#OH I ALSO HAVE ART TO POST I THINK. I'll finish this desk stuff and then do that after (if i remember by then LOL)

[dandyshucks]

wait that's a fun and cute idea. just before guzbug's first anniversary in-universe, we acquire land rights to Old Chateau and spend multiple days working on fixing it up and end up forgetting - ACTUALLY NO, we don't forget. I probably would just be quiet about it IF i remembered bc I don't know if he rly Wants to celebrate it at all and idk how to ask (<- this communication difficulty will be worked on), and then Guz remembers bc he made a point to set himself like five million reminders and also enlisted Plumeria to message him again the day of just in case he somehow still forgot, and then he has like... just a little gift planned. maybe the bracelet or smth. and at the end of the day when we're both tired from working and decide to call it quits for the day then he finally looks over at me and is like happy anniversary :) and gives me the bracelet or smth,,,,, and it's just a nice quiet little moment where we're sitting in the middle of a cleared area amongst all the mess and looking around at what we've accomplished so far and everything feels kind of Right and Good in that moment. making a home together !! building a life to spend with each other !!

[bosskie]

More Practicing

I would really like to draw some 'proper' traditional art but I don't have enough time for it since well, then I would like draw/paint for 10 hours barely taking any breaks... So, I just focus on this quicker stuff.

But yeah, I really wanted to draw yet another Molluck from a difficult perspective, and I chose that expression because I love his teeth... And while I was looking for my reference frame (Yes, I look at those cutscenes frame by frame.) I noticed new things about Molluck's head... Man, even I have been looking at him so closely for 2½ years I still notice new stuff!

Frankly, I wondered if I would show that previous sketch at all since I tend to think that my sketches ain't worth of seeing but well, I can still show them like this. Yeah, I'm not personally a fan of my own work and see just a messy sketch here, literally too since my hands and desk got messy while doing this... I drew this before I went to sleep (+ improved after waking up) and it helped me to feel better and relax since I felt quite depressed before drawing this... Molluck just helps me so much to keep my head together...

Also I would like to say that I have been wondering the fate of that 2D Molluck game thing I have been doing and well, I think that the best thing would be that I just finish the stuff I have already implemented and move on since I gotta learn other kind of game development tools but also 3D stuff. I'll show you that 2D Molluck game (again) after I have finished that stuff but in a silly way since well, I can imitate Molluck and the Sligs. I still use quite often my Molluck voice to entertain myself... Frankly, I also miss doing those dubs... I'm just too busy to have time (and energy) for that stuff...

Welp, I can do still some creative stuff regularly for my studies since I'm doing another 2D game project thing but I don't know if I'll release it. But I can say that that game is kinda about my own mental health issues and decisions matter in that game. It's not about Molluck, so I'm not gonna really talk about it here but I can say that yes, I'm studying game development stuff (programming, graphics etc.) since I wish to become a game developer. So, this is the biggest reason why I let that particular Molluck game to be but I just change what I do to 3D Molluck stuff (maybe I still do some 2D stuff but using another programming language). I just see inside my head how awesome it would be to do Molluck and his office in 3D! And well, then make it as something playable and/or animated.

Of course, I won't charge for that stuff if I release something in public since I do not own Molluck and I'm doing that stuff just to learn and out of love. I just cannot help myself but I love that Gluk so much... He just means so much to me... He is like the cutest thing for me too...

Yes, this was my reference for that previous sketch, and I just somehow love his face so much here... His expression is just so adorable... Well, I feel like Molluck looks cute to me no matter what expression he has... I just love the way he looks like when he is angry too, though I don't still like him being angry in a sense of that I wish him to feel good.

