There's not really a straightforward answer to that. I started semi-consistantly writing fanfics for the purpose of posting them online in fanfic spaces in August 2021, but those were not the first fanfics I did. Particularly depending on how loose your definition of fanfic is.

I know for sure that in 2007 or 2008 I made a short lived attempt at a story with myself and my friend as Pokemon trainers (with a premise that was Black and White before Black and White came out), that was fanfic-adjacent. But I also tried doing webcomics from 2005-2009 that either involved video game characters (without really being about them) or were just parodies of whatever games I happened to have been playing at the time. I will not elaborate on further for reasons I hope you can understand.

And before then I often playacted with myself a number of stories involving different aspects of video games and anime and books I liked that I came up with on the spot (and probably made me look extremely bully-able to observers) and thankfully don't remember many details of. And before then, back when I was in first grade, I tried making storybooks based on Yoshi's Story with computer paper and markers.

So uh. Depending on how you wanna define fanfic, I started in either 2021, 2007, 2005, 2001, or 1998.

As for writing in general, well. I kinda answered a similar question a couple months ago on Tumblr. Short version is, I've kinda been writing in one way or another for most of my life and it all just kinda added up over the years by complete accident. I hope that's a semi-satisfactory answer?

Truth is, as is the case with any form of creative media, you don't start being good at it. Nobody is good at their medium when they start. But they kept trying and trying and trying, improving their work little by little over many years. I feel like five years are pretty good benchmarkers for seeing how far you've come on anything you've worked at regularly.

God, that's a tough question. I guess if you put a gun to my head, I'd probably say Tetris 2, just for how fully realized its story mode is (and for having a huge playable cast). Though if I had to pick one for it's mechanics, I guess I'd say 20th Anniversary, mostly because of how many modes its got crammed into it.... even though I really haven't played much of 20th. Waiting for the updated English patch to come out before going back to it.

But yeah. The Tetris duology is pretty fantastic for their narrative content already being localized and top-notch, so I recommend them highly. I did say 2 is best, but honestly I'd still encourage playing 1 if only for more narrative impact that happens in 2. (Also 2's soundtrack is kinda mid, in my opinion.)

Because here's my dirty secret. I don't like Puyo for the puzzle game.

I mean, the puzzle game is cool and such. And it's a very fun and dynamic game to play with other people. But I'm pretty mediocre and only get a relatively small amount of juice from it.

For me, the real meat is the characters. And by extention, the lore of the games, which tend to be fairly character-driven. Especially starting from Fever 2 onwards, where it goes into the background of the main setting and several key individuals from the area.

(ignore the lies you may hear. the Compile era had absolutely no damn consistancy at all).

The characters are just. So wonderful. There's so many serotonin machines in that cast. And they're hilarious, too. Like, the writing (and humor) can be pretty mixed (especially in the Compile era), but when it gets it right, by god is it good.

Yes, even in the Compile era. An example of that from BOX: towards the end of story mode Arle tries to open the door to a mysterious tower via SML2 coins, but the door won't open. Then Rulue shows up to declare she's thwarted Arle by unplugging the tower. At which point the camera pans over to reveal that the tower does, indeed, have a large and lovingly-rendered electric outlet next to it.

(also from BOX: Arle opens almost every door by violently ripping them off the hinges. it never stops being funny)

But the characters, I tell you. The characters. They're so fucking good, I love them. I love Arle, I love Rulue, I love Amitie, I love Ringo, I love Ecolo, I love Draco, I love Witch, I love Serilly (usually), I love Atari, I love Sig, I love Ally, I love Rafisol, aaaaa the list just goes on and on and on. They're all wonderful idiots~

But uh. Yeah. the Puyo Tetris games are pretty damned top-tier, I think.

Why limit myself to one topic? Honestly the most fun I've had in coversations weren't strictly about one thing, but all sorts of things that kinda meandered around loosely-related topics.

For a slightly less whimsical answer, I dunno if I could talk about something for an hour unpromted. There are things that I'd love to be able to try talking more about, like game design, or Puyo stuff, or Fremble, or monster girls, or cool video games that are cool for reasons not specifically related to their use of video games as a medium, or any of my projects-- and granted, I've gotten slightly better about not waiting for someone to ask about a given topic to start rambling about it if there's something specific I really wanna talk about-- but even then, I find it's difficult if I'm given carte blanche on the conversation topic. It's often easier for me to answer questions or respond to comments than it is for me to start talking about the thing unprompted. And even if the audience is attentive and engaged, they don't always have questions or comments, which leaves me not sure what to say next aside from "I like it though"

That said, since Puyo is the current brainrot, I'd be perfectly happy to have an excuse to talk about that. Speaking of which...

Honestly I'm not familiar enough with Youkai to give an intelligent answer. I guess magic cat people and magic fox people are neat, if that counts?

Wait, Nekomata is a youkai. We'll go with that one.