Besides Jill/Pony, do you have any other ships for Rock that you enjoy?

oh boy i’m glad you asked ! i absolutely do

in no particular order…

rock x nami - at first i wanted them to be more sibling-coded, but i’m on board with a romantic ship now… they are such polar opposites but they each even the other out, nami is both tough and enough to withstand rock’s insanity while perceptive enough to break through his facade and throwing him off balance, and rock is weird enough to keep nami entertained while surprisingly being observant enough about people’s behavior to pick up on what she actually means. i don’t think rock’s more abrasive quirks would seriously bother nami (other than his loudness, but they seem fine at the goddess pond), and rock seems to prefer women like nami— he has a bunch of lines about cats in each versions of AWL where he says they’re irresistible for the same reasons that women are, because they’re aloof / mysterious / do whatever they want / defy his expectations, while nami for her part describes him like she’s talking about the family dog. dog and cat help each other to grow. cute.

rock x gordy - gosh, rock’s lines about gordy come across like a teenage girl with a crush… for his part, gordy has a bunch of lines implying he feels inadequate compared to more talkative people. if rock could learn to understand gordy i feel like they would get along well, but i still prefer gustafa or molly to be paired with gordy… still, i find rock’s one sided longing for gordy to notice him very cute especially since it continues after you marry him

rock x lumina - great especially in the remake, love the uptight/rapscallion combination and their heart events involve rock lifting lumina’s mood or genuinely helping her. the way he pulls her back from getting too caught up in digging up the past is really interesting, we learn about both of their mindsets about the past. and the more i learn about both of them, the more I’m surprised about how much they have in common… lumina’s just more honest about it, something which rock specifically praises her for while commenting that it’s not an easy thing to do when rock first moved from the city to the valley lumina was the only other kid there (if she was there before him, and it sounds like she was since she’s the only candidate who met MC’s dad. while rock says he learned about MC’s dad from Lou…), so it’s fun to imagine them as childhood friends. sebastian has some lines saying that lumina was quite a handful and not exactly well behaved as a child, and tei says the same thing about rock, so together i imagine they were havoc

matt x rock - most of my pairings involving matt are based on rivals to lovers… matt and rock have a lot of valid reasons to dislike the other, but they also have a ton in common— both come from the city, rock shares most of matt’s hobbies that i know of (matt even complains that there’s no one in the valley who likes swimming… go swim together!!), both are hiding their desire for marriage and kids behind a mask (if you don’t marry them, they both keep wondering what it’d be like to settle down… i think they’d get past their differences eventually if they spent enough time in the bluebird bar cafe together to discover the stuff they have in common and become drinking buddies

(i have a delusional hc that they worked at the same company in the city, but neither of them has realized it yet)

i also ship rock and molly but not in a romantic way. more like. like. uhhh

yea