Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

being-childfree:

ehwellpffft:

i have a fake son.
his name is Tim and he is working on his M.S. in astrophysics at Berkeley.
he is devestatingly handsome and enjoys rock climbing and volunteers as a counselor at the local YMCA there in Berkeley, California.
i am so proud of my fake son. i have raised him up in my own head to be such an outstanding member of society.
“Tim” is only brought up when asked about by one particular woman at work that i only see on occasion. i don’t make a habit or game of lying to people, but with her, it kinda came about as follows:
Faye is one of those people who has been there/done that and will hang herself on the cross while she tells you how much worse the experience was for her. i’ve seen this woman Kanye West an 8-month pregnant girl at said girl’s own baby shower to glorify the gift she gave her as well as go into how horrible her labor was with her own children. Faye also is a braggart. her car/purse/house/ring/shoes/etc. all cost more than whatever yours did and her children are all angels.
i was forced to work with Faye for 2 days about 5 years ago. she called me Emily a few times before i finally told her my name is Amy, not Emily. she gave me a sideways glance and said, “I like Emily better”, and since then, she has always called me Emily. i let this go because to get angry with her and tell her off is to see her become dramatic and begin crying and insist she did not mean anything by it while not issuing anything close to an apology. Faye is always right, too, you know.
anyway, when she shut up long enough about herself and her fabulous offspring on the second day, she asked, “Do you have any children, Emily?”
i replied that i do not. she then launched into her daughter taking fertility drugs so that she could give her mother grandchildren someday.
that was the only question she asked me until i saw her about a year later.
“Oh, HI, Emily! How are you?!”
“Hi, Faye…how are you?”
“Wonderful, wonderful. Stephen just graduated from UT. He’s going to be the best doctor ever! How is your son, uh, Tim?”
it took me a second. Tim? son? what the hell is she talking about?!
it dawned on me what a complete narcissist she truly is. she hadn’t heard me the day she asked if i had children, because she didn’t care. she didn’t care enough to call me by my real name, so it wasn’t much of a surprise.
i couldn’t stop myself. i briefly thought about correcting her, but i decided to just go with it.
“Tim is doing so well. He was just accepted to Berkeley after his amazing thesis on planetary nebuli. We are so proud of him.”
her eyes grew big. “Oh, how nice! But, Berkeley? That’s so far from home. UT is an excellent school; surely he could’ve been accepted there?…”
i gave a small chuckle. “Oh, well, they wanted him for sure, Faye. I mean, all the letters he received, practically BEGGING him to study there. But, well, they just don’t have a sufficient astronomy department. UT is a fine school, but not for the subject that Tim is going into. Astrophysics is not something you can study just anywhere, you know.”
her eyes narrowed. “Medicine is what these young people should be going into. Astrophysics? What is that, anyway? How will it contribute to the world?”
“Gosh, I don’t really know how to explain astrophysics, Faye. It’s so mind blowing for simple minds like mine and yours. But searching for things in space that could potentially help our planet is a pretty big deal, I think.”
Faye promptly excused herself. i knew i had gotten her.
i’ve bumped into her on and off throughout the past 5 years and she always told me how her angels were saving the world, especially Stephen, and then she’d ask about Tim. and i made sure my Tim was one step above her Stephen. her face would turn crimson and she would have to abruptly leave.
i saw her as i was leaving work yesterday and she stopped me to wish me a happy Easter.
“Stephen is coming home this holiday. He’s bringing his fiance. She’s a doctor too, you know. How is Tim? Don’t tell me he’s still not graduated?…”
“Oh, Faye, don’t be silly! Astrophysics takes YEARS to graduate from. It’s not as simple as medicine. But, yes, he is close to graduating.”
“Is he coming home for Easter? I can’t imagine spending holidays without my children; how dreadful! Oh, but he’s all the way in California…it costs so much to fly here, I assume.”
I grinned. “Yes, it does. But he’s such a sweetheart, he’s flying me out there this year! Taking a break from his studies and humanitarian efforts to have his dear ol’ Mom around for Easter. I’m so lucky!”
“…yes, well, have a nice time, Emily. Happy Easter!”
“You too, Kay! Oh, I mean Faye!”
you know, like i said before, i don’t like to lie. it does seem very silly to have let this go on for so long. Tim has been a fabrication in the making for over 5 years now, he almost feels real to me.
when i see Faye, i have images of my fake son, looking so handsome in his lab coat as he’s peering into a microscope looking at dust particles from a comet. i see him jogging with his dog on the beach. i see him hiking and biking and climbing. i see him helping an elderly woman with her groceries.
it’s a true testament that if you lie, or let a lie go on for a while, it becomes a solid thing that you have to keep up with.
oddly enough, i don’t lose sleep on this lie. i don’t see her often enough to fib about this on a daily or consistent level. Faye never cared anything about me or my life until she had something to try to one-up me on. SHE is the one losing sleep on account of her Stephen not succeeding quite like my Tim. it’s amazing how this lie has eaten her alive and made me feel proud of something that doesn’t even exist…
eh well.
i’ll be boarding the fake plane to Berkeley this afternoon, to celebrate Easter with my fake son.
Mama’s soooo proud of you, Timmy!

