#o.r.c.a. is mentioned

[luvvheartz]

hes arguing with o.r.c.a

[seven-oh-four]

There's some very, very strange dialogue leading up to the bossfight against Mr. Grizz that I never see anyone talk about - maybe because nobody has any idea what the heck it means.

When Mr. Grizz is explaining his "business plan," he says that it has three parts - "The vessel, the spirit, and the wisdom of the ages."

...What? What is any of this? It never gets mentioned again, and doesn't seem to have any relation to his plan to fly a rocket into space and explode it to rain Fuzzy Ooze everywhere. This just never gets explained.

Immediately after this, Mr. Grizz sucks out Cuttlefish's brain juices.

This also never comes into play??? Why did he suck out Cuttlefish's brain? He had already created the Fuzzy Ooze, it wasn't a component necessary for that. The rocket was already about to go into space. Why would he even need Cuttlefish's "essence" for any of that?

I think he wasn't just trying to turn all the sea creatures hairy - I think that was just the first part of his three-step plan for success.

I think he was trying to recreate humans.

The Wisdom of The Ages: A suitably intelligent brain fitting for a human.

The Vessel: A suitable body to become the human. (Inklings are already humanoid - adding hair to them makes them... a vague approximation of a human. Hence why this is the first component listed - turning the Inklings into mammals to create a suitable vessel is the first thing he does.)

The Spirit: ...??? It's also possible that The Spirit is Cap'n Cuttlefish's brain, and the Wisdom of the Ages is the crystals contain mankind's hopes and dreams, or perhaps O.R.C.A. since it contains all of humanity's wisdom.

Whatever the case is, there was more to his plan than just coating the earth in Fuzzy Ooze.

But... okay, so what? Why even bring up all this weird information at all if it was never gonna go anywhere? We don't even get to see the second and third steps of his plan. We don't even get to know what they are. So what was the point of having this even be a thing?

Personally, I think it's setting up for a future plot point. Cap'n Cuttlefish's brain essence juice is still out there somewhere, yeah? I bet this is going to come into play in the future.

[twipsai]

grabby hands

I would like to see your alterna theories im invested

OKKK OK SO

you see all this? all this "snow"? thats ash. how do i know this is ash? oh well mY dEAR alternan citizen, we know that the rocket essensially exploded, making the liquid crystals rain down from the cave walls. this combine with the rising sea levels during the 12000 year period that alterna sat dormant is proably what caused alterna to flood.

now we know that the snow in alterna isnt real snow, being mentioned that its outright "fake snow" by Agent 2 in Cryogenic Hopetown. we also know that the snow wasnt always there, as shown by the below image

[image id: a photo taken directly from the Alterna logs. it depicts a group of humans standing inside of a small, dome-like room, with a sunny landscape projected on the walls. the image is very grainy and pixelated, as if taken by an out-dated camera. /end id.]

i dont see why Alternans wouldve made fake snow and completely covered their land in it, unless they didnt put it there. at least, not on purpose.

-

this brings me to another theory, which is that the test chambers were made to train Alternans who were going to board the rocket.

now, we dont know where the kettles came from (ill get back to that) but wouldnt it make sense? why else would there be a clean room, if not to prepare Alternans for what theyre going to have to do on the rocket, on the surface, in space? we see O.R.C.A. specifically state that their purpose is to test Alternan's physical and mental abilities

[image transcript: "My circuits are designed to measure your intellectual and physical prowess as demonstrated by your ability to complete missions throughout Alterna. In each mission, you must reach a goal mechanism or complete an objective. Extraordinary citizens will complete many missions and receive many Power Eggs! You can expect a substantial Power Egg payday in particular for this first mission... May your enthusiasm result in success, citizen!" /end image transcript]

but i KNOW what you're thinking. "Twip, if O.R.C.A. was testing Alternans for the rocket, then why are they designed around inkfish's abilities like squid surging, squid rolling, swimming in ink, and shooting with ink?"

i raise your question with a question: who was in a desperate enough situation that he kidnapped an entire army, and needed only the smartest employed under him to monitor ever corner of Alterna to make sure his planes went off without a hitch?

