What if you had a superpower?

Laer Carroll

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Realistically, what if you had a superpower? In this not some comic-book universe. How would that affect your work and home life? What would you do with it?

Take a teenboy favorite fantasy: you are really strong. Maybe superstrong, a thousand times stronger than ordinary people. Maybe only EXTRAstrong, a dozen or three dozen times stronger.

Add in really tough. You'd almost have to be, to keep your muscles from breaking your bones or your heart when you used your great strength. To keep your skin from becoming pulp when you lifted cars or buildings.

What would you do? What other superpower would you rather have?
 
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Kjbartolotta

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Short answer, try to make money. Long answer, try to fix the world and go mad with power. I guess there's a happy medium where I'd put on a cape and tights, but I can't really see it in my case. Anyone here read Extras​?
 

blackcat777

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I have always known since a very young age that if I were a supervillain, you could kill me with French's yellow mustard. A few squirts and I'd be down.

I've discovered my kryptonite, but unfortunately, no super powers.

If I had unlimited mental energy and clarity of focus, I'd be a bestselling author. ;)

I was always a fan of earthy heroines. I wouldn't mind being able to make plants grow like Krysta from Ferngully, or being able to sing animals into a frenzy like Kira from Dark Crystal. So save the planet? Heal creatures and grow things?
 

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Depends on the superpower.

If it was something really powerful like the ability to move large objects with my mind or control the weather, I think I'd keep it on the down-low. Powerful people would try to manipulate me to get me to use my power to their advantage.

Taking your example of super-strength, I don't think it would turn the tide of any wars or make anyone enormous profits, so it would be safe to become famous. I could take up a traditionally strong do-gooder profession, like soldier or cop or firefighter, but honestly I don't think strength is the key skill in those professions, and I could still get shot. I'd probably go into sports until they decided it wasn't fun anymore and banned me. Then I'd do exhibition shows and make bank off endorsements. Maybe parlay it into an acting or singing career. (Hey, maybe even writing.) Or I could pull a Schwarzenegger and go into politics.

I suppose with an interesting, but not game-changing superpower like invisibility or X-ray vision I might be able to make a career out of it, like in espionage.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Ok, I actually do have an IRL superpower, and it's an extremely lame and pointless one.

Occasionally when I'm walking by empty cars, I see people sitting inside of them. Usually with distinct clothes and facial features, mostly out of the corner of my eye but also sometimes square in the center of my vision. I see them, they see me, and we both seem thrown off-kilter to have noticed each other. Then they vanish, and I usually jump back and scream. This happened much too often in my twenties (and generally occurs when my brain is in one of its more squirrely cycles), and has calmed down in recent years but never goes away. I kind of have a theory that these are the impressions left behind by the car's owners, though I've never staked out a car to see if the person and the specter match. But I can make out enough details that if they did, I would notice.

I am 99.9% convinced this is pareidolia, and .1% IDK WTF. But I've never enjoyed it and get way too skittish in parking lots and along city streets. Also, when I tell people about this, they look at me like I'm a tad nuts.
 

morngnstar

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That is nuts and cool and exactly the kind of superpower I'm talking about that's too specific to make you a football in a game of international supremacy, but probably good enough to be a career skill.
 

Laer Carroll

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Ok, I actually do have an IRL superpower, and it's an extremely lame and pointless one.

If you could get it under control maybe you could use it to be a detective. Practice! Practice!

As for me, I suppose it'd be nice to be superstrong and supertough, but fistfighting isn't very useful in daily life. Especially since I carry in my shirt pocket a fat pen which is also a four-shot pepper spray. In way-too-many decades of life I've never been in a situation where even that was needed.

What I'd really like to be able to do is fly. Like this image I created of Katy Perry playing Snow White as a superhero. Click on THIS link to see her in a 3D version which you can rotate and flip to see her from top/bottom/all sides.

snow-white-superhero-cropped-resized.jpg

On second thought, my car or an airline ticket will get me to just about any place on Earth I want to go. What other superpower would I like to have? Hmm.

I know - the Healer's Touch of Irish legend. I could use it almost everywhere I go. Say to my neighbor who has this awful flu that's going around. Or my lady friend who sprained her ankle pretty badly this last weekend.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Never helped me in my worklife, I'm already a bookseller so convinced I'd make the best amateur sleuth ever. It's funny and pointless, but actually rather unnerving at times.
 

blackcat777

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I would, of course, choose immortality in the form of very good regeneration. The proper kind where you're unable to be killed (without, say, full body destruction, ie being launched into the sun.)

