#anyways enjoy some lore

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

My Cabinet of Tiger Ministers is in shambles.

[hinamie]

hhmmmmm uh im dusting the cobwebs off my brain trying 2 come up w something interestinf uhh.......anything non spoiler-y you can discuss w regards to geto in the atla au perchance?

hi rin !!!!! tysm fr sending i hope u r doing well <3

atla geto lore fr u courtesy of sam:

he's a waterbender from the northern water tribe. he can bloodbend but finds it distasteful

he gave gojo the betrothal necklace/proposed to him when they were 20 (all of the adult characters are aged up in the fic vs jjk canon ages)

all of his decisions are driven by a desire to lighten the burden placed on gojo's shoulders

aaaaand atla geto draws fr u courtesy of Me :3

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[math-memes]

[frameconfessions]

Techrot Encore Protoframes Early Voice Previews from the Promotional Site

Flare Varleon

Velimir Volkov II

Minerva Hendricks

Kaya Velasco

[starflungwaddledee]

*ahem* *cracks knuckles* *rolls shoulders* *taps mic*

Galastruck.

and i promise i’ll write 'i love you' with my fingers on your sleeping hand and when that fox howls i’ll howl with it in its cries i’ll find an end

🩸 happy valentine's day! 🩸

*✩˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ valentines shipaganza masterpost ✩˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ ⋆˙⟡

static images for the above animation!

[meatball-soup]

aint even lying there buddy, my name checks out

[itsmuffiiee]

I was told not to get this close to Jinks for safety reasons but it should be fine right? … right?

Hey.. Sorry I lied earlier- the reference wasn’t for a friend it was for me. @a-clown-with-wings

Silly Nonsense Below ・・・・・★

!! Please enjoy some doodles that didn’t make the cut!! I decided I wanted no tutu sometimes (a crime considering that’s one of my favorite parts of y/n outfit) and a stressed out bug doodle!!

!! We discovered this Evil Anti Jinks..!! so far we can’t tell their motives but they seem pretty cool!! Wonder if there is a Anti Mischief..?

[fadedsweater]

lmao I think I reached the tag limit on tumblr for the first time EVER and you'll never guess that it was because I was trying to hash out my thoughts on the veil staying up in da4 😂

this is why before the game came out I had narrowed things down to two potential directions the veil plot could go #option one was the veil stays up and thus the story is about healing from grief and putting down burdens#this option assumes that the veil does need to stay up #it treats the veil narratively as a new but essential part of the world #option two is the veil comes down but through a better option #in this option the story is about trusting people and finding a new better path #it assumes the veil is an artificial construct that is hostile to nature #(this is the brief version distilled into tags but like you get the picture) #As much as I really wanted option two #I knew we'd probably get option one#because actually taking the veil down would radically change the setting in dramatic ways #In this option I also assumed that the veil would eventually come down on its own anyway #thus the necessity of a better way to take it down #my main issue with option one (veil stays up) is that it doesnt contend with the harm the veil does to spirits #or the fact that the veil is inherently an artificial construct #and after the game came out and actually gave us option one (veil stays up) #turns out it also doesn't do the best job of contending with what happens next #like okay Solas is the only person keeping the Veil up #but all the Evanuris dying off is what was making it so weak #so like what's the long term plan here like how weak is the veil when it's only sustained by one person

anyway the gist of the tags that got yeeted into the void:

In Trespasser Solas tells us that his plan would basically wipe out everyone and everything, that our world would burn in the raw chaos in order for him to save his. But in Veilguard, he tells us that he created enough precautions that only a few thousand people would die (still a lot! but worth noting that at least that many people died anyway as a result of the Blight and the Evanuris escaping).

So basically, with this canon knowledge -- who's to say there wasn't a way to take down the Veil with ZERO causalities? The move from "the world burns in the raw chaos" to "a couple thousand die" is a pretty significant difference. Maybe there could have been a way to keep refining the plan, creating more precautions. Idk. Veilguard wasn't interested in exploring that.

All this to say, Solas being the sole person keeping the Veil up seems unsustainble to me (and it is weird narratively - like the point is that he ISN'T a god?). It's also like...how weak is the Veil now with one person sustaining it? How is he supposed to sustain it FOREVER? What does that narratively say about our ideas of redemption and forgiveness? I don't really have the answers but it certainly raises those questions for me.

