Social Impacts

The emergence of kinetics into the mainstream has caused revolutionary changes in society that are still ongoing. To read about the impacts of the new races and how people feel about them, check out the appropriate page here. This one is for how each individual kinesis has changed things and found its place in American society. It includes scientific impacts because science is a social system. Sorry STEMlords.

Some quick trivia: The sorting order on the kinesis page looks kinda random. They're in the order in which they were discovered and officially recorded by the United States government. "Subject One," the first officially known controller, was a lightning user.

Lightning
"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does all the work." —Mark Twain.

The report concluded with undeniable evidence that the subject is capable of electron manipulation by thought alone, suggesting an even deeper link between consciousness and quantum phenomena than previously thought. Early speculation was that all people may be capable of "electrokinesis," or that particular brain structures or mutations may give rise to the ability. The existence of other kineses was not yet hypothesized.

Today, lightning controllers are in high industrial demand. Their chief role is in the power sector, where lightning controllers who opt out of any fine control in favour of specializing fully into maximum lightning production can be the chief source of electricity for an entire power plant, as long as sufficient matter to ionize is available. Those who've mastered the kinesis's advantages in speed and offensive abilities are sought after by militaries the world over as saboteurs, screwing up enemy cybersecurity and satellite communications systems. Among the top powers this particular role is becoming less common as designers incorporate technological solutions to reduce the ability of electrokinetics to drain the power from machinery, but they absolutely still have their place. Law enforcement finds them especially valuable for their ability to incapacitate non-military targets with an unavoidable jolt of lightning thrown from a distance. Organized crime values them for the same reason: lightning can strike the same place many, many times.

These roles make lightning controllers particularly intimidating to many, who understand that it only takes a little to overwhelm their nervous system and incapacitate them. The fact their speed could allow them to escape authorities removes a key disincentive not to ruin people out of spite, so their mere presence is enough to make a lot of mundane humans feel unsafe. It doesn't help that news of a lightning controller accidentally electrocuting someone appears semi-frequently in local news, earning them a reputation as incapable of full control of their powers. Those with more precise manipulation can find work with research and development wings, where direct manipulation of electric currents and fields can improve safety and yield new findings. That said, you're not without special resentment; small groups of lightning controllers replacing whole energy supply chains has cut many out of their jobs.

Among other kinetics, lightning controllers are known for being full of unpredictable tricks, but also known for being reckless showoffs. It's completely unsurprising that the first who managed to get caught by the U.S. government was one of them.

Fire
"Findings from work with Subject Two have yielded implications even more world-shaking than that of Subject One. This matter may be beyond the scope of a single government subdivision to realize. I suggest that knowledge of these 'kineses' must be made public, for both moral and practical reasons." —[REDACTED].

As the second kinesis discovered, fire controllers shed light (via heat?) on humans having the potential for control over more than just electrons. Control over "fire" was even more puzzling since, arguably, fire doesn't really exist. It's not a thing-in-itself but a chemically-reactive process that gives off light. Though it wasn't clear to any at the time, this was the first clue that the influence of kineses may reach beyond the physical sciences to something deeper in the human psyche, or even into the domain of religion. This last was reinforced long after the kinesis's discovery, when it was noted that some pyrokinetics find that their fire is not what we traditionally define as fire at all, but a phenomenon that persists even without oxygen. "Elemental fire" is something separate but apparently close enough for the purposes of whatever strictly defines the limitations of pyrokinesis to enable its generation and control. That itself seems really vague, given that a few fire controllers have weak abilities to manipulate lava, which shares little with fire except for high temperatures.

Similar to lightning, modern fire controllers are in high demand in energy production fields. Fire remains the ultimate source of 75% of power on Earth, and this is reflected by their demand. However, most fire controllers still require fuel to consume, fuel which often contributes to the buildup of greenhouse gases. As a result, fire controllers are able to find work now, but other kineses are already contributing to "greener" power generation, helping to turn global warming around, and their method of power generation on the large-scale may one day be eliminated entirely. Fire controllers still find applications for their power in a number of fields: firefighting, where the ability to extinguish fires is even more useful than the ability to start them; military and mercenary work, where high-level pyrokinesis is particularly potent against enemy structures and vehicles, demolishing them for a lower cost than heavy explosives; law enforcement, where walls of fire serve as both lethal and non-lethal crowd control; and entertainment, where flashy shows of flowing, colour-changing fire can mesmerize audiences, especially when paired with dancing and music. Because many of these roles are destructive or dangerous, even as others are heroic or awe-inspiring, fire controllers have a mixed perception. Fire controllers are potential accidental arsonists, but they can usually stop the fires as quick as they start them.

