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Mundane Utility / Fan Works

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Examples of characters using their powers in mundane fashions in Fan Works.


Crossovers
  • In Acceleration, Taylor uses her vector control to put her bullies on mute.
  • In Amazing Fantasy, Izuku's Spider-Sense is great for navigating through busy crowds without getting clocked in the head by a stray elbow. Wall Crawling is also handy for escaping bullies by sticking to walls and ceilings out of sight.
  • In Anything Goes Game Changer, Ranma uses his Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts to earn money around town to help pay for larger bills he and his father cause for the Tendos, along with posing for pin-up photos for Nabiki to sell, though he refuses to do anything too risque. He also uses them around the Izumo Inn to help out his Cool Big Sis Miya.
  • Avengers: Infinite Wars:
    • In chapter 31, Klaue has developed a working teleporter and proposes using it to smuggle weapons.
    • When Spider-Man and Ahsoka rupture the coolant system to drive out the brain-worms, Peter's suit is revealed to have an inbuilt heating system.
    • When the Guardians accept Sillium that will grow into healing plants as payment for a job, they privately reflect that Groot will help accelerate the growth of the plants so that they will be useful more quickly, which has the advantage of the Guardians' services being relatively cheap to outsiders while still giving them something useful.
  • Becoming more than what I am.: When Max refuses to show Chloe (Decker) her wings, she and Lucifer go into an argument about being angels while Chloe is standing there, only for Max to reverse time and they pretend none of it ever happened.
  • Luna's first use of Muchourin in Chapter 30 of BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant, discovering that one of the most powerful tools on the planet and a fabled weapon used against the Black Beast also doubles as a nifty flashlight.
  • Robin realizes just what kind of man Luffy is in Blood Man Luffy when his first reaction to her powers is to declare how she could give herself backrubs whenever she wanted.
  • For a given definition of mundane: In The Bloodstained Hero, Izuku uses his regenaration to help Momo practice weapon usage.
  • In Child of Rao Book II, Xander uses his Kryptonian powers for carpentry (and since he drives nails by pushing them in with his finger, he's highly valued by people who want a quiet worker) and has a Super-Powered Alter Ego who uses his Super-Strength and Super-Speed in construction work and package delivery respectively. Cordelia is always passively absorbing heat so the studio she works in has no need for air conditioning.
  • Child of the Storm has this a lot.
    • Steve Rogers, worthy of lifting Mjolnir, uses it as a doorstop. Played for Laughs since he's totally unaware of the significance.
    • Apparently, Bor used Eye Beams to "incinerate enemies, destroy citadels, and open canned goods."
    • Wanda Maximoff, seeing as being a witch/generalised monster slayer and problem solver doesn't pay well, uses her probability-altering powers to cheat on the lottery every once in a while.
    • Thor, being God of Thunder and Lightning (not Reason and Understanding), uses his powers to stop the rain so he and Harry can go flying together.
    • Sean, who has audiokinetic powers, whistles in two-part harmony with himself.
    • One of the Twelve Uses of Dragon's Blood discovered by Dumbledore, as opposed to the majority being for medicinal purposes, is as an oven cleaner. Also a case of Awesome, but Impractical, however, as it's far too expensive to be sold regularly as such a product.
  • The Dark Lords of Nerima:
    • Beneda can form Shiruken on her arms. They're great for helping Kasumi chop vegetables.
    • The "magic artifact" that Ranma and Ryoga use for their ceremony is used to boil water.
  • After Harry retrieves the Book of the Dead for Death in Death's Knight, she uses it to prop up her coffee table.
  • The Difference One Man Can Make: Harry's magic, which makes him one of the most powerful people in Westeros, is used to make crops grow faster, create buildings within days, construct ships that are Bigger on the Inside and can run faster than the norm...
  • The Dragon King's Temple shows Toph using her magnetic sense to find North, and Zuko guessing it's time to wake up because he can feel the sun rising.
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami Ami uses time-acceleration magic to make farms that can be harvested faster than usual, in her dungeon. She also uses her transformation sequence to clean herself in seconds, golem bodies to go without sleep for days, and harnesses the persistent storm outside her dungeon with a windmill for electricity.
  • The God Empress of Ponykind: Celestia uses Warpflame for many things; burning through ranks of enemies, intimidation, and tidying up an old citadel by burning away moss and other debris.
  • Harry Potter and the Deadly Heller: Experienced Slayers may have strength and speed and fighting skills that allow them to wipe out armies, but they're all extremely excited about recruiting Ginny, because she can use spells to fix and clean damaged clothing. Within seconds, Ginny and Hermione are surrounded by a crowd begging for their help.
  • Harry Tano: Ahsoka uses her lightsabers to refurbish a cave into a decent home for her and her newly adopted son.
  • In The Heroic Chronicles of a Young Man, people with certain Quirks can be certified to use them for vocational purposes. Tenya Deguchiya, Kaminiari, Momo, Iida, and Todoroki all become certified to use their Quirks for power generation in emergency situations. Tenya's mother actually works at a power plant where she and all her coworkers use their quirks for power generation, with his mother's Frickin' Laser Beams Quirk generating more power in half an hour than the rest of her coworkers can all day (though that half an hour completely drains her Quirk for the day).
  • In The Humanity of Spider-Man, Peter uses his wall-crawling ability to look for something in a hurry. Later in the story, Tony has Thor (the guy with inhuman patience, strength, and stamina) hold an IV bag for an extended period of time.
  • When Harry gives his new lightsaber to Dobby (at least partially because it's pink) in I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Dobby figures it'll only be useful for slicing bread and making toast at the same time.
    • This actually manages to be a double case as the crystal Harry uses for his lightsaber is the Philosopher's Stone.
  • Comes up on occasion in the The Infinite Loops:
    • Vader uses his prosthetic arms to play Angry Birds.
    • In DxD Loops, Rias takes advantage of Looping alone with Issei to have sex with him, since the other girls can't interfere.
  • Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus: After Dr. Yung's Mirage Pokémon have been converted into denizens, Lexi begins to gush about how all of them can be so useful at his home in Azada: Mareep's tail light can be used for if he wants to read at night, the Fire-types will help his father with cooking and Psychic-types can help with moving furniture around.
  • Jedi of the Boiling Isles lampshades the fact that Eda mainly uses a portal to other realms, an artifact people would kill to get their hands on, to gather and resale junk from said other realms.
  • Kill Them All: Taylor's durable body and not-so-durable clothes often left her fighting in the nude. As such her first use of a Reality Warper power is to reset any damage done to her clothes so she can fight in her nice red Armani.
  • In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Yuki used her data manipulation powers to slow the relative time around a tea kettle, preventing its tea from cooling down.
  • The Last Seidr: Harry uses his magic to perform magical first aid on a SHIELD agent, and later to fix some of the damage to Stark Tower.
  • Manehattan's Lone Guardian: Leviathan uses either her internal generators or nearby sources of water as fuel for her attacks. After a duel near a swimming pool leaves water all over the place, she cleans up the area by creating mini-dragons out of them and directing them back into the pool, where they dissolve.
