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corellianhounds · 5 months

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Bar Talk

Media: Star Wars (Original Trilogy)

Rating: Gen

Word Count: 2,742

Warnings: None

Art Credit: Johannes Holm on ArtStation

Summary: Set sometime after the Battle of Endor, Luke and Lando talk shop and discuss the difficulties it takes to rebuild after the war.

Base XIV had few amenities but the makeshift cantina was a popular one. It was just out of the way enough to have the illusion of a hole-in-the-wall dive, and it provided several much-needed distractions after days spent training, conducting briefings and debriefings, managing inventory, and performing routine maintenance. The uprisings against Imperial outposts and institutions across the galaxy demanded the remaining rebels’ support and there was little time to celebrate before yet another sector needed their help.

Too often many of the leaders forgot the second half of the sentiment “Work hard, play hard,” though, so the cantina had to work a foot in the door before it became a semi-permanent fixture by virtue of the fact volunteers kept it up and running in what valuable free time they had to spare. By the time the fussier lieutenants’ complaints made it up the chain of command, the infantry folks had reallocated improvised construction materials for the outer shell, and by the time it got to the commander’s desk, Leia was seen leaving with Wes Janson and Lieutenant Verlaine, so deconstruction was deemed a moot point and the lieutenants’ complaints were dismissed.

Lando had made time to meet up with Luke on a rare night off to catch up and chew the fat. Consuls had no end of paperwork and planning to attend to between missions, but they’d each somehow found themselves in a lull where most projects were waiting on the decisions of others, so the cantina now hosted the two war generals in a corner of the bar, overlooked in the hustle and bustle of a busy night and granted the rare-found indulgence of anonymity.

Lando was having a Takadian Sunrise, a flavorful and aromatic cocktail made with tihaar. The salt-and-pepper captain from Mon Cala, Toren Qavis, brewed the tihaar himself as a hobby on the side, and since it appeared his background in chemistry translated well to distillation, he occasionally supplied Jhon the bartender with it. Due to the limited nature of housing and storage space, Lando had had to ignore his more naturally inquisitive nature regarding how Qavis was able to create such a steady flow of tihaar. There were rumored suspicions cast on the ugly little C2-R4 droid that trundled about doing odd jobs near Qavis’s rooms: the man was a notorious pack rat and the droid— advertised by its Skor II creators as having limitless functions— was always picking up organic and inorganic material equally. The less Lando thought about the C2-R4, the better he was able to enjoy the home-brewed spirits. Ignorance was indeed bliss.

Captain Qavis’s tihaar never tasted exactly the same. Each batch was brewed in small quantities which meant those who enjoyed quality control had to gamble on whether they’d be getting a flavor profile they liked, and those more adventurous were never for want of a new experience. The monotony and tedium of what it took to build bureaucratic infrastructure could wear people down just as quickly as the constant fighting did, so Lando didn’t mind a bit of mundane unpredictability amongst his new delegations, and he enjoyed visiting with his friend over a hand of pazaak and good humor. Those days were coming fewer and farther in between, though.

Luke was barely into his twenties but the enormity of his responsibilities and the expectations placed on him were starting to show on his youthful face. As he sat next to Lando at the bar, Lando could see the far away contemplative thoughts sitting behind his eyes— Luke had been carving a divot into the wooden bar top with his thumbnail as he and Lando breezed through the daily trough patter they both knew by rote.

Baron Calrissian was more accustomed to bureaucracy than the farm boy was. Despite his efforts spent scouring databases and archives for information and history on the Jedi, Luke’s time was demanded of in a number of areas as they established the New Republic, and the divided focus was frustrating him. Point the boy in one direction and give him a clear objective and he’d accomplish it with aplomb. Split his focus and tell him to figure out how to manage both his time and his people in a number of unfamiliar settings and you get a fledgling Jedi and consul member forgetting important meetings and snapping at dignitaries they needed support of. He and Han were similar in those respects, and between their own harried schedules Lando and Leia had had to make time to smooth over diplomatic relations Luke had inadvertently ruffled the feathers of.

When it came down to it, Luke was a hands-on guy more accustomed to solving physical problems than he was performing administration. Gifted pilot? Yes. Ingenious mechanic? Yes. Unparalleled martial artist and strategist? Of course.

Diplomat? Not so much.

“Plan on digging a trench all the way across?” Lando asked. “A router would take you less time.”