Grizz. its always Grizz.

this explains the fuzzy rival octolings, who appear different from how fuzzy inklings appear in the game

[image 1: a screenshot of a promotional render of a fuzzy rival octoling at a 3/4ths angle, with a hand on their hip. /end id.]

[image 1: a screenshot of a player character after they have touched the fuzzy ooze. the character is laying on their back, covered in fuzz with only their hands and feet sticking out. their eyes are wide. /end id.]

this shows the difference from those properly treated with the fuzzy ooze, vs those who merely touched it.

tl;dr of that entire section: the test chambers used to be a way to test Alternans that were going to board the ship, but were converted to test octolings who were to work under Grizz to help with the rocket plans

[splttershotnova]

If you listen to the music of side order it tells a completely different story than the game itself

I keep thinking about it and it fucks me up every time. Especially now that the interview has been fan translated and we know they focused on story telling through the music as one of their top priorities

I feel so insane about it. Because if you listen to the music and nothing else it paints a more vivid picture of the story that's just. Completely different from what happens in game

This was something I noticed in Alterna too. Unfortunately all the fucking variations for Alterna Space Center have been copyright striked into oblivion so you can't find them super easily anymore.

I'm seriously urging you to listen to the tracks outside of the game sometimes. The music evokes so much more than the writing could ever hope to

I genuinely believe they put all their time into making sure the music tells the right story and then when it comes to writing they just slap anything together and call it a day. And it SUCKS

I also want to point out this wasn't necessarily the case until Splatoon 3.

In Splatoon 1 the music and story were all whatever right. Everything with Splatoon 1 was expwrimental and they still had a lot to figure out with the game's identity. But obviously they made it clear from the getgo that music is very important to the series. Hence why the Calamari Inkantation has the significance it does.

In Splatoon 2 music holds more significance than it already did. This is often shown by recurring themes being remixed and stuff (spl2 hero mode final boss, oe variations of off the hook themes). Apart from that, a lot of the music for the kettles/stations are very good at setting the mood for the environment that you're in. It's what any reasonable person would ask for regarding music! It's good!

In Splatoon 3 they went above and fucking BEYOND with the music. The music now reflects so much more than the game environment or the character's personalities. Does anyone remember when Anarchy Rainbow first dropped? Being able to hear the influences of the character's cultures is a new level of detail that hadn't been considered to this degree before.

The Squid Sisters have their folk version of Calamari Inkantation, and Off the Hook's music is themed to American Pop and Hip-Hop (?) Callie and Marie's respective solo songs (Bomb Rush Blush and Tide Goes Out) showcase their personalities more. The demo songs for Off the Hook (and additionally their respective feature songs) show Marina and Pearl's personalities.

But with Deep Cut they went BEYOND that. Shiver's vocals is the most obvious example of this as they tie back directly to her culture. And in Anarchy Rainbow especially you can hear influences of Frye's culture in the instrumentals of the song.

But back to focusing on story modes. Everyone knows how melancholy the site music in Alterna is right? I mean they're not all melancholy but I'm thinking mostly of site 3. I would say that song reveals the most about Alterna and what it's supposed to embody.

My point is there are a lot of different approaches they could have taken to the music there. But they chose that approach specifically. And if you're in that site and walking around the environment and thinking about the logs, that's whem it's really going to dawn on you just how tragic the situation is.

The logs themselves are mostly informational (I know this is likely due to O.R.C.A. being the one to document it all, but still). They don't instill the sense of desperation and tragedy, the hope and longing all the humans had to see the surface. The story gives the information, but the music tells the bigger picture. It's also worth mentioning that the more you explore the area, the more records you find, building upon the music with each one.

Actually saying that out loud is crazy. Because the way it's implemented, it really drives home the fact that we're navigating the remains of a civilization that fell long ago. We're discovering what they left behind, learning more about them as we go. And as the music builds, you feel more connected to them, or at least get a clearer understanding of what life was like for them. They didn't have to do that. Like at all. But they did, and that wasn't something they did in previous games.

