History Main / RealityWarpingIsNotAToy

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/44607043/chapters/121613383 A Price to Pay]]'': Gabriel and Adrien learn this the hard way when Gabriel convinces his son to betray his partner, plying him with promises of a shiny new reality where his mother will be restored to life and nobody will know the AwfulTruth of what they did, as their Wish is granted in a way that ensures they [[LaserGuidedKarma face consequences for their actions]]:

* ''ComicBook/{{Secret Wars|1984}}'': [[Characters/MarvelComicsDoctorDoom Doctor Doom]] experiances this after having stolen the Beyonder's power. He dare not sleep otherwise his thoughts will alter reality. When he does eventually fall asleep, he subconsciously resurrects the heroes he just killed.

* In the [[IntercontinuityCrossover Intercompany Crossover]] ''ComicBook/{{Batman}} Vs. ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'', [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] gets the power to warp reality. Batman challenged Joker about how lacking in creativity he'd been so far taunting him with a BatmanGambit to get him to unleash his full imagination, but going that far Joker finally goes "I never imagined..." and when he does the Shaper Of Worlds promptly ceases giving life to Joker's whims leaving him defeated.
* Mad Jim Jaspers from ''ComicBook/CaptainBritainACrookedWorld'' is a powerful reality warper... who is utterly insane. An alternate world version of himself exterminates all the other superhumans of his reality, then destroys his entire universe via misuse of his abilities. The mainstream version is even more powerful, and sometimes doesn't even recognize that the "bundles of pretty string" he sees and torments are actually people seen through his reality distorting powers.

* An ''ComicBook/{{Impulse}}'' arc dealt with this. Impulse gets possessed by a genie that imbues him with unlimited magical powers. He changes the world and tries to make it better, inadvertently making it worse. For example, having cars run on water instead of gasoline, getting rid of pollution, but with the effect of countries now going to war over water rights instead of petroleum.
* This tended to be the focus of the stories with the original comic book series of ''ComicBook/TheMask''.
* In one [[Creator/MarvelComics Marvel comic]], the Beyonder rants about being BlessedWithSuck. He is a literally omnipotent reality warper -- his every thought defines reality around him. While it never directly works against him, it means he cannot really experience anything, since everything becomes what he expects -- he literally lives his life surrounded by nothing but figments of his imagination.
** This applies more to [[Characters/MarvelComicsDoctorDoom Doctor Doom]] after having stolen the Beyonder's power in ''ComicBook/{{Secret Wars|1984}}''. He dare not sleep otherwise his thoughts will alter reality. When he does eventually fall asleep, he subconsciously resurrects the heroes he just killed.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Thorgal}}'', Jolan's ImaginaryFriend Alinoe gets warped by his anger and not only turns against him but becomes TheVirus.
* The ''ComicBook/TomStrong'' story "Tom Strong's Pal, Wally Willoughby" is about a pathetic nerd with unknowing reality warping powers whose rage and self-loathing nearly destroy a city.
* Imp from ''ComicBook/{{Wanted}}'' is having a secret affair with Deadly Nightshade. His boss doesn't want him doing this incase he accidentally undoes reality while in the throes of passion.
* In ''ComicBook/YoungAvengers'' ''#4'', [[Characters/MarvelComicsLoki Loki]] suggests to Teddy that the only reason he met and fell in love with Billy is because Billy's powers made it happen. Teddy protests that Billy would never have manipulated him like that. Loki explains that whims and daydreams are all it takes, and Teddy is a "very lovely daydream". [[spoiler:Issue 12 reveals that Loki isn't immune to this either. Most of the villains in this run are actually his self-loathing given form when he briefly wielded Billy's powers.]]
* ''ComicBook/GalactaDaughterOfGalactus'' posits that the X-factor actually grants the same power to all mutants: reality warping. The problem is that most of them can't actually control it, so they unconsciously warp reality in different ways that manifest as their mutant powers.

** In the finale, Bat-Mite decides he's gotten bored with the [[WorldOfHam hammy]], comedic show and [[MediumAwareness decides to get it cancelled]] in favor of a DarkerAndEdgier series by using his reality-warping powers to make ''TB&TB'' [[JumpingTheShark Jump the Shark]]. After Bat-Mite has succeeded in his plan, Comicbook/AmbushBug reminds him that Bat-Mite himself is too silly a character to be included in such a dark series and thus [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Bat-Mite fades into nonexistence]]. Whoops.

** ''Chloe's Lament'', for example, has Chloe wish to swap places with Marinette after finding out that she's Ladybug. So, now she's the baker's daughter who ran into Fu while Marinette is the Mayor's daughter. Chloe only realizes after the fact that while she knows Marinette ''did'' become Ladybug, she doesn't know ''how'', so Chloe can't re-create the events that led to Marinette getting the earrings. Chloe's [[ItsAllAboutMe utter self-centeredness]] meant that she carelessly [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty wished away]] everything that protected her from the consequences of her bad behavior, since she took it completely for granted.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Anya's necklace allows her to do this in "The Wish" but it backfires and she loses her powers.
* Cole in ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'', when he was promoted to an avatar. He created a world where he was married to Phoebe, but she hated him, and to add injury to insult, he became Balthazar again, thus getting himself killed rather easily.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'', "Better Than Life": When the crew enter the Better Than Life video game, Rimmer's power to make things 'better than life' simply ends up sabotaging the game for all involved, as his subconscious won't let him be happy.

