#tay does not realize how bad this marriage is until he is entangled in it further

[potatoesandsunshine]

Mon/Tay/Perrin......... there's something there

[ourimpavidheroine]

Wait you think that Qrow is Ruby's father?

I surely do. Despite Miles and Kerry's insistence that he isn't.

I'll put this under a read more since it’s long and most of my followers are here for the Wuko and not RWBY.

Well. Let me get this straight. I think Qrow is her biological father. I think in all other ways that Tai is her actual father; he's the one who has raised her as his and obviously loves her very much. This is not me dismissing Tai at all. He is her father in every way but the actual sperm donation.

I'm not the only person who thinks this; canon and the timeline certainly support it.

To whit:

Yang is born to Raven and Tai. Raven bails pretty soon after Yang is born - we're not told exactly when, but it's made clear that it's when she's still a baby. Raven still cares about her daughter - she's saved her ass several times (despite saying she'd only save it once) and she can use her Semblance, Kindred Link, to access Yang at any time.

Kindred Link can only access people Raven is very close to - those whom she considers her kindred, in fact. That's canon. Who has she accessed that way? Yang, Qrow, Tai and Vernal (RIP, Vernal). All people that she's very close to. We also know she's gone in her raven form to watch over Yang. But that’s not all. In fact, she’s using her raven form to watch Tai when Yang isn’t around and furthermore, he both knows this and acknowledges it. (See the final end scene in the final episode of Season 5 where Raven comes to see Tai and he knows it.) Between that and still being able to use her Semblance to get to him demonstrates that Raven still has feelings for him. Complicated feelings! For sure! But feelings. And Tai is the same. He's clearly got some complicated feelings about Raven as well that go above and beyond ex-wife who bailed on me and left me with the baby.

In other words, Tai and Raven had a marriage and what was clearly a loving relationship that went wrong somehow, leaving them apart but still dealing with Feelings about each other. (I mean, icky feelings, Raven is one fucked up individual but you know, Feelings are Feelings.)

According to the timeline:

Yang's birthday is July 28th (same as my father, glorious Leos the both of them) and she's 17 when season one starts in the fall. She's just turned 17. Ruby's birthday is October 31st, and she's 15 when season one starts, soon to turn 16. If you do the math to calculate that a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks (give or take) then Summer got pregnant with Ruby when Yang was about 6 months old.

So either Tai knocked up Summer pretty much the second Raven left him or he cheated on Raven to knock up Summer and that’s why Raven left him.

The former is certainly what is hinted at in canon; I’ve never seen the latter even remotely hinted at but you never know, I guess. 

But let’s take the theory that both canon and the showrunners seem to be going with, which is Raven left Tai and then he hooked up with Summer. 

Per canon, Tai was upset when Raven left him (as well as Yang!) and clearly he did not want her to do that. Now lord knows things happen and maybe Summer comforted him and the next thing you know BOOM. Along comes Ruby. I mean, it is a possibility. Doesn't really match up with what we know of Tai but a few drinks that lead into accidental pregnancies happen all the time. An unplanned pregnancy is something that could have happened, sure.

I do not, however, for one second believe that he fell out of love with Raven and then in love with Summer enough to purposefully get her pregnant all within six months of Yang being born, never mind whenever it was that Raven left them. Nope. Nothing in canon supports it - on the contrary! - and even if Miles and Kerry retcon it into being I call BS all over it. Nope.

Now what we do know from canon is that Summer stayed with Tai after Ruby was born and that she loved Yang and raised her as her own until she left on the mission that she never returned from. There was certainly a family thing going on there. 

But - and here’s the but - Tai never talks about Summer as if she was his wife/girlfriend and neither does Qrow.

Now obviously people do not need to married to have a baby, but the fact that Summer’s role in that house seems to be as Ruby’s mother and Yang’s loving stepmother as opposed to Tai’s romantic partner is pretty telling.

And really, it’s just a whole lot to have happened in the six months after a baby is born. People divorcing and falling in love with someone else and getting them pregnant. Not impossible, no. But not in the ordinary, especially when the two people who got divorced still seem to be carrying a torch for each other. A fucked up torch, for sure. But Tai seems to be entangled with Raven in a way he’s never been entangled with Summer, and that’s what we know from canon.

So let’s look at Ruby’s relationships with her father and her honorary uncle.

Tai:

Tai is a very good father and clearly loves both of his girls. Despite the issues revolving around their respective mothers, Tai has raised them in a loving, secure and stable home.

He does, at length, discuss Raven with Yang. It's clearly a discussion that is uncomfortable and sad for him, but he talks to her and answers her questions as best he can. When she loses her arm he's the one helping her to rehabilitate, the one who contacts Ironwood for a high-tech replacement arm, the one who knows before she even realizes it herself that she's going to leave him to go and find her sister.

