Thanks to this reddit I've just learned about the Eat terminal emulator, which is really wonderful, especially for someone with that desire to live entirely inside emacs.
My only issue is mostly aesthetic. I use EXWM and usually run kitty inside it because I like having my terminals have a different background color than my buffers.
Is it possible to have emacs color my Eat buffers differently than others?
Bingo! Thank you very much! Exactly what I was hoping for!