Characters / Bob's Burgers - Tina Belcher

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The Belcher Family (Bob Belcher | Linda Belcher | Tina Belcher | Louise Belcher) | Belcher Family Friends | The Pesto Family | Wagstaff School | The Fischoeder Family | Antagonists | Others | One Shot Characters

Tina Ruth Belcher

"I'm no hero. I put my bra on one boob at a time like everyone else."

Voiced by: Dan Mintz

"Time for the charm bomb to explode."

Bob and Linda's 13-year-old and incredibly awkward oldest daughter. Tina has three major passions: horses, boys, and erotic friend-fiction. Unfortunately for Tina, her various attempts to get the attention of the opposite gender almost always fail spectacularly—especially when it comes to her biggest crush, Jimmy Pesto Jr., who just never seems to get the hint. Despite being the oldest, Tina is almost always a follower instead of a leader and goes along with her siblings' plans without much question.

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A-G

• Abhorrent Admirer: Zig-Zagged with her relationship to Jimmy Jr.—sometimes he returns her affections, sometimes he's repulsed by her odd nature and brushes off her attempts at flirting, and sometimes he's just completely unaware of what she's doing. On Tina's own end, sometimes her attempts at flirting are harmless while sometimes they can be very discomforting.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: From time to time, Tina tends to get a bit of an inflated ego. While sometimes it's understandable (such as becoming the center of attention in "Mazel-Tina" after Tammy disappears), Tina can often take things too far (in that same episode, she was willing to keep Louise trapped with Tammy so she could remain the center of attention).
• Actor/Role Confusion: Becomes a victim of it in "The Hormone-iums", where she plays someone who has mononucleosis and warns against kissing (the primary method of contracting mononucleosis). Her classmates turn her into a social pariah and making matters worse is that Mr. Frond is aware but actively refuses to help because he's too focused on teaching the kids a lesson.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • No matter how many times Tina learns to give up on trying to win Jimmy Jr.'s love (such as in "The Belchies" and "V for Valentine-detta"), she'll go right back to trying to win him over by the next episode.
  • Tina usually learns that she shouldn't care about what her peers say or think about her, but in later episodes she goes back to caring too much about what they think of her and usually ends up doing something worse than the previous episode in an attempt to boost her own self-confidence or get her peers to look at her positively.
  • Tammy is an awful person and Tina was made well aware of that by the end of Tammy's debut episode. Even then, however, there are times where she still tries to hang out with her, trusts her even when she knows she shouldn't, and often fails to realize that Tammy is obviously manipulating her.
• Affectionate Nickname: Linda calls her "My Teeny Tina", while her siblings (primarily Louise) call her "T". Zeke calls her "T-Bird".
• Airplane Arms: Inverted. When Tina runs, her arms don't move at all.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Her bedroom is decked out in horse pictures, posters, and figures; one of them being a porcelain horse named Horcelain. She loves the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic expy show The Equestranauts, her Imaginary Friend is a talking horse, and she will take any opportunity to remind people that horses "are the best animals ever", to the point of attacking Tammy for dissing them and considering Henry a dork for thinking dinosaurs are cooler.
• All-Loving Hero: Downplayed at times but justified since she IS a teenage girl after all and can’t be faulted for being self-absorbed and hormonal. Regardless, Tina is sweet-natured and docile, and feels empathy for all creatures, even pinworms (for whom she would prefer to give a stern warning rather than kill) and Tammy (though she is capable of snapping back at her). The times she behaves violently, she usually does so to defend those she loves like her family or horses. She also serves as the moral compass for Louise, and she's one of the few characters to ever actually give Mr. Frond any respect.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • There's no doubt at all about her interest in boys, but she also showed an interest in female nude scenes in a shark horror movie and was disappointed when Bob fast-forwarded through them. In "Crawl Space" she doesn't seem to have any objections to the possibility of a threesome with both a male and female zombie.
  • Animation Throwdown: the Quest for Cards gives her some interesting interactions with both genders in the Arena mode. She primarily flirts with male characters (most notably Steve, John Redcorn and Zapp Brannigan), but is also aroused by Consuela's voice and admits to being intimidated by strong women like Leela.
• Animal Motifs: Horses. Tina adores horses, having posters and figurines of them in her room. She also has an imaginary horse named "Jericho", spent an entire episode at a horse training camp, is a big fan of "The Equestranauts" (a My Little Pony-esque cartoon), and she got really angry over someone selling horse meat to the point that she spent the entire episode on edge.
• An Odd Place to Sleep: While she still sleeps lying in a bed like everyone else, she seems to twitch constantly like a fish on dry land while she's asleep, or as she points out when showing off her bed, "it's where I like to thrash".
• Attractive Zombie: This is how Tina views any and all zombies. She frequently writes "erotic friend fiction" stories involving zombies and has romantic dreams about them. Once, she even wrote a school essay about dating an entire zombie basketball team.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: This girl's fascination for horses is so strong that she's very attentive to the mere mention of an imaginary horse, which she will latch onto for a while even after being told the horse is fake.
• Backstory of the Day: Her role as a member of the titular group in "The Hormone-iums", which is important to her to the point that she views getting a role as its soloist to be a major life goal. While the Belchers mostly act as if this is old news and she's stated to have been in the group for years, the group has never been mentioned before or since.
• Bad Liar: She not only hates lying, she's also not very good at it. Whenever the kids come up with a lie together, Tina has a habit of nearly blowing their cover (such as when the kids lie to Linda about visiting the Glencrest Yacht Club instead of Family Funtime in "Burgerboss"), often forcing Louise (naturally the more adept liar) to cut her off.
• Berserk Button: ...Though it takes her a while for them to become straight buttons:
  • Don't usurp her position as the family's babysitter (not that her siblings even care she has the position) or else she becomes downright hostile to the other babysitter.
  • In "They Serve Horses, Don't They?," after freaking out from learning the restaurant was given horse meat, she becomes downright irate trying to take Jack down.
