The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 141 –Top 10 WORST Powers to Have
Play • 50 min

It's time for another of our humorously competitive top ten lists! This time Jesper and Autumn go head to head to see who can come up with the worst power to have—you know, the one that makes you think maybe NOT having any magic might not be such a bad thing. 🤣

Join us for some laughs and then comment to let us know who you think won the battle!

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn, Birt, and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper

Autumn (31s):
And I'm Autumn.

Jesper (33s):
This episode 141 of the am writing fantasy podcast. And are you ready for another top 10 episode today on him?

Autumn (43s):
Well, Actually it's been a little hot and sweltering and humid. I mean, it feels like I just got dumped into Costa Rica without the beach. So I don't have a highly competitive edge, unless maybe it's a lay on the beach and drink a beer contests. So I'll do what I passed. I did not bring my game face to this one. I'm sure you did because you thrive off of competition, I think.

Jesper (1m 12s):
Well, at least we are going to try to have a bit of fun today here and share our list of the five worst powers a character could have. And then as usual, we'll need to see if we can agree on who had the best worst list, Indiana and agreeing on who won is usually the hardest part of these episodes.

Autumn (1m 31s):
Well know you always think you won, but I always know I did.

Jesper (1m 34s):
See that's what I mean; we can't agree.

Autumn (1m 39s):
We agree. We both feel that we can agree that each of us one.

Jesper (1m 43s):
Yes, but, and then sometimes somebody on Patreon are the ones who do the tie-breaking.

Autumn (1m 49s):
Yeah, that's exactly it. Sometimes they put on YouTube videos. So we, we do take votes. I don't think it's ever changed how we felt we did, but we try.

Jesper (2m 1s):
Well, usually if they do conclude that they think I won, then I definitely agree with them. And then I think very wise people voting in that, those cases.

Autumn (2m 11s):
Yeah. I would say, I think I've had more votes than you. So I think they are very wise.

Jesper (2m 17s):
No, I don't think so. Is he already with disagreeing?

Autumn (2m 21s):
I have more competition in me than I thought so we'll be good.

Jesper (2m 27s):
Yeah. Apparently, so.

Autumn (2m 31s):
So how are things over on your side of the planet?

Jesper (2m 35s):
No, it's, it's it's good. We actually started, well, we talked about this a bit offline, but we did stop looking at a house because there's just not enough space in this apartment. I mean the location of this apartment, it's, it's like 200 meters from the beach wonderful location, but it's just, it's too small for the four of us. So we, yeah, we started looking at some new houses and we found one that is newly renovated. It was a completely overhauled about a year ago. So it, it looks really nice and we are looking at it last week and we felt like, ah, this is quite good.

Jesper (3m 22s):
The price on the house is quite high. So we want that of course reduced. But just to be on the safe side, we, we hired a building inspector and we went out with him the other day to just go through the house and just check if there's nothing wrong with it. Some hidden stuff that you don't know about. Those kinds of interesting.

Autumn (3m 43s):
Yeah. Some of my favorite parts of looking at houses.

Jesper (3m 47s):
Yeah. But he found mold in the attic. Oh no. And he found the fact that the, I don't know what the correcting this term is, but basically not the roof, but like the inner inner structure of the roof.

Autumn (4m 7s):
Like the trusses or just the plywood?

Jesper (4m 13s):
The, the supporting structure. It's, it's a there's mold in it. And he even found water on some of the supporting beans. So it's, it's a matter of time before you have water pouring in from the roof. He said, I mean, the only thing that keeps out the water right now is the, the tiles on the roof. So, but if they start leaking or something, then it's going to go straight into the house. So that's of course a huge issue, but it's, it's fixable, but it's expensive. The building inspector said that he estimated it to cost about $60,000 to fix.

Jesper (4m 53s):
So it's not a small expense, but we are actually thinking to put in an offer, but of course we need to have a significant price reduction to counter for this, but we haven't put in the offer yet. So, and I don't know how the selling party will react to, we're going to ask for a huge price reduction. Right. So I don't know how they'll react to that. And maybe, I don't know, we'll see what happens next. So that's where we at. And that's way more exciting on the house front than I expected.

Autumn (5m 27s):
That's really crazy having built and restored houses. Yeah. The roof and the foundation are like two of the places you don't want problems. So, Ooh, no, indeed. But then, I mean, the building inspector said, he says that like, this is what he sees all the time because people are so fixated on isolating houses.

Jesper (5m 49s):
So they just keep isolating more and more and more most offer to make it so tight and tight and tight box as they can. But nobody ever thinks about them. You still need to ensure that there's ventilation, but they never do that. And he says, she said he sees it so many places. And then, you know, a year or two later, then the structure up there, it's wet. It's moldy because of all the condensed that is created as well. And then it's just, yeah, that's very true. So I don't know, but apparently like ventilation, it's not something people think about for some reason, which is a shame because it's, like I said, it's completely renovated like a year ago. So it's really a shame.

