Do you associate certain songs with your characters?

Character theme songs

• Take a Hint for Varla: Emotion Eater mermaid whose Berserk Button is being the target of flirting (It's a Long Story)
• For Your Entertainment for Soryn: snake-man wizard genetically engineered for Duel of Seduction
• March of Cambreadth for Rosalind Lumina Eisenberg: The Hermit vampire integrated into a herd of feral mustangs, clobbering zombies together in a Zombie Apocalypse
• Tag, You're It for Rosalind Lumina Eisenberg: This time whenever she's on the painful end of Van Helsing Hate Crimes.
• Stamp On the Ground for Syrni Sandra's cheery sugar rushes: as a Viporis alien, she's really good at jumping.
• Soldiers of the Night for Shooting Star: fanfic unicorn character for My Little Pony, her Lethal Harmless Powers cutie mark is for conjuring sparkles with enough speed and power to be used as tiny burning bullets. Her original skin's medical condition would have bankrupted and eventually killed her if it weren't for Princess Luna crafting symbiotic Bio-Armor as a supplemental skin and hiring her as a secret^note I would have said "plainclothes" except ponies don't usually wear clothes guard.
• Her Darker Side^note even though it was originally written specifically for Twilight Sparkle for Terror Hero Creepy Twins Aynara and Arnaya: Mayatan (alien) vampires who get really hungry, go berserk and become The Unfettered Super-Persistent Predator whenever the moons on their home planet align in a certain pattern.
• Prototype VIP for Arilay and a few other cyborgs, once they finally got used to their new mechanical parts.

Scenes

• Hypnotized: when Soryn challenges Sarquoql (who has Hypnotic Eyes) to a Duel of Seduction and loses

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Jul 27th 2019 at 10:05:48 AM

I actually based my characters on songs. I ended up with over fifty characters, and combined them in the ways i thought would be most interesting. The character profiles: [1]

• Gwerder: I'm the bad guy (Wander over yonder) / Wolf in sheep's clothing (Set It Off)
  • She's a sadistic, sociopathic murderer.
• Von Horn: Wehrmacht (Sabaton) / Every Day Is Excatly The Same (Nine Inch Nails)
  • He's a brainwashed child soldier, who slowly starts realizing who it really is who's evil.
• Brenne: War pigs (Black Sabbath) / Everybody's fool (Evanescence) / Hellfire (Alan Menken)
  • Another sociopath, unlike Gwerder he's not content with where he is now, but plots to rule the whole Europe. He conceals his true nature from people around him, trying to appear perfect, but the realization he feels lust towards another man sends him into a spiral of insanity.
• Geier: Pompeii (Bastille) / The wolf (Siames)
  • He's a haunted World War 1 veteran who's doing drugs to forget his horrible experiences and soothe his fear, pain and dissappointment towards the state of the world and his own cowardice. His addiction destroys him.
• Dunkel: You're gonna go far kid (The Offspring)
  • He can and will do anything for his goal and cares for nothing else.
• Schmidt/Hummel: Stars (Russel Crowe) / Behind The Crooked Cross (Slayer) / Centuries (Fall Out Boy) / The noose (A Perfect Circle)
  • He starts out with a serious case of Black-and-White Morality/ Black-and-White Insanity, but eventually realizes everything's the opposite of what he's told it is. First he tries to ignore it and carry on as before, but can't do it anymore. Scared of himself, he desperately tries to atone but never thinks he has done enough.
• Kaisermann: The Riddle (Terry Mann) / Tähtiotsa (Antti Tuisku) (translated in the comments)
  • Kaisermann is a spy who drifts deeper and deeper and has to do worse and worse things to stay alive and free.

• The story itself is inspired by Kill our way to heaven (Michl), The Riddle (Terry Mann) and Remember everything (Five Finger Death Punch).

• Sterling Roach[2]: Epiphany (from Sweeney Todd)[3] / First world of terror (Angelus Apatrida)[4]
  • The whole character was created when i watched the Captain America movie, disliked the character, and thought he'd be more interesting if he was evil.

