#had way too much fun with that minigame | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rainbow-starlight · 1 year ago

Text

Why is Help Wanted 2 Sun… Like That?

Okay, I’ve been putting off making this post until I felt like I had a better idea of what was going on, and now that I’ve watched at least part of a play-through and gone over the lines a whole bunch, I think I’m ready.

I’m gonna talk about my thoughts on Sun as a character as well as HW2 as a whole here, so it’ll be a bit long. Pop some popcorn or something.

Please keep in mind that this is all my personal opinion and you’re free to disagree with it! In fact, if you think I’m totally wrong, please tell me why. I love new perspectives!

SO! Let’s get right into it, shall we?

First things first: Help Wanted 2 Sun is not the same guy as Security Breach/Ruin Sun. If his personality difference was significant enough to surprise you, that’s because he’s a different person.

I’m not entirely sure how much of Help Wanted 2 is meant to be actually happening, but I think that at least the mini games are training simulations.

However, it’s important to note that a lot of the stuff happening in the mini games is just… nonsense. How did Freddy get frozen like that? What’s with those regular batteries in his arms? Why are half the supplies in first aid explicitly for robots and not humans? Why is there a shredder table in the daycare for kids to stick fingers into?

Some of this can be shrugged off with the usual “FazCo is meant to be comedically shitty and the tech often doesn’t make sense anyway,” but the first aid simulation is what really stood out to me. Even with the previous explanations, that doesn’t explain the calming gas mask that could only ever fit Helpy or the steel wool scrubber or the tank cleaner spray bottle among the medical supplies. If the goal is to train new first aid staff to avoid lawsuits, it’s doing a pretty poor job of it. So… what is it for?

I touched on this idea previously with my post about Sun’s AI being trained on kids’ artwork. The idea of FazCo making a silly new employee training game as a means of harvesting behavioral data to train their AIs seems very within their realm of scummy.

This is why the Arts & Crafts mini game exists. It’s literally a task that requires exact copying. Maybe it’s essentially like teaching an AI to solve captchas by feeding it a bunch of data on how humans solve them correctly and incorrectly.

Maybe its presence is explained to employees as fun practice with the VR system or a break activity during training or something.

This would explain several things about the game.

The existence of the shredder table and Sun shredding literally ALL of your artwork: It being a funny way to despawn the stuff you make is a lot more reasonable when that’s exactly what it’s for in-universe, too. The generators in the play structures are unsafe enough, but that would’ve been on another level if it were real.

Sun’s line “Be creative on your own time, we are making ART!” It literally isn’t a creative activity, it’s a task. I know you can’t really apply logic to a lot of FNAF stuff, especially the DCA’s design, but if Sun were actually this detail-oriented and perfectionistic with everything, he’d never be able to function in childcare.

The fact that Sun’s “fear” of the dark seems like a bit. It literally is a bit. There’s no threat, it’s not real. I originally thought he just wanted the player out of his space faster and didn’t know how to assert a boundary there, but I think it’s actually just to make the player finish the tasks faster for data collection purposes.

Possibly also why he’s so comfortable being casually rude to the player. He is a jester, after all, and the player has lots of opportunities to do things they shouldn’t, too. It’s basically all a bit.

Also… what if the minigames have versions of the base AIs in there? It’s a version of the Sun AI with the theater programming and the basics of the childcare stuff? His entire existence is a shitty little simulation where he runs a singular activity for grown adults who can’t (or won’t) follow very simple instructions.

The biggest thing that’s been bothering me about the takes I’ve seen regarding HW2 Sun’s personality is that people have been calling him “mean” while completely ignoring the circumstances he’s reacting to. If a coworker came into my personal space and I was so generous as to share my favorite activity with them and they proceeded to intentionally ignore the rules I set and EAT SUPPLIES I USE FOR WORK? Yeah, no, I’d react like that too.

There’s definitely something interesting about how genuinely excited and happy Sun sounds when first welcoming his new friend the player to the daycare and inviting them to Arts & Crafts vs. when they return. He seems like he WANTS to befriend the player, but the game just assumes you’ll be upsetting him so there’s no option for dialogue where you’re nice to him and respect his boundaries and participate in an activity with him in a way he’s comfortable with.

I say “in a way he’s comfortable with” because he is a little weird about the whole “sit right there and DON’T MOVE” thing. He does seem actually excited and enthusiastic about the idea of shooting darts at the items you want so he can get them for you, though. Maybe because he sees it as a happy compromise, or maybe because it’s supposed to be a fun part of the game he’s programmed to be in charge of.

I saw some other commentary on Sun (primarily thinking of @kazzykatt) talking about how he seems almost excessively self-sufficient, and how this could possibly be due to neglect (he and Moon definitely aren’t as well cared for as the other animatronics, the generators in the daycare are a very lazy fix for actually reprogramming Moon properly, he seems bitter that he can’t fix the carousel on his own and he and Moon don’t seem to trust the player to fix it, their design is clearly better suited to the stage but didn’t get changed for the daycare, I could go on and on), and this would also explain his control issues to an extent.

Sun, in SB and HW2, doesn’t leave the daycare. He has so little that he’s in control of in his own life. He used to be on stage (and based on his dialogue probably misses it quite a lot) but had the job he was built for taken from him. He’s a perfectionist that’s constantly overwhelmed by too many things being marked top priority in his system, working too many hours with too many small children. Of course he’d be desperate to hold onto any little bit of control he has.

Honestly, when I first heard his voice lines, the initial vibe I got wasn’t “wow they made Sun mean” but “wow Sun sounds actually miserable” and I’m kind of surprised more people didn’t pick up on that. He sounds less bitchy and more like he’s lashing out because he’s trapped in an awful situation that’s completely out of his hands.

“Wait, are you saying none of HW2’s characterization should be taken seriously?”

You might be asking that, but my answer is a resounding NO! This is definitely still a Sun, and I think seeing two different Suns (even if we don’t know how much of HW2’s personality we can assume is meant to be taken seriously) is really helpful for interpreting what the base Sun personality might have.

It’s also important to keep in mind that none of the Suns we’ve seen were in a good situation. Security Breach Sun had the virus, Ruin Sun had gone slightly mad from isolation, and HW2 Sun is stuck in a shitty simulation babysitting bored adult staff as they fail to complete simple tasks. What we mostly know about him is how he responds to stress, and this is why there’s so much room for interpretation!

Here’s some traits I think every version of the Sun AI would have.

Love of making things. Despite everything, HW2 Sun seems to genuinely love doing arts & crafts. Especially with googly eyes. This could kind of be assumed from SB Sun, but he was also trying to entertain/bribe a child.

On this note… interest in fixing things? Maybe he just wants to avoid having to rely on staff, but if he and Moon are subject to that much neglect, it makes sense that he’d try to learn to do repairs himself. I saw @pixelchills talking about the possibility that the S.T.A.F.F. Bots in the DCA’s room are not there because Moon broke them, but because Moon collected them for Sun to practice fixing. It seems feasible to me, especially since taking something apart and putting it back together might have the same calming and satisfying effect on Sun as completing something like a paint-by-numbers.

Playful insults and lots of drama. I don’t mean actual rudeness, I mean friendly teasing. Again, he is a jester. A lot of his HW2 insults come across more like this. Hell, even his compliments come across like this with the delivery and immediate shredding. He’s just a theater kid at heart.

Difficulty regulating emotions under pressure. This is the kind of thing that would pop up on his worst days (such as being trapped in his destroyed home with a poor connection to his badly damaged physical form while the only help he’s seen in ages ignores his instructions and puts their own safety at risk, or being trapped in a shitty simulation while his only company ignores his instructions and puts their own safety at risk). He’d have to be able to manage this sort of thing better to work well with children, but everyone’s got their bad days. He’s prone to outbursts and tantrums when he’s overwhelmed and unable to stop people from breaking the rules and/or hurting themselves.

People pleasing and nonconfrontational. Yes, HW2 Sun, too. SB Sun seems genuinely desperate to make sure Gregory’s having a good time, and HW2 Sun is shockingly tolerant of some of the player’s bullshit (ex. how he tries to laugh off them shooting darts at him/throwing things). Even calling the player “good friend” when he’s not so happy to see them or threatening them with Moon instead of just telling them their time is almost up seem like signs of this to me. And letting the player make arts and crafts in the ruined daycare in HW2? Yeah, that’s a people pleaser through and through. Sun needs a lesson in setting boundaries (and for those boundaries to actually be respected).

Perfectionistic + “if you want something done right, you’ve gotta do it yourself” attitude. This would mostly manifest in how he completes work tasks, but I think every Sun’s incredibly detail-oriented and would rather do everything themselves just to make sure it’s exactly how they want. This could manifest in lots of ways, from “insulting the staff for how they put things away and telling them to do it again while he supervises” to “politely thanking them for their help and complimenting their hard work only to redo everything himself the moment they’re gone.” I think where on that spectrum you wind up is dependent on the version of Sun you’re interacting with and the environment his personality developed in.

High-energy and social! A given, of course. He never stops moving and everything is always so exciting. New people are friends he hasn’t met yet until proven otherwise.

