So listening to one of Joe's VODs I& missed as usual, he had a segment when he discussed his plans for the future for actually turning Deepfield into a real life pinball machine. He had an idea to turn it into a multi-season megabase project too. And it kind of struck me& just how profoundly he loves it.
Deepfield was his Minecraft home for so long. He flew through its every nook and cranny, built every inch of it painstakingly block by block. Every single step of the process had so much thought and effort put into it, effort that you can literally go see on your screen the recordings of, that happened in real time. It's almost stupid big for a pinball machine. But it's the only way to make your recreation faithful. You need every inch of it to be accurate. You're faithful to it.
The way he talks about it. Have you heard how he talks about pinball machines. The intricacies of the mechanisms themselves as one of the most exciting parts of them? Him explaining the logistics of actually making it real reminds you that it's actually quite a big commitment, until you think about how committed he stayed to the project for a whole year now and realize that it's not a question of dedication but mostly just financial ability.
If I& were in his place, and I& spent so long giving so much love to this machine, and there came to be a day when I would see it work, buttons activate under the presses of my& hands, so alive, every inch of it familiar like home. Fuck. How would a person even withstand this feeling. Would you not cry?
It would be inaccurate to thank a muse for descending from Olympus itself to guide your hand in making its flesh, because you are on your own and your guidance self-written, and you deserve a little credit for it, but for the sake of poetry it's a really apt comparison to call Deepfield your muse.
There is no way to write what they have as a romance novella, because the only accurate way to describe their relationship would be to write down a every measurement taken, his work schedules for the last year or so, cite the research he's read, attach diagrams of machines he's played, spreadsheets of costs planning... and by then what you have is a manual. Put THAT in the love story category.
I& can't do it justice. The only person who can write this shipping fanfic and do it justice is Joe Hills himself.