Edited by Nukeli on Feb 20th 2020 at 6:14:26 PM

Well, some of my characters for the novel I planned were in a way inspired by music. They were either based on songs when thinking of new ones or songs helped me improve already existing ones:

• Pavel Orzechowski: Daylight Dies by Killswitch Engage for his pre-Character Development self, Wasted Years by Iron Maiden and Electric Eye by Judas Priest post-Character Development, and Painkiller as his battle theme / Let's Get Dangerous!
• Yuko Hasegawa: Megistune (main) and KARATE (battle), both by Babymetal
• Haruka Kobayashi: Gotenks' theme as her battle theme and P.S. RED I by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure. Her Let's Get Dangerous! theme is Road of Resistance by Babymetal, shared with her sister (Who won't appear on this thread this time. Seriously, if I included her, other siblings and guardians, I would create a wall of text here)
• The trio together (Pavel and Yuko are bodyguards to Haruka) share Distortion by Babymetal

The Willow Maid was written to be about a human man going after a dryad, but for some reason I find it easier to imagine one of my (bit part) nesting mother dragon characters being targeted by (someone else's character) Sexual-Offenderman.

• Dirty Night Clowns by Chris Garneau https://youtu.be/tSErr0OLH28 closely matches Morgana Fray's feelings after getting rescued from a magic slave ring that exploited her psychic ability of seeing into people's memories by using it to steal information from people. Even though her and little brother were adopted into a loving family and are away from her slaveowners, the trauma of the abuse and exploitation she endured still haunts her, along with her anger wishing for everyone involved with the slave ring to receive comeuppance for the all the children they abused and kidnapped and sold, while feeling like she's "unclean" for stealing people's information for her owners despite being threatened into doing it and and being a young child at the time.

• Evelyn Evelyn https://youtu.be/oXAZQNrLu7g in a metaphoric way describes Morgana's relationship with her younger brother Caileb growing up. When they rescued from the slave ring when Morgana was eight and Caileb was six, the two were deeply attached to each other after being able to only trust each other for the past three years, refusing to leave each other's side, sharing a bed until they were adolescents, talking amongst themselves. Caileb wasn't as badly traumatized by the slave ring due to Morgana trying to shield him from it by accepting a brunt of the abuse, and was able to become less dependent on Morgana as they got older, but he was something of an emotional crunch to Morgana, and Morgana was still overprotective and clingy towards Caileb that he comes to resent when they become teenagers wanting his independence and privacy, and Morgana missing the relationship they had as children, and just wanting Caileb safe and making sure he's making good decisions, and this ends up being a reoccurring argument between the two.

I've been associating Street Fighter 4 theme tunes with many of my characters

My main passion project centers around a trio of ... essentially supers in a Tolkienesque world with a healthy dose of One Piece chucked in.

Spata - a Combat Clairvoyance Master Swordsman gets Gouken's theme:

Catran - a Playing with Fire Elemental Powers Lightning Bruiser Our Dragons Are Different Weredragon gets Ken's theme - Tribute Album Version:

Viola - a Defector from Decadence Revenge Before Reason Noble Fugitive Royal Rapier Flash Step never fit in with any of the SF themes when I was going through that phase, but then I found this song which fits her perfectly:

Que Sera Sera plays in my head a lot when I'm writing my Villain Duo of Omicron and Gamma.

Edited by FriedBaka on Feb 11th 2020 at 10:20:06 AM

• I found City of the Dead and it's a great soundtrack for the scene where Hazel Moore is stumbling around dazed and disoriented from turning into a vampire, in increasing pain from praying throughout the transformation, while a dragon stalks her preparing to enslave her.
• A certain elderly Mayatan woman isn't from Pasadena, but The Little Old Lady From Pasadena is a pretty good theme song for her, at least up until the point where she crashed her spaceship in Slenderman's forest. Now she's a Post Humous Character.
• Not my characters but... I've seen comments on Primitive Kiss saying "this would be perfect for vampires". Vampires? HA HA HA—No. Dragons perhaps, or better yet, Time Lords.

