A wonderful fellow, truly a lovely guy. For those unaware, he wrote a journal; everyone should go read it. Thank you for bringing him up. I do like him quite a bit.
pls talk more about tech and carrot and turtleshell🥺
Yeah fantastic idea :]
So the idea that's been on my mind since I first saw your epic ship was how another guy who once had an epic ship would react to it. (I'm very proud of this intro) Glass Bead.
I always thought Glass Bead and Carrot would be interesting dynamically because they're these total opposite characters. (Maybe foils but I don't know if this was on purpose or not.) Carrot is this super high up important head-scientist. (Head scientists were described in a QnA as the closest thing to an inner society government official that we'll see in the comic, I believe.) However, he's this unprofessional guy who dies of alcohol poisoning and has big crazy parties and shows up to be Turtleshell's tour guide in vacation clothes. From the little we know about him, he seems to show little care for others (knowingly eating the body of the person delivering said packaged meat to him is a good example of this) and he's irresponsible.
Glass Bead on the other hand is a former pirate ship captain. He's missing half his face. (Turtleshell says this only lends him sea-born nobility but that's besides the point) This being said, he's settled down now and is dedicated to the lives of his kids and his job. He seems to be the single parent of two (the "maybe three" thing has been on my mind since last Christmas) children, is entrusted with organizing the Sea of Lights festival, and overall seems very put together and seems to do a better job giving Turtleshell a tour after being notified last minute than Carrot did with advanced notice.
This contrast is cool but they probably would never interact in canon, however I feel like this ship does give them an opportunity to, whenever Carrot is in Marshlight Port.
So how does Tech's friend, probably one of her closest seeing as she called him to give Turtleshell the tour, feel about her and Carrot. I don't think he'd be annoying or petty or anything because Glass Bead is too cool for that, but I do think they'd clash a bit and it'd be funny. I think Carrot would take the small rivalry more seriously than Glass Bead, though he'd do his best to act like he didn't care. I think they'd brag about their achievements with their hobbies (kind of their jobs but they both have other more important jobs) (Glass Bead's fishing and Carrot's gardening). I think Carrot would make inaccurate pirate jokes (in a world of fictional pirates are inaccurate pirate jokes accurate pirate jokes for real life?) and Glass Bead would make no effort to hide his lack of amusement. They could probably bond over a shared appreciation for alcohol assuming Glass Bead has that stereotypical pirate trait, but Glass Bead is so much more responsible than Carrot that I feel like they'd realize they're very different even in that shared trait.
So yeah I think Glass Bead comes into Tech's lab to get stuff for Sea of Lights and sees Turtleshell and Carrot and Tech and is like "Just grabbin' some lights Tech don't mind me. Ahoy Turtleshell!" And then he walks away.
I'm such a passionate believer in Carrot being very pathetic and funny in that way while I think Tech and Turtleshell are genuinely perfect and awesome so I really like the idea of them dating.
Have you thought of a name for this ship yet by the way?
I'm going to say some things about some of the answers from the QNA today because the whole QNA was basically about the lovely jungle adventure man.
The numbering is wonky for some reason sorry. (rambles ahead)
"His (Citrus') siblings aren't in ROI but they're technically talked about in Tshell's journal"
(Side tangents incoming)
So "technically" talked about doesn't mean anything crazy, but it got me thinking about Turtleshell's source of information. I'm inclined to believe he isn't going to stumble into an interview with Morrigan like he did with Warhammer (even though that'd be really funny). Frozen Boba will likely give us a lot of straight information, though within 18 PAGES (see #2) I'm sure he'll learn a lot from a lot of people, and I'd be surprised if he didn't at least get pretty close to object Morrigan. I imagine we'd see her in ROI so it's not like she'd need to be kept secret or anything.
Anyway, I'd imagine "technically talked about" could be vaguer descriptions from those in inner society. (I've been assuming Fort Blanket is disconnected from Morrigan and wild district madness, considering its canonical aversion to monster objects.) I love the idea of folk-taleish ideas about Morrigan and the Morrigans, which could totally happen because all of the lawless kings are really old. I love the idea of Turtleshell running around listening to stories while warming up over a fire.
