Stories as Mirrors of the Self

The media that stays with you does so by recognizing you back — Persona 4 Golden gave you the high-school belonging you never had and characters (Adachi's loneliness, Yukiko's open cage) that named your own struggles, and Journal with the Witch made you cry over Asa's plainness because it was 'a direct call out to myself.' You return again and again to story as the most important element in any work, and to a specific taste for craft-of-commitment: Usogui's beautiful gamblers, the trick-and-reveal precision of The Prestige and Seven, the resolve of Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's and Steel Ball Run, the earned uplift of Maquia and Bocchi. What you love in others' work is exactly what you're trying to build — a lingering feeling that persists through the people it touches, the reason you want to write Remember Rain at all.