This is legendary

(via wildehacked)

noodl:

fady-jaeger:

danisontnonfire:

natalie-memeallister:

whats-your-name-man:

seaphil:

bunney:

its weird being 18, 19, 20 in 2016 because i remember going into kindergarten and seeing those chunky ass giant computers at the desk and then going through school while technology rapidly develops and graduate in a world where people can have the entire internet and more just in their pocket like idk its so strange to me

sorry to add to the post but I remember in 5th grade when they invented the “smart whiteboard” and my school won one for the library and everyone lost their shit because they were so expensive and I graduated high school last year and by the time I graduated every single classroom had one. Watching technology go from glitchy and expensive to powerful and affordable within less than ten years continues to blow my mind

no but also like owning a flip phone was the Coolest Shit™ and you could take photos(???) and it was like so incredible, and it was all fun and games until you pressed the key for THE INTERNET and you knew you’d be charged so you pressed that cancel key eighty times and prayed to god that he’d take mercy on you…and then iphones became a thing and it was like unreal

Going from vcrs and huge roll in tvs to streaming the movie online and projecting that onto the smart board within the span of 5-10 years.

ok but do you guys remember before proper projectors were put in there was the overhead projector that could only read clear plastics and it projected using light and mirrors

Technology

Originally posted by imadeureaddis

remember when you got your first phone, and it had monoton/polyphone ringtones=? OR THE FIRST TIME YOU COULD ACTUALLY PUT A SONG AS YOUR RINGTONE 1:1 that was such a huge thing…..Also the first phones with coloured displays, 100x100px photos……god what a time….

I remember PRECISELY when smart whiteboards hit my middle school because I was in eighth grade and the installation guy showed up halfway through a geometry class like “Hey, you were supposed to give us height marks and you didn’t, what the fuck”, and my geometry teacher clearly didn’t know what to do, so she pointed to me and said “she’s the shortest person in the school, she’ll give you the height marks.”

So an entire building had whiteboards I could mostly reach for once, and that was nice.

(via littlestartopaz)

Prince Aladdin

shanastoryteller:

i just rewatched aladdin with the roommates and it got me thinking

aladdin wishes to be made a prince, but all genie does is get him a lot of stuff and money. that’s not what a prince is. a prince is the son of the king, someone in line for the throne. someone with a lot of money is just - rich. so what i think is:

genie goes okay, that’s a big one - and i can do it! but not on my own, not if you want to do it right. not if you truly want a chance to marry your princess for real, as a prince. and aladdin is a foolish, moral, kind boy - and he agrees. he’s fallen in love with jasmine, an innocent all encompassing love, and he’ll do anything for this sweet, clever girl he only knew for a few hours. so genie takes him across the desert, far from agrabah, and plops right in the middle of a skirmish and is like okay, good luck! and aladdin is like ?????

