#the absence of chaos

[restandbloom]

Happiest of Birthdays to my favorite ginger, quidditch playing, baddass witch/woman/mother

✨🍻🌻🍰🌞✨

📸 credit @ harryjamespotter (of course)

For my birthday weekend (this weekend) we’re doing an hp marathon and eating all the yummy wizarding world treats. Honestly, what more could a girl ask for ✨

[hmsdoodlin]

Do y’all remember that post that talked about Be Born being a solo song and not a duet?

I believe the original theory was that it’s Minds real voice shining through the deep synthetic one, but a good friend gave me another theory and it keeps shooting me in the face every time I listen to this song.

What if it’s not Minds ‘true’ voice, but an imitation of Hearts? He’s replicating Hearts voice and singing as him to prove that he can handle doing Hearts ‘job’ for him as well as to mock him.

“I can do the same things you do but better.” Type of thing. He’s quite literally taking over Hearts responsibilities, including his voice.

And then she threw another idea at me……. What if he does it because he misses Hearts voice in apathy and subconsciously copes by singing with it. I KNOW IT SOUNDS CRAZY BUT- There’s so much potential….. if you’re interacting every waking day with someone you’re bound to remember their habits and speech patterns. He tries to relish in the silence but after a while he can’t help but imagine Heart joking with him or complaining about something stupid. Instead of the voice being inside his head….. it comes out of the voice modulator unintentionally. What if he has full on conversations with himself with Hearts voice after a while. What if it distorts his perception of reality and that even in exile he can’t escape him. What if it furthers his hatred of Heart, what if it drives him farther away from Soul because he can’t let himself be perceived as ‘flawed’. Chat what if he’s suffering in his safe space, his mind. GUYS DO YOU SEE THE VISION.

(Gonna write a one shot like this one day trust)

What if you tried to kill me and my grief manifested into an unhealthy coping mechanism that my logical mind was not programmed to handle and it tormented me until you returned home.

[nephriteknight]

okay i've talked about this in tags and stuff before but i want to really break down the dorian - ashton dynamic, because it's so interesting. there are a lot of ways in which dorian and ashton are perfectly opposed, and there are also a lot of ways that they're deeply similar, and something about it is just fascinating to me.

they're both genasi, but one is air and one is earth. one was born into wealth and privilege, while the other spent most of their childhood in an orphanage in bassuras, and yet they both have very complex feelings about their parentage and their birthright and the power that comes with it. they're both frontline fighters who started c3 with the same strength score, but ashton uses a massive hammer and chaotic, uncontrollable powers, while dorian uses bardic flourishes and precise spells. ashton was abandoned by the closest thing they had to family, while dorian was the one to leave his own family. ashton is -2 charisma covered up with brashness and projected confidence, while dorian is +3 charisma but too nervous to use it effectively half the time. they both end up being treated as a sort of leader in their parties, much to their own surprise. dorian is this inexperienced, sheltered prince seeing the world for the first time, and ashton is frequently the voice of reason in bells hells, the one who knows how the real world works ("does no one crime?", reminding them that their actions will have consequences for others, pointing out that leaving someone to die is not actually better than killing them by hand).

in exu, dorian tells lolth that he would do anything to protect his friends, even if it would hurt others, and he meant it so deeply that his alignment changed from chaotic good to chaotic neutral. he got into an argument with orym because he wanted them to keep lolth's circlet, a decision influenced by his family history with power and responsibility. and now ashton took the shard, searching for power, motivated by the longing for his parents and his birthright and it is such a juicy parallel.

it's "i would do anything for my friends" vs "we don't leave anyone behind".

the first kiss of the campaign is dorian kissing ashton's cheek after the ratanish fight as an excuse to get close enough to heal him and tell him "we need you". ashton curses quietly when he realizes dorian has to go with cyrus. "to dorian, who is leaving us for his stupid brother. what the fuck is up with that." ashton says dorian is "our bag of dicks".

they're just so interesting. they're such interesting contrasts, both symbolically and in their characters, and i really hope that when (don't say 'if' it's gotta be a 'when' i am clinging to this) dorian comes back their relationship gets explored more.

[unicornofthesun13]

Unless I missed something... do we still not know Brooklynn's surname???? The fanfic writer in me cannot handle this

[boasamishipper]

emily emily there’s a new empire article on final reckoning that describes degas and paris as “two battering rams who can run all day” THOUGHTS

I KNOW I'M OBSESSED

[cheruv-ii]

Summary:Isla Nublar had burned, along with all the dinosaurs on it, including a certain Ankylosaurus.

