100 hour cast was great success

    Last Tuesday August 28th at 8pm I started the 100 hour cast again. Thanks to Ferols donating for a new videocard making it possible to stream again, muahhh hun. This time I decided to finally use my really cheap headset. So far I had been holding back a bit, but a good cast obviously needs a voice. Many asked about it and mentioned it, but I always wanted to wait till I could afford to buy a quality mic. Well, I wanted to surprise my viewers during this special broadcast to celebrate the fact I made it to 100 followers on my channel some time ago. Another reason for holding back was the fact I am transgendered and have a male sounding voice. I absolutely dislike my voice, being a woman, but totally not sounding like one. Oh well, I am still ME and nothing changes that, it just surprises quite a few viewers. I do not feel like putting up an act trying a high pitched voice which might sound more female. Been used to talk as a guy for most my life and its not easy to change that. Just a note on that, I can understand viewers to not quite get it and even though I feel to be a woman and like to be respected and spoken to as a woman, I also easily forgive those that might have to get used to it or think I am a man. So please do not worry about it too much, just respect me for who I am is all I ask. I don't even expect anyone to fully understand it. Get used to it, respect me, treat me as a woman or get lost if you can't.
    So yeah, the 100 hour cast started off having to explain quite a few times, but I am an open book and don't mind trying to explain myself. The full cast I had been streaming Minecraft, I tried to do something else at some point, but XSplit and Twitch didn't like the change much making me restart my computer, trying to fix buggy XSplit and more frustrating trouble instead of being able to just switch to streaming something else. So I decided to stick to Minecraft since that seemed to work great for hours after hours. Now talking instead of typing everything sure took getting used to and I am still finding my way to be honest. I am no longer able to monitor my sound over my speakers in the living room because it causes way too much echo. Another thing I did not even think of was the fact that talking for such a long time, my first time even, is quite hard on the vocal chords. Once I was well on my way, my throat started to protest and hurt quite a bit. More things to get used to when streaming with a mic is the screens to focus on. When typing everything I got used to focus on certain screens and the game came to a stop whenever I had to type. Now the game just goes on, I do not have to stop anymore since I can just keep talking, but this means I am too focused on the game screen and often lost focus on the screens I needed to pay attention to. I will eventually get used to it though and to be honest, I love using my mic and talk and I am glad I finally made the switch.     I want to thank one of my viewers and players on the Minecraft server for having done quite many give-aways for the game Smite during my cast. Giving away Beta-keys for a game or any give-aways for that matter always attracts viewers and its great fun making viewers happy with free gifts. So thnxxx Juanwan for the fact you made that possible, really appreciated that, muahhh..
    During the cast at 70 hours left I had a Request build planned for all my players on the Minecraft Fun Paradise server to join in on. Viewers had been giving me ideas for a build and I set up an online poll for viewers to vote on. There were 9 builds to choose from and of course I was afraid of it, even though it took a while before someone mentioned it, a Nuclear Power Plant was part of it. Here is the full list viewers could vote on: The Eiffel Tower, A huge Carebear, The Hooverdam, The WTC in Bahrain, The Collosseum, An Egyptian Sphynx, The Statue of Liberty, The Lincoln Memorial and last but not least, The Nuclear Power Plant. So like I said, I was afraid someone would mention Nuclear. Reason for having been afraid for that is the fact that I do not have a frikkin clue how to make it. I never really messed with it before and a Nuclear Power Plant that actually functions is kinda scary to have on a server. It needs to be completely safe in case of a meltdown, because when something goes wrong it can be devastating for the world we build in. The power it is capable of also means it can explode and leave nothing but a huge crater. Big risks are involved and it needs to be build well and needs knowledge on how to create it..
