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 

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 😀

@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

@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

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! 

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.  

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.

Admin

NOO!! looks like i missed thisss )): 

great seeing all the names though!! 🙂

– tmw <3  

I forgot T_T I knew I would. Oh well, I will shout some hellos into the void just in case anyone is checking this thread almost a month later:

@Quill, hi!! I'm glad your school and career is going well. I have a lot of fond memories of your art/picturings from Pudding's Place–if you are for some reason still lurking on this thread, are you still into art? 

@Sterling, hey! I've missed you. I think we joined around the same time, and I always enjoyed reading your posts. Your art style is so cool too! Good luck venturing into the realm of college (you'll do great!) and I hope to read you around someday 🙂

@Starseeker, hello! You were one of my CB idols when I first joined in 2020–your art was always amazing and you seemed so genuinely kind and smart. 

@Azalea, greetings! Always a pleasure to see you on here. I'm glad you haven't left for good 🙂

@Lumi HI YOU'RE THE BEST *optional hugs* reading all your past-CB appreciations really made me nostalgic, I miss all those people so much too T_T also, Hozier & boygenius reign supreme.

NOOO I can't believe I missed it!! It's so nice to hear from Lumi, Aza, Chaser & Jay, Sterling, and so many others that I remember that popped in to say hi. Love you all!! (/p) <333

HI IT'S ME KITTEN

I totally forgot about the reunion on Valentine's Day, and I was going to post a couple days after that when I finally remembered, only to find that the website was down?? (Thanks for getting everything back up and running, Admins!) But here I am now, and I hope some people are still around or back 🙂

Uh, for introductions – hi, I'm Kitten! I use she/they pronouns. I was active on the CB from 2017 to 2021 or so; I never officially left, just kind of drifted off.

The CB holds a really special place in my heart because it was the first online community I was ever part of, and it was where I first got into writing seriously. I would not be the writer or person I am now if not for the CB. It's so cool that the CB is still the same place it was when I was here! Fun fact, the first CB thread I ever posted on was the Poetry Contest, which is still up on the front page of Pudding's Place 🙂

Life updates – I'm a senior in high school this year and it's A LOT, but I'm really excited about where the future will take me. I'm planning on studying history in college next year. I still write, though not as much as I used to; life happens that way. Lately I've been really into writing fanfic. I've also written some cool things that I'm proud of and excited about for NaNo the past few years (I have the CB to thank for introducing me to NaNo in the first place!). In true writing nerd CB fashion, this year I'm the editor of three different publications at my school.

My latest major obsession, which I've been fangirling over to a truly unnecessary extent, is Six the musical. Other things I've been loving over the past year include: Matilda, Hozier, Kristin Cashore, Paris Paloma, the Murderbot series, T. Kingfisher, Good Omens, Shadow and Bone/Six of Crows, and also growing a massive earring collection.

Some responses to other comments here, in case any of you are still around~

@Lumi – aw it's so so sweet of you to think of me as a role model <3 reading that comment made my day! I remember always admiring your writing too when we were both active here. I'm so glad to hear you're doing well and that we have some of the same interests. You're totally a theater kid already; I feel like the only qualification is loving theater and wanting to do more of it. I honestly consider myself a theater kid even though I don't act and my only participation with theater is ushering and nerding out about it lol

@Star – I love hearing from you every year in the reunion thread! You were one of the CBers who encouraged me to get into writing originally. I still remember reading along with your novel and stories as you posted them and thinking that you deserved to be published someday. It's so cool that you're studying to work in a museum! I would love to work in museums or archives, but I'm a little nervous about going down that path because it has a reputation for being a field with too many interested people and not enough jobs. What has your experience been like with that?

@Ella – wow hi, I remember you! The MCU is such a special part of the CB and you're pretty unforgettable for starting it 🙂 I know I'm late to the party, but I'm here now! Summer is my friend IRL and she's doing really well; I'm sure she'll be flattered to hear you're thinking of her. We wrote a couple ski lodges together back when we were both active here, and we've done a few more writing projects together since then, which has been super fun. In regards to book recs, I'm not sure what counts as modern romanticism, but I always like recommending This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.