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RP journal for a Splatoon OC!

Thaum
Age: 14 (or 16 if we're in the Splatoon 2 timeline)
Gender: Male
Race: Octoling, mimic octopus variety
Style: Not very fresh... he's got better things to worry about than fashion
Weapon of choice: Chargers! They suit his tendency to slink around unseen and strike from a vantage point. He usually favors the Kelp Splat Charger. The Octarians had those blueprints BEFORE they got stolen, y'know!!
*Post-Splatoon 1 Weapon: Brellas, most typically the Undercover Brella. He's given up chargers for story reasons at this point.

Appearance notes: I'm currently in the process of reworking Thaum's design now that we have some directional notes from canon playable octolings. So:

-Yes he has standard octo ears; whether octolings did or not was debatable when his icons were originally commissioned.

-He also has the suckers on the tops of his tentacles while in octoling form like other octolings. I think I was being kinda pedantic back then about how that wasn't like real octopuses... now I'm like who cares it's distinctive and cute haha

-while real life mimic octopuses are often light colored with darker stripes, for Thaum the white and purple looks kinda awkward and one of the tweaks is I'm going for purple (or whatever color he's using at the moment) with darker purple/whatever stripes, similar to how canon inklings and octolings have solid color tentacles with darker spots or circles. Plus that neat touch of bioluminescence, of course.

-If it's hard to tell from the icons, in his octoling form he has long, thin tentacles that are striped all the way down, and he typically keeps them in a ponytail with one shorter tentacle wrapping around the base of the other three to hold them in place in lieu of a hair tie.

-In the Splatoon 2 timeline, he usually wears the Takoroka Nylon Vintage jacket instead of the Berry Ski Jacket shown in the icons. Good luck ever getting him in anything other than a baggy jacket if you're not, you know, kidnapping him and knocking him out and sticking him on a creepy train.

General detail info:

Octomimics are totally something I made up. They have a much wider range of shapeshifting ability than typical Inklings or Octolings, and are known as masters of disguise. However, they're quite rare.

Thaum has recently turned 14 and assumed control of his shapeshifting ability. He's not terribly good at it yet and has only taught himself how to turn into an Inkling, with even that form not looking that different from his natural one.

Having grown up hearing almost nothing but how bad the Octarians have it thanks to losing the war to the Inklings, Thaum is thoroughly frustrated by being stuck with a life in crumbling underground domes while the Inklings party and play up above. Once able to shapeshift and having practiced an Inkling form in order to blend in undetected, he runs away to Inkopolis with the intent to vent those frustrations by sabotaging turf wars and Splatfest. (And also by spreading as much Octarian graffiti around as possible.) Maybe he'll even steal some Zapfish back, or find the elite Inkling soldier who punched through every Octarian defense to snatch those precious fish away, and make them PAY!!

...Yeah, he's a butthurt angsty teenage punk with unrealistic fantasies that he's trying to act on. Kid's still got a lot to learn about the world, and both sides of the Inkling/Octarian divide. We shall see through RP where it leads him!

Thaum now has a more concrete timeline! I guess these are spoilers for Thaum's story? If... an OC's story can even have spoilers haha. I have avoided spoilers for things like Octo Expansion here, though. (And please keep in mind that this is like 90% duct-taped together with headcanons and wild theories, so.)

During Splatoon 1: As talked about above, he's been taken in by all the Octarian propaganda he's grown up around and has a tendency to spew prejudices about Inklings and their society. It's what drives him to the surface to screw up that beautiful perfect life he thinks they have and didn't earn. But Inkopolis ends up not being entirely what he expected, and his viewpoints begin to waver.

Towards the end of Splatoon 1's single player story: A team of elite Octolings is sent to bring Thaum back home, and when an acquaintance helps him fend them off, he learns something horrible. His entire life was pretty much a lie - the octarians he thought were his family were really just a team set up by the Octarian leaders to train and groom him into a weapon and tool. Mimic octolings aren't just rare because of genetics - they have a natural resistance to many of the brainwashing techniques the Octarians have a history of using to keep their people in line, and therefore they opted to hunt mimics down rather than try to control them. Thaum was only kept alive because they got their hands on him as a newborn and thought they could raise him to be loyal. They even specifically trained him with Charger weapons because he would never need to get close to the enemy - and potentially talk to or learn about them. Once a shaken and furious Thaum confirms this to be true - by storming the entrance to the Octarian domes and yelling at the captured Octavio a lot, with Agent 3 barely holding him back - he decides to throw that old life away entirely and start over in Inkopolis. It's no small struggle, however. Changing yourself is hard. Changing your views is hard. But he puts all his effort into it, and it does show.

In the interim between Splatoon 1 and Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion: Thaum's acquaintance - friend? - an anemone named Darian, helps him get an apartment in Inkopolis. He sticks to disguising himself as an Inkling out of understandable paranoia, even though Agent 3 wanted to let him have a chance and made Octavio promise not to continue trying to recapture Thaum. 3 opted not to tell anyone else about Thaum either, especially since they're not sure how Capn Cuttlefish or the Squid Sisters would react to knowing there was a rogue Octoling in the city. Agent 3 does check in on Thaum from time to time however, and eventually they've somehow become good friends.

They're both surprised when Off the Hook becomes popular, and Marina is suddenly everywhere. But after his initial shock and alarm, Thaum takes it as an excellent and uplifting sign that even an Octoling can be happy and successful here - even though most Inklings don't seem to realize what she is. How do they just think she's a weird exotic girl?? What's he even disguising himself for?? Sheesh! Can he get an autograph though he is secretly the biggest fanboy.

Octo Expansion: I've yet to decide how canon this is to his story, but it is entirely possible for Thaum to become Agent 8 after being captured, memory wiped, and dragged to the undersea metro. After all, mimics are rare - the perfect test subject, no? The Octo Expansion events would happen pretty close to the canon in this instance.

Why's all this here? In case you want to RP from a specific timeline point; just let me know when you want to place a thread! In addition, Agent 3 in Thaum's story is intentionally left as a fairly open character, so if you have a Splatoon inkling of your own you want to play as Agent 3 in a thread, go for it! And of course we can always AU away outside of all this; it's just groundwork.

Thank you for reading this horrible chunk of tl;dr! I always welcome any feedback, questions, or comments since it's absolutely a work in progress.