    Now I want to thank someone else, Quetzi :-), love you hun for coming up with the idea of making us all build a Nuclear Power Plant. It was his idea in the first place and of course almost all my viewers voted on that option. Quetzi is a great streamer on Twitch and we sure as heck share the same interest in this great game called Minecraft. Make sure to check out his channel on Twitch.tv some time. If you love Minecraft, mods and a good quality stream by a nice guy, click this link and follow him: Quetzi.(help him get his 1000 followers soon and he will start using cam even)
    So with about 70 hours left to cast everyone playing on my Minecraft server got opped to help out building this Nuclear Power Plant in creative mode. To be honest, I have never had such a wonderful time together on my server and channel. Although we were of to a slow start deciding how to start, I just took the lead at some point and just started. From that moment everything started to come together and we all helped out making it a wonderful project. We spend about 20-30 hours on the project to have reached a point I could call it a project completed. Well done everyone and thank you all so much for helping on this group build and making it a great success. Here is a picture showing the result of what we achieved as a group. Fully functional and a great energy system thanks to some very knowledgable players which provides our full server world with more than enough energy. Check out the pictures tab for even more pictures.

    Now I was about halfway through the 100 hours and we called the Request Build as a project being finished. We went back to our own builds again and continued on our own while others continued on adding things to the build we just finished. I noticed that casting for such a long time was way more intense than I could have even imagined before I started. I was feeling physically ok and not tired at all, but mentally I sure started to feel exhausted. You all need to know that I suffer from Insomnia, I am sleep deprived. I sleep about 8 hrs a week on average, so I should be perfectly able to do a 100 hour cast. Well, I didn't expect it to be mentally this tiring. Being focused for such a long time, having a show to run is completely different from not sleeping for days and not having any obligations at all. I was also tired of speaking and my throat felt sore from all the talking for hours. When starting to become exhausted emotions start to surface as well and even though I do not mind showing them, I sure had some rough times and even had to step away while crying and needing a breather for a bit. I started to doubt if I would even be capable of making it the full 100 hours. I had a few really rough moments, especially when the channel became quiet and not many players on the Minecraft server. This usually happened in my early mornings, when its too early for Europe to be awake yet and the US asleep late at night. Those moments would last a few hours till people started joining again and getting me going again. OMG, at some point I truly started to feel ashamed and consider quitting. I have had a few moments that I could hardly think of what to say, or try saying something not being able to find words anymore causing a deadly silence halfway a sentence. I must have looked stupid at some point even, truly embarrassing myself. I did however know that when this would happen it would be time to call it quits. This has never been a record breaking attempt or a way to prove a point or whatever. All the 100 hour cast was meant to be was something special to celebrate the 100 follows, not a look at me being a fool to not give up at any cost. With about 20 hours left to go I had another tough morning and I decided to announce to retire if I could not find any way to gain some fresh new energy soon. Being mentally exhausted, having talked for hours on edge made me mess up more and more. I started talking Dutch and not notice, kept looking for words causing awkward silences, mixed up words in Dutch and English, I started to embarrass myself. Then Crythorn, one of my viewers saved me once again. I found some energy again, started to get distracted again and doing better. This moment was with about 17 hours to go and it made me truly believe I was going to make it. Well, how wrong could I have been ... lol. With about 14 hours left to go, I had to go to the ladies room for the usual potty break. Next I remmy is waking up in bed and going to the computer to check. I had fallen asleep and been away too long to continue. 100 hours got to me, I had not made it, I failed! My mind made me go to bed instead of returning to the cast without even thinking about it or being aware of the choice my body had made. Bed was all it thought and thats where I ended up with about 14 hours to go. I said failed earlier, but of course I do not truly see it as failing, I tried to make it, but never said I was going to make it, had no expectations for that matter. It has just been a great experience and I learned one thing for sure. I WILL NEVER TRY THIS AGAIN ... hehehe..
    All in all this was indeed a great experience, I enjoyed almost every single minute of it with my steady viewers and players on the server. I had a great time and I want to thank everyone who was part of it, whether it be as a viewer or a player in Fun Paradise. Thanks once again for the follows and making my channel become known and watched as well as being part of my Fun Paradise world which is truly becoming an EPIC place. Without you all this would never be possible, we are in it together and we create this together. We had some great talks, future ideas, we helped each other, we worked together as a team, there is trust which is needed on a server running Minecraft and if we keep this going the way it goes now, it will only get better ;-).
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Just want to say one last thing ... MUAHHH, I LOVE YOU ALL !!!