#blood bound 3

[tidetower]

The Prince of the Hightower and the Heir to High Tide

Artist: erchitos

[lazycranberrydoodles]

COME ON GUYS DON'T LET DIANXIA DOWN

[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.

[alicentsaegon]

Watching Elizabeth (1998) and that scene with Mary and Elizabeth at the start but make it Rhaenyra and Aegon. "When i look at you i see nothing of the King, only that whore, your mother". Mental illness

[mari-lair]

long time no wonderland au, so have more white rabbit Akane

[h20milk]

the pained paladin and the pale elf.

[vinnianlovesdinosaurs]

Alicent Hightower and my dragonseed oc Robin Florian

[alpaca-clouds]

Bound by Blood - Chapter 16

The next chapter for this fic is online. We are making a short stop at the "friends" station and such.

Bound by Blood Chapter 16: Herbal Ointments

Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3 Shipping: Araj/Aurelia Genre: Slow Burn Enemies to Lovers

Some of the other spawns try to get Aurelia to cheer up. The same spawns get also quite protective of her, when Araj shows up.

[starry-blue-echoes]

Speedwagon founder of the JoBro club "you became JoJo's friend after you were beaten by them" type of thing.

Robert "Jonathan only used half his strength to strike and I started the Speedwagon Foundation to provide for his family in the future" Speedwagon

Au!Wammu "Me and Joseph beat each other up, saved the world from my adoptive father and got married"

Au villains part 3 Jotaro collected like Pokemon cards "Jotaro beat us all up and we decided to work for his family"

Okuyasu (I honestly don't remember if he and Josuke fought) "He healed my wounds from my brother's stand"

and etc :"D

DHFBDBDHBHDBHD Y E A H -

Okuyasu did fight Josuke, and it's kinda funny how quickly things changed for them because the lad literally just showed up at his doorstep the next day-

[thedemonastrophel]

O btw forgot to post this

My main Homestuck OC (Comcal Japery) in a Pokémon au

‼️Please don't repost anywhere, Esp not Pintrest thank youu <3‼️

[tisiphonewolfe]

Flash Fiction Friday: On the Edge

Silvia gripped Theo’s proffered hand tightly, aware that her claws were digging into her friend’s palm. Theo flinched, but it was her habit to put a brave face on everything, and she was grinning again a moment later. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall.”

The deserted town sloped away before them, suspended over the emptiness. Where the town ended, so did the world. At the bottom of the main street, past buildings which leaned towards oblivion, over fissures and rifts, lay the edge. Below the sharp cliff was a yawning drop, and then nothing but eddies of blue mist fluttering over the endless void.

Theodora Vismoore appeared unbothered. She skipped over piles of rubble as though they were only bumps; over cracks as though one misplaced foot wouldn’t send her tumbling to her death. She was even humming as she went. The sunny dress she wore - which she termed as ‘completely horrible’ - was pulled through her legs and tied around her waist, a precaution that Silvia wished she had taken with her own. One hand clutched Silvia’s paw, helping her stay steady, the other pointed her father’s - Lord Vismoore’s - sabre in front of her, though its point wobbled. Her father was a bulky, heavy man, with a sword to match, and Theo was still only eleven.

“Won’t Lord Vismoore notice you took that?” Silvia whined. “I don’t like this, Theo.”

Theo snorted. “That man wouldn’t notice if I stole his trousers. He’s completely out of it these days. Come on. It’s this way.”

That morning Theo had begged her mother incessantly to let them take the carriage out for the day. Silvia felt certain that Lady Vismoore had only agreed to get her nagging daughter out from under her feet. She had nodded over to where Silvia waited by the table, clutching an empty tray to the front of her servants’ dress and said; “Though you should probably bring a leash if you’re taking your dog with you.” She then burst into crowing, staccato laughter.

Lady Vismoore was not a cruel woman by habit. Her servants were well-treated. The people who resided in her demesne lived heartily. Nevertheless, when Silvia was found, a sodden, mangy ball of fur in the woods below Castle Vismoore, Theo had to beg incessantly for days on end until her mother relented and allowed Silvia to be taken in.

Silvia scratched at her neck. She was still mangy. Her cascade of blonde curls had grown back, but the raw splits in her flesh were not healing. She was falling apart, piece by piece. “Who lives here? Is there a doctor or something?”

