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CB Reunion 2024
Chatterbox: Chirp at Cricket
CB Reunion 2024
CB Reunion 2024
Hello, everyone! Happy (early) Valentine's Day and welcome to the 2024 CB Reunion! It's so good to see you.
For new CBers who are unfamiliar, the CB Reunion happens every Valentine’s Day. Old CBers come back to talk to their old friends and the current CBers. It’s a lot of fun! While the reunion is a lot of old CBers reconnecting, current CBers are 100% welcome here too, so current CBers should totally feel free to introduce themselves!
Speaking of introducing yourself… I’m Periwinkle, best known as Peri. I’m a current CBer, and I’ve been here since January 2021. I use she/her pronouns. I’m usually seen here working on reviving Kyngdom (which we are in the middle of right now, for old CBers who probably didn’t know that), giving advice, writing about my AEs, and recommending music. I’m also known for creating Make a Friend and Care Packages! I hosted the reunion last year, and I’m hosting again this year.
For those of you who’d like to look through some old reunion threads, here are some. Thanks to Celine (current CBer) for finding the 2023 reunion, and Kitten (old CBer, I believe) for putting some old reunion links in the 2022 reunion and making it way easier for me to organize this list!
2023: http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/chirpatcricket/node/536572
2022: http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/chirpatcricket/node/507452?page=1
2021: http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/chirpatcricket/node/472475
2020: http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/downtoearth/node/429653
And a list of more reunion stuff (also from Kitten, who is fantastic): http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/downtoearth/node/401395
That should be everything! Let me know if there are any problems with the links. Have fun, all <3
(And my apologies if this is up too early — I realized I had a busy week so I decided to post it a tad earlier than I’d planned to. Please keep this topped so everyone can find it come Valentine's Day!)
submitted by Periwinkle, age 14, Somewhere in the stars
(February 11, 2024 - 9:24 pm)
(February 11, 2024 - 9:24 pm)
@Pointsettia, *bows back elaborately* It's nice to meet you as well! Fun facts, my art history professor (who is also my art museum studies professor) originally got into this field because of the exact reason you mention being interested in it: there's so much to learn about, always! I do want to work in an art museum, so I do specialize in art museum studies, but even within that there's so much to know about studio art, chemistry, history, politics, geography, biology, and so much more. Art history and museum studies are both such interdisciniplinary fields, so if you're interested in a lot of things, I'd definitely recommend it! One piece of advice I have is that a lot of museums are looking for volunteers a lot of the time. During the summers as well as my winter breaks, I work at a natural history museum in my hometown for some field experience. Even though it's not the same type of museum, it's interesting work and I enjoy it! You can try to see if any museums in your area, whether art, natural history, local history, or otherwise are looking for volunteers, and you can get your foot in the door.
@CelineBurningBright, haha yes, my date was great! We went to a cute little coffeeshop and drank London Fogs, played Scrabble, and talked about Pirates of the Caribbean. Maybe not a traditional Valentine's Day date, but it's very on brand for us! I play the clarinet, 4 types of ukulele (soprano, concert, tenor, baritone), the flute, piano, guitar, and I sing. As for being an amateur graveyard photographer, my mother is a member on a geneaology site where people request photos of their ancestor's graves. I help her in locating and photographing these graves. Hence the 'amateur'; my mom is the real star of the show!
@June, hello hello! Listen, I absolutely can't judge you for your love of Jason Todd; he's an icon. Personally, Tim Drake is my favorite, but Jason is a close second.
@Hawkstar, yes, we did have ski lodges! Ski lodges are probably, gosh, more than ten years old at this point, older than my CB time. Murder mystery stories/roleplays were already a thing, but the reason why they're called ski lodges is due to a popular murder mystery roleplay on here that was set in a ski lodge. After that one, the name stuck. I think more details on that story can be found in the CB Ultimate Guide, which was made by Kitten in... 2019? It has a lot of details on CB history!
@Amethyst, Yes, both a loveable little mutt and a loveable little boyfriend! Both of them are delights. (And maybe I shouldn't conflate my dog with my boyfriend, but to be fair, they're both great.)
@Moon Wolf, maybe this is a controversial answer, but I loved compliment threads! Also, there were 2 separate threads that I remember where people would handwrite letters to each other and post photos of them. I liked those too!
