Blood-Related Quirks

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/21225845.

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero
Academia
Character: Toga Himiko, Akaguro Chizome | Stain, Kan Sekijirou | Vlad King
Additional Tags: Fake Science, Blood, quirk science, blood-related quirks,
Pseudoscience, Quirk Theory (My Hero Academia), Quirk Analysis (My
Hero Academia), Quirk Discrimination (My Hero Academia), fake
science paper
Language: English
Series: Part 2 of science papers
Collections: BNHA Books I Recommend Out Of My Heart
Stats: Published: 2019-10-29 Words: 2,653 Chapters: 1/1

Blood-Related Quirks
by Ejrin

Summary

The leading topic of this issue of Association for Quirk Science was brought for us by
lovely professor Linda Rose Frankovich. She wrote a nice article which refutes myths and
brings the topic of Blood-Related Quirks closer to us.

Notes

Another fake science bullshit, this time about blood-related quirks. I wanted to write
something that wasn't as science loaded as my previous fake science essay.

I hope you will enjoy it ♥

See the end of the work for more notes

Blood-Related Quirks

Blood-Related Quirks (BRQ) is a term that is used to describe a very extensive group of Quirks
that are related to blood, directly or indirectly. Contrary to general belief, this is not such a narrow
group of skills, as one may think. It consists of several hundred of various classes of Quirks. This
misconception arises from a misunderstanding of the phrase "related to blood" due to insufficient
substantive background. As the name suggests, these are Blood-Related Quirks, not just based on
the direct use of this red, life-giving fluid. Also, for most people, blood is just red fluid that leaks
from wounds during bleeding. Such a view may also lead to a lack of understanding of the topic.
Therefore, before briefly discussing this group of Quirks, the concept of Blood-Related Quirks
must first be well explained so that there is no uncertainty later.

What exactly are Blood-Related Quirks?

Let's start by explaining what blood is. This is not a joke. Although everyone intuitively knows
what this concept is associated with, you can often meet with a person who will not be able to give
a quick and unambiguous answer if you ask for an exact definition. Blood is not just erythrocytes,
which make up the majority of the blood circulating in our veins and arteries. Blood is much more
than just red blood cells. Everyone knows that the circulatory system is responsible for distributing
blood throughout the body and supplying oxygen to tissues and removing carbon dioxide as an
undesirable product of metabolism. This is knowledge at the primary school level. We will go a
step further.

Blood is a body fluid that is a liquid connective tissue that through the circulatory system performs
a transport function and ensures communication between individual body systems. The circulatory
system is also responsible for protecting our body against microbes because there are white blood
cells in the blood - leukocytes, macrophages in tissues and monocytes distributed utilizing
peripheral blood vessels, whose task is to fight pathogens that have entered our body, usually as a
result of breaking the skin coatings. The circulatory system is also responsible, together with other
elements of our body, for thermoregulation and maintaining a constant temperature inside our
body, which should normally oscillate around 36.6 °C. The main organ responsible for heating
blood is the liver. Our blood contains many different chemicals operating in the buffer system,
whose task is to maintain a relatively constant acid-base balance so that the pH of our blood will be
constant and any ionic disturbances will be efficiently neutralized. So that homeostasis is
maintained in the body and all metabolic processes can take place without interruption.

We can now proceed to break down the blood into its components. There is blood that circulates in
our veins and arteries, and there is a yellow bone marrow composed mainly of fat cells,
hematopoietically inactive and red bone marrow filling all bones in children, and in adults only
located in flat bones: in the sternum, vertebral bodies, ribs, skull bones, pelvic bones and shoulder
blades and in the base of long bones; in which there are stem cells, from which five lines develop,
giving rise to erythrocytic, granulocyte, lymphoid, monocyte and macrophage systems, and the
platelet-forming system. At this point, it becomes clear that the Blood-Related Quirks group is
unbelievably broad because the Quirks that the public owns can focus on one of these five
categories.

However, it is worth mentioning that Blood-Related Quirks can focus on hematopoiesis, i.e. the
process of blood cell formation, coagulation or disorders, i.e. blood cancer and various
myelodysplastic diseases and disorders in the proper functioning of the blood system. The latter are
based only on Quirks that enable efficient diagnosis, differentiation, and identification of disorders.
These Quirks are never a direct manifestation of the disorder.

Imaginary Quirk Syndrome

Blood-Related Quirks are an incredibly large group, making it easiest to fabricate them. In present
generations of Quirk Holders, it is very rare to find an additional joint in the little foot finger,
which would indicate that a person is Quirkless. The human body is slowly evolving and some of
the solutions that we have tested for many hundreds of years in the era of a huge development that
we are witnessing become useless.