  • In "Fast Time Capsules At Wagstaff School," after Tammy shows Tina up for making a much better (an unofficial) time capsule that accepts everything put in it (unlike Tina's ridiculous high standards for items), Tina lashes out whenever she's reminded about the argument that she also has the need to channel her fury into hitting/digging/burying something quickly. After Louise practically tricks her into burying both time capsules just to get concert tickets Henry buried out of shame for getting shot down by Susmita, Tina asks Louise to push her Berserk Button again to dig out her time capsule quickly again, only Louise denies her that, much to Tina's dismay.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: Befitting her strange nature, Tina's love doesn't stop with humans. At various points, she's demonstrated romantic attraction to horses, sharks, and geese (though thankfully it doesn't go any further).
• Beware the Nice Ones: She's the most mature and patient of her siblings and is at times an Extreme Doormat, which makes it all the more intense when she does snap. Notably Jimmy Jr., who rarely seems to care about Tina's wishes, was terrified to tell her that he couldn't invite her to a special dance they had agreed to go to prior. When push comes to shove, she has shown to be more ruthless than Louise.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Speaks in a quiet, monotonous voice most of the time but can be even more vicious than Louise when the situation calls for it.
• Big Sister Instinct: A more subtle example than others but when she desperately tries to get her and her siblings out of sticky situations, so they don't get in any serious trouble, her feelings of responsibility and protectiveness towards Gene and Louise show.
  • In "The Belchies" Tina attempts to be a Damsel in Distress to Jimmy Jr. because she believes that by acting helpless, she might conquer his heart. However, she ditches it to come up with the plan to save Louise from the deep pit she was knocked into because it's just not for her to be helpless especially if her family is in danger. (Plus, Jimmy Jr. wasn't paying too much attention to her anyway due to bringing along his brothers and Zeke on the hunt.)
  • In "Better Off Sled" Tina uses herself as a Human Shield to protect Louise when Logan and his friends are about to pelt her with painful snowballs.
  • Also shown in "As I Walk Through the Alley of the Shadow of Ramps" she gets very anxious when Louise (in her big wheel) starts getting confrontational with an angry juice truck driver. Fearing that she'll get run over as the fight escalates, Tina panics, quickly picks Louise up, and carries her out of the truck's way.
• Blue Is Heroic: Tina wears a blue shirt and skirt and is the kindest and most moral of the Belchers.
• Book Dumb: All the Belchers are to a certain extent (some more than others), but Tina is this especially. A gag in "Broadcast Wagstaff School News" revealed that Tammy copied off of Tina on a test and got a bad grade, only for it to turn out Tina herself somehow got a worse grade. In "Can't Buy Me Math" it's shown she's in danger of being sent to remedial math, and at the end of the episode she actually is. In "Y Tu Tina Tambien", she has to skip recess for a week to study Spanish in the library. In "FOMO You Didn't", it's revealed that Tammy, Jocelyn, Zeke, and Jimmy Jr., four students who are textbook examples of The Ditz, have high grades in photography class while frequently skipping—Tina, meanwhile, has very poor grades in the same class while giving it her best shot, and it's only by a stroke of luck that she gets a higher grade at the end of the episode. We don't learn exactly how poor Tina's grades are, but if they're worse than Jocelyn's then she's probably doing something wrong.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Very downplayed; Tina is less bratty than most other examples (and in fact, it mostly died out after Season 1), but she can occasionally be very selfish and insensitive.
• Breakout Character: Surprisingly enough, the painfully awkward Tina ended up striking a chord with most viewers (probably because she reminds them of themselves), causing her to steadily be elevated into one of the most focused on members of the family (arguably only behind Bob himself).
• Butt-Monkey: Often gets blackmailed or taken advantage of, be it by Tammy or her own siblings. Season 1 especially played her up as the unlucky one of the family before later seasons toned it down.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • Her distressed groan. More of a Catch Noise, really.
  • She often says "I'm okay!" after falling over.
• Character Development: Mostly involving her going from shy and meek to confident and assertive.
  • For most of "Hamburger Dinner Theater", Tina suffered from crippling stage fright to the point where she couldn't get her one line out during the play. However, after finally saying the line near the end of the episode, Tina is shown to be more confident performing in front of crowds in episodes like "Family Fracas" and "The Hormone-Iums".
  • Tina is shown to be less of an Extreme Doormat and more proactive in later episodes, to the point of openly challenging Tammy whenever the latter's being particularly mean.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • Tina was first playing along fully with her siblings in a prank for the pilot; by "Sexy Dance Fighting" she developed into a daughter that respects Bob much more. She was also more of a Bratty Teenage Daughter. Come about Season 2, her bratty moments were farther apart than the last, and while episodes like "Uncle Teddy" or "Mazel Tina" do have this trait come in, they're overall one-off moments and not a consistent part of her character. This is especially notable in "Father of the Bob" - in a Call-Back to the pilot episode, Gene and Louise lock the restaurant with Bob outside. In the pilot, Tina was laughing along with them. In "Father of the Bob", Tina instead unlocks the door for her dad and grandpa.
  • In "Hamburger Dinner Theater" she has crippling stage fright. Then in "Family Fracas" in Season 3:
    Tina: [to the audience] Hi, I'm Tina! I like horses, music, and boys! Hi boys, I'm Tina.
  • After a few moments early on that are even discussed in-universe, the writers seem to be going out of their way to make it seem more likely that Tina's personality and mannerisms are a result of teenage awkwardness and not an implied mental disorder.
  • After Season 1, she started to be less creepy about her strange hobbies while still being strange herself. It even looks like she's a professional on her subjects rather than being entirely disturbing in her behavior.
• Comically Missing the Point: Because of her awkward, slow, and rather simplistic view on things, Tina tends to share her mother's ability to misunderstand or just flat-out miss things like social cues or common sense.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Is very quick to fly off into a daydream, particularly regarding boys or romance.
• Covert Pervert: Downplayed, as she tells people about it anyway. She is uncomfortably enthusiastic about the suggestion that she may have to mate with survivors of the storm to repopulate the town.
• Cool Big Sis: Despite her awkwardness, Gene and Louise admit in "A Fish Named Tina" that they ultimately regard her as such because she doesn't get angry at them for some things, teaches them things without even knowing it, and because of the way Tina loves and looks out for them.
