Character Inspirations

[Zeven Ekkel]

First off, hallo!

It's really nice seeing these boards still up and all the familiar usernames from 2002-2003. I've been lurking and looking at old posts from a long time ago and it just brings back so much nostalgia (and cringey-ness on some of my old posts haha) :) Star Wars and nostalgia has brought me back to RP and hopefully you'll welcome me back. I used to go by Xenodoros Stormrider/Cold Blaine back in the day.

Actual topic:

Who/What are some of the inspirations that help you create your characters outside of Star Wars?

This can be people, films, characters, TV shows, books, etc.

I've been binge watching a lot of Doctor Who recently and I'm creating a character that will be immersed in the fantastic and unknown but I haven't concretely set this up yet.

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

Vissica has several influences. I'm a big fan of dour, honor-bound paladin sorts so she takes after folks like Lucius Vorenus in Rome and the guy in Guardians of the Galaxy who is super literal. She also has a displeasing voice (borrowed from a character Dee plays in a pen and paper RPG) but I imagine Vissica sounds like B'Etor Duras from Star Trek. Her fighting style is pretty pronounced in my mind and looks a lot like Siegfried in Soul Calibur, heaving a great huge sword at maximum power. She also has an unnatural sound to her voice when she uses the force to compel the truth, so it's similar to how the Bene Gesserit witches sound in David Lynch's Dune. I'm also a big fan of the dialogue cadence used by Darth Vader, and I try to employ the "less is more" effect when she is speaking.

Also she's a giant otter, so otters factor into that. She's bendy, and she kind of stinks.

[Jaden Luka]

I've been writing Jaden for years, but I recently switched over to using Chris Pratt as an image claim, and that helped things click a little. With Chris Pratt, it's less a matter of taking inspiration from him or any of his roles, and more a matter of "this is who I would cast to play this character", and then imagining my way through what their performance would be like. There's maybe some mannerisms and speech patterns thrown in there, but a big chunk of Jaden (in terms of his narrative at least) comes from the way my brain works. I have this (annoying) habit of turning everything into an analogy, so a lot of Jaden's narrative comes out in the form of piloting metaphors.

In terms of his actual character/personality, I guess there's a lot of Cameron Mitchell and John Sheppard from the Stargate franchise mixed in there. From Mitchell he gets that sense that he has come into this established situation and is constantly trying to prove himself, find his place, and make up for the fact that he hasn't been there all along. From Sheppard, he gets that aspect of being unexpectedly thrust into leadership, and that kind of "well okay then, this is how I'm going to do it" attitude. Like both of them, Jaden has a very clear idea of how his leadership style works, and that doesn't necessarily jive with what his superiors would prefer.

Also, there's a whole butt ton of inspiration from the X-Wing series in the old EU. He isn't supposed to be based on anyone specific, but thinking it over there are a few sprinkles of Gavin, Corran, Pash, and Tycho that have managed to sneak their way in.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

I think Aurelias Kazaar came about because I wanted to put Mister Blond from Reservoir Dogs into Star Wars. But since then he's gotten inspiration from Raymond Chandler, James Elroy (for a while his posts were a lot like how he wrote White Jazz), Frank Miller's Sin City, Sergio Leone, Elmore Leonard, and Tom Clancy. I think Robert Ludlum also has an inspiration too. But I've always seen Kazaar as being played by Michael Madsen, so I always hear him speaking Kazaar's voice. Some of Kazaar's political beliefs are mine too.


Dark Forces is also an inspiration because he uses the same blaster (Bryar pistol) as Kyle Katarn, plus some of the other weapons. The Flying Dutchman is also the same type of ship as Katarn's, but with a few extras.

[Rai'faani Meorrrei]

My youngest sister in law. I didn't even realize I was doing it until Christin pointed it out

[Zem Vymes]

A lot of Obi Wan influences for Zem, tempered with a bit of simple folksiness. Johnny Cash as an avatar helps to keep me grounded on that, because I can hear his voice in the words I write.

[Zeven Ekkel]

Also she's a giant otter, so otters factor into that. She's bendy, and she kind of stinks.

:lol

[Ham Warchenzbellsig]

This character is 40% Jek Porkins, 30% Nick Frost, 20% me, and 10% Dave Lister, I guess.

I have a place in my heart for fat pilots, and it's a shame that George Lucas killed a fat pilot every time he could. The Force Awakens finally let a fat pilot live, and it gave my heart wings in the process!

