I recently saw a headcanon that MCU High Evolutionary is a Elder of the Universe, and I think it makes perfect sense... the Elders are all ancient, near immortal beings that were part of the original intelligent race—and they all have a singular obsession that drives them. Sound familiar???
For the collector its imprisioning collecting any and all rare and unique lifeforms and objects...
For the Grandmaster its games and competitions...
Etc...
I don't know his comics origin save for what I've briefly read, I think it said he was a human geneticist who altered his own body and mind to godlike abilities and intelligence, but idk. But I think it would make perfect sense if his MCU version was counted amoung the elders, everything fits. His obsession is evolution and perfection.
What if the other elders don't acknowledge him because even they agree that he's rotten, idk if that would be out of character for them, for all I know they might not have any morals but I'm not too familiar with the comics.
this is a phenomenal headcanon for the mcu!! thank you so much for sharing ♡♡
and yes, herbert e. wyndham is an earther in the comics, but the comics are so earth-centric it's boring imo. i'd much rather read this iteration! his name doesn't feel like it really fits with most of the other elders' names (it's rather modern and terran-esque) but i think a writer could easily argue he chose a new one (especially with him being so obsessed with terran culture) or even change his name a little. (i actually don't think his name is established in the mcu so they could take it any direction they wanted)
all that said, i don't think the other elders would reject him — at least not any more than they tend to reject each other all the time. they're all a bunch of assholes with a very self-absorbed, almost fey (in the worst way) approach to morality. like, you'd probably had one or two who sneered at him extra-hard or refused to acknowledge him, but most would treat him with the same twisted, semifamilial disdain that they treat all the rest of their brethren.
excellent headcanon; i will be mulling over this for quite some time!
Rocket would probably get a kick out of dnd... during/between the infinitywar/endgame saga mabey he sees Scott playing it and Rocket thinks its just a waste of time but Scott convinces him to play some with him (he already introduced him to cards against humanity afterall lmao). Wether he admits it or not Rocket ends up having fun.
Wether its as a character or a DM he'd be a bringer of chaos. Just imagine the characters he'd create (a bard with a background in engineering?) Or in a act of softness make a character oddly similar to one of his friends that he will deny. As a DM he might just decide to spawn random dragons or disasters to further entertain himself. Imagine if, after everyone gets brought back he steals all of Scott's dnd stuff to bring with him and shows it to the rest of his team/family.
i had a whole thing written and it disappeared. fuckin tumblr.
look.
Rocket Raccoon & Groot (2016), Vol 2 Issue 4
rocket absolutely plays some version of fantasy tabletop roleplaying games in every fucking universe — but i think how he approaches it varies significantly. take the skottie young rocket (above). i feel pretty confident he’s the forever-dm who usually lives by the rule-of-cool but will make your life miserable with by-the-book nonsense when you annoy him. (it’s mostly just tony who’s annoying him, though, so you should be safe)
now, mcu rocket?
he’s already playing some version out in the stars, before he even meets groot. beasts & blasters or some similar nonsense. but while cozy ongoing cooperative campaigns are the norm in the intergalactic communities, rocket doesn’t stick in one place long enough to find 'em (nor would he be interested - not at this stage in his life). look, he doesn't need the added complication of friends (and friends don't need him). so he exclusively goes to b&b dens where you pay to join a party of strangers and play a fifteen-hour oneshot. in almost every case, there’s some kind of money on the games: who’s going to die, and how, and when; which objectives will be met or lost; so on and so forth. plus, the campaign-members who survive till the end get to split the buy-in pot (which often results in a bit of backstabbing and sabotage-strategy).
you’re right though, of course. when it comes to terran dnd, i imagine rocket and nebs get invited to play with scott, cassie, luis, and kurt during the very last bit of the snap. (did luis and kurt even exist during that time? i am not an ant-man expert). cap probably stopped by a few times, too.
the experience is literally life-changing. building an ongoing story and sustained relationships, cycle after cycle? nebs is immediately hooked. she’s still relatively new to the concept of “fun” and “cooperation”, but she is addicted. and rocket’s secret soft spot for kids is activated by cassie. even though he’s prickly as hell with her, he finds himself always looking out for her character during combat sequences. luis and kurt are fascinated by rocket and his tales of space, and scott is a little jealous since he's always been the storyteller of the group - but all of them are stupid-nice and none of them ever call rocket a rastoon.