Luke shook his head, resting his knuckles on the bar top. He was three black ales in and didn’t seem fazed by them at all. Lando wondered if there was much else to do on a backwoods planet like the one Luke had come from besides shoot vermin, drift speeders, and knock back ‘shine with the old-timers when you weren’t doing manual labor. Lando had met several hicks whose hold on liquor rivaled Coruscanti ironworkers— Union men were a sturdy breed, and still they’d stagger from going shot-for-shot against a scrawny hayseed with a competitive streak. Luke wasn’t a big man and still he’d shown no signs of flagging under the stout black ale that must have made up a quantifiable percentage of his body weight by now.

“Sorry, Lando, my focus is shot today. Meditation only gets me so far on the weeks we’re moving bases.”

“I don’t blame you. I’m surprised it's in your schedule at all; haven’t you been taking ten-twelves?”

“Something like that,” Luke said wryly. “I get it in during airtime.”

“Seems to me like that’s still work.”

“Eh, flying’s methodical,” Luke shrugged. “That’s the work I like.”

“What’s the old man have to say about your multitasking?”

“Haven’t asked him.”

The two of them chuckled. Lando slid the untouched tray of Zuǒ chicken over next to Luke’s forearm.

“Those bags under your eyes may match your wardrobe, but they aren’t a good look on you,” Lando observed. “Tell Leia you need to take a retreat, go to Dagobah for a bit and get your head straight. You’ll feel better after.”

Luke shook his head. “No need. I’ve got some downtime during the refinery recon and the meetings later this week.”

“Recon isn’t downtime. What’s eating at you, kid?”

Luke studied the wood some more while the fried food settled to room temp beside him. The general din of the cantina stayed at a low hum, sentients squeezing past each other but somehow still skirting the alcove they’d commandeered.

“… You ever been expected to give a speech on something you’re told you’re supposed to be an expert in but you’ve only heard of by word-of-mouth? Like somebody’s asked you to play a song nobody knows or has recordings of?

Lando frowned. “Is this about the Jedi business?”

Luke continued like Lando hadn’t spoken. “I can’t find any original codices for the Order. The representatives from other systems in the charter keep asking questions I can’t explain. “Why does the Force protect some people but not others? If the Force connects every living thing, how can so much evil go undetected for so long? The Empire wouldn’t have had the reach it did if the emperor had been stopped long before he took over. Are the Jedi really meant to live cut off from everyone else, or is that why they failed on Coruscant in the first place?”

“… Heavy stuff.”

“You’re telling me,” Luke said. “I’m just one guy and I’m expected to have all the answers.”

“Kenobi not been much help?” Lando asked curiously.

Luke shrugged and dragged a hand down his face with a sigh. “He’s irritated with me for arguing the logistics every time we talk. I think there’s a point to people’s questions but he’s still teaching from the old rule book.” Here he turned to Lando. “I know he’s only teaching me what he knows, but if the Jedi believed in accepting change, why can’t he see that the way we study and live by the Force now has to change? How can you reconcile a life of non-attachment with the very thing that binds us together?”

“A rope and a net will both keep you from falling but one’s going to do it better than the other.”

Luke couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. “See? You get it. Maybe you should be the Jedi.”

“Pass.”

“Smart choice.”

Lando tapped his fingers on the bar in thought. As far as he was aware the rebuilding of the physical Order wasn’t expected to be underway so soon anyway. Luke was one of the most wanted men across the galaxies; they were all keeping low profiles for a reason. The sheer enormity and reach of the Empire’s stranglehold meant there were still millions of Imperials and Imperial sympathizers stationed across every sector. There was no shortage of people who wanted him dead. If he revealed too much or didn’t remain off the grid, diligently toiling away at finding resources and forming covert connections, he could put so much they had worked for— to say nothing of millions of lives depending on them— in jeopardy. To not even have council members believe the Jedi were necessary or worthy of rebuilding in the first place meant Luke was fighting against the tide every time he didn’t gain a delegate’s trust, let alone support.

But to hear Luke struggle with how he viewed the original tenets of the code reminded Lando of just how new all this was to him, too.

“What is it Kenobi and Yoda do all day if they’re not giving you immediate resources?”

Luke drained the rest of his glass and tapped the bar twice for Jhon to refill it. “I won’t say they haven’t been helpful, but they ask more questions than they answer mine.”

“To what end?”

Luke put his hands up in a gesture of “Your guess is as good as mine,” baffled and frustrated. “To stretch my critical thinking skills, I guess— But I don’t have time for that. I need actionable directions. Contemplation and self-reflection are selfish right now when what people need is immediate help. How can I find others if they won’t give me the tools?”

Lando mulled it over. He could see where Luke was coming from and sensed he had a point. Han had told him a fortnight back that he’d found Luke working out his frustrations in bay 4-9 stripping down an X-wing from canopy to keel, muttering something about philosophy and accountability. By the time he emerged he was sweaty and covered in grease, but no closer to whatever conclusion he’d been using the ship’s maintenance as a stand-in for because his stormy expression remained in place and he immediately started in on another ship.

