#anyway now i gotta go think up a new plot for this prompt and rewrite 4k fml

[gnomewithalaptop]

Uuuugh vehement antishippers are so annoyinggg 😑

[thatsjustrwde]

For the RWBY character prompt thing: you gotta tell me about Ironwood for sure! And if somebody already asked, how's about Qrow? :)

OH BABEY A DOUBLE (I’m gunna put Qrow in a separate post to avoid making this too long) thank you so much!

Warning: This is a PRO IRONWOOD POST. I also go into team RWBY taking responsibility for their abuse towards Ozpin. Don’t read this if you don’t like it. You’ve been warned

My top three two ships for Ironwood

1) Ironqrow (Ironwood x Qrow) {Volumes 3-7}

I have loved the idea of these two since the fall of beacon. When they first interacted, I wasn’t too sure about them because it seemed like they didn’t really like each other.. but that scene where all the robots were turning on beacon and Qrow spotted ironwood, ran at him with his scythe, only to jump over him and save him from a Grimm, sold the ship to me. It was clear that they didn’t actually despise each other. Qrow wasn’t quick to point fingers; he knew that what was going on wasn’t James’ fault, and he even tried to add a little bit of comic relief to the scene. (When ironwood’s ship fell, and Qrow smirked “well, it won’t be much of a walk”)

My love for the ship was reinforced in v6 (yeah I know it was the fan service volume but I’m rolling with it anyway). Qrow knew that they HAD to get to ironwood in order to complete their goal. He trusted James, and he knew that he was a smart and capable leader who would know what to do (ah,, the good old days ;;)

And then in the early episodes of v7, their bickering that we once saw in v3 was non existent. They were happy to see each other, and James even initiated a hug. He was just so relieved to see him ;; it made my heart melt, I remember posting about this moment so much, all over instagram and tumblr. I loved them so dearly.

2) Ironwood x Glynda (idk if they have a ship name)

God,, I always loved them. that scene in v2 with Ironwood and Glynda standing together in the dead of night looking over the city of vale was so special to me. I love Glynda and her character, she is so dynamic. that scene with her and ironwood showed to us that she truly respected and cared for him and his well-being. She was worried for him as well. I just wish they had more interactions before his death. they would have been very sweet and POWERFUL together.

My three least favourite ships for Ironwood

1) Ironqrow {Volumes 7-8}

Oh boy. RT really knows how to take something good and just, ruin it huh.

I feel as though I don’t need to dive too deep into this (as I’ll be covering Ironwood’s fall from grace later) but yeah... The fight with Qrow and Clover was.. unfortunate. Everyone seemed to lose their braincells in that scene, and the moment it was over, Qrow was dead set on killing Ironwood for some reason even though he was the one who decided to side with a literal murderer, but go off MKEK you really did something there...

Yepp this absolutely killed the ship for me in canon (though I stilln love thinking about them out of the canon setting), I was an absolute wreck after this scene. they deserved better.

2) Ironwood x Winter

don’t worry I’m not about to pull the “IRONWOOD WAS AN ABUSIVE FATHER FIGURE AND GROOMED HER CAREERRHYUGGHR” no.

I always saw Ironwood as a POSITIVE father figure to winter, even before v7. We knew that winter was one of his best soldiers, and was most likely one of his students before then. I believe that Ironwood gave winter a chance at something great, to leave her actual abusive father and hone her skills as a soldier instead of becoming the heiress to a company that she did not want to be tied to. I believe Ironwood was a stellar father figure and role model to her, and that is the reason why I do not ship them. their relationship was so much deeper than that. it was found family.

3) Ironwood x Salem

What the fuck. Like actually what? This was a thing? What is it with this fandom and glorifying abusive relationships... I remember seeing a lot of people trying to justify it like “awh salem was so sweet with him she just wanted him to stop fighting. She would leave him alone after!!” Thats manipulation honey, we don’t fuck with that here. no. Absolutely not

My biggest criticism for Ironwood

See: the reason I made this side blog

It’s no secret to us in the RWDE community that his fall into the role of the villain was POORLY WRITTEN AND WE ALL HATE IT SO FUCKING MUCH. where the hell did this even come from? oh I know! TEAM RWBY LYING TO HIS FACE AFTER HE WAS NOTHING BUT KIND AND GENEROUS TO THEM. god I’m heated already.

