If a Ranger dies while their still-in-training apprentice survives, then that apprentice carries their Oakleaf until graduation around their wrist. When they graduate, they have a choice between getting their own Oakleaf or inheriting their Mentors.
No apprentice has ever chosen a new Oakleaf for themselves.
@brilliantinsultsgalore ‘s hc ^ (from a post of rangerthursday’s) has spawned this devastating idea in my head.
imagine an au where halt dies for will somewhere in the whole skandia plotline. and will does this. gilan taking will aside on the docks as crowley stood, frozen, unable to comprehend that halt was dead and gone, and tying the leather cord with shaking hands around will’s thin wrist. tears sliding down both their faces.
gilan probably took will on as his apprentice. their mentor-apprentice relationship was a little unique for its near-equal, older brother-younger brother dynamic — and part of that was very intentionally done by gilan because he wanted will to be sure that he wouldn’t ever try to take the place of halt in will’s life, but also partially because gilan was unsure of himself and felt he couldn’t teach will as well as halt would have.
crowley was hesitant at first to let gilan take will on since gilan was pretty inexperienced and rather young for an apprentice. but gilan was the one who welcomed will back from skandia and cared for him 24/7 through that initial week back filled with a constant onslaught of night terrors and flashbacks and panic attacks. not that they stopped then, but the healer they were working with had suggested they try going back to a gentler training schedule to put some normalcy and structure into will’s life. and when will had said that he really, really didn’t want to be apprenticed to anyone besides gilan, gilan had been determined to move heaven and earth to make it happen. so crowley resigned himself to the fact that halt passed on his stubborn, fierce protectiveness to gilan (and was secretly warmed to see the strength of love and family created between the two apprentices of his, uh, his lifelong best friend), and let gilan take will on, so long as gilan regularly kept in touch with crowley and another nearby senior ranger (in a neighboring fief), in case gilan ever had any questions or wanted advice.
and after the first months of gilan being will’s mentor went amazingly well (within the context of will continuing to work through the trauma of skandia — halt’s death as well as all the canon things)), crowley moved the two of them back to redmont. because honestly, they both know the fief very well from their time with halt, and the duo were proving very capable. and not that crowley said it in his reasoning, but redmont was closer to araluen than meric fief, and this way crowley could visit them much easier.
at some point, will takes to rubbing at halt’s oakleaf on his wrist as a sort of comfort/nervous fidget, and some of the scuffing on its surface left by halt’s everyday wear starts to fade, polished away by time and will’s rough fingertips. will panics when he first realizes this because he feels like he’s erasing the evidence of halt from it, and gilan finds him on the edge of a panic attack one day, going back and forth between saying it’s a stupid worry then sobbing that he had failed halt — which was really about will’s survivor’s guilt, his deep fear that he hadn’t done enough and it was his fault, that he should have saved halt or halt shouldn’t have had to save him in the first place. gilan knows that deeper issue isn’t something he can solve right then, but he could sit with him and help will at least see that no matter how the oakleaf changed, it was and always would be halt’s oakleaf — and one day, also will’s, because there was never any doubt about that. and gilan and also is like. well maybe rub the back and edges more since most of the scratches and dings and stuff are on the front right? and will is like. oh. right. yes. (and then gilan jokingly affects a stern look, reminding will of what they’d just said about how, whatever he does, will is not erasing halt from the oakleaf either way — gilan’s way of gently and humorously making sure will got the point of their talk, which he did).
and later, halt’s oakleaf turns into a sort of anchor point of halt’s memory for will and he starts staring at it as he has the whole ‘hearing the voice of someone you know very well in your head randomly popping in to give you advice or respond to something’, and then also when he thinks ‘what would halt do?’. (though he often stares more at his wrist and sleeve since he keeps the oakleaf tucked away a fair amount of the time so it isn’t dangling about and getting in the way of everything he did). then will starts more directly engaging with his mental!halt and uses the oakleaf as a conduit for that, eventually sometimes even talking out loud to the pendant and lowkey processing a lot of his grief by talking to halt via the oakleaf.
gilan finds will doing this one day and will is rather horrified and embarrassed until gilan pulls back his sleeve and shows will a bronze oakleaf around his wrist — gilan’s old apprentice necklace. gilan quietly explains how he wears it as a tribute to his mentor and father-figure, as a way of saying halt will always be gilan’s mentor and gilan always his apprentice, to hold close his memories of him time spent with halt (much of it happening when it was that necklace around his neck), and as a way of taking halt with him wherever he goes. and gilan says the oakleaf has come to represent halt for him too and that, sometimes, he also talks to halt through it, holding the pendant in both his hands and closing his eyes. gilan then reaches and takes will’s hand to lead him back to the cabin. their clasped hands are the ones each chose to wear the oakleaf on (will’s right and gilan’s left), and the bronze and silver metal gently bump against each other with a light ting! as they walk back together.