Grains of sand could beget pearls over time, but if you flooded a shell with sand without jetting out the buildup all you’d get was a dead mollusk.

So Lando changed the subject.

“How do vaporators work?”

Luke snorted and gave him a sidelong look that implied Lando was asking a stupid question (which, in all fairness, was part of the point). He held up his glass, water running in rivulets down the sides.

“Same way this does,” he said. “Why? Plan to invest in stocks before the dry season?”

“Naw, nothing like that.” Lando didn’t take offense to Luke’s sarcasm. “I was born on Socorro but my family lived so far removed from farm life I didn’t know how most essentials got from farm to table. I didn’t stay there long enough to learn anyway. Didn’t interest me.”

“And now suddenly it does?”

“The base camp up in the mountains put in a request for on-site equipment to help sustain them so they don’t have to rely solely on supply lines,” Lando explained. It was a true enough statement, though Luke needn’t know that the issue hadn’t necessarily crossed Lando’s desk. “There’s budget and time constraints they don’t have time to quibble over, and the railways are in poor condition because of the rockslides.”

Luke’s barstool swiveled a little more loosely to his left as he tapped his gloved, mechanical hand on the bar. “Vaporator cores run refrigerant through the main shafts to keep them chilled; they collect condensation and funnel it down to a tank beneath the ground,” he said, picking up a bit of chicken and chewing around his words. “Tatooine gets up to forty-two degrees on average and the mists rise at suns-up— Most of the water is collected in that window of time, and the rest of the day your work is spent on repairs and withdrawal rotations. The base camp is already up on the leeward side of the mountains though— Fog nets would be more efficient and easier to maintain. Higher elevation, less even terrain, and the fog’s already there. It would cost more money and effort to bore out the rock to install vaporators than they’d be worth in the long run.”

Lando stroked his chin thoughtfully. “What would the number of man-hours for maintenance be, assuming they have the space to dedicate to them?”

“For the whole compound? Maybe thirty hours across a standard week. The nets take up less space and there’s nothing mechanical or electrical to maintain. You could get the bigger cisterns and spend half the time across two shifts doing all the work at once, but the more often they’re maintained the less likely they are to build up mold. It’s not worth putting it off if it means running the risk of the whole supply making everybody sick.”

“What about groundwater?”

“Larger cost upfront to install the equipment, more work to purify it,” Luke said, shaking his head. Lando waved the barkeep down for another basket of Zuǒ as he talked, making a point to take some himself so Luke could continue uninterrupted. He had a bit more color to his skin than before, and the haze of stress and alcohol was a little clearer with a problem in front of him he had enough experience to solve in his sleep.

“Everyone can be cross-trained on nets, that way you can sub people in when needed. A specialized crew may sound more appealing but if they’re all waylaid or too many people are taken out you won’t have anyone to harvest a supply at all. You’ll need a foreman to track down screw-ups if you rotate schedules, though. Or you can give that job to a droid.”

“Any downsides to having droids do all of it?” Lando asked.

“… Droids just can’t get the taste right,” Luke said. “They’re good at filtering and testing for problems, and the water would technically be fine, but at the end of the day you need someone who’s going to care about more than just utility.”

The conversation reached a natural lull, and Lando didn’t feel the need to add anything else. He had what he needed.

Luke scrubbed at his face, sitting back in the stool and contemplating the condensation building up on the glass. “Seems all I’m good for some days is everything except restoring a creed. At least there’ll always be farming.”

Lando thought back to Qavis and the C2-R4, the cantina bartender and the makeshift pub carved into a quarry. He stood from his chair and dropped some credits on the bar before he put a hand on Luke’s shoulder and hoped it conveyed the reassurance he didn’t know how else to give.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Luke. There’s a lot you’ve got to contend with on your own, but you’ve got us to help with everything else.”

“… Ben thinks I can rebuild an entire order single-handedly,” Luke muttered sardonically. “But it feels like all I’ve gotten from him are criticisms and pushback.”

Lando shrugged. “If Kenobi didn’t want you in charge, he shouldn’t have left.”

Luke finally cracked a grin, the first Lando had seen in a long time.

“Besides,” Lando reasoned, “Seems to me like you’re already used to making something out of nothing.”

—

Notes:

Tihaar is a strong, clear spirit distilled from fruit. The inspiration for this specific home brew is taken from San Miguel beer in the Philippines circa 1980. Brewed in small batches, no two beers ever tasted the same. An older friend of mine said that during his stint overseas he was never happier than when he had a San Miguel beer in one hand and roasted monkey on a stick in the other.

