Alear / Toothpaste-chan

About

Alear is the main protagonist of the video game Fire Emblem Engage. Players can pick between the male or female gender for Alear. Months prior to the game’s official reveal, screenshots of the game were leaked, some of which included female Alear. Alear was dubbed “Toothpaste-chan” by the Fire Emblem fandom because of her blue and red hair. Alear would also be referred to as “Pepsi-chan” and “Colgate-kun” shortly after Engage’s official announcement.

Origin

Alear appears in Fire Emblem Engage, which was released on January 20th, 2023. They are a Divine Dragon that is revered in the land of Elyos, the setting of Engage. The game was officially announced during the September 2022 Nintendo Direct.^[1]

Screenshots of the game were leaked online on June 14th, 2022.^[2] The authenticity of the screenshots was discussed in places such as 4chan^[3], ResetEra^[4], and Reddit,^[5] though many were skeptical because Alear’s design was drastically different from previous Fire Emblem protagonists. Alear’s name was not included in the leaks. She was nicknamed “toothpaste” by an anonymous user^[6] on 4chan’s /v/ board (shown below, left). Later that day, an anonymous user^[7] from 4chan’s /vg/ board called her “Toothpaste-chan” (shown below, right).

Toothpaste-chan would later be adopted by the Fire Emblem community as the character’s nickname.^[8]

Spread

During the summer of 2022, Toothpaste-chan gained a cult following. On June 16th, 2022, Berry_Nutty^[9] drew a sketch of Toothpaste-chan and shared it on the Fire Emblem subreddit. The post gained over 2.2k upvotes (98% upvoted) (shown below, left). On June 20th, 2022, NerdAmiba^[10] drew the character and shared it on Twitter. It gained over 5k likes and over 1.3k retweets (shown below, center).

Pepsi-chan / Colgate-kun

On September 13th, 2022, Fire Emblem Engage was officially announced. The character’s name was also revealed to be Alear. Many more people online began to take notice of Alear’s design, particularly the character’s blue and red colored hair. In addition to toothpaste-related jokes, people made comparisons to the soft-drink Pepsi due to the brand’s colors being similar to Alear’s hair. This led to Alear also being nicknamed “Pepsi-chan” and “Colgate-kun.”

On September 13th, 2022, thegreyzen^[11] posted art of both Alears smiling with female Alear holding onto a box of Colgate toothpaste. The post gained over 7.9k likes and over 1.1k retweets (shown below, left). Later that day, dixoterin^[12] posted to Twitter the two Alears praying to Pepsiman. The post gained over 10.8k likes and over 2.4k retweets (shown below, right).

Various Examples

External References