Anatomically Correct Inklings [closed]

Question

I’m writing a Splatoon fanfic, and I was hoping to make it a bit more science-based than the minuscule information we’re provided in-game.

The two primary features of Inklings are their ability to shoot ink and refill by diving into their ink, as well as their ability to switch between squid and kid. For the former, we are given much more information:

• Instead of a heart pumping blood like us humans, Inklings’ hearts pump ink.
• Somehow some of this ink can be transferred into a pack strapped to their back, which powers a plethora of splatting weapons.
• By submerging themselves in ink, the Inklings can refill their tanks. This seems to work through something like diffusion.

The problem comes with the kid-squid transformation. Somehow they can switch near-instantly between a smallish squid-like form and the normal-sized humanoid form. In squid form, they are able to swim quickly in their own color of ink, move through metal grates, and fly to a different place on the map. Their clothing and weaponry are also preserved during transformations: they don’t wear them while they’re a squid but do while they’re a kid. The games strongly imply that there’s no magic in this universe, so handwavium shapeshifting isn’t an option.

The last feature is that when killed, their body explodes into ink, and their “spirit” returns to their team’s spawn point, where a replica of their original body is recreated, and their spirit is placed into that body.

The questions I have are:

• How would you go about designing a creature that can transform between a squid with these properties to a kid with these properties?
• How would a squid be able to do things like moving through metal grates and launch itself in a parabolic arc across the map?

Answer 1

Point 1: The ink is alive

The "ink" is actually a form of colonial microbe. This microbe is capable of forming a biofilm-like network with microscopic muscular and neural structures. The battle between inklings is actually a conflict between different "ink colonies".

Point 2: An Inkling body is basically a suit that the ink can use to move in a coordinated manner

An Inkling's "kid" form, while superficially human, is anatomically nothing like humans. It is an environmental suit - perhaps artificial, perhaps a living symbiote - for the microbe swarm. It is controlled using an ink-based hydrostatic skeleton. When "transforming", it basically turns inside out - expelling the ink that supports its body and covering its deflated shell with a layer of microbes, creating the "squid" form. It is able to move much faster in this form while within its own colony - the surrounding ink creates a peristalsis-like muscular motion to shove the "suit" along. The "kid" form is used when the microbes need to travel outside of their biofilm.

Answer 2

There is no 'human' form - its an illusion / a disguise of the squid-like inkling.

The squid can increase its size (maybe it sucks in air, so this only works on land) and has very fine control over how and where these changes happen in its body, so it can change its form to that of a human kid. Basically this is like a 3D/shape version of colour-changing skills that some squids/octopuses have. (Of course, it also needs the color-changing skin to simulate clothing and the whole appearance thing).

In the squid-form the Inklings don't need to put any energy into maintaining this disguise. This allows them to use their 'ballooning' and fine control over the body to generate a strong (albeit short) tension in their body, which can be used to fling them whereever they want to go.
As for moving moving through objects: squids are good at that - they're about as liquid as cats (it doesn't work the 'human' form since upholding that requires a sort of tension in the whole body).