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

the ror2 modded experience

Baldur's Gate 3 is so addictive bc like. You'll have some guy be like "Hey! I lost my cow, can you look for it? It went east :(( I'll pay you if you find her." and you'll be like yeah, sure, and then head east where you'll find some cow prints that lead to a dead end and then you pass your perception check (everyone else fails) and notice a hollow log nearby? and then you check it and a beam of light shoots out and it reveals a nearby wall is illusory and BEHIND it is a CAVE and there's a small camp and a journal with the ravings of a mad woman ending with "soon I will become one with the cows... I look forward to it rapturously..." and your quest will update with "But where's the cow???" so you have to move ON and then you'll find cow prints besides a ladder and when you go down you have to look carefully or you're ambushed by cow elementals and there's a tight fight after which you get a ring of cow (moo cantrip once per short rest) and then you can open a locked door to a chamber with a person interrogating a cow and you find out a mad wizard turned herself into a cow and lost her mind and her apprentice is trying to wring her secrets out of her but she's lost in the cow sauce and you can either tell him to let her be or offer to help him or just attack and kill them both and then you have to pass your intelligence check to recognize that she is simply happier as a cow and doesn't want to go back and unless you convince her apprentice he'll start a fight and kill you about it and at the end you send the cow back up but in the chamber where she was you find her secret map pointing to an even more incredible cow magic that opens a new journal entry called "Mastery of Cows" and then you take the back way out and it leads into a cave system you've never seen that's full of spiders that leads into a town you've never seen with ANOTHER set of quests and then three hours later you FINALLY make it back to that guy

and then he thanks you and gives you 50 gold and a bottle of milk if you spared the cow

Luke Arnold did not put his entire psyche and pussy into John Silver to the detriment of his own health for yall to say Silver is a mastermind liar and not a fucking repressed bisexual MESS

Tuvok says that Vulcan children are very well behaved and have a lot of emotional control by the time they’re ~elementary school aged which makes sense but also makes me want to see what a Vulcan toddler or kindergartener acts like since they can’t be reasoned with as well (can’t really meditate) + are babies and also brimming with near irrepressible violence/emotions.

Vulcan toddler is just quietly accompanying their parent along on an errand. They stop and point to a toy of some sort and ask politely if they can have it. Their parent explains that they have enough toys at home. The toddler immediately throws the tantrum of the century. Just turns into an absolute wild animal in their rage. Other Vulcans are just like “aaa I remember when my children were that age” but any aliens around are like “oh my god is that thing OK??” I imagine even older Vulcan children would have issues with emotional control given that they’re also children! Though they’d of course know they needed to control themselves and behave...sometimes you just slip up. Vulcan children are playing together harmoniously. Then one breaks the established rules of the game. “I made contact with your arm. You are now the chaser.” “You did not make contact with my arm. I dodged your attempt.” “You dodged unsuccessfully. I made contact with your arm.” “I did not.” “You are cheating.” “I believe you are the one cheating.” And an adult has to rush over as one pounces on the other and they both begin screaming and clawing at each other’s eyes. The rest of the children are watching with interest or perhaps grabbing implements to assist their friend.  Little lapses in emotional control would probably be common until they reached like....highschool age. I can imagine an eleven year old Vulcan hearing they can’t sleepover a friend’s home and immediately shattering a vase before apologizing and cleaning it up.  It also seems like bullying would be very prevalent on Vulcan. Spock is canonically bullied frequently and it seems natural that Violent, Extreme Emotions in teenagers would lead to that kind of behavior which isn’t outwardly unacceptable (like crying, laughing, etc) but still satisfies an illogical desire towards cruelty and establishing dominance.  Vulcans schools probably have so many ‘Bullying Is Illogical’ seminars that do nothing and everyone makes fun of behind their teacher’s backs. Two Vulcan teenagers bullying each other, trying to see who has the more emotional reaction. If you cry or get mad you lose. Only babies cry and get mad...seems pretty illogical(cringe).  Vulcans seem to be very focused on respectability so I’m sure that as bloodthirsty teens there would be a lot of accusations and rules...if you hang out with X then Z,H and Y won’t talk to you. If you apologize too soon then they might accuse you of behaving too emotionally and gossip about you...if you don’t apologize at all they might accuse you of behaving too emotionally and gossip about you. It’s very stressful. Tuvok also said when he was a teenager in that one flashback that he was ready to fight over the girl he had a crush on (saying he’d “issue a challenge” or something) so I’m implementing that into my personal understanding of Vulcans...like adults do NOT want these kids to fight but amongst other teens they’re like:  “Seynar is my boyfriend.” “I disagree. He sat next to me during meditation three times this week.” “Only because I was absent.” “Then he is fickle and will be mine soon enough.” And then they challenge one another to a secret duel after school. Dueling to the death is very cool and grownup v_v (teens rarely die from such duels though bc either the other teen stops or someone told an adult). It makes sense to me that teenagers with violent urges would fight one another in a way that they consider acceptably adult. (mimicking the marriage ritual thing or even pon farr...romantic and cool.) Imagine being a teen Vulcan and your crush starts hinting that they have another person who might be interested in them....hmmm.....and you know you’re gonna have to duel for them or lose em. Such is life. Vulcan teens seem like they’d either date a lot (emotional whims) very non seriously (because they’re all betrothed) or date not at all because they’re gonna get married to their betrothed anyway. Loving someone other than your fated match is probably a pretty big trope in Vulcan romance stories...or maybe the opposite? Like someone bad tries to steal your heart but you remain resolute and return to your fated match as is logical. Anyway all this to say that I think Vulcan children and emotional control is something that’s fun to think about. Especially regarding how Vulcan children would act around adults vs other children. Vulcan child to adult: I will do my best to get along with my sibling. (2 seconds later once mother has left)  Vulcan child: You may play with the red toy. If you play with the blue toy I will harm you. Bodily. Meanwhile their older sibling is rolling their eyes like ugh....threatening violence is for babies....now to prepare for my logical and very adult duel for the love of my life whom I have known for three months. v_v

