h e y, so i've been watching a lot of mcc clips lately and have been really enjoying all the illumina ones. are there any videos/streams of his that you'd recommend?
OOH! yes!! time to take up the mantle!
first of all, i'd like to direct you to @oceantail-oceantail's fruitninja guide (and honestly the rest of celia's blog) because she'll always be the master of compiling illumina & fruitninja moments! her clips tag also has a lot of fun moments from streams.
BUT, if you want my personal recommendations...
so, for starters, getting into illumina's content. namely, he's got a youtube channel (illuminaHD), which mostly features stream highlights (speedrunning), mcc highlights, and other miscellaneous minecraft gamplay. (oh, and a few world records!) he has a vods channel too, but it's run by his mods.
oh yeah, his twitch: illumina1337. could trick the fae multiple times over with the number of names we have to tag him by
here's my personal favorite youtube videos of his - or videos that feature him:
this is my Dream SMP application [Stream Highlights] / Probably my most watched highlights video of his, though they're all hilarious. General speedrunning fails and clutches, crafting shenanigans, funny commentary. All his highlight videos give a good sense as to what his streams are like!
the minecraft bingo/lockout series with SmallAnt - I challenged Minecraft's Best Speedrunner to a test of skill and Minecraft Lockouts Are Surprisingly Brutal.. / GREAT series. had me on the edge of my seat. the first video was uploaded to ant's channel, the second on illumina's, but illumina has the vods for both streams saved on a separate channel. i won't get into the twists, but... it was a ride.
Minecraft: fruitberries VS Illumina / Minecraft manhunts... everybody's heard of them. Well, this one was done with fruitninja over two years ago (wow!) Imagine being hunted across multiple dimensions but your assassin is really, really chill. Oh, and also with the expected cracked gameplay from a manhunt as well.
and as for my favorite streams...
Speedrun Showdown w/ Fruitberries VS Dani & Fireworkss (then 1.16 RSG) / So, speedrun showdown! This was the first time the tournament was hosted, which was almost two years ago. Currently, season two (?) of speedrun showdown is taking place, with the finals happening tomorrow! Charity event, super cool, two duos race to the end to kill the dragon. (Both Fruit and Illumina are participating in the 2022 run, but on opposite teams. Fruitninja aren't allowed to team very often. If you watch this vod, you'll find out why.)
Minecraft Championship 13! w/ Punz, Krinios, & Eret! / Classic. All-time favorite. There would be something wrong if this video didn't show up on my list. Illumina's first MCC win! Team vibes were great, they absolutely dominated (with one of the most nerve-wracking dodgebolts I've ever watched. Live!)
MC Championship 17 w/ fruitberries, Vixella, & Zeuz / Another staple. I think we crashed twitter when the fruitninja MCC team was finally announced. The "Unpopular opinion, but I don't think the Simmers are going to win MCC. They've been paired with Fruitninja, which is going to be difficult no matter how good they're going to be (/c)" copypasta was going around a lot. Another team with great vibes and another very close dodgebolt!
1 on Mouse, 1 on Keyboard w/ Illumina / Warning, I think you're going to notice fruitninja being a consistent trend with my recommendations! (This is all part of the fruitninja conspiracy, in which I try to get everyone to watch their content with my art. So far, my success rate is pretty high!) Fruit & Illumina are roommates and they did a stream where one person controlled the movement via mouse and the other person controlled the movement via keyboard. (Un)surprisingly, they actually did extremely well! Great fun, one of my favorites, bonus IRL content.
Diversity 3 Playthrough! / Illumina plays through a minecraft adventure map for almost ten hours straight. He parkours, he kills mobs, he participates in a space mystery adventure. It's all here. He even speedruns (kind of.)
Okay, onto miscellaneous! As I've mentioned before, celia has a youtube channel with fruitninja & illumina clips. Also, this video from Illumina's MCC 28 parkour warrior run made me laugh. And also this video on Fruitninja interacting in MCC 24. Uh, what else.. Illumina's latest MCC highlights video was really good (though I really also liked the full stream, which is up on his twitch but not his vods channel. Watch it while it's up, I guess!) And also the fruitninja Tubnet Craftmaster Showdown vod had its great moments (also on twitch. Fruit's POV of this event is also really funny, too.)
And a small self-plug - I post a bunch of fruitninja stuff on my sideblog @calwasntfound. Mainly WIPs, though all my finished art is up here! There should be enough to provide a fun scroll. And check out the other artists in the illumina tag, they're all incredible!
