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Jul 2021

Everyone's got an inspiration behind their work, so let's hear it. It could be the entire reason for your story's existence, a funny thing that happened to you in real life that you included as a part of your plot, or how you came up with the idea for a certain character.
Give me any fun or interesting way that your real life colluded to bring about the ideas in your head that you're now sharing with the world.

I'll start us off:

Back when I was a kid, I, like most boys my age, thought Power Rangers was just about the coolest shit in the universe. I had tons of toys, watched the show every afternoon after school, I even asked my mom to make me a custom christmas ornament (she made one for me and each of my siblings every year to put on the tree) that had the Gold Zeo Ranger's staff weapon on it.

Around age 12 or 13, though, I began to lose interest. I entered puberty and decided that I was, in fact, a complete and total grown-up, and no longer had time for children's toys or childish tv shows. I liked cool, grown-up, mature stuff like Naruto and Gundam now. Power Rangers was for little baby children. I was above that. I liked blood and swearing and boobies.

This attitude remained throughout high school for the most part: many of my friends were also anime nerds, and we liked discussing the cool edgy new anime that came out, often trying to one-up each other on who had read the bloodiest, most violent thing recently.

Once I hit college, this attitude started to erode a little bit: I met more people who had held onto their love for pokemon. I was reminded of Kirby's Air Ride and Super Smash Brothers. I even started to see some of the edgy, violent, bloody stuff that I used to love for the surface-level shock value schlock that it was. Additionally, I started to rediscover some of those 'childish' things I had once thought beneath me, and realized there was a lot more complexity and nuance to them than I ever would have admitted to myself during my teenage years.

Ultimately, this culminated when a new friend of mine told me about this amazing new TV series he was watching called Kamen Rider: Decade. He came over to my apartment and put on a few episodes, and I almost immediately recognized the rubber-suited monsters and spandex-wearing heroes with crazy over-the-top biker helmets on.
We discussed the series and I found out Kamen Rider is, and always has been, a sister series to Super Sentai, the japanese property that our beloved childhood franchise that Power Rangers is based on.

A few more episodes of Kamen Rider passed, and not only was I getting invested in the world, the lore, and the characters, I was also starting to recognize that the goofy, overly-choreographed martial arts fights were part of the fun. The stuntwork, the special effects, and the cinematography were pure 'rule of cool', and that was the entire point, and it was awesome.

I sort of had an epiphany: I can like what I want to like. For some reason I had developed this internal social structure in my head, that I was only allowed to like things that were 'for' me. Kid's media was for kids and it was somehow 'wrong' for me to derive genuine enjoyment from them (I had a similar realization about 'girls' media when I caught a few episodes of that My Little Pony show everyone was shitting their pants over last decade.) That was all stupid and garbage and I can enjoy the things I want to enjoy, regardless of... well, of everything.

So I went back to re-watch a few of my old favorite Power Ranger series, and while I definitely liked them, I found them lacking in ways I never had before: It wasn't the goofy costumes or the rigid episodic structure or the cheesy messages about friendship and doing the right thing. It was the villains.

Now listen, I adore Rita Repulsa as much as the next guy with a nostalgia boner for the late 90s, but even as a child I recognized she was little more than a plot device. She, Lord Zed, Divatox, Astronema, all of them were just 'evil because we're evil' characters. They had no motivation beyond 'death and destruction because I am bad guy'.

So I asked myself: What would Power Rangers look like if it had some more sympathetic villains? Ones with actual motivation for doing what they're doing?
At the same time, I had also re-discovered my love for Star Trek, and was for the first time discovering my appreciation for The Green Lantern, so I took a few elements from those stories and grafted them on to Power Rangers, creating a story with a far more complex and realized technological universe, and some ancient magic-technology lore that gave the villains a very legitimate reason for revenge.

After putting all of that together and tweaking things little by little as this story rattled around in my head for years, I eventually came to create Interstellar Hero: Nova Ranger as we know it today, and I am so excited to be exploring this universe with you all.

give it a read if you're so inclined:

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11 days later

That's quite interesting actually! I'll be sure to check it out.
So... Uh my backstory for my story is kind of boring... But here we go.

