Toothpaste

My in-game inkling avatar and online persona! (18, she/her)

Design:

• She is a flying squid inkling, and thusly has a few vestigial traits.
  • She has a pair of fins on her back that are evolutionary leftovers of the fins ancestral flying squid used to glide. They look and can move a lot like bird wings (however they are just regular squid fins and are composed of the same material). Despite this, they are almost completely useless, and more of an annoyance than anything else. Neither her humanoid form or squid form can glide or fly. Most of her clothing has holes in the back to accommodate these fins, but if she's in a rush, she'll just put a shirt over them. The fins can be considered an optional detail since they can be hidden.
  • The undersides of her ears are orangish-brown, like the tentacles of ancestral flying squids.
  • Flying squid inklings have lost the fin membrane between the tentacles of the ancestral flying squid. This is largely why they can no longer glide.
  • Most inkling subspecies have generally converged on a similar body plan, but flying squids still have their large mantle fins (despite the fact that they are mostly useless now).
• She has 2 stripes of an accent color to her ink on the top of her hair, and 2 bands of this same accent color on her tentacles with a downwards arrow pattern. These two are always the same color as each other (and are also the same color as her tongue). 
• Her number pattern is 2, try to keep things in that pattern.
• Her not having any suction cups or tentacle undersides are just a personal stylistic choice!! She would have them if I drew characters with it. The undersides of her tentacles are the same light blue as her sclera and back fins.
  • She does not however have spots on her tentacles!!
• She's not actually an agent, she found the discarded Hero Headset that had previously belonged to Agent 3 after OE and decided to keep them.
  • The Hero Headset is optional and she can be draw without them on. 
  • She is not aware of the headphones’ origins and who they might’ve originally belonged to. She and Agent 3 have not interacted directly.
• She has a bird theme. 
  • Huge bird fan, especially of seagulls. She thinks they're funny and endearing, even if people hate them. 
  • Will often reference or enthuse about birds even when not appropriate. 
  • She has multiple bird-like mannerisms, this can be best seen in the way she acts and moves.

• Pretty boisterous and intense.
• Always trying to make someone laugh, even if that person is just herself. 
• She's the kind of person to make jokes in a tense situation, it's how she avoids dealing with it. 
• Secretly cares a lot about her reputation.
• Tends to avoid being alone for long periods of time.
• Craves new excitement, but hates change.
• She tries to remain aloof and like she doesn't take anything seriously, but can get serious if necessary.
  • In this way, she gets frustrated extremely easily and will crack under any real pressure. Staying aloof is how she avoids genuine freakouts, but it doesn't always work.

• She always slightly smells of toothpaste. She has never explained how or why.
• She is aromantic. Romance is not something she ever really thinks about or wants (thinking about it makes her slightly uncomfortable).
• She has ADHD.
• Mains the Nautilus 47 and 79.
• Competitive ranked player! (Eternal FA) 
• Hoover is her little brother!! they're not actually related but they're extremely close.
• She tries to be a good role model for Hoover but doesn't always do the best job. 
• She has a fondness for dancing, though she’s not particularly great at it. (She dances better in squid form).
• Very much does not have an eye for fashion or interior design. Her apartment is an absolute mess of random objects she and Hoover like with little to no cohesion. She also often wears fairly plain or same-y outfits (getting new shirts are a pain due to her fins).

Her childhood was relatively unremarkable, being born in the Inkadia region and moving to Inkopolis Square around the age of 14. Toothpaste was not her birth name. She doesn't seem too keen on mentioning her old name when asked. She doesn't hate it, but prefers to go by Toothpaste now.

A few years after the move, an impulse decision during a Grizzco shift led to her smuggling a golden egg back home. She was still fairly naïve at this point in time, and was unaware of the fact that the egg she stole was viable. To her, the questionable nature of Grizzco and what these "Salmon Runs" even entailed didn't even cross her mind. Something like that would be wrong, and there's no way the hip new job everyone was taking part in could be wrong, right?? She watched and took care of this egg for a good while, subconsciously hoping --but doubting-- that something would come from it. 

Well, to her surprise, something did come of the golden egg. A little Salmonid eventually hatched, which sent her into a bit of a panic. Naming the fry Hoover, she debated for a while on what to do next. She felt the right thing to do would be to try to send the young Salmonid back to Salmonid society where he could be raised properly, but she also knew doing so would be risky for both her and the fry. At the same time, a more selfish part of her longed for a friend, and that eventually convinced her to attempt raising the smallfry on her own. She treated Hoover as a little brother (think Twilight Sparkle and Spike from MLP). The duo eventually moved to Splatsville after some prodding, largely to avoid legal repercussions from living with a Salmonid.

As time went on however, she started to feel incredibly guilty over her decision to raise the young Salmonid. She believes that she deprived Hoover of a proper Salmonid upbringing within his own culture, and as a result Hoover remains disconnected with his heritage. She has been subtly trying to reconnect Hoover with Salmonid society, sometimes to the annoyance of Hoover himself. She believes that she should’ve tried harder to return Hoover to the Salmonids, despite the risk, and her decision to keep him with her potentially ruined his life (even if this is not 100% true). This guilt has been quietly eating away at her for some time. Despite this, she still fears abandonment, and would be devasted if he ever left her forever, even if she believes it would be for the best. She battles between her desire to do what is best for Hoover and her personal fear of being alone. Realizing there’s no real way to have to have both, she tries her hardest to ignore the problem altogether, keeping Hoover in the dark about the whole situation in hopes that she can avoid dealing with it in full just a little longer.

(Inklings as a species as well as the setting of this story are from Splatoon by Nintendo)

(Toothpaste’s splashtag was made via this generator by @spaghettitron on Twitter!! The wing badge was drawn myself)