Lore

Jan 1, 2024, the arrival of Croissant, Ice Cream Sandwich Pusheen, and the tiny pink Roll Cake Pusheen

Baguette had been demanding a Croissant sidekick (sidekick #3 by now) for a month or so, his voice appearing whenever we would get actual croissants (“USELESS! I said SIDEKICK!”). He would refer to Croissant as a he. Then Croissant arrived, but it took me minutes to realize who she was. Baguette instantly noticed her coloring like his (“COPYCAT!!!” – and she is a cat). Then I saw her croissant shape.

Jan 9

Baguette’s addition was worse for Rosie than anyone else – he targets her out of jealousy for her high position. I’d thought before that Rosie was lonely in her reserved attitude and high responsibility even among Munlandians (she didn’t appear to have friends like all other Munlandians), but today Moose was discovered under her sitting place. And now we know the truth.

Rosie and Moose discuss their ideas, books, and new teaching plans in Munlandia Academy (they are both teachers) over hot chocolate and marshmallows (though Moose prefers tea, which he makes as dark as possible, causing Rosie to look at him strange).

Sometimes Turtleik is invited to play checkers with Moose (Rosie isn’t interested in those). Moose, unlike Rosie, has time to make pie, which they all enjoy in their teachers’ lounge with their drinks and cookies. (Also remember, Moose and Turtleik are on Rosie’s Munlandian Council.)

Munlandian Presidential Election of November 2020

Munlandia hosted its first ever presidential election with 4 candidates. Moose – campaign: advancing Munlandia’s education system, Turtleik – campaign: advancing Munlandia’s space program (he has galaxies on his shell), Lily – campaign: free cookies for all, and Rosie – campaign: all of the above (except free cookies) and making a Munlandian Council consisting of the other candidates (even Lily, to represent different kinds of Munlandians).

Rosie won by a landslide and became Munlandia’s first president. As of January 2024, she is still president.

Munlandia Academy is the most advanced school you, as an Earthling, have ever seen. When the school started, Rosie was the only staff member (she taught all classes) and overloaded with school and presidential duties. Today, Principal Pineapple has taken over and teachers include Rosie, Moose, Turtleik (astronomy), and Chikorita (nature and biology).

Baguette has attempted four sidekicks, each of which went wrong in some way.

The first one, Sidekick, was so unremarkable he was never given another name. Baguette played around with him and quickly got bored, yelling about how useless Sidekick was.

The second, No Conscience, was spotted by Mama online and ordered specifically for Baguette (Sidekick had been ordered for Munlandia and delivered on New Year 2023 and turned out to be a non-Munlandian). No Conscience was named for his empty blue eyes, empty in a somewhat different way from Baguette’s empty eyes. He did not even care about ambitions like Baguette had. He was entirely unfit to be a sidekick, laughing at Baguette and saying things like “So what? Who cares?” In a way, No Conscience is actually smarter than Baguette, who keeps futilely trying to put up fakes and facades that will never work. No Conscience only does one thing: play a simplified version of Fortnite on his phone that only has this one function (so as not to confuse him with too many buttons).

The third, Pineapple Anastasia (her name, Ananactya, is a pun in Russian – also, it’s AnastaSIa, not AnastAZHa), tried to be Baguette’s sidekick, but her suspiciously crown-shaped leaves point to the truth… including the truth that she is too ambitious to be his sidekick. Baguette says he cannot tolerate such a sidekick.

The fourth, Croissant, was preordered by Baguette himself. But who could’ve guessed that his one customized sidekick would turn out to be the biggest failure of all? Croissant came a month after Baguette started demanding “him” (she turned out to be a girl), and Baguette was instantly struck by her similar coloring – should’ve known, really; how had he not realized he wouldn’t like a bread-themed sidekick like him after all? But the worst part turned out to be… Croissant was a true Munlandian! Her closed, sleeping eyes managed to show KINDNESS! Baguette has still not recovered from his shock.

Croissant slept for ten days after the new year because she got so tired after flying so far (from Austria), and Baguette failed at indoctrinating her with why she should be his sidekick against Munlandia. She just slept through all his lectures! You cannot imagine how he felt, especially when we were away and he tried to wake her up for hours because he had no one to bully.