  • Best shown on "The Plight Before Christmas", where Tina is the only one to realize that Louise actually wrote a heartfelt poem for a competition and that she does want the support of her family when reading it publicly for the first time, despite Louise trying to hide it. After Bob and Linda fail to get there, Tina herself ditches her own event and gets to the library to see her.
• Creepy Monotone: While the monotone part is played straight, the creepy part is highly averted. She's creepy when she's in a vindictive mood — but that's the exception, and for the most part, she's adorable.
• Daddy's Girl: Slightly downplayed, in part because she doesn't play favorites parent-wise, and in part because her bond with Bob doesn't appear to be as deep as some of the other parent-child bonds in the Belcher family^note compare her bond with Bob to Louise's bond with Bob, or Gene's bond with Linda. However, that observation is only surface-level—Tina clearly cherishes the time she spends with her father, Bob cherishes that time right back, and Tina is by far the kid most likely to immediately rally to Bob's side (in part because Gene and Louise are massive trolls).
  • In "Bob and Deliver", she's desperate to be her father's favorite student. He ends up bonding with Zeke instead, much to her frustration, but she does get her wish at the end, as the episode closes with Bob and Tina enjoying a meal together.
  • Tina is the most neutral of the kids when it comes to favoring a parent (Gene favors Linda, Louise favors Bob, and neither are subtle about it). However, much of the time she seems to be slightly (slightly, mind you) closer to Bob, with Tina matching up with Bob's mild-mannered personality better than with Linda's proactive (and sometimes suffocating) personality.
• Danger Is My Middle Name: ...But she spells it "R-U-T-H"^note This offhand line from "Presto Tina-o" is the only time any of the Belchers' middle names have been revealed in the series.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Her consistent crush is on Jimmy Pesto Jr., the son of Bob's eternal nemesis. Bob was originally against the crush for this exact reason, but grew out of it. Nowadays it's Linda who's primarily against the crush, though it's less because of Jimmy Jr.'s Hate Sink of a father and more because she thinks Jimmy Jr. doesn't deserve Tina.
• Deadpan Snarker: At times, when she's designated as a Straight Man to everyone else.
  • In "Wharf Horse", she chains herself to a merry-go-round with a bike lock and swallows the key to stop Felix Fischoeder from demolishing it; when Felix tells her to leave, she bluntly points out why she can't.
    Felix: Leave now, or I will make you leave.
    Tina: Oh? Do you have the power to make 13-year-old girls poop out keys?
  • In "Bad Tina", she trades Snark-to-Snark Combat with Linda.
    Linda: No boys, no parties, no summoning spirits or switching bodies, and no filling the house with soap bubbles. You hear me, Tina?
    Tina: Yes. I wear glasses, not hearing aids, mom.
    Linda: Well, I don't wear a hearing aid either, so I didn't hear that.
• Death Glare: In "The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle, & Her Lover" She gives one to freak out Louise, of all people, forcing her to rethink her motives entirely. Though in Tina's case her glare is a completely neutral expression (i.e. Tina's usual facial expression), with no words or sounds spoken whatsoever. Harsh!
  Gene: Tina... Take it easy!
• Depending on the Writer: Exactly how willing Tina is to lie varies depending on the episode. While some episodes (most notably "Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks") show her as being very uncomfortable with lying, others have Tina commit her share of dishonest behavior: she lies to people without a second thought in "Food Truckin'", brokers her way out of school in "Synchronized Swimming" and "My Fuzzy Valentine" (also manipulating Linda to do her homework in the former), and coolly lies to her mother about a sailing lesson in "Burgerboss".
• Determinator: Has dozens of crushes on boys yet somehow manages to make it through every day as if it's no big deal, while still focusing on Jimmy Jr., whereas Louise almost went insane after her first crush. Besides that, she has the usual Belcher stubbornness.
• Dirty Kid: Loves making "erotic friend fictions" about people touching each other's butts.
• Disapproving Look: According to "The Cook, The Steve, The Gayle, & Her Lover", she has one strong enough to force Louise into a Heel Realization without having to say a word (though only Gene and Louise can tell it apart from her normal look).
• The Ditz: It's been shown that, unless it involves horses, Tina's not very bright. Examples: not realizing two kids she thought were into each other were actually siblings even after they called the same woman "Mom"; didn't realize Bob was lying to a panicking Gayle over the phone that Linda wasn't missing until he gave up trying to explain to her he lied; and genuinely believing, until Louise made fun of another girl who thought the same, that elbow macaroni was made from actual elbows. However, she does show quite a cunning side to her personality when motivated, such as getting the family out of an insurance fraud scheme in "Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks" by recording the insurance scammer's confession on Gene's keyboard, expertly plays Louise in "Ambergris", hatches a successful plan to catch the mole in "Tina Tailor Soldier Spy" and in general shows quite a lot of insight into people's personalities.
• The Dog Bites Back: She will put up with a lot of crap before lashing out, to the point that she may seem an easy target, but woe be unto you if you're the straw that breaks the camel's back.
• Don't Explain the Joke: As part of her dorky package, Tina often forgets this. If she's not the one telling the original joke, expect her to spend a minute not getting said joke, then explaining it when she finally gets it (often after everyone's moved on and talking about or doing something else).
• The Drag-Along: In "Yes Without My Zeke", she wants Zeke to be sent away to reform school (so she can have Jimmy Jr. to herself), a situation the other kids are working to prevent. She doesn't stoop to outright sabotaging their plan (which would be very easy to do), but she pretty much has to be forced into coming with them, suggests giving up at every mild inconvenience, and doesn't offer any help whatsoever until the very end, when she has a moment of clarity and saves the day.
• Dude Magnet: While Tina may be off-putting to many, she has nonetheless attracted a number of young boys.
  • Her main love interest is Jimmy Jr. and he has shown a number of times that he does like her romantically.
  • Josh felt an instant connection with her when they first met and was eager to ask to his school's prom dance in his second appearance.
  • Zeke has shown quite a few signs of being interested in her.
  • She has a brief relationship with graffiti artist Jordan "Ghost Boy" Cagan in "The Land Ship".
  • Throughout "The Cook, the Steve, the Gayle, & Her Lover", she is constantly flirted with by the younger Xander, although he's by far and away from an Abhorrent Admirer.
