#advanced human fitness

[supersaiyanjedi14]

RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: OZPIN

“The single quality that is common across every living creature on this planet... is fear. It's funny then, that as common as fear is... we so easily underestimate its power. Fear of growing close to someone, a subsequent fear of loss, fear of failure. And as more people depend on you, those fears can take on greater power. But fear itself isn't worthy of concern, it is who we become while in its clutches. Will you be proud of that person? Will you forgive them? Will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did? Will you even recognize them? Or will the person staring back at you be the very thing you should have feared from the start?”

PHYSICAL

In the wake of Salem’s attempted overthrow of the Brother Gods and the subsequent purging of the first age of humanity, her former lover, the warrior mage Ozma, was reincarnated by the God of Light to act as an instrument against her, charged with reunifying mankind and keeping her at bay.  Ozma was reborn countless times over the millennia, and when Salem’s agents instigated the Fall of Beacon Academy, he was operating as Ozpin, the institution’s headmaster.  A middle-aged human male, Ozpin had been a member of Beacon’s staff since at least Team STRQ’s freshman year roughly 21 years prior, so he was likely in his mid to late 50s at the time of his physical death.  While little is known about this incarnation’s personal background, he was confirmed to have been the youngest individual to attain a Headmaster position, the thousands of years of cumulative training and combat experience from his previous forms making him appear to be a prodigal talent and wise beyond his assumed years.  As headmaster and a member of the Vale Council, he operated publicly as an administrative and political official, though in private he dedicated himself to a war of shadows against Salem, building a cadre of sundry yet well-placed allies among the other academies.  The sad irony was that he found himself keeping just as many secrets from his friends as he did his enemies, his experiences with betrayal and deception leading him to keep many details closer to the chest than necessary.

Putting together a set of physical statistics for Ozpin is difficult due to a lack of information.  Despite being a heavily featured character in the show’s first three seasons, Ozpin was only depicted in combat a single time, that being the brief snippets of his final duel with Cinder Fall, while all his other on-screen combative feats have been while he was possessing the body of Oscar Pine.  Regardless, there is just enough information available and that can be inferred that a good measure of his abilities can be gauged.  As a conventional man standing 6’6”, Ozpin had no significant anatomical factors or enhancements, distinguished only by his graying hair, brown eyes, and slender build.  While his desk job kept him away from direct battlefields, Ozpin remained active in his campaigns against Salem, and as a professional Huntsman and veteran military operative, he would have certainly maintained a strict training regimen to keep himself healthy and vital.  Despite being an older man, Ozpin remained valid competition for the much younger Cinder Fall, matching her fairly evenly during their battle.  A speed and skill based martial artist, he demonstrated his highly polished dexterity in his core fencing technique, contending with Cinder’s assortment of weapons and deflecting her projectiles with casual ease.  His agility was expressed though his dynamic physical component, combining blinding rushes with nimble footwork and incorporating deft acrobatic evasions during his fight with Hazel Rainart at Haven.  Though the latter is a flawed demonstration due to the fact that he was operating in Oscar’s body rather than his own, Ozpin’s muscle memory and complete willingness to utilize such maneuvers leads me to believe that he did incorporate them in his previous form.  In the realm of strength, Ozpin has little to draw from, as the few physical feats we have for him point to him being a speedster and measured fencer rather than a power duelist or brawler.  Regardless, he did employ focused power blows against Hazel, so they were, again, likely part of what he used in his own form.  Furthermore, given his previous incarnations as a battlefield warrior, he would have almost certainly attempted to maintain a good balance among his attributes, which would have obviously included strength training.  He’s not particularly domineering, but he’s not even remotely weak.

Harder to determine than anything else is Ozpin’s tolerance for pain and injury, as the only hit he’s ever been seen taking was the sustained blast of fire that killed him.  On one hand, Ozpin’s age had likely undercut his ability to maintain his performance in the long term, and fatigue would have almost certainly been a significant hurdle for him in any prolonged confrontation.  On the other, Ozpin was a highly experienced player in his war with Salem and has clearly been though the meatgrinder of hard combat, so I sincerely doubt that he was some glass cannon who couldn’t take a hit.  Even if his years did hamper his stamina, his emphasis on controlled technique minimized physical strain, and he was able to fight evenly with Cinder Fall for an extended bout despite the Fall Maiden’s youth.  As several of his incarnations were military operatives and/or suffered extremely violent deaths, Ozpin has certainly endured a considerable amount of pain and suffering yet has continued to fight on.  In any event, Ozpin’s millennia of training and combat experience afforded him with extreme patience and discipline, maintaining his calm under fire even in the most horrifying situations.  During his battle with Hazel at Haven, Ozpin was subjected to numerous physical blows that knocked him across the hall, and while his possession of Oscar again limits the value of measuring his resiliency, this display does provide a powerful demonstration of his ability to understand and deal with pain in the heat of combat.  His mental health was by no means perfect, however, as his traumatic experiences and the mounting pressures of his perpetual conflict with Salem left him an emotionally vulnerable man.  When Jinn recounted his history to Team RWBY, the combination of reliving his life’s failures and the team’s angered reaction motivated him to retreat into Oscar’s subconscious, not resurfacing for several months at minimum.  Fortunately, Ozpin has only cracked when specific buttons have been pushed, often through specific knowledge of his history, and he otherwise remained a stoic pillar of discipline, keeping himself together and persevering under fire.

During his service as Beacon’s headmaster, Ozpin dressed for the job, his wardrobe reflecting his professional status while also remaining practical for fighting.  His day-to-day attire consisted of a simple black suit under which he wore a green dress shirt and vest, with a green scarf wrapped around his neck.  He also regularly wore a pair of shaded spectacles, though weather these were prescriptions or merely sunglasses has never been confirmed.  No protection, but still functional and stylish.

RANKING: Tier 3, Advanced Human Fitness

On one hand, Ozpin is a very strong athlete whose performance levels are more than sufficient to enable his combat skill and outperform his adversaries.  But on the other hand, he was past his prime and was beginning to contend with the limitations of age.  Ozpin will not burn out immediately, his feats and accolades proving that he can hold out in hard combat, but he does have a lower ceiling than one would hope for.  Fortunately, Ozpin is aware of his limits and has built himself to compensate for them while continuing to leverage his strengths.  Outwardly unassuming yet dynamic and powerful, he combines blinding energy with balanced, relaxed grace, employing a measured approach to cover his bases and stay alive while working to wear down his opponents before they can wear him down in turn. Essentially, an over the hill Tier 2.

MARTIAL

The ancient warrior Ozma carried a large, jeweled staff during his lifetime and continued to carry it through his incarnations, though by the time he inhabited the body of an unnamed settler, he had rebuilt it into the Long Memory, a collapsible cane imbued with magical properties.  When fully extended, the cane was approximately three feet long, though Oscar Pine’s use of the weapon seems to suggest that the length is adjustable.  It’s squared shaft composed of a highly durable black substance, and the silvered handgrip featured a protective hand guard. The handle was capped off on one end by a rounded pommel while the shaft extended from an intricate gear system that was clearly part of its magical components.  The most notable property of the Memory was its enchantments, which allowed it to store kinetic energy from hits it either delivered or endured and then release that power at will.  I’ll elaborate more on this in the Special Abilities section, but as it stands, the Long Memory in irrefutably the single most powerful hand-held weapon in the setting at this time.

Prior to his original death, Ozma was a famed wandering warrior, renowned for his righteousness, courage, and will.  Already a tried and tested combatant when he learned of Salem, his skills allowed him to make quick work of Salem’s father and his armies, and he spent his remaining years as an adventuring hero.  After becoming a reincarnating immortal, he continued to train and fight in his various conflicts with his former lover, garnering experience as a frontier settler, military operative, and of course, a Huntsman.  His most notable form prior to becoming Ozpin was the last Warrior King of Vale, leading his forces to victory through the Great War and personally directing the final campaign in Vacuo, where he was reported to have laid waste to whole armies.  With thousands of years of training and experience under his belt, Ozpin was unquestionably one of the greatest martial combatants, not just of his era, but of Remnant’s history as a whole.  Even when operating under non-combative roles, namely his Headmastership of Beacon Academy, Ozpin understood that confrontation with Salem’s agents was an inevitability, not a hypothetical, and as such stayed on top of his training.  However, despite being a heavily featured character for RWBY’s first three volumes (and even after the fact due to his merging with Oscar), Ozpin has surprisingly few explicit combat feats to his name, and the full range of his specific proficiencies has not been explored.  Fortunately, there is just enough actual substance to back up his reputation, as the few fights he has been seen in speak to his incredibly advanced skill.  Ozpin primarily operated as an armed combatant, Ozma’s skill as a swordsman demonstrated when he casually slew a Beowolf mere seconds after awakening in his first incarnation.  This apparent specialization was expressed in his primary fighting technique, wielding his cane much like a rapier.  His favored attacks were swift thrusts and stabs, employing both single strike takedowns and rapid-fire stabbing assaults, as well as powerful slashes and chops to bludgeon the opponent.  Despite lacking an obvious edge, Ozpin’s attacks were always executed with grace and precision, his strikes targeting vulnerable joints to stagger and incapacitate his opponents, demonstrated when he brought the much larger and stronger Hazel Rainart to his knees.  For defense, he favored whipping deflection parries to intercept projectiles and shunt blocks to brace against melee attacks, while relying on acrobatic evasions to avoid attacks he couldn’t meet head-on.  As far as alternative fighting methods went, Ozpin has demonstrated advanced skill in hand-to-hand martial arts, taking an active role in teaching Ruby Rose such methods during their time in Mistral.  Additionally, while Ozpin has never been seen utilizing firearms, I simply refuse to believe that someone with his career was not at least a competent marksman.

After millennia of operating as a frontline combatant, wartime military commander, administrator, and politician, it should come as no surprise that Ozpin was one of the most capable strategic minds of his day, distinguished by his calm demeanor and cautious foresight.  With Salem and the Grimm as a constant, seemingly unending threat, Ozpin was extremely wary and preached constant vigilance against potential threats.  However, where other preparation-minded leaders such as James Ironwood simply built up their primary power base to deter potential aggressors, Ozpin understood the large-scale impact of his decisions, emphasizing intelligence gathering and covert operations to take his opponents’ measure and nip threats in the bud before they spiraled out of control.  In this manner, he effectively kept his conflict with Salem a complete secret for millennia, anticipating her attempts at insurrection and maneuvering his own well-placed followers to counter her.  When Team RWBY uncovered information about the White Fang’s operations in Southeast, Ozpin opted to let the students scout out the area and work to dismantle them rather than sending troops to the region and tipping their hand prematurely.  This vigilant and observant approach made him virtually impossible to overcome directly, forcing Cinder Fall to conduct a long, clandestine conspiracy in order to facilitate the Fall of Beacon.  While Ozpin, like everyone else, was caught completely off-guard by the sudden terror attack, he maintained his composure and quickly delegated his subordinates to mount a defense, demonstrating that he could keep control of himself and maintain his tactical viability even when completely blindsided.  Of course, Ozpin was by no means passive, and would decisively intervene when situations boiled over, forcibly taking over Oscar’s body during their battle with Hazel for his own safety after the farmhand insisted on acting on his own.  Clearly a student of psychological warfare, Ozpin could quickly pick out specific buttons to push, getting under his adversaries’ skin to undermine their composure or, ideally, conscript them to his cause.  When Oscar was captured in Atlas, Ozpin pleaded with Hazel to defect by appealing to his once noble intentions, eventually offering the identity of Jinn as a sign of trust.  However, this emphasis on secrecy and underhanded tactics also highlighted his key limitation as a leader, as he frequently kept just as much information from his allies as his enemies.  While a good man who genuinely valuing and caring for the well-being of his followers, Ozpin’s history of betrayal left it difficult for him to trust others with the whole truth, to the point where he was hiding critical information from his agents as he used them to achieve his goals.  This seemingly callous use of people as tools and manipulation through half-truths contributed directly to Raven Branwen’s abandonment of his inner circle, broke Team RWBY’s trust in his leadership, and contributed heavily to Ironwood’s eventual fall from grace.

As far as his conduct in live combat was concerned, Ozpin applied his cautious yet proactive mindset in a way to undermine and subvert his opponents.  He would open defensively so as to gauge the opponent’s skills, though he also had a tendency to draw his weapon to provoke a response.  Once he settled into a comfortable rhythm or took the opponent’s measure, he would turn around and begin an intense yet measured assault, blitzing the opponent wherever possible and, whenever not, striking at exposed weak points to disable them.  This method was best demonstrated in his battle with Hazel Rainart at the Battle of Haven, during which time he was occupying the body of his newest host, Oscar Pine.  While initially content to let Oscar cut his teeth in the battle, this came to an abrupt halt when Rainart became aware of their situation, stabbing electric Dust into his arms and viciously assaulting Oscar.  Forced to possess the boy for his own safety, Ozpin casually evaded Hazel’s brutish attacks before outflanking him with acrobatics, striking at his face, neck, and joints before he had a chance to properly respond.  Eventually bringing Hazel to his knees, Ozpin was only prevented from finishing him off when Leonardo Lionheart shot him in the back, forcing Qrow Branwen to rush in to protect him.  While it could be argued that this victory was brought about through superior speed, especially against Hazel’s bulk, it can just as easily be argued that Hazel’s brute strength was the only thing that enabled him to contend with his older and easily more skilled opponent.  As far as Ozpin’s duel with Cinder at Beacon is concerned, Ozpin again held a solid advantage over the Fall Maiden.  Clearly able to contend with her varied weapon proficiencies, he forced her to give ground with his refined and focused offensive and countered with swift reposts, swatting her flurry of glass shards aside like bothersome flies before putting her on the receiving end of a machine gun poking spree.  Cinder ultimately resorted to unleashing her Maiden powers to attack the headmaster, and while Ozpin’s magic barrier was ultimately unable to save his life, the fact that Cinder had to resort to such extreme measures is a strong indicator that she could not overcome Ozpin in battle.  While it is unclear who was in control of Oscar’s body during Team JNR’s ambush of James Ironwood, I do feel that Ozpin would have, at the absolute bare minimum, been able to pressure the General in open battle, and even defeat him as he did with Hazel.

RANKING: Tier 1, Complete Mastery

Already a distinguished warrior before he was cursed and having continued to live and train throughout his numerous incarnations, Ozpin, by his nature, has accumulated more training and combat experience than any normal warrior could possibly obtain.  His fighting technique has proven versatile enough to engage a wide array of opponents, while also being refined to an unprecedented mastery.  Even when operating in a new body, he still proved himself to expertly leverage his incredible talents.  While not infallible as a tactician and strategist, he was nonetheless cunning and intelligent, knowing how to operate among friend and foe alike to achieve his goals and undercut his enemies.  Further proving his ranking is that he has engaged several of the most devastating combatants in the current setting, and the best they could hope to do was contend.  Ozpin has never been beaten in melee combat, his death at the hands of Cinder owing to her overwhelming magical power, not martial skill.

