Been trying to unravel the Vale turtle plushie lore because he's had so many over the years 🐢:
a) In the press conference I just talked about here he mentions that he has a lucky turtle that his mother gave to him when he was six.
b) In this video from '97 he shows off his Michaelangelo named Tarta (pictured above) which "came to his first minimoto race" when he was eleven. I don't think a) and b) are the same turtle because of, well, the TMNT popularity/production timeline.
c) Supposedly his turtle tattoo (that he got in roughly 2000/2001) is based on a turtle stress toy that Uccio gave him.
Left image below is from 1997 and right is from 2004.
I'm still not sure which is which but the tattoo sort of looks like a mashup of both tbh.
Vale: *gets given a turtle as a kid* This is my personality now.
ETA (because this is still getting notes, lol):
It seems that the ninja turtle from his mom is the lucky one he was talking about in the press conference and he just misremembered how old he was when he got it. And the little green fellow is definitely a stress toy because that thing has been squeezed. (pictured here in 2009)
