#i cannot say anything complex

[abybweisse]

Alors, je ne parle pas le Français, mais j'ai étudié le langue pour cinq années ou plus.

[wickmitz]

I decided to start talking about Wick and Rocky's relationship because I like their dynamics too, I like seeing Wick scared of Rocky and Rocky being aggressive with him, which is unusual because Rocky is rarely aggressive with anyone, but of course Wick is an exception to rule

Also my mini opinion about their possible relationship, I think that if Rocky didn't have to fight for his place, then he and Wick could become friends, or at least tolerate each other a little, I also see some superficial similarities, their gentlemanly and romantic natures, and their common love for explosions (remembering the quarrymen chapter), but this is my assumption, I think that I don't understand the characters' personalities well, so I can be wrong in this assumption, something like that. So, what do you think about their relationship?

for starters, i cannot thank you enough for this ask! as i’ve said previously, i have many thoughts on these two, so it’s nice to finally be able to share some of them. although given the extent to which i think about them, i apologize in advance if this is sloppy and sort of everywhere … while i’ll try to structure things the best i can, i cannot promise i’ll succeed! but hopefully this is an enjoyable reply nonetheless.

one of my favorite things about rocky and wick’s relationship is absolutely how aggressive rocky is towards the aristocrat ; he is prone to glares and cruel jokes and borderline hissing whenever the man is within his line of sight, or can be brought to a wailing-fit over the mere mention of his name from miss m’s mouth. there is a childishness to it, but a very prominent threat as well in spite of rocky’s usual incompetence. so he goes out of his way to posture around wick, readily lying and adorning himself with the gangster drapes he so badly wants to wear, in the hopes that it intimidates … will even badmouth wick’s family and make fun of his name and rock related obsession to mitzi, and so on so forth! yet all of this is very reminiscent of schoolyard bullying rather than anything too severe, though we as the audience understand rather quickly that rocky would bash wick’s head in with a tire iron if he could. ( translation : if it wouldn’t earn the tears or hate of a certain beloved mitzi may ) and it’s all very intense despite the absence of actual violence! and i understand why many fans see this as unusual for rocky and believe that it’s only wick who makes him act so aggressively, but i’d argue it isn’t really wick at all that prompts such scary reactions from him … and that rocky is a deeply angry character who’s a.) been boiling quietly for a long, long time and b.) has turned wick into a punching bag of sorts for this inner world of resentment and hurt. basically, when he’s judging the well-to-do or poking fun, his eyes don’t look at wick and actually acknowledge him as sedgewick sable ; instead this is a being, something vague and metaphorical, who threatens to upseat rocky’s permanence in the lackadaisy and steal away his savior, and he’s had a hand in the violinist’s misfortune for a long time.

obviously, rocky doesn’t think wick robbed him of his family twice over and made him homeless, but he is channeling the fear and anguish of those events into his loathing for wick, if that makes sense? it’s easier that way -- to finally have an outlet for everything bleeding inside of you, to be able to bite and claw at something without feeling conflicted or having to take personal accountability for your own mistakes … which is something that i think rocky does struggle with to a degree. he is sort of a finger pointer! his pain has to be worth something, it has to be for someone else ; spending years homeless and losing his last bit of family was for freckle, and the scrambling of his literal brain was for mitzi, and that means he can’t ever be angry with them! well, except that he is, somewhat, but he buries it deep down instead of feeling it. with freckle there is a sense of strain between them -- an air of ‘you owe me’ from rocky to freckle as he uses freckle to appease miss m, and he constantly pokes fun at his cousin too. it’s lighter than his jabs at wick, but there’s a constant pestering, a reminder of how good freckle has it : how he’s got the mom and the house and the job and the girl most notably. i don’t think rocky is intending to come across as mean, and to his credit he hardly does! but it’s rather clear to me that some part of him, some hidden and deeply hurt part, is rather indignant about taking the fall for freckle all those years ago. which he can’t understand, because how could he? he made that choice, he decided to take accountability for something he didn’t do because he loves freckle and knows it’d be so easy to believe this family tragedy was roark’s fault ; the devilish child he was, all troublesome and too broken to properly fit anywhere. so there is a disconnect born here, where rocky can’t comprehend that he’d be angry at freckle, so instead these not so great feelings are placed elsewhere and silently boil over time. and with mitzi … i don’t think he’s angry at her per se, but there is a frustrated and desperate chorus of : why him and why not me, when i’m the one out here dying for you? which is certainly unpleasant. of course, rather than allowing those feelings to be more aimed at miss m, whom he feels unloved by, he ( again! ) represses these emotions and allows them to fester into his greatest fears and fantastical complexes. i think there is a lot of other miscellaneous anger he could have towards others too … perhaps some part of him is sore upon seeing ivy’s normal lifestyle, watching her go to university and knowing that’s been taken from him. or an ache felt when hearing stories from zib and the band and how they used to travel successfully, living as nomads, and rocky is all too reminded of his similar lifestyle and how he couldn’t make it work as effortlessly. people with immense trauma are more prone to irrational anger and jealousy, to viewing everything around them as unfair and believing it’s even more unjust that so many people get to live comfortably while they’ve suffered. a situation that gets more messy when you’re someone like rocky, a man who’s willingly made choices that have harmed himself and wants to continue on with his smiling, bumbling fool of an act. he does not want to be angry, does not want to see it within himself, i think, which leads to an accidental increase of it.

