#(if theyre making it) by the time splatoon 4 comes out im probably gonna be too busy to play it or even care

[cautionszz]

earnestly i do not understand why they dont just do repeat splatfests forever. why would you remove features from your game 2 YEARS after it started EXISTING. aggravating

[sick-ada]

CICADA AGENTS MASTERPOST

bc i keep forgetting that i havent actually put much abt my agents on my tumblr and i need to expose the max number of people to my blorbos as i can

going under the readmore cause this is gonna get longg

(this has been in my drafts for over a month)

CB-808 (agent 8, she/her) and Bubbles (agent 8 AGAIN, a SECOND TIME, CAN YOU TELL EIGHT IS MY FAV, he/him)

they're "twins", meaning they both woke up without any memories, saw that they were the only two nearby who looked similar (being the only non-sanitized octolings in the metro) and assumed that meant they were twins

they do all of the tests in octo expansion as a duo! this makes some tests easier (like girl power station) and others much harder (like the one with the dualie squelchers and the grindrails, since they have to share the weapon between them)

this kinda fucks with the computer systems and all their mem cakes are blended (lmao) together. they have to work together to figure out whose memories are whose, to varying success levels

very very very codependent. theyll get anxious if you take the other to another room where they cant see each other. proto (cap3) convinced them to do one test separately and CB got so worked up she punched the side of the carriage and permanently dented it

they didnt try a second time

ON THE TOPIC OF CB DENTING THE METAL: shes freakishly strong, in an artificially-modified way rather than a very-strong-but-normal way

after the splatoon 1 campaign, elite soldiers deserted en masse since nearly all of them were at the concert/final-battle, leaving a gaping hole in the octarian military. in an attempt to fill that gap as quickly as possible, volunteers were "purposed" to become enhanced super-soldiers

(ill probably make a dedicated post abt it when i remember but "purposing" is what they do to make octarians (the stubby tentacle guys) into all the different forms you see in-game. debateably ethical to begin with, SUPER unethical to do to actual octolings)

im bad at timelining but she signs up to this when she's like,,, 13. still kinda blobby

functionally, what it did to her was make her freakishly strong (she breaks the handles on doors ridiculously often) and about 50% more resistance to enemy ink. girls a tank. however, she has trouble regulating her strength and therefore cant superjump accurately since she overshoots her target every time

it's also super painful. she permanently lost her voice from screaming too much and cant speak any louder than a whisper, but she knows octarian and inklish sign languages so she gets along fine

her name is CB-808 bc that was the serial number printed on a livestock tag in her ear

BUBBLES ON THE OTHER HAND. not physically fucked up. mentally though................

his parents were some of the elites who deserted after hearing the Inkantation (in my headcanons it's something that can be resisted, but only temporarily). he wanted their approval more than anything so them leaving him was devastating

hes not actually a dude he just think he/him is a cool set of pronouns. heard someone say "him" once and absorbed it into his gender

he lied abt his age to become a scout/reconnaisance (how you spell that??), even if nobody was really gonna check given the situation after splat1

where CB is built like a tank, he's tall and lanky, and also scarily smart. combined with his lack of filter he'll literally just stare at you for 5 seconds before saying some shit like "oh i see. youre scared of us because of our competence and your perception of our alleigances compared to urs"

captain 3 is scared by him more than CB. as they should be.

his name is Bubbles because he has circular markings on his upper arms and CB is not very good at coming up with names (shes an amnesiac teenager give her a break)

theyre both 15 during octo expansion, and 20 by splatoon3

after reaching the surface they move in with flora (4) and his roommate bola (oc) to form the Leftovers Squad, an inksports team and maybe-gang

these two are wonderfully terrible influences and teach the two of them how to defy authority n shit, it's great, ill talk abt it more in their specific sections

CB mains the dynamo but plays it like a splat roller because she's so strong she can swing it with about that speed. Bubbles mains the e-liter and has nutty aim. the kind of duo that makes people realize theyre ex-soldiers

both of them are too obedient to authority, leftover habits from the military even if they don't fully remember their time there. CB is much worse in this regard, since she was more heavily conditioned to follow orders and Bubbles is observant enough to realize when theyre being taken advantage of

