Some messy Tarantula Crew headcanons/thoughts I posted on Discord but will also post here:
THADE
--doesn't have a natural sense of what colors go well together and which ones clash, and also just really loves all colors, so he used to dress really gaudily, until people bullied him about it. now he just wears black and white.
--always looks 2 minutes away from dying. this is just how he looks normally.
LILLIAN
--i don't really have anything interesting to say about her lmao. like i love her, i love feral women, i like to draw her and put her in situations, but i don't really have any headcanons off the top of my head
RED MARY
--the crew calls her red
--smokes and has a gravelly smoker's voice (which was also probably caused by the smoke of all the fires she sets)
--her personality is a pain to develop, let me tell you. i keep feeling like she's too similar to my version of skin-taker (not being outright hateful and just killing bc she enjoys it and doesn't see it as wrong)
BOAR
--this was inspired by how the wiki used to say that the hogs crew's captain (who is possibly supposed to be the same guy as boar) was twice as tall as the other puppets. i headcanon him to be between 6'10" and 7' tall. maybe taller...
--a very wholesome guy. but don't mistake his kindness for weakness, and don't mistake his optimism for stupidity
--was a proper sailor before joining the crew. possibly a merchant sailor or a whaler. he's the most knowledgeable about nautical stuff.
SCHOT
--he got caught by the navy at some point in his past. the scars on his face are from the earl of wax's clawed torture glove. (my interp of him has 5 scars across the whole width of his face and not just his eyes)
--he was a high-ranking member of the red-handed jacks (green gregory's crew, and also the most feared pirate crew of the time), which is why earl came after him so hard. earl was also the one to target and kill his wife.
--he's blind in one eye (from earl torturing him), so when he shoots, he doesn't have to close one eye, so it seems as though he's just staring into the soul of whoever he's shooting
DR. MORT
--he doesn't have eyelids so he just constantly stares at people.
--he's immune to sleep deprivation because he used to have a very demanding career as both a head surgeon at candle cove's hospital and a main contributor in cc's medical academia. like he can sleep for 3 hours and feel well-rested.
--unsophisticated frenchman representation. he owns like 3 outfits total, smells musty 24/7, and is banned from the kitchen because one time he thought lemons and oranges were interchangeable in recipes
CONEA
--i have nothing really interesting to say about him tbh. i wish i was less bored by him, but he's just kinda... there.
--he has long luxurious hair and it makes him look like a male model.
TALAPIO
--i mentioned this before, but i hc her to have been just a normal (but weirdly big) spider before she got light magic. her previous owner was a light magician who gave her their powers on their deathbed.
--she's another one of those characters who i definitely think has potential but i'm weirdly not that invested in. i should think about her more. it's pretty interesting, to think what it would have been like to go from having a bug's intelligence to being smarter than any human...
BONUS! THE UNNAMED COOK
--her name is gwen and she's a no-bullshit old welsh lady
--that's it. i only think about her like, once a year.
Boar, Dr. Mort (although he spends most nights working in his office), and later Thade
Schot and Percy
Conea sleeps in the water
HEIGHTS
BOAR IS HUGE. The wiki says that if he was a puppet in the show, he would have been almost as tall as Janice, which would make him, like, twice as tall as the other puppet characters?? So I headcanon him to be like, over 7 feet tall. A literal giant. Why not?
Everyone else on the crew is also fairly tall. Thade is quite tall (but by a normal amount, not tall like Boar), and Lillian and Schot are a few inches shorter than him.
Red Mary isn't short by typical standards (she's like... 5'4" I guess?) but seems short compared to the rest of the crew.
Dr. Mort is SMALL. He's shorter than Mary and just barely taller than Percy (but he's catching up to him!)
Percy is at a normal 12-year-old boy height. Auburn is a little shorter.
Conea is also probably 7 feet tall, but that's average for a merman.
Disclaimer: I'm bad at visualizing height, so if this is confusing... that's why
LILLIAN
Strong sense of justice and what's right.
Has a code about paying back debts. Like, the only reason she let Mary join the crew was because she (supposedly) saved them once. This is also why she lets Dr. Mort stay even though people have tried to get him fired (he's saved their lives multiple times and she thinks it would be wrong).
Her reason for becoming a pirate was pretty silly and not thought through (teenage/young adult rebellion), but it worked out for her.
I imagine her to be very tan and have lots of freckles.
Feral.
Follows her gut rather than common sense sometimes.
THADE
Talks a lot. Constantly asks questions. Annoys people.
He’s normally quiet and shy but talkative towards people he knows well.
Manic pixie dream boy! He and Lillian are manic pixie dream people to each other.
Is Percy’s cool older brother/cool young uncle figure
He's the scout of the crew.
(There are other parallels between him and Percy as well)
Was a tailor (or tanner? I'm not sure) before he joined the crew.
RED MARY
She's the first mate.
She hides the full extent of her powers from the crew.
Her normal-power-level magic causes her to generate fire in the air (like that Dragon Ball fireball thing), but her super powerful magic actually causes fire to come out of her skin.
