Cloqwork Orange

Cloqwork Orange is the polyship between Qrow Branwen, Ozpin and Roman Torchwick from the RWBY fandom.

Canon
While Ozpin and Qrow have a long-standing professional and personal relationship in canon, they have never appeared on screen together with Roman, and Roman has likely never met either of them before. Qrow met Ozpin when he enrolled at Beacon Academy, where Ozpin was headmaster. Over the course of Qrow's time under Ozpin's tutelage, he and his teammates (Team STRQ) became close confidantes of Ozpin's, and the headmaster eventually inducted them into his inner circle of trusted allies tasked with protecting humanity from his immortal enemy, Salem. To this purpose, Ozpin granted Qrow and his twin sister, Raven, a small portion of his magical power that enables them to turn into a crow and a raven, respectively, to gather intelligence for Ozpin. Qrow and Ozpin have worked closely together for decades before the series begins, and remain allies throughout the show (although their relationship grows rocky following the revelation that Ozpin withheld information about Salem from Qrow).

Roman is a major crime boss in the City of Vale (where Beacon Academy is located) at the beginning of the series, and serves as one of the primary antagonists to Team RWBY (Ozpin's students, two of whom are Qrow's nieces) for Volumes 1-3. Qrow himself has a criminal history, having been raised as a member of the notorious Branwen bandit tribe. But Ozpin convinced him to leave the tribe and reform himself during his time as a student at Beacon. Ozpin and Qrow are well aware of the threat Roman poses, and indirectly aid Team RWBY in countering Roman's operations. Roman and Ozpin both die at the end of Volume 3, although Ozpin reincarnates into the young Oscar Pine, who later reunites with Qrow and his former students.

Fanon
Cloqwork Orange is a newer, niche ship in the FNDM, only named in 2019. It is a variant on the older and larger Cloqwork (Ozpin/Qrow) ship, and the two share significant overlap. Cloqwork Orange adds a fun criminal/enemies-to-lovers element to the classic Cloqwork ship, which features a lot of fluff and angst. The ship's concentration on secondary characters, early-series characters and antagonists tends to go hand-in-hand with a certain level of disregard for the current canon.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

TUMBLR

Trivia

 * Cloqwork Orange is a play on the ship name for Ozpin/Qrow (Cloqwork) and A Clockwork Orange, the central character of which heavily influenced Roman's character design and themes
 * The ship name Cloqwork Orange was coined for the fanfic My Own Worst Enemy by ElektricAngel on AO3

Variations

 * Cloqwork refers to the ship between Ozpin and Qrow
 * Magpie refers to the ship between Qrow and Roman
 * Ozwick refers to the ship between Ozpin and Roman