Fanfic / My Hero Playthrough

One morning, Izuku Midoriya woke up to find a floating box reporting that his accidental injuries from the previous day had healed. After struggling through a day full of similar pop-ups, Izuku rushes home to examine this new ability. As a result, he does not meet All Might and Sludge...

My Hero Playthrough is a My Hero Academia The Gamer Harem Fanfic by Xavon Wrentaile, with a sprinkling of characters and ideas from other franchises for good measure.

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My Hero Playthrough provides examples of:

Tropes A-H

• Accidental Kiss: Ami was aiming to kiss Izuku on the cheek, but he turned to look at her at the same time, so she landed on his lips instead. After a brief moment of awkwardness, they kiss again on purpose.
• Accidental Pervert:
  • In Chapter 14, Izuku accidentally made Tsuyu briefly go commando when testing the Equip function of his Inventory screen on her. Not even his Gamer's Mind spared him from a Luminescent Blush when he realized what just happened.
  • In Chapter 15, Izuku learns by accident that Clairvoyance allows him to See the Invisible, such as Hagakure who's standing nearby in her Hero costume. He also learns she's gorgeous, as in she "would make most models jealous" gorgeous, and can't help but remark on the Irony of that.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Izuku gains resistance to paralysis after being exposed to Tsuyu's oil.
• Actually a Doombot: The Stain that Izuku, Mordred, Iida and Todoroki fought at Hosu is actually a Twice clone.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Shigaraki bursts out laughing when he realizes Endeavor stole two vials from the case of Trigger that Harley and Toga stole.
• Adaptational Badass: Rather than getting caught in Kurogiri's trap, Thirteen uses their power to lock Kurogiri's portal in place, preventing him from defending himself and allowing Momo to plant an explosive charge on him.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Izuku meets Tsuyu 10 months before the UA entrance exam due to picking the same place as her to train. They become friends and training buddies, and after a while, his mother Inko starts babysitting Tsuyu's siblings so they can get more time to train.
  • The entire Class 1-B joins 1-A in the first 2-vs-2 Hero Fundamentals training exercise (resulting in the above See the Invisible incident) rather than appearing at the Sports Festival.
  • The Big Three all appear as reinforcements during the attack on the USJ, a couple of arcs earlier than canon.
  • Izuku finds Eri by pure chance while he's training his skills shortly after the Sports Festival.
• Adaptational Heroism: Cassandra's father David Cain, while still an assassin, is stated to be a Vigilante rather than a straight-up villain. Not only that, but he is the one who suggested that Cass try out for U.A. after she proved she wasn't really cut out for his particular brand of "heroism".
• Adaptational Jerkass: Shinso. Not only does he use his Quirk to control fellow Sports Festival participants like in canon, but he also discards them once they're no longer useful to him. In canon, he didn't consider doing such a thing.
• Adaptational Modesty: Momo wears a Zipperiffic heavy leather jacket and pants combo along with a motorcycle helmet rather than the Navel-Deep Neckline-baring outfit she has in canon. In order to use her Quirk, she simply unzips as much skin surface as she needs to create a given item, and then she just zips it back closed, while hidden in the helmet are a few protein shakes she can consume when she needs to reload her Quirk's fuel. The helmet also has a supercomputer built in to function as the equivalent of the book canon!Momo has.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Inko is bisexual in this story, in canon she is still married to her absent husband and the series doesn't show her relationship at all.
• Adaptational Super Power Change:
  • Izuku has the power of The Gamer instead of being the next wielder of One for All.
  • Mikoto and Ami have roughly the same powers as their canon selves, however here they are both Emitter-type Quirks rather than ESP and magic, respectively.
  • Cassandra has her canon body reading, but here it is part of her Quirk (as is her being mute) rather than the result of Training from Hell. She can also detect movement like a radar at short range.
  • Whereas Mordred was a Heroic Spirit armed with the legendary sword Clarent, "Mo-Chan" is capable of manipulating three swords simultaneously and storing them in some kind of Hammerspace.
  • Pony's Horn Cannon is slightly different. Canonically, she could control at least four of them at once and had no limit to how many she could fire. Here, she can only fire ten at once, and can only control the three most recently fired. In addition, whereas canon!Pony has two horns on either side of her head resembling gazelle horns, here she has a single horn on her forehead, bringing to mind a unicorn. Possibly justified by the number of horns she can use, as Pony's Quirk isn't canonically introduced until the Joint Training Arc – it may just be that this Pony hasn't trained herself up to that point yet.
  • Instead of being a normal human gifted with enhanced physical abilities and poison immunity by Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn has a Power Nullifier Quirk.
• Adaptational Wimp: Izuku's version of The Gamer is a lot less broken than in canon, especially so compared to other crossovers.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Harley Quinn's hair is naturally red and blue this time around, which gets Lampshaded in Chapter 23.
  Aizawa: Weren't you supposed to be blonde?
  Harley: [rolls eyes] The blonde was a dye to give patients the veneer of normalcy. But after I met Sensei and Mistah S, and realized just how pointless that was, I let my natural colors come back.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • "Pony" is simply a nickname here rather than Tsunatori's given name. Before she can say her real name, a plane flying overheard obscures what she says. It is later revealed that her given name is Marion.
  • The Rhode Island Seven has a member named Manhunter rather than Martian Manhunter as they were all humans with Quirks rather than half the group being aliens.
  • Several of 1-A's Hero names change.
    • Izuku decides to become "Decade" since Uraraka was prevented from giving a positive association to "Deku".
    • Aoyama picks "∞ Twinkling" because Izuku decides to speak up and suggest something better than Midnight's "Can't Stop Twinkling".
    • Hagakure chooses "InvisiGal" because Disney used to own the copyright for Invisible Girl, and Izuku doesn't want to risk them getting confrontational over it.
• Adapted Out:
  • Rikido Sato and Minoru Mineta don't make it into U.A. Word of God is that Sato just barely missed the cut and decided to take it as a sign to go to cooking school instead, intending to take over the family bakery. Mineta, on the other hand, got caught trying to sneak into the girls' locker room after the practical exam and was "escorted" out the door. Finding this behavior to be inappropriate for a hero, the teachers then double-checked and found he cheated on the written exam, and failed the practical. They decided to wash their hands of him and reported his perverted antics to the police.invoked
  • Denki Kaminari flat out doesn't exist, with Mikoto Misaka stated as being his "replacement". In chapter 24, it is revealed that Mikoto's mother nearly got together with a man named Kaminari, but instead picked Mikoto's father. Quirk-wise, this paid off handsomely for Mikoto.
• Adaptive Ability: Izuku and Tsuyu mix up their training by flinging tennis balls at each other.
  Tsuyu never failed to catch one, and I... I gained a few levels in Physical Resistance.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The Gamer (or Gaia) seems fond of this.
  Gamer Prompt: Party plus proximity power propagation provoked
  Gamer Prompt: What a bountiful buffet of beautiful babes.
  Gamer Prompt: Source Synergy Stipend Spent
• Affectionate Nickname: Averted. When he was asked by some of the 1-A girls if he had a nickname, he reveals the "Deku" nickname that Katsuki gave him. Uraraka hears it and tries to do the "Your name can also mean something good," thing she did in canon, however, here there are two people who have seen people using the original (Ami went to school with Izuku and witnessed firsthand the bullying, while Mikoto was there when some of Izuku's old bullies tried to bully him after the Entrance Exam and saw how shaken it left the boy) who shoot it down hard.
• Age Lift:
  • Cassandra Cain is typically portrayed as a young adult, whereas here she is a freshman at U.A., putting her around roughly 15.
  • Mikoto Misaka is a middle-school sophomore in her home series, but a U.A. freshman here, making her two years older.
  • Mordred is either a few-years-old homunculus or a centuries-dead Heroic Spirit in her source material. Here, she's an ordinary 15-year-old girl^note Or as ordinary as a teenage girl with superpowers and Mordred's past could be.
• Alien Geometries: Reflective Dungeons follows their themes more closely than they follow Euclidean geometry. For example, an exit door in a school hall leading directly to a beach and a mid-boss (the party finds a way to avoid fighting the mid-boss, canon!Izuku training himself to gain One For All).
• Amusement Park: Invisa Gal's Hidden World, the first level of Hagakure's Reflective Dungeon is an amalgamation of at least three different (real world) Australian amusement parks that she says her family visited when they lived there for her father's job. The enemies are described as if someone made real, Australian animals look like theme park mascots.
• Anti-Magic:
  • Aizawa's Quirk prevents people within his eyesight from activating theirs. It, however, doesn't work on Irregulars like Izuku, which raises concerns among the staff initially.
  • In Chapter 24, Harley Quinn is revealed to have a similar power, except that hers works on all powers, requires tactile contact to take effect, and is always active unless she forces it not to be. Good to prevent heroes' Quirks from affecting her, not so good when Kurogiri is going to port her away from the USJ. Also, it does not protect her from a Quirk's secondary effects - for example, when Present Mic shouts at her, the shriek itself does nothing, but the stone shards the shout tears out of the floor cut her face and arms.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Izuku can only have a total of four other people in his party at any given time. In Chapter 19, a quest reward increases this limit to five people.
• Armor-Piercing Response:
  Overhaul: "You think you can beat me in an endurance fight?"
  Izuku: "Considering your main experience is torturing a child who is too afraid to fight back, I think I can beat you in any way, shape, or form you might want."
• Artistic License – Law: Justified in regards to the question "How do you try a villain whose Quirk [and temperament] makes them too dangerous to physically be in the courtroom regardless of the precautions taken?". The In-Universe answer is The Napier Doctrine, which is an international legal standard for exactly that allowing the accused to be tried 'in absentia', but also having stricter protocols to ensure the proceedings remain as fair and just as possible. This is how Nezu arranges for Overhaul's Fate Worse than Death.
• Asshole Victim: Overhaul. None of the Knights, even All Might, protest Izuku's plan to trap Overhaul in a dungeon forever because of all the horrible things he did to Eri.
• Assurance Backfire: Done silently. Izuku is mildly upset when he is described as 'twisting' his classmates' ways of thinking. Tsuyu pats him on the shoulder, but also refuses to look at him because she can't keep from grinning.
• Attempted Rape: During the Hosu Incident, Izuku and Mordred stop a sexual assault from progressing further than the woman trapping the man.
• Augmented Reality: How The Gamer manifests itself. Izuku can toggle the user interface into a Heads-Up Display mode, but he finds seeing his HP bar at the corner of his vision at all times to be kinda morbid.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Izuku was already very good at thinking on his feet and coming up with clever plans in canon, but with the Gamer's Mind stabilizing him, he can now do so without his emotions clouding his judgment.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Cassandra and Mo-chan do this during the UA Entrance Exam, after Izuku inspires Cassandra to be more humble and heroic, and reminds her of her limits (not that she would say that).
• Badass Bystander: In Chapter 21, Izuku found himself in the middle of an armed robbery while waiting for his ramen takeout. He disabled one of the two perpetrators using only martial arts (as using his "Quirk" without a Hero License in that situation would have meant facing Vigilantism charges) so quickly and matter-of-factly that the second robber just dropped his hatchet and surrendered when Izuku asked him to.
• Badass Longcoat: Kyoka's new hero costume includes a black leather duster with built-in armored speakers.
• Bag of Holding:
  • Izuku's version of The Gamer also comes with an "Inventory" screen where he can store things in Hammerspace – however, his is an Inventory Management Puzzle. On the bright side, his Inventory space can get upgraded, items forming a whole such as all of his notebooks share a single grid space, and food stored in there won't spoil because it doesn't technically exist in real space for that to happen. At his mother's insistence, Izuku always carries a fully stocked first-aid kit in there.
  • He later unlocks Wallet, a secondary Inventory function separated from the main one that stores money as a number just like a wallet in a videogame would. Wallet ends up playing a role in the Badass Bystander moment above.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • All Might's hologram first tells Izuku that the penalty from attacking the Zero Pointer brings him to 38 points, which is below the cutoff and so he would not be accepted into the Hero course. Then the hologram goes on to explain that Izuku secretly scored boatloads of Hero Points for his selfless behaviour during the test, putting him far above the cutoff. And only then does All Might reveal that the penalty isn't even going to be applied, because the examiners have agreed that he had no other way to save the girl whom the Zero Pointer was about to crush, so he actually has the second highest score of all time.
  • After the Sports Festival, there's talk of having a particular student transferred from Gen Ed into the Hero Course... Mitsuko Kongou, not Hitoshi Shinso who blatantly sabotaged his fellow competitors.
• Batman Gambit:
  • In the Heroes vs Villains inter-class exercise, Kirishima and Yanagi (the Villain Team) trick Shishida into becoming enraged enough for them to pull off a case of Deadly Dodging by making him punch the bomb, breaking it and causing the hero team to lose. Kirishima was apparently inspired by Izuku and Ami's frequent out of the box thinking to pull it off.
  • Momo and Kamakiri make dozens of boxes and glue them throughout the building they're hiding in, making the Hero Team carefully maneuver around them to avoid a repeat of Shishida's and Mina's loss. The path between the boxes also funnels Shoji and Awase up to Momo who promptly surrenders, forcing the pair to go back and search each box and eventually lose by timeout. Furthermore, the Hero Team predictable splits up to cover more ground in hopes of finding the bomb before they run out of time, which is what Kamakiri was counting on to ambush one of them (Awase as luck would have it) and stash him Bound and Gagged in one of the boxes.
  • Izuku's plan to defeat Overhaul relies on the Villain's pride, anger, and aggression. It goes off without a hitch.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: Jiro, like canon. Though here her voice is complimented by Mozart, who wishes he was still alive to compose songs specifically for Jiro to sing.
• Bedmate Reveal: After Izuku exhausted himself saving Tsuyu's life in chapter 7, he passed out next once she was safe. Later that afternoon he wakes up to find a very much awake Tsuyu in his arms waiting for an explanation.
• Bedtime Brainwashing: When Eri has a night terror, Izuku uses his empathy to project calm and safety, and then telepathy to guide her dream into a pleasant story.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When facing a Mid-Boss in the form of Bakugou, Ami fights him alone and utterly demolishes him, while calling him out for his cruelty and bullying. Mikoto stage whispers to Ochako to remind her to never piss Ami off for real.
  Ami: [sheepishly after the "fight"] Well, that was cathartic.
• Big Fancy House: Momo hosts a study-sleepover and invites all the girls from their year. All of them. Only about sixteen of them can come, though, so instead of being mildly cramped, they have loads of space in her family's seventh-largest house.
  Setsuna: But can we get to the elephant in the room. Which is to say you could fit my parents' house in this room, and still have space left over for an elephant or three.
• Bigger on the Inside: The bookstore that Izuku, Ami, and Tsuyu visit in Chapter 21. He outright asked the owner if she is a Time Lord.
• Big "WHAT?!": Done twice in rapid succession in Lesson 39, first after Inko casually tells the Guild she has been kidnapped, and second after Izuku casually tells the Guild that he has revealed The Gamer to Nezu. Both times Izuku notes he's worried the shouts were loud enough to leak out of Guild chat into the real world.
• Blind Obedience: Discussed during rescue training at the USJ, and warned both against and in favor depending on the circumstances, with the overall lesson that Poor Communication Kills.
  Thirteen: (...) On the other side, team members almost have it harder. You need to follow directions. And you also need to know when not to follow.
  Ashido: What's that mean?
  Thirteen: Well, let's say you were sent to search a partially collapsed house, and along the way you saw someone under a beam. So you decide to rescue that person instead. This might be the right move, the house could be empty. Or it could be the wrong choice, your team leader knows there is someone in the house, and already have someone else rescuing the person under the beam. By ignoring orders, the person in the house might not make it. Ideally you would report it in. Find out what your leader knows and has planned. Unfortunately, there also might not be time for that.
• Blood Knight: Rappa doesn't care about who can get hurt in the crossfire as long as he gets a good fight.
• Boarding School of Horrors:
  • Izuku's father considered sending him to a boarding school for Quirkless children in order to spare him the Super Supremacist bullying, but his mother heard bad rumours about the place and shot down the idea. An aside mentions that years later, the school was shut down and most of its faculty arrested and sent to prison, with the implication that it was conducting illegal human experimentation using the Quirkless students as guinea pigs. The implication kinda sounds familiar, doesn't it?
  • Played with for Tokiwadai Middle School. While there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the prestigious all-girls school in itself, and their reputation for producing powerful Quirk users is genuinely well-deserved, their alumnae (specifically their recommendation students) have a suspicious tendency to either become famous heroines or else marry very young and soon after disappear from the public eye. The implication is that getting a recommendation from Tokiwadai basically brands a girl as prime breeding stock for Quirk Marriages and that they're sought after for this very reason when they're older. Todoroki's mother, for example, was a Tokiwadai recommendation recipient and had this exact thing happen to her. However, there's no evidence suggesting Tokiwadai is doing this deliberately.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Izuku's one innate Talent is "Studious", which improves the rate his Wit and Intuition attributes increase, and hastens the development of Skills related to them. While not impressive on its own, the overall effect, in the long run, is quite significant and allows him to spend his Attribute and Skill Points on something else.
  • He later buys the "Free Runner" Talent, which is what "Studious" is but for Agility and Quickness. This one does have a more direct effect in helping him build up speed and reflexes for the UA entrance exam.
  • Aizawa tells Shinso that Ojiro and Hagakure's Quirks- an extra limb and invisibility, respectively- aren't all that impressive on their own, but they managed to earn their spots in the Hero Course through hard work and training, which is also boring but practical in and of itself.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Referenced by Harley and All For One when discussing All Might's increase in skill to compensate for his loss of power, though under an alternate name "Karate Lessons for the Tick", for similar reasons as Dating Catwoman below.