Oh, and well, I don't know if you saw that OWI's 'Molluck's Majesty' (Molluck dress up thing but with dresses) post but since I saw it I have truly been wondering what like Molluck would look in a dress... Frankly, it would be a somewhat practical outfit for him! Molluck is such a pretty Gluk like he is but man, I'm actually curious to see him in a dress and wearing some pretty jewelry... He could show off his beautiful hands and arms! I'm not sure what kind of dress it would be but maybe pink with pretty details since well, like you might have noticed, I think that pink does suit Molluck. I'm not even a fan of pink myself, so yeah, that's not the reason for it.

Yeah, some Molluck stuff again, kinda to distract myself too since like I have told you, I suffer from self-hatred and depression. Sometimes I think that there's no darkness when Molluck is around (his eyes glow). It really touches me to think that... He is kinda a sign of that there's still light inside me because he is just imagination. I just feel too bad to really think about my 'real' loved ones, what they would think if I, well, did something awful to myself since my ill mind just wishes that they didn't care, makes me feel sorry for them to have me... I have a difficult condition and it has kinda gotten worse despite of the help, even some stuff has gotten better too.

But yeah, Molluck basically gives me life.

[cilil]

I've seen many posts about people missing how common asks used to be so I have been trying to send about an ask a week. Now I send this ask first anytime I follow someone as I really don't want to bother anyone, so I'd love to know if you enjoy receiving asks and if so what kind of asks. Not having energy for asks or being comfortable with them is perfectly okay.

The categories I have in my ask notebook that I file under are in colour. Please feel free to make your response as long as you want or private (the asker cannot directly respond to private responses).

Self, Job/Work: please let me know what you are comfortable with from eh idk just ask it to nothing personal at all.

Baggishield/Tolkien, Dragon Age, Johnlock/Sherlock, ineffable spouses, other fandom: Please let me know what fandoms. I think my main fandoms and ships are Bagginshield/The Hobbit, Sherlock/Johnlock, Dragon Age Inquisition, {Pippin/Faramir Merry/Eowyn}/The Lord of the Rings and I dip my toes in a few that I currently can't remember but ships I don't engage with the canon of at all are: Good Omens but only for Crowley/Azirapheal, Stranger Things but only for Steve/Eddie , The Witcher but only for Geralt/Jaskier.

OC's, art/drawing, their writing, blog specific only

Story snippets ideas and prompts: Do you like receiving them?

Pets: I'd love to know all about them

Garden and Hobbies: What type of gardening and/or hobbies?

Like being tagged in things: If so what kinds of things?

*Asks are sent for fun, no pressure to answer.

Oh thank you so much for this, what a lovely idea! And I hope you don't mind that I did indeed lack the energy during the last few days... was out seeing friends and now I'm sick too x) anyway!

Job/work/about myself: Sure thing, ask away, I won't have many interesting things to talk about since I'm currently finishing up my degree and going into exams for the next few months so it's basically same old every day (-> desk and books). I may also choose not answer certain questions if I feel like they're too personal in the sense that me answering would reveal too much about my real life self, like location, identity etc, but that's on me, I'll decide that in the moment and there are absolutely no hard feelings. I do appreciate people's interest and as long as nobody is overly pushy or prying that's all completely fine :)

Fandom: Tolkien, mainly Silmarillion. Happy to chat about Hobbit and LotR too of course, just may have less to contribute. I do love Bagginshield and Aziraphale/Crowley, but don't really talk about the latter as I keep this blog Tolkien-focused

OCs: I have a few and enjoy talking about them every once in a while. They're all Maiar though so it might not be of interest to everyone and that too is very okay :)

Writing: I write and talk about writing all the time so... always love that :D

Art: I make art very occasionally. I don't mind talking about it or answering questions, it's just that I don't have much to show or be proud of or new developments happening x)

Snippets, ideas & prompts: LOVE THEM! Just a dangerous business because I get tempted easily...

