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As I get these up to date, I'm going to cross-post them from *datenshikurai here and put the original in storage. All but Briar Eclipse really need updating...

ALSO: LET THIS BE A DECLARATION THAT NANOWRIMO IS ON, BITCHES.

I always have to add something to any meme I take--so here I am, making a separate map for each of my stories to show their individual roots! This one's for the social commentary born in the form of an epic poem about an apocalypse born from the death of technology, Wake.

So here's `fox-orian 's Influence Meme.

Modernist Poetry T.S. Eliot's poetry has a huge place in my heart, especially The Waste Land and "Gerontion." I've already quoted both in "Overload Syndrome" [link] (which, if you haven't yet read it, I highly recommend it!); but, with due cause--"OS" is thematically linked with Wake. Relevant in a spectrum of context: the impotence of a fallen civilization, crestfallen in an era far beyond its prime; or on the individual level, a man constantly cuckolded by his pursuits as he falls short of his dreams as they seem to be fulfilled by anyone but himself. Larkin's also got his teeth in me, though stuff like The Less Deceived has less influence on Wake than on my other poetry. Postmodernist literature also has had an impact upon me, but mostly only in philosophy.

Urban Fungi The weirdest fungi occur closest to civilization. Stinkhorns like this lattice stinkhorn are usually found curbside, in fact. A symbol of societal autolysis.

Jarman's Jubilee It's become a mainstay in my media collection from the moment I learned about Jarman's work last year. The roots of London punk, complemented with (or clashed against?) classic literary genres. In Wake, this movement takes the forefront of human culture, and mashups of whatever can be salvaged comprise exactly what's en vogue. The most contemporary and the least contemporary, in complement (or contradiction?) with one another. I'm quite sure there will be analogues to Borgia Ginz and many others. I really need to work at coloring up the human figureheads.

Kiki's Delivery Service My first major influence of witchery. I can't even describe how much I've wanted to be in Kiki's position, and any time I'm in a depressed rut creatively, I usually get reinspired by watching it. From these childlike aspirations, she's singlehandedly the reason I set out to write Wake (followed closely by CCS and my obsession with dystopian metropolises). I still haven't yet decided whether the witches will have familiars like Jiji.

Historical Military Fashion One of the mainstays of the punk movement, of course, military fashion survives many, many decades before becoming unwearable. Many areas in Wake's version of the world have become uninhabitable due to pollution and stagnation, so any traveler very much needs a gas mask.

Trivia The witch-goddess is one of the liminal deities, "the goddess of the three pathways." To some, Hecate is considered another name for Diana and close friend to Ceres. She stole young women away to train them in her ways, and they later became nymphs. Witches in Wake were stolen away, and have since become equally, neurotically fixated in their own ways. (Also known as Hekate and Hecate; a common epithet for her in Wake will be "she of the Three Ways.")

Lammergeiers Vultures kick ass. So does facial hair. These are vultures with facial hair. 'Nuff said. (Although Neophron's overall aesthetic is based on the Lammergeier vulture, his name is from the less influential half of his vulture-like appearance, the Egyptian vulture, N. percnopterus.) Their scleric eyes and streaked facial features are indicative of the appearance of the witches of Wake, symbolic of the glamer born in them by their foster mother Hecate.

Old Downtown Fort Worth, Texas I only in revamping this influence map realized my initial obsession with ghost metropolises. I grew up in West Fort Worth. My mother usually would run errands in downtown Fort Worth during downtimes of traffic, when there was essentially no one around, and I'd tag along with her, in the back seat. A lot of downtown Fort Worth was constructed between 1900-1960, so there're a lot of art deco buildings. These buildings show their age, and during my childhood many of them were not in use so they were dilapidated, abandoned, or both. Several buildings in particular have been of especial influence on my fixation on large, abandoned buildings, federal buildings usually, like the Social Security Office. Two in particular were always rather foreboding to me, the post office, and right next to it, the Pacific Railway Terminal (pictured in the tile here). Until recently the only thing the PRT was used for was paintball and haunted houses, and many of the windows were broken or missing for many, many years. It was restored and turned into high end lofts last year. The inside looks like the apartment building in Ghostbusters, super decked out in gilt and mirrors. The fixtures all look like originals/reclamations. (Other buildings that have stricken me that aren't art deco era are the Montgomery Ward building and the Fort Worth Library. Many of the stock yards related buildings near University Dr. are art deco as well, especially the clock tower.) I mention that the PRT is next door to the post office because it always cast a shadow on the parking lot during the times that I'd be in the car with my mother, and its run-down appearance was very unsettling to me as a child. I always watched the buildings in utter fascination (and a mild, naive concern that buildings like the PRT weren't actually abandoned and filled with unknown criminals and creatures) anytime I went downtown with her. Art deco architecture, I feel, is quite sterile and imposing--not to mention, very overpoweringly opulent.

