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darthfrodophantom · 2 days ago

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Death Is My Gift

Summary: When Danny becomes the personification of Death, his new powers are the least of his problems. Summoned as the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, Danny tries to sabotage it from the inside while also contending with the other three horsemen, the one who summoned him, and the knowledge that if he fails, he may have to help bring about the end of the world.

AO3: Link

Chapter 1: Still Dead - Thanks for Checking

“What the hell is that on your phone?” Sam asked, her tone dripping with derision.

Danny looked up from his screen and cocked his eyebrow. “What?” How could she see what was on his screen when she was on the other side of the table? Not that he had anything embarrassing on there, but look it wasn’t his fault that he messed up his Insta algorithm because he watched one video about large superheated copper balls melting through a telescope lens and now he couldn’t stop watching more of them. But still, how could she see it?

She gestured toward the back of his phone. “That sticker - what the hell is it?”

Understanding dawned on the usually clueless boy and his face brightened. “Oh, it’s my new sticker! Isn’t it great?” he preened as he moved his hand to the side so they could see the sticker in its full glory. He had been waiting for them to notice it, and somehow it took all the way until lunch for them to comment on it.

Tucker craned his neck around to see the purple coffin-shaped sticker plastered onto the back of Danny’s phone case. In white letters it read: “Still Dead. Thanks for checking.” Tucker snorted before he devolved into cackles. “Dude, that’s great!”

Danny grinned even wider. “Right? I thought it was too funny.”

“No, it’s stupid,” Sam argued, and her harsh attitude completely ruined the mood. “Danny, the less people associate you with death, the better.”

“Oh come on Sam, if they haven’t figured out that Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton are the same person by now when they have the exact same hairstyle, then a sticker is not going to phase anyone,” Tucker argued, ever in defense of his friend.

“Exactly!” Danny seconded.

“Or it’s exactly the last piece that helps people make that connection because there’s already so little separating you!” Sam exclaimed, though she did try to keep her voice down so no one else would overhear.

“Or maybe they’ll just think I’m a moody Gen Z kid that says this kind of dramatic stuff all the time. Which is why you should have let me keep that shirt.” He still thought that “Dead Inside” shirt was ironic and iconic, but Sam conveniently spilled black ink from her fancy new quill set on it and refused to give it back for this very same reason.

“Yeah, he could just make it his brand,” Tucker agreed. The two of them always seemed to be on the same page.

Sam reached out like she was about to rip the sticker off his phone, but decided against it and shook her head. “Fine. You want to keep the sticker on your phone? Fine, but don’t cry to me when people start putting the pieces together,” she huffed.

“Well since that’s not gonna happen, you’re gonna be waiting a long time,” Danny grinned. He struck an overly exaggerated victory pose with his neck cocked slightly to the side while he tilted his chin up to the sky.

Sam jerked back as the color drained from her face. “Danny what the—“ she cried out, so loudly and so suddenly that it caught the attention of other people in the lunchroom.

Danny immediately looked behind him, assuming that whatever caused Sam’s sudden reaction had to be behind him. His need to protect his friends from whatever threat caused such a startled response rose up and hammered in his throat as his mind spun with the possible horrors he would see behind him.

But he saw…nothing. Well, not nothing. He saw other students eating their lunches at other tables throughout the room. Students drifted in and out of the cafeteria as they finished their lunches. No ghost. No threat. Nothing that should cause Sam to turn as white as she did.

He turned back to face Sam, concern etched deep into his brow as he studied her face. “Sam? What’s wrong?” he asked in quiet urgency. If she truly saw some danger that he couldn’t, then he needed to know.

Sam studied Danny for a long moment, far too long for Danny’s liking. She wasn’t looking past him, she was looking at…him. “...Nothing. Nothing. It’s nothing. I think I’m just seeing things. I thought I saw…nevermind. It’s nothing,” she assured them.

Danny raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Because something freaked you out.”

She shook her head and plastered a forced smile on her face. “Yeah, I’m sure. Too little sleep and too much caffeine has just got me jumpy. I’m fine, really. Besides, we need to act like we’re having a normal conversation: too many people are watching.”

“Well yeah, you practically jumped out of your seat,” Danny pointed out.

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a half smile before she reached across the table and grabbed his abandoned phone. “It did let me get your phone though.”

“Wait hey!” Danny protested as he reached across the table to recover his phone from her clutches, but she deftly moved around his grasping hands.

“Now let’s see about that sticker,” she teased. Danny immediately doubled his efforts to retrieve his phone. Not being able to rely on ghost powers made it a little more difficult than it should have been to win it back (was he maybe relying on those too much? That felt like too much of a Jazz question for him to think about it too long), but he did save the phone and his ironic sticker. He was so preoccupied saving his sticker that he didn’t notice that Tucker had gone quiet and regarded Sam with a very significant and curious stare.

Lunch wrapped up shortly after the scuffle over the phone, and the three of them rushed off to their lockers and then off to class. Just outside the door to the classroom, Tucker held a hand out to stop Sam and waited for Danny to get a few feet inside before he spoke up in a whisper.

“Did you see the skull?”

Sam blinked and her face grew pale again, just like it had in the lunchroom. “The what?” she asked with a slightly shaky voice.

“The skull? Over Danny’s face?”

“What? Yes! Yes I thought I was going insane!” she exclaimed, though still in a whisper to not catch any more attention. The briefest moment of relief washed over her, but it immediately washed away into even more worry.

“No, I saw it this morning,” Tucker admitted. “Thought it was just some trick of the light or something. It was there one moment and then–”

“--Gone the next,” Sam finished. “And when I saw it I just felt…off. Like this moment of dread. Like I was–”

“--Looking at something I shouldn’t have seen,” Tucker validated as he nodded his head. “Yeah, same here. It was a weird feeling to have looking at my best friend.”

“What does it mean?”

“No idea,” Tucker sighed as he looked towards Danny pouring over his textbook in the hope that he’d be able to at least pretend that he did the reading before class. “But knowing Danny, it’s probably nothing good.”

Danny noticed odd glances from his friends a few more times that day. He worried maybe he had something on his face, but then again Sam would have said something. Tucker would have stayed quiet to have a good laugh about it later, but he’d have clued him into the joke by now. Maybe he was doing something ghostly without knowing it? But if that was the case they would have definitely let him know. In the end, he chalked it up to his friends being weird and went about his strangely quiet day.

There weren’t any ghost attacks. He couldn’t remember the last time he went through a school day without being interrupted by ghosts. It felt…nice, but unnerving at the same time, like he missed something. Like he was supposed to clue into something happening in the Ghost Zone. But in the end he decided not to worry about that either, especially once school ended and he could just hang out with his best friends ghost free.

By the time they hit up the game store (Tucker was still trying to get them into tabletop games) and the record store (Sam wanted to browse the LPs), Danny had forgotten all about his previous warnings…until he hit the Boba shop. Second up to bat, he placed his order with the barista, a smiling young woman who wore fun earrings that looked like watermelon slices. He paid for his drink and left a decent tip, but when he looked back up from the pin pad, her haunted expression caught him by surprise.

No longer kind and smiling, her unfocused gaze stared beyond him with eyes opened so wide her eyelids disappeared. Her pale, gaunt face looked hollow and lifeless. Her mouth fell open unnaturally.

“Fifty-seven years, one hundred and thirteen days, seven hours.”

Her flat, emotionless voice echoed within the sudden silence of the rest of the room. Chills shot along his body as the hair on his arms stood on end. His gut twisted uncomfortably as the presence of something…wrong and haunting fell over him. The silence of the world pressed in around him and left him only with that eerie voice thrumming though the void.

“What?” he finally stammered out.

“Do you want a receipt?” she repeated in her normal voice. Suddenly the whole world came back around him. The noise and the commotion of the busy Boba shop almost felt overwhelming after the sheer absolute silence.

“Oh uh…no,” he answered lamely.

“He’s good,” Sam spoke up quickly from behind. She pushed him to the side and took over the situation, but concern etched deep lines into her forehead. “But I’ll have a…”

What Sam ordered was lost on him as Tucker pulled him over to the drink pick-up counter. “Dude, what happened?” he asked in an urgent whisper. “You just froze.”

“I don’t…I don’t know. I heard something totally different…” The eerie tone of her voice, the chill that shot like livewire up his spine (like the accident, but he really didn’t want to think about that), it all stuck with him and wouldn’t leave him. His memory was absolute trash at the best of times, but he could still remember every number she quoted to him like it had been etched into his very core.

“What did you hear?” Tucker asked as Sam joined them. Those concerned lines across her brow still made him feel like something more was going on here, because Sam usually only worried when there was actually something to worry about.

“Just…some numbers, like years and months,” he shrugged, trying to pass it off as normal, even if it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Like a countdown?” Sam pressed.

Danny’s eyes grew wide. Exactly like a countdown. Down to the hour.

He didn’t need to say anything for Sam to know she was on to something. “So what was she counting down to?”

“You think I know?” Danny rebuffed as he pointed at himself. “But you guys heard it right? How…creepy she sounded? How hollow?”

“No, we didn’t man,” Tucker responded, strangely serious. “We heard her ask if you wanted a receipt and then you just froze.”

He looked between both of his friends, hoping for some kind of alternate answer or for someone to say they were pulling his leg, but they weren’t. “So you…you didn’t hear it?” he implored, desperate for someone to agree with him.

“No Danny, we didn’t,” Sam confirmed. “But Danny, we need to–”

“Pomegranate boba,” another barista announced. Danny automatically turned towards her, only to see the same lifeless stare directed his way.

“Twenty years, two hundred and twelve days, two hours.”

He shook his head and closed his eyes as the pressure of the void threatened to swallow him again, but then like before, everything opened up and the noise of the world rushed back to him.

“Danny?” Sam fretted as she stepped closer to him.

He opened his eyes and looked out on the brightly lit boba shop. “Sorry I…it happened again,” he admitted.

Tucker and Sam exchanged significant glances behind Danny’s back before making an executive decision. Tucker grabbed their drink orders while Sam gently placed a hand on Danny’s back. “I think we should get out of here,” Sam suggested.