“Nobody.” Theo stopped, perched on a treacherous fallen wagon, tucking locks of her wavy silver hair behind her ears and peering around at the sprawl of streets. “This place has been abandoned for years, ever since the last big collapse. So-” She dropped her voice low and grinned, waggling her eyebrows. “-I suppose I should say, nobody living.”

“A ghost is going to help me, then?” Silvia rolled her eyes. “Come off it.”

“Or a spirit, or- I’m not sure what she is. Let’s just say she’s a witch.” Theo spotted her target and leapt from her perch with nonchalance that made Silvia’s stomach drop. “It’s this way.”

They made their way through the side-alleys to a crumbling shrine - more ancient than the buildings around it by far, its weathered limestone facings cloaked thickly with dirt. The carvings and engravings were smoothed down to rounded, indistinct clumps. The entire place reeked, a sour and musty stench trickling thickly from every crack. The stone door was inlaid with tarnished silver. Theo hammered the pommel of her sword upon it. “Hullo? You there, Ma’am?”

At first there was nothing but the groaning of the wind and the distant calls of birds, left behind outside the town. Silvia tugged at Theo’s sleeve. “Theo, let’s go h-”

“Aaaah-aaaaaaaa.” The moan shook Silvia’s bones, vibrating sharply from behind the door and she jumped away. Theo reached out to steady her. “Thou hast returned, fool child. Thou shalt not thieve it from me.”

“I know, I know, I shan’t,” Theo grumbled. She braced herself with one foot on the ground, and the other up on the slanted door frame. “Do you remember our deal, lady?”

“I am to heal your sweetheart in exchange for my freedom,” the voice sighed, “I recall.”

Silvia frowned. “Sweetheart?”

“I- I don’t know where she got that from.” Theo’s pale cheeks were turning a bright shade of pink.

The voice grew louder, drew closer, now bubbling through the cracks around the door. “Is this to be the day? Thou hast brought the girl?”

“Yes.” Theo hefted the sword. “And something to try and pry these doors open. Ready?”

Silvia shrieked.

Miasma spewed from the door. Black smog billowed and pooled, reeking and acrid, stinging where it came into contact with her skin. This was the byproduct of magic that had robbed her of her family and even now ate away at her flesh. She remembered falling into the swamp, gasping, suffocating, the mist probing hungrily into her and scorching her lungs.

She ran. Silvia’s claws scrabbled at the flagstones of the street, desperately trying to haul herself away from the danger, breathless. Her foot caught in a crack in the stones and she fell, sliding backwards, past the shrine, careening towards the edge.

Theo’s arms clamped around her, the other girl’s body weight pulling them into a roll. They slid, and bounced, and eventually crashed, slamming into a wonky lamppost that creaked under their weight. They lay there panting, tangled in each other, staring at the distant blue pooling below.

“Okay. We don’t have to do this,” Theo murmured into Silvia’s pointed ear. “I’ll drop it. Let’s go home.”

Blood matted the fur at Silvia’s elbow. A new, stinging wound that would not heal. “Perhaps… another day.”

“Another day.”

@flashfictionfridayofficial :3

Taglist (DM to be added or removed): @indy-gray @sam-glade

[boowoomuu]

I love them so much

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok’s intake of breath/slight straightening of posture when Janeway says she spoke to his family before she left....................................................I can’t speak

[faggotwalkwithme]

I SEE THE BAD MOON RISING I SEE TROUBLE ON THE WAY I SEE EARTHQUAKES AND LIGHTNING I SEE BAD TIMES TODAYYY DON'T GO AROUND TONIGHT ITS BOUND TO TAKE YOUR LIFE THERES A BAD MOON ON THE RISEEEEEE I HEAR HURRICANES A-BLOWING I KNOW THE END IS COMING SOON I FEEL RIVERS OVERFLOWING I FHEAR THE VOICE OF RAGE AND RUIN DON'T GO AROUND TO NIGHT WELL ITS BOUND TO TAKE YOUR LIFE THERESSSSS A BAD MOON ON THE RIISEEE :33333 ALRIGHT

[gayandvibin]

Some of the final illustrations for my last uni project of the semester! For brevity I haven’t included everything lmao, but these are my favourites of the 20 I ended up doing

I was looking at adapting Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to more of a storybook format and these were the illustrations to accompany the text!

(Animal characters because I was initially going for a fucked up medieval manuscript animal thing but that got lost along the way, rip </3)

[royakahoshiart]

tw blood

My sweet baby boy

Love him a whole lot my sweet muffin little kitten, he's my son and i love him very much kust like his siblings