NOVEL NEXT Episode 18 ▶ Iron Farms Are A Pain ft. 40bees | CovenCraft S5E04
@IvanderSchreckliche 4 hours ago
wasn’t the video supposed to be about building an iron farm lmaooo 😂😂😂
13:31 –“Oh yeah and what good have belgians brought to the world?”
–“The Dropper” 😂
▴ 4 replies
@seas923 4 hours ago
0:00 Intro. with 40 saying ‘we’re gonna work on an iron farm today’
5:10 Sand/gravel duper
12:44 Skel turns into a guy (somehow) + random interactions
17:01 Gold farm
21:40 ‘oh hi btw this was all for making powered rails, anyway goodbye’
They did everything but the iron farm
@OSM-Denis02 4 hours ago
@seas923 They got scared. OOooOOoOhh IrOn FaRm👻👻👻
@IvanderSchreckliche 4 hours ago
@OSM-Denis02 gives me the chills
i’m petrified
trembling like a leaf
sobbing and throwing up (stacks of cobblestone)
@seas923 2 hours ago
DUDE WHY DID YOU EAT COBBLESTONE???
Saying my coming out had gone ‘fine’ would be the understatement of the century; it would be like saying Minecraft sold a ‘reasonable amount of copies’ or that CovenCraft has a ‘handful of trans people in it’. It had not gone ‘fine’, no. Maybe ‘stellar’ would be more appropriate? A new adjective should be invented for describing how good it was. I cocked my head and mouthed a silent ‘oh’. I’d found the perfect one: it had gone very Dell. The best I could hope for. I snorted at that sappy thought. But it was justified! Let me have my fun! Two mums. I got two mums. Two mums! Like mother, like daughter. I simply couldn’t stop smiling.
It wasn’t just two mums though. The day was packed with good times with Zee, a wonderful girl that wouldn’t leave my thoughts. She had been there for me the whole time. She was smart and funny, and effortlessly pretty. Every minute growing closer to her was a delight.
“You know,” she said, and she had to grab a stanchion to stop herself from falling after the metro coach’s engine started humming, “one thing I feel weirdly glad about is that your mums never thought of me as anything else than a girl.”
Scratch the smart. She was categorically unsmart. The unsmartest person I knew.
I sighed. “About tha—”
“Oh, is that weird to say?” She faced me, looking genuinely concerned. “Like — and I don’t want to take anything away from your experience; I’m no expert, and I don’t intend to engage in ultracrepidarianism — even as a cis guy, I could get used to this, you know? It’s so… fun.”
Ultra-what now? How had she not gotten it yet? She was so dense she could have a whole solar system orbiting her. And what shape are orbits most of the time? They're egg-shaped, eggs-actly.
“Fun?” I let out a curt giggle.
“Mm-hmm,” she said, nodding quickly. “I wouldn’t mind doing that again…” She had a goofy smile plastered on her face.
The coach stopped abruptly, leaving me almost stumbling. Apparently, I wasn’t alone in my poor motor skills, as we heard people fall to our right. Both Zee and I turned our heads to look at two girls giggling and trying to get up at the end of the corridor. “Your skirt’s too low, babe,” one of them said in hushed tones.
“What? But that’s my waist?” the other one hissed back.
“Not anymore, dummy.” Both of them had a light blue, pink, and white scarf tied around their necks.
We started moving, and my attention went back to Zee and what she’d just been saying. “You wouldn’t mind doing what again? Being a girl?”
My question pulled her back to reality. “Pff, I wish!” She laughed like I’d said a joke, then looked down at her feet, playing with a discarded piece of paper on the ground. “No, just… Dressing fem, seeing how people react, fooling around.”
“I’m sure you’ll find plenty of occasions to do that again.”
“And I’m not hurting anyone?” Her voice cracked.
“What? No?”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“But I’m lying, aren’t I?” She was looking at the girls again.
“No, Zee. I don’t think you’re lying.” The only one you’re lying to is yourself, I thought, but kept it to myself, and I got closer to her. “You’re definitely not deceiving anyone. You’re just… acting, dressing, looking how you please. And people act differently depending on that.”
“...Okay.” She did a click with her tongue. “Maybe it’s for the better. Maybe it can help me be less aggressive. Um… I mean— Yeah, no, I didn’t mean that ‘dressing fem’ is somehow a cure to toxic masculinity, no. Heck, men can still be very misogynistic, even with a dress on. It’s not linked. I didn’t intend to imply that. I’m sorry. What I meant is more… It’s just for me. I feel like it might help me, just me, to be a bit better…”
I stifled a wince. “I see, gotcha.”