Danny could see the sense in that. The last thing they needed was to make a scene, and he could feel the eyes of both the people behind the counter and the ones standing in line. Best to beat a hasty retreat and figure this out somewhere a little quieter.

He scooted around the line of customers, hoping he could make a quiet exit. He caught the gaze of a young boy in line, but he only saw the vacant stare on his young face.

“Eighty three years, three hundred and two days, eleven hours.”

Danny spun quickly away from the boy and placed his hands over his ears, but it didn’t help as he locked eyes with a college student at a table who happened to look up from her laptop.

“Three years, thirty days, seven hours.”

And then the gaze of a well-dressed woman striding through the door.

“Forty years, eighty-eight days, nineteen hours.”

And the older man sitting with his grandchildren at a table.

“Ten years, one hundred and fifty days, three hours.”

Macabre countdowns from various shop patrons echoed around him. Anyone who met his gaze morphed their faces into the gaunt masks and intoned their countdown in that same hollow voice.

“Stop! Stop!” Danny cried as he curled in on himself. Tucker and Sam immediately pushed him through the doors and outside of the shop full of curious onlookers, but if they thought ushering him outside of the shop would be better, they were terribly wrong as Danny confronted more people on the street. The constant chorus of lifeless laments descended upon him in a deafening whirlwind.

“Ninety-eight days, twenty hours.”

“Sixty-eight years, two days, one hour.”

“Seventeen years, two hundred and ninety days, eight hours.”

Until they finally culminated in a chilling “Thirteen seconds.”

A morbid curiosity came over him as his gaze lingered on the older man who intoned the foreboding knell, just before the man clutched at his chest and dropped to the ground. Everyone around him rushed to his side and barked out orders to call an ambulance, but Danny knew deep, deep down in his core that it wouldn’t do any good.

The man was dead.

Dead, exactly thirteen seconds later.

Realizing this area was about to get a lot more attention, Tucker and Sam pushed Danny into a nearby alley and shrouded him from view. “Danny what the hell is happening?” Sam practically yelled.

Danny dropped to the ground as he clutched at his core that ached with the pain of what he just witnessed, and the horror of what he’d come to realize. He didn’t want to admit it to himself or to the world as a whole, but he had a horrifying feeling he knew what the times meant.

They were a countdown to death.

“I don’t…I don’t know why, but people keep telling me how long…how long they have…left,” Danny squeaked out between shallow breaths. The world swam around him and he clenched his jaw to try not to be sick.

“Left to what?” Tucker asked.

“To live you idiot!” Sam chastised. “Danny, are you sure?”

“What else could it be?” he exclaimed as he gripped at the hair on the sides of his head. “Someone said thirteen seconds, and then thirteen seconds later he…he…” His breath quickened in his chest. His heart thrummed too fast against his ribs. Sweat beaded on his brow as he shivered. This…this was a panic attack. Oh god, he was having a panic attack. But could anyone really blame him? He heard a man was going to die and just…just…watched it happen and couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t do anything!

“Danny…Danny just look at me,” Sam pressed delicately as she knelt next to him and placed a gentle hand on his arm.

His eyes reached her chin before he remembered - as soon as he met someone’s gaze, even from afar, they told him how long they had. He couldn’t know that about his best friend. He couldn’t. What if it was a small number? What would he even consider to be a small number? Would any number ever be large enough?

He slapped her away in a panic and retreated into himself as he buried his head into his arms. “No!” he screamed. “No, any time I look at someone they tell me how much time they have left and I can’t…I don’t want to know that. I can’t know that!” he practically screeched.

Sam and Tucker exchanged worried but uncertain looks. They’d dealt with a lot since the accident, but this was certainly a new complication where their very presence seemed to add more stress.

“Okay Danny, okay. We don’t know if that’s what’s happening.” She paused as she felt him tense beside her. “But if you think that’s what’s happening, then we won’t look at you.”

Danny grabbed his hair tight in his hands as he shook in a huddle on the floor. How was he going to do this? Never look at anyone he ever cared about again? Make sure they never looked at him? What kind of life would that be? He couldn’t live like that, with that paranoia that some day one of them would mess up and they’d meet his gaze and then he would know how much longer he had left to spend with them. His breathing quickened again as he found himself spiraling further down into his panic, down into a depth of foreboding terror that he didn’t know if he could climb out of again.

“Okay but Danny, even if you aren’t looking at anyone, I need you to breathe okay?” Sam pleaded. “Just breathe with me. In and out slowly. In and out.”

He did as he was told because he didn’t really have it in him to argue. In and out, in and out. He took deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth like Jazz taught him. It probably didn’t help that he was still curled up in a ball and didn’t have great air circulation, but he didn’t dare uncurl.

“Okay, good,” Sam praised as she finished sending an urgent text. “Now let’s figure out what’s going on, because we will figure it out.”

“You mean figure out why I can tell when people are going to die?” Danny snapped.

“Yes,” Sam replied, voice calm despite Danny’s barbed tone.

“...I don’t know if this is the right time, but there probably isn’t a right time so I’m just gonna say it,” Tucker sighed. “Danny, we noticed something weird earlier. It would only happen for a second, but it was like your face was covered by…like a translucent skull.”

Danny looked up but immediately thought better of it and ducked his head back down again. “A what?!”

“A skull. We didn’t know what it meant at the time–”

“We still don’t know what it means,” Sam added.

“--but it has to be related,” Tucker finished.

“This has to be more than a new ghost power,” Sam brainstormed. “This feels like something more significant.”

“More significant? What the hell does that mean?” Danny rebuked. He knew they were just trying to help, but honestly without an answer it was just making him feel more anxious and overwhelmed. He didn’t know if he could handle something more significant than being a half-dead, ghost-fighting freak.

“We don’t know,” Sam said, controlled and patient. “But we’ll figure this out Danny, we promise, just like we’ve figured out everything else.”

Everything else. Because there was always something. There was always some other side effect of the accident that all of them had to keep dealing with. Ghost powers, ghost fighting, his parents, new powers, a secret identity, ice powers, and now this. When was he done? When would he finally stop having more and more piled on top of his already overflowing mind? How much was a teenager expected to shoulder before he finally just buckled under the crushing weight of it all?

Apparently it would be one more thing.

He gasped as the cold breath escaped from his throat. He deflated a bit into his self hug. He knew the quiet afternoon was too good to be true. He knew it.

“Danny, you don’t have to go,” Sam mentioned, almost pleading.

“You know I have to,” he sighed with hollow defeat.

“No, you don’t. Let your parents get it, or Valerie. It doesn’t have to be you right now,” she begged.

“They never handle it well,” Danny argued as he stood but kept his gaze on the floor.

Sam shook her head, prepared to put her foot down. “But Danny, you literally just stopped having a panic attack, do you think now is the right time to do this? Maybe you just need to think about yourself for a bit!”

“When do I ever get to think about myself?” he barbed as he transformed. “Besides, a ghost can’t tell me how long they have to live, right? Sounds like I’m safer with one of them.”

Before they could argue with him he shot off into the sky, leaving a cloud of dread behind him. Tucker and Sam exchanged meaningful glances.

“Follow him?” Tucker checked.

“Absolutely follow him.”

~*~

As yet another ectoblast grazed Danny’s side, he realized Tucker and Sam had maybe been right about letting someone else handle this. His head was not in the game. He couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that swirled around him and it made the fight against the ghostly crow that much harder to focus on. His newfound popularity also proved to be a complication as it led to more onlookers watching the fight. He couldn’t help but meet the eyes of people in the crowd, and every time he listened to their own voices toll their own death knell, he found himself wide open to a hit from the annoying ghost that honestly wouldn’t have been that much of a challenge otherwise.

"Three hundred and twenty-one days, thirteen hours.”

He squeezed his eyes tight as he tried not to internalize how little time the concerned woman who looked his way had left, but closing his eyes during a fight was never a good idea.

“Danny!” he heard Sam yell, her voice distant but urgent.

He opened his eyes and saw the crow barreling in to charge with glowing talons ready to claw out his eyes. He immediately acted on instinct and threw out his hands to maybe summon a shield or take the talons to his arms or something.

He felt something cold and heavy fall into his hands, and he swung it without even looking at it too closely. A thin line of green slashed across the ghost and then it vanished. His overzealous slash continued through the brick of a nearby building that weathered and aged as decay seeped out from the fine line in the brick. When the arc of his swing stopped, he finally looked at what he held in his hands.

A scythe. Long and slender, the curved blade made a full crescent as it tapered into a neat, sharp point. The edge of the blade glowed with a faint green light, but it almost hurt to register: like its presence cut through the very existence of what his mind could accept as real. It looked so simple in his arms, and yet it felt dangerous. Deadly.

He stared dumbfounded at the blade in his hands. It felt heavy in his arms, but not because of its actual weight. It actually felt too easy and natural to swing. His fingers gripped around the shaft like he was meant to hold it. It felt so right and natural in his arms, and that scared him even more.

He immediately dropped it, but instead of hearing it clatter to the ground, it vanished into shadows as the absolute black swallowed it.

With panic etched all over his face, he looked desperately towards Sam’s voice, but only after he remembered that he didn’t dare look towards his friends. He dropped his gaze, but they understood his intent and rushed over to him.

“Danny, Danny are you okay?” Sam asked as she grabbed her friend’s arm.

“No…no I don’t think so,” he admitted. As hard as it felt to admit, he wasn’t well. He had no idea what the hell was happening, but he just knew none of this could be good. A sense of dread lingered around him that he couldn’t shake. A whisper of an answer tickled at the edges of his mind, but it was so cloaked in fear and terror that he didn’t dare even acknowledge its presence.

Sam nodded morosely and squeezed his arm. “That’s okay. We’ve got this Danny. C’mon, let’s get to my house. I think I know what’s going on.”

~*~

Danny sat in his favorite chair in the Manson library. Most of the room felt like something out of a middle-aged woman’s Pinterest page: a million shades of beige accented by a few plants or vines. Some books even had their spines facing the wall because their binding was too colorful. Sam managed to carve out a corner for herself. She separated this corner out with deep red curtains and inside its sanctuary she kept all her books (spines proudly out, thank you very much) on black shelves. Gothic sconces of wrought iron glowed with just enough mood lighting to read by and plush wine red chairs provided the perfect getaway to crawl into with a book.

