Shout Out / Maria Campbell of the Astral Clocktower

• A Katarina Interlude, which is written in the format of Worm's in-universe Parahuman Online forums.
• In the second Katarina Interlude, the Katarina council discuss the possibility of reincarnating in Fate/stay night, Life Is Strange, and Doki Doki Literature Club!, referring to the latter two as weird American Otome games.
• A one-off character who planned to confess to Katarina is named Lady Monika Just, making her an Expy of Monika from Doki Doki Literature Club!, with the "Just" part being the Arc Words given in her introduction of "Just Monika". She's also the one who finds Marcioness Dieke's unconscious body hanging upside-down from the school flagpole.
• In Katarina's Dream Sequence, Acchan talks about getting together with some guys to try out something called Sachiko Ever After.
  • Referenced again in the 'VaatiVidya' interlude parody, which says that Elden Ring was delayed again because Japan is experiencing a 'middle school murder-ghost crisis'.
• Several of the new routes in Fortune Lover include an Isekai Hero ending starring Kazuma and Megumin, and a DLC route starring Sienna, OG!Katarina's best friend shown only in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!'s spinoff, On the Verge of Doom!.
• Katarina's name from her past life is revealed to be Yamada Tae, the unawake zombie idol from Zombieland Saga. This turns into full-blown Composite Character in sidestories and omakes.
• An omake directly references and features a similar plot to that of Through the Looking Glass (My Next Life as a Villainess), where the Maria and Katarina of this story end up meeting their Light Novel counterparts.
• Diana Cavendish, a noble who joins the student council during Maria's second year, who is named after and acts like her namesake from Little Witch Academia.
• The King of Sorcier, Artorias Stuart, who was teased for being easily mistaken for a maiden, reminiscent of Saber, i.e. the female King of Camelot who hid her gender, Artoria Pendragon from Fate/stay night.
• The Student Festival's play is basically Tangled, rewritten with lore elements of Dark Souls mixed in.
• After rescuing the kidnapped Katarina, the carriage used to return everyone to the castle belongs to one Dame Lalatina Dustiness.
• The Gatekeeper at the palace is named Zull. To add to that, the Castle Keymaster goes by "Vince".^note As in Vince Klortho, Keymaster of Gozer the Gozerian.
• Kent Ashmore, "the Fiery Ryu of the West". Fire mage, slaver, rapist, murderer – he's pretty much Lung from Worm with the serial numbers filed off, alongside his bomb-throwing, dust-clone-making second-in-command Demon Lionel, or Oni Lee.
• After falling unconscious for several days, Maria "discovered that in bed she had not been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.". Similarly, when Rafael woke, he had not turned into 'a monstrous, verminous giant locust man'.
• The last time a student needed retroactive approval to miss classes due to acts of heroism was when a potter's son, a brash red-headed boy, and a bookish girl went to save some classmates from a wannabe evil overlord. Unfortunately, the first two died in the process, and the girl awakened her Superpowered Evil Side and had to be put down for the good of the kingdom. And that's why you should always tell a teacher when you discover where your missing classmates are being held captive.
• Night Fall, an in-universe series of novels spanning 364 volumes and penned by Annabel Crème, is a reference to another in-universe series of novels from Little Witch Academia (2017), down to the name, number of books, and most recent author being Annabel.
• The leader of Maria's men-at-arms, specifically titled her "Armsmaster", is a halberdier named Colin.
• A noble girl called Lady Redmane who features prominently at Katarina's sleepover mentions being in love with a girl called Nancy Hightown, and whose preferred choice of weapon is a scythe. This makes her a fairly obvious Expy of Fate Testarossa from Lyrical Nanoha – Testarossa is the Italian word for "redhead", while "Hightown" is the literal translation of Takamachi. (Meanwhile, Nancy is said to wield a spear, which Raising Heart's Exelion Mode strongly resembles in her home series.)
• Maria reads the story of the fallen Kingdom of Tasmenia due to the actions of the treacherous Queen Yuri, called The Vile, The Seductress, The Bastard, and The Wasteful, and of Iris, The Duchess of Armelia, who invented chocolate and tried to rebel against Queen Yuri to save the kingdom.
• The Wheel of Time:
  • One of the blacksmiths is Master Perrin.
  • The mayor and innkeeper of Raven's Edge Brandon Alvere, which sounds a lot like Brandelwyn "Bran" al'Vere, especially with a daughter Edgewin (Egwene).
  • The Nyneve Almera of Maria's home town sounds and acts much like Nynaeve al'Meara.
• The Claes family duchy is named as Morpork. The Adeths (Katarina's mother's family) are the Dukes and Duchesses of Hasard.
• Katarina's extended family from her mother's Adeth family all are an Expy of various characters, and confirmed a commenter's speculation as to some of their identities:
  • Her aunt Leona Romani, short for Leonarudo, and her husband Saloman, and her cousins Matthew, and twins Olga and Marie are all from Fate/Grand Order, being Leonardo da Vinci, Dr. Romani aka Solomon, Mash Kyrielight^note Her first name was mistranslated as Matthew on a Valentine item picture before it was corrected. and Olga Marie Animusphere who appears to have be split into twins embodying the two sides of her original character's Tsundere mannerisms; Olga being the tsun side, while Marie being the dere.
