Personality

Tide is well-spoken, friendly and easily excitable. He has a knack for seeing the good qualities in just about anybody he meets, often using this as a way to make friends. However, Tide unfortunately lacks a lot of social awareness, especially if the person has romantic feelings towards him. His theatrical nature and flowery way with words might give the impression that he is being flirty, when in actuality he is only trying to be nice.

Tide is often the one leading the conversations during his podcast, mainly due to his co-host being less talkative and full of energy than he is. Crash makes up for this by occasionally leading Tide into a prank or joke he is not expecting. Due to Tide's sheer gullibility, he is guaranteed to fall for it.

Appearance

Tide is a 19 year-old male Inkling based on the Opal Squid (also known as the Market Squid). He has two side-swept tentacles that rest on the left side of his head, one of them partially covering his face. Four smaller tentacles are curved in the same direction on the back of his head above his neck.

He has large, round eyes with pink irises and wears contact lenses that make his pupils bright yellow and shaped like stars. The mask around his eyes is thicker around the outer rim of each eye. He has large, triangular ears that point outwards. He wears a microphone earpiece in his left ear and a white pearl earring on his right. He has thick, pointed eyebrows, with the wider ends pointing towards the centre of his face. He has pale skin and a bright orange nose.

He wears a long-sleeved, navy blue suit, which opens up at the front to reveal an off-white undershirt. The lower half of his undershirt is made of a glossy material that resembles his tentacles' colour and texture. He wears a light purple tie that resembles the shape of an Inkling in its squid form. He also wears a matching pair of dress pants that are kept in place with a pair of suspenders that are hidden under his suit jacket. On his feet are a pair of custom dance sneakers. Both the tongues and the soles of his sneakers match the unique rubbery texture of his undershirt. These bits of material can change to whatever colour Tide’s tentacles are at a given time.

His signature colour is azure blue. The ends of his tentacles are often a pink/purple hue, but he can change the colour combination to whatever he thinks looks pretty.

Backstory

Tide was found in a cardboard box as a baby, with no clues as to where he came from or who his parents were. He was taken in by an elderly jellyfish named Coraline, and raised alongside other parentless children in an orphanage far from any large town or city. The living conditions were difficult at times, but Tide seemed largely unbothered by it.

Tide proved to be a peculiar case compared to the rest of the children. For one, he was completely mute until he was well into his preschool years. It wasn’t until he experienced his first-ever live performance that he found his voice. His first words were not spoken, but were instead said in song. From that day forward, Tide made it clear that he had dreams of becoming a performer.

The starry-eyed Inkling didn’t seem to pay much mind to what other people thought of him, even if it did result in the other children tending to avoid him. His passion for performing started to affect potential adoptions too, as would-be parents found his constant singing to be concerning or just simply annoying. It was at this point that Tide began to rapidly have self-doubts about his ambitions as a singer.

Tide returned to being a quiet, well-mannered boy as he reached his teenage years. But as he saw it, the chances of him being adopted were dwindling by the year. At some point, Tide came to the conclusion that he was never getting adopted, and instead shifted his goals to supporting his Aunt Coraline at the orphanage.

He would help with chores and run various odd jobs around the area to earn extra money. The locals caught on to his pleasant singing voice from hearing him hum to himself while he was busy. Some of them even suggested that he attend a well-known specialist school for performing arts students located in the big city to the south. Deep down Tide’s heart beamed at the thought, but his self-doubt made it difficult to say yes. It wasn’t until his auntie insisted that he enrol that he took the plunge to visit the big city.

There was just one problem: Tide was completely broke, and the tuition fees weren’t going to pay themselves.

One look at the amount of money he needed to get in was enough to crush Tide’s dreams once again. He attempted to make the most of his stay by attending public karaoke parties instead, hoping the fun of singing with strangers would drown out the misery he was feeling. It didn’t work, but it was at one of these parties that he would stumble across a certain orange Inkling working the equipment backstage. This Inkling introduced himself as Crash.

The two of them quickly became friendly with each other, so much so that Tide felt comfortable confiding in Crash the circumstances that he now found himself in. But before he knew it, Tide was offered a loan for his tuition and a roof over his head by what was essentially a complete stranger. Bewildered by his generosity, Tide’s first instinct was to politely decline, but Crash was not taking no for an answer. After much back and forth, Tide tentatively accepted the offer.

Saying yes to Crash’s outlandish offer was one of the best decisions Tide had ever made. It took him a little while to adjust to the busy life as a full-time performing arts student, but before long he was excelling at his classes, learning more about life in the city, and enjoying all of it with his new best friend Crash.

But despite everything, Tide still felt a hole in his heart. He had never forgotten about his failure to find a family to call his own. He had found a new lease on life at sixteen years old, but he was still an orphan. Crash seemed to notice how this was affecting him, which is when he had another idea.

For his seventeenth birthday, Tide was given adoption papers as a present.

• Tide has occasionally acted in various musical theatre performances. His favourite roles are when he played a young prince and a pirate captain.
• He is obsessed with cats and will start making a beeline for the Judds the second they cross his path.
• He has had a life-long fascination with humans, which only intensified after he learned how much cats influenced their cultures.
• He is bilingual! Inklish is what he is most fluent in, but he is also fluent in Jellyfish and can hold a decent conversation in Octarian. He even knows a few human languages, albeit can't speak them very well.
• Tide has no idea who his biological parents are/were. It's a bit of a sore spot for him.
• Tide's nose is very sensitive to pollen, which can cause problems since he is frequently offered flowers as gifts.