#climb on up lol

[bixels]

Splatoon 3: Side Order is good, but not great. I still highly recommend it, but if you care about the story, you're going to be disappointed. Quick review: spoilers ahead.

Side Order was the devs experimenting with Splatoon's gameplay loop. The campaign is a rogue-like, and it works amazingly well. Super fun, super challenging, building my deck and fighting through challenges with the stakes of resetting really scratched an itch in my brain. They did a great job with it.

Unfortunately, I feel like priority went to game design rather than story. Much of the mysterious artwork we saw in the first teaser trailer was completely unused; turns out, all of that was just concept art that never made it into the final product. Side Order failed to make me care about what was happening. I don't know why the protagonist had to be Agent 8; it could've been anyone else and the story would've worked the same.

Octo Expansion was the absolute peak of meshing story and gameplay. The campaign's hook is insanely strong; we immediately empathize with Agent 8 because we know from previous lore that octolings like her have been trapped underground for all their lives. We care about her fight to the surface because it's a fundamentally ideological fight for freedom. The plot stuff about Tartar and the Thangs is just nice set dressing; 8's fight for freedom is the real story.

There's none of that in Side Order. I don't particularly care about Marina's metaverse, even if it's tied to Octo Expansion's story. I don't know why Acht is there other than backstory stuff. It really feels like 8 is just told to do something and she does it because she's the protagonist; she has zero personal stakes or motivations in the conflict. This is a story blunder the devs did in Splatoon 3's default campaign––forgetting to give the protagonist a personal reason to fight––that I hoped would be fixed here, but alas.

What makes it worse is that the gameplay and story progression are completely out of sync. I beat the entire game on my third run in 4 hours. With each run, you get up to two keys to potentially unlock bits of story. That means you'll get about one piece of the story every two runs. There are twelve pieces of the story; I got the first and then beat the whole damn game. Now I have to go back and grind to see the remaining story when I've already beaten the final boss and resolved the conflict. I missed the entire story because I never had to reset because I blazed through the gameplay! It's just a real shame that I experienced everything without knowing... why it's happening. The final boss had me asking myself what the hell is going on because I don't know the backstory at all.

Again, I still really recommend. The devs did a great job, but Side Order remains in the shadow of Octo Expansion's incredible success. Like the default singleplayer campaign, there's just a lot of lost story potential here that, while not necessary, would have really elevated this DLC into something amazing.

[prism-forgone]

at least they still have that sick pink belt i guess

an assortment of doodles of strange someone frisk - they're @the-meme-monarch's! go! check them out if u don't know them!! - simply because they were on the mind to the point where i had to visualize my thoughts or risk falling into the shadow realm

bit of a less serious doodle under the cut as a surprise lmao i did it once as warmup

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Man I honestly kinda miss the cage lockers we used to have in elementary school

this kinda stuff

yes they looked scary (especially ours which were dark blue-green and in a shaded hallway with small windows) but that was part of the charm. it felt badass. especially when we'd try to climb on them when the teachers weren't around

[hedonistbyheart]

Turns out I really enjoy drawing people in skintight suits~

[lokiusly]

anytime anyone says that Yggdrasil!Loki needs their Ratatoskr!Mobius all I imagine is

[vyxelle]

rainy day

[batfossil-fr]

it's gonna be a while til he can get his genes, but wow, I JUST scried him and I'm instantly in love

[jugger-heads]

itty bitty tiny doodle before Bed

[moonlitkissing]

Recent fantasy: an inexperienced friend asking me about how he can tell that his future partner is cumming - he's read that many women fake their orgasms and now he's scared he won't be able to tell the difference and if i could give him some pointers?

So I offer to show him how it feels instead. He nods hesitantly, face flushed and attempting in vain to hide behind his short hair, but his eyes stay glued to my body while I'm undressing.

Slowly, I spread my legs wider, shifting both our focus on my pussy, and trail one hand down, spread it for him with my fingers. Poor boy looks about ready to faint, but he does his very best to stay focused and listen to my explanations. I show him my clit, tell him that many girls cum from clit stimulation, that prenetation isn't always enough and that he shouldn't feel bad about it.

I start up a rhythm of tight circles on my clit as I'm talking so my words occasionally tip over in a moan, and his eyes grow wider with every single one of them. But he also leans forward, pants tenting as he watches me touch myself right before him.

After checking that he's okay with touching, I grab his hand and drag it to my pussy, instructing him to put two fingers in. He groans when he does, mumbling about how tight, how wet i am around his fingers, how soft it feels. I clench more or less involuntary around him and laugh softly at his startled expression and tell him that he's doing everything right, to crook his fingers, to keep repeating that motion.

I let him finger me for a while, let him find his rhythm while I'm still working my clit, climbing steadily higher and higher. Eventually, he looks up from where his fingers disappear inside me and watches my expression instead, cheeks still flushed but for another reason now.

"Close," I tell him around a moan and press harder on my clit, pleasure shooting through my middle with every crook of his fingers and every press of mine.

