>>3292285im pretty lame and normie, i use characters from media im familiar with and i havent really updated that since i was a kid, ash ketchum, shinji ikari, lan from megaman, pit from kid icarus, link from zelda, yadda yadda
younger is purely a plot side consideration. older characters dont translate too well, being more physically capable or believable, and more rational with their decisions. its also sort of easy to plop them into a situation that sets it up: shinji gets blasted by some sort of attack during a battle with an angel. wolrd changes happens right as hes hit, lives life in this alternate timeline, returns right as the attack ends. to the other characters the mental break and rambling about living in this alternate world is attributable to the attack. pokemon? that episode where ash gets murdered by mewtwo or killed by the chandelier in the haunter/gengar episode, then come back to life fit the bill pretty well.
more regular characters, like lan are a bit more difficult. in those cases they just get injured in such a way major brain trauma happens and the case of "did the world change/timeline travel actually happen" isnt quite as solid. although that can be fun. character walking alone home gets clipped by something falling off a car, right to the back of the skull, gets left laying on the side of the road for a day before being found. maybe they just dream it all in a faux coma? then upon waking up the character they get paired with just happens to look exactly like someone unrelated in their normal world. just make one of lans classmates look just like link and hash out how that turns out. one side thinks hes just survived a horrible ordeal living with this other person in some world, and trying to attach himself to some random classmate who has no idea whats going on?
shit takes a lot of effort man, but its fun