Here is a link to a post I made about the C2-RV droids.

What Lando says to Luke about Kenobi is something my dad once said at a funeral. He was talking to his aunt (my great-aunt) at the last of her brother’s funerals, and she said in her normal matter-of-fact tone “Welp, I’m the last one. Guess I can raise all sorts of hell now.” To which my dad said “Well if they didn’t want you in charge, they shouldn’t have left!”

#Luke Skywalker #Lando Calrissian #Original trilogy #Star Wars #my writing #AO3 link in reblog #fanfic #Star wars fanfiction #original characters

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narwhalandchill · 2 months

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4.6 beta, kinda negative

Ughhhh i tend not to be the doomposting type but like . i have to say. as much as i love her design and how insane her animations are and just her as a character. arle being just another pyro on field dps that desperately wants bennett (near 30k dps loss without him according to some calcs apparently) is just..... Sigh

like unironically idek if i really need to get her on release at this point unfortunately 😔 and chiori genuinely being the first fucking 5* in this game outside of a hypothetical ajax alt that i actually kinda sorta wanna just hard commit to and c6 over her next few reruns is like. not helping. like i could be trying for her c2 instead

the situation with her numbers seeming on the underwhelming side (? grain of salt) i think will be alleviated like theyll buff her for sure but just. bennett dependency is the ONE thing. that doesnt fly in this household. if i cant nuke 250k on childe every abyss every time whats the fucking point 😭😭 i get that its like in character for him and arlecchino to fight over a support since the harbingers dont get along but man. its so underwhelming.

like . i just Dont hand bennett out to other teams 💀 like yea applies to kazuha too but Technically if i really wanted to i could just take the time to learn guoba swirl on sucrose and keep running childe but w bennett its like nuh uh.

i only got yoimiya After yunjin made her bennett independent. i never ran raiden in abyss pre-dendro. i ran navia + furina with charlotte at first and now xianyun, not bennett despite him being the best buffer healer there. The predecent is quite clear 💀💀

like theres actually a part of me that would rather just wait for the pyro archon as the desperate last bid that instead of pyro on fielder number 17 she might turn out to be that mythical honest fucking bennett sidegrade (no upgrade lol theyll never powecreep him) and then id have an easier time considering arlecchino 😔 but now its just like. idek what id even get out of her gameplay wise unfortunately

i just wanna be hype for her man like everything about her outside of the kit minutiae is brilliant. peak. showstopping. but at this point ive already benched enough on field 5* carries who just havent been engaging for me that i just rly dont know 😭😭😭

#also not to even start with the way that any onfielder ever is like 12 times more painful w bennett than international #bc yes childe LIKES having the atk buff during melee but the only thing he REQUIRES is just to ult and vape within it #XL snapshots and then you can just fuck off chasing after that mirror maiden or whatever #but on fielders who need circle impact all the time. yikes #this is so depressing. whereas chioris E and NAs are genuinely so fucking snappy and fun id love for her infusion to do actual damage .#and yes c6 is. an ordeal if i dont want to outright swipe egregious amounts. but i could. over time. if i commit.#anyway dont mind me im just rambling my usual #genshin #rambles

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utilitycaster · 8 months

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wrt using 2016 fandom as a cudgel: in your experience, to what degree is that manifesting these days as "things were better back in the good old days" as opposed to "the fandom sucked back then so that justifies me refusing to hear criticism of my faves now"? or is it roughly equal and the degree of fervor behind that sentiment just depends more on the demographics of whichever social media site you're using?

So please take this with a mountain of salt in that I know a decent amount about the Reddit through having dealt with the guy who founded it and through people I know who check it out, but I rarely actually go there, and similarly I don't care much for Twitter. Please also note that I started watching in 2018, and then lurked around the Tumblr fandom (as someone already on Tumblr) for about 5 months [was simultaneously binging C1 and watching C2 week to week, caught up around July 2018] before actually making this sideblog, so I was not myself there in 2015-2017.

With that said, my understanding is that it's the social media site you're using. Reddit is bemoaning the good old days when you could order the cast pizza and Matt posted dropboxes of his stuff regularly and forgetting that like, early episodes were filmed in an Ikea set from the mid-90s with sound that sounded like it was coming out of a cassette player from the mid-90s and more importantly that there was a strong group of rampant misogynists. Tumblr, meanwhile, has people who unironically think that there is some magic threshold of toxic misogyny after which you are indefinitely excused from even a whiff of anything that isn't adoring praise. I suspect, honestly, the Reddit is fueling much of the Tumblr discourse, because it feels like this attitude on Tumblr had been on a strong downswing during Campaign 2 and the few stragglers who were around (and who tipped me off to this phenomenon in the first place) rage quit at the end, but it's now being dragged around, Weekend At Bernie's-style, by people I legit do not remember seeing before like, a year ago.

