A Lie of Individuality
You know my favorite part about chapter 419?
It's how All For One's great big, brutal final reveal destroys Tomura by ripping away the single most important part of his character journey as a Villain, and throwing it in the trash.
One of the lost in translation moments this series lost from Japanese to English is the fact that the terms for ones ability in this series would more correctly be translated as ones "individuality", and no character is defined more by this than Izuku and Tomura.
Izuku because of his lack of it defined him as a person, but for Tomura, ALL of his development has been based on finding his own individuality and building himself on it.
One of his biggest moments of growth was when he finally realized that one of the things that made his urges go away was to fully give in to his urges, which he saw as finally giving in to what he was meant to be. What his quirk, his genetically set destiny had laid down before him.
He was born with a quirk of total and absolute destruction, and so he was genetically predisposed to destroying things. It was only natural that this was what he was meant to do, and so each and every impulse of destroying things he ever had was completely justifiable.
He didn't really have any culpability in it. That's why he hated hero society so much. Because it rejected him from the moment he was born, because he was born with violent urges, just like Toma was.
Except that was all a big, fat, fucking lie.
Shigaraki was never born with any destructive urges in life.
The feelings he had, whatever their origin, had absolutely nothing at all to do with any predisposed genetic urges.
And that means that his justifications for why he killed and murdered was all based on a lie, a flimsy foundation, a hollow base.
A lie based on his belief in his own Individuality.
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i need help pls.
currently i'm working on a quirk that doesn't have a name, but i'll say either "Vampire" or "Blood Manipulation."
basically, this quirk grants the user the ability to manipulate the blood in their body, emitting it through their hands or back. (via; weapons, wings, ect.) additionally, the user can manipulate others' blood by either,,
1. injecting their blood into another person. (through wound or via needle made of blood).
2. consuming another person's blood. (via fangs or needle/knife).
another thing because of this quirk(optional), the user would have to injure themselves to fight. lot's of scars. (i like the idea tbh. hero/or villain, makes 'em badass.)
possible drawbacks
• when the manipulated blood has lost its attachment to the host, it can cause blood loss and dizziness, possibly passing out/falling unconscious. the only way to replenish is drinking water/or blood and lots of sleep.
also, with the more "vampire" part, maybe the user can have heightened senes, meaning they can smell people's blood and can tell who they are?? idk.
or able to do vampire things such as scale walls, ect.
it's a mess, i know, but i jotted down everything i could that was floating around in my brain bc i genuinely like this quirk idea😭.
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Quirk Mimicking
What is a Quirk?
Quirks in the context of Homestuck (and especially trolls) are a distinct way of typing that expresses the personality, interests, and individuality of a, well, an individual.
For trolls in particular, your quirk is as much a natural preference in speech as it is a traditional action related to troll culture. It’s as important as hemotyping (typing in a particular color, typically and traditionally the color of your blood/hemocaste) or the choice NOT to hemotype/go hemoanon.
While humans may naturally type in a particular manner, or choose to express themselves through a particular color medium, it often does not carry the same cultural connotations as a troll’s hemotyping and quirk usage.
For these reasons and others (comfort, habit, etc) dropping or breaking quirk can range from a little weird or awkward to upsetting or anxiety inducing for a troll.
On rare occasions [x][x] a troll will either drop or partly drop quirk for MAJOR emphasis or to show something is very important to listen to.
Quirk Examples
Sollux Captor:
TA: iim not 2ure why, but ii thiink iit2 liike...
TA: fulfiilliing 2ome requiirement for a true prophet of doom.
TA: iin order for the vii2iion2 two be riight, that ha2 two happen, and the uniiver2e wiill make 2ure iit wiill.
Sollux’s quirk has various elements.
First and foremost, he never uses capitalization unless for emphasis or when typing out his nicknames for people, and he only capitalizes those when in a good mood. There is a distinct lack of emojis or emoticons, outside of rare occurrences/duality puns. His speech is very straightforward and short, being sent in multiple pieces. This shows important aspects of his character such as aloofness, bluntness, and a lack of care for convention.
The use of double ‘i’s, his replacement of “to” or “too” with “two”, and ‘s’s with 2s are all both personality aspects and tradition aspects of his quirk.
The traditional reasoning is that they are a reference to his sign, Gemini, which is similar to the roman numeral 2.
Personally, they have a number of meanings. His dual colored eyes. His bipolarity. Referencing binary in connection to his skills with programming. His vision twofold.
He also types in traditional hemotyping for his bloodcaste, typing in gold.
Combined, these aspects all show parts of who he is, without needing to explain them, and make his unique mark in interpersonal communication.
After he dies his quirk changes (no double ‘i’s, no 2s, no ‘two’s; instead all ‘o’s are 0s) to show that he’s now “0kay” and no longer associates with his prior traits. However, his hemotyping remains gold.
Nepeta Leijon:
AC: :33 < *ac twitches her friendly whiskers at ct*
…-…
AC: :33 < i can tell you like to play games, d33p down you are a guy who likes to play games!
AC: :33 < i can smell a guy who likes to play games from so fur away with this nose, you have no idea X33
Nepeta’s quirk is slightly more focused around her external connections than Sollux’s, but still expresses her individuality.
