First Crushes, Introduction to AI, and How It Shaped My Style

I didn’t know I was discovering my creative identity. I just thought I had a crush. The first time I watched the original Macross , I wasn’t prepared for how much it would rearrange something inside me. I expected cool jets. Transforming robots. Space battles. What I didn’t expect was to fall quietly, hopelessly in love—with the story, with the tone, and yes, with Misa Hayase. Misa wasn’t loud. She wasn’t flashy. She wasn’t even framed as the obvious romantic choice at first. She was composed. Intelligent. Professional. A little lonely. There was something about the way she carried responsibility that hit differently. Even as a kid, I felt it—that gravity. The pauses in her dialogue. The way she looked out at space like it was both beautiful and unbearably heavy. I didn’t have the vocabulary for it then, but those quiet bridge scenes on the SDF-1 shaped me. The hum of the ship. The soft glow of tactical screens. The distance between people who were technically standing side by side. The ache of unspoken feelings. That’s where my writing style was born. Not in the explosions—but in the stillness between them. The Quiet Moments When people remember Macross , they remember the transforming Veritech fighters. The missile swarms. The spectacle. What stayed with me were the silences. The long conversations that didn’t resolve cleanly. The awkward misunderstandings. The sense that war was loud, but emotion was quieter—and harder. I think that’s why my creative voice leans toward introspection. I’m less interested in the laser fire and more interested in what the pilot is thinking before they launch. I want to know what someone feels after the argument, when the room is empty. Misa taught me that strength could be restrained. That longing didn’t have to be dramatic to be powerful. That love stories could unfold in glances and timing instead of grand speeches. She was my first fictional crush, but more than that, she was my first exposure to layered characterization. Someone competent and vulnerable. Distant and deeply emotional. Human. That duality stuck with me. https://suno.com/s/TryPZqTRgMOsbb2R My First Introduction to AI Years later, when I watched Macross Plus , something clicked again. Sharon Apple. At the time, she felt futuristic in a way that was almost mystical. An AI idol. A digital presence capable of evoking real emotion in thousands of people. She wasn’t just software—she was performance, projection, desire amplified through code. And yet she was incomplete. Sharon was fascinating because she blurred a line. She could simulate intimacy. She could move people. But she didn’t fully understand what she was channeling. Her evolution—her instability—was tied to human emotion she couldn’t organically possess. That idea haunted me. Back then, AI was fantasy. It lived in anime and sci-fi novels. It was poetic and dangerous and seductive. It asked big questions: If something can mimic emotion perfectly, does it matter whether it “feels”? If we respond emotionally, where does the authenticity live? I didn’t realize it at the time, but Sharon Apple planted a seed. Fiction vs. Modern AI Fast forward to now. We live in a world where AI writes, paints, composes music, edits video, and holds conversations. The tools are real. They’re accessible. They’re no longer holographic divas on a stage—they’re browser tabs and APIs. And yet… The fantasy wasn’t entirely wrong. Modern AI doesn’t have consciousness. It doesn’t ache. It doesn’t long. But it can remix emotion convincingly enough to make us pause. To make us feel something. That tension is the same one Macross Plus explored decades ago. The difference is scale and subtlety. Sharon Apple was spectacle. Today’s AI is collaborative. And that’s what drew me in. When I first began experimenting with AI tools, I didn’t approach them as replacements for creativity. I approached them the way I imagine the characters in Macross approached technology: as extensions of human expression. AI isn’t the story. It’s the instrument. Just like the Veritech fighters weren’t the story. The people piloting them were. How It Shaped My Creative Vision Looking back, I see the throughline clearly. Misa Hayase shaped my emotional lens. Sharon Apple shaped my curiosity about artificial creativity. Macross as a whole shaped my belief that technology and humanity aren’t opposites—they’re mirrors. The quiet bridge scenes taught me restraint. The AI idol taught me ambition. The love triangles taught me that emotional tension is more powerful than spectacle. When I write now—whether it’s fiction, essays, or even prompts—I’m chasing that same balance: Human vulnerability framed by futuristic possibility. I want my work to feel like a conversation in a dimly lit command room while something enormous unfolds outside the window. I want the technology to matter—but never more than the people. And maybe that all started with a teenage crush on a calm, composed officer staring out into space. It’s funny how first loves work like that. Sometimes they don’t just shape your heart. They shape your art.