#at first I wasn't so hyped

[hydrangeapartridge]

I started watching Dungeon Meshi and that is not something you should do when you are trying to write a fanfic for another fandom...

@willowser I kept seeing you posting about Laios... and now I understand !!

[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.

[cecoeur]

How do you sleep at night? No one to hide behind Betrayed every alibi you had You had every chance to make amends instead you got drunk on bitterness And you still claim that you're innocent, it's sad

[coquelicoq]

if you're wondering what the big deal is about the louis-philippe sentence in les misérables, it is, in the original french, 760 words long. the subject of the sentence doesn't appear until 95% of the way through, at word #711; the main verb is word #712. the sentence contains 91 commas and 49 semicolons and is almost entirely a list of laudatory adjectival phrases describing the erstwhile king of france. this is perhaps especially notable because les mis is, shall we say, not known for being particularly gung-ho about the monarchy.

this sentence copied and pasted into Word takes up more than one page single-spaced. in the 1800-page folio classique edition, it is fully two and a half of those 1800 pages. that means that les mis is 0.14% this single sentence. more of les mis is made up of this sentence than earth's atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide (0.04%). if the page count of les mis stayed the same but every sentence was the length of this one, les mis would consist of only 720 sentences total.

incidentally, guess who named hugo a peer of france 17 years before the publication of les mis?

[batbabydamian]

🐱 Nightwing #110 rambling AKA wailing about how Dick and Jon love Damian

backtracking to 2 weeks ago in Titans #6 for a sec when Dick expressed how he wanted to look for Damian - it was nice to get a nod of Dick being concerned, but i was a bit bummed he didn't start a search. and i get it, the world needs saving, Dick's gotta do what he has to!!

different writer/story, but this line popped into my head the moment Babs said Earth needs the Titans

Damian means the world to Dick!! the Titans can take care of the literal world without him for a bit!!

but ykw it's fine since this issue proved me wrong, and Dick looks for Damian anyway!! 😭 basically "the world's still in danger but my brother needs me right now" this was just the start of the issue and i fell to my knees THEY BOTH REALLY DROPPED EVERYTHING FOR DAMIAN

the part where they plan to wait out Damian's match was so funny to me because Dick keeps repeating to Jon that they shouldn't engage, but then Dick just goes "NEVERMIND i'm going in" 😭 he couldn't stand watching Damian be hurt anymore i'm weeping

with context this is actually so sad for Damian orz otherwise i just wanted to say i love these drawings!! it's just a really cool page to me - i love the posing, especially in the hands/claws!! the intense expressions!! also so efficient in showing how the match escalates with Damian quickly overpowering Gail (along with seeing Jon's dread 🙁)

THEY WERE SO WORRIED ABOUT WHAT THIS WOULD DO TO DAMIAN 😭

just more panels of Dick and Jon worrying over Damian :')

DYNAMIC DUO 2.0!! and ofc they have a dramatic entrance haha

HEAD IN MY HANDS...CRYING... i'm assuming Damian's hands are still supposed to be covered in blood since the first thing he thinks about when he returns to being human is what he had done without his control. and this bothers him to the end of the issue 😭 (HIS EXPRESSIONS EVEN WITH THE MASK ON 😭)

not sure if it's intentional, but Dick's speech to Damian in B:WFA ep 113 is kinda brought to canon here through both Dick and Jon

this was a sleep deprived reactionary rambling, so not much thought is left in my head lol i was hoping for some cute cat Damian shenanigans, but i'll happily take Dick and Jon being protective over Damian! 🥺

one last duo pic for the road :)

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Show: LEGO Monkie Kid

Song: Seven Nation Army (Glitch Mob Remix)

link to watch on youtube

This is four minutes long my condolences

[cxlandine]

hot take - i don't care if none of the rat grinders get redemption, i just want them to at least be good villains because they've been built up all season as foils but they're actually kind of trash

people are starting to sympathise with the rat grinders now because they ARE the underdogs. they're outmatched by far and even if they're the villains people want to root for an underdog. they're weak because they were given the cheat codes and never learned anything because why would they?

[a-dip-in-the-source]

Something something Bracken's horns always falling into Kendra's hands. Holding a piece of you you thought you lost forever, letting her have it, because now she's a part of you to.

Maybe a story about destiny. Here's a piece of me you found before you even knew me. We helped each other before we met each other. Thank you thank you thank you for returning the favor, I want to help you further.

Maybe its a story about healing. Bracken the hornless unicorn, trapped inside himself. Kendra brings him out of prison, opens him up, helps him retrieve his second horn. Does it again, helps him reclaim his third.

Maybe its a story of realization. She represent all he was, and showed him he didn't need it anymore. Let me cut you some pieces of me, so that my connection to you can last forever.

The horns are so much to me.

[chaoticly-shy-dragon]

@pumpkinpaperweight had a dream and @bnanmonte gave me brain rot which led to lots of ideas and excess creative energy

what I like to call Separation Au or the universe where Agatha is ready to break bones at all times only Sophie makes it to the school. It's a lot of fun to consider when you realize without Agatha, Sophie can't do more than psychological torment and emotional manipulation - and that's something the schools' inhabitants excel at!

[deuynndoodles]

hot take: the water temple isn't actually that hard and y'all are a bunch of babies

[wickedsick]

Just officially beat refantazio

[the-lord-of-the-things]

Yee-Fuckin-HAW BABY

[sainz100]

Carlos' Williams announcement!! ❤️💙

[sysig]

Bucket Bucket Bucket ♥ (Patreon)

I literally gasped, my original Bucket <3 <3 It was all worth it

[endiness]

that people are actually trying to drag the show for getting renewed for a final season and coming to its natural conclusion as if that's some proof of how bad the show is and how horrible lauren is as a showrunner though lol. like, please tell me you have never read the books without telling me tbh. (genuinely, 5 seasons makes the most sense anyway. chances are s4 will adapt bof for geralt etc and ttots for ciri and then s5 will be ttots/lotl.)

[yllowpages]