  • Her aunt Sheryl, short for Sherringford, and her wife Henriette are Sherlock Shellingford and Henriette Mystère from Tantei Opera Milky Holmes as confirmed in this post. Even Henriette's Maiden name, Arsene, is the name of her Alter-Ego in the series. Furthermore, their son from Henriette's previous marriage, Watson Arsene, seems to be a reference to Sherlock Holmes; Watson being Sherlock Holmes' famous companion, which goes well with the aunts being Sherlock references themselves.
  • Finally there are Uncle Henry's wives, Viola and Eileen, as well as their daughters Adella and Iosefka, each NPCs from Bloodborne. Uncle Henry is likely Henryk, the partner of Viola's canonical husband Gascoigne and who is actually Viola's father in the same source material.
• Katarina, when postulating that her meeting with her extended family is a setup for a sequel game that has Katarina return as the villainess, wails internally and calls for Fallen God, the one who singlehandedly revived the galge genre, to send her his advice on how to get a golden ending.
• Upon realising that Katarina was the one who acted as translator for Maria's slaves, is the fiancée of the Third Prince, and that all the rumors about the fiancée^note such as being a Saintess, being so beautiful that everyone who meets her fall in love with her, being so connected and cunning that she knows a multitude of people of various high-ranking positions, being loved by nobility and commoners alike, and seemingly knows everyone's hidden secrets (and can look straight at Nicol without falling in love) are about her, and that she is so dense and humble that she denies that any one of them (except the Nicol one) is true, Olga wails internally at the situation "like a salaryman killed by a train who had managed to piss off a godlike being."
• Sir Sanya Espera, a dark-skinned knight who has become quite enamored with Maria's firearms. (His surname being short for Esperacchius, the source character's signature weapon.)
• One of the knights summoned alongside Maria for her mission is a Sir Kal Elstrom of the Blue Sentinels, who wears formfitting blue armor, uses wind magic to enhance his movements, and fights with a spear named Sylphrena.
  • One of the other knights on that mission, Thom Olvar, wields a curved sword and dagger, wears light green armor and a helm shaped like a dragon's head, and his dagger has a flute built into it that his wyvern companion loves to listen to.
• One of the Ashina that Maria rescues who later becomes her personal maid is named Sadako. Her most notable feature is her long, dark hair that covers most of her face like a curtain and revealing only an eye. At one point, she is even described as looking "like a corpse that just crawled out of a well to devour the Dark Souls of the living."
  • Additionally, Sadako is revealed to be roommates with three other women: Kayako, Hanako, and Tomie.
  • The author clarified that she looks like Inugami Isuzu before she started putting her hair up.
• The pair of accountants working for Lady Lalatina are twin redheads named Jade and Amber Sevenights (a.k.a. Hisui and Kohaku Nanaya). Another accountant recruited by Selena Berg, Joanna Harker, is a genderbent version of Johnathan Harker, the lawyer sent to meet with Count Dracula. The scene where they first meet Maria is also inspired by Dracula (1931).
• One of the knights at Sir Cett's party is a Dame Ruby Vardan, who triggers a discussion over whether it's possible to integrate the gehrman's parts into a preexisting weapon – upon discovering that, yes, it can be done with a bit of work, she mentions wanting to create a scythe-rifle trick weapon.
  • Brief mention is also made of her wife, Lady Eira (Welsh for "snow", which in German becomes "Schnee").
• Among the decorations built in preparation for Maria's housewarming party includes… a gazebo. (Only a mockup, sadly, as Maria hasn't yet had time to go slay one herself.)
• The various foreign delegations for the International Assembly are rife with these:
  • The head of the Xiarmah entourage is identified as First Queen of Sword Sungs Xiulan, with her primary attendant-slash-bodyguard being a somewhat heavyset man known as Po the Black, hailed as the Dragon Warrior.
  • Dead Achmed wearing the Master's Set is inspired by multiple Achmeds, but takes his name from Achmed the Dead Terrorist.
  • Steve Armstrong and his five knights are not actually a reference to Desperado leader Steven Armstrong per Word of God. It may be a reference to Voltes V, where the English name of the leader is Steve Armstrong.
  • Queen Mylene Almeria of Tasmeria, wife of former-Marquis now-King Leon. Included among their retinue are Duke Folken Fanel, his younger brother Van, Van's wife Hitomi, and their knight Rein Chelka.
  • One of Mary's contacts at the Assembly is Baroness Anastasia Cisarovna.
  • The delegation from Etran is represented by the mercantile house Argent Silver, headed by Councilor Victoria Ivanova. Later, one of the delegates introduces herself to Sophia by the name Jennifer Ecks.
  • Donnar Horntuba, the Lord Presider of La Sable. He apparently surrounds himself with good-looking yet unskilled people to the point where Katarina is requested to act as the go-between translator. He is also poor with etiquette, constantly interrupting or complaining about something or another.

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