14-CRUSH!!
hi there, please call me Bri! i'm the artist and writer of 14-crush.
It's inactive now, but feel free to check all this out anyway.Thanks for stopping by :)
FAQ
Q: Can I dub your posts?
A: Please check in with me first! 99.9% of the time it's totally okay, I just like to be given a heads up. Make sure I'm credited somewhere it's easily seen and accessed (that can be this blog's username or @moonsidesong) and shoot me a link when it's posted, I'd love to see!
Q: Ships?????
A: Only Ahato and Eight are considered "canon" on this blog, sorry if that's disappointing.
Q: OK, what about Three and Four??
A: I'd really prefer if you didn't read Agent 12 into this particular interpretation of the Agents. They see each other as siblings and that's all.
Q: Where's the name "14-crush" come from?
A: #14 Crush is a song from Octo Expansion! It's a more upbeat one, and I like that. Though, to be honest, it was a placeholder name that just kind of stuck...
Q: Where does the name "Ahato Mizuta" come from?
A: That's Dedf1sh's real name, as it was confirmed in Octo Expansion's artbook, Haikara Walker. Since then, the character has appeared in the games, and the name "Ahato" (アハト) was confirmed to just be the Japanese pronunciation of the German word "Acht," but... we didn't really know that until long after the blog ended...Since the Crush character is so far off base from the real one, you'll usually hear me continue to refer to the Crush character as "Ahato" and the canon one as "Acht."
Q: How is it pronounced?????
A: "ah-hah-tow mii-zoo-tah"
Q: hey why is your agent 4 fifteen when ingame dialogue implies she's eighteen??????????????
A: it's kind of a waste of time to get caught up in whats "canon" in a self insert protagonist, don't you think? especially when even official art depictions of the agents aren't always the same...
Q: ... hey wait how come all this modern day stuff exists like sonic the hedgehog and gamecubes
A: see i didnt really have an answer for this at the time but i think following Splatoon 3's release and accompanying lore about the origin of inkfish I like to think the human race just loved sonic the hedgehog so much they just Made Him Again when their desires were passed onto inkfish. If you don't like this answer though feel free to come up with your own obviously i was not writing any of this with that lore in mind LOL
Q: why are they all GIRLS wheres the BOYS
A: ...have you. have you never seen an all-girl friend group before...??? i dont understand this one
Q: will you ever be coming back?
A: i'm sorry, but no. i don't have the time or energy to work on comics consistently anymore... so if you enjoyed 14-crush, i'd be happy if it remained as a happy memory.
Q: will anything change about the lore with splatoon 3/translated interviews?
A: nope. please don't worry too much about what is canon divergent... Crush was never all that aligned with canon anyway, so i'm not going to change anything to accommodate that... especially when the blog is already over.
About the Blog!
After being rescued by Agent 8 from the depths of a Kamabo Co. facility room, Ahato Mizuta (previously known as Dedf1sh) is living on the surface in a slow but sure recovery from sanitation. She lives a quiet life without the excitement of ink battles, but she's happy just spending time with her friends. She doesn't remember the majority of her life before being sanitized, for better or for worse...
the blog doesn't really have a clear timeline so please don't worry too much about that LOL
About The Characters!
Please Note: The art used for this section are things I threw together for the sake of tweaking color palettes... but it's the most recent transparent art I have of them. I'll replace them with cleaner, finished art at some point... probably.... don't use these as refs HAHA
Agent 8 (Eight)
16 / Lesbian / Octoshot Replica Main
A former Octoling soldier from Beaker's Depot. She wasn't considered important enough as a soldier to be given a name, so after being called "Agent 8" after a while, she sort of adopted it as her name, and now just goes by "Eight." She doesn't recall much about her life as a soldier except for what the mem cakes gave her, but she's okay with that. She's bright, kind, and empathetic, but she can be a bit impatient at times. However, she puts in a lot of effort to make sure Ahato, her closest friend, feels safe and welcome at all times. She claims she's not in love with Ahato, but who does she think she's fooling?
Agent 3 (Three)
17 / Prefers not to use labels / Splat Charger Main (but will use pretty much anything long range)
The Agent that saved the Great Zapfish! Often considered the Leader of her team. Learned to speak some Octarian after spending a lot of time in Octo Valley and Octo Canyon, teaching Octarians how to survive on their own without a king. She loves playing and speedrunning fast-paced platformer games, especially Sonic games. She has a scar on the right side of her face due to an incident involving The Telephone, but it's completely harmless and will fade within a few years. Since she shows very little emotion in her face, mannerisms, and voice, it's kind of hard to tell what she's thinking. Her friends do their best to understand her, though, which she appreciates very much. She may have a hard time communicating her feelings... but she hopes her friends know she loves them more than anything.