When I first met her, I hadn’t know what to say to her when she went on those tunnelly tangents: I hadn’t had the words yet; I hadn’t even gotten to know I was trans myself. But even when I wasn’t ‘eggs’ anymore, I’d had reservations about speculating about her gender and came to the conclusion that she had to know better. She was the expert, after all. Any kind of suggestion, nudge, or even tiny attempts at affirming her femininity had seemed forceful; it would have been disrespectful.
Of what? I wasn’t sure. Of her self-identification, perhaps? But helping someone figure things out, even if in the end they wouldn’t end up being trans, didn’t seem antithetical to self-identification. Then, of her need for time to process her feelings on the matter? Again, I wasn’t intending on rushing her, let alone forcing her to do anything. The most I was considering doing was to help her explore, if she so wanted. And what was the alternative? Leaving her in the dark? That would only strengthen her feeling of illegitimacy with time, like it did with Mom. Helping her wasn’t rushing or forcing anything. It was just that: helping.
So what was stopping me from asking the obvious?
Nothing.
“Can I ask a dumb question?”
She looked at me, her mouth slightly opened. “Yes?”
“You know you can just be a girl, right?”
“Um—”
A voice cut her thoughts and announced our stop. Great, perfect timing. I grumbled and grabbed her by the hand. We hurried outside, trying our best to avoid bumping into people, then making our way to the surface.
“Yes. Of course I know that,” she finally replied as we went up the stairs. “But I’m not. I don’t have what it takes. And— And I’m fine being a guy. It’s not a bother. It’s not like I feel compelled to do stereotypical guy things anyway. I’m deconstructing my masculinity as best as I can. So I don’t feel restrained by my gender at all. Mind you, I don’t like it, but it’s bearable. If there was a possibility for me to do it, I don’t see why I would transition.”
‘Bearable.’ ‘I don’t like it.’ Come to think of it, she’d never said she liked being a guy. At most, it was instrumental, she liked the idea of being ‘one of the good ones’. But the rest of the time, it was as if she did everything to escape it; it was as if she despised it.
I was reminded of my own struggles only a few weeks prior. I had been scared. Scared and jealous. Skirts, make-up, changing my voice, changing my body — any reminder of the possibility of change had felt like a shock to my brain. Even the word ‘transform’ on an editing software had been too much.
But for Zee, all of that was as simple as taking a breath of air. No, what troubled her was just one thing: being a girl. From a theoretical — even political — point of view, her only issue was believing that masculinity was inescapable. For her and only her, she would’ve wanted me to add.
We knew we were close to the exit when we heard streams of melted snow pouring down the gutters on the sides. And as we started walking the sinuous street back to our flats, something hit me: she was walking slowly and her head was strictly facing the ground; she was on the verge of crying; I had offered help, and it hurt her.
I squeezed her hand, trying to find a way out of this. She needed to find another subject for her to latch onto. But she was the one good at finding a totally unrelated subject of discussion and babbling about it with passion — she had once, in a totally mundane discussion about how we would go about implementing the Syphon in videos, disclosed how she’d taken the Minecraft developer kingbdogz’s username as an order, and proceeded to learn how to bark: “‘king, be dog?’ No problem, chief, I’m on it,” she’d announced, with a salute.
Suddenly, she took a comically large intake of air and let it exhale slowly, her eyes closed.
“You okay?” I asked with a soft smile.
“Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. Weird subject for me. But I shouldn’t complain; as a guy, I have it better anyway. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
“But I really want to help, though. It seems this—” I gestured a hand at her “—gender thing really affects you. You can talk about it with me, you know?”
She let go of my hand, stopping in her tracks, a contemplating finger on her chin. “Oh,” she said, as she started walking again. “Oooooh, okay! You’re worried that, as a guy, I don’t open up emotionally enough?”
I frowned. “I guess?” The latter, more than the former, I could’ve added.
“Right. Yeah no, I should do better on that front, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll be sure to talk about it with someone.” A good first step. That was reassuring to hear. “But I really think that ‘someone’ shouldn’t be you. You probably already know that, so sorry if this comes out as mansplaining, but guys rely on women to be their emotional support way too often — it’s like they find a woman to be their second mum, if you will. And I don’t want to put that burden on you. I’ll find someone else to talk to, I promise!”
I would have preferred that she’d open up to me instead, but that was not my choice to make. “Okay. And… please take care, Zee. I don’t like seeing you brooding like this. I care about you, you know?”
