Squishclops

I just finished a 3 day convention, and one of my most popular stickers was this:

People laughed at it, then commented that times are indeed trying right now. I replied that this is kind of my ethos; offering people a silly little creature to offset the crushing weight of... *gestures at everything*

But it also goes deeper than that. My creatures, Squishclopses, have a bit of lore - they're shapeshifting aliens, who can take any form but can't change their one eye. Their home planet has been threatened, and they've come to Earth and are trying to blend in. But - as I always like to emphasize - they aren't dangerous, they aren't out for world domination. They take the forms of things humans like, from pets to food to cryptids and more, because they just want to be safe and taken care of.

I didn't explicitly intend anything with this lore, but I am neurodivergent and chronically ill, and I think it's easy to read commentary about disability into that lore.

I'm also staunchly pro-immigration, and I think you can also really easily read commentary about *that* into the lore as well.

And if you do read that lore as disability or immigration commentary, I think it's also very easy to view the commentary as paternalistic! Largely because I was not explicitly thinking about the commentary when I made the lore, I was working backwards from aesthetic choices I have already made!

Threads: Squishclops

Tiktok: Squishclops

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Bluesky: squishclops.bsky.social

Threads: Squishclops

Tiktok: Squishclops

Instagram: Squishclops

Bluesky: squishclops.bsky.social

meowdy, and here's a little art challenge for december my minnows and i have been cooking up! i know month long art challenges can be kind of intimidating to some people, so i figured making a week long one could encourage people to give longer challenges a try!