In the clause "most fire controllers still require fuel to consume," the word most is what should catch the eye. Physicists are still coping with the increasingly undeniable fact that pyrokinetics are out here breaking the law of thermodynamics by creating heat energy from nothing but their will.

Among kinetics, fire controllers are sometimes seen as equivalent to young bullies, able to threaten mundane people but (conceptually) easily countered by the other elemental kineses, something that makes them butthurt at worse or plays up their determination to persevere against bad odds at best.

Air
"see bro, now we can make infinite wind power bro,, we can fix global warming without massive systemic change bro,,, we can just close down the coal mines and use wholesoem green energy 2 save the planet bro,,,, just dont guillotine us bro" —The Bourgeoisie.

Early testing found pretty quickly that air controllers don't have dominion over the entire state of gaseous matter, but rather the particular elements and compounds commonly found in the Earth's atmosphere, and only while in gaseous form. Despite this limitation, air controllers are imminently useful. And unlike the previous kineses, people aren't immediately terrified of you!

As the quote alludes to, air controllers are desirable for their telekinetic abilities in power generation. Wind farms have been adapting in recent years to maximize their effectiveness when paired with wind-manipulating air controllers, moving the turbines closer together and redesigning them for peak efficiency in optimal conditions. Air controllers are also finding work in aerospace engineering, vehicle design, air piloting and laboratory chemistry. The last is particularly interesting; air controllers have made the creation of small vacuums much more economically feasible, as well as controls in the general environment by manipulating the relative ratios of different gases in the air in a limited space. Military applications are wide-ranging: some air controllers "enchant" military drones to increase their effectiveness on their next flights, while others act as spotters on sniper teams, perfectly reading and manipulating the wind so others can take perfect shots. Weather control is a particularly fruitful avenue for those with the kinetic strength to pull it off. On land, air controllers are employed in coastal regions to reduce the strength of hurricanes, saving entire cities. At sea, air controllers can specialize into weather manipulation, increasing the speed of international trade by ensuring perfect weather conditions at any time. Some even specialize in the nuances of gentle breezes, and make bank by ensuring soothing conditions for outdoor public events.

Most of these are "nice" jobs, which is reflected in air controllers having a better reputation than most other kineses. Sure, some are pesky pranksters and others are criminals who can speedrun robberies with their speed and manipulation of surroundings, but they're exceptions to the rule. Politicians might talk about the dangers of electrokinetic thieves and pyrokinetic arsonists, but nobody's stirring up fear over the hurricane-stoppers and breeze-generators. Exceptions exist for the communities surrounding the former Track B, who haven't forgotten when a rogue aerokinetic dropped a hurricane on their towns, dealing irreparable damage.

Among other kinetics, air users are often seen as aloof, independent and unambitious. They often have a particular attunement to themselves, which makes them not care much about politics or getting actual work done. They have their own fun to get up to, sometimes to the detriment of those who rely on them.

Water
''"Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious. The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the subconscious... Water is the “valley spirit,” the water dragon of Tao, whose nature resembles water—a yang embraced in the yin." —''Carl Jung.

When you think about it, having a power limited to a single two-element compound is pretty lame. Sounds constrained and dry. But water, as you may know from firsthand experience, is anything but dry. The discovery of hydrokinesis didn't make quite the same internal splash as the others, since many had come to expect its existence, but it did confirm that kineses could be limited to categories of specific chemical substances. Its main impact was someone getting the idea to test its application on humans by controlling the blood inside the body, but this was quickly found to be impossible. There's something which prevents a kinetic's direct control of the energy or matter already present in living bodies—save for the body of the kinetic themself, which can be freely manipulated. This last part was the puzzling factor, implying something special about a controller's own body. Some posited that with all the other nonsense ideas of the ancients that were now once again on the table, perhaps humans truly do have souls that prevent them from being manipulated in the same way as clusters of inorganic matter.

