I'm kinda asking about story-breaking powers you avoid, but it could just be abilities that make you uncomfortable writing or exploring.

One thing that makes me uncomfortable for example is telepathy. Not even mind control or psychic surgery levels of mind powers. Just simple mind reading/communicating.

I get very uncomfortable with the idea of someone being able to look into my mind and I get skeeved out when trying to imagine how characters like that would work.

Another uncomfortable power for me is time travel of any kind. Maybe it's the perfectionist in me. The idea of being able to undo any mistake is overwhelming. And I dunno, feels sort of trivializing of people.

What about the rest of you? Are there any powers you prefer not to explore or write about?

  • Tommasi [she/her, pup/pup's]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I agree with time travelling. Including it is just opening such a huge can of worms.

    Another one for me is foretelling/prophecy. Not sure why, but something about it just breaks my suspension of disbelief in a way other forms of magic doesn't. It feels like the character is getting a dm from the author about something that's gonna happen in the future, which is kinda lame even when there's a twist to it.

    • Sea_Gull [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Oooh I hate prophecies and future predictions.

      I can only accept it if it's fallible, or if it's done in a way like high level data processing, like Garnet in Steven Universe.

    • The_Jewish_Cuban [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I agree with the caveat of Dune doing this well in my opinion. For some reason I didn't hate it so much there.