Yuuko I've only seen the xxxHolic movie and the Tsubasa movie, so my exposure to this witch is really limited, but she is so utterly fascinating, and her style so exotic to me. And her means of exchange for indulging favors is so wonderfully, perfectly that of a witch.

Nikola Tesla The quintessential modern day Prometheus and the initial catalyst of this particular dystopia. To quote my friend Matt DeVore's initial response to the first two stanzas of Wake, "It's one thing to take fire - the by-product of a lightning strike - and distribute it to the people, but to steal the very lightning from Zeus's hand and funnel it into civilization in those 'insolences borne of wire' is a far greater sin." If you don't think the fellow is fascinating, then you just haven't read about him. Seriously.

Art Deco I've always wanted a reason to have art deco be the prevailing style of design for one of my stories, and I finally got it with Wake. Tesla died in '43, during the tail-end of the Art Deco Movement. Corrupted geometry is just so appealing to me. The painting in the tile is Frieda Harris's XVI - The Tower for Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot deck.

Outmoded Technology Without the electricity to run them, what use is technology? Where would the first world be without its reliance upon technology? Where would the whole world be without technology supporting it? Infrastructure would cease to exist, would collapse on itself. Knowledge, of course, is the biggest loss. (It boiled my blood the first time I walked into the library and noticed the call number index had been reduced to scrap paper in lieu of the search engines of computers. I'm still pissed that they have the gall to keep the drawers on display like they're some kind of unimportant relic, when even to this day there are occasions where the computers fail and there's no other option but to have known the Dewey number to begin with!)

Dystopian Ghost Metropolises Ghost towns are interesting enough, but ghost metropolises? Crumbling skyscrapers, decimated highways, completely overgrown federal buildings, abandoned vehicles... Gorgeously haunting. (I always used to exaggerate how few people seemed to inhabit downtown Fort Worth as a child. See my notes on Fort Worth for a more complete background on my fixation.) Of course, downtown Fort Worth's semi-abandoned appearance two decades ago isn't my only interest in the "corpses" of cities--for as long as I've known about the way many European cities are built upon the remains of their predecessors (especially British cities like London), I've been enamored with city ruins. (It's also the main reason I love Ravnica so much.) The third related influence is, of course, the bomb shelters of the 21st Century that were built to protect entire cites worth of people, but are now almost entirely abandoned.

Old World Colossi Stuff like "Ozymandias" and the Colossus of Rhodes are quite thematically influential, moreso "Ozymandias" due to the analogy to Ramses II one can make with my coloring of Tesla in Wake.

Mercury Liminal deities are the best. Mercury's the Sand-Man, the Grim Reaper, and the messenger of the gods, all in one! And he has talaria aurea. How can you top that! I'm very heavily leaning toward having the witches be in similar fashion to the Lares. Modern-day Herms/phalloi, both remaining and current day, are going to be very important. (Also known as Mercury; a common epithet for him in Wake will be "the Cyllenian." I will be chiefly using Roman names.)

Cardcaptor Sakura I have always wanted to see a male counterpart series to CCS. Rhys is, essentially, Sakura-chan, I suppose one could compare. The outfit in the tile is one from the second movie, and it has always been one of my favorites. Neophron's color scheme is influenced by it.

Fashion from 1900-1950 Wake tells a tale of a societal foetor that begins developing in the Forties and takes full hold in the late Eighties. Much of "current day" does not survive the plagues and destruction, but what does survive is chiefly from the first half of the Twentieth Century. The style of human characters in Wake is going to be very much art deco era -meets- punk rebelliousness. The anachronistic clash is so indicative of the defiant and begrudged attitude humanity has against the gods in this postapocalypse. Sort of a "we're still living it up even though you absolutely destroyed us." The spirit for humanity to live on. Despite the thumbnail for the tab, I will be including international fashion influences, especially Southern Asia.

