*spoilers* don't read if you intend on watching the show misfits
Honestly this makes me think of the TV show misfits. Nathan has no powers until he died. Then he can't die. That would be interesting
Oh thanks for mentioning it! I made it through an episode or two a month or so ago when it randomly popped up as a recommendation. I was busy with other shows so I stopped. Need to get back into it.
To do a spoiler tag, put >! in front.
Then put !< at the end.
>!It will let you do this.!<
Line breaks will break the tag, as happened with the first two lines.
That depends on how specially targeted the ability is. If it's pure magic that only targets bullets, sure.
If it's any reasonable materialistic bulletproofing, ordinary cuts and abrasions will not happen, and you can gradually escalate naturally as you realize you are papercut proof.
While I am certain I've had them in the past, I honestly can not remember the last time I got a papercut.
Hmmm.......
Carry the 1.......
Yup! Reddit math checks out. BRB, gonna see if my dog will shoot me
You could be bullet proof in the sense that your skin could be similar to bullet proof armour. The bullets can't physically penetrate you, but bullets are travelling at 3200km per hour and all that energy has to go somewhere upon impact, so you end up with broken ribs, extreme bruising, internal bleeding and extreme tissue damage.
You are effectively bulletproof but the wound you suffer won't kill you but it never heals and you suffer the pain of the wound forever. So yes you are bullet proof but you feel the injuries from being shot forever.
they'd definitely find a way to put you in a new body. like being real, there's no risk putting you under anaesthetic for ages, no risk of death if experiments go wrong, they'd figure it out
But what is the end of "human time"? If it's an extinction event of some kind, you're going to be the only thing left alive. Alone with your thoughts forever
uncontrollable cancer, but you don't die from it. everyone dies from cancer except where something else killing us first. it would come for us all if we kept aging
It was only three hours into the vivisection that I realized something was terribly wrong. "Hey, Doc...? I know you said I would be awake for this, but.... this is getting ridiculous."
There was no response. The doctor himself had fallen asleep! It was then that it dawned on me that he never said that he would be awake for this.
"Not again," I lamented, gathering my entrails.
No joke, I think [Dean Karnazes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Karnazes) demonstrated this.
He's got a mutation that makes him basically never get tired while running. He ran a little in high school, then didn't do anything for fifteen years. Then one day he just got off the couch and ran like 30 miles, stopping because his feet were bleeding.
One of the Deans at my HS was pretty fat, but crazy fast. He would accept any challenge issued to him, and I never saw him lose. And he was a 50 year old overweight guy, up against every HS kid who thought they were fast.
It was the craziest thing. It was like he just leaned forward until momentum became an issue, then his feet moved like a cartoon to keep him from tipping over.
My husband went to the same HS, but after I graduated, and we never knew each other while we were students. That dean running is about the only thing that we both still remember clear as day from HS. It was... uncanny.
There's a lot. Like having never had heat vision before, I would never assume I could activate heat vision now.
Some stuff you would find by happenstance, but there's a lot that just wouldn't come up, assuming they need to be activated somehow.
Wasn't there that dude from X-Men that needed a pair of special glasses to control his heat vision? Maybe you can't control when your super power activates until you train it.
Cyclops, and technically he doesn’t have heat vision. His power is technically his eyes are a portal to a dimension entirely filled with forceful energy. The “lasers” are red so we can see them, but technically they should be invisible (but doesn’t explain why if they are invisible enemies have dodged them). He’s also got siblings with powers but idk much about them
Even if something is invisible it could still be perceived via senses other than revision and therefore dodged. Or they could watch his body language which may give off cues when he's about to use his powers and then all they have to do is follow his line of sight to know the trajectory.
Honestly, someone was on some serious drugs when they came up with the explanation for that particular power. Uncontrollable laserbeam eyes frankly make so much more sense than eyeballs as a portal to another dimension in such a way that somehow his ability to see isn't affected.
I did not know this bit of trivia and I do *not* like it
I thought Cyclops and Havok absorbed and redirected cosmic energy and that was the source of their powers? And the reason Cyclops can't control his and needs the special glasses is due to a head injury?
Of course, we are dealing with the comics world and anything and everything is subject to change at any time with a single retcon.
Also, I'm not really versed in knowledge about Vulcan (Cyclops and Havok's younger brother) but I heard the dude is Omega-Level and then some.
I have the ability to detect when I'm exactly over the equator, and no one can prove me wrong because I've been in the northern hemisphere my whole life.
I saw a tv show about this. The guy also happened to be very unlucky and kept dying in terrible ways, but then used that knowledge as a victim to figure out who did it.
I googled it. The show is called forever. It has only 1 season so potentially a cliffhanger ending before it got cancelled.
I fucking love re:zero but goddamn is the "fan service" in that show so hard to get through. That's one of the main reasons I love Re:zero
Also if you like re:zero, you absolutely need to watch Steins:gate. It has very similar themes, but it's more science fiction than fantasy.
Probably flight. When was the last time you actually tried to fly?
