#I'm in desperate need for a brotp tag

[raayllum]

i desperately need your sweetest headcanons of ez and rayla being Siblings

Mandatory Rayla&Ezran brotp tag drop here & first some rambly meta cause like, a lot of this is based on the concept(s) of Ezran and Rayla fundamentally being more like each other than either of them are like Callum

Like they both grew up friendless (whereas Callum seems to have a lot more ease in actually interacting with new people & I've always HC'd him having less friends out of choice, cause those potential ppl didn't get along wit his brother) and feeling perpetually different, they both (like Claudia) take on their parents' previous paths and feel the weight of it. They also tend to have a lot of similar esque insecurities and hangups ("I feel like I'm letting everyone down" 3x03 —> "I failed them, I let them all down" 3x04 / "It's not fair you have to go through this alone" 5x02 —> "I knew I had to be strong alone" in 5x04 / self blame tendencies with "You knew? I'm an idiot! I should've figured it out" 2x08 —> "Ugh, I'm such an idiot. I should've figured it out" 1x09) and are both very much bleeding hearts. They're also willing to pivot away from prior missions (bringing Zym home) for causes they see as more worthy in a lot of ways — going home to rule (the individual collective) and freeing Phyrrah (the individual stranger) — even if that separates them from others and/or puts them more at risk, cause they're just loyal to causes and ideals and self-imposed responsibilities tethered to those concepts like that? I love them

Like they both are like Callum — Ezran is emotionally open and inclined towards vulnerability, like him, which Rayla is not, and Callum and Rayla, esp in arc 1, take on responsibilities that Ezran do not & all their stuff with adoptive dads and communication etc etc. — but they're also more similar to each other than they are to him. More on that here & here + bonus S5 hammering that in more than ever (Rayla going with Ezran's plan in 5x05 anyone?)

Now onto the actual headcanons

Rayla doesn't have a lot of patience for games (cards, chess, etc.) and will be a sore loser/give up when playing with just about anyone else (including Callum) but she can never say no to Ezran over it, and he's so earnest/having such a great time she can never be a total grump when they do play games together

Ezran is the one who primarily took care of her Shadowpaw, for obvious reasons, in the castle stables until she returned, hence why sweetie pie was waiting for her & ready for the Lux Aurea trip

The little archangel lunaris on his backpack was absolutely chosen with her in mind <3

Both Rayla and Ezran possess an abundance of faith in other people, and this is shown best when they're being supportive of or defending one another ("She'll know what to do" —> "He can do this, we have to believe in him" —> "She's alive. And wherever she is, she loves you too")

Rayla weaving a little braid into his hair and having Ezran weave one into hers as well because braids are for love and family, and they are certainly both to one another

This shitpost, which is really just them getting stuck on and continually adding to dumb bits for each other to laugh at

Playing pranks back and forth on Soren and sometimes on Callum

Mostly they just tag team chores like "making sure Callum has eaten and slept and left his study recently" / keeping their favourite mage out of his head

Rayla giving Ezran stealth lessons and Ezran having Rayla bake jelly tarts with him

They always insist on being on the same team when it comes to snowball fights at the Banther Lodge

Ez loves to infodump about certain things and Rayla loves to let him, especially since his trains of thought and ramblings are a bit easier for her to follow than his brother's (most of the time)

Rayla having Ezran teach her how to notice things about illusion animals so she can have an easier time telling the difference (Soren teases her about it and she socks him in the stomach)

This isn't really so much of a headcanon as it is a canon observation but in battle sequences Callum doesn't really usually focus (outside of when he's using said magic to protect Ezran) on getting Ezran away from the danger, instead trusting Rayla to do so — and she always does (1x06, 1x08, 1x09, 2x04, 5x09)

Because she's just his friend and not his subject (or for now, an official member of his council the same way), Ezran finds himself seeking out when he just needs to have dumb kid fun, and Rayla is always down to help him

On that note she's very good at knowing when he needs space vs when he's okay being fussed over (Callum, Opeli) and telling people that even when he may not be able to express it himself because non-verbal times / feeling overwhelmed