but there’s assholes with swords attacking a young girl, and aladdin doesn’t even have to think about that, just like when he stood in front of the whip for those little kids. there are three men against him, but he’s fast and clever and has been against a dozen trained palace guards. so it’s not easy to get out of there alive, especially with the little girl to protect, but he manages it with only a thin slice on his upper arm, and he’s endured worse for less. so he picks up the little girl and says “i think we should get out of here, hmm?” and she’s in a pretty red silk getup with tiny jewels encrusted on her like stars against sunset. and she nods and throws her arms around his neck. she won’t talk, only points in the direction of home, but aladdin’s okay with that, he’s used to quiet, scared kids. so he keeps up a steady stream of stories of agrabah, which seems almost like this other desert land. but there are more men with swords and aladdin is like what the fuck is going on, but he hides the girl in a corner and fights them too. and that’s how it goes all the way home. there’s no one on the streets really, and they all scatter when the men attack, and they keep on attacking, he fights his way all the way through the city with the girl on his hip or hidden away.

and he should have known, of course, but he was tired and bruised and bleeding by the time he realized the little girl is silently guiding him to the palace and he’s like why can’t you princesses stay inside??? but he walks up and the guards get one look at the child in his arms and whisk him through and multiple people try to take the girl away but she won’t budge from him, a stubborn pout to her lips as her hands remained locked behind his neck. and he’s finally tossed into a throne room where a tall old man is sitting in agony and two young men pace in front of him, each at least a decade older than aladdin. “they’ve taken our sister!” one of the younger men hiss, “i don’t care about their power or their connections, they’ve taken esfir, and we must go get her!”

“uh,” he clears his throat, “hi?”

and all three men whirl on him and the old man stumble-runs to him. esfir finally lets go of aladdin to picked up and twirled around by her father. the two men are rahim and shapur and they look in wonder at this dirty boy of fifteen who’s returned the girl to them, and he speaks with an accent and clearly is not from here and they get the story from him - he’s traveled across the desert because those in his own country want him dead. “you know,” rahim says as the king clutches at esfir in desperate relief, “you could have held her for ransom. you almost died saving her, and we would have paid handsomely to have her returned safely.”

and aladdin gives him a flat disapproving look, appearing in this moment four times his age, and says “people are not objects or bargaining chips. especially not lost little girls.” and rahim and shapur share an impressed conspiring look and they each grab one of his arms and lead him away. “hey! what are you -”

“do be quiet little brother,” shapur says cheerfully, “we really have to get you out of your rags.”

Keep reading

(via windbladess)

penicillium-pusher:

captocie:

penicillium-pusher:

I don’t trust Maroon 5

why

Well first of all there’s 7 band members, not 5. That’s not why I don’t trust them, I just think it’s weird.

Now getting to the point, do you know how many top 100 hits Maroon 5 has had? A lot. They’re even on billboards top 100 artists of all time (ALL TIME). And it’s understandable, because pretty much every song they put out is fucking awesome. Sugar, Don’t Wanna Know, Moves Like Jagger, Payphone, This Love, She Will Be Loved, Cold, Animals, Maps, Misery, Harder to Breathe, Never Gonna Leave This Bed… to name a FEW.

These shitheads have been popping out jams since I was a little kid. Well over a decade worth of killer music. Every other song I hear on the radio is Maroon 5. It’s always Maroon 5. And I fucking love it. I love all their songs. Everyone does, they’re awesome.

But here’s the thing. They’re never the top selling artists. On the top 100 list, they’re only in the 40s. They very rarely have a number 1 hit. They’re considered good, I suppose….. but not great. Not the best.

How many people have you heard say Maroon 5 is their favorite band? For me it’s zero. For many of you, it’s zero. If you’re thinking to yourself “what? No I love them, they’re my fave!” Are you sure? Are you really sure? They’re your absolute complete FAVORITE band ever??? I doubt it. You’re just saying that because the band is on your mind now. If I asked you your fave band any other time you’d come up with another answer. Everyone always does.

