#Alterna: Recreation

[luvvheartz]

Smollusk doodles

Honestly Smollusk is one of my favorites to draw im just really proud of its design

Fun fact about this au: Smollusk has Achromatopsia, meaning it sees the world in grayscale

[d1edre]

the stickers/posters in Alterna are some of my favorite little details and i want to be able to actually put these up on my walls irl so i'm remaking them from scratch so they're in high quality and i can print them out 👀

[splatoon-confession-box]

alterna makes me so saaad dude. the human handprints, the preserved crops, the recreation of art and hopes, the Music, the place called Happiness Research Lab. fuck. god. it wasn't fair

[chronotopes]

Time to return the favour. 4, 5, 24!

gonna choose to answer for wryn and mina because they are the latest arrivals in the story and are the central supporting characters in the upcoming chapter that i ... still havent started <3

also thank you!

4. What are 3 of their irrational fears?

i think this is a fun question because perhaps 'irrational' is such an interesting qualifier. in real life and in fiction the world is full of things to fear at least somewhat rationally, which means i cannot promise that all of these fears are 'irrational' even though sometimes the character in question may think of them that way. but let's give it a shot.

mina is afraid that 1) by falling in love with leander (who also grew up in her hometown's upper class), she is simply recreating destiny/her parents' wishes for her in a slightly overcomplicated way, 2) if she is ever too happy or stands too still she will be settling, making herself vulnerable, tying herself down delusionally to something doomed to go wrong, and 3) she is not capable of love at all, not in the right way and not for too long

at the point in the story that is currently written, wryn is afraid that 1) there are key elements of his past and his magic that his guardian knows and is not sharing with him, 2) that by lingering safely in coastal universities he is failing to explore the world and its magic to its full potential in the same reckless and dedicated way his parents did, and 3) that if he DID venture beyond that safe zone what he found there would kill him. (these are all in one way or another extremely reasonable if not straight up true. wryn self-identifies as a Very Rational Person and has at this point in the story not been challenged in this self-conception.)

5. How affectionate are they? What are their top love languages?

LOL i selected the two characters with the most distant affection habits out of the whole gang for this question.

mina is extremely not a 'wow i really like you' person in most cases. in early phases of a friendship or relationship, she demonstrates affection largely by Being Down To Hang Out With You and sometimes by quietly remarking to you about something kind of personal. she is a pretty transactionally-minded person who wants things to be fair and to not be embarrassed, which means she will cook for her friends and get them holiday gifts to preempt a sense of Owing. but her truest sign of Really Loving You is when she accepts acts of service or gifts from you without feeling like she has to immediately find something to offer in return.

that and trying her hardest to kill your evil dad and oppose your enemies, that's another classic sign of mina affection.

wryn is a lot freer with compliments than mina. he's pretty blunt and not shy about telling people he thinks theyre Wrong! but at the same time not shy about pointing out someone's skill or knowledge when they've impressed him in some way. he also shares insight and information with people very freely – he is very driven by wanting to Help And Be Helpful – but when he properly likes you then he starts sharing stuff that he's purely interested in because it's interesting rather than because it's contextually relevant. he did not have the same kind of heroically-oriented imagination growing up that mina and mari and lark did, so when he is put in a position to put himself in mortal danger to protect people he loves he is a lot less emotionally prepared for it. still does it though.

tl;dr in terms of the 'lame and fake science' variety languages both mina and wryn are acts of service oriented in many ways but that's cheating because it's a teen oriented fantasy novel and everyone is trying to die and/or kill for everyone else constantly. outside the context of immediate peril, i would say mina's is time and wryn's is words.

24. Where did their name come from? Does it have meaning?

i will be completely real with you everyone in vital light has names that i thought were nice non-cringe alternatives to their names in the original draft (excluding quartz, whose names are the same across both). so alas i did not think about meanings very much.

[splatcam-0110]

Hello I didn’t pay attention to the direct after the Splatoon announcement so I took pictures.

So Wave 2 of the Splatoon 3 DLC pass will revisit the Inkopolis however as you can tell not everything is the same. This will definitely be another story mode campaign that will have agent 8 as the main character. There were many images that flashed that I took pictures of and I’ll review each one.

As you can see the Square is much different than what it was in Splatoon 2 whether this is the actual Square in its current state or a alternate version (like how we saw it recreated in that one level in Octo Expansion) is to be determined. The Lobby is replaced with this manor like building which I suspect will be the sort of hub area between the levels. Other than that the décor shows a lot of coral-like structures particularly dead coral that have been bleached by chemicals like we see in IRL oceans. This may tie to the central theme of the story where chemicals are affecting the world and the creatures of the campaign.

Here we see 8 sporting new gear for this new journey. The Splattershot looks more like a rifle with a stock and an extended barrel which might imply upgrades like in the Alterna Campaign. She also has another device in the other hand which might be a fizzy bomb or a new sub altogether. There's a multicolored device chained to her waist but the use of this item is unknown. There are also a lot of elevator themes which may be how 8 will travel between levels and the hub in the main plaza.

These shots of 8 I believe are taken in the same place, this large room with weird black pillars, bleached walls and floors with red veins spreading like ivy. Agent 8 may still be recovering from the events of Octo Expansion as we know from the mem cakes she experienced great loss of her previous life before the metro station which may come back to haunt her.

This shot suggests this as this may be a flashback to when she was still an octoling in the octarian army surrounded by her peers before losing them in the metro.

This shot is very interesting as it shows the visage of an inkling (noted by their pointed ears). This could by Captain 3 since Agent 8 had ties with them in Octo Expansion. However it could also be Agent 4 since canonically 8 and 4 are roommates and an appearance of the captain would be slim given how they are currently in Splatsville at this point in time.

This image seems very important as it was mostly shrouded in darkness in the trailer, however when brightened it gave me no clues on what this figure is. A device of sort that may be the cause of the bleaching in the Plaza or some entity that may be important.

