Exams, am I right? - This isn’t MLaaTR related, but fuck I love Splatoon, and just wanted to post this to tumblr since I’ve posted it everywhere else lol Here’s my sploot twitter account if ur interested ^_^

i love snapcube real time fandubs :3

on the topic of misconceptions. this change was criminal

thank you NOA for um. spreading the idea that inklings can't drink water

the world when all people went extinct in splatoon

Ain’t nobody gonna see this but I have theory of the Calamari Inkantation. Splatoon 3 Spoilers.

Okay so I was listening to Wave Goodbye, the Splatoon 3 Credits Song, over and over like a normal person, when at some point I realized when they get to the portion that starts the Calamari Inkantation lyrics, there are non-filtered voices singing. Humans Voices. (Pictured is around the point where that section starts)

Then I thought to myself: What if the Calamari Inkantation originated as a song humans made on Alterna? A song to help them continue despite their world falling around them. Then I started looking into the logs and reflecting on past events with the song and..

Let’s just say Sunken Scroll #23 from Splatoon 1 saying: “Nowadays, this song and dance may as well be carved into the very DNA of all Inklings.” ..might be a tiny bit more literal than expected. Let’s take a look at what we know.

The Calamari Inkantation is a literal incantation. Series of words, or a song in this case, that causes magical effects. It has, in many cases, been known to give strength, physical or otherwise, to those who have been in audible range of it. Ex. Giving Cuttlefish the strength to break out of his restraints and Smallfry to temporarily evolve(?) into Hugefry.

With that said, I believe the “Calamari” part could be from the place it was “founded” in and taken on as a traditional song for. Calamari Country. Which is where Callie and Marie come from. Perhaps the Inklings of the area long ago found the sheet music.

Moving on, the part of this that helps this theory’s case is Alterna Log005: Fresh Intelligence Awakens.

After the liquid crystals that retained decades of humanity’s wishes was absorbed by the squids, octopuses, and other sea creatures that inhabited Alterna’s waters.. it imbued them with fresh impulses that “bore a striking resembling to humanity’s passive desire to return to the Earth’s surface”.

Interesting. The desire to return to the surface was slowly fused into their DNA. You may be thinking “But what does this have to do with the Inkantation?” And that’s exactly where I’m going with this.

So if we are to think.. the Calamari Inkantation was made by the humans on Alterna, perhaps filled lyrically with their wishes.. and the sea creatures absorbed the desire and wishes of humanity to return to the surface through the liquid crystals.. and the Calamari Inkantation gives sea creatures the literal strength to move forward..

And the INKADIA-BORN OCTOLINGS, who were SUFFERING in poor conditions UNDERGROUND in DOMES heard the CALAMARI INKANTATION and suddenly their “SOULS WERE FREED” and THE DESIRE TO RETURN TO THE SURFACE AND THRIVE WAS EVOKED INTO THEM AGAIN?

AFTER YEARS OF LIVING A HARD MILITARISTIC-STYLE LIFE WITH BEING INDUCTED INTO THE ARMY AT A YOUNG AGE, THEY FOUND THE STRENGTH TO LEAVE THEIR ENTIRE OLD LIFE BEHIND? TO RISK IT ALL. EVEN THEIR OWN LIFE. TO JOIN WHAT THEY WERE PRESUMED TO BE THEIR WORST ENEMIES ON THE SURFACE IN HARMONY?

After thinking about all this and rewatching the Octo Expansion Surface Cutscene (from that last GIF), I nearly wanted to CRY. They had never seen the real sky before, the real SUN before. They made it. Not only the Octolings but humanity’s final wishes made it too.

That’s my theory. Perhaps I’m wrong but either way I would love to see what people think. Thanks for reading.

Oh and also, since it named the “Inkantation” that means someone knew of its power... This just in, did the Inklings cheat in the Great Turf War?

But that’s for another day lol

Is that an inkling weapons of mass destruction drinking a soda 😭💀

Splatoon 3 is wild because imagine if you were living in Japan due to a recent economic and cultural boom, and suddenly a space shuttle with a mutant house-sized T-rex riding it suddenly burst from the center of Mt. Fuji and disappeared into space without explanation, and all you ever find out about what the fuck that was about is that Zuckerburg mysteriously disappeared the same day and was never seen again, but still "officially" ran Meta through an open secret Queen-Elizabeth-being-in-good-health gaslighting campaign, and everybody kind of suspected he may have been connected but never figured out anything conclusive.