I think there are valid discussions to be had because, frankly, every member of the cast has in some way been done dirty by the fandom, and on Tumblr at least I think that's been getting better every year as the cast continues to show off their range and grow more confident. But I also think, as the fandom picks up new people - which is good - you get this very ahistoric idea of What It Was Like (and again: I admit openly that I was there in 2018; I was not there in 2016). Like, people will claim that a woman character wouldn't get the same hate if she were played by Liam and that's just...never been true. It's fine to be frustrated by the way people talk about your favorite character, but there is a way to talk about that that isn't just straight up lies and presumptions. And I think again that's people not realizing the Reddit is not a remotely reliable source of what the fandom was like, despite the Reddit attempting to be a recreation of what it was once like, because nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Hence the "kill the Reddit within". Setting aside what you think was going on during the early years of the fandom, what's the fandom like now? What issues do we see now? Are they a continuation of that attitude, or have they arisen since then as the fandom changes? How can you thoughtfully address them now in a way that isn't passive-aggressive (or worse, outright harassment) or relies on flat-out incorrect claims?

#answered #burr-ell #cr tag

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silvernyxchariot · 5 months

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Apparently, Alhaitham's favorite food is steak, and honestly, same, boi. Just some meat grilled up a little bit with minimal salt and spices, and his lazy ass is ready to eat; no extra work necessary. It's probably the reason he has a six-pack rack of abs.

Someone on tiktok once said, "Alhaitham acts like a cat (feisty and independent), but he would love like a dog (loyal and protective)." As an Alhaitham kin, these things haunt my thoughts to this day. Take these as you will.

[Captions: Guess what Alhaitham's favorite gift is? Correct answer = Steak, Source: HoyoLab app.]

Also, I saw this lil capcut template,

and thought it was cute enough to use. Also², get to know me a little better?

My (#1) Main: Ayato

I started out as a Noelle/Yun Jin main for a while because I didn't play much. It wasn't until I seriously started building Ayato (c2) that I got deeper into the game. On that note, Ayatoast, you were supposed to be chosen the one. My first C6 5☆. He is now C4 from C2. I know it's only day 2-3, so I have time to grind, but damn. I used over 200 wishes this banner.

Fav Element: Hydro

I thought it would be Electro tbh, but Hydro is more versatile.

Region: Sumeru

Complain all you want about how large or boring the desert is. All I see is free primos. 💅 Also³, my husband and his first husband live there.

Me: No face reveal. Sowwy. 😋

But have a partial picture of my hand holding my cat's chin.

The fact that there's a star in the center of the temp. is so on theme with my (partial) JoJo's username.

#Alhaitham #alhaitham genshin #Genshin Impact #Kamisato Ayato #ayato genshin impact #Just a “feeble scholar”#the circumference of your biceps could match Kaveh's head 💀

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liesonthefloordramatically · 1 year

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A wild 2022 recap post appears!

Stuff I made this year:

Fiction: The only fic I wrote this year was the surprisingly underrated put a blue ribbon on my brain. Not sure why more folks weren’t into it other than all the obvious reasons www.

Playlists: Apparently the only two playlists I remembered to share this year were Camp Fireside Lagoon (a soundtrack for our Sleepaway game) and ExU: Calamity (what is says on the tin). I wish I could say that I have a bunch of secret playlists that I didn’t share but I mostly don’t. Creativity really flagged this year, partially because of exhaustion.

RPGs: Wrote two Sleepaway supplements: The Emissary and The Phoenix. Got to see The Emissary played live, which was cool!

Knitting: Finished baby’s first sweater and knit two shawls and three hats??? Maybe someday I will remember to upload pictures of stuff I knit.

Other stuff: Look, I was complaining about how little I wrote this year and then I remembered that I also finished my dissertation which was like 115k, so. Yeah. That was a thing. Also defended my dissertation, so I’m now Dr. Queenie! Went to Europe for the first time??? Moved across the country! Started a new job, so now I’m Prof. Queenie! Got diagnosed with new, exciting medical conditions! Somehow made it through year three of the pandemic! Have been mildly depressed since July and exhausted basically non-stop since September which might explain why my creative output has been miserable.