The header of her quirk is “:33 <”, which references her catlike nature/affinity, as well as having two mouths like her cat lusus, Pounce de Leon. This carries over into her emojis as well.
All of these relate two her sign, Leo, as relating to big cats.
Nepeta also does not use capitalization, and often does not use most ending punctuation. However, she makes liberal use of exclamation marks, comma and emojis. Her sentences tend to be compound, rather than short and simple. She uses cat puns whenever pawsible.
She also frequently roleplays in her speech, having a personal interest in it, and uses asterisks to denote roleplay actions.
Together, all of these things show her personality as creative, high energy, and fun-loving.
She also types in traditional hemotyping standards using her blood color, olive.
Karkat Vantas:
KARKAT: AND AFTER A BREAKNECK WARP SPEED JOURNEY IN WHICH MY BEST FUCKING FRIEND *EVER* PSYCHED ME OUT INTO THINKING HE DIED *YET A FUCKING GAIN* BY EXPELLING LITER AFTER GRUESOME LITER OF GRUBSAUCE FROM HIS EVERY ORIFICE
KARKAT: WHAT DO I FIND HERE?
KARKAT: WHY, IN ADDITION TO A PAIR OF HUMANS DRAPED IN CIRCUSWEAR AND ALL THEIR FLIPPANT GIBES LOCKED AND GODDAMN LOADED
The main aspects of Karkat's quirk are the use of all-caps, run on sentences, general aggressive tone, and explicit language/gratuitous insults. He also types hemoanon, or in a light grey color that does not represent or reveal his blood color.
Asterisks are used sparingly for emphasis, and he occasionally "whispers" in parenthesis.
Karkat's quirk trends slightly away from the traditional, instead breaking tradition.
Use of hemoanon color typing is both a purposeful and practical rejection of Alternian tradition, to keep his mutant bloodcolor a secret and prevent himself being culled.
It can be argued that his all-caps, aggresive speech is "traditional" in keeping with his ancestor's rage in his final moments as well as his Vast Expletive, however it would be unintentional as Karkat is unaware of his sign's meaning/who his ancestor is.
More so, it's a representation of Karkat's generally heightened emotional and defensive state- usually angry, irritated or panicked. Living life under constant threat of death, he tends to the aggressive/defensive in his behaviors and speech. He is also constantly thinking of things that can go wrong, have gone wrong, or how much things/himself suck(s), and therefore has a habit of venting and speaking in a very ranting-like manner, even in general conversation.
What is “Quirk Mimicking”?
Quirk mimicking is a phenomenon in which a troll (or occasionally a human) will either purposefully or subconsciously adopt quirk traits/habits from another troll.
Similar to mimicry among humans, there are two basic forms of quirk mimicry among trolls- negative mimicry and positive mimicry.
Positive Mimicry
This most frequently happens between quadmates/couples (moirails and matesprits in particular), but can also occur between close friends.
Positive mimicry can latch onto any aspect of another troll’s quirk (or a troll latching onto a human’s typing style) but does *not* include mimicking their hemotyping.
This does not mean completely changing their quirk to match another’s, but more often incorporating small bits of each other’s quirk into their own. It can also be expressed by slipping near full into another’s quirk when in a particular mood state or when saying something in particular associated with that individual.
Examples:
When Sollux and Feferi are matesprits, Sollux occasionally uses fish puns in his speech regardless of who he is speaking to.
Eridan also often uses fish puns when speaking with Feferi, but only with her.
Adjacent:
While not part of quirk mimicry itself, quirk matching is a related phenomenon when two trolls in a quadrant together alter their quirks purposefully to match each others.
The main example of this is in the moirallegence between Nepeta and Equius.
The beginning/“header” of Nepeta’s quirk reads “:33 <“.
The beginning/“header” of Equius’s quirk reads “D - - >”
When the ends of these headers are put together it forms “<>” or a diamond, the symbol used for moirails.
Negative Mimicry
There are many nuanced aspects to negative mimicry.
For humans, negative speech mimicry is typically repeating what someone said in a nasty tone, or mocking someone’s speech patterns.
And while this can also happen in trolls, that’s not quirk mimicry in particular.
Much quirk mimicry is psychological in nature, with one troll mimicking another troll’s quirk in a way that a partner or close friend would, while knowing fully that they are not close enough to do so.
In this way, it’s being done purposefully to both make the other troll uncomfortable as a form of taunt or emotional harassment, almost in a gaslighting or sleezy sort of manner.
This sort of negative mimicry can also happen accidentally, though this is typically with other species outside of trolls, in a manner that is intended to be positive.
If a human (or cherub or otherwise) that a troll was not close enough to tried to mimic them in order to match their energy, or be cute, or thinking it’s something more casual like picking up a friend’s turn of phrase-
The troll they’re mimicking can experience the same negative effects/emotions from that mimicry as they would from a purposefully malicious troll negative mimicking.
(There are occasions where trolls who are very close with other species do appreciate mimicry from their friend/partner, namely when they are close as two trolls would need to be to mimic.
This can be seen with Vriska appreciating John picking up her penchant for 8 vowels and exclamation marks. [x])
***Please note this is not a complete explanation of quirk mimicking in its entirety, just a general overview.
***This is based on the experience/memories of me and a few other trolls (kin and fictive alike.) This may not be accurate for all.
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