[aseuki]

"Formed from the collective wish of a dying colony, the Singularity has forgotten its original purpose and now is only ruled by a primal will: to consume all"

[justanotherjaydrawing]

this piece was titled "Aghghkghkaaaaaaaashhhhiiiiiiii" which seems appropriate.

[mediumgayitalian]

previous chapter

———

The sunlight disorients him.

Usually, he wakes to a blaring alarm. If he has no alarm set, nothing planned for the day, he wakes when he cannot physically stand the taste of his own breath anymore, stumbling out of bed and ambling like a zombie for the nearest toothbrush. (On rare, rare occasions, he wakes to humming – low, drawling, lilting, floating around his darkened room, brightening it. He dreams about those mornings.)

He cannot remember the last time he woke to gentle sun.

Stretching, he takes a minute to catalogue the space as he wakes up, noticing the light curtains over wide windows, small TV tucked in between two double beds, and a desk, larger than he would have expected, taking up the far right corner.

Will is nowhere to be found.

“Jogging, mebbe,” Nico mumbles to himself; tiny, forgotten accent slipping out before he can stop it. Gingerly, he peels off the blankets and pads to the bathroom. Will’s blue-capped toothbrush sits next to the sink, quelling Nico’s ridiculous anxiety that Will, actually, has never been here at all, and Nico dreamed this whole thing up. He smiles slightly at the dorky stickers plastered all over the handle, colour mostly worn away, and the watch forgotten next to the soap dispenser. 

He hears a heavy door open and shut, pausing to make out quiet footsteps over the running water. Quickly rinsing the suds off his face, he towels off and steps back out into the hotel room, watching his friend.

Will has his back turned, hunched over the desk. He wears a hoodie, blue with big white clouds all over it – his favourite – and, of course, horrible cargo shorts. Nico counts seven pockets, and that’s just what he can see from the back. There is a book shoved in two of them, keys hanging out of a third, and an apple bulging from the pocket near his hip.

“Morning.”

Will jumps, whirling around. 

“You scared the shit outta me!”

“Sorry,” Nico says, not sorry. He’s grinning. “Were you out for a run?”

“I was out for a run hours ago, yes. It’s, like, ten-thirty, dude. You’ve been sleeping for eight hundred years.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” They’ve had this argument more times than he can physically count, he refuses to have it again when he doesn’t have the upper hand. He’ll bring it up again when Will’s sleepy again at nine o’clock. “Where were you?”

Will steps to the side, revealing three separate heaping plates of food on the desk, piled high with eggs, toast, a muffin, bacon, and, of course, an entire plate devoted to fruit. Nico descends upon it like a swarm of seagulls upon a terrorized child’s ice cream cone – with fury, insatiable hunger, and endless hubris. He makes sure to ignore the fruit.

Five minutes later, he’s satiated enough to turn a percentage of his attention away from the food. He spins the desk chair halfway to face Will, instead, curled up on the bed with one knee pulled to his chest, watching him fondly.

“How many times did you almost drop this on the way up?” he asks around a mouthful of bacon.

Will’s smile drops, eyes narrowing. “Shut up.”

“Four floors, and there’s a good chance you took the stairs to keep the elevators for ‘someone who needs them more’, so –”

“I hate you.”

“– I’m guessing one time per flight of stairs? Oh, wait, there are three plates, definitely more –”

“I’m never doing anything nice for you ever again.”

“– and you have a new band-aid on your knee, so you definitely tripped and dropped it at least once.” He pops the last of the bacon in his mouth, smiling wickedly. “Twice? Three times? If you don’t tell me I’m going to assume six and move on.”

Will’s glare intensifies. He mumbles something.

“Hm?”

He mumbles again. Nico doesn’t even pretend not to be delighted. He knows the smile on his face is wide enough to make him look deranged, he simply doesn’t care. Opportunities to press Will’s buttons this beautiful do not show up every day. He must treasure them.

“Didn’t catch that.”

“Hadtogoback.”

“Gonna have to speak up, bud.”

“I had to go back!” Will explodes, hands thrown in the air. “I fuckin’ – I dropped the stupid plates, the first time, so I had to fuckin’ – clean it up and – two stupid trips, you jerk, you better appreciate this –”

Nico almost bites through his lip. “You dropped it?”

“I didn’t mean to!” Will says defensively. “I was concentrating really hard but –”

Nico loses it.

“– my shoe got caught on the last step and I didn’t have any hands to catch myself.” He scowls. “Three people saw.”

