Visual Novel / South Scrimshaw

"The strange plants are not taking him away from his mother. The strange plant clod is his mother."

''The consciousness dawning inside of an aquatic egg is prodded alert.

It is a male whale calf, stirring with a newfound awareness of body.''

— Beginning of the documentary.

South Scrimshaw is a visual novel created by Nathan O. Marsh. Told through the lens of a nature documentary on a human-colonized planet, it mainly follows the Brillo Whales, a Sperm Whale-like species with the unique ability to modify their bodies, implanting various organisms and materials into and onto themselves, and each other, becoming able to gain different abilities, capabilities, and fill different niches and roles in their communities and ecosystems.

In particular, the visual novel follows a single Brillo Whale calf, referred to as simply 'The Calf', and his journey of birth, family, adolescence, loss, growth, friendship, maturity, tutorship, and revenge.

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South Scrimshaw provides examples of:

• Alien Non-Interference Clause: The human documentary team apparently have orders to avoid interacting with the wildlife on Aria as much as possible, since the death of the Calf's mother leads to them having a bitter debate on whether they should intervene on behalf of the orphaned whale. Fortunately, the point becomes moot when the Stone Mother adopts the Calf.
• Ancient Keeper: An individual of the Vorpix Octopus species lives within the Killer Brillo, as a hunting partner/scout. It has helped perpetuate a cycle of creating Killer Brillos, being said to have lived for 400 years.
• Artistic License – Biology: Most of the documentary’s contents make some loose sense due to the lengthy explanations and somewhat adherence to reality and logic. However, the most unforgivable instances are those when organisms somehow act as extensions to Brillos, when they would have no way of accurately controlling or interfacing with them.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The documentary starts out on what appears to be the inside of a whale's womb, about to give birth (as real life whales do), only to reveal that it is actually the inside of a large egg
    • It is then revealed that this "egg" is actually a sort of "external womb". Scientists within the documentary call it a "birthing shell".
  • Near the start of the documentary, as The Calf looks for his mother, a large monstrous mass of plant-life begins to grab at him. As he begins to thrash against it for freedom, he hears his mother's call come from it. The plant-mass IS his mother.
• Bio-Augmentation: The main strength of the Brillo Whale species, besides their size/intelligence. They are able to choose "body-plans", which effectively allow them to design and customize their own exterior to fit their needs. This ranges from mundaneness such as letting plants grow on their body, to more extreme things such as letting animals live within them, and at the extreme, becoming entirely encased with organisms/materials, basically becoming a living exosuit or armor.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The Brillo species as a whole. They are unable to live at all without getting at least some kind of body-plan.
• The Exile: The Killer Brillo is exiled/banished for an unknown reason, speculated by the documentary to be killing other Brillos in a mating ritual gone wrong. Years of isolation have damaged its mental state to a point where it can barely remember non-aggressive calls to other Brillos.
• Famous, Famous, Fictional: While discussing how Brillos don't actually lay eggs, an optional tangent mentions four known egg-laying mammals: the Platypus, the Echidna, the Snorb, and the Ribbonsnaw.
• Foreshadowing: The plants and foliage clinging to The Calf immediately upon his birth not only hint towards the true nature of the plant mass, but also his entire species.
• Great Offscreen War: The drones used for camera and illumination work are mentioned as having been created during the Pacification War on Earth. Some details are provided - the war was brief and "mostly between Earth factions" but there was threat of Orbital Bombardment, implying some degree of extra-terrestrial involvement.
• Griping About Gremlins: 'Seabunnies' are fictional creatures that were supposedly born from something being misheard over a faulty radio connection, and later became used to jokingly explain malfunctions. The titular Seabun in 'The Adventures of Seabun and Monaco' causes problems for people by eating parts of human infrastructure, before seeing the results of his actions and helping fix the problem.
• Happily Adopted: Following the aftermath of the Penumbra Shark attack, the Stone Mother adopts The Calf. The Narrator suggests that this act saved the Stone Mother as much as it did The Calf.
• Hunter of Monsters: The Killer Brillo has part of a shark's jaw atop its head. The size of the jaw implies that the shark was as large, if not larger than the Killer Brillo himself.
• Kick the Dog: The adult Brillo who has failed to find a mate takes his anger out on The Calf, threatening him at the point of a large skewer. This would be equivalent to a dude threatening an infant with a knife because he can't find a girlfriend.
