#but bright enough to manage to pass herself off as a Octoling anyway just because no one thinks to check it

[annasofromafiles]

So, this is Ends (full name, 'The Ends Justify the Means') an Inkling Scientist that migrated down to the Octarian Empire thirty years before the start of the first splatoon game. She managed that by pretending to be an Octoling because Inklings 'don't get the joy of mucking about with genetics and bio hazards like Octolings do'.

The whole basis for this character is partly that Inklings canonically do NOT know when they're talking to an Octoling if they're not aware this is an option (see Marina's entire backstory along with the everything with the Octolings coming to the surface for years before the expansion).

The other half is that Cuttlefish mentions going 'undercover' in the Octoling empire, indication that there is a chance Octolings might have the same blind spot if they think its impossible for an Inkling to get into the empire.

Hence Ends.

The one Inkling stupid and smart enough to get into the Deep Sea Line, and then down to the Octoling Empire, join their study programs and get a position building bio weapons to use against squids. Which she is. And who her family is, even if she doesn't talk to them much due to the whole 'living in the Octarian Empire' thing.

This turns out great for her long term and definitely doesn't lead to a far to late realisation of 'oh no, these weapons are going to be used on people even if i just built them to see if i could'. Absolutely nothing that deals with the terrible consequences of a new variant of the primordial ooze used to make Sanitized Octolings she starts work on after getting Sanitized herself and having her self-control and moral compass wrecked.

Definitely.