u/-K_P-

Pics from my attempt about 4 or so years ago...

I have been in love with all sorts of carnivorous plants for as long as I can remember, with the VFT always being the Queen Bee(-Eater... lol). Growing up, I admit, I was TERRIBLE with any kind of gardening, and my thumb was as black as a dead trap haha... but then in high school a friend with uncanny Poison Ivy-esque plant abilities sorta took me under her wing and taught me, and while I still don't have her almost preternatural abilities, I am a pretty darn good gardener all around now. But for years I tried my hands at growing these babies, AND BELIEVE ME! I studied! I got the right sphagnum/perlite/moss∗ mixtures, made sure it was consistently moist with only distilled water... I did everything right that I could control. Which is the key... what I can control.

I live in an apartment, so my space is extremely limited, and while I have a balcony, due to the placement, the amount of sun I get is... well, not as ideal as it is in other locations. For a few hours, I get some good direct light, but then the other buildings and trees create a lot of shade, unfortunately. So EVERY SINGLE YEAR I have tried it, my babies start out strong with everything they need, but I think they just don't quite get enough sun and.... well, the sequential pics say it all. So for the last few years I haven't even tried to grow any, and it has made me sad. I want my little predators 😭.

Does anyone have any advice? Obviously I can't move the location of my apartment/balcony. The sun I get is what I get. But is there some way I can cheat, some position that will help maximize the efficiency of the light they do get? Is there ANY way I can grow these friends and keep them alive in this less than ideal spot I'm in?

∗Re. The Moss - Yes, the bright green stuff in the pics looks dry, but that is actually a totally different moss I put on top for the birds to take for their nests because they kept stealing the actual moss meant to sit on top of the plants, despite it being all wet and soggy. Idk if anyone else has had that problem, but when these local winged thugs want nest materials, they don't give a damn if the plants were using it first LOL. So I looked it up before using it to make sure it wouldn't affect the plants or anything, and put it on top and left the good moss underneath, properly wet. It did work that year, the birds stuck to using the dry stuff. And I should note that and other years when the birds weren't such an issue, I didn't need to use that other moss, yet the same thing happened to the VFTs, so I know that that can be ruled out as a contributing factor... It's literally just a Bird Deterrent.

According to this Marist Pole, the most commonly desired superpowers are:

5. Invisibility

6. Teleportation

7. Flight

(2 & 1 tied):

• Telepathy/Mind Reading

• Time travel

... with the following "runners up" also ranking high among common choices, according to a variety of other similar poles:

• Telekinesis

• Super Speed

• Shape-shifting

• Healing/Regeneration

• Super Intelligence

So, let's say, hypothetically, tomorrow you were to fall into a vat of DC Comics™ brand chemicals or get bitten by some type of radioactive insect created by Marvel's™ top secret bioengineering team - you know, the kinds of things that don't kill you but give you kooky powers, lol... but there's a slight catch.

ALL OF THE ABOVE COMMON SUPERPOWERS ARE RULED OUT AS POSSIBILITIES. So what are you hoping for?

My wishes would be:

1. Hypnotic suggestion; as demonstrated here by the X-Men's Morlock character, Annalee, and with the ( ˊ ³ˋ)੭ ⃰ ⷭ ⷩ ꙴ ᷫࠠ ᷤ ⷦ ͥ ᷤ ᷤ ⃰ perfect amount of melodrama, as is to be expected from the masterpiece that was the 90s animated X-Men series 😂

2. Probability Alteration/Luck/"Plot Armor"; Note - this one is best depicted in the comics by Domino and Longshot. The biggest downside to this one is that this power generally implies a sort of universal "scale of luck" that requires "balancing out" when used by the person who has this power, whether intentionally or subconsciously. In other words, when the power-haver's probability of good outcomes is unnaturally increased, the probability of bad outcomes for those around them is equally increased, as a sort of twisted interpretation of Newton's 3rd law, lol. So this one comes with the onus to make sure you're not around anyone you actually like when your power is activated.

3. Siren Song; More of an "anti-hero" thing I suppose (or straight up villain, depending on which way you wanna go... 😅), seeing as though it really only has one function - lure people (men, traditionally, but hey... statistically speaking, most villains fall into that category, both in comics and IRL haha 🤷🏻‍♀️) to an agonizing death by drowning. But damn, you could get a platinum record and a grammy doing it! 😂 Or if I want to stick with the creativity but with a slightly less murder-y vibe, LOL...

4. The ability to bring art to life, whether it be limited to visual arts or, my preference, expanded to anything classified as one of the "fine arts"; since this one may be harder to imagine, let me give a few examples of some abilities it might include. For visual arts, drawing/painting/depicting an object or scene and causing it to become real; recreating in reality the circumstances of a photograph; etc... for performing arts, causing the actors and actresses of a play or a movie to actually become the roles which they are playing; affecting the mood of anyone in earshot by playing different styles of music... even things like sculpture/studio crafts/architecture could be affected - think this classic scene from Beetlejuice, lol

And finally, what I have always considered to be the ULTIMATE superpower...

5. Access to Hammerspace; For those unfamiliar with the term "Hammerspace," it refers to the invisible, hidden pocket dimension where cartoons store objects which they can then access at their convenience/when comedic timing dictates it's appropriate, lol. Of course, if I wanted to go the Superman route and make myself ridiculously overpowered, haha, I could even raise that to "being governed in totality by cartoon physics." Then, depending on just how far my cartoon physics abilities went, it'd essentially be like having the superpowers of The Mask, which, in all honesty, would be amazing. 😂

So how about you all? What would be your top 5 choices for lesser known/under-appreciated superpowers? I'm curious to know how many creative/weird choices are out there lol

So, I'll sum up what it is/how it works here, then for those interested, I'll include the long-winded backstory of how I obtained this awesome device in a comment (since the bot keeps detecting certain words in the backstory and misinterpreting it as me asking banned questions anyway, lol... it'll just be easier to put the story in a comment for anyone interested).

This is a real 19th century quack electrotherapy device, from somewhere between the years 1898 to 1902 (sellers were unsure when this *exact* one was from, but those are the range of years in which this particular model was sold; I do have some paperwork on it, filed away in my filing cabinet somewhere, but I didn't feel like digging it out just for this post).

The way it works: it is difficult (though clearly not impossible, as you can see from my demonstration here) to operate alone. You can also see that as I demonstrate it, I have to stretch the hand that is not turning the crank across both knobs, as they both must be touched to complete the circuit, or else it won't work. It is designed for the "dOcToR" - read, snake oil salesman - to turn the crank while the "PaTiEnT" - read, sucker, lol - holds on to those two knobs with their hands (one on each of course). When the crank is turned with the circuit completed, a small electrical charge is generated that is slightly bigger than the shock you get when you shuffle across a carpet and touch something metal; definitely uncomfortable but nothing that will hurt you in any significant way. Nor will it actually do anything to *help* you, of course, from a medical standpoint, but that's the beauty of "quack medicine" - all razzle dazzle, no actual results (if you're lucky, that is... because there were plenty of snake oil "medical therapies" that DID give results, but they weren't *good* results lol).

Anyway, this is by far the coolest antique I own, and like I said, if you're bored and want to read a long story about how I got this thing, check the comments...