With the ending of the game, they do the usual thing of remixing past themes - this time using Grizzco music. But I'd say in terms of telling a story, Alterna Space Center clears any previous remixes of themes/recurring leitmotifs (except Onward but I'll get to that later.) As you're doing the final segment of the game, climbing the rocket to get to Grizz, the music gets more distorted each time you step outside. It gets more corrupted, more difficult to recognize. If it wasn't constantly interrupted by Deep Cut's yapping, it gives you a much better idea of what's going on.

The Alterna Space Center themes reflect the fact that Grizz himself is warped beyond recognition. He's been warped by the grief thaf comes with survivor's guilt. It also sends the message that as you ascend the rocket, it's slowly dawning on you just how grim the reality of the situation is.

And this is where I wanna talk about the issue with Splatoon 3. Well. One of them. There is so much care and detail and emphasis put into the music to make sure it tells the right story...that they forget to write the fucking story altogether.

EVERYTHING in spl3 hero mode is shoehorned in at the end. EVERYTHING. Why are we only NOW getting an explanation for Deep Cut's motives, whe we're supposed to be focused on stopping whatever the hell Grizz is doing?! Why are teaming up with them NOW, right at the END of the game?! There's no time to establish deeper connection or attachment to them! We just kicked their asses 3 timss over and now they're begging...to work FOR us? They don't even know what we're doing. They don't even know what this is all about! As far as we were concerned, this is just a convoluted rescue mission for Gramps! Why the fuck are THEY getting involved?!

And like I said, Alterna Space Center music is great. IF IT WASN'T FOR DEEP CUT'S YAPPING! Like dude! Shut the fuck up! Now is not the time! Any and all tension is completely severed by their tomfoolery! I don't wanna hear about your sense of smell, Shiver! Shut up! I have bigger fucking problems on my hands!

Their conversation is so distracting and detracts so much from what the music is able to convey. And I know we've had the idols talk us through final segments of the game before! But it was not NEARLY as obnoxious as this, and at least when they talked it would be primarily related to and focused on what we're ACTUALLY doing. Marina and Pearl understood the gravity of our situation. Deep Cut do not give a FUCK.

But honestly who fucking cares right. Because spl3 hero mode is so deeply unserious. Like yeah we find Gramps literally fucking DEAD. And then we spongebob movie his ass back to life and it's no big deal. And can we TALK about how Callie and Marie did not give nearly half as much of a fuck about his death as Captain 3 did?? Like DUDE. COME ON.

The reveal of Grizz to be an overstuffed teddy bear does little to help the situation. I'm sorry. How did we go from concept Tartar designs...to THIS?

And this is the point I want to make with Splatoon 3's music. It's so great. It's so so so so so good at telling a story on its own, with setting the tone, the mood, the environment, everything. If you listen to the soundtrack and keep the vague concept of the game's story in mind, it feels like you get a completely different vision for what the story was supposed to be. For how it was supposed to play out.

And the music has been nonstop bangers! We got Yoko and the Gold Bazookas in this muthafucka! Take yo sensitive ass back to Inkopolis! Jokes aside, the music design has been phenomenal. To the point where it's becoming a detriment.

They put so much focus and care and attention to detail in the music...so much that the rest of the game gets forgotten. Where is this level of care for the story? The worldbuilding? The character development? The pacing? What ever happened to...all of that? Everything else?

Side Order is the biggest offender of this. Ever since I beat the game, I've been extremely conflicted on how I feel about it.

Let me just say that right out of the gate, music is phenomenal. Duh. Like, go figure. The gameplay is also really fun. I'd go as far as to say they did a good job balancing the game, balancing the difficulty of it and everything. It's challenging for casual players, but not completely impossible and unbeatable. For skilled players it isn't too difficult, but they include a lot of ways to make the game harder for yourself, and you can always self-impose challenges. Even if you're really good at the game you can still trip up and die when you least expect it, but I wouldn't say it's overwhelmingly bullshit. It's also super fun to clear floors as fast as possible.

The PROBLEM is that you only have to beat the spire ONCE to complete the story. Don't lecture me on this. I am aware of the dev diaries and everything beyond clearing all pallettes.

