#despite doing it time and time again

[captainderyn]

[Fictober24] Day 1: "That was good work."

Prompt: "That was a good work."

Fandom: LOTRO

Pairings: None

Warnings: None

Summary: Eldarion has been training with Wulfwryn in the art of the sword since he was a boy, yet he still cannot best her in combat. Frustrated with this, it takes Wulfwryn sharing some of her own wisdom to reflect that perhaps not seeing combat is a blessing and not a failing.

Read on AO3

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Watching her mother spar was something Faewryn would never tire of. The elegance of her blows and parries were like the most intricate steps of a festival dance and the way she wielded her sword and shield was just as natural as the way her father held his lute. 

Faewryn, however much she adored watching her mother spar, never wanted to partake. Aside from wielding a sword—or dagger, bow, glave, or any other weapon—feeling so unnatural to her despite any number of practice hours that she was more apt to cut off her own hand than cut an opponent, she had no desire to lose time after time. 

This particular time, after many times before, finally frustrated Eldarion to his limit, and he drove the tip of his sword into the soft dirt of the sparring arena and leaned against it. Despite the cool autumn air, his face was flushed with exertion and sweat pooled on his brow, sticking his mused hair to his forehead. He shook his head like a wet dog before scrubbing his hand through the damp strands. 

“That was good work, Eldarion.” Wulfwryn praised, leaning her sword and shield against the weapons rack. She ran her sleeve over her forehead, her own face red with exertion. They’d been going through session after session back to back with no end in sight. 

Faewryn rested her forearms on the half wall, pressing onto her tiptoes and rocking back down as she called, “You nearly had her that time!” 

The glare leveled at her made her dissolve into giggles that she stifled with her hands. She knew the look her mother was giving her without looking—she wasn’t meant to heckle or tease any of her trainees, no matter if that trainee was her dearest and longest friend. 

Eldarion huffed, the most petulant he would let himself get. “I’ve been training with you for years, yet I’m still getting my ass kicked like a tot with his first wooden sword.” 

Wulfwryn leveled a look at him with raised brows. 

“Hardly a tot.” Wulfwryn admonished. “You know I go especially hard on you, as your father instructed me to.”

Faewryn pressed her tongue to her cheek, already rehearsing in her head how the next part of the conversation would go. It was the same every time, with the same answers again and again.  

“That’s exactly it! If I cannot hold my own here, how am I meant to ride with you on missions? I am nearly in my twenty-third year yet I have not ridden out once with our guards. You have soldiers younger than that!” 

If her mother’s sigh was an indicator, she also knew how this song and dance played out. Faewryn mouthed along as the two went back and forth, every word near correct. 

“You shouldn’t be so eager to go chasing down rogue orc bands. They’re a brutish bunch, and the ones that still persist after all these years after particularly sturdy.”

Eldarion was quick to counter, as he always was, “It looks shameful to have the son of the king fresh as a welp in actual battle.” 

“Have you perhaps considered that we who fought in the war don’t wish the same for our children? That we’d prefer to keep sparring exercises as learning and not life or death?” This was always the line that shut Eldarion up before, and it worked no different this time. He snapped his mouth closed and Wulfwryn nodded as if content this would be the conclusion. 

She hefted up her shield again, gesturing for Eldarion to pick up his sword once again. He did with a weary breath. 

“I know you’re eager to put this to use, I know you wish to prove yourself, but truly how long do you think I’ve been studying the sword?” Wulfwryn asked. 

Both Eldarion and Faewryn hesitated, weighing the odds wrongly answering such a question. 

“…years?” Eldarion finally answered in a hesitant, small voice. 

Wulfwryn tipped her head back with a full-bellied laugh. “A great many years! I’ll leave specifics to your imagination. Now, think: you’re trying to cram a lifetime of training and true battle experience into a handful of years. You’ll get there, I promise, hopefully with far less pain and trial than I.” 

She gestured to his sword, still in a resting position. “Now, again.” 

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[cherryfennec]

Summer Times

Hi! I'm finally back from my two week abroad trip!

[heartorbit]

figure skating set right now please. thanks

[thefloatingstone]

Appleseed PDA montage to save you from reading endless pages of unimportant politics that don't amount to anything

also because I have nothing better to do, I'm bored, I'm moody, my gaming laptop is still broken so no BG3, and it's too late at night to start drawing after doing animation clean-up all day.

