The Fictional Worlds That Made Me

If you’ve read my first blog, then you already know a little about where my imagination began.

But I don’t think I’ve told you about the fictional worlds that raised it.

Long before I was creating kingdoms, dangerous men, complicated women, wars, romances, and entire universes of my own, I was the girl sitting in front of a screen completely fascinated by characters who weren’t real.

And honestly? Not much has changed. I’m just older now.

And instead of only disappearing into other people’s worlds, I started building my own.

It Started With Inuyasha

My introduction to anime came through an older romance-fantasy anime called Inuyasha.

And technically, I suppose I should thank Inuyasha for introducing me to anime.

But if we’re being completely truthful… I had the biggest crush on his older brother, Sesshomaru.

Yes. That Sesshomaru. The cold one. The powerful one.

The beautiful, emotionally unavailable one who looked like he could destroy an entire village and then continue walking as though absolutely nothing happened.

Looking back at the characters I write now, perhaps this should have been everyone’s first warning.

But Inuyasha did something much bigger for me.

It introduced me to the idea that a fictional world could feel enormous.

There could be romance and danger. Creatures and battles. Beautiful places that didn’t exist. Characters I could become ridiculously attached to. Entire histories, rules, rivalries, powers, kingdoms, and relationships living inside one story.

I didn’t just want to watch those worlds.

I wanted to live inside them.

Then Came the Obsession

Once anime found me, it was over.

I became completely fascinated with fictional characters.

I had crushes on men who did not exist.

I imagined battles that had never happened.

I created kingdoms in my head.

I’d think about characters long after an episode ended. I’d imagine alternate scenes, different endings, relationships, betrayals, powers, and entire storylines that weren’t actually part of the show.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was already storytelling.

I just hadn’t started putting all of it onto paper yet.

And then I found one of the greatest loves of my fictional life: Naruto.

The Anime That Stayed With Me

Naruto became my all-time favorite.

There was something about watching characters grow, watching friendships change, seeing people lose everything and still find something worth fighting for that stayed with me.

It wasn’t only the fighting.

It was the emotion behind the fighting. The loyalty. The rivalries. The sacrifices. The characters who weren’t completely good or completely evil. The villains whose stories almost made you understand how they became monsters.

That fascinated me.

And I think pieces of that fascination have quietly followed me into my own writing.

I love complicated characters.

I love characters who make you wonder whether you’re supposed to hate them or understand them.

I love devotion that borders on insanity.

I love enormous stakes.

And I LOVE creating characters who feel like they existed long before the reader ever opened the book.

But there’s another reason Naruto stayed with me. One that’s much more personal.

Naruto wasn’t simply one of my favorite shows growing up.

Naruto Uzumaki became one of my biggest inspirations.

Because think about who he was at the beginning.

An orphan. Alone. Hated by practically an entire village for something that happened when he was only a baby — something he had absolutely no control over.

People looked at him and saw a failure. A nuisance. Someone who would never amount to anything.

And meanwhile, this little boy was running around telling anyone who would listen: “I’m going to become the next Hokage.”

Again. And again. And again.

Nobody believed him.

And he said it anyway.

“I Will Be the Next Hokage.”

That’s the part that stayed with me.

Naruto didn’t wait for someone else to believe in him before he believed in himself.

He experienced rejection. He was humiliated. He failed. He was underestimated. He loved people who didn’t always love him the same way. He watched other people possess things he desperately wanted — a family, natural talent, recognition, belonging.

And somehow, underneath all of that pain, he kept this almost ridiculous belief: One day, you’re going to see me.

Not because someone handed him greatness.

Because he was going to become great.

There was something incredibly powerful about watching someone the world had already decided was worthless refuse to accept their verdict.

And then there was the power he carried inside him.

Naruto had the Nine-Tails.

He had access to something monstrous and incredibly powerful, but his story wasn’t simply about unleashing that power and destroying everyone who had ever hurt him.

He learned control. He learned restraint. He learned compassion.

Pain could have turned him into something completely different.

Instead, again and again, Naruto chose his own path.

That’s also why I love Sasuke’s storyline.

I LOVE Sasuke.

But Sasuke allowed his rage to consume him in ways Naruto refused to.

His pain became revenge. His grief became anger.

And although I think Sasuke is one of the most fascinating characters in the entire story, part of me will forever look at him and think: You could have done better.

They were both hurting. They were both lonely. They both carried enormous pain.

But they responded to that pain differently.

And that difference fascinated me.

Maybe That’s Why I Saw Myself In Him

Obviously, Naruto and I look nothing alike. Also, I am real and he is a fictional character. 😂

But emotionally? I understood that kid.

Growing up, I had dreams people laughed at.

Believe it or not, at one point I wanted to become a boxer.

And I was laughed at.

Classmates laughed at things I wanted to accomplish. People called me names. Even within my own family, there were moments when I felt humiliated for dreaming too loudly.

Eventually, I started feeling like the black sheep of the black sheep.

And when enough people tell you something isn’t possible, there are two things you can do.

You can eventually believe them.

Or you can become stubborn.

I became stubborn.

Maybe that’s another reason Naruto meant so much to me.

Because every time the world essentially told him, You aren’t that person, his answer was: Watch me.

And even now, as I’m growing in my career, I carry some of that mentality with me.

There are dreams I have now that probably sound ridiculous to other people.

