#【００Ｘ：WORLD BUILDING.】

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octo expansion canon divergency:

My blog basically treats this concept art as canon. It's definitely early, early concept art ( the octoling boy having the afro instead of the mohawk as the default being a big clue to that ) and, to me, implies that Agent 3 and Cuttlefish would've been allies to 8 from the start.

As it applies to the main canon ( ie, Tsu as Agent 3 and Eden as Agent 8, ) Tsunaomi assists Eden escape at the request of Toko, Eden's older sister. They leave through Mount Nantai, along with a dozen or so Octarians, and load into an old school bus to head towards Inkopolis. But, of course, they never make it, Commander Tartar attacking them, dragging the wreckage down to The Deep Sea Metro, and leaving behind only the radio that Marina and Pearl later find. While Eden is taken to be the next test subject ( Cuttlefish basically showing up near the start of track by happenstance, ) Naomi and scattered Octarians are dropped in the employee side, presumably to be sanitized.

Outside of the main blog canon, it can be decided between muns, out of character. Wether the game's plot or my canon is followed or not is, really, up to whatever decision works best for the RP / AU.

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tag drop

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hc: the sun.

In the popular, modern Octarian consciousness, there are two ways to understand the sun: The sun is a star that will one day explode, or, The sun is a star that brings life to the surface. 

Most Octarians see the surface as a place stolen from them. A small outlier may believe they lost the war fair and square, but that outlying group is seen as their own brand of traitor. The trauma of being driven into the sea, forced to take shelter in underground domes that are filled with sea water, echoes through their society. Everyone longs for the surface. 

These two ideas of the sun also represent the two, dominant ideologies on the surface as a whole. The surface is dangerous and must be taken by force, or, the surface is the idealistic life they should strive for. 

The first: The surface as danger. Once fought for territory and then forced from their way of life, to these Octarians, the Surface is a place that needs to be retaken by force. This is where those who support war, who support marching on the surface and doing unto surface dwellers what was done to them. Think soldiers, the loyal generals, and those who thrive under the military structure. This is also what people who are afraid of the surface believe in. The fear of worse suffering on the surface; there may be less food, they may have to take supplements to make up for the lack of sun, but they have community here, have safety here, they don’t face violence in the domes, the way they might on the surface.

The second: The surface as freedom. Once taken from them, and now open. This ties into some other headcanons I have, that Octarians have been escaping to the surface for a long while, even before Splatoon 1. The surface, then, is a place where whatever life they want can take place. This group is those who do not thrive in the military structure, artists and caretakers and doctors; this group is also full of people who help others escape. Think people shepherding refugees from safe house to safe house, organizing escapes when they, too, long to see the surface. It's an idealized version of that life, often informed by smuggled magazines.

There is a third option. A yes, and. The sun is a star, one that explodes and brings life in the same breathe. This is where the truth lies, at least, in my opinion. Discrimination may exist, but so too does the kind, peaceful life. Octarians who do come to Inkopolis may face discrimination, but they will rally, they will create new communities, new futures. This is the belief of those who protest, who sit in on town halls and organize. In the end, both are right.

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Something I think about a lot is the logistics of Turf War / Ranked battles. Like, there's no way in hell Judd judges all of them, there's definitely like, career judges and commentators. Similarly, I think that while your average turf war between kids happens in the actual environment of the stage ( so actually Mako Mart's storage platform, actually at Hagglefish Market, etc, ) Ranked Matches actually take place in stadiums, where the battlefield's been reconstructed ( down to the aestheticism )

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grizzco industries: a fuzzy, off the books nightmare.

a synthesis of ideas from conversations with @lipsyncdripink & @octaling & @jukkumi​

a few notes: throughout this, i’m going to refer to real life incidents of advertising to youth, workplace malpractice, and the skirting of, and outright breaking of, labor laws.  i will sometimes refer to splatoon 3 spoilers, but never in an overt way.  this post also assumes that the fucking splatoon 2 app is canon.* there’s definitions in this fucker. i’m in deep, folks.