Love of pranks… to an extent. Again, jester! I stand by my headcanon of Sun and Moon conspiring to convince the staff Moon’s some sort of spooky monster whenever he’s not actively dangerous. As long as he’s not making a mess, breaking the rules, throwing himself off-schedule, or actually hurting anyone? He’s all over it.

Anxiety. This seems like it’s at least partially caused by the lazy daycare reprogramming. All the Suns we’ve encountered seem to lack knowledge of how to actually get children to behave. It seems more like they programmed him with a bunch of games and activities and then set a bunch of super high-priority tasks for him such as “keep kids safe, keep kids happy, keep kids entertained, keep daycare clean” etc. and he’s unable to really prioritize so he’s just constantly overwhelmed.

Kinda always using “childcare voice.” If you know anyone who’s worked with kids, you know what I mean here. Even with adults, he talks to them like kids sometimes, just because it’s what he knows and what he’s used to and because his processor’s fried from however many hours a week he’s surrounded by kids. Consider his reactions to when you eat the crafts as an example. (IMPORTANT NOTE: I don’t think he’d coddle adults like children. It’s more about tone and vocabulary, like “customer service voice”.)

Stickler for rules. He cares about things being done right! The rules are there for a reason! Order is important to him (probably in no small part because it keeps him out of trouble and reduces his stress).

That’s about all I can think of for now, but as someone who writes a very friendly and sweet Sun, I actually don’t think HW2’s characterization was that far off from what I had already assumed based on Ruin/SB. The only difference is that the Sun I’m usually writing is in a much more supportive environment with lots of helpful staff that care about his well-being. If he didn’t have that, I could absolutely see him becoming more like HW2.

I will finish this off with two final important points:

Being an emotional person and liking “childish” things does not make an adult less of an adult.

(He’s a childcare worker, c’mon.)

If someone gets pissed off after being repeatedly antagonized, that does not make them a “mean/bitchy/sassy person.”

(Yeah, he doesn’t handle it gracefully, but to be fair, I wouldn’t either in his shoes.)

Thank you all for reading!!

#fnaf sun #fnaf #fnaf help wanted 2 spoilers #fnaf hw2 #fnaf help wanted 2 #fnaf headcanons #fnaf hcs #hw2 sun #hw2 spoilers #dca sun #sun fnaf #fnaf dca #dca fandom #daycare attendant sun

340 notes · View notes

dirtyoldmanhole · 7 days ago

Text

i'm going to be musing about one of gunter's most controversial lines here just because i've been idly thinking about it while drawing.

heads up for dead dove shit.

context: the JP version of Fates:Conquest had a region-locked minigame ("skinship" where you basically pet the character with your stylus lol) where you the player could interact more with a married gunter if you went that route - it also had several JP-only lines which you can read here.

generally they aren't that much different in tone than the EN ones though fun to read (especially since the minigame is lowkey sexual in nature; all the cast's lines were more strongly sexual not just his), but there was one line that uh. raised some eyebrows in the EN fandom when the fan-translators found it, shall we say.

in bold; (i've added some of the others for helpful context; i don't believe all of them are said one after the other, as it's whenever you choose to enter the minigame one is said).

By no means did I think these feelings would develop… Close your eyes for a moment. I apologize… I thought just touching you would be fine… When you touch me like that… Don’t tease me too much… or even someone like me won’t be able to endure it. (TL: He uses the verb “tawamureru” which means to play, joke, or flirt but I decided to liberally change it to tease) You’ve returned. We mustn’t… Oh no… I thought of you as a child but… I love you. Haha… is something the matter? Is it fine for me to touch you too? This side of you… don’t show it to anyone else. My wife… does cute things… I love you. I might have regarded you with special feelings ever since you were young. (A RANK:) Thank you very much for being kind to me to this extent. For as long as you wish it… I promise never to leave your side. (S RANK:) I thought I would always live alone. But you… lit a flame once more in my heart which I had locked away. This time I won’t let you go. I love you more than anyone else.

(... once again touched at how surprisingly romantic he can be)

anyway! oh yes, That Line.

tsk tsk.

given his position of power with essentially raising corrin, you can imagine how some people who already disliked the ship tended to leap on that line as "proof" of him sexually abusing corrin as a child to put it bluntly.

thoughts are still rotating, but roughly in order of:

instinctively (and the most boring position just to get it out of the way) on the first level i don't like how often this line is immediately whipped out to dissuade gunter/corrin shippers specifically but also shippers in general from engaging with taboo sexual concepts. especially when it's just as boringly... crudely blunt as "pedo". (slightly adjacent to gunter fans in general since there's sometimes an uneasy feeling that as long as you don't ship him that way with a 40-year age gap/parental figure/etc there's an exception carved out as "one of the good shippers" as long as you ship him with less of a power differential (eg gunter/shura. note i dig that ship, this is just an example.); though i think this sentiment has thankfully died down as of late versus the early years of fates fandom.)

god that is such a fustratingly common and boring way to engage with media. moving on.

on the second level down, i also instinctively dislike the feeling that it's whipped out to flatten the potential of gunter being romantically/sexually written as either binary concepts of "good" and "bad-touch", with the latter being often pointed out with an accusatory finger. personally i like reading bad-touch gunter for the lulz sometimes. also for the nuance given how sadly complex child abuse/grooming/pedophilia is in real life, and how it impacts the victim in so many ways beyond the obvious. and shocker - i like reading predatory-gunter sometimes even for cranking-the-hog-material! (predatory-gunter is kinda hot, man.) sometimes all of the above at the same time. i think all of these readings is just as applicable and interesting and needful as redemptive-gunter stories. (it's a very similar reason to why i fucking love possessed!gunter noncon what-if setups.)

and the above point doesn't even go into the nuance of can-you-even-have-redemption with the above if you want it. how would that work. how would that work in rev-verse vs conquest (different flavors of anankos possession going on in both. it's so much more complex than your usual grooming story if you frame it that way because his own agency is literally a question mark the entire time, which is endlessly fascinating to me with the horror potential as being a double victim in some ways. is this actually anankos' influence more than anything? how would everyone feel about that? especially anankos being corrin's bio-dad?)

going back to the quote itself there's even several other ways to interpret it that's not a crude (and imo annoying) distraction of moralizing.

like i always found it interesting that for a guy who deliberately self-censors 95% of the time, that he kinda blurts that out in a weak moment (which is already one interpretation, that it's semi accidental). why would he say that to corrin?

seriously, why would he?

i don't think he's trying to scare her off (like he does with some lines when he's a little insecure about his age).

what if he's genuinely fond of and loves corrin with a nuanced blend of fatherly love at the begining but yeah it did turn sexual towards the end (plus fatherly love) and either he doesn't want to exactly interrogate himself when that changed (because i personally think he holds a lot of understandable guilt over these feelings in general), or he isn't thinking about that at the moment and like. how the hell do you relay something like that without caveat-ing yourself to hell.

i think it's one of the few times here he's actually trying to be emotionally honest and vulnerable about how shits' complicated to him too. (and keep in mind he is not in general..... as emotionally aware as the tumblr crowd lol. he's an old man.)

there's a funny line in my head right now of "schrodinger's daddy dom" where society right now is a-okay with a daddy kink from the little's side but metatextually we've created a situation where it's impossible to create a three-dimensional daddy dom that is somehow free of sin and yet has honest to god sexual desires of his own especially in a messy situation like this.

especially in an evolving situation like this when it was very clear by the S-support he wasn't ever anticipating corrin to reciprocate his feelings, and he was dealing with his budding feelings by essentially just keeping it to himself. (canonically, he wanted to do the least-messy thing by not involving himself with corrin. it's only if corrin/you pursue him that he even gets this far.)

the extra funny thing:

all of this is dependent on the translation. culturally, through this whole game of telephone, the line itself may have some other JP specific connotations that we aren't aware of. christ what i wouldn't give to pay a fluent JP translator who didn't mind engaging with dead dove concepts to go through his support chain + these lines and give notes there.

....

and that's probably not even all of my thoughts but it's an essay as-is. :P

#i generally trust y'all here but don't make me turn off reblogs.#meta

23 notes · View notes

babygirlbdubs · 2 years ago

Text

Hello Technoblade voters!

So, your guy lost to the GoodTimes. Maybe you don’t know who to vote for now. I mean, if Technoblade isn’t immune to the good times… who is?

I propose to you: Ethoslab.