Edited by Miss_Desperado on May 8th 2020 at 4:09:43 AM

Bump post: One would usually think of Holding Out for a Hero as a Damsel in Distress song, but after listening carefully, I think the lyrics are also flexible enough to apply to an All Amazons Want Hercules situation where the amazon in question is daring a Non-Action Guy to take a level in badass so he can keep up with her.

Lovely Angels Syrni Sandra and Jen Jara require me to paint a fuller picture of them and a bit of their society to support the song's alternate interpretation. ^Trivia  They started off with Syrni Sandra based on Kim Possible and Jen Jara based on Shego, and I changed a lot of things from there, starting with their species. Syrni Sandra and Jen Jara are Viporises, humanoid teleporting aliens native to a volcanic Death World where they Had to Be Sharp with their Super-Reflexes. Viporises have a species-wide baseline badassery, but Syrni Sandra and Jen Jara rise above it. The duo hold the title of Void Maidens because they're two of The Chosen Many among their species who can teleport off their home moon without gibbering in terror at the prospect. The duo also joined a Crazy-Prepared Genre Savvy Amazon Brigade that also combines the tropes Tell Me How You Fight and Talking through Technique into a combat philosophy. When enemies are invading or bombing for the fifty millionth time and Syrni Sandra and Jen Jara are leading an evacuation, the males of their species at least have the common sense to not be The Millstone or try an Underequipped Charge. But despite their best efforts, they Can't Catch Up to Syrni Sandra and Jen Jara, which relegates them to still being Distressed Dudes by default. In times where the enemies are gone and everybody's relaxed enough to try courtship, the poor guys going after Syrni Sandra or Jen Jara can't Best Her to Bed Her.

Edited by Miss_Desperado on May 11th 2020 at 12:03:43 PM

Appreciate the little backstory that explains the song choice.

All Eyes On Me by OR 3 O is honestly the unofficial theme for my villain Elizabeth Mourner.

At first glance, the lyrics don't seem to fit Elizabeth's personality as a subtle manipulator who is almost supernaturally talented at staying hidden in the shadows while pulling the strings of powerful players in "legitimate" society.

However the song's theme, of a person who was good and kind and then crushed beneath the heels of someone they cared about and rose up as a harder, ruthless and more "bitchy" individual perfectly depicts her backstory: An honorable Knight in Shining Armor who was betrayed by her country and her own comrades and suffered horribly, only to be "reborn" as a literal and figurative monster.

Last but not least, the fast-paced music and authoritative way the singer speaks also puts in mind her traits as a hedonist who lords over her minions with an iron fist.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on May 13th 2020 at 9:04:05 AM

I have a whole playlist for this!

• Eli gets Blame by Bastille. He's kind of been thrust into problems that he really shouldn't have to deal with.
• Colin has Dirty Imbecile by The Happy Fits. Kind of angsty, really rough childhood.
• Zoe gets Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons. She makes a lot of mistakes and has a lot of deep-seated self hatred.

Arilay is a cyborg whose atomic manipulators replacing her digestive tract make her an Extreme Omnivore. Futhermore, she has enough nanobots outside her life-support suit for partial shapeshifting. If she ever gets hangry enough to eat her enemies, the synthwave instrumental Devour would make a good soundtrack for the resulting Mook Horror Show.

These might not really count as songs, but space radiation from planets and moons and stars translated into sound inspired me to make the Howling Void, the Eldritch Abomination responsible for why Hyperspace Is a Scary Place in my stories. It's the embodiment of emptiness, cosmic distances, and the gaps and holes left behind by something missing. I've got kind of a long playlist, so to keep this short, my favorites are Saturn's moon Titan for its laughter and the drumming of the Vela Pulsar star for one way it vocalizes its ire.

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Sep 12th 2020 at 10:10:33 AM

I don't know if this counts but I'll often associate songs that either belong to a certain genre or have heavy use of a certain instrument or group of instruments with characters that fit them. The three main criteria I like to use are "personality", "motif", and "theme".