all of this is to reiterate that wick is a scapegoat for rocky and nothing more. it’s why he’s rather hypocritical whenever it concerns the man. for example, it was stated by tracy that he looks down upon wick for his excessive presence at the bar, yet he appears to enjoy hanging out with zib -- who drinks just as often! he makes fun of how all wick ever talks about is rocks, when he himself is prone to poetry rambles that people find irritating or boring, and etc etc. this is also just a human nature thing, to critique someone you heavily dislike and even going as far as to belittle things you love or do in your own day to day because you just hate them that bad! but given rocky’s willingness to befriend anyone, it more so reeks of a dehumanization element. wick is every obstacle in his way, every divine force that threatens to send him packing again, so he is equal parts unnerved by wick’s presence and angry about it. it is mostly a fear response we are seeing, an emotion that’s morphed into long held resentment and anger. so his actions are extremely defensive, with him trying to push wick far away and keep him and mitzi separate, like some sort of animal attempting to ward off a threat that’s come too close to their home. despite the loaded animosity there, this hate has hardly reached its peak … but it shall only grow more intense as things continue onward i’m afraid, since as it stands ( in the comic at least ) rocky is at an all time low … and is ten times more desperate. i’d honestly say wick has become so warped in his mind’s eye that he can only strive towards ‘winning’ over the other man, because that’s all he can see anymore. i think mitzi implying that wick willingly helped her out, the intense head injury, and rocky’s fragile emotional state is exactly what pushes him towards premeditated murder in look-see. i don’t know how people perceive that arc, but to me it’s very clear that rocky actively sought to see the deaths of wes and fish that night. going as far as to lament that he’d be, “very disappointed if ( he ) dreamed them,” and purposefully luring the marigold duo away to have freckle pick them off. while you could argue that this was a smart move, in a gangster sort of sense, there’s still no denying that rocky is oddly chipper about the whole thing and is now seeking death out ; whereas before his methods of vengeance were just, well, ruining people’s livelihood but ultimately leaving them alive. this isn’t to discredit the fact that rocky is going through something! he is in a very muddled and dark place, mentally and physically, but even tracy has said that the head injury hasn’t changed rocky’s personality -- it’s only brought things to the surface.

source : q&a with tracy .

which, yeah! makes sense! head trauma can cause a person to become a wreck emotionally ( think mood swings, irritability, etc ) but it doesn’t completely morph someone either. personality changes may occur, but it’s not like you’re being rewritten entirely, you know? and given tracy’s old statement, it’s clear that ‘personality changes’ aren’t a side effect he’s suffering from. something that adds to my beginning statement, which is that rocky is a deeply angry and troubled person, more so than fans give him any credit for.

