Face Reveal

The video started with a flourish of excerpts from later on. They were meant to establish a sense of mystery about what had caused those random scenes to happen. What was that machine? Who was that guy? What was Skel talking about? All those questions would hopefully find satisfying answers by the end of the episode. I’d used this editing technique a few times during the end of M&S’s Adventure, but I was itching to try it on CovenCraft. And it turned out to be a really fun and effective hook.

For a moment I wondered what the comments would say. Was that intro effective, inobtrusive, or helpful? Was there a good balance between progress and multiplayer interactions? But the video had been up for a couple of hours by then and I had to get this last check out of the way first. Comments for later. As a treat.

I pressed play.

MerlinTheLog let out a hearty laugh, and after a wheeze, he said “I am not getting in the machine, absolutely not. Oh, crap. Glob, Screw, no! Guys, please!” he faked a plea as he was being repeatedly punched into the Syphon by Glob and me. With all his energy spent on playing the part, he began to pronounce his ‘t’s crisply, his Swedish accent becoming more distinct.

Cut.

Sam came up to me and said “Here, sixty-four diamonds. ‘Cause you’re cool.” He turned on his heels as soon as he said that.

“Wait, what?” I exclaimed. “How did you find that many in two hours?” I raised the volume of my voice higher and higher, hoping it would still reach him, as he was already a few dozen blocks far.

“Ask MG! He generously gave them to me!” Sam screamed, already deep in the forest.

Cut.

Skel laughed from the balcony of a chalet. “What the hell? Is that you, Screw? What’s that skin? What the—” a beep “—are you doing?”

Cut to black.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

The series jingle only lasted for ten seconds. Dell’s composition fit the tone of this server very well, embodying the creativity and chaos inherent to a gaggle of YouTubers playing Minecraft with each their style and specialties. It was like hearing every voice of a choir slowly piling up on one another to form a cohesive whole. First, there was the sound of a harp, then came the violins, then the piano, in full blast. The three of them were conversing with each other, offering one melodic idea after another. After every instrument was established, the song hit a peak during which the CovenCraft logo appeared at the centre of the screen, and all around it, nothingness gave way to the welcome sequence of this new season. As the shouts and laughs of everyone took centre stage in the soundscape, the piano — Dell’s favourite instrument — hung alone in the air a little longer before taking its leave, and letting the episode start in earnest.

All members of the server were gathered in a wobbly square atop a snow-capped mountain surrounded by almost every type of forest: a jungle up north, a flower forest in the east, a savanna in the west, and a taiga down south.

It had been easier to join the voice chat than last time. Of the eighteen people present on the Discord server, only fifteen of them were connected on Minecraft, myself included. The composition was pretty much the same as in the Battle Royale. I knew everyone except for the newcomer, Merlin, who’d been doing admin work during that event. And there were absentees — RockDivine and Dulip — and there was Orangetech, who was still on the Discord but probably on an indefinite trans hiatus; good for her. So overall, it was a slightly smaller group than last time, with a majority of people I had already interacted with in some way. And I had a new trick up my sleeve: I’d joined the Minecraft server before the voice channel. This meant that Dell was standing next to me, with Glob by her side, and Skel by mine. All of these elements combined weren’t much, but they gave me the reassurance I needed to hop in.

But it didn’t mean it was a piece of cake either. I had a new problem since my reunion with Dell: my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about her and our recent making out sessions. While in the beginning of our relationship, our intimate moments had been sparse and relatively chaste, now, understanding ourselves to be girls had rendered us ravenous for each other’s touch. And being short for words each time I bumped into her in-game was a substantial handicap for one supposed to speak in videos for a living.

As would be the case for the rest of the video, I was the only one privy to those improper thoughts. The rest of the viewers would only see my camera locked on 40bees, who was perched on a little block of stone at the centre of the group, starting the episode. “Hello, hello, hello! This is Forty.” He punched the air, looking at the sky, then eyed every member in a rapid succession. How weird it was to hear him say those legendary words in person. “And I am so very glad to finally start the new season of Covencraft. The fifth one, already.”

“May this one be our best!” Sofa exclaimed. And everyone jumped and cheered. Glob whistled so loudly I heard it IRL. Fortunately, her mic had a compressor.

“As always, new season, new members.” 40 sneaked, locking his wide square-eyes with mine and Dell’s — his avatar had the appearance of a bee with huge peepers, which elicited a strange blend of intimidation and endearment in me. “Give it up for Screw and Mandel.”

“‘Sup,” Dell said, facing her character towards the sky and spinning in place. Glob giggled.

I said something between a nervous laugh and a “Hi” and jumped three times.

“Welcome!”
“Glad to have you here.”
“Hi~”
“Huh?”
“YO.”
“Hello Mandel and Screw!”
“Oh, hello!”

As everyone cheered our arrival, 40 fought to take back control of the introduction sequence. “This— This time—” He cleared his throat pointedly. “This time around — thank you — there’s no special rule. We’re playing mostly vanilla. We allow the same client mods as always: litematica for those who want to build big, the rug mod that Skelegal’s coded for us — more on that later — and the replay mod. For me. And for Screw. Thank God, I’m not the only one using it anymore.”

“What do you mean ‘no special rules’,” MG shouted. He was at the other side of the circle. “You forgot the teams of two!”

“That,” Forty said with a smirk in his voice, “was a test! Congrats, MG. You’re doing great. I’m glad you follow.”

“He totally forgot,” Pikka whispered.

“Yeah, he forgot,” FullFerret replied. Everyone laughed. Glob launched a snowball at him and Pikka retaliated.

“This time around, we’re doing teams of two,” 40 corrected himself, as a snowball battle took place in the background. “At least for the first weekend. That means, doing a base together and sharing storage—”

Cut.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

I was standing on the balcony of our shared little chalet that we had built in the middle of the flower forest. I had pressed the F5 key twice to bring up the second person camera so that my green enderman character was directly looking at the audience.