• Brick Joke: During the rescue training at the USJ, Izuku is reluctant to use his Clairvoyance skill because he's still not over his Accidental Pervert moment seven chapters prior when he managed to see invisible girl Hagakure in the buff and he doesn't want to make the same mistake twice.
• Brown Note: Jack Napier aka The Joker had a Quirk that caused anyone who saw him or heard his voice (including recordings) to become violently insane for the next thirteen hours.
• Bully Hunter: Years of watching Katsuki getting away with bullying Izuku (her crush) has given Ami a rather visceral dislike of bullies.
• Butterfly of Doom:
  • After recognizing his new power, Izuku rushes home to study it. As a result, he is not there to slow down Sludge or inspire All Might, and Bakugou dies.
  • Izuku and Tsuyu's Hero Costumes are different from canon thanks to Inko offering more input into their designs. Later on, Momo and Kyoka too, due to Inko getting into the costume-making business.
  • As in the canonical USJ Story Arc, Kurogiri randomly teleports Class 1-A across the facility for the other Villains to ambush each isolated group. Since the targets and destinations were really picked at random, Izuku ended up in the mountain area rather than the shipwreck zone and fighting alongside different classmates against different Villains.
  • The reason Denki Kaminari doesn't exist here. Chapter 23 reveals that his mother was in the middle of a Love Triangle with her two best guy friends in college. One of them was Denki's father, but in this fic's backstory, she ended up dating and marrying the other instead. From the readers' perspective, this divergence in the timeline Ret-Gone'd Denki and resulted in Misuzu giving birth to a different kid inheriting her electrokinesis, but greatly improved by her husband's power over magnetism. That kid being, of course, Mikoto "Railgun" Misaka.
  • The Sports Festival plays out differently from canon. The first round is a maze instead of an obstacle course, the second round is still a cavalry battle but with forty-four students instead of forty-two and taking place on an artificial beach instead of a flat field, Izuku faces Todoroki in the final battle of round 3 instead of earlier and outright wins the First Year's sports festival. This also results in him being one of the five 1-A students with a huge amount of offers where in canon he had none.
  • Because of his poor performance in the Sports Festival, Monoma Neito is put on probation especially since he ranked even lower than Ojiro and Hagakure did without the excuse of being actively sabotaged like them, with the possibility of Kongou Mitsuko taking his place due to her reaching the final round.
  • Izuku finding Eri after the Sports Festival kickstarts the Shie Hassaikai Arc before the internships even begin. The resulting consequences are that the Shie Hassaikai are defeated long before their canon defeat, all traces of the Quirk-destroying drug Overhaul was working on is destroyed before it can be revealed, Izuku begins staying at UA before construction on the dorms even begin, Inko joins him at UA, and the two members who were not already captured by the heroes or police, Tengai and Rappa, are forced to join the League of Villains.
  • Because Momo met Nejire earlier than canon, Nejire vouches for her and Kendo to another third-year, which gives them enough trust for that third-year to explain that Uwabami is a horrible choice for an internship, which got Momo and Kendo to change their choices.
• Call-Back: A few chapters after Misaka mentions Tokiwadai graduates' tendency to marry young and disappear from the public eye, Todoroki's mother is revealed to have been a very promising Tokiwadai alumna who instead married less than a year after she graduated from U.A.
• The Call Knows Where You Live:
  • Sometimes "Mandatory Quest" alerts pop up that railroad Izuku into something related to his dreams to become a hero. While they're stuff he would want to do on his own anyway, and completing them comes with amazing rewards, the penalties for failure are severe, and the Quest content can be a Wham Line all of its own.
  • Later on it's confirmed to be even worse. "The 'Best' Ending" omake – by Word of God, a non-canon set of events rooted in canonical mechanics – reveals that trying to null a Mandatory Quest by making one of its penalties impossible to fulfill is doomed to fail to You Can't Fight Fate levels. In this example, any number of increasingly unlikely coincidences will get in the way of that plan.invoked
• Captain Obvious: Izuku pauses when given the task of finding and removing the paperclips embedded inside a plucked refrigerated turkey, then activates Ki Diagnosis to locate them. However, the skill merely informs him that the turkey is dead.
• Cast from Hit Points: The "Plus Ultra" talent allows Izuku to convert hit points into energy, but this reduces his maximum for a time.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: When Inko tells Izuku through Guild Chat that she has been kidnapped, she seems to be more annoyed than anything else.
• The Cavalry: Hadou Nejire and the Knights (minus Inko and All Might) come to help Izuku and Eri when they are attacked by Overhaul and two of his minions.
• Celebrity Paradox:
  • Interestingly Averted. In the story's world, Marvel Universe is explicitly fictional, but a few characters from The DCU are confirmed to exist like Cassandra and David Cain, and Harley Quinn is a member of the League of Villains. This even affects In-Universe Conversational Troping – for example, the tropes "Dating Catwoman" and "Boxing Lessons for Superman" are instead called "Dating Black Cat" and "Karate Lessons for The Tick", respectively.
  • Also played with. The Superman March still exists even though Superman is a real person, not a fictional character. But he saved John Williams and the Boston Pops from a Villain, so Williams was inspired to write it as a tribute.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Kyoka teases Izuku about his "harem" – namely, him hanging out with most of the girls in Class 1-A – and Izuku jokes back that he is not her type. She says she is more into quiet, brooding pretty boys. When Izuku asks if that means Todoroki, she immediately changes the subject.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action:
  • Justified. The Equip function of The Gamer's Inventory screen allows Izuku to change outfits as easily as changing a Player Character's equipment in a video game.
  • A later upgrade allows Izuku to swap party members' clothes with another set in Inventory with the push of a button. Even though Hammerspace is involved, most of his party are girls, so he still feels kinda awkward about the idea of carrying a set of their clothes for each of them at all times.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In Chapter 18, Izuku recommends Tsuyu to experiment whether her paralyzing oil can be collected in some sort of container to make use of it in ways other than delivering the toxin by direct contact, like storing it in water balloons and using those as projectiles. While this idea isn't actually implemented in Chapter 22, the improvised variant of coating a plate with her oil and throwing it at an unsuspecting Villain with his TK allowed them to disable the guy without a fight.
  • In Chapter 31, Izuku idly notes that the UA gym uniforms come with a hood to keep off rain, marking them as waterproof. In Chapter 36, he uses his jacket to capture roughly two-thirds of Ami's water supply and hurl it out of her range.
  • The description for the "The Best Around" quest has, as one consequence of failure, a reference to someone not being inspired. This turns out to be Eri, who was watching the Festival, and Izuku's victory gave her the courage to escape Overhaul, as well as trusting him almost from the moment they met.
  • In Chapter 7, Izuku found that he does not need a person's explicit permission to invite them to a party as long as they press the Accept button by using this to bring a dying Tsuyu in his party so he can heal her. In Lesson 42, he tricks Overhaul into trying to punch him just as he's inviting him to his party, causing the punch to hit the Accept button and allowing Izuku to trap him in a Dungeon.
  • The bandages Eri was wearing when she met Izuku, which he took after Recovery Girl took them off. Izuku uses them to create a Dungeon and trap Overhaul inside, and the Dungeon is so deep that it isn't until seventeen years later that Overhaul can escape.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • In a conversation about Polyamories in Chapter 21, someone called Uther Pendragon, an industry mogul from England, and his not-quite-legal wives Igraine and Vivian are mentioned. Given whom Class 1-A student "Penryu 'Mo-chan' Modura" seems to be based on, this is very likely to be a piece of Foreshadowing. There's also a conversation earlier where Mo-chan says her dad is dead, but also has her Father and Aunt Rin, with Father being said in English; this is likely Emiya Shirou, Saber/Arturia Pendragon, and Tohsaka Rin, which is confirmed in Chapter 27.5, and Chapter 30 has Ami stating that she knows that Uther is Modura's grandfather.
  • In Lesson 24, when talking about killing, Izuku casually mentions a Villain who forced the RI7 to kill him by connecting a nuclear weapon to his heartbeat. In Lesson 43 it is revealed that it was the Joker, and it was actually thirteen bombs, spread all over the USA.
• Chekhov's Skill: Izuku's Guild deciding to spend Skill Points on instantly learning sign language in order to be able to communicate with Cassandra ended up paying off handsomely more than once during the USJ incident as a way to coordinate plans without forewarning the Villains.
• Cliffhanger: Two of them, back to back, in Lessons 37 where the Shie Hassaikai kidnap Inko and 38 where Overhauls takes advantage of Eri's ingrained fear of him to trick her into leaving U.A., with Izuku finding out just in time to start running after her.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: A villainous example. Part of Harley's job description seems to be keeping Shigaraki just sane enough to function as an effective Villain while also enabling and supporting his plans. The fact she's naturally immune to his Quirk seems to be a key element to calm him down whenever his psychotic tendencies threaten to become counterproductive.
• Cluster Bleep-Bomb: In one omake, Izuku toggles on a function in The Gamer's settings page that automatically *bleep*-out cursing around him. Predictably, this censors every other word to come out of Bakugou's mouth, which of course only pisses him off more.
• Cluster F-Bomb: After Cassandra's match against Mei, which went much the same as Iida's against Mei in canon, Cassandra apparently cursed enough in Guild chat to leave everyone's ears ringing.
• Combat Clairvoyance: Half of Cassandra Cain's Hybrid Quirk allows her to perceive any movement within a certain radius around her – light conditions, field of view, and obstacles be damned. She can sense attacks coming from her blind spots and not even Hagakure can sneak up on her. Her perception is so precise that she can read lips even when the targets are behind closed doors.
• Combat Pragmatist: During the Heroes vs Villains exercise, Izuku manages to get the capture tape around one of Tsuyu's wrists but is running out of time to deal with the bomb. Rather than continue fighting until he can bind her other wrist, he tapes her arm to a steel pillar because he realizes she isn't strong enough to break the metal and would be disqualified if she breaks the tape. He is praised for keeping his mind on the actual goal.
• Combination Attack: How the Boss Fight against Full Cowling "Deku" is won. Momo created bladed weapons to fight against him that Deku just shattered into pieces. Ochako made the metallic fragments float above them without him noticing. Then Izuku and Ami created barriers to hedge Deku in before Ochako made the sharp shrapnel fall over him. Not even that was enough to take him down as he simply punched most of the projectiles into even smaller pieces as they came to him, but the girls' combination attack didn't end there. Ami used her Making a Splash powers to maintain a shallow surface of the water on the ground except around each of her allies' feet, which became electrically conductive thanks to all the small metallic pieces that fell into it and thus allowing Mikoto to go all out with her Shock and Awe powers without risk of hurting the others. Not even that was enough to deplete his HP, but it turned the battle momentum in their favor for the rest of the fight.
• Contagious Heroism: Izuku helping people during the Entrance Exam inspires them to help others in turn, such as Cassandra teaming up with Mo-chan to take down a group of robots.
• Conversational Troping: There's a reason they named their Guild "The Knights of the Meta". They initially considered Meta Knights, but decided against it to avoid potential backlash from Nintendo.
  Kyoka: [to Izuku] So the world is actually a video game. You're the protagonist, and we are your NPC companions.
  Izuku: I wouldn't say that.
  Mikoto: Right. [smirks] The world is an MMO, and he's one of the players. We're still his companion NPCs.
  Izuku: I don't believe that. Just because that's how my power expresses itself, doesn't mean that's how reality works. And it doesn't mean that everyone else isn't a real person, just as much the protagonist of their own lives.
  Tsu: I'm not an NPC companion. I'm a love interest.
  Kyoka: And now I can see why you are the "Meta no Kishidan". And I was just ribbing you.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Overhaul is imprisoned inside a Reflective Dungeon made from Eri's bloodstained bandage, full of decay and zombies, then the bandage is launched into space in a specialty designed capsule. Seventeen years later, he finally completes every level of the dungeon and escapes, to find that he's in orbit around Venus indefinitely and will have to use his matter transmutation Quirk to recycle his own bodily wastes to survive.
  Nezu: I personally would have assured you received the death penalty, had Izuku not come up with a far better punishment for the likes of you, and inspired to create this backup.
• Cool Board: How Izuku, Ami, and Mo-chan quickly descend down from the USJ's mountain zone to help the others still fighting at the square. His initial proposal was ice sleds, but Mo-chan insists on snowboards for style points, which incidentally unlocks the Snowboarding Skill for Izuku. It also doubles as a Visual Pun because their boards were made out of Ami's ice constructs.
• Cool Helmet: Momo's new hero costume has one. Other than serving as protective headwear, it has built-in containers for protein shakes she can use to restore her reserve of lipids for her Quirk in a hurry. It also boasts a complex Heads-Up Display connected to a computer loaded with schematics and chemical formulas she can use to create objects with her Quirk that she's yet to memorize.
• Covert Pervert: In Chapter 50, the low-key bisexual Jiro borrows Izuku's Clairvoyance, and one of her stated reasons is to keep an eye on Toru "so she doesn't get all shy about [Izuku] doing it." So far, Clairvoyance is the only way anyone can see Toru, who is going into the dungeon in her hero costume. Which is just a pair of gloves and shoes.
• Cruel Mercy: Overhaul's fate. After spending seventeen years trying to escape the Dungeon Izuku trapped him in (made out of the bandages Eri was wearing because of all the injuries he gave her), he escapes, only to find himself in a module in flight to Venus with just one week of food and water, forcing him to either kill himself or make edible food out of his own waste - which, for someone as obsessed with cleanliness as him, is an Ironic Hell. Nezu's message to him actually explains that he was all for the death penalty, but he found this a far more suitable punishment.
• Cry into Chest: Eri cries into Izuku's chest after her catharsis moment.
• Cryptic Conversation: In Toshinori's dungeon, the first holder of One For All acts as a mid-boss and makes several references to One For All in a way no one else but Toshinori and the readers understand.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In her moment of Beware the Nice Ones in Chapter 19, Ami delivers one of these to a Reflective Dungeon Mid-Boss based on Bakugou, finishing him off with hydrokinetically controlled column of water that blasts him across the room and against a support beam.
• Cutting the Knot: During a training exercise in Hero Fundamentals class based on a game of tag, the rules were 1) a "Gazelle" only gets tagged out if a "Lion" (pursuer) touches them anywhere with their hands, and 2) stepping out of bounds disqualifies either party. When it was Mina and Izuku's turn as a Lion and a Gazelle, respectively, he simply maneuvered around her, grabbed her by the back of her PE uniform, and carried her to the edge of the soccer pitch and dropped her outside, while making sure to not touch her hands. All Might had to disqualify Ashido despite Midoriya ignoring the point of the exercise because he didn't actually break the rules and his argument about taking out a Villain when it's safer and simpler than running away is entirely valid. All Might did warn that they're going to close that loophole for subsequent exercises, though. Not that it stopped Izuku from finding other loopholes that All Might had to close.
• Dating Catwoman: Discussed among All Might's fans as a possible explanation among all the In-Universe Epileptic Trees about why he went to college in America rather than staying in Japan. The trope itself is named by Izuku, however, due to at least part of The DCU being non-fictional here, it's called "Dating Black Cat" instead after the eponymous character from Spider-Man.
• Deadly Dodging: During the Heroes vs Villains exercise, Kirishima fights Shishida until the latter becomes enraged enough for Yanagi to swoop in and make him punch the bomb, breaking it and costing Shishida's team the match.
• Death by Adaptation: Bakugou and the Sludge villain both die off-screen in the first chapter. Without Izuku there to buy time and inspire All Might, Katsuki ends up suffocated and partially digested. Endeavor ends up defeating Sludge, and kills the Villain in the process.
• Death by Irony: In a non-canonical What If? omake, Izuku kills Shigaraki in a way that (likely intentionally) resembles how people have died at the latter's hands: by breaking down his head and torso into particles.
• Defiant Mask Snap: Inko pulls one on Overhaul as a parting shot right before she's rescued. And he's lucky she couldn't do more...
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Tsu's relationship mores are a bit strange, which makes her wonder if it's because she's part frog. For example, when Kyoka mentions in a group chat with the girls that she once jokingly asked Izuku if he was a Harem Seeker given that he hangs out with a lot of their female classmates and none of the guys, Tsu casually admits that she wouldn't particularly mind if he does have a harem as long as she's in it. The girls were quite taken aback by her admission.
• Demoted to Extra: Shihai Kuroiro. Rather than be in Class 1-B, he only barely missed out from the Hero Course, instead ended up in the General Course, something he is NOT happy about. As such, he doesn't make an appearance until the Sports Festival.
• Department of Redundancy Department: In his initial Hero Notes on his new classmates, Izuku states that Koda "Doesn't seem to like talking" twice.
• Description Cut: While the boys of 1A are ranking the girls by how hot they are, Izuku insists the girls wouldn't do that to them. The scene immediately cuts to the girls playing a game of Sex, Marry, Kill regarding the boys in their class, with them ruling Izuku off-limits.
• Destroy the Abusive Home: Downplayed. It wasn't a house or building, but Eri gets to destroy Overhaul's mask.
• Developer's Foresight: The Gamer is an In-Universe example whose mechanics seem to be designed against typical gamer shortcuts and exploits:
  • If there's a large enough level gap between party members, the experience earned is capped to keep them from power leveling. Izuku only grows three levels after defeating five enemies in the 80s because one of his party members (All Might, to be exact) is level 83.
  • In a follow-up to the "Best Route" omake, Tsuyu tries to take Izuku's virginity so he can't fail the quest^note The penalty for failure is dying alone and a virgin, only for them to constantly be interrupted in increasingly improbable Contrived Coincidences.