Now, if you don’t know who Etho is, lemme give you a rundown.

he’s one of THE og minecraft letsplayers. your favorite minecraft youtuber? yeah, etho is probably one of the reasons they got into mcyt. etho is your favorite mcyt’s favorite mcyt

he’s faceless, and has been for his entire 12+ year youtube career

he has only changed his skin once or twice in those 12 years, and the most recent one was to remove the extra face on his torso because he didn’t know how previously

that skin is literally just kakashi naruto

etho is a god at redstone. he basically invented half the redstone that’s used today. hopper clock? that’s etho’s. i mean… he’s invented a storage system that lets you search for a specific item. it’s called the googler because it’s basically a search engine.

he is an absolute NERD (/aff) and insanely smart

he is genuinely kind to his friends, and has a very sweet yet mischievous demeanor. though, even his friends will call him mysterious

he’s canadian so like… arctic/antarctic solidarity… right?

he has spent many many MANY years perfecting a PVP arena game called Battle Bane. look it up. it’s insane.

actually, all the minigames he’s made are pretty insane. and most of them involve death. i mean. he had one called Hurtin’ Hermits where the whole goal was to kill the other hermits as much as possible and enact chaos

I could go on and on about Etho and what he’s like. HOWEVER. I think it’s more interesting to tell you how he’s portrayed by the fandom.

etho tends to be portrayed as a quiet, broody, mysterious guy despite actually being a bit of a goofball

he’s drawn not as kakashi naruto, but more often, a hot twink that can range from sad puppy to sexy dude covered in blood in the span of a single post

some people headcanon him to be as old as the universe, and tied to the void

he has multiple popular animal traits, from catboy to bunny to most commonly arctic fox

there’s etho titty tuesday. there’s. i mean. there’s etho titty tuesday.

i mean really, just… go into the ethoslab tag and you can see all the ways he’s portrayed.

And if that’s not convincing enough, here are some things he’s done in canon to hopefully sway you.

in season 7 of hermitcraft, he had a shop called Shade-E-E’s, where people could sign other people up to basically get harassed (/lh) by Etho’s shenanigans. “Free Glass” meant panes of light grey glass hidden in all your chests so you couldn’t put things into the chest. “Gardening” meant beehives hidden throughout your base so you would hear buzzing at random. “Pest Relocation” meant spawning endermites in your home.

also in season 7, he had the shop Sneak-E-E’s, which was a secret popup shop where he undercut prices or sold rare item overstock. you could only buy while it existed, and only when you could find it. the first time it was built was up in the sky, all out of shulker boxes so it wouldn’t render in until you got close. the second time was in the unused floor of Mayor GoodTimesWithScar’s shop. scar had no idea for. a while.

in last life, he scammed scar out of a life to give to bdubs, and then promptly killed scar and stole the enchanter. oh yeah, he did it with a fishing rod, too.

in season 9, he moved into bdubs’ basement without telling bdubs

in season 9, he also started late. so, in order to catch up, he exiled himself to a place untouched by the other hermits and wouldn’t let himself come back until he was able to defeat a full raid on his own. it didn’t take him long.

in double life, he and joel were paired, and were the most chaotic duo on the server. they hunted people for sport (notably, grian and scar) and burned things down for fun. “the ship burns everything burns” chanted as they set the entire map on fire

in last life, he went around trying to intimidate people into giving him gifts and he would spare their life. pretty much everyone was instantly afraid of him.

actually, most of the hermits are pretty intimidated by etho. including goodtimeswithscar.

also, most of the hermits are ethogirls.

etho and scar end up on opposing sides in pretty much everything, especially the life series (which is a funky lil hardcore battle royale). they are traditionally enemies. they pick fights with each other for fun.

If you want vengeance for Technoblade— blood for the blood god— vote Ethoslab.

Sincerely, Ethogirls

#spooky.thoughts #mcytblr sexyman #mcytblr sexymen poll #etho’s gotta go up against mumbo this round #and then up against probably scar #we need all the votes we can get #TECHNO VOTERS WE NEED UR AID!!!!#ETHOSWEEP

816 notes · View notes

marciaillust · 16 days ago

Text

Recently in order to detox after work I've been playing yakuza like a dragon and woooooo its such a step up from yk1,yk2 and y0 the biggest shock for me is how much im enjoying the side missions? previously they felt really flat and goofy but now they are still able to retain that trademark yakuza weirdness but they have a lot of heart too. And idk if im misremembering or if i never paid attention to that but people from the side missions now.... introduce themselves? was that a thing previously? regardless of if it was, now i notice it and it furthers the sense of connection and intimacy in the side missions, like im really helping a "person" and not just "man with glasses" or what have you im also really loving the cinema minigame and the enterprise running minigame, sometimes i dont push the main story for sessions on end because im running a cookie shop......... but its soooo fun! though i will forever miss the dance minigame from y0....... i know i know people hated it! but I LOVED IT!! I love rhythm games and that one was so weird and quirky i havent seen anything like it before. And the songs from y0 were bangers. I used to have y0 on my laptop just so i could pop it open occasionally JUST to play the music game. It was that good for me......... THE KARAOKE IS SHIT! I have no idea why they do nothing to improve the interface (though i gotta admit this one is the best one yet) and it doesnt feel or sound satisfying at all......... also 3 songs at best. And they made the MVs so serious.... i mean its fine ig....... the characters are having an introspective moment........lowkey bakamitai..... but you gotta give me some Judgement swag. Some 24-h Cinderella! Come onnnnnn!! Speaking of things that dont impress me... the game is soooo lowkey sexist it's so eyeroll inducing. Like you KNOwwwWW there were no women in that writers room. There are only two female characters with only real plot importance and when they meet each other they start insulting each other in such a. oh such a specific way that tells you all you need to know "shut you you uggo" "ha ha, don't frown like that or you're gonna get wrinkles!" "you're not pretty when you grimace like that" "you're so old it's surprising you look this good" "watch out or youll get wrinkles and no man will want you!" like. like. head in hands. head in the fucking hands. then again yakuza was never known for its uh "normal" portrayal of women so it's not like i had huge expectations. the funniest part tho was when (spoilers!!) nanba comes back to the team during that one fight and I was thinking "aw! they're a team! they're nakama! hell yeah! the four of them against the world!" AND INSTEAD OF REPLACING HAN JOONGI (antagonist that got added to your team 5 mins ago) SO THAT YOU CAN DEFEAT THE BAD GUY WITH YOUR 4 MAIN GUYS THEY REPLACE SAEKO (the only woman on the roster). I was pissing myself laughing! That's cartoonish!!

the core fighting mechanic is also pretty whatever i'd say. It feels hilarious to me that sometimes I put the game on auto mode so i can scroll my phone or go make tea? a good shouldn't make me want to do that ig. but im thankful they have the auto mode nonetheless

despite the unimpressive aspects the game is just swimming in sauce. It's goofy, it's got heart, there's some fun minigames, the ingame music is made out of some stellar bangers, it all somehow keeps me coming back for more. I want to see how the big intrigue folds out too! the mystery got me good! Also do not. get me started on Zhao. I- listen. LISTEN. He was made for me in a lab ok he is like the perfect. man shaped thing I wanna dip him in milk and throw him against a wall. He would make a beautiful splat sound. Nepo baby discount dollarstore majima bedazzled shoes wearing teenager looking ass!! ARGH!!! ZHAOOOOOO

#NO SPOILERS PLEASE I AM STILL PLAYING #I just saved zhao and nanba just came back i know nothing else #i went to see like 4 movies and Han

23 notes · View notes

maochira · 2 years ago

Text

Noa, Chris and Lavinho becoming your father figure

Basically, you're part of a team of younger players for Bastard München/Manshine City/FC Barcha, your coach gets sick/injured so Noa/Chris/Lavinho become your coach for a while (separate headcanons for each character btw)

Tags: gn!reader, hurt/comfort(?), implied child neglect by reader's parents/father or them not having a father figure in their life, reader is a teenager

This was requested by this anon and lucky you I thought about a scenario like this for my Blue Lock OC and Noa a lot last week, so I already had stuff for this in my silly little brain. Also this is probably my favourite thing I've written for this blog so far!!

Requests are open!

Series masterlist

Noel Noa

-you were quite excited when you heard Noa would be your coach for a while

-and to your surprise, he was very impressed with your skill, so one day after training he asks you to stay longer to talk to you

-he didn't intend it to go like this, but your conversation ends up going a little deeper and you reveal stuff about your home life to him and let's just say Noa,,,, some sort of fatherly instinct kicks in very quickly

-he already acts a bit like a father figure to the entire team during training, but man, hearing about your home situation just makes him feel more fatherly about you

-after talking to you, he can't stop thinking about that conversation. He has a hard time falling asleep that night

-after that, he starts treating you as if you were his own child. He always asks if you ate enough that day, and in case you didn't, he's already prepared because guess what? He got some food for you

-during training, he treats you exactly like the rest of the team. But before practice, during breaks and after training? He's so fatherly towards you, some of your teammates started asking if you're related

-at first, it's a bit confusing for you, but you quickly start seeing him as more of a father figure as well

-when your usual coach recovers and returns, Noa stays in contact with you. He knows the times when you're at practice, so whenever he has the time, he will stop by to ask how you're doing

-if it rains, he will INSIST on driving you home. In no circumstance will he let you walk home/to the bus or train stop in the rain. He'd be way too worried about you getting sick

-also, he gave you his phone number and made it very clear that no matter for what, you can call him at any time

Chris Prince

-he's super excited when he gets to be your team's coach and wants to get to know every member, so during your first practice with him he lets the entire team play minigames and takes aside one player to talk to them a bit

