[Open] Qombat Qlass with Uncle Qrow

[blodsvorr]

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.

Comments

[grakraka]

[Once Akechi thinks they made a totally sneaky escape that no one will notice, he relaxes and stretches.]

What type of food do you like best?

[Now that they have to get to know each other, he asks the important questions.]

I like bread. It's easy to find, cheap, and generally quite filling for the price. Ah and convenience stores always have such delicious sandwiches.

[napstar]

[ Shrugs. He doesn't have strong opinions about food. But he doesn't want to eat something that will harm him! Despite Goro's helpful list he still doesn't trust most of Bender's food. If it wasn't free he would definitely be looking for someplace else to eat. ]

Anything affordable.

[grakraka]

[While it might not be much of an answer, Akechi now has the benefit of Minato's sincere word that he wishes to be friends with him, so he doesn't overthink it more than usual.]

I understand that. Well, convenience stores seem cheap but if you eat there everyday, it becomes a problem. Rice and noodles can be easily bought in bulk and stored, but that only works if you have a stable place to live. [Which, well. That's a recent thing for him.] In the end, I think things like savoury buns are easiest on a tight budget...

[napstar]

[ He's really put a lot of thought into this huh? Minato can agree on the buns, but he rarely had cause to analyze food prices to such a meticulous degree. Even when on a budget he mostly went by good enough than trying to analyze food like Goro is. Maybe he would be like that if he didn't have Tartarus to fatten his wallet... ]

Do you live on your own?

[ That probably should have been "did" considering their homes are gone now but whatever. ]

[grakraka]

[The 'did' tends to be implied no matter what, so he doesn't bother correcting it.]

Mm, I have for the past two and a half years, yes.

[The hesitation doesn't seem to be from any discomfort, because it isn't—rather, he's trying to think how to word it, giving a 'hm' of thought.]

I mentioned my father earlier, yes? [Since he told Minato that much before, he supposes this must sound a little strange. Generally, someone doesn't have a parent and also live on their own at this age.] The truth is that he was absent from my life since the very beginning. My mother... couldn't handle that burden. [He leaves the implication for Minato to fill in.] I was passed around from then on but once I found Shido and began to work for him, it was just better for the plan if I had a place of my own.

[napstar]

[ It was obviously a complicated situation just given the mismatching surnames. Minato wasn't trying to pry, just make conversation. At least Goro seems comfortable sharing it all. And it's a lot of information! Missing father, mother either dead or abandoned him, passed around family or dumped in an orphanage similar to himself... And some kind of plan, likely relating to his Persona ability, which he surprisingly was aware of.

Minato should pick his follow up question carefully to get the most useful and important information out of him. ]

You're an orphan?

[ But he asks the one he's most interested in instead. ]

[grakraka]

[Ah, yes. Naturally, another Japanese person might notice that faster. Akechi adjusts his gloves with a nod.]

Yes, that's correct. Shido left before I was even born. Mother passed while I was quite young. I suppose she never disclosed who my father was to anyone, so they had no one to give me to after that and so into the system I went.

[napstar]

[ Another Japanese orphan noticed it! ]

My parents died when I was seven. And no one took me in.

[grakraka]

Ah...

[Akechi blinks, taken off guard. It sounds like Minato was a little older than him when it happened but it happened nonetheless. He was abandoned into the same system as Akechi.]

It's the worst, isn't it? [He knows not everyone had the same experience as him but he also knows that even the better experiences were terrible.] Did you manage to get into high school?

[napstar]

Yeah. [ To both questions! Though Goro deserves some more information from him, he thinks. Goro likes hearing others talk, even though Minato's bad at it. ]

Got lucky. Foster parents paid the first year. Got a scholarship for the second. [ A scholarship that was probably manipulated by Ikutsuki now that it's on his mind... ]

[grakraka]

Ah, that really is quite lucky. [He hesitates.] I... didn't have the same luck. But I truly am glad that wasn't the case for you. It's the only way out, after all.

[And if you can't get out, then what is even the point?]

[napstar]

[ And Goro was well on his way to dead before coming here, right? Ugh. Minato thought high school was going to be wasted on him. There were plenty of other kids that could use it better, like Goro. But instead Goro hands himself over to his father for Persona experiments in exchange for a place to live and Minato attends school like any regular kid. ]

It's messed up.

[grakraka]

[It shouldn't make him laugh but he can't help a soft one.]

A concise but completely accurate assessment.

[Isn't that just their society?]

Ah, but I'm kind of glad to know that. I think I understand you better now.

[Minato gave up inside. He understands. There were times where he almost did. To stop trying to please others, to stop fighting and struggling. If he just accepted it all, the unfair system pushing him down, it might have been a little easier in some ways. A slower death instead of the one he wound up with.

But Minato gave up and that isn't something he looks down on him for. Going through all of that, he understands it. It's tiring. It's exhausting to be nothing to the people around you.]

[napstar]

[ He doesn't know what Goro's gleaned from that but he's glad Goro seems reassured. Minato nods in response. Orphan solidarity!

He's silent a moment longer, not sure if he should be putting this information out there. Shinji's a recluse, after all. But he feels like Shinji could benefit from more connections, and Goro was happy about meeting another orphan, so. ]

If you meet him, Shinjiro Aragaki is as well.

[grakraka]

[Surprised by the information, he takes a moment to process it. Ryuji and Akira both have parents. Well, Ryuji's father left them and for the best judging by what he found out about that man. Akira remains more of a mystery. But still, thinking back on the other Phantom Thieves and now this, he can't help a soft, snorted out laugh.]

Sorry. It isn't funny. But I'm beginning to wonder what the, ah, qualifications are of having a Persona.

[Is it just 'fucked up in some way'?]

But I'll keep that context in mind.