#I don't know most of the names of them in English

[bebeluss]

People who go so fucking hard in the name of "defending" thunderbolts are so fucking annoying. To begin with, i've never understood why there's so much hate unleashed against Sam after that stupid ass post credits scene. He wasn't even in the movie. Now, the line "it went poorly" doesn't have to mean that he was "rude" or whatever towards Bucky/thunderbolts but even if he was, well.. HE'S RIGHT! Because what do you mean Bucky (and Yelena and ava and bob!!) out of everyone, is working willingly for the government/fuckin Valentina whom he wanted to impeach through the movie and then he got amnesia, like??? The same government that wanted to put him out in civil war, the same government that didn't trust him in tfatws, the same government who tortured him and kidnapped him for over 70 years because let's not forget that hydra and shield were the same shit... LIKE???! explain to me in which world would he be working willingly for the government??? And I'm saying this as someone who loves Bucky so damn much. He's literally my favorite character, I watched thunderbolts BECAUSE OF HIM, and that's it, otherwise I wouldn't have watched it. And if I'm honest, I dislike that post credits scene, because he's just out of character. He is and if you're a real Bucky Stan, you should see that. I didn't like that he didn't defend Sam, the person who's been with him for more than a decade in the MCU's world. The person who gave him his REAL found family. The only person in all these years that he's canonically said "I love you" to, Sam wilson is Bucky's closer friend and ally. I don't like the fact that he's betraying wakandans once again by working with Valentina (even tho I'm honestly not mad at him freeing Zemo because at the end of the day it was for something justified and he ended up turning him over), and you know what? Now that I'm complaining, I also didn't like his fucking obsession with the shield in tfatws. He saw Steve dropping that shield for him TWICE, he knows that shield isn't more important than the person carrying it so I don't get why was he so obsessed with it and why was he being annoying towards Sam throughout all of tfatws (Malcolm Spellman and Joana calo, YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES for making him act out of character 😤 ).

I've got someone in my notifications telling me that sambucky's shippers only want Bucky to be "Sam's lapdog".. excuse me??? If there are people being like that, then it's mainly Bucky's stans believing Sam is some kind of therapist for Bucky and that Sam should be there ready to serve Bucky and nah, that's not how it works. And anyway, this same person says that Bucky wouldn't abandon the thunderbolts because he "feels responsible for them".. so.. you don't want Bucky to be Sam's "lapdog", instead you want him to be a -children trafficker (yes I watched black widow and that's what he is), a murderer and 2 women who killed because they chose to do that- baby sitter??? Mmmm.. interesting. 🤔 I can understand Bucky wanting to protect Yelena, Ava and Bob (does he even need protection? Lmao) but the other 2? Nah nah. Bucky is nobody's babysitter and in any case, if he were to feel responsibility towards someone, then it should be towards Sam. You know? The man who was willing to go to jail FOR HIM. Yeah. He owes that TO SAM and to the entire Wilson family and to the wakandans, whom literally saved his life.

My thought are all over the place and I want to say so many things and this post is messy because 1) English isn't my first language and this is the first time I write anything here, for real I don't even write tags and 2) I'm angry as hell with the behavior of most thunderbolts stans since late april. y'all are a bunch of racist bullies. You have no real reason to hate on Sam, because guess what? He's basically the same as Steve, even better, yet you dislike him? ... interesting, I wonder why that is 🤔

Now, I hated that marvel made the decision to separate Sam and Bucky. I know most Sam stans, rightfully, didn't want Bucky to be in cabnw, after the shit show that was tfatw in social media, I get it but forgetting about people's reactions, which have nothing to do with the characters dynamics, and being objective, Bucky should've been next to Sam in cap4 instead of thunderbolts. I hate that it didn't happen that way. Anthony and Sebastian literally made sambucky one of the most popular, if not THE most popular pair in marvel post endgame and you separate them??? That makes no sense to me. 🫩

However, here goes my last -messy- thoughts (because believe me, I know this post is all over the place lmao):

