creativity – untypicable.

Are You A Minecraft Person Or A LEGO Person?

AJ Wright — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:00:00 +0000

There are many fake divides in life.

Cat vs dog. Tea vs coffee. People who say “we’ll pick that up in the next meeting” vs people who silently die inside when they hear it.

But if you are even mildly nerd-adjacent, the real question is this:

Are you a Minecraft person, or a LEGO person?

Both involve small rectangular things. Both involve building. Both have caused at least one meltdown when a masterpiece was accidentally destroyed by a sibling, Creeper, or your own clumsiness.

Underneath the bricks and blocks, though, there is a deep psychological split.
And if your brain is wired a bit differently (hello, fellow pattern-obsessed human), that split comes with its own particular flavour of weird.

The LEGO Person

The LEGO person is powered by three things: imagination, instructions, and the ability to endure intense foot-based pain.

You might be a LEGO person if:

You have a system for sorting bricks that makes sense only to you, but you will defend it in court.
You have very firm views on “knock-off bricks” and will deliver them without being asked.
You can step on a 1×1 brick, swear under your breath, and still finish what you were doing first.

LEGO lives in the physical world of:

Booklets thicker than GCSE revision guides.
Tiny plastic bags labelled “1”, “2”, “3” that must NEVER be opened together.
That magical moment when a random pile becomes a spaceship, castle, or shamefully accurate replica of your house.

LEGO people tend to like:

Instructions.
Not because they cannot improvise, but because there is calm in a numbered sequence where someone has already decided the correct order.
Tactile building.
The click of bricks. The little bit of resistance. The sense that physics has signed off your plan.
Displaying things.
LEGO builds are not “toys”. They are Exhibits. They live on shelves. They gather dust. They may be “not for playing with”.

Neurodiversity Corner: LEGO Edition

The neurodivergent LEGO person has some very specific quirks:

Sorting the bricks is, in itself, an activity. You may not actually build anything. The joy is in the system.
You remember exactly which tiny piece went missing in 1997 and it still bothers you.
You feel physically uncomfortable if someone mixes “this set” into “the general pile” without a clear plan.
Hyperfocus means you sit down to “do a few bags” and suddenly it is 1am and you are architect of a small plastic city.

LEGO is perfect if your brain loves:

Patterns.
Rules that are optional but still reassuring.
The sensory comfort of click, stack, line up, repeat.

The Minecraft Person

The Minecraft person wants one thing: a flat bit of land, basic tools, and absolutely no limits.

You might be a Minecraft person if:

You sit down to play “for half an hour” and resurface three hours later with a half-finished mega base and no food in real life.
You have strong feelings about Redstone that other people do not understand.
You can explain the difference between Creative and Survival to someone who did not ask.

Minecraft lives in a digital world of:

Punching trees because that is… how you get wood now.
Accidentally digging straight down. Again.
Building a house, wandering off “just to explore”, and never finding that house ever again.

Minecraft people tend to like:

Endless space.
There is always another biome, cave, village, or bad idea.
Consequence-lite demolition.
Hate a wall? Hit it. Redo it. No one knows.
Projects that are never quite finished.
Everything is “in progress”. Forever.

Neurodiversity Corner: Minecraft Edition

The neurodivergent Minecraft person lives on a knife edge between joy and chaos:

Hyperfocus session: you log in “just to check the farm” and look up when your legs have gone numb and the sun has set twice.
Paralysis at world selection: you have eight worlds, three backups, and a “new idea” that needs its own map.
You get stuck in a loop: mine, smelt, build storage, realise you need more storage, mine again.
Lava deaths live rent-free in your head for weeks.

Minecraft is perfect if your brain loves:

Open-ended creativity with no real limits.
Systems you can optimise forever.
The ability to undo absolutely everything with a pickaxe and a deep sigh.

The Unholy Third Thing: LEGO Minecraft Sets

Just when the divide looks neat, reality throws in a cursed hybrid:

LEGO Minecraft sets.
LEGO… of Minecraft… which is already basically digital LEGO.

This is where the universe folds in on itself.

On paper they are ideal:

Real bricks? Yes.
Blocky Minecraft aesthetic? Yes.
Villagers, Creepers, and farm animals that look like they were built out of shoeboxes? Yes.