to be honest - dnd with the gang is probably what keeps rocket and nebula going in those last few months of loneliness, in the peaks and valleys of having hope.
but eventually, thanos is defeated, and the guardians return, and all is well in the universe (except, of course, for the absence of gamora, which - like groot senior and lylla and teefs and floor - is a hole nothing will ever be able to fill). still, it's maybe two terran-months before scott's getting a transmission from the benatar, asking when the next session is. neither rocket nor nebula are willing give up their dnd nights, though they are a little fewer and further between. rocket might even get groot to come along — he’s missed his son too much to want to let him out of his sight for a while, and besides, cassie might be a good influence on the brat — but beyond that, i actually don’t think the other guardians are invited.
don’t wanna mess up the dynamic, rocket probably grumbles. but really, it’s because... this is something just for him and nebs. something that belongs to them, that had brightened up a very dark corner of their lives. them, and the handful of terran friends who were never a-holes to them.
(rocket actually fucking loves those losers. he never laughs as hard as when he’s with them.)
which is not to say there aren’t any growing pains. it takes rocket a long time to shift from strategically sabotaging his fellow party-members, to genuinely wanting them to succeed. it also takes him a hot minute to realize that sharing the loot is fucking important for the success of the campaign.
he gets there, though — just like he did with the guardians.
but he never, ever stops trying to convince them to add some money to the mix.
[EDITED TO ADD: it’s so funny when i wrote this i was just thinking “who out of the terran cast of characters would rocket most vibe with for dnd nights” and totally didn’t realize that this would be the second time he ended up adopting a crew of dorky ex-cons and a kid]
How do you think a meeting between Rocket and Jinx (Arcane) would go? I think they'd trauma bond and be besties who blow shit up together for shits and giggles.
you mean the boom-blam murder-twins?
i completely support this reading of the two of them. god, the shared angst and survivors' guilt reaches truly cosmic proportions. unfortunately they both have such erratic communication styles, so the trauma-bonding will probably take a while to present itself.
luckily, they've got other shit to vibe over in the meantime. all i can picture is them showing each other their chaos-gadgets and fawning over each others’ homebrewed WMDs.
oh i'm gonna get that arm
art masterlist | rocket art masterlist | navigation
individual close-ups under the cut.
art masterlist | rocket art masterlist | navigation
what if the next gift after Legos peter gets for all the star children are just a whole bunch of nerf guns in a wide variety lmao. If drax hates the Legos I can only imagine how he'd feel about the nerf guns. Mabey rocket would get a kick out it though... or mabey Peter (or scott) introduces them to lazor tag and/or those paint ball gun things which inspires rocket to make a area dedicated to it again for cough "training purposes" cough.
look babe thank you for this precious ask (you are the gift that keeps giving honestly). everything about this idea is absolutely objectively universally Correct™ and honestly for a hot minute all i could think about was rocket with suction-cup nerf-darts stuck to dad glasses but then i thought… what about skottie young’s rocket?
also TIL there are whole communities devoted to nerf gun modding
this lil jackass is so proud of his creation
yes that gun does have little jets on the back to keep it afloat. why? because i forgot to draw a stand for it and then adding one seemed like way too much work. how does it function like that? how come it doesn’t just go shooting forward with the force of the little jets? why is it defying physics? i dunno ask the talking raboon
i gotta be honest do you know how long it has been since I’ve seen a nerf gun irl? (jk not as long as you’d think but my partner threw theirs out when they accidentally shot me in the eye lol)
also how do actual guns work. the ammo belt is shaded all wrong. don’t worry this is a space gun built by a raccoon none of it needs to make sense honest
loosely based on the cover for rocket raccoon #11 (2014) by young, parker, & beaulieu
With how you always seem to write Rocket as some super sex god, I've become quite curious on what his first time (and first few after that) was like in your stories cause there ain't no way he started out as a raccoon shaped Eros lmao. I know you always portray him as being quite experienced in that field but I can't help but wonder if it's all just experience or if he had someone 'teach him the ropes' so to speak.
hey babes~! i did read your second ask too, about most creators headcanoning rocket as a virgin, but i’m just going to respond to both asks here. FOREWARNING: i am going to cite all my fucken sources here so this is LENGTHY.