Lastly we know that Pearl and Marina will be tied to this story. The two shots here show them in their outfits they had in their most recent collab with Damp Socks. What is to note is that Pearl has her shades down and her eyes not showing, may be implicating that it may be some form of hypnoshades. Marina is showing to be glitching out as if were seeing her through a messed up monitor. Hopefully this campaign will go more into their relationship and the events that happened after the Final Fest in Splatoon 2.

My personal predictions/theories

With the themes of coral bleaching and ties to Octo Expansion and the Order side of the Final Fest. I think we are revisiting some form of sanitized ink concept.

With the Kamabo Corporation in shambles in the epilogue and the Tartar's creations being salvaged, there could be some entity that might have got their hands on some sanitized ink and done experiments on it like Grizz did with the color crystals, refining it and altering it to suit their needs.

Pearl and Marina's involvement with the events of Octo Expansion would connect them to this story (also y'know the Plaza itself has heavy ties to Off the Hook overall).

I'm hoping. HOPING that we see more 4 content and that the inkling was indeed 4 because there isn't nearly enough representation than with 8 or Captain.

In the mem cakes in Octo Expansion, we know that 8 also had a friend and I'm hoping that picture of the other octolings is a sign that we'll be going in-depth with this aspect of 8.

[esuemmanuel]

Peinabas tus cabellos, cada noche, ante la luz de una vela y bajo la mirada de la plateada luna… Decías que no podías dormir si no pasabas por tus cabellos la calma de tus caricias. Peinarte era más que pensar en embellecerte, te hacía sentir en paz, tan relajada y plena que, al poner la cabeza en la almohada, no perdías tiempo en caer dormida. Los sueños no se te hacían esperar. En el instante en que tus ojos se prendaban de la oscuridad, tu mente se vestía de blanco y comenzaba a viajar. Decías que no había lugar que no hubieses pisado ya al dormir, habías conocido el desierto del Sahara, el monte Everest, el Himalaya, entre otros lugares que bien pudiste pisar con los ojos abiertos. No me sorprendía tanto el hecho de que presumieras tu habilidad ni que me describieras, con lujo de detalle, esos lugares. Te creía y no tenías que demostrarme nada. Nunca me había puesto a preguntarme lo que sucedería si visitases en sueños lugares ajenos al planeta Tierra. En realidad, jamás me pasó por la cabeza que alguien pudiera soñar otra cosa que no fuera parte de este mundo. La mente suele representar en sueños la realidad a la que ha estado sometida, fuera de eso sería resultado de la imaginación… pero, ese último sueño que tuviste me dejó algo preocupado. ¿Qué tanto podía tener de ficción y qué tanto de realidad? Por eso fue que, al salir de tu casa, me puse a investigar sobre lo que me contaste. Me parecía increíble que tuvieras tanta imaginación y que pudieses ser capaz de recrear en tu mente un mundo tan inverosímil como poco probable y, sin embargo, no podía dejar de darme vueltas la posibilidad de que existiera y que hubieses sido capaz de viajar, a través de tus sueños, a dicho lugar. Ya habíamos hablado anteriormente sobre los multi universos y las realidades alternas, pero, aunque hubiese querido negarlo, algo me decía que podías haber tenido un viaje interdimensional. No quise asustarte. Me dijiste que no habías peinado tus cabellos porque estabas excesivamente cansada y pensaste que no iba a haber ningún problema si, por una noche, no cumplías con el ritual.

You combed your hair, every night, before the light of a candle and under the gaze of the silvery moon... You said that you could not sleep if you did not pass through your hair the calm of your caresses. Combing your hair was more than thinking about beautifying yourself, it made you feel at peace, so relaxed and full that, when you put your head on the pillow, you lost no time in falling asleep. Dreams were not long in coming. The instant your eyes were caught in the darkness, your mind would dress in white and begin to travel. You said that there was no place you had not already stepped on when you slept, you had known the Sahara desert, Mount Everest, the Himalayas, among other places that you could have stepped on with your eyes open. I was not so surprised by the fact that you bragged about your ability or that you described those places in detail. I believed you and you didn't have to prove anything to me. I had never wondered what would happen if you visited places outside the planet Earth in your dreams. In fact, it never crossed my mind that someone could dream something other than part of this world. The mind usually represents in dreams the reality to which it has been subjected to, outside of that it would be the result of imagination... but, that last dream you had left me a little worried. How much of it could be fiction and how much reality? That's why, when I left your house, I started to investigate what you told me. It seemed incredible to me that you had so much imagination and that you could be able to recreate in your mind a world as implausible as unlikely and, nevertheless, I could not stop thinking about the possibility that it existed and that you had been able to travel, through your dreams, to such a place. We had talked about multiverse and alternate realities before, but even though I would have liked to deny it, something told me that you might have had interdimensional travel. I didn't want to scare you. You told me that you had not combed your hair because you were overtired and thought it would be all right if, for one night, you didn't go through the ritual.

— Esu Emmanuel©️

[bucketsquid]

seeing con reblog the Chocolate Problem thing is making me think about it actually.

obviously white chocolate is safe so i guess big man was right. but milk* chocolate and dark chocolate still exist. and those, by human definition, have theobromine in them.

do they (the splatoons) KNOW what chocolate tastes like based on human description of it? is it possible to describe such a specific flavor?

did they recreate chocolate flavors and then it's absolutely NOTHING like the chocolate but still fits the description? (this is the funniest possibility)

what about imitation chocolate flavors, have they figured that out yet? google says vanillin + others. perhaps they have found a way to Remove the Bad Toxins from chocolate. because carnivorous animals that turn into "probably still obligate carnivores but they can eat plant matter too" beings wouldn't really have a reason to evolve resistance to theobromine

there's no feasible living races (that we know of) in splatverse that would have a theobromine resistance so either the milk + dark chocolate is fake.... or some REALLY funny mutations were gleaned from the Magic Alterna Crystals

*we're approaching a theseus' ship problem here due to no dairy and therefore using milk substitutes like almond/soy/etc, too

[anon-8518]

Something is off with my copy of "Fleeced to Meet You"...