I’ve talked about his stupid semblance before but it doesn’t even matter because his semblance wasn’t the cause of his descent anyway. We were all HOPING that it was but nope! it was him “losing his humanity” because he lost his other arm. How fucked up is that.

Shitty writing aside, I know James had flaws even before the shitshow that was v7-8, but honestly there was nothing he did that I can criticize harshly. He was a good and honest man with good intentions and a pure, big heart made of gold. Of course he made mistakes and of course he wasn’t perfect, but he was always trying to do the right thing to protect the people. He was a good man until MKEK decided they needed a reason to kill off another headmaster.

My favourite thing about Ironwood

his MUSCLES

His willingness to sacrifice himself to save others. During the fall of beacon he told the students that they didn’t have to stay, even though he could have used the help greatly. But he KNEW that they weren’t ready to handle a crisis like this, and he didn’t want to force them into a responsibility that could have left them emotionally/physically damaged, or worse.

During the Ironwood and Watts fight, IRONWOOD MANGLED HIS OWN ARM TO CAPTURE WATTS. He was so headstrong and brave and he wanted to do everything he could to prevent Salem, even if that meant hurting himself and losing another part of himself. God I miss him so much ;; I’m tearing up a little writing all of this...

A head canon I have for Ironwood

I love creating head canons for characters, it always makes them feel more real to me. one of my biggest head canons is that, in a peaceful world setting, he would enjoy sleeping in on the weekends. ;;. He is a headmaster AND a general which means he has to follow a strict schedule all the time. Maybe this is coming from my desire to take care of him and make sure he is happy and healthy and not stressed out.. But yeah, lazy Sundays, sleeping in late. pls let him sleep he needs so much sleep. What I would change about Ironwood if I were making a rewrite

Strap in kiddos I’ve been thinking about this for a very long time. I’m sure that someone has come up with a similar concept, but I will share my ideas anyway (: I am going to preface this by saying that for this rewrite to work, we need to have Winter receive the Winter maiden powers from Freya in V7.  To start, we will have to go back all the way to v2 when Ironwood was first introduced. I would have Ozpin and Glynda share their concerns to each other about Ironwood bringing all of his ships to look over the festival, but I would take that time to thoroughly explain his semblance. His semblance is stupid, so I would make some changes. To start off, I wouldn’t make it passive. The way it is now is just,, a weird way to give him a mental illness without actually giving him a mental illness. Activating it would have to be a decision that he made if he knew that he had to make decisions that would be hard for him. This way if his semblance caused him to do something actually horrible, he would be directly accountable for it, instead of blaming him for something that he couldn’t control. Semblances are a representation of the user, so with time and with more stress put onto Ironwood, I could see him falling victim to his own semblance if he were to abuse it too much. This will help as we lead into a better way to write his fall from grace. 

From there, I would keep pretty much everything the same until we get to v7. Team RWBY arrives in Atlas and gets arrested and brought to Ironwood just as they do in canon. This time, however, we have Oscar explain EVERYTHING. No lying. Salem cannot be killed. Oscar explains that Ozpin shut himself off after team RWBY forced the truth out of him, and while the truth is a lot for Ironwood to handle, he understands why Ozpin kept it a secret. He shuns team RWBY for their methods and explains why their actions were unnecessary and abusive, but agrees to help them anyway since he knows that they all need to come together if this is going to work. Hence, his arc kind of goes backwards. Instead of team RWBY having his trust from the beginning, they will need to work to gain it back. 

