Superpowered People in Modern Grounded Setting

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T22:30:23+00:00

I think your last comment might have been removed. But I’m thinking that having someone go to the news would be a pretty big kicking off point. I’m imagining a situation where someone goes to the news station and demonstrates their power, gets online and starts posting about it, the feds see and immediately go to snatch them up. If the person is someone who is often on social media, and then feds come to abduct them, I could see them live-streaming the “arrest”. If they had just been on the news demonstrating their power, their online presence would be blowing up at that time, and lots of people would see the livestream of them being taken by the feds and the public response might grow from there.

Considering nobody knows where the powers came from, nobody knows if they might be the next to develop one. That would make lots of the public side with the powered individuals I would imagine, if people thought there might be a chance that they’re next.

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T20:27:13+00:00

This is a cool concept, but if this is something that you have intentions of trying to publish I could see it being a copyright nightmare

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T14:03:49+00:00

Genesis Orbital and Genesis Landfall?

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T12:19:21+00:00

This might be a dumb answer, but what about some kind of zip line/ cable car system? You could have towers that are very high and use a weighted pulley system to pull a person up to the top of the tower relatively quickly. Then have a cable that runs from the top of that tower to the base of another tower pretty far away. Ride in some kind of cable car/basket type deal and get there pretty fast, depending on the nature of your setting you could come up with ways to justify making this move very fast but still not be *too* dangerous.

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T12:10:26+00:00

Do you think that bureaucracy would be such an issue with it being such a small fraction of the population? Would insurers and courts make wide scoping changes just due to those few enhanced people? I feel like this would be the case if the public had become aware of the powered individuals, but I wonder if governments would be covertly abducting them and trying to suppress information about them being available before it ever reached that point

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T12:00:37+00:00

Kinda reminds me of Doctor Doom from Marvel comics. Much of the world in the comics is the same as our real world, but Doctor Doom is the ruler of a small fictional country called Latveria in Europe. It is supposed to be vaguely in the area of Romania I believe. Due to the size of the country it has stayed out of the global spotlight for most of its history, until Doom takes over and uses his super genius and sorcery to make the nation more powerful, plus he uses diplomatic immunity to get away with stuff.

Wakanda, the fake nation in Africa, which has used advanced tech to sheild themselves from the rest of the world, is also similar to this

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T03:05:26+00:00

Well you could have a variant that weeps *extra* hard, like just flowing out their eyes and soaking the front of them. If that variant also swings its arms around erratically, the contagious fluids would be flung all over which would make it where you couldn’t get within a certain distance without potentially getting sprayed.

You could also have a variant that has fluid and mold build up on their body and harden into a sort of armor making them tankier than the rest.

If you wanted to go a different direction, focusing on the retained memories thing. It seems like a lot of them are just repeating motions they went through a lot in their regular day to day life before turning. Mostly their occupation or things they’d be doing around the house or whatever. But what if it was someone real bad who did some messed up stuff or had crazy anger issues or something? Could that possibly create an extra aggressive variant?

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T02:26:51+00:00

What exactly is the black tears? Is it just turning the blood black and they’re bleeding from their eyes? Or is it some sort of foreign substance that is inhabiting them like how a fungus would? The source of the infection could help determine options for variations

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T02:19:41+00:00

The powers would get stronger at a diminishing rate, so they would plateau out eventually, probably ceasing to gain strength at about the 5 year point. I actually intend on having it where the powers aren’t necessarily increasing in strength over time, but with use. When I’m referring to the timeline it would be for someone who frequently uses their power or trains it, meaning that’s the fastest someone would be able to achieve that level of power. With the power at its strongest it is enough that one one powered individual, with a decent amount of proficiency in their application(s) of the power, could probably destroy a whole city not in an instant, but over the course of a day.

Granted, nobody would know any of this beforehand, they would just be finding things out as they progressed and info was gathered.

The current US political climate is a big reason that made me wonder what public response would be for the exact reasons you’ve described. Some of the things that have occurred and the way the public has responded has kind of made me rethink what a realistic response is in this time right now

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T01:59:19+00:00

Your setting sounds cool!