Water controllers find work in the same sorts of fields as mentioned before, in power generation, weather manipulation and nautical transportation, but also in medicine. Unexpectedly by scientists but common knowledge by weebs and gamers, water controllers can harness the substance's life-giving properties to mend all sorts of wounds. This gives water controllers an excellent reputation as kind-hearted and wanting to help others overcome their wounds. Their main detractors are investors, who found their water-company portfolios tanked as soon as people came around who could just convert moisture from the air into water in mass quantities, as well as separate water from pollutants to make it potable.

Water controllers are a bunch of goody two-shoes if you ask many kinetics. How much more of a basic bitch could you be than picking the thing that everyone's mostly made of anyway? Water controllers can be unspecialized, or can spec (in decreasing order of frequency) in liquid, solid or gaseous water. The last group is a meme prone to being made fun of by other kinetics, given that they're essentially just strictly worse versions of air controllers, but you know what they say: be careful who you make fun of in high school.

Earth
"In addition to lightning, controllers of the three 'classical elements' have been discovered so far. Some say that the discovery of an 'earth controller' is just around the corner, but I find this idea nonsensical. The others can be precisely defined, but 'earth' is too vague to be useful and may or may not encompass a number of different materials. At best, we'd see controllers for a number of different materials, and not just bisected into 'rock' and 'metal' either. Consistency would probably require dozens of 'kineses' each based on particular elements and compounds." —[REDACTED].

Contrary to all expectations, "earth" is a kinesis in of itself! Granted, rare is the earth controller who can manipulate its entire spectrum. When you combine all the specializations together, earth controllers may be the single most sought-after kinesis on the market: applications abound in military, research, architecture, mining, power generation, landscaping, geology, manufacturing, transportation, construction, medicine, chemistry, metalwork... It's enormous. You should be able to think of tons of potential applications. Specialize in whatever you want and there's work for you, resulting in Earth controllers going for all kinds of majors at Cosmic Academy.

Military applications are especially scary. It's not like an Earth controller can instantly incapacitate a tank, but it's easy to imagine that a kinesis useful for manufacturing bullets, guiding bullets, building vehicles, un-building vehicles, erecting buildings, demolishing buildings, raising and felling barriers used for cover, and overall tanking unreasonable amounts of damage will do well in certain kinds of operations. Many modern vehicles are being created with more structurally-complex outer alloys just to stop earth controllers from stripping them away so easily. But more often than not, military earth controllers don't even see action; their use in support roles building and upgrading equipment is just so valuable and COST-EFFECTIVE! Earth controllers are pretty typical as far as appearances from others go, with earth controllers aiding in the creation of many products and houses, but the occasional act of terrorism from an earth controller collapsing whole neighbourhoods keeps them from getting the same positive outlook as many air and water controllers enjoy. Still better than fire and lightning though.

Because Earth controllers tend to reap none of the mobility benefits that other kineses enjoy, they're sometimes stereotyped by other kinetics as being mentally slow in turn. Others might respect your brawn, but not your brains. Maybe you'll prove them wrong, or prove them right while smashing their faces in despite that flaw.

Light
''"As the world's first taste of what a kinetic is, light controllers have always had a place in the spotlight, and not just because they controlled the photons to point at them. With their position as symbols of the whole controller community comes a great deal of responsibility. Only time will tell if photokinetics can live up to it." —''Dr. Theodore Zimmerman, kinetic scholar.

The first controller who broke the "secret" to the whole world was a photokinetic who stormed a televised American political debate, made an open declaration that the world must know the truth, and displayed their power for all to see. But long before this event, the light was kept in dark places, still under careful study in top-secret government research institutes. It was while photokinesis was being explored that ideas started being floated that operations for kinetic study needed to be expanded, even at the risk of public discovery: a network of research institutes semi-independent both from each other and from other state institutions. Fast forward more than half a century and light controllers are the most famous type of kinetic.