however, to touch upon your mini opinion about these two, i actually wholeheartedly agree that rocky and wick could become friends if circumstances were different. they do in fact have many superficial similarities, but one of the more prominent things they deeply share is never really belonging in the groups they frequent. this is more overt with rocky’s character, yet wick faces it too in subtle ways. the well-to-do crowd, seen through the investors, find the gentleman to be lacking in about every place imaginable ; to them he is an obsessive freak who cares too deeply for meager rocks, something they constantly mock him for, while he’s also being noticeably set apart from the rest of them … he seems younger than the investors, more excitable, passionate, and a little less experienced, and doesn’t seem to care for money or reputation as much as them either. there is a constant rubbing between him and them, where what he enjoys is seen as wrong, such as his love for the lackadaisy and his choice in paramor, a grieving widow with extremely dangerous ties. we also know that wick doesn’t have many friends at all, with the only two he has being lacy and church ( church is listed as such on his character profile, in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way ), both of whom work for or with him. they are obliged to hang around, and while they care in varying ways, they are prone to judging him just as much. honestly, it’s not shocking that wick seeks refuge at his chosen speakeasy! but even there he is rather distant from everyone else. he doesn’t speak to zib ever in the comics, nor seems all too close with viktor, ivy, or horatio … it is merely mitzi he is close to, even if he knows of the other people who work there. and, once again, wick very obviously doesn’t fit in. he is not gangster material, could never be an atlas may replacement, much less someone who could get his paws dirty in such an active way. so he has his feet in two different worlds and doesn’t know how to fit into either of them, or which one he actually wants to fit into more. i think in many ways rocky could relate -- these are two very lonely people who wish to belong somewhere and be accepted by some group or another but go about it in all the wrong ways. wick, who is too hesitant to fully commit to what he wants and is worse off for it, and then rocky, who obsessively throws himself against what he wants until he breaks every bone in his body. they also have explosives to bond over, lol, and other miscellaneous things like their taste in women i suppose … but this potential bond adds to the tragedy of lackadaisy, where we see two people who on every level should get along but we’re burdened with the knowledge that it’s an impossibility anyway, because there’s no removing the circumstance of which they’re in.

though i like to believe that despite wick’s fear of rocky, he maintains a kindness towards him regardless. i think his worries about rocky are rather surface level … he doesn’t know the boy at all, really, and thus can’t make heads or tails of him, hence him believing the lie in balderdash. so when i’m feeling particularly self indulgent, i like imagining a world where they’re forced together and sort of ‘stuck’ together ; to which rocky finally breaks and exposes his wounds to wick, in every sense of the word, and wick finally gets him. the aggression, the possessiveness of mitzi … it is all fear and desperation and a profound sadness, things he’d sympathize with. if rocky was able to explain that he loathes wick because if he saves the lackadaisy then mitzi won’t need him anymore and that it’s not fair that wick gets to so easily fix things when rocky would give his soul for his home, for her, and how wick could render every sacrifice he’s already made for naught by smoothing things over with some greenbacks and he can’t lose this, he just can’t --! … which, well, wick is too kind of a man to be able to do anything except feel awful, even though it’s not his fault at all. here we have two people who could coexist! and they should, since rocky logically can’t do every speakeasy job ( band member, rumrunner, mitzi’s shadow, also the guy who gets the money for the hooch ) by himself, just like how wick can’t save the lackadaisy with only his cash and limited booze stash. it’d be a joint cooperation, a collaboration between them, both equally important in the grand scheme of crime’s every turning wheel … but rocky’s rage and fear won’t let him see that, and likely never will. still, in scenarios where everything ends up alright for the lackadaisy and the people involved in it ( which is not how canon will go, by the way ), i fancy wick and rocky getting better within their relationship. rocky will always be prickly and quick to upset around the other man sadly, but perhaps he could see wick in a softer kind of light. or at least understand vaguely enough that he isn’t out to get rocky, so to speak. and then maybe wick learns that pancakes soothe rocky’s ire and poorly makes them anytime he wishes to talk to the man, and other fun things like that! but you should have more confidence in your character analysis skills, because you were spot on ( at least in my eyes ) about them potentially getting along if things were different. it’s certainly a fun aspect to play around with, and is important to note when discussing their relationship so you can fully understand just how warped rocky’s perspective on things are. and how unstable and traumatized he is too, of course </3 sidenote, but i also hope that throughout everything i’ve said here, or anything i’ve said before on my blog, that my love for rocky and my own sympathy for him comes across well enough. while he’s deeply flawed and i have no qualms discussing said flaws in depth, i also don’t think of him as some insane freak who’s evil at his core or anything like that. honestly, i adore analyzing him so much as a character because of how far down his issues go! he’s very well written, i’ll say, as is wick and many of the other characters, but i digress.