NSFW excerpts below the cut.
first of all, i know a lot of folks don’t imagine rocket as experienced and frankly, i get it. i could easily see this guy as being simultaneously touchstarved and touch-averse. my personal headcanoning of rocket as a sex-god is based in part on his comics incarnation. that dude gets laid ALL the fuckin time. by both space princesses and terrans, too. this guy fucks more than tony stark~ (photographic evidence below)
Rocket Raccoon: A Chasing Tale (there’s like a million exes in this one)
Rocket Raccoon: The Blue River Score
All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #9
Guardians of the Galaxy Infinite Comic #2, though this honey was less than receptive
All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #8
Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: Black Vortex Omega ~ and yeah, that’s Storm.
now obviously, mcu rocket has different hang-ups than comics-rocket. he clearly sees himself as a solitary, undesirable sort of guy. but i personally believe he would seek out physical gratification in situations where he felt like he had control and safety. (in my stories this means he’s pretty dominant, but i could be convinced he’s switchy/subby in the right situation/context).
i briefly touch on his sexual history in cicatrix, florescence, and window across the galaxy as being largely learned by purchasing services from sex workers. cicatrix probably has the most detail in chapter seven. starlorn.:
He’d stumbled on the Ore Gardens by accident a few circumrotations later. Well, he’d been solicited, but he had no complaints or regrets about it. A Centaurian who’d escaped Hala, probably only a few circs older than himself, had blown blue smoke in his direction one night at The Mobius Strip and asked if the Monster was an adult member of his species.
The Monster hadn’t known — not really, not for sure — but he’d felt frickin’ ancient, so he’d said yes.
That had been his introduction to the Ore Gardens and specifically, the Aluminum Rose on Orex II. Like its better-known sisters on Contraxia — the Iron Lotus, Copper Lily, and Golden Peony — the Aluminum Rose had been part of a particular collective of unionized brothels spread out over a number of systems in a number of galaxies. The courtesans with the Ore Gardens were known to be committed to discretion, and they’d never seemed to flinch at the sight of him. Of course, the Monster has his preferences: he’d rather pay for a real escort’s time than purchase extra hours with the bots, and there are a couple people he visits whenever he can afford ‘em because he trusts them — and they almost seem to enjoy his company, like maybe they’re able to ignore metal and burns and stitches riddling his hideous little body.
‘Course, he does pride himself on tipping really frickin’ well, so maybe that’s what they’re really enjoying. But he’s not gonna complain either way.
one of my first real rocket headcanons was the idea that he really respects sex workers. he sees them as incredibly clever, often street-smart, and thinks of sex work as one of the few honest professions. he has strong feelings about bodily autonomy and i think this blends well with his perception of their work. i think sex workers are also one of the very few groups of people that rocket never tries to swindle. a lot of the friends he mentions having in cicatrix are sex workers (on cyxlore, on knowhere, etc).
in cicatrix specifically, i think his first time was probably one of the most enjoyable moments of his life up until that point, despite the fact that he was nervous. he kept putting pressure on himself to "get it right," and I think the centaurian escort he was with was like, "okay, hot stuff, you need to chill out and just have fun" - and then made sure that happened. i'm not certain whether rocket met up with them again or not, but they definitely let him know about the other ore gardens, and encouraged him to frequent them. not just for the good business, either, but because rocket is fundamentally a likable, charming little motherfucker, and not very good at hiding his immeasurable loneliness. i think, whether he ended up learning most from the centaurian, or from one (or more) of their colleagues, rocket was encouraged to experiment with them, to learn more about bodies, and taught how to have good communication in the bedroom (which is probably why it's the ONLY place he has good communication). in short, i think the ore garden courtesans generally love rocket. i'd say they'll be sad to see the last of him, but honestly? i think pearl would be thrilled to meet them. we probably won't see this in cicatrix (maybe a vague mention in the last chapter), but i'm sure at some point he'll take her to see some dancers on knowhere and she'll be watching the stage with stars in her eyes, so impressed with their craft.
in florescence, i think rocket's experience with sex workers was still enjoyable, but definitely more transactional. i doubt he was taken under anyone's wing. per chapter five year four: formation:
“—I’d love to get you out of this cottage, and then out of this jumpsuit. Touch you wherever you’d let me.” You gaze up at him from beneath your lashes, doe-eyed and eager. You wet your lower lip, then bite it in a way you hope looks alluring. Judging by the way his stare clings to your mouth, you must be at least somewhat successful. “Maybe use my mouth on you,” you suggest, dropping your eyes pointedly to the ridge already pressing against his pants.