- Sam Wilson IS captain America and he's only doing what Steve would've done too but he's a Black man so you hate him because if it was Steve, you all would be eating it up. (Because in fact, Steve did what Sam told HIM to do many times in his trilogy and in IW and eg, go back and rewatch the movies)

- Sam is no one's therapist and he also has all the right to be mad at Bucky (even tho in the movie they don't say that, y'all made that up)

- Sam Wilson IS the avengers' leader and everybody, and I mean, EVERYBODY, will be following his lead in "doomsday", period, even the thunderbolts and I cannot wait to see that 😙

- now, because I've seen people say otherwise: James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes IS a hero, he IS an avenger. Since the moment he decided to fight Thanos in wakanda, and anybody saying otherwise is wrong. Are we forgetting he was fighting Nazis much before most of the avengers' were born? He was there fighting with the first avenger yall... He is a hero, period. No discussion. (Also, unlike ava and Yelena, he didn't decide to keep on killing people after freeing himself from his abusers, nope, he chose to go back in cryo because he didn't trust himself EVEN THOUGH, killing people wouldn't have been his choice, because he was literally mind controlled.. again, unlike Yelena and ava (love them but yeah) 😶)

- I don't think he's suddenly a horrible character, the writers have made him do ooc actions but that doesn't mean he's a terrible character, not in my books. And actually even though this whole situation makes me mad, I do think things will be better in doomsday. Marvel would be shooting themselves in the feet if they separated sambucky for real. 🤡 What's annoying about all of this is that I cannot think of a right way to get Bucky and Sam to talk about this, I mean, I can but in a movie with so many characters, I can already see them making a quick joke and that's it, everything will be alright again.. ala Russo's style meanwhile we've been enduring a year and a half (by then) of horrible takes about Sam (seriously ask yourself why do you hate this character so much.. even more if you like Steve.. ask yourself why you don't like Sam and the answer will always be racism btw 🤷🏽‍♀️)

- and lastly: y'all have to stop bringing the real life relationship of Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie to the equation. They are real friends and both of them respect each other, admire each other and love each other so much and they've been saying it all these years, even this same year. Stop equating sambucky's (FICTIONAL CHARACTERS) relation to Seb and Anthony's. Y'all weird as hell for doing that. And y'all weird as hell for going against Anthony or Sebastian for what their characters do or not do in the movies. 🙄 I'm talking to the "Anthony is Sebastian's biggest fan" crowd too. Sure, he's very enthusiastic but in any case, Sebastian's the president, vice president and first member of the "Anthony Mackie fanclub". You need to watch all the interviews of that man speaking about Anthony, literally the man whow said "one of the perks of my life is knowing Anthony Mackie", the man who said "I'd walk in Anthony's shadow all the time if I had to", the man who through all of tfatws said that Mackie was THE leader of the project because he knows how to read people and that people have to give him more recognition for his work. Sebastian said that. Their relationship is based in mutual everything, mutual love, respect, admiration. Seriously, do NOT try to speak shit about them only because you disagree with what happens in the fictional world of the MCU. 🙄

- lastly FOR REAL!!: y'all really need to observe the reactions towards thunderbolts in comparison with captain america: brave new world/other bipoc projects. The hate Sam Wilson/Anthony Mackie faces is unbelievable. Remember when everybody kept saying they'd boycott cabnw because of that nasty Zionist?? Well.. where was that energy towards darevill? Margarita Levieva is a Zionist (as a Seb Stan I was still following her until a year ago when she was literally justifying the murders of children on her instagram, nasty ass woman). Where's that energy towards the upcoming spiderman? Jon bernthal is a heavy Zionist. He was even following isra-hell's accounts on Twitter. Where's the boycott energy, huh??? 🤔 Ah yes... The leads in those movies are white men, I forgot they all have several passes.

