Ok so basically there's a bunch of characters/personalities that I love to no end and I take the best parts of them and implement them into my characters.
For example, the robot/android Wheatley from Portal 2/Blue Sky (fanfiction). He's an oblivious goofball, who's desperate to get out of the facility and out of GLaDOS's reach. However, he is also desperate and has a selfish streak, so once he is plugged into the mainframe of Aperture, he goes berserk and betrays the main character. However, in the fanfiction Blue Sky (which is so in-character I consider it canon) Wheatley realizes the rewards of helping others/not caring only about himself.
I'm currently developing a fan-character inspired by Wheatley. And that's the reality of fiction- nothing is really original, but a unique combination of ideas that already existed. I'm curious- what characters inspired your OC's?
Funnily enough, a lot of game characters inspired me too lol. One of my main inspirations is Lucas from Mother 3 (a game that you've probably never heard of). He's adorable and has the most depressing life ever. For example, basically the first thing that happens is the game is that Lucas, his twin brother Claus, and his mother are visiting their grandfather while their father has stayed at home. Innocent and fun enough, right? Well, they should have returned home hours ago and are still missing. The whole town goes searching for them and they find Lucas and Claus, who appear to have fallen into the river and washed up in the place where they were found, but their mother is still missing. Oh yeah, I forgot to add that the twins are nine at the start of the game. But anywho, a man soon comes up with a drago (creature in the game kinda like a normally friendly trex) fang, saying that he found it in the mother's chest. The father is overcome with anger and he starts beating people up. So they have a funeral and the father is temporarily in jail. When the father goes to the grave and finds Lucas, who has apparently been crying at his mother's grave for two weeks, he discovers that Claus has taken a homemade knife and gone to avenge their mother. The game shows you Claus, dead in the gorge, but the characters don't know this. This inspires a three year search during which Lucas's father forgets that he exists because he is busy with Claus. Lucas eventually goes to search himself, discovers some friends and things along the way, and finds his brother. However, Claus is not the same. He has been revived, in a way, but is still sort of half dead. Later on, Lucas has no choice but to fight his brother, but he can't attack. He couldn't bring himself to hurt Claus. However, both twins start hearing their mother's voice during their fight, and Claus seems to remember himself. He takes off his mask. Lucas has a badge that repels all lightning attacks, and Claus knows this. Claus charges up a powerful lightning attack and shoots it at Lucas, effectively killing himself. He embraced Lucas before dying. Lucas's father picks up Claus and speaks to Lucas. "Claus was hasty… that's all. You'll forgive your hasty brother, won't you?" Lucas then pulls out the final needle and saves the island. He returns a hero, but he has lost his mother and his second half.
(I apologize for the wall of text)
Most of my characters end up having one of my personality traits as one of their defining character traits, actually. I don't even try to, it just happens as I get more and more accustomed to writing them.
I'm actually working on a fanfic dating sim thing based off of a bunch of Youtubers, kind of like Asagao Academy. Most of the cast in that so far are fictional versions of Youtubers, or people that've shown up in their videos. And one of those characters has a love interest, Asher, who use to be heavily inspired by Sebastian from Stardew Valley. They're both jaded and snarky, and even have similar hair, but Asher is a total family man where Sebastian is more jealous of his stepsister, and though Sebastian's job isn't taken seriously, Asher's is really… sketchy, to say the least.
If you look at it a certain way, all of my characters are self-inserts to some degree. Most of them have some sort of trait in common with me, then I build them out from there. It's mostly accidental, though.
I do have a character whose design is based off of Rogue from Fairy Tail, and honestly hate how similar they are, but over time, my character has become his own person. Also, funny story, I have quite a few times created side characters with lots of similarities to my boyfriend, and when they were created, we hadn't really met yet. Then again, some of my characters have similarities to real-life people whom I probably subconsciously draw inspiration from.
Additionally, in one of my stories, most of the characters have powers, and a lot of their personalities are influenced by what kind of powers they have.
I tend to draw from both real experiences, my own experiences, and fiction. I used to base my characters on myself more often than I do now, though. I've based two of my characters loosely off of myself, one of those characters is also slightly based on Lance from Voltron (basically just the flirting and sharpshooting), one of my characters off of my sister, one of my characters off of a teacher i once had, one of my characters off of my best friend, one of my main characters sometimes reminds me of Jane Eyre, etc. It's kinda random, but usually my characters end up being an amalgamation of myself, people I know, and fictional characters.
All characters are based on people I know.
Ethan is based on my boyfriend.
Mariana is my best friend
Mama Terra is based on my favorite teacher.
The list goes on.
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