Whenever they go on roadtrips in the future, Rayla does her best to bring special snacks around for him (and teach him how to forage, which animals can help him with too)

Eventually when Ezran is a little older, Soren needles him about learning how to defend himself, and Ezran dreads having to hold a sword and initially refuses. But Rayla plops down beside him and talks him through it and reaffirms that they just always want to make sure he's safe, and that's what gets him to come around to the idea

Ezran and Rayla both being physically affectionate people — Rayla slinging her arm along his shoulders, Ezran often grabbing her hand as a sign of support (most often the one she was going to lose to the binding) and squeezing gently, like a reminder that they're both still here and everything's okay and/or going to be alright

Rayla tears up when she realizes that Ezran is finally taller than her, much to his mild annoyance and amusement

Ezran helps Rayla with her proposal to Callum, and does not tell her (or his brother) that Callum is also planning to propose lmao

[stuckwith-harry]

Hide-and-seek

A/N: Oh, to be a chicken in times like these. (CW for discussion of death, nothing graphic.)

In the chicken shed it might as well still be the eighties, as though time had only gone on for the humans living in the house on the other side of the fence, but not in here, where the hens are quietly clucking and cooing and enjoying their naps, until Ginny shakes a handful of lettuce in the air like an invitation, a beckoning – then they come hurrying towards her, beaks tearing greedily at the green leaves.

When the hens have had their fill, Ginny looks over the gaggle of bickering ladies and finds her favourite amongst them, Genoveva with her warm brown feathers and clever eyes, who yells and shrieks when Ginny lifts her up by her impossibly soft belly, crouching down in the chicken shed, and pulls the disgruntled hen to her chest.

“Look, I’ll make it up to you”, Ginny tells her quietly. She fishes sweetcorn out of the front pocket of her dungarees and holds her open palm out to Genoveva, not flinching or grimacing when the sharp beak leaves little red marks on her skin as the hen gulps down her treat.

Ginny smiles.

The summer after her first year, she climbed into the chicken shed every day. She was soothed, then, by the arrhythmic clucking and the smell of fresh hay and the fact that the hens allowed her to share their company, that they did not recoil in horror at her sight.

It was her that named them, while she sat here for hours and hours with a chicken in her lap, more often than not Genoveva, who, for all her complaining, was easily the most patient of the bunch, and who nestles into her lap now, blinking slowly in the twilight while Ginny strokes her feathers, the burning inside her ribcage dull and pulsating like that of an infected wound.

Like it was her that took the damn Killing Curse to the chest.

“You’ve no idea how lucky you are”, she mutters, meeting Genoveva’s sharp eyes. “Nothing in those little heads of yours except earthworms and soft hay.”

She sits there for ages and ages like she did that summer, willing the comfort of the soft animal to sink into her like warmth. When she finally gets up to leave the chickens be, she tosses the rest of the sweetcorn into the hay (Genoveva looks utterly betrayed), fills up the grains in the feeder, and climbs out of the shed with the smell of warm feathers and wheat straw still in her nose.

“Chicken-feeding duty?”, calls a voice from near the house as she swings her bare legs over the wooden fence and strolls back towards the Burrow. When she looks for the voice’s owner, she discovers Ron, sitting on the weathered bench below the kitchen window.

“What’re you doing out here?”, she calls out as she comes closer.

“Hiding”, he says dully. “Mum’s crying again.”

Ginny feels something inside her chest take a tumble. “Is anyone with her?”

“Yeah, I’m not that much of a dickhead. Dad and Percy and Bill are all in there.”

“You’re not a dickhead”, Ginny says automatically, surprising them both. Then: “Mind if I stay?”

He shrugs. “Be my guest.”

So she sinks on the bench beside him, joining him in his grim silence. They gaze aimlessly over the soft green hills all around, the shape of the lake like a blue thumbprint in the landscape, where they whiled away so many happier, warmer days than this, and Ottery St. Catchpole’s mismatched roofs in the distance, smoke rising from the chimneys.

Ron finally looks over at her. “Were you with the chickens this whole time? I thought you’d grown out of your obsession with them.”

