#aaaanyway. i hope this is slightly comprehensible. im normal about fictional cats i promise. come closer

[newspecies]

HI this is my thousand word ramble about Rocky and his relationship with other characters and my thoughts in general. I'm normal about Lackadaisy I promise.

Calvin

Calvin and Rocky are cousins that grew up together, with Rocky being 5 years older. The mini comics all make it seem like he spent most of his time there and later he says “it was home more than home was.” (Lackadaisy Breakdown). The cousins wrote to each other while Rocky was traveling around and Calvin kept them all inside a box instead of throwing them away. Aunt Nina tells Rocky "[Calvin]'s the only one in all o’ creation who'd follow you" (Lackadaisy Somersault) so they're clearly extremely close. Calvin lies to his mother several times to keep Rocky out of trouble, even when it's about something illegal. Despite his moral compass and the fact that he almost went into law enforcement, he's working with Lackadaisy and regularly shooting at people presumably just because Rocky wants him to (and because Ivy's there... but in the beginning it was for Rocky). They strike me as having more of a sibling relationship than a cousin one due to growing up so close.

Aunt Nina

Nina does not have a very high opinion of Rocky and she makes this very clear. She trusts him not to get Calvin into too much trouble but she doesn't let him stick around when he stops by. He’s under no illusions that he’s welcome at her house (Lackadaisy Somersault) and he tells Ivy that “[his face]’s only abided in small doses” at Nina’s house. He starts telling Ivy there was a small family tragedy and "it had an author... and with already ink-stained hands, i signed my name on it" which means that something bad happened and he either was to blame or took the blame and that is the reason he left Missouri, "so time could dull my fresh reminder face." (Lackadaisy Breakdown). My guess is that this family tragedy had something to do with his mother because his father was alive at least a little bit after he left because he was sending letters and stopped (Lackadaisy Correspondence) his mother is only mentioned once, in Lackadaisy Breakdown, described as “chasing Red Death” Red Death is not a real sickness and its instead from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. This could mean that his mother had some sort of bloody sickness. My guess is tuberculosis. It was one of the biggest causes of death in the early 1900’s and one of its most well known symptoms is coughing up blood. Sorry this is supposed to be about Nina and I kind of went off the rails there. Anyway I don’t think Nina hates Rocky at all; she still does his laundry and lets him visit and lets him drag Calvin around. But she doesn’t trust him and makes sure he knows that.

Mitzi

Some people seem to think Rocky has a crush on Mitzi, and him threatening Wick certainly gives the impression but I heavily disagree and I think he sees her more as a mother figure. He clearly looks up to her and seeks her approval constantly; he goes out while extremely injured and hiding that injury from her (Lackadaisy Deliria) presumably because he realizes that the pig farmers' attack on Lackadaisy was his fault and he really wants to fix it. His behavior towards Wick strikes me more as a child really not wanting a step parent. As the audience, I know that Wick is basically incapable of evil (he has killed once and it was a duck and it still haunts him) and Mitzi is the one taking advantage of their relationship, but from Rocky's perspective Mitzi is just an innocent widow looking for companionship and Wick is a weird rich sleazeball. I honestly don't think Rocky is aware of Mitzi's own sleaziness, and if he is he’s ignoring it to the best of his ability. but Mitzi likes having Rocky around. Every time she's upset over something and Rocky starts joking around she immediately starts smiling more (Lackadaisy Proposition, Lackadaisy Haggersnash). She’s undeniably fond of him, despite his many shenanigans.

Mordecai

Okay this one is a little bit more out there. “But Rotten!” You may argue, “Rocky doesn’t actually know Mordecai! They only interact like once outside the mini comics!” Yes dear reader but consider this: they have so many parallels. They are opposites on the surface; Rocky is silly, Mordecai is serious. But looking closer they have a few things in common. Mainly: TRAINS!!!!!!!!! They both have recurring train motifs and it makes me insane. For Mordecai he met Atlas on a train (Lackadaisy Thaumaturgy), and for Rocky he has a drawing of one on one of the letters he sent to Calvin (Lackadaisy Correspondence) and he said his father worked on the railroad (Lackadaisy Breakdown). In relation to the trains, they both left home at a young age and wrote letters home. They also both seem to have a habit of gaining enemies; when Atlas met Mordecai he was running from people (Lackadaisy Bookkeeper) and Rocky’s… everything makes making enemies extremely easy for him. These two have PARALLELS and I need everyone to know!!!!!

Rocky

This last section is about Rocky himself! First off, to state the obvious: Rocky is extremely impulsive, he doesn’t seem to think about the consequences of his actions whatsoever and it gets him into all sorts of trouble all the time. He’s not oblivious though; in Lackadaisy Posterity he immediately jumps to the conclusion that he ruined something, he just didn’t remember it. Rocky puts on a show of being confident and sure of himself but the moment his walls are torn down in the Posterity and Breakdown pages he’s calling himself a horrible person. He is extremely aware of how other people feel about him; even though his exclamation of “they tolerate me” in Lackadaisy Palaver is framed as a joke, it feels pretty real. A lot of people don’t like Rocky and he knows this. I don’t remember where I was going with this. Just know that I’m obsessed with Rocky and I’m thinking about him always.

In conclusion