Just some fanart of illucztration's AU, "Virtu-Wool Insanity".

I also done this in a different style to be more like SITBC.

[asksquidbeakagents]

(Re)Birth

"So I finally get to see what you've been working on to lead you to ignore my existence for the last couple weeks."

"Yes, now don't be so salty. It'll be worth it, I promise."

"Ummm. Nine, what is this?" Orca asked, as Nine pointed the screen around the lab.

"I think I found a way to give you an actual body! That way, even when I feel like shutting myself in the lab for a couple days you can go explore on your own. And I can finally get my phone back."

"Wait, really?"

"Yep. You wouldn't believe how much effort it took to piece together a stable DNA sample with what I had on hand. Now let's get to it."

"Alright, comfy in there?" Nine asked once they had managed to get Orca transferred. "This will act as a sort of basis for the body to work around. Think of it as a skeleton, or well, more just a skull."

"Comfortable enough. And now?"

"Now for the part I'm a bit iffy on. My theory is since our programmings are so similar, understandable considering the Riley twins worked with the Professor on my creation, that I should be able to sort of pass on my own knowledge of the process. Are you ready?"

"Ready."

Nine closed their eyes as they once more felt Orca reaching out to their programming. But unlike in Alterna, this time they let her in.

"Hey, hey, we're supposed to be transferring one thing, don't you go poking around my memory bank," Nine muttered, shooing Orca away towards her actual goal.

"I was created to be curious, can you blame me?"

"Alright, that seems to have worked," Nine said, closing the connection.

"And now what?"

"Now, I throw you in this vat of ink until you manage to put a body together or we determine this plan didn't work," Nine said, hefting the device they had put Orca in. "The first time I did this it took me almost a year, though when I had to recreate a form after a... lab incident it only took me a couple days. Hopefully this will only take a couple days."

Before Orca could respond, Nine lowed them into the vat. She settled back, metaphorically at least, to wait. She had waited thousands of years longing for full freedom. She could wait a couple days.

[danndeemo]

It all somewhat makes sense when you look at it

Tartar was made to prevent earth’s new population from making same mistakes all over again. The human who created Tartar was a scientist, so the lobotomy surgery was at least familiar to them. I’m addition to this, I have doubts that the remaining scientists in Alterna were completely sane. At least one of these people tried to recreate the lobotomy on some of their colleagues because they were anxious or mentally unstable in hopes of achieving better work on the rocket project. So chances of tartar knowing what a lobotomy is aren’t zero, that’s for sure.

Sanitization is a two step process in order to get the final product. Whatever goo does to a victim’s body that makes them green and their hair be blue and green is definitely necessary, I think it helps increase the productivity, as well as making the cephalopod that undergoes it be unable to experience hunger or need for water (or what else do squids and octos drink). After that the actual lobotomy happens, the aim of which is to shape the victim into a soldier or at least an obedient and helpful recourse. If the surgery is successful, the patient becomes what we see in game. Aggression is something that can change in an actual human lobotomy, it can be the same case here, so that would explain why they attacked agent 8. Unsuccessful lobotomy, which resulted in the patient simply being no longer able to function properly (which again happens in humans as well, so it’s probably similar in this scenario) is, as I would assume, still quite common. The rates of a “successful” lobotomy in humans was around 63%, some percent being unaffected, and some obviously being a failure, resulting worse health outcome and other potentially newfound disabilities, that appeared specifically after the surgery. The failed experiments are blended into the goo, to produce more sanitized soldiers.

So was agent 3 lobotomized?

The ooze was on their head, it’s quite likely. Maybe the lobotomy was just performed more to the side, front lobotomy potentially wasn’t the only way to sanitize someone. And it does look like the ooze is in their eye, same hole which you put your instrument through to do the surgery. Now, I’m still surprised that in canon, 3 didn’t have even a single scratch from the brainwashing, that happened like few hours maximum ago, which is kind of insane. Agent 3 at the events of Octo Expainsion is at least 16. They are young, but I’m not exactly sure if they’re young enough for something that I’m about to explain. In the US a boy, who’s name I don’t remember, sorry, underwent a lobotomy because his parents were displeased with his behaviour. After the lobotomy, his brain actually managed to heal, some people weren’t even able to tell that he had the surgery. So, 3 was probably very lucky, for not only their brain managing to heal itself, but as a bonus, they might have been a part of a small percentage of people, who didn’t get too affected by the lobotomy.

That’s all that I wanted to say, for the majority. Feel free to add some things and I can’t wait for “lobotomised agent 3” headcanons

Is sanitization in splatoon like lobotomy for cephalopods

Was agent 3 lobotomized in that elevator fight

[luvvheartz]

hi..?

Greetings, my name is Max or Heartz (or any fickin names), I go by he/him, and I uh, am just kinda here now?? Idk what im doing but heres some info about me.

I love Splatoon!!! Like, a lot. Its been taking over my mind for the past few months. Send help.

Other than Splatoon, I also really like animals (specificly marine animals), Coroika, object shows, Pokemon, and more!

Im a mainly traditional artist (drawing on my phone is a painnnn) but I sometimes make digital art

I like making drawings and short comics with my favorite characters, so if any of my favs are your favs, you might like my art! (Art tag is #Heartzart)

Speaking if my favorite characters, my main favs rn in Splatoon are Mr. Grizz, Commander Tartar, O.R.C.A, C.Q. Cumber, Lil Judd, and Smollusk.