“I promise, I said! Don’t worry Celia, I’ll do it. Thanks for looking out, though; that’s very sweet of you.” She had that big goofy grin again. But at that point, part of me was convinced that it was just a mask.
She interrupted my thoughts with a loud and cheery “By the way!” and a tiny clap. “I talked with your mum and, wow, she’s sooo bi for your other mom. It’s so cool.”
I let out a contented sigh. It seemed she had found something else for her to latch onto by herself. “Yeah, I was curious about that. Mum’s really accepting of all of this.” And she’d mentioned being bi and leaning heavily on one side. It was as if… “Ah.”
“‘Ah’?”
“Well, she wasn’t in a great mood for the last year or so. And now she’s all happy and excited. So yeah, I think she's just very bi, as you said, and she probably likes women a bit more. And if she discovered that for herself a while ago, then that means my mom’s coming out was a really good surprise for her. She gets to explore that part of herself with the one she loves.”
“That makes sense.” She sighed dreamily, looking at the grey, bleary sky, as if it were of a brilliant blue and streaked by a double rainbow. “Who wouldn’t yearn for that…” Men, guys, dudes; I could think of a few people. “Sapphic love is really something else, eh. You know,” she asked, turning to face me, “if I ever get a girlfriend — or more! — I hope I can channel the raw intensity of sapphic love. And I know, I fucking know, it’s not the same.” She rolled her eyes. “It’ll never be as good, as intense, as gay as the real deal. But if I can find a way, somehow, I’ll do everything to go in that direction.” She paused then added in a tiny voice “Erm, sorry if that was homophobic.”
“Zee,” I said her name between two giggles. She couldn’t be serious. “How can you say that? You're the gayest girl I know — and I’m dating Dell!”
There was a strange, three-second silence before I heard her reply.
“Ha-ha.” She laughed so, so bitterly. “Lol, thanks.”
Crap, I shouldn’t have brought that back. That was a mistake. She started walking faster, the building coming into view.
“Good one,” she added.
Everything slowed down.
Fuck, catch her. Do something.
“Zee, look... Dell and I... We—”
“Screw,” she looked at me with a smile so weak I almost missed it, “can we switch subjects, please?” Her lips were pressed into a thin line. “I’m sorry.”
Hearing that name in her mouth after that day broke something inside of me.
I couldn’t say anything more than “Sure.”
Without a sound, we continued walking the twenty metres or so separating us from our flats, traversed the crosswalk, and got inside the stairwell. We parted ways midway through the height of the building. She said a curt goodbye and, in a very serious tone of voice, asked to be left entirely alone for a while — “To unwind; it had been a long day, after all.” And as she went up the stairs, not turning back, I waited on my floor. I couldn’t move.
We hadn’t switched subjects.
I felt so powerless.
The engine of a nearby car revved and cut me from my torpor, and with a start, I searched for my keys, opened my door, discarded my sweater, and flopped onto my bed — small favour: it had a lingering smell of raspberries. I turned to look at the ceiling and check the time on my phone. Right, I should invite Dell to come over. She would want a thorough summary of the day.
I sent her a message, then, after yelling one big time in my pillow, I napped, waiting for her.
✦ ▶ ✦
“And you left it at that?” Dell practically screamed, and her voice vibrated through my back.
“Yeah…”
Both her arms came from my sides to hold me tight, shifting my weight to rest entirely in her embrace. “This can’t continue. We have to do something. Let’s just go to her flat and— and—”
“And what? Kiss her?” I wriggled an arm out of her lock and shielded myself from the light coming from the ceiling with one hand, turning and twisting it, just to have something to look at. “She wanted time for herself. I don’t like the idea of disrespecting that.” My hand dropped and grabbed hers as I turned my head upwards, until Dell’s upside-down face entered my vision. “We should drop it. We’re hurting her, Dell.”
“What? No way! You can’t be serious. We haven’t even confessed. This should be the obvious next step. We just have to tell her. We are, like, ninety-nine percent sure she likes us. So we only have to tell her. Just. Communicate. With her. Not that complicated.”
“Babe, you know why that’s complicated,” I said with a tinge of bitterness colouring my voice.
“Myeah, I know,” she replied with a sigh. “We’re too shy…”
I let out a nervous laugh.
“But maybe she doesn’t know about polyamory?”
“I doubt that.” Glob knew everything when it came to LGBT subjects. And at that point, having both spent a day with her, we were pretty confident she liked us. The issue wasn’t with knowledge, but with—
“Two anxious girls against the densest block of gold,” Dell whispered. “We stand no chance.”
That was one way to put it.