once more, thank you for the ask! i’ll end this here because i fear if i don’t i’ll start going in circles, since their relationship is so vast and very important for rocky in a character sense. hopefully i shed some more light on it though! i love these two to bits and pieces and i wouldn’t be half as invested in lackadaisy if their dynamic wasn’t so monumental -- at least to me.

[statementlou]

Maya went on The Internet Is Dead podcast to be interviewed about her relationship with Liam and it's interesting; I recommend it for people who were curious about untangling the details in her book from real life (they talk about this in a number of different places with some detail), people who think she's making everything up, and anyone else sending hostile asks about her- we know she is following the fandom talk and responding to it but I have to say it's very satisfying to listen to her rattle through the exact arguments anons on here are sending around and answer every one of them.

some detail below the cut:

The experience was kind of grating at times; maybe it's just me but I never find it enjoyable to listen to people outside of fandom or casual 1D fans talk about us, and I cringe and bristle literally every time someone says "these people" or "they think", plus the hosts are not super useful; they refer to her tiktoks and book repeatedly without actually giving context for the discussion, like I could do with the occasional "in the book you say…" rather than just chatting about it and leaving us to figure out what they are talking about (they don't even say the name of the book), but whatever. There's interesting stuff in there so it was worth it for me and if you prefer you can just get my highlights, here ya go-

-Her making the point that the media training all of the 1D guys have done from such a young age not only impacts how they talk to the press but also how they talk to people in their lives, the tools it gives them for communicating with (and in this case, manipulating) people was fascinating to me, I hadn't thought about that but I will be in the future with regard to all of them, it's just very interesting to have in mind

-she says she had the book read by lawyers before publishing because it was about someone real and real events, and provided proof for things they asked about

-she points out that she has nothing to gain from making this up, and that as someone who works in a law office and is planning to go to legal school, that the fact that bringing false accusations against someone is illegal would be a huge deterrent to lying

-she says that one of the reasons she initially soft pedaled in terms of outright saying that the book was about Liam was that podcasts and such she went on didn't want her to say it, didn't want the liability, and that when she did say it that part would not get printed or would be edited out (hey speaking of this what are all these interviews she did about the book why am I just now hearing about it... when you guys see stuff like this let me know! I am interested and will maybe recap for you even!)

-she mentions Liam's silence on the whole thing more than once; "if someone wrote that about me and it wasn't true I would not just say nothing!"

-she says that her and Liam went to see After not knowing it was a 1D fanfic and then, after finding that out, he joked that she should write a book about them, and that it was where the seed of the idea came from

[frankensteinmutual]

one of my housemates is so fucking sensitive it turns me into a person I do not like

[riiviir]

hey guys so I just started reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott and OMG AHSBNSBSBSNSNBSHZHSHDBFHGGHFHGRJ2KSHSBSNSK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THINKING ABOUT THE RELATIVITY BETWEEN DIMENSIONS!!!!!!