In fact, I have an au called Alterna: Recreation which is literally just those 6 hanging out in Alterna together (tag for that stuff is #Alterna: Recreation)

Oh ya Im alterhuman, specificly fictionkin (grizz, neo 3, and some others but these 2 are my highest kins), robotkin, alienkin, and copinglink/otherlink

Im currently stuck burning in rarepair hell grizztar grizztar grizztar grizztar gri

Im cool with ppl interacting with me (especially ppl with similar interests), I don't bite but I am sorta socially anxious

If I ever do something bad or stupid PLEASE tell me so I can stop it I have the Tumblr etiquette of an 81 year old grandpa🙏🙏

Killing all 6 of them right now

[moonsidesong]

twitter seems to be experiencing some very rapid decay so here’s some lore that may or may not have been twitter exclusive before (and by that i mean i don’t remember if i’ve posted them here) so they are not lost to the void

some full ver. pictures under da cut :-)   (also a splatoon 3 hero mode spoiler)

og panels of the comic where four is very much not happy. i still wish just a little bit that i’d had the chance to finish this one cause i wanted it to be really impactful, but life just doesn’t really go your way sometimes. (i’m not going back to make it now, sorry folks, lololol)

old sketchbook doodles of the original Dedf1sh Recovery AU before I made 14-crush. I don’t think I ever said this (or maybe I did????? it’s hard to keep track, honestly) but the original reason I said Ahato wanted to try out the Tetra Dualies is because I wanted her to eventually be called “Tetra,” and follow a similar name scheme to the manga (as the characters there are named after gear.) Of course, then the Octo Expansion artbook dropped outta da sky and featured a true name reveal for Dedf1sh and of course that was gonna be much easier to go with, so I did that instead. Honestly, it’s kind of a relief, cause to be honest, I don’t really think dualies suit her... ^^”

This is the original icon that was briefly used at the start of 14-crush, not much more to add here. I wonder if there’s many people around who remember it now? 

Ahato wears a hoodie because she gets cold really easily, but I like to think she starts wearing cool loose shirts like this again once she’s farther along in her recovery.

This one’s funny cause thanks to Splatoon 3′s Alterna Logs i can now finally answer this question with “humans loved sonic the hedgehog so much that when modern inklings/octolings evolved from human desires they just ended up recreating the entire franchise as well as the consoles they were played on” and that’s, like, acceptable, mostly.

[dogtoling]

(if you're down to elaborate, if not feel free to ignore this ask) what would you have changed abt the hero mode story? i'm not good at determining what makes something good or bad, so i didn't have much issue with it (it was all really cool and fun in the moment, but looking back, i'm a little iffy of some of it)

OH BOY! i've spent the last week in the five stages of grief or whatever over this story so thank you for asking this and welcome to the essay....

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. obviously. going over the entire story here. you may now proceed:

So basically this was the worst story in the entirety of Splatoon, unironically. I genuinely Don't Know how they managed to make a story this unsatisfying and straight up just Bad. I actually quite liked the beginning of the story, where they put you through a miniature version of the usual "You vs. the Octarians in a canyon" -story and having Octavio as the first boss got me VERY hopeful and excited for the rest of the story. It was REALLY PROMISING!

Too bad that the rest of it was absolute crap. LOL like actually... you fall into Alterna and I think it was implied that Deep Cut did that? i'm not sure about that because it was so early but I remember them being there. (their motivation: none. of course).

(also, how come nobody knows Alterna is there? like the crater is a pretty obvious historical (?) site and no one just... happened to look under it.)

Into the characters... or lack thereof. Somehow, they managed to shove a record amount of characters into this story mode and they literally did NOTHING. Genuinely, i think this story would've made more of an impression without the Squidbeak Splatoon. They just kinda sat there the whole time and the Captain was the only character that did something, which is ironic considering they don't speak.

Deep Cut..... they were there because...? I guess they're the idols and they have to be shoved into the story for marketing purposes (which is what they did with Off the Hook in Octo Expansion and I already hated that but at least they ended up having A ROLE IN THE STORY AND WE LEARNT SOMETHING ABOUT THEM). Deep Cut literally showed up to be "evil" for some reason, took up three boss fights that could've genuinely been something really cool if they were related to the setting instead (and why do the shark and eels have ink in the first place), and then showed up one time towards the end to show the shallowest character motivation of all time and just go "actually being evil is dumb please be my boss". WHY WERE YOU EVIL IN THE FIRST PLACE? WHY ARE YOU HERE!?!?!?!?!?!? good lord i've never been so disappointed by a plot thread I already knew wasn't going to be good. omfg.

Now Alterna is the main point of the single player and I will say right now that it is also by far the best part; it's a really cool, desolate setting. The lore (the logs and sunken scrolls) that we unlock through gameplay was done in such a way that I was just hooked for like 12 hours straight just wanting to do the next kettle to uncover more about what actually happened to the last humans. They FINALLY addressed how sea creatures evolved so drastically in just 12,000 years - humans basically used squid juice to recreate... wireless chromatophores and built a roof out of them. The whole Human Vibes In The Crystals thing makes less sense but it's sci-fi so it can stay; I love that there was an explanation and even though I freaking can't stand the story itself, the backstory here was probably the BEST thing we've ever gotten out of Splatoon and it was pretty dreadful to discover...

Obviously Alterna has its whole fucking slew of plotholes as does everything else in this story. Like for example, why is it in such pristine condition considering it's not only been abandoned for twelve thousand years, but y'know... the part of the story that says IT WAS DESTROYED AND COLLAPSED because of the rocket boosters during testing. The roof sure looks pretty damn present for something that collapsed and was destroyed - especially when another fucking rocket was fired up and LITERALLY LAUNCHED this time and this time the ceiling is fine, I guess. The place should literally be in ruins and full of debris but alas, someone's in there growing tomatoes....

