Heya

Hey! Maybe use musical preferences? Music makes up a large part of my personality, and that's the same thing for a lot of people. In my current project, the main character is a pop punk in the early 2000s in a friend group with two lesbian metalheads and his best friend whose musical preferences I don't know yet. Those preferences are part of their personalities and may help you guide their decisions, habits, goals and more. Plus you learn a lot about scene fashion and culture and stuff during your research, at least I do. I might put some more suggestions here if they come to my mind.

It's easiest to write about people you can relate to, so there are some traits that would more fit side characters, like racism, queerphobia or toxic masculinity. This could also add some conflict and tension.

The same trait could have different motivations, for example characters who are writers. Some may write as therapy, some may write as a job or a passion.

Another idea is to look at real-life celebrities. Stephen King would be an example. He's incredibly interesting. Just his motivation for writing and his life would be possible inspirations.

Wait, I just remembered one of my quirks:
Constantly quoting songs or referencing movies or music videos. Seriously, my best friend once told me how funny it is that I can find a song lyric for pretty much everything anyone says.

A bad stim of mine is singing, and when I hear a phrase or lyric I start singing. Usually it’s ok, but when a friend is telling you about their experience with almost fatal cancer as a child and your brain is shrieking mcr Cancer it’s not good

Stims could be a cool trait as well!

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Just got another idea reading "The Hate U Give": Starr the main character, loves Harry Potter. So she talks about it quite often, mentions it, and it's become part of her everyday language. So interests can be part of how you write the story from the character's perspective.

This is all super helpful thank you so much Rain! (Can I call u rain? Idk if you’ve ever told me what to call u)

Of course! It's just my first name, so it's fine. But be careful with the spelling (Raine), young adventurer. If you do, you will be greatly rewarded by the deities of queerness :3