He can’t breathe. There are genuine, actual tears streaming down his face, burn in his eyes almost as bad as the burn in his lungs, the ache in his belly. He wraps his shaking arms around himself in an attempt to hold himself together, laughing so hard he feels like his muscles might actually rip themselves off his bones. Every time he tries to calm down, he pictures Will, in his dorky flip-flops, egg in his hair, half a muffin crushed on his cheek, bright red, sprawled on the ground, food everywhere. If he could think of literally anything else, he’d be worried about his heart straight-up failing. 

“I hate you. Actually.”

“I’m – oh my God,” he wheezes. He manages, finally, to get an actual breath in, desperately trying to think of literally anything else to calm down. Fucking – bumper to bumper traffic. Bedbugs. His father’s frowning face. That always works. “Holy shit, Will.”

“I should’ve just woken your ungrateful ass up.”

“Probably.” He flicks a grape at him, smiling. Will catches it in his mouth, rolling his eyes but smiling back. “Glad you didn’t.”

“Whatever.”

Nico finishes the rest of his breakfast in relative peace, managing to turn away if his mouth threatens to betray the tentative truce they’ve negotiated. He even eats one entire peach when Will starts pelting him with tiny hotel soap bottles and listing side effects of cholesterol-induced heart disease.

The second he finishes the last bite, Will orders him to clear off the desk. Nico mutters about bossiness and how Will is most definitely not in charge of him, doing as he asks. When he comes back – took him a hot second to shove the paper plates into a small enough ball to fit in the garbage can – Will has dragged the desk over to the bed, sitting criss-cross next to it, examining one of the many papers he has covering it.

“So,” he says, gesturing next to him. Nico dutifully sits, peering at the various maps and markings. “We gotta plan part two.”

“Didn’t we already do this?” Nico asks. “Back at Dunkin’s?”

“Not this far. I wanted to Preserve the Spontaneous Road Trip Spirit.” Nico can hear the capitalization.

“So, planning, then.”

“Yes, exactly.”

Nico smiles. “Brief me, captain.”

Will jumps right in, pointing and gesturing and every once and a while catching Nico’s eye to ask, right? Sound good?

Nico just watches him. 

The midday sun shines directly in his face, catching and reflecting on his pale eyelashes, making his eyes go squinty. His excitement is obvious, in his chattering, his waving hands, his bouncing curls; every part of him moving. Even his stupid cargo shorts look endearing, every other pocket bulging, filled absentmindedly with slips of paper or pens or bandaids or granola bars. Nico watches him and feels he might burst.

“You’re not listening,” Will accuses.

Nico jumps back into focus. “Yes I am.”

“What’d I just say?”

“‘You’re not listening’.”

WIll cracks a smile. “You’re not funny.”

“Run over that again,” Nico answers, and grins devilishly when Will does. Not funny his ass.

He listens, though, through Will’s second explanation. It’s not too hard – Will’s always been organised. The wide penciled circle around their location in Atlanta, outlining the area they can drive before their next fuel stop, is pretty wide. But the options are limited, in Nico’s opinion – while he’s sure there is indeed something to do in South Carolina, there’s nothing to do for him, specifically. He’s cool with skipping it.

“There is one place we can go,” Will says. His voice has gone oddly quiet, and after at minute he glances over at Nico, like he’s waiting for his permission.

“Your road trip, dude,” he murmurs, nudging their shoulders together. “I’ll even go to South Carolina if you want to, but no promises that I won’t complain about it.”

That, thankfully, draws a huff out of him, some of the tenseness fading from his frame. 

“South Carolina is beautiful, you know.”

“Says the boy who is currently visiting his third state ever.”

“...Touché.” He taps his pencil on the map, pink eraser thunking somewhere in the Bermuda triangle. “I was thinking – we could try Nashville? Music Row, or Broadway?”

Nico groans. “Oh, of course you wanna go hang out with all the goddamn hillbillies, you fuckin’ country boy –”

“It’s good music!”

Nico groans louder. Secretly, though, he watches his friend out of the corner of his eye, watches as his shoulders slump, relieved, and he knows he’ll spend as long as he needs in lasso-slingin’ Tennessee, following Will in and out of – barns and ranches and cowboy boot shops, probably. Are saloons still a thing?

He has a feeling that there is more to Will’s hesitance than a fear about being judged for his Marty Robbins obsession. If Tennessee is where he’s gonna get answers – well. He’ll brave the goddamn sea of cowboy hats.