Autumn (6m 29s):
Yeah. That is really a shame. But yeah. I mean, it's funny the green houses and stuff, I mean, you want a good insulated core because it's easier to heat or keep cool. But yeah. I mean some of the best houses I knew one of them had a whole house turnover where they had a fan in the attic that could actually exchange all the air with outside air. Like open up all the bottom windows. Yeah. It was like five minutes. I was like, okay, that's a little intense, a half an hour would have probably done fine. But he was like, okay, hot air's out. I was just like, wow. You're you're into ventilation to more than I that's a little extreme.

Jesper (7m 9s):
Yeah. Anything exciting going on on your end?

Autumn (7m 13s):
Oh, well, one thing I'm going to share with you in, in when we talk about internet, which I actually meant to share last time, but I'm kind of glad I waited. I have a, I have, I have a show and tell, but well, yeah, so right now I can see two big things have happened. So one is, my husband is up in Maine and I wanted to give a shout out to him because he passed his main guide, which is a registered Maine guide. It's actually the oldest guide license in the United States and one of the hardest to get, and he just passed a sea kayaking test. So he is now a registered Maine guide for a C I kayaking recreation. Oh, whitewater. I just, he's got a ton of them now. So really kind of tickled that he's doing so well up there.

Autumn (7m 55s):
So shout out to him for being awesome. And then the other thing is, I'm so excited for him. He's up there obviously guiding right now and in high demand. So I'm quite happy for him. He's actually, as we speak, he is leading a moose tour, hopefully on a canoe off looking for moose in the wilds of Maine. I think that's not a bad job description. Yeah. I, I need to maybe rethink doing that a little bit every once in a while to get my license to oh, and then the other thing, well in your world.

Jesper (8m 31s):
Yeah. Well, dragon success,

Autumn (8m 34s):
That's better than mooses true. We'd go looking for dragons as well as moose. Maybe it could be fun, but then I wanted to let people know if I actually started a new exercise program, which shouldn't be as exciting as it is, but I there's gotta be other people in the world who one just feel they're busy all the time. And for me to go to a gym is like a half an hour drive. Not even counting like the time to exercise and then come back. So I don't have two hours a day to do this. So it's been such a struggle. And I actually just found a new online program that's from home and it's called high intensity interval training.

Autumn (9m 18s):
So hit HIIT and I had never heard of it before it. Oh my God. It's awesome. Because I also get bored really easy if no one has realized that here yet. I don't know. I'm good at writing books, but you know, put me on a treadmill for 20 minutes and I would rather jump off a cliff. I'd actually, I'd love to jump off a cliff, give me a squirrel suit. And I would still jump off a cliff. Not a problem, but exercise. No, but this is great because it's like literally 20 seconds. Some of them do it for one minute on one minute off, but I'm on one where it's 20 seconds for three different exercises in a row. So it's 20, 20, 20 and a 1 minute break.

Autumn (10m 0s):
I didn't know. You could get so tired in 18 minutes, but it's fantastic. So if anyone else is out there and they don't have time to do that and they want to exercise, look up, hit training or send me a message. I'll tell you which program I joined. It was like 50 bucks. It's a diet plan as well as an exercise plan. And I feel fantastic and it's been seven days and you can combine it with the habit RPG app that I mentioned last week. Oh, that's you're really flying. That would be kind of cool.

Jesper (10m 35s):
Yeah. Yeah.

Narrator (10m 39s):
Oh, we go on the internet with the yam writing fantasy podcast.

Jesper (10m 44s):
So you have something to share first before I just do a little speechy afterwards.

Autumn (10m 50s):
Yes. I meant this is not, well, it has something to do with fantasy, but not with writing this time, unless you're talking about book covers, but I'm actually teaching a class on photo compositing, which is how I make all my covers. If anyone's a fan of my work. And as I just put on Instagram, there's nothing more fun than show and tell. So I actually did my book covers in posters for, for the course. So if anyone is watching on YouTube, you get to see the pictures, but I just, they just came today. This is the secret one. I don't think I've even shown you this one. This is another. I just was started working with about a month ago.

Autumn (11m 30s):
The camera a bit longer. Well, especially cause I have a light glaring on it, but it's called the silver web. That was a fantastic one. But yeah, so I just did four cover for pictures. So I'm so excited. They're going to be shown in a gallery and then I'll be teaching a photo compositing course in October. So if anyone else is in New England and the Brattleboro, Vermont area, and they want to know how to, to make covers through photo compositing or just fun crap and photo compositing, the Vermont center for photography, and you can see the course I'm teaching and I cannot wait.

Autumn (12m 10s):
It'll be so much fun.