summary: Grizzco Industries. is a black company in which workers are hired as gig workers instead of true employees. By exploiting the Inkling and Octoling prey drive, creating illegal weapons that give them a high they can’t get elsewhere, and preying on the unemployable and too young to know better, Grizzco. creates its ‘bright future’ through harm. The life threatening job, the ( definitely below the board ) gachapon payment system, it all goes hand in hand with Grizzco’s ultimate goal.

black company: A black company (ブラック企業, burakku kigyō), also referred to in English as a black corporation or black business, is a Japanese term for an exploitative sweatshop-type employment system. //  gig-economy / gig worker / etc: Gig workers are independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers, and temporary workers By classifying their workers as "independent contractors", instead of as "employees", Gig-Economy jobs are not required to provide the full suite of employee benefits. 

Though Grizz often refers to the player as an employee, the inconsistent ( or never ending, as in Splatoon 3 ) availability of shifts that are signed up for, rather than having consistent hours, and a lack of actual benefits ( not being paid an actual wage, no healthcare, etc. )  the for the workers seems to imply that the employees are not true employees, but rather independent contractors. The terminology is loose and vague on purpose, in order to avoid the boneless arm of the law. 

* a defense of the app being canon: It’s referred to in game as Splatnet, and is presented as if it were diegetic to the game. It also has an in game function ( ordering clothing from Annie for Murch to deliver to you. )

all ages and backgrounds welcome.

This line, and other variations on it, are mentioned in a lot of places - but, most specifically, it’s on the banner for Grizzco on Splatnet 2′s C-Pod. A constant advertisement for Grizzco shifts, right next to Turf War rotations and online shopping. All Ages and Backgrounds Welcome. Turf War is cool with teenagers, and there’s certainly something to be said about that. Grizzco Industries consistently is seen to advertise to the young. On Splatnet, by taking out adverts with Inkopolis News Time, or on Anarchy Splatcast.

Maybe you’ve had a losing streak in Ranked, maybe you just need a few thousand to make it through the end of the month. Grizzco Industries is hiring, all ages and backgrounds welcome. 

You know how, in the real world, vape companies were caught actively advertising on websites that were targeted at kids, and then it was found that a significant portion of high schoolers were vaping? Yeah.

Extrapolating this further, it has implications beyond just the cephalopod kids and Turf War scene. When people are desperate, they’ll work wherever. That’s where that ‘and backgrounds’ bit comes in. Much like our real world low paying / gig-economy jobs, it is usually the already trod upon who end up in these positions. ( for my own two cents on who this would entail, I imagine you see a lot of college students, a lot of adults who never finished school, the physically disfigured, and non-verbal people.  People who are considered ‘unemployable’ in white collar work - ie, office environment jobs. )

This also sucks in combination with Splatoon 3′s Splatsville, where it’s mentioned that a lot of people do, genuinely, suffer the effects of poverty. Then a nice, shiny company opens its doors, ready to pay the people willing to risk their necks.

As per my previous email, Inkopolis as a whole values independence - kids move out as soon as they can, play in Turf War after school, and provide for themselves. There’s a focus on making a name for yourself. Grizzco certainly plays on that. All one needs to sign up is to be level 4 in Turf Wars. You’re only one capsule away from financial security. 

Actually, let’s talk about the capsules.

the gambler’s fallacy & you

As Inkipedia points out, the capsules in Splatoon 2 are reminiscent of pachinko parlors giving away prizes instead of cash in order to skirt gambling laws. These prize windows are outside the business, and usually right next to a pawnshop, so one can exchange the prizes for cash. Now, Grizzco Industries isn’t running a casino illegally; they’re committing the worst crime of all.

Grizzco Industries is dodging taxes. 

Okay, Grizzco dodging taxes is like, the lowest sin. In fact, most real world companies dodge at least some taxes all the time. But it’s not just about Grizz’s taxes - it’s about the employees too. In the real world, independent contractors are required to report income over a certain amount, and that income is then taxed. 

