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starcurtain · 3 months ago

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Following Topaz's explanation that Cornerstones are made to fill the hole in the user's heart, what "hole" in Aven's heart do you think his drag queen powers are meant to fill? Especially since Topaz remarks he's the only one with such showy powers

Still trying to catch up with all the messages in the inbox; sorry to everyone for taking a million years to respond.

So cunty, and for what???

Anyway, first, when Jade talks about the Stonehearts' "voids," the alternate reading above that word is actually "ambition." And she mentions that the reason she risked reaching out to Firefly is that she views herself as similar to Firefly--Jade is someone with an unfulfilled wish.

I think there's enough here to suggest that the Stonehearts' voids are not quite what we would normally think of when hearing the word "void"--rather than being best understood as something removed or something lost, their voids seem to be "something desired." An unfulfilled goal. An unmet need. A burning ambition. A secret wish. They all have somewhere they want to get to, and they've signed on-board with Diamond's Preservation project because his power is the fastest way--maybe the only way--to get there.

The implication here, by the way, is that the Stonehearts are acting out the very act of Preservation itself with Diamond. The goal of Qlipoth is for the universe to be saved, an unshakeable resolution to stop Destruction's wanton obliteration. Thus, Preservation itself can be understood as "A desire that must be continuously protected and relentlessly pursued." To live. To endure.

In using the power of an emanator to protect and provide the Stonehearts with ways to pursue their own desires, we replicate in miniature the exact resolve and endless pursuit of perseverance that Qlipoth is acting out in the broader universe. The will of Preservation empowers the Stonehearts--and in turn, the Stonehearts swear an oath to aid in Preservation's mission. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement, and it also simultaneously imitates Jade's shop perfectly: I'll give you exactly what you want, if you give me what I need.

I should clarify that I don't actually think the cornerstones themselves fill the Stonehearts' voids. Rather, they seem to me to be a tangible symbol of the oath between Diamond and the Stonehearts--"I'll give you this power to fulfill your deepest wish, if you work for me." Jade suggests that the power of the cornerstones provides Stonehearts with the means to fill their voids (I.e., having superpowers makes it possible for you to pursue your wish), so I think their individual cornerstone abilities are best understood as "The exact power I need to achieve my particular goal."

So what does that say about Aventurine's "showy" transformation?

Pretty much all the rest of this is just going to be my personal speculation, but I'd say the most telling glimpse we get into why Aventurine's power is so "visual" comes from these lines with the future "Aventurine" in 2.1:

There's two completely contradictory desires being expressed here: Aventurine's life "is the chip he's most eager to lay down" and "always has been"--that is, he genuinely wants to die. He isn't just willing to gamble with his life, he's eager to. The future "Aventurine" also says real Aventurine wants to be "polished up" (to be controlled and molded by others) and "cuffed with red-hot chains" (to be made powerless and not responsible for making his own decisions, to be punished).

But conversely, the real Aventurine also wants to be perceived as "a smooth operator" and "the solid gold deal-maker who doesn't waste a drop of sweat." He wants to be in charge of his image. He wants to be the one who controls the narrative and defines how others think of him. He wants to be "spotlit center stage"--to command the eyes of the world. In short, we could say that Aventurine wants his death (and conversely, his life) to mean something.

From these conflicting desires, I think you can derive a few totally opposite but equally valid interpretations of why Aventurine's cornerstone power is so "visual":

A combat-oriented transformation is another means to seek death.

Jade's power is scary, but she isn't using it to literally launch herself into fights. Topaz's seems to be similar--something that might allow her to win over her opponents in some way (she was about to use it in Belobog to no-sell the Trailblazer), but she clarifies directly that it is not a "transformation." Aventurine just literally turns into a boss enemy and goes straight out on to the battlefield.

In the fight, he doesn't even use shields. (Now whether that's something he never does because the cornerstone powers don't actually come with shields while in his monster form, if he couldn't use shields because his cornerstone was broken, or if he just chose not to use shields in this fight to give Trailblazer and Co. a fighting chance, only time will tell. However, it might be worth noting that his empowered Apocalyptic Shadow form doesn't come with shields either, despite having other new mechanics.)

