#giant!squidkid

[nomsfaultau]

The different morality systems at play within my own works is always really interesting to me. Cause like, it’s not the action itself, it’s how it’s framed.

Like, I’m just thinking about how despised and villainous MFR Philza is for his everything, but he never physically hurts Techno, unlike how Lambs ”sbi” bruise, bloody, poison, starve, nearly murder Lambs Philza and are still sympathetic. Just like MFR Philza, “sbi” also harm their victim’s loved ones, given MFR Piglin’s kidnapping/torture and Lambs Sbi kidnapping/murder. Lambs “sbi” also kill a lot of people, similar to MFR Phil’s Nether Massacre. And yet, the narrative weight is different, and we’re supposed to root for Lambs “sbi” bonding with Lambs Phil.

MFR Philza’s all encompassing surveillance to protect everyone is treated as a horrific violation of privacy with long lasting psychological consequences. Fault Tubbos’ all encompassing surveillance to protect everyone is treated as common sense. Both are dealing with actual massive threats. Fault’s threat is literally guaranteed to be non lethal in a way MFRs isn’t, even! Or in another direct comparison, both MFR and Fault Philza commit horrible massacres that leave Techno/Tommy (respectively) traumatized and convinced escape is impossible and at least a little catatonic. And both Phils are considered bad because of it, but unlike MFR, Fault Philza can come back from that. It’s considered a mistake that he can apologize for and they can move on from, because in Fault death doesn’t have quite the same weight. Sure it deviates from the pure action schlock of its genre by having some consideration for it, but giant death tolls are still normalized. Hell, Fault Tommy has killed like crazy but he’s poor little meow meow’d about it!

Perhaps it’s the culpability of it? Fault Tommy was heavily coerced into doing lots of murder. MFR Philza had a lot of agency in the Nether massacre, but Fault Philza’s Amnestic massacres are far more dubious given his sanity was being chemically bleached away. Lambs “sbi” don’t have the background context to actually understand typical morality, and so readers treat them far more sympathetically compared to MFR Philza who should have a modern morality system. Or what about Altars Techno, who LITERALLY EATS ORPHANS AND HAS FOR CENTURIES? And yet we just kinda gloss over that, potentially because gods in Altars are controlled and shaped by their worshipers, and so it’s unclear how much agency he had in the sacrifices (or in stopping them; again, was that a choice Altars Techno made? Or did Altars Tommy make that for him by his more innocent worship dictating it?). Or Fault Tommy kidnaps Techno like constantly, because he can’t control summonings, or Weight in Gold Philza is a giant bird so we forgive him for kidnapping Techno because he was only intending to eat him, but when MFR and Lords! Phils do it, it’s suddenly reprehensible?

Could be reader attachment to characters, since again moral weight is warped in fiction so it’s up to if it harms the reader. The MFR Nether massacre hits more than Fault’s Hallway massacre because the reader knows the characters being killed, compared to Fault’s faceless corpses. And then we only knew MFR Blaze and Squidkid like a chapter, compared to Fault Rosalind being there the entire first epoch before being brutally murdered by Tubbo. And she’s not even actually dead, but that’s treated with massive weight compared to multiple characters known a short amount of time, compared to hundreds npcs.

I think a lot of it is the ‘sell’. Like in a fake wrestling match, where the impact of the heel is determined by how much the target is supposedly hurt. Since it’s fiction right, it’s all artifice, we only care so much as the protagonists do. When MFR Techno goes absolutely catatonic for weeks after the Nether massacre, when he spends the entire rest of MFR in its shadow- that more than anything gives those deaths weight. Or within Fault itself, where Fault Philza is despised by Fault Tubbo because they watched him murder a bunch of people, but (like the readers) are far more forgiving of Fault Tommy’s murders because they like him and haven’t really been impacted by them (happen mostly off screen). And hell, for Weight in Gold Techno and Kristin and Phil doing a bunch of terrorism and murder is a bonding activity!

