Wishing Well

I’m reading a new book – All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault by James Alan Gardner.

Sparks are champions of weird science. Boasting capes and costumes and amazing super-powers that only make sense if you don’t think about them too hard, they fight an eternal battle for truth and justice . . . mostly.

Darklings are creatures of myth and magic: ghosts, vampires, were-beasts, and the like. Their very presence warps reality. Doors creak at their approach. Cobwebs gather where they linger.

Kim Lam is an ordinary college student until a freak scientific accident (what else?) transforms Kim and three housemates into Sparks—and drafts them into the never-ending war between the Light and Dark. They struggle to master their new abilities—and (of course) to design cool costumes and come up with great hero-names. (source)

A Spark’s superpowers are what they want/need them to be. Fer instance, during the first epic fight our heroes find that:

A) Kim wants/needs to see what the potential Baddies are doing but they’re three blocks away and around a corner. TA-DA! She now has telescopic vision (a la Inspector Gadget but without the gadgets). 

B) She needs to escape a particularly heinous were-bat and fast. All of a sudden she’s able to change her size – she can be as molecularly tiny (hence invisible-ish) or large as she wants, when she wants.

C) Miranda, Kim’s opera singing roomie, can give voice to notes so powerful, so potent they’re like cannonballs OR protective force fields.

An Obi-Wan-esque sage appears (don't they always?) after Kim and crew win their first battle with the Dark. He gives them a little 411 on the new powers and also advises them not to think too critically on how/why their new talents are possible. If they do, the fresh skill set vanishes. *POOF*

Easy to say/hard to do. Kim and her housemates are all science and engineering majors at the local college. It'd be like asking MIT types NOT to figure out whether the science behind Star Trek is solid or not.

Yup. I’m totes hooked. Utterly reeled in.

If wishing made it so here in Donna World, what super powers would I have?

1) The ability to change minds with my words. I could get my way (justice for all! dammit) through deft, honeyed persuasion.

Imagine being able to reach, enlighten and positively alter all those locked tight, right wing, irrational minds (which’s all of ‘em, right?). I’d need to be able to crawl into people’s beans so that I could understand what they need to hear (what their fears and concerns were) and how they need to hear it so's I could successfully open, edify and illuminate.

2) Naturally, I’d also want super strength, agility, vision, hearing and the power to heal any injury in lightening fast time.

Superman, superman, wish I could fly like superman
Superman, superman, want to be like superman
I want to be like superman
Superman, superman, wish I could fly like superman
Kinks

3) Not a super power per se but I wanna be like Spock — pure logic but with a Golden Retriever’s empathy. The ability to NOT feel hurt or horrifically wounded by abominable, or just plain thoughtless, words and actions. That and the ability to see clearly through the heavy fogs of emotion in which we all swim.

4) The ability to quickly find the simplest, smartest solution to every major prob on the planet or, ya know, just here in the crap riddled U.S. of A.

Actually, I’d need this in conjunction with number one. It’d be mega cool to have all the answers but ya gotta be able to inspire people to give you the time of day and then listen to you .

Honestly, I don't want much. RILLY!

What super powers would you want?