  • Trying to start Izuku's dungeon with his usual party triggers a warning to him that doing so will forfeit the Quest to clear it with other people, forcing Izuku to do the entire dungeon with Ami, Mikoto, Momo, and Ochako instead of doing only the final boss as he first intended.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Brilliantly Subverted in Chapter 23. Momo places a remote-activated explosive on Kurogiri's armor and warns the Villain to cooperate and to not get more than ten meters away from her because the detonator is on a delayed Dead Man's Switch. After calling her bluff on using deadly force, he chides her for forgetting that all wireless communications are currently jammed within the USJ facility, meaning that her remote was useless from the start. Momo retorts by commenting that, despite the jamming interfering with radio waves and supernatural communications, they all can still hear each other, meaning that sound waves are unaffected and so is her ultrasonic remote control^note like in those expensive TV sets from the 60s-70s, before infrared became the standard, something she promptly demonstrates by letting the trigger go for a moment to get the explosive device to beep threateningly before pressing it again to keep it from actually going off.
  • Played straight with Mikoto in the same chapter. She carries lots of metal in her Hero Costume to take full advantage of her electromagnetic Quirk, but it's almost literal dead weight when she gets dropped on a body of water, compounded by the fact the fabric absorbs liquid and thus gets heavier the more she's in there. She considers producing a magnetic field to induce lift on the metal to ease her swimming but discards the idea because messing her fine control over her Quirk even a little would mean discharging her energy reserves into the water all at once.
  • During the Cavalry Battle, Todoroki heads for the water and creates an island out of ice with a wall, which would theoretically keep everyone from attacking his team. He forgot that (a) other teams have long-range attacks and (b) Ami Mizuno can control water in any of its forms, even ice.
  • Aizawa tells Shinso that leaving his brainwashed bodyguards Ojiro and Hagakure behind was a dumb move because they wouldn't have been able to help him if he ran into trouble.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: After being kidnapped by Overhaul, Inko spends her short captivity talking smack to him, then using her Quirk on him just before she's teleported out. Afterwards, Inko comments he's lucky she couldn't use her Quirk on his brain.
• Disability-Negating Superpower:
  • If one considers Quirklessness a disability, then The Gamer itself more than compensates for it.
  • The Gamer's Party Chat and Guild Chat functions allow Cassandra to circumvent her muteness and talk with her own voice whenever she's in either, albeit just telepathically and only to current members of the Party/Guild respectively.
• Disappeared Dad: Midoriya Hisashi, like in canon. Unlike canon, he is not working overseas to support his family (though he does do that), he is doing it to avoid them. After returning once and seeing Inko, he requested they legally separate. Inko is less than happy about it, and after she gets her groove back, divorces him (with Izuku's approval).
• Discontinuity Nod: All Might comments that the first Hero Fundamentals class was supposed to be a Heroes-vs.-Villains simulation exercise in an urban environment, however, those training areas not already in use are all still being repaired after the entrance exam practicals. He gives both Mikoto and Ami a look as he says the last bit.
• Dissonant Serenity: Izuku thanks to the calming effect of The Gamer's Mind, enhancing his already remarkable capacity to keep his wits about himself in an emergency and to think of a solution on his feet. It doubles as Mundane Utility by keeping him from panicking when talking to girls... mostly.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Izuku with his shirt off and Ami with hers soaked manage to distract each other during their duel. He quietly reflects that they might need to hurry up Midnight-sensei's training in not getting distracted by wardrobe malfunctions, and Ami just as quietly replies that she's looking forward to it.
• The Ditherer: Downplayed. While Izuku is usually fairly good at making decisions, sometimes he becomes paralyzed with overthinking a situation, especially in critical moments.
• Does Not Like Men:
  • Izuku is a rare male example. He subconsciously tends to steer away from guys and makes friends a lot more easily with girls. This pattern became obvious after unlocking the Guild function with an initial membership of only two guys (All Might and Izuku himself) among 7 girls plus his mother.
  • Also a Discussed Trope. Tsuyu and Ami posit the likely correct hypothesis that Izuku just never learned to trust in guys due to the relentless bullying he suffered from other boys, male teachers who encouraged said bullying, and a father who basically moved out because he's Quirkless – all in comparison to female classmates that mostly ignored him, female teachers that at least tried to stop the bullying, and a mother that was always there for him.
• Don't Do Anything I Wouldn't Do: Izuku's mother reminds him and Tsuyu that she's trusting them to visit a dungeon unsupervised. Tsuyu's response is that they won't do anything Inko and Midnight^note Who are "friends with benefits" at this point wouldn't do.
• Don't Think, Feel: During the Cavalry Battle of the Sports Festival, when Izuku's team loses the top headband, he wastes nearly two minutes overthinking different plans until his mother uses the Guild Chat to tell him to simply act.
• Don't Try This at Home: The author notes warn the reader that Izuku's strategy of wetting clothes down before entering a burning building is actually a very bad idea, since it will slow you down, conduct heat to your skin faster, and give you steam burns.
  It is a dangerous trope that wet clothing can protect you, and in retrospect I'm tempted to remove that line. But these are also teens who had their proper training interrupted, so... It stays, but don't do it.
• Dope Slap: Subverted in Chapter 23. Mikoto stops Tsuyu from delivering one to Kirishima for saying that their combined manliness was what was keeping the Villains from attacking them on the boat.
• Double Standard: Subverted. Initially, it seems Izuku is being praised for taking advantage of his opponent's Quirk which Kirishima was scolded for in the Heroes vs Villains exercise but Aizawa explains it's due to their specific circumstances. Kirishima learned of Shishida's Quirk moments before the exercise from someone who'd only known Shishida for a couple of weeks and so didn't know all the particulars of his Quirk. Izuku had known Tsuyu for over a year and knew her Quirk inside and out so he could properly plan for what she could and couldn't do, and in the context of the exercise, it's not unusual for a Pro Hero to run into a Villain he or she already had first-hand experience with as an opponent.
• Dramatic Irony: Chapter 21 ends with a line that means nothing to the characters, but for the audience of My Hero Academia, it sounds just like "This Is Gonna Suck":
  Thirteen the Rescue Hero: Welcome, to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint.
• Drives Like Crazy: Nejire. When Izuku sees her driving towards him, he assumes she must be a criminal given how completely she is ignoring traffic laws. And Ami compares her driving to the Knight Bus.
• Dual Boss: The final boss of Izuku's Reflective Dungeon is canon!Bakugou and canon!Izuku – specifically just as strong as they were months after getting into UA. It helped a lot that Bakugou's double refused to fight together with Izuku's, allowing the real Izuku to focus on Katsuki while his party members ganged on a construct based on Full Cowl-wielding Izuku.
• Duck Season, Rabbit Season: In the omake "My Looney Playthrough", Izuku gets the Noumu to attack Shigaraki by tricking the latter into saying he's Midoriya with this trope, then stuffing the Noumu's ears with mustard so Shigaraki can't counter the order.
• Dumb Muscle: The USJ Noumu is stupid enough that not only does it not fight Izuku due to being ordered to kill Aizawa, but a three-part order (Kill Izuku, kill Aizawa, then kill everyone else) paralyzes it as it tries to comprehend its new order.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Ami Mizuno appears at Bakugou's funeral in chapter 2 and Izuku sees her at a bookstore in chapter 3, and her name and class rank are mentioned in chapters 5 and 6. She officially meets Izuku in chapter 8.
• Eating the Eye Candy:
  • Izuku finds himself uncomfortably on the receiving end of this from six of the 1-A girls at once. Soon revealed to be a Subversion though, as the thing they were lusting after was the secret behind his and his friends' fast improvement in combat, but Izuku still felt "like a cow about to be dropped into a pool of ravenous piranhas".
    And as soon as I entered, they all turned to stare at me, their pupils practically flashing [the kanji for "meat"].
    Even Hagakure, whose eyes I couldn't see.
  • In chapter 27, the girls of 1A all agree that Izuku is "built like a Greek god of aerobic exercise".
• Edible Bludgeon: Izuku telekinetically throws a plastic plate with food at Grey Goro at the start of the fights at the USJ. The Villain doesn't bother to dodge and mocks him for expecting something like that to any harm. For a very short while, that is, because Izuku covertly asked Tsuyu via sign language to lace the plate with her paralyzing venom, disabling the Villain a few seconds after touching it.
• Embarrassing Nickname: The Flash called Gran Torino 'Springy Sprocket'. His hatred of the name is enough to freeze All Might in terror when it is mentioned. All Might warns Izuku never to say that in front of Torino. Unfortunately for Torino, Berri also exclusively used that nickname to refer to Torino in her autobiography. And since he wants to remain unknown, he's stuck with that.
• Engaging Conversation: Narrowly Subverted. When Ochako learns just how much money one can make just by defeating Mooks in one of Izuku's Reflective Dungeon, she almost proposed to him on the spot.
  Ochako: [with Wingding Eyes flashing the kanji for "yen" and "money"] [grabs his hands] Izuku, would you ma... [notices everybody else staring at her] [releases his hands] Sorry...
• Entertainingly Wrong: A cast of smart characters like this often comes up with sound and reasonable guesswork for a given situation, just not necessarily the correct one.
  • After Aizawa brings up that he couldn't shut down Izuku's "Quirk", the other teachers suggest that either Izuku wasn't using it at the time, was using it at such a low level as to not be tripped up by its absence, or that Izuku's Quirk is just naturally immune to Aizawa's. Present Mic even brings up that either of them is far more likely than something like All For One giving away a Quirk that'd make him immune to Aizawa's. Except for Toshinori, who has to play dumb so as not to expose the existence of "Irregulars", AKA people who have powers without Quirks, as a) they value their privacy, and b) they have the power and ability to enforce that, and c) he's a nice guy who's trying to keep it a secret.
  • The girls in 1-A initially come to several logical but completely wrong conclusions about how Izuku, Tsuyu, and Cassandra have improved so much in a few days:
    • Their first theory is that their improvements are because Izuku's using his tactile telekinesis to directly improve their muscles. Then it devolved into theories about him giving the girls "empowering massages".
    • Another theory is some kind of VR-based training, based on Izuku's father being a computer scientist. Doubles as Right for the Wrong Reasons, due to the vaguely Augmented Reality nature of The Gamer.
    • They also consider that Izuku and co. could be getting their battle experience from moonlighting as Vigilantes, but they realize that doesn't match the fact that no one other than All Might himself vouched that it was nothing illegal.
  • When a skill book for Toshinori mentions "OFA", Izuku assumes it's garbled by The Gamer because he's not supposed to understand it, not knowing it's the acronym of All-Might's Quirk.
  • In Izuku's Reflective Dungeon, one of the final bosses is canon!Izuku. Since he didn't know about One For All at that point, Izuku figures "Deku" must have a purely physical build with his Gamer powers.
  • In Chapter 21, Izuku comes up with several reasonable hypotheses to explain why his mom wanted to talk alone with his Guild by sending him to pick up dinner for everybody alone. See If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... below for her actual reason.
  • In Chapter 32, Todoroki reveals he thinks Izuku is All Might's son based on some circumstantial evidence - such as Izuku's Tactile Telekinesis also being Superman's Quirk, with an ongoing rumor stating Superman is All Might's father.
• Epic Fail:
  • Aoyoma and Monoma's battle against Itsuka and Koda ends with the former pair overusing Aoyoma's Navel Laser and suffering a Potty Emergency before the latter pair can even manage to do anything.
  • Trying to hold a conversation while performing psychic surgery on a pig carcass results in Izuku accidentally fusing its gallbladder and heart.
• Everybody Knew Already: When Ami admits her crush on Izuku, she's told that everyone in their class already knows except Izuku.
• Everyone Can See It: Ami Mizuno's crush on Izuku is pretty darn obvious to her friends except perhaps Ochako and Izuku.
• Everyone Has Standards: Overhaul would kill a man for little to no reason, to the point that one of his underlings feared death if he didn't look after Eri properly. When Hekiji fails to recapture Eri due to All Might showing up, not even Overhaul can hold it against him and notes that what matters is that Hakiji escaped.
• Everything Except Most Things: Izuku ponders why All Might stresses that the class should stick to constructive criticism since none of them were likely to do otherwise. Then he rattles off several who might do just that and realizes it's probably a good idea.
• Evil Doppelgänger: The first level boss of Inko's Dungeon is a dark version of Inko before she started working out.
• Evil Knockoff: The boss from Evil Doppelgänger is a worst expression of Inko, dwelling on her darkest thoughts.
• Exact Words:
  • When Izuku talks about his powers, he mentions that he has a "power", not a "Quirk".
  • During the Entrance Exam, Present Mic states that fighting the big robot would cause whoever did it to lose half their points unless there was no other choice. Izuku attacks the one in his exam before it can attack Ochako - and is reminded about the rule because it was clear that fighting the robot was the only available choice to save Ochako. The penalty threatened to keep Izuku out of the Hero course before it got rescinded by invoking the "no other choice" defense.
  • The USJ Noumu does this accidentally due to being Dumb Muscle. Because it was only ordered to kill Aizawa, when Izuku keeps getting in the way, it merely tries to go around him or nudge him out of the way. It takes Shigaraki ordering the Noumu to kill Izuku too to make it fight the boy.
  • The rules for the Sports Festival's first event, the Labyrinth, are that the students will be timed on how long it takes them to get through it, but Nezu never said the timer would start when he said "Go". Between this and Todoroki getting a penalty, Izuku manages to win the first event even though he didn't enter the Labyrinth at the same time as the others and reached the exit shortly after Todoroki (who had about a minute's head start). This also allows Kuroiro Shirai to take second place thanks to his Quirk allowing him to merge with Izuku's black shoelaces.
  • Mitsuko Kongou, one of Mikoto's former classmates, can control wind, not air. In a tornado or hurricane, she's a demigod. On a calm day, she's functionally Quirkless. Because Mitsuko forgot to register her fan for the entrance exam, she failed to get into the hero course as there was almost no wind that day.
  • Lampshaded during the match between Izuku and Hitoshi. While Izuku manages to No-Sell it due to the Gamer Mind, it's suggested that Hitoshi's order was too specific to work. He ordered Izuku to "walk out of the ring" but rings are circular and the fighting area is square, so the order might not have worked.
  • Izuku pretends Nemoto's Quirk failed (as opposed to Izuku resisting it) by giving technically true, but completely useless answers, such as responding to a question about where "the girl" is by asking which girl he means. When Nemoto specifies Eri, Izuku replies that Eri is safe and away from him.
• Fake Boobs: Mina notes that Ami seems considerably bustier in her hero outfit than in her underwear. Ami reveals she's got a layer of water underneath her costume to act as armor and backup fuel for her hydrokinetic powers, though it wasn't her choice for there to be more water in her chest than elsewhere. Inko, who was involved in the design, noted that whoever made the costume took a few liberties with it during manufacturing time and offered to get it fixed, but Ami declined after realizing that carrying more water on her is an advantage when using her Quirk.
• Fanservice Pack: Inko goes from her short, plump self from canon to taller and fitter like she was when Izuku was a toddler, presumably from her training so she's not a burden on Izuku.
• Fantastic Legal Weirdness: Some criminals have Quirks that make it impossible for them to be present for their trial, even remotely, without compromising the safety of everyone else involved. Jack Napier, aka The Joker, has a Quirk that turns everyone who hears his voice, even through digital mediums, mad for a period of about thirteen hours during which they riot, murder, and commit other crimes. A set of laws named after him was implemented allowing certain villains to be tried in absentia with certain safeguards to prevent abuses. It is under these laws Overhaul is tried due to his Quirk making it problematic to keep him locked up for extended periods of time.
• Fate Worse than Death: Overhaul is kicked off the planet and in a probe heading to Venus. He only has himself for company and has to overhaul his own body waste to have sustenance to survive the trip.
• Fights Like a Normal: Harley Quinn doesn't use her Quirk in combat as her Quirk is a Power Nullifier, much like Aizawa.
• First-Episode Twist: Izuku gets The Gamer and he doesn't meet Toshinori. As a result of both changes, Bakugou isn't rescued in time and dies during the Sludge Villain Incident (with Sludge also dying at Endeavor's hands).
• First Kiss: Izuku is very thankful that he had his first kiss before the UA entrance exam (with Tsuyu). Otherwise, he would have to come up with an argument to somehow make Recovery Girl kissing him to heal him up not count.
• Foil:
  • Eraserhead and Harley Quinn. He's a Pro Hero, she's a Villain. He's rational to almost The Spock levels but has a Comically Serious side, she's Perky Female Minion but can be dangerously rational and resourceful when the situation calls for it. They both have Quirk-cancelling powers, but with opposed activation conditions – that is, whereas Aizawa's Erasure keeps others' Quirks from activating as long as he stares at their users, Harley's "Scrubs" unravels any superpower that touches her. Also, since neither of them has a superpowered means of attack, they rely heavily on martial arts, Combat Pragmatism, and psychological trickery to get the upper hand in combat, which is why their fight at the USJ was a long-drawn affair as neither could easily get an edge on the other.
  • Izuku and Harley too, unexpectedly enough. Both are supportive of their respective teams, have a knack for suggesting creative ways others can use their powers more effectively, and they inspire others to use their heads rather than just rely on their Quirks. The difference is that they're both on opposite sides of the law, and Harley is more of an "improve as I say or else" kinda mentor if you aren't the object of her affections.