But they SHOULD be everyone favorites. Look at all of those songs. They’ve got so many top hits. Everyone loves their music. Everyone sings along and knows the songs. They should be my favorite band, I think I like more of their songs than of my actual favorite artist. But they are not my favorite. They are no ones favorite.

I think they made a deal with someone. Satan? God? A dude down an alleyway? Who knows. But I believe they made a deal to ensure everyone would love their music. And we do. It’s great music.

But the twist is that they’ll never truly be recognized as one of the best. Sure, their songs will play on the radio and everyone will sing along. They’ll have sold out concerts. Plenty of fans. But not enough. They’ll be just good. Never great. Never the best. Even if they should be our favorite, they never will be. They’ll never sell enough albums or have their songs reach as high on the billboards as they should. Everyone loves their music, per the agreement. But no one loves them.

I hope Adam Levine knows I’m on to him. I know what he did.

(via skymurdock)

what’s a fire and how does it - what’s the word? - burn

nehirose:

voidbat:

shanastoryteller:

so i have this disney playlist i listen to usually when i’m driving and i was blasting poor unfortunate souls this morning and i was thinking

what if ariel didn’t sign the scroll?

because she’s about to, okay, and she looks at the paper. the parchment made of seaweed, the ones that’s specially treated to survive underwater. and she thinks of her cave of treasures, her books that remain perfectly preserved underwater. “no thank you,” she says slowly, becoming keenly aware of air of this place, of the not-people she’d seen who hadn’t been able to pay the price for sea witch’s bargain. “i – no. thank you. but no.”

ursula tries to convince her otherwise, but ariel runs. she goes back to her cave, destroyed as it was by her father’s anger, and thinks.

she’s the daughter of triton. her books never got wet, though she lives in the ocean. she feels a pull inside her, to the land, to somewhere else, but what if – what if –

what if she doesn’t need the sea witch or her father to perform magic for her? what if she has her own?

ursula had wanted her voice because that’s how she performed her magic. singing in this cave had given it powers and protection, and when she saved her prince from the sea – she sang then too, to keep him safe, to guide him back to life and away from death.

so she has magic. she only needs to figure out how to use it.

so that’s what ariel does now. she’s quiet and keeps to herself, and her father and sisters think that it’s because she’s upset with her father, that she’s busy licking her wounds. she’s moved on from that. she has no trident, and is uninterested with fueling her magic with the souls of the damned like ursula has. so she needs to figure something else out.

she does what she’s not supposed to do, and goes where she’s not supposed to go, slipping past the guards and patrols to the one place in the sea that is forbidden to all of them.

the crevice in the earth where what remains of her grandmother lives.

ariel goes to amphitrite, and the sea goddess is so much bigger than ariel, the size of great whale as she curls at the bottom of the sea floor, too old and too tired to do anything more than sleep. “granddaughter,” the great being croaks, opening an eye as blue and as unfathomable as the sea, “you look like me.”

“they say i look like my mother,” she says, and to herself adds: that’s why father can barely stand to look at me.

“you have more of me in you than your mother,” she says, and she shifts and pulls her mass of red hair over her shoulder. “more of me in you than your father does, even.”

“i have magic,” she says, pulling her bravery to the fore as she swims closer to her grandmother, “i want you to teach me how to use it.” amphitrite pushes herself up, and it’s the first time she’s moved in a millennia, and ariel notices for the first time that her grandmother isn’t a mermaid – she has legs.

she has legs.

“you have power,” amphitrite corrects fiercely, “and i will teach you to wield it.”

and so she does. ariel spends her nights by her grandmother, learning to harness the power of the sea that runs in her veins, and sleeps her days away while her sisters and flounder and sebastian grow more and more concerned, but she refuses to tell them why. she refuses to be stopped.

but her heart still aches. she fell in love with her prince, and she wants him still. so she swims to the edge, goes to the beach where his castle resides in the dead of night when her lessons with her grandmother are complete, and sings

. she’s careful not to let any magic leak through, only her voice. she does not want to enchant him. she wants him to love her as she is. so she sings, her voice clear and powerful and cutting through the air. she hopes he can hear it.

then one day a figure walks to the beach, and it’s him, her prince. “hello?” he calls out, “are you out there? are you – please, it was you that saved me, wasn’t it? won’t you come out and let me see you?”

so she does, waves her tail at him until he catches sight of her and takes hesitant, disbelieving steps closer.