[Taataani Onashi]

Taa O. is a weird mishmash of Patty Mayonnaise, Jescoe White, Calamity Jane, Billy Jack, The Kid from Quick and the Dead, and Ronda Rousey.

She's also a product of her weird little world, which is somewhere between gypsies, buddhist monks, street urchins, and appalachian hill folk.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

I don't know if there's any specific inspiration for Draiya. I just had a strong inkling to write a tomboy character who has a lot of unique perspectives in terms of her upbringing on a slum world and then on Ossus. She's best when she's stuck as not quite fitting in, and so having her as a human on a Cizerack world and then this prideful little terror on Ossus work for her growth. I kidded at one point that she's what Vegeta would have been if he was a tween girl, and maybe that's not too far off haha. I guess there's also a little bit of that blind girl from Avatar to her.

[Serasai Onashi]

Manji from Blade of the Immortal with a healthy dollop of Ranma from Ranma 1/2; Deadpool.

[Kazahan]

Khajiit, obviously. There's gypsy and bedouin influences in him also, but Kazahan and many other characters of mine tend to be moulded around concepts and themes and not other characters per se. Kazahan was made to be a Jedi but also as an exercise in how culture influences the way we think and see the world.

[Daria Nytherciria]

My main inspiration for Daria was initially, and still to some extent is, Bastila Shan (from Knights of the Old Republic). Initially rigidly firm in her slightly antiquated principles, but over time she has softened some what. I still see her as someone who has difficulty with trust and perhaps a more black and white perception of the Galaxy than others.

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[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

I don't think there's a real 'individual/person' type influence for s'Il. There's a bit of me in her yes, but I've come to use her to explore a whole mess of themes more than anything else. She's really become a vessel of unlucky experimentation, I suppose.

[Sam Porter]

Sam is a bit of Sweet Dee, but the majority of her is based on the oldschool pre-reset Kyryanu. Wild, a bit unhinged, and beholden to the great Detonator Countdown in the sky. I suppose there's a bit of the Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight in her blood (50 points if you get that).

[KHER]

KHER is very much based on my grandfather. An ironworker with a strange mix of patience and gruff. Way back in the day, he was going through medical school, but went into construction at the urging of my grandmother. He's incredibly brilliant. But when you reach the end of his patience, heaven help you. And usually to get to that point you have to really screw up. He's grumpy, but it's a fascinating sort of grumpy, and you're just utterly drawn in to not only him as a person, but his stories just as much.

[Eluna Thals]

There are so many influences for me writing Eluna that they're hard to count (Aside from the obvious Guri connections in Shadows of the Empire). I keep updating the model with new data (Fallout Four, The Machine, Ex Machina) but one of the ones I keep coming back to is one of my favorite animes: Gunslinger Girl. The notion of a machine girl that isn't entirely a person or a machine and has her agency and life stolen (even if it's for a possibly good reason) is haunting and tragic to me. It's also extremely depressing and has been very difficult for me to write since I kind of emotionally invest when I write.

I found a little silver lining with writing some very innocent and sweet little vignettes where she gets to at least pretend to be happy and her own person. For that, she definitely gets little notes of Ariel from the Little Mermaid, which is one of my favorite Disney movies. There's a touch of French cinema thrown in for whimsy, a hint of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and those bits capture some of her happier times.

Her digispace is a mix of a lot of things. A bunch of Daft Punk music, a little visual imagery from Tron and surrealist stuff like Pan's Labyrinth, and another touch of another anime - Melfina, from Outlaw Star. They both share this digital menagerie, a sort of safe place that also doubles at times as a prison.

Eluna can't separate the good from the bad, the happy from the sad. So she has to remain very delicate and complicated.

[Vansen Tyree]

Colonel Tigh is the obvious seed where this character came from, with a decent amount of Admiral Adama mixed in, but I guess most of it comes from me and my health situation. Accepting that you aren't capable of doing the things you used to define yourself by is hard, and that feeling that you only keep going for the sake of keeping going is probably pretty familiar to anyone who's had brushes with depression. The positive side of that coin is that it's pushed me into having Vansen forge stronger bonds with the people immediately around him; same coping mechanism I have with all of you guys.

There's a lot of General Hammond from Stargate and movie-era Captain Kirk mixed in there as well: not so much the personality in the latter part, but certainly that stubborn/desperate refusal to become obsolete. It's no accident that Vansen's sort-of nemesis is General Chang painted green: The Undiscovered Country is a really strong source of inspiration for how Vansen feels about the transition into Alliance of Free Planets. There's some Gandalf inspiration in there as well, and that'll become more obvious as Vansen starts cobbling together more of a family as the story moves forward - that sense of weariness and worry, that gruff attitude of being fed up of dwarf shenanigans and that fool of a Took; and also that warm heart buried underneath.