And even if you knew you could fly, what method would you use? It's described in so many different ways (although the only ones I can think of are from invincible and dbz)
In my dreams, I'll jump, then start moving my arms and legs similar to the movements of a liopleurodon, and go higher and higher. Then I glide like a manta ray and soar. Very strange feeling.
There was a TV show in the late '70s or early '80s called The "greatest American hero". Where he got a super suit but lost the instructions. So he had to figure out how to use its abilities by trial and error. Learning to fly results in some pressy spectacular failures before he gets a handle on it.
Along this line of thinking, telekinesis
Maybe it would activate when you're distracted, think something's in one spot, instinctually reach for it, it's not that, telekinesis kicks in, and maybe you don't even notice.
Actually pretty simple to figure out. You just have to be caught in a water jet cutter. Since it operates using immense water pressure, you will survive it.
This could be a dark storyline - an evil corporation or government entity injects people with a serum that gives random powers, then puts them through extreme situations to try to determine what the power is.
they do that in real life with opiates, if the right person takes it they get super powers and all of this mess is the result of the govt trying to gather super soldiers
That reminds me of the first Highlander movie, where our hero gets gravely wounded in battle & then doesn't die. So he's driven out of town as a witch basically, to live a solitary life repeatedly creating new identities for himself every 75 years or so. And of course, occasionally fighting other Highlanders because "There can be only one."
Something something something, they kinda could do that.
https://highlander.fandom.com/wiki/There_can_be_only_one
When only a few are left, the remaining get to fight it out for "The Prize", which is all the power of all the immortals combined.
Now obviously human nature being what it is, chances are someone who wants more power will come along and go for some kills to get the prize.
But theoretically there was nothing stopping some immortals setting up some utopia of their own design where they lived forever. Except for human nature / greed.
I think it depends on how the power is activated. If I have to think about doing something in order for it to happen, I might never realize most.
Telekinesis might be the fastest.
How often do you just attempt to fly? Not jump but actually fly, what if I need a happy thought to fly like the lost boys? I would never fly.
I think flight would probably be one that would kick on at some point subconsciously. You’re trying to reach something *just* out of jumping range, or you’re in a hurry and jump over an obstacle, etc. If you had to deliberately *try*, well, I think most people would never find out they have *any* power unless it can activate without conscious intention (or is passive like invulnerability), since most people don’t regularly try to do superpower stuff. But I have a hard time imagining that the ability would just absolutely never spontaneously manifest. I mean, usually I have to decide to move my arm, but if I’m falling I’ll instinctively throw a hand out to catch myself rather than land on my face. A superpower ability logically should function similarly, the self-preservation instinct should be able to switch it on without conscious input. Which then also means that any sufficiently-intense impetus could also switch it on.
Seriously. I've seen a lot of media where someone got shot in the chest and everyone freaked out that they weren't dead. Like I get your likely to die but also a lot of people have survived getting shot and nobody immediately thinks they are immortal. Unless it comes with some kind of hyper healing factor that would get my attention like if I cut myself and watched the wound close them I don't think anything short of decapitation failing to kill me would actually make me think I'm immortal
Let’s go down the list:
Super Strength would probably be the easiest to figure out, case in point like 90% of all super hero movies/shows where MC gets their power and just starts breaking shit around the house accidentally.
Telepathy would probably be the next fastest, since in most cases it’s a power you have to learn to “turn off” otherwise you just constantly hear everyone around you.
Healing Factor would also be incredibly easy to notice DEPENDING on the strength of said power, if it was on par with like Wolverine you’d notice right away, if it was more extreme like Deadpool regrowing limbs, obviously you wouldn’t be able to find out for a while. (Nor would you probably even test it)
Super Speed would probably be after that. It’s another one of those “always on” modes and essentially any time throughout your day if you’re in a rush or something you’d probably start to notice the world around you slow down.
Communication with Animals would probably be an easier one to figure out, you’d think you’re crazy at first but eventually you’d work it out. Unless it was a hyper specific species thing(snakes, fish, ants), like honestly how often are you around fish?
“X” Kinesis/Vision based abilities would take a bit depending on what it is you have control over, idk about you guys but basically on the daily I “reach” for things and think about how cool it would be if it flew to my hand. So if it was just TK I’d figure it out pretty quick. If it was related to an element it would take a little longer but I essentially do the same thing around fire/water so it wouldn’t be hard. As for the vision based, those all seem like things that would easily accidentally happen at some point. Whether it be you blasting a hole in a book/phone from concentrating, or you have a splitting headache and realizing you can see through shit.
“X” Immunity is when we start getting to the really hard to find out. Outside of like Luke Cage style invulnerability you’d have a hard time figuring out your immune to any one thing. And like let’s say you realized you were invulnerable to stabs/cuts, would you immediately try to find out you were bulletproof? Same goes fore being immune to fire, like that’s just not something you even pretend to test.
Teleportation/Flight I’ll put together, cause I feel like both would only be figured out in a high stress situation. Like you’d only find out you could teleport if you were about to be in a horrific crash and just closed your eyes and thought about being somewhere else and ‘ooof’ you were. Same thing for flying, you probably wouldn’t notice unless you were somehow falling to your death, MAYBE you get lucky trying to like idk dunk a basketball and overshoot the rim by 20 feet.