Ratings:General, animal death warning, lotsa angst

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Snippet Thursday

I'm revamping Demolition Trio a little because I decided the boys needed a second dog 😆

It was still a novelty for all three of them, waking to find that someone had saved food for them. Not just saved, but prepared! Mar scrambled into the antechamber that connected his room to his father's, racing to the table with an excited trill. Jak and Daxter, by contrast, stumbled and shuffled their way in like sleepwalkers. Daxter's head thudded into the table and he groped blindly for the tiny cup of coffee that Sig had set out for him.

This was a point of great contention between him and Damas. Damas was of the opinion that having an animal body meant caffeine was bad for Daxter. Sig, on the other hand, insisted that dark eco only altered the outer form, not the internal structure, seeing as Daxter didn't get sick from drinking alcohol. These debates usually ended with Sig insisting firmly that Damas trusted his judgment regarding "his" rookie.

Jak picked up a tin cup and squinted at his warped reflection.

"Do I have a mark on my forehead?" he asked Damas, yawning, "Tell me honestly."

Damas liked half-awake-Jak. He wasn't reserved or feigning disinterest and bravado. In fact, he seemed to lack any sense of ranks, titles, or even that they were relative strangers to each other, early in the morning. Jak seemed to act on an instinctive trust -- a deeply encouraging sign. He acted like the child he was, or should have been, when he wasn't fully awake.

So Damas leaned forward and brushed hair from Jak's forehead to look.

"Well, let me see. I don't see...ah. That almost looks like a bruise. Have an encounter with the doorframe on your way to breakfast?"

Jak grumbled. "Had an encounter with somebody's tiny foot in the middle of the night. And nobody's confessed yet."

With a sympathetic chuckle, Damas poured a cup of coffee and passed it to his elder son. "Well if a bruise forms, you can match it to the suspects and find your culprit that way," he suggested teasingly.

"Nooo!" Jak groaned and batted his hand away. "It'll look stupid!"

Mar reached for a slice of hydromelon and took a huge bite. With juice dripping down his hands and chin, he signed, "I don't think it was me! Because I was sleepin' and that's how come."

"Dude, have you seen how you sleep?" Jak demanded.

Mar frowned. "No? Because I was sleepin!"

The force of the laugh he was suppressing left Damas wheezing. He reached over to tousle both boys' heads at once. "You're a mess; I love you," he snorted.

Mar beamed, dripping and sticky. Jak made a sound like a broken fog horn and plastered the coffee cup to his face. It wasn’t likely that he knew the statement had been aimed at them both.

Give it time, Damas told himself, Don’t be impatient. Let him adjust. Let him learn to trust kindness before you expect him to understand.

Having someone else be responsible for cleaning up a four year old barbarian who shunned forks made life much easier, in Daxter's opinion. Unfortunately for him, Mar appeared to miss his quality time tormenting Daxter. The moment Damas had finished fighting him out of his sticky pajamas, the little boy leaned on the table next to Daxter with a wide grin.

"Daz."

One of the only four words he liked to say aloud. "Da" for Damas, "Za" for Jak, "Ih" for Sig, and "Daz" for Daxter. And hearing it in that tone always heralded trouble.

"Ye-esss?" Daxter peered over the rim of his cup to eye the sticky toddler suspiciously.

"Daxxer, wanna help me make a tower today?" Juice sprayed from his fingers with each sign, dripping down Daxter's face.

Right in front of the world's most intimidating dad. Like he actually had the option to say no. Dangit, the kid was picking up Daxter's tricks a little too well. Grinning weakly, he sighed, "uh...sure, pal. After you put on clothes."

Damas snorted. "You're not obligated to babysit, Daxter. But I would appreciate someone keeping an eye on him for a few minutes. I need Jak's help with something."

Jak frowned. "You do?"

Possibilities raced through his head. Marauders? Storms? Reassembling the cheap set of drawers Daxter and Mar demolished while "racing" said drawers down a set of stairs?

He didn't expect to be taken to a bookshelf in Damas’s chamber, and shown a hidden door. This was obviously something he didn't want Mar seeing. Why was he bringing Jak?

"Do you trust me, son?" Damas asked abruptly.