A knock at the door startles them both. A voice calls hesitantly through the door: “Mr. di Angelo?”

“Wrong door, probably,” Will whispers after a moment. He looks to Nico. “Right?”

There’s another knock. “Mr. di Angelo?” 

“Yeah.” Nico rolls of the bed, landing on the floor with a grunt. “Another room with a Mr. di Angelo.”

He creeps towards the door, keeping low as if whoever’s outside can see him. After a moment, the bed creaks, and Will’s quiet footsteps pad behind him. 

“You think it’s room service?” Will whispers, plastered to the opposite side of the door. Even ducking, his hair brushes the edge of the peephole. 

Nico shoves his head down, pinching him when he squawks. “Be quiet, tall person, I need to see.”

“Get a stepstool then, jerk! Stop using my neck as a lever!”

“What part of be quiet are you missing! God!”

“Mr. di Angelo, please open the door.”

The voice on the other side of the door sounds amused. Face flaming, Nico shoves Will somewhere behind him, still bitching, and swings open the door. 

“Good afternoon,” says the man in the hallway. He’s dressed very smartly in a tailored black suit, nametag reading Eric. “Are you Mr. di Angelo?”

Nico clears his throat, trying to stand taller. “That’s me.”

“Good. I’m with Hotel Administration. We received a fax for you this morning?” He hands Nico a manilla folder. “First page says confidential, so we put it in the envelope. We tried to call this morning but didn’t get any response.”

Vaguely, Nico remembers a ringing phone. He also remembers yanking the plug out of the wall in sleep-deprived rage.

Oops.

Ignoring Will’s snickering, Nico thanks the man, closing the door and sitting on the nearest bed. Will scooches over to make room for him, tossing and catching a pillow. Nico leans back against the headboard, crossing his leg over Will’s.

“What’s in the envelope?”

“Checking now.”

The envelope is the cheap kind you get in a box of fifty; speckled brown, thin, machine-cut. It’s not sealed and so Nico flips it open easily, sliding out a small stack of papers. The first is a huge CONFIDENTIAL, printed diagonally across otherwise blank paper. The second is a bank statement. 

Nico shoots upright.

“What? Nico, what’s –”

“Mr. di Angelo, we regret to lose your business,’” Nico recites in a shaking voice, “‘but appreciate your time with us and wish you all the best with your future banking.’”

Frantically, he scans the document again. Successful cancellation. Expedited closure date. Transferred affairs to –

– parent account. 

“–co? Nico? Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

The air pushes out of Nico’s lungs like a crushed balloon. “Fuck.”

“Nico.” Warm hands press on his bloodless cheeks, fingers sliding in his hair. “Nico, look at me.”

He gasps. Will squeezes gently, eyes dark and stern and kind, thumbs callus-rough and dragging across his cheekbones.

“Good. Again. There you go, you got it.” 

Nico grabs his wrists when he tries to pull away. Will takes the hint, sliding his hands under Nico’s free one and knocking their shoulders together.

“What’s wrong, Nico?” 

Instead of answering, Nico sets the papers on the bed between them. Will squints, and for a second Nico prays that he’s wrong, that he’s mixed up the words. That it doesn’t say what it knows it does.

Then Will inhales, quick and sharp, and the hope is dashed.

“Your card…”

“Next page,” Nico says softly.

Niccolò,

The papers rustle as Will flips them, and this one he takes much longer to read. 

Vorrei sapere che ho fermato un caso di frode alla radice.

After a minute, he holds it out, shaking his head.

Un criminale ha rubato la tua carta di credito, e l’ha usata per comprare una stanza d’albergo in Georgia. Qualche spacciatore, non ci sono dubbi.

“It’s a little formal, I can’t –”

Ho disattivato la carta, naturalmente. Ti darò quella nuova appena ti vedrò.

Nico takes the scanned letter. Vaguely, he registers Will’s hands brushing up his arms as they move two wrap around his face again, this time forcing his jaw to unclench.

“Power play,” Nico snarls. His clenched fingers wrinkle the pulpy paper.  “He knows exactly where I am. If he wanted to drag me home, he could drag me by the fucking –”

“But instead he’s forcing you to call him,” Will says softly. “Oh, Nico, I’m so sorry.”

The hands drop from his face again. It knocks the cloudiness right out of Nico’s head, and he snaps up, frowning at Will’s crooking fingers, the bitten lips. He won’t meet Nico’s eyes.

“Why are you sorry my father’s being a haughty jackass who suddenly cares what I do with my time?”