Ginny musters up a grin. “Never. I love those stupid hens. That was just an elaborate ruse so I could hide in the chicken coop when we used to play hide-and-seek. It never occurred to any of you to look.”

“Well, you stopped growing at about five feet, I figure you fit right in.”

Ginny whacks him in the knee. In a true testament to the severity of the situation, Ron does not retaliate.

She tells herself it’s that, not how much they aged him, the few short months that he was gone.

It’s less blatant now that Mum has shorn back the unkempt mop of hair that was falling into his eyes and growing down the back of his neck like wild weeds when he walked through the secret entrance of the Room of Requirements with Harry and Hermione; now that he’s shaved the patchy stubble on his cheeks and his face has regained a little fullness. But sometimes she still looks at him and wonders how ten years have not passed since she watched him slip away into thin air at Bill and Fleur’s wedding.

“Did anything happen?”, she asks. “With Mum?”

Ron shrugs, expression blank. “Some fool said his name again. I never noticed how rarely we actually said the twins’ individual names until we had to break the habit of saying Fred-and-George all in one go. It’s like he’s Voldemort.”

Ginny doesn’t laugh.

“I know”, she mutters. “Don’t think it’ll ever come naturally.”

He nods mechanically. “Anyway – I made a run for it. I just couldn’t do it right then, having to comfort her and everything.”

Ginny looks over at him. “Funny, you’re so good at it.”

“You just say that because I make the best tea.”

“Well, you do.”

The same way that children can recognise each of their family members by the sound of their footsteps as heard through a wall, or the rhythmic pattern with which they knocked on the door, the Weasley siblings have learned to read each other’s silences since they’ve come home. Often now, they appear at each other’s bedroom doors at all hours of the night, shaken from nightmares or too restless to sleep or, rarely, weeping.

Most nights, two or three or four of them eventually find themselves in the kitchen, where Ginny turns on the lights, and Ron puts on the kettle, and they sit there and while away the small hours in each other’s company, in silence, in quiet understanding, in murmured chatter about nothing at all.  It’s good comfort, the idea that even after everything, there’s nothing in this world that a hot cup of tea can’t fix.

Ginny shifts on the bench next to him, pulling her knees to her chest. “Remember when that fox got one of the hens? I was inconsolable, and you were so nice to me when we put her in a shoebox and buried her behind the house, you didn’t even make fun of me.”

“You lot are different, that’s easy. I just can’t take it when it’s our parents.”

Ginny hums in understanding. “I think seeing Dad cry was worse for me. At the memorial.”

“Cheers, thanks for bringing it up again.”

She snorts.

“You’re good with Harry”, she says softly. “D’you miss him at all?”

He rolls his eyes. “He just sleeps two floors below me, it’s not like he died.”

Ginny winces.

Ron does not miss the look on her face or the heaviness of her silence, as they have all learned to do, and asks in an unnaturally light tone: “How’re you coping with him waking up three times a night?”

He seems relieved, for a moment there, when she smirks.

“It’s not too bad, actually. At least he makes for a great pillow.”

Ron looks appalled. “What the hell happened to the camp bed?”

“Oh, we just keep that around for decoration now.” She grins, comforted by the opportunity to tease him. “And he doesn’t wake up as much anymore.”

His face lights up. “That’s good news, at least. Lead with that next time.”

“Oh, he’s just … stopped going to sleep altogether.”

“That really solves that problem”, he says darkly. “The idiot.”

“I don’t think it’s purposeful”, she says. “He’s always pretending to be asleep when I look at him, but I can always tell. And when he does doze off, I’ll just stir next to him, and that’s enough to wake him up again.”

“He’s a really light sleeper these days”, Ron says apologetically. “The worst camping trip in the world will do that to a person.”

Ginny grins faintly. “Yeah, he’s mentioned it.”

“He’s talking, then?”

“Hm-hm.” She wraps her arms a little tighter around her legs. “Which is good, I guess.”

He watches her for a minute, as though unsure what to make of her tone. “Anything on your mind?”

She laughs. “Anyone ever told you you’re turning into Mum?”

“Well, we’re here anyway!”, Ron says, ears flushing. “Spit it out, will you?”

