Addendums

So I’d like to make an addendum to my “Powers” post. Or make an addendum on it. I’m too lazy to look up what the proper way to say it is.

Having thought about it for some time, I’ve thought of two more practical powers that would be awesome to have. The first is the ultimate polyglot, that is, the ability to speak many languages, although of course I would be so much more than that. I would be able to not only speak in any language/dialect with any accent, but I would be able to know where people are from by their particular accent. Like a super-Higgins from Pygmalion. It would be so fulfilling to be able to speak to every person I meet, no matter where I go, and sound like I grew up next door. I would not only be an unstoppable globe-trotting tourist, but my usefulness in translation would make me a key asset around the world. Plus my ability to do accents would make me a small fortune in Hollywood (not only in terms of doing accents for animated stuff but also accent training).

My second ability I’ve come up with is inspired by Pullman’s The Subtle Knife, in which the boy has a knife that can cut between dimensions. My knife wouldn’t be a literal knife, but more of a mind-knife, and I would be able to cut through space. So, say I wanted to go to school. I could just cut a me-sized hole in my room and have the other side come out (for practical purposes) in some rarely used hallway or bathroom somewhere on campus. This way I could travel between any two places instantly, but without the obvious limitations of teleportation. For instance, I could cut open a portal between my house and my cottage, and my whole family could use the hole to come and go as they please. Or they could call me whenever they want me to open the portal again, seeing as it probably wouldn’t be wise to be setting these portals up all over the place and leaving them open for long periods of time.

My desire to be able to open up portals stems, in part, from the fact that I want to see what it’s like in Area 51, and I don’t think invisibility is the way to go. Not only would it be one hell of a walk for invisible little me, but they probably have infra-red sensors laying about, so I couldn’t just waltz around at my pleasure. If, instead, I opened up a whole bunch of eye-hole portals, I could peek around and see what’s up without actually having to go there. Again teleportation would be impractical because I’d be guessing where to jump and thus risk my own livelihood, whereas with the portals I can just open one and look through and if I open it inside a wall, no harm done I just sew it back up and open one a few feet from there. Man, Area 51. That would be great.

DFTBA

Powers

I’ve often wondered what kind of man I’d be, that is what kind of super hero. I wouldn’t want to be one of the standard supermen, either the kind bitten by a bug, born of another planet, or else wealthy and bored. Their stories play out fine enough, but that’s not the kind of story I’d want. I’d want my story more grounded in reality.

For starters, there would be no super villain, no archenemy or indefatigable gang; it would be me against the world at large, although I wouldn’t let anyone know that. Of course I’d play my cards close to the chest; I wouldn’t go public or any of that nonsense. I wouldn’t have a secret identity either, though. My identity would be as me, and my powers would be a part of who I am, to be used for the good of myself and those to whom I am close. The world doesn’t need super heroes, and I wouldn’t give them one.

When it comes to super heroes, most are built with the purpose of fighting crime or some greater evil, but few have real depth of power. What I mean is Spiderman can climb walls and sling his web-vines from buildings and shoot webs to catch villains, but really outside of crime-fighting there’s no practical value to his powers. He has the power to be a human-spider, and not much else. On the other side of the coin is the Invisible Woman, whose powers are really only useful for personal gain in practice. Sure she can work with the other Fantastic 3 to do some good but in reality being able to turn invisible can really only get you into sold out concerts and whatever movie you want. I guess you could sneak aboard airplanes too, and travel around the world. But without the ability to turn clothes or other people invisible, it would be an invariably lonely and alternatively sun-burned and frost-bitten world.

What always fascinated me were the elemental powers. Poison Ivy, Iceman, Pyro, etc. all had power over their elements, and could manipulate them. These powers were used to varying degrees of good and bad, and although some of the coolest powers, they still lack practicality, save that of Marvel’s Sofia Mantega aka Renascence aka Wind Dancer. Her ability to control air has always struck me as most practical. Many other powers become obsolete when faced with the choice to have the ability to control gases. Want to fly? Pull together some air molecules into a comfy chair and then whip up a good wind to send you on your way. Telekinesis? It’s taken care of. House on fire? Remove all the oxygen from the area and suffocate the fire instantly. Want to see the depths of the ocean, or just hide underwater for a while? Make a giant air bubble around you, simple as that. Want to live on the moon? Same idea. You’d better make it a bigger air bubble though, and bring some supplies with you. Not much to eat on the moon.

I could go on, listing for days and days, the awesome things you could do with air. Travel, self-defence, it’s all there for you to have. And there’s no limit to who you could bring with you to the moon, with whom you party in the clouds, who you lay out with a giant air-fist to the solar plexus. Needless to say you could do whatever you want, with only your imagination to limit you.

The only other power I’ve ever really considered a practical power that I would be interested in is psychic empathy, the ability to sense and control the emotions of others (à la Manuel Alfonso Rodrigo de la Rocha aka Empath). I feel like this is more practical than straightforward mind control because what can you do with a controlled mind, practically? As for the other psychic powers, like telepathy, I mean it gets kind of creepy. But psychic empathy really only affects emotions, making people not hate me, you, or each other. A psychic empath could just glide into a room and calm everyone, or make them all bloodthirsty if that was the goal of the day. Either way it all just seems so practical, in day-to-day life, to be able to make people happy all the time.

If I had to go for a completely impractical super power, my dark horse pick would be etheric projection, which Wikipedia defines as, “the ability to move about in the material world in an etheric body which is usually, though not always, invisible to people who are presently ‘in their bodies.’” How freaking cool would that be.

DFTBA