Reality Warping Is Not a Toy/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character with powerful mental powers lets their mind wander, and all hell breaks loose.

  • Straight: Adam, aka Omnipotron, can bring into existence anything he can create a mental image of - including idle daydreams, hallucinations, and nightmares.
  • Exaggerated: Every thought in Adam's head becomes reality - his moods, his whims, everything. As a result, Adam is Sealed Evil in a Can, kept in a permanent dreamless coma to protect the world.
  • Downplayed: While Adam is using his powers, he needs to concentrate or his mental wanderings can affect what he's doing.
  • Justified: Adam asked a Jerkass Genie for the ability to create whatever he could imagine.
  • Inverted: Adam can only use his powers when he's not concentrating. The moment he tries to focus, it goes away.
  • Subverted: After a disastrous accident, Adam tells the Cape Busters he lost control of his powers, but once he escapes from containment it turns out he's undergone a Heel Face Turn and did it all on purpose.
  • Double Subverted: ...we later discover he really did, briefly, lose control, but the terror and self-loathing resulting from that accident drove him to Madden Into Misanthropy. He lives in fear of another breakdown.
  • Parodied: Freud Was Right; every time Adam passes a pretty woman, her clothes drop off and nearby oil rigs start spouting.
  • Deconstructed: Ever since the unspoken events of his Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday, Adam has had to take drugs to stop him dreaming. He accepts that this makes it slightly harder to use his powers when he wants to (and that he never sleeps very well) for the life-preserving benefit that he doesn't have to worry about what his powers could do while he's asleep.
  • Reconstructed: The above, but Adam decides No Medication for Me! Oh Crap.
  • Averted: Andy has full control of his Reality Warper powers, and only his conscious attempts to change things have any effect.
  • Enforced: The fundamentalist writers dislike the glorification of witchcraft in popular culture, and want to communicate a Fantastic Aesop about why flawed mortals shouldn't have divine powers.
  • Lampshaded: "I have to keep a clear head, or anything could happen!"
  • Invoked: Villaino, knowing that he has no way of defeating Omnipotron physically, resorts to Mind Rape in order to throw his powers into chaos so he'll stop using them.
  • Exploited: Omnipotron already has unstable powers; all Villaino need do is distract him.
  • Defied: "Mighty J'qhass, grant me the power to change the world with my mind! ...but only when I want to, none of your genie tricks!"
  • Discussed: "I wouldn't want to be in the next room when Adam has a wet dream..."
  • Conversed: "How does that power work, anyway? Does the world literally disappear when he closes his eyes?"
  • Played For Laughs: The results of Adam's wandering mind are mostly harmless and embarrassing, putting him through a Humiliation Conga but not causing anything more lasting or unpleasant than Amusing Injuries to Asshole Victims.
  • Played For Drama: Adam's loss of control, and the vicious cycle created by his resulting Freak-Out, destroy everything he loves and turn him into a rogue Person of Mass Destruction. The story follows his attempts to control his power and find a way to get rid of it altogether.

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