#also i'm loving the game so far :-) though i miss hypnos being there to make fun of me when i die

[ggarbagee]

JUST GOT HADES 2....HESTIA. HESTIA!!!!!

[dr-spectre]

You mentioned something about Splatoon 4 thoughts earlier today, and I really wanna hear you ramble about that. But I also really wanna listen to you ramble about a Hypno Callie rewrite lmao. So if you haven't already, since there's a good chance I missed it lol, what would a Spectre Hypno Callie rewrite look like?

OH DUDE NOW YOU'RE GETTING ME ALL PUMPED UP TEHEHEHEHE! ITS TIME FOR ME TO RAMBLE!!! Imma go ultra autism on you!!! It's gonna border on fanfiction territory! (Not the creepy or romantic kind...) Don't say that I didn't warn you...

Splatoon 4 Ideas.

Now here's the thing right. I only have a few ideas on a Splatoon 4 so I don't think I can do a giant ramble about it yet. But so far I got the idea of Splatoon 4 taking place in a giant futuristic city near the beach. So you get this cool plaza area near the beach and I got that idea from the AMAZING Project Splatoon 3. Seriously go check that out, it is amazing!!!!!!!

But you can also go into the city and explore some of it. And you can ride a bike to different shops and have your own apartment!!! I know people want apartments for the next game and yeah I agree. We NEED an apartment maker, it's the next logical step from lockers!

Also for weapons... I would LOVE to have a flamethrower weapon but instead of fire it's mist. A crank operated shooter made out of bike gears where you gotta keep spamming the ZR button, kind of like the Octoshower's weapon. A Wii Zapper charger!!! PLEASE NINTENDO! A saw blade Splatana. Maybe a pool noodle Inkbrush? That would be funny. Maybe a Painbrush that has a fan on it? Man... I'm starting to sound like Sheldon HAHAHA!

For the new Idols, it would be a duo instead of a 3 Idol group because oh my god 3 team Splatfests are so unbalanced sometimes. They would have the colors red and cyan. I don't have much on what they would look like, but I imagine one of them is a female Inkling with a cyan color and the other is a male octoling with a red color. It's time we have a proper God damn male Idol that isn't a giant manta ray!!! Now since I cannot draw for shit and I don't have the desire to draw (drawing has made me so angry so multiple times so I stick to writing and rambling) so I'll just show some pics to show you what kind of vibe I'm going for.

(Yes I'm not fucking joking. I've gotten inspiration from Silver the Hedgehog and Spider-Punk...)

I think it would be an interesting dynamic to have a fancy, highly teched out character paired up with a grungy and punk character who's loud and funny. I can imagine their music to be futuristic and techno while including segments of rock. Basically techno rock with romantic elements in it.

I would like some quality of life improvements and just general improvements as well, like being able to customize EVERY part of your look without having to go through that annoying character creation menu in the crater. Faster levelling up for abilities, ability drinks and food actually giving you which ability you want instead of a chance at it. Way more pants and a pants shop. WAY MORE hairstyles, eye colors with an option to select from a color wheel, eyebrows, scar and tattoo options too with a new tattoo vendor. (the tattoos are explained in game to be temporary ones even though they secretly aren't, to make sure parents don't get the wrong idea lmao)

Maybe some gameplay tweaks too? like including very slight momentum when going downhill? It has to be very slight though for balance. I would like to add a dolphin dive like mechanic where if you press the jump button in the air in your swimming form, you'll quickly stomp to the ground, and that speed will be carried over when swimming in ink for a little while. Maybe faster horizontal wall swimming too? Basically make the gameplay a little bit faster is all I'm trying to say, Splatoon doesn't need a giant gameplay overhaul, just small tweaks to make the last game seem worse to play lmao.

And of course, BETTER SERVERS! WE NEED DEDICATED SERVERS! NOW!!!!!!!!!!! EVEN IF ITS JUST A FEW IT'LL BE SOOOOOO HELPFUL! STOP BEING STUPID NINTENDO! GOD!

Um... anyways!

Now, in terms of story.... I would have 3 parts, one is the main campaign while the other two are DLC. The main campaign is focused on the Salmonids. You play as a new agent (Agent X or something, i think that's a cool name) as you explore these islands Super Mario 64 style where you do missions and try and stop the Salmonids from getting out of control as they gone on a rampage from an unknown cause. You have to complete enough missions on an island to go to the next.