There are things I want for my stories and my career that haven’t happened yet.

But I’ve learned that something not existing yet doesn’t mean it never will.

Naruto spent years declaring what he would become before there was any evidence that he could actually become it.

And eventually? The boy everyone dismissed became Hokage.

That’s something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

Sometimes you have to believe in the version of yourself that nobody else can see yet.

My Anime Shelf Will Always Have Room

My favorites have grown over the years.

Naruto. Demon Slayer. Soul Eater. Inuyasha.

And then there’s One Piece… We’re working on that relationship. 😂

I KNOW. I know. Everyone keeps telling me to keep watching. I’m trying!

But one thing I absolutely love is that I’ve never felt like I needed to “grow out” of anime.

I’m in my early thirties now, and I’m still watching it.

I’m still getting attached to characters. I’m still fascinated by fictional worlds. I’m still imagining battles. I’m still staring at incredible animation and wondering how somebody took something that once existed only inside their head and turned it into this.

Maybe that’s the artist in me.

Because whenever I see something beautiful, a tiny part of my brain immediately starts creating.

Anime Isn’t My Only Inspiration

My inspiration is actually a strange little mixture of everything I love.

Anime is probably one of the biggest influences.

But then there are dark gothic aesthetics. Vintage films. Old architecture. Creepy imagery. Romance. Beautiful things placed beside disturbing things. Dark academia. Storms.

Old Cartoon Network shows. I’m a 90s kid, so sometimes I need to go back.

There are shows from my childhood that immediately transport me somewhere else, and even though I’m not much of a television watcher anymore, nostalgia will always get me.

Anime gets a permanent exception too. Some things are sacred. 😂

Give Me Gloom Over Sunshine

This probably explains quite a lot about my books.

I am absolutely not the person dreaming about a bright summer afternoon.

Give me blue hour. Give me fall. Give me spooky season. Give me a sky so dark at three in the afternoon that it looks like nighttime is coming early. Give me violent wind rattling the windows. Rain. Fog. Cold air. Dark clouds. Streetlights glowing against wet pavement. A giant old building underneath a stormy sky.

THAT is beautiful to me.

There’s something about gloomy weather that makes my imagination come alive.

When everything outside becomes darker, my mind somehow becomes brighter.

Fall will forever be my favorite season.

And spooky season? Don’t even get me started.

I Like Being Surrounded By My Worlds

I’ve realized something about myself as I’ve gotten older.

I feel most comfortable when I’m surrounded by the things I’m creating.

Even when I was working traditional jobs, I always wanted my computer nearby.

I wanted my manuscripts pulled up. My notes. My characters. My ideas. My books.

Even if I wasn’t actively working on them at that exact moment, there was something comforting about simply knowing they were there.

It’s difficult to explain unless. Sometimes your art becomes your home.

You carry it around with you.

You think about it while you’re doing completely unrelated things.

A conversation gives you an idea. A building gives you an idea. A song creates an entire scene. You see someone walking down the street and suddenly you’ve invented their fictional life story.

Everything has the potential to become something.

And sometimes I genuinely don’t know how to turn that part of my brain off.

I’m not sure I want to.

The Introvert Trying to See the World

I’m naturally an introvert.

I love being home. I love my own space. I love disappearing into whatever I’m creating.

But I’m also reaching a point in my life where I want to experience more.

I want to travel more. I want to see places I’ve only seen through screens. I want to meet different people. I want to experience different cultures. I want to walk through cities that make me want to immediately pull out my phone and write something down.

And maybe most importantly, I want to learn more about myself.

For a long time, so much of my exploration happened through fiction.

Now I want some of it to happen in real life too.

Because the more life I experience, the more I have to pour back into my art.

The Dream Is Bigger Than Books

I love writing novels.

But my dream has never stopped at simply seeing my name printed on the cover of a book.

I want to create worlds.

One of my biggest dreams is to eventually write a story that could exist beyond the page.

Something expansive enough to become a manga. Something visual enough to become an anime.

I want to someday sit down and watch characters that once existed only inside my head move across a screen.

I want to hear their voices. See their kingdoms. Watch their battles. Hear the soundtrack behind a scene I wrote alone at my computer years before.

And I think I would probably cry the first time I saw it.

Actually — there is no “probably.” I would absolutely lose my mind.

Maybe That’s Why I Write the Way I Do

When I look at everything I’ve loved throughout my life, my writing makes a little more sense.

The dangerous characters. The complicated villains. The dramatic worlds. The obsession. The darkness. The kingdoms. The betrayals. The characters who love too deeply. The moments that feel larger than life.

I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that was going to be my style.

It was built slowly. Episode by episode. Book by book. Movie by movie. Character by character. Storm by storm.

Everything I’ve ever loved left something behind.

And somewhere along the way, all those little pieces became me.

Welcome Inside My Head

So if you’ve ever wondered where some of my ideas come from… Now you know.

Part anime. Part gothic darkness. Part 90s nostalgia. Part hopeless romantic. Part introvert. Part overactive imagination. And probably an unhealthy number of fictional crushes.

I spent so much of my life escaping into worlds created by other people.

Now I’m creating places for other people to escape into.

And maybe someday, someone will be sitting in front of a screen watching a character I created and thinking: I wish this world were real.

If that ever happens? I’ll know I did exactly what I came here to do.

— GiGi 🖤