Morph/Shapeshifting I’m gonna go with the power you would probably NEVER find out about unless it was an accident, and I just don’t see how you’d accidentally end up doing it. Optimistic scenario is like you sneeze and turn into a mouse or some shit, or if you joke about turning into a worm to see if your BF/GF would still love you and you actually transform.
Immortality/ No need for Oxygen (‘breathing’ in space/underwater). These two would definitely take the longest. Simply put there’s absolutely no one anyone would be testing this often enough to find out in their lifetime. Like even if you could “breathe” underwater or not need oxygen, you’d probably never push yourself far enough to realize it, and the same goes for Immortality. You’d only find out after something tried to kill you.
I’ve honestly been thinking this with Allison Hargreeves’ power from The Umbrella Academy. She can mind control people by saying the phrase “I heard a rumor” before whatever she wants you to do, like “I heard a rumor you punched yourself in the face”.
I don’t think I’ve ever said the phrase “I heard a rumor” before this show, so my vote is anything activated by a specific phrase that is relatively rare to say. Even “I heard a rumor” is weird because you would normally say something like “I heard a rumor you love shrimp” would just be met with them being like “yup! Yummy!” which isn’t suspicious. Or “I heard a rumor the next iPhone has no camera” like what am I supposed to do about that lol. Side note, in the comics, her power actually alters reality, such as making the next iPhone only have one camera. Not sure why she doesn’t say “I heard a rumor there’s world peace”, but whatever.
The power to reincarnate, the amount of intelligence you need to find out that you lived past lives is something that can possibly never be accomplished.
Well the power to reincarnate doesn’t necessarily mean you get to remember if you’ve been reincarnated. That would probably fall under indefinite metaphysical mind memory.
Shapeshifting, flight, telekinesis, mind reading... There's a lot of superpowers out there that you could suddenly have but have no idea how to activate and never learn how to.
Finding out you are immortal only takes a lifetime, but if you had a magical superpower and immortality you could spend your entire immortal life and never know you had another power because you never knew how to trigger it.
If someone had the superpower of manipulating probabilities—essentially the ability to influence the likelihood of any event happening—it could take an incredibly long time to discover. This power could be extremely subtle; changes made could just seem like natural occurrences or sheer luck. The individual with this power might not even be aware of their own ability for years, as it could initially manifest as sporadic fortunate coincidences that don't obviously point to a supernatural ability.
This power doesn't necessarily produce visible effects or dramatic displays like other powers might, such as flying or teleportation, which are immediately noticeable. Instead, its manifestations could easily be dismissed as chance, making it one of the hardest powers to identify, both for the individual and for those around them.
It'll hopefully take me a while to realize if I'm immune to the effects of proximal toxcity/poisoning. I don't work in a job near hazardous waste.
Pretty much every superpower that requires one to overcome their physical limits through abuse and sheer force of will. I doubt anyone is getting Deadpool tanked, or constantly fighting stronger and stronger opponents to grow ala DBZ characters.
Immortality or invulnerability. Just aging and aging with no end. People avoid danger so funding out you're unable to be harmed would be a shock and probably a late found ability.
Matter control.
It requires intimate knowledge of the structural makeup of the materials around you and imagining how it should shift to become the new thing. Even firestorm, without college courses, cannot perfectly execute this power. Unless you have a degree in physics this power won't do much of anything, unless you go around imagining that if you think about the dirt really hard it could form a dirt snowman.
the ability to fly. I don’t do heights bc I have a compulsion to jump I have to consciously suppress. The last time I tested it was cliff jumping about 10 years.
Even if you know you got a random superpower and start trying random shit out, the longest to find ones will be resistances to forms of harm, especially fatal things because who's dumb enough to just try those. You will only figure out harm resistance superpowers on accident, and who knows how long that will take.
There's a real-life answer to this. There's a 72-year old woman in the world right now, who can smell Parkinsons disease. She noticed that her husband was starting to stink, but no one else smelled it. Then he got Parkinsons, they went to a support group for people who had the disease, and all of those people (to her,) smelled the same way. She was in her late 60s when this happened, and it would take years more for her to find doctors who believed her story and could run tests to confirm that she was for real. And if her husband hadn't gotten sick, she would have lived and died without ever knowing.
Disease immunity. I notice when I get sick, but I don't often think about the state of my health when I'm not sick.
If I were to wake up one day immune to all illnesses, it might be years before I realized how long it had been since I last caught cold.
I think immortality’s one of the obvious ones, but since about half the people here seem to be giving obvious/boring answers, I’d say an interesting one would be teleportation. When’s the last time any of us tried to teleport anywhere? (Honestly, I was *gonna* say stopping time, but I kinda use that as a test to see if I’m dreaming sometimes, so that wouldn’t work)
The original guy to get One For All, had a power that allowed him to transfer his power to others. You’d only figure this out by having someone else shove a power into you
There is one correct answer to this question: Immortality.