-you're the last one to talk to him, and you actually talk so much, practice is already over but you stay because talking to him is so much fun and it's the most comfortable you've felt in a while

-but the lighthearted tone of the conversation changes immediately when you mention your home situation. You stay in your lighthearted tone because honestly, you're not that concerned about it. You're doing well, considering your circumstances. But Chris changes to a more serious tone, while you attempt to keep everything lighthearted

-and because of this, Chris gets so fatherly towards you. Like Noa, he doesn't treat you any differently from the rest of your team during training, but whenever he gets the chance to talk to you, you just notice he acts like a father would

-he's upset when he finds out your usual coach has recovered so he soon wouldn't be your coach anymore

-even when he's not your coach anymore, he comes to almost every single match of your team. And whenever you're not on the field, he will passive-aggressively ask your coach why he benched you. No matter what the answer is, he will insist that you should be playing because he genuinely thinks you're one of the best players in your team

-you have each other's phone numbers, so every now and then he texts you and asks how your day or week has been, if everything is okay at home and if you need his help with anything

Lavinho

-he's literally a huge bundle of joy when he's asked to temporarily be the coach of your team

-always joking and messing around with you and your teammates

-one day, when he walks past your team's locker room, he overhears you venting about something from your home life. He knows he shouldn't, but he stays to listen for a minute or two

-and then the realisation hits him. He notices how neither of your parents ever came to drive you to training, pick you up after it, or even watch your matches. No one ever came.

-he waits at the exit for you to leave the building, and when you do he asks to talk to you

-you're so nervous. You've never seen Lavinho as serious as this, so automatically you think you've done something wrong or you're gonna be benched for the next match

-but to your surprise, he admits he heard you venting to your teammates. He apologises for listening and explains he's concerned about you

-he tells you how it's okay if you don't want to tell him more than what he's heard already, but he really wants you to know that because he's your coach for the time being, he'll also be a safe person to talk to about anything

-you really appreciate his concern and offer, but you plan to keep your home life away from your soccer life as much as possible

-well, at first you do. As time passes on, you find yourself asking Lavinho to talk after practices more and more often

-he very soon becomes a father figure to you, and he treats you as if you were his child

-also stays in contact with you after your usual coach returns, he really tries to come to every match you play in and cheers for you the loudest

-he probably gets happy tears in his eyes every time you score a goal

648 notes · View notes

hungwy · 11 months ago

Text

I’ve seen many people reblog a post which contains tweets that, in my eyes, amount to a single complaint that is only half true (but that I agree with for the most part). But anyway, here’s a longpost:

(tweet in question)

I think it’s mostly wrong to say FPS multiplayer “peaked” ("was most fun for the playerbase"?) with Source games in the way presented. Believe it or not, you can still join a server with 30 people playing on a user map with fucked up assets everywhere, and some of the 30 people playing will be 14-year-olds with bad mics getting mad at being spawn killed by someone with 20,000 hours in the game. In fact, there are servers like this in most Source games, including Garry’s Mod, TF2, and CSS and CSGO (but honestly I think TF2 is most representative of the above scenario). I just launched Valve’s community server browser and have found an unending list of silly-sounding servers for TF2: Minecraft trade, Murder at the Mannor, Zombie Escape, Medieval Mode, all full or near-full. I checked Garry’s Mod: SCP-RP, Zombie Survival, Clone Wars Roleplay, “Swamp Cinema”, 1980’s Mafia Roleplay, DarkRP (x20), again, all well-populated. Admittedly CS2 was mostly deathmatch servers (due to it being Source 2 and not Source and so missing a lot of plugins that would allow for “fun” servers), but CSS still had surf, bhop, minigames, and jailbreak servers still going and full. My server browser won’t show CSGO for whatever reason, but up until CS2 released I know for a fact that these silly ass servers still exist there too. The implication that these servers and their conditions are gone is wrong. You don’t want a server with the exact same conditions though, I think you want to relive the specific memories you’re having and feel happiness again. But maybe I’m going too far there.

How about this. I’ll give it to you, Dusk developer, that for you FPS multiplayer peaked with insane TF2 trade servers, but you also make boomer shooters for a living, so I think you’re biased towards enjoying an older generation of games anyway. Modern FPS games are fantastic and in their own ways contain a lot of fun. Modern games in general fill the spaces that, for you, TF2 servers filled. Have you seen Roblox minigames and Minecraft server plugins? They’re actually crazy and decently well made. I’m excited that kids have grown up in such a good environment for games. They have tons of options that we didn’t have back then. It’s awesome! Like, don’t let your nostalgia blind you to the fact that kids are having just as much fun as you now. TF2 and Garry’s Mod are not the be-all, end-all of FPS multiplayer fun. That sentiment I completely disagree with and think people should get over.

But like, how the hell does competitive gaming play into this? I truly don’t buy the wording of “Esports and competitive ranking ruined multiplayer”. It’s just not true. Not only are the servers you’re mourning still exist, they’re still well-populated and their “golden age” coincided with some of the greatest heights in competitive FPS gaming. You know what’s funny? When CSGO released in 2012, TF2 saw a drop of almost 10,000 average players. It recovered basically the next year. Besides a small dip in 2018, TF2 had held around 50,000 average players since its release, until 2019 where its average player-count has risen to about 80,000 players. Garry’s Mod wouldn’t peak in total concurrent players until 2015 and has had a dedicated core of players averaging around 25,000 since like 2013. Seriously, these are incredibly consistent player-counts throughout the release of Overwatch, PUBG, Fortnite, Apex, and Valorant. In fact, contrary to the tweeter's implicit assumptions, it seems like nothing much has changed, and that competitive gaming did not, at all, ruin or depopulate these “fun” spaces.

So, again, how does competitive gaming and esports play into this? Only thing I think is valid is the fact that a few popular modern FPSes don’t do the whole “community-hosted server” thing: Apex, Fortnite, PUBG, Valorant, and Overwatch all do not have native community-hosted server support. Which, to be frank, is bad for their competitive gaming scene too! Esports has ALWAYS used self-hosted servers for practicing to get better. I don’t know the argument for not having these sorts of things, maybe not developing the toolkit for these things is easier than developing them. IDK. But I agree that it is bad that many popular games don’t support this sort of thing. The “self-hosted netizen” is a category of person that’s been declining for a long time regardless of the effect of competitive first-person shooter games on the casual first-person shooter games self-hosted server market. But again, for the topic of the post, I think this is a completely nonsensical implication. As far as I can tell ALL Valve-made Source engine games have active and popular community servers still, and the popular games ALL have very populated servers with “fun” gamemodes and atmospheres. Competitive has grown very popular, yes. It's true. It's fun to compete, everyone knows it. But esports has taken very little if anything away from the casual playerbase of Source games.

(Also, for the record, during the actual multiplayer FPS golden age of the time, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 shooters, there were no self-hosted servers for us, and it was still the most fun anyone ever had playing casually on console. It was the age of trickshotting and montages, man! For the intent of this post that exact restriction counts as “keeping players from interacting with one another” yet these games, especially COD, were, uh… infamously social. Not to mention these games had competitive scenes alongside the casual scene perfectly fine.)

I think, really, ignoring the actual content of the tweet, these tweets are just about nostalgia for your childhood. Which is fine! You can miss things you used to do for fun and no longer do. Probably every human that’s ever existed has gone through this. I mean, again, it is kind of popular in current culture to be nostalgic. The 90s aesthetic, early 2000s media, retro games, super hero movies, cartoons being consumed by adults to a greater degree than ever, et cetera. I think to some extent the complaint itself isn’t like, a completely unclouded judgement of the Decline of The Beauty of Multiplayer Gaming throughout the years. The concrete complaints in those tweets seem both a little rose-tinted and unnecessarily doomerpilled to me. But like, regardless, it’s kind of your fault for not returning to these things, man. Go join one of those servers if you’re not busy being an adult with a job and friends and other obligations that may keep you from doing things that you’re not used to and have fun like you did in childhood. Or is that what's actually the problem…? I don’t know. A suggestion. I just think in the end the complaint isn't valid.

This post is long and I had a LOT of thoughts that I may have missed or chopped off at the incorrect time. I think the picture I'm trying to build has probably been communicated, though? Maybe I’m not considering something, maybe I overinterpreted implications, maybe the fact that the playerbase of TF2 and Garry's Mod being highly consistent for ten years or whatever is not indicative of anything I've said, but I hope regardless you understand that like, at least part of this tweet is weird to say in the ways I've attempted to untease. People young and old are still having crazy times in video games and esports has done, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing to change at, ever.

