#these kids live rent free in my brain so

[no-light-left-on]

short fic exploring one of my headcanons for the Whalers. takes place right after The Surge

“That should be all of them,” Rulfio mutters as he sets the last body in the line.

Thomas hums in acknowledgement. He’s removed the masks of the dead to identify the novices, though he is not sure of all of them. They’ll have to call in others for identification – most of these men were not his students, nor Rulfio’s. The dead masters are lined up close by.

“That’s about a quarter of our forces,” Thomas sighs. He stays by the bodies of the novices. Two of them are older than him by several years. Three never got to reach adulthood.

“Thomas?” Rulfio calls from where he’s kneeling by the body of a dead master assassin. He sheaths his knife when his friend turns to face him and he pockets the silver button he removed from the body. “You’re spacing out.”

“I’m sorry,” Thomas says. “I… I taught this kid.” He looks down at the face of the boy at his feet. He’s pressed his eyes in but a part of him hopes that he’ll open them again. “His name was Andrei. We were going to name him master next week.” He sighs and his breath shudders like wind against the broken windows of the refinery. “The silver buttons were finished just yesterday.”

Rulfio nods. His throat dried up as Thomas spoke and there is little comfort he can offer as Thomas stares at the young man. He couldn’t have been older than twenty.

“You should give them to Daud,” he offers instead. It’s the closest thing he can give to condolences. “I’m sure he will keep them.”

“Right,” Thomas breathes. He sniffles and wipes his eyes before tears can fall. “I’ll see to that.” He straightens his back, blinks a few times. If his mask was on, Rulfio wouldn’t be able to tell that he’s holding back tears. “You should report to Daud. I’ll see if I can get someone to identify the rest.”

***

“We have gathered the dead,” Rulfio announces with a fist pressed to his heart. He bows curtly and rests his hands behind his back, shoulders set.

Daud sits at his desk among the mess of torn curtains and Abbey symbols. The adornments lie on a pile of fabric and trash but the papers remain. Daud insists on examining them once the more important matters are dealt with. He looks up from the battle plans Overseer Hume left on his desk and meets Rulfio’s eyes.

“What are our losses?” His voice grates. He hasn’t slept since returning from Timsh’s. The Mark aches with shredded bonds.

“Seven novices and eight masters,” Rulfio states. He takes a deep breath to even his voice – he is to report numbers. Not dead friends. “Thirteen more masters are on bedrest unable to perform their duties, along with three novices. Eight more have sustained injuries light enough to be employed in cleaning the place or going on patrols. We have not seen a sign of Lurk since you exiled her.”

Daud takes a deep breath, nods. “Good,” he mutters. “That’s nearly half our forces down.” He leans back in his chair as he thinks. “We’ll draw further in,” he announces then. “Change the pathways wherever possible. Everyone is to stay within the heart of the district with only hard to reach outposts on the outside until we have more people available to patrol.” He taps his lips with a gloved thumb. “Have Thomas come see me so we can set up new patrol rotations. The men that worked through the night are to go and rest once they are done with their duties.”

Rulfio presses his fist to his chest and bows. “Sir.”

Daud does not dismiss him then. They both stay still as dust settles in the air, floating through the rays cascading through the tall windows, now bare and gaping into the world. Daud can see three master assassins throwing bodies into a fire from his desk.

“Rulfio,” he speaks with an exhausted resignation. They both know what has to come next. “Do you have the names?”

Rulfio nods and steps closer. He reaches into his pocket and the small silver bulbs ring as he pulls them out.

“These have been gathered from the waistcoats of the recovered bodies of the masters,” he announces. “Anthony. Leon. Geoff.” He takes each button with a careful hand and turns them over, tracing over every name with a gloved finger as he sets the silver buttons on the desk in front of Daud. “Sean. Nicholas. Finn.” His voice gets waterlogged, each name stickier and wetter than the one before, like the streets of the Flooded District. “Tynan. And Fergus.”

Daud stares at the collection of silver on his desk. Neither of them move, the finality of the silver buttons somewhat heavier than the sight of the actual bodies. Daud sighs and gathers the buttons in his hand.

“You’re dismissed.”

[not-kat]

i can't be the only one who still thinks about maximum ride

[calamity-jam]

In honor of Season 4 drop and TANG TIME (hopefully gonna be part of a much bigger thing-)

[shima-draws]

AUGHHH. Thinking about Them,

[eustassslut]

thinking about a fanfic where Kid and Killer are Dive’s parents and have a crush on her Nursery/Kindergarten teacher,,,

[buds-and-baubles]

like i said before, this is subject to change as i read more of the authority. i'm only at coup d'etat rn so i'll update as i know more. but here's the general idea for my wildstorm to dc the authority transfer:

so it's the end of world's end, and with nothing else they can do, all of the authority pile into the carrier and see a somehow alive but injured jenny working on getting the carrier up and running while everything is crumbling outside. she gets the carrier up for a second and uses ton of her power to jump them all to a different universe (which unknowingly dragged all the other wildstorm characters with them). the price however, was aging her back to eight at how much power was used. with this, they now slot into this universe as they didn't exist in this one before this moment.

so they're plopped into dc universe! for anyone looking for specifics, they arrive in the era of tim drake being a robin for teen titans, not long before the whole y'know.. titans tower thing. new year's eve, 2005. why this time specifically? i have great plans and jenny is gonna have some big importance at that.

the carrier isn't present when they're sent because they're hiding from all the tons of new things of this earth, still needing repair but staying out of sight. they'll go repair the carrier later don't worry! gotta hide from the watchtower though so this is why.