  • In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Izuku's Kryptonian Super-Strength, Super-Speed, and Super-Senses make it a cinch to clear out the stalls at the U.A. Culture Festival of all the All Might merchandise he wants. His Heat Vision is also handy for heating up instant ramen.
  • The Next Frontier: The Kerbal Space Program's prototype faster-than-light starship is equipped with a Quantum Entanglement communications system capable of instantaneous communications with Mission Control eight light-years distant. Mission commander Jebediah Kerman is also using it to update his blog on the Kerbin Space Agency website.
  • Not In Kansas: Kara uses her super speed to play ping pong against herself in two different versions of her Supergirl outfit.
  • Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse) mainly focuses on Soma discovering mundane uses for the souls he collects, such as getting unlimited curry from the Waiter Skeleton (which normally flings curry as a weapon) and using the Ouija Table (which can heal battle damage) to cure a cold.
    • The reboot A Game of Cat and Cat starts with Soma's roommate Kazuya summoning a demon to reclaim his money from an internet scammer, and then tacking on a bunch of errands like laundry and coffee because demons ask for a flat rate per summon.
  • In An Orc in Sunnydale, the Orcish Shaman Ziega thinks of how she uses elemental fire to keep herself shaved clean, noting it's easier than regular fire since it can burn beneath her skin without hurting her and both are safer than fel fire.
  • In Ward/The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim crossover Point Me at the Skyrim, Antares uses her forcefield to braid her hair and get dressed without actually moving her hands. She also uses it as a way to carry injured soldiers via wagons like a hot-air balloon.
  • Pretty Cure: Magic of the Rainbow: Cure Beauty, Cure Diamond, Cure Gelato, and Cure Selene use their ice powers to make an ice cream cake for Hayley's birthday.
  • In the Reaching for a Dream series, technically almost any use of Naruto's and Xanna's godlike powers qualifies but the two most common are allowing them to go barefoot without pain or getting their feet dirty and keeping Xanna's outfit from falling off her shoulders. Xanna also tends to use her tails as cushions.
  • Remnant's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Josuke uses Crazy Diamond to fight evil, heal the injured, and cheat at card games.
    • Neo's semblance enables her to be invisible and inaudible. She uses this power to stalk Koichi.
  • In The Return, one of the awesome powers of the Succubae is the ability to magic up your own clothing. So if the protagonists see a dress they like in a shop they just need to try it on in the changing room to see how it looks, then once they are out of the shop they magically summon an exact copy out of thin air. Summoned clothes will also dissolve once they are taken off, so it must save a small fortune on dry cleaning too.
  • The Secret Return of Alex Mack explores both fantastic and mundane uses for Alex's powers, including recharging batteries with electrokinesis, dusting multiple rooms at once with telekinesis, and arcing electricity between her hands as a light source.
  • A Shadow of the Titans: At least once, Jade is shown using the Pig talisman to heat up a boiling formula.
  • In Sons and Daughters of Sineya, Xander discovered a portal to Narnia when he was a kid and, after building himself a cabin there, uses it to catch up on his sleep and homework as well as heal injuries without time passing in the real world.
    • Later chapters show Xander also uses it to store things from each Monster of the Week. For humans, he'll grab one of their bags and random handfuls of clothes to make it look like they left town in a hurry.
    • It also helps Buffy relax as she finally gets a place where she can not only safely rest, but also not have to worry that someone is dying because she's not out there fighting.
  • In Stardust, this describes Twilight Sparkle's use of her powers, to the bemusement of XCOM. Telekinesis that can crush a Chryssalid to a smear in one pulse or drive solid steel two inches into concrete? She uses it for tidying up after herself. A spell that renders the target completely silent, so even their actions make no noise? Perfect for silencing an annoying woman teasing you. Inverted in that X-Com is at least considering trying to weaponize any spell that seems it might be useful, such as using the "wallflower" spell so the media doesn't notice them on missions.
  • In Storm on the Horizon, between the events of Life Is Strange and her arrival in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn, Max used her time travel powers to get rich in Las Vegas and pay off her RV. In the future, she also uses her powers to give herself roughly six months to work out and train in various combat and survival skills, as well as correct her aim with the bow and give herself time to heal any wounds.
  • In Tangled Adventures in Arendelle, once she got control of her powers, Elsa's now able to use them for things you might not think about. Not only can she give herself a quick change when necessary, but it also works well for giving herself a royal seal or turning out the lights when she's in bed. (they use oil lamps around the castle.)
  • Throw it!!!: Turns out Karla's Super-Speed is ideal when playing catch when the pitcher (Luisa) has Super-Strength.
  • Timex... keeps on ticking: Ice uses her powers to create ice at ice plants to make money. They save power, and she gets half the money they saved in power bills. According to Fire, she makes enough money to pay for the rent of a penthouse in Metropolis. Killer Frost remarks that she should try going legit.
  • In Turnabout Storm, Twilight accidentally Power Copies Phoenix's Magatama, effectively turning her into a Living Lie Detector. After learning about this, one of the first things that comes to her mind is how knowing when someone is keeping a secret would come in handy during surveys.
  • In Vacation Means Chaos, both Steve Rogers and one of Xander's Slayers use their super strength to clean up rubble after the Chitauri Invasion. At one point Xander suggests having the Hulk demolish a couple buildings that need to come down as not only would it take weeks to clear the rubble enough to get a wrecking ball in, but it'd let the big guy have some fun smashing things without anyone getting upset.
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl story The Vampire of Steel, Kara Zor-El uses her super-speed and eye-beams to make breakfast.
    When all three of them got up, one by one, the next morning, Kara insisted on doing breakfast for the lot of them. Thankfully, pancakes, bacon, and eggs cooked at super-speed with heat vision tasted pretty much like the results of the normal process, and Kara was a competent cook.
  • Lilith, a hedonistic Big Eater with a Snake-Snake Zoan Devil Fruit in Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse is mentioned as manifesting her snake form's distending jaws and elastic stomach so she can eat far more food at far greater speed than she should be able to, even in her human form.
  • Xander in Walking in the Shadows knows a runic cluster that was initially meant for disguising a person but was too magic intensive to use. By using free mana from his surroundings, Xander can make it so he never has to shave or cut his hair. He also teaches it to Raven because part of the artificing she's learning requires pubic hair as an ingredient and the runes work for any type of hair.
  • Lampshaded in Wandering of a Sword Hero when Shirou uses his sword's "weapon copy" ability to transform it into a basic kitchen knife because he can't use a knife otherwise.
    Shirou: Am I really going to use a Divine Construct to cut vegetables?
  • In What It Mean, to be Worthy?, Izuku uses Gold Experience to create black peppercorns, which he gives to Bakugo, who uses his explosions on it to... create pepper to add to his curry.
  • In You with the Lion's Roar, after Jasper Whitlock and a female Harry Potter have a baby together:
    Jasper's fingers have been in the kid's mouth more times than he cares to count; the vampiric cool skin and inability to actually suffer injury from an infant's bite makes him the ideal teething toy apparently.