Now, suddenly, the capsules serve a lot of purposes. Because it’s not pay per hour, not even pay per shift, really, as it’s based on points accumulated and one shift does not evenly equal a capsule, there’s not a wage to report. Scores of employees who don’t have to worry about a percentage of their wages ‘disappearing.’ You just open a capsule, and if you get lucky, you’re set for the month.

If you get lucky. And if you don’t, well, you can always work another shift. Bring in more Golden Eggs, and you’ll reap even bigger rewards. And if you’re farming for chunks for better abilities on your gear, Grizzco’s got you covered too. Even the company store has its own currency, the scales, which require even more and more shifts to get the different kinds of scales. One more shift means you might get to a fight Cohozuna. 

One of the art books ( I believe Haikara Walker ) refers to Salmon Run as particularly addicting, the feeling of power and the fantasy of defending the city, like a real hero, but there’s something subtler too. The comparison to a Pachinko Parlor isn’t random. Grizz is using the allure of bright colors, the thrill of suspense, to perfectly replicate the feeling of gambling.

( in the real world, it’s just good game design, allowing the player to feel rewarded without the rewards becoming stale.  but hey, we’re taking things to the logical extreme, right? )

rare weapons - the logical extreme.

So like, what are the Grizzco Weapons? Powerful, illegally modified weapons, yes, ones that are implied to have been placed in rotation by a ‘tentacle error.’ ( from splatoonus’ post, “If you happen to come across it, don’t even think about stealing it or go blabbing to the media about it.” ) But... There’s just something about them. Maybe it’s the prescription pill motif that all but one of them have, but combining it with the statement that the job has an addictive quality, well...

I do not think that Grizzco Industries is actively drugging its workers. Rather, I think the nature of the job, ‘cooperative’ team job that involves killing scores of enemies that are seen as feral* and using incredibly powerful weapons, with the thrill of randomness, is designed to exploit everything about Inklings and Octolings, particularly the teens.

( * We know this isn’t actually the case, given that they have trade agreements with the Octarians, music, and their own culture, however wether or not that’s public knowledge is debatable, given that the Sunken Scrolls are only ever seen by the player. ) 

They have high prey drives, thus the high contact sport of Turf Wars. They don’t know better when it comes to labor laws - kids are rarely taught about the kinds of protections afforded to workers. ( Even above the board, as legal as can be business benefit from their workers not knowing their rights. Join a union. )  And when it comes to trying to band together against Grizz.... Well, it’s so much easier to blame the low performers, than it is to give up on what seems to be the perfect job. 

pitting workers against each other - for fun and profit!

( I owe this section very specifically to octaling, so, shout out to them. )

A Salmon Run ends in defeat - wether a crew wipe or a quota unmet, you’re brought back early. It’s explained that any excess from the collected Golden Eggs are used for extraction, as the Run itself hasn’t actually ended, and the employees are still in danger. Sure, you brought in your quota’s worth of eggs in the two waves preceding, but Grizz barely gives you 10 points towards a capsule. Upon returning, you’re shown everyone’s statistics, 

And you see someone didn’t pull their weight. 

It is one thing to be in a competitive environment. In fact, it can be really healthy to be in a competitive environment, where people work together to better each other and themselves. Actually, Turf War would be a great example of that for the Inklings and Octolings. It’s just a sport, after all. If someone doesn’t play well, it’s just a game. Some people might take it too seriously at times, but unless you’re seriously playing in the upper levels professionally, it’s not personal. 

But Grizzco Industries is a job. And that kind of competitive, bonus-driven employment is designed to prevent people from banding together. Grizz has perfectly designed a job where forming a union is antithetical to the job. 

After all, you can get docked for someone else’s poor performance. If that poor performer complains, the perfect response of “you didn’t die.” sits there waiting for you. Anyone talking about exploitation, about the lack of compensation for injuries, they just didn’t know how to do it right. The gambling-like hooks are already in the top earners, and to walk away now would be stupid. To risk the retaliation would be stupid. A captive work force, in many, many ways. 

All this, in service of Mr. Grizz’s fuzzy future. 