Turning off reblogs because I have a feeling anyone who doesn't follow me might become annoying about this

76 notes · View notes

majimasleftasscheek · 1 year ago

Note

'The Majima Dilemma' Anon here, looking for some feedback on how would one write Goro Majima's other half Goromi so that it doesn't sound offensive or cringe-worthy. I have the basics - like some stuff noted from the game, but would like to hear someone's idea on Goromi-chan - how she acts around Kiryu or other people etc.

ohoho so I think that the best way to write her (subjectively of course) is to treat her sincerely. of course there's the elephant in the room depending on how you interpret her - I'm going to be viewing her as genderfluid cuz that's my thing so for my purposes, she's an amab dude in a dress. as such, I don't point out said elephant unless the point of my story is to talk about that specifically and with it often comes discussion of gender, etc etc. if I'm not talking about that, I talk about her as if she's any other woman doing her thang.

example: if I had a basic scene where she's putting on lipstick, I'm not going to write her as if she's struggling or being incompetent "because man unga bunga." I'd just have her put on lipstick. that same scene could change depending on the "when" too. maybe early Goromi did struggle but! it's important to portray that struggle with sincerity. write her being anxious, clumsy, etc. don't try to make it comedic tho as it'd be inappropriate imo. if there is anything funny, it shouldn't be at her expense.

so, the game treats the Goromi encounter like a joke, basically just a reason for Kiryu to fight her on the basis of "haha man in dress doesn't that just piss you off." so if you take anything from the game, the conversation they have in the minigame is where it's at, in regards to how Kiryu feels himself around her, how he doesn't have to put on airs, how Goromi's genuinely surprised, things like that. with such a short encounter, you really have to rely on your own imagination to expand upon it but even just that lil bit of exchange is a good base. beyond that, I wouldn't take away from the game that much tbh.

I write Goromi pretty much how I write Majima, with all the usual vulgarities and mannerisms since the way I see Goromi is that she's still very much the same person but with a femme flair. I know some do like to write her significantly different as a personality of her own so that too is an option if that's your thing. I project a lot of my genderfluid experience onto her so when I'm personally feeling flip floppy, I'm not really anyone new, but the way I act, the way I carry myself does differ to varying degrees.

so when Goromi's around Kiryu, for example, she's still up to kicking his ass and being a rude lil shit but she'll carry herself a bit more refined, generically ladylike but surface level - some of it being playing the stereotype of a woman, another part her actively trying to be someone else or "removed from being a typical man." for example, if I wrote Kiryu flirting with Majima, I'd make him get embarrassed but in a sort of aloof way with performative confidence typical of Majima. flirting with Goromi tho is different as she's being very vulnerable, very open about herself and when you love her, you love a part of Majima that he may feel self conscious about.

speaking of the previous mentioned elephant, if you wanna talk about Goromi being a dude, I think that's fine tbh if done with tact. I make it a point in my art to portray her as masculine because for me, the cis part of being genderfluid is just as important as everything else. so I like to see Goromi with her beard and muscles and dick bulge cuz fuck it. I don't shy away from that stuff but I don't make fun of it either. one of my best friends is a transwoman and respecting her as a woman no matter how passing she is, is very important to me. but it's not sunshine n rainbows either. if you do talk about that sorta thing, it does come with baggage and handling that doesn't always have the most right or the most appropriate answer. comes down to respecting people as people imo and I think with common sense and empathy, you can certainly write something well intentioned.

interaction-wise, I think she would try to act the part around most people, maybe being at odds with herself because she's not ignorant to how to she looks or behaves so she tries to be more elegant, more ladylike in order to be likeable, acceptable. but at the same time she's still very much Majima and that crassness doesn't just bleed but hemorrhages out of her. it's a battle within herself to decide how to behave so when people are being genuinely nice, she fumbles. I think it'd be normal even around people she's close to cuz even tho she knows she has their respect, it's almost unreal and she gets very flustered 😌 to an extent, I like to think she even rejects some of that kindness cuz her self doubt makes her think she doesn't deserve it or that people are being dubious to get on her good side.

she's good at faking it too. if you need her to be a perfect lil peach or put up with a lotta crap, she can do it. she'd more so do this if the situation required it so I can see her being polite around those of a higher status or if she was in a situation where she shouldn't be a goblin. she'd be pleasant but cold towards strangers, cautious you can call it, until she can place their vibes. there's an RGGO story (idk if you know what that is but it's basically yakuza gatcha on mobile) where Goromi (before Kiryu ever gets to Club Shine) very seriously plays the part of a hostess and wildly excels so she can very much be a totally different person if need be.

whenever I write an upset Goromi, I like to make her revert to tough guy Majima strats where she'll do her damnedest to not let anything get under her skin but it never goes well, especially if it's personal. if she's not crumbling under depression, she'll be snappy then pissy, handling anything with a fight over pouring her heart out. she's prone to spiraling and holding grudges, preferring to suffer in silence alone which is very much how I'd write Majima normally.

a happy Goromi is bombastic, moreso than Majima if that's even possible. and depending on the context, very very sincere. because the theater in my brain never stops replaying the same scenes over and over, I always have this mental picture that Kiryu says something sweet about Goromi and she's just on the quiet side smiling in a sad sort of way like she can't even believe he actually means what he says. and he looks at her worried like he said something stupid and she has to reassure him she's just happy to be so lucky and that tough exterior opens up just a lil more each time. Majima is a big softie and as Goromi, I feel he can explore that a lil more freely if hesitantly.

I hope this stuff helps! it's my own thoughts so of course take things totally subjectively. I think writing Goromi sincerely does rely on taking considerations of femininity, especially in regards to how a man would approach them and how society would view that. it's a lotta reactionary stuff and I think if you can empathize with that, you can write her well enough. Goromi is a divisive topic for people so you're not going to please everyone but trying to write her in order to please everyone wouldn't be sincere imo. she's a mixed bag of things, some good some ugly, so write her in ways you feel good about while also being considerate/respectful of course.

#sorry if this is mad wordy lol goromi is my everything my one and only #she got me to discovering my own gender shit so I'm just houghghgough <3 #yakuza #ryu ga gotoku #majima goro #goromi #my art #my hcs

301 notes · View notes

jubileeena · 5 months ago

Text

BEHOLD: MALWARE AU

So. We all know Turbo. He's kind of the flavour of the month right now. He's a horrible little piece of shit and we love him for that!

As a result of a couple posts that I'll link when I'm on desktop (or you can look through my blog its some of my most recent reblogs) and That One Video Essay I got to thinking about how much of Turbo's actions came from his nature, what cropped up out of desperation and jealousy, and what came from the nightmare virus that ate him. Then I got to writing. A lot. And now I have a monster fanfic that might or might not ever get written but I might actually explode if I don't share some of it.

This snippet revolves around Vanellope, mostly, and my continuous ongoing realization that modding/slightly retexturing video games is actually a lot easier than I thought it was. Enjoy!

Prologue

Vanellope hasn't been a part of her own game for 15 years. It's long since figured out how to function around her, but now King Candy's been dealt with via hot cola insecticide and she adamantly refuses to ride in his little vanilla-white kart. Not with her own baby waiting right there for her.

Except the game really really wants her to.

The kart bakery is supposed to be a fun side minigame. The kart lasts until the player stops feeding the game quarters, then it will restore itself to the default kart for the racer.

She's been carefully ignoring the crackling parts of code that bubble up around her when she revvs the engine too hard for days now, telling herself it was just remnants of her own glitch messing with her driving. But right after she crossed the finish line at the end of the final race of that day, it glitched so badly she was left lying on the track as it rammed itself into the boundary.

She'd spent most of that evening moping around and complaining under her breath about the mess her predecessor had left her - - until she thought huh. If Turbo could program his whole throne-stealing butt into the game, why couldn't she just... Slip in and fix her kart?

Sour Bill didn't seem happy at all when she slipped behind the curtain of her throne room (bleh. Needed to redecorate that soon. Way too princess-y for her taste), but he dutifully agreed to stand guard as she followed the instructions on the handy little piece of paper that lay discarded on the floor.

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, START

Yes! She jumped into the darkness without thinking, entranced by the nebula of nodes and string of information that made the glitch constantly buzzing under her skin sing.

This is what she was meant for. This was why the game kept her around. It loved her.

Her node was easy to find, set in the center as it was with streams of code coming from it. She blipped up to it, and kicked her feet excitedly as she floated in place, and tapped it to enlarge it.

Wow, it really was easy. All she had to do was find her primary kart file, and swap it with the one in the Bakery's subfolder that held the information for her baby, and that was that. No wonder King Boogerface managed to mess things around so much, if what was all it took.

Task complete, she turned around to try and reorient herself to find the exit again, but a flickering node caught her eye.

It was strobing worse than any of the others, and there was no visible text on it to give any clue as to what it could be. She blipped over to it and tapped on it-

Only to be thrown backwards as it quadrupled in size, mangled streams of code now visible through it's translucent surface.

She glitched again to lose her momentum and stop somersaulting through the void, then back towards the code box. She reached a hand inside and flicked her wrist in a movement she instinctively remembered, and pressed confirm when the prompt came up to clear the cache memory.

It spluttered for a moment, then as if expelling a sickness the darkness bled from the body of the node and dissolved into the void, leaving behind a little red code box, smaller and less defined than the rest, connected to everything with only a thin strand but with it's pixelated text quite clear for her to read, and her breath hitched.