“And his money.” Will picks up the bank statement, reading over it again, and again, like it might change. Like Nico’s credit card will magically become un-cancelled, like they will suddenly become un-stranded. “This whole stupid thing is my fault. I never should have dragged you into it, Neeks, I’m so –”

“If you apologise again I’m going to push you off the bed.”

“– sorry.” 

“Will.” Nico snatches back the statement, shaking his head. He waits until blue eyes meet his then smiles, as reassuringly as he can with such a pit in his stomach. “My father is –” He sighs. “It’s not about the money. You know he doesn’t care about the money.”

Will shrugs. It’s true – Nico has made dumber purchases. When he was twelve, he bought a trampoline, just to see if his father would say anything. Fifteen, marble statue. Sixteen, a car.

Then he stopped trying.

“How far can we go, on the gas we have? How many miles?”

Will shrugs. “Three and a half hours? Four, if we push it?”

“And on a full tank of gas?”

“Almost six.”

“And then we’re stuck.”

“And then we’re stuck, yeah. Unless you got Greyhound money hidden somewhere.”

Nico sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “That’s what he wants, Will. He doesn’t care about the – about the stupid money. He wants me. He wants me to ask, rather, to pick up a phone and beg him to come get us ‘cause we have no other options. He wants me to admit I need his help.”

The first time he ran away, he’d had to avoid every cop car. He knew he was being looked for, he saw his own face plastered on news screens. It had only been a matter of time. The second attempt was – easier. Much easier. He’d hardly even had to hide his face. By the third time, he’d waited a week, waited almost a month, before he was cold and hungry and walked to the nearest social services building himself. The car ride home, the humiliation so potent he could taste the bitterness of it, had made the cold, rainy nights with nothing but the same ratty hoodie he’d worn when he left worth it. He swore he’d never subject himself to that again. 

And yet here he is. 

Out of options. 

“You know what? No.” In a swift, unstoppable movement, Will snatches the stack of papers, ripping them into four pieces faster than Nico can reach an arm out to stop him. “We’re not doing this.”

“Will – what –”

He throws himself off the bed, stomping over to his backpack. A folded pair of socks goes flying over his shoulder, a book hits the ground with a heavy thunk. His muttering grows louder, cursing interspersed between every word.

“What are you –”

“We are not dealing with this right now.” With a frustrated finally, Will yanks a bag of something out of his backpack, stomping back towards the bed. He throws a Ziploc bag onto the duvet, and it bounces once, twice, three times before splitting open and spilling quarters everywhere.

“What the hell is –”

“You already payed for the room, right?”

Nico snaps his jaw shut. “Yes.”

“And it’s Saturday.”

“I – it is, yeah.”

“Not a business day.”

“No.”

“Well.” Will nods. “Bank’s closed. Hotel can’t process anything, and they have no reason to suspect your card, which worked just fine last night, is gonna bounce. We’ve got a day of breathing room, at least, and I don’t want to think about it.”

He holds up a hand when Nico starts to argue, grim set to his mouth giving way to something a little sharper, a little more dangerous. 

“We might not be old enough to gamble, but when you’re in Atlanta, you do as the Atlantians do.” He meets Nico’s eye, grinning. “You still any good Street Fighters?”

———

next chapter

[joowee-feftynn]

"You're going to brazil" isnt a threat, its an inevitable fact like carcinization. All roads lead to rome? Wrong. Brazil

Pedro Álvares Cabral arriving on Brazil thinking he'd end up in India:

[psychomusic]

so. I've been reading some posts on the jedi order tag AND i won't talk about my opinion on "are jedi good or bad discourse" BUT i wanna point out some lore to everyone who's complaining about the jedi taking kids into their order: (in the EU) it wasn't always like this.

if you take swtor era (more than 3000 years before the prequels) there were many jedi who joined at an older age. like, for example there was a guy who broke his engagement to become one. most jedi remember their families because they were old enough when they decided to go.

