"Martha, Does Our Hero Insurance Cover Reality Warping?" Ever Heard
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Reality Warper "Martha, does our Hero Insurance cover Reality Warping?" "Today's seminar is about a subject near and dear to my heart: Reality Benders. Type Greens. Mary Sues. Bixbies, Shapers,Wizards, Gods, Devils, Outside Observers, call them what you will, these are the guys that change reality based on perception and willpower." — Transcript of Dr. Clef's Seminar, "Reality Benders and You: How To Survive When The Universe Doesn't ", SCP Foundation Ever heard of the Superpower Lottery? Well, kid, you just won the grand prize. You can create, change, or destroy things or even alter reality just by thinking about it. The key issue here is how far they can take this. A character with a mild form of this power (which isn't seen very often) may be able to will a new subatomic particle into existence. A ridiculously overpowered character may be able to hiccup and accidentally tear the very fabric of the space-time continuum asunder. High-end Reality Warpers tend to also be Reality Makers. For the really high end ones, see The Omnipotent. Needless to say, running into characters with such powers can be incredibly chancy. Arguing with the more powerful ones may well be futile, especially since they can literally, in the words of Paul from The Dungeonmaster (or Adam Savage), reject your reality and substitute their own. Since absolute power corrupts absolutely, a character with this high a level of power is quite likely to go bad. They might even deem themselves to be gods. Especially for the higher-end ones, it's hard to dispute this assessment. In both modern Speculative Fiction and older folklore, moderate versions of this ability are almost standard-issue for evil Elves, Genies (literal or otherwise, wish-based or otherwise), various other supernatural beings,Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, and Tricksters (particularly Great Gazoo), which makes this Older Than Print at least. The common modern fantasy concept of a Wishinvokes this premise; *poof* and stuff happens. Cartoon Characters also often employ this ability as a gag. Eldritch Abominations are also sometimes capable of this, usually to horrible ends. Protagonists are almost never this character type; what's the point of a story when you can just end it right then and there? If the protagonist is one of these, expect them to either have a reason for not using it or for all of the antagonists to have powers on a similar or greater scale. Writing characters like this can be a challenge, given how easily this ability can turn into a Story Breaker Power. Nothing can really pose much of a physical threat, unless you make liberal use of Plot-Induced Stupidity or make them Forget the Phlebotinum. Such characters are especially prone to The Worf Effect and Deus Exit Machina. For the same reasons, Reality Warpers that are antagonistic towards the protagonists are prone to Just Toying with Them. For a funny way of doing Reality Warpers in, see Puff of Logic. Not to be confused with Master of Illusion, since those are only pretending to change or create things (although it's not unheard of for a reality warper to be capable of creating illusions and indeed the two tropes occasionally overlap). True Reality Warpers often incorporate Shapeshifting of all varieties as well as Winds of Destiny, Change (not to mention heaps and heaps of Mind Screwing). Compare Author Powers, Your Mind Makes It Real, Clap Your Hands If You Believe, and Spacetime Eater. Rewriting Reality is a subtrope, often paired with a Tome of Fate or Reality Writing Book. This trope has nothing to do with I Reject Your Reality, though some Warpers may indeed have that attitude. Examples: OPEN/CLOSE ALL FOLDERS ANIME AND MANGA Poron from Sally The Witch. Mre exactly, when she throws a tantrum and starts crying (well, she is a little girl no older than five), her magical powers go haywire and start warping whatever's left in her surroundings. Haruhi Suzumiya. For that matter, Yuki and Ryouko, as well. Their powers aren't as rule-breaking as Haruhi's, but they can still launch MySQL injections into reality. And to take game-breaking to an even more absurd degree in Disappearance, they can even hijack Haruhi's unlimited power! The difference between Haruhi and the Interfaces is that Haruhi can create "data" out of nothing while the Interfaces can "only" alter existing data. o Related to the trope notes above, there is a good reason why Haruhi can get away with being a protagonist and a Reality Warper; She has no idea what she is or what power she holds. Most of her warping is done through childishly wishing something to be different. In Gurren Lagann the main mech creates drills