FLORA (agent 4, he/she used interchangeably)

part of the Leftovers Squad! a young punk squid that revels in rebellion and violence and showing people what's what

almost entirely deaf. he had pretty bad hearing to begin with, but loud raves without ear protection worsened it significantly. his hero headset functions as hearing aids but he doesnt usually wear them unless he's on NSS missions or patrols or w/e

came to inkopolis when she was 14, but it wasnt intentional. her parents were the kind of awful perfectionists that expected their children to be equally as perfect, so decided to leave flora in inkopolis bc she did awful in school

he was taken under Bola's fin (get it it's a fish pun theyre fish im hilarious) and became enamoured with the adrenaline-fueled, bloody-mouthed rush of fighting, in and out of inksports

the best way i can describe her is "violent for the sake of violence and gleeful about it". she starts a fight with someone twice her size just for the fun of attacking and taking a beating. probably something wrong with her. i love her with every fibre of my being

has absolutely zero respect or trust in authority -- especially adults, which includes Marie since she's 19 in splat2 and he's only 16

still goes along with her whole "hey go save the zapfish" spiel because A) she cant actually hear what marie is saying B) marie gave her some free fancy hearing aids so she GUESSES she has to return the favour somehow C) she wants to fight some octarian soldiers D) she wants to steal her own zapfish (she succeeds, it gets a tank in Leftover Squad's living room) and E) she thinks itll be REALLY funny to fuck with marie

shes right btw. its hilarious

she only follows orders when it's funnier than disobeying them. she puts zapfishes back in levels she wants to complete a second time. she teaches octolings how to play poker (and how to cheat at poker). she lets a squee-g splat her "to see what it feels like"

if callie wasn't missing marie would NOT put up with his bullshit, but alas.

respects agent 3 even less than marie, when they meet, since at least marie has a sense of humour

he's the one who suggests that CB and Bubbles move in with him and Bola after Octo Expansion. less out of his own goodwill and more out of a combination of morbid curiousity and a sense of "bola has a habit of taking weird inkfish under their fin, walking in with two soldiers will be really funny"

gets hypnoshaded 5 years post-splat2 (during the splat3 campaign) and has to be rescued by the leftover Leftovers (lmao) and Off the Hook. octavio doesnt really convince her to put them on, theres no realistic way he could do that, so he physically overpowers her and puts the shades on

he gets rescued tho! so it's all good and absolutely no interpersonal issues come from it i swear (lying)

Bola (they/them, not an agent)

another member of Leftovers Squad and, arguably, its leader

is about as comfortable with violence as flora (read: very comfortable) but, unlike him, doesn't enjoy it for its own sake. when they do a violence, it's for a specific aim and a purpose, even if that purpose seems inane or petty

theyre the leader of the leftovers mostly because theyre the only one with a goal or any sort of purpose. also because theyre by far the most charismatic of the bunch but mostly bc theyre the only one with any direction in life. the other three are happy to just help with that

(calling it a purpose is doing it too much justice, it's a grudge. a massive fucking grudge against Squidforce as a brand and an institution and a company. they want that thing obliterated)

when they first came to inkopolis (they were like 12), they werent a citizen of inkadia so they had no ID and weren't allowed to do official Squidforce battles, so they went to unofficial/illegal/unregulated turf wars to make some cash

this got shut down by squidforce

they decided "no. fuck this. fuck you, im gonna fuck every single one of you over, die." and swore vengeance about as dramatically as a then-13 year old could. luckily, bola was a very dramatic, kinda blobby 13 year old

they met flora when he came to inkopolis and introduced him to the concept of You Can Just Fight These People If You Don't Like Them

would have agreed to housing CB and Bubbles if Flora had just asked but this is fine they guess

theyll be the last to admit they have a compassionate streak, but they have a soft spot for the underbelly of inkopolis and everyone who lives there, most of which are underrepresented or downtrodden by the system that squidforce upholds