  • Mikoto Misaka and Shoto Todoroki are big-time winners of the Superpower Lottery thanks to inheriting just the right combination of Quirks from their parents'. The key difference is that while Mikoto's Quirk is a fortunate side effect of her parents deciding to start a family, Shoto is the deliberate result of a Quirk Marriage (Shoto's case is the same in canon).
• Formerly Fat: Inko got back in shape after joining the workforce again, occasionally accompanying Izuku in his Reflective Dungeon Crawling runs, and slow but sure Stat Grinding thanks to The Gamer's assistance. Izuku himself didn't notice it because the change was a gradual thing over a year and he sees her every day. That is until Kyoka bluntly told him "Dude, your mom is hot" when she saw her for the first time.
• Formerly Fit: At his peak, All Might's true form was only a few kilograms smaller than his "Muscle form".
• Fountain of Youth: Eri accidentally uses her Quirk on Recovery Girl, making the woman between ten and fifteen years younger. She offhandedly comments that she wishes Aizawa hadn't stepped in for a few more seconds.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Aizawa says that Shinso's complaints about the practical portion of the entrance exam favoring those with flashy or destructive Quirks aren't entirely unwarranted, but come off as "sour grapes" from him. He points out that Ojiro and Hagakure, two Hero Course students who nearly got put on academic probation due to Shinso using them and sabotaging their efforts, passed despite not having flashy or destructive Quirks.
• Freudian Slip: A non-sexual one; Eri asks how Izuku's "internment" went, instead of his "internship". She hasn't attended school and has instead been watched over by criminals after all.
• Friendship-Straining Competition: Defied. Izuku and Tsuyu are randomly set against each other in the first Heroes vs. Villains simulation training, but they don't let their friendship get in the way of the exercise other than as a source of intel on the other. If anything, it's something of an Inversion given that Tsuyu seemed a bit disappointed that Izuku opted against "finishing her off" once captured for the sake of efficiency.
• From Bad to Worse: Overhaul escapes his dungeon after seventeen years, only to learn he is in a probe on route to Venus.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: Class 1-A now consists of 10 girls and 10 boys, unlike canon where the boys outnumber the girls more than 2-to-1.
• Gender Flip:
  • Barry Allen is instead a woman named Berri Allen.
  • In the My Hero Academia manga, 13's gender was originally obfuscated but later confirmed to be female. In this story, Harley reveals that 13 is non-binary (specifically stated as gender neutral).
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Defied. Tsuyu attempts to initiate this when she and Izuku both nearly die and save each other, though he remains Above the Influence and says to hold off.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • When Shigaraki is about to kill Ami, Izuku uses his Attribute points to give himself a massive physical and mental boost in the middle of battle.
  • When Stain has Izuku paralyzed and attempting to kill him, Izuku dumps most of his Attribute Points into his Luck Stat, banking on getting the 11th-Hour Superpower he needs to escape the paralysis. It works.
• Going Commando: An accidental example. When Izuku tries to equip Tsuyu with her workout outfit via The Gamer's user interface for the first time, things don't go exactly to plan. Unlike when he uses Equip on himself, the action instantly swapped all of Tsuyu's current clothes with the set stored in his Inventory. Given that the latter didn't include undergarments, this left an unusually sheepish Tsuyu rather uncomfortable and asked him to switch them back. Izuku didn't get it at first, but when he realized what just happened, not even his Gamer's Mind could keep him from going red as an apple.
• Gold Digger: Played for Laughs. Ochako almost gives Izuku a Wacky Marriage Proposal the moment she learns one can make a lot of money simply by defeating Mooks in Reflective Dungeons.
• Golden Snitch: Name dropped by Izuku. Much like canon, whoever gets first place in the first Sports Festival event is worth more points than everyone else combined. Though, unlike canon, Izuku is only worth slightly more than everyone else combined rather than a ludicrous amount like ten million.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: A very, very Downplayed example, but Momo needed a moment to sit down and "question the nature of reality" after getting the Internal Reveal about The Gamer and how much of a Wrong Context Magic Izuku's power is even when compared to most Quirks.
• Good Is Not Soft: While Thirteen holds Kurogiri in place, Momo plants a bomb on him with a Dead Man's Switch that will detonate it if she either lets go of the trigger for five seconds or moves more than ten meters away. Said switch works on a different system that makes it immune to Jammer's Quirk.
• Got Me Doing It: Momo picks up Izuku's habit of mumbling things by the time she does her internships.
• Gratuitous English: Mo-chan uses the English word "Father" to refer to Saber.
• Grid Inventory: Izuku has one as part of his Gamer power. Initially, it is a two-by-five grid, though small and similar items stack. He later receives upgrades as quest rewards that increase the size of the grid, the first one expanding it to three-by-five, then to three-by-six.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: After the goblin general refuses to surrender despite being beaten, Izuku telekinetically throws her at the goblin king, breaking his neck.
• Handicapped Badass: Cassandra Cain as in canon. Further Discussed at USJ when Thirteen hands over sets of earbuds to the rescue teams and "Mo-chan" asks the teachers how Cassandra is supposed to talk to others with those. Aizawa's answer is that it's up to them to figure out a solution, as it's a Hero's responsibility to be able to function in an emergency situation and it would be counterproductive to accommodate the training scenario to avoid any of the students' shortcomings for that very reason.
• Harem Genre:
  • The author has confirmed that the story is a part of the genre and that Izuku's harem has three definitive members and another eight potential members depending on how the story plays out.
  • Heavily Parodied in the "Best" Route non-canonical omake.
• Harem Seeker:
  • Discussed. Izuku is jokingly accused of being one given that he's got a marked tendency to make friends with girls and distance himself from boys (see Does Not Like Men above).
  • One can make a case that Tsuyu is the real Harem Seeker of the story, albeit one by proxy. She has no real objection to the idea of Izuku getting himself a harem as long as she's in it and none of his hypothetical other girlfriends are "terrible evil bitches". Curiously enough, Tsu seems to be more against the idea of Izuku playing the field than him having long-term, actual relationships with other women. She notes that she's part-frog, and they're not typically monogamous.
• Hates Being Nicknamed: Played with. Cassandra Cain doesn't really mind being called by her first name or even "Cass", but she asks Izuku not to call her "Cassie".
• Head Desk: In the 'Best' Route Omake Izuku is tempted to slam his head into his desk when he gets a quest to form a harem, but resists. Then when he realizes the only other boy in the class is actually a girl in disguise and reads what The Gamer has to say about her, he is no longer able to resist and manages to crack his desk as he headbutts it so hard.
• Healing Magic Is the Hardest: Both subverted and played straight with Izuku's healing Skills. "Ki Healing" stimulates the target's cells to heal themselves in a manner similar to Recovery Girl's Quirk. However, the more comprehensive "Psychic Healing" needs actual medical knowledge that Izuku doesn't yet have in order to be used properly, and even then it can cause other health problems if not handled with care.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power:
  • "Efficient Sleeper" is a Talent that allows a person to get as much rest in 5 hours as they would get from an 8-hour night of sleep. It may not sound like much compared to stuff like Ki Manipulation and Mind over Matter powers, but for Tsuyu who has school, training, and her younger siblings to worry about, three extra hours a day just for herself without any drawbacks is truly a godsend. It also stacks with The Gamer's Trauma Inn effect by reducing the time it needs to activate.
  • Inko's "Gravity Pull I" and "Gravity Pull II" allow her to pull small objects towards herself. In Reflective Dungeons, she uses it to disarm enemies and make projectiles veer off target.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Discussed. In an omake, canon!Izuku told Momo that he had a dream where she was dressed in a Badass Biker-esque Hero costume (actually this fic's version of her during the final fight of Chapter 19). Mineta and Kaminari mistook it for an Erotic Dream and immediately asked for details.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Zigzagged. Most heroes either forgo helmets entirely or wear ones with transparent face coverings, for both marketing purposes and because it sets civilians at ease if they can see a known Hero's face. Momo, on the other hand, wears a modified biker helmet which contains several protein shakes with a built-in dispenser and a Heads-Up Display to show her the structure of objects she's unfamiliar with so she can make them with her Quirk.
• Heroic RRoD: When Izuku uses Ki and Psionics together, it damages his body. When using them together in a spar against the first holder of One For All, most of the damage Izuku takes is actually from the recoil of his ability.
• Heroic Sacrifice: During Mordred's dungeon, the Knights witness how EMIYA (Mordred's adoptive father) sacrificed himself to save a family from a burning building.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Like in canon, Ochako looks down on herself because her main reason to try and become a Pro Hero is the paychecks. Unlike canon, she makes this admission earlier on and to most of her friends, who quickly reassure her that there's nothing wrong with wanting to have a stable life and support one's family, to say nothing that's far from the worst reasons someone can have to want to don the cape.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • The Reflective Dungeon Mook "Rocket Wrist" is more vulnerable to his own missiles than melee, so Izuku's party sent a few ones back to him to reduce his HP more efficiently.
  • Kaibara cuts Sero's tape with his Quirk but the remaining portion latches onto his still spinning arm. Within seconds, he's completely covered in tape.
  • Inko, Kyoka, and Ochako manage to use Inko's Dungeon's boss' (a double of Inko, made of her regrets and darker thoughts) weapon against it: while Inko engages in a tug-of-war with the boss over the weapon (which Ochako has used her Quirk on) Kyoka shatters it, and Inko lets go while Ochako undoes her Quirk. This causes the boss to stab itself with the pieces.
• Home Base: Izuku, Inko, and Tsuyu turn the first Dungeon they clear – a very nice U.A.-brand mechanical pencil given to Izuku as a birthday present – into one of these. The kids continue to use it to train physically, and they all load it up with furniture and other amenities. Izuku even calls it "The Pencil of Solitude". It has the added advantage that he can carry it around, and when he enters it, anyone currently in his party is pulled in as well. A later upgrade grants Izuku the ability to create a "Guild Hall" out of such cleared Dungeons, provided they meet certain size criteria and that they pony up one billion yen.
• Hope Spot: Izuku abandons Overhaul in a Dungeon. Then a moment later he returns. Overhaul thinks it is because Izuku wouldn't trap him like that. But Izuku just wants to make sure he can return to the Dungeon to find someone left in there, and because he wants to claim Overhaul's mask.
• Humiliation Conga: Overhaul is defeated by Izuku, gets locked in a Dungeon seemingly designed to exploit his mental issues, and (eventually) escapes that only to find himself in a second such trap - and this one has no chance of escaping.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Mikoto quips that Momo is really a "sheltered princess", immediately adding that it may not mean much coming from a Tokiwadai middle school graduate where every student is an Ojou. Mikoto at least is a lot more grounded.

Tropes I-Z

• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: A (mostly) non-romantic example. Inko warns Izuku's guild members to not pretend to be his friends if they're only interested in becoming stronger under The Gamer. She doesn't have a particular problem with the latter as long as they're upfront about it, but Izuku comes from a Friendless Background involving lots of bullying and discrimination, so she's not taking her chances on him getting hurt by a False Friend to boot when he's finally daring to make friends again.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Mikoto adapts very quickly to the peculiarities of The Gamer thanks to her experience playing video games.
• Improbable Age: Harley admits the oddity that she has two doctorates at twenty-three, though they are in the heavily related fields of psychology and psychiatric treatment.
• Improbably Female Cast: Sadly justified. From Izuku's experience, most of the males in his life proved untrustworthy, as Tsu explains to the other members of the study group – his father left because of his Quirklessness, the male teachers all either looked the other way or else aided the bullies, and most of his tormentors back in elementary and middle school were male. On the other hand, his support network for years was just his mom, his first real friend was Tsuyu, and back in his middle school years female teachers were the only ones to try to help him.
• Incest-ant Admirer: Morgana Pendragon is this to her sister, Artoria Pendragon. To the point where when Artoria was going to Japan for a year, Morgana used her Quirk to steal Artoria's eggs and mix them with her own to give birth to a replacement. Artoria is so disgusted when she finds out that she takes their daughter and flees England forever.
• Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress: During their boss fight against "Deku" (canon!Izuku with Full Cowling), Momo chemically freezes the ground while he's speeding around using Full Cowling, causing Deku to slip and break a few bones.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • When Izuku tells the others of his Clairvoyance skill, Kyoka makes a joke about spying on them, which Izuku is noticeably hurt by.
  • While sharing his theory that Izuku is All Might's illegitimate child, Todoroki unthinkingly implies that Inko cheated on her husband. Though angered by the accusation, Izuku admits that Todoroki probably didn't even realize what he was implying.
• Insistent Terminology: Modura insists everyone call her "Mo-chan".
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite having The Gamer, Izuku is still offered by All Might to become the next holder of One For All, and for much the same reasons as canon.
  • The second round of the Sports Festival is still a cavalry battle in spite of all the other changes to the Sports Festival.
  • Izuku and Todoroki still face each other in the battle portion of the Sports Festival. It just happens to be during the final round and Izuku wins.
  • Even though Tomura encounters Ochako first, he and Izuku still have their mall talk because he makes Ochako call for Izuku.
• Instant Expert:
  • The Gamer can turn Izuku into this if he's willing to burn through his increasingly valuable Skill Points to do it. One time he panicked when an irate girl (Cassandra) ranted at him via sign language and he immediately dumped points into his ASL and JSL Skills in order to converse with her and hopefully calm her down... only to find out seconds later that she can hear him just fine. Not really wasted points in his opinion, however, as they both ended up as classmates.
  • The same applies to Party Members, again if and only if they have Points to spend.
  • Also Discussed. Ami isn't sure what to think about the idea of learning stuff from books instantly thanks to The Gamer. On the one hand, it is an immediate improvement. On the other hand, she does like to read.
  • There are also Scrolls that come as rewards for defeating Bosses or Mid-Bosses. They're like skill books but keyed to work only for the party member who earned it.
• Instantly Proven Wrong:
  • In trying to argue that his fellow male classmates shouldn't rank their female classmates' appearances, Izuku brings up that the girls wouldn't do that to the boys. Cue a scene cut where the girls are discussing who's the best husband material out of the boys (outside of Izuku, who's been declared off-limits for the discussion).
  • In chapter 41, Monoma tries to brag that 1A "has twice as many students on probation" as 1B. Hagakure immediately points out that no one in 1A is on probation (she and Ojiro almost were, only for their probation chance to instead fall on General Studies student Shinsou).
• Insult to Rocks: When Tokoyami compares Monoma to the devil, Mina quips that that is not fair, to the devil.
• Interface Spoiler: A curious example where the interface in question is an In-Universe one. In the "'Best' route" non-canonical What If? omake, the description of the "Grand Harem Route" Mandatory Quest (really) includes the names Tohsaka Rin and "Penryu" Saber, which has interesting implications considering that "Penryu Modura" aka Mordred Pendragon has been adapted as a first-year U.A. student.
• Internal Reveal: Ami, Mikoto, Momo, and Ochako learn about Izuku's power in Chapter 19.
• Intimate Healing:
  • A PG example. The Trauma Inn effect that completely heals Izuku's wounds and replenishes his stamina overnight can propagate to a Party Member if they sleep in close proximity to him. How close they have to be to trigger the effect has yet to be established. Sleeping under the same roof is shown to be insufficient, given that Inko never noticed anything despite being a party member for months. However, accidentally spooning with Tsuyu (long story) is confirmed to do the trick.
  • The "Divine Touch" talent improves the efficiency of ki healing when used in conjunction with activities like massage and kissing.
• In-Universe Catharsis:
  • Izuku doesn't cope well with a dungeon boss patterned after Bakugou, but Ami, who also suffered from his bullying, relishes the chance to beat him up in effigy.
  • Eri receives a present: Overhaul's mask, nailed to a wooden slab, and a small sledgehammer for her to pulverize it beyond recognition. She breaks down sobbing afterward.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: The Gamer's Inventory works like this, meaning that Izuku has to be mindful of the arrangement, and storage limitation forces him to plan ahead. Despite these issues, having a Hammerspace at his disposal is very much worth the hassle.
• Invisible Writing: The antique notebook titled "Diary of Arsene Lupin the Third", allegedly written by the real guy that commissioned mangaka Monkey Punch to create the eponymous story based on himself, turned out to have its publishing data hidden with invisible ink that reacted to heat/smoke from a lighter.
• Involuntary Group Split: At the end of chapter 19, Izuku gets a quest to do his own reflective dungeon but can't include any of his current party members in his party.
• Ironic Hell: Done to Overhaul twice. Obsessed with cleanliness and also a germophobe, he is trapped in a dirty, decaying hospital filled with zombies (via Izuku's Dungeon powers), and after he escapes that, he is trapped in a perfectly clean room, and told that he will have to transmute (and thus touch) his own waste product back into food to survive.
• Irony:
  • In canon, Bakugo viewed Izuku as nothing more than a stepping stone for his own future as a hero, and consistently bullied him in response to Izuku's unwillingness to stop pursuing his own dream. In here, Bakugo ends up being a source of motivation initially to push himself forward (for the sake of Bakugo's mother Mitsuki's wishes more than anything) as a hero after Bakugo's death.
  • After "seeing" her with his Clairvoyance, Izuku states that Toru Hagakure is the most gorgeous woman he has ever met, even compared to the other good-looking girls in Class 1-A and even most professional models. Sadly enough, Izuku is the only one who can even appreciate it due to her always-on Invisibility Quirk.
  • Two bullies in Tsuyu's middle school were twin sisters with similar Quirks that allow them to Charm people of either gender that look at them in the eye. Unfortunately for their chances to easily get a date, the sister that can only charm boys at a glance only likes girls and vice-versa, and neither is particularly enthused with the idea of hitting on people outside their preference with her Quirk for the other's sake.