SPECIAL

Before the modern world of Remnant came to be, the first age of humanity possessed the ability to utilize magic, a blessing of the Brother Gods.  Sorcery was commonplace in this time, and while the warrior Ozma’s exact standing in relation to his peers is unconfirmed, he was unquestionably a prodigal talent, seen when he single-handedly overcame the army of Salem’s father before besting the king himself in a wizards’ duel.  However, after Salem’s attempted rebellion against the Gods, the brothers wiped their slate clean and destroyed their first humanity, the only survivors of this being Salem herself, cursed with immortality, and Ozma following his resurrection into the new world.  With the current humanity incapable of accessing the otherworldly abilities of their precursors, Ozma and Salem were left in a vacuum, standing as two of, if not the, most powerful beings in the setting by default.  For the purposes of this analysis, I will be taking all of the demonstrations of Ozma’s incarnations into account, not just the ones he specifically is using.  Despite my assertions above that Ozpin’s physical and martial abilities while controlling Oscar are not fully accurate gauges for Ozpin himself, transferring into a new body has never been shown to have any impact on the ability to wield magic.  As such, the feats and demonstrations of Oscar, the King of Vale, the Wizard and others can be carried over to all timelines.  Magic has consistently appeared as an independent, virtually limitless energy source that its wielders, casually called upon even when the user’s Aura has broken.  The powers offered by magic in the RWBY setting are quite varied, ranging from clairvoyance and long-distance communication to control over the elements or weather to various forms of manipulating energy.  For his part, Ozpin has demonstrated the ability to unleash concentrated blasts of green energy as a long-range projectile, channeling his power through his scepter and later the Long Memory (more on that later).  Alternatively, he could focus this power into powerful energy barriers to shield himself from injury, this ability being one of his favorite tactics.  While the shield did fail against Cinder’s firestorm at Beacon, this is no sign of weakness given the godly power of the Fall Maiden.  Additionally, he has demonstrated powers of personal levitation, likely developing this ability to enhance his already astounding agility in battle.  While this is mere speculation on my part, I believe that the devastating weather conditions that contributed to the meatgrinding Vacuo campaign of the Great War was not simply Vacuo’s unpredictable climate but a consequence of magical influence on the battle, which could in turn be directly linked to Ozpin as the Warrior King was personally involved in that battle.

Aside from his direct combative powers, Ozpin’s most notable use of his magic was ironically the powers he surrendered.  Over the course of his life, Ozpin has granted magical abilities to several his followers and allies, either as payment for services rendered or as a gifted tool for his agents to improve their performance.  Following their kindness and companionship in the midst of one of his more depressing lives, Ozpin, then an unnamed hermit wizard, sacrificed parts of his own power to four young women to create the four Maidens.  While I don’t usually like following A>B>C logic, I do find it reasonable to assume that Ozpin is comparable the powers and magnitude of the Maidens given how powerful he remains despite this relinquishing.  Ozpin could also grant power on a smaller scale, as seen when he used what he described as a minimal amount of power to grant the Branwen twins the ability to shape-shift into birds.  As remarkable as this ability is, however, it is also the source of Ozpin’s greatest limitation as an ethereal warrior.  The amount of power needed to grant magical abilities to others took a significant toll on his own energy reserves, reducing the amount of power he could personally bring to bear.  This was most clearly demonstrated in his offensive power.  In his first incarnation, Ozpin was able to match and briefly overcome Salem with his energy beams, matching her strength with his own and his defeat likely owing more to Salem’s wrathful aggression and his own concern for the safety of their daughters.  However, when Oscar unleashed his power on the Monstra during the Battle of Atlas, Salem was staggered but unhurt despite suffering a direct hit, and he was quickly overpowered in turn.  Additionally, Ozpin claimed that his power was already dwindling, and though it has not been established why this is happening, it does indicate that his abilities may continue to atrophy as time continues.  Fortunately, this decay has not reached a point where his powers are unapplicable in battle, and he did develop a significant countermeasure in the form of his weapon.  Aside from being a bludgeoning tool, the Long Memory was also a magical artifact blessed with the ability to absorb kinetic energy, building up power with every blow.  By pressing the handle on the hilt, the wielder could release this power into blasts of golden energy capable of sowing massive destruction.  It was this ability that Oscar used to survive his fall from the Atlas vault, and later to unleash a surge powerful enough to obliterate the Monstra (which I’d like to point out was several miles across, weighed hundreds of thousands of tons at minimum, AND was imbedded with giant gravity Dust crystals) with an explosion that could be seen across all of Atlas…

...holy shit.

Already a distinguished spellcasting fighter during the first human age, Ozpin truly grew to the height of his abilities over his numerous lifetimes training and fighting with them, mastering his powers to a degree that few in his own time would have even come close to replicating.  When he brings out the magic, it is in a powerful, focused spell meant to achieve only what he sets out to do, be it protecting himself from immediate harm or decisively disabling the immediate threat.  He capitalizes fully on his innate abilities while also working within and around his few limitations, the building of the Long Memory easily being the greatest example of Ozpin compensating for his long-term handicaps.  This standing is even more pronounced in the modern day due to Ozpin effectively functioning in a vacuum; Any limitations Ozpin may have as a spellcaster are functionally irrelevant in 99.9% of potential conflicts because he’s so overpowered that his weaknesses almost never come up.  However, despite possessing tremendous destructive power at his fingertips, Ozpin rarely unleashed his abilities in live combat, both out of the need to conceal the war with Salem from the broader public and out of a conscious restraint in using up what remained of his power.  Due to these factors, Ozpin only cut loose with his magic when he absolutely needed to, most obviously when confronted by the few other magic beings in his time, up to and including Salem herself.  While extremely skilled with his magic and able to call upon it for tactical advantage, Ozpin’s powers were more often than not treated as a trump card, bringing down the hammer with extreme and unconventional powers that most opponents simply didn’t know how to combat.  Against opponents who had a snowflake’s chance in hell of contending with his raw power, Ozpin relied almost exclusively on physical combat rather than expending his energies against an inferior target.  On one hand, this restrained approach meant that Ozpin ran the risk of failing to make full and effective use of his powers, allowing battles to drag out for much longer than they would really need to and giving lesser opponents like Hazel plenty of opportunities to kill him before he wised up.  On the other hand, Ozpin always has the option of cutting loose, and when he does use his magic, the results are absolutely devastating.

RANKING: Tier 1, Dominating Combat

This placement really should require no explanation.  As part of a race with innate magical powers that transcend the magnitude and abilities of any conventional Semblance or application of Dust, Ozpin is undeniably one of the most powerful beings, not just of the current world of Remnant, but of the planet’s history as a whole.  He balances out between standard offensive and defensive abilities and radical arcane powers that provide him with a great deal of flexibility in various combat situations, while his sheer destructive power is astonishing.  He is by no means flawless; his restraint in using his magic proactively does limit his ability to integrate his powers into his martial sequences, while his performances against Cinder and Salem prove that he can’t overwhelm everybody.  But at the end of the day, the number of people who could realistically challenge Ozpin’s power, even at this diminished state, is so pathetically small that it rarely comes up.  Simply put, Ozpin used his special abilities like a tactical nuke, and if he is ever forced to draw out his full might, woe betide whoever stand in his way.

OVERALL RANKING: TIER 1, SUPER HUNTSMAN

With his overall combat performance determined by his martial skills and special abilities, Ozpin serves as a quintessential example of a Super Huntsman, undeniably one of the most advanced and powerful characters in the whole RWBY franchise.  Even with his full potential being diminished by his advanced age and deteriorating magic, this degradation was not nearly enough to detract from his combative effectiveness at the time of his death.  His strong athleticism allows him to continue his exceptional performance even against younger and stronger adversaries, he is an unparalleled martial artist with thousands of years of combat experience and training under his belt, stands as both a masterful grand scale strategist and flexible on the ground operator, and he wields god-like magical power that he can express both offensively and defensively to an unprecedented degree reinforced by one of the most dangerous hand-held weapons ever developed.  Appropriate for the one who conceived the idea of the academies in the first place, Ozpin was the single greatest Huntsman warrior of his day, matching and exceeding all of his peers in some way while also setting the mold for what virtually every Huntsman and Huntress at the time strove to be.

Still, one must not mistake mastery for perfection or invincibility.  Ozpin’s track record and accolades are testaments to his talents and prowess, but they are also evidence that he has not faced a true equal in years.  As dangerous a fighter as he was, Hazel Rainart was ultimately no match for the headmaster even in an undertrained body, while Cinder Fall’s raw talent merely allowed her to contend, and she would have undoubtedly lost without the complete Maiden power.  Most of the prominent combatants of the current setting are/were members of Ozpin’s own inner circle, and those who weren’t gave him a wide berth.

Contained both physically and mentally in an ivory tower, Ozpin’s isolation from the meatgrinder of hard combat mirrored his difficulties in maintaining the trust of his subordinates.  So many instances of betrayal and failure have conditioned him to keep things far closer to the chest than appropriate, ironically turning Ozpin into a victim of the very power he cautioned Oscar against; fear.  This fear of trusting others too much can also be seen in his fear of exposing all of his secrets and power, keeping his most valuable assets in reserve for much longer than he needs to.  Fortunately, Ozpin has avoided a common pitfall of immortals in that, while he has grown secretive and accustomed to half-truths, he is neither stagnant nor truly cynical.  The influence of Ruby Rose and her friends allowed the wizard to regain a spark of hope and trust, even amid arguably the darkest hour of the whole war with Salem.  While we may never know how this would have influenced him prior to his merging with Oscar, it is fair to say that Ozpin, in all his forms, is one who can still learn and grow even after an obscenely long life and the most disastrous of failures.  Ozpin himself may not be able to defeat Salem per Jinn’s claims, but his legacy of resistance can and will live on in the Huntsmen and Huntresses he has helped to guide.  After all, as a fellow green-themed ancient master once said,

“Pass on what you have learned.  Strength, mastery.  But weakness, folly, failure also.  Yes, failure most of all.  The greatest teacher, failure is. […] We are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.”

*originally posted on RoosterTeeth Community page on 05-10-22*

* images taken from RWBY Wiki*

RWBY Combat Analysis

[downtherabbitholewithlucy]

Wesley being the prettiest of pretty boys

[leqclerc]

[deva-arts]

Testing out CSP Assets hehehe

The city can be pretty beautiful with enough distance and a nice view.

Oh. I forgot what kind of story this was.

She ends up short circuiting the main terminals and letting it crash into a processing facility. Then she takes a stress nap and worsens her insomnia.

[sunlitriddle]

help I'm stuck in the Obscure Character Torment Nexus

I'm working on a fanart pic of an obscure character in the FFVII lore. He's only in Crisis Core and not mentioned at all outside of it. The Tutorial Guy, Kunsel my belovéd, gets more recognition.

Behold, Lazard Deusericus

i'm convinced he's basically a Batman-era Cillian Murphy megane-sempai type character.

You feel me? This man is fangirl catnip, and we all slept on him. Cool type? In a suit? WITH GLASSES? AND he's Rufus's older half-brother and the Prez's illegitimate son? My man's got an ascot for crying out loud.

So trying to parse Nomura's Kingdom Hearts-era character designs, and this one is admittedly pretty "normal" except for the folded-back cuffs. I'm also at war with the idk Mandarin collar... it's giving popped collar on a blazer, but whatever, it's not physically impossible, just annoying to try to brain the construction of a suit without a normal collar and lapels.

anyway^2 the original design of his jacket was pinstriped, but the PS5 version gave it a herringbone texture. I discarded this as a desire to add more texture to existing design and moved on. Until I was looking up 3 piece suits for this fanart because open jackets and waistcoats are hawt. This led me to Peaky Blinders suits, and connecting with Cillian Murphy, of COURse I had to honor the reference.

That's led me down the dangerous road to tweed.

Consider that herringbone texture I mentioned before. Please note that the game texture doesn't quite line up with the pinstripes, alas. BUT in my fast and narrow (dragoon) dive into woven patterns, I discovered tweed herringbone with overcheck.

Yes, hi, hello, I'd like nine yards please.

There is absolutely no way I can ever render this in a drawing, just like I have always thought the SOLDIER sweaters were K2P2 but could never quite manage to convey that, BUT there's a sense of peace in knowing (headcanoning) in the back of my mind as I draw.

And this is complicated by the fact that he's a much more active character in my fic BUT Zack couldn't tell a plainweave from a twill, NOR would he be standing close enough to really notice, so of COURSE I can't have my main character comment on this particular detail. It gets to be boiled back down to an imprecise "pinstripe" both in writing and in drawing, and I want to sob.

[trans-rights-adam-jensen]

Plot Nitpick:

This is slightly more involved biology and the writers probably wouldn't have known, but there is no reason Megan would need to continuously collect DNA from Adam: PCR and cloning (cloning refers to copying stretches of DNA, not specifically an organism. Ex; me taking a stretch of DNA and putting it into a plasmid is "cloning" that stretch) mean that once you have your sequence, you're all set. Forever. Make as many copies as you want, and you can always double check it by sequencing your constructs again. It is incredibly easy to work with DNA.

What are not easy to work with are human cells.

Cells, unlike DNA, need cultured and have lifetimes. You can freeze some bad boys down and thaw them again and get them to divide a couple times, but beyond a few of these 'passages', even immortalized cell lines, lines designed and altered explicitly for lab use, go wonky.

Wild cells? People don't usually passage wild cells very many times, to my knowledge. They age, like their host. It changes things about them.

I think it makes more sense that what Megan needed from Adam was living cellular tissue, not DNA. Plus, for science I won't go into unless ya ask (feel free, I'm incapable of shutting up), it's entirely possible that she could not engineer Adam's mutation into lab lines. Ergo, you need him, quite literally pieces of him. Now, how one would go about collecting nerve cells, some of the most finicky types of cells I've ever heard of and that don't divide regularly like everybody else, is. Let's not go there. We can assume that maybe the glial buildup is mediated by autoimmune responses instead, or something. Like adding Adam's immune cells to anyone else's nerve/PEDOT interfaces alleviated the issue for the lifetime of the cells. For collecting immune cells, blood or bone marrow works.

Personal headcanon to make it all fit together is the following:

-Adam, already having grown up middle class and having to help his parents with bills, has a history of plasma donation bc that's paid

-Adam knows he is O-, and willingly donates blood

-Megan arranged for people to impersonate blood donation crew members to steal whole blood from him.

This would necessitate knowing when he planned on going and being close enough emotionally to him to influence his schedule.

End rant,

[beastwars-transformers]

I was waxing poetic in my mind about the loneliness of flight but then. Oh yeah copilots exist.

[bijoumikhawal]

re: them tags, it'd probably be interesting to do a break down of the Coding of Cardassians (especially as a mishmash case) but I don't have the bandwidth

[dilutedbeanibeans]

Yee! And since you've been spearheading Terra for quite a bit (Same on my end), why not tell me a little story about how you would interpret him?

oh!!!! well. honestly. let you in on a little secret, reason why I keep drawing him is cuz I just. like drawing his design a totally normal healthy amount

but!!! I do have some hcs for him yes uhhh

since activation he has been a loyal bot. his first priority is Always following sunstar’s orders, he is unflinchingly devoted it’s almost concerning??

the reason he gets like this is during a particularly brutal battle, he is damaged badly and loses his left (our right) arm. he calls out for help but none of his fellow stardroids seem to hear him (they’re too far away and engaged in their own battles). he prepares himself to die and just as he’s about to be struck down sunstar saves him!!! he was loyal before then but it became worse after this event 😭

this is also how he gets his other arm, it was initially meant to be a replacement but he grew attached to it (also I headcanon that it can extend and stretch out and it’s length can vary)

aside from all that, he has some stuck up selfish qualities (duh) and views all the other starbots as slightly lesser than him, sunstar is the only one who he views as above him

his hair wasn’t always long! the only organic-like part of his body is his hair, it can grow and he has to maintain it constantly

unlike sunstar, he doesn’t eventually view what he’s doing as wrong, he truly believes that everything he does is correct and takes full pride in all of his actions, no matter how questionable (sunstar regretting some of his actions is what causes terra to eventually change although he’s reluctant to

I’d say the other droid he’s closest with is pluto! bonding over hair/fur care and all that. terra tries to maintain a decent relationship with all of the stardroids though

[supersaiyanjedi14]

RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: NEOPOLITAN

"Your boss won't stay dead… but you will without this ;) If you want her name, you know what you owe me."