You can hear the hitch in his lungs.
“Your mouth,” he repeats, flatly — disbelievingly, maybe.
You tilt your head and try not to flush, leaning back on your heels. “Is that not a thing people do in space?”
He hesitates, and his eyes slit away from yours — up to the edge of the ceiling, lip curling. “Some do.”
You wince, trying to interpret his expression, his suddenly-scathing tone. “Not you?”
He bares his teeth, but you don’t think he’s threatening you — his red-agate eyes are anywhere else. “Never had enough units that I felt like I could ask.”
For a moment, you sit there, baffled — trying to make sense of it. Of him. “I—“
“I really only — on Contraxia,” he mutters, his eyes still dodging yours. “Iron Lotus has outposts on Knowhere and Conjunction, so there, sometimes—“
“I don’t know what those places are,” you admit, and now your brow is creasing as you sit back. He’s clearly uncomfortable. “What—“
His teeth are sharp and the curve of his mouth is bitter. “Sex workers, storyteller. Sometimes the pleasure-bots when I was real broke.”
Your jaw drops. Not because he’s purchased services — there’s no shame in that, as far as you’re concerned. But he makes it sound so definitive, so final, and his voice is so — resentfully bereft. Like he’s waiting to be judged. You scroll back through the conversation and feel your heart twist and wrench inside your ribcage.
“So, no-one else—” you say gently, and he lifts his eyes to glare at you balefully, with a sort of resigned defensiveness.
“No,” he says shortly. “Got what I paid for. No more and no less.”
window across the galaxy is a weird situation. we only hear about his past sexual experiences from rocket's POV and it all sounds very contractual but i think there was more happening behind-the-scenes than rocket knew about - i think a lot of the workers really liked him and he was a bit of a local legend in the nearby brothels. not necessarily for his skill in bed - at least not in the beginning - but because he tried so fucking hard and because in spite of his gruff exterior, he probably treated them with more respect than a lot of the fucks who came around. (keep in mind, since this is a movie rewrite, we're generally following canon. which means that at some point, some poor escort at the iron lotus probably had to deal with taserface. luckily, i imagine the brothels are unionized and the workers well-protected, which means he probably eventually got turned down by so many sentient escorts that he was only able to purchase services from the bots - with a hefty security deposit.) anyway, it's briefly touched on in chapter five: things no-one has said before (though to be clear, while rocket makes it sound like he's only had sex with the bots, it's not entirely accurate. what he means is he doesn't believe anyone will touch him who hasn't been paid):
“Love Angargal’s,” he’s telling her tipsily. “Last time I had it was on Contraxia. You ever been to Contraxia?” His voice is lilting in a way she’s unused to. He sounds almost playful.
“Once or twice,” she admits with a small smile, watching from the corner of her eye as he leans back into the copilot’s chair and takes another swig from the bottle.
“You know the pleasure-bots?”
She grins. Even if she hadn’t been to Contraxia, she’d seen plenty of models - both functioning and in storage - on Ravager ships. “Sure do. Sounds like you're familiar with them?”
He snorts and gestures vaguely to himself. “Who else is gonna let me touch ‘em?”
and chapter 21, i very still:
He’d never asked for any of the sex workers on Contraxia to touch him beyond necessity – out of respect for ‘em – even though he’d spent a disproportionate amount of time being as sure as he could be that they were getting off. And it’s not something he’d ever even thought to request of the pleasure bots, to be honest. Even the fancy advanced AI he’d accidentally emancipated from the Golden Peony hadn’t been inclined to try and put her hands on him.
and then the second-to-last sample i'm subjecting you to is from blackmail material, chapter two: self-sufficience, in which rocket seeks out feedback regarding his skills:
Maybe part of it is… not performance anxiety, exactly, but close to it. Or something. It’s not even like he’s never fucked around before. There are a small assortment of relatively-trusted working ladies on Contraxia who he feels more-or-less comfortable visiting when he’s in the neighborhood, and they rank among the very few handfuls of people he’s never tried to con, rob, or grift. That said, as much as Rocket’s fantasies revolve around getting his partners off with as much frequency and intensity as they can handle (and then some), it’s not like he can ever really feel certain that he’s good at it, given that he knows he pays pretty generously compared to the other lowlifes who frequent the brothels there.
