#the sparks you see are from overusing the zap ability

[mothsakura]

help!!! the grandparents are fighting !!!

[voltagecrow]

Lightning vs Electricity quirks

Having an electricity quirk and a lightning quirk are two separate things. They way each affects the user’s body as well as how easy it is to control also varies.

Let’s start with electricity and for this I’m gonna use our lovely Denki Kaminari. As we’ve seen Kami’s quirk negatively affects his body. Over usage results in him frying his brain for a time which is absolutely not healthy. His body wasn’t made to be able to withstand such powerful electric damage. It’s something he’s working to help lessen or entirely get rid of. Have y’all read what getting shocked once can do?? This kid is damaging his brain every time he uses his indiscriminate shocks which cannot be good.

Electricity is already a strong elemental quirk, with Kaminari being able to produce 1.3 and 2 million volts which is incredibly strong! And he’s just a kid! On top of that his quirk works for both defensive and offensive aspects in battle. Get too close and you get zapped. Stay too far and you get zapped. Kaminari is already an incredibly strong person and his quirk is bound to get even stronger over the course of the manga/anime. Pair that with his sharpshooting gear and he’s already good.

But that doesn’t help the fact that overusing his quirk fries his brain. He has an incredibly strong quirk and yet his body was not made for it. And his brain getting fried is all we know about how his quirk affects his body. For all we know he also gets the other effects of getting shocked like numbness, breathing problems, or problems with his vision/hearing.

Now, lightning as a quirk is a much stronger ability. It can reach 1 billion volts and a temperature of 50,000F (27,760C) which makes it an incredibly useful and terrifying quirk to have. The downsides is the fact that it is entirely detrimental to the user. Not only can it destroy pain receptors and give the user the sense of numbness, it can also cause heavy burns and permanent damage much like electricity but on a worse scale.

On top of all of that, lightning is extremely hard to regulate as a quirk. Users must know how to regulate voltage and heat lest they kill themselves and their opponent. It’s why many with a lightning quirk are recommended extra and continuous training on top of the quirk training they already do. Training is suggested even after they become a pro hero.

Lightning quirks are also not as rare as many people think. They’re also not a mutation of an electricity based quirk like most have been told. Lightning quirks are simply stronger electric quirks. That being said, the reason so many think lightning quirks are rare is because of the fact that the hero commission has forced many lightning heroes and users to simply state their quirk is an electric based quirk.

Lightning quirks are one of the quirks on the hero commission’s list of ‘dangerous’ quirks because many users find it incredibly difficult to get a good enough grasp on it. Not only do users have to make sure their quirk doesn’t destroy their body, they also need to learn how to regulate the voltage, the heat, and the impact strength of the quirk.

Of those heroes that have lightning quirks, one in five have extremely good control of their quirks. Extremely good control consists of being able to regulate heat, voltage, and impact strength to a t. Those heroes are often the ones who are called in to help fight against other electric or lightning based villains. One in three heroes can take the impact of a lightning or electricity attack and be able to redirect it back.

These heroes and their abilities are often silent about their control over their quirk at the instructions of the commission. The commission fears that, if the villains find out about such control, they will try to turn the heroes against hero society.

Now onto how lightning effects the body. We’ll use Soren as the example.

Soren’s lightning often leaves the areas around his markings and his hands numb as that’s primarily where the lightning comes out from. His lightning also causes his eyes to spark so his eyesight is less than perfect but not to the point where he needs glasses. His hands can handle him heating them up but the rest of his body cannot. This is why he uses his heated up hands to seal wounds shut during battle, but not my point.

Unlike Denki, Soren using the limits of his quirk does not fry his brain. He also does not get the scarring that most people who get struck by lightning get. This is mainly because his body can conduct the lightning properly so he doesn’t get that scarring.

Soren recently started to use a move akin to the one Bakugo uses to maneuver in midair. Since he’s only just started to learn that move and adapt it for his own quirk, overusing it cause his hands to lock up and any working pain receptors receive heavy pain. He is trying to train himself to be able to handle that pain or even get rid of it entirely but it’s not a priority for him. As such, he’ll probably always have some level of pain in his hands akin to the kind Bakugo gets.