Media I enjoyed this year:

Books: I read...A LOT this year (like 40 books, which is not a lot for me pre-grad school but is a lot post-quals). Have really been taking advantage of the library’s ebook lending program. Some favorites: The Murderbot Diaries (genuinely shocked it took me so long to read this because it’s painfully up my alley), The Stormlight Archive (absolutely understand how it took me so long to read this; you could kill a man with the length of these books), Dead Collections (meditations on memory and archives and gender, heck yeah), Several People Are Typing (the howling!!! the howling!!!), Spear (this book was written for Queenie age roughly eight), The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (highly recommend reading this one without knowing anything about it; it’s a delight, especially if you know anything about Hollywood history).

TTRPG: Winner for new TTRPG I played this year was The Price of Coal! Also finished a campaign of Sleepaway and am currently running an extremely fun campaign of Blades in the Dark, but those are both in the Ol’ Faithful pile of TTRPGs.

Video games: Top game was Disco Elysium! Honorable mentions to Scarlet Nexus (deeply underrated--the monster design and soundtrack are both out of control and the characters are SO fun) and Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Baffling honorable mention to Stranger of Paradise, which I honestly expected to hate and then wound up weirdly emotional about?

Manga/comics: Finally finished reading The Wicked + The Divine which was extremely good and made me feel emotions. My inability to read things in hardcopy for fun is really cramping my style, though.

Fanfic: I actually didn’t read a whole lot this year--partially because I read a lot more published novels, which means that I have had a bunch of fics languishing on my Kindle for uhhhhh months. Some fics I liked this year include (in no particular order) a man by any other face (CR C2--this might be my favorite fic I read this year), path of the traveled sun (CR C2), displacement (CR C2), Familiar (CR C2), you’ve haunted me all my life (Tales of Berseria), at the violet hour (CR C2), From the Mixed-Up Files of The J. Lavorre Catalogue Raisonné (CR C2), a sort of beacon where there used to be a dull roar (CR C2), separating salt from water (Our Flag Means Death), dreamers to come (ExU: Calamity), Man of Nothing (JJBA: JJL), and after the scripture (your mother beside me) (CR C2). Special category for this year is “AU concepts that verge on crack but 100% work”: More Things in Heaven and Earth (CR C2) and the fire kept closest (burns most of all) (CR C2). Extra special nod to and from our own/live to ourselves (MDZS), a fanfic with a plot and setting so simultaneously unique, unhinged, and well-executed that it seized me by the throat for like a month.

Films: Everything Everywhere All At Once! Which I watched...3 1/2 times this year. Honorable mentions to Cyrano and Encanto. Wow, I watched a film this year??? Shocking.

TV: Our Flag Means Death and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean. Although we’re not done with the latter yet because we’ve been watching an episode a week (we are like...16 episodes from the end, I think? It’s been slow going). I really need to figure out how to get myself to watch things on my own because there are things I want to watch.

Podcasts: Continuing to listen to a lot, especially since I have an hour commute each way, plus I live alone so...need to hear human voices sometimes. Top picks: Trice Forgotten, Second Star to the Left, The Silt Verses, and Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. “Isn’t that just Critical Role?” Arguably, yes, but specifically naming that mini-campaign because it destroyed me (straight up made me cry on a plane in Sweden). Honorable mentions to Enthusigasm, Keep It Steady, Within the Wires, Keeping It 101: A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion, and The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality. I think Within the Wires has made it onto my podcasts list almost every year that I’ve done this which is really a testament to how consistently good it has been across 7 (!!!!) years. If this seems like a lot of podcasts, please know that this is only a fraction of what I listened to this year--to give you a sense, I tore through the entirety of Meiji at 150 (which is 150 episodes) in like...the first three weeks of term...while listening to all my other podcasts...

Music: Another weird year--Spotify refuses to give me Wrapped because I won’t download their wretched app, but apparently “Pepper” by Death Cab for Cutie was my top track for this year? What happened here? All I can really think is that I probably put it on loop for the 2-3 weeks of midterm grading when I was in a fugue state. My other top tracks--literally my top 11--are similarly songs I listened to on loop while in a fugue state. What does that say about my taste in music this year? Unclear! What does that say about my mental health? Nothing good! Anyway, you should listen to “We Have It All” which was #6 on my top tracks but does genuinely slap. Also did a bunch of grading while listening to Foley Artist which was A Choice (it’s a great album, but there are sections that are stressful to grade to).

Anyway, あけおめ！！！良いお年をお迎えください (this is a threat)！！！

#a wild annual recap appears #Queenie actually says something on this blog #I'd appreciate it if people didn't reblog this; thanks

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sparring-spirals · 2 years

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hi! i've been wanting to start watching critical role and i wanted to know if it was a good idea to start with the new campaing (exu calamity) or if i needed to go all the way back to the beginning.