Like. This is why just stating war crimes lists or whatever doesn’t always tell you if the character is considered good or not, because it depends so much on the tone, genre, context, and character reactions. One story’s irredeemable villain is another’s protagonist’s Tuesday, you feel me?

[tlgtw]

Instantly seized with a vision of The Splatoon Movie:

A normal ass squid kid from the countryside. Goes to the big city to take part in turf war as Jr athlete, makes friends there and they become a team and this kid from the sticks is making waves, they train relentlessly day in a day out and eventually come to be seen as a real prodigy, and the kid and their team look stationed to win it all at the upcoming Splatfest.

But the upcoming splatfest is cancelled! Because of a big event. Either just the Great Zapfish going missing or something else. The rest of the squidkid's team is bummed out but our main character is mega fucking pissed and tries to get to the bottom of what happened. Because if there's no splatfest, then they can't play! And they can't play, and act as a valuable member of the team, then their friends won't like them anymore and then they'll be lonely like they were in the countryside!

The squidkid's sleuthing skills somehow end up getting them the attention of the New Squidbeak Splatoon and they get recruited to help in rescuing the whatever and saving the day and uncancelling the splatfest!

The villain turns out to be some relic of the human world like Tartar or some such and for any member of the audience who doesn't already know Splatoon, this is the first reveal that it's technically a post-apocalypse story.

And in the midst of beating this villain, somehow, maybe through their interactions with the Squidbead Splatoon or encountering their Turf War team during this big battle somehow, our squidkid learns the lesson that competing in competition and becoming famous isn't what's actually making them happy in the big city. It's just spending being able to spend time with people like them, their friends. And for their friends, it's the exact same. Just because our main character loses the opportunity to 'prove' themself as a 'valuable person' by showing off how good at sports they are, that isn't the reason their friends actually liked hanging out with them or playing together.

Learning to appreciate the present, and trusting your friends, or somesuch, are the feel-good morals of this movie.

And then at the end where there's a big robot or something, it gets defeated in a giant explosion and everything is great. The Splatfest is back on! But, oh, alas: The main squidkid gets significantly injured by the battle and is forced to sit out the Splatfest even though they went through all that work to reopen it. But it's okay because the rest of their Turf War team sits out of the game too, hangs out with them and they all have a good time regardless.

The end.

i went to see mario to contribute to the box office profits so they make something with splatoon and it was ok . not enough luigi

[goosedawn]

(1/6) ok so just had a mcyt g/t au idea {tiny farmer}! /// There’s a potato field. Now this in itself isn’t something special, but what stands out about this one is the shear area of the land it covers, flowing over hills, and producing potatoes so fast one might wonder if the field is enchanted in some way.

hey anon???? i absolutely LOVE this dbdbghbjjhkdjhbdhbjhjddbdkhd,,, rivals squidkid and techno are just. so good

this sketch was meant to be for me to figure out how to draw borrower techno for a different tiny techno ask, but it somehow turned into tiny farmer techno jhsnhsbdvhdnh

(if ur not the same anon congrats on just hiveminding ig dbsjfbndb yall seem to do that a lot,,,,)

i know you said the two are a couple towns away... but please consider technos fields growing rapidly and they just. they become neighbours :]

also some extra doodles!

"scarecrow" phil came to me suddenly and i couldnt resist djhdkndbc (... techno isnt happy with this development but cant be bothered to take phil down, so he probably ends up talking to phil as he shoos away crows on his own)

i can imagine phil coming to life one day, interrupting technos grumbling about the crows and just being like. "well m8 maybe you shouldn't have stuffed me with crow feathers and straw then"

[baka-monarch]

Krakeninnit. The war on plants was all good and fun until Squid tried to visit the farm without supervision of sbi, and look! An human village, what losers, they should have ransacked it already, well, let's not waste resources!