Basically, think of Salmon Run maps and areas found in Mario games but they are WAY LARGER and more complex areas to go through with NPCs to talk to. I really want Splatoon 4 to expand on the concepts found in the hub worlds in Alterna and go fully into a 3D Mario sandbox style game.

You also have to team up with Frye, Big Man, Neo Agent 3 and Marie who join up with a new cast of characters who are in charge of guiding you to new islands (haven't thought much about what these characters are) to figure out what's going on. Callie doesn't appear in the story as it's explained in a Sunken Scroll that Callie is helping Octavio figure out what to do with the Fuzzy Octarians that are still trapped in Alterna. And yes Octavio has now fully joined the New Squidbeak Splatoon which Callie is very ecstatic about.

Cuttlefish is fully retired and doesn't appear, and Captain is taking a break from captain duties, leaving Marie to watch over Frye and Big Man as she is their boss anyways. Now, where is Shiver in all this? Well... here me out... she's the villain. And no she doesn't have any sort of bullshit evil headgear on. She's a villain due to being corrupted by greed and wanting more power. She has become addicted to the high she gets from winning and feeling powerful and has teamed up with the Salmonids to gain even more power and cash. She's been fully consumed by power and cash and Frye and Big Man are not on board with her plans as Shiver doesn't wanna give back to the people in Splatsville anymore. So Shiver leaves the group and gathers up the Salmonids and commands them.

However it's revealed that Shiver is doing these things because she had a bad family upbringing in her clan and was always talked down to and treated as weak. So all that trauma and resentment is finally on the surface and Shiver is lashing out at everyone because her pain is so much for her. There could be some themes about found families and healing trauma with the people that you love and stuff like that. Haven't thought too deeply about it. But I would really love to see Deep Cut forgive Shiver and just hug and cry it out. I'll cry alongside them lol.

Now, the second story is focused on the Squid Sisters and takes place before the events of the main campaign. You play as Agent 4 and Callie finds you lying on the floor and tells you that Inkopolis Plaza has been covered in a strange fog and a weird green substance that looks like gooey moss. The buildings have changed and there's all this weird plant life and dust everywhere. Callie escorts you to the tower found in Inkopolis Plaza to figure out where Marie went and that's where you meet Octavio who got shot down in his mech from a laser.

The three go inside and the building looks very similar to the aesthetics of Side Order but with a hospital liminal space edge to it. It looks like a twisted dream hospital environment with a giant lobby in the middle.

This kind of vibe but more open and less hallway like. It should invoke the feeling of going to a hospital as a kid.

However, instead of an elevator to go higher, it's a giant spiraling staircase that grows after each floor Agent 4 completes. Basically the gameplay is the same as the rogue like gameplay found in Side Order but its heavily expanded upon with new enemies, objectives, color chips, etc. However... during the first 12 floors you hear these weird whispers and voices that sound very similar to Marie's voice.... Callie says she's getting major Deja Vu, and then Marie's voice is fully clear and echoes throughout the building, telling Callie in specific to leave her alone and to get out of here. They don't listen and continue forward.

When you reach the 12th floor, you go inside a giant white chamber and you see Marie in a new outfit that's similar to this outfit found in the Splatoon 2 artbook. Basically this but with a cool cloak and squid tentacle patterns on it and a gas mask instead of shades.

She's standing on some kind of green gooey moss and looks angry. Marie attacks Agent 4 with her charger and its a stealth boss where you gotta sneak around and get up to Marie and knock her down from the moss pile. Evil Marie has always been a beloved fan concept in the community, like Hypno Marie has so many cool fan designs out there and i think that could work honestly.

Callie manages to knock the mask off of Marie with a splat bomb but she's still angry. Callie grabs onto Marie and Marie calms down and cries. Agent 4 looks at the gas mask and its just filled with regular oxygen, nothing special about it. No hypnosis gas or anything. Just regular oxygen... Marie says she's sorry and explains that stuff from her past is catching up to her and making her unwell (you can guess on what I'm referring to wink wink.) She was unable to sleep for several days and was being manipulated by someone...