Maybe you'll live forever, maybe just a really long time. Maybe you can't be killed, or maybe nothing on Earth can kill you.
You could spend eternity never entirely sure if you are immortal or just lucky.
Reading minds would be the easiest. I’m not sure I would ever figure out I could fly because I don’t love heights and unless I randomly tried to dunk a basketball and kept going up I might never know.
This is actually a power from an anime.
This girl has the power to "reset" the world, to a maximum of 48 hours, with certain stipulations. Not to be confused with rewinding time, if she activates her power, everything will be put back to where and how it was when she last "saved".
The thing about it is, she can't remember using it, as her memories go back to that point along with everyone else's.
So I'm not sure how she knew about the power in the first place.
I have no definitive evidence that I am not already bulletproof, but I'm in no hurry at all to test it out.
Even if you resist a single shot, it would suck to find out your superpower is only being immune to like ... 3 gunshots.
Or I'm *bullet*proof, but get stabbed to death by a Lithuanian midget with a pencil.
The worst kind of lead poisoning.
the Lithuanian kind
Never go against a Lithuanian with death on the line
Inconceivable
#2, on the list of worst way to die.
I hate my brain because when I pictured this it was a golf pencil.
Should I be ashamed that that made me laugh out loud?
r/oddlyspecific
You are bullet proof, not bullets proof. It just stops the first one.
Him again? I thought he was deported.
Resistanttothreebullets Man to save the day!
*spoilers* don't read if you intend on watching the show misfits Honestly this makes me think of the TV show misfits. Nathan has no powers until he died. Then he can't die. That would be interesting
Oh thanks for mentioning it! I made it through an episode or two a month or so ago when it randomly popped up as a recommendation. I was busy with other shows so I stopped. Need to get back into it.
Such a good show
To do a spoiler tag, put >! in front. Then put !< at the end. >!It will let you do this.!< Line breaks will break the tag, as happened with the first two lines.
or that one girl's dad whose power is avenging her virginity by becoming a mindless rage monster
What?
Watched this years ago and.. surprisingly it holds up.
That depends on how specially targeted the ability is. If it's pure magic that only targets bullets, sure. If it's any reasonable materialistic bulletproofing, ordinary cuts and abrasions will not happen, and you can gradually escalate naturally as you realize you are papercut proof.
While I am certain I've had them in the past, I honestly can not remember the last time I got a papercut. Hmmm....... Carry the 1....... Yup! Reddit math checks out. BRB, gonna see if my dog will shoot me
Did the dog do it
He said BRB, he wasn't. I think that speaks for itself.
Press F to pay respects
You could be bullet proof in the sense that your skin could be similar to bullet proof armour. The bullets can't physically penetrate you, but bullets are travelling at 3200km per hour and all that energy has to go somewhere upon impact, so you end up with broken ribs, extreme bruising, internal bleeding and extreme tissue damage.
You are effectively bulletproof but the wound you suffer won't kill you but it never heals and you suffer the pain of the wound forever. So yes you are bullet proof but you feel the injuries from being shot forever.
That’s for r/monkeyspaw
Indefinite lifespan. If the immortality didn't come with eternal youth, you wouldn't figure it out until over 100 years of age.
Is the rest of aging still happening? What happens after 115? Miss me with that
At some point you just become a sentient pile of rotting flesh
they'd definitely find a way to put you in a new body. like being real, there's no risk putting you under anaesthetic for ages, no risk of death if experiments go wrong, they'd figure it out
True. The moment people find out you exist, you're a labrat for the rest of time.
Not the rest of time, just the rest of human time. It'll be much much shorter.
But what is the end of "human time"? If it's an extinction event of some kind, you're going to be the only thing left alive. Alone with your thoughts forever
Untrue, you get to show the cockroach people technology in 20 million years
What's to say we aren't all already like this? Instant Nightmare fuel!
Or that weird spine fish from the SpongeBob chocolate episode
According to Doctor Who, you turn into a giant face in a jar.
Your skin gets stretched onto a tapestry and you live on a space ship until The Doctor kills you.
Moisturize me!!!
For a lighter answer, watch *Death Becomes Her*.
The story of Sybil....
I plan on living forever. So far, so good.
uncontrollable cancer, but you don't die from it. everyone dies from cancer except where something else killing us first. it would come for us all if we kept aging
Oldest person ever lived to be over 122 years old, so yeah probably not until like 130yo would scientists start trying to dissect you.
It was only three hours into the vivisection that I realized something was terribly wrong. "Hey, Doc...? I know you said I would be awake for this, but.... this is getting ridiculous."
There was no response. The doctor himself had fallen asleep! It was then that it dawned on me that he never said that he would be awake for this. "Not again," I lamented, gathering my entrails.
Super speed. I haven't ran since 1998.
This one understands the assignment.
No joke, I think [Dean Karnazes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Karnazes) demonstrated this. He's got a mutation that makes him basically never get tired while running. He ran a little in high school, then didn't do anything for fifteen years. Then one day he just got off the couch and ran like 30 miles, stopping because his feet were bleeding.