Also the T-rex is now orbiting the earth in the fetal position like the guy from Jojo, and there are rumors of a substance that, if touched, turns you into a half-dinosaur monster. Nobody understands any of this but Meta employees just keep going to work and pretending Zuck still exists. The same 12 prerecorded voicelines constantly squak from the PA system.

Oddly, the statue in front of Meta HQ of a T-rex eating a human changes overnight into one of a giant human eating a tiny T-rex. Nobody noticed the switch, despite the statue being in a constantly bustling area. It happened shortly after the shuttle incident.

Jack Black's tiny clone, Lil' Jack, now wears a headset at all times and has been acting really shady since the incident. Also they're both hyperintelligent, immortal velociraptors found in an ancient cryogenic chamber who spend their days judging college football and eating the legally harvested flesh of hillbillies. Lil' Jack is probably plotting to kill Big Jack, but Big Jack doesn't seem to care, growing fat and lazy, sleeping on public benches in a bed of throw pillows. Also, he's very open about the fact that, as a velociraptor, humans look delicious, but he hasn't actually eaten anybody aside from the aforementioned hillbillies because he's civil.

Everyone is just expected to move on with their lives after this. This is normal to you.

The local art school was recently attacked by giant sea serpents, which were actually hideously bioengineered hillbillies, fulfilling a biblical doomsday prophecy, and they were driven back by Meta's army of minimum wage, part time child soldiers armed with warcrimey jury-rigged weaponry. The sea serpents had giant frying pans grafted into their mouths, which launched primitive tactical nukes made by filling garbage bags with their explosive blood. They still exist, and occasionally defend their comrades, but spend most of their time in the deep sea.

The local homeless emo twink everyone's attracted to is a closet millionaire who sells bootleg clothing in exchange for live rats, which he messily devours behind closed doors. He's also 8 feet tall and British and only has one eye.

North Korean refugees now flood the western world, after a greasy 14 year old hipster, under the guidance of Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift, beat Kim Jong Un in a mech battle, and the EDM remix of the Japanese national anthem they performed caused like half the soldiers to immediately realize North Korea sucks ass and defect. One of these individuals, 7 foot tall hypergenius, becomes a newscaster alongside a nepo baby rapper with dwarfism who likes to eat entire jars of mayo, and also they're a popular band. Also also, they may or may not be gay. Almost the entire population is gay, so this isn't a huge deal.

The new local newscasters are a famous Japanese lion tamer, an Indian girl with a bloodline trait allowing her to control snakes, and a Brazillian man the size of a smart car who exclusively communicates via grunts.

Gods, souls and zombies are objectively real, and you're effectively immortal because real-life respawning was invented a while ago. It works like a Keurig, but with mucus instead of coffee. Submersion in water kills you.

A good deal of the population is a hivemind. They pretend to be individuals for no reason.

Almost all men are now femboys.

Despite all this, you still have to go to work at 9 tomorrow.

This video essay by CosmicCloud covers most everything i love about Splatoon worldbuilding. There is no good and evil, only perspectives, and that the human legacy is creation of art.

It is long, but well organized with chapters. Recommended!

I particularly loved the presentation of how Splatoon (1) gives us the inkling perspective of carefree ignorance while offering a world in which two sides paint the other in propaganda. It overtly explain the themes but allows them to naturally exist in its world.

Additionally, this video made me appreciate the reveal in Splatoon 3's After Alterna of human's connection to Inkling evolution. At first, I didn't accept it, but I think now it supports the intention of Splatoon. Despite featuring the end of humans, Splatoon isn't nihilistic and has a great message about the power of art.

some salmon run pics!

Calamari Inkantation is a Big Deal.

Splatoon 3's campaign has a WHOLE LOT of lore in it, a metric fuckload, and in there are some tidbits that make me really REALLY emotional. But one major facet of the backstory 3 introduces retroactively makes the climaxes of both Splatoon 1 and 2 resonate with me so, so much more.