“He, uhm –”

It has not occurred to her, until right now, how difficult it would be to pass the story on, even to someone who has heard it before. Harry handed it to her because she asked him to, and still it knocked into her like a wild animal, pouncing, the weight of it like a Hippogriff standing on her chest, pinning her to the earth.

“He told me about walking into the Forbidden Forest.”

“Ah”, Ron says hollowly. “No wonder you’re hiding in a chicken coop.”

She looks around at him. “It’s not Harry I’m hiding from.”

“But you are hiding”, Ron says wisely.

Ginny shrugs. “I dunno what I expected. Somehow I’d convinced myself I already knew the worst of it. Which, as it turns out, was a bit stupid of me.”

She draws in a shaky breath.

“I thought he was in on it. Ever since I watched him come back to life at Hagrid’s feet … I thought there was some sort of plan. But there wasn’t, or Dumbledore didn’t tell him, anyway. I thought he knew he was going to survive, and it turns out that, uhm – he didn’t know shit. He went there to die, for real.”

Ginny looks back at him, words coming faster now. “And I’m – I’m so angry, and I don’t know why. Or who I’m angry with. It can hardly be Harry.”

“In all fairness, I kind of felt like punching him when he told us”, Ron says quietly, and her mouth briefly twists into something like a smile. “If anything we should be angry with Voldemort, or Dumbledore, even – but they’re not within punching distance, so what are you gonna do?”

“If Dumbledore wasn’t already dead, I would kill him”, Ginny says. “I swear, I would kill him.”

“Yeah, that sounds reasonable”, Ron says good-naturedly, patting her arm.

“And Harry – Harry keeps apologising, and I don’t know what for.”

Ron’s expression is pained. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No.”

He sighs. She handed this to him, and now he is steeling himself to hand something back to her. She can tell.

“My best guess is … for not saying goodbye.”

Ginny does not look at him. Suddenly she is blinking rapidly in the fading light, sitting there as the blow rolls over her, something blunt and violent that should have broken her ribs like the impact of a Bludger; but there is no injury, only an ache that does not abate, that sits all around her, inside her. She doesn’t think it’s ever going to go away, all that hurting, writhing and straining inside her like a second skeleton.

“How could he have? We would’ve dragged him back to the castle by the damn hair.”

“Of course we would have”, Ron says robustly.

For a moment he looks like he’s going to reach out to her, hold her, maybe. He seems to think better of it in the end, and she’s almost relieved, dreading what she’d do if someone hugged her.

It’s another thing that won’t ever come easily: showing up on someone’s doorstep, weeping.

“If it’s any consolation”, he says after a while, “I think that’s the worst of it.”

“I’ve been wondering”, she mutters. “Can’t think of very much that beats walking to your own death. No fucking wonder he doesn’t sleep.”

“It’s funny”, Ron says, “I talked to him less than an hour ago, and he seems alright, almost.”

Ginny shrugs. “Isn’t he always? Remarkably functional, considering.”

Ron makes an attempt at a smile. “It’s such a Harry thing to do, though, isn’t it? Always dying for other people. Or trying to, anyway.”

“Hardly just a Harry thing, it turns out.”

It’s all shit, she thinks when he looks at her. Being the person knocking at the door, and the one listening on the other side, opening it.

“He told me about Malfoy Manor”, she says softly.

“Ah.” Ron kicks at the dirt to his feet. “Well, then you know what keeps me up at night.”

“He said – he said you offered to swap places with Hermione. Let Bellatrix have you instead.”

“And? You would’ve done the exact same thing for him.”

Ginny almost smiles. He might as well still be the boy who stuck stubbornly by her side next to the chicken fence all night, when she couldn’t bear to head back to the house, in case the fox ever came back.

“Yeah. I would have.”

It settles on her shoulders as quickly and unnoticeably as night, rapidly falling all around them: everything she would’ve done, in a heartbeat, in an instant.

“I would’ve taken the forest, too”, she says, more to herself than to Ron. “I would’ve done it all for him.”