** One episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' sees Enterprise blown all the away to the edge of the universe (a freak accident with an experimental engine upgrade). The laws of reality are pretty loose there, and so the crew spends most of the episode trying to avoid bringing their imaginations to life (which is a lot like trying not to think of pink elephants) while the technical crew tries to replicate the accident to send the ship back.
** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Survivors", one of the titular survivors is an immensely powerful being wracked with guilt after wiping out an entire race of invading race of aliens in a fit of rage.
** Another ''Star Trek'' example: in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "The Squire of Gothos", Trelane is a godlike alien reality warper who creates new worlds to suit his whims. He torments the Enterprise crew with his powers, but just as he's about to kill Kirk, his parents show up and remonstrate him.
** Another ''Star Trek'' example in the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek: TOS]]'' episode "Charlie X." The teenage boy Charlie has these powers. Suffice it to say, his powers cause serious problems for the Enterprise crew until the EnergyBeing aliens take Charlie away.
** Also in ''[=TOS=]'', the episode "Shore Leave" has a planet where the crew's thoughts are made reality (if you think of a KnightInShiningArmor, he appears--but he might run you through!). The crew figures it out about the same time the "curators" of the planet realize that the visitors don't understand what is going on.
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' gets into the act with "If Wishes Were Horses". It turns out the NegativeSpaceWedgie that threatens to destroy the station only does so because the crew find a sort-of similar occurrence in their records and ''expect'' it to. Also Rumpelstiltskin and a [[ImAManICantHelpIt submissive Daxelganger]] show up.

* ''Literature/TheImagerTrilogy'': This is one of the major dangers of the eponymous Imagers' powers. The protagonist discovers his powers when he starts daydreaming about his master's {{Jerkass}} apprentice blowing himself up through mixing some oils incorrectly and the studio explodes, and it's a rule that all Imagers must sleep alone in a lead-lined room to prevent dream-imaging.

** The novel (and TheFilmOfTheBook) ''Literature/TheLatheOfHeaven''. George Orr's "effective dreams" cause him (and the rest of the world) a lot of problems, especially when his psychiatrist starts trying to use him to improve the world. It's worth noting that ''The Lathe of Heaven'' was Le Guin's homage to/pastiche of Creator/PhilipKDick.

Even a strong-willed person will have trouble with winning this SuperpowerLottery; PowerIncontinence due to subconscious slips are no less likely for the {{Determinator}} with HeroicWillpower, and [[HowDoIShotWeb minor carelessness or forgetfulness]] can have disastrous consequences. Just how exactly do you practice Warping Reality without risking messing up the world you live in? At it's darkest and most horrifying, it may even get to the point where the user can't tell what's real from what they themselves altered. After all, if you are the one who defines what reality is what's the difference between real and fantasy? Worse, reality warping doesn't necessarily provide a defense for consumption of drugs[[note]](at least not until the character can manage atomic-scale perception and manipulation)[[/note]], MindControl, or simple [[ManipulativeBastard psychological manipulation]]. Too bad you can't get ticketed for "Reality Warping Under The Influence".

* This is why the protagonists of ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'' go to such absurd lengths to prevent the titular character from discovering that she is a PhysicalGod. They already have enough trouble trying to keep her from annihilating all of reality by sheer accident, and they ''really'' don't want to find out what would happen if she could ''use'' her powers.

* Mad Jim Jaspers from the ''ComicBook/{{Excalibur|MarvelComics}}'' series was a powerful reality warper... who was utterly insane. An alternate world version of himself exterminated all the other superhumans of his reality then destroyed his entire universe via misuse of his abilities. The mainstream version is even more powerful, and sometimes doesn't even recognize that the "bundles of pretty string" he sees and torments are actually people seen through his reality distorting powers.
* There is an inversion in a ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' story when a middle aged milquetoast has the mutant power of omnipotence… but being a milquetoast, he always caves to other’s needs and therefore, never realizes he had it... in that issue, Earth is devastated by a gravitational pulse from Ego the Living Planet, and when he sees the Fantastic Four flying into space to deal with Ego he assumes they're fleeing Earth and he wishes things were as they were before, his power burns out in the process of reverting Earth to how it was prior to the attack (although it doesn't recall the FF).

** As EquivalentExchange for Emelie's life, Tom Dupain-Cheng died in a car crash... caused by Gabriel. While he used his resources to [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney rig the trial in his favor]], Emelie was so disgusted by her husband's actions that she divorced him, [[IHaveNoSon disowning her son]] for his LackOfEmpathy for the Dupain-Chengs.

