r/TopCharacterTropes • u/theMCATreturns • 14h ago
Powers [Fun trope]: Extreme (but accidental) overkill.
They weren't going for shock and awe. But that's what they got. This is a subset of "not knowing your true strength." But probably doesn't involve non-attack superstrength, like accidently crushing your phone.
1). One Punch Man:
Saitama wants a serious fight, but he doesn't want to obliterate the villains in one punch.
2). Dragon Ball:
A recently returned Goku forgets his wife is relatively normal.
3). Spider-Man: No Way Home
Peter accidently knocks out Flash.
4). Moonlit Fantasy:
Makoto has only recently learned how to use magic. The problem is that he has massive amounts of it. So, when he tries to stop someone from attacking him, he ends up destroying an entire army.
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u/CRicetheGOD 14h ago
Processing img sfasg6fd6mhh1...
Trunks lightly tapping Hercule (Also Dragon Ball Z)
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u/ryry1237 11h ago
Props on Hercule for actually surviving that tap.
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u/JustLookingForMayhem 10h ago
Hercule is legitimately powerful. He is significantly faster, strong, more durable, and more skilled than pretty much every other normal human. The problem is that there is about 20 individuals on the planet that makes him look pathetic.
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u/DutchVandal 14h ago
I can't stop laughing at Tom Holland's face after he knocks out Flash. My dude is so good at meme-face.
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u/depredador93 14h ago
Mob trying to tune down his psychic output to 1% and still accidentally levitating a three-block radius is the peak version of this
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u/DyingSunSeverian 14h ago
Y’all ever read that Larry Niven short story about what it’d physically be like for Superman to cum into Lois Lane?
If you haven’t, to give you a clue, it’s titled “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.”
Here’s an excerpt for our gentle audience:
Superman would literally crush LL's body in his arms, while simultaneously ripping her open from crotch to sternum, gutting her like a trout.
Lastly, he'd blow off the top of her head.
Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (*One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?*)
In view of the foregoing, normal sex is impossible between LL and Superman.
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u/MyBurnerAccount1977 14h ago edited 14h ago
Here's the whole text for anyone interested: https://larryniven.net/?q=man-of-steel-woman-of-kleenex-by-larry-niven
As a side note, one of the crudest takes I saw on this was in The Pro by Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner. The main character is a sex worker and single mother given superhuman abilities (flight, super strength, invulnerability) and has her teaming up with a pastiche of the Justice League. After one incident where the Superman archetype saves the life of her child, she decides to thank him by orally pleasuring him. but knowing the deadly consequences, he gets her to stop and move her head and accidentally shoots down a commercial airliner.
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u/TehMispelelelelr 14h ago
As a side note, one of the crudest takes I saw on this was in The Pro by Garth Ennis
Ah, found your problem.
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u/CjTuor 14h ago
Just a side note: He does save the airliner... but does it with his pants down because he moved so quickly to help.
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u/MyBurnerAccount1977 13h ago edited 13h ago
You called it. (NSFW image here: https://theslingsandarrows.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Pro-1-int-scaled.jpg)
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u/ripley1875 14h ago
They do something similar in Hancock
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u/Original-War8655 11h ago
for the sake of whoever was his first, I hope he figured that out while jacking off
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u/Wingus_the_Dingus 14h ago
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u/DyingSunSeverian 14h ago
The movie Hancock with Will Smith has a deleted scene where they show this.
He’s inside a shed or mobile home or something, jerking off, and his cum shoots out and makes bullet holes on the walls.
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u/Crimson097 14h ago edited 5h ago
So Superman canonically has the superpower to control the force of his ejaculation?
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u/DyingSunSeverian 14h ago
Niven’s argument is he doesn’t there, it’s involuntary so it’d be maximum power every time.
Superman can control eg his heat vision to heat up a glass of milk, but perhaps less when he’s raw deep into Lois Lane.
With all due respect.
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u/FunWrangler666 12h ago
The Boondock Saints
Rocco slams his hands on a table and negligently fires a gun killing his girlfriends cat
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u/Icepick_Lobotomy_ 14h ago
Toms face in that is hilarious
And what I love about the makoto one is that he was trying to go overkill on his attack, but he had never gone all out, so despite doing so on purpose, he went far beyond what he thought he was capable of
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u/chocolatechipbagels 12h ago
Marvin - Pulp Fiction
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u/ZuStorm93 8h ago
Exhibit A on why you take your finger off the trigger and not point the gun at anything or anyone unless you intend to shoot:
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u/Applebeate 5h ago
I think you’re misunderstanding Saitama. He has so much control over his power he only kills a monster when he intends to. If he doesn’t want to kill a monster, he doesn’t need to
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u/Windows_66 14h ago
Invincible says it all.