If someone does not love and respect both your proper and your freak? They were not meant for you.

I loved my dear friend, but it became clear to me in recent years that my friend did not love me.

Oh, she was happy to come and stay at my house half the weekend and tell me all her woes and how excited she was to do pottery and about her job and the men she was pursuing.

But she could not handle a five minute conversation about comics or movies or books or art that I was working on. She would sit there silently and say 'I have nothing to contribute' or she would start watching TikTok WHILE I was talking until I gave up.

It wasn't as if I didn't try, I only brought up topics in those genres I thought might interest her, or referenced things she'd talked about in the past, but it starting being very obvious that she didn't want to have a conversation, she wanted me to listen and affirm while she told me things.

And it genuinely hurt my feelings, because I don't particularly care about pottery or glazing, but I listened and learned and asked questions and eventually learned enough to have an actual conversation on the topic with her. Because I loved her and that is what she loves.

A few weeks ago, I went to see a different friend and she asked me if she could play a video game while we talked. I didn't mind, I was used to trying to fight with TikTok for attention.

We spent five hours talking, actually talking. Five hours of me getting to talk about the novel I've been working on for nearly two years at this point and for her to tell me all about the construction and design of her favorite game franchise, and not once did I feel like I was fighting for attention. It felt very much like hanging out and playing video games when I was a kid.

What is important is that they clearly recognize that you care about this stuff. They'll interact with it because they like you (with a few caveats like trauma, allergies, etc.).

me: my dude we just woke up!! It’s time for wakefulness and doing things and Productivity

Prologue: The Door

At the crossroads, there were no clues left for D3rlord3 to follow. No books, no broken blocks nor signs. Without a guide, this single decision was his to make.

And so he turns left.

there Rocky is, doing his thing, and so is Grace, busy busy busy. Grace sits back and stretches, a bit distracted as he usually is, gets up and then he turns and SPOOKS SO BADLY!! WHAT WHAT IS IT??? Rocky hears nothing what's going on???

"Oh nothing, I thought I saw someone but, it's just a shadow."

and Rocky doesn't get it, at. all. Grace says this or that thing kind of looks like a person, or that he thought the hanging clothes was someone, but Rocky can't understand for the life of him. shadows have no shape, no depth, that jacket is inert, has no breathing or heartbeat.

the biodome team watching grace get up in the middle of the night and easily navigate his hut without turning any lights on:

back then i made a bunch of these but by now i lost the pic and dont know how to find the original post anymore

so anyway here is the diagram for anyone else who is interested!!

this requires pretty big carboard pieces, if you have a really big box or something you can make it from one piece, but if you don't, you can also just make each of the pieces individually and then tape them together

and then in the end you put it together like this!!

and then when you make a bunch you can put them all next to each other and stack your books like crazy