#with a solid idea of what they want in mind - so it's experimental. which i think is still annoying

[theprinceandthewitch]

I really do find it incredibly irritating how TOH plays all sides of the shipping board just because they don't want to upset shippers.

It's why you get Evelyn looking more like Luz than Willow - it's also why her face is never shown. Even if Dana didn't want to get into the Caleb/Evelyn and Philip murder drama, there isn't any reason for her face to be obscured UNLESS the goal wasnt to upset shippers

It's why you get Luz's type of of boy being angsty warrior princes like Hunter - it's also why all of Hunter's important moments involve Luz and not Willow.

This is why you get Hunter dying and coming back to life looking like Caleb pleading with Luz to help him fight Belos in TTT, but then his entire arc culminates with him holding pinkies with Willow FTF. This is why all the interesting themes Hunter brought to the table were completely kneecapped by his relationship with Willow.

It's fucking bizarre LMAO.

[mel-odically]

Every 'Weezer' Album Ranked

Having spent the past year or so exploring their discography with a lot of genuine fascination, I figured it might be fun to put together my own ranking of Weezer's output. The alt-rock, pop-rock band is one you've no doubt seen some memes about, possibly heard a song or two from; but I find their overall discography isn't discussed as much as it ought to be for how fantastically varied and thoroughly interesting it all is.

So, first off; Why should you listen to Weezer? Well, I'd personally argue that their music can serve as a fantastic gateway into the world of listening to albums in general. The band, be it on albums good or bad, have a knack for writing earworms that hold your attention throughout, and each album is typically embodying a really clearly defined ethos that's explored in a well-paced runtime. Additionally, I find that lead singer and songwriter Rivers Cuomo's annunciation is so clear and crisp to where their songs are all really easy to process, even for non-native English speakers like myself.

Most crucially, however, Weezer's output is incredibly diverse despite all falling under the broad umbrella of "alt pop-rock". The below list is nowhere near a common consensus online, and you may find albums that I personally don't care for to be far more your speed. It's almost all worth a listen and a Wikipedia-page read, basically!

Should you use this list to know where to start with Weezer? If you want to - sure! In my opinion there's no right or wrong place to start with Weezer, so long as you do a little bit of reading of what the album is aiming for beforehand and go in with an open mind. Use this list as a reference point for what you think sounds interesting; and if you can't decide, just start with their super-solid debut - Weezer (1994) - and branch out from there. The full, concise 1-to-20 list will also be at the bottom of the post after entry 20.

A last note; this ranking includes all four individual parts of the 2022 project "SZNZ", which consists of four EPs themed around the seasons of the year. Regardless of what I think of each part individually, the project was made to be listened to chronologically – Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter – and I advise you to do the same if any one part of it catches your eye through this read.

1. Everything Will Be Alright In The End (2014)

Made for the band's 20th anniversary with four years of production, there's an intense feeling of finality that permeates all throughout Everything Will Be Alright In The End ("EWBAITE" from here on). It brings the band back at full force after years of leaving fans dissatisfied in their experimental output, yet at the same time hardly feels like the album is attempting to just go "back to basics". Above all else, EWBAITE feels like a reflection of everything the band has learned, putting their everything into one big explosive hurrah for the Weezer legacy.

As part of that reflection, the album is an exploration of three different themes: romance, expectations and fatherhood. At first glance, these themes may appear wildly different, but they can all be grouped up into one core term, one that Weezer itself has explored multiple times in the lead-up to EWBAITE; Relationships. Be it relationships with women, one's relationship with an ever-divided fanbase, or the relationship one has with their father (and the very concept of fatherhood), the album is able to dynamically bounce between different topics from song to song whilst also having individual songs cover multiple topics at once through this shared unity.

This isn't even to mention the sound of the album itself, which operates under a similar philosophy, being quite varied whilst still having a deliciously crunchy guitar-led core tying it all together. The album's opening track Ain't Got Nobody perfectly exemplifies all of these talking points; it's crunchy, emotional, melodic and climactic, althewhile being about the very idea of becoming alienated from those that you wish to be loved by; the idea of relationships, the thought of wanting to be appreciated, be it through romance, fan adoration or validation from your folks. Tons of other songs also play with rhythm in infectious ways, like penultimate track Cleopatra - itself acting as a subversion of the typical Weezer love song by instead being about rejection.

All of this is to say that EWBAITE manages the impossible across its 40-minute runtime, feeling at once cohesive, varied, concise and broad in a way that can only really be described with one word; Perfect. It's a wonderful album that I've been chewing on for months and months since I first heard it, one where every song sounds at once different from the next while having the exact sound that I want the band to provide. I mentioned earlier that the album feels like the culmination of everything the band has learned, and I would argue that you can extend that thought to the tracklist itself, each track feeling like it takes a prior album's concept and reiterates on it as effectively as possible. As a result, however, both Back to the Shack and Go Away end up being a little bit lesser than the rest of the album, pulling from some of the band's simpler output to make music that's moreso plain fun than it is outright gripping. Still, a pair of 8/10s is easy to look past on an album otherwise filled with nothing but 10s.

Highlight: Foolish Father

Lowpoint: Back to the Shack

2. Pinkerton (1996)

Make no mistake, Pinkerton is the undisputed favorite of the core Weezer fanbase, despite the lack of mainstream attention it typically gets. That may sound contradictory at first, but makes more sense when you realize what the album is; Pinkerton, to put it simply, is rough, vulnerable, unfiltered and dark. Compared to the polished sheen of their sound before and after, Pinkerton has a rawness to every part of it, from the guitars to the percussion to the vocals to the lyrics, all wailing with feelings of pent-up frustration and self-loathing. It's an album all about Rivers' conflicted state of mind in the mid-90s, becoming deluded and apathetic toward the world after becoming an overnight success.

It's easy to understand why people back in the 90s were apprehensive about this rough, unpolished sound, but it gives the entire record an earnestness that's hard not to emotionally connect to. This isn't an album that you would want to play in public, and covers various topics that may be deemed a bit taboo to express publically; most infamously, Rivers expresses a somewhat perverse affection for the author of a fan letter from Japan, desperate for any sort of human connection deeper than the flings he was surrounded by at the time. These unfiltered feelings are matched with a sound of raw guitars and occasional synths that stick in your head long after your first listen.

It can, in short, be difficult to listen to, and some songs like El Scorcho go a little bit too far in prioritizing a shaky mental state over being listenable. These moments are far outweighed by songs like The Good Life and Pink Triangle with infectious melodies and shredding guitars, and even songs without as much staying power melodically stick in your mind purely for the emotion they contain. Put another way, even though Pinkerton may at times lack in well-roundedness and lacks the manners you would expect from a band like Weezer, it makes up for it all in sheer pathos and emotional gravitas.

Highlight: Across the Sea

Lowpoint: El Scorcho

3. OK Human (2021)

Oh yeah; They've still got it.

Despite often being cited as being the most personal album the band has made since Pinkerton, the two albums couldn't be further from one another in sound. While Pinkerton's emotional core came from its rough, raw sound sounding as if it was on the verge of collapse at every beat, OK Human envelops itself in the warm, comforting sound of an orchestra, emphasizing cellos, strings and the piano far above the band's typical rock sound. There's not a single electric guitar here, and yet the songwriting and performance is still unmistakably Weezer - it's like if Vivaldi learned how to write a rock album, and works far better than it has any right to.

As mentioned, this sound is matched with a series of songs that dig far more into Rivers' personal state of mind than most albums released since Pinkerton; only now, the sensational insecurities of a newborn star are traded for the everyday woes that cross the adult mind across an average day. OK Human is an album that revels in the mundane – Aloo Gobi is about Rivers' daily routine of eating dinner with his wife, Grapes of Wrath is about his love of listening to audiobooks in the middle of the night, Playing My Piano is about the pure joys of making music – yet at each of these moments Rivers also expresses concern with the way his life is, so far into adulthood and having settled into such a mundane routine. Its sound is less so that of panic, and moreso of slowly bubbling concern, those feelings of worry that crop up late at night.

Its a remarkably relatable, comforting album, made all the more poignant by its lyrical ties to the pandemic lockdown, yet always still feels like a hopeful listen. Its an album of unspoken maturity, the kind that could only come from those who have been making music for as long as Weezer have, and exudes warmth and comfort in every song. Like a warm comforting hug, the orchestral sounds and beautiful flow from song to song make OK Human an album I feel obligated to listen to from front to back, helped by several songs having completely seamless transitions from one to the next. As a result, however, I feel that the album's songs only really work within a whole-album framework, with songs like Here Comes The Rain or Dead Roses being far less compelling when viewed out of the context they otherwise fit so beautifully within.

Highlight: Bird With a Broken Wing

Lowpoint: Here Comes The Rain

4. Maladroit (2002)

Maladroit is one of the band's more forgotten about albums, in part due to a somewhat botched release cycle that failed to generate much buzz. It was actually the last album I listened to for myself, and it took a while to really grow on me; there's a notable lack of personal investment in the lyrics and vocals, reflective of the more detached stance Rivers was taking in his songwriting at this time after Pinkerton's initial backlash. In an unusual twist for the band, however, it means that its the instruments that get to do the talking; Maladroit features some of Weezer's most guitar-heavy songs, with several sections of songs being purely instrumentally driven and guitar solos being aplenty.

While the album's core themes are hard to put a finger on, there's undoubtedly emotions and ~vibes~ that you can trace throughout; Slave, Slob, Take Control all give off the feeling of frustrated inadequacy, a wish to pull yourself out of whatever shitty situation you're in and find a happier way forward. These emotions are, again, mostly carried by the guitars, and as the album progresses its as if their harshness and misery is tuned out in favor of more emotionally varied, cheerful bends; the lovely closer December is downright sappy when compared to the borderline-obnoxious harshness on the opener American Gigolo.

What needs to be highlighted, though, is that regardless of substance, regardless of theme, and regardless of the harshness of guitars from track to track - more or less EVERY song in Maladroit is pleasant to listen to. Sometimes its heavier than typical Weezer, sometimes its sillier, and sometimes its something different entirely like Burndt Jamb or Death and Destruction, and yet every song puts a new kind of smile on my face from just how fun it is to listen to. Its a rock album that makes you understand how enjoyable rock music must be to just perform; without much concern for narrative, theme, grandness or scope, Maladroit plays in its own lane and does so to perfection.

Highlight: Burndt Jamb

Lowpoint: American Gigolo

5. Make Believe (2005)

Oh gosh, okay, uh - so if there's any album on this ranking that I might have to DEFEND putting this high up it'll be this one. Make Believe is pretty notable hated in some circles of Weezer discourse, in large part due to its godawful lead single and opening track. I won't go to bat for it; Beverly Hills deserves all the hate that it gets for being obnoxious, uninteresting, repetitive and one-note. Lots of this criticism can also be extended toward the midpoint track We Are All On Drugs - but I would argue that, for both of these tracks, their less-than-stellar quality actually works in the album's favor. Hear me out - I think Make Believe is an album that grows on you the more you listen to it.

Make Believe is ultimately an album about coming to terms with one's own weakness; though its no concept album, it very much has a sense of personal growth underlining each track. Beverly Hills is the very start of this growth, the point where our narrator - Rivers Cuomo - is saying, through an obnoxious boom-boom-clap chant, that he deserves to be larger than life and to live like a big-shot celebrity in Beverly Hills. As the album continues, however, it sees Rivers acknowledge that he isn't all that he cracks himself up to be, the rockstar persona he upholds falters as soon as he's directly confronted, and his attempts of playing himself up as cool and above criticism - shown directly in his attempt of relapsing back to that persona with We Are All On Drugs - hide the very small, vulnerable man that lies underneath.

Throughout all of its tracks, Make Believe can at times feel a little bit TOO dour, but not in the appealingly raw sense that Pinkerton embodied. There's a personal touch present, yet the album still aims to be listenable above all else, resulting in a sound that's mostly very heavy, melancholic and - to some - dull. I would however argue that this creates a genuinely really compelling atmosphere throughout the album - it does a great job of putting you in the troubled headspace Rivers was at in this point of his life, and makes the explosions in energy found in songs like My Best Friend hit all that much harder. Pardon Me is the centerpiece of the whole album, the song where push comes to shove, and shows just why the whole first half of emotional buildup was all worth it - in my opinion its one of the best songs the band has ever written, melodramatic as it may be.

Once the album comes to a close with Freak Me Out and Haunt You Everyday, its feeling has shifted entirely towards that of accepted weakness, of someone contently aware that they'll never be the hottest shit on earth, the earnest acknowledgement by Rivers that he is, in reality, a very small man deeply afraid of how he's perceived, yet trying to make the most of what he has. For my money, Make Believe is a really solid evolution of Pinkerton's ideas; an emotional record exploring a mental state of weakness, only with some edges sanded off and the mood dialed in more toward the depressive than the frustrated.

Highpoint: Pardon Me

Lowpoint: Beverly Hills

6. SZNZ: Autumn (2022)

Its a little odd to cover an individual part of SZNZ like this when they aren't full albums – each one generously sitting at 6 and a half tracks – yet it's that concise runtime that also serves as each part's greatest strength. With no time to spare, every single second counts far more than on the band's proper albums, with zero room for filler and zero room to stray from the conceptualized point. There's value to every part of SZNZ for the different, focused, direction each of them has, but Autumn is in my eyes the project at its absolute highest; a clear direction of cold, lonely yearning and self-reflection, paired with songs that jump between desires and pain, maintaining momentum without ever going quite as deep into the trenches as Pinkerton or OK Human.

