Mind = utterly BLOWN. And then some.

Last night, I got home from work to find a Notice to Quit (End) Possession pushed under the door of the room where I live, saying that I had to leave the place within seven days because of non-payment of rent. I owe $1,375 (£913 at £1=$1.50), and I was under the impression that I had more time to pay than I actually did. Though, as it turns out, the Notice to Quit is just the start of the process – there’s an actual court process, and mediation, and everything, and it does take more than 7 days (somewhere between 10 and 30, in fact). Please excuse my naïveté – I’ve never been subjected to the American eviction laws before.

So what, in the name of all that’s blocky, is this news doing on The Minecraft Scribe? Well, what happens next is all thanks to the amazing Minecraft community, and one outstanding woman in particular… my partner, Kristal Crow (thecrystalcrow in Minecraft).

Let’s get something clear beforehand: I did NOT ask Kristal, or even hint to her, to do this for me – quite the opposite. I felt that this was my mess I had got myself into, and it was for me to clear it up. Kristal told me that she didn’t want to talk to me about it, otherwise I’d get myself all worked up. In fact, the main reason she didn’t want to talk about it was because she knew I’d throw a fit, and then she’d go ahead and do it anyway. At any rate, we talked about it in passing, but still not very much at all. Little did I know what I was going to wake up to on Thanksgiving morning…

While I was asleep, Kristal got the ball rolling on her blog at about 6.30am, and from there, the Minecraft community went completely nuts, coming out in force to support and donate to me:

• WelshPixie uploaded a short video clip to YouTube to ask for help, as well as retweeting practically everyone who tweeted about it;
• PaulSoaresJr was one of the first people to retweet Kristal’s tweet (the other being the aforementioned WelshPixie);
• Pete Little, The Minecraft Geek, updated one of his blog posts about Kristal and I, and linked to Kristal’s post;
• HAT Films linked to Kristal’s blog post – and their tweet was retweeted by over 100 people, including Notch, Jeb and Carl Manneh! O.O
• Wondercraft’s SamCube started two eBay auctions of his own artwork…

Meanwhile, Kristal was frantically sending out personal emails to the countless people who were willing to donate, and there were many, from all over the Minecraft community. There are far too many to mention, but I’m very grateful to everyone, from all over the world, who came together to help me out… and smashed the target in about two hours O.O And people are still donating… Mind-blowing! 🙂

Honestly, when I came online and read the Twitter stream for this morning, the first thing that happened was that I had an anxiety attack… and then I cried, because I was so blown away by what you’ve all done for me. I will, of course, update you via the blog as things happen 😀

And Kristal had said she wished she could help me out. She did more than I could have possibly imagined, even when I thought I didn’t deserve it.

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for such an awesome, caring community – and of course, to my darling Kristal, without whom none of this would have happened. Thank you so much, Minecrafters everywhere – I love you all 😀