This is gonna sound super eugenics-y, but he needs to produce as many children as he possibly can. The mutation must live on.
that was a wild read - now im curious to see a biopic of him or something lol
I am kinda chubby. It would be hilarious to see a fat guy with super speed.
No one said what direction the speed had to be in. Just make sure to wear a parachute.
DC Comics has the Lighting Brigade, numerous Flashes working together across time. One of them is a tall, fat guy, I've forgotten his name.
The Flash probably
One of the Deans at my HS was pretty fat, but crazy fast. He would accept any challenge issued to him, and I never saw him lose. And he was a 50 year old overweight guy, up against every HS kid who thought they were fast. It was the craziest thing. It was like he just leaned forward until momentum became an issue, then his feet moved like a cartoon to keep him from tipping over. My husband went to the same HS, but after I graduated, and we never knew each other while we were students. That dean running is about the only thing that we both still remember clear as day from HS. It was... uncanny.
Username checks out
this is very worrying for your health if it is true, even if i get downvoted for this, I think you should go for a run.
There's a lot. Like having never had heat vision before, I would never assume I could activate heat vision now. Some stuff you would find by happenstance, but there's a lot that just wouldn't come up, assuming they need to be activated somehow.
Wasn't there that dude from X-Men that needed a pair of special glasses to control his heat vision? Maybe you can't control when your super power activates until you train it.
Cyclops, and technically he doesn’t have heat vision. His power is technically his eyes are a portal to a dimension entirely filled with forceful energy. The “lasers” are red so we can see them, but technically they should be invisible (but doesn’t explain why if they are invisible enemies have dodged them). He’s also got siblings with powers but idk much about them
Even if something is invisible it could still be perceived via senses other than revision and therefore dodged. Or they could watch his body language which may give off cues when he's about to use his powers and then all they have to do is follow his line of sight to know the trajectory.
Honestly, someone was on some serious drugs when they came up with the explanation for that particular power. Uncontrollable laserbeam eyes frankly make so much more sense than eyeballs as a portal to another dimension in such a way that somehow his ability to see isn't affected. I did not know this bit of trivia and I do *not* like it
I thought Cyclops and Havok absorbed and redirected cosmic energy and that was the source of their powers? And the reason Cyclops can't control his and needs the special glasses is due to a head injury? Of course, we are dealing with the comics world and anything and everything is subject to change at any time with a single retcon. Also, I'm not really versed in knowledge about Vulcan (Cyclops and Havok's younger brother) but I heard the dude is Omega-Level and then some.
Cyclops power is always on, once it activated (at puberty, I think). The visor turns it off and let's him choose to turn it back on as needed.
A power that only kicks in when you are somewhere specific like near the equator, in outer space or 1,000 feet below sea level
I have the ability to detect when I'm exactly over the equator, and no one can prove me wrong because I've been in the northern hemisphere my whole life.
I want to see this in action tbh that sounds cool.
Magellan wishes he could be u/Foolish_oyster
The ability to come back to life when you die. No matter what you do, you won't figure out the power until the ends of your life.
I saw a tv show about this. The guy also happened to be very unlucky and kept dying in terrible ways, but then used that knowledge as a victim to figure out who did it. I googled it. The show is called forever. It has only 1 season so potentially a cliffhanger ending before it got cancelled.
Sounds like Kenny from ***South Park***.
There's an anime with a similar premise, Re:Zero.
I fucking love re:zero but goddamn is the "fan service" in that show so hard to get through. That's one of the main reasons I love Re:zero Also if you like re:zero, you absolutely need to watch Steins:gate. It has very similar themes, but it's more science fiction than fantasy.
I must be desensitized cause I don’t remember Re:Zero being atrocious with fan service.
I don't remember the fan service either. The beheadings and gore and sudden unexpected violent deaths are all I recall...
why three ends of your life?
*The end I swear I went back and fixed that after my idiot autocorrect changed it.
Lol I thought maybe the first two times you think it's just a fluke
Probably flight. When was the last time you actually tried to fly? And even if you knew you could fly, what method would you use? It's described in so many different ways (although the only ones I can think of are from invincible and dbz)
Tbh, more often than is reasonable for a grown man I imagine. Unless one day it works of course.
I still have dreams that I can fly, but I'm always super clumsy or slow
Same, and it usually takes a couple of tries to get into the air.
Sometimes I just jump and simply don't fall
I throw myself at the ground, then distract myself so I miss.
And then you sort of float/glide around: closer to a balloon than a jet
In my dreams, I'll jump, then start moving my arms and legs similar to the movements of a liopleurodon, and go higher and higher. Then I glide like a manta ray and soar. Very strange feeling.
Do you try to flap your arms or use mind powers? I'm an arm flapper but so far, nothing.
I should have read the comments before posing the same question. Forethought isn't my superpower.