*Just as a disclaimer, a good deal of this profile will reference events from the novel Roman Holiday by E. C. Meyers. However, I do not own a copy of the book myself, so the information here is from second-hand sources, specifically the plot summary presented on the RWBY wiki. If anything I present here is inaccurate, please feel free to correct me, as there is always the risk of someone editing a Wiki page in order to dupe people into buying into fan-made trivia. With all of that out of the way, let's begin*

PHYSICAL

Neopolitan, born Trivia Vanille, was a human female hailing from Vale, approximately twenty-five years of age during the Atlas Crisis, two years after the Fall of Beacon.  The only child of the Vale city manager Jimmy and his wife Carmel, her muteness led to an incredibly tense relationship with her parents, ranging from neglectful to abusive.  Her only solace was in the form of her imaginary friend Neopolitan, whose influence led to increasingly prominent episodes of rebellious criminal behavior before she was forcibly enrolled in Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy For Girls.  Conscripted as an agent by headmistress Beatrix Browning to subdue Roman Torchwick, she instead joined forces with the young criminal and aided in dismantling the academy, her parents, and Hei Xiong’s shared criminal enterprises.  Taking the name of her imaginary friend as her own, Neo served as Torchwick’s right-hand woman for 3-5 years, making names for themselves in the criminal underworld before being press-ganged into Cinder Fall’s operations.  Content with her place in life and her relationship with her employer, Neo’s world was thrown upside down during the Fall of Beacon, suffering a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the aspiring Huntress Ruby Rose, followed shortly by Torchwick’s death at the hands of a rogue Griffon.  Hardened and embittered further by this loss, she initially hunted down Cinder for revenge, but was convinced by the Fall Maiden to switch her ire to their shared enemy, Ruby.

Youthful yet hardened, Neo stood at a rather diminutive 4’10” but was primarily distinguished by her waist-length pink and brown hair, heterochromatic eyes, and muteness.  Possessing a petite physique, Neopolitan was nonetheless athletic and vital, proving her mettle on multiple occasions as a formidable physical combatant.  Her primary attributes were agility and dexterity, leveraged through precision attacks and nimble acrobatics.  Neo’s highly developed reflexes were her bread and butter, preforming subtle evasions to avoid attacks even at close quarters, avoiding everything from gunfire to blades to unarmed strikes, while intentionally aggravating her opponents.  She has definitively outpaced Yang Xiao Long, outmaneuvered Ruby Rose on multiple occasions, and was able to keep Cinder Fall in her crosshairs during their brawl in Miss Malachite’s tavern.  When confronted by multiple adversaries, Neo relied on more active gymnastics to spring around her environment, managing to outmaneuver the combined work of Team JNR and Oscar Pine in Atlas.  While her most impressive falls were only survived thanks to using Hush as a parachute, I won’t deny her talent at acrobatic recoveries to regain her footing.  The only time Neo’s agility failed her was during her confrontation with Maria Calavera at Amity Colosseum, and even this was only due to the elder woman’s precognitive Semblance.  Neo’s dexterity was best expressed through her dynamic and precise fighting technique, wielding her parasol as fluidly as a master duelist would wield a sword.  She has easily slipped in counters against even the most domineering adversaries, batting around Yang and Ruby without strain, was able to acquit herself well against Cinder’s dual blades, and has shown particular skill with snagging techniques, catching and manipulating Lie Ren and Maria Calavera’s weapons during their duels.

However, while she possessed respectable levels of stamina and discipline, holding down several intense long-term battles while maintaining her composure under fire, Neo’s strength and endurance were middling.  She obviously understood how to respond to injury, her acrobatic recoveries demonstrating her ability to bounce back from disruptions, and her emphasis on psychological warfare proves that she’s aware enough to keep her own cool even against aggressive dervishes.  However, while Neo could certainly take a hit, she couldn’t take a beating.  Cinder was able to bully through her interference with raw hand to hand combat in Miss Malachite’s bar, and a single punch from Oscar Pine was enough to completely stun her, giving NJR time to take up positions.  Even Yang Xiao Long, an opponent that Neo dominated, was able to manhandle her and throw her off balance, prompting her to stop toying with her and simply end the fight.  Given her ability to stagger Ruby and Yang with unarmed combat, Neo could certainly hit with great force, but she really couldn’t jockey for dominance in a direct contest of strength.  Though she was only subdued at Amity by Penny Polendina’s energy blast, the series of strikes she took from Maria Calavera beforehand were still enough to seriously disrupt her momentum and frustrate her.  At the Evacuation Central Location, Neo held down the bulk of the battle without tiring, but a single strike from Weiss Schnee, armed with the Staff of Creation, was enough to stagger her, and she was rendered helpless when Ruby tackled her from behind.  While by no means weak or fragile, Neo cannot handle a slugging match, simply because she can’t hold her ground.

Neo’s approach to battle was best supplemented by light, practical clothing that left her unencumbered, as her fighting style relied heavily on her acrobatics and balletic poise. In Atlas, she wore fitted white pants and ankle boots, a pink and white halter top with an attached brown jacket, and elbow length brown and white gloves. This outfit was topped off with a gray scarf and Roman Torchwick’s signature bowler hat, final lasting reminders of her late Dum-Dum.

RANKING: Tier 3, Advanced Human Fitness

Neopolitan is a high-level athlete who can easily outpace and outmaneuver just about anybody in the setting, to the point where the best most of her adversaries can hope for is to simply contend. However, her limitations also mean that that’s all she can do. All she’s bringing to a fight is agility and dexterity, with her strength and durability are average at best, making her a glass cannon physical combatant. To be fair, Neo is clearly aware of her shortcomings and has built her fighting style around avoiding the slugging matches she knows she can’t win.  Neopolitan’s success is ultimately determined by her ability to keep her foes at bay and off balance, avoiding her weak spots by preventing the opponent from bringing their full might to bear.

MARTIAL

Neopolitan wielded a parasol with a pair of concealed blades as her primary weapon, an instrument that she named “Hush”.  Gifted to her by Roman Torchwick, the umbrella appeared to be about three feet long with the blade in the tip retracted, growing another foot in length with the blade extended.  The hooked handle of Hush served as the hilt for the secondary foot-long misericord, housed in the hollowed-out shaft of the parasol. Despite its lacy appearance, the panels were extremely durable, capable of withstanding direct hits from Yang Xiao Long’s Ember Celica and Nora Valkyrie’s grenades and serving as an effective shield in close quarters combat.  Furthermore, Hush was strong enough to serve as an effective glider in case of emergency, this trait going so far as to save Neo’s life during the Fall of Beacon.  Elegant, cute, yet deadly, this weapon was as much a reflection of its owner as it was a killing tool.

While giving the outward appearance of a simple reform school for upper-class girls, Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy For Girls was in truth a training ground for elite underworld spies and assassins for the Spider criminal cartel, their motto being to “be seen, not heard”.  Select students, of which both Neopolitan and her mother were counted, would be offered advanced training in martial arts, escape artistry, fencing, and espionage to aid in their missions, training under headmistress Beatrix Browning and the corrupt Huntress Manda Rin.  Though ultimately responsible for dismantling the program, Neo served as a testament to the institution’s teaching capabilities, standing as one of the most dangerous combatants of her day.  Prior to the fall of Beacon, Neopolitan had spent three years as Roman Torchwick’s primary aide and enforcer, making a name for herself as an escape artist, infiltrator, and assassin in the criminal underworld.  Though denied the meatgrinder of hard combat that her more respectable contemporaries possessed, she was still a highly talented and vicious fighter, having completely mastered the various functions of her weapon.  Befitting Rin’s training, her primary fighting style was a slippery and subversive mixture of classical fencing, cane fighting, and hand-to-hand combat, using every trick in her arsenal to disrupt and dissect her opponents.  With just her parasol, she favored swift batting strikes and probing stabs to whittle away at the opponent’s blind spots, either to wear them down or aggravate them into overextending. When defending, as she almost always was, she combined fencing style parries with solid two-handed blocking sequences, as well as suddenly opening up the umbrella to break her opponent’s momentum and even using the hook of the handle to trap and manipulate the opponent’s weapon.  While perfectly willing to use her concealed blades in live combat, notably shooting the tip out at Cinder Fall and Ruby Rose face during their duels, she typically reserved them as assassination tools to execute a helpless opponent, such as when she prepared to execute an unconscious Yang, or to keep them at relative gunpoint, using the blade to hold Ruby at bay on the air carrier.  Her unarmed skills she used far more heavily, regularly employing sudden heavy kicks to strike out at her opponent’s blind spots and joints.  Rather than overtax her lack of muscle mass by trying to punch above her level, she took the path of least resistance and hit where it was most effective.  This deceptive defensive fighting style was reinforced with the heavy integration of her Semblance, using her solid illusions to trick her target and leave them open to a retaliatory attack.

I would describe the mindset of Neopolitan’s tactics and conduct as “Provoke and Erode”.  She was a showboating troll, perfectly happy to toy with and annoy her foes by canceling out their offensives.  As Neo’s light build left her poorly suited for slugging it out, she focused on evasion and retaliation, slipping in light counters to wear her opponent down while using silent psychological warfare to goad them into overcommitting.  In single combat, Neo would open defensively, baiting her opponent into making the first move and giving way before their assaults, often making them think they were gaining ground before abruptly turning around and catching them off guard.  despite her cheery demeanor, Neo was shockingly ruthless, perfectly willing to execute helpless opponents and taking backstabs whenever possible.  In this manner she casually subdued Yang Xiao Long on the Mountain Glenn train and fended off Ruby Rose’s heavy scythe offensive during the Fall of Beacon, taking advantage of the Patch sisters’ frustration to keep them fruitlessly wailing on her while she danced around their assault.  After Torchwick’s death at the Fall of Beacon, Neo blamed Cinder Fall, training and improving her style in preparation before tracking her down to Lil' Miss Malachite’s tavern in Haven.  Ambushing the Fall Maiden, Neo managed to fight evenly with Cinder, forcing her to unleash her magical powers to force a draw.  As a larger strategic operative, Neo was an expert spy and infiltrator, at her best by sneaking past enemy lines to silently undermine the defenses.  During the Fall of Beacon, she successfully snuck aboard the Atlas flagship and butchered the bridge before freeing Roman, and in Atlas, she infiltrated the academy dorms to steal the Relic of Knowledge from Oscar Pine.  When confronted by the combined efforts of Pine, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren, Neo managed to outmaneuver and subvert all of them to facilitate her retreat.  Later, after stealing the Lamp as a bargaining chip, Neo broke into the Atlas military compound to get Arthur Watts into position, massacring the support staff with Cinder before hiding among the evacuating civilians to attack Team RWBY.  The only reason Neo’s attempt to murder Ruby failed was because of Yang, who saw her coming and took the hit for her sister, falling into the void.  Neo’s success in battle was heavily tied to the logistics at play.  As most Huntsmen and Huntresses are offensive heavyweights, they were extremely vulnerable to Neo, as her slippery defensive fighting style enabled her to dance around their attacks, get inside their guard, and slip in devastating counters all while deliberately aggravating them.

However, while this made Neo a serious threat to just about anybody, it was also based on her own inability to handle a head-to-head engagement.  Because of Neo’s lack of offensive might, she relied on the path of least resistance to get the most bang for her buck, and her greatest challenges have been when the enemy fails to give her the openings she needs.  Raven Branwen’s mere appearance was enough to frighten Neo into a retreat, and Cinder Fall was able to disrupt Neo’s momentum by leaning on focus and intensity to bully through her interference.  In Atlas, Jaune Arc momentarily got the better of Neo by intercepting her assault on Oscar and activating the gravity Dust repulsor in his shield, sending her flying down the hall.  Though Neo recovered quickly from the latter, it demonstrates that she wouldn’t be able to make much headway against a more capable defensive fighter, while also ironically being vulnerable to the very counters she herself employed.  This was all brought to a head in her duel with Maria Calavera at Amity Colosseum.  When confronted by Neo, Maria was decades over the hill physically and was obviously out of practice as a fighter, yet her own defensive technique allowed her to fend off Neo’s assault without serious difficulty.  Furthermore, as Neo’s entire approach is to catch her enemies off guard, Maria’s precognitive Semblance allowed her to intercept Neo’s attacks before they were even executed, effectively making her Neo’s nightmare opponent.  Additionally, Neo’s pride and vindictiveness had a tendency to undercut her otherwise capable tactical prowess.  She sometimes went too far with her smug posturing to the point of outright gloating, while her narrow focus on her personal vendettas led to tunnel vision, giving many of her opponents the chance to fight back and blindside her in turn.  These weaknesses, along with her great strengths, came about in the battle at the Evacuation Central Location, during which she fought a vicious duel with Ruby Rose.  She successfully ambushed Ruby at several points, even disarming her of her weapon while taking advantage of her emotional distress, but Ruby successfully goaded Neo into rushing in and attacking her, leading to an overextension that gave Ruby the chance to use her Semblance to run up behind her and tackle her off the bridge.  Neo was betrayed by Cinder Fall immediately afterwards, kicked into the void with the rest of RWBY.  Even with all this, Neo obstinately continued her grudge, spending her fall into nothingness trying to pointlessly kill Ruby.

RANKING: Tier 3, Standard Mastery

Neo is easily one of the most dangerous opponents active in the show right now, especially given how unorthodox her defense-oriented fighting style is.  She is patient, devious, and shockingly ruthless, perfectly willing to drag her opponents through a war of attrition to induce them into making a fatal oversight.  However, Neo’s technique is still fairly singular, and she is held back by certain practical limitations that limit her overall combative viability and can allow lesser fighters like Jaune and Maria to get the better of her.  Her tactics are brilliantly constructed and point to a highly developed game plan, but her narrow ego has led to her making costly oversights. Neo’s a subversive fighter, not an overwhelming one, and while this makes her tricky to engage, it also means she can and will crumble when put between a rock and a hard place.  That said, these weaknesses are tied to logistics rather than oversights, and Neo has specifically built her tactics to compensate for these shortcomings.  Neo is a living example of Roman’s philosophy of “lie, steal, cheat and survive.”  While no coward, she's perfectly willing to fight dirty, and if she can’t win, she prefers to cut her losses and flee.