Okay so moving on from the world and into the Octarians. I can't think of a single reason the Octarians should be involved in this story whatsoever and neither could the story writers. The beginning of the story was good, when DJ Octavio sought out Cuttlefish because he thought he was the reason the Octarian troops had gone missing. This was genuinely the best part of the story and I was hoping the rest of the story would have more solid moments like that. We now know that the Octarian army was stolen by Mr. Grizz.... for.... some reason.... some unexplained reason that boils down to "it's easier to reuse enemy assets and code from the old game than come up with new stuff". And I don't really have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with the fact that WHY ARE THE OCTARIANS HERE AT ALL. HOW ARE THEY HERE? Like are they here of their own will and just got dipped in fur goo and were like "ok, sure". It would at least make more sense if Octavio also got dipped in fur goo because they'd still be following their leader, but WHAT ON EARTH happened here. The best I can assume is that Mr. Grizz needed something to test his ooze on, but nothing past that makes sense. Why is he using them to run tests with the O.R.C.A system? Why are the HUMAN ERA TESTS ink-based to begin with? And if they're not human era... why does he need the tests AT ALL?

(really, the best thing I can come up with is that some Octarians already lived in Alterna given it's underground and Mr. Grizz just invaded the area. But that's not confirmed, nor is it implied that DJ Octavio even knew Alterna exists.)

I guess we can't escape the inevitable: Mr. Grizz. So Mr. Grizz is literally a space bear, the thing everyone pieced together back in like 2018 just based on Ark Polaris and hoped wouldn't be true because it's the most obvious and plot holey thing they could come up with. The story of him being on Ark Polaris, hibernating for 12,000 years (i have to assume he would be immortal like Judd, i guess, or cryogenically frozen or something, because bears don't really live that long) and being the only one surviving in the crash of the Ark is actually quite nice. Everything past that falls apart because this bear - yes - this BEAR - developed sapience during this 12,000 year slumber, woke up, and immediately started speaking and using computers and for some reason this --- BEAR. A SOLITARY APEX PREDATOR THAT LIVES IN THE WOODS. STARTED A COMPANY IN INKOPOLIS.

Splatoon is very quickly approaching the typical cartoony Secret Life of Pets universe where every animal is actually secretly sapient and just doesn't want to speak when there's humans around and I want to believe Judd and Mr. Grizz are exceptions here because they're science experiments, but jesus christ

Anyway, going past the disbelief of a BEAR somehow starting a company and knowing Inkling language (i'll be assuming he is using some kind of thoughts-to-speech thing to be able to do literally any of this; even Judd doesn't ACTUALLY speak) his motivation for starting a company and creating Fuzzy Ooze is because he wanted to recreate mammals, as Earth is now overrun by sea creatures and he was... lonely, or whatever. So his solution was to combine the rapid evolution crystal juice, Golden Eggs (which for some reason are part of the recipe) and his fur to create artificial mammals which, yeah, in what world would this actually solve the problem at all. You could say well, he's a bear, and maybe he's delirious because of all the crap he's gone through which is fair. But he's also the CEO of a huge company that seems like it's been around for a while and that requires Brain and Knowledge of Many Things. Mr. Grizz having such a bizarre and pointless plan with a really weak motivation makes no sense whatsoever given his status.

now to the final boss and climax of the story. We already know Deep Cut flops as characters right before we get to the ending sequence and the only reason they're there is to debut some banger music. Anyway, they "kill" Cuttlefish for basically no other reason than shock value: Grizz says he needs his brain for... something, that is NEVER explained, and Cuttlefish LIVES THROUGH IT despite now seemingly having no organs. Mr. Grizz then operates his fucking rocket into space (without the rocket boosters damaging Alterna at all now, for some reason) and your player... honestly I was too disappointed by everything happening to even pay attention to this... super jumps into space after him? Then your Smallfry friend uses Vibes and Magic or something to turn into a massive salmonid kaiju and DJ Octavio is there for some reason.

Just the final boss sequence immediately suffers from not only the issue of having SEVERAL oxygen-breathing land creatures just kinda exist IN SPACE without protective gear, for one, but the game just randomly establishing THAT MAGIC EXISTS I GUESS, and the final boss being revealed 2 minutes before you kick his shit in and only being elaborated on in postgame. The ending is cool cinematics-wise and everything else is absurdly bad. The battle itself was fun, but I was too absorbed trying to process what the hell I was looking at. Most people seem to be upset about Bear Grizz and I am too, but honestly I am MORE upset about Smallfry's Magical Girl transformation moment because... well it's in the text. IT WAS A MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION in a game that generally sets itself up to be in a relatively realistic world setting akin to our own, save for some sci-fi elements.

Now that we're like an hour into the essay I can finally go into WHY exactly the STORY was bad in my opinion even ignoring all of the horrible plot holes and things that just made no sense. There was zero cohesion between like any parties that were part of the story. The story is set in Alterna, the last shelter for humans and the place where humanity finally perished and seafolk first flourished. That is a REALLY cool premise. Then we get to Mr. Grizz, who has very little to actually do with Alterna... there's no real reason he should be here or how he even KNEW to come here, as the ship he was launched on was COMPLETELY SEPARATE FROM THIS PROJECT. He has nothing to do with this place and was just shoved here as a final boss just because. Your player character just happens to be friends with a Smallfry who ends up being the only character in the game that is actually capable of stopping Mr. Grizz, so what if literally anyone else came through that sewer and became Agent 3. The Octarians are serving under Mr. Grizz and are here for literally no reason, unexplained. The New Squidbeak Splatoon is also here for no reason, but they at least have the crutch of Cuttlefish having been here first, and they're looking for him. Deep Cut is LITERALLY HERE FOR NO REASON AT ALL. NOTHING in the story has anything to do with Alterna itself - it all feels like the story writers had an idea with Alterna, then were given a bunch of crap that NEEDS to be tacked in there, and they all got haphazardly slapped together despite nothing really fitting.

Let's get to my biggest gripe: the missed potential throughout it all. I already said I love the setting of Alterna and there's so much more you could do with something that interesting than shoving a very weak, completely unrelated plot in there. Even within the game, there was basically nothing pointing towards Mr. Grizz having any inclusion in the story other than the obvious Bear Slime - in fact, Alterna REPEATEDLY kept referencing whales and cetaceans - marine mammals which are thought to be extinct in Splatoon but with an asterisk. (no, marina's narwhal landlord doesn't count, that one is a localization moment.)

