Heartwarming / Vinesauce

Heartwarming moments from Vinny's Tomodachi Life streams go here. Heartwarming moments from Mayor Vine go here.

Moments pages are spoilers off!

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• From the annual Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation charity streams:
  • For the 2014 charity stream, it was decided that they wanted to try to reach at least $5,000. Some time after hitting $10,000, it was realized that if they could "somehow" breach $20,000, it would qualify as a grant and be officially named "the Vinesauce Child Cancer Research Grant", so they really hoped it would get there, despite downtime on the donation site... so they kept going past 24 hours. With roughly a half hour left they were over $22,000, with ten minutes left they were at $23,000, and the final tally was $24,663. The rallying cries weren't the usual Tear Jerker moments, but sometimes insane, always awesome things like "This stream is going to kick cancer in the balls!" The sheer emotion in the voices of Vinny and the crew at the end of it caused many Manly Tears to be shed.
  • Hootey uploaded a video of his 2014 visit to the PCRF. In addition to showing what he actually looks like, it ends up being a touching video that shows how much the community cares.
  • The effort repeated itself in 2015, when the community managed to raise an excess of $55,716, more than doubling last year's total. It also began the three-day tradition it's done ever since. During one of Vinny's streams of Splatoon, Vinny contacted Hootey on Mumble to discuss the charity stream and Hootey personally thanked the viewers for making everything possible.
  • And once again, the community pulled through with the 2016 charity stream, donating $80,815.
  • Hold onto your butts. The direct donation total for the 2017 'Vinesauce is HOPE' charity event? $100,402. That doesn't even include the proceeds from merch that was sold to also benefit PCRF, which totaled to $137,377.
  • Well, what happened in 2018 makes 2017 looks more like child's play by comparison. For the direct donation total for 2018's 'Vinesauce is Hope' charity event, the gang broke through to $121,778. And what of the proceeds from merchandise that benefit the PCRF, you may ask? That total broke all the way into $181,902!
  • Continuing the trend, 2019 manages to blow 2018 out of the water, raising $153,428 in direct donations and $210,338.92 in total!!!
  • Despite the events happening through the year, 2020 was the first year to break $200,000 in donations alone (to be specific, the final count for direct donations was $202,421), with a grand total of $256,515!
• During Vinny's tenth The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D streams, he got on the topic of depression and not... feeling well, and kept reasoning why it's worth being here. To say the least, it'll probably bring a tear to your eye, even if Link was getting murdered while trying to get through the Shadow Temple without any healing items.
  "The world is very good. Seriously, there's a lot of good in this world."
• In Vinny's I Am Bread stream, he re-enacts the high-speed docking sequence in Interstellar with toast and a toaster, complete with emotive lines from the film. These lines, coupled with Vinny's sheer awe over the situation, make anyone feel warm inside.
• For his RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 stream, Joel used OpenRCT2, which is a free/open-source rewrite of the game, similar to what OpenTTD did for Transport Tycoon Deluxe (both RollerCoaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon were originally developed by the same person, Chris Sawyer). The developers of OpenRCT2 tuned in to his stream, and when he used the game's Twitch integration options to display chat messages as in-game notifications, they sent him a thank you message. Joel felt incredibly touched and honored.
• In one of Joel's NES showcases, he's angry that one of the games forces him to kill cute kitten/puppy enemies. If you're familiar with his past experience owning a cat, it adds even more emphasis.
• Joel admitting on Twitter that he had become so attached to the characters in Undertale, he was regretting having promised a kill run. He says the game is charming and fun, and expresses regret at hurting Toriel, even calling her 'Mom' (although he points out his character probably has their own mother to go home to).
  • Watching as Joel befriends and non-ironically falls in love with Sans and Papyrus is sure to lift a few spirits, especially considering that this was one of the main reasons the game was recommended for him. Which makes their deaths in the Genocide Run stream all the more heartbreaking to watch.
• Vinny telling his fans not to panic during the hijacking of Joel's channel in late 2015. He doesn't give in to the hijacker's intentions and rage about it. Not at all. He calmly and reassuringly posts a comment on one of his Super Mario Maker videos linking to an image that says "Don't Panic." It's nice to see him do his best to avoid giving the hijacker attention and try to keep things under control despite both what was going on with Joel's channel (including the comment sections) and viewers griping at him on social media.
