Freelance illustrator from Canada. I usually draw animals/creatures/fandoms. I don't go on Tumblr much anymore ;w; Links: My art only- #mine Instagram! deviantArts
Regarding the transgender and autistic coding of Octodad: Dadliest Catch.
To preface: this essay will be in two parts. One with spoilers, and one without. The spoilers will be hidden under a cut, and optional.
Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a 2014 action/adventure game in which the protagonist, known only as “Octodad”, is an octopus masquerading as a human man. If it sounds ridiculously goofy, that’s because it is. Octodad rarely takes itself seriously, and that works to its credit.
Now, before going any further, I want to take a moment to lay some groundwork for the premise of the game and how it relates to otherness. Octodad, being an octopus, is fundamentally Other. He is a nonhuman in disguise, he is living a lie, et cetera. The concept of beings that disguise themselves as human is an old one, from Greek gods seeking hospitality to changelings left behind as supernatural brood parasites. They are shapeshifters and deceivers, whose stories are born from the fear of Otherness. And more often than not, these beings have malicious intent.
But Octodad, fundamentally, does not. He is a loving father and husband who hides his identity out of fear. He is Other, and this otherness isn’t portrayed as predatory or evil in any way. And viewing this story through the lens of Octodad, controlling his actions, the player gets to know a little bit about him.
Back to the trailer— Octodad’s gameplay is showcased, and it’s immediately obvious that the control scheme isn’t exactly typical. Players must control each limb individually, resulting in sloppy, uncoordinated movements. Octodad stumbles through the grocery store, across a play set, leaving destruction in his wake. He isn’t trying to make a mess, unlike a certain goose, but rather, this is the natural result of what he is. He’s literally a fish out of water— and yes, he is a fish if you’re pedantic enough about cladistics, which I am going to be for the sake of this metaphor.
The control scheme is deliberately messy, a stylistic choice that forces the player to constantly remember that Octodad is something Other, and the resulting mistakes have consequences. The levels are designed in such a way that even an experienced player will have to make a mess at times, and it comes with a sense of shame— after all, a normal protagonist could do this. Mario could platform his way through this grocery store with no problem! But Octodad can’t. He slips on banana peels and breaks open crates and spills fruit all over the linoleum. And the UI forces you to be constantly aware of when others are watching, furthering that sense of shame.
The game won’t punish you for slipping up sometimes. But the mess you’ve made, the judgmental gazes of the NPCs, will. You are an imposter, facing a constant uphill battle to perform difficult and unnatural tasks that are effortless for the humans around you. They cannot see that you’re an octopus. They do not know that you’re an octopus. So long as you are wearing your suit, no one can tell, even with the tentacles and bulbous head and suckers on your limbs. But they can see your mistakes, and your failures.
How does that relate to autism and transgenderism? Well, let’s start with autism, since the transgender coding is mostly in story spoiler territory, while the autism is largely in the gameplay mechanics. Autism is a pretty broad spectrum, and it’s difficult to point at something and definitively call it autistic-coded when the autistic experience varies so drastically from person to person. But Octodad and his Otherness, even as a silly octopus, strongly parallels autistic masking.
Octodad’s enforced sense of shame strongly resonates with the autistic experience— constantly aware of eyes on you, always messing up because no one explained the rules to you properly, or struggling with sensory issues or executive dysfunction when everyone is trying to convince you that your experiences are normal and you’re just being dramatic. And in that sense, it’s cathartic to see Octodad, because he is unmistakably and undeniably Other. You cannot say “Oh, honey, everyone’s a little octopus, you’re just not trying hard enough,” to an octopus the way that neurotypicals often do with autistic people. You cannot deny him his Otherness which causes his struggles.
Remember the changeling story I mentioned earlier? Changeling myths and autism are inextricably connected, and far too often, they demonize autism. The problem with trying to define humanity in a way that excludes imposters that pretend to be human is that you will inevitably end up excluding and hurting people, particularly those who are neurodivergent, queer, disabled, or otherwise in a minority. So, if you cannot define humanity without excluding humans from the definition, then it serves to reason that broadening your scope will include non-humans. And this is portrayed as an unambiguously good thing, to acknowledge the humanity of an octopus.
Real life isn’t like Among Us, where the imposters are murderous freaks who unhinge their jaws and chomp off the top half of their fellow crewmates before hopping into the vents. Sometimes, they’re scared people who go through life hurting because they tried to be normal until they forgot who they were.
And now, let’s examine the story and talk about the further coding it contains. The first thing that catches my attention is Octodad’s morning routine— coffee. It seems innocuous at first, but it’s later revealed that this is the only reason Octodad has the ability to walk upright, because he’s constantly self-medicating with caffeine.