** ''Fanfic/VillainOfYourOwnStory'': After learning about the Wish, Alya assumes they can use it to learn who Hawkmoth is, only to accidentally end up in a world where ''she'' was Hawkmoth all along. This is also further PlayedWith in that her Wish for Marinette to be happier actually gets granted without a hitch... aside from the fact that said happiness didn't take the form Alya expected, spurring her to write it off as "going horribly wrong" since she can't accept that she didn't know what was best for her "bestie".

* Cole in ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'', when he was promoted to an avatar. He created a world where he was married to Phoebe, but she hated him, and to add injury to insult, he became Balthazar again, thus getting himself killed rather easily.
* Project Moloch in the second season of ''Series/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'' was a quite powerful one. Although he managed to materialize a toy for himself he was prone to accidentally warp reality around himself, especially when in distress. In a minor case he manifested a monster from his nightmares, but was later able to trap it in a pocket dimension. In a major case he accidentally created a whole new universe that started to interfere with the normal one and caused some havoc, while he was temporary out of the picture. When he returned, he managed to clean up the mess and properly preside over his own creation, keeping it out of trouble.

* In ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'' Transcendent implants work by harnessing [[http://cuiltheory.wikidot.com/what-is-cuil-theory Cuil Theory]] and abstract reality. When implanted they have a Cuil level of 1 to 5, when an implant of Cuil 3 or higher is activated there's a good chance that the owner will die messily: A Translocation Implant could suffer a TeleporterAccident, while an Exciter implant could set yourself on fire, etc. While Cuil 5 implants are just instant death to activate, you [[ChunkySalsaRule just can't survive it]]. And Transcendent implants temporarily go up a level each time they're used in combat.

* In the ''Videogame/AlanWake'' series, the protagonist and his fellow creatives, granted RewritingReality abilities by proximity to Cauldron Lake, an EldritchLocation, all learn the hard way that they're unwittingly playing directly into the ambitions of the Dark Presence, its resident EldritchAbomination, which aims to become a {{Humanoid|Abomination}} one, using {{Plot Hole}}s and ambiguities in their works as a pretext.
** ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'': The backstory of Jesse Faden: Playing with a reality-warping [[ArtifactOfDoom Object of Power]] that turns ordinary slides into portals to other worlds is all fun and games until an EldritchAbomination from one of these worlds takes control of your O.O.P. and murders your entire town by reality-warping them into mutated piles of feral flesh... or worse. There are other Objects of Power and Reality Warpers out there, which end up misused and cause Altered World Events; reality-warping on a massive scale, destroying entire cities and leaving behind Altered Items [[note]]Altered items are weaker than O.O.P.s and can only perform a limited set of supernatural abilities, but they're still lethal if mishandled[[/note]] in their wake. [[spoiler:Also, Alan has honed his reality-warping powers for the past 10 years, but has developed a severe case of schizophrenia; an inability to tell the difference between reality and fiction, because his powers prevent him from seeing anything that's both real and unchanging. He's trapped in a narrative Hell, yet he could become an insane reality-warping threat if he ever escaped.]]

* In the Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} Reality Marbles are a form of magecraft that allows the user to temporarily force the world to conform to his or her own vision of reality. The Magus Association has banned research due in part to the danger it poses to those researching it.

* ''Webcomic/{{minus}}'' plays with this trope constantly (the main character being a young girl with nearly omnipotent RealityWarper powers) but the biggest example comes at the very end with innocent little minus [[spoiler:accidentally killing everyone on the planet by, ironically, resurrecting everybody who ever died (mass suffocation ensues as the earth is covered in layers of people and animals)]]. It's played for laughs, though, because [[spoiler:everybody decides to just create a utopia in the afterlife, and eventually the ghosts turn Earth into a theme-park [[ResetButton based on how things used to be]]]].
* A minor example in ''Webcomic/{{Misfile}}''. A fortune teller is in a relationship that turns sour through a series of bizarre coincidences. [[spoiler:It turns out that her playing with magic has coalesced her anxiety into a [[LivingShadow sentient being]] that seeks to make her fears come true.]]

* There is a highly meta example in ''Webcomic/{{Roommates}}''. The cast members are fictional characters their reality is their {{canon}} and {{fanon}} story and every single storyteller ever unknowingly warps it. If they mess up the result won't be pretty... Poor [[Myth/ArthurianLegend Morgan (Morgause/etc.) The Healer (LaFay/etc.)]] is more than bipolar by now.

* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in ''Webcomic/APTComic''. It is a toy, but makes things too easy and not fun enough to be utilized most of the time (according to Ammika, at least).

* In ''Webcomic/{{PS238}}'', this is a lesson that [[spoiler: Toby Marlocke, Tyler's clone that gets reality warping powers]] quickly learns. His powers mostly run on EquivalentExchange -- anything more complex than very basic super abilities (like flight) cause something else to happen. Minor effects typically just transform nearby objects, but more complex alterations of reality cause larger side-effects (like [[spoiler: attempting to give his brother powers]] ended up [[spoiler: depowering every other super in existence ''and'' giving powers to all other non-supers]]). What's worse, figuring out the side effect ahead of time requires concentration ''and'' isn't guaranteed to give all of the details.