👀

Tommy was out with Techno in a different part of the ocean when this happened- so Tubbo was terrified when Squid showed up, he's just one small human who usually call for Tommy for help, and now there's this 250ft kraken stealing things, and kidnapping people from their village-

Tubbo tries his best to help the villagers to escape, already knowing well where these huge mers can't get to because of Tommy- but being the last person out in the open has it's down sides, such as: being kidnapped

Mcyt g/t tag list:

@nomynameisanon @trashpumped @loriepoptale @encaos @i-am-a-weeb @ludacris247 @shy-septic-dragon @5unfl0writ3r @colorfulsiren @moonmwah @iwasgoingtohellanyways @echoslime @wilbur-simp @trouble-off-grid @the-misfits-system

[hometownrockstar]

i dont know what to draw now that i’ve finished all 3 of those long projects i’ve been working on for a while... the only thing i’ve drawn in-between them are mostly sketches im either not too attached to or there are too many to decide which to start on. also i’ve drawn this i think this is pretty good

[bigmountaincat]

Thanks to @theconfusedanimal, I finally have my own SquidKid! X3

I’m super excited about this, and I haven’t had my own fan-based OC in a while. I don’t play too much Splatoon only because I don’t have any copies of the game/system to play it on, but I’ve always loved the character designs, the music, and all the little cultural things they’ve got going on. And now I have my own Inkling to insert into the lore! Because I’m insane! :D

Introducing Cyril! Name: Cyril “Cy” Age: 19 Species: Giant Squid Height: 200 feet Weight: ~71,938.26 kg/~71.94 metric tons Personality: Very friendly, and usually excitable. Often thought to be younger than he actually is. Usually very careful of his surroundings, but can get a little careless when he’s excited. Huge Marina fan, and he hopes he gets to meet her some day. Sometimes forgets he’s 40 times the size of his fellow Inklings. Bio: Like every Inkling, Cyril grew up wanting to be a part of the Turf Wars that everyone took part in. As he started to age, however, his size continued to grow, separating him from the rest of his group. When he was 9, it became apparent that he was easily 5 times the size of a fully-grown Inkling, and it was decided that it would be altogether unfair for him to participate, he was prohibited from being a member of any inkling teams. By the time he reached maturity, he had reached his full size, and no one was certain what to do with him.      For a while, he worked as a construction assistant, but he was always unhappy with that. He spent all of his free time spectating the official Turf Wars matches. Because of his size, he had to sit pretty far away from everything, but he was always super excited, and everyone could hear his cries of excitement and encouragement over the sounds of the competition.       After months of attending matches of a specific team, the team finally started a secret petition amongst the participants. It turned out that nearly everyone was familiar with Cyril’s supportive cries during matches, and they were very appreciative. With the approval of the folks in charge, it was decided that Cyril would be able to participate in the Turf Wars matches as a unique kind of Special Weapon.       Armed with a slightly-larger-than-normal Slosher, when called upon, he can toss his stash of ink on the field, turning the area indicated by teammates into a deluge of ink. He now works at a specific stadium, and his buckets are traded out for whichever color teams are playing that day. Inklings come from all over to catch the energetic colossus dump his buckets of ink, and many specifically pay extra to sit in the “Splash Zone,” an area directly in front of Cyril’s designated area. Not only did this turn out to be an amazing economic opportunity for the stadium, but a great way to dispel rumors and concerns over Cy’s large size, and Inklings very quickly became accepting of him. He’s become a bit of a cross between a celebrity and a landmark for the stadium, and his new job has gotten him to meet all kinds of Inklings from all over the world!

Feel free to submit asks about my new SquidSon! :D

Art by @theconfusedanimal (get your own SquidKid here!) Character (c) Me Splatoon (c) Nintendo

[superjumpintomyheart]

The ask about human language is getting me thinking about how inklings reconstruct/view human society. Like we know they find human bones all the time but something tells me they reconstruct them really weirdly. Sorta like how 1800s paleontologists reconstructed dinosaurs as giant lizards -Bingob

accepted 100% i bet they think we were like scaley or reptilian like, or on the contrary they think we were all just puffs of fuzz, like what happens when you touch the ooze in Alterna. I'm leaning more towards the fuzzy idea, but it would be so funny if they viewed us as like, fluffy cute animals. humans like dinosaurs bc they're cool, some ppl think they're cute, so i think some cephalings would think the same about humans! imagine little squidkids with their human action figures making silly noises to resemble what they think we sounded like lol

[wendy130]

I have the upload schedule of Technoblade :)

Fuck cancer.