But they do not sit cleanly on either side.

Why LEGO Minecraft Sets Confuse LEGO People

To the traditional LEGO person, these sets feel… off.

You get:

Big clunky trees where your soul wants nice slopes and curves.
Square animals that ignore decades of clever shaping techniques.
So much brown.

LEGO brains quietly scream:

“We spent years making smoother shapes and clever angles and you want deliberate chunky?”
“Why is this pig a cube?”
“Why does this landscape look like it is made of low-res wardrobes?”

They will still build them. They might even enjoy them. But they may also start “fixing” bits later, adding tiles and slopes because “it looks better that way”.

Why LEGO Minecraft Sets Confuse Minecraft People

For the Minecraft person, LEGO Minecraft sets are like someone screen-shotted your world, printed it in 3D, and then made it gather dust.

You go from:

Infinite blocks, eventually.
Instant demolition.
Flight, if you are in Creative or you have bullied some poor Elytra into service.

To:

A fixed number of bricks in one box.
Instructions that object when you skip steps.
The harsh truth that if you misplace one piece on page 9, you will not notice until page 63.

Minecraft brains quietly think:

“Why can’t I just zoom out and expand this whole thing?”
“Why can’t I fly while I place these?”
“Why can’t I press undo on the last twelve moves?”

Neurodivergent Brain vs LEGO Minecraft Sets

For the neurodivergent builder, LEGO Minecraft sets are a sensory and cognitive paradox:

Your need for structure loves the numbered steps.
Your need for freedom is slightly offended that this world is only 32 studs long.
Your pattern-brain enjoys matching the physical build to the digital logic.
Your executive function is now tracking both the build and how you could improve it in-game.

Also:

You will almost certainly consider rebuilding the set in Minecraft.
You might also then tweak the LEGO build to match the new digital version.
At some point you will lose track of which is “the original”.

At this stage you are not “playing”. You are running a cross-platform, block-based identity project.

Who Are LEGO Minecraft Sets Really For?

Honestly?

Kids who want screen time and brick time in one package.
Adults who say “it’s for the children” while carefully applying tiny TNT tiles.
Neurodivergent people who cannot pick between digital and physical, so they say “yes” to both.

In the “LEGO vs Minecraft” divide, LEGO Minecraft sets are the awkward third answer:

“I reject your binary and choose this weird little cube of both.”

So What Does It All Mean?

Here is the fake but emotionally accurate psychology bit:

LEGO people like structure, limited pieces, and clear progress.
Minecraft people like endless possibility, soft consequences, and being able to bulldoze their mistakes.

For neurodivergent folks, it often plays out like this:

LEGO is a safe, finite universe. You can see all the pieces. There is a right-ish way to do it. You can line things up and feel your brain un-knot itself.
Minecraft is a sprawling space where your brain can roam. You can follow hyperfocus down a cave system and build something absurdly over-engineered just because.

LEGO says:
“This is what I made. It lives here, on this shelf, and it is finished.*”

(*Until you re-pose one section at 11:37pm.)

Minecraft says:
“This is what I am currently making, plus the five things I abandoned along the way, plus three more ideas I am not ready to admit to yet.”

LEGO Minecraft sets stand in the middle and say:
“This is a save file someone printed.”

A Completely Unscientific Self-Test

Answer these quickly. No overthinking. (So, obviously, you will overthink them.)

You are missing one crucial element.
- LEGO brain: You search the entire house, then rebuild the timeline of who touched the box.
- Minecraft brain: You open a menu, grab another stack, and move on.
- LEGO Minecraft brain: You check the bag three times, then wonder if you should just redesign the set and the in-game version.
You finally built something you love.
- LEGO brain: It is now a museum piece. No one touches it. Ever.
- Minecraft brain: You immediately start tearing down one wall because it “could be better”.
- Neurodivergent brain: You take fifteen screenshots, three photos, and then spiral because you have had a new idea.
Someone suggests “just winging it”.
- LEGO person: Mild panic, then “maybe after we finish the instructions”.
- Minecraft person: That was already the plan.
- LEGO Minecraft person: You wing it in-game, then try to reverse-engineer it with actual bricks and regret everything.

