WS: Power-full Possibilities

Today we'll be discussing one of the things i most often get confused by in supernatural/paranormal fiction and that is the use, or rather lack of use, of people abilities.

See a lot of characters with abilities are the good guys. Sadly the good guys are not as bloodthirsty as their villain counterparts, this also makes them less smart and imaginative apparently.

For this post we're gonna use the wonderful "Captain Planet and the Planeteers" as our example!!!

YUP!! I went old school on your asses!!

Kay so let's start with the lamest and stupidest power on the show. Reminiscent of Aquaman on the Superfriends, we've got Ma-Ti.

*He's smiling because he thinks that holding a calculator he doesn't know how to use makes him a vital member of the team.*

 Now, Heart is actually a pretty interest ability since it provides Ma-Ti with a form of telepathy he can use with people and animals. This is actually a pretty useful and possibly destructive ability considering that the planeteers are often in exotic wildernesses, quite a few of which are also home to lots and lots of pollution.

What does that have to do with Heart power?
Well in the episode "The Power Of Heart" Ma-Ti uses his ring to force a bad guy unconscious. He can make people pass out. People driving cars. People flying planes. People swimming. That's hell'a dangerous and could lead to multiple fatalities in some cases.

Even if he limits himself to just using his ring to politely ask surrounding critters to come to his aid he's still actually pretty dangerous. He could have mosquitoes chock full of malaria infect groups of people or perform perfect/untraceable assassinations. He could call all the animals nearby infected with rabies to attack his foes. I don't want rabies, it's nasty and painful.

So Ma-Ti actually has a pretty strong ability. To bad he's a goody two-shoes idiot.

*Rabies. Rabbbiieeeessss on thelostsigns!!!*

Next up we've got Linka...

"I also push zee button, da?"

Now, poor Linka's ring gives her power over wind, which she uses to throw gusts of wind at people. She also uses it to levitate herself. While that's all well a good, she's pulling her punches.

Why? For those of you who don't know wind can be measured as PSI (pounds per square inch). This is because wind applies force to whatever it comes in contact with. Now the gusts Linka regularly uses don't apply to much force, normally enough to lift her foes off the ground. But what if her winds exerted more force or covered less surface area/weren't as broad.

If her wind exerted more force, say hurricane force winds or greater, towards an opponent and pressed them into an immovable object like a wall or the ground, Linka could literally crush them into a paste.
Restricting her area would give her winds the same effect as a pressure washer. She'd be able to blast peoples skin off or even cut through their bodies like a laser or a saw.

Also increased wind causes windchill. She could lower the temperature enough to freeze foes, or just their lungs. She could even cause the wind to move so fast that taking a breath would be impossible, effectively suffocating her opponents.

That's kinda bad ass...

"I vill killl youu vith mine vinds of DEATH!!!"

Gi was the resident water user and indefinably Asian character. Seriously she never says where she's from, ever...
Anywasy...

*This is a picture of Gi demonstrating what victims of human traffickers look like. Confused and afraid.*

Gi is the wielder of the ring of water, or something like that. The ring gives her power over the element of water and as far as i can remember she was often seen moving water from one place to another, although at times the ring itself would create water spontaneously.

Gi's in the same boat as Linka in that her abilities have the most murderous potential.

The human body is like 80% water or something right? Gi could move that fluid other places, as in not in a person's body anymore. That would be bad. Or she could fill peoples lungs with fluid causing suffocation, or cause eyeballs to explode or mummify people.
....
what is she like 16? Who gives a 16 year old the ability to make peoples eyeballs explode...?

Anywasy, WHEELER!!!

  "Hey Wheeler!" "Hey Guuurl, hey!!"

Wheeler...Wheeler, Wheeler..sigh.
He's an idiot. He's also a slut, and his ring is the ring of fire!!!! It's also the most obvious, as the ring shoots flames and lasers!!! You know how the bad guy counters that? He cuts off your freakin' hand that's how.
Seriously Wheeler is so busy running around feeling bad that he's illiterate and his alcoholic father abuses him and he has to define his life's meaning by the way girls treat him, kinda like a male Rachel Berry from Glee, that he is in fact completely ineffectual.

 

"Hey Mister, those gerbils look mighty big. That there's gonna cost ya extra."

Kwame. What is there to say about Kwame. Kwame has power over the element of earth. Kwame is also, and this is probably the most important, a Black person from Africa.
OMG, I know right?

*This is literally the only screencap on the Captain Planet wikia of Kwame. Freakin racists"

Kwame basically uses his ring to move earth around and cause earth quakes. He's more likely to do the most damage in a urban environment where sewage and gas lines as well as buildings need stable earth to, well, not collapse or explode.
He's also kinda the leader, and is most notable for saying "Let our powers combine!!!"


That's it for today's "Writing Supernaturals" I hope ya'll enjoyed it!!!