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FUCK OFF terfs, pedos, people who ship content creators who don’t consent to being shipped, and people who are like this stuff in general <3

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Most but not all tags I use are in this masterpost are here.

Basic information about me can be found in the description box.

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Don’t know what g/t is? It stands for giant/tiny. This area usually focuses on interactions between two major size difference people.

Don’t know what vore is? The consumption of another person. Other names for it are: nomfs/noms. In this blog it will ONLY be sfw, g/t, and non-fatal*. I will not delve into anything else. (*non-fatal - may change if the scene is specifically a dream in which the character does not actually die. Will tag appropriately.)

Think vore is disgusting? Cool, your opinion. Block the “tw vore” “vore” and “tw vore?” tags or get off my blog. I will not tolerate hate; however, questions about vore are okay if they are not worded like hate. I do mostly vore drabbles/stories here with a few normal g/t ones.

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Under the cut will be the list of my Aus and links to my writing.

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AUS (all of them put on hold. Unsure of when they will return):

Ancient Curses AU [description coming one day...]

Art dump 1 || Techno’s transformation (short drabble) || Phil and Tommy find a contraption (short drabble) || Art dump 2 || Doodle of Phil

(tw vore) Temporary Roommates AU [Tommy saves borrower Wilbur from an ill-fate, with a very unpleasant method. Now they’re stuck together until Tommy can find a new  place for the borrower. They run into many issues and a few new people....]  [main characters: g!Tommy, t!Wilbur, t!Techno, t!Philza, g!Ranboo, t!Tubbo]

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Feral Glee

Dream Shifter AU [Dream is a size and shapeshifter (only with two forms). He’s traveling with George. More description coming soon...] [main characters: Dream, George, Sapnap]

Doodles

Mushroom George Au [Find under the “g/t Mushroom George” tag.... Will change Au name... Description coming soon...] [main characters: g!Dream, t!George, g!Sapnap]

Doodle || National Mushroom Day

(tw vore) That’s not a Fish Au [description coming soon...] [main characters: Eret, Foolish]

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2

*anything not tagged with either “g!” or “t!” means that there’s size changing factors in the story.

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All art can be found under “doodles”/ “art”/ “drawings.”

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#Fake fic titles - small prompts (not all are g/t related) based on submitted asks that give me fake titles for stories. Tag can be found in the tags. Obviously.

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(Mostly) One-off Stories

Old writing ---> semi-old writing ---> more recent / recent writing

Inventory (t!Tommy)  ||  Nightmares (tw vore, g!Tommy, t!Tubbo)  ||  Bad Fever (t!Tubbo, g!SBI- Phil)  ||  The Festival (tw vore, g!Techno, t!Tubbo)  ||  Snuggles (tw vore, g!Techno, t!Philza) Glittering Nights- wait is that a human? (t!Tommy)  ||  Found Tommy... (tw vore, t!Tommy, g!Techno, g!Philza)  ||  Dreamons can cry? (g!Dream, t!George, t!Sapnap)

Her Duckling (t!Puffy, g!Dream)  ||  Her Duckling (tw vore, t!Puffy, g!Dream)  ||  :) (tw de-realization, tw slight body harm, not-g/t)  ||  Need a place to rest (tw vore, t!Tubbo, g!Ranboo)  ||  Why are their tiny people on my cape? (g!Techno, t!Wilbur, t!Tommy)

Do you Prefer Them Alive or Dead? (tw implications of past fatal vore, dark themes, Strangers on the Internet Au by Aperson, g!Wilbur, t!Tommy)  ||  Bad Library Meeting (tw mentions of fatal- none happen, Strangers on the Internet Au by Aperson, t!Tommy, g!Wilbur)