Since Autumn is merely the third piece in a four-act play, it has less obligation to tell a cohesive journey in isolation; nevertheless, Run Raven Run gives the EP a fittingly eerie, lonely sendoff, althewhile the rest of the tracks are able to continue refining a blend of synth-driven, spacious, almost dance-like rock that feels both new and familiar. I would argue that this is, even with that tight focus, the most adventurous of the SZNZ parts; even with What Happens After You? taking that to be a bit too light on intensity for my particular taste, its hard to care when its chosen direction is such an outright banger, and when its surrounded by tracks like Get off On The Pain and Tastes Like Pain It's may not a deeply introspective album in the same way that OK Human was able to be, yet manages to capture the essence and energy of its subject matters, the feelings and vibes of pained yearning, well enough to where it feels like a damn near perfect distillation of everything emo-Weezer does right - concise, crisp, tightly-paced, and oh-so-well performed.

Highlight: Get Off On The Pain

Lowpoint: What Happens After You?

7. Weezer (2016)

I have comparatively very little to actually say about Weezer's self-titled summer album – the "White album" – as it's almost uninteresting in just how good it is. I'll also admit that I haven't listened to 2016's Weezer anywhere close to as many times as many of the band's other offerings, even ones that I'd rank below it, but that's because I don't know if there's much more I have left to discover through relistening to it. Weezer sought to make a summery, good-vibes rock record about enjoying the company of your friends, enjoying life even as an adult, and appreciating girls for being awesome, and did so with absolute aplomb; the sound is pitch-perfect, the songs are varied while still all sounding appropriately like Weezer, and the sun remains shining strong...though, if I may nitpick, not quite strongly enough

Yeah, its a weird point, but I do feel like the White album could have highlighted that summer-ness a bit more than they already do, given that it mostly just conveys the general idea of a good vibe more than it does specifically summer-beach fun. Still, it's hard to complain when songs like Wind in our Sail are as pleasant and fun as they are, and the album itself is just filled with energy around every corner. It's an album more or less JUST made up of good songs with no strings attached, which paradoxically makes it easy to recommend whilst also being hard to actually write anything substantial about – I had to really TRY to pick a lowpoint for the record and only landed on Jacked Up out of personal indifference toward it. The band's enjoying doing what they do best, and even if some songs aren't to my particular taste, there's a consistent vision present throughout 2016's Weezer that makes it hard to dislike even a little bit.

Highpoint: Wind in Our Sail

Lowpoint: Jacked Up

8. SZNZ: Summer (2022)

For the second part in the SZNZ story, Rivers' intention was to pursue a sound of "Youthful Indignation"; in other words, its when the summery optimism from the previous record turns to discontent and anger. As a result, every song on Summer has a loud, echoing largeness to it, like shouts of dissatisfaction into the void of uncertainty. And that can admittedly be a bit much at times - without so much as a moment to breathe, Summer is loud, echoing, and at times rebellious; songs like The Opposite Of Me embody that feeling of being completely fed up with the way things are and running at full speed toward the future, and its hard not to shout along every time the chorus hits. What the record lacks in variety, it makes up in spades in consistency, energy and surprising emotional core on songs like Cuomoville; there's hardly a miss in its tight runtime.

Admittedly, I've always found Records to be a bit of an odd inclusion; despite its instrumental, its songwriting feels tailor-made for a pop album, which feels rather out of place on the one part of SZNZ that's otherwise free from pop sugarness. Still, that instrumental rework is damn well done if my theory is correct, and by the time the positively anthemic closer Thank You And Goodnight hits its hard to remember any faults the record might've had in its prior tracks.

Highlight: The Opposite Of Me

Lowpoint: Records

9. Weezer (2008)

The band's third self-titled album from 2008, Weezer – the "Red album" – is perhaps the most divisive release in the band's discography, but is one I've grown a lot of fondness for. It's to date one of the most experimental albums the band has made, featuring songs written and performed by all the other members of the band, alongside efforts like Angel and the One that feel out-of-this-world for the band to pursue – and even with the genuine duds that are still here, the hits land far too hard for me not to commend.

Uncommon for the band's self-titled albums, it feels like there's also a loose narrative present throughout this one, which I also find to be quite neat. Lead single Troublemaker is all about introducing Rivers as the wild and weird off-kilter guy that he is, but as the album progresses we see him begin to dream and think about the many other ways that he could have turned out, what else matters to him other than being a rebellious rock star. It feels fittingly reflective for the band at this stage in the band; with 1994's Weezer introducing the band, 2001's Weezer recovering the band, 2008's Weezer is allowed to reflect on the band, now that its stability was safely assured. A notable example of this is the prior mentioned songs that the band's other members wrote and performed, which all play in sequence after the album-highlight Dreamin' – without spelling it all out, it sort of gives the impression of Rivers hearing the voices of what kind of person he's become and could be as he floats in his dream, each desperate thought manifested as a different member of his own band. Its, again, experimental for the band at this stage, and I quite like the effect it all gives off.

That experimental goodness is the main thing that draws me to the Red album...which makes it a shame that the success rate on those experiments is nevertheless so mixed. Heart Songs and Cold Dark World are both neat ideas that just don't work very well as listenable songs in execution, while Everybody Get Dangerous sort of suffers from the opposite problem; playing it so safe as a countermeasure yet over-correcting into becoming another repetitive and obnoxious song like Beverly Hills. The actual topic that Heart Songs is about is genuinely really sweet, and I'd argue its acoustic sound helps punctuate that drifting-into-a-dream narrative that the album is going for – Cold Dark World, meanwhile, is too bad of a song to warrant defending that same way.

With these blemishes being dangerously close to making up a whole third of the album, it kind of surprises even me how much I still love it all when taken on the whole. It swings for the fences (at least, the fences that Weezer itself set up), and even its misses feel like they fully commit to whatever dumb idea they set out to do, helplessly endearing along the way. It also helps that almost all of the tracks found on the extended Deluxe edition – The Spider, Pig and King – are top-tier experimental Weezer, showing just how ace the record could have been with just one more recut of the setlist. As is, 2008's Weezer is as endearingly inconsistent as the band its named after, and my attachment to those good songs found on here make it so that its position on this ranking fluctuates on a near daily basis.

Highlight: Dreamin'

Lowpoint: Cold Dark World

10. Weezer (1994)

Sure enough – it's the one record from the band that EVERYONE knows, their self-titled debut, the "Blue album", Weezer of 1994. It's rare for a band to be THIS much on the ball with their first-ever record, but Rivers' perfectionism paired with the youthful energy found only in teenagers just wanting to make cool music resulted in a record with both polish and energy that's hard for any band – let alone Weezer themselves – to replicate. To many, that classic, pure sound is strong enough to put the Blue album at the top of their own rankings, but I find it to be just a little bit too humble to really push the envelope the way that higher-ranked albums do.

That isn't to say that the Blue album lacks heart or punch – Say It Aint So is a wonderful tune – but what's both the record's biggest strength and weakness is that it never lingers on one concept for too long. Right after the aforementioned song's tragic sound has just set in, you get songs like Surf Wax America or Holiday, all about just having fun with your pals. It's a remarkably solid record as a result, paced like a dream and never feeling necessarily scattershot due to the similar sound it all has, but to me never feels like it particularly shoots for the stars; its nostalgic, comforting and classic, but is still very much from a band at the very beginning of their career still needing to introduce themselves, many songs feeling like early versions of what they could have been with but a little more experience. I think that spryness is best felt on tracks like Undone - The Sweater Song and Only In Dreams, which are both comparatively experimental for the rest of the record, yet in my opinion, fail to really stick as truly pleasant listens.

Still, there is a third example of a more experimental song found on the Blue album, and is the one you all know; Buddy Holly's lighthearted synthy sound is unlike anything else on the record and, really, unlike most of what the band has put out since, and it's hard not to see why it became such an enduring classic. Music video aside, it's just an incredibly likable, dorky, fun tune; and really, its that likability that sits as the Blue album's biggest strength. No matter who you may be, 1994's Weezer sells itself immediately through just how evidently earnest and wide-eyed its every song is, with even the more misguided experiments being hard to avoid nodding along with a smile. Though I may prefer lots of what the band would later achieve, it's hard not to appreciate just how damn refined the Blue album all still manages to be all these years later.

Highlight: Holiday

Lowpoint: Undone

11. SZNZ: Winter (2022)

After three months of conflict rising and falling, the SZNZ Project comes to end not with a bang or a triumph, but with a slower, more relaxed record, allowing things to settle like snow in the fields. While Spring reveled in bliss, Summer shouted in discontent and Autumn wailed in misery, Winter lowers the stakes and lowers the drama, feeling like a much more low-key, personal, acoustic project than any of the parts before. It is, as a result, the one part I often forget about when taken on the whole, yet simultaneously one filled with songs that really manage to hit the spot on a closer listen.

I've seen Winter rank particularly highly for people who are die-hard fans of the original 1994 Weezer, the Blue album; and I do feel like this is the closest the band has gotten to matching that album's sound to date. Opener I Want a Dog is emotionally earnest, raw, and innocent, the human desire of companionship expressed so plainly and bluntly after three EPs of drama and exaggeration; in scaling things back, it manages to make it all hit harder, althewhile vaguely bringing the mind back to the aforemention Blue album's My Name Is Jonas in sound. There are ways in which I find this scaled-back approach to detract from the record; Iambic Pentameter feels like the definition of an intermediary, inbetween-song, which an EP of just 7 songs doesn't really have room to play around with, and midpoint song Sheraton Commander feels similarly written to connect pieces of the record together without also managing to be a fun listen on its own right.

That leaves the record with just 5 songs to impress with, but I do genuinely think those 5 stick the landing just right to send SZNZs off right; closer The Deep and Dreamless Sleep is all I could have ever wanted from the Blue album's Only in Dreams, and the buildup toward it with two equally excellent tracks makes the whole EP – and, even moreso, the whole SZNZs project – feel absolutely worth all the mishaps it may have involved. While one part of me wishes that SZNZs could have ended just as dramatically as it began and continued, another understands that this more emotionally earnest, down-to-earth sound is what defines Winter as part of the whole. For how well it wraps things up, a warm blanket in the winter coldness is all I could realistically ever have asked for.

Highlight: I Want a Dog

Lowpoint: Sheraton Commander

12. Pacific Daydream (2017)

All things considered, I feel like Pacific Daydream may well make the worst first impression of any album the band's yet to put out. Do any digging on its conceptualization and it feels almost cynical – made up of songs discarded from the 2019 self-titled "Black" album, Weezer, which itself was already heading in a worryingly poppy direction. It is, then, a rock band diving true head-first into radio pop right after their perceived comeback with 2016's self-titled album, Weezer, done through an album of pop-album rejects. Worse yet, right as you think the band proves your gut reaction wrong on the album's opener, the pair of tracks that immediately follow feel like they were tailor-made to be a slap in the face to fans of the band's actual work, so completely bare on guitar, attitude, bite, subversion or earnest passion for the songwriting. It is then, evidently, a difficult album to like; but trudge past that awful first impression, and I think Pacific Daydream does reward you with something truly special.

I won't mince words, though; Feels Like Summer is an absolutely god-awful track, the most generic of generic pop songs you could think of, and blows any good will that Mexican Fender may have given the album through its introduction. Yet even in this early rough spot, there are good attributes worth pointing out; mainly, that even moreso than the aforementioned White album, Pacific Daydream does manage to feel properly summery throughout, with a sort of dreamy production style paired with an emphasis of summer fun and longing for the good times in its lyrics and songwriting. Feels Like Summer may be grating, generic and awful, but it sets out to do exactly what its title promises; 3 tracks into the album, it DOES indeed feel like summer.

This vibe isn't solely why I hold the album higher up in my ranking, though; with the songs immediately following Feels Like Summer, things do genuinely start to pick up for Pacific Daydream. Particularly at the midpoint of the album, the fifth song Weekend Woman, things reach a beautiful emotional climax; this is still one of my favorite songs the band has ever written, and its vibe being all about earnest longing fits the album's dreamy production style like an absolute glove; and just ust after that, QB Blitz and Sweet Mary continue to be absolutely fantastic songs in a similar vein. If you count the song preceding Weekend Woman, Happy Hour – a somewhat-generic song similar to Feels Like Summer but with a lot more likable songwriting and vibes – songs 4 through 7 on Pacific Daydream basically feel like they could be a top-tier EP for the band all on their own. For my money, it may well be the most consistent streak of hits-in-a-row found on any Weezer album, and well warrants the existence of the album on their own; it's as if the band only realized they were making an actual album partway through recording.

Even if the songs after Sweet Mary fail to live up to that four-song streak, the pleasant summer atmosphere permeates, and after a while you come to just accept that this is just what the record sounds like. There's nothing remaining in the album's closing third that's nearly as obnoxious as those second and third songs, and after a while even those songs become utterly tolerable once you know the beauty that lies ahead. With repeated relistens throughout the past summer, Pacific Daydream has absolutely grown on me, featuring both the absolute best and absolute worst of Weezer's pop offerings but unifying them all under a summery overcast as to not make the record necessarily feel uneven. It'll never be a record I can wholly LOVE, but its an easy recommendation for those who just want some pleasant earworms; go into it with tempered expectations, and Weekend Woman may well catch you just as off guard as it did me that one sunny day.

Highlight: Weekend Woman

Lowpoint: Feels Like Summer

13. SZNZ: Spring (2022)

Though it applies to all of the SZNZs EPs, it feels particularly wrong to review Spring as a standalone. As Part 1 of a 4-part epic, this is basically a story without a conflict, a film cut short before things go awry - a paradise without any trouble. What that equates to in music terms is that Spring is a record that's almost sickeningly sweet, filled with sounds of nature, chants of glee, and songwriting almost entirely about just enjoying life in paradise. Still, that approach is paired with a sound very much inspired by my beloved OK Human, and the sheer amount of joyousness the record contains is sometimes exactly what you need after a hard day of work.

