Rangers Apprentice - Blog Posts

Does anyone else think about how Knights view Horace?? Like he’s spent more time around rangers than knights, and most people believe that rangers practice dark magic, like do they assume he’s like them? Being around the rangers so long has got to have some lasting affects, does he think different? Plan? Speak? Does he move differently than the other knights? Quieter? Faster? Does he move with the shadows like a ranger? Not to the same extent but enough to set him apart? Please someone tell me

Best worst part? Will doesn’t blame Gilan at all. Never once did it even cross his mind that it could be Gilans fault that he got stuck in Skandia, if anything he blamed himself, thought he could do better, be better. Will loves Gilan, it’d tear him apart to know Gilan blamed himself.

Will was just so happy that Gilan cared about him, was kind and funny and helped him train. He would never blame Gilan for his misfortune. He wouldn’t blame Halt either, he was just so glad they loved him enough to come find him.

"Halt and Will" this, "Will and Horace" that, I'm a little insane recently so can we please. please can we talk about Gilan and Will because I'm being driven up the WALLS about them

Gilan first meets Will at the Gathering and he's like, "oh, this dude is tiny. but he's polite and Halt trusts him, so I do, too." and then they find out the Kalkara have been released and that Halt wants him- which is cool, whatever- and Will to go and help him track it. And he's completely fine to put his own life at risk, because he knows Halt and the kingdom and himself, but the moment it processes that Will is going to be walking into danger, he completely stops. I mean sure, he comes around to the plan, but one of the first things he says is, "But he's only a boy!" He barely knows this kid and wants him far away from any kind of danger. And when he listens to Halt, when he sees that Will is fully capable of taking care of himself, he even places trust in him, allowing him to ride Blaze to Redmont and beyond.

And then he takes him on a mission in the Burning Bridge. Can we just. Really process that. Like we all talk about Halt grieving Will after watching him be shipped away, but think about Gilan, who had left Will in charge and the next time he hears about him, he's probably not alive. The guilt would tear him apart. That was his brother, that was the boy he joked with and gave advice to and watched grow, and he left him for only a few days and suddenly he was gone. Not only did he have to grieve, he had to grieve on his own- Halt was spiraling, Crowley was trying to keep Halt in control, and the Rangers still had work to do. He couldn't react like Halt because someone still needed to help search for the convicts. He could only stand by, knowing it was his fault, blaming himself for leaving, unsure if his brother was alive or dead, watching his father become closed-off and wreckless.

When the time comes, he can't even search for Will. Halt goes, losing his title- the way he had even met Gilan, his shared aspect with the man, the part that had initially made him family- to find his brother without him. Gilan has to wait for a year, now without two family members rather than one, unsure if either of them were okay. He didn't even know if they would come home. And still, he has to blame himself, because if he had just taken Will with him back to the kingdom, if he had waited a little while longer, none of this would have happened.

And then Will comes back. The bright boy he had known so long ago is now even smaller than when Gilan had first met him. He has a hard time remembering things and gets cold too easily for a boy his age. His skin is pale and his eyes are tired, and deep down Gilan thinks that he did this. Will went through things no Ranger, especially no Ranger's apprentice, should go through, because of one careless mistake on Gilan. He doesn't know what even happened to him! All he knows is that Will and Halt have changed and Gilan hasn't. He tries to bond with him again, and everyone tells him not to blame himself, but holy shit it all went so wrong and Gilan barely had the chance to know.

And they end up okay, of course. Gilan works to give Will advice in his last year of training, as the mocking-older-brother he is, he makes fun of him when the younger apprentices model themselves after him. But I really think, deep down, Gilan still thinks about what could have happened if Halt hadn't been faster. He thinks about what might have happened if he had been smarter. Gilan wakes up in a cold sweat knowing that he ruined anything and was lucky for it all to be okay.

Anyway, I think we should have more bonding scenes for Gilan and Will and I want them back and I miss them and they mean so much to me and htey're brothers and and

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE WRITE MORE ABOUT HOW WARMWEED AFFECTED WILL

please I am begging

I want to see how his memory was altered

I want to see how his body felt wrong

I want to see the terror of encountering it as a medical salve

I want to see the lasting affects of a drug that was forced upon him in a situation he was being abused in

“What if I fail?”