• Item-Drop Mechanic: Reflective Dungeon enemies drop cash (usually Japanese Yen and sometimes other currencies), usable items like knives and Scrolls, and also mysterious monster bits.
• I Want Grandkids: Izuku narrates "For a moment, I could have sworn I saw the kanji 孫 in [his mother Inko's] eyes," after he tells her Tsuyu wants the two of them to practice swimming. Alone. In the forest. 孫 means grandchildren.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Zig-zagged. Aizawa concedes that some people agree with Shinso's complaints that the entrance exam favors those with flashy and destructive Quirks. Despite this, he points out that not only does that sound like "sour grapes" from Shinso himself, but Ojiro and Hagakure managed to pass despite their Quirks not falling into that category, and Shinso's Quirk isn't the only thing holding him back.
• Jerkass Realization: After making a joke about Izuku spying on the girls with his Clairvoyance skill, Kyoka winces at seeing how obviously hurt Izuku is by the accusation.
• Kansas City Shuffle: During the USJ incident, Izuku asks Ami to build a 5-meter-tall snowman. The Villains chasing them obviously suspect it's a trap, but they aren't sure it's either a Trojan Horse, loaded with explosives, a marionette that will attack them, or just a distracting puzzle meant to keep them busy while the kids run away. The Mook Lieutenant in charge decides that Cutting the Knot is their best bet and orders the others to blast it from a safe distance, only to find out the snowman was empty inside. Then they heard a loud crunching as if someone just broke through partially hardened snow and realize the distract-and-flee option was the right one and run after them. The kicker is that it's none of the above. Izuku, Ami, and Mo-chan were hiding underneath the snowman, the latter using her power to move one of her blades at a distance to create the noise the Villains followed, herding them downhill and into the path of the avalanche Izuku and Ami created together with the snow and rocks they piled up to make the snowman. Only two Villains escaped the real trap, but they were no real match for the three of them.
• Ki Manipulation: The third talent Izuku buys. It is a package deal with Energy Ball, Sensing, Healing Factor, and Self-Enhancement. The second level upgrades Healing Factor to Healing Hands and splits Energy Ball into blunt and sharp versions.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: After bringing down a boss that represents her past fears and insecurities, Inko has a brief heart to heart with her — until the boss starts talking approvingly about Inko's relationship with Midnight, and Inko, blushing, quickly finishes her off with a stab to the heart and changes the subject.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • After Izuku seemingly kills Overhaul, Rappa and Tengai flee the scene immediately.
  • Many of the Shie Hassaikai surrender when they realize they're facing the likes of Endeavor, All-Might, and Godzillo.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Izuku is learning unarmed combat through The Gamer, and also longer-ranged attacks and personal enhancements via Ki and Psionic powers.
• Kukris Are Kool: During the USJ incident, one of the three blades Modura can freely control and summon with her Quirk at that one time is a kukri knife.
• Large Ham: All Might is intentionally larger than life, but everyone lets it slide because of how much they respect him.
  All Might: I AM HERE, talking to you on the phone.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Overhaul, who torturously experimented on Eri, is the subject of Izuku's experiment and is subjected to, if not his worst nightmare, probably fairly high on the list.
• Let's Wait a While: Done by Izuku when Tsuyu tries to seduce him after paired near-death incidents. He gives her a list of reasons why they shouldn't, but also a timetable to discuss it again. She agrees.
• Limit Break: Lampshaded by Izuku who compares his power to a water tank where he can open the spigot slightly or all the way. When Aizawa asks if what he did against the Zero-Pointer counts as opening it all the way, Izuku replies that it's more like breaking the spigot off with a sledgehammer: all the water is used quickly but the tank is still broken.
• Living Lie Detector:
  • Cassandra's Quirk allows her to precisely monitor a person's physiological indicators much like a polygraph would, if not better thanks to increased precision and sheer practice interacting with people. This was particularly relevant when Izuku revealed The Gamer to All Might. While Cassandra couldn't be sure that everything her classmate was telling the teacher was a factual truth, she was dead certain that Izuku honestly believed every word he said to All Might.
  • And then, of course, there's Detective Tsukauchi's canon Quirk, which is why All Might tells him ahead of time that Izuku is an Irregular since his Quirk could catch any lie about his power anyway.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Defied by Izuku, who comes clean to his mother about The Gamer as soon as he's sure he isn't just imagining stuff. They both agree to keep it a secret and set about thinking up a way to fake his power as a Quirk.
• Locking Macgyver In The Store Cupboard: Izuku concludes that Kurogiri must not have properly understood what Ami's Quirk can do, or he would never have sent her to a snow-covered mountaintop.
• Logical Weakness:
  • A Downplayed example, but information-gathering Quirks have the potential to give away Izuku's secrets. For example, in Chapter 21 a small-time Villain with a Quirk that roughly lets him know how much money he can get out of something or someone was able to tell that Izuku was carrying millions of yen on him despite the fact most of that money was stored in Hammerspace. While his accomplice arrived to the Entertainingly Wrong conclusion that Izuku must have been worth all that money as ransom rather than detecting his Inventory, the incident confirms that other information-gathering Quirks can potentially find out problematic stuff about Izuku, such as the fact he's actually Quirkless.
  • For all its power, the USJ Noumu is still vulnerable to being drugged. Midnight easily knocks it unconscious with her Quirk once Harley is no longer negating it.
  • In one of the Reflective Dungeons, the boss is a dragon made out of paper. Izuku points out that despite its high stats, the dragon is made out of paper. He promptly sprays it with sports drinks and water, and it falls apart under its own weight.
• Lonely Funeral:
  • Played With. While plenty of adults attended Katsuki's funeral, only two kids his age showed up despite the fact that Aldera Junior High officially suspended classes so the students could go to the service. Of course, Izuku was one of them, and the other was a girl later revealed to be Ami Mizuno.
  • It gets even sadder in Chapter 19 when Ami reveals that she actually hated Katsuki, and only attended his funeral because he was still a schoolmate and she at least respected all the work he put into his studies. Her words make it very clear, however, that her main concern was Izuku and she wanted to be there for him just in case giving Katsuki a last goodbye would prove too much for him.
• Long List: Invoked. The list of possible Love Interests for Izuku according to the aptly named "Grand Harem Route" Mandatory Quest in the non-canonical "'Best' Route" omake is staggering. It includes all 13 canonical female UA students in classes 1-A and 1-B, five non-canonical ones (Ami, Mikoto, Cassandra, Mo-chan, and Shimooka Hikari), and "Shoko" Todoroki, plus Gadgeteer Geniuses Hatsume Mei and Melissa Shield, Hado Nejire (of the UA "Big Three"), Toga Himiko, Utsushimi Camie, Kayama Nemuri (Midnight), Takeyama Yu (Mt. Lady), Tatsuma Ryuko (Dragoon Hero "Ryukyu"), Shiretoko Tomoko and Sosaki Shino (Ragdoll and Mandalay, respectively, from the "Wild, Wild Pussycats" Hero Team, with the notable absence of Tsuchikawa "Pixie-Bob" Ryuko), and Unexpected Characters Tohsaka Rin and "Penryu" Saber – to a grand total of 31. It also states they aren't the only ones, though the "rewards" stop at 25.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Usually abused heavily by Izuku. He continually gets around the intent of the Lions and Gazelles game and his teachers have to let it through in the first instance since it wasn't forbidden. They try to block future attempts but Izuku just finds new ways around it. All Might was relieved that during the Heroes vs Villains exercise, Izuku was placed on the Heroes team where there is less opportunity to invoke a loophole. But inspired by Izuku, Kirishima has his partner maneuver the bomb to the attack path of their opponents, causing them to destroy it and netting his team the win since that was an explicit disqualification condition (Kirishima and his partner were placed on the Villains team). That loophole has since been forbidden.
  • Defied by the Mandatory Quests. Trying to get around the wording of such a quest will at best fail to work and at worst cause an automatic quest failure. In the "Best Route" omake series, Tsuyu tries to get around the Exact Words of the Quest stating that Izuku will "die a virgin" if he doesn't amass a harem of at least 15 girls by taking his virginity and thus making the penalty impossible to fulfill. Every attempt is foiled via Contrived Coincidence until Tsuyu gives up.
    • For another example, when Izuku tries to scout his own Reflective Dungeon (and maybe even defeat some or all of the enemies before the boss) with his current party rather than leaving all the work to the new party he was supposed to form as per quest requirements, he's warned before entering that doing so will invalidate the quest and forfeit any rewards from it.
  • Before the Cavalry Battle, Izuku asks if burying the headband would keep its value for his team and is told that, as long as the headband doesn't abandon the battlefield, it is valid for the headband's last owner. Teaming up with Mei lets him apply that loophole by using Mei's drone to keep the headband far from most people's range, although this doesn't keep the others from trying to get it.
  • Defied when planning the cavalry battle; Izuku and Iida both recognize that they could easily take first place by exploiting the rules about teams being forced to leave the field. But Izuku wants to play the game properly and show off what they can do.
• Luck-Based Mission: Invoked as part of the first joint training exercise in UA Hero Course, based on how frequently Pro Heroes have to team up with others that they barely know, if at all, in an emergency. The simulation consists of a pair of students playing as the heroes try to stop another playing the villains while making sure each pair is composed of one student from Class 1-A and another from 1-B to prevent previous knowledge of the other's Quirk and skills from being a factor while encouraging each to communicate and plan against their classmates in the opposite team. Izuku was lucky to draw Tsu as his class's member of the duo he went up against.
• Luck Stat: The Gamer quantifies Izuku's luck (or rather, his lack of it) as a number. He isn't quite sure what effect, if any, it has in his life or what the number actually means, but given that no normal activity seems to have any effect on it unlike with other Attributes, he decides to spend one Attribute Point on Luck per each Level Up, just in case.
• Ludicrous Precision:
  • When All Might mentions Izuku's attack on the big robot and how he made his calculations on it, he shares that others have determined that he was exactly 1.6 meters down from the optimal strike point.
  • Ochako somehow knew the exact amount of money contained in a sizeable pile of cash down to the coins (2,814,600 yen, to be precise, which amounts to approximately USD 25,800) the party had just earned from a Dungeon Crawling run. The rest was left wondering whether she really counted it that fast, kept track of the loot gained from every defeated Mook, or she just said a random number.
• Mad Scientist Laboratory: The first level of Momo's reflective dungeon is one. She defensively claims she doesn't know why that is the case.
• Mama Bear: Inko is especially protective of Izuku's emotional state, as she knows he's barely building up his self-confidence after all the crap he has been through before getting a real chance of becoming the Hero he always wanted to be. Notably, she warns his Guild to not pretend to be his friends if they're only in it to get stronger under The Gamer. Training partners are fine, but False Friends are definitely not okay in Inko's book.
• Man of Kryptonite: Izuku is this to people with touch-based Quirks, thanks to his Telekinetic Armor, as he can use it to prevent them from touching him. While Shigaraki's Decay affects the armor, Overhaul is rendered unable to do anything to him.
• Masquerade: The world of My Hero Academia is a Broken Masquerade instead. Or so it seems. Thanks to his long career as a Pro Hero making him privy to a lot of well-guarded secrets, All Might knows that a very, very small percentage of the population has powers different from Quirks. They're known as "Irregulars" by the handful of people that know about them, and are extremely secretive, often born before the emergence of Quirks and keeping themselves alive by unknown means. They also don't get involved in worldly affairs and are fiercely protective of that neutrality – as in, the last known person that tried to exploit them was quickly and quietly taken care of. For all these reasons, All Might was extremely surprised when one of them approached him, told him about his power, offered to help him with it, and was evidently only a 15-year-old kid. The Irregular in question, of course, being Izuku Midoriya.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover:
  • Reflective Dungeons are based on the Item Worlds and Chara Worlds from Disgaea.
  • Ami Mizuno is one of Izuku's classmates at Aldera Middle School, and takes the UA entrance exam on Izuku's suggestion. Additionally, Aoyama talks about his older sister who is studying in London, has a Quirk that allows her to shoot lasers from her pointer fingers, and is named Minako – which given the blonde hair, blue eyes, location, description of powers, name, and that Sailor Mercury (aka Ami) is a character, implies that his sister is based on Sailor Venus.
  • Mikoto Misaka is in Tsuyu's group for the entrance exam's practical, and another Class 1-A member. She also attended Tokiwadai, in this universe a heroine preparatory middle school. She also mentions her friend/Abhorrent Admirer Kuroko – which makes her shake.
    • In the Sports Festival we learn that Mitsuko Kongou also made it into UA from Tokiwadai. But due to an error on her part during the entrance exam practical (namely she forgot to register her fan for it), she is in the General Class.
  • Cassandra Cain and Izuku meet during the practical exam. She also becomes a member of Class 1-A. Harley Quinn is part of the League of Villains.
  • Mordred Pendragon, here having her name adapted as Penryu Modura^*Though chapter 24 reveals that "Penryu Modura" is the Nihonized version of her original name of Mordred Pendragon, is mentioned in the practicals as well and interacts with Cassandra. She becomes the fourth and final Class 1-A substitution.
  • Hikari Shimooka has taken Kuroiro Shihai's place in Class 1-B.
  • Ichiraku Noodle Shop exists as a modern ramen place located near Inko and Izuku's apartment. It's still being run by Teuchi (although he's semi-retired) and his daughter Ayame, the latter possessing a Quirk that lets her cut edible meat better than any knife without tools.
  • Subverted with Junpei Iori and Kanji Tatsumi, two one-off villains that tried to rob Ichiraku in Chapter 21, who don't look nor act like their namesakes. An Author's Note at the end of the chapter explains that Xavon needed names for the characters and those two just happened to come to mind.
  • In Chapter 21, Izuku, Ami, and Tsuyu visit a used & antique books store run by someone who seems to be an unnamed Yuuko Ichihara. Given that this particular character can canonically interact with parallel worlds, it's hard to say if she's the real deal, another imported character like Mikoto and Ami but with a connection to The Abyss instead, or just a very dedicated cosplayer with a Quirk that lets her block Izuku's Analyze skill.
    • When the woman (who asks to be called Bookkeeper) appears again in Lesson 49, she asks Izuku if he will grant Eri's wish. And Izuku claims there is a special weight to her words.^*Yuuko Ichihara in ×××HOLiC is a witch who grants wishes, for a price (not villainous or excessive price, but frequently ironic or unexpected)
  • Chapter 35 reveals that the story is an actual crossover with The Gamer, as one of Korea's heroes, Captain Korea, is Shin Sun-il, and it is implied that Han Jee-han is also around.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • Tomura Shigaraki. Is he just as crazy and delusional as in canon, or is he another Gamer?
  • Pony has a single, spiral horn sprouting from her forehead that she can shoot off and control. Seems fairly normal, for a Quirk. In Lesson 58, she reveals that when she was younger, her grandmother told her "our family was unicorn ranchers in France and Austria, long time ago." Pony has dismissed this as a lie to help her feel better. Except supernatural beings without Quirks do exist, so...
  • Is the Bookkeeper actually supernatural? Or does she just have a powerful information hiding Quirk?
• Meaningful Look: Tsu and Izuku share one when 13 briefly discussing not removing an impaling or crushing object that might be keeping a victim alive. They remember when just that happened to Tsu.
• Metaphorically True:
  • Tsu has been telling her parents that the money she brings home is from a part-time job Izuku lined up for them, which is a creative but not factually incorrect way to describe going in Dungeon Crawling runs into Reflective Dungeons.
  • When pressed by the other 1-A boys over which girl he thinks is the best-looking, he answers with Hagakure, citing, "I can't see a single thing wrong with her looks." Everyone laughs, not knowing he actually has seen exactly what she looks like with Clairvoyance.
• Mind over Matter: The first supernatural power Izuku gains via The Gamer is Telekinesis. He makes Tactile Telekinesis his go-to power and his supposed Quirk, due to it covering a lot of things he can do. And given what Inko's Quirk is, he has an extra defense via the common case of Quirk inheritance.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Chiyo Shuzenji is only 115cm (3'9"). After Eri accidentally de-ages her by ten to fifteen years, Chiyo is noted to be a full 40cm taller than before.
• Minor Living Alone: Tsuyu's parents both work overseas and are rarely home more than one week each month, leaving her as the primary caregiver for her younger siblings. At least until Chapter 21 when Beru mentions she is getting transferred to the home office so she can spend more time with her family now that they've paid off the mortgage.
• Mirror Boss: Like Aizawa, Harley Quinn can nullify others' Quirks and Fights Like a Normal as a result. As both are also highly skilled fighters, they struggle to beat one another, being used to opponents that rely heavily on their Quirks to fight. Shigaraki soon gets annoyed by their standstill and calls in the Nomu to deal with Aizawa.
• Money Sink: After getting the Guild Master I talent unlocked, Izuku gains the ability to turn a cleared Reflective Dungeon into a Guild Hall that his guild members can enter from anywhere in the world, though they can only exit from the item's actual physical location. However, unlocking a Guild Hall costs a billion yen (or 9.18 million US dollars as of this writing).
• Money Spider:
  • Reflective Dungeons follow the game convention that enemies drop money upon defeat. Played with in that non-humanoid enemies like wolves drop money, but noticeably less.
  • invoked Also a Discussed Trope, in Chapter 8. Izuku's Party wondered about several pieces of Fridge Logic involved in this trope, such as "is the money a forgery?" and "if not, where does it come from?" Based on the dates stamped on the cash – often old but still valid bills and coins in any odd combination, rather than the most efficient – they arrive to the hypothesis that Reflective Dungeons simply bring back money that was physically lost or destroyed in the real world. To verify the authenticity of their Dungeon-obtained money, Inko put a relatively large sum of it in a paper bag and handed it over to the police, claiming she found it in the trash. Two weeks later, the police returned it to them (after deducting for taxes, of course), which they took as a strong indication that the bills were neither forgeries nor traceable to a real source.
