Stolen from lowellboyslash
The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen fictional characters (television, films, plays, books) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.
1) Snow White (Disney)
2) Grumpy the Dwarf (Disney)
3) A book-reading parrot named Huey (Oh Say Can You Say, Suess)
4) Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit, Tolkein)
5) Robin, the boy wonder (Batman, DC Comics)
6) Matilda (Roald Dahl)
7) Legolas Greenleaf (The Lord of the Rings, Tolkein)
8) Mrs. Frisby (Robert C. O'Brien)
9) Skywise (Elfquest by Wendy & Richard Pini)
10) Nightcrawler (X-Men, Marvel Comics, Excalibur run specifically)
11) Abigail Williams (The Crucible, Arthur Miller)
12) Bookwyrm (Krysolis)
13) Severus Snape (Harry Potter, JK Rowling)
14) Lynne Grosvenor (Finder, Carla Speed McNeil)
15) Tyrion Lannister (Song of Ice & Fire, GRR Martin)
I basically did this in order of who influenced me most when I was really really little, on up to the here and now.
1) Snow White (Disney) - I friggin WAS Snow White when I was a tot, as far as I was concerned. These days I'm like "okay wow a 14 year old girl with a squeaky voice and no common sense" but you don't really think about that sort of thing when you can show how old you are on one hand.
2) Grumpy the Dwarf (Disney) - I was a fangirl at the age of two for a grumpy man with a heart of gold. This theme will repeat itself my entire life, basically, and I am okay with that. Grumpy taught me that even if a person is not nice, it doesn't mean that they are not good.
3) A book-reading parrot named Huey (Oh Say Can You Say, Suess) - I used to make my parents read this book ALL THE TIME, and wait for them to mess up on the tongue twisters. Because I was a sassy little know-it-all. ;)
4) Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit, Tolkein) - The Hobbit was my first Proper Book, and I basically learned the English language from it. Which might explain my vocabulary, but there you are. Who doesn't want to be Bilbo? You get a big adventure, lots of friends with really similar names, a wizard mentor, and you still have more common sense than anyone else in the world.
5) Robin, the boy wonder (Batman, DC Comics) - Another very-young crush. I used to write letters to Robin and leave them on the windowsill. I live in quiet hope that my mother doesn't still have any of these hidden away, and the quiet certainty that she totally does.
6) Matilda (Roald Dahl) - Every bookish little girl wants to be Matilda. I had enough latent imagination to move every piece of chalk in my whole school, and the idea that cleverness could overcome tyranny was a precious one to me. Other contenders for this spot include Ramona Quimby, Mary Lennox and Scout Finch, but I always kinda thought they were all jerks a lot of the time.
7) Legolas Greenleaf (The Lord of the Rings, Tolkein) - I didn't understand half of what was going on in the Lord of the Rings for many years, but I always liked Legolas. He knew what was going on, usually with far more depth than the other characters, and stayed relatively light-hearted about things. I found his casting in the movie to be disappointing, yes.
8) Mrs. Frisby (Robert C. O'Brien) - The book/movie that gave every child in my...oh it must have been second or third grade class horrible nightmares, but they were nightmares we needed to have. Mrs. Frisby was possibly the first real "adult" character I identified strongly with - and therefore the first character that taught me to think like a parent and a spouse - and oh sweet Lord did I cry for her.
9) Skywise (Elfquest by Wendy & Richard Pini) - Ah comics. Elfquest was a huge influence on me, and I taught myself how to draw people based off of Wendy's art. Skywise is the loyal sidekick to the series' main character, and I ended up liking him far more because while all the elves are perfect snowflakes, Skywise was both a trickster and very flawed, and it was this levity and darkness that made the main character's journey tolerable and meaningful.
10) Nightcrawler (X-Men, Marvel Comics, Excalibur run specifically) - Oh hey look an X-Man who's actually very well-grounded, easy-going and caring. Amazing. His fight to reconcile his demonic appearance with his sweet nature was always interesting to me.
