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It’s always difficult to say when a build loves a Hermit or not.
The other way around is usually a lot easier; while the newest project will always have special dispensation and recency bias, there will always be older builds that a Hermit looks back on with something more than simple nostalgia. It can make the transition between seasons difficult at times, knowing that you have to say goodbye to something that so much time and effort and love was poured into. And yet the memories are never undone; indeed, sometimes the passing time makes them all the sweeter, as all the things they learned from the old becomes the building blocks of the new. Some Hermits say they don’t have favorite projects the way parents say they don’t have favorite kids, but everyone knows they all do.
For the builds themselves, it’s trickier to tell. Each one speaks in a different way.
Sometimes, the love is in an ease of creation, the build coming out in a whirlwind that feels as natural as breathing. It almost feels like the builds manifest themselves, placing their own blocks, and the Hermit doesn’t even feel the arm-soreness that should follow such an intensely fast process.
Welsknight blinks, and another castle appears as if from nowhere, banners fluttering. Bdubs has barely rolled up his sleeves before Tennis! is finished and throwing ghast flames at him. Pearl stares at a dragon made of dragon eggs soaring above Doc’s base, and can’t remember it not being there.
Sometimes, the love is in a depth of passion, a grip digging into the Hermit and not letting them go. This is less of a flurry and more of a fugue state–Hermit and build breathing as one and not seen apart, the line between them blurring for weeks at a time.
Cubfan stops bothering to dust the sand out of his beard as the pyramid looms higher. Etho returns to Ravager Rush, over and over and over, until his home has to be roofed by someone else. Tango shields his eyes against the sun, emerging from the Deepfrost Citadel for the first time in a month with his own color shifted to match its ice-blue burning.
Sometimes, the love is in the living in the build, settling itself after the creation into something even more than a home or a game. It’s a tandem existence, that trades the fire of the honeymoon phase for the long-comfort of a lifelong partner (or seasonlong, at least).
Rendog trips over another space rat, almost face-planting into one of the Gigabots and still smiling. Hypno runs his hand along the copper edge of the pyramid, thinking about the first version from so long ago that still holds his heart. Scar winks at a floating crystal hovering in the magical forest, and it winks back against the light.
It’s always difficult to say when a build loves a Hermit or not.
But it’s easy to say when it hates a Hermit. Especially when the feeling is mutual.
If Scar never hears the word ‘Permit’ or ‘Office’ ever again, it’ll still be too soon.