Animorphs

  • In Eleutherophobia, Tom has used his morphing ability to buy alcohol without being ID'd and escape from traffic.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Bleach

Buffyverse

  • In Wood it Work, Xander and Willow make portals to other worlds inside furniture such as chests and wardrobes. Since their first two portals are to an endless desert and eternal blizzard, they make small boxes they can carry around to act as heating and air conditioning respectively.
  • When Xander learns that he has some control over unconscious actions in Faith's body after he ends up in her head in The Zeppo In Mind, two of the first changes he makes (at her request) are preventing her from growing leg hair anymore and making her periods only last a few hours and be completely painless. Further changes include turning Faith's lips ruby red, smoothing out her skin tone, and making her eyelashes longer and thicker.
  • Played straight and defied in Xendra. After season 3, Buffy uses her super strength in construction work (once Xander brings his boss in on The Masquerade) but when Willow suggest changing Xander into Xendra and back to heal some minor injuriesnote , Xander declines stating that eventually they'll have to pay a price for that magic and using it for every little thing will only make said price steeper.

Calvin and Hobbes

Castlevania

  • Great Powers; No Responsibility is about Soma using his vast array of powers in daily life, from using intelligence-boosting souls to study to sending Death to pick up his laundry.

Code Geass

  • In Experiments, one of the uses Lelouch uses his magical eye for is to make someone stop smoking around him and his sister. He later comments that the use was a bit of a waste and he could probably fix the problem just by getting Milly to declare a smoking ban.
  • In Settling Priorities, Lelouch uses his Geass, in this story the power to change one's priorities, to alter Cecile's focus from experimenting by combining mismatched food to learning to cook from Lelouch.

The DCU

  • A Force of Four: Power Girl's heat vision has plenty uses, including burning grease off your hands after having lunch.
    She took off her gloves, stuck them in her belt, walked over, and took the sandwich from him-—beef and melted swiss cheese on a roll; it was good—-and chomped some of it, getting the grease on her hands. She'd burn it off later with her heat-vision.
  • In the seventh chapter of Batman story Dance with the Demons, Heatstroke, pyrokinetic member of the Masters of Disaster, shoots a stream of flame to light up King Faraday's cigarette.
    Nobody said anything. He took his lighter out, snapped it once, twice, three times. No soap. Fuel had run low.
    One of the group let a stream of fire pass from her finger to the end of Faraday's cigarette. That did the trick.
    The American grinned. Guess super-powers were good for something, after all.
  • Funeral for a Flash: The Flash's Super-Speed has a lot of uses, including getting dressed for the day instantly.
    Wally opened his eyes. It was barely morning. He was still in his room. Still in his bed, in only his boxer shorts. [...] Within a second, he was shaved, deodorized, combed, and clad in casual dress.
  • Examples found in Hellsister Trilogy:
    • Superman finds a new use for his super-breath:
      Clark Kent, in a black tux, held onto Lois with one arm, waved with the other, and winked at Linda. She smiled shyly at him. Linda didn't have to guess whose super-breath had guided those flowers just where he'd wanted them.
    • Dev-Em uses his heat-vision to burn the sleep out of his eyes.
      "Kara?", he mumbled, using heat-vision to get the sleep out of his eyes and hoping he didn't burn the furniture.
  • In Superman fanfic Inviolate, Lex Luthor has an energy-efficient teleportation device that can also be used as a microscope, telescope, MRI, scrying device, and video phone. He also has this to say about his sonic weapon:
    "I've never actually hit anyone with it at level ten, but I tried it on a steak once. Vibrated the thing so hard the meat not only cooked to medium rare, but I ended up with quite possibly the most tender cut of beef you could imagine as the connective tissues and bones were practically liquefied. I could cut it with a plastic fork. Can you imagine what it would do to a human body?"
  • In Ultimate DCU Headverse, Linda Danvers helps Kate Kane fix a metal desk by using her super-strong fingers to remove a rusted nut from its bolt easily and quickly.
  • A Very Kara Christmas: Clark Kent needs to submit an article quickly, so he finishes his piece by typing super-fast, simultaneously using his super-breath to cool the overheated machine.
    "How much longer, Kent?" asked Perry. From the tone of it, he could tell his editor was still a few rows behind him. The sound of the Planet pressroom near deadline time was that of a million metal crickets banging their legs against a cylinder in a mating dance. Nobody was using a typewriter near Clark at the moment.
    Hunching over the Olivetti, Clark's fingers sped across the keys faster than Van Cliburn on a piano. A smell of heated metal came from the machine, and he blew on the keys to keep them from warping out of shape. As the last page reeled out, he blew on it to keep it from burning up.
  • With This Ring: Power rings are generally considered to be the most powerful weapon in the universe, but without the Green Lantern Corps' rules against using them for personal gain, Paul uses his ring for just about everything. Mining gold and platinum from asteroids. Whisking custard. Getting clean without a shower. Gaining extra appendages and additional stamina. He insists that it's the most powerful tool in the universe.