Because photokinetics can set up light from a given source to behave in unusual ways, photokinetics can find employment in the creation of all sorts of products that create or rely internally on light sources for specialized purposes. Visual illusions and effects have their place in Hollywood and in entertainment industries at large. Or just creating more effective sunscreen. (Stop laughing, sunscreen is a big market!) Militarily, photokinetics are sought out specifically for counter-kinetic operations, since their speed allows them to avoid many dangerous attacks that mundane soldiers would fall prey to, while their potential for strong specialization into holy abilities can make them a valuable asset against the unholy forces that many kinetics with wicked ends pursue for additional power. The recognition light controllers get isn't "more than all the rest combined," but it is still the highest. Not hard to imagine that visibility peaks among those who can manipulate visibility.

As Dr. Zimmerman notes, light controllers have responsibility as symbols of the """community""" as a whole. The initial revelation of humans with supernatural power was given in a magnificent display of light manipulation—an incident which, for people who haven't dealt with kinetics in person, remains closely tied as a symbol to controllers as an abstract concept. Their perception is on the better side compared to most kinetics, but that's still a worse reputation compared to just being a mundane person; people still look on the supernatural with suspicion, only letting their guard down somewhat for the more "wholesome" races and kineses. Other kinetics sometimes see light controllers as whitewashers, their hogging of the spotlight presenting an overly-simplistic view of what kinetics are, their activism in favour of "kinetic rights" often only extending to light controllers themselves.

Dark
"In stark contrast, dark controllers have always been an enigma. Even the basic nature of the substance they control defies consistency in empirical observation. There are some fronts on which the physical sciences fail to be fully adequate; thus the continual need for a multidisciplinary approach to kinetic study." —Dr. Theodore Zimmerman, kinetic scholar.

What exactly is it that "dark controllers" manipulate? They themselves don't know half the time. "Elemental darkness" is clearly something tangible, not merely the absence of all else. As far as modern instruments can see, it's not made of smaller component particles. Its behaviour is intimately entwined with the will of its user, raising the theory that the darkness used by umbrakinetics is an extension of the subconscious—not a "thing" itself, but a symptom of the Ouroboric mind that consumes itself and takes all it touches with it.

Dark has little to no industrial applications. Its only seeming purpose is to snuff out life and deteriorate matter. The latter function is typically too unpredictable to properly industrialize and perfectly replicate, leaving death as the domain of the dark controller. Despite the notes about career opportunities laid out here, it's common for human controllers to keep their nature a secret, especially in the case of dark controllers. Those who display their powers openly can find work in mercenary contract work, personal security, pest extermination, special operations and black market assassination. The victims of the final category may leave obvious traces of shadowy corruption, or the corpse may appear to have died of premature natural causes. If the theory of material darkness being rooted in the subconscious is true, these applications suggest grim truths about the nature of all sentient beings, programmed above all else to survive by any means necessary, including by negating the survival of others. Yet for all of these grim activities, the power of death can be used for good: some dark controllers wind up in the field of "alternative medicine," using their powers to selectively wither sections of patients' bodies to kill off early-stage infections and cancer cells. It comes with more negative side effects than what a more lovey-dovey kinesis would give, but it would probably also cost ten times as much without a medical plan.

Moreso than any other kinesis, dark controllers are shunned. Their power is twisted, taboo in all mainstream religious traditions (including the Church of The Flame!), and naturally attracts the eye of the authorities. Even other kinetics tend to fear the wielders of shadows for their power's unknowability. Is it really such a surprise that so many wind up in malicious cults or lucrative black market operations?

Blood
"The gift to all creation. The sap of the tree, the water of the spring, the ichor of the vein. Flesh is the burden, but blood is the blessing: our dual nature echoing forever in these bodies The Flame designed." —The Scriptures of The Flame.

While darkness introduced mysterious aspects to kinetic study, and the promise of questions that may never be answered, blood introduced questions to which answers have long existed, but were shoved aside by the Scientific Revolution. By all accounts, the manipulation of blood should fall under the domain of hydrokinesis: human blood is over 90% water and behaves in much the same way as water. But the root of hemokinetic's power isn't in the physical substance itself, but something deeper: in the symbolic essence of blood. Blood controllers naturally manipulate the blood of animal and animal-like supernatural creatures, but it's theoretically possible for this power to go deeper: to manipulate the "life-blood" of all sorts of things, from the juice of plants to the power of electronics. It's not really about the substance itself, but the immaterial force of life behind it.