[Delgado Xaanan]

Delgado's inspirations are hard to pin down, and are even harder to explain because there are certain elements that haven't come into play yet. There's actually not as much Agent Coulson in there as you'd think: when I switched over to that image claim a few years ago, Coulson was still the well-meaning nice guy; the whole progression of Coulson into a more badass/determined/ruthless sort of character on Agents of SHIELD is a happy coincidence, and it'll be some nice inspiration for me as I start working on evolving Delgado towards Supreme Leader Xaanan. It's a similar deal with using Patrick Stewart in the TFA stuff: I've known for a while that Delgado would look like Picard when he was older (for reasons), and the fact that Days of Future Past spat out a more stern/weary Patrick Stewart is just damned handy.

Most of Xaanan's schtick is inspired by a mix of Kylo Ren's "I will finish what you started", mixed with Anakin's sentiment from the prequels that the Senators get in the way of shit getting done, and that if people don't agree "they should be made to". There's a lot of inspiration taken from Charley's character in our Dark Banana roleplay games as well: he's a paladin working for the Empire, who believes that enforcing the rule of law is the right thing to do, and is willing to go to extreme lengths in order to preserve peace. Stargate has a few races I enjoy that have similar mentalities (Anubis, the Ori, the Asurans), and even the Cylons from Battlestar have some of that mentality: the whole "everything is screwed up, lets wipe the slate clean and force things to be done properly" mentality.

I think Delgado is probably one of my only legitimately Lawful characters, so that's the kind of vibe I'm trying to draw upon.

[Rossos Atrapes]

Rossos was started as a villain way back when (My second character, I think) and while he still is one now, he's become more nuanced in terms of his story, in that he's pushing for what people would call "good changes", but for the most absolutely wrong reasons. Essentially, Atrapes is a fascist/communist; an SS officer, the Nazi dude from the Last Crusade who takes a dive off the cliff; the Soviet Commissar of Commissars, KGB Director, that sort of thing.

[Oran Jsorra]

Oran was originally based on Chuck - an optimistic, upbeat, friendly sort of chap who was good at technology and not much else. When I decided to use him as part of the Resistance though, I decided I wanted to go a slightly more bitter route with him... scuff off a lot of that boyish charm and weigh it down under layer of cynicism and stuff. I got a lot of inspiration for that from the latter seasons of Deep Space Nine, when Bashir stopped being such a boy-scout and got a bit more war-weary, but I'm trying to push it a bit further - kinda drawing from some of the even more grizzled roles that Mr Siddig has had more recently than that. I think I'd explained to Dee that what I wanted to do was "kind of like the role he played in Primeval", and switching faces was her idea. :uhoh

He's unexpectedly taken on a little bit of a Commander Riker vibe though. Or maybe more of a Thomas Riker, the whole... stranded on a planet for 20 years and then goes all rebellious by shaving part of his beard off version. He's sorta got a Riker style lead-from-the-crotch mentality that I wasn't planning on him having.

[Salem Ave]

Salem has existed for a long time now, both pre and post reset. In both incarnations, he's kept some of the same character traits and a lot of them are essentially... anti-Vega. Salem is cold and deliberate where Vega was hot-headed and rash. He's my interpretation of how a Sith would need to be to thrive in the kind of galaxy that the post-reset started in. Embroiled in politics, but never quite in the spotlight.

I'm not sure whether this has happened with him, but I like to think that his motivations and emotions are quite difficult to read. Does he really care for any of the people in his life that he appears to care for, or is all of that part of the act that allows him to achieve what he wants?

Since a lot of my characters have a tendency of having an 'inception song' - a bit of music that their existence sprang out of - Salem's is "Let Me Be Your Armor" by Assemblage 23. It's his character in a nutshell, I guess: I want to protect you, but this means that I need to use you, control you and keep you ignorant that I'm doing all of this to you. Salem knows best!

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Since playing Mass Effect, a little of the Illusive Man has crept into him - though Salem isn't anywhere near as zealous.

[Shuvin Undhi]

Shuvin obviously has some Ahsoka Tano in her; but she's also heavily influenced by my sister and her friends (the Ben/Shuvin dynamic) and girls I knew growing up (a lot of the lewdness and sexual identity discovering). Mainly I wanted to write a mechanic, and ticked off the boxes for someone I thought would be interesting in the normal character creation process I go through. I had the general idea and I came up with little personality quirks and idiosyncrasies (young female slave mechanic aspiring singer past family slaves hates country music loves pop and is boy crazy etc).

