balance_logs | [Open] Qombat Qlass with Uncle Qrow

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[Open] Qombat Qlass with Uncle Qrow

Who: [OPEN] Qrow Branwen (

blodsvorr) and anyone who wants to come to class
Where: Moon Base: the Academy, Dojo, & Arena
When: Throughout the month
What: Mingle post for combat class with Qrow! Tag teacher or form teams and pairs for lessons. Have fun!
Content Warning: References to someone trying to control their alcohol use/dependency to only partial success.

NETWORK POST

[On Saturday, a post is made to the network from username eight.span, Qrow Branwen. It reads as follows:]

So Schimmrigk isn’t coming back. Apparently, the guy enjoyed his sabbatical. That means I’m taking over combat classes. Show up or don’t, but for the love of whatever you buy into, make sure you’re ready for the next field mission. We’ve got shopkeepers and blacksmiths for weapons, and we’ve got the Academy and other Reclaimers for training. No one needs to go into the field unarmed this time.

If you're coming to my class, you should know I don’t do rubrics or homework. Don’t show up expecting any of that crud.

COURSE MATERIAL (i.e., mingle prompts)

So you want to get an education! Or maybe you just want to see how the hell Qrow got this job. Qrow’s educational practices can be described as "direct," at best. He follows the methods he knows from back home and is sticking to the philosophy of education that turned him into a Huntsman. That means all students are basically being trained the way he was trained at Beacon. Fun!

Some basic lessons:

WEAPON DESIGN: Design your weapon with Uncle Qrow! Weapons are, in the Remnant school of thought, a way of channeling your Aura, which is itself your soul. In other words, a weapon is an extension of who you are as a person. Thus, weapon design. Students are encouraged to come up with their own weapon, whether it be an axe that is also a blunderbuss, a scythe that is also a sniper rifle, or a revolver that is also a pistol. (Remnant likes guns.) You can also design a boring and normal weapon like a war hammer or a chainsaw. Whatever works! Qrow has experience with designing weapons, so he can help people figure their outs, but students are also free to discuss options with their peers.

Obviously, all weapons should be personalized. Paint it to match your colour scheme! Engrave some swirly lines on it! Come up with a symbol to represent your entire personality and slap that bad boy on your weapon! That’s what individuality means.

(Note that most normal weapons take 1 week for a blacksmith to craft, while weird combo weapons probably take longer, with a revolver-rapier set at 3 weeks. You may want to check with the mods to be sure of the time.)

WEAPON MAINTENANCE: The follow-up to weapon design. If you know how your weapon is structured, you can better maintain and even sometimes fix it. Whatever you made should, in theory, be able to last you your whole life if you take care of it properly. A person must always treat their weapon with respect. Qrow will not be letting any of his students fail to learn how to do everything they possibly can do to maintain a weapon in the field.

FIELD MEDICINE: How not to die when you're stabbed. These are all the basics of how to stop bleeding from a major artery or set a broken bone well enough that you can get back to base. Students get to practice on dummies, but more importantly, they get to practice on each other and themselves. Have fun pairing up and cutting off a friend's blood flow! (Not with actual broken bones or nicked arteries though, because Qrow doesn't believe in teaching methods as extreme as some people here.)

However, the majority of class time will be made up of the following two components:

COMBAT PRACTICE: The thing this course is supposed to be about. Sparring matches are mostly between students, although Qrow will also spar individually with every student to test their skills and abilities, so he can better help them going forward. There are also just drills and routines against dummies, targets, holographs, etc. There will be a lot of this. It's the point of being here. Well, sort of, because then there's the other thing Qrow wants to drill them on.

TEAM TRAINING: Making liberal use of simulators in the arena, this is a combination of terrain education (helping students learn how to handle different terrain, including how to use it to your advantage, avoid its dangers, and track a target through it), monster education, training in improvisational thinking, a crash course on field medicine, and, most importantly, general education in how to work things out and fight in teams. Groups are usually two or four people in size.

(Teams of four should follow the Remnant Team Naming Rule, which means an acronym from one initial of every team member that forms a word evocative of colour, with the team leader getting the first letter. Please make up stupid team names. I beg of you.)

