#sorry for all the splatoon story salt lately LOL i have a LOT OF THOUGHTS ON THEM

[dogtoling]

An annoying problem with Splatoon's story mode needlessly involving the idols is that it makes writing fanfics difficult. Sure, it can be a story set in the world of Splatoon, but if this is the world of Splatoon, then you'll want characters people can relate to. By recycling the idols as companions over and over, we don't get many new characters. S2 had zero new characters for the story mode, OE had C.Q. Cumber, Tartar, the crab who gives you stuff for completing mem cakes that I can't remember the name to, and to some extent, the idols, and S3 had the idols (and to some extent Mr. Grizz). That's all fine and all if they actually did something, but when they all literally just stand around and do nothing, it doesn't help using them as characters past "Marie, Callie, and Cuttlefish run the Splatoon."

The Agents themselves don't help either. By having every story mode make you an "Agent", it feels like every OC has to be an Agent, and it's a breath of fresh air when someone makes an OC who isn't. The Agents also have next to no personality traits or backstory to speak of. You're saving the world because Cuttlefish put an Agent suit on you and said Go, not because you have a reason to. They have no backstory besides "they moved to Inkopolis / Splatsville recently" and no personality traits past "Agent 3 doesn't talk and is super serious" "Agent 4 doesn't watch TV". Agent 8 at least had some sort of backstory, although pulling an "I have amnesia" on us doesn't help her case. She's an Octo who heard Calamari Inkantation and is now fighting to get out of the Metro. But we don't know any specifics about her life prior to the Metro.

Just my thoughts.

Okay THIS! This is one of the reasons I (and MANY OTHER PEOPLE by the looks of it) are so done with the NSS and the idols as recurring characters. The Splatoon world IS HUGE and the developers clearly have endless, even complex character ideas. The world is so big and so complex and we see none of it because every "story" that we're given in Splatoon deliberately REMOVES YOU FROM THAT WORLD... then spoon feeds you some chosen hero arc with the same zero-personality supporting cast over and over again that's really only a supporting cast if you as the player have a sentimental attachment to the characters (they don't do anything in the game and usually have like 1 personality trait.)

Like, just imagine if the stories in Splatoon had the freedom to be detached from the idols and if they had the freedom to tell smaller, down-to-earth stories that felt much more personal and took place in actual facets of the world. They could craft a colorful cast of characters that actually had purpose in that setting and there's no reason you COULDN'T still make those characters marketable and fan-favorite! There's literally so much you can do with stories within the Splatoon world and somehow all the Splatoon stories completely miss the mark and I don't know how they keep doing it. It almost feels like they're purposefully avoiding fleshing out the world or the characters of the game, lol

And this is something that I find really strange because isn't one of Splatoon's driving themes the freedom of self expression and like, diversity? Then why are we always playing as some character who's void of personality and doing some random crap in an environment that's emptier than the local mall during May 2020. The world is out there, WHY AREN'T WE? Believe it or not, before Octo Expansion's release and Off the Hook becoming super popular, the Splatoon fandom WAS full of independent OCs that were just... guys that live in the Splatoon world, and the world itself was a huge focus because that was like, the THING. But after the game became deliberately character-focused, there was a huge boom where nowadays instead of random OCs with no ties to the canon characters, everyone's OCs essentially ARE the canon characters. So instead of having a colorful cast of people in a wacky world, it's more like we all have our own AU of the same exact things happening differently and it's... well. The world hasn't been the fandom focus for a long-ass time and watching it feels like some kind of cultural death lol. And I can't blame anyone, especially not the newer fans, because the world hasn't even been NINTENDO'S focus and they're the ones who made it.