We see a whale fall in Octo Expansion and this was acknowledged - with something along the lines of whales are thought to be extinct, but really nobody has seen one in a LONG TIME. It leaves room for speculation and the knowledge that marine mammals are gone... or ARE THEY? Alterna was building up to some sort of really cool reveal where - maybe - MAYBE marine mammals DO still exist somewhere, somehow. But alas, all the buildup to whales ended up being literally nothing as far as Alterna goes - even though having iconic marine mammals be part of a story in a sea creature game about the return of mammals would've been thematically fitting as-is. But they really wanted to do CEO Bear, I GUESS.

FINALLY, now, how would I change the story? Personally, I would take it outside Alterna as a whole... if we're going to include the fuzzy ooze it does both plots a disservice to have it in such a cool place with so much room for a WAY cooler, better plot that fits the setting. But for the fuzzy ooze, I would much rather have had a plot where someone - NOT LITERALLY A BEAR - was trying to recreate bears from scratch. I would've liked for that to have been Mr. Grizz and for him to be an Inkling, or at least not a freaking bear - it would make endlessly more sense for him to own ink weapons, too. In the current Splatoon story, trying to artificially recreate mammals and especially bears would make perfect sense; Salmonids are a growing threat and in the upcoming months we'll get Big Runs, where Salmonids LITERALLY INVADE INKOPOLIS. It would've made perfect plot sense to have someone who already knows of Bears as a powerful and ancient enemy of salmon to try and recreate them to combat the threat of Salmonids coming to the city, and it would've made Grizz a much more interesting and morally grey villain, because some of his intentions would've been in protecting Inkopolis in a VERY questionable way. Maybe we could've even had the bear creature as the final boss as a test result that got too powerful and went rogue, or even Mr. Grizz morphing himself into it using the ooze.

Anyway, if you read this far, that's crazy. i am interested in what other people thought about the story and if people share my opinions on it. Thanks for reading this actual novel of a post.

[24-sourcandy-octopi]

Ok, so, the basic premise of the whole situation is that 4 never really had any friends, she didn’t even have a turf team to play with so she was usually just a fill for any team missing a member. Once the main game started she finally had Marie as a friend, and after rescuing Callie, Callie! (Although she did get really pissed after maybe the 52nd time she put on the hypno shades). Then maybe about a year before cannon events of splatoon 3, she was asked to watch over octo canyon because they were “going on a trip”. Essentially she would be looking after dj Octavio. Over time, Octavio had becom the only person she could talk to, even in that tiny, snow globe. It took her 6 months to realize that they weren’t coming back so she just let Octavio go since it wasn’t worth it. Well, technically Octavio decided to break out and she just decided to let it happen. He took the rest of the octarian soldiers with him. She was also always jealous of agent 3 (or captain now) because she got to go out on all these missions and she had only been entrusted enough to do one saving mission and then watching over a snow globe. One time while kinda just walking through one of the stages (she treated them like playgrounds at this point) she found a lone unarmed octarian soldier. She quickly started to become friend with them and brought her to the surface. She had teached (tought? Taut?) her the premise of each game and the best strategies since she had experience with different teams and their strategies. Eventually this octoling was offered a team spot. This made 4 realize that it was just clockwork at this point. She makes a friend, they have some sort of mutual bond, and then they leave. Eventually she wound the official deep cut page while scrolling squidder and it had a picture with Callie and Marie. The post itself said “happy birthday to the best bosses”. That wasn’t exactly the worst part though. She saw neo in the backround (the picture was taken in alterna). She just felt more betrayed that they could just go and replace her that easily when she had been doing absolutely nothing but canyon watching for the past year. Eventually she decided she had enough of it and going through black markets to find the pieces to recreate the hypo shades. In addition, she needed to create the mask as well. In a sequence of events that I am to lazy to describe except going on the train, she found alterna and baisically squidnapped Callie and Marie. The idols going missing was baisically all over the news. Eventually deep cut called neo about the idols going missing. The place were they all ended up was kind of looks like and unfinished copy of octocanyon but the levels were a lot harder. The bosses were also remade but it icludes bosses from the first game as well. The final boss is Frye fighting hypnotized Callie and shiver fighting hypnotized Marie. Neo fights agent 4 with help from big man. 4 can also switch through different hero weapons. Haven’t figured out the rest but that’s the not so basic premise I guess.

I have come to accept the fact that I will not get my procreate works back, so here’s villain 4

someone ask me questions about her, please

Unedited under cut

I really like the lineless but it takes a lot of time

[betterdonutgalaxy]

site 2 of splatoon 3′s story mode spoiler

“the humans began constructing large-scale 3D printing operations. This allowed them to recreate some of humanity’s favorite artifacts within the confined of Alterna” OF FUCKING COURSE THEY 3D PRINT MULTIPLE MOYAIS WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU EXPECT FROM MODERN HUMANITY

[rome-splatoon-3-archives]

Guys, I'm being evil to Rome again

For background, I'm currently working on revamping the entire splat 3 hero mode while keeping more core lore elements

While the music is banging and I love the characters, i wish they did and didn't do certain things (cough cough BEAR MR GRIZZ REVEAL cough cough). So I'm saying screw it, fuck you, I'm making it my way. And I'm adding Rome because why wouldn't I, I'm gonna be doing his addition to the storyline anyways, might as well do it at the same time.

So basically: Tartar is dead. Like undeniably, I'm not gonna bring him back because that's really really fucking stupid from a mechanic, plot, and thematic standpoint. HOWEVER! That doesn't mean I can't use his influence and the clear similarities of sanitization and fooze to my advantage and the characters dismay.

