HEX-day features a lot of little details, ideas, and references that aren't explicitly expanded upon in the story, as they're not relevant to it directly and/or are just meant to fill out the details of the world. Some of it is quite important, and some of it is just there for flavour, but I'd like to cover them all the same. I'll be going through them in chronological order. This assumes you've read the story in full, and so will be spoiling its ending. The title for this is one final X-Day song reference, this time to FOX-day (Coda).
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The two “forum post” sections are, at least in a loose sense, intended to be homages to the original Candle Cove creepypasta, which (if you somehow aren't familiar with it) was entirely structured to look like a conversation between several users on a message board. In HEX-day's case, though, the “[ATTACHMENT MISSING]” is meant to indicate that these are old, inactive threads from a long abandoned forum rather then one that's active (as well as kind-of-sort-of-not-really-but-really hinting at the fact that they're not actually real, and are merely another of the illusions Ubik saw whilst under the influence of the Hertz).
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The usernames of all the posters in the forum sections are, in most cases, loose references/jokes to Splatoon related stuff, though that's fairly self evident. My personal favourite is “squittinbricks” though “NERFNZAPPLZ” comes close.
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PaintToolSea is, of course, a sea/marine themed corruption of PaintToolSai, because we're kind of obligated to do this sort of thing in the world of Splatoon. “cingclambo” claiming that he can 'tell' that the screenshot is edited is also a reference to the old “This Looks (Photo)Shopped” meme (the most common variation of which went “THIS LOOKS SHOPPED. I CAN TELL FROM SOME OF THE PIXELS AND FROM SEEING QUITE A FEW SHOPS IN MY TIME”, often slapped over an image of someone pointing at a computer). This is probably the biggest indicator of how long I've been on the internet that I've put into a story in quite some time.
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I'd planned on my Agent 4 character, Ubik, having a fairly strong Slavic accent for quite a while (at least since changing her name from “Wynn” to “Ubik”), knowing that there wasn't really a good way to communicate that in writing with resorting to typing her dialogue out in a manner similar to how the Heavy from Team Fortress 2 speaks, which would have been unbearable for you to read and for me to type. That small snippet at the start of the story was my workaround, as well as establishing out the gate that Ubik is a complete goofball.
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As with all my Splatoon characters, Ubik gets her name from a record label, the music on which is some way reflective of her interests/tastes/character. In this case, it's the internet based chiptune label Ubiktune, a personal favourite of mine. Ubik's a massive video game enthusiast as well as a consumer and producer of chiptune music herself.
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Ubik and Marie are romantically involved with one another, having gradually developed a relationship during the formers first ongoing mission as Agent 4 (locating and rescuing the missing Callie Cuttlefish). This story takes place about a year and a half after those events (and after the events of Octo Expansion), so they've been together for a while at this point. And yes, those really were Ubik's first words to Marie- which took her completely off guard. Both of them are in their early 20s.
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I guess in my personal Splat canon, Finals Week is around Splatoween? I hadn't settled on the story taking place at that time when I wrote that part, and now I'm kind of kicking myself for it but it's whatever. What's scarier then tests that help determine your post-secondary school/high school future, anyway?
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The Splatmania series, at least in terms of name and function within the world's video game scene, is half a nod to licensed WWE wrestling games, and EA's sports titles (FIFA and Madden specifically). I figure that even as popular as actual Turf Wars are, there's still a big market for Turf War simulators (not just for those who are unable to participate in the real thing, either). It took far too long to come up with a subtitle for it in the vein of the ones many of those WWE games had, and I'm still not wholly satisfied with “Ink or Swim” (hence why you only hear it once).
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KrillStation 2 = sea-punified Playstation 2. Fairly self evident, not the smoothest pun work, but the best I could think of in a pinch.
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“Clamello's”, the pizza place Ubik orders from, is another sea-based corruption, this time of a Italian restaurant/cafe I like called Carmello's. Even in ultra nerdy fanfic, I gotta get in some local rep.
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Splatmania 12k6's campaign mode, what little we hear of it, is so vaguely based on the one from WWE: Shut Your Mouth (my personal wrestling sim of choice Back in t'Day), that I hesitate to even call it a reference. Really, the only connecting factor is that Shut Your Mouth's Season Mode, your custom wrestler starts out having the wrestler Maven in their corner as a trusted co-worker/friend. I don't even think he backstabs you at any point- hell if I can remember all these years later- but then the Season mode was effectively an endless loop, vs. the defined start and end points Splatmania 12k6's campaign mode is implied to have.