will almost doesn’t make it through his own graduation. gilan and crowley decided to keep to just the three of them, guessing that will wouldn’t want to have to deal with a big party. it would be hard enough already with halt’s painfully obvious absence at what was one of the most important events in will’s life, one where halt should have been present more than anyone else. will is eternally grateful to them for it. he decides to celebrate with his friends with a night out a few days later, and it doesn’t hurt as badly then.
after his graduation, with the familiar weight of halt’s silver oakleaf now pressed over his heart, will’s wrist felt oddly bare and untethered, so at gilan’s suggestion, he also begins wearing his old apprentice oakleaf on his wrist.
crowley smiled when he saw this. all those years ago, pritchard had fashioned a rough sort of bronze oakleaf for halt at the one year mark of halt’s unofficial apprenticeship. one night after duncan et. al. had chased morgarath back to the mountains of rain and night post-hackham heath, crowley and halt were alone back at castle araluen and with a night to themselves. halt quietly told crowley the story behind that oakleaf and then gave it to crowley, telling him he wanted crowley to have it. and crowley gives halt his apprentice oakleaf in return. crowley saw gilan with his apprentice oakleaf tied around his wrist when gilan and will had stopped by castle araluen on the way to redmont from meric, and when they left, he took halt’s apprentice oakleaf from where he had kept it in a little box and tied it gently around his own wrist.
halt’s death changed them all, forever. crowley would never again love like he had loved halt with his entire being and then more. will would never feel the love of a father, see someone like his father as he had in halt. gilan would never again trust so wholly, in unfettered totality, like he had trusted halt.
but it would be okay.
on the first anniversary of halt’s death, crowley had ridden quietly to halt’s old cabin and spent the night with gilan and will. at first, they just sat together in silence, alone together around the crackling fire. then, crowley pulled back his sleeve, showed will and gilan the rough little oakleaf dangling there, and told them its story. they spent that night crying and laughing with each other in turn, telling stories about halt, remembering the mentor and father and love of a lif-uh, best friend, that he had been to them. and so, they found they had created their own little family in one other. they were gathered at the start by the almost magnetic quality of halt’s presence that drew them all in. they were bound together by their love for halt and their grief at his death. and now, they saw their love for each other was beginning to grow and fill in the cracks. in time, it would become enough to glue them back together into something new. not quite whole. not quite broken. but okay. loved.
family.
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let's diagnose the Irish guy from punch-out
disclaimer: I am but a lass with ADD, so while I do know a lot from both my own experiences and research, you should still take my ramblings with a few grains of salt. I encourage anyone reading to form their own headcanons, and would love to hear them!
So, the Punch-Out wiki (in its current state) implies that Aran Ryan has some sort of mental disorder, so I projected onto dissected him like a deep sea specimen, and may have found out what's going on in his very empty and screwed up head
🎉congrats! it's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder! (probably)🎉
ADHD has a bunch of characteristics that go with it, but I'll only be going over the ones that apply to Aran and are displayed in canon. Of course, I'll insert some speculation here and there to further support and reason through some of my points. For more reading, I suggest checking out organizations like Mayo Clinic and the National Institute of Mental Health, as well as any self-reports and blogs by people with ADHD (the latter tends to be more personal and far less clinical-sounding, but are just as helpful). Wikipedia is also a good place to go for anything, and you might even find yourself down a few rabbit holes!
Hyperactivity and restlessness
Aran exhibits this in PO Wii heavily. He has a high-stamina fighting style with lots of shuffling around, always bouncing around Little Mac. He can only be stunned through counter-punches and being faster than him (During round breaks, Doc Louis literally says "beat Aran Ryan to the punch"). It is extremely difficult to KO or TKO Aran without intercepting him due to this mechanic. During round breaks, regardless of how beaten and bruised he is, Aran will bounce his leg constantly in Contender and harass the audience in Title Defense.
Impulsivity and recklessness
This one's consistent between his two appearances, surprisingly. In Wii, Aran is portrayed as a dirty cheater who would "do anything to win", according to supplementary comics. He has the most rule infractions in the Punch-Out series, at 32 combined. He stuffs his gloves with horseshoes before his Contender fight and brings a homemade flail made from a broken boxing glove to his bout with Little Mac in Title Defense. During matches, he makes use of headbutts and elbows quite frequently. These are both illegal and very stupid moves, due to the potential of self-inflicted trauma. His flail in Title Defense could be a sign of creativity by thinking outside the box, which is often seen in people with ADHD. In supplementary material for Super Punch-Out!!, it's implied that a fight usually broke out whenever Aran was made fun of in school, showing that he was reckless during his childhood as well.