And “We’re fucked,” was mine.
The rest of the evening went slowly. I eventually got up and started preparing dinner for the both of us — fried vegetables and falafels; my new mom had given me a handy leaflet to prepare some at home — and Dell used my computer to schedule her next CovenCraft episode. It was the one she had shot with Glob the day prior, where they went around the server, offering players a solution to ‘revolutionise their storage room’ with item frames. And from the peek I’d had of the video, it was definitely one of her funniest. Glob and her worked so well as a group. But of course, for Dell, having to make a thumbnail including Zee in her puppygirl skin wearing a salesman outfit, having to edit the description and title of the video to insert Zee’s pseudonym and her YouTube channel, and having to prepare a tweet shouting her out, it ruined her mood. And crispy, unctuous falafels can only do so much to unsour one’s mood.
What we needed was an activity.
With each new bite, I chewed my mind to find a thing — just one thing — that wouldn’t involve thinking about Zee. Sure, we could watch a new show, but Dell was the type of girl who needed to be in the right frame of mind to consume any type of media, or else her thoughts would wander and her attention would scatter. Sure, we could go for a walk, but have you seen the thermometre? I wasn’t in for a Female-to-minecraft:ice_plains_spike transition, thank you very much. Sure, we could cuddle our way to sleep — though nothing more than that for the moment — but that was the ‘bad thought’ problem all over again. I knew it. She knew it. We would just end up thinking about the fact that Zee wasn’t there with us.
Just when I was about to finish doing the dishes, a notification rang from the discarded headphones next to my computer.
Dell’s eyes widened. “Could it be…”
“It might be her, yeah,” I replied, flashing a nod to Dell to invite her to check it.
I rinsed the last plate and filed it in the rack, then washed and dried my hands.
She clicked a bunch, then hummed. “It’s the Gayvencraft chat,” she said, lifting the corner of her mouth in disappointment.
“What are they saying?”
She had moved the Discord window on my main monitor, and made it full screen. “Look for yourself.”
Skel Today at 18:51
That was ballsy @Alessia @Amy
You sure about this?
Alessia Today at 18:51
mmm hiiiiii skel
i mean its wotht a try no?
Skel Today at 18:52
I don’t know, I’m not sure I understand why you’d want to invite your imaginary girlfriends on CovenCraft?
Like how’d that work?
I had only activated the notifications for the group chat; I wasn’t very keen on being pinged for every little message on the CovenCraft discord. But for the sake of grasping what kind of mess the two gays — one couldn’t rightly say ‘guys’ at this point — had put themselves into, I asked Dell to open the #general channel. With a few taps on her phone, she proceeded, then showed it to me, and… holy shit. One hundred and eighty-one new messages — and Dell was way more diligent than me when it came to keeping up to date with CovenCraft. I wasn’t going to read the whole quarrel, but maybe a glance at its starting point would give me the gist.
NESammy81 Today at 18:33
hiii
big copy paste incoming:
Some of you know it but Alex and I have two wonderful partners we often play with. We’re talking about Amy and Alessia! who some of you might already have talked to before.
And let’s cut to the chase, we’d like to invite them on the discord and whitelist them on the server. The idea is not to have them be prominently featured in any video but just to allow them to play with us. They’re really motivated and we think they could be a great help on many peoples project. We could have them here as some kind of helpers? It’s an idea that had already been toyed with while preparinn the season so we figured it might be wotht a shot!
Sam & Alex
Alexcraft Today at 18:33
totally fine if no
but also
we would prefer if yes c:
CarlWheel Today at 18:34
wlzlslkdakakkzkwkskaksjskwkskala??k?
40bees Today at 18:38
Huh
I won’t say no right away, but I definitely have some concerns about this.
McGLVN Today at 18:38
Ooh boy
I’m tired
Can’t we have a single week without anything wild happening on this server?
┌── McGLVN Can’t we have a single week…
40bees Today at 18:38
Can we just hear them out before coming to judgement?
McGLVN Today at 18:39
40bees Today at 18:40
Thanks
We will need to iron this out.
Dell stopped scrolling for me and pivoted the screen towards her again. “I think you can guess how that discussion is going— Geez, they’re bringing Orangetech in this? Wow.”
Orangetech? What link did my favourite ex-YouTuber have with the matter at hand? “Let me see, let me see,” I pleaded.
“You have a ‘puter; you can go there yourself!”
“But you have a cute font…” I muttered while opening the conversation on my own screen. I clicked on the ‘You’re viewing older messages’ button and accessed the bottom of the chat.
orangetech Today at 19:09
Why the ping?