• Mama Bear: The Calf's mother kills herself to save him.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: The Killer Brillo appears outwardly hostile, going as far as to not make a call when approaching The Calf (a sign of hostility between Brillos), however, once The Calf begins to dance and play around it, it can't help but relent and take him under its wing.
• Moment Killer: The Calf's presence accidentally causes an adult male Brillo to be snubbed off by a female Brillo during a mating interaction.
• Outliving One's Offspring: The Stone Mother's calf is killed in the encounter with the Penumbra Shark.
• Parasitic Horror: A very rare, but still existing type of organism within the world. Some organisms become so ingrained to living inside and on top of Brillos, their species eventually evolves to become a part of the Brillos' bodies.
• Puberty Superpower: Brillos are able to customize their bodies' attachments and organisms once they reach puberty.
• Pushed at the Monster: While moving through unfamiliar waters, the three Brillo mothers take a defensive formation around their three calves. However, when the Penumbra Shark actually attacks, the Mimic mother abandons her post, essentially sacrificing the other four to save herself and her calf.
• Self-Harm–Induced Superpower: Sorta. The Vorpix Octopus needs to stab The Calf's head with a piece of the Killer Brillo's armor to cause him to undergo the same bodily changes as the Killer Brillo.
• Shout-Out: When the Calf undergoes an emotional breakdown while taking too long to choose a body-plan, there is a shot of him making an agitated expression with the same look and artstyle as a "Rage Guy" comic.
• Show Within a Show: 'The Adventures of Seabun and Monaco' is a popular series of kids stories. Plots typically consist of Seabun's appetite for eating anything damaging a piece of underwater infrastructure, Monaco panicking about a terrible imagined outcome, a repair crew comes by to fix the damage, Seabun recognizes his fault and helps to fix it, and ending with Seabun returning to his burrow with a souvenir and sleeping until he gets hungry again.
  • Another of the optional lore sections mentions a second documentary team is creating their own multi-part documentary called 'Building Bugs', focused on the insects of the planet. The title refers to both the types of insects that build structures and what forces caused them to evolve that way.
• Snipe Hunt: A popular hazing ritual for newcomers to the research teams was to catch a Seabun, often only being given a butterfly net and sent to a moderately dangerous part of the ocean. This tradition was eventually ended after a few people nearly died.
• Super-Empowering: Most Brillo body-plans need to be passed down from a living specimen, with things such as donating eggs, larvae, seeds, organisms, teaching them how to use new limbs/apparatus, or even helping build structures onto the donatee using the donator's limbs.
• Take a Third Option: The Calf is stuck between not liking his options, and being overwhelmed from the amount of options he has to customize his body. His choice is to go out in search of an ancient, violent, lonesome Brillo.
• Time Skip: After The Calf begins his transformation into becoming like the Killer Brillo, 20 years go by before we get to see what he looks like again.
• Too Good to Be True: After pack hunters bring food back to the Brillo pod, they give The Calf a rare opportunity to use their body-plan. It's plant-based, just like he wanted. It provides all the protections and benefits that his mother's body-plan had, without any of the baggage or downsides. This would have been perfect, if not for the pet-sharks that came with it, whom The Calf is deathly fearful of.
• Trauma Button: After the Penumbra Shark kills The Calf's mother, all shark-like organisms utterly frighten The Calf, even Chowpers, a "stupid but friendly" shark species who serve Brillos like hunting dogs.
• Turning Into Your Parent: On a literal note. It is estimated that half of all Brillos decide to use the same, or at least a similar body-plan as their parents. Unfortunately, this is a bit difficult for The Calf, as his mother died before he was able to take any of her body-plan.
• Ultraterrestrials: The reason the Brillo Whales and other lifeforms are so similar to Earth life despite living on an alien planet is because their ancestors were originally brought from Earth to Aria (the planet where the story takes place) and two other worlds long ago. It's not made clear who, or what, did this.
• Unwanted Assistance: While searching for a body-plan, a very unnatural and elderly-looking Brillo offers The Calf tutorship, which he declines with discomfort.
• Unwitting Test Subject: In-universe, and both in the novel, The Calf is the primary focus of the documentary. However, in order to facilitate this, they have had to secretly insert biometric implants into his body, so as to keep track of his position and vitals. It is unknown whether this has impacted the calf in any way, but it could be a reason for his irregular mental behaviors.
• Whale Egg: Played with. The calf that the documentary focuses on is shown being born from what initially appears to be an egg, but is in fact a kind of external placenta attached to his mother. Presumably this is an adaptation to prevent the birth from being impeded by whatever external organisms are growing on the mother while still allowing her to keep her unborn baby with her.
• Won't Get Fooled Again: After the Penumbra Shark attack, the Stone Mother covers her entire body with eye-spots and spikes. She isnt taking any chances with her new calf.