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

[Aha. Some kind of response. It may not be the full picture of how he fights, but it's something rather than the nothing from before.

As he pushes her harder, she finds herself falling back into her acrobatic style, muscle memory taking over. She's whip-quick and precise, working in flips and spins to build up momentum of her own.

But she can't match the strength of his strikes. Qrow may be weaker than his sister, but he's bigger than Terezi's scraggly, bony frame, and the extra force built from his momentum is too much for her and her thin swords to handle. Rather than trying to block, she does her best to roll with and redirect his movements.

Her defenses are solid, but it becomes clear as the fight drags on that she's getting tired. She's used to fights being over quickly, exploiting the gaps in her opponents' techniques that she'd already known from her research and study. And rarely did she fight one on one -- at first she had Vriska to cover for her if things went south, and later during Sgrub she had others to fight with her. As she slows down, her breathing grows ragged, which in turn affects how well she can follow his movements. Despite her skill and speed, she can't keep up for long. ]

[So that's it. That's most of what he needs to know. But there's still one more thing he wants to find out.

So right as she's coming towards him, Qrow draws back and sheathes his sword, standing there unarmed and undefended. His Aura will protect him if she hits, of course, but he wants to see: how she reacts, if she can.]

[She almost doesn't catch it in time.

Terezi skids to a stop like a Looney Tunes character with a loud "Whoa!," swords close but not quite touching. It's a very near thing: a moment more, a slower sniff, and she would have collided against his Aura.

As she draws back and sheathes her weapons, she asks:]

You're done? Just like that?

[It's good, though, a truly impressive halt under the conditions. He gives a nod.]

Just like that. [He got all the information he needed.] You're not used to long fights, huh?

Edited (comes back a day later to change two words) 2019-01-18 14:59 (UTC)

If we're done, I'm sure you're not going to mind if I flop out right here.

[She flops backwards on the ground, arms spread wide. It is embarrassing how much this fight took out of her. Just give her a second to catch her breath.]

Ughhhhhhhhhhhh. No, I'm not. I'm of the opinion that the best kind of fight is the one that's over before it even starts.

[Qrow walks over to his desk to grab her a water bottle. He holds it out to the grey, alien snow angel lying on the floor.]

Sure, that's the best kind. It's not the most common kind.

You up for training your endurance up some?

[Qrow looms above her, gifting unto her a water bottle from on high like some kind of merciful angel. And lo, she takes it from him with a murmur of thanks, chugs most, and then dumps the rest on her face, as is right and good.]

I guess. [She's not nearly as reluctant as she sounds. She knows where she's weak, and how important it is to shoring up that weakness. It just suuuuuuucks. She pauses, and then asks:] ...Do you mean right now, or...?

[His eyebrows lift, and a hint of a smile plays across his mouth.]

I'm not so sure you can right now.

[If she wants to, he won't stop her, but she's not looking primed for it.]

That's a no, then. Thank god.

[Yeah, she'll just lay here for a bit. In a puddle of water. It's fine. She's fine. Just give her a minute.]

I'm curious. Did someone teach you how to fight?

[Qrow decides to sit on his desk, since Terezi seems to have the rest of this conversation from her place on the floor. The full answer is complicated, so he goes with the simple one:]

I attended an academy to train to be a Huntsman. They covered combat, among other things. A lot of these training exercises are modified from how they taught us there. Less field training, unfortunately, but we'll get to do plenty of that when we have our next mission.

[Terezi finally musters up enough energy to sit upright, the water still dripping from her hair, and shakes herself off like a dog.]

What does a Huntsman hunt? People or monsters?

[It seems like a bit of an odd question from his soaking grey pupil, but it actually is fair enough.] Both, when we have to. Now and then we're sent to route out bandits or catch a criminal who's gone on the run. But most of the time? Huntsmen were there to defend people against the Creatures of Grimm. They were beasts that existed only to wipe out human life where they found it. Not for food, not to defend themselves. They just existed to wipe us out.

[Terezi nods. She grew up idolizing the legislacerators, lawyer/bounty hunters who'd haul in the criminals they prosecuted. It's a pertinent question, coming from her.

As she listens to him continue, though, a frown of confusion crosses her face.]

Is there a reason for that? Some ancient grudge, a war, anything?

Well, there are a lot of stories about it. Lots of religions trying to explain them. You know how it goes on an old planet. Back in ancient times, they used to think they were the spirits of mistreated animals, come back to revenge on mankind. Other religious say they're the creation of the God of Darkness, born to seek out and destroy everything made by his brother, the God of Light.

[That's the one Qrow believes; it is the one Ozpin told him. And Ozpin, he figures, would know better than anyone else.]

