Usually my younger siblings wait until I\u2019m done with work \u2014 they\u2019re in earlier time zones than I am, so they\u2019re being polite \u2014 then the group chat lights up: \u201cSplat.\u201d \u201cSplat.\u201d \u201cSplat.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
This is our shorthand for \u201cIt\u2019s time to play Splatoon 3<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I am not what you would call a gamer, but I did buy a Nintendo Switch in 2020. That\u2019s kind of when this all started. I am the oldest of five, and most of my younger siblings love video games. In the interest of bonding, I started hanging out with them on FaceTime while we played Animal Crossing<\/em> together. In 2022, one of my brothers got Splatoon 3<\/em>. Eventually, most of the rest of us did, too. Now four of us (and one of my brothers\u2019 significant others) play Splatoon<\/em> together.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I am writing this, in part, because my younger siblings have some complaints<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Our pandemic family video game hangouts never really ended, so now I am logging serious hours on Splatoon<\/em>. For the uninitiated, it\u2019s a third-person shooter, but a family-friendly one; the idea is to paint as much space in a map as possible. It seems to be set in a future where mammals generally, including humans, are absent. We play as squid-like Inklings that swim through paint. You can be killed by other players during matches, but then you are simply reincarnated. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n My siblings and I are scattered across the US, and we don\u2019t get to spend a ton of time together in person. But since we started splatting together, we\u2019ve been hanging out on FaceTime several times a week. We\u2019ve developed a whole intrafamily lore. I thought about explaining it, and then realized it is completely incomprehensible. Just trust me on this one, it\u2019s very funny.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I am writing this, in part, because my younger siblings have some complaints, and they would like me to abuse my position of power (?) at a website in order to air them out. There are nine items on the list at the moment, but I\u2019m sure they will think of something else to complain about soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I will air only one: when we all play, it\u2019s annoying to set up matches together, because teams consist of four people and there are often five of us. So what usually happens is that one of us starts playing. Then, once they\u2019re in a match, they can accept \u201cdrop-ins\u201d and so the rest of us all drop in, which means we join in the following match. It would be nice if we could figure out how to do this in a more efficient way, so one of us doesn\u2019t have to play alone while the rest of us wait.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I have never been a video games person per se. Mostly, I play them as a way of hanging out with friends; I played Counter-Strike<\/em> with friends often enough in college that I didn\u2019t embarrass myself, but I wouldn\u2019t say I was good. When I lived in New York after college, video games were a fun way to hang out with my downstairs neighbor after work. Now, they\u2019re sibling bonding time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n We don\u2019t really make plans ahead of time, which means that sometimes not all of us can make it. But it\u2019s nice to get a text that says only \u201csplat\u201d and means \u201cI love you, let\u2019s hang out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [ad_1] Usually my younger siblings wait until I\u2019m done with work \u2014 they\u2019re in earlier time zones than I am, so they\u2019re being polite \u2014 then the group chat lights up: \u201cSplat.\u201d \u201cSplat.\u201d \u201cSplat.\u201d This is our shorthand for \u201cIt\u2019s time to play Splatoon 3.\u201d I am not what you would call a gamer, but …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27429"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}