SPECIAL

Neopolitan’s Semblance is called Overactive Imagination, the ability to create realistic illusions with physical properties to them.  By enacting a field of energy around her body or outside objects, she can alter its appearance and disguise it to the point where it even has the outward mass to resemble it.  Neo’s powers manifested during her isolated childhood, the lonely Trivia unconsciously projecting her imaginary friend to become a semi-tangible playmate.  After Trivia’s mother broke her Aura, Neopolitan never manifested again, with Trivia understanding that her playmate was in fact a piece of herself repressed by her parents’ influence.  Taking the name Neopolitan for herself, she cast aside her old life, embracing her full self along with her power.  As a criminal agent, Neo developed her Semblance to an extremely high level to aid in her and Roman Torchwick’s schemes.  Easily the most prominent demonstrations of Neo applying her powers was her ability to take on the appearance of other individuals as a form of disguise, allowing her unparalleled skill as an infiltrator.  She successfully took on the form of a paramedic during the Vytal Festival to spirit the supposedly crippled Mercury Black away, an Atlas military officer when she rescued Torchwick from Ironwood’s battleship, and later as a waitress at Jacques Schnee’s party, gaining intelligence on Ironwood’s plans and the status of Team RWBY.  In addition to simply disguising herself, Neo was also capable of projecting illusions upon inanimate objects to alter their appearance, arguably her greatest display of power in this regard being her transformation of a Mistrali airship into an Atlas Manta ship.  Even more impressive was how she could maintain the illusion long enough to slip through the Atlas blockade with no-one the wiser with no evidence of a toll on her stamina. The only serious limitation to these illusions were their brittleness, shattering with even minor amounts of blunt force trauma, and the fact that they could not mimic sound, making Neo’s muteness all the more palpable.  Alternatively, Neo appeared to have some ability to render herself invisible, disappearing from Raven Branwen and blending into the walls of the Monstra.

While Neo’s Semblance possessed extremely potent uses as an infiltration tool, it was not simply a utility power, and has been leveraged as a weapon to great effect.  In battle, Neo has used Overactive Imagination as a form of active defense, creating realistic illusions to draw her opponent’s attention and either open them up to a deadly ambush or facilitate her own retreat.  Her typical tactic was to form a realistic copy of herself and leave it standing while she ran away, tricking the opponent into attacking the dummy while leaving her free to blindside them.  In Vale, Neo successfully enabled her and Roman’s escape by tricking Yang Xiao Long into attacking her afterimage instead, giving the duo time to reach their bullhead, and during her duel with Ruby Rose, she drew Ruby’s attention with a double that left her exposed to Roman’s follow up strike.  During her time on her own, Neo learned to refine her body doubles as an active weapon in battle, using one as a feint against Cinder Fall at the start of their battle and later to slip away when they took the fight outside, though Cinder sussed it out and halted her with a fireball.  In the Evacuation Central Location, Neo disguised herself as a civilian in order to sneak up on Ruby, very nearly stabbing her in the back.  Far more insidious were her uses of her disguise illusions as a form of psychological warfare, taking the form of people her opponent had deep connections with to make them drop their guard.  During her theft of the Relic of Knowledge and subsequent battle with Team JNR, she tricked Oscar Pine into handing over the Relic and caught both him and Lie Ren off guard by transforming into Nora Valkyrie.  Exploiting Ren’s relationship with her, Neo managed to break his composure just as he was about to deliver a critical blow, enabling her escape. When falling into the Evacuation Central Location void, Neo spent the bulk of their weightless fist fight transforming into Ruby’s close friends and family, deliberately attempting to get under her skin by having her loved ones attempt to strangle her.

Neo’s use of her Semblance in battle served as a direct supplement to her fighting style, undermining and tricking her opponents into making mistakes by attacking something that isn’t there.  Her psychological warfare tactics demonstrated her ability to apply her subversive means of battle to both physical and ethereal combat to great effect, while her variety of applications allowed her to adjust her approach to suit the situation and opponent.  However, Overactive Imagination was not an unbeatable power, as its effectiveness is predicated on Neo’s ability to deceive and surprise her opponent.  Oscar caught her off guard when she tried to pass herself off as him and took a punch to the face for her trouble, tipping her hand and forcing her to confront JNR directly.  To be fair, Oscar had previously been tricked by Neo and knew she was a fraud, making his ability to expose her circumstantial.  Regardless, her inability to speak still limited her ability to impersonate people, making her pressed for time to accomplish her goal before the gig was up.  She may have fooled Nora at first, but I have no doubt that she, Ren and Jaune would have been able to sus her out eventually had she failed to slip away.  Furthermore, much like her theatrical posturing in her martial arts, Neo could sometimes go too far with the silent taunts, simply annoying the opponent rather than actually undermining them.  At Amity, Neo took on the appearance of Ruby Rose to screw around with Maria Calavera, but instead of intimidating her, this only made the ex-Huntress more determined to fight her off.  Furthermore, like any psychological warrior, Neo’s barbs are most successful when she has a strong familiarity with her target. If dropped in cold, she has nothing to work with.

RANKING: Tier 2, Flexible Combat

Neo’s special abilities are among the most versatile and dangerous in the setting despite having no direct offensive advantages, which she compensates for with an unprecedented degree of skill.  Her powers can be used for a variety of purposes for both basic utility and active combat, and she can and has leveraged the full range of her Semblance to great effect.  While a relatively simple power at first glance, Overactive Imagination is in fact incredibly multifaceted, and her use of it is extremely inventive, allowing her to exploit circumstantial factors and control the flow of the fight.  While Neo’s Semblance is not without limitations, her encounters with JNR and Maria proving that its effectiveness can be overruled or negated with enough force or a focused enough mind to not be subverted, Neo makes sure those limitations rarely come up through quick thinking, treacherous subversion, and shocking ruthlessness.  And I freely concede that the number of potential adversaries who could reliably see through Neo’s tricks is pathetically small.

OVERALL RANKING: TIER 3, ADVANCED HUNTRESS

Neopolitan’s overall ranking is determined from the average set by her physical abilities and martial skills.  While her flexible and powerful Semblance is easily a support factor on par with the likes of Qrow Branwen or Winter Schnee, she is held back by her status as a relative lightweight in all other areas.  Neo’s speed and agility makes her an extremely dangerous physical threat, and her fighting style is a deceptively powerful method that can threaten just about anyone, but she is at a severe disadvantage against more physically powerful or stronger defensive opponents.  Because of her lack of power, Neo is forced to adopt a defensive and underhanded strategic outlook to avoid the head-to-head engagements she is guaranteed to lose.  While her use of her Semblance elevates her fighting method to something greater than the sum of its parts, her uses are more the result of necessity rather than chosen support tools.  Neo can’t take a beating, so she built her skill set around making sure she never had to take one.  She is analogous to Oberyn Martell from Game of Thrones, as both are glass cannons who compensate for their lack of power with clever tricks and underhanded tactics to bypass stronger opponents.  In many ways, I consider Neo to be a Tier 2 in the making like Pyrrha Nikos, though the thing holding her back is holes in her skill set that can be exploited by lesser opponents rather than a lack of development.

Despite all her limitations, Neo’s threat level is not to be discounted, especially given how alien her approach to combat is among the RWBY battle arena.  Almost every other combatant in the setting operates on heavy offense and meeting their foes in direct combat, and almost nobody willingly gives ground and baits them.  What makes Neo so dangerous is that she effectively works at cross purposes with the common trends of her day, and her specific strengths and weaknesses come into play against pretty much everyone.  The only reliable way to combat Neopolitan is to use her own tactics against her, with Maria Calavera and Jaune Arc making more headway against her than pretty much anyone had beforehand.  And given her talent for goading her opponents into making the first move, her smug cheerfulness a sharp contrast to the cold killer she is, finding someone to fight her that way is like finding a needle in a haystack.  Neopolitan is one of those really infuriating fighters where you think you’re on top of her, that you just need to hit a little harder or move a little faster, and all the while she’s hitting you with sucker punches until you fall to the ground in a heap.  Essentially, the most dangerous troll in the world, dragging you along with a shit-eating grin as she prepares to gut you.  If she opens up that umbrella, watch the hell out.

*originally posted on RoosterTeeth community page on 1-9-21*

*all images taken from the RWBY wiki*

RWBY Combat Analysis

[thepradapariah]

Mars ☄️ and Your Sexxx Language 🐱💋✨

QUICK MESSAGE TO THE BADDIES

HELLO!!!! To all of my sweet, sweet Kosmic Baddies, Oh!! How I’ve missed you!

I cannot believe it’s been over a FRIGGIN year, but GOODNESS….believe me, when I say this past year has been a roller coaster for me, I truly mean it. I can only imagine what’s been going on in your lives as well. Just TOO MUCH!!!1111!!!!!111!!!!!1 But welcome to 2024! A universal 8 year and the year of the Dragon!!! WE IN THIS THANNNNGGG!!!! Hard work, discipline and accountability is the theme, and we can’t lose!!!!!

Believe it or not, I actually STARTED writing this to have to you for Halloween, but ummmm….this is looking like a Valentine’s Day post instead! HA!!!! Blame it on my Saturn in Pisces– my relationship to time is….non existent. But, I think this timing is better anyways. The theme is very fitting so we are going to turn apples into oranges.

***Even funnier update, now it’s past Valentine’s Day….GOODNESS!!! This has been the longest it’s taken me to write anything. Like…INSANE. Almost 6 months I’ve been steadily working on this!

Thank you to those who have continued to support me! Thank you to those who have continued to share and interact with my post through my…let’s say, hiatus! I am planning to put more energy and effort into this blog post. I LOVE writing for y’all, it is really one of my favorite things in the world.

I am going to take a moment to apologize in advance and say, the typos are probably going to be real with this one. Because I’ve been working on it for so long, I’m just ready to get it out, so it won’t be my cleanest work. I will probably be updating and editing, so bare with me!

🕯 INTRODUCTION 🕯

Sooooo….where to start? I wanted to do something fun and interesting this go round because I missed y’all so much, but I also wanted to do something light so I could get back into the rhythm of writing again….aaaaaaaaaand I thought you would enjoy something a little smexiiiii as we move into cuddle buddy season. So, in this post, we are going to talk about Mars and Your Sexxx language.

One day, as I was driving around town, it dawned on me that we always talk about Love Languages (check out my Mercury post if you haven’t already) and we never talk about sex languages. And y’all know me, and if you don’t know, you’ll soon find out, I am a Bharani moon (atmakaraka at that); and the blending between Mars and Venus is my soul’s most valuable asset to share with the world…(Did I mention my moon is the 11th House?) Sex is one of the most taboo topics (in Western puritan culture, at least), yet such a powerful resource in our human tool box and it’s ridiculously important in our relationships. The 7th House is followed by the 8th House for a reason. Intimacy, of course not always sexual, is what leads to self-discovery, the 9th House. So we cannot overlook the important step that is sexual relations. Even the word “orgasm” means “little death” and death baby, is as close as you get to God. (See how those houses flow together so well?) Hence why things such as Tantra are a sexual AND religious experience all in one. Don’t be fooled by western/christian ideals into thinking that sex is unholy or ungodly. If you think Jesus was a virgin, think again. I mean, what’s the point of turning water into wine if you’re just going to roll over and go to sleep? Y’know what I mean?

Don’t worry! If you’re a less experienced reader, and haven’t engaged in aaaaallll thhhaattt… this post is still for you! In fact, this is one of the reasons I love astrology so much, because hopefully this post will give you some context about yourself and what your SOUL craves, not just your body, so when you do start “doing the do” you can be spiritually comfortable with your wants and desires instead of ashamed or even afraid of them.

Not to put all my business on the street…but, hey, I love y’all, so I won’t keep too many secrets from you (mercury in the 8th, HA)…but, I had to do quite a bit of bumping and grinding to discover what my soul needs in an intimate relationship and I wish there was more of “guide” for me on that journey! So HERE…I’m giving it to you!

WHAT IS A SEX LANGUAGE? 😈

To be completely honest, a “sex language” isn’t something as defined as a love language, so please, bear with me as we discover this together. Please feel free to share any experiences or insight with me. Although I may not always respond, I TRULY appreciate you taking the time to share with me. I try to read everything that I can!

I’m defining sex language as how one creates and shares intimacy in their close relationships. This is particularly expressed through physical interactions and outward expressions. Mars is a planet that governs our passions, drives and desires, meaning our sex language is guided by what we deeply want and crave from our partners on a spiritual level. Venus represents more of the external notions that we have for love and relationships, while Mars represents our internal needs from love and relationships. Mars is inherently a more personal and “self-centered” planet, so interestingly enough, your sex language is all about you! I go as far to say, when you find a partner, don’t forget to check your Mars compatibility as well. If you have extremely incompatible Mars signs, you will have to do a lot more work in the relationship to overcome the constant friction. Moreover, if you have more compatible Mars signs, then WOOOO BABY, the sexual tension could be off the charts!

✨ ABOUT MARS ✨

Mars placements won’t make or break a relationship, per say, but it is a very important layer to help maintain a relationship. How many of you have heard of sexless marriages and people being unsatisfied in their relationships in a sexual way? Does that mean the couples always break-up because of the lack of sex or chemistry? No…..But does it help a HECK OF A LOT when you are wildly attracted to your partner? YES! (Of course this isn’t always a good thing…but for the sake of this post, we are only talking about rainbows and sunshine.) Just keep this in mind as you start to use this knowledge in your journey. Mars is a really important planet that is easy to overlook because it’s not in the Big Three! (Yet, it iiissss the natural ruler of the 1st House).

WHY IT ALL MATTERS 🌚

I truly believe there is a shift in the collective and many couples are going to be coming into union over the course of the next year or so. Why? Because Ketu is FINALLY transitioning out of Libra and entering Virgo. If you’ve noticed, we’ve seen quite a bit of celebrity break-ups and covid relationships coming to a screeching halt. Hence why I say, if you’ve been single, or haven’t been in a serious connection in the last few years or even ever, now is the time that your next partner might be going through some significant ending with an ex. Union is on the horizon for a lot of souls who have been doing theeee spiritual work. That’s why I couldn’t think of a better topic to get started to set the mooooooooood. Bow-chicka-wow-wow.

So without further ado, let’s get into the nitty gritty. I’m going to do something different and start with Mars in Pisces/12th House and work backwards to Mars in Aries/1st House! I thought “Hey! Why not switch it up a bit? Pisces shouldn’t be forced to scroll ALL the time!”

***Note: If you’re feeling extra spicy, you can read for whatever sign is in your 1st House and 8th House as well because those are traditionally Mars ruled Houses. And you can read for your 12H, because the 12H is also the house of bedroom pleasures! Always keep in mind that we are complex creatures and astrology is like a puzzle, so it’s okay for some things to resonate and other things to not. Learn as many perspectives as possible so you can define yourself!

With Love & Lust,

Enjoy!

A-D 💋

Mars in Pisces/Mars in the 12th House

“Cut me like a rose, turn me like a beast” Only- Ry X

If your natal Mars is in Pisces or the 12H, you may actually have a hard time knowing what your desires are. Why? Because Mars can feel as if it’s drowning in the deep spiritual waters of Pisces. Your wants can be quite dreamy. You crave a sexual experience that transcends space and time, forcing you to leave your body and touch God himself in ecstasy. (I’m a western Mars in Pisces, so…I get it). When it comes to your sex language, you want your partner to just get “you”. You don’t want to have to explain or talk or direct, you’d rather just receive and give a special type of unconditional love that knows no bounds. Because of this “boundless love”, you may actually, literally, lack boundaries. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, so we are going to focus on the positive. You are truly accepting of those who are accepting of you. Because Pisces is a mutable sign, you are willing to fit into whatever box your partner wants to put you in…and you receive great pleasure from making a deep seeded fantasy of your partner come true. You could be just as playful and imaginative when it comes to role-playing as a Gemini.