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smatterings of thoughts about sanitized ink and potential cures

all of this is conjecture and if you have your own opinions on this stuff, genuinely i’d love to hear them!  ( a quick trigger warning for a lot of medical stuff being mentioned. )

sanitization

My thoughts about sanitization are based on a lot of the imagery presented in Octo Expansion.  during the escape sequence. In particular, we see IV bags full of what looks to be sanitized ink. This, to me, implies that the sanitization process involves these. As for what the sanitized ink actually is, I’m unsure. Some kind of artificial ink, obviously, but there’s some properties it has - for instance, making them “completely compliant to orders” and making them “lose all their memories in a terrible spectacle.” is...  beyond me to explain. It just works like that, I guess. 

Overall, I see Sanitization as a replacement process. By replacing their normal ink with the sanitized goop, it shuts down their vital functions, thus allowing Tartar to more easily impose its will upon them. In the OE Art Book, we see outlined this shower-like device, in which Octarians are basically doused in the sanitized ink. The “shower” method probably takes a week tops, involving probably multiple sessions of being exposed to a Sanitized Ink Storm, and then they are packed and shipped to the correct testing site. ( We actually see this in the Belly Phase of the escape, by the way. Creepy! ) 

I think this works perfectly for the Octarians that have less than 8 tentacles; maybe their biology is less complex, allowing this simpler method to work. But when playing as Agent 8, touching the sanitized ink kills you, so I presume that for any of the Octolings, this ‘shower’ method wouldn’t work.

But an infusion would. 

Because I love a piece of imagery being expanded upon: Sanitizing an Octoling requires the direct transfusion of sanitized ink, over the course of a few months. The first week is the most painful, as the body rightfully tries and attack the sanitized ink. However, past a certain point, they become numb to the pain. Then, they take on a sickly green complexion and of course, the process is complete when they no longer remember themselves, when they become linked to the rest of the sanitized and overall, become a part of the Kamabo Co. way of thinking. 

as for a reversal

My personal headcanon / take on reversing sanitization is that it is... only barely possible. It would require a lot of time and doctors monitoring the patient, and it would not have a guarantee of working. At the end of the day, the Sanitized are... kind of zombies, and reverting them to how they were before is a monumental task. In fact, I would imagine for most of the victims, it’s completely undoable, and the scale required to even try for every Sanitized is not feasible ( given the test subject number that Octo Expansion ends on is 10,008... )

But, as for how it would actually go: Using donated, natural ink, the sanitized would have to basically go through sanitization in reverse. As their vital systems come back online, as the natural ink restores them, I imagine they would basically need to be on life support, and they’re likely in an artificial coma for most of it. There’s no guarantee, in my opinion, that the physical changes would be reversed, but that it’s certainly possible. It’s definitely more possible for any of the Sanitized who were voluntarily transformed, I would say, if only because less needed to happen in the original procedure. 

It’s not a perfect fix/cure, and I think that still allowed there to be a lot of consequence to everything that was done by Kamabo Co. And, indeed, I do think that Tartar would’ve done its best to make reversal a nigh impossible task. If developing the reversal process is worked on, it likely takes years to perfect; people’s freedom is worth that, though. 

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hc: death & death culture

I'm putting a huge trigger warning here: This post will not only discuss death as a concept, but also discuss decomposition (a section that i'll clearly label with a start and end) and as such may not be the best for everyone to read.

A summary: Traditionally, both Octarians and Inkadians hold reverence for the cycle of life and death, and practice that in different ways. Inkadians practice forms of mummification and preservation, while Octarians prefe sky / sun burial. In modern times, aquamation ( alkaline hydrolysis ) and sea burial are also a very popular option for both cultures. This reverence for the cycle of life and death extends throughout their cultures ( the games they play mimic war, but with the clear delineation between death and "being splatted" )

Let's start on that last point. I feel like that's a pretty commonly accepted headcanon, that splatting and death are separate things. This is from a headcanon I know someone else wrote, and if I find it, I'll link it here, but a very quick summary should suffice for this blog. Being splatted basically means losing ink and losing stability. Respawn points, then, are physically jumped back to, with the persons clothes and weapons also turned into ink in order to jump back with them. Recently splatted Inkfish cannot touch water, thus why it's used as an out of bounds for Ink games.