The thing behind Marie's manipulation appears from the ceiling and it's this giant white metallic squid that has transparent glass on some of it's body and arms, which shows this bright green goo flowing inside it. (think of Overlorder but he's a squid). I don't have a lot of information for this guy but this villain was created to cure Fuzzy Octarians, but due to unknown circumstances it went out of control and its coding was changed to "heal" people's pain by covering the planet in a modified and twisted version of Marie's low tide ink which now has evolved to be very similar to plant life. This goo/ink neutralizes certain parts of the brain, leaving the victim completely unfeeling and depressed, unable to feel anything, even physical touch or sensation. The villain manipulated Marie by going inside her head, analyzing her memories and telling her that all she has to is to get rid of "the intruders" and he will "heal her pain."

After the Marie boss fight, you have to travel up to 40 floors instead of 30 and during the downtime you get to learn about the Squid Sisters. Stuff like Callie and Marie before they blew up, who came up with their outfits, more info about their parents and managers, Marie talking about how she has trauma and nightmares from the events of Splatoon 2 and is terrified that one day Callie may leave and never come back again, Callie diving into her time in the Octo Canyon and finally clearing up what happened to her, Octavio showing remorse and sorrow for the actions he has done over the past 100 years. Basically Side Order but with the Squid Sisters, Octavio and Agent 4. I know it's a lot like Side Order but Side Order is so damn good so why not do it again but improve upon the gameplay you know?

That's all I got for this story and it's probably gonna change and be tweaked over time.

Now for the third story of Splatoon 4. I barely have anything for this but it will star the new Idol duo of the game, Off the Hook, Eight and Captain. I think it'll be like Octo Expansion in terms of gameplay and difficulty, but also expanded and longer to complete.

OKAY! NO MORE SPLATOON 4! TIME TO TALK ABOUT HYPNO CALLIE!

Hypno Callie Rewrite.

Honestly, the way I would go about rewriting Hypno Callie is very simple... Remove the Hypnoshades. That's it. She can still have them as an aesthetic part of her outfit, but i would make it so Callie is no longer hypnotized and it's WAY MORE clear to the audience that Callie is suffering from mental illness and that she left with the Octarians, not "kidnapped, overpowered and brainwashed into being a mind controlled slave." Splatoon 2 was always about the separation of the Squid Sisters and their eventual healing and reunion, it was always gonna be about that but due to time constraints probably, they rushed it and introduced bullshit shades to make it easier and simpler, they then tried to fix it later with an obscure post with a relationship chart that no one even fucking talks about, even timeline explainers fail to fucking mention it... ugh...

Making Callie an actual antagonist that has been manipulated by Octavio, whispering to her and playing into her insecurities and pain is way more compelling and makes more sense for Octavio to do as a character. Like how the fuck did he come up with the Hypnoshades and why did he only use it on Callie? He can just make hypnosis tech out of nowhere? Huh? It makes way more sense for Octavio to just manipulate her as he is a master of words and propaganda.

So what I would do is introduce a new mandatory collectable in the Splatoon 2 Hero Mode called "Callie's diary." At certain moments in the campaign Agent 4 and Marie find pages from Callie's diary as she explains her feelings and pain from being overworked and feeling some resentment as Marie has stopped calling or texting her. Marie looks so ashamed and disappointed and starts blaming herself for Callie's disappearance. Some of the diary entries include the photos found in Sunken Scrolls 21 and 22. The last diary entry found in Sector 4 is an emotional rant from Callie the day she went missing. She rants about how she can't take working anymore and how she's so lonely. Her last line is "if no one truly cares for me up here... Then... Maybe..." And there's a small tear stain at the bottom of the page.

Now for the final boss, the main plot points would occur sorta the same way, you fight Octavio and Callie, after a bit Marie comes in and shoots her in the eye, Callie calms down, blah blah blah. I actually really do like the idea of the "low tide ink" that the English translation team introduced. I think it's a neat idea that Marie has this special ink that calms someone down so I'll keep that for the rewrite.

However, during the final boss, i would make it to where Marie is really trying to reach to Callie and trying to convince her that she is loved and she matters, she tries to apologize for her actions and explains that Octavio is just manipulating her for the Octarians' goals. Callie fights back and doesn't wanna listen to her, constantly trying to shut her down. Marie even reminds Callie of their childhood and it almost gets to Callie, but she becomes more emotional and angry, she's so confused because deep down she knows Marie is right, but she's so scared to listen to her because she doesn't want to get abandoned again.

However what really gets to Callie is Marie collapsing on her knees and crying, just begging her badly to come back to her. And Marie says "I love you...." Callie is in shock and starts getting flashes of good memories with her and Marie. She holds the shades in her hands and destroys them. Callie leaps into the air and collides into Marie's arms, and they cry their eyes out and say sorry to each other.