“you’re a mermaid,” he says, eyes wide, “i thought i saw – but it couldn’t be.”

“i am, and it can,” she says, heart beating wildly in her chest. he’s just as handsome as she remembered, and she wants him just as much. “my name is ariel.”

“ariel,” he repeats, and pulls off his boots and goes wading into the water, watching her to see if she flinches away from him. she doesn’t, and his strides grow bolder. “my name is eric.”

“eric,” she whispers, and when he’s close enough he touches her, trailing fingers across the bare skin of her shoulder and tangling them in her hair.

when he kisses her, she feels powerful enough to undo the world.

so there’s that now, spending her nights with her grandmother and her prince, and she knows how to make her own legs now, could walk onto land and be made a queen among the two legged men.

but she’s a princess here first, and before she can do that she needs to take care of something.

ursula.

the rotten sea witch with her rotten sea magic won’t be allowed to torment her people any longer.

she tells her grandmother, and amphitrite smiles and says, “an excellent decision, child. i’ve enjoyed our time together, but i think it’s time for me to sleep once more. i’ve taught you everything i can.”

and tears prick ariel’s eyes, but she holds them back. she knew that it couldn’t be forever, that her grandmother can’t die but no longer desires to live and this is the in-between.

“you’ll be an amazing queen,” amphitrite murmurs, and closes her eyes for a millennia more.

this isn’t something to be done in the dead of night, although it would be easier to do it then.

she will make a spectacle of it, she will remind the sea that her people are not to be trifled with.

once upon a time they feared a blue eyed, red haired sea queen with the power to destroy them all. it’s time for them to do so again.

so she drives ursula to the center of the city. her sisters cower and people hide, and her father comes rushing forward to save her.

“you’ve committed great crimes against my people,” she says, not flinching as lightning gathers in the sea witch’s hands, “so now shall a great crime be committed against you.”

“foolish girl,” the sea witch snarls.

triton is yelling. he won’t get there in time.

he doesn’t have to.

she doesn’t need to sing anymore. instead she lifts her hands and pulls ursula apart without ever touching her, not only renders flesh from bone but also sets free the souls she’s been hoarding, reverses the magic done to those who’d fallen into the sea witch’s trap.

they all stare at her, her people, her father, and her sisters. she looks to triton and says, “i’m not a little girl anymore.”

he opens his mouth, closes it again, then says, “i can see that.”

all at once everyone’s perceptions are turned sideways about their youngest princess. she commands a power that even her father doesn’t have access to, she’s not depressed and dreamy – she’s powerful young woman who knows exactly what she’s doing.

so she does what she wanted to do, she gives herself legs and steps onto the sand and launches herself into eric’s arms. she becomes his bride, and the rumors run rampant of what she is, of where she came from, but they can’t prove anything and so they rule.

they live long, happy lives. ariel is his consort, his advisor, his wife, his tactician, and his best friend. all those years reading drowned books have certainly paid off. she ages herself along with her husband, bears his children and then teaches them they ways of her – their – people.

her husband dies, and she disappears, like the stories of selkie women that everyone whispers around her. their children give their father a sea burial, and vow to see him again one day. what they know and none of their subjects do is this – their father’s body isn’t in that casket.

she returns to her ocean, her legs form into her glittering green tail, and she goes home. she uses her terribly powerful magic, and brings her husband with her. she went from princess ariel of the sea to queen ariel of the land, and now she’s back again.

she’s not quite a teenager, but neither is she the old woman she pretended to be on land. she’s returned her and her husband to the prime of their life, and as she gained legs to be with him, he now gives his up to be with her.

eric becomes a merman, and a prince by virtue of being ariel’s husband.

she returns to her family and her world without missing a beat, and they all welcome her as if she never left, treat her husband with kindness and respect.

because they all know.

it doesn’t matter that she’s the youngest. when, far in the future, triton’s reign ends –

ariel’s reign will begin.

YYYYYEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS @nehirose

OH MY GOD THE @ NOTIFICATION GOT BURIED SO I ONLY JUST SAW THIS?  AND IT’S SO AMAZING I’M REBLOGGING IT REGARDLESS OF IT NOT BEING SUNDAY BECAUSE IT’S AMAAAAAAAZING.

(via clockwork-mockingbird)

slyrider:

yourfavouritekindoftrash:

differentjasper:

ok you know that ‘make the princess laugh and you can have her hand in marriage’ thing?

imagine so many come in.

they try, so hard, to make her laugh.

she just sits there, morose, ignoring every man who tries to coax a smile.

one day she’s sitting on the balcony. she just looks so sad.

of course that little thief tries to make her smile.

a girl who goes through the (semi public) royal gardens every day to pick flowers, even though technically only the royal family is allowed to do that. 

she sees the princess while she’s picking them up to sell on the streets, and she’s just… so sad. this princess needs someone to cheer her up.

and she tries. she’ll do silly dances when she comes in, she’ll bring up frogs from ponds and act out comedies, she’ll make flower crowns and exaggerate just how hard it is.

the first few days, the princess doesn’t even look at her.

then she starts noticing. this girl, trying so hard to cheer her up. she probably hasn’t even heard of the hand in marriage thing, she doesn’t know she’s trying so hard for nothing.

but she does it anyway.

one day, the princess starts talking to her as she does these things. “You do know that it’s useless?”

“What?” the thief says. “No way! I’m going to get you to laugh!”

“The best jesters in the kingdom have tried, don’t bother,” the princess declared pessimistically, staring down at the girl.

Then the thief puffs out her chest, “Of course I am! I’ll find the best jokes, even better than the jesters have found! I’ll… fight a fire breathing dog for them!”

There’s no laugh, but the corner of the princess’s mouth twitches. it’s sad how she thinks she can make me laugh…

the girl keeps trying, for years, making more silly stories and trading flowers for jokes rather than food or money. the princess slowly realizes the girl is getting closer and closer, asking her for responses in knock knock jokes and encouraging her to speak when she wouldn’t respond immediately.

the princess eventually had the girl hanging from her balcony, holding on tight to the rail and feet wedged between the columns, grinning and telling yet another iteration of that already old chicken joke.

the princess has been smiling, slightly, but she mostly just looks unresponsive. the girl is happy, it’s better than looking so sad, like she had been years before.

the girl moves on to puns, pointing at the exotic lunch the princess was eating. “Why do the melons have to go to get married? They cantaloupe!”

“You only know that word because of me,” the princess snarks, but there’s a small smile there, a bit of happiness. This little flower girl, this thief has grown into an amazing friend, a wonderful person who genuinely just wants to help. she doesn’t know of the deal, only nobles and jesters could know, not the commonfolk.

“Well, it makes quite the pun,” the girl says, proud of her joke. a smile! what an accomplishment!

“Say…” she continued, “What would you call a princess who got swept up in conversation a thief?” she pulled a flower out of her pocket, waving it in front of the princess’s face. the princess’s eyes crossed to see the flower before they rolled at the obvious setup.

though, it was interesting that it obviously involved them.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, sighing in preparation for another horrible pun. “What?”

the girl grinned. “A pretty theft!” she exclaimed, ticking the flower against the princess’s nose.

the princess froze for a moment, stunned. she had been complimented a million times over, called graceful by etiquette instructors, been called beautiful by many a suitor, been called wonderful by her mother before… she stopped thinking about that. 

she had never been called pretty.

she burst into laughter at the commonplace compliment, as if she was some sort of milkmaid who had somehow grown up to be good looking! it was ridiculous, the notion, yet somehow it had her blushing all the same.

then she suddenly stopped, realizing what she’d done.

the flower thief was staring at her in amazement, a blush of her own speckling her cheeks. her flower tilted out from in front of the princess’s nose, as if it had it’s own amazement.