One of those chairs sucked him up inside its cushions and he let the weight of the fabric surround him. Sitting here with the dark mood lighting while Sam read aloud some new book or poem always felt like a comfortable space. Maybe Sam hoped the familiarity would bring some comfort to him right now, but even its power couldn’t counteract the horrible twisting in the pit of his stomach.

His friends swore they wouldn’t look at his face and would focus on his chest instead, but he still didn’t feel comfortable looking anywhere but at his wringing hands in his lap, just in case. He’d heard about too much death already today: too many times that seemed far too short for the nice faces that seemed burned into his mind. He had no idea who these people were and probably would never see them again, but he would forever remember their faces and would never be free of the knowledge of their death.

Would it be quick? Slow? Painful? Could he stop it? Could he save them? If he remembered their faces could he hunt them down and try to save them? Maybe not the ones in decades, but the ones who would be dying in the next few months? Could he help them so they didn’t end up like the old man on the street who died before his eyes while he was powerless to stop it?

The thump of a large book on a table shook him out of his thoughts as Sam stood near the small round table. “You’re not gonna like this, but I think I found the answer.”

That certainly caught his attention and he looked towards the book. Whether he’d like the answer or not, he needed to know. The heavy old tome looked like every Victorian book that Sam loved to collect, with a dark binding, embossed edges, and thick block lettering for the title.

The Tome of Record for the Myths and Legends of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

No.

No, that couldn’t be the right book. That was not the answer.

He shook his head and backed up in his chair as far away from the book as he could physically get. “No. That’s not the right book.”

Sam approached both Danny and the book gently, like any sudden movement would spook him. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I know I’m right about this.”

Tucker leaned in from his chair and his eyes grew wide. “Wait, apocalypse? Sam you’re serious?”

“No, she’s not serious because she’s wrong!” Danny insisted.

Sam slowly opened the book and turned to a page marked with a dark black ribbon. “Just look at it Danny. It explains a lot.”

Against his better judgment he peeked at the new chapter: “The Fourth Horseman: Death.” He didn’t let himself read any more, but the haunting image of a black-cloaked figure atop a skeletal horse with a skull for a face and a very familiar looking scythe froze him in his seat.

The death knells. The skull. The scythe.

No, just because it made sense, that didn’t mean anything. Lots of things in this world made sense without actually being right, and this was just another one of those things. It didn’t mean that he– He couldn’t possibly be–

Tucker trailed a finger along the text of the book as he read, his mouth and eyes falling agape. “Wait Sam are you…are you trying to say that Danny is…Death? Like the Death?”

He felt an irrational anger towards Tucker for putting into physical words what his mind refused to acknowledge. Because it was crazy…right? Some crazy, wacky theory. This couldn’t be reality, it just…it couldn’t be.

Sam nodded solemnly. “I am. I don’t know why, but Danny has somehow become the personification of Death.”

For some reason the finality in Sam’s voice forced him to really hear it. As much as he wanted to deny it, the nagging whisper always there on the periphery of his mind had been trying to tell him the whole time. He knew it from the first countdown, but refused to see it. He knew what the symbolism of the scythe meant, but he refused to connect it. And he knew that all of these pieces only added up to one possible explanation. Just like Sam, he’d already reached the same conclusion, but he just refused to see it. He couldn’t avoid it anymore.

He was Death.

He needed to get away from the book, the picture, the proof. He didn’t want to see it anymore. He fell through the chair, momentarily grateful to have some kind of physical barrier between him and the book, but the piercing, empty eyes of the skull on the page followed him even through the chair. He scrambled back along the floor until he hit the bookcase behind him.

“No no no I don’t want this! I don’t want this!” he screamed in ever increasing levels of panic. He looked at his shaking hands, almost expecting to see bony hands stretching out instead of his normal skin. He grabbed at his face, his arms, anything to make sure that he hadn’t turned into some skeleton. “I can’t–I don’t want to be Death!”

Sam and Tucker rushed over to his side and pulled his trembling body into a hug. They tried to bestow him with whatever comfort they could, but they knew it wouldn’t be enough. Just like they did when Danny first emerged from the portal, they were at a loss for what they could do and they just tried to be a physical support for him.

Danny grabbed onto his friends desperately as he shook in their arms. He didn’t know how much he needed their reassuring strength and strong hug until he found himself in their arms. Maybe he relied on them too much for emotional stability, but something about their presence served as a grounding force for him and he needed that now more than ever.

“We’ll figure it out Danny,” Sam tried to assure him. “We always do.”

They did always figure it out. The accident, the ghost powers, the ghost fighting, the secret identity, Pariah Dark, Vlad, his horrifying potential future - they’d found a way to make it through everything that his strange life had thrown at him. It stood to reason they could make it through this too, but for some reason this seemed so much more imposing than all those other obstacles.

The personification of death. What did that even mean? Did he have to reap souls? Was he actually the one responsible for killing people? Was he now to blame for everyone’s deaths? Did he have to help people cross over or find peace or meaning in their lives? Could he still live his normal human life? He’d already been neglecting it so much because of ghost fighting, but would this completely eclipse everything else? It felt like such a huge burden to throw onto his already overburdened shoulders, and he didn’t know if he had the strength to keep it all up.

But even more than a burden, being Death pushed him even closer to the dark stench of death that always seemed to swirl around him. He already straddled a very fine line between life and death, and while he didn’t always know where he found himself on either side of it, he cherished the balance. He liked being reminded that he was still alive. He died, and he was a ghost, but he was so much more than that too. His heart beat, he kept growing - he still had a life. He needed those reminders to stay sane. But being Death…it pushed him so much further towards that darker side. It disrupted that balance that he held onto so desperately. Those reminders of life seemed so much further away, like they could be snatched away from him at any moment, and he didn’t want to think where that constant focus on death and loss would take him.

He couldn’t keep dwelling on this. He was a boy of action, and he never did well just thinking through things. Maybe that helped Jazz, but he needed to do something. Figure this out, get rid of it, something. So he pulled away from the hug slightly, enough of a signal for his friends to release the warm group hug. He missed that comfort immediately, but he couldn’t stay huddled up against the bookshelf forever.

“How did this happen?” he croaked. Trying to find a reason meant that he had to accept it as the truth, and that hurt, but he’d already accepted it. Now he just had to get rid of it.

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “But Danny, we have a much more pressing issue than how.”

“More pressing than this?” Danny questioned, almost hurt that his internal turmoil and need to solve this wasn’t considered a pressing issue.

“Yeah, because it gets worse.”

Panic clenched around his heart again. How could it possibly get worse? This already seemed like a destitute situation with no possible solution on the horizon.

“Worse than Danny having death powers?” Tucker inquired. Well at least Tucker was on the same wavelength.

She nodded morosely. She took a deep breath, but as she slowly breathed out she straightened up, her brow resolute. “The summoning of the fourth horseman…it’s the final sign. The apocalypse is coming, and Danny’s going to be forced to make it happen.”

~*~

I hope you all enjoyed this! It's a little late of a submission for Ectober's Day 17 Gothic Horror prompt, but apparently world-building a multi-chapter longfic took a lot longer than I expected. But I'm excited to share some of my lore behind this ghostly version of the four horsemen over the next two chapters!

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kiatheinsomniac · 1 day ago

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──── 𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐊𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐇 ˊˎ - ☾ ⋆ ﾟ𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 / 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒: This has been a draft for a while but I decided to finish it today hehe 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: sugar daddy! Pantalone | Regrator x sugar baby! Reader 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 1.7k 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: MDNI, NSFW content, dom/sub dynamics, sugar daddy au, spanks, whips, slight degradation (slut used), praise

You knew you shouldn’t have done it but the dinner had just been so boring and you were craving a little excitement, something to look forward to in order to get through this dreadfully dull meeting.

You’re the sugar baby to the richest man in Teyvat; Pantalone, ninth of the Fatui Harbingers. You both appreciate each other’s company and he pays you to stay by his side and not fool around with other men. You don’t ask questions about his status as a harbinger and nor do you ask for things unless offered, things he appreciates as a man so generous with you. He’s started to bring you along to work lunches and dinners when it’s to do with the bank and not his rank as a harbinger – you think it’s a sign he’s starting to trust you more, maybe that he’s considering a new proposal for your relationship, but you’ve found he can be as strategic as he is impulsive, making him unpredictable and so you just live in the moment when you’re around him.

But this particular dinner had been a dreadfully long moment indeed. With a few cocktails in you, you excused yourself to the bathroom to touch up your hair and reapply some lip gloss. It was as you were admiring your reflection that an idea struck you. It was an idea that you knew would land you in trouble and yet you needed something, anything, to anticipate so that this dinner could be somewhat less dull.

With the bathroom being empty, you reached up under your cocktail dress and slid your panties down your legs, off over your heels. You bunched the little lacy garment up in your hand and made your way back to your seat at the table. Your sugar daddy welcomed you back with a soft smile and a hand on your knee. Seizing your opportunity, you had pushed your panties into his hand, making it clear that you now had nothing under your dress. He had to clear his throat and take a sip of his drink to compose himself as a brief moment of surprise overtook him. You were then shot a look that warned you this action would have consequences as he rubbed his thumb over the soft lace before sliding it into his pocket.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

And so, you find yourself bent over his large bed back at his mansion, your dress removed so that he has a perfect view of your ass, your skin covered with silky stockings and a garter belt for him.

“There is a time and a place to be a little tease,” He lectures as he kicks your ankles apart, leaning over you so that his voice rumbles lowly against your ear, breath fanning against your skin in a way that makes your skin prickle, “and my meetings qualify for neither of such things.” He’s still fully dressed in his three-piece suit, though he’s removed the blazer and laid it on the bed beside you, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. “I’m sure you understand by now that your actions have consequences.”

“Yessir.” You reply, hearing the dragging sound of a drawer being opened from behind you. You don’t need to look to know which it is.