Some training missions
Escape rooms
Obstacle Courses
Huntsman Missions: Missions modelled after the kind of missions that Huntsmen and Huntresses are assigned on Remnant, adapted to tasks they may encounter as Reclaimers.
search-and-retrieve (having to make your way through through monster-infested terrain, retrieve supplies or some random object, and come back)
escort (escorting another student through monster terrain. This student is given the choice to be helpful or to be ‘obliviously sabotaging’ with the rescue attempt. Qrow encourages the escorted student to have fun, because escort missions always suck, and so should the training for it.)
search-and-destroy (tracking down and destroying a monster’s nest)
perimeter defence/village security (holding an “inhabited” area against a monster attack or inclement weather)
bounty (tracking down and retrieving a wanted person alive. As with escort missions, the “wanted person” is a student, but this time, they get to actively and deliberately mess with the team sent in)

MISC. FACTS ABOUT CLASS

NO HOMEWORK EVER because he doesn’t want to grade it
Akechi, however, may assign some and grade it. Akechi is a weird kid. He isn't actually the TA, but he keeps acting like he is.
Generally it’s a non-standardized approach. He does better at one-on-one teaching than anything, so he avoids lectures like the plague and sets people off to work in teams and pairs while he moves between students to teach them all personally.
He ends up just keeping wrapped sandwiches and other foods in his desk to throw at children who have shown up without eating
He is notably softer with children than adults. For example, adults who have not eaten do not get free food from Qrow; they get told to leave and come back when they’re ready for combat.
He minces his curses in class even when it’s really obvious he wants to swear. There are too many children.
He is trying to be good, so he can frequently be spotted drinking from a coffee mug. A mug which he openly spikes in front of the class. But still. He’s trying.
He has literally never showed up for class on time, not even once. But at least he has never been more than fourteen minutes late?
The times he has shown up hungover have shown that being hungover has had literally no effect on his teaching or combat ability; he just pinches the bridge of his nose more and complains about noise without actually stopping people from being loud.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Wash has been attending class ever since Qrow announced he was teaching it, partially to observe the rest of the displaced Reclaimers and partially to learn more about Qrow.]

[It's...certainly educational, in more ways than one.]

[But at the end of the week, as the room empties out, he approaches Qrow - casually, hands in his pockets, utterly belying his opening statement:]

You need a TA.

Nope.

[Qrow opens his desk drawer and pulls out his whiskey bottle. Since it's the end of the week, he can chug it as much as he wants. Yeah, weekends!]

[Wash reaches out to snatch that bottle. They're having this conversation sober, goddammit.]

You do, and this is one of the reasons why.

...and you have too many students for one person to handle all at once. [Class is popular.]

[Qrow immediately yanks it away from him.]

This is why you're not getting a TAship.

[Don't try to take his whiskey, asshole!!]

[Wash lets it go for now, but if Qrow tries to take a drink he's going to go after it again. Don't you try to multitask this. :|]

For what, pointing out a flaw?

[Yeah, drinking during class is a "flaw" and the sun is slightly warm. Wash definitely has an issue with that, but it's not going to change in one argument and he has better angles of attack.]

Look, it's a numbers game. With the amount of time you have and the number of students in your class, there's no way you can give everyone individual attention and cover whatever basics you plan on teaching. You're good, but you're still only one person.

I can handle the basics, and I'm pretty sure you know that.

[His participation in class all week has certainly made that clear.]

[Let him drink, you MONSTER! Qrow is still protectively holding onto his whiskey because fuck you!]

Then talk to the Director about opening up another course for basics. In case you didn't notice, my setup lets the students teach each other anyway. I'm handling it fine.

[He is stress drinking off-hours (the drinking during class is to counter his physical dependency more than anything) and literally gets hammered with Will every Friday. He is not handling it well.

But he has another reason that he isn't ready to hand his students over to Wash for training at the moment. One that he's not quick to disclose.]

[He won't touch the whiskey as long as Qrow doesn't try to drink it during their conversation. He's not completely heartless.]

So were you handling it when the escort team lost their escort within thirty seconds and didn't notice for five minutes? Or when a sparring match turned into a slap fight? Or when a bounty hid behind a tree and gave up immediately when the team found them? Or when the betting ring started yesterday?

[On one hand, it's a small number of incidents over the course of a week, which is a pretty good track record. Plus, he'd be surprised if Qrow hadn't at least noticed them - the betting ring hadn't had a repeat performance today, at least. On the other hand, one incident is all it takes, and Wash has a point to make.]

I'm not trying to take your class from you or divide and conquer. I'm trying to be an extra pair of eyes and a resource for when you're busy.

