Shiver

"You think you're cool? Sharks call ME cold-blooded."

- Splatoon 3 Direct

Shiver is a character in who resides in Splatsville. Along with co-stars Frye and Big Man, Shiver is a member of the band Deep Cut, who host both Anarchy Splatcast, the news show of Splatsville, and Splatfests. Shiver's signature color is a deep purple.

Appearance
Shiver is an Octoling with pale skin, thin light-red colored lips, red eyes with light red pupils in the shape of an infinity symbol (like octopuses in real life), two eyelashes on each side without the mask-like black marking other Octolings feature, red eye makeup under the eyes, red tinted fingers, blue-purple tentacles with darker tips and that curl outwards near the tips, and matching-colored triangular eyebrows. They have the same teeth and ears as playable octolings.

Their ears are pierced with three shark tooth earrings. Their hair obscures their left eye. Shiver wears a white sarashi under a transparent purple shawl, black leggings with cuts at the sides, and black thong shoes with red wedge soles. On the back of their head, surrounding a large suction cup on one of their tentacles, they wear a white circular headpiece designed like a shimenawa rope.

Gender
Shiver's gender is unknown, and nothing that would indicate it was revealed in any official publication so far, including Deep Cut's introduction segment in the August 10th, 2022 Splatoon 3 Direct, The announcement dialogue for the Splatoon 3 Splatfest World Premiere, and all references to Deep Cut in official website and social media.

This is consistent across all languages, and the texts in languages that require it (French, Italian, Spanish) seem to explicitly avoid referring to Shiver in ways that would require conjugating adjectives or verbs - they also always refer to themself in plural as part of the group or by using the passive voice ("You can call me Shiver" rather than "I am Shiver"). The Japanese text also never has Shiver use any first-person pronouns that could indicate a specific gender (such as atashi or boku).

In contrast, Big Man and Frye are both referred to with terms ("Queen") or conjugations that show they are male and female respectively - thus, this appears to be an explicit, conscious decision on the creators' part to leave Shiver's gender ambiguous or unknown. Elements of their design such as the feminine Kabuki-like makeup and wearing a sarashi (which could equally indicate a male kabuki actor playing a female character or a FtM / FtNB transgender character doing breast binding) seem to also reinforce that this is intentional.

Etymology
"Shiver" comes from "shiver", the action of shaking in response to feeling cold or fear. The relation to cold is in contrast to Frye's name. A "shiver" is also the collective term for a group of sharks.

"Fūka" is a common Japanese female given name, usually written with kanji 風花 (wind-flower) or 風香 (wind-scent). It is also a pun on 鱶 fuka (with a short u), the Japanese word for "shark". This is in reference to Shiver descending from a clan of shark users.