About two years ago, I had started to really get into roleplay. I didn't know much about it though, so I kinda sucked at it... For about two weeks. A year later I was talking to my friend and decided to ask about TV shows and stuff, then I asked her if she knew what roleplay was. She didn't so I introduced it to her.
We were obsessed with Steven Universe at the time so we just went off that. So that's when we created this whole alternate universe and everything.
Now... When I was younger and saw the Steven Universe trailers, it looked... Pretty weird, and being honest I probably wouldn't have understood it if I hadn't watched it when I had. Now I'm sorry but, back then I wasn't a very huge anime fan. Everyone kept talking about something called, "My Hero Academia" so I decided to check it out, and fell in love with it. I get my stories based off a lot of things and alot of fandoms so I don't want to bore you by saying every single reason why I created my novel, but I will list the fandoms that come into play in it. :grin:
Ok so first Steven Universe, oviously. Then Gravity Falls, FNaF, MHA, and Miraculous Ladybug. Almost All of them are alternate universes. That's all hehe, if you like it, or feel intrigued, feel free to check it out!
https://m.tapas.io/series/A-Tale-of-Anomalies-Steven-Universe-AU-or-TwinAU

My series, Capture the flag, is influenced by Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy. I remember getting into it in middle school when I would watch the Mad TV (1995 version) shorts on Youtube. I got the complete casebook on my 15th Birthday and being captivated by the art work and remaking the strips with my art style. That steams from that but it's also my political stance on what America's foreign policy has been for the last couple of years.

Hi! Ok here's the interesting story about Page 8/ Episode 6 of my series. Quite a few people commented "Wow these gems are rude!" And my response was "This is based from an ACTUAL interaction I had. Yes they were that bad."

It happened when I was in the 8th grade. I was a new kid at my middle school (please note this was MIDDLE SCHOOL). Being new, of course I didn't know anybody and the worst period for most new kids is lunch because they have no idea who to sit with. So I just chose this empty section of a table that was adjacent to another table with a bunch of other boys. They started saying "Hey you can't sit there, go somewhere else!" or something like that. I replied back, "I'm new, I just need somewhere to sit." Then they replied, "NO. Go somewhere else!" Because I was 13, really shy and awkward, I left :frowning:

However, I thought, "Let's take this not so positive experience and use it in a constructive manner!" So that's how this scene was born :slight_smile:

My series stemmed from years and YEARS of creating self-insert fanfics/fancomics. As a little kid (I'm talking 5-6 years old) I've drawn myself going on adventures with Mario and Luigi in the Mushroom Kingdom. Then in middle school, it was me with Mega Man characters and Vocaloids. High school and college was me with Fire Emblem characters. And now in the year 2021, it's me/my self-insert living with my fighting game mains (ooohhhh title drop~)
As I've grown up, I've done a lot of things in my life, and I'm hoping to draw from my own experiences and just inject them into the comic in fun ways.

hah! that's awesome. I actually have another story that is currently not being produced, but is on my back-burner, which was inspired by RP. It's got its own insane, long, and very personal story, but the short version is I got into it for very... fetish-y reasons at first, but after getting to know some writing partners and becoming genuine friends with them, I got really jealous of seeing them doing big, serious, completely Safe-for-work stories in main chat, and just converted my character over into their long-term ongoing plotline. It resulted in some really cool story and character elements, as I took what is normally a very unrealistic and porn-y fetish and applied real world logic to it, making for some really dark and emotional moments when I thought about what a character like mine would go through trying to grow up in a completely normal, mundane world.

well I watched a heist movie and I thought "hmm i wish i could find more stories like that but gayer"
then a few days later I was staring at a bottle of vodka when it suddenly hit me like "oh i can write that story, yeah i'll write that story"
then about a week later I had a storyboard ready

About Die Instrumente Gottes :thinking: this is not that interesting but...