“Hello everyone~ This is future Screw. And welcome to Covencraft! I’m cutting Forty’s speech a bit early to summarise things because he went on and on about the technicalities of this season. If you want to know more about that, please give his video a look, you won’t regret it.” A little pop-up with the title of his video appeared on the top right corner of the screen: ‘First Mission: Taming Cats - CovenCraft V Episode 453’.

“What you’ll have to remember is that I’ve teamed up with Skel, our resident Skeleton-person, for the start of the season. Skel is somewhat of a jack of all trades in this game. Except maybe in regards to redstone. Which is why it made so much sense for us to start this adventure together. So if you’re asking yourself, ‘wow, Screw, since when do you build so well?’ Truth is, I don’t! The build behind me is the result of Skel’s mastery in the craft and me… following orders. But you will discover that in due time.”

I had to reshoot that take seven times to avoid gendering Skel.

“And now,” I said with excitement creeping up in my voice. An upbeat tune gradually made its way in the background (90_out from C418). “Without further ado, let’s go back in time and review my first day on the server.”

Right at the drop of the song, a cut.

Shots of our first steps on the server followed one another in rapid succession, each cut in sync with the music. “First, Skel and I gathered the basic material to start our adventure,” I continued in a voiceover.

Me planting wheat. “I took care of our food.” 

Skel chopping a tree. “While Skel took care of our wood.”

Me trading bread with CarlWheel in exchange for a full set of iron armour. “I made friends.”

Skel coming back with two wolves named ‘Rat’ and ‘I Love Tea’. “And Skel did too.”

Both him and I were in a cave, fighting a trio of spiders. “Then finally, we went mining. Pretty basic stuff. Until…”

Still in sync with the music, multiple shots of me and Skel dying in embarrassing circumstances succeeded themselves: a skeleton jealous of my teammate; a pit too deep for my small legs; and of course, Sam and Alex ambushing us while we were trying to find a spot for our starter house.

Stuck on the death screen, we guffawed at the couple’s weapons names. The edit slowly zoomed in on the chat, revealing a series of messages.

McGLVN was slain by NESammy using [hi everyone,]
pikka202 was slain by AlexCraft using [this is Sam and Alex.]
Gidon_san left the game.
Gidon_san joined the game.
FullFerret was slain by NESammy using [and today]
McGLVN was slain by NESammy using [we’re happy]
<pikka202> Again?!
<McGLVN> Mark my words. My vengeance will be historic
sofa_king was slain by AlexCraft using [to welcome you to]
Skelegal was slain by AlexCraft using [CoveCraft]
sonicScrew was slain by NESammy using [season 5!!!]
NESammy was slain by AlexCraft using [CovenCraft* sorry]

Sam should have teamed up with Dulip, and Alex should have teamed up with Sofa, but when the two goblins had an idea, you physically could not stop them. And that day, their idea was basically: ‘fuck Justin, let's team up.’ Dulip was on vacation and Sofa didn’t mind. Sofa was always a bit of a loner, he loved doing videos only consisting of a mining session and him talking about his interests, and very occasionally he would build an entire castle overnight. He probably didn’t like the rule either. And who would enforce that anyway? Justin wasn't there to complain or enforce the rules. As for MG, the only other guy invested in upholding them, he had now something else to worry about.

“Fortunately for us, we had already erected a dirt hut in this flower forest, and so we respawned there, besides our beds.” The footage of us reviving played in the background, with its sound muffled. “Unfortunately for us, that meant we were in sight of the two scheming goblins again.” The volume of the footage rose.

There was the sound of steps coming to our hut. I rapidly grabbed a pair of used iron boots lying in a barrel, equipped it, and went outside. Sam’s avatar was a white man with blonde hair, lime eyes, a suit and a red tie. If it weren’t for the little smirk, he’d look like a bodyguard. As I closed the distance between us, he started throwing all of Skel and I’s stuff on the ground.

“Thank you?” I said.

“Oh no, thank you for contributing. You’ve been a great help, Screw.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Here,” he said, coming up to me, “sixty-four diamonds. ‘Cause you’re cool.” He turned on his heels as soon as he said that.

“Wait, what?” I exclaimed. “How did you find that many in two hours?” I raised the volume of my voice higher and higher, hoping it would still reach him, but he was already a few dozen blocks far.

“Ask MG! He generously gave them to me!” Sam screamed, already deep in the forest.

So that’s where the diamonds came from.

Cut.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

Since first I knew I would be joining CovenCraft, I was faced with a new prospect I’d never encountered before in video making: making projects for a group. It was expected, even if not mandatory, to have a bit of your server time dedicated to interactions with other members and community projects. Before CovenCraft, my in-game creations were focused on making the video more interesting. I would build a quirky farm just to explain an obscure mechanic of the game, even if it tanked the drop rates. Or I would team up with Dell to defeat a buffed-up arcane mage in another dimension, with epic music and tension ramping up, even if its loot was useless. CovenCraft offered me the possibility to start something that could be picked up by other YouTubers. They could interact with it and add their own touch. And I had just the idea. It was something simple that did not require an investment too high it would burn me out, but still provided a genuine service to the other players. And to accomplish this objective, I would need a good amount of blocks.

“Though we were practically set for a month with that much diamonds,” my voiceover continued, with upbeat music coming back, “we still needed a bit of lapis, restone, and iron — for enchanting, building starter farms, and crafting tools. But I also took advantage of this mining session to gather some material for a secret undercover mission…” I took a sprint, following an array of torches down the gut of the cave. The place had already been visited, and all the diamonds had been mined out, but there were still a lot of other ore blotches spread on the walls. “...The details of which I will keep hidden. For now.”