[eats-the-stars]

hate my sister's shitty good for nothing boyfriend. can you imagine being a 30yo man with two kids who won't even scramble an egg. Not for his kids, not for his girlfriend, not for himself. literally if my sister doesn't leave out pre-made meals when he's watching the kids he will rip up bread or pour them dry cereal or open a granola bar and make himself microwave dinners. like, lowest effort possible. but if i mention this to my sis, she'll be like "no he's definitely cooked for the kids! he scrambled an egg for them once! i watched him do it!" but it's like...so he scrambled one egg in the last five years. just to like, prove he can? at your direct insistence? should we all clap? like seriously. hate this guy. had to really hold back recently because he had someone over and he was interacting with the kids more than usual for appearances, and he had to keep asking me and my sis what the 5yo was signing because he barely bothered to learn his own son's primary form of communication. i was so tempted to say "that one means 'go home' but you wouldn't know that because you don't take them anywhere." so hard to hold that in. If I had to describe this man in two words they would be these: Low Effort. Not quite bare minimum, but JUST enough to convince my sister that it would be too much hassle to get rid of him. he's stupid as fuck, but just smart enough to quickly stop shit like screaming obscenities at the kids for doing normal kid things. and he once stomped on my headphones and broke them in a fit of rage, but gave my sister money to replace them so it was "fine." Like, my sister thinks that he's just struggling with his anger issues, because he had a bad childhood, blah, blah, and oh he would never actually hurt her or the kids. and like, good for you, but i don't trust like that. genuinely hoping he gets struck by lightning and dies instantly.

[didsomeonesayventus]

thinking about how way to dawn really was like the most iconic keyblade ever that so neatly summarized riku's journey and ideals and had so much meaning and history and so uniquely his and kh3 really threw it away for a fucking car key

[llycaons]

not wangxian though. it's one of the 10% which are actually good

[vampyroteuthid]

just in case anyone thought i was exaggerating about how stupid my coworkers think i am today one of them told me i could write "turbid which is like the scientific word for cloudy" on a urinalysis sticker. i have a college degree in a science

[whetstonefires]

So I can't reply to @phoenixyfriend having replied to my reblog because either they've blocked me or they don't do DMs with non-mutuals despite suggesting that as a preferable forum for disagreement, but in brief:

My reblog was 'necessary' within the very limited definition of that word that applies to fandom blogging because that post was not a post About Tony Stark. I don't engage with posts About Tony Stark or most characters in general that I disagree with, in general! It's rude and life is too short.

That post, however, was not about Tony. It was a conversation between bloggers asserting an argument for why people who don't agree with your headcanons are morally inferior and have Bad Corrupt Motives.

"What does it say that Steve is, in fandom, often considered a better/more qualified speaker on the topic of chronic illness and disability than Tony" and "these people would rather listen to the white, able-bodied guy than the person actually forced to live with the consequences of life-long disability" and "viewers with that perspective continue to see his disability as a sign that he's still a bad person, because he hasn't 'earned' a cure the way Steve did."

(Which again is wild as a take because Iron Man 3 has tony 'earn' his way out of both physical damage and PTSD through willpower and smartness in the ending montage, because inspiration porn doesn't work if you stay damaged.)

It was a post about the fandom. Accusing other actual human beings of being morally at fault for how they interpreted the marvel cinematic universe.

Not like, an intense horrible attack post as these things go, but it still wasn't about characters. It was about other fans. That is different from talking about characters! Your post was about how it's sus and shameful for people to disagree with you, not about your actual positions and why they're right. Let alone about the character. That doesn't fall under the curtain of 'don't start shit' because shit was already started.

Like I don't have any Avengers fic, haven't been in the fandom for several years, and I was still sitting here scrolling my dash getting these Bad Person Motives assigned to me just for thinking one character was more meaningful disability representation, that I would be interested in hearing from on the subject, than another.

You made inflammatory statements about other actual people in a public forum, where it could be predicted they would see it.

And then flew off the handle when someone went over your post asserting their alternate perspective, carefully avoiding attacking you personally or assigning you evil motives, which would have been incredibly easy except it's a shitty way to interact so no, and speaking only in general terms about things they found personally annoying.

If you can't deal with people reblogging your posts to argue that you're being unfair, then maybe don't post about how other people only disagree with you about your blorbos because you are a better human being than those people. I mean.