  • Grinding for money in a Reflective Dungeon is also very, very profitable. Especially when Boss Battles are cleared. For reference, one time on a good Dungeon run, a level-6 party with two combatants made almost one-and-a-half million yen (around USD 13,400) in just under 4 hours. In fact, one of the reasons why Inko took the risk of filing for divorce and looking for a job she could actually enjoy doing, was because Izuku agreed to support them this way, just in case it took her too long to become financially self-reliant.
• Mood-Swinger: While intoxicated, Endeavor quickly swings between cheerfully writing a romantic comedy to furiously burning a Villain's hand.
• Mugging the Monster: Robbing Ichiraku Ramen while Izuku is inside doesn't end well — especially since he's tough enough by this point to shrug off the small-calibre revolver the robbers are using. (Not that it matters when they never even get the chance to shoot him.)
• Multinational Team: Class 1-A already had Frenchman Yuga Aoyama, but now it includes Cassandra Cain (half-American, half-Chinese) and Modura Penryu (British descent) on its roster.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Mikoto closes a door with her powers, just so Izuku wouldn't run away from their "study group".
  • Ochako, Ami, and Mikoto used their power to clean up the Reflective Dungeon version of Dagobah Municipal Beach. The former made the junk weightless with her Quirk while the latter two used their powers to launch the floating pieces to the recollection area. Doing so allows them to skip the area's mid-boss.
  • The Party Chat and Guild Chat features let anyone in Izuku's party or guild talk to everyone else telepathically. It also lets Cassandra speak for the first time in her life.
  • Going into dungeons made out of objects makes them stronger and may give them special qualities.
  • Items in Inventory technically neither exist in real space nor do they experience the passage of time. This makes Inventory an ideal way to keep perishables from going bad and even keeps warm/cold food/drinks from losing/gaining any temperature.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: The first holder of One For All looks unhealthily thin and sickly, but the shockwave from his pulled punches are still enough to chip away at Izuku's and Cassandra's health.
• Mutually Exclusive Magic: Ki and Psionics are this. Using them together provides both an amazing boost of power and a dangerous feedback. As in, "even just standing around still causes damage-over-time" feedback.
• Mutually Fictional: Canon!Izuku and Bakugou appear as Bosses in a Reflective Dungeon. An Omake in the same chapter has canon!Izuku experiencing the fight as a dream, commenting on the oddness of seeing Momo wearing "biker's leathers and a helmet", and fighting Sailor Mercury and a girl wielding electromagnetic powers that Shoto (of all people) identified as Mikoto Misaka from the RailDex series. Canon!Bakugou subsequently mentally wonders how he and canon!Izuku had the same dream.
• My Mother is Off Limits: Though he hasn't said it out loud yet, Izuku has thought this since Kyoka and Sero told him they thought Inko was hot.
• My Grandma Can Do Better Than You: From Kirishima to Shishida in Lesson 16:
  Kirishima: Huh, I almost felt that. I guess that means you might be in the same league as my grandma.
• Mysterious Stranger: The unnamed owner of the bookstore in Chapter 21 is beautiful, being a Raven Hair, Ivory Skin Statuesque Stunner with long hair in a Hime Cut who wears a silk kimono to work. Her store carries everything from typical second-hand novels to some valuable antique pieces, including more than a few that Izuku can use as Skill Books and a real Spell Book for actual magic that he can't use but still bought in order to research it. And right out of the gate, she's proved immune to The Gamer's Analyze function, prompting the interface to suggest she's either ridiculously powerful or has a really, really good information-obfuscating Quirk. She tellingly seemed to focus more on Izuku than on Tsuyu or Ami when deciding whether or not to grant the latter's request to see the store's restricted section.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The first two Mooks in Toshinori Yagi's Reflective Dungeon are based on the unnamed Villain duo that a young All Might and David Shield fought in the Flashback Action Prologue of the movie My Hero Academia: Two Heroes.
  • Cassandra's Hero Costume is Spoiler's outfit but in gray rather than purple.
  • Mo-chan still refers to Saber as her "Father".
  • The bosses and mid-bosses of the first level of Izuku's own Reflective Dungeon are Katsuki as he was in middle school, canon!Izuku during his pre-UA training, and a Dual Boss fight against both as they were after the first term at UA.
  • When Izuku scans his boss versions in the Dungeon, he sees the canon version's hero name of Deku as part of the enemy's name. But when he scans the UA version of Katsuki, the enemy's alias is an empty pair of quotes, a reference to Midnight rejecting all of his hero name suggestions.
  • Tsuyu rescues a classmate from a Villain looking like a shark via Dynamic Entry just like in the canonical version of the USJ incident. The only difference is that the classmate in question isn't Izuku this time around (as Izuku's in the mountain zone instead).
  • Todoroki thinks that Izuku is All Might's son, but this time he draws the idea from a different set of circumstances.
  • Cassandra's match with Hatsume went more or less the same way Iida's match with her did in canon. She did not take it any better than Iida did at Hatsume using their match to show off her inventions rather than fight properly.
  • One of Izuku's classmates constantly reminds him to call her by a nickname instead of her last name. This time around, it's Mo-chan, since Izuku and Tsuyu are already good friends.
• Named After Somebody Famous: "Mo-chan" is named after a character from legend – her real name is Mordred Pendragon – and has absolutely no intention to share her namesake's infamous fate.
• Name Order Confusion: The Gamer shows people's names with the given name first, whereas Japan uses the family name first convention. This causes some minor problems for Izuku, who has gotten used to the former after little less than a year reading from The Gamer's user interface.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: An omake shows Izuku enabling a System filter when facing Bakugou-the-boss.
  "What the [] are you doing?" Bakugou demanded. Then his face screwed up in confusion, and he shouted, "What the []? [] you, you [] nerd! What the [] did you do? I'll kill you!"
• Nerd Gasm:
  • Downplayed. When Ami mentions other potential "Gamers" out there might have different systems by comparing the Dungeons & Dragons and GURPS systems, Izuku's heart skips a beat.
  • Setsuna 'groaned in almost sexual pleasure' when she learned that Momo's house contains the most advanced 3D theater system on the market.
• Never Found the Body: Rappa and Tengai have their deaths faked by the League of Villains. Tsukauchi uses the lack of any remains for why they're likely still alive.
• Never Split the Party:
  • Lampshaded by Izuku when Shoji and Awase split up to look through a bunch of makeshift boxes in hopes of finding the bomb during the Heroes vs Villains inter-class exercise.
    Shoji: [to Awase] The question being, do we dare split up?
    Izuku: [narrating] The answer was yes, they dared. And no, it was a bad idea.
  • Played With during the USJ incident. Mikoto dragged Kirishima below deck to start the boat normally used for shipwreck rescue while Tsuyu remained alone on top of the cabin. The Villains lurking in the water took this as their cue to attack Tsuyu while she was alone before the others could get the engine going and get away from their trap, which is when Kirishima punches a large hole on the side of the ship for Mikoto to manipulate ripped off electrical wires and used them zap the Villains before they could turn around, ending the fight right then and there.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Justified. The Gamer allows Izuku to browse the description of Talents and Skills and waits indefinitely for him to spend Points on them. This gives him the option to unlock or upgrade them at incidentally dramatic times to overcome an important problem ahead.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: All Might directly references the former trope namer just before delivering his final barrage against the USJ Nomu, mentally citing it as one of his biggest inspirations and directly using the last line (replacing "powerful" with "Mighty").
• No Name Given: Subverted. The "L.A. Villains" from the movie My Hero Academia: Two Heroes are given proper Villain Names here: Blue Bulette and Rocket Wrist.
• Noodle Incident: Izuku's narration mentions that something embarrassing happened the first time he had an American hamburger, but doesn't elaborate further than that.
• Not Bad: Even though Cassandra lost their duel, her mother Sandra (the Gamer manifestation of her at least) admits Cassandra is not as big a disappointment as she thought.
• Not His Sled: Overhaul is still rendered helpless and removed from the story, except instead of the League of Villains taking revenge, Izuku traps him in a Dungeon and then Nezu arranges for the source of the Dungeon to be placed in a Venus probe.
• Not So Above It All: Izuku takes striving to become an Ideal Hero very seriously. However, he's not above attending his last days in middle school – despite the teachers allowing him to skip them after passing his high school entrance exams – simply because he wanted to see the expressions on his bullies' faces after hearing that he was accepted into the prestigious Hero Course at UA. He didn't rub their noses in it, nor did he say a word to them, but the righteously smug satisfaction was definitely there.
• Now You Tell Me: Modura is annoyed that Izuku figures out and tells everyone Harley is a Power Nullifier after Harley breaks the connection between Modura and one of her swords, though she admits it's not Izuku's fault.
• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • Each time Class 1-A plays "Lions and Gazelles", All Might is forced to add more rules due to students – especially Izuku – finding ways around the point of the exercise. In the end, the rules for the game, which were basically "Two people are 'it' and must tag others without going out of bounds," becomes a massive paragraph detailing every way that Izuku and his friends have broken the game.
  • Kirishima is commended for tricking Shishida into breaking the fake bomb, but then told to never do it again because it's too unreliable in the real world, especially against an opponent with an unknown or not fully understood Quirk.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: The League of Villains gives Tengai and Rappa a choice. Join the League or join the League as Nomus.
• Older Than They Look: Both Berri Allen and Clark Kent are still around despite being roughly a hundred years old. Clark looks like he's in his fifties while Berri looks even younger.
• One Degree of Separation:
  • Izuku's friends and classmates Ami, Jirou, and Momo all had their first Hero costumes designed by his mother Inko.
  • For a justified and a rather sad example, Rescue Hero Thirteen personally knows most trauma surgeons in Japan, and thus immediately recognizes Ami by name and resemblance as Dr. Saeko Mizuno's daughter.
  • Mordred is the Family of Choice daughter of Shirou Emiya and best friend of Cassandra Cain. David Cain (Cassandra's father) was the only student of Kiritsugu Emiya. Sorahiko 'Gran' Torino worked with Shirou as a Hero, worked against David, mentored the two girls and revealed their connection to them.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Saying that Present Mic is loud is like saying that water is wet, so when the practical performance of UA hopeful makes Hizashi actually whisper in awe, his coworkers know the kid in question – Mikoto Misaka – is worth watching live and closely.
• Out of the Frying Pan: Overhaul escapes the zombie apocalypse Dungeon Izuku trapped him in, he finds he is trapped in a tiny spaceship on its way to Venus, and to survive he will need to use his Quirk on his own waste.
• Painting the Medium: In addition to the use of Wingding Eyes, in chapter 19, when Izuku takes a hard hit to the face, his narration becomes slightly garbled for a moment:
  Izuku' (narrating): He knee slam me face... rattling my brain a bit. ^note "His knee slammed into my face, rattling my brain a bit." for those of you who can't read mild concussion.
• Paper Tiger: Tatsumi Kanji's Quirk lets him turn his arms into clay bricks but offers no increase in strength or defense so it's functionally cosmetic.
• The Paragon: Izuku's actions helping others during the Entrance Exam causes each of them to help other students as well. After the exam, Cassandra, Sero, Iida, and Ochako all try to have Izuku be given at least some of their points to compensate for the penalties he (believed he) took for fighting the Zero-Pointer. They thought someone like him had to have a chance at becoming a Pro Hero. Izuku didn't need them in the end, as the "no other option" defense for attacking the Zero-Pointer was invoked rescinding the penalty for attacking it in the first place.
• Paranoia Fuel: In-Universe. Izuku and those aware of his power become very worried when Shigaraki uses gaming jargon in his delusional rants, wondering if the Villain knows about The Gamer or someone with a power similar to Izuku's, or whether Shigaraki himself has it and thus is a completely unpredictable opponent with Wrong Context Magic/Combo Platter Powers. It's only after using Analyze on him and seeing no hint of anything like The Gamer that Izuku begins to relax a little.
• Pet the Dog: After the Sports Festival, Aizawa takes the time to reassure Ojiro and Hagakure that despite them not advancing to the second round, they aren't in danger of being expelled from the Hero Course. The two have earned their place and were actively sabotaged by another participant (General Studies' Shinsou the culprit).
• Picked Last:
  • Implied to have happened a lot to Izuku in middle school, explaining why Ami explicitly apologizes to Izuku (via Guild Chat) for not picking him first for her team at the USJ. She explains she couldn't openly justify picking him before Ochako, as the latter's gravity-defying Quirk makes for an obvious choice for an unknown rescue training scenario when compared to his publicly known skills. Ami reassures Izuku that she would have picked him in a heartbeat were it not for the need for secrecy about The Gamer, but Izuku instead reassures her that she doesn't need to worry about that.
  • Ojiro explains his rationale for picking Cassandra, Izuku, Shoji, and Sero for his team in that order, namely her Quirk makes her an obvious choice for tracking down injured people and says the main reason he picked Shoji before Sero is because he remembered the former knows sign language and he wanted some redundancy to communicate with Cassandra.
• Plausible Deniability: Izuku is very fond of this, trying to set up plausible (in-universe) explanations for his implausible (in-universe) abilities. Referenced by name in Lesson 28, when Izuku jumps high enough to get a view of a maze from above, when he is actually going to use his clairvoyance to have a top-down view or peek ahead as needed.
• Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: In this story, "Pony" is just a nickname, not Tsunotori's actual given name. However, just when she introduces herself, the noise from a low-flying plane drowns out her voice a la convenient loud vehicles keeping viewers from knowing the first names of Timmy's parents.
• Pocket Dimension: Just like in the manhwa, The Gamer allows Izuku to create Instant Dungeons with enemies to grind, but not quite in the same way. Unlike the originals that are anchored to a location, Izuku's "Reflective Dungeons" are created from an object or a person in a way similar to the Item and Chara Worlds in Disgaea. He also uses the first Reflective Dungeon he and his party cleared – based on a high-end mechanical pencil he got for his 15th birthday that he always carries with him – as a portable Home Base that they later furnished with a table, chairs, a bookshelf, and other odds and ends. He calls it "The Pencil of Solitude".
• Point Build System:
  • The Gamer quantifies Izuku's growth as Attributes. They are Strength, Endurance, Agility, and Quickness for physical characteristics, and Wit, Intuition, Charisma, Determination, and Luck for non-physical ones. Izuku's user interface (and the narration) usually uses the first letter of each as a shorthand. Upon each Level Up, Izuku gets seven Attributes Points he can freely spend on them to increase their values, but other than Luck, they can be improved by performing activities related to them as with normal training.
  • Collecting 50 points on any Attribute is called reaching "Peak Human" tier in the interface, which grants a bonus Talent related to the Attribute in question.
  • Sometimes The Gamer rewards Izuku with small but permanent Attribute increases for doing something particularly remarkable related to it. Like clever deductions increasing his Intuition, or making friends increasing his Charisma.
• Poke in the Third Eye: An accidental variation occurs when Izuku tries to use his newly unlocked Clairvoyance to scout Class 1-B behind a partition. Before he can get far enough, he spots Hagakure. The shock of seeing her naked body causes Clairvoyance to deactivate.
• Poor Communication Kills: Due to Eri not being sure why Izuku is living at U.A. currently, Overhaul is able to trick her into believing he has Izuku's mother captive.
• Potty Emergency: After both overuse Aoyama's Navel Laser, Aoyama and Monoma are mentioned as "clenching their butt cheeks" and running to the nearest bathroom.
• Power Misidentification:
  • When his gamer powers first manifest, Izuku assumes it's a Quirk up until his own powers identified himself as Quirkless. He's actually an Irregular, but he maintains the ruse to avoid drawing too much attention to the fact he has a different source of power to 80% of the global population. With a combination of two convenient excuses as a cover (one relating to his mother's Quirk), Tactile Telekinesis is listed as his Quirk.
  • Kurogiri's power was assumed to be just some sort of warping power. It's not, that's just a useful side-effect. What he actually has is a pocket-dimension Quirk and he can make entrances and exits to his pocket dimension Quirk anywhere he wants. Not even his own allies knew this until Izuku figured it out.
• Power Nullifier: Harley Quinn's Quirk (Scrubs) disables all Quirks (and many other non-Quirk powers) on contact and is always on. She can turn it off, but it takes considerable effort on her part.
• Power Perversion Potential:
  • The Gamer gives Izuku access to all kinds of Skills and Talents, ranging from the mundane like "Oral Hygiene" i.e. brushing his teeth as a Skill, to Psychic Powers, so the potential for perverted skills is indeed there. Parodied in the "'Best' Ending" non-canonical omake (but including canonical mechanics) where Izuku's possible Quest rewards for becoming a successful Harem Seeker are Talents that explicitly make him an amazing sex partner.
  • For an actual example, the Equip function allows Izuku to completely and instantly swap his party members' current clothes with whatever outfit he has in his Hammerspace Inventory. He discovered the perverted potential of this by accident when he Equipped Tsuyu with her workout clothes, but given that the stored outfit didn't include undergarments...
  • Izuku has a moment where he considers how Kyoka's earjacks could be used sexually, thinking that they're long, prehensile, and capable of transmitting sonic pulses.
• Pragmatic Hero: Midoriya and Ami are very analytical when planning, and willingly embrace Rules Lawyer with both training and combat for the sake of efficiency. Their behavior is enough that the staff at U.A. routinely have to adjust rulings to cover anything the two have exploited (and one exploit Kirishima invoked via inspiration).