Anyway, I do think all Hollywood productions have Zionists working in them, it's almost impossible that they don't, especially in this case because Disney itself IS a Zionist company 🙄 so you can keep your stupid ass excuse of boycotting something only when the lead is a Black man (or a woman), seriously check your fucking racism. It's so tiring to see white people giving stupid takes. Stfu and CHECK YOUR RACISM. 🫩

I think that was all lol, I don't think anyone's gonna read this because it's long as fuck and all over the place and I normally don't say shit but damn, it's been 2 months, going on 3, of non stop shitty takes. Keep Sam Wilson's name out of your mouth and please, stop being weird with Bucky. he'd hate you, Sebastian would hate you. 🫩 Do not become a nasty person in the name of defending fictional shit. This is the real world and some of you say really nasty ugly things in the name of defending fictional characters (defending from what? Idk but y'all swear you're doing something lol).

And btw, you don't have to like Sam but if you don't like him then don't speak about him, because again... There is NO a single reason why you should be feeling so much hate towards him (unless you're a racist). And if Bucky was real, he'd dislike you so much for being a piece of shit towards Sam. Think about that!! 😗

Honestly I don't even know what I wanted to achieve with this long ass post lmao, I might end up deleting it if I'm honest because I suffer anxiety and that's a big reason why I never interact with anyone here but damn, having people in my notifications being so wrong about Sam (and Bucky too actually) is so annoying. 🫩🫩🫩🫩🫩

[lovelikedestiny]

My take on The Old Guard 2

Before I begin my rant, I simply want to stress that this is my opinion on the second movie.

If you liked it, that is perfectly fine :) If you didn't like it, that is perfectly fine either :) If you agree with me, that is fine :) If you don't, that is fine too :)

To start on a positive note, here are things I liked about The Old Guard 2:

the fight choreography slapped

most of the time, the fighting felt like flirting, especially between Andy and Quynh, or when Nicky and Joe fought against the baddies together (Joe shoving the dude down on Nicky's blade with his foot? chef's kiss)

the usage of ancient weapons

I know we already see Andy, Joe and Nicky use their weapons of choice in the first movie BUT I loved how Nile took this thing of the wall and just went "That is my weapon now" or how Booker chose the saber-thingy, showing that he actually has fighting abilities in this area too (I mean come on, he fought with Napoleon!! And I liked how we got to see a glimpse of that), also Quynh's and Tuah's weapons, suiting their characters so well

the Nicky-Joe-banter

it felt good to see them joking around so much and laughing (not just smiling but full on laughing), stressing that they are not only their significant other on a romantic level but also their best friend

the team as a family

joking around during a mission, snippets of their history together, the post-mission drinking and eating, laughing, simply amazing

Nile being the kick-ass-lead woman

I loved that for her because it really suited her well

Copley's integration into the team

I was incredibly happy to see him actively participating in their missions and also him kicking ass too

Now, just as a warning, if you don't want to read my ranting, you can stop here :)

What I didn't like about the second movie - basically everything else. Okay, jokes aside, here are some major points that annoyed me:

the characters all felt somehow extremely flat and not at all like their scharacters from the first movie

I especially noticed that with Nicky (he is my favorite character and I'm always hyper-focused on him, and I don't know if it makes sense, but I was really missing the emotional warmth and his kind, philosophical self? I don't know how to describe it, but all the characters didn't feel like themselves at all for me

Discord and Tuah

they literally popped up out of nowhere, didn't get any reasonable explanation, and Discord??? At first, I thought I had misheard because watching in English still is difficult from time to time, so I was like "Did he say Discord?" and my friend was like "Yup", and I tried so hard to contain my laughter because Discord??? Seems like Facebook and WhatsApp were too occupied to join the fight, and although Tuah seems like a nice guy, he too was missing substance

the whole shit with the first and last immortal and the fucking legend and what not

just no... if they had given me any good and logical explanation, then maybe, but they didn't, Tuah was just like "There is a legend" and Discord (*throws up for using this bad name*) was like "You are the last immortal, Nile", and that was it

they fully threw the dream-thing overboard (like Quynh's iron maiden and my expectations) and IT MAKES NO SENSE???!?!?!?!