My best friend hates this story, not because of the plot but because the MCs hats.
Yeah, the hats :joy::joy::joy::joy::joy::joy:

She is a fan of my other story, knows every detail of it and we talk for hours about ASEDO (every time we touch the topic of course) for the past 20 years, but when is about DIG shes like "meh, I hate these hats":unamused: I cant but laugh and suffer.
She had some good ideas for stories that never wrote and I offered to draw one of them instead of DIG. I liked one of these to be my first but she never did it and I ended with a frustrated love for her MC, with a draft idea but no script, so I returned to DIG because to draw ASEDO first would be too much for me.

So Die Instrumente Gottes was published first because my bff was too lazy to write a script.

My one was created years ago. I was lying in my bed having random thoughts, as you normally do when I had the random thought "Hey, why don't many protagonists use poison as their abilities?" and I was just scrolling through looking at things that I read and none of them really had poison as a heroic thing.
So I ended up calling one of my friends to make them wake up like the saint I am and he helped me start writing it. And after that, I spent over 3 years constantly changing the story being indecisive. But now the whole poison hero is still there but in a very differing way.

My inspiration for one of my novels, Lucky Charm, just came to me randomly during one of my late-night youtube binges xD I was just watching whatever popped up in my feed and chanced upon a tarot reading about dating (random, ik). Inspiration just sparked out of nowhere and before I knew it, I was wondering... what kind of story I could come up with involving fortune-telling. And well, here I am, writing a BL novel!

The story revolves around a cynical author who has a bleak outlook on love due to past trauma. But most importantly, his fear of love is caused by his belief of the ominous fortune-telling he received nine years prior! The central focus of this story is his journey on acceptance and finding love with his new editor from South Korea ^^

I came up with Hiraeth after I had carpal and ulnar tunnel surgery on my dominant hand. I was going through a creative withdrawl since I could barely draw through the pain (it lasted from October to December 2020), and I couldn’t use my hand for a week after surgery. Once I could draw again, I was really inspired by animatics on YouTube and I couldn’t help myself anymore. I began to design a new character, but wasn’t feeling the anatomy considering I had a more cartoony style and learned more accurate anatomy in school. So I decided to change up my style, and that night at 4 am, I came up with the design of the main character (Mina). For the next week, I came up with the characters anywhere from 3 am to 5 am. I kept developing the story and characters, and a few months later, I realized that all of the characters represent a part of me and that my mind just decided to use it as a coping mechanism for everything going on. I talked with my therapist about it, and she agreed that it was a very healthy coping mechanism for me!
I really hope you guys find it interesting! I’ve been putting my heart and soul into it, I have a lot planned for it, and it updates every Saturday!

Your story was hella interesting! I was a huge Power Ranger fan when I was younger, too. marathoned everything from season 13-20, Dino Thunder to Super Megaforce (can't believe that was an actual season name lmfao). I tried to get into Kamen Rider a while ago too and started with Kamen Rider Doubles or something along those lines, but I wasn't a big fan. think Kamen Rider Decade would be a better jumping in point for me?

dude, same, but with a pokemon fanfiction

the inspiration for "Goodbye, Rival" came from a time I had to learn to let go of pretty much my only friend at the time. don't wanna bore you with all the details, but she was kind of delusional - she thought pokemon were real and existed in another dimension and that adults are all inherently evil, and I'm talking about a 13-16 year old here. when I met her, like you'd expect from a lonely kid who watches too much anime, I tried to "save" her. thought if I showed her how nonsensical and absurd she was being with enough persistence, she'd come to reality and be all the better for it. but I was trying to force her to change while she was desperate for someone to tell her she's doesn't need to, so our relationship wasn't really healthy. still, we were both so desperate to have a friend we just kinda stuck together anyway.
until I realized the harsh truth, that you can't change people. even for the better. change is a choice one needs to make, and while you can help them make the choice, you can't make it for them. and if they choose not to change, all you can do is let them go and hope for the best.

so that's why I wrote a cheesy shonen parody lmao


I loved video games as a kid (still do) and was asked by a friend why don't I try making one of my own. I began writing a lot over the years and realized I loved writing stories (not just for games). I wanted make a webcomic, but I can't really draw, so I do my best with webnovels.