Personality is, well, a character's personality. You'd expect rock for someone who's spirited or hardcore. Someone who's serious or somber would get slower typically orchestral songs. On the flip side, a "truth justice and the American way" hero would have a faster and more upbeat orchestral track. You get the picture.

Motif and theme may sound similar but they're distinct in a subtle way. In regards to thieves topic specifically, I define motif as the external traits a character has. Stuff like occupation, where they live, their abilities, or even their age. Theme, on the other hand, is derived from the core concept of a character. Something like the initial idea you had that made you create the character and what it revolves around (assuming the character hasn't evolved too far away from it) or an archetype if they apply.

Of course if you're making your own music for a character, you ideally want to cover all aspects of them but that's not what we're talking about. When looking for a song to assign, I find it works best when you keep things simple. One of those three should be enough (though don't pass up the opportunity when you find a supernaturally fitting song or arrangement).

Another thing is knowing how to turn your selected aspect to your advantage. You can use it to subvert expectations in a good way and flesh out character. A good example of this would be a mage character with a bubbly personality. Unless their design gives their personality away, if you took someone didn't know anything about them, showed their design in a neutral context, and asked them to tell what type of music they'd give them, the person would likely say something with a mysterious or occult-like nature.

Not only would that be boring and stereotypical but it wouldn't even describe the character that well. In this case a good idea would be to switch the music's criteria from "motif" to "personality" and give them an upbeat poppy track. Not only will this throw people being introduced in for a loop but it can tell them a lot about them without anyone ever having to speak a word about the character. Older fighting games with character-specific (but NOT stage-specific) songs in their OSTs often do this very well, particularly Capcom's Marvel fighting games, and are good areas of study for this if you ask me.

Now, I don't want to name any specific examples from anything I've done but I wanted to share my thought process for associating themes to characters because I have a lot of fun with it and I hope other people can too.

Edited by VidExGuy on Sep 13th 2020 at 2:39:05 AM

my boy alderfly was inspired by "the world ender" by lord huron, but it doesnt really fit him anymore.

on a broader note, i assosciate "mountain sound" by of monsters and men with an arc of my story! its the perfect questing song :)

Yes, a lot, especially in my fanfic i'm writing right now, since it's very anime-inspired, as it's a crossover between Ace Combat, Albedo: Erma Felna EDF and Katmandu.

Original Characters

• Yoshinori Komatsu: Ravel's Bolero in his younger, idealistic days during WWII, Mozart's Dies Irae when he slips into complete madness and swears to annihilate humanity, The final boss' theme from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Origins when he became into a bio-mechanical Eldritch Abomination bent to exterminate all life in the universe.
• Akane Araki: The main theme from the second season of Tsugumomo, to emphatize her Samurai backgrounds. Sailor Mars' theme from Sailor Moon Crystal works for the same purpose.
• Kaguya Hoshino: This cool remix of "You Say Run'' from My Hero Academia when she is ready to kick massive ammounts of ass, or facing an enemy bigger than her, but she doesn't care in the slightest.
• Heinrich, the Apostle of War (technically, he is a revived Nazi from WWII): The Final Battle theme from Sailor Moon Crystal to make painful clear the main protagonists of each franchise will face an Ax-Crazy, sword-welding, mass-murdering racist technologically-revived Nazi zombie. Vergil Theme 2 from Devil May Cry 3 works for the same purpose.
• The Gallagher Siblings (Margaret, Jeanette, Rudy and Bruno): Blood, Tears, and the Dried-up Wasteland from Wild ARMs 3.
• The Space Cowboys: Yasha Theme ~ Orphan Wolf Legend from Asura's Wrath in order to emphatize the fact they are Wild West-inspired bounty hunters. Tank! from Cowboy Bebop, since they are expies of the crew of the Bebop.
• Hong Gil-dong and his sister Hong Yoo-na: Natsu's theme from Fairy Tail.
• Empress Sakura from the Hinowa Empire: Any traditional Japanese music, and also this ballad version of Senbonzakura.
• Genryu: Zenitsu Theme from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
• Akiharu Hirose (In this fic, he is Rena Hirose's ancestor from WWII and a pilot for the Imperial Japanese Air Force): Mikazuki Munechika's theme from Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu.