The point is, this form, while looking cool and seeming strong, is actually a gamble in and of itself. To go out onto the battlefield, where you might not actually be the strongest combatant, is always a risk. And I think this is the kind of risk that Aventurine manifests continually in his life. He is constantly creating opportunities for his own luck to fail. His unfulfilled desire, the "ambition" he was desperate enough to join the Stonehearts to pursue--as his original goal to save his people is completely gone, his only current goal might actually just be a chance to die. His powers may manifest as a combat-oriented transformation because that is just one more way to throw himself into the crossfire.

In fact, this is exactly what Sugilite accuses him of in Jade's myriad celestia:

You didn't need to snatch his wig this hard, Sugilite. (Also I need you all to know I originally wrote "You didn't need to come for him this hard, Sugilite," but then I realized how unfortunate that wording was, so...)

You could even argue that the fact Aventurine's transformation comes with a mask that obscures his entire face is a sign that we're supposed to see this form as dehumanizing.

The facial features are completely obscured and asymmetrical, there's no mouth, his fingers have become claws--despite his body staying mostly human-shaped, it's obviously intended to hint at something monstrous, subsuming his original identity behind a violent facade.

Kakavasha disappears entirely behind "Aventurine" when he transforms, becoming a faceless enemy at the risk of (perhaps in hopes of) entirely losing himself. Maybe every transformation lets Aventurine throw himself closer and closer to the edge of death--and perhaps, before Penacony, only death could ever have filled the "void."

But, on the complete opposite hand (because Aventurine is always both sides of the coin), we could also argue the other end of the spectrum entirely:

A combat-oriented transformation is a show of force.

This screencap brought to you by Mr. Rubhen925 of Youtube.

Aventurine's entire life has been marred by disenfranchisement, by violations of his basic human rights, freedoms, and agency. At every turn, he has been victimized by others more powerful than himself: his childhood consisted of his clan being relentlessly hounded and hunted to extinction by the Katicans, having their food constantly stolen, their meager belongings burned to the ground, and each one of his family members systematically slaughtered, often in front of his eyes.

After his childhood, he was bought and sold as chattel for pennies, branded like an animal, and forced into a fight where to he had to beat other innocent people to death just to keep himself alive, all for the entertainment of the masses. Even Jade, who promised to help him achieve his goals, treats him like a business investment more than a friend.

In Penacony, we watch everyone he talks to degrade and ostracize him. Even though Aventurine led him into doing it, Sunday tortures and re-traumatizes him live for our entertainment.

Even more that, we see Aventurine constantly struggling with the question of whether his life is really his own or whether his blessing from Gaiathra means that his entire existence has been predetermined, his fate sealed in blood and sand from the very moment of his birth, utterly inescapable.

No matter how Aventurine tries to portray himself as the ultimate winner, he's only ever the "final" victor--being the only one left standing at the end is meaningless if on the road to getting there, you were treated like fate's favorite punching bag. Winning in the end is utterly pointless if on the road to winning, you still lost it all first, from the things you loved to your personal freedom.

What does a person who has been made powerless again and again truly desire? What void do you seek to fill if life has denied you your agency over and over?

Power. Dominance. The ability to literally strike back at those who've wronged you. The strength to intimidate and force people into a corner the way you've been intimidated and forced before.

If we say that Aventurine's "void" is not a literal desire for the release of death, then it might make sense for the "void" to instead to be a frantic desire to gain control over his circumstances. To be the one finally in charge of deciding his own fate.

Particularly in light of his character story which tells us that Kakavasha's original goal for joining the Stonehearts was to save his people, the desire to take on an impressive form that screams "I'm powerful" and has the ability to physically enact vengeance on others feels directly aligned. And it remains aligned even after the reveal that the Avgins are all gone--once more fate strips Kakavasha of his power to make a difference in the world, to achieve what he truly dreams of.

The Apocalyptic Shadow version of his boss fight is called "Desperate Diceroller."

How angry he must be, deep down. How hateful the world must seem. How sad it is to feel that way.

If destiny won't let you out of the cage, your only choice is to grow claws to tear it open.

Okay, but WHY so much swag though?

Are the peacock feathers and spandex really necessary?

Listen. Everyone talks about Ratio having "gifted kid" syndrome, but I'm here to tell you that Aventurine is actually a burnt out gifted kid extraordinaire.

He's literally, canonically, explicitly the chosen one of his people.

From the moment of his birth, his mother and sister--and presumably others in his clan even--were telling him that he was their clan's most precious treasure and that he would lead them to prosperity and safety.

He carried this weight even after fleeing from the massacre, all through his childhood and teenage years, through slavery and abuse, putting his very life on the line to join the IPC in hopes of finally fulfilling the destiny his mother and sister promised he could.

