My partner stresses too much with work and I wish I could help more. But all I can do is give comfort and urge to at least let things go when at home.
Any practical advice is always brushed off, which I can understand. Sometimes you just need to vent and I don’t mind listening about what happened this time. I just hate seeing them like this, it does make me worry a bit about their health.

PICO-8, though it’s more of an on-and-off again project of trying to teach myself to program again.
But I like the limitations you have to work with, and even I can create some crude 8x8 sprites :)

Being appreciated… either by my kids, my partner, co-workers or anyone else really…

If I feel like I’ve made someone happy or helped them out somehow and they give a heartfelt “thanks” or even just a big smile, well that always makes my day.

I’m blocking a couple of bots but no actual people.
Though I guess I would block someone if they were being persistently trying to harass me. I can take offensive internet behavior, but not if you’re coming after me as a person.

Traffic lights were hand operated.
The small town where I grew up had one pedestrian traffic light for crossing the main road. There was a small brick shed next to that traffic light with no windows and a little door. When I was little I was convinced that was an operation’s center where someone worked to turn the lights red or green.
In reality it was a power substation for the neighborhood, but I was seriously convinced that behind that door was a man looking at a TV screen and operating the traffic light at the right moment.
When we went to a larger town nearby, where there were traffic lights without a convenient mysterious building nearby, I told myself that the traffic light people were most likely working under ground, peeping through the drains.

I… was good at making up answers for myself instead of just asking my parents.

and straight

The first house in my city is from 1976, the entire city is built on reclaimed land. It went from 100 residents back then to more than 220,000 now.

A fun fact is that they still find stuff in the ground from old shipwrecks to crashed WW2 bombers.

I have two ways of explaining. The first one is just saying “I work with data” followed by some hand waving and shrugging.
The other is where I really go into detail and explain everything. Going gaga over some minute aspect that I find awesome but couldn’t even interest one of my coworkers.
Neither seems to really work, but I don’t get follow up questions which suits me just fine :)

Maps and compass. I like the reliability of finding my way no matter where I am. Plus it’s fun!
Especially the trick of using two landmarks to pinpoint my location on a map makes me feel like an old-fashioned navigator :)

This really creepy Czech Alice in Wonderland movie. It used stop motion with animal skeletons, fish heads, and tons of other things.

My mom put it on when I was little in an attempt to keep me occupied.
“Would you like to watch Alice in Wonderland, Thelsim?” She’d ask.
“Yea!” I would shout enthusiastically, thinking she meant the Disney movie.
Half an hour later I’m crying and hiding under the blankets.

I never did watch that movie again. Maybe it’s not so bad now, but the screenshots still make feel very queasy.

In Dutch it’s called a trouwring, which as a verb literally translates to wedding ring, but as a noun also to loyalty ring.
Which I find rather sweet.

I don’t know about over there, but here they’ve started selling them with paper straws. Making it even more impossible to puncture that stupid little hole while ruining the straw in the process.

And of course it’s the only thing my daughter wants to drink. I’ve had to resort to using a nail file to open those things.

Fair enough :)

Those are a lot of assumptions you’re making:

• No one said the necromancer wanted a minion
• No one mentioned anything about a smelly cave
• I never said I’m a boy
• Maybe I would love the solitude

Anyway, no one said that the necromancer needed a guardian for some smelly cave. I like to think the necromancer got lonely and just wanted a friend to chat with. Even if what you say is true, cave guarding is for low-level chumps like skeletons or ghosts. Vampires are middle-management at least :)

Also, how on earth can you tell me I have to look exactly like I did when I was alive - which is still pretty :P - while you apparently can transform from human corpse to a drake?
Following your rules, the necromancer would be trying to assemble a drake using human bones, creating some weird facsimile of a dragon. The “drake” would spend its time jumping out from behind rocks shouting “blergh”, while falling apart at the slightest touch. Wishing some adventurer would put it out of its tortured existence instead of just pointing and laughing.

A vampire. Since it’s a necromancer raising me, instead of another vampire, I won’t be enthralled and will have free will.
Then there’s all the wonderful abilities and the fact that I’ll still look good for an undead (it’s a pretty movie vampire, not one of those creepy ones)

I hate sitting in the sun, which is the opposite of most of the country. The heat and light make me feel super annoyed and uncomfortable.
In contrast, most of the people here are sun worshippers. Sitting outside in direct sunlight as much as possible.

I made a crochet axolotl!

It’s my first attempt and I’m pretty happy with how he turned out.
I used super bulky blanket yarn, so he’s nice and cuddly :)

I didn’t mind doing PE if it was gymnastics like bars and rings. I loved that, and I still feel like I benefit from it to this day. Having a sense of balance and knowing what your body can do is pretty nice. I hated the outdoor running though.
There was this small lake in our home town that the gym teacher often made the class run around during warm days. But a lot of us liked to cheat by hiding our bikes out of view. We’d run for the first five minutes and the moment he couldn’t see us, we’d pull our bikes out of the bushes and cycle for most of the way, hiding them again just before popping back into view.
It worked 9 out of 10 times and we only got a mild scolding when got caught that one time.
After that we only had one more run, me and a friend took our time, bought an ice cream along the way and ended up half an hour late :)

Yum, war fries :)