I really appreciate all the effort you guys are making at helping me with my dilemma ;) 

I think that the core of my frustration is wanting to do something [i]different[/i]; I feel like my characters, though they have their similarities, are reasonably unique (not totally, and some very much more than others, but relatively). But I still feel like they're too similar to other things - tropes, characters, etc., and of course, they're self-similar. 

We'll see what I come up with :P