There’s a very domestic portion of the game where you see just how much Octodad adores his family, he does the chores for his wife whom he loves a lot, and then— he survives a couple murder attempts. His neighbor knows he’s an octopus, is a chef at the local grocery store, and is the main antagonist of the game. He breaks down the fence between their yards with some sort of nightmarish combine-harvester machine that nearly sucks in Octodad, but the situation is resolved quickly enough. Then, just a little later in the day, he goes out to the grocery store, where the chef finds him and chases him with a knife, threatening to turn him into moderately priced sushi. Interestingly, though, is the fact that Octodad seems more worried about his wife finding out than the fact that he’s an octopus than the threats on his life. We don’t know how often these happen, but he just brushes this off and hopes to keep up the masquerade a little longer. He has to be human, he has to be normal in order to be loved, and nearly dying alone to his murderous neighbor is a small price to pay. And… it’s sad, honestly.
The real meat of the game, though, is at the aquarium. Octodad is frankly terrified of this place, but he can’t tell his wife why. There was a scene that stuck with me— it’s meant to introduce you to the fact that the Biologist enemies are a threat who will recognize and out you, but it made me think about TERFs. They always claim they can spot trans people, as if there’s some secret sense for it, as if a world in which women are subject to random and invasive genital inspections is somehow better than a world where the lady in the bathroom stall next to you is standing up to pee.
After getting through the first part of the museum, Octodad has to find each member of his family and do some minigame puzzles. The kids are absolutely adorable, but what struck me was the conversation with Scarlet, as she grows frustrated with Octodad’s secrecy. He sleeps downstairs, he somehow “made more” when the printer ran out of ink, he lost a limb in a plumbing accident but it somehow grew back, and he’s keeping things from her. He won’t have an honest conversation, and she’s getting frustrated.
Take a moment to imagine the veneer of metaphor peeled away. Imagine you have been married to a man you love for ten years, but you know he’s hiding something from you. He doesn’t sleep in the same bed as you, never wanted to consummate things, and you’ve respected his privacy and consent, but he won’t explain why. He’s ecstatic about raising kids together, but he doesn’t want biological ones. There are these instances you can’t explain, like his sudden insistence on buying a shark plushie from IKEA, or the time you caught him mailing a tank top (was it a tank top, really, because you never got a good look at it) to someone and he looked guilty. You find a list of names, some of them crossed out, and wonder who these women are. He never wants to look in the mirror or have pictures taken. You love him and you want to respect his privacy, but the secrets are driving a rift between you.
Imagine it from the other side, now. You have been married to the woman you love for ten years. She doesn’t know you’re trans, and you’re terrified she’ll leave you if she finds out.. She didn’t seem to mind when you told her you didn’t want to get horizontal, but she doesn’t know it’s because sex in this body makes you dysphoric. You love your children so much, they’re the light and joy of your life, but you can’t help but wonder if your wife wanted to have them the old-fashioned way. You try to escape what you are but it’s getting harder to repress. You know she suspects something. You ended up with a binder, and sent it to someone you met online. You bought yourself a Blåhaj and you don’t know why it was that desperation had seized up in your chest when you saw it. You spent ages on name websites, looking for the perfect one, writing them down to see how they felt. You have the most amazing wife in the world and she is slipping away because you couldn’t keep pretending.
Scarlet asks Octodad to meet her at the shark tank when he’s ready to have a real conversation. And the shark tank is where things get interesting— the chef is there, waiting. He cuts off Octodad’s clothes with a cleaver, and tosses him into the tank, yelling, “Go back where you belong!”
The thing about the coding of Octodad is that it’s never a consistent one-to-one. That particular line? Could be read as immigrant coding, out of context. But then, looking at how easily he moves in the water compared to the flopping rag doll movements on land. He no longer has to mask, he no longer has to hide himself and navigate a world that is hostile and judgmental to him.
And he’s miserable. He misses his family. And he’s determined to find them, and save them from the chef. So he sets off to do exactly that.
There’s a series of objectives to complete to get there, but the one that stuck with me? Sneaking into the women’s bathroom. Granted, it’s for the purpose of going through the vents and causing a diversion in the break room, but it still strikes me that Octodad, who presents as a male human, has to sneak into the women’s restroom. And this is presented not as some scandalous affair of a peeping Tom, not a forbidden thing, but just an objective. That’s where the proper vents are, after all.
On a sillier note? You walk into the aquarium in a shark suit, and you have to cause a diversion. So now, rather than Octodad’s clumsiness being a source of shame, it’s his strength, and it’s a point of pride. He’s an octopus! He’s excellent at making messes!
And then there’s the grand finale— it’s corny and dramatic and there’s a cafeteria on fire, and the truth is out. He’s an octopus.
And Scarlet? She says she was expecting so much worse. She loves her octopus husband exactly as he is, and no matter what adjustments she has to make, she knows her family will be stronger for it. Because now, she has the chance to love her husband in his entirety, in his Otherness, and she takes it.
Octodad is a story about an octopus walking around in a suit and pretending to be a normal human man, but it’s also a story about being closeted, masking, living in fear, and finally realizing that the love remains. That there are people who will love you as you are, genuinely and truly, tentacles and all.