Well, in my opinion, Calamity is an EXCELLENT place to start, and no, you don't need to watch anything else first! Although I will say the tone/story structure/style of it is shaping up to be quite different than the main campaigns tend to go. In a very, very good way!!!! I'm massively enjoying both for different reasons, but good to not necessarily take it as a representative sample of the primary 3 campaigns.

As for any other tips on starting, you definitely don't need to watch campaign 1 to watch 2, 2 to watch 3, and so on. There are references here and there you might miss, and worldbuilding you might need to double check, but the characters and arcs generally make sense on their own. C3 has had more callbacks to C1/C2 than campaign 2 did, so there's that. But I'm also a sucker for the C2 party, so take that with a grain of salt.

The first EXU campaign and its follow ups (DMed by the lovely Aabria Iyengar) are also very enjoyable and can be watched standalone, although the same warning as Calamity applies- unique table, unique DM, unique story structure. (And, ofc, extremely good).

Overall: Calamity would be a great place to start, I think. If you wanted to dive into the other campaigns, things will be different, so don't feel afraid to shop around and see what works for you, I suppose? Everyone has their own recommendations about which of the primary campaigns to start with- we're still pretty early on with C3, so it would be doable to hop in, vs the others you might need to be more flexible about spoilers/fine with skipping chunks of the campaign if you wanted to expedite the process.

I have.. no idea if this answered any of your questions or not. Either way, welcome! Watch and catch up however works best for you- wikis and episode recaps and fan content are lovely ways to catch up on things if you can't put aside 4+ hours. I'm sure folks will also provide more helpful tips and advice in the replies/reblogs, so: feel free to sound off!

#it should also be said im kind of a heathen with how i consume media and often watch things out of sync/minimal concern for spoilers #i crash landed mid c2. got the gist of events from gifsets and metas. watched the first 27 episodes and then skipped to ~50 to watch live #have skipped a few arcs here and there. and no one has assassinated me for it yet! so yknow.#but calamity is also 👌👌👌👌 so far so. follow your dreams anon!#im so sorry if this wasnt helpful #critical role #exandria unlimited #exu calamity #matthew mercer #brennan lee mulligan #aabria iyengar #logistics #?#spar speaks #ask away!#seriously though. excited to have you here!

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phoenixborn · 1 year

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Some people are born different, with a spark in their eyes reflecting their mind. Surfaces of her brilliance made themselves known early, by the age of 3 Cindy learned how to read fluently, all by herself only asking about letters a few times. Her mind seemed not only incredibly sharp but endless as well, able to perfectly recite books word to word after a few reads. As she was growing up, she became every teachers' nightmare, an effortless know it all which guaranteed harassment from classmates. The gentle soul was shocked by this treatment...was everyone like her father? But she hasn't done everything wrong, has she?

Despite her achievements, Cindy never thought of herself as a genius, as a prodigy even when her success wasn't limited ‘only’ to academic matters. Movements absorbed and mirrored like words, her acrobatic talent adding to a seemingly never ending pile. Then the discovery of her extremely unique voice and the absolute magic she was capable of with it. She picked up the hang of the piano with ease.

There were only a few who recognized and appreciated her undeniable genius besides her mother; few encouraged to pursue whatever she wanted and she wanted all. Growing tired of the bullying and berating, she read all coursebooks during summer, solved everything in the workbooks just to piss off both teachers and students with her boredom for 9 months. She didn't bother raising her hand to answer a question, grown tired of endlessly waiting to be picked. Joined the choir only to be kicked out due to her gritty vocal stunts. Slowly, she was starting to come out of her shell when someone was struggling with something, kindness within her was as endless as intellect. She was still that weird kid no one could quite label because she was simply too much, but the goodness radiating from her like a sun along with a few hard kicks and broken noses she sort of belonged to society as an outsider.

Cindy graduated from highschool at 16 with straight A grades, spending most of her time homeschooled and completely self taught after the first year, the headmistress absolutely having enough of her. She couldn't help but snark how much it could hurt to give her congratulations for her achievements when receiving her certificate. Her matura exams soon followed...of all 12 subjects instead of the mandatory 5 as a further salt in the wound. Plus a C2 language certificate from English. She was growing bored of the exams so she decided to not go for one from Spanish despite she was quite confident that at least a B1 would be maximum score.

Her life wasn't all sunshine and success. Her father always fond of alcohol didn't fancy his daughter so caught up in academic matters when pieces of papers didn't teach life. While his train of thought was somewhat correct, the execution was horrible. During the first karate lessons Cindy didn't even want to hit her sparring partner, not quite understanding why was violence necessary and why should she do it despite she wasn't hit first. It was the first time she witnessed him beating her mother and not the last. Once she tried to step in was when she was swiped at with a broken bottle, the sharp glass almost taking her left eye out, leaving a permanent scar. Always the same sweet supportive mom, Viola did everything she could to nurture an extremely gifted child in such hostile environment of frequent domestic violence. Her somewhat closed off personality, guards probably developed because of this, there was no need for a psychologist to assess this.