if they hadn't explained it in the first movie, it could have worked (maybe) but they built a fundament on the "We dream of each other. They stop when me meet" and just chose to absolutely ignore this shit in the second one. No one knows Tuah before they meet him? Dreams?? And even if they had met him unknowingly, it is sooooo wild that Nile only dreams of them at the beginning of the second movie instead of in the first one, where she literally dreams of all of them???

the handling of Booker

oh, DON'T GET ME STARTED!!! I loved his character in the first movie because there is so much to Booker but in the second one he seemed to get downgraded to "Depressed, only wants to die, dies" and I fucking hate how they robbed us of any chance of reconciliation between Nicky and Booker or NickyJoe and Booker as a whole, and character development of Booker. Him and the team didn't have one significant scene in the whole movie and the only one who did get an impactful moment with him was Andy who he then saved (logically) but oh BOY HIS DEATH was SOOO stupid??? and the whole thing with "This is my expiration date" no, nooooooo, Andy could have killed all the guys he killed (while he got himself killed) with ease but they tried to show his death as some kind of heroic act and in my opinion it absolutely wasn't. I know that depression has a lot to do with how you act around people and how you treat them but you cannot tell me that Booker, who lived with this found family for like 200 years, laughed with them, cried with them, bonded with them, wasted no thought on saying some kind of goodbye to Nicky and Joe ???

the way they absolutely gave no fucks about Copley at the end

I know he betrayed them in the first one, but they can't just show us how he became some kind of team member, only to never get mentioned again after hearing some gun noises over the radio and him struggling against enemies, (Is he dead? Is he alive? Did he get kidnapped too?)

no kisses

okay, kisses are not always necessary, I get it, but when you have a healthy, gay relationship that has been existing for more than 900 years, I expected some more intimate gestures. Especially when Nicky held that beautiful little speech, they could have exchanged a quick kiss (listen, they don't even need to make out, okay?), but no, they shuffled quite awkwardly toward each other to make a forehead bonk (i like forehead bonks but I was missing a kiss). You want to tell me that two immortal warriors that have been together for more than 900 years wouldn't even kiss once during this whole fucking time?? Especially considering that Joe was like "I'm afraid we're gonna die"

the missing depth

one of the things I LOVED about the first movie was the emotional depth it had, this underlying melancholy, the pain and history of the characters, the great impact their actions had and still have on them - this one felt rushed, shallow, out of character, had logical errors and plot holes so big I could've fallen into

I have to say all the actors put their whole heart into this, and gave amazing performances (without them it would've been waaaaay worse to watch this movie), but I still felt my heart rate spike after the first twenty minutes out of sheer frustration and utter disbelief.

That's it for today. Thank you for listening to my rant🌼

[cilikcurious]

Birds i drew in my fountain pen practice

No spills this time, I count this as a victory

[autisticjonathanjoestar]

this is like my 3rd most popular fandom post. everyone at the mortuary needs a cup of coffee my confession though is that I don't like egg mcmuffins I don't know why I mentioned them by name. I don't eat eggs or english muffins. anyway.

I'm just saying if Raymond wants to be forgiven so badly, maybe next time he knows that I'm gonna pass out and wake up on the floor he can stop by the mcdonalds drive thru on the way to work. like. you want a friend, you sad old man? I want some coffee and an egg mcmuffin my head fucking hurts

[synonymroll648]

was rereading exile recently and apparently it took me 38 rereads of this book to realize that the foster family has a movie night family tradition. popcorn, store bought cookies, curling up on the couch together, the whole shebang. pretty sure it was noted to be a weekly occurrence. this has persisted before and after sophie left the forbidden cities.

call me the grinch the way my heart grew three sizes when i realized that bro. my brain has been going nuts w/ ideas on how to incorporate that into fics lol

[hanzajesthanza]

geralt "i will NEVER deadname my best friend" of rivia

"he will ALWAYS be dandelion to ME"

[frc-ambaradan]

Really cool infographic rounding up (some of) the italian Disney characters combined with the year, the story, the issue of Topolino they debuted in and the name of their creator(s):

from Topolino #3567.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2025: ADRIFT IN CURRENTS CLEAN AND CLEAR by Seanan McGuire.