Hey, that's the learning curve. Embarrassing screw-ups were my team's bread-and-butter when we were first starting off, and we definitely started our share of betting rings.

[Those were the good old days. Team STRQ was terrible.

Wash doesn't know the real reason for Qrow's hesitance, and Qrow doesn't mind that. There's a reason he's keeping it to himself. A lot of these children have been hurt, and they don't trust easily anymore. That means Qrow won't betray their trust by talking about anything they have told him—or worse, revealed to him unknowingly. It occurs to Qrow that this is similar to Wash wanting to know who had died. Qrow knows Wash means well. But Qrow can't let that information go freely.]

Look. As far as I'm concerned, we could do with a whole second class to help split this work up. And if you want to help out fellow students, fine, I won't stop you. That's part of how the class is designed. But I'm not putting anyone else in authority over these kids unless they ask for that person specifically. All of them.

And how often did your team have the fate of the multiverse at stake?

[But then he stops. Qrow is giving him an in here: he's still a student - for a given value thereof - in Qrow's class, and it takes a lot longer than a week to build trust, and...]

[Okay, yeah. He straightens up a bit.]

Point taken.

[He's still not done, though.]

...how long have you been teaching? I mean in general, not just here.

[Because teaching is goddamn difficult, and either Qrow is experienced or he has a hell of a knack for it.]

[Qrow kind of snorts and doesn't answer that first one. Wash doesn't need to know exactly what Team STRQ had as its stakes before they all fell apart.

The second question has Qrow shrugging. It's not the evasiveness of their bar conversation; that was dodging questions just because he's annoying as a person. This is more a matter of retreat.]

For a bit, a couple years back. It didn't really suit me.

[He says, standing in the middle of a classroom, wherein he is the teacher.

Then again, he says it while holding a bottle of whiskey, so maybe he's right.]

[~~Neither of them know how close Wash is to the truth, really~~]

[Nice to finally get an answer to the question he'd asked an entire week ago. Still, it's not the longest Wash has waited for information, and he's sure it'll be a good chunk of time before he gets any satisfactory answers to his questions about the Bureau or the Relics.]

[That doesn't mean he can resist, though.]

And how was the coffee in the teacher's lounge?

[Would you look at that smirk.]

[But it drops after a moment. Back to business.]

Anyway, right now, you're suiting them. I'd say that's the hardest part.

[He's run enough training exercises where half the participants didn't want to be there to be able to speak with some semblance of authority on the matter.]

[Qrow just winks in reply.]

Better than the crap the military has.

[It's a moment of levity that quickly washes away. Teasing and dancing around with intel? That's Qrow's comfort zone. When it comes to getting a positive assessment he doesn't think he deserves, on something that he constantly feels like he's fucking up on, something he feels he'll never do right...

Qrow just shrugs and attempts to drink from his whiskey a second time. Don't you dare yoink, Wash!]

[Get an answer, chase it with another question. That's just what conversations with Qrow are going to be like, aren't they.]

[That, and the drinking.]

[Quick as a thought, Wash snatches at the bottle again, intent on slamming it down on the desk - without enough force to damage anything, but definitely hard enough to make a point.]

Though you'd suit them a lot better if you'd quit drinking on the job.

[You are a responsible adult for these students, Qrow, now act like it]

[Qrow sees it coming and tries to jerk back, but, unfortunately, Wash's efforts yank the bottle out of Qrow's hand such that the thing goes crashing to the floor between them. Qrow growls in irritation at his own Semblance—it would take his drink, wouldn't it—and bends down to start picking up the pieces, his Aura activated to avoid the risk of cutting his fingers on glass.]

You can put it in the teaching evaluations at end of term.

[His drinking is fine. Okay, it isn't fine, it's a problem. Qrow is aware he is an alcoholic. But he is putting an effort in, cutting his alcohol consumption with coffee during class and trying to keep near to the minimum he needs to keep withdrawal from kicking in. He doesn't want to be teaching with the shakes. And there have been moments when he's probably put more whiskey than coffee in, sure, but he has never been outright drunk in class.

Then again, it's just the first week.]

[Is it possible to feel vindicated and bad at the same time? Because that's what Wash is working with right now. He hadn't meant to completely wreck Qrow's whiskey, and yet here they are.]

[So he takes a knee and starts helping Qrow pick up the pieces, carefully so as not to get cut.]