Because Mars is in Pisces or the 12H, you’ll find that a lot of partners will project their wishes and dreams onto you. Hence why you want a love that is really deep, because people can get washed away in the shallow end of your energy without ever fully realizing how deep your waters flow. This can be frustrating. And because Mars isn’t the most comfortable here, you can have some unhealthy ways of expressing your sexual frustration. Particularly if your Mars is in the 12H, you can be attracted to self-gratification through self-pleasure and also self-harm. You may even conflate the two, harm & pleasure, and have a dark side to your sexual fantasies. Your passions and desires can end up being repressed because people may not understand them, or be able to meet your high expectations. Amd babes, I love you, but just know, your expectations out of partnership are OTHERWORLDLY. But no worries!! You are SUPER DUPER freaky and almost a guaranteed partner that will go down in history books, particularly after you get comfortable in your own sensuality.

One of the things to watch out for with this Mars, is you can be passive-aggressive in the bedroom. You can take a more passive role, expecting and energetically demanding that your partner take the lead. You may not realize you even give off this energy, but the internal need that you have to dissolve into your partner, like sugar into water, can be very intense. And the gag is, sugar doesn’t really fully dissolve, so what you’re seeking can be impossible to satisfy on the earthly plane. Because of this, it is IMPERATIVE for you to have spiritual outlets within your sexual connections. It may be that you and your partner practice Tantra, or you simply pray together. With this Mars, you can absolutely use sex as a tool for manifestation. Watch your thoughts during sex, because you truly can create MAGIK!

Mars in Aquarius or Mars in the 11th House

“I believe in aliens, I don’t believe in love” Familiarity by Teezo Touchdown

If your natal Mars is in Aquarius or the 11th House, you are something special. Why? Because out of all the signs, you are the most unique lover. I KNOW!!! How friggin’ cliche, Aquarius=Unique, blah blah blah…boring. YES! It’s said all the time, but it’s the truth. In Vedic Astrology, it is important to note that Aquarius is ruled by Saturn and Rahu. This is hugely impactful as to why you are unlike anyone else. Even as you read this, you won’t be exactly like the next person reading this, because the Saturn Rahu combination can be influenced by so many different factors. Aquarians are the hardest sign to write for in general, simply because you are going to be very individualist when it comes to how you express yourself. Now, all that being said, you still crave, very deeply, a sense of belonging. So please, don’t ever take for granted how special you are. If someone is lucky enough to break through your hard exterior, they really are in for an extraterrestrial experience!

Because Mars is in an air sign here, you may or may not be the most sensual and/or sexual person on the planet. You could be. But you could not be. And that is the gift…or curse…of this Mars placement. I have Mars in Aquarius myself, and I remember reading an article that said “this placement can be infuriating to your partner because you are so nonchalant.” And I can definitely say I’ve lost relationships because the other party assumed I was disinterested because I wasn’t the most expressive when it came to my emotions. It’s important to remember that Mars in Aquarius/11H is actually a neutral placement. It isn’t a death sentence or the worst thing on the planet, but it’s not necessarily the best. So don’t be too hard on yourself if your partners don’t understand you very easily. You will just have to do more work to learn how to communicate and accommodate in your relationships. This may be something that follows you throughout life…and forget your partner….it could be infuriating to you! BUT NO WORRIES! Mars in Aquarius or Mars in the 11th house is usually more concerned with developing and nurturing friendships, which seems to contradict the more lustful side of Mars. Longing for friendship and connection versus longing for sensual pleasure and connection can be seen as two different things.

What Mars in Aquarius/11H wants more than anything is L. O. Y. A. L. T. Y. Because this Mars placement can grant so much freedom, it is imperative for the person with this placement to feel safe and secure in the sexual relationship they are building. This is NOT to be confused with possession. Expecting loyalty from a partner isn’t the same as feeling as if you own your partner. You believe that your partner should have freedom to express and live their life the way they want to, and you expect the same in return. However, you do expect your partner to consider you when they make their decisions in life. It is very much “give a dog a bone, leave a dog alone, let a dog roam and he’ll find his way home” (S/o DMX, may he rest in peace). Meaning, in your sexual language, you want your space and privacy, but you want to feel a belonging no matter how far away you are from your partners.

NOW, for the fun stuff. You are one of the most explorative lovers on the planet. You may have a “the more the merrier” type attitude and be interested in group smexii time or oragies. You may have a dream to experience Amsterdam and the Red Light District. The beauty in having your Mars in an air sign/house is that you can remain detached from the sexual experience and partner– therefore, you may not experience jealousy because you aren’t super possessive. Again, you’re all about freedom baby!!! You may also have some pretty “far-out” kinks. You may be interested in different genders, or same gender, or mix gender or no gender or latex or pantyhoes or dress up or furries or hentai or tentacle porn….and if you’re not into it, chances are you will at least click a questionable link or two. You don’t carry the same shame as others do when it comes to what turns you on sexually. You don’t like anything boring or too routine, so your search history could be a bit…odd….BUT HEY!!! As long as it’s not hurting anyone or anything and pleasure is being derived from all parties involved, then let adults do what adults do is kind of your attitude.

Friendship is the key to your heart…and to your…uh…biological box….lol. When it comes to long-term relationships, I can bet my bottom dollar that you’re far more interested in the friendship aspects than the inherent relationship drama. When your friends ask “why are you still dealing with them”, you will follow up with “well, we are friends before anything else.” And you mean that deeply. The really funny thing is…on the other hand, you are also very likely to get down with complete strangers and never think about it again. You can hook-up and detach with the best of them, or your loyalty to a confidant can keep you in a relationship for a very long time…it. Just. depends.

The one thing that is true about your sex language, is that you speak ALL different kinds. When you look back at your life and your experiences, if you are more of an adventurous Aquarian, lets say you have a lot of air and fire in your chart, you will most likely have all kinds of stories from all different people and places. You will be one of the most interesting partners and friends to talk to about all the mixed bags of experiences that you’ve had..which is awesome. If your Mars in Aquarius/11H is paired with a more “earthy” sign or even water, you will most likely have a rom-com type love thing happening…that tugging “will they/won’t they” energy at the beginning of relationships, only to fall head over heals with the “guy/gal next door”. You may also find your sexual partners online, in a group setting or be hooked up by natural friends. “How’d you meet?” “Oh, I heard from a friend of a friend that that d*ck is a ten out of ten!”

Mars in Capricorn or Mars in the 10th House

“My vicious love, My lethal heart, I wanna screw you up into me” - Bad Bad Bad by Ramsey

If your natal Mars is in Capricorn or in the 10th House, then your sexual language is money, money…and….uh….more money. I kid, I kid…but not really. It would be easy and predictable for me to say you just lust after money, but it goes much deeper than that. Believe it or not, Mars is actually exalt in Capricorn, so, you couldn’t have a better Mars placement. Your natural ruler Saturn and Mars truly are the best of friends. And if you’re familiar with Tarot, then you know The Devil represents Capricorn energy and The Devil is all about seduction and temptation. Unlike some of the more dreamy Mars placements like Pisces/12H or Cancer 4H that use their sexual language as an escape from reality, or the detached air placements like Gemini/3H or Aquarius/11H, who are too aloof to harness Mars’ energy, YOU my Capricorn/10H individuals are acutely aware of how powerful the nature of sex can be…and most importantly, how it can be used to your advantage.

To the average person on the street, you may not seem like the super sexual type. You prefer a sophisticated lover to a “cute” one, so people can assume that your standards are too high. And perhaps, your standards are high, because you understand the value of your presence and your time. In fact, you HATE wasting time, so why would you waste time on lovers who don’t bring anything to the table? Sadly, for most of the public, they won’t ever have the experience to be with a Capricorn/10H Mars because quite frankly, they can’t afford it.

Funnily enough, I’m sure as you’ve been reading this, you’re like “dang…am I that shallow?” And the answer is yes and no. You’re shallow because we live in a shallow world– and you know in order to survive it, you have to use what you got to get what you want. The other side of this is, you’re not shallow at all because you are willing to work and discipline yourself and sacrifice for those that you truly care about. There is such a depth to you in the long run, that it makes sense that you make it really difficult for people to get to you. Because you know and I know, once you’ve committed to someone, you’ve committed for as long as you possibly can. Your sexual language is all about stamina and endurance. This is true in and and out of the bedroom. As an earth sign/house, you are a sensual being. You enjoy each and every bit of romance that you can get. A nice meal, some good perfume, dressed to the nines is all considered foreplay to you. You entice your partners with a certain dignified class and only the brave will approach. In your younger years, you could find this extremely frustrating at times because men will really have to get their sh*t together before they can even THINK to approach you on that level. But the more that you use your Mars to get you where you want to be in life, partners will follow behind you and constantly buzz around as if you are the Queen Bee and they are mere workers for your attention.

Funnily enough, you are quite the heart-breaker with this Mars placement. Because you are so focused on your goals outside of love, and yet, you can crave sensual pleasures, you will be very direct with a partner, but they may not be aware of how serious you take yourself. How can this manifest? Let’s say you meet a partner and everything is groovy, but you are working on a big project for work, you’re working on a degree of some kind, or you’ve said you won’t rest until you make partner at the big company…unlike other Mars placements, you won’t let romance sway you or take you off track. You are probably the best example of “right person, wrong time”. You don’t have as much of an issue as other signs walking away from a situation that is distracting you from your more worldly desires. This can leave people utterly confused, because you seem like a perfect partner, but honestly, you’re just not focused on aaaalll the drama that can come with fully committed relationships. People may actually take this energy and say that you’re a player…or worse…a floozy (one of my favorite words lol, definitely needs to make a comeback). You actually aren’t. You will be one of the most committed partners they could find, but if it’s not the right time…it just ain’t happening. So your partners will have to maintain some level of patience or they will miss out. On the other hand, because Mars is a planet of extremes, you may go through periods in life where you are celebate. It may take you awhile to stop channeling that Martian ambitious energy into your career and put it towards your sexuality. That being said, you will enjoy the more sensual side of sex. You could have great stamina and endurance. Because sex may not come around as often as you’d like, you will learn to savor every drop of your partners and please them in a calculated, thoughtful and masterful way! How smeeexxxiiiiiii!!!!!

Mars in Sagittarius or Mars in the 9th House

“I’ve been everywhere, man, looking for someone. Someone who can please me, love me all night long” Where Have You Been by Rihanna

If your natal Mars is in Sagittarius or the 9th House, your sexual language is that of many languages. You fall in love with the exotic, unknown and unexplored. You like your partners like James Bond likes his cars– foreign. You appreciate partners who expand your understanding of reality. Your partners have to expand your mind…and body…into positions that you never thought were possible. If you don’t attract partners who are of a different race, culture or class from you, then you will be attracted to partners who are otherworldly and spiritual or are just as serious about their religious beliefs as you are. Like Mars in Pisces/12H, your planet is ruled by the planet Jupiter, aka Guru. You NEED to learn from your partner. You NEED to explore with your partner. And you NEED to be able to teach your partners something as well. “I wanna know…can you show me…I wanna know about the strangers like me”...It’s giving…Tarzan and Jane. I have Mars in the 9th House, and it has manifested in a very fun way! So with my bias, I believe that this can be one of the more fun placements if you just go with the flow. Unlike other Mars placements, you don’t necessarily feel the need to control your partners. You’d much rather experience them, learn the lesson and move on to the next new shiny thing. Much like your brother, Gemini, you are equally as invested in getting the knowledge and seeking more knowledge. You of all signs are unlikely to overstay your welcome in a relationship. You can come off quite restless and unsatisfied…UNLESS you are just fascinated and enamored with an individual.

You can find yourself attracted to people who have accents, or speak a different language than you. But you will be even more turned on by someone who shares the same religious beliefs as you. You may actually be willing to convert religions for your partner OR, and this is more likely, you have a partner who is a different religion than you are, and instead of being ashamed by it, or making it an obstacle, you embrace it– ultimately respecting their religion, while maintaining the traditions of your own.

You will naturally desire to travel with your partner. Making some of your favorite memories in life when you made-love in some far off land. If the sentence, “I made love to a Frenchman I met while eating a baguette at the local cafe under the Eiffel tower and I’ll never see him again, but he’s the love of my life” turns you on…congratulations, you’re in the right spot.

This Mars placement is fueled by your deepest desire to see the world and its deepest truth, and then just imagine how much you can learn about the world through the lens of an intimate partner. Your sexual language, like I said earlier, involves language in and of itself. You want to hear the stories of distants lands, fascinated by the foreign nature of your divine counterpart. You will want to be intimate with partners who can speak for hours and hours about their adventures and endeavors. You need to be intrigued at the very least.

I also find that with this placement, there may be an age difference in your relationships. You either will be attracted to someone who is much older and wiser, OR, interesting enough, you could find yourself with someone younger. Why is this? You will appreciate a person who still has zest for life. You will be equally attracted to partners who are bright eyed and bushy tailed! Plus, I know I’ve talked a lot about your partner entertaining and teaching you, but the truth of the matter is, you will want to be as much of a sage to your partner as well. You will enjoy teaching them the ways of life and the pursuit of happiness. They will look to you with eyes of wonder as you paint beautifully vivid pictures of your life experiences that have shaped your view of the world.

Another element to this Mars placement, is you are one to challenge authority. This may manifest in your sex language by liking to explore BDSM culture in some way. Because this Mars is all about freedom, you may be turned on by the thought of your partner controlling you…just so you can say no. You can come off as a “well, make me”...kind of lover when it comes to foreplay. You love a challenge and you like partners who challenge you in some way when it comes to living out your sexual fantasies. Another way this may come out is you AND your partner may have a knack for getting into trouble or enjoying sex with some kind of risk involved. You get off being able to sneak away for a quickie. You’ll have sex in the backseat of a car. Joining the mile club is definitely on your bucket list…all the things! Because you are such a rebel, you tell stories that have “normies” clutching their pearls and leave their mouths open. You want to have memorable sex that is worth writing a book about!!!

I can not drive home enough how spiritual your sexual relationships have the potential to be. You are not a shallow lover. You are a lover full of wonder and full of lust…wanderlust…if you will. Sagittarius/9H is a very serious zodiac/house. You're destined to seek truth– so your sexual partners HAVE to enlighten you in some way. You don’t want to get stuck in the mundane, boring stuff of a relationship, (and please, don’t get too carried away, because we do live on planet earth!) you want to experience shrooms, talk about God and make love in the forest! Smexxiiii!!!!