• Privacy by Distraction: At the end of Chapter 20, Inko sends Izuku to pick up the takeout dinner she already ordered for them and the girls in his Guild, and she even refuses Cassandra's offer to help him carry the food home in his stead. Exactly no one present missed that she wanted to talk with the girls without Izuku around.
• Psychic Radar: Izuku has the Ki version of this as part of the package when he starts unlocking the Ki Manipulation tree. It's useful for keeping track of people outside of The Gamer's functionalities.
• Psychic Static: Both Izuku and Mikoto get sudden headaches due to their powers – telepathy and Shock and Awe, respectively – picking on the villains' jamming signals used to down the communications at the USJ right before the bad guys make their entrance. Also an Exploited Trope later on when Mikoto uses the intensity of her headache to track down the source of the jamming as in a Hot-and-Cold children's game.
• Psychic Surgery:
  • In chapter 7, Izuku used his TK to carefully remove shrapnel from Tsuyu's injuries while minimizing additional damage. Then he customized her Stats and Talents to pull her HP from the negative numbers, which caused her body to return back to health in a matter of moments, which was a particularly disturbing sight for him.
  • Played With later on when Izuku gets a TK-based skill that expands on that, but it doesn't come with the necessary medical knowledge to make real use of it. Doubles as an example of Healing Magic Is the Hardest.
• Puzzle Boss: The boss of the first floor of Jiro's Dungeon is Mozart. Instead of a fight, they have a musical duel. He plays and she has to keep up. And then she plays and he has to keep up. He surrenders quickly, pointing out she know him and his contemporaries, while she has centuries of songs and styles he is not familiar with. He also says if he was still alive, he would want to write a cycle of operas around her voice.
• Razor Wind: Izuku's "Ki Slice" skill works like this, although it consists of concentrated Ki shaped like a throwing blade.
• Reading Lips: Cassandra can do this as an application of her Quirk and training. The particularities of her power makes it so she doesn't even need to see the other person's lips to do it, which gets her in on the ground floor of both All Might's and Izuku's powers.
• Read the Freaking Manual: Averted and played with. After deciding to be a Hero, the first thing Izuku does is go into the menu and read the entire manual. He gets a bunch of stat buffs for doing so, along with a sarcastic message that "who reads the manual?". Then it turns out the manual has deliberately missing parts for elements Izuku didn't have access to at the time. Complaining about it gives another bonus with a message that "real life doesn't come with a complete manual."
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Aizawa gives one to Shinso after the Sports Festival. First there was the fact he sabotaged those helping him, despite not knowing if there were any more obstacles in the maze, something Aizawa says was not only unheroic but very stupid. Second is that Shinso has clearly not trained himself at all and is trying to coast on his Quirk, then blame Quirk bias whenever that fails him. All total, it boils down to Aizawa asking if Shinso actually wants to be a hero.
• Red Pill, Blue Pill: Played With. Izuku gives ample opportunity to Ochako, Ami, Mikoto, and Momo to turn back without getting involved with his "secret training" a.k.a. The Gamer because just the secrecy they would have to maintain alone is problematic, to say nothing that fighting in Reflective Dungeons is never totally safe. The girls argue back that they've already chosen the Red Pill when they decided to try and become Pro Heroes, which already means accepting danger as a constant in their lives.
• Required Secondary Powers:
  • Tsuyu is naturally immune to the poisonous oils she secretes. Although, when asked, she doesn't know if that still applies if she ingests them.
  • Converting a Reflective Dungeon into a Guild Hall requires that said Dungeon possess a minimum of three levels, two of which have to be cleared first. Izuku receives this particular feature, at the same time as an upgrade to an existing power which... opens up the second levels of Dungeons for exploration/clearing.
  • Subverted Trope with Sero's Quirk. He can produce practically as much tape as he wants, but he doesn't have a way to cut it once it's no longer connected to him. That's why he carries a pocket knife with a blade proven to be able to easily cut his tape.
• Rescue Romance: There was a fair amount of Ship Tease between them once they became training buddies, but Izuku saving Tsuyu's life pushed them to actually consider a Relationship Upgrade. Heck, the rescue very nearly ended up in Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex, but The Gamer's Mind helped Izuku to keep his wits about him and realize that Tsuyu wasn't in the right mind to make that decision.
• Resting Recovery: One of the benefits of The Gamer is that it turns the game convention that sleeping can completely heal a person overnight into a reality. The effect can be extended to Party Members, Trauma Inn style, under the right circumstances.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Present Mic suggests Izuku's Quirk is like mutation types and just naturally immune to Aizawa's Quirk. While Izuku is immune to it, it's because his power isn't a Quirk to begin with.
• Ring Out: The frying pan dungeon takes the form of a shielded island of safety amongst a sea of flames, so one way to defeat enemies is to simply toss them out of the shield and let them barbecue.
• Rooftop Confrontation:
  • The Boss Fight of the first level of Izuku's own Reflective Dungeon takes place on the rooftop of a representation of Aldera Junior High.
  • The Boss Fight of the first level of Cassandra's Reflective Dungeon takes place on the rooftop of a representation of the Wayne Tech skyscraper in Gotham City.
• Rules Lawyer:
  • Izuku is way too good at Loophole Abuse. All Might constantly has to resort to Obvious Rule Patch to ban his technically-allowed tactics so he or the rest of the class won't try them again. It gets to the point that, in the first joint training exercise with Class 1-B, All Might felt like he dodged a bullet when Izuku didn't end up in a Villain Team where his knack to come up with an Outside-the-Box Tactic or three would have hindered his opponent the most. During said exercise, Tsuburaba is shocked at the idea of the villain team setting up traps during the planning time, citing that it wasn't in the rules, only for Izuku to counter that it wasn't not in the rules either.
  • Ami seems to have picked it up from him too, given that All Might looks at both her and Izuku whenever he applies an Obvious Rule Patch.
  • The Heroes-vs-Villains joint exercise has Kirishima mention that everyone in Class 1-A has learned to be wary of outside-the-box tactics while learning to pull them off themselves precisely because of Izuku. He himself pulls one that needs an Obvious Rule Patch.
• Running Gag:
  • The Gamer's notification system making fun of Izuku in indirect ways.
  • Izuku imaging kanji characters in people's eyes.
  • Izuku hesitating to do something in The Gamer (buy a talent, accept a quest), only for someone to startle him into pressing the button.
  • Izuku being a Rules Lawyer and UA teachers having to add Obvious Rule Patches to counter his Loophole Abuse.
• Sarcastic Confession:
  • When asked how he, Tsuyu, and Cassandra improved their combat skills so quickly, Izuku says they went into a dungeon inside All-Might and fought his past enemies. Naturally, no one believes him. Ami later realizes that he was lying to them with the truth when she learns about The Gamer.
  • When asked who he thinks is the most attractive girl in class, Izuku answers Hagakure, saying he can't see anything wrong with her looks. While everyone thinks it's a rather hilarious joke, Izuku actually has seen what she looks like and knows she's drop-dead gorgeous.
• School Idol: Deconstructed. Mikoto feels that her Tokiwadai schoolmates put her on a pedestal and only her friend Kuroko being the exception (which is not quite a good thing because this is Kuroko Shirai we're talking about). Dropping this label and making real friends who treat her as an equal are a big part of her reason for joining UA.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • In Chapter 9, Izuku, Inko, and Tsuyu test the Dungeon in one of his training weights. The first Mook they see is level 21. Izuku was level 6 and Tsuyu level 7. Inko was level 17, but also basically a noncombatant. The description when Izuku scans it is even 'Way above your weight class'. They leave immediately.
  • Hekiji Tengai gives up trying to take back Eri and simply flees when All Might shows up. Even Overhaul admits there wasn't anything he could do.
  • After Izuku reveals he defeated Overhaul, Tengai takes the Heroes' offer and flees. He has to convince Rappa to stop fighting.
  • Those of the yakuza who didn't get caught by the police and heroes warn off the remainder of Overhaul's underlings, saying they will shoot any of them who come to one of their hideouts.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • The members of Izuku's Guild Meta no Kishidan are keeping his secret, both that he has a non-Quirk power and also its precise nature.
  • Nezu is also aware that Izuku is an Irregular and that his power actually manifests as a game interface.
• Secret Test of Character:
  • The Quirk Assessment Test from the first day at UA, but differently from canon where the expulsion thing was a Motivational Lie to make them try harder. Midoriya noticed that their home teacher's whole behavior resembled too much that of a Villain: using coercion and blackmail to force them to compete against each other for survival, by threatening to expel the lowest-scoring student. Aizawa also dropped an anti-government rant that was completely at odds with his position. And there was also no rational way to convert the test results into any sort of valid overall ranking. Midoriya passed along his observations to others who quickly agreed with him and ganged up on the teacher, managing to safely capture him. Aizawa demanded an explanation, and when they provided it, he (very begrudgingly) congratulated them for being the first class to figure out the secret test in the six years he's been doing it. Then it turns out that both Nezu and All Might were watching and that the test itself was one for Aizawa since they told him point-blank that no, he wasn't supposed to pull this kind of test anymore.
  • Played With in the above example, as the "assessment" part was real, and Class 1-A still had to complete the tests so their performance data could be recorded in order to measure their improvements later on.
• Seen It All: After everything Inko has seen since her son got The Gamer, Overhaul doesn't rank that high on the "scary" scale.
• See the Invisible: Izuku learns his Clairvoyance can function as this when he gets an eyeful of Hagakure in her hero costume, which consists of gloves, boots, and nothing else.
• Senseless Sacrifice: In the non-canon omake where Izuku and Shigaraki end up in a Mutual Kill, the narration makes it painfully obvious that retribution for Tsuyu's death is the only thing that came out of it. Shigaraki was completely redundant to All For One after All Might's death, and without him or Izuku around, his plans are likely to come to fruition unopposed.
• Sensor Character:
  • Cassandra's Quirk makes her a go-to person to locate stealthy opponents or to track down injured people trapped in rubble.
  • Izuku's Ki Detection skill serves a similar purpose. Due to this, he can use Cassandra's power as an excuse to justify his findings while keeping his real powers a secret. This falls apart when Kurogiri's forced teleportation separates him for Cassandra and the need to track down Villains hiding in the snow outweighs his need for secrecy, as Mordred didn't fail to notice.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Subverted. When Izuku and Tsuyu ran into some bullies from his middle school on a free day who called her his girlfriend to get a reaction out of them, he didn't miss that she didn't protest the label.
• Ship Sinking: Izuku's parents. Their marriage has existed only on paper for a while, but Inko finally files for divorce in chapter 12.
• Shoot the Dog: Hawkgirl killed The Joker as the latter made it such that it was the only way to save millions of lives.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Side Bet: When Izuku reveals that he knows what Hagakure looks like, Mikoto is upset because she lost money on her bet.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: While the girls of Class-1A are playing a game of "Sex, Marry, Kill", Mina argues that Izuku shouldn't be allowed as an option as all of them would choose to marry him. He's not only incredibly ripped but is a total sweetheart who would care for and spoil any woman who married him.
• Skewed Priorities: Aizawa mentions that several Heroes get too caught up in fighting Villains to account for things like collateral damage, nearby civilians, or their original mission. In his words, catching a thief when you're trying to save a child isn't a success.
• Skill Scores and Perks:
  • The Gamer quantifies Izuku's learning potential like this. Upon Level Up, he gets three Skill Points that he can use to make himself instantly more proficient at any of his Skills. Talent Points are scarcer and even more valuable, as they allow him to give himself a trait that people normally had to be born with in order to be able to manifest, as he did for Ki and psychokinesis.
  • Dungeon Crawling progress in a given person's Reflective Dungeon — usually marked by defeating a certain number of Mooks in it — unlocks Affinity points that he or she can use to improve an entire group of related Skills at once.
  • A common reward for defeating mid-bosses in someone's Reflective Dungeon is called "Attribute Balancing", which are 3 Attribute Points that are automatically assigned to the person's three lowest Attributes (or randomly picked in the case of a tie).
• Snowball Fight: In Chapter 23, Izuku not-so-fondly remembers one time back in elementary school when they could have an actual snowball fight after an unusually large snowfall, and Katsuki and his group put rocks in some of the snowballs. Izuku borrows the idea and puts lots of rocks in a five-meter-tall snowman made by Ami's powers to both catch Villains off-guard when they predictably blasted at it, and to ease the strain the stunt had on her powers by reducing the amount of snow she had to manipulate at once.
• Speak Ill of the Dead:
  • After Bakugou's funeral, Izuku brings up his harsh personality and insulting nickname for him.
  • Ami mentions that she thought Bakugou was a cruel bully and admits she hated him.
• The Speechless: One half of Cassandra's hybrid Quirk gives her Combat Clairvoyance, but renders her completely mute as a side-effect, unable to produce any sound even while laughing or crying. She's fluent with ASL/JSL, but at the start, only Midoriya (thanks to The Gamer), Shoji, and All Might can understand her in Class 1-A, so the former tends to act as her mouthpiece when he's around. At other times, she carries a pad and a pen. In Chapter 19, being able to speak telepathically thanks to the Guild Chat feature reduces her to Tears of Joy.
• Spider-Sense: In chapter 25, Izuku gains "Sense Hostility", though the League of Villains project so much hostility that it hits level 25 in seconds, allowing him to see how hostile someone is towards him via aura.
• Spit Take:
  • Izuku ensures that Ochako has swallowed her drink before he mentions that the Guild hall costs a billion yen, but she still looks like she just choked on it.
  • When Tsuyu asks him, during a date, when he's going to ask Ami out, Izuku reflects that he would have choked on his drink if he had one, and even contemplates taking one out of his inventory just to spit-take with it.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Mo-chan notes during the USJ attack that Izuku displayed abilities that definitely don't fit with his alleged "Tactile Telekinesis" Quirk. She keeps her observations to herself because a) she realizes that Izuku is putting the safety of their classmates and teachers over whatever reason he has to keep his real powers secret, b) they are in a life-or-death situation so anything not immediately relevant to solve it will have to wait for later, and c) she knows from experience that They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason.
  • When Izuku, Cassandra, and Mo-chan arrive at Gran Torino’s for their internship, the enigmatic hero having come out of semi-retirement to make his offer to them, Gran Torino reveals that he not only knows Izuku is an Irregular but also that he’s a Gamer, despite All Might having never told him about Izuku. This is because Gran Torino was able to watch playback from the USJ attack, and was able to spot things like Izuku’s line of sight slipping off to the side, and him addressing someone or something not present through his lip movements, as well as hand gestures that all indicate that Izuku is responding to some form of interface that only he can see. This is partly because Gran Torino has met Gamers before, and was particularly close to one of them, so he’s aware of how their powers work, and what signs to spot.
• Stacy's Mom: Izuku's mom according to Kyoka and Sero, as a result of taking better care of herself after her divorce and The Gamer-assisted Stat Grinding.
• Staging an Intervention: Subverted. When Kyoka is brought to Izuku and Inko's apartment to get the Internal Reveal about The Gamer, she asks to sit at the head of the table with the two of them, plus other six of her classmates, all of them with serious expressions on their faces. Kyoka tries to joke away how nervous the arrangement makes her feel by pointing out it looks like an intervention before Izuku explains to her why they asked her to come over.
• Stating the Simple Solution: When the roundabout method of learning the truth behind Izuku, Tsuyu, and Cassandra's unusual improvement fails, Ami suggests simply asking.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: The Flash does this to Izuku after the first day of the Sports Festival. Izuku chases Berri to get her autograph until they reach the Pacific Ocean. He stops, and she vanishes into the distance. Then she makes him jump when she asks from behind why he stopped.
• Sudden Game Interface: Izuku discovers The Gamer like this. One morning he wakes up and finds a floating game-like window informing him that he's back in full health after sleeping a full night in his bed. At first, he thinks someone with an illusion or holographic Quirk is messing with him, but soon realizes it's something else entirely. The realization ends up costing Bakugou his life.
• Super Breeding Program: Quirk Marriages, as in canon. There are some unsavory rumors about it involving Tokiwadai Middle School, given how their best graduates either become famous Heroines or end up marrying suspiciously young and disappearing from the public eye.
• Superpower Lottery: Izuku's power as The Gamer allows him to treat reality as an RPG Mechanics 'Verse. This includes the ability to see himself as an RPG character and control his stat growth, heal almost anything with a good night's sleep, resist most mental attacks, store a limited number of items in an extra-dimensional space. He also can invite people into his party, giving them a limited version of the first power and the ability to make sure other party members are in good shape. And that's before he starts getting Quests to improve those powers or unlock new game-like abilities (like one resembling Item World from the Disgaea series), or using the first power gain Telekinesis and Ki powers. The main things keeping him from being overpowered are that he started so far behind his universe's power curve to begin with and that The Gamer follows game conventions to a T – that is, grinding and good resource/time management how-to are a must.
• Support Party Member: Inko doesn't do much damage but her Quirk allows her to easily disarm enemies and even redirect some ranged attacks.
• Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder: Stheno and Mindy from the League of Villains' USJ attack team are able to hold their own against the students, and thus are allowed to retreat with Shigaraki and become League members. Shigaraki also feels this way about class 1-A, they were supposed to be pebbles on the road to All Might, instead they are able to take out his troops 5 to 1, including Nomu, Harley, and himself.
• Tailor-Made Prison: Because Overhaul's Quirk is capable of destroying most ordinary prisons, Nezu arranges a different means of holding him after Izuku traps him in a dungeon. The bandage containing the dungeon is put on a module heading to Venus. When he escapes the bandage dungeon, he cannot risk destroying the module or he gets ejected into space, permanently removing him as a threat.