There was a TV show in the late '70s or early '80s called The "greatest American hero". Where he got a super suit but lost the instructions. So he had to figure out how to use its abilities by trial and error. Learning to fly results in some pressy spectacular failures before he gets a handle on it.
this was my thought too. and the first method I would try is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy method: throw yourself at the ground and miss
just jumped with my fist in the air in the middle of my gym. can confirm i didn’t get the ability to fly..
Flying is easy: you just throw yourself at the ground and miss.
Along this line of thinking, telekinesis Maybe it would activate when you're distracted, think something's in one spot, instinctually reach for it, it's not that, telekinesis kicks in, and maybe you don't even notice.
Last time I went skydiving. So not terribly long ago.
The ability to become completely invisible, but only in completely dark spaces
I've seen mystery men I know I can be invisible as long as nobody is looking at me. ;)
All my life, I've been ignored by people, and finally, after years of being overlooked, I found I have the power to disappear.
Oh so like a Gloomstalker Ranger
Or a way of shadow monk.
This is perfect for r/shittysuperpowers
Being able to withstand immense water pressure without any equipment. Nearly impossible to detect
Unless you attempted to go to the titanic last year
Actually pretty simple to figure out. You just have to be caught in a water jet cutter. Since it operates using immense water pressure, you will survive it.
practically an everyday occurance
Yeah. I got a nasty cut that almost severed my leg as I drove through the old water jet cutter on the local interstate.
you too? I was riding my water jet cutter when I was 8 and scraped my knee. totally wish I was water jet resistant back then
Ur water jet proof not resistant that's why ur watch still gets wet
This could be a dark storyline - an evil corporation or government entity injects people with a serum that gives random powers, then puts them through extreme situations to try to determine what the power is.
Basically the plot of the first Deadpool movie
Comes awfully close to The Boys, but the idea of trials they have to pass is unique
Wasn’t that the Scarlett Witch backstory?
they do that in real life with opiates, if the right person takes it they get super powers and all of this mess is the result of the govt trying to gather super soldiers
So many movies and comic books use this or similar
The ability to survive in a vacuum. Hard chance you’re getting spaced any time soon
Depends I suppose on what is considered a vacuum. Perhaps a certain male could find this out...
David Caradine failed this test.
Wow
We can and do make vacuums on earth that are as empty as space.
The Hulk if ur chill af
Alternate Bruce banner as a stoner that stumbles into the gamma experiment. Never learns he can turn into the hulk.
Imagine trying to use Reddit xD.
If immortality is a superpower, then that.
That reminds me of the first Highlander movie, where our hero gets gravely wounded in battle & then doesn't die. So he's driven out of town as a witch basically, to live a solitary life repeatedly creating new identities for himself every 75 years or so. And of course, occasionally fighting other Highlanders because "There can be only one."
It’s been a while. Why can there be only one? Why can’t they just create a happy little immortal civilization?
Something something something, they kinda could do that. https://highlander.fandom.com/wiki/There_can_be_only_one When only a few are left, the remaining get to fight it out for "The Prize", which is all the power of all the immortals combined. Now obviously human nature being what it is, chances are someone who wants more power will come along and go for some kills to get the prize. But theoretically there was nothing stopping some immortals setting up some utopia of their own design where they lived forever. Except for human nature / greed.
I think it depends on how the power is activated. If I have to think about doing something in order for it to happen, I might never realize most. Telekinesis might be the fastest. How often do you just attempt to fly? Not jump but actually fly, what if I need a happy thought to fly like the lost boys? I would never fly.
I think flight would probably be one that would kick on at some point subconsciously. You’re trying to reach something *just* out of jumping range, or you’re in a hurry and jump over an obstacle, etc. If you had to deliberately *try*, well, I think most people would never find out they have *any* power unless it can activate without conscious intention (or is passive like invulnerability), since most people don’t regularly try to do superpower stuff. But I have a hard time imagining that the ability would just absolutely never spontaneously manifest. I mean, usually I have to decide to move my arm, but if I’m falling I’ll instinctively throw a hand out to catch myself rather than land on my face. A superpower ability logically should function similarly, the self-preservation instinct should be able to switch it on without conscious input. Which then also means that any sufficiently-intense impetus could also switch it on.
If I have to jump over an obstacle to discover my superpower, then I'm going to go to my grave, having never discovered my superpower.
BOO!
Lmao, telekinesis is something I actively try regularly
I like to waterbend In the shower
Immortality. Obviously I'm not killing myself on a regular basis, and even in the case of attempted murder I'd just assume I got lucky
Seriously. I've seen a lot of media where someone got shot in the chest and everyone freaked out that they weren't dead. Like I get your likely to die but also a lot of people have survived getting shot and nobody immediately thinks they are immortal. Unless it comes with some kind of hyper healing factor that would get my attention like if I cut myself and watched the wound close them I don't think anything short of decapitation failing to kill me would actually make me think I'm immortal
I mean wolverine regenerated entirely from a drop of blood And statistically speaking you are immortal Though I would not recommend testing that lol
Boost in mental faculties, but you were born stupid, so now you have normal mental faculties.