** ''[[Fanfic/RecklessnessMiraculousLadybug Recklessness]]'', a RecursiveFanfiction inspired by ''The Lament Series'', has Alya run headlong into this by deciding to use a Wish to learn Hawkmoth's SecretIdentity. Horrifyingly, she uses the fact that reality will be rewritten to dismiss the anguish and agony she causes with her betrayal, reasoning that the fallout will be wiped away. Suffice to say, she ends up suffering a ''severe'' case of LaserGuidedKarma with ''how'' her Wish gets granted.
** ''Fanfic/AlyaAndTheHaremReality'' is a more sympathetic take on this trope as Alya's wish (that people would love Marinette) was something she had only a few seconds to think up as part of a desperate plan to stop Hawk Moth from making ''his'' wish after he had already defeated the heroes, and it was the first thing she could think of that was relatively harmless (she reasoned that Marinette had a OneHundredPercentApprovalRating already, so the wish wouldn't have to change that much). Though as the Kwami Stompp [[BrutalHonesty bluntly]] tells her AlternateTimeline self, there's no such thing as a harmless wish, since the alterations are something that not even the Kwamis themselves can control. The results range from positive (Chloé having a HeelFaceTurn thanks to being in a [[{{Polyamory}} relationship with Marinette and Alya]]), to negative ([[spoiler:Master Fu already killed by an unknown adversary after having to scatter the Miraculouses]]), or even completely mundane changes (Zoe being taller than her half-sister Chloé).
* ''Fanfic/MiraculousEscalation:'' This is the reason given why using the Wish function of the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses is too dangerous to risk. The Wish disables the PowerLimiter encoded in the Miraculouses, invoking the [[PowersThatBe true divine power]] of Tikki and Plagg. But playing literal God is hard for creatures that are normally constrained by the limits of flesh and blood, space and time and causality. The last time a Wish was used, it rewrote history to prevent WorldWarIII, and even thirty years later the effects of that Wish are still playing out.

* [[http://exalted.xi.co.nz/wiki/Shataina/QuicksilverScribe Quicksilver Scribe]] is a Lunar TabletopGame/{{Exalted}} trying to use the LanguageOfMagic to give the Primordial War of ancient history a more peaceful ending. The plot hook is that this ''[[WellIntentionedExtremist might]]'' work, or it might make everything a hell of a lot worse. For one thing, she can't fully understand said language (being only mortal)...and for another, if she accidentally makes it so humanity ''lost'' the war, they will be RetGone[=d=] out of existence. Even if she succeeds, she will probably get DrunkWithPower.
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13157026/1/Eternal-Fantasy Eternal Fantasy]]'', several students of [[Literature/HarryPotter Mahoutokoro]] learn of a muggle RPG similar to ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' named ''Eternal Fantasy'', find the general idea interesting, and decide to make a closed space to literally bring it to reality, fueling it with the convergence of three major leylines. Unfortunately, a stupid mistake ends with an ''inverted'' boundary, resulting in a WorldWreckingWave propagating from the leylines that creates an entirely new magic system and spreads it beyond any form of containment into both the Wizarding World and the muggle reality, breaking most forms of technology and corroding existing magic, now a dying system known as Terran magic, into the newer and far stronger Gaian magic.
* In ''Fanfic/AndersonQuestKillingVampiresAndWerewolvesAndLeprechuans'', [[VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}} Micolash]] explains he's been removed from his position as the central mind sustaining the School of Mensis, and the Wet Nurse left him with a small amount of the original RealityWarper powers he originally had. For a while, he used them to keep himself fed and entertained, but as he mentions, his memory is starting to fail him. Originally, he could easily conjure cigarettes, but as he forgot the original taste, errors began piling up until every single one came out as garbage.

* Nearly OlderThanRadio, in Creator/HGWells' 1898 short story, "The Man Who Could Work Miracles". George Fotheringay discovers he can work miracles; he can wish anything to happen and it does. [[spoiler:He wishes the sun to not set, causing the Earth's rotation to instantly stop, sending everything on the planet's surface flying. He wishes to survive this, then very carefully wishes for a ResetButton back to the moment he discovered his powers and that he wouldn't have them.]]
* Both implied and applied (the last couple of pages of ''Blood of Amber'', and the beginning of ''Sign of Chaos'') in the Merlin cycle of Creator/RogerZelazny's ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfAmber'', this is the reason that they don't take hallucinogenic drugs. Or, at least, not ''more than once''. Everybody's tried them -- it's just that this also turns out to be the reason [[DecadentCourt nobody bothers to mention the result to newcomers]]. To be more specific, the characters don't have the ability to ''change'' reality per se -- it's merely that all realities exist side-by-side simultaneously, and they have the ability to travel between them by picturing where they want to go. Altering your mental state is thus likely to put you in one of the less pleasant realities, and the farther away from your home reality you travel, the worse your chances of ever getting back again.
* In ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' from ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' series, the heroes' ship gets lost in a dark fog at sea. As they approach a mysterious island, they meet a lone survivor from a previous expedition, who warns them that this is the place "[[ExactWords where dreams come true]]". At first, most of the crew are elated, but once they realize that this doesn't mean wishes or daydreams, but ''[[OhCrap actual]]'' [[NightmareFuel dreams]], they leave with all haste.
-->There was about half a minute's silence and then, with a great clatter of armour, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had taken everyone just that halfminute to remember certain dreams they had had—dreams that make you afraid of going to sleep again—and to realize what it would mean to land on a country where dreams come true.