“So how many spanks do you think is appropriate for trying to distract me in such a lewd way, hm?” You ponder for a moment, trying to decide an answer that will both please him and not cause you too much pain when you next wish to sit down.

“Ten…?” You ask hesitantly, but feel a wash of relief when he lets out an approving little hum.

“Yes, that seems like enough to teach you a lesson. One, two or three, darling?” You know this game too: you’re to blindly pick what he’ll be spanking you with.

“Three.” You reply. Three is a good number, stable, strong, triangular. And hopefully not the damn paddle.

“The whip it is.” He replies and you internally let out a little sigh of relief. The small whip with its various tails is placed down on the bed beside your head as his gloved hands cup your hips. He strokes your skin with his thumbs for a moment before squeezing and propping them up higher so that you’re perfectly presented for him to punish. “Just look at you, sweet girl…” He lets out an appreciative groan as his palm roams over the curve of your ass, giving it an appreciative little squeeze. “What a shame you have to be such a brat at times, I’d much rather see you squirming under my tongue…” His fingers glide over your slit in a barely-there touch, showing you exactly where he’d put his tongue.

You see his hand take the whip and it vanishes from your field of vision. Preparing yourself mentally, your teeth graze your lower lip and hands clutch at the silken sheets beneath you. But it’s been a while since he punished you like this and, as it cracks over the plush flesh of your ass, you realise it hurts more than you remember. You let out a short cry and flinch away before composing yourself and propping your hips up again.

“Good girl…” He praises you for immediately getting back in position, soothing the sting of the developing welt on your rear with a gentle brush of his fingers. “Ready for the next?” You give a curt nod, more prepared now that you’ve been reminded of just how much it hurts to be spanked with the whip like this. “Good.” You only suck in a sharp gasp when the whip comes down on your ass the second time.

“You always take this so well. At least you accept your punishments after you’ve been a brat~” You can hear the smirk in his voice without having to look at him over your shoulder. You feel his fingers slide into the top of your stocking and leave something there. You turn your head and realise he’s tucked a thick wad of cash into the elastic of your stocking, patting his hand against it to reaffirm that it’s all yours. You bite back a delighted smile as he looks down at you with a mix of dominance and appreciation.

Pantalone respects the arrangement your relationship is built upon and he’s grateful that you allow him to do these sorts of things to you, to play out his fantasies. He’s the richest man on the continent and so material things no longer impress him. But intangible things? Submission, loyalty, obedience? Those are precious gifts to him, especially from a woman as pretty as you. He doesn’t forget to show his appreciation by rewarding you with money, luxuries, holidays. You respect his boundaries and he respects yours so he believes the best thing he can do for you is shower you with his wealth.

“Let’s continue…” You face forwards once again, a hot sting on your right asscheek. He brings the whip down on your skin another three times, giving you a few moments to prepare yourself between each one.

“Halfway…” You murmur to ease yourself. You’ve already done five, you can do five more…

“And you’re taking it so well, pretty girl~” He purrs, tucking more cash into your stockings, even more now. You can’t help but smile happily at the sight of all the notes sticking out of the top of the silky material, tucked under your garters too. “We can go to the bank tomorrow to deposit all this. I’ll take you out for lunch, treat you to some shopping – maybe to that little lingerie store you love, hm?~” He offers and gently glides the tail of the whip over your stinging ass.

“Mh, yes please~” You say softly, knowing it pleases him.

“You’ll need to show me you’ve learned how to behave tonight though, can you do that for me, little one?” He leans over your back to murmur in your ear, his voice as deep and rich as his pockets, a syrupy aphrodisiac to your body. You can’t help but squirm a little and he presses his knee between your legs to assure you don’t close them. You nod your head eagerly.

“Yessir.”

“That’s my girl.” He stands up straight again. Three more spanks later, more cash is being tucked into your other stocking. “Look at you, perfect little sugar baby, aren’t you?~” He croons, his eyes raking over your figure: you’re in just your lingerie – minus your panties – bent over his bed, hips propped up in the air and your plush criss-crossed with light welts from the whip in his gloved hand, your silky stockings stuffed with his cash. But he groans as he looks at how your pretty slit is already dripping. He swipes your thumb against your pussy, smearing your wetness over your clit, amused that you’ve become so turned on from being spanked and spoiled rotten by him, “Such a perfect little slut too…” You let out a little mewl at how he rubs sticky circles against your sensitive pearl, whining slightly when he pulls his hand away.

“Perhaps I can find a fitting reward for you once you’ve finished your punishment…” Eager to get this all done with so he can move on to dealing with the needy heat building between your thighs, you prop your hips up for him, a silent cue that you’re ready for the final two spanks. You feel a wave of relief wash over you as the initial sting of the ninth one fizzles out into a familiar hot hurting that you’ve already grown used to this far into your punishment; one more left and you’ll be rewarded.

But you weren’t prepared for him to stop holding back for the tenth and final blow, the crack of the whip sounding our mere milliseconds before a cry erupts from your lips. “There you go, good girl, all done~” He croons and leans over you once again as he stuffs more cash in your stocking, setting the whip down in favour of brushing your hair away from your neck. His lips press hot kisses along the side of your neck until he can teasingly nibble at your ear. His other hand reaches down to cup the underside of your knee and bring your one leg up onto the bed, causing you to spread your thighs apart as you’re bent over under him.

“And good girls get rewarded.”

☾ ⋆ ﾟlike my work? why not: ∘ buy me a coffee? ∘ comms. ∘ taglist ∘ follow/reblog

🏷️@firagirl @ghostofpolaris @jofie-does-things @sarah22447

#pantalone x reader smut #regrator x reader smut #pantalone x reader #genshin impact #genshin #genshin x reader smut #genshin impact x reader smut #genshin impact x reader #fatui harbingers x reader

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voids-ideas · 2 days ago

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I think we usually are confused with the walking away and the having the authority to define someone as evil

You have the right to walk away from people who are bad to you. You have the right to not want them near you. You have the right to think someone did so much wrong to you that that person shouldn't be in less than 1000km from you

But you shouldn't have the authority to decide a person doesn't deserve to live. Or should be thrown out of society. That's not your call

If you want someone with that right, put it in a court. Put that right in a group of people who can be objective. You are not

I'm not in favor of punishment, specially with no intention of helping the responsable to be better. And i know you're probably thinking "why the fuck are you talking about this like you're talking about breaking the law?"

Because it is. A lot of the people who aren't even trying are defined as criminals. Defining people as "irredeemable" is what society does to disabled people, to criminals, to marginalized groups. To every fucking person they don't want

But bad news. If society is all the people living, the criminals, the marginalized groups, the disabled, are also part of society. And i know you don't want them, but you should put aside your personal preferences and understand society must help everyone

I'm not saying you should live next to the person who wronged you. I'm not saying that person should live where they can do that to a bunch of more people

I'm saying the person who wronged you is a person, and theh deserved to live in society as much as you

Yeah, you are good and they are bad. But can you tell me with 100% certainly, that i can't find a single person that thinks you are a bad person?

If you want to protect a marginalized group from being discriminated and thrown out of society, make impossible to throw people out of society

Do you want to never fear being abandoned? Make it impossible

Find a way of protecting you without condemning others in the process

Your safety, your well being, your existence, doesn't have to cost the safety, well-being and existence of others

And i know I'm going to have the "but what about the murders, what about the..."

I'm not saying put your house next to them and be their neighbors. I'm saying don't kill them, don't act like they aren't people

If you can take away humanity from one person, you can be coerced to take it from everyone

Accept that everyone are humans and have rights. Despise everything. Every thing

The implications of that? Yeah, they can be bad. But you're not going to tell me they are worse than what we have right now

If you want something to never happen again, make it unacceptable. No unacceptable unless... is this group. Completely, 100%, unacceptable

No, you don't owe people endless patience and you get to walk away from toxic relationships and abuse regardless of the context, but I still have a need to stress that the "malicious mentally ill/disabled person who isn't even trying" is a strawman people invented to justify ableism

#whaaaat sorry #I went on a speech that no one asked for and that was not 100% relevant #but i fucking love this topic

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thefirstlioveyou · 1 day ago

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hot take: mike has not been that shitty of a friend in st3 and 4 (at least not the the extent people make him out to be)

he ditched the party in season 3 to go make out with his girlfriend, but so did el

he was bitchy and snarky- but not ANYmore than he was in season 2, he’s a little shit, sure, but don’t pretend like he hasn’t ALWAYS BEEN a little shit

he was mean during the rain fight, yet he immediately biked across town in the rain to go apologize

mike definitely should have hugged will at the airport- but i’ll give it to him he was gay panicking, we’ve all been through it

will also couldve written letters, will could’ve called, he had a good argument in the fight (up until “we’re friends!”)

he’s an awful boyfriend tho (to el)

mike isn't this terrible person some people want him to be, you're right. it's not that what he did wasn't bad, but it's kinda crazy the way certain people talk about him lmfao. (it's not as common anymore but there are still groups of ppl)

if i hadn't watched the show, i'd assume he wasn't even one of the good guys. but then you actually watch, and you kinda sit there waiting for the irredeemable shit these people are mentioning to actually happen. and they don't? i mean, you get he's messing up but you'd think there would be some worse shit he does based on the things people say about him.

mike ditching his friends for his girlfriend makes sense when you notice mike looking left behind in s2 when lucas and dustin were obsessing with their crush on max and will seemingly going along w it. he looks upset at the snowball. people forget mike is performing based on his surroundings. he obsesses over his girlfriend because that's what he's been conditioned to think he has to do. the show implies in the end that it's not even what he actually wants, and he actually wants the same thing as will.

he's always been bitchy and snarky. he talks back. that's definitely not ooc the way people think it is. just go watch s1/s2 and you'll see him easily catch an attitude for no reason lmao it's funny

in s3/s4 we see him respond to will in ways that hurt him during arguments. however he immediately feels guilty after. that's how you know he isn't a terrible person and more than likely going through something that's triggering his responses. he's immediately aware the way he's acting isn't right and isn't like him and does something about it.

his personal problems are his main cause for these reactions because they aren't being taken care of. seems expected especially from a young teenager, but especially one that doesn't have an emotional outlet at home.

however, i believe every time mike's apologized, he had to. i don't think there was a time where he shouldn't have. i think there needs to still be an apology about the rain fight and clarification about the calling thing.

i think people treat it as irredeemable bc the writers decided to show us this behavior of mike strictly from the pov of will/el, throwing away his pov despite it being the main one. this means they haven't given us explicit reason why he's behaving this way. they focused on other povs because they wanted us to catch onto how suddenly different mike was acting. but unfortunately, in fandom, you'll find that it's very easy for people to disregard this and just resort to calling the character a terrible person because it's less to think about. it's easiest to understand only the character pov that's being emphasized.

in my eyes, mike is more of a bad boyfriend than he is this terrible friend, in all honesty. he can apologize to will, meanwhile he can't ever to el.

all in all, yeah mike has messed up. but he's not only his flaws and mistakes. he made some shitty mistakes (his biggest and main one being 'it's not my fault you don't like girls' imo) but he isn't comparable at all to like... the douche steve was in s1 (as an example).

send more hot takes guys :)

#mike wheeler #asks #byler

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minervadashwood · 2 days ago

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i watched a movie tonight called i saw the tv glow, and it was a movie about trans identity.