It seems significant, somehow, that Ron does not resist this. That maybe he knows what it felt like, to Ginny, when they walked out into the courtyard and saw Harry.

That, too, felt like a Bludger to the chest: the sight of him, a kid in Hagrid’s arms, his glasses askew. How she wished it was her lying there, dead in his place.

“Those two”, Ron says abruptly. “Some day they’re really gonna be the death of us.”

Ginny almost laughs.

“So you won’t strangle him for abandoning the camp bed?”

Ron eyes her for a moment, a sort of benevolent sternness in his expression – and Ginny was right, that’s all Mum. “Yeah, I’ll consider it.”

“I’m sorry, anyway”, she says, half-smiling. “For costing you your roommate.”

Ron sighs. “They grow up so fast.”

“And for all this, too. You were trying to hide, I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s all right. You had to find me eventually.”

[amuseoffyre]

stede for the character ask game!

Woo! My boy :D

favorite thing about them

The fact he buys a whole ship and hires a crew to provide a nurturing and supportive environment that he has craved and never had for his whole life, somewhere for people to feel safe to be themselves without needing to cry themselves to sleep in the dark.

least favorite thing about them

Absolutely his inability to take his own advice to heart and talk things through, but I also completely understand that his inability to do so comes from both his upbringing and his very desperately unhappy childhood. How could he know he could talk to someone when any time he did in the past, he was shot down and told he was wrong/an idiot/didn't deserve any respect?

favorite line

"Check out this fabulous booty I'm hawkin'" :D It cracks me up every. single. time.

brOTP

Stede and Lucius all the way :D Albeit very reluctantly from Lucius's side, but someone has to be the wingman to this very useless metaphorically baby gay.

OTP

Stede/Ed naturally :) They are exactly what the other needed all along: a friend as daft and adventurous and imaginative as them.

nOTP

Stede/Mary. Because obviously not. Worst relationship ever. I love they made a point of him disparaging her interests before they showed her dismissing his to make it absolutely clear this is a Bad Match. As friends, however, I like.

random headcanon

As much as Stede is canonically a starfish in bed, I suspect he will be extremely into spooning when it's with someone he cares about.

unpopular opinion

I have no idea what is a popular or unpopular opinion about him. I don't wander in tags or anything. Plus I like having many and varied opinions about him.

song i associate with them

This one caught me today and the lyrics made me go OH

favorite picture of them

This moment, this moment, where someone who has known him for so long finally sees him and accepts him reached into my ribs and twisted up my heart and I bawled.

To say I relate waaaaaay too much to this lil fella is an understatement.

[gutsbutt-reblogging]

sending character for opinions: Cyrus?

Character meme:

favorite thing about them

You can put any mental illness in him and it works. He's just so desperate to realize his goals despite it hurting the people he's close to. You just get a sense of loneliness from him despite galactic being by his side and loyal... sad hours and projecting the need for hugs and stability and not being made right in the world we are in oops

least favorite thing about them

The Pokémon Company wants NOTHING to do with him. I have doubts that they are ever going to do anything to characterize him more :( every time he shows up on screen I'm disappointed by how little they have added to him.

favorite line

I just love the opening monologue in platinum "the flowing time... the expanding space... Cyrus is my name, remember it."

brOTP

I think it would be cool and sexy if Cyrus and Jupiter were roomies in college... wlw mlm solidarity and all

OTP

AbsoluteControlShipping (cyrus and giovanni... everyone who's been on my blog knows this lmao)

nOTP

I admittedly have a lot of the other ship tags blocked... overall though idk why people put him with Ghetsis sometimes. I'm just not for relationships where I see both parties constantly fighting. I need that breakdown of barriers and learning that you aren't alone. I also need some similarities so I apologize to the ppl who want him with miss sinnoh's strongest. (Also if I see any of the protags in the same picture looking lovey dovey I will block!!!! Don't care if you aged them up just make a sona PLEASE)

random headcanon

Murkrow was his first pokemon and he had to force evolve it to have a chance of beating the player. Afterwards it distrusts him... his last childhood relationship down the drain :(

unpopular opinion

He's a switch? Honestly idk if any of my opinions are "unpopular". I guess I can tend to uwu him at times and I hc him as a shorty but I haven't gotten yelled at and it's been years lol

song I associate with them

The 10 minute version of Love is Lost by David Bowie (hello Steve Reich mix for the DFA)

favorite picture of them

I'm still kissing this piece from @barbwalken ... its the bg on my computer... otherwise my acs 2020 pieces for RR and AU still slap.