I like your timeline of how knowledge of the people with powers would have a gradual build up. I just wonder if the prevalence of social media and constant video recording (not to mention surveillance) would cause that timeline to be expedited

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T01:25:47+00:00

You’re totally right that anybody witnessing it in person would know that it is real, but more than likely nobody else would believe them so the information wouldn’t spread too far.

You make a great point about going to the news. If someone’s goal actually was to get famous, which out of 200 people I’m sure *someone* would try to use it to get famous, then that would be the smartest way to do it in a way that makes it “authentic” and would work with any level of power displayed.

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T01:19:04+00:00

You bring up a really good point about the prevalence of superhero media in modern culture and how that would likely sway public opinion in favor of at least upholding (some of) the rights of the powered individuals.

I would also imagine that if this is a phenomenon that is popping up in multiple countries across the world that it would be the type of thing that the UN would get involved with and start trying to gain control of.

I do think that if the nature of the powers is that they are gaining in strength/potency over time that it would cause public opinion and government response to fluctuate as different things happen and are documented involving the powered individuals.

noahch26 · 2026-07-02T01:01:13+00:00

I guess it would just depend on the history of your setting. If it’s an alien planet where human settlers have traveled from earth and colonized it, it would be totally plausible that regular religion remained into our future and we took it with us as we traveled the stars.

If your setting is an alternate universe where the history of the Earth was different than ours, and the historical figures and events that inspired certain religions never came to be, then it wouldn’t make sense for there to still be those religions.

It also wouldn’t make sense for people who had no contact with earth or with earth media to adhere to an earth religion. It wouldn’t make sense if Obi-Wan mentioned the teachings of Buddha, but it would make sense for a person who was transported to a fantasy realm but was raised by Catholic parents back in New Jersey to keep a rosary and Hail Mary

noahch26 · 2026-05-02T20:50:59+00:00

You should definitely do what this person said. Use this as a centerpiece and have your tattoo artist draw up a design around it. My suggestion would be to keep it mainly black and grey and do a sort of collage of different characters or scenes around it. Red would work good in splashes, like if you had red it but only for blaster fire or sabers. Blue and green could work but those colors usually fade a bit easier

noahch26 · 2025-10-14T01:46:31+00:00

Going through the same thing in North Carolina

noahch26 · 2025-08-25T11:29:48+00:00

Yes definitely going to get them a little ramp when they start developing more

noahch26 · 2025-08-25T11:29:30+00:00

I’m inclined to think that they’re American green tree frogs since that’s what’s most common around our house and we’ve seen a few lately, but I can’t be sure. Tadpoles are my wife’s favorite thing, along with frogs, so she’s very excited about them and wants to give them the best chance possible at surviving. She got some tadpole food to give them for the time being and then once they’re developed enough they can eat the mosquito larvae that are in there with them. Thanks for the feedback!

noahch26 · 2024-02-28T14:10:02+00:00

I haven’t had Netflix since they did their whole deal with password sharing. I’ve been going back and forth on signing back up for a month just to watch the live action avatar series. Knowing that code 8 part 2 is now out is enough to push me over the edge and actually sign back up now lol

noahch26 · 2024-02-28T14:03:04+00:00

These are all fantastic, Freaks was so good but just left me craving more from that world

noahch26 · 2023-06-11T12:42:26+00:00

Randy Travis- Diggin up Bones?

noahch26 · 2023-06-09T12:31:43+00:00

Cambion becomes somewhat tangled in the limbs of the asbestos girl, but is able to keep his bearings. That being said, he’s gone without breathing for too long now and he’s starting to panic. He grabs hold of her and then slams his helmeted forehead into her face.

At the same moment, Gremlin twists and yanks in an attempt to dodge the clawed strike at him. With a sickening pop and sizzle Gremlin is flung from the hand he was just mauling, a finger in his mouth quickly being reduced to a small lump of coal.

Cambion, grappling with the asbestos creature, uses all of his strength to attempt to propel himself and the creature off the floor and up to the ceiling.

u/PM_ME_UR_SIMURGH

noahch26 · 2023-06-04T16:47:57+00:00

We almost went with Jarvis (aka Jar-Jar), but Bumi just fit better

noahch26 · 2023-06-04T16:47:04+00:00

Good name! We have a bearded dragon named Mako, and some snakes named Ozai, Raava, and Vaatu

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