The bodies of lightning quirk users are much more capable of handling and conducting electricity and lightning alike. Even so, they’re not entirely immune. Some with lightning quirks have terrible eye sight, memory issues, hearing issues, chronic pain, and more health issues. They’re still human at the end of the day after all.

Now, Soren is one of the one in five that can control their lightning quirk to a t but the hero commission doesn’t know this. Not because Soren wants to keep it a secret but because they simply haven’t cared enough to see if he has such disciplined control. The reason he had such control is because he’s constantly training and pushing past his own limits.

He trains so often and so frequently because of the student deaths and also to prove to everyone and himself that he can control his quirk. Soren’s free time is split between doing his hobbies, streaming, and training and even then training takes up more than one third of his time. He trains so frequently that he’s been able to regulate the heat and voltage of his quirk rather quickly.

Soren is also able to tell how much voltage he needs to use per person so he doesn’t kill them. This is less training and more actual research into how lightning works and how it affects the human body.

Also, the colour of a lightning can be different between users. It can have any colour that natural lightning has. Ex. Soren’s lightning is blue while his mom’s was lilac. The colour of a lightning quirk varies and has no consistent pattern.

I also did some research and math regarding the heat of Soren’s lightning vs the heat of Endeavor and Dabi’s fire. Soren’s lightning is ~23 times hotter than Endeavor’s fire at 2,000F (1,200C) and ~17 - ~22 times hotter than Dabi’s fire at 2,300F - 3,000F (1,260C - 1,645C)

I then went on to do some research and math regarding the voltage of Soren’s lightning vs the voltage Denki can currently reach. Soren’s voltage, at 1 billion volts, is 76,923 times stronger than Denki’s 1.3 million indiscriminate shock.

Alternately, Soren’s voltage, at 1 billion volts, is 50,000 times stronger than Denki’s 2 million indiscriminate shock.

Now, my math for both Soren’s lightning heat vs Endeavor/Dabi’s heat I’m pretty confident in. My math for Soren’s lightning voltage vs Denki’s 1.3 and 2 million voltage I’m a bit more unsure of. If either are wrong feel free to correct me. I passed math with a 53 so my math may be off.

[freckled-forests]

Domestic Powers #2: Lincoln

(In case you didn’t know this is a series of posts I’m writing that headcanons the domestic uses and idiosyncrasies of Inhuman powers. Feel free to send headcanons of your own.)

I know that when he’s upset, or angry, or scared, Lincoln has difficulty controlling his powers. But I’d like to call attention to the fact that when he’s more calm, the amount of precision that he has is AMAZING. He knew the exact amount of voltage required to float Daisy without hurting her. He knew the exact voltage necessary for electrical resuscitation, and for rebooting electrical circuits without frying them. Those are all very specific amounts of electricity, and in those instances he was in PERFECT control. So let’s destroy the notion that Lincoln has a very loose grasp on his abilities all the time.

Let’s talk domesticities. His ability isn’t just lightning, it’s the concentration and manipulation of any electrical current. Which means his fighting can be so much deadlier that lightning bolts. Imagine Lincoln snapping his fingers and any given adversary falling face first to the ground, because the synapses in their brain are no longer firing. Imagine Lincoln being able to wreck havoc in a persons brain by manipulating the electricity it runs on. Imaging a room full of Hydra agents dropping mid-step, because their SAN was overloaded. (FYI, SAN/ the sinoatrial node/ is one of the nodes next to your heart that keep it beating)

But he’s also a doctor. So imagine him learning to ease a person in pain by not allowing the wounded person’s nervous system to send electrical signals to the brain. Imagine him being able to tell whether or not a person is brain dead just by touching them, or helping a damaged brain create new electrical pathways. •Lincoln learning about ECT, and being able to help people with extreme depression, mania, aggression, dementia, and catatonia that medications didn’t help. Lincoln being skilled in any kind of immediate, in the field, electrical resuscitation.

What about the little quirks? Like the fact that EMPs, for some reason, knock him out cold. (They discovered this on accident in the field with Mack, who never lets him forget it. All the cell phones died, and Lincoln fell flat on his face. Daisy laughed herself to tears.)

•He has a constant static buildup. When you stand too close, the hair on you arms stand on end. It’s actually ridiculous when he gets sweatshirts out of the dryer and then comes in contact with any conductive surface. Loud zapping and cursing can be heard coming from anyone touching said surface.