My point is that even after you do all of that, they still add...nothing. The main game is beat by the first clear. Everything else is bonus or arguably post-game, and does little to enhance the story that's already been told. The main villain is defeated. The threat is eliminated. Don't you understand? There's nothing meaningful left to do.

This is horrible structure for storytelling. There's no room for the story to breathe, no way for it to be properly paced and spread out. They didn't even need to do it this way too.

Obviously the first run is 10 floors to do the tutorial. The way this is structured is good, it gives you ample time to talk to the characters and feel out the situation, to get an understanding of what's going on, both with the gameplay and the story. At the end of that we meet the main antagonist and get introduced to the real plot of the story.

The problems start when you do your next run and the spire now has 30 floors. Huge jump from the previous 10. What's more is that you don't really get to talk to the characters much between floors. If they do talk it's just a few bits of dialogue, but it's not much. And the floors aren't structured to take exceptionally long either. Everything goes by very quickly.

You get past the first boss...then another...and then...main villain? Let's talk about that, actually.

In Splatoon 1 and 2 hero mode, you have 5 areas. 4 bosses before main boss. Each boss functions as a sort of checkpoint in the story. This leads to a sense of progression and accomplishment for every time you defeat a boss. It also allows the story room to breathe, breaking it up and giving it time to develop.

Octo Expansion is structured differently. Insteas of the bosses being checkpoints, they're replaced by the thangs. Each thang collected serves as a checkpoint. The story develops, you get time to breathe, to take a break from the gameplay and actually process what's going on.

Splatoon 3 hero mode is flawed in terms of pacing, but the checkpoint system is still somewhat intact. You have the 3 boss fights to function as checkpoints, but they don't progress the story much. It's also worth mentioning that since bosses are only on every other site, the sense of progression is muddied and gets a bit lost. I'm speaking personally here but I was majorly confused when I completed site 5 and nothing happened.

In any case, stories need time to be told, and players need to be given time to digest what's being thrown at them. If you want a good story you need checkpoints where you can take a break from the gameplay and pick it back up later.

The structure of Side Order doesn't really allow for that, but at the same time, I don't think it would have been too difficult to implement. The pacing for the tutorial spire was perfectly fine. If they had continued that structure, maybe incrementing the spire with an additional 5 or 10 floors after each clear, it would have given room for the story to pace itself better.

Let's say that after the tutorial, the spire still only had 10 floors. You could clear a 10F spire, and then after defeating a general boss (not Order), Order makes an appearance or something and increases the spire to 20F. You clear the 20F spire, fighting another general boss, and now it's increased to 30F. Now this would function as it does in the game, fighting Order once you hit the top. From there on the game could be as it is now.

This gives you 3 checkpoints before the final boss; the tutorial spire, the 10F spire, the 20F spire, and the 30F spire. The gameplay would be almost identical to how it is now. Would people still be able to beat it fast? Sure, but it would force them to take longer because there's checkpoints to slow them down. Even without changing anything else about the story, I think if they had done this and spread out the dialogue between all of these clears, it would have led to the story feeling better and an overall more significant sense of accomplishment.

As it stands now, the bosses in the spire don't function as checkpoints. They don't slow down anything, and there's not much room to breathe after a clear. Sure there's a vending machine, but those are optional. And it also doesn't give you a break from the game - you just go right back to doing more floors. In previous games, clearing a boss or getting a thang forces you out of doing levels back to back. It forces you to go back to the hub world, unlock the next area, get more info about what's going on. You can jump straight back in if you want, but it does a good job of breaking up the gameplay so everything else doesn't feel rushed.

Technically you can pause runs of the spire, but you're never prompted to. You clear a boss, get like 2 seconds worth of dialogue, and are immediately prompted with the next floor. Gameplay isn't broken up at all, story doesn't get a chance to exist.

But for what it's worth, the boss music is great! Everyone loves Asynchronus Rondo, right? Clap if you love Asynchronus Rondo!

Each boss theme in the spire is unique to its respective boss. It changes whether you're fighting them in 10F or 20F. There are elements that allude to Off the Hook's music, and they talked about why in the interview they did recently. It sets the tone, it sets the mood, it fits the environment, it reflects the boss design (0ct0pt1c0n and Ech0 Ons1aught show this very well - merry-go-round motifs and start of match music respectively), the music does everything. It tells you so much about what's going on.

