Gold to my Apple

Chapter 1: Hello!

Seventeen Minecraft players crammed together in the thumbnail. Some sneaking (or shifting, as some players call it. Named after the key used to toggle the action), some punching to signify a wave, and some shown in midair signalizing the person controlling the character had pressed the spacebar to jump.

“Hello, LOVELiTEs,” Basil started by greeting their fans.

“And Stays.” Chris added in a hushed tone, addressing his group's fans.

“This is Basil,” the enby continued.

“Elite Club!” almost half of the other call participants chorused.

“Chris!” the male from earlier said cheerfully.

“And Stray Kids!” the remaining people shouted.

“And welcome back to another video!” all seventeen full-grown adults screeched and screamed like excited children.

“In this very dreadful time of your day, which you have chosen as the time you watch an Elite Club video, you find that your favorite idiots have made new friends!” Sei squealed, “Courtesy of your favorite enby, of course. I'm such a social butterfly.” even without seeing their recording, everyone who knew the YouTube gamer would know they sassily flipped their just-over shoulder-length hair.

“Yup, we're called Stray Kids! We're also gaming YouTubers, nothing much else to know.” Hye agreed.

“Okay, y'all. Split into your respective friend groups because we're letting the audience get acquainted with everyone's names and pronouns. Elite Club on my player's left, Stray Kids on the right.” Yez ordered.

All the blocky player entities shuffled around to their respective sides of Yez's player. Yez moved slightly to the left to show she was part of Elite Club. On the far left there was a player with the username herbaltea labeled by the editor with Basil and they/he. To their right was a player with the username okayhon98 with the name Honey and the pronouns she/they. To her right, the username leeknow1025 and name Lino accompanied the pronouns he/him. Next to him was jiniemagic, Hyunjin, and he/him. After that you could see starrieniqht, Sei, and they/them. Next up, lixplays, Felix, and he/him. You could find BirdWeasley, Aaron, and he/she/they after that. Then iamdamnlazy, Yez, and she/her. Moving on to Stray Kids, minTchoco, Seungmin, and he/him. Then jupiterlatte, Kate, and they/she. Then InNout, Jeongin, and he/him. ianhypen0620, Ian, and then he/they. J1one, Jisung, and he/him. Continuing with hyefilmz, Hye, and she/he/they. Then spearB, Changbin, and he/him. Continued by roxewotah, Roxy, and she/her. And finally, CB97, Chris, and he/him.

“If you're new here and aren't transphobic, pause the video, take a screenshot so you can have our pronouns saved for referring to us correctly in the comments later on. But If you're new here and are transphobic, then also pause the video, but then click off. It's that easy, we don't need your negativity and bigotry in our safe place.” Felix said.

“Anyway, this is the start of a new series we're all collaborating on!” Hyunjin's microphone sounded with a loud sound, which meant he clapped his hands in anticipation, “We're going to be playing UHC. If you don't know what that is,” he heaved a huge breath to prepare for what he was about to say, “if your gaymer friend, with a Y, shoved this video in your noob ass face. Because you definitely need a break from watching cat videos and failing to bake chocolate chip cookies and because you're obviously all gay or at least an ally if you watch Elite Club of all friend groups.” a pause where Hyunjin regained his breathing pattern, “UHC is short for Ultra Hard Core and it's a game mode in Minecraft where hostile mobs are set to their most difficult setting and you don't regenerate hearts, or health same thing, even when your hunger bar is full, you only regenerate hearts with the regeneration effect. And some Minecraft veteran players who wanted their future generations to suffer, but some of us have a pain kink so there's that, decided it would be a good idea to make it a whole other thing with a different aim and PVP and everything!” he finished.

“Thank you, Hyunjin, for the explanation.” Aaron thanked him, “Now I will explain how our first ever season of Stray Club, or Elite Kids, UHC will work. Since it's been almost seven hours since New Year of 2025 for most of us living in South Korea and Japan. The preparation and collecting of weapons, armor, etcetera, will start when it's ten hours before New Year in Kate's time zone because they're the last to enter 2025. We all have to be at zero-zero, also known as spawn, once the clock strikes twelve for Kate. Command blocks will broadcast each episode's end and beginning in the chat every hour.” they explained.

“Thank you, Aaron, now onto the rules.” Lino thanked the enby, “While we’re allowed golden apples, that doesn’t apply to enchanted ones. So if you get a lot of gold, you'll also need lots of apples. Food, iron, and gold will drop cooked and smelted. There is a border which will start shrinking in episode six. We're playing in teams, we will reveal them once we spawn. Everyone, regardless of being in a team of two or three, will spawn with five items of bread and a boat, in case you land in a body of water. We don’t allow strip mining, but you may mine with the staircase method. I think that's it.” he listed.

“Has everyone seen these beautiful structures built by Lino and Seungmin?” Honey piped up, “And, well, me as well. But I had minimal contribution. It was a nightmare third-wheeling with them, though.” she groaned.

In Honey's point of view, you could see rainbow-colored numbers triple the size of a player.

“What do you mean third-wheeling?” if you were watching Seungmin's video, you would see in the corner where his face was that he grimaced as the words left his mouth.

“So you're denying the fact that you two flirted in my face for two hours straight?” Honey scoffed.

“How is your definition of flirting that obscure?” Lino mused.

“Alright, alright. We'll be spawning soon, people. See you in the separate calls for each team!” Basil announced.