I especially resonated with the theme of wanting to stay in your comfort place. But when you begin realizing you are different, you also realize that your comfort place cannot contain the new you. so, you have to decide whether to block out the new you and continue to live the life that comforts you. Or to acknowledge and become your new self, while potentially giving up your home and family (both literally and metaphorically.)

I didn't realize I was nonbinary until my 30s. That is when I discovered the concept existed. Of course, I always felt left out, "off", or forced to play a role.

In my adulthood, after going through therapy for childhood emotional and physical abuse, I maintain the semblance of a normal relationship with my family. I've come out to them all. My parents either did not understand or pretended not to. My brothers said they understood, but afterwards acted like it didn't happen.

I'm reminded of the concept of the "unsayable" in literature and in life. Sometimes language fails us--or we know the words to say but cannot speak them. Fortunately, this is rarely a problem for me.

However, it is a problem for most people I was close to before I came out. My family cannot talk about any LGBTQIA topic without my parents clamming up, or later saying "I just think something went bad in the way those people were raised."

Ironically enough, I could be evidence of that erroneous claim. My gender was policed frequently when I was growing up, even well into adulthood. I know now it's because they were afraid of me being a lesbian. Jokes on them, I don't have a gender and don't care all that much about sex with anyone.

Every time they plan a "girls" night, or mom buys gifts for her "daughters" (my sisters in law and me). Or I am excluded from activities my brothers plan because it's a guy thing." I get left out 2-fold, relegated to socializing with my SILs and not my siblings, and dismissing my gender completely. Probably one of the most hurtful conversations recently is how joyous my entire family was upon learning my SIL's upcoming baby is a boy. Finally someone else to carry on the family name. Guess my family is carrying on another tradition: making a lifetime's worth of assumption assumptions about a child based on what's between their legs.

I turn 40 this month. My parents will likely pass away before I turn 50. I will miss them. I cry thinking of it. But I also wonder if it won't be freeing, too. I have in many ways outgrown the person they think I am, the person the subtly try to make me with underhanded comments or--even worse--their silence.

"I love you," they will say. But can they? Can they love the person I have become? The person I am now? Perhaps they are limited to loving me conceptually. Daily, I try to make my peace with that.

I don't have a replacement or "found" family. At least not yet. I have friends and a partner who accept me. But there is not that sense of acceptance and belonging to a group, the surety of unconditional love among more than two people.

Many of us are familiar with stories of outright rejection. Of parents disowning their children, of banishing them from home. It's heartbreaking, and those stories need to be told. I'll listen raptly every time someone shares one with me.

But perhaps there are other stories we can pay attention to. The less overt rejections, the conditional acknowledgements, the subtle erasure of our identities in favor of conformity and feigned ignorance.

I'd like to hear those more. This one was mine.

#mdop #lgbtqia #trans identity #nonbinary #enby #basically a somewhat organized rant #cried the whole time writing it

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beehiveofblorbos · 2 days ago

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well, ok. this is (as you know OP) an oversimplification

the V3 fandom did exactly two things. half the fandom believes he Did Nothing Wrong and the other half of the fandom thinks EVERYTHING is his fault

and it doesn’t help that the game itself treats it weirdly. like the devs understand that Momota is carrying the part of the narrative that shows what it means to choose the truths that you like and the inevitable death of those comfortable lies you’ve been telling yourself, even though yes absolutely they do have their uses. the devs… seem? to understand that Saihara is undergoing a radical character development across the story where he is evaluating Momota’s and Kokichi’s philosophies and deciding that both have worth, both have value.

but he certainly doesn’t decide that anything Kokichi did was for the right reasons, the way it’s immediately clear with Harukawa and Momota that for all the bad things they do in the latter part of the game, they’re people who are failing against their natures. my point is, the narrative isn’t kind to Kokichi. not the way it is with Momota, or Harukawa (no idea how Keebo is on your list there lol presumably out of no fault of his own and more faults relating to the Ultimate Robot). the narrative isn’t forgiving, when it comes to Kokichi.

Of COURSE it’s bad to set aside all of his moral ambiguity and greyness. that makes him so much less interesting. but, I know that, yknow? I can go find a “why Kokichi actually caused every death in V3” essay if I want to, I assure you it’s out there. And it’s not like this level of character hate or polarization is unique.

But the game works so hard to shine a light on the most evil parts of him. As a Kokichi fan, I try to show the good parts of him, to illustrate why he’s morally grey instead of morally black.

it's really funny how ouma was pretty explicitly written as a morally grey character who often did shitty things for a good reason and was ultimately as much of a victim of the killing game as everyone else

and then the v3 fandom went "ah, so this means ouma actually did Nothing Wrong Ever, and the True Evil Irredeemable Villain was maki or kiibo or kaito or everyone BUT ouma" when a big theme of V3 is about, like, moral grayness and characters doing bad things for good reasons

#let me know if you think this is derailment #maybe we’re on different corners of tumblr lol but I’d love to see some more positivity about him honestly #i get a lot of fanart on my dash but not much analysis or fic or whatever #v3 also just generally has a problem with portraying characters #Harukawa and Kaede are always being stripped of their moral complexity and sheer strength #Momota too but in a different way kind of #he’s the hero myth but the V3 fandom believes it #it’s almost funny I guess #and then there’s Kokichi getting his name dragged through the mud for most of the game #like. let all of these characters live in their full moral complexity #honestly also a lot of the morally grey parts of Kokichi just. fail to occur to me #like #yeah he’s a liar #that’s bad… why again? LOL #usually when I decide I need a break #and yknow it doesn’t help that #some ppl come to this conversation from a perspective of hating Kokichi #n some just wanna glaze

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marifilue · 2 days ago

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Part 2: A Mission For Rogue

Pairing: Logan Howlett x F!Mutant!Reader - Slow burn, no use of y/n, you have regenerative healing ability, skilled with guns and rifles, reader in her 50s but because of her ability looked like in her mid 20s. Logan is from the first X-Men movie era.

Warnings: Explicit language, Violence.

WC: 4,680

<- Part 1

Evening settled over Westchester Station, the sun dipping low as a cold night began to creep in. A faint haze hung above the tracks, softening the clamor of bustling commuters and casting a muted glow over the crowd. Logan and you moved through the crowds of people, his sharp gaze scanning for Marie, focused and vigilant. The team had agreed Logan would be the best to approach her because she trusted him. You stayed close by, Ororo and Scott guards the station pacing back and forth with coms device on their ear.

“She's on the train,” Charles’s voice echoed in both your minds, calm and certain. “I’ll check the first few cars,” you told him, meeting his gaze. “You take the back.” Logan gave a brief nod, his eyes steady as he turned to the nearest car just before it began to pull away.

The dim interior was quiet, only a handful of passengers scattered across the red leather seats. Logan’s gaze flicked across them until it landed on Marie, hunched over by a window, her green hoodie pulled tight, gloved hands clasped in her lap. She looked so small, shoulders pulled up as if to shield herself from the world.

Logan approached slowly “Hey, kid,” Logan called softly, his voice gentle yet firm. Marie’s head turned, her eyes widening as a flicker of relief crossed her face.

“You runnin’ again?” Logan asked as he took a seat next to her. Marie managed a faint nod, her gaze dropping.

“I heard… the Professor was mad at me,” she muttered, looking away.

"Well, who told you that?" Logan’s eyes flashed with a hint of anger at the thought, but his voice stayed soft. “A boy at school” Marie looked up sharply, her eyes guarded. "You think I should go back" She continue. "No I think you should follow your instincts." He says with slight of encouragement.

After you were sure Marie is not on the passenger carriages you've checked, you paced towards the back, hoping Logan already find her first, which he did. You caught a glimpse of him sitting next to Marie, deciding to keep a respectful distance, you stood a few chairs away, listening to their conversations.

Marie’s mouth trembled, and she let out a shaky breath. “The first boy I ever kissed…” Her voice cracked. “He ended up in a coma for three weeks. I can still feel him… in my head.”

Logan reached an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a reassuring side hug and gently squeeze her left shoulder. You stayed back, observing the unexpected gentleness in him. This morning you had assume he's just another grumpy guy, with his guards as thick as ever. He probably couldn't care less about anyone else in his life, but there he is. Proving your assumption was all wrong, again. Something in your heart softened with the way he's comforting a teenage girl he had met yesterday. He looked up briefly as the train rumble and caught your gaze, you offered him a slight smile, both for acknowledging his care and letting him know you were here.

As Marie leaned into his side, her tears leaving faint trails on her cheeks, he whispered, “There aren’t many people who’ll understand what you’re goin’ through. But Xavier’s one of ‘em. He actually wants to help. That’s rare, especially for people like us.”

Marie looked up at him, searching his face. Logan met her gaze with a quiet confidence. “Give these geeks one more shot, yeah?” He paused, adding softly, “C'mon I’ll take care of you.” He reached giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze one last time, and she nodded, wiping her eyes. “Promise?” she murmured. Logan nodded. “Yeah, I promise.”