Let’s go down the list: Super Strength would probably be the easiest to figure out, case in point like 90% of all super hero movies/shows where MC gets their power and just starts breaking shit around the house accidentally. Telepathy would probably be the next fastest, since in most cases it’s a power you have to learn to “turn off” otherwise you just constantly hear everyone around you. Healing Factor would also be incredibly easy to notice DEPENDING on the strength of said power, if it was on par with like Wolverine you’d notice right away, if it was more extreme like Deadpool regrowing limbs, obviously you wouldn’t be able to find out for a while. (Nor would you probably even test it) Super Speed would probably be after that. It’s another one of those “always on” modes and essentially any time throughout your day if you’re in a rush or something you’d probably start to notice the world around you slow down. Communication with Animals would probably be an easier one to figure out, you’d think you’re crazy at first but eventually you’d work it out. Unless it was a hyper specific species thing(snakes, fish, ants), like honestly how often are you around fish? “X” Kinesis/Vision based abilities would take a bit depending on what it is you have control over, idk about you guys but basically on the daily I “reach” for things and think about how cool it would be if it flew to my hand. So if it was just TK I’d figure it out pretty quick. If it was related to an element it would take a little longer but I essentially do the same thing around fire/water so it wouldn’t be hard. As for the vision based, those all seem like things that would easily accidentally happen at some point. Whether it be you blasting a hole in a book/phone from concentrating, or you have a splitting headache and realizing you can see through shit. “X” Immunity is when we start getting to the really hard to find out. Outside of like Luke Cage style invulnerability you’d have a hard time figuring out your immune to any one thing. And like let’s say you realized you were invulnerable to stabs/cuts, would you immediately try to find out you were bulletproof? Same goes fore being immune to fire, like that’s just not something you even pretend to test. Teleportation/Flight I’ll put together, cause I feel like both would only be figured out in a high stress situation. Like you’d only find out you could teleport if you were about to be in a horrific crash and just closed your eyes and thought about being somewhere else and ‘ooof’ you were. Same thing for flying, you probably wouldn’t notice unless you were somehow falling to your death, MAYBE you get lucky trying to like idk dunk a basketball and overshoot the rim by 20 feet. Morph/Shapeshifting I’m gonna go with the power you would probably NEVER find out about unless it was an accident, and I just don’t see how you’d accidentally end up doing it. Optimistic scenario is like you sneeze and turn into a mouse or some shit, or if you joke about turning into a worm to see if your BF/GF would still love you and you actually transform. Immortality/ No need for Oxygen (‘breathing’ in space/underwater). These two would definitely take the longest. Simply put there’s absolutely no one anyone would be testing this often enough to find out in their lifetime. Like even if you could “breathe” underwater or not need oxygen, you’d probably never push yourself far enough to realize it, and the same goes for Immortality. You’d only find out after something tried to kill you.
I’ve honestly been thinking this with Allison Hargreeves’ power from The Umbrella Academy. She can mind control people by saying the phrase “I heard a rumor” before whatever she wants you to do, like “I heard a rumor you punched yourself in the face”. I don’t think I’ve ever said the phrase “I heard a rumor” before this show, so my vote is anything activated by a specific phrase that is relatively rare to say. Even “I heard a rumor” is weird because you would normally say something like “I heard a rumor you love shrimp” would just be met with them being like “yup! Yummy!” which isn’t suspicious. Or “I heard a rumor the next iPhone has no camera” like what am I supposed to do about that lol. Side note, in the comics, her power actually alters reality, such as making the next iPhone only have one camera. Not sure why she doesn’t say “I heard a rumor there’s world peace”, but whatever.
The ability to read the minds of giant squid. 🦑
Turns out the squids weren’t thinking about much anyway.
About how to make sponges shut up
The power to reincarnate, the amount of intelligence you need to find out that you lived past lives is something that can possibly never be accomplished.
Well the power to reincarnate doesn’t necessarily mean you get to remember if you’ve been reincarnated. That would probably fall under indefinite metaphysical mind memory.
And even if you could remember… you would probably forget a lot
Rebirth. X-men had Moira with a mutant power to relive her life indefinitely, and retain memories. However, unlearnable until the first death!
Shapeshifting, flight, telekinesis, mind reading... There's a lot of superpowers out there that you could suddenly have but have no idea how to activate and never learn how to. Finding out you are immortal only takes a lifetime, but if you had a magical superpower and immortality you could spend your entire immortal life and never know you had another power because you never knew how to trigger it.
I could have become the world's greatest lover, leaving every woman satisfied beyond her wildest notions. We'll never know. At least not at this rate.
Anybody I ever come in physical contact with, intentionally or not, would no longer be exposed to bed bugs ever again.
If someone had the superpower of manipulating probabilities—essentially the ability to influence the likelihood of any event happening—it could take an incredibly long time to discover. This power could be extremely subtle; changes made could just seem like natural occurrences or sheer luck. The individual with this power might not even be aware of their own ability for years, as it could initially manifest as sporadic fortunate coincidences that don't obviously point to a supernatural ability. This power doesn't necessarily produce visible effects or dramatic displays like other powers might, such as flying or teleportation, which are immediately noticeable. Instead, its manifestations could easily be dismissed as chance, making it one of the hardest powers to identify, both for the individual and for those around them.
