Hello, a lurker here. I'll state straight off the bat that I'm not all that knowledgeable (or interested) in uncovering the timeline of Flutter's appearance or her importance to Chris' story. I have nothing of value to add to any of that. What I'm curious about are the rumors surrounding who she is and where she came from. Hopefully hearing a native perspective will help jog someone else's thoughts on this.
On page 203 of this thread, some users went over the possibility of having found Flutter's old Reddit account. I find it doubtful they're related. "Naapurin Pena" ("Pena from the neighborhood" / "Neighbor Pena") is a sort of a "John Doe" in Finnish speech, a mythical older male person who is referred to by anyone needing to make a vague reference to their surroundings. It's a random Finnish joke used by all ages. Not saying Flutter wouldn't use a username like (because it's peak xD randomzzz~~ ^^ humour) but the likelihood of the Reddit account being related here are very minimal.
The fact the Reddit account could be located to Virkkala on that same page reminded me of
some earlier discussion about her possibly being Swedish instead. While I find it highly, highly unlikely she'd be studying Finnish on Duolingo because she's actually a native Swedish speaker living in Finland, I found that consequence somewhat entertaining. If this is somehow, against all odds, true, it would conflict with an early rumor about her being from
South Ostrobothnia, which has no notable Swedish speaking communities. Big chance neither is true, but tossing those ideas here anyway.
To continue on the "source: trust me" lane: Flutter strikes me as someone who comes from "old" money. Can't really explain it but there's a certain phenotype of Finnish weebs of Flutter's age bracket that thrived off their well-off, older parents' money and were able to indulge in anime shit in the 2000s, and she just somehow fits that really well. People who have heard her speak have stated that she doesn't seem to have an accent, which to me speaks of an education. ... Probably not a higher education, but an access to the English language from a young age. That hasn't always been a privilege extended to lower class kids in Finland. She also seems well groomed despite wearing clothes a 10-year-old would've worn in 2004, so unless a witness comes forward and says she smells like shit? I doubt she came from poverty or lives in it. Again, not touching that whole rabbit hole with Praetor, but if Flutter
is Finnish and
is paying for everything when walking Chris around? She's not doing so out of her own pocket. The Finnish government won't let you starve to death but I can't come up with a single social security program that would allow her to live this steadily off the tax payer money in 2025, much less if someone were mooching off her and especially with the amount of shopping they seem to be doing. If she's employed, she could be a teacher with good vacations (see: entire summers off + all national holidays) or something else laid back like that. I still doubt it, because you can't splurge on frequent flights to and from the US with a salary like that. I doubt Flutter is a commission artist or anything either, because I'm fairly sure that income is taxed to the point of not being profitable in the long run - and she just doesn't seem like the type to be working at all, artsy or not.
That's all speculation, but one thing is for sure: She reminds me of an old school ernu, "erilainen nuori", literally "an alternative kid". That got thrown around (and at) weebs in Finland a lot back in the day and brings us to another rumor I've been thinking about a lot recently:
The possible lolcow backstory.
If it turns out to be true that she used to inhabit the Finnish internet from 2008 onwards, that might put a dent to the Duolingo/Pena angle. A non-native Finnish speaker wouldn't survive that sort of an environment back in the day. Not saying the Duolingo couldn't still be hers, but if there's any truth to the lolcow theory? I think that should be pursued and dug into.
I think the poster of that message meant to list Desucon and Tracon, not "trad con". For anyone with some extra time to kill, aniki.fi hosts an
archive of old anime convention pictures from 2008. It's a long shot but could be a fun side venture.
I'm unwilling to take such leaps of blind faith myself until I know what I'm looking for. Everyone has concepts of a Flutter but that's not going to take me far with extinct Finnish board sites and decaying archives. Kuvalauta doesn't exist anymore, IRC-Galleria is damn near unoperable if you don't know what you're looking for, and if she by chance operated on Vuodatus or something, it's going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. So, I think the basics need to be figured out before further research can be done:
What sort of a weeb is she?
Zeus (I'm big fan, by the way) writes
here that Chris has said her name comes from the MLP character Fluttershy, and it's a known fact they go to MLP conventions together. But that can't be all that can be diagnosed about her, so I'd like for someone a bit more familiar with these sorts of inner workings to figure out what else she might've been into in the past ten years. If the lolcow story from 2008 is true and we now have a Fluttershy in our hands, what happened in the meanwhile? Hetalia? Inuyasha? One Piece? Tokyo Mew Mew? Elfen Lied? A heathen trip to Homestuck? There has to be some residue of her past interests
somewhere in her person other than the waifu voice. Figuring this out will help with figuring out what sort of company she has kept, what sort of sites she has used, and what sort of usernames she might have gravitated towards. Has Chris suddenly become interested in something noticeable after Flutter came into the picture? Has some shared hobby come to light other than MLP? Does someone recognize some merch Flutter's wearing? Anything? Those sorts of details would be more helpful than clear pictures of her face when charting out who she is, I think.
The poster of the lolcow backstory also states that Flutter "had explained her condition a long time ago on Kuvalauta". I doubt she's got anything going on with her despite her young looks and short stature, personally. She's not
that short. She lived through the peak of the Alexandria's genesis internet and probably made it up because she was craving for attention her parents never gave her, but if there's a genetic condition that could explain her looks, I'd like to hear from that. Finland's population is small and a rare genetic condition could be easy enough to look into, especially if (if) her parents are well off enough to get her diagnosed for something like that. I'm still calling bullshit on there being a condition but I guess it wouldn't hurt to look into that, too.
I won't be active in this thread or KF as a whole, so this is going to be one of those "dump and run" sort of messages because this whole Flutter thing has just been bothering me to no end recently. There's no way there's no digital footprint of her that couldn't be dug up. Her not being chronically online doesn't make any sense.
She doesn't make any sense. I hope something new comes up sooner rather than later so I can stop living in constant fear of coming across them out there.