Jesper (12m 12s):
Oh, nice. Cool. I just wanted to mention that the, I checked earlier this morning and it's been quite a while since we had anyone leaving a review of the podcast. So I just wanted to mention that we would love to have more people find us. And one of the best ways is if this podcast gets some reviews that will trigger the algorithms that suggest our podcast to new listeners and it'll basically become easier to find us. So just a small request to our dear listeners here. If you can please go into your podcast app and leave a rating of the podcast or even better write just a short review, you could just say something about why you listen and what you get from this podcast.

Jesper (12m 56s):
And that would be tremendously helpful for us. So it will only take you probably 30 seconds. So if you can please help us with that one, we would be so happy.

Autumn (13m 7s):
We would definitely appreciate it.

Narrator (13m 9s):
And on to today's topic.

Jesper (13m 13s):
Right? So I think once in a while can dream about having like super powers. But the thing is, what if you got the lamest and most ridiculous powers of them all.

Autumn (13m 28s):
This was a fun one to think about. And research. I did do a little bit of research, but I also tried to come up with some sort of original ones. But yeah, I, I went to, at the end, I found a list. And while to see if you found this same list, but it, it was huge. It was probably over 50 or 60 ones. And there were whole layers of those as well. Yeah. Yeah. They were just, I, it was... yeah. They were just fun to take a break and read through them. So this was kind of fun. One to do. It'll be interesting to see which ones you came up with and I take it. We're going to go from least worst to worst Worst?

Jesper (14m 7s):
Yeah, indeed. Yes, let's do that. And that's usually when we do these top 10 lists, let's alternate. Okay. Sharing one of the worst powers each and then we'll empty out our lists and then we'll need to see who actually won here. So, I mean, I did some internet research like you and all of my ones here are not, let's say something I just made up. It's actually something that exists because I thought that was quite funny to have some, some, some stuff that exists out there, but it's just completely ridiculous.

Autumn (14m 40s):
Oh, this will be interesting. Some of mine were based on it, but actually most of mine were just ones. I thought kind of my opinion that I thought this one would really sucks. You just dig to see what we have and we have any overlap and that'll be, that'd be telling.

Jesper (14m 60s):
Yeah, absolutely.

Autumn (15m 1s):
And it's been too. Right. So we did this. I don't remember who went first. The last time we should have brought a coin say as well.

Jesper (15m 10s):
I don't remember. Hmm. So yeah. I don't know. Well, I think I said that last time as well. I don't know if it's best to go first or last. It depends on how much confidence once has in, in, in my own list here.

Autumn (15m 27s):
Oh, well, if you're not ready, you know, I'm never afraid to jump in so I can go.

Jesper (15m 34s):
Okay, cool.

Autumn (15m 36s):
All right. So what would be number five, my least worst power that I thought would really suck to have is the power of nullifying. So this would be that you don't really have any other spells that you can cast no magic. You can throw, but you can break anyone. Else's I just think that would really suck. You'd see these people doing these marvelous, amazing spells, and you basically this like seething, angry person going break, break.

Jesper (16m 4s):
You had a downer

Autumn (16m 5s):
The downer in the room. I just thought that would really just not feel fulfilling at all for a magic power.

Jesper (16m 16s):
No, that's true. But of course, if you are fighting like Sauron

Autumn (16m 20s):
on or something, then that would be quite nice to nullify his powers. That would be, I have to admit, I didn't think about in terms of fighting. I just thought it was terms of every day. So it was my least worst, but yeah, I, it would be very, it would be like the person you want by your side, during a fight, for sure. Be my shield maiden at any day.

Jesper (16m 41s):
The, the warrior of the potty. Definitely wouldn't want this guy, a woman next to him.

Autumn (16m 46s):
For sure. Friends—besties.

Jesper (16m 51s):
You just stand there, say anything, just stand there and just nullify do your thing.

Autumn (16m 57s):
I'll give you a shout out at the end, you know?

Jesper (16m 59s):
Yeah. Great. Yeah. You'll, you'll get a grapefruit for the work. Here you go.

Autumn (17m 9s):
That would be sucky. You made it worse. Amazing.

Jesper (17m 18s):
Okay. So you want my number five?

Autumn (17m 20s):
Yeah. I want your number five.

Jesper (17m 23s):
Okay. My first entry actually comes from the DC comic books. Okay. And this superhero is all the way he's willing to lend a hand to anyone in need.

Autumn (17m 38s):
Okay. Doesn't sound so bad.

Jesper (17m 41s):
That sounds good, right? Yeah. Well not when you learn that this is the arm fall off boy.

Autumn (17m 51s):
Seriously?

Jesper (17m 52s):
This is, this has to be one of the worst superpowers ever because this superhero, he can detach his arm.

Autumn (18m 1s):
Why?

Jesper (18m 4s):
That's exactly my thinking. Why I came up with that. Were they wrong? I mean, why would that ever be?

Autumn (18m 16s):
Can you do something with this beat a villain over the head?

Jesper (18m 19s):
Yeah. I guess you can use it as a clop on something and just a beat the SU super villain in his head with on Amazon. But you can do that anyway. You don't need to detach you opt to do that. It's called a fist. That's just stupid. I told him yes.

