#Apprentice rambles

[lazylittledragon]

my last tattoo as an apprentice and it’s a special one <33

[pineconepaw]

there's something so soothing about those gentle beams of light breaking through the clouds you see in the distance during a ride back home.. like... yes.. theres still hope for me yet...

[bluerosefox]

In Luminous Green Glow.

Another TaliaxDanny idea

So we knows those AU where Danny pops out the Lazarus Pits and meets like Damian or Jason.

What if, due to time travel shenanigans or even dimensional reasons Danny pops out of the Lazarus Pits when he was investigating it (maybe he's CW apprentice and helping keeping the Zone in check) and while looking he suddenly gets a sword put to his neck and a voice, a very very spine tingling smooth voice, saying

"Who are you. And how did you find this place."

Out the corner of his eye Danny could see a woman (or if time travel, teen! Talia) around his age and ooooh boy the Fenton 'I love a woman that just might kill me' genes are totally kicking into high gear.

[faceeeeee]

Does your Sprout smile at all? And if he does, who or what normally causes it?

He is capable of smiling and experiencing the concept of fun, but he only shows it with people he trusts and just general moments of peace

[iwanttobepersephone]

CUTE HALT IDEA

It's lunch time at a gathering and most of the corps is gathered around the fire. Somehow, there is a silence as nobody has any topic of conversation. All the interesting people are off training instead of eating. Eventually, someone asks Halt, "So... Halt..... would you mind telling us some Hibernian folk lore?"

And Halt actually chokes on his food

This is the one, the only time the ranger corps has seen Halt visibly excited. He kept his usual stone face but you could hear it in his voice. It is also the longest Halt has ever talked uninterrupted

[vasira96]

capitalism making everything so poorly really got me looking at leather working/cobbling, sewing, mending, knitting and crochet as if mastery in any one of these disciplines wouldn't already take 100s-1000s of hours of practice to do well, let alone trying to learn multiple

[candy8448]

Do you have a recs for fics based on the Apprentice arc?

Ooohohoho yesss, you've come to the right person. I have quite a lot of fics to rec (ive been obsessively consuming and hyperfixating like mad on the apprentice arc in particular):

(Also i consider haunted to be part of the overall apprentice arc so there are a few fics based on and set after that episode)

First you can look at the tag "dick grayson as slade wilson's apprentice" on ao3 and there are hundreds of fics, with every dynamic and characters you could want, these are just my favorites ive read (put very very vaguely in an order going down from my most favorites):

Never Alone

My favorite, its a masterpiece, its amazing! After haunted robin continues to have hallucinations and its a finished longfic that gives a really good look into robin's mental illness and how he is still only a human. I made a whole post about this fic and how its perfect in every way, i have not binged a longfic this long in forever but i did this one in a single reading session because i was completely and utterly gripped

More coherent and detailed but completely spoiler free rambles about what makes this fic so good here i cannot stress enough how this is a must read if you like the arc. I like, really really want you to read this one

The voice and gears of sunset

Oneshot set right after robin is rescued from slade in the apprentice arc. It hits so hard and hurts. Robin's recovery and him trying to connect again with the titans after what he had gone through, the titans being there to help every step of the way. The ending melts my heart

Emotional motion sickness

Oneshot set many years later when the batfam is fully formed and robin is nightwing. A good fic with dick and damian's brotherly relationship and discovering new ways to cope. There is an encounter with slade and that scene fills me with so much undescribable emotion

The fight and the war

Oneshot with the batfam. After an encounter with slade, dick is interogated with his family about the way he responded to slade's commands in the battle and how it could have gotten him killed. Dick is forced to admit what happened back when he was with the titans in the apprentice arc. Very good protective batsiblings in a different way to the other fics

Bedeviled

Oneshot set right after haunted. The spores have a lingering effect and robin presses an emergency distress signal to batman who is there for him

To pick at a scab

Years later with the batfam dick comes to the batcave and his younger brothers have some questions about a sound recording from his time with slade. Dick is thrown into a vivid flashback and the batfam break him out of it and help him talk through it. Oneshot

Just the same

Robin deals with stockholm syndrome and cant help but compare how similar or even better slade is than batman. The titans are there to help him figure things out. Oneshot.

Reforming Nightwing

Unfinished longfic. The titans never find iut about the nanobots and dick is forced to be slade's apprentice for 9 years. After Slade is killed and dick is able to excape, he goes to bludhaven where he picks up a new civillian name and the new identity nightwing. Meanwhile tim and steph want to figure out who this new "nightwing" and what his connection is to the villian "renegade"

Do you think batman will give me partial custody?

Oneshot. After the apprentice arc, robin returns to gotham. Unable to figure out how he feels about the situation he goes to his parents' graves where he encounters harely who helps him start a conversation with him about the abuse they both faced

The apprentice

Unfinished longfic where the titans dont discover the nanobots and robin has to continue being slade's apprentice. He spends his time figuring out how to get a message to the titans or to batman or to anyone without slade knowing

Next to my robin and some matchsticks

Oneshot set after apprentice part 2 where the titans patch up robin's wounds and talk about some scars he has, some from his time before the titans and some from slade

Update: since making tthis post, any good fic with the slade and dick dynamic that i read snd liked i have put in this collection

Update update: here are my thoughts on this fic i also found

[incorrect-rangers-quotes]

i think one of the best life lessons ra taught me at the tender age of like. seven? wasn't like. being brave!! or always giving it your all!! it was that some crimes are fine really. not all of them! but some crimes are fine. cool, even. epic. one might say

[thunderc1an]

messy concept feeding off of my last post of a horror + mystery spinoff warriors series

[littlefankingdom]

