Super Soaker — v0.3
developing full revision
The v0.2 lane holder — a wetter sustained stream priced by a long refill — becomes a specific ten-year-old who hears the order, declines it for a funnier target, and is hardest to counter when she has no plan.
Why: A sustained-stream lane holder explains a matchup; it does not explain a kid who leaves the lane on purpose.
Legend
She is the stream that keeps its own counsel. The Standing Order named her post and she heard it named. She goes where the laughing is, and the line closes behind her without being asked. The post was assigned to her; the target she assigns herself, and the water follows.
Suburb
She is a ten-year-old girl with a purple tank soaker she has to stop and pump with both hands, elbows out, and about twenty-five feet of reach when it goes. A full tank runs about as long as it takes to walk a driveway. She has been told twice where to stand and is not standing there, because the kid with the pump blaster is at the mailbox narrating his own shots again, and she wants to hear him do it wet. She catches him mid-sentence, in the ear. She is empty before anyone finishes explaining where she should have been, and she laughs through the explaining, which is how the explaining ends.
Current draft
She is ten, Native American, mid-sized, and the loudest thing she owns is the blaster: a grape-purple pressure tank, a neon-green rod that takes both hands, a ring that climbs before anything fires. The rest is oatmeal, one grass stain. Which house is hers remains deliberately unresolved rather than invented to look complete.
The objective has been explained to her twice and she cannot repeat it back. What she tracks is which kid is funniest to hit, and about that she is exact: she waits out a windup to catch him mid-sentence. None of it is funny to her until a particular kid is wet, and it stays funny for exactly as long as he keeps answering. The position she leaves belongs to somebody else for a minute, and she does not count it.
What changed
- Kept v0.2's sustained stream inside the Suction Blaster's range.
- Gave that lane an originating kid from casting row 7: ten, Native American, mid-sized.
- Added the grape-purple tank and pump rod as her silhouette.
- Changed her principal cost from the spigot trip to the vacated position.
- Established that she hears the objective and does not want to retain it.
- Made her unpredictability a tactical fact, not a defect.
- Fixed her delight as other-directed and retrospective, separating it from the Hose Kid's and the Wheelchair Catapult's.
- Adopted the sheet's Soulless analog over charter §8's Bowman.
- Returned the spigot refill to contested, replacing v0.2's refill question.
Why it changed
A sustained-stream lane holder explains a matchup; it does not explain a kid who leaves the lane on purpose. Making the leaving deliberate buys her comedy and her threat with one decision and charges the bill to the kid beside her, who covers two positions until she comes back and cannot cover three.
Evidence and playtest marginalia
- docs/characters/roster-mix-v1.csv row 7: the Soulless analog, "maybe 25 ft of range," "Longer re-loads," and "you can't counter a plan that doesn't exist." Its "doesn't fully understand the objectives and doesn't care" is interest, not capacity.
- docs/seventh-street-charter-v8.md §8: roster table, "Runs out — refill at the spigot." That table still calls the Paladin a Knight; the sheet governs.
- Inherited: TUNING.md "Stage 1 Sprint 2 MG1 pre-gate - Soaker" empties the tank in 8.37 s under proposed defaults, at a delay 3 that "feels great." A finding about a loop, not a kid.
- decisions.md (2026-07-25), Anthony verbatim: "refill mechanics are too complex for the game." The same entry calls her spigot an "open collision" and routes reversal to the S3.1 design pass; both sides stand.
- sim/constants.gd gives the soaker 6.0 m and a refill rate — shorter than the reach above, a refill this dossier cannot assert. Nothing is drawn for her; every number here is a proposal, not a finding.
Rejected or alternate directions
- A push-instead-of-soak stream.
- A leash radius back to the assigned position.
- A coin flip in place of her decision.
- The class clown secretly the best tactician.
- Her sense of humor explained by her race, in any framing.
- Slowness, dullness, or ditziness as the read on "Not too bright."
- A slack-jawed expression as her resting face.
- The spigot refill as settled canon in either direction.
Still unresolved
Featured question: does her leaving her spot look like her own choice, or like a kid who forgot the plan?
Secondary unknowns:
- whether her refill stands: charter §8 says "refill at the spigot," decisions.md calls refill mechanics "too complex for the game," sim/constants.gd has implemented one since S1.2, and nothing has been withdrawn;
- her civilian name;
- what happens the first time the kid she soaked does not laugh.
Featured question
Does her leaving her spot look like her own choice, or like a kid who forgot the plan?
Evidence
- Super Soaker paired art studies, prompt pack v1 repo-citation
- Study 1 — The Lead On A Running Target artifact
- Study 3 — The Position She Does Not Count artifact
- Casting sheet row 7, Super Soaker origin DNA repo-citation
- Charter v8 §8, roster table entry for Super Soaker repo-citation
- Stage 1 Sprint 2 MG1 pre-gate, the Soaker tank and spigot loop repo-citation
- Refill ruling and the recorded open collision, 2026-07-25 repo-citation
- Prototype soaker constants: range, tank, drain, refill repo-citation
Artifact shelf
Early exploration — not representative of final direction.
She leads a running target with a continuous stream.
- Source
- docs/art/prompts/super-soaker-studies-v1.md#study-1--the-lead-on-a-running-target
- Rights state
- generated-with-terms-reviewed
- Tool
- GPT-5.6 built-in image generation (tool reported by Anthony)
- Model
- not exposed by built-in tool
Early exploration — not representative of final direction.
She stops mid-pump and turns toward something out of frame.
- Source
- docs/art/prompts/super-soaker-studies-v1.md#study-2--before-anything-fires
- Rights state
- generated-with-terms-reviewed
- Tool
- GPT-5.6 built-in image generation (tool reported by Anthony)
- Model
- not exposed by built-in tool
Early exploration — not representative of final direction.
She leaves her assigned position while a teammate covers both lanes.
- Source
- docs/art/prompts/super-soaker-studies-v1.md#study-3--the-position-she-does-not-count
- Rights state
- generated-with-terms-reviewed
- Tool
- GPT-5.6 built-in image generation (tool reported by Anthony)
- Model
- not exposed by built-in tool
Early exploration — not representative of final direction.
Her stream falls short while the Suction Blaster keeps watching his own lane.
- Source
- docs/art/prompts/super-soaker-studies-v1.md#study-4--mid-sentence
- Rights state
- generated-with-terms-reviewed
- Tool
- GPT-5.6 built-in image generation (tool reported by Anthony)
- Model
- not exposed by built-in tool
Early exploration — not representative of final direction.
She laughs at something out of frame while her footprints cross in four directions.
- Source
- docs/art/prompts/super-soaker-studies-v1.md#study-5--where-the-laughing-is
- Rights state
- generated-with-terms-reviewed
- Tool
- GPT-5.6 built-in image generation (tool reported by Anthony)
- Model
- not exposed by built-in tool