It's almost more rewarding to watch his face than the feeling of the orgasm washing over my body when it happens. His mouth is slightly open, eyes lazer focused on my pussy once more as it keeps clenching around his fingers, and he mutters a breathy "fuck" over the noises my wetness makes.

I have to take a minute to catch my breath and another to gingerly pull his hand free from my body but when I do, I'm met with the most bashful smile and a cute little "thank you"

[jokerx-art]

rough background practice but it's ews

[kangaroodle]

@sleepnoises a diagram of what i meant. we weren't expecting the second stage (literally EXITING THE CANYON elevation change) so when we got to the third part up on the plains, i realized that like.... i could go down the other side and see the cave, but i wouldn't be able to do the return trip as the 4th part would be uphill. hope that makes more sense lol

[muttsandmustelidae]

happy Wet Weasel Wednesday, featuring Laszlo and the plant mister

[merakiui]

Idia being a jerk to Azul is so funny to me. Hes a shy mofo till he gets to know you, then those burns and sass start coming.

It's so funny!!!! The way they both snipe at each other with their remarks... at least they're on equal footing when it comes to climbing stairs LOL. The two of them being out of breath is so silly to think about because Riddle's also there and there was no mention of his struggles, so we can assume that it was just Idia and Azul (both notoriously bad at PE) who suffered.

Idia deserves to be sassy more often. He's one of the funniest, if not the funniest, twst character. I'm so glad he's there to sass Azul. <3

[mswyrr]

more on michelin stars

I genuinely think it's going to be an important plot point in s3 re: why exactly Sydney wants a star and why *one* specifically. I went and researched and discovered something I used in my fic, which is that one Michelin star restaurants are excellent cuisine that normal people can still afford. And that connected, for me, to what Sydney had told Marcus about how going out was so special when she was a kid and she wanted to share that kind of amazing thing with people:

We didn't really like eat out a lot growing up, so when we did, it felt special even if it wasn't.... I wanna cook for people and make them happy and give them the best bacon on Earth (1x08)

I'm so hopeful/convinced that the research they have with, like, Matty (the chef who plays Fak) right there on set, means the writers know that about what one star places can be like. And that it's meant to be part of this - more humane vision of excellence for Sydney, where their spot is AMAZING, but it's not a cruel kitchen culture, it's not only for the rich.

For her, it’s *part* of her vision, where she says: 

“I think this place could be so different from all the other places we've been at. But, in order for that to be true, we need to run things different.“ (1x03)

But Carmy sees a star and all it means (all he’s ever known it to mean) as a repudiation of that kind of humanity. You say the word "star" and immediately Carmy goes "fuck stars" (2x01) as pure self-defense - because stars are just pain and suffering to him. They're NYC chef and everything that mess became.

He's so traumatized by the whole thing he doesn't think to ask the right questions: why do you want one? What is your vision for it? Why do you specifically want *one* instead of two or three? What timeline do you have in mind for getting there and how can we strategize on this together?

Instead, because he wants so desperately to please her, despite that instinctive, self-defensive "fuck stars" he relents and asks - okay, are you sure? Are you positive this is what you want? Really?? It's terrible. It's just dread and fear and throwing up every day before work. You really want me to give you this?

(I’ll give you anything you want)

He never asks the right questions. Just assuming the level of pain which is his only experience of this is what the thing IS--playing into that theme about how people only know what they're taught, only know what they are given, and if we are given pain and patterns of it it is so hard to even imagine things can be different and, when you can imagine it, still so hard to actually get there.

(It’s not a coincidence that the ASL sign is one of the few positive, healthy examples of kitchen culture Carmy witnessed - we only know what we’re taught, and it can be hard work to even figure out what “not shitty” IS let alone doing it)

So he's assuming all of that and it's like - if she's his CDC, does she want him to push her as hard as he was pushed? Push himself that hard again? He doesn't want to do either of those things. But that's all he knows. And she keeps saying this is what she wants. And he wants to give her everything she wants.

(In the same conversation she kept saying yes, this is what I want, she expressed admiration for the designer chef outfit he later buys her as a gift - he wants to give her everything she wants, even when it seems like a terrible idea he’s torn about)

I think this misunderstanding is intentional and it’s going to come out in S3. A one star restaurant fits so perfectly with what we know of Sydney’s goals and love for her work! And Carmy not able to even conceive of something better because of the patterns he’s stuck in and finding his way to her vision makes sense for him.

I think Carmy figuring out how this work can be joyful and humane is going to be a huge part of S3. Sydney not becoming lost in the high stress environment, not following in younger!Carmy's footsteps living a life of pure drive and dread, and Carmy finding that for the first time.

I do think that, given where they both end in 2x10, there’s going to be a period of conflict and a real bunch of issues for both of them - but with themes and ideas like this seeded into the story there’s so many ways to make s3 start out in a bad way and then really end in joy in a beautiful way?

[jtownraindancer]

climbing that firefighter like a ladder

[qserasera]

helpless