If you mostly recognised yourself in LEGO? You are probably a LEGO person.
Mostly Minecraft? Minecraft person.
If you saw yourself in all of them and felt slightly attacked?

Welcome. You are the neurodivergent hybrid chaos engine. We have snacks and several half-finished worlds.

Final Block Placement

So, are you a Minecraft person or a LEGO person?

Truthfully, it does not matter. Both are tools for the same thing: making stuff, breaking stuff, and learning what your brain likes when no one is watching.

LEGO gives you weight, click, and the satisfaction of something you can dust.
Minecraft gives you endless sky, respawns, and the option to bulldoze your mistakes without sweeping the floor.

LEGO Minecraft sets sit between them like a glitch in the Matrix, which is exactly where a lot of neurodivergent people live anyway: halfway between order and chaos, structure and freedom, carefully labelled boxes and “I started a new world because this one felt wrong”.

The real question is not “Which one are you?”
It is:

“Which one does your brain need today?”

A quiet evening of bricks and instructions?
A feral sprint across a digital landscape with a pickaxe and no plan?
Or a small, blocky set that lives in both worlds at once?

Whatever you pick, there is always room for one more block.
And, if you are anything like me, one more project you definitely did not have time to start.

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AJ Wright

AJ Wright is a quiet yet incisive voice navigating the surreal world of sociology, higher education, and modern life through the unique lens of a neurodivergent mind. A tech-savvy PhD student hailing from South Yorkshire but now stationed in the flatlands of Lincolnshire, AJ writes with an irreverence that strips back the layers of academia, social norms, and the absurdities of daily life to reveal the humour lurking beneath.

As an autistic thinker, AJ’s perspective offers readers a rare blend of precision, curiosity, and wit. From dissecting the unspoken rituals of academia—like the silent war over the office thermostat—to exploring the sociology of “neurotypical small talk” and the bizarre hierarchies of campus coffee queues, AJ turns the ordinary into something both profound and hilarious.

AJ’s unassuming nature belies the sharpness of their commentary, which dives deep into the intersections of neurodiversity, tech culture, and the often-overlooked quirks of human behaviour. Whether questioning why university bureaucracy feels designed by Kafka or crafting surreal parodies of academic peer reviews, AJ writes with a balance of quiet intensity and playful absurdity that keeps readers coming back for more.

For those seeking a blog that is equal parts insightful, irreverent, and refreshingly authentic, AJ Wright provides a unique perspective that celebrates neurodiversity while poking fun at the peculiarities of the world we live in. Also a contributor at Thinking Sociologically.

untypicable.co.uk

untypicable Turns One: Still No Idea What We’re Doing, but Apparently the Terrible Twos Are Coming

AJ Wright — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 10:00:00 +0000

untypicable turns one on 2nd November — a Sunday, which already feels like a breach of etiquette. We don’t usually post at weekends, mostly out of respect for our collective sanity and the faint illusion of work-life balance.

But birthdays deserve exceptions. So here we are: slightly over-caffeinated, overdressed in metaphorical party hats, and pretending this was all part of the plan.

When we first launched untypicable, we weren’t sure what it would become. A blog? A magazine? A safe space for overthinking and tea-based existentialism? Apparently, yes. All of the above — depending on the phase of the moon and the strength of the Wi-Fi.

A year later, it’s still here. A bit lopsided, full of personality, and prone to picking up strange ideas and waving them around like toys. But somehow, it’s walking. Sort of. Sideways.

The Early Months: Teething and Technical Tantrums

They say new parents live in a fog of exhaustion and doubt. Running a blog is the same, except the baby is a web server and it screams in error messages.

In the early weeks, we learned a lot — mostly about plugins that break everything and SEO guides that read like spiritual tests of endurance. We fretted about “niche,” “tone,” and “engagement metrics,” before realising we could just write whatever amused us and call it editorial direction.

Each post felt like a developmental milestone:

The first piece that didn’t make us cringe.
The first that was read by someone we weren’t related to.
The first spam comment congratulating us on our “excellent insights into cryptocurrency.”

Those were simpler times.

The Identity Crisis Phase

By month three, we’d developed the modern writer’s trinity of despair: impostor syndrome, analytics obsession, and the creeping suspicion we’d peaked with the homepage font choice.