This is ignoring the fact that one of the few descriptions of Fort Blanket we get tells us it's "unwelcoming towards strangers that arrive without a guide." but Turtleshell is literally so awesome and cool that they'll be super nice to him anyway. Also he has Frozen Boba with him to help. Frozen Boba is a scientist so I imagine she's on board with and aware of Turtleshell's arrival. Although, it'd also be funny if Turtleshell's epic sidekick (I've also been assuming Frozen Boba is the epic sidekick) was not a fan of him. He's so excited about his scientific endeavors and has so many questions about the social structure of the wild districts he wouldn't even notice. Kind of like how Carrot gives Turtleshell his number and Turtleshell immediately assumes this is a professional gesture, he could totally meet an aggressive weapon-bearing Frozen Boba and assume she's acting out of tradition, or really focused on trying to protect him from the dangers of Silent Neverland. At this assumption he'd likely try and explain the conditions he'd survived in Paradise.
Realistically though Frozen Boba is probably pretty chill (ha- ha ha) and I'm all for it.
The Warhammer entry was 6 Google Doc pages and the Morrigan entry is 18 Google Doc pages
YAY :D
300% MORE TURTLESHELL
Pushpin's """"nephew """"" (is the cut off figure in "Out of Mind")
[I don't like this rant anymore but I'm leaving it because past me spent a lot of time on it and would be mad at me for deleting it]
I'm fascinated by this individual, though a tad disappointed that I've been horribly misinterpreting Pushpins description for a very long time. I was somewhat confident that Turtleshell was Pushpin's """nephew"""
There's unfortunately so little Turtleshell at the moment that I've drawn major conclusions about his backstory from small bits of information. That being said, I have epic headcanons because of this.
For my wonderful "Pushpin Fulfills a Cool Aunt / Elder Sister Role for Turtleshell" timeline, Pushpin would be 15ish years older than Turtleshell. I still believe this, as Turtleshell and Carrot seem to be the same age, and Pushpin and Fossil seem to be the same age, and I can't see Carrot as being the same age as Fossil. I've kind of assumed from Turtleshell's paragraph on the hive residents losing their mom on page 3 of his journal that his mom is also not very alive. He has fantastic emotional intuition, and he takes great care to describe Warhammer's tone throughout his discussion with Turtleshell, though Turtleshell only does this empathetic analysis with the gemstone monsters, presumably because he felt inclined to because of personal experience. Paradise is scary, and it doesn't seem unlikely that children in paradise go unattended to because their parents get eaten or something. Children disappearing from the marketplace despite it being "no secret" implies there isn't anyone to watch them anyway.
So I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect at one point in time an orphaned Turtleshell was simply running about, curious about the world as he is today. He's from Reaching Gardens, though I think Marketplace theorizing applies to the Gardens, as they're affected by the surrounding rainforests equally.
Anyway, Pushpin would gravitate towards this creature, and try to keep him occupied with something less dangerous than exploring nature when one lives in the worst possible place to want to explore nature. Turtleshell is invited to speak at Gum's college, which implies something about his level of education, though I haven't really figured that out yet, and object universe rules could be totally different. This being said, I imagine Turtleshell would learn a lot from Pushpin and books she'd let him borrow. There's schools in paradise, though the Rings seem to be very advanced in comparison to other districts. I imagine education in Paradise would be somewhat lacking, as resources need to be committed to fighting back against the wild districts. I don't think elementary schools would be a priority.
Turtleshell eventually makes his adventurous excursions into a career, though I feel that is with the help of Pushpin. Turtleshell is eager to venture out, and Pushpin is protective, and makes an effort to supply him with the materials necessary to survive in the wild. Pushpin uses her own research to justify this.
I feel like this dynamic creates possibilities for a bunch of fun scenes and stuff. I like the idea of Turtleshell being present for the unfortunate progression of Fossil and Push's relationship, though at the same time kind of ignorant toward it. It'd be funny. Also, I've always loved the idea of Pushpin being wholeheartedly supportive of Turtleshell's identity. It makes me so happy that being trans is completely normalized to Turtleshell, and his conversation with Cattail about how its epic and normal and, about how Mushroom can just be a guy later on in life, and it's not something Cattail has to worry about (sorry about poor phrasing here). It'd be cool if it was Pushpin gave Turtleshell that support and was cool like that. (side tangent, this is kind of basic human expectation, but the world sadly sucks so I still consider it very cool)
Yeah. I'll abandon this and think of something new, or keep it. I'm still deciding, and I'm sure after receiving 18 PAGES (see #2) of journal I'll have more material for Turtleshell's backstory.