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“Hally”, the name of Ubik's first PC, is lifted directly from the alias Haruhisa Tanaka releases chiptune music under (albeit he renders it as “hally”); a very respected name in the wider chiptune and video game community in large part due to his degree of knowledge and understanding of the sound chips various consoles used. hally also featured on the first of Ubiktune's three SOUNDSHOCK: FM FUNK compilations.
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Super Squintendo = Super Nintendo. Hardly worth pointing out but I guess I'm being thorough.
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I mentioned that this story was based on an odd dream I had earlier in the year, and the “secret/spooky level” is basically all that dream was; in said dream, 'I' was playing some sort of Splatoon game where I'd wound up in a largely featureless, metal panel covered “warehouse” full of dead Inklings with neutral expressions on their faces, and after a while encountered this massively corrupted Octoling that was wandering the space with me. It was a very goofy dream- and I make no bones about the fact that it's still extremely cheesy in this story's context- but it stuck with me and I wanted to do something with it.
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In-keeping with my “cultures/languages/countries or at least their identities have survived into the far flung future of the Splatoon universe in some capacity” headcanon (that, by sheer luck, some plot revelations from Splatoon 3 regarding how marine life evolved so rapidly in such a short amount of time actually kind of backs up), Ubik is the 12,000-years-in-the-future equivalent of Estonian, the Slavic country I picked mostly because I feel it doesn't get as much recognition as some of the other, more well known Slavic countries.
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Whilst the prior note is an important detail, it was also just preamble to letting you know that “ käi vittu, jobu” is (likely pidgin/not wholly correct cos machine translation, innit) Estonian for “fuck you, jackass/idiot”. She's directing it at the individual who sold her the disc (and that through much of the story, she thinks hacked/modded the game).
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Italic text bordered with greater/lesser than signs is indicating that the language has flipped to Octolang instead of Inklish.
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Avex and Soma's relationship is hinted at here, but to go into slightly more detail; Avex is strictly asexual and mostly aromantic, whilst Soma is gay. Avex does, however, care a great deal for Soma and is quite close to him, and Soma of course is crushing very, very hard on Avex. They're not officially a “couple”, but there is a deep connection that the two have that might fully bloom into that one day. They're both around 19/20 here- Soma was originally a little younger than Avex, but I adjusted ages for my Splatoon characters across the board a while back (and, as noted in last year's Halloween story, there is a degree of continuity in my canon where events do take place over specific years, and the characters age across them- so they're younger in stories set in 12,018- roughly where I place Splatoon 2/Octo Expansions events- and older in stories set in 12,022- roughly where I place Splatoon 3's events).
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Troubadour flashing her ID wasn't included for the reader's sake; she's just been carded often enough that she automatically assumes it whenever she goes anywhere that serves alcohol. Even in this case, where she actually knows the person serving her. Soma just rolls with it- he knows what she's like by now.
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Red Bullfrog = Red Bull. Another one I don't need to spell out because it's a cheap one but, again, Thorough™.
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“Still going to the meetings, I hope?” / “... Yeah.” / “Good.” well hey, looks like Troubadour took Geffen's advice from last years story after all! Good, she deserves to be happy and to heal from her trauma (I type knowing full well what happens later in this story).
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Troubadour's claim of Geffen being “able to handle a little nostalgia of his own” is meant to allude to his time as a high ranking member of one of the Octarian Army's most elite corps., which obviously included a lot of late evenings and early rises. Still not sure how clear that is.
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Geffen and Troubadour referring to each other with their official ranks/titles is one of those “the bond is deep with these two” things; they both went through the horrors of the Deepsea Metro together (Geffen being my Agent 8, and Troubadour being his immediate predecessor as Test Subject 10,007- she'd actually been down there for two months before Geffen and Cap'n Cuttlefish got there, a big factor in why her lingering PTSD can still be quite severe). Relatedly, Troubadour's title indicates her role as a member of the software/hardware division of the Octarian forces, of which she was an exemplary member (though her time there- and indeed her life in the Domes as a whole- was not a very happy one and is why she has such a strong, acerbic personality).
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Somehow, Avex flashing the reverse V sign is the most British™ thing I've had him do so far.
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InkPress is, of course, WordPress. Which I think is still fairly active, right? I don't use it.