The battle plays out the same but i would like to add another cutscene after Octavio gets his shit kicked in, Callie and Marie are on Sheldon's van and they look at the sunset together. I think that would be really sweet and connect beautifully with the credits and Fresh Start.

I took a lot of inspiration from the game Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and two boss fights in particular. The Miles vs. Peter fight, and the Spider-Man vs. Scream/MJ fight. In those boss fights, it's sort of like a therapy session for the characters in that the people under the symbiote are venting about their issues and expressing their anger they have kept hidden for so long, and the person on the other side is trying desperately to reach for them and save them from themselves. It's really powerful shit honestly and it made me feel emotional seeing Peter go "ALL I WANTED WAS TO SAVE EVERYONE! MJ! MAY! NOW THE CITY THINKS I'M THE PROBLEM! you think I'm the problem." Like i know it's kind of crazy to take inspiration from a game made for adults and take some of it into Splatoon but... I really don't give a shit. Children's media can show powerful scenes of characters struggling with their inner demons. They can do it and have proven to be successful. Children can handle it, they can.

Now... i have worked on a Splatoon 2 finale rewrite and I'm pretty much almost done with it, i need to finish the last bit of it and then go over it again so I'm fully happy with it. However i don't know how to present it as it's in the form of a script and idk how that's gonna work on tumblr, i mean i could put it on AO3 but idk if i wanna make an account just to post one thing on there and idk how many scripts get posted onto AO3 anyways...

It's like I'm a chef and I'm cooking something, but there's no waiter to deliver the food lmao.

ANYWAYS! Thank you for reading my autistic ass ramblings! I got so much free time that i just so much of it just writing down fan concepts for things on different games and stuff (I have a 42 page and counting document on a potential Sonic Frontiers 2.) Yeah... I got THAT kind of autism, not the maths and science one... Again, thank you for reading!

[popculturebuffet]

Sam and Max Save the World Retrospective: The Mob, The Mole and the Meatball (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy freelance police and welcome back to my retrospective look at Telltale Sam and Max! We're onto chapter 3!

Chapter 3…. is my faviorite so far of the four chapters i've played so far. (And I didn't skip one i've simply played ahead a bit into Abe LIncoln Must Die! ), having the bets ballance of the truly amazing writing with gameplay. I rarely had to turn to a guide, with most puzzles being the right ballance of challenging while still being fun to figure out. So join me under the cut as our heroes have to play some wack a rat, fake a murder, and join the mafia to find a mole.

Chapter 3 opens with our heroes getting their usual assignment from the Chief: his mob in the infamous toy mafia , a bunch of standard mafiso who wear teddy bear heads, has gone missing so our heroes head to Ted E. Bear's Mafia free playland and Casino.

Part of why I love this chapter so much… is the setting. The combo of a chucky cheese with a casino (having a slot machine and poker but also using tokens, having a buffet (that's of course closed), and having a wack a rat machine) is genius and the singing heads offer it. There's also the fun easter egg of pulling your gun.. which naturally gets every gun in the place trained on you.

There's also the fun of a simple gag: your code words are "does the carpet match the drapes?" which naturally gets a lot of great responses and somehow dosen't get our heroes hit in the junk.

What's fun is the activites are two simple but fun ones: the first is a mini game wack a rat which while challenging, most of it is from the fact i'm playing on switch and the game wasn't reofrmatted from being clearly meant for mouse. It's still hilarious.

The meat though is a showdown with cardsharp Lenoard Steakcharmer whose just.. a delight. From his obviously shady apperance, to his relationship with his dead mom, Leonard is eaisly the highlight of the chapter. The trick with this puzzle wasn't figuring out how to beat him, you get an ace in your office, so it'eas easy enough to see that's how.. the question was how. The dealer refuses to use it as they already have five and there isn't an option to let Max jam it down lenoards throat and steal his ten million tokens. The actual solution though is awesome: ther'es a reflective clowns nose over the entrance, tha'ts not only how lenoard can see your cards, but how you beat him: you slap the ace up there, he assumes you have one, and thus folds…. netting our heroes their prize and leonoard some therapy. Everybody wins!

The next challenge is getting in which is easy due to Leonoards close compettition, the bug.. which being bosco is a LITERAL bug. Bosco has also installed an anti-delivery system as the toy mafia keeps trying to put things in. Gee I wonder if that'll be important later.