Despite this theoretical versatility, in practice blood controllers seem quite confined to animal-blood, and the result is that their career opportunities are centred on those that can make effective use of blood or its healing properties. The medical world is the big one, as is supplying blood through black market channels. The military has plenty of use for effective battlefield medics, and some blood controllers bring their abilities to the cause of healing wounded animals. Blood controllers often have the most powerful passive regeneration, which can also help them just in doing work that's most physically exhausting, as their body passively recovers to prevent long-term injury from heavy manual labour.

Non-kinetics are fairly divided about blood-users. Commoners may frown on what inherent comes off as an "evil" form of magic as twisted as Dark. On the other hand, those who can better understand its potential use for good, such as those in the medical industry or those who've had personal experience with the necessity of surgery, can see more good in hemokinesis and its users. Can they get rid of your STIs? Ehhh, working on it.

Poison
"It's actually a terrible name for the kinesis when you think about it, but convention reigns supreme." —Dr. Theodore Zimmerman, kinetic scholar.

From a scientific perspective, the most baffling thing about toxikinesis in particular is how it enables its users to force particles to bond in ways that beings lacking this kinesis simply can't. Once again, we see a reinforced relationship between consciousness and molecular phenomena, in this case coming down to the formation of certain substances relying on specific beings willing those substances to form.

Poison controllers are in the highest demand among the medical fields and chemical R&D facilities. Entire new substances are being created every day by toxikinetics in corporate research hubs, trying to develop the best materials and ingredients for everything from computer hardware to perfume. In the medical field, poison controllers make use of their abilities by pulling toxins out of patients, but also by maintaining direct control over chemicals like sedatives and numbing agents to ensure their proper function and dose quantities. Despite the name of the kinesis, many of their concoctions have a healing effect, which is also invaluable in the medical world. Of course poison controllers also find work as spies and assassins, whether working for governments, private mercenary groups or individual commissioners, but these fields aren't the norm. Some even go into environmental work, where poison controllers have made a difference by cleansing polluted ecosystems and bodies of water.

As Zimmerman observes, Poison isn't a great name for this kinesis. It's what was chosen because toxic substances are what all initial research subjects had in common. "Chemical" might have been a better name, if only that term didn't encompass just about everything. Would "Alchemy" be better? The kinesis's discovery has lead to a reexamination of the history books, and theses have arisen that the alchemical masters of old may have truly been poison users, genuinely able to transmute materials into different forms. No wonder these techniques were impossible for others to find success with, for they wouldn't have been poison controllers themselves!

Perceptions of poison controllers, both among commoners and among other kinetics, are polarized along lines of how much one actually knows about the kinesis. Its name gives the impression of malicious death-dealers, and the fact that a number of toxikinetics do venture into such grim territories doesn't help their reputation. Among those who've done a little research, who've seen the positive work that poison controllers are doing, perceptions tend to be quite positive. Basically, those who read the newspaper and those who don't are living in two separate worlds when it comes to relations with poison controllers.

Sand
"By the sweat of your face / You will eat bread, / Till you return to the ground, / Because from it you were taken; / For you are dust, / And to dust you shall return.” —Genesis 3:19, KJV.

Is Sand a misnomer for this kinesis? Arguably, but it fits well enough. If nothing else, a substance approximating sand is what many sand controllers have the power to turn into, while still maintaining full control over their bodies. This comes in combination with a not-unlike-teleportation ability, in which sand controllers taking on this sand-form can meld into a solid surface and re-emerge from another solid surface that's in direct contact with the surface entered, with distance limitations. This could mean melding into the floor and re-emerging from another area on the ground some distance away, going into a wall and re-emerging on the other side, or melding into either and getting the drop on someone from the ceiling!