I was enjoying my retirement :(
NESammy81 Today at 19:09
sorry didnt mean to ping u
we were saying that you’re still a member even though you dont post videos anymore
orangetech Today at 19:10
I don't think everyone agrees I’m still a member, but I guess I haven’t been kicked from here yet. Yay
40bees Today at 19:12
You’re still a member if you want to be. On that, I’m categorical.
orangetech Today at 19:12
Okay, thanks 40
Gonna go back to writing though, goodbye everyone!
NESammy81 Today at 19:12
byeee sorry agiannnn
40bees was currently typing — clearly the discussion wasn’t over — but I went back to the gayvencraft chat. I was way more interested by the reaction of our friends than the minutiae of what constituted a CovenCraft member.
Skel Today at 18:52
I don’t know, I’m not sure I understand why you’d want to invite your imaginary girlfriends on CovenCraft?
Like how’d that work?
Or is there something else you want to say to us?
Alessia Today at 18:52
sdjfasjkgsafg
NO
it’s not like that
okay so
Amy Today at 18:52
justin has been bery insistent about meeting us irl since he’s in euroep rn
Alessia Today at 18:53
yes that
and the last thing we want is to see his stinky face
so inviting Amy and Alessia on covencraft could be a good way to show him that hey we do have girlfriends, they’re real they’re cool they’re cute you can talk to them
and we're with them right now. so no can do, justin, cant meet you, too busy buying matching scarves with my girlfriend!!!
and it’s good practice for us
Amy Today at 18:57
we even have the accounts created
wait
➜ Amy added Amyyy to the group. Today at 18:59
➜ Amy added Alessia❀ to the group. Today at 18:59
Amyyy Today at 18:59
tadaaa
Alessia❀ Today at 18:59
C:
Skel Today at 19:10
so
you want to invite your girlfriends, to prove they exist and to train yourselves to be… them?
Like
fjkljkjkjj
Not to force anything, but are you sure you haven’t anything to tell us…?
Amyyy Today at 19:10
mmmhhhmmhmm
i mean wouldn’t it be much though?
Skel Today at 19:11
wdym
Alessia❀ Today at 19:11
we already have 33 trans people in the server
3*
Amyyy Today at 19:11
including 2 trans girls
like
wouldntt it bne weird to have 4?
Alessia❀ Today at 19:11
bit much innit?
Skel Today at 19:12
???
No? 😭
Are you saying you’re trans?
Alessia❀ Today at 19:12
we’re saying the exact opposite dummy >:c
Amyyy Today at 19:12
yeah calm down >w<
you were making assumptions and like. no thats the thign!! were not trans
and proof of this is that would be statitstically impossible
i rest my case
Skel Today at 19:14
Okay sorry sorry
Well regarding the matter at hand, whether it makes sense or not, I don’t care about you inviting your ‘fake’ girlfriends on the server. I think it’s not a bad idea, could be fun
Alessia❀ Today at 19:15
OH OH
AND
an other argument is
we gotta keep the gay allegatoins out yknow
a fake girlfriend a day keeps the homophobes away~ 🍎
sorry cut you
Skel Today at 19:15
But the reaction of 40bees is understandable though, we don’t want to mix friends and family in the server. It’s supposed to be exclusively for content creators
Alessia❀ Today at 19:15
dont want people finding out!!!
sorry cut you again
ill shut up
Amyyy Today at 19:15
ill make sure she shuts up :) by kissing her in the mouth
Skel Today at 19:16
Lmao
I’m gonna try convincing 40 in his dms
I won’t out you dw
┌── Amyyy ill make sure she shuts up…
Alessia❀ Today at 19:17
in the mouth?
oh.
okay,
yeaqjh
in \the mouthgvv
chat she kissfg good aaddcads
“Uwah,” Dell uwah’d, “they’re calling.”
She took off the headset, looking quizzically in my direction. Curiosity took the better of me, so I made grabby hands in a ‘gimme’ gesture like I was a new victim of carcinisation, and she complied. As I put them on, I looked up the name of the caller, ‘Alessia❀’. Skel and I had immediately answered, and Dell put her own headphones on and joined via her phone moments later.
“Hello?” I said.
We heard a squeak coming from Alex’s mic. ‘His’ voice sounded higher and softer than usual. “Wh— What? Who’s there? Amy, there’s people in my phone; they’re talking to me. I think?”
“Shh,” we heard another voice whisper, “don’t call me Amy, dumbass. It’s Screw. You called the group. That’s what you get by texting when kissing.”