(Also, side note: Grizz isn't an actual bear in this. He turns into a giant fucked up bear after mutating due to purposefully injecting a special fooze in himself... but before this? He's just an inkling who is the founder and owner of Grizzco and mainly works in the science and mechanics section of the company, having CEOs deal with stuff like overseeing shipments and workers and stuff. Grizz still has the belief of wanting the mammals back because during his research he found the Alterna site and all the files on everything. he saw all the big money capitalist monopoly business opportunities humans had and how successful they were at it that he wanted to bring 'em back, seeing them as a fantastic business opportunity while also having hints towards a plan to suppress them and essentially use them as drones for work)

ANYWAYS GETTING TO THE ROME STUFF!!!!

I still need to work out a lot of structure stuff to do with the hero mode storyline since building it from the ground up while also staying true to a lot of the canon beats is. Uhm, a BIT difficult to say the least!

But for Rome: Grizz in his big business mindset sees all the sanitization work from Tartar's whole thing and how effective it was as changing the cephalings into something completely different. Using a bit of sanitization acquired via a front of a Grizzco-sponsored clean-up effort for the deep sea metro, his fooze experiments kicked into high-gear. While he wouldn't be able to fully understand the properties of sanitization since even a brilliant sapient mind cant surpass that of a super-AI, he'd still understand it quite a bit. The current widely-produced form of fooze has managed to produce effects without the need of a sanitization base anymore, the substances essentially becoming separate. Some stuff would still be the same about the two substances, but most things would be different in property. The main thing that's similar is the capacity for memory-wiping and mind control

Meaning if someone was able to study the brain-scrambling stuff to do with sanitization vs. fooze and find the differing trait, while sanitization still wouldn't have its brain-scrambling effects be curable (still having been made by a super-AI, after all), you could CERTAINLY find a way to cure the brain-scrambling effects of fooze since there's a clear, man-made difference when Grizz was trying to recreate it

Rome's no chemist, he cant just start researching sanitization on his own and expect to know what he's doing. He IS a technician and mechanic, though, and a damn good one. If he built or acquired the machinery from the provided Alterna tech and got someone who, oh I don't know, had a skill of science rather than art, the two working together could work up a cure for the brain-washing elements of the fooze. So, after Deep Cut agrees to help NNSS (but much before actually starting to face Grizz, Deep Cut agrees to help a bit earlier and instead more focus is put on actually building up the reveal that Grizz is behind it all), Rome and Marie team up to try and do just that, Rome especially being VERY determined to try and find a cure in order to save all the Octarians who are foozed. he went through the worst of sanitization, after all. hes got more than enough drive and reason to help these strangers out regardless of where they come from

they get pretty far into their research and the rest of the NNSS are over in island 6 doing whatever agent stuff they're doing when a sudden distress signal/call is made. the call only lasts for half a second before being swiftly cut off by something, but from the snippet of information, you can tell something is wrong and a sort of fight is breaking out. you and the remaining NNSS bolt to the lab that the two had been working in (you know that house-like structure to the right of the NNSS when you're on the first island? that's where the lab is hosted!) and find the place looks HORRIBLE. stuff is broken everywhere, signs of a struggle are all over the place, and neither Rome nor Marie are to be seen. oddly enough, the cure that they were working on (which had a distinct honey-like color, like a gold salmon egg) wasn't anywhere, not even a single drop was spilled in the struggle. a kettle that wasn't there before is seen next to the lab, and with all the scratch-marks and ink scattered everywhere (leading to a now empty e-liter laying next to it), it's pretty clear where they went

grizz had ordered foozed octarian spies to grab them after getting wind that they had been working on a cure, and knowing that it was absolutely possible if they were both working together and had enough drive to find out, they posed a real threat to his whole business operation (he figured out due to noticing weird activity regarding an unauthorized life-form possessing unusual properties (Rome and him being sanitized n all) and from the patterns and where he was traveling figured out what he was trying to gather and what he was planning to do) while Marie focused on lab stuff. Oopsies!!

it gets a bit murky set-up-wise as we get to what i wanted to get to in the first place. i kinda imagine the kettle feels like going through the restricted areas of a manufacturing plant. a bit of octo-expansion and the deep sea metro vibes, y'know? the player character patrols through a lot of the main enemy-filled bits while Callie and Three go through a path to the right of you (kinda more focused on finding Marie) and deep cut go through a path to the left of you (kinda more focused on finding Rome). both parties help you out by pointing things out, delivering witty banter (but its clearly shrouded in the tense situation playing out since like EVERYTHING is going wrong and the greens got kidnapped (cant say the squidnapped pun because Rome isn't a squid) and i generally imagine the vibes feeling darker as a sort of set-up for the later grizz reveal to do with gramps and the rocket n stuff) and working together despite the clear separation of priorities (one search for Rome, one search for Marie) since they're probably being held in close proximity and they recognize that both are important

after a bit of searching and spooky atmosphere stuff - maybe add some cool fucked-up background lore able to be found in true splatoon fashion, you get the deal - the player character enters a big empty totally-not-a-boss-arena area. deep cut are to your left and callie & three are to your right, blocked off by both glass and some physical struggle that makes it hard for each party to reach the arena (not being able to squid jump due to reasons because fuck you i want a boss fight)

((listen i make all this lore and story stuff by scratch in the span of five minutes, i get to be lazy sometimes and just want cool, fucked-up things to happen because of cool, fucked-up-ness))

you see, grizz didnt only find sanitization in the clean-up cover-up funded by grizzco (also partnering with the octarians in order to gain octavio's trust and manipulate the stress octavio is under regarding the situation ohoho jotting that down in my brain for potential drama later, thats a good one, good job me!!). he also found none other than the shell of tartar itself. now its code is completely destroyed beyond saving and everything is a mess of sanitized ink vs pink ink. but something that was kept in-tact was the mechanisms for the voice box. ive stated before that sanitized victims have a deep-rooted reaction to tartar's commands. someone semi-sanitized like three or even whatever eight managed to get damaged by while in the deep sea metro wouldnt be effected by this. three would probably break a sweat from general ptsd but it isnt completely uncontrollable...