Preparation for the Nether (tw vore, g!Wilbur, t!Niki)  ||  Thunderstorms Suck (g!George, t!Dream  ||  Forced Cuddles (Friendly Giant Au by Corysmiles, g!Ranboo, t!Techno, t!Philza)  ||  My Lmanburg, Phil (tw death of main character, Agreed Arrangement Au by Goosedawn, t!Wilbur, g!Philza)

Hey! That Game was Rigged! (tw vore, injury, healing vore, t!Philza, g!Techno)  ||  Need a new Home? (t!Tubbo, t!Ranboo, g!Foolish)  ||  Tumbling into Naga Territory (tw vore, t!Philza, g!Techno)  ||  Little Drables of Tiny Farmer Techno & giant farmer SquidKid Au (Au by an anon and @goosedawn, t!Techno, g!Squidkid) 

Go to Bed; You’re Sick (tw vore, t!Wilbur, g!Techno)  ||  Hey! That Game was Rigged! (Philza’s perspective, tw vore, t!Philza, g!Techno)  ||  The Forest Guardian (tw vore, g!naga!Technoblade, t!avian!Tommy)  ||  Outline for Wannabe Fighter (optional tw vore, g!Techno, t!Tommy)

*some writings/drabbles that are under the appropriate tags will not be included in this list

[dazenightmare]

(Hi just for context I have no idea who squidkid is or what the potatoe war is but I had a fantastic idea and so I’m using them in this anyway)

So tommy right. Ok well you’re not going to believe this but he gets lost. He was just vibing and next thing he knows he’s in an alleyway presumably far from the store. And just before he calls for help he happens to bump into squidkid. (I’m not sure if they would’ve met or not yet but in this situation they do not recognize eachother)

And squid is like “are you alright tall child??” And tommy, after cursing him out for calling him a child for he is a large big man, metions that he’s just gonna call his brother technoblade.

“Technoblade?”

“Yup”

“Kinda tall, pink hair, monotone, makes you want to punch him but in an annoyingly endearing way?”

“Yup”

“.....do you wanna help me prank techno and win a rivalry we’ve had since highschool”

“Absolutely.”

And so they start plotting (after getting permission from Phil because you shouldn’t just hang out with strange adults you meet in alleys)

Technoblade ends up getting a call from his cell from tommy which is immediately suspicious because tommy loves using the walkie talkies to bug everyone when he needs something. So techno actually picks up.

“Heeeeeeey big man...funny story you’re going to love this-“

“What did you do tommy”

“NOTHING. Well. I’m pretty sure being kidnapped cant be considered my fault”

“....HEH”

“Yeaaah. Things went a bit south”

“I’m calling the police. I swear to god if we don’t find you-“

“Why does that sound like you’re threatening me?!?!? Besides we’re just in the parking lot”

And so techno rushes out there and sees squidkid but no tommy (by this point he knows it’s a prank and Tommy’s not in serious danger) and so techno and squidkid have these dramatic monologues which end with squidkid revealing where tommy is and it turns out he’s just chilling in this giant cage hanging from a tree drinking Coke (wether or not he’s wearing a princess peach outfit is up to you)

Techno is so done with this shit

“Tommy did squid really manage to bribe you into being a damsel in distress with coke?!”

“NO......he also gave me free merch.”

“Goddammit Tommy”

And so squid reveals that the only way he’ll return tommy is if Technoblade and him have a rematch of the potato war (but it ends before 8 because tommy has a curfew) and so techno and squid gets like an hour to prepare and I’m too lazy to say how that whole biz goes but it ends with techno and squid saying dumb dramatic lines like

“You’re not bad.”

“You’re not so bad yourself”

And then they just stare into the sunset for a minute before tommy finally interrupts

“Uh hey guys! How am supposed to get down from here?”

