For about as long as I can remember, I've always enjoyed playing "pretend." In elementary school, during after school care, whenever we were outside in the playground I tried my darndest to get others to join me. It certainly attracted people who had interests - that, at the time... were considered weird - to me. But back then, that was totally fine with me. I didn't care, I just kept making fun stories with my friends, no care in the world. 

It was that phase where you never wanted to lose, you know? "Yeah? W-well... I suddenly get this OP power up! Boom! Haha!" I was absolutely NOTORIOUS for creating a persona in which my character was essentially unbeatable. Boy did that piss my friends off.

...

Well, sadly, that doesn't last forever. At some point it became harder for me to openly express my interests like that. Around that same time, and especially when COVID-19 had us all in quarantine, I started indulging myself in my own head. Any anime I watched. Any manga I read... all of it was food for my brain, which would then be regurgitated via a story. I would never tell anyone about them, I would just fantasize entire plots in the solitude of my own room (they weren't any good). Whatever happened in there stayed in there. I was in 7th grade then. Now, as highschool graduate, it's still stuck with me. 

Of everything that I've ever watched and read, I can say with 100% certainty that Re:Zero stands at the pinnacle. It is my favorite fictional work, and I will die on that hill. Because it has a special place in my heart, I couldn't help but want to make a story about it. The project: Re:Zero - Homebound has actually been something I'd been dreaming of for an entire year before actually beginning to work on. It has evolved a lot since its initial conceptualization, I'll say that much.