"Um...I mean, yeah?" Jak mumbled. He tried not to cling to the word son too tightly. Tried not to think of Sig gently telling him "You have a family too, if you want it."

"Good." Damas stepped into a hidden elevator and beckoned him in. "There's something I want to give you. I think it will be a great benefit to your fight the next time you visit Haven."

Visit. Huh. Jak was just starting to notice that Damas went out of his way to avoid talking about Haven like Jak lived there. It was just a place he visited. He seemed to want to think Spargus was Jak’s home -- and he probably wanted Jak to think that, too.

The lift deposited them in a cavern, filled with the echoing bays of hounds, and Jak suddenly had an idea of what Damas meant.

Now, Jak hadn't been familiar with crocadogs before meeting Mar. And until Sig told him they used to be battle-mounts, he'd just assumed Chopper wouldn't get much bigger than a Lurker Hound.

Chopper’s mother was much.

Much.

Much larger than a Lurker Hound.

She had to be eleven hands at the shoulder, with a head approximately as broad as the jet board. The half grown pups around her leaped and bayed, snapping powerful jaws the moment they spotted Damas. For just a moment, Jak's steps faltered. Why would Damas bring him down here? Didn't Sig say Ghost hated anyone who wasn't Damas?

"Ghost!" Damas whistled sharply and held out a hand.

Ghost surged out of the shallow pool like a tidal wave, bounding up the incline in less than three steps. She pulled up short, seating herself expectantly in front of Damas with a stern "WURF!"

Damas cocked his head at Jak. "Well?"

He placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him forward a step.

"Go on, let her get your scent."

The next thing Jak knew, he was flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him. Roughly 400 pounds of pure muscle pinned him down while he was nearly deafened by excited barking. Ghost licked his face, wurf-ing and digging her cold nose into his neck.

"Gah-!" Jak shoved the huge head to the side, laughing. "Gross! Knock it off, girl!"

Looking oddly smug, Damas clicked his tongue. "Ghost, off," he commanded.

The massive predator whined and blinked sad brown eyes at him, and he laughed. "Oh? Is Jak one of yours now?"

"Wurf!"

"Now dear, we've been over this: four-legged pups are yours, two-legged pups are mine."

"Harroof!"

"Well, alright. Chopper was an exception. You needed a break."

He clicked his tongue again.

"Don't break Jak. You're not a lap dog, you know. Go on, there's a good girl."

Reluctantly, Ghost moved and let Jak sit up. He wiped the slobber from his face with a good-natured groan and looked up just in time to see the two largest juveniles bounding toward him. He had time to widen his eyes and mumble an expletive, then the dogs crashed into him.

"Ack!" Jak hit the ground for the second time as two male pups yipped and whined, apparently intent on physically merging with his torso.

"You gotta be kidding me-"

Damas stroked Ghost’s ears fondly and grinned. "Those are Chopper’s brothers, Rip and Tear. They've never been as interested in people as Chopper, Snap, and Maw. I thought for sure Maw was going to be the first one up here."

The smug look returned, crinkling his eyes at the corners.

"Obviously they recognize family."

"Which -- ow, watch the paws! -- which one is which?" Jak wheezed.

"Good question." Damas squinted at the tornado of scales and fur. When this yielded no clarity, he reached out and collared the nearest dog to hand to get a good look at him.

"Ah. This one is Tear. He's got suction cup scars across his chest from an ill-advised scrap with a squid."

Jak managed to push himself into a sitting position, sending the other pup flopping across his legs. Well. Clearly standing up was out of the question for the moment. He reached out and traced Tear's scars.

"Poor guy," he sympathized. "Did you win, though?"

"His mother did," Damas answered, "and one can only hope he's learned to choose his battles a little better."

Tear wriggled free of Damas’s grip and pounced on his brother, instigating a short-lived game of chase before nipping playfully at Ghost. Ghost was not amused. With a gentle warning growl, she headbutted the rambunctious juvenile, sending him tumbling. In an almost sulky posture, Tear decided to redirect his play-aggression to his more interested sisters. Rip, meanwhile, circled back to Jak again and clamped his jaws around one of Jak's gauntlets. With a quick shake of his head, he ripped the glove off of the boy's hand and bounced into a play bow, tail thrashing expectantly.

"Rip!" Damas scolded, "Drop it!"

"Wh- hey!"