No amount of words can describe how much I love this. He wears a gender bent Princess Peach costume because comfort comes before jokes

[thatkidwholikesthunderbirds]

Hey just a friendly neighbourhood Virgil Simp, would you mind drawing the gentle giant sitting by my bedside possibly in the hospital I can send a reference pic of me if you'd like, I really love your art

Hello, thanks for your compliments, I'm very glad you like my doodles. I'm usually quite open to people asking me to make art for them, but this time I'm going to have to say no and here's why:

Firstly, I don't draw ocs or self inserts unless it's for a very close friend or if it's a paid commission. (something that I may do in future.)

Secondly, and please don't think I'm being rude when I say this, but I just don't feel comfortable. I've never seen you around the fandom before and I've never spoken to you before so you're a total stranger to me at the moment. You also seem to have a lot of untagged NSFW content on your blog and I have no idea if you have any intention to use my art for something I may not be comfortable with. (Like a fanfic or roleplay ect.)

I'm so sorry to let you down but until I get to know you better, I won't be able to draw for you. I hope you understand.

However, in the meantime, there are lots of other lovely artists in and around our fandom who have commissions open and would likely be happy to make your drawing for you. If you ask the rest of the fandom, I'm sure they can give you some recommendations on commissioning artists.

This is Squidkid signing off.

[bigmountaincat]

DIS GOOD GT SQUID KID CONTENT

@ whoever trevor is, that’s some good gt art 👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽

(also yes i love splatoon, I just beat the game 💕 #team love) (any gt nerds wanna add me on the switch?)

[grandpa-cephalopods]

Cuttlebones, I've always wondered about your parenting skills. Will you tell me about how you came to adopt?

“Hrm, ‘how’ huh? Well that ain’t too hard, lessee”

“The ‘beaks were real supportive of me the first 2 months after the war, and then they just off and stopped seeing me as much. I couldn’t handle that loneliness at all, so I went to visit them to see what was going on and-”

“Those feller’s had gone and fell in love with some other squids! Ray had found a nice firefly squid to settle down with, and Marina (HA, bet that’s gonna confuse some of you kids) found some bear of a giant squid... or was it a shellfish...... eh, he was a super big guy that she hung out with and did lovey things around. And yanno, it made sense fer’ me at least. You survive something violent like the Great Turf War, you celebrate by like finding love and havin’ some cute squid kids and havin’ big family dinners.”

“Well this crusty squid’s problem was well... Diiiiiidn’t exactly choose all the right crushes that time in me life yanno. So ‘yer ol Gill here was the only one outta the squidbeaks without a cute squidkid causing havoc in his apartment. And after maybe my last couple years working through a hotdog stand, bein a door to door salessquid and cleanin’ the sewers, I eventually caved and took a visit to the orphanage... ok, ok having to babysit Ray’s hatchling kind of convinced me too.”

“And corny as it sounds, Paella found me first, heheh~”

“One of the rowdiest and bitey-ist kids in the orphanage, but the moment she was free of that cramped place and had all these nice parks and the local octovalley to run around in, she was one of the sweetest kids this cap’n could’ve ever asked for, eheheheh.”

[goosedawn]

Okay, but Squid finally seeing Techno after the Potato War and just being indignant because he got beat by someone so freakishly small he is not even 6 inches tall. Techno is indignant because he is a perfectly normal height. Squid is the freakishly tall one.

this is the perfect opprtunity for me to propose something as well:

yknow how techno took his win in a calm and collected manner? first meeting.

(sorry i took so long to answer this fjhdjhdjhbkjdnhv)

[travelererrant]

Let’s Talk About Splatoon 2 for the Nintendo Switch

Nintendo has long been a game company that relies heavily on their original IPs as opposed to third party games for their consoles. Usually when someone remembers a classic game on a Nintendo console, it’s usually one of the exclusives Nintendo has. Zelda, Mario, Kirby, all of those are iconic brands with several games that are considered to be iconic for how fun, memorable, and charming they were. A couple of years ago, Nintendo finally took another risk with an entirely new IP about a bunch of squids. This wouldn’t seem too strange, except it was meant to be played as an online multiplayer shooter. Nintendo. Doing an online game. With elements of third-person shooting games.