  • When she showed off her fiery debating skills in "Ain't Miss Debatin'", Henry Haber became smitten with her and asked if they could become a couple. They dated throughout the episode before breaking up.
• The Dutiful Son: Compared to her siblings, Tina is the most likely to help out around the restaurant (or at least fail out of incompetence rather than lack of interest in helping) whereas Louise and Gene will vocally try to sneak out and slack off.
• Early Personality Signs: "Hamburger Dinner Theater" reveals that Tina had social anxiety since she was a baby, to the point where she couldn't even say her first word (instead emitting her trademark groan) with Bob and Linda watching her.
• The Eeyore: Generally less joyful than her siblings or mother.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Gets saddled with the nickname "Fluffy Butt" in "Go Tina On the Mountain" after singing a song from a commercial out loud. By the end of the episode she's learned not to let it get to her.
• Establishing Character Moment: Her very first line in the entire series: "My crotch is itchy."
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Despite her obsession with zombies and butt touching, she was creeped out by a kid who was determined to taste the hair of a morning talk show host. In general, she takes after her dad and has reasonably high standards to begin with.
  • There's only so much she can take of the kids her age before they finally push her past her Rage Breaking Point. It's true Tina has a crush on Jimmy Jr. and wants to have a close group of friends, but Jimmy Jr., Zeke, Tammy, and Jocelyn have frequently proven to be so obnoxious and banal there are times Tina can't stand them (especially Tammy, who is by far the worst of the four).
• Evil Laugh: Well, she attempts one in "Presto Tina-O".
  Louise: ...Is something caught in your throat?
• Extreme Doormat: At times, especially if she's trying to get on somebody's good side, that somebody usually being Jimmy Junior or Tammy. However, she will stand up for herself if you push her too far and has no problem threatening to punch someone in the face again and again and again and again and again...
  • Whenever she's babysitting her siblings, Louise almost always manages to do whatever she wants despite Tina's efforts to keep control over the situation.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Although she doesn't actually do anything sexual (she's only 13, after all), Tina is attracted to anyone and anything, whether they're boys, zombies, geese, anthropomorphic animals from a children's magazine, disembodied voices from a tape recording, a mannequin, or even the words "bumper-to-bumper", and has written sexually-explicit fanfiction on everything from The Twilight Saga to The Simpsons to Sesame Street of all things. Worth noting, though, is that even regarding all of the above, she seems exclusively into men.
• Eye Glasses: While 99% of the other glasses-wearing characters (such as Linda and Gayle) avert this, Tina plays it straight. "Boys Just Wanna Have Fungus" confirms it's specifically the kind of glasses Tina wears, not Tina herself—when she and Linda briefly swap glasses, Linda ends up with Eye Glasses when wearing Tina's pair, while Tina no longer has them when wearing Linda's pair.
• Fatal Flaw: Her desire for acceptance among her peers has led to her making some very questionable decisions.
• Female Gaze: Has a fixation for male butts, to the point she can tell from just a picture of a butt who it belongs to.
• Flat Joy: She doesn't emote well, or much, to the point that even her moments of genuine happiness don't have much emotion behind them.
• Friend to All Children: She'd like to think she is, but she's actually not. Although Tina is an enthusiastic babysitter, she mainly babysits her siblings, who are used to her awkward personality, but other children such as Kaylee and even Regular Sized Rudy find her off-putting and invasive as she unintentionally made them feel uncomfortable because she was a little too enthusiastic and pushy. She was somewhat successful with a little girl named Kendra, but only after requiring the aid of Tammy, Jimmy Jr., and Zeke to rein her in when Kendra gave her a lot more trouble than she could handle.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Downplayed, given the "friend" part is only on her end. She goes out of her way to associate with Jimmy Jr., Zeke, Tammy, and Jocelyn out of desperation to have a peer group. However, they don't really appear to like her nor care about her that much; they pretty much never include her in their activities, and even when they do it's only because Tina invites herself. She's that desperate to fit in and have friends and sees them as her only chance of having a peer group no matter how much they exclude her.
  • Character Development seems to be moving Tina out of this status more and more—she's progressed towards actual friendship with not only Jimmy Jr. and Zeke, but many other secondary characters. Her relationship with Tammy, however, remains frigid at best and downright hostile at worst regardless of how much time they spend with each other, and she and Jocelyn rarely interact directly enough (and without Tammy nearby) for a proper gauge on their current standing (though Jocelyn is capable of occasional acts of kindness towards Tina).
• Friend Versus Lover: Somewhat. Even though she and Jimmy Jr. aren't dating, they do show romantic interest to each other. Tina's interactions with Zeke indicate that she feels like she's competing for Jimmy Jr.'s attention with Zeke. This is mainly one-sided, as the former tends to act cold and distant to the latter, with Zeke being completely oblivious to this and actually treating Tina relatively well. The biggest example would probably be in "The Belchies".
• Genius Ditz: Tina may be a Cloudcuckoolander with No Social Skills, but she's extremely knowledgeable regarding horses and can show surprising insight on people's personalities.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She has more girly interests than her sister and mother, but she's not above performing gross feats with her siblings and doesn't have a problem at all with getting dirty.

H-Z

• Has a Type: In "Ain't Miss Debatin'", she confesses she has a thing for teen boys with thick accents and/or speech impediments. Which, prior to that same episode (which introduced Duncan), basically included Jimmy Jr. and nobody else.
  Gene: She likes 'em not quite a man and hard to understand.
• The Heart: The rest of the family will often rally together for her sake or to comfort her, and she's most consistently the one advocating for a peaceful solution, which generally encourages others to do the same.
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Many of her "erotic friend-fiction" stories feature her as the protagonist, and more often than not as one of these. The Season 12 finale indicates that Tina uses this as a form of escapism whenever the real world is being particularly nasty to her.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: As of recent seasons, Tina's lost some of her earlier confidence and gained more insecurities over her appearance, her interests and even her entire character. It's to the point where she tells Linda that she doesn't want to be herself and wishes she could be more like the cool teenagers despite the fact that Tina herself is just fine on her own and a much better person that most of the people she tries to be like.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: And a fairly believable depiction of one at that! She will latch onto any boy or man older than her and never let go unless she realizes it is not meant to be.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Tina sometimes has a habit of trusting the wrong people, whether it's Tammy or Bronconius, and naturally it gets her in trouble quite a few times. It's especially blatant in Tammy's case—she's proven herself untrustworthy time and time again, but Tina still trusts her in cases where Tammy is clearly out for herself.