Whatever mechanism allows for the manipulation of sand also extends to other individual, small, solid particles. As a result, some sand controllers have found a mastery of various powders, dusts, salt, flour, gunpowder—some even claiming dominion over nanobots! Sand seems to exist at an intersection between multiple other kineses, and its emergence lead to a thesis that kineses may have evolved from each other; that kineses and their development can be modelled the same way as organisms, with different kineses thriving in different areas as they suit their wielders, and even spawning new "species" as a result of mutations. This theory is unconfirmed, but if it's true, it's still unclear whether sand is a progenitor of other kineses, or a generalist spawn of others. In any event, sand controllers able to manipulate different materials (usually sand, no surprise) find work in relevant fields where production and manipulation of those materials is useful. It shouldn't take a lot of mental work to imagine them, so I'll leave that to you. The ability to travel through solid surfaces gives them a clear tactical value in special operations.

Sand controllers have a middle-of-the-road reputation both among commoners and kinetics. Sand doesn't have much going for it in terms of emotions for it to conceptually tug, and it seems pretty bland when compared to the flashy nature of a lot of other kineses. As a result, a lot of kinetics think sand controllers are boring people: bland powers mirroring bland personalities. At least commoners are less likely to feel scared by your kinesis than they would by many others. After all, it's just sand.

Ink
"The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless." —Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Only slightly less mysterious than Dark, Ink is a kinesis whose boundaries are hard to grasp. Its limits are unclear, and its medium is only slightly better. Some ink controllers work their magic with virtually any material that would allow for leaving permanent marks on a canvas, while others hold their work in higher esteem, manifesting it only with the special ink that they themselves can produce. Ink's powers are at least partially impacted by perception, whether their own or that of an audience; after all, there's little that visually distinguishes a simple black circle on a wall from a cartoonish hole that leads to the other side, and yet the same design can fulfill two separate functions despite being structurally the exact same.

Artistry is in a melanokinetic's nature. Many refuse to subject themselves to the whims of industry at all, instead creating art as freelancers or Patreon-supported independent creators. Their powers have military applications through sheer versatility and unpredictability, in addition to their ability to draw into reality virtually any tool necessary for an operation. But since an Ink controller's power is so intrinsically tied to their creativity, they can find these sorts of environments stifling, and those with violent inclinations can instead wind up as independent assassins, political revolutionaries, or just normal people who occasionally draw creatures to create mischief for the fun of it. A negative impact of their emergence has been a further demoralization of non-kinetic artists, who may feel as though they're not meant to be artists due to lacking an inherent power over it that would set them up for success. Talent and hard work no longer feel like enough; you have to be born lucky.

Among normal people, ink's reputation is on the positive side compared to most kineses. They're most known through a number of high-visibility creatives, who put out high-quality animations at an alarming rate due to their ability to manipulate art directly rather than having to redraw or modify frames. Among other kinetics they enjoy a similar reputation: pleasant, if occasionally unstable, creative sorts. They're often prepared for any situation, but what are you willing to offer in return? Commissioned art isn't free, no matter how much exposure you promise. At the same time, buyer beware: some ink controllers are swindlers, and you may find products you buy melting into ink in your hands hours after the merchant has already fled the scene.

Fabric
"Spacetime is a fabric, so I can control that, right?" —An idiot.

It was a time of excitement. We'd found kineses for all sorts of forces and concepts. It was only a matter of time until we found kineses of more fundamental forces, of highly abstract concepts, of materials and powers we hadn't even been able to conceive. And so it came to pass that the next kinesis we discovered was, er, fabric. Oh well, maybe the next one would be more exciting.

Despite this lack of excitement, it's hard to underestimate the global economic impact of this kinesis. Single people could repair and create clothes, shoes, blankets, bags, purses, specialized safety suits... So much of what we use on a daily basis falls under the domain of fabric, and that's just the obvious stuff. The mechanism that governs what exactly fabric has power over is quite vague, seeming to care about material and/or arrangement, with a radical freedom as long as one or the other holds. Cosmic Academy's current headmaster is a fabric controller who can manipulate the asbestos in the walls. And it turns out that being able to do stuff like murder people with pillows or the clothes on their body is surprisingly useful for covert assassination. On the frontlines, pretty much everyone wears clothes, and if they strip to counter you, you'll just control what they took off or use your own additional materials you brought to choke people out or jet thin blades through the limbs. On a less immediately-gruesome note, fabric controllers find work in architecture generating and innovating insulation, replacing entire sweatshops, and creating light-yet-durable outfits for others to use casually or even as armour. They are also frequently artists, weaving marvellous masterpieces.