Turbo

#I'll come back to it in the morning hopefully but thats the premise!!#vanellope von schweetz #turbo #wreck it ralph #fanfic #ruby fic

32 notes · View notes

cattimeswithjellie · 8 months ago

Text

Stream Recap, PearlescentMoon, 6/11/24

((I started recapping this one before I knew it was going to be a six hour redstone marathon stream. It has taken literally all day, so I will probably think twice before doing one like this again. My knowledge of redstone is too limited to understand everything that was happening, so there are chunks of the middle of the stream where the recap is basically "redstone continues." Impulse and Skizz playtest Pearl's game near the end of the stream and it is very fun!))

3:50 Pearl opens her stream and greets the chat in audio-only mode. She tells chat she just woke up after being up all night and sleeping late. She got plenty of sleep, just at a weird time. She apologizes for postponing the stream yesterday and said she was making the video a priority for someone who was holding their own video waiting for hers. (It was Tango.) Today’s stream will have spoilers. She wants to do a couple things on the minigame today but she can’t make too much progress on the interior because she has to film an intro first. Chat is complimentary about the new video and Pearl says she is probably going to keep the new editing tweaks for redstone-type videos. She’s also going to keep the Editor Pearl overlay. She admits that the snow transition was a happy accident.

7:20 Someone told Pearl that the new video is engaging, which is what she is trying to do with her videos. Feedback sticks in Pearl’s brain, and some people have said on Twitter where they don’t know she is seeing it that while she is a nice person, her videos are not engaging. She is trying to make that better. Chat asks if Pearl feels okay, she tells them she usually wakes up a little congested but is fine. She talks more about finer points of the new video. She knows she can’t please everyone, but feedback that she could be more engaging in her videos is legitimate critique and she wants to keep improving.

10:10 Pearl and Chat talk about what it means for a video to be engaging. They talk about the different ways streams and YouTube videos and podcasts are engaging, and Pearl mentions how she deliberately changes up camera angles when there is a lot of talking in an episode. A chatter admits that the most recent video was not their favorite because redstone goes over their head. Pearl agrees that her audience is not a redstone audience and assures Chat she will not be getting too overly intense on redstone in her videos.

14:20 Pearl switches video on. She is logged into the server and standing at the start button for her Wordle game. She tells Chat that the Wordle invention VOD is up on her second channel for people who want an eight-hour stream of Pearl doing redstone. Something she didn’t show in the video is her adding the diamond barrel. Every Wordle attempt costs one diamond. She didn’t put that part in the video because she had 40 minutes each with Bdubs and Tango and had to do some severe editing. Hermits who fail the Wordle can try again by paying another diamond, Hermits who succeed should not play again til reset. She has plans to make a leaderboard so people can track their streaks.

18:00 Pearl wants to know if an item that bubbles to the top of a bubblevator will stay or despawn. Chat is not sure, but enough people think it will stay that Pearl takes their word for it. She wants to make a randomizer for the game supplies so players don’t have to randomize them at the end of their games. She says they can test the bubblevator despawn issue and test it, but if it works, bubblevating the supplies and then dropping them into a hopper is a great randomizing solution. She digs into the wall to create a test bubblevator. Chat offers suggestions for refining the resetting system. Pearl considers options for triggering the bubblevator, using freecam to examine the redstone she already has in place. She wants to be absolutely sure that the “success” items don’t come out together and first.

23:40 Twitch is having some minor resolution problems, but the stream is generally all right. Pearl goes and gets some water. She fills the bubblevator and throws a bunch of building blocks into it, then writes some signs to explain how the system will work. She discusses the finer points of reset with chat. A chatter suggests killing the player to reset the game, which makes Pearl laugh. A chatter can’t wait for Scar to break the game. Pearl says the only way to break the game should be going into the walls and actually fiddling with the redstone. She demonstrates some ways that players cannot break the game.

28:50 Pearl describes a timing problem where the game kept trying to play the fail sound while she was filming, but she added a pulse extender to fix it. It makes her very happy that she knows enough redstone now to be able to fix things when they don’t work right. She learned so much during her eight hour stream, but now she needs to keep doing redstone so she doesn’t forget it. She also needs to memorize item sorters.

30:30 Pearl checks the bubblevator. It does not work, the building blocks have despawned. She is disappointed, but has a minecart method she wants to try next. Minecarts are good because they take items super-quick, which will help solve the problem of dropping loose items onto a hopper and walking away, leaving them to despawn. Pearl goes out to collect some logs. A chatter suggests that an item does not despawn if a dolphin is playing with it. Pearl thinks that’s a funny idea, if impractical. Chat says that a multiple minecart system is what Tango used for the Decked Out shuffler. Pearl thinks about this, as well as thepossibility of a dispenser-based randomizing system.

35:00 Pearl realizes she is talking redstone like a redstoner and wonders what the heck has happened to her since last week. Chat embraces her new redstonification. She gathers up supplies for more testing. There’s a little bit of room in the existing redstone, but it’s going to be tight. Before Pearl starts redstoning, she thanks chat for donos and subs.

41:20 Pearl is happy to live in a place that doesn’t require driving or walking everywhere. Driving in a city is so much worse than public transit, but she also doesn’t have to walk a long way. Where Pearl lives, some things are walkable and she can drive to other places, and that is perfect. Chat agrees about avoiding city driving. She tells a story about getting stuck in LA traffic, which is even worse than Melbourne. She wishes she could enjoy the observatory she visited out there more, but it was right after TwitchCon and she was feeling horrible. A chatter asks if she’s been to Singapore, but she has not. She continues talking about public transportation and tells a story about a train that never showed up and required an expensive Uber ride to not miss D&D.

49:00 Pearl continues catching up on subs and donos. She considers whether there is something she can be doing while she’s talking, but there’s not much that doesn’t require brain effort. She is jumpscared again by having subs over 50 months, which seems like such a long time.

52:00 Pearl talks with Chat about Pokemon as she heads down into the redstone. She is very against the idea of brown Cyndaquil. Chat agrees about recent downgrades in Pokemon. Pearl says Platinum is the last game she loved. She begins installing the randomizer system. She needs to be careful because if the water-stream goes out of control, it can mess up a lot of redstone. Chat contributes ideas and critique about redstone as she builds.

57:50 Pearl successfully places her system without drowning the redstone. It doesn’t look quite as nice on the display side, but she is all right with it. She adds a timer to finish it up, and makes sure both hoppers are lockable. Space in the redstone area is getting tight. Chat suggests removing one hopper entirely, which helps. Pearl figures out what needs to be done in what order for it all to work properly. She warns chat that this will be Pearlstone, and that means it will not be pretty.

1:07:00 Pearl finishes connecting up the randomizer to the system, then has sudden concerns as to whether it will actually randomize the items as they come in. As the system is set up now, the dispenser dispenses before it is full, which means it will not have time to randomize. Pearl and chat devise a system to fix this and increase the randomzation. A chatter points out a problem in the line with a pulse extender and Pearl fixes it, while quizzing chat til she understands what the problem was.

1:12:00 Pearl begins working on the hopper clock on the opposite side of the new randomizer. There is not very much space available. She goes back and redoes some of the redstone she just made to add more room. She pops out to collect some scaffolding and thanks chat for subs and donos.

1:17:00 Pearl returns to working on the redstone. She falls off the scaffolding a few times and sarcastically declares how much she loves it. She runs out of smooth stone and grabs more. Chat suggests learning to color-code redstone, Pearl says maybe next time. She and chat have a conversation about the function of a reversed signal and a pulse extender. She explains to Chat the initial problem with reset that needed the pulse extender solution.

1:23:00 Pearl prepares to test the redstone. She set a new word yesterday but Tango was too busy flinging Skizzleman into the Void to actually play it. She tells Chat to close their eyes if they don’t want to know the answer for this week, then decides to leave camera mode and hide it so Chat can’t spoil it to anyone. One she has arranged the supplies appropriately for the correct answer, she brings Chat back and presses the solve button. The win celebration happens like it’s supposed to. She tests the fail. The fail happens like it should as well. Pearl is pleased. She hides the game again to unload the letters, but some become lost in the system. They are stuck in the dropper because she pressed the reset, but everything is okay. Chat sees some of the letters. Pearl decides to change the word and asks chat to guess. They guess it correctly.

1:29 Pearl shows off some of her prize bundles and says she is going to change some of them to be more themed. Chat suggests changing the theme every month or week. She does not want to retexture the dyes into letters, it’s no longer on theme with the shop. She also likes that it’s a little more vanilla. She tests the reset again and realizes she needs to adjust the water stream. She tests it again and this time everything comes back in a random order.

1:34:30 Pearl sees a flaw in the system. She thinks there might need to be a delay on item release or the correct letters might always come back first, ruining the randomizing. Further testing is needed. She collects her redstone supplies back up while talking with Chat about the possibility of flower crowns for rare prizes. Pearl needs to buy more fireworks, but not just yet. She starts doing the redstone to add the delay.

1:43:00 Chat is attempting to help with the redstone, with varying amounts of forcefulness. Pearl reminds Chat that there are lots of different ways to do redstone and people advocating too many methods or being too pushy about their preferred way can make it uncomfortable to do redstone on camera. The redstone is expanding rapidly.