“Wow…” the girl breathed. she’d never heard something so beautiful in her life.

The princess was silent, knowing what she had just done. She had just laughed for the first time in years.

The girl may not have been aware of the arrangement, but she was quickly swept up in it. A maid had heard the laughter and burst in, to find the thief and the princess, caught up in each other’s eyes, reveling in what had just happened.

The wedding was beautiful, a flower filled affair, a wonderful nod to how it happened. The king was so happy to see his daughter with someone who made her smile for once, tearing up as they were wed.

The princess’s laugh was still incredibly rare. She still had a hard time smiling. But a well timed joke from the girl– no, her wife– and another flower that had a hidden meaning behind it, than maybe, maybe you would hear it.

After all, the princess had finally laughed with the one she loved.

fucking adorable I’m going to punch something

@words-writ-in-starlight dont know if you’ve seen this one yet :D

tony totally does have a superpower. its just that his superpower is not dying of caffeine overdose which only rarely comes in handy when fighting supervillians

aniseandspearmint:

sariau:

spinneryesteryear:

#the other half of his superpower is the ability to locate coffee anywhere #which is how he knew what direction to start walking when he was in afghanistan #‘the nearest pot of coffee is 23 miles east’ #and then he started walking through the desert #honestly that’d be kind of a fun plot device #somebody write it I’m too lazy (via @buckykingofmemes)

@blackkatmagic

Oh, this is awesome. Have a ficbit.

______________________________________

There is a reason Tony never mentions that he’s a mutant. It’s not that he’s ashamed, or even that he’s afraid of the negative impact the news would have on the Stark name and his business.

It’s that he got such a fucking lame power.

The X-men can fly, control the weather, shoot lasers from their eyes, and make things go boom. Tony? Tony get’s the amazing ability to metabolize caffeine extra well (okay, on a level that would kill ten average people) and sense it for miles.

He’s one of those mutants whose powers fall into a category all their own. teeeechnically, he’s actually an alpha level mutant, given the complex way his body processes caffeine and the nearly fifty mile range on the sensor aspect of his talent, plus the degree of sensitivity. But in practice? The few people in the know mostly consider him to be a beta mutant, since his power isn’t really applicable as a defence or offense. 

At any given moment he can tell you with pinpoint accuracy what things within a block of him have caffeine and what they are, even managing to differentiate between different kinds of coffee. He can even tell you who made it, if he’s met the person.

(He tries to explain it to Pepper and Rhodey, once. Tries to explain that it’s not that he’s measuring the level of caffeine in a pot of coffee really, it’s that everyone makes coffee differently. If he focuses, he can tell that the pot of coffee down in the accounting break room was made by Margery, not Cole, or Clarke, or Franchesca, because it feels like her. Numbers and irritation and impatience coupled with the peppermint sticks she likes to swirl in a cup of black. He knows he doesn’t manage it well when all he gets are indulgently confused smiles from his two friends.

Charles Xavier prattled a bit about possible subconscious empathic or telepathic impressions, but honestly Tony doesn’t really care. He just does what he does. It’s not like the mechanics really matter with a useless power like his. He doesn’t stay at Xavier’s long. Hanging with the X-men makes him feel like a toaster hanging out with sports cars.)

It’s not until he’s kneeling in scorchingly hot sand, an unforgivingly bright sun high in the sky above him and bits of scattered metal around him, that he’s thankful for the power evolution gave him. Because when he reaches out with that strange other sense of his, he can feel all the distant pinpricks of sensation that mean, ‘Here! There be coffee here!’. Most carry the notes of people who feel like the land around him, but one….. Smiling grimly, he heaves himself to his feet and looks east, towards the distant call that carries with it a taste of foreigntiredordersyessirdutythiscoffeeSUCKSman that tells him there are american soldiers that-a-way.

He starts walking.

(Source: buckykingofmemes, via notanightlight)