It feels like it's to the point where the music is the main vehicle for storytelling and the actual dialogue is supplementary. But I'd say it's more than that. I think the dialogue brings down the storytelling efforts of the music.

Again, SO much love and care was put into the music of Side Order. Each of the objectives having specific tracks that change depending on which segment of the spire you're in, the names of these tracks all having letters that can be substituted by 1, 2, or 3 to signify this, the boss theme titles having letters to substitute with 0 or 1 based on which version you're fighting, the bosses singing chopped up version of Off the Hook songs, Acht and Pearl's themes reusing Octo Expansion tracks (I don't remember if Rina did this as well soz), the list goes on. And it fucking does dude. Like every track in this game received so much care. The Order Sector and Spire Lobby music as well, with the little thingamabobs that pop in and out and add to the music? Like just LISTEN to how melancholic the initial Order Sector music is. It fucks me up man. It does.

And can we TALK about ONWARD. THE FUCKING ONWARD MOTIFS? Like yeah all fhe bosses blah blah blah I DON'T CARE. MY POINT IS, ACHT STRAIGHT UP NAMES THE CREDITS TRACK #47 - ONWARD, AND I HAVEN'T SEEN A SINGLE PERSON TALKING ABOUT THAT. Like yeah, you didn't hear the little "bum-bum-ba-ba-bum !" In the song itself, but it's STILL NAMED ONWARD. BE SO FOR REAL.

Like if you LOOK at the MUSICAL IMPLICATIONS THAT HAS. That IMPLIES that ACHT would have been EVIL. The only other times we hear it in Side Order is IN THE BOSS THEMES!!! THAT'S what I mean when I say the music tells a different story, dude! IT TELLS SO MUCH.

And the initial Order Sector music. It's so desolate. Especially if you listen without the musical thingamabobs - like just hear the track isolated? It's so sad. It really drives home that feeling of being lost and confused. Like so lost. It's so good. IT'S SO GOOD.

Basically my point in all of this is that they put SO much effort into the music that it's negatively affecting their ability to put the same level of care into the story itself. Side Order's story is rushed, the pacing is out of place, a lpt of what is revealed contradicts what was previously established, so many things don't line up, and overall it falls a little flat on its delivery. I think the premise overall is cool. I just don't think they put that much effort into the execution. But that's because they used up all their effort on making the music.

There is a very real imbalance in the quality of the music and the quality of the story. And I'm willing to talk more about Side Order's story - like how it could actually be really good in the context of the information revealed being false. Like if they release another dlc or story or expansion, and we find out that Marina was wrong about a lot of what she thought about Kamabo and the Memverse, or we find out that Acht was deceiving us and wasn't "randomly pulled in" - basically if they elaborate on this story further and we find out that they fed us false information in order to enhancs the context of the story - I think it could be good.

Side Order's story could actually be REALLY good if they follow it up and reveal that the cake is a lie the player was being lied to and Marina was genuinely misinformed/incorrect on her findings. Keep in mind - this isn't her specialty! She's good with machinery and all, but this is her first time working with memories! And they even reference in-game that her prototypes tend to have a high mortality rate! Just keep that in mind!

Anyways yeah. Splatoon is at a point where it's so focused on music that they're neglecting the story. The music is really really good but because the story is so neglected they basically paint 2 completely different pictures entirely. Splatoon's story is nothing without its music. But the music can be everything without the story. The story hurts it more than it helps.

[alterrune]

ALTERNARUNE - MISSSION 7 (BOSS 2)

(Both teams exit from their kettles. The Advisor quickly rushes over to us, seemingly out of breath.)

What's the situation, Advisor Three?

Grizzco just gave PMD!Kyle and Blastie quite a fright. He said if we don't stop and let this happen, he'll fuzzify your world as well.

He's bluffing. He has to be.

(Suddenly, as if on cue, Alter's phone rings. It's Reginald and RHM!)

Reginald? Right Hand Man? What's going on?