Description
As I get these up to date, I'm going to cross-post them from *datenshikurai here and put the original in storage. All but Briar Eclipse really need updating...

ALSO: LET THIS BE A DECLARATION THAT NANOWRIMO IS ON, BITCHES.

I always have to add something to any meme I take--so here I am, making a separate map for each of my stories to show their individual roots! This one's for the social commentary born in the form of an epic poem about an apocalypse born from the death of technology, Wake.

So here's `fox-orian 's Influence Meme.

Modernist Poetry T.S. Eliot's poetry has a huge place in my heart, especially The Waste Land and "Gerontion." I've already quoted both in "Overload Syndrome" [link] (which, if you haven't yet read it, I highly recommend it!); but, with due cause--"OS" is thematically linked with Wake. Relevant in a spectrum of context: the impotence of a fallen civilization, crestfallen in an era far beyond its prime; or on the individual level, a man constantly cuckolded by his pursuits as he falls short of his dreams as they seem to be fulfilled by anyone but himself. Larkin's also got his teeth in me, though stuff like The Less Deceived has less influence on Wake than on my other poetry. Postmodernist literature also has had an impact upon me, but mostly only in philosophy.

Urban Fungi The weirdest fungi occur closest to civilization. Stinkhorns like this lattice stinkhorn are usually found curbside, in fact. A symbol of societal autolysis.

Jarman's Jubilee It's become a mainstay in my media collection from the moment I learned about Jarman's work last year. The roots of London punk, complemented with (or clashed against?) classic literary genres. In Wake, this movement takes the forefront of human culture, and mashups of whatever can be salvaged comprise exactly what's en vogue. The most contemporary and the least contemporary, in complement (or contradiction?) with one another. I'm quite sure there will be analogues to Borgia Ginz and many others. I really need to work at coloring up the human figureheads.

Kiki's Delivery Service My first major influence of witchery. I can't even describe how much I've wanted to be in Kiki's position, and any time I'm in a depressed rut creatively, I usually get reinspired by watching it. From these childlike aspirations, she's singlehandedly the reason I set out to write Wake (followed closely by CCS and my obsession with dystopian metropolises). I still haven't yet decided whether the witches will have familiars like Jiji.

Historical Military Fashion One of the mainstays of the punk movement, of course, military fashion survives many, many decades before becoming unwearable. Many areas in Wake's version of the world have become uninhabitable due to pollution and stagnation, so any traveler very much needs a gas mask.

Trivia The witch-goddess is one of the liminal deities, "the goddess of the three pathways." To some, Hecate is considered another name for Diana and close friend to Ceres. She stole young women away to train them in her ways, and they later became nymphs. Witches in Wake were stolen away, and have since become equally, neurotically fixated in their own ways. (Also known as Hekate and Hecate; a common epithet for her in Wake will be "she of the Three Ways.")

Lammergeiers Vultures kick ass. So does facial hair. These are vultures with facial hair. 'Nuff said. (Although Neophron's overall aesthetic is based on the Lammergeier vulture, his name is from the less influential half of his vulture-like appearance, the Egyptian vulture, N. percnopterus.) Their scleric eyes and streaked facial features are indicative of the appearance of the witches of Wake, symbolic of the glamer born in them by their foster mother Hecate.

Old Downtown Fort Worth, Texas I only in revamping this influence map realized my initial obsession with ghost metropolises. I grew up in West Fort Worth. My mother usually would run errands in downtown Fort Worth during downtimes of traffic, when there was essentially no one around, and I'd tag along with her, in the back seat. A lot of downtown Fort Worth was constructed between 1900-1960, so there're a lot of art deco buildings. These buildings show their age, and during my childhood many of them were not in use so they were dilapidated, abandoned, or both. Several buildings in particular have been of especial influence on my fixation on large, abandoned buildings, federal buildings usually, like the Social Security Office. Two in particular were always rather foreboding to me, the post office, and right next to it, the Pacific Railway Terminal (pictured in the tile here). Until recently the only thing the PRT was used for was paintball and haunted houses, and many of the windows were broken or missing for many, many years. It was restored and turned into high end lofts last year. The inside looks like the apartment building in Ghostbusters, super decked out in gilt and mirrors. The fixtures all look like originals/reclamations. (Other buildings that have stricken me that aren't art deco era are the Montgomery Ward building and the Fort Worth Library. Many of the stock yards related buildings near University Dr. are art deco as well, especially the clock tower.) I mention that the PRT is next door to the post office because it always cast a shadow on the parking lot during the times that I'd be in the car with my mother, and its run-down appearance was very unsettling to me as a child. I always watched the buildings in utter fascination (and a mild, naive concern that buildings like the PRT weren't actually abandoned and filled with unknown criminals and creatures) anytime I went downtown with her. Art deco architecture, I feel, is quite sterile and imposing--not to mention, very overpoweringly opulent.

