Author's diary - 03 - Influences

Possible spoilers for volumes 01 - 07!

Hello, author of the novel here! Coming to make another session of sharing how the experience of writing this novel has been so far.

The first time I shared how much I liked working on this novel. The second time I shared how much I hated working on this novel. I think this time I'll share a few of my influences on how I came up with some of the characters of the novel.

My influences are mostly all over the map. Anime, movies, cartoons, videogames, manga, comics... If I think it's cool then just assume it will have some influence on the novel. (Note to self: make an author's diary top 10 favorites of each form of media).

So let's start!

Marceus: Marceus's influence is mostly manga based. The idea of a person that can turn into a weapon was based on the manga "Soul Eater" where the characters were weapons that had a job to collect souls for their partners so that they could become grim reapers. The idea of a person that can become a weapon is something that fascinates me.

Another possible influence is Bleach where all the characters have swords that have a soul inside of them.

And before anyone asks, yes, I know chainsaw-man is a thing. No, I didn't take inspiration from it, I never even read the manga until some of my comments pointed it out. And while I think its an awesome manga, having parts of your body become a weapon and fully turning into one are not the same thing.

His personality is based on Spiderman, Static-Shock and Danny Phantom. Characters that like to trash talk during battle as if it was a game.

(btw spiderman is my all time favorite character)

Daren - Daren has two influences. One is the marvel character "The Hulk". I love the idea of a skinny guy that turns into a mountain of muscle. The second is the manga Gash Bell. This is a manga completely based around the idea of partner mechanics and Daren was made to basically be Marceus's partner.

Lilith - I said it before but Lilith was based on one of the characters from the manga "The wrong way of using healing magic" (Which is an awesome isekai btw and you should totally check it out!!!). The character is a small fox girl that loves to pick fights with her vampire friend. But because the fox has the power to see the future, every time the vampire tries to hit her she always ends up missing. I saw that and thought "Wouldnt that be an amazing power in battle??".

Gustav, Ria, and Auren - The candidate assistants were all based on game mechanics. I wanted to represent them as abilities that are really important on the battlefield while not being directly battle-related.

Gustav is the chat room, he represents the importance of always communicating with your allies on the field. He was inspired by Miss martian from the show "Young Justice" where she would use her psychic abilities to allow the team to talk to each other.

Ria is the checkpoint. She represents the importance of needing to return to a previous place that you have been to. I didn't want to make her a normal teleporter cause I felt she would be too op. Her power is inspired by the magical item called "golden-tiger-claws" from the show Xiaolin showdown, which is an item that can open a portal in midair that looks like a claw scratch. And the name of the ability, as said before, is based on Inuyasha.

Auren is the healer. He is based on the character of Orihime from "Bleach" who has the power to revert things to before they got damaged. I wanted his power to be a tad less op than that so he can only revert things back to two hours or so.

Ok, now for the Season 2 cast.

Evlin - As I said on the first diary, she's based on Rudeus Grayrat, the main character of my favorite novel ever "Mushoku Tensei" in regards to her combat-style being earth-based just like him. I honestly love the earth element when used in action stories, like alchemists in fulfillmetal alchemist brotherhood, or earthbenders in Avatar. I feel like earth is the most underrated element, so I wanted to see if I could show how cool it can be. Her story arc is based on another character from the same novel, Nanahoshi, who's a girl that is also stuck on an isekai world and is desperately trying to come back.

I wanted Evlin to feel like what would happen if Nanahoshi had the skills Rudeus had since in her situation she has no powers whatsoever.

Nanahoshi is one of my favorites characters from the novel, probably the best female character overall (although that's not too hard since, again, that novel treats its female cast kinda bad...). I think I even got inspiration from her to make my favorite chapter "Fragile Heart". There is a chapter in the novel where she just straight up gives up all hope and starts begging for someone to help her cause nothing she does seems to work anymore.

She goes on a really touching and heart-breaking rant about she feels like life has been so unfair towards her while Rudeus lives every day like he is in paradise. It's one of the best chapters of the novel.