11) Abigail Williams (The Crucible, Arthur Miller) - Any girl named Abigail is going to be impacted by stupid Abigail Williams. The big takeaway I got from this play was that it really sucks to be associated with this crazy ho, even if in name only.
12) Bookwyrm (Krysolis) - Sigh. None of you know who he is, because he is from the story that might well have changed my life, if I'd only gotten a chance to actually make it. It, and he, still changed my life, but in ways only a few people will ever have seen.
13) Severus Snape (Harry Potter, JK Rowling) - Oh look, it's Grumpy the Dwarf, only a wizard. I was actually really frustrated by the big reveal in the last book that He Did It All For Love, because a huge part of me wanted him to have switched sides because Voldemort was clearly as destructive for his allies as for his enemies, and Snape was just smart enough to recognize that evil was really stupid. Ah well.
14) Lynne Grosvenor (Finder, Carla Speed McNeil) - Ah, Finder. The amazing, Eisner-Award winning self-published comic series that nobody's ever heard of. Lynne's another grump of a character, another individual who is dealing not only with a lot of conflict in his own identity, but also struggles to express himself and do the right thing in a world where he doesn't have a place and where he's only learned how to do any of that by diving teeth-first for the jugular of anything that gets in his way. ...So basically he's sort of Nightcrawler and Snape combined, only with a much less firm grasp of who he actually is on the inside.
15) Tyrion Lannister (Song of Ice & Fire, GRR Martin) - THIS IS WHAT SNAPE IS SUPPOSED TO BE. This snide, bitter little man who is despite everything still actually trying to do the right thing by most of the people he meets and will never ever get a break of the benefit of the doubt from anyone because of who his people are, nor from his people because of who they are. And yet he can't ever stop, because he was born with the cunning and wit that no amount of stabbing and betrayal can disarm him of. He's like Miles Vorkosigan, only he wasn't lucky enough to be the protagonist.
1) Snow White (Disney)
2) Grumpy the Dwarf (Disney)
3) A book-reading parrot named Huey (Oh Say Can You Say, Suess)
4) Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit, Tolkein)
5) Robin, the boy wonder (Batman, DC Comics)
6) Matilda (Roald Dahl)
7) Legolas Greenleaf (The Lord of the Rings, Tolkein)
8) Mrs. Frisby (Robert C. O'Brien)
9) Skywise (Elfquest by Wendy & Richard Pini)
10) Nightcrawler (X-Men, Marvel Comics, Excalibur run specifically)
11) Abigail Williams (The Crucible, Arthur Miller)
12) Bookwyrm (Krysolis)
13) Severus Snape (Harry Potter, JK Rowling)
14) Lynne Grosvenor (Finder, Carla Speed McNeil)
15) Tyrion Lannister (Song of Ice & Fire, GRR Martin)
I basically did this in order of who influenced me most when I was really really little, on up to the here and now.
1) Snow White (Disney) - I friggin WAS Snow White when I was a tot, as far as I was concerned. These days I'm like "okay wow a 14 year old girl with a squeaky voice and no common sense" but you don't really think about that sort of thing when you can show how old you are on one hand.
2) Grumpy the Dwarf (Disney) - I was a fangirl at the age of two for a grumpy man with a heart of gold. This theme will repeat itself my entire life, basically, and I am okay with that. Grumpy taught me that even if a person is not nice, it doesn't mean that they are not good.
3) A book-reading parrot named Huey (Oh Say Can You Say, Suess) - I used to make my parents read this book ALL THE TIME, and wait for them to mess up on the tongue twisters. Because I was a sassy little know-it-all. ;)
4) Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit, Tolkein) - The Hobbit was my first Proper Book, and I basically learned the English language from it. Which might explain my vocabulary, but there you are. Who doesn't want to be Bilbo? You get a big adventure, lots of friends with really similar names, a wizard mentor, and you still have more common sense than anyone else in the world.