* The title object in ''Literature/{{Sphere}}'' gives those who go inside it this ability -- from teleporting a spaceship to the bottom of the ocean and hundreds of years back in time, to manifesting giant killer squids. Bottom line, lots of people die.
* ''Literature/LabyrinthsOfEcho'' had the protagonist who have ''all'' his true wishes come true "[[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor sooner or later, one way or another]]" -- Max survived only due to being too scatter-brained to concentrate on seriously willing anything and very afraid of dying. The magic with talent and will required, but control and understanding optional gives borderline cases. "Horror of Mages" happens when a powerful wizard is very afraid of a thing that doesn't exist -- it may become real; bad news: such a phantasm can be destroyed only by its creator, who can't do it while afraid, and seeing one's personal nightmare approaching for real doesn't help. Mages with bad self-control sometimes have dreams reflecting into reality -- so if one dreams of scorching a building, well, let's hope there was no one inside. The Echo's ex-BigBad not only "demolished whatever offended his taste without leaving his bed", but had babies just ''appearing'' near his mistresses [[SomeoneToRememberHimBy who wanted such a "souvenir"]] -- "Loyso's children" weren't normal humans.

* In the original ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'' trilogy [[spoiler: The Lord Ruler when he was wielding the powers of the Well of Ascension]] and then in Hero of Ages [[spoiler:Vin gives it a whirl only to realise she's doing more bad than good]] and right at the end of it all [[spoiler:Sazed comes out of nowhere (Er, sort of) and does what his predecessors could not by rewriting the entire world to the absolute point where it was previously before the Lord Ruler screwed the entire planet]].
* In the ''Literature/ColdfireTrilogy'', the ''fae'' of the world of Erna reacts to the minds of the people who live there, making everyone on the planet reality warpers. It's particularly sensitive to fears, as those are much harder to keep your mind from fixating on and the first sign of one's fears becoming true only intensifies them, giving the ''fae'' more to react to. The only reason that humanity has survived on Erna into the present day of the books, even with their level of technology stagnated by 1000 years, is because [[spoiler:the leader of the colonists who originally crashed on Erna in the backstory sacrificed their ship and all of its knowledge (the ''fae'' responds to sacrifice) to create the FunctionalMagic system that allowed humans some measure of control over the ''fae'']].
* In the "B" Storyline of the ''Literature/GiveYourselfGoosebumps'' book ''It's Only a Nightmare'', you are able to control your dreams by (in a sense) "wishing" in your mind what happens next, but [[YourMindMakesItReal your dreams have an effect on you in the real world]], and can even kill you (ItMakesSenseInContext). To make it worse, each dream is controlled by your thoughts first, so it is possible to just randomly think of something, and have that come true even though you didn't really want it to.
* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', when RealityWarper and FisherKing ''du jour'' Rand is crazy and suicidally depressed, people die by freak accident and food, already in short supply, becomes rotten much more quickly than normal. When he has an epiphany and gets a new outlook on life, people ''escape'' death through freak happenstance and rotten food becomes fresh.
* In ''Literature/SabinaKane: Red-Headed Stepchild'', wizard Adam Lazarus cautions the eponymous half-mage, half-vampire that use of magic inherently disturbs the natural order, and even small castings have unforeseeable effects elsewhere in the world (usually imperceptible effects, but it ''has'' an effect). Large castings have been known to cause natural disasters.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' novel ''The Sorcerer's Apprentice'', a really advanced race developed a swarm of nanobots capable of virtual reality-warping. [[spoiler: One of them idly wished for some more color in the night sky, and the nanobots complied by ''triggering a supernova''. This drained the system of energy for some years, during which the race suffered from brutal culture shock from which they never recovered. Afterwards, a lost human colony settled in the same planet, and mistook the recovered nanobot network for FunctionalMagic.]]
* ''Literature/ChasingTheMoon'': Diana learns that constant borderline omnipotence is something you ''really'' don't want. [[spoiler: It's pretty nifty for making a substitute moon though, and [[NoOntologicalInertia deliberately keeping it around]] conveniently eats up all her excess magic.]]
* ''Literature/BigWish'' has the main character driven insane by wish-granting and how pointless it makes life to get anything you want, so in the end he gives up all but one wish, which he saves for an emergency.
* In the horror novel ''Literature/{{Jago}}'', a cult leader gains reality warping powers. The effects are bad for people in the vicinity, as their fears and bad memories start taking on physical form. It goes better for him at first, but things end badly for him after he loses control of his powers.
* ''Literature/TheImagerTrilogy:'' This is one of the major dangers of the eponymous Imagers' powers. The protagonist discovers his powers when he starts daydreaming about his master's {{Jerkass}} apprentice blowing himself up through mixing some oils incorrectly and the studio explodes, and it's a rule that all Imagers must sleep alone in a lead-lined room to prevent dream-imaging.
* In ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'', the villain of the second arc has an apparently unbeatable Reality Warping power but is defeated by making him lose control of his fears; [[ThoughtAversionFailure the hero begins loudly speculating what would happen if the villain had a stray thought about his powers going out of control]], [[PowerIncontinence whereupon the villain accidentally weakens himself, heals the sidekick from being ''skinned alive'', and makes the dismembered hero invincible - and then a giant ghost dragon head bursts from the hero's arm stump. And then the villain can't think about anything but the dragon mauling him, so it happens]]. [[note]]According to later books, that last part might not be due to Aurelius' reality-warping, but rather a result of Touma's AntiMagic arm getting cut off, as it suppresses [[SealedInsideAPersonShapedCan an extremely powerful entity sealed inside Touma]].[[/note]]
* In ''[[Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', [[spoiler:Yuki Nagato rewrites the last 365 days of the year, causing everyone in the SOS brigade to be normal]]. Kyon's character development shows when [[spoiler:he's forced to choose on whether he wants to keep the normal life or the eccentric, adventure-filled one]]. Although that instance was deliberate. The random changes Haruhi imposes on the world while filming a movie and losing track of the distinction between reality and fiction are a better example.
** There's also the general fact that the entire reason for the {{Masquerade}} is that they're afraid that if Haruhi finds out, it will all get much, much worse.
* In ''Literature/FromTheNewWorld'', everyone has extremely powerful psychic powers, which can do anything from telekinesis to altering a creature's genetic code. The bulk of the series focuses around what happens when people suffer mental illness, develop PowerIncontinence, and the side effects of subconscious fear. Contrived religious ceremonies and [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinism]] are required to keep people's conscious and unconscious minds from wreaking havoc; despite this, [[spoiler:most of the world is a wasteland populated by the horrific manifestations of humanity's nightmares,]] and occasionally an unstable person slaughters hundreds or thousands of people (''billions'' died when these powers first surfaced).
* In ''Literature/IsThisAZombie'', Eucliwood briefly transfers her incredible powers to Ayumu. He is warned not to let his mind wander, but then he inadvertently causes every woman in the area to suddenly be in a bikini. They angrily beat him up.
** The reason why Eucliwood doesn't change reality all the time is because she's very disciplined, always keeping her emotions in check and rarely ever speaking. This very much leans towards CursedWithAwesome for her as she really doesn't want to hurt people with her powers, but does so by accident.
* ''Literature/TheScholomance'': It's mentioned that long-term reality warping is impossible because reality [[NoOntologicalInertia inevitably wins out in the end]]. However, the more power you put into it, the more elaborate your personal fantasy universe can be, and the bigger the explosion when it implodes.

