Hey hey hey! We’re back with another Resident Spotlight! You can read the last one here.
After a month spent wrangling llamas and perfecting the recipe for SPIT, it’s good to be back with another Resident Spotlight!!! Today, we’re here with @flowerpetal, Legislator, flower, member of the Legislator Committee, former Prime Minister, and much more. Hya, thanks for being here!
Thank you! I’m so glad I have the opportunity to be interviewed!
It’s good to have you here!
As always, we’ll start with an easy question: What made you join NationStates, and the South Pacific?
Ah, this is a fun one! A couple months after lockdown started in 2020, I happened to be scrolling through my Instagram Explore page when I stumbled across one of those posts where someone screenshots a question on r/askreddit and then posts a bunch of the answers to that question. The question was something to the effect of “What are some cool websites?” and one of the replies was NationStates. I’m not sure what prompted me to check out NationStates specifically out of all of the websites listed, but I was definitely bored and wanted something to capture my interest. The nation Purple Hyacinth was thus founded in the South Pacific, beginning my NationStates journey!
I’m glad we could be your region of choice in your journey, and hopefully we will see you around for many moons to come!
Asking that question first usually ends up answering my second one, that is, when you first joined TSP, so let’s pivot to a better question, especially in the context of just how big NationStates is: What made you stick around, when you had so many recruitment telegrams fill your inbox immediately?
What made me stick to TSP is kind of boring. I saw all the recruitment telegrams and, being unfamiliar with the game, wasn’t sure which regions were actually active and which weren’t. So I figured sticking to a feeder was a safe option, since feeders are quite large.
As is the case for many noobs, at first I mostly stuck to issue answering. However, my first real time getting involved in TSP regional stuff was when I began endotarting after seeing the SWAN dispatches. At the time I didn’t use any tools other than the SWAN dispatch, so it was definitely slow! But it felt really rewarding to slowly inch towards the goal of endorsing everyone. I was especially motivated by the circle graphs that SWAN has, which provide a visual representation of who’s endorsing who, how many people each nation has endorsed, and how many endorsements each nation has. I was really motivated by seeing my circle get bigger and bigger each day as more people endorsed me back. Of course this ultimately led me down the path of increasing involvement in TSP. So, shout outs to @USoVietnam for his integration work, especially SWAN!
SWAN is outstanding, and has been super good for TSP. Thank you Viet!
Speaking of integration, in one of the loosest transitions yet in this resurgence of Resident Spotlight, if you were in charge for a day (again), what would you do?
We’re speaking in hypotheticals, so I’ll propose something that pretty much is a pipe dream XD. I’d love to create some kind of system of personalized outreach to residents who have shown a certain level of activity. For example, this might include NS or TSP forum activity, RMB activity, endotarting, card farming, etc. Basically anything beyond basic issue answering. These people have shown that they are able to dedicate time and energy to our silly little game, and therefore it is more likely that we can funnel that effort into something that benefits the region.
It pains me that that feels like a pipe dream, but it’s as good of a point to work towards as any, I think!
Favorite song, book, movie, game, or more?
That’s easy, my favorite game is TETR.IO! I’m sure many of you in the audience are familiar with it as there have been an abundance of TETR.IO events hosted by many regions. It was indeed one of those events that introduced me to TETR.IO, and ever since then I’ve been hooked. I’ve been really involved in the TETR.IO and wider modern Tetris community as well. For one, I’ve done quite a bit of Tetris tournament organizing, and honestly I owe a lot of my success in tournament organizing to my experiences on NS. NS was really the first time where I created my own projects and managed people in order to make it happen. Those skills were then transferred into tournament organizing. These skills are certainly applicable in the real world as well, so I’m grateful to NS for being such a welcoming environment to learn in!
Can South Pacificans expect some more TETR.IO events hosted by you or your fellow TETR.IO comrades in the future?
I’ll be honest, I’m pretty inactive on NS right now, and probably won’t be particularly active anytime soon as I’m entering college. But perhaps when I have some more time, I’d definitely love to share the joy of TETR.IO with others 
What’s the significance behind your nation’s name?
When I was making my nation, I’m not really sure why but I kind of wanted it to not be tied to my online identity (this didn’t last long as I joined the Discord server a month in). I didn’t really intend to keep playing the game for so long, so I also didn’t think too hard about the name. I decided I wanted my nation to have something to do with flowers, and I thought of a Webtoon that I really enjoyed at the time (and still do!) called “Purple Hyacinth”. Funnily enough, “Purple Hyacinth” is actually the nickname given to an assassin in the story.
Hopefully that assassin had a penchant for politicking and legislative assembling. 
The most importnat question: Cake, pie, or ice cream?
Ice cream >>>>> pie >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cake
What flavor?
I feel bad picking a flavor, I like a lot of them a lot! If I had to pick one though, I’d say chocolate.
Chocolate ain’t a bad flavor at all.
Well, that’s about all I’ve got. Thank you for joining me today, Hya! Hope to see more TETR.IO events soon, and the South Pacific’s favorite flower in general!
Thanks so much for having me!
Stay tuned for the next Resident Spotlight. . .