Death Note

  • In Ain't Life A Mystery, Matt uses the Death Note to prop up his coffee table.
  • In Fearful Symmetry when stranded and starving in the wilderness Light uses Death Note pages for kindling (the Death Note never runs out of pages so he'll never run out of fuel) and in a moment of insanity eats a page.
  • In Sex Note, when Light figures out the notebook works (despite the name, with it the user can alter people however they want, not necessarily for sex-related reasons), he immediately changes things about himself such as increasing his strength, speed, and giving himself complete immunity to all diseases. Also, he never needs to shave again, his tan is even, and his hair is always perfect.
  • In White Day, Ryuk uses Death Note pages for wrapping paper.

Dragon Age

  • In Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns, resident Badass Longcoat elven blood mage Alim Surana came up with magical runes and glyphs capable of keeping the party camp warm during winter. He also uses his frost magic on a pair of chests where they store meat, making them something like portable freezers.
    • Then, there's the enchantment used by the dwarves, which includes self-filling basins of self-purifying water (these things actually show up in the official book 'Dragon Age: The Calling' too) and metal, runed disks that act as portable campfires/grills -they are made of several, rotating, concentric disks that can be moved to make several rune patterns, enabling red hot iron and several intensities of actual flames.

Egyptian Mythology

  • In the Egyptian Mythology fic A day in the afterlife, a human petitions the Egyptian pantheon to let mortals into the afterlife. Thoth supports the idea. Why?
    ...[Thoth] argued that humans were excellent scribes and that he could use new recordkeepers himself.

Exalted

  • A fanart by chirpadee shows a Solar Exalt using her caste mark note  to read by.

Fate/Grand Order

Fate/stay night

  • Fate/Harem Antics:
    • Just the entire basis of the story: Irisviel, having taken over the grail from Angra Mainyu, manipulates the centuries-old Master and Servant system to only have female candidates, all so they can marry her adopted son Shirou and give her grandchildren.
    • Illya uses magic to instantly clean her room after she loses her temper and trashes it. Her maids ask why she even needs them if she can do that.

Fate/Zero

  • The Sage's Disciple has the aforementioned disciple identifying his master's runic magic as Primordial Runes - something many Magi would kill or sell their entire bloodline to learn just one of. Caster applied one of these to his disciple's jacket to keep him warm because it was cold and later makes an icebox with the same method. Crow finds the situation hysterical.

Final Fantasy

Fire Emblem

  • A number of Fire Emblem: Three Houses fanfics, such as A Chance for a New Dawn, will have characters use Divine Pulse to undo awkward conversations, catch fish they missed, and other such things. Sothis, who is the source of this power, is rarely ever amused by this.
  • The Ghost of Ochs: Constance uses her magic to prepare tea for her first date with Monica, who worries about there being a fire in the kitchen due to Constance's preference for flashy spells.

Game of Thrones

  • A Motherfucking Dragon: Daenerys uses her immunity to fire to cook meat by simply holding it over the flames in her hand.

Gravity Falls

  • In the Transcendence AU, Dipper becomes an immensely powerful dream demon, who could probably bring about The End of the World as We Know It within a few years of gaining his powers if he felt like it. Instead, he spends most of his time hanging around his sister and her husband at the Shack, where they summon him with great frequency (to the point where he gives out a separate circle to friends and family) and make deals for things like candy in exchange for doing the dishes or transportation, or a few raw steaks in exchange for babysitting the kids. This trait isn't limited to people who know of his human side, either; there has been at least one incident of someone summoning him for help with math homework.

Harry Potter

  • In The Awakening of a Magus, one of Harry's numerous abilities turns out to be a supernaturally good Excellent Judge of Character. The utility? Due to the threat of Voldemort, Hogwarts is receiving about a thousand transfer students, and Harry can Sort 95%+ of them in seconds.
  • Discussed in Breath of the Inferno where part of why Harry finds Quidditch boring, besides preferring to fly on his own, is that as a dragon animagus (specifically a dragon based on Smaug) he can sense gold and thus always knows exactly where the snitch is.
  • In Common Sense, Harry was sent to Azkaban before his innocence was finally proven, and he swore never to return to Britain until all the people that voted for his imprisonment were dead, too. When that happens, he sets out to kill Voldemort and the Death Eaters... and uses his magic as "special effects" to make a film, using Voldemort as the bad guy. It becomes a relatively low-budget film with special effects that ILM would kill to have, and he and Remus make money hand over fist with that film and the next three. It also credits "Tom Riddle" as a stuntman in all four films, and he decides not to return after the fourth.
  • Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:
    You're giving me a time machine to treat my sleep disorder.
    You're giving me a TIME MACHINE to treat my SLEEP DISORDER.
    YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
  • In Chapter 152 of Odd Ideas, Remus manages to find a way to destroy Dementors: put them in a blast furnace where steel is made. They're either killed or trapped in the steel. As a side effect, the resultant metal stays at low temperatures, and someone theorizes that it could be used to make a soul-eating sword. Remus and Sirius, however, have a much better use for it: keep their beers cold without using cooling charms.
  • In Secrets Harry uses a magical snake with chameleon abilities to teach Draco's baby daughter colors.
  • In The Sun Dog, Harry uses a bezoar (a Magic Antidote to most poisons) to sober up quickly after a drinking contest.

How to Train Your Dragon

  • A Thing of Vikings: Hiccup and the rest of Berk find that domesticated dragons have all sorts of Mundane Utility: Dragons with super-sharp wood-cutting wings? They make great sawmills. Dragons that can tunnel through rock? Miners and underground infrastructure. Dragons that spit boiling-hot water? Dish-cleaning. There's also a major plot arc about using dragons to carry mail around medieval Europe.