“Oh.” Alex snorted loudly. “Hi Screw! How are you doing?”
“I’m here too,” Skel said with a raspy, rather masculine tone. A small, proud grin claimed my face — they’d succeeded in lowering their resonance significantly since the last time we’d talked.
“OH WOW, YOUR VOICE,” I heard Dell scream, and the call echoed her, making her sound like some kind of glitchy, great goddess — which I approved of, despite my lowering her volume to avoid further confusion. “Sorry, hi all. Is— is testosterone that effective?”
“I’m not on T yet,” they provided with a nasally chuckle. “I just practised!”
Dell gasped. “Whoaw, good for you. Oh, that reminds me—” she did some vocalisation on the fly “—I’ve been practising too,” she said in her breathy and, I had to admit, quite angelic new tone of voice she’d been working on.
“Fuck,” Alex said, elongating the word with a heavy vocal fry — I could almost see him biting his lower lip. “That’s— Whoa. I’m so jealous. You have no idea. That’s sick! How’d you do that?”
“Ask Celia— Um, Screw—”
“I go by Celia now, yeah,” I said. “That was a whole ordeal.”
“Nice! Well, if you have links— Ouch! What was that for, Ames—” He muted his mic.
Well, that discussion was short-lived. Those two definitely had some gender to sort through, and knowing their disdain for coming out on CovenCraft, I supposed they preferred keeping that exploration for themselves for now.
After a second or two of silence, Skel spoke. “They’re cute.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Adorbs,” Dell added, and she came to my side, inviting me to leave my seat.
I already knew what it was about: our renowned Celia-on-Dell sandwich special. She sat on the gaming chair, then I climbed her lap and belted myself with her arms. And as soon as we were settled, she gave me a peck on the neck — a reward for my compliance, I liked to believe.
“So, ‘Celia,’ huh?”
“Yeah, long story short…” I started summarising my day again to Skel, focussing on the positive and leaving out some of the later events. It hit me again how Dell
— shut up, I will not back out of this one — the coming out had gone. And with their gasps and “Are you kidding me?”s punctuating my recounting, slowly, carefully, an idea sprung up.You know that moment when you want to build a small iron farm? A cute, demure, little iron farm — 300+ iron ingots per hour, nothing excessive. You type ‘iron farm simple’ on YouTube, and you scroll. You find what you want relatively quickly, but before clicking, you decide to check out the other designs. Oh! here’s a farm that will give you more than a thousand ingots per hour if you take a bit of time to gather the right material. Here’s an even better one that uses a really funny mechanic, it only requires you to lay down a long rail track— Ah? turns out it costs a lot of gold for the powered rails. Maybe you should make a gold farm first; it was a long time coming, after all. Let’s check for that first. That one seems easy to build, but it frankly looks like shit. The big one with the circles is the one you want to see towering over your makeshift nether hub. But that will be thousands of blocks, and if you want to use coloured concrete to make it pop, like you do with all your farms, that would require so much gravel and sand. Maybe a falling block duper would—
Anyway, sometimes you get a bit too ambitious, is my point.
“You know,” I said, sealing my terrible fate, “I’m really thinking about coming out on CovenCraft.”
And I know what you’re thinking: this wasn’t the time nor the place; this was foolish and short-term thinking. Potentially damaging for me.
“This is dumb,” Dell said, and after a pause, she added “But goddess, it sounds so fun.”
Alex unmuted himself and joined the conversation again. “You should prolly wait a bit before doing that—” he munched on something; or someone “—methinks. Since there’s still our girlfriends thing going on. But also YOLO. I won’t stop you.”
Skel took a moment before speaking. That was probably the person with the most intimate knowledge of the risks and implications of such a choice. “You could get hurt, Celia.”
I almost growled hearing that remark. “I know,” I whined. “But nothing drastic? Maybe there would be a few bad words thrown around, but I won’t get kicked from the server, right?”
“I don’t believe it could happen,” they replied with a sigh — which got cut short by their noise gate. “Sure, some people like Justin and MG have admin privileges on the server, but not on the discord. So I don’t think they’d do something that rash. And if they do, the other admins would just revert the changes. In any case, we’d have the final word. And for all the gripes I have with the guy, I can attest that Forty would never kick you for being trans… Ah, you know what? I’ll throw my weight around for you.”
“Okay, so we can work it out?”
Dell strengthened her embrace. “Well, it could stir up drama. Are you sure you want to risk that — especially now?”
Her words stung.
First, because to her credit, I didn’t want drama: I hated drawing attention to myself, especially to people I was forced to work with. Above all, I wanted to keep relations professional and painless. What interested me was video-making, not networking, so the less I interacted, the better. The idea of coming out to the other members scared me — deeply.