"Well, Alter, we just had quite the close call. Seems someone planted bombs filled with this strange technicolor goop onto the Airship, the Orbital Station, and even on GEOGRAM's base."

"Luckily my sensors spotted 'em all right away. Managed to disarm all the ones planted on the Airship and on the Orbital Station, and got those GEOGRAM blokes on the line to disarm the bombs in their base real quick."

Funny you mention that. We have a pretty good idea on who made the strange goop and planted those bombs, and we're en route to take him down right now. By the way, this is important: did you dispose of the ooze the bombs held?

"Yes, of course we did. The stuff was FAR too concentrated to be studied, so we put the samples in biohazardous waste containers and stored them in a secure location. We can't really destroy it, but we can store it away under maximum-security lock and key for now."

"Heh, yer lucky we're still here after everything that's happened. We're too tough to go down, especially since Reggie got those augments back a bit ago."

Great. Keep an eye on that stuff and do not let ANYONE near it. I'll see you back at the Airship for Christmas soon enough. Over and out.

(Alter puts his phone away.)

Ooookay, so Grizz wasn't bluffing after all. We need to speed things up.

Luckily for you, I think I know just how to do that. I've managed to get enough Power Eggs for L'il Buddy to eat up enough fuzzy ooze to get you all to the next boss kettle. I'll set you all to Super Jump there right now.

(Suddenly, we all Super Jump to the boss kettle. Upon entering, we're greeted by a familar voice.)

GREETINGS, CITIZENS. YOU ARE IN AN UNAUTHORIZED AREA RESTRICTED TO ALTERNAN AUTHORITY ONLY. PLEASE LEAVE OR---

O.R.C.A., there's someone in the area already. We're here to get them out of it.

OH MY, IT SEEMS THAT YOU ARE CORRECT. I SHALL LIFT RESTRICTIONS FOR THIS AREA SO YOU CAN DEAL WITH THIS.

Thanks, O.R.C.A.! You're a nice lady, y'know that?

COMPLIMENT APPRECIATED, MS. VIOLET WOLFSBANE.

(We enter the boss area. This one is slightly different than Shiver's. But as we approach the center of the arena...)

HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!!!

(A yellow-haired inkling with a HUMONGOUS forehead stops us in our tracks. She seems to be holding a flute of some kind...?)

Hey, forehead. Explain to us exactly what's going on here.

Oh...you must be the ColorStreak Battalion. Hey, tell you what, you ditch those idiots in the New Squidbeak Splatoon, join our gang, and make tons of moolah! How's that sound?

Tempting, but no dice. We're here for that piece of scrap, and if you won't step aside, we'll have to fight you.

I thought as such. Welp, it was worth a try, at least. Anyways, you want to make me lose? Well, I've had enough losses for my entire life! Do you know that I haven't won a single Splatfest for TWO YEARS?! I already lose every single Splatfest, I won't lose this! Eels, come forth!

(The inkling plays her flute, and suddenly, a giant hollowed out head CLOMPS onto the battlefield, infested with eels.)

You like? That's the head of an old Octarian superweapon, the Octostomp. It's basically the Octoling equivalent to a human skull. Still wanna do this? Last chance to take our offer.

(click) No dice. We came in here to fight, and that's damn well what we're going to do.

Fine. Your funeral, pal.

Say it with sizzle...I'm Frye!

DANCE FORMATION: MORAY WHIRLPOOL!

(Frye's eels suddenly begin to whirl around us, about to move in for the kill.)

I hope these suits have rubber insolation...

BEGINNING BOSS FIGHT: THE PURSUIT OF THE FUTURE

[toonie-doodle-splat]

Character Headcanons: Octoling Agent 3 (Neo Agent 3)

Since this is about the new Agent 3, this will contain some spoilers for Splatoon 3.

I wanted both new Agent 3s to have a specific cultural background, like how Deep Cut clearly has coded ethnicities (ex. Frye being coded as South Asian/Indian). For Neo Agent 3, I decided that he should be Haitian-Japanese; as a result, his name is Japanese.