theyre an octoling but not an octarian (citizen of octaria, the nation that lost the great turf war and now lives in the domes) like CB and Bubbles are

instead, theyre a weird subspecies of octoling that went back in the water while the "normal" species of inkfish stayed on the surface. they still have most of the same features as an inkfish, like the shapeshifting, but have more aquatic adaptations like gills and razor sharp teeth and being able to swim in water unharmed (ik inkfish dying in water is only dubiously canon but for my headcanons normal inkfish dissolve like ingame if they fall into water)

they also have sepiism! better described in this post this means their ink/tentacle colours are limited to blacks and browns. their subspecies is more prone to this colour mutation than other inkfish since black is a pretty good camoflague colour if youre in the deep ocean. idk i wanted an excuse to make them look cool dont think abt it too hard

they absolutely despise proto (captain 3). aint no world where theyd trust the militaristic authority figure that orders around the two ex-soldiers theyre trying to teach how to be independent

not to mention the grudge they form against the captain after the hypnoshading incident that i will elaborate on i PROMISE its in the next section

aFTER I TALK ABOUT THE LEFTOVERS SQUAD AS A WHOLE. IF I CANT ESCAPE THEM NEITHER CAN YOU

when they meet, post octo expansion, the twins are 15 and the punks are 16, so theyre 20 and 21 respectively by the time splat3 rolls around

flora gets squidnapped just after splat3 campaign (which lasts like a day for reasons that will be evident once i get to neo 3 and "little" buddy), so proto and the squid sisters are in alterna monitoring the situation and doing cleanup while it happens. this will be relevant later. foreshadowing is a technique where--

a couple months after the twins move in, CB discovers inksports and makes the biggest saddest puppy dog eyes at the rest of the squad until they agree to making a league team together. it's also called the leftovers

CB and Flora love it because they enjoy physically fighting people (CB likes that she doesnt have to be permanently hurting people during it, Flora would like it better if there was a lil permanent injury tbh). Bubbles enjoys it because his sister enjoys it and also because he enjoys using his big brain to do sick predicts and snipe people from across the map where he's nice and safe. Bola only joins at first because telling the ex-soldier, who theyve been trying to convince that you dont need peoples permission to do things, "no" would be counterproductive. they hate every moment they have to fight in a squidforce battle. but then once the team gets well-known they realise that squidforce cant get rid of them anymore and uses their platform to absolutely troll the shit out of squidforce

like when they go on interviews and stuff they constantly mention how shitty squidforce is and "yeah i personally prefer [smaller organisation]'s inksports, they have way better maps and modes, squidforce just has a monopoly so..." and squidforce cant do shit bc theyre the charismatic face of this popular new team and itd be bad publicity

CB and Bubbles dont have real IDs cause theyre amnesiac teenagers who made up their own names. flora and bola get them fake IDs that claim CB stands for Courtney Blitz, making bubbles into Bubbles Blitz

CB often gets called Clam Blitz. CB does NOT appreciate this. Bubbles thinks it's hilarious and only answers people who call him "Blam Blitz" for like a week

Bubbles mains the E-liter but likes lots of different anchors, CB exclusively plays her "splat roller" (a dynamo swung really fast), Flora learnt how to play every weapon from the splat2 campaign and can play basically anything (but usually goes for something close-range so his bloodlust gets put to good use. heavy weapons tend to turn into bludgeons in his hands) i dont know what bola would use tbh. i wanna say a splatana but this is set mainly in splat2 so they wouldnt have those. if anyone is still reading this far pls make suggestions in the notes 👍

CB and Bubbles dont have any sense of money (in my hcs, the domes work more on a communal property + bartering system) so they have no reason to object to pearl giving them inordinate amounts of money. bola and flora have to have a conversation where they ask whether pearl is their sugar daddy. this is agonising for everyone involved.

they used the money to buy an unreasonably large bed that they all sleep on together bc theyre my ocs i make the rules

i promised it was proto next. here *throws them like a javelin through the screen