After giving them a few minutes Logan's eyes find yours and gave you a small nod, a sign you can approach them now. You walk slowly before taking a seat across from them, catching her eye with a gentle smile. “Marie, you okay?” you asked quietly, wanting her to feel the team’s support. She gave you a small nod, visibly calmer now, though still vulnerable. “Good,” you said, reaching over to lightly pat her hand. “You’re safe with us. We’ve got you.”

Just then, the train gave a sudden, sharp lurch, rattling the carriage. Logan’s head whipped around, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the car for any signs of danger. You felt it too, a sudden unnatural tension in the air. The train door shuddered, then screeched open, metal bending under an invisible force. Magneto stepped through, his expression cold and calculated, his gaze zeroing in on Marie.

Logan shot up, moving in front of her in an instant, claws extending with a snikt. “Not today, Magneto,” he growled, placing himself between Marie and the older man. Magneto’s face was impassive as he lifted a hand, his voice smooth but forceful. “Move aside, Logan. The girl belongs with me.” Logan braced himself, but with a flick of Magneto’s fingers, he was yanked backward, his body slamming against the metal wall, pinned by Magneto’s power. Straining against the invisible hold, he grit out, “Marie, don’t listen to him.”

Magneto’s attention shifted to you, his brows raised slightly in amusement and with a blink he's dismissing you, pinning you to the side against the cold metal wall. Fuck you cursed under your breath as you remembered having a metal guns with you, strapped between your waist. Should've seen this coming and grab the plastics one you thought, seeing your stubborn head fighting back his strong force with gritted teeth, Magneto strip a piece of metal and lock your neck in place glued within the walls behind you. He's now focusing again on Marie. “They’re just using you,” he told her, his voice almost gentle. “With me, you don’t have to be afraid of your powers. I can teach you to control them to never hurt anyone again.”

Marie stared at him, wide-eyed, caught in a mix of fear and hesitation. Logan's voice broke through the tension, gruff but steady. "Kid, you want control? You've already got it. You just need the right people to help you and it's not him!" His shout echoed, but Magneto only scoffed, lifting a finger with chilling indifference. A thin slice of metal shot forward, pressing itself harshly over Logan's mouth, smothering his words into silence. His eyes blazed, defiant, but Magneto's sadistic gaze was fixed on him, unfazed. Without a word, he manipulated a jagged strip of steel to float between his fingers, then with a slight flick, split it cleanly into two, hovering the pieces in front of Logan's face as savoring the moment for his own sick twisted amusement.

Logan barely had a heartbeat to register what was coming. With brutal precision, the blunt ends of the steel impaled through the both of his palms, burying themselves into the wall behind him. His muscles tensed, body trembling, as blinding pain ripped through his hands, spreading like wildfire up his arms. His scream is muffled under the metal piece, leaving only his strangled, agonized breaths.

You watch in horror, unable to look away. Your neck was bound by a cold band of metal Magneto had twisted around your throat, tight enough to restrict your movements and there's barely a space for air, forcing you to stay still, vulnerable and helpless. It wasn't as brutal as Logan's suffering, but you could feel its cold bite against your skin, a constant reminder of your own fragility in Magneto's grasp. Your hands clenched into fists, nails biting into your palms, you scream for his name as his eyes widened with pain and fury, his silent agony twisting the insides of your stomach.

Magneto continue to extending a hand toward her. “Come with me, Marie. They can’t understand your potential. But I can.”

Her gaze flicked to Logan, then to you, poor girl didn't know what to do, she can't just attack him, it's not how her mutation works. “Marie,” you said gently, “you’re not alone. We’ll help you, just like we promised.” You said almost chocked by your own words as the grip tightened in your neck.

She took a step back, her shoulders squared with a new resolve. “I don’t want your help,” she said to Magneto, her voice shaking but determined. Magneto’s face darkened, his patience running thin. He gestured sharply, and metal restraints began to form around Marie, pulling her toward him. Panic flashed in her eyes as she struggled. “Marie!” You yelled, fighting against the magnetic hold.

The magnetic force on your neck faded, a harsh weight easing as Magneto took off into the distance, Marie in his possession. You drew in a shaky breath, adrenaline still pounding through your veins. Ignoring the pain in your own neck, you rushed to Logan, terror filling you as you saw his hands impaled to the wall, the steel pinning him in place with blood dripping staining the rusty metal. “Shit,” you muttered, reaching for the steel. “I’m so sorry, Logan. I’m sorry.” Your hands shook as you gripped the metal, pulling with all your strength, gritting your teeth against his muffled grunts of pain. “Hang on,” you whispered, glancing up to see the tight set of his jaw, his eyes locked on yours through the agony. You yanked the metal free with a final, determined pull, and instantly his hands started healing, the torn skin knitting itself back together as if it had never been wounded.

He flexed his hands, and for a moment, the raw tension between you eased. But his gaze shifted to your neck, where lines of red cuts were still visible from the steel that had choked you earlier. You could feel the wounds slowly healing, but it was nowhere near as fast as his. Logan’s eyes darkened as he took in the damage, and with a gentleness that surprised you, he reached up, brushing the tips of his fingers lightly along your throat. His voice softened, concern bleeding through his rough tone. “Does it always take this long for you?”

You forced a half-smile, shrugging as best you could without wincing. “Sorry, not everyone heals as fast as you,” you replied with a touch of sarcasm, hoping to deflect the sudden tension thrumming between you. His lips twitched, almost a smirk, but there was something deeper in his gaze, a quiet understanding, maybe even respect as he nodded. Before either of you could say more, the communicator crackled, Ororo’s voice breaking through.

“Logan?" Ororo voice surged, following her muttered your name. "We lost the signal. What’s going on?” Logan’s gaze lingered on you for a moment before he turned his attention to the comm. “He’s got her. Magneto took Marie.” A tense silence filled the line until Scott’s voice cut in, firm and unyielding. “We’ll head back to the mansion and planned further. Tell us your position.” You exchanged a look with Logan, determination settling in your eyes. “We’ll find her,” you said, your voice steady, your conviction mirroring his. A subtle, unspoken bond hung in the air between you, both knowing the chase was just beginning.

••••••••

If there's any new skills you've learned since joining the X-Men, it's pacing from one to another side of the building and change your clothes so quick into a, well kinda uncomfortable tight leather suit which offer enough protection. Even though you don't really need it, because even a bullet hit would just sting and not kill you but here you go, you just thought it would be cool to have a matching sets of suit with the team altogether.

In the equipment room, harsh lights cut across the space, casting sharp shadows that make the room look almost sterile. Steel racks line the walls, filled with various weapons and gadgets neatly arranged in their designated slots. It's cold here, the kind of chill that gets under your skin even if you don’t feel the temperature the same way most people do. You take a breath, inhaling the familiar scent of gun oil and leather, the kind of smell that would remind anyone else of trouble. For you, it’s just another day.

You stand in front of the rack, eyes scanning the gleaming rows of firearms before selecting your special pair. You reach for the twin plastic handguns. Sleek, black, well-maintained—feeling their familiar weight settle in your hands. They’re custom models, modified to go against magneto and obviously with accuracy and grip, with a dark matte finish to avoid glare. The barrels are slightly shorter than standard, making them easier to draw in tight situations, and the grips are textured to keep steady even under pressure. They fit perfectly in your hands, molded to your touch after years of training, of both sanctioned and unsanctioned missions.

As you secure each gun into its holster at your hips, there's a pang in your chest, a familiar bitterness. Guns have been a constant in your life, a tool you were taught to wield with precision and detachment. Yet, no matter how skilled you've become, there’s a shadow that lingers. You've used these weapons to save lives, but you've also used them to take lives, choices that weren't always yours to make.

Your time in the Marines was a relentless cycle of missions, one target after another, where you were pushed to the edge of your humanity, fuck they treated you as a tool because of what you could endure. The regenerative healing meant you could take the hits, walk into gunfire, and still pull the trigger. They called you the "Fire and Flesh" a title that left you both proud and hollow. The memories flicker in your mind as you load each plastic magazine with a kind of practiced ease, slotting a few extra rounds into a small black pouch strapped around your upper arm. You slip a few spare magazines in there, securing them in place as you mentally map out the ammo you'll need.

The guns may be tools, but they’re also symbols. Each grip, each click of a magazine, each time you pull them from your holsters, it reminds you of choices, of freedom and of restraint. And despite everything, you can’t deny the comfort they bring. With these, you’re in control, deciding when and where to draw the line. With an exhale, your hands resting on the metal grips. For better or worse, this is part of you.

You hear voices from across the room and glance over to see Scott handing Logan a black leather suit. Logan takes it with an exaggerated snort, holding it up and making a face as he examines it. "Really, Cyke? You want me to wear this?" His voice drips with sarcasm, but Scott just crosses his arms, standing firm. “It’s for disguise reasons, Logan,” Scott argues, his tone as flat as ever. “Blend in with the team. Makes us look united.”

You can’t help but chuckle, strolling over already wearing your own suit in. “C’mon, mutton chops. It’s just a little leather. Not like it’s gonna kill you,” Your voice has that teasing edge, enough to prod him a little without crossing the line.

Logan scowls, holding the suit like it's something foul he stepped in. He shakes his head, tossing it onto the table with a grunt. "Ain't wearin' this thing," he mutters, crossing his arms, stubborn as ever. Who the hell in their right mind would go out with that pair of jeans and old flannel into a fucking mission, we don't even know what awaits for us.

Scott sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Logan, it’s just a suit. The rest of us manage to get by without complaining."

"Yeah, well, the rest of you don’t mind bein’ squeezed like a sardine,” Logan shoots back. "I work better in my own gear."

You stifle a grin, watching the way he bristles. Real insufferable putting up a fight over a damn suit, and you have to admit, it’s a bit entertaining watching him pushing Scott's button. "Think of it as a team-bonding exercise. Or, you know, try not to embarrass us by showing up like some lumberjack out of place." Scott shot back as you parted your lips shocked by his insults.