There was an edit of several shots of me looking back to see if nobody was looking, then mining some calcite, tuff, or other stony blocks.

Then, right at the moment I stopped checking my rear, I heard a voice boom. “What are you doing in my caves?” McGLVN was behind me.

We had not talked to each other since the Battle Royale and his poor attempt at excusing away his homophobia as being merely inoffensive jokes. And the recent comments on the CovenCraft discord weren’t helping his case.

I braced myself for the worse and faced the man.

“There’s no diamonds here anyway,” he said calmly, “I mined them all. Sorry if that was what you were looking for. I’d be happy to give you some, but Sam and Alex stole mine, can you imagine that?”

“Yeah,” I said with a laugh. Why was I feeling so nervous? The guy was a prick, sure. But he had no interest in showing that on camera. Not overtly so. Not on a first episode. He was keeping a facade. Why couldn’t I do the same? This would be a video that might be seen by thousands of people. I shouldn’t bring any interpersonal drama into it. It should be entertaining. So I drew a sharp breath and decided to tease him. “And I wonder where those pretty diamonds are,” I said, putting more confidence in my words, and switching to my diamond pickaxe. “Last I checked, Sam and Alex aren't flexing any diamond armour. Plus they died, what—” I checked the chat “—twelve times? Oh gosh, twelve times? What a bunch of goofs. And I see you are responsible for half of them, ha.”

MG snickered. “Serves them right. But yeah, you’re right, they didn’t drop the diamonds back.”

“Too bad.”

“Now, you, on the other hand. You have a diamond pickaxe…”

I quickly switched to a loaf of bread. He was taking the bait. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

“I saw it. Don’t play coy with me.”

“What? Do you mean—” I showed him an iron pickaxe “—this?”

He took a step towards me, but I switched back to the diamond pickaxe — “Hey. It’s there again!” — and mined through the wall of the cave. Then I put a block between him and me, came back to the iron pickaxe, and faced MG again.

“So you did mean this pickaxe,” I said with an innocent voice. “You can have it if you want!”

“Dude, do you have my diamonds or not? Or have you already spent them all for you and your boyfriend? You know you’re not supposed to team with Mandel, right?”

The action freezed, the screen turned grey, and my voiceover came back. “I didn’t want to make enemies on my first day." That much was true. We hadn’t had any contact since the Battle Royale, so I knew he was a jerk, but he didn’t know that. I wanted to keep it an advantage. “But as you can see, he was not the most pleasant, and one element convinced me to toy with him just a little longer.”

The video zoomed on the game chat.

pikka202 whispers to you: Hey Sam told me you got MG’s diamond
pikka202 whispers to you: Long story short, I mined them but he took them in his inventory to manage them for our team
pikka202 whispers to you: So if you could gave them back to me (or him) that’d be great, tyyy
pikka202 whispers to you: I’m doing a fishing competition with Ferret at spawn. First one to get a mending book wins
pikka202 whispers to you: You could come here with the diamonds! Plus, ferret is v funny (no homo tho haha)
pikka202 whispers to you: btw since you have nothing to do with the theft, you can keep 10 diamonds as a thanks! <3
You whisper to pikka202: Give me a few moments and you’re set. See you soon :3c

“Alright, alright!” I exclaimed. “You got me. Sam gave them to me, but they’re back at the surface in a chest. So how about this: I’ll send you a message when I have them, then give them back to their rightful owner — in exchange for a task. How about that?”

“And what task is that?” he grunted, backing off.

“I’ll tell you when we’re there. But don’t worry, it’s only a little dare. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Fine. I wasn’t even expecting to get them back anyway. See you, Screw.” He turned around and petered off into another bowel.

Cut.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

“Okay so,” I said, back at the surface, “my inventory is full. Our chests are full. Skel is full.”

“I am,” he said, coming back from the forest. “I’ve got wood for days.”

“Great. Skel, we’re on my channel. You know what that means?”

“You’re gonna scream?”

“What? No! Who spread that lie anyway?”

“There are compilations of your screams, Screw. You can find—”

“A timelapse!” I cut him, “it means we’re gonna do a timelapse!”

A catchy tune came up (Work Life Imbalance by C418) and, on the drop, the image cut to an establishing shot of the clearing our hut was standing in, boarded on all sides by flowers and oak trees.

But the song disappeared and the video cut back to Skel saying “It’s easy, just google ‘Screw scream compilation’. And, yeah, just tried it, it is indeed the very first link. Try it at home, friends. It really works—”

The music came back, like nothing happened, and the timelapse started.

It began with a lateral tracking shot of Skel and I destroying our dirt hut, levelling the terrain, and cutting a few trees. It was followed by another lateral shot. This time, higher up and going in the opposite direction, doing its best to avoid showing a creeper exploding both of us on the side of the screen. At first, we laid foundations — a slab of cobblestone, a few beams of wood going up — then came the walls, and finally the roof. Compared to Gidon or Merlin, we weren’t building legends, but we gave our best. 

Or, more accurately, Skel gave his best, and I followed in his footsteps.

He was a really good teacher. During the construction process, he’d tried focusing on giving little tidbits of building trivia — “Always inset your walls between two beams, or they'll look flat.” — but gave me the time and space I needed to apply them. And when he would lose himself in blabbering nerdy tirades, he’d catch himself and restate what was the point he wanted me to remember.

It was fun hearing our voices for the first time since the Battle Royale. In a way, we had switched gender. And, in the safety of the private channel we’d hopped in for the sake of the timelapse, I could use my girl voice with him without a worry. Even if I wasn’t really sure about the mechanics of transmasculine voices, I supposed that vocal folds function roughly the same with or without testosterone assistance. Thus, as he guided me through the ins and outs of building a proper roof in Minecraft, I gave him some pointers to start masculinising his voice.

I helped him figure out gender, he helped me figure out building. Equivalent exchange.

