1/11/25
What's up everyone!
Today's a big one! (Not sure how long the blog will be, just a big idea I'd like to discuss.)
I'm back in the groove of things here in Japan, finally! My time is slowly correcting, but I don't feel out of place, since this afternoon. (This morning was still a bit of a blur...)
I'd like to discuss a couple different things in this post, but I'm not sure where to start. I'd like to talk about World of Ngash's inspiriation, both original and new. As well as where the world is heading, I have a lot of grand plans here that I won't spoil yet though. And I'd like to discuss current inspiration sources, or better to say where I'm spending all my free time.
Let's start at the big thing, where World of Ngash origianlly began. It all really started in college, probably sophomore year. I wanted to write something but a I had already rewritten a very specific series multiple times (that book will come out in a few years, and hopefully be my first traditionally published work) so instead of rewriting that for the fifth time, I decided to work on another series for the third time. That book ended up becoming Foundations. At the time I planned to call it "Rine", obviously plans changed.
Before college I had little planned for my stories other than getting SOMETHING published. Thankfully I held off for a long while, I wouldn't have been satisfied if I published my books then. But it was that rewrite of Foundations that led me to expand my world and connect all my planned stories together. (Though originally in a very different order.)
Here come the original inspiration: Marvel. Most specifically the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) See, back then the MCU was in full swing, and in its peak! One of my college friends got me really into it, and from then on I saw every MCU movie I could in theaters on opening night. (Things have changed since then as my actual interest in the MCU has dwindled with too many bad movies.)
Obviously Foundations and Origins have little other connections with MCU and superheros. But I was inspired to make a world full of books, heroes, stories, and eventually other writers. Hopefully all of that will be fulfilled in the next couple decades.
Now for pointed inspiration for Foundations and Origins that becomes a bit harder. But Origins isn't too hard. My original inspiration there was Skyrim. I believe I've mentioned it before. The original plan for Origins was to have Liam be the protagonist and to follow a similar storyline as Skyrim but with many main characters, basically inspired by a series of playthroughs I had for the game. But all that got scrapped and characters got changed. (Maya and Shay were originally other playthrough chracters.) (Asmodeus was supposed to be something called a Tyr beast. And was essentially a one-for-one recreation of the first dragon battle in Skyrim.)
Most of my "main" series, including the books now and many more to come, were inspired by dreams or my own imagination, rather than a clear source.
So what does this mean for World of Ngash now? I still have grand plans to build the world of Ngash into something akin to the MCU, but in my own way, twist, or flavor. It's going to look pretty different. But some connects will still remain. After all, theres still a hidden point I'm trying to get to with my current characters. That point is far more in line with the MCU. (We'll see if I get there though, so this may just cause more confusion. Oh, well!)
For now the plan is more series! I want a couple different series running at a time. In addition to Origins and Foundations I'll have Demise and a planned, but unpublished, series called Trails. That's the first wave and what I've come to call my flagship series. After those are out, and a few books are published for each, my MAIN series will come out. (That one will hopefully be traditionally published, and be the "official" launch of World of Ngash.)
After the point, a few other series will be added on, hopefully after 3-4 at a time, kinda like what I'm planning for my launch. (aka, if Origins, Foundations, Demise, and Trails is my launch then series A, B, C, and D will be the second wave, connecting with, expanding, and running alongside my first few series. Obviously at that time series will become more sporadic so I'll have to wind down some storylines, or combine them...)
So, that's the end of those points. Perhaps I can dive further into these ideas later, but I've already said my peace for this post.
Onto my last point, and what excites/embarrasses me the most: my current inpiration.
I've talked recently about Arcane. In a similar vein is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. That series has a lot of connections with Foundations and helped me understand what the original story was lacking. Arcane has some ties to both series, but more so the ongoing story of Origins. There are some upcoming plot points that have been directly inspired (not stolen) from Arcane. Meanwhile, the architecture of Rine in Foundations is clearly quite similar to what we see in Arcane. Rine isn't steampunk because Arcane has it, but the series helped me to picture Rine better when I was writing Foundations.
Other ongoing inspirations come from video games. The game I play more than any other is Zenless Zone Zero, it's a gacha style game made by the same studio as Genshin Impact. If you don't know video games, that's okay. Don't worry about this section of paragraphs.
The next game is Stellar Blade. I admit, it has some storytelling flaws. But frankly, there's plenty to read into, and an overaching mystery kinda sets the game apart. But it's clearly similar to Nier: Automata. But I don't really care. The series literaly acknowledges this and has a DLC with Nier cosmetics. But I like it for it's futuristic settings, like the space elevator.
Lastly, and my most recent inspiration, is Marvel Rivals. We've come full circle. I've now mentioned the MCU, Spider-man, and Rivals. Clearly Marvel is still important to me. But as of now, Marvel Rivals hasn't shown me anything new. It's just the game I'm getting into. I'm sure if I give it more time, I'll be inspired sooner or later.
And that should wrap things up. I'm sorry for the journey of a blog post. Hopefully it was inciteful. As I said earlier, I could probably go deeper on each of these points, as well as each individual inspiration. But I'll save that idea for a rainy day. I need to get these blogs off the ground first I think.
I'll leave off there. If you found any typos here, good for you. You can make an account and leave a comment on this post. (This is a ploy to get people to make accounts, as well as let me know your thoughts and observations.) All interaction with my blogs is appreciated.
Have a great day!
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