Proto (captain 3, they/them)

i shld probably start at the beginning for them bc their actions through all the games are the catalyst for a Lot of plot

they were raised in calamari county, their parents were friends with callie and maries parents so they hung out a bunch when they were kids. basically the third squid sister, though they get way too bad stage fright to become idols like the other two

hanging out with those two so much also meant a lot of exposure to cap'n cuttlefish. proto idolised him to no end, decided they wanted to be just like him when they grew up

when the squisters went to inkopolis to become idols, proto became their manager. they were also recruited alongside callie and marie into the NSS when craig decided to reform it. ive never actually watched a playthrough of splat1 so i dont actually know how the plot works other than "craig is there and then callie & marie are there" so the next part is probably gonna be more canon parallel than canon adjacent

also because im just making up random shit about splat1. thats probably also a factor

in this version of canon, the octarians dont steal every zapfish you grab at the end of the levels, only the ones used for the boss levels. all the rest are ones owned by the octarians, mostly bred in captivity cause where tf else are you gonna get the power for running the domes

proto isnt an active agent in splat1, it's callie and marie who go in and do the fighting while proto is the one coordinating them and making plans. their plan is to steal all these extra zapfish to strain the domes' resources and then perform the inkantation during the final confrontation to make the maximum number of soldiers (especially elites) desert, all so they become incapable of stealing more zapfish or launching a retaliatory strike

and cap'n cuttlefish approves so surely that means that this is a good plan and any suffering caused is a necessary evil and it's not like this paranoid old man has any biases or grudges that would impede his judgement. surely not

side note: instead of inner agent 3, CB and Bubbles have to fight inner agents 1 & 2. inner-callie targets CB and inner-marie targets Bubbles because i think the roller-charger parallel is cool

the plan works! elites and soldiers desert in droves, neutering the octarian military capability, and octaria has to focus what resources it has on not starving (which it barely achieves, theres a famine regardless) rather than attacking back. it also creates the conditions for bubbles' parents to leave him and for CB to undergo the extremely painful and inhumane procedures to become an enhanced supersoldier but proto doesnt learn this til octo expansion

the squid sister stories proceed basically like canon, but proto dedicates themselves to agent work while marie focuses on the radio and callie focuses on acting. theyre out investigating the metro with craig when callie gets squidnapped so they dont find out until octo expansion finishes (like a few weeks after she gets rescued)

SPEAKING OF OCTO EXPANSION. PROTO IS THERE THE WHOLE TIME

they dont fight CB and Bubbles, theyre a terrible fighter and a bit of a wimp (and those two are kinda terrifying), instead they watch when they get overpowered and captured by a squad of sanitized octolings (those two got sent to investigate since people kept vanishing when they went that way). they still get the same "youre down here because of me" guilt since they chose to watch rather than intervene

they later got into the metro proper and found those same people but like super amnesia'd and a little traumatised already, even if theyre not sure how much of that was already there, and then they get even MORE fucked up because the metro is fucking Like That

also guilt bc they dont actually help with the tests beyond advice thru the comms. can never have too much of that

they get CB and Bubbles out of the blender by removing their special limiter and spamming splashdown on the top til it breaks, getting exhausted and passing out afterwards, letting tartar control them

the hole in the ceiling gets made by CB throwing a bit of broken blender really hard

usually they would get their ass kicked by either CB or Bubbles, let alone both at once, but the two of them are so exhausted and fucked up and a little injured that the fight is closer than anyone would like. the fight ends when CB grabs them by the ankle and slams them into the floor. think that one scene from the avengers with the hulk and loki

unfortunately, since CB is way too scared and full of adrenaline to properly regulate her strength, she completely crushes their ankle and lower leg. since it doesnt splat them, they dont respawn, and everyone is too preoccupied with destroying the NILs statue to get them to a hospital, the leg wasnt salvageable and they had to get it amputated below the knee

theyre an ambulatory wheelchair user, after that. sometimes crutches instead, but they tend to go for the chair in alterna bc crutches and ice do NOT mix trust me on this. i only had crutches for a couple months but i fell on my ass SO much

anyway they reconnect with callie and marie and things are fine and good and theyre totally not avoiding the twins because marina kept updating them on relevant files she found during OE and theyre struggling to reconcile the idea that these are enemies with the undeniable truth that nobody has had a greater negative impact on their lives than them.