Ah, yes, my favorite January tradition: heartbreak in tiny series installment form :)

This one is about a turtle-obsessed disabled Russian girl who gets adopted by an American family and fitted for a prosthetic she doesn't ask for, want, or need, and then she splashes through her Door.

I love Russian language and culture things (shout out to accidentally double minoring in college), so I was excited for a Russian protag and a Russian-coded Door world! Excellent enrichment in my enclosure. Neat cultural expansion on the Wayward Children universe (multiverse? cosmos?? insert appropriately scaled setting word here).

I also liked the aquatic nature of Belyyreka--terrifying giant frogs and delightful giant turtles and delightful talking foxes on the riverbanks were all lovely, and the worldbuilding about different weights of water was neat! Very mind-bendy kind of setting, I dig it.

This installment felt very slim (146 pages in my copy), and Our World Heavy--the first 46 pages were in Colorado, and the last 100 were in Belyyreka, but it felt like we did More Frequent and Larger Time Skips in Belyyreka compared to Earth? Kind of speedrun mode, sans Quests, really (this one was a lot more oriented toward Finding/Building Your Family, which was signposted pretty clearly upon our arrival in Belyyreka). Mostly a quieter installment up until the, y'know, Typical Impending Tragedy of Return at the end. (Did I almost put it down at 1AM last night with 30 pages left so everyone could Be Happy? perHAPS,)

Overall: I had a good time! But, ow, my heart (once again and forever).

[owcs]

For my first clip uploaded here, I figured it would only be right to have it be tracer gameplay. Here are some highlights from Nico of team VARREL against Hayabusa Gaming* from today February 27th, 2024. *Hayabusa Gaming does not have a liquipedia page to link to

[daz4i]

i likely won't get into genshin but it's probably for the best. bc from what i know abt the lore and world etc i will become the most annoying person in the world if i did

[rugessnome]

How are you liking 20 trillion leagues so far? It's on my to-read list so I am curious. :)

I'd read it before a couple times, but some years ago, closer to when it came out. I didn't remember much except for one memorable technical explanation and a suspicion about one plot point.

I'd say I find it oddly compelling, hence my return to it, although I can't promise that people will find the ending satisfying, or that everyone will like the book generally. On this reading I noticed some horror-like aspects to the story (I mean, people are stuck in a malfunctioning submarine —also, not to give too much away, but many characters eventually die. In certain regards it *might* resemble at least my understanding of the loose plot of [the Arctic season of] The Terror(?)).

Particularly the denouement is very ...science-fantasy, perhaps? (particularly physics concepts, though a smattering of biology comes in at some points) and more or less philosophical too—it doesn't have a swashbuckling adventure sort of ending.

It's been even longer since I read 20000 Leagues Under the Sea but there are some references detectable from familiarity with even the basics of that book. However, it's not a straightforward sequel or update.

It's not easy to really like most of the characters, and to me even the character who becomes a main protagonist in the second half or so of the story is not straightforwardly entirely sympathetic. (the first half is more ensemble cast, and I think all the French names eventually become clear but they can be confusing!)

content warnings: Some of the characters do express racism, primarily regarding the two Indian scientists aboard; some of it is religiously motivated. One character, in extreme circumstance, retreats into Christian fanaticism (ala Wazzer, sort of, but more homicidal). Limited references to World War II, particularly the fact that one character worked (possibly in a secret agent capacity) for the Vichy regime, and also at least one discussion where someone praises the Soviet Union. There are graphic descriptions of serious (sometimes fatal) injury, fantasy underwater ~monsters that I think are illustrated in the non-audio book, and eventually someone with fantastical body modifications.

one more slightly spoiler-y thing about someone who doesn't turn against people but also the question of narrative racism under the cut

with the caveat that I'm not entirely up on plot points of The Terror, one of the Indian scientists aboard is probably the closest the story has to a Goodsir (as in not succumbing to harming other people and trying to help other people survive until the end type stuff) but the narrative maintains a certain distance (that to me is probably intended to implicitly make a point about French attitudes of the time) and does not (third-person with some limited insight into some characters' thoughts) provide us with the viewpoint of either Indian scientist for the vast majority of the plot; it also gives very little explicit detail about the background of the two Indian scientists.

