a red marie

nope. Ive gotten quite a few asks about this topic, understandably so! this is something Ive been kind of wanting to talk about in a video in depth, but putting it together cohesively is Hard and i wanna wait for Splatoon 3 to really clear things up with Octavio. anyway, ill try to put the evidence i got in this post. The idea that Octolings all wear mind-controlling eye wear is...basically just deeply rooted fanon. just because Octavio has a special pair for Callie, doesn't mean all Octolings are equipped with the same tech.

look at that. goggles off, she wants it back. (art from the splatoon 1 end credits)

what we know about the Octoling's eyewear is that the red dot on terminator-style shades they wear in s2 is just a UI (i assume to aid them in combat).

The S1 goggles are called something to the effect of 'Octoling Scope' in JP, which i believe implies they assist with aiming. Nothing has been said about their eyewear having mind-controlling properties. Additionally, the Octoling shades and goggles that we players can wear, unlike the agent gear, are not stated to be replicas. One may ask then, what's the deal with the Calamari Inkantation? with Callie being freed from her mind control by the Inkantation, plus lines like this:

its easy to come to the conclusion that it's some mind-control breaking song. While it may have had that kind of effect on Callie, that's not really what the song does. As always, things got changed in localization. here's that above piece of dialogue, retranslated from japanese

Different nuance there, no? The inkantation seems to be more like a song of inspiration and empowerment. it inspires some Octolings, who have spent their militaristic lives living in domes devoid of natural sunlight, to seek out something more. its moreso implied that the Octarians are fed propaganda and militarized from a young age: so the more realistic kind of brainwashing, and not outright scifi mind controlled like callie or agent 3 was. The Octolings in the military don't need goggles to mind-control them into following Octavio: they have a sense of loyalty towards his cause and their own kind. Octavio isnt the greatest guy, but he has a good reason to resent the Inklings: his people were forced underground, and he does what he does (stealing the Zapfish) to try and keep the crumbling Octarian domes, and his people, alive. Seems like a worthy cause to me. Another huge issue with the 'all Octolings have hypnotic eyewear' theory is this: after listening to the Inkantation, if the Octolings were to supposedly become aware that DJ Octavio was straight-up mind controlling them, then you would expect that they would hate his guts. The thing is though...they don't. Because they were never mind controlled. From both Marina and Agent 8, its implied that both of them still hold some respect for DJ Octavio despite leaving the Octarian world.   Exhibit A: 8's apologetic mem cake poem about Octavio

Exhibit B: Marina's laptop covered in stickers. theres 3 squid sisters stickers, but alongside that are some Turquoise October stickers and a huge DJ Octavio sticker.

if she really did hate him (which is something she has never expressed), i think she would put more effort into covering up or removing that sticker.

the specific thing that S3's lore went after is this:

we now have a likely reason why the inkantation caused octolings to move to the surface, and it's not because of hypnosis.

the answer lies in the Alterna Logs. they talk at length about the dream crystals – liquid crystals made “from the bodily fluids of squids,” able to read minds and shift their color to reflect the innermost thoughts of the person holding them.

the scientists of alterna “lined the walls and roof of Alterna” with these crystals, causing them to take on the appearance of humanity's deepest collective desire: the sky.

having been locked underground for decades, the people of alterna desperately wanted to see the sky again. it was constantly on their minds, and the crystals absorbed those dreams and held onto them.

years later, humanity tried to return to the surface with a rocket called the Spirit Lifter. the shockwave from its boosters igniting caused the liquid crystals to get overloaded, bringing down the cavern on top of the humans and driving them extinct.

the crystals washed into the seas of alterna, where they broke up into microscopic fragments and were absorbed by the sea life native to the caverns. these crystals retained the desires of humanity, and when the sea life absorbed the crystals, they also absorbed the feelings stored within them.

in other words – mollusks inherited humanity's desire to see the sky. this is why they evolved so rapidly to live on land. it's why they look so humanlike. it's why their culture is so similar to our own – because, in a way, they were literally made in humanity's image.

you may be able to guess where i'm going with this. we know that the calamari inkantation has existed since time immemorial; thousands of years. it's “ingrained into the very DNA” of all mollusks.

considering the whole ‘DNA/evolution’ connection, that might even suggest that it started out as a human song in alterna. after all, that's the time when mollusk dna was rapidly changing. the chronology lines up, too – it was thousands of years ago, before inklings' recorded history began.

so, there is reason to believe that when inklings describe the inkantation as part of their “DNA,” they're actually referring to the dream crystals that guided their evolution.

lemme repeat that: the inkantation may be connected to the dream crystals.

this is an especially strong argument, because the DNA explanation comes from the first game, while the dream crystals are established much more recently in S3 – so the dream crystals are an update. they build upon a loose thread that already existed.

i believe that the calamari inkantation is a song that reawakens the power of the dream crystals, meaning every mollusk that listens to it gains an extremely strong desire to see the sky again.

and since the octarian domes are underground… that would give the octolings living there an urge to leave. that just coincidentally means that they have to live among the inklings.

works real nice, i think. it draws from stuff that's alredy established. it lines up with what we see in game.

54 minutes and 30 seconds in, rassicas explains the evidence for the calamari inkantation existing in the human era.

i feel it is important to clarify that they do NOT call it canon. they say "there is a plausible theory," and explain the evidence for it (essentially the same evidence i refer to in the post above). also they said they do agree with that being the intended interpretation of the logs which makes me happy :]

so, yeah! the alterna logs seem to imply that the inkantation is probably a human song, and probably awakens a desire to see the surface, rather than having anything to do with oppression or ‘freeing your soul from octarian control’, or whatever the english OE dialogue was trying to imply. do we know it's canon? no! but it's a plausible interpretation, and is well-supported by what we see throughout the games (especially in the original language).

her skills are abysmal = she is unskilled

I really just have to summarize Thomas's entire life:

He was in a committed relationship with a male swan named Henry for 18-24 years before a female swan named Henrietta showed up and mated with Henry.

Thomas was initially jealous of the pair and attacked them, breaking 2 of the 5 eggs Henrietta had laid. However, once the remaining eggs hatched, Thomas warmed up to them and helped raise them.

Henry couldn't fly because of an injured wing, so Thomas taught the cygnets how to fly.

When they needed to reduce the goose population in the pond where Thomas and the swans lived, they dyed Thomas's feathers red so he wouldn't be separated from Henry.

Henry, Henrietta, and Thomas remained in their happy throuple for years and raised 68 cygnets before Henry died in 2009. After Henry's death, Henrietta found another swan and flew away, leaving Thomas alone.

Thomas finally met and mated with a female goose in 2011 and had his own babies. However, another goose named George stole them and raised them himself.

As Thomas grew elderly and blind, he was relocated to a wildlife center where he raised orphaned cygnets.

His caretaker at the center described him as "pretty high maintenance."

Thomas died in 2018 at the age of around 40. He had a funeral that included a small coffin and a procession that was led by a bagpiper. He was buried under the stone where Henry was buried, the two finally reunited in death.

HAPPY PRIDE!!! definitely expect more art of my favorite queer art of my favorite couples or characters this month!

before i forget

Firefly so bright that it outshines the full moon…