  • Similarly, this applies to her social life. Unlike Gene and Louise, who have a solid friend group that they gained by hanging out with like-minded kids they can trust, Tina seems to prefer hanging around the same supposedly 'cool kids' who completely disregard and exclude her. Tina claims they're her only shot at a friend group... despite the fact that she does have some classmates that are at least more respectful to her, who she outright ignores besides when circumstances force them together.
• Humble Hero: Generally, she's very reserved and doesn't like drawing attention to herself whenever she does something heroic.
  Tina: I'm no hero. I put my bra on one boob at a time like everyone else.
• Hypocrite: Despite Tina's somewhat unorthodox interests that include horses, zombies, erotic fanfiction, she has the gall to call Louise a 'nerd' for her interest in Burobu cards and also deems Henry Haber as the biggest dork in school even though it turns out the rest of Wagstaff considers her just as dorky (to the point that putting it to a vote yields a perfect tie).
• I Just Want to Have Friends: This trait of hers has become more prominent over time, with numerous episodes devoted to her attempts at getting in good graces with her fellow eighth-graders.
• Imaginary Friend: Her fictional horse Jericho, who has more than once tried to gaslight Tina into thinking she's the imaginary one.
• In Love with Love: She’s not boy crazy, she’s boy focused. She gets this from her mother AND aunt.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Began as one for Dan Mintz (the character was even a boy named Daniel) before she was changed to a girl. Still, the resemblance is uncanny. It helps that Tina's voice is Dan Mintz's natural voice.
• Innocently Insensitive: While she may be a Daddy's Girl, some of her comments to (and about) Bob qualify as this, which exasperate Bob since Tina can't tell much.
• Instant Taste Addiction: Gets hooked on espresso after just one cup, and she spends much of "The Unnatural" craving more.
  Tina: It's an acquired taste... that I just acquired.
• I Reject Your Reality: It's suggested that Tina tends to delude herself into thinking certain aspects of the world follow some rose-colored/cliche formula. One example of this is her saying she thinks reading out her very inapropriate and very odd erotic friend fiction to the entire school went well; before Tammy made a fool of herself immediately afterwards, the entire cafeteria was laughing at her and she very nearly became a social outcast. She even has the gall to say that having her parents at school is the most embarrassing thing ever, even though they were there to try and save her from humiliation. There was also the time she believed being the villain of a movie-adapted-to-a-play meant she would've ended up with Jimmy Jr, even though in the movie proper, they don't. When this is pointed out to her numerous times, she just waxes off nonsensical sayings. And that's not even tapping into her numerous fantasies of finding love in the most unorthodox of places, like with animals or a cassette player.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In "Yes Without My Zeke", when the plan to save Zeke from getting sent to reform school is about to fail, Tina is initially happy because it means she'll get Jimmy Jr. to herself. But when she sees how upset Jimmy Jr. is, she decides his happiness is worth more than her getting his undivided attention and steps up to save the day.
• Jerkass to One: While a kind, friendly girl most of the time, Tina tends to act cold and distant towards Zeke because Jimmy Jr. insists on bringing him along on most of their get-togethers and Zeke often gets in the way whenever she tries to put the moves on Jimmy Jr. (without even intending to). Interestingly, this is primarily because of their Friend Versus Lover situation; Tina is usually nicer to Zeke whenever Jimmy Jr. isn't involved, and "So You Stink You Can Dance" represents a rare instance where she acts nice to him when Jimmy Jr. is involved.
• Junior Counterpart: While Louise takes the most after their father Bob and Gene takes the most after their mother Linda, Tina is actually shaping up to be more like their aunt Gayle, from her general awkwardness, lack of social skills, and hopelessness in the romance department.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Tina isn't particularly bright (unless it involves horses), but she's one of the nicest characters on the show and is generally a selfless, forgiving person.
• Lame Pun Reaction: She greatly enjoys making puns, said puns being so bad that she gets compliments from people that have no good taste. To boot, she has a horse of porcelain she calls "Horselain." She inherited this trait from her father.
• Larynx Dissonance: For the sake of comedy, Dan Mintz plays her with his natural speaking voice, which is also the exact same voice he used for Daniel Belcher (Tina's male counterpart in the original pilot). It's especially jarring in flashbacks, where even as a baby Tina has the same deep voice.
• Late to the Punchline: It can take her up to a minute to get a joke, if she ever gets it at all.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Most of the time Tina is a socially-awkward Extreme Doormat... but when she gets serious, she shows a high level of cunning, planning ("Ambergris", "Tina Tailor Soldier Spy"), and investigative skill ("Broadcast Wagstaff School News", "Lice Things Are Lice"). On occasion she's even been able to outsmart Louise.
• The Load: Invoked in "The Belchies", where she believes being helpless will cause Jimmy Jr. to come to her defense and spark a romance between the two, and in "Yes Without My Zeke", where she wants the kids' plan to fail so that Zeke is sent to reform school and she can get Jimmy Jr. to herself. Both times, however, she comes through at the end, and she never stoops to the point of outright sabotage (she simply doesn't do anything).
• Loving a Shadow: Many of her crushes are on a guy she barely knows (and in some cases has never talked to), making it pretty clear she's more interested in what she imagines they could be rather than who they actually are.
  • Her subplot in "Large Brother, Where Fart Thou?" has her willingly get detention just so she can ogle and fantasize about a boy who doesn't even seem aware she exists.
  • Quite a bit of the Season 9 premiere's runtime is devoted to Imagine Spots of guys she interacted with a grand total of once with no clear indication of their personality besides a few lines of dialogue each.
  • This girl has no limits: an ice sculpture, the voice on a 30 year old tape, teen boy’s deodorant...
  • Her crush on Jimmy Jr. seems to be entirely superficial in nature. Notably, his actual personality is so unappealing that she's more than once snapped at him about it. The movie shows she's actually aware of this, and she grapples with the concept that actually being with Jimmy Jr. won't be nearly as fulfilling as the idea of being with him is, even briefly going into a Heroic BSoD over it. She eventually decides that she won't know if she doesn't try.