Autumn (18m 39s):
Even as a writing standpoint, I just, why?

Jesper (18m 44s):
The arm fall off boy. That's what he's called.

Autumn (18m 49s):
I can see why I gave up on comic books when I did. It's really horrible. Is that modern? Or is this like something from like the forties or so?

Jesper (18m 59s):
I don't know how old he is, but I guess people can Google that. But, but that, that was only my number five. So you can see what this is going.

Autumn (19m 7s):
Yeah. I see you. You, you found inspiration pretty heavily. I should get points for at least coming up with my own, not—

Jesper (19m 14s):
True.

Autumn (19m 14s):
You know, pulling off of a comic somewhere, but that one is, I don't even know how that, I mean, I can see someone spitting that out as a writer saying, Hey, we need a blah, but it should have been cut before it ever made it into a plot.

Jesper (19m 29s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. It makes zero sense.

Autumn (19m 34s):
I, this is why if you're a writer and you're really stumbling for ideas, stop and think before you create something this bad. Okay. Please get a beta reader. Just trust me. All right.

Jesper (19m 49s):
And come up wwith a better name that fall off boy.

Autumn (19m 53s):
Yeah. Can we go for literal naming here? Seriously. Jonathan would be better. Just kill

Jesper (19m 60s):
off. All right, Adam, the arm.

Autumn (20m 6s):
That's too close to it. Isn't there Adam, the aunt. I know too close.

Jesper (20m 13s):
Okay. Number four.

Autumn (20m 15s):
Number four. This is what I actually, I think I vaguely remember from a Star Trek episode, but it's, it was sort of a power that came around in the eighties. I heard a couple of places, but it's empathetic healing. So you can, the wielder can heal anyone, but only by taking the injury into themselves. So, you know, if it's a cut, they get the cut. If we know they were stabbed in the kidney, they're now stabbed in the kidney. If the other person's dying of cancer. Well, now you're dying of cancer. It's really, I mean, it's a, self-sacrificing sort of ability and I just thought, you know, that's great. You can save your teammate from dying.

Autumn (20m 56s):
If you die, I'm not into self-sacrificing.

Jesper (20m 60s):
You can only do it once you don't want.

Autumn (21m 2s):
I mean, it's fine if you're like just cutting scrapes, but then you're got to cut that you've got to heal and maybe get infected. I think that's just, no, I don't want that power if that's my only magic, I think I'd rather not have magic. The chance of doing stuff, not knowing someone was sick with something horrible and healing them and then being sick with something horrible. I mean.

Jesper (21m 25s):
OH my God, that would be bad. Yeah. No. All right. That, yeah, that would be bad.

Autumn (21m 30s):
Yeah. I think the consequences it's I can see that. Oh, well, thank you. I'm glad you agree. That one kind of sucks.

Jesper (21m 37s):
No, yeah. That's right.

Autumn (21m 43s):
OK, it was your number four.

Jesper (21m 47s):
Okay. Number four. Yes. Admit that there could be certain and probably like very specific situations where this superpower could be somewhat useful. But once you hear what it is, I think you would prefer to, like you said before, almost have no superpower instead. Geez. Okay. So are you familiar with Marvel star Fox?

Autumn (22m 18s):
Vaguely. I can't remember the details, but I know I've heard the name.

Jesper (22m 26s):
So stock has, he has the power to excite pleasure in which basically means that he can make people fall madly in love with him. I mean, for us, regular people, you might, you might be able to think of some sort of situation where you think that could be useful for you benefit in one way or another. It's still quite nefarious, I guess. But, but as a superhero, I mean, are you going to go out fighting crime by having all the bad guys fall in love with you? I just don't understand. How is that helpful?

Autumn (23m 5s):
It's very efficient. Just like everyone though. I mean, I agree as a villain. I mean, you can go get the people who have tons of money and power and just have them want to give everything to you. It's fantastic. Easy. But as a hero, I mean, by definition, you shouldn't be using and manipulating people. So yeah, unless you're going to go make all the villains fall in love with you. And Dr. Doom is not going to annihilate everyone on the planet because then he might kill you.

Jesper (23m 37s):
Then you have all the bad guys in the world running around in your heels, like after you, because they all want to be with you. It's just like, oh my God. I told him very helpful.

Autumn (23m 48s):
You can play them off of each other. So you just get, oh, you know, he likes me better than you, or you.

Jesper (23m 56s):
That's just mean.

Autumn (23m 58s):
That's my secret. I'm actually a cruel person underneath it all. Or at least I'm cool. I have no problem being mean to characters.

Jesper (24m 10s):
That's that's true. I know.

Autumn (24m 13s):
Yeah. I think I would have to go with becoming a super villain if that was my power. I mean, maybe I try to find some good to do with it. Get lots of philanthropy going, I guess, grasping at straws. I'm thinking, okay. If you could make Bezos fall in love with you and donate his millions, like his ex-wife, the world would be a better place.

