's students or not still lingers, another can be raised: how much have they pried into their privacy? For all we know, the dorm may be full of hidden cameras and microphones.
• Not as terrifying, more disturbing to consider: Ibara's Quirk turns the hair on her head into vines. Is it just her head though? Does it affect every body hair she has, even if artistic styling mean it isn't really visible? Is her entire body covered by fine thorns that make hugging her like hugging an abrasive sponge? If she was a guy, had brothers, or inherited the Quirk from her father, would said guy's chest be covered in a spiky version of a Carpet of Virility? Is her armpit housing a little nest of thorns she could shoot out as an emergency thorn (even if that is probably the least likely due to how her Quirk needs sunlight)? Does she have vines instead of pubic hair she could use in a pinch akin to the Lovecraftian Superpower or Vagina Dentata tropes? Heck if you really want to wonder about this trope, look at her casual clothing, you'd notice how much of her body it covers. Could just be her being a devout character, or it could be her trying to minimize sunlight contact with parts of the body she doesn't want it on...
  • Possible, but unlikely. Have a good look at an image of her, and you'll notice that she has very normal eyebrows, without so much as a tiny bit of green on them. If it really did affect all her hair, her eyebrows and eyelashes would likely be part of that. Her very modest clothing is likely just because she is a modest girl.
• Quirks are explicitly mentioned as being a part of the person using them, something that they consciously control, to varying extents depending on the specific nature of the Quirk. So, what happens if someone with a Quirk has a seizure? Or, in a similar vein to Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex, they lose control of their Quirk during orgasm? Deku would be bad enough with just the super strength, but what about Bakugo? He sweats nitroglycerin and has the ability to consciously ignite it, but the first part is an always-on thing, so if he lost control during the moment, his entire body would be covered in nitro. Talk about Nightmare Fuel...
  • It would depend on the specific Quirk. Some Quirks require concentration to be activated, which means that scrambling the user's concentration would make them unable to activate their Quirk (or deactivate it, if it was previously active).
• With the reveal that Kurogiri is a special breed of Nomu created using the body of Oboro Shirakumo, a classmate and close friend of Eraser Head and Present Mic during their UA days who died during an internship, it raises many disturbing possibilities about where all the other Nomu came from, as well as how long All For One and the Doctor were making them.
• People say that there's no one All Might has failed to save when he was on-scene. We know, however, that All Might was present at the second incident with the Sludge Villain, and due to his hero timer wouldn't have intervened unless Izuku had been there reminding him of what it meant to be a hero. How many times has All Might been on-scene, but unrecognizable, and consciously decided not to help?
• When you think about it, Kota is really lucky that he punched mild-mannered Deku in the balls and not, say, Bakugo who just so happened to be standing right next to the latter at the time. The next time we saw Kota he may well have been sporting a face like Todoroki. This also would have interesting implications for Bakugo and the rest of Class 1-A given how the rest of the arc plays out, especially if he was punished for retaliating.
  • Regarding that, it was pretty much the Pussycats' fault for taking Kota with them at the camp and not keeping him away from the students, not even after kicking Deku. Also, some counseling, or maybe just seeing a clip of a hero risking their lives to save someone or talking to someone who has been saved by a hero, might've changed his perspective on heroes
• In Chapter 270, it is revealed that Oboro Shirakumo's death was not an accident, but planned by Kyudai Garaki and that the original target was Shota Aizawa, or more specifically, his Erasure Quirk. Just imagine if they had succeeded and the villains had this Quirk in their possession. They could have duplicated it and then given it as a default to every High-End Nomu like they do with Super Regeneration. The heroes would have stood no chance whatsoever.
  • Garaki's presence in the story is what elevates AfO from a crime boss to an Evil Overlord, he provides the technical expertise to duplicate powerful Quirks so that AfO doesn't have to give up the original, creates the Nomu, facilitates monitoring and theft of strong Quirks through his orphanages and hospitals, and acts as the general support system for the League of Villains. AfOis even more dangerous than he would have been, and probably even still alive given the Life Force Quirk that Garaki gave him, because this one scientist was mocked for his theories. If people had treated his theories with less mockery, we wouldn't have anything from AfO in series.
  • Even worse, Kyudai Garaki is confirmed to be the seemingly random doctor that Izuku had seen at the beginning of the series, the one that notified him of being Quirkless and thus crushed his hopes and dreams. In a way, his anger at society for being disregarded was channeled into cruelly pushing a child away from his dream because he was probably already working with All For One, but that's not the horrible part: as mentioned before, he was manipulating circumstances with children for the League's own ends. Tsubasa, one of Izuku's old friends growing up, is one of the Nomu too. Izuku was effectively on the lucky side of the roulette wheel via being disregarded by a Mad Scientist, a thin razor's edge away from being kidnapped and horrifically turned into a monster for the sake of killing people and causing destruction, and absolutely no one realized it because he was thought to be useless to society for being absolutely normal. Though this also ends up a case of Nice Job Fixing It, Villain; had he been even crueler to try to do anything to young Midoriya, or even simply kept tabs on him instead of seemingly disregarding him altogether, we wouldn't have One For All's perfect successor coming out of the woodwork years later to ruin their plans.