Among other kinetics, fabric doesn't get much attention. "Wait, that exists?" isn't an uncommon reaction, which makes it hard to be intimidating but can also give you the advantage of unpredictability. Among normal people, its reputation is on the better side. It's hard to think of how a fabrikinetic would do much harm to you, aside from stabbing you with sewing needles. People who are into global economics will know how your kind has been supplanting foreign sweatshop labour, simultaneously clearing out old labour violations and creating new economic troubles from the mass losses of job opportunities the global poor once had.

Paper
"Why is papyrokinesis? Its existence can't be attributed to evolution, for paper hasn't existed long enough to have any impact on evolution. Nor can it be called a mutation born of a distinctly contemporary era, for the relevance of paper has been shrinking for decades. Even the intelligent design thesis falls short, because an intelligent entity would not have created such a power that was only useful for a brief blip in human history. But as we discover new powers that paper controllers are capable of, a brand new theory emerges: that paper controllers manipulate a deeper mystical power, for which paper is merely a medium, and for which new means of manifestation may be found." —Dr. Theodore Zimmerman, kinetic scholar.

It's not easy being white.

The discovery of fabric, followed by paper, was a shock. Is it true that there's a kinesis for pretty much everything, no matter how specific? As it turns out: no. Most of the kinetic categories are broader than they appear on their face, and in the case of paper, the true power comes not from the paper itself, but the possibilities one can spring from it. There's no question that paper controllers who block incoming attacks with hyperreinforced paper and deliver swift death with sharpened edges are deadly, but the past 15 years or so have shown that paper controllers have a particular attunements to classical written magical practices: magic scrolls, spellbooks, scribed runes sigils, even sacred geometry. This so-called "generalist magic," the kinds of nonviolent spells seen in many low-level spell lists in fantasy games, have a wide array of applications in the modern world. This creates an immediate divide in employment prospects between those capable of harnessing this mystical connection and those who aren't. (This will also be ignoring a small subset of paper controllers who've found how to manipulate digital text documents, a power so obscure that it hasn't yet leaked out of academia.)

Taking it as a given that one can think of all sorts of uses for even single individual fantasy spells, let's keep talking about the more mundane paper users. There was a prime point in human history for their existence: the 19th and 20th centuries, when paper recordkeeping was at its peak and the world hadn't yet moved to digital communication. But very quickly the world changed under their feet, leaving them with a power that sounds unimpressive on its face and becomes even less useful as society goes paperless. This compels many paper controllers towards a reactionary outlook: they favour the older world that had a place for them, a world of libraries, literature and written communication. But the world isn't going back, so paper controllers find themselves in an existential crisis. It's quite common for them to pursue work totally unrelated to their power set, but there are some functions for paper remaining: librarians, archivists, destruction or digitization of paper documents. On the darker side, the defensive and deadly manipulation of paper, as well as instilling paper with new qualities, gives paper controllers a particular military application. Recording invisible messages on paper that only others given permission to read it can even see is invaluable in espionage. Some paper controllers forsake both private and military work, instead falling into criminal activities. Beginners wind up in LSD manufacturing. Advanced users who've found how to manipulate materials that are only partially paper wind up in money laundering. Such frauds are in a constant war with their governments, each trying to stay one step ahead of the other's innovations and changing printing techniques.

When it comes to reputation, the difference between paper and fabric is degrees of perceived use. Fabric is kinda weird and niche, but only to the extent that it's unremarkable and forgettable. Paper, on the other hand, is a meme. Imagine getting so far in terms of luck with the cosmic dice that you wind up being a kinetic, but then you totally bomb it and get the most useless power of all. Paper controllers sometimes resent other kinetics for this reason, but some use it to their advantage: a foe who underestimates you is a foe primed for defeat.

Network
"Network provides the primary challenge to the kinetic evolutionary hypothesis, for there is no rational explanation for why a kinesis would have evolved to manipulate a force that didn't yet exist. This extent of evolution does not happen so quickly in a mere generation: therefore, critics conclude, kineses must have been intelligently designed and planted in people." —Dr. Theodore Zimmerman, kinetic scholar.