Mars in Scorpio or Mars in the 8th House

“Every breath you take, every move you make, every smile you fake, every single day, I’ll be watching you” Every Breath You Take by Sting

Okay, okay, it would be all too easy to say your love language is stalking, and more stalking and even more stalking, but…that’s only a small fraction of what this Mars placement has to offer. If your natal Mars is placed in Scorpio or in your 8th House, your sexual language is that of raw passion and intensity. That being said, it is also about restraint and self-restriction, and sometimes self destruction. I tend to find Scorpionic energy and 8H energy to be radically internal. You, actually, may not be the most expressive lover. You are more comfortable waiting, studying and planning to pursue a lover, rather than going in full force. Because Mars is your natural ruler, Mars is more than comfortable here, but unlike your brother sign, Aries, you are more of the “planning” part of war, rather than action. This is the strategy of self-defense more than anything. You don’t want to walk into an intimate situation to be intimate yourself, you want to extract vulnerability from your partner like a detective solving a murder crime. Your sex language is more of a riddle than a question. And you would like a partner who intrigues you and leaves a lot of mystery. In my many many years of dating, and many many encounters with Scorpionic energy (I attract them like flies…it’s crazy) I always find that Scorpios are nowhere near as mysterious or hard to figure out as they perceive. Behind all that black and dark stares and gazed is usually a pretty pretty boring, but shy person. There is such a caution with this sign when it comes to acting on those very deep and sometimes all consuming desires, so you are very careful to not put yourself in harm's way. Another hot take that I have on this placement that may seem a bit contradictory to the Scorpionic stereotype is YES YES YES, you are smexxxxiiii and all of the things, but that doesn’t necessarily make you the most sexual person. You take intimacy and sexy very seriously, more seriously than most, because for you intimacy and vulnerability can be used against you and be seen as a weakness, so you are hard pressed to just be going around willy-nilly swinging from partner to partner. You also view sex/intimacy as more of a “power” thing than a “love” thing. And what do I mean by that? You know that deep intimacy and truly being intertwined with another individual gives you an unreal amount of access to that person on a personal and spiritual level. It is always important to remember where Scorpio/8H lines up in the grand scheme of things. It follows the Libra/7H of partnership. The 8H is actually the house that dictates how a relationship will play out. This. Is. Imperative. To understand this placement. You are far more focused on how the partnership plays out, rather than the partnership itself. Again, unlike your predecessor, Libra, who is ruled by Venus and may be more interested in the looks of a relationship and romantic partner. Your sexual language is more interested in the psychology of your partner. You don’t care nearly as much about the outside as you do the inside. What draws you to your partner is a need to access the ultimate truths through your partners. Hence why, you are followed by Sagittarius/9H of Truth and Liberation. Your sex language involves restraint, power and hidden truths.

As I said before, it may be really difficult for you at times to truly connect with your partners because your energy can demand sooooo much from them. You will require partners to go through such depths in their relationship with you, that they may not be able to handle it. And on the other side of that, you may stay away from relationships because you may mistakenly feel like it brings out some of your “worst” qualities. With this Mars, you may go through a very intense relationship when you’re young, one where you give your all, I mean…you would kill or be killed for those you love, and because that relationship fails, you may never want to experience those types of lows again and stay away. You are one of the most loyal of the Mars placements, so you are very careful to study who exactly you are giving your loyalty to. I recommend with this placement, you may find yourself oddly attracted to Aquarian/11H energy. It sounds weird, water and air, but in this case, Aquarian energy is endlessly fascinating because they are so unorthodox, you will never truly figure them out, so you’re constantly intrigued by them. Aquarians also value loyalty the same way you do. They will allow you the freedom that you need to sit in your own emotions, but value the friendship in such a way, you won’t feel abandoned by them. Even if the people you are attracted to don’t have Aquarius in their chart, I think that quality is something you should consider when looking into intimate partners. It is probably the partner who gives you the most space and it is the hardest to figure out, that will give you the most in life. If you have a partner that is easy to conquer, not only will you be bored, but you can easily slip into those darker energies of control and manipulation to get you way…even when it’s unnecessary.

AAALLLL that said, you are still a hell of a lover! I mean…wow. You intricately know how to please and conquer. You use sex as a language itself when you’re ready and willing. And man, do you have a way with words. You can easily hypnotize a lover to fall under your command, so be careful with this gift. You are more than comfortable in this arena once you move past your fears in the subconscious. You can channel this energy, much like the exalt Mars in Capricorn to succeed with some of your greatest ambitions. You will put your sexual energy into your work and projects in a way like no other! Just don’t take everything so seriously! It’s okay to have a good time. Be intimate and open up some! You’ll enjoy getting your head out of the sand!

Mars in Libra or Mars in the 7th House

“What a rush & what a high, cause when your love don’t fight, smoke gets in your eyes” Smoke In Your Eyes by Skepta, Ossie, Harry Stone

If you came to this section thinking that I was going to talk about how sweet and balanced you are when it comes to your sexual language…THINK. AGAIN. BABE. You are nothing of the sort. Seems contradictory, huh? Because Libra/7H is all about balance, right? Well…not when it comes to this Mars placement.

If you have your natal Mars in Libra or the 7th House, you are quite the spicy lover. To be completely honest, Mars is VERY uncomfortable here. Why? Because Libra is naturally ruled by the planet Venus, which is essentially the opposite frequency of Mars. I like to think of Mars and Venus as the brother and sister planets of the Milky way. Traditionally ruled by Ares and Aphrodite in Greek mythology respectively, they are technically half-siblings. So when you think of this Mars placement, this of how a girlie-girl would feel surrounded by all boys at a football camp. Sure, she may attract a lot of attention and she may have plenty of options…but she will CERTAINLY have to set clear boundaries to command the respect she deserves, as well as deal with the fact that no one around her may have the same interest. See how this can be uncomfortable? It’s not the worst thing to happen, but it can cause you to feel like you have to play the field a little bit differently because of Mars being in the House of Libra.

Okay, so now that we covered why this placement might be different than what you were imagining, let’s get into what this post is actually about!

If you have this natal placement, your sex language is all about breaking up to make-up. Because you’re on this constant quest of seeking balance, YOU will subconsciously or consciously seek chaos in order to regain balance. Your indecisive and somewhat aloof nature in relationships can be a source of frustration when it comes to your sexual expression with your lovers. If you have Mars in your 7H, you genuinely LOVE conflicts and attract conflicts to your relationships. You can be quite passive aggressive, honestly, and stir the pot to get attention. AAALLLL this being said, you still enjoy the finer things and love the idea of love, even though you may not have the most direct way of going about it. Your partners may even find you hard to read, and this can frustrate you, because your wishy-washy-ness is so innate to you, you may have a tendency to think that everyone is as back and forth with decision making as you are.

Ironically, more so than any of the previous placements I have discussed before, I will focus more on what sexual language you like from your partner rather than yourself. Of course, you like good food, good wine, good clothes, good banter, good company…you have Libra, like DUH, but I want to offer a different perspective on this placement.

So when it comes to your partners, you truly like a partner who takes charge, regardless of sex. You crave a level of masculinity and directness in your love language because as I stated earlier, it can be difficult for you to make decisions for yourself. You overemphasize how people will perceive you, and this can cause you to stunt your decision making, so you’ll find yourself craving a partner who can be unabashedly unapologetic in their approach to life. You seek partners who are brave and courageous and you will find yourself testing anyone you fall in love with to see if they have that spark of passion in them. You may find yourself seeking different things from different people, so you may have multiple lovers– and just like how it may take you forever to pick out your outfit in the morning, it may take you forever to figure out what you value in a partner. It is important to note that Libra/7H energy is indeed a masculine energy. I’m sure most would assume it’s feminine because of the “sophisticated” and charismatically social nature usually associated with Libras, but when it comes to sexual relationships, Taurus/2H energy is the feminine side of Venus. Libra energy in this way is more detached than people would think. As stated earlier, because you enjoy dates, chatting, getting to know people, you may be a really good casual dater! This could send mixed messages to potential lovers because you may have never really had any intention of dating them long-term– or, you really just haven’t decided yet. Now are we starting to see how this Mars placement can attract certain conflict? You will desire and crave a partner that can make decisions for you. This may lead to some kinkiness in the bedroom because you’re open to compromise and you can be bossed around in this regard.

Overall your sexual language is complex because of the inherent contradiction of this natal placement. You can make this work in your favor as long as you keep open communication with your partner, even if it’s to tell them that you need some more time before you’re comfortable making any lasting decisions. When you date, you will have to allow your partners to understand your up & down nature. Most people will probably take your pragmatic nature personally, so if you can find a way to channel this into being sexually playful with your lovers, it can be a great way to keep romance fun and interesting. As stated in the beginning, you are most likely to end up in an on-again-off-again kind of relationship because you like for the scales to be tipped, so you can rebalance them. You are far more detached in commitments than most people would assume, so it is essential for you to date like-minded people who understand that your coldness is not a reflection on your feelings. You choose to remain objective in your judgements and seek fairness in your relationships—even if you are the one who was unfair to begin with! Kiss it kiss it better baby!!!!

Mars in Virgo or Mars in the 6th House

“I got commitment issues, but I’m tryna fix that for you…I don’t believe in love, but that doesn’t mean I don’t take you serious” Commitment Issues by Central Cee

With Mars in Virgo or the 6th House, you may be surprised to find how non-committal you are when it comes to relationships. Why? Because you find relationships to be impractical. So when it comes to your sexual language, you are quite all over the place. Lovers can find you hard to catch, almost like trying to keep a fairy in a jar. You prefer to flutter around and keep things light in the sexual department. To you, sex can scream responsibility. After all, sex can be a pretty risky and dirty affair. All the fluid exchange and, ultimately, the required vulnerability, can make you quite uneasy. With this Mars placement, you can go between the two extremes of putting too much emphasis on sex or not enough emphasis at all. This is due to the natural ruler of Virgo/6H being Mercury, which, I find to be, an asexual planet. You are more interested in the intellectual connection than the physical connection.

BUT PLEASE, don’t get me wrong! You know you’re way around the bedroom. Your sexual language is constantly evolving. You do well with long-term partners that you can trust, study and get to know. You prefer a lover that is loyal, so you don’t have to worry about where they’ve been, or better yet, who they’ve been with. You find joy in repetition with one partner. OR, you are really open to “protected” one-night stands. You are either all in or all out. You don’t like to waste time on sexual relationships that you don’t see a return for a long-term investment. That being said, if you are unable to invest in the long-term, you can find yourself in a position of sexual frustration. You may really desire a person, but because of your deep need for perfection first, you may stall connections & find a lot of pleasure in masturbation for the time being. You, like your opposite sign, Pisces, can really get into your fantasies. You may find that erotica and romance novels can be great resources to pass the time while you likely toil between celibacy and being a whore (this is particularly funny to me because Virgos are known for being the Virgins of the zodiac– hence the contradiction in Mars in Virgo. The planet of sex and desire ruled by a “Virgin” is, uh….a difficult juxtaposition to say the least.) – again, it’s all about mental stimulation with you.

When you do meet a partner that you can FINALLY settle down and feel comfortable with, you will be a very giving lover. Because Virgo energy is usually associated with servitude, you better believe that you will make it your duty to service the object of your affection. You care very deeply about the satisfaction of your partner— far more than you care about your own. As stated earlier, you don’t mind finishing up solo as long as your partner is satisfied. You will find every nook and cranny, every deep desire, every love spot that your partner has, because you will analyze their body with astute detail. You will break your partner’s sexual language down and adapt it to be your own, because after all, you are a mutable sign. As well as being an earth sign, you do have a very deep sensual nature to you. Although you can come across as quite guarded with new partners, once you blossom, you really enjoy heavy petting and physical touch. You can spend so much time in your head and alone with your thoughts in other aspects of your life, you may find it very powerful to have a partner that literally grounds you and brings you back to planet Earth by holding you in their arms. Again, after you’ve bent over backwards (pun intended) to please your partner, you, more than any other sign, except maybe Leo, really needs to be acknowledged and celebrated for your hard work. You don’t take kindly to being undervalued or under appreciated when it comes to your romantic relationships in this context.

Believe it or not, this placement can actually be quite kinky! Why? Because of the influence of Mercury again. As stated before, you want to learn your partner’s as well as you possibly can to make sure you are seen as perfect in their eyes– sooooo, that means you’ll have some exploring to do. Mercury is such a curious planet, that it may not be kinky for the sensual pleasures of it all, but it will be interested in testing out sex & kinks for “research purposes”. This can give you a sort of detached feeling when it comes to sex, which may or may not work in your favor– you’re able to disassociate in a way that makes sex almost an out of body experience…it may take you some time to actually feel pleasure from sex. You are so focused on the other and pleasing your partner, you can forget that sex is supposed to be a two way street! I just want to reiterate, that this placement is so mutable, that you may find yourself pretty ambivalent towards sex at different times in your life. You’re kind of like “eh”. But there is hope, when you find a partner that lights your fire– you will find yourself wanting sex like a child wants candy! There is plenty of potential here for a beautifully active and engaging sex life– it just may take more time to develop than others.

Learn your own kinks! Have fun! Explore the more sensual side of life for yourself!

Anyone who is able to win you over (which is NOT an easy feat by any means) will be able to revel in the fact that you are such a wonderful lover! But don’t forget, sex is not a test that you can get an A + in, it’s supposed to be the culmination and celebration of it all!

Mars in Leo or Mars in the 5th House

“She may be the queen of hearts, but I’m the queen of your body parts” - Cockiness, Rihanna

If you have Mars in Leo or Mars in the 5th House, you are Britney Spears, all eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus, bay-bee. You LOVE to put on a show. Your sexual language can make love-making a spectacle! You’re over the top, you’re loud, you roar. You LOVE LOVE LOVE the attention. So much so, you may not even need sex to fulfill that internal desire for you. Huh? What do I mean? I mean, you may be satisfied using your creative gifts for sexual gratification. Chances are with this placement, you are highly creative and charismatic. You find sensual pleasure in being able to share your creative gifts with other people. Haven’t you heard of entertainers saying they had so much fun on stage, it was orgasmic? That’s where you come in.

Ironically, I don’t naturally find this placement to be the most sexual. Don’t get me wrong, you are DOWN DIGGITY for a good time, but you really use sex as an ego booster. You may even be quite lazy in the bedroom. You could easily live by the code “my present is my presence” and be a dazzling pillow princess. This isn’t a bad thing, and it definitely doesn’t have to be the case all the time! When you’re turned on, you’re turned on, but when you’re just casually engaging in sex, or are in a long-term commitment, you may feel like sex is something that is owed to you. Not in a weird entitled way, but more like a Queen sitting on a chaise lounge being fed grapes– like, “duh, you should have sex with me, I’m beautiful”, type energy. This, if you haven’t been able to guess already, can lead to a selfish attitude in the love-making department. You must remember that sometimes, your partner wants to be catered to as well. That being said, you won’t shy away from Valentine’s Day. You are the type to go all out! You’ll put on the lingerie. You’ll lay out the rose petals on the bed. You’ll pay extra for that honeymoon suite. OR, you will expect your partner to do all of this without you asking. You treat holidays and sex as if it’s a royal affair.

Due to your standards being so high, I cannot express to you enough that you may really put all your sexual energy into your creative pursuits until you find a lover of high-value and high sex drive. You love and somewhat need to feel desired in order to break down your walls. You don’t play hard to get– you ARE hard to get, so this may leave you with extended periods of non-sexual activities. You are more than willing to give up sexual pleasure for your own personal pursuits– in fact, you are more likely to do that if you have specific career goals.

You may be a tad bit surprised at my interpretation of Mars in Leo, perhaps you were assuming it would be a bit spicier, but I challenge you to look at your ruler, the Sun (yes, the actual burning ball of fire in the sky) . Not literally…well, you can, but make sure you wear sun-glasses. But in all seriousness, the Sun shines alone. The Sun is too hot to let anything near it, and it carries such a gravitational pull, that things simply orbit around it, but can never get too close. With Mars in Leo/5th House, you may find yourself in this position when it comes to your sexual nature. You attract a lot of people towards you, but they are unable to get too close, for fear they will burn up in your presence. Or, you shine so bright, you are forced to do it alone. Being the Sun and the center of the Universe is a hard job, but ultimately an isolating job. Your being, your creative gifts, your star power and the way you shine can cast such a shadow on those who dare come near you. It really can be one of the most challenging placements because you probably won’t understand why people can’t/don’t come near you. Again, you’re just soooo great, people can have an overwhelming and unrealistic ideal of what it will take to make you happy. It’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s flattering, but on the other hand, you can suffer from being put so high up on a pedal stool that you never asked for!