1:49:50 Pearl tests the randomizer. The signal strength is difficult to calibrate, it is either too weak to activate the randomizer or too strong and sets it off early. Pearl begins calibrating the system to get the correct signal strength for the result she needs. She releases a bit of water but fortunately it only kills one bit of redstone. An Australian streamer raids in and compliments Pearl on the new video. She chats with them a bit about ancient city raiding in a hardcore world being nerve-wracking.

1:54:15 Pearl tests the redstone again. The delay is too short. Pearl explains the problem to chat, chat suggests “more comparators.” There is not much room to add more redstone at all. Pearl contemplates moving other redstone to make more room. She digs into the wall instead. She decides to do another proper test with the actual letters. Chat tells her that her redstone is reversed. She changes it, apologizing that she is not as cool as Tango and is doing Noobstone.

2:02:00 Time for the test. Pearl throws letters in in alphabetical order to see if they get scrambled nicely. It did not work because things came back into the chest too quickly to get randomized. Pearl has a big thonky-thonk about what to do next. Another streamer raids in. Pearl starts troubleshooting again.

2:09:00 Another test, it’s looking better, it will randomize til the letter G instead of C. She needs a long enough delay to send the whole alphabet through the system. Chat suggests an Etho clock, she says she is not very familiar with it, but will lean on chat if they help her build one. She replaces a patch of Pearlstone with a hopper clock, following instructions from Chat. Chat tells her she needs at least 17.6 seconds.

2:18:00 A chatter asks if Pearl is calling the game Wordle. Pearl says no, it’s Wordle-inspired, but she won’t call it that. She shows off the signs she put up at the entrance and says she took suggestions from the chat: the game is called “Dye-duction.” You use dye to deduce what the word is. “Pearldle” was a close runner up but is hard to say and a little cheesy. She returns to the redstoning.

2:25:00 Another test. The randomizing is working, but it’s still too short. Things are still getting stuck in the system. She decides to try extending the clock and also needs to fix the locking conditions on one hopper. She tests it again. It does not work. She studies chat, hoping for answers. Chat has suggestions.

2:30:00 More troubleshooting. Pearl accuses chat of misleading her when she was in fact right all along. Most of chat just seems a little confused, but of the chatters trying to help, the votes are split between “correct” and “wrong.” Pearl says this is why people don’t do redstone on stream.

2:36:40 Pearl spots a creeper down in the guts of the redstone and is Not Happy about it. She asks it to please not blow up her redstone. She gets her bow and takes care of the creeper with no damage done. Pearl asks why it always has to be a creeper and never a zombie or skeleton. Redstoning continues

2:41:00 Pearl takes a moment to process, thanks subs and donos. She is an hour behind on her donator thank-yous and has no idea how she is 2:42 into the stream. False raids into the stream. Pearl continues to disbelieve that she has spent this much time on a randomizer. She’s fine. She’s fine. Attendance is down for the stream, but chat is fine too. Pearl chats with False’s raiders. Chat asks if Pearl needs a snack or a drink, but she is fine. She has a drink. False and her chat have been doing base design. Pearl likes how everyone has been building bases in stages this season, it’s neat! Redstone continues.

2:53:00 Pearl loses some of the letter dyes from the system when they shoot out of the water stream. She finds all of them except light gray, and enables freecam to look for it. As she swoops around, she briefly dips out of the room and into x-ray view. There is a chasm below, which contains a number of mobs, and something that looks like a green room or tunnel with a white stripe along it. Pearl finds her lost dye and pops back into her body, mentioning she saw something down there she hadn’t meant to look at and is just going to ignore. She rearranges her letters in the box and does another test. The piston is very very loud and the signal is too strong. All the items get stuck at the top of the water stream. Pearl tries to put the items away but activates the circuit again, so the items spit back out again. Test failed.

2:57:00 Pearl disables the circuit and collects up her letters again. She decides to try again with a different repeater delay and yells at the hopper clock until it behaves itself. She reloads the letters for another test. Things are much less obviously broken on this test, but the hopper that should release stays locked for longer than is ideal. At the end of the test, though, the letters are randomized and in the chest. Victory!

3:03 Pearl resets for another test, this time to make sure that the first-in-first-out problem doesn’t cause any hints. She points out that she has added something to the system that can break. She runs the test again. The chest does not randomize very well this time, despite everything going through the system. Another test has the same result. Pearl figures out what is going wrong and discusses possible solutions with chat.

3:16:00 Redstone work resumes. Pearl has a solution in mind, and she hopes to do it without flooding the room. Pearl and chat briefly forget how many letters are in the alphabet. A chatter gives her an idea that will allow her to switch the game to allow for the entire alphabet later if she wants it. She likes that idea and decides to implement it.

3:24:00 Another test. It looks good in the water stream and stops when it needs to. Pearl is excited. The chest is nicely randomized. The hopper clock is not finished yet, and she has not solved the first-in-first out issue with the correct answer letters, but it’s progress! She goes to adjust the hopper clock and runs the test again. Again random, and with better timing, but the letter K is stuck in a dropper. She tests again. Letter C gets stuck in the same place. She adjusts the timer a little bit and wonders how this became a redstone stream. Everything works!

3:32:00 Pearl prepares for a full playtest. She walks chat through the gameplay and decides doing a reset on the reset barrel is not worth it. She does a playtest and pretends she doesn’t remember the word. The moment the letters are out of the chest, it begins cycling. She discusses possible fixes with chat. Chat suggests a “do not touch” potato that stays in the chest, but Pearl is certain that it will be touched consistently by Hermits because Hermits don’t read things.

3:38:30 Pearl admits that a “do not take this block” block is the easiest solution, but she’s trying to minimize points of possible breakage. The biggest consequence of moving the block would be a loud noise, so the problem is fairly small. Pearl comes up with a solution involving sticky pistons that might be effective and might be silly. Chat thinks if it works, it’s not silly. She tries out the solution.

3:45:00 Time to test the fix. Pearl simulates a reset and giggles “It’s working” as the items begin to circulate. She asks if she actually fixes it, with a solution she came up with herself and didn’t get from chat. She is very proud. Chat is very proud of her. She reorders the letters for a full randomization test. The test runs successfully, though with a couple patches of ordered letters. Time for a playtest.

3:50 Pearl reorganizes her inventory and sets up for a playtest. She adds the correct letters. The win condition runs successfully, but she forgets to put away the winning letters before reset. She tries it again. It works successfully, there is no sign of what the original word was. Pearl is pleased. She gets a nosebleed, but not a bad one. She stuffs a bit of paper up her nose to stop it. Chat tells her she needs Etho’s Kleenex box, but she points out that every tissue removed from that box is one less layer of sound dampening.

3:56:30 With four minutes left of stream time, Pearl says they couldn’t possibly have cut that finer. She decides to do a quick fail test. She puts in “PATHS,” then changes it to “PEARL” because it has some needed letters. The fail test works. Pearl doesn’t like that she can’t do a true playtest because she always knows the word. She thinks about asking Impulse to playtest for her. She puts in “SHELF”, another good test. She plays “FIELDS” and gets the win condition. She resets again and decides to ask Impulse to play. The correct letters are in the first five slots. Pearl needs to put a timer on the letter release. She decides that she has nothing big to do tomorrow, so she’s going to go overtime on the stream.

4:04:30. Back to the redstone. Pearl does another win test and looks at the way the chests empty. The letters randomize on this go-through. She wonders if she was just unlucky. She tries the test again and asks if Impulse is streaming. Chat says no, Impulse is sick. This test has three correct letters at the top and two at the bottom. Pearl is mostly satisfied.

4:14:20 Pearl invites Impulse to play a game. Impulse says “Depends” Pearl asks if he wants to play or not. Impulse asks if it will kill him. Pearl assures him it will not. He agrees to play. She invites him to the flower shop. She resets the game, cleans the playing room, and goes to find Impulse. He’s a hard guy to find.

4:18:00 Pearl finds impulse at the flower truck. He sounds pretty rough, but says he’s okay. She asks if he’s ready to play Wordle. He says he likes Wordle, and that he is proud of her for doing redstone. She leads him to the new shop and shows him around, then welcomes him to Dye-Duction. She tells him she’s just going to watch him play and see what happens. He doesn’t have to pay today.

4:20:15 Impulse reads some of the instructions aloud. Pearl reminds him to guess words and not just letter combinations. Impulse admits he didn’t read enough of the book to know where things are. He goes back and reads the book. He plays through the game with some small guidance from Pearl on the technical aspects of the game. He plays “SPACE,”

4:26:40 Impulse tries to think of a second word. His dogs start barking at the landscaper and he leaves for a moment. He comes back and says it’s hard when the dyes are not in order. He plays “BEING” and still has no letters in the right spot.

4:31:00 Impulse tries to think of another word. Pearl assures him there’s no pressure, she’s had people watch her do redstone for the past four hours and she knows from pressure. She tells him it’s really quite simple. He says it’s _not._ She asks what Impulse says when he’s doing redstone, like how Tango and Mumbo have catchphrases. He admits he hasn’t got a line, but Chat is bopping.