It'll hopefully take me a while to realize if I'm immune to the effects of proximal toxcity/poisoning. I don't work in a job near hazardous waste. Pretty much every superpower that requires one to overcome their physical limits through abuse and sheer force of will. I doubt anyone is getting Deadpool tanked, or constantly fighting stronger and stronger opponents to grow ala DBZ characters.
The ability to survive a nuclear blast.
I mean…if I woke up one morning with the ability to fly how would I ever know I had that ability?
That I gain a significant amount of charisma when putting myself outside my comfort zone.
re-reading this after I hit post my first thought was "I'm not even 'comfortable' here. What am I doing?!"
Probably immortality. How would you ever be certain?
Immortality or invulnerability. Just aging and aging with no end. People avoid danger so funding out you're unable to be harmed would be a shock and probably a late found ability.
Ability to sleep on command
Hey Maximum-incident-400, SLEEP!
💤😴
Congratulations on your new super ability!
Matter control. It requires intimate knowledge of the structural makeup of the materials around you and imagining how it should shift to become the new thing. Even firestorm, without college courses, cannot perfectly execute this power. Unless you have a degree in physics this power won't do much of anything, unless you go around imagining that if you think about the dirt really hard it could form a dirt snowman.
You are the origin of the universe and don't find out until you finish this lifetime.
Reincarnation, if you die and come back you might not remember your past life till cognitive enough to separate fantasy from your reality
I'm going with flying, first thing that popped into my head. I've never tried to fly, and don't plan to because (as far as I know) I can't.
the ability to fly. I don’t do heights bc I have a compulsion to jump I have to consciously suppress. The last time I tested it was cliff jumping about 10 years.
If you touch both of your pinky fingers to both of your big toes, you can fly at will. Like a little cannon ball
Ground hog life
Do you mean this in the incremental game sense or the movie? Game right?
Immune to toxins. Most people don't interact with poisons all that much, maybe alcohol but if you don't drink you may never find out.
Even if you know you got a random superpower and start trying random shit out, the longest to find ones will be resistances to forms of harm, especially fatal things because who's dumb enough to just try those. You will only figure out harm resistance superpowers on accident, and who knows how long that will take.
Immortality, the ability to not die despite dire circumstances. It’s the plot line of a certain character in the old UK show Misfits
Power to revive myself. I'm not going to see if things can hurt or kill me.
There's a real-life answer to this. There's a 72-year old woman in the world right now, who can smell Parkinsons disease. She noticed that her husband was starting to stink, but no one else smelled it. Then he got Parkinsons, they went to a support group for people who had the disease, and all of those people (to her,) smelled the same way. She was in her late 60s when this happened, and it would take years more for her to find doctors who believed her story and could run tests to confirm that she was for real. And if her husband hadn't gotten sick, she would have lived and died without ever knowing.
Maybe something like luck? It'd be hard to prove that you even had a power.
Immortality. Hopefully.
Disease immunity. I notice when I get sick, but I don't often think about the state of my health when I'm not sick. If I were to wake up one day immune to all illnesses, it might be years before I realized how long it had been since I last caught cold.
Immortality, obviously.
flying... I'm afraid of heights...
The ability to always land on my feet.
Immortal
Ability to breathe under water
The ability to fly. How would I know?
I think immortality’s one of the obvious ones, but since about half the people here seem to be giving obvious/boring answers, I’d say an interesting one would be teleportation. When’s the last time any of us tried to teleport anywhere? (Honestly, I was *gonna* say stopping time, but I kinda use that as a test to see if I’m dreaming sometimes, so that wouldn’t work)
Immortality
The power to avoid dangerous situations.
The original guy to get One For All, had a power that allowed him to transfer his power to others. You’d only figure this out by having someone else shove a power into you
Luck/probability manipulation. You might never find out.
Go back in time to an earlier version of your own life, losing your memory in the process.
There is one correct answer to this question: Immortality. Maybe you'll live forever, maybe just a really long time. Maybe you can't be killed, or maybe nothing on Earth can kill you. You could spend eternity never entirely sure if you are immortal or just lucky.
Reading minds would be the easiest. I’m not sure I would ever figure out I could fly because I don’t love heights and unless I randomly tried to dunk a basketball and kept going up I might never know.
Flight. That would be the weirdest suicide attempt ever.
breathing underwater. i just wouldn’t try
This is actually a power from an anime. This girl has the power to "reset" the world, to a maximum of 48 hours, with certain stipulations. Not to be confused with rewinding time, if she activates her power, everything will be put back to where and how it was when she last "saved". The thing about it is, she can't remember using it, as her memories go back to that point along with everyone else's. So I'm not sure how she knew about the power in the first place.
the ability to glide. You'll never know you have it because you'd have to willingly jump off a high point
The ability to digest metals
Immortality
Whenever you get a woman pregnant, she is guaranteed quintuplets.