Pets: While I love pets, my dog has recently passed away so it sadly remains a bit of a triggering topic for me. I sometimes share old stories about him when I have the mental and emotional capacity for it, but would prefer not to be asked about it for the foreseeable future as it can catch me off-guard and put me in a dark place🤍

Garden/hobbies: Due to my current living situation, my gardening is pretty much just maintaining my cacti collection. Also writing is currently my only hobby due to aforementioned circumstances

Tagging: Everyone, tag me in cute seal and bird pics! I also love doing tag games and ask games and the like, even if it sometimes takes me a while. In general: Never hesitate to tag me for stuff ^^

[dogtoling]

What is a Special Weapon? (a speculation)

So let's get straight into the post. (LONG post under the cut)

A Special Weapon is: - the weapon itself: a powerful ink battling weapon manufactured and regulated specifically for this purpose (Bubble Blower, Sting Ray, Inkstrike, Inkzooka etc.) OR - a specialized attack or response treated as a special weapon (Kraken, Splashdown, Booyah Bomb etc.) - Supposedly uses the Inkling's own ink - debatable, but highly likely based on evidence

Before we can get deeper into the special weapon lore, we must look into what comes BEFORE a special weapon. That's the special gauge.

There are multiple ways to fill up a special gauge: - Inking turf - Having control over an objective in Ranked Battle - Being in an underdog situation in a match (Tenacity) - Equipping a Canned Special What happens when the special is then activated? The meter slowly depletes, and once it is fully drained, the special ends. In practice, what IS the special meter? Now, when looking at the meter objectively, it looks as if it's filled with ink. That alongside its function in powering Special Weapons, as well as draining like an actual Ink Tank, can give the impression that it is LITERALLY a secondary ink reserve the player is filling up. This is in order to then use all of that ink as ammo for the special. And this actually makes a lot of sense. well now it's time to open a whole new can of worms (or weapons i guess)

CANNED SPECIALS Canned specials are literally, well, canned specials that make an appearance in Splatoon's single player modes as well as the Battle Dojo from the first game.

(From the splash screen of the first game, we can see that they are approximately the size of an actual tuna can.) Upon obtaining a canned special, your special gauge immediately fills up and you gain the ability to use said special weapon, which heavily suggests that the special weapon itself is stored inside.... the tiny can. You know, stuff like a force field, or a 7ft ink cannon. Or a pressure washer that includes more ink than the volume of an Inkling. Yeah. Right. So this implies insane hammerspace technology if it IS to be taken at face value - although i find it odd that there's not a single official art or tidbit of lore that acknowledges that inklings in fact obtain their specials from tiny hammerspace tins. (Even sub weapons and their inner workings make a tiny appearance in official art. Specials are never elaborated on too much, unfortunately...)

As an alternative, there is the concept of the cans holding a specific amount of condensed ink enough to power any of the included specials that you could then pop inside the weapon. That is not at all how it's implied to work, but it's a cool alternate explanation that makes slightly more sense - and if we take some liberties and assume that the cans are a LIIITTLE bit bigger, we could even argue that the cans could be THE special gauge itself. Looking at the special gauge, it IS designed to be round, just like a tin. I don't recall what it was modeled after if anything, or if it's just a coincidence, but food for thought.

Oh yeah also here's a picture of a NORMAL main weapon can that you can get at Kamabo Co. They have one for like every weapon type as well as some bombs which implies that weapons are oftentimes stored inside cans (although these might be bigger cans). Either way, the ink tank idea might be down the drain considering the implications of this one.

Anyway, moving on. Hi guys! I brought you guys all the way through that wall of text... just to dunk on that literal ink tank theory and dump it in the trash because there is another theory that makes more sense on like every scale possible. I'm so sorry. (But I also really like the idea of the special gauge being a literal ink tank that you fill up, so I had to include it, because it's not like it doesn't hold a lot of ground.) I'll get straight to the point. The other theory is that the special gauge is only a hypothetical concept created for the sake of gameplay and balancing, and in reality, it is simply the buildup to what I'll refer to as the "special rush" state of an Inkling. It has no physical value, varies between Inklings, and has no ties to actual points at all. Observe these bits from the art books 1 and 2:

1. Some Inkzooka trivia. Although the entry refers to SPECIFICALLY this weapon, it is very likely that the same is true for all special weapons - or at least the ones that primarily use ink (so not necessarily things such as the Bubbler and Echolocator).