• Magic Skirt: Her skirt always covers what it needs to. Especially notable in "Broadcast Wagstaff News" (when she's filmed climbing stage scaffolding from below) and in "Mission Impos-slug-ble" (when she climbs a tree).
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: She does this a few times. Ironically, she's the only Belcher known to have an actual middle name (Ruth).
• Most Fanfic Writers Are Female: To the point that she's already written fanfic on every pop cultural item of interest, leading to her writing "erotic friendfiction" (works based on people she knows, often starring herself).
• Must Have Caffeine: In "The Unnatural", Tina discovers espresso for the first time... and gets hooked on it to the point that she's drinking motel coffee with discarded cigarettes in it. It's not clear if she gave up coffee after that—the fort in "Fort Night" apparently had some used coffee filters in it, and that was before they had access to the dumpster.
• Ms. Imagination: She's very prone to daydreaming with a majority of the Imagine Spots in the episodes stemming from Tina's wild fantasies and imagination (which are often either from her hormonal mind, her childlike sense of wonder, or both). By later seasons, it nearly occurs Once per Episode.
• Nervous Wreck: Whenever she's faced with a very dire consequence, she starts going "AH! AH! AH! AH!" and can't do anything until she calms down. Linda is quick to change gears whenever Tina suddenly gets a panic attack.
• Nice Girl: The nicest and most (selflessly) helpful of the Belcher kids.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Or, as Tina puts it:
  Tina: I'm not a zombiephile. I just admire their swagger.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: She knows way too much about horses in general that one could mistake her for a real equine master. So when she gets to go to a horse camp (and interrupt her coach's questions with the right answers before anyone else could answer), she's given... the most challenging horse for her to tame, which is an extreme handful to even ride. Despite her attempts, she fails to make the horse listen to simple commands and ditches it, preferring her imaginary (talking) horse.
• No Social Skills: She's generally socially inept and doesn't fully understand the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. "Human Flesh" shows several of the other Belchers outright admitting she's not good with customers (punctuated with Tina repeatedly scratching her crotch in public and Louise calling her autistic), and her tendency to write "erotic friend-fiction" weirds out everyone who learns about it.
• Not So Above It All: Tina's a Nice Girl who genuinely wants the best for everyone. However, as much as she dislikes Tammy's mean and shallow personality, Tina has shown that she can be just as superficial and shallow as Tammy. Some examples include calling Louise and Henry nerdy/dorky for their interests despite her own weirder interests, and the fact that she seeks out the supposedly 'popular' kids including Tammy, Jocelyn, Jimmy Jr. and Zeke even though they don't care about her, nor do they respect her, over students that do respect her such as Susmita and Darryl to a degree.
• Not So Stoic: She has her moments of showing emotions like fear or anger, though those are far and few between.
• Odd Name Out: She's the only female Belcher (not counting several of Linda's relatives since they're only related to the Belchers through marriage) whose name doesn't start with the letter L (see her mother Linda, sister Louise, and grandmother Lily).
• Older Sidekick: To Louise, being her older sister and one of her core two followers.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Whenever she's not being a shy or awkward girl, something's not right.
  • In "The Unnatural", when she gets obsessed with caffeine, she becomes extremely hostile, even to Jimmy Jr., who is just as baffled as the audience is.
  • In "Lice Things Are Lice", when she learns that Mr. Frond is cheating on his girlfriend, her aunt Gayle, she very aggressively restrains him so that his head can be shaved for lice. Mr. Frond quickly informs Tina that's actually hurting him, something she'd never do to anyone intentionally.
  • In "V For Valentine-detta" Linda goes into Mama Bear mode when Louise and Nat discuss putting a dead horse in Jimmy Jr.'s backpack and Tina doesn’t react to any of the "dead horse" mentions.
  • In the Season 12 finale, her self-confidence and strong moral compass are replaced by self-doubt and a willingness to do anything to correct what she views as wrong, showing that Tammy's bullying and the faculty's apathy to it is actually getting to her and wearing her down.
• Perpetual Frowner: It's usually more of a straight line mouth than a frown, but it still counts.
• The Pig-Pen: Downplayed as Tina isn't dirty by any means, but it's been stated many times that Tina doesn't have perfect hygiene and doesn't really take care of herself that well. Mentions of her having reportedly terrible fish-like breath has become something of a Running Gag, Yap implies that she doesn't brush her teeth very well and even Tina says that she doesn't floss much (only doing so on her birthday, meaning once a year) and Gene and Louise imply that she has potent body odor which is apparently strong enough to keep dogs away and is on par with Teddy's 'panic stink'.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: As the oldest Belcher and the only teenager, she's more mature than Louise and Gene, and has a better understanding about adult topics including sex and puberty, yet she Still Believes in Santa despite being 13 years old.
• Pinocchio Nose: She cannot lie to authority figures without her face becoming absolutely bananas. She gets this from her father.
• Playing Cyrano: Plays this role for Tammy in "Sleeping With the Frenemy". Just like Cyrano himself, Tina winds up falling in love (though it ends much better for her than it did for Cyrano).
• Polyamory: Never actually shown in the works, but she has indicated an interest in this kind of relationship. Unfortunately for her, the two boys she proposes this idea to are very much not interested.
  Tina: Let's put the "try" in "triangle".
• Pungeon Master: She loves making puns, just ask her porcelain horse, Horcelain. Another trait she gets from her father.
• Punny Name: Possibly unintentional, but the name 'Tina' is perfect for a TEEN-age girl such as herself, experiencing the struggles of adolescence and puberty.
• Really Gets Around: Tina is the G (sometimes PG)-rated version of this trope.
  "Is it possible to be in love with 25 people at once?"
• Real-Person Fic: She's an avid writer of "erotic friend-fiction", which regularly stars herself, her classmates (most often Jimmy Jr.), and even her teachers.