Jackie Chan Adventures

  • Queen of All Oni: When Ratso gets the Razor Khan mask, Jackie worries over what Jade will do with two armies of Shadowkhan at her disposal. We then cut to her pitting her ninja against Ratso's... in a baseball game.
    • The first thing Jade is seen doing once she learns about her contortionist abilities is using them to win a bet against the Enforcers (unhooking her jaw in a snake-like manner in order to swallow a massive sandwich whole).
    • Jade gets this a lot — her magic fans were created to serve as Magic Wands, which they do. But at one point she uses one to, well, fan herself with.
    • In the chapter that we really see the new haunted mansion headquarters for the Shadow Hand, we see a Shadowkhan vacuuming, showing that Jade uses her Mooks for chores. This is referenced again several chapters later, when another Shadowkhan is seen dusting a chandelier.
  • In Queen of Shadows, Jade at one point wonders if the Shadowkhan use their bladed weapons to help tend to the Fortress' gardens.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

Kingdom Hearts

  • In Second Chance, Ventus casts Faith during a blackout to help Sora's parents find the flashlights.

The Legend of Zelda

  • In The Legend of Link: Lucky Number 13, Link as a god uses his universal-level Reality Warping powers to create apples, and to introduce a sheltered Nabooru to the wonders of ice cream. He later gets called out on this for sinking as low as to "turn parts of the floor into chairs when an actual chair is two feet away."

Lyrical Nanoha

  • Game Theory examines possible uses of magic from Lyrical Nanoha in day-to-day life, such as using magical constructs as Impossibly Cool Clothes. There's also a magic system designed primarily around constructing buildings and other forms of infrastructure that gets mentioned in the world-building.
  • The mundane utility of most things from Lyrical Nanoha is explored in In the Service, from using flight magic letting someone avoid pressure-based traps to telepathy being used for privacy or in loud environments. Some of the more worrisome aspects are also examined, like being able to cauterize the wounds your Flaming Sword causes while it is causing them being handy for cutting off people's bits as a torture technique.

Marvel Universe

  • In The Joke, Steve uses Thor's hammer Mjolnir as a doorstop.
  • In X-Men 1970, Cyclops' eye-beams and Jean Grey's telekinesis turn to be useful when they get a job in construction.
    Jean: (snickering) That makes me think of the time we had to, oh, you know...
    Scott: What?
    Jean: When we had to go to Europe to save the Professor and Banshee from Factor Three. And we didn't have the money?
    Scott: Oh, nuts!
    Jean: And, and both of us tried to get a job in construction, I levitated those girders, and you riveted...
    Scott: Yeah. With my power beam.

Merlin

  • Lampshaded and discussed in The best-laid plans.
    "Merlin's cooking a three hour meal in half an hour. He’s using a time spell, taking the inside of his cooking pot through time faster than the rest of us. Cully, listen to me – he’s using the level of magic that it would take me a lifetime to learn, and he’s using it to make stew."
    ...
    "That man has serious power! And he's using it to make stew! I ask you, what the hell is that about? Stew, for pity's sake! Who uses power like that for something so stupid? It's the power of the universe, not a... a... God, why stew, Cully?"

Metal Gear Solid

Miraculous Ladybug

  • Dad Villain AU:
    • Played for Laughs when Tom uses Viceroy's powers to take control of a girl who'd spent most of her online review of the Dupain-Cheng bakery insulting Marinette. He forces her to edit her review to just say "the food is good and fresh,!! It's great!" and change the rating from two-and-a-half to five stars.
    • Played for Horror with Emelie, who uses the Peacock Pin to "correct" any percieved flaws in her son Adrien. Including forcing him to stop coughing the first time he falls ill, and perform any medical care like dental work so that he never has to see a doctor or other specialist. Bear in mind that the Peacock Pin is broken, but Emelie doesn't care since the magical backlash isn't hitting her...
  • According to Hero Chat, Miraculous costumes include perfectly-fitting underwear. Truly a boon to teenagers whose figures are in flux due to puberty.
  • The Karma of Lies:
    • In addition to terrorizing Paris, Gabriel and Nathalie use their Miraculi for union-busting. Nathalie uses the Peacock to make sentimonster doppelgangers of Union bosses and has them get caught doing illegal or scandalous things, ruining their reputations so that their efforts to organize and fight for better protection for workers fall apart.
    • Future!Alix abuses her time-travel powers as Bunnyx to hop back in time purely to chat with her present-day self, offering her minor tips like warning her not to wear something that originally got ripped or that she should study a little harder for an upcoming test.
  • Played for Drama in Recklessness, where Alya decides to use a reality-altering Wish to learn Hawkmoth's Secret Identity. Despite being warned about the potentially massive consequences, she's so convinced that she's hit upon a brilliant solution that she doesn't even bat a lash at accidentally getting Marinette killed, certain the Wish will fix that. Instead, she finds out the hard way that you need to Be Careful What You Wish For.
  • Scarlet Lady has Fu mention he uses the Horse Miraculous, a powerful cosmic artifact that allows the user to use a cosmic deity's power to form portal to anywhere, to go back to his home village for a special type of tea made there. Thus he warns Adrien he can't lose the Miraculous under any circumstances.
  • Thanks, but no: Kagami, after being given the Mouse Miraculous secretly by Marinette, is told by Mulllo that she can maintain her multipy even after transforming back from Nezumi. She uses this discovery to split herself in two, one to maintain the role of the perfect Tsurugi daughter while the other sneaks out of the house to hang out with her friends.