Once, he did steal a pleasure-bot from the Iron Lotus. He’d reprogrammed it to give honest feedback to clients - initially because he thought it would be hysterical, but then because he kinda wanted to know. And the reviews seemed positive, but again, how could he be sure? A bot ain’t human, after all. And actually, none of the women with whom he’s done business are Terran, but from what he’s seen, the basic parts seem similar.
i do think things are different in birdie. he has had sex with unpaid partners, and i think (as with his paid partners) he's obsessed with trying to make sure they come exactly as often as he wants them to (though i think that has usually meant generosity in other fics, and clearly this rocket is a bit more vindictive). i like to think he's still well-liked by sex workers, but his self-hatred colors so many of his interactions with partners that his memory of them is wholly unreliable.
ultimately, though - regardless of who was involved in his learning to Do Sex so well - i just think rocket would be a very quick learner. (plus, i also think this guy is so hung up on being a fucken expert at everything he does that he would be SURE to pay attention to every tiny tell in his partner's body). don't forget, the kree have recorded him as being "within .024 points of optimum intuitive grasp" (per the comics). something like two-thirds of the sensory perception area in a "real" raccoon's cerebral cortex is dedicated to interpreting touch, and we know that rocket instinctively understands anything he gets his hands on. so i think even when he's confronted with new body parts and situations, he adapts very quickly. per the very boring adventures of space pilot & sweatshirt girl in the fourth visit:
He makes a sound - a kind of snarl, guttural and harsh. “Never fucked an Earther before,” he utters after a second. “Looking forward to figuring out how to make you come.”
His fingers dive to the front, finding your clit so quickly that your head spins. You’re not sure if it’s something he’s encountered before or if he just learns that quickly, like you’re another little machine he can figure out by breaking it down and putting it back together.
ALL THIS SAID.... now i kinda wanna write a story where rocket meets up with a sex worker and has his first time and they end up falling in love. thanks for constantly adding to my "to be written" list. I HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS
I have a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to how rocket is designed. It's his legs. Mcu and edios both got it right, but telltale and rivals didn't. I haven't read the comics due to not having much time but by the looks of it it's generally 50 50 wether or not they get it right. Whenever I see his legs and feet designed in a more canid/feline style I cringe HARD cause that's not how raccoon anatomy works, and what would be the flarking point for whomever created him in whatever universe to make
i'm not gonna lie this ask made me cackle. mostly because i had the cartoon on in the background and holy hell, cartoon-rocket's got some majorly feline leggies (they almost look actually alien to me). i'm so sorry that this grates on your last nerve (i know what it's like to be annoyed by something like this - it drives me crazy that comic artists so often draw him with three fingers, even though i know it's just because it's supposedly easier/quicker to draw - it makes me want to angry-cry every time).
but... may i play a little devil's advocate? on behalf of artists trying to figure out how to draw anthropomorphized raccoons lol
to be honest, i understand the different takes on rocket's legs/feet. (i apologize!) when i first started drawing him, i did hours of research and my first rocket fan art had a similar, if more understated, take.
here's the thing. i'm no vet, but raccoon skeletons and cat skeletons do seem to look pretty similar, at least to the untrained eye. And there's so many photos of raccoons walking and standing on the balls of their feet, which can give them an almost-felid look. From what I can tell, raccoon feet only seem fully flat to the ground maybe half the time. I think the real question you've posed here - did whoever make him (the high evolutionary, halfworld robots, whatever) decide to lengthen his tarsals and metatarsals and lift the calcaneum to make him taller (???) or did they decide fully depress the calcaneum to the ground to give him a more human stance? - could genuinely go either way. his creators did a lot of fucked-up shit to his body and i'm sure none of it feels right to him.