• Red Herring: She's initially set up as next-in-line to run the restaurant, being The Reliable One among her siblings and the only one Bob actually trusts to do work (not to mention "Sexy Dance Fighting", in which Bob has an Imagine Spot showing Tina running the restaurant as an adult). Fast-forward to "Carpe Museum", where it's revealed that if anyone is the heir apparent to Bob's Burgers, it's Louise.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's the quiet, withdrawn Blue Oni to Zeke's loud, bombastic Red Oni. She also has this dynamic with Louise, remaining the Blue Oni while Louise takes Zeke's place as the Red.
• The Reliable One: She's the Belcher child that Bob and Linda are most likely to give responsibility to, both due to her being the oldest and the fact that Louise and Gene are inconsistent at best and active hindrances at worst.
• Running Gag: Every time she (happily) greets Jimmy Jr., it's usually accompanied by a blunt, almost annoyed greeting to Zeke (who never gets the hint regarding her animosity).
  "Hi, Jimmy Jr.! (flatly) Zeke."
• School Newspaper Newshound: Hosts a hard news segment on the school TV newscast and made and broadcast her own news program with Louise's help after the school TV newscast shoots down her desire to investigate the "Mad Pooper/Butt-ler" mystery.
• Shared Family Quirks:
  • She inherited her father's obsession with playing with inanimate objects (although she doesn't hold lengthy conversations with them like her father and Louise) and his nicknaming.
  • She's just as dense and oblivious as her mother, if not more so. Both of them are incapable of picking up on hints or implications and need things spelled out for them after everyone else has figured it out. Both of them also tend to be Extreme Doormats when trying to please other people, and have idealistic viewpoints on romance.
  • In Season 8's "The Bleakening," Bob and Linda discuss how bad Bob is at wrapping Christmas presents, both comparing him to "a blind, drunk bear." Season 12's "Gene's Christmas Break" shows Tina is actually worse than him at wrapping presents, to the point that Linda once mistook a gift from her as garbage.
• Shipper on Deck: When she finds a couple she likes, she latches onto it.
  • "Bad Tina" implies that she ships (or used to ship) Mr. Frond and Ms. Jacobson, even though the two have very rarely interacted.
  • She originally shipped Teddy with Helen when she realized he likes her. However, she quickly thinks he and Kathleen have more chemistry. She gets her wish by "Comet-y of Errors".
  • She was the only one among her family to think their aunt Gayle and her new boyfriend Mr. Frond could be good together, to the point where when Gayle thinks they broke up, he's the only guy she could think of setting her up with. At least until it turns out he was cheating on her, after which she immediately becomes hostile towards him and abandons ship.
• Shrinking Violet: She's normally shy and socially awkward, likely as a result of general teenage hormones. That said, she does have moments where she does break out of her shell.
• Signature Hair Decs: Her tiny yellow barrette is always on, and comes into play in "Food Truckin'" when she "transforms" into Dina by switching it to her left side. A barrette is also the first thing both Gene and Louise decide on giving her when the kids plan a Christmas gift exchange. In the movie, she turns a barrette into a necklace that she plans to give Jimmy Jr. as a token of love. When she discards it at Wonder Wharf, Jimmy Jr. finds it and takes it back to her, as seeing the barrette/necklace immediately made him think of her.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Downplayed; Tina shows an interest in nearly any boy she meets, and occasionally this goes far enough to see her date or even kiss said boy. However, she always ends up back to focusing on one boy in particular: Jimmy Pesto Jr., and her attempts at getting with him have spanned many a season. This has had consequences in the show; her prospective relationship with Josh ended because she couldn't move on from Jimmy Jr. completely.
• Smart Jerk and Nice Moron: The Nice Moron to Louise's Smart Jerk. Louise is shown to be very intelligent and good at planning, which she often exploits in order to manipulate other people for self-gain, while Tina is airheaded and doesn't think things through, but is very kind and selfless.
• Smelly Feet: Tina apparently has this problem. In "Eggs For Days", the Belchers wake up to a nasty smell in the apartment; among Louise's first guesses as to the culprit are Tina's breath, Tina's armpits, and Tina's shoes.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: A major facet of Tina's character is that her teenage hormones lead her to fall in love with anything. Not anyone, anything.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch: When disguised as a boy in "Just One of the Boyz 4 Now for Now", her alias is called Dino.
• Still Believes in Santa: While it's not a stretch for the nine year-old Louise to believe, and the eleven year-old Gene is pushing it but still somewhat plausible, Bob is thrown for a loop when he realizes the thirteen year-old Tina is still a firm believer in the big man. In "Christmas in the Car", Bob nearly thanked her for "playing along" for Gene and Louise before realizing she didn't actually know the truth.
• The Stoic: Does not show a wide range of emotion.
• Straight Man: Her mellow and milquetoast persona is quite a contrast to the rest of her family, especially Louise, and whenever Bob isn't present she's generally the voice of reason.
• Stupidly Long Filler Sound: Her main catchphrase is an elongated groan, which she often does whenever confused, nervous, or upset. A special note goes to "Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks", where she groans for 30 seconds straight during the opening sequence of her driving (and crashing) Bob's car, as well as "V for Valentine-detta", where she apparently managed to hold it for half a day (albeit with nearly all of it offscreen). Gene lampshades it in "Crystal Mess".
  Gene: Did someone switch Tina to white noise?
• Super Gullible: Due to being a Ditz a good majority of the time, she falls for almost all of Louise's tricks and easily believes even the most bizarre claims from other characters even though it's obvious to the viewer that they're lying through their teeth. Sometimes she'll still believe them even when they point-blank tell her they're lying (such as "Wag the Hog", where a character lies to her about a nearby horse and then has to repeatedly explain to her that there is no horse).
• Sympathetic Adulterer: In "Ain't Miss Debatin'" she kisses Duncan while still dating Henry (she was planning to dump Henry, but at that time they were still together). However, she is depicted as no less sympathetic for it, and nobody really acknowledges it after Tina mentions it when dumping Henry; the break-up itself is more focused on since it nearly sabotages Wagstaff's chances at winning a debate, and even after that Henry doesn't seem to hold any hard feelings over having technically been cheated on.
• Tender Tears: Bob will usually cave into Tina’s demands whenever she cries. Louise will also display her most compassionate side.
• Thinks Like a Romance Novel: And writes like them too! She gets this from her mother AND aunt. Subverted in that she does know better but prefers enforcing the fantasy.