My Hero Academia

  • Conversations with a Cryptid: In the sequel, All for One uses his insane powers to skip a long line at the supermarket.
  • Green Tea Rescue: In the prologue, Kouta suggests to his girlfriend that if she's too sweaty he can just use his water quirk to hose her off. She does not appreciate the idea.
  • Juxtapose:
    • Izuku's Quirk, Minor Banishment, lets him Portal Cut anything he touches from existence, but only 10 grams at a time. He frequently uses this to remove stains from his clothes so his mom won't have to wash them. As he explores his Quirk and improves his control over it, Recovery Girl takes him to the hospital to start removing everything from kidney stones to brain tumors.
    • Mei uses Ochako's Zero Gravity Quirk to launch a satellite into space for cheap.
    • Gran Torino reveals that he used Endeavor to heat his tea when the latter was his sidekick. This was both a matter of convenience and to teach him precise temperature control, but Endeavor found this and other embarrassing mishaps to be so humiliating that he quit a few months later.
  • Quoth the Raven, "Forevermore": Raven, All For One's daughter, has a transformation quirk called "Demon Form" which enhances all her physical stats at the cost of enhanced emotions and lowered inhibitions. While useful for melee combat, she primarily uses it to enhance sex.
  • The Undead Schoolgirl: Dead Pulse:
    • Izuku uses her immortality and Healing Factor to grab a teakettle from across the room by cutting off her hand and throwing it at the kettle, then letting it reconnect with the rest of her body. She can also use it to pull herself around by throwing her limbs at something heavier than herself.
    • While at Dagobah Beach, she cuts herself and writes in her blood on a whiteboard she found.
  • In What's in a Hoard?, Izuku takes advantage of his immunity to all forms of poison and disease to eat meat raw, something his dragon form finds quite appealing.

My-HiME

  • Duran And Kiyohime's Omake Theater: The HiME seem to all use their CHILDREN for this, now that they don't have to fight each other.
    • Natsuki kicks it off, using Duran's Silver Cartridge to refill the ice in her glass, to Shizuru's alarm, as she initially didn't know why Natsuki was ordering Duran to use an attack, and was afraid they were under attack again.
    • Kiyohime will use her steam breath to cook food.
    • Nao has Julia use her silk to make a rather...interesting...Halloween Costume for Natsuki.
    • Kazuya has Akane loan him Hari so that he can use him as a wood-chipper.
    • Kagutsuchi uses his powers of fire to reignite candles when the girls are telling scary stories.
    • Alyssa has Artemis use its laser to cook a piece of undercooked meat she found on her fork, and she also uses Artemis' functions to serve as a night light when she's sleeping.
    • Yukariko uses St. Vulas to create illusions that keep her infant son entertained when she's out at the grocery store.
    • Yukino has Diana use her cloaking field to help Haruka hide a messy dorm room from her mother.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

  • Antipodes: Incendia often uses her powerful pyromancy for a variety of mundane uses, such as cooking, lighting up dark rooms, and creating fuel-less campfires.
  • The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan: Nova Shine has a cape which grants him several nifty abilities to sneak around, such as invisibility, spell-shielding, teleportation, and other stuff. Nova uses it to save six hours of trotting between Neighton and Ponyville by teleporting between them.
  • Ascend (xTSGx): In Chapter Four, Spike uses his fire Breath Weapon to light a candle.
  • A Diplomatic Visit: In the epilogue of the third story, Diplomacy Through Schooling, Celestia mentions that her biggest reason for hoping Twilight would become an alicorn (on top of being a Power) is... so she and Twilight could go out flying together.
  • Fallout: Equestria - Empty Quiver features the Princess-class Heavy Cruiser HMS Cadence, a pre-war warship mounting eight 203mm long range guns in four turrets and several still fully functional anti-aircraft cannons and ammunition aboard. Nowadays it's a radio station.
  • In possibly one of the biggest examples of misuse of Divine Power, Excolotis from I Am War uses his innate abilities as the War God to beat Twilight at a game of darts.
  • KPNYRadio has the characters create a device called the Quantum Entanglement Dish (QED), through which they make First Contact with Earth. They decide to use this miraculous discovery...to start a radio show reviewing works by the bronies.
  • Past Sins: From "Everfree Discovery", Twilight, being a unicorn, uses her telekinesis to make a comfy bed:
    With that Twilight lit her horn and used her magic to shift a few blankets and pillows around. She first tucked herself beneath the covers, then she set the filly down on top of the bed’s blanket and gave her a spare blanket and pillow. The blanket and pillow were meant for Spike’s basket, but they were the perfect size for the filly.
  • Ponies of Olympus: Rarity is probably Lao Wu's greatest student ever. She uses the fighting skills he gave her to help in her dressmaking (and, occasionally, acupuncture).
  • Pony POV Series: Prince Blueblood has X-Ray Vision. It helps him find his way around unfamiliar places and lets him check on who is knocking on his door so he can ignore those he doesn't want to talk to.
  • Racer and the Geek describes assault rifle bayonets and magazines being used for mundane tasks like food preparation, bottle opening, paper weights, cutting bandages, and pulling nails.
  • Reading Rainbowverse: Octavia developed a split personality in order to deal with the trauma of seeing her father almost cut open. She was unaware of this for most of her life, referring to Philharmonica as her "sister", but once she did realize what was happening... she promptly figured out how to switch to avoid hangover pains.
  • Retired to Equestria: After becoming a unicorn, Gallus Blueflame, former enemy of (retired) Evil Overlord Damien, uses his namesake to form fingers so he can play a violin the way he's used to rather than the way ponies do.
  • Sharing the Night: An alicorn's true body is the celestial object or phenomenon that they emody; the equine body walking around on the surface world is a magical construct that can be discorporated and remade at will. Twilight uses this keep herself groomed and refreshed by quickly dissolving her body when she's dirty or tired and remaking it a more presentable shape. In one scene she dismisses visual afterimages from bright light by repeatedly discorporating and recorporating her eyes.
  • The Third Generation: The G3 ponies are amazed to see Twilight Sparkle use her gift of magic (something very rare and spectacular to them) for something so mundane as to pick books off high shelves. (Of course, for the G4 ponies, magic is commonplace and ordinary, especially telekinesis.)
  • Windfall: The telekinesis of all unicorns can be used for catching things from midair, or adjusting cravats.
  • The Witch of the Everfree: Zecora uses her cauldron not only for potion-making, but also for tea-making.