Emotional dysregulation
In Super Punch-Out!!, Aran Ryan is rather grumpy, and is one of two characters in the entire game to never smile in any of his sprites (the other being Nick Bruiser). Compared to his Wii portrayal, Aran is as clean as it gets in this game, even complimenting the player during the credits. Supplementary material attributes his lower mood to the teasing he endured during his childhood, and that he got into boxing to channel some of his pent-up anger. Depending on how you view it, him being so angry over his peers making fun of his name could be an overblown reaction. This hot-headedness is retained in PO Wii (which could be a sign of impulsivity), but he's essentially the inverse of how he was in Super. He's boisterous, reckless, dishonest, and smiles even while he's stunned. Many of Aran's reactions to being hit are him laughing, which might imply masochism on some level, but is nonetheless seen as an inappropriate response to being hit. He displays some antisocial traits, even, as seen when he throws aside the referee in Title Defense. This is likely caused by a low tolerance of authority, but is still an extreme reaction to the referee just trying to maintain order in the ring (good luck with that, ref...).
Difficulty starting tasks
This is a sign of executive dysfunction, which is closely linked to inattention in people with ADHD. It's exhibited in his Contender intro, where he spends the first three frames of the cutscene messing around. For this one, I'm going to compare Aran's behavior in his Contender intro to all the other boxers that spend their entire intro cutscene in a gym/dojo/training environment, spend the majority of their cutscene explicitly training, or are in several training environments. Here's a neat little chart, where the numbers represent how many slides they spent being "off-task":
can you tell that graphic design is my passion
I've counted any activity that builds strength and endurance (like eating, running, lifting, or practicing magic in Tiger's case), or requires a large amount of work put in to do (like chopping trees or playing hockey, for Bear Hugger). Some of you might be wondering why I didn't include certain characters, but that's because they're either in a combat setting, switch from training to non-training settings, or are doing unrelated things in what could be a training setting.
If Aran has 3 instances of being off-task, he ties with TD Kaiser, Don, and Macho in terms of how long they're off-task for. If "gearing up" is being counted as being on-task, he only ties with TD Kaiser and himself. Of course, context matters heavily. TD Kaiser, Don, and Macho aren't off-task purely for the sake of slacking off, but show developments of their story throughout Career Mode. TD Aran is off-task for storytelling as well, but it's not motivated by a grudge towards Mac like the other three and falls under the normal definition of "slacking off". Speaking of cutscenes,
Inattention and distractibility
Aran shows this several times in Title Defense. In his intro, he notices a rope in the trash can and gets the idea of making his flail, seemingly forgetting all about training for his match with Little Mac. During round intermissions, he's distracted by the audience throwing objects at him, and threatens them instead of spending the break resting or strategizing.
Anxiety
ADHD is highly comorbid with anxiety, due to executive dysfunction (mainly sensory processing), and the risk of overthinking. I admit that this one is a bit of a stretch, since general restlessness and anxiety are linked in many mood disorders, but it's shared between both of his appearances. Super's version of Aran being caught up in his own past can be a sign of social anxiety as well as falling victim to overthinking. In PO Wii, the leg bouncing can be a sign of anxiety for various reasons, whether it be physiological (ex. outside stimuli being unpleasant) or psychological (ex. overthinking the match). His stance in Exhibition's menu for his Contender match is also a little shaky, which is common in fight-or-flight reactions, though it could also be plain hyperactivity.
Pressured speech
In PO Wii. Aran usually talks very quickly, which can be caused by the classic ADHD experience of "having a lot to say, and feeling like there's no time to say it". It's very likely that it's just be a characteristic of his accent, though.
🍀🌠🌈this is a cool section break🌈🌠🍀
There's plenty more symptoms you could make arguments for, but these were some of his more prominent traits. ADHD shares symptoms with a lot of other disorders, though, so let's see some other possibilities...
Counter-Diagnosis #1: Bipolar II Disorder
Bipolar II, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, is characterized by a a pattern of depressive states and hypomanic states (notice the hypo- prefix). We can attribute Aran's demeanor in Super to a depressive state, and his demeanor in Wii to a hypomanic state. I've chosen bipolar II instead of I due to the specifications of a "manic state" not fitting his Wii portrayal as closely.