now in a new world, they split up not only to figure out what's in this new world but midnighter and apollo both agree to finding a place and using this second chance to give jenny a peaceful childhood. they get an apartment in san francisco (hi titans tower i can see you there) and jenny and apollo stay there because apollo is just too glowy to do reconnaissance.

engineer sets up a sort of base to explore the new technology at her disposal as she tries to hunt down the carrier and is who gives them all cellphones that they can communicate with to be safe in case anything new here can tap into radiotelepathy.

hawksmoor goes off on his own to heal his hurt to see all the cities of this earth, including new ones they didn't have.

swift goes off to explore how the animals and flying in this new world is, seeing new species and happily getting to see those that she worried wouldn't be in a different earth.

doctor goes off to explore the new magic of this earth, re-establishing his connection to the garden of ancestral memories to now be of this earth. he takes time to mourn and reflect on failure of losing their earth and like everyone else on the team, vows to not let that happen to this one.

what's midnighter doing? well besides spending a large chunk of time settling in with his lovely husband and daughter, he grumbles and has to go and do reconissance in a city too: gotham. not to worry, he's calling his lovely husband with updates on how he's doing and gets to hear how they're doing from his bedazzled by jenny flip phone with hello kitty keychain.

he keeps to himself for the most part but encounters someone who catches his lurking who at first mistakes him for batman... red hood.

at this time all the other wildstorm characters arrive confused as fuck how they're on an earth that isn't dead and how they aren't too, which this messing with universal stuff and time has got speedsters on high alert.

the future stuff would explore how their presence alters the timeline (no n52 and rebirth things will seep through but will be different because there's no reset thanks to jenny saves the world!), what would happen upon the justice league discovering their presence, and so much more! jenny with her age would also join damian, jon and other heroes that age and create a new era of heroes team just for them. the time issues would also allow the chance for apollo and midnighter to discover more about what happened during their time at stormwatch but they'd have to choose whether they want to see it or accept it.

they remain their chaotic neutral/good structure, but really only come together to help on the big stuff like world ending or multiversal issues. otherwise, they kinda just.. are retired or doing specific things (ex: stopping experimentation on people, especially kids).

not to worry though, midnighter and apollo both still will sponsor pride events like in n52 as will the rest of the team, and they sponsor other things! midnighter and apollo also renew their wedding vows for anniversary.

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Sat down to write (it's 1:40am, I should be asleep) for the first time in almost a year because I very suddenly got the motivation, I sat down in front of a blank document and just thought, "Huh. How do you write?" (I used to think I was going to do this as a career)

[whimsicalcotton]

Rachel for da blorbo bingo

she Is the whitenoise in my brain I Can't live a normal life anymore

[characteroulette]

Actually a very old concept I came up with so long ago --

Trucy is see no evil,

Klavier is hear no evil,

and Apollo is speak no evil.

Musician is deaf to the lies around him, Magician turns a blind eye, and Loud child refuses to say the secrets in his chest.

[lotusmonkey]

[and-stir-the-stars]

(reverse dc au) Mike sees Evan as a teenage version of himself and is trying to get his 'past self' to realize how much of a dirtbag he(Michael) is lmao

oh my god, i literally gasped and my hand flew up to cover my mouth like some cringe hallmark movie actress

that's... oh my god. Michael mistaking Evan's kindness toward him for his past self "pretending" to be kind in order to trick him, or maybe Michael thinks his "teenage self" actually believes he's capable of anything other than cruelty and destruction and decides to teach his "teenage self" the hard way that NO, he isn't, and all he will ever be worthy of is punishment and pain.

Maybe Michael hears his "teenage self" claiming to be Evan and is so friggin mad that his "teenage self" would DARE corrupt sweet little Evan's memory with such a blatant lie.

I wonder if there's anything that would ever make Mike realize the truth. Maybe he realizes as Evan is dying; maybe Evan had some surgery or other, and Mike sees the remnants of the surgery while he's ripping Evan apart (similar to Mike's death scene in the og dire consequences au), and he tries comforting Evan in his final moments but Evan's too scared of him for the comfort to work.

Or maybe Mike never finds out the truth, and if Evan's ghost doesn't move on, Evan is stuck trying to hide from Mike for all eternity for fear of what Mike will do if he gets his hands on him.

I can easily imagine Evan being forced to see just how much Mike hates himself, and the lengths Mike is willing to go to torture himself (or his past self), as another form of torture, too. Evan still loves his big brother after everything, and seeing how much Mike hates himself hurts. both emotionally and physically, since Mike is taking that hatred out on Evan. Maybe, if Evan's ghost stays, he risks revealing himself to Michael because he wants to prove to Mike that he doesn't have to hate himself. Whether or not revealing himself is a mistake depends on how angsty I'm feeling, tbh

[byanyan]

that one very specific type of jk laugh is the sound you hear when you finally max out byan's happiness stat

[w1zords]

last chance to share my personal de rolo bbs headcanons before campaign 3 potentially canonizes anything…here they are 🤷‍♀️

[mav-doodles]

Two iterations of the same child; one during the main events of the Bad-End verse, and one further down the line.

Do you ever wonder what happens when a child breaks under the pressuring expectations humanity places on their shoulders? When you’re always framed as a hero, a savior, but you never asked for it to begin with? The result is one who eventually sides with the dark, and is consumed by it.

[toxicrevolver]

Thanks for the tag @onlyoneofsideblogtrashheep !!!!!

(Receiptify link)

I’m too tired to tag anyone so if you wanna participate you can!!

[surreal-duck]

absolutely love reading tags on my art and i adore each and every single nice thing anyone has ever left on them whether its an “aww nice” a keysmash or an analysis that spans three or more tags but this takes the cake for one of my all time favorites