Jesper (24m 42s):
All right. Fair enough.

Autumn (24m 45s):
All right. Do you want my number three then?

Jesper (24m 50s):
Yeah. Alright.

Autumn (24m 51s):
I don't have a good lead up to this one. This one was kind of an idea that came to me and I thought of the, what are the consequences of this when it's sort of the opposite of my number five? So this one is the power of permanence. So any spell you cast can't be undone and will last forever. So if you change a bird that just fell off a cliff or change your friend who just fall off a cliff into a bird, they will always be a bird. You cannot change them back. So if people are starving, so you can make plants grow, they're just going to keep growing and producing fruit and like 200 centuries from now, you know, there'll be a whole city built up around your magic tree that never stops producing fruit.

Autumn (25m 38s):
If you make it rain, it's going to be raining in that spot forever. And just be flooding forever. You can't undo the spell.

Jesper (25m 50s):
So, yeah. Okay. Well, actually this is going to need some to some interesting scenarios. So if you made it rain and then if you know, it's gonna rain forever, so you start building light, then you make a, I don't know, like a lava pool or something. I don't know. Oh, shit. No, that's not going to work. So you build something, you just keep adding new magical effects, try to nullify the other one. It's just going to be worse and worse and worse.

Autumn (26m 15s):
It is the consequences of this one would just be a nightmare. I mean, it could be quite fun to write maybe a really short story on like how sucky this would be. You're going to eventually just trap yourself almost with everything you're gonna have to be to...

Jesper (26m 31s):
Actually, that's not a bad idea.

Autumn (26m 34s):
I'm glad you like it.

Jesper (26m 36s):
That's actually a good, short story idea. I think its quite cool.

Autumn (26m 41s):
There you go. If you want to write a short little Vela story for you there you have. But yeah, I think I eventually you'd be like, you're gonna be afraid to do anything. You'd be like, thinking through all the potential. If I actually do this, what's going to happen? And then you have those gut instinct ones where it's like, oh, I see my friend now, my friend is a seagull. Shit.

Jesper (27m 4s):
And like, and then you feel bad about him being a seagull. So how can I make it ha well, I should probably just make sure there's lots of fish for him. And then, and then there's fish everywhere. Doesn't know, this is not good.

Autumn (27m 16s):
Too many cats will come for the fish.

Jesper (27m 19s):
Yeah, you should put that on one of your sticky notes for a Vella story, because that's actually a good idea. It wouldn't be fun.

Autumn (27m 27s):
All right. Well, I already have it on a sticky note. I'll move it to the Vella. I story ideas. Sticky note. How's that?

Jesper (27m 33s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good idea.

Autumn (27m 36s):
I'm glad you liked that one.

Jesper (27m 39s):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, well, my number three is not going to make it into a short story for sure.

Autumn (27m 46s):
Probably should not have made it into a comic. I'm guessing.

Jesper (27m 50s):
Yeah. Well, I just had to include this one on my list. To be honest, he, this character comes from hip, the Hitman series. Okay. And he's a member of something called section eight, which is like a group of superheroes.

Autumn (28m 4s):
Okay.

Jesper (28m 5s):
That part doesn't really matter, but I'll give you his name.

Autumn (28m 9s):
Okay.

Jesper (28m 10s):
And then see if you can guess what his superpower is.

Autumn (28m 13s):
Okay. I ready.

Jesper (28m 17s):
He's called dog welder.

Autumn (28m 21s):
Hm. Please tell me he does not weld dogs together?

Jesper (28m 29s):
Not quite, but he's ability is that he can weld the heads of dogs on the faces of evildoers.

Autumn (28m 43s):
Were the dogs, real dogs, and were living and are now dead?

Jesper (28m 47s):
Yeah, I think so. But no. How is that going to achieve anything to just weld a dog's head onto somebody? I don't understand how that's going to help anybody.

Autumn (28m 58s):
Well, if it changes the villain's personality in there now got a dog brain. Maybe they'll stop doing what they were doing, but I just see lots of innocent animals being killed here. I don't like this one.

Jesper (29m 17s):
How is that a superhero power?

Autumn (29m 20s):
It sounds it's sounds horrible. I hope I'm glad my dog is asleep. I think you'd give him nightmares. I don't like this one, it's horrible. It's really stupid. But it's just mean, I don't believe in cruelty to animals and you're the vegetarian.

Jesper (29m 41s):
Yeah. I'm vegan even.

Autumn (29m 44s):
Oh, I don't like that one. No, I agree. I don't see how that's. I would have to read the comic book episode, but why turning someone into someone's head into it?

Jesper (29m 56s):
Yeah. I wouldn't even want to read that.

Autumn (30m 4s):
You know, you know, if you meet him a fish head, at least they would have to like jump into the water so they can breathe. I mean, this is... Why? Again another one that should not have made it off the table. Just the brainstorming session that day was really bad. Really, really bad.

