Solver Marks - a MD headcanon
I think some peeps have seen it before on my art, but I absolutely love adding arrow markings on some of my OCs and even fan-interpretations of canon characters, and I really wanna share this headcanon with other peeps!
I've seen similar concepts/markings before and it's such a cool design aspect that I wanna spread it some more (pun intended)! :]
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What are Solver Marks exactly? Solver Marks, or Solver Arrows, are a visual representation of a Solver infection in Drones. While a host or user (non-host) already have some visual differences indicating their status as infected, such as wings, tail, the emblem for the eye and/or eyes & LEDs changing to yellow during hosting the AS, the marks/arrows stick around as a semi-permanent sign of an infection. Similar to a scar or stretchmark these markings never fully fade, even if the Solver is exorcised from a Drone's OS, and they can appear at random all over its User's body.
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Do these marks have any special abilities? By themselves, the marks don't have special abilities that enhance or strenghten a user's Solver abilities, but they do have some traits, such as 1.) Glowing when in use (usually the marking itself glows white, while the surrounding sheen corresponds to the LED color(s) of a Drone). 2.) Growing/branching off in number corresponding to the user's strenght / ability usage. Some of these branched arrows may fade/disappear fully again after the Solver powers stop being used, but the main markings won't fade out.
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What do they look like? Solver Marks come in many varities and can appear anywhere on the body, though some of the placements may correspond to certain traits in the host/user. Placements such as the upper body, arms & legs are quite common, while facial marks or those on the back are less common and can range into "rare" territory.
The markings often "snake" around limbs such as the arms and legs, creating spirals and bands on these limbs. Inactive marks appear in a dark color, but can also be lighter - but they're never too light as to vanish against the drone's body colors. Marks on dark/black areas however will turn white when inactive, so they're always visible in most cases. Some marks may also be fully colored corresponding to the Drone's LED color, though these cases aren't that common.
Solver Marks are always in resemblance of arrows, but their shape is never 100% the same and differs slightly from Drone to Drone due to it's organic nature. They're sort of like tattoos and therefore aren't 100% similar, even if their code appears the same when viewed.
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How does the "rarity" system work? Usually the amount & placement of markings and why they're "common" or "rare" has to do with both the age of the drone and the amount of time they had their powers/infection, as well as the general strenght of their infection. Not every solver-infected Drone has the same or similar power level.
A freshly infected drone may have none to very little markings which usually show up on the upper body or arm/hands, while drones who'd been infected for much longer (e.g 5-10 years and above) are often times in possession of quite a lot of markings that extend into the facial & back area.
Children of solver-infected drones who inherit the Solver code may also already have a certain amount of markings when their OS gets transitioned to their final body, with some rare cases already having these markings in the UNN form (pill babys). Placements may also be inherited from the infected parent(s).
One of the rarest placements is the black visor part, where the code for these markings glitches and has the visor display an LED marking next to the eyes. This happens when the Solver code executing these physical changes misjudges the placement, gets "confused" and adapts (mutates) the code into working as LED generated symbol, similar to the eyes.
The code for the Solver Marks is very unique in nature as in: It mutates & learns, in order to not trigger the anti-virus of the Drone's OS and possibly get interferred with. Solver Marks play a vital role in the Solver infection in this headcanon, so if the marking code gets messed up by the anti-virus the Solver Infection might become incredibly unstable and cause issues over time.
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Can these markings become dangerous to the affected drone? Usually, the markings do not cause any damage or discomfort to the affected drone, though rare cases may occur in which the markings cause pain due to either a corrupted piece of coding or general issues with controlling the Solver infection itself. Sometimes the markings will cause physical harm due to these corrupted pieces, causing them to actually turn into scarring and causing injuries, which can be healed though if the corrupted piece of code is either removed from the Drone's OS or the Solver itself corrects the mistake (depending on the Drone's power level).
Since the markings are semi-sentient and can move / evolve on their own, their goal is not to cause harm or mutate, but rather to preserve the Solver infection and making it harder to be removed from a Drone's OS since the code for the marks also stores backups for the Solver itself, causing it to regenerate if these bits of backups aren't removed alongside the OG Solver code itself.