Second, because they highlighted why I wanted to do this now: exactly like when I worked nonstop for three days just to forget I’d been invited to CovenCraft, I was again in the middle of a thorny situation that I’d do anything to forget — even for the time of an evening.
Third, because I wanted to get past these hang-ups: it’s not because I was anxious that I wouldn’t want to come out, ever. YouTube was my job. A job I liked. And probably one of the rare ones I was qualified to do; period. And the idea of evolving on the platform, continuing to release videos week after week, and being called a guy, a dude, a man, again and again, by those who liked what I made was unbearable. It couldn't continue. Coming out was something I would have to do eventually. I’d started with my friends, then my family, and now it was CovenCraft’s turn. I was scared, but not paralysed.
“Look,” I said, resting a trembling hand on hers, “I’m not— I’m not calm about this. I know the risks. But, it will stir drama anyway, whatever the moment I choose to do it is.”
“You’re really sure about this?” Surprisingly, the question didn’t come from Dell. It was Alessia— Um, ‘Alex’. He sounded uncharacteristically serious, his voice a fair bit lower than before, with a sharp edge. “Like, sure sure? You thought it through? You took the risks into account?”
“Y—yes.”
“Then you can count on me to help you write that.”
Dell’s embrace loosened somewhat. “Oh?”
“Hey! My writing skills aren’t that bad — when I take the time to polish…”
“Your writing is super good,” Amy — Sammy; I kept forgetting — said from afar. “Gosh, I got butterflies just thinking about last week’s story. The kiss was—” he did a blank smooch with his mouth “—mwah! Chef’s kiss. And it was funny as fuck. No, trust me Celia, you’re in good hands. Aless— Ah sorry, I have a lisp. Alex is a stupidly good writer, and I’ve read a lot these past months.”
“Aw, thanks, honey.”
“Are we really considering this?” Skel whispered to no one in particular.
“Seems we are,” Dell said with a snort.
The sound of someone pressing their weight against a creaky chair came through Skel’s mic. “Well, I will prepare the terrain with Forty. Though there’s still the discussion on the other side going on, so I might not be there all the time.”
“Oh, shoot,” Amy said. “I haven’t answered Forty yet.”
“You do that, I’ll handle Celia,” Alessia proposed, and we could hear her giving her girlfriend a peck.
He. His girlfriend.
Boyfriend. His boyfriend.
Ah, fuck it.
✦ ▶ ✦
sonicScrew Today at 20:13
Everything all right? 🥺
Globule Today at 20:13
Yeahhhh dw!
I was rewatching old minecraft let’s plays, it’s fun!!
Gave me some ideas for my next stream >:3
But I’m about to go to sleep
Byee
sonicScrew Today at 20:14
Okay, take care
Sweet dreams
Globule Today at 20:14
nini
Globule Today at 20:51 
Really, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ve seen what you’ve been working on in the group chat with the others, you should focus on that. It’s not a small matter but you got this! I’ll be fine ;3
sonicScrew Today at 20:51
Okay!
Sending you virtual hugs if you want them
✦ ▶ ✦
“Oh, I like what you're putting down,” Alessia said, sounding genuinely proud. Since the moment we’d started writing — I shared a capture of my notepad application — she had been rather calm and considerate, pointing out issues without ever coming across as patronising or making me feel like I was a terrible writer. Though I probably was one anyway. “But you're using a lot of ellipses; makes you sound like you're uncertain about it.”
“Ah, good catch.”
“Is that what you want to communicate?”
“No, you’re right. It’s too indirect at the moment. Let me delete those.”
The message was almost entirely written, only needing a very last polishing pass. We’d tried to make it fairly short and concise. Even if we expected to have some backlash over whatever we’d written, there needed to be no room for petty arguing. It had to be as Justin-proof as we could.
I laid back in my seat and took a moment to ponder. Was I really going through with this? Posting the message is what would seal the deal, and until then I could back out at any moment. Why not continue hiding? Why not keep my comfort?
The kind of comfort in which nobody notices you, bothers you. In which you are left alone. Where you don’t find community, you can only live in the shadows. What comfort is that?
The kind of comfort in which nobody gets angry at you for existing. In which you avoid offending people. Where you stay normal, you produce no ripples. Whose comfort is it?
And I’d take anything to avoid thinking about Zee tonight.