Omg i saw another panel where its after the fight with kennys squad in that cave with the glowing pillars and its when erwin catches up to levis squad and asks “is anyone hurt” “yea only hange” and hanges like “HEEEY ERWIN” why didn’t they keep that thats so funny and cute of them!!!

HEHEEHHEHEHHEEHEHEHEHEH it's the way the dialogue is arranged too, everyone has a chill vibe😭🙏

IM GONNA BE SICK I NEED LI MEI’S DECEPTION SKIN

yo wtf? bdubs just made a minecraft build fade into the void

i've talked about the compulsive need to be "critical" (read: negative) and defensive when talking about things that you like. like knowing only how to praise things by berating other things. but there's another flavor of that: comparing them to some hypothetical perfect ideal.

even in my carefully curated sources for reactions to the mp100 finale, everyone felt the need to comment on if dimple coming back was the "right" thing to happen. few even said that the only thing they'd change in the story would be keeping him dead. everyone said him coming back felt right in context, but it would be the one small detail they would prefer to have happened differently.

a question came to me. does that preference actually have anything to do with mp100 and this specific instance of a dead character coming back? or is it because other series have used this trope, this tool, in unsatisfying ways? because it's the thing to do, to say that they should have stayed dead? it's an easy criticism, and often a fair one, after all.

but if mp100 was a story where dimple didn't come back, it would be a completely different story. it would be a harsh story, one where growing up comes with the cost of the magic dying out. dimple is mob's connection to the spiritual side of him, to the supernatural part of the world, like reigen is to the mundane and human. him staying dead would have read as that connection starting to fade. it would have made the ending read more as mob giving up his powers and moving past them, instead of accepting them as just a part of him, just a part of the world.

dimple's death, even as temporary, wasn't meaningless to the structure of the story. imagine if dimple was there when mob got hit by the car. would any of the final arc have happened? his absence might have felt minor, but he was a load bearing wall in mob's circle of friends. imagine if he was there to possess mob before shigeo stood up, or was talking there in the blank space of his mind like he is when he reappears. would the events have progressed unchanged?

the emotional impact of his death wasn't cheapened by his return, because dimple wasn't killed off to tug at the audience's heart strings. he was killed off to make mob vulnerable enough so that when things went wrong, they went really, really wrong, and the climax of the story could happen.

he came back, because sometimes people do come back, and mp100 was always supposed to be a kind and hopeful story. he came back, because without him coming back, the emotional resolution to the story would not be what it is.

and it's okay to prefer those other kinds of stories, those other kinds of resolutions. but mp100 is not one of those, and never tried to have a conclusion like that, and dimple coming back isn't a small detail but a necessary part of achieving that.

you are allowed to enjoy it on its own merits.