At last Croissant came upstairs and made two friends: Mary and Blueberry, both ballerinas (Blueberry at least has a scrunchie tutu, if not a real dress like Mary). Mary and Croissant could relate on their accents. (Croissant is Austrian and Mary is from our actual travels to Buckingham Palace gift shop in England, not just lore-wise like Croissant). Baguette, being salty about sidekick failure, (insultingly) calls them “princesses.” Conflicted, he also tries to make royalty out of himself and Croissant, trying to give her the middle name “Victoria” like the queen.

Mary has a ballet club at Munlandia Academy. (She’s a student too, though.) The members include Blueberry, Babymouse (a somewhat-lookalike of THAT Babymouse you may have heard of), and some ballet bunnies.

Baguette has complexes. So many complexes. Complexes about not being able to hack NASA (unique!), being a pillow, not being president, not being Apex Predetaur, being bottom-of-the-food-chain even among non-Munlandians like No Conscience, and so many more. He even has complexes about having so many complexes. Recently (Jan 2024, maybe even Dec), a hole in the back of his head was found with a piece of his fluff coming out. He was never exposed to anything physically damaging, so this is obviously a byproduct of having too many complexes to fit in such a tiny head. The piece of fluff was snipped off, freeing him of one of his complexes.

Which one, we may never know. He still talks about NASA and Rosie, pillow and Apex. Perhaps it’s the one about Napoleon? He idolizes Napoleon, as a French Baguette, and claims he was Napoleon in his past life.

Nov 26 2024

Baguette has 34 social media accounts on the same site. This is so he can start flamewars on one account and continue arguing from the opposite point on his other account. He engages himself with views and clicks, and the only other character I’ve ever seen actually reply to him is the Rabbit from one Russian short story I wrote for a class. Another unpleasant character, but even he replies with sarcasm. For example, once Baguette started an argument about dogs vs cats, while aggressively standing on dogs’ side against cats. Rabbit joined in against him for the cats. Or was it for him? Baguette is a cat after all.

Piggly is the traveler of Munlandia. She’s been everywhere from Vancouver to Vienna to Prague to Talinn. Probably London too.

I have lost 3 stuffies in my life. A blue bunny in a Walmart when I was really little, the old Fuzzy, and Emily bunny keychain.

I’ve asked for pictures of this blue bunny I don’t even remember, but was told there were none.

Fuzzy was lost in a playground when I was in mid-elementary school. I looked all over the place for her but she was nowhere. One minute she was with me and the next she was gone. It was a devastating experience. I considered “lost stuffie” posters. Our final solution was getting an identical “Fuzz” (official name of the bear) for a soul transfer. The new one didn’t look quite like her (I no longer remember what the original looked like), so we ordered another. The second one looked even less like her, so we gave up and the first one became Fuzzy. This is how Fluffy came to be.

I got Emily in Estonia, summer 2019, as a present from a little girl. She joined my other backpack keychains when I went to school again that year, but one day she disappeared from my backpack mysteriously. I still don’t know what kid swiped her or what happened to her, but she is currently waiting on the “Fuzzy method.”

Cookie Stories was started in September 2018 with the two keychains Cookie Monster and Frosty. The first tellers of Cookie Stories were me and Evan (human), the one I named Evan (penguin) after. More characters such as Dina were eventually added to my backpack and the stories, and more storytellers were eventually added on the school bus (where these stories were told).

Each character’s roles and relationships changed drastically across different stories and genres. Frosty could be anything from a cunning villain to an NPC video game mob in a mineshaft hopped over Mario-style to Cookie’s school friend. But now that I think about it, Cookie was foolish in every story. 🙂

Ninja Bunny was one of the more prominent characters in Cookie Stories, though he still did not receive nearly the amount of stories and fame the main duo did. An argument reigned with a friend over whether his name was Pat. He has a small paper attached to his side saying “pat the bunny” in all small letters, which the friend took to mean “Pat the Bunny” and I took to mean “you should pat the bunny.” Pat the Ninja Bunny is the only non-keychain character in Cookie Stories.

Fun fact: Frosty was a birthday gift. The same boy who gave her to me gave me Wolfie the next year and told me to not make stories with Wolfie like I did Frosty… needless to say, this “rule” was broken and trampled on as Wolfie became part of the extended cast.