Still, it's not a question modern science has been able to answer. See, the Grimm dissolve into black smoke when you kill 'em. That makes it hard for a dissection. And studying live Grimm, well. It's been attempted before, often to disastrous effect. The only thing we knew for sure was that they get smarter and more dangerous the older they get. Better at biding their time and waiting for a chance to attack.

Huh.

[Wack.

Magical and religious stuff aside, this all just... sounds so weird to her. Lusii who never claimed a wiggler were wild and vicious, but for all of Alternia's dangers, they weren't actively and deliberately malevolent. That was mostly the domain of other trolls.]

What was it like at this academy? I've never been to a school before coming here.

Edited 2019-01-24 20:30 (UTC)

[His attention pivots when she says that, and rather than immediately answering, he decides to follow up on a point of interest.]

Yeah? Where'd you learn to fight?

[It was common on Remnant for kids from certain backgrounds to not go to a combat school for training. Kids from Qrow's background, for example. He is curious about Terezi's case.]

I'm self-taught. The drones left some schoolfeeding manuals and videos at my treehive when I was a wiggler, but mostly it's all through claws-on experience.

[Qrow snorts briefly.]

Now we're having fun with words I don't know, but I think I get the idea. Self-taught with, uh, robots? Leaving you materials when you were really young.

Some of the kids at the Academies were like you. If you grew up outside the kingdoms, especially if you were nomadic, you had to learn how to fight pretty quickly. Kids like those didn't go to the formal combat schools, but they were often top scoring students when they went to the Huntsman Academies. [To clarify:] Kids in the kingdoms went to the combat schools for general training, but the Huntsman Academies were specifically for learning to be Huntsmen and Huntresses. Four years, with graduates just about the age you are now.

The downside of those hands-on, wilderness educations, of course, was that there were sometimes real useful things, often basics, that those kids missed out on in favour of learning the most efficient path to survival. Plus, it can be real boring to sit through a class teaching things you already know when you're used to learning all of it the hard way.

[Both of those were problems he had back then. He liked the chance to relax, but he struggled to pay attention to theory he felt he had mastered. And there were some glaring flaws in a fighting style that was meant for killing Grimm and scared villagers.]

Oh! Sorry. The drones are... [actually fuck what are the imperial drones. robots? another one of the alternian species beholden to the mother grub? she never really bothered to find out -- being too close to one was generally a bad idea.] They kept things running while the adults were off in space. They made sure homes got built, arrested trolls, stuff like that. If you didn't live in or by any of the big cities, you were really left to fend for yourself.

[Plus her lusus wasn't around to raise her most of her life.]

What about you? Were you one of those self-taught kids, too? Or did you go to a formal school?

I was one of the kids who grew up outside the kingdoms, so I had all my initial training that way. Adapting to the Academy was a bit of a tricky business.

[Qrow's answer, while not a direct contradiction of his earlier claim, does reveal that his first response had been simplified. It also elides a direct answer to the question of if he was self-taught; after all, there were people who taught him. They just weren't people he likes very much.]

No adults on the planet, huh? Must've been an interesting situation. Are you what'd be considered an adult, or are you still a kid by troll standards?

I'm an adult of my species, but barely. I've still got little wiggler horns and my skin hasn't even started to darken. [Without thinking about it, she reaches up to touch the tips of her horns. She likes them, it's not like she has any horn envy over them -- it's just that she's got a long way to go.]

There weren't any adults on Alternia because they were all offworld serving in the military. Once you were of age, you joined the Imperial Fleet, no exceptions.

[Huh. Qrow wonders how that would look. He supposes, eventually, he'd find out.

More important, on culture sensitivity with Professor Qrow:]

No offence, but your entire society sounds like it sucks.

Oh, it blew chunks.

[Oh that went well. Cool.]

Glad to know that's not just an outsider's perspective.

To go back to your earlier question about what the Academy was like, it was nice. A lot safer than growing up outside the kingdoms or, I'm taking a guess, on your planet, sure. Weekly schedules were weird to start getting used to, and all the social events like dances and parties were pretty novel. Sometimes they even felt decadent, soft. But it was fun, and even if the teachers would launch you into a forest with pretty much no supervision and tell you that it's on you to take care of yourself, they'd still step in to save your neck if push came to shove. A safety net and a group of people who have your best interests at heart aren't something to knock on when it comes to helping kids learn and grow.

[It's the environment Qrow wants to produce in his class. Flexibility, independent learning, all of that—sure, that's important. That's part of how he works. But they key things, the things that matter most to him. The things he wants to pass on from his time at Beacon. That's the care and support he was given for the first time in his life twenty years ago.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Open] Qombat Qlass with Uncle Qrow

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