probably would be worse if marina told them the twins were 15. good thing she doesnt!

oh yeah i forgot ages. proto is 17 in splat1, 19 in splat2/OE and 24 by splat3

anyway yeah in their efforts to avoid the twins so that they dont have to think about the wide-reaching consequences of their past actions, they dont actually leave them with any way to contact them while they go check out the Crater. itll only be a quick mission, right? no need to worry about it

alterna happens

then they and the squid sisters come back to cuttlefish cabin to find it completely empty, then discover that flora is still in the hospital after having the shit kicked out of him because he was hypnoshaded and they didnt have any low-tide ink because marie wasnt there and they couldnt contact her and they tried and they tried and why didnt anyone answer and

theres a big cool dramatic confrontation where CB and Bubbles reveal they got all their mem cakes and know exactly who proto is and what they did and would have forgiven if they had been honest but now they cant trust their captain and formally quit the NSS

honestly theres more stuff for proto after this but i ahvent actually figured it out yet.

personality-wise, theyre overconfident in their own abilities and underconfident in the abilities of everyone else, they struggle to give control of anything over to someone else. because why would they allow someone else to be in charge when they know that their own plans are automatically so much better?

as they learn about the actual consequences of their splat1 plan via CB and Bubbles' descriptions of their mem cakes, this confidence falters a bit. they spent so long with that plan being one of their greatest achievements that they cant reconcile with the reality that it had devastating consequences for innocent people

this is not at all helped by Flora, who makes no secret of his opinion on proto. at first he's just fucking with them for the sake of fucking with them, the same way he does for marie, but it gets more antagonistic when proto reacts with genuine anger rather than the good humour marie does. flora absolutely does not take kindly to people trying to exert authority over her so she aims to piss off proto at every opportunity

it is very easy for flora to piss proto off

OKAY I HIT THE CHARACTER LIMIT ILL MAKE A SECOND POST FOR THE REST

[zaptap]

ive made a few of these bingo sheets and theyre fun so i decided to make one not just for e3 but also JUST for splatoon 3 (not just for e3 but for like the whole lifetime of the game). also heres my updated list of characters id like to see in smash, ordered generally by which id like more and/or think are the most realistic

since min min got in i took out helix, and since i couldnt decide whether to add in waluigi or madeline i added another row (realistically i dont think any indies are getting in but i threw some in anyway). also i was like “oh yeah maybe theyd put in a gen viii pokemon” so i threw in hatterene since thats one of my favorites.

also as for waluigi (and shovel knight for that matter) i think it would be nice to see an assist trophy get in just to break that rule. also i remember being super surprised he wasnt in brawl (back then i thought he and wario were equally important) and even though that was based on a wrong impression ive still felt like he should be in there ever since

notes about the bingos under the cut

really is about time for those n64 games, especially now that mario is dead so theyre free to release sm64 on it. game boy games would be nice sometime too

would also make sense to include banjo-kazooie in that, nintendos had a good relationship with microsoft lately and the total absence of anything banjo-kazooie on the switch is odd since it’s a dlc character (every other one has a game on switch they can use for cross-marketing, even if joker’s took a while) and i think the best explanation for that would be that theyre holding off for the nso n64 app (this is easiest from a technical standpoint because all they have to do is make a deal to use the roms)

when are they putting octolings in mk8d

xenoblade chronicles x is one of the only wii u games left that they could port (aside from ones that wouldnt make much sense like splatoon and ssb4) so i guess that might as well happen sometime. also monolith soft might be doing something else besides helping with splatoon 3

im not ready for metroid prime 4 (im over halfway through mp2 and therefore the trilogy as a whole) but it’s been a while, they might show it and it could even come out this year

hal apparently recently hinted at a new kirby game or something

the upgraded switch is obviously going to be called the Nintendo Switch ͥ  since they already did the ds lite so theyre clearly naming everything in the family after the ds family, theres absolutely no flaw in this logic. idk if theyre showing it, but unlike 2019 they didnt say they werent showing new hardware (just that they were showing software, which could be taken as denying rumors, but they sometimes specify when certain things arent being shown)