The song concluded with a few ambient shots of the chalet taken from different points of view. One with a few flowers and a tree in the foreground, another taken from the inside, showing the decoration, and a last one, taken from afar, showing the place the house took at the heart of the forest.

“Not bad, not bad,” Skel said, as we came back to regular footage.

“Maybe I should really spend more time learning the fundamentals. I can’t help but think that this part—” I punched at the right side of the house “—is completely the wrong colour compared to the other.”

“It’s fine!” Skel said. “Don’t worry too much. But you're not entire—”

“Skool!” a familiar voice called in our back. “Scroow! Wait no, that one doesn’t work. Oh, cubes. A shame. Skool! Screw! Emergency! Bip-boop. Emergency! Bip-boop. My fellow citizens, I have come bearing grave news.”

We turned to face Glob. She was still sporting her Alex skin with a goofy smile. And where Skel and I were already covered in diamonds and enchantments from chest to toes — there was an informal rule about not having helmets, to help recognise each other in the videos — Glob was wearing pink enchanted leather boots and gold pants, a wooden pick in her hand, and that was all.

“What? Um, hi, Glob. What’s happening?” I asked.

“First,” she said, making her way to a patch of gravel on the side of our house. “Hi. Paw patrol, loam enforcement. Critical issue. You have not used the right type of dirt to fill out this creeper hole. Please use grass, for the love of Glob, that’d be so mulch better.

“Second!” she shouted, turning to face us again. “I have made a discovery of great import. ‘Tis my belief that it will change the shape of our entire plane. Verily! Pray, follow me.”

And with that, she scampered off in the woods once more.

“Well,” Skel said. “Shall we.”

“Of course we shall.”

The mod I used to record every action I did in the game was on all the time. Which meant I could turn every mundane moment on the server into a little cutscene. And it's exactly what I did.

There was a tense tune accompanying multiple shots of our hike into the deep of the forest. The camera was always looking towards the front of our group, never showing our destination. And after a few dozens of seconds, we arrived at the savanna. A part of the biome was distorted beyond measure, the hills stretched towards the firmament, expanding in width without any care for gravity. A few floating islands dotted the sky, with streams of water descending from them, and having cleared the land of all grass.

During that trip, I asked Glob off camera where Dell was. Her answer was vague, but one thing was clear: things were not going to plan. Apparently my girlfriend had suggested going to the Nether alone to ‘fetch materials’. Apparently the fact that Glob was livestreaming most of the time was ‘a bit hard for Dell to work with’. Apparently my girlfriend was 'stuttery' and 'regularly at loss for words' each time she tried to converse. I had to face the harsh reality. If Dell hadn't managed to flirt with me properly for months, there was no way she was going to do it in a day with Zee.

The cutscene ended on her continuing to lead our group without paying any heed to the otherworldly decor, before stopping in front of one of the biggest cliffs I’d ever come across in this game.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” You could hear Glob winking. “I found the bizarrest contraption amidst these foul lands. A machine so wicked I had to sacrifice myself in its study, for I should know our enemy to better counter it — and perhaps, to use it at our advantage. Behold: the Syphon. I named it thus for it has a mind of its own; it is hungry and it feeds on change.” Skel and I both gasped. Glob’s voice had gradually lowered in pitch during the explanation and those last words were uttered in a chilling, gravelly tone.

She was now standing next to the Syphon. It was a gaping mouth in the cliff, with teeth of stone, and sculk pouring out of the cracks of its lips. At its centre, there was a cage made of iron bars and trapdoors. Below it, a blue pillar. Above it, a pink pillar. 

She knew what she was doing.

“Let me demonstrate!” she continued, back to a cheerful contralto. We congregated next to the cage, and she stepped into it, flicked a button inside, and waited. The tension grew as a low buzz crept up and sounds of sculk started to chime in every so often.

“Is it working?” Skel asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know, there’s strange noises coming from the machine. So I guess it’s doing something?”

“We should put on armour for this.”

“Good thinking.”

“Wait, how did you put yours so quickly?”

“You can just right click them. They’ll be equipped without having to press E.”

“I’ve been playing this game for seven years…”

“Erm, look, the machine is doing something. Glob is shaking? How’s that even possible?”

“I hope he’s not gonna destroy the server on day one,” Skel said with a laugh. “Again.”

What did he mean, ‘again’? I thought. Though perhaps some of CovenCraft's secrets were too appalling to be uncovered...

Then — as Glob had instructed me to do — I stopped moving my camera for a second and there was a subtle fade cut, during which Glob’s avatar morphed from the basic Alex skin to what I could only describe as an anime puppy girl. This transformation sequence was the only moment that Glob had actually prepared in advance. Because it required some plugins and editing work, we could not have improvised it like the rest of the scene. “Arf!” she barked, her voice reaching high. “I’ve been turned into a girl! The furthest thing from me, a totally normal, regular guy, must I remind you. Now, we ought to untangle the mechanism at work behind this transformation. And ‘tis surprisingly simple: the Syphon has changed the structure of my very body to feed itself from the potential energy. To feed itself from the change. It also works the other way around, obviously — were it not the case, I couldn’t have tested it before and came to you as a guy earlier. Some globeheads would argue that this abomination breaks the conservation of energy, but to them, I would answer ‘I don’t know what that means, tee-hee!’ then point out that each time we use it, it seems to also distort the landscape around it. So it might very well be true that something queer is growing in the innards of this server.” 

As she marked the tiniest pause she could get away with, I tried to intervene and add something to the scene. I inhaled and—

“‘And what should we do about it?’” she said in a fairly bad but cute imitation of my voice. “That’s what you were about to say, Screw, um? I can see it in your pretty eyes. Oh, you’re trying your best to not burst out laughing confronted with this absurd display of magic, isn’t that true? Nodding? I take that as a ‘yes’ then. Well, that would be an excellent question. Ten out of ten. You’re my best student. Good. Very good~” Of course, I blushed up a storm hearing those words. This new crush was alive and kicking. “Screw, my dear— is that okay to say? Can I say ‘my dear’? We don’t know each other very well,” we totally did, but the lie was important for our privacy, “so please tell me if that makes you uncomfortable?”

