OC Spotlight: Samantha Hayes/Samantha Hayes R2/J.A. · 4:38am Nov 13th, 2019
Hold onto your seats, we're gonna be running through an entire story's worth of OCs for a little while. Also, more secret OCs to learn about later on! 
Samantha, like Lisa, was initially written as a human counterpart to Pinkie Pie. However, unlike Lisa, she wasn't reused from any previous OC I had laying around, nor did I use a random name generator in her creation.
As far as her physical looks go, she's a blondie, with a very light British accent because she's just straight-up British. She's just a little taller than Lisa, but it's hard to actually tell in most cases due to the fact that she tends to keep her hair in a short ponytail. Her eye color is never really established.
Personality-wise, the Samantha in Pony-me is outgoing, but often a bit rude and assertive. She spent most of her time in the story flipping between "herself" and Pinkie, so her personality wasn't quite built out all that much compared to Lisa by the story's ending.
SPOILERS BELOW FOR PONY-ME IF YOU HAVE NEVER READ IT!
Samantha, canonically, didn't join the simulations with Lisa at first, opting instead to take a leadership position at the company formed to continue supporting and developing the simulations. However, she becomes aware of Pinkie Pie's often physics (and fourth-wall)-defying antics, and decides to step in to get rid of the "glitch", inadvertently trapping herself within the simulation. Why? Because apparently there wasn't ever a way to exit the thing when it was first made. :P
She would proceed to spend several years living as Pinkie Pie, unable to control Pinkie for the majority of her time in Equestria, and generally being kinda miserable.
Once the disconnection happens, she would begin a battle against Pinkie for control over her own body, eventually reconciling with Pinkie and returning her to the simulation while going on with Lisa to return to the company.
That's... pretty much it as far as the first incarnation of Samantha goes.
Y'know, writing these spotlight blogs are actually helping me quite a bit in weeding out little things in my characters. Just yesterday I caught what could've potentially grown into a full-scale plothole with Lisa.
Anyway, continuing on. SPOILER ALERT FOR MY IN-PROGRESS ORIGINAL FICTION!
Samantha V2 for the most part carries over nearly everything from the original Samantha from Pony-Me, minus the crude attitude towards others. Yes, she can still be rude at times, but it is only purely by accident instead. Physically, she's still pretty much the exact same, and her eye color is still left completely vague. She likes to wear casual clothing.
She's much more upbeat in general than the previous incarnation of Samantha, partially due to me carrying over a bit of influence from Pinkie into the rewriting of her personality. She is much more protective of Lisa, and actively avoids answering some of Lisa's questions to keep her from doing anything too drastic. She's a workaholic as well, and in contrast to the original Samantha, Samantha V2 never left the company to join the simulation. Instead, the simulation has two tiers of access: one for people who plan to stay for extended periods of time such as Lisa, and one for general day-to-day access in a sort of VRChat-esque way. Obviously, it's much more refined than that, but I won't go into the details.
Samantha's backstory also becomes much more fleshed-out as well; it is established that she met Lisa very early on in their elementary school years, and often tended to be the more logically-driven counterpart to Lisa. However, as time passed and the simulation project started and grew, she and Lisa would begin to grow increasingly distant, especially with Samantha's constant attempts to sway her friend away from using the simulations to simply run away from a life she didn't like. However, being the hardheaded girl she was, Lisa would push on anyway, and eventually connect.
For her part, Samantha would eventually rise to the position of CTO (of which, in Pony-Me, she would lose upon getting trapped) of TechSIG, the company co-founded by Professor Argall and Lisa's deceased father. She would continue to actively develop new and existing technology throughout the years, quickly rising the ranks of influence both inside and outside the simulation as basically the brains of the company when it came to generating ideas. She picked up some talents in both acting and storytelling on the side as hobbies, which help her in both writing out a backstory for Lisa's character, Rebecca, and later on for putting up a front to at least somewhat avoid stirring suspicion in Lisa from avoiding her questions.
Of course, she still remains as protective of Lisa as ever.
Now then. Who is J.A.?
Julie Ashton-- Samantha V2's counterpart and character that she roleplays as in her off-time in the simulations. Given how she never permanently joined the simulations in the original fiction like she did in Pony-Me, Julie is instead a basic AI that simply learned Samantha's habits and tastes over time in order to function independently whenever Samantha was unavailable. However, Samantha would make a few small tweaks to Julie by making her more playful and outgoing in general, as well as giving her a constant humorous attitude and a sort of aura of positivity, all in an attempt to give Lisa the best companion possible in the simulations. Julie is identical to Samantha, physically, and is known to Lisa's counterpart, Rebecca, to be a great storyteller. She has no written background given how she is only a shell character for Samantha.
And that's just about it for Samantha Hayes! See y'all 'round for the next character!
You can't escape the pink