Naruto

  • A common trope is that Shadow Clones can be used to do things like paperwork quicker (a trick often used by the Hokage), since they are essentially the same person as their original.
  • In Black Flames Dance in the Wind, Naruto uses his near mastery of fire to clean himself by incinerating everything off his body. He does note that he has to "air himself out" afterwards as it leaves him smelling strongly of barbeque and tends to attract animals.
  • A Drop of Poison is a Point of Divergence fic where Iruka is poisoned during his fight with Mizuki and can't promote Naruto to Genin; with a lot of free time on his hands until Iruka recovers, Naruto learns to exploit his Shadow Clones to write down all the techniques in the Forbidden Scroll he stole (by using clone version of the scroll, at that) and test them out. Later in the story he creates two new personas to go to school with him for his next year in order to get an unbiased education and manages his own spy network throughout the Elemental Nations. He also uses the clones with various Henges to get better prices while shopping, a instance much more in common with the trope.
  • In A Growing Affection, Gaara uses his powers to clean Naruto's house.
  • Son of the Sannin:
    • Wood Release, a very rare and powerful ability, finds a lot of utility outside of combat:
      • Kaida is often called to use it for gardening jobs, much to her chagrin. At one point, she uses it to make a wooden cage for Tora the runaway cat.
      • Rin uses it to make a crib as a wedding gift for Asuma and Kurenai's future child.
      • In the aftermath of Akatsuki's invasion, every available user of Wood Release is called to help build new houses to replace the ones that got destroyed in the attack.
    • The x-ray vision granted by the Byakugan has obvious application for healing, but no member of the Hyuga clan ever bothered pursuing a medical career before Hinata due to how focused on tradition they are.
  • In Team 8, Naruto's Shadow Clones are useful for getting the D-ranked missions done more quickly. He uses them to cheat on his Chunin Exam test, but not realizing that he receives information from clones that are dispelled, he uses them to see the answers and send him signals. Naruto also sends his shadow clones shopping on several occasions.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

  • In Advice and Trust, Ritsuko and Maya use their sysop access to the most advanced computer in the world to flirt by leaving messages in the change log (they also use it to plot how to take down Gendo's scenario, but mostly to flirt).

NieR

One Piece

  • In an omake for Nine Minutes, Usopp accidentally combined the Soap Soap Fruit with the ship's mop. As a result, the crew has the perfect cleaning implement.
  • In This Bites!, Soundbite's Gastro-Blast technique is a devastating attack that no human should be able to survive. It shatters bones and steel with a blast of pure sound...and can also be used to make a steak so tender that it literally melts in your mouth.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

  • Son of the Western Sea: Percy has a tendency to use his demigod powers to make things easier. Highlights include:
    • Using his ability to make things dry out to dry a water based paint whilst painting the Firefly’s hull underwater. Additionally, he has never had to use a clothes drier since he was 12.
    • Using his limited control over the Mist in order to avoid hawkers in a market while in Morocco.
    • Creating better waves for surfing, but not to give himself perfect balance while doing so. In his opinion, cheating is fine as long as it makes things more fun.

Pokémon

  • At The Food Court has Jigglypuffs being used as therapy Pokémon for psychiatric patients, since they can sedate them with Sing in an emergency.
  • Penny Saves Paldea: The anomalies present around Paldea have the potential to destroy the region. Ortega's father found an anomaly that duplicates objects and is using it to clone Rare Candies.
  • Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has several examples of bloodliners (humans capable of using Pokémon-based abilities) finding uses for their powers other than fighting:
    • Red's Victory Sight helps him find the best deals when he goes shopping.
    • Jeanette Fisher uses Sweet Scent as substitute for perfume.
    • Lara Laramie and her friend Hex, who work at a ranch, use Heat Wave as a makeshift hairdryer and Shadow Claw to shave Mareep wool, respectively.
  • Pokémon: The Great Adventure gives us Silver, a silver-haired man wearing a full-black outfit and a pretty nice cape. Said cape is often used as a pillow, blanket, a bag ... Ash even notes how warm it is.
  • The Pokéumans Fan Verse has produced several ways in which being a Pokémon gives you various abilities that turn out to be useful in everyday life. It's also produced several submissions to the Things Not To Do In A Pokeumans Base post on the kind of less responsible things people might get up to with the powers of a Pokemon and the mindset of the average teenager:
    Just because you can breathe fire or fly does not mean you can post it on YouTube.
    Ghost-type students are not allowed to harass teachers on Christmas Eve, especially not in groups of three.
    Kecleon students are not allowed to set their natural camoflague on 'strobe'.
    Do not ask a Whiscash student to say an earthquake is coming so you can get out of class.
    Do not dare students to see how many uses of Metronome they can do before they Explode themselves.
    Steel-types cannot be harmed by Poison-type attacks. That doesn't mean you can eat/drink random things you find lying around for the hell of it.
    Being a ghost-type does not give you the right to act like a Weeping Angel. The traumatized newbies are willing to testify to this.
    To Delibirds: You are not Santa Claus. Stop trying to sneak into people's dorm rooms on Christmas Eve.
  • Traveler: Ash sometimes uses his Hypno's psychic powers to help him sleep and his Kingdra's water attacks to clean himself if there's no water source nearby.

Protectors of the Plot Continuum

Psychonauts

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

  • Resonance Days has Kyoko use her magical, size-shifting spear she can telekinetically control as a self-propelled boat.
  • The Soulmate Timeline has several examples, particularly among those who have a Soulmate, as in story being around your Soulmate restores your magic and thus removes a serious risk of using powers that have to be recharged, or else, for something mundane.
    • Mami uses her ribbon creation powers to create new ribbons for Madoka to wear in her hair to represent her (a gold ribbon), Homura (a purple ribbon), and the both of them (a purple and gold ribbon).
    • Homura can stop time to let herself, Madoka, and Mami have a late night cup of tea without waking Madoka's parents or Tatsuya. Her shield's nearly infinite storage capacity also lets it function as a cooler, easy store anything purchased, and in theory avoid having to check luggage on flights. This does not extend to cheating on the lottery however, as winning lottery numbers change between timeloops.
    • Mifuyu used her illusion powers to help Yachiyo as a model, covering up the odd scar or imperfection. While Yachiyo is still able to be a model after Mifuyu's death, she can no longer model swimsuits because of the placement of her scars.
    • Kyoko's family is lactose intolerant, but Kyoko subconsciously used her magic to cure it to let her eat more of Mami's cooking.
    • Nagisa can use her power to create sugary foods to create soda, which she can use to caffeinate Kyoko when she's slow to wake up on her own.
    • Motoko can use her magic to create mundane kitchen items, up to and including food, to help feed her family.
    • Hinano can create gold and silver, which she can sell to pay for things like her college tuition. She does need to be responsible with it and can't do so willy nilly.
    • Yachiyo has used her ability to create halberds, which she can throw, rocket, and control at will, to dispose of trash if she forgets to take it out for trash day, using her halberds to rocket the trash into the garbage truck.
  • In Thanks Kyubey, Homura uses her time-stopping powers to cheat in an eating contest against Kyouko.