DECOMPOSITION / BURIAL SECTION.

Real life squids and octopi actually decompose incredibly quickly - most of them being mid-to deep sea creatures, they are devoured and otherwise are gone within a few days. Likewise, Inkfish decomposition is fast. Not "a few days" but more on the time scale of a few weeks.

The most popular burials ( though "burial" likely wouldn't be the popular term, since most of these methods do not involve a six foot deep hole in the ground ) involve speeding up or simply allowing decomposition to take place.

Much like plankton and other post mortem feeders, the air borne microbes that clean up ink after turf wars also provide the means for sky burial. Though, I personally believe they would call it Sun Burial. This technique, most popular with Octarians, involves preparing a shroud, leaving the decedent high in the mountains, and allowing them to be completely decomposed. The shroud is usually made of a material that will break down ( like a linen or pure cotton )

Sea burial, or burial at sea, is exactly what it sounds like. Take a ship out to deep water ( 3 nautical miles from land and at least 600 feet deep ) and, tying off the shroud with some heavy weights, cast the decedent into the ocean, back from where their ancestors came. It's very symbolic.

Aquamation ( alkaline hydrolysis ) is a more modern, popular version of hastening decomposition. Using heat, water, and alkalines, the body is dissolved, and the effluent is disposed of in the same process as a sea burial ( 3 nautical miles, 600 feet deep. )

Finally, we have mummification. Luckily for us, we already know the old method used: the dried squid in Sunken Scroll 21 implies that the sort of drying process was used to preserve their bodies post mortem. We can assume this is more popular with Inkadians. Modern mummification likely involves a less direct drying, and instead, sealing the decedent away from air. This kind of burial is meant to preserve the memory of the person.

Overall, both cultures know and accept death - it's natural. Both the Octarian and Inkadian post-mortem treatment of bodies involves being close with the decedent, and they have no qualms or 'ickiness' about dead bodies. It's natural, and a body cannot hurt you ( In rare cases, if a decadent is a viable vector for the disease that killed them, tradition will be broken for the safety of the living. )

DECOMPOSITION / BURIAL SECTION OVER.

Octarian death tradition has been disrupted over the past century.

Really, it started with the Great Turf War. Everything starts there. After losing the war and being forced into the sea, treated like they are already dead, the Octarians were cut off from most of their burial traditions. Incapable of sun burial, unable to reach the sea, really, all that was left was aquamation.

Death and hunger become constant friends, as the power crisis begins to set in, and people ration out the best they can. The Octarian view on death becomes saddled with pain that it shouldn't have. Death is natural, but their deaths, their care for their dead has been cut off. A wound across generations.

But the greatest insult does not come from the Great Turf War, or the Inkadians. It comes from Tartar. It comes from some of their own being stolen, and instead of dying and returning to the sun or sea, they are made forever weapons in undeath. A true, cosmic, unnatural removal.

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i’m too tired to give this more thought, but like. here’s an octarian culture headcanon. 

when it comes to showing affection, the kindest thing someone can do is cut up fruit for another person, and in general, the sharing of food is almost like a traditional love language.  “have you eaten?”  is less a literal question sometimes, and more a “are you taking care of yourself? do you need me to take care of you?” 

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A staple of the Octarian diet that arose from the need to survive underground is frybread. Made from flour, salt, water and shortening / oil, it’s incredibly easy and cheap to make in large batches, and can fill a stomach fairly easily. Even as more Octarians come to the surface over the course of the Splatoon games, there’s this cultural fondness of a food that symbolizes survival; something that they had to eat in order to continue existing, now chosen with a fondness, a reminder that they were not lost to the depths.

