#what a pain to deal with

[zoe-oneesama]

She got the Miracle Queen Upgrade~

Episode 51 Part 9 First < Previous > Next Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5 Ep 41, Ep 42, Ep 43, Ep 44 Ep 45, Ep 46, Ep 47, Ep 48, Intermission, Ep 49, Ep 50

Bonus:

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[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Burning Rotten Bridges

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[darkmuffinstudios]

“please don’t hate yourself…”

(a loose, semi-correlative second part to this)

[the-witchhunter]

DP x DC Camp

The Batfam force Damian to go to summer camp to socialize with kids his own age and have some normal childhood experiences

That’s all well and good, but normal does not describe his cabin’s councilor, one Daniel “for the love of Ancients call me Danny” Fenton

Between the son of the bat and a Fenton, camp is going to be weird

[s0dabeach]

was possessed by the need to draw something related to @jellynut's bill still au it's such a cool au and I'm not normal whenever he posts art of it

also did kind of a comic:

[chocoberryflavored]

when you start to like and suffer for a shipp without actually consuming the original work it comes from 🙂

[curly-cottage-girl]

Please pray for two different young adults I know of who have cancer, which is most likely terminal

[bee311hive]

🍄 | So, we've noticed a pattern on the way Hideduo speaks....

(Video credits: one of the twitter admins)

[orcelito]

showing off the commission i got from @ruporas for my fic, In the Next Life!

i'm still so incredibly excited about this. it's been some months since the story event that caused these scars, but i wanted SO BADLY to be able to see what they'd actually Look like... & Here They Are.

ruporas rendered the scars So Well, i just cant stop Looking at them... there's a Fresh & a Healed version, which ruporas was kind enough to give me without additional charge (Thank U Again😭😭) so i get to see what it looks like at different stages.

Lichtenberg Figures. in terms of actual scarring, lightning strikes that people survive don't tend to leave permanent scars, but the lichtenberg figures that they (usually temporarily) leave behind are just So Cool... Now, what happens when you get someone who can survive an amount of electricity/lightning that would be Frankly Lethal to any normal human person?

This :]

[nohoperadio]

There's a weirdly poignant sort of... metaphysical tragedy in the fact that pain, which evolved as a helpful signal to alert us when bad things might be happening to us, grew into becoming... well, basically the Bad Thing. To the point where by universal consensus the very worst thing you can do to a being like us is torture them (i.e. trigger the warning signal as strongly as possible while perhaps deliberately avoiding causing "actual" harm). And there are tons of illnesses and injuries and disabilities that massively impact people's quality of life, ranging from annoying to depressing to driving people to suicide, basically purely because they're very physically painful, while the underlying bodily dysfunction that the pain is supposedly "warning" of is either relatively minor or literally non-existent.

The capacity to feel pain is a good and important thing, some people lack it and that's generally awful for them, only in a universe unrecognizably different from ours could we ever do without it. But isn't it awful to think how if only there was somebody up there to adjust the settings for us, they'd probably only have to tweak them the tiniest bit to keep 99.99% of the benefits while saving us from all the most extreme miseries forever?

The mechanism didn't have to be perfect for natural selection's purposes, it had to be good enough that the average individual in the average situation would be motivated to stay more or less out of trouble. Measured by the metrics nature was working towards, she could afford to be a little slapdash with the exact implementation, and she was. In doing so she opened the door to infinities of evil and suffering that wouldn't otherwise be conceivable. All this only had one chance to happen, and it happened that way. There's nobody to be mad at--I'm mad about it, though.

[echosong971]

might make a more dramatic sketch of him losing a legion arm but for now have this

[hypertechnica]

i just finished watching season 3 of house. eric foreman is the best and most underrated character and i will not be taking questions on this.

like yeah, im a huge Big Three (house, wilson, cuddy) fan too, and the shipping aspect is obviously going to be the biggest thing people talk about (it’s tumblr) but if we can look beyond shipping for like one millisecond foreman is such an interesting character and i don’t see anyone talk about him!!!!! he’s an analytical ‘straight man,’ he’s friendly and desires human connection yet pushes people away the moment they start to get close. he doesn’t outwardly care about what people think yet still craves to be the best because if he’s not the smartest person in the room he’s worthless.

he’s morally grey. he’s pinned between his strong sense of justice and his desire for cold scientific problem solving. he’s primarily ethical yet not afraid to prioritize himself over others, even if callously. he has principles. he’s horrified at the side of his personality house brings out in him. he has a complicated relationship with religion and his family. he has imposter syndrome due to racism and classism in the medical community. he has internalized so many biases and when they show, it’s not pretty. he spends 3 seasons simultaneously loathing house and envying him. cameron wants to fix him, chase wants to be him, wilson (and cuddy) want to fuck him, but foreman? he wants to study this man like a lab rat. and possibly strangle him. he’s the ideological bridge between cameron’s ethics and chase’s fuck-all attitude. he tries so hard to be a healthy functioning adult and in many respects he succeeds but he will always be haunted by his chronic loneliness and inferiority complex (one which he hides well with his ego.) he’s just like house and he hates it. he’s a vindictive jerk, but he’s a really good person at heart. he tries very hard to be, anyways. and he’s the only one of his colleagues who actually took the initiative to stop enabling house and just quit. the others will bitch and moan about it but he was the one who actually prioritized his mental health over remaining psychologically obsessed with him. (will that last? no idea, i know he comes back later but shh. spoilers. him folding and coming back would be great though lol)

his character arc so far has been amazing and i hope seasons 4-8 do him justice 💥💥💥

[houseswife]

I cannot believe this fandom has dubbed taub the normal one. while house was doing surgery on himself like a common plebeian edgelord, taub (enlightened and bespoke) was screening his calls for help because he was too busy trying to get executed cartel-style by a stripper

[theatrekidenergy]

I JUST FOUND OUT I CAN BIKE WITHOUT* PAIN!!!!! I JUST FOUND OUT I CAN BIKE WITHOUT PAIN!!!!!!! I NOW HAVE TWO PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES I CAN DO WITHOUT PAIN!!!!!!! I CAN BIKE WHEN IM NOT FIGURE SKATING!!!!!!! IM GENUINELY SOBBING RIGHT NOW THIS IS SUCH A MASSIVE THING FOR ME YOU DONT UNDERSTAND

* = check tags for explanation

[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.

[oceanicpoetry]

Loki's arrival: official concept art (by Andy Park)