• Fans (including Piergaming, whose YouTube channel contains an archive of several pre-Vargskelethor Uncut streams) making the effort to reupload all of Joel's videos after the hijacker (temporarily) deleted them on November 8, 2015. It's nice to see how dedicated Joel's fans are and how much he means to them, considering the challenge that comes with archiving and re-releasing four years' worth of videos after the unanticipated purge, even if it was only temporary. As far as we know, the fans made sure to prepare us for any future tricks the hijacker or any other has up his sleeve. Doubled by Google rescuing all of Joel's videos the day after the purge. The recovery could've been sooner had the purge not happen on a weekend, but still.
• "Well that was fucking stupid, wasn't it?" Joel's back!
• Rev made the "washwave" album HotStart in early 2016, under the name Bees McBees. After people bought it on Bandcamp, he tweeted that he felt that it would be wrong to keep the money it made to himself (because it's an album of slowed-down dishwasher noises) and decided to donate the money to people affected by the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
• Joel, on a whim, deciding to find a random Twitch streamer, and giving him several hundred new viewers, even going to far as to tell the people watching in his stream to 'be nice.' Just a random kind gesture.
  • He did it again, the streamer's sheer joy at the sudden influx of followers and donations is very touching.
• Joel's stunned reactions to his creations - especially since he frequently thinks they're going wrong as he paints them - while following The Joy of Painting on Mario Paint, perhaps most notably, "Holy fuck, dude. I did that?!" Bob Ross, being a firm believer that anyone could paint, would surely be pleased with Joel's impressive, if unconventional, pixel art.
• Between with all the expected hilarity from his "Shitty GBA & GBC Games" streams, Vinny finds a racing game in the collection titled F1 Championship: Special Vinny Edition and expresses his apprehension. After a minute or so of mocking the predictably bad gameplay and retiring from the race, "There She Goes" plays over the next screen. Vinny chuckles, admits he has "a big, dopey grin" on his face, and sings along for a bit.
• After giving all kinds of funny names to his team in Pokémon Moon, it was nice of Vinny to do as many players did and name Lunala 'Nebby', as Lillie did.
  "Once Nebby, always Nebby."
• Joel recounts a story from his trip to Japan where he had a blast with a complete stranger while playing Street Fighter II at an arcade, where even though there was a language barrier between Joel and the player he ended up playing a round of multiplayer with, both still had an absolute blast, with even a crowd of interested viewers gathering to watch the two play. (from 9:32 to about 13:11 in the video)
  • Heck, the entire Japan trip in general. Joel sounds so happy during some of it!
  • In general, it's hard not to crack a smile listening to Joel gush about Japan, especially when he does so while playing games that take place in the country (e.g., Shenmue or Like a Dragon).
• Aisha (Limes) getting a full-time job for Twitch. It's heartwarming that a popular streamer now works for the company that makes it possible. Even for Limes' usual Genki Girl attitude, she sounds extremely cheerful about that. And then she promised that she'll continue streaming, because she loves her fanbase.
• Vinny's response to seeing Satoru Iwata's name in EarthBound's credits when he beat the game in 2017 was to thank him for fixing the game's code so it could be released.
• Even though Rev goes for Yuri's route when playing Doki Doki Literature Club!, he keeps an eye out for Sayori when things start to look bad for her, and even calls out the player character to his insensitive response to hearing Sayori admit that she's had depression all her life.
  • He also asks the chat mods to regularly post the trigger list for the game, just so people don't feel uncomfortable.
• During a Shovelware Showcase segment involving Go Play Circus Star, it was discovered fairly early on during Vinny's playthrough that Mike Pollock voice acted for the game. Mike found out about it, and even showed up in the chat. Vinny and the chat members made it clear that they had nothing but praise for the man himself.
• Vinny streamed the demo for Mario Tennis Aces and encountered Nairo^note A professional Super Smash Bros. player in the semi-finals. Though Nairo was victorious, Vinny wished him good luck in the Finals. Nairo later hosted Vinny and the two subbed to each other's channels, forming a friendship.
• Vinny noting that despite Wario repeatedly ripping off his developers in every WarioWare game, the same people continually agree to work with him, and even consider inviting him to dance and have potlucks with them outside of work. He speculates it's because they're "genuinely nice people".
• Hootey and his wife are expecting a baby in December 2018!
  • Baby Harper is born!
  • A small but still heartwarming related moment: during his Isaac mods stream in January 2019, Joel tells the viewers to congratulate Hootey and his wife and states that he sent them a Christmas card.
• Not long after finally beating Inner Agent 3, Vinny tells the chat he loves them and thanks them for sticking with him through it.
• The story of Rev proposing to Tilde.
  Tilde: You also started crying.
  Rev: Yeah... Well, I love you.
  Tilde: I know, I love you too.