[cat skeleton on the left, raccoon skeleton on the right]
like obviously rocket's calcaneum are way too high and exaggerated, but i can see what they were going for?
all that said... it is a goofy look and as someone who tried to draw it a few times in the beginning, it also makes figuring out the character's center of gravity a real pain in the ass lol. like, weight distribution when your legs are like that is weird. plus, you're right: i'm not sure how much research his various artists have done over the years. (we all probably think a lot more about rocket than most other people, particularly folks who are guardians-focused and not rocket-focused, you know?). and some of the comic artists - i dunno it honestly seems like they don't even know what a raccoon is
Annihilators (2010, Issue #1) - why does he have a pug-nose? why are his ears? what is happening?
that all said, i'll admit it - i'm partial to the more-humanoid stance as well. ♡
anyway thank you for this ask! it was an excellent rant and it was fun to go through so many of my old reference photos, too ♡♡♡♡ thanks for giving me something to think about today!
I was playing cards against humanity with some friends and we needed 'rando' due to only having 3 people. I named rando rocket. Then I started to wonder what rocket would actually think of said game. I certainly wouldn't mind playing a round or two with him lmao.
oh god. he'd have the most blistering takes. when he's not slanting his eyes slyly at his fellow players (or rolling his eyes at a play he doesn't think was caustic enough), he's snorting, snickering, even outright cackling. he has to thumb tears away from his eyes at multiple points each game — sometimes each round.
honestly i love when i'm just having a mundane, real-life moment, and find myself thinking, how would rocket respond to this? and i'm so glad to see i'm not the only one who thinks that way lol
How old is rocket usually in your stories? I'm curious. Unless I'm mistaken his age is never talked about anywhere in comics, movies, cartoons, games (with the exception of edios) etc. James Gunn once called him a young man and that he was with groot for a decade before meeting the guardian but that's all we get. Assuming he escaped halfworld or the HE (depending on the universe) at age 12-13, spent a few years alone, met groot at say, age 17-18, then if my math is correct that would make him around 27-28 years old when he meets the guardians?
oh babe. have i told you how much i enjoy your asks? that said i am quite sure i never answer them in the way you’re hoping lol sorryyyy ♡♡♡
the shortest answer i can give is that i’d say he’s 34 in volume one because that’s how old pete is, and i not-so-secretly headcanon that they got scooped around the same time. my fics would more-or-less align with this philosophy accordingly.
but understand that i contain multitudes and also never wrote a short thing in my life, so buckle up if you click behind the cut
i think no matter what we decide, we always have to start with foundations. so, to begin: we have to pose with the question, what is rocket’s lifespan?
raccoons in the wild typically live around five+ years (however, about half of kits die in year one). in optimal conditions with plenty of food and shelter, they can live well over a decade. the oldest wild raccoon i have read about was estimated at 16 years old. in captivity, raccoons can live upwards of 20 years. now, rocket himself may or may not be considered "domesticated" depending on your definition, but he definitely has more survival skills and tools to keep himself alive than the average raccoon, so i'd guess that even in his "natural" state (if we don't consider the impact of genetic tampering), he'll probably live around 20+ years, depending on whether or not he gets himself shot or blown up first.
then i’d point out that we need to consider how long all of his manufactured bits-and-bobs were meant to last, and whether or not they can be replaced or repaired if necessary, and what impact they might have on his health and well-being. even if we assume the orgosphere can repair a lot, sometimes metal and wires just wear out (unless we decide they don't). rocket was also never intended to leave half-world so even if the high evolutionary had decided to keep him around, wyndham would’ve just expected to be able to replace anything that broke, so his prosthetic and mechanical innards may not be the highest-quality. all of this informs the type of wear-and-tear we’d expect to see on his body (or at least means we should consider solutions to the potential problems).
we also have to pose the question of whether wyndham picked rocket up as a baby when we’re pretty sure he first became inspired by earth (sometime in the 80s), or at a later date. or perhaps he's descended from earth raccoons, but was born later: the result of a breeding program that keeps the high evolutionary’s cages full. and has rocket been awake ever since he was picked up (or born in the lab)? or was he kept in stasis, for use when wyndham was ready? all of this impacts his age too.