One tip for you, is to keep your hair beautiful and lushes! People will be attracted to your wild side and want to bring that out of you. You can either really love having your hair pulled or be turned off by it because you spend so much time making it look perfect. Either way, your hair may be an essential part of foreplay for you and something that suitors may find undeniably sexy.

As long as you are mindful to share the spotlight from time to time and not always prioritizing your needs & your desires, you can be a remarkably loyal partner. Fierce is the word that comes to mind and you can be very fierce in the bedroom. (When you want to be.) You can outshine any of the competition. Most people truly can’t hold a candle to you when it comes to how committed you are in an intimate relationship. You are proud and you protect those that are around you and that you deem worthy. You have a royal air that surrounds you and it loudly and proudly screams `bow down bitches' when it's time to get down and dirty!

Mars in Cancer or Mars in the 4th House

“Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain, you like your girls insane” Born to Die- Lana Del Rey

If you have Mars in Cancer or Mars in the 4th house, ironically, your sex language involves a knack of overwhelming emotional destruction. Dramatic, yes, yes, I know, but very true. Mars is VERY uncomfortable in the deep waters of Cancer/4H. Mars in the 4th House, in particular, is a naturally difficult placement because it sits in the House of happiness, as well as aspects the 7th House of partnership and the 11th House of friendship– making that native, uh, a little difficult to deal with. Why? Because your emotions can be so erratic and illogical, it can be difficult for people to understand what you want. Heck, you probably don’t understand what you want most of the time. I promise I’ll get to the good stuff, but keep in mind that this Mars placement is in detriment! (It’s exalted in Capricorn, the opposite sign.) So when it comes to your sexual language, you value such a deeply emotional commitment from your partner, you could constantly try to test them by pushing their emotional boundaries.

There is a mixture of pleasure and pain. You love an emotional outburst– this can be good and sexy, or bad and scary. Emotionally bonding make-up sex, is your cup of tea…ESPECIALLY if you are the one who caused the “break-up” in the first place. You truly enjoy engaging with your partner in a loving way, when you can, but because Mars is so unstable here, it can be hard for you to maintain emotional consistency within long-term relationships. You can find that your passions wax and wane for your partner. Sometimes, you just want to run into their arms and kiss them in the pouring rain, other times, you want them to LEAVE YOU DAFUQ ALONE. This can be quite jarring to your intimate partners, but also to yourself. I recommend embracing this quality and being as honest as possible! Instead of literally creating a sh*t storm in order to be left alone, just communicate to your partner that you need a little space from time to time. But also be willing to give your partner that same courtesy and grace if they ask for the same.

You can feel a need to wrap yourself up in your partner's desires. It may come from a genuine place, but because Mars is an aggressive planet, you may be quite aggressive in how you demonstrate your love to your partner because your deepest desire is to be able to emotionally control them. This can manifest in an extremely emotionally manipulative way through passive aggressiveness and just causing overall uneasiness within your dynamics and partnerships. One of the lovely sides about this particular placement, is when you mature, you can have an extremely high emotional I.Q. Because you are naturally very sensitive to your surroundings, you can literally sense the emotional and physical needs of your partner without them having to say a word. You can be so emotionally intune with your lovers, it can feel like telepathy if they need anything from you. You just know, y’know?

In the bedroom, you can go from one extreme to another. Sometimes you want to be dominant, and sometimes you want to be dominated. It is important for your lovers to be able to ride your waves and learn what is needed from them at any given moment. Again, Mars is all about conquest. So when Mars is in the 4H in particular, you want to be able to be the leader in your home, but you also want someone who can take the reins when necessary. Again, this can be a difficult balance to strike within your sexual relationships because people may not understand the method behind the madness, typically because there really isn’t a method…it’s just kind of madness AND THAT’S OKAY!

Because Mars is so uncomfortable here, it is imperative for you to be able to channel your energy in creative ways or you can fall victim to your own emotional tirades. You want a clear line of communication with anyone you are interested with and they absolutely need to have some emotional intelligence or else they will drown in your water. You don’t want to suffocate your lovers with so much emotional intensity, that you both are unable to remain somewhat grounded in the chaos. You of all people understand just how powerful emotions and sex can be together, so be careful to use it wisely!!! When done right, you can have anyone wrapped around your finger.

Mars in Gemini or Mars in the 3rd House

“Talk is cheap my darling, when you’re feeling right at home. I wanna make you move with confidence. I want to be with you alone” Talk is Cheap by Chet Faker

If you have Mars in Gemini or Mars in the 3rd House, then you are all about an intellectual connection when it comes to your sexual language. You want to catch viiibbbeezzz. You want to be razzle-dazzled with the lingo. You want someone hip, cool, in the know…because, well, you’re hip, cool & in the know, y’know? It’s only fitting that your partner be the same. You, of all placements, may truly crave “your other half”. And I know, I know, we live in a world now, where people are saying “you are a whole person and you’re looking for another whole person yadayadayada…”, but you’re a TWIN. You want to be able to connect with someone as if you share the same brain, the same thoughts, the same…everything. This isn’t to say that you’re not sexual…you just enjoy mental jousting for foreplay. Think of how beautiful the dance between two evenly matched fencing partners is– the ebb and flow of tension – playing both parts of the aggressor and the defender– gliding almost effortlessly with a weapon in hand. It’s like the tango…but with swords. That’s how you envision your love. Beautiful art, yet dangerous. You may not be the most sensual lover at first, but in time you will certainly warm up. Why? Because at the very least, you are a curious partner! You. Want. To. Explore. You may be the type of lover to want to try almost anything once. You want to be surprised. You don’t want your bedroom to be boring. You resent repetitiveness and you welcome new experiences. You may even fall into the “switch my wig, make ‘em feel like he cheating” category. You like to switch up your look, your style…sexual positions (lol). This can even translate into role play! (Especially teacher/student).

I cannot express to you enough how much learning from your partner turns you on. You love asking questions & consider getting to know someone a conquest. The more difficult the puzzle, the more you yearn to solve it and this type of stimulation oozes over into your sexual pleasure. You’re curious to know what your lover’s love. You can have an objective perception of sex, because you aren’t the most naturally emotional person, so you can look at the love making process as getting to know every nook and cranny of a partner’s body– learning what makes them tick & “ick”. You become more emotionally open with a partner, the more confident that you are that you know them. You like learning, but you don’t like unpleasant surprises. This may be counter intuitive, but I find that after you go through your “lemme try any & everything era”, you will genuinely enjoy one partner. It will make you feel secure and like you have that missing piece in life. You don’t come across as the most committal type, but when you do commit, you commit fr fr, you just need a certain level of freedom in life to continue to expand your horizons far past the mundane in life.

Another element you may add to your sexual reservoir is……drugs. “DON’T DO DRUGS, KIDS & STAY IN SCHOOL”...alright, there is my disclaimer. Now back to what I was saying, you may be curious to try mind-expanding drugs & smex. Because you can be so cerebral, drugs like ecstacy can help you actually feel your body. The tingle will start from your subconscious mind, and venture into your conscious body, possibly making love-making a more pleasurable experience. If this doesn’t interest you, don’t worry, no pressure! Just making a note that this placement is more likely to think outside of the box when it comes to making their sex lives thrilling and exciting! Not saying that vanilla sex is boring…just saying in general. You do you!

Overall, this is a curious placement. It’s a fun placement, but it can be an extremely flighty placement in the beginning. Don’t let your fear of getting stuck, stop you from finding a true partner that you can really see the world with. You can find that “other half”, that “twin soul” that really knows how to light a fire in you and warm your cold cold cold gemini heart. In your moments of passion, you will prefer to keep things fun and light. Only when someone truly captures your mind, can they capture your body and soul! SEXYYYYYY!!!!

Mars in Taurus or Mars in the 2nd House

“People stop to ask me, how do you please your man? Take it from the black sheep baby, any way I can. Sometimes it’s with fire and sometimes, with ice…Just don’t get it twisted, his body’s gunna pay the price.”

- Rock My Boy’s Body by Joseph Stephens

If you have Mars in Taurus or Mars in the 2nd House your sexual language is about sensuality, sexuality, & seduction. You believe in making love an all encompassing experience and you will stop at nothing to make sure your partners have an all exclusive pass to your BO-DAY. IF it is earned. Because Taurus is naturally slow moving energy, you may be slow to open up. As I’ve studied astrology for years now…I’ve come to realize that Taurus energy is just as private and cautious and it’s opposite sign, Scorpio. If you have this placement, you feel the need to study your lovers and you wait and wait and wait and wait and wait before you make your move. But if you are able to wrap them in your warm embrace…you won’t want to let go and they won’t want you to either.

Like Leo, when it comes to your sexual language, you believe in putting on a show. But your show is subtle, quaint and slow burning. You will have the candles burning, the scented lotion and fresh out the shower smell, you will have the most luxurious sheets on the most comfortable mattress. You don’t believe in cutting corners when it comes to your comfort and whoever is lucky enough to wind up in your bed, simply gets to enjoy how you live your life. I could bet you have an impeccable taste in music and truly know how to set the tone when it comes to seduction. As stated before, you are able to create a world of pure pleasure for those you love and make them spell-bound to you, because chances are, they haven’t been able to match with a sexual partner who cares so much about the details of ALL 6 senses. (I’m including intuition because, y’know, I’m a tarot and an astrology girlie.) For example, I dated this guy with heavy taurus placements a few years ago. I very much remember and very much miss this awesome TV room that he made for himself. Instead of having a regular degular couch, he had a couch that was also a bed. It wasn’t a couch that converted into a bed….it was just a couch that had a bed in it…and massive 70 inch television mounted on the wall. When I TELL you, I wanted to marry that man because….UGH!!! I was so comfortable! I could melt into the floor when I was with him. And I have YET to be with anyone who has a room set up quite like that. The feeling has stayed with me long after we have been together. THAT is what I mean by the power of Mars in Taurus. It lingers when you’re done!

On the other side, you of all signs, can be extremely jealous and possessive over your sexual partners. You DO NOT LIKE TO SHARE. AT. ALL. The 2nd House is all about owning and possessions and you may take this mindset with you into your romantic relationships. To the right person and in a healthy way, this can be enduring and make your partner feel safe and secure in your presence. In turn, you also want to know that your partner is crazy about you and cares deeply about your well-being. Again, in a healthy dynamic, a little jealousy and possessivness isn’t bad. It can show that someone does have an interest in you and takes pride in the fact that they are able to claim you as their own. This is just something to be mindful of in this placement, because if underdeveloped, it can lead to issues of selfishness & strong resistance to allow your partner’s freedom. Of course this can bleed over into the bedroom as well. You don’t want to get so focused on your own comfort that you end up putting your partner into a routine that they no longer enjoy. Your favorite position may not be their favorite positive. It can feel like eating lobster every single day. Like, yeah, Lobster is great day 1, maybe even day 2, but by day 5….yuck. Depending on other placements in your chart, you may attract partners who are very much like you, in the sense they prefer routine, OR you may attract partners who are so wild and out of the box, it forces you out of your comfort zone. All I can do is say embrace whatever floats your boat.

There is no doubt that you are one of the most sexual, sensual and passionate lovers of the zodiac. Your innate knowledge of pleasure makes you an expert in the bedroom and you can be hard to beat. Although it may take you a while to warm up, either physically or emotionally, you eventually show your partners that it is absolutely worth the wait! Because you tend to be safe and secure in yourself (the 2nd house rules self esteem) you share that safety and extend your protection to those you love the most. Your sexual language is unforgettable. You know how to love someone head to toe! WOOOOO!!!

Mars in Aries or Mars in the 1st House

“Dollhouse, dressed up, perfect messed up, Torture me to sleep, paint the air I breathe. Fishbowl, chokehold, dirty water, I’m cold. Dirty as can be, have your way with me.” Dollhouse (with Lily Rose Depp) by The Weeknd

If you have Mars in Aries or Mars in the 1st House, your sexual language is intense & powerful. You have a way of pulling people into your orbit just by being your unapologetic self! The force is with you! Best believe! And people feel it. You get what you want and you want what you get and you have a way of luring in your prospective sexual partner by projecting your lust onto them– so much so they feel it when they walk by you. Much like your sister, the Mars ruled Scorpio, there is a carnal desire that surrounds you. It’s magnetic. It’s magnificent. And it’s very fleeting.

When it comes to your bedroom pleasures, you can be a pioneer of the “Wham! Bam! Thank you ma’am or…sir” (not as cute of a rhyme) mindset. You may have a habit of treating your lovers like conquest– wanting to overpower them and wrap them up in your passionate fantasies. You deeply enjoy power play in your sex life. Yes, you could easily be the dominant one in your relationships, BUT you could also seek refuge in being submissive to your partner. How? I know it seems contradictory. But chances are, with this placement (unless it’s in a water sign in your first house) you are more than likely the boss and the leader in your everyday life…so when it comes to sex, you may want to just “relax” and let your partner do all the hard work for once. If that’s the case, you may be a bit of a brat in the bedroom because you still like to challenge your partner for shizz & giggles, but you are certainly fun and definitely unforgettable.

Your sex language is raw and real. You don’t like to hold back your passion and you appreciate a partner who can match your enthusiasm in the bedroom. You love the runner chaser dynamic, and again, you can easily play both parts. You are strong and competitive and don’t like to lose the interest of your lovers, even though you can get bored pretty easily. You may prefer quickies over long drawn up love sessions, but that doesn’t mean you don’t like to indulge your sinuses from time to time– you’re just not one of the most lovey dovey of the zodiac and prefer loud, wild, hot, steamy sex opposed to soft caresses and whispers of sweet nothings. You may also be a person who uses sexy time to advance a certain agenda. You could use sex as a tool of manipulation to get what you want. That may seem extreme, but think about a stripper using her sensuality as a means to make money so she can pay her way through law school. THAT’S what I mean. Because you may not be so shy about your sex appeal, if used correctly, it can be your weapon of choice when it comes to getting what you want from someone.

Passion matters to you more than most. You would prefer a risky lover than a predictable one. You also may be a fan of the ole’ break up to make-up trope. Make-up sex is always better. And you don’t mind starting a fight in the streets, simply to uh…you know…end it….in the sheets…..if you catch my drift. You aren’t one for subtleties. You are probably one of the most straightforward and upfront people in the world and you may play shy, but once you allow a person to get to know you, you don’t hold anything back. Because you are a cardinal energy, you always have a childlike flair to you! You keep things interesting and youthful. You’re not afraid to cross boundaries and push the limits of yourself & your partner in the midst of a sexual act. You really may think that sex is something that can be “won”. You want to be the best. You want to be the one that lovers can’t get enough of. You don’t appreciate being compared to others and honestly hear partners talking about their past as if it was some sort of challenge. You definitely have a jealous and possessive streak, but like I always say, when this is a healed energy it can be enduring to the right partner. As long as it’s not obsessive and unhealthy, you can provide comfort to your lovers that you are there for them and only them. You expect loyalty in return, of course, but you don’t mind protecting and defending what you see as your own. Your love is real. Your love is honest. Your love is young and wild and free!

[rapplesart]

Random fic idea

Tim drake but instead of loosing his spleen he lost part of his leg.

Tim thought it was obvious he was missing his right leg from the knee down. It was a whole leg that was missing after all. Sure he was wearing a prosthetic made by Ra's' best people.