(CW for really severe burns) Her hands and arms are badly burned because of it, and she's missing fingernails and some parts of her fingers.
And in the future (like when the show of Candle Cove takes place), her hands and forearms (plus some other parts of her body) are just bones. Like she burned all her flesh off. (CW over)
Either she is able to ignore pain, or she got Mort to do brain surgery on her so she no longer felt pain.
She’s both smart and calculating but also prone to following her impulses.
She doesn't have any complicated motivation for being evil, I don't think. She just likes to burn and kill and destroy for fun. Like a child burning ants with a magnifying glass.
My voice headcanon for her is Amanda Palmer.
PERCY
Lillian assigned him the duty of teaching Thade about how Candle Cove works (because everyone else are adults and have things to get done) and they’re close because of it.
Reckless. Needs to be supervised. Causes Schot so much anxiety.
Stands up for himself. Would get into arguments with grown adults.
Kind of a little shit, honestly–
Loves and relies on the crew more than he’d like to admit.
BOAR
Sometimes frightens people due to his absurd height but is very soft and kind.
His relationship to Lillian is that they were friends (like found-family siblings, basically), and he took care of her after her parents disowned her.
If you meet him, he's your friend. You don't have a choice.
There's a running gag of him acting more fatherly towards Percy than Schot. Like, Schot would swear, and Boar would gasp and cover Percy's ears. Things like that.
The story of how he got his nickname is embarrassing and he gets flustered if people bring it up.
Used to be a whaler before he became a pirate.
SCHOT
Everyone else is sort of suspicious of Red Mary, but Schot is the only one who seriously distrusts her. He's spoken to Lillian about it, but she thinks that it's just his hypervigilance/past trauma causing him to see proof that isn't there.
He was imprisoned by the NPHC once but (barely) escaped. The scars over his eyes are from the Earl of Wax and his Freddy Krueger torture glove.
He's blind in one eye (caused by Earl torturing him).
Doesn't really enjoy being a pirate. He's sick of all the violence and danger and just wants to settle down and live safely with Percy.
The only reason he's with the crew is because the navy is after him and he knows he can't live anywhere in Candle Cove without them eventually finding him again.
His dolphin necklace used to belong to his wife.
CONEA
I feel bad for him because he stays in the water and can't come on deck and interact with the crew.
He probably doesn't mind though. He seems like a loner/introvert.
Used to be part of the Amantis military and developed explosives for war. He regrets this.
Was outcast from Amantis for rebelling against the government and whatever wars they were fighting.
Secretive about his past
I am compelled by the idea of him having, like, mechanical legs? And being able to walk around the ship and interact with people, but I don't know. I think him staying in the water the whole time could be compelling too if it's done well.
DR. MORT
Acts aloof, like he's just an employee of the crew and not actually part of the crew/"family".
Very… lowkey. People barely notice when he is or isn't around. Hides out in his office all the time unless there's a crew meeting or something.
Once the crew visited Banana Land to get fruits, and then they left, and then like 3 hours later, they realized Mort was gone and that they had left him there--
Soft voice. Pleasant smile. Actually has a sort of comforting presence if he's not operating on you.
He weighs about… 10 pounds? (he is just a large ragdoll) and has been blown/thrown off the deck of the ship more than once.
Do you know how stuffed animals that have been around for generations get skrunkly and pilly and sort of gross? That's kind of how he looks. (Look up "Too Much Love photo series" for examples of what I mean.)
Everyone there sort of dislikes (or is scared of) him, but he isn't bothered by it.
TALAPIO
She didn't have human-level intelligence until she got light magic. She was just a normal (but large) spider.
She was previously kept as a pet by a powerful light magician who gifted her their powers on their deathbed.
Her powers: being supernaturally smart, mind-reading, predicting the future, knowing things that are otherwise impossible to know, glowing.
Her role in the crew is a seer. Like, she finds hidden treasure and stuff like that.
The crew calls her Tilly for short.
She CAN communicate with people somehow even though she can’t talk. She writes or uses Morse code or something.
She either "left" when Mary joined the crew, like the wiki says (Mary knew that Talapio knew her true intentions and killed her before she could tell anyone), or Mary just threatened to kill her if she told anyone in order to keep her quiet.
AUBURN
Oh, you thought PERCY was a little shit?!!
I like the idea in the fandom of her being adopted. Like, Lillian just found her someplace. (I don't think Lillian would have a whole baby in such a dangerous environment.)
What if... she was a runaway?
Around 10 years old.
Lillian, Thade, Boar, and Schot are all her parents.
Took on personality traits from all the crew members.
She and Percy disliked each other at first but eventually became close siblings.
There are parallels between her and Janice. Like, with her being separated by her family and then being raised by a pirate crew. Janice reminds Percy of her in ways.
Has a strong sense of justice that Lillian taught her.
I'm on the fence if I want her to be the same character as Flaming Dragon from the Hogs Crew. Like, I think it would be compelling if she learns she has fire magic after having been traumatized by fire before. But I also like Flaming Dragon and want her to be her own character with no backstory I have to take into consideration.