Jesper (30m 26s):
Yeah. There must have been drunk or so may, maybe all of these came out of the same writing room. Like they were at a Christmas party and everybody was drunk on eggnog or something.

Autumn (30m 36s):
Yeah. I'm thinking they might've been doing LCD—sorry, LSD for this one. I somewhat had a little bit too much of something and had a bad vision. And they thought it sounded really cool, but you did not translate well.

Jesper (30m 56s):
No, I agree. It's just too weird that it's just really horrible. We're getting to the top of the list, now.

Autumn (31m 2s):
We are. Are you ready for my number two? Say you're ready.

Jesper (31m 9s):
All right.

Autumn (31m 9s):
So this one is the power, which I actually did get inspired by, by one of those posts. But this one is the power of imperceptibility. So in other words, you are immediately forgotten as soon as you leave, like the person's vision. So it doesn't matter how cool or anything you do. You just, you're never remembered. You know, heroes want to be remembered. I mean, that's half the, you know, the superhero, the whole nine yards, the suit you want to be remembered, you're this brand. But instead, no matter what you do, as soon as you leave the room, everyone forgets that you are the one who did it.

Autumn (31m 51s):
So like your friends, the other people on the team, they're all going to get the accolades. And everyone's going to forget you even exist. Not to mention just like the problems. Like, can you even have a long-term relationship or do you even have friends because no one remembers your real. I just, I can't imagine the loneliness of this kind of a power that you could be the most marvelous. You could have God-like abilities, but everyone was thinking it was God. They wouldn't think it was you.

Jesper (32m 26s):
Yeah. I think if you, if you a villain, I mean, at least if you could just have the powerful one week, that might be nice. You know, you could go and steal a lot of money and everything, and nobody will know that it was you anyway. They all forgotten you. But to have that, even as a villain for life, your entire life, it's going to be very lonely,

Autumn (32m 48s):
Very lonely and very—

Jesper (32m 50s):
Just, it's actually a bit sad.

Autumn (32m 52s):
It is. It's a very sad one. I mean, it hurts as an individual. It hurt your ego. You'd be lonely, no connections. I mean, if you love someone and fell in love, you would have to make sure they stayed, you know, you stayed in their line of sight forever. And let's just assume that blinking doesn't count. Let's just presence or maybe 20 foot vicinity or something. I mean, the stress of that. Little talk about writing for tension, though.

Jesper (33m 23s):
Yeah. But also think about how annoying it would be for the other person. You always there, like, look at me, look at me. No, no, don't look away. Look at me all the time. It would be like.

Autumn (33m 33s):
Yeah, I just want to go, you know, shower by myself or go out with the girls. He's got to go. And would you believe it, though? I mean, that's just, it, you have no proof other than, you know, watching with friends or something, I guess you could, you could prove it that way by having a friend come in and have, you know, that person walk out of the room and come back in like, oh, who are you? Why are you here with my best friend? Yeah, I know. Oh, it just be when

Jesper (33m 59s):
You don't have a friend, well, I don't have a friend.

Autumn (34m 2s):
So no significant other like, so you did find that one who didn't want to leave your site and just the test you could do, like you could have another, a third person walk in the room and just be like, oh, I didn't even know you were there just to prove that it really is truly, will happen that way. I don't know. I mean, you're, they're going to be considered insane or you're not going to consider you at all.

Jesper (34m 24s):
Yeah. Okay. That that's, that's sad. Okay.

Autumn (34m 29s):
You think that once I wait till my number one...

Jesper (34m 34s):
Okay. Let's do number two. Yeah. My number two is not sad. It actually made me laugh instead of okay. Okay. So this character who is a member of the Great Lakes Avengers. Okay. That's sounds pretty cool.

Autumn (34m 51s):
Maybe, actually I'm not so sure of the great lake. I don't know to like, are they just located in the U S with the great lakes and they don't go any further or it's a small team and they don't know global, global reach yet.

Jesper (35m 8s):
No, indeed. But this superhero, he can transform himself into a door and then you can let other characters walk through him into an adjoining room. Hmm. What do you think about that?

Autumn (35m 27s):
Can't you just use it the door, unless maybe the door is locked and this way you don't have to worry about unlocking it? Like, if you forgot your key, it'd be so useful.

Jesper (35m 38s):
Yeah. I mean, if it was like, you could walk through and then you could like teleport somewhere. Pretty damn cool.

Autumn (35m 48s):
Yeah.

Jesper (35m 49s):
But the thing is that you can only go into an adjoining room and that's pretty lame.

Autumn (35m 56s):
Yeah.

Jesper (35m 57s):
Also he's called doorman.

Autumn (36m 3s):
They really need to work on some of these. Yeah. You know, a chainsaw works pretty well too. If you don't already have a door. A door actually works... A window? They could have called them window, man.

Jesper (36m 23s):
Yeah. Yeah.