He was supposed to save them. That was his meaning. That was his purpose in life.

But he was too late.

The fate he was born for, raised believing, and risked everything to achieve... is still incomplete.

So, for all that talk about suicide and power-seeking, my real answer is this: Aventurine's "void" is his unfulfilled destiny.

His whole existence has been predetermined, his life's journey laid out in prophecy and blessings from the very beginning. Yet what he thought was his fate betrayed him, and where you head after becoming an unsuccessful chosen one is a question without answer.

His thoughts constantly circle around how he is a "failure" and a "loser."

When you have no sense of purpose, when your life has no meaning, when what you are still seeking is the role you were supposed to have from the moment of your birth: the glorious destiny of being a savior, being the "happiness" of your people, being the hero...

Of course you crave the spectacle. Of course you long for the spotlight--you long to be recognized. Because Kakavasha's the chosen one. "Spotlit center stage" is where he's supposed to be--in the leading role that was stolen from him.

I think that Aventurine's cornerstone transformation is so flashy because, at the core, it represents a longing to truly be the "precious wealth" of the Avgin that his sister promised him he would be. It represents his desire to transform from a useless, "discarded" person into a larger-than-life version of himself. (Hey, fun fact, out of every official depiction of Aventurine, his boss model wears the only outfit in which his slave brand is not naturally visible.) He literally transforms into a supernatural being, capable of seizing others' fates in his hands. It represents the power he needed to save his people and himself. Its extreme flashiness screams for attention, demands to be witnessed as something beyond a helpless human.

It's almost as if Aventurine is a child writing a wish-fulfillment story where he transforms into a hyper-glamorous, all-powerful masked superhero who is capable of saving the day and winning against his enemies every time.

Unlike Jade and Topaz, Aventurine can't hide his deepest desire. It was always going to be a "transformation," because Aventurine's unanswered wish is to be someone better than himself.

His "void," his deepest unachieved ambition--it's written right there, all over his body.

Aventurine's cornerstone power is a story he's telling himself about the person he was supposed to be.

But as Acheron claims, that's life itself.

Aventurine doesn't feel like he has any control over his journey's ultimate destination.

He doesn't know where's he's headed or what the purpose of it all is. But...

Jade explicitly describes the Ten Stonehearts and Diamond's endeavor as a "journey" as well:

Because Preservation represents the continuance of life itself, and the Stonehearts with their endless "voids"--Aventurine with his soul-deep longing to become someone better than himself--represent all of us very real human beings, trying our best to find our own "cornerstones," to gain the means to finally, finally achieve our own sweet dreams.

#honkai star rail #aventurine #ten stonehearts #character analysis #honkai star rail meta #I'm too sleepy to leave real tags #so just know that I spent the whole time writing this #laughing about how Aventurine's claws are on the most inconvenient fingers #like dude is not getting any tail in his monster form with THOSE hands #also I spent the second half of this going #“Aventurine's unfulfilled destiny is his void”#“so he can probably fix it by reviving the Avgins”#this is why everyone wants to give this man a baby #Diamond said “I don't got any babies but I do have this cool rock”#Aventurine said “Will the cool rock make me sexy?”#and didn't even wait for the answer

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tiktowafel · 7 months ago

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hi and hello i'm back from the dead here are some 1b quirk headcanons (that may or may not contradict canon but i'm too lazy to check everything)

Kuroiro

dad had a very limited phasing quirk, mom had an ink quirk. neither had #000000 skin that part kinda came out of nowhere

despite obviously being connected to his ability it's just a mutation that appeared along with it and isn't required for the quirk to be usable -what i mean by this is that Monoma's skin doesn't turn black when he copies it

it's. a really confusing quirk mechanics wise. Kuroiro himself isn't exactly sure how it works, it just does and thinking about it too hard makes his head hurt lol

he can merge into dark surfaces. doing so doesn't increase the weight of the object he's merged into. it's like he straight up disappears.

when he fully submerges himself in a shadow, he finds himself in kind of a black void in which he can move freely (without using his muscles, i think. just zooms around somehow...) and which he can leave whenever he wants through the same surface he used to enter or another one connected to it. is it some sort of super limited alternate dimension that he can enter through shadows?? PERHAPS

since he doesn't lose his clothes when he uses his quirk, he has to be able to bring objects into the darkness with him. i imagine he can do it with all things that aren't living (them being black is not necessary because it seems to work with white shoes and bracelets) and as long as they're touching him - if he lets go of an object while in a shadow, it will just fall out. therefore his quirk can be used for transporting things, but not for storing them.

