#phenolphthalein

doing a bunch of small drawings of ocs to make into new toyhou.se pfps for them. here's the first 12. out of 144. that already have toyhou.se profiles

And like many other BNHA fans who rationalise everything a little too much, I am a strong believer in the “secondary mutations” quirk theory, which I’ll explain in another post, but I have also come up with a less believable but more interesting theory.

In chemistry, phenolphthalein is used as an acid indicator; meaning, it gets put in liquids to cause a colour change depending on the liquid’s pH so that scientists can tell whether or not something is acidic.

As far as you’ll learn in grade 10 chemistry (which is as far as I got before deciding I was more of an art kid), when phenolphthalein is mixed with a basic substance, it turns pink. When it’s mixed with a neutral substance, it is generally faint pink/colourless. When it is mixed with an acid, it is colourless (chemistry-speak for clear).

(Image: photos arranged in order of low pH to high pH. High pH liquid is the most pink, as explained in the paragraph above.)

How does this relate to Mina’s skin?

To determine that, it’s best to start with Mina’s acid. It’s colourless (the art style depicts it as a milky-white, but it could just as easily be clear; also, phenolphthalein doesn’t change the colour of an acid, it only changes its own colour, so yeah). Therefore, since it is acid and has a low pH, it stands to reason that it could contain phenolphthalein and still remain colourless.

Mina’s skin, on the other hand, is not acidic as far as we know . It would actually make sense for her skin to be a bit basic to counteract her quirk, so her skin still protects her from her own acid (because basic and acidic substances neutralise each other). So if her skin contained phenolphthalein, it stands to reason that her skin would have a pink-like hue. In that sense, it’s actually quite cool that her skin is pink; it implies that her quirk has an inbuilt indicator to tell her when her skin isn’t basic enough to protect her properly, and when her acid is no longer acidic. Could she also create basic substances, rather than just acid? Is that why her acid contains phenolphthalein? Who knows!

Commissions are open!

Hello everybody, a lot of people have been interested in owning some of my molecular embroidery for themselves! So I am happy to announce that my commissions for small biochemical embroidery pieces are open :-)