** In The Thousand-Year Blood War arc, we have [[spoiler:Gremmy Thoumeaux, the "V" (the "Visionary") Sternritter, who has a ''literal'' ImaginationBasedSuperpower, whatever he can imagine becomes reality (though the changes he makes can revert if he doesn't continue to focus on them). This ability, powerful as it is (there's a ''reason'' this guy [[ArrogantKungFuGuy claims to be the most powerful of his compatriots]]) nearly ''kills'' him when he nearly imagines Kenpachi killing him. In the end, he's killed when he tries to imagine himself stronger than Kenpachi, but because he also perceives Kenpachi as an unstoppable monster, he gets stronger and stronger until his own body can't handle the strain and tears itself apart. Turns out that when everything you imagine becomes real it's a ''really'' bad idea to try to imagine two mutually contradictory things. Kenpachi immediately realizes what happened and comments on the idiocy]].

** ''Fanfic/AlyaAndTheHaremReality'' is a more sympathetic take on this trope as Alya's wish (that people would love Marinette) was a desperate attempt to stop Monarch from using Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous after defeating the heroes, because she thought it was a harmless wish that wouldn't change things too much. She also had seconds to think of something before Monarch made his own wish. Though as the Kwami Stompp [[BrutalHonesty bluntly]] tells her AlternateTimeline self, there's no such thing as a harmless wish, since the alterations are something that not even the Kwamis themselves can control. The results range from positive (Chloé having a HeelFaceTurn thanks to being in a [[{{Polyamory}} relationship with Marinette and Alya]]), to negative ([[spoiler:Master Fu already killed by an unknown adversary after having to scatter the Miraculouses]]), or even completely mundane changes (Zoe being taller than her half-sister Chloé).