Hypomania (literally meaning "less than mania") shares many characteristics with full-blown mania, but is more toned-down. People who have experienced genuine hypomanic states usually describe it as helpful towards their productivity, while manic states are notoriously more harmful and often directly affect productivity. Symptoms of mania include restlessness, racing thoughts, pressured speech, overconfidence, increased agitation, impulsiveness, a disconnect from one's surroundings, extreme anxiousness, and many others. Already, we can observe many of these symptoms in Aran's Wii portrayal that are shared with the ADHD diagnosis. However, hypomania tends to lack the "reality disconnect", and we can see that Aran is very aware of his surroundings. Him being in the World Circuit in both Super and Wii can be interpreted as a sign of the hypomanic states being more helpful than detrimental (maybe less so in Super because of the existence of the Special Circuit, but I digress).
I think this take has a lot of ground, maybe more than the ADHD hypothesis. A lot of my earlier points in favor of him having ADHD can also apply to him being bipolar (specifically hyperactivity, recklessness, and especially emotional dysregulation) as well, which blurs the line in some places, but it's still a very strong argument.
Counter-Diagnosis #2: Oppositional Defiant Disorder
According to Mayo Clinic, ODD is "a frequent and ongoing pattern of anger, irritability, arguing and defiance towards parents and other authority figures". The characteristics of ODD can be observed in both SPO's and Wii's Aran.
I think this one's weaker, for a few reasons. First, ODD is considered clinically relevant only during childhood; from then, it can "evolve" into a number of other conditions, including but not limited to borderline personality disorder and the aforementioned bipolar disorder. Obviously, Aran isn't a child, but he could have had this disorder in the past and "grew out of it" from a clinical standpoint.
You could make an argument for the anger issues due to a few of his behaviors, as well as his voice lines in Wii having a sort of "growl" to them, but his irritability is infrequent and mild enough to where it can be attributed back to emotional dysregulation, and the "growl" could just be how the character or his voice actor naturally sounds (I haven't found any clips of Stephen Webster speaking out-of-character, but if anyone has any, I'd love to hear them).
Counter-Diagnosis #3: Antisocial Personality Disorder
The DSM-5 defines APD as consistent displays of deceitfulness, issues with authority, impulsivity, irritability, recklessness, and a diminished capacity for remorse after hurting someone. Again, a few of these symptoms are shared with ADHD, so there's a significant grey area here. Yet, I believe it's stronger than the ODD argument, since his cheating can be a sign of deceitfulness and his apparent antisocial traits in Wii. However, boxing as a combat sport doesn't leave much room for feeling remorse, since doing so can result in throwing or forfeiting a match. I'm not going to count the lack of remorse due to the nature of the sport, but you as a reader can interpret it how you like.
Counter-Diagnosis #4: Autism Spectrum Disorder
Because of how broad the autism spectrum is, you could easily go crazy in-depth with this. I'll do a miniature version of the ADHD symptom setup, which includes traits observed in canon. I won't be including every shared trait, but do keep in mind that ADHD is comorbid with a bunch of different spectrum disorders, and misdiagnoses, especially in women, are fairly common in the real world because of it. I know I'm going to fail to list certain symptoms due to just how many ASD traits there are, so if anyone reading has any more connections to make, be my guest! This "counter-diagnosis" section is for provoking further discussion, after all, and I'm happy to learn from you all.
Hyposensitivity
In PO Wii. To wind up for his right uppercut, Aran hits himself in the side of the head, and after round breaks in Contender, he hits himself repeatedly. Considering his gloves are confirmed to be loaded in his Contender fight, his relative indifference might be a sign of this. People with autism have reported tuning out various stimuli if they become overwhelmed by a bunch of them (sometimes related to meltdown or shutdown), and it's possible that that's what Aran is doing here. The bright lights of the venue combined with the crowd noise and the feeling of being sweaty could be overstimulating, and the supposed hyposensitivity towards being hit is caused by this "tuning out" to avoid a shutdown mid-bout.
Stimming (repetitive movements)
In PO Wii. The leg bounce in his Contender round break can be interpreted as a stim, as well as the wind-ups for his right uppercut (bopping himself in the head) and headbutt (choosing to wind up on the ropes). His bouncing around Mac could also be stimming.
Pathological demand avoidance
This phenomenon can also be comorbid with anxiety, which happens to be a risk factor for ADHD, so we're looping back around with this one. PDA is characterized by a person exhibiting an intense aversion to something that is asked of them, even if they wanted to do it beforehand. It can be associated with feelings of unfairness and like they don't have any control, so someone with PDA may "break the rules" to feel as though they have some control over what happens to them. Aran's high infraction count in Wii could be a sign of a more obsessive form of this. Avoiding the process of carrying out the demand can be conflated with executive dysfunction as well.
TL;DR get this man into a psychiatrist's office ASAP
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