“Yeaaah, girl,” Alessia gushed, and I heard her bump into her microphone as she attempted to clap, “that’s what I’m talking about! This is perfect. And if anyone gives you trouble, tell them I’m responsible for the bad parts. I’ll tank the haters.”
I extended both my arms on the side in an attempt to stretch, forgetting I was still locked in Dell’s arms.
“Hgnm, what’s that?” she mumbled.
“Sorry,” I whispered, as if I could avoid waking her up any further. I stood up, giving her the clearance to do the same. “You should go sleep in the bed, babe.”
She tried to lift herself from the seat but sat back down immediately. “Ouchie, I don’t feel my legs anymore.”
“Be right back,” I said in my mic before muting myself and discarding my headset.
Using me as a clutch, she trudged to the bed and stumbled onto the sheets, only to wrap herself in them with a happy sigh. “Gah~ That’s the stuff.” She buried her head in a pillow and inhaled a sharp breath. “Gooooood night,” she drawled then giggled.
I straightened the bedsheets and gave her a forehead kiss. “Good night. Love you.”
“M—mirror. But like, um, th— those mirrors you can still see from the other s—side? That way youuur love passes through but is alsooo reflected? An— and for Zee… I don’t know, a prism or some–” she sighed again “—thing. Hm, yeah…” her voice lowered so much in volume that I barely heard her completing her sentence by saying, in all her wisdom, “...a prism.”
“Aw, you’re being cute.” I gave her a bonus peck on the lips and got back to my seat. I unmuted myself. “Ready for this, Alessia?” I asked, readjusting my microphone.
“Whenever you want, girl,” she answered with a chuckle.
I stored the message in my clipboard and entered #general.
40bees Today at 21:08
Alright, here’s how I see it:
You can invite them here on the discord. They will be whitelisted. They are encouraged to shoot videos/stream, but we’d like to see a pilot first to see if they fit the vibe (though, if you vouch for them, I trust that they do.)
If they don’t end up making videos/streams, they are welcome to help members in their projects. But, as suggested by MG, they would have no part in the decisions of the server. They will be considered @friends, a new role we created for the occasion.
They will thus have restricted access to certain channel like #ideas, #storyline(s), and #collabs.
@NESammy81 @AlexCraft Is this solution okay for the both of you? Any objections?
NESammy81 Today at 21:09
wow this is better tahn i experected thanks 40
┌── 40bees Is this okay for both…
AlexCraft Today at 21:09
👍you ate
orangetech Today at 21:10
Why ping again?
Oh, I'm a friends now? Neat.
40bees Today at 21:10
Sorry about that. But yes, those rules would apply to you
orangetech Today at 21:10
So I’m not blacklisted from the server anymore?
40bees Today at 21:11
What?
You shouldn’t be?
Just checked and you are?? Why? Who did that?
orangetech Today at 21:11
Check your DMs please
McGLVN Today at 21:11
So can I talk now?
Gidon-San Today at 21:11
I like these new rules. Thanks for the work 40 :-]
┌── McGLVN So can I talk now?
40bees Today at 21:12
You could always talk
McGLVN Today at 21:12
Didn’t appear so
So can we talk about how slippery sloppy this all is? Inviting girlfriends, what’s next, your friends, your subs? Seriously, this is one of the biggest SMPs, you gotta place the line somewhere.
NESammy81 Today at 21:12
we always invited our friends? that’s how we always did, this was a friend server with orange, 40, and Glob and some other guy at the beginning, before anyone did videos. then 40 did videos and invited friends from youtube
did you not know that???
McGLVN Today at 21:12
It’s not because it was like that at the beginning that it’s the same now. It’s a business now. We have some responsibility with who we work with
Davio Today at 21:13
Says the guy who invited his three friends day one
I harrumphed as quietly as I could. “They’re still at it. Isn’t the discussion supposed to be finished?”
“MG is annoying,” Alessia whined. “But don’t be deterred! Ignore the oaf, you got this!”
“I talked to Forty,” Skel chimed in, “he knows something important is going to happen, but I didn’t give him the details. You should be good to go.”
I stretched upwards, sending shivers through my spine. It was only now that I noticed I was tapping the ground frantically with one foot and that my hand was firmly clutching the mouse. I released a long breath, trying and mildly succeeding in stopping both.
I clicked inside the ‘Message #general’ box, copying the bulk of the coming out message, and read it one last time, scouring the text with my arrow keys, which prompted a 'sonicScrew is typing...' alert for everyone else.
McGLVN Today at 21:14
Great, your take is so bad that even Screw of all people, the dude that never speaks, is reacting to it
sonicScrew Today at 21:14
Oh shut the fuck up MG