[pixlatedvampire]

hi the literal whole entire reason i made these was bc i watched this 10 sec clip on youtube pls watch

[epiphainie]

day three mindset is maybe i could engage with canon compliant content too bc god their breakup was really juicy i hate that it's juicy

[kunikidas-lost-glasses]

Okay but Gojo raised two children at 17/18 alone with like zero experience on how to be a good parent while he was training to become the strongest and shortly after loosing his best friend who had also been the one he had been in love with in one of the most horrendous and cruel ways possible all while keeping up an incredibly cheerful and carefree personality.

You can't tell me that this man wasn't emotionally, mentally and probably also physically exhausted during that time.

[deoidesign]

someone asked me what if adam and steve switched vampire and werewolf...

And then since my monsters are purposefully not much visually different because of metaphors, I went more traditional vampire and werewolf...

and then I got carried away...

[baalzebufo]

so I very briefly mentioned this au I have in my last gideon doodle post and saw one tag saying to elaborate and thats all the excuse I needed. ok to be honest i didnt need an excuse i was going to talk about it anyway

i had a dream shortly after the stanchurian candidate aired where my brain made up a fake episode of GF to essentially finish gideons 'arc'. and it involved him making a deal with bill to gain demon powers. bill promised him All The Perks, and he was desperate to get outta jail, so he took it.

turns out 'all the perks' involves being trapped in the nightmare dimension without a physical form and, while being tremendously powerful, unable to truly utilize those powers without being summoned. so he sort of just gets condemned to existing as a demon and is desperate to get back into a physical body because, turns out, the human brain is not really.. designed to process that existence for too long. it freaks you out. especially if 'you' happens to be a ten year old who is still afraid of the dark and spends most of their time surrounded by nightmares.

it was weirdly grim and i woke up like 'holy shit. i need to make that an AU' and it developed from there. in the more thought-out version, bill and gideons deal involved him swapping into gideons body to further his plans for a while. he never promised he'd give it BACK, though. it, uh. ended how you'd expect bill possessing a body to end.

'what happened to his eye?' bill thought it'd be funny if it was part of his collectin on gideons 'debt'. hes got one eye, you should have only one of em, too.

honestly I make most of the details up as I go and its mostly an excuse to draw my favourite worst son in various levels of power-thirst and distress. sorry gids even you dont deserve this one

[bixels]

While I do think anon was rude, I do think it's pretty shitty to set up all this stuff you were going to add the au and then just drop it. It's disappointing. Definitely unfollowing.

Bye.

[nenoname]

stan twins the canon cptsd brothers i will always think about all your unaddressed issues that would make perfect plot fuel for your spinoff

and also the whole 'stan getting that poem by bill via a website which contrasts with bill getting one from the axolotl via a website' foreshadowing thing

like idk i would love something like su future but like more optimistic, aka not an accumulated breakdown that has to be mostly resolved off screen at the end :/// but something thats being kinda addressed throughout? (although would love to see one of them turn into a monster thats always fun lol)

stan having severe issues from his dad and those years of being homeless that we keep on getting more info on but never really getting confronted on (the drifter catalogue and tijuana incident...), him being completely alone for like twenty years when running the shack before soos comes along to the point that 1998 is noted as his low point, and him not really learning about bill+what he did to ford until ages after he killed him if he ever did get the full context

while i think amnesia and everyone seeing him as a hero actually helped with stan's 'i'm a worse version of my brother' thing its still a lingering issue too and we now got him being insecure over his own hands

ford being immediately thrown from 'being tortured by bill' to 'being stuck in the multiverse and being chased by bounty hunters constantly', him fully expecting himself to die when destroying bill, and him only now being safe for the first time in 30 years ....relatively safe, he's still in constant danger because of course he is

idk in the end the series wants them to be happy and they deserve it, its why i wasn't too worried about the book being like 'ooh bill is back!! and the book is haunting ford' thing cos i knew they'll be ok

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Redraw of my first post on this blog. Oh how far we've come B'*)

[Now with it's own redraw!]

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

Hello may 31th anon! Look at that, another year behind us and a new one to come. Have a nice day! ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡

[sweeneydino]

Spikeangelo, Reference sheet... again, I think

Yes, this is a hint...maybe

[nyancrimew]

waiting for the hopefully once again temporary loss of focus and massive brainfog from covid to hopefully also fade away again after like a month just like the other time i had covid