Even before self-isolation, I used to keep something in the background as a way of white noise. Podcast, Let’s Play, old episodes of the original GBBO, etc. It helps me concentrate, though I do admit that I will take mini-breaks in order to listen/watch the program at hand. Of course, many of the Let’s Players I watch are now self-isolating as well, which means more solo livestreams. In particular, the members of RKG are used to working in a group. Mostly three, sometimes two. I don’t think there’s ever been a solo stream by any of them before the move to self-isolation. They are Brits, which means now they are in lockdown. They put a post on their
Patreon about the solo streams they were going to be doing, and the one that had me most excited at first was Krupa’s Dark Souls plat run, part 2 for obvious and not obvious reasons.
Obvious reason: Dark Souls. Also, this is a producers stream, so it was more intimate than the other streams. It’s a great community, and the producers streams are a nice way to relax and chat with like-minded folks. Not so obvious reason: Krupa is the reason I clicked with the group in the first place. I was watching an episode of them playing Dark Souls III, and Gav said something about Krupa being a great teacher, the kind you were terrified of at the time but realized years later how great he actually was. After some bantering, Krupa shouted, “I’m not telling you what a sestina is again!” (He had been studying for his English PhD and had to student teach as part of his studies.) That he had worked ‘sestina’ into an episode of a Dark Souls Let’s Play reeled me in. Also, he’s the one who’s the most similar to me, so there’s that as well.
The stream was great as Krupes ran through NG+, the second part of the game, with the help of many summons and crushed out the Dark Lord ending. Every time he finished upgrading yet another kind of weapon, a trophy would pop, and he would put on the achievement music. We would all crow about it and praise that sun HARD. \[T]/ Which is really fucking hard to do in the Dvorak system. It went for 7 1/2 hours with cameos by Ramen, his Maltipoo, who is incredibly adorable. A few of the other members and I started the Cult of Pyros in which we praise Vamos, our lord and savior. He is the blacksmith who deals with all the fire weapons, and he’s really hard to find. Hm. I think we should add Izalith as our Goddess. She was the witch who tried to recreate the First Flame with disastrous results. Anyway, it was hilarious, and we’re thinking of getting a t-shirt.
There was a real feeling of community as we helped Krupa on his journey for platinum. I don’t play on the PS4, so I was mostly moral support and Google Maps when Krupa needed to find something. Sometimes, a know-it-all can be helpful! The reason I know the game so well is because I died so. many. times. In addition, there is no map, so I was forced to rely on my memory. I have a great memory, but I’m terrible with directions. It was only with repetition that I could remember where everything was. Even then, I had some pockets in my memory. Such as trying to get Power Within in Blighttown going backwards through the area.
Side Note: I feel as if I’m the crazy auntie of the group since I’m one of if not the oldest of the group. I’m pretty sure I’m the oldest, but I’ll allow for the fact that there might be one or two who are older.
The stream was 7 1/2 hours, and he’s still not finished. He needs to make all the unique weapons and that’s it. He has to kill Quelaag, Sif (sob), and Gwyndolin one more time, which means making it to Anor Londo once again. That’s gonna be another two to three hours of Dark Souls goodness! It’s a very chill way to spend a day, but there’s also a sense of accomplishment as well when he gets one of the trophies.
Next up was Gav’s jigsaw puzzle stream. It was a 500-piece puzzle of Princess Di, and it was clearly something he was doing for a laugh. I got there late because it started at eight my time, and he had the border done save a few pieces when I joined. It was supposed to take 4 – 6 hours, but that was not how that shit went down. The setup was his hands doing the puzzle in the big picture (to the left) with three smaller boxes to the right. The top was of the box in which the puzzle came. The middle was of Gav doing the puzzle. The bottom was of Coco, his three-legged Pomeranian, snoozing in colorful jumpers (changed throughout the stream).
It was clearly being done for a laugh, but something miraculous happened along the way. There were roughly 400 people for the (open) stream and people in the chat were calling out pieces and there they fit. Gav was reading the chat as much as he could, and any time someone got one of the pieces right, he would say, “Who said that? WHO. SAID. THAT?” in a vaguely threatening voice, followed by, “What an absolute legend!” or beast or whatever. I need to say that Gav is a burly Welsh man, heavily tattooed, with a big black beard. He is very proud of being Welsh, and it was the reason he chose that particular puzzle. He typed in some combo of Wales and jigsaw, and that was the first one to come up (Princess of Wales). The visual of him getting giddy when he went on a tear was a sight to behold, and it was so much fun.