•His eyes, during the day, are their normal gunmetal blue. In darkness, however, they have a strange blue luminescence. It’s not enough to see by, but enough to know that it’s there. (He scared the crap out of Daisy on more than one occasion with this unintentional quirk. He didn’t even know he was doing it until she told him.)

•His phone holds its charge for a ridiculous amount of time, something that frustrates Daisy and Fitz to no end. On long flights, a bemused Lincoln can be found with iPhone charger wires wrapped around his fingers. (“Daisy…I don’t think”-“Shhh just one second I have to beat Elena at this level of flappy birds and my phone is almost dead”) He has been used as a field generator on more than one occasion.

•On the 4th of July, eternal sparklers dance in his fingertips.

•Even though cell phones and tablets love him, computers DO NOT. If he’s not paying attention, something about him messes with their circuitry. (Jemma will never let him forget the time he sneezed while researching on a lab computer and to this day it only work on weekends and every other Thursday. Fitz and Daisy have taken to magnetizing things.)

•Since Coulson and Mack have made it their personal mission to educate Lincoln in the world of alien and robot horror movies, he has mastered the “horror-movie-light-flicker”. He enlisted Elena’s help to prank unsuspecting agents around the base. Empty hallway, light flicker, and Elena is breathing down the agents neck in dollar store horror mask (that Daisy definitely did not buy for her.)

•He can control the skies themselves. During thunderstorms, he directs the electrical imbalance between clouds and Earth to create lightning storms that can send entire cities into blackouts. He can make planes fall from the sky by draining their controls, and short entire cities of communication. Lincoln is powerful enough to do things he never dared attempt. Like Daisy, he’s never actually reached the limits of his powers. He doesn’t even know if he has any.

•External circuits of electricity don’t hurt him. It was one of the things that puzzled the Hydra scientists that captured him. When subjecting him to the electric shocks typical of a powered person testing, he absorbed 99% of it, no matter the voltage. All it did was wear him out.

•There are two major field operations for Lincoln, blowing stuff up or sucking it dry. If they are operating in stealth, he sucks the whole place dry of electricity and let’s them wander in the dark without communications. Or, he can blow every circuit for the perimeter radius, and set every piece of information ablaze.

•He smells faintly of ozone, after he’s used his abilities for lengthy amounts of time. Like Daisy, if he overuses his powers, he can actually hurt himself. He develops thin spidery Lichtenberg figures along his forearms running up over his shoulders.

•When he absentmindedly plays with Daisy’s hair after a long day, tiny electrical pulses help relax her tired muscles. Sometimes he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, but she enjoys it, so she just lets him play with her hair and think.

•He can maneuver large pieces of rubble and other heavy objects by levitating them like he did Daisy. His current record for mass is the entire wing in an exploded quinjet (Daisy helped).

•Because of his gifs, he has been called every nickname in the book. Sparks, Sparkplug, Electroboy, Sparky, Power Ranger, Sparkler, Sparkly, the list goes on for eternity. Mack is to blame for most of them. In the days of Afterlife, before his abilities were fine tuned, electrical fires were very common. Any combustible materials could be set ablaze with ease. Most of his shirts were freckled with burn holes. Swimming was an issue as well. (Once, while in a pool, he was doused thoroughly by an inhuman hydrokinetic. This was shortly followed with yelps and cursing from the people in the pool, who had all been accidentally electrocuted.)

•When he got a cold, he sneezed LITERAL sparks. (Another fact that Daisy’s finds disproportionately hilarious).

•Just…Lincoln using his beautiful abilities for more than lightning bolts. (@*^*@) ヾ(*´∀｀*)ﾉ

[ascensionstories-blog]

Zap #2: School Days

Wow, she’s beautiful, Collin thought as eyes caught on Sammy Dunne. She had long, brown hair and bright blue eyes, and his heart started thumping loudly against his chest as she sat next to him in Physics. Say hi, you dolt, you can do it — just one word, “Hi!” He said, a bit too loudly, and she turned a raised eyebrow to him. She was wearing the school uniform, an orange sweater over a blue button-down and a skirt, and he the same, with the addition of pants in place of a skirt. He wondered if she could hear his heart beating too. “I’m Collin,” Collin offered. He had had a few classes with Sammy before this semester, but he could never be sure if she remembered him. Easily forgettable, Collin thought to himself, at least it’s endearing.