@Quill, HI HELLO! Lovely to see you, as always! :)
I do believe that was everyone! If I missed you or you have something to say, please feel free to add a comment below this! :)
~Starseeker
(February 14, 2024 - 9:47 pm)
Hi, Starseeker! It's wonderful to read you again--I don't know if you remember me, but I certainly have some fond memories of you from my time on the CB. Now, to current topics: Tim Drake is certainly a worthy favorite--he was definitely a top contender in my own selection. I love him dearly. Also, a must say, your path of study and career goals sound extremely cool! I've recently been rather interested in the art authentification process, as well as...art storage is how you would put it, perhaps? Although most of my understanding ( very very limited, I warn) of it thus far relates a bit more specifically to excerpts from tomes.
(February 14, 2024 - 11:17 pm)
Oh, that's so interesting! I'll keep that in mind. I just thought, if I do end up going into museum studies, maybe we'll meet someday and work together.... Anyway, thank you for the advice! :)
(February 15, 2024 - 8:58 pm)
@June: studying astronomy or astrophysics (and philosophy lol) sounds super cool!! do you have any idea what you want to do after college in any of those fields? also help I've been trying to get into Star Trek recently but I don't have enough free time to watch that many of them—I've seen a few TOS and a bit of TNG but that's about it. Any advice on where to start for that? Favorite episodes/characters/etc? [ALSO because I love bad jokes but don't know that many Trekkies irl who'd appreciate them you never know maybe you will... how many ears does Captain Kirk have? three: a left ear, a right ear, and a final front ear :D why does Picard hate waiting in line? he’s had bad experiences with queues]
@Chaser & Jay: I miss seeing you around but I hope you're doing good :] *fond zoodle nostalgia*
@Sterling: same as Chaser & Jay, I miss your wise ramblings and manyy AEs and amazing artistic skills but good luck with college next year!! historic preservation and linguistics sounds pretty cool~
@Ruby: I think I saw you at last year's reunion but don't know if I ever introduced myself lol anyway 14 translated novels?! :0 that's awesome, what novels? and what language are you translating them from?
happy valentines day, y'all!
(February 14, 2024 - 11:38 pm)
Salutations! It’s lovely to meet you—I don’t get the opportunity to meet many fellow Trekkies. My career hopes are a bit niche, but I could rant about them for hours upon hours…Alas, I will give the short answer (for now, anyway.) My hope is to go into the space ethics and policy field, most likely from the academic side. Long story short, this means that I want to be involved in wrestling with ethical problems and then instating the proper regulations before these problems are anything more than theoretical. That way, when we solidly enter the age of exploration and (*fingers crossed*) discovery there are already guidelines and precedents in place to help prevent moral missteps. I'd also be delighted to do work in cosmology, or practically any asto-related fields.
As for where to begin your “Trek”, if you will, I can’t say I’ve yet watched anything besides TOS, so that’s the only recommendation I have. I wish I could be more helpful. I do have some favorite episodes, however! These are the first two that come to mind (from the first season): “The Devil in the Dark” (this one touches on some interesting subjects in space ethics…I won’t be specific, for fear of spoiling, but I really enjoyed this episode!), and “A Taste of Armageddon” (this one was just plain philosophically interesting.) And, those are wonderful jokes! I snorted out loud when I read the “final front ear” one.
I saw (read) that you do robotics! That's so cool! I've always been fascinated with the subject, but never had much opportunity to engage with it practically. I'd love to hear more about what you've done, both in robotics and general STEM, and/or anything else you feel like sharing. :)
(February 15, 2024 - 10:36 pm)
ahh I don't know if you'll see this because of the website being down for so long, but hopefully!!
When you mention space ethics, what exactly does that cover? Stuff like minimizing human impact on other worlds, or like idk, implications of aliens? Controversies around militarization, colonization, microbiological research? That sounds like such a cool field! And I'll check out those TOS episodes :D
Are you also interested in wider technologically-based ethics? If not, that's cool but I'm curious your opinion on a lot of the recent AI controversies—hallucination, deepfakes, legal ramifications and those held responsible, etc. Is there some intersection you forsee between AI and space travel/ethics around those topics?