One of the best storylines of the stream was that there was one edge piece missing. Many people were losing their minds over the missing edge piece, and Gav had to put a moratorium on mentioning it. Before that, people were suggesting all sorts of things that might have happened to it, such as under laptop, on the floor, Coco ate it, etc. Around the third hour, he found it on the floor. He put it in, much to the joy of the entire chat. One person requested he take it out again, which I backed up. Without reading chat, Gav immediately took the piece out and said it was going to be our little secret. We were not to tell anyone else about it, and he hid it carefully. It was labeled Flat Finchy (all their characters in their Dark Souls runs were named Finchy), and we all zipped our lips from that moment forward. Anytime someone new came into chat, we would just say we don’t talk about the edge piece and moved on. Later, when I watched the first two hours, I saw that Gav had dropped a piece on the floor. He commented on it, but never picked it up. That was what happened to the edge piece.
We were all losing our minds a bit as the hours dragged on. Many hours in, he moved the pieces remaining into a grid-like formation on both sides of the puzzle. Then, it became a weirdly fascinating game of Battleship in chat as people would type things like, “A7 is Big Hat Diana’s (ha!) nose”. I couldn’t help because I was watching on my laptop, and my old, tired eyes couldn’t see the fine details. I was having a great time dipping in and out, though, and keeping it in the background. At some point, I had to leave, and when I came back, the last edge piece was visible on the table. It turned out that Gav told on himself because some people were getting really stressed about the piece and with all the remaining pieces separated and in clear view, it was pointless to continue the deception. We all had a good laugh, and Flat Finchy was still waiting to be inserted last as the crowning triumph.
It was a beautiful thing to watch the community come together, and at the end, the synergy was mind-blowing. As were the inside jokes. Flat Finchy. Big Hat Diana. Egg Diana. Trying desperately to make it like Souls. Oh, also Johnny Chiodini showed up in the last hour and actually answered a question I threw out to chat with a wry quip. That made my night. There was a fevered pitch as the puzzle came together, and it was just a little over 12 hours (!!!) when he (with the help of Coco) put the final piece in. It was exhilarating, and the funniest part is that YouTube only saves 12 hours, so the last 10 minutes, the most important 10 minutes, are missing from the VOD. Of course, there are jokes that Gav never finished it (a reference to missing footage from the Ornstein & Smough fight), but he put the finished product on eBay in a charity auction.
Finally, Rory did an Animal Crossing stream. I had been marveling on how creative people were being with their islands and how creepy some were making them. I said to Ian that I wanted Rory to do Murderopolis, but it wasn’t really his style. I had to miss the first hour, and when I dropped in, Gulliver was dead on the beach–murdered. I was SO happy that I had gotten my wish! This was also an open stream, so there were roughly four hundred people trying to figure out who the murderer was. I had to dip out again, and when I returned, he was inviting people to his island to play a game he invented called Wheel of Money. I asked if we had solved the murder yet, and the answer was no.
Then, he went to Gav’s island and went into Gav’s house. The wallpaper said “Gav did it” in red repeatedly across the walls and floors (with just a torch in the middle of the room), and it was the most hilarious thing I’d seen in…two days (when Gav streamed). Gav’s AC character had his hair in pigtails and looked adorable, and it was so incongruous with his murderous intent. The next five minutes were legitimately tense as Rory raced around the island, trying to find the airport. Gav was nowhere, which made it even tenser. Everyone in chat knew Gav was probably near the airport because, well, that’s where you would go, right? As Rory neared the airport, text flashed up on the screen saying, “You’re next” as Gav popped out and tried to murder Rory with an axe. Rory escaped by the skin of his teeth, and I was cry-laughing by the end. Gav showed up in chat and said it wasn’t him. We all typed, “Everyone run!” or some variation. I went back to watch the beginning, and the setup was so well done. I got everything I wanted with the stream and then some. It was brilliant.
I know these are dark days, and I know that we need to keep updated on the state of the world around us. However, we also need to laugh and escape from the anxiety as best we can. I’m grateful for the RKG lads for providing us a much needed break.