Logan retort "What are you sayin man?" His eyebrows now knitted together taking a step closer to Scott. Before Scott could respond, Ororo and Jean stride in, their black suits sleek and professional, eyes sharp as they take in the standoff. “Oh, still fighting it, are we?” Ororo says with a raised eyebrow, a hint of amusement in her tone. She steps over to Logan, crossing her arms. “Logan, it’s a mission. Just wear the suit. You won’t die from being uncomfortable for a couple of hours.” Jean nods, giving him a half-smile. “It’s true, you know. Besides, it would be nice if we looked like a coordinated team for once. Right?” She casts a look around, her eyes landing on you and Scott for support.

Logan snorts, glancing from Jean to Ororo, then back at the suit. “Fine. But if this thing rips while I’m movin’, it’s on you, Cyke,” he growls, grumbling as he reluctantly picks up the suit and walk to a change room, muttering complaints the whole time.

The three of you share a look, trying not to laugh as Logan fumbles with the tight sleeves and zippers, clearly out of his element. Once he’s finally suited up, he shoots each of you a warning glare, as if daring anyone to comment. And with Logan finally in uniform, the team heads out together toward the Blackbird, looking like the united force Scott always hoped for, even if it took a little persuasion.

••••••••••

The night air was sharp and biting, the lights of New York City stretching out in the distance, casting a dim glow against the cloudy sky. The team had arrived at Liberty Island, a cold wind whipping around them as they approached the massive silhouette of the Statue of Liberty, rising majestically above the dark waters. Logan, you, and the rest of the team moved swiftly and quietly through the shadows, each one of you alert and on edge, sensing the danger looming just ahead.

The plan was simple but risky: Ororo would create a mist to obscure your movements, giving Logan and you the cover needed to enter the statue and reach Marie. Scott and Ororo would handle any defenses Magneto might have put up outside, keeping him distracted while the two of you located Marie and found a way to disable whatever device Magneto was planning to use to amplify her powers.

As you continued up through the statue’s dim interior, an old metal detector blocked your path. Logan strode through it, triggering an immediate blaring alarm. Unfazed, he extended all his claws and ripped the detector apart in one swift motion. Scott, startled by the noise, looked back just as Logan retracted his first and last claws, leaving only his middle one raised in Scott’s direction. Scott stifled a laugh, shaking his head in amusement before they both moved on, the brief humor a stark contrast to the tension surrounding them.

Logan’s expression was focused and grim, his gaze scanning every shadow, every corner, for signs of trouble. You kept pace beside him, your weapons drawn, every sense heightened. Each step took you closer to the top of the statue, where you could sense Magneto’s energy, a pulsing, unnatural presence hanging thick in the air. When you finally reached the observation deck, you spotted Marie in the distance, slumped against the metallic structure, her figure dwarfed by the massive machinery Magneto had built around her. The device loomed ominously, wires and metal snaking around her like a cage, amplifying her powers without her control. She looked small and fragile, her skin pale and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, unconscious but alive.

Logan took one look at her and gritted his teeth. “Stay close,” he muttered to you, his claws extending with a soft snikt. “We’re getting her out of this.”

Just as you began to approach Marie, a powerful magnetic force slammed into both of you, sending you skidding backward. Magneto appeared on the platform, his gaze cold and unyielding, blocking the path between you and Marie. His voice echoed through the space, mocking and confident. “You really thought you could take her from me?” he sneered, raising a hand as metal shards hovered around him, glinting menacingly in the dim light.

Logan snarled, launching himself forward, claws extended. But with a flick of Magneto’s wrist, he was halted midair, the metal in his body binding him in place. You raised your weapon, aiming for Magneto’s exposed chest, but he caught sight of it and twisted his hand, forcing the weapon from your grasp and pinning you against the cold metal wall with a jagged piece of railing.

“Enough games,” Magneto said, turning his attention back to Marie. He began to activate the machine, its hum growing louder as power surged through its structure. Logan struggled against his restraints, fury blazing in his eyes as he watched Marie’s life slipping away, her body starting to weaken under the machine’s grip.

Just then, Ororo’s voice crackled over the communicator, barely audible over the machine’s hum. “Hold on, we’re almost there,” she said, her tone filled with urgency. In a flash of lightning, she and Scott burst onto the observation deck, Ororo unleashing a gust of wind that knocked Magneto back a few steps. Scott took the opening, firing an optic blast that shattered the device’s control panel, sending sparks flying across the room.

With the machine momentarily disrupted, the magnetic force binding Logan and you released, dropping you both to the ground. You staggered to your feet, wincing from the impact, but Logan didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, making his way to Marie as fast as he could, pushing past the debris and machinery in his path.

Reaching her side, Logan dropped to his knees, gathering her limp form into his arms. Her skin was cold, her pulse weak, but she was still breathing. He pulled her close, knowing he had to act fast. Without hesitating, he pressed his cheek to hers, allowing his healing power to transfer, knowing it was the only way to save her.

The process was agonizing. You watched as Logan’s skin paled, his breaths growing ragged as his energy drained into Marie, reviving her but weakening him. Marie’s eyes fluttered open, her gaze unfocused and scared, but slowly, she began to recognize him. She reached out, her gloved fingers gently brushing his face as she whispered, “Logan…”

Just as Marie started to regain her strength, you saw Logan’s energy faltering, his grip on her loosening as his wounds reappeared, reopening as his body sacrificed itself to save hers. But he didn’t pull away, even as his breaths grew shallow, determined to make sure she was safe, no matter the cost.

Finally, the machine gave a final, deafening crackle as Ororo and Scott managed to destroy it completely, its lights dimming as it shut down for good. Magneto, realizing his defeat, retreated into the shadows, his figure vanishing as he made his escape. You hurried to Logan and Marie, relief flooding you as you saw color returning to her cheeks, her breaths becoming steady and strong again.

Logan, however, was on the brink of exhaustion, barely able to stay conscious. You reached out, steadying him, offering him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “You did it,” you murmured, watching as Marie slowly came back to full awareness, glancing between you both with gratitude and a touch of awe.

With Magneto’s plan thwarted and Marie safe, you all made your way back down the statue, the midnight air now filled with the quiet comfort of victory. And as you helped Logan to his feet, his strength gradually doesn't seem to return any soon, you exchanged a look, knowing this was only the beginning of the battles yet to come but for tonight, we won.

The interior of the Blackbird was dimly lit, the faint hum of machinery echoing through the cabin. Logan wandered through the narrow aisles, his feet heavy, as if they were laden with lead. He fought against the growing urge to succumb to sleep, his body weary from the night’s chaos. The adrenaline that had kept him alert during the fight was fading, leaving him feeling unsteady. Each step felt like a monumental effort, his eyelids growing heavier with each passing moment.

Just as he reached the back of the aircraft, the world blurred around him, and he staggered before collapsing against the cold metal wall. A sharp gasp echoed through the cabin, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

••••••••

Sixteen hour passed which Logan had spent being unconscious, a concern rippled through the team as they gathered outside the medbay. Inside, where Logan lay on the bed with thin cushion. Jean was monitoring his vital signs, her brow furrowed with worry. She looked up, meeting the anxious gazes of yours.

“He’s stable,” Jean assured, glancing at the screen displaying Logan’s steady heart rate. “Just needs rest.”

You leaned against the wall, arms crossed, your heart heavy as you watched the man who had prove himself to be become a reluctant mentor, a fierce protector, and a complicated friend in such a short time. “I still can’t believe what happened yesterday,” you said, breaking the silence. “Magneto... he impaled him with a steel in the train wall." Jean nodded, her expression contemplative. “That kind of injury would take a toll on anyone. But with his healing factor, he’ll bounce back. He’s been through worse.”

You couldn’t help but fascinated by Logan’s resilience. “He told me he’s nearly 170 years old,” you murmured, glancing at Logan’s still form. “Can you imagine how much pain he’s endured in all that time? I mean, he might’ve fought in World War I. Who knows what he’s experienced?” You thought to yourself, because from your personal experience, being alive for half a century is miserable enough. Twenty years under the military command which you just gained a freedom from three years now. This guy is almost two century. Jean listened intently, her focus unwavering. “It’s hard to fathom,” she agreed. “He’s been through more than most could bear. But he’s still here, still fighting.”

The two of you continued to speak softly, unaware that Logan’s ears were attuned to your voices, even in his unconscious state. The warmth of your words and concern seeped into him, grounding him despite the darkness. After what felt like an eternity, Jean stood to stretch her legs, casting a final glance at Logan. “I’ll be right back,” she said softly, stepping out of the lab.

As soon as she left, you took a deep breath, the weight of the past hours crashing down on you. You approached Logan, your heart racing as you exhaled, “We still need you here, Wolverine.” The words escaped your lips, raw and sincere, a plea for him to return to you and the team.

To your surprise, a faint whisper broke the silence. “M not goin' anywhere, Hollow.”

Your heart skipped a beat as you turned, eyes wide in disbelief. Logan's eyes fluttered open, glimmering with the remnants of pain yet fierce determination. You felt a flush creep up your cheeks, embarrassment washing over you as you instinctively moved to help him sit up. “Logan! You’re awake!”

He winced slightly but managed a weak grin. “Where’s Marie?” he asked, his voice hoarse but laced with concern. “Still recovering,” you replied quickly. “She’s been a bit off since everything. Picking up your behavior all morning, actually.” A small smile tugged at Logan’s lips. “She’s got grit,” he murmured, his eyes shining with pride.

Just then, the door swung open, and Professor Xavier entered the medbay, his wheelchair gliding smoothly across the floor. “Welcome back, Logan. I’m glad you’re still with us.”

“Yeah, me too,” Logan replied, stealing a glance at you. His smile widened just a fraction, a hint of gratitude in his expression, making your heart swell with relief. In that moment, the weight of fear and worry began to lift, replaced by the warmth of camaraderie and hope. You all knew the battles weren’t over, but with Logan back on his feet, the fight continued.