• What did Moonfish do to wind up on death row, when known serial killers like Stain and Muscular didn't?
  • Seemingly cannibalism. Though we don't actually know their state so it is possible that Stain, Muscular, and All for One are either on or being pushed to go to death row as we speak.
• In his big reveal to Endeavor, Dabi mentions that he'd originally planned to kill Shoto, most likely when the kid was reaching fame but not powerful enough to make it impossible, but then Endeavor being named the top Hero made him change his plans. Shoto probably dodged a blazing-hot bullet inadvertently thanks to his dad; imagine dying at the hands of a brother you thought was long dead.
  • Of course, it's doubtful Toya/Dabi is gonna just turn Endeavor to ash and be like, "Okay, revenge complete. Wanna grab some noodles, bro?" afterwards...
• Throughout the series All For One often said he was making Shigaraki "the next me". At first, it's easy to assume he meant his successor, like how One for All is passed down. Come the Paranormal Liberation War arc, and we learn that, thanks to Shigaraki now having the original All for One Quirk, All For One (the villain) can do a Villain Override and take control, though Shigaraki does fight it. This makes one wonder what All For One exactly meant by "the next me".
  • Even worse, the fact that he seemingly knows exactly how the transfer will work raises the possibility that he's done this before.
• As we see a flashback to Hawks' horrifying and abusive childhood, it's too clear the relationship between his parents was devoid of any love, as it was his conception which his father viewed like a curse. At best, there may have been some attraction in the past until his mother was accidentally knocked up; at worst, it's too easy to imagine he's the fruit of his father forcing himself on her. Moreover, it's a blessing a series of circumstances allowed Hawks to rise up from the hellhole he grew up and become an hero, as otherwise his fate could have been to eventually follow in his father's footsteps, ultimately becoming a terrifying villain due to his Quirk with the only hope to the contrary being the possibility the Quirk required more intense training than a street thug could give himself to use as well as Hawks does as a hero.
• Come Chapter 300, we have a different horrifying reason why civilians taking matters into their own hands is a bad thing.
  • By the time heroes like Wash show up, several people are injured and/or dead — either the attackers who were outfought with support items, or the inexperienced civilians failing to safely use them against their assailants.
  • Unlike their American counterparts, whose culture is rooted in discipline, self-defense, and protection of their own through deterrence, the Japanese population has virtually no training or ingrained values to properly handle these new support items.
  • And while guns are common and predictable enough to anticipate, the variety of Quirks has led to an increase in paranoia, as no one knows what trick the next wielder has, leading to dangerously unpredictable consequences.
  • And let's talk about entire towns and shops arming themselves with these weapons — parts of Japan would eventually be fragmented by warlords exerting control over entire areas, not unlike what happened in Somalia — assuming All For One hasn't usurped them first.
  • Combined with rhetoric and a demoralized population, not only will countless civilians engage in vigilantism, no one will trust each other. Lynchings, accusations, the court of public opinion will not be kind to certain individuals who looked at the others in a funny way.
• At the start of the story, All Might was planning to scout a successor to inherit One For All while teaching at U.A. Then he decided to give the Quirk to Izuku Midoriya, a Quirkless but heroic boy. All Might's old sidekick, Sir Nighteye expressed doubts on his choice (believing that Mirio Togata should have inherited the Quirk), but All Might stuck to his decision. About 300 chapters later, it is revealed that One For All depletes the life force of any Quirk user who inherits it. What is scary is that none of the One For All users knew of this until recently. In other words, had All Might followed his original plan and gave One For All to someone like Shoto or Mirio, they would have quickly died prematurely, without anyone knowing the true cause, and One For All would come to an abrupt end. All Might and Izuku can wield One For All without losing their vitality because they were born Quirkless. The first user of One For All lampshades it, stating that Izuku inheriting One For All from All Might was a miracle that ensured One For All's continued existence. This also means that Izuku is fated to be the final wielder of One For All, since at this point, no other human can wield its immense power.
  • This logic doesn't follow as One For All can still be transferred to someone else without killing them if Izuku finds someone Quirkless to give it to. Plus, if the problem is life force being drained, then giving One For All to someone with a healing Quirk would mitigate the damage — and as later users of One For All gain the Quirks of previous users, then it is entirely possible to remove this problem forever.
    • Except that even a Quirkless recipient like Midoriya is struggling to wield One For All due to its immense strength. Even if Midoriya does find another Quirkless recipient and transfers One For All after training them, the new successor will not be able to use One For All without wrecking their body. It can be possible to transfer it to someone with a longevity Quirk, but the odds of finding that candidate are as hard as finding a Quirkless person. If it is transferred to a person with a healing Quirk, it will still not resolve the issue of life force depletion.