THEN in darth bane's book trilogy (circa 1000 yesrs before the prequels) there is a passage where two sith lords are talking about taking bane, already an adult, to study at korriban. one doubted him because he was too old, ans the other told him he sounded like a jedi, and that ONE DAY jedi will have to accept only kids into their ranks if they really want to find "pure" people that can learn their lessons quicker.

one day!! so it wasn't always like that!! the ongoing wars with the sith, who corrupted and killed many of them, had pressured them into taking always younger people into their ranks.

also, consider a thing that this video explains super well: training to become a jedi is not like exercising, because there is a transformative lesson at the end of the training that changes everything. you can't just do as much as you can, but not finish.

the transformative lesson, as the video explains, is that through the force, everything is the same - from rocks and ships to life and death. at the end of the training you have to understand this fundamental truth.

yoda says "you have to unlearn what you have learned". during times where they were constantly killed off or corrupted by the dark side (and if you haven't learned this lesson you are more susceptible to this corrupting), younger people were taken in to actually finish their training (a training that was ultimately about being a good person AND that you could leave at any point if you weren't sold on that, too)

(remember that for the sith failure = death. like. that was the alternative for force sensitive kids. it's not like sith had any moral problem with taking kids away without consent. sith don't have moral problems: they believe that them being stronger in the force means they can do whatever they want as long as their strong enough to go and do it. there are MANY passages in many different star wars stories, even in different mediums, that say this out loud)

AND (this is more of a critical thought than just stating the lore) the fact that they started doing it out of necessity doesn't mean it's 100% good BUT you know. the whole set up of the prequels is that we're starting off the story in a period of crisis and decadence all around. most of the systems of the times were about to fall. OF COURSE they had problems. if they didn't, we wouldn't have the story to begin with.

that doesn't automatically mean jedi = bad and sith are better, tho. you wouldn't take the last, chaotic and decadent period to jugde something, would you? it's like deciding that the athenian democracy sucked because people at the times of Demosthenes failed at recognizing the new schemes in which the world was evolving into, and still believed that their city would be important as it had been in the previous century. They just didn't fucking expect the Macedons would conquer half the world known and more, and have the subsequent political power. Still, their experiences in the 5th century with democracy were very good, even better than ours on many fronts, if you contextualize a little. the jedi had flaws, and most importantly, they didn't fucking know the future and everything that ever happened, ever, so they made mistakes. that doesn't automatically make the system ill, or bad, or not-working. systems can have setbacks when the world changes. (just like athenian democracy had one when they lost the empire that was funding the democracy. they even had a tyranny for a while and then fixed the problems. that doesn't diminish retrospectively their democracy)

[lorelune]

hello?? u cannot just say he would be smug and cooing!! ‘if i speak’ PLSSS SPEAK 🗣️

iiiiii just think milfy mommy jing yuan (specifically) loves domination that takes him little effort. getting you soft-eyed and mushy-brained enough to latch onto his tits for an half hour or more?? with not a single thought in your head?? it's both sooo sweet to him and like. a quiet satisfying power trip.

[faytelumos]

[Untitled, "Movie Night"]

Hello-hello, I got vampires on the brain.

Also, I have officially solved the vampire secret relationship drama. Bam. Fixed. Read below.

Also-also, I think I meant for this to be longer, but I read it again weeks later and I don't mind this ending where it does.

@asher-writes, @justalittleminishnamedmouse, @mr-orion, @rfallfish, @tildeathiwillwrite, @thelazywitchphotographer

contains: one single Blade spoiler

---

Sidekick flinched slightly at an unexpected, cold touch, looking down to see Villain pulling their hands away. "Sorry," they said, keeping their hands up and in view. Sidekick just sighed, relaxing back into the couch again, shifting their weight. They rested their feet once more on Villain's lap.

"No, it's alright," Sidekick said, grabbing another handful of popcorn from the bowl on the floor. "Just wasn't expecting it is all."

"Nervous?" Villain teased, their voice a purr. Sidekick laughed softly. Villain tickled their soles with cool fingers.

"Maybe," they joked. "I'm watching a scary movie, after all."

"Blade's not a scary movie," Villain snorted. Sidekick snickered.

"How many times have you seen this?" they asked, shooting Villain a look before cramming some salty popcorn in their mouth. Villain grinned down at them, their eyes gleaming in the dark living room.

"Too many times to count," they said. Sidekick huffed. They rested their head further back against the arm of the couch, stretching out and taking up the full length of the cushions. Villain sat straight and tall against the other arm, smiling, and once Sidekick settled down again, they began idly rubbing their socked feet.

Sidekick sighed, relaxing deeper, watching the movie. This was a nice change in pace. The public dating had been nerve-racking at times. They both looked very different outside of their costumes, but that somehow never put Sidekick at ease. This was better. More casual. More private. More… intimate.

"I can see where you get your costume inspiration from," Sidekick blurted. Villain snorted.