[cinnasaur]

no but like google translate would actually be more accurate:

this isn't a canadian product, you can see the kazakh label underneath, so i think the importer translated that to english and then the english directly to french. they even misspelled provence and added extra grammar (i dunno where "à l'oignon" came from, but everything has "the" in front because that'd be "proper" french syntax in a full sentence).

"soleil de fleurs" is really getting me, i feel like that takes some kind of manual effort. the word order isn't consistent with anything else, and modern translation software would take "sun flower" and give you "fleur de soleil" or correct to tournesol, so they would've had to translate and arrange each word independently, or else actually type "sun of flowers" in english?

this just looks like someone who isn't a professional translator attempted to translate word-for-word into a language they're not fluent in and didn't check their work, and that's kinda interesting. it would've been even easier to actually just run the whole list through translation software, but hey, you tried??

anyway this literally doesn't matter and i didn't need to write an essay i just think the logistics are interesting

i’m “the petrol of sun of flowers” 

[gimmick-blog-bracket]

Now for the final round!

@hellsitegenetics

I love them

I didn't know I needed to know that the weed-smoking girlfriends post was genetically a wolf, but I did, and I do. Also puts great stuff on my dash.

it’s so fun to be scrolling unhinged posts and then boom. an organism!

so many moths‼ also, unexpected comedy with some of the matches

perfect blend of silly and informative, and makes for an excellent punchline at the end of a long post. puts creatures on my dash. literally what more could you ask for

It's a really unique blog concept and a lot of times the results are pretty funny. It's great when the sequence matches the post content too!

Creatures 👍

Finds beautiful creatures out of the mess of the hellsite

Offers finality AND gives us a creechur.

I love them. English speakers talk like moths

If this blog wins, they could run the text of the winning announcement, and determine the post's genus and species!

They're also very good about tagging the type of creature depicted in the results, so as long as you mute tags of creatures you don't want to see, it's a very fun time seeing iconic legacy posts (and new submissions) being reduced down to a string of letters and assigned a random species of fish or moth or something!

uhh it’s cool

BLAST

There are so many weird bugs in the world

Yippee!!

If, as Haldane said, God has an inordinate fondness for beetles, then surely this blog proves that Tumblr has an inordinate fondness for moths.

Top tier blog as a geneticist, I love seeing obscure organisms and MOTH

Admin got rate limited after trying to blast the bee movie

the knowledge of biology to pull this off (i have taken one biology class in my life) and also the work to find all the strings honestly deserves quite a bit of praise

This gimmick blog has it all: science, pictures of animals, interaction with the text of other peoples' posts, interesting information, and a unique and fun premise. As a biologist, I'm rooting for hellsitegenetics to reach the end and take the tournament, because it is truly a standout among gimmick blogs.

If they win, perhaps this blog too shall become a cool organism :3

@hasgavlebockenburneddownyet

What's more happy holiday cheer than cheering on the destruction of a giant straw goat?