This is gonna be super super detailed and has MAJOR spoilers for Splatoon 3's campaign, so don't click Read More until you've gotten all the logs! (except the postgame one, I haven't read it yet lol)

So. to get to Calamari Inkantation we first have to discuss literally all of the Alterna Logs and the backstory they present. Namely, we have to talk about the liquid crystals, and about humanity's desire for freedom.

The small pocket of humans that escape the effective end of the world take refuge and build their new home inside a flooded volcano crater. They survive by eating the sea life already living in that crater, particularly the squids and octopi. They manage to build a thriving society, and are safe in their cavernous home of Alterna. But they always long for more. They miss the outside world dearly.

They discover that they can make liquid crystals out of the body fluids of the cephalopods native to the crater's waters. When screens are made using those crystals, like modern LCD displays, they react to the thoughts and emotions of those near them. They set them up throughout the entire cavern, covering the walls and roof completely.

Those crystals could display anything, anything at ALL that humanity had on its mind. But the desire to return home to the surface is so strong - so overwhelming - that every single liquid crystal reacted to it and let them see the sky they longed for, the sky that they had been without for 25 long years.

Humanity of course fucks up, and the crystals all overload when humanity tries to escape their tunnel system via rocket and cave in almost everything, destroying Alternan society.

But their desire doesn't fade with them. Their desperate need to see the sky, their longing to escape out into the world again, is still stored in all those billions of liquid crystals which have now collapsed into the ocean. All that longing for freedom, all that desire to see the sun again, is now polluting the waters and over centuries is gradually absorbed into the sea life of Alterna.

Little-by-little, those desires become the desires of the squid and octopi and assorted sea creatures that live there, and they adapt. Their evolution is accelerated by their desperate need to see the sun and the sky.

Humanity never achieved their desire to escape the caves of Alterna. But their desperate longing was soaked up by the life of the sea, and the squid and octopi followed their new calling and found freedom. They absorbed the feelings and memory and hopes and fears of humanity and built an entire society just like the one that humans had left behind.

(From here I could diverge and talk about the tragic irony of Tartar wanting to eliminate inkling and octoling society for things that likely were also inherited from humans, but others have covered that ground.)

Instead I'm going to talk about humanity's desire for freedom, and about Calamari Inkantation.

Calamari Inkantation isn't just a really cool bop that everyone loves, written by the Squid Sisters. It borderline has magical powers; it dispels the last of Callie's mind control in Splatoon 2's story and is described as having "blown the hearts and minds" of anyone who witnessed it in Splatoon 1's finale. Marina heard it, said "This changes everything", vanished and immediately made for the surface. Agent 8 was similar, as Marina recounts:

DJ_Hyperfresh > I could tell right away that Agent 8 had also been touched by the Calamari Inkantation. DJ_Hyperfresh > Once our souls have been freed, there's no way we can continue to live under the oppression of Octarian society.

The parallels are there for sure, but how can we be sure of what's going on? This scroll from Splatoon 1:

"The customary chorus of Calamari County. Nowadays, this song and dance may as well be carved into the very DNA of all Inklings. It began as a way to celebrate and show respect for the bounty of the sea."

That heavenly melody that makes you wonder what's out there, and break past the artificial sky.

It's that same feeling, passed down for thousands of years. The longing of humanity, that desperation to escape their confines and see the sky, to break free!

It endured in Inklings and Octolings, for all of time, passed down in their blood and in their culture and song and dance, and that desire was so STRONG that hearing it in musical form was enough to bring those feelings flooding back to every Octarian and immediately make them defect and seek the surface world.

Humanity may be long gone, but their hopes and desires and dreams were so strong and rang so true that they live on even now, aeons later, withstanding the passage of time.

That's it. That's Calamari Inkantation.