you can also explain him not losing his clothes by them being mirio style dna fabric but that's the more boring option so screw that

when jumping out of a shadow, his speed matches that at which he was moving inside of it. i think it would be cool if he could build up speed while moving through a shadow and then just SHOOT out of it and kick someone real hard

Pony

Pony actually has "two quirks" - the one that gives her horns and the ability to shoot them (inherited from her dad) and the one that gives her the appearance of a horse/pony (inherited from her mom). it's registered as "horn cannon" for the same reason why Tokoyami's quirk isn't "raven" and Mina's isn't "pink alien thing" - it's a passive mutation quirk so it gets "overwritten" by horn cannon, which is more "active" - does this make sense?

thanks to her secondary quirk Pony is much stronger than the average person and can run really fast when on all fours. she can also neigh like a horse, digest celulose a bit better than average and sleep while standing. it's... not much besides that

Pony's horn cannon quirk requires keratin to function, because it's what her horns are made of. regrowing her horns too many times causes her to suffer from keratin deficiency, worsening the condition of her hair, skin, nails and hooves

most telekinetic quirks cause headaches when overused, but Pony's ability to control her horns is very minor so that drawback doesn't really affect her

Kendo

her quirk is a mix of her parents quirks - her mom can extend her fingers and her dad has superhuman strength in his arms

enlarging her hands increases their weight a lot, but Kendo's abilities don't suffer from that because her back and arms are naturally extremely strong as an adaptation to her quirk (she can beat everyone in the class at quirkless hand wrestling - it's highkey unfair, but she can)

however, she still sometimes ends up with lower back pains if she uses her quirk too much

Setsuna

her dad does have a lizard quirk (that actually gives him a tail that he's able to detach and regenerate), but her mom's quirk is actually more similar to Setsuna's. it basically lets her detach and re-attach parts of her body along predetermined lines, and lacks the regenerative abilities

her quirk makes her basically indestructible because it lets her regenerate any destroyed or injured body part, plus she seemingly doesn't even need any of her organs to be connected to each other. her only weak point is her head, attacking it is the only way to knock her out (or kill her)

her head/brain is also her "core" - she can only regenerate body parts that are connected to her brain. i'll use the final exams as an example - if she managed to get her whole head outside the gate, she would be able to regenerate her whole body around it and pass (she would probably pass out from exhaustion, but still). however if she only got some other body part, like one of her arms outside the gate she wouldn't be able to do that because the arm isn't connected to the brain. hope you get what i mean lol

in-universe, her quirk probably isn't censored with black, so i'm guessing it looks quite gory and tends to freak people out when they see it for the first time. an upside to this is that thanks to having to deal with the sight of it on a daily basis, no one in class 1-B has to worry about the shock of first seeing gruesome injuries during hero work. they're all desensitized through safe means👍

a drawback that is shared by most regeneration quirks is that due to the rapid cell division that occurs when regenerating body parts, she is at a high risk of developing cancer. however that's far less troublesome than it sounds, as she can always just painlessly detach the cancerous part and grow a new healthy one. doctors hate this one weird trick or something

as you can probably tell from my art, i really like the headcanon that her skin looks kinda patchwork-y because her regenerated pieces are never exactly the same as the original body parts

due to those imperfections, she's extra careful about her brain pieces bc it's such a complicated organ that the tiniest change in its structure can seriously mess things up. like cause memory loss or personality changes, setsuna finds that terrifying and honestly who wouldn't!!

Tsuburaba

another 50/50 mix - his mom can create colorful smoke/mist with her breath and his dad can produce a glass-like liquid from his skin and solidify it at will

i gotta admit that i'm not sure what the "solid air" actually should be. if it was actual solid air, it would be incredibly cold, unless there's some pressure fuckery happening here. and since i kind of don't understand that hypothetical pressure fuckery i generally prefer to think that it's some different substance that's a solid in normal conditions and was just named "solid air" because the way it's created makes it seem like it.

while the amount of solid air he can create does depend on his lung capacity, the quirk itself doesn't give him any extra amount of it. in other words he has the lungs of a regular athletic teenage boy, nothing special

his actual "quirk factor" is his throat, using his quirk too much first dries it up, then proceeds to damage its walls, which can result in him not being able to use his quirk for a while. throat damage due to external factors does the same thing

he can make the stuctures created with his quirk disappear at will. it's not required, but he likes to snap his fingers when doing so. makes it look cooler.