“Sammy,” she replied, turning back to her desk. Her hair had fallen along the side of her face and she moved her hand to brush it back. And there it is, Collin decided, the last time I’ll ever talk to Sammy Dunne. He knew it as an absolute certainty: when girls told you their names then looked away, that was it. He began tapping his pen on his desk. His eyes wandered over to Sammy, who was staring disinterestedly at the board. His pen tapped louder. She didn’t look. He sighed and looked at the board in front of him; the teacher — a dull man, balding with glasses — spoke in a monotone voice as he motioned with chalk to the board. Collin’s eyes began to wander back to Sammy once again. Her cheek was in her cupped hand, and her eyes had slowly drifted shut. Immaculate, Collin thought.

Whether by association or chance, his mind began to wander towards Starlight, the hero who had impeded him less than a week before. The heroine had worn glasses to cover her large blue eyes, and styled herself with a different haircut, but he realized then that it was, definitively, the same girl. A small spark began to awkwardly dance around his hand, which he had to force under the desk to not be noticed. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, he thought quickly as the electricity continued to surge, what do I do? Oh my god, of course, my luck, the prettiest girl in the goddamn world is on the other freaking side of the heroic spectrum. Maybe, MAYBE, he reasoned with himself, she’ll see the truth behind it all one day, and then she’ll join me and we can work in tandem. And then we’ll fall in love and get married. Oh, that would be delightful. Of course, that would require her talking to me, which, of course, she’ll never do.

Just then, Sammy’s phone began to shriek out into the classroom. The entire class turned to look at her, except for Collin who already had been looking at her. She jumped awake, and reached for her phone, checking the message. Her hand shot into the air. “I’m sorry, Mister McKay, I need to be excused,” as Mr. McKay looked at her inquisitively, she explained, “superhero business.” She did not wait for a response, but grabbed her bag and ran out the door, Collin’s eyes following her out. I wish villains got to do that, Collin lamented to himself. I wonder what’s going on that would immediately necessitate her, he then thought. She’s fairly new, and it’s not like the hero gang around Northridge is unpopulated. I mean, sure, we’r no New Monmouth City, but to resort to pulling a newbie out of class? The bell rang after a short time, as it always does, and he grabbed his pack and began to head home.

His walk home was not particularly long. It was a short walk down Booker Street, past the Bakery that always smelled like fresh icing, across the Pons Footbridge, and then just down Laker Avenue. The trip usually took around twenty minutes, so as he walked he would sketch some designs for costumes or robot ideas. Super-villainy, he knew, was not something that could be achieved simply by having super powers. His brother always told him that an unprepared villain is the worst thing that can happen to the world. So Collin was always preparing, whether it was his speeches or designs or practicing with his powers. As he crossed the footbridge he remembered how proud Matt had looked at him after he accidentally blew up the toaster with his powers. “Now you know not to do that again,” he had said, and Collin had blushed and cried. But he had never blown up the toaster after that day.

It was immediately as he turned onto Laker Avenue that he recognized something was wrong. His hands reached into his bag to grab his mask — at the very least — but, upon understanding the situation more wholly, he dropped his bag. New potholes had formed in the street from where Starlight’s energy blasts had missed their target, and other scuffs and breaks along the pavement looked to have been made from various collisions and smacks against the pavement. He looked further down the road and he saw that there were people actively engaged in a fight. Running down to get a closer look he saw Matt, wearing his trademark navy overcoat and mask, fighting with the superheroes of Northridge. There was the Black-Hammer, the super-strong, super-dumb superhero, who donned an all-black spandex costume covering himself from head to toe, with small eye and mouth holes cut out. His arms and legs were plated with steel to give him an extra oomph (as he liked to say, anyway). Next to him was Insecticide, an older female hero who dressed in a green sweatsuit with small bug-like wings attached to her back that let her fly. She could also control flies — or something — as far as Collin knew. Fighting alongside both of them was the young, beautiful Starlight, and, seeing her in action was both dazzling and hilarious. Although her powers seemed strong and she was undoubtedly the prettiest person he’d ever seen, it was quite obviously her first week. Her attacks missed widely, causing incredible property damage, and she struggled to coordinate with Black-Hammer and Insecticide, who had been working on their teamwork for years now. Then again, so had Matt.