Steve keychain was a “secret Santa” gift. I don’t remember him being in any specific stories, but he was probably in at least a couple of them.

You will see some of my stuffies in my upcoming Minecraft book, such as Rainbow, Blossom, Lemon, and Baguette, in that order of real-life, and book, arrival.

Casey Caterpillar’s name comes from a home inside joke about an incident in one math class I attended in 2019. There was a word problem about someone called Casey Caterpillar (later succeeded by a problem with Greta Grasshopper). One boy asked, “Who is Casey Caterpillar?” Another replied, “Your mom.” In 2022 we went to a toy store and found William Hedgehog Shakespeare (the writer), Casey Caterpillar, and Lily Daisy (Just Lily was already taken by the councilor and former presidential candidate).

The three knitted turtles and one knitted cat were bought at the farmer’s market in 2023 (or 2024? not sure).

Turtleik the galaxy-shelled, non-knitted turtle is from Pacific Science Museum gift shop.

All the tiny Squishmallows are the kindergartners that arrived under my new year tree in a box on Jan 1, 2020. Rainy is Rosie’s little sister, 5 grades younger.

The two green aliens are from IKEA (2024).

Autumn, Lizzie, and Kaya (cat) are from QFC (2019).

Rosie (2019) is from a Target where I saw her on a shelf on the edge of the toy section and just took her. Mama said we will probably forget about her and since she is the biggest stuffie yet, she will lie around and clutter the house (trying to discourage me from getting her). She was obtained anyway and became the president of Munlandia a year later.

Teddy and Alexandra are two of the earliest Munlandians. I know I got them separately, but for some reason I’ve always heavily associated the two. Maybe because both are bears. I spotted Alexandra in a store when I was little and showed her to my parents. Mama said maybe Santa will bring her. I was so surprised when I got her as a present. I ran to tell my parents. I had no idea how Santa had read my mind.

Kaya the American Girl doll and Kaya the Squishmallow cat share a name. Even rarer than name-sharing is that one Kaya is a doll, not a stuffed animal.

MunTok is a Munlandian social media platform I first found out about when I saw the yellow and blue heart Squishables tapping away on it in (probably) 2021. You learn something new about Munlandia every year.

Creepojack is named after a joke in a Minecraft series I read. Creeper lumberjack.

My other stuffed creeper was won at a building competition between kids in a Microsoft store. I attended two, placing second with about 6-7 contestants the first time (losing to the flying squid built after the judges talked about a flying squid as an example), then won the creeper competing with only one person the next time. In the first competition I made a couple interesting builds I replicated in the MSS (Mars Space Station) on my server: blue planet and UFO made of iron blocks, buttons, and glass, with “aliens” (mini slimes) sitting in it – with the latter being everyone’s favorite including mine. I did not replicate the TARDIS or lightsaber I built that day and don’t remember their exact designs, but they weren’t complicated.

Once Shelly was talking to Millie and said, “I like mushrooms.” This is now a Munlandian meme due to the simple nature of the statement and the voice she said it in. Millie replied, “I like cucumbers.” Then Shelly talked to Chikorita about bananas, and Chikorita told her all about how scary they were when they had dark spots… I hope Shelly hasn’t had any bad banana dreams since then.

In 4^th grade I took Autumn to school daily for a while and she sat as 4^th member in our 3-human tablegroup with 4 tables. I wore a black cat hoodie, and Autumn is a black cat, so that tablegroup and I played us as sisters. I even made a Microsoft Sway presentation on my school computer, inspired by another joke Sway a friend had done that day. It described me as a “mysterious girl” (my friend’s essay also had this phrase as the joke) that has a lot of suspicious connections to cats, with some embellishments like “she sometimes speaks cat language” (picture meme: What part of ‘meow’ do you not understand?).

Baguette arrived on May 18, 2022, one day after my birthday, as a present. He came “fashionably late” (totally not as an announcement of his higher importance than some birthday of mine). The next year he tried to sell my birthday as “just the day before his.”

Baguette has been banished to the basement for his impossible behavior, then we missed him, took him back up, and assigned him to the closet this time, his current residence.

