Blog Thing: Character DNA

In the Arc 1 Author’s Note, we talked about inspirations for Sunspot as a whole. This time, I’d like to instead talk about where individual characters come from, because it’s fun and I think a little peek behind the curtain is a nice reward for all of you who support me financially. This is going to be kind of rambly, as I’m just listing things as they come to mind. Here we go!

To recap, the most key IP the story draws stylistically from is inarguably Katalepsis, and this extends to the characters, so mild spoilers for that story ahead, up through arc 15. I would like to note that that’s as far as I am in the story right now, so please for the love of god do not spoil me on late Katalepsis in the comments. Thanks!

As the main character, Ezzen most directly descends from this literary lineage. Those of you who’ve read Kata should be able to see where he matches and diverges from Heather, especially in their styles of narration and opinions on/approaches to transhumanity. Some readers have observed how he actively pulls himself out of Heather-like descriptions, which is always a lot of fun for me to write.

Of course, where there is a Heather, there is also a Raine. I really like Raine, which should be obvious in Hina. But Hina is really more like a conglomeration of a bunch of Heather’s love interests, with some Zheng (the feral bloodlust and physicality) and Lozzie (the barely-human pixie) in there alongside the Raine for sure. Maybe even a little Sevens? With several of the Kata Girlfriends amalgamated into a single manic pixie dream girl, the Heather comparison then invites the question: will the residents of Lighthouse Tower wind up all entangled in a big, sapphic polycule? To that, dear reader, I say: Read And Find Out! >:3

Aside from those three, Hina’s personality (underneath the transhumanity) is also heavily modeled on a friend of mine who has BPD. Her more over-the-top qualities come from a handful of anime girls who share her feral mindset, bloodthirst and big ‘ol teef:

• Himiko Toga (BNHA)

• Zero Two (DitF)

• Lappland (Arknights)

• Eris (Hades 2), especially for her voice

• Did you know female hyenas have pseudopenises?

Other Kata characters have obvious parallels to various Sunspot characters. Evee and Amane are disabled, Ebi and Praem would get up to shenanigans together, and so on. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this when I’m deeper into Kata.

Moving on. Let’s talk about Worm!

…Actually, let’s not. You are free to draw whichever Undersiders-Todai comparisons you wish, PCTF-PRT, infernos-Endbringers, et cetera. Much of this should be obvious to anybody with even passing familiarity with Worm, and I sort of feel that the less I say, the more fun people can have with this and the less brainpower I have to devote to thinking about Worm.

So let’s talk about Todai’s real world inspiration instead: Hololive!

Like Hololive, the Radiances are a group of idol-like Japanese celebrities who’ve gained a cultural foothold even outside Japan in the wake of a world-altering event (the firestorms/COVID), with the obvious twist that Lighthouse wield significantly more hard power and are orders of magnitude more fucked up. I thought this would be a fairly realistic angle for a group of self-made magical girls set in 2022, and I’m quite happy with how the group as a whole fit into the setting and narrative.

…And when I was first coming up with them, I thought that was all! I figured that the Hololive inspiration would mostly just apply to the group as a whole, and that none of the five (six counting Ebi) would draw from any particular talents. However, as the writing has continued, I’ve realized that there is at least one specific (and in hindsight hilarious) parallel: Alice/Amane have a lot in common with Coco/Kanata, a duo within Hololive back before Coco quit the company. Consider:

• They’re gay. Possibly the most lesbian duo of streamers within Hololive, short of maybe OkaKoro.

• Coco has a massive dragon tail. Yes, this means that Todai sells AsaAlice merch.

• Coco is EN/JP bilingual (though not British) whereas Kanata has good English comprehension but can’t really speak it.

• Kanata is relatively sickly and partially disabled (deaf in one ear). Definitely not as extreme as Amane in this regard, but few are.

• Kanata’s first name is Amane.

Now, I didn’t consciously intend any of this, and I’m reasonably sure neither Coco the character nor her actress are trans. But it’s nonetheless a surprising amount of overlap!

Onward to Ai and Ebi. I don’t want to give away what exactly their deal is, but I’m comfortable saying that Ebi is heavily modeled on Praem from Katalepsis, and consequently has a similar relationship with Ai as Praem does with Evelyn. But Praem exists firmly in the dollgirl/maid/demon-learning-to-be-human trope space, and Ebi diverges from those somewhat with more android-specific themes. There’s probably a little Violet Evergarden in there as well.

Yuuka is weird because I don’t actually have many obvious inspirations for her. Her eye got a lampshaded reference to Worm’s Path To Victory, of course, but aside from that I don’t actually have many inspirations for precog characters, at least not that I can consciously recall. Her voice and accent can be imagined as that of Hakos Baelz, though obviously with less affable mannerisms.

I also need to briefly touch on some not-very-good fiction that is near and dear to my heart. There was a series of fics on 1d4chan (hear me out) about Warhammer 30k (hear me out!) in an alternate no-Heresy timeline starring the Primarchs’ daughters (hear me out!!). 1d4chan is gone now, so these characters are mostly lost to the sands of link rot now anyway, but for completion’s sake, I should observe that every Radiance strongly parallels at least one of those girls:

• Hina: Freya

• Alice: Venus

• Ai: Farah

• Amane: Morticia

• Yuuka: Cora, Furia

Moving on from the Radiances, let’s briefly cover some of the rest of the cast in rapid fire:

• Takagiri/Kimura: Honestly, this is a character who I think I’ve mostly invented wholesale, though her plot beats thus far are generally very classic mahou shoujo. I’ll probably wake up in the dead of night realizing I’ve completely copied her from something, someday.

• Hongo: No particular inspiration, but I want you to imagine his voice and affect as being that of Raymond “Red” Reddington, though they look nothing alike and Red has at least twenty-five years on him.

• Miyoko: Another “no particular inspiration who is definitely inspired by something I just can’t pinpoint”.

• Star: Based on a friend of mine.

• Sky/Jason: Based on another friend of mine.

This post is not comprehensive. There’s inspirations I can’t reveal without immediately giving the game away, and this story as a whole comes from a big soup in my brain containing every story I’ve ever read, so there’s definitely things that I’m drawing from without realizing. No, I still have not read Bioshifter—I’ll get around to it eventually!

That’s pretty much everything from me, so let me close with a thank you to everybody who’s tossing me some money every month. A yootie who can buy food is a yootie who can write more Sunspot!