One he painfully earned after that crazy fucker made him fight a bunch of his assassins one legged in order to "proof himself as the true heir of the bat he saw in him" or something. So sure, the leg might be more advanced than most, and it imitated natural steps a lot easier and even made it possible to easily run without switching to a different leg. Truly it was a perfect leg be vigilante with. But he never even bothered to give it human like appearances.

But apparently the Fam didn't notice. When he returned with Bruce everyone was too reliefed to give Tim a closer look and it just never came up afterwards.

Tim thought they just didn't want to ask about it in a weird attempt of being polite or even caring. Bruce surely did enough research on how it happened on his own. The man spend the whole travel back to Gotham with Tim after all. Tim truly believed the world's greatest detective would have noticed his missing leg.

Except he didn't. Not if he interpreted the way they looked so incredibly disturbed by is nonchalant way of handlinh the boiling hot chemicals that landed on his metal leg. He just brushed it off, the battle continued and since nothing seemed to be injured no one pressed him when he said "Must've missed me after all"

Now, how do you deal with a family that didn't notice you're missing a leg? That's right you fuck with them.

First thing he did was buy himself a few more realistic looking prosthetic leg. It had to be custom made to fit his stump so it took a whole but it was a worthwhile investment.

The first one was Jason. Call it a twisted revenge for trying to kill him but Tim just really wanted him to be messed with the most. So one day when he knew it was only Jason and him on patrol he strategically set himself down to fall. Crunching some spaghettis to ass in a sickening way only to stand up and walk away as if nothing ever happened.... With his foot toned the wrong way around. Insisting on nothing being wrong and Jason being delusional whenever the older boy tried to get him to get medical treatment. He switched it up the whole evening, whenever he was out of sight he turned the fool right and wrong. Driving the guy insane.

Jason did not sleep well that night. He was also top weirded out and unsure if what he saw was real to talk about it with anyone else.

Then, he challenged dick to a flexibility contest seeing how far they han bend their knees and feet. Even Mr bones are a social construct gymnast Richard Grayson looked horrified as Tim stood there, food bend almost in half, knee twisted to the impossible and what looked lihe a bend in the middle of his leg. Dick claimed cheating except the thing that greeted him when he demanded Tim to puch up his pant leg to expose his trick was a normal looking leg. The first Robin did lots of stretches in the following weeks. His pride was hurt after all.

Finding a way to mess with Damian was a bit more difficult. The brat still made a bunch of harsh comments again and again and he really wasn't close enough with Tim to be easily gaslit. The kid was a trained assassin and was probably used to a bunch of weird shit considering everything Ra's. So Tim decided he could go a bit more gory on Robin than the others. So one night he sat in front of Damians room, in the dark hallway and waited till one of his pets passed him. Once Alfred the Cat came along he made some louder coping noise that would Definetly make the kid look out to check on his animals. It worked just as planned, Damian peeked out his door to see Tim, crosslegged and barefoot on the floor, seemingly cutting off his toe to feed the cat. In reality it was nothing more than a cat treat and carefully picked, animal safe food coloring.

The kid scremed at him, threatened to stab him, punched him real good for harming his cat and took off with said cat to find Alfred so the older man could check on the poor kitten. Of course not beforeaking sure Tim was in an adequate amount of pain on the floor, with his 'injured' food secured to the floor with another knife. Only to return with a worried Alfred on tow to see Tim, standing two whole bare feet with a confused expression and a bag of cat treats in the hall.

Tim got a broken nose for it but it surely was worth it. Especially once he quietly whispered a 'no one will ever belief you' to the kid in passing. He might have traumatised the boy a little but Tim fought it justified for all the attempted murder he suffered.

[tubbytarchia]

Etho doodles in which I let my inner dinosaur nerd take over 😔 and also have no idea how to shade

Get it cause he's old and washed up haha... ok but actual raptor Etho hybrid justification below cut

To be honest the main reason was because I really wanted a hybrid in the mix who wasn't some furry creature and a reptile or amphibian or smth instead. Etho still ended up feathered but whatever it's close enough! But for ACTUAL reasoning:

He does feel damn ancient, like an old deity of the mcyt space that no one can dislike. Dinosaurs are the same!! They're old but still thought of with great fascination and fondness, everyone loves dinosaurs...

Dinosaurs are ever so mysterious, as many advancements as we make there's still so much we don't know. Just as we know jackshit about mister Kakashi skin man. Also, there are so many incomplete skeletons out there. I didn't have a particular species in mind for Etho, because where's the mystery in that? He can be one of those 5% skeleton 95% speculation dinosaurs like this guy!! Missing jaw and all

"I'm a runner, not a protector" - so, a raptor, or more specifically the Dromaeosauridae family, which literally has "running/runner" in its name

But! I'm always a fan of stuff going against its nature, especially in this case! Etho states he's not a runner yet protects his allies rather fiercely even in total silence. Eg refusing to kill Cleo in SL or to give away Tango's location during the LimL manhunt, same for Grian in SL. He was a bit flaky in 3L I think? And he only started to have genuine care for allies in LL with Bdubs? Though he is still very much a runner in many cases like during the LL Wither fight. Research also strongly suggests that most if not all raptors were solitary hunters, and the way I see Etho (through my shamefully limited watchtime of his POVs...) he feels a lot like someone who ultimately only trusts himself at the start even if he's pleasant and allying with others, and doesn't seem to think he can carry his weight in groups though he doesn't voice this a lot. That's just how Etho is, very composed, but it feels like there's an insecurity there, showcased especially in SL but again I haven't seen almost any of his POVs in full so maybe I'm talking out of my ass!! Sorry ethogirls I'm only a sidegig ethogirl myself... But yeah tldr to me he gives off the vibe of an otherwise solitary animal struggling to find 100% sure footing in a pack. In whichever ways he does go against his nature, its not usually made a show of

At the mention of a raptor, a lot of people will probably think of the glamourized Jurassic Park Velociraptors. But those awesome guys from the movies are actually the size of chickens. In general though, dinosaurs tend to be a bit.. exaggerated in media, despite how inherently fascinating they already are. And I think it fits Etho because we all know how the Lifers seem to fear and mancrush on him when he's just some dork with perfect capability to become pathetic at a moment's notice. Still, he's a clearly skilled player and still respected without question Etho's not some killer machine like some people make dinosaurs out to be. He's just a fellow creature fulfilling his role in the ecosystem 👍

dinosaurs are cool

The hook-like sickle claws on the feet... something something fishing rod

I swear I'm not turning all my Lifers into hybrids I'm not!! Still plenty normal humans in the mix I swear....... But Etho is such a radical dude, I really wanted to do something more for him. The whole Kitsune thing that I often see associated with him is really cool. I don't actually know the reasoning for it but I assume something something naruto, but also, him being this ancient mythical cryptid who people know so little about, you know? It makes SO much sense. So anyway I turned him into a dinosaur instead rawr

As a herbivore advocate I also considered stuff like the triceratops (known for how they protect themselves and their own) but nah the raptor symbolism...

[hadesoftheladies]

was watching a nature documentary with my dad on ostriches and he was like "do you know the male ostriches are more beautiful than the female ones? it's unfair to the ladies!" and I was like "the male ones evolved to be pretty because it is their job to attract and convince a female why he's the best genetically and should mate with her" and he laughed and was like "you're right actually" and then I had a small existential crisis about how in nearly every other species female is default and the nonperformance of female animals is not taken as anything but desirable and how the most pathetic thing about our species is this great, unjustified, unnatural reversal that traps women in a cycle of unequal distribution of labour. like the only reason most of these female animals keep male mates when they do is because they actively improve the space, are exceedingly fit and attractive, or have proven thoroughly efficient for the advancement and safety of the unit. meanwhile, the human female does the protecting, maintenance, hunting, herself, has reduced selection autonomy, is bullied or coerced into accepting an unfit or genetically inferior male (which WILL alter her own genetics and not just her offspring's), and cohabits with a fucking predator who is more of an economic and safety liability than a pro for the unit. some female animals truly out here living in communities to assist and protect them or with males that perform multiple tasks (or die trying) and women are straight up cohabiting with their number one parasite. worse, they're worshipping these parasites. they're constantly placating and performing for them. human society is so absurd. you really can't look at the rest of the animal kingdom and not feel like we are the most debased and mind-fucked of all other female animals on the planet. literally none if this is rational.

TLDR I'm fucking jealous of those ostriches

[bluebeads-art]

2024 September 23rd

Okay so. I kept seeing drawings of Siffrin in iconic Sonic the Hedgehog poses for some godforsaken reason? And like, I was a HUGE Sonic nerd as a teenager. Absolutely obsessed. You can't do this to me. As soon as I thought, "Isabeau would fit Knuckles' poses," and "Mirabelle can be Amy Rose!" it was all over. I had to join the funny art trend.

I'd already seen drawings of the really iconic Sonic Adventure poses, so I decided to go with Sonic Advance 3 poses instead. They might not be as recognizable, but as someone who loved SA3, they're iconic to me. And I'm the artist here, the only people who matter are me and my inner child LMAO.

Pose references and more rambling under the cut

^ Character select pixel art from Sonic Advance 3.

I wanted to just go with the flow for this drawing and not worry about style or anatomy as much. No thoughts, head empty, only vibes. It turned into a really fun abomination of my casual art style, ISaT style, and decade-old Sonic-drawing muscle memory. I miss Siffrin's cloak fuzzies though, but Sonic art styles are just so smooth and clean and I couldn't find a way to get them to mesh well.

Time taken was 20 hours and 10 minutes, because I don't know how doodling works.

Isabeau took a fraction of the time Siffrin and especially Mira did. Amy's pose is not meant for human arms. I left behind a graveyard of failed hand poses. Meanwhile Siffrin was rough because of their friggin cloak making the pose hard to read, but I figured it out!

I'm still new to writing screen reader alt text, and I have no idea if I'm going overboard or not, lol. 291-word description essay GO!

[yandere-sins]

How'd you think Yandere luci and Yandere Mammon would deal with a S/O who's hiding the fact they're a virgin and is always trying to avoid intercourse by excuses like pretending to be asleep etc because they don't want to lose their virginity to them? (ALSO BTW, I LOVE YOUR WORK. like your work is super amazing and detailed <3 best yan writer)

Thank you for reading my writing!! I am so glad you enjoy it ^-^

And thank you for requesting! ♥

Warning: Yandere, Sexual Content

»»———————— ♡ ————————««

Lucifer

♡ As if he doesn't know. You might be able to fool another human, and maybe someone as dense as Mammon, but you can't fool Lucifer. He had already noticed you shying away from his touch, the goosebumps and sudden tension that would go through you every time he touched you (rather innocently even). It's like you expected something to happen and are unsure how to react. Maybe you don't want it, perhaps you do, but your signals aren't very clear, and that makes him suspect you.

♡ He could blame it on some form of trauma that he doesn't know about, but he'd expect your reactions to be a bit more violent or fueled by rejection if that was the case. Instead, they are bashful and tense, with a taste of sweetness and innocence that Lucifer quite likes. And he caught Asmo giving you a knowing look once while you seemed even more hesitant to approach the 5th oldest brother; you made it much too easy for Lucifer to figure out what kind of game you were playing.

♡ So, he'll play along for a while since it's now in his control. You might not be a well-aged drop of lust yet, but delaying the inevitable is going to do you both well. Riling you up, getting you to let down your guard, and leaving you hot and bothered will benefit Lucifer greatly. Seeing your walls crumble will be enough to satisfy him for a while, so he won't have to put his hands on you prematurely. You may simmer on the knowledge that he'll take your virginity at some point, be sensitive, and get confused at times over his actions. Maybe even fantasize what it'll be like. Will he be rough? Gentle? Ease you into it or brutal steal your innocence like he did with your freedom? Letting your thoughts and desires run wild, no matter how much you want to deny them, will almost guarantee that once you are ready, you'll be at a point where you'll crawl to him, begging for release. And Lucifer likes that idea very much.

♡ Things he'll do to chip away at your defense include but aren't limited to spooning up against you at night, his cock perfectly pressed against your body but not grinding against you. Just letting you know it's there and ready for you and allowing you to get used to it but never letting you scoot away. The same is true with his hand placement at night, his palm at your lower abdomen, just resting there, and his fingertips slipping beneath your clothes to leave feathery trails of allurement. So close yet far enough away, teasing, playful, promising. The warmth it emits seeping into your body, heating you up, only for him to retract and leaving you hanging. Sometimes, his fingers will play with your clothes, letting you know just how agile they are. Your mind will do the rest as you can imagine the chaos and pleasure they can leave in their wake. He wears human pheromones suited to your taste, and he'll flirt with you, complimenting you even when you feel vulnerable, letting you know how receptive he is to taking the next step. It's only a matter of time until you cave, but Lucifer will do everything to make it the hardest few days of your life.

Mammon

♡ Mammon is indeed a little dense. He might feel a bit off-put if you reject his advances repeatedly, but he doesn't see anything wrong with it the first few times. There is absolutely no subtlety in his advances, his kisses bordering on orgasm-territory already when he's in the mood, his hands greedy as is fitting for his title. You might be forced into these affections, but even you can't help but squirm beneath him. It only gives him more incentive to take it up a notch when he's just so passionate, your lips constantly bruised, and your neck marked by his teeth.

♡ So it becomes very frustrating and confusing for him when you kick and scream the moment he gets a bit more intimate. He'd like to respect your choice despite him not giving you one when it comes to whether or not you'll be with him for the rest of your life. Mammon likes to think he's gracious like that. But he thought you two were on the right path to taking the next step, yet you keep rejecting him. To be fair, he's been very clear that he wants you for a long time: Grinding against you, fondling your body even though he should be concentrating on other things. You've caught him jerking off next to you, moaning your name quite a few times even though you pretended to be asleep. And if that isn't clear enough, he's been nagging and sometimes even begging on his knees for you to give him some of that sweet body of yours to fuck. You've rejected him all the same, so for Mammon, it hints at something being seriously wrong, but he can't quite figure it out himself.

♡ It takes some... advice from more experienced individuals for him to come to a conclusion. Levi thinks perhaps he smells bad, Satan questions why anyone would want to be with Mammon in the first place, and Beel asks if maybe you're too hungry for any of that stuff and if Mammon fed you properly. But hey, at least Asmo is useful, hinting at the possibility of you feeling... insecure. Maybe you're too "inexperienced" (Mammon vehemently denies the possibility of you being a virgin, cause duh, look at you! Stunning, gorgeous, and he will totally kill anyone who touched you before him, but clearly, with how seductive and sexy you are, he can't possibily your first). So Mammon deducts Asmo is right; you're just nervous because you'll be with a great guy like Mammon!

♡ Worry not; he decides to show you the ropes! ... Literally. You might stutter and reject his ideas of getting close and personal, but Asmodeus had a handy bag of goodies for Mammon before he left. Even though Mammon is at his limit, he tries to keep it together for you, tying you up and making you watch him jerk off, reciting all the things he wants to do to you, how he'll do it, and showing you how insane you are driving him. There won't be any more nights to hide away after that, as Mammon will demonstrate to you exactly how worthy you are to lay with him. But at least he'll ease you into it, that's something, right? You'll get the full 7 hells of orgasms from his mouth to fingers to toys. Forcing you to rely on him as he takes away your senses, like sight, and the freedom to move as you please. By the time he finally gets to wet his cock on you, you'll be already too well-fucked to care, and if that isn't devotion, what is?