(Ignore the random lines. Those are my notes lol) This Baller entry tells us a LOT and i mean a LOT of what we needed to know. First of all, the Inklings' ink output breaks the laws of physics there is no way a single inkling has enough ink inside it to even fill THAT ball at least 4 times the volume of its body NOT TO MENTION producing enough ink to fill one SEVEN TIMES THAT SIZE anyway the important part is the one where it confirms that Inklings produce an abnormal amount of ink while they are using a special weapon. Because the Baller was specifically developed for the purpose of containing all the excess ink, there is a big implication that the ink is originating from the user itself, specifically in the moment of using a Special. Then why is this? Well now we get to the concept of the "special rush" that I mentioned before. It refers to this state that we see Inklings enter when their special gauge fills up:

Their tentacles will glow, bubble up as if boiling, and they will look as if caught in an epic dramatic action movie wind at all times. This is when they're able to use their Special.

I think it's safe to say that this is "a heightened emotional state". As opposed to for example the Kraken which could be a repurposed panic response (if you haven't seen my post about that, that exists too) the special rush is likely a similar all-out response, although caused by getting really in the zone of battle. So to put it simply, a POSITIVE chemical response, in which the Inkling's body starts pumping more ink through channeling one's fighting spirit and yadda yadda yadda.

To put it shortly here; this "rush" likely evolved as a response to intense territory disputes or even hunting. More ink means more defense AND more offensive power. In Turf Wars, reaching this rush means that Inklings can - and probably have to - channel this excess ink elsewhere, which in this case is into special weapons that quickly gobble up all of the excess ink (with part of it going in the ink tank).

A lot of the weapons second this excess ink theory by including a heightened coating of ink across the user's whole body (Ink Armor, Booyah Bomb, Splashdown) or even rounding up the excess ink that's built up into an offensive endeavor (Splashdown, Booyah Bomb, other specials utilize it as ammo). Once all the ink is used up, the Inkling's emotional state stabilizes and the cycle soon starts over again until they hit the high mark again. (For a second ignoring the fact that it is physically impossible for them to produce this much ink. I guess I'm not ignoring it since I'm drawing attention to it here but it bothers me so much. My work is never done lol) So I guess this theory makes sense, but why is it inherently BETTER than the "special gauge is an ink reserve" one? Let's see the arguments for the ink tank version: 1. The Special Gauge is literally filled up with ink as the game is played. This is potentially something that happens as the weapon is shot, and some of the ink is channeled into the special gauge instead.

> It doesn't make much sense for this to be the case. The ink is being SHOT OUT, not stored; at least not stored anywhere visible and although you really have to have room for imagination when trying to draw logic for this game, i would really assume the developers would include a physical indicator of the gauge if it was meant to be literal.

2. There is potential for the Canned Specials to BE the gauge itself, as something that attaches or "fuels" the special. The gauge could be designed the way it is to reflect this.

> The canned specials are a weirdly inconsistent thing in the world of Splatoon, appearing ONLY as insta-fills in single player campaigns and the Splatoon 1 battle dojo. True, there are some on the player's desk in the splash screen of the first game, but we also don't know if those are for Turf War, or the dojo, or from Hero Mode. There's not even any for sale at Ammo Knights, whereas entire special weapons outside of cans very much are. Even if the special gauge isn't a can, it also doesn't mean that a can as an ink tank can't essentially serve the same purpose of providing the ink needed for a special. 3. The gauge fills up with a very distinct ink graphic, so it could literally mean it's ink!