How do we even start on this one? How to cover the influence of a kinesis that manipulates this ever-expanding aspect of our daily lives? The exact mechanics behind nanokinesis are fuzzy, and even the name is outdated. This kinesis was originally believed to manifest solely as a psychic connection to a swarm of nanobots that one discovers, finds or creates, and this remains one of the most common traits for network controllers to possess, but their potential extends to all manner of electronic devices. Lightning controllers can manipulate electrons, but they do so with an emphasis on the large scale: the sheer destructive power of lightning. Network controllers emphasize the small scale, small enough to manipulate the inner workings of electronics, closed networks, and the Internet itself.

The effects of network controllers were felt before they themselves were known, pulling off hacking operations that shouldn't have been possible. To this day, social media companies pour huge amounts of their budgets into cybersecurity, and they usually do successfully keep ahead of network controllers, though just barely. Governments actually lag behind in this regard, and consequently, the plundering of government databases revealed all sorts of shocking secrets: the United States government had already known about kinetics for decades before they became public knowledge, having established secret universities to study the phenomenon; the Second Muscovite–Lithuanian War was a COINTELPRO operation; not only did George Bush plan 9/11, but he was the ONLY person who did, planning the entire operation and personally hijacking all planes simultaneously! These secrets kept from the populace are part of what contributes to the political instability of present day America, on top of everything relating to the emergence of kineses and fantasy races.

I shouldn't have to list off potential occupations for network controllers. In the digital world they're all over the place, from hardware development to software engineering to R&D team members and hackers (white hat, black hat) and even doctors, in the case of those whose nanobots can repair the flesh of others. Normies think of them the same way they thought of Anonymous, and you can make of that what you will. Among other kinetics, network controllers are sometimes seen as the cool kids, the ones who won the power lottery in terms of relevance to everyday life and ability to connect to WiFi without needing the password. This in turn can make them a bit cocky; network has tons of out-of-combat applicability, but that doesn't mean you're quite so invulnerable against a fireball to the face.

Grave
"CHECKMATE, ATHEISTS." —Belzenloth the Defiler, shortly after being summoned.

No kinesis has had greater implications on human history. By the time of Grave's validated discovery, most of the sapient races had been discovered, and arguments had already sprung up about alternative evolutionary paths, the role of God(s) in creating all these beings, and the notion of there being a purely scientific explanation for everything. Then Grave was discovered, and angels and demons were confirmed by yanking them into existence against their will. And yet there were few religions that could claim to be solely validated by this discovery, given how such beings were plucked from all manner of religious traditions. The result: the religious world was thrown into a crisis, each having to reorient itself either to justify their deities as being above the others or justify why theirs should be followed instead of the others, while religiously-motivated conflict and violence rises across the world. The sciences had to grapple with a new cosmology which has far-reaching consequences on many fields, often having to work alongside theologians and poets for knowledge that's beyond the reach of empirical testing. Basically, this kinesis ruined everything.

Employment prospects depend on a grave controller's specialization. All are fit for medicine, where their restorative powers can save lives, sometimes post-death, though mainstream outlets may see their methods as unrigorous or morally questionable. Religious work in all manner of traditions suits them well, even if they don't clearly use their powers for that purpose. For instance, some branches of Christianity reject kineses as witchcraft, but some necrokinetics maintain their positions in church hierarchies, keeping their nature a secret and validating their belief that God listens to them by actually hearing His answers. Some go into historical or archeological disciplines, searching out the souls of individuals who were present for a given event to question them about the past. Or just take people's money to read their astrology signs in actually accurate ways, you're at least as qualified as anyone else. Again, depending on what you do, there's plenty of options. Get creative!

Grave controllers aren't even seen as controllers by the normie world. Kineses aren't the only style of magic that's known to exist: more generalist styles of magic are more common, increasingly so among high-ranking clergy across the world, who achieve stronger results through the strength of their conviction. Necrokinesis's methods can strongly resemble them in appearance and function. Other kinetics tend to be aware of this power's existence as among their own, and a perception has developed that they're delusional and power-hungry, prone to getting themselves killed for stupidity related to breaking a sacred oath to an archangel or violating a pact with a devil.