What sort of timeline are we living in? Well, joke’s on us, because even though it came out on one of their less popular consoles, the Wii U, the first Splatoon game was a hit with critics and players alike, with everyone praising it for its charming looks, fun gameplay, and memorable style. I myself never really got the chance to play it, so when Splatoon 2 was announced for the Nintendo Switch, you know I had to get my hands on it. I got to participate in the pre-release Splatfest, a recurring battle that splits players into two factions based on a “Which is better?” question, and it just got me more excited to play the full release version of Splatoon 2.

And by God, it was certainly worth the wait. 

Splatoon 2 is one of the must-have titles available on the Nintendo Switch. I genuinely think it should be in every Switch owner’s library. Even if you’re not typically a fan of third person shooters, I implore you to give this game a try. It has a very enjoyable single-player mode that will help you learn some tricks to use in the multiplayer mode, and the multiplayer games themselves are incredibly fun and addictive, though they do make some questionable choices that I’ll address later.

Let me start this off by saying that this game looks amazing. It’s extremely bright, vibrant, and colorful in all the right places, with little details thrown in to make the world of Splatoon 2 stand out even more. Your central hub is a city square known as “Inkopolis Square”, and you use that to get around the various shops and access the different game modes available. There’s even a little DDR-styled minigame you can access that not only lets you listen to the fantastically fun and bouncy soundtrack, but also break your thumbs in frustration because you can’t keep up with the stupid beat of the songs. Aside from that, you can jump between the shops by accessing the menu if you don’t want to bother walking around or get lost easily. It’s a nice little feature that I enjoyed, as I constantly forgot where the shirt shop was.

I do have to say I was a little bothered by how I couldn’t switch off the motion controls for the tutorial section that the game makes you start out with, but once you reach the main square you’re allowed to fiddle with it to your heart’s content. I’m very glad they’re not mandatory. The options also allow you to lock the ink colors if you’re partially color-blind, which I’m actually very happy they included. It’s little touches like this that make up the reasons I ended up loving this game.

In the singleplayer mode, you play as a nameless Inkling (the name of the squidkid race present in Splatoon) who is tasked with rescuing the Great Zapfish from the evil Octarian menace. It’s once again not meant to convey a great story, it’s just a setup meant to get you to play through twenty-eight levels where you splat, jump, and squid your way through to save smaller zapfishes. I say “squid your way”, because one of the main mechanics of the game is your ability to freely switch between Kid and Squid forms. Kid form lets you use weapons, jump around, move, etc. Squid form lets you swim around in the ink you threw around, climb up walls, and just generally helps you maneuver yourself into better positions to take out whoever is trying to take you out. You move faster on your own ink, but slow down and take damage over time if you’re on the enemy’s ink. You can cover their ink with your weapon, and they can cover yours, so it’s beneficial to be aware of your surroundings and pay attention to which color is surrounding you at that time.

The campaign isn’t very difficult, though there are some platforming moments that I remember getting frustrated with, mostly because I wanted to get all of the collectibles and was very impatient at the time. One thing I will admit I feel torn about is the way they implemented the different weapon types into the campaign. On the one hand, you actually got to use the several different weapons that Splatoon has to offer. From a “charger” weapon that acts like a sniper rifle, to a giant paint-roller that excels in everything related to close combat, the variety in the weapons is very impressive. Compared to the way they just forced you to only use one weapon throughout the entirety of the campaign in the first game, this was such an improvement. However, every level forces you to use that one weapon, no matter how much you hate it.

For example, in a previous level you could have breezed through it using the Dual Splatties, a sort of dual pistol rapid-fire short range weapon that I really enjoyed using, but then the next level would force you to use the frustratingly slow Charger weapon that I just can’t bring myself to enjoy. I’m not really much of a sniper person to begin with anyways, so it just felt annoying to have to adjust to a weapon I wouldn’t really pick in the multiplayer mode anyways. And that’s what the single player really is all about: preparing you to dive into the real meat of the game, which is the beautifully done multiplayer mode.