Rip did not drop it.

The second Jak stood up, the young crocadog bounced again and took off running. With a shout of dismay, Jak scrambled after him. Damas patted Ghost’s side and took a far more sedate pace down to the edge of the pools to check on the other pups. He could hear Jak’s complaints beginning to lapse into laughter behind him. Good. He hadn't forgotten how to play.

"Good luck back there," Damas called, "I haven't had the opportunity to run the dogs in a day or two. Rip has a lot of energy to get out."

[clownwrites]

Havik × Reader blurb

GN/No reader pronouns used/angst/soft

The underside of your nails become caked in dirt as your fingers dug into the soil you leaned against, the same mud staining the fabric at your knees. You anticipated this bizarre show when Havik offered to fight you, as a means to prepare you.

"For war" he says. "For revolution!"

As you stood, almost immediately you needed to dodge another swing, having pulled off his own arm to use as a weapon, he'd dramatically spin and fling blood from its draining arteries. The drops would hit your cheek feeling cold, it worried you but not as much as it addled you with adrenaline. Havik swung his arm back into his shredded socket and healed it over, as if such a talent wouldn't have consequences.

"You're too calculated!" He yelled, frustration painting an already callous voice "your fights would take too long, they'd know what you're doing and match it!"

The goal was to teach you something about fighting chaotically, to make it painful for ‘oppressors’ to fight you every second.

"Not like I can rip my hand off and slap them with it." You'd argue, but the Siadan just turned back to you from his wild pacing and chuckled "don't doubt yourself" he'd assure

"many beasts chew off the limb caught in the trap."

You would not find that in yourself, the stability that molded you, ingrains itself in the seams of your skin. You'd meet his hysteria with carefully tread kindness. Havik growled "if you're not with me, then you're against me!"

It was his only fall back argument, something to draw you back into a destructive trap he called freedom.

"Oh but that's not true!" You'd promise, though he knew your words, he cared little to hear them; "I want everything that you want. I just want it differently."

The chaos realmer pulled you in by the collar threateningly, he couldn't deny your loyalty, a consistency within you that was shared to Havik. It had filled him with a sense of security but anger lingered still where your warmth denied his martyrdom. Teeth would press against the skin of your face, his gums and scars cool with a damp stickiness, where his breath had clung to it from riotous anger and blood.

You awkwardly shuffled to find comfort in the tight embrace of his knuckles, the skin of your neck barely pinched between the twisted fabric of your collar. Your eyes then met, as you tried to focus on the color of his to ignore the pungent smell and wetness of his nose against your cheek, A deep rumbling could be heard from his chest. Your hands sliding up either of his arms to meet his neck, tenderly showing your promises through warm fingers tracing the scars that swirled there.

"You don't fear me…"

He says this solemnly, his tongue twisting in unique ways, just barely visible behind crooked teeth to make the words. If his voice didn't betray him, his brows surely did, deep wrinkles that scared his forehead unfolding when the gentleness of your hands stayed.

And then his grip; A vise that softened and rested at the traps of your shoulders when he pulled away slightly to hide there just the same, his lashes fluttering closed against the skin of your neck as relief weaved itself between the both of you.

"I'm afraid of what you'll do" you assured, "but not of you." As your hands spread over the back of his neck, fingers then played with fine dark hairs that grew there when you leaned into his melted ear and whispered in silvery voice

"never of you."

[grains-of-time]

Being an alter who basically IS source itself is like being isekai'd but instead of going to some other cool world I'm just chilling in a random body which is mentally unstable and has the most boring existence Watch me leave after 7 years and go back to being a demon overlord in hell /ref

[restandbloom]

Okay kids, I did it. CHAPTER SIX is finally HERE!!! I’m too tired to post the proper link, I’ll post that later, but you can find the story at In My Garden on ao3. ENJOY. I need to go take a nap 😌🌞🌿✨

[daily-rayless]

Happy Birthday to our favorite wolf-riding, chainsaw-wielding princess, Sapphire Rhodonite from Disgaea 3.

[vex-00]

[Cookie Run Kingdom spoilers]

I have not played this game in a very long time, but I still enjoy the character designs very much. I feel terrible for this girl, I really do.

[axiseart]

Portrait of my oc Lethe Thorneblood.

[aleki-lives-here]

I am entirely convinced that most of my cooking hinges on the right order of panicked prayers to all the gods and fictional characters I can think of.