Real-Person Fic

  • In With Strings Attached, the four are Actual Pacifists who get infused with a huge amount of magic, so of course they dick around with it a lot. Two examples are John, who, when bored, starts making the people around him thirsty or sweaty or “desirous of urinating”; and George, who shaves by turning into himself clean-shaven.

RWBY

  • Children of Remnant: Watts ends up having to use his extensive network of spies and connections to buy beer for Jaune and his friends.
  • A Rabbit Among Wolves:
    • Qrow's ability to turn into a bird is a near-unique magical gift. Among other more dramatic uses, he sometimes turns into a bird before drinking so that his tiny bird body gets smashed on a fraction of the alcohol his human body would, saving a lot of booze money.
    • Everyone uses their semblances and Faunus features in unique and unexpected ways during the fashion show, but Sun takes the cake by creating an entire marching band out of his clones.
  • In When You Hurt, I Hurt, Ruby uses her Semblance to pass a note in class without getting caught. (Admittedly, it was an important message, but the spirit of the trope is still fulfilled.)
  • White Sheep:

Sailor Moon

Shin Megami Tensei

  • Wizard's Duel is about demon summoners Kazuya and Flynn getting drunk and making a contest over who can perform the most impressive feat. They start small, getting a dog dinner and turning a murderer into a chicken, but by the end they relocated a city to the top of a mesa and made a forest swear at anyone passing through. It's not made clear who won the bet.

Star Trek

  • Solaere ssiun Hnaifv'daenn: A mighty D'deridex-class warbird, repurposed as an armed freighter delivering medical supplies. Justified in that the region is a little chaotic right now: The plague-ridden planet Glintara is no longer a member of the Romulan Star Empire, but they're independent from the Federation and Romulan Republic as well, and there's been sightings of Space Pirates in the area. And really, the canon shows the Enterprise had to do that kind of cargo mission all the time.

Star Wars

  • In An Open Secret, Padme wishes Anakin was around to help write invitations to their wedding reception as unlike her, he has a robotic hand that doesn't cramp from writing too much.

Steven Universe

  • I Want To Understand: While staying with Greg and baby!Steven in their storage building/make-shift-nursery in "The Grieving Process", Sapphire uses her future vision to foresee everything she needs to do to take care of Steven. She even comments on how hard it would be to try taking care of him without the ability to just predict what he’s going to need.

Super Smash Bros.

  • Life Aboard the Halberd gives some examples, such as when Sonic and Snake are tasked with washing the windows. Sonic glues soapy sponges to his feet and runs across the windows.

Touhou Project

  • Touhou Project fans love to depict various powers used for mundane or silly reasons. Even beyond all those mentioned in the Video Games subpage, Suika using her manipulation of density to collect small things - and growing to giant size to easily collect lumber by plucking whole trees as though they were carrots - Aya using her Super-Speed to aid in her role as the local Intrepid Reporter, Cirno being used as air conditioning, Yukari using her gaps for pranks, and many, many other variations exist.

The Transformers

  • Riding a Sunset: All Cybertronians carry a device called a subspace, which converts the matter in an item into energy and holds it indefinitely, allowing them to carry multiple heavy or large objects at a time. They mainly use them the way humans use pockets or purses, and don't consider them anything impressive.

Undertale

  • Inverted Fate: When performing the second cross examination of Dohj's evidence at Frisk's trial, Papyrus defense to Dohj corning them with the help of Privates 03 and 04 is that how could she be sure they where the real Privates 03 and 04 and not their evil doppelgangers from a parallel dimension. When Dohj questions how does that makes sense, only for Undyne to reveal that Papyrus has an interdimensional transporter. Sans uses it to drop socks into alternate realities.

Whateley Universe

Wicked

Worm

  • Another Way: Abigail carries a tanto blade selected not for killing potential, but for its strength and durability. She can stab people with it, and has, but she mostly uses it as a pry-bar.
  • Blanket: The Wards are all quickly bored in a Youth Guard meeting, and there's a box of assorted doughnuts on the table, which results in a stealthy war. Shadow Stalker sneaks one out of the box with her intangibility, Flechette catches one without looking, Vista warps space to put the box closer to her end of the table, and Blanket shapeshifts to give herself longer reach and take a chocolate one with sprinkles before they're gone.
  • Doors to the Unknown: As is tradition in Worm fanfics, Taylor's Pest Controller powers find a use in the economic sector. This time they find themselves employed in mind-controlling Giant Spiders for use in creating mass-produced silk, which THACo use as one of their primary source of income.
  • Mauling Snarks:
    • Taylor's enhancements courtesy of the Tinker fugue keeps her from feeling her period and even keeps her hormones in balance. A few women she mentions that to express interest in becoming future subjects.
    • A cape named Moshpit that can turn everyone around him except himself into a Brute uses his power in movies so the stuntmen can do the actual dangerous stunts without injury. And when not doing that, he lives under a skate park.
    • Doormaker and the Clairvoyant use their powers of teleportation to deliver the PRT's paperwork (and also troll a lot of people).
    • Burnscar practices with her fire powers by making barbecue.
    • Contessa initially uses Path to Victory to make sure every rainbow rosebush that Panacea makes is properly fed and watered.
  • Interviews with a Screenbug: Taylor is one of several capes who uses their powers to help make movies, which eventually grows popular enough to become it's own industry.

Yu-Gi-Oh!


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