from sheer willpower for no explained reason other than boiling blood. The main plot of the series was thatthe Anti-Spirals were afraid of the spiral races creating so much matter through spiral power that they would turn the universe into a black hole, bringing about Spiral Nemesis. Ironically, they were beaten by Simon creating a mech over 10,000,000 light years tall to beat them. Emperor Charles in Code Geass attempts to become a reality warper with his Ragnarok Connection. He's foiled when Lelouch uses his Geass on God and warps reality right back again...and destroys his parents in the process. In the third Pokemon movie, The Spell of the Unown, the Unown have this power, and create Entei, who in turn grants a girl's wishes with the power. This quickly becomes supremely dangerous. o Several other Psychic and Ghost type Pokemon are said to have this ability too, most notably Gardevoir, who can actually create a wormhole out of thin air just by thinking about it. Though, to be fair, it's implied that doing so would cost the Gardevoir its life due to sheer strain, so it's a rather limited example. o Palkia, the Pokemon of SPACE ITSELF, who relocated a town to another dimension in the tenth movie. o And Arceus, the creator of everything in the Pokemon universe. Serial Experiments Lain slowly reveals that Lain herself can do anything. Guu can do anything. One episode of Mushishi featured a swordsmith infected with a mushi that let him foresee disasters and warn people beforehand. Ginko gave him a medicine that would suppress them, but after his daughter died during something he hadn't dreamed of, he stopped taking it. Turns out it was actually a mushi that brought his dreams to life - causing unnatural disasters. He wouldn't have foreseen what killed his daughter because it was a normal disaster. And, one night, he dreamed of his entire village dying gruesomely... Drosselmeyer and Fakir from Princess Tutu. The Onmyou mysticism of Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai works like this - and doesn't. It depends on your Power Level and wish to Screw Destiny. The Big Bad of the 12th Dragon Ball Z movie, Janemba was a Reality Warper so powerful that it had virtually complete control of the afterlife, having resurrected everyone even, and especially the old Big Bads, their corresponding dragons, and an army of Mooks, and yes even Those Wacky Nazis were revived along with Hitler himself, and managed to trap Enma Daiou, the Lord and Judge of the Dead himself in a large jelly button-shaped prison, and managed to transform Hell into a play-land full of floating jelly beans. Much of which was in one go. o East Kaioshin has shades of this ability, though probably only to a limited extent. We see him create an extremely powerful (and fictional) metal. Piccolo has also been seen "materializing" things. o Majin Buu seems to be able to alter matter with his head tentacle. His famous "turn into candy!" is the most common use of this power, used for the first time against Dabura, but it's also how he builds his house. The main character of Psycho Busters has a variant on this ability: If something life-threatening happens to him, he goes back in time and does it all over again. Repeatedly. Until, by pure random chance, something happens to negate the harm done to him—for example, a roof tile falling at exactly the right moment to deflect a bullet flying at his head, or a psychokinetic projectile just barely missing him...five times in a row. He's not consciously aware of this at first, so apart from occasional deja vu, he's under the impression that he's just ridiculously lucky. A Certain Magical Index: Aureolus Izzard. "Alchemist" my ass. o Subverted. Master of Illusion combined with Clap Your Hands If You Believe is his true power. As pointed out by Stiyl, if he really could warp reality, why couldn't he just wish a vampire into existence? o To a lesser extent, every single Psychic. Their powers work by substituting their own reality onto the world. Bleach has Inoue Orihime, who can reject reality, depending on her current emotional state. o Fullbringers in general seem to all be minor-scale reality warpers, because Fullbring manipulates the "souls" in "matter", which is everything in reality. Among their powers, we have a "time manipulation" ability, an ability that affects "probability", and a sword that can alter the past of anything it cuts (both living and inanimate). o They don't out right say it, but that is what Orihime and Chad are, due to Ichigo's spirit energy jumpstarting their abilities, exposure to hollows when either young or unborn gave them the capability, Ichigo himself is half that, the fullbringers unlock his fullbringer abilites when he loses his shingami ones, and eventually take those away too.