now, let’s take all those decisions and all that information we just manufactured, then remember that we’re talking about fucking fandom, which means we can throw it all out at any point that it’s inconvenient for us and believe whatever the fuck we want.
i personally headcanon that thanks to the genetic manipulation of rocket’s body, our guy is going to live about as long as a Terran human (an arbitrary length of time i picked because i think it gives him the best chance of living a full sentient life while also not risking being “the last one left” of the og guardians, because i simply cannot abide that). some people might argue otherwise based on his line in vol 1 about having a short lifespan, but i respectfully disagree because that’s just too depressing for me lol. plus, i think the high evolutionary would want his toys to remain at an ideal level of functionality for a long period of time.
however, i don’t think rocket hits his stages of development the same way a human would. i think he goes through all his stages more slowly than natural raccoons (who fully mature at about the one-year mark), but i think the high evolutionary would want to maximize time spent in adulthood. this means that rocket's childhood and adolescence would progress more quickly than a human’s would. i imagine his growth begins slowing in young adulthood, and that he lingers longer than a human in middle adulthood, then speeds up again during late-adulthood (since the high evolutionary would have little interest in keeping a subject around past its prime, cell deterioration would be pretty rapid at that point).
also, let’s not forget that time in space is counted differently than terran years, so even when i assign him a terran “age”, it means nothing to him (or anyone but pete, probably).
for all these reasons, i think about rocket in his stages of development rather than his actual terran years. when he’s leaving halfworld, he looks (to me) like he’s on the cusp of transitioning from childhood to adolescence — the equivalent of somewhere between 8-12 Terran-humie years. models of psychosocial development are an oversimplified and often inaccurate tool, but in this case, they do pretty much align with the idea of him being at an 8-12 age range when he runs. do i personally think rocket spent 8-12 years on halfworld? i do not (probably more like 4-8, max). frankly, i don't think he would be so well-adjusted if he spent that long in that environment. however, do i think he’s developmentally in late childhood/pre-adolescence? yes, yes i do.
i believe that rocket spent most of his adolescence on the street, refining his ability to steal undetected and escape bad situations. he probably stowed away on a few ships (and stole one or two) to get from planet to planet, and learned quickly that he could blend in better in places with high criminality and low security. the few times he visits wealthier planets are probably the first few times he ends up in prisons, because he gets caught (fuckin cops). in Terran-human years, adolescence lasts from about age 10 to 20 (or 24 if you include the last few years of brain development). for rocket, i suspect it’s more like age 7-16.
now, as mentioned, with the high evolutionary wanting his subjects to stay in a stage of prime-functionality for a longer time, i think the middle of rocket’s life gets the most confusing in terms of how it correlates to a Terran human’s life. in humans, young adulthood is usually categorized as (roughly) 20-35 years, with middle age being roughly 35-65, and later life being 65+. for rocket, i think young adulthood is more like 17-30, and middle-adulthood is more like 30-75, but it’s all pretty fluid with such lengthy transitionary periods that the middle is sorta vague. and, as i said, i think his late adulthood is pretty quick, similar to his childhood — another 4-8 years.
now, i imagine rocket found groot and tibius lark somewhere in his early adulthood, and i like to think he and groot have been together for a decade or so when volume one happens. let’s say Rocket is anywhere between 22-25 when he meets groot, which would make him between 32 and 35 in volume one (at least, in Terran-humie years). i don’t know about gunn calling rocket a young man, but this age-range would fit by our standards. vol 3 takes place twelve years later, so he’d be 45-47 then.
according to my headcanon that rocket and pete were scooped around the same time, he'd be 46 in volume three. but remember that because of his slowed-down adulthood, 46 doesn't directly correlate. vibes-wise he's probably closer to 40-44. (which, now that i think about it, brings him more in alignment with pete still, because pete lost five years to the snap.)
when i write rocket, it more or less aligns with this philosophy. most of my fics are going to place adult-rocket spiritually in his thirties or forties, if not explicitly. but because of the way i headcanon his lifespan functioning, it’s a little more fluid than a direct alignment with Terran-humie years, and it means that a lot of his halfworld-trauma happened earlier, and that he spent a longer time free from the high evolutionary than most people might expect.
and honestly, no-one can convince me he doesn't have grumpy dad-vibes throughout pretty much the whole series. ♡