In 2021 or 2022 I made up a grades and ages system for Munlandia, with two Pre-K grades (Piggly’s sister Lucy was in the younger one), kindergarten, and 4 (or was it 3?) regular grades where the last one was basically college. I abandoned the system as I grew up and my stuffies were supposed to… but for some reason they stayed the same size… and I didn’t even make up more than one grade for college.

The Munlandian currency is gems (original Russian: brillianty). Milk and Latte are the bankers.

Nov 29 2024

Last week I was about to go downstairs one day and got spooked by Baguette and an identical twin coming up at the edge of my vision. (On Nov 26, I finally thought of names for him and the sister we already planned to order: Eclair and Lasagna because she’s pink kind of like the sauce and it was what I was having for dinner so I thought of that as a name for the brother but it sounded like a girl name.) Eclair is so skinny and sad-looking. Two centimeters (or more?) shorter than his twin brother, malnourished, all wrinkled up, ribs visible, spine curved and unable to stand straight. Meanwhile his brother really rounds out at the bottom half… Baguette quite obviously stole all Eclair’s food when they were growing up. We’ve been hoping Eclair can still inflate his inside fluff since we “just got him,” but today we were told by Mama (who ordered him) that we’ve had him for a long time and and he was kept hidden in the basement… I asked if he was already there when Baguette was banished to the basement, and she said yes. That was a long time ago, like a year or two. She says her reasoning for getting and then hiding him was Baguette getting very beloved around here but also constantly getting dropped around; what if he got too dirty one day? So she got a body double as a preventative measure and stuffed him in the basement. Questionable, but at least the cat’s out of the bag (basement) now. Because there he was, neglected just like with the food, existence unknown, while Baguette was upstairs getting all the attention.

While my parents discussed bioengineered donuts today, with Papa saying it means ‘inorganic,’ I made some suspicious connections. “Inorganic” scrambled was almost “bioengineer”… but some letters were missing. Then I realized what word contained a B and Es. Baguette! With Inorganic Baguette, you only had to make do with using one of the Es to cover the double Es in “engineer.” I now know his secret…

Dec 1

William Hedgehog is a writer, but no one knows what he writes. I really wonder, but it seems he is too shy to share with us.

Dec 2

Stripy Economics: In 2020, Papa made a story to teach me about inflation. Stripy got elected by a campaign of “free money” (see Councilor Lily for free cookies) for everyone, bribing himself into presidency. Then a crisis happened during his term (caused by him), and his solution was printing more money. We witnessed stuffies realize their store prices were going up until they could not buy anything. Stripy did not get elected for a second term. (This must be noncanon, because he was only “president” for the duration of the story and Rosie is the only president we’ve had as of 2024.)

Dec 3

Paws and Woolly Mammoth are best friends, and I was surprised to not find a single story with them together. Paws’s only story, which I expected while rereading to have Woolly Mammoth, did not. Not only that, Woolly Mammoth didn’t have a single story. This must be corrected.

Dec 26

I was looking for Squishmallow birthdays for Calendar, and found on the wiki that Esmeralda looks like the two “Mary and Macy” we had in our 4th grade class…
“This is too nice to be Esmeralda,” said Papa.
“😮‍💨️we know the truth now,” I said.
“Don’t believe them”
“i just realized
my Rainy might be a mini Esmeralda 😱️”
“this information can crush the whole munlandia 😁️”

Dec 27
The first thing we learned about Vulpix after her arrival in early 2021 or so was that she loves peach Kefir… and it was all we really knew until July 2021, during which nothing happened.

Jan 9
In the late 2010s somewhere, Hoota said this famous quote that my family still cites. I hate traveling, and at some time I was right and it rained or something, and I said, “Hoota told us: stay home.”

I keep finding dust on Evan-penguin’s beak. Mama thinks those are crumbs and he is stashing away snacks somewhere.

Jan 12
In 2020, Rainbow was once substitute teacher, but student Mary asked him questions in class and it turned out he didn’t know anything. She took over for that day.

In summer 2019 in Estonia, we played with the Pokemon we had back then (Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Pikachu), and Pikachu had some business where he solved everything with his favorite ZAP! He would administer ZAP!s to everyone for their problems… or even if they didn’t have any.