[bitchy-peachy]

To Anon

Not responding in ask itself cos the ship got mentioned without spaces and that would make the asks appear accidentally in ship tags (and I'm on a device that doesn't seem to be programmed for screenshots at the moment, lol)

I totally agree with everything you say. You know what I used to call shounen manga in the past? Friendship Porn.

Cos the shounen genre sometimes wanks the hell out of friendships instead of romance (unless said shounen is mixed in with shoujo like for example Inuyasha that was in both those genres instead of one. Just adding that in cos in the past whenever I said shounen wasn't romance some dumbass would bring up Inuyasha as if unaware that said manga was categorized as both so of course that manga had blatantly romantic moments going on along with the shounen elements)

Naruto is the very definition of Friendship Porn that while it did have its shippy undertones for the pairings that eventually become canon, it was always overshadowed by the friendship theme. Shippers went crazy thinking that because their ship had their bonds concentrated in such detail that it was "romantic" when Kishi himself said that his manga was friendship themed. So while the non-canon shippers complain about development and say "it doesn't make any sense when we have all this pro ship evidence" the sad fact is that all their "evidence" was friendship. Tbh one of the ships that had a lot of panel time and was romantic love as it was stated repeatedly throughout the manga, gets a humorous amount of hate by people who shipped the characters of said ship with their friends. Don't get me started on the Mira/Tsun shippers that suffer the same syndrome as NS shippers.

I kinda hate how platonic love is downplayed a lot by the fandom. Its such bullshit. Love comes in all different forms, and platonic love is still love. Some shippers need to stop acting like they're getting murdered with this, lmao. They can still ship it romantically in fanon like I do, but hearing facts and knowing them shouldn't hurt them so much. Cos canon and fanon go separately and if they can't admit canon then... No wonder they're always complaining instead of enjoying their pairings. (And its true that it gets annoying to go to a shipping tag and seeing your ship treated as a brotp in said tag when you already know that shit but enjoy another version of your ship. So brotp and romance fanon should sometimes be kept separate, lol. I know it sounds bitchy but that's my view on it. Saying it cos I go to actual ship tags that talk all the time about friendship without tagging it as brotp to not upset shippers. People can ship or brotp whatever they want but jfc. I'm not just saying this as a shipper but as someone that knows people ship wlw pairings as brotps. Just like shippers wouldn't want to see "its platonic and bffs" in the tag, I doubt brotp shippers would want to see nsfw and wlw romantic headcanons. These things need better tagging so both sides are satisfied )

I ship that pairing you mentioned too but I knew it wasn't going to be canon and I'm not necessarily butthurt about although it would have been very cool to have it become canon (I knew they were just best friends but I still enjoyed the idea of romance. Tho my main ship is SS so I write that other ship you mentioned as a very close female bond that doesn't go romantic, okay I'm rambling). I also have m/f brotps. Two brotps of that sort that have been proven as just friendship and they're beautiful friendships cos I've got guy friends like that irl and it never turned romantic.

I'm not straight myself and I've seen my sexuality butchered by straight writers constantly. My sexuality gets written as promiscuous and into orgies, ffs. So I don't get why some people are so desperate for obviously straight writers to give them representation and if they're not given any representation, they complain about h/mophobia. If they want it so bad, they should create their own characters, or write fanfics (I write fanfics for my fave same sex ships. One which I wish was canon but I understand under the circumstances that it wasn't ever going to be canon) or whatever instead of complaining about a writer not giving them what they want cos in the end of the day, this is a fact...

They're not the ones in control of the story, the writer is, and if they don't like it they should maybe move on and create their own content.

And tbh I don't get it what is it with this whole "we hate straight people but want them to write us" bullshit. But that's a separate subject. 😂😂