metroid prime trilogy also might come this year. would make sense to release it before mp4 since not everyone is going to buy a wii u to get it (and at this point that doesnt get nintendo any money since they stopped making them)

where is detective pikachu 2. i hope it has the blue pikachu from that first tease they gave us in like 2014 (2013? that was a loooong time ago idk)

they said this was MOSTLY 2021 so i am absolutely getting my hopes up for splatoon 2

the two sinnoh games could likely be there

would be super cool if oddity came to switch. and almost as ironic as megalovania getting into smash

we havent seen the botw sequel for a couple years so we’re kind of due for an update on that

it’s ace attorney’s 20th anniversary this year so maybe theyre doing something. theyre already porting those games though so idk. maybe he’s getting in smash

whats with that watermelon mario render

i held off on watching a playthrough for ndrv3 on the off chance it came to switch and i could play a dangan ronpa game for real for once but it’s now been 4 years and we just passed the 10th anniversary of the series (albeit during a pandemic when i wouldnt expect them to have done anything) so it would be cool to see the series come to switch. i think if it still doesnt after this though i’ll just watch the playthrough, 4 years is long enough. amazed ive avoided spoilers this long, i still know next to nothing about the game

im about done with acnh but im still waiting on those splatoon items. and i ran out of storage in february so i need more of that too

nintendo did stuff for zelda’s 30th anniversary so i doubt theyre forgetting the 35th. maybe wwhd/tphd ports, idk

been a couple years since fire emblem, intelligent systems is probably up to something besides planning yet another paper mario spinoff

miyamoto forgot pikmin 4 in the oven 6 years ago and it got burnt to a crisp and thats why it hasnt come out yet because he had to start over

and splatoon

the inklings scared daft punk into quitting so now that theres no competition in the robot musician scene they should have a daft punk style group

i waited and waited and neither of my top two splatoon stages (flounder and d’alfonsino) came back in splatoon 2 so i hope just because splatoon 3 isnt in inkopolis doesnt mean they still wont return

would be sick as hell if there was a real hide and seek mode instead of just sticking to your own rules in private battles. havent played that since 2015 but it was super fun

show us the effects of the chaos world

i wanted mc craig to have a song in octo expansion and they didnt deliver. heres another chance

splatnet 3 baby

cant wait for nogami to do a funny 3 pose

abxy came back for splatoon 2.... am i gonna be that lucky again...?

salmon run doesnt make sense if youre friends with a smallfry but they could either change the story context (you just fight “evil” salmonids?) or replace it with an equally fun co-op mode

amiibo!!! i think i said this before but they should label them by weapons if these cephalopods dont have genders, would make more sense (the gendered ones had different weapons anyway)

returning characters!!!! would like to see everyone have a role of some kind

maybe #GearForAll wasnt successful in getting the emperor/spy/mecha gear, but perhaps theyll at least consider not making that stuff exclusive this time around

squid girl gear should be back. and they should call it a dress instead of a tunic because its a dress. and theres no gender now anyway

as ive said before... TRIPLIES!! you hold one in each hand and another in your mouth. and you can spin around like the tasmanian devil

remove splatfest tee annoyances: you should have a prompt at the end of a splatfest to pay to scrub your tee (to make sure you get the chunks) also it should be on a neutral brand so you dont end up with an overabundance of ink resistance up (or whatever else)

better online and cloud saves would certainly justify having a second splatoon game on the same console, as much as im loving that it exists

hopefully theres a global testfire again

sooner or later the workers will rise up and kill mr grizz

remember in splatoon 1 where if you had squid beatz (via the amiibo) you could “play” it in the lobby and change the music? then you were stuck listening to only bubble bath in splatoon 2? why did they take that option away they should bring it back

looking at those apartment buildings in the trailer i think it would be cool if you had your own room and could decorate it

an octavio redemption arc would be fun to see. in the manga he stole the zapfish because the octarians had an energy crisis, and in the end they worked out a deal to share the electricity