My Inspirations

Inspirations

In no particular order, here's a list of things that inspired me and/or that you might enjoy if you like my fiction

the Discworld novels by the late great Terry Pratchett
I don't recommend starting with The Color of Magic (the first novel in the setting), as it took him some time to get into the swing of things
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Amazon did an excellent 6-episode adaptation of it, but there's a lot in the novel you're missing without it
The Leaky Establishment by David Langford and its satirical view on the British nuclear weapons program (unintentionally) inspired some of my view of Bell corporate culture
Command and Control by Eric Schlosser was also an inspiration about cold war military culture and the AUTOVON system
Exploding The Phone by Phil Lapsley is an excellent look inside the Bell System and phreaker culture in the 60s and is almost entirely why Bell is the villain
my visit to the Telephone Museum in Ellsworth, Maine inspired my awe in telephone switching
this 1981 article from Mother Jones served as inspiration for the coercive nature of Bell in 1ESSIE
the SCP Foundation is a significant inspiration and I've tried to write some pieces in their writing style
the game Control (2019) (which was also inspired by the SCP Foundation) gave me a love for secrets hiding in brutalist bureaucratic offices that's all over the portrayal of Bell in my writing
the novels of Jasper Fforde have influenced my style, especially his Thursday Next series
the body swapping in "Several Body Problem" is somewhat lifted from this series
Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (in a decent but occasionally difficult to read English translation by Andrew Bromfield) paints a picture of magical academia that I rather like
Their other novels, especially The Dead Mountaineer's Inn (excellent translation by Josh Billings) are also worth a read.
the novels of Stanisław Lem, especially Peace on Earth and Return From The Stars are also excellent and an inspiration to 75Ω Love, although I do not envy the job of his english translators
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is outstanding, and I hope I've captured even one tenth of the sapphic energy in that short novel
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke has made me capitalize words that I want to imbue with additional Meaning
the Speed Demon stories by Zhange on the SCP Wiki's Third Law Hub are the type of lesbian action witchcraft I love.
I stole a lot of the idea of heavily armed high-speed lesbians conducting a heist and a way of describing combat from it for The Witch of the Wires
"Estrogen and Brimstone" was ripped shamelessly off of this story of demon smut by @HardSundae on Twitter
"75ohm Love" was strongly inspired by the excellent Drugs and Wires webcomic, which takes the idea much better than I ever could
I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall has its fingerprints all over "75Ω Love" and it's a shame that she was harassed off the internet
Scanners Live In Vain by Cordwainer Smith reminded me a fair bit of Isabel Fall's piece and led to the themes of 1ESSIE
the placement of the brain implant in "75Ω Love" was inspired by this fedi post from Erin (@er1n@social.mecanis.me)
qntm's books and SCP Wiki pieces are a huge inspiration and led to me trying to write some in SCP style, and I shamelessly copied the look of their website for this one
Dana Terrace's The Owl House (Disney Channel/Disney+) was an excellent kid's show that touches on witchcraft, trauma, being hispanohablante in the US, found family, and hating Connecticut. It's also wish fulfillment for having a parent who's cool with you being queer.
The third season being compressed into 3 episodes was literal homophobia by Disney, and they should be ashamed.
"ChronoPost" was inspired by an offhand joke about mailing estradiol back in time and reading the Wikipedia article about the Prague pneumatic post
Mt. Sisyphus and Bog Witch were both inspired by hikes in the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York.
I wrote almost all of "Bog Witch" in the back seat of my friend's car as we headed home from a peat bog near Tupper Lake where I felt something
the beach in the beach episode was inspired by Limekiln Lake up in the Adirondacks
visiting the Diefenbunker and feeling weirdly cozy inspired Alice's bunker house in the witchcraft continuity
I've since visited Līgatnes Bunkurs in Latvia and had similar feelings and took some photos
Aviador Dro y sus Obreros Especializados is a Spanish synthpop band whose lyrics inspired some of the 75Ω vibes ~~and is actively making my accent in spanish worse~~
If I listen to too much of their music in one sitting, I start thinking about adapting Antimateria into a story
Neil Stephenson's (very lengthy) novels have probably inspired some details of my writing
Seeming's song Reality is Afraid is quite the vibe of bending the rules of the world
Soulfire by Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul is probably where I stole the name Soulsparking from
Reversing/Hexing/Typing/Rewriting/Unifying The Technical Interview and its witches carefully rewriting the fabric of reality
this tweet from @capsule_169 influenced 75ohm pretty deeply
"Capacitive Touch" was somewhat inspired by this tweet from @quatoria and by @capsule_169's tweet above
my use of text messages in Magic HRT and The Battery was entirely stolen from @Azure_Husky's Unknown Number
"Sarah" was inspired by this screencap of a tumblr post
Postcards From the End of the World by Victoria Scott hits hard and perfectly captures the loneliness of being alone in rural America, and its indelible mark will show up in anything I write that touches on those topics
the scene of "remembering" something that I never actually knew in "6U of Lesbianism" is related to the idea of reverse emulation, but I believe I came up with it independently
"NTSB Mosaic" was inspired almost entirely by this tweet from @caraesten, which just sent me own a rabbit hole
the fast electric motorcycles in The Witch of the Wires were lifted from the Pacific Standard heist in Grand Theft Auto V Online
certain aspects of "Lauren, Witch Queen of Cleveland" were inspired by Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion
Madoka Magica 3rd movie (Rebellion) spoilers

my story was inspired vaguely by Homura forgetting she was a witch and Madoka forgetting she was a god and by drunkenly looking in the mirror after watching the movie and poking my own face exactly like Lauren
the wikipedia format of Scituate Witch Trial was inspired by Basilisk collection by Blackle Mori and Lena by qntm
I wrote most of Eclipse Witch in a blur after the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse, which I saw none of behind the heavy rainclouds that day. I felt something powerful in the mid-day darkness that I hadn't felt anything quite like since I visited the bog in the Adirondacks that inspired Bog Witch
The Realm of Rough Telepathy by Ingrid Burrington and Meredith Whittaker has probably changed the way that I think about magic and computers
"Several Body Problem" was inspired by the idea of multiple bodies in Else's "The Glass Rod"
"Hyper-Efficiency" was inspired strongly by Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
about half of "Heatsinking" came to me while I was sick with COVID during the summer of 2024
the other half (especially the ambiguous ending) came from having read too many grainy photocopies of sci-fi short stories when I was a kid
the absurdly long title of "I Helped A Stranger Fare Evade On The MBTA And Now There's An Elven Mage On My Couch" came from the title length arms race in the light novel genre
most of the premise of "Transgendrification" came from "Your Type" by Kallie

of course, no accounting of my inspiration is complete without my wonderful friends, especially other writers on Twitter. I've bounced a lot of ideas off of my friends y les agradezco tanto para toda sus ayuda.