The Bug is fucking great, having apparently been to nam.. and look if I have two comedic weak spots it's cocaine and people having been in nam, so of course I loved him. He's also the funnest item to use so far as he's versatile, able to copy dialouge from people, and thus it makes his use trickier in a fun way: you have ot figure out both where to plant him and who to have himc opy. It comes into play more next time but given most other items are just "use them whent he plot says so" it's a nice change of pace.

With him we can get into the back office and Don Ted E. Bear is impressed with our work, and thus gives us a few assignments before we can join the family, none of which are plesant and two thirds of which threaten our friends: whacking Sybil and delivering the hypno bears from last chapter to bosco. You also find the one from last chapter in your closet which is .. there. It'd be werid if I didn't mention the closet but after last chapter's trophy and especially with the next one, it's a bit underwheming as a souvineer. The third chapter is the titular meatball: the mafia's treasured hoagie has been stolen.

I tackled the last one first as it was the easiest to figure out: they mentioned the theif would be fencing it… and in a nice chekov's gun that for once isn't as obscure, we naturally only know Jimmy.

What did suprise me was who was selling it, Lenoard, who I was delighed to see again and have a tense standoff with… only to find out his gun is a pop gun and thus Max easily solves it with a violence. Seriously finding out of all the options that was the one that solved it was hilarious. The game uses the fact you expect something more complicated.. only for the simpliest solution to be the easiest, thus making all the time attmepting ot talk him down funnier. We leave Leonoard beat up and thus have our first item.

Next is Sybil. Her new career is witness for hire, which unrotuantely means the mob wants her dead and has her monitored. The how is complicated as she refuses to fake her death, but figuring it out was satisfying: she constantly lifts a mug.. which is interactable. So you simply steal it for a second, fill it with ketchup at boscos and then shoot it, making it look like they got her. Bloody hilarious. Career wise it's the weakest so far, so not much to say. Same with french bosco, which really speaks to how fun the ted e bears setting and the actual puzzles are this time: our two allies aren't at their best but what we have to do is so fun and clever it dosen't matter.

For Bosco it's simple: use a magnet we got earlier on his camera afte rdistracting him. Simple stuff but still fun to pull off and his bafflement at them delivering while his back was turn is great. Also with Btads now focused on merch entering, you can shoot up the place, which is always fun.

So with all three jobs done, we get inducted into the mob.. and get a shocking twist I should've seen coming from a mile away: THE MOB'S HEAD IS THE MOLE. And of course he's a literal mole. Unfortunately this outs us to the mob's head, and thus we end up having to run. This leads to a fun chase sequence as WE'RE being chased this time. After taking out the mob behind us with some obstacles.

So it's onto the final puzzle: dealing with the mole himself in his spooky factory, where he's making about 80 dozen teddy bears to ship out and brainwash the populace. The good news is his main weapon is brainwashing our heroes to work in his factory.. and both our heroes are immune.

(Wah wah)

Sam because of his hat and Max.. well originally I was just going to shrug but the more I thought about it the more I realize there is a solid answer: Max's mental state is so erratic and deranged brainwashing has no effect on him. I mean think about it: his reaction to most horrors he faces is "again again". Some things truly creep him out, sure, but his thought processes can sometimes be so alien that the hypnosis would likely have to be specifically catered to him to work and even then i'm not sure tha'td be possible unless the person desinging said hypnosis was someone on Max's level of psychosis… like say the Joker.

Anyways this leads to a fun bit where you have to fake max's death (using Lenoard's popgun, a nice literal chekovs gun) then figure out how to destroy the machines. The solution.. is clever: you get a screwdriver and previously the one armed bandit slot machine I almost forgot to mention , that gives no prize and only gave one when used as a hiding place for the meatball sub, and use it to alter one of the bears and thus use the Mole's hypnosis plot on him, causing him to wreck the factory and our heroes to exscapte the twisted burning wreckage as they do every tuesday. OUr heroes pat themselveso n the back but like last time it's clear this sin't over as one of the mafiso bears takes off his head and calls the mysterious mastermind behind all this to trigger plan B.

Next Month: Our heroes must be bad enough dudes to stop the president, then presidential canditate the lincoln memorial… by having Max run for president, a classic case of the solution being far worse than the actual problem. Until then thanks for reading.