When the SZNZ project was conceptualized, Rivers noted that the idea for Spring's sound would be a mixture of OK Human and the laid-back Island in the Sun. With those inspirations in mind, I was surprised to find there is still a notable amount of electric guitar and pounding, clear drums underlying almost every song here; as a result, a song like Angels on Vacation is still mostly a fun, pleasant ride, yet gets to be carried along by a constantly present, easy-to-hum, but nevertheless harsh and crisp electric guitar riff. When first noticing this surprising guitar presence on my relisten, I was initially concerned that it would lead to an unnatural contrast, but they're balanced just right throughout the record and, in a sense, help give the impression of a building dread in the lead-up to the laser SZNZs part. It does, however, prevent the album from really reaching that outright-zen chillness of Island in the Sun or some of the band's more pop-adjacent songs, but that's a price I'm well willing to pay for the sake of having more guitars present.

The focus on nature's pleasantries throughout the record does need to be re-emphasized, as songs like The Garden of Eden are helped immensely by the addition of environmental foliage, chimes and subtly-echoing backing vocals, giving the entire record the feeling of walking through nature in the beginning of spring. Which, in other words, means Spring - perhaps better than any other individual part of the project - succeeds beautifully at capturing the feeling of the season its themed around. The problem, again, is that its sheer sweetness can at times be a bit overbearing; there isn't much in the way of variety in emotion or sound, and on a song like The Sound Of Drums I find that the sheer amount of happiness borders on sounding more like something you'd hear in a childens show than from a rock band of any kind. Perhaps that's the cynic in me showing more than it should - if you're just looking for the most pleasant, sugary-sweet Weezer sound out there, Spring should absolutely be on your radar.

Highlight: Angels On Vacation

Lowpoint: The Sound Of Drums

14. Weezer (2019)

Oh, geez...so, uh, if the "Red album" (2008 self-titled, Weezer) was the was the band trying to experiment what's possible within their established rock sound, then the "Black album", 2019's Weezer, is the band acting as if there's not even a core sound to adhere to. The record was conceived as the direct opposite to the 2016 self-titled record of the inverse color – wheras that record sought to convey good vibes through the otherwise darker sound of alt-rock, this record instead seeks to convey darker, more ominous vibes by using the otherwise pleasing sounds of contemporary pop. It's a cool – if outlandish – idea in theory, but the album has such a poor grasp on how to approach the concept in practice that it ends up feeling like a disjointed mess. The Black album is, by a landslide, the most inconsistent album in the band's entire discography, providing a bizarre mix of pop, trap beats, soft rock, lounge music and acoustics, and far too little of it actually invokes the thought-providing darkness that conceptualized the project.

Nevertheless, I did call it a inconsistent for a reason, and that's because there are some damn high highs on here. High as a Kite achieves the concept the album is shooting for absolutely pitch-perfectly, balancing an Island in the Sun-esque cozy jam with a more dramatic tone and a prevailing undercurrent of danger and dread, heightened by the song's lyrics being about going on drugs to escape from the very real problems surrounding you in life. The experimental direction of the record also results in some unexpected hits like Too Many Thoughts In My Head, which explores the idea of complete neural overstimulation through a positively cacophonic soundscape, a song that sounds like it's fighting itself in a way that somehow works out for the better. Sadly, though, the "experimental" direction far too often sees the band instead fall into something that feels insultingly safe and uninteresting; Living in L.A. sounds only a slight bit more dark than the average radio hit, and Piece of Cake is simple and underdeveloped to the point of being insulting. Even when songs come with incredibly strong songwriting, such as I’m Just Being Honest – my favorite of the songs written for Rivers’ Japanese side project “Scott & Rivers” – they’re let down by underwhelming pop-driven instrumentation that largely fails to make a case for why it should be preferred to Weezer’s typical alt-rock sound.

The Black album is weird in that sense, ping-ponging between feeling entirely too safe and underdeveloped, and being absolutely ludicrously out-there in sound. It only occasionally finds that sweet middle ground inbetween that you could call a pleasant listen, and yet more rarely (again, High as a Kite) actually achieves what the album set out to do. The only other track that you could say comes close to said concept would be the absolutely outrageous closer, California Snow, driven by the first – and only – trap beat in the band’s entire career and vocals of Rivers comparing his fame and subsequent misery to that of Jesus Christ. There’s a lot of religious undertones throughout the record, to be fair; as much as I love to dissect and understand Weezer’s albums for the narratives they may hold, this release may be the only one where I feel outright intimidated at the idea of dissecting it further.

I suppose that’s...sort of what keeps me from rating 2019's Weezer lower than where it currently is. Even with the undeniably cheap and plain-sounding pop songs littered throughout, even with the disappointing inability to achieve an otherwise cool inverse-twist on Weezer’s sound, there’s so much still left to chew on from the gems that the project did produce.

Highlight: High as a Kite

Lowpoint: Piece of Cake

15. Van Weezer (2021)

To me, there's something about Van Weezer that's feels...rushed, like it should have been thought through more before its release. The concept is pretty simple - it's an album designed to be toured and as a result embodies some heavier, grander stadium-y rock akin to the the rock legends of old that helped inspire the band to begin with. I can see the vision just on that front alone; but while some areas of the record feel like they achieve that goal and even go beyond that to say something more meaningful, others feel pitifully half-baked and poorly thought through, culminating in a record that I really don't know what to think about on the whole.

On the one hand, you get songs like The End of the Game and Beginning of the End that capture that huge sound they were shooting for perfectly. The latter of the two, along with fellow banger 1 More Hit, are the parts that I would say reach even further than what the album originally sought out to achieve - their lyrics feel as if they're commenting on Rivers' current state of mind as a rockstar for almost 30 years, about what its like to continue the need to face the expectations of a huge audience and write songs in part to satisfy their needs. The album, in that sense, begins to almost feel like the flip-side to OK Human; while that record took an introspective look into Rivers' day-to-day mundanity with a subdued, soft sound, these parts of Van Weezer feel like they're pairing that sought-after explosive sound with themes of what it means for Rivers to be a rock star.

These questions aren't exactly *abscent* from other, small parts of the album, but feel as if they were hardly a focus for the rest of the record. Even in judging the remaining songs here on the virtue of being sufficiently large enough for a tour, what remains is a mixture of feeling half-hearted or downright weak. All The Good Ones is vapid and repetitive, I Need Some Of That is an arguably-worse rework/reusal of a song from one of Rivers' side projects, I'm not particularly fond of the melody on Sheila Can Do It... Perhaps most bafflingly of all, however, is Blue Dream, which takes an old demo from the EWBAITE-years that's beloved by the core community of fans and downright butchers it through replacing its guitar melody with that of Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train. The resulting song, as expected, barely has any of its own identity left, and continues to reinforce the feeling that Van Weezer just really didn't know what it wanted to do.

Though Blue Dream upsets me the most, I think the album's closing track is an equally baffling choice; an entirely-acoustic ditty the likes of which only previously seen on Pinkerton and 2008's self-titled record. On those records, though, I would argue that their inclusion even amidst a tight 10-track run served to amplify the emotions of the narrative each were conveying; on Van Weezer, meanwhile, there's basically no narrative TO amplify, and it only really results in one of those 10 precious song slots on the made-for-touring album basically going to waste.

Even with all of these qualms, I can't bring myself to say that I don't like Van Weezer; I could gush on and on about the love I hold for its strong tracks in particular, and Beginning of the End in particular is probably a top 5 Weezer song for me. But those songs really deserve to be part of a greater project than this; one that, in the end, can't be called much else than confused and misguided.

Highlight: Beginning of the End

Lowpoint: Blue Dream

16. Weezer (2019)

Of all of Weezer's records, this - the band's 2019 self-titled covers album, the "Teal album" - is the one I tend to see the most outright dislike for. Which might surprise some of you, as its certainly not the most NOTORIOUSLY bad album in their discography; yet for a lot of core fans, those albums can be worth examining for just how they went wrong, just what the intended direction was, and for some there's even something to love hidden underneath the vitriol. With this record, however, what I described in the first sentence is exactly what you get; 2019's Weezer is a Weezer album with covers, and the covers aren't particularly inspired.

Based on a viral Twitter "campaign" for the band to cover Toto's Africa, the band instead delivered with the surprise release of an entire record's worth of covers, almost all of songs of a similar "80s nostalgia" variety. I saw a user online describe the album as "Weezer Karaoke", which really does hit the nail on the head; the issue here, regardless of the quality of the band's performances on these covers, is that they really don't do much of anything to actually reinvent or reimagine the source material. As such, the quality of a cover depends almost entirely on if Rivers' gentle, soft-spoken singing voice lends itself well to whichever song is featured. That means that songs like the one that kicked off the entire project, Toto's Africa, and Tears for Fears' Everybody Wants To Rule The World, work absolutely wonderfully (the latter is my personal favorite and I would argue even surpasses the original!), wheras more harsh songs like Black Sabbath's Paranoid just flat-out don't work.

There's basically no more room for analysis here; the Teal album does exactly what it seeks out to do, which is just as shallow a venture as it says on the tin. If the prospect of hearing some fun 80s songs sung by Rivers Cuomo doesn't excite you, then the record itself won't. Nevertheless, the guy's voice is indeed a huge part of the band's appeal for me, and the batting average for the covers on here is fine enough to where I can enjoy the record as a casual listen.

Highlight: Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Tears for Fears)

Lowpoint: Paranoid (Black Sabbath)

17. Hurley (2010)

Y'know...It's hard to HATE Hurley because you can tell if nothing else that Rivers and company had some fun making it. As is probably evident by its absurd cover artwork and name, the album lacks entirely in any sort of coherent theme or messaging; its only theme is to find new ways to rock out whilst still somewhat sounding like Weezer. You get some of Rivers' weirdest, out-there vocal performances, tunes a fair bit out of the group's comfort zone due to the influence of outside songwriters, yet never strays into full-on pop music. The best comparison I could make would be to Maladroit, but unlike that album, Hurley lacks that consistent, dead-on sound that made that into such a classic album, feeling more like a fun sidetrack than a must-listen for the band.

That variety in songwriting is simultaneously the album's biggest strength and weakness. On Ruling Me, we get a song that's fast, huge and catchy in a way that feels simultaneously familiar and unlike anything the band could ever make on its own; Where's My Sex, meanwhile, is somehow even more juvenile than its title suggests, althewhile playing itself up as an obnoxious loud stadium rock anthem. Even if the quality of the record is better than what preceded it, and even with an on-average heavier sound, Hurley still feels like it just refuses to take itself seriously, with songs like Smart Girls being based on random pieces from Rivers' twitter account rather than having anything of worth to say - which stings especially given that the album's opener, Memories, does feel shockingly reflective and earnest from a band that had otherwise spent the last couple of years reveling in their outrageousness. Its the closest Hurley gets to having a coherent theme – of acknowledging how much time has passed and facing it with a tongue-in-cheek smile – yet not much of note is said about that theme past that point aside from a continued commitment for songs to still be allowed to be conceptually silly if juvenile.

When viewing the album's tracks in isolation, there's probably more hits on Hurley overall than some of the albums ranked above it...yet it's unable to really come together into a cohesive listening experience, as something that really sticks with you. In a sense, its *less* than the sum of its parts, and is probably the Weezer record I forget the most about as a result despite having some of the band's more out-there songs.

Highlight: Memories

Lowpoint: Smart Girls

18. Death To False Metal (2010)

Yeah, so, I'm including out of obligation, just in case anyone asks about it in the future because it is in some sense still an album; just not a conventional one. None of the material on here is technically new, as its a collection of demos and songs previously rejected from inclusion on albums, re-recorded and compiled into a standalone release. It sounds kind of cool as an idea at first, but Rivers Cuomo is one of the most open people in the music industry with his unfinished/unused work; the "Alone" series of releases from the band's website contain gigabytes upon gigabytes of test tracks, riffs, incomplete demoes and more spanning the band's entire history. By comparison, DTFM feels like very slim pickings at just 9 tracks and a cover, not even using tons of the band's more revered lost tracks, and with the selection offered feeling more random than an attempt to be a unified experience or exploration of the band's history.

There's not much to say about how the album works as a cohesive experience as a result; unless I'm missing something and Rivers actually plotted this release out as meticulously as his other albums, this is just 10 disjointed reject-tracks put on the same disc and recorded with a somewhat-similar sound. There are songs here which fail to make an impression at all and make it very clear why they were rejected – Everyone in particular is absurdly mind-numbing along the same lines as Beverly Hills or Everybody Get Dangerous – but then other songs like Blowin' My Stack are sufficiently charming and could've absolutely fit right in on something like Maladroit if given some tweaks.

I wouldn't recommend listening through it as an album more than once, but check out some of its highlights – the cover, Unbreak My Heart, is one of the best covers the band has ever done! – and maybe add them to a playlist; there's more good here than I initially thought.

Highlight: Unbreak My Heart

Lowpoint: Everyone

19. Weezer (2001)

Having now read this far down in the ranking, if there's one thing you've probably noticed, it's that I really love it when Weezer's albums (and albums in general) feel like they have some sort of overarching purpose – a message, a theme, a sound, a story, simply put, when it feels like I can connect with the people behind the music. But for their second self-titled album, the "Green album", none of this was ever in the cards; Rivers Cuomo, after feeling humiliated by how his earnestness on Pinkerton was received, proudly declared before release that 2001's Weezer would be stripping things way back. No message, no point, and no emotion; ensuring as safe a landing as possible for the band's re-entry into the mainstream. Thus, we received the band at their safest, blandest, and most boring in their shortest-ever full record.

