Inspirations Behind Your Characters

[canisaries]

This question popped into my mind and it seemed like one better suited for a forum thread than just a Storycrafter ping. So:

What - or who - are some inspirations behind your characters? Have they been inspired by some other fictional character or some real person you've known? Has seeing some character or some story helped you flesh out specific characters? Did you want to send some specific message or prove a point by writing a character the way they are?

I know I have inspirations I want to talk about, but I'll let a few others go first. The floor is yours!

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa was written out of spite against the 'perfect' protagonists I'd see in certain fanfics, where they'd get the coolest starter, be really skilled or have no real flaws, and get tons of cool pokemon that were very rare and strong. And out of spite against the low points of the pokemon anime, featuring blatant stupidity or pointless moments of messing up obvious stuff. Also they always felt shallow and lacking in a certain amount of 'grit'

I wanted to create a kid that felt real. One who'd get angry, make dumb mistakes, and make poor judgements, but actually learn from them too. Who could be smart and try cool stuff and be neat.

He also bears more than a passing resemblance to BW2's rival. Mostly cause years ago when I was trying to design him and had no cool art friends, I needed a mental basis, so I ended up picking this dude. Which... is pretty fitting. He once punched out a member of plasma, and is fairly hotheaded.



I also loved subverting and/or doing stuff different from the norm, so I really wanted to make someone who didn't care about the league or becoming champion. So I went with 'explorer/loves legendaries'. I was quite tired of reading about someone who just wanted to be champion because.

So yeah, spite, subversion, and a mix of some things I really love in the pokemon world.

 

[bluesidra]

Man, I really wished I could answer that question in a cool way, but truth is, there is no real inspiration behind my characters. I know my entire story feels like I've pulled it out of a hat, but my characters are, in fact, an assortment of random traits that I've partially pulled out of a hat, partially engineered.

I wanted my main duo to have a fun dynamic. Leon was set in stone from the very beginning (he is canon, so inspiration is a... erm... given). He's the one I have an excellent feel for. And then I divided him into his core traits and made Hana the opposite in, like, 80% of them. For the rest I was going with striking similarities, until I thought "Yes, that might work."
No point to prove, nothing. I just want to see where that story goes.

No wait, one point to prove, maybe. I decided on Hana being of Galarian/Kantonian mixed heritage because I wanted to explore the struggles of someone who is treated a foreigner in both their parents' cultures, and how a sense of belonging can form, even if you aren't deeply ingrained in a culture by just interacting with the community. Making Leon PoC actually followed in that regard.

At first I had some major difficulties getting into Hana's head, though. So one big inspiration for getting me into that headspace was Nina from Black Swan. She's not 100% Hana, but her controlling behaviour and anxiety are really telling, as well as her body type and the whole ballet thing obviously. Hana's general character design is a straight up nod to Nina, down to the scarf. But that style is about to change as Hana starts to outgrow her source.
Other than that I have a board on pinterest to get into her "aesthetic".

Left is Nina, in case someone doesn't remember her, and right is my most used reference for getting into her headspace and as inspiration to keep on writing.

 

[BossCar]

Valen's basically a one man rebellion against love=/=lust, love=/=romance, and I like the emphasis on platonic relationships. He's also....kinda a stereotype breaker? Since he's not afraid to show hos emotions or to be sensitive.

But he's also Guzma fused with this guy and def. others:


Rosa and Hilda are heavily Masters based, with Hilda also being merged with her manga counterpart.

 

[K_S]

hmm while not a 'mon story I've an OC that I based off of two people I know and a bit of research in various catholic theology.

Father tylor sancrest (from a tales of fanfic) was a mix match of an old writing teacher, from my old mentor I drew the mans free style whimsy. An old aquaintnace who was rather dogged in his dogma was in my life about the time that teacher was and I wound up stappling those two traits together when drawing up his personality.

At first as a challenge. I couldnt see how it could work... Then when i found a way to make it work I wound up keeping the character and expanding his role in the story making an AU where he surplants the main hero in Symphonia and between him and his protogee Colette derails the whole Regeneration (aka the whole 4000 year in the making plot) by accident and with an act of kindness. Him by sparing a child soilder and his trainee in the preisthood by unthinkingly rescuing "the enemy" and defanging a hostile faction by a blood/life debt.

I think someone did some art for him ages ago... One second....

This is a variation of him from Shards....

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Granted, Jirarudan is a canon character that I didn't come up with, but he's like 1% fleshed out and 99% free space so by golly am I taking advantage of that. And my realization of "huh, he's got a fair number of autistic traits" somehow turned into "I'm going to get some ISSUES out by howdy!" in how he deals with the world and his eventual detachment from things.

One may think Veronica was a vent character but no, her being a neurotic wreck was a later addition after she had the line about how someone with Cresselia would never have nightmares again. So that's basically all her, hahaha...oh boy.

 

[LiquidMadMan]

The main character of my story PMD Wildcard, Elias Amnael (or just Eli for short) came about from a combination of ideas and goals for my story.

I decided to make him a Riolu (and later on Lucario) not really because its a popular choice for a main character in Pokémon stories, but because I just felt like that species would make a good fit for a protagonist for a shonen-esque, action-adventure story set in the PMD world.

As for his backstory and general role in the story, I would say that part of him was most inspired by Gon Freecss from Hunter X Hunter. Like Gon, he is searching for his family members throughout most of the story and everything he does is in service of that goal. I also liked how proactive Gon was in his series, and that coincidentally lined up with my preference for having an explicitly proactive protagonist.

As for his personality, I had always wanted him to be a rebellious and free-spirited character in his teens. This led me to basing a lot of his personality traits on some of the main characters from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

• Joseph Joestar: Hotheaded, roguish, utilization of trickery in battle, contempt for authority, cool and clever 50% of the time, a clumsy goofball the other 50%.
• Josuke Higashikata: Protective of those he cares about, courageous, confident.
• Giorno Giovanna: Possesses great resolve, stubborn, resourceful, incredibly observant, willing to show no mercy if necessary.

Essentially, he can be thought of as somewhat of a combination of all three of these characters. There are a few more aspects of him that I haven't fully thought through yet, so for now that's what he's inspired from!

I've also attached a pic of him that I recently got from 1Apple-Fox1 on DeviantArt.