• In September 2018, Vinny came down with a case of strep throat so severe that it left him incapacitated for over a week and put him into "survival mode," as he put it. When he finally was well enough to stream again, he was amazed that so many viewers waited for him to come back and hadn't left him.
• Vinny's playthrough of the Fallout 76 beta begins with him being rather flippant because he finds himself unable to turn off proximity voice chat while making his character and ends up talking extensively to a 13-year-old. At first, Vinny thinks he's another stereotypical Small Name, Big Ego brat solely because of his age, but finds himself developing something of an Intergenerational Friendship with him because his interests are similar to Vinny's own (and sympathizing with the fact his Jerk Jock older brother thinks his taste in games is "stupid"). At one point, Vinny even offers to be his dad (which a lot of the YouTube commenters particularly liked) after hearing that the kid's parents think he's the lonesome nerd sitting in his room all day.
• Vin's streams of Mother 3 manage to be uniquely heartwarming for the sheer wholesomeness of how much the guy falls in love with and becomes engaged in the game. At the end of his final stream of it, Vin admits that while a good part of him starting to play the game on-stream was to satisfy viewers eager to see him play it, he was also personally excited to check out the game for himself, and was surprised by how effectively it pulled him in, to his delight.
  • There's also his general sympathetic attitude toward Lucas, Duster and Salsa; in particular, he expresses disgust toward Wes whenever he shows up after learning that he broke Duster's leg, even in spite of his usefulness as a Guest-Star Party Member.
• It's rare to hear Vinny chuckle sincerely rather than in confusion or hysteria, but Baba is You manages to elicit one.
  Vinny: ROSE is RED, VIOLET is BLUE, FLAG is WIN, BABA is Y-- (Beat) I love this game. (chuckles) This is such a charming game. (chuckles again) Ohhh, man...
• Vinny's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim streams shows that he genuinely comes to like Serana as a character in spite of the games bugs and glitches making her do weird things. He keeps her in his party the entire stream after he acquires her, even at one point redoing a save because the character he married glitched out and started attacking Serana.
  Vinny: Alright well, I've seen into your future and I'm gonna tell you something: you're gonna try to kill my friend Serana. We've been on many adventures together! You can't just do that!
• Joel being thoroughly and genuinely charmed by Honey World, an adorable bee-themed game in Dreams.
• Vinny's reaction to Banjo's inclusion in Smash is filled with nothing but genuine joy from the moment of realization. None of the usual cynicism, no dry sarcasm, just pure happiness from Vinny as he tries to grasp just what just happened. You can almost literally hear him cry tears of joy from this announcement.
  Vinny: I am... so happy. I can't believe it; it's happening! The years of japes finally pays off!
• During a Super Mario Maker 2 Hardcore Friday edition, Joel talks about how he made a song for a random player called Jonnil when he was playing Mario Royale. It's terrible. However, chat actually was able to find his official YouTube channel, where he was streaming at that exact moment. Joel proceeds to pop in, not believing one bit of it. But when Jonnil started saying how he did play the game but didn't remember him, Joel begins to squeal in joy. And then it goes up to eleven when he discovers Jonnil is Swedish as well, and speaks fluently. It's a rare moment of pure, audible joy from Joel. And to top it all off, he tells the chat to go and subscribe to Jonnil. Aw... And, as it turns out, Jonnil made a game known as Sticky Paws, and Joel ended up agreeing to play though the game on stream. In reverence to Joel and his bizarre song, Jonnil hid a voice clip of Joel saying his name as an easter egg in the game.
• Despite his confusion of the story, his snarking at its frequently nonsensical happenings, and his frustration with his dyslexia, Rev's slow but steadily increasing investment in Homestuck as the "Reading Homestuck for Charity" streams progress. Rev goes from dreading reading the entire thing once learning its length, openly saying to The Chat that he "doesn't care about Homestuck as much as (they) do", and his deep dislike of Dave making him slightly annoyed at the "Rev is Dave" jokes; to showing genuine interest in the story and how it all connects together, letting out a genuine "Oh fuck!" during the "[S] Jack: Ascend" flash, and even (live on stream!) creating a unique Subscriber Emote of Kappa made to look like Dave with a SBAHJ mouth. And his genuine excitement as Alternia and The Trolls finally come into play, when he finally reaches something he fully recognizes from playing Hiveswap and Hiveswap Friendsim is infectious.
  Rev: I guess, yeah I mean, all I was trying to say is: don't take anything I say too seriously. I have a feeling that, like, the people I would've lost from me being snarky about this shit have already left, so I'm probably preaching to the choir and you guys already know that. One of the things that I like about the Homestuck community is that we both hate Homestuck! (Reading Chat) "(Reactions to Homestuck hate) used to be a lot worse"— I mean, I don't really give a shit about the fandom! I know a lot of people are like: "Oh, he's only making fun of it because of the fandom!", I'm making fun of it because some of this shit's stupid. But, you know, like I said with JoJo, sometimes, like, stupid's fun!
