#also ‘QROW? RAVEN? THEYRE BIRDS!! CRACKED IT!!’ thank u nora for being the best as always

[bestworstcase]

If you have any random thoughts about the Brawnen twins either individually or together please release them into the ether

(I just chose two less "discourse"able characters)

it has been a LONG TIME since u sent this rip sorry anon but i’m in the middle of my third (3rd) rewatch and just got done with v5 so like. bird time

raven is so funny to me because she is like the only character to have clocked what genre this story actually is which is. cosmic horror. lmfao everyone else still thinks they’re in your bog standard fantasy cancel-the-apocalypse war story (with a side of tragic romance thrown in there for flavor) and then raven is like… ETERNAL WAR BETWEEN IMMORTAL MONSTER WITCH AND LYING SOUL PARASITE WE ARE NOTHING BUT PAWNS IN THEIR GAME I HAVE GLIMPSED BEYOND THE VEIL I HAVE A DEAD WITCH’S MAGIC HITCHING A RIDE IN MY SOUL WE’RE ALL DOOMED WHY DOES NOBODY BUT ME CARE ABOUT THIS from her perspective the final conversation in the vault with yang is just her daughter calling her a coward for not wanting to fight fucking,, like nyarlathotep kdhdjdks

i literally can not wait until she hears about the gods. assuming she doesn’t already know that is. i know the general assumption is that she broke because she figured out salem is immortal, but given how hard raven beats the drum of “OH so you’re just going to ACCEPT WHAT YOURE TOLD and MINDLESSLY OBEY” i have actually been wondering if what raven learned wasn’t actually ozma’s divine mandate, and if she unlike him accurately read between the lines and realized that the mentor she put all her faith in was a servant of gods who set up a cruel game where the only real ending is humanity obliterated. if the shoe fits…

speaking of shoes fitting cinder et al in the bandit camp is one of my favorite sequences in v5 because it’s like

cinder: here is salem’s my rock solid low-risk plan that will certainly end in salem getting the relic

raven: oh no. i guess i have no choice but to go along with this but in exchange you gotta kill my brother. you gotta tell lionheart to invite him to the school so we can ambush him. he’s a total pushover don’t worry about it we can take him :) trust me. i’m very trustworthy. this is not a trap.

watts: this is an obviously bad idea.

emerald: yeah cinder ruby might be there :(

watts: NO—

cinder: shut the fuck up watts what’s the worst that could happen?

and then the worst that could happen is she splits her forces exactly like raven wanted her to and loses control of the situation exactly like raven wanted her to and goes into the vault by herself exactly like raven wanted her to and then got her ass kicked mfjdjdkx

who would win, an immortal sorceress devoting a YEAR to coaxing and advising and flat out fucking telling cinder not to rely on power because it WILL fail her, or one bird lady going “yeah i’ll help you if you kill my brother i do not have ulterior motives for asking you to do this, promise :)”

ANYWAY

i have fewer thoughts about qrow largely because most of my qrow feelings are stored in the post-lost fable arc but he does have a lot of good moments in v5, fully half of which are “please for the love of GOD stand up straight because just looking at you makes my spine hurt” gkfjdhsvdh

i like the lowkey arc of him trying to puzzle together exactly what is going on in haven bc he knows something is really, really not right but he can’t figure out what. bc the thing is—lionheart gives himself away at the very beginning, if you pay attention. when he tells qrow they can’t go after raven yet, otherwise she and the tribe will vanish. which is true, but if you think about it for half a second that wouldn’t be the worst thing from team oz’s side, because their top priority is keeping the relic away from salem, and raven has the spring maiden, and if raven vanishes herself and her tribe then that rather neatly keeps the spring maiden away from salem and therefore the lamp stays locked away. but lionheart’s top priority is finding the spring maiden and getting her to unlock the vault for salem, so raven going underground is his worst case scenario and he openly treats it as such.

and nobody on team oz notices until it’s too late, and it’s especially interesting that qrow doesn’t notice. bc on the one hand raven is his sister and he’s caught up in resenting her for leaving, resenting her for betraying the cause, so he can’t take a step back and realize it might not be a bad thing to scare raven off and make sure she gets the spring maiden the fuck away from haven. but also, like, qrow carries himself as this cynical world-weary bastard and when a long term ally starts acting bizarre and unlike himself after dropping out of contact for months, it… doesn’t even cross his mind to suspect lionheart betrayed them. and then he’s finding dozens of huntsmen dead, and things look bad, and as he talks it over with ozpin they both dance around the possibility that lionheart might be a traitor, but even so: when qrow leads the kids to the academy it’s clear he’s not truly expecting to discover a traitor. it’s a possibility in his mind but he doesn’t believe it, not really, until proof is staring them all in the face. and then he’s genuinely dismayed and hurt and shocked and angry! he feels it all so deeply!

and that exposes the cynical bastard front as a lie as much as raven’s callous survival of the strongest posturing is a lie. he cares so much and he trusts people so deeply he really cannot conceive of that trust being broken until it’s already shattered beyond repair.

(see also: lost fable 🙃)

um what else. both branwens in v4-5 give me SO much salem brainrot catch me lying awake at night fumbling with things the two of them say about the conflict like what does it mean what does it all mean

qrow’s telling of the two brothers and his characterization of salem as an enemy who seeks to change the world, in opposition to the status quo maintained by oz’s academies, in particular lives rent free in my head. esp with how heavily salem is associated with change/free will/defiance in contrast to ozma being fate/resignation/obedience i just. HMMMM.