• Take a Third Option: Tsu's stance on the Love Triangle between Izuku, Ami, and herself is for Izuku to choose both rather than one or the other.
  Tsu: [Ami] is my friend too. I care about her. I wouldn't want her to be hurt, by having to see us together, by me forcing them apart. I think I would almost rather step aside, so they could be happy. But I wouldn't really want to do that either. I'd rather both of us date him, trying to help each other get time. And when Izuku isn't around, the two of us could still hang out, be friends, and commiserate about our boyfriend challenging a gunman without his powers because it might get him a slap on the wrist. Maybe it's because I'm part frog, and they aren't exactly known for monogamy. Maybe it's because my parents are happy, but they aren't around very much, either me, or each other. But I think it could work. Especially with a good guy like Izuku.
• Take That!: Chapter 36 gives one to all the fanfics stating Shinsou would be in the Hero Course if not for the entrance exam's prejudice towards non-destructive Quirks. Aizawa carefully explains that not only are both Ojiro and Hagakure in the Hero Course despite having Quirks with no destructive ability, but that Shinsou has very clearly not physically trained himself at all, and is in fact barely passing Gen Ed's physical education class. Furthermore, multiple top ten heroes think Shinso's Quirk is amazing and it's his personality that's a dumpster fire, citing how he actively sabotaged other students in a way they couldn't defend against in the Sports Festival. In the end, the only one truly stacking the deck against Shinsou is the teen himself.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Upon reaching the end of the first level of Mikoto's Dungeon, the Heroes in training are confronted by the boss, the Tokiwadai Dorm Supervisor. Mikoto freezes in fear. The others prepare to fight. Ami calmly points out to the boss that Mikoto has graduated from Tokiwadai and is a UA student. As such Mikoto doesn't have a curfew, and even if she did, the Dorm Supervisor no longer has the authority to enforce it. When the Dorm Supervisor argues that they are in Tokiwadai uniforms, Ami explains that it is an illusion (Izuku having already confirmed that their tracksuits were unchanged on his Inventory screen), and she might want to check if one of the Tokiwadai students is trying to distract her. This ends the illusion, at which point the boss congratulates Mikoto and leaves.
• Tears of Joy: Cassandra sheds a couple when Izuku's Guild Chat feature lets her speak for the first time in her life.
• Thanatos Gambit: The Joker's last act of villainy was to set bombs to explode once his heartbeats reach a certain number, forcing the Rhode Island Seven into a situation where the only way to save millions was to kill him. He hoped it would cause a blowback against heroes but Hawkgirl did the deed reasoning that since she already has a reputation for being the most aggressive, it would mitigate the blowback.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Izuku narrates what he is doing in time to the theme music playing in his head. Namely lifting the miniature iceberg Todoroki trapping him in, and then cutting/tearing it in half. Except in this case, the theme music he is hearing isn't his own. It is Superman's.
• Third-Person Person: Eri often refers to herself as Eri. Izuku suspects it's to emotionally distance herself from events as a defence mechanism.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • Whenever the words "Mandatory Quest Alert" appear, there are failure penalties which Izuku has come to dread.
  • Koji Koda has this realization in a training exercise based on a game of tag when Izuku correctly points out that nothing in the rules forbids the other participants from defeating him, the remaining "it" of the game, by making him step out of bounds as long as they don't touch his hands. The match didn't last more than 30 seconds after that.
  • Awase and Shoji have a moment when they realize they have no choice but to search each of the dozens of (booby-trapped) boxes throughout the building, and against the clock to boot, during the Heroes vs Villains exercise. Shoji even manifests extra mouths to sigh. The time limit runs out before they find the target.
  • In Chapter 21, both Aizawa and All Might advise Class 1-A to go straight home and rest in preparation for some unspecified "special training" the next day. Given how hard regular training in UA already is, the fact they were forewarned like this told the entire class that the "special" in special training can be read as especially grueling.
  • In Chapter 41, Hojo Yu realizes how screwed he is when All Might confronts him about knowing Overhaul was torturing a little girl. Yu remembers his former boss telling him to never mess with kids, as it'll make both heroes and criminals come down on you that much harder.
• This Is My Name on Foreign: With a sprinkle of Punny Name. Modura Penryu is based on Mordred Pendragon, where "Mordred" is usually pronounced as "Modoreddo" in Japanese, and "ryu" is Japanese for "dragon".
• Timed Mission:
  • All of Izuku's quests have a time limit to complete them. Some, like "Save the Symbol of Peace" have dire consequences for failure; which in this case, is All Might's death.
  • Each bout of the Heroes-vs-Villains joint exercise has a time limit. If reached, it's an Instant-Win Condition for the Villain Team. This condition is how Awase and Shoji lose their round.
• Too Awesome to Use: Izuku has a tendency to save his Talent Points in case he might need a specific one later that he hasn't unlocked yet. Subverted when his Chronic Hero Syndrome acts up, getting rid of his hesitation all too quickly.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Done literally, since Izuku's The Gamer power lets him see people's levels, and arrange special live-fire training in Dungeons. Izuku starts at level 2 and grinds up to level 9 by the time of the entrance exam. As a result, he ends up getting first place in the entrance exam.
  • The Gamer's Party system gives others the chance to customize their growth through its Skill Scores and Perks system and join in Izuku when Level Grinding in Reflective Dungeons. Most notably, this allows them to unlock superior/more specialized versions of their Quirks as Talents once they meet the requirements. The first example of this is Tsuyu, who places 7th out of the 36 Hero hopefuls that passed U.A. entrance exam.
  • A bit Deconstructed in that Izuku's party getting stronger at a noticeable faster pace than their classmates – who are already students at the most prestigious high school Hero Course there is and doing their best to get even better – is very suspicious.
  • Between leveling up her Quirk and practice, Inko went from only being able to use her Quirk on items that weigh one kilogram or less to using it on a cast-iron skillet that weighs five and a half kilograms.
• Towers of Hanoi: Izuku encounters this puzzle in the Labyrinth and blazes through it in seconds. Midnight, Itsuka Kendo and Shimooka Hikari are amazed, but Izuku replies that he's done the puzzle so many times he could literally do it in his sleep - and Inko mentions that if hadn't solved it easily she would have teased him mercilessly.
• Trickster Mentor: Deconstructed. After the reveal of the multi-layered Secret Test under the Quirk Assessment Test, a good portion of the 1-A students openly questioned if Aizawa was fit to be their teacher. It took the widely-respected All Might stepping in and explaining Aizawa's methods for them to settle down. Further deconstructed in that UA's staff had told Aizawa that he wasn't allowed to do that anymore, so he actually gets into some trouble over it.
• The Unfought: Izuku's party clearing his own Reflective Dungeon encounters a mid-boss based on a pre-UA canon!Izuku, but by cleaning up Dagobah Beach (a Quest called "A Gentler Path") they skip the fight, earning an extra reward in the form of Physical Resistance skill scrolls for Ami, Ochako, Momo, and Mikoto.
• Unholy Matrimony: Shigaraki and Harley to the good guys' detriment because they are much more dangerous together than otherwise. Notably, it doesn't seem to be a case of Mad Love for her this time around, but we're talking about Shigaraki, so it's hard to tell.
• Unique Protagonist Asset: Downplayed. All Might reveals to Izuku that people like him, possessing supernatural powers different from Quirks, exist. He and Principal Nezu call them "Irregulars", and they're extremely rare, as in "only a handful of recorded cases worldwide in the last two hundred years" rare, and none of them seems to have anything like The Gamer. This implies that this story could be an actual crossover with The Gamer that brings The Abyss as a whole rather than just importing the eponymous superpower for Izuku.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • The First Holder of One For All isn't as skilled as Izuku and far below Cassandra, but his physical stats are so much higher as to make the difference in skill irrelevant. Cassandra dodges his first attack and tries to push him towards Izuku's attack but neither her efforts nor Izuku's kick make him budge.
  • All Might and All For One both mention that the former always relied on Good Old Fisticuffs and had no real fighting ability. When he was first invited to the Game, All-Might had over seventy levels in Brawling, but later put points in Boxing and Dirty Boxing to make himself more effective.
  • Overhaul has an incredibly powerful Quirk, but he lacks the skill to actually fight, which Izuku happily exploits to decisively defeat him.
• Vigilante Man: Discussed. As in canon, performing heroics using one's Quirk without a Hero License (nor the permission of a Pro Hero who will take responsibility for their actions) is illegal, and whether or not this is a good thing gets similarly explored. For example, in Chapter 21, Izuku stopped an armed robbery without using his powers because he was worried about getting charged with Vigilantism. Mikoto definitively didn't like the fact he knowingly risked getting shot just to follow the law and thinks he should have used his powers regardless in order to make things safer for everybody involved. While Izuku was right that martial arts were more than enough to properly deal with such a low-level threat, the unvoiced question of what would he do in a similar situation but against Villains too powerful to be stopped by Badass Normal means went unanswered.
• Villainous Breakdown: Defied. Between Harley's psychological expertise and her immunity to his Quirk, Shigaraki is less prone to lose it when things don't go his way, unlike his early canon self.
• Villain Respect: The League of Villains to Aizawa during the USJ incident, similar to canon.
  Shigaraki: [angrily] Somebody thinks he's pretty cool.
  Harley: [sing-song] He kinda is.
  Shigaraki: That's the worst part, when they live up to the hype.
• Visual Pun: The Mooks in a small Reflective Dungeon based on a programming textbook are all large insects. In other words, they are bugs.
• Wham Line:
  • From the end of chapter 12.
    MANDATORY QUEST ALERT: Save the Symbol of Peace
    Prevent the death of All Might.
  • Subverted in Chapter 22. Tomura Shigaraki delivers a similar rant as he does in canon when the League of Villains attacks the USJ facility. But here it becomes much more sinister when he starts ranting in gaming jargon, hinting that perhaps he too possesses The Gamer and freaking out everybody present who is on Izuku's secret until he gets the chance to use Analyze on Shigaraki and finds no hint of The Gamer.
  • Harley, at the end of Lesson 27.5.
    Harley: Just you wait, Manami Aiba^note Minor villain La Brava's civilian name. Her Quirk, Love, allows her to empower one person based on the intensity of her feelings for them once every 24 hours.. You are going to Love the League. Or else.
  • Inko at the end of Lesson 38.
    Inko Midoriya: Well, I seem to have been kidnapped.
  • Izuku setting up the ultimate punishment for Overhaul.
    Izuku Midoriya: Disband party. Party invite Kai 'Overhaul' Chisaki. Inventory. (pulls out Eri's bandages) Dungeon Create.
• What Could Have Been: A curious In-Universe example. The mid-bosses and bosses in Izuku's Dungeon are underlined as "what could have been". They are canon!Izuku and Katsuki, before entering U.A. (mid-bosses) and after a few months in the hero school (as Dual Bosses).
• What If?: Some chapters are ended with non-canonical omakes showing what could have happened if events had taken a different course.
  • The "Bad Ending #1" omake. If Izuku hadn't made it to the Hero Course, he would've lost The Gamer, kept his Ki Manipulation and Mind over Matter skills, and made it into UA's General Course in hopes of one day moving into the Hero Course on his own merits. However, his absence from Class 1-A would have turned the USJ Incident into a disaster resulting in the death of several Pro Heroes, including All Might and Eraserhead, and at least five students including Tsuyu. Then Izuku would have Jumped Off The Slippery Slope, and after three months of insane training sharpening his skills with the single-minded purpose of exacting bloody vengeance for her death, he would have found Shigaraki and vaporized his head and torso without a care for his own lethal wounds claiming his life soon afterwards. What's worse is that it would've been All for Nothing: All For One openly states that since All Might was dead, he didn't need Shigaraki anymore and was planning to get rid of him anyway, so other than avenging Tsuyu's death, all Izuku really accomplished was to remove himself from the equation and leave All For One with no real opposition.
  • "The 'Best' Route" omake. For Want Of A Nail made it so U.A. designated 1-A as a boys-only class and 1-B as one populated by all the first-year girls plus Izuku and Todoroki to round numbers out and Midnight as their homeroom teacher. This triggers a Mandatory Quest called "Grand Harem Route" that forces Izuku to make himself of a harem of at least fifteen girls within a year, including but not limited to all of his 19 classmates, under the penalty of dying alone and a virgin. Oh, and The Gamer didn't miscount. The "nail" in this scenario was "Shoto" Todoroki being born a girl instead, prompting Endeavor to raise her up as a boy, and when his kid got old enough to attend U.A., he threw his considerable pull around so the first-year classes in the Hero Course would be divided by gender and put Shoko with the girls so her real gender wouldn't be as easily discovered.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?:
  • Tsuyu's parents are barely at home because of their travel-heavy jobs, leaving her as her little siblings' de facto primary caregiver. Subverted in Chapter 21 when her mother decided to take lower-paying positions that would allow them to be more at home now that they don't have mortgage payments to worry about.
  • Played for Drama in Izuku's case, whose father worked overseas specifically to avoid his Quirkless son and later Inko after she let herself go.
• Wiki Walk: When Toshinori tried to look up information about exotic matter on the internet and how its presence in his injuries could explain why nobody has been able to heal him from his Career-Ending Injury, he runs across a bunch of types of exotic matter, some real, some theoretical, and many fictional, and the subject quickly goes way over his head. In the end, he gives up and phones his friend David Shield, an actual scientist, in order to shamelessly pick his brain for answers. The request gets a chuckle out of David who laughs at Yagi for doing his research on Wikipedia.
• Will They or Won't They?: The state of Izuku and Tsu's relationship after they got into U.A. This is something of a Deconstruction. From his side of things, Izuku has no romantic experience and not even a good model for a working relationship due to his parents' failing marriage and lacks even secondhand experience as a result of his Friendless Background. In Tsu's case, she partially got a Promotion to Parent to help raise her little siblings due to her parents' work constantly keeping them away from home, which gave her a perhaps excessively pragmatic and conciliating personality. This combined with her already unusual sense of values and her consideration for other girls similarly interested in Izuku – especially Ami who has the most obvious crush on him – prompted her to refrain from defining her relationship with him as a way to not discourage them from getting together with Izuku alongside herself. Again, an unusual sense of values.
• Wingding Eyes:
  • In Chapter 5, Izuku sees the kanji 孫^note grandchildren is his mom's eyes after he tells her Tsuyu wants to practice swimming with him. Alone. In an uninhabited and relatively isolated forest.
  • In Chapter 15, Izuku sees the kanji 肉^note meat in the study group's (six of his female classmates) eyes when he enters the room. Including the invisible Hagakure somehow.
  • In Chapter 19, when she realizes the money earned in the dungeons is legal and safe to spend, Ochako's eyes flash the kanji ¥^note the yen symboland 金^note money.
• Workplace-Acquired Abilities: Cassandra thinks that Ojiro's unexpected leadership skills come from his experience directing martial arts classes at a dojo.
• Worst Aid: Discussed during the USJ training, where Class 1-A is taught that they need to be very careful about whether "rescuing" someone could instead get people killed. For example, moving a patient improperly and making their wounds worse, or removing the rubble trapping someone after an earthquake when in fact the rubble is the only thing keeping them from bleeding out. They are also told that rescue scenarios can have an implicit Godzilla Threshold where the harm the rescuer might cause is outweighed by the certain outcome from inaction, like wounded people about to die in a fire or a collapsing building.
• Wrong Context Magic: The Gamer is not a Quirk and doesn't have to follow their rules at all. This is a bad thing for Izuku because there's no way to predict how the government would react to something like that, or what the Villains would do to get their hands on it if they find out. After a few months debating with Inko and Tsuyu how to best hide it, they decided on pass it off as a Mind over Matter Quirk called "Tactile TK" (which is actually the name of one of his Talents), making it similar enough to his mother's Quirk that it won't be suspicious, and telekinesis is already well-known to be a very versatile power that comes in many variations, thus helping him to explain away his other Skills like Ki Manipulation as an application of it. Later on this is subverted, as it's less "Wrong" context and more "Different", given that powers (roughly) like Izuku's do exist in this world, but they're very, very rare and their owners value their privacy.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: The Talent "Reflective Dungeon II" allows Izuku to make the time pass twice as fast inside a Reflective Dungeon without accelerated aging. That is, they still age one hour for every two hours spent in a Reflective Dungeon. Some of the girls almost get a migraine trying to understand how that can happen. One theory they brought up is that time itself isn't affected, but their own perception of time.
• You Do Not Want To Know: One time Izuku noticed the anticipatory looks he was getting from the girls in a study group, including Ami and Ochako sporting blushes on their faces. He really wanted to ask what they were talking about before he arrived, but he decided against it. The Gamer rewarded his wisdom with a point to his Intuition stat. A later chapter reveals they were brainstorming possible explanations for Cassandra's sudden improvement after becoming friends with Izuku and arrived at the theory he was giving her and Tsuyu "empowering massages" with his tactile telekinesis.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Referenced by Aizawa, who states Shinso's actions during the first round of the Sports Festival^note Using Ojiro and Hagakure to get through the maze then forcing them to remain in place for several minutes so they couldn't finish on time were no different than a villain shooting his minions because he didn't need them anymore.
• Younger Than They Look: Harley is only twenty-three.
• Zeerust: Momo's Mad Scientist Laboratory, Izuku describes it as looking like the movies from the 2170s that tried to look like the films of the 1950s.^note The story takes place an unspecified time in the 2200s, implied to be the 2220s or 2230s
• Zipperiffic: Momo's new Hero Costume. That way she can unzip as much skin surface as needed to create a given item with her Quirk and then zip it all back rather than just walking around in a Stripperiffic outfit all the time like in canon.

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