It's easy to commend Rivers and the band, in a sense, for fulfilling exactly what they set out to do with the Green album, and in some sense exactly what they NEEDED to do in order to get back in the public eye. It took only a year after this album released for the band to get right back to doing more interesting, inventive songwriting on Maladroit, and only one record thereafter we'd get Make Believe, which finally felt like the band had found a balance between being emotional earnest whilst also bolstering mainstream-friendly catchy songwriting. Things all worked out in the longterm, but it left 2001's Weezer feeling like little more than a 28-minute long stop-gap. Rivers Cuomo's songwriting is calculated and precise, and this record shows the exact fault with that process; with two notable exceptions, every song featured on here sounds homogenized, bland and uninteresting.

Those two tracks, Hash Pipe and Island in the Sun, are the ones you've likely heard from the album beforehand, with the latter in particular blowing up in popularity on Spotify. I have mixed feelings on both but can absolutely commend them for showing glimpses of life in an otherwise lifeless record - Island in the Sun may well be overplayed, but it is a genuinely quite nice little jam, and while Hash Pipe's abrasive attitude doesn't really work for me, I again commend it for at least HAVING that attitude to begin with.

There are some brief, brief glimpses of life throughout the Green album past just those two – I'm particularly drawn to closer O Girlfriend having a genuinely sentimental feel to its melody – but even it, alongside all of the remaining 8 tracks, suffer from production and sound that feels almost deliberately muted and sandpapered, as to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible. You can hear O Girlfriend's attempt to be emotional and powerful, and yet its guitars, bass, percussion and vocals feel held back, equalized to the most boring default settings possible, as to not dare to evoke too much of a reaction out of its listeners – as to keep 2001's Weezer in line with the idea of what Weezer in 2001 ought to be.

I don't want to come off as TOO harsh toward the record, as I understand that its easy digestibility is specifically why it still has some devout fans. In particular, I've heard it described as the perfect record to put on in the car sound system on a summer day, and as someone who really enjoys Pacific Daydream for similar reasons I very much acknowledge the sentiment as valid. But that insistence on vapidness, that sound that feels almost afraid to be a rock album, is something I can't let go - the Green album may well have been what the band needed to make, but it simply can't escape feeling thoroughly hollow as a result.

Highlight: Island in the Sun

Lowpoint: All 7 songs not mentioned above

20. Raditude (2009)

Look everyone! It's the bad one!

Okay, in all seriousness; Raditude is an album I avoided for months just due to how catastrophically bad its reputation is. This was Weezer trying to dive into a more mainstream pop sound which was, in turn, disastrous. To date you'll still find people calling other bands' bad albums "their Raditude" in reference to just how vitriolic the hate for the record was. And really, the vibes it gives off alone are just downright juvenile, from the name to the cover to the outside songwriters to the very idea of Rivers dropping guitar duties to act solely as a vocalist frontman. But having now actually listened to it, I will say...its not AS bad as you might think.

Compared to Weezer's later pop outings, I was initially surprised to hear just how much electric guitar there even is on here. It may be a bit sandpapered, produced in a far more sanitized, dance-y manner, but a song like I'm Your Daddy does sound like there's a bona fide Weezer classic hiding underneath the juvenile vibes. Indeed, I wouldn't say Raditude is a sonic trainwreck, and if the intent was to just produce something that's dumb fun to listen to, the aforementioned song and the opener, (If You’re Wondering If I Want You to) I Want You To, do somewhat succeed at that mission statement pretty well.

The problem, however, is one that Raditude suffers from almost uniquely (save maybe from Cold Dark World off of the Red album); there are songs on here that are outright detestable. Can't Stop Partying is the obvious example here, a hollow, baffling, obnoxious party jam that grates to listen to, with a guest feature from rapper Lil Wayne attempting to present the band as nothing but party-loving goons. Even past that point, though, you get songs like That Girl Got Hot, that just sound...completely disinterested in being actually fun listens. At far too many points throughout Raditude, you feel the radio-inoffensiveness ethos of a song like Make Believe's Beverly Hills employed en masse, whilst lacking any of the narrative purpose you could argue said track had.

Even if the point with Raditude was to just make a record of 10 fun danceable songs (obnoxious as those results may be), the record outright fails at maintaining that identity. Everybody talks about Can't Stop Partying's awfulness, but it if nothing else fits the bill that Raditude is presenting perfectly; Love Is The Answer, meanwhile, is a slow, melodramatic ballad with Indian influences that completely screeches whatever attempt at energy the album wants to convey to a halt. As with Hurley released a year later, this album featured contributing songwriters outside of the band, and I would probably attribute the overall lack of focus and earnest vision throughout the record to this (even if Love Is The Answer was, bafflingly, always a Cuomo original). Even if its mostly to negative effects holistically, the outside songwriting process did result in Put Me Back Together; a song that, again, feels completely unfitting for the energy Raditude wants to give off, but is a genuinely well-put together (heh) song that I was shocked to find buried between the obnoxious radio hits. Like with I'm Your Daddy, a re-recording and rewrite of the lyrics could have made it into an all-time classic Weezer song, or at least something fit for an appearance for a sentimental moment in a kids film.

That's really the overall crux of Raditude; its mismanaged, misguided and so thoroughly unlikable that even its glimpses of quality end up feeling tainted and wrong (for gods sake, one of the best songs on here is called I'm Your Daddy). Like with the Red album released the year prior, there are moments where I would consider ranking the album higher just for those few moments of quality songwriting found here, but the sheer amount of irredeemable slop its all tied to hinders it from ever breaking out of the bottom 3 for me.

Highlight: Put Me Back Together

Lowpoint: Can't Stop Partying

That's my ranking - 1 through 20!

In short:

Everything Will Be Alright In The End (2014)

Pinkerton (1996)

OK Human (2021)

Maladroit (2002)

Make Believe (2005)

SZNZ: Autumn (2022)

Weezer (2016)

SZNZ: Summer (2022)

Weezer (2008)

Weezer (1994)

SZNZ: Winter (2022)

Pacific Daydream (2017)

SZNZ: Spring (2022)

Weezer (2019)

Van Weezer (2021)

Weezer (2019)

Hurley (2010)

Death to False Metal (2010)

Weezer (2001)

Raditude (2009)

If you're a fan of the band, I hope this list has given some sort of insight into albums you may otherwise not have had – and if you're new to Weezer altogether, I hope this post can serve as a solid point of reference to learning more about what each album and the band itself is about!

If you have any personal favorites or objections you would like to raise, please feel free to share them, I'd love to hear what you think and will of course edit the post to correct any possible misinfo it will contain. I'll also be editing it whenever my own opinion changes; I want this list to stay up-to-date with my own feelings on the band!!

(special shoutout to this post by user idolisnotdead for inspiring this one!)

[askprotoroll]

What is the “Roll Z” outfit about?

Oh-ho-ho! I have been waiting for someone to ask about that.

See, about a month ago, a friend of mine showed me this video by man on the internet.

Listening to it, I couldn't help but picture Roll in place of Zero, and thus, I drew up this:

Now, I don't have a solid nor canon X timeline just yet because there's several ways it could go.

Please also keep in mind that I have never played the X games, so if I get anything wrong, I'm sorry!

All the timeline ideas start at the end of the golden age of robotics. Robot masters have been made illegal because of all of Wily's attacks, and so they're ordered by the government to (unfortunately) be deactivated. Including the light children. Light and Wily both end up going into hiding.

Roll, of course, did not agree with this and ran. But, she somehow gets damaged in the process. (The scenario I imagine the most is a building collapsing on top of her.)

This is where the timeline splits.

Timeline idea one:

The first idea I had has Wily finding Roll after she's damaged and decides to use her to get the final one up on Light.

He upgrades her to be the Z look, and much like with Zero, he implants the maverick virus into the gem on her helmet and seals her away, making her an unwitting pawn in his final plan.

Wily did not do anything to make her loyal to him because he knew it wouldn't work. He also knows the virus will likely not affect her either because of her sentience. (which is probably dumb in hindsight because she was affected by roboenza. Maybe the cure made her immune? Idk)

Light, in the meantime, is working on creating X (the timeline also splits here, but I'll get to that later) and passes away while X is in containment doing the final checks, as per the normal x timeline.

Now... Whether or not X is found before Roll is up for debate (as i said, i never played the X games), all I know is Dr Cain still finds X, and Sigma finds Roll.

Roll is initially hesitant to trust Sigma, even fighting him at first, but she is convinced to stop, and she does end up joining and becoming one of the top maverick hunters.

That'd be where Roll meets X...

The timeline will most likely go on like the games from there.

Timeline idea two:

Much like timeline one, Wily finds and upgrades Roll. But unlike timeline one, Wily has a change of heart, not wanting his legacy to only be destructive.

In this timeline, Zero DOES exist, but he is unfinished, and the maverick virus is in him instead of Roll.

Everything else is like timeline one, except Roll may end up finding Zero at some point.

Dunno what she'd do. Maybe if she had a dream sequence like Zero did in one of the games of Wily telling her to "fix his mistakes," she'd destroy him or something.

Timeline Idea three:

This timeline can be a variation of one or two interchangeably because the change here is involving Light, and is actually somewhat based on an AU my friend has.

In this timeline, Light ends up taking Rock with him into hiding and upgrades him instead of building X.

Everything else carries on like timelines one or two up until "Rock X" ends up meeting "Roll Z"...

After that, everything would carry on the same.

Timeline idea four:

This last idea is something I got from this video of a protoman rom hack for Mega Man X 1

This time, instead of Wily finding Roll, It's light who finds her and upgrades her, which would include fixing her core because ley me just sat this now,

Because Dr Light is the one who made Roll's experimental core, only HE can fix it since he's the only one who knows how it works. That doesn't mean it can't be maintained by others, though.

This means that in the other timelines, Roll likely still has that issue with her core.

This also means that Zero exists, too, but this time is fully completed. Although honestly, I imagine that Zero is built to be a girl in these timelines because I read somewhere that Zero was based on Protoman, and since he'd technically be based on Roll in this timeline...

I'm not sure what the dynamic between Roll and Zero would be to be perfectly honest. Neither of them would know about Zero being built by wily unless Zero tells Roll about that dream sequence.

Then again, he apparently asked light about it, and Light claimed he didn't know so... that's up in the air I guess.

There are several more possibilities I haven't covered here, like if Blues was taken to be upgraded by Light or if Roll wasn't found by anyone. But the four I talked about are the ones I think about most.

As I said, I don't know which one is the "canon" timeline for the AU. Buuut I think I should mention this-

When the robot masters are deactivated, I personally think that they were all preserved in a museum somewhere. It'd be such a shame otherwise. Plus, it means that, one day, Roll would be able to see Rock and Blues in some form.

Despite the rough patches in their history, Roll loves her brothers and would very much miss them.

I'll probably end up drawing more of Proto!Roll Z eventually.

For now, enjoy this little bit of dialogue I imagine being shared between X and Roll

X: "So, you were the first of the Robot masters?"

Roll: "I was the prototype, yes."

X: "You were made by Dr Light too?"

Roll: "Mhmm.."

X: "That would make you my sister, right?"

Roll: "...huh. yeah, I guess it would."

- Melody

[doonarose]

Sighhhhhh, academic whinging to follow....

That PhD student is definitely spiraling. And just like the last time, a year ago, she can't put her finger on why which makes it really hard for me to do anything about it. And the reality is, she's spiraling because she lets herself. So she's felt a bit shit about her PhD because reasons (a lot of this is anxiety and insecurity that she's good enough, panic that she's not doing enough, etc. and I can say, hand on heart, that I'm not feeding into this at all) which is totally normal for a PhD and then instead of processing them and/or handling them with some sort of coping, she locks herself in a room with them and just lets it build.

So she wrote some pretty shitty things in her two year report about a decline in morale and the negativity of the lab... I mean, that's probably fair, I hate it here, I hate my job, I have no idea what my long term plans are because money and also I'm not sure I'll ever build up research again, like I don't know if it's possible... but those things aren't said out loud to her and compared to the average graduate student experience... she doesn't really understand how good she has it? Which pisses me off. She has carte blanche on lab access, reagent purchasing, conference attendance. She has limitless access to me and a postdoc. The office has comfy sofas and a kitchen. Like, there are challenges here but it's not actually that bad for her.

And when we sat down on Monday to discuss why she had written what she'd written in her report - because she can't actually submit the report like that it will red flag all over the place - the stuff she could actually pinpoint was minor, dumb stuff. Like she wants our meetings to be more structured and stick to time... fine, happy for her to prepare an agenda and I won't get them go overtime. Easy. She says there's lots of pressure on everyone to publish (there's a shitload on me to publish) except I've asked her to write her first paper because the data set is finally done and also wouldn't mind her finishing off a review... this year... that's the pressure. That's totally reasonable. She worries about what I say about her behind her back... well here I am. Like that's a legit thing we all worry about all the time and then get over. No way she isn't bitching and moaning about me in a blog somewhere and to anyone else who will listen. She doesn't like how much her project has changed over the two years... this is bonkers because it is the least changed PhD I've ever seen... she's literally done the exact same experiment over and over for two years and the time blowout (because she didn't take a lot of my advice) just means she's dropped a couple of chapters (which I've now wasted several thousand dollars on) but other than that... The whole thing is so fucking infuriating.

Like I literally can't think of anything else she came up with that was a legit, solid concern and not just 'hand waving'.

So we have our scheduled weekly meeting 10am this morning and on Monday we agree she's going to write a list of the things I can change to make things better for her and I'm going to come up with highly structured plans (but not with deadlines because that'll be too stressful) for her third year experimental work and writing her paper. She emails at 8am to say she won't be coming in because she's feeling unwell. Totally fine if this is unrelated and she's just sick. But I'm betting she's not feeling mentally well enough - which is also fine, sometimes you need mental space and that's okay - except she knows I'm off campus Thursday and Friday... and Monday is a public holiday... so all of a sudden she's just going to avoid talking about this with me for over a week... so she can lock herself in her head and get so much worse. I've told her that if staying home is related to the PhD and not just physical sickness she really needs to talk to someone. Either in counselling or one of the many other academics I've told her to talk to in the past. She has co-supervisors and panel chairs.

