Thread:CarusELumen/@comment-226878-20140802233851

I'm writing a story that features three factions (dark, light, gray), a moon-world, super-powered men, technomanced soldiers, religious nuts, etc.

One day, my interest piqued for the manga Trinity Blood and so I went over and read up on it via the TB wiki. Almost identical. I was a little pissed at first but then I remembered I didn't care. I built my story off Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Twisted Princess art, and the Tropes website. I actually made a list of all of my favorite tropes and determined that they would all make an appearance in my story. It made it easier to build plots and connect characters.

I'm also writing a story about a bunch of genetically engineered telepaths with control over various elements who are up against a faction of terminator and transformer style machines. I was inspired by Rubedo, Nigredo, and Albedo (and Citrine) of Xenosaga to name my main characters according to the color of their hair. This was long before I'd ever heard of Monty Oum. When RWBY came out, I started to wonder if my thoughts were filtering into Monty's dreams. lol

You don't have to reinvent the wheel to be original. Your characters are your own. Your world is your own. Your intended audience may see connections to other works and, like Monty, that'll likely irritate you because it wasn't intentional. My best advice is to look through your work diligently and identify anything that may be similar to other works. That way you can be prepared. You can own it. That's what I do. Anything that seems like it's been done somewhere else, I mark up to coincidence... unless of course, I did it on purpose. In either case, I build off of it. It may make it stand out more or it may bury it so it becomes unrecognizable. At least, I know it leaves me satisfied. 