#ofa meta

[zukuthehero]

One for All is a fascinating quirk and as someone writing a story where izuku considers how it works, I spent a while trying to figure out *where the hell it gets it's stockpile from*.

It can't just be from previous holders, that's a source that would be used up over time. They wouldn't have infinite energy there.

Plus, it was (before it became OFA) a stockpile quirk not related to quirks, so it had to get energy from somewhere.

An immediate thought is it draws energy from the current owner, except... AFO was very possessively protective of his brother, and would likely never have given him a quirk requiring inner vitality, the first holder was very sickly after all. That could've been dangerous to his health.

So I have to assume it drew power from an outside force.

The quirk had two owners before the first holder, the original holder, and AFO. Perhaps with the original holder it could draw outside energy through touch, that seems reasonable. Whether from a person, animal, or plant. That has life an energy, touching them lets them transfer energy to the holder.

Then AFO, perhaps the quirk merged with another quirk with AFO, or perhaps simply being with AFO changed it, but I think that it evolved regardless. Changing it from touch based to just the general area.

This would explain why the quirk continues to grow, if it's passively drawing in energy 24/7 and storing it or later use it would be very hard to use up all that energy. But that's also not an explanation for why it would grow so much when switching owners.

Well, when izuku got the quirk we learned that All Might still has embers of that quirk, and even after Kamino Ward, he still has a faint ember, just not enough to fight.

Maybe the quirk works in that parasitic way that a lot of people go with, maybe it stays with the previous holder not as a vestige, but as a connection to another. The quirk can then draw energy from around the previous holder and the current holder. So now it gets twice the energy input.

This could last until the embers fade entirely, or maybe they stay until the previous holder dies. Regardless the quirk draws energy from the previous holder/their surrounding and the current holder.

This explains why they get such a boost, for a time they get twice the energy. And as it would be a constant input the energy would continue to slowly but steadily grow even with the holder using the quirk so much.

Of course the quirk (when it combine to become OFA) still brings the previous holders quirks with it, it still holds a bit of them in it too.

But the reason it grows is because it draws power from around it, as long as there's energy/life around it, it's able to continue drawing energy.

Anyways, just my thoughts on how the quirk works. Thanks to the discord for helping me work through it.

[bokunometacademia]

I find it funny that the way I initially interpreted One for All’s power is the exact way that it actually is. (warning: manga spoilers below the cut)

OFA is described in the manga as a stockpiling quirk mixed with “the power to transfer power.”

When I initially read that in the manga I assumed it meant that Izuku went from having 0 quirks to having 9 quirks. I quickly realized that this was not the case and the power was more of an amplifier of the users abilities. For Izuku that meant essentially a 9-fold amplifier on anything he does when he uses the ability (although it’s actually more because each user would have been especially strong or powerful enough to have been gifted OFA).

But then I could have kicked myself in the more recent chapters because I so clearly should never have doubted myself in the first place.

If Horikoshi had intended OFA to be an amplifier then that’s the word he would have used. Instead he used “stockpiler” and “power to transfer power.”

Stockpiling isn’t amplifying power, it’s collecting it. So OFA collects the power of all previous users and then transfers that power.

Power is left more up to interpretation. I originally assumed that it meant quirks not strength of ability. But because it was Toshinori, a trusted mentor character, who had no idea about the transfer of quirks who told us about OFA he couldn’t be more specific. (Strike one for Toshinori being an unreliable narrator whenever he’s telling us a story.)

A lot of people were upset when it turned out Izuku could control previous users quirks, but if any of us had been paying attention we would have seen this from the beginning!

Horikoshi already told us exactly what OFA could do. If anything it just proves to pay attention to the way things are worded (yeah, sometimes things might just be translator errors, but even so).