Matt was not like the other villains of Northridge, and, as far as Collin was concerned, he was the only super villain in the area. Black-Hammer charged at him, throwing his fist at Matt’s face; Matt refused to dodge it, letting the super-powered man’s punch connect. As it made contact, the force behind the punch fell away, leaving the two men standing there, staring eye to eye. Matt raised his hand and flicked the hammer’s chin; the hammer soared through the air, forming another pothole in the ground of Laker Avenue. Ha, idiot, Collin thought. Matt was better known by his villain alter-ego: Momentum, based on his ability to absorb and reassign the momentum of things that touch him. Black-Hammer moaned in his pothole. He was out of commission.

Insecticide tried next, with Starlight providing backup, but as she charged in, an energy beam from the beautiful young heroine collided with her backside, forcing her collapse at the feet of the super villain. Momentum then turned his eyes to Starlight, who, Collin was sure, began shaking in her boots. Go, Matt, go! He silently cheered for his brother, while holding some contradicting feelings in seeing the future love of his life about to get pummeled. As she began to back away, Collin noticed the sky getting markedly darker. A slight rain began to patter against the ground, juxtaposed with the brightness of the random energy beams that Starlight shot to deter Matt’s pursuit. Of course these blind shots did not work, but, as Momentum moved to grab the girl, a bolt of lightning cut across his path, searing his hand.

Collin looked down at his own hands. Am I doing this? He wondered. No, my subconscious can’t be that in love with this girl, he decided. The winds began to pick up with the rain, turning a sunny day into a storm in under a minute. Thunder boomed in the sky, as more streaks of lighting shot down around the couple fighting. Collin stared in amazement, wondering what divine force could possibly be doing this, when a final burst of lightning collided with the ground, and, in the smoke it left, stood a girl. She was around his age, as far as he could tell from the distance he was at, wearing a white, button-up T-shirt with what looked like some small black insignia across the chest, and a black and white skirt. She wore boots that were once white, but now had faded into a murky color through overuse. The girl in the lightning wore no mask, revealing large brown eyes, and a small-but-cute face, which matched her stature as she stood just above five feet tall. She wore a small bow in her hair that was half-white, half-black.

By the time he was done noticing her, he hadn’t had time to notice that Matt was hovering in the air, seemingly being carried by the winds. He struggled against it, but there was nothing he could absorb. He was trapped. The small girl laughed a tiny laugh as she brought her hand down with the thunderclap, and a bolt of lightning collided against his brother. All Collin remembered next was the screaming. His brother’s skin looked chard as it began to sizzle and smoke. Collin covered his face in horror as he saw his brother struggle to look down at the girl, as he was still being carried by the winds. “Who are you?” He managed in a soft, broken whisper.

The girl responded in a confident voice that was a little higher than Collin would have thought. She looked Momentum in the eyes and said, “I am the Menace.” She hoisted him up, higher into the winds. “And you are going the Chamber.” With that the two of them were gone, leaving two collapsed heroes and a star-struck Starlight on his street. The young heroine turned to him.

“Did you see that?” Starlight — Sammy — asked.

“Y-yeah,” Collin said, feeling an incredible mix of emotions while trying not to break in front of a super hero. “Yeah I did.”

“I can’t believe we got to see her in action,” Starlight said. “Wait, I know you from class,” she realized. “Cameron, right?”

Collin stormed into his house, quite literally sparking in anger and self-hate. I should have done something, he scolded himself, letting loose large quantities of discharge throughout his house, I should have stopped her! He kicked a cabinet in his kitchen and heard a large crash from inside. Goddamn it! He stopped trying to restrain himself and his powers ran rampant throughout the kitchen, shutting of the fridge and leaving scorch marks throughout the property. I’m a freaking moron, he reminded himself, getting distracted over pretty girls doing hero things; I’m not a hero, I won’t be a hero, and I won’t be with her.

That was when he realized: of all the plans he had, he had never once envisioned a situation where Matt would not be here with him. His electric rampage stopped immediately. He was alone in the house. His eyes surveyed the damage he did, the broken lamps, the scorched furniture, and the destroyed Tupperware. He almost screamed, until his eyes drew upon the toaster in the corner of the kitchen. It had been left untouched. He took his pen and notepad and began to write.