5) Robin, the boy wonder (Batman, DC Comics) - Another very-young crush. I used to write letters to Robin and leave them on the windowsill. I live in quiet hope that my mother doesn't still have any of these hidden away, and the quiet certainty that she totally does.
6) Matilda (Roald Dahl) - Every bookish little girl wants to be Matilda. I had enough latent imagination to move every piece of chalk in my whole school, and the idea that cleverness could overcome tyranny was a precious one to me. Other contenders for this spot include Ramona Quimby, Mary Lennox and Scout Finch, but I always kinda thought they were all jerks a lot of the time.
7) Legolas Greenleaf (The Lord of the Rings, Tolkein) - I didn't understand half of what was going on in the Lord of the Rings for many years, but I always liked Legolas. He knew what was going on, usually with far more depth than the other characters, and stayed relatively light-hearted about things. I found his casting in the movie to be disappointing, yes.
8) Mrs. Frisby (Robert C. O'Brien) - The book/movie that gave every child in my...oh it must have been second or third grade class horrible nightmares, but they were nightmares we needed to have. Mrs. Frisby was possibly the first real "adult" character I identified strongly with - and therefore the first character that taught me to think like a parent and a spouse - and oh sweet Lord did I cry for her.
9) Skywise (Elfquest by Wendy & Richard Pini) - Ah comics. Elfquest was a huge influence on me, and I taught myself how to draw people based off of Wendy's art. Skywise is the loyal sidekick to the series' main character, and I ended up liking him far more because while all the elves are perfect snowflakes, Skywise was both a trickster and very flawed, and it was this levity and darkness that made the main character's journey tolerable and meaningful.
10) Nightcrawler (X-Men, Marvel Comics, Excalibur run specifically) - Oh hey look an X-Man who's actually very well-grounded, easy-going and caring. Amazing. His fight to reconcile his demonic appearance with his sweet nature was always interesting to me.
11) Abigail Williams (The Crucible, Arthur Miller) - Any girl named Abigail is going to be impacted by stupid Abigail Williams. The big takeaway I got from this play was that it really sucks to be associated with this crazy ho, even if in name only.
12) Bookwyrm (Krysolis) - Sigh. None of you know who he is, because he is from the story that might well have changed my life, if I'd only gotten a chance to actually make it. It, and he, still changed my life, but in ways only a few people will ever have seen.
13) Severus Snape (Harry Potter, JK Rowling) - Oh look, it's Grumpy the Dwarf, only a wizard. I was actually really frustrated by the big reveal in the last book that He Did It All For Love, because a huge part of me wanted him to have switched sides because Voldemort was clearly as destructive for his allies as for his enemies, and Snape was just smart enough to recognize that evil was really stupid. Ah well.
14) Lynne Grosvenor (Finder, Carla Speed McNeil) - Ah, Finder. The amazing, Eisner-Award winning self-published comic series that nobody's ever heard of. Lynne's another grump of a character, another individual who is dealing not only with a lot of conflict in his own identity, but also struggles to express himself and do the right thing in a world where he doesn't have a place and where he's only learned how to do any of that by diving teeth-first for the jugular of anything that gets in his way. ...So basically he's sort of Nightcrawler and Snape combined, only with a much less firm grasp of who he actually is on the inside.
15) Tyrion Lannister (Song of Ice & Fire, GRR Martin) - THIS IS WHAT SNAPE IS SUPPOSED TO BE. This snide, bitter little man who is despite everything still actually trying to do the right thing by most of the people he meets and will never ever get a break of the benefit of the doubt from anyone because of who his people are, nor from his people because of who they are. And yet he can't ever stop, because he was born with the cunning and wit that no amount of stabbing and betrayal can disarm him of. He's like Miles Vorkosigan, only he wasn't lucky enough to be the protagonist.