“Of course, Glob. It’s okay, don’t worry,” I replied with a giggl— a chuckle. Yes, a chuckle.

“Great! Screw, my dear, this is where you come into the scene. At first glance, you might conclude this machine is a pure creation of vice and malice, but that’s because you’ve not scrambled your noggin enough. Think! It might frighten some — and too bad for them, those puny cowards — but I believe this machine might be a boon to our community.”

Skel chuckled and took a step forward. “Oh, I know where this is going.”

“Can you imagine? The potential? The possibilities are limitless. This is clearly a sign from the goddess Hatsune Miku herself — may her blessed name echo forever in the head of sad billionaires. We must take advantage of it. And that is why I called on a good story-teller like Screw, and a very good builder like you, Skel.”

“Yep, this is exactly what I thought it would be,” Skel said.

“I want to prank this server like never before,” Glob declared. “And I need accomplices.”

Cut.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

You whisper to McGLVN: Hey. Come to -649 34. Your task is ready
McGLVN whispers to you: Right. Coming.

A silly copyright free tune composed by Kevin McLeod was playing in the background as I watched the horizon. After a while, MG’s avatar appeared and went down a slope and into the alcove where the Syphon and I waited.

“No, no, no, no…” he hissed. “What is that? Don’t tell me it’s the thing Gl—”

“This,” I cut him short of breaking roleplay — the bugger was supposed to improvise, damn it, not ruin the magic! — “is the Syphon. Glob’s latest discovery. And if you want the diamonds back in the hand of the one who gathered them, I would ask of you one favour: get in the cage, and press the button.”

MG didn’t immediately reply, approaching the device for a moment then coming back towards me. “You’re serious about this.”

“Are you gonna press the button?”

He looked back at the machine and sighed.

“I’m waiting,” I pressed him.

“I’m gonna do it, alright. Just. Give me time.”

“It’s just a button.”

“No. It is not ‘just a button’. You know that. I mean… You…” I felt like he was trying his best not to break immersion. And if that was important to him, then I could use that to my advantage going forward. “We don’t know what it does!” he grunted. “An— And, I mean look at it. This thing has teeth and goo all over it. I know a hazard when I see one. This can’t be safe. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Oh, don’t judge a book by its cover. Glob tested it and it was fine. But if you really don’t want to proceed,” I added for the sake of giving him a way out, “we can always find another task for y—”

“NO.”

The music stopped. The silence was deafening.

He stepped inside the cage.

“Just for the record,” he said, “I’m doing this against my will. But I will honour our arrangement. And I suppose it won’t hurt if someone a bit more informed takes a look at this machine. You got something fishy going on around here and I can’t rightly ignore it. Who knows what could happen…” He exhaled a very, very long breath. “Okay.” Then he pressed the button.

In a few seconds, MG’s flannel was transformed in a striped red and black hoodie, with one shoulder bare; his gruff gaze was replaced by large irises with cat-eye liner; under his mini-skirt, and on his now-smooth legs, black stockings went up to his knees; and long white hair with a strike of pink sprung up and framed his — I had to admit — very cute face. There was a world where he had chosen the first girl skin he found on the internet. And I think I might live in this world. Because the alternative meant that he’d genuinely picked this skin as his favourite one, and was okay to show it to thousands. But merely entertaining that idea was absurd.

He jumped out of the machine with a feminine yelp, and landed right beside me. “Please, tell me I can change back.” It took me a moment before processing that he had been the one saying that. He had a really good fem voice, even if a bit strained and low-pitched. And now that I rewatched that sequence, I couldn’t help but notice he had deactivated the sound processing he usually applied to it. “We don’t have to do anything to feed the machine? Or maybe we need to do a specific set of actions before using it again? How did Glob turn back? He did turn back, right?”

“Y— Yes, Glob turned back once. And no, I don’t think you have to do anything.”

“Nothing?” Did he sound sad?

“You can just go back in and press the button again.” 

“Um, and what about you? Don’t you need anything else?” Why did he sound sad?

“As far as I’m concerned, the challenge is done. I’ll give the diamonds to their rightful owner, as promised.”

“Okay. I suppose that means I should turn back.” He didn’t make any sense.

“You don’t have to—”

“Why wouldn’t I,” he said. It wasn't a question. He got back into the machine and flashed me a last glance. I locked my camera in place for the transformation sequence, and he pressed the button.

His voice came back to normal. “Ah, how good it is to be a guy again!” he laughed as he came back towards me. “Diamonds?”

Maybe he'd been sad because he had a real taste for fun storytelling in Minecraft, and this little adventure was simply too short for him. That could make sense. Even when faced with a machine he had opposed the creation of during preparatory discussions, he still engaged with it. He seemed to have a real love for intricate narrative and multiplayer interactions, and my little scene was just not enough.

That was the only explanation.

I snapped back to reality. “Oh. Right! Actually, the diamonds have already been taken care of. I gave them back to the one who mined them. Pikka was very pleased. He also fished a mending book. What a lucky guy.”

“You—”

“Okay bye.” I ran.