• Token Good Teammate: Between the three Belcher kids, she's almost always the voice of reason, and Gene outright calls her the good sibling in "Uncle Teddy".
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the Girly Girl to Louise's Tomboy; though she isn't particularly feminine, her interests in unicorns, romance, and boys are more feminine than Louise's interests.
• Took a Level in Badass: Became much more aggressive and confident in later seasons towards everyone in general. In regards to her rivalry with Tammy, Tina has amazingly become assertive and equally volatile as the former, even making very hostile remarks to her and openly challenging her when provoked.
  Tina: Why don't you staple your mouth shut, 'cause your face keeps falling open and dumb words keep coming out.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Downplayed, while Tina is still an optimist at heart, Tammy's bullying has made her noticeably more insecure to where Tina even asks her parents if they think she's pretty and takes Tammy's criticism a lot more harshly and begins to wonder if her words are true, a bit of a far cry from the confidence Tina had displayed in earlier seasons. The Season 12 finale has her view the world as a harsh and unforgiving place, also a result of Tammy's bullying.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Tina's always been airheaded and spacy, but later seasons have only further highlighted how simple-minded she is to the point where she can't even take the most basic, obvious hint, genuinely doesn't understand when someone is saying 'no', has trouble with even the simplest things, and struggles in school to the point that Jocelyn has gotten better grades than her.
  • This also applies to her crush on Jimmy Jr.; over the course of the series, Jimmy Jr. has only become even more distant towards her, strings her along for the ride and clearly has no real intention to commit to her, yet Tina still chases after him even though there have been many times where Jimmy Jr. has hurt her and disregarded her, to the point where her whole family has expressed disapproval of this crush that's going nowhere.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In the first season, Tina was generally nice, but had shades of being a Bratty Teenage Daughter and could be surprisingly mean to Bob himself (and not even in an Innocently Insensitive way). Starting from the second season, her brattiness has mostly vanished and she's shown to sincerely love her father.
• True Blue Femininity: Blue is her signature color and she's the most feminine Belcher.
• Tsundere: To Zeke; even though he's always friendly to Tina, she is frequently cold towards him because she believes she's competing with him over Jimmy Jr.'s attention. However, whenever Jimmy Jr. is out of the picture, she's much friendlier towards Zeke and has even shown signs of liking him back.
• The Unfavorite: Subverted. On the surface, Bob bonds better with Louise, while Linda bonds better with Gene, leaving Tina as the odd one out. In spite of this, Bob and Linda make it very clear that they love her equally to her siblings, and go to great lengths to make her happy. Any hints of favoritism are also explained by Tina being a teenager (she's going to want more time to herself), as well as her siblings being significantly more energetic (they require more attention). Not to mention that if Tina is the less-favored of her siblings, she doesn't seem to have any hang-ups about it.
• Unknown Rival: To Zeke. She sees him as an opponent for Jimmy Jr.'s attention, whereas Zeke sees her as a friend and has hinted to be attracted to her as well. It's worth noting that it's really only when Jimmy Jr. is present—she's much nicer to Zeke when he's out of the picture.
• The Unsmile: Her "everything is okay" face, depicted in "Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks" (and later in "The Gene & Courtney Show") when everything is decidedly not okay.
• Verbal Tic: Usually makes an elongated monotoned groan when nervous. In Season 3, this evolved into loud hyperventilation noises ("HUH! HUH!"), although the moan comes back from time to time.
• Vocal Evolution: In the first two seasons, she would never raise her voice above a monotone. By Season 3, she would start occasionally shouting when provoked.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Season 12 finale sees her attempt to destroy a touchscreen used for the school news to stop Tammy from using it to bully people (including her) when she learns the hard way that Adults Are Useless. While her motive is understandable, destroying an expensive piece of school property would get her in a ton of trouble (and likely force the Belchers to pay for a replacement they can't afford), so her family has to rush to stop her before she can do the deed.
• What Does She See in Him?: Her family (especially her parents) aren't sure why she even likes Jimmy Jr. in the first place, given he often ignores her at best and is actively hostile to her at worst.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: Tina is a very honest person, and it's difficult for her to lie, with her mostly having to be pressured into it by other, more dishonest people. When she's in a situation where she has to, such as in "Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks", she feels incredibly guilty about it. Also, she is clearly hesitant to sell their newly-discovered ambergris on the black market in "Ambergris".
• Will They or Won't They?: With Jimmy Jr., though as a result of this non-commitment her family's opinion of Jimmy Jr. is gradually getting lower.
• With Friends Like These...: The friend group she orbits around; Jimmy Jr., Zeke, Tammy, and Jocelyn; are more prone to be boring hassles than actual friends to Tina. She is convinced they are the popular kids and her best shot at a friend group, regardless of the fact that she doesn't particularly enjoys hanging out with them ("Vampire Disco Death Dance" and "FOMO You Didn't" show that she finds their hobbies and hangout spots mindlessly boring compared to hanging out with her father and Susmita). Tammy in particular outright hates and sabotages Tina in almost all her appearances.
• Yaoi Fan Girl: To the point that she even ships her own father.
  • Tina has fantasies about two male zombies making out in front of her. This is because after watching Night of the Living Dead (1968) her zombie nightmares started blending with her hormonal teenage arousal dreams.
  • In "Burger Wars", Mr. Fischoeder took bets on how Bob and Jimmy Pesto's fight would end. When it ended with the two leaning on each other for support after exhausting themselves, Tina won some money because she bet that they'd end up hugging each other (which is close enough to what actually happened).
  • In "Mutiny on the Windbreaker", Tina really wants Bob and Duval to French-kiss after Bob turns down the latter's advances.
    Duval: Kiss me!
    Bob: Not now. Not a good time.
    Duval: Then when?!
    Tina: French-kiss that Frenchman.
  • During her story in "The Handyman Can", she includes a lot of blatant subtext between Bob and Teddy, including the former affectionately sitting on the latter's lap. This does not go unnoticed by Bob.
• You Need a Breath Mint: Something of a Running Gag is Tina's family, especially Gene and Louise, saying that Tina has terrible breath (Louise tried subtly tricking her into using mouthwash, which clearly didn't work) and at one point even Tammy commented that her breath is so bad it should be reported to the FBI.

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