TPP Day 1 Recollection - Desparae / Seda

I was indeed present for the initial TPP stream but unfortunately I do not have any new screenshots to share. It wasn't something that crossed my mind to document at the time because it was a tiny novelty stream with a small viewership.

I stumbled across it on twitch because I was into gen 1 Pokemon speedruns at the time, and it was listed under the Red/Blue category. I have a vague memory of it being in the evening after my university classes, so probably around 6PM US Pacific time is where this anecdote starts.

Memory is a bit hazy but I believe when I got to the stream they were in the middle of the Oak parcel quest. There were about 5 viewers at the time, and the total viewers never went above 10 for the ~5 hours I was there.

I remember seeing Oak's lab briefly before going up to Viridan city and then through the forest. I can't remember if there was a detour for the optional rival battle or not, but I'm leaning towards no.

I took a less active role at first to see what the other viewers were doing, didn't want to mess them up too much. During the battles I would help select moves and get through text boxes and I gradually started to participate more as I got a feel for it.

A good chunk of time was spent in the forest, though we were mostly focused on the trainer battles and getting to Pewter. There were one or two people handling the overworld movement for the most part which made it easier to coordinate. It was still hard to progress quickly though because of the stream delay.
I vaguely recall the second bug catcher being a bit of a struggle because of the Kakuna using harden when Charmander only had scratch. I think it learned ember after that battle which sped things up significantly. I want to say it was a bit over an hour to get through the forest, and might have involved a death or two to poison, not entirely sure.

After that it was a straight shot to Pewter where we healed up at the center and headed into the gym. The first trainer was trivial; Diglett fainted easily while ember dealt with the Sandshrew. The real problem was Brock-- we tried to beat him but couldn't even get past the Geodude. After a brief discussion we decided it would be better to grind a couple levels on Route 2 before trying again.

I figured this would be a good time to take a break and eat, so I was gone for around 20-30 minutes. The process of grinding on wild encounters is not exactly fast when there are only a couple people inputting commands one at a time. Wasn't going to miss much of the action if I was gone.

When I got back, Charmander had gained a level or two and they were heading back to the gym. I can't remember how many attempts it was to beat him the second time around, but it didn't take all that long. Might have gotten a lucky burn to help deal with bide on the Onix.

I stayed for a few more trainer battles on Route 3, but it was getting late so I eventually left to go to sleep. At that point it was still just Charmander in the party, and nothing else had been caught yet. I assume the Pidgey was obtained on Route 3 shortly after I left.

When I checked back in with the stream the next day, I remember being surprised at how little progress had been made. They were still bumbling around at the Mt. Moon pokemon center, probably after wiping several times and getting teleported back.

Then I realized how many people there were and things started to make sense. Chat was moving way faster than before and there was no longer any deliberate teamwork, it was way more chaotic. I participated for a bit but it wasn't as fun with so little control so I stopped after a few minutes.
The main thing that stands out to me about my involvement compared to the first recorded footage is how much teamwork was involved. We would discuss what to do next before inputting commands and try to think through things ahead of time. Sometimes one person would do 5+ actions on their own without anyone interrupting them. Rarely would more than 3-4 people be inputting commands simultaneously.

Other general things of note:
-I've seen accounts that there were 30-50 people before Viridian, that is entirely false. I don't remember seeing more than 10 viewers in the ~5 hours I was there. Certainly nowhere close to 50.

-I thought I remembered evolving Charmander before Brock in order to make the fight easier, but this contracticts the timeline people have come up with so I'm not really sure. It's worth mentioning at least, in case you get any other stories that corroborate this idea. Very possible I'm just misremembering though.

-I believe Undeadlibrary and Anon_agon were the two most active people along with me, they were the ones doing a lot of the movement through the forest and the grind on Route 2 and so on. Both of them were there for pretty much the whole early game so I would try to get their perspectives if you want to confirm anything.
^that's all, sorry if it is a bit long, wanted to be as thorough as possible