In the multiplayer section, you have four different types of games you can play. There’s the casual Turf War, where the goal of the game is to ink more of the current map with your colored ink than the other team. The team with the most ground covered at the end wins. Pretty simple, and it’s just a fun, casual way to enjoy the game and rank up. Once you hit level 10, you can start doing competitive battles where the rules change on a set schedule. One day it could be a capture the flag sort of game, the next it could be a “push the payload” situation. These battles are ranked, starting you at the C- rank and giving you the chance to climb all the way up to S+ I believe. I haven’t spent much time with this yet, but from what I’ve experienced it is fun to blast your way through in a more strategic manner. There’s a “League Battle” mode that you can play when you reach Level 25, but I haven’t gotten there just yet. If there’s one thing I have to complain about with these modes is that I don’t really feel like the matchmaking system is very fair, at least for the casual mode. I was Level 6 or 7 at the time, but I was being put against teams that had their lowest member at Level 17. It felt like it was a crapshoot on whether or not the match would be fair or completely one-sided.

Finally, there’s the enigmatic, frustrating, extremely fun game mode known as “Salmon Run”. This game mode takes you and three other players and pits you in a cooperative horde mode against creatures known as Salmonids. Your job is to collect a certain amount of Golden Power Eggs from the tougher Boss Salmonids while using pre-chosen weapons provided at random. At the start of each wave, you’re assigned one of four random weapons, and you have to work together to survive the salmonids and collect the eggs. If your entire team is killed or you fail to collect enough eggs, the game is over, and you lose a bit of your Salmon Run ranking. Yes, there’s a ranking for Salmon Run, but it really only applies to how much experience you get for the in-game rewards.

I call it “frustrating” because even though I adore this game mode and how it encourages teamwork, it does have a few issues. It feels like the difficulty can be extremely random at times, with some Boss Salmonids being much tougher to beat than others, and the way the maps can actually change during the match. For example, some maps have a low tide and high tide, giving you either more map room to work with, or so little that it feels like it’s way too easy to get cornered and separated from your team. It’d make more sense if this happened later in the match, but it can happen at seemingly any moment. Or maybe that was just my luck kicking in. 

And then there’s the weirdest thing about Salmon Run: It’s not always available to play. For some reason or another, this game is on a schedule, being available some days and shut down on others. I can’t figure out why this choice was made, and it still baffles me as I write this review out.

To give yourself an edge in the multiplayer modes (aside from Salmon Run), you can actually buy clothes and accessories that come with passive bonuses, such as giving you damage resistance, faster moving or better swim speed. These little bonuses can make all the difference, and if you really like the way a particular piece of clothing looks but not the bonuses, you can add or reroll certain bonuses on the item until you’re happy with both how you look and how it helps you play. It’s a neat little system that allows you to make your own unique Inkling.

If there’s one thing to take away from this very long-winded review, it’s that Splatoon 2 is an essential title for anyone’s Nintendo Switch library. It’s one of the reasons to own a Switch, and with more free DLC content on the way, I don’t have an inkling of an idea as to why you shouldn’t own one of Nintendo’s best new games. I’d say it’s a splatting success.

[bigmountaincat]

HE CAME OUT SO GOOOOD!!! weot348hjt985yhjw4p98jghg I love him so much! Working on a character profile for him now! Guys, go get your SquidKids done! This is SOOOOO good! >w<

First Splatoon DLC for my friend @bigmountaincat! His Inkling character is like 200 ft tall and is literally a Giant Squid! :D Tri-Slosher for scale right by his foot(it also may not be….exactly to scale cuz I’m not very good at that just yet skjdnfgsd I’ll get there EVENTUALLY)

Get a commission for your Splatoon OC at lowered price here!

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[hometownrockstar]

i like having more than one special interest/hyperfixation at once bc i can share them with my friends on here who are into only one of them :-] on my blag its like “hey splatoon mewtuals! this is johnny joestar i love him and he can shoot his nails like bullets!  hey jojo mewtuals! this is my squidkid she likes to slap people with her giant paintbrush and she is very fashionable :) also i think rats and moths are pretty neat!”