but someone like rome? someone who was at some point fully sanitized? someone who underwent some of the earliest forms of sanitization and now has permanent scars on his hands and back from where it was originally injected? someone whos had so much sanitization pumped into him in the past that even way past the point of the sanitization being functional anymore, it's still working to cycle itself out of his system slowly through his teeth? he's not immune to this type of brain-washing

grizz doesnt have much access to sanitization due to it growing scarcer and scarcer over the years, and he cant just inject rome with fooze since him being sanitized would physically block the fooze from taking effect. but injecting the little sanitization he has left through the scar on rome's back and using tartar's voicebox? that would absolutely push him back into being controlled again

once in this brainwashed state, grizz even puts a helmet that looks like tartar on his head fitted with speakers in the ears playing commands in tartar's voice and a voice-modifier in the mouthpiece to make rome's voice all fucked-up and tartar-like

his command? guard the currently trapped marie and kill anyone who gets in his path

you walk into the arena and see marie trapped behind glass. callie and three exclaim happily while deep cut nervously wonder where rome is. your character starts running towards marie when she AGGRESSIVELY gestures for you not to get closer. then, bursting open a wooden trapdoor that was set in front of her, "something" wearing a tartar helmet climbs out of the ground, the trapdoor landing back in place with a few thuds. the tartar helmet makes that familiar whirring noise and callie parrots that three worriedly asks if tartar has returned. the whirring stops and a drastically different voice from tartar sounds from the tartar-esc helmet, sounding like rome but with a scratchy tartar-esc voice modifier saying "UN. IDEN. TIFIED….. THREAT……" , and deep cut realizes out loud in a horrified manner that what's standing there is none other than rome himself. rome, being re-sanitized and controlled by the repurposed voice of tartar, begins his attack

(this is his boss theme btw [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tst-2z7420w], the pokemon sc/vi legendary quartet theme)

he attacks using this weapon thats like. chains connected to a blade at the end that is covered in ink thats fed to it using the inside of the actual chains, which is connected. in the bit of the above song that goes HARD and all techno and shit, i imagine the boss fight switching to a mode where its dark and all of rome's ink is shown glowing in the dark, meaning you gotta track where hes going via seeing where his now glowing hair is. over-all this bossfight would absolutely be difficult to fight. the only thing holding rome back is the fact he cant really think logically when sanitized due to the way his body reacts to it, meaning the sanitization both makes him WAY more aggressive but also less logical and more prone to just charging full-force into the player without thinking about strategy

the second phase of the bossfight starts when callie manages to hit rome's face with a special weapon projectile (the "BANG" sound in the above song when it begins to loop). shes of course not a charger main and its not exactly going to be easy to charge up that kind of special again so it mostly misses and barely even reaches him due to how far away the arena is. but it manages to break off part of his tartar mask which reveals half of the upper bit of his face, which would give a cool visual methinks, especially in banger lighting. and banger lighting there is as the lights shining above partially go out, making it have a sort of "dusk" feel to it and also making rome harder to see yippee!!!!! before this phase starts you can hear rome trying to fight for control a little, but hes quickly snapped out of it and goes back to bossfight mode

the third phase is similar to the second phase, this time being from shiver charging their special (at the third point the song above loops, gotta be in sync with the song ofc) and using a projectile to hit the tartar mask. this time, the entire thing breaks, but theyre not out of the woods yet. rome's still got the commands going very fresh in his mind and is still under sanitization. his eyes are black and you can see the edges being turquoise. you hear him struggle more, this time trying to physically fight against control before snapping back into bossfight mode, though this time clearly struggling. this doesnt make him any easier to beat though, as all the lights are now out and oh god oH FUCK HES USING HIS SPECIAL AND NOW HE HAS INKY WINGS AND IS ATTACKING YOU REPEATEDLY FROM ABOVE. yeah i forgot to mention he has a custom special that gives him ink wings and the ability to repeatedly fly up and dive at people with much higher attack at the cost of having lower defense!!!! hes not able to do this forever, and once you get his health low enough and as the ending cutscene plays, he nearly collapses from exhaustion. NNSS have found a way onto the arena and deep cut SPRINT in, getting rome and immediately breaking the thing that was feeding him the little bit of sanitization while frye proceeds to beat the shit out of the tartar mask while big man holds up rome and shiver detaches the thing on romes back. this sounds comedic but shes clearly fucking FURIOUS and goes back to worrying about rome once shes got it out of her system. the glass that was keeping marie trapped is lowered once the thing on rome's back is broken and three & callie go over to make sure shes ok and isnt sanitized or foozed or anything. she isnt, luckily

once rome wakes up hes no longer in control and his body VIOLENTLY rejects the sanitization, coughing all of it up. yeah, turns out having that shit reintroduced into your system so suddenly after ages of not having it in there doesnt go well. hes all good after that, back to how his sanitization was before, but his back hurts a LOT since its a scar that was reintroduced to the thing that scarred it in the first place, so hes not going to be doing much fieldwork. however, he REFUSES to leave the alterna site, especially with the newer stuff regarding gramps and the direct lead-up to the climax. he obviously cant work on cure stuff right now, but he at least wants to be there and provide any help he can

after the main campain is done you can actually still rematch him, just not him in his sanitized form. the bossfight uses the same systems though and is designed to be an INSANELY hard challenge. rome's a professional turf an anarchy fighter who hand-makes his own sub-weapons and specials, for christ sake!!!! it's a no-brainer his rematch would be a bit insane to deal with!!!!! and now with his actual arena made for him, he can have all the fancy show stuff that the rest of deep cut have. hes not getting the standard deep cut bossfight music though, that song slaps but i cant just not give him something unique!!!!! gotta go with his initial bossfight song, it slaps too much i wrote this all in discord rambling to my pals at @rainfallbeats's discord server. this is a long one, i admit. i desperately hope yall enjoy, i spent 3-5 hours non-stop writing this.