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It's all fun and games to tease Joel, to act like they were dating and then break up. Iskall loves the kind of quick thinking he needs to write a shitty breakup poem. His Twitch chat is loving it too, so he can't resist writing another letter. And then another one, because he totally has to send back the stamps. He's almost giddy that he found the excuse so quickly. This is going to be hilarious for his video. And hopefully Joel will get some good footage out of it too.
Except now with this fake breakup he loses the excuse to interact with Yoel. But that was the whole point of the thing, he wanted to hang out with the new guy. He wanted him to feel included, treat him with the same pranks as the rest of the server. Damn it.
The statue is a great way to remedy that and Iskall is damn proud that he convinced Joel to make it and buy an apartment from him. It should keep them bumping into each other and offer more opportunities for pranks. Which is great because doing a bit with Joel is easy and Joel seems to be having a good time too.
After the stream, Iskall double-checks that Joel is fine with building the statue and gets a positive reply back. So Iskall can go ahead with picking out a spot for it, perfect. He rubs his hands together, excited for the video he'll make out of this.
During editing, Iskall lingers on the clips with Joel. They really have great chemistry, both of them knowing instantly how to reply to each other to make it funny. And Joel isn't afraid of making something a bit awkward for the sake of humor. They should hang out more if it always goes this well.
The next time Iskall and Joel are online at the same time, Iskall makes it a point to bother Joel. He goes to his base and makes up a reason for his visit along the way. As Iskall hoped, Joel picks up the joke and continues it. Iskall has to mute to not laugh over and ruin the awkward confusion that Joel is playing up. It's nice to have Joel as the straight man to Iskall's shenanigans. Joel has a refreshing approach to that role that makes their interactions so much better.
The time after that, Joel visits him for the statue and their dynamic of slinging half insults and half overdone flirting at each other has already become comfortable. They both know what role to play and what to say to get the funniest footage out of it. And they're having fun along the way, laughing together when Iskall doesn't mute and Joel can't keep himself from joining in, totally breaking character. It's nice. It makes Iskall proud to get Joel laughing to the point where he can't keep a straight face, not even for the bit.
With how easy it is to hang out with Joel, they start gravitating around each other. If they're online at the same time, they'll inevitably find some excuse to fling verbal slaps at each other and get humorous video footage out of it. To not run out of creative juice, Iskall starts watching Joel's videos. At first he puts the Hermitcraft season 10 videos on the side while he mines for diamonds. Then when those run out rather quickly, Iskall dips into some older Joel series.
After a while, listening to Joel's videos becomes a comforting part of Iskall's routine, right next to his energy drinks and hanging out with Stress. It's slotted in neatly between his other habits. Similarly, the habit of flirting with Joel on Hermitcraft slips into their Discord DMs. At first it's because Iskall wanted to use some in his video. And then he just doesn't bother differentiating between on-camera and off-camera anymore, it's just easier to not have to turn off his flirting. It's all just for fun and games, right?