3 Series/Fictional Pieces of Media That Inspired Your story?

Personally, I'd say it's in this order.

1-Jojos Bizarre Adventure || Inspired me to be Unorthodox
2-Usogui || Mind Games and Gambles
3-Adventure Time || Helped inspire my World Building
Hm-Hannibal/Records of Ragnarok || Helped Inspire Psychological aspect(Hannibal) ROR-Combat/The main plot of fighting.


What about you? When it comes to inspiration alot of artists stay silent due to being scared of being called copycats. Even though every artist takes inspiration.
Get comfortable id love to hear all your opinions.

TrutherP said:

What about you? When it comes to inspiration alot of artists stay silent due to being scared of being called copycats. Even though every artist takes inspiration.
Get comfortable id love to hear all your opinions

Click to expand...

I'll skip this thread. My fiction isn't inspired by any particular series... and I'm not trying to be mainstream. It's just honest work about me (author), my story... and maybe even readers (if there are any).

MASH, Firefly, and Hitchhikers Guide are probably the three biggest influences, if not exactly “inspiration”

1. The Persona Series - character dynamics, complex antagonists and layered plots, links between power and human bonds/spirit.

2. Supernatural - urban fanatsy/paranormal vibes plus character dynamics

3. SCP - looking at how government and institutions might grapple with the extraordinary, existentialism in a quasi urban fantasy and paranormal environment

Wild Cards (series) by George RR Martin,
Superfolks by Robert Mayer and City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.

Wild Cards was a really early read for me and obviously influences a lot of the more visceral and "gross" aspects, but city of bones actually reminded me of how much beauty can be found in things traditionally thought of as terrifying or the opposite. Superfolks is what made me want to ground all of the supernatural and scifi elements in the regular people of the world rather than the superheroes and villains.

Only three? There's probably three per chapter if I'm being really honest...
Just about everything I've ever read informs everything I write to some degree.

I've been influenced as much as any author by the stories I've read. But for the book I have here, I think I went the opposite route. I wrote something I wanted to exist in some form, but could never find.

Love this question — and honestly refreshing to see
someone talk about inspiration openly!

For Fork of Heaven, mine are:

1. Ghost in the Shell || The whole "what makes us
human when AI blurs the line" angle — that's the
backbone of my story's philosophy.

2. Mr. Robot || The way it made hacking feel real
and personal, not just flashy. I wanted that same
grounded tech-thriller energy.

3. Neuromancer (William Gibson) || The original
cyberpunk DNA. When I wrote about Anthropic's
source code leaking in 2026 and the chaos that
follows, I kept coming back to how Gibson made
corporate power feel terrifying and inevitable.

Interesting that you mentioned Hannibal for
psychological depth — I've been trying to layer
that into my antagonist. Still figuring it out!

For both my stories, Trains and Training Wheels and Sixes and Sevens:

1. Timothy Goes To School - Character name, Friendship, School-life
2. The Railway Children - Trains, Siblings, Family-life, Adventure
3. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid - Siblings, Family-life, Adventure, School-life

I'll start by clarifying that my stories are primarily original narrative content and not formally inspired by any existing narrative, series, or work of fiction (to the best of my knowledge). Instead, I've simply layered easter-egg references to these works here within my stories.

1) .hack and it's only noteworthy successor, Log Horizon - .hack as a genre-defining series that popularized the "group of players pulled into a game" premise, and Log Horizon, as the only series since that has actually done real justice to the premise. In Duskfall, I have made a number of allusions and references to these series while also presenting my own take on the premise they popularized and refined.

2) Tenchi Muyo (True Tenchi Muyo) - As the series that serves as the origin of the Harem Rom-Com, this series receives the most allusion and easter-egg references within my own series Aestelle Nocte, due to their shared genres as my way of paying respect to the series that started, and defined, the genre.

3) Sci-Fi and Space-Operas - In general, there's too many to list that I am drawing a bit of inspiration from, and dropping references and easter-eggs to. For starters, Firefly, The Expanse, Star Wars, Star Trek, Legend of Galactic Heroes, Captain Harlock, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Mobile Suit Gundam - 08th MS Team, Tron, and of course hundreds of others. Keep your eyes open, and I'm sure you'll spot the easter-eggs when and where they pop up. Happy hunting.

Eldoria said:

I'll skip this thread. My fiction isn't inspired by any particular series... and I'm not trying to be mainstream. It's just honest work about me (author), my story... and maybe even readers (if there are any).

Click to expand...

thats beautiful honestly

zainzhou said:

Love this question — and honestly refreshing to see
someone talk about inspiration openly!

For Fork of Heaven, mine are:

1. Ghost in the Shell || The whole "what makes us
human when AI blurs the line" angle — that's the
backbone of my story's philosophy.

2. Mr. Robot || The way it made hacking feel real
and personal, not just flashy. I wanted that same
grounded tech-thriller energy.

3. Neuromancer (William Gibson) || The original
cyberpunk DNA. When I wrote about Anthropic's
source code leaking in 2026 and the chaos that
follows, I kept coming back to how Gibson made
corporate power feel terrifying and inevitable.

Interesting that you mentioned Hannibal for
psychological depth — I've been trying to layer
that into my antagonist. Still figuring it out!

Click to expand...

Yeah Hannibal is such an innovator honestly, ive been doing the same for one of my characters.

I got the core theme of my story from Legend of Zelda: Discovery & Exploration
I got the core conflict from Bram Stoker's Dracula: Mankind vs the monstrous
I got the core structure from Metroid Fusion:
- Protagonist hears of disturbance
- Protagonist sees evidence of disturbance
- Protagonist confronts disturbance