  • In another display of his increasing investment in the comic and its characters, is his sympathy for Tavros, and his deep dislike of how Vriska treats and manipulates him. Reaching a point that when the scene where it's revealed that, in an effort to save Jade's life, Tavros killed her Grandpa through his intervention by communing with Bec and using Bec's powers, Rev is quick to shut down comparisons to Vriska, and defended Tavros' actions by pointing out he was genuinely trying to save someone he considered his friend, and only allowed what happened due to a mixture of genuine ignorance and cultural differences. And also being impressed by how long Jade kept it together and remained nice as long as she did after hearing this, outright saying, in spite of understanding Tavros didn't mean it, he wouldn't have been as nice about it as she was if that was revealed to him. He also, while disapproving of Tavros' incredibly needy and pushy offer to help and very audibly cringing at it, he ultimately believes that it was Vriska's fault he did that, due to her manipulative abuse making him want to be, in Rev's words, "Bootleg Vriska", and immediately showing sad pity when Vriska cruelly twists the knife in him and mocks how pathetic he was for "pouring his heart out", before claiming how due to Jade's holographic screen everyone could read it, then shows incredible distaste at her tearing into Tavros the next page.
    Rev: Yeah, so, okay, Tavros doesn't understand! Like, the difference between Vriska and Tavros, is that Vriska knows- like, she has a majority of the pieces and has decided to put them together in the shittest puzzle ever; Tavros has, like, I don't know, some pocket lint, one piece of the puzzle, and like, I don't know, duct-tape, and he's put something together, and it's like "Oh, no, you've fucked it up for everyone!" Like, he has no concept on what a parent is. So, he saw someone- and an adult means trouble on Alternia, which I remember from Hiveswap, like when you're an adult you don't hang out with the kids anymore, because you're sent off-world to do some other bullshit. So, he saw an adult and he was like: "I'm gonna protect this person that I consider a friend!" And then, um...he killed him. So yeah, he was trying to help, just, the cultural difference there is a bit bad.
• When booting up Animal Crossing: New Horizons on his real-life birthday Vinny is immediately carted away by resident Nice Girl Celia (who he initially thinks is kidnapping him) so his villager friends can throw him a surprise birthday party. The whole event is very sweet and heartfelt, made even sweeter since the COVID-19 Pandemic would've made it difficult to celebrate it in real-life. Even better, the two randomly-chosen guests at the party happen to be Vinny's favorite villager Scoot and his oldest neighbor Diva.
  • On a related note, during one of Vinny's friend Jabroni Mike's own Animal Crossing: New Horizons streams, the latter revealed that he was in a really awful and depressive, almost suicidal state in his life before Vinny helped him get started with streaming and even helping him get viewers interested. He lauds his best friend with praise for essentially saving his life, and shows disdain for people talking down about Vinny.
• While corrupting an emulated copy of Tomodachi Life, which used several of his cast members, Vinny was surprised and happy to see that even in a universe where the characters were hideously deformed and the game could crash without warning, David Bowie still became friends with Sponge. What's more, given that Vinny had previously removed Bowie from his island in 2016 out of respect for the real-life musician's death in January of that year, the reunion between him and Sponge is an unexpectedly heartwarming moment of closure more than four years later.
• During Vinny's Vinesauce Holiday Specials stream in 2020, he gets to play a snowball fight with Scoot in VR, and hugs him.
  Vinny: Scoot, even though I won, I just want you to know that you're my best friend. (hugs Scoot)
• During Vinesauce is HOPE 2021, Vinny in one of his first livestreams in months went on to check out Vine Worlds, a sequel to last year's Vine Realms, and was told that there would be a surprise in the public server's East wing. Inside the main atrium were HUNDREDS of loyal fans all making it rain, waiting for Vinny's arrival, showcasing a truly enormous outpouring of love and support for Vinny and his whole streaming career, all no doubt glad to be a part of something special with Vinny in his first livestream in a long while.
• Joel finally meeting up with Vinny in person during his trip to New York City.
• During his playthroughs of Infinite Craft, Vinny attempts to recreate the word "Vinesauce", finally succeeding after multiple tries. Although he's at first skeptical that the game is referring to him, the fact that he's able to get Joel and his own names from combining it with other terms proves otherwise. And when he combines the names Vinny and Joel together, he gets "Best Friends". Aww.

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