Battle shonen anime/manga inspired my story. They were these amazing stories I enjoyed growing up (naruto, Dragonball z, hunter x hunter, etc). The fights in a cartoon would usually be quickly resolved with like a few punches, but anime went into detail about abilities and unique uses. The battles themselves feel like part of the story and not just something minor. I thought it would be cool if all the battle shonen stories came together in some way. This lead to me creating my own original story.

The Forgotten Queen was, honest to god, a project I did not have a moment to think about. For, it was a project I came up with on the spot because I saw a free book cover I really liked, and I just needed to have that book cover. So, BAM, I created a summary, characters, and the first few chapters. I soon started to fall in love with the plot, and it no longer was just a random book I liked for the cover, which I switched out for a commissioned cover cause of Tapas, but it was my pride and joy. Of course, I hit writer's block quite often, but I eventually got past that recently and pumped out a heaven's load of chapters. Like, eight. It was an adventure, but I feel like it is a well done practice novel. Now, I am working on a new one that I will talk about below it is a true put to work of this practice novel.


Now, I am not saying TFG is a practice run, but it was a novel I used to greatly improve and practice new styles of my writing. With that said, i took upon a novel idea that has been circulating in my head for quite some time. I always love to write about dragons, monsters, and magic. So, why not put that together with a sprinkle of harry potter influence, and you have The Black Dragon. I really wanted to try my hand in the show not tell aspect, so I include both, a smidge of show, a smidge of tell, and I really like how it has been progressing so far. Again, I have everything plotted out this time, so I am not jumping head first like I did in TFG. I plan on building and 8-10 chapter buffer before I start releasing it. I have a sample chapter up right now to showcase what will be seen!

It seems many people have been using their first novels as a practice run, or in other terms, a Trial Run. :[]

(Yup, that's it. That's the whole story behind this novel. I had a killer plot in mind but didn't want to write it just yet. I needed to go on a trial run with writing novels)

This comic that I am making right now all began after I watched the show, "Boboiboy". I was so immersed in the show where I began creating my own comic out of it. That was 7 years ago and that badly drawn comic of mine which I drew on paper was the start of this journey that I'm currently in. That comic is drawn badly and the plot was worse. It took me 2 years to finally have an idea. This idea was created after I watch a specific episode of the "What If" show on Facebook. That episode got me all fired up and gave me a lot of ideas for my story. Because of that comic I made years ago, I decided to maybe write the plot first before making a comic so that I have something to use as a guide. And that story I wrote which would serve only as a guide became so massive that I decided to just make it as a novel. It took me 4 years of writing to finally start the comic.

An interesting story about my story? Not sure if it's particularly interesting, but I originally came up with the idea as far back as 2017 as part of a trio of works revolved around character design and practice. These were all intended to be more serious/professional public art pieces. The projects in question were: Project Attribute, Project Type, Project Summon and were all named after terms in the Yugioh Trading Card Game. Attribute are elements, but I used it more as attributing personalities. Type is class (like Warrior, Machine, Beast, Sea Serpent), but mine was a mix of Archetypes (Hero/Magician/Explorer) and the Major Arcana in an attempt to better understand psychological concepts.. Summon is how monsters are played onto the field and I used that as a base for the earliest concepts for the story.

Eventually, Summon spawned off into it's own thing once I explored the concept and decided to go all in and make it real. The "SUMMON" of today is nothing like how it began, but incorporates a little of all 3, the importance of character and psychology, understanding and breaking people and a clear love for one of my all time favorite series and games. That's the origins in a nutshell. TL;DR my story was originally part of a public art series, but I explored the idea and decided to have it be it's own thing.

Your love for Tokusatsu completely caught my attention. I might be your target audience so I'll give it a read.