"I'm a product of my age," they said.

"When did this movie come out?" Sidekick lifted their head to look at Villain.

"Ninety-eight."

"Huh, I thought it was older," Sidekick said, looking to the TV again. Villain snorted.

"How old do you think I am?"

Sidekick looked down at Villain. In the dark, with only the light of the movie, Villain looked… a bit ghostly. Their eyes gleamed, and it looked just a little too bright to be a reflection from the screen. Sidekick raised an eyebrow.

"That's a trick question."

Villain grinned, and that smile sent pleasant chills fluttering across Sidekick's back. They were suddenly frustrated with the dim light, and how it kept them from seeing Villain's lips clearly. Simultaneously, it made their thoughts wander over Villain's body.

Sidekick laid their head down, tucking their face against the couch arm. They watched the movie intently as Villain rubbed their feet. The feeling of it danced the line between ticklish and painful. It was the most Villain had touched them in the months they'd been dating. Sidekick was sure those cool hands could do wonderful things. Magical things. Breath-stealing things. They stole a look away from Wesley Snipes' rolling muscles and dark skin to look at Villain, bathed in darkness right next to them. Villain was a sight to behold in costume, leather strapping and hugging across their body in all the right places. Hair wild. Bared arms glittering with blood and sweat in the moonlight. Now, they wore fuzzy pajama pants and a thin t-shirt. But their hair was still huge, and free, and thick, and soft-looking. And their eyes still gleamed. Sidekick realized with a start that Villain was still looking directly at them.

They looked back to the movie.

Sidekick stole glances at Villain now and then, but stopped when it seemed that Villain was watching them more than the movie. Sidekick shivered pleasantly when Villain moved on from their feet to their lower legs. They nibbled bits of popcorn in between remembering how to breathe and trying to focus on the movie.

"Okay," Sidekick blurted after awhile of silence between them. "Why is it that if a vampire is a good guy, they're automatically a daywalker?"

Villain laughed.

"Have you noticed that?!" Sidekick complained. "What's the deal with that? Getting to see the sun doesn't automatically mean you're a better person!" They got up on their elbow, debating throwing what little popcorn they had left at the screen.

"You're saying Hollywood assigns a morality to their nature?" Villain asked.

"They absolutely do," Sidekick said, and then ate their popcorn. "It's wrong. A nightwalker can be good, and a daywalker can be bad."

"A vampire can be good?" Villain asked.

"Yes!" Sidekick looked at them like it was an obvious question. "A vampire may be necessarily hyper-carnivorous, but it doesn't mean they're bad!" Villain huffed a small laugh. "It's how you choose to live. You can drink blood and be ethical about it, just like you can eat beef and be ethical about it."

"So you're saying vampires are just as moral as humans?"

"Yes. It's not different; vampires were humans once, and they don't lose their humanity by the action of being turned, they lose it when they choose to lose it."

"So a vampire can still be a good, trustworthy person? They can still be likeable?"

Sidekick looked at Villain, confused.

"Yes," they said. Villain was looking them in the eyes, now. Even in the dark, Sidekick could… feel it. Just as clearly as they felt Villain's cold hands laying on their legs.

Villain was staring at them. Deep into their eyes. Like they were talking about something very important, and not just a movie. Not just fiction. Villain's eyes gleamed, their always-cold hands flexed over Sidekick's sweatpants, and they were sitting… incredibly still. Incredibly perfect.

Sidekick narrowed their eyes. Then their eyes flew wide open, and they flinched up into a sitting position, sitting against the opposite side of the couch, staring back at Villain.

They only ever saw Villain at night. Villain was a shapeshifter who had very specific forms, and super strength. Their hands were always cold, they never got too close to Sidekick, their eyes were so bright despite the dark, and they had never actually seen them put more than water in their mouth on any of their dates—

"Woah," Sidekick whispered, looking down at the spilled popcorn bowl. They closed their eyes.

Staying at Sidekick's and watching Blade had been Villain's idea.

Because…

"You wanted me to know," Sidekick uttered. "But you wanted to know how I would react."

"Yes."

Sidekick dropped their face into their hands… and laughed. They laughed, and it was painful, like a dry cough. Because all they could think was thank God.

Thank God it wasn't them.

Thank God there was a reason Villain never kissed them.

Thank God their significant other had a reason to barely ever touch them or get intimately close to them.

"That's why you can't kiss me," Sidekick laughed, their voice rasping. The couch shifted as Villain moved. Closer.