Part 3 ->

AN: Whooo here we go fellas, I think I've wrapped the introduction now. Be prepared because we're heading for the next chapter where the summary would take place. Thank you for reading and interacting <3

#logan howlet x reader #logan howlett fanfiction #logan howlett #wolverine #wolverine fanfiction #xmen fanfiction #x men

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commsroom · 4 months ago

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honestly, i wonder a lot about eiffel's past relationships, when 1) the way he describes his relationship with kate gives the impression it was intense and burnt out quickly (though i can definitely imagine they were very on-again-off-again for quite a while as well), 2) if we go by gabriel urbina's estimate that he imagined anne was about ten by the end of the show, eiffel was about 23 when she was born. they broke up before anne was born, and i don't think they were ever together again after (i would imagine kate was probably adamant about that, and about prioritizing anne's well-being), but eiffel was obviously still in her life, in some capacity, until kate got full custody.

eiffel's got that line in a matter of perspective: "i've been awake for twenty-six hours straight, half of it because i've been sitting by the phone waiting for a call that never came. it's like my teenage love life played out on an intergalactic scale." and while it's a self-deprecating joke, it's probably not... entirely untrue about his dating life in general? we know why his relationship with kate was toxic (the implications of "things get real sid and nancy" speak volumes), and eiffel strikes me as the kind of person who prefers emotional intensity to casual indifference, even if it's terrible for everyone involved. i don't like to lean too much on things the writers have said - not least because gabriel urbina has been very clear that nothing that isn't in the show is strictly canon - but this is all speculation anyway, and the idea that eiffel was a "tv is my parent" kid who grew up unsupervised has always explained a lot about him, to me.

kate is his most significant ex because she's the mother of his daughter, obviously, but i'd be surprised if there were many other people he was that involved with for... a long enough period of time. like, don't get me wrong, i think eiffel has had plenty of hookups, one-or-two-dates, and even ex-girlfriends, but these aren't people who stay in his life; he comes on too strong for casual and doesn't have the day-to-day stability for someone who wants commitment. he's a lonely, stimulation-seeking person - he was a teenager who didn't have luck in love, and then a young adult who made a lot of bad choices (and didn't maintain any stable friendships), and then just... kinda a guy with a lot of baggage. a lot of things just kind of fizzle out because he assumes disinterest from people who don't meet him with that immediate intensity, or, otherwise, he says he's fine keeping things casual, but then he hooks up with someone once and he gets weird whenever he sees her from then on like, wow, crazy that you're here and i'm here... just two people who are both here... hanging out... like friends do. yup. and he tries to put his arm around her and she blocks his number.

#wolf 359 #w359 #doug eiffel #i've been so bad at tagging things because i can never decide what Deserves to go in the tag. and i don't know if this does either #because it's just speculation without any real point but. oh well. he's on my mind. i don't even have a set in stone opinion on this really #i'm just thinking. i think he also... his pop culture brain tells him that One Big Romantic Gesture will work out for him but he always #times it poorly and/or doesn't understand why it's not enough to make up for all the smaller less interesting things he doesn't do. etc.#i also have thoughts about that line in context of 'what really happened the night of your junior prom' but that's even more speculation

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fallloverfic · 3 months ago

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So... on the subject of relative age in Delicious in Dungeon and Mithrun and fandom "jokes" I've seen folks complaining about. General manga and anime spoilers for character ages and names in the manga and anime below the read more:

On the one hand, I do get that people are (or at least were, I see it less these days) mad at the "Mithrun grandpa/old man" jokes/comments because "it's just cause he's disabled" and "relatively speaking, he's the same age as Chilchuck, and no one treats Chilchuck like he's an old man/something about how Chilchuck dislikes being treated differently, mentally, for his presumed age/state of mind".

Okay, yes. Relatively speaking, sure. There's a conversation to be had about the intersection of ableism and ageism and how we often baby (in a patronizing way) disabled people and the elderly, and how we prioritize youth and treat middle-aged people like their lives are over. (And maybe something about how he has silver hair, I don't know). On a more positive note, I love that, relatively speaking, possibly by Elvish standards, Mithrun is at/near middle-age (elvish age of maturity is 80 years, their average lifespan is 400 years), because that's a fascinating bit of world-building.

...On the other hand (please rest your pitchforks momentarily), Mithrun is literally 185 years old, he is the fifth oldest cast member for characters whose age we know as of the English release of the Delicious in Dungeon World Guide: The Adventurer's Bible (after the Elf Queen, who's 372, the elder Flokes, who are in their 200s, and Milsiril, who's four years older than Mithrun), and he is the oldest member of his group of the Canaries (he's literally 103 years older than his subordinate, Pattadol, and still 39 years older than Cithis, the next oldest Canary after Mithrun). And speaking of Chilchuck, who is, yes, a married father of multiple adult children... and also 29. Mithrun has lived over six times as long as Chilchuck has. (All ages come from Delicious in Dungeon World Guide: The Adventurer's Bible; Sissel + the other Golden Country residents don't have listed ages there, though they're at least 1000 years old, and the other elves don't show up). Mithrun was in recovery after the central watchtower dungeon for longer than at least five characters have been alive.

Age chart:

Elf Queen: 372

Tansu Floke: 210

Yarn Floke: 204

Milsiril: 189

Mithrun: 185

Cithis: 149

Otta: 137

Fleki: 130

Lycion: 126

Senshi: 112

Noor: 98

Totan: 95

Pattadol: 82

Gillin: 79

Brigan: 78

Holm: 76

Fionil: 62

Namari: 61

Daya, Invar: 58

Marcille: 50

Maizuru: 41

Chilchuk: 29

Laios, Toshiro, Hien: 26

Rin: 24

Falin, Benichidori: 23

Kabru, Mikbell: 22

Zon: 21

Kaka, Kiki: 20

Kuro, Doni: 18

Izutsumi, Inutade: 17

Leed: 14

Mithrun is older than Senshi, older than Marcille, older than Kabru's entire party, including Holm and Daya, and older than the oldest human we have an established age for, Maizuru (again, the first Adventurer's Bible doesn't list the Golden Country resident ages, and Mithrun is definitely younger than them, but also they're generally minor characters except for Yaad and Delgal). He's older than Senshi's former dwarf comrades were when they died. He's also apparently older than Flamela, the vice commander of the Canaries (she's 170, at least according to the fanwiki, which is possibly going off the Complete Adventurer's Bible).

He is of course younger than Obrin, his older brother, whose age we don't know, but we do know that Mithrun is the younger brother. He is also obviously much younger than the demon.

I also find it interesting that people are jumping to the big assumption that he's middle-aged (relatively) due to... I guess just chopping the average lifespan of elves in half and assuming that's what they think middle-aged is? We know the average lifespan of elves and when they come to maturity. We do not know what elves think of Mithrun's age or what their concept of being middle-aged is, if they have one. He could be considered young by elf standards. He could be considered old. We have no idea.

Thinking about the conversation in Volume 8, Chapter 51: Dumplings 2, it's just about total/average lifespan and how near the characters are to dying by average race age, not middle age.

Chilchuck on p.37: "What's the difference between our actual ages and how old we look?"

Laios: "Well, dwarfs do live two and a half times as long as tall-men."

Chilchuck: "If our actual ages affect our looks, then... ...I'm curious about remaining life. Will we age at the same rate we did before? Or will it match our bodies now?"

They never get an answer for this. We do get rough estimates for what one race's age means to another by comparing Laios' actual age (26) to what Senshi thinks dwarf!Laios is, age-wise (his 60s), and both ages put him near but not at assumed middle-age for the respective race (for tall-men it would be 30, for dwarfs, 100), but otherwise they don't come to many conclusions about anything. They just guess and try to change back before something worse happens. Marcille doesn't even say anything in this conversation about elf culture. She just panics because half-foots live shorter lives.

I would not personally call Mithrun a grandpa and I don't particularly connect with jokes about it. By Elvish standards, and relatively speaking, he is perhaps not, arguably, old. ...But he's no spring chicken, either, despite how strong and fast he is. By the standards of most characters he is interacting with in the story, he is the oldest person in the room, by a substantial margin (heck, the age gap between Mithrun and Cithis is more years than Chilchuck has lived). That doesn't make him a grandpa, either. But I do find people getting mad about folks pointing out this literally 185-year-old being is you know... 185 years old... odd...? Especially when he's around all these by and large substantially younger people (younger people who are adults by and large!!!) for most of the story. Again, there's definitely a conversation to be had about the intersection of ageism and ableism, and how we treat people who are middle-aged as if they're elderly even when they're able-bodied, and about the way other characters in-universe treat him (though the one time I think his age is pointed out, it's about the stuff he knows, not to mock him for it; mostly people treat him badly due to his disabilities (e.g., Fleki with his aiming in chapter 55, Cithis in the Adventurer's Bible), not because of his age)... but it does feel very much like people are ignoring that he is honestly one of the oldest characters in the story, and not by dint of being the oldest youth, but because he's a character who has lived to be nearly 200 years old.

#mithrun #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi spoilers #I think there's also a conversation to be had about how Flamela talks down to him #I'm not saying grandpa joke away but people ignoring that he's literally 185 years old is kind of weird to me #he's actually not exactly middle-aged #he's slightly younger than that #he is by some definitions young #but remind me when we decided people nearly 200 years old weren't by some definitions old #I think there's interesting things to explore in a character who's lived to be that old #interacting with more races who don't get to live that long but who have different experiences #than pretending he's got roughly the same amount of lived experience as someone who's lived 6x less than he has #like he was in recovery nearly as long as Kabru is alive and none of his caretakers knew to try a foot massage?#not a single one of them?#no wonder it was only Milsiril showing up that led to him having a breakthrough #kui's manga is among other things about how different races experience things differently #and take away different lessons and understandings #and have different values #and navigating those differences can be hard but is worthwhile #like with senshi and the dwarves or idk every single mixed race party #what I find fascinating about the changeling age scene is how Chilchuck DOESN'T say everyone is the same with relative age #he notes the different ways races experience aging #races in dunmeshi have different biology #and this is a core part of Marcille's character arc #she is literally terrified of her loves ones dying and hates the unfairness of different race aging processes #one thing that's important to kabru's arc and the story in general is how knowledge can be lost and hidden #especially by older races who hoard it #and how this can be abused so easily whether it's the elves or the demon #and we learn a little over midway through the story that dungeon lords can be cured or rescued because Mithrun was one and he got away

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