Cut.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

“Well, this was weird. Since we’re now enrolled in a secret alliance to prank the server with a gender-swapping machine, I figured this was as good an opportunity as any to toy with MG. Can’t complain! Going forward, I’d like to continue doing harmless pranks like these. But I have another idea that would benefit from a tool like the Syphon. Indeed, that mission shall require…” I switched the camera mode to second person, showing that I had actually gone through the contraption and now looked like a white girl, with black hair and pronouns, and a magnificent pair of sunglasses, maximising my anonymity. “...being undercover.” I’d already made a skin pretty similar to this one. It had been teased in the CovenCraft trailer as a silhouette, and some of you keen-eyed viewers had noticed it in the comments. But that other skin was less feminine, maybe leaning on the androgynous side; anything to get rid of my impersonal, generic, boring enderman skin. Now, thanks to the Syphon, I didn’t have to hold back anymore.

The night was young outside the little backyard shack I was exiting from, my inventory full of building blocks. There were no sounds except for those of a skeleton roaming in a cave nearby. I continued to stare right at the audience, with no clear idea of my surroundings apart from the back wall of our chalet.

“I,” I continued, “have gathered a plethora of building blocks because — listen to me — this season has a problem.”

The image cut to a few shots showcasing the front of the starter bases of Glob and Dell, Sam and Alex, Pikka and Davio, and Gidon and CarlWheel. Those were all our neighbours. And in each one, I had highlighted a common lacking feature.

“There’s no road. No path! How can we possibly find our way through the thick of the forest? Well, don’t worry, dear viewers. For I have the solution: Trailgirl!” I raised my voice ever so slightly, trying to sound like a guy trying to do a girl voice but without having done any voice training. I hoped it would work.

Now, I understand your concern. It is true that, on many occasions, I’d expressed worry vis-à-vis coming out. The server was not the first place that came into my mind when I thought ‘what is the most safe and inclusive space I know?’ But this was different. I couldn’t just refuse Glob’s offer. And I could play with her rules to make it seem like I’m not jumping on the idea too much. And I had a worthwhile project to undergo. This was a space of plausible deniability.

And to be honest, I was aching to have a skin that actually feels comfortable. Not a genderless blob to hide in.

“When the night sets and inhabitants of CovenCraft prepare for sleep after their heavy day, Trailgirl will come and connect all of their hidey-holes with proper paths. In a way,” I added with a snort, “I will be connecting the members of CovenCraft themselves. And isn’t that beautiful?”

Skel laughed from the balcony of our newly-built chalet. “What the hell? Is that you, Screw? What’s that skin? What the—” a beep “—are you doing?”

“N—No, you are mistaken!” I said, failing to hide my voice training for an instant. “I am not Screw and you didn’t see me.” With that, I scurried off to the woods, a calm music from the soundtrack of the game started playing, and a shot of my girl avatar running between the trees established that we were in for a last timelapse.

This one was more laid-back than the previous ones, sticking to the nightly vibe. The moon made its appearance more than once in the background, and the stars moved fast in the sky. In reality, the whole thing was shot during the day, because server members wanted to skip night often, but in post, I was able to adjust the time of my shots and uniformise the chronology to serve the narration.

At the end of the two minutes of timelapse, Glob and Dell’s, Sam and Alex’s, and Skel and I’s bases were connected together. Three new trails had sprung up on the server, all joining in a central area, next to the mountain we had started the episode on. This had been designated as a sort of community centre of the server, with lots of inhabited locations close-by and a direct access, through a massive cave in the mountain, to the jungle biome and its shopping district.

This would be my long-term project for the server. I had planned to make a secret lair for Trailgirl, with an intricate, sinuous, colourful path leading up to it. Other players would be able to call upon her services, in exchange for various challenges she would ask of them (hopefully involving the Syphon). And every episode, she would add a trail or two with a timelapse, slowly completing the server's infrastructure.

The sun rose in the horizon, and the music and the image faded into nothingness once again.

Cut.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

“Whoa!” I said, standing in front of the Syphon. “I wonder what that was. I completely blacked out.” That was the final part of my strategy. Every time I would go on a Trailgirl night, I would end up forgetting it all the next morning. That way, I could avoid any disagreeable confrontations with the likes of MG or Justin, and roleplay as a silly goose who’d just happened to forget everything. Whoops! “One moment I was in front of the Syphon and the other— Well, as you can see, I’m still there. But it feels like a whole day has passed. And would you look at that? It's nearly the end of the episode. We should—”

“Hello, hello. Screw, is it?” An unknown voice said.

I turned around and my eyes met with those of MerlinTheLog. I was not too familiar with the guy, but I knew the basics. He was a dad, into coffee, and had a very deep and chill voice. No wonder he did a podcast on the side.

“Someone made a superb road connecting our base, somehow. And I followed her here and found this machine. Do you have any idea of what’s going on? I feel like I’m losing my mind. Can you explain?”

“Oh this?” I said with mock innocence. “I’m not sure, why don’t you try stepping in it?”

“I’m not sure about that. This feels shady. But I saw that girl come here, have you seen her?”

“Girls here? Nope, not even one. Sorry, dude.”

His sigh was cut short by a shout. “Heresy! There’s plenty of girl right here.” Merlin and I looked left and right, only to find an endless savanna to one side and a big lake to the other. “My eyes are up here, dummies.”

We looked up, and a few blocks above the Syphon was a slab of stone jutting out of a hole in the cliff. Glob was proudly perched on top of it, parading her girl skin. “Hiya!”

“Glob?” Merlin asked. “You’re a girl? Is that you?”

“Why, of course it’s me. And I’ve been cursed by the Syphon. Or blessed, depending on the perspective. And you know—” she jumped from her nest down to meet us, breaking a few bones in the process “—I think you should try it. What's wrong with being a girl for a while? I used it myself and it was absolutely harmless. I promise. So try it. Just once. For the lols.”

“Oh my.” I decided to participate in her little game. We were here to prank, after all. “That is a wonderful idea. Merlin, how about we try it both? You go first! Don't worry, I promise I’ll follow you right after. Consider this a sort of ice-breaker.”