As for her personality, Evlin is a tomboy aggressive gamer-girl. I love tomboy characters so of course, my main character will be one. I'm not sure if she is based on any character in particular personality-wise... But she might be... Maybe I will realize who in the future...

Dalla - Dalla is based on my parents. Rather, the feeling I have towards my parents. These people who took care of me my whole life and make me appreciate all their effort for all these years and my desire to be able to repay them one day, and how sometimes I feel like nothing I do will ever be enough to repay them.

Ashley - Ash is based on every single character in media where everyone has powers except for that one person in particular. She's Deku when he was quirckless, she's Krillin from dbz, she is Batman from justice league. She's the one that didn't get the amazing superpower among a bunch of people with amazing superpowers.

Her being the strategist is based on a quote from the creator of "Gravity Falls" where he says his character "Dipper" is smart but not a calculator. That's how I fell about Ash. She's intelligent but she's not a walking computer. Being smart doesn't always have to mean being Dexter from "Dexter's Laboratory".

Btw, she is slowly becoming one of my favorite characters.

Oh man, who else, who else... Guess I should do the villains now?

Let's start with my favorite one, Drya.

Drya is based on every grass pokemon ever made. She can turn her vines into whips, she can make blades out of leaves, she can absorb sunlight. She's basically Bulbasaur and Grovyle merged together.

Her personality is based on Cell from dbz abridged, a character that knows all the lore of the cast and just uses it to troll and trash talk everyone. She's a ton of fun to write.

East - East is based on every god character that shows up when a main character goes to an isekai world, except she's a massive jerk. I guess you could say she's like if Aqua from Konosuba was evil? Kinda? Not really? Calling Aqua from a goddess is kind of an insult to gods on Japanese novels...

She's also based on the beliefs of my religion that says we should only follow one god and everything else is just fake. So, I guess you could say she's kinda like Catholic propaganda?

Speaking of, the two things Catholics hate the most are the praising of false gods and the praising of demon influences. Guess what species the villains of my novel belong to?

Xadi - Xadi is based on the main character of every isekai who becomes a mage. And that's it. He's just a jerk who happens to be good with magic. Buts he's such a fun jerk to write thought.

Marcus - Marcus is based on Steven from Steven Universe, a kid that was born after his mother erased all her memories and turned into him. I thought this was a really cool idea and a nice take on the concept of reincarnation.

His personality is based on kids who find out that their parents secretly had another family. Sadly... I never researched too much into the subject so I tend to do a really bad job writing Marcus as a deep character. I think the most I know is that scene from the movie "Are we there yet?" where the two kids see their father holding a son they never knew he had.

Another case of, if this was in the hands of a better writer it could have come as a better character.

Mia - I'm not really sure about this one... I think she might be based on the Joker from the Batman movies? That character just loves watching people in pain and keeps laughing about it as if it was a game.

She's mostly based on the fact that anime and manga just love to have characters with a bazillion years falling in love with people who are like twelve of fifteen... And every time I see that I never know how I'm supposed to react...

Even my favorite novel, "Mushoku Tensei" does that, and it does that kinda bad in my opinion...

The rest of the gods - I don't know man, they are just emotions that I'm feeling at the moment.

I'm sure all my characters are based on something but I've watched and read so much stuff that after some point things just start blending together. Many of these ideas that were stated here also tend to be repeated in other places in different ways. Kinda why people were bringing up chainsaw man despite me never even touching the manga by that point.

I think we kinda reached a point where every idea has already been done, and we should just try to focus on finding new ways to play with the ideas we like the most.

I like the idea of isekais so I'm just gonna go ahead and try to find new ways of exploring this idea.

That's it for now, I hope this helps anyone who needs some clues on how to get influence into your work.

I'm currently finishing chapter 5 of volume 8 while still trying to decide what the name of the volume will be. Once I decide what the name shall be I'll release the first chapter of the volume.

Peace!