#love how someone in the writing room rly said ''✨ let's give ALL the dads trauma <333 ✨'' /j

[octoagentmiles]

hello hello hello, i come bearing headcanons for my dearest octoagents <3 the old mens™

angst cw for some of em, woops- (mentions/descriptions of anxiety, and implied trauma)

Natquik:

the Antarctica Incident had a much greater toll on him than he realizes. he's just ✨ Fine™ ✨ y'know? nbd <3 (he's not fine somebody please hug him-)

has a Thing about things breaking/not working. it causes him to immediately panic and have a million thoughts rush through his head about how he'll survive the weather, how much food he has, etc., even if it's something small.

he also doesn't like being alone for too long. you'd think he'd be "used to it", but nope.

but on the bright side: contrary to popular belief, he wasn't completely alone while trapped. he befriended a lot of penguins. mostly against his will, but still.

1000000000% views Barnacles as his son but he'll never admit it.

so gosh darn fluffy. basically canon but yeah. aside from the adorableness it's kinda a burden because he'd probably overheat really fast if he left his station.

fluent in Russian, and used to have a habit of muttering Impolite Words™ under his breath—until reuniting with a grown-up Barnacles who picked up some Russian in his worldly travels. now he only does it in private.

he watched the great penguin race. he saw and/or heard Barnacles there, but wasn't sure if it was him. they left before he worked up the courage had a chance to talk to them.

Calico Jack:

mmmmmmmmmm. undiagnosed autistic. masks really well but only among other pirates, who have completely different social rules and whatnot. he's struggling now because he doesn't know how to mask anymore. he doesn't need to, because literally all the Octonauts are neurodivergent, but pshh

he's going through a redemption arc in his head. no one else knows about it because everyone likes him already and thinks he's great, but he can't see that.

his leg will start to hurt really bad if he runs on it too much—he tries to avoid it if he can, but sometimes he's stubborn, or just forgets (until it's too late).

three words: phantom limb syndrome.

has anxiety and gets nightmares. he's good at hiding it, but sometimes a really bad one will bother him for a day or two.

Emotional Support Bird Pete Emotional Support Bird Pete Emotional Support Bird Pete Emotional Support Bird Pete Emotional Su-

wrote hundreds of letters to Kwazii when he was in the Amazon, but never sent them. he still wants to give them to him one day.

his eyepatch used to be covering the opposite eye—that's why Kwazii's is on that side, and why his statue (slime eels) and mini carving (pirate parrotfish) both have it on the wrong way. he switched it over when he left to hide live in the Amazon.

Marsh:

genuinely forgets that he's green sometimes. someone will comment on it and he'll be like "????? oh right–"

sings; he used to make up road trip songs with Tweak when she was little. he still knows them all by heart.

slightly hard of hearing (for rabbit standards). hi @timegays. you did this to me /pos

Him 🤝 Barnacles: separation anxiety and a secret fear of storms. i will not elaborate further <3

highkey a dad to 90% of the Everglades creatures. every single one of them is like family to him.

he grew up side-by-side with a lot of the older swamp critters (Belle The Turtle, & maybe Flo The Flamingo), he considers them like his siblings.

his first name is literally "Ranger": he had it legally changed, so that he and Tweak (who decided to go by "Tweak" when she got into engineering) could both be named after their interests.

unintentionally inspired Tweak's engineering special interest. that motorboat he has in The Alligator-Shark? it used to break down constantly, until he taught her how to fix it. she fixed it ONCE and it never broke down again. it gave her such a rush of euphoria that she went around fixing everything, and eventually building new things. and she just,, never stopped.