I am sure that the only reason this recipe worked was that I started it with praying to Xie Lian, then stopped and in a fit of panic tried to find anyone else to pray to because what the fuck is this it looks completely inedible there needs to be some huge divine intervention for this to work at all oh gods someone please this needs to be saved oh gods oh gods oh gods. and then back to praying to Xie Lian because there is no hope in this world but he may at least save me from dying of food poisoning. that's all i ask from a meal, after all, to not kill me with food poisoning. please let it not kill me with food poisoning i swear there'll be no weird experiments for a day after that i swear i'll stick to normal recipes for the time being please spare me.

And then it turned out to be the tastiest way to fry eggs I've ever tried! Like genuinely great food! Even if it looked like somebody had already tried to eat it and threw it back up. And I am completely alive and well and want more of it!

It's the prayers. It's definitely the prayers and the panic and some higher being taking pity on me. That's the only logical explanation for my cooking process that I will accept.

[mr007pennyworth]

Alfred: "So replies today?"

Mun: *sighs* "Yesterday when I was ready you were all 'meh' and today you want to replies and I haven't got my shit together...help me finish this kitchen damn it or we'll never get to do them"

Alfred: *picks up a shelf* "I didn't think it would take this long for a kitchen to be refitted..."

Mun: "Well, when my old man gets tired after simply helping put screws on something and has to sit down every half an hour and mother has everything to do including going to the pub with her mates, BUT help me, it's my job apparently to put the shelfs in and put everything back in here... whilst working full time during the week...trust me this has been a JOB"

Alfred: "How many cupboards have you done?"

Mun: "Five...*starts cleaning another cupboard* "Just eight more to go...but three of them I need mum to decide what is going on them before I can put stuff in them...else she'll bitch about it and I'll end up doing it again"

Alfred: "It's your parents house...why are they not...helping?"

Mun: "There boomers...and I'm an apparently 'spoilt, avocado on toast eating' millennial who is lazy according to the media and has to do the labour because 'Mr I got up at 5am to go to my engineering apprenticeship' is no longer in service if it requires him to be out of his armchair for more than ten minutes" *huffs*

Alfred: *chuckles* "I'll fetch Gareth...or shall i just order lunch?"

Mun: "Get me pizza and we can do replies once I've put all these *looks at the several bags of tins and jars* ...this lot in the cupboard...ugh"

Alfred: *leaves*

Mun: "ADULTING SUCKS"

[kazeofthemagun]

On the subject of Kaze and memory.

I imagine the damage Chaos caused to his mind is even more traumatic to him considering he used to have near flawless memory, recalling even small details with ease - a very useful trait for a warrior general to possess. Of course, he still possesses a very sharp and analytical mind with the ability to make split second decisions under pressure and efficiently optimize the knowledge he takes in, being an exceedingly resourceful and intelligent person.

For the majority of his life, Kaze could only really depend on himself, being extremely introvered even to his clanmates and very unwilling to show weakness of any kind in fear of it being exploited. Growing up in this manner made him a very self-reliant person; To a fault, of course, because he still has issues accepting help. Now this is the very quality that further exacerbates the psychic wounding he suffered during the first Sealing of Chaos.

As an independent (and distrustful) person, Kaze is used to relying primarily on his own judgement, and the judgement of his Missionary partner Moogle Kupo - with a memory damaged as badly as it still is, he can no longer trust his own mind to correctly (or at all) recall crucial data. With the entirety of three years' worth of living with Kumo wiped from his brain, he initially panicked when learning the truth, impulsively accusing his Other of lying. Kaze is subconsciously terrified of being gaslit (or gaslighting himself) due to Chaos previously messing with his memories to the point of making him 100% convinced Kumo murdered his family. This was, of course, false - but the thing is, he truly could not tell at the time.

Combating a deity which can actively rearrange and outright delete parts of one's mind and soul is a daunting task, one that continues to exact its toll on both of the Unlimited - with Kaze's price for the Sealing being damage to his mind, and Kumo's to his soul. As a result, the gunmage's own strength was turned against him, making him doubt the one thing that had nigh never failed him before.

Whether or not he can ever regain his missing memories, the time to live is the present, and he must make do with what he has or fall. It is also an exercise in trust and depending on another, in this case Kumo, which comes easier now that Kaze knows Kumo would not weaponize his memory gaps against him.