#canoncrit qrow branwen

[kitkatopinions]

Ooh! New ask game!

Ironwood, obviously. And Qrow too.

Alrighty, these are my boys!

Let's do Ironwood first for the new ask game

1: sexuality headcanon

I headcanon Ironwood to be bisexual with a preference for men.

2: otp

Ironqrow for life. They are just so great as a ship, with all the 'mutual pining, not actually unrequited they're just both idiots, bickering divored-couple-energy that still allows for the spark of new love, the matching color scheme they had in their first looks, the way they look at each other, the freaking hug! It's an amazing ship.

3: brotp

Ironwood and Winter. A lot of people ship them and I can see why, but even though I've long headcanoned them to be the same age, in my head they're just very close friends, close to brother and sister, which makes him accidentally want to favor Weiss and Whitley when he knows them. XD

4: notp

Ironwood and Robyn. Blegh.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

James uses the training facility at Atlas Academy sometimes and will indulge students that want to spar with him. He's always careful and takes things easy on them, and always lets them get in hits to build their self-confidence.

6: favorite line from this character

"You have two choices: Defend your kingdom and your school, or save yourselves. ...No one will fault you if you leave."

This line is so very James at his best, aggggh! Because it starts out professional and stern, not exactly harsh but more blunt, and then the students all give each other these worried anxious looks, and he softens so clearly in his tone and tells them no one is gonna think less of them, that it isn't their job or their duty or morally right to endanger themselves, and that if they make the choice to leave they can. These kids are seventeen, this might be one of the only times in the first seven seasons that anybody told these kids it's okay to prioritize their own lives.

7: one way in which I relate to this character

I am also kind of socially awkward! Ironwood with his tie adjusting and struggling in conversations and kind of stiff deliveries of things like 'it's good to see you again'... Me too, buddy, I also have no idea how to talk to people. XD

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

The villain arc, ugh. What a terribly written final arc to have. It's always embarrassing to have to specify that I like Ironwood outside of his stupid badly done rushed villain arc that turned him into a boring two dimensional evil-laughing rando with a giant gun-gun using his two remaining braincells to do pointlessly evil things just to get at teenagers. Like??? Cringe.

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Problematic fave. Even at IW's very best, he still was flawed in some fun ways, he could do the wrong thing, he could do the right thing but do it in a way that makes you go 'huh.' (Gonna be honest, although I love cinnamon rolls, they're not half as interesting as problematic faves.) XD Aaaand at Ironwood's worst, he was a pointlessly evil stuck up bastard trying to kill and torture people for very little reason, and not in a fun way.

Now for Qrow

1: sexuality headcanon

I headcanon Qrow as bisexual as well, and I also headcanon him as having only realized he was bisexual as a grown adult (partially because Qrow is one of my faves and I project onto my faves, and I only realized I was bi when I was a grown adult. XD)

2: otp

Ironqrow again. XD This ship is just so good that it's my number one fave for both characters.

3: brotp

Qrow and Ozpin. This is a ship that I could see myself enjoying, but what I enjoy even more is them as close friends, with Qrow looking to Oz for guidance and as an authority figure and then the roles reverse when Ozpin gets put into a teenage body and suddenly Qrow is the guide in charge.

4: notp

Funnily enough, this one is also Robyn. Qrow and Robyn started being a ship when she caused a fight and then partially due to her actions, the queercoded Clover was brutally murdered, and then Clover and Qrow spent an entire season doing next to nothing but talking to each other despite their relationship mattering less than any other relationship Qrow had that could've gotten developed, and Robyn compared her problems with her active truth-telling semblance to Qrow's "I hurt everyone around me" problems caused by the passive semblance that makes his life harder despite him not doing anything, and then she was like "don't be sad that your actions helped the Salem worshipper brutally murder your friend, he was probably secretly evil and bad and you're better than that despite the fact that I've known you for like a day." Like, their relationship is nothing but angering for me. XD

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

I have this headcanon that Qrow doesn't realize it, but his bad luck semblance tends to react to large emotions he has. He still absolutely can't control it, but when he's calm and casual and cool, his semblance affects him and the world around him a bit less, and when he's really angry or really sad or even really happy his semblance kicks up and sometimes does really big things like cause unexpected rainstorms and make the electricity in buildings go out and stuff like that.

6: favorite line from this character

Raven: "They were your family." Qrow: "You have a very skewed perception of that word." Maybe it's just because this line fits into my headcanons, but I love it because Qrow's past easily lends itself to him having been abused by the people in the Branwen Camp, and then acquired a found family in Team STRQ and Ozpin, and now he has Yang and Ruby and he was involved in picking up the pieces when Raven left and then again when Summer died, which was probably devastating for him. I also just like Qrow's quippy nature and I like that at least someone was calling out Raven on her BS.

7: one way in which I relate to this character

Despite the fact that I've projected onto Qrow, we actually don't have very many similarities. But I'd say that although it's not nearly to the point of Qrow's own issues, I also struggle with feeling like a burden to the people around me and too much of a mess to deal with. I like writing for Qrow partially because it's a good way to explore those feelings.

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

"The size of the waitress's skirt length" Ulgh, gag me with a spoon. The at the time all male writers and one with a particularly bad past regarding misogyny on a show concepted by a guy who likes animating a seventeen year old woman character's boobs to bounce around to a jeering laughing cheering crowd... Yeah, no thanks. I much prefer writing my version of Qrow to flirt a lot but know where the line is and not do things like talk about how hot he finds miniskirts on service workers to his two underage nieces.

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Problematic fave for sure. Even at his best, Qrow is a rough-around-the-ages spy with shady connections blindly following a leader and not seeing much wrong with getting kids involved who also picks fights with people and is drowning in his own emotional problems in ways that have negative effects on the people around him. But Qrow also (especially in the third and in the eighth season) like it or not also suffers from the problems of the writers, whether that's never giving a damn about inequality, objectifying service workers in a funny story to his underage nieces, seeming weak willed and hypocritical due to the writer's misuse or retconnings or making him go along with whatever Ruby says after Argus, or actively aiding a servant of Salem in volume seven and losing all his braincells in the process so the writers can force it to happen. Either way, Qrow is very problematic, in some fun and interesting ways and some not so fun ways.