[T'yeellaa Meorrrei]

T'yeellaa is defined a lot by Kira Nerys from DS9. She's strong, independent, prideful, and she's trying to push against the leading roles in her life to make sure she's got enough breathing room. She's also got a lot of George Bailey in her from It's a Wonderful Life. She's angry that she can never quite blaze her own trail, but she's never prideful enough to walk away from being selfless when it matters.

[Delgado Xaanan]

Having finally got some backstory on the Cigarette Smoking Man in my X-Files re-watch (saw bits and pieces as a kid, but never warched properly), I feel like he's going to serve as good inspiration for Delgado going forward. He has absolute certainty that he's doing the right thing, and he's a curiously moral creature despite how nefarious his methods are. Love his little trait about writing spy novels... wonder if I can work something similar into Delgado somehow, to be a relic of his lost humanity as he descends into his Supreme Leader future.

[Kalleeiha Maillanaarro]

A bit of Guinan, a bit of Quark. A bit of Inara from Firefly, and the Oracle from the Matrix. The Madame isn't exactly a merchant of the flesh trade, but she's mindful that it's a good place to start in order to help people find fulfillment. She was initially going to be kind of trashy and gaudy, but she glommed onto some kind of new age spiritual sense after a thread with Akiena.

[Tear]

Welcome back Zeven! Good thread idea.

Tear at his inception was just a crazy dark side imperial with a split personality. Lame.

When I came back to the forums in 2012 he was re-invented. He's a bit Anton Chigurh, a bit Ozymandias, and his belief system is largely based around the comic book villain Apocolypse. The uncompromising villain who wraps his intellect and deviousness in a blanket of zeal. I've always enjoyed the villains who comes at you with a slight of hand. That the perception of immediate danger is for show and before the hero realizes the true threat they're already caught in a trap.

I also try to write him in a very Shakespearean way. Prone to villainous speeches and grand acts better suited more for a stage then real life.

This scene here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLCL6OYbSTw). Was basically direct inspiration for a thread with Sasseeri here (http://swfansdev.xen.prgmr.com/forum/showthread.php?20314-Past-Debts-Payment-Tendered-Complete).

[Pierce Tondry]

Pierce has been a character with a multitude of inspirations both pre- and post-reset.

Pre-reset, I originally decided I wanted to play an Imperial sniper turned spy; when thinking of a name, I chose Pierce "because that's what a sniper's bullet would do". Over time, I decided to add a little bit of Russian accent to his lineage: his Grandfather's name is Ivanrue (Ivan) and Pierce's middle name is Alexander. The pre-reset timeframe was sort of a meandering time for SWFans storytelling, so Pierce had less of a specific identity in the beginning. Ultimately, I made him a Jedi character focused on justice, with a tendency towards being too harsh in his execution of it. Even though I never got a chance to write it out with Holly, in my mind's eye he always turned away from that to raise his son and care for an amnesiac Lilaena until her death.

When considering what to make of Pierce post-reset, I decided to keep the same basic material of his character (Force-sensitive, worked for the Empire, was a biker-scout at Endor, highly competent fighter) but adjust the timeline so that he entered Imperial service sooner in his life and make it harder for him to see life outside it. Part of my original plans five years ago were for him to secretly be an Alliance double-agent. My intent was to have him be working directly for Miranda Tarkin (never got far enough in to talk to Dani about this though) to have him infiltrate the Alliance and to have him meet a version of Karin DeLumiar in the process. Karin would die as a result of his betrayal, so he would ultimately come to equate hard justice with cruelty and break from the Empire. Most of those plans never came to fruition because I faded out from RPing. However, my planned growth arc for him was extremely tumultuous.

When I decided to return last year, I decided that Pierce wasn't "real" enough and began to rework everything again. In the end I asked myself the question "What if Karin is not a stepping stone in Pierce's journey, but the protagonist in her own?" My answer became the current iteration of both characters.

[Untaaura Verratoa]

Untaaura is almost entirely Lucius Vorenus from HBO's Rome, if Vorenus was trapped in the body of a closeted lesbian I guess.

[Gradoona Pod-Floewander]

For all her work-related stuff, Gradoona is inspired by Christin and all of her crazy work stories.

The rest of Gradoona is about 30% Prairie Home Companion and 70% Pam Poovey if she were less of an asshole / horrible person.