I just rewatched that episode of Stargate SG-1 where O'Neill can regenerate, but gets captured and interrogated. He refuses to crack, so Baal pushes him just to the brink of death with acid day after day after day after day... That's always my biggest fear with the self-healing superpower - you could be kept alive in a lot of grotesque situations.
 

Albedo

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My real-life superpower is being able to detect milk that's going off at least 24-48 hrs before normies.

I think my answer to what I'd do if I discovered I had a superpower is the same as what I'd do if I won the lottery. The very first step is hire a lawyer, preferably one with expertise in privacy law, to help set up some sort of web of trusts so I never have to interact in person with the media or the law. The second step is to put all thought of being a superhero/villain aside for a good 18 months at least, and moving to a remote island somewhere where I can experiment with and hone my powers without drawing attention. I'm not some sort of impulsive teenager like Peter Parker. I've got life experience and something resembling the wisdom that's meant to go with it, so I'm gunna act like it.

Only when I'm experienced with my powers and I know exactly which path I want to take will I move back to civilisation and start freaking the normies.
 

Kjbartolotta

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I just rewatched that episode of Stargate SG-1 where O'Neill can regenerate, but gets captured and interrogated. He refuses to crack, so Baal pushes him just to the brink of death with acid day after day after day after day... That's always my biggest fear with the self-healing superpower - you could be kept alive in a lot of grotesque situations.

Ugh. Never even quite thought of it that way. I guess it'd give me time to practice mindfulness.
 

indianroads

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The ability to teleport myself both time and space. I'd love to visit the golden age of Athens, or see the Egyptian pyramids when they were newly built. Along with this power I'd also need the ability to understand and be understood (language) by those I encounter.
 

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I'd go for mind reading. In this universe it's the most practical.

With super strength or anything involving control of the elements things could spiral out of control. Metabolism problems alone just to sustain any of those powers in this universe would be enough for me to think twice.

Some might say there is a drawback to learning too much, such as other's personal thoughts about the mind reader, but if anything it'll help you to know who truly has your back and who's just playing you.
 

Blinkk

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Call me an over imaginative kid, but I noticed very early on that my cuts and bruises healed super quick. I'd compare my injures to my friends or siblings, and it's wild. I heal wicked fast. So as a kid, of course, I started pretending my superpower is healing. I'm sure it's all just genetics, but it's wild. Also (not sure if this is coincidence or what) I've been told I have an incredibly high pain tolerance. It's hard to judge, because I'm not sure to what degrees other people feel pain. I need some kind of control group to access that claim, and I haven't figured out how to possess other people, so I'll probably never know if my pain tolerance levels are higher than average or not.

This power does nothing to enhance the world around me, so it's kind of useless. My other superpower is that I'm a musician and at every show, my goal is for people to leave happier than when they arrived.

If I could choose, it'd be easy. I'd be a mindreader. If everything went according to plan I'd become a politician. How easy would it be to solve problems if you knew everyone's pure intentions? You could weed out the corrupt people so fast. World domination for the better. Then, after I'm done being a senator, I'd go back to being a musician. What a thug life.
 

Kjbartolotta

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I need some kind of control group that I keep inside my secret lair to access that claim, and I haven't figured out how to possess other people without them going insane or their heads exploding...

Yeah, I'm filling in the gaps here, and I think you'd fall more into the 'villain' category. :D
 

Bufty

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I'd like the power to 'undo'.
 

Bufty

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situations - erase them. Primarily for me, but...

I'm sure we've all walked away from something and thought- jeepers that didn't go as it should have- wish I could try that again, or I shouldn't have said or done that.

Power to create the odd Groundhog day, maybe. :snoopy:
 
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Albedo

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situations - erase them. Primarily for me, but...

I'm sure we've all walked away from something and thought- jeepers that didn't go as it should have- wish I could try that again, or I shouldn't have said or done that.

Power to create the odd Groundhog day, maybe. :snoopy:
It would definitely solve the problem of only being able to think of snappy comebacks an hour after the fact.
 

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I read this somewhere and thought, yes, its what I'd want.

The power to refill things!

Sounds lame, but think about it. Glass empty, refill it. Enemy superhero going to beat you up, refill his/her bladder/bowel. Wallet empty, refill it.