#ty for the ask eee i had to think quite a bit about this one lmao

[cee-grice]

Heyy Cee happy New Years' Eve!! 🥳

To end off the year, what are the top five influences for your book and how have they shaped you as a person? 🤩

happy New Year's Eve to you too, Tate<33

omg....ok I'm gonna expose myself for you all now so play nice pls thank u

the biggest influence for this story would have to be D&D. I had really gotten into playing it last summer, which was when I started thinking about this story, so you can really feel the influence in some parts haha (especially the magic system lol...). this whole story began with me creating an encounter featuring Endra, actually (with a stat block and everything lol), and I got so obsessed with the idea that I. made a whole story about it LOL. I would say D&D has... introduced me to a bunch of cool people, and everyone you meet, I think, shapes you a little as a person, so there's that haha. but also it made me think more about expansive worldbuilding, and thus appreciate it more as well. IDK I feel like it just made me love fantasy in general all the more:D

the second influence would have to beeee minecraft/dreamSMP. both, really, in their own ways. minecraft more on the lore aspect and magic system, weirdly enough??, and dsmp in the, hm, complexity of character relationships, I'd say? nothing specific, but more so the vibe. and my story is all about complex character relationships, so!! I also wrote quite a few fanfics for it, and that really helped with my confidence in writing, I'd say. I hadn't before had such a supportive audience, and they're very much to blame for my decision to actually take this Seriously haha. by that alone I'd say this shaped me most as a person/writer :v

thennn third influence, my jobs?? it just so happened that I was surrounded by pathology when I began this story, and I just sort of? gravitated to it as a central story point?? kinda wild, now that I think about it lmao. but yeah, idk, I feel like this job that I have made me mature a little more x)

ahmm fourth influence, maybe arcane? more of a subconscious one, though, as only when a friend pointed out some similarities did I go 'oh yeahhh' lmao. I did very much enjoy arcane, and although I watched it a good while before I'd started this story, some stuff must have stuck with me subconsciously haha

as for the fifth one...also more of a subconscious one, but Mo Dao Zu Shi. starting a story with necromancy is just an S tier story hook, in my opinion, so I did kinda yoink the idea from here haha, although, again, I hadn't done so intentionally lol. I also really liked the dual timelines and definitely wanted to write something with such a structure. this story sort of introduced me to modern Chinese fantasy, and I really gotta read more of it ahhhh, but yeah, always nice to broaden your literary horizons:D