I was going to ask if you can talk about tech but idk, are you really ok? they drag you onto the lake again?
I can talk about Tech again. I’m still in close proximity to the lake but they’re going to stop making me go into the lake. I think I forgot how to swim, and the teaching me what to do if someone is drowning drill sort of turned into me drowning but I’m good now. Thank you for asking Dynamite :D
So on the topic of people who can swim, TECH! We know so little about Dread Tides, but I assume the secrecy has something to do with its possible connection to the people who live underwater. Hopefully we get a Turtleshell’s journal entry on it. I think Turtleshell going out on a boat with Glass bead would be funny. Turtleshell swims down to interview the king for an hour at a time before coming up to breathe.
Anyway Tech explains she has a spiritual connection to the ocean because of her assigned animal but we don’t know what that means about how much time she actually spends there. As an Orca, I feel like she could pretty easily live underwater for long periods of time, but we don’t know for sure how that works exactly. This is even more confusing for fish bestials. (I don’t know if Water Wiggler counts. He seems to be made up almost entirely of synthetic cells, excluding his face and organspace) I assume they spawn from underwater spawning stones. But anyway, does Tech want to be a part of this culture of underwater objects if it exists? She seems pretty happy with her place in Marshlight, being the head scientist and friends with the ex-pirate fishing guy. She makes the other head scientists get hotpot every time they meet up. (The food in marshlight port seems so good gosh) She works with materials from Mt. Fortune and being an inventor I feel like she would have an easier time working there (they actually need guns, unlike Marshlight which Tech is making water guns for. Perhaps there’s some sort of exchange where Tech makes weapons for Burning Aisles guys in exchange for their metal? Is there any world in which this is important enough to actually be addressed in Objectified somehow?) but Tech likes her home. Overall she seems confident and content so I wonder what more there is she wants. Maybe nothing. Maybe she just likes making water guns and fancy coats for turtleshell. Still with all of the connection this apocalypse thing has to the head scientists, maybe there’s more to Tech in that way? What friend was she so busy with she couldn’t get turtleshell from the train? It seems like a very intentional choice and quite suspicious.
If you couldn’t tell I didn’t plan what I was going to say here. Tech is really interesting though so I have a lot of sort of connected thoughts.
"In the evening, Carrot reappeared to congratulate us and promptly dragged us, including Cattail’s wife, out to one of his favorite drinking spots—a quaint bar and grill in the nearby town. They dropped off Eden at a friend’s house to sleep over and we spent the rest of the night barhopping– I really needed all of that food and water!"
How does Turtleshell eat?
He has a mouth. It's just hidden by shadow.
He simply puts it in his face hole and it organspaces away.
His entire face hole is a mouth. Those are not eyes.
Absorption.
He does not eat. He needed the food and water for something else.
I keep trying to imagine the start of Turtleshell's adventure in silent Neverland, and I've always imagined Fort Blanket to look like the snow kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey. I played Mario Odyssey one time with my small brother (I was cappy) four years ago, so I might be misremembering, but the idea of a warm and cozy underground Fort Blanket that I think I'm copying from Mario Odyssey makes a lot of sense to me.
Blanket is probably a character, but "Fort Blanket" is also a play on Blanket Fort, so it's decently cozy, I think. Or maybe the point of the name is to suggest that it's incredibly uncozy.
But Fort Blanket is Silent Neverland's inner-society, so it's at least warm in there. Warm enough for hominids anyway (Maple Syrup goes there, and that's maybe normalish. Brandy wasn't super surprised, just really really sad.). Even if it's a spiky evil ice cave, it's a spiky evil ice cave with ambient firelight. Probably soup too. I love soup. I hope Turtleshell gets some soup. It's probably actually not something he eats a lot considering he lives in a tropical forest.