Autumn (36m 26s):
Short of wanting to be again, a villain. That way you could just lean against the bank vault and just like, do you know, in and out,

Jesper (36m 34s):
But you have to, you have to get to the wall that is around the bank vault. Otherwise it doesn't help anything.

Autumn (36m 40s):
And he can't go through his own doorway. I take it. That would be too easy.

Jesper (36m 46s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think he, people can go through him, but yeah,

Autumn (36m 54s):
What's the point. I mean, it's not even like a novelty trick. I can see the kids going, you know, he's like showing off saying, "Hey, look, you can go through me through as a door!" And you know, just some bully going, I can use the door and I don't need you. I, yeah. Short of locking my keys out of the house or does it work for cars? You know, that would be useful.

Jesper (37m 19s):
Otherwise probably he could, he could have a job as a locksmith.

Autumn (37m 25s):
I was just going to say he would have a great job as like, for people who have lost their keys and need to get into some place. Yeah.

Jesper (37m 32s):
But otherwise, yeah, not to excuse really? No. Otherwise he's just going to be that really annoying guy at the party. He was like, are you going to the bathroom? Hey, wait, wait, wait, let me, let me, you can walk through me. It's like, no, thank you. Yeah, please do. Please walk through me.

Autumn (37m 53s):
I just be like, ill. I see why he didn't make it to like one of the big leagues of superheroes, because really

Jesper (38m 2s):
Well, you no, with all the, those modeling, you know, my opinion about Marvel and DC. So I would not be surprised if you find him in a superhero movie theater near you sometime in the near future. Sure.

Autumn (38m 15s):
I do not miss going to the movies anymore. Thank you. I'll just go read a book or write a book that doesn't have really lame superheroes.

Jesper (38m 25s):
Yeah.

Autumn (38m 26s):
All right. Are you ready for my worst power? My number one, the tragic and this one I just wrote, oh, it's four, four words long. Anything you touched dies. Okay. It's a power. I would assume that it is, it didn't happen at obviously until after birth let's hope, because that would really, that wouldn't have worked very well.

Jesper (39m 0s):
Yeah. But do you have to touch it with your skin or can you put on gloves then?

Autumn (39m 6s):
I would assume skin. I think we'll go with that. So yeah, it would be, you would have to be always covered in gloves or latex or something so that you're not physically touching anyone, but again, the stress of this one, my goodness, if you get a hole in your glove and then you grab your best friend's hand or yeah. You know, it's just another isolating one where this one's not quite as isolating as the other one, but the results, instead of just being forgotten, you actually could kill people you really care about. And I think I would rather have power.

Jesper (39m 44s):
Even when, well, what if you accidentally touched yourself?

Autumn (39m 50s):
I would assume... I think I will have to grant immunity. I did some of the lists I read were, I remember one of them was, you know, you weren't, a lot of them were like, you were not immune to the dire things that you could do. Like if you sweat acid, but you're not immune to it. That would really suck as a power. I don't know what the point would be because you'd slowly, you dissolve yourself as suffers. The second you worked out or something, he would slowly melt. That would be horrible. But I thought this one just, yeah, you're immune to it. You can't kill yourself, but you know, anything else you accidentally, you can't touch a dog. You can't touch a butterfly. You can't touch a plant.

Autumn (40m 29s):
Nothing. You only can eat, touch, anything you touch has to be already be dead or you will kill it, which at least, you know, great for sanitation. If you needed to like clean a whole bunch of water, just touch it. It'll always be dropped them as a major filter.

Jesper (40m 48s):
Sort of like it's the Aquaman basically.

Autumn (40m 54s):
And a whole new level of Aquaman Britta. And he was just a filter. Let him otherwise just leave him alone. Don't let them touch anything. Or anyone just be horrible. If he fell in the ocean, I wonder how big of an impact it would have to things around him.

Jesper (41m 9s):
It's just true. Just yeah, no, that, that would be pretty bad. I mean, at least, but at least you can, you know, wear gloves and try to prevent it. But of course, the problem is if you go, let's say you go, you go to the airport and airport security says, remove your gloves. No, I'm not going to remove your gloves or I'll do it for you.

Autumn (41m 32s):
No, no, please. Don't, I will remove them. Just I don't touch me. I just, the stress of it. I talk about, it'd be like anxiety, man, if you had a name, but it just wouldn't be bad. It's so bad.

Jesper (41m 46s):
Yeah. Yeah. That would be bad. Yeah. I'll give you that. That's not, that's not a good situation to be in.

Autumn (41m 52s):
I thought that would really be a sucky power

Jesper (41m 54s):
But I mean, I'm sensing a bit of a theme here, Autumn, because you keep coming up with something where people would be very lonely and isolated and I don't know what's going on.

Autumn (42m 5s):
Well, those are obviously is this, this is a list of the worst things I can imagine. Obviously, being alone and isolated are on the top of my list of not a great way to be. How's that?