The birds may have won 2023, but I believe in humanity's capability for arson for 2024 <3

a vote for me is a vote for arson! This message was approved by hasgavlebockenburneddownyet

gavle is SUCH a public service and holiday feature

what's more tumblr than comical destruction and holidays?

sometimes you just gotta vote with your matchsticks

Bringing a cultural staple to tumblr since 2021

Arson is so much more fun

It would be really funny and ironic if it survives the tournament

you have no idea how much joy watching the chronicling of the gavlebocken brings me every year

hasgavlebockenburneddownyet provides an essential public service

always love seeing a bit of Swedish history on my dash 'Swedish bamboo season'

the goat account is peak gimmick blog

If I don't get to beat the goat then nobody does. -pointless-achievements

Never ask Tumblr to choose between lies and arson! The winner threatens by nature to rip apart the very fabric of our DNA!

goat statues made out of straw are exciting and interesting

I wanna see things burn

the goat is an essential part of tumblr culture and the goat blog is a sacred keeper of the tumblr high holidays

watching to see if the big straw goat has burned down each year is a true delight, something I never knew existed until tumblr and the blog dedicated to it

the incredibly focused nature of @/hasgavlebockenburneddownyet is what makes their gimmick superior.

Please guys bite gavlebocken

Look, I'm Danish. I was put on this earth to annoy the Swedes and vice versa, but even I voted for @/hasgavlebockenburneddownyet

gavlebocken is also such a fun name and this blog informed be about its existence, so for that I am grateful

hasgavlebockenburneddownyet is providing a vital service! Every year, people rely on their updates regarding the fate of our most beloved Yule Goat! How could they NOT deserve the win!?

sacred anti-corporate arson

a vote for gävlebocken is a vote for anarchy!

pls vote for them they're the funniest gimmick keeping track on the funniest phenomena in recent human history, like when i look at their acc i think to myself this is what tumblr was created for

the goat is the GOAT

HASGAVLEBOCKENBURNEDDOWNYET DESERVES TO WIN, I have them on post alert for a REASON

the holiday season wouldn't be the same without them

they do important reporting. Do you look at the news and be like 'the reporters aren't doing work they're just telling you whats happening.' Have some respect for the goat news

let the weird burnt sacrificial ritual of it all appeal to you

nothing makes my December more interesting, arson should win

doesn't barge in on other peoples posts which is always a good thing in my books. not a fan when obnoxious gimmick blogs turn a decent post into a garbled mess

[inkskinned]

i love finding out how big this world is. my girlfriend has only visited boston a handful of times, but i grew up here. i told her we'd be going to do the tourist traps in salem, and she said - which salem?

to be fair to her, there are a lot of other states that have a town named "salem." and i think there's some evidence that the witch trials actually happened in what is now called Danvers. but the thing is - she thought "salem" was like, a made-up thing. there wasn't actually a salem, massachusetts - like there isn't a gotham city.

they don't talk about it that much where she grew up, is the thing! and this made me laugh. a week ago she was talking about her hometown and said something akin to "well the museum's kinda like the one in richmond," and i had to explain i still had no frame of reference for what the hell this museum was like.

i love finding out what knowledge i take for granted. i used to live with 5 other women. 3 of them were from south korea. they had to take, like, a solid fifteen minutes to explain their birthday system to my gay math-blind ass, laughing as they did.

that same month, our roommate from denmark taught me the danish word for wreath by accident - she'd been talking about decorations, used krans, and i'd been able to figure it out through context. i just picked it up and kept talking. our entire house used krans as the word. she came home and slammed the door one evening, mock-angry, shouting: you motherfuckers! it's a - a wreath!

and how often do you use certain words, anyway! i am cuban, so i was raised with certain spanish words sort of sprinkled in there; but never how you'd think. in middle school i asked someone to pass me the recogedor - in a completely american accent, like i was speaking english. i hadn't registered it as a spanish word. i mean, how often in school do you actually use the word "dustpan" - i'd only ever heard it in the context of cleaning my house.

there are places that you grew up that you, just, like, know. that you assume everyone knows. there are things and people and "common knowledge" that you have that, just, like. doesn't exist for me. i don't know what you call your public transportation system, but in boston we call it "the T". our train cards are called charlie cards because of a song where a father accidentally abandons his family, which was written because our system of transportation. in boston, most people would snort and say everyone knows that, kid.

i think you and i should go on a long walk - it's getting dark early these days and we need any sun we can manage. tell me about the first time you saw snow. tell me about the stuff everyone knows about your home. tell me about the cities "everyone's been to," about the food "everyone's already tried." who knows. maybe it will feel nice to you - watching someone learn about it for the very first time.

