Protection
Dear Kari,
Making an exception to the format to address you directly:
I'm deeply grateful to you as I realize that you were the one to try to protect me first. I didn't understand for a long time that the way you brought me behind the scenes was an exclusive expression of trust, and a plan for us to work together to support each other.
You tried to save me from hurting myself with your mecha. Your work makes so much sense to me, now, I don't understand how anyone that got the behind the scenes look could misunderstand you.
I misunderstood because I was in horrible shape when you were my luck dragon. The difference now is staggering.
I feel like you trusted me with your life, even though you never told me your work strategies in any detail.
There are patterns in your work that make my heart beat faster when I observe them. Once I learned the patterns, I saw that you were working non-stop, all the time.
One of the brilliant things you do IMO is when you transform your work into a simultaneous form of utility, like a heatsink. This also makes my heart beat faster, when you get to process your real feelings and get paid to do it, because you're giving people what they want (to feel involved with you) but you're in a safe position to do it.
Like you can beam your lasers outward and create intel, you shoot people pew pew and they drop a buffet of intel that you can pick from. But nobody can shoot back at you. 😍
I feel that you're incredibly professional about your work and that also makes me like you more. I don't know how to explain it, but you reply to comments with an attorney's level of nuance, safely dangling ideas you know people will love without any of it effectively being written in stone.
And I noticed that you never, ever tried to use your mecha on me, not even in October of last year. That's a compliment.
I like how you can portray your mecha as being in a state of vulnerability so that people can enjoy saving her. If she isn't sure how pretty she is, how many thousands of people will rush to her aid?
I really, really like the way you work. And it must be unimaginably exhausting.
I want to protect you back so badly.
—Michael