> This one is true! But taking into consideration one thing; as a hypothetical gauge, the connection with ink is STILL there, as by the time the gauge is finished, the Inkling is basically overflowing with excess Ink. So rather than an external tank being filled with ink, the player itself is. 4. The gauge fills, then it's full, and it slowly depletes as a special is used. Basically the perfect flow; and a perfect reasoning for where all the ink comes from, and WHY you need to fill up the gauge to be able to use a special.

> This same reasoning still makes complete sense for the hypothetical gauge. The graphic goes up to indicate how close the Inkling is getting to the rush state, clearly shows when they are IN the rush state, and then the state slowly wears off as the ink is used. Where the ink comes from is directly explained in canon at this point; an Inkling in its special weapon state emits a crazy amount of ink - according to what the art book shows, more than like 10 times the volume of the inkling itself. Which makes zero sense whatsoever but, well, it does explain where the ink comes from. 5. The special meter being hypothetical wouldn't be good because it wouldn't be consistent at all. Some people surely get way more pumped WAY faster and use way more specials than others! No balance!

> The special meters aren't consistent to begin with, even in the game. People who stack Special Charge Up will sometimes use a special upwards of five times per 3-minute-game. People who get splatted a lot may literally never get to use a special once. Just like people's personalities in real life, the rates at which different Inklings would "charge up" can vary by a mile. And furthermore...

We see examples of the "special rush" outside of the gameplay!

Pearl, in the ending of Octo Expansion, enters a special rush mode seemingly out of nowhere (though you could also maybe say she might have used a canned special) after getting pumped to literally save the world. So does Agent 3; DOZENS OF TIMES, in both iterations of battles against them. They use a bunch of special weapons completely out of left field, take way more hits than the player and continuously use Splashdowns. This is because they're continuously triggering their Rush in the midst of intense combat, and especially under mind control, during which most of what they probably have is survival instinct, which means drastically raised ink production upping both offensive and defensive capabilities. But wait, there's actually even more that supports the theory of the special gauge referring to a buildup to a rush state: - Tenacity as an ability. This ability makes it so that your special gauge will automatically fill itself up if your team has fewer players on the field than the enemy team. This ability makes very little sense in the situation that the special gauge is literally an ink tank, as you're not actually shooting ink at all for it to fill up. However, as an emotional thing, a player that is also an underdog is SURE to be really giving their all in the competition and thus building up their rush faster. - Your special gauge supposedly fills up passively while your team has control of the objective in Ranked (I literally didn't know this because I barely play ranked ever). Again, this has nothing to do with actual inking. But what it DOES have to do with is potentially winning the game, and that totally gets you pumped. - Again, the inconsistencies in a special gauge. If it was an ink tank, you would assume the amount of ink needed for each special weapon was a very specific amount. Instead, players fill their special gauge at different rates, and getting splatted cuts down the gauge... again, depending on your abilities. Losing ink from a pre-filled ink tank that is being specifically saved up for a weapon doesn't really make sense as one gets splatted, but getting demoralized and frustrated when getting splatted makes a whole lot of sense, which would also set you back in reaching your special rush.

In conclusion: The Special Gauge is a hypothetical meter that exists for gameplay purposes; in practice, it only conveys how close or far a player is to their "special rush" state, in which their senses and emotions are heightened and their ink production is greatly increased due to a surge in fighting spirit.

1. When a battle starts, no one has their rush going on because everyone is only just warming up. Different people with different objectives and personalities may get their rush very quickly, very slowly, very frequently or only once. You get the picture.

2. As players find themselves doing intense physical activities, participating in tense combat and so on, they build up towards their rush state (likely building up endorphins, dopamine and adrenaline or the like), which increases the body's ink production. It is likely that contact with ink also naturally increases one's ink production.

3. When players hit this rush state and the "special meter" is filled, they can channel all the excess ink into a special weapon. Once the ink is used up, the rush subsides into a less intense emotional state, until the cycle may start again soon after.

Well, there's my thoughts on specials and mostly the special gauge and what it means. Thanks for reading yet another one of these essays.