So we will see. The irony here, I guess, is that in doing this she's left me to stew in my own shitty feelings for a week as well. We will see if I spiral or cope.

ho hum.

[lifmera]

Hello! It's for the matchups trade. I'd like Genshin and Tokyo revengers. I don't mind anyone in genshin. But tokyo revengers no baiji, chifuyu or izana (if anyone treats me like that I'd ruin his life)

She/her

Gemini

Intp

5w4

Asexual/heteromantic

Chaotic Good

Appearance: 164cm. Brown wavy hair, dark Brown eyes. Curvy body I guess? I'm pale with visible beauty marks like on my lips. I wear glasses/sunglasses. I've been described as cute and a tease because I always bite my lips out of habit lol. I often have a tired/annoyed expression or a smile. I wear comfy clothes and even pj outside. Or cliché villain clothes, no in between. I try to wear gloves to stop myself from bitting my nails.

I appear as cold and very sarcastic. But I can be charismatic when I want. I'm always polite unless I dislike you (you'll know it because I become passive agressive). How I act depends on how you act with me, unless I'm in a bad mood. In that case I isolate to not break hearts too much. I act flirty around my friends and is known for sometimes playing with hearts (I'm oblivious to it). I'm petty and can go very far out of spite or vengeance. I curse a lot and will call you out on your bullshit with no issue no matter who you are.

I'm moody and not a morning person AT ALL. I'm brutally honest and it affected some friendships because people sometimes won't dare to approach me. I'm also socially obvious to a lot of things. I'm very curious and have a short attention spawn.

Getting along with me is easy peasy. As long as you're not whiny or a hypocrite we will get along. Now getting to know me is....nearly impossible. No friend of mine has managed to make me spill my problems even thought they share theirs and I help them out. My trust issues and daddy issues are too important for that lol. I don't open up and bottle my feelings all the time till I shut down or explode. I isolate a lot when I have problems or I'm just thinking (I love daydreaming). I'm rebellious but also a smooth talker. My friends know I have good intentions and would never wrong an innocent person. I'm the smart but reckless friend cuz I'll always hype up bad ideas for fun. I can be a bit naive. Even thought I have morbid curiosity and shared dubious experimental ideas....morals ain't my Forte. I'm more logical than emotional. I'm ambitious and can't stand my own failure. But I'm also lazy and a procrastinator which is a terrible combo. I'm always willing to debate and learn new things because knowledge is very important to me. I'm creative and innovative, I know when to get to business. I'm very competitive and try to hide it. Yeah I have an ego, so what? if you don't have a solid argument with me, I'll destroy you.

Despite that, I joke a lot and never take anything seriously. It happens that I underestimate people (I beat them later sooo). I'm a big tease and love to rile up people and see them get angry. I subtly insult people when they piss me off.

Because of that, I get very lonely and I'm misunderstood. I don't recognize my own feelings and mask that pretty well as it fools everyone. i don't consider myself to be a good person for some reasons. I envy easily and get annoyed easily because I want to succeed above all lol. Oh and I love money.

I mostly kin Malleus, Floyd, Furina, Diavolo from OM, Douma and perhaps some ratio.

Hobbies: Reading (mystery, thriller, fantasy), true crime, video games, manga, drawing, baking, fighting sports (sparing and shooting), learning, daydreaming. I love space and mad scientists stories. My aesthetic is definitely related to those subjects as well as the sea and stars.

I'm insecure about my weight despite not being overweight.

In a relationship, I'm the most chill person. I don't get jealous or clingy. You can do whatever you want. I'm always here to give you advices because helping you out, giving you my time and giving you gifts is my love langage. It bothered my last boyfriend because he thought I wasn't emotionally present and isolated a lot (which I did. I warned him that I accepted out of boredroom and didn't love him but he still went ahead. Then he emotionally cheated on my bd and everyone noticed but me lol. I separated from those friends cuz none told me and I value honesty a lot). I love cuddles but I'll take time to accept physical touch. I enjoy a partner that can keep up with me and be patient and honest because I value honesty. I also love receiving gifts because uh...I grew up with them validating love. I hate whiny and cowardly people.

I speak Arabic, French and English. I'm an only child. I study electronics and want to work in space related studies. One of my childhood dream was making clones out of people and messing with DNA but it's apparently immoral which I don't understand. I mean if I agree then all should be fine no?

HI HUN!! IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. ……..

MATCHUP Trade w @imjustabeanie !!!

I’ve decided to pair you with….. CHILDE … & DRAKEN!!

Draken!!

Let’s be honest. He’d totally be somewhat reminded of mikey- personality wise.

At first he’d probably treat you the same as mikey, take care of you n all!!

Although he wants you to talk to him about your problems, he knows when to not push.

He wont talk about his problems, but would encourage you to talk. He doesnt want to be closed off.

Lets be honest, it’d take a lot to get Ken REALLLLYYY mad. He’d probably tease you back.

Moral wise: I think Ken would think you are still a good person. If you are human, you do bad things no matter what. If you get along with Ken, it means you are a good person 🩷

He’d probably be the best person to talk to for any problems/insecurity. He always knows what to say!! Esp growing up in a brothel.

He’d love spending time with you. Personally ken seems like he’d honestly love to give you gifts back, and whatever you give him he’d keep forever. A plushie? On his bed. A poster? Hung up on his wall. Matching bracelets? Always wearing it.

I think he’d be more happy that you aren’t clingy- just because he’s probably always busy with Mikey, or Toman.

He definitely will be the one of keep up with you. He has a great emotional maturity!! If it takes time for physical touch he’s fine with that, I think he prefers quality time and gift giving anyways!!

Speaking different languages is so cool to him!! I think he’d be so proud whenever you spoke a diff language like “THATS MINE!!!!”

Out of the two, I think he’d be less likely to let you clone him, but would nonetheless…..

CHILDE!!!

Perfect personality for this man. Lets be honest!!

If you hated him, he’d love to egg you on. He’d probably flirt with you if you hated him!

But if you LIKE him, he’d be more ecstatic. He’d approach you with your cold demeanor- but getting close to you would make him so happy!

He definitely loves how petty you can be! It gets him going.

He also makes everything in jokes. But he knows when to take something seriously. He has younger siblings, and he knows when things get taken too far.

He LOVES being competitive !!! You guys would debate constantly, even if you win a lot.

He’d enjoy whenever you would hype him up for the dumbest shit he’d do. “Do a back flip!”

Also pretty emotionally unavailable. He wouldn’t come to you for his problems.

He can be 50/50 on talking about his problems. If he’s having a really bad day he will probably be VERY cold.

But he also wont force you to talk about your problems. I feel like he’s super bad at comforting people.

Since Ajax is NEVER around, his love languages are definitely 1) physical touch and 2) gift giving.

He always buys things for his younger siblings, because he knows he isn’t able to always be there for them, and hopes he could be able to do the same with you!

Now with physical touch, I feel like it would allow him to be in the moment. He understands if you need time, but he will never decline!

I feel like he def speaks a diff language, so he’d try to learn more languages to be able to talk to you in it!!!