Yuuko I've only seen the xxxHolic movie and the Tsubasa movie, so my exposure to this witch is really limited, but she is so utterly fascinating, and her style so exotic to me. And her means of exchange for indulging favors is so wonderfully, perfectly that of a witch.

Nikola Tesla The quintessential modern day Prometheus and the initial catalyst of this particular dystopia. To quote my friend Matt DeVore's initial response to the first two stanzas of Wake, "It's one thing to take fire - the by-product of a lightning strike - and distribute it to the people, but to steal the very lightning from Zeus's hand and funnel it into civilization in those 'insolences borne of wire' is a far greater sin." If you don't think the fellow is fascinating, then you just haven't read about him. Seriously.

Art Deco I've always wanted a reason to have art deco be the prevailing style of design for one of my stories, and I finally got it with Wake. Tesla died in '43, during the tail-end of the Art Deco Movement. Corrupted geometry is just so appealing to me. The painting in the tile is Frieda Harris's XVI - The Tower for Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot deck.

Outmoded Technology Without the electricity to run them, what use is technology? Where would the first world be without its reliance upon technology? Where would the whole world be without technology supporting it? Infrastructure would cease to exist, would collapse on itself. Knowledge, of course, is the biggest loss. (It boiled my blood the first time I walked into the library and noticed the call number index had been reduced to scrap paper in lieu of the search engines of computers. I'm still pissed that they have the gall to keep the drawers on display like they're some kind of unimportant relic, when even to this day there are occasions where the computers fail and there's no other option but to have known the Dewey number to begin with!)

Dystopian Ghost Metropolises Ghost towns are interesting enough, but ghost metropolises? Crumbling skyscrapers, decimated highways, completely overgrown federal buildings, abandoned vehicles... Gorgeously haunting. (I always used to exaggerate how few people seemed to inhabit downtown Fort Worth as a child. See my notes on Fort Worth for a more complete background on my fixation.) Of course, downtown Fort Worth's semi-abandoned appearance two decades ago isn't my only interest in the "corpses" of cities--for as long as I've known about the way many European cities are built upon the remains of their predecessors (especially British cities like London), I've been enamored with city ruins. (It's also the main reason I love Ravnica so much.) The third related influence is, of course, the bomb shelters of the 21st Century that were built to protect entire cites worth of people, but are now almost entirely abandoned.

Old World Colossi Stuff like "Ozymandias" and the Colossus of Rhodes are quite thematically influential, moreso "Ozymandias" due to the analogy to Ramses II one can make with my coloring of Tesla in Wake.

Mercury Liminal deities are the best. Mercury's the Sand-Man, the Grim Reaper, and the messenger of the gods, all in one! And he has talaria aurea. How can you top that! I'm very heavily leaning toward having the witches be in similar fashion to the Lares. Modern-day Herms/phalloi, both remaining and current day, are going to be very important. (Also known as Mercury; a common epithet for him in Wake will be "the Cyllenian." I will be chiefly using Roman names.)

Cardcaptor Sakura I have always wanted to see a male counterpart series to CCS. Rhys is, essentially, Sakura-chan, I suppose one could compare. The outfit in the tile is one from the second movie, and it has always been one of my favorites. Neophron's color scheme is influenced by it.

Fashion from 1900-1950 Wake tells a tale of a societal foetor that begins developing in the Forties and takes full hold in the late Eighties. Much of "current day" does not survive the plagues and destruction, but what does survive is chiefly from the first half of the Twentieth Century. The style of human characters in Wake is going to be very much art deco era -meets- punk rebelliousness. The anachronistic clash is so indicative of the defiant and begrudged attitude humanity has against the gods in this postapocalypse. Sort of a "we're still living it up even though you absolutely destroyed us." The spirit for humanity to live on. Despite the thumbnail for the tab, I will be including international fashion influences, especially Southern Asia.