* ''I Married a STRANGE Person!'': After Grant Boyer is zapped by his TV satellite dish, he starts to warp reality to match whatever he imagines, and he just cannot stop imagining.
* In one episode WesternAnimation/TheMask hides from Lieutenant Kellaway by turning himself into a character in a comicbook. When he comes out from it, he accidentally drags along with himself three supervillains of the world of the comicbook. He spends the rest of the episode trying to defeat them, only to discover that DeathIsCheap. Ultimately he ends up tearing the comicbook apart, which wipes out the villains from his reality.
* This is the basis of the ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "Rainy Day Daydream", when Jake's imagination takes on {{Reality Warp|er}}ing powers, without any cause. He simply chooses to imagine a machine that can turn his imagination off, but still can't keep from placing obstacles and dangers in his own path to the machine.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': As Spike learns a bit too late, the desire to exercise the "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E23InspirationManifestation Inspiration Manifestation]]" power takes hold of a pony (in this case Rarity), and they can't help but use it. A crazed Rarity 'beautifies' the town into such chaos that Discord would be hard-pressed to compete with it.
* This is a recurring theme in ''WesternAnimation/ChalkZone''. Rudy Tabootie possesses magic chalk capable of creating anything he can imagine, and he quickly realizes the dangers of such power. He keeps himself limited to creating things that are harmless or useful for getting out of trouble. He refuses to create living beings unless it's for the most dire of circumstances and when he does try to use the chalk for personal gain, it's born more out of hasty panic or not thinking things through. He still has to be reminded time and again just how big of a responsibility it is to wield the magic chalk.

* The entire plot of ''Anime/Pokemon3'' is a result of this trope, BlueAndOrangeMorality, and LivingDream. Unowns abduct Molly's dad. Molly wants her father back. Unowns, not understanding how humans think, turn dad into Entei and cover the estate in crystal. Molly wants a mommy, Unowns teleport ''Ash's'' mother. Chaos ensues.

** ''Fanfic/AlyaAndTheHaremReality'' is a more sympathetic take on this trope as Alya's wish (that people would love Marinette) was a desperate attempt to stop Monarch from using Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous after defeating the heroes, because she thought it was a harmless wish that wouldn't change things too much. She also had seconds to think of something before Monarch made his own wish. Though as the Kwami Stompp [[BrutalHonesty bluntly]] tells her AlternateTimeline self, there's no such thing as a harmless wish, since the alterations are something that not even the Kwamis themselves can control. The results range from positive (Chloe having a HeelFaceTurn thanks to being in a [[{{Polyamory}} relationship with Marinette and Alya]]), to negative ([[spoiler:Master Fu already killed by an unknown adversary after having to scatter the Miraculouses]]), or even completely mundane changes (Zoe being taller than her half-sister Chloe).

** The Orks' quasi-psychic field that [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve makes things work according to how the Orks think things work]] usually works in their favor (in fact, the only reason such an ability isn't utterly broken is that Orks are ''stupid''). However, in at least one case it's backfired on them: when Sebastian Yarrick slaughtered an unbelievable number of Orks, the Orks began thinking of him as an unstoppable Ork-killing machine... which, thanks to their powers, whenever he goes up against Orks, that's exactly what he becomes. [[spoiler: Averted in in Literature/TheBeastArises series. Bad things happen when an Ork manages to become a Beast, the most powerful of their kind. A Beast's influence on the rest of the Orks vastly increases their strength and intelligence. The above part about how the Orks' stupidity keeps their Waaagh! Energy from being utterly broken? Yeah.]]

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', the villain of the second arc has an apparently unbeatable Reality Warping power but is defeated by making him lose control of his fears; [[ThoughtAversionFailure the hero begins loudly speculating what would happen if the villain had a stray thought about his powers going out of control]], [[PowerIncontinence whereupon the villain accidentally weakens himself, heals the sidekick from being ''skinned alive'', and makes the dismembered hero invincible - and then a giant ghost dragon head bursts from the hero's arm stump. And then the villain can't think about anything but the dragon mauling him, so it happens]]. [[note]]According to later books, that last part might not be due to Aurelius' reality-warping, but rather a result of Touma's AntiMagic arm getting cut off, as it suppresses [[SealedInsideAPersonShapedCan an extremely powerful entity sealed inside Touma]].[[/note]]
* In ''[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', [[spoiler:Yuki Nagato rewrites the last 365 days of the year, causing everyone in the SOS brigade to be normal]]. Kyon's character development shows when [[spoiler:he's forced to choose on whether he wants to keep the normal life or the eccentric, adventure-filled one]].
** Although that instance was deliberate. The random changes Haruhi imposes on the world while filming a movie and losing track of the distinction between reality and fiction are a better example.

* In ''LightNovel/IsThisAZombie'', Eucliwood briefly transfers her incredible powers to Ayumu. He is warned not to let his mind wander, but then he inadvertently causes every woman in the area to suddenly be in a bikini. They angrily beat him up.

* The entire plot of ''Anime/{{Pokemon 3}}'' is a result of this trope, BlueAndOrangeMorality, and LivingDream. Unowns abduct Molly's dad. Molly wants her father back. Unowns, not understanding how humans think, turn dad into Entei and cover the estate in crystal. Molly wants a mommy, Unowns teleport ''Ash's'' mother. Chaos ensues.