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dropping a biology headcanon on y’all, inspired by a convo with @lipsyncdripink​

inklings and octolings are ectotherms. this means they cannot regulate their body temperature internally, instead relying on heat sources and thick clothes to keep themselves at a functioning internal temperature.  it’s not uncommon for cephalolings to bundle up at the first threat of autumn, and space heaters are basically a requirement for living. 

ectotherms still get fevers, however, just not in the way endotherms do.  when the immune system notices a threat, it tells the body to heat up to kill any pathogens, and when ectotherms experience this reaction, it causes a change in behavior.  basically, it makes the sick squid/octo kid feel cold, even on the hottest days. 

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okay i’ve had these fun world building hcs for a while, so i’m just going to force them upon all of you.  they’re not entirely coherent so feel free to just. throw that on me.

throughout this post, the word octarian will be used to refer to the specific subset of octolings who follow octavio.  not entirely lore compliant, but uh, the best i can do to keep things clear and coherent in this post.  octoling will refer to the species as a whole. if i’m correct in reading the map for splatoon, inkadia is the name of the continent that inkopolis is on, and the splatlands are the continent that splatsville is on. 

as has been basically confirmed in dev interviews, the octolings who live in splatsville were seemingly unaffected by the great turf war, which likely means that splatsville and inkopolis either did not know the other existed, or, during the time of waters rising, they lost contact and presumed the other civilization lost.  given all the evidence on the map of inkadia,  we can presume the land bridge between the two was underwater, and by the time the sea receded, well, we know what happened. 

inkadia’s government...  seems to lack an opinion.  rather than passing structural laws one way or another, they seem to allow things to resolve themselves.  this is how a para-miliatary, unofficial group ran by an ancient veteran even gets into the position to be the only people fighting active invasion.   this is a double edged sword.  it allows octarians to escape as they feel fit, come to the surface and partake in the excess of resources, and lead lives outside of the structured hierarchy of military.  it... also means that there’s no laws against discrimination, no recourse for that.  this applies for other groups - though i doubt the patriarchal hegemony exists as we see it in our world. 

this inability to commit any laws also affects other species as well.  discrimination against non-octarians is less common, but it’s certainly there.  and when the most one can do is only a personal level, it’s distressing.

escaping octarians are not a brand new phenomenon, but they are certainly new in the grand scheme of time.  a good mark of time would be the land bridge between splatsville and inkopolis becoming passable again.  the first escapees likely would not have gone to inkopolis, but passed through to splatsville.  i imagine this would have been about 50 years before the start of splatoon 1.  escapees turned towards inkopolis more and more as, well, more and more word got loose that they didn’t seem to care, and if one avoided the smaller towns, one could avoid the worst of the speciesism.  ( of course, this would be completely mitigated if the inkadia government ever did anything in an official capacity, but most everyone has given up on that ship.  may as well just work around them. )

octarian culture places a great deal of importance on physical touch.  while using the word ‘cuddly’ is rather funny, well, it’s also rather true.  communal living spaces are very common, and extended family ( and those considered family ) live together for most of one’s life.  this is great, for people with good families.  however, for those without, the expectation of physical touch can become emotionally demanding.

the inklings of inkopolis, however, place great value on independence.  they move out almost as soon as they can, and it’s a mark of pride to be a teenager with a job and school.  now, that does also come with the expectation that the first few years of this independence, they are still supported by their parents / guardians.  which, again, only works for people with family that cares.  it also excludes disabled people, fiercely. 

tl;dr: inkopolis’ government refuses to have an opinion, splatsville’s culture is almost entirely different wrt to species relations, octarians are cuddly communal, inkopolis inklings value self sufficiency.

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whoops i lost all writing muse  almost immediately, so here, take a biology headcanon inspired by this twitter post

all octolings are venomous - the venom’s potency is different based on a number of factors, but it holds true that most octolings and inklings only experience mild effects from this venom.  at most, they are incapacitated.  however, things like birds and small fish are immediately killed.  if i had to guess, it would be rather unpleasant for a human to be bitten.

eden is naturally venomous, of course, and tsu, being half octoling, did inherit this venomous trait from her mother.  both have bitten people for various reasons.