MerlinTheLog let out a hearty laugh, and after a wheeze, he said “I am not getting in the machine, absolutely not. Oh, crap. Glob, Screw, no! Guys, please!” he faked a plea as he was being repeatedly punched into the Syphon by Glob and me. With all his energy spent on playing the part, he began to pronounce his ‘t’s crisply, his Swedish accent becoming more distinct.

Glob and I laughed as we retreated away from the cage and onto safer ground. “Don’t worry. We can’t actually make it work without you wanting it. You have to press the button to start the process. It’s under your feet. Last chance to back down~” I said in a sing-song voice.

He cleared his throat. “W— Well, now that I'm here, I concede it’s rather cosy. It can’t hurt to try, and the result can’t be worse than what I already have. Haha,” he said the word but didn’t laugh. His acting skills were questionable. But fortunately nobody expects Minecraft YouTubers to be good at acting. “Here we go, baby!” He clicked the button and once again, the magic of editing— The magic of the Syphon, pardon me, did its trick.

While his red and blue lumberjack attire didn’t change much, his eyes immediately striked me as more expressive. It helped that his short hair turned into a pixie cut and his face gained a few freckles. He’d chosen his skin well.

He looked at the sky for a few seconds — was he checking his new appearance out? — but before long, he came back to his senses. “This is acceptable,” he said with a hum. “Now can I go ba—”

The Syphon roared, and the sound of sculk corrupting the stone echoed against the cliff. The black and blue goop spread quickly, engulfing the area we were standing on. With a startled jump, Merlin retreated from the machine, closing the distance between him and us. We three paused and contemplated the mess we’d made.

“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Merlin finally stammered. “This machine doesn’t seem very safe.”

“Nah, perfectly safe. That was only a burp. It’s happy. I think?” Glob said. “But feel free not to change back. You do you.”

Cut.

 

✦ ▶ ✦

 

We were back on the balcony, indicating we had finally gone through all the major events of the first day on CovenCraft. “Did he change back? Did he not? You’ll have to find the answer for yourself on his channel.” A video suggestion popped in the top-right corner of the screen again. The title was ‘I’m Not a Dad Anymore? CovenCraft Episode 01 - Season 5’. “As for us, I think it’s nearly time to call it a day. But before that, though, plenty of other things happened during this first day, and I don’t want to leave you in the dark. So here’s a rapid summary of the new buildings in the area.”

While they appeared on screen, I listed off the different team’s bases. A special mention for Dell and Glob’s base, which was basically an immense Minecraft chicken with ladders on its legs and windows in its eyes.

They knew what they were doing.

I inserted a shot of the inside of the chicken. It was full of item frames on the walls, the ground and the ceiling, and there was absolutely no chest. It seemed those two were already preparing something for the big chest war storyline. Dell’s first video appeared in the top right corner of the screen: ‘Storage is overrated anyway! ft. GlobLIVE | CovenCraft S5E01’.

But the most notable construction that had appeared in the server’s landscape was CarlWheel and Gidon’s abode: a huge steampunk mansion with its left wing being two times as large as its right wing; the former was pinned by an impressive wheel connecting what we could infer to be different steam-powered mechanisms inside the house, and the latter included a huge rectangular tower of at least forty blocks of height that poured cobwebs into the sky — they were an excellent way of imitating smoke in Minecraft. The whole was made of dark oak, spruce, tuff, and cobblestone. A very classic medieval look that never feels out of place. But what was particularly unique about Gidon’s skills as a builder was his use of gradients to shade his walls. If one of them started with dark deepslate at the foundation, it would gradually lighten with tuff, concrete, then with light grey andesite the higher it went. From afar, that technique gave a surprisingly realistic texture to every one of his creations.

CarlWheel was his mate for the start of the season, and he, too, had some skills to show off. No one — not even Glob — could match his skill in organic building. A green and pink climber plant had taken hold of most of the facade. Its flowers drooped and framed windows, adding a wistful air to the rigidity of the stone construction. It was a perfect addition.

I spent a little under a minute presenting each members’ constructions in the same way, and finished with the miner of our group.

“...As for Sofa,” my voiceover said. “He wasn’t feeling like building anything substantial at the surface. But if you dig under the summit at spawn, you’ll find his magnificent dwarven halls carved in the heart of the mountain.”

One last cut, back to me. “And wow, already the end! This concludes our first episode on the fifth season of CovenCraft. It was certainly an experience meeting all of these talented, funny, and sometimes bizarre people. It is such a delight to be part of this. I'm very grateful to the group for having invited us. I can’t wait to show you what we have in store for this new series and I hope you’ll be as excited as me for all the things to come! See you soon. Bye~”

A flourish of suggested videos appeared on screen, marking the end. 

I exhaled the breath I didn’t realise I was holding. There were no major editing mistakes. Everything was in order.

Then I scrolled down to the comment section.

 

 

---

 

 

@gamingOverlord 3 hours ago (edited)
Why does the syphon make me feel weird? 😭
Will this thing keep going on long? Because it just feels so wrong idk how to explain. It’s not bad, i love the idea, but i’m just weird i think
Edit: Why am I the top comment? ;-;
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▴ 6 replies
@echymoses7890 2 hours ago
SO I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE??$

@_BidoofGirl  2 hours ago
Idk I found it fun! Love seeing people play with gender like that

@fusedAlcohol-0dhpo 2 hours ago
I love it soooooo much it’s soooooo goood I’m jealous of screw aaaaaaaa

@Mark-Ngyuen5113 2 hours ago
It’s a fascinating concept

@Melissa Oliveira 2 hours ago
would have loved to see skelegal try it
like does it work both ways? I sure hope so
can’t wait

@vampirenurse 2 hours ago
I wonder if it will be important for the rest of the season. Really looks like a huge deal lore-wise. I could totally see a kind of boys v girls war going on. Can’t wait for the next episode!

@EliottSm00che 40 minutes ago
So THAT was what the skin was about? EPIC.

