May '23 AMA (Patreon)

Ani-mam asks:

"I've always loved how lively your characters and dialogue are, are any of your characters based on/inspired by real people you know, or do your character concepts come from other sources? (IE Other literature, television, pulled-straight-from-the-depths-of-your-psyche-fully-formed)"

I've definitely never based a character on a real person; even were that not legally hazardous I'd find the idea creepy in the extreme.  I know a lot of authors have done that and I get why but it bothers me.

As for inspiration, generally...  Yeah, honestly, I take it from everywhere.  None of my characters have ever been meant to be expies or derivatives of any other specific character, but I absorb ideas from pretty much all narrative content I consume.  In truth, I don't believe any creator pulls anything fully formed from their own psyche, we all have our influences.  In my case, the influence is mostly subconscious; I form characters (and story elements and everything else) out of the mental backlog I have of years of accumulated stories, churned down to pulp and reconstituted into new and hopefully unique forms.

Too Much Sanity May Be Madness asks:

"On a scale of 0-100, where "0" is Seiji's described philosophy, that people can always be trusted to look out for number one, at the expense of others if necessary, but cooperatively if they can find some benefit in it for themselves (i.e. cynicism), and "100" is Rhydion's described philosophy, that people can always be trusted to _want_ to do good, even if they sometimes fail to do so because they lack the opportunity, ability, knowledge, etc. (i.e. idealism), where would you place yourself?"

I think they're both missing the point.  My classic answer to the question of whether people are basically good or basically evil is that people are basically people.  We are social animals prone to pattern-seeking behavior and some combination of those two traits is behind all our virtues and vices.  Morality, ultimately, is something we created to categorize our own actions in a way that is useful to us.

It all sounds very clinical, I know; there's a reason I chose to frame it in more conventional philosophical terms when juxtaposing Seiji and Rhydion, or indeed any two (or more) viewpoints in any of my stories.  Well, that reason and I'm not really interested in writing morality fables so much as exploring ideas from as many angles as possible.  I find discussions much more interesting than sermons.

Caleb Meyer asks:

"What's your favorite artifact you've come up with for OVDT?"

The Featherweight Tunic is the most interesting so far, in my opinion.  Shame it's been sidelined for plot reasons, but that's kind of the story of the whole magic system.  I intended to set up the Blessings system to enable a kind of shounen battle setting in which consistent yet interestingly diverse powers can be used against each other in ways that require strategy and innovation, and then wrote a story with relatively little in-person fights between Blessed.

Shou ga nai, inshallah, c'est la vie, shit happens.

Gail asks:

"Element you're most excited to expand on in the future?"

We're currently at the point in the story where the magic system and political systems have been established enough that I've just started to introduce the wrenches in the works that will be built into plot elements that disrupt them.  Soul magic and slime-based necromancy are big examples, but (being me) I'm also excited for the sociopolitical shockwaves Seiji is going to cause once he gains enough institutional and soft power.

Yrahcaz asks:

"What are some examples of Champion Perks associated with the Blessing of Wisdom?  (Artifact Creation is associated with the Blessing of Might, Spell Amplification and Spell Combination are associated with the Blessing of Magic, Blessing of Wisdom gets...?)  What makes those perks different from normal Wisdom perks?"

An interesting question, to which I do not have an answer.  Champion perks are the most troublesome part of the Blessing system to design, because they're designed to be game-breaking - but only up to a point.  That's very hard to balance.  I've only created the specific ones I needed for the story, which so far is just five: Seiji, Yoshi, Yomiko, and Satoshi's, plus the last one.  The Devil King's Champion perk is in fact Wisdom-related, but saying any more about it now would be big spoilers.

Aaradur asks:

"Hey there Webb! How are you doing today?"

I'm very tired but stubbornly optimistic.  So, normal for me.

Kingbob asks:

"What has Yoshi been up to since last we saw him? It's been a little while, plot wise"

RAFO!  He's got an upcoming bonus chapter and everything.

Big Brother asks:

"I can't think of anything I actually want to ask that won't probably be revealed later in the story, so I'll keep it memetic: does Seiji know the average air speed of an unladen swallow?"

He doesn't know and wouldn't get the reference.

Russell Todd asks:

"What are the odds that Virya is doing anything different/special with the people that get killed by Seiji’s Truck-kun?"

Zero.  Not that she wouldn't enjoy that gag, but soul magic is way too difficult and expensive for the goddesses to use so casually.

Sleepless asks:

"Can Seiji grow a beard? If so, how is he shaving?"

For a given value of "beard."  It's not a good look on him.  As with hygienic practices in general, he's learned to use the Ephemeral tools available, none of which I've felt was interesting enough to be worth an on-screen mention.  He'd have had a lot more trouble learning to use a straight razor without Heal.

Aaron Archer asks:

"Would it be okay with you if you scheduled yourself a mental health month? It doesn't seem that a week off is enough for you and I would be fine paying for the month with my avenist to keep your mind healthy. Despite the obvious, having you remember and also be engaged with the writing is just as important as our desire to read it. It leads to be tter outcomes for all of us. Maybe put up a poll for the avenist members to feel it out."

giom adds:

"Agreed with Aaron, mental health issues are tough and I absolutely wouldn’t mind paying a month where you take a mental health break."

I always appreciate how protective my readers are of me.  I know I say that a lot, but it always bears repeating: thank you for your concern, it means a lot.

This specifically is a good idea, which I know because I do take mental health months!  I give myself a month off at the end of every book before I launch the next one.  At the rate OVDT has been going, that ends up being once or twice a year, which is more vacation than most Americans get, so I've got zero cause to complain.

I know creative work doesn't exactly work that way.  Breaks are mostly to spare me the stress of having deadlines, and the stress of organizing my thoughts into readable words in the moments when they don't flow as cleanly.  Those are really the only two parts of my work that actually are stressful, which is good because I'm basically never not working.  Just as a result of the way my brain functions, I'm not even capable of not creating stories in my head.

So, most of the time it's fine, even though I am constantly working in some capacity the work in question is just my normal thought process and doesn't stress me.  The scheduled breaks I already take, and the occasional unscheduled one as needed, suffice to cover the rest.  More and longer scheduled breaks wouldn't really help much as that doesn't change the day-to-day fluctuations that are most of what causes me trouble.  That's just part of living with mental illness; sometimes everything grinds to an ignominious halt and has to be wound back up again.

Overmind_Slab asks:

"In OVDT, did you consider any other powers from the Goddess for Seiji aside from the combining spells perk? What about Yoshi?"

Basically same answer as to Yrahcaz's question: I didn't consider any Champion perks aside from the ones I absolutely needed to tell the story.  Seiji's was kind of baked into his character concept from the beginning, and in fact into the core conceit of the story, with the Enjoin mechanic forcing him to create a parody of a harem isekai.  That was so foundational to OVDT that I can't remember a time when I was planning the story and didn't have that down.  The others...  I just kinda came up with stuff that I thought would make them sufficiently OP to justify their role in the story without disrupting the whole thing too much.