[magicalpuppet]

"Are you new here? I’m new too." What if the one she met wasn't Frank at all?

If somebody is interested in the madness “theory”, I'll put it right under here.

Keep in mind before continuing: this is straight up just a theory/headcanon, I'm gonna share it without any other purpose than having fun theorizing. I put some points you can follow, I am sorry this is gonna be long and crazy.

So, I believe the puppet Julie met could be...Wally.

This whole madness was caused by Julie's story in the video "regard forgetfulness silence"...

The memory The way Julie is speaking seems off to me, as well as the way she recounts her first meeting with Frank.

She "think" that's how she met him, isn't it strange she can't recall precisely how she met the dearest puppet to her?

We know Julie have difficulties with her memory, but she seems to remember stuff that happened when hanging out with Frank, why the most important moment is so unclear to her?

This could mean that she can't remember the interaction correctly and that her memories are being heavily corrupted by something or that the whole thing is made up by someone.

The encounter

Even the encounter is iffy, the puppet she met doesn't seems to speak like Frank Does.

"Are you new here? I'm new too. My name is Frank"

This speech pattern sound more similar to Wally to me.

And after that, she says that he made a corny joke and she laughed at it, we know that Frank is not really the one who tells jokes. Heck, he is not even good at telling them.

You could argue about Wally and jokes too, he's not very skilled at telling them after all, but I can imagine two scenarios: -Him speaking normally and not realizing he is saying something funny to her. (this could apply to Frank too)

-His best friend love to tell jokes and we know that Barnaby encourage Wally to chat and tell jokes to the Neighbors, it could be that noticing she was scared he tried to tell a joke to her.

The fruit basket

Okay now I am really looking into stuff, I know, but why would Frank bring a big fruit basket around? Julie says it's because he was going to say hi to her but we know the friendliest neighbor in the whole place is Wally itself. Wouldn't it make more sense for him to be the one going to say hi?

The fruit basket could also just be related to Wally going out into the woods to paint a still life since he is a painter.

“Was he mad?”

She was worried that "Frank" was mad at her when they met.

Strange, because Frank emotions are very easy to read, he's a very expressive puppet. We also know that when he feel a very strong emotion (like being mad) his head spins. Why she would question it? If it was Wally, his emotions are more difficult to read and it could be that she didn't understood his intentions immediately.

Wally itself

The fact she bring up Wally while recalling Frank's meeting is strange too. She says she met Wally the same day, why not meeting the whole neighborhood then? Maybe it was just them at the beginning and it would make sense in that case.

But Wally comes up at the end of the audio asking "Did all that really happen, Julie?" like he is asking her like all of that was made up or straight up incorrect.

Aaand I'm done! I'm not even sure any of this makes sense to anyone else, but it was stuck with me since the update and I wanted to draw it and share it.

Maybe it was Frank, maybe it was really Wally, maybe it never happened in the first place but... Everything sound too strange to be as the story says.

And don't get me wrong with all of this! I love Frank and Julie relationship a lot, I am not going against them in any way. I like to go deep inside the stories I am following and I speculate a lot about stuff! (Also I wanna apologize if my english is not the best, it's not my first language)

[milverton]

It's actually really normal that people don't know how to pronounce a name that originates from a language different than (and unrelated to) their own. And people will also struggle to pronounce sounds that don't exist in their native language. That’s normal, too.

okay okay I know the point of this is “White people need to put as much effort into learning how to pronounce Black people’s names as they do foreign European names” and 100% I totally agree, absolutely good point

but this tweet becomes hilarious in the context of this clip:

anyways, absolutely put effort into learning how people pronounce their names. just don’t feel bad if it takes you some time to get it right 😅

(also in case you didn’t watch the video it’s “N-SHOO-tee” not “SHOO-tee”)