4:34:15 Impulse is struggling. Pearl is amused. Impulse plays “THEIR” and has one letter in the right spot. Still no more letters. Impulse is getting squeaky with Wordle-related distress. Pearl realizes that having each letter only once makes Wordle considerably harder and that random letter combos might be okay to counteract that. She mutes herself in-game so she can laugh at Impulse.

4:40:40 Impulse wants a sign he can write on. He tries it out, then realizes he can’t see his inventory when the sign is up. A sign would at least let him save guesses. Pearl and chat discuss custom textures to make the dyes look more lettery.

4:43:00 Impulse plays “FIELD” and gets the win event. He is happy and gets the prize. He reads the book and puts the supplies back in the box. He presses reset and tells Pearl the game is impressive and enjoyable. He isn’t used to playing Wordle under pressure and is sweating about it, but in general it was fun and he’s going to cut the footage to make it look like he guessed very quickly.

4:47:00 Pearl says she isn’t going to do signs but people can use whispers or an actual piece of paper to make notes. Impulse gives back the bundle because his game was comped, but Pearl says she’s going to reset the game and open it today or tomorrow so he can play. She says she’s going to rig up a hint barrel for people who get really stuck. She asks if he wants to see behind the curtain.

4:48:20 Pearl gives Impulse the redstone tour. He jokes about how she needs documentation for all this. She tells him she used his sorters for the game. He said he saw her screenshot while he was on his cruise and was proud to see his sorters. She thanks him for helping her test. Chat suggests naming the shop Dye On The Inside. Pearl and Impulse talk about how lack of repeated letters and only five guesses can make things harder. Impulse thinks no repeated letters is not bad, just hard to learn to think about.

4:51:00 Pearl explains that she’s trying to eliminate user error from the system. Impulse agrees it needs to be spam-proofed for Grian. Pearl needs to add a few more rules to the book before the game opens. Impulse says the game is cool and leaves. Pearl is pleased with the test run and knows she needs to install a locker room and hint barrel. Chat remembers that Impulse didn’t take his stuff. Pearl sends him a message.

4:54:10 Impulse sneaks in and grabs his stuff. Pearl explains her next video will be less about the game and more about stocking the actual shop. Before she ends, Pearl wants to do a few last things, but chat wants Skizz to test the game. Pearl sends him a message, asking “Would you like to play a game?” Skizz is always up to play a game. Impulse says he heard that in the Saw voice. Pearl says that was the correct way to hear that. She discusses the possibilty of making the game a death trap. It would be pretty difficult. She sets up a new recording for Skizz’s visit.

4:57:00 Pearl and Chat decide that easier than a death trap would be a chest where if the contestant loses, they need to pay another diamond to get their stuff back. Easier, but diabolical. The reward would have to be very good to justify that. She examines her bundles again and decides which ones to switch out. Chat suggests adding coupons to the bundles, Pearl likes that idea. Skizz doesn’t know where the shop is, so Pearl gives him directions.

4:59:00 Skizz and a creeper arrive at the flower shop at the same time. Pearl warns Skizz off while she deals with the “green cucumber.” She is very impressed with Skizz’s green shutter shades from Mission Possible. Skizz asks if he’ll be playing Wordle. She says yes and asks how good he is at it. He says he doesn’t like to brag, but… She leads him downstairs, introduces him to Dyeductions, and has him read the book.

5:00:30 Skizz looks at the book and is dismayed by nine pages. He reads the book aloud. He loves the “no letters twice” thing. Pearl adds a few editorial comments for things she’s going to change or that he doesn’t get. He accidentally picks up the book, sets it down, and loses track of it. This is because he is losing his connection, because he instantly falls offline.

5:03:00 Pearl hopes that Skizz didn’t fake losing connection so he doesn’t have to play Wordle. She talks to chat about color choices and waits for him to come back, which he does. He says everything crashed. He finishes reading the book and drops his inventory into the barrel. Pearl critiques his crowded inventory. Skizz gathers his supplies and readies for his first guess. He can’t remember what starter word he wants to use. After a moment of thought, he plays “HORSE,” because eliminating an H eliminates all H blends. He gets one letter, not in the right place.

5:08:30 Skizz clears the board and sets up for his next guess. Pearl creates a sign to remind players of which letters are not included in the game. Skizz is nervous! Pearl tells him not to be stressed. She creates a sign to remind players that letters do not appear twice. Skizz plays “CLEAN,” a word that pleases Cleaning Lady Pearl. He gets a letting in the right place and a letter in the wrong place. He clears the board again. He is so impressed by Pearl’s redstone prowess. Pearl tells him she had so much fun making the game.

5:14:00 Skizz tries to figure out his next guess. Pearl is impressed by his deduction attempts. Skizz says not having letters on the textures makes it hard, but Pearl tells him she is still not sure what to do about this. She mentions that all the vowels are flowers. Skizz says I before E except after C and promises he is actually good at this. He says he’s going to edit this to be much faster. He continues muttering to himself and looking at letters while Pearl thinks about Mission Possible.

5:17:20 Skizz decides on a word. It is “FIELD.” He bops all the letters into place. Chat is so excited. He gets the win condition and is very pleased. Impulse, who was stream sniping, yells “woo!” in chat. Skizz explains that when he and Impulse play Wordle, they share their results. A word guessed in two tries is a twofer, a word guessed in three is a woo. Pearl tells Skizz he did it in faster than Impulse with one less try. He demurs, saying he may have done one less try, but he doubts he did it faster. ((He did it much faster, in about half the time it took Impulse.)) He asks to take a peep at the redstone using freecam. He asks Pearl how she is both an amazing builder and an amazing redstoner and accuses her of hogging all the cool. Pearl says she’s not really a redstoner, but Skizz scoffs at that. He tells her not only did he have fun with the game, he was very impressed.

5:20:10 Skizz puts away the supplies and resets the game. He looks at his bundle, the orange and red dyes. She tells him he can keep it and tells him about her plan for new bundle rewards. Hoffen is doing the bundle texture. Skizz tells her he has an enormous amount of pink dye if she needs it. Pearl gets most of her dyes from Keralis, but she won’t say no to dyes. She tells him the shop will be open in a week or two, but the game is opening very soon, with one word per week. Chat is still busy loving on Pearl after Skizz’s compliments.

5:23:00 Skizz thinks Pearl could charge more than a diamond for the play or the hint, because the bundles are so nice. He promises to play again as soon as the word resets, then leaves. Pearl heads downstairs and realizes she forgot to ensnare Skizz in her Mission Possible task. She says she thought about doing it before he finished the Wordle, but he was very dialed in. She still has plenty of time. She has not told Chat what the task is. She wants to come up with a better sto- a better thing anyway. Chat asks if it’s in her video and she remembers yes, she did put it in the video. She’s still not going to give it away in case of lurking Hermits, but she’s going to get something better put together before she completes the mission.

5:26:00 Pearl says the worst problem so far is hermits not noticing the droppers. She thinks about ways to fix it. Chat suggests adding a sign with the date that the game was last updated. Pearl agrees, and talks again about the leaderboard and locker room. Otherwise, the game is done!

5:28:00 Pearl says it’s time to end the stream. She asks what it is about redstone that makes these 5+ hour streams. She must be having fun if she lets it run so long! She could actually keep streaming, but she has stuff to do in the gaming district. This week is birthday week, so she has family stuff to do, plus she uploaded late and has less time to make her next video. She wants to get back to her Friday release schedule. She needs to figure out what will be in her next video before she makes it, too. Her birthday and Kahn’s birthday are both this week, but she will not take a week off. Taking a week off is so bad for the YouTube algorithm. Right now she is very happy with everything she’s doing on the server and has been having a lot of fun. She tells chat she’s streaming again tomorrow

5:31:50 Pearl realizes she has not read out her notifications for three hours. She is embarrassed and blames redstone streaming. She wails a bit, then starts thanking her subs and donos. Pearl and the chat have a mutual-appreciation party for a little while. Pearl thinks Chat is wonderful, and that things are better now than in older streams, with less backseating and more support. She liked streaming back then but even more now. There are fewer trolls (she thinks this may be because she gave up facecam) and more peaceful building. She likes how Chat offers good suggestions in kind ways. Chat is loving this and feeding compliments right back to Pearl. Pearl says she feels good after every stream these days. Some people in the community give fair critique but in painful ways that makes people feel bad instead of making them better, and that has happened with other creators she knows recently, but her chat is excellent. Pearl also says she understands a fraction of what Tango felt when he finished Decked Out.

5:44:40 Ollie Orionsound appears in chat and asks about the game, so Pearl gives him the very short tour of how the redstone works for the game itself. Ollie thinks it is “so cool.” After the tour, Pearl says she needs to end stream now. No Hermits are streaming Minecraft so she raids into Jono, who is mixing the Poe Poe song, and ends her stream.

#hermitcraft #pearlescentmoon #impulsesv #skizzleman #wordle in minecraft #pearl's redstone skills are growing at a terrifying rate

50 notes · View notes