Now will 10000000000000% let you clone him. He’d think it’d be funny, as long as you don’t work with dottore.

~~~~~~

AGAIN IM SORRY THIS TOOK FOREVER ML … 🩷🩷🩷 HOPE YOU ENJOY

[firstdivisiongirl]

Hello! Can I get a Tokyo Revengers match please?

No Baiji, kazutora or Takemitchi please ^^'. I don't mind any other character, even from the manga or from antagonists if there are any real one in that fandom lol.

She/her, Gemini, Intp, 5w4

Asexual/heteromantic

Chaotic Good

Appearance: 164cm. Brown wavy hair, dark Brown eyes. Curvy body I guess? I'm pale with visible beauty marks like on my lips. I wear glasses/sunglasses. I've been described as cute and a tease because I always bite my lips out of habit lol. I often have a tired/annoyed expression or a smile. I wear comfy clothes and even pj outside. Or cliché villain clothes, no in between. I try to wear gloves to stop myself from bitting my nails.

I appear as cold and very sarcastic. But I can be charismatic when I want. I'm always polite unless I dislike you (you'll know it because I become passive agressive). How I act depends on how you act with me, unless I'm in a bad mood. In that case I isolate to not break hearts too much. I act flirty around my friends and is known for sometimes playing with hearts (I'm oblivious to it). I'm petty and can go very far out of spite or vengeance. I curse a lot and will call you out on your bullshit with no issue no matter who you are.

I'm moody and not a morning person AT ALL. I'm brutally honest and it affected some friendships because people sometimes won't dare to approach me. I'm also socially obvious to a lot of things. I'm very curious and have a short attention spawn.

Getting along with me is easy peasy. As long as you're not whiny or a hypocrite we will get along. Now getting to know me is....nearly impossible. No friend of mine has managed to make me spill my problems even thought they share theirs and I help them out. My trust issues and daddy issues are too important for that lol. I don't open up and bottle my feelings all the time till I shut down or explode. I isolate a lot when I have problems or I'm just thinking (I love daydreaming). I'm rebellious but also a smooth talker. My friends know I have good intentions and would never wrong an innocent person. I'm the smart but reckless friend cuz I'll always hype up bad ideas for fun. I can be a bit naive. Even thought I have morbid curiosity and shared dubious experimental ideas....morals ain't my Forte. I'm more logical than emotional. I'm ambitious and can't stand my own failure. But I'm also lazy and a procrastinator which is a terrible combo. I'm always willing to debate and learn new things because knowledge is very important to me. I'm creative and innovative, I know when to get to business. I'm very competitive and try to hide it. Yeah I have an ego, so what? if you don't have a solid argument with me, I'll destroy you.

Despite that, I joke a lot and never take anything seriously. It happens that I underestimate people (I beat them later sooo). I'm a big tease and love to rile up people and see them get angry. I subtly insult people when they piss me off.

Because of that, I get very lonely and I'm misunderstood. I don't recognize my own feelings and mask that pretty well as it fools everyone. i don't consider myself to be a good person for some reasons. I envy easily and get annoyed easily because I want to succeed above all lol. Oh and I love money. I like gifting my friends and receiving gifts.

Hobbies: Reading (mystery, thriller, fantasy), true crime, video games, manga, drawing, baking, fighting sports (sparing and shooting), learning, daydreaming. I love space and mad scientists stories. My aesthetic is definitely related to those subjects as well as the sea and stars.

I'm insecure about my weight despite not being overweight.

In a relationship, I'm the most chill person. I don't get jealous or clingy. You can do whatever you want. I'm always here to give you advices because helping you out, giving you my time and giving you gifts is my love langage. It bothered my last boyfriend because he thought I wasn't emotionally present and isolated a lot (which I did. I warned him that I accepted out of boredroom and didn't love him but he still went ahead. Then he emotionally cheated on my bd and everyone noticed but me lol. I separated from those friends cuz none told me and I value honesty a lot). I love cuddles but I'll take time to accept physical touch. I enjoy a partner that can keep up with me. I also love receiving gifts because uh...I grew up with them validating love. I hate whiny and cowardly people. I don't fall first and don't make the first move. I guess a possessive partner would be nice (the red flag in me is talking don't mind)

I speak Arabic, French and English. I'm an only child. I study electronics and want to work in space related studies.

Thank you! You can just tag me instead of answering the ask ^^

Thanks for the request @imjustabeanie. For matchups, it’s all about personality, hobbies, etc, so all characters are eligible. I understand you don’t want certain characters, however I still had to consider them in this decision because they might be the perfect match. Thankfully for you, they were not. So, let’s get into it!

You Got…

Rindou Haitani!!!

Boy is related to Ran. So having someone in his life who can he lazy is no big deal!

He’s love your mischievous side. It would excite him

I picture star gazing dates! That’s so romantic I can’t!!!

I feel like he’d be really good at gift giving. He’s really good in a team and knowing what a person’s strength and weaknesses are, so I feel like that would be the same with what people like.

Doesn’t seem to be needy and I feel like he wouldn’t be upset if you are super chill.

would support you and your ambition

I hope you like it!

[fourseasonsfigs]

Many Seeds Many Blessings

There's a lot of reasons I like this set, not the least because we have Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun in their bright blue and red Wenzhou colors.

I also like figs that have a leg kicked up, like Zhehan does here in his inspiration photo:

I love active poses from Zhehan, he's always so athletic and graceful looking in motion.

Here's the inspiration for Gong Jun's outfit and pose:

What an absolutely beautiful smile from Junjun. I wouldn't think a Safeguard soap ad would feature one of my favorite smiles of his, but here we are.

I really, really love the bandana on his wrist - not only does it highlight the strength of his arm and the beauty of his hand and fingers, but it also has the pop of bright blue. Which I know is for Safeguard's logo, not the Wenzhou blue, but the associations are still really nice for me!

Before we get started, with fig pics, I just wanted to say I'm DISAPPOINTED in these figs. Well, not the figs, they're innocent. The FIG MAKER. She posted a pic of the figs looking like this:

Notice the smooch on Zhehan's sliver of chest and of course right there under Gong Jun's beauty mark. I was so charmed! Then I got these figs, and saw the kiss on Gong Jun's face, but where is the kiss on Zhehan?!? NOT there in the final product!

I don't know about you, but I'm a fan of equal smooch time, and I have a feeling some of you may be too. More to come on that.

These two arrived safely! They were part of the experimental batch I didn't air column wrap, so thankfully they were not victims of my own hubris.

Zhehan looks a little woeful here, no doubt because he's lacking a good solid smooch. It's OK honey, we'll see what we can do about that.

I'm just tickled that these figs can actually stand. They're pretty heavy, so I was a bit worried to experiment with them, but they stand beautifully. AND, not only can they stand, but Zhehan can stand on either foot!

Actually, the fact that he can stand on either foot proved difficult (for me) as I very carefully noted that he was standing on his right leg in the magazine picture, and mentally chanted, right leg right leg right leg as I was taking pictures. And then promptly managed to take a pic of him on his left leg.

Ahh it's been a while, but we're back to the typical JZP fig maker fig silhouettes. We've got Junjun's very slim runway model proportions, and Zhehan's lusher frame.

Both of their sets of legs are cute! I like we've got a little bit of movement for Junjun too.

This is such a cute angle on Junjun! Adorable.

Even a cuter angle! Good shot of the silhouettes too.

I wish we had gotten the scarf around Junjun's wrist, but that would likely have been quite difficult.

Well, since I took the photo anyway, here's how he stands on the other leg!

Nice and clean paint. The clothes are simple but executed quite well.

The pants aren't as shiny as they look, I just have late afternoon sun pouring in through my window and lighting up the figs!

Oops. I got here and realized I had not taken a top down picture! I had already finished up and put the figs on stands and away on my fig display. Alright, they came back for a photo encore.

I had been so focused on poor smooch-less Zhehan, and making sure he got all the kisses he so rightfully deserves!

I had this water sticker pack that was part of the Zhongpei fig set, and as you can see it had quite a few little lip stickers.

As you can see, the little lip print is quite a bit bigger than the one on Junjun, and a little bit darker. I don't mind the darker color, since Junjun's eating a pomegranate, after all, but the fact that it's bigger is problematic. There's very little real estate there on Zhehan's chest.

You can see there's definitely no room on his chest for the entire print without it looking strange, so I trimmed it to have just enough peeking out.

Well, I'll cut to the chase...somehow I bungled the first couple tries. The first time I have no idea what happened, the kiss like smeared into a little red ball before I even was able to try to apply it. The second time I don't know what happened either, but the sticker would not stick for anything, no matter how much water or what I tried to do, either side. The third time I realized that the sticker is the opposite side, so I could only stick it on his right side.

The third time was the charm! There's a little bit of a line where I wasn't able to get it snug enough against the lapel, but honestly it was a miracle I even got it on. I'll get a little bit of acrylic paint and paint in the little bit of the line so it looks like it's under the lapel. I still have one kiss sticker left, but I didn't dare take this off and try to reapply - it was very difficult to get on as it is! It also bunched up, but I ran my finger over it and it stretched out somehow. I'm not rolling the dice that I'll be able to do any better!

This also came with a magnet as a free gift. And look! They put the kiss on the same side I did! Looks like that worked out.

Material: Resin...and some smooches!

Fig Count: 423

Scene Count: 29

Rating: 💋💋

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[beyondmistland]

Book Review (7/3/23)

The King Must Fall by Adrian Collins (4/5)

A wonderful collection of dark and bloody stories. What You Wish For by Devin Madson (4.5/5) Maybe it’s the fact this is the first story in the anthology or maybe it’s that fairytale-like ending but I loved this story apart from one or two of the character names. The Dark Son by Luke Scull (4/5) Apart from the jungle setting the story wasn’t too original but it did benefit from having one of the rare endings to come with a positive message. Glory to the King! by Anna Smith Spark (3/5) While the idea of imposter syndrome in an undefeated ruler was interesting to read and the writing generally solid, said ruler’s profanity-laced narration struck me as more juvenile than moving personally speaking. The Book Burner’s Fall by Anthony Ryan (3.5/5) While well-written, particularly in its opening sections, I was left somewhat dissatisfied by the climax. Mother Death by Michael R. Fletcher (5/5) The Ice Age-inspired setting, the unique magic system, and the compelling first-person narration made this one an instant favorite of mine. The Black Horse by Jeremy Szal (4/5) The bloodiest of the bunch, this story really reminded me of TLOU from the dynamic between the two main characters to the moral dilemma presented at the climax. Thrall by Lee Murray (4/5) The story didn’t do anything unexpected apart from making the selkies New Zealander but it was well-told. King for a Day by Daniel Polansky (4/5) The Mesoamerican-inspired setting was interesting but what really grabbed my attention was just how many times the MacGuffin changed hands, not to mention the fact each murderous, would-be ruler having a different reason for wanting power. Looking back now, it kind of reads like someone adding the One Ring or the Green Pearl to The Emperor’s New Groove, which…obviously isn’t very funny. The King-Killing Queen by Shawn Speakman (5/5) Really wish I could have backed the expanded edition on Kickstarter. Anyway, what I liked most about this particular story was the blending of an Arthurian-based mythos with a GRRM-like sensibility regarding the human condition. The Face of the King by Adrian Tchaikovsky (5/5) This story was by far the most experimental, which immediately earns it some brownie points. The fact Tchaikovsky actually managed to pull off the present tense, second-person narration and stick the landing with one of the most memorable endings in the whole book, on the other hand, elevates it to the top of the pile. Hand of the Artist by Trudi Canavan (5/5) This was another first-person story I really enjoyed. The protagonist was very relatable and it was nice to see a king be brought down through the healing power of art for a change. The Conspiracy Against the Twenty-Third Canton by Alex Marshall (4.5/5) A non-European setting combined with two likable female protagonists and a few good twists made this a pleasure to listen to though there were some instances of modern language I didn’t particularly enjoy. Also, cannibalism. The Blade Queen and the Stoneheart by Anna Stephens (3/5) Apart from the titular Blade Queen none of the characters were that interesting and again the amount of profanity was a turn-off. That said, the ending did leave a striking image in my mind and the homage to Eowyn from LOTR a nice touch as well. The Day the Gods Went Silent by Justin T. Call (3/5) Well-written but overstuffed with world-building. A Piece of Movable Type by Peter Orullian (2.5/5) Apart from the ending the story wasn’t so much bad as it was dull and underwhelming. Definitely the weakest of the bunch in my opinion. The Wizard in the Tower by Kameron Hurley (5/5) I wasn’t expecting something romantic but I’m also not going to complain when it’s this good. The Varcolac by Matthew Ward (4.5/5) The relatively straightforward plot was elevated by cool characters, excellent prose, and a stellar ending that left me torn. On Wings of Song by Deborah A. Wolf (5/5) A fairytale-like story of sirens and female friendship that was heartwarming, if appropriately bloody by the end. The Last Days of Old Sharakhi by Bradley P. Beaulieu (4.5/5) Definitely a high note to end the anthology on. As an Arab, I adored the Middle Eastern setting but just as much I enjoyed the themes of change, legacy, and mortality. Special shoutout to audiobook narrator, Greg Patmore, who did an excellent job narrating each story.

Currently reading: Stardust by Neil Gaiman

[ethereal-moonglow]

Helloooo! May I have a genshin male matchup Please? I don't mind the fatui, even non playable but just no scaramouche please

She/her, Gemini, Intp, 5w4

Chaotic Good

Appearance: 164cm. Brown wavy hair, dark Brown eyes. Curvy body I guess? I'm pale with visible beauty marks like on my lips. I wear glasses/sunglasses. I've been described as cute and a tease because I always bite my lips out of habit lol. I often have a tired/annoyed expression or a smile. I wear comfy clothes and even pj outside. Or cliché villain clothes, no in between. I try to wear gloves to stop myself from bitting my nails. I guess I am slightly overweight? 80kg due to medical reasons and a weird metabolism, plus I have heavy bones

About me:

I appear as cold and very sarcastic. But I can be charismatic when I want. I'm always polite unless I dislike you (you'll know it because I become passive agressive). How I act depends on how you act with me, unless I'm in a bad mood. In that case I isolate to not be too mean. I act flirty around my friends and is known for sometimes playing with hearts (I'm oblivious to it). I'm petty and can go very far out of spite or vengeance. I curse a lot and will call you out on your bullshit with no issue no matter who you are. Did I loose people over this? Yes.

I'm moody and not a morning person AT ALL. I'm brutally honest and it affected some friendships because people sometimes won't dare to approach me. I'm also socially obvious to a lot of things. I'm very curious and have a short attention span. I'm academic smart but not really street smart thh. I'll get into a stranger car and just think if he tries something I'll stir the wheel or choke them...same if I walk in the street, if you try something I'll push you in front of a car

Getting along with me is easy peasy. As long as you're not a hypocrite we will get along. Now getting to know me is....nearly impossible. No friend of mine has managed to make me spill my problems even though they share theirs and I help them out. Even when I think I am sharing I am apparently not? My trust issues issues are too important for that lol. I don't open up and bottle my feelings all the time till I shut down or explode. I isolate a lot when I have problems or I'm just thinking (I love daydreaming). I'm rebellious but also a smooth talker. My friends know I have good intentions and would never wrong an innocent person. I'm the smart but reckless friend cuz I'll always hype up bad ideas for fun. I can be a bit naïve, I often assume that people don’t have a hidden agenda and it caused me problems in the past because spoiler alert they do! Now we all have some kind of hidden agenda but if I am in your team and you try to pull one over me…No mercy. I have morbid curiosity and shared dubious experimental ideas....Yes I am the type that can eat and look at a crime scene. I'm more logical than emotional. I'm ambitious and can't stand my own failure. But I'm also lazy and a procrastinator which is a terrible combo. I'm always willing to debate and learn new things because knowledge is very important to me. I'm creative and innovative, I know when to get to business. I'm very competitive and try to hide it. Yeah I have an ego, so what? if you don't have a solid argument with me, I'll destroy you.

Despite that, I joke a lot and never take anything seriously. It happens that I underestimate people. I'm a big tease and love to rile up people and see them get angry. I subtly insult people when they piss me off. I was always judged for my ideas even if they work

Because of that, I get very lonely and I'm misunderstood. I can handle being alone quite well since most of my friends betrayed me. Including a very close one who encouraged me to open up for years...and then they wonder why I have trust issues (if you want to confess just do it why wait years and then be like I don’t believe in boy girls friendships). I don't recognize my own feelings and mask that pretty well as it fools everyone. I don't consider myself to be a good person for some reasons. I envy easily and get annoyed easily because I want to succeed above all lol. Oh and I love money. I like gifting my friends and receiving gifts.

Hobbies:

Reading (mystery, thriller, fantasy), true crime, video games, drawing, baking (I’m quite good at it. It started mostly by being non satisfied over local bakeries qualities or prices), fighting sports (sparing and shooting), learning, daydreaming. I love space and mad scientists stories. My aesthetic is definitely related to those subjects as well as the sea and stars.I used to write poetry. I enjoy gacha games…just for the gamba part and lore

Likes:

Cats, sweet foods, plushies, hoodies, gossip (putting those reddit stories in the background), cheese, red flags, puzzles, true crime, juicy parts of history, mythology, sleeping or just lying in bed. I lowkey likes organizing BUT my room is very messy

Dislikes:

I am thalassophobic, dogs, crowded places, someone that’s forceful, bullying, foods that have a lot of oily sauce…and if it’s deep fried but has too much oil. Being bored. I hate owing something to someone. While yes I deal around and ask for favors I always repay in equal or more value. I’ll scam you if you scam me tho….I always have receipts or pictures

In a relationship:

I'm the chillest person. I don't get jealous or clingy. You can do whatever you want. I'm always here to give you advices because helping you out, giving you my time and giving you gifts is my love langage. It bothered my last boyfriend because he thought I wasn't emotionally present and isolated a lot (He knew what he was getting into. Then He cheated). I love cuddles but I'll take time to accept physical touch. I enjoy a partner that can keep up with me and be patient and honest because I value honesty in their feelings. I don’t care if they hide things, we all do, as long as it’s not gonna hurt me or us in the long run. Yes I like red flags and a friend called me a beige flag whatever it means. I enjoy stealing clothes and would prefer a taller partner. Not gonna lie…a little possessive/protective is cute. Make me feel wanted. So yeah I don't mind the crazy

I also love receiving gifts because uh...I grew up with them validating love. I hate cowardly people. I don't fall first and don't make the first move. Worse, there’s a high chance I say yes but will give it a period to see if I can develop feelings. I will be honest about my partner over this. I enjoy someone smart who can keep me on my toes but still knows how to relax. Also, due to exes I’d rather have someone taller than me

I speak Arabic, French and English. I'm an only child.

Thanks!

I would've written more but my hands hurt didbjdjd

But I hope you enjoy! Here it is

[characterdesignillustration]

FINAL REFLECTION

Finally finished. It took a very long time, lots of hours in the polytechnic and at home for a result I feel I can be proud of. If this course has taught me anything it's that character design takes a lot more time and planning than I would've guessed. That'd be something to keep in mind for the future, when planning for a design making sure to allocate more time than I'd think I need to compensate for my overly ambitious projects. My goal with this project was to improve as a designer generally, I didn't really have a defined goal, but I most certainly came out a much better designer, and a much better artist. Those practice exercises with the poses helped me get a good grasp on human anatomy which was something I wanted to learn but never knew how to approach. For this final piece in particular I had an idea in mind with these skeletal owl creatures, I knew I wanted to do something with that, but I needed to create a story for them to exist in. So, Hunter Price was created to serve the setting first rather than the character design, which kind of shows. His design isn't too detailed or overly interesting, but it's more to contrast with the weirdness of the new world he's found himself in. What helped cement his character in my head was when I wrote out a day in his life, just to get a feel for what sort of person he was, that helped me visualize him better. Honestly, the final project came together better than I thought it did, I took risks (coloured outlines, detailed setting design, fisheye perspective (not really a conventional perspective used in film posters)) and they paid off really well and in the future I'll be more open to experimentation/risk with my designs. Though, it's not all positive, I felt like Hunter's head design could've been a lot more solid, especially considering my previous designs in this same course (Leebourne especially) having solid expressions. I guess I was in a rush so it didn't turn out too well, but still, it's passable. I'd definitely spend more time on the character design aspect in the future as my characters generally aren't too unique looking with basic sets of clothing and normal looking facial features, just sort of regular people. But then again, I've always disliked overly complex character designs, just visual noise, but I still could've done better because sometimes the most simplistic designs are the most memorable. But, with the skills I've developed I can finally get onto some personal projects of mine that've been sitting within the vaults of my mind, I finally feel confident in my ability to produce something that's up to my quality standard. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with how this course played out, and it was most certainly my favourite course we've done so far.

[mi5019roishutton]

Yellow Hat

For my yellow hat, I began again with after effects to experiment with what I could do to represent the benefits of atomic energy. In my research, most of the benefits I found related to clean energy and harnessing atomic energy for the future so as to phase out fossil fuels.

I wanted more artistic experimentation for this hat. When I thought of clean energy, what came to mind was freshness of air and clearing off the smoginess of populated urban areas which rely heavily on fossil fuels for electricity.

Colours I associate with freshness are green, blue, white and maybe some shades of yellow.

I screenrecorded a digital painting of these colours.

I used this as a background for the yellow hat in After Effects, then began experimenting with what to place on top of this.

I thought to look at symbols of balance as I associate clean energy with this idea of balance in nature and found that throughout many cultures, circles were the common shape used to represent balance. I

I used a triangle solid and keyframed this to develop into a many-pointed spiral that went from a dark, murky green to white. For now, I am happy with this imagery but will return to it in a while to see if I can elevate this further.

I would like to show the swell and deflation of breath that we take when the air is particularly fresh and 'clean'.

I discovered the Bulge effect through a youtube tutorial:

I thought of an ident I saw for BBC 2 that reminded me of this 'freshness' idea and I drew inspiration from it:

I moved the bulge tool slowly to the centre to represent a deep breath, then leave quickly to resemble an exhale.

[process-and-enquiry-of]

☆final install☆

Decided to separate my works into sections so that all together they could complement each other.

Even though the installation isn't taken into consideration while marking in this particular module, I still believe it affects how the work presents itself.

Artist Statement

Let the theme be my happiness. 

Does it hold significance for you, or is it perceived as trivial?

After navigating through the traumas of ordeals for years, I yearn to embrace joy. I want to disregard its complexity and reconcile with what has been lost to it.

As I perceive colours, I also interpret emotions. Yet, I question whether it is my eyes truly feeling on my behalf or if it's my mind, perhaps deceiving itself to offer a pleasing narrative.

By intertwining traditional artistic practices such as painting and drawing with the incorporation of mixed media, I found ways to express. Additionally, digital manipulation enables me to depict a fixed narrative, a journey where the complexity could have initially led me astray once again.  

Evaluation

A primary challenge in my creative work lies in a recurring self-centred theme. While this introspective focus constantly generates new ideas for exploration, it has also led to a never-ending flow of concepts and a sense of dissatisfaction with the body of work produced. While I believe that improved time management skills may not be the solution to this very concern, I recognise its potential to facilitate the generation of a larger quantity of developments, allowing for the exploration of various practices and techniques that could contribute to a more satisfying portfolio.

Another issue I have been facing is being entrenched in my comfort zone. This reluctance to experiment stems from a fear of uncertainty regarding the outcomes. Consequently, the fear hinders my ability to fully engage in the creative process. The studio space, intended as a facility for exploration, feels intimidating, and the fear of taking up space prevents my utilization of available resources.

I have also limited my exposure to ideas and possibilities that thorough research has the potential to uncover due to my intense focus on interpreting topics through my own lens. This, combined with the challenge of organizing my thoughts effectively, has resulted in missed opportunities for further development. The fear of not having enough time to refine potential ideas into what I perceive as solid art pieces adds an additional layer of hesitation and restraint to my creative process.

Nevertheless, I cannot characterize the body of work I've produced as unsuccessful. While I may not have fully achieved the goals I set for myself, mainly due to the time-consuming nature and the unconventional materials that I wanted to venture into, which I hadn't worked with before and thus struggled to find the use of, The process itself has made me stretch the boundaries of my comfort zone. This is evident in both the scale of my pieces and the adoption of positive and simplistic concepts, which stand in prominent contrast to the complex and trauma-based themes that have been the focus of my previous work until now combined with developing the new colour palettes aligning with interpretation on the emotional aspect of my theme.

In my upcoming projects, I aim to prioritize experimentation, enhance my assertiveness in setting goals and deadlines, and overcome the fear associated with my creative work. I aspire to create more, even if the outcomes are not immediately successful, recognizing that this approach contributes to the continuous development of my artistic process.

[emptymanuscript]

A fairly quite long time ago now, I took a writing workshop from Orson Scott Card. And I am often surprised and delighted by how much the writing wisdom he gave back then still ends up paying me dividends.

One of his bits was about horror - as an event in a story, not the genre.

You always have to have enough detail so the audience knows what happened but after that how much you put in is optional. Differing amounts of those optional details have as much effect as the details themselves. Because, after the essentials, putting in details is controlling what in a scene comes out of the writer’s imagination and what comes out of the reader’s imagination.

Put in lots of details and that is making the moment come out of your mind. Skimp on the details and you are making the reader fill in those gaps with what’s in their head.

You’re always co-authoring, you’re always the senior creator. Detail is one of the primary ways you assign work load to the reader as co-author.

For intense emotional labor, you want to assign more work to the reader than yourself because the reader will always feel their own emotions more strongly than your emotions. So the more you provoke instead of provide emotions, the more the audience will feel instead of think.

That’s really just show vs & tell with the numbers filed off. But for horror it means that if you really want to trigger the audience’s emotions and get them all riled up and disturbed by their deepest fears playing out in the most gruesome way possible, instead of pouring on the details of gore and violence and danger and angst and all that jazzy ornamentation, you dial it back to the minimum so they fill it in.

His example was the shower fight in Ender’s Game. It was the scene he got the most letters about. People would just endlessly write to him in objection to how violent and just horrific it was. They would talk about just how over the top some particular instance of it had been. But he hadn’t written any of that. It’s actually an intensely spare scene. All the violence and horror and gore is what they made up themselves which was worse for them than anything he could have come up with.

Ok. Flash forward 22 years.

I’m “working” on an experimental piece (read: I have barely any idea what I’m doing) which I’m trying to balance between being horrific and angsty but not TOO horrific and angsty. I want it to be a dark read, not too dark to read.

So the last bit I wrote, NOT thinking of Card’s advice, I thought: you know, I gave a fair amount of gruesomeness last time, I think I should really dial this back. Just a few details.

I read it in one of my writing groups last night and, where everyone had been fairly calm and collected about the same stuff last time it came up, I ended up clearly triggering about half the group. Nearly everyone mentioned how disturbing this bit, that I had dialed back was, when last one, where I lingered on it, they reassured me it wasn’t too much.

And I’m just listening and being blown away as Card’s whole lecture is coming back to me and realizing I had done it by accident but wow, did it pan out as right.

And I am just always delighted to grasp some of the clockwork of story. Even when it’s clockwork I have been shown before. I love that there is this sort of Alchemicalness to such an integral part of all our lives. We’re exposed to story all the time every day. It’s as normal as talking.

And nobody knows anything. It’s all magic and guesswork driven by intuition and bs. ART!

AND

There clearly is some kind of science there, too. Something obscenely complex but graspable and learnable. In the same way that physics is utterly arcane but deeply solid underneath even if it’s so weird it breaks our minds a little. It’s learnable. Reproducible.

I love that.

I love that it’s both.

That feeling of seeing it tick in both ways energizes and delights me. Honestly, it makes me feel more like a wizard than fiddling around with metaphysics. Or even actually writing, sometimes XD!

So yeah, last night’s minimal detail making people more horrified than more detail previously given is my last delight.

Hope it entertained you or helped you pass out for some needed rest ;) either or ;) Hope you feel better. And I will shut up now.

so so so so so tired today and could use some happy things, so: reblog and tell me the most recent thing that delighted you?

[old1ddude]

Poppy Styles

For the purposes of this post, I’m defining pop as a genre (which is a neutral category encompassing both great and crap music) and poppy as music in some way compromised, so as to be more “radio friendly” and in line with popular trends.

On HS1, I believe Harry intentionally bucked trends.  Many consider “Sign of the Times” to be a pop ballad (and I would say a rock, or pop/rock ballad) but I don’t think anyone would accuse it of being poppy.  Likewise, “Two Ghosts,” “Sweet Creature” and “Kiwi” are anything but poppy.  Likewise, the other tracks on HS1 (the non-singles) lack poppy devices, or attributes. 

When he made Fine Line, I believe Harry (perhaps out of ambition, but more likely due to outside pressures, such as his label) conceded to making his singles poppy.  Harry doesn’t make crap music, but how does one make wholesome food appeal to those with McDonald's taste?  Well, you can take perfectly good food and add things, such as loads of high fructose corn syrup, copious hydrogenated oil and excessive salt.  With music, you can add some kind of a catchy hook, even if it becomes irritating over time.  Many cheap sounds/effects can be added to music to imitate other songs which are currently getting people hooked.

Now, there are certain poppy attributes which I find more appealing (just as I find certain junk foods hard to resist) and certain ones which I can not stand in the current day’s iteration of poppy-ness.  I enjoy “Golden” and “Watermelon Sugar,” but there is nothing substantial to either of the songs and they do have some cheesy synth parts which seem calculated to fit trendy sensibilities.  “Adore You” and “Lights Up” are meaty, well crafted songs, but they have been produced and the instruments arranged/chosen in such a way as to sugar them up.  Electronic vocal effects (some much more subtle than others) are an extremely easy way to poppify an otherwise solid song.  “Falling” is a solid ballad, although doesn’t stand up to heavy, repeated listening (in my not so humble opinion.)  The ostinato piano part (a short melody or pattern that is constantly repeated) serves as a sort of poppy hook.  Harry’s vocal for “Falling” is powerful and moving, but the very thing that “hooks you” that ostinato piano, is what gets old about the song, if you listen too much.  I very much enjoy “Treat People With Kindness,” but it’s undeniable that there is some poppy production involved -- especially the vocal effects in the “All we ever want is automatic” section.  I don’t see poppy-ness employed in the non-singles of Fine Line.  One could argue that “Sunflower v. 6″ employs certain poppy elements, but I don’t believe that was Harry’s intent and the song seems almost experimental in many ways.

“As it Was” is a very solid, consequential song -- at least the equal to “Lights Up” in that regard.  However, the synth tone strikes me as very poppy and cheesy -- it sounds like something you might hear on radio Disney.  Harry’s voice sounds as if he’s a long way off, or in the bottom of a barrel, which enhances the idea that this is a conversation happening inside his mind --  unfortunately, his voice also sounds a bit unnatural (electronically modified) which really is a crime when you consider the instrument he commands.  The “lightning-fast internet” section has a very heavy auto-tune effect, which is extremely poppy and I find it particularly obnoxious, appalling and contrary to every sound principal of artistic merit. 

I’m very curious to find out if poppy-ness is confined to the singles on “Harry’s House.”  If so, I will only be able to conclude that it is a compromise and concession to the commercial pressures on his career.

[mochi-ficz]

the boyz' bedroom roles

how i imagine the boyz' role(s) when making love with you

it's me, your favorite horny bastard with something else tbz related because honestly?? i'm just a slut for tbz fanfiction as of recent. obviously, these are all strictly my opinions, but i feel like i should clarify that anyways. these are all genderless because gender is a social construct 😌 moving on

genre: smut, some fluff in certain parts

includes mentions of (oh god this is going to be a long list): praise kink, degradation kink, pet names, bdsm, torture, dacryphilia, brat taming, experimentalism, exhibitionism, brief mention of a threesome, cockwarming, cock slapping, sex toys, restraints, marking, forced submission, somnophilia, casual sex, vanilla sex, teasing, wax play, blindfolds, orgasm denial, cum eating, spit swallowing, spanking/whipping, katoptronophilia, face sitting, edging, overstimulation, milking

