How do you make your sims? What inspires you?

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts and ideas! I'm feeling really inspired now. I already have some possible storylines in mind, which is helping me start to picture my sims. I have also been thinking about my favourite characters/books/shows and looking at pictures for further inspiration, but I think I will try not to rely on anything specific this time and just play around in CAS until I'm happy. I also like the idea of adding more family members and watching my sims grow (although my main sim will probably still start as a YA because I love history and occults so he's probably going to be centuries old). It's still a work in progress, but at least I'm having fun again.