I do First Robotics Challenge (FRC) with my school team. Every year there's a new challenge—this year's involves large foam rings being shot into different sized holes, plus climbing on suspended chain at the end. Competition's this weekend! I'm just a freshman, so I don't have a super large role, but I'm learning a lot of really interesting stuff—mostly CNC machining and general power tool knowledge (I'm on the fabrication subteam; we build things lol) but also prototyping/general system/robot/etc knowledge. Thanks for asking :) I love to talk about random robotics stuff~
(March 8, 2024 - 2:26 am)
Woah hi, I also do FRC! I did not expect to see anyone else who did robotics here on the CB. I do more media and outreach stuff for my team than fabrication, which is really fun. My team is also competing this weekend, presumably at a different event. Good luck to your team :)
(March 8, 2024 - 1:57 pm)
Hellp and hello and hello all! It's Ella Starburst here, a little old CBer who didn't make too much of an impact on the CB besides roleplaying a bit, almost finishing a ski lodge...
OH yeah and making the MCU.
Gosh, what do I even say? I haven't been returning to the reunions as often as I ought to, and I do aplogize for that. It's sad to see a lot of the old faces not returning. Luna-Starr, Kitten, Micearenice, Rouge Wilding, and Summer were all big back in my day. It's nice to seee @June, @Starseeeker, and was that @Jwyn? Is this place still as active as it used to be? I hope so. Last to post has made a grand reappearance. Maybe I'll return to the CB soon casually - but no promises. The reason I left before was because making the MCU all by myself got incredibly overwhelming.
AND HOW THE HECK DID KYNGDOM RE-EMERGE? WHAT?
So what's new with me? Well, I moved from Illinois to Wisconsin. I turned 17. I devoted myself more to Christianity. I have gone through...lots of difficult situations. It sucks, it really does, but it also shows me that turning to God and joy is the best way to get through life. I'm much more artistic now - Gosh, did I seriously leave the CB before I got into AJR? That's EONS ago! I like AJR and Mitski, but my favorite artist right now is Will Wood. I love the combination of heart-wrenching and insanity - it describes my brain pretty well.
I don't read much anymore :( that's because I've gotten into more immeresive mediums like music, video games, and movies (i need to actually watch more movies :p). I want to get back into it but I have no clue where to start. I love modern romanticism if anybody has any reccomendations! I would read Red Rising but I'm not emotionally stable enough to do it rn :(
I love the CB so much and I love all of you! Thank you so much for existing - it's fantastic to be back and see the MCUs being kept up!
love,
Ella Starburst
(February 15, 2024 - 11:09 am)
Jay: Bwahahaa I dragged Chaser on here to say hello. Say hello, Chaser!
Chaser: *shoves Jay off a building* hello! I would have come back for reunion even if Jay hadn't made me.
Jay: *climbs back up the side of the building* Well, you would have if you hadn't completely forgotten about reunion. You're welcome.
Chaser: Anyways, we have a lot of people to reply to! So here we go:
@pangolin - HII! Yes we remember the zoodles and the CB city RP! <Jay: I particularly loved your ski lodge---in face, I already checked on it yesterday and read all the new posts! The writing has been great as always!)
@WiLdSoNg - hi! We might be around CB a little over the next month or two... No promises, though. High school should come with the warning "abandon all free time all ye who enter here."
@Peri - Hiiii! <Jay: *Accepts hugs* *offers optional hugs back*> don't worry, there's no such thing as too enthusiastic! It's great to see you too! <3 :D
@Scuttles - Hi Scuttles! It's good to see you! Honestly, it's good to see everyone, and know that you are all still here!
@Hawkstar - We remember you too! Yeah, we kinda just vanished off the face of the CB without telling any of you where we went, sorry about that.
@Hex - * returns fond zoodle nostalgia*
@Anybody we might have forgotten, because wow Jay's post got way more responses than we expected - we love you all <3
(February 15, 2024 - 11:15 am)
WHAT CHASER AND JAY??
HELLO! i know this is really late and you probably won't see this, but i've missed you guys.
(for reference, i used to be echo hallowswift)
i never got to know you much at all, but i'm so glad to see you guys.
(March 7, 2024 - 10:11 pm)
@Ruby M, I loved reading your post! So that's what BAD is all about? >:0 I would say that earning a living off of nodding sagely over spreadsheets sounds good... Glad you enjoy it, though! My charries are always nodding sagely, to be honest. 15 translated novels is incredible - I've always thought translating might be interesting. And oh no, you were in the hospital? I hope you're better now!
