Video | welcome, hallo, buenos días, ohayō, etc, etc! | UN: Newt

[groupiedrifter]

[Newt comes shuffling into view on the screen, holding a cup of coffee in his hand with a bag of what seems to be Sour Patch Kids harrowingly hanging out from beneath the pinky finger of the very same hand. Disheveled but more than happy to provide his services after dragging himself out of bed, he taps his knuckle on the chalkboard beside him — one that used to be Hermann Gottlieb's, may he rest in peace (in a not dead way — may he rest in peace on a beach or something while wholly alive and thriving).]

Noticed an influx of new and kinda-new faces over the last few days or weeks or whatever.

So here's my handy dandy welcome board! Recently updated, to keep with the times.

Read it over and get a feel for how this place goes; I'm gonna finish off this coffee before I take any questions.

[As he takes the world's most obnoxious-sounding sip and burns his tongue, here's the board in question:]



[And then, after a bit of time, he turns the board over to the other side:]



[No worries, current crew, if you can't get one of those introduction papers in person!

Because he's attached them in file format, too.]



[And in case you wanted a text format copy:

Name:
Age:
Birthday:
Favorite color:
Favorite food:
Favorite subject:
Favorite toy:
Favorite animal:
Favorite candy:
Favorite activity:
Favorite place:
Favorite book:
Favorite TV show:
Favorite movie:
I am good at:
I want to learn:
Least favorite subject:
Place I want to go:
If I could make one wish, it would be:
If I could have one superpower, it would be:
This is what I want my teacher to know about me:

(Have at it — threadjacking is encouraged).]

Comments

[jedied]

I think maybe it's to do with this lightsaber in particular. It sort of... found me. It's got a history, and when I touched it I got a look at some of it.

[ Not the worst parts of it, thankfully, but enough to scare her out of wanting to touch it again until it was time to slice said darksider's face open. ]

I taught myself entirely on old Imperial training sims and broken ships badly in need of repair, so I'm reasonably sure I can teach someone else. The ships around here can't be that different.

[hindsights]

You saw the memories? Like a Sense Echo? [ she can't hear it but there's excitement behind the text that comes through!! ]

Hey. If you're a good pilot from all that, I'll take it!

[jedied]

I... don't know? It's never happened before or since. I suppose they were memories. I'd hoped to be able to ask its previous owner about them but I wound up here instead.

[ And here has better teachers than crabby old man Luke, so here she's gonna stay! ]

It wasn't the most straightforward path, but it worked.

[hindsights]

That sounds like a Sense Echo. Psychometry is what Master Yoda called it. [ back then, it'd been the first time cal had put a name to a power he hadn't been able to control. ] Sometimes the memories attached to something are so loud they'll force anyone who can see them to watch. Other times, you have to lure them out yourself.

Sometimes you have to adapt to what you have to survive.

[jedied]

You knew Master Yoda?

[ She's faintly envious, though so far her track record of meeting her heroes has gone fairly tragically. ]

Is it something I could learn to control? I didn't even know I was Force-sensitive until it happened, though I guess now looking back there were other things. Dreams I used to have that came true. A feeling I'd get about an object or location.

[hindsights]

Yeah.

When he had time, Master Yoda would teach the Younglings at the Temple.

[ there's a long time before the next response comes in, cal's taking his time. ] You can control it. It takes practice but I learned to. I can try and help you learn too.

Did no one around you notice?

[jedied]

I wish I could have met him.

There wasn't anyone who would've cared to. After my parents left my only caretaker was a junk boss who didn't care what I did as long as I brought him a profit. I was seven when he told me I had to earn my keep, and I don't think he'd have noticed if I were literally on fire.

[hindsights]

Is he gone in your time?

Oh... I'm sorry. [ he forgets that so many people had a much harder time than he did after the republic fell. it's hard to think that it lasts for so long. ] You worked as a scrapper since you were seven then?

[jedied]

He is. But he lived a while after your time, if that helps to know.

[ She's careful with how much she says, given the number of Skywalkers currently on the station and the level of engagement she wants to have with either of them. Cal doesn't deserve to be dragged into that mess either. ]

A scavenger, but I suppose it's more or less the same job. I think you might've had actual regulations; we had junk bosses who made their own rules and claimed their own territories Mine wasn't the worst out there.

[hindsights]

[ he wonders how long that was. after all, he knows that rey's from only fifty years ahead of him and master yoda's race is long-lived. ]

Yeah. We did have regulations and some protections for relatives if anything happened to us. [ instinctively, cal reaches up to rub at the hyper shell company logo tattoo on his arm. ] And it paid enough to survive, no one asked too many questions.

How'd you end up getting mixed up with... well. Everything?

[jedied]

I found an astromech droid that needed help, and then Finn found us both. The First Order was after the two of them and I knew how to fly, so we stole a ship whose owner happened to be a Resistance hero.

We stopped on Takodana, and I found the lightsaber. It called to me, weird as that still sounds to say. I tried to leave it, but the First Order attacked and things got... messy.

[ She's still not ready to talk about how trying to run away might've gotten one of her heroes killed and her best friend hurt. ]

I kept thinking I'd go back to Jakku. It still feels like someone made a mistake, honestly. How do you go nineteen years without knowing you can use the Force?

[hindsights]

That means you were meant to find it. If it called out to you... I get that. That's how the Force works sometimes. [ it a way that doesn't make sense in the moment but is meant to be.

master tapal had said 'trust only in the force' and cal has found that when he does, things work out. they do. even if at first it all seems like it's a little lost. ] It happened the way it was meant to.

Trust in the Force.

[jedied]

Yeah. I'm trying.

It's a little complicated. I don't even know how to talk about all of it, really.

[ Not least because doing so would make bigger messes than she knows how to clean up. ]

Thanks, Cal.

[hindsights]

I'm here to listen if you need it. I'm not as good as having someone like Master Yoda listening to you but... well, I'm here.