[hiddenbeks]

carth watching in increasing despair as this random soldier he escaped the endar spire with and who agreed to keeping a "low profile" makes an enemy of tarisian nobility and the local crime lord, loses all their credits in pazaak games, enters a dueling ring with the excuse of regaining the credits but really just wants to blow off some steam, goes to a sith party with the excuse of searching for leads on bastila's whereabouts but really just wants to see how fun the sith are to party with,

[rxttenfish]

actually i think its kinda weird because ive gotten the impression that other people tend to think. like. very linearly? their minds eye is very similar to their physical senses, or it occurs in one direction like the flow of time.

meanwhile to me it's like. i see things as three dimensional objects? even for concepts and things. and seeing all these different parts included within them at once and see how they interact with each other and touch each other and how they touch other related things in compounding ways. like its just. how my line of thought works, that everything is a massive object that i can see all aspects of at once.

which i guess is why i always got tripped up by that one "mentally visualize an apple and tell me which one you see" meme, because as ever im Some Other Third Thing. like its not. sight, really, not sensing like how any other sense works. its just. thinking in a way that conceives every part at once in a way where i can move it around and make it assume different shapes.

i guess in that way id liken it more to a dolphins echolocation? like, sensing the three dimensional structures within and how they connect all at once without needing to take it apart, having all of this layered over itself and altering it like those videos of four dimensional objects, which are not actually being altered at all. its seeing without seeing. its some other sense that i cant use any other senses to describe.

which i guess is also why i think its hard for me to talk about what merfolk cognition is like! just because theyre all like this and most people tend to think of things like theyre reading a book i guess.

[tautozhone]

idk how to start this so this post is ab individual action, trying to motivate positive change in the world, etc etc

a lot of growing up in the US for me makes things feel more scary than they are. like it’s actually not that difficult to go out of your way to get a bottle of water or iced cup of water from some random drive through if you think you should do it. either fast food conglomerate or local actually, it’ll usually be cheaper than 5 dollars to get drinkable water. i try to have 5-10 dollars i can justify spending on water, and asking for change, because sometimes when i’m out driving i need to go grab water.

i do not do this for me as much as i try to do it specifically when i see someone who’s most likely homeless on a street corner. i’m sure one day i might do this and they might not be there when i come back, but what have i lost really? a bit of time and a bit of money that would’ve meant more to them, that i can hold onto until i see them next.

the pressure that a lot of people feel when they think “what can i do” comes from this grand narrative that the average citizen can singlehandedly fix the housing crisis. rich people? maybe. nonprofits? not in a day, not all one person still. what can i do is a question i ask a lot. what can i do, not just because it feels bad to move along like nothings wrong with the world, but what can i do that will do anything. what can i do that makes even the smallest change.

i feel like it took me too long to figure out a personal method to what i consider individual action. it’s taking time to get to my own financial stability to be able to do more. but for now it’s as simple as water and cash. not water and food, but water and cash.

individual action means a lot in small steps, go get a bottle of water bare minimum and the price of a meal if you can and then just give it to them. if it wasn’t such a miserably hot place where i live i would keep a pack of water in my car, which i still want to do for the sake of having immediate access to water to give someone who might need it- hot or cold sometimes won’t matter. but when it’s hot out, get cold water, if it’s cold out, a warm tea will hydrate more than coffee will as long as it’s not super caffeinated.

[likeabxrdinflight]

let one of my vegan friends convince me that beans and rice was an acceptable dinner meal. woke up this morning with low blood sugar. I'm not diabetic.

how anyone keeps that diet is truly beyond me.

[lcpmon]

idk how other ppl learn to read characters but even when someone has very few lines, if they're not a few throwaway lines and have a smidgen of thought put into them, you can really deduct a lot of things from what they say without mountains of dialogue and array of actions they take.

cIaus, even Iucas via his few lines and interactive dialogue, is so easy to understand and learn what hes about from the dialogue you are given. it shouldnt be hard to mess him up

and even tho these are more active characters in the story with goals to achieve and story beats to hit, u rly can apply the same to lngo and 3mmet. u can make assumptions or deduct possible aspects about how they act from breaking down their dialogue and possible routine. some things might be completely speculative and pulled out of thin air but as long as it matches the characters general front its hard to go wrong

[1roentgen]

.