  • If Izuku is genetically Quirkless (and not one who had his Quirk removed as some theories go) it might be possible to specifically have a child who is Quirkless with targeted gene selection. In real life, it is possible to aim for certain traits to either avoid a condition or even to encourage it, such as dwarfism. However, if Izuku (and a Quirkless woman) were to specifically do that they'd more or less be intentionally crippling the child and hoping they don't resent their parent so much for it they become a villain with One for All instead. Izuku would also have to convince a 'Mrs. Midoriya' to go along with the plan, which may not be easy or well-conducive to marriage health (if a marriage or any type of relationship would even be necessary, considering modern genetic technology like artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, etc.).
• Let's talk about the actions of the Hero Public Safety Commission, shall we? On the surface, the commission has the public's trust just as much as they (used) to trust heroes. Then we learn some of their more dubious actions, like taking in Hawks and turning him into a Tyke Bomb. THEN we learn about Lady Nagant, and how the HPSC used her as their personal hitwoman, having her assassinate potential threats to Hero Society (from villains, to heroes whose actions would've tarnished the public's view on heroes, to regular people who simply were simply talking about going against the establishment) even before they actually commit crimes. What other actions did the HPSC do to maintain this "peace"? How long have these actions been going on?
  • According to Yokumiru Mera in the Provisional Hero License Exam Arc, the HPSC is understaffed, which is why he's so exhausted from overworking. At first, this seemed to be a simple gag. Then we learn about the HPSC's more dubious actions. Is the reason the HPSC is understaffed because some members wanted to change or expose how the Commission runs things and had to "disappear"? Did they try to leave only couldn't? Or, a bit more mundanely, do the higher members of the commission simply not hire new staff so they could keep more cash in their pockets?
• Just how far did Kotaro Shimura's abuse go? We know for a fact that he was physically and emotionally abusive towards his son Tenko, and it's all but shouted from a rooftop that his daughter Hana got it just as bad. Considering that his wife and in-laws were barely able to stand up to him, is almost safe to say that there was a level of spousal and elder violence involved...
• Izuku is at the same time the best inheritor of OFA and the worst possible. Because Toshinori was too. Being Quirkless, they could hold OFA without many side effect. But being self-sacrificing, good determinators without any self restraint and care for themselves, Toshinori brought himself to the brink of death more than once and Izuku is following the same self-destructive path, crushed by the responsibilities of his powers.
• At the beginning of the manga, All Might describes maintaining his muscle-form as being like that guy who sucks in his gut when passing by girls at the beach. It’s a somewhat humorous comparison, but makes more sense when we are finally introduced to what he looked like in his prime and you realize that the current All Might’s face (in his muscle-form) is incredibly tight and clenched, giving his wide grin a much more strained look in comparison to the more natural smile he wore in his youth. It becomes a telling showcase of the sheer strain All Might has to exert to continue to use his power, even before he starts to lose strength after giving One For All up to Izuku.
• The Reveal that Aoyama was born Quirkless and received his Quirk from All For One brings some disturbing possibilities. Namely, that given that his Quirk hurts his body, it's likely AFO deliberately gave him a harmful Quirk, just because he could. To make matters worse, given what happened to Lady Nagant when AFO remote detonated the Quirk she had received from him, Aoyama is also in serious danger of being killed for his decision if the villain found out.
• The idea that eventually, all of humanity as we know it will simply cease to be through Quirks mutating their bodies to properly handle the increasingly-stronger powers they're born with through the generations. We've seen examples of this present all throughout the series, people whose bodies have been altered into almost unrecognisable human forms through their powers and suffered Fantastic Racism for it, and how Tomura is blatantly showcasing the end result: A monstrous form of existence that doesn't even bear any resemblance to Tomura's original human body. And the worst part is, this is inevitable. There's no cure to turn people back into being Quirkless humans besides All For One's powers or Overhaul's eraser bullets, and Quirks have become so widespread that humans who don't have them are almost extinct altogether. At some point in the future, humanity will have evolved into something else entirely through this phenomenon and there's no concrete reason as to why this is happening, or what the end result will ultimately be.
  • And if Toga is any indication, even their minds won't be safe from this evolution. Human life as we know it will eventually change into eldritch monsters, and the there is jack all anyone can do about it.
  • At a glance, this almost looks like that even the best case scenario, the defeat of All for One and redemption of all the other main villains will result in nothing more than a Esoteric Happy Ending, as humanity is completely screwed whether the good guys win or lose anyway.
• With The Reveal of Endeavor's full backstory on chapter 356, Enji becoming a horrible father to his children makes a very dark amount of sense. When Endeavor was a child, he witnessed his own father being murdered by a villain (while the father was implied to be trying to save Enji's sister no less). Not only that would harden the heart of pretty much anyone, losing his dad at a such a young age would also mean that Endeavor would have no role model or advising figure for when he became a father himself. While his actions towards his family can not be justified, part of the reason Enji sucks at being a dad is because he really doesn't know how to be a good dad.

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