Agent 3/Captain 3 Mental State

Do y'all ever just think about how Agent 3 might actually have a different kind of problem mentally- like, I see a lot of people always talking about the brainwashing and the fighting Octavio and the Octarians as their "flaw/trauma to over come" and dont get me wrong I love these flaws in their character! But I've just been thinking-

What about a hero complex? I mean, it might be typical, but Agent 3 has been working for the New Squidbeak Splatoon ever since they where about 14, they've been put in death situations over and over again- so what if they tie in their worth to their abilities? To what they can bring to the table-

Yet every couple of years, a new agent, a new person who did what they did all those years ago, but...better at times, Agent 4 (that one oc) saved the great zap fish, beat Octavio, and they did it while fighting Callie, and now Captain 3 has been- basically replaced by Neo 3, who fought Octavio, and a bear in literally space! Captain 3s achievements slowly pale more in comparison, and Agent 8 went through everything they went through in heels

The rest of the squidbeak splatoon is similar, Callie and Marie are literally idols and the original agents of the New Squid beak splatoon, Marina is just Marina, smart with technology and good at musician and paved the way for octolings to enter inkling society, Pearl is practically a princess with the voice of a torpedo, deep cut isn't technically part of the squid beak splatoon, but they are also idols-

All to say...Captain 3 might feel the need to prove themselves, they did take up the spot of their beloved Gramps, and even if he is a bit of a nut job, he was a literal War Hero and legend, Captain 3 is in the shadow of so many great people- insecurity complex might be their new dearest friend!

Anyways, this was just a bit of a character study using nothing but my tired imagination- give me your thoughts and feed back please and thank yous!

splatoon is…

ALSO MADE BY ME MADE BY BEE

Hello Splatoon community! This is your friendly reminder that, canonically, according to the official splatoon character base chart, (https://www.nintendo.co.jp/character/splatoon/en/character/#) Lil Judd suffers from major personal anxiety due to the fact that he’s essentially a failsafe clone if Judd didn’t survive the cryogenic slumber! And that he’s literally plotting to get rid of Judd. W o n d e r f u l

In the splatoon fanbase, there are many misconceptions surrounding the relationship between inklings and water. without fail whenever I mention something related to the topic I'll get replies of "actually the canon is [some popular but incorrect theory]" "no they can do this and this canonically [it's actually a headcanon]" "no its really [something NOA made up]"

so to briefly go over The Facts:

Inklings canonically die when submerged in water. And yes, getting "splatted" is them dying for real, respawning is also an in-universe thing that has existed for at least 2000 years and not just a game mechanic. While the dying in water thing originally came from a game mechanic, it has been repeatedly stated that they incorporated this into the inkling's biology. The water weakness is not because of the water itself being toxic. The reason is based in osmosis. in the process of their evolution, Inklings (and octolings) changed a lot, and one of these changes was the ability to transform between a humanoid and swim form. Doing this transformation requires skin that is a thin, semi permeable membrane [this kind of skin is a trait found in real life molluscs]. The evolutionary trade off is that, because of how semi permeable their skin is, the ink inside of their bodies will bleed out when in contact with another liquid. This is the answer given directly by the series' creator. Kind of like how a slug will die if you sprinkle salt on it (for a reason that's almost the same as the inklings), but ultimately needs salt in its diet through the food it eats to live, inklings do drink water and other liquids. Its also not like they touch water and immediately explode, it seems they can wash their hands in it and dip their feet in it and be fine. Some people think the water weakness is stupid, personally i think its reasonable because Inkling biology is already weird as hell and of how ridiculously advantageous it is to be an ink-based cephalopod. the ink gives them the ability to jump absurdly long distances and cheat death to an extent. they're not losing much by not being able to dunk themselves in water. Anyway point is it sucks that all the relevant canon information on this is one of those japan only things/exclusive to developer interviews and pretty much every time it's brought up in English the localizers make shit up. I plan to make a video about this one of these days, but with how 'controversial' the topic is, and how many little details and connected concepts there are, I've been holding it off because I want to do it right. there's also some specific details that are unclear that I've been hoping would be clarified in the artbook or a dev interview but haven't, I might just have to go for it at this point. for the time being, i hope this post helps clear up a few things!

Whats this? A memversal nature documentary, of course!

Here we see the Pinging Marciale sleeping soundly... before you battle it, you can hear it snore!

It's almost cute enough to distract me from it being a large metal ball with a gelatinous inside... (Video and submission from Ikkini2 on twitter!)

Did Craig ever get to propose to Tavi? :<

YEAH!!! THEY EVEN GOT MARRIED!!!!!!! but sadly war ruined everything for them how sad…. 🥺

(sorry 4 the late response!!!)