Cindy often escaped to the rooftop when she heard the familiar yells flare up, gazing at the stars with helplessness, hope and amazement. She didn't belong to this world; the thought often crossed her mind. During a few nights when the sky was clear she not only saw stars but...something else too. And she was determined to find out what: her new passion found.

One night the screams were cut short by a horrified shriek followed by silence. Racing down she could catch a glimpse of Géza hastily pulling a rug on top of the stairs; below was her mom's broken body staring with empty eyes. She slipped and fell. He said. The bruises on her arms were because he tried to catch her. He said. The rest of the injuries were a result of the fall. The reports said. But the star eyed teenager couldn't be fooled; she knew she was living together with a killer.

The grieving, bestial rage Cindy never knew before halted her seemingly unstoppable soar forwards for two years, deciding to sharpen her gymnastics, martial arts skills along with training her voice. Her undying interest in space was the only reminder of who she was. One night Géza invited his friends over, endless drinking and profanities followed, it was near dawn when the front door was slammed shut after the last one. Her father ascended the stairs with heavy sway in his steps, his shoes splattering the spilled beer on top of it. He didn't even need to yell for his daughter to clean up the mess, she was already there with cold, calculated fury in her eyes.

The autopsy revealed the cause of death was most likely the broken windpipe. What wasn't concluded that the injury was obtained before the fall.

Cindy knew her mom would've wished her to move on instead of replaying the simple yet brutal taekwondo kick with two years of rage behind it. She had all qualifications, results to choose and apply wherever she wanted. As always, she aimed for the stars and reached them, accepted with scholarship to one of America's best universities; she wouldn't even have accepted less. She sold everything and moved to America altogether, Hungary no longer having anything left for her to stay.

At first, music major was a given until the first not so polite remark that something must be wrong with her voice as it was ‘too scratchy’. By now she was almost fully aware of her vocal talent and its uniqueness; the first impression flooding her with bitter disappointment. Was this why she spent years only accompanied by books? Frustration turned rebellion, Cindy decided to rediscover social life, finding out that now she was...quite popular. Flirty, witty and hungry for affection, appreciation, she threw herself into the storm, eager to experience what she has missed out. She was well aware she swings both ways, quick dates, dances and kisses painted her as a player. Social media platforms created in a flash and flooding with interested people because she had a lot to share.

True intimacy was something Cindy always struggled with, not the right person, too fast, lack of meaning. Her current boyfriend, Mr Tall, Blonde and supposedly Perfect didn't like her slow approach, he tolerated it simply because she was hot. Worth the wait. Until a house party got out of hand and he drank too much, enough to not care about the no's anymore. He was hospitalized after the incident which caused Cindy to seal her vulnerability further away.

Yet she was frustrated. Why be ogled at for free when she possibly could make money of it? So she signed up to OnlyFans with the name Starfire, one of her recognizable habits was adding slight sparkly filters or make galaxy themed edits to make her photos look even more alluring. All those Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok followers proved to be interested in knowing her even more intimately. No strings attached, boundaries firmly established, her in control of what to post and when; she found herself enjoying the attention, praise and the high it gave her more than she originally thought.

Arguments with one specific professor became more and more heated, she absolutely refused to change anything in her technique, well aware she would cause damage that way. During this rocky time her ex boyfriend Alden found her OnlyFans by accident; not spending a moment hesitating to blast the fact that she's a ‘whore’ yet beat him near death when he ‘asked for’ sex.

Prepared for the harassment, and backlash, instead of denial Cindy only smirked, yeah now she was the local pornstar. However, the surprisingly sex worker positive mindset lessened the emotional blow and the grand exposure resulted in an increased income in the long term. Not to mention according to law, sharing her media is punishable by legal action as it counts as share of nonconsensual pornography along with violating the site's Terms of Service. She parted ways with music major in a true rocker fashion, with a fuck you & a lawsuit that the prestigious university really, really wants to keep quiet about. Cindy didn't need to be taught how to perform, music history was something she easily could research herself.

To everyone's surprise, she jumped to major in astrophysics at the age of 21, occasionally visiting classes she finds interesting from vastly different subjects. Behind the drastic change lied two reasons: her mom's eyes full of amazement and pride calling her galaxy brain & her rekindled passion for the stars she sought refugee in as a child.

#📚 college verse 🌌 | stars keep calling her to the only place she's never known: home.#🔥 alright/encouraged to like & reblog🔥 | spread my name like wildfire

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