He takes Oscar under his wing to try and draw Ozpin back out. He greets Qrow, they fall in love, he also formally introduces the team to the Ace Ops. The Ace Ops take an IMMEDIATE backseat in the story. We don’t need more characters. For the sake of this rewrite specifically, they are barely around. We are focusing on Ironwood and his growth/relationships. I would explore more times to show the deep connection between him and Winter. As I said earlier, I see him as a healthy father figure for her, so I would definitely focus on that for a bit. At this point, Winter would not have received the maidens power yet, so we could have a scene of him assuring her that she is a perfect fit for the role, and encouraging her and just,, you know, solidifying that he wasn’t pressuring her into doing it. 

Carrying on with the main plot, instead of being left in the dark for the whole season, Ironwood is already aware that Salem cannot be killed. This gives him and the rest of the team a lot of time to work on a new plan to defeat her. They spend lots of time training, Ironwood takes care of them, offering his resources to them. Overtime the team do start to gain his trust little by little again, but this will all kinda fall apart when Salem arrives. 

With stress levels higher than ever, he activates his semblance. Team RWBY and friends KNOW about his semblance and they understand why he is acting irrationally. Maybe they have different ideas than him, but they would not directly oppose him. This completely fixes him from becoming a cartoon villain. Team RWBY and friends would work WITH Ironwood at a distance to fix amity and get global communications back up safely. From there, Ironwood could deliver a message to the world about Salem. Since people know who he is, it will make the message more impactful. Just like he did with his message to Mantle.

Qrow and Winter are positives in his life. They keep trying to ground him and bring him back to reality, but he will not deactivate his semblance. He is too scared of what’s to come with Salem. They support him in this, and do not turn their back on him. 

Winter receives the maiden’s power, and is told to open the vault to obtain the staff and raise atlas further into the sky to save his people. Winter agrees, why wouldn’t she? They have already evacuated most of mantle to atlas anyway. In situations like this it’s impossible to save everyone. RWBY could whine and bitch if they wanted to, but there is nothing they could do in this situation because, for the sake of this rewrite, they wouldn’t be as stupid as they are in the canon proper. 

The vault is open and the staff is vulnerable. It is in this moment that the ACTUAL VILLIAN comes into play. Watts took advantage of the security from behind the scenes, giving Salem the exact time that the vault was open. And thanks to him overhearing everything, he knows that all she needs to do is use the staff, and Atlas will fall. Salem appears in the room, and the big finale battle would occur. They weren’t ready yet. They hadn’t finalized the plan to stop her without killing her. Team RWBY Oscar and Qrow would do their best to keep Salem distracted while Winter and Ironwood speak to the staff. Meanwhile, Neo could breach Ironwood’s office and retrieve the relic of knowledge for Salem. 

The battle plays out, she keeps coming back, the team gets tired, Salem loses her patience and just PLOWS through them to get to the staff. She enters the realm and the mystical world around them begins to shatter and break. With that much concentrated evil in this place coming up out of nowhere, it would be sure to shift the balance. 

She goes head to head against Winter and Ironwood for the staff. She knows that using the staff will cause Atlas to come crashing down, so that is exactly  what she does. Since he is already out, she just gives him a command. It doesn’t matter what it is. Atlas starts to fall. She strikes a lethal blow to Ironwood (Keeping the theme of her killing headmasters) and flees with the staff. Qrow runs to his side, he and winter are crying, Team RWBY is upset, OZPIN IS UPSET. With his aura broken and his semblance down, he smiles at them all, says that he is proud of them for their work and he knows that they will find a way to defeat her. He tells them to get out and save themselves, save as many people as they can. They do that, but for further angst, Qrow stays with him, holding him and crying against him as Atlas falls. Team RWBY use the gravity dust keeping Atlas falling slowly to their advantage. They get as many people as they can into airships and send them to mistral. They then make their own way to Vacuo... Since global communications are back up, the world would know about this. This would give Shade academy a good chance to prepare. (damn I could write a fic)

What I think of Ironwood’s allusion and what I would change.

It’s dumb the way that CRWBY has portrayed it. In the story of the Wizard of Oz, the tin man doesn’t have a heart, but learns to love overtime. I used THIS aspect for helping my rewrite of Ironwood. He was hardened at the beginning, but managed to trust again and eventually smiled and said that he was proud of team RWBY and friends in his dying moments. It’s just more impactful that way I think.