~ Batman & Robin: Year One

This side of Bruce's parenting/mentoring is one of my favorite: how he (sometimes) let his kids yell at him when they are hurt or angry at something. They are children, they experience a lot of emotions and they don't have the tools adults (should) have to handle them, so sometimes they explose. Do you know a lot of adults who would let their child yell at them? Especially when the child is frustrated? I don't. Most of the time, it is met with anger from adults. But Bruce, he listens (again, sometimes). He thanks Dick for finally opening up to him. He acknowledges Dick's feelings and he thanks him for bringing them up to him. We often talk about how communication isn't the Batfam or Bruce's strong suit, but everytime Bruce acts like this, he is showing that he wants his kids to be honest with him, to tell him when they are hurt or angry, even if it means they yell at him, or hit him. He teaches them that communicating to him that they are angry or hurt by his actions is ok, that they don't have to fear telling him they are mad. Dick is actually a great example of that, because anytime Bruce is a bitch, he immediately tells him and will argue with him.

Finally, Bruce asking Dick to teach him to walk a tight rope. I love when DC brings up Bruce learning acrobatics from Dick. Can you imagine how much this must have help Dick feel equal and loved, and boost his confidence? I'm also thinking about how it has been shown that Bruce knows his way around a trapeze, and in World's Finest: Batman and Superman, he does a whole routine with Dick. He did not need to learn to do that to be better at fighting crime. No, he got Dick to teach him a whole routine so he could fly with Dick. So Dick could experience again flying on a trapeze with someone else, like he used too. He learned it because he loves Dick and wanted to make him happy.

[solomiracle]

(this might've been addressed in-game already and i just haven't caught up to it yet but) can you imagine how solomon is going to react when he learns that mc's powers are out of control AGAIN. i assume he'll be calm and collected yet urgent, like the first time with the ring, but i also hope he has more casually insane moments like how he went "well this ends with either mc being mad at me or the entire worlds as we know them being destroyed... goodbye worlds!".

on one hand, he's thrilled because this means mc's growing stronger, and that's just better for himself and humanity overall, but on the other hand... he's gonna get a lucifer level head ache and heart attack combo if mc keeps this up

[lazylittledragon]

do you think taking all my fake skin practice tattoos and cutting them out and sewing them into a giant human-shaped pelt and hanging it on the wall of the studio is a good idea or a Great idea

[findingcrow]

I would really like to remind everyone that it’s canon (we didn’t make this up. We didn’t have to make this up Flanagan made it canon for us) that everyone just. Accepts that Will is Halt’s son. Gilan says that even though he and Halt will always be close, Halt and Will’s relationship is much closer and is father & son like. Pauline treats Will as her son. Horace sees Will as his brother and Halt as his uncle. Everyone sees Will and Halt and are like “this man. This man has adopted a child” which is so funny to me because imagine you’re in araluen and you see Greybeard halt who never smiles with his happy son who doesn’t shut up (AND they’re the same height). Flanagan does a lot wrong in the series but making Halt see Will as his son and the found family aspects are NOT one

[ragingadhd]

Ooohohohoho this passage is so fascinating to me I am eating it like a five course meal

Time to overanalyze the shit outta this

(TW for suicide)

“I’ll never understand suicide”. How interesting… especially coming from Will Treaty, of all people. Will Treaty, the boy who was orphaned before he could even speak. Will Treaty, the boy who lived several months as a yard slave, who had a drug addiction, who nearly died lost in the desert, who by age 25 had seen more battles than most people ever will in their lives. That Will Treaty? Doesn’t understand suicide?

Let me be clear- I am not saying he’s wrong for not understanding, nor am I calling him weird for it. What I am saying is that suicidal ideation is a very natural trauma response, and nobody knows trauma like Will Treaty. So why, why does he not understand suicide?

Now, there are a few different ways to interpret this. At first, I thought he was referring to his whole life, insinuating that he himself has never seriously considered suicide. That could have a myriad of explanations, ranging from his innate optimism, to a matter of moral judgement, to it simply never crossing his mind.

But then I reread the passage. He didn’t say “I’ve never understood suicide”, he said “I will never understand suicide”.

Future tense.

And suddenly, this one sentence read like a tragedy. That wasn’t a confession, it was a wish.

Will Treaty does understand suicide and he knows it intimately. He remembers the ward, the days he quietly wished he had just been a stillborn. He remembers the chilling nights in Hallasholm where giving into his warmweed craving was the only thing keeping him safe from his own mind. He remembers every time the stress of his career got to him, when he looked at himself and wondered, what if? What if I ended it all now?

But for one reason or another, he never gave in. He kept going, whether he wanted to or not. And he’s grateful for that. He’s grateful he fought through because now, he’s finally in a better place.

But the idea he almost didn’t get through those times terrifies him.

“I will never understand suicide” is a lie he’s telling himself. He’s trying to distance himself from even the possibility of suicidal ideation. He never wants to go back.

I think that’s part of why he suffered such a severe breakdown in TRR1. I think Alyss’ death was the first time in his adult life where that lie stopped working for him, and it scared him like nothing else ever could.

Or maybe Flanny just wrote that line without thinking, idk

[sillyturtleenjoyer]

nems from anemoia!tale by @bloobluee!! such a silly lad, bro radiates pure chill. not sure i quite got that here but he does look very dapper (and mildly scraped)

[iwanttobepersephone]

A headcanon I hold very dear to my heart is that Halt is, in all likelihood, the smartest person out of the rangers apprentice cast, he just 1. lost the ability to express that knowledge when he came to Araluen (non-native speaker) and 2. Ignores said knowledge to make things more efficient and fun

Gilan is in a very similar situation except he never knew how to express his knowledge and ignores safety for his entertainment alone with no regards for efficiency