Or you can make the change now, so we don't have to drag you out of the bottom of a bottle the first time one of your students gets hurt.

[This, naturally, doesn't help Qrow's temper.]

Back off.

[Qrow sweeps over all of the pieces with his forearm, ignoring the sharp pricks of pain and the unpleasant room-temperature nature of the spilled whiskey, and then he strides off to dump the mess in the garbage. As many of those nearest to him have found out, Qrow is not amenable to a conversation about his drinking problem at the best of times. And the middle of an episode with his Semblance is not that.]

[That...is a bad way to handle broken glass, holy shit. Does Qrow get self-destructive when he drinks, or is it when he doesn't drink, or is he just mad?]

[Things to worry about later. For now, he just leans against the desk.]

No. You want to drink on your own time, fine, but class isn't your own time, especially when you're supposed to be teaching students skills that could save their lives in the field.

[Nobody likes talking about their problems, but you don't get to just ignore them when they affect people in your care.]

[...says the pot to the kettle.]

[At least there are no cuts from it! When Qrow dusts his hands off, his Aura has spared him any injury from that decision.]

That's why I took the bottle out after class was done.

[Sure he drinks during class, but it's in mixed drinks. With coffee. He's valid!]

[How. The fuck.]

[Wash files "immune to ~~piercing damage~~ broken glass?" away with all the other questions he has about Qrow. Later.]

You openly spiked your coffee at least three times this week.

[Those are the times Wash saw, at least. There might be more.]

Yeah, but I was drinking coffee.

[Therefore this doesn't count and he's fine? Come on, Wash. Get with the program.]

Look, buddy, I know you think you're being helpful, but you're not. I can teach just fine on how the amount of alcohol I have during class.

The coffee doesn't cancel out the alcohol.

[Look how amused Wash is not.]

Oh, okay, I didn't realize that "just fine" was good enough for you. Will it be good enough when one of them gets hurt and you can't stop asking yourself if you did enough to prepare them?

[If it sounds like he's speaking from experience...well. Not everyone survived Chorus.]

[Qrow just laughs, and it's angry and it's upset and it's bitter, because who the fuck does Wash think he is? What right does he think he has to come in here, talking like he knows anything, like he understands why Qrow drinks or what Qrow needs to function enough for teaching or the question Qrow will be asking himself when one of these kids gets hurt—and they will, he knows they will, he knows it's an inevitability. Qrow took his course because it gave him resources he didn't have before but he took it knowing that when push comes to shove and one of his students gets hurt or worse, he will feel it heavier than before, and he will wonder if his bad luck lingered on them, or if it's just going back to that truth that he isn't good enough for this and he never has been.

Qrow knows how this is going to play out. Qrow knows how it has always played out. Wash is practically a stranger.]

You've got a problem with how I teach, take it up with the Director. Or stop taking the class, I don't give a damn. Just back off.

[Qrow grabs Harbinger, tucking it behind his back. He is heading right out that door.]

[That's not a good sound.]

[It's one Wash is familiar with - it's come from him, more than once. It's a laughter belying a very deep-seated brokenness, when something was profoundly wrong and he couldn't express it the way it deserved, so it leaked sideways into other parts of him.]

[It sounds like something in Qrow was very badly hurt. It sounds like he may not have really recovered.]

[...well shit, that might be why he's an alcoholic.]

[Being back on the subject at hand jolts Wash into action, and he grabs for Qrow's shoulder.]

No. You didn't take this class for the authority - you took it because you give a damn whether your students live or die and you want to help.

[Teaching "never suited him," and yet here he is. Qrow doesn't care about power - the way the class is structured speaks to that. Wash has watched him interact with his students for a week, and it's obvious he cares about them more than anything else. That much was clear the first time he gave a wrapped student to someone who'd skipped breakfast to be there.]

So quit shooting yourself in the foot! You'll help them a lot better if you help yourself first.

[Qrow's eyes narrow and he knocks Wash's hand away.]

Yeah, and I'll help them great with the shakes. I told you to back off.

[He isn't having this conversation. He isn't getting this talk from a stranger. It was barely tolerable when it came from people who actually loved him, and now that most of them are gone, well. He'll just figure things out himself.]

[And Wash grabs for Qrow's shoulder again. This may well be a test of stubbornness and he's determined not to lose.]

And I told you no.

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* a wrapped SANDWICH, oh my god typos