Jesper (42m 17s):
Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. I just keep coming up with all the useless stuff instead. And this one is 100% completely orderly, useless.

Autumn (42m 30s):
Oh, so, all right. I tried to imagine what this one is.

Jesper (42m 36s):
You will never guess it.

Autumn (42m 37s):
Probably not. I'm thinking like you can magically mix cocktails, but that could actually be fun.

Jesper (42m 45s):
No, that could be useful.

Autumn (42m 47s):
Good for parties.

Jesper (42m 49s):
The number one on my list is one where, and keep in mind that we are talking in the context of a superhero here.

Autumn (42m 58s):
Okay.

Jesper (43m 0s):
So that's why so useless, right? I mean, if you were a priest or a preacher or something, then maybe you could use it.

Autumn (43m 9s):
Alright.

Jesper (43m 9s):
This is an interesting character is called Bible man too. And he actually even got his own video game.

Autumn (43m 20s):
What? all right.

Jesper (43m 23s):
And his super power is to know the Bible by heart. Woo hoo.

Autumn (43m 33s):
I'm speechless. Really a good at memorization. And which edition of the Bible? I mean, like the original that could at least be kind of interesting or are you talking about like the king James?

Jesper (43m 50s):
Well, I don't, I don't know, but he just knows the Bible by heart and he knows every phrase and every line by heart and he can recite the whole thing. So I guess if you preach it, I would be nice as a superhero. I have no idea how that will be.

Autumn (44m 5s):
Unless you're fighting demons. I can't imagine, or trying to make the angels like really like, oh wow. You're, you're good.

Jesper (44m 14s):
He's impressive.

Autumn (44m 17s):
Angel brownie points! Why? You're really going to annoy people and you get into the wrong country where they're not Christian. You're, you're going be... I hope you can run fast and you're going to really be in trouble.

Jesper (44m 39s):
No, I really don't understand why that will be helpful at all.

Autumn (44m 44s):
I'm guessing a Christian White man came up with that one. I don't know why, but in maybe in like the fifties.

Jesper (44m 52s):
I don't know. It does not sound like yeah.

Autumn (44m 57s):
He's in there. Same writing room as the other ones. No, this is not something I think that the world needs in 2021, you have a less than coronavirus.

Jesper (45m 8s):
Maybe I actually have a, I have an honorable mention as well.

Autumn (45m 16s):
Oh, I can't wait to didn't make the top five.

Jesper (45m 22s):
No, but it was more like, because this is technically, I guess not sort of a superpower in that sense because the, the character can actually, well, he can't use it on purpose. So in that sense, it doesn't feel like a superpower, but I just thought it was so incredibly stupid. I wanted to mention it anyway.

Autumn (45m 47s):
Okay.

Jesper (45m 48s):
Yeah. So this is a character called Sabu. And Sabu. He is part of an Indian comic book and he is a giant from the planet Jupiter.

Autumn (45m 60s):
Okay.

Jesper (46m 0s):
And he's power is that whenever he gets angry, a volcano on Jupiter erupts. So eruptions might be pretty cool, I guess, but not when it's on another planet, just get you home to whatever you're doing. Sabu. He is on earth.

Jesper (46m 42s):
And then when he gets angry, I will kind of on Jupiter. But I mean, what is the point? Who cares? That'd be another one.

Autumn (46m 50s):
I'm like, Hey, look, put this telescope or this satellite this way, watch this. Just why?

Jesper (46m 59s):
Look what I can do. Okay. Yeah.

Autumn (47m 7s):
I, I just, that one is probably one of the most pointless powers I can imagine. That's like saying, "Hey, I've got the power of gravity!" And you're like, "I don't care unless I'm in space."

Jesper (47m 27s):
Okay. So let's just summarize before we conclude who had the worst list here. So on my list, I have the on arm fall off boy, I have the star Fox who can excite pleasure in others and I have the dog welder and then I have the doorman and then I have the Bible, man. That's pretty bad.

Autumn (47m 59s):
All right. Mine were nullifying, empathetic healing, the power of permanence, imperceptive—insperceptibility. And then anything you touched dies. tou would win the most useless powerless. But I think for like truly worst consequences, I think I'm the winner there. Sorry.

Jesper (48m 26s):
Yeah, no, I actually agree with that. I was thinking of saying the same, I mean the most ridiculous, stupid powers. I think my list is more stupid than yours, but if you want to have really, really dire consequences and live the rest of your life alone or in isolation and your list is definitely worse.

Autumn (48m 47s):
I like torturing characters. I'm sorry.

Jesper (48m 51s):
Yeah. Well, I guess it all comes down to what the scope of this list actually was. I guess we don't even know ourselves.

Autumn (48m 58s):
I guess not. We wrote two different lists, but it was fun to go through.

Jesper (49m 4s):
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So next Monday, we are going to share this best things you can do every day to become a better writer. So we'll see you then,

Narrator (49m 19s):
If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy for as little as a dollar a month. you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

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