We looked at other websites for guidance. They all seemed confident, professional, and horrifyingly consistent. Meanwhile, untypicable looked like a bright idea scribbled on a Post-it note and stuck to a teapot.

But then people started to get it. Not everyone, but enough. Readers who liked that we weren’t chasing trends or pretending to be lifestyle gurus — just three people quietly muttering about life, the universe, and uncooperative printers.

Apparently, relatability is the new expertise.

Parenting a Blog: The Toddler Years Begin

Now that untypicable has survived infancy, the terrible twos are looming. The site is walking unaided but bumping into things, experimenting with tone, and occasionally shouting NO! for no reason.

If it were an actual child, it would be eating crayons and insisting it could run a podcast. It’s confident, unpredictable, and slightly sticky with creative ambition.

We’ve read that the “terrible twos” are when toddlers start asserting independence — which, in blog terms, means we’ll probably ignore good advice and publish something called “An Ethnographic Study of Lost Socks.”

Lessons Learned: The Honest Ones

Consistency is overrated.
Life happens. Some weeks we post twice; others, we stare at drafts like archaeologists examining disappointment. Both count as progress.
Ideas come in bursts.
Inspiration isn’t a tap — it’s an unreliable kettle that hisses and occasionally floods the counter.
Everything takes longer than it should.
Writing, editing, resizing images, rethinking everything, then doing it again slower.
Nobody knows what they’re doing.
The best blogs are run by people who look confident while Googling “how to sound confident online.”
Success isn’t going viral.
It’s when someone emails to say, “This made me laugh,” or when we reread something and don’t immediately regret it.

Analytics: Our Emotional Rollercoaster

Checking analytics is like stepping on the scales after Christmas. You know you shouldn’t, but you can’t help yourself.

Some days, the numbers spike — usually for inexplicable reasons (“how to untypicably fold laundry” remains a suspiciously popular search). Other days, it’s tumbleweeds.

But the truth is, we didn’t start this for the metrics. We started because we had things to say, jokes to make, and a shared sense that if we didn’t write them down, we’d end up shouting them at pigeons.

Besides, one genuine laugh from a stranger beats a thousand drive-by clicks any day.

What Nobody Tells You About Year One

No one warns you that running a blog is basically an emotional apprenticeship. You learn by doing, by breaking things, and by occasionally arguing about commas.

You’ll publish something you love and it’ll vanish without a trace. You’ll toss off a late-night rant and it’ll get shared 300 times. There’s no logic — only chaos, caffeine, and mild despair.

And occasionally, amid all that, you hit a sentence that just works. That’s the moment. That’s why you keep doing it.

The Terrible Twos Forecast

As untypicable enters its second year, the plan is simple: survive, evolve, and maybe fix that one image alignment issue we’ve all agreed to ignore.

The site will probably:

Experiment more.
Swear slightly more.
Wander off-topic and insist it’s “conceptual.”
Post at increasingly odd hours, because apparently, we’ve already started the toddler phase.

Publishing this on a Sunday feels symbolic — like the blog climbing onto the coffee table and shouting, “Look what I can do!” before collapsing in a pile of cake crumbs and enthusiasm.

Still No Idea, and That’s the Point

After a year of this, we’ve realised that not knowing what you’re doing is secretly a gift. It keeps you curious, humble, and occasionally hilarious.

Certainty is dull. Uncertainty is creative. And if we ever start to sound like we know what we’re doing, please assume we’ve been replaced by corporate doubles.

So here’s to another year of doing it wrong, accidentally doing it right, and writing through the bits in between. untypicable will keep growing — sideways, diagonally, and sometimes back into its own archive — but growing nonetheless.

And if the terrible twos bring chaos, at least we’ll have good material.

Closing Thoughts (Before We Throw a Tantrum)

Publishing on a Sunday feels rebellious. Wild, even. Tomorrow we’ll go back to pretending we have a schedule, but today, the blog gets to stay up past its bedtime.

If you’ve read, shared, or even accidentally clicked on untypicable this year — thank you. You’ve helped a strange little corner of the internet find its footing.

Year two will almost certainly be unpredictable. But then again, so are we.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re off to baby-proof the analytics dashboard before Dwight tries to install another plugin.

Regards, AJ, Dwight, & James.