The nickname he goes by is Shion (Kanji: 詩音, Katakana: シオン), which means “poetry sound” in Japanese. His real name is Minato Takowasa (Katakana: タカワソ ミナト), so his full name is Minato "Shion" Takowasa! Minato means "harbour" in Japanese, and takowasa is a Japanese dish that is made from raw octopus and wasabi.

His last name being Takowasa is based on DJ Octavio's Japanese name (DJ General Takowasa). I like the headcanon that Octoling Agent 3 is related to DJ Octavio.

If you're wondering, the Katakana is there because Katakana is how Octarian is written in the Japanese version of Splatoon; both Marina and DJ Octavio have text in Katakana in order to imply a different accent from Inklings, according to Inkipedia.

Shion uses he/him pronouns and any terms. He's butch and dresses like a dad.

He has a huge interest in music, and has made several songs for fandoms he was in. As of recently, he's been producing original music online.

Continuing from the last point: Because of how common it is to remix Calamari Inkantation, Shion has a small distaste for it. He also prefers Fresh Start, since he thinks it has more remixing potential.

He was mute until he was seven, so he often stutters over his words. The stuttering intensifies when he needs to talk to multiple people at once.

Continuing from the last point: Shion now speaks multiple languages, such as Inklish, Octarian, Inklish Sign Language, and Octarian Sign Language. Whenever he has a non-verbal day, he defaults to Octarian Sign Language.

He likes to fidget with stuff when he's nervous, which often leads to Yeong (Agent 3 II) having her hair braided by him. Smallfry also gets its hair played with if Yeong isn't around.

He was always told he had a resemblance to his grandfather, but he never met the guy. After saving the world, Shion had a conversation with him.

Shion was raised between Mt. Nantai and Octo Valley, but was moved near a Salmonid Swim Zone after the events of Splatoon. This Swim Zone was where he would meet Yeong and Smallfry, where they would become an inseparable trio.

Due to his face markings and general humanoid appearance, O.R.C.A. likes him more than Yeong and Smallfry. He is completely unaware of this, as O.R.C.A. barely changes its behavior towards him.

Agent 3 II's post: https://toonie-doodle-splat.tumblr.com/post/698244658320621568/character-headcanons-inkling-agent-3-agent-3-ii

[seffien]

TA-DA! :]

new fic. i meant for this one to be half its final length, and i also meant for it to be released in september, then october. so yeah.

After a string of disappearances shake Splatsville, someone decides to go investigate.

also, heed the tags, absolutely. also slight splatoon 3 spoilers but like really slight. anyway, enjoy!

[rassicas]

Ohmygosh thank you for such a thorough answer! I loved reading that! First of all I want to thank you for all the amazing stuff you do and generally remind you that you are awesome. Secondly, a few follow-up questions because some things you mentioned particularly intrigued me:

1. What exactly are the problem with “what if lil judd?” The Judds are some of the most central figures in inkfish society so I imagine it’s quite possible they’d have enough weight to throw around to establish a small, shady business on the downlow. I’m sure that there are several problems, I just can’t think of any at present.

2. What do you mean by “though the english localization foolishly carried that motive into the finale of his story when it didn't make sense to do so?” I confess I’m probably just parsing that paragraph wrong, but wasn’t “that motive” his original mammalization plan? He was never MOTIVATED by profit, right? I don’t remember him mentioning profit motives in ROTM.

3. I’m really intrigued by this “O.R.C.A secretly working against Grizz” idea, and agree that ROTM was… weird and doesn’t really make sense taken at face value. Can you elaborate?

sure they'd have the power in the inkling world, what bugs me is the timeline for lil judd. by grizzco's reveal in april 2017, it seemed it was a business that was already well established in the inkling world. salmon roe/power eggs have been stated to be an important energy source, egg collection sites were in place, the grizzco building was there, and it already had a training video that looked like it was filmed like 30 years ago. lil judd was first revealed in. late 2016 i think? he was JUST born months prior. and grizz's plan was certainly in motion for a good long time before he even started the business. for the sake of the timeline itd make more sense to me that judd, not lil judd, was who grizz got in contact with... and maybe lied about his motives in the process since something like 'woah judd is evil all along!!' and not just Neutral feels pretty out of character imo. dont get me started on how grizz's entire motivations were based on him not seeing a single other mammal and him feeling isolated from that, and then the fact there are 2 other sapient mammals surviving on earth is conveniently left out. splatoon team either purposely obfuscating something there, or if not then that seems like a weird shitty writing decision

2. on top of the plethora of added-in business puns, doesnt get more blatant than this:

again, JP version makes no mention of profits and grizz's tone is more serious over all. 3. im gonna plug @ardnin's video because he explains this idea quite well!