“What?”

The sun shone high above the tree tops, mottling the ground in shadows. The air was clear and warm as they rode towards the gathering grounds.

“What if I fail my assessments and Crowley takes my oak leaf? I mean I never technically earned it in the first place, and I still don’t have nearly as much training as the other apprentices, and I’m still not all the way healed from Skandia, I’m not nearly as strong as I should be, my hands still shake and-“

“Calm down Will. We’ve gone over this, Crowley is aware you haven’t gotten all of the proper their year training, that’s why your taking the second year assessments, and we will take into account count that your still sick. It’s only been three months since we’ve returned, your lucky your taking the assessment at all.” Halts tone is dry, fully aware that in an hour they’ll be having the same conversation, one they’ve had a dozen times over the last week.

“Ok ok I know.” The two ride in silence for a few minutes before- “But what if I fail anyway? What if I’m just that bad at being a ranger? What if I manage to miss all my sho-“

“WILL! You are not going to fail your assessments!” Halt turns in his saddle as he speaks, trying to look Will in the eye. Will on the other hand is looking anywhere but Halt. “If I didn’t have full confidence that you would pass your exams then I wouldn’t have you taking them right now, you have the skill and knowledge to pass, you’ll be fine.”

Don’t imagine Will coming home from Skandia. The scars that encase his back, the ache from cold deep in his bones that never quite goes away.

Don’t imagine him flinching away from Halt, eyes shut and shoulders tensed, expecting to be hit. Don’t imagine how his badly still shakes from the after effects of warm weed, the thought of using the salve makes him nauseous. Don’t imagine the nightmares that drag him from sleep screaming, unable to breathe as Halt desperately tries to calm him.

Don’t imagine how he hates winter now, what used to be his favorite, he can’t stand the snow or the thought of being cold, he unable to go outside without a thick coat on.

Don’t imagine how he hate water, especially cold, the phantom pain and chill from working the paddles burning in reminder of the effort.

Don’t imagine how he can work through pain, how he drives his body to the brink of collapse before Halt stops him, how he’s to terrified of failing to allow himself a break, to terrified he won’t be able to continue training.

Don’t imagine how Will 17 and was taken as a space as a prisoner of war, only to fight in another one to protect the same people who enslaved him.

I think Will having exactly No Knowledge of where he’s supposed to be in his training after Skandia is hysterical. Like imagine the rest of the apprentices are at the next gathering and all of a sudden, this freakishly good ranger walks in that you’ve never seen or heard of but apparently he’s a third year but why does he look like he’s Seen Some Things? Also why is he so good at everything??

I'm back with more drawings!

Some more art because I love these silly little characters too much

Sketchbook page from today and my contribution to the feast of crumbs that is the ranger's apprentice fandom

I was listening to my book and this is what I thought when a character spoke.

Thorn: "Grab some of those thorn bushes to use as barrier behind the dugouts."

(My minds scenario)

Me: Go up to Thorn and start cutting his eyebrows

Thorn: "What are you doing?!"

Me: "Cutting some Thorn bushes, and those are the closest ones I see."

The only thing my brain seems capable of is rereading the series that dominated my childhood and largely shaped who I am. Mostly because I've read it like 20 times and I don't have to think, just remember.

~With scheduled breaks in a dark room to avoid sensory overload as prescribed

And I'm not mad about it. It's one of the lights right now, I have time to spend my days reading these books.

So many of my characteristics make sense

i think 'I trust you with my life but not your own' as a trope is one of the ones that can always fuck me up no matter what

Halt and Will reuniting.

Scene requested by @/pechoraflow :] We ended Ranger Gathering with Will being taken to Skandia, so that's a perfect way to start drawing again, I think x]

why do so many people ship other people with father figures

I do not want to ship shame, but I am always disappointed when I find a nice fic with a good premise, and bam the father figure shipping starts...

normally, I just filter, but in small fandoms, I like to rawdog it and do no filters and no tag check except for the relationship tags and I am always so disappointed when they pull this...

rn i am really into the Rangers Apprentice fandom, and they only have a little over a thousand fics, (i know that sounds like a lot but I think i have read the fics i find interesting in a week) and i hate it when they ship halt/will! Halt is such a dad in other fics and it just makes me feel gross....