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Callie is right when calling Avex her “bestie”; Avex was never a fan of the Squid Sisters' music, but he was well aware of Callie's prowess as a Roller user and he idolised her for her skill with it- it may have actually been her that inspired him to pick up the weapon in the first place. Upon his discovery that one of the Agents that recruited him was Callie (previously noting Agent One was “good" with a Roller, "but not as good as Callie”), he proceeded to lose his bloody gourd and could not get over it for days after the fact, as expected of a teen that gets to not just meet but work with an idol of theirs. They've been very good friends ever since, and barring the Captain she is probably the member of the NSS that he is the closest to.
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More or less everyone who writes post-S2 Splatoon fanfic agrees that Marie has some lingering trauma about Callie's disappearance. It's not something that comes up very often in my canon, but it's just as true here. She's got a good handle on it, but losing someone you're so close to is scary.
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Also yeah I guess Geffen's revenue stream is shifts at a skateboard store? I'd long since settled on him being an active skateboarder but I never really thought about what he did as his main, non-NSS “job” until writing that line. Man's takes the “Skate or Die” creed very seriously.
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Grubster Energy = Monster Energy. Another obvious one, but I'm pointing out so I get to mention that “ Troubadour was six cans deep in Grubster Energy dozen-pack and never looked like she craved death more.” is one of my favourite sentences I've ever written. Please help this poor Octolass.
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Linde is another name borrowed from a chiptune artist; one who's also been around for a long time, working with a number of different soundchips and appearing on several noted chip labels such as Pause Music, 8bitpeoples, Handheld Heroes and so on. He also appeared on the third (and last) of Ubiktune's SOUNDSHOCK: FM FUNK compilations.
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Ubik does actually do speedruns in her downtime. Might even have a WR in at least one game. No idea how regularly she streams attempts, though, or if she does at all- she might just record them and upload 'em. She's a busy woman.
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“Pask” = One of a couple of words for “Shit” in Estonian, and from what I could tell the one most likely to be used when it's an expression of frustration rather then as a descriptor. But don't quote me on that- machine translation is wonky.
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The general idea of what's happening with the enemy attacking the players in the Hertz induced hallucinations is that it's picking up on what the individual has some mental hangups over, be it fears, traumas, regrets etc. In Ubik's case, though she adapted to Agent life (and thus the life of a soldier) very quickly, she hasn't actually addressed lingering guilt and discomfort with what she's had to do in any capacity, so she sees it as an especially angry, twisted up Octoling soldier; Troubadour, as discussed, sees a Sanitized Octoling (and probably a much more gruesome one, like those from last year's Halloween story); Avex's is the most unique one, as he saw his deceased father (and specifically, how his father would have looked during his final days in hospital), the Hertz drawing from both his anger and resentment at how unfair it was to have his dad taken from him. Effectively, their own minds are being weaponised against them and are filling in the blanks that the Hertz is deliberately leaving open for them to do so.
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Related to the above; as it's not really fully explained, Geffen specifically saw the enemy as his old General, and the woman who trained him; a character that hasn't been introduced yet and currently doesn't have a name. She is an absolute tyrant of a woman who lives and breathes the army lifestyle to a hardcore degree, and trained anyone under her command so brutally and harshly that only the best of the best would have any chance of staying on her unit. One of Geffen's defining character traits is that even in the most tense and terrifying situations, he keeps a cool head- he is damn near unflappable, phased by practically nothing. Since his coming to the surface and discovering who he truly is outside of a soldier, his memories of his time in army- and of this general in particular, whom he could hardly say he liked though did at least respect somewhat- have turned very sour, and consequently she is one of the only things that can crack his cool disposition.
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I obviously don't want to play my hand too much with the characters that are introduced at the end and spoil an upcoming, much larger Splatoon project, but; the two tall figures are antagonists from it (with the taller, trenchcoat wearing one being the main antagonist), and the five avian humanoids are effectively its version of an idol group ala Squid Sisters/Off the Hook/Deep Cut. All seven of them have names, which I've disclosed elsewhere (along with frankly too many plot spoilers alongside them), but again I'm keeping my cards close to my chest here. Needless to say, though, you will be seeing and hearing from them any many other new faces hopefully very soon. I can, at least, disclose that the Hertz- the cause of this story's... everything- is an inherent, natural ability that the species the two antagonists belong to have, and that it is indeed much more potent when utilized “live”. On the subject, the smaller-but-still-tall antagonist in the tactical gear has been trailing Ubik (and later the rest of the Agents + Troubadour) for the last couple of days, always out of sight but close enough for the Hertz to have its intended effect.