* The title object in ''Film/{{Sphere}}'' gave those who went inside it this ability. From teleporting a spaceship to the bottom of the ocean and hundreds of years back in time, to manifesting giant killer squids. Bottom line, lots of people die.

%%* Pretty much the plot of the Creator/MichaelCrichton book ''Literature/{{Sphere}}''.

** Also played straight with a young mutant named Willie Evans Jr, who absorbed ambient cosmic energy to power his ability to warp reality. In his initial appearance he was feverish and dying from power overload and created evil counter-parts to the FF, after he was drained of the excess his father foolishly ignored the offer of taking him to [[Characters/MarvelComicsProfessorX Professor X]] for training as a result his subconscious manifested a talking frog (based on [[WesternAnimation/OneFroggyEvening the singing frog from the old WB cartoons]]) that contained his negative impulses and revealed it has killed his mother through a car accident when he's seen again. He ends up dying trying to contain it (although it's revealed to have survived somehow but presumably now powerless).

* In-universe, this trope is why the Wiki/SCPFoundation kills off most of the {{Reality Warper}}s it finds. Out-of-universe, it's to keep every GameBreaker off the SCP lists.

* In the IntercompanyCrossover ''ComicBook/{{Batman}} Vs. ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'', [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] gets the power to warp reality. Batman challenged Joker about how lacking in creativity he'd been so far taunting him with a BatmanGambit to get him to unleash his full imagination, but going that far Joker finally goes "I never imagined..." and when he does the Shaper Of Worlds promptly ceases giving life to Joker's whims leaving him defeated.

** This applies more to Characters/DoctorDoom after having stolen the Beyonder's power in ''ComicBook/{{Secret Wars|1984}}''. He dare not sleep otherwise his thoughts will alter reality. When he does eventually fall asleep, he subconsciously resurrects the heroes he just killed.

** ''ComicBook/Supergirl1984'': Zaltar steals the Omegahedron, a reality-warping device which keeps Argo City's support life systems, because he wants to see real, organic trees. When he is almost caught with it, his frantic attempt to hide it away causes its loss and jeopardizes the entire space city. And how does the Omegahedron become lost, exactly? Zaltar gives a little kid his own reality-warping gadget so she plays with it. [[ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Kara]] materializes an insect, gets scared when it flies too close, and drops the Omegahedron. The insect crashes into Argo City's protective membrane, and the Omegahedron is sucked out of the barrier.

** ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'': The backstory of Jesse Faden: Playing with a reality-warping [[ArtifactOfDoom Object of Power]] that turns ordinary slides into portals to other worlds is all fun and games until an {{EldritchAbomination}} from one of these worlds takes control of your O.O.P. and murders your entire town by reality-warping them into mutated piles of feral flesh... or worse. There are other Objects of Power and Reality Warpers out there, which end up misused and cause Altered World Events; reality-warping on a massive scale, destroying entire cities and leaving behind Altered Items [[note]]Altered items are weaker than O.O.P.s and can only perform a limited set of supernatural abilities, but they're still lethal if mishandled[[/note]] in their wake. [[spoiler:Also, Alan has honed his reality-warping powers for the past 10 years, but has developed a severe case of schizophrenia; an inability to tell the difference between reality and fiction, because his powers prevent him from seeing anything that's both real and unchanging. He's trapped in a narrative Hell, yet he could become an insane reality-warping threat if he ever escaped.]]

* The WebComics ''Webcomic/{{minus}}'' plays with this trope constantly (the main character being a young girl with nearly omnipotent RealityWarper powers) but the biggest example comes at the very end with innocent little minus [[spoiler:accidentally killing everyone on the planet by, ironically, resurrecting everybody who ever died (mass suffocation ensues as the earth is covered in layers of people and animals)]]. It's played for laughs, though, because [[spoiler:everybody decides to just create a utopia in the afterlife, and eventually the ghosts turn Earth into a theme-park [[ResetButton based on how things used to be]]]].

** ''Fanfic/AlyaAndTheHaremReality'' is a more sympathetic take on this trope as Alya's wish (that people would love Marinette) was a desperate attempt to stop Monarch from using Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous after defeating the heroes, because she thought it was a harmless wish that wouldn't change things too much. She also had seconds to think of something before Monarch made his own wish. Though as the Kwammi Stompp [[BrutalHonesty bluntly]] tells her AlternateTimeline self, there's no such thing as a harmless wish, since the alterations are something that not even the Kwammis themselves can control. The results range from positive (Chloe having a HeelFaceTurn thanks to being in a [[{{Polyamory}} relationship with Marinette and Alya]]), to negative ([[spoiler:Master Fu already killed by an unknown adversary after having to scatter the Miraculouses]]), or even completely mundane changes (Zoe being taller than her half-sister Chloe).

* There is a highly meta example in ''Webcomic/{{Roommates}}''. The cast members are fictional characters their reality is their {{canon}} and {{fanon}} story and every single storyteller ever unknowingly warps it. If they mess up the result won't be pretty... Poor [[Myth/KingArthur Morgan (Morgause/etc.) The Healer (LaFay/etc.)]] is more than bipolar by now.