Ace Combat characters

• Rena Hirose: Many AC themes, depending of the situation.

Edited by luisedgarf on Sep 18th 2020 at 10:38:50 AM

So that explains how The Willow Maid fits my dragon character's kamikaze against Sexual-Offenderman. The motif (character species) doesn't match at all, but the theme (characters' opposing goals) does.

story has developed, new characters have arrived, that means new character songs!

Peggy: I’ve always thought of her with Weird Science, mostly as a joke about her being a bit of a Mad Scientist.

Tery: On The Run by Tipling Rock. It’s really just her vibe— being a runaway, often being on her own.

Gwen: Killer in the Mirror. Sort of paranoid, self-dependent, and very violent.

Tragedy by Hiroyuki Sawano just fits the teenage protagonist of my Urban Fantasy series once he undergoes his Face–Heel Turn and becomes a world-threatening monster. 1:50 to 2:30 of the song just blends perfectly into his tearful Motive Rant about why he has chosen his current path and why there is no bringing him back from his decisions.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Jul 15th 2021 at 4:07:47 AM

I guess I could do this somewhat:

• Autumn kind of reminds me of "Losing My Religion", being someone who has had a void in her heart for a while and is desperate for something to fill it back up.

I'll do others later, but that's the only one that really comes to mind. Though my villain does kind of bring to mind Tetsuo's theme at times.

An example centering around a certain character's relationship with another character: In my Pokémon Mystery Dungeon-inspired story, Axew has "Grenade" by Bruno Mars, a song about being willing to go to the ends of the earth for somebody, only to have them treat you like shit in response. Axew will do anything for his friends, including Vulpix, the Only Sane Girl in the cast. (Notice how I said friends, even though one of the plot arcs is about Axew having a crush on a girl, but not wanting to tell who, it's a major Berserk Button for him.) He's willing to go to the ends of the earth for Vulpix, but she doesn't really approve of Axew's pranking shenanigans, and often chastizes him for it.

I DO WHAT I WANT by Nascar Aloe is typically what I associate with Daniel, my favorite character I've made. He's a demon-clown who lives off of vodka, jell-o, and snarky comments and he's incredibly violent. This pairs nicely with the whole point of the song (doing what you want) and the loud, distorted 808 bass that can shatter most lower-quality speakers definitely fits his loud, angry personality. Although there are a few things that don't fit, like his tendency to be Faux Affably Evil, or the fact that his humor is pretty much just one big coping mechanism.

I practically create a soundtrack for characters and story to help me get into certain moods for the stories, sometimes often using them to convey a character's emotional state as well.

For example, one story I'm working on called "Void" has a character who has gone through three consecutive birthdays that pretty much crippled him emotionally (though the last one wasn't as bad, but still enough to finally make him give up celebrating his birthday ever again) before the start of the story. At the start of the story, the first song that comes on his digital jukebox at home is "I Can't Break Away" by Chuck Jackson, conveying his inability to let go of his painful past in order to move on, basically causing him to be stuck. By the end of the story, I have "Another Chance" by OceanLab playing on the jukebox, conveying the hope he feels of finally letting go of his pain and feeling better about his future possibly being better for him. And there are songs that come up that pretty much reflect his emotional state as the story progresses.

Edited by CB2001 on Feb 26th 2021 at 4:59:44 AM

I've found myself squirreling away songs that invoke a certain ambience, knowing that one or another of my stories will go in the direction of that ambience even if I don't have a specific character or a specific scene to fit to the song yet.

This remix of Beth Crowley's Warrior is a decent fit for the tale of how two of my characters met and bonded, but I can't decide which perspective makes more sense, whether for Rosalind Lumina Eisenberg singing about Heather Smith or vice versa. For one reason or another, whenever I try to type out a line-by-line analysis of the lyrics, my progress comes to a screeching halt and I lose my work. Even if I were successful, I don't know if the resulting Wall of Text would be welcome here.