i think that's all the mentions/warnings, please let me know if you noticed i missed something!

a/n: the gifs are just some of my favorites, i really don't have a theme for them lol.

sangyeon!

i feel like it goes without saying at this point, if you follow me or keep up with me at all, you know i worship the idea of this man being a service top. i will continue to live under the belief that sangyeon is the service top.

my reasoning being that sangyeon is very warm and caring, and would love to please you any way he can, including sexually. sangyeon is so eager to please, and will cater to your every need accordingly. if you want him to be your little pain slut, he's more than willing. if you want him to fuck you senseless until you can barely form sentences and can't even remember what was troubling you to begin with, he'll do that too.

sangyeon truly lives to make you happy. this baby loves to be rewarded though, so please be sure to praise him for doing such a good job, and reward him with plenty of kisses and cuddles. it's also a reward for you because you get to see his angelic smile.

jacob!

honestly, i see jacob as a switch. i think jacob would be the perfect angelic sub, taking the pain you give him and taking your cock (whether fake or real) so well. jacob would look absolutely beautiful with tears decorating his cheeks, eyes glossed over with pleasure.

however, this little bitch is also a very good dom. any trace of that angelic sub i mentioned previously is gone. jacob is naturally musically inclined and would love to hear your beautiful voice scream his name as he drives you wild.

he loves to try new things with you as well, regardless of who is receiving it. honestly, you each feed off each other's happiness, and at the end of the day, jacob is still satisfied knowing you're happy as well.

please just be respectful with him, and treat him like the king he is. jacob knows his worth and won't settle for being used.

younghoon!

ABSOLUTE ANGEL. younghoon would be an amazing sub, despite being very large and looking somewhat intimidating at first. younghoon loves to be pleasured and rewarded for his good behavior. sometimes he'll try to tease you, but he would end up getting embarrassed, and you'd smile down at him as you notice the cutest little pink blush settling across his cheeks.

younghoon would also look beautiful with tears streaming down his face, and making the most sinful noises for you. this sweet baby loves your touches and will cum for you as many times as you want him to.

he loves bonding with you too. in any way possible. i feel like he's the member that would be the most down for cockwarming, regardless of which of you is giving or receiving. at the end of the day, he just wants you to hold him and wipe the tears from his eyes while you tell him how pretty he is and how good a job he did.

hyunjae!

brat #1. hyunjae does not want to be your sub willingly. he'd rather die than let you take him down easily. you'll have to use force if you want to hear his pretty sounds.

in my mind, the perfect scenario is having him tied up vertically, with a bar spreading his legs. you'll approach him with a devilish smirk and ask him "are you ready for your punishment, slut?" and he'll simply respond to you with a shit-eating grin and a triumphant "go to hell." i can imagine you edging for hours, waiting for him to break, and when he does, he's like clay in your hands.

honestly this man is a slut for pain, and loves to be degraded. if you call him a worthless piece of meat— or any degrading nickname by that matter— you can expect him to be rock solid.

i feel like hyunjae would be down with somnophilia, because despite being a little bratty bitch, he also loves being taken advantage of and treated as your toy.

juyeon!

i'm going against what seems to be the majority here and saying this boy is a sub. i realize his stage presence may make him look more dominant, but once he's underneath you, that facade will vanish.

he's a good boy, very much so, and like sangyeon, he loves to please. however, sometimes when he's in the mood, he'll try to dom you, in which case you'll simply have to make him see that he could never satisfy himself like you can when you're domming him.

i feel like he may slip into sub space a bit easier than other members? so please, when you're done with him, give baby gentle cuddles. he loves your kisses, and it's so rewarding seeing him sleepy from all the pleasure, and hearing him let out a soft, content sigh into the crook of your neck as you hold him tight.

kevin!

brat #2. again, i could just leave this off here, but that wouldn't be very fun.

speaking of fun, kevin would be the best member to have casual sex with. both of you mirroring the other's dopey smile as you make love.

however, when kevin wants to be bratty, he will be the biggest pain in the ass. if you thought dealing with hyunjae was a mess, just wait for kevin. he would annoy you anytime, anywhere. moaning into your ear in public, trying to touch up your thighs, rubbing his ass against your front nonchalantly, while you silently get infuriated.

kevin loves being punished, and loves to be marked up. be sure to fulfill his wishes, or he'll find even more clever and devious stunts to pull on you so you have no choice but to mark him up and punish him.

new!

do i even need to say it?

this man is such a little slut, and no, i will not be taking any criticism. he loves to look pretty for you, including cross dressing, and be treated like a prince. new has a massive praise kink, and would love to be told he looks and sounds beautiful.

he would also love to have hickeys on his neck and be marked. he sees himself as a piece of art, and each mark you give him just seems to add to his beauty. he's no stranger to rough sex, but he prefers you to be gentler and treat him like the beautiful doll he is.

did i mention he's also a crier? he's so sensitive, when you work him up enough, he'll just sob and make the most beautiful, yet pornographic sounds. he loves you to play with his sensitive nipples too.

some of his favorite things to do is play with wax and/or be blindfolded. you wouldn't mind, because with your marks on him and hot wax dripping down his front, he would look gorgeous.

q!

changmin would make an excellent power bottom.

his neck is literally made for marking up, so please take advantage of that. he's also one kinky little fucker, and loves to try new things. he would even be open to a threesome.

he likes praise and degradation, so if you call him things like "my slutty little prince," you can have him wrapped around your finger just like that.

he loves when you let him do what he wants with you, he has so many fantasies he wants to try. including sex in public. his dream is to be shoved up against a wall and fucked senseless, knowing that anyone could walk by and see him getting railed by you.

another one is you slapping his cock and denying him. he's no stranger to pain and would absolutely love for you to torture him. he loves bdsm and honestly any kind of toy or torture method he sees or hears about will immediately become something he wants to try.

as kinky as he is, he also needs to be reassured that you love him, so soft, passionate sex is also something he loves to do with you. he'll get shy looking into your loving eyes, and hide his face with his hands, but you can tell by the flush on the tips of his ears that he's embarrassed.

changmin is the king of duality, but at the end of the day, please love him. he loves to know you're his and he's yours.

juhaknyeon!

honestly with haknyeon, i'm not sure! i feel like he would be a switch as well. maybe one of those "freak in the sheets, normal in the streets" type of deals?

i feel like his love for food extends to the bedroom, and he would definitely swallow cum or spit for you if you asked him. he's open to try many things, and he's very sweet. honestly he just loves being happy with you, so just about anything is fine with him.

i love his smile and his laugh, and it's very contagious, so please make sure to make him do so often. he brightens up a room instantly.

sunwoo!

slut. slut for pain, slut for you, just a straight up slut. if he's committed to you and trusts you, he loves to be your kinky little bitch.

of course, he takes the spot of brat #3, but because he can't control himself, it won't take much torture before he begs for you to use him. he loves being degraded.

if you let him top you, you're getting railed, this boy has no self control, and just wants all the pleasure to himself. it's because of this that he's a master at eating you out when you ride his face. he wants to pleasure you as much as possible to get the best reward. he looks gorgeous with his hair all messy, his pillowy lips hitting all the right spots in and around your hole (or holes).

he's amazing with his tongue, and he's also very good at begging, knowing just what to say to make you give him what he wants. if you stand any chance of taming this brat, you'll need a lot of self control.

when you do give him what he wants, overstimulate him or milk him. take all of him and use him like the slut he is, he can't get enough of it. sex with sunwoo can and should be messy.

he also loves being spanked, and to see signs of your torture on his body, via rope burns, welts from a belt, red hot skin from your spankings, etc. he would also love mirror sex because of that. you should try making him hold eye contact with himself in the mirror as you absolutely wreck his body.

a/n: it won't let me post an eleventh gif here, and that is very homophobic. just use your imagination i suppose.💔

eric!

eric is a hopeless romantic, i'd definitely say he's a switch. i feel like your sex with him would be the most vanilla, but also the most loving and passionate out of all the members. both of you taking care of each other. he loves to catch your lips in gentle kisses.

he also likes his sex to be very clean, so you if you ride his face, take advantage of the fact you can make it messy. eric knows just how to please you whenever he's domming you, and loves to be taken care of when you're domming him as well.

your relationship with eric would really be furthered by sex, since he loves showing you affection. he thrives off the fact that he can trust you, and deeply appreciates that you reciprocate those feelings. if you're lucky, you might get to do some kinkier things with him, but i wouldn't exactly count on it.

[beevean]

Opinion: How could Sonamy progress in IDW?

[note: the original article was written in Spanish by @latin-dr-robotnik​]

Today we’re going to discuss a recurring topic on my blog, with a more complete perspective.

Today’s article was inspired by an ask I got a few days ago about my possible perspective on the future of IDW Sonamy. I thought it would be interesting to revisit and expand this topic, because it’s still something of great interest for thousands of fans all around the world, and because SEGA has recently adopted a very peculiar position on the couple and their dynamic. As I detailed on my article SEGA and its most recent Sonamy side – more canon than ever, the dynamic has been going through a shift that can be distinguished into two main parts: 1) the commercial potential of Sonamy as a merchandising and marketing icon; 2) the stability of the interactions in the comics, in the short monthly stories on Sonic Channel, and so on.

That being said, there’s no need to mention that we’re going to focus entirely and nothing more than on this ship. I usually suggest other articles for those who prefer to read on other subjects, but today I will recommend our Discord server [translator’s note: the server is mainly Spanish-speaking], where discussions about ships are limited on their own canal that is separated from other themes: general discussions, music, fangames and mods, fanfics, fanart and even gaming in general. As you know, if you want to bring something else to our community, or just avoid talking about Sonamy, you’re more than welcome to join. Now, back on track.

What’s going on with Sonamy in IDW?

To recap what’s happened in these last months: Sonic and his friends finally got through the nightmare that was the Metal Virus, he and Amy hugged a few times, and since very recently they’ve been involved in a short arc about Chao races in Twinkle Park Zone, with a sinister background. In these last months after the eradication of the virus, there have been much closer and warmer interactions between our two hedgehogs, and I suspect that part of this is what inspired that question in the first place: what’s going on?

As I commented in the article where I proposed that Sonamy is “more canon than ever” (I know that it’s an exaggeration, that was the point), SEGA is treading carefully and the main canon seems to be willing to negotiate a more open representation of the relationship between the two in their different continuities, from best friends to something more. What I did not expect to happen was reading an answer from Evan Stanley (artist and writer that replaces Ian Flynn) about their dynamic, summing it up with “they like each other”.

The redrawing of Sonic’s expression when Amy hugs him in a recent drawing of hers made people wonder if this was yet another example of SEGA’s “censoring” (comparison below), to which Evan answered that it was modified to keep Sonic in character: he’s a guy that does not show much emotional vulnerability or too many negative emotions, and this is why sometimes the artists have to adjust WIPs to keep in line with this official point of view. Evan assured that this is not any kind of confirmation that Sonic does not like Amy, and doubles down by highlighting that in the official material, in the wikis and on Sonic Channel they show that, and I quote: “They like each other, but Sonic just isn’t the kind of guy who is going to make goo-goo eyes at Amy or perform grand acts of romance. If you wanna see that, that’s what fan works are for.”

And Evan’s words are a great way to sum up what’s going on with IDW Sonic right now. When it comes to interactions, they’re working with two characters who deep down “like each other”, but both show it in their own way. Amy is much more proactive when it comes to express her feelings, while Sonic only sometimes shows a glimpse of his feelings, with a smile or a small gesture. But at the end of the day they’re still friends and, depending on the situation, the comic can focus more or less on these details.

Comparison between the first sketch showed by Evan and the final product. The modification of the expression was minimal: Sonic’s slight blush was changed into a smile, maybe being a little overwhelmed by the gesture of affection.

The “progression” of the dynamic in the future

A good part of the answer to this question is based on my idea that right now, when it comes to Sonamy, we reached some kind of comfortable plateau. What am I referring to? To the fact that there have been a lot of varied interactions in these last 3 years of the comic, and they’re everything I could have asked for and then some. When we talk about Sonamy in canon, as Evan said, we don’t tend to hope for great romantic gestures from Sonic, we barely even ask for a look that hints that they understand each other beyond what it seems at first glance, so the fact that the IDW continuity is betting so much on this ship is basically a dream come true. For this reason, I don’t think things will change much in the future.

If I have to make a prediction on Sonamy’s future in IDW, I believe that there are still a lot of possibilities that our known writers (and maybe new writers!) could explore more, to see what makes this dynamic work so well. Actually, about 10 years ago, Ian Flynn wrote that if they could take advantage of the abilities and similarities between the two characters as adventurous spirits and with a strong moral sense, they would be “like poetry in motion”. This largely happens in IDW Sonic if you look carefully, but there are always new stories to tell and opportunities for them to work together and explore a bit more their strong bond, stronger than other friendships that they share. When the next major arc comes (which seems to be getting closer), they could explore aspects of their dynamic that are slightly more experimental, like being separated for extended periods of time and under dangerous situations… as long as they don’t turn it into a painful experience like the Metal Virus arc.

What Ian Flynn wrote about Sonamy, what works and what doesn’t. This was written in 2011, when Archie Sonic was still the major comic continuity, and when, according to Ian, Sonic was still “tied” to Sally Acord, leaving little room to the writers’ opinions.

The reality is that I see a stable future for the dynamic in the IDW universe. Sonamy is not fit for a lot of drama (fights, breaking up, etc.) without feeling forced or completely out of place, and only fanfics and fanart could be capable of capitalizing on this kind of content. On the other hand, for reasons I detailed in past articles, SEGA would not dare to alter the established order of the dynamic, let alone new that they managed to recover and maintain control over the ways Sonamy is being portrayed everywhere. SEGA won’t pull a Dragon Prince, which ended up confirming the main ship and then they made them go through a crisis and break up in a heartwrenching way in the graphic novel that acts as a bridge between season 3 and 4.

In short

The future of IDW Sonamy is looking bright and stable. I don’t think there will be serious changes to what we’re experiencing right now, and this is why both Evan Stanley and Ian Flynn agree that the dynamic is practically in the perfect place, keeping in line to how SEGA wants them to be represented together. This means we won’t see more affectionate gestures than what we’re seeing now (I doubt we’ll ever see again Sonic offering Amy a rose like in Sonic X), but it also means that we have now a solid basis for our expectations. In the now old IDW Sonic #2, Sonic and Amy had the chance of seriously talking a bit about what they thought of each other, with Sonic being determined to keep living life his own way (although he wouldn’t mind Amy to accompany him… or even suggesting himself that she could come), and Amy being determined to respect his way of life, because that’s what she loves about him, and she doesn’t want him to change. Since then, all we have seen and we’ll keep seeing in the comic is a consequence of this key moment; the two philosophies that they have and they share, in a constant back-and-forth with some tense moments and some cute moments.

An interesting detail that wasn’t included in the ask and that makes me think is the possibility that all of this will feature in the games as well. This is a completely different matter for another day, but I like to think that there is the possibility that we’ll see SEGA being more interested in inserting more Sonamy in the games, even if in an indirect way like in Sonic Unleashed and its emotional support, especially if the rumors that we’re about to get a soft-reboot are true. Romance is not something Sonic games are famous for doing well… at all, but that doesn’t mean it would be a bad idea to add a little sprinkle of IDW Sonamy in the mix.

And finally, I think I’ve talked enough about this topic, As you know, we’re waiting for some news, and I hope we’ll see each other again here or on our Discord. We’ll see if on this 25th something interesting happens. In any case, see you next time!

The moment that shaped the present and future of their entire relationship, 3 years ago.