@Starseeker, they do both sound great, so fair to classify them together :]
@Ella Starburst, woo, nice to see you! Your MCUs have made you very, very famous. Yes, Kyngdom's re-emerged! Hopefully once we get past the initial what's-going-on what-are-we-doing-here-anyway stage, we can develop the action more. Love you too (/platonically ofc)! <3
(February 15, 2024 - 12:40 pm)
All right, this'll be a long one!
I'm Azalea, or Aza, she/her, I was active in 2020-2022? ish? But I never really left and I'm kinda back for the moment. I think I'm best known for my picturings and maybe poetry? I love this website a lot. I also am very inconsitent in my use of capitalization...
@Lumi!! HEY I'm so glad to see you! thanks for mentioning me, it seriously means a lot because you're one of the nicest people i've met and a wonderful poet, and i'm always surprised to remember you're 2 years younger than me. <3 I love all the musicians you mentioned; I'm seeing Hozier in concert soon. i love six of crows too! i dressed up as Kaz the halloween before last. also, yess, keep the CB full of XDs!
@Starseeker, wow, it's been so long since i've heard from you, i missed you!! you were definitely one of the CBers i looked up to. i was very inspired by your art and i totally remember all your zoey stories! your studies sound super cool & i'm so glad your life is going well! <3
@Gracia, idk if you remember me, but i'm also thinking about doing journalism! very unsure though, but it's a good answer to "what do you want to do?" because it sounds cool enough to tell friends and real-job-y enough to tell adults, lol. what kind of things would you want to write about?
@Satin, hi! i don't think we were active at the same time but i recognize you. seriously, whenever i think of how much more accepting this website has become over less than a decade, it gives me so much hope for the world. and having your work performed sounds AMAZING, omg.
i have many more things to say but i'll end this comment now. happy late v-day!
(February 15, 2024 - 1:52 pm)
AZA HI IT'S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU
your age box actually scared me in my head you're still 15 but then I realized I'm 15 so you can't still be 15 because I would then still be 13 but. what. 17. in news other than Lumi having a difficult time with basic addition, KAZ IS ACTUALLY AN ICONIC HALLOWEEN COSTUME AND I LOVE IT. and hozier in concert hello??? have so much fun oh my gosh. much love <33
(February 15, 2024 - 11:27 pm)
Hey. It's me, Opal. I'm not sure who remembers me or if anyone does, but whatever. I didn't stick around very long and faded deep into the background until I withered away into nothing. Happens every time. I'm pretty sure I first arrived in 2023 in February and left around August, I think. Things got bad and they're still not the best. I might as well have actually withered away in real life. But a little less withered I return. Enough of that, let's move on.
I'm seventeen now and terrified of adulthood, luckily I'm mentally nowhere near ready. I'm decidedly gender-fluid and all around quite queer, it literally has no bounds. I'm more drawn to masculine pronouns and you can find those lovely little parts of speech down by my name. When you aren't sure of my current pronouns, they/them is absolutely fine. I've been drawing nonstop for about 3 years and I'm actually feeling pretty confident about my art skills at the moment. I'm in a mystery writing class and I'm taking an animation class, which has had me both crying with desperation and screaming with pure insanity. Boy, I sure do love animation. I've developed a rather sarcastic sense of writing, I swear I'm the same person. I have over 60 OCs that I can whip out at any moment and it gives me a huge advantage over my many foes. I adore watching animated shows, my current obsession being The Owl House. I wish I could spout off all the books I've been reading, but the truth is I haven't been reading much at all. Don't get me wrong, I still love books, but unfortunately sometimes things suddenly aren't okay and sometimes you just don't feel like reading for months. I enjoy video games immensely and find Minecraft to be an underrated gem for storytelling and desperately wish I had friends to play it with me. Cats control my entire life and I would literally die if they asked me too and no I don't have a problem. You can often find me nowhere, because I'm always in my room being the introverted little hermit I am.
Back to being serious for a moment, I really do miss this place and I've been meaning to come back for a while now. I'd like to apologize for anyone who was involved with the Crow Keeper ski lodge, that was me. I've always felt guilty about not finishing it, so..... yeah. Anyway, you'll probably be seeing me again pretty soon. First I'm gonna change this name, Opal really isn't who I am anymore. Thanks for reading this, see you around.
(February 15, 2024 - 7:47 pm)
Shucks... I completely spaced the reunion again for the 2nd year in a row.
You can still comment on the thread. Some people will continue to check in all week.
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(February 15, 2024 - 10:28 pm)