Marriages, where both partners have the Quirks in 93% of cases, lead to the offspring being
endowed with a new type of mutation. However, in the group of people who are currently around
70-80 years old, the percentage of Quirkless people is high and, depending on the region of the
world, can reach up to 72%. The largest number of Quirkless people is found in the Scandinavian
countries, while the smallest percentage is in Asian countries. Such people sometimes deal very
hard with discrimination related to their lack of any special ability. In very extreme cases, they
makeup Quirks to feel better and be more accepted in society.

In the face of death, a person can renounce many things to be someone and finally mean
something. Sometimes one of them is self-awareness and self-perception following reality, just to
fit into social norms.

In geriatric wards, it is often that a patient with Imaginary Quirk Syndrome is present. It is hard for
such a person to reason that, unfortunately, but tuberculosis is not their Quirk just as Acute
Lymphoblastic Leukemia. These are diseases, not superpowers. Sometimes, however, medical
workers turn a blind eye and allow such patients to be delusional to leave this world feeling
accepted. This phenomenon has been referred to as Imaginary Quirk Syndrome. With the passing
of generations, this phenomenon is less and less frequent.

The Quirks never manifest as diseases

Initially, scientists and doctors found it difficult to state clearly whether a chronic disease state
could be called Quirk or not. This was a very serious problem that came with the First Quirk
holders.

These concerns were dispelled by the 5-year-old Vivien Grace from Canada. The girl was born
healthy, she had no problems with vision. The moment her Quirk came out, she lost her sight, but
she did not completely blind. Her Quirk compensated for this disability by giving her the
possibility of infrared vision.

Any Quirk that causes a disability somehow compensates for it. There has been no case so far that
a Quirk deprives a user of access to one of the senses or impairs the functioning of organs without
any compensation in improving the efficiency of the functioning of the human body. At least
directly. Indirectly, as a result of using Quirks, there may be situations where the Quirk holder is
maimed or even disabled. This applies most often to people with Debilitating Quirk Disorder when
the Quirk does not harmonize with the physiology of the holder and as a result of many adverse
mutations leads to a significant deterioration in the comfort of life.

This assumption made it possible to clearly distinguish disease states from Quirk. It made the work
of medical professionals incredibly easier. Quirks are usually intended to improve the comfort of
our lives or improve the efficiency of our body or specific tissues, never vice versa. However,
sometimes the Quirks do it in a very specific way and only after years, their beneficial influence
can be noticeable.

Discrimination

One would like to say that we live in a sufficiently conscious and mature society, where
discrimination does not occur. Unfortunately. Despite the well-developed society, we still despise
the stranger, what is different and does not fit the rest, what does not fit into the idealized vision of
the world that some of us carry in our hearts. We are afraid of being different in the form of being a
normal human being, which after all has survived many thousands of years without special abilities
and now we praise strong Quirks. Why? Because that's how it's done presently. The Quirkless are
treated as if they did not exist. Their presence is uncomfortable, makes the statistics look bad. You
can often find contemptuous glances at such people. Society despises them, sometimes even
disgusts them. Very often there are cases of abuse of such people, but almost always without the
names of the torturers, because they are usually people endowed with powerful Quirks.
Unfortunately, this injustice is commonplace. It is comforting that more and more people are
talking about Quirkless people and the issue of discrimination of Quirks.

It is very difficult to be a Quirkless person in a society where there is a surfeit of superpowers, but
nothing can compare to the discrimination experienced by holders of Mutation-type Quirk that
cause huge changes in the appearance of the holder to such an extent that they almost completely
lose their human appearance, leaning towards the animal phenotype. The lack of Quirk can be
hidden, but the lizard's tail or mantis head cannot be hidden. Such people are born with a burden
that lasts all their life.

An interesting phenomenon is also discrimination against people with Blood-Related Quirks. This
is so fascinating because this group is treated negatively because of the many amenities and
improved comfort of life that a person with a Blood-Related Quirk can count on if they voluntarily
work in a medical facility. The health service want to grab such people for themselves at all costs
because cooperation with them facilitates the work of every medical facility. Faster diagnostics,
easier identification of diseases, and stopping of hemorrhages are among the many benefits that
you can count on employing a person with such a Quirk. Apparently, in some countries practices
are recruiting and training Blood-Related Quirk holders to work in the medical industry from the
moment they manifest such skill (thanks to efficiently operating government skill bases) no matter
of Quirk would be truly suitable for that kind of work or not.

This statement raises the very delicate issue of freedom of choice within this group of people.
Unfortunately, such people are deprived of it in many cases. Medical careers are becoming their
only choice of career path. It is extremely difficult for such a person to do anything else in life
because of the pressure from health ministries and local political bodies. The choice of the path of
heroism is stigmatized because it is a waste of a Quirk that can save someone's life.