@NESammy81 3 hours ago
CoveCraft

▴ 5 replies
@fusedAlcohol-0dhpo 2 hours ago
CoveCraft

@slop99carline 2 hours ago
CoveCraft

@_BidoofGirl  2 hours ago
CoveCraft

@ArnoldRakoto 2 hours ago
CoveCraft x’)

@𝒮 𝒲 𝐸 𝐸 𝒯 1 hour ago
CoveCraft

@powerza 2 hours ago
I know it was just improv but damn the moments with McGLVN… The tension was palpable…
Well done, you two!

▴ 1 reply
@McGLVN 2 hours ago
Thanks mate ♥

@leretinue 1 hour ago
7:23 Skelegal building the most cosy house like it was nothing. I hope I can build as good as her one day

@Etel2 44 minutes ago
Merlin: NONONO PLEASE NO
Merlin 3 seconds later: Sure I would love being a woman, please transform me!
made me laugh out loud

@TRGames 2 hours ago
omfg I want to join this server

▴ 2 replies
@Flamy_The_Baggy 1 hour ago
Hello, I'm in the process of recreating the plugin used in this season and starting a fan server using the same mechanics (Including the Siphon!). You can find the details on my Twitter (@BaggyFlamy3193)

@TRGames 1 hour ago
so cool! I sent you a message :p

@princefaenor-official 8 minutes ago
The timelapse of trailgirl was very well done. I love it when Screw does more chill timelapses c:

@BrodoFaggins2968 2 hours ago
Lmao the syphon thing was HILARIOUS

▴ 2 replies
@gamingOverlord 2 hours ago
I wish it was real…

@BrodoFaggins2968 2 hours ago
Lol same xd

@Pakool_Ja_Ja 2 hours ago
Why is this in my recommendations?

@LENI_SFX 25 minutes ago
I hope y ou will reunite with Mandel . But I LOVED Skelegal

@ArnoldRakoto 2 hours ago
A few years ago, I didn’t have a phone yet and I used my 3DS to watch youtube. I know x) One night, I was browsing through the nintendo eshop and saw minecraft on the front page. Of course, I knew the game was very popular but I didn’t know what it was about x) So I searched for the game on the youtube app and the first video it recommended was a little young screw presenting the latest update. I binged all his videos x’)
And now he’s on one of the biggest mc smp out there. I’m so proud of you Screw ^^
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▴ 2 replies
@sonicScrew 2 hours ago
You’re so sweet 😭😭😭

@ArnoldRakoto 1 hour ago
^^’
Your videos brought me so much, thank you for continuing your work x)

@humanbaron5603 1 hour ago
Your jokes are cringe.

▴ 1 reply
@sockie? 39 minutes ago
…No?

@_Farrow07 3 hours ago
DUDE that was fun. thank you for the video 😌

@rubicante_scale 31 minutes ago (edited)
TRAILGIRL

▴ 1 reply
@rubicante_scale 31 minutes ago
The skin is so cute!!

@AnthonyFounders 2 hours ago
I made a wonderful discovery with your channel… I’m surprised I never heard of it before… Thanks 40bees for the recommendation…!

@420tuwulips 3 hours ago
RELEASE THE OFFICAL SCREW SCREAMCUT PLEASE I ' M BEGGING

@dreamton-y7li8 13 minutes ago
Not one, but two timelapses?! And cutscenes?? Oh my head is spinnin

@45bnch 2 hours ago
Glob Glob Glob. I LOVE GLOB. GLOB MARRY ME

▴ 1 reply
@GlobLIVE 21 minutes ago
Sure!!!

@curtain-curtain-3sag7d 56 minutes ago
Are you for real bro?

@ReadHood@-607 1 hour ago
Those two are awfully close,,, Are we shipping them? Skelscrew ship anyone? 👀

▴ 1 reply
@𝒮 𝒲 𝐸 𝐸 𝒯 1 hour ago
yessss

@mechaenjoyer2883 3 hours ago
Are my eyes deceiving me? Is Screw really having a girl alter ego??
…
egg

▴ 12 replies
@R.Cross 3 hours ago
That was the point that surprised me the most.  I don’t know what to do about it.

@mechaenjoyer2883 What does 'egg' mean in this context?

@mechaenjoyer2883 3 hours ago
a trans person who doesn’t know they’re trans yet :p

@bbeer 3 hours ago
Please do not speculate on anyone's gender identity like this, this is super violent. Literally transvestigation but woke

@slop99carline 3 hours ago
okay we’re doing egg discourse on youtube lmao

@slop99carline 3 hours ago
Since when are there so many trans people in Screw’s comment anyway???

@mechaenjoyer2883 3 hours ago
@bbeer comparing a trans person finding solace in the idea one of her favourite creator MIGHT have some gender going on and raging transphobes trying to shame celebrities by implying they’re trans is NOT the progressive take you think it is
And if Screw is uncomfortable with that, he will delete the comment and that’s okay
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@mechaenjoyer2883 3 hours ago
@slop99carline always been there

@sonicScrew 3 hours ago
@mechaenjoyer2883 I’m not uncomfortable with it, you did nothing wrong. But please keep it civil

@bbeer 2 hours ago
@sonicScrew So you’re okay enabling this kind of behaviour and normalising it everywhere? Any trans person could be doubted if they don’t correspond to what you think a trans person should be. You realise that’s what you’re advocating for? Disgusting.
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Reply deleted

@slop99carline 2 hours ago
bro calm down screw just said he liked pancakes

@sonicScrew 1 hour ago
I’m just saying this kind of comment about me is okay. This is very very tame compared to what some people can say

@R.Cross 1 minute ago
@mechaenjoyer2883 This is weird.  I happen to know Screw IRL and that egg thing doesn’t seem true.  I think I would have noticed.

Huh?