he's only ever been shown to create stationary structures, but i like to think that he can also make mobile ones (in other words i think he should be able to make solid air weapons and tools because that's cool)

Tetsutetsu

exact copy of his mom's quirk. gotta go with the joke

along with the temperature resistance, inability to regulate his hardness and dependence on iron consumption, another difference between his quirk and Kirishima's is that turning into steel also significantly increases his weight, which allows him to hit harder at the cost of slowing him down a little

the wiki says that it was never clarified what "iron consumption" means, so it's up to me to decide - i think they meant that he needs to eat food that contains iron, judging by the fact that the (stereotypically!) rich in iron spinach is his favorite food. i don't think he eats the actual metal, lol

even when his quirk is off, his hair is slightly affected by it at all times, which makes it resemble thin metal wires. he styles it by bending it with his hands

Reiko

since it's an extremely basic quirk, i think she also directly inherited it from one of her parents i don't have concepts for them so idk which one oof

she can only use her quirk on entire objects, not parts of them

while she doesn't have to always keep the objects she's manipulating in her field of view, she has to see them in order to "pick them up" in the first place

i believe that the "can only lift things that weigh less than an average person" limitation she has in canon is supposed to explain why she doesn't just use it to throw people around, and yeah that makes sense. what doesn't make sense is why she can't pull them by their clothes instead, so i'm going to make up an explanation for that too - clothes are usually pretty thin, so trying to grab them without also grabbing the person themselves and therefore exceeding the weight limit usually requires quite a lot of precision, which Reiko doesn't have (yet - one day she'll learn, i imagine)

the term "weight limit" is a simplification, it's actually a mass limit. in other words when she can't lift something it's not because can't exert a strong enough force to counteract its weight, but because she can't manipulate this much matter at once. she wouldn't be all-powerful in space or when cooperating with ochako

speaking of the force that she can apply to objects, it can be pretty insane if she concentrates hard enough for a long enough time

she doesn't actually need to move her hands to use her quirk, but it helps her focus and visualize its effect better

as it's a major telekinetic ability, overusing her quirk gives Reiko headaches

(i'm making up so many rules and limitations because telekinesis is a BROKEN ability if you think about it enough lol)

Shiozaki

mix of her dad's ability to speed up plant growth and her mom's ability to manipulate her hair

since her vines are green, it's safe to assume they contain chlorophyl and therefore are able to photosynthetize. however, due to the way they're shaped, i doubt it's very efficient (bad surface area to volume ratio), so i suppose Ibara has to provide most of the nutrients herself. in other words i think she eats way more than the average person and drinks more water, too

failing to provide those will cause her ability to extend and move her vines to suffer, and in more extreme cases, they will just fall off. she can regrow them when that happens, but it takes time.

while theirs are obviously very different from ours, plants do have senses, and Ibara can use those plant senses of her vines as kind of an extension of her own

Kamakiri

another exact copy, of his mom's quirk this time. she actually used to be a pro hero, too (one day i might elaborate on this)

it does come with the innate desire to cut things, however thanks to his mom sharing the same quirk he received proper support so it never grew into a problem. on the other hand despite seeming scary, it's not that much to handle. he just satisfies that desire by cutting vegetables lol

by default his blades are extremely sharp, but if he focuses hard enough he can make them more blunt and less lethal

unrelated to the blades, but due to part-bug biology, he's much lighter than you'd expect someone of his posture to be.

and that's it for today~ i do have thoughts about the others' quirks but i felt like they weren't coherent enough to put here lol. maybe another day? also if anything here directly contradicts canon or if you just have other ideas, you are more than welcome to share your thoughts, i really like discussing quirks :]

#bnha #class 1b #tikto's textposts #tikto's headcanons #character tag time baby #shihai kuroiro #pony tsunotori #itsuka kendo #setsuna tokage #tetsutetsu tetsutetsu #reiko yanagi #togaru kamakiri #ibara shiozaki #kosei tsuburaba #i also had hcs for kaibara but decided i didnt like them.#the only points on the list that i still vibe with are that his quirk is the same as his dad's (mom was quirkless)#and that he never gets dizzy #god tier semicircular canals #and those two dont feel like enough idk ill leave them here as a treat for the curious ones

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