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After seeing a playthrough of Bowser’s Inside Story, I gotta say I’m kind of mixed on Starlow, and no, it’s not just because of the Luigi bullying.
The thing with Starlow is that, on one hand, it’s great to see a female character who has no hesitation talking back and who can be a bit of an ass. But at the same time, the way they wrote her just…it really makes it hard to like her sometimes.
I think the main issue is that she’s written as someone who talks back but most of those interactions are with people doing their jobs and messing up. This leads to moments with Starlow criticizing someone for the things they’re doing, but then proceeding to do nothing whatsoever to help. On top of that, she’s kind of useless in the game, making her “I’m better than you” attitude really come off in a bad way.
(btw that moment with the doctor/fortune-teller calling her out on it is very satisfying)
The best way to describe the issue, and that’s when it gets interesting, is to compare her to how Bowser is written in this game. There are essentially two things that are similar yet different about those two.
1. Like I said, Starlow is often criticizing people for what they’re doing, which is something Bowser does as well. But where Starlow goes “Man you suck at your job. Do better !” Bowser goes “Man you suck at your job. Here, let me do it for you !” and that automatically makes Bowser more likeable. Because instead of just complaining, he actually does things (the section with the Monty Moles for example).
2. A bit longer to explain but the Tl;Dr is that Bowser actually learns from his mistakes and grows while Starlow doesn’t. To explain this, I want to describe two interactions between those two.
The first interaction is when Bowser forgets the code to his safe and orders Starlow to find it, to which Starlow gets angry with his tone and tells him to fuck off, only accepting to help once he politely asks her to search. That right here is really good, and is an example of a moment where I really like Starlow’s attitude.
But then you have their next interaction. Bowser just spent hours stuck in a safe (btw someone stuck in a liminal space like that is a form of torture), was thrown into the garbage so hard the safe broke, and understandably is in enormous pain. Because of that, Bowser asks Starlow to help with his back, and his dialogue here echoes the previous one in a good way.
He starts off his sentence as an order, only to catch himself halfway through and ask politely. Bowser just went through hell, is in a huge amount of pain, and yet still finds it within himself to be polite because he knows that’s how Starlow wants to be addressed. This also shows that he respects Starlow since he remembered that detail about her and is willing to avoid falling into his usual bossy attitude despite his terrible state.
And what does Starlow do in return ? She basically calls him a whiney bitch for complaining. Yeah….this is not a good look.
This actually reminds me of one of their first interactions, when Bowser can’t produce fire and panics about it, with Starlow telling him to just deal with it. The first time I saw this dialogue I was like “Hey Starlow, buddy, how would you feel if you suddenly lost your ability to fly, with no idea of why and the only one that might help is some random voice you don’t know anything about coming from your stomach ?” Although, I’d cut Starlow some slack for this one since this is very early on, so Starlow has every right to be mad at him.
And more on that topic, the thing with comparing Bowser and Starlow is that you quickly realize how much better Bowser is than her. I already mentioned Bowser doing things himself and showing respect to her, but then there’s also moments like him being humble enough to eat Wiggler’s carrot when being ordered to to “take responsibility”, or when he out loud says he will break the rocks in his path to free the Koopas, and decide to commit to it upon realizing the Koopas heard him. In that second case, he could’ve easily gone a different path and tell the Koopas to shut up if they were to say anything, but he didn’t. Instead, he said he will break that rock and that’s what he’s going to do ! Same for the Wiggler btw. He could’ve beaten them up instead of eating that carrot, which he does end up doing afterwards when Wiggler loses their shit.
So yeah, when you look at how not-very-useful Starlow is compared to Bowser, when you look at how they treat others, and when you look at their interactions with each other…it’s kinda hard to find Starlow likeable when a literal villain is a better person than she is (granted Bowser is more of an anti-hero in this game but the point still stands).
Funnily enough, some of those moments like the Wiggler, the Koopas and him saying please to Starlow while in pain actually show that yes, Bowser is a pretty decent king. At the very least, you can understand why his people respect him.
So all-in-all, yeah, I’m kind of 50/50 on Starlow. It’s great to have a female character on the hero team who has a lot of flaws for once, but it’s also hard to find her attitude likeable. Ultimately, I think the issue is how she’s acting the same with everyone. Like I said earlier, it is satisfying when Bowser is being a dick and she tells him off. But when Bowser is being nice, or when she’s interacting with someone who’s only trying to help, Starlow really comes off as an ass, which is not a good look.
And yes, while still a minor thing in BIS, her bullying Luigi doesn’t help either.
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