The good ones, the bad ones and the ones in between

It's not often that you can meet a hero who has a Blood-Related Quirk. There are several reasons
for this. First of all, the aforementioned lack of opportunity to choose your life career means that
people who want to become heroes for someone should become heroes in local medical facilities.
Another reason why there are so few heroes with these Quirks is social ostracism. You need to
have an incredibly strong psyche to withstand such intrusive shelling from society. One of the most
famous heroes who use the Blood-Related Quirk is Japanese hero - Vlad King, who is also a
teacher in a Japanese highschool educating future generations of heroes - U.A. The hero can freely
manipulate his blood, which is extremely useful in the fight and catching of villains. His Quirk
would be hard to apply in the medical industry, so the career of a professional hero was more
possible for him.

Some, unfortunately, were not able to enjoy their heroic careers in such a freeway as Vlad King. In
the past, there were cases of the forced cancellation of the hero's license, because the state offices
involved in the supervision of the heroes succumbed to the pressure of the Ministry of Health and
forced heroes were forced to work in medical units. Such practices began to cease after the tragedy
that took place in 2183. The Ukrainian heroine specializing in rescue operations, nicknamed Krov,
whose gift enabled her to immediately stop bleeding from injured wounds, was forcibly taken to a
local university hospital to help the wounded who were there instead of risking her life in
dangerous situations. The twenty-four-year-old heroine then committed suicide.

Much more often you can find references to vigilante whose Quirks have something related to
blood. In Japan, it was very loud about the self-proclaimed heroine, who, according to the
testimony of witnesses and police files, was able to create from her blood a melee weapon that was
used to fight the villains. Unfortunately, the exact information about this vigilante is unknown, as
well as the exact data on her Quirk.

In the past century, it was very loud about a group of self-proclaimed heroes who were baptized by
the public opinion as "Benders". The contentious issue is whether they were vigilantes or whether
it is only a Chinese urban legend. There are no exact sources that would confirm their existence
and achievements, but you can come across a lot of stories that mention them. Unfortunately, they
never cite sources. The most popular theory about this group is that anyone could use the Emitter-
type Quirk associated with one of the basic elements( water, fire, air, and earth). Here should
appear the question of how this has to do with blood, I explain. According to rumors, a person who
was able to manipulate water was also able to manipulate water that was inside a person. The body
of an adult human is about 60% water. Blood is liquid connective tissue and morphotic components
are suspended in plasma. An interesting theory follows from this Quirk of the vigilante. According
to rumors, she was able to manipulate another person's movements by manipulating blood within
them. It sounds incredible and unbelievable, but in the age of Quirks, few things would be able to
surprise a man.

Lastly, mention should be made of those who are in the shadows and stand on the wrong side of
the law. The Quirk Counseling system does not always work as well as it should. Because of this, it
often happens that they do not receive early enough guidance on how they should use their ability
and this can lead to later problems in teenage and adult life. This was probably the case with Toga
Himiko. This is a teenage killer associated with the League of Villains. Data collected by the
police and heroes which were available to the public shows that a teenager can change into any
person whose blood she has. Her psychological profile indicates that she has a serious personality
disorder and lives in the conviction that showing love is most accurate when she changes into a
person whom she gives affection. Such situations could probably be avoided if the Quirk
Counseling program in primary schools was carried out with due care.

Everyone has heard of the hero killer - Stain. News of his terrifying accomplishments quickly
spread around the world, but few people realize that before Chizome Akaguro became a hero killer
with a very specific moral compass, he was a vigilante(Stendhal) who fought villains. The
Chizome's ability - a bloodcurdle - allows him to paralyze his opponents after consuming a bit of
blood from his victims. Depending on the victim's blood type, the duration of the paralysis varies.
The explanation for the variation in the duration of paralysis may be related to the phenomenon of
agglutination of red blood cells under the influence of the presence of various antigens present in
the circulating blood. To be able to accurately determine the mechanism of this incredibly
interesting Blood-Related Quirk, you would need specific research that is unfortunately impossible.

Blood-Related Quirks are a comprehensive group of Quirks. It took scientists decades to fully
explore this group of Quirks, and new types of mutations are emerging that can be classified into
this group. Blood-Related Quirks can cause the most controversy among society, but it is usually
 associated with misunderstanding. I hope that this article has brought you a little closer to this topic
and you will start exploring this extensive topic with further interest.

Linda Rose Frankovich

End Notes

Thank you for reading ♥

If you want to read some other science pieces I wrote go here

I highly recommend you reading Vani's paper about DQD. It's glorious. And Shu's entry
about Trigger.

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!