Why do you love your story?

I think creatives in general, but especially writers, love to delve into discussion about the worlds we weave with others and explore them. We spend hours creating complex plotlines and vast universes and in most cases we do this for the love of the art and the experience and nothing more. Unfortunately, this can often get boring for the people we bombard in these conversations.

So here's an excuse to let all that loose without worrying because anyone who reads past this point should know what they're in for. What do you love about your story?

The fact that Jack Barakat is currently playing the love interest... idk. I haven't been able to really love what I write lately. D:

For Foul Play, I love Nanu and Grimsley a lot and wanted to show that through writing. It's fun writing them together! Also I enjoyed expanding other characters too like Professor Kukui, Gladion, Acerola, Selene/Moon, and many more. There's also writing my versions of some of S/M and US/UM's arcs where Nanu and Grimsley gets involved more.

I love my characters. Always, the characters are what I grow the most attached to and once a concept has formed well enough, the character will largely stay the same even if the plot or setting changes when I scrap or re-shape a story idea. Sometimes they develop, of course, as a personality is mostly a result of a person's experiences imo. That is always fascinating to me too - to be able to see how they change over the course of a story, to be able to peek in at any timepoint and see what they are like right there and then and why.

Worlds are fun to build sometimes, plot can be interesting to puzzle together. But for me, my characters usually form the plot by being who they are in situations I start them out with. I love my characters and I have dozens upon dozens in my brain who don't yet have a proper story to live in.

One day, my fictional wonders, one day.

I love worldbuilding and I love exploring the worlds I create and how my characters are influenced by the world and how they influence that world in turn. It's so creatively rewarding to create a universe with its own rich history, culture, mechanics, ecology and geography and explore how all these things shape the lives of the people who live there.

In the case of Stairway to Heaven, I have a cast of characters that I'm really fond of (okay, I hate Hansel, but that's the idea) and I'm loving that I can take a deeper look at the lifestyle and struggles of a person who dedicates themselves to the life of a trainer and how this influences the lives of those characters as they play off of each other and continue to grow and develop.

Aside from me writing this story during a dark time in my life as an outlet, this work is very personal to me. I've put a lot of my own thoughts, views, perspectives, likes, dislikes, and other things in this story. I'd say every character gets something that can be traced back to me and some share that.

Shattered Crests is probably the story I love the most since I've put a lot of myself into it. Not like self inserting or whatnot, but more of adding something relating to me and molding a character from it and other things given.

I also love expanding on the story in general. It's been a good way for me to practice worldbuilding as well as deepening my characters and pondering how to do the overall plot. I'm really glad I took up this story and am proud how different it is compared to its initial inspiration. It feels more my work now than a simple fanfic even if I still consider if a fanfic and all. It's something I feel I can be proud of and is a goal for me to aim for in completing.