Just as we are urged to “write what we know,” I think it is natural to include some of yourself into your characters, since we know ourselves better than anyone.
In CCH, Professor McCormick is basically a female version of me. My thought processes are her thought processes.
Every story needs a calm, cool, rational character 
who is the voice of reason in the chaos. 
I do infuse my characters with some of my personality. Different parts of me really. It helps me with initially planning who they are as a character. From there I don’t exactly follow archetypes per say. Instead, I try to imagine them as real people and as if they are the main character or at the very least treat them with the same care you would when developing a main character.
I establish their likes and interests that go with their background. How they view the world, the people around them, and the other social classes.
So yes I do use myself as a bit of a template, but then I use that template and put it through scenarios like their upbringing, where they fit in the social hierarchy, their society’s views, and a variety of other factors. They retain some semblance to me, but in the end, they become more of a “What if” version of me if not a completely new person in their own right.
I do much the same thing with certain characters. Take a base self analysis and apply it to the core of their actions. More do with central characters in order to get a good read on how they’d react.
But I’m totally guilty of putting in two characters that seem to be opposites of each other and branching from my own extreme points of view. Or rather what I would want to be. Two cookies if you can guess whom lol jk
I think no one can avoid finding something of themselves in their characters, I doubt it’s possible to write a character you can’t relate to at all.
I think it’s the same thing as with other people: we like, love, admire people because we see the better parts of ourselves in them; we dislike or fear people for the same reason when we see the worst of ourselves in them.
So the question becomes: do authors just see parts of themselves in their characters as in other people, or do they insert part of themselves as they write the character? Chicken and egg problem. And the answer is probably both.
It’s… really tough to say.
I mean, I can adopt speech patterns and actions that aren’t native to me for my characters, but then again- I wouldn’t even think of ways of talking or acting that aren’t in my head somehow, right? So are my characters in some way bits of me that ‘could’ be but aren’t? Or my own limitations on what I imagine other people can be like? Prooobably a bit of both.
I probably inject a little bit of who I am into each of my characters, but I -think- I succeed at making my characters unique. Not like some hive-mind of various aspects of myself. I really hope my characters don’t all sound like each other. Or think like each other. Or think like me. I count it a success if I understand a character of mine well enough to know they -would- do or say something in my gut, but then to go ‘why the heck would you do/say that?!’ You know a real challenge? - Creating a character that’s truly superior to you in some way. Not so much in some sort of skill… rather, in some ephemeral way- some aspect of personality. It’s easy to go ‘You don’t see how you’re making a mistake, because you’re you.’ with a character, but it’s harder to go ‘holy crap, I couldn’t do that! It’s hard to do you the justice you deserve.’
I try to write characters who are unlike myself in at least a few key ways… because I know that my default will be to write characters who think, decide, etc. the way I do. So there’s something I recognize of myself in all the characters, but hopefully something distinct too.
In XoR, I decided to write one character to be exactly like myself, and that’s how we got Hector Keriatou.
I try not as best I can, but usually, some of my opinions and perspectives leak into a character I’ve created. It’s not bad but when it contradicts the main personality you Want your character to have, it becomes confusing to the readers. Since the characters, morals are all over the place.
Personalities are multi-faceted enough to find a thread of yourself in all sorts of weavings. It is not a particular goal of mine to place my toe in the character pool, it will happen subconsciously, unless it is The One whom I must have and will always extract from within–the deadpan snarker. This is a perilously huge part of who I am, (and luckily a very prevalent trope), and my story will not ever feel complete unless the bantering is rampant and healthy, regardless of genre.
Kurtesh? 
Long story short, I am the MC in all my story’s, just a different name and appearance.
I love ensemble casts, because when they’re done well, they can seem like a map of the soul. So I write groups of characters that each represent different parts of myself, and then put them in tension with each other in the same way I wrestle with things internally. I’ve never written a character that was “me,” per se, but if you look at the conversations my characters have with each other, those are often representative of conversations or tensions I’ve had within myself.
Eh, given the kind of characters I made for my game, I don’t think it would be a really good sign if they were actually based on my personality? 
I don’t think there’s a “me” in the stories I write. Like, I never make a nicer/meaner/cooler version of myself, or a me who had different parents/went through x traumatic life event. Not that I know of, at least 
Although what I actually do is give each character a trait/vein/flaws of mine, sometimes characteristics that aren’t even mine. It’s something vague that leaves a lot of room to make changes, like “cheerful” or “this one is very prone to lash out”, then make them grow on their own; how would their upbringing and life experiences change them, how they shape themselves. Sometimes the end result is a character I totally despise 
But that’s fine, because that shows that they are their own “person”, rather than a carbon copy of me or a boring doll.
I rarely, if never, use real people for inspiration; I don’t like doing it at all. 'Cept there’s this sole exception, someone I use to create the villains in my stories; a man I once had the disgrace to come across with, who was all kinds of nasty. He liked to play the victim (he never was to blame for anything. Figures), and was all high and mighty, who thought of himself as very smart and was hella narrow-minded. Oh, and an hypocrite and a pervert; good riddance! 
Whenever I meet or speak with someone unusual I find myself studying them. Copying their gestures, imagining how they would say things, until finally I have absorbed them well enough that I can understand their underlying conflict and create them as a character. I am a mosaic of poets and broken people, hypocrites and perverts…
I have the most interesting dreams.
That is actually kind of familiar. Cuz I’m a people watcher too. It’s fascinating trying to decode people in public places. Grocery stores are great because you get to watch folks make active decisions quietly in their own head. Funny thing is eventually you can almost see the internal conversation.
“What do I need? Oh that looks good? Gross broccoli! What the hell kinda price is this?! There it is!” All this and not a word.
Then you get the gossip folks. The other person almost rolling their eyes when this acquaintance locks in on them “oh crap they saw me.” It’s all in the body language that they don’t want to talk but the other is so excited that they just latch onto the brief human contact.
I’ve used witnessed behaviour in real life in my fiction before and in real life. Looking at the right body language tells you a lot about people it’s great.
And… whoops rambled much.
I do this too; every trip I make into the nearby cities, I bring my character portfolio with me and I start little bios on the interesting people I see and meet during the trips. Some of my doctor characters are scary
I usually have a character that at least somewhat like me in my stories, usually a tragic victim 
In my project for here I 100% put myself in the story as an NPC, I think it will be interesting to see if anyone actually says anything about it 
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I usually have a character that at least somewhat like me in my stories, usually a tragic victim In my project for here I 100% put myself in the story as an NPC, I think it will be interesting to see if anyone actually says anything about it
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w the character that betrayed us was female. 
I can’t believe you think I’d make myself a villain! 
Nah, my imaginary characters are all derived from other people, not from me. I write a character based on someone that I know and then as I write on it. My imaginary character having own personality that is similar yet different with the person I base the imaginary character on.
I never write any character that has any similar thing to me personally. It seems detachable and lazy for me. I’d rather explore other possibilities than make my character same as me.