[zaptap]

details from the splatoon 3 treehouse live

(since i haven’t seen many posts about it)

fuzzy ooze kills you. don’t touch it (or touch it anyway, idc)

story mode levels open up very similarly to octo expansion stations, you're in a similar looking little room where you can choose a weapon and then it sends you out there.

also noticed a text box attributed to O.R.C.A. that explains the weapons. the treehouse didn't even acknowledge this, so we have no idea who or what this is

the buddy smallfry acts as a sub weapon, you can throw it at enemies to have it attack them, or just throw it to draw their attention. you call it back with "this way" on the d-pad

and when i say it acts as a sub weapon, i mean it’s literally considered one and you don’t get access to it if you get a weapon with a different one

the goal at the end is also basically the same

they showed a level where you have to smash target crates while riding rails (just like octo expansion had, so we'll probably see many more similarly styled challenge type stages)

you don't have to beat every level to finish the story (just like octo expansion)

after they finished showing story stuff, they showed the training room in the lobby

there's a copy machine, a dummy that'll shoot ink and throw splat bombs--it matches your actions while staying in one place, and they demonstrated throwing a bomb to practice dodging it with a squid roll

the squid roll deflects some damage, but you can see that the bomb still hurts you, just not enough to splat you from full health (for some reason they didn't mention this, but you can see from the ink creeping up around your screen that it doesn't make you invulnerable and you actually take somewhat heavy damage from a bomb)

the crab tank can shoot rapid fire or in bigger bursts

the zipcaster can be used to grapple onto surfaces that can't normally be inked (in addition to ones that can)

the ink vac sucks up enemy ink and then lets you launch it out as an explosive projectile of your own color.

it works even if there isn't any enemy ink, it just takes longer to charge up and the explosion is smaller

the stringer launches 3 blobs of ink. without charging, they’re more spread out

if you charge it a bit, they hit a little closer together, stick to a surface, and explode after making contact.

if you charge it more, they land even closer together (back to back) with a slightly bigger explosion

normally they fire in a horizontal row, but just like with rollers you can fire them vertically by jumping

they also did recon on a couple stages that'll be in rotation during the splatfest.

scorch gorge: (note that the center area is surrounded by uninkable walls. the platform in the middle has walkways that give you access to both sides of the stage, so being in control of the middle is a bit more important than usual)

eeltail alley:

not much to say since we've sort of seen those stages before, and if you really want to get a feel for them you should watch the video

[our-only-choice]

What’s O.R.C.A like?

dutiful, analytical, and a little bit dry. the digital records i mentioned are stored in their servers, since the preservation of knowledge is literally what they were made for.

and boy, those servers tower high. most of the skyscrapers over in the happiness research lab are filled with racks upon racks of servers containing orcas codebase, preserved records, and so on. there's a reason the central building has a giant fan; all those servers make a LOT of heat (and some very grumpy sysadmins, refer to the broom story)

but the specter of data corruption always strikes when you least expect it, which is why ive also got the whole analog record thing going too. redundancy is safety.

[the-eel-deal]

[ REST ] with Julian

Soft Action Prompts

[ REST ] sender places their head in receiver’s lap. 

"I don't blame you for passing out like this, Julian. That giant piece a metal makes you do so much for so little!"

The giant piece of metal being O.R.C.A-- Upon joining the NSS... She learned what the Neo Agent had to go through. And ouch! Getting ink dumped on you-- Falling off platforms and rails and practically exploding upon impact from both. Not to mention the fuzzy octarians! She couldn't blame him for like instantly passing out on her lap. It was probably better than just resting on some fake snow or a hard crate.

"But anyway, how ya feeling? You're not like... bleeding out or anything, right?"