THE CITY WE CHOSE is now on Kickstarter so hurry up and back the project! It's been super nice to work with this people and it's going to be such a nice anthology you def want to have it. My short comic is titled BITTERSWEET ICE CREAM and it's 12 pages of watercolours, city exploration, dad and son understanding each other, ice creams, mosquitoes and cats. I'm very happy of the final looks, so please, go and check the project.
Some sketch pages from various train rides. The mood of a near-empty, silent, cozily warm long-distance train gliding through a rainy night, combined with music and drawing, is among the most relaxing things in this world.
We had to write a Mini Comic for my Illustration Class so I did mine based on The Frog and The Scorpion. Hopefully you all know the story!
But if you don’t know the story… In the original the scorpion stings the frog in the middle of the river. When the frog asks “why” the scorpion says “it’s in my nature” and they both die. I like my ending more.
I always thought this story was fucked up, even when I heard it as a very young child. I even got put in the naughty corner, and a star next to my name crossed off for questioning it.
This story is so much better, and I like it’s message much more.
Also, the scorpion’s ‘nature’ is to not sting anything it doesn’t perceive as either a threat or food. A mysteriously helpful frog would be neither, and thus would be relatively safe.
The more sinister meaning of the original story is “kindness is wasted on scary people because there’s a chance they might exploit it.” Which translates into “don’t show kindness to strangers”. Which translates into absolute fucking bullshit.
I actually feel sorry for the likely unpaid intern sitting at tumblr HQ dealing with all our bullshit and snark while those actually in charge watch the world burn from a safe distance and blame it on us damn kids not buying more products. Because ultimately this is what this about. Verizon needs to make money from Tumblr, and Verizon can’t make money cause Apple says “no adult content” and Apple has a stranglehold on the app market.
The fact that a lot of us use tumblr to host our own services and products as independent creators, often as our only source of income, is irrelevant to them. The fact that to many of us this is our community is meaningless to them. We’re acceptable collateral damage to furthering corporate greed and that’s the fucking tea on that.
Also to the hypothetical unpaid intern: leave, sweety. You can do better, and you’re worth so much more.
(Image description: the lesbian, trans, pansexual, demisexual gay, polyamory, sapphic, queer, lesbian, demiboy, and demigirl pride flags with the words “not adult content” centered in white text. End image description.)
Posts being flagged as sensitive content and how to fix it
A ton of posts are now being flagged as sensitive content thanks to Tumblr’s new idea to make it adult content free. However, you can request a review so they can fix it. I know it’s tiring, and I know it’s not our fault that Tumblr can’t do a simple thing right, but I refuse to have any of my SFW creations being taken down just because Tumblr doesn’t know how to write an algorithm.
So here’s what you can do, even if you aren’t the OP.
Any post that has been flagged will show something like the image below at the top of the post, even if it’s a reblog.
If you’re the OP, a REVIEW link will show up at the right margin of the red bar where it says “Your post was flagged”. Click on it, and then click REQUEST REVIEW, like the image below.
After you’ll get a message in an orange bar saying “Your post is in content appeal”, meaning they’re evaluating whether their algorithm screwed up or not. If it was wrongfully marked as sensitive (and it most likely was), you’ll get an email being alerted to that your post is now visible to everyone again.
Alternatively, if you aren’t the OP, but your reblogs are flagged as well, (which in this case, you’ll see something like the image below in your flagged reblog), you can message the OP about it so they can request a review.
Please, don’t ignore this! It’s bad enough that adult content is being deleted because Tumblr can’t deal with p*rn bots, but having content that has absolutely nothing to with adult content being deleted as well can be fixed, even if we’re the ones who have to ask for said fix.
I was reading a book (about interjections, oddly enough) yesterday which included the phrase “In these days of political correctness…” talking about no longer making jokes that denigrated people for their culture or for the colour of their skin. And I thought, “That’s not actually anything to do with ‘political correctness’. That’s just treating other people with respect.”
Which made me oddly happy. I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase “politically correct” wherever we could with “treating other people with respect”, and it made me smile.
You should try it. It’s peculiarly enlightening.
I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking “Oh my god, that’s treating other people with respect gone mad!”
I don't post here much, but uh, here are my other social medias in case this all goes south: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashdune/ DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/e-pona/ Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/gerbopotato Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ashdune Good luck my friendos.
Our prompt this time around was including a hat of some kind, a necklace, and a jacket. We lost the necklace but somehow gained the hat and jacket again.
Our fashion designers were @absurdmageart @atinyhiccup @coconut-art @iveta-faerone-draws @baracatman @jolly-squish @runqii and @ashdoun who all did an amazing job!!
I organized a landscape art telephone, with the prompt of, a pond at dawn. It became Dawn on the Water and was an amazing and fun project to see come together.
Make sure to visit everyone’s blog to see more high res versions of their pieces