"I haven't kissed you, yet," Villain hummed, "because… there are risks. To kissing me." Sidekick looked up, eyes wide, and didn't flinch when they saw that Villain was now on the cushion next to them, eyes shining in the dark. "And it would have been unforgivable of me to take those risks without explaining them to you, first."

"Risks?" Sidekick asked. Their eyes had already fallen to Villain's mouth, obscured by the dark. Villain nodded. "As in… life or death?"

"Oh, goodness, no," Villain said, and Sidekick smiled, laughing softly in relief. Villain shifted, and Sidekick thought they were pursing those soft-looking lips. "It is… very difficult for me to… not bite. When I am… excited."

Sidekick stared, a full-body shiver wracking them to the bone at the thought of Villain's teeth on their skin.

Villain leaned away slightly. Sidekick realized they were holding their breath and exhaled in a rush.

"But you wouldn't kill me?" Sidekick asked. Villain shook their head.

"No…" they said, "but, if I… consume your blood…"

They were both silent. Unfortunately, the movie was suddenly very loud. Villain looked down, found the remote under Sidekick's thigh, and grabbed it. Sidekick flinched at the near touch, their heart pounding. Villain met their eye, and Sidekick could hear their own breathing as they waited for Villain to explain.

"I would… feel you," they whispered in the new silence. "As long as your blood was inside of me, you wouldn't be able to hide from me." Sidekick gasped softly, cold blooming in their chest. "I would be able to find you in any crowd. I would be able to hear your heartbeat over a jet engine, and smell your scent from across the state."

Sidekick leaned back against the arm of the couch as Villain leaned closer. Sidekick was balling their fist into the waist of Villain's shirt before they knew it, trembling, their breathing ragged. Villain's back was to the TV now, and somehow, Sidekick could still find their eyes in the dark.

"That's the sexiest thing I've ever heard of," Sidekick mouthed. Villain huffed, a humorless little laugh, and Sidekick could taste their breath for the first time, sweet and musky. "You're telling me," Sidekick whispered, closing their eyes, "that I could be inside of you… and your body… would always feel me?"

The only sound in the room was the shifting of the couch and Sidekick's shallow breathing.

"Yes."

Sidekick rested both hands on Villain's waist. They were close. They were sharing a couch cushion now. Sidekick wondered how they smelled to Villain. Wondered if they could taste Sidekick's want on their tongue.

Sidekick felt the brushed of a cold, sweet breath across their lips. They shivered, then leaned forward and up.

Villain's lips were colder and softer than Sidekick had expected. They flinched back, just slightly, and Villain moved away a fraction of an inch. Sidekick grabbed Villain's waist in both hands, holding tightly, and kissed Villain harder.

Villain's hands were on the couch, somewhere on the back and the arm, off of Sidekick's body. Villain opened their mouth, and Sidekick met them halfway, stealing tastes and pulling Villain closer. Villain's cold body was pressing nearer, and Sidekick was vaguely aware of the knee between their thighs now.

Somehow, Sidekick knew they would have to push. Knew that Villain would try to play it safe. So Sidekick was the one who broke the kiss to taste their way along Villain's jaw and down the side of their neck.

Finally, mercifully, Villain grabbed the back of Sidekick's neck. A sound not unlike a growl rolled out of Villain's throat as Sidekick pulled them close and sucked their skin.

"You have no idea what that feels like," Villain all but whimpered. Sidekick's breath stuttered with the jolt of pleasure those words gave them.

"Then show me," Sidekick gasped, tilting their chin up in offering. The jolt of a thrill down their spine when Villain's breath cooled their throat was pure lightening. Sidekick shivered and melted back into the couch at the feeling of a cool, slick tongue sliding up their throat.

"Be prepared to stop me," Villain whispered, breathless. Sidekick could feel every sound on their wet skin, and it made breathing normally impossible. "I think I might get too enthusiastic about you."

[npdkondraki]

frankly 80% of the rewrite plot could be solved had wyatt done his fucking job* (*making sure theresa wasnt doing some fuckshit with moore and making sure he was safe & cared for properly so that he didnt just straight up fucking kill himself (did not work) (he killed himself) (he lived but he did in fact kill himself) (like at least 4 times) (countless other times if you count willingly taking on fatal injuries to save others)) instead of being too busy like. tormenting pat with his viruses that he kept getting for downloading weird niche gay porn on his company laptop. or whatever he was doing