wilderness
Do you know what really sold me on Pokemon when I first played my copy of Pokemon Blue as a kid? It wasn't the critters, though I certainly had my fair share of favorites, or the battles. It was Mt. Moon. Mt. Moon gave this sense of going on a trek across the wilderness; the maze-like quality tested your navigational skills, and the constant drain on your resources tested your ability to prepare. The safety of civilization was a long way away; all you had was your wits against the whims of nature.
I don't think Pokemon Blue is the game I would pick up if I wanted that experience again today--a lot of my experience of being bad at Mt. Moon stemmed from the fact that, rather unsurprisingly, I wasn't very good at video games when I was a kid--but the feeling is still something I value. It's what makes the exploration in games like Hollow Knight so enticing to me, what made Breath of the Wild a game I replayed several more times than is strictly reasonable without any aim in mind than to just experience the vibes, and one of the things I find most captivating about Monster Hunter. It's one of the things I love about hiking and backpacking (and why, if we're being honest, I'm a little lukewarm on car camping). It's even why I really do enjoy that working as a bike messenger has me spending my days outside in the elements year-round.
As a kid we would watch the heat lightning on the horizon in the summer, and run out and play in the hail and rain. We explored the abandoned lots on our street, and solved mysteries there. We would spend weekends at our stepmother's cabin in the woods of the east Cascades, and we would embark on such grand adventures. And there has always been, in my writing, the threat of a storm.
It bothers me that media so often takes place in no particular period of time. The trees are green but there is no season; no spring storms or summer heat, and certainly nothing of the autumn and winter. For me, the weather and the seasons and the wilderness are what give life to the world--we exist within that context. And every time I drive across those mountain passes to visit my family, the mountains and lakes and the sage-lined canyons beyond give me a new drive to create something, to capture that sense of being alive in that moment, in that place.