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I DUNNO SPIDEY LOL

"Up, Up and Away Web!"
Peter Parker, Spider-Man: The Movie

You got a New Super Power or two? Great! Can you use them? While the standard hero seems to instinctively know his or her way around every possible ability he or she can obtain throughout the story, some people have to flail and struggle, with everybody laughing at them.

Also applies when a character attempts to mimic or steal the abilities of a hero (like stealing their Empathic Weapon) and ultimately fails.

When he is successful, the newly acquired power is too unpredictable or costly in his opinion to use in the long run, since he may lack the time or experience to perfect it. It's doubly humiliating if he's defeated by the hero anyway. This is sometimes An Aesop that a hero's strength is his character, not his powers.

Nonetheless some are too stubborn to give them up, and may become a kind of Evil Counterpart.

One would expect this to be a natural co-trope for a Puberty Superpower, which makes it strange that until recently this was rarely the case - most teen heroes seemed to know how their powers worked instinctively.

The name comes from Something Awful's randomly renamed and incredibly nonsensical "FYAD" subforum, where it originated as a quotable quote from somebody playing the Half Life mod 'Natural Selection' and trying to figure out the alien faction's special abilities. It got quickly transposed to Spidey because it's funnier when he says it. It has since spread wide across the Internet, as such things are wont to do.

Often follows up Powers In The First Episode.


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  • Much of Final Fantasy VI focuses on Terra's inability to control her powers as a [spoiler:half-Esper].
  • Final Fantasy VII. After his defeat at Nibelheim, Sephiroth is inactive for 7 years, presumably learning how to control Jenova.

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