CHAPTER TWO: Letters for DAYZ

"Hey Grace, I did you a favor and finished your remodeling," I said, grinning evilly. My sister and I were recording a ton of episodes of Mischief & Management. This was a series I had come up with in which one of us did a typical Let's Play on survival mode while the other was in creative. The rules were simple: no griefing of structures was allowed (excluding replacement; as long as no blocks were lost, any structural changes were fine), no stealing (but giving, say, enough 64-stacks of poisoned potatoes to fill an entire double chest was fine), and no direct murder (but clever cliff or lava traps were fine―not TNT though because that counts as griefing). In this particular episode, she had been remodeling her house into all brick when she ran out of clay. Thus, I decided to continue the renovations and be helpful.

By replacing the brick with gravel.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm the mischief and she's the management.

She groaned. "It's gravel, isn't it?" she said. I stifled a giggle.

"Maybe."

"That's my least favorite thing and you know it," she said, her tone accusatory.

"At least it's better than that time we were both playing on survival and I spelled out BENJA'S BOOTY on top of our hoose," I replied. And yes, I said hoose, not house. Pronounced like moose, it's just something we say, like Jerome and Mitch say strongk instead of strong.

" Yeah, I guess. You and your controlled obsession. Well guys, it looks like we'll have to wait until next episode to see exactly how bootyful my hoose is. Let's go for 3,286 likes for gravel being uglier than a baby kangaroo. Remember, we love you! Grace out, homies." Isabelle wrapped up our episode, the 5th one we'd recorded. We had about 5 more to go, because we were recording not only for Minecon but for when I went back to college. My sister would then take on the main responsibility of recording, with me only putting out flash games until I came back around Halloween.

I should probably explain some stuff about my sister. She's only 2 ½ years younger than I am, but she's going into her junior year of high school where I'm going into my junior year of college. She looks somewhat like me but not as much as most siblings. She's still shorter than me (thank the LAWD) but only an inch and a half. Her boyfriend Ryan is really nice, even though she didn't tell me about him for two months. She runs our social media (except for Tumblr, because I love Tumblr more than anyone else I know). We get along really well and always have.

Anyway. Back to the story.

"D'you want any food? I'm going upstairs," she asks, standing up. We record sitting next to each other and using one mic, simply because it's easier and cheaper (don't need two expensive mics). We never put out a video with both our perspectives anyway, so it's not a problem. Whoever isn't recording uses my laptop.

"Yeah, can you bring me down some pretzels?" I ask. I have a habit of consuming large portions of 4-pound pretzel bags while we record (because I am an om-nom-nom-nivore).

"Sure. Be right back."

I pull up Youtube as she leaves the room. In our tradition, she flicks the light on and off as she passes. I click over to our page and notice that we have about 1,000 more subs than we did an hour ago when I last checked. What? 1k subs in an hour? HOLY POOP NUGGETS! That's a lot! I refresh the page. Our sub count is still rocketing up at an alarming rate. I sit there, dumbfounded, for a little bit longer before just dismissing it as a technical fluke. I close out the window and pull up Youtube on my iPod instead. For some reason, it doesn't feel like I've watched a video until I do it on mobile. I'm just weird that way. I navigate to Mitch's channel and the Activity tab pops up automatically. I am .0006254 seconds from switching to the Videos tab when a familiar icon catches my eye.

A very familiar icon indeed, accompanied by the phrase, 'TheBajanCanadian subscribed to GracefulGaming.'

Well that explains the huge jump in subs. I guess all his subscribers saw that he subbed to me and checked out our channel. I guess that meant we're cool.

Now the fangirl comes crashing in from above.

OH MY COW UDDERS SPEWING STRAWBERRY MILK IN RAINBOW FORM. MITCH SUBBED TO US. This means a couple things. First, he thinks we're cool enough to subscribe to.

Second, he for sure knows about my controlled (ish) obsession. Po-ep. Das awkward.

Oh well. Not like it was a secret in the first place.

But still though.

Crap.

-o0O0o-

*MITCH'S POV*

Dear GracefulGaming,

Hi. I just wanted to say that your channel is really cool and I'm definitely subscribing. I'd love to do something like Mischief and Management, if that's OK with you. Maybe we can brainstorm sometime. Hope to see you at Minecon!

-Mitch Hughes (BENJAAAAAAA)

I read over the note one last time before hitting send. I closed out email and pulled up Youtube, noticing that they'd put up a new video. It was an IRL video, talking about Minecon. For the first time, I saw the girl who was famous for fangirling over me.

She had brown hair that came down to her shoulders. Her stormy blue eyes seemed to pierce mine, even though she was just an arrangement of pixels on a screen. Her pale skin was dotted with freckles, and she sat slightly taller than her sister. Grace had longer hair, fewer freckles, and was wearing a Thing Two shirt whereas Jenna was wearing Thing One.

Neither of them were pretty, per se, but they definitely weren't ugly. More like unconventional. Yeah, that's it. Atypical, but not gross.

"Hey internet! Jenna and Grace here, and welcome to the realm of this IRL-y-ness! We thought that you guys might like to see our faces before Minecon so that you know who to look for if you want things signed. So here we are! There's not really much other purpose to this video. We're hoping to see you guys there and are looking forward to meeting y'all. I guess we can play you some pano…but after Grace says her things!" She swung her head overdramatically to look at Grace, who was rolling her eyes.

"Just FYI, guys, we're pretty tall. Jenna's five nine, and I'm five seven and a half, so if you're looking for short girls with GracefulGaming shirts to sign yo thangs you're gonna be USC."

"AND NOW WE PANO!" Jenna said. The video cut to them playing a piano duet. The music was light and energetic, fitting for their personalities. The song ended and they swiveled around on the bench to face the camera.

"Remember, we love ya! Peace out, dudes." The video faded to black.

I didn't notice that the email failed to send until the next morning, but by then it was too late. We had to leave for Minecon.

WOOOOOT A/N TIME: Hey doods! QD here. I forgot to mention a few things last time. First of all, this story will not be updated daily. I am honestly surprised I managed to update today at all. I'll try to get new chapters up as soon as possibru, but the only promise I'll make is no longer than *ten days*. Secondly, each chapter will have Lily's and Mitch's perspectives, but they will cover one time period from two different perspectives (if that makes any sense). Now that that's covered, time for this chapter's facts! YAY!

My sister: she is two and half years younger than me, but she is also 3 ½ years in the future in this story. She does have a boyfriend, which she didn't tell me about for two months (NOT COOL!) Unfortunately, they have broken up since I first wrote this chapter, but he will remain in this story because it's convenient for me.

I do actually say hoose and pano, but only as a joke.

I once ate 2/3 of a 4-pound bag of pretzels in about two hours during a set strike for a musical revue I was in.

I really do love Tumblr. Like a lot. (HMU at i-wear-clothes , I post the lovely thoughts from my insane brain)

USC stands for up shit creek.

The "crazy bisssshhhh" thing is supposed to be a reference to something Lily calls herself in the videos.

AND NOW ZE FICTIONS

My sister is more than 1 ½ inches shorter than me (THANK THE LAWD).

I don't have a laptop.

I think that's it for this chapter! Thank you to everyone who reviewed. I loved hearing your feedback. You guys are awesome motivators. Keep it up, you beautiful individuals!

-Quiet Defiance

If you see this comment she dooooo