Tamino, Café de la Danse, June 14th 2022

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RWBY Combat Analysis: Zwei

"Bork, bork!"

PHYSICAL: Tier 1, Baseline Superhuman

Fur for superior insulation, enhances senses, additional forms of attack by way of his claws, and four limbs that can function for the same purposes. Self explanatory.

MARTIAL: Tier 1, Complete Mastery

Casually tearing through Grimm and Atlas combat drones like a hot knife through butter, all with a smile on his face. Find me another combatant who approaches battle with this degree of ease and finesse.

SPECIAL: Tier 1, Dominating Combat

Seriously, how else do you explain this? How else can you do this unless you are a nigh-omnipotent godlike being? Trick question, you can't!

OVERALL: TIER 1, SUPER HUNTSMAN

Need I say more? Zwei the Corgi is unquestionably one of the most powerful combatants, not only in Vale, but in the entire RWBY setting. Everything about this being highlights how he could annihilate many of the premier masters of the era even if they were working together against him. As it stands, the only reason the war with Salem has lasted as long as it has is because this mighty warrior has yet to meet his quota of walks and scritches, but should that quota ever be met, woe betide those who stand in the way of the Goodest Boy!

*all images taken from RWBY wiki*

April Fools!

If Percival and Nadine was to have a contemporary ya romance name (the typical of non-fantasy, non-myth retelling, non-spec novels, I mean), it would have to be something involving a metaphor of light.

That dark neo-noir radio drama starring David Morrissey (it IS really dark. The lengths I'll go to just hear the interpretative power of his voice. Anyways), called Don't Hold Back the Light keeps coming to mind again and again. The imagery of dawn and sunrise keeps coming to me, in part through the songs I feel fit the story in partial ways (Keane's Bend and Break, Rick Astley's Rise Up, James Blunt's Bonfire Heart, even the melody of Lionel Ritchie's Stuck on You), but also because it feels thematically pertinent.

Both find themselves in night, not only in the despair, and tiredness, and hurt and brokenness, but on the idea that they had their day in the Sun, as life is metaphorically a day, and that it is over, and yet they linger. BUT where they are at the beginning, the idea of a new day sounds scary. And exhausting. There's a sliver of hope deep, deep down, like a candle on a window in a faraway house in the middle of nowhere. But for the most part, they'd like to hold it back if they could. And yet that feels wrong to them.

kind of a big fan of how unintentionally opposite soleil is to lili

Everyone in Gravity Falls knew about the statue.

Even years and years afterwards, long past anyone with living memory of the incident, everyone knew about the statue.

Every August, there would always be that dare. "Go into the forest, find the statue, and shake its hand," they'd say to whatever poor newbie wanted to join the current cool kids clique.

You'd get sent along with someone else who'd already done it, who'd make sure you did it too, even if they were just as terrified of the yawning woods as you were.

The forest felt like a horror show at night. Sounds and shadows of animals and not-animals and passable but oh god no that's NOT AN ANIMAL as you searched the woods for that statue.

You knew it when you saw it, just like they said you would. It was half buried in a mound of dirt, overgrown with plants and moss and a little cracked maybe but intact.

Strange, that. It was a perfectly flat piece of stone but hadn't fallen to pieces somehow.

It had one eye and a top hat and a bow tie and it was strange but you took its outstretched hand anyway, and the hand was smooth and felt like a hand but nothing happened.

Nothing happened.

You went home. You went home and you told no one about what you saw and neither did the other guy, because that's how it was.

You went home and you went to bed and you told no one when you woke up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat and yellow behind your eyelids and the feeling of being watched, so, so many eyes everywhere and a feeling of terror and deep, deep, horrible regret and no memory of your dream.

You told no one when you glanced at the hand that shook the statue's and for just a half a moment saw its hand shaking yours and a blue fire that didn't burn.

You told no one and the next time it was you following the other guy, making sure that they shook the statue's hand, because that's how it was.

Everyone knew about the statue.

No one told.

gun to my head i could not tell you what grade i have in this class