Agent 4 (Four)
15 / Bi / Splat Dualies Main
The Agent that saved the Great Zapfish... again. She didn't keep in very close touch with Callie and Marie after the Octavio fiasco, but they're still good friends that she occasionally visits. She likes to tease her friends, but not to the point of being cruel in any way. She can be pretty clumsy, and falls down a lot using dualies, but she has so much fun playing with them that she doesn't really care. She's surprisingly good at accurately reading how her older sister figure, Agent 3, is feeling, something that a lot of people struggle with due to her demeanor. She likes puzzle games and RPGs, but she likes to watch Three speedrun platformers, too. She can be a bit overconfident, but she grows extremely timid and feels extreme amounts of guilt as soon as she realizes when she's done something wrong... even if it wasn't that bad.(she's also super short, but i accidentally drew her taller in this and i never got around to redrawing it.)
Ahato Mizuta (formerly Dedf1sh)
16 / Lesbian / Wants to try Light Tetras (will eventually end up using a Kensa Roller when realizing she's not agile enough for Dualies lol)
A timid octoling that was freed from a small room in the Kamabo Co. facilities, who was once the Deepsea Metro's composer for the tests. She has a hard time around new people, but she feels very safe around her friends. She's currently undergoing recovery from her sanitation--she routinely injects a very small amount of pale blue ink into her arm, which slowly counteracts the sanitized goop that plagues her. She can't taste or smell anything, but her sight (especially in the dark) and hearing are very sharp. However, her senses are slowly but surely balancing the longer she is going under desanitation. She's highly sensitive to any reminders of her old life, being especially afraid of the sound of a ringing old telephone (luckily, most surface dwellers have songs for their ringtones). When she's scared, she feels most safe in the arms of her roommate and best friend, Eight. (Ahato thinks it's a secret, but pretty much everyone knows how smitten she is with Eight.)
Deep in Octo Valley, an octoling in a gray and white cap heard the Calamari Inkantation for the first time. Her heart was filled to the brim with inspiration... she loved the tune so much, she wanted to make music of her own... music that could inspire people the way the Heavenly Melody inspired her. With the King gone, the laws against creating music was no longer enforced. She immediately got to work, doing everything she could to study music and find a style that was all her own.After a while, she grew impatient. She didn't want to stay underground. She wanted to ascend. She wanted to live with the Inklings and coexist with their diverse musicians and take the city by storm. And so, taking the only opportunity she may have ever had, she escaped... and found herself lost. Instead of going to the surface, she went further. Deeper, deeper underground... where she found an ancient subway station. There, she met The Telephone.The Telephone liked her music. It liked her style. It wanted it for its "project." And it wasn't going to let her go. Her free will, her memories, the passion in her heart... all of it was taken away by force. All that was left of her was the order she was given; create music.And so, that's what she did. Track after track, theme after theme, again and again. She only gave them numbers and described them with a single word... that's all that was needed, after all. A year passed by... and she was none the wiser. All she knew... was this. The octoling no longer had a name... she was to be called "DJ Dedf1sh" and nothing more.One day, the previously unmoving door creaked open. A little bit of light spilled into the room. Dedf1sh looked up. There was another octoling... but she wasn't green, or pale, or sickly. She wasn't sanitized. She was free... she was living...The Living Octoling reminded Dedf1sh of the Heavenly Melody-- the melody from a life she no longer knows.She was struck with a terrifying thought... she couldn't stop crying...The Telephone--Her commander-- was going to find out his brainwashing was too weak. It was going to find out she could think independently again. It was going to kill her once it knew.She couldn't stop sobbing. She wanted to stop, maybe she still had time to pretend, but she knew she was done for.The Living Octoling gently took one of her hands. Her voice was very soft, and very gentle. Her hands were warm..."Hey... you don't need to be scared... nobody's going to hurt you..."Dedf1sh's voice was hoarse and weak. She hadn't spoken in a very long time... and it was even harder to speak, since she was so choked up from her tears..."C-...Comman...der.... w...will...""The Commander won't do anything. It can't hurt you anymore... It's gone.""G...gone...?"Gone...forever. No one will tell you what to do anymore. You're safe... I promise...""...How...? Gone...?""...I'll tell you everything, but first, why don't I let you catch your breath? It's okay to let out your tears... you must be so exhausted from all this..."