I have a lot of Mars in Cancer friends. I thought that it was because I was born in 1992 and because Mars happened to retrograde in Cancer that year, spending more than six months in Cancer between September 1992 and April 1993 but I realized recently that some of the people I know with Mars in Cancer are from a completely different generation than I am.

Mars in Cancer is a Mars that is in its condition of fall, meaning that it anticipates defeat and loss. It enters into conflict anticipating humiliation. It understands that things can and will be lost.

Mars in Cancer is a Mars that knows grief, a bereaved Mars. It knows that some of the most crucial and life changing moments of life are spent not doing anything at all.

There’s a stickiness and a wishy washy-ness to Mars in Cancer, I’ve found. If you want to do anything with a Mars in Cancer, such as watch a movie that you want to see with them or to get them to listen to a favorite album, you can’t do it directly. For some reason, it freaks them out. They prefer if you say “I don’t know what movie is best” and to dilly dally for a good moment before suggesting the movie that you had in mind all along like it’s just one option among many. They can accept a choice if you stumble into it together but, if you ask them too directly, they will refuse outright.

The stickiness comes because, unlike other Mars placements that like to dilly dally, Cancer Mars doesn’t leave the bounds of a choice. They meander only where they know the layout. They’ll stick by you ruminating over the same choice for weeks because they don’t really believe in goals. They just like you and they like talking things over with you.

Sometimes, Mars in Cancer likes to heighten molehills just to psyche themselves out. They like to make small issues larger because it feels safer to fight in the small than the large. They can be incredibly forthright on the smallest of things but shy away from bringing up larger life decisions.

There’s a perverse relationship, I think, to the ways in which Cancer Mars deals with strength. You see, Cancer Mars doesn’t believe in strength. They either mock it by calling it silly names or they fetishize it, which is another way of changing its meaning. I’ve met gym rat Cancer Mars folks who wear their own muscles like a delicate and fanciful feather boa, like it’s just one style option. Most of the Cancer Mars people I know are physically muscled but they deal with it as if they don’t trust their strength. They don’t use it and treat strength as if it were completely unnecessary to their lives. If fallen planets are clowns, then Cancer Mars likes to clown strength. For Cancer Mars, strength is a hobby. It’s not an important thing. They don’t seek recognition for it. Often, they hide it.

There’s also three Cancer Mars in BTS—Jin, who is always saying that he is actually very athletic but never recognized for it, Namjoon, who is physically huge but never seems to use his size, and Yoongi, whose expertise in basketball is somehow somewhat at odds with his soft boy image. There’s a lot of assumptions that a Mars in fall is a weak Mars but I haven’t seen this to be the case. They just don’t care about strength.

What Mars in Cancer fears the most, I’ve realized, is that they’re not concerned with the question of whether they can do it—they’re most concerned with the question of whether or not they will have to do it alone. Mars in Cancer hates having to do it themselves. The question of whether they are capable is besides the point. They don’t want to be abandoned to their own efforts. They want you to help them move a chair not because they can’t lift it but because they want you to be there.

Some of the greatest loves in my life are Cancer Mars people. Maybe it’s my Cancer Moon. I like the way they move, without hurry and oftentimes late. I like that they care more about whether we need each other over the goal. I like that sexuality, for them, is never straightforward or, godforbid, corny but always a laugh. I like that, for a Cancer Mars to want something, to really desire it, that they need also to be able to laugh wickedly at the thing.