We don't see these kinds of interactions with Ruby. Oh, that is not to say that she is somehow second banana - that is clearly not the case. However, the discussions about Summer with Ruby are reserved for someone else, not Tai.

Qrow:

So how does Qrow all play into this?

According to current canon, Qrow is Yang's biological uncle due to being Raven's twin and is an honorary uncle to Ruby due to his friendship and former team member status with Tai and Summer.

We do know that canonically he's much closer to Ruby than Yang. He taught Ruby how to make and use her weapon, for example; it's a version of his own scythe. We certainly see his affection for Yang - he obviously loves her - but his affection is greater for Ruby and that's canon, baby. He follows Ruby and Team JNR all the way across Mistral until circumstances force him to out himself (as it were). He's not only following them but is proactively clearing the way for them by fighting off Grimm!

He's also the one who saved Ruby after she used her eyes at the fall of Beacon and you know damn well SHE was the one he was looking for. Not Yang, not anybody else. Her.

Plus let's take a look at this scene, at the very end of End of the Beginning, the last episode of Season 3, taking place in Tai's home after the Fall of Beacon:

*********************

Ruby and Tai look to see Qrow suddenly standing in the room, near the door. He finishes off the contents of his flask before continuing.

Qrow: Mind if we have a minute?

Tai: What, I can't stay here?!

Qrow: Tai. Please.

Tai stands up, sighs, and then leans in to kiss Ruby on the forehead.

Tai: I'm glad you're alright. (he starts walking away) I'll go make us some tea.

Tai glares at Qrow on the way out, but the latter doesn't appear to care.

***********************

So let's get this straight: the honorary uncle overrides the father over the 16 year old in the father's own house? And then HE'S the one to ask her what happened and then goes on to tell her what her silver eyes, the ones she inherited from her mother, are?

Her "honorary uncle" and not her own father?

Uh huh. Mmmmmhmmm. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I mean. Come on.

And sure, Ruby looks way more like a combination of Summer and Qrow than of Summer and Tai (whereas Yang is a clear combination of both her parents, Ruby has literally no Tai in her at all) but whatever, she could take after her mother only.

*cough*

Qrow is the only one who talks about Summer with Ruby, and he's done it more than once. There's love there - for Summer, for Ruby - and I guess we're just supposed to buy that it's just Qrow being a stand-up honorary uncle but I am not buying it.

There's also these lyrics in the song Bad Luck Charm, which is Qrow's song.

Trust one thing, take my advice If you linger close, it's a hefty price You and I are not the same You don't want the burden of my name

It's been proven, again and again, that those character songs aren't just throwaway lyrics. That's something that's been acknowledged by the showrunners as well. Somebody isn't getting the burden of Qrow's name, but who?

Yeah. I think we know who.

Me? I think Summer and Qrow were the ones in love, I think Ruby is the result of that, and I think that the decision was made by Qrow, Tai and Summer that Tai and Summer would raise her because of Qrow's Semblance. And when Summer was gone, Tai continued to raise her, due to their agreement but also because he also loves Ruby as his daughter, not as her honorary uncle.

(I’m not sure about Raven - she canonically knows that Ruby is Summer’s child but she never really gets into Ruby’s father at all. She clearly doesn’t give a shit about Ruby and is happy to let Cinder take a crack at her but as weird as it may seem I don’t think she would actually tell Ruby her father was or wasn’t Tai if she knew. Raven is....well, she’s Raven and she’s morally gray shading into black but she’s not personally malicious, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t make sense. But it does seem like a Raven way to be. Like...she’s got nothing personally against Ruby so why bother with her at all and that includes talking to her about her parentage. I don’t think it would matter to her if Ruby was her blood or not and if anything Raven holds her cards close to her chest, she basically never gives out any information about anything unless she absolutely has to.)

I've seen people state Qrow being Ruby’s biological father can't be true because it would mean that Tai wasn't really her father and that Yang wasn't really her sister and I call bullshit all over that. If you say that then you are dismissing every single adopted child out there as not being "real" family. Tai is Ruby's father and Yang is her sister regardless of biology.

I do know that the showrunners, from Monty to Miles and Kerry have denied this again and again. Either they really mean it and they've just set up canon in a way that is pretty wobbly and nonsensical and amateurish at best or they are flat out lying in order to avoid spoilers and try to preserve a surprise reveal of Qrow as her father. I don't know. But I will say for the record that if they really mean that Qrow is not her father they've done a pretty poor showing of it in their own canon. And that's all I have to say to that.