🌌 Milky Way for all of your OCs
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🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?
Carewyn, as better explained here, is a fusion of my mum and myself as kids!
Jacob, as better explained here, was inspired by the stories my mum used to tell me about her late brother!
Erik was inspired largely by a friend of mine from high school who had this very cherubic face and also the largest, sassiest potty mouth of all of my friends. His name was also inspired by two of my favorite Broadway characters -- Erik from The Phantom of the Opera and Enjolras from Les Miserables (affectionately called “Apollo” in the book).
Ana came about because I thought an INFP Gryffindor could be a really fun contrast, but personality-wise, she really took influence from both myself and my dad as kids, since my dad’s a Gryffindor and I’m an INFP.
Farid, as better explained here, was inspired by both Newt and Jacob from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Yugi Mutou from Yu-Gi-Oh.
Jackson, as better explained here, was inspired by historical stage magician Harry Houdini!
Bat, as better explained here, was inspired by Garrett Denali from Twilight and Sirius Black, as well as other “Lancer” type figures like Ron Weasley and Jounouchi Katsuya from Yu-Gi-Oh.
Ru was an evolution of an idea I’d developed much earlier on of a serial killer kelpie that transforms into various forms to eat people, but over time, they developed a love of photography and film that’s largely like my own for film and television, and in doing so developed a much more sympathetic motivation and personality. Their particular feeling of isolation and wanting to be part of this world they could only watch from afar is a feeling I’ve felt off-and-on for years and evoked both Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Ariel from The Little Mermaid, to me.
Ed’s brain spark largely came down to me thinking it’d be fun to have a 90′s style boy band (i.e. Backstreet Boys, N*SYNC, 98 Degrees) in the Potterverse around the time when Harry and crew were at school. Backstory-wise, I took inspiration from Severus Snape, Andromeda Black-Tonks, and both Sirius and Regulus Black, and obviously Ed’s a Slytherin like Snape, Andromeda, and Regulus...but personality-wise Ed actually ended up taking some inspiration from Anna from Frozen! In fact, one of the character themes I chose for him as a child is a deleted song from Frozen that was originally going to be sung by Anna called More Than Just a Spare.
Desiree came about largely because of the creation of Jules Aquila @kathrynalicemc. His spontaneous, fantasy-loving personality was just so likable (largely because of how in-tune I was with it myself!), so when I was working on a character that I thought could be a fun contrast for someone like Jules, I settled on using my late stepmum as inspiration. I’m a very right-brained, sensitive, imaginative person like Jules, while my stepmum as a girl was a very left-brained, soft-spoken, modest, scientific, nerdy overachiever the way Desiree is. Like Desi as well, my stepmum had to find freedom and happiness by breaking away from her family and home and starting a new life apart from them. Desiree also ended up gaining flickers of my mum (who has always been very sensible and organized and shares a personality type -- ISTJ -- with Desi), as well as Elsa from Frozen, Luisa from Encanto, and Tiana from The Princess and the Frog. Both Kath and I have also found amusement at how much Juliree resembles Aladdin/Jasmine from Aladdin, ship-wise, as well.
Eli was largely inspired by comic film actors Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, as well as Robin Williams and Fiyero from the musical Wicked. Like Robin did, Eli struggles with severe depression, but works hard to keep a smile on so as to make others happy, and like Fiyero, he was the sort to “tune in and drop out” at school from an academic perspective, but he’s actually a lot deeper emotionally than he seems from the outside.
Bairn’s initial spark just came from me finding Brock O’Hurn and wanting to design a character that resembled him, honestly! 😂 I gotta thank @magical-retales for brainstorming a Renaissance-set storyline featuring Merlin, though...it was so much fun to take inspiration from different King Arthur storylines for Bairn’s character, like the Once and Future King series and Disney’s The Sword in the Stone. Bairn also took some cues from both Harry Potter and Charlie Weasley, being a Gryffindor orphan raised by uncaring Muggles with a longing for family and a love of nature and magical creatures!
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